Disclaimer: The usual.

"Wakey, wakey, little guy! Come on! ...This is boring." This voice... 'Nasally' was the word that sprung to mind. And annoying.

"Is it? I thought you said you could concentrate!" Much deeper, this one. And suave-sounding.

To be honest, Alexander Karsath wouldn't be surprised at all about where he had ended up. Hey, he'd just been kidnapped. The whole point of it all was that he had been taken to some strange place. If he'd been fully awake, however, he'd be able to make some criticisms about where he was. A kidnapper or guard who wasn't interested in his charge was not something he thought should be allowed in any mysterious terrorist organisations (they sounded very much like terrorists to him). And the second one, the suave-sounding man-

-he sounded exactly like Joumae. Just brilliant.

"Oh, go make out with a coal fire."

"Right! And who do you have, Demyx?"

"Put a sock in it, you too." A third voice. It sounded so familiar: that bored tone, the pure seriousness. In fact, he was so sure he'd heard that voice just earlier today. "If you make one false move, I'm sure Mr Karsath hear will wake up and beat you two to death." Mr? "What are you, fire and water?"

"Yes!" the other two voices sang together.

"Come on, Zexion!" said that nasally voice, and the name Zexion began to strike a chord. Alex's brain began to buzz as he matched voices and names to faces. The nasally-voiced person and the suave man definitely were not on his list. He'd never heard of a Demyx before, either, not even from any obscure books or anything that he'd read when he was three. But the third person and the name Zexion certainly rang a few bells, and he struggled to try and think of any faces. No mental image formed. Then came the sudden realisation. He only knew one person who was young enough to have that voice and who commonly called him 'Mr' Karsath.

It was Mr Ishioka.

Within a second, Alex shot up, eyes wide open. He looked around. He was leaning against a panelled white wall, with pale and plastic shapes covering the surface. In fact, it looked a lot like the designs of the gymnasium back at school. He racked his brain for anything else that could possibly help him. However, the only thing he knew was that while he had been asleep there had been a strange, deep rumbling noise. That, and his head had hurt for the first half or so of the journey. Then everything had gone soft and... He reached behind him vaguely. From underneath his back he pulled out a small denim jacket.

His head shot up. "Sora!?"

"Cool down," said that first voice again, and Alex looked over to a man in his very late teens. He had a tall, chestnut blond mohawk and rather spidery tufts of hair falling from his forehead. He seemed pretty young for work in any field. Sitting next to him was another man, this one with hair like a hedgehog. It sprung up in all directions, two cowlicks at the front. Whereas the blond had a quite wiry frame, the redhead was like a stick insect. To be realistic, the older man's form was strange to him, with a tiny waist and rather wide hips - although that could have just been the effect of the strange coat that they were both wearing. And with them, in the same white uniform, was Mr Ishioka.

Alex rose to his feet astatically, studying his surroundings. The walls and floor all had the same basic decoration. Perspex panels upon pale grey or white backgrounds. There were no lights, so things were quite hard to make out, but everything was basically the same. He seemed to be in some kind of holding cell. At one end the wall was knocked away to reveal a huge set of prison bars spanning the entire side. He walked up the side. As he looked out, he noticed how the cell was raised from the main white floor.

He gripped one of the bars, looking around. The rest of the world was just white. Other than some blue lines on the floor, that was pretty much it.

He sat down on the edge, staring intently at Mr Ishioka. The teacher looked away.

Alex sighed. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

Mr Ishioka turned around. He was wearing some kind of apron that fell from his shoulders and covered most of his torso. It had the Argentinean flag on. "Because everybody has a dream," he replied. "Even those two knuckleheads there."

Demyx, the mohawked man, and the other man both took offence. "That's just plain rude!" Demyx groaned.

"Damn you two," Mr Ishioka yawned back, and pulled out The Art Of War. "I could re-enact for you a single technique noted in this book. One movement and you'd be dead on the floor. Why do you think I don't do that?" He turned to the redheaded man. "Axel?"

Axel shrugged. "You never struck me as someone who didn't want to get on Syaoran's bad side," he answered. "But I guess you don't try to get me because of that good old moral: you mess with fire..." he licked his own finger, used it to touch his shoulder, and then removed it with a hissing noise. "Burn, man," he completed, giving a thumbs down.

There came the sound of footsteps and, suddenly, all three men stood attention. Coming through the door were a group of men: the first with pale blond hair; another who was white-haired and intimidating; a shorter white-hair that looked remarkably like Hawk; a tall, Arabian man with tilting eyes. Then there was a lady with black skin and no mouth. After them were some he recognised: Mr Nozue; Ms Ito, the mechanic; the boy from school who looked like Sorin (he knew he was evil!). The final flourish was Kairi herself, walking through the door with a blond boy only Alex's age, maybe younger. He seemed familiar somehow, but his head was bowed.

As soon as Axel noticed that whoever he was looking for was not there, all three of Alex's guards heaved a great sigh of relief.

The pale-haired man stepped forward first. He looked so much like a vampire it was unbearable. His pale skin and high cheekbones were going to haunt Alex as much as his huge acid green eyes. His flag was from China. "So this would be the boy, hmm?" He had a crackling tone. He studied the brunet in the cell for a few moments, measuring him mentally. Then he grabbed his hand, making the boy jump. After a few seconds, he was done. "I'll be looking forward to the genetic testing. He seems certainly fine on the outside."

Ms Ito rolled up her sleeves. She was wearing Scotland. "He won't be for long!"

Mr Ishioka leaned back to Alex. "Be careful with Larxene," he whispered. "She likes electrocuting people." Alex gulped.

Leaning about the back, the white-haired Hawk look-alike smirked, crossing his arms. For some reason he had a Welsh flag on his coat. "You have Hawk somewhere, don't you?" he asked Mr Ishioka, and the mop-haired teacher raised his arm lazily. Kairi held up a sack and opened the top. The tiny Hawk flew out, a disgruntled look on his face. The white-haired clone burst out laughing.

Hawk looked around at everybody, then back at the white-haired teenager. Suddenly, all emotions inside the boy appeared to flare up, and he shot straight for him. "Xawkh!" Without a moment's notice, the other white-hair clicked his fingers. Dark bonds formed around his body. Alex leapt to his feet, eyes wide. He hadn't realised Hawk had disappeared at all back at the art studio - he'd been helping Alice stay standing up. "Hey, what the-" the black-haired boy screamed. Another dark tendril burrowed its way into the back of his head, and his eyes blanked out completely. Alex and the rest of the room were left looking at a tiny, mindless sprite.

Xawkh walked around Hawk for a little, then grabbed the boy out of the air and stuffed him into a side pocket. He didn't even notice a thing. "The little original is now really the little original, hmm?" he joked to himself, and surveyed the people in the holding bay. "We should all be at our posts when the boss comes in. I suggest we leave now."

"Leave?" said the small blond boy, and Alex tried to get a good look at his face. "Why? We've been working around the clock trying to stabilise the Princesses' conditions. Now that we have them safe, why can't we take a break?"

"Roxas, Roxas, Roxas," Xawkh sighed, and walked up to the boy. "You, Mozenrath, Hall, Sarah-"

"Kat."

"...Kat, then - Marluxia and Kairi have no reason to be here. Vexen's here to study Alex. Larxene's here to torture him, me and Hikari over there too. And Zexion makes sure he doesn't get out. Demyx and Axel are expendable, now that I think about it."

After a few mixed arguments from the comic relief, Roxas sighed. "Yes, Xawkh." He turned around. "I'll go find that palm tree, then, shall I?"

Alex mumbled under his breath, "Palm tree..."

Xawkh nodded, quite pleased that he'd gotten his point across. "Thank you," he said, and he and Hikari, the Sorin look-alike, began to clear the others out. A few of them grumbled angrily. "By the way," he said, "look for the little guy. I think his name was Sora, right? Joined about the same time you did."

Alex freaked. "Sora!? Where's Sora? And Naminé! And Alice, too!" He gripped the bars so tight he swore they were bending under the extreme pressure. "Tell me where!"

The blond didn't look up. "...I don't know where Sora is. Naminé has her own room and Alice is with the Princesses. We're avelliating her condition." His answer was tight and scripted. It was as if they knew Alex was triggered by Sora's name. Alex gave him a pointed growl, but he didn't look up, and soon he turned away and ran.

Ms Ito turned around and looked at the prisoner with a dangerous glint in her bright eyes. Mr Ishioka walked off to the side. There was a series of beeps; if Alex had the time for any offhand thoughts, then he'd reckon that he must have been using some kind of electronic keyboard to type in instructions. However, thoughts were not on the agenda right now. The biggest problem for him was: what the hell were they about to do to him.

The bars slid aside, and Alex backed up into the wall. To try and face off against them would be a mistake, especially when he was only aware of one of the group's powers. The only woman of the quartet stepped into the cell, and held up her hands. In-between the fingers were eight small yellow daggers. Without a second's hesitation, her second foot came down on the platform. At the exact same time, all eight knives found their way through the air and shared themselves among Alex's arms and legs. The pain was intense; already his vision was blurring. Vexen wandered over with some portable medical scanners and set up receptive patches on his arm and neck.

Then Ms Ito waved her arm. Hikari and Xawkh readied themselves.

Alex screamed. It was the only thing his lungs could allow. It was the only thing his mind could allow. There was a series of kunai blades wedged in his limbs with a powerful electric shock travelling through them and a trio of katana were ripping straight through him; he was millions of miles away from home; he was kidnapped and being tortured without explanation; his best friend was part of an evil gang, the very gang that was kidnapping him; Hawk was currently having his mind wiped clean by darkness; the girl he had just saved from the middle of a painting was in emergency care; his sister was alone at home. He couldn't think and he couldn't breathe, and all he could do was scream from the pain.

"Chicken!" Ms Ito cackled. "That was pathetic!" Hikari and Xawkh agreed.

Vexen checked his pulse rate. "He doesn't seem to have much defence against Thunder-element magic. This is strange; most people we have captured have a honed resistance to magic, whether they wear protective armour or not."

Alex finally found enough of a voice to be able to say something. "What, you've seen an Earth creature that needs to defend against electricity?" he rasped.

Vexen laughed in a hollow voice. "Of course not. But Earth humans do know how to use elemental magic to defend them, right?"

"Vexen, you know full well... only the hume outside the isolated world of Earth understand magic, and take the elements to be fire, earth, water, wind, thunder, ice, light and darkness," came a voice, and everybody stepped away. Outside the cell, Zexion stepped aside in an aloof fashion, to reveal a vaguely familiar face. Alex, still writhing from the enchanted kunai, had to think about the face. Then it struck him; the newcomer looked almost exactly like him. He had denim blue hair, and one brown eye, with the other socket hidden behind a leather eye patch. He was wearing the gang's weird uniform, only his apron showed the Irish flag. The identity came down on him like a ton of bricks. It was the boy who had stolen Sora's necklace back last month.

The boy gave a cruel smile. "Hello, then, Alexander!" he said condescendingly, kneeling down next to him. Alex had have a mind to sock him in the face. He raised his fist, but it was held. Ms Ito refrained from attacking again; after all, their strange colleague would also be injured if they tried. "Isn't that just cute? He's mad at me."

"Who... are you?" Alex hissed.

"Syaoran. Why else does everybody seem to hold me with high regard?" The blue-haired boy pulled his chin up. "And I guess you're our little Lockshield Wielder. Heard you were having some... trouble with your inner darkness. Something we could fix."

Alex smirked. "I'm trusting Joumae a lot more than I'm trusting you right about now," he said, grinning with hysterics.

"Aww, his spunk!" Syaoran sighed caustically. "And his naiveté. Did you get all that down, Vexen?" The blond nodded, returning to his analysis. "I don't think you quite realise your problem. Joumae is much worse than what you think. He's poisoned your heart. He poisoned the heart of the Karsath family for generations, living off their blood in the hopes that one day, he would be awake for enough time to destroy a soul and take his own body."

Alex flexed his fingers, then tried to push himself a little further up. Pain burned through his nervous system straight from the sword wounds, making him stop moving. Syaoran was still wearing a quite goofy smirk as he hesitated, then tried again. He set his head back against the wall, breathing loud and hard. "A vampire, then?"

Syaoran was, for once, out of answers. "What?"

"Lives off the blood of the Karsaths," Alex repeated. "Sounds like he's a vampire."

"Hmm. I like that description. Joumae the vampire." He pushed up from the ground. "He'll be eating away at you, Alexander."

"Why are you warning me of this, then?" Alex asked. "And why'd you get Larxene here to electrocute me?"

"There are very few ways to speak to the disbelievers," Syaoran noted. "You, for example - I doubt you'd really take the holy heart seriously, right?" Alex stayed quiet. "The holy heart: the Kingdom Hearts. It powers the light and darkness in the universe. All power is subject to the Kingdom Hearts. They say within lies darkness. Well, we're not after darkness. Behind it, there's true light." Syaoran looked up, almost as if he could see something through the ceiling. "The seven Princesses of Heart are the seven maidens of purest heart. They can open the doorway with the Keyblade, and then we can finally purge this universe of the darkness."

Xawkh and Hikari blanched. Not the speeches again... Xawkh decided a distraction would stop Syaoran from revealing the entire plan, and held up Hawk from his pocket. "Oh, the darkness is useful too, right?" he said. "The power to control and to silence has its uses."

"True, but when the darkness consumes your heart, try using that power," Syaoran noted. "You'll be so deep in you can't even think about pulling yourself out. This is what the Heartless are. They're puppets of the darkness. The tools of all the worlds' evil. And one touch from their black claws and you become one of them yourself."

Alex rolled his eyes at all the talking. To be honest, it was exactly what the headmaster and his grandfather had told him. He didn't want to know any more about the Heartless-

Now it flashed into his mind. A memory of weeks ago, when he had first met Umi no Shirube. She'd been talking about a strange group, and disguising herself as a palm tree, and some boy who looked like him... they'd been talking about Nobodies? "What's a Nobody?" he asked out loud.

Syaoran turned around to look at him. "Not even the great Ansem the Wise told you?" He threw his head back in laughter. "Oh, wait! He doesn't know, does he?" Syaoran held up his arm and ripped off one of his strange, scoop-like hand coverings. There was a digital watch of some kind underneath. He pressed a button, and a holographic set of numbers lit up a few centimetres from the main projector. Alex couldn't read it from where he was sitting. "I'm sure he'll be discovering the answer soon. I hope he has done already, in fact. Give it about a minute and his prize specimen will disappear in front of his eyes. Good ole Green-Eyed Monster will have struck again. He's so good at his job."

"What is a Nobody?" Alex asked again. "God, never thought the bad guy would be deaf."

Syaoran turned around. "That was the wrong thing to say. I wanted to spare you, Alexander. We've got a deep connection, one you don't even realise is there. I wanted to save your life and kill Joumae." He pulled the covering on again. "Guess you're too connected to him. Do you want the big, bad mastermind to put you down?"

Alex was seriously regretting everything he'd just done. At the same time, he didn't care. "I'm sure it's better than having you breathe down my neck for the rest of my days of captivity," he said, then stopped himself.

Syaoran placed his hand to his throat. "Wrong answer."

"Wait!" Roxas rushed through the doors. "Don't kill him!"

"Why?" Syaoran asked, his visible eye piercing straight into the blond boy's mind.

"Because we need him, for the Kingdom Hearts, right?" Roxas pointed out. "If we don't have him, we have no Karsath blood and so we have no way of opening the Kingdom Hearts. The Princesses cannot work without the blood of a Keybearer."

Syaoran was silent in thought for some moments, then nodded. He and the henchmen left. Roxas gave one soft look at Alex, before walking away.