Taking Back the Crown

by JCMorrigan

Mozenrath. Archibald Snatcher. Roman Torchwick. Mad Madam Mim. Yzma. The Huntsman. Wuya. Ayam Aghoul. Their mission: take over the multiverse, or look fabulous trying. Rated M for swearing, steamy implications and VERY bloody battles. Contains slash and het shipping.

30. Fire Meet Gasoline

A/N: A couple worlds based on animated series revolving around DC comics appear here. One of them is the world of the DC animated universe/Justice League/Unlimited. The timeframe is just after Justice League ends and right before Unlimited begins. The other, which gets more screen time here, is based on the 2004-2008 animated series The Batman. (I'm hoping it's not too hard to tell which is which.) The timeframe is post-series. It also takes my fanfiction "Arsonist, Contortionist, Psychologist" as canon and is set after that. I'm going to try and include enough exposition that you don't have to read that for this to make sense.

...

30. Fire Meet Gasoline

With his head resting atop crossed arms on the table in one of the larger kitchens of the ex-Cyclonian warship, Roman Torchwick was obviously sulking. It didn't take an expert people-reader to see it. The minute Archibald Snatcher entered the room, he was practically slapped in the face by the aura of sulk. "All right," he sighed, "what's wrong?"

"Y'know what I miss?" Roman replied. "The days when I used to have Vale running scared from me. When I actually had a stomping ground."

"Apparently, Lord Mozenrath has a plan to return that to you and give the rest of us our share," Snatcher reminded him. "And good things do come to those who wait." He took a seat across from Roman, sitting up straight as a direct contrast to Roman's slump, staring the redhead right in the eye.

"Ehhhhh," Roman groaned. "I'm not that patient. You know what I want to do?"

"Why do I sense somewhat of a bad idea coming, Torchwick?"

"Because I have a bad idea. But I think you're going to go along with it anyway."

"Most likely," Snatcher admitted. "Let's hear it, then."

"So Righty's gone for who knows how long," Roman pointed out. "What do you say we pick a world, take the Gummi Ship out, and establish a little criminal empire of our own in the meantime? Just until he gets back. Or maybe longer if he doesn't need us. Whaddaya think?" By this time, Roman had abandoned his slump, adopting a more confident posture. "Because, of course, if I do this, I'm not doing it without you."

"Well, I'm quite flattered," Snatcher replied. "First of all, I have to ask. Are you truly wistful for your past position of power, or is this born out of your humiliation by Snipe at moto-jousting?"

"Little of both," Roman admitted.

"So long as Lord Mozenrath doesn't have need of our services," Snatcher mused. "I suppose there would be nothing wrong with embarking on a little…vacation. Leaving our scroll numbers with the others so we're at ready contact when needed. Perhaps Lord Mozenrath will thank us for the effort if we conquer something particularly delicious."

"Exactly!" Roman pounded his fist on the table. "The one thing standing in our way is that I have no idea where to even start looking for a world where we can build a criminal empire."

"Did someone say 'criminal empire'?" Mim interrupted, walking into the kitchen flanked by Ayam Aghoul.

"Were…you just waiting for somebody somewhere in the base to say those words?" Snatcher asked.

Mim waved away his question. "I've been to many, many worlds where becoming a big-name criminal would be easy! Almost too easy to be fun, in fact. So I mostly left them alone. But you'll need a big city, won't you?"

"Preferably," Roman answered.

"Then I know just the place!" Mim chirped. "There's a string of interconnected parallel worlds with only minor differences between each. And all of them feature one particularly ne'er-do-well infested city. The question is WHICH version of this city to go after. The seventh? The twelfth? The thirteenth? Ohhh, somebody just pick a number between one and one thousand!"

"I've always liked 42," Aghoul confessed. "Something about it just seems…morbid."

"Then the 42nd it is!" Mim crowed, throwing out a Corridor of Darkness in the middle of the kitchen.

"Should we not alert the others as to our absence?" Snatcher brought up.

"We'll leave a note on the fridge." Mim snapped her fingers, and a sheet of paper with a neatly written explanation appeared on the refrigerator, held in place by a magnet shaped like a skull.

"Ummmm, more importantly…" Roman wagged a finger between Mim and Aghoul. "WHEN DID I INVITE YOU TWO?"

"You really think we want to stay around while Snipe turns this place into a jousting arena?" Aghoul huffed with hands on hips.

"Besides," Mim added, "as much as I adore sorcery, I always have had an affinity for non-magical crime. Bank heists, hostage situations – what fun!"

"Do you have a secret criminal life I don't know about…?" Roman asked, but by that time, Mim was already marching through the Corridor, with Aghoul close behind. "Okay, WAIT FOR ME, this was MY IDEA – " he sputtered as he rushed after them. Snatcher hurried through the portal just before it closed.

...

Mozenrath stirred; dawn had come, and the strange sounds of birds he'd never heard before echoing faintly in the distance had pulled his consciousness out of sleep. He felt strangely at peace as he slowly woke, eyes still closed, taking stock of the position he was in. The floor was still pillowy-soft, and he was enveloped in a pair of warm arms –

Mozenrath immediately scrambled out of the Huntsman's grip, which was surprisingly easy to break for a man with such burly arms. The Huntsman still lay asleep on the floor, an oddly tranquil sight, his chest softly rising and falling as he breathed in silently, making the dragon mark that traversed his body look as though it were stirring. Mozenrath backed off, standing up to look the Huntsman over and think about the events of the night prior.

They'd kissed for a very long time, hungry for each other in a way they hadn't realized. While they had considered taking it further, they ultimately decided it didn't make sense to do so in their current setting and had instead just lay down, bare-chested (and bare-armed, Mozenrath realized; he quickly swiped up his gauntlet from a nearby pillow and jammed his skeletal hand into it), in each other's embrace, falling asleep next to each other. And it had felt absolutely wonderful.

Romance was something Mozenrath had made it a point not to think about. Lust, he had let into his life every now and again, but never anything deep. He hadn't even really thought about whether he were straight, gay, or anywhere in between. He supposed he had a little insight into that direction now.

He was standing on fearsome ground. Letting himself be so attached, so vulnerable, might just be his ruination. Thinking back to his tale of woe the night before, he recalled how much unnecessary heartache he had allowed to come over himself due to his love for his mother, though, to be fair, that was a completely different sort of affection. Friendship was fine, but this was something else, something riskier. He had obviously made a mistake, and it was only right that he wake the Huntsman immediately and inform him that there would be no more of that nonsense.

But he couldn't do it.

He made several false starts to reach out to the Huntsman's sleeping body, but new perspectives kept pulling him back. Was this really as bad as it seemed? After all, Roman, Snatcher, Mim, and Aghoul had all allowed themselves to give in to romantic affection, and somehow it had bolstered them, made them stronger as teammates. Perhaps if Mozenrath and the Huntsman had that sort of bond, it would benefit them both.

But that also meant their enemies could use them as bargaining chips against each other. If Mozenrath clearly allowed the Huntsman into his heart, he knew he would soon see Maleficent offering him the Huntsman's life on a platter in exchange for all his power, or, even worse, Maleficent offering the Huntsman Mozenrath's life in exchange for the same.

But that would happen anyway, Mozenrath reasoned. So long as they even had so much as an alliance, there was that risk. And the alliance was far too beneficial – and rewarding in other ways – to give up.

The WHAM ARMY had, on several occasions, made Mozenrath happier than he knew he had any business being. But being kissed, being touched by the Huntsman put every other moment to shame. How long, he wondered, had they been kindred souls? They seemed like opposites on the outside, but beneath the surface, Mozenrath and the Huntsman shared the same drive, the same ferocity, the same respect for magic. And the Huntsman had unfailingly been there when Mozenrath needed him every time since their first meeting. Between the Huntsman carrying him to safety during the assault on the dragon Grimm and the Huntsman speaking to Mozenrath during his paralysis on Atmos to keep him from breaking down within his own mind, Mozenrath realized he probably owed the Huntsman a debt, one that the Huntsman had never brought up or enforced.

Which brought him to thinking about the man himself. Something about the Huntsman's stoic strength appealed to Mozenrath greatly. He conducted himself with a certain grace. He wasn't one to be messed with largely because the Huntsman himself believed he wasn't to be messed with, and that showed right through. It was thoroughly attractive. Mozenrath realized, stunned, that the Huntsman had been slowly worming his way into the young sorcerer's affections for quite a while, and apparently Mozenrath had done the same right back.

A brief flicker of doubt crossed his mind; what if the Huntsman had only shown affection out of pity? What if he truly didn't look at Mozenrath the way Mozenrath now looked at the Huntsman? But Mozenrath stuffed that thought angrily away. Of course he was attractive, and the Huntsman should have been able to see that easily.

Mozenrath located the rest of his clothing, slipping into it before sitting back down to just let his eyes travel over the sleeping Huntsman's body. He had no shortage of physical beauty, either. His solid musculature, his strong facial features, the eyes that were currently closed but were normally so piercingly red.

Then those eyes opened.

"Good morning, sunshine," Mozenrath said with a smirk.

"…Good morning," the Huntsman replied, suddenly having doubts of his own.

"I'm guessing you probably want to talk about what happened last night," Mozenrath opened.

The Huntsman propped himself into a sitting position. Mozenrath levitated his shirt, cape, and tunic over to him; "You'll want these."

The Huntsman set about putting his shirt back in place. "I suppose you have regrets."

"I did," Mozenrath confessed. "But I thought it over, and, really…" He made his decision. "What's to regret?"

"I'm…pleased you feel that way," the Huntsman said gingerly. "I don't connect to others. Not in the way we did."

"I figured."

"This comes with dangers." Now he was slipping his tunic on.

"I thought about that," Mozenrath admitted, "and I'm okay with it if you are."

"I shouldn't be," the Huntsman grunted. "This sort of weakness is unbecoming."

"And yet…?"

Fastening his cape around his shoulders, the Huntsman looked Mozenrath dead in the eye. "You seem to be like none other I've known. Perhaps an exception can be made, if it is for someone…"

"Exceptional?" Mozenrath's eyes twinkled.

"So we are clear," the Huntsman stated, "this is not love."

"I know," Mozenrath replied. It was a relief to hear that. "Love," to him, was a word that encompassed all the vulnerability he wanted to avoid. What he and the Huntsman had was more than lust, more than a "fling," but not "love." It couldn't be "love," for the sake of both of them. They both knew that. "We're clear."

"If we both know where we stand…"

"I think we do."

"In that case." The Huntsman had been in the process of reaching for his balaclava and helmet, but set the articles aside for just a moment so he could lean closer to Mozenrath, taking Mozenrath's chin into one hand. Mozenrath picked up on the cue, closing the distance, gracing the Huntsman's lips with the gentlest of kisses, simply a casual act to reaffirm their bond before getting back down to business.

As the Huntsman withdrew from the kiss, he stated, "I am still wary of what Xayide meant when she said I will not approve of our next destination." He quickly set about replacing his headgear.

"I'm sure she knows what she's doing," Mozenrath replied as he and the Huntsman both stood to leave their tent. "And if she doesn't, it sounds like this world has plenty of perils we can leave her to."

They entered the world of sunlight to see Xayide and Yzma already awake and waiting for them, both women's faces plastered with smug grins. "Is there a problem?" Mozenrath asked, suspicious.

"None whatsoever," Yzma replied.

"We'd best get moving again," Xayide insisted. "The rest of our ranks await."

"Then by all means," Mozenrath replied.

The armor carrying the palanquin was the signal for the Amarganthians to rise and continue their journey forth.

...

While Roman, Snatcher, Mim, and Aghoul traveled to the 42nd iteration of their desired world, events that would cause that iteration to quake were taking place on the 24th.

The alarms at LexCorp had been ringing for more than enough time for Lex Luthor to rush to the scene of the disturbance. He realized he should have seen the identity of the intruder coming the moment he entered his most high-security floor to find all the keypad-encoded doors blown to bits with bombs…and a fair bit of confetti littered on the floor at the edges of the halls. He hurried to the farthest laboratory, already cursing the intruder under his breath; he knew exactly what was there, and it was the absolute worst thing to fall into anyone's hands, let alone the person who was becoming clearer to his view the closer he got: slicked-back hair, bone-white skin, a vibrant suit of purple.

"Lexie!" the Joker cried as he turned to greet Luthor.

"Joker," Lex growled, his eyes flicking from Joker to the device behind him: a large square metal frame set against the wall, connected to a control panel. "Get out."

"Make me," Joker challenged.

Luthor reached for his belt; he'd made sure to come equipped with a gun just in case. But before he could settle his fingers around the weapon, he heard an ominous "click." Joker had an even bigger gun, one perhaps more accurately classified as a cannon, and was pointing it directly at Luthor's head.

"Oh, dear, this is a pickle you're in," Joker taunted. "See, I had plenty of time to poke around and see what toys you were keeping all to yourself. My first stop was your weapons tech division, which is where I got this nifty little thing."

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY TECHNOLOGY!" Luthor roared, knowing full well he could do little else to stop Joker.

"Interrupting," Joker huffed. "How rude. As I was saying, I was about to take my pick from your fabulous array of boom-sticks and bombs, but something completely else caught my eye. A set of notes lying unattended on a table next to a prototype, referring to 'Project Omega.' And the things the notes said about this Project Omega! You really should learn to clean up better after yourself, Lexie. The wrong information could all too easily fall into the wrong hands. Lucky for you, I locked up that notebook before I popped up here to see exactly what Project Omega was."

"You wouldn't dare," Luthor growled.

"And why wouldn't I?" Joker replied. "The notes were even clearer up here. I know exactly what Project Omega is supposed to do now, and I have to say I wasn't expecting you to actually pull something like that off. Now, don't tell me. You thought of it when that fake Justice League crossed from their dimension into ours, didn't you?"

"They called themselves the Justice Lords," Luthor corrected.

"League, Lords, now we're just splitting hairs," Joker said with a wave of the hand not holding the cannon in place. "As soon as you learned that there were other versions of our world out there, you just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? You wanted to build a gateway to see them for yourself. Maybe, in one of them, you'd actually stand a chance of beating the big blue Boy Scout!"

"STOP TELLING ME THINGS I ALREADY KNOW!"

"Don't get so worked up, Lexie," Joker went on. "Just give me a moment to get settled, and I'll be out of your hair. Or I would be, if you still had any." He slid toward the control panel, activating the machine. The frame filled with shimmering light behind him.

"What do you even hope to gain from this?" Luthor growled. "What interests YOU so much about the other dimensions?"

"Same as you, really," Joker confessed. "Just the off chance that in one of them, the winning hand includes a Joker. THIS Joker, by the by. I don't hold any truck with impostors."

"As much as it horrifies me to think about," Luthor informed him, "there's going to be a Joker in every world you could think of."

"And that means an equal amount of Lexies." Joker gave a dramatic shudder. "Or, even worse…Bats." His fingers hovered over the keypad. "Pick a number between one and one hundred, Lexie. How high does this thing go, anyway?"

"I don't know," Luthor snarled. "And I'm not PLAYING your GAME."

"Forty-two it is, then," Joker decided, keying in the number.

The light of the portal behind him flickered into a definite view, opening into a city alleyway shrouded in the darkness of twilight. "Well, it's been fun, Lexie," Joker teased, "but I've got places to be!" He turned and rushed into the portal.

"YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY THAT EASILY!" Luthor drew his gun, ready to fire. Before he could, Joker spun, already standing on the portal's other side, and blasted the cannon once at the portal's control panel. As the cannon's hot blast tore through the panel, Project Omega was destroyed, and the portal fizzled into death, leaving Joker and Luthor stranded on opposite sides.

"NO!" Luthor rushed to the smoking, crackling panel, cradling it like a lover, hoping it was somehow salvageable, but Joker had cut through all the circuitry and melted its most sensitive technology. It would take an indeterminate amount of time to rebuild.

"I hate him," Luthor growled under his breath. "At least he's gone from this world for good…if I'm lucky."

...

At around the same time that the Joker arrived at one end of the 42nd Gotham, Roman, Snatcher, Mim, and Aghoul were making their way through the other.

"So tell me more about this…Gotham City," Roman implored Mim.

"It's jam-packed with criminals and villains of all kinds," Mim explained.

"I could have guessed that just from looking around," Snatcher admitted. "The whole city smells like it's on fire."

"It probably is somewhere," Mim confirmed. "At any given time of day, some part of Gotham is usually on fire. That's what makes it a good place to kill time. Now, I do have to warn you to watch out for the do-gooders. Gotham's villains are all sorts of eccentric, so of course, the people that fight them are just as weird. For the most part, you want to watch out for the one who dresses up as a bat. He isn't magical, but he's still annoying."

"But why a bat?" Aghoul interrupted.

Mim shrugged. "Search me! Anyway, sometimes he gets his other friends involved, and some of THEM have actual powers, so I'd watch my step if I were you."

"So how do we make sure we find the ones who are on OUR side?" Roman asked.

"Well, there are all sorts of wonderfully seedy clubs where the villains come out to play," Mim informed him. "Like that one!"

The building Mim pointed out, its music throbbing out onto the street to the point where the asphalt nearly shook, was not one of the premier hangouts for Gotham's worst. The big-name crime bosses and mobsters preferred larger establishments nestled further downtown. The club Mim had singled out, however, a joint known as "The Fourth Circle," was indeed a villain hotspot: one for Gotham's "second string" of crime.

"Name's promising," Snatcher observed. "Refers to Dante's circles of the inferno. The Fourth Circle was the realm of punishment for the sin of greed."

"You say 'sin' like it's a bad thing," Roman teased, lightly nudging Snatcher's forearm. "Come on. Let's check it out."

The interior of the building was illuminated by strobe lights and overhead lighting of all colors, highlighting a dance floor that took up about half of the facility. Other than that, a darkness hung over the club. The other half was furnished with tables, most of which were occupied.

"You know, I've been to the actual Fourth Circle of the Inferno on vacation," Aghoul commented. "It wasn't as cheerful as this. Though I did see some rather inspiring use of bludgeons."

"Okay," Roman muttered, half to himself and half to his companions. "So how do we go about discreetly asking who here is a villain bent on conquest without tipping off people who really shouldn't know what we came here for?" As soon as the question left his lips, he looked to Snatcher, as did Mim and Aghoul.

"I'll handle it," Snatcher confirmed. "Just let me do the talking."

"You boys wouldn't be interested in a dance first, would you?" Mim suggested. "That floor does look inviting!"

"Not right now," Roman told her. "We're here on business, remember?"

"Perhaps later," Snatcher added. "If whatever associates we require approve of it."

"Ghoulie?" Mim practically begged. "Spare me a dance?"

"I wish I could, my little corpseflower," Aghoul replied, cupping Mim's face in one clammy hand, "but Roman's right. Finding fellow villains comes first!"

"Well, while you're all busy being spoilsports," Mim huffed, "I'll be on the dancefloor! Come find me when you've finished up the boring stuff!" She turned to stride toward the throng of dancers. Midstep, she decided that perhaps it would suit her, for the sake of entertainment, to adopt a look she knew would be more enticing to potential dance partners, as well as allowing her to match their average height. Her shape changed from short and squat to tall and hourglass-esque, her lavender hair cascading back down her shoulders, her entire face smoothing out into a completely different visage. As soon as she stepped onto the floor, heads turned by the dozen.

"Okay," Roman remarked. "While she goes and does THAT, let's get to business."

Snatcher had already approached a tall and imposing-looking man wearing a suit. "Pardon me, sir…"

No shortage of men wanted to dance with Mim, which pleased her immensely. She was no slouch at dancing, bouncing energetically to the music; her current partner became hypnotized by her shapeshifted body, stopping and simply staring. Little did he know Mim had been observed from across the floor with someone with a more aesthetic eye for dancing. The man was gently pushed aside by a newcomer, who tapped Mim on the shoulder, getting her to stop long enough to look at him. "Mind if I cut in?"

Mim paused to size up her new prospective dance partner: a tall man, his hair a dishwater blond color, with a sharply angled face. He wore a formal suit that billowed about him, showing off the gangly outline of his thin body. And upon his face, there was a broad, toothy smile that almost seemed luminous. That smile enticed Mim, indicating to her that this man was different from the average dance partner. "If you can keep up," she told him.

"I don't think that will be a problem," the man replied, his grin widening.

They began to dance. Mim spun and shimmied as her partner complemented her movements, moving fluidly and gracefully. He took her hands, and they spun each other, dipped each other in an alternating pattern, quickstepped and chasséd. It didn't take long before the rest of the dancers found themselves no longer dancing but instead watching this couple, envying their energy and skill.

"You're not bad," the blond man said softly into Mim's ear.

"You're no slouch either, Prince Charming," Mim replied as he spun her and pulled her back into his arms again.

"Oh, don't get the wrong idea," he told her as he dipped her low to the floor. "I'm already quite attached to someone. You could say I'm tied in knots around him. I'm not here to be your Prince Charming. I was just looking for a little bit of fun, that's all."

"Well, you looked in the right place," Mim informed him, only slightly disappointed that he wasn't available – his dancing prowess had made her wonder if he was worth scoping out as her next partner to accompany Aghoul on the romance front. "Though I have to warn you that this flower has lots and lots of thorns."

"Oh?" he pulled her up and began another quickstep, which she fluidly fell in step with. "And what do you mean by that?"

"I'm rotten to the core," she whispered. "A villain seeking similar company. Causing plagues, setting fires, robbing banks, you name it!"

"Fine by me." He let her spin him, then pull him into a dip of her own. "After all, I'm quite twisted myself…in more than one sense of the word."

Meanwhile, Snatcher made his case. "Lovely night, is it not?"
The man he addressed looked him up and down from top hat to coattails. He knew Gotham was full of eccentric people, but this was a new sight even for this city. "I guess?"

"My significant other, my friends, and I are rather new to this particular part of town," Snatcher went on. "We came here seeking a solution to a particular problem."

"What kinda problem?"

"Oh, well, it's difficult to explain," Snatcher said without missing a beat. "All we know is that Gotham is quite famous for the sort of people who could help us."

The man Snatcher addressed lowered his voice; "You three of them Arkham wackos?"

"I can assure you I don't know what you're talking about," Snatcher said quite honestly.

"And neither do I," the man replied. "Like, you need your sink fixed, I have no idea where to send you."

"The opposite, in fact," Snatcher stated, knowing he'd gotten a fish to bite. "We need something…broken."

"Ahhh, now I see." The man nodded. "How broken?"
"We can do most of the heavy lifting ourselves," Snatcher stated.

"So somebody that'll take orders," the man deduced.

"For the right price."

"And how much are you payin'?"
"High, should all go as planned."

The man thought it over. "There's lots of places you could go for that," he mused. "Fourth Circle's kind of a weird place to start, but, since you're here…simple question: do you work with or without fire?"

"We LOVE fire!" Roman interrupted, earning himself a glare that commanded "be quiet" from Snatcher.

"Now, I'm just the messenger," the man said. "You don't know me. You never even saw me. Got it? But I've worked with a guy who took care of me in the past, and I think he's what you're lookin' for." He gestured to the back of the club, where a lone man dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans waited alone at a table, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. He had once been blond, with a patch of facial hair, though no one could tell that simply from looking at him now, his bald head only just beginning to grow fuzz back. "He can get you what you need."

"Thank you very much, kind sir," Snatcher said with a nod.

"No thanks necessary," the man replied. "We never met."

"Oh, of course, of course," Snatcher agreed, and they parted ways, Roman and Aghoul following Snatcher to the back of the club.

"That was SLICK!" Roman complimented.

"It's what I do, Torchwick," Snatcher bragged. "Now. Let's see about our new connection."

The lone arsonist had been trolling the club for clients all night, but with no success. It seemed nobody needed anything burned down, or at least no one was willing to pay for it. He'd been invited to dance, of course, but that night, he hadn't felt like humiliating himself in that manner, and just encouraged his companion to go on and have fun without him. Which seemed to have paid off for him; he'd found another partner while the arsonist watched. The arrival of three people wearing brightly colored clothing not cut to the usual fashions of Gotham at the arsonist's table caught his attention; he sat up straight and asked, "Can I help you…?"
"Perhaps," Snatcher replied. "Perhaps not. Rumor has it you're a master of…fire."

"Depends on who's asking," the arsonist replied. "You need something burned down?"

"That also depends on who is asking," Snatcher countered. "I do hope that doesn't put us at an impasse."

"So let's say, hypothetically, you did," the arsonist decided. "First of all, I don't do something for nothing."

"We may not have much to offer right now," Snatcher told him, "but, should all go as planned, you would potentially reap a sizeable reward."

"Potentially?" The arsonist looked over Snatcher, Roman, and Aghoul. "Hang on. You guys are trying to put together a team, aren't you?"

"We're already a team," Roman broke in. "We just wanted to add a little local flavor to it. Somebody who knows this city and how to bring it down."

"I can't promise you all of Gotham," the arsonist stated, "but, so long as this isn't about something stupid like a bird statue, I might be down for a team effort. On a couple conditions, of course." A hasty move, perhaps, but it was the only offer he'd had all night.

"Name your terms," Snatcher demanded.

"You first," the arsonist countered. "Also, I'd like to know who exactly you think you are that you can just walk up to a guy and rope him into your scheme."

"Our terms," Snatcher reiterated. "I think I shall let Torchwick explain that."

Roman stepped forward, extending a hand. "Name's Roman Torchwick."

"Garfield Lynns," the arsonist replied, reaching out to shake Roman's hand. "Though I go professionally by 'Firefly.' That name might sound a little more familiar to you."

When he saw the blank look on Roman's face, he sighed. "Or, as the local news would have it, 'Bumblebee.'" Roman's expression didn't change. "…'Hornet'? 'Yellowjacket'?"

"We aren't exactly FROM Gotham," Aghoul explained.

"Or anywhere close to it," Roman added. "What we want is a piece of it."

"So…wait," Garfield clarified. "You aren't from here, but you want Gotham territory for yourself. Am I hearing this right? Because that's kind of a suicide mission."

"Which is why we wanted people like you on board," Roman clarified. "People who actually ARE from here. Unless you're tied up elsewhere."

"Believe me, I don't have loyalty to any of the big bosses around here," Garfield affirmed. "Though if you want me on board, I don't come alone. I'm a package deal, and if my other half doesn't agree to the terms, this whole offer is off the table."

"Who's the other half?" Roman asked.

Garfield nodded out to the dancefloor. "You see that couple everyone's staring at?"

Roman didn't even have to turn his head to know that Mim was one of the dancers. He did anyway, to get a good look at the other, and Snatcher and Aghoul did the same, each getting an eyeful of the blond man.

"That guy's with me," Garfield explained. "Not the girl. I've never seen her before in my life."

"She's actually one of ours," Roman clarified.

"Mine, to be exact," Aghoul added.

Roman playfully nudged Aghoul. "Come on. YOU belong to HER, and you know it." He turned back to Garfield. "Anyway. Your guy."

"His name's Peter Merkel," Garfield explained, "though he goes by 'Ragdoll' professionally."

"Firefly, Ragdoll…" Roman repeated. "What is it with this town and everybody going by weird codenames?"

"What, and you DON'T have professional names for the field? Do you even give a crap about if the cops figure out who you are?"

"Not Gotham cops," Roman admitted.

"Anyway, Peter and I are specialists," Garfield went on. "I set things on fire, and he breaks into places that are hard to break into. What about you and yours?"
"Well, I'm the guns of the operation," Roman introduced. "This is Archibald Snatcher, our public relations guy. Forewarning, keep your hands off. He's mine."

"You mean, like, YOURS yours?" Garfield asked skeptically, eyeing Snatcher up.

"As in we are partners in more than the criminal sense of the word," Snatcher replied, setting a hand on Roman's shoulder.

"Gotcha," Garfield said with a nod.

"Then you have Ayam Aghoul – " Roman attempted to go on.

"Okay, you're joking," Garfield interrupted. "Your name is actually I AM A GHOUL?"

"Yes!" Aghoul asserted. "Is that a problem?"

"I've heard some pretty bad puns, but that takes the cake," Garfield admitted. "So, Mr. Ghoul. What's your specialty?"

Aghoul summoned a skull bomb into his hand, tossing it up and down playfully. "Oh, just heavy weaponry and macabre magic."

Garfield flinched. "Where…did that come from just now?"

"Just go with it," Roman commanded. "You're gonna need to get used to that kind of thing if you wanna understand Mim. That's the one dancing with your partner. Doing stuff YOU can't explain is HER specialty. Now, just so we're clear, the four of us are a pretty tight crew. You mess with one of us, you mess with ALL of us."

"I get it," Garfield said with a nod. "Believe me, I get it."

"Oh, really?" Roman nodded back toward the floor. "What's your deal with Ragsy over there, anyway?"

"Well, it's…complicated," Garfield admitted, thinking back over the events of the past few months.

...

Garfield was a new arrival at Arkham, and Peter, his longtime associate and roommate, had discovered him in his maximum containment cell in the basement, unable to recognize him at first. He wore no clothes to speak of, and his skin was a network of ash-black plates run through with orange cracks that lent him an otherworldly, fiery glow. He sat with his back to the glass wall, knees pulled up to his chest, obviously in a state of dismay.

Of course, the first thing Peter wanted to do was figure out how easy he was to mess with.

"Let me guess," he said. "You're a fiery one, aren't you?"

The stranger was startled; not just by the sudden voice, but by his recognition of it. He scooted away from the wall and turned to face Peter; there was something very familiar about his face, but Peter just couldn't place it, thrown off by the ethereal glow and the strange consistency of the skin. After staring at him in shock for a good thirty seconds, the stranger just said "Go away."

"Oh, but we've only just met," Peter replied, his usual beam in place. "So, what did they get you in for? Don't tell me: public streaking."

"Peter, GO AWAY."

"Oh, so you've heard of me!" Peter remarked. "I'm finally getting a reputation. Took everyone long enough."

"Peter Merkel, for once in your life, will you stop being a JERK?"

It hit Peter like a steamroller. It couldn't be. It absolutely couldn't be. But now that the notion had entered his head…the voice. The face. It absolutely was. "Garfield…?"

"I don't wanna talk to you right now." Garfield turned his back to the wall again.

"This is not only the first time you've ended up in Arkham," Peter pointed out, "but you seem to have undergone some sort of horrific transformation. I think we NEED to talk."

Garfield sighed. "I know. I figured I'd run into you sooner or later. Wasn't expecting it to be here and now…"

"Garfield…what happened?"

"You wanna know what happened?" Garfield turned back to the wall, standing up so he could face Peter directly. "Playing with fire finally bit me in the butt is what happened."

"I'm going to need you to be more specific," Peter replied.

"It's…a long story."

"I've got time."

...

"You…" Peter reiterated, his mouth suddenly gone dry. "You were about to kill me." He didn't even bring up Harley or Blaze. All he wanted to focus on was the betrayal he felt had been done to him.

"I didn't even THINK about you!" Garfield protested. "I just…I forgot about you, okay? And I know. You're about to ask, 'How could you forget about me?' I couldn't focus on ANYTHING but me. I couldn't even focus on Blaze. All I could think about were the things I couldn't control and the things I COULD and the way I just wanted it GONE and I wanted them to remember me, and I didn't even stop to think about if I'd live or die in the whole mess, and I don't think I cared, and I don't know if I even care right NOW, and I still keep thinking I'd be better off if I'd leveled everything when I had the chance, even though I KNOW that's wrong, and now that I'm looking at you, I know I should have thought about you, and I should have stopped, and I should have done something else, ANYTHING else, but I can't figure ANYTHING out because IT'S STILL TOO LOUD IN MY HEAD!" He clutched at his temples, collapsing into a sitting position. "They're…they're keeping my body stable with gases, and I think they're working on stuff for my mind, too, which is why things are…starting to get clearer. I still have these…visions…of blowing up everything, and I LIKE them. But they're…they're wrong, Peter. I don't know if I knew how wrong until I…" He looked sheepishly back up at Peter. "I know you want to leave. Please…please don't leave. Hear me out."

"I'm listening," Peter said solemnly. "It's…obvious you aren't in your right mind. That…explains a lot."

"I…" Garfield nearly choked on the next words. He wasn't sure why he had to confess the next part to Peter, but it seemed crucial. "I called you and Harley…Arkham whack-jobs. That's what I told the Bat when he showed up to stop me. That I wasn't like his Arkham whack-jobs. I…I meant it then. I don't mean it now. Please, you have to listen to me. Blaze won't. She won't take messages from me anymore. I know why. She told me I was about to kill her, and I told HER our relationship was too hot to handle. I tried to get a message to her from here. She came to visit me once. She told me…the spark between us was gone."

...

Peter, an inmate of Arkham himself, came to visit Garfield often, bringing a third party with him: Harleen "Harley Quinn" Quinzel, a friend of both.

"Look. About the whole…" Garfield admitted, "you know. Trying to kill you both by blowing up Gotham thing. I…it…it won't happen again."

"We get it," Harley reassured him. "Peter explained everything. You just went a little crazy. But that's okay, because now the three of us are a matchin' set!"

"I'm still not convinced there's actually anything wrong with Peter," Garfield commented. "But okay. I'll go with it."

"If we didn't forgive each other for acts of unspeakable evil," Peter pointed out, "we wouldn't have any friends at all."

"True," Garfield said with a shake of the head. "Turns out there are two things I like about Gotham after all." He then realized what he'd said. "Okay, you're going to forget I said that."

"I'd rather lord it over you forever that you're secretly a sap," Peter decided.

"Hey. I'm mentally vulnerable right now."

"When has that stopped me before?"

Harley couldn't help but grin watching her friends banter.

The sound of footsteps alerted Harley and Peter to an approaching patrol, and they both snapped to their feet, grabbing ahold of the television stand and wheeling it out of the hall as hastily as they could. As they bolted, Peter fired off a quick "Toodles!" at Garfield.

...

In a one-on-one conversation with Harley, Garfield decided to just come out with it and see how bad the damage was. "What does it mean that Blaze couldn't talk me into saving her, but the minute I REALLY knew I screwed up was when I told Peter about it and he stopped smiling?"

Harley's apple hit the floor.

"Yeah, I know," Garfield sighed. "You probably didn't see THAT one coming. But I've had a lot of time to think down here, and when it's NOT about death and destruction, it's about…" He shook his head. "Okay, so this has to be literally the worst time to be thinking about this, right? You'd think this would turn me off the whole romance thing even MORE."

"There's somethin' I shoulda told you a long time ago, way back when you mentioned not being into relationships in the first place," Harley stated, knowing she was treading unsteady ground but still unable to hold back her opinion. "If you're really not into it, that's fine. But if it's just 'cause a bad experience made you once bitten and twice shy, the only cure is to get right back on the horse and find somebody better. Sorry for mixin' metaphors."

"I have these dreams, too," Garfield admitted. "Dreams about setting Blaze on fire. And they didn't bother me. Guess I'm desensitized. But one of them was about setting PETER on fire, and it was a nightmare. So I started…really thinking about him. I've always felt way too comfortable being able to tell him everything. Which, when you think about the fact that it's Peter, shouldn't make any sense. When we were caught by Rumor…I was HOPING he would find me. And that's the other thing. Rumor. Tony Zucco. When those guys messed with him, I got…" Scared. "Really, REALLY mad."

"How much do you look forward to seein' him?"
"A lot, Harley. I know he's right here in Arkham and he didn't see me too long ago, but I miss him." He shrugged. "And maybe I noticed some of this stuff before, but I figure everyone's a little in love with their best friend, right?"

"Were you ever a little in love with me?" Harley asked with a wink.

"No," Garfield realized.

"Describe him to me," Harley demanded. "Right now."

"Well, he's a jerk."

"I know. Describe him MORE."

"He's always got that stupid idiot smile on," Garfield said off the top of his head. "He's confident. As in, I'm pretty confident, but sometimes I wish I was more like him. He's weird. You can't forget the guy. He's fun to be around if you're on his good side. Which I am. And he's…" Garfield muttered the next word so quietly, Harley couldn't hear it.

"Come on," Harley encouraged. "Say it out loud. I won't say a word."

"Beautiful, okay?" Garfield blurted. "He's beautiful. Have you SEEN him move? Just…when I'm around him, things are actually great. And I don't ever want him to stop smiling. Especially not because of me. Gahhh, how long have I actually been thinking about this?"

"Hmm…" Harley wondered out loud. "Couldn't have been all that long, since Blaze got to ya first."

"I…don't actually know. Blaze was just like…wow. All at once. But the more I think about Peter, the more I think the stuff I like about him has ALWAYS been there. He's just…always been my partner in crime."

"And he makes ya happy?"
"Yeah."

"Does he make your heart beat faster?"

"Actually, now, yes."

Harley gasped. "You LOVE him!"

...

Faced with Peter again, Garfield exhaled deeply. "What I was saying is that I have to talk about how awesome you are behind your back, because if I said it to your face, you'd laugh at me."

"Now, why would I ever laugh at such a flattering compliment?" Peter asked.

"Because…it's more than just a compliment."

"Ohhhhh?"
"I…" Garfield turned his gaze away, looking at the wall. "I might be in love with you."

There was silence in reply. When Garfield actually chanced looking back at Peter, he flinched. Peter's smile was the widest and happiest-looking it had ever been. And that, to Garfield, signaled trouble. "Don't," Garfield warned. "Do NOT hold this over me."

"I wasn't planning on it," Peter stated. "But, really? This soon after Blaze? I would have thought you would have been more disillusioned with the concept of love than ever."

"I had time to think about my priorities," Garfield confessed. "And somebody smart told me to get back on the horse after love bit me, or something. Anyway, there you go. Now you know. I don't know if it's because you actually got me to dance, or because you hugged me and told me there was no one like me when Rumor was gonna kill us, or because you tied off my stab wound with your shirt, or because talking to you keeps me from going crazy in here. But it's probably mostly because of that stupid, STUPID smile."

"I'll tell you what," Peter decided. "Since you told me that…I'll let you know who my secret crush is."

"You still HAVE that?" Garfield was surprised. "You didn't bring it up for, like, a year."

"Oh, I most definitely still have it," Peter confirmed. "Same person all this time, too. Care to hazard a guess?"
"I don't even know who's left," Garfield sighed. "Killer Croc."

"No."

"Mr. Freeze?"

"Goodness, no."

"GOOD. …Joker?"
"I do hope you weren't serious about that one."

"I give up," Garfield said with a small shrug. "Who is it?"

"You really haven't guessed, Garfield? After all this time? I thought it was rather obvious at this point," Peter admitted.

"Obvious?" Garfield repeated. "Who would be OBVIOUS? Unless it's somehow ME, I don't see what…"

Peter was slowly nodding. "Now you're getting it."

"…Me?" Garfield was taken aback. "It…it's me."

"That it is," Peter confirmed. "You're very attractive, after all."

"How…long has it been me?"
Peter pretended to think it over. "I'd say about…Team Penguin, day one."

...

By some miracle, the staff of Arkham had found a way to do it. It had taken them months, but with a grant from Wayne Industries (which Garfield resented to no end), they'd managed to come up with a cure for Garfield's condition.

"How do you feel?" one of the orderlies asked as Garfield watched the back of his hand in awe; his crusty, glowing skin gelled back into flexible flesh before his eyes.

Garfield flexed his hand, turning it over, bending each finger. He then surveyed his whole body…and formed his opinion: "I feel like I need pants."

...

They led him to the yard, let him enter the crowd of orange uniforms. It took Garfield a moment to locate the person he was looking for, but then he spotted him: seated at a table with Langstrom, Wesker, and Strange, trying to figure how best to cheat them all at Euchre.

Garfield thought of a hundred different greetings, but all of them turned up too corny in his mind. He found he was actually nervous to get close; now that he had a human physiology, his palms were greased with sweat, and his heart pounded in his ears. It shouldn't be this hard, he told himself. You're literally roommates. You've been closer than this.

He forced himself to stride over to the card table, finally settling on simply approaching Peter from behind and tapping him on one shoulder. As Peter turned to look at who'd gotten his attention, Garfield simply said, "Hey – "

Peter practically tackled him, leaping up to pull him into a bone-crushing hug, wrapping one leg up around Garfield's waist in a way that was more playful than sensual, crashing his lips against Garfield's. It was absolute bliss; Garfield, caught off guard, needed only a moment to gather his senses enough to wrap his own arms around Peter's waist and draw him in ever closer. It took them both a moment to realize that literally everyone in the yard was staring at them both.

...

Snapped back to the present time and place, where he was being stared down by an expectant Roman Torchwick, Garfield concluded, "But, long story short, he's kind of my boyfriend."

"We seem to be on a triple date, then," Aghoul pointed out.

"We've done the whole team thing before," Garfield went on. "Actually, that's how we met. But that turned out to be a bust. Now, you guys…you're looking to actually dominate Gotham."

"At least part of it, but ideally all of it," Roman clarified.

"Well, if nothing else, this should be entertaining," Garfield decided. "Let's just make sure everyone's on board before we seal the deal."

Roman turned to wave at Mim; Snatcher and Aghoul followed suit. Mim glimpsed her associates trying to get her attention and knew it was time to abandon the floor. "Well, it's been fun," she told Peter, "but I've gotta split!" She strode off the floor, all eyes on her as she left.

"It just so happens you're headed toward my table," Peter told her as he followed, taking note that the people who'd flagged her down were surrounding Garfield.

The second Mim's foot hit the carpet, her body reverted to its shorter, thicker physique, her face rounding out, her hair shortening. "Ooooh, neat trick!" Peter complimented. "But can you do this?"

Mim turned to watch him spin so his back was to her, lifting one leg behind his back and seemingly dislocating it in order to wrap it around his waist. His head spun a 180 so he could look her in the eye over his back; he then topped it off with a wink.

"Hmmm…let me see…" Mim magically sprouted a second pair of legs, sporting a pair of lacy pink leggings, from behind her shoulders, crossing their ankles in front of her chest. She then placed her hands on either side of her head, giving it a spin that sent it on several 360s around her neck before slowly running out of momentum and coming to a halt.

Peter laughed high-pitchedly and joyously as he disentangled back into a front-facing standing position. "I don't know how you're doing that, but you're good!"

Mim dismissed the phantom legs, and she and Peter marched side-by-side toward Garfield's table.

"I see you've met Mim," Roman stated, addressing Peter.

"And I see you've met Peter," Garfield told Mim.

"Well?" Mim asked. "Do we have an alliance?"

"Alliance?" Peter looked from Roman to Snatcher to Aghoul to Garfield. "What alliance?"
"These guys want a piece of Gotham," Garfield explained. "Think Team Penguin, but…this can either go a whole lot better or a whole lot worse. There is no in-between. That's Roman Torchwick, Archie Snatcher – "

"You can't call me that," Snatcher growled. "Only Torchwick can call me that."

" – and, I kid you not, this guy is named Ayam Aghoul," Garfield finished. "Oh, and that's apparently Mim. Just…Mim?"

"Not JUST Mim," Mim clarified. "The magnificent, marvelous Mad Madam Mim!"

"So just Mim, then," Garfield concluded.

"Mim," Roman introduced, "this is Garfield Lynns, and apparently, he's a bit of a pyro. Which, as you probably guessed, gets him brownie points with me right off the bat. Your dance partner for the night has been his boyfriend, Peter Merkel."

"Hellooooooooo," Peter greeted, putting up one hand to wave, flexing each of his long fingers. "Signing an alliance, are we?"

Garfield rose from his seat. "Before we make the call," he told Roman, Snatcher, Aghoul, and Mim, "Peter and I need a conference."

"So do we," Roman replied with a nod.

As Garfield and Peter took several paces away to have an inaudible discussion, Roman remained in place to consort with his three associates. "Well, I like them so far," he stated. "They're better than nothing. Besides, something about this Garfield guy is just hard to hate. Mim, you've just spent several songs' worth of hobnobbing with Peter. What's he like?"
"Fits right in with us, if you ask me," Mim reported.

"If they're willing to work with us, it's at the very least better than nothing," Snatcher threw in.

"All in favor of inviting them into our little group, at least for the time being?" Aghoul asked.

"Aye," Roman, Snatcher, and Mim said as one.

"Though that does bring up an excellent point," Snatcher realized. "What happens when we've accomplished what we want here and must return home?"

"I don't think they'll be too heartbroken if we drop 'em," Roman said with a shrug.

"We haven't DROPPED a single ally we've made since the WHAM ARMY began," Aghoul pointed out.

"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it," Roman decided.

"It's 'cross,'" Snatcher corrected.

Roman rolled his eyes. "With me, Archie, it's always about burning."

A few paces away, Garfield softly informed Peter that "I have no idea what these guys' deal is, but they're WEIRD."

"Perfect for us, then," Peter resolved.

Garfield voiced doubt; "I dunno. It's not suspicious that these guys came from literally nowhere? Also, one of them made a skull appear out of thin air. THIN AIR."

"That's nothing," Peter informed him. "You saw Mim dancing with me, did you not?"

"Yeah…"

"Does that look like the same woman to you?"

Garfield peeked back over at the conference of the other four. "…No. Different Mim? Are there actually five of them? They have to be RELATED, though. I mean, that purple hair – "

"I can very much assure you that's the same woman, Garfield."

Garfield shot Peter a quizzical look. "So she just…changed bodies."

"Before my eyes."

"And this doesn't faze you."

"I thought it was rather nifty, to be honest."

"Okay, something is OFF about these guys," Garfield hissed.

"I pull off feats of incredible physical impossibility all the time and you don't have a problem with it," Peter pointed out.

"Science can actually EXPLAIN you," Garfield reminded him.

Peter shrugged. "Mostly. Anyhow, have you gotten any other offers?"

"No. You?"

"Not a single one."

"They might be our best option right now," Garfield sighed. "This really can't go much worse than Penguin, can it?"
"Oh, come now, Garfield. Team Penguin was fun, and you know it."

"Yeah," Garfield agreed, smiling slightly. "It was. Okay, if you're in, I'm in."

"That does leave the question of Harley," Peter reminded Garfield.

"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it," Garfield insisted.

The two groups reunited over the same table. "We're in," Garfield told Roman. "Though we would like to propose a condition."

"And that condition is…?" Roman asked.

"Our team name is the 'Gotham Gangstas.'"

"No," Roman, Snatcher, Mim, and Aghoul grunted as one.

"How about 'Villains United,' then?" Peter volunteered.

This earned him a similar four-person "No."

"Okay, if this is 'Team Torchwick,' we bail," Garfield groaned.

"We're actually an offshoot of a larger organization that usually goes by 'WHAM ARMY,'" Roman explained.

"WHAM ARMY?" Garfield repeated. "That has to be the dumbest name I've ever heard."

"It's an acronym," Roman insisted sternly. "It stands for our four initials, our three friends who ran off to go be crime lords of some other place without telling us, and our other friend who's probably still refereeing motorcycle duels right about now."

"Are we going to argue naming semantics," Snatcher asked, "or are we going to plot the first step toward city conquest?"
"I like the sounds of city conquest," Peter told him, his smile becoming just the slightest bit more smug.

"Then it's settled," Garfield said, reaching out across the table with his right arm once more. "We're with the WHAM ARMY."

Roman took his hand in a firm shake of agreement. "Welcome aboard, fellow pyro."

...

Nora Valkyrie, Yuffie Kisaragi, Vida Rocca, and Sadira stood at the city gates to Agrabah, barely able to catch a glimpse of the palace in the distance.

"Kinda too bad Ruby was too tired to come with us," Yuffie commented.

"Seriously?" Nora retorted. "Her Semblance is SPEED. She'd ruin the whole thing!"

"I keep telling you there's way more to it than speed," Sadira insisted.

"So the only rule is the first one back to the palace wins?" Vida clarified. "We can get there any way we want?"

"Yup," Sadira confirmed with a nod. "Ready?"

"Count us down," Nora commanded.

The four young women stood braced to race. "Three," Sadira counted, "two, one…GO!"

They surged forth, all diverging almost immediately. Nora simply barreled straight down the main thoroughfare. Sadira made for the back alleys, mapping out her route in her mind. Vida, suspecting she had figured out a way to beat the system, spotted a ladder resting against the side of a tall building and scaled it until she was atop the roof. The path from there was clear, even though the gaps between the roofs were long.

Movement caught Vida's eye through her peripheral vision. She turned her head to see that Yuffie had the same idea as her on the other side of the street and was using abandoned wooden poles to vault over the gaps. "Oh, no you don't," Vida muttered before taking a running leap. As soon as she launched into the air, it was apparent she wasn't going to make it all the way to the lip of the next rooftop…until she summoned up a tiny gust of wind that bolstered her beneath her feet, lifting her ever so slightly until she was on the correct trajectory to land on the adjacent building. She continued using this strategy to leap from roof to roof, trying to keep Yuffie in her sights and judge whether the manipulation of wind was faster than the use of the vaults.

As the race surged on, Kairi, Madison, and Genie were engaging in a much less strenuous activity: visiting the shops on the thoroughfare. "These are pretty," Madison noticed, holding up a string of blue beads.

"And they go so well with that ensemble, as well!" Genie said dramatically.

Kairi giggled; "You two are kinda blue buddies. Did you realize that?"

"Huh!" Madison looked to Genie, who returned the gaze. "Blue buddies. I like that!"

"C'mere, blue buddy!" Genie threw an arm around Madison and hugged her close.

Madison couldn't help but think of Jenji when Genie was around. She wondered how he was faring in the repairs of Root Core. Most likely, he was trying to get out of doing the heavy lifting, but had been talked into doing his share by Daggeron.

"Y'know what I think?" Genie said conspiratorially to Madison.

"What?" Madison replied.

"I think Kairi shouldn't be left out of the club." He shifted into the shape of a plump fairy wearing a tall, conical hat and a flouncy skirt, brandishing a glimmering wand. "Make it blue!" he insisted, flicking the wand at Kairi.

Kairi's pink clothing was immediately transformed into a bright cyan. "Blue buddies!" she cheered with a smile.

"'SCUSE ME!" Nora bellowed as she bolted down the street, having to make a turn around a large cart. "PARDON ME!" She leapt over a short wagon. "COMIN' THROUGH! MOVE IT OR LOSE IT!" She slowed her evasion of marketplace obstacles long enough to skid to a halt, shake her head at Madison's beads, and click her tongue. "That necklace? With THAT outfit? Try again!" She then broke back into her run.

Sadira was the first to make it into the palace courtyard, breaking her run before she could collide with any of the other occupants. Xander and Aladdin in particular were in the midst of a sparring match, Xander wielding a wooden axe against Aladdin's wooden sword. Due to the desert heat, Xander had abandoned his shirt in order to continue with the strenuous activity…though in such proximity to Aladdin, there had been an ulterior motive to Xander removing his shirt, despite Aladdin being far too monogamous to notice.

The dull wooden blades clashed, and Xander's makeshift axe was forced near his face as Aladdin bore down with his sword. "Nice," Xander complimented. "But you're gonna have to be faster than that to deal with a mystic ranger." He spun quickly, swiping at Aladdin three times in quick succession, aiming finally for the wrist in a move he was sure would disarm the prince. Aladdin instead parried the blow perfectly, now in a reversal of the hold he'd had Xander in.

"You're not so bad yourself," Aladdin complimented, and Xander did hope Aladdin couldn't detect the rising of his body temperature. "Still, this street rat's got a few more tricks up his sleeve."

"You're not even wearing sleeves," Xander pointed out. "Well, then again, neither am I, but…let's just keep going."

Jasmine and Cadance watched from the edge of the fountain as Aladdin and Xander continued to spar; Nora, Vida, and Yuffie all arrived in the background at around the same time. "You're very lucky, you know," Cadance told Jasmine. "Aladdin is wonderful."

Jasmine nodded. "Do you have anyone like that?"

"Actually, like you, I was only recently married," Cadance informed her fellow princess. "Shining Armor is very different from Aladdin, of course, but he's perfect to me."

"Then I think you're very lucky as well," Jasmine replied.

"I think overall, finding love of all kinds is one of the luckiest things that can happen to you," Cadance mused.

Around this time, Ruby, Stork, and Papyrus all spilled into the courtyard, rubbing at their eyelids (or, in Papyrus' case, sockets). "Ehhhh…did we miss anything?" Ruby asked groggily.

"Not much," Sadira bragged. "Just me showing your friends why you can't beat an Agrabanian street rat at navigating Agrabah."

"I DEMAND A REMATCH!" Nora insisted.

"Wait, was it a race?" Ruby asked. "Can I join in the next round?"
"YOUR SEMBLANCE IS SPEED!" Nora cried exasperatedly.

Luna watched all from an upper balcony, smiling contentedly. She and her companions seemed to have found yet another place they could be at peace and bond with kindred spirits. Yet as she looked upward and into the distant horizon, she could not shake the feeling that troubling times were coming. Already she knew her fears were founded, thanks to the reports of Maleficent and Mozenrath. How threatening they would become to the many worlds they had encountered was yet to be seen.

She didn't know it, but her gaze was pointed definitively in the direction of the Black Sands.

...

"We are growing close to our destination," Xayide announced after a peer out the palanquin's door to confirm her suspicion. "It would be wise to advise the Amarganthians to await us at the border while we negotiate."

"At the border of WHAT, exactly?" Mozenrath asked sternly.

"The border of one of the largest and most infamous countries in all of Fantastica," Xayide explained. "The Land of Ghosts. We make for its capital, Spook City. Tell me, have you heard many tales of horror?"

"I'm guessing this is where horror stories come from," Mozenrath inferred.

"That is true," Xayide said with a single nod. "The creatures of terror reside here. This is the homeland to vampires, to night-hobs, to kobolds. As I said, Huntsman – "

The Huntsman's fists had clenched upon Xayide's description of the inhabitants of the Land of Ghosts, and she'd noticed.

"…I knew you would not approve," she teased. "I must ask you not to harm any of the residents. They are to make up much of our forces. With the folk of the Land of Ghosts to back us, we present a formidable opposition to loyalists of the Empress. And what better army to accompany a party of villains than a legion of monsters?"

"A legion of humans would be preferable," the Huntsman growled.

"There is one more warning you should heed," Xayide stated. "There are many places where people are forced to face their worst fears. This is not such a place in particular. However, if you fear a particular creature, it will live here. Such is the way the Land of Ghosts works in relation to Fantastica and what lies beyond."

"It is very good, then, that we fear no creature," the Huntsman replied.

"Well, that's not entirely – " Yzma began to argue.

"WE FEAR NO CREATURE," the Huntsman insisted. "Is that not right, Mozenrath?"

Mozenrath was about to agree, but his imagination was suddenly filled with a familiar snarl, a howl of hunger. He began to hope there were exceptions to Xayide's statement, for there was a particular creature he never wanted to cross paths with again.

"Mozenrath?" Yzma said, snapping her fingers in front of the sorcerer's face to get his attention.

"Right," Mozenrath confirmed. "No creature."

They disembarked briefly from the palanquin for Xayide to deliver an address to the Amarganthian contingent, once again amplifying her voice by magic: "The savior and his closest companions, myself included, are to forge ahead into the Land of Ghosts. This is a journey that will terrify both the faint of heart and the strong of heart, so for your own protection and peace of mind, we ask that you wait here. We shall return with those of the Land of Ghosts who wish to follow us in tow. Though they may be fearsome, they will be allies. Together, we will press onward to our bright future. Await us patiently, and we shall return."

Once the quartet had boarded the palanquin again, Mozenrath argued, "You know, I'm supposed to be their so-called savior here. I should probably do at least SOME of the talking."

"Do you doubt my judgment?" Xayide asked.

"I don't doubt your judgment," Mozenrath rebutted. "I just don't want THEM to doubt ME."

"If you so badly wish to be the mouthpiece of this movement," Xayide told him, "you may address the citizens of Spook City."

"Good," Mozenrath told her. "I should hope I'm the mouthpiece. It's my movement."

The armor bearing the palanquin trudged into a sheet of thick fog that almost obscured everything from view entirely. An eerie silence seemed to be sewn into the fog's fabric, interrupted only by an unidentifiable noise every now and again that seemed indescribably ominous.

"This better not be some kind of trick," Mozenrath growled to Xayide.

"What makes you suspect a trick?" she asked. "Are you frightened – "

"NO!"

No one had any words to say thereafter, which made the silence all that much more unsettling.

Something became visible through the fog: the stone and metal gates of a city, twistedly wrought. The landscape beyond was populated by tall, crooked towers and buildings of labyrinthine architecture; the palanquin was carried through the gates and down a twisting pathway of streets that conformed to no logical pattern. Xayide remembered well hearing tell that the Land of Ghosts was once lost completely to that incomprehensible menace known as the Nothing, its inhabitants all throwing themselves to the state of unexistence in hopes of being reborn beyond Fantastica. When Bastian had come back to save Fantastica, his tales brought the Land of Ghosts back to life, larger and more frightening than ever before. She imagined Spook City had been completely deserted in the final hours before Bastian's arrival, populated only by the sound of wind blowing eerily through apertures in the stone of the castles, making a noise that could almost have been mistaken for a wailing, despairing voice. That on its own would have been frightening. Now, Spook City was alive, and that was even more terrifying, for its inhabitants preferred not to traverse the streets as normal but to stick to the shadows, making their presence known by staring with glowing eyes from the end of a dark alley or hunching atop a tall roof to observe the streets below. Foreigners could be easily identified by their tendency to walk the main roads and remain visible. Watching out the palanquin door, Mozenrath, the Huntsman, and Yzma caught only glimpses of tentacles and claws disappearing around corners. Shuffling and clacking sounds from all over gave away the presence of not just a few, but a multitude of watchers.

"Are they going to keep cowering as long as we're here?" Mozenrath grumbled, knowing full well what the citizens were doing was not cowering.

"They will come when they see that you are to make an address," Xayide reassured him.

They chose to set up in one of the larger squares in town, and as soon as the palanquin was set down, the citizens began to step out of periphery and into view. They sported batlike wings or long fangs or tough scales. Some were hulking, with needle-sharp claws. Others were slender, with a multitude of limbs. All of them looked as though they had stepped directly out of a tale of terror meant for midnight.

Xayide worked a bit of magic upon the ground to turn the center of the square into a raised platform from which she, Mozenrath, the Huntsman, and Yzma could look upon all of the denizens of Spook City, who were regarding the brightly colored quartet with confusion.

"If you wouldn't mind giving me a little vocal boost," Mozenrath whispered to Xayide.

"Of course," the witch responded, waving her hand at Mozenrath's throat, in which he felt a twitch.

He turned to face his new audience. "People of the Land of Ghosts," he began, his voice rebounding off every tower and parapet. "I've come with a proposal for you. It's come to my attention that both your Empress and your savior have disappeared."

"What savior was Bastian Balthazar Bux to us?" a vampire hissed. "He barely acknowledged us!"

"Your land is only whole because of Bastian's arrival in Fantastica," Xayide interrupted. "He brought you all back from the Nothing with his very presence!"

"But now he's gone," Mozenrath stated, taking back control of the speech, "and without him or the Empress, you have – "

That familiar snarl, and it wasn't just in his mind this time. Mozenrath froze. His eyes picked it out as it crawled through the crowd until it was sitting at the very front, snuffling at the ground before turning to look up at Mozenrath hungrily with its single eye. A thirdac.

"…Nothing," Mozenrath concluded, tearing his eyes away from the thirdac.

The Huntsman noticed it. More accurately, he noticed Mozenrath's pause, and sought out the source of the disturbance. Remembering Mozenrath's allusion to how he'd met Aladdin, he withdrew his huntstaff.

Yzma placed a hand on the staff. "WHAT are you doing?" she hissed.

"Being prepared," the Huntsman whispered back.

"Which is why I intend to fill that void," Mozenrath continued. "I'm going to be the next Emperor of Fantastica, and I want the rest of you to stand with me."

"Why should we?" a ghoul called out.

There were more than one. Mozenrath was having a harder and harder time ignoring them. The thirdacs were now pushing to the front of the crowd in droves – well, perhaps not droves, but there were at least five – licking their chops at the sight of such powerful magic as Mozenrath and Xayide in the same place. Xayide, for her part, remained unfazed. Perhaps she didn't realize exactly what sort of creatures thirdacs were, how swiftly they could devour her in order to consume her magic. Or perhaps she was simply cool under pressure.

"WHY SHOULD WE FOLLOW YOU?" a pale, long-armed creature with no eyes and several rows of sharp teeth shrieked.

"Because," Mozenrath said, snapping out of his reverie, "I can give you all what you want."

"We want nothing!" another ghoul called out. "We are well off as we are!"

The Huntsman looked over the crowd, and as he observed the very back of the throng, his heart seized up momentarily. A large, hulking creature loomed over them all. Its shape was ill-defined, hidden by shadows, but the Huntsman would have known it anywhere. It was the same sort of creature that the red dragon had forced him to tussle with in youth, the one that had scarred his throat. It was not entirely true, he realized, that he feared no creature. He tightened his grip on his weapon.

"You CAN'T be happy with just this," Mozenrath asserted. "I can bring you power! I can bring you glory! I can bring you – "

One of the thirdacs decided it was too hungry to listen to Mozenrath's speech any longer. It lunged.

Mozenrath instinctively let a bolt of blue energy loose at the thirdac, which opened its mouth wide and swallowed the magic whole without missing a beat. Mozenrath was overtaken by very apparent horror as the semi-reptilian creature tackled him to the ground.

The Huntsman rushed to action, swiftly stabbing the huntstaff down through the thirdac's protective carapace and piercing its vitals, halting the blade before it could cut through to Mozenrath's delicate body beneath. He then hefted the thirdac up and flung it aside.

"Look at our would-be emperor, so easily crushed by a thirdac!" a vampire in the crowd laughed as he stroked the back of a second thirdac. "Go on," he encouraged the beast, "gobble him right up!"

"YOU!" Mozenrath growled, having heard every word. A thirdac might have been able to absorb his magical attacks, but a vampire would have no such luck. Mozenrath leapt off the platform to rush the vampire at the same time the second thirdac rushed. Yzma tackled the thirdac, stomping the heel of her shoe into its lone eye in order to leave Mozenrath an opening to run down the vampire. The unlucky vampire attempted, too late, to turn and flit to the shadows; he was set aflame in blue and found himself unable to douse the fires before he was consumed.

That was the gateway to pandemonium.

Before long, the Huntsman was cutting down creature after creature, with Yzma flinging darts every which way. The crowd surged forth to try and one-up the newcomers, but whoever the Huntsman couldn't dispose of, Mozenrath found a way to destroy. Xayide watched the chaos from the platform for a while, lamenting how awfully the plan had gone, before realizing that she had cast her lot and she needed to defend those she had sworn to be champion of. Her magic forged spears and swords from nowhere to impale the ghouls, iron spikes springing from the ground to take out the larger creatures. Her palanquin-bearing armor sprang into action as well, body-slamming leaping werewolves. And the Huntsman, as long as he was in the midst of slaying, figured he may as well put his childhood fears to rest once and for all; he ran full tilt for the monster reminiscent of the one that had scarred him.

Logically, Mozenrath knew that he and his companions couldn't destroy the entire population of Spook City in one fight. However, he was now determined to see the attempt through.

Over the sounds of the scuffle, a sudden piercing voice: "STOP THIS AT ONCE!"

Somehow, all who heard it knew they had better listen. Mozenrath froze before his charged-up gauntlet could make contact with the face of a werewolf. Yzma stopped before she could drive a dart down into the back of a chupacabra. Xayide and her suits of armor all held their positions, not daring to move an inch. Even the Huntsman was stopped from plunging the huntstaff into the one weak spot of his target monster, and as the four newcomers ground to a halt, so did every yet surviving citizen of Spook City.

The crowd parted to make way for an elegant young woman clothed in a black gown; she strode coolly toward the center of the square. Mozenrath, the Huntsman, Xayide, and Yzma all abandoned their positions to line up in front of her, curious as to what tidings she brought and if they needed to band together to bring her down next.

"You claim to be the next savior?" the woman scoffed, stopping just before Mozenrath. "That is laughable. I know what you've come for."

"You know NOTHING about me," Mozenrath growled, clenching his right fist, waiting to bring it into action.

"I know what truly rules your heart is the pursuit of power," the woman stated, and she smirked. "Which I find much more admirable than a savior. Do you know who I am?"
"An obstacle that needs to be removed?" Mozenrath guessed sarcastically.

"The Dark Princess Gaya," the woman replied. "Ruler of the Land of Ghosts. And while I answered to the Childlike Empress, for she is Fantastica itself, I believed I would answer to no other. I do not take stock in promises for betterment. I rule a land built on fear; why should hope matter to me? But you have just attempted to kill the people I rule over. And, in no small part, you have been succeeding. Do you know what that makes you?"

"Two sorcerers, a dragon slayer, and a fashionista extraordinaire," Yzma answered, taking the question literally.

"Your…enemy?" Mozenrath guessed.

"A force to be feared," Gaya clarified. "Perhaps a little too fearful for your own good, but still something to be feared. That, I may follow. Your enterprise interests me…had you said your name?"

"Mozenrath," Mozenrath said with renewed pride. "Lord Mozenrath."

"We shall see about your title when you arrive at the Ivory Tower, Mozenrath," Gaya stated.

"You aren't going to, ah, tell the rest of our traveling companions about this little bloodbath, are you?" Yzma asked nervously.

"Not a word," Gaya vowed. "If they do not know the poison that flows through their waters, I am not about to spoil the surprise before all have drunk. What fun would there be for me then?"

"Well, welcome aboard!" Yzma stated.

Gaya stared Xayide down. "The witch of the orchids," she stated calmly. "I should have known you would not be content to remain in your tower."

"The Dark Princess," Xayide retorted. "Did you not fling yourself into the Nothing once in a vain attempt to grasp something beyond your meager existence?"
"I had heard you perished," Gaya replied. "I cannot help but wonder if something similar happened to you."

"Why would I end my own life?" Xayide snapped.

"Because your existence was far more meager than mine," Gaya supposed. "But that is all past. I wish to see what fear you can strike into hearts from the Ivory Tower. I have never attempted such a thing myself, as I thought it a fool's errand with the Empress in place, but in her absence, who knows what may come to pass?" She dropped to one knee. "You have my fealty, and the fealty of all those who dwell in the Land of Ghosts." She then raised her head to look at Mozenrath once more. "Though I suggest for your own sake you stop thinning the numbers of those you wish to add to your army."

"I'll keep that in mind," Mozenrath replied.

When the palanquin was borne back to the Amarganthians, it came along with a legion of denizens of the Land of Ghosts.

...

It was decided that Sora and Riku, with their host of volunteer Boxtroll players, needed a secluded yet roomy place in order to tell their story, lest their talk of things that seemingly could not possibly be true become cause for concern among the more narrow-minded citizens of the town. Thus they ended up making their stage down by the river. The story took some time to tell: all the way until sundown.

"And that's the end," Sora concluded.

"That was a really great story," Eggs told him.

"Hmm…I don't know," Winnie sighed. "Seems a little convoluted to me. And I didn't understand a single word of the bit about time travel."

"It's actually probably simpler than you think," Riku argued.

"Please, don't try and explain it to me anymore," Winnie begged him. "You'll make my head hurt."

A Boxtroll by the moniker of "Socks" voiced a concern.

"What Socks is saying," Eggs translated, "is that he wants to know if this all means…the same thing could happen to Snatcher that happened to Maleficent and…and…"

"Xenahort," Winnie volunteered.

"Xehanort," Riku corrected.

"Xenahort?" Sora repeated. "There's no such villain!"

"That he could just come back," Eggs went on.

"I'm sorry, but that is what it means," Riku confirmed. "Especially if he had ties to the Darkness. And from the sounds of it, he was the Darkness' perfect candidate."

"So what do we do now?" Winnie asked. "Is he going to come back HERE? Is he going to try and ruin us again, all for my father's White Hat?"

"We don't know what he's going to do just yet," Sora replied. "That's what our friends are trying to figure out. But we do know that you don't have to worry about a thing!"

"This is our fight," Riku asserted. "We'll make sure he doesn't hurt you again. Or anyone else."

"Now that we know more about him," Sora realized, "a lot more stuff makes sense. Like why everybody suddenly started hating monsters in Knightdock!"

"I do wish we could help," Eggs said forlornly.

Winnie and every Boxtroll present shared glances; Eggs was the only one among them who had the sentiment.

"We'll let you know if you can," Sora promised. "But right now, the most you should have to worry about is when you're going to put on the next play!"

Riku nodded, his mind suddenly abuzz with thoughts about young Eggs and his enthusiasm. How old had Riku been when he first decided he wanted to travel to other worlds? Much younger. But Eggs and Winnie seemed to him to be but children. Children who had accomplished a lot, but still not ready to take on the threats that lay in the spaces between the worlds. When had he, Sora, and Kairi become ready? Were they truly ready, even now? Or should they have been living carefree lives on the Destiny Islands, building rafts to sail away on much more harmless adventures?

A bell sounded from high on the hill. "That's the sound of suppertime," Winnie announced. "Father will be none too pleased with me if I'm late. Thanks for the story. I'll see you around, then?"
"We'll have to go as soon as our weapons are finished," Sora informed her. "But we'll stop to say goodbye."

"No, I'll stop by, then," Winnie promised. "After supper, I'll meet you all back in the cavern."

Socks spoke up, and Eggs translated: "He says they're probably almost done with the weapons back in the cavern. We should go look. And have some supper ourselves."

"You all go on," Riku encouraged the others. "I…think I want a minute to stay back."

"All right," Eggs replied. "Come on, everyone! Let's go!"

All but Sora and Riku set off up the hill and back into town.

"You…okay?" Sora asked Riku.

"They're so young," Riku told him. "Were we the same way when we were that age? It feels like it's been forever since our island first fell to Darkness and we had our first adventure. But we weren't much older than them, were we?"

"Maybe they'll be the next Keybearers after us," Sora suggested. "They already seem pretty heroic."

"Maybe," Riku answered, "but I'm not going to be the one to give the Keyblade to either of them. Not yet. They deserve to have a normal life for a little longer."

"What, like our lives aren't fun?" Sora rebutted.

"What we do is dangerous."

"And still fun!"

Riku turned to give Sora a smile. "You know something? You're right. Sometimes, I forget to see it. But we do have a lot of fun, don't we?"

Sora settled into a sitting position, watching the sky turn to twilight over the river. "It's a nice view from here," he pointed out.

Riku adopted the same position, adjacent to Sora. "It really is."

"Telling our whole story made me think about all the stuff we've seen all over again," Sora recalled. "We sure have been through a lot, haven't we?"

"And you were asleep for most of it, remember?" Riku nudged Sora playfully.

"Thanks for waking me up," Sora told him.

"It wasn't just me," Riku reminded Sora. "It was Ansem the Wise, Naminé, and Roxas, too." And for the faintest moment, he wondered if there was someone else he should credit, but he couldn't think of anyone.

"Still," Sora responded, "you were the one who stayed by me the whole time to make sure I'd wake up okay. You're always doing things like that, and I dunno if I ever really said thanks for any of it. So, uh…thanks, Riku. For always having my back."

Riku felt a blush rise to his face. "It's nothing," he replied. "Besides, you always have my back, too. You were the only one who was able to bring me back when I fell to Darkness. So thanks for that."

"Anytime, Riku," Sora replied, his own heart suddenly fluttering. "Though that's nothin' compared to diving into a dream of a dream just to protect me."

"That was an accident," Riku laughed. "I don't even think I could do that again if I tried!" Then, after a pause, "I'd still try, though. Every time."

"I'd do the same for you," Sora promised. "I think so long as we have each other, we can do anything!"

"I think you're right," Riku agreed.

Then it almost became a dare: which one of them would say it first?

"I…don't ever want anything bad to happen to you," Riku said softly.

"Me either," Sora replied. "To you."

"Sometimes…after everything we've been through together, and because of everything you've meant to me…" He swallowed hard. He couldn't quite form the words. "You do mean a lot to me. Whenever I'm lost, your smile shows me the way."

"You mean a lot to me too," Sora replied, suddenly finding himself hoping to hear certain words. "I know I used to give you a hard time when we were kids…"

"That was just a year ago."

"You just got done TALKING about how young we were then!"

"I did," Riku admitted with a nod.

"Anyway, whenever you're around, you make me feel like I'm at home, even when we're far away," Sora went on. "A lot of the time, you're the REASON I smile. I actually…well, I kinda…" Maybe he didn't need to hear the words from Riku first. Maybe it was better just to say them. "Love…you."

"I love you too," Riku replied immediately, turning to look at Sora to find Sora giving him that smile he did love so much, absolutely lighting up.

"That's GREAT!" Sora cried. Then, both realizing what they wished to do, they leaned closer to each other until their lips met, shutting their eyes, shutting out the river, the town, the hill so that there was only each other.

When they finally decided to part, Sora stated, "That was a long time coming, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Riku agreed. "It was."

"We should probably go back and check on those weapons," Sora decided.

Riku nodded. He stood first, offering Sora a hand. Sora took it, not so much out of need but because he now wanted to keep in physical contact with Riku since the new definition they'd made for their relationship made it that much more appropriate, and even after Riku had pulled Sora up to his feet, Sora didn't let go, and their hands remained clasped as they set out up the hill.

"This is okay, right?" Sora asked after a few paces. "Or do you want me to let go?"
"It's more than okay," Riku told him. "Don't let go. Not until you want to."

They never had let go of each other, not once, not even during the days of their rivalry, they realized.

...

Jafar and Hades had spent most of their time since arriving in the Black Sands poring over every book they could find in the citadel. Mozenrath had amassed quite the collection of magical knowledge, and there was other information in the library that the duo knew would be of use to Maleficent were they searching for other matters. And there were books in every single room. Hades doubted Mozenrath had actually read them all. He wasn't even convinced Destane had read them all.

Jafar had insisted that if the knowledge they sought wasn't there, there was no shortage of fountains of wisdom throughout the Seven Deserts that could provide the needed information. Still, they had to make sure they had exhausted the Black Sands first. It was, after all, their hub on that world, and any other information they acquired elsewhere would have to be brought back to it.

All that time spent rifling through old books had given Hades a serious need to actually get outside and breathe non-musty air. He saluted each Heartless posted at the major street intersections with a "Hi, how ya doin', babe?", even though he knew they wouldn't answer. The Mamluks that still roamed the streets, he was far less friendly to. Maleficent had insisted keeping them around would give them a valuable asset. Hades just wanted them to be fully dead, or, barring that, be fully alive. Their state of half-death infuriated him because it showed him just how close he was to having them in his personal domain in a way the others couldn't touch. Amassed in the Underworld, their poor cursed souls would probably make an untouchable fighting force, albeit a little more reluctant to listen to orders with their consciousness intact. Or did they have intact consciousness, and Mozenrath had just beaten them into submission? Hades couldn't tell, and that was another thing he hated about them.

As he strolled, he thought he caught a brief flicker of movement just up ahead, around a corner. Suspicions raised, he strode forward.

The portal ringed with green flame appeared behind him, and a calm female voice stated his name: "Hades."

"Maleficent!" Hades spun to greet his boss. "Babe!" She was visible on the other side of a portal that offered visibility from the streets of the Black Sands directly into the halls of Villain's Vale.

"We discussed your referencing me with such base labels," Maleficent replied grumpily.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it, I remember," Hades sighed. "So what's the occasion?"

"The occasion is that I require a progress report from you and Jafar," Maleficent stated. "Have you found anything of worth?"
"Believe me, ba – Malef, there's a LOT here worth checkin' out. Everything EXCEPT the thing we came here lookin' for. Jaffie's still tryin' to read every single book in the place, and if we run out, he's takin' us to excavate some lost kingdom called Mesmaria for their books on magic. I thought this was gonna be a field trip, not study hour."

"I see," Maleficent replied. She was none too happy that Hades and Jafar hadn't found anything on the subject of absorbing Keyblades, but at the same time, she knew punishing them would only hinder the effort; she still needed them to be able to search for what she wanted. "Have there been any intrusions from Mozenrath and his pathetic excuses for henchmen?"

"Not a peep from the brat's corner," Hades relayed. "Wherever he is now."

"If you catch wind of his presence in any sense," Maleficent commanded, "destroy all of them except for Mozenrath himself. I wish to see to him personally this time. He has evaded us far too long."

"Believe me, I'd love to add him and his pals to the collection," Hades assured her. "And Jaffie wants a couple swings at the redheads for that stunt back on Atmos."

"One more matter I wish to discuss, Hades," Maleficent said coolly. "Has there been any unrest among the prisoners?"

"They're mad as Tartarus," Hades assured her, "but they're all under pretty heavy magical lock and key. Nothin' to worry about, Malef."

"Good," Maleficent said, satisfied with that at least. "Make sure that remains the status quo."

"Can do, Malef! So, how're things back at the Vale?"

"We are in the process of acquiring the proper equipment with which to outfit Cruella's colorful band of allies," Maleficent informed him. "They may be just what is needed to defeat the Many-Colored Death. While they are proficient in their field, however, their skills only reach so far. I hope this does not amount to having simply replaced Pete with a set of minions with similar incompetence."

"Then get somebody else on board," Hades suggested. "Somebody you KNOW can deliver the goods. Check out who else is world-hoppin' and has a sweet tooth for Darkness."

"I had considered it," Maleficent admitted. "Should employing Cruella's allies turn sour, our ranks would benefit from having a powerful fallback."

"An ace up your sleeve, so to speak."

"I shall request progress reports often," Maleficent emphasized. "I expect you will not waste the time you are given."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

The portal faded, and Hades rolled his eyes. "I expect you will not waste the time you are given," he repeated in a nasal voice. "Whaddaya take me for, anyway? Some kinda slack-off? I'm the Lord of the Dead. I don't even have to take this."

He then made good on turning the corner he thought he'd seen something around earlier. It led to an empty street that opened up to several other avenues. Hades shrugged, figuring if anything had been there, the Heartless and the Mamluks would make short work of it.

He hadn't been wrong about seeing movement. Someone had, in fact, been hidden around that corner, and had listened in on every word he'd exchanged with Maleficent. Earlier that day, after finding Jasmine returning from her all-night storytelling session, Razoul had decided that if there was a threat in the Black Sands, he wasn't going to sit idly by without knowing a bit more about the enemy. So, unbeknownst to the royal family, he had taken a small contingent of the guard to the shadowy, empty kingdom, where he had fully expected to obtain intel on Mozenrath. To hear the name "Maleficent" whispered in these streets was a wholly different matter, and it was especially surprising to hear that she had issued a command of death to Mozenrath. What did she have this gray sorcerer with blue fire atop his head in place of fire looking for, anyway? And, even more chillingly…when she had said the name "Jafar," did that signify the return of the one person Razoul hoped never to see again?

When he'd heard Hades mock Maleficent, he'd known she had disappeared, and Hades would be coming around the corner soon; Razoul hustled the four guards who accompanied him down a turn off the street they'd used as their hiding place and through a veritable labyrinth of narrow roads thereafter. "I knew there was something going on in this land!" Razoul hissed.

"What do we do now?" one of the other guards whispered.

"We make our way back to Agrabah," Razoul replied, equally hushed, "and inform the royal family of this – "

The quintet turned onto a street that was absolutely packed with Mamluks. The undead soldiers all stared at the living prey that had stumbled into their patrolling domain.

Razoul was startled, but was emotionally no worse off than that. As the zombies all reached for their weaponry, Razoul drew his own sword, holding it aloft. "HAVE AT THEM!" he cried, charging directly into the center of the crowd, blade gleaming as it sliced through the air.

...

At the heart of the 42nd iteration of Gotham City, there lay a warehouse. And in this warehouse, stuffed to the brim with giant toys and other seemingly whimsical decorations, a man with pale skin and long green hair, clothed in a lengthy violet coat, was sketching out a fiendish plan.

"And then the Comissioner will have no choice but to press the button that rolls the dice," he cackled to himself, his voice deep and husky. "That decides where the bomb goes off, and he'll be the one responsible! The only way this plan could get any better is if I could get the Bat to be the one to roll snake eyes!"

"Giant dice?" a voice sounded from the shadows, startling the man, who'd been sure he was alone in his lair. "What child's play."

"Who's there?" The man spun around, scowling into the dark recesses of the warehouse. "Come out where I can see you!"

"Wouldn't want anyone to miss out on seeing this pretty face," the other replied, walking forth until he was in full view. The 24th Joker, having followed the clues left in the criminal underworld to this very warehouse, lay eyes on this world's native 42nd Joker. "So you're supposed to be me on this world?" he said with a shake of the head and a click of the tongue. "What a disappointment!"

"Excuse me?" The 42nd Joker's scowl deepened. "What's THAT supposed to mean?"

"Simply that you and I are halves of the same playing card," the 24th Joker stated, grinning. "Though you don't seem to be a Joker so much as that king who's stabbing himself in the back of the head."

"Halves of the same playing card?" The 42nd Joker's scowl was immediately reverted into a grin. "You're just a bad photocopy! Is that supposed to be my suit and makeup you're wearing? You go to all that trouble to imitate me, and first of all, you don't even bother to get my hair right. Second, the saying is that IMITATION is the sincerest form of flattery. Not insults."

"Oh, no, I don't think you understand," the 24th Joker retaliated. "I'm not trying to imitate you. I AM you from another world! Yes, yes, I know it's a lot to take in. I thought I'd drop in and see just what the version of me that lived HERE was like. But the more I asked around, the more I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Imprisoning policemen in giant playing cards? Talk about trying too hard. And giant gumballs? Really? At the VERY least, you got the gas part right. Like I really wanted to hear that the best thing about myself was being gassy."

The 42nd Joker took a moment to let the 24th Joker's words sink in. Then he began to laugh, progressively louder and more dramatically, clocking in at about a minute and a half of solid laughter before saying, "You think you're another me from another world? You're even crazier than I am!"

"That's the idea," the 24th Joker said. "Sadly, I'm afraid I have to take you out of play. There simply isn't room in this deck for two Jokers."

"YOU, take ME out of play?" the 42nd Joker laughed. "Go ahead and try. I already have the winning hand!"

They charged each other at the same time. The 42nd leapt into the air and spun, dealing a kick to the 24th's chest. The 24th staggered back, half falling toward the recesses of the warehouse from which he'd come. The 42nd gave chase, picking up a long and nasty-looking knife from atop a nearby crate.

"Don't come any closer!" the 24th begged, his tone of voice suggesting desperation as he retreated into the darkness.

"What's that you said?" the 42nd mocked. "All I heard was…'COME CLOSER'!" He charged.

And then he felt the 24th's knee connect with his solar plexus, disorienting him. The 24th then spun the 42nd around, holding one arm behind his back and using the other, the one bearing the knife, to point up at the 42nd's own throat. Out of instinct to survive, the 42nd dropped the knife; it clanged on the floor.

"I warned you not to come any closer!" the 24th teased, kicking up the Lexcorp cannon from its hiding place into one arm. His other arm locked sharply around the 42nd Joker's neck, squeezing several choked sounds from him. The barrel of the cannon was placed square against the 42nd's back as best as the 24th could wield it with one arm.

"It's been fun, really, it has," the 24th remarked. "But all good things must come to an end. Oh, and I guess you have to come to an end as well."

He pulled the trigger, and suddenly, the 42nd Joker was more than metaphorically heartless, as the cannon pierced a hole through his chest that disintegrated it completely. The 42nd Joker's dead body slumped forward and thudded onto the cement.

"Pity," the 24th Joker, now the only Joker still living on that world, remarked. "You'd have thought a Joker would have lasted a little longer. Maybe I had the wrong guy…" He shrugged. Wrong guy or not, he wanted to put a final touch on his defeat and expunge the other Joker's existence completely, and in order to do that, he had to be outside the building.

As he walked out, someone else walked in through the opposite door: a young woman clothed in the red-and-black vestments of a jester. "Oh, Puddin'!" Harley Quinn called out cheerfully as she spun a purse around in a playful circle, "I'm back from robbin' the natural history museum! And you won't BELIEVE what I picked up…" Her smile immediately faded as she saw the body of her "Puddin'" lying prone on the floor. "Mr…J?"

She rushed to him, kneeling, and it was impossible to miss the fatal wound that pierced him, blood already leaking out into a puddle around him on the concrete floor. "Oh, no," Harley whimpered, her eyes filling up with tears. "Oh, no, no, no…Mr. J…no…"

She gently flipped him over, and through the building water, her eyes were able to pick out the abrasions on his neck that marked attempted strangulation. No sooner had she taken notice of that small detail than she caught the distinct whiff of fire. Outside, unbeknownst to her knowledge, the surviving Joker had set the building aflame. The first of the flames crept inside the warehouse, catching onto a crate and blossoming.

Harley stood and ran, abandoning the body of her ill-chosen beloved. She considered going back to drag him out, but he was already dead, and it would slow her down too much. She was able to get out of the warehouse before the entire building gave way to conflagration, bolting down the street, losing her purse containing some very valuable fossils in the process but no longer caring about her score of theft.

As she ran, her tears ran down her face ever thicker, threatening to wipe away her white makeup. Someone had shot her Joker. But, more notably, that same someone, or perhaps "someones," had tried to strangle him with their bare arm and then set the lair on fire to dispose of the body.

Harley's heart broke as she reached a tragic and, unfortunately, very mistaken conclusion.