While Mim never had seen the appeal in shopping for items of beautification, she took a special joy in running errands to pick up necessities. She had selected Twilight Town as the location of the day in which to carry out her quest for the essentials of potions that she, Yzma, and Zevon wished to brew (though she would of course "forget" a few key items on the lists Yzma and Zevon had sent her with). The sun was low in the sky there, making it less intrusive on the eyes than a high noon sun.
She wore a hooded cape of deep purple as she moved from shop to shop; it didn't completely obscure her face, but it did somehow feel more fitting to wear something that blurred her identity just a little bit while she was trying to blend into ordinary society. So far, she had been able to acquire most of the items she needed, with a few extra stops at some shops for fun. A vegetable stand marked her next target.
She crept up behind the woman stocking the shelves, waiting there for a few seconds in total silence before crying out "EXCUSE me!"
The vendor jumped, spinning around. "Can I help – "
"I've been trying to get your attention for the past minute!" Mim huffed. "You just kept on going with your head in the clouds! I swear, this generation's work ethic is abominable!"
She really did love shopping.
"I am SO sorry," the woman said hastily. "What can I help you with?"
Mim selected an onion. "Hmm," she muttered, looking at the sign above its shelf. "Ten munny, is it? The stand on the other side of town usually sells them for five. Of course, you'll price-match that for me."
"I'm sorry," the vendor said sincerely, "but we don't price-match competitors." She thought to herself that five munny was a strange margin to sell onions at anyway; how was anyone to make a profit that way?
"You DON'T!" Mim growled. "You're about two steps away from permanently losing my business!" As she gripped the onion, she infused it with a negative energy; she placed it back down on the stand as it became riddled with rot. "And look at that! You're selling diseased vegetables! I ought to report you for violation of health codes!"
"I must have missed that as I was stocking," the vendor said almost breathlessly.
"For such poor service," Mim declared, "if I don't get my onions for anything less than free, I'll never shop here again."
The vendor seriously considered it. But she knew that if she gave away too much of her stock for free, her profit margins would fall short, and she might not have enough to purchase her own dinner one of the nights in the coming month. "I'm sorry," she insisted, "but I can't give you free produce."
"Then you can kiss my business goodbye!" Mim huffed, turning on a heel to storm out.
She kept a close eye. As the vendor, now baffled and frustrated, returned to sorting the spinach, Mim spirited several onions as well as a miscellany of other vegetables into her purse. She then departed to find the last few precious items on the list. As she was making good time, she figured she might as well pick up materials for dinner here. She was in the mood for chicken – or, more accurately, to vandalize packages of raw chicken so they dripped on everything else she passed in the shop.
Not too far away, Sora, Ruby, Papyrus, Stork, Jasmine, Katara, Kazuichi, and Rapunzel had entered town, having been told by the hourglass that this was Mim's current location. Not knowing where to look, they let their instincts guide them. Of course, Kazuichi and Ruby's instincts guided them right to the counter of the candy shop.
"Hi there!" the woman behind the counter greeted. "Listen, I know this sounds weird, but can I interest you in a giant bag of assorted fruit gummies for thirty munny?" She placed said bag on the counter.
"CAN YOU?" Ruby replied, eyes sparkling.
"HELL YEAH, YOU CAN!" Kazuichi punctuated.
Sora traded over the required cash. Ruby and Kazuichi immediately took possession of the bag, digging through it for gems.
"I'm looking for the strawberry ones," Ruby announced.
"Why?" Kazuichi asked her. "Everyone knows what you do with fruit gummies. You just pick 'em all up like this – " He scooped up a colorful handful of variegated and non-complementary flavors. "And then you – " He shoved the handful into his mouth. "An' it aww bwends togedder," he said around the mouthful.
Ruby stared at him as though he'd just punched a toddler. Then, after seething the words "You heathen," she continued to dig for strawberry gummies.
"How'd you end up with such a huge bag of gummies already ready for us?" Sora asked the candy vendor.
The response began with a sigh. "I had the weirdest customer," she explained. "It's…you don't need to hear about it."
"It sounds like you need to vent," Rapunzel encouraged.
"I try not to make a habit out of it," the vendor replied, "but…okay. So this woman comes up to the counter and asks me to put together that bag. I got all excited because it was such a huge sale. She got really picky with how many gummies of each flavor she wanted, and she had me count them out. But I thought that was fine, since she was going to pay thirty munny for it. I got it all put together and wrapped up, and she said 'Thank you.' I said 'No problem.' She started just YELLING at me about how I should've said 'You're welcome' instead, and how I didn't smile enough, and that meant I was rude to elderly people, and then she screamed at me that she was never shopping here again and just left without the bag."
"That sounds awful," Jasmine commented.
"It actually sounds like your typical retail experience," Stork added. "So, basically, awful."
"I just don't get when people are that mean," Sora sighed. All of a sudden, it clicked. "Wait a minute! Which way did she go?"
"Please don't tell her I complained," the vendor begged.
"We won't," Sora promised. "That just sounds like someone we've been looking for!"
Mim exited the grocery store, tucking away her spoils in her purse. This time, she'd actually been able to break out her supply of fraudulent coupons.
"MIM!"
She instinctively turned to hear the call of her name. When she spotted Sora and his friends barging down the street toward her, her first instinct was not to panic or even to flee in the name of a sensible course of action. It was to wonder if perhaps, just this once, she could wreak a little mayhem upon these constant nuisances before she had to part ways from them. She could already tell from Sora's body language and absence of weapon that he wasn't seeking a fight, at least not right away. No, he'd been looking for her, and Mim wanted to know why. Perhaps it was something she could turn to her advantage.
The eight skidded to a halt before Mim, who gave them a haughty look. "Yes?" she asked. "What do you want?"
It was surreal. This woman had been the enemy of these eight for weeks on end now, perpetrating crimes they found unforgivable. They had made up a fighting force tough enough to take her on and probably bring her into custody in an eight-on-one fight. Every time before this that they had clashed, it had come to blows in some fashion. Here they were now, facing each other down in the middle of the street, unarmed, Mim asking what the Cinnamons wanted, and the Cinnamons actually ready with an answer.
"We wanna talk to you," Sora informed her.
"I don't buy it," Mim told him as she folded her arms. "What could you want to talk to me about, hmm?"
"It's important," Sora insisted. "We wanna make a trade. There's something only you can help us get, and we need it."
"Why would I ever help you?" Mim retorted.
"She has a point," Stork muttered in Sora's ear. "She's going to turn this around on us somehow."
Sora ignored him. He felt he still had to try. "Because we can help you," he responded.
Rapunzel chose that moment to step forward. "I'm the trade," she explained. "If you help my friends get what they need…I'll go willingly with you. For good."
Mim saw right through the charade. There was no way they were going to let one of their own step into the WHAM ARMY's clutches. They were too steeped in the belief in the power of friendship to ever commit such an act. No, more likely they were going to feint, then retrieve Rapunzel at some point. Furthermore, now that the WHAM ARMY had hold of the Celestial Brush, they no longer needed Rapunzel. Mim, however, did not say any of this. These people wanted something from her. They were desperate. That meant they were exploitable. They also probably believed they had the upper hand, which would make them cocky. All but the paranoid one who had whispered into Sora's ear, of course, but he would be easy enough to deal with.
Of course, there was the possibility that what they wanted was to capture one of the WHAM ARMY: namely Mim herself. Somehow, though, she doubted that was the case. Their expressions spoke of a different sort of need.
"Let's take this somewhere we can sit down," Mim suggested. "Then I'll hear out the rest of your terms."
They were confident they had her in a position to bargain.
She already had a plan to bring them down.
The nine arranged around a table in a nearby tea shop. A waiter arrived, bearing a hot teapot, nine cups, and dishes of sugar and cream. "Black tea for all of you?" they asked.
"Of course," Mim replied. "Nice and bitter."
"Okay," the waiter said as they lay down the dishes, "but I gave you all extra sugar just in case." They fired off a wink toward Sora, already having pegged him as the type to sweeten his tea.
Mim was the first to take her teapot, pouring the hot drink into her cup. "Now, what could bring a bunch like you to bargain with me?" she asked. "Certainly you know who I am and what I'm capable of."
"We do," Stork confirmed. "Ohhh, believe me, we do."
"Do you, really?" Mim countered. "After all, there's only one thing stopping me from doing this to you at this very moment."
She snapped her fingers.
Another waiter had been carrying a pot of hot green tea to a table across the shop. The pot immediately exploded at Mim's snap. Burning hot liquid drenched the waiter, drawing screams of agony from him as it seeped through his clothing.
The waiter who had brought Mim and the Cinnamons their order, now unburdened by a tray, rushed to him, screaming, "OH MY GOSH! ARE YOU – "
"STAY BACK!" the man urged them. "THERE'S GLASS EVERYWHERE!" Including digging into his skin at points spread across his body.
The Cinnamons stared in horror at the unfolding scene; the victim was ushered away and urged to take the rest of the day off to heal. The eight friends tried to seem unperturbed as they turned back to Mim, but she could tell they were, in fact, quite unnerved.
"And that thing," she clarified, "is curiosity." She folded her hands, leaning across the table. "What do you need from me so badly that you're willing to trade one of your own?"
They paused, feeling Sora made the best spokesperson and waiting for him to work up the nerve to make his demand. Finally, he found his voice. "We want the Book of Prophecies," he explained. "We know Merlin knows where it is, and if there's one person who knows everything Merlin knows, it's you."
Mim's mind was a cyclone. Her first, immediate thought was how she had no idea where the Book of Prophecies even was. Building upon that, she figured the best play was to pretend she did and try to talk the Cinnamons into a corner, seeing just how much they were willing to give up in exchange for it.
But then the picture became clearer. She had heard of the Book of Prophecies, of course, and knew of the power it contained. One could use it to write an ideal future for oneself. Anything you wished could become reality so long as you abided by the rules. If Mim remembered correctly, the only real catch was that you had to write strictly futures and had no ability to change the past. Were that book in the WHAM ARMY's possession, it would certainly be valuable. It might have seemed redundant on top of the spell Mozenrath was concocting, but it would still have its uses. Gaps would need to be filled. Backup plans were always nice to have. It was a true pity, then, that Mim didn't know its location.
Or, rather, that she hadn't until that very day. For it had never occurred to her that Merlin was aware of its location. She truly should have seen it sooner. She had tracked him to every world he visited frequently, documenting his actions and his deeds on all of them so that she could work at undoing them – with variable success. There was one world, however, to which she always seemed to be able to follow him no further than knowing he had reached it. He had made an art out of vanishing every time he visited, taking extra care that where he went, Mim could not follow. It had frustrated her to no end, but she had convinced herself that whatever he was doing there, it couldn't be something she had any interest in. This, of course, was a mantra she had developed in order to prevent herself from becoming overheated with frustration after years of denial.
Merlin guarded the location of a dangerous magical item, whose whereabouts were secret. Merlin also routinely visited a world in which he did something unknown. The pieces fit together perfectly. Now Mim did in fact know where the book was, and if Merlin's pattern indicated anything, she had a radius of about ten major cities in which it must be located.
She had been silent for far too long, and she knew it. She threw in a "Hmmm" to make it look as though she were considering the offer (which, in a way, she was). To prolong her time to think, she passed the teapot directly to Sora, demanding, "Pour a cup." Sora did so, passing on the pot from there, and it made the rounds of the table.
The world where Merlin kept the book was well-guarded, and Mim knew it. Amaterasu and Hades had their favorite worlds, and this one happened to be the preferred stomping ground of yet another deity, one that posed a definite problem. Mim knew it would be a long shot to consider approaching the Book of Prophecies without attracting that one's attention. The WHAM ARMY had already slain one god; could they manage another?
Perhaps they didn't need such strong numbers this time. Mim had already put a plan in motion to capture the eight who sat before her, previously hoping to turn them over to Mozenrath and bid for some gruesome playtime in the torture chamber before they were extinguished. Now the strategy remained the same, but with an alternate outcome. They could help her. They had all demonstrated their strength in battle. If their powers were combined with those of the WHAM ARMY, they might all stand a chance.
"All right," Mim relented. "I'll do it. You give us the girl, and I'll take you to the book. Simple as that. Though now I wonder: why do you even want it?"
"That's classified information," Stork said immediately.
All but Stork were making use of the sugar and cream to dose their teacups. Ruby noticed Kazuichi's hand swipe over his cup; a small mass of green bobbed up and down in the tea. "Did you just put a gummy in your tea?" she whispered to him.
"I don't like tea!" he whispered back. "I thought this might make it taste better!"
Ruby considered this for a moment before putting out her hand and saying, "Pass me a strawberry one."
"So you won't tell me why you want the book, then," Mim said sternly. "Why should I help you get it? Maybe you're using it to wipe out my entire organization! What about that, hmmm?" She was toying with them now. She had every intention of using them as a stepladder to climb to the book herself. Or perhaps Mozenrath should be the one to get that honor.
"We don't WIPE PEOPLE OUT," Katara insisted. "You're disgusting and horrible, but you still deserve to live."
"Oh, come now," Mim retorted, "even I know I don't deserve to live. I just enjoy living, so I'm going to keep doing it. Now out with the reason you want that book."
"We won't tell you," Jasmine insisted.
"I know what that means," Mim informed her. "It means if I knew what you were up to, I'd say no."
"ALL RIGHT!" Papyrus broke in. "WE'LL TELL YOU!"
The other Cinnamons' hearts nearly stopped.
"WHILE WE WERE AWAY TRYING TO STOP YOU FROM…DOING WHAT YOU DID IN THE LAST WORLD," Papyrus explained, "MALEFICENT CAUSED A LOT OF DAMAGE TO RADIANT GARDEN. WE'RE JUST GOING TO FIX IT UP. THEN WE'RE PUTTING THE BOOK RIGHT BACK WHERE WE FOUND IT AFTER EVERYONE IS OKAY. WE KNOW USING THE BOOK OF PROPHECIES TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS IS AN INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS IDEA. WE JUST NEED TO CLEAN UP ONE MESS."
"And you're willing to trade your friend to us permanently in order to do such a thing?" Mim's brow raised; she took a drink of her tea. Still too sweet. They always brewed it that way in public restaurants.
"People in Radiant Garden are suffering," Rapunzel asserted. "They're even DYING because of Maleficent. We need to set things right. I'm willing to take one for the team."
"Very well," Mim said. "I'll show you where the book is on two conditions. One is that you turn over the girl. The other is that you don't use the book against us!"
Stork wondered what Mim could even do to retaliate if they used the book to subdue her – an outcome that was looking more and more tempting by the minute. No, they wouldn't kill Mozenrath and his flunkies, but they could remove their magic and store them in secure dungeon cells.
"Deal!" Sora cried.
"Then I'll bring you right to it," Mim vowed. "I won't even try to harm you. I know when to take the diplomatic route, after all." She raised her teacup. "A toast! To getting what we want without making it all nasty and violent!"
Sora, Ruby, Papyrus, Kazuichi, and Rapunzel lifted their cups at the same time.
"DON'T!" Stork cried; Jasmine and Katara left their cups firmly where they sat.
Stork's warning was in vain; the other five had already taken drinks. As Ruby set her cup down, she remarked, "That's still gross."
"THEN WHY DID YOU DRINK IT?" Stork asked in a panic.
"She made an alliance toast!" Ruby retorted. "If she's agreeing to our terms, then we should at least drink the tea!"
"Not drinking it woulda been kinda rude," Kazuichi agreed. "Not that I usually think she deserves us being polite, but Ruby said it. She's gonna play nice with us."
"Nonononono," Stork continued, "you all don't understand. She poisoned that tea. The exploding teapot was the diversion. That was to get us all to look away while she slipped something into the pot. Now she has five of us exactly where she wants us, and that place is DEAD!"
"We're fine," Rapunzel assured him. "None of us is dead. Anyway, Mim wouldn't poison me. I'm part of the deal, remember?"
"I can honestly say I didn't do a single thing to that pot," Mim insisted. "You're just as rude as every single shopkeeper in this town! Keep talking to me like that and I'll change my mind!"
Stork shot a desperate glance to Jasmine; she shrugged. His gaze moved to Katara; she returned a look of confusion. All three relaxed slightly, though they didn't dare touch their teacups.
"It's really such a noble thing that you're doing for Radiant Garden," Mim went on, her eyes now sparkling. "And good thing it turned out to be only that. See, here I was thinking you were looking for the Book of Prophecies so you could bring back Amaterasu. And we DEFINITELY can't have that."
Sora laughed nervously. "We're definitely not – "
"She knows," Katara said softly, having picked up on Mim's tone.
"Of course I know," Mim said with a frightening grin. "That's why I took the liberty of making a few adjustments to our deal. And by the way, I may not have done anything to the pot, but the sugar? Now that's a different story."
Right on cue, Sora, Ruby, Papyrus, Kazuichi, and Rapunzel exploded into puffs of pink smoke. Yzma's transformation potions really did have such practical applications, and Mim had a feeling that one would come in handy that day. When the smoke cleared, five spiders scuttled frantically over the tabletop.
Jasmine, Katara, and Stork hurriedly reached out to try and collect their transfigured friends, but Mim was faster, surrounding each of the spiders in a glittering aura and levitating them into a large jar she had produced from her purse. The now arachnid forms of Sora, Ruby, Papyrus, Kazuichi, and Rapunzel were sealed inside, the lid twisted tight.
Mim had herself a hearty laugh at that. "Well, look at that!" she cackled. "Five nasty little nuisances out of the way and all to myself!" She gave the jar a hard shake.
"LET THEM GO NOW," Katara demanded, slamming her hands on the table and pushing herself into a standing position. A quick assessment of the table reminded her that she had a lot of hot tea to use at her disposal as weaponry.
"Ah, ah, ah!" Mim warned. "Not so fast!" She shook the jar again. "I have all your little friends! If you so much as think about attacking me, they all go splat!"
Stork and Jasmine cringed. Katara slowly sat back down.
"Now we do things MY way," Mim announced. "We're going after that book, all right. But not so YOU can have it. You're going to help US get it!" She fixed her gaze on the jar. "That means you too, you nasty little creatures!"
"We'll never help you," Jasmine insisted.
"Then I guess your friends will have to die," Mim said casually.
"NO!" Jasmine cried. "I…I changed my mind. We'll do what you say."
"Are you still trying to think of a way to double-cross me?" Mim accused. "Even after that worked out so well for you the first time?" She giggled with glee, drawing her scroll from her purse. "Now the tables are turning, and it's about to get worse for you!" She set down the jar in order to send a text. "I'm inviting company!"
Stork, Jasmine, and Katara exchanged worried looks. They knew exactly who Mim was communicating with. It lay heavily on them that they should have been more outspoken about their reservations about turning to Mim to seek the Book of Prophecies. None of them had wanted to go this far; it was the now captured other five that had come up with the idea. But would that have stopped them, or sent the five of them on this mission to be captured with no one left to stand up for them? Perhaps it no longer mattered that Stork, Jasmine, and Katara had protested this scheme. All that mattered now was getting their friends out of it.
Their fears were confirmed when Mozenrath barged through the door of the shop, followed closely by the Huntsman, Snatcher, Roman, Aghoul, Yzma, and Wuya. "Mim," he sighed, "there had better be a very good reason you called us all down to a tea shop in the middle of – "
That was when his eyes fell upon Jasmine. They kept traveling over Stork and Katara.
He gave a triumphant laugh at first. "You've managed to lure out the weakest of the pack. I must admit, Mim, I am impressed."
"That's not all!" Mim held up the jar. "Guess what these are!"
"YOU DIDN'T!" Wuya cried.
"TELL me one of those is Red," Roman laughed.
"Little red, the talking skeleton, the hot one with the sharp teeth, the girl you were all after for her magic hair…" Mim paused for effect. "And the spiky-haired one with the key."
Mozenrath had already made his way to the other side of the table to loom over Jasmine. "Well, well, princess," he remarked, "it's been a while since we've been in this situation, hasn't it? You've been getting used to having the upper hand." He reached out with his right hand, tilting her chin so that she was forced to look up into his eyes; his thumb rested on her cheek. "I wonder if Aladdin regrets letting you run off to have adventures on your own. It certainly hasn't panned out for either of you."
Jasmine batted Mozenrath's arm away. "Don't touch me," she seethed.
In a flash, Katara and Stork flanked her. "Put another hand on her and I will break it," Stork threatened.
"Your pet frog is so cute," Mozenrath continued, still staring directly at Jasmine. "He thinks he can actually lay a finger on me without suffering the full extent of my powers."
Stork tried to keep up his appearance of determination, but he knew Mozenrath had him there. Mozenrath had magic. Stork did not. The ones who had the best hope of countering him were all locked up inside the jar. Katara was the only one left standing who wielded a power Stork considered superhuman, but waterbending seemed to work best whenever the team had brought their excitable member with the mullet and the sitar, and that one was conspicuously absent. No water magic to redirect this time.
A fact Katara herself was painfully aware of.
"We never really have had a chance to just talk, have we?" Mozenrath realized. "And so much has happened to both of us. I've made friends…you've made bad decisions."
"There's nothing we need to talk about," Jasmine seethed.
"Leave her alone!" Katara snapped. "You didn't come here for her!"
"True, though she does make an excellent bonus," Aghoul commented.
Stork knew very well he couldn't hope to break Aghoul's hand either.
"Why are we here, exactly?" Snatcher inquired. "It certainly isn't to take tea with our adversaries."
"It isn't?" Yzma said, sincerely confused. Ever since Mim had mentioned a tea shop, she'd been hoping for a nice hot cup to relax with.
Mim rose from her seat. "These nuisances have given me some very valuable information," she explained. "They wanted my help to find the Book of Prophecies. And thanks to them, I now know where it is."
"You know the location of the Book of Prophecies," Mozenrath repeated. "Now that could change the game. True, we already have a plan in place that could negate the need for the book…oh, who am I kidding? There's no such thing as too many magical failsafes. Not to mention dominating the worlds combined WITH being able to alter the future to our whims would be an even more favorable outcome."
"Wait," Katara brought up, "this doesn't make any sense. You didn't know where the Book of Prophecies was either? We didn't know where it was! How could WE tell YOU where it is?"
"All you had to say was that Merlin knew where it was," Mim informed her, "and the rest of the pieces fell into place. There's only one world Merlin visits where I don't know exactly what he does. That must be the place!"
"That's sharp, for you," Mozenrath commented.
"Now, here's the problem," Mim explained. "That world is a favorite of the goddess Eris. She isn't going to just let us walk in and take the book for ourselves. She's going to want it where she can get to it whenever she wants. If we show up and make that difficult, she's going to make things difficult for us right back."
"So we rally the troops," Mozenrath decided. "We've already killed one goddess. After Amaterasu, Eris should be nothing."
"We won't even need that much," Mim informed him, holding up the jar. "All we need to do is let out one or two of THEM. You've seen their powers! THEY can do the heavy lifting for us!"
"Now, that's genius I didn't expect from you," Wuya told Mim.
"Not to mention we'll have these three with us to chip in," Mim added. "Because if they don't…SPLAT."
"That's…not such a good idea," Stork broke in.
"Careful," Mim warned him, balancing the jar on one finger.
"Do you really want the rest of Radiant Garden coming to hunt you down?" Stork asked, knowing it was a gamble. "Once they figure out the deal went sour, they'll bring the whole army. You'll be finished."
"True, true…" Mozenrath mused.
"Not true, in fact," Snatcher interrupted. "Lies. Perhaps body language works differently among whatever subhuman creature he is, but if not, he's CLEARLY telling tales to make us think twice. His stance was a dead giveaway."
"Not to mention the obvious angle they were going for," Mozenrath commented. "They showed up looking for the Book of Prophecies so soon after Amaterasu died. I wonder what they could have possibly wanted to do with that book. They couldn't have wanted to resurrect her, now, could they? Because that would violate all known natural laws and cause a devastating ripple effect on the future. They would have been warned to stay away from that book at all costs if THAT was what they wanted to do. But since it's only the eight of them – might I add, the only eight who even saw Amaterasu die – I think it's pretty obvious they slipped out when no one was looking. That's almost sad, in a way. The princess without her royal pain. Looks like I won't get to vanquish him today. I'll just have to settle for the person he loves most."
"I'd think twice," Snatcher warned. "After all, we are striking a bargain of sorts. Their lives for the book. If we can't promise the former, they won't even try for the latter."
"We'll compromise," Mozenrath settled. "Help us get the book, and we'll decide how many of you we spare and how many of you we crush later. Refuse to help us, and your survival rate automatically drops to zero." He paused to laugh. "I actually can't believe the gall of this move. Going to Amaterasu's murderers to figure out how to undo her murder. And to think I used to give you credit for being smart. You've all been coasting by on raw power and determination, haven't you?"
"We were doing what we thought was the right thing," Katara insisted, even though she'd never thought this was wholly right. "Something YOU wouldn't know about."
"In that case, ignorance is bliss," Aghoul replied.
"This will mark the beginning of an era," Mozenrath declared. "Either the day you fell to the WHAM ARMY, or the day you gave the WHAM ARMY the means to alter the future."
"Yeah, still don't understand that name," Stork admitted.
"It's an acronym," Mozenrath groaned. He then pointed to each of them in turn: "Wuya. Huntsman. Aghoul. Mozenrath. Archibald. Roman. Mim. Yzma. WHAM ARMY."
"Oh, so it's like Team RWBY!" Katara realized.
"Except it's actually spelled right," Roman asserted.
"So you're the ones running everything," Jasmine realized. "Everyone else we've met works for the eight of you."
"We really HAVEN'T had time to catch up," Mozenrath said with a shrug. "Well, we can change that soon enough. Because we're all going on an adventure together. Doesn't that just sound like fun?"
"Oh, yeah, reeeeeaaaaal fun," Stork groaned. "You could practically call it a vacation."
All the while, the Huntsman had been observing the patrons of the shop. As soon as Mozenrath had entered, he'd drawn stares. He always did. Those who had been taking tea and eating light snacks were watching the whole scene play out, rooted to their seats. The Huntsman had half expected them to try and mobilize; it wouldn't have done them any good. Unless there was a fair amount of learned mages in the group, they were all as good as dead. They must have known that, however, as none of them so much as twitched in the direction of the unfolding events. They were terrified, all looking out to save their own skins by keeping quiet. In a word, cowards. All the better.
"Let's not waste any more time," Mozenrath suggested. "Mim, give us a Corridor. And no tricks."
Mim cast the Corridor as commanded, tossing the jar of spiders up and down in her hand all the while. "Hostages first!" she said gleefully.
"You can attempt to run away," Yzma told the trio, "or we'll kill your friends the moment you're gone."
"AND," her seven companions corrected in unison.
Jasmine walked into the Corridor with her head held high. Somehow, she was going to get her friends out of this mess. She just had no idea how to even begin.
Stork followed, then Katara. The eight of the WHAM ARMY paused a moment, looking between each other.
"This is almost too good to be true," Mozenrath remarked.
"Well, don't QUESTION it!" Yzma urged him.
The eight vanished into the Corridor, which disappeared. The tea shop's patrons, frozen with captivation and fear, began to move again, hastily finishing their orders and paying their bills before hustling out into the streets.
...
The city of Corinth was abuzz with traffic. Merchants and clients traded words and goods while politicians' coteries escorted them to crucial destinations. Its architecture was tall and pristine, giving off an air of grandeur.
Roman, leaning against a white marble wall, watched the timer on his scroll tick as he declared, "Five minutes."
"Ten," Yzma raised him.
"He won't have it for at least half an hour," Aghoul submitted.
Roman pointed an accusatory finger at him; "Okay, YOU haven't been paying attention."
When Snatcher returned to the group, he informed them of what he'd managed to learn from passerby: "They know and revere one book here, and they call it the Book of Peace. It travels between any of ten cities that are allied together, one of which is the very city we stand in, but its current residence is Syracuse."
Roman shoved his scroll's stopped timer in Yzma's face: "FOUR MINUTES AND FIFTY-NINE SECONDS."
Yzma reluctantly dug for a generous amount of munny to hand over.
...
The Huntsman steered the ship that bore the WHAM ARMY and their hostages to Syracuse. The winds were favorable, and the cloud cover actually pleasingly helping to block the sun.
Mim balanced the jar of spiders on the edge of the railing, threatening to tip them all off the edge at any moment.
"We still need those," Yzma reminded her.
Mim reluctantly carried the jar further toward the center of the deck.
Jasmine, Stork, and Katara stood as far back as they could on the deck while still keeping Mim and her jar in sight. They attempted to make themselves inconspicuous, hoping not to attract attention.
They obviously failed; Aghoul's arm went sliding around Jasmine's shoulders. "You know," he told her, "Mim and I aren't exclusive, in case you changed your mind – "
Jasmine's fist connected with his face at the same time that Stork's and Katara's got there. Aghoul was sent tumbling across the deck.
"What kind of way is that to treat the people with your lives in their hands?" Mozenrath taunted, striding toward the captive trio.
"You still need us to get past Eris," Jasmine reminded him. "We agreed to go with you. We didn't agree to behave."
"Should I just have Mim toss your friends overboard?" Mozenrath asked.
"You can say goodbye to the Book of Prophecies, then," Stork told him.
Mozenrath had to admit they had him there. Only to himself, of course: not out loud.
"What are you even doing?" Katara asked forcefully.
"Claiming the Book of Prophecies for myself," Mozenrath told her. "I thought that was clear from the start."
"No," Katara clarified. "Before you thought you could get the book, you were after something else. You were collecting magic and power for a reason. The Cornerstone of Light. Dust. Human souls. The Eliacube. The Spirit Waters. The Fused Shadow. What did you want with all of it?"
Mozenrath bristled; he hadn't expected them to have figured out that much of his plan. True, there were many items Katara hadn't listed, but that didn't mean they didn't know about them. It did mean they didn't know the outcome of his plan. Their magic hourglass mustn't have been omniscient after all. "I can see why you would think that's your business," he told her, "but at the end of the day, it isn't."
"You think you can take over the worlds using those things," Katara accused. "How?"
"Spoilers," Mozenrath replied. "I really wouldn't want to ruin a good ending. I just hope you'll be as horrified as I am satisfied." With that, he left them alone.
"We're not going to make it out of this alive," Stork muttered.
"We will," Jasmine insisted. "And we're bringing our friends out with us."
"How can we do that without letting Mozenrath get the book?" Katara asked.
"I…I don't know yet," Jasmine sighed. "But we can't lose hope."
She took Stork's hand into hers and squeezed it hard. Stork took hold of Katara's in turn and repeated the gesture.
Mozenrath approached the helm, where the Huntsman's eyes were fixed fast on the horizon, his hands adjusting the wheel just a stitch to the left or to the right as the wind compelled him.
Mozenrath hadn't gotten a chance to address him since the night when he had shown up to their party without his helmet (which, now that he was back in the field, was firmly settled in place). It seemed whenever his mind turned back to it, Hans had been around, demanding his attention instead, and paying attention to Hans was a worthy endeavor, as he always gave it right back in spades. Then Mim had sent the text and it was off to Twilight Town, then the Ten Cities of this world. It seemed now was finally an opportunity to talk to the Huntsman, provided he didn't need to be free of distractions to steer the ship.
"So you've changed," Mozenrath began.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the Huntsman replied.
"Maybe you haven't changed," Mozenrath amended. "Maybe you just had a night where you acted out of character."
"I don't plan to keep my face veiled among friends in the comfort of our private base," the Huntsman replied. "That much, I will say, has changed."
"That explains one thing," Mozenrath told him. "It doesn't quite explain the show-stopping ballad."
"Even you have found the appeal of the stage," the Huntsman replied.
"Why such a sad song?" Mozenrath asked.
"Because I enjoy it," the Huntsman answered.
That had answered all of Mozenrath's questions, but he still felt as though something was unresolved. "I picked a bad night to miss all of that."
"You could have joined us anytime you wished," the Huntsman reminded him. "However, you seemed quite content where you were."
"He is pleasant company," Mozenrath confirmed.
"I suppose you will be spending further occasions at his table and not at ours," the Huntsman stated. It sounded strangely non-accusatory.
"There are times for you and times for him," Mozenrath explained. "After all, he's not here now. This was something best kept between founders."
"That is true," the Huntsman responded.
Mozenrath's eyes flicked over the deck a moment. He wondered, briefly, if he should leave the Huntsman alone. Something about being so close to him felt improper. After all, the Huntsman was a romantic venture Mozenrath had closed the book on, and Hans wasn't here. It wasn't as though Mozenrath had any particular qualms about breaking Hans' heart, but he did feel as though there were rules to this sort of thing that must be followed. When you had a partner, one who made you feel like the sun rose and set at your command and who praised you for it, you didn't engage in dalliances with those you'd passed up. Or who had passed you up.
Idly, Mozenrath noticed that Wuya had summoned up a small stove and a teakettle on the deck of the ship. Obviously, she had sensed Yzma's discontent with not getting a decent cup of tea in Twilight Town while they had the chance, and was pouring one right then and there.
What was really the harm? The Huntsman was a friend. A good friend. Nothing more. Hans had no reason to care. Hans wasn't even there.
"You know, I never set out for the Book of Prophecies," Mozenrath told the Huntsman. "And yet here it is, dropping right into my lap."
"We still have yet to face Eris," the Huntsman reminded him.
"And you think that will be a problem."
"Actually, no."
"She should at least pause when she sees you wearing the skin of another goddess. Which, by the way, you should be glad our prisoners didn't notice, or they'd give you a few new bruises."
"They would try," the Huntsman amended.
They continued to chat all the way to Syracuse; all the while, Jasmine, Stork, and Katara clutched hands, praying for a miracle.
...
The book was kept securely within the tower of a palatial building at Syracuse's heart. Security was no problem; Mozenrath, Wuya, Aghoul, and Mim disposed of every guard on the way up. The process utterly revolted Jasmine and Katara (Stork, while still unwilling to kill upon Cinnamon principle, could hardly be shocked by mass murder at this point), though they had no choice but to watch.
The room containing the book was surprisingly empty: a rotund chamber, dark in color, with marble pillars that reached for the ceiling. It seemed all of the guards had been spent on the exterior of the room, leaving the precious chamber open for anyone who bested the guards to walk into.
Mozenrath led the walk toward the glowing blue light that indicated the location of the coveted object. He could still hardly believe this. The Book of Prophecies was a secret that had been kept for years, even if its physical defenses were sorely lacking. Any villain worth their salt – and quite a few heroes, too – had devoted at least some thought to capturing the book and using it to rewrite destiny to fit their own purposes. For hundreds of years, no one had come close, at least that Mozenrath had heard of. Now he was approaching it, ready to look upon the much-sought-after book with his own two eyes.
It lay open on a pedestal, its pages emitting the soft light. They seemed not to be made of paper, but of sheets of sky, an ethereal blue in color. Etched upon those pages were emblems of cosmic bodies, constantly moving as flowing script in all languages floated around them. There was no doubt this was the one and only Book of Prophecies, no matter what the locals called it.
Mozenrath eagerly reached out to grasp it.
A deep blue hand slammed it shut before him, revealing its even deeper blue cover.
Mozenrath looked up into a pair of red eyes; those eyes were set in a blue-skinned face, lips twitching into an amused smirk, as a mane of raven hair billowed about the figure of the woman who stood before him on the other side of the pedestal.
"I never thought it would be you who got this close," she said in a lilting tone.
"Let me guess," Mozenrath replied. "Eris."
"Very good," Eris said as she swept the book up into her arms, pressing it close to her chest before Mozenrath could touch it. "And you're Mozenrath. Every god is talking about you, you know. Your little WHAM ARMY is being regarded as a pack of godslayers. Amaterasu was no pushover, after all."
"If I were you," Mozenrath told Eris, "I would be more worried."
"You only got as far as you did because you had the sheer numbers," Eris told him. "You're no Maleficent. But I'm sure you knew that."
"Just make this easy for both of us and hand over the book," Mozenrath told her. "You want chaos. What's more chaotic than the WHAM ARMY being able to rewrite destiny?"
"I did consider it," Eris informed him. "But that would mean letting you take the book out of my territory and bringing it wherever you wanted. The thing about chaos is that I prefer it when I cause it. Letting you have this book would almost be like letting you have my job."
"You seem to be all right with letting the mortal population of this world play with it," Mozenrath informed her.
"None of them knows what it is," Eris stated.
Mozenrath made a sudden grab for the book; Eris lifted it high, growing to twice her original size in order to keep it out of his reach. "All anyone on this world knows is that the book is connected to the Ten Cities' well-being," Eris explained. "No one has ever tried to write in it. They consider the text too sacred. Why do you think they call it the Book of Peace instead of the Book of Prophecies? If they ever figured it out, I really would have to keep it away from them."
Mim had by then retrieved the jar of spiders. "You see this?" she was telling them. "This is what you're going to help us with."
"You brought a secret weapon," Eris observed. Her gaze fell upon Jasmine, Stork, and Katara: "And three unwilling hostages. This keeps getting better."
"We don't want to fight you!" Katara yelled at Eris.
"But I'm the only thing standing between you and the Book of Prophecies," Eris reminded her. "Didn't you want it so you could bring your friend back to life?"
"Y'know, you're almost talking like you WANT a fight," Roman observed. "Which is fine by me. I mean, that is what we came here to do."
"I want to see which of us is worthy of taking control of the book," Eris said as she suspended the book in a blue bubble that floated up at the zenith of the ceiling. "I'm already sure it's me, but I want to make this interesting."
Mozenrath's right hand became awash in blue. "Then let's make it interesting."
Eris spread out her arms, batlike wing membranes fanning from them. "As you wish."
Mim quickly dipped her hand into the jar, bringing out two of the spiders. Yzma tossed her a vial of pink liquid; Mim poured it over the pair, bringing Sora and Ruby back to human form. "You heard her!" Mim yelled. "GET THAT BOOK!"
"We'll get the book," Sora insisted, "but not for you! It's OURS!"
Ruby unhitched Crescent Rose, which had miraculously survived the transition from human to spider and back again, from her back.
Eris flapped her wings, creating a great whirlwind that coursed through the room, sweeping up the thirteen combatants right away. Wuya was the first to break free, shooting forth through the air with fists flying and coated in green magic. Eris avoided the blow by bending over backward and becoming a wisp of blue and black that flowed amorphously; Wuya's punches landed in the wall, cracking the marble.
Ruby was swept past Stork; she seized him by the waist in one arm, fumbling Crescent Rose in the other. She aimed behind herself, and the resulting blow from the weapon propelled both her and Stork out of the cyclone.
"You okay?" Ruby asked.
"I think I should be asking YOU that question," Stork replied.
Eris reformed herself near them, hoisting a ball of pure Darkness up into the air to crash down upon the pair. Ruby put her Semblance to good use, seizing Stork again – by the arm this time – and dashing away with him so that the attack plunged onto empty floor.
The cyclone broke up into several smaller whirlwinds that kept their individual captives separate. One of them exploded in a blast of blue; Mozenrath stormed out of it toward Eris. Before she could react, he thrust his hand toward her.
Bright blue lightning forged a ring above Eris' head, striking down from it all around her to form a prison. Eris simply shed form again, slipping through the bolts as though smoke and reappearing at such a size that she could knock Mozenrath into the wall with the back of her hand.
She sensed the Huntsman coming at her from behind, staff swinging; she spun to let a bolt of her own electricity strike him directly in the chest, sending him ramming into the opposite wall.
A hand reached into the windy prison holding Jasmine back; she took it, and with its support, she managed to walk through the bluster, finding Sora to be her rescuer. Together, the pair rushed to extract Katara.
Wuya flew over each remaining cyclone, reversing its direction with gusts of wind of her own. Now on the loose, Roman and Snatcher opened fire upon Eris; explosive and electric ammo passed right through her as she became intangible once more.
"This is almost too easy," she said in an amused tone as she summoned a great wave of water to crash down over the entire room; Eris herself floated up above the water's surface.
One by one, the combatants' heads surfaced. Mim erupted forth from the pool in the body of an enormous shark, teeth clamping around Eris' waist only for her to become as air once more.
When she took shape, she was suddenly overwhelmed by the very waters she had called rushing into a wave that crashed over her before solidifying into a mass of ice, keeping her temporarily trapped. Katara stood below in the much shallower water, heart pounding as she observed what she had just done.
"NICE ONE!" Sora yelled to her.
Shards of ice exploded in every direction; Eris expanded to fill the whole room. "So you brought a little waterbender," she taunted. "Clever, clever."
"How has SHE been the only one to get a hit in?" Roman groaned.
"Because Eris becomes intangible every time you try to use violence on her!" Katara retorted.
"STAY STILL SO WE CAN HIT YOU!" Yzma called up at the massive goddess.
"So you want something you can hit," Eris replied. "I think that can be arranged."
She diminished to the size of a human, floating ghostlike toward the ceiling and placing herself before the bubbled book. The lighting dimmed; gleaming stars of light appeared, forming into a pattern Mozenrath recognized. Before he could name the constellation, it solidified into a creature, the lights dimming to give way to bronze-plated exoskeleton. The scorpion took up half the room, clicking its pincers threateningly.
"I promise you can beat up Scorpio as much as you want," Eris laughed.
The scorpion charged; Yzma cartwheeled out of its path in one direction while Stork sprang to the other. Snatcher was the unlucky recipient of the brunt of the attack, knocked onto his back by the swinging claws; his weapon skidded over the floor. Scorpio's tail drew back, ready to strike.
Snatcher froze in terror.
The tail made a halfhearted jerk forward only for Scorpio to realize the appendage was being restrained from behind by three pairs of arms. "OH NO YOU FUCKING DON'T!" Roman yelled as he, Yzma, and Aghoul hauled the tail backward. Aghoul shifted his position, leaving one arm wrapped around the tail while summong his scythe in the other. The blade swung, ready to lop the stinger off –
Before it could do so, Scorpio spun, flinging all three of them into the wall. Snatcher quickly scrambled to retrieve his weapon; once he had ahold of it, he found himself levitated back to his feet by an aura of blue. Mozenrath, not waiting for any gratitude, conjured a long, thick rope that he twirled twice in his hand before lashing it at Scorpio's many legs, hoping to draw the creature's limbs together and topple it. This failed; Scorpio danced in place, rapidly stomping its legs so that Mozenrath only had hold of two. The arachnid's claws severed the rope as Mozenrath attempted to draw it in.
Sora, meanwhile, had his sights set on Eris, who was circling the book on the ceiling and laughing as she did so. "Now's our chance!" he declared. "Ruby, cover us from the ground. Stork, Jasmine, let's drive!"
Stork and Jasmine each took one of Sora's hands; they merged into one in a brilliant flash, Sora now bearing Divewing and Three Wishes alongside his primary blade. Sora leapt, bounding off one wall, then the opposite end of the room, before propelling himself into the air with an Aeroga whirlwind of his own.
Eris smirked, summoning a puppet body that resembled Sora exactly but for the raven-dark hair and the deep blue skin. She shrugged this puppet onto her form as though putting on a shawl. Now looking the mirror image of Sora save for the color alterations, Eris summoned a Keyblade-shaped shadow to each hand, with a third floating around at waist level, all three weapons appearing to flicker in and out of existence. When all three of Sora's blades clashed with the triad of shadows, however, it became clear that they were quite tangible.
Ruby fired off the first shot from Crescent Rose at Eris; she pushed off the ceiling, sending both herself and Sora flying. The next two shots were deflected by Eris' third blade.
Sora cast Firaga; Eris countered with a gust of wind that doused the flames. He cast Blizzaga; it was melted with fire of Eris' own. She was the next one to cast a spell – a Gravity spell bolstered to divine levels, slamming Sora down onto the floor hard. He sprang back up, avoiding the WHAM ARMY's skirmish with Scorpio as he vaulted for the sky again. Eris met him gracefully yet forcefully, blades clashing once more. Every single one of Sora's blows was countered by one of Eris'. She slashed out at him, but thanks to the extra speed and agility granted to him by Stork and Jasmine, he was able to dodge these blows almost superhumanly, remaining aloft in the air through a practical application of Aeroga.
Down below, the Huntsman had taken enough from Scorpio. "I can slay the beast," he declared, "but I will need it held still."
"I…am…WORKING ON IT!" Mozenrath growled as he tossed another rope.
It was severed immediately. The various blades Wuya summoned one after another to drop on Scorpio from above were broken upon its armored skin. The Huntsman knew trying to attack it from that position was futile. He had his sights set on the weak spot.
"All right, all right," Mim declared. "I'll do it."
Before the Huntsman could ask what exactly she planned to do, she morphed into a beast of comparable size to Scorpio: an owl. Natural predator of scorpions and good thinking on Mim's part, the Huntsman mused. Mim rose high into the air (her wings pumping currents that pushed Sora and Eris' duel even higher) before divebombing Scorpio, her claws digging into the arachnid's back. Scorpio's tail lashed and missed.
The Huntsman took that opportunity to charge, dropping to slide on his back and scoot beneath Scorpio. His staff's blade cut a wide gouge from the arachnid's throat all along its underbelly to the base of the tail. Scorpio might have been a divine creation, but its biological makeup was no different from that of other immense scorpions the Huntsman had faced; the exoskeleton never seemed to cover the stomach.
Scorpio shuddered, then collapsed right atop the Huntsman. This was only a minor inconvenience; before long, Mozenrath and Snatcher were dragging the Huntsman out from beneath the fallen beast, each gripping an arm near the shoulder.
Meanwhile, Aghoul had become tired of watching Ruby routinely fail to hit Eris with her shots. "You're going to wield an absolutely enormous scythe," he seethed as he stormed toward her, "and you're not even going to use it AS a scythe? You'd make a terrible Grim Reaper, so you know."
"I am not TRYING to be the Grim Reaper!" Ruby grunted. "I am TRYING to keep Eris from hurting my friends without accidentally shooting THEM!"
"That's it," Aghoul grunted as he wrenched control of the rifle away from Ruby. "We're using this my way. How do you change this infernal thing back?"
"HEY!" Ruby cried.
"If you want that book," he told her, "you'll do as I say. Or I could provide you with a one-way ticket to the Netherworld."
Ruby let out a low growl before reaching for Crescent Rose. "I'll change it back," she announced, "but you have to tell me what you're planning on doing with it."
Up in the air, Sora had drawn upon the extra magical reserves awarded him by bonding with Jasmine in order to summon up an extra-strong Blizzard, ice chunks circling him in a bitter wind.
"You know," Eris laughed from the mirror-Sora's mouth, "you're an incredibly strong warrior. Now I see why Hades always complains about you. You're the kind of person myths are written about. Of course, you're still no match for pure chaos."
"We'll see about that!" Sora let the ice fly at Eris.
She melted it all in a burst of flame; it rained down upon the floor below as water.
"NOW, KATARA!" Sora cried.
Katara transformed the falling water into a geyser that shot Eris up into the ceiling, nearly dislodging the book in the process. When Eris shoved away from the ceiling, speeding toward Sora, she was angrier than ever.
"SORA!" Ruby screamed. "GET DOWN!"
Sora didn't question it; he obeyed, dropping to the floor.
Aghoul had lined the inner edge of Crescent Rose's curvature with his skulls. Ruby gave two spins to build up momentum before launching the skulls off her weapon.
Eris barely registered what was happening, not thinking to make herself intangible.
The massive explosion sent her, now in her female form, plummeting to the ground.
Wuya seized the tail of the fallen Scorpio, dragging the arachnid into position and loosing her grip so that the stinger flew upward on the perfect trajectory to meet Eris.
The stinger pierced her directly through the stomach; her cry rang out.
"Godslayers, two," Mozenrath declared, "gods, zero."
Eris, however, was not slain. She wrenched herself free of her impalement, though dark blood was staining the lavender fabric that clothed her. "Even I know my limits," she said as she seized the stalk of Scorpio's tail. "Take the book. But you are not prepared for what is coming to you if you use it."
Scorpio dissolved into stars once more; Eris faded away as the little lights dimmed. It was clear she had simply taken herself and Scorpio off the field in order to recover.
Mozenrath, the Huntsman, Mim, Aghoul, Wuya, Yzma, Roman, Snatcher, Sora, Ruby, and Katara took a moment to catch their breath on the damp battlefield around which cracks in the wall threatened to bring the whole structure down upon them. In a shimmer, Sora released Jasmine and Stork from their Drive.
Mozenrath then pointed straight upward, a bullet of magic rocketing from his finger as though fired from a gun. The bubble at the ceiling's height popped; the Book of Prophecies plummeted straight down into Mozenrath's waiting arms.
"And now the future is ours," he declared.
"Oh yeah?" Sora lunged, seizing the book with both hands. "I don't think so!"
"Sora, don't!" Jasmine cried.
Mim shook the jar with its three remaining spiders threateningly. "Say goodbye to your little chums!"
Before anyone could make a further move, the Book of Prophecies became wrapped in thorny vines, the points digging into Sora and Mozenrath's skin. Surprised, they both dropped it; once it hit the floor, it burst into flame of a bright green hue. The paper and bindings, however, did not disintegrate in the fire; it merely kept the pair from touching it.
An orb of green light floated into the room, fading into the shape of Maleficent, who loomed over Sora and Mozenrath with a grin. "At last," she declared, "the Book of Prophecies is mine to wield!"
The book lifted off the ground, floating into her hands, at which point the flames doused. "And to think I had you two utter fools to thank for it," she mused. As it had turned out, Grimhilde's scrying of Sora had shown him approaching this world, and Maleficent had finally figured out her lead. Not only that, but they had defeated Eris for her.
"You," Mozenrath seethed. "I FOUGHT TOOTH AND NAIL FOR THAT BOOK, AND YOU'RE NOT GOING TO – "
Maleficent made a flicking motion with her hand, and Mozenrath was blown away into the wall. When he collided with the marble, she began to laugh, a laugh that grew louder and more joyous as she turned her back on the others.
"STOP HER!" Ruby yelled.
For once, WHAM ARMY and Cinnamons were united; they all rushed Maleficent in a synchronized charge. Still laughing, Maleficent conjured a Corridor that enveloped her and then disappeared before anyone could lay hands upon her.
The room shook; even more cracks ran up the walls. The damage inside was reflective of the catastrophe taking place outside. Thick, soupy clouds erupted across the skies, blotting out the sun. The city of Syracuse quaked, its lesser-fortified structures falling. Roads split, the wheels of vehicles falling into the cracks. Without the book, the city was falling apart.
It was only the beginning.
"What's happening?" Katara cried.
"I don't know," Mozenrath growled as he peeled himself off the wall, "and I don't care. The Book of Prophecies is now in the hands of one of our most powerful enemies. This entire quest ended up being for NOTHING. The ONLY benefit I get out of this is that I can finally KILL three of our OTHER most powerful enemies. Mim, squash the spiders."
"NO!" Sora, Katara, Stork, Jasmine, and Ruby all lunged for Mim.
A sparkling light coursed through the air, hitting the jar Mim had been about to destroy but a blink before she could do anything of the sort. The jar shattered as a shaken Papyrus, Kazuichi, and Rapunzel landed sitting on the floor in human form.
All eyes turned to the source of the light. The door to the tower framed Merlin, who was positively livid as he stormed in. Behind him, Mickey, Riku, Kairi, Lea, Leon, Donald, and Goofy made up the rest of the charge.
"You're not laying another finger on them!" Merlin declared. "They may be arrogant insubordinates who don't know when to listen to their elders for their own good, but they are OURS, and I'll be cursed before I see you do them any harm!"
"You want to be cursed?" Mozenrath reiterated. "Then allow me the honor."
He threw a hot beam of energy directly at Merlin. It crashed and fizzled out against an invisible barrier that surrounded the wizard.
"I should've known you'd come along and ruin everything!" Mim shrieked. "You always do! You ruin it! Absolutely ruin it! RUIN, RUIN, RUIN, RUIN – "
"Are you gonna whine about it?" Riku raised his sword. "Or are you gonna put up a fight?"
"You're in for the fight of your lives," Mim threatened.
A heavy hand settled upon her shoulder. "The odds are not in our favor," the Huntsman informed her. "I hardly wish to retreat, but this is a fool's errand."
"YOU'RE GOING TO GET IN THE WAY OF ME DESTROYING MERLIN?" Mim shrieked.
At this, Mozenrath was actually the one to cast the Corridor leading back to base. "I didn't get to destroy Aladdin," he said through gritted teeth. "And if I don't get to destroy my archnemesis, NO ONE ELSE GETS TO DESTROY THEIRS."
"A fine time for you to start acting like a spoiled child again," Mim grunted.
"Mimsie," Aghoul insisted as he tugged on her arm, "as much as I enjoy the sweetness of death, you wouldn't find it nearly as fun."
"They don't even kill people anymore!" Mim grumped.
"You wanna fight?" Donald swung his staff through the air. "THEN BRING IT ON!"
"We do NOT want this fight," the Huntsman insisted.
"Fuck this shit," Roman muttered as he walked briskly to the Corridor, Snatcher in tow. "I'm out."
"We only have so much time before the fallout from Maleficent strikes," Mozenrath growled as he followed. "I'm not going to waste it on this."
Yzma and Wuya gave each other a look before turning and sprinting toward the Corridor in unison. Finally, Mim, realizing that her odds of coming out of this fight unscathed diminished with each disappearing ally, gave a "HMPH" and followed. Once she had been convinced, Aghoul and the Huntsman took their leave.
"Don't let them get away!" Sora cried. "We can follow them and find out – "
"That's a bad idea, Sora," Mickey cautioned; he simply watched the Corridor close. "If we'd tried to follow 'em, we'd've walked right into their home base, where we'd have to deal with all of 'em plus any traps they set up."
Now that the room was empty of villains, weapons were lowered. "Sora, you idiot!" Riku yelled as he stepped forward. "You could've gotten killed!"
"But I didn't," Sora argued.
"He just ALMOST got killed," Stork clarified.
"You WHAT?" Riku replied.
"Hey, it was no big deal," Sora told him. "They just turned me into a spider for a little bit to hold me hostage, but they let me back out because they needed me to fight Eris – "
Hearing that was enough to force Riku's hand; he rushed forward to pull Sora into a tight hug. "Don't you scare me!" he insisted.
"Heh…" Sora returned the embrace. "I guess I actually was an idiot this time."
Kazuichi was nearly bowled over by a surging Ruby, whose arms locked around him. "YOU'RE OKAAAAAAY!" she squealed.
"Yeah, but I seriously regret signing up for this now," Kazuichi replied with a tremor in his voice.
Rapunzel approached Stork, eyes cast downward. "I should've listened to you," she told him.
Stork would normally agree and drive it home that he had been right and she had been wrong. Yet he found he couldn't form the words. "You…were trying to do the right thing," he told her. "It didn't really work, but I can't fault you for trying."
"What were all of you even thinking?" Lea asked. "The old man said no to the Book of Prophecies."
"WE COULDN'T JUST…DO NOTHING," Papyrus protested. "WE RUINED AN ENTIRE WORLD – "
"And now, thanks to the Book of Prophecies being removed from the world it was connected to," Merlin pointed out, "you've ruined another one!"
"Why didn't ya tell us you were gonna do this?" Goofy asked, feeling genuinely left out.
"Because we knew you'd try to stop us," Sora admitted; Riku had let him out of the bone-crushing hug, but still kept an arm wrapped around one of his own arms protectively.
"I wonder where you could've gotten that idea," Leon said flatly.
"And dealing with the Boom Army?" Kairi said in frustration. "You could've gotten hurt so much worse!"
"It's actually the WHAM ARMY," Stork pointed out.
"It's an acronym," Ruby clarified. "Like Team RWBY. It's all the core members' first names."
"We know who runs their organization now," Jasmine confirmed. "All eight of them."
"Well, that's all fine and dandy," Merlin huffed, "but of all people, Princess Jasmine, I expected you to know better!"
"I couldn't let them go alone," Jasmine insisted. "I knew it would be dangerous. That's exactly why I needed to go."
"How'd you even find us?" Sora asked.
"We knew you too well," Leon informed him. "After Merlin said no to using the book, the eight of you conveniently ran off somewhere together. We all knew what you were after. So we got Merlin to share the location of the book with just enough of us to put up a fight."
"Eris, we expected," Merlin clarified. "Mim was a nasty surprise."
"So, uhhhh…" Kazuichi gripped the brim of his hat, tugging it nervously. "How much trouble are we in? Like, house-arrest level?"
"I've been seriously considering it," Merlin grunted.
"And I wouldn't say no to that idea," Leon added.
"Aw, I would!" Mickey argued. "They were only tryin' to help out! They really cared about Amaterasu, and they wanted to save her and her world!"
"If you don't let Sora out of the castle," Riku stated, "then I don't leave it either."
"We weren't there when Amaterasu was killed," Kairi argued. "Any one of us might have gotten the idea to do the same thing as them."
"Which is exactly why I am letting you all off with a very stern warning," Merlin relented. "After all, the road to chaos is paved with good intentions, and you certainly had those. Moreover, any measures we took to limit your actions would be outvoted by the rest of us."
"It doesn't matter anyway!" Donald cried. "Mozenrath got away with the Book of Prophecies! That's bad! We gotta drop everything and think about that!"
"And we're gonna need all the help we can get to stop him!" Goofy added.
"ABOUT THAT," Papyrus broke in. "THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT MOZENRATH DOES NOT HAVE THE BOOK OF PROPHECIES."
"That is good news!" Goofy cried.
"What's the bad news?" Riku asked, already knowing something much worse was coming.
"THE BAD NEWS…" Papyrus shuffled a foot. "WELL…YOU SEE…THE PERSON WHO DOES HAVE IT…IS SORT OF…MAYBE A LITTLE BIT…MALEFICENT."
Those who had only just arrived gasped.
"If this is as bad as you say it is," Katara pointed out, "we need to start preparing for whatever's coming."
"You're quite right," Merlin agreed. "This is an emergency that spans the worlds over. We must return to Radiant Garden immediately and strategize. I am afraid we have mere moments before Maleficent puts a pen to that book, and then reality as we know it will change for the worse."
"We really did fuck up bad," Kazuichi realized, "didn't we?"
"You kinda did," Lea confirmed.
"But it's gonna be okay!" Goofy insisted. "We can get through it so long as we've got each other!"
"I do hope you are right," Merlin sighed. "For all of our sakes, I do indeed hope you are right."
...
The Book of Prophecies was spread open upon a desk in the topmost tower of Villain's Vale. Maleficent reverently turned its pages one by one, her eyes skimming over the text already engraved there by the ancients: texts that had brought forth ages of peace and ages of chaos alike.
Finally, she turned over the first blank page.
A quill of raven feather, plucked from the tail of Maleficent's own familiar, dipped into a jar of ink. It hovered over the page only a moment, one fat drop of ink dripping down.
Then the tip of the quill lowered onto the page, beginning to form words.
...
The sky over every world turned pitch-black, neither sun nor moon nor stars emerging to light the way. Only the flames and electric lamps of civilization gave any illumination whatsoever.
From the shadows, the Heartless emerged in stronger numbers and larger in size than ever before, crawling out of alleys and up from ditches in search of hearts to corrupt and collect.
...
Thick vines, each as big in diameter as a human being, sprouted spearlike thorns as they crawled over Disney Castle, binding its towers and blocking its exits.
...
Grimm ran rampant through the kingdoms of Atlas, Vacuo, and Mistral, pinning people down in the streets and tearing them apart with bone-white claws.
...
One of the monsters of Knightdock evaporated into pure magic, joining the aura of the world. Intermittently, hours apart, after that, another would disappear at random to meet the same fate.
...
The icy winds that normally set the Frozen North apart from all of the rest of Equestria blew over the world from Canterlot to Ponyville to the Crystal Empire, bringing blizzards through those normally temperate climates. Those who had ears tuned to the wind could hear the sounds of hooves and demonic whinnying carried on the bluster.
...
Every airship on Atmos was suddenly stripped of its navigation capabilities; engines' crystal capacities drained rapidly. Many were lucky and able to land their crafts on the nearest Terra. Many more crashed in the Wastelands.
...
The fiends from the Land of Ghosts ran rampant through the byways of the Ivory Tower, clawing at the gateway to what had once been the Empress' pavilion.
...
The Tree of Life beneath the Sadida Kingdom began to slowly fade. At this rate, it would take it a week to die completely. Each and every Sadida whose name was written upon the tree was struck with illness, fatigued and aching, condemned to live out seven days of increasing agony before the final death knell.
...
With no sun, the firebenders found themselves unable to bend. With no moon, the waterbenders were plunged into the same plight. Though there was no reason the earthbenders should have been affected, they too lost their abilities all at once, and the last airbender suffered the same.
...
Blackmoor Manor was flooded. Wickford Castle was buried in thirty feet of snow.
...
The four Light Spirits of Hyrule were reduced to small glowing spheres, hanging desperately onto life. Without their guardianship, the people of the four provinces slowly began to transform once more into flickering blue spirits. Conversely, in the Twilight Realm, the Twili became distorted, lengthening and twisting into fearsome beasts that had not been seen since the tyranny of Zant.
...
Black rocks spiked up through the heart of Corona, invading the castle.
...
Every last Guardian Sapling shed its leaves.
...
In a distant corner of interspace, a new world bloomed, erupting from nothing at all into a grand mass of rock, of expansive plain and jagged mountainside cut through with fast-flowing rivers and bordered by abyssal seas. Palaces settled themselves at such distances that they could have passed for nations. In a desert, a rounded palace with spires rose from the shifting sands. Atop a mountain, a black structure vaguely shaped like a skull protruded. Beneath the waters, a truly impressive castle lay undisturbed by the waves. In the midst of a black and twisted forest, a bastion of white towered over all. The peak of a hill was home to an elaborate manor.
The highest mountain, however, was carved into the grandest castle of them all, one fashioned after Maleficent's home in the Forbidden Mountains in the Enchanted Dominion: the place she had called headquarters long before ever setting foot outside of her homeworld. It was into the throne room of this castle that the Corridor of Darkness opened, letting out first Maleficent, then Jafar, Hades, Ursula, Grimhilde, Cruella, and then all the rest who allied with them one by one.
"I have created this world for us to utilize in our dominion," Maleficent explained as she ascended to her throne, her allies gathered below. "Each of you of worth will find your own base of operations here, which will be tailored to your preferences. I will transport our servants and guardians here as well, and they shall serve your every whim. As a group, however, we shall operate from this castle. I alone hold the Book of Prophecies and shall be the one to write in it. However, I am quite open to suggestions, so long as they are submitted in an orderly fashion. Whatever meets my approval shall come to pass. I would advise you to choose carefully what you wish."
"Hey, here's an idea," Hades suggested. "How about we start by wipin' all those wannabe heroes off the map?"
"Not just yet, Hades," Maleficent said contentedly. "It is those who have devoted themselves to protecting all realms who must suffer by watching them fall to Darkness and destruction. Before they meet their end, they will know the very depths of misery."
"I suppose a similar logic prevents you from eliminating Mozenrath," Jafar stated.
"Indeed," Maleficent told him. "Though I do have plans for our dear Mozenrath. He has played right into our hands. His defeat will be most enjoyable. It is more than mere death that awaits him. For now, think of the sparing of his life, and of Sora's, as their reward. After all, it was they who allowed us to come to this victory."
"So what do we call this new world?" Ursula asked. "I want something that rolls off the tongue. Strikes fear into hearts and all that."
"Something I have indeed given much thought," Maleficent confirmed. "We now stand on the ground of what shall be known henceforth as the Forbidden World."