Taking Back the Crown

by JCMorrigan

Mozenrath. Archibald Snatcher. Roman Torchwick. Mad Madam Mim. Yzma. The Huntsman. Wuya. Ayam Aghoul. Their mission: take over the multiverse, or look fabulous trying. Rated M for swearing, steamy implications and VERY bloody battles. Contains slash and het shipping.

143. The North Wind and the Sun

A/N: We all know that Final Fantasy characters in KH are divorced from their home setting to populate KH-original worlds. What you should know is that in this universe, KH worlds aren't the only place they can show up in AU versions.

...

The WHAM ARMY descended into the Vault after the Overtakers. The Cinnamons deliberated, then went running after the rogue robot. Kairi spirited Kazuichi's ice capsule away from the Grand Hall. Vernal and Drakken came up from the elevator, bolting across the hall. Then, finally, Arthur Watts crossed as lazily as you please, as though he had all the time in the world.

The footage stopped there.

"And that's all we know on the Haven front," Clover Ebi said to his teammates. He stood before the great screen that projected the Haven security footage; the other Ace-Ops – Vine Zeki, Elm Ederne, Harriet Bree, Marrow Amin – sat in a straight line in the chairs set out before their leader. "As you can see…more than one interesting thing here."

"Weren't those lowlifes from Vale?" Marrow brought up. "What were their names…Romeo something, and I think the other one was Melanie…"

Harriet gritted her teeth. "TYRIAN CALLOWS shows up on Haven security footage, and you're focused on the Vale criminal underworld?"

"I'm more concerned about how a dead Atlesian researcher can come back to life," Vine stated.

Elm sighed, shaking her head. "It obviously wasn't who you think it was. The footage was taken at a distance. There's more than one man in the world who dresses in suits and has a black mustache."

Clover nodded. "General Ironwood noted a resemblance, but wrote it off immediately for that very reason. Though I'll say at first, he really did look like he'd seen a ghost. Acted strange for the rest of the time after."

"Is that why he's not here?" Marrow asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Clover said. "He just said this was best left to our team, and he trusted me with this operation. At any rate, knowing what we know now, there are two rival teams of criminals as well as an apparent band of vigilante would-be Huntsmen after the Vault in Atlas Academy." He clicked a remote at the screen, changing it to several stills. "Here's who I could identify after poring over the footage. Ruling out Arthur Watts, of course."

Several mugshots: Roman Torchwick, Miltia Malachite, Raven Branwen, and "?" with the tri-colored hair and heterochromia. An official military photo of Qrow Branwen. School ID images for Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, and Lie Ren.

"THE Qrow Branwen is going against the law itself to chase our enemies," Elm remarked.

Clover laughed; "Honestly, I'm not surprised. I'd always heard great things about the man. Here he's proving the rumors true. I'm sure he's attempting to work for the greater good, but all the same, we need to get him operating under a license and surveillance. Especially if he attempts to breach the blockade. Speaking of." He turned back to the others. "What did we pick up on recon?"

"The north-northeast quadrant had their cams go out shortly before the Haven skirmish began," Elm related. "There's evidence that an unidentified ship may have slipped through the Atlesian border."

"By which we do mean unidentified," Vine clarified. "There were no unidentified or unauthorized persons in customs for the investigated time period, and that includes with a two-hour window for margin of error. If someone did make it in, they skirted that gate in entirety."

"And left no trace in the city," Harriet added. "For all we know, no one's here that shouldn't be. Unless they're hiding in a corner of Mantle."

"I think maybe we should focus on what we still don't know from the Haven footage," Marrow pointed out. "There are still a lot of people we haven't been able to identify. That should take precedence."

"Oh, really? Is that so?" This voice came from the person just entering the room: the sixth member of the Ace-Ops. "Then by all means, let us turn all our attention to comparing censuses while the infiltrators destroy us from the inside out. And as for your speculation that they may potentially be 'hiding in a corner of Mantle,' it's already become quite clear that's exactly what they're doing."

Clover sighed as the man strode into the room to take his seat beside Elm, the same smug smirk that always graced his face in full bloom. His golden eyes twinkling. The tails of his coat – a uniform alteration he had insisted upon – billowing as he lowered himself.

"All right," Clover groaned. "What did you find, Solus?"

Solus zos Galvus never dropped his smirk. "Testimony that the establishment 'Hole in the Wall' was visited by unknown persons and subsequently vandalized. I've enough evidence to say for certain that the blockade WAS breached, that the breach IS connected to one or more of our persons of interest, and Atlas Academy IS NO LONGER a stronghold against this threat if we choose not to reinforce it."

"And you couldn't have communicated this to us the moment you found it out?" Harriet seethed. "You waited to show up LATE to the briefing and drop it on us?"

"Was I supposed to be the only operative who discovered anything of actual use?" Solus retorted. "Surely my tardiness would've been mitigated by intelligent contributions from the rest of you. Yet apparently it was not so."

Clover let out another soft sigh. "All right. We get the picture. We need to reinforce the Academy."

"Brilliant deduction!" Solus said snidely. "It only took an hour of reconnaissance to come to that conclusion even though the intelligence we received made it crystal-clear that the target of our foes is the Huntsman Academies."

"We couldn't afford to spread resources thin if we guessed incorrectly," Vine spat.

"Then guess correctly the first time," Solus retorted, "and we won't have any oversights."

Harriet growled, leaping to her feet. Marrow immediately shoved her back down into her chair before she could start a scene.

"Thank you for your contribution, Solus," Clover said. "While it seems clear the action we need to take, the puzzle is still missing several pieces. I propose that five of us put all energy into defending Atlas and the sixth keep an eye and an ear open in the city."

"Doubtless you are all looking for an excuse to be rid of me," Solus stated. "Conversely, I am the only one I believe qualified for such a singular task. The solution should be obvious."

"Fine, Solus," Clover said. "You stay on recon, and Hare won't end up on trial for assault."

"A fair exchange, by my measure," Solus said.

"The rest of you," Clover commanded, "take vantage points around the Academy. We're going to be calling in the bulk of the reserves. I want Paladins posted. And if anything should go wrong, I want us all to be ready in wait. Remember that we pledged to give our lives for Atlas if necessary.

Several solemn nods, from Marrow, Harriet, Vine, and Elm. One short, brisk nod from Solus, who was still smiling. That smile didn't seem to hold a pledge of agreement, Clover thought; he wondered what Solus was really thinking about. But that question really would have been a waste of resources to answer.

"Check in every hour on the hour," Clover went on. "If we need to go every half, I'll give the word. And…I'll try to get in touch with the general again. See if he's ready to cooperate."

"Oh, do give him this message for me if you see him." Solus flicked his hand, producing an envelope held between two fingers. "This was confiscated on its way in via express delivery. Seemingly not dangerous, after a light inspection, but who knows what nefarious devices may lay in the ink? After all, words are a far more threatening medium of attack than any hidden weaponry."

Clover took the envelope, unfolding it. Inside, a small scrap of paper. He read its contents out loud: "James, I'm coming whether you like it or not. Qrow." Despite himself, he grinned. "You know, I'm starting to like this man's moxie more and more." The letter was quickly pocketed. "Now, no more diversions. Let's go."

...

Ven and Papyrus threw the door of the Hot Kettle open so violently, the bell that it chimed was just about ripped off its fixture. They barreled inside to see Holt sitting at his usual place at the counter, with Jenna tapping the buttons of a calculator beside the register.

"HOLT AND JENNA!" Papyrus cried. "IT IS URGENT! WE NEED YOUR HELP RIGHT NOW!"

"Right now?" Holt scoffed. "Whaddaya want right now? Sun's about to set."

"We can't waste any more time," Ven insisted. "We need to get to the site of a shipwreck, and our canoe won't work for this job. Can you take us out past the channel?"

"Past the channel?" Holt recoiled. "Didn't you hear what I said about the sun about to set? It'll be after hours for fishin' boats. And there's NOTHIN' on a boat already sunk that could warrant you two needin' to get to it right away!"

"WELL, IT'S NOT ON THE BOAT PER SE," Papyrus explained. "IT'S…AROUND THE BOAT. OR RATHER, SHE'S AROUND THE BOAT."

Jenna's head snapped up, her eyes fixed on the pair.

"You'd better explain," Holt demanded.

"We're…worried about Katie Firestone," Ven explained. "We think she might be in trouble."

"OR…AND THIS IS A VERY SMALL CHANCE…CAUSING THE TROUBLE," Papyrus added.

"What'd Ms. High-and-Mighty do now?" Jenna asked.

With a look to one another, Ven and Papyrus knew they couldn't insinuate what the evidence already had. "We know she's been feeding the orca," Ven said. The least eyebrow-raising of the accused crimes. "And…her boat's away from the dock. There's more we found that adds up, but please…trust us."

"THIS IS SOMETHING DANGEROUS," Papyrus asserted.

"And you want me to take you out on dark waters toward illegal activity you claim is a hazard?" Holt spat. "I'm not havin' that liability on my hands, and more importantly, you two ain't gonna go chasin' after something that'll get ya hurt!"

"JENNA?" Papyrus pleaded. "ISN'T THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO?"

"Can't leave shift," Jenna told him. "No one else to run the café. But if you try Andy Jason – "

"You're gonna ENCOURAGE this?" Holt yelled.

"If I don't," Jenna explained, "they're probably gonna take the canoe. Listen. When these guys get an idea in their head, they don't let it go. Would you rather they tried it on their own, or riding a licensed whale-watching vehicle?"

"I'd rather they stay outta stuff that could get 'em in trouble!" Holt growled. "If it's such a big emergency, then call the coast guard! Playin' hero ain't worth the danger!"

"Well, all I did was point them to Andy," Jenna reminded Holt. "If he takes them out on the water, that's on him. Not me, not you."

Holt scowled. Silently seethed.

"COME ON, VEN!" Papyrus urged. "WE MUST GO FORTH TO WHALE WORLD!"

As he and Ven began to race for the door, Jenna called out, "Hey, guys!"

They looked back. She held up her phone. "If things start to get risky," she said, "you call. Got it?"

A pair of nods.

"Got it."

"IT HAS BEEN GOTTEN!"

"I mean it." Jenna lowered her phone. "You guys stay safe and come back in one piece. And bring me the goods on Katie while you're at it."

The bell jingled again, and they were gone.

"This ain't right," Holt grumbled.

"If you're so worried," Jenna told him, "then go do something about it instead of sitting around complaining. Since it's an emergency, I'll waive your bill."

After giving another long, hard stare, Holt slid off the seat and began to head briskly out of the café.

...

The Ace-Ops' work was in vain. For not only had the Overtakers already breached Atlas, but so had the WHAM ARMY.

Mim and the Huntsman had taken the detour to retrieve Aghoul, and due to one thing leading to another, Hecate and Velma Green had gotten roped into it. The Huntsman wasn't about to complain about the extra help from the powerhouses. After all, the Overtakers had two Maidens on their side and then some.

What the Huntsman was going to complain about was the horrendous puns that ensued from this particular alliance.

Already, they'd been walking down the cold and snowy streets of the city only for Aghoul to pretend to sigh (he was the only one who had no breath to coagulate into mist) and say "Ahhhh, how wonderful that we should be here in such a cold city…cold as the grave."

"Isn't this the place that produces all the Dust?" Velma asked, her spidery legs skittering on the ground beneath a voluminous skirt she'd thrown on to camouflage her nature. "With all that Dust around, it seems inevitable that someone should bite it."

"The elites up above and the poor down below," Hecate remarked. "So there are those who take the high road and those who take the low road, and they'll be in Mantle before you!"

The Huntsman whirled on her; "You are the goddess of MAGIC AND THREE-WAY INTERSECTIONS. Jokes about death make no SENSE coming from you!"

Hecate put her hands on her hips; "I'll remind you I was the technical ruler of the Underworld for slightly less than twenty-four hours. Or do you think I'm no GOOD ENOUGH to be a death goddess? Is THAT WHAT YOU'RE SAYING?"

The Huntsman groaned. "No. No it isn't."

"Good," Hecate snorted. "Though your choices WERE to give up the argument or give up the ghost."

Mim started chortling as she watched the Huntsman's grip tighten on his staff.

"We're just about there," Mim remarked. "It's too bad we couldn't stop by the opera house on our way."

"Why is the opera house relevant?" the Huntsman asked.

"Because that's where it's CURTAINS!" Aghoul chuckled.

"Where the fat lady sings," Velma added.

"Listen closely and you might hear the choir invisible," Hecate said.

The Huntsman rounded on Mim; "YOU. DID. THAT. ON. PURPOSE."

"Of course I did," Mim replied. "Did you expect anything else from me?"

The Huntsman couldn't say anything for the whole rest of the trip.

They entered a warehouse tucked away in the back streets of the elite district. The massive, cavernous building was home to a fleet of Paladins, nestled away in their hiding spots, still and silent. Not serving their purpose of slaying and slaughtering, yet.

Melanie, Miltia, Neo, and Hannibal stood off to the side, watching Drakken and Zorg tinker with one of the Paladins. When they heard the entrance of their new reinforcements, they turned their attention.

"How goes the modification of the Paladins?" the Huntsman asked.

"Would've been a lot faster if the silver fox hadn't stopped for an outfit change on the way," Melanie grumbled.

"Hmm?" Mim leaned to the side to get a better look at Zorg. The Huntsman followed suit. It was quite clear he'd changed clothes entirely, now wearing a black suit with shiny black shoes and a long jacket that nearly flowed down to his knees. Tucked into the jacket's breast pocket, completely decoratively, was a pair of round spectacles with red lenses.

"Wh – " The Huntsman flinched. "WHEN, WHY, AND HOW DID YOU THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?"

"You really misunderstand the whole WHAM ARMY brand, don't you?" Zorg challenged. "And you're a founder. How disappointing."

"Luckily," Drakken supplied, "we were able to make double time on the Paladins thanks to my genius renovations to the perfidiously plagiarized AI designs of my old hostage, Dr. Freeman!" He sighed wistfully. "You know, that Dr. Freeman is a real hunk. Always knows what music to play to set the mood, too."

"We can discuss your old flames later," Hannibal snorted. "Right now, we need a progress report. Do we or do we not have an army of killer robots built to counter the security system of the very establishment that built 'em?"

"WE HAVE EXACTLY THAT!" Drakken cried triumphantly; Zorg walked around front to cross his arms and nod along. "Every single Paladin in this warehouse is PERFECTLY retooled to our design."

"Mm, no," Hecate broke in. "Not perfectly. Not yet."

"Whaaaat?" Drakken whined. "I put a lot of work into these, you know!"

"I'm not saying you did a bad job," Hecate told him. "I'm just saying they need…" She lifted her hands, flexing her bony fingers as a blue aura burned over them. "A woman's touch."

...

Giovanni, Velvet, Globby, and Carl (who carried Malva along with him) found Yang and Harley down at the docks. There was quite a scene going on; Eizen was supervising as Ragdoll, Firefly, and Jack hastily scooped items wrapped in canvas and cloth out of a large crate, then filled it back up with what appeared to be the contents of somebody's garbage.

"What's going on here?" Giovanni asked. "Super evil scheme?"

"The Captain here found us a lovely vantage point by which to intercept the pulley systems," Ragdoll explained. "We're in the process of swapping out the cargo for something that will weigh the same and check into inventory without question…"

"While we make off with the loot," Firefly said.

"That is GENIUS!" Giovanni cried.

"Of course it is!" Jack asserted. "It came from me, after all. And this is only the half of it. Next, we're going to approach the heads of state as a privateer would. Offering our services. Whatever they wish of us, so long as half is paid upfront."

"And then we don't do it," Firefly said.

"They'll catch on," Velvet grunted.

"Not if we pad our résumé with a flag from a pirate ship we so valiantly defeated," Ragdoll countered. "A little vessel, wanted on the high seas, known as…the Van Eltia."

Eizen smiled. "I've lent them a couple props to make it look like they've managed to raid us. It'll lend credence to the idea that they could best us."

"I'm so proud of ya!" Harley chirped. "This scheme's gonna bring in the big bucks!"

"Hey, Solar Flare." Giovanni approached Yang. "You feelin' any better?"
"Yeah!" Yang smiled brightly. "Spending some extra quality time with Harley really put things in perspective. You could say I CAME to a revelation about my mental state."

"LOVE to hear it!" Giovanni pumped his fist.

"In fact…" Yang smirked as Harley tittered. "You could say I CAME to multiple revelations."

"That's – " Giovanni cut himself off as the pun sank in. "YOU. YOU ARE NASTY! YOU KEEP THAT FILTH OUT OF MY ASEXUAL EARS!"

Yang and Harley both burst into laughter then as Giovanni fumed.

A throat-clear from Velvet stopped the laughter. "We have some important information that we thought you should be on board for," she explained. "Also, we found a couple of recruits."

"Hi!" Globby put up a hand and waved. He'd opted to put his more purple visage back on; little droplets of fluid visibly detached from the hand he was using in his greeting. "I'm Globby!"

"Felony Carl," Carl added, deadpan. "Charmed."

"Ohhhh, I dreamed about you guys!" Harley gasped. "I heard Globby there askin' me to come find ya! An' Gio an' Velvet went and did it already! Good initiative!"

"It wasn't hard," Velvet grunted. "All I did was throw something hard enough to impale Globby."

"I will ask that you do not do that again," Carl said.

"Awww, I'm fine!" Globby waved it off. "I tuned out my ability to feel pain shortly after mutating."

"I'm Harley!" Harley introduced. "Harley Quinn! And this lovely lady is my gal Yang Xiao Long!"

"Hey!" Yang put up a hand. "You two look like a couple of partners in slime."

Globby burst out laughing at that, his surface vibrating, and Carl smiled slightly yet warmly. "SLIME!" Globby cried. "She said partners in SLIME!"

"An obvious joke, perhaps," Carl commented, "but a very wholesome one."

"And that's not all!" Giovanni broke in. "Guess who else we figured out is here! Guessguessguess."

"Hmm." Harley thought it over. "Who are we lookin' for whose name would mean somethin' to ya?" She gasped; "NO WAY! YOU FOUND 'EM?"

Giovanni announced, "We have in fact located one henchperson of indeterminate gender!"

As Harley squealed, Velvet set the record straight: "We know where they are. But we haven't found them directly. It's going to take some work to get there. They'll be hunkering down in Katz Korner, which isn't a place you can just walk into. The way to the town of the Katz is open only to those who the Katz welcome. In the real world, I got in by rescuing several captured Katz. Ainsley stepped in to interrupt a Katz trafficking ring, so of course they're accepted. But here in the dream world, we don't have an advantage. The only way in for us is to prove that we're friends with a greater malak."

"Isn't Eizen one of those?" Yang pointed out.

"Aye," Eizen clarified. "A word from me should secure entry into Katz Korner."

"Then let's go!" Harley gasped. "We got a friend to pick up!"

Not ten minutes later, Harley, Yang, Velvet, Giovanni, Globby, Carl, and Eizen stood before a Katz in the upper stratum of Taliesin. And that Katz said, "Sorry, but I'm afraid we can't accept you based on the Rea-purr. He's got a bad re-purr-tation among us Katz, meow! A criminal and bad luck!"

(The Katz themselves was an interesting creature. They were about the same size as Malvavisco, but completely bipedal. Their fur was a pastel mint green save for a beige patch around the face. They wore a single article of clothing: a thick leather collar with a heavy jingle bell. One might think that the little fish that appeared to be "biting" the back of their tail was an accessory of some kind, but no, it was part of the Katz' body.)

Eizen sighed, shaking his head. "I should've seen this coming."

"In retrospect, we all probably should've seen this coming," Giovanni mused.

Yang shrugged. "Eh. We were caught up in the moment."

"So what now?" Harley asked. She put on a pleading face, kneeling before the Katz. "Can't ya make an exception, pretty please?"

"Nnnnnnope!" the Katz insisted. "Of course, if you could prove you knew ANOTHER gerater malak, then I could paw-sent you all with admittance! Except the Rea-purr, of course."

"Sorry, Eizen," Yang said.

"Don't apologize," Eizen replied. "I intend to explore Katz Korner one day. The fact that this won't be the day has only strengthened my resolve."

"What about Bienfu?" Harley asked, straightening up.

"What ABOUT Bienfu?" Velvet grunted.

"He's a greater malak, right?" Harley suggested. "Could we have him vouch for us?"

"Hmmm," the Katz mused without even being asked. "I don't know a Bienfu, meow. He mustn't be that great of a greater malak!"

"We can agree on that much," Velvet said. After a sigh: "We aren't left with many options."

"Man, today stinks," Globby sighed, slumping over.

"Do not be discouraged," Carl told him. "For every cloud has a silver lining."

"Yeah…yeah!" Globby perked up. "You're right! I mean…" He shifted, retrieving Velvet's comb from his insides. "I got this pretty sweet comb out of the deal! Even though I don't have any hair to use it on – "

The Katz gasped suddenly and sharply. "IS THAT THE COMB OF INNOMINAT, THE FIFTH EM-PURR-EAN?"

After an awkward silence, Velvet said, "Yes. Yes, it is."

"How do you know the Fifth Em-purr-ean?" the Katz asked. "Only someone close to him could have something as purr-sonal as that, meow!"

"I'm his sister," Velvet replied, somewhat smugly.

"Why, in that case, you can come visit Katz Korner anytime!" the Katz told them all. "Except for the Rea-purr, of course."

"One day," Eizen vowed under his breath.

"All right, every-nyan!" the Katz said. "We're going to make zoomies over to Katz Korner!"

They leapt into the air, twirling. As they did so, they morphed into a ball of blinding white light. That light reached out its rays to envelop Velvet, Giovanni, Harley, Yang, Globby, Carl, and Malva, giving them a view of blank, bright white.

When it cleared, it was as if they were in another world entirely. One that hardly seemed real to look at.

A brick wall formed a cul-de-sac against a backdrop of dusky skies. Within its containment was a hamlet of pastels, fences and tiles in odd shapes as though they'd been designed for a children's nursery. An agora was bordered by pillars, marking off a communal space. Everywhere, there were Katz of different colors, mint green and powder pink and baby blue and cream yellow, all running establishments of the cutesiest possible caliber. Great golden stars hung in the sky: not actual celestial bodies, but giant illuminated five-pointed ornaments that spun. From all around, one could hear the music of several Katz playing in street bands, songs that went la-la-la and sounded ridiculously sugary.

"I…" Giovanni put up a hand. Then lowered it. "I'm having a lot of mixed feelings right now and I'm not sure which one is most prevalent."

"Welcome to Katz Korner," Velvet replied.

Harley clasped her hands; "It's ADORABLE!"

"Heheh…yeah!" Yang chuckled. "That's…one word for it!"

Harley pouted. "You don't like it?"

"Well, I like that you like it," Yang told her.

"Works for me!" Harley beamed.

Velvet inhaled deeply. "It looks like your cat pill is still working. Normally I'd be fighting tears right now."

"That's great!" Globby cried. "Also, um, is this a pocket dimension, or is it on the actual planet, or what's going on here?"

"If I knew, I'd tell you," Velvet grunted.

"I appreciate its aesthetic," Carl stated. "It was obviously created by a mind who desired to recapture the simplicity of youth and the bliss of kindness. Also one that believes in ending cringe culture."

"Sorry to interrupt," Yang broke in, "but I think we just found our pal." She gestured to the agora, where several Katz had gathered around a relatively tall human.

A closer look at the crowd revealed that the Katz who were rounded up all bore outlandish accessories, mostly to obscure their faces or heads. Funny glasses with fake human noses, fedoras, giant false mustaches, monocles, cowboy hats, tiaras, and more were in use. Standing at the head of the crowd was Ainsley themself, hair styled into a feminine curl as they bore a blue nurse's uniform (complete with a pin reading "NURSE") that they'd obviously used to break into the Katz trafficking stronghold. Atop their hair was set a headband bearing a blue pair of cat ears. Ainsley was addressing the crowd of Katz, and with the exact inverse amount of charisma and animation that Archibald Snatcher would use in the same situation.

"Yeah, I think those look pretty good," Ainsley told them. "So, like, I know this is technically a bad thing, but I self-identify as a villain right now, or at least an antivillain, so I think that makes this okay. Also the fact that the people we're perpetrating violence on are racist jerks. But tell me if I'm, like, enacting a total human savior complex on a marginalized group. Or maybe don't. I'm a villain. I just said that…anyway, the plan is that you tell them you're inspectors for fire hazards and you're checking to make sure nothing can accidentally or mysteriously get set on fire."

"And that's how we get in place to set the mysterious fire!" the Katz at the front of the crowd cheered.

"FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" the others chorused.

Harley barreled toward the mob, her cohorts in her wake. "Ainsley! AINSLEY!"

They looked up at her. Though their facial expression seemed at first completely neutral, Harley knew that was their happy face. "Hey, Harley. When'd you get here?"

"A while ago," Harley revealed. "Same time you woulda got thrown in the vortex. How ya been holdin' up?"

"Yeah, that whole vortex thing was, like…weird," Ainsley said. "Anyway I ended up finding these Katz and now I guess I'm helping lead the revolution to rebel against the humans that have held them in oppression to the point of crossing a moral event horizon."

"By sneaking them into the perp's house to claim to be fire hazard inspectors," Yang said dryly. "And then using the knowledge of where fire hazards would be to set a fire."

"That's my plan," Ainsley stated. "I worked hard on getting everybody a convincing disguise."

The other Heathens looked back over the horde of Katz in funny hats and glasses, rethinking the definition of "convincing."

"And the cat ears are a disguise for you?" Yang asked.

"No," Ainsley admitted. "I'm just wearing them because they're cute. Sorry." They reached up to instinctively remove them and throw them away.

"Honey, no!" Harley pressed her hand over theirs so they didn't have the opportunity to discard the headband. "They DO look cute on ya!"

"Sorry," Ainsley muttered. "I'm still kinda too used to Count Olaf not wanting me to express too much individuality without his approval, so sometimes that kind of criticism can be triggering. Also I'm aware that I apologize too much for things that aren't my fault, so I'm sorry." They blinked. "I mean I'm not sorry."

"Yeah, that's all good," Yang said, "but you're ignoring the obvious flaw in this plan."

"Does it have to do with cultural appropriation?" Ainsley asked.

"No," Yang stated. "It's about the fact that no one's gonna believe a bunch of Katz are fire hazard inspectors."

"Oh," Ainsley realized. "So that's pretty much true, actually. Do the disguises mitigate it, though?"

"Oh, how I want to say yes," Giovanni sighed, hanging his head.

"Did you even think this plan through?" Velvet growled.

"HEY!" Harley snapped. "Ainsley's tryin' their best!"

"I'm usually a henchperson," Ainsley clarified. "Leading an evil scheme is new for me."

"No one will begrudge you for doing the best you can do," Carl assured them.

"I remember when I was a baby villain," Globby sighed. "Don't worry. It totally gets better."

"Ainsley," Harley introduced, "these are my new villain pals, Giovanni, Velvet, Globby, Felony Carl, and their cat, Malva! And THIS is my new villain GIRLFRIEND, Yang!"

"Hi," Ainsley said softly.

"Everyone, this is the friend I was tellin' ya about," Harley said, "an' the one Oncey was tellin' ya even MORE about!"

"He just couldn't run out of stories about your theatrics," Velvet stated.

"He…he couldn't?" Ainsley flinched.

"No way, no how!" Harley affirmed. She leaned in to whisper; "Between you an' me, I think he's kinda crazy about ya."

"…Oh." Ainsley's expression was now the utterly unreadable sort of neutral.

"He's got a suuuper big obvious crush on you," Giovanni said. "And believe me, I'm the kind of guy who notices when somebody in the room's got a big obvious crush."

"Are you sure about that?" Velvet grumbled.

"Then you've noticed my big obvious crush on Felony Carl," Globby piped in.

"Globs," Carl sighed. "I cannot stress it enough that we are already dating."

"Focus, guys!" Yang snapped. "We have ninety percent of a solid evil plan to avenge the Katz. Let's get it to one hundred."

"Right!" Giovanni remarked. "First things first, we need a good villain name for you."

"I kind of have one in mind," Ainsley suggested. "It's one I thought of back when I worked for Olaf, and I think it still fits."

"Well, let's hear it!" Giovanni urged.

"The Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender," Ainsley said.

After a blank stare, Giovanni said, "That's…that's not a villain name. That's a literal descriptor."

"I didn't want to falsely advertise anything," Ainsley explained.

"Yeah, but you're so much more than just a henchperson!" Giovanni urged. "And your gender identity is great and all, but you gotta sell your big quirks!"

"Okay," Ainsley corrected. "How about 'The Villain of Indeterminate Gender who Acts Onstage'?"

"…Yeah, we'll go with that for now so we're not here all day," Giovanni resolved.

"Okay, but the Katz," Yang reminded.

"Right!" Giovanni said. "Soooo, what would be a valid excuse for a bunch of Katz showing up in the enemy stronghold? Maybe…THAT THEY WERE TETHERED TO A RIVAL THAT SENT THEM TO SPY!"

"Wouldn't that get them beaten up, though?" Globby asked.

"It would most certainly get them beaten up," Carl affirmed.

"Oh," Giovanni realized. "Right."

"Can't it just be a stealth mission?" Yang asked. "No disguises. No alibis. Just…stay out of sight." She turned to address the Katz directly. "You're all pretty small, so you'll have an easier time sneaking around than a human would. And I bet some of you are extra good at creeping around."

"That makes a lot of sense, meow!" a Katz said. "But can we still wear the disguises if we want to?"

"I mean, the point is no one should see you, so yeah," Yang said.

This set up a cheer from the Katz.

"Who's the culprit anyway?" Harley asked.

"A trade family that pretty much owns the city," Ainsley replied. "If I weren't evil, I'd be a little concerned about how this would affect the Taliesin economy, since most of the cargo cables run right there."

Harley chuckled. Then burst into outright laughter. "Oh – OH MAN – Ainsley, honey, you don't gotta worry about a thing."

"Because I have no need to adhere to a moral compass and also because the liberation of an oppressed people outweighs the infrastructure of the middle-to-upper-class?"

"Not just that," Harley told them. "But most of those crates are filled with garbage. And I'll bet ya that Gar, Ragsy, an' Jack would LOVE a phase three of their plan that involves buildin' up clout from the grassroots of their stolen loot!"

"I feel like I'm missing context," Ainsley said.

"We can explain when we get back to the city," Globby said.

"Right now, we gotta get you back to see Oncey!" Harley chirped. "He's gonna be so excited!"

"Um…about that?" Ainsley said, shifting uncomfortably. "Can we go talk somewhere private?"

"Sure!" Harley cast her gaze around. "How about that buildin' there?"

"Oh, that's the Katz Pajamaz," a Katz said. "You can't enter unless you're a thousand years old at least!"

"Do I wanna know what you guys do in there?" Yang asked.

"NO, YOU DON'T!" Giovanni yelled. "You have already sullied my ears enough with your FILTH!"

"But we can sure give you some purr-ivacy in the corner!" another Katz said.

Harley, Ainsley, Yang, Globby, Carl, Giovanni, and Velvet moved off to a patch of soft grass at the edge of the cul-de-sac as several Katz pretended they weren't listening in.

"I didn't know Once-ler had a crush on me," Ainsley admitted.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Harley asked.

"Both…?" Ainsley said with trepidation. "I like him a lot and I've thought about if he'd be something like that for me."

"But somethin's still in the way," Harley realized.

"It's kinda stupid," Ainsley muttered.

"Allow me to guess at the nature of your plight," Carl broke in. "An old flame is still waiting to be relit inside your heart."

"Ohhhhh, you TOTALLY love someone else!" Globby affirmed.

"No I don't," Ainsley said quickly. Then: "Actually maybe I do. This conversation really won't go anywhere if I lie. I'm just used to making up excuses on the fly."

"Who's the lucky person?" Harley urged.

"Not really somebody lucky?" Ainsley replied. "I shouldn't like him. He never liked me, and actually he kinda betrayed me in a really hurtful way."

"Tell Harley all your troubles," Harley urged.

Ainsley sighed. "So…like…you know most of the theater troupe. But there actually used to be five of us. Well, okay, there were eight at one point but I think three of them died and the rest of us kinda callously shrugged it off because we were glad to have a lower class of henchperson to pick on in order to make ourselves feel superior. Anyway, the other one…he…I thought he was our friend. We all did. And I kinda liked him. But he turned his back on us to follow Olaf when the rest of us were declaring our independence. And then I heard that he joined the secret organization V.F.D., which is heroic for the sake of narrative clarity but actually is a lot more morally dubious and nuanced if you pick apart the subtext. But once he joined V.F.D., he gave up on the troupe and he never looked back. I think I'm just pining for what I can't have because he obviously didn't want me. Looking back, it was pretty obvious he loved Olaf. I'm at least glad that didn't work out for his sake because Olaf is, like, super abusive as a romantic partner. I never liked the way he treated his girlfriend. But anyway, Fernald's, like, way happier living in the ocean with his sister now, so I shouldn't even think about him."

"But ya do," Harley urged. "Whaddaya like about him?"

"He used to be really compassionate," Ainsley explained. "He was really good with kids. And also kinda helped take care of the whole troupe when we were down. He had this really infectious positive attitude even though he tried to make himself look all scary. He was kinda my best friend in the troupe and he wouldn't let them leave without me that time I almost burned alive in a hospital fire."

"That time you what?" Giovanni flinched.

"But then he threw a baby off a cliff to impress Olaf," Ainsley went on, "and that kinda ruined my whole image of him because I thought he was like you and me where he had certain things he wouldn't do. It was a baby he practically adopted, too. And right after that's when he quit the troupe. It was really traumatizing."

"Gosh," Harley gasped. "An'…what did he say when you tried to, y'know, initiate things?"

"I never did," Ainsley admitted. "I was hoping he'd come to me because I don't do well making the first move in social interaction and I just felt really flustered. But I guess I wasn't his type, which I get, since I'm not very similar to Olaf at all. I feel really, really stupid for ever thinking I could be."

"But for all he knew, ya just wanted to be friends," Harley reiterated. "Anyway, what'd he say when you reached back out after he ditched ya?"

"Well, I didn't exactly…do that?" Ainsley said. "After he left, I just got sad about it and then we all collectively decided it hurt too much to think about, so we cut him out, and I ended up finding out about him and V.F.D. later because of something I wanna say was circumstance but was really me snooping in what he was up to."

"Hang on." Harley put up a hand. "So…ya never told him that ya liked him…"

"No."

"And he went through this whole big thing leavin' the guy that messed him all up, but ya never reached out?"

"Right."

"An' he was your friend…but you were all hurt so bad by him, you just left it at that an' tried to pretend he was never there?"

"Pretty much."

Harley's eyebrow twitched. "Ainsley…a gal with less self-control might smack ya. But I'm gonna go easy on ya, since I know ya got a hard life."

"Okay," Ainsley replied. "Thank y – "

"YOU'RE A STINKIN' IDIOT!" Harley yelled so loudly that Ainsley physically recoiled. "YA KNOW THAT? HOW D'YA KNOW ANYTHIN' WAS WHAT YA THOUGHT IT WAS? HE MIGHT BE SORRY NOW ABOUT THE KIDDO, BUT YA DON'T KNOW 'CAUSE YOU'RE TOO CHICKEN TO REACH OUT! YOU CALL THIS GUY YOUR BEST FRIEND AND THEN YA JUST LEAVE HIM TO RUN OFF WITH SOME HORRIBLE JERK? AND YA BLAME HIM FOR NEVER LOOKIN' AT YA ROMANTICALLY WHEN YA NEVER LET HIM KNOW YA WANTED THAT? WHAT IF HE LIKED YA TOO, HUH? BUT HE WAS TOO SCARED TO SAY ANYTHIN'? YA CAN'T SAY THIS WHOLE THING DIDN'T WORK OUT IF YA DIDN'T STINKIN' TALK ABOUT ANY OF IT! AND I SWEAR, AINSLEY, I'M GONNA MAKE YOU TALK TO THIS GUY AN' MAKE SURE HE ACTUALLY IS THE JERK YA SAID HE WAS, OR ELSE I'LL EAT MY OWN HAT!"

After a silence, Ainsley softly said, "Okay. But – "

"NO BUTS!" Harley shrieked.

Ainsley nodded, clamming up.

"Got it?" Harley snapped. "Now send out the Katz troops and let's get movin'! We gotta find a way outta this dream so you can look that guy up!"

Yang smirked, nudging Globby with an elbow (and regretting it when the elbow came away gooey). "That's my girlfriend."

"You're so lucky," Globby remarked. "Well, not as lucky as me, but still pretty lucky."

"How are we doing as far as rounding up the lost sheep?" Velvet asked Harley.

"We're gettin' pretty low on the list," Harley replied. "Think there's just one more guy, an' I know where he is. Well, I saw it in the dream, anyhow. Got any idea where we can hit up a teeny, cute little rural village that smells like baked goods?"

Velvet's eyes widened. "I should say so. It's where I grew up, after all."

...

The Winter Maiden, Fria, was very elderly, and it was expected she would pass on quite soon. She was frail as well, unable to leave bed for long periods of time. They waited on her in a high-security room, where she was given the comforts one needed for their final years. The expectation was that upon her passing, Winter Schnee would take up the mantle.

She didn't have much family. She'd been married, once, to a spouse long dead. No children. Everyone else who had been part of her family tree had passed on. All in all, not many people to visit her in her isolated chamber. And yet there was one who returned and returned and returned. A member of Ironwood's elites, assigned at one point on shift to guard Fria, and since they'd crossed paths, they had become the unlikeliest of friends.

(Unlikeliest as far as Fria knew.)

Right now, Solus zos Galvus was telling her, "It became painfully apparent that the enemy had breached our borders from a single conversation with the proprietor of Hole in the Wall. Perhaps it is unfair of me to suggest an oversight on the part of my comrades, when said proprietor is mysterious as the moon, only revealing herself through the darkened clouds on certain nights to certain of people. Yet by then it was already obvious; she only gave me the confirmation I needed."

Fria chuckled. "You are the sharp one of the bunch, Solus."

"By the time I relayed the revelation, the lot of them were sitting about, talking in circles about minutiae. No closer to stalling the enemy. No closer to finding crucial information. Had I not arrived in time, they might've simply let enemy forces waltz through their doors and trample them on the spot."

"They don't know how lucky they are to have you!"

"Hence my suggestion to take a reconnaissance operation by myself," Solus told Fria. "Of course, they know not that I stopped here first, and only to boast."

"Solus, I think of you as a son," Fria replied. "And as your mother, in a sense, I am telling you that you need to focus on your work!"

"And then is it past my curfew? Need I to tuck myself in with a glass of heated milk so I might be on time for tomorrow's lesson?"

"No," Fria teased, "but I'm still waiting on you to ask out that boy you keep telling me about. What was his name? Ludwig?"

Solus flinched. "For what I hope to be the final time, he was a passing acquaintance. Not a romantic dalliance. Believe me…I've no room for love in this heart."

"Ah. Your FIRST love still hurts."

"Quite so."

"You know, you can't wallow in hurt over him forever," Fria encouraged.

"Dear, dear Fria," Solus replied. "You severely underestimate me." His golden eyes twinkled.

"I'm serious!" Fria laughed. "If you want to one-up those fuddy-duddies on the Ace-Ops, then you need to actually go collect your information! Not sneak off to talk to a girl." She winked. "What will we do with that mischievous streak of yours, Solus?"

"Yet another facet you've no idea the breadth of," Solus replied with a smile.

"Go," Fria encouraged. "I'll be right here waiting when you come back. And then you can tell me all about it."

"Remember, when the time comes, that you asked for such a soliloquy," Solus told her. "Take care, Fria."

He took his leave then, exiting the facility so he could survey the situation in the city. He was long gone by the time Fria's next visitor came striding down the hall, solid high heels clack-clacking rhythmically upon the tile.

The guard before the first door could tell right away that this woman didn't belong. "Hey!" He cocked his gun. "Who do you think you are, and why do you think you can be here?"

She said, matter-of-factly, "Because I asked."

And for him, everything became a blur.

Fria had almost dozed off while reading a book when her door opened. "Solus, I didn't expect – "

The sight of the stranger put her off. She supposed, however, that no one could be here without the permission of security. Whoever this was, she must be allowed. So it was with the best faith possible that Fria asked, "Who are you?"

The stranger slipped on a white glove. "Why, I'm the next Winter Maiden," she stated.

...

The Morgana Woods were thick with verdure, sunlight dappling through the leaves of the tree cover to paint the grass gold. To Velvet, it was a nostalgic homegoing. To Harley, Yang, Carl, and Ainsley, it was a nice nature walk. To Giovanni, it could've been a little more interesting, but wasn't bad to look at. To Globby, it was an absolute nightmare.

"Uggghh, now I remember why I always wanted to stay in the city!" He hopped along on one foot as he tried to shake innumerable blades of grass off the other. Of course, the foot he was hopping on was also accumulating lots of fallen leaves. "This is no place for a glob monster!"

Giovanni was distracted, looking up at the way the sun filtered into the forest. "You ever get this feeling that somewhere, somebody's doing something really cool with soup in an epic showdown, and you're not there to see it?"
"I cannot say that feeling is universal or even mutual," Carl said.

"It's still valid, though," Ainsley added.

"Ya need somethin' ta talk about to distract ya from the plants, Globs?" Harley asked; she held Yang's flesh hand, their interlocked hands swinging jauntily as they strolled. "I got jokes, Yang's got puns, an' if nothin' else, I could always give ya a free therapy session!"

"Well…uh…" Globby became flustered. "I mean…if you're offering…"

"What bugs ya?" Harley asked. "Your love life's goin' pretty great. Still gettin' used to monsterhood? Got family issues? Ever – "

"Oh, BOY, do I have family issues," Globby sighed. "At least I would if my family still considered me family."

"Awww, why'd they cut ya off?" Harley asked. "They got a thing against monsters? They got a thing against crime?"

"Yes and yes," Globby affirmed, "but that's…that's not why they cut me off."

"Globs," Carl broke in. "You owe no one an explanation that may reopen old wounds."

"It don't matter anyway!" Harley said, singsong. "'Cause we're gonna be your new family now!"

"Damn straight," Yang agreed. "Even though none of us is. Straight, I mean."

"You're one of mine now," Velvet said. "I look out for my own."

"And as one of my minions," Giovanni added, "you'll be safe with me! It is my utmost responsibility to protect you from all the Bigger Bads of the world! As well as the Big Goods."

"You're cool," Ainsley added.

"Guys, that's…" Globby's voice practically dried up. Then: "Since…you're all my family now, I, uh…Harley, can I take you up on that therapy?"

"Yeah!" Harley replied. "Whaddaya wanna do? Oh, ohh, lemme guess! You wanna roleplay a family situation that went sour!"

"Kinda, yeah," Globby said. "Just…based on things I've seen already, I'm pretty sure you'll actually react to this…in a way that isn't horrible."

"Hit me!" Harley demanded. "Actually, set the scene. How long ago was this? How old are ya?"

"I'm…I'm seventeen," Globby said. "And you're my mom, and…I called you into my room because I have something important to tell you."

"Hey, sweetie!" Harley said. "What's the big news? Is it a fun surprise?"

"Well, maybe?" Globby replied. "Probably not, actually. See, uh…I've been thinking about things, and I realized something about myself, and, uh, it's pretty…weird."

"Nothin's too weird for your ma!" Harley replied.

"I'm…I'm worried you might get mad at me, though," Globby said shyly.

"Honey, I promise not to get angry, no matter what ya say," Harley said gently. "Just tell me. I promise it'll be okay."

"All right." Globby inhaled deeply, then exhaled sharply. "So first of all, I'd like you to call me 'Dibs' from now on instead of…well…you know."

"I don't know," Harley said in legitimate confusion. "Ain't that your name?"

"I'd like it to be." Globby's voice diminished to a squeak. "I'm…kind of…not your daughter?"

"What – " Harley froze, gaping. She let go of Yang's hand, slowly turning to face Globby.

"Darn iiiiit," Globby muttered. "I knew I shouldn't – "

"Oh, SWEETIE." Harley rushed to him, throwing her arms around him, stickiness be damned. "Nobody should ever, EVER kick out their kid for somethin' like that. That wasn't fair on ya. I promise we'll love ya for who you are."

"Big same," Yang said.

"This doesn't change anything to me," Velvet added.

"I support your gender identity," Ainsley said, "and I like to consider myself a good ally, so I'm going to hold myself to that."

"Ainsley, you're nonbinary," Carl pointed out.

"I can still make mistakes, though," Ainsley replied.

As Harley peeled away from Globby, Giovanni was the last to speak. His eyes wide, he pointed at Globby: "You…you're…"

"Oh no." Globby flinched in advance. "You don't like that, do you?"

He was startled all the more when Giovanni screamed "YYYYEEEEESSSSSS!" and surged forward to hug Globby so hard, he nearly bisected him. Hopping up and down while clinging to Globby, Giovanni cheered, "TRANSGENDER GANG! TRANSGENDER GANG!"

Globby gasped; "YOU'RE – "

"You bet!" Giovanni finally let go of Globby, covered in a thin film of purple from the embrace. "Okay, now I get why 'Dibs.' It's adorable!"

"Well, YOUR name is just really epic-sounding!" Globby replied. "I never met a Giovanni that I didn't want to automatically respect! …Then again, I'm not sure I've ever met a Giovanni…" He broke out in a wide grin. "That means we can talk about things! You know…things."

"YESYESYES!" Giovanni pumped his fist. "Oh, and you're in the transgender gang too, Ainsley."

"Phew," Ainsley sighed. "I wanted to be but wasn't sure if I qualified."

"Ainsley, you're still – " Carl shook his head, giving a slight chuckle. "Never mind."

Giovanni then thought very excitedly to himself that when Magilou came out to the others, they could have a real subfaction, but he wasn't about to put her cards on the table for her, so that would have to be a surprise for later. That didn't stop him from immediately writing elaborate heist-related daydreams for himself, Globby, Ainsley, and Magilou in his head, starring several original-character villains to act as rivals.

The sudden smell of food washed over the entire traveling party. "Is that…" Velvet inhaled.

"Focaccia?" Giovanni filled in.

"That's definitely focaccia," Ainsley agreed.

Everyone took another deep whiff.

"You mentioned that home cooking was a big thing in this town," Yang recalled.

"I guess I forgot how good it could smell," Velvet admitted.

A rumble went up. At the same time that Giovanni said "Sorry, that was me – "

Ainsley said "Sorry, I'm hungry now – "

And Yang said "Eheheh, that was me – "

And Carl said "Pardon."

"Okay, sounds like we all need a snack break," Harley decided. "Thus says the mom friend! Let's go!"

They hustled the rest of the way to a small village tucked in the heart of the forest, with quaint wooden cottages arranged in a sprawl around a marketplace. Paddocks of sheep and chickens stretched out over the borders of the town.

The scent led them all to the center of the marketplace, where a sizeable throng of people had crowded around a particular booth. "That's…odd," Velvet remarked. "I can't remember anything like this."

"VELVET!" A cheerful cry. A young woman dressed in green, her red hair braided into pigtails, came barreling toward the group.

"Is that Niko?" Harley teased, elbowing Velvet. "'Cause I can see ya got a definite thing for redheads with ponytails."

"Shut up," Velvet grumbled.

Niko pulled to a halt before the others, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Velvet, I'm so glad you're back! Where's Laphicet? Actually, I'm sure he's fine. But you gotta come see this! C'mon, c'mon!" She seized Velvet by the arm, pulling her along. "Someone new moved into town, and he makes the second-best food I've ever tasted! Yours is the best, of course. Oh, but he's handsome and tall and – he's not my type, but maybe you'll want him."

Yang leaned over to Harley; "Is she seriously still in the closet in her dream world?"

"Are ya talkin' about Velvet or Niko?" Harley whispered back.

Yang thought it over. "Both, actually."

"Niko," Velvet began, "there are some things I should explain – "

"Not now! You can tell me over lunch after we get some food!"

"Niko, aren't you wondering about the people I brought with me instead of Laphicet?"

"Yes, and why you're wearing those rags, too, but like I said! LUNCH!"

Niko budged through all the lines to get to the booth along with Velvet. "This is her!" Niko exclaimed. "The one I told you about! The only one who could put your food to shame!"

Well, the man who was surrounded by fresh-baked savory breads, vegetable strudels, potato pastries and his specialty spinach puffs certainly was tall, and he did look handsome by the metric that most people considered men handsome, with his long, dark hair and his broad chest. He gave a sincere laugh hearing Niko's boast; "Well, then, she and I'll just have to have a good old-fashioned bake-off! It's Velvet, right?"

"…Right," Velvet replied. "You're not from here."

"Course not!" the man laughed. "I come from the other side of that, uh, vortex thing. Lemme tell you…that was some weird weather."

"It wasn't weather," Velvet emphasized. "We need to talk to you."

"Listen," he replied. "I'd love to, but look at all these hungry people! I can't just let 'em down!"

"You've baked enough to ration out a three-day famine," Velvet pointed out.

"Well, not really," the man replied. "It'd spoil before that. I try to minimize my usage of preservatives."

"Ugh!" Velvet stormed over to seize him by his burly arm, dragging him out into the crowd. With a yell of "EXCUSE ME!", she parted the customers, taking her prisoner back to the Heathens.

"Velvet!" Niko stamped a foot. "When did you get so rude?"

"When I woke up!" Velvet called back.

"Oh, I know this one!" Harley realized. "Don't tell me…don't tell me…"

And there was a long silence.

"What's your name?" Yang asked.

"She said not to tell her," the man stated.

As Yang sighed, Harley clarified, "You can tell me, actually."

"Name's Kronk!" He saluted. "Former advisor to the advisor to the emperor! Though now I like to spend my time doing what really matters and enjoying the little things in life."

"Oh yeah!" Harley chirped. "You were the one on the list where there was a note sayin' 'Maybe we should give him a second chance' and then another note sayin' 'NO NO NO NEVER AGAIN' and then 'Maybe I miss him' and then 'I DON'T MISS HIM AND PAJAMA LLAMA IS A STUPID SHOW ANYWAY!'."

"I'm gonna cut to the chase here," Giovanni said. "We're starting a crime ring. But only the fun kind of evil. The wholesome kind of evil. The non-murder-spree kind of evil."

"I'm not big on evil these days," Kronk said. "Then again, if it's the fun kind of evil…maybe." He appeared very pensive about it all, as though it were the biggest contemplation of his life.

"I kinda got the sense you used to work for one of the bigger bad guys," Harley said, "but then that fell through an' they asked too much. Would ya ever wanna try workin' for a smaller bad guy? Like just helpin' drive a getaway car after we steal some pretty jewels?"

"Oh, boy, that sounds fun!" Kronk agreed. Then: "Uhhh…what's a car?"

"Somethin' to go way too fast and run red lights in," Harley explained.

"I'm gonna pretend I know what those words mean," Kronk replied.

"So you're in?" Giovanni asked.

"Now hold it!" Velvet broke in. "How are you agreeing to this so fast? Are you this trusting with everyone?"

"Well, until they give me a reason not to be trusted," Kronk said.

"What would be a reason not to be trusted?" Velvet asked. "What would we have to do to go too far for you?"

"Uhhhh…" Kronk seemed to go into a daze thinking about it.

"It seems he is often taken advantage of," Carl pointed out. "Much like our own beloved Harley and Ainsley."

"We should, like, totally adopt him so he doesn't have to worry about that anymore," Ainsley suggested.

"Hear hear!" Harley agreed. "An' I think that's the last of our list! Now we can just worry about gettin' outta here!"

"Easier said than done," Velvet sighed. "We've already sailed all over the world and found nothing that can get you back out the way you came in."

"There's gotta be something," Yang insisted. "I'm not giving up."

"Full disclosure?" Giovanni ventured. "Yes, I wanna go back to the real world. Or worlds. Yes, I wanna begin our crime empire. Yes, I wanna see if I can check in with my mom and see if she's okay and let her know I'm okay too. Yes, I wanna try and round up Bear Trap's friends so she doesn't have to be so lonely or worried about them. But…it's gonna be way different without our Hurting Hand along for the ride. Or Rokurou, or Eizen, or Eleanor, or Innominat, or GOD DAMMIT, I JUST REALIZED THE DAYDREAMS I'D HAD FOR THE LAST QUARTER OF THE WOODS DON'T WORK WITHOUT MAGILOU! …Yeah. I'm gonna miss you guys."

"I wish I could follow you," Velvet said somberly. "You've made me realize that leaving Aball and broadening my horizons was the most important thing I ever did, despite all the pain. Or perhaps because of it. This world is nearly perfect. But even with the flaws I let it have…it's still only a dream. If I could leave it behind to explore the worlds you know, with you, and with Laphi at my side, I would. But that can't be a reality. After all, if you forgot, I'm the one keeping Innominat in check so the world doesn't go out of balance, and Laphi's doing the same for my Calamity. And…" She looked to the ground. "Things will be better, now that you've forced me to actually talk to the people I care about. The people I had tricked myself into forgetting so I wouldn't miss them. Rokurou, Eizen, Magilou, Eleanor…it might not be worth it if I have to leave them behind."

"Well, you were a good friend to us," Harley said. "Thanks for showin' us around. And I hope after we're gone, you can rebuild stuff with your real pals."

Suddenly, a voice from behind: "Excuse me. Are you Velvet Crowe?"

Velvet turned, flinching. The one who'd spoken appeared to be a teenage boy. His chestnut hair formed into soft spikes that framed his round, innocent-looking sea-green eyes. Over a plain blue button-up shirt and a pair of brown trousers, he sported an intricate cape, white with blue and gold embroidery.

"This another friend of yours?" Giovanni asked.

"No." Velvet's brow furrowed. "He isn't. He shouldn't even be here. I know everyone in this town…and he isn't one of them."

"Did we miss one from the list?" Harley scratched her head up under her hat.

"It's, uh, complicated," the boy said. "It's not really related to your crime friends, though."

"How did you know about that?" Velvet hissed, advancing. "Who are you? TELL ME!"

"Whoa, WHOA!" The boy backed up, putting up both hands, palms out toward Velvet. "I think we might've gotten off on the wrong foot here. I'm Sorey, and I came here looking for you. And, well…actually, it'll be easier if we can talk in private. Mind if we go back to your house? Your family already knows me."

"Nothing you've said indicates I should trust you," Velvet seethed. "You're obviously not from my dream. But you're not one of Harley's. Then what are you?"

"I'm connected to Maotelus," Sorey said. "Though you'd know him better as 'Laphicet.'"

Velvet's eyes widened. "No…Phi?" After a pause, she shook her head. "Fine," she relented. "We can talk in private. But I get to bring Harley, Yang, and Giovanni with me."

"Hey, I won't argue," Sorey said. "I've been keeping track, and they've been with you this whole time. You could even invite the others if you want."

"This seems like a private matter," Ainsley said, "and it's already getting kinda awkward, so…"

"There is still a quaint village that remains to be explored," Carl said.

"Where?" Globby and Kronk asked at the same time.

"We are standing in it," Carl clarified gently.

"You guys have fun, then," Yang said. "I wanna see what all this is about."

Velvet nodded to Sorey. "Let's go."

"Okay." Sorey turned. "Come with me!"

He broke into a run toward the most distant, secluded house in the village. Harley, Yang, Giovanni, and Velvet followed.

Velvet wondered if this was really as much of a homecoming as she'd initially thought.

...

At sundown, the rave began.

Scaramouche had dug up all manner of DJ equipment from one of Aku's past assassins. "The proto-Scaramouche," he'd explained. "Had all sorts of good ideas and no idea how to give 'em any flair. Also looked really phallic, if you catch my drift."

"We know what words mean," Demongo replied sourly.

The idea was that the immense speakers could blare music composed by that now-dead assassin for the purpose of luring people in, hypnotizing them. Old records were dusted off, put to spin on the turntables. Mozenrath rounded up siren-grade magical earplugs for himself, Tala, Shego, Otto, and Demongo, all of whom had agreed to use their scrolls to communicate during the activation of the trap (Demongo reading over Mozenrath's shoulder, because it annoyed him). As dusk began to permeate the sky, the strobe lights were activated, bathing the area they'd cleared out for a mosh pit in flickering rainbows.

The music began. Though Mozenrath couldn't hear the notes, he could feel the throb of the bass. Even if it weren't hypnotic, it was probably for the best that he couldn't hear how loud it was.

He tapped a message into his scroll, turning it around to show Scaramouche: "IS THIS REALLY GOING TO WORK ON ANCIENT DARKNESS?"

Scaramouche took the scroll, tapping a message before handing it back over: "Not by itself 3 but when you add a little bit of that (*_*) SCARAMOUCHE MAGIC (*^_^*) babe ^3^ then the fireworks really start bangin \(^o^)/!"

Mozenrath replied by showing him a simple "._."

With lights shining on him from every angle, reflecting prisms in his chrome, Scaramouche approached center stage, before the turntables. He whipped a microphone into hand and began to improvise a melody over top of the thick techno beat, singing nonsense syllables in a melody that wove into the undercurrent of mind-altering music. A melding of old-fashioned scat with contemporary rave (even though the rave records were fifty years old, but the genre had aged well).

In clumps, people arrived. Races of all sizes and shapes, not just the human or humanoid. When they entered the pulsating lights of the mosh area, they began to move their bodies to the beat. Against their will, and yet without any complaint.

Scaramouche began to dance as well, whirling and kicking to go with the emotional fluctuations of his song. His goal was to outshine everyone in the audience with his moves, and by the looks of it, he was achieving that.

Demongo barely took his eyes off Scaramouche the whole time. Even after it had been an hour (the perk of having a dancing robot was that he would never tire or need to hydrate). Even after two hours. He simply folded his arms and glared.

Tala, Mozenrath, Shego, and Otto scanned the crowd. Yes, all of these people being attracted like flies to honey was a good sign that the music was still in working order on the mortal level. But they were waiting for Aku himself to show up. They'd arranged the scheme to the letter: once Mozenrath gave the signal, then Scaramouche would stop the music and they'd all leap in to enact the second phase.

The great white disc of moon was beginning to rise high into the black night sky. Shego had kept everyone barely entertained by typing out a dissertation on how awkward it was to call that style of music "scatting." Mozenrath finally interrupted it by typing that "If Aku were going to BE HERE he would BE HERE by now!".

Demongo, seeing this over Mozenrath's shoulder, flinched. He tapped Mozenrath once, twice with a bony finger.

"W H A T?" Mozenrath typed.

Demongo beckoned. Mozenrath passed the scroll. And Demongo wrote to the group, "He is already here!"

Mozenrath swatted the scroll back into his own grip violently. "WHAT? DO YOU MEAN? HE'S ALREADY HERE?"

"exclamation overkill much ?" Shego replied.

Demongo took her scroll instead so as to banter more quickly with Mozenrath. "In the front row! He is wearing the black gown! Or should I say she?"

Mozenrath, Tala, Shego, and Otto practically tripped over one another trying to get a better look. At the very head of the crowd stood the only raver who was only bobbing her head rather than dancing with her whole body. She was tall, statuesque, even a deeper green than Shego. Her black dress was strapless, slitted, and low-cut. Her raven bob curled around her high cheekbones; her red lips were twisted into a satisfied smirk. Behind her loomed her bodyguard: a tall, slender demon with a heavy broadsword in hand and two sets of horns.

"You did not know?" Demongo typed. From a glance, it was clear his mood had improved greatly. He was downright smug.

"I'm sorry," Mozenrath wrote back. "I just was expecting someone MALE and INHUMAN and FORTY! FEET! TALL!"

"We did know he was a shapeshifter~" Tala wrote. "That's on us~"

Shego had taken Otto's phone, which had made him grumpy. She frantically typed out: "1. she 2. not prettier than me! green is my color!"

"It's not a creative one~" Tala replied.

"Are you green with envy?" Demongo wrote.

"WHY DIDN'T SCARAMOUCHE LET US KNOW?" Mozenrath demanded.

"Because he did not want to have to stop showing off," Demongo wrote.

Mozenrath hurled his scroll into the crowd of ravers out of pure frustration. Then snapped his fingers, sending out a blue comet of magic to spark over the crowd.

Scaramouche, recognizing the signal, cut the music immediately, stopping his own vocals.

Earplugs were taken out. Demongo floated up beside Mozenrath; "It seems she has brought Ashi. We should be most careful."

"Note taken," Mozenrath said as he strode out to center stage.

Scaramouche backed off to let Mozenrath take his place. By now, many of the ravers were looking around in confusion, wondering why they were here. Aku and Ashi glared sourly at the sorcerer who took up the microphone.

"I would like to extend a warm welcome to our guest of honor, Aku," Mozenrath announced. "We're so glad you could make it. We were almost afraid our little siren spell wouldn't work on one so old and powerful as you. But am I ever glad you were so susceptible! You might recognize one of your jaded former assassins as the one who brought you to this place. Out of curiosity, do you remember this one as well?"

Demongo floated to the opposite side of Mozenrath from where Scaramouche was standing.

"Because on their behalf, I have a message for you," Mozenrath stated. His voice turned cold, venomous: "VENGEANCE IS NIGH."

The woman in the front row exploded. She became a column of pure Darkness, stretching up to the sky, so tall that she – or he now, rather – blotted out the moon. His shape gelled into something more familiar: an immense giant in the form of a demon, with an emerald-green face and hellfire upon his brows.

"SO YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD TRICK THE UNSPEAKABLE EVIL THAT IS AKU!" Aku boomed. "I HAVE DESTROYED THOSE FAILURES ONCE ALREADY. AND I SHALL DO SO AGAIN!"

"I don't think so," Mozenrath said with a smirk.

He slammed his right hand onto the stage before Aku could so much as blink. Concentric circles of magical sigils erupted from around him; his WHAM ARMY cohorts backed off hurriedly, knowing what was coming.

This was phase two. Involving a Crystal of Ix that had been transported here all the way from this reality's version of Dagger Rock.

The crystal erupted through the ground via the path Mozenrath had designated with the sigils. Mozenrath rode its peak as it jutted high into the sky, as tall as Aku himself.

"IXTALA!" Mozenrath screamed.

The entire crystal illuminated, from top to bottom. Its face emitted a bright wall of light that slammed into Aku, sea-green pulsing with sky-blue that overrode all of the rave lights. The wall of light then began to draw Aku closer toward the crystal, threatening to absorb him.

"WHAAAAAT?" Aku bellowed.

"Oh, what's the matter?" Mozenrath said in a mock pout. "You don't like your magic-absorbing crystals extra thick?"

Ashi attempted to run, to circumvent the light, but another beam snaked out to lasso her in particular. She was, in no time, sucked inside of the Crystal of Ix, preserved beneath the stone like a fly in amber.

Aku thrashed, ripping an arm away from the Crystal's light. "YOUR PATHETIC CRYSTAL CANNOT HOLD ME!" He struggled as the beam attempted to pull him in; slowly, he was becoming detached, regaining his freedom.

"…Maybe it can't," Mozenrath said, with none of the panic that would come if he really feared that. "I guess I'll have to give it a little more juice!"

He slapped his right palm back onto the Crystal, infusing it with more of his own magic. The wall of light grew thicker, brighter, bluer. Aku's arm was sucked right back in.

Tala sauntered onstage, giving a leap as she dramatically spun to throw a beam of her own enchantment into the Crystal. She fueled it as constantly as Mozenrath did, strengthening its pull.

From the other side, Shego backflipped into a dramatic landing pose on one knee before adding a stream of radioactive light from her own hand.

At the very zenith, Demongo spun into view above Mozenrath, backlit by the rave lights that hadn't been brought down when the Crystal had broken through the stage. He flung his cape wide for dramatic effect, then pushed his hands in a downward motion, feeding twin columns of blue flame into the Crystal of Ix.

By all of these powers combined, the Crystal was unstoppable. Aku became more and more troubled as it became clear he could no longer even attempt to break away. He was sliding closer, closer, then his lower half was merging with the cold stone –

"NOOOOOOOOO!"

And then Aku, ruler of reality, the supreme evil, was imprisoned inside of the Crystal of Ix, his face frozen in horror as his eyes darted about.

The crowd had no idea why any of what had just happened had in fact just happened. However, what they did recognize was that the evil overlord who'd kept them in abjection was now deposed. A mighty cheer went up.

Mozenrath, Tala, Shego, Demongo, Otto, and Scaramouche reunited on the stage, exchanging smug looks. "It is so satisfying to hear the adoration of the crowd," Mozenrath said with a smirk. "Then again…it is better to be feared than loved, isn't it?"

"Hey, Mongo," Scaramouche challenged. "Betcha I can turn more of the chorus into corpses than you can."

"Oh, do not even test me!" Demongo scoffed. "I will have the majority of them slaughtered before you can even lift a finger!"

"You wanna put some fresh-baked bread on that?"

"Why, I shall wager all I have."

"Okay, boys," Shego announced. "On your mark…get set…aaaaand SLAUGHTER!"

The pair of assassins dove into the grateful crowd, and in almost no time taught them why they shouldn't have been so grateful.

Scaramouche had taken up a new, faster-paced dance, singing at a rockabilly beat. To the sound of his voice, a sharp scimitar flew through the throng, severing jugulars and slitting stomachs. Lighting equipment and broken pieces of the stage flew into the air as meteors, raining down to crush the unsuspecting. Anyone who dared draw a weapon was countered when Scaramouche struck a dagger split like a tuning fork against his thigh, then used the intense vibration to shatter any metal implement used against him, raining shrapnel on his assailants.

Demongo pranced and twirled as he hurled skulls. The Southern belle, the creature, the armored princess, the thief, and more erupted from the aether, going to town with their various combat styles. Among it all, Demongo threw fireball after fireball, burning heads clean of flesh and picking up the skulls in the process to use as storage for the souls of their owners.

Geysers of blood spurted from where each was doing his work. Every now and again, Demongo would glance over at Scaramouche gutting glow-stick-adorned partygoers and find himself impressed. Every now and again, Scaramouche would look back over at Demongo torching all manner of the innocent and find himself enchanted.

Then, at last, the deed was done. Not a single raver remained alive. Mozenrath, Shego, Tala, and Otto looked on, quite impressed indeed, as carnage covered the mosh pit: leaking blood and exposed bones and torn flesh.

From across the field, Demongo and Scaramouche locked eyes. They were both covered in blood and bits of gore, looking a little worn down from their assassination streak. Now would have been the time to tally the kills, to see who had won.

Instead, they both followed the same impulse, flying right to each other, catching each other in a tight embrace. Scaramouche kicked up one heel, spun them both around, and pressed his metal lips to Demongo's mouth as he dipped the demon low to the ground.

"Did I not tell you?" Tala chuckled smugly.

When their lips parted, Demongo remarked, "Perhaps you are not so much of an annoyance as I had previously believed."

"You know I just couldn't stay rivals with a bodacious bad boy like you," Scaramouche replied.

The distinct sound of a very large crystal cracking utterly ruined the moment.

"Do you want to tell me once more how magic is infallible?" Otto asked as Mozenrath, Shego, and Tala stood wide-eyed in fear.

The crack in the Crystal of Ix was gaining more branches by the millisecond. Then, in one great explosion of shards, Aku burst out, with Ashi leaping to his side.

"THAT WAS VERY ANNOYING," Aku declared. "BUT NOW I AM GOING TO MAKE THE MASSACRE YOU PULLED OFF LOOK LIKE A MINOR INJURY!"

He was distracted by what felt like a nip on what served as his feet. "EHHHHH?" He glanced downward to see which of the WHAM ARMY had bothered him.

What he saw was a tentacle protruding from the ground, its tip separated into a triad of grasping claws. The tentacle dug into him again, picking out a piece of Aku's own Darkness and swallowing it down, an obvious lump traveling its length.

And in the time it took Aku to register this, five more similar tentacles had risen to do the same. And in the time it took him to count that there were five, there were suddenly ten new ones that were a little taller, working on the next segment up in his body.

"Which one of you is doing this?" Otto asked, feeling creeping trepidation.

"That's…not me," Mozenrath replied.

"Not me either," Tala added. "This is a little…worrying, to say the least."

The clawed tentacles kept on surging up out of the ground like sped-up weeds, crawling up the length of Aku, devouring him bit by bit. Aku gave out many cries: "WHAT? NO! NOOOOO! WHAT IS HAPPENING?"

Ashi flinched, wanting to help her progenitor but not knowing how. She finally dove in to slash at the growing mass, but anything she cut away instantly regrew.

Then, suddenly, there was no more Aku where once there had stood a massive entity of Darkness. Ashi backed away, uncertain she was truly beholding the sight that met her eyes. (Somewhere, deep down, felt as though this was how it should be.) Then turned and scampered, regrouping. Not really knowing where to go.

Their work done, the tentacles retreated into the ground. Demongo and Scaramouche had scuttled up to the rest of the WHAM ARMY contingent, and Scaramouche said, "I dunno about you, but those squirmy-wormies gave me the heebie-jeebies."

"I…don't know what's worse," Mozenrath said with wide eyes. "If that was a force of nature we also need to fear…or if that was the work of another villain who STOLE OUR VICTORIOUS DEFEAT."

His question was answered by a booming bass voice: "How naïve of you to assume that another villain cannot be a force of nature you need to fear."

A silhouette on the full moon, he rapidly descended to hover over the sea of carnage in the mosh pit. His black boots pointed delicately downward, like a dancer's feet. His faithful Guardian loomed behind, as ever.

"This world was connected long before your arrival, and long before mine," Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, stated calmly, making a gentle gesture with his hand to indicate his surroundings. "It was long overdue to fall. And so Darkness has returned to Darkness."

"Great." Mozenrath rolled his eyes. "Another one of the Xehanorts. Which one are you, again?"

"The one true Seeker of Darkness," Ansem said. "Those who serve the one who thinks he has me fettered had sent Isa ahead to investigate the rift of Daibazaal and the effect of our work on other worldlines. When he was sent away licking his wounds, I became aware a stronger hand was needed."

"Wait a minute!" Shego realized. "You're not from this reality! You came in after US!"

"Which means that Discord did an absolutely WONDERFUL job watching the portal I VERY SPECIFICALLY asked him to watch," Mozenrath growled. "Let me guess. Aku was too much Darkness for you, and you wanted him out of the picture. So you obliterated him."

"You did half the work, pinning him down," Ansem replied. "If it is any consolation. It should also be made very clear that Aku is not truly gone. He is of the Primal Darkness, the Darkness from which all shadows spring, and so is of far more use to me broken down and redistributed. He yet exists, and so do his progeny. However, they now serve my purposes. Aku was a fool to have united his multiverse on the threads of his own Darkness…all he served to do was connect their Hearts. Make them more susceptible to the inevitable destruction that awaits all. They stand like dominoes in a line…all it will take is for a hand to push the first."

"I thought it was the other one who did the monologuing," Mozenrath sighed.

"I thought the exposition necessary," Ansem told him. "After all, I want you to be able to truly understand the fate that awaits you and the very fabric of the reality you stand in."

He threw his arms to the heavens, as did his Guardian. Above them formed an orb of Darkness, almost flaming red at its center. Branching and writhing tendrils inside indicated the depth of the Darkness provided by Aku's body and soul. The orb continued to expand, whipping up the entire environment, pulling everything toward it in what was now a night of fate.

And then the world, stressed by Aku's prior meddling with the Darkness and Ansem's final assault, was destroyed in an explosive burst.

When Mozenrath regained his senses, he was able to make more sense of what had happened. He'd been caught up in a rush, thrown into discombobulation, unable to tell left from right or up from down. And now he lay on a floating chunk of earth, an island caught up in a sky made of rushing, sweeping Darkness like a hurricane. The soil he stood on couldn't have had more than a twenty-foot radius before dropping off sharply into the void.

"How pitiful." Ansem descended before Mozenrath even had time to stand. "You style yourself the conqueror. But in order to take control of something, it must exist. How low you are suddenly brought when up against one who will simply…take it away from you."

"YOU," Mozenrath growled. "How did you even do any of this?"

"I told you. Aku had weakened this world's Heart. Opened it to Darkness. I used him as a catalyst. And now every world he connected – every world in his reality – shall fall."

"And the part where you ate him?"

Ansem chuckled. "A trick of the old Heartless, before they developed the instinct not to harm their own. Replicated to a much tamer effect in certain of the Emblems. Seeing the ancient matter that Aku comprised, I was inspired to see how many of those old forces were still active. I wonder how many lie dormant in our more stable worldline of origin. Perhaps your friends can help me answer that question in their demises."

Mozenrath was on his feet now, his hand lighting up blue as he drew it back; it illuminated the sheer rage on his face. "YOU LEAVE MY ASSOCIATES OUT OF THIS – "

Before he could thrust the attack forth, Ansem had rushed him, surrounded by a shell of Dark magic. The impact sent Mozenrath bowling over the edge of the platform, dangerously close to plummeting into the soupy Darkness that ate what remained of Aku's homeworld.

He managed to catch onto the edge with his gauntleted hand, using magic to dig his fingers in all the more tightly. Ansem floated toward the edge, leering above him.

"I had thought you of all people above declaring that your friends were your power," he sneered. "If you reject the true nature of the Darkness…then SUCCUMB TO IT!"

The Guardian summoned up two large orbs, one in each hand. It bowled the orbs, which hovered to either side of Mozenrath, charging up.

Mozenrath knew they would unleash a terrible rain of energy. He clenched his entire body, preparing for the final blow.

When Shego slammed into Ansem from behind, he wasn't expecting it, and the Guardian was still in the midst of casting the spell. When Ansem was knocked slightly off-kilter, the Guardian dropped everything to rush to him, to shield him from the supervillain's barrage of blows. "NOW, DR. O!" she screamed.

A metal arm dipped below the edge, seizing Mozenrath around the waist and hauling him up to the floating island. As Otto dropped him unceremoniously, the orbs repositioned, flying up to have the best vantage point for attacking the entire platform.

Tala descended like an avenging angel, shoving forth an equal yet opposite magical force that countered the orbs' unleashed power. Their sparks rained upon her, and she shielded herself and Mozenrath both with an enormous planar wall. Otto, having nothing more to do here, launched himself into battle alongside Shego, trying to take advantage of the openings she created by diverting the Guardian's attention to herself.

"I…" Tala winced, clearly faltering. "I am not strong enough – "

"Oh, for pity's sake." Mozenrath was instantly on his feet, contributing his own magic to strengthen her shield. "I have to do everything around here, don't I?"

The shield grew bright, blue, burning. Mozenrath and Tala nodded to each other, shoving it outward. It sizzled the orbs out of existence upon collision.

"SUBMIT!" Ansem roared, and suddenly, what remained of existence was altered. Mozenrath, Shego, Tala, and Otto were now completely in the dark. Mozenrath's first instinct was to summon up a light by which to see, and once that was done, he immediately wished he hadn't, because what it revealed was that Ansem had fused with his Guardian, the latter becoming an enormous winged shell that protected the Seeker inside.

The Guardian began to launch bolts of what seemed not to be light so much as negative existence, and all present knew that one touch would equal death. The evasion began.

A sudden scream. Otto Octavius evaporated into nothingness, having not been fast enough to dodge one of the projectiles.

"DR. O!" Shego cried in a panic.

Mozenrath ducked, rolled, flicked a hand. In a matter of moments, there was a resurrected Otto on the field, scrabbling to retrieve the robotic arms from where his previous body had fallen. "SHEGO!" he called out. "STAY AWAY FROM THE PROJECTILES!"

"YEAH, KINDA PICKED THAT UP WHEN YOU DIED!" Shego yelled back.

The barrage ceased. A bright white aura surrounded Ansem and his enormous Guardian, the latter of which was raising its bulky arms to the sky. "You shall FALL!" Ansem cried.

Then came the sound of salvation: the quiet and mounting melody of someone scatting syllables, improvising a melody on the spot.

Ansem didn't turn to look. But Mozenrath, Tala, Shego, and Otto had a clear view. Above and behind Ansem, Demongo was flying, carrying Scaramouche by locking both arms around his waist. The robot was gesturing wildly as he sang, commanding a host of orbiting bodies that upon closer inspection proved to be skulls. Demongo's skulls, those from his recent kills.

Once the skulls were in place, they went up in blue flames. The black of Ansem's void was lit by the glow sticks and reflective clothing of the ravers killed in the assault on Aku: partygoers a hundred strong, now under Demongo's command.

Scaramouche hit a high note.

The Guardian threw its arms down, beginning to unleash an apocalyptic blast.

The ravers plowed into the Guardian all at once, tearing and ripping and using any weaponry they carried upon them to fight. The attack from the Guardian was halted. Ansem gave a low growl as his body became clearer; the Guardian, under duress, was ejecting him.

"Mozenrath," Tala said solemnly. "We may be able to sever their connection."

"May be able to?" Mozenrath responded. "Don't sell us short, Tala."

Ansem was thrown out of the Guardian as the great Heartless attempted to fend off the ravers' souls. Mozenrath and Tala created a blade of their fused magic, like that of a guillotine, raising it high above the space between Ansem and the Guardian. For a moment, the thread of magic that bound them glimmered visibly.

The blade slammed down.

What sounded like a scream came from the Guardian. Ansem merely grunted in frustration. They were separated, two entities no longer bound to one another.

And once the Guardian realized he was really and truly free, he was no longer afraid of what might happen if he did not submit. He gave up, shooting into the sky, shaking off Demongo's army of souls in the process. And he sped away, making a beeline for the portal through which Ansem had brought him.

There was someone back home he had to meet.

Ansem was most certainly angered by the loss of his living weapon, but not out of tricks in the slightest. His own hands, gloved in white, glowed with power.

A shrill shriek heralded the arrival of the final opponent. Ashi launched herself onto the platform, for as the Guardian had been in thrall to Ansem, Ashi was still in thrall to the fragments of Aku that were feeding into the Darkening of her universe. She lunged, claws scraping.

When she hit, Ansem staggered, struggling to peel her away. She left long gashes in his skin, drawing a flowing Darkness rather than any sort of blood.

"I think we can pull off one more miracle," Mozenrath said as Scaramouche and Demongo landed alongside him and his cohorts. "We're surrounded by the very magic we manipulate to travel. I'm not exactly able to summon up any NEW Darkness for a Corridor, but…"

"I see what you are saying!" Tala realized. "We can make use of what we already have!"

The two sorcerers turned to the miasma, reaching out to pull the Darkness in, like cotton candy freshly spun. From it, they molded a disc shape, then gave it dimension and direction: the wreck of Daibazaal.

Another shrill shriek. Ansem had finally gotten the upper hand on Ashi, and now was forcing a binding thread between them, taming her the way he'd done to his Guardian. After all, he needed a new one, and Ashi was made of far more powerful stuff than the person who'd contributed the heart for the Guardian.

"MOVE IT!" Shego yelled, seizing Otto's hand without stopping to question why. And she ran, dragging him along. And Demongo pulled Scaramouche along. And Mozenrath and Tala dove in together.

The Corridor closed, securing their escape. As Ashi settled into her new role, hovering behind Ansem, the Seeker snarled ferally, lip curling as he'd realized his prey had gotten away.

The six stumbled out before the portal at Daibazaal, and though it seemed they'd gotten away safely, the effects of Ansem's cataclysm still rippled. True to his word, he'd utilized the very conduits that Aku had built between the worlds in order to dominate them, pulsing Aku's own Darkness through them. Outward from the central world he'd destroyed, stars were slowly yet surely going dark.

"The whole reality is infected," Mozenrath said breathlessly. "There's…there's going to be nothing left for us to conquer!"

"Perhaps a warning," Tala suggested. "That we be careful when uniting our own territories."

"We can worry about that LATER!" Otto snapped. "Let us leave at once, before we are taken down with the reality!"

Mozenrath, Tala, Shego, Otto, Demongo, and Scaramouche hurried through the portal. Then, some time later, the Guardian made it, flitting through. Then, at the last possible second, Ansem and his new guardian, Ashi, would eventually slip past, but by that time, the Vicious would be long gone.

And only then did the entire worldline of Aku finally collapse.

...

The evening fog was thick and gray by the time that Andy Jason's whale-watching boat pulled up to the site of the wreck. From there, Papyrus and Ven lowered their canoe into the water, barely able to see three feet in front of them.

What they could hear was Andy whispering after them, "Be careful. I'll be waiting right here."

"Let's go," Ven said softly, and they took off into the mist.

It didn't take long for the massive shape of the ship to come looming into view, first as a monstrous shadow so big one might think it was caddy, then as the least comforting boat that Ven or Papyrus had ever seen. They were used to the images of pirate ships like the Jolly Roger, with planks and sails, and those could be scary enough. This was something more modern, blockier, dark.

Along the hull, they found a metal maintenance ladder leading up. "THIS IS GOING TO BE VERY DANGEROUS," Papyrus reminded Ven.

"I'm ready," Ven asserted. "You?"

"THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I USED TO TRAIN TO DO WHEN I WANTED TO BE A ROYAL GUARD. I'M READY."

Climbing a metal ladder quietly was a bit of a challenge, yet they made it onto the deck without being noticed. The deck was laden with wooden crates; Papyrus, sensing that stealth was a good idea here, ducked behind a stack, pulling Ven along by the sleeve to hide beside him.

The timing couldn't have been better. Two crewmen walked past without even noticing the intruders. "Whale's making her final dive," one said.

"Good," the other replied. "The launch just brought in the last of the stuff that was stored in the sea cave. Another hour and we'll be outta here."

"VEN – " Papyrus began.

"Shshshsh!" Ven placed his hands over Papyrus' teeth. "Not so loud!"

Papyrus nodded slowly. Since he didn't really have much practice speaking quietly, he just let Ven draw the conclusion on his own, since he knew Ven had just as sharp of a puzzle-solving mind as he.

"We were right," Ven realized. "The bad guys were bringing up stuff from that wreck. And they're using the orca to do it! We gotta find Katie. I hope she's not tied up in all of this."

Papyrus gave a solemn, sympathetic nod.

From there, they moved by utilizing the hiding spaces offered via the recovered crates, darting from blind spot to blind spot whenever the coast seemed clear. On the way, they heard even more interesting chatter:

"What're you eatin'?"

"Beef jerky. Liberated it from that camping supply place. You want some?"

"I still can't believe you robbed those places. The boss was fit to be tied…"

"So they were using the tunnel," Ven whispered. "And that's what happened to Jenna's place. But it sounds like that wasn't part of the plan in the first place."

Papyrus made a shrug that seemed inquisitive. Ven read it perfectly; "You're right. Whoever their boss is, that's the one we gotta watch out for."

He summoned up Wayward Wind, holding it close, just in case.

Some of the crates on the crawl across the deck were left open. Ven glanced into one, gasping. What he saw was several folded cloths with silky, hairy textures: animal furs, and if they were worth all this trouble, likely not from anything legal to skin.

"Where'd you put the notebook?" Another grunt from a crewman.

"Boss has it" was the reply.

"Hilda's notebook!" Ven realized. "She was right…they found it and read all her secrets!"

From the last hiding spot, a passage in the floor, a stairway belowdecks, was visible. Ven and Papyrus darted into it, hustling into the belly of the beast.

Ven cringed when he realized the rough texture of the walls had a red mottling to them. "Is that…?"

"IT'S JUST RUST," Papyrus said hurriedly, now confident he was less likely to be heard down here. "I THINK."

A sign proclaimed that the first door they reached was for "Authorized Personnel Only." "BUT WE DON'T HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO THAT," Papyrus said, "SINCE ALL THE AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ARE EVIL. THAT MEANS THEY FORFEIT ALL RIGHTS FOR US TO OBEY THEIR SIGN."

The room beyond was vast, mostly taken up by a fenced-off pool of water. Along the walkways that framed it were shelves upon shelves of gear for scuba-diving and other marine pursuits.

A sudden shift in the water. Then a familiar face breaching, seeming to brighten when she noticed Ven and Papyrus.

As soon as the two of them recognized the orca, they rushed to lean over the railing;

"It's you!"

"DON'T WORRY! WE'RE HERE TO STOP THE BAD GUYS FROM MAKING YOU DIG UP ILLEGAL GOODS!"

The orca bobbed and splashed happily. Maybe he understood. Maybe he just wanted to play catch again. Either way, she was glad to see her new friends.

"We'll be back," Ven vowed. "Promise."

Papyrus looked around to locate another door at the far end of the room. "THERE."

Quietly they crept, peering into the room beyond. This was a storage space jam-packed with crates, a solitary desk and a wheeled office chair planted in the midst of what bare space existed. The chair's back was to the door, but Ven and Papyrus could still see that the figure seated in it had familiar fire-red hair.

"Katie…" Ven breathed.

Papyrus said nothing. It would've alerted her. All he knew was that his heart was sinking, and he couldn't imagine how it must've felt for Ven.

Then, in a rage, Ven ran at the chair, screaming, "KATIE! WE TRUSTED YOU!"

"VEN, NO!" Papyrus cried. "WAIT!"

Ven seized the back of the chair, spinning it so he could look Katie in the eye.

When he realized that she was bound to the chair with several lengths of rope and that her mouth was bound in a white gag, he screamed.

Katie squirmed, making muffled sounds. Papyrus caught up; "YOU AREN'T THE BAD GUY! I'M HAPPY, BUT ALSO AT THE SAME TIME VERY PERTURBED BECAUSE THIS OBVIOUSLY MEANS THE BAD GUY CAUGHT YOU!"

"Here!" Ven slashed Wayward Wind expertly, severing the ropes and gag all in one go. They peeled away, falling to the floor.

"Ven," Katie panted. "Papyrus, I was afraid no one would find me. I fixed my boat and went right out to check on the whale, only the fog was rolling in, and it was getting dark. Then I finally saw her, only she was being fed by some men in an outboard." The words came spilling out more and more quickly in her fear. "They were putting some sort of harness on her. When they saw me, they rammed my boat, then grabbed me, tied me up, and brought me here. I don't know what's going on!"

Then she gaped in pure horror. "The ropes…you shouldn't have done that…now he'll know you're here…"

"Who will?" Ven asked.

"He's coming!" Katie hissed.

Papyrus, spotting a blind spot behind a particular stack of crates, this time grabbed both Ven and Katie by the upper arms, dragging them into hiding.

Footsteps heralded the arrival of Andy Jason into the room. "Well, Katie," he said in a smug tone. "You'll be happy to know that – wait. Katie? Where'd she go?" He gave the room a cursory glance, then turned to exit it, calling out in singsong: "Oh, Kaaatiiiiie!"

Once he'd gone, Katie whispered, "We have to go for help."

"It was Andy," Ven panted. "This whole time, when he let us walk around Whale World – when he took us out on his tour – "

"I'M HAVING A HARD TIME BELIEVING IT, TOO," Papyrus said as softly as he could. "BUT IT IS ADMITTEDLY EASIER TO BELIEVE THAN KATIE BEING THE EVIL ONE."

"You thought this was my doing?" Katie hissed. "I wouldn't even know how to set any of this up!"

"We found your gloves in a place Andy was obviously using as a hideout," Ven explained.

"My gloves?" Katie repeated. "You mean the gloves that went missing when my boat was ransacked."

"YES!" Papyrus replied. "…OH. YES, I SEE NOW THAT IT WOULD'VE BEEN VERY EASY FOR WHOEVER DID THAT TO TAKE YOUR PERSONAL PROPERTY FROM THE START."

"But we know now," Ven said. "You were feeding the orca they were using to bring up stolen goods. They were sure you'd catch them in the act. And…you did."

"Maybe I should've listened to the sign and not meddled," Katie sighed.

"WE NEED TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET OUT OF HERE," Papyrus suggested. "MAYBE WE SHOULD SPLIT UP SO WE DON'T ALL GET CAUGHT AT ONCE."

"You guys go together," Katie advised. "I can take care of myself, but even with that…" She glanced at Wayward Wind, unsure how to even describe it. "With that, you two are vulnerable."

"We're stronger than you think," Ven told her. "But…that might be exactly why we should clear the way first. If we run into trouble, we can take care of it."

"THEN YOU CAN FOLLOW WITHOUT A PROBLEM," Papyrus said. "WE'LL ALL GET INTO THE CANOE AND HEAD BACK TO SHORE, AND WE'LL TELL HOLT EVERYTHING."

Katie nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

Ven put a hand on Papyrus' shoulder. "Ready?"

"READY!" Papyrus agreed.

"Go!" Ven hissed, and he and Papyrus took off at a quick dash for the door.

Out of the storage room, over the walkway, around the orca pool, through the supply room –

And the door to the stairway slammed shut.

"NO!" Ven and Papyrus screamed as one. There was a brief moment in which they both shoved at the wheel that opened its mechanism, attempting to break through, but it was locked tightly to prevent their escape.

"Well, what do we have here?"

When they turned back, they were faced with Andy Jason, the real Andy Jason, as they'd never seen him before. The expression on his face radiated pure malice in a way that he'd never let slip once at Whale World. His arms were folded, as if he was scolding Ven and Papyrus for daring to undermine his greed.

"No one you can call for help now," Andy said smugly. "No one knows you're here but me."

Ven gasped. "Maybe now. But – "

The GummiPhone was whipped from his pocket. He frantically tapped at the screen: ring, ring, click, "Hello?"

"JENNA!" Ven screamed. "IT'S VEN! WE'RE IN TROUBLE! YOU HAVE TO – "

Andy surged toward him, ripping the phone from his hands and tossing it into the pool with force. "You're about to become the victim of an unfortunate kayaking accident," he said menacingly. "Or maybe I'll tell my customers that the snake horse got you. Yeah, that's what I'll do!"

A soft clatter. Papyrus' eyes were drawn to Ven's phone hitting the walkway. It all clicked.

Before Andy could make another move, he seized a nearby oxygen tank used for diving and hurled it into the pool.

"What did you do that for?" Andy was laughing through his taunts. "Say goodnight, boys!"

He reached out. Ven braced Wayward Wind.

Here is what should have happened: the orca bounced the tank with her nose, the same way she'd bounced Ven's phone. It sailed through the air and clocked Andy in the head. He spun around dizzily, comically, his eyes rolling back into his head. The last thing he said before passing out was "Nuts." Then he collapsed, unconscious until such time as the police could rouse him to inform him of how long he would be spending in prison.

But that's not what happened.

There was a sound like a thunderclap. And to Ven and Papyrus' horror, suddenly there was a bright red hole in the center of Andy's forehead, dripping blood. He died instantly from the shot, keeling over and flopping onto the walkway. The orca did bounce the tank, which ricocheted off the wall before rolling onto Andy's corpse.

"Oh, Andy, my dear friend," a lilting voice said from behind Ven and Papyrus. "I had hoped it wouldn't end so gruesomely. OH WELL! Some umbrella boys really are meant to stay umbrella boys, am I correct?"

Ven and Papyrus slowly turned, shuddering, to see the speaker. He stood out more than any of Andy's crewmen had. His jet-black suit with a deep-purple satin shirt beneath brought out the raven-black color of the hair he had peaked over his forehead with generous amounts of gel. His face was narrow, his nose pointed, his mouth bent into a playful smirk. He was short, slender, and yet in possession of a sinister aura, likely linked to the smoking gun in his outstretched hand.

"And as for you two," the man said, taking a step toward Ven and Papyrus – walking with an obvious limp – "I feel I owe you a congratulations on getting this far. But I'm afraid it ends here."

"You…" Ven's face went white. "You just killed your friend…"

"Please." The killer snorted. "That title was more honorary than anything. Andy Jason was, first and foremost, a disappointment. But we needed his whale-watching operation to front our little heist, so we resorted to stooping to his level."

"SO YOU WERE BEHIND IT ALL," Papyrus realized, eyes stretching from his bony sockets.

"Yes," the man said. "I was. Now, here WOULD be the part where I told you that you were in the presence of the Penguin, Oswald Cobblepot, and then encouraged you to run off and tell all your little friends on whatever weird world you came from that THAT name should be feared. But, alas, you won't get that far alive." His smirk stretched into a playful smile. "Bye bye!"

Ven was faster on the draw than Oswald. Wayward Wind spun, deflecting the next round of shots. Once the gun was emptied, Ven and Papyrus bolted, pushing right past Oswald and shoving him to the floor.

No sooner had the infamous Penguin hit the walkway than he screamed "ED! DO SOMETHING!"

The door finally unlocked and swung open. But it wasn't the salvation of escape that Ven and Papyrus would have hoped for. At the same time that the stairway became unblocked, a wave of powerful energy washed over both Ven and Papyrus, who buckled from the force. Wayward Wind completely winked out of existence, and try as he might, Ven couldn't get it to return.

But that was nothing compared to the agonizing pain that wracked Papyrus' body. He muttered and moaned, brought to his knees and unable to stand.

Ven noticed immediately; "PAPYRUS!" He dropped to his own knees, reaching out, then drawing back so as not to accidentally exacerbate the pain. "What's happening to us?"

"SOMETHING…THAT BLOCKS…MAGIC," Papyrus huffed. "I'M…MADE OF MAGIC. IT'S…HURTING ME."

"BINGOOOOOO!" This from a bold, brash, charismatic voice. A second man, this one wearing a green suit and a black bowler hat as well as a pair of spectacles and a bright smile, stepped into the equipment room. He, too, held a gun, trained on Ven. "You two are just the brightest little puzzle-solvers this island ever did see, aren't you? Well, then again, you had otherworldly magic at your disposal, which is kiiiiinda cheating! But turnabout IS fair play, which is why I installed a high-grade Inhibitor in the middle of this room, and would you look at that? It JUST activated!"

It dangled from the very center of the ceiling, its multiple eyes wide open. But neither Ven nor Papyrus had any inclination to look for it. Because Papyrus' vision was blurring, his breaths growing ragged, and Ven was fearing for Papyrus' very life.

"I must say, I am impressed," the second man went on. "Here I thought the gauntlet of secret codes and riddles that stood in your way would be just impossible for anyone of ordinary intellect to solve. No problem for me, of course. There's a reason I call myself the 'Riddler,' and not just because 'Ed Nygma' sounds so blasé. Though…" He made a show of using his free hand to tap at his chin. "All those puzzles turned out to be connected in a grand scheme that led the way to the identity of the culprit! Isn't that something?"

Oswald had finally gotten to his feet, closing in from Ven and Papyrus' other side with his own gun reloaded. However, his gaze was focused on Ed so he could roll his eyes as dramatically as possible at him. "Okay, FINE. I will admit that the UNDERGROUND RIDDLE NETWORK you kept going on about actually existed. You weren't crazy, and you weren't making it up." He still kept a mocking expression through this.

"Well, gee!" Ed retorted. "Maybe if you'd believed me earlier and removed the cairns LIKE I ASKED INSTEAD OF JUST KICKING THEM OVER, WE WOULDN'T BE HERE RIGHT NOW!"

"Oh, because that was the ONLY thing stopping these two idiots from crashing our boat!" Oswald argued. "You were the one who thought a 'No Meddling' sign would actually STOP ANYONE FROM MEDDLING!"

"Which one of us caught that the lighthouse was broadcasting a phone number, again?" Ed retorted. "Was that you? No. That was me. IT WAS ALL! ME! THIS WHOLE ENTIRE SCHEME! I HAVE BEEN DOING ALL THE WORK – "

"YOU'VE BEEN USING YOUR FREE TIME TO MAKE OMINOUS RIDDLE PHONE CALLS WHILE I SET UP THE ENTIRE SMUGGLING OPERATION!"

Ven had no energy left to give to the lovers' quarrel. While they kept on bickering, Ven tuned them out entirely, for he was noticing something awful. Papyrus' shaking and shivering, his whimpers of pain, were already horrifying, and Ven's mind raced, trying to figure out how to evade the two guns without access to his Keyblade or any sort of magic. But he lost the capability for rational thought when he noticed the fluid beads running down Papyrus' exposed bones. His heart jolted a current of horror into his stomach, and he prayed it wasn't what he thought it was, but as he reached out, placing a bare palm to Papyrus' arm –

The fluid was sticky. Not water, or sweat, but congealing collagen.

Under the weight of the Inhibitor negating his entire magical being, Papyrus was melting.

"V-VEN…" he coughed, feeling the effects already. "IF I DON'T MAKE IT OUT OF HERE, THEN PROMISE ME…PROMISE ME YOU'LL KEEP ON LIVING…THE WORLDS NEED YOU, AND NOT JUST TO SAVE THEM. YOU MAKE EVERYONE'S DAY A LITTLE BRIGHTER, AND I…I HAVE TO ADMIT THAT I…"

"No," Ven said sternly. "Nonono, we're both getting out of here. YOU'RE getting out of here. There has to be a way."

He hadn't felt this desperate since the Keyblade Graveyard. Perhaps even then, he hadn't felt this desperate, because at least then, he'd been armed, he'd had a chance, he'd even been able to fight Vanitas when he was at his weakest. Now, he was trapped and useless, and the person he cared about in a way he couldn't remember ever having felt before was slowly melting away.

Maybe this was how Terra had felt, when he'd seen Ven at the mercy of Eraqus' blade – but somehow Ven knew it wasn't the same. He did, however, remember how Terra had saved him, conjuring a Corridor not of Darkness but of pure Light, leading him right to the Destiny Islands. Where his heart already had a home.

Maybe he could do that now. Despite all odds.

An overwhelming feeling of desperation and hope and fear and adoration surged inside Ven, bubbling up like a shaken Rocket Soda. He wanted to protect Papyrus more than anything else. He needed to. The Corridor was ready to form.

But the Inhibitor wouldn't let it. Not in that room, anyway. Ven's heart sank as he felt the distinct notion that he'd managed to call it up just outside the field of the Inhibitor, on the deck of the boat. It glowed at the edge of his consciousness, taunting him from where he couldn't even see it.

"Aaaaanyway!" Ed concluded. "We've spent enough time gabbing when we should just agree Oswald is sleeping on the COUCH tonight and call it a day!"

"Technically, it is a futon," Oswald said.

"Technically, I don't care!" Ed replied. "Since you two were such clever little boys, I'm going to give you the grace of having some last words of your choice before you depart this world and all the rest of them forever!"

"Well?" Oswald taunted. "Let's hear it!"

Ven could only feel anger rising as he clutched Papyrus close to him, feeling how the latter's surfaces were becoming slowly more gelatinous. "I hate you so much," Ven seethed.

"Feeling's mutual!" Ed said. "Oswald, take out the bonehead while I shut the little locksmith up."

Oswald's gun trained on the back of Papyrus' skull. "Shall we on three?"

"I think we shall! One…two – "

"Wait," Oswald interrupted. "Do we shoot on the word three, or after?"

"Oswald," Ed growled, "are you SERIOUSLY BRINGING THIS UP NOW – "

That was when Katie Firestone rushed up behind Oswald with a scuba tank in her hands, ramming it so hard into him that he doubled over in pain, falling onto the walkway beside Andy Jason's remains.

And at the very same time, Jenna Deblin, who'd seen the other end of Ven's portal open up in the Hot Kettle and used it to get onto the deck of the boat, finished running down the stairs and slopped the tureen of clam chowder she'd been boiling when she'd gotten Ven's call all over Ed, subjecting him to intense burns. Ed gave a high-pitched scream as he flopped to the floor.

"ED!" Oswald was distracted away from his own pain, trying to crawl toward his partner in crime.

Jenna rushed forth, extending a hand, and Papyrus took it though his daze. Katie grabbed Ven by the forearm, pulling him up, and the two women hurried Ven and Papyrus out of the equipment room and up the stairs.

"Katie," Jenna greeted smugly. "A little birdie told me you were wrapped up in some trouble."

"You're the last person I expected to see out here," Katie replied.

"I'm just full of surprises!" Jenna laughed.

On the deck of the boat, Papyrus felt his pain abate; the Inhibitor's range was behind him. He straightened up; "IT HURTS A LOT LESS."

"Papyrus – " Ven pressed himself closer, first, giving a tight embrace. Then he peeled away – a difficult task, because while Papyrus was still whole enough to be a solid skeleton, there was still enough melted bone on the topmost layer of him to threaten to glue Ven to him.

"IT'S OKAY, VEN," Papyrus sighed. "YOU'RE SAFE."

"I'M safe?" Ven cried. "You almost died!"

"We can talk about this later!" Jenna urged.

"This boat's crawling with Andy's men," Katie panted. "Or…those men's men."

"Not anymore." Holt Scotto became visible through the fog. "What happened to the ringleader? …JENNA?"

"Long story," Jenna replied. "We can tell it back at the café."

"They're down there, and they're ARMED," Katie emphasized. "We need to go. NOW."

"This way!" Holt turned to lead them. "We'll get on my boat, and I'll put out a dispatch!"

And, miracle of miracles, all five of them were soon on the fishing boat that was pealing back toward Deception Island as Holt barked for backup into an onboard radio.

Aboard the smuggling ship, Oswald and Ed had finally gotten back up to their feet, Ed weathering out the soup burns.

(Giovanni was distracted, looking up at the way the sun filtered into the forest. "You ever get this feeling that somewhere, somebody's doing something really cool with soup in an epic showdown, and you're not there to see it?")

"She is not going to be happy when she hears about this," Oswald said breathlessly.

"She…doesn't have to know…what happened," Ed panted. "We still have the goods, and we still have the or – "

A thunk of a splash let them know the orca had disappeared, deciding to buck her training and follow the nice boys who played catch with her.

"…We have the goods," Ed corrected. "We'll deliver them and move on to the next world in the operation. She never has to know what happened here."

"Good call," Oswald said. Then: "We should get you something for those burns."

"Ohhh, you THINK?"

They took over the ship and steered it further out to sea with the plunders of the S.S. Whitechapel Dawn.

...

"YOU HAD ONE JOB!"

To emphasize his point, Mozenrath shoved his index finger, glowing brightly blue, up at Discord's face. Discord was unfazed.

"I watched the gate," Discord replied. "You never specified how long it was supposed to be watched by me."

"IT WAS IMPLIED!" Mozenrath yelled. "Thanks to you and your negligence, an entity of pure and indeterminable Darkness managed to DESTROY THE ENTIRE REALITY!"

"That sounds like a you problem," Discord said. "After all, it only happened once he was in there with you. And besides, I had something important to take care of."

"WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE SO IMPORTANT – "

"He was busy pressing one of our MORTAL ENEMIES into our service and letting him have free reign," Draco broke in.

"One of our – " That was when Mozenrath looked across the deck to see the person he definitely hadn't left on the ship. "What. Is. THAT. Doing here?"

"So YOU'RE the leader of this evil operation!" Commander Peepers skidded up in front of Mozenrath, standing straight as a tree, saluting. "Commander Peepers at your service, sir! Here to lend the WHAM ARMY my skills as military strategist, moral support, and occasional gofer!"

Mozenrath's next word began as a low growl that quickly escalated: "DiiiiscOOOOORD – "

"Oh, quit your howling at the moon and cut to sleeping in the middle of a summer afternoon already," Discord scoffed. "Lord Hater decided he didn't want his right-hand man anymore. So we're offering him something better."

"And what proof do we have that he's not ACTIVELY TRYING TO BETRAY US?" Mozenrath asked. "How do we know this whole thing wasn't a setup? I AM NOT GOING THROUGH ANOTHER HANS WESTERGAARD!"

"Then don't date this one," Discord said flatly. "But believe me, this is different."

"Sir, if you'll just give me a chance," Peepers begged, "I'm willing to prove to you my newfound loyalty! Trust me, once you see what I can offer your regime, you'll find me so invaluable that you'll have no choice but to give me the recognition that affirms I'll never leave because I'm so starved for it!"

"Well, if nothing else, he's got the ego," Shego remarked.

"Also, if I may," Zeron Alpha pointed out, "you brought home two new friends of your own. One of which you didn't plan on. How do we know they're not going to betray us the way you think Peepers will?"

"Do you really think I would do something so sly and underhanded as that?" Demongo said in a tone that really wasn't reassuring.

"Trust me, babe," Scaramouche said. "So long as you fellas don't turn my head into a Fourth of July display like my last boss, then like you can't get rid of your shadow, you'll never be rid of Scaramouche the Merciless!"

"And are we not all like-minded villains here?" Peepers said. "Any one of us could backstab any other one of us at the drop of a hat! That's what we do! It's part of the job description! Not that I ever would. No, nooooooo, I'm in this for the long haul." He paused awkwardly. "So long as Lord Hater doesn't, y'know, change his mind. But even then, we can part on good terms! I'll convince him NOT to destroy y – no, wait, that'd be impossible." He shrugged. "We'll work it out."

"I like the cut of the little man's jib," Scaramouche replied. "Jeepers creepers, Peepers, the brutal honesty is a good look on you."

"I just think a mutual villain partnership is built on trust and respect," Peepers said. "And also shared hatred and a lack of morals that does in fact indicate that no one is ever truly safe. Look, I'm – preeeeetty much done with Lord Hater. Mostly. Like ninety percent sure? But the fact of the matter is I owe you guys one! No, I owe you guys MORE than one!"

Megavolt, in the meantime, was looking back and forth between the two of them, the look on his face suggesting that he was bewildered by some unknown connection that only he could pick up.

"I still don't trust this," Mozenrath growled. "He's going to take the first opportunity to get us killed so he can get his old boss back!"

"No, no, noooooo!" Peepers protested, both hands up. "I'm seriously here to offer you my services! I can take the good thing you have going on and make it GREAT! I already have skeletons of stratagems that can be used for basic world domination in at least thirty different biomes!"

"So do I," Mozenrath told him. "You're not special."

"Mozenrath," Tala pointed out. "I think being aggressive toward a defected member of an enemy faction may ultimately be a much, much worse idea than letting him into our ranks. Unless you want to hasten the speed with which we get destroyed."

"I'M NOT GOING TO DESTROY YOU, FOR GROP'S SAKE!" Peepers shrieked. "If you'd just GIVE ME A CHANCE – "

Mozenrath didn't even let him finish; "I'M NOT GOING TO WAIT AROUND FOR OUR LIVES TO BE THREATENED FOR YOU TO SHOW OFF HOW QUICKLY YOU CAN THROW US TO THE JACKALS – "

"Uhm." Morvok cleared his throat. "Not to…ah…break up your argument or anything…but…it just occurred to me that our actions here probably tipped off Zarkon's radar, and the entire Galra fleet most likely knows we're here."

"DON'T INTERRUPT ME WHILE I'M CHASTISING!" Mozenrath yelled. "HOW CAN YOU BE SO SURE ANYWAY?"

"Because…ah…" Morvok blushed, trying to make himself as small as possible. "They're…already here?"

When everyone took a step back from either participating in or observing Mozenrath's argument with Peepers, they could now very plainly see that the entirety of the surrounding space was filled with sleek, silver spaceships of Galra construction, purple lights gleaming threateningly. Cannons were being aimed and smaller shuttles being released, all toward the Vicious.

Peepers' eye widened to its maximum. "Ohhhhhh, flarping zribdenk."

"I mean, Zarkon has been very interested in alternate reality portals for…pretty much since the regime began," Morvok said, now just nervously babbling. "It only makes sense that if someone could actually perfect one, then he'd – "

"DISCORD!" Mozenrath yelled. "GET US OUT OF HERE!"

"Me?" Discord replied. "Why ME?"

"Because you have enough power to," Mozenrath said, "AND ALSO IF YOU HADN'T MADE YOUR DETOUR, THIS WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED!"

"THOSE TWO THINGS HAD LITERALLY NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER!" Peepers shrieked. "Also, WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS! You all need to SHUT UP and follow my orders! There's only one way we're making it through this fleet alive, and I know it! I need one of you on the helm and EVERYONE WHO CAN USE MAGIC fueling our cannons with extra fire! NOW NOW NOW!"

Before Mozenrath could argue, Discord put a claw on his shoulder, leaning down to his ear. "You want him to prove he won't get us killed?" Discord muttered. "Then let's see how he handles a situation where he could very easily get us killed. And if he fails…well, we have backup plans, don't we?"

Mozenrath roughly shoved him aside with a shoulder. "You had BETTER know what you're doing," he seethed as he bolted down belowdecks, with Tala, Shego, Demongo, Scaramouche, Draco, and Discord following.

Alpha bounded up on all fours to reach the helm in a split second, clutching the wheel. Megavolt charged up the light sails; Morvok tried to decide whether it was safer to be out here where the Galra were firing or down there where Mozenrath was angry. Otto took mental notes on the construction of the ships, acting unfazed as you please.

"All right." Peepers hopped up beside Alpha. "Let's do this. Take her forward, canting 25 degrees to the north-northeast! And hit FULL SPEED!"

As Alpha turned to the appropriate degree, he realized that in fact, there was a gap in the fleet there – almost unnoticeable, but a set of ships that hadn't arranged as tightly-knit as they should have.

The ship burst forward at top speed, barreling through that gap. "WHEN WE'RE THROUGH," Peepers yelled, "HARD LEFT!"

The minute the ships that formed the gaps were past, putting the Vicious in the thick of the fleet arrangement, the Vicious made the sharp turn, avoiding a whole lot of cannon fire. And more was coming.

"ZIGZAG LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT-DOUBLE RIGHT!" Peepers cried out. "DOWN BELOWDECKS, OPEN FIRE! SHOOT AT ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING!"

Discord, Mozenrath, Tala, and Demongo were able to envelop their cannons in bright magical auras, providing a steady stream of blue magic to shoot from each as a constant laser. Shego loaded several blasts from her gloves into the ammo chamber; Draco fired regular plasma but charged each blast up with a different hex. The star of the show, however, was arguably Scaramouche, whose impromptu song was able to redirect every blast he fired into the ship of his choice.

Seeing a large ship loom, Peepers yelled, "FEINT TWO DEGREES LEFT AND THEN PULL THIRTY-SEVEN DEGREES RIGHT FROM ORIGIN!"

That move caused a three-Galra-ship pileup, explosions of purple and red heralding the deaths of many Galra.

"You know, I'm at the point where I'm not even sorry," Morvok sniffed. "Every SINGLE ONE of them practically hazed me out of the military. It's about time the tables turned!" He turned to yell at the collision; "I BET YOU'RE SORRY YOU CALLED ME A WHIMPERING BUFFOON NOW!"

"DOUBLE BACK ENTIRELY THE WAY WE JUST CAME!" Peepers directed.

Alpha cranked the wheel, and there were still more explosions from the resulting collision, as well as several Galra ships falling from friendly fire of the others' cannons.

"TO THE RIGHT! TO THE LEFT! TAKE IT BACK NOW, Y'ALL!"

At last, the end was in sight – until the outer rim of ships closed in, making an impenetrable border.

"This thing has artificial gravity engaged to press all occupants TO THE DECK, right?" Peepers asked Alpha. "Not just straight down?"

"If it's the wrong one," Alpha told him, "it can't be much worse than what happens if we plow straight into that."

Peepers smacked a fist into the opposite palm. "Then take us on a LOOP-DE-LOOP."

The Vicious shot straight up, nose to the heavens, then, once out of range of the outer ring of the fleet, began to invert, curving up and around.

"NOW!" Peepers pointed dramatically off the bow. "BARREL ROLL!"

In a flurry of magical cannon fire, the Vicious burst out of the Galra fleet entirely, corkscrewing around and around as it shot forth. Once they were truly in safety, Alpha evened their course out.

(The Guardian had left the gate partway through this escape, slipping through the wreckage the Vicious had left. And when Ansem arrived, well, he just finished the job that the WHAM ARMY started, much to Zarkon's dismay.)

"AAAAND CEASE FIRE!" Peepers yelled before leaping into the air again and again; "YES! YES! YYYYYYEEEEE-HE-HEEEESSSS! Oh, GROP, does it feel good to best an enemy fleet like that!"

The rest arrived back onboard. "Love how we went from the mouse in the cat-and-mouse to the coolest cats of them all, babe," Scaramouche complimented.

Demongo scoffed; "And I didn't even need to unleash a single soul on them. If I'd done THAT, then it would've been over so much more quickly! …But admittedly less fun."

"Eh?" Discord elbowed Mozenrath in the waist. "EHHHHHH?"

"…All right," Mozenrath growled. "He stays on probation, but after THAT display, he at the very least gets A CHANCE. We'll see how long my generosity holds out."

"Oh, THANK YOU!" Peepers launched himself across the deck to seize Mozenrath's slender chest in a tight embrace. "THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!"

"GET OFF ME!" Mozenrath pried Peepers off forcefully, flinging him to the deck.

"Just like old times…" Peepers sniffled.

Discord cleared his throat. "I'm. Not opposed to being hugged. I'm just saying."

Peepers ignored him; "Now LET'S TAKE THIS SHIP BACK TO BASE!" He marched back up to the bow.

Then paused. Glanced slightly back, right at Discord. "I – " He thought better of it, shaking his head and returning to his course.

Tala's own eyes widened. "OH."

And Shego and Otto, who already knew exactly what Tala suspected about Peepers and Discord, groaned.

...

Through the halls of Atlas Academy, sirens blared. A frantic voice cried out, "THE ACADEMY IS IN LOCKDOWN! ALL STUDENTS REPORT TO THE DESIGNATED SHELTER AREAS! I REPEAT! THE ACADEMY IS IN LOCKDOWN! ALL STUDENTS REPORT TO THE DESIGNATED SHELTER AREAS!"

Out front of the school, Ironwood's troops assembled, the living and the robotic mingling. A host of Paladins was lined up as the final defense.

The approaching menace was detected so early because it hadn't been subtle in the least. First came Ayam Aghoul and Hecate, him striding alongside her casual floating as both turned up their noses at the feeble attempts of mortals to keep them back. Behind them came five Paladins, being piloted by the Huntsman, Zorg, Drakken, Melanie, and Miltia. Bringing up the rear were Mim, Neo, Hannibal, Velma, and the Mukhtar, looking fierce as they come.

At several vantage points around the drive leading up to the Academy, they lay in wait, hiding: Clover, Vine, Elm, Marrow, Harriet, Solus. Clover activated an earpiece that had a comm line for only those six: "Be on your guard. We can focus on the Paladins once we have the leaders down and the group trailing."

"If I may," Solus ventured, "if they so obviously have access to our weaponry, then why are only five of them utilizing such force? That indicates to me that the others believe they simply do not need it."

"They're a bunch of disorganized terrorists," Harriet seethed. "They're not going to pose that much of a threat."

"Wave one," Clover directed. "Open fire."

The first of Ironwood's androids marched out front, raising a host of guns.

"Really?" Hecate scoffed. "REALLY? You know…it's almost cute how mortals think these things can even scratch us."

The ammo fired, rat-a-tat-tat, and Hecate and Aghoul just kept walking on through as it glanced off them both.

"It's almost got a tickling sensation," Aghoul remarked.

"It'll save me a trip to the masseuse," Hecate agreed. "But seriously, we're older than these people can even imagine, and somehow the longer we're around, the WORSE their weapons get at beating us!"

"It's a strange paradox," Aghoul agreed, scratching at his head. "But perhaps a dead horse we shouldn't look in the mouth OR beat."

"True, true. All right, should we start with the fireworks?"

Aghoul passed her a skull. "Whenever you're ready!"

They drew back together, then launched. The skulls detonated, obliterating the androids.

"Wave two, divide and conquer," Clover commanded. "The leaders have incredibly high Aura. We'll have to chance that the ones in the back DON'T."

"They're passing my point," Elm stated. "I'm going to make an attempt."

They all acknowledged that she could, in fact, die here. But they weren't supposed to care.

(Four of them did.)

Elm leapt, slamming into the ground in front of Aghoul and Hecate, with her hammer Timber drawn back. Roots of Aura connected her to the ground, stabilizing her so that she couldn't be moved.

She did, however, flinch, nearly upsetting her entire Semblance, when an exact copy of her ran at her with its own Timber. "RrraaaAAAAAGH!" the second Elm (truly Hannibal) cried.

Elm put up Timber to block the blow. Hannibal brought the hammer head down on the shaft of hers. The faux Timber snapped – but the point was the diversion.

From Hecate's hands came two tendrils of magic, plunging into Elm's very heart. Elm cried out as Hecate's tendrils searched around, but then they withdrew, seemingly leaving Elm undamaged. Hecate turned and flung a warm brown light at one of the Paladins.

"This stops now!" Elm stamped into the ground to re-root –

To re-root –

Why wasn't her Aura responding?

The answer: because Hecate had transferred it into Melanie's Paladin.

"Nice," Melanie said as her new weapon was imbued. She stamped the ground, rooting the Paladin down nice and firm, then drew back an arm.

The resulting punch sent Elm flying across the drive with a cry.

"Now to rough up some losers." Melanie proceeded ahead of Aghoul and Hecate, planting her Paladin and using the stabilization to deal a series of hard blows to the current wave of soldiers.

"That was all?" Hecate cried. "That was IT? These Semblances are WEAK compared to the powers of the heroes I faced down!"

"Though on the upside, she is still managing to increase the body count," Aghoul observed. "Which is always good, don't you think?"

"Oh, I'm not complaining about that part one bit." Hecate grinned, fangs peeking out over her lower lip.

"Third wave, go," Clover commanded. "And BE CAREFUL. I don't know what they just did to Elm, but – VINE!"

Without warning, Vine had charged into the fray, extending one arm with a long, whipping Aura Vine that wrapped around Hecate thrice.

She burst through it at the same time that Aghoul severed the Aura Vine's base with his scythe. As the Mukhtar took his turn to counter Vine, Hecate scoffed, "I HAD that, you know."

"Well, excuse me for being chivalrous," Aghoul spat.

Vine's shuriken, Thorn, was hurled through the air; the Mukhtar gave a screech as he bounded this way and that to evade it. He leapt, tackling Vine. Vine's Aura extended, throwing the Mukhtar off of him.

But by that time, Hecate's own tendrils had reached Vine, stabbing into him. Vine gasped, feeling his Aura ripped away as his Vines shrank and shriveled into nothing. Hecate shot the bright blue of his collected Aura over her shoulder like a basketball; at the same time, Aghoul put up a hand and caught Thorn, suffering a superficial gash to his palm that probably would've amputated anyone else.

"Smooth move," Hecate complimented.

"Really, when it's me, that shouldn't surprise you," Aghoul replied.

Miltia threw out an arm; her Paladin whipped an Aura Vine that cracked on Vine Zeki and sent him skittering across the field, racking up bruises and breaks galore. She then flexed her arms, producing symmetrical Vines on her Paladin's limbs, and whipped them forth into the crowd of steadily growing guards.

"Wave four, five, six," Clover barked. "NOW. Ace-Ops, stay OFF that field – "

"Clover," Marrow panted. "I KNOW that one."

Neo was out front now, skipping on past Aghoul and Hecate with a smug smile.

"Someone's in a good mood," Hecate commented.

"Doesn't a little murder always put one in a good mood?" Aghoul asked.

"True, true," Hecate replied.

"MARROW!" Clover yelled. "DON'T YOU DARE – "

"She was at Beacon," Marrow said in shock. "She was with that Torchwick person, she – I can't let this slide!"

Before Clover could protest, Marrow had ripped out his earpiece, stomped on it, and skidded out front of Neo. She halted in her tracks as Marrow pointed to her; "STAY!"

Neo froze in place completely. Marrow kept his finger trained on her to hold her there, using his free hand to retrieve his rifle, Fetch. Quick as a wink, he unloaded a round into her.

She just dissolved. Because she'd never been real.

"Wha – " Marrow's eyes widened. He'd been taken in by an illusion while the real Neo was creeping up on him from behind, a glint in her eye –

"Remember I can't take his Aura if he's dead!" Hecate scolded.

Marrow whipped around, realizing what was happening. It was too late. Neo swiped her sword across his front, leaving a relatively shallow yet very painful gash across his whole body, then kicked him in the gut, causing him to double over. Hecate performed the extraction, throwing a light-blue spark at Zorg's Paladin.

"Now, this is gonna be interestin'," Zorg remarked. He pointed the arm of his vehicle forth; "STAY!"

Ten of Ironwood's soldiers froze in place.

"Good boys," Zorg said as he brought up the other arm to open fire on his captives.

"Damn it…" Clover muttered. If left in place, Marrow would certainly be killed. And he wasn't supposed to care about that at all, but right now, he didn't have time to analyze why that would bother him so much outside of a strategic context. So he ran, hoping his Semblance would give him just enough good fortune to allow him to beat the system.

He twirled his weapon, Kingfisher, thrice before casting the hook. Neo leaned back to evade it, the cable extending over her torso as she bent. Clover cracked Kingfisher, and the cable slammed into Aghoul and Hecate, with little to no effect.

"Weak," Hecate sniffed. "Mortals can just never hit hard enough to leave a mark."

"You sound…disappointed," Aghoul observed. "You know, I'm NOT mortal."

"I'm aware." Hecate smirked at him. "I'm also aware you can take as much punishment as you can give."

"Oh, that and more, my sweet."

Mim, hearing this, was already having quite a good time imagining how Hecate might utterly ruin Aghoul behind closed doors. Yes, this would work out well.

Clover had bought enough time. He had Marrow scooped up in one arm, bolting. Hecate fired, and she missed, because that was Clover's Semblance at work. Aghoul threw a bomb that also missed its mark. Clover really might have gotten away unscathed.

But he didn't notice the silky net drifting gently to the ground before him, its white threads glinting in the sunlight. Velma had recognized that luck alone wouldn't work, so she relied on something more surefire. The web covered a ten-foot diameter. Clover couldn't possibly miss that.

He ran onto the trap, and his shoes were glued. "Count yourself lucky," Velma said, starting to grasp the irony of that turn of phrase. "I'm not hungry right now, so you get to keep your brain."

"But not this." Hecate blasted Clover. He was dislodged from the web, but at a terrible cost. At the very least, he was finally able to escort Marrow off the battlefield. Hecate lobbed a turquoise spark behind her.

Drakken's Paladin was imbued, but its pilot was quite confused. "What's this one supposed to do?" he asked himself. "I don't feel any different. His Semblance must be defective! Oh, well…"

The Paladins that served Ironwood were starting to advance now, given the threat level. With a "nnyergh," Drakken figured he'd better make a valiant attempt to hold them off, and so set off a strong blast.

He had been aiming dead center, but the blast instead struck the Paladin in the leg. It kept charging, now horribly off-kilter, and then simply toppled over, skidding over the ground and knocking down three more of Ironwood's Paladins in the process.

"Well, that was good luck," Drakken remarked.

Clover activated his comm line. "Retreat. Retreat NOW – "

"I'M DONE WITH THIS!" Harriet finally lost control, hurtling onto the field with a wild scream and a trail of lightning. She flexed her arms; her augmentation weapon unfolded from its sheath on her back, folding over her fists, strengthening her.

"Oh, how adorable," Hecate cooed.

"Such initiative!" Aghoul agreed. "Why, it almost reminds me of – "

Hecate said, "She's got about as much gumption as – "

They said "Aladdin" and "Hercules" at the same time. Then looked into one another's eyes. "HEROES," they said as one. Then chuckled heartily.

Mim descended in front of them, taking the form of a giant tortoise. She bucked up onto her front legs, putting her shell outward to impede Harriet's path. Harriet slammed into that shell at super speeds, shrieking as she was knocked onto her back. Mim then opened her jaws and gave a good, hard bite to Harriet's arm, breaking right through her weapon, drawing blood.

That offered Hecate the opening to make the last necessary robbery. She extracted the pink spark, throwing it to her final Paladin.

"Good," the Huntsman grunted as his Paladin was imbued. "Now we can truly end this."

His Paladin blazed forward at blistering speeds, leaving a comet-trail of sparking electricity in its wake.

Mim gave a flick of her head, discarding Harriet like a rag doll before resuming human form. "If you two are going to destroy each other," she told Aghoul and Hecate, "then make it good, and don't you dare forget to tell me the gory details later."

Ironwood was making an emergency call: "I WANT ALL SOLDIERS WHO AT ALL GENERATE AURA OFF THE BATTLEFIELD! GIVE THEM NO MORE AMMUNITION! ANDROIDS ONLY!"

They responded, the flesh-and-blood warriors abating as electric warriors advanced. And against Melanie holding firm to the ground, Miltia whipping Aura Vines every which way, the Huntsman blasting through obstacles at high speed, Zorg freezing said obstacles long enough for him to do so, and Drakken just lucking his way right through the melee, they stood no chance. Circuitry littered the ground like carnage.

Ironwood watched from his office, his sanctuary, wondering if he should've been down there instead of staying hidden in safety. Then, to his horror, he noticed a human being striding out onto the field. He fumbled with his own earpiece, tapping into the Ace-Ops frequency. "ZOS GALVUS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

What Solus was doing was walking slowly and confidently through the chaos, backlit by the explosions of Ironwood's mechanical troops, until he came face-to-face with Aghoul and Hecate. "So you think you can win the game by playing unfair," he taunted. "Surely transferring others' powers around is against the rules. If nothing else, it is a reflection on how you do not wish to face anyone here in a fair fight." He raised his pistol, Heat and Bluster, to point it directly at Hecate, its dust chamber spinning.

"Are you calling us COWARDS?" Aghoul flinched. "I think he's calling us cowards!"

Hecate extended her hand toward Solus. "Oh, your Aura is GONE."

With a knowing smirk, Solus did the unexpected and holstered Heat and Bluster, raising his opposite hand to point it directly back at Hecate. In a hiss only she and Aghoul could hear, he said, "Ah, you think my power is Aura. For that, I cannot blame you. After all, that is the story I choose to tell."

As his hand crackled with purple energy, Hecate flinched. "Wha – are you MAGIC?"

"Well, then, let's fight magic with magic!" Aghoul charged up his own hand with fierce, dancing sparks. Hecate filled her own with bright blue.

Three mages, ready to cast their spells, and to the victor would go the spoils.

But before Solus could unleash his assault, he felt a distinct breaking sensation inside, the snapping of a piano wire. A sensation he'd felt before and would feel again, but it never got any easier to take.

At that very moment, the Winter Maiden's powers had left their current host. And that host's aura was gone.

His golden eyes widened. "Fria…"

In a blink, he was simply gone. Off to confirm that he was, in fact, too late to save her.

Aghoul and Hecate looked to each other in confusion. "I'm…not sure that one was a normal mortal," Aghoul said.

"He was too smug," Hecate agreed. "He knows something we don't. Whoever Fria is, she bought us time, but…"

"We'll make sure to put an end to him when he decides to come up for air."

"This better not become a THING," Hecate sighed.

"Nothing we can't handle," Aghoul encouraged, dismissing the built-up magic in his hand so he could reach out and touch her upper arm. Gently at first, but Aghoul being Aghoul, he soon tightened the grip and hungrily slid the fingers up across her shoulder –

"Ohhhh, yes," Hecate purred. Her own hand shot out, throttling him by the throat, and as Aghoul choked, she pressed her lips to his and took his breath away.

"OH MY GOD, WILL YOU TWO HURRY UP?" The others had already cleared the path, and the voice emanated from Melanie's Paladin.

When they parted from one another, Hecate asked Aghoul, "Why hurry? You and I have all the time in existence."

"Yes, well, we do still have our pet mortals to attend to," Aghoul replied.

"Hm…" Hecate made a show of thinking this over. "I suppose you're right."

Then Ironwood's worst fears of all were realized. Using Harriet Bree's Semblance, the Huntsman burst right through the front doors of Atlas Academy, paving the way for the others to follow. Once the WHAM ARMY contingent had gathered in the lobby, the augmented Paladins were abandoned, and their occupants, along with the rest of the party, took off into the depths of the school.

Atlas Academy had been breached.

...

A/N: Oswald and Ed are the Gotham TV series incarnations, for clarification.