Chapter 2: The Circus:
The Realm Eternal – Spaceport:
"So," Tony began. "What exactly is there on Asgard that the quasi-immortal Key Bearers want so badly?" The team had emerged from hyperspace to find that their first point of investigation was none other than Asgard itself. While Thor's home world wasn't currently in any immediate danger, the alien prince insisted on giving Sora a tour of the kingdom. Everyone else in the group had visited before and knew where everything was, but since the young Keyblade Master had never seen the magnificent city, Thor decided that while they were there, he might as well give Sora a tour. "I mean, not that I don't enjoy coming here," Iron Man continued as the group walked through the streets.
"Of course you don't, Tony," Captain American remarked sarcastically. "I mean it's not like you enjoy lapping up all the attention they give you, what with being called "Lord Stark" and all." The Avengers all laughed. The billionaire's ego inflated a little every time the people of Asgard addressed him as Lord Stark, and the rest of Earth's mightiest heroes loved to tease him about it relentlessly. Particularly about the fact that the only reason he enjoyed the nickname was because he was a huge Game of Thrones fan. Even Sora, who had been introduced to the show when Tony forced him to sit down and binge it with him during the six-day period between Vanitas' arrival and their departure, couldn't help but laugh at the connection, even though the show wasn't really his thing.
"Stark's preening aside," Thor remarked. "There are a fair number of ancient artifacts in the palace vaults that date back to the Keyblade War. The Warlock's Eye, The Tuning Fork, The Eternal Flame, The Tablet of Life… All sorts of magical objects that either Maleficent or the Unchained could potentially weaponized towards their own ends." The mention of relics of the Keyblade War snagged the attention of both Sora and Nick Fury, and they quickly launched into a discussion of what these artifacts were capable of. The discussion eventually drew in everyone else in the group, except for one. Jake had taken Fury's advice and told everyone about the team, and to their credit, they wholly embraced the fact that they now had a genuine fire-breathing dragon on the team.
But that did not make it his place to share the fact that his wife was an Unchained herself and knew exactly what those relics of the Keyblade War could do. The Warlock's Eye had been coveted by the Legion since the idea of the Endgame was first conceived. A device that allowed for mass mind control that the Unchained Legion intended to use to keep the people of Earth aligned to their way of thinking. The Eternal Flame kept the Nine Realms apart, a fact detested by all Unchained, even his wife, as the other eight worlds were prevented from returning to Earth when the cycle of the Keyblade War neared its end. The whole reason that the cycle kept going, his wife had explained, was because the Earth could never be truly whole without every fragment being put back into place. As long as there were still pieces of the world drifting through the universe, the cycle had no hope of ever being broken.
The other two items were a mystery, even to Jake. All Rose would tell him when he asked what they were for after his first visit to asgard following the restoration of her memories as an Unchained was that there were some things he really was better off not knowing. While under normal circumstances, he might suspect that they involved elements of her personal history that she felt ashamed of talking about, the pure, unfiltered terror in her eyes when she begged him not to ask her about it again told him otherwise. Whatever the tablet and the fork were for, it was enough to scare even an unflappable quasi-immortal ex-Huntsgirl.
But that was a train of thought to pursue at a later date. Right now, the Jake, Sora, and the Avengers were invited guests in the Asgardian Royal palace. So as they followed Thor up to the castle to get ready for dinner, the former American Dragon kept his thoughts focused on the present as the team discussed their next destination. While Asgard didn't appear to be in any danger, everyone could tell that sooner or later, the Unchained Legion would be coming for at least one artifact in Odin's Vault. The Hellfire Club wasn't even considered a possibility. Otherwise, they would have snatched what they needed when they "liberated" Loki last month. Whatever the Legion was planning, they all agreed that it couldn't be good.
The Lanes Between – U.W.S. Ava:
"So," Skuld began as she looked out the viewport of her office as the stars streaked by outside. "They're all on the move." With fifty Firaga-class plasma guns, fifty Blizzaga-class spell cannons, a hundred Thundaga-class missile launchers, a military barracks and a sprawling office complex, the Ava was by far the largest warship in the Unchained fleet. Named after the Foreteller Vulpeus in the wake of her murder at the hands of the Foreteller Leopardos at the start of the Keyblade War. Since Ava had been the one to bring the young Keyblade initiates would become the Unchained Legion together, it was only fitting that they name their mobile headquarters in her honor.
"They are, Imperator," Praetor Gao reported. "The princess and her friends have already disrupted my laboratory in the Great Forest. I fear our testing ground will likely soon be compromised as well. Meanwhile those pathetic Avengers and that boy Sora have arrived on Asgard."
"And what of the Hellfire Club?" Skuld asked. "Where does that witch Maleficent stand in all of this?"
"It's as you've predicted," the man formerly known as Marluxia answered. "She sees us as the greater threat, and has been harassing our outlying bases for the past three days now. Her campaign is more intensive than we anticipated, and we've just lost three ships as of this morning, with maybe a dozen Legionnaires, three Decurions, and one Centurion killed in the last day alone. Forgive me for being blunt, Skuld, but as much as we're all looking forward to the Endgame, the Hellfire Club needs to be dealt with before our dream of a brighter future can move forward."
Across the table, heads nodded in understanding. They were all aware of the fact that they weren't the only ones hunting for the Infinity Stones. If they were ever going to fully restore the Gauntlet of The First Keyblade Master, then they needed to clear away the competition first. Finally, High Praetor Robert spoke up.
"As you command, Imperator," he remarked. "I'll have order our fleet to launch a forward offensive against the Hellfire Club's bases. We'll cut off their retreat and force them to regroup. Once they've all gathered in one place, we'll wipe them out with a single stroke. Their recent attacks are a clear indication that they are prioritizing the removal of competition just as we are. We need to act fast if we are to have any hope of eliminating them." All hands went up in favor of the High Praetor's proposal, and the meeting was adjourned. Once the rest of the council had left, only three of the eight Unchained that made up the Legion's hierarchy remained.
Every Legionnaire had been Unchained since before the last Keyblade War began, but only Skuld, Aurilam, and Lerena had all fought together during the war. The other regional commanders of the Unchained Legion had been part of Praetor Valerie's Hunstclan initiative, and had been wiped out when the dragon-loving wretch betrayed them. As such, while she relied on the High Council for tactical advice, Aurilam and Lerena were the only ones Skuld truly felt that she could confide in when the pressure of their monumental goals began to get to her. That was why she had come to see them over the millennia as valued friends rather than merely trusted advisors.
"I know Gao thinks that the only way to purge Darkness from the world is to turn everyone into animals," Skuld commented. "But does that really justify making slaves out of such a large portion of humanity?"
"Come on, Skuld," Aurilam answered reassuringly. "So much of humanity is so far gone that there's simply no hope of them ever finding their way out of the filth and decadence of the world."
"But so many people who fall into darkness only do so out of desperation," Skuld replied. "Doing unspeakable things just to be able to put food on their family's tables. Such violence is a sign of the Darkness' influence on the universe, but they are a symptom of larger problems at work."
"All the more reason for the Endgame," Lerena countered. "We need to get humanity back on track. It's like Ephemer said, sometimes you can't remodel a building without tearing apart the old parts. Things will get ugly, but we have to make sacrifices to build a better world." Skuld shed a tear at mention of her predecessor. She'd had a crush on Ephemer ever since he lead the Unchained Legion during the Keyblade War, but she knew it was unrequited. The First Unchained had been in love with a girl from the Leopardos guild, only for her to perish at the Sinking of Atlantis. He'd never moved on from her death, ultimately mourning her for the past eight thousand years.
Skuld was beginning to have doubts, which, for a being who had been alive for eight thousand years, were never a good thing to have. She had seen civilizations crumble in the fires of the Keyblade War. The Wakanda Protectorate, the Republic of Sokovia, Blackagar Boltagon's Inhuman Empire… The war had left civilization in ruins, and in the aftermath, the Unchained Legion had witnessed empires rise and fall, and played their parts in raising them up and tearing them down. But since the rise of the Avengers, Skuld had begun to look back and question whether their dream of a restored and purified world was worth the chaos and collateral damage required to achieve it.
The Circus – Train Station:
"Well I'm glad that's over with," Kairi remarked as she plopped down next to Rose on the station platform. After the hectic rush to finish things up in the Great Forest, they all decided to sleep aboard the Legacy before setting off on their journey again. Unfortunately, they were woken up in the early hours of the morning by another call from Coalition Intelligence about Unchained activity. They'd spent the entire day scouting the circus for suspicious activity before they final caught sight of Unchained Legionnaires attempting to infect the audience of the afternoon show with the potions developed in the laboratory in the Great Forest. With the threat dealt with, the quintet were taking a moment to relax as the circus staff took down tents and loaded everything back up onto their train.
Kairi couldn't help but glance at the woman next to her. While she knew that Rose was an Unchained, she had no idea what had made her desert from the Legion.
"Can I ask you something?" the princess of Heart began cautiously. "What made you defect from the Legion. I'm not accusing you of anything, I swear. I'm just curious what made you shake off eight thousand years of entrenched dogma." Rose took a deep breath as she thought back to the precise moment that caused her to question everything she'd valued for millennia.
"It all started with a bit of a complicated story," she replied. "For the longest time, Jake's dad was ignorant of the fact that he'd married into a family of shapeshifting magical reptiles. So one day, Jake gets the idea to go back in time and convince his mom to tell him the truth. His dad freaks out and breaks up with his mom, so Jake has to scramble to get his parents back together or he'll never be born. Anyway, his dad called his mom to apologize and try to make amends, but the Huntsclan, the branch of the Legion that I oversaw, had been monitoring all the phone calls in the area at the time and overheard their conversation. So we napped his dad and interrogated him. "
"I watched through security cameras as our best interrogators try to convince him to give us the dragons' location, but he spat in our faces and told us that we were the monsters."
"That's it?" Kairi asked. "I find it hard to believe that Unchained aren't thick skinned after all these years."
"It was't so much the fact that he said it," Rose replied. "But his choice of words brought back old memories. During the War, there were dozens of campaigns over the course of seven years as the four guilds and the Legion waged war across the planet. One of the longest, bloodiest campaigns, second only to the Storming of Daybreak Town, was the Atilan Sieges. Three Keyblade Wielding armies against the full might of the Inhuman Empire. The Inhuman government had allied themselves with the Ursus guild to expand their borders. Renegade factions within Inhuman society, led by a woman named Jenova, had offered the Legion and the Anguis guild access to Inhuman territory in exchange for helping her overthrow King Blotagon. But things weren't that simple."
"The Anguis armies were zealous in their devotion to the light," the Unchained continued. "A lot of the field commanders in Foreteller Invi's faction were also sympathetic to the Unchained, and they shared our belief that anyone allied with Darkness was beyond saving. The Unchained within Anguis blazed a trail of fire and blood from Lai Shi to Atilan. Because Inhumans had been genetically modified by Kree scientists to be living weapons, a lot of Unchained used to, and still do, see them as subhuman. I'm ashamed to admit that in my zealous drive to avenge your – I mean, Ava's death, that I bought into that view. We had taken a village of Boltagon loyalists prisoner and Jenova was publicly executing them. "
"The last prisoner in line for the execution was the king's son, Ahura Boltagon himself," Rose went on. "When Jenova asked if he had any last words or anything to say about his "monstrous" family, he said "The only monsters I know are the bigots standing right in front of me." And then Warden Lerena took his head off like she was chopping vegetables. At the time, Ahura's words didn't really have any effect, but when my future father in-law used almost the exact same words, it was like a punch in the stomach. That was when I finally opened my eyes and saw just how jaded and prejudiced the Legion had become."
"For a few years, I kept my doubts to myself," she explained. " I tried to avoid shaking the status quo. But after a while I just couldn't bury my conscience any longer. I confided in my new lieutenant in the hopes that he'd understand what I was going through, but instead he killed me, and then tracked me down in my next life and took me from my biological family, hoping to "purge my weakness with training and discipline." Thankfully, I met Jake and he helped me break away from the dogma again and by the time my memories returned, I'd burned all my bridges with my fellow Unchained."
Kairi remained silent as Rose finished her tale, and spent the next several moments contemplating what she'd learned. She'd learned more about the Keyblade War in one conversation than she had in any of Braig's vague hints and cryptic messages. She understood what had lead Rose to where she was today, and while she was reticent to simply ignore everything the blond-haired woman had done as an Unchained, she was quickly beginning to see her as a friend. As they returned to the ship discussing Rose's defection from the Legion, Kairi couldn't help but wonder how they could free Rose from her immortality without killing her. Death by X – Blade shouldn't be the only way for her or any other Unchained who came to tire of their immortality and realized how far they had fallen to release themselves.
Titan's Refuge – Chitauri Catacombs:
Lily had not had a typical childhood or a traditional education, to say the least. Because her parents' enemies were constantly looking for them, they couldn't leave the Kiln very often. That didn't mean that her childhood was all blood and killing, however. The Red Skull would read her bedtime stories, Cruella would take her shopping for clothes, and Captain Hook taught her how to defend herself. Her parents would sing her lullabies as she drifted off to sleep, and despite the relative instability of their situation, she was happy with her life. She had parents who loved her and spent all their time with her when they weren't out trying to conquer the universe. She had an extended family who took care of her when her parents were working and would protect her with their lives. She was well fed and taught how to protect herself from anyone who would try to take her from her parents.
While her living situation wasn't ideal, she was old enough to understand that her parents had to keep their location secret in order to avoid being killed or thrown in prison. She appreciated that they tried to give her more time to be a kid, but that didn't mean that she never eavesdropped on their conversations. Like right now, for instance. She was currently crouched in the shadows at the mouth of the catacombs leading down into the inner depths of their Sanctuary listening to her mother and her inner circle argue about recent developments and plan their battle tactics for the future.
"We've lost control of the tower in Corona," she heard Captain Hook comment. "Those Legionnaires are becoming more and more troublesome by the day. For every one of their bases we take out, they wreck two more of ours. We need to find their bases and destroy them."
"And how do you propose we do that, exactly?" Loki retorted. "The instant we board their ships they wipe their hard drives of any information that couple help us track their installations."
"True," came the voice of Gideon Malick, last surviving head of HYDRA. "But at the same time, I may have a lead that may help us. I've received word from our remaining HYDRA agents that Vanitas' C.I.N. agents have arrived on Earth with vital intelligence salvaged from an Unchained base on Morag."
"And?" Her father inquired. "Come on, Gideon. Don't tell me that's it. You've probably got more to it than that or you wouldn't bring it up."
"Too soon to say," Malick replied. "My sources say the stolen files are heavily encrypted and they're still decrypting them as we speak."
"Excellent," her mother added. "We'll let them finish accessing the data, steal it, and then start hunting." Lily didn't understand half of the words the adults were saying, but she got the gist of it. Those mean Legion people were getting in the way of her parents' plan to take over the universe, and they needed to wait for the goody goodies from the Coalition to finish cleaning the computer stuff that would tell them where to find the Legion's main base before they could make a move. Satisfied that she was up to date on what was going on, Lily slipped back into the catacombs and back to her bedroom before her parents came to tuck her in.
Information on all the artifacts hidden in Odin's Vault comes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe wikia. Remember them all, because they will all be important in the rest of this saga or the next one. This will not be the only time we visit Asgard in this story, but this time it's just a pit stop to set up some Chekhov's Guns for the rest of the Acolytes of Chaos universe. The comments Tony being a Game of Thrones fan and Asgardians referring to him as Lord Stark are more references to Child of The Storm.
What the Tuning Fork and the Tablet of Life are for is something that's being saved for my next Kingdom Hearts fanfiction saga, Invaders From Beyond. That one, however, will be years away. Once I've finished the Acolytes of Chaos storyline, I'm going to work on other fanfiction ideas before I come back to this universe. But rest assured, I do have a plan for everything I mention in these stories. Also, the "empires rise and fall" part is based on a direct quote from Child of the Storm.
Skuld's role as the main villain of the saga will be a constant contrast with Xehanort's. Where old baldy was confident that he was right all the way to the end, Skuld will be constantly questioning if she and her fellow Unchained are really doing the right thing. And I decided to throw in some world building to build up some references to the geopolitical landscape before the Keyblade War started.
I hope everyone caught all the easter eggs in the story of the Atilan Sieges. Rest assured, that campaign will be revisited further on in this story. Particularly Jenova's role in it and the origins of Hydra (then known as the Cult of Jenova)
For the Hellfire Club scenes, I wanted to do one chapter where Maleficent's plans were narrated from the point of view of her daughter. I figured that Maleficent and Hades would try to protect their daughter's innocence as much as they could, but they'd still make sure that she understood what they were trying to do and why the heroes are always coming after them. Red Skull reading Lily bedtime stories is a shout-out to the recent controversial Hydra!Cap comic. We're going to start seeing more of the Hellfire/Legion War starting in the next few chapters, so stay tuned.
I took Maria Hill's comment in Avengers: Age of Ultron (which I feel is a lot better than people say it is, but that's a discussion for another day) about Sokovia being "nowhere special but on the way to everywhere special" and came up with the idea that Sokovia used to be the capital of a thriving Keyblade War-era civilization, only to fall from its former glory when the war ended. The Inhuman empire is my way of incorporating the major Inhumans characters from the comics into this universe (since the Inhumans movie isn't happening anymore right now, I wanted to include them somehow). I didn't want to come up with a convoluted explanation for why the Inhumans in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. don't talk about them, so I came up with the idea that they were ancient Inhumans whose empire had been destroyed, and Lai Shi was the last remnant of their territory.