Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha own Mahou Sensei Negima!

The Walt Disney Company owns all the Disney stuff.

I make no money from this.

Thanks to Shadow Crystal Mage for proofreading and adding several jokes. The best ones.

The Keys of the Kingdom.

Chapter Ten.

Somewhere else, a tall, lean figure stood on top of a sinister, dark and foreboding fortress, overlooking blackened dead moors and swamps as far as the eye could see.

The figure had their arms crossed behind their back, and their hands held a long scepter. On their head sat a hat with two long, curved horns. It radiated a fearsome aura of subtle menace, despite being far from bulky or massive. The much smaller figure that had just stopped shortly behind could feel that aura and accordingly cowered in its presence.

"Speak," the rich, cultured voice of the horned figure commanded.

"My Liege," the smaller being fell to a knee, head lowered. "We have reports from the latest world to be conquered. The area around its World Tree, specifically. The sixth Averruncus from Cosmo Entelecheia sighted King Mickey, and it seems... he escaped with a couple of local students and two mercenaries apparently sent by the Kansai Association. However, the King's ship was used by someone else, and it warped into another world."

"Which one?"

"We aren't sure yet, Your Liege. But we are looking for—"

"Find them soon!"

"Of course, my Liege. Also, hm, it seems the vampire witch you had a interest in... was also displaced along with her home. And, well, lastly, Captain Pete, managed to capture the King's Captain of the Guard and Royal Mage and delivering them to us... but he has failed to report back since. We believe he may have been captured himself, but since he was such a lowly asset..."

"Send someone to search for him regardless," the magnificent, malevolent figure sneered. "I don't like loose ends, not even the smallest ones. They tend to unravel even the best laid schemes. And you would do better to find McDowell before the day is out, as well. I grow impatient with the results so far."

"Yes, my Liege," the subject's forehead and his handpalms touched the stone floor. "Please forgive us. I swear from here on, our sight will try and match the reach of your hand."

There was a short, dry and humorless chuckle. "That will never happen. Try your best, or else you will be served swift death, but keep in mind your paltry senses will never be as wide as the all conquering hand..."

The figure turned back, with a malevolent smile on its sharp, elongated, pale features, cheekbones sharp enough to slice bread. It gestured with a hand of thin, long fingers as if to crush something, the dark scepter firmly grasped in the other.

"... of Loki, God of Mischief!"

There was a beat.

"Uh, pardon me my Liege, but I thought you were going with 'God of Stories' these days?"

"Eh, I decided that since we were going for an organizational reshuffle I'd hold off on paying Dream's franchise fee."

Saint Canard:

"I'm listening," the duck wearing a pastel colored sweater sat on an armchair opposite Kotaro, Mickey, Yue, Nodoka, Dogpool and Kero on the couch in his living room. "And you'd better have convinced me not to call the Crimebots five minutes from now on..."

"The police, you mean," Mickey said.

"No, the Crimebots, because I want to see things done," the duck said.

"Yea, about that," Dogpool said, "why do you have duck shaped Sentinels floating over this whole city? That's really creepy, man. Then again, robots are always creepy. They're always plotting to kill you while you sleep. That's why I always sleep with a gun under my pillow, and a finger on the trigger. Although sometimes you end up accidentally shooting yourself, which is a pain even when you can regrow parts of your brain..."

"What...?" the duck blinked very slowly.

"I'll go straight to the point," Rin said, pointing a finger at the duck. "You're Darkwing Duck, aren't you?"

The duck's already white face paled visibly under his feathers, but then he just broke into a nervous chuckle. "Darkwing Duck? Me? Now that's ridiculous, I'm just an unremarkable civil servant for Quackwerks! Darkwing Duck's sidekick used to live here, yeah, but would I be as stupid as to live with my own sidekick in my civilian identity if I had been Darkwing Duck?"

"You lived with another dude?" Dogpool asked. "Well, more power to you, different strokes and all that, but that's kinda—"

Nodoka rasped loud enough as to cover his next word, then told Rin, "He's got a real valid point there, Sempai. Why would you say he was this Darkwing Duck vigilante? We've just met him..."

"Oh, come on!" snapped Rin. "You all saw that recording on the giant screens! Just put a Darkwing Duck costume on him, and you've got Darkwing Duck! He's got the same size! The same build! The same voice! The same elongated, thin cheeks! The same ass, for God's sake!"

"The same voice?" Drake Mallard took a hand to his throat, then spoke again, in a rather changed tone, "W-Well, I'll let you know these cheeks are very frequent in this city. You guys come from Duckburg, don't you?"

"Actually, we are heading to Duckburg," Mickey sighed. "Just tell us where Launchpad Mc Quack lives right now, please, and we'll leave and you'll never hear about us again."

"But I thought you had told us we needed to find Darkw—" Deadpool said before an oversized round shoe discreetly kicked him in a shin. "Was that a come-on? This place must have something that makes people—"

Yue coughed loudly enough as to cover the next word to come from him. "I think I speak for everyone when I say we don't particularly care about who Darkwing Duck was, or whatever happened to him."

"What? Why not?!" Mallard said, suddenly sounding offended.

"Well," Kotaro said, "from the looks of that report, I'd say he was a very crappy superhero anyway. Fighting a rat who shoots electricity? Really? That's hardly Brainiac, conqueror of worlds. And what kind of loser disappears for years leaving his city to a bunch of fascist flying tin cans?"

Mallard's right eyebrow began twitching. "I'm sure he had his good, important reasons, and he had done his job when... he paved the way for a safer Saint Canard..."

Then someone rang at the front door. "Excuse me a moment, please," the duck said, standing up and walking for the door.

He opened it and found himself face to face with a sleek, black metallic drone that was rather bigger than him, armed with two long arms, and floating several inches above the doormat. "Citizen Drake Mallard," it said in a cold, raspy voice. "It has been brought to the attention of the Avian Way Community Department of Urban Maintenance, Division 1991 of Quackwerks Inc. Public Services, that you have urine all over your front mailbox. This is to be penalized with a fee of fifty-five dollars, unless you can provide us with a description of the guilty party that damaged your property."

Drake flinched, and for a moment his eyes rotated back towards Dogpool, who twiddled his fingers innocently. Then he just sighed. "No sir, I have no idea who did it. I'll happily pay my fee and remember to keep a better watch on my property in the future."

The robot nodded, produced a ticket from the horizontal slit that passed for its mouth, and handed it over to Drake. "Please remember to call your local Quackwerks Public Security station in the event of further damage to your home. We still remember the incident with Negaduck one year ago, sir..."

"So do I, believe me," the duck grimly said.

"By the way," the robot added, "we remind you unauthorized reunions of six people or more in private homes past twenty-two hundred hours are forbidden until further notice by the Sixth Amend of the Quackwerks Policy of Public Safety. To file a petition for an authorization, please deposit ten dollars in this unit," it said, a tiny red light flickering on another slit below the first one.

"Thank you, but they won't be here for much longer. They'll leave as soon as I give them some directions to a former friend's house."

"Understood," the robot said. "Have a good night then, Mr. Mallard. And remember, Quackwerks will always be watching you for your safety," it finished before swiftly flying away downstreet.

Drake shuddered as he closed the door back.

"... suddenly, I'm a lot more appreciative of Hakase and Chao's work," Yue said while Nodoka nodded and gulped.

"See what I told you? CREEPY!" Dogpool said. "Thanks for the save, Darkwing Dude. You're not as crappy a hero as I thought! I thought I was municipal pound meat for sure... or that gizmo was bullet-filled trash for sure. Whatever happened first!"

Drake sighed, supporting his back against the door, and slumping over. "Exactly what are you up to, anyway?"

"We are looking for ways to fight the darkness that is coming over the world. The worlds, actually. All of them," Mickey said, very seriously. "And I can feel some of that darkness in those very robots controlling your city. And... well, I can feel some sort of dark presence watching us from above, as well, but it's hardly the same thing, so..."

Drake gave a jaded glare up the living room's stairs. "Oh. That. Actually, that's just my daughter, spying on us. Gosalyn! Stop using dark magic! It's past your bedtime already!"

"You have a daughter?!" Rin gasped.

"What's so incredible about that?" Drake scowled.

"Well, you adopted, right?" Dogpool asked.

"What, how did you know..." Drake blinked.

"Just a hunch," Dogpool said, "since, not that there's anything wrong with it, but you're so obviously—"

"I'm not!" Drake growled, his face reddening.

"I was going to say 'heroically chaste'! Sheesh! Why is everyone so dirty-minded?!"

The Heartless were spreading across Mahora City now, and so both the police department and the unofficial defenders of the city were being forced to cope with the onslaught of darkness in their own ways. There was a lot of running around, screaming, big swords and general mayhem. Rukia was yelling at Ichigo that he hadn't warned her about this. Milky Holmes were being thrown around like pastel pinballs. Haruhi was in tears at not being able to check out the invasion, stuck in Kyon's house as part of a ridiculously elaborate charade to make him think it was all a perfectly normal unexpected storm. Homura-mama had broken out the illegal automatic weapons and was fighting her way to the dorms to "SAVE HER BABY!". Mitril was trying to extract Kyoko, who insisted she wasn't going anywhere without Kaname. And 3-F were all casually walking around using what was going on as examples in their latest bit of social commentary (which was 'licensing and regulation').

The rose embedded itself into the Heartless' forehead, thorny tip first. The black creature, vaguely shaped like a bipedal rabbit, paused for a moment, then tilted its head to the side and growled, as if actually questioning the nature of the attack.

So Tuxedo Kamen punted it off the rooftop's ledge and down to the street below.

"Okay, who's next?" he invited, gesturing with a gloved hand towards the small but incredibly numerous beings surrounding him from all sides. It was all quite refreshing really. He felt so useful!. Was this what the Senshi felt all the time?

The Heartless charged at him. Flashing a smirk, the masked young man swung around, using his cane to swat more Heartless down to the pavement, where they shattered into explosions of dark specks. At the same time, he kicked others away from him, although that barely kept them apart. He had been fighting them for nearly an hour now, all across the neighborhood, and it felt like he was barely making any actual progress. For each he destroyed, several more would take its place. He had to find the source of those creatures before—

"Dead Scream," someone whispered from the shadows of the night, and a wide range blast pulverized most of the Heartless facing Tuxedo Kamen, the others being quickly dealt with as a blond woman in a familiar sort of uniform landed before him, making short work of the monsters with the wider end of her long, metallic staff.

Tuxedo Kamen took a step back, cane still at the ready. "Why, good evening. So there's another one now, huh? Let me guess... Jupiter?"

"Pluto," Sailor Pluto said, cold and distantly, regaining her dignified pose. "Senshi of Time."

"Uh, does Pluto count?" he said. "Because according to the naming convention... well, Pluto isn–"

'"Pluto is still a planet, damn it!"'

"Oh," he said. "Well if you say so. I'm—"

"Tuxedo Kamen, I know. Venus has... repeatedly told me about you," she chose to say only part of the truth. She looked down at the city below, apparently the same as always save a few small fires starting across the Commercial District. "Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise," he said, also choosing to avoid noting how she didn't sound pleased at all. Not that he could blame her given the circumstances, but he had the impression she'd have acted the same under any other conditions. "Then, where are Venus and Mercury right now?"

"Right here, Tuxedo Kamen-sama!" Minako happily said, dropping along from another nearby tall building, with a subdued looking Akira landing right behind her, a clearly disturbed Artemis cradled in her arms. You almost could have seen a heart at the end of Minako's speech then, which made Akagi Ritsuko roll her eyes to herself. This would create a lot of problems by the time they finally found the Moon Princess. How would have Meioh dealt with that, she wondered? "So we meet again, isn't that nice?"

"Nice?!" Artemis yelled from Akira's arms. Sometime, the author might actually write the untold story of how he first spoke in presence of Tuxedo Kamen, but until then please just smile and nod. "Venus, there isn't anything 'nice' about any of this! This isn't a date night, you know!"

Venus sighed, her shoulders drooping. "Let's assume the best until we're sure what happens to the people these critters absorb, alright? In the meanwhile, what if we keep a positive attitude so, I don't know, DESPAIR AND STRESS DON'T CRUSH US HERE?!"

"... fair enough," Artemis raised his paws. "I suppose we don't want to start attracting Witches or 3-F on top of everything else..."

"Absorb?" Tuxedo Kamen wondered aloud.

Akira nodded. "We've seen what happens to people when these creatures get them. It was... disturbing, but... at least not bloody, I guess. They... produce something that envelops them, some sort of flowing darkness that swallows them down..."

"But for all we know, that only sends them to another dimension, like what happened with the Phantom Bus," Minako shrugged. "I'm choosing to believe they can be rescued unless otherwise proved!"

"The Dark Agency never tried anything on this scale, however," Akira rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Where to even start to—"

"It's not the Dark Agency's work," Pluto said grimly.

Minako blinked. "How are you so sure, Pluto-sama?"

"I just am," the woman said cryptically.

Minako stomped a foot down. "Oh, for the love of all—! Pluto-sama, could you stop being obtusely enigmatic at least once?! Seriously, if you and Artemis were just plain clear about things every once in a while, our freaking job would be that much easier!"

"I only know as much as I say! I have partial amnesia!" Artemis protested, with a paw on his chest. No one actually believed him. Even though he actually was saying the truth. It comes with being Artemis.

Ritsuko sighed. "I simply am not allowed to reveal things beyond what is strictly necessary at any given moment. Doing otherwise could alter the course of history in potentially disastrous ways." There was a beat. "Although it might be too late for that by now. Honestly, this job already came tainted when I took it..."

"What do you mean by that?" Akira asked.

"Nothing," Akagi took a deep inhale. "I honestly have no idea about the origins of these creatures anyway, so I only can assume they come from a temporal plane I hold no control over. But I can tell they don't come from the Dark Agency. Or else I would know about them."

"I love it when you girls start talking about these things around me as if I was supposed to have any idea what you mean at all," Tuxedo Kamen said.

Somewhere in the Underworld, Shiori sneezed.

"So you know everything about the Dark Agency and are choosing to leave us in the dark as we fight it?!" Minako exclaimed. "Is that honestly worth a vow of secrecy, Pluto-sama?! What if you get us killed?!"

Somewhere, Itoshiki sneezed.

Ritsuko turned an irritated glare to her. "I think we have gathered enough breath by now. Let's just move along, we're needed elsewhere."

Minako seethed for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. But don't even think this is the end of this—"

"Scatter!" Pluto commanded, and on instinct, Venus, Akira and Tuxedo Kamen all leapt back in opposite directions, right before a massive bolt from above struck the middle of the rooftop. The four of them then stood tensely, ready to attack, those who had weapons holding them firmly, until the smoke at the center of the rooftop finally dissipated in the cold air of the night.

Now a short girl also in a Sailor Senshi outfit rose from a crouching position amidst them, tossing her voluminous pink hair made into two thick side tails back, and then straightening her head and opening her large, round pink eyes. "So," she said, "I made it after all. Good, good!" She looked directly at Tuxedo Kamen and smiled very sweetly at him. "Good evening, Mamo-chan! Want to come with me to a whole new magical world?"

"What?!" Tuxedo Kamen gasped.

"Mamo-chan?" Minako repeated.

The girl shuddered, and then her aspect changed; now she was taller and more slender, slightly older, with long dark hair, and now wore a smaller copy of Sailor Neptune's uniform. "I don't have much time left," she flinched, putting a hand to her stomach. Ritsuko frowned, not recognizing the person at all. "Every future is crashing down together, and those who come from them are being... erased or rewritten. I only hope Lingshen is okay, or... we are all lost. If you find her, if you find her, please keep her safe, will you?" she stammered.

"Chao Linghsen?" Akira asked, stepping ahead. "What, what does she have to do with this?! And why are you—?!"

The girl changed again, this time to a girl around the same apparent height, build and age, but in a Senshi uniform that had a red skirt and high heel shoes instead of boots. She also wore glasses, and her blond hair was made into a long, thick tress on the right side of her head. Once again, Ritsuko gasped in strangled recognition. "Ah. Now this is better, way better," she said, adjusting her glasses on. "I should have more staying power." She looked even and coldly at all those around her. "I'm Sailor Mars," she said, in a vaguely Chisame-esque way that screamed 'tsundere'.

"Uhhhhh..." Minako said. "Pleased to meetcha?"

"Wish I could say the same," Mars snarked out the corner of her mouth. "Never mind Lingshen. She'll be okay, she always is, and we have no time to look for her. Pardon the cliché, but come with me if you want to live."

"Come with you?" Akira said.

Somewhere, Emiya Shirou sneezed and almost died again.

"Repeating what one just said is an even worse cliché, you know," Sailor Mars icily said. She looked all around and made as if feeling the air with a hand. "The displacement wave all around the arrival site should suffice to spread the effect as long as enough of it remains. Yeah, I guess I can take the jump with all of you, and if I can't, I always can try again..."

"What are you talking about?!" Minako yelled. "You're making no sense at all! Explain yourself!"

"See? That's how it feels," Tuxedo Kamen blandly said.

Somewhere in the Underworld, Shiori sneezed again.

Sailor Mars pulled a small dagger out of a pocket sewn into her skirt and looked grimly at it. "Prepare yourselves. The first time always feels really weird."

"What, are you going to take on us with that tiny thing?" Minako scowled. "And I thought Uranus and Neptune were crazy!"

Sailor Mars gave her a curious look. "Uranus and Neptune are already active? But how— Oh, never mind. Why should I be shocked things have gone as far off the track as that by now? You had one fucking job, Pluto."

Ritsuko walked closer. "Now wait just a moment, you can't possibly—"

"Oh yeah? Just look," Sailor Mars grunted, and then forcefully pushed the dagger's tip into her own throat.

Then the whole world went white before Akira's eyes.

Wonderland:

"So," Negi summed up, "I need to go to the next world from here, find Philoctetes, and ask him about my father."

"And King Mickey. Since, well, he is also a hero," Gadget reminded him, wiping cat drool out off her hair with the handkerchief Alice had given her.

"Did I say any of that?" the Cat asked, resting on its side and scratching himself on a very wide hip. "Well, if you say so. You could even find another Princess of Heart there! Or not. They don't grow on trees, these Princesses of Heart. Except when they do. Which is why the darkness is so eager to find them, eager enough to turn to me..."

It was then that Negi tensed up in alarm. "Wait an instant. You said you had been approached by... whoever represents this 'darkness', who I'm also assuming are controlling the Mad Hatter. But... you had rejected them, hadn't you?"

"I wouldn't make deals with anybody crazy enough to deal with me," the Cat mused, taking his head off and using it to roll around on it, spreading his arms to keep his balance, like a circus bear riding a ball. "But then again, I'll also give information away when I want to all the same, won't I? I mean, that's what I've been doing for you, and you didn't even offer me any deals! You wouldn't even let me have a snack you aren't even having yourselves, you selfish people you...!"

Skuld also understood now, and her eyes widened. "Oh you bastard... You know who this world's Princess is!"

The cat stopped and wagged his tail so it circled his body. He grinned madly at Skuld. "Undoubtedly!"

"And you told them!"

"I admit I might have given some clues..."

"Clues that you didn't give us!" Chamo cried.

"First come first serve, and they asked first," the cat said, "And besides, you're the ones being tested, not them. Heroes are the ones being proved through the villains, not the other way around! Even I know that, and I'm mad as a hatter!"

The Heartless began leaping out the bushes then. By the dozens. Alice let out a short yelp while Skuld and Negi groaned and readied her mallet and his staff.

The Cheshire Cat chuckled as all of him but his grin slowly disappeared in the air. "This is your first real test, son of a Hero. Think about it this way, if you don't pass it, why should you even be tested by Phil, hmmmm?"

Something gigantic appeared then, pushing trees apart and breaking through them. It was as tall as a house. It was shaped like a monstrous and feral rabbit of sorts, with gleaming narrow eyes and an elongated mouth full of crooked fangs.

It had Jervis Tetch sitting on its head, riding the abomination with a placid, spaced-out smile.

"What regrettably little heads you have from here," he mused aloud. "I would very much like to hat them!"

"Okay, young lady, if you aren't going to go back to your bedroom, then come down here right now and explain yourself…" Drake said, folding his arms and tapping a webbed foot.

A pair of large green eyes under a mop of bright red hair with two small side-tails peeked over the top step of the stairs. "Do you think it's safe?"

"Come to think of it, no, I don't think so," her father said. "On second thought, you'd better—"

"Coming up!" the duck child above cheerfully slid down the banister, pretty much surfing on it by sliding with her blue sneakers. Then she jumped off at the bottom of the stairs, spun in the air, and landed on her feet before the visitors, spreading her arms in triumph. "Good evening, weirdly awesome people!" There was a beat. "Wow, you even have your head on backwards! Cool beans!"

"Do I?" Dogpool asked, then twisted his costume's head back to its correct position. "Thanks for noticing! Since, you know, none of my alleged friends were telling me. I was growing worried I was losing my eyesight… again…"

"We aren't your friends," Kotaro murmured.

The male duck rasped uneasily. "People who are just about to leave, this is my daughter, Gosalyn Mallard. Gosalyn, they are… I don't think I've been given your names yet, actually…"

Nodoka beat everyone else to the punch. "It's a great pleasure, Gosalyn-chan! I'm Nodokat Nyanzaki, and these are Yue Myayase, Kotaro Inugami-kun, Rin Dogsaka-sempai, Mickey Mouse-sama, and Paul J. Dogpool-san!"

"Rin Dogsaka?!" Rin cried.

"… what kind of names are those?" Gosalyn asked. She was even shorter than Drake, and other than the sneakers, she only seemed to wear a long hockey team shirt with a huge '1' on the chest, leaving her feather-covered bottom pantsless.

"Couldn't we get into problems with Chris Hansen over this?" Dogpool asked, looking randomly aside.

"I have no idea, Gosalyn, they're friends of Launchpad's," her father placed his hands on her shoulders and shook his head. "And they were just about to visit him, so if you'll excuse us…" he began pushing her back towards the stairs not so discreetly.

"Did I hear them asking about Darkwing Duck? Because I could swear I heard them talking about Darkwing Duck," she said as she was not so subtly pushed.

"You can't swear! And don't be silly, why would they be talking about Darkwing Duck?" her father asked, a vein bulging on his head. "Who talks about Darkwing Duck anymore? Now be a good child and say goodbye to the nice ladies and gentlemen…"

"Goodbye, nice ladies and gentlemen!" Gosalyn waved as she was pushed all the way up the stairs, then into her bedroom. Drake closed the door, rested against it for a moment of sweating and seething, and then calmly headed downstairs. "Now, I have done my best to forget about Launchpad's new address, but I think I have written it down somew—WAUGH!"

Gosalyn now sat before the visitors, swinging her legs back and forth. "You'll have to excuse him, he's not much of a people person. Although he's nowhere as bad as he used to be, believe me…"

"That was a neat trick," Kotaro said, sincerely impressed. "How did you learn it?"

"Oh, I learned it from Darkwing Duck! He and Launchpad used to be really close. It's a shame they had to be dumb enough to—"

"Gosalyn!" her father said.

"Dad, go for some snacks for these guys, will you?" she casually asked him. "Night's still young, I'm sure the 'bots won't be knocking for another hour or so…"

"But they were just leaving!" Drake repeated.

"I'm in no real hurry, to be frank," Dogpool said, legs crossed and arms slung over the couch's back. "And the kid's right, you're the worst host ever. Not even offering us dog snacks? For shame! What kind of cheapskate hero and protector of the defenseless are you?"

"I'm no hero; I'm just a completely average Developments employee! And I have no business with any sort of ragtag misfits looking for Darkwing Duck, or Darkwing Duck's sidekick, or Darkwing Duck's foes, none at all!" He searched all around the place, eventually pulled a small notebook from under the bust of a certain Great Mouse Detective, wrote something on a sheet at full speed, ripped the sheet off, and slammed it into Rin's hands. "There's your address! Now please leave this perfectly normal, law-abiding home and stop trying to pull our perfectly normal-law abiding lives into chaos!"

"… very well, if you say so," Yue nodded. "Thanks for your cooperation anyway, we promise we won't ever tell anyone you were Darkwing Duck…"

"I wasn't!"

"You know, man, or duck, I actually have some experience with this whole superhero business," Dogpool patiently began. "I mean, I'm no superhero myself, despite having had more magazines than most heroes (I'm still waiting for Savage Sword of Dogpool, anyway), but I've spent long enough around heroes to know they never can retire for long, and if they do, they just come back in prestige format miniseries written by Frank Miller to clean the old town up and beat up on the whores whores whores infesting the—"

A second later, the whole lot of the visitors were sitting on the front sidewalk. "Wow, he's almost as good as the kid," Kotaro marveled.

"Now, let's not exaggerate," Mickey replied.

Rin was busy drawing Command Seals on the back of her hand with a red marker. "Maybe I can still force him to come along! There must be some residual link between us yet…!"

"Master Clow never warned me there would be days like this…" Kero said.

"Well," Mickey sighed, rising and dusting himself off while looking at the piece of paper, "we got Mr. Mc Quack's address, so it wasn't a complete bust. Let's move before dawn dispels Miss Nodoka's disguises…"

"So it wasn't his real head what got twisted backwards, huh?" a voice asked. "I could tell, but I still held on to some hope. Bummer! It'd have been real neat otherwise!"

They all looked back to see Gosalyn Mallard standing on the sidewalk, just a few steps away. "Yo," she waved a hand up. "It's been a while!"

"Did your father have a change a heart?" Rin asked, sounding oddly hopeful.

"Yeah, he changed his heart to send me to my room and lock the door instead of… just sending me to my room," the duck girl shrugged. "So I went out the window. But he had locked it too. So I had to pick it open," she said this briefly toying with a Swiss army knife, "And now I'm here. Nifty, huh? Life with Dad is a constant battle of wits."

"I'm sure he just wants you out of harm's way," Mickey said. "And I'm afraid we didn't leave a very good first impression."

"You kidding, right?" she asked. "I can tell you're a really swell bunch! Wanna me to get you over to Launchpad's? I can put in a word for you, and I really have missed 'im a lot since… well, that doesn't matter now, but I might just tell you if you—"

"Thanks, but no," Mickey said. "We're going to do things that could be very dangerous, and we aren't gonna betray your father's loving designs on you that way."

"Aw, c'mon!" Gosalyn said. "I promise I'll only go with you to Launchpad's and then get back before Dad even learns I'm out!"

"Still too dangerous for children," Mickey insisted.

"They're hardly any older than me!" she pointed at Nodokat and Yue.

"Actually, we only happen to be somewhat curvedly challenged," Yue offered.

"Proud of it, however," Nodokat felt like adding.

"So you want me to be a good girl, then," Gosalyn said.

"Exactly!" Mickey smiled and nodded.

"Good girls should always obey the rules and make their fathers proud," Rin solemnly said, gazing up at the sky, where Tokiomi's face was smiling down at her between the stars. Which was strange, considering it was Tohsaka Tokiomi and he was smiling. Then he waved at Rin and went away to join Mufasa's face in the clouds. Rin blinked in confusion.

"Okay then. Glad we settled that." Gosalyn pulled a cellphone out and began tapping out a number.

"Hmmmm… who are you calling now?" Rin asked.

"Why, the local Quackwerks Department of Public Security, of course," Gosalyn absently answered, not even deigning to turn her gaze. "They taught us at private school, all good young citizens are to call Quackwerks in the event we run into cool weirdos talking weird crap about row row, fighting the power. You have all your papers ready and up to date, don'tcha?"

A smile curved itself under Dogpool's mask. "I really like this girl a lot!"

Mickey sighed. "And then they ask me why Minnie an' me haven't had any children yet!"

"So it's not because you're secretly brother and sister?"

Ala Alba's Disney Masterpiece Theater!

Typical Disney Forest Detritus.

Kakizaki Misa was not used to washing her own clothes. Back home, her mother, and later the family's single maid after Daddy hit it big time, had always done it for her. During her stay at Mahora, Madoka could always been either tricked or outright bribed to do it for her (yet another advantage of belonging to a higher status level than Mado-chi's). Now, stranded in an alien world with only her comrades at her side, things had changed, and when one pulled the shortest stick in the lottery, which would naturally NEVER happen to Sakurako, noooooo, then Iinchou, Chisame and the Vice-President made damn sure one washed, not only one's own clothes, but those of the rest of the girls as well, for the day. Supposedly the others had the equally important and necessary job of keeping watch so she didn't get eaten by Heartless, but she didn't see why they couldn't do that and wash their own suspiciously-stained underwear themselves.

And if there was something Misa had never wanted to touch, much less rub over and over, that had been Haruna's underwear, no doubt. The girl wasn't on her list. She used to be, but repeated exposure had kept lowering her ranking until she'd ended up in the 'might kick out of bed depending on what she'd done recently, but wouldn't be inclined to keep any souvenirs' percentile.

Somewhere else, Cinderella sneezed, then rubbed her nose and kept on working under her stepmother and sisters' stern watch. It was a little known fact that they were around her all the time because, quite frankly, there was nothing to do around the house during the day except watch either Cinderella or drying paint, and since they'd run out of paint and it was still daylight...

To make things worse, since the damn nearly-ghost town had such a terrible plumbing system, one had to wash the damn things outside, by a small river that ran between the outskirts of the town and the woods. It was enough to make Misa take solace in the only pleasure that remained available for her now. Well, the only one she could partake of in the open, anyway. All right, she'd do that in the open too, but only if she was really bored...

Taking a brief pause in her forcefully imposed activity, she opened her arms and began singing, beautifully as ever, a typical 'I Want' expression of her dreaming, repressed, eager-to-be-free soul...

A few moments later, Ayaka, who had approached Misa both to make sure she was okay and to make sure she wasn't slacking, walked in on her to see her, much to Ayaka's shock, blanketed by animals; birds posed all over her shoulders and head chirping happily; squirrels, chipmunks and bunnies tightly pressed against her from all sides, some going at it like, well, squirrels, chipmunks and bunnies; butterflies stuck to her body everywhere, and even a pair of turtles napped at her feet.

Misa's face twitched twice. "I hate fantasy worlds," she decided.

Ayaka just stared as the brown bear cub that had just arrived started rubbing itself against Misa's smooth legs. "Perhaps we should leave this to Karakuri-san before its mother arrives."

Ala Alba's Square Masterpiece Theater!

Contractually Obliged to Fanservice.

"Aerith-san," Sakurako said, peeking out the living room's back door, "the bath's ready, won't you come in?"

Aerith looked up from the daily report she had been writing. Not from her diary, mind. Her daily report, for the day she returned to her world with a story to tell the oncoming generations! Yes. That.

"Oh, so you're already done?" she asked back.

"Ah? No, we're bathing all together. Since, you know..."

"Oh, right, we're saving water, of course," Aerith said, standing up and taking her jacket off. Traverse Town's plumbing system and water reserves, after all, left a lot to be desired, easy as that had been to forget while they weren't living with over twenty newcomers from another world.

"Yeah, that, and supplying mass fanservice scenes," Sakurako nodded.

Aerith blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"It's been ten chapters now, and none of us has gotten naked yet," Sakurako replied, shrugging. "What can we do?"

Aerith stared widely at her, then her eyes warily drifted towards the fanfic's audience. Her gaze remained there for several moments, as her face tightened, and then she relented with a sigh. "Okay, sorry I asked the question I never asked in regard to the explanation you never gave."

Sakurako nodded. "You're very understanding. What can I say? It's a living. Things have dried up for us very badly since 2012." And then she shook a fist to the skies, well, the ceiling anyway, and cursed, "UQ HOLLLLDERRRRRRRR!-!-!-!-!"

Somewhere else, Sailor Mars sneezed.

"Perhaps," Aerith said, an eyebrow almost twitching as she sat naked in the open-air tub of the hideout, between a softly chuckling Haruna and awkward looking Ai, "we should have thought this through. Aren't we too tight in here? This bath wasn't made for that many..."

"It's tighter than it was back at home, but this is nice too!" Haruna happily said.

"— that isn't your hand on my ass, is it?"

Sora, who was sitting gloomily at Haruna's other side, suddenly tensed up. "Wait, I thought both of hers were on mine!"

"They were!" Haruna protested. "I never touch on the first date! Not that low, anyway."

"— I'm sorry," Ai miserably said.

The other girls all stared in shock at her.

Ai began whimpering. "I just wanted some screentime! Sorry for being desperate enough as to resort to such shameless and blatant fan pandering tactics for a mention! But, but I'm afraid I'll stop existing if I spend too long without being mentioned by the narration! It happened to my classmate Usui-kun, you know!"

"... who?" Matoi asked.

"..." Aerith said. And then, "Okay, I'm not mad at you... J-Just never do it again, right?"

"R-Really?! That, that's so nice from you, Gainsburroughs-san!"

"Gainsborough," Haruka corrected from the other end of the crowded pool, completely oblivious to the dirty looks Makie was giving her breasts.

"Vice Prez, please," Yuuna grunted, "Aerith-san's name is—"

"Um, actually, she got the name right..." Aerith said.

Everyone but Haruka and Aerith gained sudden expressions of utter terror and then began screaming in panic.

Aerith gave Haruka an aghast questioning look, and then the Vice President of the Mahora Student Council simply shrugged and made a circling gesture to the side of her own head.

"My God," Aerith deflated, "perhaps Tifa got off easier when she was stabbed through...!"

To be Continued.