"I think it's time we return to the Gummi, and find out what's going on here." Ellie said, shuffling in the direction to leave. Leon and Yuffie nodded in agreement and followed on. They had parked the Gummi outside of Twilight Town, in some woods which had a crack in the wall leading to Tram Common. They went to Tram common, then through the crack to find their Gummi in the woods, however it was nowhere to be seen.
"Either we've lost the Gummi, or someone has taken it." Leon said, looking around the woods. The woods were quiet, nothing to be seen except some wildlife in the trees, and a mansion in the distance which Ellie spotted.
"What's that?" Ellie pointed to the mansion, and they all went to it in search of their Gummi. The mansion gates were locked and the courtyard was empty, with no sign of their Gummi. Ellie took out the Keyblade and opened the gates. Inside the courtyard, several more of those white things appeared as menacing as ever. The three stood back to back ready for them, however they did nothing but stand and watch.
"I guess they were expecting us." Yuffie said. The three put away their weapons, and observed the creatures. They stood swaying left and right, almost impatiently. They heard creaking come from the mansion doors as they opened, almost inviting them inside.
"What are these things? They're not Heartless..." Leon said, resisting the urge to touch one. Ellie slowly walked towards the door, her Keyblade ready. There was a chilling breeze from inside, but everything was still silent. They all went in one by one, the foyer empty apart from a few broken busts, and rubble from a crumbling ceiling. Most of the doors were blocked off except for one.
They looked around, finding the only unblocked door on the right hand side. They went through to reveal a library, where there was a bust looking down at the floor, a large open window, several bookcase, a desk, and rug on the floor. Unlike the foyer, the Library was undamaged and almost in new condition. The three looked around the room, Leon at the bookshelves, Yuffie out the window and Ellie investigated the bust.
"Nothing out there except for leaves and grass." Yuffie said, and sighed. Leon was pulling out the books one at a time, looking for a mechanism to reveal a secret door, unfortunately after pulling out all the books that were on display, the only thing left was dust.
"Nothing here either." He said, and piled the books back up neatly. They were for the most part at a loss, other than the bust. Ellie reached around the back of it, seeing if she could find anything. As she lifter her hand to the back of the faceless head, she felt a small bump.
"I found something!" she exclaimed, and the others ran over to here. "I think it's a button..." She carefully pulled it so as not to cause the bust to fall off. Click - That was the sound of the button slotting in. For a brief moment nothing happened, until they heard the sound of moving furniture. They turned around and saw a beam cause the floor of the other two thirds of the library floor to disappear, revealing a room underneath.
The room's walls were lined with metal, and there was a door. "Oh look, they've got a cellar. I bet they'll have lots of the 'usual' things down there. You know, boxes, a washing machine, tumble dryer; maybe a mini-bar" Yuffie said, with a sarcastic tone. Ellie smirked at the remark and added her own sarcasm.
"Guess we better go down and check it out. This wasn't hidden or anything, we must be invited." She headed down the staircase, and through the door, Yuffie and Leon just paces behind her. Through the door there was a terminal in the corner, a screen on the wall, and another door. "What are all these numbers?" Ellie asked about the screen, which was displaying and adding more and more codes of numbers every second.
"It's code, calculations." Leon said.
"Calculations for what? I'm not an expert on code, but I'm pretty sure a computer doesn't process that much information for video buffering."
"Hmm. Something very big, that needs a lot of processing power. Processing power the size of the terminal over there." Leon crossed his arms and looked over to the terminal. Ellie walked over to it, and sat on the chair in front. With a tap of the screen, the terminal turned itself on. The screens displayed what looked like Twilight Town, but it was empty. There was also a video ready to be played, of security footage of the room.
"I wonder what this is." Ellie said as she reached to play it.
"This place hasn't been used in a long time" A voice in the video said. They walked into the room, wearing a black coat, their hood up.
"That's because it hasn't been needed. But we got lucky today." Said a much deeper, and more eloquent voice. However this figure was off-screen. The figure walked over to the wall next to the terminal, and held his hand against it. This revealed a small alcove, with an electronic eye lens above it. "Bring them in, one at a time."
The Hooded figure walked out the door, and came back in, dragging a knocked out Leon. "Squall Leonhart. He comes from Hollow Bastion."
"Put him in, then. No need to waste my time with pointless names." The figure did as he said, dragging Leon under then lens. Leon watched with shock, and carefully observed as the hooded figure pressed something on the terminal, causing the lens to beam Leon to somewhere unknown. "We must move quickly. There's no telling how long it'll be before The Heartless find out what we're doing."
Next, Yuffie was dragged in, also unconscious. "This one also comes from Hollow Bastion." The same routine was then done with Yuffie, who watched in horror at the same beam that took away Leon to the unknown.
"When did this happen?! I don't remember anything, I swear." Yuffie interrupted.
"shh- What are they doing now?" Ellie said, focusing on the video as it got to her turn...
"Last one, and she's definitely special." The Hooded figure said, as he brought in Ellie, fast asleep like Leon and Yuffie before her.
"If it wasn't for her, this load would've been pointless. We haven't seen someone with a Keyblade for - so long."
"This one's name is Ellanor, or Ellie for short. Lucky for us, the Keyblade doesn't have the mind to wake her up, otherwise this would've been a much harder collection."
"Hm, well if we don't get this done now, then we're going to find it harder to get out than we did getting in." The figure nodded at what was said, and put Ellie under then lens, and like before, sent her off to the unknown.
"It's done. Now lets go before they find us here."
"Wait! We need to upload the firewall so that the Heartless and nobodies can't get inside." The figure nodded, and pressed something on the terminal.
"It's uploading no-" A sound echoed in the hall, and the figure readied himself, taking out a long, black, curved sword.
"I guess it's time to go." The video began to fill with static and eventually cut out...