Season 1, Episode 8:
Heartless
I
"Can I just say?!" Venkman shouted at the dragon as its flaming breath brought sweat down his face like wax.
"I think you should've opened with this!"
"Get back in the TARDIS!" The guy in the tripping-hazard rainbow scarf ordered.
He didn't have to tell Venkman twice.
The Ghostbuster didn't like to admit when he was scared, not just because it was embarrassing but also because it was unprofessional. But as he squeezed through the crowd between the big guy in red spandex and the tall, dapper skeleton, he had to admit that he was regretting volunteering to drive through that portal.
He was so scared, in fact, that he completely glossed over the discovery that the fancy room he had just been was stuffed inside a tiny blue phone booth.
"The Delorean!" He heard the crazy-haired scientist and his sidekick shout.
"I got it," Raven muttered as she held a darkly glowing hand towards the tricked-out car on the decayed street.
Venkman glanced over his shoulder; he saw the car drop through a fleeting black hole in the ground, only moments ahead of the dragon's falling foot.
When Venkman had shimmied his way into the tiny-but-actually-huge phone booth, he found the Delorean parked at the opposite side of the console from the Ecto-1.
"Can we clear all this up, please?!" The man in the scarf shouted. "This is the console room, not a parking garage! There are rooms aplenty throughout for this sort of thing!"
"Alright, alright." Raven grunted, sending each of the two vehicles away in their own black holes.
"You try to help out…"
"I hope you didn't dent her," Venkman said, hoping to calm his nerves. "We haven't renewed the insurance yet."
"Can we maybe forget about the valeting part of my job for a while?!" Raven snapped at him. "And go back to the world-saving part?!"
Venkman held his hands up and nodded; he probably deserved that.
"We need a plan." The scarf guy took to the console, pressing hurriedly and meticulously at the arrangements of buttons.
Venkman had no idea what they did; Egon might.
He turned to his friend, who had that face when he was, as he put it, terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought. Specifically, his eyes were wider than usual and his breathing was audible.
That's how Venkman knew this one would be a doozy.
The room filled with a mechanical groaning.
"Where are you taking us, Doctor?" A long-haired woman in an official-looking garb interrogated. Her tone and attire screamed 'politician' at Venkman.
"Away from her, Leia," the Doctor answered, turning away from the controls to address the crowd filling his ship.
"We need to strategize."
"It's a giant monster," Dante retorted with a shrug. "I'm pretty sure that's the specialty of everyone here-"
"Speak for yourself," the kid who had called for the Delorean interjected.
"Yeah, I second that," a dirty, stubbled man added, raising his hand. He looked like a slacking graduate student who had gone spelunking in his only set of clothes.
"I've fought my share of ancient monsters, but dragons are a whole 'nother sport!"
A woman in a ripped leather jacket and an older man in a fedora stood beside him. They both sent a stern look out to the crowd, as if to say, I'm with this guy.
In their defense, Venkman wouldn't bet on them over the guy with the giant sword or the big, hairy sasquatch.
"Well, Mart n' Nate." Dante turned and pointed to them like a game show host selecting an audience member.
"It's the sport you're playing now, so you'd better batter up! Look; I've taken down big bads before, and so have most of you. All we have to do is work together and cut her down."
"It won't be that simple," the big, scary guy in the bat getup stood beside the Doctor.
"The Doctor's right; we can't waste time hitting her until she falls. We need a final, decisive means of stopping her now!"
Venkman had been rocking anxiously on his boots, waiting for the best time to add his signature wit to the discussion. He felt that this was the ideal opportunity.
"I'm all for it," he wavered forth with a shrug. "Cut the crap and just put the giant lizard down. No offense." He held a hand out to the reptilian monster in the lab coat within the crowd.
Its red eyes narrowed at him.
This was something else which Venkman's mortified mind glossed over.
"So what have we got, boys?"
The Doctor and the Batman's heads lowered; Venkman had seen Ray and Egon do exactly the same thing whenever they needed to rack their brains for an especially brilliant solution.
Just as Venkman was about to make a crack about having all the time in the multiverse, the TARDIS rocked hard enough to knock all of its passengers off their feet.
"Woah!" the Genie yelled. "Didn't think we'd be getting any turbulence in the time vortex!"
"That wasn't turbulence," the Doctor muttered, heaving himself up with the edge of the console.
"Romana! Could you pull up the scanner, please?"
"My hand was on the switch just as you were asking, Doctor," a blonde woman, dressed in a blue uniform like something from a private school, said from the other side of the console.
"Oh, splendid."
The wall furthest from Venkman whirred, and then a section of it lifted to reveal a screen that was more like a window.
It was difficult to discern exactly what was out there, what with the billboard-sized claws clamped around it, and any remaining view being blocked by a scorching green eye.
Venkman had risen to his knees by then, but stopped moving when he saw it.
Now he was also terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.
II
It wasn't possible. It simply wasn't possible.
The Doctor's mind insisted on it, but after the fifth or sixth repetition, he realized that he was well and truly stuck with the dragon clutching his TARDIS as it careened through the time vortex.
He decided, then, to accept it.
He stood up, and at the moment he was upright, an idea burst into his mind as powerfully as Maleficent had seized the TARDIS.
"Time ram," he muttered.
"What?" Batman demanded, getting up beside him.
"We could time ram her!" The Doctor took the Batman by the shoulders, grinning and waiting patiently for him to make the same realization.
When he didn't after one second, the Doctor turned to the others.
"If we strike Maleficent with the TARDIS exactly as it dematerialises, there would be a shockwave of temporal energy strong enough to destroy any universe-traversing monstrosity…" His voice lowered as he recalled one crucial detail; one which he had overlooked in his terror and excitement.
"Ya good, doc?" Ash asked. "Leave the stove on or something?"
"The only problem is that a full time ram would require at least two time vehicles…" The Doctor removed his hat and ruffled his curly hair.
"Both dematerializing at the same point at the same time."
"Doctor?"
"I suppose we could track down the Master's TARDIS to wherever Romana and I left it."
"Doctor?"
"If we were truly desperate, I may even attempt to summon one of my past or future incarnations. Perhaps that one who rescued us some time back; the young blonde fellow with the celery on his jacket. What say you, Romana?"
"Doctor!"
"Yes, what, spit it out, Brown!" The Doctor snapped.
"My time machine," Brown began, stepping up to him. "Would that be enough?"
The Doctor felt his brain make a pleasant twitch.
"Yes!" He snapped his fingers and ran through the crowd, which dispersed to make way for him. Many of their knees were smacked by his flapping scarf.
He stopped halfway through.
"Crude as your machine is-"
"Crude?!"
"Well, a decent enough effort for human technology." The Doctor shrugged. "So long as you and I time it perfectly, then we'd make short work of Maleficent."
"Perfectly, eh?" Han Solo stepped out of the crowd, his hands behind his head, which displayed the cocky smirk which the Doctor assumed was nearly frozen there.
"You guys seem sure enough, but me personally, I don't mind having a spare ace up my sleeve. There any chance that warping to lightspeed would do just as good as...The thing you're gonna do?"
The Doctor thought for a while.
"Well," Brown piped up. "Assuming the gigawatt discharge was similar-"
"Yes!" The Doctor declared. "Again, if it is synchronized with one or both of mine and Dr. Brown's vehicles."
He mimicked Solo's smirk. "Ah, yes; your Falcon. It's still in here, isn't it? I take that as you volunteering it, then, Captain Solo?"
"If you'll have it, Doctor."
"I would! I-" The Doctor stopped; he had just noticed something which would chew his brain away until he addressed it.
"Dr. Brown, would you mind repeating that word you said just a moment ago?"
Brown raised an eyebrow at him but soon complied.
"Gigawatt discharge?" He pronounced it like jig.
The Doctor stared at him for a while, flabbergasted.
"Do you mean gigawatt?" Like gig.
Brown scoffed and shrugged. "Well, I've only ever read the word-"
"I'm sure there'll be ample time for linguistic debate after the Mistress-I mean, Maleficent is dealt with," Riker interjected.
"Yes, I suppose there will be," The Doctor grumbled.
The safety of the universe was always his primary concern, but he would not be forgetting such a grievous mispronunciation so easily.
"Thank you, Commander." Picard rested a hand on his friend's shoulder, then joined the Doctor, Brown, and Solo.
"Before I volunteer, Doctor, I would like to be ensured of the safety of those aboard the participating vessels."
The Doctor grinned.
"Fear not, my dear Captain Jean-Luc Picard. A time ram can only harm those outside of the involved ships. Think of the TARDIS, the Falcon, and Brown's time machine, then, as tanks."
"That is good to know," Picard nodded. "Then I also volunteer my ship, the Enterprise, for the attack. It is also capable of lightspeed, and I believe we can make contact with it using the facilities here."
The room shook again. Everyone stumbled but kept their footing this time.
"Hey, busters of ghosts?" Dante asked. "Don't suppose you've got some more new friends from back home, do ya?"
"Yeah. Hey, laser eye?" Winston turned to Cyclops. "You think Strange can still see us?"
"He can. I can feel it."
"Then tell 'em to join the party." Dante unsheathed his sword and strode to the TARDIS doors.
"You guys do what you need to get your time ram ready. Meanwhile, the rest of us will keep our guests entertained."
"The rest of us?" Picard questioned. "Dante, I think we should allow everyone a chance to volunteer."
The demon hunter yanked the TARDIS doors open, revealing the black palm of the dragon and the maddening, multicolored tornado of the roaring, undulating time vortex.
"If you think you're hard enough…" Dante looked over his shoulder at the others, cracking a smirk that put Solo's to shame.
"Then show 'er what you've got."
With that, he drove his blade into the dragon's scaled flesh and was pulled from the TARDIS with the ferocious hand.
There was a pained roar, but it did not overpower the coinciding, "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"What he said." Ash approached the doorway, taking his chainsaw from his back and sliding his metal hand into a circular slot at its base. He revved up his chainsaw and leaped out with the roaring blade raised above his head.
The crowd began to pour out of the TARDIS, and soon the dragon's roars and its foes' battle cries harmonized with the boisterous vortex surrounding them.
The Doctor observes those who remained. Romana, Leia, Solo, Dr. Brown, McFly, Picard and his crew, Jones, Croft, and Drake.
"You three aren't going?" Romana turned to the three archaeologists.
"I can't speak for these two." Croft gestured to Jones and Drake on either side of her.
"But I'm willing to go out, but I'd feel more useful with more than just a 9mm."
"Actually, Lara," Leia approached her. "We have a job for the three of you."
"Anything to do our part," Lara gave her a confident smile.
"As long as it pays good," Drake added.
"Pay's great, Nate. Top-class." Han replied, then turned to the Doctor. "I just wanna know how we'll get out ships outta here."
"Should we call that sorceress back?" Leia suggested.
"Let her concentrate on Maleficent," the Doctor shrugged. "I'll simply eject the rooms you're in once you're prepared."
"In that case, take this." Brown reached into his coat, taking out a two-way radio and tossing it to the Doctor.
"I'll let you know when we're ready."
"Perfect." The Doctor grinned.
"Alright, I think we've wasted enough time." Han passed Jones, patting him on the shoulder.
"C'mon, handsome."
He ran down the corridor behind the console, followed by Leia, Marty, Brown, and the archaeologists.
"Meanwhile," the Doctor turned to the console and began his work. "The rest of us will concentrate on communicating with your ship, Captain Jean-Luc Picard."
"Excellent."
The hexagonal console was divided evenly between the two Time Lords and four Starfleet officers.
"I have only one inquiry, Doctor," Data said.
"Let's hear it," the Doctor grinned.
"What do these buttons do?"
III
What a step up from Aperture testing, hitchhiking, dishwashing, and Heartless recruiting!
Even with the infinite, thundering, colorful chasm surrounding her and the dragon the size of a hundred GLaDOS' glaring at her, Chell felt free for the first time in her life.
She dove through the vortex, spending only a moment to marvel at her new friends flying and battling around her.
She fell straight towards Vergil, whose swinging katana had landed in Nanaki's clamping jaws. Chell clenched her fist, filling it with every time GLaDOS had tried to bribe her with cake, and hurled it into the Vergil's jaw.
Next, she found Luke Skywalker, extending his flesh palm to stop the cackling Joker's incessant machine gunfire. She brought her boot back, filling it with every word of praise Maleficent had given her, and launched it into the side of the Joker's skull.
She laughed louder than the Joker. She heard the roaring of the vortex louden around her, and so laughed even louder.
She saw Boba Fett taking aim at Storm, who flew for the dragon's head.
Chell spun, clanging the alloy of a longfall boot against the metal of the bounty hunter's helmet.
She let out another victorious laugh.
Fett reached out and clutched her ankle.
The rush was gone, as if Fett had siphoned it from her.
After a cruel yank, Chell's vision was filled with a glaring T and the barrel of a blaster rifle.
Her right arm shot up of its own accord, getting the blaster out of her face. The gun fired, missing Chell, but sending a harrowing burn over her scalp. Her head burned even more after being struck by the menacing T.
"Maybe the Mistress thought you were special," Fett snarled, pressing a button on his left arm.
"But to me, you're just another job."
A rocket shot straight up out of his jetpack, then curved downwards and careened towards Chell.
In a desperate second, she glanced behind her and found the TARDIS, about to spin by her. She fired her portal gun at it twice, opening portals on its southern and eastern walls, and then spun out of the way.
The missile was heading for the TARDIS, and then was returning to its owner.
In the second she looked back at him, Chell saw the glaring T make a satisfying look of surprise.
There was a bang, a thick black cloud, and then Boba Fett was floating through the vortex, the broken T, now an inverted L, emitting a golden glow.
Chell exhaled; the rush was returning to her.
She turned to the dragon's head, which was the size of a yacht from where she was.
Its yellow eyes flashed as if it had picked Chell out specifically, and then its jaws filled with green flame.
IV
The scales were like cracked concrete under Batman's boots.
He crouched as he landed on the dragon's shoulder, then shot upright, brushing his cape aside as he reached for his belt.
He kept his eyes locked on Maleficent's flaming jaw. Sweat crawled between his skin and his cowl.
"Woah!" The Genie, suddenly dressed as a fireman and wielding a hose, flew in front of the dragon's jaws.
"Dial it back on the Indian food, Mal!" He filled the humongous mouth with water. Steam escaped from between the towering black teeth.
"You're doing it wrong, Gene!" Spider-Man swung around Maleficent's snout; each lap bound her mouth tighter shut with another layer of webbing.
"Best thing for a spicy curry is a glass of cold milk!"
"Ha! I've always wanted to do a double act!"
As they worked, Dante and Cloud landed on the dragon's snout, raising their swords, ready to plant them in the beast's flesh.
Above them, Storm stirred the air with her arms, cooking up a black cloud frothing with lightning.
"Keep her still, Peter!" Batman pulled a batarang from his belt. He pressed a button at its corner and it began to beep. He held his other palm out, putting Maleficent's left eye between his finger and thumb, and then threw.
None of it would be enough, but it would hurt.
"Cockroaches." Maleficent's voice slithered through Bruce's ears.
The dragon's jaws snapped wide open, breaking Spider-Man's webbing and sending the wall-crawler and the two swordsmen tumbling towards Batman.
Bruce caught his arm, giving him the chance to plant himself on Maleficent's scales.
Cloud and Dante dug their blades into the dragon's flesh, drawing blood and halting their descent.
They watched as the dragon's mouth clamped shut over both the beeping batarang and the Genie, who disappeared with a vehement, "Holy-!"
There was a muffled bang, barely audible over the roaring vortex, and then smoke from the dragon's nostrils.
The green flames returned.
"Bruce?"
"Peter."
"Got milk in that belt a' yours?"
"No."
"Hoo, boy."
The two vigilantes leaped, hoping to soar out of the path of the oncoming fire.
"Crap," Cloud grunted as he joined them.
"Hey, miss thunderstorm," Dante called as he jumped. "Give us a boost?"
Storm narrowly avoided the dragon's swiping claws, sacrificing her cloud in the process.
"Of course." She pushed at the air, sending a gust of wind to carry her allies.
"But never call me miss thunderstorm again."
The wind carried Bruce, Peter, Cloud, and Dante a fair distance, but when they looked back, Maleficent's burning eyes and jaws were still locked on them.
Bruce felt cold; he knew it was impossible to escape, but he also knew that he would feel much colder if he did not at least try.
His mind raced.
It stopped on the image of Alfred.
He looked back once more. Behind the dragon's head, which glowed with green fire like a monstrous jack-o-lantern, he found a familiar sizzling portal.
Bruce's spirits lifted but then dropped as the portal spat out only, from what he could tell from afar, a kid and a skinny man who might be his teacher. Then the man's skin turned green and he grew to an inhumanly muscular size, and Bruce's hope was restored.
"HULK SMASH!"
The Hulk struck the back of Maleficent's head, sending an excruciating crack resounding throughout the vortex. The dragon screeched as its head reeled downward, spitting out a torrent of fire, with the Genie tumbling out alongside, downwards into nothing but empty space.
"Augh, boy!" The Genie wiped black saliva from his front. "This is the last prom I go to!"
The kid landed on the dragon's back.
"SHAZAM!"
Maleficent was hit by a bolt of lightning. Her limbs contorted as her roars deafened Bruce.
When the lightning dissolved into a cloud of smoke, Bruce could see the familiar red uniform and shining lightning bolt symbol of his friend, Shazam.
"That's some cavalry," Cloud said.
Batman kept his typical glare, but he was encompassed by a soothing, optimistic warmth. It only grew with each traveler from the portal.
A twirling top hat and a flickering cigarette were followed by Zatanna and John Constantine, who stood back to back with a red-caped and mustachioed man and a woman with scarlet hair and coat. Fingers tutted, words were whispered, and the dragon went still in a flash of colors.
The Flash's signature crimson blur orbited the dragon's body, accompanied by another blur, silver and equally quick.
The Blue Beetle and Cyborg encircled Maleficent's head, opening fire as they were aided by a golden-armored woman with wings like a wasp's, and a gray-suited man wielding as many missiles as the deadliest war machine.
The dragon let out a pained roar, which was crushed to a gargle as its throat was sandwiched between two crouched, caped forms; one of them Batman knew as the Martian Manhunter, and the other a metallic yellow accomplice.
Both of the monster's elbows were struck. The left by the mace of the soaring Hawkgirl, and the right by a grenade blast thrown by a soldier with wings like a falcon.
Maleficent's scorching eyes fell victim to the the arrows of the Green Arrow and his similarly hawk-eyed rival.
Her ears were prey to a pair of women in black. One of them a skilled agent wielding electrified batons. The other, to the particular anguish of the dragon's left ear, was the Black Canary.
Even as far as he floated, Batman's ears hurt. He did not want to imagine how Maleficent's ears felt.
At the dragon's chest, two warriors seemed to be trying to dig their way to her heart. One of them Batman recognized as Aquaman, whose trident plunged into the beast's scales. The other was in a perfect black, swiping with claws. Even from a distance, Batman could see his yellow eyes, as piercing as a panther's.
The dragon bared its blackened teeth, projecting all the pain and outrage into them while her body remained bound by the quartet of sorcerers. To her further aggravation, this made her teeth vulnerable to the fists of two soaring women in red-and-blue attire. Batman's eyes followed them; he found Supergirl, beaming as she came back for another blow. Her partner wore a helmet that shaped her blonde hair into a mohawk. Her fists glowed with a marvelous gold.
Batman looked above the dragon, where he found his friend, John Stewart, the Green Lantern, raising his fist into the air, where a glowing green broadsword the size of a train grew into existence. It orbited its conjurer and sent Maleficent's head hurtling to her left, right into the path of a roaring laser beam from the chest of a man in glistening crimson armor.
Maleficent's flaming jaws opened, but were tied shut by the sun-like glow of Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth. The Amazonian warrior reeled the dragon in like a wild boar, leaving her open for a strike from her chainmail-armored, helmeted companion's hammer. Lightning erupted from the point of impact at Maleficent's jaw, harmonizing with a cry of, "For Odin! For Asgard!"
A thin line of burning crimson light traced the length of the dragon's body. Batman looked for its origin and found the triumphant S emblem of his ally and friend, Superman. Halfway down the beam, he found it being refracted off of an equally inspiring symbol; a shield of red, white, and blue with a star at its center. Batman saw its wielder, and though he could not put names to the new faces who had come to assist him, this one man could not be mistaken. Captain America.
The beam shrank away and the Justice Leaguers and Avengers circling Maleficent dispersed.
Above them, the portal fizzled shut as its final tag-team dove through; two specks who Bruce could only make out by their red and blue contrast against the vortex.
"Is this your grand plan?!" Maleficent spat. "Exhaust your most moderately competent warriors, then send in the locusts?!"
Bruce heard an electric crackling in his right ear. He recognized it instantly as his cowl's communicator coming alive again.
"Are you ready, Dr. Choi?" A strict, grizzled voice asked.
"I'm always ready, Dr. Pym." A familiar, excited, bouncy tone responded.
With a jittering scream like a high-pitched jackhammer, the specks exploded into giants, one a rusty crimson and the other a watery blue, both rivaling the dragon's size.
"I believe you've enormously underestimated us, Maleficent!" The Atom restrained the lunging dragon from behind in a bear hug.
"Mind the puns, Ryan." Ant-Man pushed Maleficent's head upward, where her flaming breath illuminated the dense air in a magnificent but harmless display.
"Or there's a colony of fire ants with your name on it."
"Hey," the Genie barked, floating around the three-way struggle in the form of a blue poodle the size of one of the giants' heads.
"Ya can't have giant men without giant man's giant best friend!" He dropped and clamped his jaws around the dragon's ankle, earning an infuriated, tooth-muffled growl.
"I'd say the odds have been evened out," Spider-Man said.
Bruce felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and found a smile that seemed to think that it was the sun. That smile had often irritated Bruce, but today, it brought him the sweetest relief.
"Glad to have you back, Bruce," Superman said.
"So am I, Clark. More than you know."
V
If it weren't for the thundering vortex of chaos outside and the pressing search for the two spaceships, Jones might have been able to appreciate the soothing ambiance of the TARDIS' carpeted hallways.
Instead, he found himself sprinting to keep up with the space cowboy who could pass of as his own twin.
"One thing I still don't get," Drake began before a short bout of panting.
"How come these guys look so alike?"
"Actually, yeah," Marty looked between Jones and Solo. "You guys aren't even from the same world. Or time or whatever."
"Maybe Han is Dr. Jones reincarnated," Croft suggested.
"Or you could be twins," Drake added. "And one of you was stolen at birth by a reality-jumping kidnapper."
"It's possible that each reality's human race is made up of rearrangements of the same biological patterns," Doc speculated. "So the same faces would pop up in each-"
"Does it matter?!" Jones snapped. Only after did he realize that Solo had spoke with him. He ignored it and they ran in silence until Marty spoke.
"Woah. That's heavy."
"Here!" Leia declared, turning on her heels and darting into a doorway they were about to pass.
Jones and the others followed her, and surely enough, there it was. Right out of Buck Rogers.
Its bridge was down. Han ran into it like a kid running home after school.
When it wasn't under the control of the Heartless, Jones found that the Falcon was a majestic sight. He was filled with a rare excitement; the kind of rewarding tickle he felt whenever he got his hands on a coveted artifact.
In front of the ship, as if they came as a pair, was Brown's time machine. Jones had forgotten; it was built out of a car. From the look of it, he thought he would live to see it made in his own time.
"Where's that white car the laser-backpack guys came in?" Marty asked.
"Most likely in another room," Doc said. "That Raven woman likely sent them each to a random room."
"Good thing the Delorean landed here with the Falcon," Marty added with a smile. "Maybe that was part of her magic."
"Now, Leia," Lara said. "What's this job you have for the three of us?"
"Han and I need someone to man the Falcon's gun," Leia began. She turned to Brown.
"Dr. Brown, I don't believe your Delorean has any defenses."
"An oversight on my part," the scientist smiled.
Leia glanced behind her, where Han strode down the Falcon's bridge, his arms full with two firearms like long metal logs.
"Don't worry," he said to Brown. "That's part of the job. One of you's with us, while the other two protect the junker's miracle."
"I thought it was stylish," Brown grumbled.
"In the 80s, Doc." Marty patted his shoulder. "We're way into the future now."
Croft and Drake each took one of the firearms, balancing them on a shoulder and peering through a scope protruding from the side of the barrel.
"Chewie won them off an old friend in a game of dejarik a few weeks ago." Solo said. "Only tried 'em against a tree so far, but they oughta scare off anyone who gets too close. Anyone you miss, that is."
"I can work with that." Croft brought the weapon down, holding it like a sniper rifle, and gave Solo a conspiring grin.
"You two seem pretty infatuated with your new toys," Jones said. "So I can be your gunman, Captain."
"Well, Han does enjoy his own reflection," Leia smirked at Solo, who rolled his eyes.
"Alright, alright. Get a move on, people! We've got a monster to kill!"
Jones was running again. When he was in the gunman's cockpit, he felt as if he had just awoken there.
Though the exterior was like something from well into Jones' future, he felt some familiarity when he settled inside. The glass dome facing him provided an alienating sensation, but the array of colorful buttons at his disposal did not seem especially different from those of a plane. In fact, he almost expected a snake to slither into his lap.
"Point and shoot. Got it?" Solo slapped a hand on Jones' shoulder.
"Yessir." Jones clutched the wheel in front of him, his fingers hopping anxiously on the triggers.
Ahead, he could only see the others boarding Brown's car, but in his mind's eye, he could already see those godlike jaws lighting up again.
Croft and Drake leaned out the rear windows, already aiming their futuristic weapons with almost childlike excitement. Marty took the wheel with Brown beside him.
Brown said something into his radio.
Seconds later, the room dissolved with a groaning click, and Jones found himself submerged in the chaos.
The colors and shapes folding and undulating forever, simultaneously a cell and a galaxy, was maddening enough. But it was teeming with people and creatures locked in some kind of vicious dance reception.
The Falcon was off, but Jones was frozen. He was back on the island out in the Aegean Sea, tied up with Marion as the Nazis opened the Ark of the Covenant. Only this time, his eyes were open.
Jones clutched the wheel, keeping himself in the ship. He glared at the vortex beyond the glass and the chaos that drowning it, looking at it as he looked at every temple he had ventured into. All he had to do was narrow his gaze towards the only thing that really mattered.
The dragon.
Its claws kept away two giant men in what looked like red and blue spacesuits. At its chest, the Genie donned green shorts and boxing gloves, striking the scaled flesh with arms as quick as jackhammers.
Jones didn't look at them. Only the dragon.
The Falcon soared at it. Its flaming jaws came to fill the glass.
Jones' body was an icicle. His method of ignoring everything except Maleficent was beyond successful; there was nothing anywhere in any universe except for himself and the dragon.
Then there was nothing but his fingers on the triggers.
There was a hammering sound outside, and then the green inferno was drowned out by a blue one, like water splashing out of the air. The dragon's head reeled back as the Falcon soared over it.
"Great shot, Indiana!" Jones heard an electronic version of his own voice cheer.
He exhaled, nearly perceiving the rest of the madness before he stopped himself.
The dragon heaved itself forth, shielding its head between its forearms to block the giant spacemen's oncoming fists. The surrounding space quaked at the guarded blows.
The shade of yellow in the dragon's eyes changed. Where before they were like caverns flooded with candlelight, now they were like rising suns.
It seemed to look straight into Jones' face.
It smiled.
VI
"We hear you, Captain Picard!"
Picard was so overcome with relief that he did not realize that he had clenched his fists and declared, "Yes!"
He turned to the screen on the TARDIS' wooden wall, which flickered from the giants battling in the vortex to a white bridge filled with an anxious crew.
Picard was delighted to see each face. He had been careful not to consider it, but he had worried that he might not see them again.
The chair in the bridge's center was distractingly empty. Picard planned to rectify that.
"Where exactly are you all?" A young man in a yellow uniform and a silver visor questioned.
"Our scanners say you're in a small pod, but it looks like you're on a bridge as big as our own."
"I'll explain everything in due time, Geordi," Picard replied. "For now, we need you to beam Riker, Data, Worf, and myself aboard. But maintain the communications link so the Doctor may relay his plan to us."
"Doctor who?" Geordi asked immediately.
Picard glanced at the Doctor, who continued working away at the console alongside Romana. He had put on his toothy grin.
"The Doctor," Picard answered. "As I said, Geordi; in due time."
"Of course, Captain…" Geordi pressed a button at his console. "Beaming you aboard now."
Picard suspected that a decidedly confused look hid behind that visor.
He felt his body ignite with an electric tingle. He could feel and smell the brisk wood and the warm carpet of the TARDIS, and at the same time, the cozy hallways of the Enterprise.
"Remember, Captain Jean-Luc Picard," the Doctor said. "On my mark."
Picard nodded. "It's been a pleasure, Doctor."
The Doctor grinned again. "It still is, Captain."
The grin dissolved into the stark black walls of the Enterprise's transporter room.
"To the bridge!" Picard darted down the hallway, not looking behind him for Riker, Data, and Worf, but hearing their boots echo off the floor behind him.
Within seconds, they were all back where they belonged. Picard's body stiffened with a magnetic sensation. It was as if he had always been standing in front of his chair, having only just awoken from a dream about Aperture and Maleficent and being a Heartless.
He looked ahead at the scanner, where any dream-like notions were smote by the sight of the two giant men, the TARDIS, the Falcon, the Delorean, the numerous seemingly insect-sized fighters, the giant, shrieking, blue-furred gorilla, and the roaring dragon around which they all orbited.
"Friends," Picard announced, his gaze locked on Maleficent as if she were on the bridge with him.
"On my command, initiate lightspeed in the direction of the dragon."
"At the dragon, Captain?!" One of the younger red-shirts asked, his face praying that Picard was joking.
"Yes, Wesley; directly at it," Picard stated. "Exactly when I command and not a moment sooner!"
He looked back at the scanner, where something about the dragon's face had changed. It grinned in a contemptuous reiteration of the Doctor's grin.
Picard found that its body had changed as well. Its skin seemed to froth like a violent chemical reaction.
Picard was anxious for the Doctor's command.
VII
The air around Sheriff Woody became filled with a humid sandy wind.
Though he saw himself clutching a black scale, his fingers felt bunches of dirt.
He looked straight ahead, where he found undeniable proof that somebody, somewhere, despised him.
"Howdy-doo, Sheriff," a tall, lanky man in goggles and a lab coat faced him. He ran his gloved hands over his buzzcut.
"It's been ages!"
Woody's mind went blank, unable to even think of a witty greeting.
"Sid," Buzz, beside him, shouted in disbelief. "Last we saw you, you were surrounded by your own hodgepodge creations!"
"Oh, yes, Buzzy-Bee," chirped Dr. Sid Phillips (although both Woody and Buzz were convinced that he had never attended medical school).
"And it was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me! My children were so overcome with gratitude for how beautiful I'd made them that they decided to give me the gift that I'd given them!"
"What do you mean?" Woody clutched his pistol. He scorned the question the instant it had leaped from his mouth.
Sid beamed.
He reached up and clutched the top of his head. He pulled; his flesh suddenly seemed to Woody like fabric.
The face came off like a cloth.
Snow white skin. Two horns; one half the length of the other. A green left eye. A black, beady right eye. A long beak overflowing with teeth of varying jagged shaped.
Before Woody could even realize what he was looking at, let alone fire his gun, it had pounced at him and Buzz, pinning them beneath its claws.
Woody and Buzz filled it with bullets and laser blasts, but it only tilted its head and grinned hungrily.
It did not even bleed.
Woody's brain crashed. He demanded it to give him a plan, but it answered him only with screaming.
Desperate, he glanced left. Hopps and Wilde lay beside him, prying at something pinning them which Woody could not see. He turned right, looking through the glass of Buzz's helmet; Mulan, Shang, and Aladdin were in the same predicament, but still Woody could not see their attacker.
He did, however, hear them urging through their teeth.
"Bellwether!"
"Shan Yu!"
"Jafar!"
Woody turned back to Sid, whose extended jaw salivated onto his face. But Woody didn't feel the spittle hit his cheek.
He looked right into the mismatched eyes; he saw the Delorean soar overhead. Its rear windows spat bright blue streaks which impacted the base of the dragon's neck like meteorites in the distance.
Woody sat up, blinked, and Sid was gone.
There was a pungent smell of leaves and rainwater, as if he were in a swamp.
He found Jack Skellington restraining the Scarecrow with one arm. With the other, he tore the burlap mask away, revealing the scornful, scarlet face of Jonathan Crane. Beside them, Sally returned a lid to a small, smoking vase.
"I was hoping I'd find a use for that concoction," she said with a relieved and satisfied smile.
"Thanks for the save, friends." Woody tipped his hat after he and his allies had stood up.
"Seems like he used some of that phobia chemical," Buzz added.
"Indeed he did, Commander Lightyear," Jack chirped as he and Sally joined their teammates with their prisoner.
He slid off Crane's syringe-fingered glove. He held it near his eye sockets, his face glowing like a child trying to peer through the wrapping of a Christmas present.
"What a fascinating substance. Only a whiff and one's nightmares come alive before their very eyes. Sally; do you think you might help me recreate this in time for next Halloween?"
"Oh. I might," Sally said, looking at Jack through the murky yellow glass tubes attached to the glove's cuff.
"If I could find the ingredients."
Crane scoffed. "Simpletons," he spat. "All your bravado and talk of mastering fright, yet you're not above stealing others' work."
"Not stealing, my frightening friend," Jack replied, smiling defiantly at Crane's scowl.
"I'll call it an homage."
He returned to Sally. They smiled their smiles of gumless teeth and loose stitching, looking, Woody guessed, past the vials of fear toxin.
Woody was filled with a warm, hopeful tingle despite, or because of, their nightmarish appearance.
He thought of Bo.
The tingle intensified.
Then, in a single quake, the tingle degenerated into sickness.
The scaly back Woody and his roundup stood on expanded, becoming like molasses and burying them up to the waist.
Woody strained to pull himself free. In doing so, he looked up. The dragon no longer resembled a dragon, but now a bubbling mass connecting a network of humanoid shapes. Its head seemed only a topper for the sputtering black mess beneath it.
The two giants and the Genie, then in the form of an enormous gorilla clutching what used to be the dragon's neck, were suddenly coated in a crawling black substance like ink.
Maleficent stretched her arms out. They rippled through the slimy skin as if through a waterfall. The arms of the giants then sprung up the way a sleeve does when an arm slides through it.
The four heads reeled back.
An ear-splitting roar overpowered a trio of bellowing screams.
The towering, exerted neck folded as the head returned.
Woody's heart throttled him. He did not want the head to show itself. He knew that it had changed, but he didn't know exactly how.
He knew that he would never be able to forget it.
If he had the choice between Maleficent dropping dead at that moment and never having to look upon her new face, he would not have been able to decide.
The dragon looked down at him. He was asphyxiated by horror, madness, and a depressing realization that things just weren't going his way.
He turned to try and run; in his terror, he had forgotten that he and his roundup were stuck in the thickness of the dragon's undulating flesh. It was now up to their solar plexuses; they had to raise their arms to keep them free.
Woody looked all around him. He might've tried to lasso something to pull himself free, but his lasso was beneath the murky blackness.
He scanned the air above for any passing fliers. A significant number of them landed in the giants'- the dragon's- the thing's swooping fists, which then changed from fists to shadowy orbs of docile shapes. Within, Woody found a mohawk, a hammer, a pair of giant eagle-like wings, and several capes.
He looked down; Crane submerged himself into the liquid flesh. His face was peaceful. It seemed like he was climbing into a hot bath after a long and stressful day.
Woody turned to Buzz, hoping, praying that his jetpack was still unsubmerged.
It wasn't.
He looked into Buzz's face, the beginning of some final desperate resort already on his tongue. But when he saw his friend's face, designed for reassuring smiles and heroic grins, looking back at him with nothing but accepted defeat, that last resort fled from his mouth and his mind.
Buzz reached an armored hand out. Woody took it, hoping the suffocating feeling in his gut would soften, but it only grew.
He turned to his other side where Judy struggled and offered his hand. When she noticed it, she stopped and met his eyes. Woody felt like he was in front of a mirror; Hopps' face did everything which he had just felt. Desperation. Realization. Acceptance.
She took his hand. They both squeezed and nodded.
Judy took Wilde's hand. He took Sally's. She took Jack's.
Buzz took Mulan's hand. She took Shang's. He took Aladdin's.
At the center, Woody could feel them all. Not just Buzz's armor and Judy's fur. Jack's bones. Sally's fabric. Mulan and Shang's gloves. Aladdin's firm calluses.
He looked up at the colossal thing they were becoming a part of.
The thick substance grew to their shoulders.
He looked into its eyes. Not just the yellow eyes glaring down at him like twin suns, but the hordes of smaller red ones lighting up throughout its body like stars.
Woody was terrified.
The liquid scales encompassed him.
He wasn't anymore.
VIII
Stitch was trying not to think about the big things. The dragon. The plan. The multicolored, multishaped tornado of madness they were all careening through. He tried to focus on the smaller parts.
"Batter up, ugly!"
"Batter?! We are not baking, stupid hu-"
For example, the rush of Mr. Incredible throwing him like a baseball at Zim's mutated head.
He tucked himself into a ball on the way. He felt the crackling of Irken bones at his back as he rebounded, floating into the air and unraveling.
"OW! My skull! My half-Irken, half-Experiment-filth skull!"
Stitch blew a raspberry down at his opponent, who stood by one of the dragon's spinal spikes as he clutched his head.
Hovering several feet in the air, Stitch had at least three seconds to scan the battlefield (or battle-air) beneath him.
He saw Sparky, Storm, and Starfire standing back-to-back in the air, alternating between firing at the dragon and at passers-by such as Boba Fett and the Green Goblin.
Chopsuey had teamed up with Hawkeye and the Green Arrow. The trio loosed their arrows, then the two humans turned to congratulate Chopsuey by playfully ruffling his white mohawk. They chuckled. He snarled.
Bonnie and Clyde landed not too far away beside Luke, Chewbacca, and Ash. When they did, Ash took Clyde's left hand and Luke's right and, to their astonishment and Bonnie and Chewie's befuddlement, holding them in the air and declaring, "The Amputee Brothers!"
Stitch looked straight down. Zim's left arms were trapped in their own separate purple force fields. His right half was restrained by Spooky, taking the form of Zim's watery doppelganger.
"Unhand me, you-" The Irken's threat was reduced to a groan as a lightning-fast fist flew across his jaw.
"Unhand?" Dash laughed. "Have any good guys ever said 'unhand?'"
Zim opened his mouth. A furry pink ball hit his forehead.
"And stop throwing lifeforms at me!"
His request was immediately denied by a furry green ball.
"Sta-errrrrr-ike three!" Mr. Incredible shouted. "You're out!"
The two projectiles unraveled on their way up to Stitch, revealing the smiling faces of Angel and Felix.
As they neared him, they each showed him a clawed foot. Stitch stood on them with his own feet and pushed, propelling his cousins downwards and himself upwards.
He looked down. Felix and Angel each got a hook in at Zim's mismatched eyes as they landed.
Up. He headed for the joined, elongated arms of Elastigirl and Elastico.
"Look, Stitch!" Ellie chirped. "We're both flexible!"
"Cool, El."
The arms stretched back with Stitch, then slingshotted him back at Zim.
As he zoomed in, he found Zim being kept at bay by laser burts from the eyes of Jayjay and Daniel.
He balled up again and landed with a crash at the dead center of Zim's skull, flooring the mutated Irken.
Stitch rolled off of their groaning opponent, turning to give a high-five to any nearby Experiments and Incredibles.
Angel hopped on Violet's shoulders, ruffling her hair as the super made a sound mixing a grunt and a giggle. Elastico licked Elastigirl's face. Jayjay hugged Daniel.
Stitch turned back around, showing whatever was there a wide, victorious smile.
Whatever was there ripped it from his face.
Whatever was there, Stitch didn't know what it was. He knew that it had been the dragon a moment ago. He also knew that it was consuming everyone in its path.
Looking at it was like watching an enormous wave in the distance sending surfers tumbling into the water. But the surfers didn't emerge in their usual bouts of laughter and sleekened hair. Instead, their arms and faces screamed out of the blackness, as if the dark liquid were mimicking their silhouettes.
Stitch swallowed. It was suddenly impossible to even consider the small things. There was only the wave.
Sparky swooped down and declared what Stitch was thinking; "Back to TARDIS!"
He took Elastigirl and Elastico by an arm, lifting them into the air. Helen stretched her other arm down and Ellie sent both of his legs. The limbs dangled like rope ladders for the two families to grab on to.
Stitch was the last one on, clutching Elastico's toes with Angel just above him.
He saw Jayjay shimming up, getting as close to his mother as possible. His face was strangely blank. His brain was probably too overwhelmed to shape his face into expressions. Stitch thought so because he felt likewise about himself.
He looked into the distance; Luke Ash, and Clyde, with Bonnie on his shoulder, fled from the black wave. It was almost on them when Luke thrust his palm in Stitch's direction.
Bonnie and Clyde were suddenly carried through the air, yelping at the involuntary leap.
Luke motioned between Ash and Chewbacca; the latter picked up the bewildered former. Luke repeated his earlier motion, sending the wookie flying with a screaming Ash.
Then the Jedi vanished under the splashing darkness.
At the same time, directly beneath him, Stitch caught a glimpse of the archers. He found Green Arrow taking aim directly at him. Beside him, Hawkeye cupped his hands into a step for the leaping Chopsuey.
Experiment and arrow were flung towards the flying chain. On his way up, Chopsuey caught the arrow, which Stitch saw was attached to a long length of thick rope trailing back to Green Arrow.
In a swift orchestra of movements, Daniel caught Chopsuey, Spooky caught Clyde and Bonnie, and Violet stopped Chewbacca and Ash beside her in a forcefield.
Dan and Chop got to work pulling Green Arrow and Hawkeye up with the rope. Stitch and Angel clutched it and pulled as well.
It wasn't heavy. Is heavy, Stitch thought, but cousins strong.
He looked up; the TARDIS wasn't far away. He could've hit it with a spitball.
He felt a violent tug on the rope. He looked down, astonished and horrified to see that the black wave had leaped somehow, clawing at the dangling and struggling archers.
They looked up at Stitch with expressions of terror that did not match their heroic masks, and then were smothered in the thick blackness.
The rope was torn from the Experiments' hands.
"Ollie!" Chopsuey cried. "Clint!"
The moment had barely settled into Stitch's mind. It seemed more to him that the two archers had never existed.
He found three people running with the wave at their heels; Daredevil, Spider-Man, and Batman.
"Angie," he called up. "Gonna stick to your feet, okay?"
"Okay."
He inverted himself, standing upside down with his and Angel's adhesive soles clinging together.
"Matty! Pete! Bruce!" He waved all four arms at them, inviting them to grab on.
The three looked up at first perturbed; Stitch had a fleeting realization that they must not be used to being called by their real names while in their costumes. But their faces changed to ones of intense hope as they each threw up some kind of lifeline; Bruce's grappling hook, Peter's web, and Matt's club attached to a long length of rope.
The next moment was like a blink. The Green Goblin, flying overhead, dived from his glider, and the Joker splashed out of the blackness behind Bruce. Their cackles filled Stitch's ears even from far down below. The Goblin tackled Peter, the Joker seized Bruce, and they were all consumed by the wave as Stitch caught Matt's baton.
Stitch pulled hand over hand, registering Matt but only barely the absence of Peter and Bruce. They had vanished into that same space of non-existence as Luke, Green Arrow, and Hawkeye.
Matt's face seemed tense and rigid. He had never once looked back at his friends, but Stitch could tell that he knew what had happened.
Stitch and Matt's hands had just met when the wave leaped again. It zipped past them to his extremely temporary relief; it instead began its consumption at the top of the chain.
The next few moments were blurred in a torrent of tumbling commotion. There was a chorus of short cries; Stitch barely had time to hear them. He could make out the voices of Sparky, Ellie, Dash, Violet, and Chewbacca's rolling roar, but there were much more which blended together in a single cry.
The torrents of colors and shapes became tangled as Stitch spun in the air, clutching Matt with his hands and Angel with his feet.
He caught a glimpse of Ash falling in the ever-changing direction of the reaching wave. He turned in midair, revving up his chainsaw. Over the erupting noise, Stitch could discern his battle cry; "Excalibur this, you medieval bitch!"
Stitch was braced for the inevitable murky splash, and so was surprised and strangely disappointed when his tumble suddenly halted in midair. He looked at his feet; they were still stuck to Angel's, and she, Daniel, and Chopsuey had their palms pressed to the underside of the TARDIS. Beside him, he found a pair of black boots and a brown-furred leg disappearing into the floating box.
After a quick series of swings, Stitch was helping Matt into the TARDIS. He felt safe for all of a single second before he saw who else had joined him. Angel, Chopsuey, Daniel, Chewbacca, Jayjay, Elastigirl. Nobody else. Once again, the others had stopped existing.
Worse was that Elastigirl's elongated arm still trailed out the TARDIS doors. Without looking, Stitch knew where it led.
Helen struggled to free her arm; her boots scraped against the scarlet carpet. Jayjay, Chewie, Matt, and Stitch's remaining cousins hugged her, pulling with all their might, but whatever it was down there could match their immense combined strength.
"What in the name of Rassilon is going on out there?!" Romana questioned.
Stitch turned to the two Time Lords, who spared momentary glances at their struggling passengers as they concentrated on their button-pressing, dial-twisting, and lever-pulling.
The console was incomprehensible to Stitch, but one feature stood out to him. He had seen it before but only now actually noticed it. A telephone.
"What is it?" The Doctor snapped as Stitch approached the console. His eyes remained glued to his work.
"Stitch needs to do something." Likewise, Stitch kept fixated on the phone. He hopped onto the console and picked it up.
"Shouldn't you be outside helping the others to safety? Or doing something important?"
"All gone," Stitch replied, too crestfallen to snap back at the Doctor. "This is important. To me."
He dialed. As he put the receiver to his ear, he noticed the Doctor's wild eyes glance at him once more, this time with a soft, apologetic look, before they locked back onto his busy hands.
He turned to his cousins, who strained to maintain the stalemate. They looked at him with fleeting looks of irritation, but then their faces cooled into soft nods. They knew what he was doing. They knew that one of them had to do it.
Stitch was greeted by a nanosecond of a dial tone. It was followed by an anxious and familiar voice.
"Hello?"
"Aloha, Nani."
What followed was a series of distant, excited exclamations before they came closer, cheering into his ear.
"Stitch! You're okay!"
"Are the other little guys alright?!"
"Was it the tyrannical overlords of Zim's home planet?!"
"We really missed you," Lilo spoke softest.
"We missed you, too," Stitch replied.
He exhaled and blinked tears out of his eyes. He hopes this wouldn't be his last conversation with his ohana, but just in case, he had to make it count.
"Cousins caught by Maleficent. Saved by new friends. But still in trouble...Not sure if we can escape this time…"
Silence. He could feel their tears as if they were in his own eyes.
"Dib. Dave. Nani. Lilo. We are so happy we got to be your ohana. We love you most in whole universe. We always will."
He shut his eyes. For a while, he was deaf to the crashing, beeping, thrashing, and straining around him. He only heard a quivering sigh through the phone.
"Stitch," Lilo said. "Come home."
Immediately after she spoke, there was a laugh louder than Stitch thought any sound could be. When he heard it, it hurt.
It hurt so much.
His eyes sprung open. The doorway was filled by a pool of blackness swarming with writhing silhouettes. At its center was a giant eye melting between every color. Stitch had a sickening feeling that he was alone in the universe with whatever this thing was.
Elastigirl was pulled into its liquid skin. Matt, Jayjay, Chewbacca, and Daniel's grips were broken, but Angel and Chopsuey held on. They did, however, lose their footing.
In an instant, Stitch dropped the phone and made a single bound to the door. He clutched the doorframe with his lower hands, reaching out with his upper arms just as his friends were consumed by the humongous shadow.
It was like water well below freezing.
Stitch's claws immediately closed around something. He felt like he had Angel's ankle, and so felt especially shocked when whatever he was holding grabbed back at him.
In a second, his grip on the TARDIS door frame was dislodged just as his friends inside grabbed onto him, leaving him suspended above the vortex that was quickly being filled by this abominable black thing.
Stitch felt himself being pulled into the cackling shadow. He felt his friends being towed in with him.
He wondered if all of this was supposed to be happening to somebody else.
With a sharp kick from both legs, he broke free from the TARDIS and splashed into the shadowy skin.
There was the frigid feeling of being soaked in ice.
There was the cozy feeling of being with his ohana.
IX
Matt's body burned with the pain of skidding across carpet and stopping against a wooden console.
His mouth and nose were filled with a freezing air like a blizzard blowing exclusively in his face.
His ears were asphyxiated by a horde of noise.
The beeping and groaning from the TARDIS console. The machine sounded like it was in agony.
The Doctor and Romana breathing through their noses. To Matt, they were like speeding steam engines.
"Mommy…" He heard the kid whimper. "Daddy...Dash. Vi…"
"No…" The alien gasped. "Not again."
The wookie roared.
All of their heartbeats combined into an ominous melody like a ceremony preceding a sacrifice.
And the laughter. It boomed, echoing a thousand times and making him feel like a grenade had exploded beside each of his ears. Matt couldn't tell if it was still outside or if it was already ensnaring him.
Beneath all of it, he found a softer voice. Despite its electronic crackle, it was an auditory sanctuary to Matt.
"Stitch? Where did you go?"
Matt reached out in the sound's direction, seizing, as he expected, a phone. He put it to his left ear, leaving his right to face the chaos alone.
"Hello."
"Hi," the kid didn't sound scared. Confused, anxious, but not scared.
"Are you one of Stitch's new friends?"
"Give them back!"
"Take thy beak from out my heart…"
Laughter.
"Yes," Matt said without thinking.
The TARDIS shook, making him clutch the side of the console.
The laughter grew louder. Matt's ears throbbed; he wondered if they were bleeding.
"My name's Matthew," he said. It took every ounce of his willpower not to scream.
"Hey Matthew," the kid said. "I'm Lilo. Is Stitch still there?" She spoke as if Matt had taken her friend away.
Matt experienced a fleeting sensation of recognition. The carpet floor became cold wood. The thunderous laughter became distant police sirens. He heard Lilo's tone coming out of his own mouth. It asked, "Where's my dad?"
Matt opened his mouth to answer.
"Give them back!"
"Take thy form from off my door!"
The kid and the alien roared with the wookie. They harmonized with the noise of blaster fire, the screech of laser bursts, and the groan of soaring flame.
Their hearts stampeded.
"Matthew?" Lilo urged. "Is Stitch okay?"
Matt pulled himself up, keeping a hand on the console.
"Give them back!"
"Take thy beak from out my heart!"
Matt felt like Maleficent was cackling directly into his ear.
"This is the Doctor! Are we prepared, my dears?"
Electric voices responded one at a time.
"Enterprise, standing by."
"Falcon, standing by."
"The, uh, Delorean, standing by."
"Give them back!"
"Take thy form from off my door!"
The TARDIS beeped louder, as if it were trying to be heard over the ever-loudening laughter.
"Now's the time," the Doctor declared. "Fly straight at Maleficent and dematerialize on the count of one."
"Copy."
"Got it."
"With ya, Doc."
"Matthew?"
"GIVE THEM BACK!"
"Five!"
"TAKE THY BEAK FROM OUT MY HEART!"
Matt didn't hear laughter anymore.
"Four!"
"Matthew?!"
He heard screaming.
"GIVE THEM BACK!"
"TAKE THY FORM FROM OFF MY DOOR!"
"Three!"
He heard dozens upon dozens of screams. He could pick them out.
"Is my ohana okay?"
He could hear Logan's feral roar, Peter's panicked cry, and Captain America's passionate yell. He heard Skywalker and the super-kid's family and Lilo's ohana.
"Two!"
He heard everyone. Screaming. When they screamed together, they made Maleficent's laughter.
Matt wanted to scream with them.
"Yes," he answered. His voice was calm. "Everyone's okay."
"ONE!"
He opened his mouth. The need to scream was gone.
"Everyone's okay."
X
"Engage!"
"Punch it!"
"Outta time, Mistress!"
XI
The sky was aflame with fireworks of every color. It was so bright that it seemed more like day than night.
The fireworks overlooked the castle, which overlooked the kingdom, growing wider every day. Following the many winding paths throughout, all of them crowded with cheering residents who were illuminated by the colorful explosions, Maleficent traced the way up to the hilltop where she sat.
She had never thought about it, but the fireworks were beautiful. She was only realizing it now, she thought, because now she would never have anything like them.
She had one last look over the kingdom. It was almost beautiful. It was just missing something. Or there was something there that shouldn't be.
She thought she could do better. She most likely would have.
Nobody would ever know now.
She heard footsteps in the grass behind her.
She felt a cold gaze on her. It was better than the warm ones that had been scorching her all her life.
"I did better this time," she said, fixated on the fireworks. "Didn't I?"
She heard a chuckle.
"A little."
XII
Luke's body ached all over. He felt like his skin and bones had turned to stone.
He had trouble breathing. There was a feeling all around him like he was lying in a mound of miniature leaves. He sat up, which took every bit of his remaining strength, and opened his eyes.
He never thought he'd be so relieved to see an ordinary blue sky.
He looked around at what he sat in. He picked it up and let it fall between his fingers.
Ashes.
Glancing around, he found others rising from the sea of ashes.
Dante brushed the crumbs from his white hair. He had an anxious look that did not belong on his usually arrogant face.
Chell darted up, breathing heavily as if having awoken from a nightmare. She leaned her head back, taking in the bright sky and the fresh air. Her breathing steadied and she smiled.
Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear immediately found each other, rose to their knees, and hugged. Even with the distance between them, Luke could see tears in their eyes.
The Lizard and the Man-Bat rose, coated in ashes. By the time the dust had fallen off of their backs, they had shrunk in size, and their scales and fur were melting into human skin.
Further away, kneeling in a circle like a cult, he found Boba Fett, the Master, Zim, Vergil, the Goblin, the Scarecrow, and the Joker. Their heads were bowed. Luke was afraid that they might get up and flee, but they stayed put.
About three miles away, to Luke's astonishment, the ash continued. The giant Atom and Ant-Man slowly sat up. It took about two minutes for them to rise.
Bordering the pool of ash was a field of wheat. Luke had a notion that this was where he and his fellow Heartless had lured Jones, Croft, and Drake into the TARDIS.
Luke wasn't sure, but as he looked all around him, he thought that the ash was laid out in the vague shape of a dragon.
He looked out again amidst the perplexed faces and the excited huggers splashing through the ashes. His eyes came to rest on Batman, who was removing his cowl. The face of Bruce Wayne found Luke, who could not look anywhere else. Somehow, perhaps through the Force, he felt that Bruce could not look away from him, either.
He heard laughter.
It started as a whisper. As he sat and kept his eyes locked on Bruce, it grew louder.
Bruce's eyes widened in a petrified glare. He could hear it too.
There was a series of screeching bangs. Everyone darted up; the sky was filled by a blue box, a flying car, a disc-shaped ship, and another ship that shadowed about a third of the pool of ash.
When Luke saw them, the laughter stopped. A chilling wave of relief came over him; one which he had not felt since the last time he saw his father.
As the ships descended, Luke felt only the faintest whisper tickling his ears.
HEARTLESS
Season 1, Episode 8
Featuring:
Marvel
DC
Ghostbusters
Evil Dead
Devil May Cry
Star Wars
Doctor Who
Invader Zim
Indiana Jones
Tomb Raider
Uncharted
Portal
Back to the Future
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Final Fantasy VII
Aladdin
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Toy Story
Mulan
Lilo & Stitch
The Incredibles
Zootopia
And Sleeping Beauty
They had been gone for a whole day. He figured that it was safe to go now.
They had left the pool of ash where it was. To be fair, it was a lot to clean up.
He approached the edge of it. The shape of a monstrous jaw brimming with teeth glared back up at him. He knelt down and picked up a handful of what used to be one of the front teeth. It felt soft. Softer than any ash he had felt before.
He thought he would be frustrated, but he was calm. In fact, he was happy. Not because she was dead; he did feel a twinge of grief somewhere deep in what remained of his soul.
Though she hadn't succeeded in their goal this time, he thought this might open some promising new doors. Doors which, no doubt, his old friend would soon stumble upon. And even if he didn't, the man in black had ways of nudging him in the right direction.
He looked up. At the other side of the pool of ash, as if pretending to be his reflection, was the boy. Not so much a boy anymore, it seemed. Of course; he would be fresh off of his first great battle, wouldn't he?
When he saw the man in black, he paled and his eyes widened, almost filling those big round glasses of his. He scooped some of the ash into a vial. The moment it was full, he vanished in a twisting vortex.
The man in black stood up, grinning at the spot where the boy had just been, then turned back to the wheat.
"Long days, my new friends, and pleasant nights," he said, looking up at the burning dusk sky. "While they last."