Taking Back the Crown

by JCMorrigan

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

85. When One Door Closes

A/N: This chapter is going to introduce one of the Marvel worlds – that of X-Men: Evolution. The most important characters from that show are going to be the Brotherhood of Mutants because of course they are. I did write a fanfiction on AO3, entitled "Silver Alloys," that concerns the Brotherhood, and that fanfiction is going to be canon to this story because I don't want to redo the developments I made there. However, because I don't wish to make you all track down an entirely separate story to get the background info, here are the important points you need to know for context! 1. Pietro and Wanda tried to live with Magneto, but he ditched them in order to pursue a new plan (with Sebastian Shaw, though that won't be important), and they moved back into the boarding house. 2. Lance and Kitty broke up; Lance and Pietro are now dating. 3. Todd and Fred are now dating. 4. Wanda knows definitively that she had her memories altered, but she hasn't had any way to recover them. 5. Mystique has not bothered to return to the Brotherhood. All right, you should be caught up. Let's see how our not-so-heroic main characters are doing since the aftermath of last chapter.

...

One of the more luxurious features of the warship was its massive pool. Obviously, it had been constructed for military drills and physical training. At the moment, however, the pool was occupied by a giant rubber float in the shape of conjoined seats with cup holders. Upon this float, Yzma and Wuya reclined next to each other, pink lemonades resting in their designated receptacles in the pool float's arms. Though Yzma wore a deep violet one-piece swimsuit festooned with sequins and a matching cap to cover her lack of hair, and Wuya had opted to dress in a strapless black bikini, neither had any intention of actually touching the water.

"Now this is what I'm talking about," Yzma remarked with a contented sigh. "Peace and quiet."

"For once," Wuya said cheekily. "It's nice."

Each took a long sip of her lemonade, then settled back into the float.

After a pause, Yzma sighed, "We're going to have to go do something about them, aren't we?"

"Don't ruin the moment," Wuya groaned.

It had only been a day since Aladdin had stolen the magical artifacts from the WHAM ARMY base. It felt as though it had been a week. Mozenrath had locked himself in his apartment, refusing to leave for any reason or even acknowledge attempts to communicate with him.

As if that hadn't been bad enough, it turned out that Firefly and Ragdoll had gone missing during the mission to put up the barrier around Radiant Garden's castle, and everyone knew exactly why. Irmaplotz, Snipe, and Zevon had flat-out denied Roman Torchwick's existence save for glaring silently and irately at him whenever he entered their presence. That, in turn, had put Roman in quite a grumpy mood on top of the disappointment everyone was already feeling over the scheme being upended.

No one had wanted to party. No one had wanted to make merry. No one had wanted to make a mess. Everyone had just wanted time, either alone or in pairs. And Yzma and Wuya knew how they wanted to spend theirs.

"It really would've been nice," Wuya sighed, "ruling all the worlds."

"Condemning the peasantry to suffer," Yzma said wistfully. "Laughing in their faces when they attempted to lodge complaints."

"Remaking their cities to fit our aesthetic," Wuya continued. "Tall, imposing towers. Brilliantly colored fire pits. Your face everywhere."

"Rigging the economic system to benefit us, waiting for them to complain they had no bread, then asking why they did not simply eat pie."

"Something about that wording doesn't sound quite right, but I agree with the sentiment."

After another regret-filled silence, Yzma volunteered, "At least we have the pool."

"And thank the gods for that."

The lemonade glasses clinked.

This was followed by the slamming open of the door to the pool room and the scuffling of Mim's feet hurrying inside.

Realizing what was about to happen, Wuya and Yzma sat bolt upright, letting out a synchronized, "MIM! NO!"

Mim flat-out ignored them, choosing instead to bellow "CANNONBAAAAAAAALL!" and leap into the water, hugging her knees.

She made impact right next to the float, causing a wave that overturned it completely and plunged both of its occupants into the pool water. By the time Yzma and Wuya surfaced, they were greeted with the sound of Mim's hysterical laughter.

"Hilarious," Yzma said dryly.

"Well, someone around here needed to bring a little levity!" Mim argued. "Everyone else is trudging around like they're at a funeral!"

As it turned out, not everyone had just wanted time.

"You don't even like levity," Wuya reminded her. "You like suffering."

"You LOVE funerals!" Yzma added. "You crash them for the free food! …At least, that sounds like something you'd do."

"Oh, you got me!" Mim waved her hands toward Yzma and Wuya, flicking more droplets of water onto their faces. "I just wanted to ruin your good time. But you really are the only ones having a good time to ruin!"

"All right." Yzma began to swim toward the pool ladder. "Fine. This has gone on long enough. It's time someone did something about – "

She reached for the ladder to find it missing.

"Mim," Yzma growled, "put it back."

"No," Mim refused.

Wuya snapped her fingers, and a new ladder appeared; Yzma scaled it as Wuya simply levitated herself out of the water. "So who are we going after first?" Wuya asked.

"I figure we'll take the long way to Mozenrath's place and see who we run into," Yzma said with a shrug.

When she left the pool room, she was once more clothed in a slinky purple cocktail dress; Wuya had assumed her own signature black gown. Mim hadn't bothered drying off and paraded behind them sopping wet, leaving a trail of water wherever she went.

In the training room, Snatcher and Roman stood back-to-back in the center of the field, stationary targets surrounding them. "It will be to the timing of a waltz," Snatcher finished explaining. "I will count two measures of three, and then we will begin." He hoisted up his weapon, finger wrapped around the pistol trigger in anticipation.

"Uh-huh," Roman sighed from behind him. "Waltz. Got it."

The dissatisfaction in his tone was evident. Snatcher knew the loss of Firefly and Ragdoll and the subsequent laying of blame upon Roman for their defection had hit him hard. He'd been wrong about things going back to status quo given time. If he were being perfectly honest, he knew Roman had brought this upon himself by striking Harley off Xerxes' back into a hostile wasteland, but he wasn't about to say that to Roman. Roman was already doing a bad job at hiding how dismayed he really was by the whole incident. Part of the reason Snatcher had brought him all the way down here to practice the new battle formation that had occurred to him was to get his mind on something more productive (the other part of the reason being that a new battle formation had occurred to Snatcher in the first place). Still, there was a time to coddle and a time to force a person into action, and this was decidedly the latter. Not that Snatcher was to make any direct reference to the incident. "Torchwick," he said, "if you don't pay attention, this entire choreography is going to crash and burn. I refuse to trip over your ankle because you weren't keeping time."

"I'm on it, okay?" Roman snapped. "I'm not gonna mess this up."

"This will require PERFECT synchrony – "

"Archie. I GOT this. Just count us in already."

After allowing himself one deep sigh, Snatcher counted down, "ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three – "

His left foot (clad now in the three-inch heeled boot he preferred to wear now that he was among nonjudgmental minds) pivoted back as Roman's right (bearing the same brown shoes as always, polished meticulously but showing signs of mild wear) slid forward to accommodate it. Both weapons were raised and fired at their targets. The pair turned ninety degrees, still staying back-to-back, and made a second shot at the targets perpendicular to their previous marks. Their feet slid in synchrony to bring them into a second quarter-turn, where they let off another round. They settled into rhythm, turning circles round and round while still covering each other's backs, the targets littering the room becoming decimated, and Roman for a moment was caught up in the fluid motions and the resounding explosions, brought to a place of meditative bliss that allowed him to forget that anything had been bothering him.

"I think we've GOT this!" he laughed.

"I do believe we have!" Snatcher responded amidst the cacophony of their fire, equally giddy.

When Yzma entered the room, she was very nearly electrocuted by a bolt from Snatcher's pistol, ducking only a split second in time to save herself. Wuya hurried in to put a green deflection shield around them both.

"Oh, I see how it is!" Mim huffed as she stormed in after them. "No shield for Mim! All over a silly little cannonball!"

"You can make your own shield," Wuya reminded her. "Also, I somehow doubt being hit by one of them would actually hurt you."

The trio's arrival halted Snatcher and Roman in their tracks. "Miss Yzma," Snatcher greeted, tipping his hat politely. "Miss Wuya. Madam Mim."

"PLEASE tell me you saw us being complete badasses just now," Roman chimed in.

"Of course," Yzma replied dryly. "I saw every moment of…that…thing…you were doing just now."

"She didn't see it," Roman sighed. "All right, from the top."

"Not now!" Wuya hissed. "We'll need all the help we can get to drag Mozenrath out of his bastion of whiny solitude."

Snatcher gave a sigh as he shook his head. "I was afraid it would come to this. I do believe I could talk some sense into him…if he'd allow me to get that close…"

"Hence we all go together," Yzma stated calmly. "If I've calculated correctly, the seven of us should be able to drag him out of that room without suffering bodily harm that's TOO grievous."

Snatcher produced his scroll from a pocket. "I shall locate the others."

He immediately set to texting the Huntsman and Aghoul.

And, two minutes later, was still composing the same text.

"Archie," Roman said to break the silence, "it doesn't HAVE to be grammatically correct."

"Yes it does," Snatcher said briskly without looking up.

"How is it taking you this long to type three words?" Wuya asked. "Where. Are. You."

"I am EXPLAINING the SITUATION," Snatcher argued, still not looking away from the screen. "This matter requires CONTEXT. Still not used to these blasted keys…"

"That's it." Yzma swiped for the scroll, which Snatcher quickly hoisted up out of her reach. "Give that to me!"

"I am ALMOST FINISHED!"

Still Yzma grabbed for the scroll; Snatcher twisted and squirmed to keep it out of her hands. "Torchwick!" he growled. "Some ASSISTANCE would be nice!"

Roman had half-remembered that there was a reason he had been in a bad mood, and was dazing back into fully recalling what it was until the call to action snapped him out of it. "Hey, hey, hey!" He inserted himself in between the squabbling pair, facing Yzma. "Hands off the merchandise! That is reserved for ME."

Roman spread his arms, shifting to block Yzma as she tried to duck around him; Snatcher quickly turned his back on the whole scene and resumed typing.

Mim offered a bucket of popcorn toward Wuya, who took a handful before snapping her fingers and creating several loops of chains around Roman to bind his limbs.

"HA!" Yzma shoved Roman over onto the floor before pursuing Snatcher.

Snatcher whirled to meet her gaze, holding out the scroll – its screen absolutely filled with text – in Yzma's face. "IT IS FINISHED," he declared. "ARE YOU HAPPY?"

Yzma froze, then relaxed. "As a matter of fact, yes," she said calmly. "Now send it and we can be on our way."

"That I will," Snatcher said definitively.

He then proceeded to turn the scroll's screen toward himself and stare at it dumbfoundedly.

"WELL?" Yzma cried in exasperation.

"…I need a moment," Snatcher muttered.

"You don't know how to send a text, do you?" Wuya sighed.

"I've done it before," Snatcher argued.

"But you forgot," Wuya stated.

"I'm not USED to this – "

Wuya took two strides toward him, then swiped the scroll out of his hands, deleting his carefully composed textwall and replacing it with a simple "Where are you?". After sending the text wall to the Huntsman and Aghoul, she shoved the device back at Snatcher. "There. You're welcome."

Snatcher, rather miffed, made no response until the phone beeped back. "Ah! That will be Mr. Aghoul. Apparently he and Mr. Liu are talking over the situation in what I suppose we now refer to as the 'karaoke room.'"

"Well?" Mim spread out her arms, indicating everyone in the room. "Let's go!"

"DOES ANYONE WANT TO GET ME OFF THE FLOOR FIRST?" Roman yelled in exasperation, squirming against his chains.

As Snatcher and Yzma worked together to stand Roman back up, Mim said offhandedly, "Of course! Let's bring along Roman!" As Wuya dissolved the chains, Mim went on: "After all, he would be on board with whatever's best for the WHAM ARMY. Assuming he doesn't THROW MOZENRATH OUT A WINDOW and cause a schism among the founders that ends up driving both my Ghoulie and my Rémy out the door!"

Ah. Yes. That was what had gotten Roman so out of sorts earlier.

"Oh, ha ha, real funny," Roman grunted. "For the last time, that was NOT my FAULT. She tried to FUCKING KILL US! WHAT ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO? Oh, but everyone who agreed with me on that earlier is giving me the fucking stink-eye now. Leave me. The fuck. Alone. No, wait, actually, that's exactly what you've all been doing. Leaving me the fuck alone and refusing to talk to me unless it's to throw in a jab about EXACTLY THAT."

"Well, I LIKED Peter," Mim huffed, folding her arms. "He was one of the few dance partners who could actually keep up with me. I normally don't appreciate when people have a SMILE on their face, but his was actually…dare I say it…infectious! Just like a plague. And thanks to you, that plague just got cured! Are you happy?"

"Plagues being cured," Roman seethed through gritted teeth, "is usually a GOOD THING! And you know what? Mist – no, PETER and GARFIELD leaving is a GOOD THING. They OBVIOUSLY couldn't cut it with us, so now we don't have to put up with them! Huh? Did you think about THAT?"

"I think you just don't want to admit that they're gone because of you," Mim said plainly.

Roman was nearing the tipping point, so Snatcher intervened, leaning into Mim's field of vision. "Might I take a moment to remind all present that Misters Lynns and Merkel CHOSE to leave of their own volition? If you're going to put the blame on someone, blame them for abandoning us. No blame lies with Torchwick." The last of which was a blatant lie, but sometimes, lies were necessities.

"Does it really even matter?" Yzma sighed. "They left. They're not coming back. It happened. We're MOVING ON."

"Literally," Wuya said as she made her way to the opposite door of the training room from where she had entered. "We're meeting up with George and Ayam, and you can either come with us or stay here and yell at each other."

Snatcher put a hand on Roman's shoulder to signify that arguing with Mim was no longer worth it; the pair turned to follow Yzma and Wuya out the door. Mim stormed after the group.

By the time the five reached the karaoke room, Aghoul and the Huntsman were seated at one of the tables; the others caught them in the midst of conversation. "That suddenly explains the influx of dragons in the Netherworld fifty years ago," Aghoul stated in mild awe.

"A success I have yet to truly replicate," the Huntsman said with a nod.

As Yzma, Wuya, Snatcher, Roman, and Mim settled in around the table, the Huntsman looked to the group at large, changing to the topic he knew would be at hand: "I am well aware why we are all gathered here."

"We're not just going to let him sit in his room and mope for the next three weeks," Yzma stated firmly.

"I have attempted to make contact with him," the Huntsman admitted. "Admittedly, I have utilized the huntstaff's short-range teleportation abilities to enter his chambers, but only to deliver him meals, as he does not collect food for himself when in a state of dismay. Each time, I have found him beneath the bedclothes, unwilling to acknowledge my presence when I address him. He has, however, cleared every plate I have left in time for the next to arrive. At the very least, he has not given up on survival. It does, however, concern me that he will not even speak to me."

"What makes you so special?" Mim asked with suspicion. "Why would he want to talk to you over the rest of us?"

"I wonder why anyone would want to prefer speaking to George over Mim," Yzma said dryly. "Truly, a mystery for the ages."

"You do not know," the Huntsman realized. "Mozenrath and I are once more involved."

"Just to be clear," Wuya replied, "you mean 'involved' as in 'dating.'"

"Yes," the Huntsman clarified. "I do."

There was a pause before Wuya, Yzma, Mim, Aghoul, Roman, and Snatcher all broke out in a long, drawn-out, and guttural groan.

"NOT AGAIN," Yzma moaned. "NOT AGAIN!"

"Mr. Liu," Snatcher sighed, "we've all had more than enough of you and Lord Mozenrath failing to get along. I don't think we can stand another one of your breakups."

"I assure you," the Huntsman argued, "I have learned from my mistakes. I will not cause any more problems, no matter the outcome of this relationship."

"Now I don't know WHAT will be the nail in the coffin of the WHAM ARMY," Aghoul groaned. "You and Mozenrath breaking up again, or Roman driving out everyone in the lower ranks."

Roman slammed both hands on the table, standing up. "FOR. THE LOVE. OF THE GODS."

"Just forget about those cosmetic-purloining ruffians and make some new friends!" Yzma hissed.

"I would consider it," Aghoul replied, "but the minute I get attached to someone else, Roman will probably murder their cousin in cold blood, and they'll walk out."

"You think I go around fucking with our allies' ex-friends for FUN?" Roman cried. "Why did they even still CARE about her? SHE DITCHED BOTH OF THEM!"

"Oh, calm down," Aghoul barked. "It's not like any of it will matter when George calls it quits with Mozenrath, Mozenrath becomes angry and broken-hearted enough to disband the WHAM ARMY, and we all go our separate ways looking for employment."

"Why would Mozenrath and George splitting up mean the REST of us broke up?" Wuya asked.

"I don't know," Aghoul said with a shrug. "Ask Roman. It'll be his fault."

Roman and the Huntsman exchanged a sympathetic glance.

"I feel obligated to root for you now," Roman told the Huntsman.

"I was on board for throwing Roman a bone," Yzma sighed, "but YOU? And MOZENRATH?"

"That worked out sooooooo well last time," Wuya huffed.

Snatcher was the next to rise. "That will be ENOUGH," he growled. "It's as if you WISH the WHAM ARMY to disband. Is it so difficult to believe that Mr. Liu has learned from his mistakes? That he and Lord Mozenrath can in fact carry out a stable relationship given all they've gone through thus far? That the defection of Misters Lynns and Merkel was NOT THE FAULT OF TORCHWICK but THEIR OWN CHOICE? And even if it were, I find it necessary to remind you that we have only overcome the previous obstacles in our path through cooperation. Should these unnecessary arguments continue, we shall lose our greatest asset. Therefore, I offer you a choice. Set aside all grievances that are based on conjecture, cannot be solved now that the moment has passed, or are simply none of your business, and we shall bring Lord Mozenrath back into the fold and map our next path to glory. Anyone who truly believes the WHAM ARMY is in danger of falling apart due to the actions of Torchwick or Mr. Liu, however, will stop wasting time and leave it to pursue a more fruitful career AT ONCE. Do I make myself clear?"

Wuya, Yzma, Mim, Aghoul, Roman, and the Huntsman all stared up at Snatcher in total silence, caught off guard by his seizing of the reins. As much as they'd bickered, they all knew their worth to each other, both practically and emotionally, and no one truly wanted to make the move that would dissolve the alliance.

So Mim sighed, "Hounding Roman was getting boring anyway. I'd rather move on to something more fun and fiendish."

"ABOUT Mozenrath," Aghoul contributed.

"At least now we know the state he's in," Yzma volunteered.

"He won't even talk to his boyfriend," Wuya mused. "Disappointing but not all that surprising."

"Congrats, by the way," Roman told the Huntsman.

With a smirk, Snatcher took his seat once more, muttering, "That's more like it." He had his own doubts about Mozenrath and the Huntsman, but voicing them would ultimately do more harm than good. It struck him once again, as it did from time to time, how stunning it was that he had actually found so many people he enjoyed the companionship of and who shared his thirst for power, and this friendship was not going to fall apart so long as he had anything to say about it. Of course, he still credited himself for being the reason the Huntsman had returned to the fold at all. Mozenrath was certainly the brains of the operation in the long run, but Snatcher was starting to see himself as the person best suited to step up in his absence when conflict needed resolution quickly. After all, he had yet to be wrong.

With the exception of the prediction that Garfield and Peter would get over Harley. But Snatcher refused to count that one as a failure. There were extenuating circumstances there, he told himself.

"Well, the way I see it, there's only one thing to do," Yzma stated.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Aghoul asked.

"I think we're all thinking it," Wuya replied with a smile.

They assembled before the door to Mozenrath's apartment, Yzma out front and center. She knew quite well how much Snatcher was taking to being substitute leader on the diplomatic front, but she had been the one to incite this mission and she was going to be the one to lead it. "MOZENRATH!" she yelled at the door. "THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING TO COME OUT OF THERE BEFORE I BREAK THE DOOR DOWN MYSELF!"

"Wait," Wuya said suddenly, "YOU break down the door?"

"That's what I said after you said 'I think we're all thinking it'!" Yzma reminded her. "That was literally five minutes ago!"

"Yzma, I wouldn't – "

"YOU HAVE UNTIL THE COUNT OF THREE!" Yzma yelled at the door. "A-ONE!"

There was no response from the door.

"If he's not home, this is going to be embarrassing," Aghoul muttered.

"A-TWO!" Yzma yelled.

Still nothing from Mozenrath's end.

"Yzma," Wuya cautioned, "I really WOULDN'T – "

Yzma first raised her hand toward Wuya; "If you're about to tell me about the quality of the wood in that door, I don't care." She then took three great steps back, the others parting to let her through. "A-THREE!"

No response.

"THAT'S IT!" Yzma ran full tilt and launched herself at the door.

Which did not yield to her body slamming against it, holding up strong and causing Yzma to practically bounce off and crash to the floor.

Wuya was immediately at her side, helping her to stand. "I was just going to point out the reinforced construction of the doors on this ship."

"Which I have confirmed are very, very strong," Yzma said in a daze. "As I had wanted to test. All according to plan. No need to worry about intruders."

"Unless, of course, those intruders are a Heylin witch, a centuries-old sorceress, an undead sorcerer, and a man armed with a staff constructed to break a dragon's spine," Wuya said with a grin.

With the combined powers of Wuya, Mim, Aghoul, and the Huntsman, the door to Mozenrath's domicile was quickly shattered into splinters.

"He's going to want that door back," Snatcher pointed out.

"Well, that's his problem," Mim said as she marched over the threshold.

The seven stormed in as a crowd to find exactly the scene the Huntsman had described. The apartment looked as though it had not seen use in quite a while, save for the bedroom. On the bedside table rested a set of empty dishes with the crumbs and smears of a devoured meal. The bed itself contained a vaguely Mozenrath-sized lump buried beneath the blanket and every single sheet.

Yzma wasted no time whipping the bedclothes off in one swift motion, revealing Mozenrath, fully clothed, curled up in the fetal position with his back to the others; upon the loss of his covers, he twitched, trying to make himself smaller.

"Get up," Yzma demanded.

"No," Mozenrath growled.

"Get out of that bed THIS INSTANT," Yzma hissed between gritted teeth.

"I DON'T WANT TO," Mozenrath growled right back.

"Because this is SO mature," Yzma sighed.

"In case you missed it," Mozenrath reminded her, still turned away from her, "I lost everything I spent the last two months working for. I had the entire multiverse in the palm of my hand, and it was TAKEN AWAY from me. By ALADDIN. There's nothing left. There's no point in trying. He. Always. WINS."

"You, you, you!" Yzma spat. "In case YOU missed it, WE had a share in those EXACT same worlds, and we lost it, too! You don't see any of us curled up in bed and refusing to get up!"

"If you want to pursue an exercise in futility, that's your business," Mozenrath replied.

"Right now," Yzma told him, "we aren't pursuing ANYTHING because we are WAITING for our LEADER to give us a direction!"

"You want a direction?" Mozenrath responded. "How about out of my room?"

"That's it!" Yzma barked. "George! Remove him from that bed by force!"

"Breaking down the door was a necessity," the Huntsman replied, "but if you are asking me to forcibly move Mozenrath against his will, you misunderstand our relationship."

"Thank you," Mozenrath replied coldly. "At least SOMEONE underst – " He paused. Then he finally rolled over, propping himself up to face the other seven. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY DOOR?"

"Nothing that can't be fixed with magic," Wuya replied. "When I feel like it. Which I don't."

"Now, you listen here!" Yzma shook a bony finger in Mozenrath's face. "The sooner you get over this funk, the sooner we can move on to something new and get back on track! The only way for you to make any sort of progress is to find a NEW scheme to get invested in!"

"And what exactly do you suggest?" Mozenrath sighed. "Our plan was perfect. There will never be a better scheme than that one. And now it's been foiled. What IS the next step from this? What goal is worth pursuing more than conquering the multiverse?"

"If I may offer a thought," Snatcher broke in, "it's never been about switching goals, but switching the means. Did I throw in the towel once Trubshaw refused my request and handed his child over to the Boxtrolls? Absolutely not! I simply rerouted my plans to accomplish my goal over a longer term! At the risk of spouting a tired cliché, when one door closes, another opens!"

"You know, I've never understood that expression," Roman admitted.

"I wasn't aware it would have crossed to Remnant," Snatcher said in mild surprise.

"Well, it did," Roman informed him, "and it has never made ANY sense to me. If a door closes, you open it back up. That is how doors fucking work."

"So by that logic," Mozenrath said in an apathetic tone, "the next step would be to track down everything Aladdin stole from us and get it all back – "

His eyes suddenly widened. Slowly, he sat up.

"Open the door back up," he repeated. "Get back everything Aladdin stole."

"It isn't as though he destroyed it, after all!" Aghoul encouraged, seeing exactly where Mozenrath was going with this.

"We can get it back," Mozenrath babbled as though just to himself. "We can still salvage this spell. Of course, it will be heavily guarded, and they have defenses up around the castle at Radiant Garden, assuming that is where they took everything, but I welcome a challenge, and I'm sure the rest of you are game. It might be best to conduct light reconnaissance first. A team of two. Myself and…" He turned to look to the other seven. "Which one of you started the movement to drag me out of bed?"

The Huntsman, Aghoul, Mim, Wuya, Snatcher, and Roman all pointed to Yzma.

"Myself and Yzma," Mozenrath decided, sliding out of the bed and standing to full height. "We are opening this door back up."

"Now THAT'S the Mozenrath I know!" Yzma declared with glee.

"It is a relief to see you back to your old self," the Huntsman stated earnestly.

Mozenrath straightened out his turban and cape, which had become misaligned from lying beneath the covers. "It's time to pay Radiant Garden a visit."

...

It wasn't the world Loki had come from, but one of the many parallel versions of it that lay adjacent. All of these worlds had many commonalities, but on this particular world, the ever-present struggle of superhuman mutants to live in a society that reviled them for their differences dominated the news more than any other facet.

For many of the younger generation of mutants, there was a safe haven: Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, the manor of telepath Charles Xavier, who had converted his home into a bastion of learning and protection for mutant teens. Many of the youths who attended the institution had assembled into a team of protectors for the Bayville suburb of New York, where the manor was situated. Each member of this team, known as the "X-Men" to reflect Xavier's name, possessed a special power. For example, Kitty "Shadowcat" Pryde was able to phase her entire body and any object she touched through solid matter. Scott "Cyclops" Summers (a graduate who now took up a position as a teacher for the next generation) emanated a constant energy field from his eyes, held back by specially constructed glasses. Kurt "Nightcrawler" Wagner was able to teleport from place to place by cutting through a transitional dimension.

It was Kurt who was at the heart of the origins of the chain of incidents leading several of this world to tie themselves to the conflict that rocked the multiverse. It began innocently enough, with fellow mutant Forge, a technological genius, paying the manor a visit to conduct an experiment inspired by Kurt.

"I still do not like this," the smaller, blue mutant bemoaned as he paced back and forth behind the counter where Forge was welding his newest creation together. (The fact that Kurt was blue had absolutely nothing to do with his teleportation powers.)

"It's gonna be far out!" Forge insisted, the taller, dark-haired mutant piecing the next scrap of metal to the device. "If you teleport while activating the device, it will be able to tap into the fabric of space and time to send you across dimensions! This could allow you to discover entire new worlds if they exist! Can you dig it? It's going to be so bad!"

"Exactly!" Kurt worried, halting himself to throw his arms out in front of him. "It is going to be BAD! Last time I used one of your devices to mess with my teleportation, it unleashed monsters from that other dimension upon this one! And now you're sending me to worlds we don't even know exist? I don't even know what is going to happen, but I know it's going to be terrible!"

"You need to chill," Forge told Kurt. "Maybe we messed up last time. But this time will be different. Not every world has flesh-eating monsters in it, you know. What's even the point of having a mutation if you're not going to take it to the max? This could be the start of a great adventure! You could discover a world no one's ever seen before! You need to forget about the past and keep on trucking!" He welded the last piece into place. "There!"

Kurt tilted his head as he regarded the machine. It looked like a simple metal sphere with activation buttons to switch it on and off. So innocent in appearance, yet he still didn't trust it. Seeking an excuse not to use it, he latched onto the old standby of a disapproving authority figure: "Professor Xavier – "

"Also needs to learn how to be cool," Forge insisted, turning to look Kurt in the eye. "Hey, if you don't wanna use it right away, that's totally cool. But think on it, okay? Your mutation is the only one that will resonate with it, and you're the only one who can see what's actually out there."

Kurt just felt bad refusing at this point. And if he were being honest with himself, a part of him truly was curious about these "other worlds" Forge was seeking. Images from fantasy and sci-fi media filled his mind as he considered it. "Okay," he said gingerly. "I'll think about it."

"Just hang onto it for a bit," Forge encouraged. "And don't tell the man unless you have to."

Kurt nodded, picking up the sphere. "I guess I should thank you for making this for me."

"If you end up finding something out there, that'll be thanks enough!"

Kurt ferreted the sphere away to his room, setting it on his bedside table, where he hoped it would look like an innocent decorative ornament. He had a lot to consider.

After all, this device would end up being the incendiary incident of the events to come. But despite Kurt being the reason it existed, he was not the one meant for what it brought.

He would never even get the chance to use it.

...

The miniaturized Cornerstone of Light. The crystal of congealed Dust. The six human souls. The Elements of Harmony. The shards of the first Aurora Stone. The enlarged, colorless grain of sand. The Eliacube. The Spirit Waters. The meteor. The Fused Shadow. The Celestial Brush. The Dragon's Eye.

These were the items arranged carefully across the dining room table of the Radiant Garden castle. Ienzo hovered around the room, inspecting each item and taking notes on its construction and power, collecting his observations on a notebook small enough to fit in his pocket.

He didn't even notice the creak of the door, nor the conversation that was passing between the pair who entered the room.

"…you SERIOUS?" Sora was asking Aladdin, eyes wide.

"Yeah," Aladdin confirmed, "I am. It's…still so WEIRD to think about. He's actually my brother. We're related."

"So does this change anything?" Sora asked.

"I know it shouldn't," Aladdin admitted, "but…it almost doesn't feel right to be fighting my own family. Obviously it does for HIM, but…my dad wouldn't have wanted this."

"You don't think…there could be a way to get him to be good, do you?"

"It's crossed my mind," Aladdin confessed. "Obviously, he's WAY too far gone. But I still can't get the idea out of my head. This can't be what's best for him. Can it? He already almost destroyed himself once."

"Well, I know Papyrus would think he could turn around if he got the chance." Sora shrugged. "Maybe he's right." The pair passed Ienzo, and Sora gave the scientist a light pat on the back. "Hey, Ienzo."

Ienzo finally noticed that there were other people in the room; he flinched so hard, the notebook fumbled in his hands. "Oh," he said sheepishly. "I didn't see you there."

"Isn't that all the stuff Aladdin took from the WHAM ARMY?" Sora asked, casting his gaze over the table.

"Yeah," Aladdin said as he gave Sora a playful shove. "While you were having a pillow fight."

"Heyyyyy!" Sora groaned. "Your wife beat me in that fight, by the way."

"And you're SURPRISED?"

Ienzo cocked his head. "Sora…while the rest of us were attempting to escape the barrier, and Aladdin was transported to the WHAM ARMY base…you were having a pillow fight?"

"We missed out on all the fun stuff!" Sora pouted.

Ienzo shook his head. "And here I thought getting to have a pillow fight instead of evading certain doom WOULD be considered more fun."

"So what're you gonna do with all this stuff?" Sora asked.

"It will need to be contained somewhere secure," Ienzo explained. "I am analyzing the magical properties of each artifact and judging what will be necessary to hold it safely. As of now, the castle does not have a proper vault for such volatile magical items, let alone one proofed against the sort of foe who would be wont to steal such valuables. However, with the protective spell preventing any teleportation into the castle, the artifacts will be safe here for at least the time being until I can construct a proper vault. In the dining room they will stay."

"And what if someone wants to actually have dinner in the dining room?" Aladdin asked with a sly grin.

"…We'll eat around them," Ienzo answered.

The door on the opposite end of the dining room crashed open; Donald and Goofy barged through, crying out:

"Sora!"

"SORA!"

Goofy held a piece of paper aloft, whipping it excitedly. "We got a letter from Master Yen Sid!" he announced.

"Yen Sid?" Sora replied. "What's it say?" He tensed up, already excited for whatever Yen Sid had to ask of him.

"It was addressed to you, the two of us, Riku, Kairi, Lea, and the king!" Donald explained. "He wants to see us at his tower right away to talk about the next steps of our training!"

"All right!" Sora cried, bunching up his fists and bending his knees in excitement. "Let's round up the others and get on the Gummi ship!"

"But he said we didn't need to use the Gummi ship," Goofy continued. "He said the trip would be a lot shorter if we went to the train station."

"The train station?" Sora straightened up, tilting his head. "How are we gonna get there from the train station?"

"I dunno," Goofy said with a shrug, "but the letter said we'd know what we were lookin' for when we saw it!"

"Then let's go!" Sora encouraged.

Ienzo and Aladdin watched the trio hurry away, both smiling. "My sister is definitely among good company," Ienzo said with a nod.

"I'll agree to that," Aladdin concurred. "Wonder what that sorcerer is gonna teach them this time."

"I'm certain we'll find out," Ienzo replied.

...

The Enchanted Dominion was hardly the dark paradise that the Forbidden World had been. From atop the Forbidden Mountain fortress' pinnacle, Maleficent and Loki looked out over the horizon to see not a view of sparkling palaces and bastions framed by a pitch-dark sky, but beyond the mountains, lands of lush greenery, bustling villages dotting the meadows as a brilliant sun blessed the landscape from above.

"This is a bit of a step down, is it not?" Loki teased.

Maleficent knew better than to let his needling affect her emotional state. She was used to him by now. "Indeed it is. All the more reason to set sights on a higher goal. In the meantime, it seems you have been quite busy with your own agenda."

"That I have," Loki confirmed. "Asgard is now under my command, and my fool brother none the wiser."

"You have a trick of sorts to keep him from realizing what has taken place."

"Assuming the form of Odin, actually," Loki responded. "No one has denied me a thing since I took his place."

"And the real Odin is dead?" Maleficent asked, voice tinted with impression.

"No," Loki responded. "I was sorely tempted, but then a little bit of research turned up that removing Odin from the equation would unleash something I would prefer not to deal with at the moment. ONE sibling interfering with my plans is hellish enough. I instead have Odin stored away somewhere secure where I may retrieve him if and when I see fit to do so."

"And you brought with you acquaintances," Maleficent observed.

"I wished to build a network of resources of like minds," Loki informed her. "Which, in my homeworld, is more difficult than you would expect. I wouldn't have thought a man named 'Killmonger' would be too noble to fit my cause, and yet here we are. Ghost? Too preoccupied chasing her own sob story to seek true power. Red Skull? Not as dead as most like to believe, but I'd rather not even go there. Ulysses Klaue? Disposable, and he should count himself lucky I didn't decide to use his corpse as a stepping stool, though I'm certain he'll meet that end eventually at the hands of someone less merciful than I."

"Less merciful than the Liesmith?" Maleficent asked, amused.

"I can have mercy," Loki replied. "I showed mercy on Odin, did I not?"
"Because you benefitted from his survival."

"It was mercy nonetheless." This was accompanied by a very proud smile.

"True indeed," Maleficent replied. She had missed this. Over the centuries, her relationship with Loki had gone through many phases: they had been enemies so hated that they spent every waking moment plotting the other's demise, and they had been the closest of friends, sharing secrets and goals. For the last fifty years, they had been in the latter state, and Maleficent truly did enjoy Loki's quick wit and his pride in causing harm in the name of conquest. He had a way of lifting her spirits – not in any way romantic; she had her eye elsewhere in that department – and though she was loath to admit it, sometimes he gave her ideas she hadn't even begun to think of on her own. "It seems you did indeed find like minds after all."

"Victor von Doom has always been in my circle," Loki explained. "He has merely operated from the shadows. When I was an errand boy for Thanos, he supplied an adequate amount of mercenaries to aid my cause in dominating Midgard. During that time, he was my greatest tie to independence. A life outside Thanos' grip. There were moments when I…retreated to him in order to have moments of freedom. I was always a welcome guest in his hall, damage I caused aside."

Maleficent nodded. Even to his friends, Loki did always cause damage. She was well prepared to deal with whatever he had brought to her doorstep.

"Brilliant mind, Victor," Loki continued. "Rather like myself. It was only inevitable that we became paramours. I do believe when last I left him, he was conversing with your doctor…Arthur Watts, was it? It seems you've made quite the interesting friends yourself."

"Indeed," Maleficent confirmed. "But first, I wish to hear you conclude speaking of yours. This Victor von Doom…I presume he is a man of science, much like Dr. Watts."

"Science and sorcery alike," Loki confirmed, "with a dash of politics on top."

"I can tell why he appeals to you. But what of the other?"

"Ah, yes, the demon Blackheart," Loki answered. "His true form is a bit more frightening, but as of late, he has assumed a shape I have assured him is far more physically pleasing. He wished to be able to walk among humans and sow discord in subtler ways than turning up in a column of fire and brimstone, all claws and fangs. And no one wishes to be the fool who informs him that he has absolutely failed at all forms of subtlety. He is somewhat of a singularity. His ability to pass through Mephisto's realm does not truly bind him to my Midgard, and I have come to learn that he has wrought destruction upon many versions of the Midgard I know."

"Which would explain why he seems so at ease conversing with Hades," Maleficent said with a nod. "Though Hades never has cared for Mephisto."

"Neither has Blackheart. It is another small thing he and I have in common: we care not for those who claim to be our fathers. Though it is of note that unlike Odin and I, Mephisto and Blackheart actually share a blood tie."

"A son of Mephisto will surely benefit our ranks," Maleficent stated calmly.

"But to what end?" Loki asked. "Your carefully written fate has been unraveled. Your paradise blasted to oblivion. Your magic weakened by an insolent fool who nearly destroyed himself and took everything he wanted down with him. Now, I know you quite well, and I would not make the error of thinking that any of these setbacks has TRULY set you back. With your carefully calculated plans now in disarray, you must have your sights set elsewhere. The question is: where?"

"The others did not have such faith in me," Maleficent confided. "Many linger under the delusion that I am lying in wait to be struck with a different plan."

"Surely not Hades."

"No, Hades never has been one to doubt me," Maleficent replied. "Is there a reason you invoke his name?"
Loki's smirk was playful, knowing. "Merely that the two of you have known each other for so long, I can scarcely imagine either of you failing to believe in the other. There is nothing more to be read of it." This was said in the tone of a person who absolutely read something far deeper of it. "Likewise, I find it hard to believe Ursula has lost faith, or Jafar."

"As with Hades, Ursula and Jafar are not waiting for me to be struck with inspiration," Maleficent clarified, "but to let them in on what I have been inspired to do."

"I don't suppose you're willing to share with me what you haven't with them," Loki said with a mock sigh. "And despite all of our history. After what we went through at the battle of the Dark Dimension!"

"Certainly you have not forgotten that the battle of the Dark Dimension was us pitted against each other," Maleficent reminded him gently. "You sought my head, and I sought your beating heart on a platter."

"That little detail must have slipped my mind."

"And yet," Maleficent went on, "it is because of your recent endeavor that I find you perhaps the most appropriate person with whom to share my newest ambition. After all, you have now conquered Asgard. Merging our alliance brings Asgard under my control as well. My forces – OUR forces – now have access to a second domain of the gods. The first, of course, being the Underworld."

"This is certainly leading somewhere interesting," Loki admitted.

"All the more so," Maleficent went on, "when taken into consideration what a more recent ally of mine has brought to light. You have heard of Salem, mistress of Grimm?"

"As a matter of fact, I had not."

"A pity," Maleficent replied, "and something easily remedied. She has told of four artifacts scattered across her homeworld that, when reunited, will summon that world's gods to judge humanity. The judgment they pass is little concern of mine; it is their presence that interests me."

"I think I am beginning to see where you're going," Loki stated with a wider grin than ever.

"We attempted and failed to rule among the realm of mortals," Maleficent stated. "Why, however, should we settle for any less than becoming gods ourselves?"

"A plan that will, of course, require the overthrowing of the gods currently instilled," Loki pointed out. "It will be no less than a massive coup d'etat."

"That always was a specialty of yours, was it not?"

Prominent as Loki's smile was, it did not even begin to accurately reflect the excitement building within him at the implications of what Maleficent proposed. "How are we to begin?"

...

On the aforementioned world that hosted Kurt and Forge as its home, there was, of course, more than one bastion of young mutants. Charles Xavier's institution simply marked one of the most prestigious and well-organized. Throughout the New York area alone, let alone the world, there were many other factions of gathering mutants, driven by need, driven by justice, in bright light and in the shadows, the powerful and the cunning, the righteous and the brave.

And then there was the Brotherhood of Mutants.

It was not a particularly good day for this band of mischievous outlaws; the trouble began when Pietro Maximoff (known as "Quicksilver" due to his super speed) was halfway through his morning shower and suddenly found himself with no water flow whatsoever.

"Oh, no," he muttered, becoming slightly panicked. "No, no, no, nononononono – "

He zipped to the sink, cranking the faucet handle. No water there, either.

"Great," Pietro growled. "You couldn't have given us one more week."

He quickly fastened a towel around his waist, speeding from the upstairs bathroom of the Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House down to the kitchen in the time it would take anyone else to blink. In a vain hope, he tested the kitchen sink to find that it, too, was out of order. "THIS is going to go over well," Pietro muttered.

Within the refrigerator was the last hope of salvation: a single bottled water pilfered from a convenience store two nights prior. The word "LANCE" was scrawled upon it in thick black marker, and just below that, in slightly finer print that practically encircled the whole bottle, "Pietro do not touch!".

Without giving a second thought to the labels, Pietro uncapped the bottled water, craning his head over the sink and pouring the cold liquid out to wash the lathered suds of shampoo out of his pristine white hair.

"Pietro, WHAT are you doing?"

Pietro straightened up, whipping into an about-face to greet the stunned tall brunette boy who was framed by the kitchen door. "Like what you see?" he asked with a coy grin.

Lance Alvers (code name "Avalanche" for his ability to create earthquakes on a whim) had known that his boyfriend was going to steal his water eventually. The plea written in marker had been in vain from the start. Lance had just expected that he would actually drink it. "Well, yeah, but I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at."

Pietro sighed, his playful demeanor vanishing instantly. "Water's off," he said somberly.

"That's…not good," Lance replied, doing a double take.

"We're gonna need to have a talk about this, aren't we?" Pietro groaned.

"Great," Lance huffed. "Just great."

...

Within a few minutes, Lance and Pietro had the other three members of the Brotherhood gathered within the living room. There was Pietro's twin sister, Wanda "Scarlet Witch" Maximoff, whose raven-dark hair, gothically red wardrobe, and powers akin to actual magic made her seem as fraternal of a twin to Pietro as one could get. There was the towering, bulky Fred "Blob" Dukes, strong as a rhinoceros and durable as a concrete wall if not more so; his single central strip of blond hair was complemented in an offbeat way by the overalls he favored wearing daily. And then, rather than utilizing any of the furniture or standing on the floor, Todd "Toad" Tolansky was affixed to the wall by his hands and feet – one of the many amphibian-like qualities the small, slender dishwater-blond's mutation offered him, along with an extendable green tongue and the ability to produce nauseating amounts of green mucus.

Pietro had gotten fully clothed for the occasion and stood next to Lance as the pair faced down their three housemates; the two exchanged a look in which each silently pleaded the other to break the news.

Which was silly when Pietro really thought about it. He was the leader of the group, was he not? He was not only in charge of breaking bad news; it was expected that he would do it with grace and a little bit of style. He could keep his cool. All he had to do was inform everyone else that –

"They shut our water off." The words had come out of Lance's mouth, and Pietro gritted his teeth for hesitating.

"WHAT?" Fred growled angrily.

An expression of concern crossed Wanda's face.

Todd, on the other hand, simply shrugged and said, "Ain't like I was usin' it anyway."

"Okay, we didn't need to know that," Pietro remarked.

"We all knew this day would be coming," Lance sighed. "We have to face facts: Mystique isn't coming back – "

"Not like we wanted her," Fred huffed.

" – and nobody's gonna bail us out of this one," Lance continued. "We don't have any way to pay up. We can't even wash our hands now, and that's bad enough." Followed up with a point directly at Todd: "I know. You don't care. The rest of us do."

"Wasn't gonna say nothin'," Todd replied casually.

"The longer we squat here without paying the bills," Lance went on, "the deeper trouble we're gonna get in. They already shut off the heat, and next thing, it's gonna be the electricity – "

"Wait, whoa, WHAT?" That got Todd's attention. "How long's the heat been off?"

"At least a week," Pietro chimed in.

Todd now looked visibly panicked. "That ain't gonna be good when winter comes, yo. I dunno about you guys, but I don't do well with cold. It's the whole toad thing, y'know? I ain't gonna make it!"

"Don't be dramatic," Pietro huffed – though he wasn't entirely sure Todd's claim was that far-fetched. "Anyway, we're going to fix all this."

"You have a plan?" Wanda arched an eyebrow.

"No," Pietro informed her, "but I WILL have a plan. Have I ever let you down?"

This was met with an awkward silence on all fronts.

"I'm the leader for a reason, you know," Pietro asserted.

"You're the leader?" Fred repeated in confusion.

"I thought that was Lance, yo," Todd contributed.

"Whose idea was it to go fight Apocalypse?" Pietro asked.

"Lance was the one who said we were goin' after he got guilty about Kitty," Todd recalled. "You were too busy runnin' around the house havin' a panic attack 'cause you thought Wanda was gonna die."

"THAT WAS YOU," Pietro growled.

"You were BOTH freaking out over Wanda," Lance reminded them.

"I think I might actually have been the one who said – " Fred began.

Pietro cut him off: "Well, I kept saying someone should go save her, right? And I said it BEFORE Lance was already on his way to the door. So it was my idea first."

Everyone silently pondered this before Wanda said, "Technically, I was the first one to leave the house to join that fight."

"Whatever," Pietro huffed. "I was in charge of the time we set up disasters to play hero, remember? I've been in charge for a WHILE. Right, Lance?"

Lance wasn't in the mood to dispute; he knew Pietro was happiest when he believed he was in control, and this seemed a healthy extent. "Right," he said. In truth, he thought he and Pietro were at about even keel for making leadership-related decisions.

"The point is I'm going to come up with a way to get our heat and our water turned back on," Pietro continued, "and save our electricity before we have to go half a year without a TV."

"Or a working kitchen," Wanda muttered. "Which some people would think is more important."

"We just have to come up with enough money to pay off all our bills," Pietro mused. "How many do we have, anyway?"

"I've never actually seen a bill show up in the mail," Lance admitted.

"Well, OBVIOUSLY, they're getting sent to us," Pietro snapped, "or we wouldn't be in this mess."

"You checked under all the glasses?" Todd asked.

"The what now?" Pietro replied.

"The glasses," Todd repeated. "Like in the kitchen and on the table. I knew we didn't have the dough to pay any of it off, so when the envelopes come in, I've been usin' 'em as coasters. Pretty good for it."

"You WHAT?" Pietro's jaw dropped.

Fred calmly walked over to the nearest table, picked up a glass that had been sitting there for two weeks, and removed a heating bill from beneath it. He then presented the bill to Pietro.

Pietro lightly smacked Fred's wrist away; "We'll find them all later! Right now we need to worry about the money!"

"You know there is one obvious easy solution to this," Wanda pointed out. "No one's going to like it, but it's there."

"All right, what is it?" Pietro sighed.

Lance already knew. "No. NO. Do NOT say – "

"We ask the X-Men for help," Wanda explained. "We're on a better standing than ever after the Apocalypse incident. As much as Xavier has kept his distance, if we approach him non-aggressively and make it clear that we really need help, he won't turn us away. There are more than enough resources at the mansion to keep us all going. We wouldn't want for anything."

"Are you NUTS?" Pietro snapped. "I'm not playing with the X-Geeks! Sure, they'd take us in, but not before hitting us with a hundred rules first! Out here, we do what we want! We're our own people! In there, we'd have to toe the line, act like perfect citizens, and get along with THEM."

"Trust me," Lance added, "I've been in there. I TRIED that. We'd have to give up who we ARE. It's not worth it."

"You want me to play nice with NIGHTCRAWLER, yo?" Todd asked in disgust.

"I ain't doin' it!" Fred grunted. "'Specially not if it means JEAN has to tell me what to do!"

Pietro knew what card he could play to get Wanda on his side. Several cards, actually. He knew that she valued her freedom; she might not remember her time institutionalized, but the effects it had made on her subconscious lingered. He also knew she was well aware that Xavier had monitored those years and not offered her his help then – granted, because he didn't know how to help her in the way that Agatha Harkness was eventually able to, but all the same, Wanda's impressions of Xavier weren't great. With a few quick sentences, he could turn her to see things from his point of view, just as he had convinced her with only a few words to join his scheme of acting faux do-gooder, claiming that the X-Men had been responsible for Magneto's incapacitation and using this to turn her against their rivals. It would be so easy.

But Pietro had learned. And he truly did want to be a better brother. Wanda was his family, and he had spent so many years fighting to actually have a family that he had come to realize what had to be done to protect it.

"If you wanna go beg the X-Men for help, fine," he told her. "It's like you said. They'll set you up for life. But I'm going there over my dead body."

The two Maxmioffs were locked in a stare standoff, each challenging the other with their eyes. Finally Wanda sighed. "I don't want to either," she admitted. "I know I don't belong with them. And SOMEHOW I ended up attached to all of you. If you all stay here, then so do I. I just brought it up because I thought it actually WOULD be better than literally dying." This last was punctuated with a brief glance over her shoulder at Todd.

Now it was Pietro's turn to sigh. "If we don't come up with anything else – "

"Now wait a minute," Todd broke in.

"YOU have an idea?" Lance said in disbelief.

"Nope." Pietro shook his head rapidly. "I already know it's stupid."

"Hey!" Fred argued. "Give him a chance, will ya? He could have something good!"

"That's right, Freddie!" Todd replied with an emphatic nod toward his boyfriend. He turned to look back at Pietro; "So the X-Geeks got everything we need to get by, right? So why don't we just lift it off 'em? They ain't even gonna notice if some stuff goes missin' in that big ol' mansion of theirs. They gotta have cash. And the real deal for tech we can hawk for cash."

Pietro brightened. "Now THAT actually sounds like fun."

"As fun as it sounds," Lance replied, "it doesn't feel right. There's someone over there I don't wanna mess up that way."

"Not Kitty!" Todd groaned. "You were over her, man! I thought you were all about findin' the Quicksilver linin' now!"

"Finding the Quicksilver lining," Pietro repeated softly. "I like the sound of that."

"I'm not TALKING about Kitty," Lance growled. "She's a nice person, but she's always known what it's like to have it all. She doesn't get what it's like to be us. I'm talking about TABBY."

There was a brief moment of silence as Pietro, Todd, and Fred all recalled their former housemate.

Wanda had entered the boarding house after Tabitha "Boom Boom" Smith (codename bestowed due to her ability to create explosive energy) had departed, and had never really known the girl who had been described to her as a fun-loving blonde, but from what she had heard, Tabby had fit right in with the Brotherhood, and all four of the boys had become accustomed to her presence. There were days when, considering her, Wanda wondered if Tabby were a better fit there than Wanda herself was, and this always came with a brief twist to the gut. Wanda wasn't a thrillseeker, nor a partier, nor a mischief maker. She didn't have any definitive proof that the others wouldn't much rather have Tabby around. But this was always filled up with how ridiculous it was to get jealous. If they cared about Tabby, that meant she was valuable. If they liked her, then Wanda liked her. She was a legitimate concern in this scheme's fledgling stages.

"We'll just leave Tabby's room alone," Pietro said at long last. "Anything else is fair game. Now, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna need to plan it out. And since I'm the only person who's actually gotten in and out of that mansion without being detected – "

"I got on the grounds before!" Todd argued.

"SINCE I'M THE ONLY PERSON WHO'S ACTUALLY GOTTEN IN AND OUT OF THAT MANSION WITHOUT BEING DETECTED," Pietro repeated, "I know my way around the place. What we avoid. How we get in. So it's just gonna be me, Lance, and Wanda, for starters."

"Why not me and Todd?" Fred asked angrily.

"Because this is a STEALTH mission," Pietro insisted. "The point is going to be getting in while they're asleep, picking up stuff without them noticing, and getting back out without them knowing we were ever there. Which we can't do if you go around crashing through all the walls and setting off all the alarms, Blob."

"But TODD," Fred insisted.

"HE'S TODD," Pietro argued right back. "THAT'S YOUR REASON."

"C'mon, man, this is important," Todd asserted. "It's about all of us. Me and Freddikins should be part of this."

Hardly a day passed that Wanda wasn't glad that Fred was now the one on the receiving end of Todd's pet names. He seemed to like them much better than she ever had.

Lance gave a sigh. "It would be fair. And having five sets of hands on deck instead of three could make this a lot easier."

"Okay, fine," Pietro groaned. "But only if you do EXACTLY WHAT I SAY. Because I know all the security hotspots in that stupid mansion, and if you don't listen to me, we'll all get caught and pay for your screw-up. Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine," Todd relented. "You're the boss, dawg."

"Let me at 'em!" Fred said with a grin, smacking the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. "I'll kick that door in – "

"Stopstopstop right there," Pietro interrupted. "Number one: you are NOT kicking the door in. That will set off ALL the alarms. It needs to be opened from the other side – "

"I got this!" Todd chimed in. "I just break in through one of the windows and – "

"THAT WILL ALSO SET OFF AN ALARM," Pietro groaned. "I'M the one who has to open the door. And the gate. Is that so hard to understand? Or do I have to say it in idiot-speak to get you two knuckleheads to understand? Me open door or door make bad noise!"

"The yard's also full of defenses," Lance pointed out. "I couldn't even get close without setting them off. I mean, that time, I was TRYING to get everyone's attention, but it happened way sooner than I thought it would."

"Gotcha covered." Pietro gave Lance a coy wink. "I know the path to take if you don't wanna trigger so much as a lawn sprinkler. Not to mention the blind spots for all the cameras." He gave Lance a nudge with his elbow. "Just trust me and I'll get you through this just fine."

Before Lance knew it, he was smiling with warmth. "Okay. Show us the way, leader."

"This is the best idea I've ever had," Pietro stated.

"Sure is!" Todd agreed. Then: "Hey, wait a minute – "

...

The Forbidden Mountains weren't so bad, really. Everyone in Maleficent's forces got a room to themselves at least, and the aesthetic, while grim, was certainly villainous. Sure, the Joker thought, it could use some more garish color, but that was something he could work on over time. For now, he would settle himself at home in other ways, such as raiding the kitchen for every banana in the cabinets and leaving the peels strategically arranged throughout the halls for some unlucky subordinate of Maleficent's to slip on. (He had consumed a grand total of one banana and left the rest of the edible parts in the garbage, where it turned out several of the goblins that staffed the fortress often rummaged for food due to Maleficent relegating them to slop of a far worse quality than the food upon which she and her associates dined. Had the Joker known the joy the bananas would bring to the poor goblins, he would have incinerated them instead.)

Entering his quarters, he said reflexively, "Harley, my dogs are killing me! Give them a rub, would you?"

That was when he realized he hadn't seen Harley once since entering the Forbidden Mountains.

"…Harley?"

So began a short quest of perusing the fortress to find where the wayward blonde was hiding. "Haaaar-leeeeeey!" the Joker called out, singsong, his voice echoing off the curved ceilings of stone. "HAAAAAAR-LEEEEEEEY!"

Passing through a room that Cruella had converted into a lounge by strategically arranging couches, he asked the reclining criminal of monochrome hair, "Have you seen Harley anywhere?"

"Harley Quinn?" Cruella repeated, somewhat surprised. "Darling, you're QUITE late to the news. Harley Quinn betrayed us."

"She WHAT?" The Joker was awash with absolute rage.

"She broke the mesmerism we had over Mozenrath during the most critical moment," Cruella explained. "She then went chasing after him like a lost dog. More than likely, she's joined forces with him and is plotting against us at this very moment. Whatever the case, if Maleficent finds her, she's dead. I really thought everyone had heard by now. To think YOU were the last to know is actually quite laughable."

Of all the times the Joker had claimed to want people to laugh at him, he certainly hadn't meant this. "Oh, so she's dead meat, is she? Well, NOT IF I KILL HER FIRST! Walk out on ME, will she? When I see her, I'll teach her a lesson she won't soon forget! THEN we'll see who has the last laugh!"

"Good luck with that," Cruella said in a disinterested tone.

"In the meantime," the Joker growled, "I'll need a new lackey."

"Well, don't look at me," Cruella snapped. "I don't do anyone else's dirty work. You wouldn't even be ABLE to push me around."

The Joker was tempted to see how well Cruella's claim held up, but he had to admit she wasn't what he was looking for. "No, no, no." He shook his head. "I need someone more…empty-headed. Someone who can take orders. Someone like…"

That was when Edgar Balthazar entered the room, laying down a tray with a bright pink drink in an elegant glass on the table next to Cruella's couch. "Your drinks, Miss de Vil," he announced.

"Someone like you," the Joker realized, making eye contact with Edgar.

"Me?" Edgar looked about to make sure there was no one else in the room – and that the Joker wasn't referring to Cruella. "What about me?" He had a distinct feeling he wasn't going to like whatever the Joker had in mind.

"Oh, nothing," the Joker replied, once more singsong. "Just that you work for me now. You will answer directly to me and attend to my every whim, and if you don't, there will be CONSEQUENCES. Are we clear?"

"Ooh, now he's a good choice," Cruella agreed, not in the mood to stick up for Edgar at all. He always had been rather a weak link in her circle as far as she was concerned.

"C-c-c-clear?" Edgar was now terrified. "B-but I – "

"You are a butler, are you not?" the Joker leaned toward him.

"Well, yes – "

"Then BUTTLE!"

It was futile to resist. Edgar bowed shakingly. "Whatever you wish, sir!"

"Start by getting me one of those." The Joker pointed to the drink that had been delivered to Cruella.

"Right away, sir!" Edgar hustled back to the kitchen.

The Joker took a seat on a nearby chair, crossing one leg over the other as he waited for his drink. He was still dead set on getting his revenge on Harley, but already, Edgar was proving to be easier to work with than she ever was. Less headstrong. More servile.

Just outside the lounge, Qilby had the misfortune of stepping on one of the banana peels and ending up flat on his back on the floor, wondering what had just happened.

...

As Yen Sid's notice had directed, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Lea found themselves in the center of the Radiant Garden train station, watching trains roll into and out from all of the platforms.

"So we'll know it when we see it, huh?" Lea said skeptically.

"This is ridiculous!" Donald folded his arms. "Couldn't he have said what he meant without making it some kind of riddle?"

"Well, I trust Yen Sid!" Sora insisted. "We'll figure out what he means eventually!"

Riku and Goofy saw it at the same time. "Wait," Riku said, focusing in on the sight at the far end of the train station. "Is that – "

"Look over there!" Goofy pointed directly at it.

All of the trains that rolled over the tracks of the Radiant Garden system were some shade of red. Yet at the furthest platform, one that looked abandoned by all foot traffic, a vehicle of a distinct purple-blue was parked.

"Well, I'll be!" Mickey cried. "That looks exactly like the train Master Yen Sid used to connect to Twilight Town!"

"That's not a coincidence!" Sora yelled. "Race you there!"

Without waiting for anyone else to agree, Sora had taken off.

"HEY!" Kairi yelled as the other six barreled after him. "No fair!"

Riku flashed Sora a smile as he outpaced him. "Can't even beat me with a head start?"

Sora laughed. "I so can!" He put just a little more speed into his step, looking back toward Riku.

As both boys in the lead were caught up in looking at each other, neither noticed the pair of men carrying almost conspicuously large duffel bags, nor the fact that these men were walking right into the path of the race. With a thud, both parties collided. Sora and Riku skidded to a stop; Kairi, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, and Lea halted behind them. The two men were knocked to their seats on the train station floor, staring up at Sora and Riku in bewilderment.

"Whoa!" Sora cried. "Sorry about that!"

The two men continued to stare, and it was now clear that what was written in their expressions was not bewilderment but actually a form of anxiety.

"Hey," Riku said once he noticed this. "You guys okay?"

Peter Merkel and Garfield Lynns slowly turned to look at each other, sharing silently in the realization that without their costumes (which had been stuffed into the duffel bags for transport) or the guise of an alternate identity, these heroes they had sighted on at least two different battlefields – Sora on the World of Twelve; all but Riku in Radiant Garden – had no idea who the two of them were. Peter was the first to smile, broadly as ever, and Garfield followed suit.

Sora and Riku extended their hands; Peter took Sora's and Garfield Riku's, letting the boys help them to stand. "We're quite all right, in fact," Peter stated.

"Just look where you're goin' next time, okay?" Garfield ordered.

"We will," Kairi promised.

"Gosh," Mickey added, "we're real sorry, fellas."

"I wouldn't worry about it, were I you," Peter told them with a downright mischievous smile. "It isn't as though blows were exchanged. There's truly no reason for us to have any bad blood."

Garfield bit his lip to keep his smile from getting inappropriately suspicious. Peter was actually going to get away with saying that, and he knew it.

"So where are you guys – " Sora began.

"SORA!" Donald squawked. "NOT NOW! We gotta catch the train!"

"Right!" Sora turned to continue on his way. "Hope you guys have fun wherever you're going!"

The other six hustled after him.

"Did that one guy's voice sound familiar to anyone else?" Lea wondered out loud. "The shorter one."

"I feel like I've heard him somewhere before, too," Kairi admitted. "I think he must live in town and work at one of the shops in the central square or something."

Lea shrugged. "That's probably it."

Watching the seven hurry away, Garfield commented, "Wonder where they're going."

"Curious indeed," Peter replied. "It almost warrants investigation, don't you think?"

"What, you think wherever they're going is gonna lead us to Harley?"

"Call it a gut feeling," Peter answered. "After all, they do seem to turn up wherever anything noteworthy happens. This could be exactly the plot TWIST we needed."

"Then let's fire it up," Garfield responded.

They set off at a somewhat slower pace after the seven, keeping a buffer of train station visitors in between the two groups for camouflage.

The vehicle Riku and Goofy had spied from afar was nothing like the boxy red trains that usually called Radiant Garden home base. It was more rounded in appearance, with gold framing on the front end and an ornament atop the roof fashioned after a sorcerer's hat with golden stars and moons upon a blue background. The craft's windows were star-shaped, with matching shooting-star emblems over each door. No one else seemed to be paying attention to this odd duck.

"It IS the train Master Yen Sid used to link to Twilight Town!" Mickey cried.

"It's gotta lead right to his tower!" Sora theorized.

"Well, whaddaya know," Lea said with a soft smile. "The old guy wants us ridin' in style."

"Let's go!" Kairi laughed as she boarded.

Sora, Riku, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Lea followed her to the train's violet-and-lavender interior, where they all settled themselves upon the soft cushions of the seats that lined the walls, feet resting on the crimson carpet.

"Sure brings back memories, don't it?" Goofy remarked, thinking of how he, Donald, and Sora had first used this train to travel to Yen Sid's tower.

"Yeah," Riku said with a downcast gaze, thinking of the time he and Ansem had spent keeping Roxas locked in Twilight Town's data facsimile and how they had integrated this train into its works.

Sora placed a hand on Riku's shoulder. He didn't know exactly what Riku was thinking about, but he knew it had to be one of Riku's darker times. "We'll make better memories," Sora assured him.

Riku reached up to close his own hand around the one Sora had rested on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "You're right," he said with a relieved smile, having nothing short of full faith in Sora. "We will."

Steered by no driver, the train pulled out of the station, riding only a short way down the track before warping its way off that world and setting course for its destination.

To the untrained eye, it appeared that the train had simply vanished into thin air. Thanks to spending time around Mozenrath and his ilk, however, Peter and Garfield's eyes were a little better trained than most. They saw the train vanish and immediately knew, if not specifically where it had gone, the general gist of where it was headed. "It appears our rivals have found a way to cross the worlds without the use of a Gummi ship," Peter observed. "Interesting. This could save us a heist."

"You mean rob us of some fun," Garfield teased.

"Unfortunately," Peter agreed. "Though it will be convenient."

"So, what?" Garfield asked. "We wait for them to come back so we can get on? Knowing them, that could be a while."

"Perhaps," Peter replied. "Or perhaps there's another way to get what we want. Isn't there always?"

"We never were the waiting type," Garfield agreed. "So what's the – "

Before he could say the word "plan," a second train, identical in shape and color to the one the seven light seekers had boarded, wheeled its way up to the platform.

"Well, THAT looks too good to be true," Garfield stated.

He and Peter surveyed the area. Still no one else seemed to have taken any notice of this unique train despite it sticking out like a unicorn in a goat pen. The pair figured that was the result of some kind of magic. No one disembarked from the train, either; it had shown up empty.

"Garfield," Peter encouraged, "allow me to play a hunch, will you?"

"Like we can leave THIS alone," Garfield agreed.

They stepped aboard, noting that the train was in fact unoccupied; they were the only passengers. Peter immediately flopped back onto a seat, crossing his legs twice over; Garfield tentatively lowered himself onto the seat across from him. The duffels were dropped in the aisle.

The train smoothly slid away from the platform, slowly building up momentum as it, too, left Radiant Garden behind and made its way across interspace.

...

The clock struck midnight. All within Xavier's mansion were tucked into their beds, sleeping soundly. Kitty Pryde was cuddled up beneath three blankets. Scott Summers relaxed, falling asleep to the knowledge that his eyes would remain closed all night long. Bobby Drake was in the midst of a scintillating dream about trying to foil the schemes of a ruthless but handsome villain by dancing with him in a nightclub and freezing him solid from the inside out using his ice powers.

It had taken Kurt some time to fall asleep; the device Forge had created for him rested on the nightstand beside him, and he was still deliberating as to whether or not to use it. Just leaving it alone seemed the easier and safer option. Sure, Forge was likely to bother him about it in days to come, but he would eventually drop the subject. Yet Kurt himself was gnawed at by curiosity. What if there really were other worlds out there waiting to be discovered? Would they at all adhere to the laws of science and the customs of culture found on planet Earth? Or were they lands beyond imagination, where colors existed that couldn't be found in the rainbow and physics were reversed completely? Kurt had to admit he wanted to know, and using Forge's device was potentially the only way to find out.

The best decision was ultimately to sleep on it, and that was what he eventually ended up doing.

Had he remained awake but a few minutes later, he would have been alerted to the presence of Quicksilver speeding through the hallways, making the rounds to ensure everyone was, in fact, asleep. He'd breezed right past every security device; already he had unlocked the front gate to the courtyard, leaving his friends to follow the path he had marked out for them earlier during his briefing.

Moving too fast to be picked up by cameras or sensors, Quicksilver halted behind the front door to the mansion. "It'll be fine," he told himself. "We're the Brotherhood. We're a well-oiled machine, and with me in the lead and Lance as my second-in-command, we're unstoppable." A pause. "Who am I kidding? It'll be nothing short of a miracle if Toad hasn't tripped every single sensor in the front yard."

He unlocked the door to see the other four gathered on the front step, clothed in the costumes intended for when they meant business – Avalanche's light armor and visored helmet, Toad's green-and-silver ensemble, and Fred's low-cut shirt beneath a sleeveless vest. Scarlet Witch was the only one who hadn't changed, though her wardrobe was flashy enough to suit any villain.

"Well, what do you now?" Quicksilver (himself clothed in a skin-tight suit of white and light blue) joked. "Miracles really do happen."

As Avalanche, Toad, Scarlet Witch, and Blob followed Quicksilver into the foyer, the latter gave a brief recapitulation of their mission, his words becoming all the more sped-up the more excited he got about the prospect. "All right, so we made it through phase one. Here's where we divide and conquer. I hope you all remembered the map I made of the blind spots and the alarm sensors. Stay IN the blind spots and OUT of the alarm sensors. Normally, I'd volunteer to team up with the cute one, but unfortunately, Toad and I are the only ones who can pass the huge sensor at the bottom of the stairs to get to the upper level, where all the juicy stuff is gonna be. Toad by sticking to the wall and me by moving faster than the alarm can pick up. Lance, you're on your own, but you can handle that. Blob, you're NOT on your own. You're sticking with my sister because I know you already forgot where half the sensors are."

"Hey, don't be mean," Toad interrupted.

Scarlet Witch looked up at Blob, doing her best to convey sympathy. "It'll be fine. I remember the layout. We'll be stronger together anyway."

"Blob, Sis, you're on Danger Room duty picking up whatever isn't wired to a motherboard," Quicksilver went on. "Lance, cover this floor."

"You got it." Avalanche fluffed out the large bag he carried, identical to one each of the rest held. "Bet I can pick up better stuff than you."

"Challenge accepted." Quicksilver fired him a wink. "And on that, everybody BREAK."

Quicksilver shot up the stairway; Toad clambered onto the wall, moving strategically around the sensitive area Quicksilver had mentioned in order to move upstairs. Avalanche crept along the wall to case the main level while Scarlet Witch led Blob to the training room used for the X-Men's routine practice.

The upper level of the mansion housed mostly bedrooms. Toad and Quicksilver parted ways, one going left, the other right. As Quicksilver literally disappeared from view, Toad muttered under his breath, "Ooh, Pietro, he's so fast, he's so smart, he's so much better than everyone else. Thinks I can't do anything. Well, I'll show him."

He slipped quietly in and out of bedrooms, selecting whatever looked most of interest – a high-class watch, a cell phone, a pair of earrings that appeared to be real gold – and collecting them in the bag. In one room, his hand hovered over a bracelet that appeared to be worth something before its owner rolled over in bed, and Toad caught the view of her sleeping face, her tousled blonde hair. Tabby. Toad quickly exited the room, leaving it be as per the earlier agreement. For one thing, if that bracelet actually had been a precious metal, it was likely the only thing of value Tabby actually owned, taking her background into account. For another, yes, it was true, she used to leave explosives for Todd to find whenever he was trying to utilize the bathroom, but he actually respected her for that. The brief and ribbing-filled friendship she had bestowed upon Toad left him feeling he at least owed her the decency of not robbing her blind.

Kurt was a different story. Toad felt a distinct sense of glee at swiping every possession that his rival had left out, even risking rifling through a couple of drawers. Kurt had given him far too much grief over the years for him to do any less than revel in this one. Maybe this time he could even find and permanently take possession of the image inducer Kurt used to hide his blue skin and long tail.

The sphere on the table distracted Toad from that thought immediately. "What have we here?" Toad wondered out loud – almost loud enough to wake Kurt; as the latter twitched, Toad froze, holding his breath up until Kurt rolled over to face away from him, obviously still in deep sleep. Toad examined the sphere from all angles, taking its many buttons into account. He had no idea what it did, but from the looks of it, it had to be even more fantastic than the image inducer. He would definitely have some fun testing out all of those pressable-looking buttons before it came time to sell it.

Toad swept the device into his bag, thinking it about time to call it a night – then getting an idea. He bounded out of the room on all fours (as was his usual stride), returning shortly after to set a bowl of water where the device had been and gently guide one of Kurt's hands to rest in it. Did the water-bowl trick actually make you wet the bed? Toad had no idea, but it sure wouldn't hurt to try. His biggest regret was that he wouldn't be able to see Kurt's face upon waking if it did actually work.

Avalanche, Blob, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver had all reconvened in the foyer, their bags full to bursting with loot. "Looks like we actually pulled this off," Avalanche remarked.

"Because the best partners in crime to exist were in charge," Quicksilver commented.

"You're finally giving me credit?" Avalanche laughed.

"Let's just finish this up and get out of here," Scarlet Witch said softly, nervously.

"Not without Todd," Fred insisted.

"No one was going to leave without him," Scarlet Witch reassured.

"No idiot left behind," Quicksilver agreed, which gave Avalanche a smile.

Right on cue, Toad came into view at the top of the stairs. "You guys ain't gonna believe what I swiped," he boasted before heading down the staircase in three great hops.

The others realized his trajectory exactly when it was too late. As he was in midair of the last leap, Quicksilver, Avalanche, Blob, and Scarlet Witch all yelled, "TOAD, NO!"

Toad, having forgotten Pietro's warning entirely, landed at the bottom of the stairs, giving his friends a quizzical look as to why they'd all yelled at him. "Yo, what gives – "

He stood dead center of the very alarm sensor Pietro had assigned him to avoid.

There was a split second of agonizing terror among Avalanche, Blob, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver.

Then a near-deafening alarm blared.

"TOAD," Avalanche, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and even Blob growled.

Toad, now realizing what he'd done, gave a very sheepish shrug as his face flushed. "Whoops. Sorry, guys. My bad."

"Let'sjustgetoutofhere!" Quicksilver yelled in a single string of syllables. He pivoted to make his escape; in the time it had taken him to declare that the Brotherhood should leave, a solid metal plate had slammed over the front door from the inside. "OFCOURSE!"

The teens who made up the bulk of the X-Men gathered at the top of the stairs, all wondering what had caused the disruption. They all recognized the Brotherhood immediately, which sent up a chatter.

"Hey – move it – let me through!" Kitty phased through the crowd to the front, glaring the quintet down. "LANCE? SERIOUSLY? UGGGHHH!"

Kurt appeared beside her in a light puff of smoke. "You guys?" he said in surprise. "But…why?"

"Why are you surprised?" Scott Summers, adjusting the glasses that kept his eyes from emitting their deadly beams of energy, pushed his way to stand beside them. "I'm sure not."

"What's goin' on here?" That voice was deeper, gruff, belonging to an adult. The sea of teens instinctively parted to make way for the tall and well-muscled mentor. The enigmatic Logan, known in the field as Wolverine: dark-haired, with a mutation that allowed him to heal from any injury in a matter of moments – and, as the result of mysterious experimentation, metal claws installed in the knuckles of his very skeleton. Upon seeing him, Avalanche, Toad, and Quicksilver all visibly cringed, though neither Blob nor Scarlet Witch was fazed.

Two more youths took advantage of the path Logan had created to get a good view of what was happening. "I'll tell you what's goin' on here!" the dark-haired Rogue snapped in her thick Southern accent. "The Brotherhood's robbin' us blind!"

The other, the tall, red-haired young woman known simply as Jean Grey, pointed at Quicksilver accusingly. "Why are you doing this?"

"Who even cares why?" Scott growled. "It's the BROTHERHOOD. They're just doing this to get under our skin!"

Quicksilver took advantage of this to make it appear that he was more confident than he actually was at the moment: "So you do have more than two brain cells. You wanna know why we're doing this? Because we're sick of you and you need to be taken down a peg."

"Okay, nobody freak out," Logan demanded. Looking directly at Quicksilver, he stated his terms: "Give us back what you took and we can talk about this."

"Like we wanna talk to you!" Avalanche snapped.

"You want your stuff back?" Toad held up his bag tauntingly. "Come get it."

"Oh, so you want a FIGHT!" Kurt growled.

"Don't forget who you're messin' with," Rogue snarled.

"We DON'T want a fight," Logan insisted.

"Maybe you losers don't," Blob retorted, "but I sure do!"

"I am this close…" Rogue held out a hand, index finger and thumb but a centimeter apart. "To comin' down there and showin' y'all what for."

"I've, like, totally got your back!" Kitty insisted.

"NO ONE IS GOING TO FIGHT ANYONE," Logan insisted.

Ignoring him, Scott challenged, "One more wrong move!"

"You want one more wrong move?" Quicksilver replied, flashing a knowing smirk. "All right. How's this?"

Logan barely had enough time to yell "DON'T – "

Quicksilver bolted up the stairs, punched Scott directly in the face, then zoomed back down to stand at Avalanche's side.

"THAT'S IT!" Scott yelled.

He, Jean, Rogue, Nightcrawler, and Shadowcat barreled down the stairs.

Despite Logan's protests and set to a background of the other students' cheers, the battle raged. Scott, refusing to go so far as to demonstrate the namesake of "Cyclops," instead resorted to lashing out physically, trying to grab Avalanche's arm and wrest his bag away from him. Avalanche's eyes rolled upward as he focused on making a concentrated quake; the floor beneath Cyclops shuddered, causing him to lose his footing.

Shadowcat made a direct dive for Quicksilver, who jetted out of her way and let her fall on the floor. Within a blink, he was back beside her, one foot planted triumphantly on her back. She rolled over to make a grab at his ankle; by that time, he was leaning against the wall, waving at her. Infuriated, Shadowcat made another run toward Quicksilver only for him to charge toward her as though shot out of a gun, becoming a blur and tripping her along the way.

At Jean's behest, a host of chairs and bookshelves came floating in from the adjacent rooms on the lower level, forming a wall around Blob. Blob set to punching each of these obstacles out of his way in a shower of splinters; Jean dodged this way and that, trying to get close enough to him to grab the bag he held. The flying debris was not making that easy.

Rogue knew if she could get close enough to Scarlet Witch to touch her, it would all be over. She could assume Scarlet Witch's myriad of powers, allowing her to overpower the rest. Scarlet Witch knew what Rogue was up to, however, surrounding her in a wall of red flames. Rogue sweated as the wall closed in on her.

Nightcrawler was the only one who managed to land a blow on his target, fully tackling Toad and sending the both of them rolling across the floor of the foyer. The sphere Forge had so meticulously pieced together came spilling out of Toad's bag in the process; neither noticed.

Pinning Toad down to one spot, Nightcrawler growled, "GIVE…IT…BACK!"

"No way, man!" This was punctuated by a less-than-pleasant noise from the back of Toad's throat and an ensuing blast of mucus right to Nightcrawler's face.

"UGH!" Nightcrawler backed off to claw the slime away, leaving Toad to wriggle free, snap his tongue outward, wrap it around Nightcrawler's leg, and jerk it back, causing Nightcrawler to fall flat on his back.

No one noticed the tiny yellow ball of light falling into the center of the battlefield until it detonated, rocking the floor. Immediately, the brawl halted. The flames subsided, the furniture and its remains settled down on the floor, the quake fell still, and all ten scrappers looked toward the staircase, where one more teen had stormed her way to the base.

"THAT IS ENOUGH!" Tabby yelled. "SERIOUSLY! What is your DEAL?"

"We're just trying to – " Jean attempted.

"Oh, I KNOW what you were trying to do," Tabby snapped. "I'm talking to THEM."

Every member of the Brotherhood, even Scarlet Witch, knew they were being addressed.

"You think I'm stupid?" Tabby went on. "I know what's going on here! You're just nabbing our stuff because you need the cash!"

"No," Avalanche argued, "we're taking your stuff because we hate all of you!"

Tabby folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah? You think I forgot what you guys had to live with just 'cause I moved out? Sure, I buy that you hate the X-Men enough to mess with 'em, but I ALSO know how bad you guys need to stay afloat. Mystique never came back, did she?"

This was met with silence. No one wanted to admit the truth.

"And since the twins are back in town," Tabby went on, "I'm guessing Magneto cut ties too."

"Shut up!" Quicksilver barked.

"Wait," Shadowcat realized, "is that it? You're taking our stuff because you can't afford to live alone?"

"Why didn't you just come and ASK us for help?" Nightcrawler added. "We could have figured something out!"

"And we still can," Jean insisted. "You might be a bunch of thugs, but…well…" She sighed. "We help people who need it."

"Yeah, well, we DON'T need your help!" Quicksilver barked. "You've got it all wrong!"

"Do I?" Tabby stared him down hard.

Quicksilver was ready to argue back, but he was cut off by Toad's plaintive "Look, I ain't goin' a whole winter without heat! I can't make it!"

"TOAD," Quicksilver growled. "Every time I think you can't make it worse."

"Just…give it up," Tabby sighed. "We can work this out. Everything will be okay. I like you guys, and I'm not gonna let you suffer."

"Tabby's got the right idea," Logan said gruffly as he descended the stairway. "Maybe we've had our differences, but we still owe you for Apocalypse anyway. There's room for you under our roof."

It seemed, for a moment, that all five members of the Brotherhood were seriously considering taking up the offer they had been given.

Then their expressions hardened in unison. Quicksilver now knew for sure that he was speaking for the others: "And follow your rules? Become the 'good guys' so we can toe the line forever? OVER OUR DEAD BODIES."

Whipping around to address his allies in turn, he barked out, "BLOB! DOOR! WANDA! KEEP THEM BACK!"

A red wave of energy emanated out from Scarlet Witch, pushing Kitty, Kurt, Jean, Rogue, Scott, Tabby, and Logan back and away from the door, which Blob had started to pummel, slowly denting the metal with his massive fists. Quicksilver, Avalanche, and Scarlet Witch gathered behind him.

Toad was about to follow, but his eye was caught by the fallen sphere. He still thirsted to know its function and value. Quickly he sprang back out into the foyer to scoop it up.

"HEY!" Kurt yelled. "THAT'S MINE!"

"Not anymore, it ain't!" Toad jeered, sticking out his overly long tongue as he leapt back toward his four allies. "Wonder what this does, anyway…" He poked at a few of the buttons, setting the device humming.

"LANCE!" Kitty called out, trying one last time to rush toward the Brotherhood.

Scarlet Witch responded with another wave of crimson energy, one that washed over her and all her allies but left them unharmed on its way to throw Kitty back.

In the process, however, the wave passed through the spherical device, causing it to glow bright vermilion.

Blob's right fist finally punched through the metal plate and the door beyond; he drew back his arm without suffering a single puncture from any sharp edge.

The sphere went from still to violently shaking in a matter of five seconds.

Its glow caught Avalanche's eye. "Toad?" he said nervously. "What the HECK DID YOU – "

There was a brilliant glow of red, enveloping all five of the Brotherhood and temporarily blinding all of the X-Men to the foyer.

When it subsided, the Brotherhood was gone and the device with them. They obviously hadn't taken the door; it still only had one hole in it.

"Oh no," Kurt moaned. "This is bad. This is very, very bad!"

"What was that thing?" Logan asked him.

"Forge built it for me to use with my teleportation!" Kurt explained. "If Wanda's magic activated it…they could have been transported anywhere!"

"You mean they could be ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD?" Tabby asked, already horrified.

Kurt hated to break the news to her: "Actually…that doesn't even cover it."

...

As Lance, Pietro, Wanda, Fred, and Todd materialized in a completely new location, one where they noticed right away that they were out of doors in broad daylight, Lance finished: " – STEAL?"

"I dunno!" Todd answered. "It looked awesome, so I thought I'd see what it did! Leave me alone, yo!"

"Leave you alone?" Pietro growled, advancing upon Todd. "First you set off the alarm that brought all the X-Men down on us, THEN you blabbed to them about how much we needed their stuff, and NOW you managed to send us…I don't even know where! Probably halfway around the world!"

Fred inserted one arm between Pietro and Todd, warning Pietro to stay back. "Lay off!" he commanded. "It's not like you've never screwed up!"

Todd backed away, managing to trip over his own feet and drop the sphere in the process. Falling down, he managed to get a look back over his shoulder. Once he saw what was there, he quickly twisted around to gain a better view and confirm that what he thought he had seen was actually there.

Pietro knew better than to press the subject when Fred was passionate about getting involved. "Fine. Let's just figure out where we are and how to get back home."

"Uh…guys?" Todd called back at the others.

"I still wanna know what the heck this thing is," Lance said as he turned the abandoned sphere over and over in his hands. "How did a hunk of metal take us out of the mansion?"

"We're at least in another time zone," Wanda observed, looking straight up. "It looks like it's about noon here."

"GUYS?" Todd repeated, louder.

"For Pete's sake, Toad," Pietro sighed as he, Lance, Wanda, and Fred turned to look in Todd's direction, "WHAT – "

He was struck silent. They all gaped at the towering structure on the horizon: a picture right out of a fairy tale, albeit one a little twisted and modernized.

It was their first look at the Radiant Garden castle.