Villains Vale

In the dark, in the shadows she watched with intensity as her follows all gathered around a small table in the middle of this grand chapel, a small holographic image projecting from it. Green flames ignited whatever light there was. All of them though were too distracted to notice as she glared at them. For they were too focused on a boy and his blade. This boy called...Sora.

Such a strange name, but what's was stranger was that a weapon of great legend and history. One said to be wielded by the greatest of warriors, people of great feats and legends who's myth went back centuries, now though, now this weapon was in the hands of nothing more than a mere child. No one, who said to descend from a mere Island that apparently was nothing special. Such a background though worked to her advantage perfectly.

"That little squirt took down that Heartless, who'd had thought." Hades said.

The Lord of the dead had been a powerful ally to her over the years. Draped in his black toga, skin of grey and hair of blue fire. He smiled showing off his sharp yellow teeth. Observing him, she realized that he was quite keen on seeing this boy enter her domain.

Jafar, the regally dressed Vizier of Agrabah seemed almost smug about it as he clenched his snake staff tight, twirling his sickly goatee, his snake like features stiffening as he sneered at the image before him. "Such is the power of the Keyblade, the child's strength is not his own."

Overconfident as ever it seemed. This sorcerer consider himself quite a powerful individual. Someone who managed to make his way from the streets of Agrabah to rise of the ranks to Vizer to the Sultan. But by allying himself with her, truly he had bigger ambitious in mind than a mere advisor to the cour, something she would exploit.

"Why don't we turn her into a Heartless...HA! HA! HA! That'll settle things quick enough." Ursula, sea witch of Atlantica cackled as her tentacles slithered with excitement.

Her eyes then darted over to Captain Hook, the sneaky snook pirate of Neverland. A ruthless individual, his ship the Jolly Roger was legendary. His piracy was the scourge of that Island but she planned to sharpen that blade so that it was a scourge of the worlds itself.

"And the brat's friends are the King's lackies. Swoggle me eyes! They're all bilge rats by the look of them!"

"I should know, I was neighbors with one of them." Pete the fat cat of Toontown sneered.

A laugh, as the bag of bugs Oogie Boogie, a master of nightmares taunted the one handed captain. "You're no prize yourself."

"Shut up!" Pete and Jafar countered simultaneously.

"Enough!" Now it was her time to intervene.

"The Keyblade had chosen him….Will it be who conquers the darkness, or will the darkness swallow him. Either way he could be quite useful."

The plan was clear. The Keyblade had not been seen in several years. It had been quite some time since she herself had laid eyes on it. But that would not stop her. Her horned headdress illuminating in the fire, dressed in black robes with purple outlining, she was consider by many to be a flaming dragon, a dark fair.

She was Maleficent, the mistress of all evil.

All the powers of darkness would be hers.

Hopefully her followers wouldn't get in the way of this.

"I say we launch a full on strike against those no good ding dongs!" Pete yelled as he slammed his fist on the table. "Especially after taking down Guard Armor, he was one beauty of a Heartless, you know how long it took to climate that kind of darkness? How many Soldier Heartless it took to make him?"

"Clearly not good enough if it was taken down so easily." Hades snickered looking at the fat cat. "Pete babe, let me tell yuh if you want hearts of darkness just ask me okay I got a bunch of a good ones back in my place." Indeed he did. He had more hearts than could be counted stored down into the Underworld, some of which were too dangerous for anybody but him to handle. And that was a power that no money could buy.

Pete scowled; Hades always liked reminding others of his superior power, but Hades never seemed to care that it was so much harder to cultivate Heartless from the dead than from the living: "Why have the dead when my boys can work on the living. I got so many beautiful Heartless on the plate that…."

"Clearly it is not enough." Jafar hissed eyeing Maleficent now. "I believe our leader should give us our next move. There are several promises that have yet to be delivered on."

"All in good time." Maleficent said calmly through her eyes narrowed on the Vizer. "Though if you have any suggestions Jafar I will gladly hear them."

Jafar scowled at her yet did not answer. Just as she thought, he was all bravado yet none of was ever acted upon. Maleficent always loved to toy with the vizer, yet she wanted to be careful, for a snake cornered could still be deadly for they could bite. Maleficent was of the most noble possible blood, from her own perspective: As a direct descendant of Lilith, she felt it was not her place to cater to the entitled so easily, but the entitled were also the most likely to strike when denied. She never forgot that.

"I say we assault the worlds, assault Traverse Town again full one...Pillage and plunder!" Hook shouted.

"Like anyone would plunder you." Ursula snickered.

Hook sneered

Pete interjected again pounding his fists together "I agree with the Captain though, I'd cultivated enough Heartless that we could launch a attack on the world's one by one see….Probably been more productive in the last few years then I was back home with the Wife and Kids."

"How you managed to reproduce is still beyond me," Ursula chuckled.

Pete huffed and crossed his arms: "Hey! I'm still a pretty good looking stud."

"From what I heard you were nothing more than a failed used ...what is that word," Jafar stroked his chin as he tried to think. "Cars-salesmen, before getting banished for trying to take over the Kingdom."

"I was in-between jobs, I got a little desperate see!" Pete yelled back

Maleficent watched from afar now as the others debate on how to properly deal with this new threat. Attack, defend, lurk in the shadows, how they were all fools with there own petty agendas. Jafar with ruling Agrabah, Ursula with taking over Atlantica and her vendetta against the King, Pete had his own problems with Sora's companions being of there world. All of them united in anger and a sense for power but nothing more. The longer this went on the harder it would be to keep them all in line. Not that any of that matter, so long as they served their purpose then it would all go exactly as need be. All of them had such incredibly small visions compared to her. None truly tried to reach for beyond like she did, except perhaps Hook, and even then, it was entirely for personal reasons, related to his divided family, and his state of being trapped in Neverland's orbit for more decades than he could care to recount, to be tormented by Peter Pan. Insistent on contenting themselves with their petty revenge schemes and power grabs, none truly had a sense of vision. That yearning for more.

But maybe Riku did. That could be quite useful.

Now though, she had other matters to attend too.

Maleficent ignored them all and walked away from the Castle, slamming the large door behind her. Sometimes solitude and secrecy were more efficient ways of continuing her goals than just merely listening to endless bickering from her minions.

Flying from up high a large black raven landed on the green orb of her elegant staff. Her beloved Diablo gave a sly smile as he turned towards the door.

"Yes my pet." Maleficent said gently petting his beek. "Sometimes they can be quite insufrible, but that doesn't matter, finally our plans can come to fruition. It is now time to begin the next phase."

The phase, or her plans for world dominance was something that had been in the works for a while now.

As she traversed through the outer halls of the castle she gazed upon a large casam of rock. Bareness and decay as far as the eye could see and it was beautiful. It was a testament to her power, to the power of darkness, to the rising power of the Heartless.

Many owners this castle had. Built long before her time and from what she learned in the archives considered a monument to the light. Now though the darkness had corrupted it ebbing out any majesty this place might have had. Instead turning it into a mixture of decayed ruin and factory, metal pipes sprouting from various rooftops popping out smoke. Exhaust from the machines that produced the Heartless.

Passing by the machinery, she glided up the stairs to see the door to Hollow Bastion's Heart. Managing the equipment monitoring the heart and the hearts of others were a team of weasels, who were the former toon patrol, a special police force in toontown, before they all failed a mission and died, before coming back, for as old-fashioned toons, they could tank virtually any damage and become reborn again, though they were far more vulnerable to paint solvents and hefty amounts of laughter than most other kinds of damage.

"How is progress?" she inquired.

"If by progress," huffed Smarty, their leader, "you mean behind schedule, short of Heartless, equipment needs replacing, RAM is almost completely full on almost every system, and we're short on cash, yeah, we're making progress."

"Pete says otherwise," Maleficent answered stiffly. "He claims we have enough to assault the worlds."

"Pete doesn't really work with us enough to know what we're dealing with. We could, in theory, gather all of our Heartless and assault the worlds one by one, but…we're spread out and have to cover our existing bases...we have, what, how many was it again now? Five? Six? We need to focus on reinforcements"

"Let Oogie, Pete, and Hook decide on that; your job is to make the Heartless, not choose when to and where distribute them."

"Hook'd probably agree with us. His job isn't exactly an easy one. We have too many bases in proportion to the number of Heartless we actually are producing."

Maleficent would not take no for an answer, or at least, not no without foundation: "Let them all decide. My orders are to gather as many hearts as possible in order to achieve our goal, while adhering to the directive I imposed upon you. That means using the Heartless as much as possible. Whether your suggested method of utilizing them as reinforcements until we capture more subjects for Heartless treatment, or Pete's of stretching them out as soon as possible, are the superior options...I don't care. I want to get as many needed to find the Princesses as possible. This may require expansion. Hopefully, Jafar is right and the last princesses can be found close to our own bases, and we wouldn't need to worry about how many we actually have. But don't the Heartless by nature seek out to reproduce?"

"Just because they do nothing but multiply, doesn't mean we can control them all. The Soldiers only cooperate with other Heartless and refuse to apply teamwork with each other. We don't know why. The Large Bodies only attack when provoked. We don't know why. The Red Nocturnes insist on going to cold or wet places, but tend to die and respawn constantly whenever they do in a painful cycle that goes nowhere. We don't know why. The White Mushrooms don't fight and refuse to multiply without help. We don't know why. The Angel Stars flee from base every time we make them. We don't know why. And the Behemoths-"

"Enough!" she cut in. "I am sick of hearing about the Behemoths, how they are the worst Heartless of all!"

"But they are!" Wheezy objected. "Set 'em before the brat, and let him take care of it, like he did with that Guard Armor. They should all be destroyed."

"Aren't our containment chambers enough for them?"

"Not if they're that big, and find ways to escape before we can even get them settled. We now only have three. The rest all went wherever we think the Angel Stars went. These aren't problems with the technology. These are specifically problems with controlling the Heartless."

"Find ways to make them submit!"

"Maleficent...they're basically mentally unhinged child-soldiers. Children. Crazy children. What they do or don't respond to isn't the same as with sane people, or grownups for that matter, we're still working on ways to instill cooperation into the Soldiers-"

"Can't you make adult Heartless?"

"Not many that can be contained or controlled. Most Behemoths start out as grownups. That's enough darkness to be beyond our control."

That was enough for her to hear for one day.

"Well, continue your work then," Maleficent sneered, "I have more pressing matters to attend to anyway,"

"Yeah, yeah...Sure, sure…" Smarty sneered, "Come on boys, we gotta get back to Traverse Town anyway, might as well see if we can get any residual darkness from Guard Armor anway."

Maleficent continued to go through the mass hall of gothic architecture and down a few staircases she arrived towards an isle of doors of separate rooms. Slowly she grasped the lock and opened the door to a darkened room, the only light coming from one golden candelabra sitting on a cupboard. Yet even in the shadow she could see a figure sitting on the bed arms folded glaring at her.

A small smile came across her voice as she locked eyes with him. "Good afternoon...Riku."

"What do you want." He muttered.

Maleficent smiled. Oh how such luck had come to her. Not only did she meet this boy just as she found out the identity of the Keyblade Master but to discover they were friends. That was a advantage she was so eager to exploit. But not only that, this boy had darkness in his heart. Powerful darkness, not as great as her perhaps, but enough that it was worth.

"I know that I might come off as misgiving but believe me, I only wish to help." She said entering further. "I can help you get back to your friends, if you would be so kind as to help me with a few things."

"What?"

"All in good time, but it will allow you to follow your dream and enter new worlds, which from what I know, has been your ambition for a while."

Riku eyed her cautiously. "Can you read minds?"

"No...Just, well informed."

She saw him eye him carefully. He didn't trust her and she knew it, but she also knew that he seemed like a boy willing to do what it took to get what he wanted. She could see in her eyes a ruthlessness, something kallus about him. If that darkness could be tapped, then it would be forged into something quite remarkable. Those eyes while pure green had a coldness to them, a coldness he would exploit.

"Fine...I'll do what you want." Riku snickered. "But if I find out you don't keep your end of our bargain…."

"Oh I wouldn't dream of it." Maleficent chuckled darkly. "I'll let you rest for now, I'm sure you have much to do."

Giving a polite bow closing the door behind her turning to her pet Raven Diablo who gave her a sly smile.

"See my pet….All is proceeding as planned."

-000-

Riku laid back on the bed as the witch had left completely engulfed in the dark. He liked the dark. The light was always so bright. It blinded him and always gave him a chill. It was a nice room too, bookshelf with some interesting things to read and a little desk for him sit and write if he wished. Dark and small, it was just isolated enough to finally give him a sense of a calm that he was looking for. Apart from that he was completely alone, just like he always was, his only friends lost to the stars.

At least this witch Maleficent had been generous to him so far, someone of her stature and obvious power definitely was not one he had thought would take him into her care. Though there did seem to be some strings attached. Better than being stuck in the middle of nowhere he supposed, at least he had this nice room.

Apparently she was some sort of Fairy from another realm known as the Enchanted Dominion, a world of magic and wonder. Sounded all fairy tale to Riku, though considering the circumstances he was willing to believe what she was saying. She told him a bit of her powers and that she had agents all over the worlds. Agents that perhaps could find Sora and Kairi and reunite the three of them together. A generous offer but one Riku knew would have strings attached. Everything did, nothing good was free in life.

Laying back on the bed to feel the soft sheets pressed against his back, he was ready to close his eyes and nap before he heard the tapping of someone from before.

Opening his eyes, the image of the Candelabra from his desk was now standing by his bedside and had developed a face.

"What the-" He jumped back against the wall heart pounding.

"You aren't going to do what that witch wants you to do are you?" The Candle said in a thick french accent. "She's a sly woman….Slyer than even I am with a woman under the moonlight."

"Y-You can talk?"

The Candel nodded. "That's right, I am Lumiere…."

"Lumiere enough!" Riku eyes darted downward again as another object this one a small looking mahagonny clock scuttled his way towards the cadel now.

"Oh come now Cogsworth don't tell me you've gone soft."

Cogsworth seemed incensed. "No! But I'm not going to displease Maleficent just now and become a log on her fire! Though I guess knowing you, you'd be the one to light it."

"Bah, you are just being a coward to le-resistance! No wonder you are always a disappointment to the mademoiselle's." Lumiere snickered

Cogsworth looked incensed. "Me! I'm at least interesting keeping our heads, if Maleficent finds out she'll turn us into jelly or worse. Oh I would hate to find found, if only the Master were here he'd know what to do"

"Bah! I can take on that witch heads on…" Demonstrating his mettle, he tried his best to posture like a fencer:"Unguard touche!"

"She'll melt you into hot wax before you get the chance," Cogsworth muttered as Lumiere continued to fight with a imaginary sword.

Riku took some time to process all of this before he had enough. "Look! Okay, first off your talking appliances, second I don't care, if it means finding my friend I'm going to take it."

"Well you shouldn't trust her." Lumiere said. "She'll just destroy you like she did our world."

Riku sneered. "She can try, but I have no choice now do I."

"Everyone has a choice."

Cogsworth looked unsure. "Oh yeah what about us, we're stuck here and I don't see a way out."

"That's why we are the resistance...We'll stop things from within."

Riku leaned back on the bed now rubbing his forehead. When he first arrived on this world he already knew it was a strange place, evil fairies and magic actually exist was a shock to him. But now apparently talking candles and clocks, what next.

His moment of quiet ended as the door to his room burst open as a cart rolled up towards him unmanned by anyone. Riku groaned to see a large tea pot smiling back at him, and a tiny tea cup standing behind it looking quite shy.

"Tea love?" She asked.

"Mrs. Potts what are you doing here." Cogsworth hissed.

"I just thought this young lad could use some tea, he seems so pale, sitting here in this dark room all day under that horrid witch."

Suddenly the young tea cup hopped up towards Riku smiling at him. "Hi, I'm Chip."

"Riku." He muttered out of politeness.

The more he looked at the tiny tea cup with his big eyes and big wide smile the more it reminded him of another dopey young grin that he used to look upon in his youth minus the spiky brown hair. It was enough though to raise his spirits a bit as he thought of his missing friend.

"Why the long face Mr." The tea cup asked

Riku sighed, "I'm trying to find someone?"

"Why?" Chip asked.

"So I can make sure they're safe."

"Why?"

Riku rolled his eyes yet kept talking, it felt nice. "Because I made a promise to protect them and there very important to me."

Chip's questioning was simultaneously annoying and enduring at the same time. Again it reminded him of when he first met Sora. The cheery demeanor and constant questioning, it was just like how they first met. Riku remembered trying to keep calm as he clung to him like a chick would a mother hen.

"Chip please enough, the poor boy must be tired." intervened. "Sorry love."

"It's fine Riku muttered.

He sat down on the bed and looked up the ceiling, it was a nice marble stone, reminded him of his villa back home. The emptiness the shallow lifelness of it all. A empty castle, for a empty soul.

"What's wrong love?" Mrs. Potts asked noticing Riku scowl.

"Nothing…." he said like it was everything, "Just go, please."

All three appliances gaze at one another confused and nod as they leave. Chip however stops at the end of the door and gently hops over to Riku's beside one more times and says, quietly so he didn't disturb.

"I hope you find your friend." Riku sighed as he again lingered in the dark, for he liked the dark. The dark was his friend, and he embraced it with open arms. Hopefully Sora and Kairi would as well, once they realized that he had done this for them.