They'd made it to Twilight Town in just under a week. They'd spent a day or so resting on an island with ruins like the one back in the Islands, another couple of days being lost before a fisherman pointed them in the right direction, and from there it had been easy enough sailing. Now that that they knew where Twilight Town was, they could probably make the same trip in half the time. They'd spent the morning after docking making extensive use of the dockside shower, laundry, and diner, then split up for a while to buy supplies.

Which was why Sora, arms full of bags and packages, was taking a shortcut through the Sandlot. Or what would have been a shortcut if the Sandlot hadn't been crammed full of people, incredibly noisy, and almost impossible to make his way through.

"Hey! Watch it! - you! You're that punk who was hanging around with that chickenwuss Hayner!"

"Excuse me?" Sora shifted his packages to see better, blond punk with a scarred face - actually, that looked like Leon's scar, that he never had worked up the guts to ask where it came from - oh, yeah. That guy. "...oh. Hi, Seifer. Getting your ass kicked again?"  Rai and Fuu hurried over, almost knocking Pence down;  he had his hands full of drinks and nearly spilled them.

"What did you say?"

"He asked if you were getting your ass kicked," Pence said helpfully. "Hi, Sora! We were hoping you'd show up again!"

Seifer turned to glare at Pence. "You need some discipline.  Especially you, loser."

"It's not his fault you're going deaf," Sora pointed out. "I'm busy, Seifer, and anyway, who elected a jerk like you town police?"

"Seifer!  Next match in two!" the Struggle organizer shouted.

"Lucky break for you," Seifer snarled, and stomped off, Rai and Fuu trailing in his wake.

"Hey, Pence! How's it going?"

"We're good," Pence said. "Seifer's pissed off because Hayner did better in the qualifying rounds. Want me to grab one of those? That's a lot of stuff. Olette's back that way."  He rearranged the drinks so he could carry them in one arm and reached out.

"Thanks, Pence," Sora said, shifting him the lightest bags; he waited for him to rearrange the drinks, and then followed him back through the crowd to a bleacher. "Oh, new Struggle tournament?"

"Of course - oh, right, you're not from around here," Pence replied. Roxas was just below the surface, almost wanting to come out and talk to them himself. They made there way through the crowd to the bleachers and up several levels.  "Olette! Look who's here!"

"Sora! Hi!" Olette took her drink and scooted over, annoying a pack of girls next to her, to make enough room for Sora. "Too bad you're late, the qualifying rounds are already over.  You already saw how Seifer is - he's snarling at everybody."

"It's the Founder's Week Tournament," Pence said, putting Sora's bags down next to him. "It's a big holiday around here. All week off from school!"

"This is a practice night - we just came to cheer Hayner," Olette said. "He only had two matches, though, so he's almost done."

"Oh, Kairi's here too. And my best friend Riku!" He spotted Hayner, facing off against a short, dark-haired girl, in a well-fought match that ended in a draw. Roxas was watching, envious, wanting to get in on a real tournament rather than the fake one in DiZ's computer. "We got in really late last night."

Hayner made his way through the crowd, waving at Pence and Olette. "Sora! Looking good!"

"Looking pretty good yourself! Nice bout!"

"Thanks! Hey, it's too noisy to talk here, let's head over to our spot."

They maneuvered through the thinning crowd to the alley and down to the usual spot, where some new junked furniture had been added and a new dartboard had replaced the old one. They put Sora's packages in the corner between the sofa and the wall. "Hey, we were hoping you'd show up. Pence has been messing around with that computer - "

"I'm not messing around, I'm figuring out how it works and what it did - " Pence said, digging through his backpack.

"And he found a bunch of videos and stuff on it. But we're in them, with some kid we don't - well, I don't think we know him."

Pence handed Sora a stack of slick papers. "I took screenshots and printed them out."

Roxas knew every scene in those pictures, perched up on the station roof with the crystals from the trophy, hanging around the usual spot playing darts with Hayner, grinning with the others in front of the old mansion. Tell them the truth, he said. It's not like they aren't already mixed up in everything.

That's going to take a while. Sora wasn't disagreeing with him.

I know.

"Sora?"

"Sorry. His name is Roxas," he said. "It's really complicated, but DiZ - the guy who made that alternate Twilight Town - messed with his memories and forced him in there, to keep him under control until he could do something else. He met the alternates of you guys there and you got to be friends until DiZ decided to pull him back out."

"...I don't think I get it."  Hayner frowned, trying to twist his mind around the concept.  "This guy DiZ made that whole alternate town as a prison?"

Sora nodded.  "I guess so.  I never got that really clear either.  He was kind of obsessive."  

He was as obsessive as Xemnas, Roxas said irritably.  He'd never forgiven DiZ, and Sora couldn't really blame him for it.

Olette frowned and rapped her fingers on the arm of the couch.  "I don't think I like DiZ.  What did Roxas do to deserve that?"

I existed.

"What's the rest of the story?"

"That's - really long," Sora said. "I mean, I'll tell you everything, but it'd take all day."

"Hey, we're free this weekend," Hayner said, hopping down off his favorite perch and stretching. "Pence can show you guys the computer and you can tell us what happened."