Chapter 7: The Hunt Begins:

Earth – The Playground; October 15th:

"Here's what we've got," Coulson began as he turned to the C.I.N. and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents gathered in Maria's office for the mission briefing. Vanitas, Cloud, Even, Violet and the Secret Warriors had all assembled the instant that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s various surveillance methods had determined that the Unchained Legion was on the move. "According to Agent Romanov's intel," Phil went on. "There's an abandoned Huntclan lair in an abandoned section of the New York City subway tunnels. The secret anti-magic KKK was comprised primarily of Unchained, and they were destroyed by Agent Long and her husband back in 2007. The base has been abandoned ever since."

"Judging by the fact that we've detected at least two dozen Unchained making a beeline for the abandoned subway tunnels," Daisy commented. "Then there must be something hidden in the base that the Legion has just now figured out that it needs. Either that, or they're looking for someone. If Rose were here, she'd probably be able to lend us a hand." While the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were surprised to learn that one of their own had connections to the magical community, nobody resented Rose for keeping secrets from the rest of the team. They understood that the supernatural community took its secrecy very seriously, and that prevented her from disclosing that aspect of her life with her colleagues.

"My thoughts exactly," Coulson answered as he pressed a button on his tablet to bring up security footage on the floor-to-ceiling monitor that took up the entire wall of Director Hill's office. "Since Vanitas' team has more experience fighting Keyblade Wielders, they'll be accompanying the Secret Warriors on this mission. For now, it's just recon. Find out what it is the Unchained Legion is after, and only engage them if it's absolutely necessary. Daisy, choose who to bring on the mission carefully. Not every Inhuman at S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to be capably of going up against a Keyblade Wielder."

"Roger that," Daisy commented before outlining which Secret Warriors would be staying behind. "Yo-Yo's fast," she explained. "But because she has to snap back to her starting point it'll put her at unnecessary risk. Joey's ability to liquefy metal will likely be useless since we've proven that Keyblades and Unchained armor are immune to his power because of their magical properties. Everyone else should be good to go for the mission." Everyone nodded in agreement, and the deputy director began typing the mission details up on the tablet while sending a message to notify local law enforcement to stay out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents' way once they arrived.

"Good," Coulson remarked as everyone started getting ready to leave the room. "Gear up and head out. I want you on the ground in the Big Apple within the next hour."


New York City – Abandoned Subway; One Hour Later:

Let's get this over with, Shego remarked as she crept through the abandoned section of the subway tunnels beneath the streets of Manhattan. Honestly, sneaking through abandoned tunnels… stealing from secret bases… This is all starting to feel like old times. Originally, the reformed Supervillain hadn't really been big on saving the world, and neither had Dr. Drakken. The only reason they had joined S.H.I.E.L.D. was because it was the best way to avoid going to jail to serve out the rest of their lengthy prison sentences for all the crimes they'd committed. Saving the world didn't necessarily absolve them of their years of plotting global conquest overnight.

So when S.H.I.E.L.D. had arrived to sweep the incident under the rug, Director Nicholas Fury gave them two options: either they could go back to jail and take the blame for the entire alien invasion, or they could join S.H.I.E.L.D. and take on the politically messy assignments in exchange for reducing their sentences, and all the blame would be pinned on someone else. Since neither of them were willing to go back to prison after all their hard work fighting the Lorwardian invasion, they took the second option. And a few weeks after the ceremony, she and Drakken ended up admitting their growing romantic feelings for each other. While the buffoon found the two supervillains' hook up surprising, she and Drakken had been wrestling with unresolved sexual tension for the previous year, and their kiss after the ceremony was simply the culmination of that.

Anyway, despite their concern for their villain credibility and the fact that they didn't want to be good guys, the two would be conquerors actually found themselves enjoying their new jobs. Drakken was right at home tinkering in the labs at The Sandbox creating all kinds of new tech, while Shego developed a sense of camaraderie with her trainer, Natasha Romanov. While Shego had gone from villain to hero, Natasha's past was the exact opposite, and her perspective was one Shego found refreshing. Not to mention that the former Russian assassin turned out to be one of the only people besides Kim Possible skilled enough to give Shego a challenge in a fight, and that was something she always enjoyed.

A year later, Kim had popped into S.H.I.E.L.D. for a consultation. The red-headed teen hero had invited her on a girls' night out, and on the urging of the last embers of their old friendship back when she was under the influence of the Attitudinator, Shego agreed. The tabloids had been a blaze with the usual absurd rumors, nosy journalists attempting to fire up "Kigo" rumors, but as with 99.99% of anything ever written by the tabloids, they were nothing but. Contrary to the celebrity rumor mill, Kim and Shego did not engage in a secret love affair. Rather, they simply engaged in a philosophical discussion of the latter's career choice and her life of villainy.

That had been the night where Shego had realized she'd truly left the path of evil behind without even realizing it. She'd stopped thinking of herself as a villain without noticing at all. At first, she was worried that Drakken might not have undergone the same shift that she had. But it turned out, she needn't have worried. He had been thinking the same thing about her. His motivation for being evil had been the mockery and ridicule of his fellow scientists back in college, and being around S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists who respected his credibility as a scientist was a huge boost to his self-confidence, and he'd started to see himself as the "Q" of S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of an evil mad scientist.

"Shego, time to cut our way in," Daisy whispered, snapping the green-skinned warrior out of her reminiscing. Shego blinked to clear her head and focus. It was time. After carefully igniting her powers in a single finger, she dragged her ignited finger in a circle, melting through the bars of the grate leading into what used to be a Huntsclan lair. Another S.H.I.E.L.D. team was investigating the old Huntsclan Academy upstate, but with the recent Unchained activity, it fell to the Secret Warriors to investigate the more urban facility. Once the cuts had melted through, the bars fell inward, only for Quake to use her powers to gently lower the metal grate to the floor without making a sound.

With the entrance made, the Secret Warriors made their way through the tunnels with Vanitas and Quake in the lead while Cloud and Zack brought up the rear. Violet used her invisibility to scout ahead, forcing the team to be cautious and check for ambushes at every intersection until the superhero returned. Eventually, they found themselves on a catwalk overlooking what used to be the main room of the HuntsLair. Assembled around the chamber were a series of cots and armored Keyblade Wielders standing next to piles of what, even from up here, could clearly be identified as medical equipment. And in the center of the floor was an elaborate series of runes and symbols carved into the floor and filled with what appeared to be blood.

At the edge of the circle of symbols sat none other than the escaped Madame Gao, flanked on either side by a blonde woman and a man with pink hair. Vanitas' eyes narrowed as he recognized the faces of Marluxia and Larxene standing at the edge of the circle. While he would love to simply warp down and pound their faces in, he had enough self-control to recognize that they needed to wait and see what was going on. This is too elaborate for them to just be looking for someone or trying to dig up weapons that haven't been used for a decade. Something else is going on. He relayed his concerns to the rest of the team, and the group spread out from there. Down below, Gao began to chant in what sounded to the C.I.N. agents like ancient Atlantean.

Vanitas, Quake, Sparkplug, Violet, Shego, Cloud, Sif, Zack, and Sparkplug each took up positions around the circle. As they did so, the chanting rose to a crescendo, and in a flash of greenish-yellow light, thirteen figures appeared in the circle. The Unchained medics raced forward and carried the new arrivals over to what was now clearly a makeshift triage facility while the heroes observing from the shadows looked on in shock. They're not after a weapon! Quake and Vanitas realized at the same time. They're resurrecting the Huntsclan. In the time it took to relay the discovery and come up with a battle strategy, the ritual had been repeated a total of twelve times, bringing the number of Huntsclan members brought back from the dead to one hundred and fifty-six.

This could not be allowed to continue. As Gao began to chant for the thirteenth time, Vanitas signaled to the others, and the strike team made their move. The battle was on.


Yay! Secret Warriors action! I like including elements from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that haven't happened in this universe to add some flavor and background characters to various scenes and plotlines. The Secret Warriors was one of those things that I felt would end up happening even if it was under different circumstances than it actually did on the show.

Shego is one of my all-time favorite animated TV villains, and I've wanted to have a few paragraphs from her perspective for a while now. I wanted to show that while she and Drakken have walked away from trying to take over the world, their personalities are still the same regardless of the fact that they're now working for S.H.I.E.L.D., and that their redemption wasn't something that happened over night. And while my head-canon on the actual show was that they were pardoned, here I decided to make it a bit different because I originally had the idea of Drakken and Shego being part of the KP universe's answer to the Suicide Squad.

Shego's comments about her and Drakken's relationship upgrade are a reference to the amazing Drakken/Shego Curtain Fic Maslow by Ninnik Nishukan. It's basically a story that shows what Drakken and Shego get up to after each episode of the show and basically creates the idea that their last-minute hookup was the result of a season worth of off-screen UST that I consider to be part of my head-canon. The KiGo comment was meant to be a humourous jab at the continuous Ship-To-Ship combat in the Kim Possible fandom (or any fandom for that matter. Have you seen the Kataang vs. Zutara debates?)

So now the Huntsclan is back in the picture the fight between our heroes and the Unchained is going to be playing a major role in upcoming chapters. Although the Hellfire Club is still going to keep popping up, Maleficent's forces are mainly directing their focus towards the invasion of Turo and the battles that come after. The Hellfire Club isn't going to be much of a major presence in this story compared to Balance of Power.

I'm not going to showcase the epic Huntsclan vs. Keyblade and Secret Warriors battle because that's one of those ideas that I don't think words can do justice, so I'm going to leave you all in suspense for the next few days.