Someone was calling his name.
In fact, four people were calling his name.
He struggled to think through the murky sea of incoherence that clouded his thoughts. There had been the Gummi ship, and then the light ship in the wreckage of Treasure Planet, and the draconequus, and then –
"I think he's startin' to wake up!"
That was Goofy. Yes, Sora, Donald Duck, Goofy…Kazuichi, Jim Hawkins, Amelia, Delbert Doppler…
Jasmine.
Aladdin gave a low, soft groan as he pried his eyes open. "What…happened?" he asked, for the way things had progressed, with him missing a good chunk of his recent memory, it was obvious that something had happened.
He had awoken in a round bedroom painted in hues of dark blue and purple, in an incredibly soft and comfortable canopy bed of the same colors, a plush blanket drawn up over him. At his bedside, Jasmine, Sora, Goofy, and Donald had kept a vigil watching him sleep, and their faces all brightened when he finally awoke. They had noticed him regaining his color and losing the bags beneath his eyes, and even his clothing had regained its usual palette, thanks to a little help from outside.
"Aladdin!" Jasmine gasped, visibly relieved to almost the point of tears. "You're okay!"
She shifted forward, then drew back, concerned with Aladdin's physical state and if he were in too much pain to receive invasive touch.
Aladdin sat upright in the bed. "I'm fine," he assured Jasmine, knowing what she was thinking. "Can't even feel a thing! Any pain, anyway."
She took that as her cue to embrace him tightly, and he returned the gesture, somehow knowing that it was needed.
"You're never gonna believe it!" Sora said as the couple held each other, and it was this that prompted them to let go so the boy could say his piece. "This weird…dragon thing with Mozenrath turned you all evil, and you sided with the WHAM ARMY against us!"
"I did?" Aladdin said in astonishment. "Wait, that was the guy I told you about! The one who sent me to stop Mozenrath from destroying everything! He must've known I would tell Mozenrath about it! That's why he knocked me out. …Except he didn't knock me out." The full implications settled in. "Did…did I hurt you? Did I hurt anyone?"
"No," Jasmine said with a smile. "You tried, but we're all a lot harder to hurt than the chaos version of you might've believed." Her smile downturned. "But it really wasn't you who was trying to hurt us. It was Mozenrath's magic."
"We know ya'd never turn on us like that!" Goofy said jovially.
"And we weren't gonna stop until we found a way to save you!" Donald insisted.
"How DID you save me?" Aladdin asked. "And where are we?"
"Man, do we have a lot to catch you up on," Sora said as he scratched the back of his head. "Um…after you got turned evil in the battle, Goofy accidentally got Snipe to challenge him to some kind of showdown. We played a sport that I guess is for wizards? And we won! So we got to take a bunch of the WHAM ARMY's stuff." He fished about in his pockets; while Jim had wanted to keep the Lasso Boa Boa as a trophy, the others had entrusted him to hang onto the Ring of the Nine Dragons and the Monarch Wings. "Here!" He held both of those items out, one on each upturned palm. "I guess they're magic? Goofy said the ring let Snipe make a bunch of clones of himself."
"I saw those before I went out," Aladdin remembered. "That looked like a nightmare."
"Aw, it was no big deal!" Goofy shrugged off. "I'm tough! After all, Donald used to wake me up from naps by usin' a Thunder spell on me, and it never hurt me none! He even suggested usin' the same spell to get you awake, but Jasmine told him – "
"GOOFY!" Donald snapped. "You weren't supposed to tell him that!"
"Well, it's in character," Aladdin said with a smirk.
"WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?" Donald replied, miffed.
"It means I don't have any hard feelings," Aladdin clarified. "So…what happened after that?"
"Well, we also won the map Jim was looking for," Sora went on as he pocketed the Shen Gong Wu once more, "and we got the WHAM ARMY to hand you back over, but…that's when things went kinda wrong. We tried to take a route around the outer edges of the world to get back to Montressor because we thought that would shake the M-ster, but even when we were out of the Etherium, his ship managed to follow us. And then…well…" He spread out his hands, wiggling his fingers. "Kaboom."
"Kaboom?" Aladdin repeated.
"KA-BOOOOOOM!" Donald cried dramatically, as if that cleared things up.
"Our entire ship exploded," Jasmine explained. "We think it was that…DISCORD who did it." She said the name with incredible disgust. "Some of us were knocked out, including you. You're the last to wake up. The rest of us were afraid it was all over…but then we were saved."
"We all got surrounded by this blue light that pulled us in!" Goofy continued. "Before we knew it, we were all the way over here, and nowhere even near the Etherium!"
"You're never gonna believe it!" Sora went on. "We made a new friend! She's the one who saved us!"
"Sora making a new friend is supposed to be hard to believe?" Aladdin teased.
"She set you up in here," Sora went on. "This is her personal bedroom. She wanted you to be safe while you healed up. Then she used Light magic like I've never seen before. I think that's what cleared the chaos right out of you. It even turned your clothes back to the right color!"
"Huh," Aladdin remarked. "I think I wanna meet this friend of yours. It sounds like I owe her a thank-you."
"That's a great idea!" Sora cried. "Oh, and one other thing. Jim is kinda down because the one thing we lost – besides the ship, anyway – is the map. We're not sure where it is, but…"
"It's not hard to guess," Jasmine said coldly.
"Mozenrath," Aladdin hissed. "One of these days, he's really gotta pay up for everything."
"Jim's trying to act like he's happy," Donald went on, "but we know better! He went all that way to get the map, and now we lost it!"
"Anyway," Goofy began, "seein' as you're awake now, we – "
They were suddenly interrupted by a trio of creatures the likes of which Aladdin had never seen before. Each was very small, perhaps no more than a foot across in their widest direction. The best way to describe them was as stars that had faces, in pastel colors of pink, blue, and green, their five points radiating from a chubby core. They levitated several feet off the floor as they bore between them a circular blue plate loaded down with brown objects.
"We brought food!" one of them squeaked.
"We think you'll like it!" another added, their voice similarly high. "We've seen people eat it on your world when Mama looked at it!"
"He's awake!" the third chirped, to make sure everyone knew the good news. "He's awake!"
"…This day keeps getting weirder," Aladdin muttered.
The trio of stars set the plate down in Aladdin's lap, and now he could see that the brown foodstuff on it was honey date balls covered in chopped almond. His stomach yearned at the sight, and he began to stuff his face without any further invitation. Having cleared a few of the balls away, he could see now that the plate was patterned with glittering gold stars beneath. He offered the plate out to Jasmine, Sora, Goofy, and Donald; "Want some?"
Jasmine, Sora, and Goofy each took two. Donald took half of what remained.
"So who're you guys?" Aladdin asked the miniature stars around a full mouth.
"We're the Lumas!" the pink one squealed.
"We travel around with Mama to all kinds of places, and we see all of the worlds!" the blue one chirped.
"One day, we're gonna grow up to be stars, or maybe whole worlds!" the green one added.
"Okay, that just brings me back around to my other question," Aladdin stated. "Where ARE we?"
"It's…kind of hard to explain," Jasmine told him.
"It'll be easier if we just show you," Sora stated.
Aladdin set the plate aside, throwing back the blanket to get onto his feet. "Lead the way, o brave adventurers!"
Sora was already half out the door, waving for the others to "Come on!"
Nothing could have prepared Aladdin for what awaited him outside that door.
When he exited, he stood upon a walkway that forged the outer edge of a spacecraft; interspace stretched out before him in an incredible vista, colors merging and shifting. The craft itself was circular, and not all that large; looking up and around, Aladdin estimated it was perhaps the size of an average house, if you condensed it. Everywhere, Lumas bounded, zipped, and played games in the sky.
"This way!" Sora encouraged. "I want you to meet our new friend!"
Aladdin took in the sight in awe as he followed. The walkway brought them around past a wall carved of polished brown oak, lending a majestic feel.
"That's the library!" Donald explained as they passed the entry to the oak chamber. "Dr. Doppler was in there – "
On cue, Doppler burst out of the library, a book in his hands. "IT'S INCREDIBLE!" he cried, glasses askew. "I'm reading accounts of multiple timelines as written by observers who LIVED THROUGH THEM! The Worldline theory is REAL, according to these pages! I can't believe – oh!" He had just noticed who he'd run into. "Aladdin! You're up and about, I see! Very glad you've recovered from all that nastiness."
"So am I," Aladdin stated. "Now, what was that you were saying about Worldlines?"
"A highly contested theoretical regarding alternate realities and the flow of time," Doppler explained. "It is admittedly a bit…complex."
"Yeah, I'm already lost," Aladdin admitted.
"I simply MUST tell Amelia about this," Doppler insisted. "You seem to be going her way anyway. Shall we stroll together?"
It wasn't a "stroll" so much as it was Doppler and Sora both breaking into an excited run and Donald, Goofy, Jasmine, and Aladdin trying to keep up. They passed a sort of central station with a glass floor and a map posted that outlined the spacecraft's general layout; behind the translucent map, Aladdin could see that the entire ship was powered by some sort of brilliantly glowing core, like a miniature sun. Beyond that lay a terrace with a green lawn of grass, where the usually prim Amelia was caught actually relaxing somewhat, sitting down on the grass with her legs at a comfortable angle as she watched the sky's colors.
"Amelia!" Doppler called out, getting her attention. "You'll never BELIEVE what I've just discovered! An INCREDIBLE argument for the Worldline theory! Oh, and also, Aladdin's awake."
"Good news on two accounts," Amelia said with a nod. "I would've hated to lose you, Mr. Aladdin, especially as Mr. Hawkins is so taken with you."
"Taken with me, huh?" Aladdin replied slyly.
"Amelia, I'm not sure you were supposed to tell him that," Doppler stated.
"It's not as though it will do any harm," Amelia argued. "It's for the better to have it on the table anyhow."
"Well, I hate to disappoint, but I'm already taken," Aladdin stated.
"Hurry up!" Donald insisted. "We're losing Sora!" And in fact, Sora was still running on through the terrace and beyond.
Aladdin, Jasmine, and Goofy followed Donald after him. Doppler settled down onto the grass beside Amelia, who cajoled, "Now, tell me about those Worldlines."
"I think she's over here!" Sora cried as he darted for a gray stone dome surrounded by a thin moat of crystal-clear water that fountained out of the dome's edges. Aladdin, Jasmine, Donald, and Goofy followed him inside to see the interior of the fountain dome: a pleasant place to perhaps relax a while, with its light gray walls and inner water canals providing a soft aesthetic. However, it was empty.
"No, not here," Sora mused. Then, perking up, "Maybe she's upstairs!"
The quintet backtracked past the terrace, past the map, past the library, past the bedroom to get to an offshoot of the ship connected by a small strip of flooring. From there, a short climb up some irregular stairs led to another dome, this one featuring a chimney that released smoke and, with it, the smell of all sorts of delicious food.
"That's the kitchen," Sora explained. "Those date treats probably came from there."
"My compliments to the chef," Aladdin told a couple of Lumas spotted hovering outside the kitchen entryway; they zoomed inside to deliver the news.
From there, another flooring strip led onto the upper levels of the craft; Aladdin could now see that its roof curved upward conically. Walkways lined the cone so one could access the rooms inset. Jim Hawkins sat on one of these walkways, legs dangling over the side and kicking idly. His expression was sour, but as he noticed company approaching, he stood up and put on a smile.
"Hey," he told Aladdin. "You're up."
"Yeah," Aladdin replied, thinking about what Amelia had said regarding Jim fancying him, then about what Sora had said regarding the loss of the map. "Takes more than an exploding Gummi ship to knock me down. You doing okay?"
"What?" Jim played innocent. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. No complaints here. Hey, check this out."
Without further warning, he suddenly launched himself off the walkway, falling off the ship entirely.
"JIM!" Aladdin screamed in a panic, reaching out after him.
"Wait for it," Sora said knowingly.
Jim floated right back up to where he had been standing, encased in a blue bubble of magic that dissipated once he was delivered safely onto the walkway. "Pretty cool, huh?" he commented, though his tone was slightly less enthusiastic than one would normally be under these circumstances. "You literally can't fall off this place. I'm not the one who found that out the hard way, by the way. That would be the person who tripped off the edge and knocked Kazuichi down with him."
"Oops," Goofy said sheepishly. "Sorry 'bout that. But at least we figured out about the safety magic!"
"Whoever built this place knew what they were doing," Aladdin remarked.
"Have you seen her?" Sora asked.
"She was headed further up with Kazuichi," Jim related. "She was explaining some weird clattering noise in the engine room, and Kazuichi was pretty sure he could fix it. They're probably still there."
"Got it!" Sora gave Jim a thumbs-up. "Thank you!"
Off they went again; Aladdin cast a glance back over his shoulder at Jim, who had sat back down to stare off into space, but he didn't know what he could possibly say to make up for the loss of the map. When he was Jim's age, if someone had taken Cassim's dagger from him, he would have been inconsolable, yet acted with swagger, and not even Jasmine could have soothed his angst until he was ready.
A door set into the midst of the cone of the ship's roof was revealed to be the entrance to a round metal-walled chamber lined with pipes. One of the metal panels of the wall was unscrewed and cast aside, revealing an assortment of multicolored gears working in intricate synchrony. As a diminutive green-and-yellow robot bearing dials for eyes and a massive gear protruding from his head in the fashion of hair watched, Kazuichi tended to various parts of the mechanism, a socket wrench in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, switching them off as needed.
"Be careful!" the robot cautioned. "I do not want to have to explain what happened if you blow the whole Observatory up!"
"I know what I'm doing, Gearmo!" Kazuichi replied. "The Observatory's really just like a big rocket ship, and I've been gearing up for rocket ships my whole life! …Heh, 'gearing.' Wait, no, that was terrible!" He twisted one screw back into place, then tapped it twice with the end of the wrench. "There! Good as new, and no more weird clicking sounds! The whole Observatory should fly a bit smoother now."
He then turned around, flinching but smiling to see who had all entered. "Hey, guys!" He waved. "Isn't this place fucking AMAZING? I'm just dying to figure out how every little piece of it works! Starting with Gearmo over there!"
"HEY!" Gearmo snapped. "You're not asking to take me APART, are you?"
"Um…maybe?" Kazuichi said with a sheepish chuckle.
"Well, the answer's no!" Gearmo insisted, and if he could have stomped his wheel, he would have.
Kazuichi shrugged. "I gotta go report in that I fixed the thing, anyway." He hoisted the massive panel from the floor, and he and Gearmo screwed it back into place.
"Where even is – " Sora began.
"She's upstairs," Kazuichi interrupted. "I think she said there was a garden? Which I don't even get how you can put a garden at the top of the Observatory, but I've seen weirder! Wanna come with me?"
"Yeah," Sora insisted. "Aladdin hasn't met her yet!"
Kazuichi then realized; "Aladdin! You're up! …You're over that crazy evil thing, right?"
"Yep," Aladdin confirmed. "All gone. Sorry if I, y'know, did anything while I was out of it."
"Nah, it's fine," Kazuichi said with a shrug. "Happened to me, remember? And that time, I KNEW what I was doing. I just kinda figured we could put you in virtual time-out like Makoto did for me and the others. Anyway, let's go!"
Off they went again, now with Kazuichi, who proclaimed, "Apparently she's been watching over our worlds for a long time, you know! Which is kinda creepy, but also not, if you think about it. All this time, there's been a starwoman, waiting in the sky, and she'd like to come and meet us, but she thinks she'd blow our minds!"
The path took them to the end of the walkway, where a beam of light arced off toward another offshoot platform. "Oh, yeah!" Sora realized. "We never did explore all the way up here!" He leapt directly into the light, and Aladdin, having some idea of what to expect after watching Jim fall, observed him get carried over onto the opposite platform before following.
The platform was small and circular, covered in soft grass. A small building resembling a shed, white with a blue roof, stood there. "Is this the garden?" Aladdin asked.
"It's the Gate," Jasmine answered. "It wasn't well-explained, but it's somehow linked to a specific planet."
"Jim and I went through here earlier to check it out," Kazuichi explained, "and it took us to this moon over that planet like there wasn't even an Observatory here. It was super trippy, man. We went back here pronto!"
Another beam of light took them from the Gate to the pinnacle of the roof, where the cone culminated in a shining pastel-pink dome of a room. "Uh-oh!" a nearby Luma cried. "The secret garden isn't a secret anymore! They all found out!"
"Hey, I was told to come up here when I finished up!" Kazuichi argued.
"I don't see how this is a garden…" Sora mused, sizing up the room's exterior. It couldn't have been any larger than the bedroom where Aladdin had been kept to recuperate.
"Well, this entire place is pretty magical," Jasmine reminded him before strolling inside.
Aladdin followed, and his jaw dropped once he had entered. "Whoa."
It was as though they hadn't entered a room at all. Those within the garden now seemed to be standing on a plateau floating in endless blue sky with cheerful white clouds, the landmass itself coated in fine green grass. Flowers of all colors were planted around the plateau, and it was all ringed by tall standing stones; the door through which they had entered, and through which Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Kazuichi were still coming, had reworked itself to simply look like a gap in between two of the rocks. Near the plateau's edge, a woman with blonde hair that fell past her shoulders, clad in a dress of light blue (turquoise? Sora guessed. Teal? No, he knew that color, and he had a conviction that it was, in fact, aqua) and the tiniest of golden crowns atop her head, knelt in the grass, planting seeds for a new patch. Several Lumas of various colors hovered above her, chit-chatting away.
The Lumas all fell silent when Donald's cry of "This is impressive magic!" alerted them to the guests. The woman turned and stood to face the six with a smile, revealing her bright blue eyes and the fact that she was actually rather diminutive.
"Miss Rosalina!" Kazuichi cried as he approached her at a rapid pace. "I fixed up that weird clicking you noticed! I'm thinking the Observatory should run better now in general. Ohhhhh, am I excited to see how the rest of this place works!"
"Thank you, Kazuichi," Rosalina replied. "You've been a big help."
"MISS Rosalina?" Aladdin teased. "Oh, I see how it is."
"HEY!" Kazuichi spun to point accusingly at him. "It's not like that, okay? Yeah, she's pretty, but I've learned my lesson! I just thought I should be extra formal since she's a galaxy princess!"
"I don't think he's learned his lesson," Jasmine whispered to Aladdin.
"I do not mind," Rosalina stated as she strode toward Aladdin. "However, I have been among those concerned with your well-being since you arrived. I am glad to see you have made a full recovery."
"I heard you had something to do with that," Aladdin told her.
Rosalina nodded. "I did what I could with my magic. I was still admittedly worried it may not have been enough, and I considered keeping watch over you, but Jasmine, Sora, Donald, and Goofy volunteered to do that so that I could resume Observatory operations – and given your relationship, I thought them the best people to see when you first awoke."
"Well, you thought right," Aladdin said with a smile directed toward Jasmine. "So what's your story, anyway? How'd you find us?"
"My Observatory travels between all galaxies and worlds," Rosalina stated. "I work to foster the Lumas, for they will one day grow up to become stars, galaxies, and worlds of their own. On my travels, I often observe events transpiring, as I have done for many millennia, through multiple timelines."
"Wait, HOW long?" Aladdin broke in.
"I realize I must not look as old as I am," Rosalina said teasingly. "It is admittedly…difficult for me to know when to step in, given all I see." This said in a tone tinted with regret. "However, the Observatory was passing close to the Etherium when I saw your ship destroyed. I knew I could not leave you to die at the hands of Mozenrath, so I utilized a few pull stars to jump you all over to the Observatory before making a getaway."
"Well, thanks," Aladdin told her. "We owe you big time."
"No, you do not," Rosalina insisted. "I ask nothing for what I have done. I am just glad you all made it here safely."
"Wait," Aladdin realized. "So this whole time, you've been watching all this stuff go down with the WHAM ARMY, and you've just been sitting up here on this Observatory doing nothing? How could you even do that? If you had enough magic to save us all and heal me, then we could've used your help!"
"HEY!" Kazuichi barked. "Don't talk to Miss Rosalina like that! She's doing her best, okay?"
"No, it is a question that deserves to be asked," Rosalina said somberly. "It is something I have often asked myself…and, moreover, a question your wife was quick to ask when she was brought onboard."
Aladdin couldn't help but smile at that. He should've known Jasmine would be quick to speak up where she saw a wrong.
"When one observes the problems of so many worlds," Rosalina admitted, "then one such as I does not know how to prioritize them. I will readily admit I have been a coward, preferring to prioritize raising the Lumas and growing the worlds that way rather than descending to personally protect any that already exist. I could give excuses, but none would justify my ignorance." She looked up into Aladdin's eyes with determination. "Your arrival was the final sign I needed. As of now, I am involved."
"Really?" Sora cried excitedly. "You're in?"
Rosalina nodded. When Sora and Jasmine had last left the subject with her, she had still been contemplating. "I will escort you back home to Radiant Garden," she stated, "at which point I should like to speak with the Committee about how I may lend my efforts."
"AWESOME!" Sora cried. "We'd LOVE to have you on board!"
"We need someone with powers like yours!" Donald insisted.
"But more importantly," Goofy chimed in, "somebody with a big heart like yours."
"The Observatory has already been making its way back to Radiant Garden slowly," Rosalina stated, "but now that everyone is awake, we may speed up our course a good deal. I will give the order."
"All right!" Kazuichi flashed her a thumbs-up. "Engines rev – wait, did you say SPEED UP?"
"Do not worry," Rosalina told him. "The enchantments on the Observatory will prevent you from feeling the movement. When traveling with around a hundred baby stars, you need to be able to keep everyone in place without making them sick or tipping them over."
"Then we're all good!" Kazuichi said as he placed both hands behind his head, closing his eyes. Sora mirrored the gesture, albeit with his eyes open.
"Is there anything more you wish to discuss before we return?" Rosalina asked. "I want to make sure all are prepared."
"Actually, yeah." Sora put his hands down, reaching into his pant pockets. "It's kinda bothering me that I don't even know what's so special about these…Shen Gong Wu. I know you said they're powerful magic, but I don't get it. Why does touching them at the same time trigger a contest? And I get that the ring is for making copies of yourself, and the rope Jim got is for battle…but what do these butterfly wings even do?"
"Do they let you fly?" Donald suggested.
"Maybe they turn ya into a bug!" Goofy figured.
"I do not know the special function of each," Rosalina admitted. "I have not looked to that world since Grandmaster Dashi's original defeat of Wuya long ago."
"You tried just…making it work, right?" Kazuichi suggested.
"That could be dangerous," Jasmine warned.
"I'm betting he's already tried it," Aladdin figured.
"I already tried it," Sora confirmed. "And…nothing. Watch. I'll do it again." He held up the Monarch Wings to the sky of the garden, calling out, "BUTTERFLY WINGS…ACTIVATE!"
Absolutely nothing happened.
"See?" Sora groaned. "Nothing."
"Wait," Aladdin theorized. "Maybe you have to use them in combination with something else to get them to work."
"You think?" Sora asked.
Aladdin shrugged. "Magic's weird."
"Hmmm." Sora looked down at the Ring of the Nine Dragons in his other hand before deciding that the dragon emblem atop it looked like a good place to attach another Shen Gong Wu. When he placed the Monarch Wings' center line over the emblem, the two actually did magnetize to each other, for even when Shen Gong Wu were not designed to cooperate, all had a draw to one another that allowed their effects to stack.
"Okay," Sora decided as he slipped the ring onto his hand. "So maybe it increases how many copies you can make of yourself? I'm gonna try it!"
"No one can stop him now," Donald groaned.
"Yeah, but I'm curious," Aladdin admitted.
"As am I," Rosalina chimed in.
Sora held the hand bearing both Shen Gong Wu aloft. "WINGS…RING…DO YOUR THING!"
He was about to make a cheeky comment regarding his accidental rhyme when the effects of both kicked in, and Sora's entire body was consumed in light.
The Ring of the Nine Dragons was meant to fragment the wielder's personality into a temporary duplicate to be absorbed into the whole later. The Monarch Wings, however, were designed to give a spirit a permanent body, regardless of the previous state of that spirit. When the two were combined, the effect upon Sora was striking. For it so happened that within Sora's personality lay a spirit waiting to break free – several, in fact, but only one that was prepared to depart so readily. When the duplicate body was formed, it appeared not as Sora, but as the true form of that spirit.
When the light cleared away, Sora gasped, taking a step back. Donald and Goofy realized what they were looking at as well, and their jaws dropped.
In the center of the garden, there stood a boy Sora's age, dressed in clothing of black and white with a checkered motif. While his eyes were the same blue shade as Sora's, his hair was much shorter and even spikier, a dull blond color. He was utterly flabbergasted to suddenly be standing on the physical plane as he had not done for quite some time.
When Sora finally regained his drive to speak, he addressed the boy by name, his voice betraying his astonishment: "Roxas?"
...
The MLS Vicious sailed smoothly through the Etherium, with Discord and Hämsterviel working jointly to try and recognize landmarks that would bring them back to the warship.
"Now, THAT has to be trace reactions from the flume between Cloral and Veelox," Discord observed with his comically oversized telescope. "And judging by the position of the floating ocean plateaus behind it, I'd say Cloral is THAT way and Veelox is THAT way." He pointed each direction.
"Hmm, I see!" Hämsterviel replied. "That would mean we need only shift our course thirteen degrees starboard to make a direct two-hour route back to our base's current location!"
"THE GIANT RAT SAYS GO A BIT TO THE RIGHT!" Draco called up to Mozenrath and the Huntsman at the helm.
"GIANT RAT?" Hämsterviel cried. "YOU ARE THINKING I AM SOME SORT OF GIANT RAT WHO MAKES ALL OF THE RULES? AND THAT THIS IS A COOL SURPRISE? NO! I AM HAMSTER-LIKE! HAMSTERRRRR!"
"To the right, then," the Huntsman stated as he tilted the wheel.
Mozenrath regarded the map in his palm. "It will be nice to add another vessel to our fleet. I was getting tired of only having one interspace-worthy ship." He rolled the map around, turned his hand over, rolled the sphere across the back of his hand –
Dropped it on the deck.
It had telekinetically leapt back up into Mozenrath's hand within the second. "Nobody saw that," he grunted.
"Did something happen?" the Huntsman replied casually. "I saw nothing but the road ahead."
"You know, I'm glad it was you after all," Mozenrath stated. "Don't go telling the others I said anything that sentimental, though."
"In return," the Huntsman stated, "you are under no circumstance to tell anyone that I feel fortunate to have been able to return to you."
"SHIP!" Wuya cried out from the crow's nest.
"I KNOW!" Discord yelled from the deck. "SO DO I! THEY'RE ADORABLE! I'M THINKING OF CALLING THEM 'HUNTEROFIX'!"
Mozenrath and the Huntsman both flinched.
"NO, NOT THAT KIND OF SHIP!" Wuya lowered herself to the deck, motioning for everyone to pay attention by her. "WE ARE BEING FOLLOWED BY A SHIP!"
The Huntsman, Mozenrath, Hannibal, Snipe, Draco, Hämsterviel, and Discord all swiveled their heads around to look where Wuya pointed.
Behind them, the oddest space craft any of them had ever seen was gaining speed on them. It was shaped, in general, like a glimmering silver skull, if not one entirely human, its cockpit windows forged of two eye sockets of ruby-red glass.
"SHAKE IT!" Mozenrath barked.
"Okay." Snipe shrugged. "But I don't see what that's gonna do to help." He then began to dance frenetically, shaking his posterior fervently.
"I can't even respond to that," Mozenrath grunted.
Hämsterviel was in the process of doing as Mozenrath had really wanted and firing the engines to max so they could shake the strange ship. The Huntsman was already cranking the wheel to fly in a zigzag pattern, scanning the horizon for celestial bodies to use as hiding places and obstacles for the pursuer.
It was of no use. The silver ship caught up immediately, its teeth splitting open to reveal a walkway upsettingly carved to look like a massive tongue that lolled down onto the deck, pinning the two ships together.
"ALL HANDS ON DECK!" Mozenrath cried, rushing down onto the main deck with the Huntsman in close pursuit to be ready to combat whatever came forth from the ship.
Hämsterviel returned from the engine room with a massive blaster in hand. Snipe ceased his uncoordinated dance. Wuya, Hannibal, and Discord all braced to fight; Draco aimed his wand directly at the base of the tongue-shaped walkway.
From the throat of the skull came marching a battalion of a hundred or more creatures, each three feet tall at most, whose bodies were mostly humanoid (if much shorter) save for the fact that in place of a head with a face, each simply had one great round eye with a blood-red iris. They were clothed in a distinct uniform: a black, tight-fitting suit with a red lightning-bolt emblem on the chest, outfitted by the red gloves that clutched their blasters and the red boots that stomped rhythmically down onto the deck. Atop each eye was a black metal helmet topped with a crest shaped like a small, upside-down lightning bolt in bright yellow. The fact that they had no mouths did not stop them from being able to verbalize, as it turned out, for as they filled up the deck of the Vicious in an orderly fashion, they chanted in time: "HATE'S GREAT! BEST VILLAIN! HATE'S GREAT! BEST VILLAIN!"
Stunned, Mozenrath managed to choke out, "Oh, what fresh torment is this?"
The one-eyed creatures ("Watchdogs," though the WHAM ARMY had no way of knowing that) surrounded each of the members of the Vicious' crew, pointing their multitude of blasters threateningly, and the only reason Mozenrath did not call for an immediate retaliation (and the same reason no one else took the initiative themselves) was because he had to see exactly where this was going.
"YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!" a tinny, high-pitched voice sounded out sonorously, and the attention of the WHAM ARMY representatives was once more drawn up to the mouth of the skull, where a small silhouette had appeared against the backlighting of the Skullship's interior. "PREPARE TO SURRENDER, FOR YOUR SHIP HAS JUST BEEN BOARDED BY THE ONE!
THE ONLY! THE INDOMITABLE! THE INVINCIBLE! THE GREATEST IN THE GALAXY…LOOOOOOORD HATER!"
The small silhouette was joined by a much larger one, and the pair made their way down the tongue onto the deck. The announcer, it appeared, was one of the cyclopean creatures that had just swarmed the deck, though the lightning-shaped crest of his helmet was much taller than the rest and the heels of his boots raised higher – perhaps to disguise the fact that he was slightly shorter. The "Lord Hater" he had just introduced was more of human height, but not human at all – a skeleton, thick-jawed and broad-framed, clothed in a red-and-black robe that left his white, bony arms bare and the lightning-shaped horns on his head protrude through the hood. Emerald green eyes blazed from his sockets.
"YOU!" Hater yelled in a gravelly tone as he pointed directly at Mozenrath.
Mozenrath simply raised a brow. "Me?"
"YOU HAVE MY MAP!" Hater accused in the way a kindergartener might yell at a classmate who had "borrowed" their favorite eraser.
"No," Mozenrath said calmly; it seemed the sheer absurdity of this scene had rendered him unable to properly melt down in rage. "I have MY map."
"I WENT ALL THIS WAY TO GET THE MAP FROM TREASURE PLANET," Hater continued, "AND YOU TOOK IT! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE IT! I HAD DIBS! THAT MAP IS MINE!"
"First of all, inside voice," Mozenrath chided.
This was met with an "IDON'THAVETOUSEMYINSIDEVOICEIFWE'RENOTINSIDE!" Hater's diminutive announcer adopted a look in his eye that suggested that despite a modicum of loyalty, he wanted everyone to really get a good look at what he had to put up with.
"Second," Mozenrath went on, "you may have had 'dibs,' but I got the map before you did, and I believe the rules are 'finders keepers.' You know the drill. At least, I assume you do. See, you haven't told me yet if you're a do-gooder trying to stop me from destroying innocent lives or if you're a competing villain trying to overtake my dominion, but based on this aesthetic, you really don't have to."
"How DARE you even INSINUATE that Lord Hater could be even the slightest bit…HEROIC!" the tiny right-hand man to Hater spat.
"PEEPERS!" Hater rounded on the small Watchdog. "I'M TRYING TO BE THREATENING AND IN CHARGE! DON'T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH!"
"Well, I'M just trying to HELP!" Commander Peepers retaliated, hands on his hips and eyeball twitching somewhat with every word. "But if you think you have this under control, then by all means, go ahead!"
Hater swiveled back to stare down Mozenrath. "HOW DARE YOU INSINUATE THAT I, LORD HATER, COULD EVEN BE THE SLIGHTEST BIT HEROIC?"
Mozenrath rolled his eyes. "You know, out of all the strange things that have happened within the past hour, I think the strangest of all is that I found someone who managed to surpass Snipe at both immaturity AND stupidity."
"HEY!" Snipe snapped. "NO ONE'S ALLOWED TO GET BETTER THAN ME AT ANYTHING! …Wait."
"RRRRGGHHHH!" Hater growled through gritted teeth, pointing at Mozenrath. "JUST GIMME MY MAP!"
"Why do you even want it?" Mozenrath asked. "Because I seriously doubt your ambitions for it could be even close to what I'm going to do with it."
"Are we seriously wasting time just to find new reasons to taunt this idiot?" Wuya sighed.
"You know exactly what sort of villain Mozenrath is," the Huntsman snapped at her. "You agreed to come with him on this mission. You are not allowed to complain."
"I NEED THAT MAP, OKAY?" Hater growled. "I need it so I can do…this cool sciencey thing that will make me better at conquering worlds!"
Peepers sighed before filling in, "Our aim is to hook the map up to the engine of the Skullship and use its teleportation capabilities to activate an ultra-hyperdrive that would allow us to cover infinite space in no time, thereby giving us a speed advantage and allowing us greater territory for conquest!"
Mozenrath's eyes flicked back and forth between Hater and Peepers. "WHICH one of you is supposed to be the head honcho here?"
"ME!" Hater roared.
And Peepers, who, despite his exasperation, would not be shaken in his loyalty, simultaneously pointed at Hater and yelled, "HIM!"
"I almost feel bad for the little one," Discord chimed in.
"EXCUSE me?" Peepers snapped at him. "WHICH of us is working for the Greatest in the Galaxy, and WHICH of us is wasting his time on this…has-been nobody?"
"HAS-BEEN NOBODY?" Mozenrath repeated before Discord could speak. "I'll have you know that you are speaking to Mozenrath, leader of the WHAM ARMY, former Lord of the Black Sands, and soon-to-be lord of an empire bigger than you can even imagine!"
"WHAM ARMY?" Peepers repeated. "What kind of a name is THAT?"
"An acronym," Mozenrath, Wuya, and the Huntsman said in unison. Discord was already writing the letters in midair, filling in the names one by one: "Wuya," "Huntsman," "Ayam" –
"It's a STUPID name," Hater accused, "and YOU'RE A STUPID VILLAIN!"
"YOU HAVE NO IDEA JUST HOW CRUEL I CAN BE OR THE POWER I HOLD IN MY HAND!" Mozenrath shot back.
"Don't you have planets to focus on in your own galaxy?" Wuya broke in. "Your stooge keeps mentioning how great you are over there, after all."
"I'M NOT A STOOGE!" Peepers shrieked, leaping into the air to punctuate this statement.
"Yeah, well…" Hater looked to the side sheepishly. "There was kind of this…other villain…and she dried up all the planets in that galaxy except for one, so I had to save all the survivors so she would leave, and then I thought it was gonna be cool because we were starting the whole galaxy over and I could conquer it right from the beginning, but it kinda turns out that a society that's still being rebuilt is really, really boring to conquer because there's nothing actually in it, and I didn't wanna wait for them to finish, so I started looking for other worlds instead." He turned back to stare down Wuya with his usual ferocity; "And that's better anyway, because now I don't have to deal with my STUPID ARCHNEMESIS! AUGH! HE SENT ME A FRUIT BASKET TO SAY GOODBYE WHEN I LEFT! HOW STUPID IS THAT?"
"Your archnemesis…sent you a fruit basket to send you off," Mozenrath repeated. "And they say I have an unhealthy relationship with Aladdin…"
"JUST SHUT UP ALREADY AND GIMME THE MAP!" Hater roared.
"You're a villain," Mozenrath told him stonily, staring him down with the iciest of glares. "You know how this works. If you want Flint's map…you're going to have to work for it."
Hater stared blankly. "You, uhhhh, you want me to do your chores or – "
"HE MEANS FIGHT HIM!" Peepers cried.
"I KNEW THAT!" Hater yelled at Peepers.
"And if it's a fight he wants," Peepers declared, drawing a blaster that was far too large to have fit anywhere in his uniform and raising it to aim, "then it's a fight he's gonna get!"
Lord Hater's entire body was suddenly crackling alive with lime-green lightning that surged through every bone and the threads on his robe.
"All right," Mozenrath sighed. "Let's just get this over with. I mean, he's an idiot and his army is tiny, so – "
Hater threw out both arms, surging a white-hot pain directly into Mozenrath's chest in the form of a steady stream of lightning. The map went flying up out of his grip, sailing through midair. Wuya leapt to catch it, pirouetting as she did so before landing across the deck.
"THAT'S IT!" Mozenrath roared. "I HAVE HAD IT!" With that, he sent a surge of pure blue right back toward Hater. Hater retaliated with still more electricity, and the two forces collided at the midpoint.
"WATCHDOGS!" Peepers ordered. "OPEN FIRE!"
Hundreds of blasters went off at once, and the brawl began.
Wuya knocked every single blast aside with either a wrist or an ankle, rolling the map off her hand so the Huntsman could catch it. The Huntsman hustled it up to the helm; once he'd been pursued by a fragment of the Watchdog army, he pitched it, drawing the Huntstaff to begin slashing and slicing. He had intended for Snipe to catch the map, but instead, the map just bounced off Snipe's head as Snipe thwacked a legion of Watchdogs aside at once with his mace, and Snipe didn't even notice. Draco snapped the map up before it could land in the arms of any waiting Watchdog, throwing curses left and right and blocking the blaster fire with a Shield Charm. Discord conjured a red carpet up beneath the Watchdogs that surrounded him, grabbing the end and flicking the rug so that all who stood on it were violently thrown off balance to land on their seats. The map flew behind him to wind up with Hämsterviel, who was calling the Watchdogs various eye-related insults as he returned their fire rapidly.
"Sir!" a Watchdog cried as he slid in next to Peepers. "We should have the map in hand shortly! I am ready and awaiting your order to transport it safely aboard!"
Peepers turned to look at the Watchdog before giving him a nod of approval. "I'm proud of you for taking the initiative. I only have one tiny little problem with that plan."
He then turned his blaster and fired; the Watchdog shot into the air, performing a backflip before landing safely out of range.
"You might've gotten away with that little stunt if you hadn't chosen to look EXACTLY LIKE KALEB, who is RIGHT OVER THERE," Peepers told the Watchdog as he pointed to where the Huntsman still dueled his own contingent.
At that very moment, the Huntsman ran one of the Watchdogs through before hurling his corpse off the side of the Vicious.
"Aww, too bad," Peepers mocked. "Three seconds longer and you actually would've gotten away with – WAIT A MINUTE, HE JUST KILLED ONE OF MY WATCHDOGS! Oh, now you're REALLY in for it!"
"You're a sharp one," the Watchdog, who was, in fact, Hannibal Roy Bean, chuckled. "Now let's see if you got the brawn to back up that oversized brain. Ain't sure how you even fit a brain in there with all that eye, anyhow."
Hannibal rushed Peepers from the side, and Peepers dodged him, turning to fire upon him. Hannibal evaded the blast easily, leaping up to deliver a kick from above; Peepers hustled out of the way by a hair before trying to simply broadside him with his blaster's edge. Hannibal ducked the blow before throwing a punch that forced Peepers to backpedal.
The map continued to trade hands, bouncing from Draco to Wuya to the Huntsman. Even Hannibal joined in, once more bean-shaped and large. At last, it ended up with Discord, who had just conjured up a giant camera with an oversized flash in order to take a photo of his opponents. He knew exactly the way to subdue a creature whose face was all eye; when the flash went off, the Watchdogs facing him all screamed out in pain – "AAAGH, I'M BLIIIIIND!" – and stumbled around, trying to shake the multicolored spots from their vision.
Discord used the paw holding the map to grab the photo that had printed out from the camera: a candid portrait of the Watchdogs blundering about with no sense of vision. "I'm going to have this one framed!" Discord crowed. "Though I think one of you was blinking in this shot. Shall we have a do-over?"
"NOOOOOO – "
Click. Flash.
"AAAGH! I'M BLINDER!"
Discord chuckled heartily – a laugh that was cut off when an enormous storm of green lightning flashed past him.
Hater was advancing upon him, growling, "GIVE…ME…MY…MAP!"
"EXCUSE ME?" Mozenrath yelled. "I WAS THE ONE YOU WERE FIGHTING!"
"Lord Hater, was it?" Discord teased. "Why, I think you have a little too MUCH hate in you. You're overdue for a little ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT!"
He surged forth, tapping Hater square in the forehead of the skull.
Hater stopped, then stared at Discord in awe, then broke out into an oversized smile. "I LOVE EVERYTHING!" he cried, turning around to run at Peepers full tilt.
"SIR!" Peepers put up both hands, palms out; Hannibal backed off in order to watch the fireworks. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING – "
"PEEPERS!" Hater picked Peepers up, pressing him close to his chest with both arms and rocking him back and forth. "You're my bestest friend in the whole wide cosmos! I'm soooooo proud of you! Good job!"
Discord flinched watching the scene. Now, this was interesting. The very fact that this was the natural opposite to Hater's usual behavior toward his second-in-command was very telling. Even more interesting, however, was Peepers' reaction. Peepers did not immediately try to shove Hater away or comment on his out-of-character behavior. In fact, he looked flustered, almost in disbelief. As though he had wanted this to happen for a while and never gotten it.
If Peepers hadn't been hellbent on destroying the WHAM ARMY in order to take their hard-earned map, Discord thought, he would almost feel something like pity for the tiny Watchdog.
Peepers eventually squirmed out of the opposite-Hater's grasp. "S-sir!" he stammered. "Get control of yourself! We…we need to…"
Unable to continue, he pointed accusingly at Discord; "YOU did this!"
"Guilty!" Discord replied with a cheeky smile.
"I'm gonna make you REGRET messing with my friend!" Peepers insisted. "And I mean you in particular!"
"Oh, are you, now?" Discord asked, pitching the map back to Mozenrath. "We'll see about that."
"DISCORD!" Mozenrath yelled. "WILL YOU FOCUS?"
Discord rushed ahead, finger outstretched; his claw tapped Peepers' helmet.
And nothing happened.
"Joke's on YOU!" Peepers boasted. "I had ALL the Watchdogs' helmets, including my own, forged out of a magic-resistant alloy in case of THIS VERY CIRCUMSTANCE!"
"You ARE a clever little one, aren't you?" Discord chuckled. "I wonder: does the REST of your uniform hold up against my magic?"
"No," Peepers replied cockily, "but I make up for that by being VERY GOOD AT TAG!"
Discord twisted this way and that in an attempt to make enough physical contact to swap Peepers' persona, but Peepers evaded each time, bending his body around the extended claw skillfully and crying out triumphantly all the way. If Discord didn't know better, he'd think Peepers was having fun with this. Discord sure was having fun, after all, even if he wasn't landing his blow.
Then Peepers had gotten away completely, barreling back up the Skullship's tongue as he called out, "WATCHDOGS! DELTA FORMATION!"
The Watchdogs instantly became far less easy targets, alternating in and out of enemy reach as they took their shots. This was obviously a strategic configuration they had planned, and Discord knew it had certainly not been Hater who'd taught them this move. Their unpredictable movements had even managed to stymie him, getting in the way of him chasing after Peepers.
From within the Skullship's bowels, Peepers threw open a storage closet. "They thought I was just pretending to have one of these to counteract Lord Hater's ridiculous worst-case scenarios!" he cried as he looked upon a red diamond-shaped crystal twice his size. "If they did think it was real, they thought it was only for radioactive superpowers!" He got behind it to begin to roll it out, his back to its hard faceted surface. "Well, they're about to learn about the ace up my sleeve!"
Actually getting the crystal out of the ship was a little awkward, given how much bigger it was than its wielder, and then Peepers forgot completely about the incline of the tongue-ramp, the crystal suddenly giving way to roll down it and taking him on a tumble with it. On the way, he passed Hater, who was standing in place, hands clasped, and ranting on, "And I love Sylvia and I love Dominator and I love Ripov and I love Emperor Awesome and I ESPECIALLY love Wander! …Not Captain Tim, though. He's the one thing I don't love. But I also love Brad Starlight and…"
The crystal and Peepers finally rolled to a stop on the midst of the deck, and really, the bruises Peepers knew he was about to sustain from that fall were on the light end of what he was used to receiving on a daily basis. "ALL RIGHT, WHAM ARMY!" he proclaimed. "GET READY TO TASTE MY POWER-ABSORBING CRYSTAL! EXCEPT DON'T ACTUALLY TASTE IT, BECAUSE IT'S A ROCK! OOOOH, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!"
He placed both hands on the crystal, selecting its targets.
Mozenrath, Wuya, the Huntsman, Hannibal, Hämsterviel, Draco, Snipe, and Discord were caught in bright red beams that emitted from it, and when the ruby-colored light subsided, Mozenrath suddenly found that he could no longer cast a single spell. Draco's wand had similarly lost potency, and Wuya's magic was dry as well.
Discord snapped his fingers over and over again in horror, watching as nothing whatsoever happened. He then saw Hater shake his head and grunt, "Uhhhh, what was I doing? Oh, yeah. HUMILIATING THE WHAM ARMY AND GETTING MY MAP BACK!"
He and Peepers split up to divide and conquer.
Now that Discord was powerless, it was easy for Peepers to simply leap at him and pin him down by standing on his chest – which was his exact next move. Discord was both figuratively and literally floored, lying on his back as Peepers proceeded up to the base of his neck, using the business end of his blaster to gently lift Discord's chin and bring Discord's asymmetrical red eyes to meet his own single iris of the same color.
And Discord, realizing how thoroughly he'd been bested, reacted by breaking into an honest smile. "Now, YOU'RE impressive," he stated. "I'd say that power-draining move was cheating, but then again, I never did like to play fair myself."
"Shut it, you…you…" Peepers struggled for what to call Discord. He had never seen any creature that looked like Discord before in his life, and could only approximate him to the likeness of two different races. Therefore, figuring Discord to be somewhere between a Doom Dragon and a Zbornak, he spat, "You DOOM ZBORNAK!"
That got an honest laugh out of Discord. "Doom Zbornak? DOOM ZBORNAK?"
"QUIET!" Peepers snapped. "I am THIS CLOSE to just ENDING you and being DONE with it!"
"Let me guess," Discord taunted. "You don't like how I exposed to the world that you're attention-starved from your boss…and that he doesn't do anything to help that cause."
"DON'T…TEST ME!"
"Go ahead," Discord cajoled. "Shoot me. It won't do anything. Even without my powers, I'm immortal. I can't even be hurt."
"Right," Peepers said immediately. "Because immortals usually wear BANDAGES."
So Peepers had noticed a detail as small as that. Discord laughed yet again. "You are an impressive little thing."
"Oh, so now it's about my height," Peepers sighed. "You're unbelievable."
"And you haven't shot me yet. By the way, you've impressed me SO much, I'm going to let you have one freebie."
"All right, I'll bite," Peepers groaned. "What's the freebie?"
"Take two steps to the left."
Peepers then realized the only reason Discord would say that specific phrase. His eye widened, his iris shrank, and he all but jumped off of Discord; Discord leaned his head back as the blaster fire from the weapon Hannibal, in Watchdog form, had hijacked off one of the other soldiers passed harmlessly over him. After all, Discord had known from the start that if the magic of a god hadn't slowed down the Moby Morpher, no crystal would.
"WHY'D YA GO AND DO A THING LIKE THAT?" Hannibal growled.
"Well, it's not every day I meet my match," Discord said cheekily. "I'd say he earned that one. But only that one. You can go back to killing him now."
But when Hannibal turned to look for Peepers, the commander had already gotten away, losing himself in the crowd.
"You're real lucky I like laser tag much as I do," Hannibal seethed to Discord before giving chase.
Hater, on the other hand, had gone right for Mozenrath, who held the map once more. Mozenrath tried again and again to flick his hand toward Hater and conjure up some spell, any spell at all. This crystal must have been native to Hater and Peepers' home galaxy; its function wasn't too far off from a Crystal of Ix, with the only distinction being removing power from its subjects rather than simply absorbing the whole person affected.
"THAT MAP IS MINE!" Hater yelled, rushing Mozenrath.
Mozenrath decided to just use his right hand the old-fashioned way and slap it out toward Hater's breastbone, pushing him back; Hater clawed frantically at Mozenrath, his fingers missing the sorcerer's face by millimeters. Mozenrath shoved Hater away, and the next thing either knew, they were simply slapping at each other, two yellow-gloved hands against one gauntleted one.
As Wuya kicked a Watchdog aside, she groaned, "Great. He's finally found someone on his level."
"THAT DOES IT!" Hater yelled, raising both hands high and pouring an inordinate amount of voltage down upon his victim.
Mozenrath, unable to defend, was wracked with agony, shuddering and screaming as he fell to his knees.
The map rolled from his hand onto the planks of the deck.
The Huntsman's weapon, of course, had not been effected either; the crystal worked against magic and nuclear power, but anti-magic was not in its facets. Upon hearing Mozenrath scream, the Huntsman tapped into a far more primal state; in an instant, he had blown through all of the Watchdogs and surged forth to stand between Hater and Mozenrath. The huntstaff shot forward, piercing fabric.
Hater glanced down at where the blade had gone right between two of his ribs and punched out the back side of his robe. He was, of course, unharmed; the blade had missed his small heart by a good margin. His eyes flicked down to the map on the floor.
"I'm, uh…I'm just gonna take this now," he declared as he backed off of the huntstaff and scooped the sphere up into hand. "Cool? Cool."
The crystal had had no effect on Hannibal's Moby Morpher, nor on the Huntsman's staff. Similarly, it had no effect on Snipe's ability to be an unstoppable force. His mace had been powered down, but it still functioned perfectly well as a bludgeon, and he barreled through the crowd with a goal in mind. He might not have been as bright as his teammates, but even he knew what to target here.
By the time Hater had scooped up the map, Snipe had barged forth with a wordless, animalistic scream and bashed his mace directly into the red power-absorbing crystal, breaking it into countless shards.
Instantly, Wuya, Discord, Draco, and Mozenrath were back to full power; the former three resumed their onslaught with proud smiles. Mozenrath, however, was still shuddering from the recently-subsided lightning attack.
The Huntsman knelt down before him. "How badly does it hurt?"
"I'll live," Mozenrath said shakily.
The staff was set down, and the Huntsman gingerly placed his hands on Mozenrath's forearms, holding him gently to offer what comfort he could. He didn't expect it when Mozenrath reached out to seize his shoulders in return, clutching desperately.
"I'm still so glad it was you," Mozenrath said as he barely managed a smile.
"No one harms you," the Huntsman stated. "No one."
Upon noticing that the most powerful of the squad were back on top, Hater, having gotten what he wanted, ordered, "WATCHDOGS! RETREAT!" before charging up the tongue-shaped walkway, prize in hand, running so fast that his robe's edges flicked unprofessionally to temporarily reveal his polka-dotted boxers.
The Watchdogs didn't need to be told twice, retreating en masse to the safety of the Skullship.
On board, just atop the walkway, Hater stopped to catch his breath and survey the damage the Huntsman had done to his robe. "This was my second favorite," he grumbled.
Peepers strode up to him, in a cheerful mood indeed. "Great going out there, sir!" he cried as he swung his fist. "Though you probably could've cut back on the temper tantrum, but you sure showed them why you're the Greatest in the Galaxy!"
"Heh, you can say that again, Peepers!" Hater proclaimed.
"I'll get that map tucked away where it'll be safe," Peepers told him.
"Yeah, your nerd brain will probably think of a better place to hide this," Hater admitted passing him the sphere.
"Brains and brawn!" Peepers insisted as he backed away. "That's why we're such a great team!" He then darted away.
Hater proceeded to the cockpit as the tongue-walkway was licked back up into the ship, teeth sealing. He prepared to throw the Skullship into overdrive to make a hasty getaway.
That was when Peepers entered the cockpit behind him, swinging his fist proudly as he declared, "Great going out there, sir! Though you probably could've cut back on the temper tantrum, but you sure showed them why you're the Greatest in the Galaxy!"
"You know, Peepers," Hater groaned, "when I said you could say that again, I didn't mean literally."
"Um…this is the first time I'm saying it?" Peepers said in confusion.
"No," Hater told him, "you definitely said it to me downstairs when I gave you the map."
"When you gave me the – " Peepers' eye widened. "Ohhhhhh, zribdenk."
The "Peepers" who had first congratulated Hater when they had gotten on board the Skullship hopped down onto the deck of the Vicious, where the Huntsman was helping Mozenrath get steady on his feet. By the time that "Peepers" had morphed back into the form of Hannibal Roy Bean, Mozenrath was standing on his own and looked as though he hadn't even been shaken.
"Map," he demanded as he put out his hand.
Hannibal deposited Flint's map in Mozenrath's waiting palm, and Mozenrath held it aloft.
"What are you doing?" Draco asked derisively.
"Showing Lord Moron what he just lost," Mozenrath stated cockily.
"There's no way he's looking," Draco commented.
"You really have a lot to learn about actual villainy, don't you?" Mozenrath replied smugly. "They always look."
At that moment, Hater and Peepers had rushed to the Skullship's telescope. They shoved each other aside for total access, Hater eventually winning by throwing a light zap into his shove, and the skeleton conqueror zeroed in on Mozenrath, seeing the sorcerer hold up Flint's map and give him a proud smirk.
"WHAAAAAAT?" Hater roared.
That was when he felt a tap on his shoulder. "Sir…"
"Not now, Peepers."
"Sir, I really think you should – "
"NOT! NOW! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M PLOTTING REVENGE?"
"SIR! THE WINDOW!"
Hater looked up more out of curiosity than anything else – and then recoiled.
Wuya and Discord floated just outside the cockpit windows, each dressed in a white baseball uniform with a prominent-billed cap. Each held a baseball bat, and Hater and Peepers could literally hear the sounds of an organ playing the buildup for them to act. When the music climaxed, they both drew their bats back, both facing inward to each other.
Then they swung, and as the two ordinary-sized baseball bats collided with the Skullship, they brought with them such a force of magic that the ship was knocked clear across interspace, too far to catch up with the Vicious again, rolling jaw-over-scalp.
"GO!" Mozenrath shrieked. "NOW, NOW, NOW!"
The Huntsman raced to the helm. Hämsterviel kicked in the engines. The Vicious roared back into action, soaring full speed toward the warship.
"And that was the end of that," Mozenrath declared.
"You think they'll come back looking for revenge?" Draco asked.
"They better not," Mozenrath seethed. "Though, really, they were a bunch of incompetents, so we shouldn't have any problems if they do decide to put in another appearance."
"I wouldn't be too sure," Discord broke in.
"After all," Wuya picked up, "that empty-skull skeleton did manage to bring you to your knees."
"A lucky shot," Mozenrath sniffed. "It won't happen again."
"Now, see, I wasn't worried about him one bit," Discord clarified. "It's his roguishly handsome second-in-command I'd watch out for. He's the REAL brains behind the operation. After all, he choreographed that 'delta formation,' he saw right through Hannibal's disguise, he had a crystal on hand to absorb our powers in case of this exact circumstance…he even noticed my bandage and concluded that I wasn't invincible. If we're going to have trouble with anyone down the line, it's him."
Mozenrath had only taken one part of that statement away, and it wasn't the one Discord had intended; "'Roguishly handsome'? They all looked the same!"
"Um, EXCUSE YOU!" Discord huffed. "RACIST!"
"It doesn't even matter," Wuya sighed. "We smacked them so far across interspace, they'll never be able to find us again. And if they do, we'll have Atlantis locked by that time, and the crystal would vaporize them on the spot."
"Now," Mozenrath asked fate itself, "does ANYONE ELSE want to get in the way of us taking this map home?"
After nothing had happened for a good two minutes, Mozenrath declared, "GOOD."
Many worlds away, the Skullship finally slowed to a halt, righting itself. Hater and Peepers peeled themselves off the walls of the cockpit; down below, the other Watchdogs had to be just as tumbled up, but neither particularly cared about that.
"No, no, nooooooo!" Peepers moaned as he began to pace back and forth. "I can't BELIEVE this! They took our map, they made fools out of us, and they killed Kaleb! …Who was always interrupting my strategy meetings by saying random things anyway. Huh. Maybe it's a good thing they got rid of him for us. Still!" He heaved a massive sigh. "It's okay. There are other routes to multi-world domination than using that map. We can weigh our options. No use worrying about a bunch of two-bit, fifth-rate discount villains from the reject bin! Am I right?"
He looked to Hater, hoping for agreement. When he saw the look of pure, determined rage on Hater's face, he knew this was going exactly where he didn't want it to.
"They…made…me…look…stupid," Hater seethed. "They took my map, and they made me look stupid."
"Oh, no," Peepers moaned. "No, no, no, sir! Please, please, PLEASE don't waste any more time on them! We don't even know where to start looking to FIND them! We only just got done with you obsessing over Wander to the point where nothing ever got done! Don't replace him with a new obsession! PLEASE, SIR! I'M BEGGING YOU!"
"Put the domination plans on hold, Peepers," Hater stated, having absorbed none of what Peepers had just said. "Our new priority number one is revenge."
"But sir - !"
"I will not rest," Hater declared, "until those idiots have paid for what they did to me!"
He clenched both hands, raising them to the sky as he gave a cry that rang out across the reaches of space: "WHAM ARMYYYYYYYYYYY!"
Peepers sighed in defeat. "This is gonna turn into a THING, isn't it?"
...
Roxas stared at Sora in disbelief. He gaped, attempting to find words.
Then Sora leapt at him, yelling, "ROXAS! IT'S YOU!" He enveloped Roxas in a tight, enthusiastic hug.
"What…what even happened?" Roxas asked, too stunned to even return the gesture.
"I don't know!" Sora replied as he let go of Roxas backed away, but only slightly. "But it's you! You're here!"
Kazuichi leaned over to Jasmine, whispering, "Is it weird that I'm not even freaked out by seeing a whole other guy come out of Sora anymore?"
"Welcome to living with magic," Jasmine whispered back to him.
"It must've been something about the ring!" Sora realized. "Instead of just making another copy of me, it made you! See?" Sora took off the ring to hold it out –
"SORA!" Donald and Goofy both cried.
Sora realized, then, that when Goofy had removed the ring from Snipe, all of the duplicates had disappeared. However, the Monarch Wings' effect overpowered. They had granted Roxas a permanent form, and so he remained in place even when the Ring of the Nine Dragons was no longer active.
"He didn't disappear!" Goofy cried triumphantly.
"So I'm back," Roxas said softly, still in disbelief. "For real."
"Yeah, for real!" Sora insisted. "This is so great! All this time, ever since you became a part of me, I always thought it was wrong. I knew you needed to be your own person."
"You told me, remember?" Roxas reminded him. "In your dream."
"Huh." Sora scratched his head. "I kinda wasn't sure if that was the real you or not. You did keep switching outfits, so I thought that was just the dream acting all…dreamy."
"Huh?" Roxas tilted his head, confused.
"Never mind," Sora said with a shake of his head. "I'm just glad you get to be your own person now. You deserve to be. And so does Nami – " Sora gasped. "NAMINE! I bet we could do the same thing to get her out if we gave the ring to Kairi!"
"Naminé?" Roxas repeated, more fervent in tone now. "You can get her out?"
"Well, we got you out, didn't we?" Sora reminded him. "This is so great! Axel's gonna be so excited to see you!"
"Axel," Roxas repeated. "I don't even know what I'm gonna say to him. I didn't think I'd ever actually see him as my own person again. Just from inside you. And by the way…" He smiled warmly. "Thank you."
"For what?" Sora asked.
"For taking care of me," Roxas replied, "and for letting me have your adventures through you. I've been able to see everything you saw, ever since we merged. Even when you were dreaming. You brought me to Traverse Town, to La Cité des Cloches, to the world of music…it was all so beautiful." His tone turned somber. "After we merged, I remembered the truth about who I really was. I knew my memories of Twilight Town were fake…up until the last seven days, anyway. I remembered the Organization, and all of the missions I went on with Axel. A lot of it doesn't make sense, but Xemnas was in charge, so that kinda figures."
"Man, can that guy go on and on!" Sora laughed. "Maybe that's how we really gotta fight him. We just start him talking and knock him down midsentence."
Roxas chuckled at that. "Anyway," he went on, "I remembered the adventures I used to have back then. To Wonderland, to Neverland…" He looked to Aladdin and Jasmine. "I even saw you a couple times. I made sure you didn't see me, but I saw while you rebuilt Agrabah from the sandstorms. You're good rulers. Agrabah is lucky to have you."
"I wish we could've seen you," Jasmine replied sadly. "We could've done something to get you away from that awful Organization."
"There wasn't anything you could've done," Roxas informed them. "I didn't know how bad things were there, and even if I did, a lot of people probably would've come after you for doing that. Not to mention if I'd left…I would've missed out on a lot of fun with my best friend." He smiled brightly. "Almost every night after our adventures, Axel and I would meet up on the clock tower for sea-salt ice cream. We'd talk about our day, and back then, I don't know if I really appreciated what it was like to be able to visit so many different worlds and have those experiences."
The smile faded. "And then Axel and I had that fight. I don't even remember what started it, but I just got so mad at him for lying to me about Xemnas and the Organization. I still feel like that was wrong…but maybe I was too. That's probably the first thing I have to say to him: that I'm sorry."
He then looked Sora dead in the eye. "That's what I owe you the most. You took me on all those adventures all over again, but instead of keeping to the shadows, you brought me out into the sun, where I could meet all of your friends. It felt like your friends became my friends, too. And when you patched things up with Axel…it was like I got to hang out with him again."
"Hey, it's no problem!" Sora told him. "But now, you get to do all that stuff on your own! You don't need me anymore! Actually, you can go hang out with Axel even more. I usually spent more time with – " Realization struck him, and he blushed hard. "Hey! When you say you saw EVERYTHING – "
"I could choose when to turn away," Roxas told him. "I tried not to look in on your private moments. I…kind of saw more than one kiss with Riku, though. He's great for you, but I'm not gonna lie…it'll be good to not have to experience kissing someone else's partner by accident."
"So are you gonna do it?" Sora asked excitedly. "Are you gonna come back to Radiant Garden with us? Help us out with Mozenrath and Maleficent and Xehanort? You could even come to Keyblade training with Yen Sid!"
"It's a lot to ask," Jasmine broke in. "Roxas hasn't been his own person for a long time, and our work is dangerous. Roxas, if you would rather go your own way for a while, we'll understand."
"Actually, joining you sounds great," Roxas admitted. "It can't be any more dangerous than working for the Organization. I already feel like I know everyone there, and I wanna meet them for real. I wanna fix things with Axel. And after watching everything that the people you're fighting have done to you…it's kinda personal. So count me in!"
"YEAH!" Sora put up his hand, and Roxas gave him a high-five.
"So, uh…what the fuck?" Kazuichi asked softly.
"We'll explain later," Donald told him.
"It's kind of a long story," Goofy added.
"But WE'VE been in there," Kazuichi recalled. "That Drive thing. I've been in there. Jasmine's been in there. Rapunzel's been in there. And this whole time, we were sharing with that guy, too? Man, my head's startin' to hurt…"
"Well, get used to that," Donald told him, "'cause this story's confusing, too!"
Sora turned to nod to Rosalina. "Okay. NOW we can get ready to go."
"Wait a minute!" Aladdin realized, thinking of the final loose end. "What about Jim? And Doppler and Amelia? They still need to get back home."
"I have already spoken to them," Rosalina stated. "They had actually wanted to put in a visit to Radiant Garden themselves. I suspect that Jim wants to take more action now that he has lost his treasure to one of your enemies, and his guardians do not want to leave him unsupervised. But that is for you to discuss when the time is right."
"So we're all good to go!" Sora said with a thumbs-up.
"Come," Rosalina bade the group as she departed the garden. "We shall be on our way immediately."
Within moments, interspace was pierced by the blazing blue light of what appeared to be a comet, but was in truth an observatory, speeding through the sky.