The first part of the chapter borrows dialogue and action from the opening battle sequence of Captain America: Civil War and deviates things from there. Chapter title is a reference to the song "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan.
Chapter 30: Down To Business:
Earth – Lagos, Nigeria; Institute for Infectious Diseases:
The heardquarters of the Institute for Infectious Diseases was in chaos. HYDRA agents, using a garbage truck as a kamikaze battering ram, had stormed the facility and had rendered all of the personnel and visitors unconscious with tear gas. The terrorist group was after a hazardous chemical that had the potential to be turned into a devastating weapon if it fell into the wrong hands. And HYDRA's hands were most certainly the wrong ones, but with everyone in the building who wasn't HYDRA either dead or unconscious, there was nothing anyone could do to stop them from simply marching right through the building. Fortunately for them, the Avengers had been given advance warning about the attack, and help was on the way.
The sound of a sonic boom momentarily distracted the terrorists as Captain America hit the ground at supersonic speeds and smacked a HYDRA agent's head against the window of a nearby car, shattering the glass in the process. He then kicked a truck hard enough that it slid sideways and nocked another HYDRA trooper back before taking down a fourth with a throw of his shield. With a little parkour, he drop kicked one more, then took a moment to survey the area and take stock of the situation. He looked around at the men he'd just incapacitated and noted the guns they were using, what they were wearing, and how many of them were left still standing.
"Body armor," Steve reported as he analyzed their opponents gear and equipment. "AR 15s. I make seven hostiles." As the Captain reported this, Falcon flew up to the roof before using a combination of guns and his wings to eliminate two more foes.
"I make five," he chimed in. Behind him, the Scarlet Witch leaped over the building and used her powers to lower herself to the ground. While she and Black Panther deflected the incoming bullets, Kim and Ron charged in and took out four more terrorists. Bucky sniped the last one from a distance as the rest of the Avengers present for the mission (and Sora) emerged into the now clear courtyard. With the coast clear, Falcon scanned the building with his Redwing drone and reported that Brock Rumlow, a former HYDRA. Agent-turned mercenary, who S.H.I.E.L.D. had identified as the leader of the attack, was on the third floor. Everyone found it curious that HYDRA agents were taking orders from someone who'd defected, and hoped to get some answers about that while they were here.
Armed with the knowledge of the merc's location, Steve had Wanda propel him up to Rumlow, with orders to draw out and contain the tear gas the man had used to evacuate the building. While Wanda used her powers to suck the gas out of the building, Stitch, Falcon and T'Challa shielded her as more HYDRA agents swarmed into the courtyard. When HYDRA agents began storming out of the building in an attempt to escape with their prize, Sora, Quicksilver, and Black Widow quickly thwarted their efforts. Natasha handed the vial that HYDRA had been after to Black Panther for safekeeping until the battle was over. As the fighting wound down, everyone looked up to the sound of glass shattering as Captain America threw Rumlow out the window, where he slammed hard onto the ground below.
"Thanks for the warm-up, everyone," the mercenary known as Crossbones groaned loudly as he struggled to his feet while Steve leaped down to the floor of the courtyard. To everyone's surprise, the more reinforcements arrived as strange dark portals opened up against the facility's outer walls. Out poured what looked like an army of red doppelgangers of Stitch, tall-elf looking things that looked like someone had tried to make a Doctor Who monster Asgardian-style, and a tall man in an all-black outfit that everyone present bar Sora recognized as the uniform of the Winter Soldier. Bucky's old HYDRA uniform.
"Guys," the man in question began over the comms. "We might have a problem." And oh, how right he was. While Steve and Black Panther could keep up with both the man in the Winter Soldier outfit, and Sora could handle a few of those elf-looking things, the Avengers were quickly outmatched. Stitch scrambled back inside the building to look for something to deal with his evil copycats, while Bucky climbed down from his sniper's nest and charged in to assist against this second Winter Soldier. With enemies on every side, outnumbered and under attack, the Avengers did the only thing they could do. They called for back-up.
San Fransokyo – Lucky Cat Café:
San Fransokyo's Lucky Cat Café was always busy during the lunch rush, but today it was even more so. Every table was taken, and it was a fifteen minute wait just to be seated. Even those seated had to wait longer for their food, as the small, family-owned cafe was unusually short-staffed today. Thankfully, the loud din of customers chatting to each other or complaining about the service allowed two people seated in the back of the café to discuss important business without fear of being spotted or overheard. To any casual observer, the tall, dark haired man and the red-headed young woman appeared to be a couple. But they were as far from a couple as one could possible be. Especially when the meeting concerned the fate of the woman's fiancé.
"I know about the properties of the Tesseract," Kairi remarked. "Vanitas told me. It's supposed to allow someone to transport themselves anywhere in the universe. So, where could Sora have ended up?" The man who served as Vanitas' spy within the Hellfire Club paused for a moment, as if contemplating her question.
"Truthfully," Loki answered, "I do not know. Unless one is focusing on a destination with all their will, their destination would be entirely random. That was how Johan Schmidt ended up as Xehanort's prisoner, after all. The Tesseract is partly alive, meaning it will not transport someone into a situation that will immediately kill them, like into the heart of a star, or a planet where they cannot breath the atmosphere. That means that your beloved would have to have been sent to a world with an atmosphere rich enough with oxygen for him to breath. And while there are indeed hundreds of thousands of planets out there in the galaxy, the amount where humans could survive is actually a little less than ten thousand."
"Only a little less than ten thousand?" Kairi retorted sarcastically with a groan of frustration. "Great, I was afraid I'd have to comb the entire galaxy planet by planet until I found him." The fear was evident in her voice despite her uncharacteristically bitter tone. She was afraid to lose the man she loved, and she refused to simply wait around for him to find his way back home. But she had no idea where to start looking and the fact that there were almost ten thousand possible places where he could have ended up did nothing to help calm her nerves.
"Worry not," Loki replied. "I have a theory. Maleficent has begun collecting data on this "Legion". She sees them as an obstacle on the road to galactic conquest and seeks to remove them as swiftly and as thoroughly as possible. Anyway, her spies had overheard several high ranking Legionnaires talking about banishing someone they referred to as "The Dark One" to Earth. We both know that the Legion sees any use of Darkness as evil, regardless of the intent behind it, and your betrothed has been relying on dark powers for the last six years. Given that, I believe we've narrowed the man's location down to a single planet. The only question now is how to get there from Coalition Space."
Kairi breathed a sigh of partial relief. She still had no idea where to look for this "Earth" but at least now she had a lead. A concrete idea of where Sora was. Hopefully, Loki at least knew enough for her to piece together her own map. She doubted Maleficent kept a map showing every single planet in the galaxy, but maybe she had enough points on her map for Kairi to start piecing together a plan. She expressed the idea to Loki and while he couldn't promise any results, he agreed to look into it.
"Maleficent doesn't exactly have a map of the universe," he explained, matching up with Kairi's earlier thinking. "But there is a galactic government similar to the Coalition known as the Galactic Federation. Earth was inducted into their ranks a few years ago. We do not know Turos' location in relation to the Coalition, but Maleficent does have a map of where Earth is in relation to Turo. Our spies have indicated that one of the Legion's prisoners escaped and is headed for Radiant Garden through Federation territory. If they can provide you with a map to Turo, then you need only take a Gummi Ship from here to Turo, then from Turo to Earth."
Kairi nodded her head in understanding. Coalition Intelligence sent out scouts every few months to search for new worlds, and from the sound of things, they'd be making contact with Galactic Federation territory soon, and from there, she had a trail to follow back to Sora. She thanked Loki for the information and finished her meal while the Asgardian prince's astral form melted away back to the Hellfire Club's base. He'd given the location of that facility to her as well, with the warning that Maleficent was planning to move between lairs after the attack on Radiant Garden in anticipation of a Coalition attack on the Kiln. Once she'd paid for her lunch, she left the restaurant and headed for the spaceport back to Radiant Garden, texting Riku, Donald, and Goofy asking them to meet her there before she boarded a Gummi Ship home. She had a plan.
While Captain America: Civil War didn't happen in this universe, there are some elements of the film that I've incorporated into the overall story of the saga, like Black Panther, the battle in Nigeria, the other Winter Soldiers, the Siberia base, etc. Speaking of the other Winter Soldiers, as you can see, Maleficent has found a way to control them, and is using them and the Dark Elves to test Earth's defenses and see how much of a threat to her plans the Avengers are, with Red Skull and HYDRA acting as her proxies on Earth. So I borrowed the dialogue and action scene from the beginning of the movie for the beginning of the chapter before swiftly taking things away from MCU canon.
And Kairi's busy putting together a trail to follow in order to find Sora and bring him home. To be honest, this decision was one of those where the idea came to me as I was writing and I altered my game plan to fit around it, figuring that Kairi wouldn't want to sit still while Sora was missing, just as he wouldn't do the same if she'd been captured again. Anyway, while this story is more focused on Sora being on Earth, my KH5 fic will focus on Sora trying to find his way back to Coalition space while Kairi tried to find her way to Earth. Naturally, they'll reunite somewhere in the middle, but the story won't be over yet. I've got big plans for the Acolytes of Chaos saga, and we're not even halfway through it yet.