We'll be on earth for the next 2 chapters, then we'll head back into Coalition Space for the remainder of the first half of the fic. The second half of the story will switch back and forth between Earth and the KH worlds. I'm not going to explain how or why. That's a surprise.
Chapter 8: Damage Assessment:
Earth – Avengers Headquarters:
Thor looked around at the faces of the Avengers and saw varying levels of concern on each of their faces. It was a sign of how serious the situation was that even the infamously comedic Tony Stark didn't crack a joke. After all, it's not any old department store supervillain with the funding, manpower, resources, and audacity to pull off something of this magnitude. Loki's escape didn't faze anyone. They had all come to terms with his quasi-redemption years ago. What left them all in such a stunned silence was how effortlessly this unknown faction pulled the break-out off.
Looking at each of the faces of his teammates, the prince of Asgard found that despite conveying the same emotions, they were all clearly thinking different things. Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximov, and Ron Stoppable were already attempting to determine the motive behind the prison break. The former thief Scott Lang, his girlfriend Hope Pym, Pietro, and the little blue alien called Stitch were attempting to calculate just how the break out had been accomplished. Tony Stark, James Rhodes, Kim Possible, Bucky and Dr. Banner were analyzing the implications of a military force capable of successfully achieving a stunt like this. Natasha, however, was an enigma. She looked as if she knew exactly who had done it and what the attack entailed.
Deciding to inquire as to what she knew later, Thor continued the discussion towards what they would do next. Every member of the team unanimously voted in favor of pursuing the culprits. Anyone with the resources and audacity to pull off a successful attack on Asgard was also a potential threat to Earth. If they could infiltrate Asgard's dungeon, then there was no telling what they would be capable of if they decided to set their sights on Earth. Unfortunately, other than what little information Loki could offer in his letter, they had no leads to go on. Nevertheless, Tony began making plans to upgrade everyone's gear to prepare for when Loki's next info drop gave them enough intelligence to act upon.
With the meeting adjourned, the team was about to head downstairs for lunch when the Biritsh-accented voice of J.A.R.V.I.S. emerged from the ceiling.
"I've just received word from S.H.I.E.L.D.," the artificial intelligence announced gravely. "A group of terrorists have launched a series of attacks across Europe. They are wearing HYDRA uniforms but it's unclear yet if they are a small cell that managed to escape the last purge, or if it's just a bunch of would-be anarchists attempting to use HYDRA's imagery and reputation to bolster their own." Their rest time cut short, the team raced down to the armory and prepared for battle. Within the next fifteen minutes, the Avengers' Quinjet was flying away from their headquarters towards Europe to stop this new would-be HYDRA cell. They were superheroes. Saving the world and fighting groups like HYDRA was part of the job.
Unknown World – Unknown Location:
"Our spies have confirmed that the breakout was successful," the pink-haired man reported solemnly. "Maleficent and her allies now have control of the Space Stone. Our sources indicate that she intends to lie low and confirm the locations of the Time, Soul, and Reality games before moving forward with seizing the other Infinity Stones. We cannot allow those miscreants to get their filthy hands on the Gauntlet of the First Master."
"Thank you, High Praetor," Madame N.I. replied grimly. The leadership of The Legion had gathered on one of their outlying bases to discuss recent events and begin preparations for the first phase of their grand plan. So far, the meeting hadn't been going well. Word of Maleficent's success would harm troop morale, and that was the last thing the High Council wanted. "What we need to decide now," N.I. went on. "Is how to proceed from here. We ourselves know the locations of several of the stones, but many of them are in places we cannot enter without attracting attention. So how do we go about acquiring them?"
"Well," suggested the blonde-haired Warden. "We can always manipulate events in our favor. We can mislead the Hellfire Club's research, have them chase down false leads to buy ourselves time. Plant breadcrumbs to have those heathen Keyblade Wielders take the one already in Maleficent's possession. The Club will lay siege to whichever world it's taken to in order to retrieve it, and in the chaos of the battle, we will slip in and grab it for ourselves." The rest of the council nodded their hands in agreement with the plan, and began making preparations to put the idea into action. An hour later, N.I. was sitting at her desk filling out paperwork when the Warden knocked on her door.
"Forgive me for intruding, Imperator," she began. "But I think now that we've begun seriously preparing for the endgame, it's time that we seriously began preparing disciplinary action against the traitors" Ah yes, N.I. reminded herself. The Lost Ones. The loyalty the soldiers and officers of the Legion displayed towards their cause was ironclad, but every once in a while they would get an aberration in the norm. A high ranking soldier who had grown dissatisfied with the lack of progress and forsaken The Legion's ideals. Most had realized the error of their ways after a cycle of exposure to the destruction the Darkness caused. But these two, they had not only openly deserted the Legion but remained steadfast in their defiance of The Cause.
"Very well," the supreme leader of the Legion replied. "You have authorization to take a Cohort and bring them back to the ISMCC to stand trial for their crimes. But please remember to be discreet." The Warden nodded in understanding and swept out of the room to select her team members for this mission. She was looking forward to the court martial and summary execution of the two traitors, but she was not blind to the fact that this would have to be planned very carefully. Both traitors had several powerful friends who would raise hell if they were ever overtly abducted. But a "mysterious" disappearance en route to a destination with no surveillance along the way could quickly be covered up and all clues manipulated to lead to dead ends. The ensuing missing person's cases would remain forever unsolved.
The Warden smiled to herself as she reviewed the profiles of the Legionnaires she intended to select for the mission. They would have to do this one at a time to avoid arousing any further suspicion, but they could pull this off. They just had to be stealthy. To that end, she had changed into civilian attire, complete with a black wig to conceal her natural blonde hair, and contact lenses designed to make her eyes appear brown instead of their true greenish-blue. Once she'd changed, she used the dandelion-imprinted seal to stamp the papers she'd needed to file for the mission before ordering the Legionnaires she'd requested to report to the briefing room. They had work to do.
Earth – Whitmore Mansion:
"If we weren't sure about what Raina's prophecy was about, the attack on Asgard pretty much confirmed it," Joshua Sweet remarked as he looked around at the faces of the other members of the S.A.C.K.'s leadership. Vinnie, Mole, Audrey, Jiaying, Lady Sif, and the chairwoman had assembled at the Society headquarters as soon as Sif's team returned from Asgard and brought news of the attack. An attack on one of the most heavily defended of the mythological realms within hours of a foreboding prophetic dream did not bode well, and they needed to figure out what they should do.
"Our security cameras were able to identify most of the people involved in the attack and the breakout," Lady Sif explained. In recent years, Odin had been convinced to allow the installation of CCTV cameras to provide security in the royal palace. Attacks against Asgard were considered impossible, but given how many enemies he had, Loki (who kept in contact with the Society from his prison cell through Sif) had persuaded his father to have them in stalled, stating that it was better to prepare for the unexpected than to be caught off guard and have allow the damages and casualties to mount higher than they would be otherwise.
"The three silver haired men were identified by Loki as the illegitimate children of the mercenary Sephiroth," the Asgardian warrior went on. The disgraced prince of Asgard had become a valuable source of information about Maleficent once he'd figured out Sif's membership in it. "According to Isa and Xiruk, he was killed a few days before their deaths. The team sent to free Loki consisted of a squad of HYDRA agents, the intergalactic assassin Nebula, and the shapeshifting raven familiar of Maleficent. From this, we can gather that the children of the "One-Winged Angel" are working with the Hellfire Club as a means to an end to avenge their father's death. And the fact that the remnants of HYDRA have allied with Maleficent suggest that the Hellfire Club is on the move once more."
Although this was a surprise to everyone on the council, they were far from alarmed. They had been preparing for this since the Society's inception. Between the S.A.C.K., the Avengers, the Defenders (a group of crime-fighting heroes operating in New York City), Team Go, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Inhumans, and the supernatural community, Earth was more than well defended. And since the Hellfire Club was active again, that meant that they were likely to be seeing some Keyblade Wielders sooner or later. From there, they could finally stabilize a timeline of events for that side of the universe in regards to Xehanort and Maleficent.
From there, the council went on to discuss the rest of Raina's vision once more. The "planetoids hurtling towards Earth to bury themselves in the planet's surface" seemed like an apt metaphor for the fragments of the original World returning to their proper places, so they resolved to begin preparations for gradually revealing the existence of other worlds to the public. They'd already released a popular series of video games to acclimate people to the idea, but now that they knew that the Restoration (as they had begun to call it) was finally on its way, it was time for the full-court press.
The "Timeless Ones" were a mystery to be solved another day, but Raina's words about "darkness fighting darkness while light fights light" were mildly disconcerting. There'd been a few near misses when the Avengers had nearly come to blows over political issues, but this seemed like it would be something on a whole other level. But without context, there wasn't much they could do but keep their eyes open for events with the potential to become catalysts for a hero civil war. The darkness half of the equation was easier to explain. It seemed that sooner or later the Hellfire Club or some other villainous organization would be facing an internal power struggle. That would be a huge benefit if the Society and the other heroes of Earth could take advantage of the ensuing chaos.
With HYDRA active again, the Society had begun its own plans to contain and eliminate the terrorist organization. With the aid of Atlantean technology, several of the bases that S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers didn't know about had already been taken off the map. They'd been able to download some of the files from the terrorist organization's computers, but the information on them was heavily encrypted. But while the Society's best computer programmers were decrypting the data as the council spoke, their assault teams had heard Maleficent's name uttered enough times during their raids to know that the Hellfire Club was responsible for HYDRA's resurgence. Having a Keyblade Wielder or two to lend a hand would be a welcome sight for all of them, but for the time being, they seemed to be able to hold their own. Hopefully the situation might be able to stay that way.
Yeah, the Avengers ranks have expanded since my other Acolytes of Chaos fics. Ant-Man and the Wasp have joined the team, as has Stitch. I thought it would be hilarious to have him be on the team. Imagine Tony's reaction to how readily the little guy can operate high tech machinery. It'd be freaking hilarious.
The big about near misses is a reference to the fact that Captain America: Civil War doesn't happen in this universe. And yes, I intentionally referred to Ant-Man and Wasp as a reference to the upcoming Ant-Man sequel, since Phase 3 isn't canon in this 'verse.
Just to clarify, this chapter, the previous one, and the next are all happening at the same time as the chapter where Sora proposes. The same goes for the scenes with Loki and Maleficent.
The whole bit about the society publishing a series of video games about the whole "other world's thing" is a reference to the Assassin's Creed franchise
The HYDRA base in the Avengers' scene was used by Gideon Malick (the World Security Council member played by Powers Booth in The Avengers, the only one who didn't appear in Captain America: The Winter Soldier) in the second half of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 3 as HYDRA's main headquarters until Hive (who's in-universe role in the story as the ancient Inhuman worhsiped by the early founders of HYDRA has been taken up by Jenova) decided he no longer needed it and abandoned the place after S.H.I.E.L.D. attacked it near the end of the season.