Both White Rabbit and Joker wore dress shoes with sturdy bottoms which clacked against the white tile floor of the Kobayama Agency building's front lobby. It was less of a corporate lobby and almost looked hotel-like. Then again, not White Rabbit nor Mona or Joker had ever been in the Kobayama Agency building before, so they had no way to gauge just what amount of the building's design was the truth and how much was distorted by Ann's corruption.

Joker was overcome with an emptying feeling of disappointment. Something this corrupted could not possibly be Ann's doing alone. At least, he hoped to God. His silent wallowing was interrupted by White Rabbit's deceptively soothing voice.

"Even though we are already in the Kingdom of Hearts, the Looking Glasses still have a use. We can look through them to see the source, or sources, of the distortions. Distortions glow with a dark aura, and the closer you get to their source, the more intense the dark glow becomes."

"So we'll want to frequently use the Looking Glasses to make sure we're going the right way?" inquired Mona.

"Precisely! What a clever cat!" White Rabbit beamed.

Mona blushed and spun a circle on his paws. "I'm a clever cat…"

White Rabbit held his Looking Glass, which was attached to a pocket watch golden chain, up to his eye. "As I suspected," he began. "The distortion is strongest above us. Far above us. We should find a way to get to the top of the tower."

Joker remained silent.

"The fastest way to get to the top floor would likely be the elevator, right?" White Rabbit suggested.

With silent agreement, the trio proceeded across the lobby, which was void of humans or any other life forms aside from themselves, towards the elevator. They entered the elevator, none expecting what they would find on the other side. As the white sliding doors slid open, an iron bird cage door creaked open afterwards.

"Holy crap, the elevator is a bird's cage!?" Mona gasped. "That definitely is a strong distortion."

White Rabbit stepped inside, ignoring the intensity of the distortion he was stepping into. "The interior walls of the elevator shaft are even teeming with ivy and roses. It's almost romantic."

"It almost appears that the elevator is outdoors," Joker said, finally opening his mouth to make a sound other than a sigh. "It's as if the elevator is in a different world entirely from the rest of the building."

"Indeed," said White Rabbit with a nod which made his fluffy white hair bounce. "I'd even wager that the walls of ivy that comprise the elevator shaft are far farther away from they would be in real life. This distortion is so strong that it's quite literally bending the laws of reality as we know them."

"And so you just… walked into it?" Mona asked.

"Haven't you both been inside the worlds of people's literal hearts? I would imagine that is equally dangerous. Let's just proceed, no? Ann needs our help to be brought back to her senses."

Mona and Joker followed White Rabbit into the bird cage of an elevator. As the elevator door shut behind them, it became very apparent that the actual wall of the seemingly-outdoor elevator shaft was indeed farther away from the cage's bars than the elevator door itself had been.

"This is really trippy," Mona commented.

"Really? Well, yes, I agree, but I'd think the ones who entered people's hearts would have seen their fair share of reality-bending distortions," White Rabbit said.

"It's difficult to get used to," added Joker.

Towards the back end of the elevator cage, a black iron box with a variety of buttons on it stood up from the ground of the cage, almost like a mechanized bird perch.

White Rabbit looked the black box over. "It's the elevator control panel," he deduced. "Going up?" He chuckled at his own joke.

The elevator was supported by an iron chain that was attached to the top and bottom of the dome-shaped bird cage. It made a loud metallic noise as the chain was pulled upwards. Suddenly, the elevator hit something above it, causing it to stop elevating and causing it to shake back and forth, nearly knocking Joker and White Rabbit over, and successfully knocking Mona over.

All three of them shared in a startled shout. "Is everyone all right?" asked White Rabbit. His partners nodded in response. "That was quite frightening…" He looked upwards. "Rose brambles… It's like they grew in just in time to stop our ascent."

"Could this be the result of… her… distortion?" Joker asked.

"Given the intensity of the distortion in the elevator shaft, I find it unlikely to be caused by luck," White Rabbit sighed. "We'll just have to get off at this floor, then. At least it brought us to the forth floor before stopping."

As he pressed the button to open the elevator door, the fabric of space opened up before their eyes, creating a doorway into the building that wasn't even attached to the wall behind it. The iron cage door swung up with a creak, allowing them to enter the portal of sliding white doors.

"Hm…" Joker put a finger to his chin in thought. The doors opened into a room lined with rows of cubicles. This must have been where the photos were edited, and perhaps where the communication between the Kobayama Agency and other companies took place. It was a workplace setting, and all things considered it appeared that the distortion had hardly touched it at all.

"Be on alert," White Rabbit instructed.

"What for? It doesn't look like this place in distorted at all," Joker rebutted.

"It's not very distorted, no, but since it's within the Kobayama building, it is still at least slightly touched by Ann's distortion. That being said, I sense the presence of Shadows on this floor."

"Shadows?" Joker inquired, getting a grip on the handle of his dagger.

"I sense them too," Mona added. "Let's take White Rabbit's advice and stay alert."

Suddenly, a disfigured pitch-black hand shot up from the ground, a ripple of darkness pulsing from the ground where it had emerged. It used its skeletal arm to pull more of itself up from the ground, until a morbid skeletal figure with a heart-shaped mask covering its entire face, a mask which did not have a mouth or holes for eyes, appeared.

"There it is! The Shadow I sensed!" White Rabbit claimed. "Persona, I summon thee!"

The composed gentleman raised a hand to one of the ears of his rabbit-faced mask, and began to pull it from his face. Blue flames shot down from the mask at it was removed, burning through his limbs and into the ground, where it set his own shadow ablaze and a form rose from the flaming shadow.

The flames subsided and a tall, top-heavy male figure appeared. The first thing of note were high-heeled sabatons which rose to the figure's shins, and covered intricately-patterned red leather trousers. A corset of shining silver armour opened to a broad chest which seemed to be constructed of a silver chassis with sturdy glass looking into the dark chest of the man, where the only thing that could be seen was a glowing, pulsating pink heart-shaped crystal. The figure's broad pauldrons displayed floral patterns of gold on the edges and a repeating fleur-de-lis patterns was carefully etched into the glossy silver. Though the figure was wearing a helmet, its entire face was covered in a heart-shaped crystal that pulsated and glowed in the exact same rhythm as the heart inside its glass chest. The crystal covering its face, however, was cracked on a diagonal angle, as if it had been chipped by the slash of a sword. The figure's delicate hands appeared to be human hands made of patterned metal, rather than hands wearing gauntlets. A rapier with swirling metal detailing around the hilt rested against the figure's hip.

"Joker, meet the Knave of Hearts, my other self," White Rabbit said with a slightly-morbid smile. White Rabbit reached down to his hips, where two pistols were holstered on either side of his body. "Show me the power of the Leader of the Phantom Thieves! I'm sure this will be a cinch for you."

With the threat of a Persona facing it, the Shadow transformed into its stronger form, the form of a Succubus, a demon with the body of a human woman, with the addition of large black wings.

Joker chuckled, grinning widely with his teeth. "You asked for this," he said to White Rabbit. "Satanael, come forth!" Joker reached up and pulled off his mask in a dramatic fashion befitting the famous Phantom Thief.

But Satanael did not appear. Instead, the figure that rose from the flames in Joker's shadow was Arsene Lupin, the first Persona he had ever summoned.

"I apologize, Master," Arsene said, bowing at his chest. "After the destruction of the Metaverse, my power was reduced to the first form your Persona had taken. However, fear not, my skills have not suffered such a fate."

Joker decided to work with it, anyway. After spending so long with Arsene as his Persona, he easily commanded his other self to attack the Shadow before him.

"Mercurius!" summoned Morgana.

However, like with Joker, Mercurius did not appear, but rather the first form that Mona's Persona had ever taken appeared, being Zorro.

"Master, I am afraid my powers were reduced when the Metaverse was destroyed and you lost your ability to summon me. I am, however, grateful to be reunited with you!" Zorro, the Persona, slashed his sword in a z-shape in the air in front of him, launching a wind spell at the Succubus, which knocked it out of the air and onto the ground!

Arsene jumped in and cast an Eiha spell on the Succubus, extending his feathered wings and launching a flame of dark energy at the Shadow, damaging it further.

"I'll finish this!" White Rabbit claimed, and delicately removed his mask from his face once more with a gentle hand behind his back. "Kouha!" he incanted, and his Persona cast the spell of his order. Knave drew power from the crystal heart within his glass chest and then blasted in towards the Succubus in the form of a beam of pure divine light energy.

"His Persona can use blessed skills!" Mona said with a gasp. "After Akechi revealed his true Persona, our team hasn't had any members that specialize in blessed skills!"

Joker couldn't stop himself from jutting in. "White Rabbit is not a member of our team." He went silent again for a longer moment than he should have, given his current engagement in combat. "And don't talk about Akechi."

"Joker, what are you doing!?" White Rabbit shouted. "Look out!" He released the bullet from both of his pistols in Joker's direction, causing Joker to snap back to reality as two bullets sped towards him. He almost ducked, only to hear a scream behind him.

He looked behind himself to see that two gaping holes had been made in the enemy Succubus' leathery wings, disabling her from using them. "How dare you!" the Succubus shrieked, clearly in pain. However, Joker knew better than to pity a Shadow. He pressed his own pistol to the Shadow's head and pulled the trigger, launching the bullet right into the demon's skull. The Shadow, its life ended, disappeared into a billow of black smoke and dark energy.

Now that the office space was no longer a battlefield, Joker proceeded immediately to investigating from any alternative route, or a way to get the elevator moving again.

"You're welcome," White Rabbit mumbled.

Though he heard White Rabbit, Joker ignored him, and started a new conversation. "Look at this." He lifted a piece of paper from one of the cubicle desks in the office quarters.

"Ooh, what is it?" Mona inquired, jumping up onto the desk that Joker had taken it from.

"It's a list of what all of the floors of the building contain," answered Mona's leader.

"Ooh! I have a most perfect plan for that! May I see it?" White Rabbit said. He had knelt down where the Shadow had disintegrated, and had collected a few small dark crystals that had been dropped.

"What do you want it for?" Joker asked.

"See these crystals?" White Rabbit said, storing most of the crystals he had collected into his pockets, while he held up a single one for Joker to see.

"Yeah, why?"

"These crystals are one of the materials I use to fuse the special glass of the Looking Glasses. I think I can use them to alter that simple list of floors into a map. Would you like to see my process?"

Joker handed White Rabbit the map. White Rabbit placed the map on a communitive desk which had a coffee maker on it. He placed a few of the crystals overtop of the paper and reached out a hand towards the paper without touching it. The crystals began to hover over the surface, and slowly spun in a circle. After a few seconds of that, the paper also began to hover and slowly spin. As the spinning got significantly faster, the crystals began to glow with the same dark light as the Shadow they had come from. In a flash of the dark light, the crystals and paper fused, and the paper was now encased in a jagged barrier of fused crystals. Not only that, but the list of floors now had a glowing map of the entire building imposed over it, etched magically into its crystal prison.

"Ta-da!" presented White Rabbit as he passed the paper to Joker. "We are… here!" he said, as he pointed to their spot on the map.

As Joker observed the map and recalled the layout of the building, he realized that White Rabbit was indeed pointing to the location that they were currently located. "How-?"

"I've been scavenging in the Kingdom of Hearts for a few months now," White Rabbit explained. "I picked up a few tricks."

Author talk time! I am trying to get back into the groove and exercise my creativem uscles after life forced me to stop using them for so long. I'm back, and hopefully I won't be taking anymore ridiculously long hiatuses. Thanks, as always, to the few of you who have stuck around, and I hope this story can really go somewhere, as I'm very proud of what I've created and what's to come. If anyone has any suggestions or comments, I implore you to share them in the form of a review or a message!