Ace's frantic pace slowed in the middle of a hall. He could suddenly feel in full force the heat that pervaded the air, his mind had been focused on the mission, but for a moment he was pulled back to earth. Regardless of how nonchalant Rika was with the news, a troubling amount of information had been weighed on him, and he did not know what to handle first. He had never suspected that Cori was once a solider of the Empire, as far as he knew he was a trusted ally, always had been. He wasn't sure what to do with him, all he felt at the moment was frustration towards him. Ace took a breath, and focused on the other news that Rika had decided to glaze over in favor of berating him. 

The core of the factory was a human being, a living human being. He wished he could be shocked at the Empire's depravity, but he was only further disgusted by the lengths at which they were willing to go for their own goals. A thought occurred to him, what would happen if they were to remove this person from whatever machine she was hooked up to? He could not pretend to understand how it worked, after all he did not even understand why she was there in the first place. However, he did understand that the forces of darkness were not something to be trifled with, and that's exactly what they were doing right now. He reached for his badge to call Rika back, but the screams of a girl stopped him, it was Lin calling for his help.

Thankfully he was on the same floor as her, and he was easily able to pinpoint which room she had yelled to him from. When he finally got to the room he quickly took in what was happening. Cori and Lin were here, as he had expected, however, there were three others here that were unfamiliar to him. Lin was beside a boy with red hair, there was a woman in the center of the room, and another man was off to the side. He had no idea who the two males were, but upon taking a closer look at her, he recognized the woman as Ryoko, an infamous member of the Empire. Judging by the body language of the young man, Ace could see that the only enemy here was Ryoko, and she was outnumbered severely.

"Another one, just how many of you brats got in here?" Ryoko scoffed. Ace ignored her, and turned to Cori.

"Why didn't you tell me you used to work for the Empire?" He asked. Ryoko, tired of being ignored, stepped towards him.

"The better question is why haven't you killed the traitorous bastard yet!? Also, again, how the HELL did you get in here?" Ryoko grumbled. She knew she was in a tight spot here, but she still knew what her mission was. She needed to protect the secret of this place. There were already multiple people in this room alone, there was no telling how far they had gotten down, some of them could already be... "Hey, where are the rest of you?" She demanded, Ace did not answer. "I asked you a questi-" Ryoko was suddenly staring down the edge of Ace's katana. He slowly turned his attention from Cori to Ryoko.

"I wasn't speaking to you, but if you want my attention so much, you have it. Cori, we will discuss this later, I hope you know that."

[center]_____[/center]

Shizuka had stood to her feet, but she hardly felt okay. Her legs were shaking, and her mind was racing. Compared to Rika's calm demeanor she must have looked like a mess. "Cori's... what?" She hand waved the thought away. "Cori's one of us, that has to be a mistake. He wouldn't keep...something like that from us." Shizuka stammered, her eyes going back to the pod in which the young girl was kept. She watched as Rika initiated the emergency release. "You saw her face, didn't you? She looked like she was in pain... I hope she comes out of it okay." She said. 

A voice spoke behind them, startled, Shizuka turned around. A man in armor was standing before them, how he got there, she had no clue. the man pointed towards the pod, and prepared to shoot something at it. "No!" Shizuka panicked, moving in front of the pod. She realized a little too late that moving into the path of an unknown attack wasn't the smartest thing to do, she only wanted to protect the pod, and the girl inside. With the yellow beam heading towards her, Shizuka hardened her foot into lead, and stomped the floor, a metal panel broke off and rose vertically into the path of the beam. She quickly turned around and rushed to the pod. The emergency sequence had been activated, but it required manual opening once the locks were released. Grabbing the side of the pod, Shizuka yanked it open an immediately regretted it.

A torrent of pitch black poured from the machine, quickly overwhelming Shizuka's senses and spreading throughout the entire factory, passing through the walls as if they weren't even there. She felt as if she had been thrown into a sea of ink, she couldn't see she could barely breath. There was a pressure on her like the weight of a gummi ship, she fell to her hands and knees, and struggled to not pass out. The Darkness was simply passing through her, and yet she could feel her heart buckling, rotting in the cavity of her chest.

Ten seconds passed, seconds that felt like hours of torture before it finally stopped without warning. The thick darkness was being drawn back into the pod, back into the girl that laid within. Her body shot upwards and fell out of the pod, her limbs stiff and twitching. Her hair was blue in color, and had grown out in the pod long enough that it was long enough to reach her feet, and was the only thing covering her nude body. The girl's body stood unnaturally as if she were a scarecrow, and she held her chest in agony. She was mumbling unintelligibly, her eyes darting around the room.

Shizuka stumbled to her feet, and gasped. Starting from her feet and the top of her head, the girl's entire body was being engulfed in dark. Her eyes turned bright yellow, her blue hair turned into black strands that hung in the air as if she were submerged in water. Her body convulsed, and she thrashed about the room, cutting through wires and pipes like a hot knife through butter. Eventually her entire body was had turned pitch black, and she stood still, her back to Shizuka and Rika. 

Shizuka slowly approached her, noticing that for all of the darkness that must be inside her, she couldn't feel a hint of it from her. she reached out for her shoulder, but stopped when she heard the girl mumble in a distorted voice. "W-what?" Shizuka mumbled, not sure if she should feel worried, or frightened. 

"Get... Away!" The girl screamed, knocking Shizuka away and into the side of a wall. The girl's scream was unbearable to the ears, reverberating throughout the entire building. Shizuka was fighting to stay conscious after banging her head against the metal wall, from her position on the ground she could see what looked like a corridor of darkness forming over the girl's head. It contracted and expanded wildly, before filling up all of her sight. Shizuka had never seen such a thing before, to simply open up a small corridor took an immense control over darkness, what this girl was doing was unfathomable.

Everything went dark, her body felt weightless, the next moment she opened her eyes she was somewhere else entirely.

[center][img=http://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/kingdom-hearts/9/9e/FileKH_logo_Agrabah.png][/center]

[center]Slums of Agrabah: Outskirts[/center]

Out on the sandy streets, a duo of men in shambled clothing ran out of a decrepit building. Their eyes were nearly popping out of their heads, and they were screaming out of the top of their lungs that there was a monster on the loose. Strangely enough, no one listened to the men. The sight of a couple of hobos ranting and raving was nothing new there in the slums.

[center]Agrabah Market district[/center]

Shizuka was awoken by the sound of a busy crowd, and the glare of a blazing sun on her face. As she opened her eyes, she saw Ace standing by her. 

"About time you woke up. Come on." He said, pulling her to her feet. She looked around, dazed and trying to tell where she was. "We're in Agrabah, I don't know how we got here, but I know for sure that's where we are right now. We visited this world while training, remember?" He looked to Shizuka, she let out a weak cough, and nodded her head.

"R-right, Ace, we need to find her."

"Don't play the pronoun game Shizuka, find who?"

"The girl that was in the pod, she was the core of the factory." Ace let out a sigh, and ruffled his hair.

"Dammit, I just knew something bad was gonna happen. Well, we'll look for her once we get settled, it looks like the others were sent here as well." Ace said, pointing towards Rika, Lin, Minoru, Gavin, and Cori.

[center]Agrabah Palace[/center]

Sitting in a large extravagant library, Ryoko tapped her fingernails on the wooden table in front of her. Somehow, she and Salforge had been transported to Agrabah. She had landed in the royal palace, which was now under Empire control. She had placed a small compact mirror on the table, and was waiting for it to connect to a receiver. There was a click, and a channel opened.

"Ryoko, why are you bothering to call me?" A deep voice spoke, sending a shiver down her spine.

"W-well lord Emperor, the rebels have opened the factory core and let out the Princess of Heart."

"I know, I felt it, why are you calling me, instead of handling it?"

"I was hoping you could let me know how I am to find her, even the best tracker would not be able to sense even a hint of the darkness that is inside of her."

"She is no different from a common Heartless right now, Search for her, and you will find her, you are dismissed." The channel closed, and Ryoko let out an annoyed sigh. 

"Salforge, we have our work cut out for us."