The best way to do this is to have it in one layout. Looks like you made it overly complicated by using multiple layouts then tried to find a way to overcome a problem that shouldn't even be there. If the character movement matters that much to the gameplay it is fine to do in one layout, or you can do something complex like make all characters global and when you go between layouts they will continue to move across the terrain which is also global, this means of course mapping out your levels so they are not in the same place, but really this is just dividing up levels that could be in one layout.