"Hey, guys?"

It was ten o' clock the next morning, and all Cloud wanted to do was sleep. Unfortunately, Yuffie had woken everyone up at eight with the smell of burning French toast and melted plastic, her attempts at cooking un-Wuitainese food. Now everyone was gathered around the kitchen table, except for Kadaj, Yazoo, Loz and Zella.

"The others are sleeping pretty late, aren't they?" asked the ninja.

"Should I go wake them up?" Reno asked.

"Sure. Why should they enjoy a lie-in when we're all awake?" grumbled Tifa, still grumpy about being woken up before one P.M.

Reno climbed up the stairs and disappeared from sight.

Vincent quietly sipped his coffee. "It's strange that they were able to stay asleep through Yuffie's small fire."

"Yeah…" Cloud glanced up. "They must be pretty badly hung-over…"

Suddenly, Reno's voice broke through the relatively normal conversation.

"Guys! Get up here! They're GONE!"

The beds of the three silver haired brothers and the girl who had brought them there were empty; Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz's beds were relatively neat, but Zella's pillow had been thrown onto the floor, her sheets were strewn everywhere, and the painting above her bed was askew.

There had obviously been a struggle.

"Who took them?" asked Rude.

"How should I know?" snapped Reno. "I'm not a freakin' dog!"

"Great, Just great!" Tifa yelled, finally snapping under lack of sleep, stress, and severe hungover-ness. "We've got three whacko remnants and one obnoxious teenager missing and I've got a really bad hangover and I'm pissed!"

She continued yelling for a few minutes while the others stared at her in silence. Finally, she relaxed.

"Okay. Rant over." She said. "But I wonder who-?"

"It was three women."

Everyone turned to look at Vincent.

"From the way the sheets are rumpled, I'd guess that they were about twenty two, twenty one, and nineteen. And since that painting is askew like that," he said, gesturing to the picture with his claw, "I can tell that they paralyzed Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz with some sort of sedative. Zella woke up and fought back, so they had to take her, too."

"How do you know all that?" asked Yuffie.

Vincent shrugged. "Instincts."

Something cold and hard was pressing into the small of Kadaj's back. He moaned. It was just his luck to have something like that for his waking thought.

He opened his eyes, and quickly shut them again. He was lying on his side on the chilly floor of a rather uninviting looking dungeon. It was dark and dank, with faintly flickering torches set high up on the walls, and the steady sound of water dripping onto stone.

He had shut his eyes because there was a half decayed rat ten inches from his nose. Its glassy eyes were staring at him, and its tongue had fallen out of its mouth in a way that would be funny if it wasn't so gross.

He sat up, still with his eyes closed, and turned around so that he couldn't see the rotting corpse of the rodent. Fighting down a wave of nausea, he opened his eyes.

Thankfully, he couldn't see any more rats, but the sight that met his eyes didn't exactly make him feel better.

Yazoo and Loz were lying on the floor a few feet away from him. They were out cold, but still breathing all right, and it seemed that they hadn't broken any arms or legs.

On the other hand, Zella didn't look so good. She was crumpled in a corner, and a small trickle of blood had dried at the side of her mouth. There was a large purple bruise on her forehead, and a long, angry-looking cut stretched from her shoulder to her wrist.

Kadaj tried to stand up, but his legs were like jelly. He cursed, and then began to crawl across the floor to Zella.

HE reached out a hand and gently shook her shoulder.

"Zella!" he hissed. "Zella, wake up!"

A strangled moan came out of her lips. "Ow…"

"Zella, wake up already!"

She opened an eye groggily, and then sprang up, fully awake.

"I'm gonna KILL those bitches!" She yelled.

Kadaj jerked back, suddenly scared of the angry girl.

"Um, Zella? Calm down. It's me, Kadaj."

"Kadaj?" Her eyes glanced around the room. "Where are we?"

"Not a clue. What happened?"

"All I know is some bitch with pointy teeth came in to the room that Loz and I were sleeping in and poked me with something." She shuddered. "God, I hope it wasn't a needle. I hate needles."

Kadaj looked nervously around. "I think needles are gonna be the least of our troubles."

"What a clever little remnant!" said a silky voice from the doorway.

"It's a good thing you came round, Kadaj. We've been meaning to talk to you."

It was the blonde woman, leaning nonchantly on the doorframe.

"I believe you have something that we want."