A/N: Phew. I have no idea what happened last chapter. But it looks like Kuzco got that guy to back off so I can do my job properly. Well, Kuzco and my trusty frying pan. Or, someone's frying pan. Now, on with the story.

Admittedly, that last chapter took way longer to write than I thought it would. I sort of had the chapters outlined and I may have been too general and quick with the summary on that one, so I guess most people, and myself under other circumstances, would have split that up into two chapters. But that shouldn't play as too much of an issue. So long as you enjoyed it, right?

Chapter 54

To the Secret Lab

Not wanting to waste any more time now that they all know that they were being pursued, Pacha led the party in a run up the hill leading into his village. They stopped when two old men called out to Pacha.

"Hey there, Pacha," one of them greeted. "Hey, you know, you just missed your relatives."

"My relatives?" Pacha repeated in confusion.

"Yeah. We just sent 'em up to your house."

"What did they look like?" Pacha asked, starting to worry that something was amiss.

"Well, you see, there was this big guy, and this older woman who was, uh… How would you describe her?"

"Scary beyond all reason," the other man answered.

"Yeah. That's it."

Kuzco gulped.

Yzma sat a table, smiling, while Pacha's wife, Chicha, poured her some tea. Chicha was a heavily-pregnant woman wearing a yellow dress, a green headband, brown sandals, and gold earrings.

"So, remind me again how you're related to Pacha," Chicha requested, skeptical of her new houseguest.

"Why, I'm his third cousin's brother's wife's step-niece's great aunt," Yzma replied. "Twice removed."

"Uh-huh." Chicha clearly was not buying it, but she did not know what to make of this old woman.

"Isn't that right, Kronk?" Yzma asked her assistant, hoping to get him to back her up.

Kronk, however, was not listening. He was busy playing double-dutch with Chicha's children, a girl with pigtails and buckteeth named Chaca and a shirtless boy with his hair tied up on top named Tipo.

"Ninety-nine monkeys jumpin' on the bed," Chaca and Tipo sang as they swung the jump rope around.

"One fell off and bumped his head," Kronk sang along as he hopped over the rope.

Yzma groaned silently.

"You know, I am so sorry that you had to come all this way, but as I said to you before, you may recall, Pacha is not here," Chicha explained. "I'll be sure to tell him you came by."

"Oh, would you please? That would be just great." Yzma waved her hand and "accidentally" knocked her cup over. "Oops. Silly me."

"No, no. Allow me," Chicha said in an almost bored and annoyed tone. She leaned back against the table and, with some difficulty, stooped down to reach the cup.

Yzma used this distraction to sneak away and hop into the jump-roping loop to speak to Kronk. "She's hiding something," she whispered. "When I give the word, we search the house."

"Okay. But I still have ninety-four monkeys to go," Kronk replied. Yzma seethed briefly before jumping back out to retake her seat. By this moment, Chicha had grabbed the cup, and promptly rose back into a standing position.

"So, while we're waiting for Paca—"

"Pacha," Chicha corrected her.

"Yeah, I, oh, yes. Um, perhaps, we can have a tour of your lovely home," Yzma suggested.

"You know, why don't you just come back when Pacha gets home?" Chicha interrupted. "I'm sure he'd love to show you the…" She trailed off when she glanced out the window and saw Pacha, swiping his hand in front of his neck in a gesture telling her to stop. Chicha got the hint. "Uh, excuse me, won't you? I think I left something in the oven." Chicha slipped away and met her husband in the kitchen.

Pacha explained the situation. "…We have to get back to the palace, find the lab, and change him back," he finished.

"Hi there," Kuzco greeted, sticking his head up into the window. Chicha yelped in fright and hit him in the face with a frying pan, causing him to fall down.

Pacha winced. "That was him," he said weakly.

"Whoops." For a moment, Chicha regarded her frying pan with confusion and looked back at the spot on the counter where she had picked it up. "Strange. I thought I left this hanging up after I used it yesterday… Oh, well." She looked back out the window to see if Kuzco was okay, then saw Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy standing a short distance away. "Are those guys with you?" she asked. She watched Sora summon his Keyblade and bring it down on a Shadow Heartless' head. Kairi waved amicably.

"Those guys, yes. Heartless things, no," Pacha answered.

Chicha nodded. "Okay. Go. I'll stall them long enough for you guys to get a head start."

"Thanks honey," Pacha said. He gave Chicha a kiss, slung a bag of tools over his shoulder, and exited the hut.

Kuzco stood up but started wobbling, still dizzy from the blow by the frying pan. "You have a lovely wife. Both very pretty," he said in a daze. Pacha grabbed him by the neck and dragged him out. He beckoned the rest of the party to follow him.

Chicha smiled, then went to attend to Yzma. "So, where were we?" she asked.

Yzma was in a much sourer mood due to having to put up with the kids'—and Kronk's—antics. "Listen, sister. We're not leaving until—"

"I show you the house. Of course!" Chicha finished, grabbing Yzma and dragging her along.

Pacha, Kuzco, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy began running down the hill. "Hey, was it a good idea to leave your family with those two?" Kuzco asked, mildly concerned.

Pacha waved him off. "Oh, don't worry. They can handle themselves," he replied. As if on cue, they heard Yzma's screams as she was sent down another side of the hill in a cart. She flew past Tipo, who was holding a beehive on a stick. Yzma hit the beehive, which became stuck on her head. She pulled it off and threw it away without being stung, but she was completely covered in honey. She then passed Chaca, hitting a pillow that she was holding in her path, and was covered in feathers. The cart's wheel hit a rock, and the sudden stop sent Yzma flying. She flew into a child's birthday party, where she knocked a piñata off of its string, only to get stuck to it herself an instant before an adult gave the kids the word to start swinging their sticks.

Sora, Riku, Kairi, and Mickey stopped to watch this comedy routine take place and laughed. "This whole place is like a cartoon," Riku commented. The others voiced their agreement.

Yzma steeled herself against the hits, which, due to the "attackers" being small children, were not too painful. She noticed several sets of footprints in the road a short distance away, and that one set consisted of hoof prints. She followed the trail until she saw a party of eight, one of which being a llama and three others being anthropomorphic animals, fleeing the scene.

She growled in rage. "KRONK!" she shouted. However, her assistant was watching her in her predicament with amusement. She gritted her teeth, which soon began clattering due to the fact that she was still being hit by the children and the adult had not noticed that anything was wrong.

"All right, that's it," she grumbled. "HEARTLESS!" Several seconds passed, but nothing happened. She blinked a couple times in bewilderment, before she came to a realization. "Bah! The Key kids got rid of them all", she muttered in annoyance. "Very well. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. Bring out the big guns!"

Responding to her words, and not bothering to wonder how she knows what guns are, a large shadow fell over the hill. The adult pleaded for the children to stop, at which point they removed their blindfolds. After briefly wondering why their piñata looked different, they looked around and saw a bunch of purple monkey-like Heartless wearing witch's hats and skirts made of leaves. The Heartless stretched their arms out, and glowing green orbs materialized in their hands. One by one, they threw the orbs around. The orbs exploded in flashes of light or green smoke when they hit, burning patches of grass and breaking cracks in the stone walls. The children and their chaperone fled the scene, to Yzma's slight satisfaction. One of the Heartless threw a green orb that melted the string, causing her to drop to the ground. She pushed herself to her feet, at which point one of the Heartless ripped the feathers and honey off of her.

She pointed at her fleeing quarry, and the Heartless threw their orbs across the hill, causing explosions to take place all around them. Riku was hit in the side and fell to his knee in pain. Donald cast Cure to heal the burn.

Sora, Mickey, Kairi, and Goofy got to work. As the Heartless, which Jiminy sketched in his journal and nicknamed "Wild Shaman", approached, the four heroes fought them off. Sora and Kairi used Reflect to bounce the green orbs back at their throwers. As soon as Riku recovered from the burning sensation, he shot a volley of Dark Fire to blast a few of the monkeys to kingdom come. Donald hung back, since he had used up his mana with the Cure spell, though he did hit an enemy on the head with his staff when it came close. Some of the Heartless jumped on Pacha, but the man grabbed them and threw them off. There was one that he could not reach, but Kuzco bit onto its leg and yanked it off. Another tried to sneak up on him, but the llama bucked and kicked it away.

Soon, all of the Wild Shaman Heartless had been vanquished. Yzma clenched her fists and growled. "Okay, buster! Your move!" she shouted. On cue, a dark portal appeared on the ground behind her. Tendrils of dark smoke floated about and congealed until they formed a shape. That dark shape melted away to reveal a humanoid figure. It stood twenty feet tall, had a bushy grey beard growing out of its standard Heartless face, and wore a white lab coat, black rubber boots and gloves that fit over its clawed four-fingered hands, and a tall, lavender, slightly-tapering hat. In front of it sat a black cauldron emblazoned with a Heartless emblem. The cauldron was filled with a pink bubbling liquid not unlike the fluid in Yzma's potions.

The Heartless conjured a glass vial in its hand. It dipped the vial into the cauldron and filled it up with potion, then willed a cork to appear and stopper it. It then threw the vial in a random direction. The vial exploded into a conical burst of flame. Villagers scattered in a panic. Some stopped to untie their llamas so they could flee as well, but others ran only on base self-preservation instinct.

"Uh-oh," Kuzco remarked. "That doesn't look good."

"We have to save them," Pacha said. The others nodded in agreement, though Kuzco quaked in fear.

Sora turned to his companions and started throwing out orders a split second faster than Mickey could. "Kairi, Donald, get the people to safety. Goofy, stay with Kuzco and Pacha. Riku, your Majesty, let's take this thing down."

Mickey smiled in approval. "Right behind you," he said. The three experienced Keyblade wielders summoned their weapons and charged at the Heartless. Kairi and Donald ran around the buildings, making sure everyone could get to safety. Goofy summoned his shield and stood his ground, looking in every direction to make sure no one could get to Kuzco and Pacha.

Sora dodge-rolled out of the way of a potion, which exploded into an upside-down pyramid of ice. The ice scraped his knee and left a freezing burn that made it difficult to move his leg. He stumbled and hit the ground. Mickey came to his aid and inspected the injury, noticing that there appeared to be frost around his knee.

"Esuna," the mouse muttered, waving his hand over Sora's knee. Almost instantly, Sora could feel his toes again as the frost melted away. Sora thanked him and jumped into the fray.

"Hmm," Mickey mused. "Fire and water are signified by a right-side-up and an upside-down triangle, respectively, in alchemy. This thing's mixing chemicals and elements to create effects, like some sort of alchemist."

"I've already got the name down," Jiminy said, writing in his journal. He looked up for a brief second. "Look out!"

Mickey cast Reflect, bouncing a potion vial away harmlessly. It was a good thing, too, because the grass it exploded on turned into brittle stone. "Gosh. Thanks, Jiminy." The cricket gave him a thumbs-up.

Riku attacked the Alchemist from behind, but the Heartless swatted him with his hand, then tossed a potion over its shoulder for good measure. The potion broke on Riku's head, and he stumbled back in surprise and confusion. He turned his head in multiple directions, then put his hand in front of his face. However, he could see almost nothing. The effects of the potion had almost completely blinded him, though there were some small, fuzzy specks that he could make out with considerable effort.

"You know what? I can handle this," he said to himself. He closed his eyes completely and breathed through his nose. Relying on the senses that drove him during the months he spent wearing a blindfold, Riku jumped back into the fight.

Sora jumped up and landed on the lip of the cauldron. He flailed his arms to avoid falling in, then leapt again to throw himself at the Alchemist's face, swinging his Keyblade. Mickey climbed up the Heartless' body and attacked its wrists whenever it conjured and filled vials, forcing it to drop them harmlessly into the cauldron. However, it responded to this strategy by trying to swat them away. Sometimes that worked, but whenever that failed, it simply crushed the vials in its hands. Sora and Mickey were forced to jump away to avoid the explosions of fire, bursts of ice, and blasts of toxic gas.

At one point, Sora was caught in the blast of a breaking vial and hit the ground hard. He tried to get up, but found it much harder. It took much of his strength just to get to his feet, and it was incredibly difficult to even walk. Potion must've made me heavier, he thought. He flexed his arm muscles. But only in my legs. Which means I can still use magic.

He pointed his Keyblade at the Heartless and cast Fire. The spell launched successfully, and the fireball hit the Alchemist under the armpit, causing it to lurch and drop the vial it was holding. Sora smirked and cast Thunder, bringing a bolt of lightning down on its head.

Donald charged in, screaming. He cast Blizzard, sending a chunk of ice right into the Heartless' beard. It responded by lobbing a potion, which hit Donald dead on and shrunk him to three inches in height.

Sora saw him disappear into the grass and turned to Mickey, who had been thrown a few feet away from where Donald was. "Watch your step, your Majesty! Donald's been shrunk. He's right over there!" he warned, pointing to where he had seen Donald vanish. Mickey peered closely at the spot and saw what Sora meant. He nodded in thanks and picked Donald up. The duck crossed his arms in annoyance as Mickey held him by the collar. Mickey chuckled at Donald's expression, then walked over and placed him on Sora's shoulder.

Sora craned his head to address Donald. "So, you have any ideas to turn the tables on this mixologist?" he asked.

Donald thought for a moment, tapping his foot, then smiled as an idea came to mind. "Maybe we can make the potion go off while it's in the cauldron," he suggested. "We just cast Fire and Thunder, and maybe mix it up with Aero."

Sora smiled. "Works for me," he said. "Now, if only I could actually move my legs…"

Mickey, hearing this, ran up to him, pointed his Keyblade at Sora's feet, and said "Esuna!" Sora lifted one leg, then put it down and lifted the other. The extra weight was gone!

"Thanks," Sora said. "Hold on, Donald." Donald grabbed tightly onto Sora's hood as Sora jumped high into the air. He spun in midair to give himself an extra boost and landed on the Alchemist's shoulder. "Now, let me see. Fire! Aero! Thundara! Fire!"

The Alchemist tried to knock him off, but the damage was done. The potion fluid in the cauldron bubbled and steamed more violently. Geysers of flame and noxious gas shot up. The Heartless gripped the sides of its head in a panic, instantly regretting it as smoke rose up due to the fluid on its gloves reacting.

"All together, now!" Mickey called. He, Sora and Riku jumped up and body-slammed into the Alchemist's back, knocking it over and causing it to fall headfirst into its own cauldron. They ran as this caused potion liquid to splash out and spill over the side. Fireworks burst out of the cauldron. The Heartless' legs, which were the only parts of it that were visible, twitched and convulsed. Fire and frost spread all over it. Mickey winced when he saw the left boot turn to stone. Another convulsion and the boot crumbled to dust, and the potion fizzled where the dust hit.

Realizing that there could be a lot of damage if the potion continued to erupt before the whole thing faded away, Sora pointed his Keyblade at the cauldron. He levitated a few inches off of the ground as a sphere of red-orange light formed at the tip and grew until it was a foot in diameter. At this point, Sora pushed the Keyblade into the center of the sphere, which burst into dozens of tiny orbs that flew through the air, leaving glowing trails, before they all hit the cauldron and what was left of the Heartless. The energy bursts hitting the cauldron from all sides split and caused it to burst, and the potion liquid reacted instantaneously in a contained eruption. Sora shot a final beam of light, causing the whole thing to explode into vapor. A crystalline heart floated away and faded away.

Mickey cast Esuna on Riku. Donald jumped off of Sora's shoulder and returned to his normal size, the effects of the Mini potion wearing off. The four of them reunited with Kuzco, Pacha and Goofy, and they were soon joined by Kairi.

"That was interesting," Donald said, baffled by the Heartless' unique gimmick.

Kuzco laughed. "Okay, that was awesome!" he cheered.

They heard Yzma scream with rage. "KRONK!" she yelled. Kronk appeared in front of her, carrying the backpack tent, which Yzma climbed into from behind. "After them!"

"Aaaand that's our cue to go," Sora said. No one bothered to reply; they all turned and ran down the hill. Sora unfurled the map and the group studied it quickly while running. He put it away, confident that they have the route memorized. A quick glance over their shoulders told them that Yzma and Kronk were in hot pursuit.

The party ran all across the mountain range, heading up and down hills as they made their way toward the tallest mountain. Everyone kept at a sprint; though Sora and Riku intentionally held themselves back, the entire group was able to keep pace without getting tired. Unfortunately, so did Kronk, who followed their every twist and turn while carrying Yzma in a box on his back. Riku had to silently admit that he was impressed.

They eventually reached a ravine. But Pacha was prepared. He pulled a bow and arrow out of the pack he had slung over his shoulder. A rope had been tied to the back end of the arrow ahead of time. He nocked the arrow and fired it at a tree on the other side. Donald and Goofy quickly tied the other end of the rope to a nearby tree and made sure it was secure. Using some more lengths of rope, he, Kuzco, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Kairi used the long rope as a zip line to reach the other side. Sora, however, opted to glide across while Riku decided to launch himself across with a burst of darkness propelling him.

When Kronk and Yzma drew near, Kuzco chomped on the rope, snapping it and rendering the zip line unusable. He smirked confidently, considering whether to keep going or stay there to watch Yzma's frustration. Pacha made the decision for him by grabbing him by the neck and dragging him along while everyone else was already going ahead.

However, Yzma seemed to be prepared. She signaled to Kronk, put on a pair of aviator goggles, and pulled a cord. A pair of purple wings sprouted from the box. Kronk leapt off of the ledge and let the wind carry them across.

Halfway across, they were both hit with a bolt of lightning that reduced the box's entire frame to skeletal sticks. They both looked up in bewilderment to see a single dark cloud hovering above them. A second later, they fell into the ravine.

Riku stopped to watch this happen, staring dumbstruck. "What the actual…" he wondered aloud, but stopped and understood when he heard Donald snicker. He shrugged and joined his friends in completing the journey. Within a few minutes, they were running up the tallest mountain, heading straight for the golden palace.

"All right," Kuzco said. "Once we're in the city, I'll lead you to the 'secret path' to Yzma's 'secret lab'."

"Side entrance two-hundred feet to the right of the main entrance, down a stretch of corridor, second left, third right, pull-the-lever-Kronk?" Sora guessed.

Kuzco stopped and looked at him in awe and bewilderment. "How did you…"

Sora shrugged. "I dunno. I guess I'm just used to this kind of thing by now," he replied. After spending a moment trying to comprehend this, everyone shrugged and continued into the city.

Several minutes later, Sora, Riku and Kuzco walked into the dark chamber containing the entrance to the secret lab. They were soaking wet, with a shared look of annoyance on their faces. Sora held a crocodile in a headlock.

"Okay, why does she even have that lever?" Kuzco asked.

"Say, Sora, you want to let him go?" Riku asked.

Sora looked at him in mild confusion, then remembered the crocodile. "Oh. Sorry, buddy," he said. He released the reptile, which whimpered and scuttled out of the room.

They rejoined Pacha, Mickey, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy at the boar-head statue on the opposite wall. Pacha pulled the tusk on the right, which came down like a lever. The wall and floor around them flipped inward, dropping them all into what appeared to be a roller coaster car. A second cart was attached as they landed in, possibly as an effect of the mechanism detecting their total weight, and half of the group fell backward into that cart so that the first one was not crowded.

Please remain seated and keep your arms and legs in at all times, a mechanical voice chimed from around them. Water was poured along the landing the cars sat in, and the carts were sent down a winding chute. Kuzco and Pacha screamed in terror and bewilderment, while the younger trio and the anthropomorphic animals cheered and screamed with excitement.

When the carts stopped in a slot at a vertical angle, everyone fell out, but they all landed on their feet. After taking a moment to regain their bearings, they ran toward the laboratory station and perused the tables and drawers.

"What does it look like?" Goofy asked.

"I don't know. Just keep looking," Kuzco replied.

"Probably something like the vials the Heartless was throwing," Mickey suggested.

Kairi turned and saw a tall, owl-shaped cabinet. "Over here!" she called, pointing. As everyone ran over to the cabinet, she noticed a pair of gloves on a nearby table and decided it would be wise to put them on.

Sora pulled the doors open, revealing entire shelves of vials filled with pink potion. Under each set of potions, the shelves were marked to indicate which animal it represented. He raised an eyebrow. "No other method of compartmentalization? No wonder she got the poison and llama mixed up," he commented.

They scanned the shelves, looking for the label for human potions. Looking across one row, Pacha pointed them out. "Lions, tigers, bears…" he finally found a stick figure carving of a human frame, only to find that the space above it was empty.

"Oh, my," a voice rang out. Everyone turned around to see a thin figure standing in the shadows. Yzma stepped into the light and held up a vial filled with the pink liquid. "Looking for this?" she asked mockingly, flashing a wicked grin.

The party was utterly dumbfounded. "No. It can't be," Kuzco gasped. "How did you get back here before us?"

Yzma raised her finger and prepared to explain, but she was at a loss for words. She turned around. "Uh, how did we, Kronk?" she asked her accomplice.

Kronk, still wearing the ruined harness, tapped his chin, thinking. "Hold on a second," he said, before he— Wait, what's happening? What's going on? What are you doing here? Hey!

"'Scuse me, pal."

Hey! You can't be up here! How are you even—?

"Just checking a few things."

Ugh, not this again. Get down from there!

"Wow. You really didn't show the dinner potion scene."

Too far back, Mr. Barkin. Too far back.

"Oh, thanks, pal. Now, let me see here…"

I'm getting Deadpool on the phone. He is not going to be happy. Okay, he'll probably find it hilarious, but he'll still—

"Found it."

OW! Watch it, buster!

"My bad."

Kronk rejoined a baffled Yzma and shrugged. "Well, you got me," he answered her question. "By all accounts, it doesn't make sense."

Riku raised an eyebrow. "You didn't use a Corridor of Darkness?" he asked.

"I don't… think so," Yzma replied uncertainly. She shrugged. "Oh, well. Back to business."

"Okay, I admit it. Maybe I wasn't as nice as I should have been," Kuzco said. "But, Yzma, do you really want to kill me?"

"Just think of it as 'you're being let go,' that your life is going in a different direction, that your body is part of a permanent outplacement," Yzma taunted.

"Hey, that's kind of like what he said to you when you got fired," Kronk interrupted.

Yzma gritted her teeth. "I know," she replied. "It's called a cruel irony, like my dependence on you."

Goofy scratched his head in confusion. "Well, I guess it would work better if the rest of us weren't out of the loop on the joke," he commented.

"You want me to get the aide to show them the list?" Kronk asked.

"So they can tell him to tell the guards about our murder attempts?" Yzma retorted.

"So… no on the aide, then?"

"I can't believe this is happening!" Kuzco panicked.

"Then I bet you weren't expecting this!" Yzma said. She pulled up the bottom of her dress. Her audience screamed in terror. Pacha covered his eyes. Sora closed his eyes and covered both Kairi's and Goofy's. Riku quickly put his blindfold on. Donald covered his eyes. Kuzco and Mickey cowered, their vision unobscured.

Yzma pulled the dress up further to reveal a dagger held by a strap against her thigh. She pulled it free and let her dress fall back down. Everyone sighed in relief. She laughed and tossed the dagger over her shoulder to Kronk. "Finish them off," she ordered. Shadow Heartless rose out of the ground around the room.

Kronk looked at the dagger in his hand uncertainly. He never really signed on to murder people…

"You're not backing down now, are ya, big guy?" A smaller version of Kronk dressed in a full-body devil costume, complete with horns, wings and tail, appeared on Kronk's left shoulder in a burst of flame. He held a three-pronged trident in his left hand.

Kronk looked at his shoulder devil in confusion. "Uh, where's the other guy?" he asked. At that moment, another version of Kronk, dressed in an angel's robe complete with wings and a halo ring, appeared on his right shoulder in a puff of sparkling clouds. The shoulder angel was sitting in a hair dryer chair while reading a magazine. "Yo!" Kronk shouted, getting his conscience's attention.

The shoulder angel threw the chair, helmet and magazine to the side. "So, what'd I miss?" he asked.

"Well, Yzma just tossed me this knife and asked me to, you know, take them out," he explained. Yzma and the party watched in confusion, as they were unable to see the angel and devil on Kronk's shoulders and were only aware of him talking into the air. Yzma turned to the party and pointed her thumb at him in bewilderment. The others shrugged. "…And then this guy popped up, and then we waited for you, and quite honestly…"

"Hold it!" Jiminy interrupted. He climbed out of Mickey's pocket, dropped to the floor, and ran over to Kronk. He hopped up and scaled the man until he stood on Kronk's wrist, right next to the dagger. "Sorry to interrupt guys, but we're kind of doing this in public."

"You can see them?" Kronk asked, mildly surprised.

"You can see us?" the shoulder angel and shoulder devil said simultaneously, greatly surprised.

"Well, of course," Jiminy answered. "I'm an official conscience, after all. Lord high keeper of the knowledge of right and wrong, guide along the straight and narrow path, and all that. I'm kinda freelancing for the moment, but I still have the medal."

"Ooh. Can I see it?" the shoulder angel asked, fascinated.

"Maybe later, angelface," the shoulder devil interjected to bring him back to the topic. "We kinda have a moral debate going on."

"I understand," Jiminy agreed. "Now, I'd like to hear Mr. Kronk's viewpoint on the whole thing. From what I understand, you are Yzma's assistant, correct?"

Kuzco leaned over to whisper into Mickey's ear. "He usually like this?" he asked. Mickey shrugged.

"Well, yeah. I do her cleaning, help in the lab, this lab, actually, and cook meals," Kronk replied. "Basically, whatever she needs help with, I help. I really enjoy the cooking part."

"See? Real nice guy here," the shoulder angel added.

"But he's making his way up in the world doing the kind of thing we're dealing with now," the shoulder devil countered.

"Hey, you see those little black things over there?" the angel asked.

"Yeah. Cute little things, aren't they?" the devil replied.

"Yeah. They are pretty cute with their little antennae and glowing eyes," Kronk agreed.

The angel facepalmed. "Creatures of DARKNESS, people! They follow the darkness in your hearts and eat you when you let it get ahold of you."

Kronk gave the Heartless a double take. "Oh, yeah. I guess there's that," he concurred.

"There most certainly is that," Jiminy agreed. "But let's talk about the task at hand." He rapped his knuckles on the flat side of the dagger blade. "Murder. Assassination. Stabbing people to death. Is that really the kind of guy you are? The kind of guy you want to be?"

"Uh, well, this is kind of new territory for me," Kronk replied nervously. "And, well… uh…"

Yzma groaned and shook her head in disappointment. "Kronk!" she shouted. All three Kronks as well as Jiminy looked up at her. "Why did I think you could do this? This one simple thing? It's like I'm talking to a monkey!"

"Whoa, now," the angel interjected, not liking her attitude. But, of course, she could not hear him.

"A really, really, big, stupid monkey named Kronk!" Yzma elaborated.

"Ouch," the devil remarked pitifully.

"And do you want to know something else?" Yzma asked. "I've never liked your spinach puffs!" The Kronks gasped. "Never!"

Kronk began to cry. The angel touched Kronk's cheek comfortingly. Jiminy patted Kronk's arm in a there, there gesture. Sora and Goofy's jaws dropped. "Wow. And I thought Maleficent was mean," Riku remarked. "Don't tell her I said that."

The devil brandished his trident. "That's it. She's going down," he muttered angrily.

"Now, now, remember guys," the angel called their attention. "From above, the wicked shall receive their just reward." The three Kronks and Jiminy looked up and saw a candle-lit chandelier hanging several feet above Yzma.

"That'll work," they all said in unison. Kronk switched the dagger to his right hand and slashed the rope that led down from above the chandelier to a column nearby. Jiminy jumped off from Kronk's arm so that he would not fall off.

Sora followed Kronk's gaze and noticed the chandelier. He raised his finger to interject. "Uh, Kronk…"

The chandelier fell, and Yzma and the heroes could only watch it come down. It crashed into the floor. The force of the landing caused the candles to become extinguished.

Yzma stood in the middle of the chandelier, completely unharmed. She was so thin that she passed harmlessly through the center circle. She was still holding onto the human potion, which meant that it was probably a good thing that the attack failed.

"Strange," Kronk remarked. "That usually works."

"And so does this!" Yzma retorted, running over to a table and pulling on a lever disguised as a potion beaker.

A trapdoor opened up beneath Kronk's feet. He looked down and realized what was about to happen. "Ah. Should have seen that coming." He fell through the newly-made hole. The shoulder angel and shoulder devil looked down and hugged each other in fear before they fell as well. Jiminy walked over to the edge and looked in, watching them fall.

While Yzma was distracted with punishing Kronk for his betrayal, Mickey leapt to grab the vial. However, Yzma called a trio of Heartless to knock him out of the air. Pacha managed to sneak up on her and pull the vial out of her hand.

"Give me that vial!" she shouted, jumping on his back and pounding on his head. This forced him to accidentally throw the potion. Sora dove down and caught it before it hit the ground. Yzma brought her knee up and hit him under the chin, then took the vial out of his hand. Donald swatted her in the leg with his staff, and Yzma dropped it from the pain. A Shadow Heartless tugged at his coat as he tried to go catch it, but Goofy came to the rescue. He was soon dogpiled by more Heartless, and one of the Shadows pulled the vial out of his hand and handed it to Yzma. As soon as she took it, Kuzco rammed into her, throwing her across the room and causing the vial to fall to the floor harmlessly. Yzma crashed into the cabinet, knocking a few potions off of the shelves (also harmlessly). She looked down and around at the identical potions as the wheels began turning in her head.

The party ran after the vial as it rolled across the floor. Yzma stood behind the cabinet and pushed it. Every single potion fell off of the shelves and landed on the floor around the human potion.

"Oops," she said mockingly. "Clumsy me." She watched as her foes got down on their hands and knees and inspected each potion, not sure which was which. "Which one? Which one?" she sang. She pulled on a cord to her left and an alarm sounded. "Better hurry. I'm expecting company."

Three of the walls were carved to resemble a large, imposing face baring sharp teeth. Those teeth opened in two parts vertically, like three doors. Standing behind each entrance, the party could see half a dozen muscle-bound warriors carrying a variety of weapons. Each guard was painted so that the left side of his body was blue and the right side was red. They wore, aprons in front of their legs, helmets, and arm bands.

"Kill them!" Yzma ordered. "They murdered the emperor!" The guards let out a battle cry and charged forward.

"No! Wait! I'm the emperor! It's me, Kuzco!" Kuzco tried to explain. But the guards ignored the talking llama. "They're not listening to me!"

"Just take them all!" Pacha advised. Kairi reached down toward one of the vials. Sora stood up, unbuttoned and opened one of his pockets, and reached his hand out toward the vials. Every one of them floated up and spun around Sora before inserting themselves into his pocket. The magic of the clothes allowed them to fit in the small space as if his pocket had greater volume.

"What?!" Kuzco remarked, bewildered by what he had just seen.

The guards charged at them with the same level of fury. A few of them attacked the Heartless as they went by, evidently recognizing them as threats, which Yzma did not seem to mind. Pacha saw a table lined with a multitude of experimental potions in front of him. With Riku's help, he pushed it over, tossing the potions on all of the guards, who each turned into a different animal. The guards stopped and looked at themselves in surprise.

"Get them!" Yzma insisted.

One of the guards, who had taken on a bovine form, regarded is new shape nervously. "Hey, I've been turned into a cow. Can I go home?" he asked.

"You're excused," Yzma politely relented. The cow guard walked away, waddling on his hooves. "Anyone else?"

"No. We're good," the remaining guards answered. Sora smiled, amused at how unperturbed they were at the situation.

"Get them!" Yzma ordered again. The transmogrified guards charged forward. The party turned and ran for the exit.

"Sora, I was about to grab the right potion before you did that!" Kairi scolded as they ran down a set of stairs. "I had my eye on it the whole time from before Yzma dumped the other potions."

"What? Really?" Kuzco remarked. "Wow. You have a good eye."

"Why, thank you," Kairi replied.

"Sorry," Sora said. "But that means we have it somewhere in here, so we have the advantage. Now, we just have to get to safety."

"If we use the right potion and change Kuzco back, we can clear up this mess before it gets out of hand," Riku suggested.

"Fine. Give me a potion," Pacha said. Sora reached into his pocket and grabbed a random potion. He handed it to Pacha, who popped the cork out and poured it down Kuzco's throat. There was a puff of pink smoke as the potion took effect, but a second passed and Kuzco was nowhere to be seen.

"Uh, guys? A little help here?" Kuzco croaked. They all stopped and turned around, and were shocked to see that Kuzco had turned into a small turtle. The guards were catching up to him fast!

Pacha reached down and picked him up, then turned back around to start running again. They came out to a stairwell, but saw that some of the guards were coming down the stairs to either side of them. Pacha put Kuzco on the ledge next to the stairs going down and hopped on his shell, surfing down the length of the stairs just as a guard, who had been turned into an octopus, brought three axes down where they had been. Riku, Donald, Goofy, and Kairi ran down the stairs while Sora cast Blizzard on the opposite ledge, then he and Mickey surfed down the frozen surface just like Pacha and Kuzco did.

Three guards showed up at the bottom, waiting to intercept them. Pacha held his arm out in Sora's direction, beckoning for another potion. Sora complied, and threw a vial to Pacha.

"Please be something with wings," Pacha muttered. He ducked down and shoved the potion into Kuzco's beak.

Donald cast a Fire spell to knock the guards away, and Kairi cast Aerora at the same time. Both spells blasted the guards off of their feet, and they had the added bonus of vaulting Pacha and Kuzco into the air. Kuzco was enveloped in a cloud of pink smoke.

Kuzco flapped his newfound wings. "Yeah! We're flying!" he cheered. He looked down and realized that he was a tiny red bird that was about the size of Pacha's hand, and Pacha was holding onto him by the tail feathers. "Uh-oh…" They fell and slammed onto a statue that hung over a doorway. They slid off and hit the ground.

"Ouch," Sora muttered sympathetically. He and Mickey jumped off and soared through the air, landing right beside them. The guards came after them, but they stopped and fell backwards, as if they had hit an invisible wall. Riku's shields flashed and disappeared as he, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy leapt past them and joined their friends.

Kuzco screamed as a Soldier Heartless appeared above him, but Pacha kicked it into the wall with no effort. Sora picked Kuzco up and let him stand on his index finger.

The party ran, coming onto a narrow bridge. "We're not getting anywhere with you picking the vial," he complained. "I'm picking the next one!"

"Go right ahead," Sora replied, lowering the bird down to his pocket. Kuzco poked his head in and grabbed a random vial with his beak. He pulled his head out and showed it to Sora. Riku uncorked it and fed it to Kuzco.

There was an enormous cloud of pink smoke. When it cleared, Kuzco was a giant red whale. Everyone looked at his new form in utter shock.

"Don't you say a word," Kuzco warned. They all looked down and saw the stone cracking beneath Kuzco's weight. The bridge broke and everyone fell into a canal below.

Yzma ran to the bottom of the stairs and looked down over the edge of the broken bridge. She turned to the guards. "Quick! Drain the canals!" she ordered.

Kuzco sank into the water, but soon started swimming with ease. Even though everyone was submerged when they landed, they got their bearings and started swimming as well. Sora, Donald and Goofy decided against entering their Atlantica forms, reasoning that it would be prudent that they retain arms and legs through the whole escapade. That, and if Sora's clothes disappeared, the potions would as well.

Sora grabbed onto Kuzco's tail and clambered up onto his back. He took a potion out of his pocket and leaned over to look Kuzco in the eye. "Open wide," he said, before throwing the bottle into his mouth. There was a puff of smoke and Sora fell into the water.

A llama head popped out of the water. Kuzco looked at his hooves and smiled. "Yay! I'm a llama again!" He paused in his celebration as he realized that it was no reason to celebrate. He was a llama again. "Wait…"

They all heard a sound like stone grinding and water draining out of a sink. Before they could realize what was happening, they were all caught in a whirlpool that pulled them down to a hole in the bottom of the channel.

Wide jets of water poured out of the nose of the top part of the palace. The water ran down the stairs and into the city, sure to leave a lot of people bewildered and panicking.

As the last of the water flooded out of the channel, the party went through, but half of the group grabbed onto the ledge and held on, then caught the other half by the arms when they went through.

Yzma hopped down and pointed down the hole they fell through. "There they go! After them!" she shouted back to the guards.

"Come on, men!" one of the guards, who had been turned into a lizard, said encouragingly. "No one lives forever! Charge!" The guards ran down into the funnel leading down and out of the channel, but they all lost their footing and slid through the hole. Meanwhile, the party had managed to climb over to the wall on the side.

Heartless poured out of the palace's front door, some of which began to climb the wall to try and reach the party. Spellcasting Heartless floated out of the nostril holes and pursued them. Mickey and Donald fought them off while Sora, Riku, Kairi, and Goofy helped Kuzco and Pacha climb up the outer face of the building until they came upon a flat landing which made up the palace's unibrow.

Angry at the failure of the guards, Yzma pulled a curtain down, tied it to a statue above the funnel, and, holding onto the other end and placing a discarded sword between her teeth, dropped through the hole. In a mad rage, she ran up the side of the building, still holding onto the curtain, and quickly made her way up to the landing.

Sora took out the remaining potions, which counted to about a dozen. "Okay, just to be safe," he said, then popped the cork off of one of them and poured a drop on Donald's beak. Donald instantly transformed into a turkey. "No…" He dropped the vial over the side, seeing no further use for it, and tried another one. Donald became a rabbit. "No…" Another one turned him into a Billy goat. Then a horse. Then a squirrel. Then a llama. "Wait. How many llama potions does Yzma have?" Sora asked aloud. He shrugged and continued, turning Donald into a lion, a bear, an ermine, and then a horse-sized bird with yellow feathers and long legs.

"Wark?" Donald crowed in confusion.

"Try again," Sora muttered. The next potion turned Donald back into a duck. He reached for more only to pull out the last two. He showed them to Kuzco and Pacha.

Pacha took the potions and turned to Kuzco, who looked at them joyfully. "Okay, two left. It's got to be one of these," Pacha told him.

However, Yzma would have none of it. She swung over the group and came down in between Kuzco and Pacha, kicking out with both legs to knock them away. Pacha dropped the potions as he was sent back, and they landed in between Kuzco and Pacha. Kuzco gasped and ran for it, while Yzma made her way toward it. Sora ran after her, Keyblade in hand, but Yzma took the sword from her mouth and fought him back. Sora did not put much strength into his swing, as he did not expect a rail-thin old woman to put up much of a fight, so he was surprised by the deftness in her swing and the strength of the blow, and he was sent reeling back.

Yzma turned back around and dove for the potions, at the same time Kuzco did as well. They bumped into each other and tumbled on the landing for a moment. They pushed the other off and Yzma inadvertently fell backward onto one of the potions.

"No!" Pacha called, but it was too late. The potion burst in an enormous blast, one tinged with a dark aura. Purple smoke fell over the landing, a haze that no one could see through.

A sinister laugh echoed from the center of the cloud, a bone-chilling cackle that, if one listened very hard, almost sounded as though there was something caught in the person's throat.

The smoke cleared, revealing a small white kitten. Yzma let out a soft meow. Sora, Riku and Donald laughed. Kairi and Goofy cooed at Yzma's fluffy new form. Even the Heartless that had made their way up to the ledge with them stared in bewilderment.

Kuzco leaned in and grabbed the remaining vial, which would turn him back into a human. "I'll take that," he gloated. He held it up triumphantly.

"This is the one," Pacha said. "This'll change you back to a human."

Yzma threw herself at Kuzco and started clawing at his face. "Ow! Hey! Get her off me!" Kuzco screamed. Pacha pulled her off but she started clawing at him. Sora pulled her off of his face and held her at a distance, but she bit his arm, causing him to drop her. Goofy grabbed her in a bear hug, but she squeezed her way out. She jumped on Kuzco again. Pacha pulled her off again, but Yzma drove her claws into his arm. He stumbled back and fell off the ledge. Luckily, he managed to grab onto a ledge around the shape of the right eye. Mickey ran to help Kuzco, but Heartless jumped in his way.

Kuzco shook his head trying to shake Yzma off, before he finally slammed his head into the wall, causing her to let go and fall off, stunned. He ran over to check on Pacha.

"Drink the potion!" Pacha shouted.

"Okay, okay," Kuzco replied. He raised up the leg holding the potion, only to find that he was not holding the potion. He gasped and looked around frantically. "Where did it go? Where is it?"

"Looking for this?" Yzma teased, holding the vial in one paw and speaking in a high-pitched squeak. Kairi giggled. Yzma stopped when she heard how she sounded. "Is that my voice? Is that my voice?" After a second, she shrugged. "Oh, well." She held it up and shot Kuzco a wicked grin.

Sora held his bleeding arm, which still stung with pain from Yzma's bite. He turned to his friends. "Riku, Goofy, go down and help Pacha," he instructed. Riku nodded and Goofy saluted, then they both started to climb down the building.

"No, no! Don't drop it!" Kuzco begged.

"I'm not going to drop it, you fool!" Yzma shot back. "I'm going to drink it. And once I turn back into my beautiful self I'm going to KILL YOU!" She flashed a surprisingly terrifying grin full of sharp teeth and laughed. She bit onto the cork and tugged, but it stretched, refusing to come out. She pulled with her paw, but it still would not budge. She put it down and stomped on it, then threw it against the wall in frustration. It bounced off and went flying out. Yzma gasped and jumped after it, only to then remember that there was nothing below her for several hundred feet. "Uh-oh," she muttered before she fell, screaming all the way down.

The potion bounced off a wall and slid off a curved ledge which sent it flying parallel to the wall but still within range, though Yzma sailed past that ledge. It bounced off of walls until it landed on a small ledge.

Kuzco gasped and ran after it. Heartless tried to impede his progress, but Kuzco head-butted one, bit the arm of another, and slapped a third off of the building.

Sora, Mickey and Kairi ran to the other side and clambered after the vial as well. Heartless tried to get to the potion before them, but Donald pulled them up into a Magnera spell, getting them out of the way. The Magnera spell happened to be close enough to the wall that the Heartless repeatedly hit their heads and limbs on the stone. They landed on a ledge above the vial, but before any of them could drop down and retrieve it, a Hook Bat flew into Sora's face. He was caught off guard and stumbled backward, accidentally knocking Mickey and Kairi over, and they fell off, though they managed to grab onto a ledge. Sora hopped down and started to help Kairi up. Donald climbed down and reached for Mickey as well.

Kuzco reached the nearest ledge to the vial and stretched out to grab it, but it was just out of reach. He looked down to see how far the drop was and noticed Pacha start to slip down the curved side.

"Kuzco!" Pacha called. He was starting to lose his grip. Riku and Goofy watched in horror. They were not going to make it in time!

"Be right there. Gimme a minute," Kuzco said, reaching as far as he could for the potion, which rocked back and forth as if it was having trouble staying balanced on the ledge. Despite his desperation, he was starting to realize that it was a lost cause.

"Kuzco! Kuzco!" Pacha's arm slipped, and he was left to hang on with one hand. A few seconds later, his fingers slipped and he lost hold. But before he fell, two hooves clasped themselves over his hand. Pacha looked up to see that Kuzco had come back for him, and sighed in relief. He mounted his feet on the side of the ledge and climbed up with Kuzco's help.

At the same time, Sora and Donald pulled Kairi and Mickey up to safety.

Pacha looked over to the potion and saw that it was about to fall. "The vial!" he gasped, pointing this out. The vial tilted and fell over the ledge.

Riku appeared out of thin air and reached down to catch the vial. "I got it!" he shouted. He held the potion up triumphantly. He beckoned to Kuzco. "Come on up!"

Meanwhile, Yzma was still falling. At the bottom, near one of the side entrances to the palace, a guard was in an argument with a delivery man.

"For the last time, we did not order a giant trampoline!" the guard complained.

"You know, pal, you could have told me that before I set it up, the delivery man retorted.

Yzma landed in the center of the trampoline and bounced back up, saving her from broken bones and non-comical injury. She was still screaming in terror. After several seconds, she flew past Kuzco and Pacha, who looked up after her in bewilderment, and right by Riku. It took a few seconds for Riku to notice that something was wrong, and he realized that he no longer held the potion vial in his hand. He looked up and saw it in Yzma's paw. He looked down, wondering how she was sent back up. He looked up again, then down again. He raised an eyebrow.

"Is that a giant trampoline?" he asked. He looked back up at Yzma and shook his head.

Yzma stopped screaming and noticed that she was holding the human potion. She started laughing victoriously, until she crashed into the bottom of the unibrow section, leaving a sizeable crack in the stone and dropping the potion. It bounced around some more until it settled on another ledge. Yzma popped free from the ceiling and landed safely on the next ledge below, her head spinning from the concussive blow.

Sora, Kairi, Mickey, and Donald scrambled along the building to try and reach it. Riku and Goofy, meanwhile, reached Kuzco and Pacha and began to help them up and over. Yzma regained her senses and, scanning about, located the potion. Using her newfound nimbleness, she jumped around and caught up to the heroes as they got close to the vial. Mickey jumped over to it, but he did not quite clear the jump and grabbed onto the ledge. He reached up to grab the vial, but Yzma hopped down and grabbed it before him.

With the vial in hand, Yzma jumped to a decoration just above and to the left. She cackled in her high-pitched voice. "I win," she said, smiling wickedly.

A blue circular window opened suddenly, slamming her against the wall and causing her to throw the vial inadvertently. Kairi jumped onto the ledge above Mickey and caught the vial out of the air. "Got it!" she cheered.

Kronk looked around, chuckling as he leaned out of the window. "Whoa," he remarked. "What are the odds of that trapdoor leading me out here?"

Kuzco and Pacha arrived at the ledge with Kairi and Mickey. Around them, Sora, Riku and Donald were clearing out the last of the Heartless. Kairi smiled and wagged the vial in Kuzco's direction. "Your Highness, I believe this is for you," she said. She popped the cork off and handed it to Kuzco.

Kuzco took it and raised it up as if for a toast. "Well, guys, I'll see you on the other side," he said before drinking the potion.

While this was happening, Yzma dropped off of the wall. Kronk climbed out to the ledge she was on and chuckled when he saw her. "Well, Yzma. Fancy seeing you here," he greeted. He picked her up and petted her like a housecat.

Yzma grumbled under her breath and rolled her eyes. As she did so, she noticed a familiar figure sitting up on the "ear" of the palace. The silver-haired figure giggled at the spectacle.