Kairi stared wistfully up at the starry sky as her mind drifted to Sora and Riku. She knew her friends were more than capable of helping themselves out there, but that didn't stop her from missing them while they were away. Traverse Town's sky had an open view of the Etherium, with the myriad of other worlds manifesting as stars in the sky. It was truly beautiful and humbling to think about what a wide universe was out there.

"Hello kupo!" a tiny voice said from beside her.

Kairi looked down and smiled at the Moogle standing there. "Hello Monty. How are you today?"

"Doing well, kupo," Monty replied. "We got the requisition filled for extra tents and sleeping bags for the refugees. Should take care of everybody until we can finish refurbishing the apartments in the Fifth District."

"That's wonderful," Kairi said with a smile. "You and the other Moogles have been such a big help. We couldn't have done it without you guys!"

When the heroes sailed into the mists of Avalon, they were sent across worlds to Traverse Town. With the immense effusion of darkness that came from the Book of Prophecies, many had been forced to flee their home worlds. When the heroes arrived, they found a town flooded refugees in desperate need of help. The heroes' work over the past month had gone a long way for making Traverse Town into haven for the weary travelers.

Kairi heard the doors of the town's exterior wall open. Her heart soared when she saw Sora, Riku, Donald, Goofy, Thor, and Ghost Rider walk through them. They'd made it back alright! Kairi rushed over and hugged everyone. At Kairi's urging, Sora and Riku joined her at a table on the patio of the First District café whilst the other four dispersed to reunite with their other friends. The two boys recounted their adventures in Agrabah in full detail. Kairi loved hearing about the heroics that they'd gotten up to. It made her proud of all the good they were doing for the worlds.

"And then we fought this HUGE Heartless in front of the palace!" Sora said as he reached the end of his story. "It's arms were actually on fire!"

"Yeah, don't remind me," Riku said as his hand instinctively went to the back of his long hair.

Kairi noticed that the tips of Riku's locks had been burned and taken on a brownish-black hue.

"You should go see the Fairy Godmother about your hair," Kairi suggestion. "She's gotten the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique up and running while you guys were gone. She'll fix that up for you."

"Good thinking," Riku nodded. "I'll head over there once we're done here."

"SO we defeated the Heartless," Sora continued, "and then we rushed into the palace to face Mirage, but she was gone! At first we thought it was some kind of trick, but she actually abandoned Agrabah after we defeated her Heartless. So we turned Aladdin and the gang back to normal and helped them get things fixed up."

"Genie did most of the work there," Riku interjected.

"Hey! I helped move some barrels!" Sora insisted.

"You mean you napped on a barrel," Riku teased as he nudged his boyfriend

Kairi giggled at that. The more things had changed, the more they'd stayed the same. Even with all of the villains and Heartless throughout the worlds, these little moments in between where they laughed and hung out like back on the island made it all worth it. Kairi hoped they could always be like this.

After finishing sharing their stories over coffee, Sora, Riku, and Kairi made their way to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in the Second District. Two little girls, presumably sisters danced out of the shop wearing princess dresses with their hair freshly curled and styled. They were practically giddy with excitement. It warmed Kairi's heart to see the kids smiling again. Life had been especially hard for the citizens of Traverse Town lately. Kairi was glad that they could help provide some joy to them in whatever form that took.

"Have a good day, girls!" the Fairy Godmother said as she waved good-bye. "Oh, such little darlings."

"Fairy Godmother!" Sora proclaimed with a big grin plastered on his face as he ran up to give the old fairy a hug.

"Sora!" she replied as she embraced her young friend. "Oh it's been too long! My, my! Look how much you've grown! It seems like just yesterday you were only this tall!"

The Fairy Godmother extended her hand outward at about the level of Sora's shoulder.

"Umm, hi," Riku said with an awkward wave.

Riku wasn't really sure how he should feel around the Fairy Godmother. After all, he had helped Maleficent hold Cinderella hostage years ago. The old woman didn't seem to hold any grudges, but he couldn't help but find himself a little on edge when faced with his past mistakes.

"And so good to see you too, Riku!" the Fairy Godmother said warmly. "Oh! Oh my!"

The Fairy Godmother walked up to Riku and started to examine his hair.

"Goodness gracious!" she said. "What's happened here?"

"A... uh... Heartless fire," Riku answered. "I was hoping you could fix it like it used to be."

"Well, I could repair the damage with magic," the Fairy Godmother said. "But the changes wouldn't be permanent. At the stroke of midnight, everything would go back to the way it was before. No, I'm afraid we'll have to cut it off. Quite a bit too."

Riku grimaced. He'd had long hair for as long as he could remember. This was going to be uncharted territory. But Riku just had to remind himself that change was a good thing.

"Okay, I trust you," Riku said.

"Wonderful!" the Fairy Godmother said as she escorted him to the barber chair in front of a bright pink vanity. "Have a seat please. Now then... oh dear... where did I put that wand?"

The Fairy Godmother fumbled around in her robe's pockets and the drawers of her vanity. Sora finally spotted it on the floor under the front counter.

"Oh thank you, dear," the Fairy Godmother said as Sora handed it back to her. "I swear, I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached. Now then, Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo!"

With a twinkle of magic, the scissors, clippers, comb, and bottle of hairy spray sitting on the vanity began to float around Riku's head and immediately went to work. Riku was antsy the entire time with so many strange objects flying around his head. He couldn't relax for the entire fifteen minutes that it took. Sora and Kairi, while they waited, preoccupied themselves taking funny pictures with animal ear filters on Sora's GummiPhone.

"All right then," the Fairy Godmother said as she magically put away her hair care products. "You're all set, my dear."

Riku looked at himself in the mirror and gasped. At first he didn't even recognize himself. The Fairy Godmother had given him an undercut that was very short on the sides with longer hair up top that still wasn't anywhere close to being as long as his old hair. It was different, but the more that Riku looked at it, the more he liked it. Her found himself looking at his eyes a lot more now, as if the change in his chair had made them more vibrant as a result.

"WHOA!" Sora said as he looked him over. "Wow, Riku, you look amazing!"

"Very handsome!" Kairi agreed.

"Thank you, Fairy Godmother," Riku said with a smile. "Uh... what do I owe you?"

"Oh pish-posh!" she said with a wave of her hand. "I don't need your munny. Save it up for when you travel to other worlds."

Sora had already started rubbing his hand over the short and soft hair on the side of Riku's head.

"Well we should probably get going," Riku said. "Thank you again so much!"

"Oh! Before I forget!" the Fairy Godmother interjected.

She waved her wand and a card appeared by magic in Sora's hand.

"Huh?" he asked as he started to read it.

"It's an invitation for you and all of your friends," the Fairy Godmother said. "There's going to be a party at Cinderella's castle, and she wanted me to invite you all to attend!"

"A party!" Sora exclaimed. "Alright!"

"A party at Cinderella's castle?" Kairi asked. "Fairy Godmother, I'm going to need my hair done before I can go. I'll need a new dress too."

"You guys can go ahead," Riku said. "I don't think I'll go. She probably doesn't really want me there anyway."

"Riku, come on!" Sora urged. "It'll be fun!"

"Sora, look, I helped Maleficent keep Cinderella and the other princesses locked up in Hollow Bastion," Riku explained, his tone suddenly dead serious. "I don't deserve to take advantage of her hospitality after everything I did."

"Now none of that!" the Fairy Godmother chimed in. "You stop that right now! You were as much a prisoner in that horrible castle as Cinderella was. Oh Maleficent might've made you think you wanted to do the things you did, but she was using you and hurting you just in a different way. That's the type of person she is. Maleficent herself was the only one whose fault it was for kidnapping Cinderella."

Riku thought about it for a minute. He'd always carried the burden of his guilt with him. He was the bad guy who had to make things right for all of the horrible things he did. Even having the love of his friends and the respect of a Keyblade master hadn't erased that guilt. He was afraid to give up that guilt because that guilt had helped him change to be better. But now that he had changed, was that guilt even still worth it?

"Listen to me now," the Fairy Godmother said as she placed a comforting arm on Riku's shoulder. "You are forgiven. It's time to set yourself free from the past. You are loved and worthy of love. Never forget that."

Sora and Kairi nodded and smiled to show that they agreed. Riku felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Weirdly enough, his mind drifted back to his hair. He'd used his long hair to hide his eyes and face from the outside world, and he carried around the weight and length of choices past. Now, he'd cut it off and set himself free. Free of guilt. Free of the past. It was a new day now, a new lighter day.

The Goblins carted Steve and Daken back to an industrial factory with the word "Oscorp" written on the façade in big bold lettering. After they landed their gliders in the hanger, the Goblins unhooked Steve and Daken from them but kept their arms bound. Steve and Daken both struggled to get free, but the titanium bonds were made too well and the Goblins' were too strong. They were forced into a large office space deeper in the building where two men were already there conversing with one another.

One of the men was a fairly normal looking guy, heavyset and bald and sporting a white suit. Daken recognized him quite well from his counterpart back on his home world: Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. The other man, by contrast, was inhuman in appearance, sporting mutated fleshed that was an eerie gray color, pins protruding from his shoulders, and yellow lenses covering his eyes. While Daken was fairly sure he'd seen someone similar looking in the papers back home, he couldn't place him.

"We need to be careful, Smythe," the Kingpin warned his companion. "Our very survival is now in-"

"We're baaaaaack," the Hobgoblin announced in a sing-song voice. "Did you two miss us?"

Kingpin sneered at the question. "What is the meaning of this? You two said you'd picked up interdimensional readings from the city, yet you return with nothing but a pair of civilians. Have you two not brutalized enough?"

"Is that a conscience coming from the mighty Kingpin?" the Green Goblin asked. "As a matter of fact, these two are the source of the readings we picked up. They know where Spider-Carnage went! Yet they refuse to tell us."

"Is that so?" Kingpin bellowed. "You two had better speak up quickly. The consequences will be most unpleasant if you don't!"

"For the fuckin' hundredth time," Steve said, "we don't know anything about Spider-Carnage. We got sent to this world by mistake."

"Are you absolutely certain these two know anything at all?" Smythe asked.

"Spider-Carnage vanished into a time dilation portal just before the explosion of Crime Central," Hobgoblin said. "These two showed up just two days after. Coincidence? I think not!"

"Correlation is not necessarily causation," Smythe argued.

Kingpin held up a hand to silence Smythe. "Perhaps a few days locked in the cellblock without food or water will loosen their tongues."

"An excellent idea, Kingpin," the Green Goblin agreed. "Come, Hobgoblin, let's escort our guests to their new rooms."

"Move it!" Hobgoblin said, giving Steve a shove.

Steve gritted his teeth and resigned to kill Hobgoblin later if it was at all possible. After the Goblins escorted the two Overtakers out of the room, Smythe turned his attention back to Kingpin.

"Why are you indulging this nonsense?" Smythe asked. "Spider-Carnage is likely gone forever, and the chances of those two having encountered him are slim. The Goblins are insane and looking for any excuse to torture and shed blood."

"Exactly," Kingpin replied. "And if they are preoccupied with the strange visitors, that removes the eye of scrutiny from my actions. With them distracted, you and I can plot their destruction and finally start putting my city back together."

"I did warn you not to trust them or Spider-Carnage," Smythe reminded him. "We wouldn't be in the mess if you'd simply listened to me."

"If I listened to you every time you told me not to forge an alliance, I'd never have any allies!" Kingpin replied.

Smythe smirked. "And because of that, you'd probably be more successful."

The Goblins threw Steve and Daken into a cell together and took off cackling, vowing to return in time to torture the prisoners. Once the Goblins had left, presumably to go terrorize someone else, Steve attempted to summon the fairy light to his hands to unlock the iron door. However, the light simply sputtered out when Steve tried to summon it, and when Steve tried again, he couldn't muster so much as a glow. He could feel his vampiric strength fading as well. It was becoming rapidly apparent that reversing the Dragon Tooth spell had also nullified many of his vampiric abilities. Steve turned his glare onto Daken.

"Don't think for one second that I believe you didn't try to kill me," Steve said. "You either wanted me dead or wanted to get me paranoid enough to use the tooth. I don't know which one, but it's your fault we're in this fucking mess."

"My fault, huh?" Daken sneered. "Let's just conveniently ignore the fact that if it weren't for me, you'd be right in this same spot alone as a giant bat monster with no control of his faculties. Perspective. And are you of all people are really going to blame me for conspiring for power? That's a fucking riot, you hypocritical little bitch."

"I'm actually lookin' out for the good of the Overtakers as a whole!" Steve insisted. "You're just out for yourself!"

"Oh how noble of you," Daken scoffed. "I am so sorry, Mother Theresa. Your selfless sacrifice is truly beyond words."

"I never claimed that I didn't like power," Steve replied. "I wouldn't be on the Overtakers if that wasn't true. But I at least am looking out for the collective good of our team so that we can all get some power, including you, Daken."

"Right, because white people always just love to share their power, don't they?" Daken said. "And I'm just the uppity Asian kid for trying to fight for my seat at the table."

Steve groaned. "Why do you people always have to play the race card? This isn't about race!"

"Do you fucking hear yourself?" Daken replied with a harsh laugh that clearly wasn't born of any amusement. "Race card? You people? You know what, that's exactly my problem with you. You're just another entitled pretty white boy who thinks because he became a vampire and came out as gay that he suddenly understands what it's like to have the entire world against you. Well, guess-fucking-what? You were the world, and you, specifically you with your hate-group church, are the reason anyone who wasn't a straight white human had every ounce of power stripped away from them."

Steve was silent for a minute after that and didn't try to say anything else. He knew quite well that he used to be a right-wing hatemonger and an all around dick, but he'd always figured that those days were behind him completely and he didn't have to worry about it any more. But maybe the past for him wasn't as buried as he thought.

"You're right," Steve nodded. "I was that person, and I guess I still am even though I don't wanna be. My father raised me and beat into me and brainwashed me into seein' the world a certain way. And I've tried to put as much of him behind me as I could, but... I guess I've still got a lot of nasty habits to unlearn. And I'm not tryin' to make excuses or whatnot, but can't you understand what it's like to be groomed and abused to think and be a certain way?"

Daken thought back to a little boy left old in the snow with no clothes, to being forced to kill and kill and kill, to the rigorous "training" and experimentation Romulus put him through. He'd been molded to be one way and one way only.

"Yes, I can," Daken said softly.

"You too?" Steve asked.

"Yes," Daken nodded.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"No."

Steve sighed, leaned up against the cell wall and slid to the floor. "Well, either way, we're stuck now. Now we're gonna get nothing."

"Nothing," Daken repeated with sigh. "That word has defined my whole life. I've been a killer, a pawn, a 'good' guy, a 'bad' guy. This whole mortal coil has taught me that beyond absolute power, everything else is nothing."

Daken sat down next to Steve, and Steve gave his ally a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

"I used to feel like that before I met Russell," Steve said. "He showed me that there was a whole wide world of stuff that I was missin'. Maybe... maybe you just need a Russell."

"I've never exactly been one for meaningful relationship bullshit," Daken said.

"Never too late to give it a try," Steve said with a shrug. "Well, I mean, I guess it kinda is too late now. Our survival is lookin' pretty... Wait. I just remembered hearing Kingpin saying that he and Smythe were in a similar position. What if they're just as much a prisoner of the Goblins as we are?"

"Hmm," Daken pondered this for a moment. "The Kingpin of my world was a builder of empires, not a destroyer of cities. If this guy's anything like the Kingpin who I'm familiar with, and I believe that he is, he probably hates this random destruction. That Smythe guy seemed the same. Think we can sway them?"

"We have to try," Steve said. "They might be our only chance. But they're not gonna stick their necks out for us without incentive."

"That part's not hard," Daken said. "My pheromones can get us half-way there, and consider this: Kingpin ran New York City's underworld in full daylight with no one able to touch him. The man's got a talent for controlling cities, and we just so happen to have a city that's not in ruins to offer him."

"Good idea! That might actually seriously help me too," Steve admitted.

"Unfortunately, the immediate problem still remains," Daken said, gesturing to the locked iron door.

The sound of a guard pacing outside of their cell quickly changed both of their demeanors. Daken smirked, and Steve could smell the pheromones reeking off of him. They had their exit strategy.

As the Jolly Roger entered the Overtaken Kingdom's atmosphere, Cruella noticed Imperious lurking at the stern. At first she thought the sorcerer was simply fanning himself as he admired the view, but upon closer inspection, she realized that he was firing a blast of dark magic into the Etherium. The dark energy seemed to form an orb of darkness that just hung floating in the air where it landed. Cruella's eyesight wasn't what it used to be, but she thought she could also make out another dark orb a ways out from the last, almost as if he was leaving a trail of bread crumbs.

Cruella was about to go confront Imperious about whatever it was he was doing, but all thoughts of Imperious were quickly put out of mind when the Eminence Palace came into view and the Crystal of Ix containing Amuk Moonrah was hoisted onto the deck. The horrible ancient evil was even uglier up close. Even Cruella had no interest in making a fur coat out of Amuk's hideous mane (maybe a stole, though).

"You sure about this?" Russell asked.

"I am certain this is an option we must try," Maleficent answered.

"Now remember," Loki announced to the group. "When Amuk gets free, he's going to be absolutely furious, especially at me. He will destroy anyone in his path. Once he's out, warp through a Corridor of Darkness to a safe vantage point if you wish to live."

Everyone nodded in agreement and prepared to depart.

"IXTABOR!" Loki chanted.

Green light flashed, Corridors of Darkness flew, and a terrible roar echoed throughout the Overtaken Kingdom.

Amuk Moonrah was free again.