61. Afraid of the Dark
Snatcher was the first to be notified. He felt his scroll buzz in his pocket, and removed it to read the text that was displayed across the screen:
"We are in place. Join us. We will inform Garfield when ready."
Then was an address. Snatcher didn't find it familiar, but he had seen enough street signs posted outside to be able to locate it.
"Have just realized!" he cried for all working in the lab to hear. "Have not properly bathed since arrival here. Am aware, is too much information. But is for important reason, I swear." He deleted the text history from his scroll, laying it down on the counter next to the computer screen. "If daughter calls, cannot leave scroll unanswered, else she will worry. Am also holding out hope that friends from homeworld have survived and will make call. Scroll CANNOT go unanswered, else they think I am dead. Must pick up and inform whoever calls that Nikolai Pike is alive and will return call! Is very important! You understand?"
"We do," Ienzo stated. "Don't worry. We'll take care of it."
"Good," Snatcher said as he made for the door. "Will return shortly. Hopefully will not take long at all." He slipped out of the lab, his destination to exit the castle as soon as humanly possible.
"It's rather odd," Ienzo said once Snatcher had gone.
"What is odd?" Jumba asked.
"I thought these devices were only referred to as 'scrolls' on Remnant," Ienzo mused. "At least that is what I thought from observing Jaune, Ren, and Nora talk about them. Though perhaps I am wrong."
"What it's called doesn't matter!" Donald insisted. "Just so long as we answer it!"
"Am thinking duck should not answer phone," Jumba said without taking his eyes off the screen.
"What?" Donald squawked. "Why not?"
"We want it to be done politely, don't we?" Jumba replied, smiling to the screen.
"WHY YOU – "
Donald launched into a loud vent that went largely ignored.
...
The moment Wuya left Ordon Spring was the moment that Sora stepped into the spring's confines. He had just enough time to catch, out of the corner of his eye, a figure passing into a Corridor before it closed.
But that was a secondary agenda to the wildly thrashing Ordona that was chained to the ground before Sora's company. By then, the fireworks in a bottle had died down, but Ordona was no calmer.
"LOOK AT THAT!" Papyrus exclaimed when he got a good view of the scene. "THE PEOPLE HANS IS TRAVELING WITH DID OUR JOB FOR US!"
"They have to have figured out what we're doing!" Katara cried happily. "They chained Ordona down for us to save!"
At that moment, the first chain broke.
"We should probably hurry up with that," Stork suggested.
Link hurried forward, laying the blade of the Master Sword across Ordona's upper leg. He had to duck and flow to keep up with Ordona's stomping, but the sword's effect took hold, light spreading out from the point of contact to engulf Ordona's entire body.
"Cut down those chains!" Katara demanded once the transformation had begun.
It turned out that neither Crescent Rose, the Master Sword, nor Riku's blade could manage such a job. The Keyblade, however, was able to sever the chains after a bit of sawing; once a chain was broken by Sora, it dissolved into fragments of glittering magic.
Just as before, the sun burst through the Twilight and colored the sky a brilliant blue. The light reflected off the surface of the shallow spring, and the rock walls took on their natural coloring of brown with a tint of vegetative green here and there. It was no less of a magnificent sight than it had been the previous three times it had occurred.
"I must thank you," Ordona said solemnly. "You have restored Light to its proper place. And I can sense you have done so with the rest of my brethren."
"Hey, it was no big deal!" Sora insisted with folded arms.
"Sora!" Katara hissed. "Is that any way to talk to a Light spirit?"
"I take no offense to his words," Ordona stated, "even if I do doubt it was all that simple of a task. I fear the greatest challenge lies ahead. That which turned us to Darkness can only be a great power with godlike strength."
"I've faced down gods before," Sora boasted. "So long as we stick together, we can handle 'em!"
"SORA!" Katara snapped.
"I take no offense once more," Ordona stated, sounding something like amused. "I give you my blessing on the final leg of your journey. I have a word in particular for Princess Zelda. Please, come forth."
Zelda strode to the front of the crowd, bowing respectfully before Ordona.
"As the one who holds the throne of Hyrule," Ordona told her, "you will need a means of protecting the people you hold dear. Now that my brethren and I are again whole, we may bestow that power upon you."
"To which I would be eternally grateful," Zelda replied.
She straightened up, then snapped into a trance; everything before her vision had gone dark. Before she had any time to panic, she spotted Lanayru in the distance, shining like neon, surfacing as though from a body of dark water and plunging back again. A little closer to Zelda, Eldin swooped in low from above, then returned to the skies. Nearer still, Faron clambered up an unseen ladder, coming to rest in a levitated position with his tail curled around his orb of Light. Finally, Ordona shimmered into view just before Zelda, bending the knee to brush his horns against the princess.
They surrounded her, then: Lanayru behind, Faron to the left, and Eldin winging his way down to the right. Each spirit reached to her, giving her only the lightest touch – with a nose, a wing, a paw, a horn. She felt her very core of being become less heavy, filling up with a warm and familiar sensation.
From the outside, all anyone could see was a golden glow enveloping Zelda as she stood, eyes shut, a serene look upon her face. When it ended, the glow faded, and Zelda's eyes pried open.
"You now have the power of the four spirits of Light," Ordona informed her.
"Does that mean you have your fancy arrows back?" Midna asked. "That better mean you have your fancy arrows back."
Zelda put her hands in position, and the bow of light stretched itself between them. She aimed to the rock wall and drew back; an arrow filled itself in. She let it fly. The rock was blown apart.
"THAT'S gonna come in handy when we fight whoever did this!" Midna proclaimed.
"We already know who did this," Ruby reminded her. "It's Maleficent. And Ganondorf. And Cinder."
"I have no doubt that, should you face them, you will prevail," Ordona stated. "It still will be no easy task."
"Ordona," Zelda said solemnly, "if you are willing to answer, I have one final question for you."
"And what is that?" Ordona asked.
"The one I love has been two steps ahead of us at all times," Zelda explained, "fighting off the obstacles that stand in our way. You have no doubt seen him. Faron described him as sustaining a potentially fatal wound. Is he all right?"
"Prince Hans was unharmed," Ordona stated. "I cannot, however, speak to his true goal."
"I know his true goal," Zelda emphasized. "He could only have been working to help us."
"But how would he have known what we were doing?" Stork asked.
"I do not know," Zelda admitted. "I only know what he would do to protect me and my people…and what I would do to protect him. I must find him!"
"We'll find him together!" Sora insisted. "Then we can thank him for what he did!"
"We should probably take care of our little Ganondorf problem first," Midna insisted. "The longer we let him stay, the more time he has to just mess everything up all over again! And now that we've brought Light back to Hyrule, that barrier he put up might be weak enough to take down." She gave a wistful sigh. "It was SO beautiful covered in Twilight, though. Are you sure this is the way it should be?"
"The Twilight isn't as bad as I first thought," Jasmine admitted. "There just might be room for it in this world. But not at the expense of the spirits."
"I know," Midna replied with a wink. "I was only teasing. Now come on. Let's go get Ganondorf's ugly butt off Zelda's throne."
"I have faith in you," Ordona stated as he faded away, returning to the spring.
As the group turned to move, Stork brought up, "Something's…off about all this."
"Like what?" Sora asked.
"If Hans is really helping us," Stork posed, "why does he always disappear right before we show up? And also, WHY DOES HE KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING?"
"MAYBE HE DOESN'T?" Papyrus suggested.
"So he chained down Ordona because it was fun," Stork said sarcastically. "And he has some other reason to knock down Maleficent's lackeys besides making it easier on us."
"I'm starting to agree with Stork," Riku admitted. "Something doesn't add up here."
"That actually reminds me," Sora realized. "When we got here to the spring, I thought I saw somebody disappearing into a Corridor of Darkness."
"AND YOU'RE ONLY TELLING US THIS NOW?" Stork cried.
"I didn't have time!" Sora argued. "We had to focus on Ordona!"
"Something is DEFINITELY off," Stork insisted. "That HAD to have been Hans. And he was using DARKNESS."
"Well…I'm not sure entirely if that's what I saw," Sora admitted.
"Hans does not know how to use the Darkness," Zelda said firmly.
"I bet he doesn't have a way of chaining down spirits, either," Stork rebutted. "That's what his friends are for. And what do we even know about these friends of his, hmmmm?"
"That we owe them for rescuing him from his kidnappers!" Zelda insisted.
"And we discussed this earlier, remember?" Midna recalled. "Light isn't always good. Darkness isn't always bad. If it wasn't for Riku's deal with the Darkness, none of you would even be here right now."
"That is true," Jasmine pointed out.
"I'm starting to get a little suspicious myself," Aladdin confessed.
"I think you're all getting worried over a fat lot of nothing," Midna huffed. "You'll just get paranoid over anything, won't you?"
"That is kind of how Stork works," Ruby confirmed.
"But I've been RIGHT before, haven't I?" Stork said through gritted teeth. "Don't we all remember when 'Vexen' was trapped in the Black Sands?"
"THAT ONE DIDN'T END WELL," Papyrus recalled.
"You've also been wrong before," Ruby reminded him.
"I don't think we can even start to figure out what's going on with Hans until we deal with Ganondorf," Sora said in hopes of quelling the debate. "But I'm with Midna. I don't think we have anything to worry about. And if we do, we can think about it later."
"There is nothing to worry about from Hans," Zelda insisted. "I know his heart is true."
"And I know Zelda knows what she's talking about!" Link added.
"I really hope you're right," Riku replied.
...
"Seriously, what's this about?" Snipe egged on as he followed Ravess down the hallway.
"I just need to check on the laboratory!" Ravess insisted through gritted teeth. "Then I will be satisfied!"
"But what's in the laboratory?"
"That's none of your business!"
As they turned the corner; they very nearly crashed into the other set of siblings wandering about.
"Well," Rémington said smoothly, "I seem to remember one very sexy sweet sorcière mentioning she had business there. I was just on my way to pay her a visit."
"Ugh," Ravess groaned. "Tell me we aren't going to become accessories to your booty call."
"It looks like that's exactly what's happening," Rémington said with a grin.
"Then what's he doing?" Snipe asked, pointing at Grany.
"He's right here and can hear you," Grany said grumpily. "We just thought it would be better to stick together until we found Mim."
"What difference would that make?" Snipe asked. "Now you're being weird too!"
"And your sister is acting odd?" Rémington asked.
"His sister is ALSO right here and can ALSO hear you," Ravess asserted. "And I am not acting odd!"
The sound of high heels absolutely storming down the hallway diverted everyone's attention to behind. Scarlet Overkill was on the warpath, murder in her eyes, as Herb timidly followed. "WHERE IS SHE?" Scarlet demanded.
"Where is who?" Ravess asked, already feeling exasperation radiating from Scarlet and bleeding into her own aura.
Scarlet pointed at Rémington with a rod-straight arm. "YOUR girlfriend."
"She said she wanted to try something in the lab," Rémington answered. "I was on my way to ask if she wanted to take her experimentation elsewhere."
"Okay, NO MORE about your private life," Ravess groaned.
"Well, I have business with her first," Scarlet insisted. "She has a lot to answer for."
"We still don't have proof it was her," Herb pointed out. What he didn't add was that he still didn't have proof he wasn't still dreaming, but he didn't want to delve too deeply into that fear.
"What did Mim do now?" Ravess sighed in frustration.
"Herb and I had nightmares that lined up a little too well for comfort," Scarlet answered. "And if this turns out to be one of Mim's pranks, I am NOT going to take this sitting down."
"That does sound like something she would do," Rémington said rather dreamily. Then he realized what Scarlet had just informed him of. "Though…you experienced nightmares?"
"Not, like, ordinary nightmares," Herb clarified. "Like…worst-fear nightmares that make you lose your grip on reality."
"Hey," Snipe contributed, "I just had one of those! Not that I was scared or anything…"
"As did I," Ravess huffed. "This is beginning to sound more and more like one of Mim's jokes."
"It's an epidemic!" Grany cried. "I had one too!"
"So did I," Rémington said pensively. "This is Mim's flavor of destruction, indeed…"
That was when Xerxes came zooming around the corner. "HELP!" he cried. "Nightmare! Xerxes have terrible nightmare!"
"And what do you expect me to do about it?" Ravess spat.
"Aw, poor thing!" Scarlet beckoned for Xerxes to come closer, eventually settling in her arms. She scratched the top of his head fondly as he got comfortable. "Now you can just stay there as long as you need."
"The epidemic is spreading!" Grany cried.
"Our need to talk to Mim is now immediate," Ravess declared as she set out, now leading the group toward the laboratory.
"So that's why everyone was acting weird!" Snipe realized. "You all had those nightmares, and you got scared like wimps!"
"This was no ordinary nightmare," Rémington insisted. "And I'm willing to bet you were more frightened than you let on."
Xayide spilled out of a side hallway; Ravess took one look at her harried expression and asked, "Nightmare?"
Xayide would have been reticent to admit it, but Ravess' commanding tone made her unable to lie. "Yes," she stated.
"Worst fear?" Ravess asked.
"I believe it was," Xayide confirmed.
"Mim," Ravess seethed. "Come on. We're getting this settled."
"What does Mim have to do with my nightmare?" Xayide asked. "Though I am detecting that I was not the only victim."
"She's been pranking us by filling our heads with nightmares," Ravess said, matter-of-fact.
"We don't actually have proof of that," Herb pointed out.
"But it's something she'd do!" Grany insisted.
"Come confront her with us," Ravess demanded. "We need strength in numbers."
"Of course," Xayide said before falling in step with the group.
Ravess turned back to the direction at hand only to find Neo blocking her path, hands outstretched and head shaking. "What?" Ravess barked.
Neo just shook her head all the more.
"You DON'T think Mim is responsible?" Ravess realized.
Neo formed a heart shape with her hands, then pointed to herself. Mim likes me, she was saying.
"That doesn't matter!" Ravess sighed. "She likes Rémington, and she TORTURES him!"
"To be fair, that is a unique fixture of how our relationship works," Rémington pointed out.
"The nightmare didn't technically hurt you," Ravess pointed out, not even having to ask if Neo had experienced one. "By Mim's standards, that is a less than harmless joke. We're lucky she didn't decide to prank us in a way that resulted in missing limbs."
Neo shrugged; she still had doubts.
"Why don't you come with us anyway?" Scarlet suggested. "If we all had nightmares, we should stick together." A sudden memory struck her. "Wait a minute. When Mim was giving me a tour of the base earlier, we ran into Peter. He said something about a nightmare then. He seemed…shaken."
From a ventilation duct above, a voice stated, "It seems I was the first victim of this fearsome epidemic."
The entire group flinched, startled. "HOW long have you been spying on us?" Ravess barked at the vent.
The grate popped off, and Peter slid out, landing gracefully on his hands before tipping around to an upright standing position. "Long enough," he answered with a cryptic smile. "So we're going to ask Mim about our night terrors, are we? I suppose I can't pass up the opportunity to shed light on the incident."
"She was WITH me when we found him sleeping," Scarlet realized. "Maybe she didn't do it."
"She has magic!" Ravess reminded Scarlet. "She could have put it on some kind of…time delay!"
"Very possible," Xayide confirmed.
Within a few more paces, the crowd had reached the entrance to the lab. "We'll have to go two at a time to fit the cart capacity," Ravess announced.
"So, uh, which lever was it again?" Herb asked.
"I remember now!" Snipe announced. "Like I could forget after it was burned into my memory! It's THIS one!"
He surged forth, pulling one of the twin levers.
"NO!" Ravess screamed, seizing Snipe's upper arm and hauling him out of the way of the cannons that revealed themselves to let loose a stream of fire at the place where he had been standing only a half-second prior. When the flames died down, she decided, "I'LL be the one to pull the lever."
She stood just out of the line of the moving floor, waiting for Peter and Neo to position themselves before flicking the lever and sliding out of the way. The wall turned around, flipping Peter and Neo into a cart that was sent careening down its track.
"Next," Ravess barked.
Down in the laboratory, Mim and Aghoul had arranged a vast complex of beakers, graduated cylinders, and chemicals across the floor. It had been Mim's idea for the two of them to see if they could use the laboratory to bio-engineer a deadly plague. Having no idea how to work with such science, they had borrowed several of Vexen's notes for a quick primer. Yet, having found no key to disease devastation, they had left the notes scattered and were simply trying to mix different concoctions to record the results.
"Well, that one just turned purple," Mim sighed. "I was hoping for something deadlier."
"Perhaps it is deadly," Aghoul suggested. "It only LOOKS benign. Let me see…"
He tipped the contents of the beaker into his mouth, swishing it over his tongue and smacking his lips as he swallowed. "That was definitely poison," he declared, "but a very mild one. Nowhere near what we were looking for. I say we try again."
By that point, the crowd had finally all filtered into the laboratory, with Ravess and Snipe the last to arrive. Ravess took her place at the front of the crowd again, however, to approach Mim and Aghoul. "MIM!" she barked. "YOU HAVE SOME EXPLAINING TO…" Her eyes traveled over the mess on the floor. "…Do…"
Mim and Aghoul both turned to look up at Ravesss.
"Those are VEXEN'S belongings!" Ravess cried, suddenly enraged about something new. "Are you trying to ruin all of his hard work? Put this back immediately the way you found it!"
"I thought you two were in the midst of a tiff," Aghoul pointed out.
"Well…yes," Ravess admitted, now realizing how foolish it was for her to care so strongly about Vexen's personal space given the situation. "But that doesn't negate the need for order!"
"Order, schmorder," Mim scoffed. "Order is no fun!"
"You know what else is not fun?" Ravess went on. "Plaguing us all with nightmares that delved into our subconsciousnesses to drag our worst fears out in an overly realistic manner!"
"That actually sounds like a ball!" Aghoul observed.
"Of COURSE you'd think that," Ravess huffed. "You were most likely in on the scheme."
"What scheme?" Mim asked. "There had better not be a scheme I don't know about!"
"I'm talking about your scheme to give us all nightmares so you could have a laugh!" Ravess clarified.
"My what?" Mim answered. "That doesn't sound familiar. But it DOES sound like fun! I should come up with some nasty nightmares to give you all later!"
This was met with a crowd-wide "NO!", punctuated by Neo making an X with her arms and throwing it outward repeatedly.
"You're all in a killjoy mood today," Mim huffed as she stood up, dusting off her skirt. "All right, what's going on?"
"I've TOLD you what's going on!" Ravess groaned. "The nightmares! You sent them!"
"I most certainly did no such thing!" Mim argued. "So you're saying you all had nightmares at once?"
There were murmurs of assent from throughout the crowd.
"And they were of your WORST fears?" Mim asked.
More murmurs of assent.
"Did they seem incredibly realistic?" Mim continued.
"Yes, yes, and yes!" Ravess insisted. "Weren't you listening?"
"Hmmm." Mim put a forefinger to her chin. "Were these nightmares in any other way…unusual?"
"Well," Herb chimed in, "my dream played out exactly the way the first few minutes of actually waking up did later. I'm…still not sure I'm awake."
"AHA!" Mim cried. "There's only one answer to this conundrum! And that is…hmm, now wait a minute." She turned back to where Aghoul was pouring a bright pink compound into a beaker full of clear solution. "This isn't your doing, is it?"
"No, it isn't," Aghoul confirmed. "Though I agree with you, it sounds like fun."
"Then that DOES leave only one answer!" Mim turned back to Ravess and the others to confidently announce, "You're being haunted by the Boogeyman!"
It took a while for this answer to sink in. Then it was met with mixed reactions. Peter, Snipe, and Xerxes laughed. Scarlet, Herb, and the Smisses were merely confused. Neo shook her head before pressing her palm to her face. Ravess clenched her fists, yelling in Mim's face, "Do you think this is FUNNY?"
"Nonbelievers, eh?" Mim observed. "You don't think the Boogeyman is real? After all you've been through?"
"She does have a point," Herb realized. "I didn't even think all this inter-world travel or magic was real. Maybe the Boogeyman is too."
"The Boogeyman is kid stuff!" Snipe laughed. "No grown-up believes in the Boogeyman!"
"But he is real," Xayide broke in. "All tales told are real somewhere."
"I refuse to entertain the notion that this is the fault of the Boogeyman," Ravess said sternly. "If this is a lie to cover up the fact that you're pulling pranks…"
"I swear on my black heart!" Mim insisted.
"He's very real," Aghoul backed up as he stood, kicking over the flask he'd been working on in the process and melting a hole through the floor with the contents. "I've run into him before."
"Those who are on formal terms with him know him as Pitch Black," Mim explained. "He was a former guardian of childhood, along with those goody-two-shoes St. Nicholas, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and Sandman."
"That does it," Ravess sighed. "If you're just going to make up stories, I'm leaving." She made an about-face.
Scarlet seized both of Ravess' shoulders to turn her back to Mim. "Hang on," she said. "I wanna see where this is going."
"Pitch's domain was nightmares and fear," Mim went on. "Quite admirable, in fact, if you could count on him for anything. The fact is, you can't. He's absolutely unreasonable to work with."
"And you're such a people person," Ravess said dryly.
"There is still a piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit," Aghoul pointed out. "His victims are all children."
"True, true," Mim mused. "Ever since children stopped believing in him all the worlds over, he's been trying to force his way back into the public eye with his nightmares. Adults simply won't do, since, well, look at how you all reacted when I brought up his name."
"So how are we supposed to defeat the Boogeyman?" Peter asked jokingly. "Sleep with the covers pulled up over our heads? Scare him away with night lights?"
"No, those won't do any good," Mim muttered. "Never have. It'll take strong magic to get him out. I can start work on a spell right away."
"So you'll actually help us?" Scarlet asked. "Like, you're actually going to do something for the good of the team? Because that doesn't really seem like you."
"I'm doing something to spit in Pitch's eye," Mim clarified. "I don't want him moving in on my territory! If anyone tortures your minds, it's going to be ME! Or Ghoulie."
"But since this is rather out of character for him, perhaps we should confirm our suspicions first," Aghoul suggested. "After all, if Mimsie and I are the only two who haven't been affected – "
"Then we'll be where he strikes next!" Mim pounded her fist into her open palm. "That's it! We'll corner him in our dreams!"
"To bed, then?" Aghoul suggested.
"To bed!" Mim declared.
"Er, actually…" Rémington broke in. "I was hoping that you would perhaps share your bed with me next – "
"You can wait!" Mim barked at him. "This is an important matter!"
Mim and Aghoul took off running, then, tipping over much of the glass they'd left around in the process. "AND DON'T ANY OF YOU FALL ASLEEP UNTIL WE SAY SO!" Mim called back.
"I don't believe this," Ravess sighed. "She can't have meant the BOOGEYMAN."
"It appears she's quite serious about this matter," Peter replied.
"Maybe he's actually real," Herb suggested.
Neo shrugged.
"You doubt my testimony?" Xayide brought up.
"Have you ever actually SEEN the Boogeyman?" Ravess asked her.
"I have not," Xayide admitted, "but I have heard of his doings."
"Rumors and children's tales," Ravess grunted.
"But there are those who say I, too, am a children's tale," Xayide argued.
"Maybe we should trust Mim for now," Scarlet suggested.
Xerxes nodded. "Trust Mim! Trust Mim!"
"The very fact that we are reduced to TRUSTING MIM is exactly what casts doubt upon the entire spectacle," Ravess groaned. "But I suppose this is the only way around it. No sleeping, then, until she's figured out if…THE BOOGEYMAN…is causing our nightmares."
"What shall we do in the meantime?" Peter asked. "There must be several good ways to pass the time."
"Good old-fashioned dance party?" Scarlet suggested.
"Now that's exactly my sort of entertainment," Peter agreed.
"It's not my idea of fun," Ravess admitted, "but we should probably humor Mim and all stay together."
"Well, we'll need music," Scarlet suggested. "You're a violinist. Maybe you could back us up?"
"There's nothing she could play on the violin that would be catchy enough to dance to," Rémington stated.
Ravess cocked an eyebrow. "Was that a challenge? You'd be surprised at what I can play. I'll meet you all on the dancefloor."
...
The scroll in Garfield's pocket buzzed. His heart nearly skipped a beat with excitement. He fished it out, reading the text displayed upon it: the address, and the words "IT'S TIME."
With no more subtle way coming to him as to how to direct the group where he wanted, he blurted, "I wanna see what's over HERE," and took off at a jog. He recognized half the address; a sign had informed him that he was already on the right street to begin with.
"Bridgit?" Yuffie called after him. "Bridgit, where are you GOING?"
"FOLLOW THAT BRIDGIT!" Nora laughed.
Yuffie, Nora, Moana, Sadira, Pleakley, and Lilo chased him down the street, following him as he turned down a back alley that closed in a dead end. "Huh," Garfield remarked in faux disappointment as he reached the stone wall. "I thought for sure it would be here."
"You thought WHAT would be here?" Moana asked, panting slightly from the chase.
"I was…looking for something," Garfield answered cryptically, pretending to search the back wall with his hands.
"Uh…Bridgit?" Sadira asked. "Are you okay?"
Now would be the time for the others to show up and deliver a stinging one-liner, Garfield thought. Maybe "You're about to not be." No, that was awkward. It would need work. It was moot, as the others hadn't caught up yet.
"Maybe we should go back to the open," Pleakley suggested. "Not that there's anything wrong with being here, but it's kind of…well…uh…"
"It's creepy," Sadira and Lilo said in unison.
That would have been another good place for a one-liner, such as "I'll show you creepy." But it didn't happen. Garfield wondered how much longer it would take; he could only hold the others in a featureless back alley for so long.
"No, seriously," Sadira asserted. "WHAT did you come back here for?"
Garfield turned back to face them. "Well, I just thought…I was looking for…um…well…"
"Looking to be cornered, perhaps?"
There it was, Garfield thought. Finally. And it was probably one of the less intelligent one-liners Vexen could have picked.
The others all turned immediately to find Vexen and the Huntsman blocking the alleyway's entrance. "You!" Yuffie cried in surprise.
"Rest assured, I am equally disgusted to see you," Vexen sniffed.
Nora immediately slipped into a battle stance; one hand balled into a fist while the other traveled to where the rebuilt Magnhild was strapped at her belt. "What do YOU want?" she snapped.
The Huntsman, in kind, withdrew the huntstaff and pointed it directly at the group. "I should think that would be obvious now."
"I suppose there's no point in pretending there won't be a scuffle," Vexen added, his shield shimmering into place. "I'm well aware none of you intend to come quietly."
"Who ARE these people?" Lilo cried.
Sadira stepped out in front of her and Pleakley, reaching for her purse. "They're not friends, that's for sure," she said. "Lilo, Pleakley, you stay back."
Pleakley nervously bent to wrap his arms around Lilo, which was the best protection he knew how to give.
Yuffie fanned out several shuriken between her fingers. "You're going to move aside," she stated, "or we're going to do this the hard way." By that time, Nora had removed and extended Magnhild while Sadira had opened her purse. Moana simply balled up her fists. Garfield, sensing the pattern, withdrew the sword from his back.
Vexen's mouth curled into a smirk. "The hard way it is."
Nora leapt, swinging Magnhild. It collided hard with Vexen's shield. He froze her feet down with a blast of ice; she smacked the casing with Magnhild and it broke away in chips. A spike of ice jutted upward from the ground beneath Nora; she leapt backward in time to avoid being impaled and broke it down with Magnhild. By that time, she was surrounded by a fence of icy spikes.
Sadira drew her hand upward from her open purse, and a stream of sand she had been carrying with her encircled her wrist. She flung it at the Huntsman's face; it forged into a small blade shape as it flew. The Huntsman batted the projectile aside; Sadira was already directing it to come back around like a boomerang. The Huntsman quickly ran up to Sadira, slapping his hand over her wrist.
The sand fell from midair and scattered on the ground. Sadira realized the Huntsman had attached a black cuff to her arm, and while she had never seen such a device before, it didn't take her long to realize it was inhibiting her magic. "HEY!" she yelled, scrambling with her other hand to try and peel it off to no avail.
The end of the huntstaff collided with Sadira's head, and she went down for the count.
Moana charged, ready to throw a punch wherever it could land. Vexen blocked her at every movement with his shield. Nora, having smashed her way out of the ice cage, slammed Magnhild into the blue metal again, hoping to at least shake him with the impact.
A rain of shuriken flew from Yuffie's hands; the Huntsman cut them out of the sky one at a time, the huntstaff's blade flying. Yuffie then held her hand up in the air; an enormous four-pointed star materialized there, ready for the throw. She sent it spinning. The Huntsman swiped at it but missed; it curved back around, careening toward his back.
Yuffie then felt a surprising blow to the back of the head; Garfield had punched her before surging forth to block the larger star with his blade. The star clanged to the ground.
"BRIDGIT?" Moana cried in surprise.
"Oh, come on," Garfield said in his natural tone, "you didn't know something us up when I led you here?"
"Your voice!" Moana observed.
"Yeah, I'm not a girl," Garfield confirmed, "and my dad's not Russian, either."
"Your dad – "
The mallet went flying through the air. Moana dodged it at the last moment, but a twist of the wrist redirected it to wrap its chain around her. Snatcher pulled her close, staring her directly in the eyes. "Nor am I his father, to begin with," he clarified.
"YOU ALL TRICKED US!" Yuffie cried just before she was encased from head to toe in an iceberg.
"YUFFIE!" Nora swung Magnhild hard at the ice, shattering it to pieces. The shards skittered along the alley like broken glass.
"I should have known to start with you," Vexen muttered.
As Nora turned to charge at him again, he sent the next blast of ice directly at her. She became frozen still.
"NORA!" Yuffie cried just before the Huntsman let a net fly from the huntstaff. The net pinned her to the ground, an electric pulse surging through it and knocking Yuffie out cold.
Moana struggled to break free of Snatcher's chain; he finally let her spin free once Vexen's attention was clear enough to solidify her in ice as well. With the group's warriors taken out, the Huntsman, Vexen, Garfield, and Snatcher turned their attentions to Pleakley and Lilo.
Who could only think to scream as the Huntsman's next net enveloped them, sending them both into unconsciousness with a jolt of energy.
"I am going to be so glad to ditch this stupid sword," Garfield complained as he let the weapon fall to the ground. "You know, if we wanted, we could just axe 'em all now."
"For one, that would remove an important leverage factor," Snatcher reminded him. "Should this deal turn sour and we somehow end up on the losing end, we shall at least want them to know that we will, in fact, deliver on a deal. And in the future, when we do so, we can become much, much more finicky with exact wording."
"And for another?" Garfield asked.
"It would be far less satisfying compared to what Mr. Vexen has in store, if you ask me," Snatcher replied.
"Take them to the grounds," the Huntsman directed.
...
"I think we're ready," Mozenrath told Wuya.
"Good," she replied with a smug smile.
Mozenrath withdrew the compass, not even bothering to look at it. "I'm going to need my hands free for this one," he said as he passed it to Yzma. "You keep track of where we're going."
"Me?" Yzma passed the compass on to Zevon, not giving it a second look. "Zevon, YOU take it. I'm going to be busy myself."
Zevon accepted the compass gladly, stating, "I won't let you down!" He then glanced down at the instrument's face.
In a few moments, Mozenrath, Roman, Yzma, Zevon, Irmaplotz, and Hans grouped up behind Wuya as she fixed her eyes upon the space before her – a perfectly ordinary confection of grass and woods. She raised her hand, letting all see the Triforce mark glowing upon it.
Then she plunged that hand forward, grasping something that wasn't there and tearing.
A rift immediately opened where she had made the cut, giving a small glimpse into the Twilight-colored realm on the other side. She threw down what she had held, grasping onto an edge of the rift and ripping once more to expand it. The rift took over the work on its own, spreading to form a door-sized aperture that could accommodate each of the waiting invaders. Once she was satisfied, Wuya strode through the opening; the others followed with almost no hesitation. The only one wary was Demyx, who gave the woods around him one last look before he disappeared into the Twilight Realm.
Once all had passed into the Twilight, the rift sealed itself, though for a couple hours, it would seem to any who rode through the woods that the view was distorted through the air in that area.
The eight stood before the Twilight palace, observing the guards moving about its perimeter and the citizens conducting business en route to the structure. "Now this is where it gets fun," Wuya remarked, lighting up one hand with lime-colored energy.
By the time the other Twili realized there were hostiles in their midst, it was already too late.
A page rushed into the dark blue throne room of Selenos and Soleanna. "Your highnesses!" he cried, making sure the gateway fell shut behind him before charging up the stairs. "Invaders! They are slaughtering – "
Before he could finish, the gateway behind him exploded in a burst of blue and green, throwing him to the side of the stairway. Selenos quickly stood – there was only one throne in the room, as had been reconstructed when it was apparent Midna would assume it. Soleanna was already standing at his side. She shifted just barely in time to avoid a flying dart that emerged from the cloud of dust left by the blown-up stone.
Mozenrath and Wuya strode into the room together, the others bringing up the rear. "Well, well," Mozenrath remarked. "The royals have a sense of taste in their interior decorating."
"I always thought the dark look was just something we conqueror types went for," Wuya said with a shrug.
"Well, we don't know these AREN'T the conqueror types," Mozenrath responded. He looked Selenos dead in the eye and smiled. "Go ahead and tell me how low you've stooped to win this throne. The more powerful you think you are, the more fun it will be for me to rip away your pride."
Soleanna stepped protectively out front of her husband. "Leave now," she warned, building a crackling sphere of Twilight magic in between her hands.
"Is that supposed to scare me?" Mozenrath taunted, mockingly putting the back of his hand to his head. "Wuya, she's about to obliterate me in one blow! What a terrible way to go!"
"I guess we came all this way for nothing," Wuya replied, sounding almost bored.
Soleanna let her attack fly; Mozenrath backhanded it into the wall, his gauntlet surging with magic. The throne room shook from the impact. "That was pitiful," he told the queen. "If I were you, I would have done something more like this."
He made a sweeping motion outward with his arm, letting magic arc outward and fling toward Soleanna. She caught the arc in her bare hands; there was a sound of sizzling. She shoved Mozenrath's own magic back toward him in one thrust.
And failed to notice the dark blue chains that had wrapped around her ankles.
Wuya deflected the oncoming magic blast while Mozenrath yanked at the chains, pulling Soleanna down to the floor. "Keep her down," Mozenrath growled as he reeled her closer to the group.
Yzma and Demyx obediently hovered over her, pointing one dart and the point of the sitar's tip at her chest.
"My turn," Wuya said as she squared up before Selenos.
Selenos wasted no energy; a host of beams of Twilight energy formed themselves like tiny darts in the air, all targeting Wuya. She knew she could easily block them all in one go the way she had done with the reflected magic Soleanna had thrown, but found it ultimately more entertaining to let him launch them and parry them one by one, moving almost more rapidly than the eye could see, a magic-sheathed fist or ankle bouncing each dart off course. The walls and the floor earned a plethora of pockmarks from where the attacks landed.
Selenos was now truly afraid, backing up to the far wall. Wuya could sense his fear, and it fed her satisfaction. Firing up the flames beneath her feet, she rocketed through the air toward him, getting up close to his face in the blink of an eye. She held a glowing fist up to his neck; he could feel burning heat emanating from it. "We just have one question," she informed him. "Answer it, and we'll consider letting one of you live."
"I…" Selenos was aware that whatever question required torture to obtain the answer was one that was dangerous to entertain. "I do not…fear you…"
"You're a bad liar," Wuya said with a grin. "Don't worry. This is an easy question. Where is the Fused Shadow?"
He had known it would be a loaded question. "Kill me," he said hoarsely. "I would sooner die than let you know."
"How admirable," Wuya responded calmly. Without looking back over her shoulder, she called back, "Mozenrath, what do you think?"
"Obviously, any good king would rather die than hand over a highly destructive magical force to invaders," Mozenrath stated, just as calm. "That was just to be expected. No one can blame you for wanting to give yourself up to protect that secret. But would you do the same if it was HER life on the line?"
He turned to Demyx. "Drown her."
Demyx, excited to be addressed as though he were valuable, plucked the strings of the sitar to form an eerie tune. Yzma scuttled back as Soleanna was enveloped in a bubble filled with water, levitating up off the floor. Soleanna struggled, but found herself unable to gain the traction to leave the bubble; she was forced instead to hold her breath.
"Now talk," Mozenrath ordered.
Wuya edged her burning hand closer to Selenos' skin, reminding him that it was now both him and Soleanna who would suffer if she didn't get an answer. The finger of her free hand traced down his face seductively.
No doubt it was to unnerve him, he thought. "The Fused Shadow," he answered, "is across the realm, buried in – "
Wuya slammed her burning hand against his chest; Selenos screamed in absolute agony as the force careened through his body. "I like liars," she said as she waggled the finger of the opposite hand – the one she'd used to make the contact and read his thoughts – in his face. "But not when they're lying to me."
"Um, question," Demyx asked. "If you could have just read that from him the whole time, why am I torturing her?"
"For fun," Roman clarified.
"So it's with the princess," Wuya remarked, having gotten that far in her exploration of Selenos' mind. "Good to know. If she were here instead of you, we might actually be having problems. Now, let's see where she's hiding – "
In abject desperation, Selenos emitted the strongest burst of Twilight energy he could. Wuya was thrown back across the room and down the stairs. Inspired by what her husband had done, Soleanna built up a blast of her own, using it to disintegrate Demyx's bubble in a massive explosion. She dropped to the floor, gasping heavily for breath.
Yzma rushed to Wuya, propping her up from behind so she could sit and look Selenos in the eye. "Stubborn," Wuya grunted.
"I warned you to leave," Selenos insisted, building a massive orb of Twilight magic in each hand.
"Help me up now," Wuya hissed through gritted teeth. Yzma pulled Wuya to her feet as the latter got her bearings.
Selenos bowled both orbs toward Wuya. Now it was Irmaplotz who stepped in, kicking one orb back to Selenos like a soccer ball and using the same foot, glowing with magic, to crush the other. Both attacks from Selenos had been packed with more power than she was ready for. "That hurt," she grunted.
"DOWN!" Wuya commanded, and Irmaplotz hit the dirt. Wuya sent out a beam that rocketed into Selenos, lifted him, and pinned him against the ceiling.
"NO!" Soleanna cried, scrambling to her feet only to find the barrel of the Cudgel pressed against her temple.
"I wouldn't, Queenie," Roman said smoothly.
She did anyway, slamming her fist and a ball of magic into Roman's stomach; as he doubled over, Soleanna volleyed a stream of arrow-shaped projectiles at Wuya. Mozenrath put up a half-dome of blue in their path; they all stuck into the azure energy like pins in rubber before dissipating.
Roman smacked the Cudgel's staff hard into Soleanna's stomach, sending her reeling.
"WHERE IS SHE?" Wuya seethed.
"ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE REALM!" Selenos insisted.
"I don't think you're telling the TRUTH!" Wuya exclaimed as she pushed back harder with the beam.
Soleanna righted herself, attempting to make a run at Wuya. Demyx was faster, plucking the notes that caused jets of water to slam her against the side wall; the blow was enough to hold her still when she fell.
Everyone's attention was suddenly caught by a cry of "ENOUGH! I WILL TELL YOU!"
It hadn't come from Selenos. It hadn't come from Soleanna. It had come from the page, who stumbled up into the throne room with bruises aplenty. "Do not kill them," he begged. "Please. Princess Midna left this world altogether with strangers. The Fused Shadow is no longer in the Twilight Realm."
"Nonsense," Yzma snapped. "Zevon, show him the compass."
"That's the thing," Zevon replied. He held out the compass to reveal that its needle was spinning uselessly round and round. "It's been doing this ever since we got here. Which is weird, because it wasn't malfunctionizing when we were in Hyrule…"
Wuya gasped, losing her concentration and letting Selenos fall to the floor, where he lay unmoving. "She's in HYRULE?" she barked. "We came all this way for NOTHING?"
"We probably should have looked at that thing earlier," Roman remarked casually.
Wuya clenched both fists hard, nails digging into palms, before suddenly relaxing. "No matter," she said smoothly. "Either way, I collected the power I needed to destroy Ganondorf. The only time wasted was on this side excursion."
Drawing back the marked fist, she punched the air this time, leaving a hole through which sunlight spilled. It rapidly expanded into another door. "Leave them," she commanded before walking back into Hyrule.
No longer caring whether Selenos and Soleanna were alive or dead, Mozenrath, Irmaplotz, Yzma, Hans, Demyx, and Roman rushed after her. Once again, the wound between the realms healed, leaving a distortion in its wake.
"See?" Zevon held out the compass. "Now it's pointing in a direction!"
Wuya stalked toward him to give the instrument a look. "So it is," she stated. "Now all we need to do is follow it." She sighed. "Not that I'm looking forward to chasing this girl halfway around the world with only a general direction to mark the way…"
"Actually," Mozenrath broke in, "why don't we start with a sure thing? We can track down her highness later. In the meantime, we have all the tools we need to bring down Ganondorf, and we don't need a compass to tell us where he is."
"Really?" Wuya was taken aback. "You want us to go for Ganondorf before the Fused Shadow."
"Why not?" Mozenrath said with a shrug.
"Because from the beginning," Wuya reminded him, "you were the one scolding me for chasing my personal priorities instead of what we came for."
It all came back to memories of Aladdin, of wanting to destroy him by Mozenrath's own hand. To a conclusion triggered by watching Roman beat Mercury to a pulp. It hadn't made logical sense before, but now it was all falling into place. "What are we about," he stated, "if not having our ranginak and eating it too?"
"Now this is going to be delicious," Wuya remarked, gesturing to create a Corridor of Darkness back to Castle Town.
Mozenrath held up his right hand. "Wait," he told her. "Our success in Ordon is due to the fact that we went in with a plan. I'm not walking into this one without a plan."
"Tell me you already have an idea," Wuya replied.
"As a matter of fact," Mozenrath admitted, "I do."
...
The others in the computer room of Radiant Garden were pleasantly surprised to hear Jumba, starting at a mutter and growing into a triumphant cry, say, "Yes…is almost…yes, there is! A-HAAAA! You have not gotten the best of ME!"
"Did ya figure it out?" Mickey asked excitedly.
"I most certainly have!" Jumba announced proudly. "Am entering password now."
With a few clicks of the keys, he had done his job. "There," he stated. "Should no longer have castle full of deadly weapons. Whoever put password into place is foul villain indeed. Chose word that is extremely offensive curse in Tantalog."
"Now we can go home!" Donald cried.
"Well, yeah," Goofy replied, "but, Donald, I'm startin' to wonder if…maybe we SHOULDN'T go home. Or at least not for longer than a little visit."
"WHY NOT?" Donald cried.
That was when Jaune and Kairi re-entered the room. "How's it going?" Kairi asked.
"Have successfully cracked code and restored order!" Jumba stated. "You are welcome!"
"Thank you," Kairi said sincerely.
"An interesting choice for your fingernails," Ienzo observed, looking over Kairi's pink and blue polish. "It's a good look."
"And thank you!" Kairi told him, beaming. "Though it was all Jaune's work. He's the artist."
"You two work well together," Ienzo observed.
"I'm glad my brother approves," Kairi replied.
"So," Jaune asked Mickey, "glad you get to go home now?"
"I wanna hear Goofy out first," Mickey admitted.
"Well, it just sounds like things are gettin' real complicated here," Goofy stated. "Xehanort's still out there, Maleficent's still out there, and now we all gotta deal with this Mozenrath guy. If people are gatherin' here to put their heads together and figure out how to stop it, we gotta help too, don't'cha think?"
"Why didn't I know this would end with you dragging me into another adventure?" Donald sighed, arms crossed.
"Gosh, I gotta admit Goofy's right," Mickey stated. "We'll need to check back in with Minnie and Daisy, but we can't just sit back while there's trouble brewin'!"
"If you don't want to stay," Kairi told Donald, "you don't have to. There are already a lot of us working together, and you must miss home."
"Aw, phooey," Donald sighed, "I couldn't turn my back on this if I wanted."
"The more, the merrier," Jaune decided.
That was when Snatcher's scroll began to vibrate.
"What's that?" Kairi asked.
"Nikolai's phone," Ienzo answered. "Or, more accurately, his scroll. He made it very clear that if he wasn't here to answer it, one of us should until he can return."
After a quick shake of her hand to make sure her polish was dry, Kairi grabbed for the scroll, answering it and holding it to her ear. "Nikolai Pike's phone," she answered. "He isn't here to answer it right now, but I'm sure he'll be back soon!"
The voice that replied sent chills throughout Kairi's entire body. "Once again, Kairi, you haven't failed to prove your naïvete," Vexen stated. "I must inform you that not a single word you said was correct."