The wind whistled through the trees around the dirt road. It was silent otherwise for a long moment.

Yang Xiao Long's eyes were rapidly filling with tears, and she was blinking rapidly to clear them. It wasn't working.

"Mom?"

"It's me," Summer Rose said, smiling softly. She was nearly crying, too.

Yang stumbled dismounting the bike, rushing Summer with a hug that was very near a tackle. Summer wasted no time in wrapping her own arms around Yang. Some part of her realized that they were similar in height; the last time Summer had seen her, she hadn't even been four feet tall.

Whatever Yang was trying to say was unintelligible for a number of reasons, but mostly that she was crying in earnest into Summer's shirt. The first thing Summer was able to understand was, "How?"

"It's complicated," Summer said, her own eyes filling with tears. "But I'm here."

Yang disengaged from the hug slightly but didn't let go of Summer's arms. She looked between the two others. "Who are they?" she asked.

"This is my friend, Cloud," Summer said, gesturing. "He's done a bit of everything, but he's a very skilled fighter. We've been through a lot together." She looked down at the shorter of the two, an eyebrow gently raised. He nodded at her knowingly, and so she continued, "This is Oscar Pine, and explaining who he is is a lot harder."

Yang chuckled despite an undercurrent of worry in her voice. "What, is he an alien or something?"

"No," Summer said, chuckling. "He's the reincarnation of Professor Ozpin."

"What."


By the time Summer had finished her explanation, they'd wandered off the road to a clearing and begun to make camp. Yang had brought a two-person tent for herself, which Summer had told Oscar and Yang to cram into while she and Cloud strung an emergency blanket against a tree to make a basic overnight shelter. He was finishing it by building a pair of walls made of tree branches over the blanket-shelter.

Meanwhile, Summer was in the middle of constructing a small log cabin style fire in the middle of the clearing from wood they'd gathered.

"So let me get this straight," Yang said. "Magic exists."

"Yep," Summer said. "Cloud, d'ya mind…?"

Cloud looked over and lobbed a small mote of fire from his gauntleted hand and into the tinder at the center of the fire. It set ablaze almost instantly, burning through the kindling and into the larger wood on the outside of Summer's cabin-style fire. "Magic," he said plainly and flatly, flicking his gaze over to Yang.

Yang cleared her throat. "Cool, okay. And this scrawny kid is the reincarnation of Professor Ozpin, who has been fighting an evil immortal witch who controls the Grimm."

"I'm not scrawny," Oscar objected. "But yes."

"And she's after a collection of Relics hidden in vaults under the Huntsmen Academies, including the one I went to, which can only be unlocked by four women with magic powers passed down, uh, how again?"

"It goes to the last candidate in the person's thoughts, or a random person otherwise," Oscar said.

"Okay, so," Yang said, her voice a little smaller than usual. "I'll just unpack and process, like, all of that later. Mom. Where were you all these years?"

"Oh, sweet," Summer said. "I get to actually continue my story I was telling. So that mission I went missing on? I got sent into the Grimmlands. Somehow I got stuck in what is hopefully the closest thing to the Ninth Hell I'll ever see before actually dying, and fought a lot of these monsters called Heartless. I escaped with my superpowered eyes—"

"—which Ruby also has," Yang said.

"Which Ruby also has," Summer repeated. "I wound up in a kinda intergalactic refugee town, where I worked for a bit before getting a spaceship. I met a kid named Sora who has a super powerful magic weapon called a Keyblade, and then I met Cloud here and offered to take him on my travels. There was some stuff I don't want to talk about — Yang, never drink rum — and then we got swallowed by a whale and after we escaped it we got boarded by pirates and then Heartless attacked us and you're pretty much caught up to where I was going to start telling the story again."

"That's a lot," Yang said. "So what happened next?"


The fire suppression alarms blared in the cockpit as Summer rolled the Blackjack at full throttle. From the copilot's seat, Cloud blasted wildly at their pursuers using the swiveling under-wing blaster.

The ship rocked as a laser blast streaked past the cockpit. Summer pulled up sharply to course-correct.

"We just lost engine three," Cloud reported.

Summer had to give the Heartless credit. They were as fast as the Blackjack with one of its engines disabled, and they'd just lost another.

Summer looked around. Resolute, she plunged the ship into a dive towards the nearby world. Beside her, a queasy Cloud put a hand over his mouth, his other hand jamming the trigger of the swivel blaster's controls.

The remaining Heartless broke off as Summer entered the atmosphere.

"Pull up!" Cloud shouted as Summer did so. The ship rocked again. Cloud glanced over at one of the panels as a siren began to blare. He slapped the acknowledgement button and it quieted. "That was engine four," he reported.

"We're too low and too fast," Summer said, flipping a series of switches to extend the wings' flaps. The ship shook and the severed top of a tree whipped over the cockpit, flipping end-over-end the entire way. It splattered snow over the cockpit.

"That's one way to slow down," Cloud said, tone deadpan.

Summer hesitated for a moment before she regripped the controls resolutely. "Stop mouthing off and help keep us level."

Cloud took hold of the controls. The ship began to slow, clipping the tops of more and more trees. Summer winced as she heard the top of one tear a gash of gummi right off the bottom of the ship.

"Up ahead," Cloud said. "There's a clearing."

"I see it. I'm gonna try and set her down," Summer said, pulling up on the yoke gently. The Blackjack lifted up over a tall tree and into the large clearing. She pushed down and realized that the clearing was, in fact, a frozen-over lake. Committed, Summer still began preparing for landing. There was the sound of ice melting and cracking behind them as they skimmed the lake's surface.

Ahead, the dense forest resumed.

"You're going to hit those trees," Cloud said.

"I've got it."

Summer banked the entire ship sharply to the right as they hovered over the shoreline. The ship turned as it hit the treeline and Summer was thrown back and forth in her seat against her restraints, but the ship came to a rest at a slight angle after a moment.

"Okay," Summer said, raising her hands. "Everyone alright?"

"Good enough." Cloud unbuckled himself and pointed outside. "It's freezing out there; the ship isn't insulated. We need to set up the emergency shelter."

"Couldn't agree more," Summer replied, shutting the ship down.

They climbed the ladder down into the belly of the ship and opened the emergency locker. Cloud grabbed the canvas bag that held the tent and Summer grabbed the bag of emergency supplies. They both suited up in cold-weather gear before putting the backpacks on.

Summer opened the ship's side door. The Blackjack had come to rest atop a pair of pine trees that had broken as the ship had crashed into them. There were a few feet to the snow-covered forest floor, and Summer leapt down onto the ground. Cloud followed, shutting the door behind him.

From outside, the damage to the Blackjack wasn't as bad as Summer had feared, which wasn't to say it was good. Of the ship's four engines, two looked completely blown and a third looked almost as bad. The hull had a few gouges in it that would need to be patched, and they'd need to run system diagnostics before—

A nearby howl cut her thinking off.

"Wolves," Cloud said, grabbing the hilt of the Buster Sword and hefting it off his back.

Summer spotted the wolf at the top of a hill, the rest of the pack filling in behind it. Their eyes were glowing yellow and once-gray fur had begun to darken to black.

"Heartless," Summer said, unsheathing Halbmond. "We should run for it."

Cloud nodded. "Got it."

The wolves charged. Cloud broke to the right, leaping over a broken tree and charging through the snow, and Summer followed, firing her rifle back into the pack of wolves.

They ran through the woods, the Heartless pursuing.

The wolves were more agile and faster than the pair. Summer shifted Halbmond into sword mode, slicing open a wolf-Heartless as it pounced. Another pounced from her left and its claws slashed through her coat and cut her arm.

Ahead of her, Cloud grappled with his own wolf-Heartless, which had bitten onto his left arm and was hanging on for dear life. Cloud smashed it against the trunk of a large pine and it let go. He hefted his sword up and brought it straight down onto the Heartless and it disintegrated into black smoke.

The rest of the pack was gaining on them as they crested a hill. Cloud slipped and tumbled down the steeper opposite side. He stabbed the Buster Sword into the ground and caught himself before he fell all the way down.

Behind him, Summer slid down the hill on her rear, pulling out Thorn and firing both rifle and revolver into the pack of wolves.

A guttural, animalistic roar sounded and the wolves stopped at the hilltop.

"Oh, leave it out," Summer said, looking around.

A massive brown-and-purple shape smashed into one of the wolves at high speed. As it slowed and whirled around on the others, Summer noticed that it was a massive beast, at least eight feet tall. It was clad in a thick cloak that was either a deep purple or a wine red, and it looked back at Summer and Cloud to confirm their presence, but merely looked back at the wolves.

"Okay," Summer said, reloading her rifle. "This I can manage."

Within seconds, the trio had dispatched several more of the pack. The surviving wolves scattered, howling into the night.

The Beast turned to them. Summer and Cloud held their swords at the ready.

"It's not safe out here," the Beast said. His voice was deep, guttural and animalistic. He looked at them up and down. "You're injured. Come with me to my castle."

Cloud looked at Summer. She nodded back at him and put away her sword. "Lead the way," she said.

They walked deeper into the forest. The Beast had longer strides than Summer, so she quickened her pace to keep up with him as the trio trudged through the snow.

"Hi," Summer said.

"...hello," the Beast replied, confused.

"Thanks for bailing us out." Summer gestured over to her companion. "That's Cloud Strife, and I'm Summer Rose." Summer held out her hand for a handshake.

"Summer...Rose?"

"Yep, that's my name! What's yours?"

The Beast stiffened slightly. "I don't have one."

There was silence between them for a moment. "You don't have a name?" Summer asked gently. "Then what should I call you?"

"I'm a beast."

"You're not a beast," Summer said, shaking her head. "I've met monsters; you're not one of them."

The Beast looked strangely forlorn. Summer looked away and kept walking.

The trio walked along a river for some time before they emerged at the gate of a grand castle. High above, gargoyles glared down from the parapets. They crossed a large stone bridge and emerged into the castle's courtyard, which was covered in a thin layer of snow.

The Beast pushed open one of a pair of massive doors into the castle and held it open for the two.

"Thank you," Summer said, passing him by.

The foyer itself was just as grand as the castle's exterior, despite a relative lack of light, with a thick red carpet and large, ornate pillars. A large staircase at the far end of the foyer split into two, leading to the main wings of the castle. Within was a bizarre assemblage to greet the Beast: an animate and living clock who was pacing back and forth and a young brown-haired woman in a nightgown, who was sitting on the stairs.

"Oh thank goodness you're alright," the young woman said, hurrying over. "When I told you about the meteor, I wasn't expecting you to go out immediately! Are you hurt?"

"Not this time," the Beast said, stepping aside to better present the new guests. "These two are. I found them in the woods. There were more of those strange wolves."

"Ah! Good evening," the clock said, rushing over and extending an arm for a handshake. Summer crouched down and took it. "I am Cogsworth, the head of the household—"

"You're injured," the young woman said, stepping over to examine both of them.

"My name's Summer, actually."

The woman gave Summer an unamused look. "Should I check your head before I look at your arm?" she asked dryly. She looked over to Cloud. "Here, this way, we'll get you cleaned up."

She led them through a side door into a parlor. A roaring fire had already been lit and there was a small box laying beside it, first aid supplies spilling out of its open top. Summer discarded her coat and cloak, and Cloud shed his own.

"Belle," the Beast said gruffly, standing at the doorway. He looked tired, but strangely content. "I'm going to bed. If anything else happens, wake me."

Belle smiled and nodded at him. She turned to the pair. "Which one of you should I take a look at first?"

Summer and Cloud both pointed to the other.

"Very funny." Belle looked at Summer. "You first, then."

Summer rolled up her sleeve obligingly and they all sat down beside the fire. "So, do this often?"

"More than I'd like." Belle pulled supplies out of the box. Summer offered her arm and Belle took it. A teapot arrived on a serving cart with a bowl filled with boiled water; Belle dipped a towel in and began to wash Summer's wound. "Ever since that meteor shower last month, those wolves have been relentless," Belle lamented.

"Heartless," Summer corrected, staring into the distance. "They're not really wolves any more."

Belle stopped for a moment. "Heartless?"

"Monsters that want people's hearts," Cloud said.

"It's all like something out of a fairy tale," Belle said, stitching up Summer's cut. "The castle, the Beast, these 'Heartless'..." She sighed and bit her bottom lip before asking, "You didn't come from the village, did you?"

"Nope, we just, uh, arrived in the area," Summer said.

Belle looked away for a moment but quietly finished her work bandaging Summer.

"Very nice," Summer said.

"Thank you," Belle responded. She looked over at Cloud. "Your turn." Cloud obligingly doffed his outer layers and held his injured arm out for Belle to take.

"You were from the village," Summer said softly.

"I was," Belle replied, a quaver in her voice. "The wolves, those Heartless, worry me. My father, the other townsfolk, even boorish Gaston…they're in danger. But I can't ask the Beast to go so far. It's dangerous for him to venture near the town."

"We'll stop by," Summer said reassuringly, "check in and make sure the villagers are alright."

Belle smiled hopefully at her. "Thank you."


Cogsworth had scrambled to organize rooms for each of them and returned to the parlor. He led them all up into the East Wing. Belle had wandered off alone to her room deeper in the wing while Cogsworth gave the two an abbreviated tour of the wing filled with lots of pompous jargon-filled historical talk and bad jokes. Summer was a little too tired to do much more than nod along.

Eventually they came to a pair of rooms on the opposite sides of a hall.

Summer stood in front of one of the doors, and Cloud stood at the opposite.

"I bid you both good night and sweet dreams," Cogsworth said with a bow.

"Night," Cloud said, looking at Summer.

"Good night," Summer replied, entering her room.

She shucked off her equipment and collapsed on the bed, squirming to get under the covers. Once she was under, she rested her head on the pillow and was asleep within minutes.


Summer woke at least an hour past dawn, by the light from her room window. She still felt fairly exhausted — and her Aura was still low from the various fights she'd been in over the last day — but she stretched (carefully, not to reopen her still-healing wounds) and put on her boots, bracers, and belts. Visibly sleepy, she shambled out of her room.

A gentle knock on Cloud's door indicated he was either up and about or sleeping so heavily that she'd rather not disturb him; instead, she wandered the comparatively silent halls. A large window revealed that the sun was out, with nary a cloud in sight.

"Ah, madam," a voice called from behind her.

Summer whirled around and, finding no-one, looked down to find a candelabra with a rakish grin.

"Morning," Summer said, crouching down slightly. "I don't believe we were introduced?"

"I am Lumière, mon chéri." He jumped forward and offered a hand — well, one of two roughly hand-like candles — and Summer took it. He gently kissed the back of her hand. It was warm — literally, and with the unsurprising texture of candle wax and metal against her skin.

"Pleased to meet you," Summer said. "I, uh, don't suppose you know where I could get some food, though?"


Lumière led Summer through the East Wing's corridors and passages, back down into the foyer, and into a section of the castle that she hadn't seen the night before. His own tour was filled with more flirting than Cogsworth's had been, but Summer took it in stride, making small talk with the candlestick-man.

Eventually they came to a room with a trio of windows displaying one of the castle's snow-covered courtyards. Cloud, Belle, and the Beast were seated around an ornate-looking, roughly square table, eating.

The Beast looked up as soon as Summer had entered; from the chair opposite his, Belle looked around as well and stood as soon as she saw it was Summer. Cloud greeted her with a curt nod.

"Good morning," the Beast said.

"How are you feeling?" Belle asked as Summer strode towards the table.

"Morning. Not bad," Summer said to each of them. She stretched slightly and carefully, mostly for show before sitting at the unused place at the table. "What's for breakfast?"

"An assortment of breads, pastries, cheeses, and café au lait," Cogsworth reported from the table's corner, indicating a collection of dishes spread out over the table. Summer reached over and poured herself a cup of coffee.

The Beast cleared his throat. "Belle told me the two of you have fought those wolves before," he said.

"We have," Summer said, grabbing a croissant and tearing into it. She thought it over as she chewed and swallowed. "Well, kind of. We've fought Heartless before, but not those wolves."

"They're dangerous, no matter what form," Cloud added.

"How long have they been appearing?" Summer asked.

"Since the meteor shower last month," Belle said. She looked over to Cloud. "You said they want people's hearts?"

"Yes," Summer said, "but more than that, they want the hearts of worlds."

Belle's eyes widened. "Worlds? Plural?"

"Worlds," Summer confirmed. She gave Belle an admittedly nervous smile. "We're really not from around here. The good news is that we know someone who can help you solve this whole issue. We just have to repair our ship, find him, and point him in your direction." She looked at the Beast. "I'm sorry we can't give you more than our word."

The Beast gave a look to Belle — strangely, a look of deference. Belle nodded softly at him and turned to return Summer's gaze.

"Your word is enough," the Beast said. "How can we help you?"


The castle's kitchen staff provided them with a small lunch of sandwiches and a bottle of wine, along with some glasses, all in a woven basket.

Summer and Cloud wrapped themselves up in their coats and cloaks, along with borrowed scarves from a very polite wardrobe, and trudged out into the snow. It was warmer than it had been the night prior and the snow had begun to melt, if only just slightly.

Summer peered out from the stone bridge leading out of the castle. "We followed this river," Summer said, pointing down at the river running under them.

So the pair went up the river until its origin, the frozen lake from the night before. The Blackjack had crashed on the shoreline, tearing a scar into the forest. It had come to a rest atop some broken trees.

In the daylight, Summer reassessed the damage to the ship. The black-and-gold paint job had been effectively ruined by gummi panels either being scraped, blasted, or sheared off. She winced when she saw the condition of the engines, with three of the four visibly damaged, and heavily so.

Summer opened the side door and climbed onboard. The ship's interior was cold and littered with debris from the crash.

"Okay," she said calmly. "First things first."

She plucked out the owner's manual and sat at the central onboard computer, running its diagnostics. After two aborted runs of the program she got it to work on the third, and the tiny display gave her a list of diagnostic codes. She referenced the appendix at the back of the manual to figure out what they meant, and then the index to figure out solutions. Her stack of notes piled up quickly, and the manual had over half a dozen bookmarks by the time she stood back up.

First, and most importantly, two of the four engines had blown and one was barely working. Second, the hull had been breached. According to the manual, the ship wouldn't be able to take off without at least two fully operational engines, and it wouldn't get off the world with a breached hull. They would need to partially cannibalize the broken engines to repair the barely working one, and they'd need to gather gummi to patch the holes.

Additionally, the integrated navigational computer's storage needed to be defragmented and its internal database recompiled, before a full reboot of the system.

Fourth and finally, the entire warp system had been fried. The primary power coupling was completely toast, there weren't any direct spare parts, and it was too risky to patch it together.

"I don't think this is something we can do on our own," Summer said, examining the broken and blackened coupling at the poker table in the lounge, which Summer had once again thrown a tablecloth over. "We need to bring it to someone like Cid who knows how to fix gummi ships."

"Cid's all the way in Traverse Town," Cloud pointed out. "It'll take days to limp there without warp."

"Well, yeah. We could try and find someone who works with gummi out here," Summer said. "But first, hull repairs."

Cloud nodded.

Large, cubic gummi blocks were plentiful enough to find in the snowy forest. The blocks weren't heavy, but they were large and bulky enough that they could only carry one or two at a time. After they had a fair few, Cloud and Summer sat inside the ship, shaving slices off of the blocks with their swords while the navicomputer was rebooting.

"Are you going to paint the ship?" Cloud asked, indicating the stack of gray gummi slices that was quickly piling up between the two of them.

Summer shrugged. "Did you want to?"

"I don't really care."

"I think it's got charm, being all battered like this," Summer said with an air of finality.

After about an hour, they had enough slices of gummi to patch the hull. The freshly made gummi patches bonded easily to the hull plating. They went through the ship twice over and by the time they were done the navicomputer was rebooted and was in working condition.

Once they were done with that, they ate their lunch.

After lunch, Summer and Cloud sat atop the ship, cannibalizing the two broken engines to repair the other damaged one. After a few hours and several botched starts, they were mostly successful.

"Sun's setting," Summer said, looking out over the trees to the orange-and-purple sky, which was quickly filling with dark clouds. "We'll have to finish hooking this guy back up tomorrow." She looked down at the ship. "And maybe see if there's any way we can bypass the warp drive's main power coupling."

So they trudged back through the woods as the sun set. It was getting darker; dark clouds rolled in, looking nearly ready to burst to Summer's eyes. Something about them made her nervous in a way she couldn't articulate, and she hurried faster. The nameless terror in her heart grew until she was across the bridge, over the cobblestones of the courtyard, and inside the safety of the castle itself.

Cloud, jogging behind her, caught up as soon as she had stopped in the foyer. Without asking, he helped her shut the massive wooden door.

"What's wrong?" he asked as soon as the door was completely closed.

"I don't know," Summer said. She slumped against the door, her eyes shut tightly. "The storm made me nervous."

"It's just a storm," Cloud reassured her, although the slightest quaver in his own tone indicated that whatever had rattled Summer was concerning to him, as well.

"Is everything alright?" Belle asked from the top of the stairs.

Summer turned around. Belle was in a beautiful golden gown. The skirt was voluminous to the point that Summer guessed there were at least three or four layers of petticoats underneath it, and whatever fabric it was made of seemed to absorb the light, giving Belle a practically radiant glow.

"Wow," Summer said without thinking.

Belle smiled bashfully and looked down, the faint pink of a blush coloring her cheeks.

Cloud lightly thwapped Summer's arm. "Focus," he said.

"Right," Summer said. "Sorry. Why are you…dress? Why are you dressed like that, I mean?"

"Well," Belle said, still a little bashful, "The Beast and I have been…well…we're going to dance tonight, after dinner."

Summer looked out the windows at the far end of the foyer. The clouds had only grown darker and more ominous. Violent wind whistled around the castle's stonework.

She closed her eyes and took a silent moment to weigh everything: the storm, the dress, the evident flourishing spark between Belle and the Beast that she knew would bloom from a dance into full-bodied love. Behind shut eyelids she could see two roads stretching before her, and she knew whatever she said next was the fork that separated those roads. She opened her eyes.

Belle's look had grown concerned again.

Summer took a deep breath and met her gaze. "I'm not sure that's a great idea," she said flatly. "I don't have a good feeling about that storm and the Heartless."

Belle looked out the window and nodded. "You're right," she replied, a curious tilt to her voice. "I don't know how, but I can feel it. That storm isn't natural. Let's talk to the Beast."


Summer would have liked to say that they caught the Beast in the middle of tying his tie or adjusting his shirt. Instead, the trio caught the Beast in the bathtub, dripping wet. Lumière had been attending to him in some manner and also turned to face the three of them as the door opened.

Summer, who was in the lead, stopped cold, a blush rapidly spreading across her face. Belle, behind her, bumped into Summer's back and stumbled to the side before Cloud bumped into her, her own blush coloring her cheeks as she recognized the Beast's state of undress.

The Beast growled, a low guttural sound, but calmed himself. "Yes?"

Belle looked at Summer. Summer shot her own, slightly panicked look before looking at the Beast. "Hi. There's a storm coming in. It's not natural. I think it has something to do with the Heartless."

The Beast began to emerge from the bathtub. Summer and Belle averted their eyes.

"He's covered in fur," Cloud commented.

The Beast shook himself dry and donned his reddish-purple cloak. "Show me."

Summer glanced around. "Where's the nearest window?"

The Beast led the group across the West Wing's hall and down a dim corridor with increasingly ruined decoration — shattered mirrors, torn paintings, shredded curtains. Eventually he opened the door into what had once been a luxurious bedroom. Before the window was stationed a rose, strangely glowing in a glass case. The flower itself had begun to gently tilt downwards, as if preparing to wilt.

"Don't touch the rose," the Beast warned. Summer nodded vigorously.

The large window suddenly rattled horribly, buffeted by strong winds. Behind it Summer could see the dark clouds had completely encircled the castle, stretching from horizon to horizon. They had taken on a sinister red cast since Summer had been outside. Thunder within the clouds rumbled.

"I can see what you mean," the Beast said, glaring out the window.

Belle's gloved hand touched Summer's bicep. "Miss Summer? What are you going to do?"

"We could hunker down here, or try and get out on the Blackjack," Summer said. She looked at the Beast, and then to Belle. "I'd be more comfortable leaving — but this is your home, your call."

"No, I trust you," Belle said. She knelt down and picked Lumière up gently. "I think we should try and leave with Summer."

"We can't evacuate everyone," the Beast said, a cold tone and a furrowed brow doing their best to hide a wave of regret and remorse. "Some of the…larger servants won't be able to leave."

"I'm sorry," Summer said. She drew Halbmond and checked its ammunition, before doing the same with Thorn, loading it with rounds from her gun belt. "Get who you can. I'll meet you down in the foyer."


Minutes later, they were in the foyer. Belle had a brown satchel and a thick, fur-lined cloak over her yellow dress. Cogsworth was peeking out of the satchel, and Summer could hear the gentle tones of Mrs. Potts reassuring her children muffled by the fabric.

"Cloud and I will take point," Summer declared. She gestured to the Beast. "Stay behind us, protect Belle, listen if I call anything out. We're going to be going as fast as we can along the river. If we need to stop or slow, tell us."

The Beast nodded, his massive paw-like hand on the large wooden door.

"Let's go," Summer ordered. The Beast threw the door open and Summer and Cloud rushed underneath him, running across the courtyard, back through the gate and over the bridge the same way they'd come in.

The four of them rushed through the woods, Belle hiking up her considerable skirts.

The ground shook. The already dim woods seemed to take on a darker cast. Summer looked up. A massive sphere of darkness emerged from above the clouds, as if a meteor descending in slow motion. Energy swirled around it and crackled into the cloud cover.

"Focus," Cloud said, slowing. He gestured ahead.

Ahead of them, in the dark woods, a shape moved closer. Summer and Cloud stopped.

The Heartless that emerged from the woods was hunched over, but it had the rough shape of a man with wild hair. Its left arm had grown much larger than its right, ending in a savage and sharp claw. Not to be outdone, the right hand clutched an oversized blunderbuss.

Summer had barely drawn Halbmond when the Heartless pounced on her, massive claw throwing her against a tree. Its other hand came up, firing its blunderbuss at Cloud, who narrowly brought the Buster Sword around to block the scattershot pellets. It leapt for the Beast next, sinking its claws into his shoulder. He howled in pain.

Cloud charged in, sword coming in in an overhead blow, angled from his right side. The Heartless brought his blunderbuss up to block it, shoving the Buster Sword aside and planting his largest claw in Cloud's stomach.

"Burn," Cloud ground out, raising a fire-enveloped hand to the Heartless's face. The Heartless began to immolate, thrashing wildly in the snow as Cloud stumbled backwards, clutching his wound.

Summer leapt in with Semblance-enhanced speed, planting Halbmond in the Heartless's back. It bucked her off, shooting her with its blunderbuss. Her Aura crackled and sparked as it deflected the shot and broke. She tumbled through the snow.

The Beast rose back to his feet unsteadily.

The Heartless charged again — this time for Belle, scooping her up and throwing her over his shoulder in an instant even as she struggled. Her satchel's strap tore on the Heartless's claw and the bag fell to the ground. The Heartless ran into the woods, Belle's scream echoing behind him.

The Beast howled in pure fury and charged into the woods after them.

"No, wait!" Summer yelled.

The three of them — the Heartless, the Beast, and Belle — disappeared into the snow and the darkness.

The entire ground shook.

Cloud grabbed Belle's discarded satchel. He quickly tied together the loose ends of the torn strap and slung it over his shoulder, across his torso. Green light from his bangle flowed into his wound. "We gotta go."

Summer, wordlessly, stared into the darkness Belle and the Beast had vanished into.

"Come on," Cloud said emphatically, pulling her up by her arm. The two of them took off running deeper into the woods, along the river.

The ground shook again, more violently this time, before it cracked open between Summer and Cloud, forming a quickly-widening fissure. Summer, in the lead, whirled around at the noise and scrambled away from the crumbling ground that had been behind her. She looked left and right for a clear path for Cloud to take.

Cloud, meanwhile, slid to a stop at the precipice and paused for a moment. He stepped back from the edge, adjusted the satchel, and began running straight for the gap.

"W-wait," Cogsworth said, having poked his head out of the bag. "Mister Strife, I implore you to reconsid—AHHHHHH!"

Cloud leapt the chasm, landing beside Summer with his knees bent and his gauntleted hand planted in the snow. "Let's go," he said, rising.

Summer nodded and the pair continued running through the woods.

They broke out of the treeline and ran along the frozen lake's shore, up to the massive scar that the crashed Blackjack had left.

Cloud, in the lead now, leapt up a half-broken tree, stepped quickly down the broken section of its trunk, and opened the cargo door. He stepped in and knelt down to help Summer up into the ship.

"Thanks," Summer said, her hand slamming the button to close the door.

Cloud dropped the satchel on the couch and climbed up into the cockpit. "I don't have a great feeling about this."

"Yeah, me neither," Summer called back, sliding down into the still-open maintenance hatch. "Get us started and I'll try and keep the engines together."

"On it." Cloud began to run through the pre-flight checklist as fast as he could. The ship began to hum to life but sputtered out. Cloud glanced out the window at the engines. Small Shadows were climbing onto the ship and in the distance giant Heartless were wandering like confused children. "No good. And we've got Heartless," Cloud shouted down into the hold. "Big ones, too."

"Yeah, yeah," Summer said, grabbing the loose cable that had connected the warp system to the main power. She ran the thick power cable over towards the engine systems. "I think I got it, just give me two seconds!"

The ship violently rocked and Summer fell backwards. "Ouch!" she yelled. "What's going on up there?"

Cloud looked out the window of the cockpit; one of the massive Heartless had picked up the Blackjack. Cloud reached over and fired up the weapons systems. The swiveling cannon deployed from the port wing, and Cloud fired it directly into the Heartless's looming form.

Below deck, Summer slammed the power cable into the port. "Cloud! Punch it!"

Cloud flipped the primary ignition and the pair of operational engines sputtered for a moment before roaring to life. Cloud reached over and fired the gun into the Heartless's face; its grip loosened enough for the Blackjack to rocket out of its grasp. Cloud gunned it full throttle. The ship ascended up and up into the atmosphere and out of the Heartless's reach.

Summer climbed up into the cockpit as they emerged into space. She stared out the window.

The edges of the world had cracked and splintered the land apart. Summer could see the small village Belle had asked about had fallen partially into the void. As Summer watched, the castle began to crumble and fall up into the growing darkness above the world. As it did, the thread that kept the world together snapped. A wave of energy flowed over the land. The fissures deepened and the land began to vanish into darkness.

Summer collapsed in her seat. "Well." She looked over to Cloud.

Cloud was attempting to keep a level expression, but something in him had been visibly shaken by their narrow escape. His hands were trembling on the control stick.

Summer looked back out the window. She squinted. Something in space was glimmering. "Wait. What's that?"

The light shone brighter for a moment and began to move away.

"Not sure," Cloud said.

"I'll take over piloting," Summer said coldly, putting the Blackjack into a pursuit course. "We're going after it — it might be Belle or the Beast, or someone who could give us some answers."

The engines roared as the Blackjack pursued the fleeing light.


Night had fallen on the campsite, but Summer's fire was still burning.

Summer closed her eyes, visibly worn from relating the events. Yang, sitting beside her, put her arm around her and squeezed in a half-hug and Summer smiled — weakly, tentatively, but smiling all the same.

"Where did it lead you?" Oscar asked.

"Hollow Bastion," Cloud said.

"That's definitely a story for tomorrow," Summer declared, standing up and stretching. "I'll take first watch — get some rest. We've got a long trek to Mistral ahead of us."