A fierce pounding on the castle door woke Terra out of a sound sleep, and she threw her robe and glasses on, hurrying to the front door.

The rain had started up again last night, worse than before, and was now joined by tremendous thunder and lightning that ahd driven Selphie, Astala, Milo and Leilani to share a bed the previous night.

Terra yanked the castle door open and blinked several times, not immediately recognizing the figure standing before her.

"Where is Kit?! I must speak with her!" he said urgently.

"I would guess that she's asleep," Terra replied, blinking her eyes in surprise.

"She's not in her room," a second voice came as Marie entered the room, more awake than Terra despite it being sometime between 5 and 6 AM. "I checked on the way down." She squinted her eyes at the newcomer. "DO we know you?"

"Not in her room?" the stranger mused, reaching a hadn to push the dark hair from his face. He was dressed entirely in dark blue, with a wide black belt, and completely soaked from the rain. "This does not bode well..."

"Hey, what's goin' on?!" Selphie bounded into the room, followed quickly by Milo and Leilani.

"Have any of you seen Kit?" Marie asked.

"Oh, she's not here," Leilani piped up and the stranger raised an eyebrow. "She left with someone in the middle of the night."

"Aha!" Terra suddenly exclaiming, as her sleepy mind snapped into better focus, and the logsictics of the castle seemed to come back online. "You're that Rian fellow she speaks about so often."

The stranger nodded, turning to fix his dark blue eyes on Terra and Marie again. "Tell me, did a girl with long brown hair and green eyes come here yesterday?" Both girls nodded and the man then gave them a pained look. "Is anyone else missing?" He muttered to himself. "She's good, but this is Kit's home turf, so something must have..."

"Well," leilani, eevr the castle gossip, spoke up. "Sydney's been missing for a long while and Hardin's real worried, he came here last night, but no one knows where he went but it's got something to do with Syl, I know, cause I saw Flik ask her where he was, even though Flik won't say wha he knows, and Syl's not here either which is funny cause she usually sleeps late and it seems that everyone's so worried about Sydney all the time, and I saw that girl with the green eyes talk to Syl late last night."

"Wonderful," Rian said with a shake of his head. "You'd best rouse the rest of the castle, because this is apparently going to be much worse than I thought. I only pray that your friend Sydney went home last night where he is safe."

"I don't get it!" Selphie exclaimed wringing her hands.

"There are evil forces at work...Terra, can you get ahold of Bastian? I need to speak with him immediately."