~*Chapter 5~
A Secret Hideout Somewhere Underground
The man with the spike embedded in his shoulder looked about the room at six others. All but one looked at him with, at a minimum, an expression of reverence. The odd one out, a masked individual with seven studs where his left eye should have been, hunched over and shuddered a little, the permanent grin on his false face made even more eerie by the occasional raspy giggle that emerged from his mouth. The man had to be thankful they kept him somewhat sane; any lessening of the seals would result in a reckless disregard for others as he would begin to indiscriminatingly attack everything that moved. True, he may not be the strongest, but his willpower alone could raze a good majority of the worlds before he finally fell, if he was even capable of being opposed. That was why he had asked his second in command to keep him under even more control. The tall, skinny man, the restraints on both his hands glinting in the low light, gripped a set of invisible strings attached to the seventh's body. He moved a finger in response to the recent laughter—which was a little too loud for the current atmosphere—and the masked boy suddenly slid closer to him as if an unseen force had grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him. The rest of his body had remained limp, exaggerating this effect even more.
"My apologies, Lord Szeiann," the puppet master crooned. "Please continue."
The lead man nodded. "As I was saying, it seems the Heartless we were trailing is finally out from hiding after all this time and on the move once more. We have to capture it if we are to continue where our father left off. There are quite a few worlds that haven't been explored yet, and the subject of interest could have also backtracked to any of the other worlds we had previously visited."
The lone female in the room raised her hand then. "I've been keeping watch over many of the earlier worlds, my lord. Reports have come up dry, as usual."
"Yes, thank you, Token."
"My name is Izsampul, my lord." Her reply was normal, but her fingers brushed across a few of the five tiny spears embedded in her right kneecap.
Maintaining a face of indifference, he turned toward the center of the room. "Of course it is. Next item on the agenda: It seems we have an object worth researching according to one of our spies." He stepped to a circular table and placed an object on top of it. It projected a rotating three-dimensional hologram, its colors shifting unpredictably.
"It's a triangle," a giant man with four bolts in his neck said. "What's so special about that?"
Szeiann rolled his eyes. "Obviously, considering it was the rogue Nobody we took under our wing who reported this, it has to do with its counterpart." He motioned back to the hologram as he paced the room. "This object is a pendant containing what we are led to believe as half of a heart. If we can get our hands on this, it will begin answering many questions we have concerning hearts and their effects on people and the worlds around us. Also, our source claims if it comes to possess said piece of heart, it will become equal to our initial subject of interest, and will possibly even be able to find it."
The only other person standing, a small, jittery boy shuffled about and began tapping his impaled feet against the floor nervously. "Can we get it done soon?" he asked. "I don't want to be here any longer… Need to keep moving…" He started muttering random sentence fragments quietly to himself, and continued his hyperactive movements.
Szeiann sighed. The meeting was falling apart already, but he did find it rewarding that it was a record for length of time. "Anyway," he said before things got any more out of hand, "All of you keep track of your assigned worlds and stay in touch with our colleague." With that, he clapped his hands twice. "Meeting adjourned."
Almost instantly the room was empty, but not before all the occupants sighed loudly with relief. It was hard to keep them together, even for simple things like this. The only reason Szeiann kept the leadership role was because he was the eldest and therefore more experienced than the others. Also, he was the only one who was made with a Pureblood and was therefore more placid in his approach, another plus for the rest at least conceding to his leadership. The others… they weren't so lucky. The scientists had to go a step further and use the already-unstable Emblem variety for six more tests. Probably would have gone even further if Number Seven hadn't taken everyone out. It was only Szeiann's quick thinking and knowledge of the restraints' powers that saved the experiments' lives—yet another reason he had become head of the establishment. Now it was his responsibility to take up where they had left off in searching for the unique Heartless and studying its properties using various techniques and instruments in what he could salvage from their notes.
Szeiann leaned back against a wall and shut his eyes, trying to relieve the throbbing pain in his head. He hoped beyond all hope that they could at least work in a way that would be beneficial to the cause as well as keeping their wavering morale high enough to continue. It had already taken over three years, and he doubted they would be in agreement for very much longer, given the tension between all of the members. If things went well, it would only be a little bit longer. He put his entire willpower into a single wish…
That everything would turn out fine before it all collapsed.
The Lanes Between
Hiromi lay on her back and gazed up through the circular-shaped skylight, simply staring into the darkness, thrilled at the sight of it.
"Pretty cool, isn't it?" Sora asked from outside her field of vision.
She nodded and continued taking it all in. "I never thought I'd see so many colors when it was this dark out." She turned around to smile at him. "It's really amazing." She'd almost say it was beautiful, but it wasn't her style. She then noticed the roof of the ship was completely transparent, with just enough area for her to lie flat and look up at even more at once as they blasted through the darkness.
"… You know you're taking up floor space by doing that, right?" Riku stood over her, arms crossed with a disapproving look on his face. "Plus you're encouraging Mr. ADD over here."
She looked up to see Sora doing the same thing next to her, upside-down to her position. "How come I never thought about doing this before?" he asked. Hiromi couldn't help but chuckle, and laid her head back down.
Disney Castle
The trip was quick with no incidents; they arrived at their destination in about ten minutes. Sora was the first one out, and helped pull Kairi from the gummi ship. Next were Donald and Riku, followed by Hiromi, and finally Goofy, who closed the hatch behind them. They had landed in an underground docking area, with various mechanical hands tasked with repairing and cleaning the ship. The tiny operators, the chipmunks Chip and Dale, were on the other side of a catwalk, busy with their work. However, when they saw who had come out of the craft, they halted all operations and scrambled to greet the new arrivals.
"Sora!"
"You came back!"
As quickly as their little legs could carry them, they scrambled over and began climbing all over the newcomers. Greetings were exchanged, and introductions were made. Immediately following this, the chipmunks led them down the vast hall to the library, where the king was still waiting for them.
King Mickey glanced and Hiromi and nodded at her with a quick smile before turning to Sora. "No doubt the other two already filled you in, but I figured you would want to see for yourself." He led them all to the table he was working at, more books and papers strewn across it from the last time Goofy had visited him. Amid the apparent chaos, the single note was on the very top, with new lines and tiny notes branching out from it, pointing to the adjacent documents. Suddenly, it didn't seem so disorganized. A small, green cricket in a top hat emerged from one of the pages and bounced up and down excitedly as he explained further.
"During your transit, I was able to pick up some related material that might help narrow your search. So far we have two worlds we are suspecting, if you don't mind looking." He dove back into the pile and reappeared with two pieces of paper with drawings of what looked like a world on each of them. Under the pictures was a code of some sort. "I think these are Gummi Ship coordinates. If you input this hexadecimal code into the GPS module, it should go straight there, no problem.
"Wait a second Jiminy." Sora snatched one up so quickly, the startled cricket was carried up a ways before he finally reacted and let go of the paper. "Hey, I've been here before. Maybe we should check this spot first."
