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.

103. An Ill Wind that Blows None to Good

A/N: This chapter contains potentially sensitive material. That material is also major chapter spoilers. If you think there's anything that may affect you, speed on ahead to the notes at the bottom.

...

Roman Torchwick had almost forgotten how much he hated Corona. This mission was a reminder. At least its network of haunted-seeming subterranean stone hallways offered a much better view. Down here, there was none of that nasty sunlight illuminating the garish colors. Just shadows playing on spiderwebs in the dark.

"Remind me again why they have these down here?" he asked Gothel, who proceeded ahead of him, a torch aloft.

"Every kingdom has its secrets," Gothel replied. "The Black Sands had them. Your Vale had them. Atlantis is going to have them. You'd better start getting used to it now."

"That wasn't an answer," Roman brought up, taking out his own lighter and initiating its tiny flame, if only because he liked to feel he had some control over the situation down here in the dark. Cellars…they could hold nasty things. And suddenly, it seemed not to matter that this was a less visually assaulting view than the kingdom above, because now Roman remembered just what kind of secrets could be kept in cellars, and how hard it was to keep them there –

He had to keep the conversation going. Not think about anything like what he'd entertained. "I thought you had all the answers," he went on. "Since you lived for forever and a half and all."

"Funny how that works," Gothel replied. "You spend your whole life focusing on doing what you want and suddenly you realize the world went on around you."

"Um…that's kinda what we do? Because…fuck the world?"

"Exactly," Gothel stated. "I don't MIND not knowing. Not until some upstart redhead starts asking me nosy questions I can't answer."

"Sheesh, I get it. No more questions."

Their course ended in a stone wall that blocked the hallway entirely. As Gothel swept her torch in front of the seemingly dead end, Roman muttered, "Yup. No more questions. Definitely not concerning what the hell is going on now."

The flames of Gothel's torch illuminated a sigil composed of circles, and Gothel could have spat on that very wall, given how angry it made her to see that pattern again. She'd thought she could conjure up the necessary hatred based on memory alone, but the physical reminder sent a whole new thrill of anger through her. How fitting, then, that Demanitus' device was to be used for the exact thing he would never want.

The circles glowed, and the wall moved aside.

"Nifty trick," Roman remarked. "But a liiiiiiittle played out, don't you think? Oh. Right. You weren't there for Blackmoor. That means you didn't have to go through Puzzle Hell. And also that you probably think THAT is original."

"I've lived long enough that I know how many people use the hidden wall trick, Roman," Gothel grunted as she led on.

Once they were both past the gate, Gothel doubled back. The trick wall had sealed behind them, and Gothel was hastily tapping a sequence of stones.

"Whaaaaat are you doing?" Roman asked.

"Making sure we aren't followed," Gothel replied. "The wall is now locked from the inside."

"And we would be followed by…?"

"You never know."

They pressed on. At first, the only indication that they had entered a larger chamber was the amplified echo of their footsteps on the stone floor. Then Gothel, knowing where they were, casually tossed her torch aside.

It landed in a shallow stone channel, lighting up the incendiary enchantments Demanitus had applied to the hard wax base. The fire became a ring of light, illuminating almost the entire room – no mean feat given its vastness. In the red glow cast, the view was revealed. A walkway led from the entry to a central rounded platform of stone; around that platform and the bridge, the floor plunged away to reveal an intricate webbing of metal gears. Those gears fed into the base of the central platform, and from the stone rose a truly impressive mechanism, its round, thick base like a tree trunk with great wooden bars sticking out to set it rotating, and above, a configuration of enormous metal spheres set at every angle, enough to look like a map of whatever solar system Corona was part of – and it sure didn't look like the one Remnant was part of.

"Well, shit," Roman remarked. "That's a pretty big deal."

"To change the winds and bring the storms away from the island," Gothel explained, "you would have to rotate the device widdershins. Ergo, to freeze the island over as dramatically as we want, we'll have to go deosil, and at a good clip."

"We'll have to go WHAT now?"

Gothel sighed. "Sunwise."

"Okay, this time in actual words, please."

"KEEP THE DEVICE ON YOUR RIGHT," Gothel growled.

"Was that SO HARD?" Roman asked as he approached the bars that steered the device's direction.

Perhaps the best attribute he brought to the table, being nonmagical and no good at diplomacy, was his physical strength. Even though he'd often ended up on the battered side as of late, he was no weakling. He rotated his neck to give it a light crack before setting into shoving at the planks, starting to spin the machine.

The gears whirred to life below, though despite their age, they ran smoothly, making a low muttering free of squeaks or squeals. Above Roman, the metal spheres also began to turn, dancing around each other in a hypnotic orbit. A distinct teal glow began to fill the upper edges of the room.

"Y'know, this would probably go a lot faster with two people," Roman grunted as he kept the device going round and round.

"It really would," Gothel remarked. "Shame."

"GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME WITH YOUR STUPID PLAN, MOM OF THE YEAR."

"All right, all right," Gothel sighed as she approached. "If only so you'll stop giving me lip."

Gothel was no slouch herself in the strength department. The device was now turning twice as fast, bolts of teal-green energy connecting the spheres to the luminescent wall. And the teal glow was becoming ever brighter.

There was a sound like a cannon firing. Had either been outside the mountain they were currently within, they would have seen the beacon of light erupt forth, like the product of a volcano dry of magma.

Gothel stopped walking first. "It's done," she announced.

Roman relinquished his hold on the wooden bar; it hadn't been all that difficult to move at first, but keeping it up so fast for so long had provided enough of a workout in the end. "So what now?" he asked. "We just chill out down here?"

"Oh, it's not us who will be chilly," Gothel said with a chuckle.

"That was horrible," Roman told her, and yet he was smiling. "Seriously, though, how long?"

"At the rate we went to activate the device, we can expect the blizzard to hit and overpower in two hours' time," Gothel explained. "I estimate a decent enough window between evacuation and our own destruction that we can clean out."

"When you say 'decent enough,' do you have an exact figure of time?"

"However long it takes before the town itself starts caving in on us."

Roman shrugged. "Fair. So. How you wanna pass two hours?"

"Well, we could always get to know each other a little better, couldn't we? Talk about our sordid pasts. You tell me who you were before you ruled the criminal underground of Vale and I'll tell you who I was before Rapunzel."

She knew he wouldn't take the bait. They stared each other down in silence before Roman reached into his pocket, removing a pack of cards. "Or I teach you how to play Spit."

"I know how to play Spit, Roman. Just deal."

They sat on the floor, Gothel carefully arranging her skirts in a tasteful manner while Roman divided the stock piles.

She knew he'd never tell her how he began. Setting his past up against her own was a security measure. Now he would never be inclined to ask about her.

...

Two hours was not an inaccurate estimate at all. The storm hit hard and fast, clogging the streets of the island with snow and threatening to blow the towers of the castle down entirely.

"I don't understand," Queen Arianna moaned, swathed in a thick blue coat. "It isn't winter weather at all. How is this happening?"

"It couldn't possibly be the curse of Zhan Tiri," her husband Frederic, himself clothed in heavy fabrics and a warm hat, muttered. "And yet…after all that's happened…" He shook his head. "The important thing is we need to evacuate the island at once. Any longer and our people will freeze to death where they stand."

"What about the device Rapunzel told us about?" Arianna asked. "The one she used to stop the last blizzard from overtaking the kingdom?"

Frederic sighed. "It was the first thing I thought of, Arianna. But either I misunderstood the location of the device, or it never was what Rapunzel thought it was. I followed her directions to the letter. Placed the fire on the sigil. There was nothing. Only a blank wall. And I cannot afford to waste any more time looking for the right way to the machine. If needed, a small search party can be sent back AFTER the evacuation. But innocent civilians cannot die in the meantime!"

He looked regretfully out the window. "There will hardly be time to get everyone across the bridge in the first place," he said somberly. "Arianna…I'm afraid there must be sacrifices."

"Frederic - !"

"Don't worry," Frederic went on, brow set. "The ones who are lowest priority are those who occupy our dungeons. Particularly those we had intended to set on the barge. I know this must sound horrible, but…perhaps this is a blessing. If it comes down to leaving them behind, it will spare us transporting them, and we would never have to worry about their crimes again."

"Rapunzel wouldn't want this," Arianna argued.

"I know," Frederic said somberly. "That is why we will try our hardest to save everyone. But if time runs short, who else would you leave?"

Arianna sighed. "I agree with you, but – "

"We won't leave Varian," Frederic insisted. "You may escort him personally, if you please. That young man is more than just a prisoner. I know how much he means to Rapunzel…to our family."

"Then I have no more arguments," Arianna stated. "Let us inform the royal guard at once."

...

They left in a massive drove, the people of Corona, bringing with them only what they could carry in their hands, for carts and wagons would slow them down. They piled onto the narrow bridge that connected the island to the mainland, bottlenecking as they did so. The waves around them were too large and volatile for any watercraft to assist in the effort.

Frederic and Arianna made it across, bringing with them a teenage boy wearing chains, a heavy coat, and an expression of cold fury. All of the citizens had made it to the bridge, as had the guards and castle staff. From there, it was a journey further inland to make it to the shelters, where they would all be safe.

As the last of the guards crossed, Frederic very nearly gave the order to double back, to begin clearing out the castle dungeons of the undesirables after all, for there was time.

The winds were strong. Water froze in the cracks of the stone in the bridge. Heavy hails pelted the structure. The stones were pried apart by the expanding ice.

The bridge collapsed entirely, cutting off the Coronans from their own kingdom.

They were forced to press on, leaving behind their homes, their livelihood, their businesses – and the scum of society, left to perish of the cold in the depths of the dungeons.

As they mourned what was left behind, two figures emerged from the alleys, overjoyed at what was left behind. After all, their skimmers were parked out back of the castle. Inclement weather was no trouble to them. There was only one problem they hadn't thought all the way through.

"IT'S. FUCKING. COLD," Roman yelled, hugging himself desperately and frustratedly.

"Here." Gothel passed him a flask filled with a bubbling orange potion that Yzma had called a "warmer." "Drink this."

Roman downed the contents without taking his lips off the neck until every drop was gone. Gothel was daintier about drinking down her own warmer. "See, here's the thing," Roman remarked. "The warmer is designed to keep our body temperatures stable enough that we won't die. You know what it doesn't do? Prevent us from feeling the cold at all. And I am feelin' it right now, lemme tell you. Not a good feeling!"

"Grow up, you big baby," Gothel huffed as she set off for downtown. "This is the best part."

"This had better be a gods-damned EPIC score," Roman muttered as he followed her.

They trudged up through the drifts until they reached an open square. "So many abandoned homes," Gothel remarked. "Where to start, where to start?"

"How about somewhere with central heating?"

"Roman, if you want to go home, then go home. I'll just take all the spoils for myself."

"Aw, HELL no."

"Then stop complaining," Gothel ordered.

"Okay, fine," Roman sighed. "I'll stop – "

The wind whipped his precious hat away, carrying it all the way out to the ocean.

"NOPE," Roman asserted through gritted teeth. "NOT…COMPLAINING. RESISTING…TEMPTATION." As he looked wistfully after the hat, he caught sight of something else rather interesting. The snow hadn't quite covered up a wall mural of the king and queen of the island holding a blonde baby girl. "Is that who I think it is?"

"Hm?" Gothel glanced over. "Oh. THAT. Yes. That's exactly the girl. Unless you know of another feisty blonde with too much hair who enjoys ruining the lives of those who she considers the 'bad guys.'" The last words said with air-quotes made by index fingers.

"Would you believe I actually do? That's obviously not her there, though." Roman took another long look at the mural, then raised the Melodic Cudgel and fired once.

The mosaic face of Rapunzel was blasted into shards, leaving her a decapitated shape in the arms of half-formed parents.

"That felt strangely cathartic," Roman admitted. "So, what, they put that up after you took her?"

"Of course," Gothel groaned. "You know these types. Going all sappy over a person they didn't even know. Having to have an enormous public memorial to the lost princess. And what about us folk, hm? The have-nots of the world? You think these people would've done this for a Lost Torchwick?"

"I know they wouldn't have," Roman said with conviction.

"This is exactly the kind of open space she'd've taken advantage of, too," Gothel went on. "I can imagine her dancing about like an idiot just now."

"Well, I mean, as outdoor dance floors go, it's not bad," Roman pointed out. "Or it wouldn't be if it wasn't covered in FUCKING SNOW!"

"No, that wouldn't improve it," Gothel argued.

"Oh yeah?" Roman countered. "Wanna bet? 'Cause I think…"

He took a few experimental steps. While the snow did slow him down, he was able to get into a groove, and was soon dancing his heart out all alone to music only audible in his mind.

"Now YOU look like the idiot," Gothel huffed.

"Those are the words of someone who can't dance," Roman accused. "Or are you afraid you'll embarrass yourself because you don't have the moves?"

Gothel thought it over. "I have nothing to prove to you. However, you're not going to let this go until I join in this tomfoolery, and I know it. Now move over."

She took a step, then another, then executed a twirl.

A few minutes later, she guided Roman back down the subterranean labyrinth. "The other perk of living as long as I have," she explained, "is that you know where the Baron keeps all of his caches in this kingdom." She tapped the wall. "Fire here."

The Melodic Cudgel blasted them right through the wall into an underground vault filled with glittering jewelry and ornamentation of all sorts. Roman gaped at its sparkle.

"You're not going to be able to do anything with it just by LOOKING at it," Gothel informed him.

"This might actually be able to pay off our whole sand fund," Roman said breathlessly.

"And there's more where it came from," Gothel reminded him. "Now dive in."

They proceeded to empty the vault into their purses.

"Hey, Mom of the Year," Roman remarked. "What do you say after this and before the next clean-out, we have a little fun?"

"What did you have in mind?" Gothel asked.

In the square, Gothel sauntered toward Roman. "Now, the way I was taught to dance was with a partner," she stated.

"Are you gonna try to convert me to your old-timey dancing?" Roman groaned.

"Oh, I suppose that means I get to stay better at it than you, then," Gothel said with a smirk.

Roman rolled his eyes and slowed down his movements. "Fine. Show me the ropes."

"Give me your hand first."

On the hillside, they fashioned large snowmen, adorning them with the jewelry they'd picked up from the Baron's cache and a multitude of private residences. Gothel took her time, fashioning an excruciatingly detailed life-sized model of Mozenrath and festooning him with gems.

"Now, what's missing?" she asked herself as she regarded his face. "Oh. Silly me! The perpetual look of distaste with life in general." She sculpted him a disgruntled frown.

"Are you serious?" Roman's voice came from behind her. "In the time it took you to do that, I managed to make THREE masterpieces, thank you very much!"

Gothel turned about to see the triplet of snowpeople Roman had fashioned, all of which were crude lumps with vaguely different shapes. "Quality over quantity, Roman," Gothel laughed. "Now, who exactly are those attempts at art supposed to represent?"

Roman lay his hand on the shoulder of the largest one. "Well, obviously this one's Archie. See? I used a pair of literal sapphires for his eyes because his eyes have always reminded me of – well, okay, that's getting into TOO sappy territory. Don't tell him I said that."

"Why shouldn't I?"
Roman tossed her a necklace from his stash, which she caught deftly. "That'll do," she said smugly.

"Anyway…" Roman then moved to the smallest of the three. "This one's Neo. And she's got a tiara on because she's basically a princess. I don't take criticism on that."

"She's more of a princess than Rapunzel ever will be," Gothel remarked.

Roman moved toward the final snow-woman. "And this is the bitch queen herself, Cinder Fall. She's got three ceremonial daggers plunged in her heart because it's the closest I can get to doing that to the real thing."

A fourth knife whistled through the air, taking snow-Cinder's head down with it.

"Oops," Gothel said slyly. "My hand slipped."

Roman couldn't help but laugh joyously.

During their dance, she let go of him, turning away to put her hands in the air. "And now you clap four times."

"Is that REALLY necessary?"
"How do people on your world say it? Put your hands in the air like you don't care?"
"Don't…don't ever say that phrase again. That was creepy."

"Just do it, Roman."

Roman decided to give it a shot, spinning a twirl as he clapped. He was surprised at how much momentum it built up for him, propelling him into the next stage of the dance.

He and Gothel slid into the alley behind the sweetshop, rifling through a pile of candies they'd salvaged. "Anything and everything chocolate is yours," Roman stated. "The peppermints and the hard stuff is mine."

"You really don't get to LIVE anymore, do you?"
"Hmm. Let's see. A few chocolates, or the best damn partner in crime I could've asked for? I think I'll go with…not the chocolates."

"But don't tell me you don't miss them."

"I've already bought your silence a time too many, Mom of the Year." Roman slid an unwrapped peppermint into his mouth. "Anyway, this is good shit."

He spun her. She dipped him. They laughed together.

In the throne room of the castle, Gothel pranced about wearing Arianna's spare jewelry and one of her crowns. "Oh, look at me!" she mocked. "I'm the prim and proper queen of Corona! I've never done anything wrong in my life! I'm perfectly boring!"

Roman, donning Frederic's cape and regalia, snapped his fingers. "King Freddie here. I'm a killjoy! Crime-free kingdom or bust, bitches! No, wait, wait for it – " He swapped out Frederic's crown for Rapunzel's diamond-studded tiara. "Mommy!" he cried in falsetto. "Mommy, I wanna go outsiiiide! I wanna marry a booooooy! I want my birth parents because they're sooooo much more boring than you!"

"You know, I should be glad that girl's gone," Gothel remarked, amused by Roman's performance.

In the square, they spun into each other's grip one last time, the falling snow making them splashes of color on a stark-white backdrop. They came to a halt, smiling at each other. Roman had even forgotten he was cold.

"You're not half bad," he told Gothel.

"I could say the same for you," Gothel said to Roman.

"This actually wasn't a terrible idea," Roman remarked.

"Definitely above average, on a sliding scale from terrible to tolerable," Gothel agreed.

They left the kingdom by skimmer, flying to the mainland with untold valuables in their bags. "Wait until we tell Righty that the sand fund is full already!" Roman laughed. "One question, though. When do we turn the machine back the other way and put everything back to normal so the people can go home?"

After a short silence, they both burst into raucous laughter.

"And here you had me worried you cared," Gothel remarked.

"Fuck 'em!" Roman laughed. "Fuck 'em all, and you can quote me on that!"

"Shall we stop for a drink to celebrate our victory before heading home? My treat."

"Oh, Mom of the Year, you know I NEVER say no to free booze!"

...

The Snuggly Duckling pub was just far enough inland that, while it was still shrouded in bitter cold, it was in no structural danger, and the climate was more of an inconvenience than anything. The thugs that populated the tavern were clothed in a few more furs than usual, but making the best of a bad situation by breaking out into loud choruses of drinking songs every so often – not the bawdy drinking songs Roman had expected, but cheery tunes about summer days, true love, and kittens.

As much as Roman and Gothel enjoyed the musical scene, they knew it was best to keep a low profile, so Gothel kept a hooded cloak around her shoulders and the hood up as the pair staked out the smallest table in the back corner. Roman held their seats while Gothel came back with drinks: a near-overflowing pint glass of beer for Roman and a fluted glass of white wine for herself.

"I gotta hand it to ya, Mom of the Year," Roman said as he drew his glass toward himself. "I had my doubts, but I think I can actually LEGITIMATELY say you're my friend now."

"As much as it pains me to admit it, you don't disgust me anymore, either," Gothel said with a sly smile. "Also, I can see why Snatcher chose you. You obviously won him over with that dancing of yours."

"See, you're expecting me to say here that your dancing was just as good and you'll catch the man of your dreams with it. Except it wasn't, and no, you won't."

Gothel chuckled. "We really are two villains cut from the same cloth, aren't we?"

"Damn straight." Roman took the first sip of his beer, then flinched. "WHOA! The people of Corona do NOT fuck around when they brew a beer!"

Barely a sip, and already, he could feel his defenses weakening. Or maybe that was just what happened when you finally befriended someone for real. "H-hey…Mom of the Year…you ever feel like…y'know…you're n-not the best person for the whole gig? I mean…you'n'me…we're both the normies of the group. No s-sorcery, no…none of that shit…"

"Oh, Roman," Gothel remarked. "I understand completely what you're going through. First of all, it might not be something that alcohol can cure, but it certainly won't hurt."

Roman took a few more hearty swallows from his pint.

"I basically see it like this," Gothel went on. "Sure, the others have magic, strength, and smarts, and it seems like I don't, but…as I'm sure you're about to realize, I'm actually so much more than anyone suspects. A person only has to cross me once to learn why you don't. As for your case…well, you're just a lost cause, Roman. How you ever got that much power over the team diplomat, I'll never know. And that's why you can't stand between my words and his silver tongue for a minute more."

Roman was about to tell Gothel that what she'd said wasn't very nice at all, and sounded almost threatening, to boot. However, first he had to deal with the fact that his head was swimming. He'd barely made a dent in his pint and the brew was already strong enough that his vision was blurring and the audio around him skewing. Had Gothel even said what he'd thought she'd said? They really had a potent recipe in these parts. The aftertaste was almost salty –

Too late, he realized.

A whisper of "You…b…bitch" escaped his lips as he toppled over, eyes closing in a drugged sleep.

Gothel got up to approach him; en route, she flicked the glass of the beer she'd tainted so that it fell over and drained out onto the floor below. Not that she was too worried about anyone tracing evidence of the crime back to her.

As for Roman, he was easy enough to explain. She kept her hood up and its brim down as she hoisted him up to carry out the door. "He just never knows when enough is enough," she said to the only thug to give her a passing glance. "I'd better get him home before he wakes up to complain about the hangover."

She got Roman outside without incident and proceeded to drag him right through the snow.

...

Aqua took the lead on the dark trail up to the doors of Castle Oblivion; Sora, Riku, and Rosalina walked behind her, and Katara, Moana, and Papyrus behind them. Lyrae and Cassie brought up the rear of the party.

"You're sure?" Riku asked. "This place hasn't exactly brought anyone any benefit since I've known about it. All it's ever done is serve as a prison."

"And maybe that's the fate I condemned Ven to," Aqua lamented. "He's been waiting ten years for me. I promised I'd wake him up. I said I'd be right back, but I'm not even close."

"Well, I mean, the nice thing is that sleeping doesn't really feel like anything," Moana pointed out. "Maybe he won't even know how long it's been."

"RIGHT!" Papyrus pointed out. "IT WON'T REALLY AFFECT HIM! BESIDES THE FACT THAT EVERYONE HE LOVED IS OLDER AND NOWHERE HE WENT IS QUITE THE SAME ANYMORE AND – OH. OH, DEAR. THIS ISN'T GOOD, IS IT? WE'LL HAVE TO BE SURE AND GREET VEN WITH THE PROPER AMOUNT OF WARMTH!"

"In any case, it wasn't your fault," Rosalina asserted. "I know you made every effort you could to return. It was Xehanort who stopped you."

"I'm still in for an earful," Aqua sighed, though somewhat playfully.

As they came to a halt before the doors, Sora felt a shiver of familiarity. He knew he'd been here. He also knew he didn't remember a thing about the experience. Still, his instincts warned him of this place. He also knew exactly what had gone wrong last time he'd been here.

Riku felt no physical reaction, but was still uneasy about getting too close to the castle. "I'm worried," he admitted. "I know the way this place messed with memories was a product of Vexen and Marluxia messing around with Naminé's powers and their own science. It still feels like if we go through those doors…it'll be the same thing, all over again."

"I never meant for it to turn into this," Aqua lamented. "I tried to make a sanctuary where Ven wouldn't be disturbed. I guess I created a place for evil to carry out its plans."

A light touch on Aqua's arm signified Rosalina's presence by her side. "What you created was neither good nor evil," Rosalina stated. "It was simply a place to be. Evil finding it was only by chance. I happen to think it's a beautiful castle. Maybe the others thought the same, and the ones who abused its power simply managed to get here first because they appreciated its beauty."

"Maybe not," Riku realized. Aqua had given them a brief summary of what had happened to her once they'd all arrived here, explaining how she'd sealed Ven away…and set Terra on the path to become Xehanort. "If Xehanort was still looking for Ven…or if there was any part of Terra in him, crying out for his old friend…then it's a no-brainer he'd come straight here."

"What if he actually FOUND Ven?" Katara worried. "It's been ten years!"

Aqua shook her head. "No. I won't believe it. The only way he could've ever found Ven would mean this castle wouldn't even be here!"

Her gaze turned up toward the castle's highest tower, and it held there. For almost too long, and Papyrus was on the verge of asking if she was all right or if she had been spontaneously magically petrified (it happens). Then she called the Master's Defender to hand.

"I'm going to make it up to you, Ven," she muttered.

She raised the Keyblade deliberately, posture solid as both hands settled on its hilt. All at once, light erupted from the castle's double doors, a Keyhole forming in midair in reaction to the Master's Defender's presence. A strong wave of energy radiated from that light, tossing the hair of the others (those who had hair, anyway; in Papyrus' case, it just billowed out his cape).

They watched in awe, Sora agape, Riku surprised, Rosalina curious, Katara taken aback, Moana beaming, Papyrus' eyes bugging, Cassie and Lyrae hugging in fear.

Then Aqua thrust the Keyblade forward deliberately. Light ringed its blade, then beamed into the newly-formed Keyhole.

The shockwave nearly bowled everyone over. Rosalina lifted off into the air, swiftly speeding behind the two Lumas to catch them before they were thrown back too far.

Aqua stood firm, staring down the light before her. She had already transformed this place once. Now, the power to do so was yet again in her hands, and this time, it felt no less overwhelming of a responsibility than before. But both times, it was a necessity.

She smiled.

The light shattered.

Castle Oblivion began to rearrange itself, towers and rooms sliding around each other like blocks of a puzzle. Papyrus found himself trying to track their movements and figure out exactly which piece was becoming what. Then more of it appeared than there had been, and it became impossible to make a one-to-one comparison. When the building was done rearranging, a sun appeared in the sky's haze, clearing out the darkness to a brilliant blue that revealed the stone tile mural beneath the party's feet, the lawn around it. And at the center of it all, the great multi-towered structure that had been Eraqus' academy, the place that Aqua, along with Ventus and Terra, had called home –

Broken and torn, some of its towers missing, others collapsed in on themselves, as though a cyclone had hit it. Even the stone tiling below, upon second glance, was horribly cracked, a pie-piece bitten right out.

"THOSE ARE SOME…INTERESTING DESIGN CHOICES," Papyrus remarked. "NOT NECESSARILY BAD ONES. IT CERTAINLY IS UNIQUE. SORT OF A…GOTH-GRUNGE-GARBAGE-CORE. GROWING UP HERE MUST HAVE BEEN A FASCINATING EXPERIENCE."

"It didn't always look like this, did it?" Katara asked softly.

"No," Aqua answered, trying to keep her composure. "It used to look beautiful. It used to look…like home."

"I'm so sorry," Moana said sympathetically.

"It's all right," Aqua reassured. "I've had a lot of time to come to terms with this. I guess I just have to find a new home."

"You have a home with us," Sora promised. "No matter what. You're a part of our lives, so you're a part of our family."

Riku nodded. "You touched my heart before I even knew it. And you matter so much to Master Yen Sid. We'll make sure you have a place to go. And we'll be with you all the way."

"You've been so strong and suffered so much," Rosalina added as she let Cassie and Lyrae fly about, approaching Aqua once more. "You need a place to rest a while. I want to end your suffering as much as I possibly can."

"Hey, you and Katara are like my ocean sisters!" Moana pointed out. "We can't leave you behind now!" Katara nodded in agreement.

"AND I WILL DO EVERYTHING IN MY POWER TO MAKE YOUR STAY WITH US COMFORTABLE AND ENJOYABLE!" Papyrus promised. "IT IS THE VERY LEAST I COULD DO FOR A GOOD NEW FRIEND!"

The tear was sliding down Aqua's cheek before she even realized it. "Thank you," she said, voice cracking. "Thank you all, so much."

"And we've got room for Ven, too!" Sora insisted. "But first, we gotta go in there and find him!"

Aqua nodded. "Okay. Stay with me."

The party advanced up the stairway, through the doors of the new fortress. "When I hid Ven here," Aqua explained, "I put him in the training hall. The Master's Keyblade transformed the throne I rested him on into a chamber, hidden away deep inside the castle, below thirteen basements. There's a door that leads out from the inside, but as soon as I left the room, it shut behind me and disappeared into the wall. That's how I knew the only way that room could ever be found was with this Keyblade."

The doors were eased open. The group meandered through a few twisting hallways that opened up into the vast training hall. Here, a round stained-glass window reflected the sun in all colors onto the floor; however, since the glass disc was broken, it was a fragment of colored lights that put Sora in mind of Remnant's moon. Debris from the ceiling had rained down onto the floor, making for treacherous stepping.

"NOW, YOU SEE," Papyrus pointed out, "THERE IS ONE UPSIDE TO ALL OF THIS. THAT MUCH CEILING BEING GONE MEANS WE CAN ALL GET TO SEE WHAT A NICE DAY IT IS."

Aqua craned her head upward. She'd been about to tell Papyrus that seeing the sun through the rooftop couldn't possibly be a good thing, but the light shining down on her face after so long in the Darkness felt so soothing, she realized she couldn't argue with him at all.

At the far end of the room, three thrones stood tall. They must have been for Eraqus, Xehanort, and Yen Sid, Sora figured. However, he was distracted from that observation when he noticed that the center throne was occupied.

"ROXAS?" he cried in surprise.

"No," Riku corrected. "He's who Roxas looks like, remember? That's Ventus."

"DO WE CALL HIM 'VENTUS' OR 'VEN'?" Papyrus asked. "YOU'VE BEEN USING BOTH. I PERSONALLY THINK 'VEN' SOUNDS A LITTLE FRIENDLIER, BUT THAT ISN'T TO SAY 'VENTUS' IS A BAD NAME. ON THE CONTRARY, IT SOUNDS QUITE DIGNIFIED!"

Aqua smiled. "He'd prefer it if you called him 'Ven,'" she told Papyrus. "He thinks it sounds friendlier, too."

"THEN 'VEN' HE SHALL BE!" Papyrus proclaimed proudly. "I REALLY DO WANT TO MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION, AFTER ALL."

"You're part of the people who woke him up from a ten-year coma," Moana pointed out. "That's a pretty good impression by default."

The group approached the throne almost reverently, and as they got closer to the seated boy – whose clothing wasn't even that far off from Roxas' sense of style; his outfit was composed of whites, blacks, and grays – the more Sora felt he was on the verge of putting a missing piece together.

Riku stepped forward once they had all reached the throne. "I'll wake him up," he proclaimed. "After all, I have the Power of Waking."

Aqua nodded. "When I last left Master Yen Sid…he said that more than protection, more than anything, Ven would need someone to believe in him. That would be how he found the way home. His heart was hovering somewhere between Light and Darkness, and if he had a friend who believed in him, he could make his way back." Aqua turned her gaze toward Ven, who was completely unconscious, long-lashed eyes shut tight. His facial expression suggested he was dreaming a pleasant dream. "That's why all this time, I never lost hope. I knew I couldn't. Ven was counting on me. And I believe in him."

"So do I," Sora said with a nod.

"I'll believe in him, too," Riku volunteered.

"AND SO WILL I!" Papyrus chorused.

"Huh?" Sora turned to him. "You weren't even there when we learned who Ven was."

"I KNOW," Papyrus admitted, "BUT…I'M NOT SURE THAT REALLY MATTERS. SEE, I BELIEVE IN EVERYONE. I THINK EVERYONE HAS THE POTENTIAL IN THEM TO BE GREAT, AND TO DO BETTER IN THEIR LIVES. OUR MISTAKES AREN'T ALL WE ARE! IF THEY WERE…WELL, THEN I WOULDN'T WANT TO BE MY OWN FRIEND, EITHER. I MAY NOT KNOW VEN. BUT ALREADY, WITH ALL MY HEART, I BELIEVE HE IS AN AMAZING PERSON, AND THE KIND OF PERSON WHO'S WORTH BEING FRIENDS WITH! SO I, TOO, WILL BELIEVE IN HIM, AND HELP BRING HIM HOME!"

Riku nodded. "Okay. Then let's do this."

He summoned his Keyblade, raised it toward Ven –

"WAIT!"

Everyone flinched at the loud cry, then turned to look at Sora, who'd yelled it.

"I think…I have to be involved in this," Sora realized. "Roxas is my Nobody, but he looks exactly like Ven. There's no difference. I know I'm not…you know, bright…but if you think about it, then shouldn't he look like he does because he took on the body of the heart that got lost? Which would mean…that Ven's heart…"

The others gaped at Sora.

"OH. MY. GOD," Papyrus said in shock.

"How many people do you HAVE in there?" Katara asked, astonished.

"Just Ven and Roxas!" Sora argued. "…I think? I mean…Kairi's not in there anymore, so…"

"Actually, that makes sense," Riku realized. "Because…I've seen Ven. In your heart, when I dove in to wake you up."

"You're bringing this up NOW?" Moana cried.

"It's…strange," Riku replied. "Something about that time…I don't really remember it all the way I should. Like there was a piece of it I wasn't allowed to keep. So the entire memory blends together. I know Ansem gave me the data because that's what you said I told you. And I know that's what I told you, and I believed it, but now my memory of meeting him there is faded, too. Now it's starting to come back to me. I saw both Roxas and Ven there. I just don't know how – " He gasped. "Sora!"

"What?" Sora asked. "WHAT IS IT, RIKU?"

"Ten years," Riku repeated. "When we were kids, after we met Aqua, there was a night you told me you felt like someone out there needed you."

"You told me I was probably feeling the way I was because someone needed me," Sora corrected. "You also told me what they needed most was for me to open my heart up and listen."

"What if that was Ven?" Riku asked. "What if you opening up your heart was what allowed him to join you?"

"I HAVE to help wake him up," Sora decided.

"How are you going to do that without the Power of Waking?" Aqua asked.

"Well…uh…I dunno," Sora admitted. "But maybe…if Riku and I do it together…I mean, that's how I got my Keyblade in the first place, right? Riku was supposed to get it, but I…oh. Wait." His face fell. "I always thought…my Keyblade came from Riku. But now I guess it was Ven helping me out from the inside." A sigh. "I guess it's not a big deal. I just…I dunno, I always thought it was special that Riku put me on this path."

"I dunno," Riku argued. "I wouldn't want you to be in my debt like that."

"It's not – "

"And besides," Riku said with a smile, "there's a lot of other stuff that keeps us connected."

"Wait a minute," Aqua realized. "Are you…?"

"Riku's my boyfriend!" Sora announced with a bright smile.

"Oh!" Aqua realized. "I…I wouldn't have guessed." She tilted her head. "Can you even…?"

"Can we what?" Sora asked.

Aqua shook her head. Hadn't she been around enough worlds to know that anything could happen? No, she'd never been taught that boys could date boys before, or seen it happen, but who was she to doubt in the face of everything? "Never mind. I'm glad, actually. You two have been together from the very beginning. It's good that you became so special to each other."

So, if Sora and Riku could date, did that mean women could date other women? Because suddenly it occurred to Aqua that if that were a possibility, that was a very, very good thing for her. It also explained a lot.

"I think I get what you were thinking, though," Riku said to get everyone back on topic. "It just might work. If you and I do it together, then maybe some of what I learned can rub off on you, and if not, then maybe I can channel Ven through you into my power."

Sora nodded. "Let's do it."

He put out his left hand; Riku held his Keyblade in his right. The moment Sora's hand closed around his, the blade shimmered and transformed, now becoming the much larger Nightmare's End blade; they shifted it quickly so it did not collide with the throne or with Ven, then backed up enough paces to be able to aim it properly.

"You should help us, Aqua," Riku suggested. "You were one of Ven's closest friends. He might need you too."

"That must be why I knew how to find Aqua!" Sora realized. "It was Ven leading me to her!"

Aqua nodded. "Okay." She then reached out to grasp the blade's hilt, just forward of Sora and Riku's hands.

Sora nodded to the nearby skeleton; "You too, Papyrus! If you're helping us believe in Ven, then you should call out to him with all your heart!"

"YOU KNOW SOMETHING? I WILL!" Papyrus grasped the hilt as well, and now there was no more room for even a single hand.

"Together," Sora decided.

The quartet nodded, and all at once, they put forth their energies to Ven.

"Please work," Moana muttered. "Please work. Please please please – "

"I can't stand the suspense!" Cassie cried, hiding behind Lyrae.

"I have faith," Rosalina stated calmly.

"And so do I," Katara agreed.

Nightmare's End glowed brilliantly, and a beam of light surged from it, entering Ven through the chest. When the beam subsided, there was a momentary pause, an instant of worry; had it all been for nothing?

It all changed when Ven's eyes fluttered open.

"VEN!" Aqua cried, her heart catching in her throat.

Ven looked around with his startlingly blue eyes, taking in the faces of everyone before him and how excited they all looked. Then he focused on the one he'd seen in his dreams. "Aqua…" he muttered groggily. "You came back…"

"I'm so sorry," Aqua said hurriedly, unable to keep from crying now. "I said I'd be back to wake you up, but…oh, Ven, it's been ten years, and I wasn't able to come back to you – "

"TEN YEARS?" This seemed to wake Ven up; he gave a start in his seat.

"Um…we know this might be a little surprising for you," Sora said. "But – "

Ven gaped at him. "Sora."

"Huh?"

"It's you," Ven told him. "You're the one who kept me safe. And you came for me, too."

"Duh!" Sora replied with a grin. "I just wish I'd known how to get to you sooner." His face fell. "Well – I mean – yeah – "

Ven shook his head. "Maybe ten years isn't so bad. I mean…our father wouldn't be here no matter what. And you're all here." He looked to Aqua again. "What about Terra?"

"Terra is…" Aqua wasn't sure how to say it.

"For all we know, Terra is fine," Riku broke in. "Xehanort's been using his body as a vessel, but that means Terra's heart is sealed safely inside of him. If we could find a way to separate the two, we can get Terra back. It'll be difficult, but it's not impossible. I, uh…I'm Riku, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Riku," Ven said with a smile. "Hey…is King Mickey still around? What about Master Yen Sid? Donald? Goofy?"

"We can take you to meet them all!" Sora said gleefully. "They'll all be so glad to see you!"

Ven thought to ask about the others he'd met on his journey – the three faeries, Snow White, the seven dwarves, Hercules, Stitch, Peter Pan – but he knew that was far too long of a list. There was no guarantee any of them would be anywhere close to how he'd left them. No guarantee one of them had survived this far, let alone all. Sure, ten years was time for most of them to be able to grow old, but with the Darkness building, and Xehanort still on the loose as he'd feared, he was afraid to build up too much hope.

What he did instead was say "I'd love that" and attempt to stand up from the throne. He didn't account for how being asleep for ten years might've dulled his motor skills a little; his body was still waking up. As he rose to his feet, he wobbled, stumbling and falling.

In a blink, there was someone beside him, arm around his waist; Ven had instinctively put his own arm over the other's shoulder as soon as he'd arrived. "CAREFUL!" Papyrus said as he propped Ven up. "YOU ALMOST TOOK A VERY NASTY FALL!"

"Thanks," Ven laughed. He supposed the sight of a talking skeleton should have fazed him, but he'd met satyrs, sentient alien experiments, and Goofy. He wondered what even would surprise him anymore. And a good thing, too, for he supposed talking skeletons didn't like to be winced at. "I could've gotten a bump on my head for sure. Guess I'm still a little tired from that ten-year nap. What's your name?"

"ME?" Papyrus asked with a debonair expression. "I AM THE ONE, THE ONLY, THE IRREPLACEABLE PAPYRUS! I DO NOT EVEN NEED TO BE TOLD WHO YOU ARE! YOU ARE VEN, KEYBEARER, DEFENDER OF LIGHT, AND FRIEND TO ALL! …WELL, ALL EXCEPT XEHANORT AND HIS PALS, THAT IS."

"That's giving me a bit too much credit," Ven laughed, "but thanks anyway. It's nice to meet you too, Papyrus."

"DO YOU THINK YOU CAN WALK ON YOUR OWN NOW?"

"Yeah. I got it."

Papyrus let go of Ven, who now stood with proper balance. He then peered around to see those who awaited. "Hey, everyone!" he greeted with a wave. "What are your names?"

"I'm Katara," Katara stated.

"I am Rosalina," Rosalina said with a nod.

"I am Moana of Motonui!" Moana proclaimed proudly.

"I'm Lyrae," Lyrae said excitedly, "and this is my bestest friend, Cassie!"

"Lyrae," Cassie asked worriedly, "do you think we're gonna be able to take ALL THESE PEOPLE back to the Observatory?"

"We each only have to carry four!" Lyrae pointed out. "If you're scared, though, then I'll take five of 'em, and you take three!"

"We're going to an observatory?" Ven asked.

"The Observatory is a waystation," Rosalina explained. "Our final stop is going to be Radiant Garden."

Ven broke into a grin. Already, he was thinking of the friends he'd made there – Lea, Isa, Ienzo. He wondered what had become of them. "I can't wait!"

...

When the call came, at first, Snatcher didn't make much of it. He answered it, forgetting as usual to see whose name it originated from. "Hello," he said assertively, no questioning in the tone at all.

"Snatcher." It was Gothel's voice, and breathless-sounding. "Come quickly. It's Roman. I'm afraid."

Snatcher's heart skipped a beat. "What's happened to him?"

"I can't even begin to describe it. You MUST come here at once. To the Kingdom of Corona, at the center of the island. Meet me out front of the castle gates."

"WHAT'S HAPPENED TO TORCHWICK?" Snatcher roared into the scroll.

"I CAN'T EXPLAIN!" Gothel insisted. "YOU NEED TO COME HERE! NOW!"

"And how am I supposed to do that, then?"

"The skimmers, remember? Mozenrath enchanted the skimmers so we could go from place to place as we wish. Take a skimmer and come here as quickly as you can. There's enough time, but only JUST enough time. Do you understand?"

"I understand you expect me to come flying in on a skimmer, but – "

The line went dead.

"Miss Gothel? MISS GOTHEL?"

He dialed her back. No answer.

Then he broke into a sprint toward the hangar, mind racing.

What could have become of Roman that he was in such urgent danger, but there was only just enough time for Snatcher to arrive? Perhaps they'd run into a monster that Gothel was holding off, but she couldn't make it alone for long.

For a moment, Snatcher's fear of whatever had happened to Roman was taken over by an altogether different apprehension. For here he was, standing before the skimmers, none of which he'd ever flown before.

"Of course I can pilot one of these," he said, as though there were anyone else around who'd expressed doubt. "How difficult can it TRULY be, after mastering the automobile? Really!"

Wrapped up in his own bravado, he boarded the nearest skimmer and took it aloft.

Twenty near-death experiences later, he arrived in Corona in the thick of the blizzard. "What the devil?" he muttered, momentarily letting go of the handlebars with one hand to bat away incoming snow, making a very hairline miss from crashing into one of the castle towers and tallying his near-death experiences up to twenty-one.

The skimmer landed relatively gracefully in front of the castle gates, which is to say the only reason it didn't crash and shatter on impact was because of the heavy padding of snow. Gothel stood out front of the bastion, her hooded cloak billowing in the rough winds.

"RATHER INCLEMENT WEATHER WE'RE HAVING, ISN'T IT?" Snatcher called to her over the whistling of the wind.

"THAT WAS THE PLAN!" Gothel yelled back. "HOWEVER, THE PLAN HAS BACKFIRED!"

And with that, she disappeared into the castle.

"MISS GOTHEL!" Snatcher cried out. "YOU CAN'T JUST – THAT IS OCCUPIED!"

Yet when he followed her, he realized that wasn't the case at all. Safe inside from the roaring din of snow and ice on the exterior, Snatcher asked, "What brought all this about?"

"It was meant to be a simple heist," Gothel explained, her voice becoming decidedly less panicked. "I came up with the plan. Roman Torchwick and I would use Lord Demanitus' ancient device to change the weather and force the island to evacuate, even the royals. We then took advantage of the blizzard to rob Corona blind. And then…things went wrong."

"Wrong? How wrong is wrong?"

"See for yourself."

"Miss Gothel, I won't tolerate these games any longer! You're to tell me what's become of Torchwick THIS INSTANT, or – "

"Save that energy," Gothel told him, her cold tone now surprising him. "You'll want it for later."

She strode briskly through the castle, and Snatcher kept up as best he could, following her through the halls, down the stairs, and into the dungeon levels.

"I'm to assume this is the prison facility, then," he observed.

"Exactly," Gothel confirmed. "Where those who challenged their betters were locked up and eventually disposed of. Something to keep in mind."

"Miss Gothel," Snatcher replied, "you've become increasingly less panicked since I arrived. If you're attempting to make this situation seem any less worrisome, perhaps you should be aware you are having absolutely the opposite effect."

She stopped in her tracks. Slowly turned to face Snatcher.

She was smiling. "Is that so?"
Snatcher felt his blood run cold, and it had nothing to do with the snow outside.

She set off again, simply waving to indicate that he should keep up. He followed, only because if he didn't, he would never know what it was she had done.

At last, she halted. "Have a look," she said as she gestured to a barred window inset in the wall.

Snatcher approached tentatively, glancing out the window to see what, exactly, awaited him.

The dungeons, it seemed, were built in a circular configuration, rounding what could've been called an outdoor courtyard if it had anything to do with courtyard business. Instead, the round space was taken up by a platform with a hangman's noose dangling from it. The noose, however, was not in use at the moment. Instead, a chair that obviously didn't belong there, one forged of steel, was situated upon the platform. Beside that chair was a long metal table. The man chained to the chair, shackled by both ankles and one arm, was struggling for all he was worth to break free. This likely had to do with how his right arm was stretched out across the table, threaded through a miniature guillotine. If the blade were to fall, that arm would be severed. The guillotine was rigged to a system of metal wires that led back up to the dungeon walls, very near the window Snatcher was now peering through.

The worst part, of course, was that the hapless victim was Roman Torchwick, stripped down of every article of clothing he owned save for a pair of orange boxer briefs, exposed to the cold so he could freeze as he struggled.

"No," Snatcher gasped as he reflexively took a step back. "It can't be, it can't – "

He looked to Gothel, and it all clicked into place when he saw her proud smirk. "YOU," he growled.

"Me," Gothel replied smugly.

"What have you DONE?"

He rushed her, intending to grasp her by the neck, throttle her, snap her spine, throw her body in whatever sewage facility this dungeon was equipped with. She stopped him by simply holding up a knife at such an angle that it very nearly pierced his throat; he froze as the tip poked into his neck, and he could feel the smallest drop of blood running. He knew he could've evaded the knife and kept going then, but that moment of pause was finally enough for him to notice the hand not holding the knife resting on a lever set in the wall, and if he was right about how the contraption worked –

"I don't think you quite understand what's at stake here!" Gothel laughed, sheathing the knife once she knew Snatcher was beginning to get the picture. "I mean, obviously, this lever leads to the tiny guillotine out there. I throw it and the Torchwick gets clipped. I would so have wanted to hold the threat of death over you, but Mozenrath could so easily resurrect him that it would have no meaning. So I had to settle for dismemberment instead, which is only half as fun. I mean, we can't ALL be Mim, can we? The point is, one false move and Mozenrath won't be the only person in the WHAM ARMY who sacrificed his right hand."

"Why are you doing this?" Snatcher growled. "Oh, don't tell me. It's your pathetic obsession with regaining your youth, isn't it?"

"Pathetic?" Gothel repeated. "You of all people would understand. What would you give to have your youth restored? Wouldn't that make you more deserving of…well, you know." She inclined her head toward the wall. The wall Roman was on the other side of. "He can only put up with that for so long, you know."

"I know this trick, Miss Gothel," Snatcher replied. "I invented this trick. Certainly, you'd have struck a nerve if I didn't recognize exactly the strategy you were attempting. And, as it were, the fact that my own flesh is considerably more physically aged than yours leads me to fail to comprehend what is so desperate about the situation as far as you're concerned. If I have to live with this – " He gestured to his own body, up and down. "Then certainly you can tolerate THAT." Now to hers.

"So you don't understand," Gothel seethed. "You'll never know what it was like. You don't know the first thing about me, Archibald Snatcher, and that's why you're in this mess in the first place! Is it any wonder I had to resort to such desperate tactics to get your attention? Well, all right, getting your attention is only half the deal. It's also about teaching Mr. Torchwick why we don't get to have a monopoly on the WHAM ARMY's voice of reason."

"A monopoly on – " Snatcher blinked several times, knowing exactly what Gothel meant and yet having trouble comprehending it. "You think he dictates what I do and say, then? You think getting HIM out of the picture will make me more obedient to YOU?"

"Is there any other reason you aren't?"

"BECAUSE YOU'RE A RIGHT IDIOT WITH DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR!" Snatcher insisted. "YOU'RE UNREASONABLE, THAT'S WHAT! AND I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU SEE REASON!"

Gothel raised an eyebrow. "Really? Reason with the unreasonable? Maybe I give you too much credit. Nevertheless, you're my only hope. You're the only chance I have of persuading Mozenrath to shift gears, and/or going behind his back to secure immortality permanently. WITHOUT waiting for him to fail enough times that he'll get around to it on his to-do list. That's why I'm offering you a deal. First of all, you saw the predicament Roman is in."

"That I did, and where did you even get the materials to rig up that infernal contraption?"

"It's funny, what you can convince Herb Overkill to make for you so long as you lie to him," Gothel chuckled. "I told him I wanted a tiny guillotine. He asked why. I said it was so we could hold oh-so-cute tiny executions of Boxtrolls and Minions. Oh, you should've seen how conflicted he was. On one hand, the man is only BARELY evil. On the other, he was definitely excited about getting to axe all of the Minions while his wife watched. I'm guessing that's her kink or something. Not to mention the novelty of a tiny execution seemed to really appeal to the man. He's an absolute nerd. Anyway, bloodlust won out, which I guess is why we keep him around, and there you have it. Now. Promise me here and now that you'll work with me and ONLY me, and I'll let your little boy toy run free. Act all stubborn and mule-headed and he loses his arm. Simple, right? Then we all go back to base unhappy. Is that what you want?"

"You might be able to buy my silence via threats," Snatcher pointed out, "but he'll talk. Oh, how Torchwick will talk. The whistle shall be blown."

"Will he?" Gothel practically giggled. "I mean, you see what I did to him out there. That hardly required any effort. He's scared of me now; I'll bet you anything. And if he's not? Well. Maybe my next project will be seeing what can endanger YOU. That ought to get him to pipe down. …You know, now that I think of it, so long as I hold the threat of tampering with your food, he'll get down on all fours and lick my shoes clean if I ask. A dash of milk is all it would take."

"This is utter nons – " Snatcher attempted.

Gothel tapped the lever, easing it down just a millimeter.

Snatcher was silenced, freezing completely.

"I'll do it," Gothel told him. "You know I will. You made me the bad guy, after all. It's only fitting that I play the part. Oh, and I didn't mention the best part, now, did I? See, there's a certain time limit on you making your decision."

"He'll freeze to death," Snatcher said hoarsely.

"Actually, no," Gothel corrected. "That's just to make him uncomfortable because it's fun for me. But I made sure he drank enough warmer potion over the course of our heist to last him two days. No, I'm talking about the fact that after you turned down my offer the first time, I took up correspondence with a NEW friend. She was a little hesitant to hear me out at first, but I dropped a few names, passed along a couple pieces of vital intel, and next thing you know, I'm pen pals with Maleficent!"

"WHAT?" Snatcher's eyes were as wide as they could be. "YOU'RE MAD, YOU ARE!"

"Not as mad as you'll be if you don't make a decision in thirty minutes," Gothel explained to him. "You would've had longer, but you took so long to fly here, you've wasted nearly all of your time! See, I informed Maleficent that I'd have a WHAM ARMY founder bound up and tied with a bow waiting here on the island of the kingdom of Corona. However, I wanted to use him as a bargaining chip, therefore she was to give me an allotted amount of time. The thing is, if you just decide to play along with me, I'll go complete turncoat on her and frame this as a botched ambush attempt. My loyalty will remain with Mozenrath – though not literally, because, as I established, the man's a natural failure. Take too long to make up your mind, however, and Maleficent collects one Roman Torchwick, possibly in one piece, possibly in two. And she knows quite well that she'll have to keep him alive to stop your little necromancer from saving the day. So. Had enough time to think about it yet? Twenty-eight more minutes, Snatcher. Or is it twenty-seven? I've been monologuing so long, I completely lost track!"

Snatcher wanted so desperately to hold his ground. To argue. To attack her again. He knew, however, that in order to get out of this with both himself and Roman intact, he had to play the game. He could strategize after he'd gotten Roman to safety. After all, Roman was the most important thing he'd ever known, the most beautiful, perhaps the only thing he truly –

Well. It certainly wouldn't do to let Roman "I'm Not in Love" Torchwick know that this experience was revealing that Snatcher might just love him. Might just.

"All right." Snatcher put on an expression of submission, and to seal the deal completely, he went down first on one knee, then on both. "You have, now and forever, my fealty." He reached for Gothel's free hand, the one that had held the knife earlier, and pulled it forward, planting a demure kiss upon the back of it. "What Lord Mozenrath doesn't know won't kill him any faster than the job that gauntlet's doing, after all. And he can very, VERY easily be swayed. All men can, after all."

"I can see that," Gothel said with a smirk. "And you're really flattering me. It's just…oh, I don't know…I feel this is just the slightest bit anticlimactic. Something's missing from this picture. What could it be? Ohhhhhh, I know. That nasty little loose end. The fact that somewhere in the recesses of your convoluted mind, part of you's convinced I managed to get my way on a bluff. If this is going to be a permanent arrangement, I can't have you getting any ideas that I'll pull my punches, can I?"

It became clear in an instant what she meant to do. "MISS GOTHEL, DON'T - !"

She slammed the lever down.

From outside the window behind Snatcher came a howl of anguish.

He remained down on his knees, arms falling to his sides, because he simply couldn't bring himself to stand. At least he's alive, he told himself. At least he's alive –

But if Gothel were willing to double back on her own promises to show Snatcher how serious she was, she was definitely capable of shipping Roman off to a fate worse than death with Maleficent. In that case, what was the point of even agreeing? Snatcher knew he should've brought that point up. Every time he tried to find a way to phrase it, however, the words turned into the image of a mangled shoulder oozing blood, a bone fragment sticking out unevenly, jagged like a dagger.

"Oh, he'll be fine," Gothel said flippantly. "It's cold enough that the bleeding will just freeze. It's like cauterizing, basically. Or at least I think that's how it's going to work. The pain he must be in is unimaginable, however."
"Unimaginable indeed," Snatcher agreed, gaze glassy. "I can imagine it perfectly."

"Oh, and you must be wondering," Gothel went on. "Now that I've shown just how flimsy my word can be, what's the point of agreeing to go with me at all? Won't I just turn Roman over to Maleficent no matter what you do? Well, I can promise you I won't, as little as that matters. But furthermore, you're going to go along with me because your only other option is sitting back and LETTING him get taken. All I've done is show you that I mean it when I say she's coming to pick him up."

After a pause of indeterminate length, Snatcher said hoarsely, "I swear it to you, a hundred, thousand times, you have my loyalty."

"Good." Gothel smiled. "Now let's go get your boyfriend's wounds cleaned up, all right, Archie?" He made no effort to correct her for using the nickname. "We'll have to take the long way around."

She set off striding back down the long hall, but Snatcher stayed put, too weak to make a move. He wasn't entirely certain his legs could hold any weight up at all; it no longer felt as though they had bones.

After realizing she'd walked a decent way without being followed, Gothel stormed her way back to Snatcher. "I would have thought rushing to him would be an INCENTIVE to get you to GET UP AND ACT LIKE A MAN."

He didn't want to see Roman covered in his own blood. He didn't want to see what he was certain he could have stopped somehow. He didn't want to see the betrayal written in those emerald-green eyes.

Gothel was pulling at his shoulder now, growling, "Do I have to DRAG YOU THERE MYSELF – "

The blast rocketed behind her. She felt the rush and the heat kick up her skirt and billow her hair. Any closer and she would've been singed. Either the assailant had been a very poor aim, or that blast had been, in fact, what its originator stated immediately afterward:

"That was a fucking warning shot."

...

Roman's side of events had begun with him waking up in nothing but his underwear, with his hands bound behind him in handcuffs while he sat on the bench of a locked and freezing-cold jail cell.

He wished he could say it was the first time that had ever happened to him.

He gave the environment a cursory glance. Tiny barred window with a view to the outside; the bars looked solid enough that that wouldn't be of any use to him, even if his hands weren't bound. One wall made of bars, facing the long stone hallway of what he assumed to either be the castle dungeon or the local sheriff station (only one of which probably actually existed in this kingdom). A bench on his side of the cell and a bench on the other side. A crude stone latrine in the corner that he really hoped he wouldn't have to use. A pile of worn, patchy brown blankets heaped up in the other corner; the fact that it was roughly person-sized didn't exactly give Roman the impression that the blankets weren't covering up a corpse.

Then came the clang, clang, clang of something metal dragging against the bars of the adjoining cells, getting closer and closer until the perpetrator came into view on the other side of the cell Roman was in.

"Hello, Roman," Gothel greeted.

It wasn't the sight of her that frustrated him so much as the fact that she'd been dragging the Melodic Cudgel across the bars all the way there. Seeing his own weapon in Gothel's hands inspired Roman to cry out, "Oh, you are FUCKING KIDDING ME!"

"As a matter of fact, no," Gothel said with a pleasant smile. "This is all very real. No game whatsoever."

"Okay, so remember that whole thing you said about being mad at me because you thought I had Archie in my pocket? That never went away, did it?"

"Nope," Gothel replied.

"The dancing," Roman reminded her. "The snowmen. The candy. The heist? You were FAKING IT?"

"I had to," Gothel replied. "The whole time, you never ONCE stopped being annoying. Even if I didn't have a diplomat to sway, I might just have gone through with this plan so I'd never have to put up with your chit-chat again."

"What is this PLAN, exactly?" Roman countered. "And is there a particular REASON you had to take all my clothes?"

"To make you as uncomfortable as possible," Gothel answered. "Without having to look at your BUSINESS, of course. I'm sure it's unimpressive. As for the end goal here, I can't spoil that, now, can I? Let's just say that after tonight, you'll think twice before you cross me. I'm going to clip your wings."

In an instant, Roman was on his feet, practically throwing himself against the bars. "YOU CAN'T KEEP ME IN HERE! I'M GOING TO BREAK OUT, AND WHEN I DO, IT'S YOU WHO'S NEVER GONNA CROSS ME AGAIN!"

Gothel made a "tsk" noise before holding up a ring of keys and jangling them loudly. "If only you could pickpocket these keys off of me!" she mocked. "Then you could set yourself free. Too bad your hands are tied and you're in there while I'm all the way out here." She backed up several paces to emphasize the point. "Enjoy your time alone while you can, Roman. When I get back, things are about to get uncomfortable. Oh, but don't worry. Your boyfriend will be along soon enough to keep you company. What's left of you, anyway."

She set off down the hallway and out of sight, twirling the key ring around her finger.

"BITCH!" Roman cried out after her. "YOU'RE FUCKIN' DEAD! YOU THINK YOU CAN SHUT ME UP? YOU THINK YOU CAN STOP ME? I'M ROMAN TORCHWICK! I'M PRACTICALLY INVINCIBLE! I'M…I'm…"

He sat back down on the bench, feeling absolutely defeated. "I'm locked in a jail cell with no clothes is what I am," he muttered. "Okay. So let's think this through. I could potentially pick the keys off her even with my hands tied if we were on the same side of the door. The problem is we'd have to be on the same side of the door. She obviously doesn't intend to keep me in here, so she's gotta come let me out, right? Or maybe her plan is to do something to me in here. No, she knows I could do it. She's taking me outside, and by the time I get those keys off her, they're no use to me anyway. I could fight her at that point. Now, that's a gamble. Me with no weapon versus her with at LEAST one knife. Let's face it: that woman isn't out here in this situation without a knife on her person. I'm strong. I could take her. Buuuuuut thinking back to the Dickwad Device, she's ALSO strong. Which puts me back at square one. I need a lower-risk plan. The problem is I'm not going to GET a lower-risk plan."

"I don't know," a voice said from the blanket pile. "I liked the pickpocket plan. I can work with it."

"WHOA!" Roman cried, recoiling. "There's actually a PERSON under there?"

"Yeah," the voice went on, "and it looks like it's a good thing for you SHE didn't know about me, either."

The blankets were cast aside all at once. The person who'd been huddled beneath them stood to full height, tossing back her auburn hair bound in a messy bun that was starting to come apart. She was clothed in gray pants and a beige-and-gray tank top with sleeves short enough to show off the rose-and-skull tattoo that practically shone against the skin of her upper right arm, pale from the cold. A silver skull pendant lay against the slender woman's neck. She regarded Roman with an air of aloofness, nose turned up and eyebrow raised.

Roman was suddenly acutely aware of his near-nudity. "Hey, sister," he snapped, trying to cover himself up with just his arms, "I know you must like what you see, but I am NOT into it."

"I don't," the woman replied, "and neither am I. The only thing I see here that I like is my ticket out of this rat trap."

"You've been in here longer than I have!" Roman pointed out. "How do YOU have a plan to get out that you haven't already tried?"

"Because I didn't have a pickpocket before," the woman went on. "Now I do. And you have a cavalry. That's me. The only way either one of us is getting out of here is if we work together, got it?"

Roman rolled his eyes out of habit. "Oh, fine. Seeing as I have no other choice. So, Skulls, what's your plan?"

"My name is Lady Caine," the woman corrected.

"You got a first name to go with that?" Roman asked.

"NO," Lady Caine insisted.

Roman shrugged as best as one can with handcuffed wrists. "Man, do I know someone who's gonna love you. Anyway. Plan. Now."

"How confident are you that you can get the keys off our warden when she comes back to get you?"

"One HUNDRED percent."

"Good," Lady Caine responded. "Here's what I'm thinking: we wait it out. I go back into hiding when we hear her coming. When she lets you out, you get the keys off her and throw them back to me. I'll wait, then let myself out of the cell. I'll make a quick stop at the armory station down the hall to pick up a sword for each of us, and then I'll come find you."

"And how can I trust you'll come for me after you get sprung?" Roman asked.

"Do you have a choice?" Lady Caine asked him.

"Point," Roman admitted. "Which brings me to my next question. Why the hell were you playing dead under a bunch of blankets?"

"When the storm hit, it was obvious King Freddie had no intention to get me out with the rest of his precious people," Lady Caine said with a sneer. "Me or the rest of the prisoners with life sentences down here."

"You got any buddies you gotta spring?"

"No one I'm THAT attached to. I just want off this island, and bringing you with me would only be fair if you help me."

"Well, actually," Roman pointed out, "depending on where the warden parked our rides, I might actually have a way to get you out of here without dealing with the storm. After this, I've decided she DEFINITELY doesn't need hers anymore. Back to the point: blankets. Why?"

"Because I could already tell how cold it was getting, and I wanted to prolong the hypothermia as long as possible." Her words rose up in the form of a fine white mist on the crisp air. "So I curled up. Then you and the warden showed up, and after I realized you didn't know I was even there, I figured I'd lay low until I knew if you were friend or foe."

"Clever," Roman replied. "So what's your damage? How'd you end up with the life sentence?"

"Attempted regicide," Lady Caine said casually. "Which isn't even fair, since all I said I was gonna do was lock Freddie up. Not actually KILL him."

"Were you going to kill him?"

"After what he did to me? Of course I was."

Roman nodded. "From what little I know, he sounds like a jackass."

"From what little you know…?"

"I'm not exactly a local," Roman explained.

"Then why are you down here in my cell?" Lady Caine asked. "And who's your keeper?"

"What, Mom of the Year?" Roman replied. "Technically, her name's 'Gothel.' She IS a local. She thinks she's some kind of big deal around here because she was the one behind that whole 'lost princess' bullshit. Anyway, we – "

"SHE WAS THE ONE WHO TOOK THE LOST PRINCESS?" Lady Caine roared, simultaneously surprised and enraged.

"Is…that a problem with you?" Roman asked.

"YES," Lady Caine seethed. "Eighteen years ago, when Punzie went missing, Freddie cracked down on any and all crime in hopes of locking up the perp. My family was poor. I was a little girl, and I was hungry. My father stole so we could survive each night. FREDDIE took him away from us on account of his little rich-girl daughter was gone and gave him a rich-man problem. I might have SOME sympathy for the man if that hadn't been the last I'd ever seen of my father. But no. At least they had the 'decency' to dispatch a messenger to our house to let me know when he died in his cell. From that day forward, I devoted my entire LIFE to dominating the criminal underground of Corona, building it up from the ashes Freddie left, rounding up the few he hadn't managed to lock away in his death trap. Hence the attempted regicide. Turnabout is fair play, isn't it? But now you've added another piece to the puzzle. This entire incident wouldn't have happened if SHE hadn't decided to adopt herself a kid! My father died for what SHE did wrong! Were you WORKING with her?"

"…Nnnnnnooooo?" Roman attempted.

Lady Caine glared him down.

"Obviously not ANYMORE," Roman asserted. "Consider our partnership dissolved permanently. I want her head on a plate as much as you do."

Lady Caine shrugged. "The enemy of my enemy. But now I need to know your story. What brought you here with her, and where you DO come from. Let me guess: Vardaros."

"I've…been to Vardaros," Roman replied. "But the real answer's a little more complicated."

"We've got time to kill."

Roman gave a heavy sigh, exhaling a cloud of frozen mist. "Good, because this is going to take up all of it."

By the time Roman had finished explaining the WHAM ARMY, leaving Lady Caine gaping in awe and doubt, the sounds of Gothel's shoes hitting the stone were audible, indicating her return. If Lady Caine had wanted to call Roman a liar or even give up on the plan because of his ridiculous story, she didn't have the time to do so. She dived back into the blankets, and soon it was impossible to tell if there was anything with a heartbeat beneath the ragged fabric.

Gothel came without the Cudgel this time. Roman had used his explanation to inform Lady Caine that was his weapon she'd held prior, and asked if she could poke around the armory briefly to see if she could find it on the off chance Gothel was hiding it there. ("No, it's not a LITERAL cudgel. It's a gun. You know, a really small cannon? Except it looks like it's a cane. But it's a gun.") She did tap on one of the iron bars with her long fingernail. "Time's up, Torchwick," she stated grimly. "Everything's in place."

"Well, color me terrified," Roman said sarcastically.

She unlocked the cell door before fastening the keyring to her sash. Easy enough. What caught Roman slightly off guard was when Gothel seized him to hustle him out of the cell, and he was now acutely aware that physically fighting her wouldn't have been a good plan, because the woman was far stronger than he'd imagined. Of course – how hadn't he remembered her story about knocking both Stabbingtons out with a heavy plank? He now reconsidered exactly how big and buff the Stabbingtons could have been.

Still, he managed the critical move. Twisting his bound hands to retrieve the keys from Gothel's waist. Tossing them back, and pretending to stumble with an outcry to mask the noise of the jingling keys landing on the other side of the bars. Now the plan was in Lady Caine's hands.

It occurred to Roman that in the act of standing, he'd informed both Gothel and Lady Caine that the rear of his underwear was patterned with the jack-o'-lantern face of his personal emblem. There was a very short list of people who had been allowed to know that over the course of his life, and neither of those women was on it.

He didn't fight back as Gothel dragged him out to the courtyard; she interpreted this as a surrender. Obviously, he must've known he was outmatched. A metal chair that she must've brought back from the warship was positioned beneath the hangman's noose, and on the table beside it –

"Oh, you're SHITTING me!"

"Not in the slightest, Roman."

She felt for her sash to find the keys to unlock Roman from his cuffs, and he grinned as she realized they were missing. "What, lose something?" Maybe this meant he'd get a reprieve from being restrained in the way that chair was set up for.

Gothel grimaced at him. She suspected him for a moment, but given that he had literally nowhere on his person to hide such a large keyring (if he'd stashed it in his underwear, she'd have seen), she chalked it up to the ring slipping off during the walk out. With a shrug, she simply said, "No matter."

She steered Roman around to the metal table, on the long end that didn't have a tiny guillotine on it, and positioned him on one side with his back to the table, herself standing on the other side so that his bound hands rested over the surface. With no regard for gentleness, Gothel jerked his hands down to the table surface, spreading his arms so the chain between the cuffs was taut.

"Nice underwear, by the way," she remarked.

"Thanks!" Roman replied. "You know, I very specifically picked it out on the off chance that somebody would kidnap me, strip me down, and need something to make fun of today!"

It was too cold. As Gothel behind him withdrew the long, wicked knife she had sheathed at her waist and brought it down so quickly and forcefully that it severed the chain of his cuffs, all he could think about was the winter wind biting into the skin of his chest, the way his feet were sunken into deep, soft snow that chilled them. How many warmers had he drunk? Thankfully, probably enough to not die. No, wait. If he died, Mozenrath could get him back easily. This was not good. Gothel knew she had him so long as she kept him alive, hence the presence of what Roman really didn't want to admit was a tiny guillotine that was set up at the adjacent angle to the chair to hold his arm. And if she didn't intend to kill him, she could make him as uncomfortable as possible in the process, meaning she was relishing every bit of agony he was feeling from the wintery chill.

He was sat down in the chair. Cuffed at his ankles and left wrist. His right arm was threaded through the guillotine and cuffed at the wrist on the table.

"Now be a good boy," Gothel told him, "and you might get to go home instead of coming to the sleepover I invited my new gal-pal to."

"The fuck does THAT mean?"
"You'll find out."

She sidestepped immediately, having predicted he'd spit at her face; the saliva hit the snow behind her as a small hailstone. Then she turned to depart.

"HEY!" Roman yelled at her. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

She paused. "Did you just REMIND me to cut your arm off?"

"I mean, normally, I wouldn't," Roman responded, "but I'm trying to figure out the logic behind your dumbass plan."

She didn't even bother turning around. "Timing is everything, Roman. And if my timing is right, I'll be able to hurt more than just you in one blow."

The moment Gothel had left, Roman began to fight. He was aware that logically, there was no way he was simply going to be able to struggle free from the heavy restraints. However, he had no intention of going down without putting up a scrap. Sometimes, it felt as though he actually was close to working his wrist out of its cuff, but to no avail. He lost track of how long he kept struggling violently, hoping for a bolt from the blue.

A tap on his shoulder made him start, yelling, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

"Do you seriously think you're going to snap those cuffs off that way?" It was Lady Caine's voice.

"Skulls," Roman breathed. "Thank the gods. Get me out of here, okay?"

Lady Caine stepped out front of him, showing off what she had now: a sabre at her belt, the keys in one hand, and the Melodic Cudgel in the other. Her lip curled. "That's not my name."

"It is now, Skulls. Also, you found it! Good for you! Problem is, I can't wield it if I DON'T HAVE MY DOMINANT ARM."

"Hold your horses, will you?" Lady Caine groaned. She propped the Cudgel against the table, searching through the key ring. "I have to figure out which one undoes the restraints."

Roman had a pretty good idea. After all, this entire setup had been imported from the warship. It wasn't native to Corona. Therefore, the keys would look more distinct. "See those little keys on the end there?"

The heavy ring was looped through the handles of the larger medieval keys, but at the end of the line, two smaller keyrings were fastened to the loop as well, and from each dangled a tinier, more modern design of key. Lady Caine picked one up and dangled the rest of the ring by it, perplexed by the sight.

"That one," Roman told her. "Try that one."

When it was found to be useless, he bade her, "Try the OTHER one."

That key was the correct one, and once Roman had been unlocked to the point where he could stand up and withdraw his arm from the guillotine, he deduced, "That first one's gonna be for the handcuffs I'm still wearing. Give it to me."

Lady Caine passed the keyring over, remarking, "You know, a 'thank you' would be nice."

"It would, wouldn't it?" Roman unlocked his now useless cuffs, letting them drop into the snow. He then shuddered. "I hate snow. I hate the cold. I hate everything about this."

"You're going to have two arms. That doesn't seem to me like something you can hate."

"Touché, Skulls." He had decided he liked this woman. "Now let's bail."

Lady Caine held up a hand to signal him to stop. "Freeze."

"I've been doing that since I got here!"

"Very funny. You realize Gothel is going to realize something's wrong when her device doesn't trigger, right?"

"What the – what are you talking about?" Roman shook his head.

"The lever those wires lead to." Lady Caine indicated the cables. "I just so happened to find it on my way to the armory. She's planning to mutilate you from the inside."

"WHY THE FUCK WOULD SHE DO THAT?"

"I DON'T KNOW! WHY WOULD SHE KIDNAP A BABY?"

"THAT HAD A DIRECT CAUSE-AND-EFFECT LINK TO HER IMMORTALITY AND YOU KNOW IT!"

"Well, MAYBE she didn't wanna get her hands dirty!" Lady Caine suggested. "She's squeamish! I dunno! Just watch the guillotine!"

"Okaaaay…" Roman stared the tiny torture device down.

"Let's just make sure the jig isn't up…" Lady Caine fixed her gaze on the upper window. "Nope. Not looking."

A sharp sliding sound. "Thing just went off," Roman announced.

"SCREAM!" Lady Caine hissed.

So Roman, realizing he needed it to sound like he'd just been downed one arm if he wanted to buy time, let out a wordless, animalistic yell. Just when he was getting into the best performance he'd ever committed, he felt Lady Caine's elbow jam into his side, cutting him short with an "Ow!".

"You were overselling it," Lady Caine accused. "No one screams that long when their arm is cut off."

"Um, yes they do? How many people have you known who got their arms cut off?"

"Well, I mean, I wasn't there when it happened for any of them, but three."

"They screamed," Roman informed her; they'd wordlessly agreed to make tracks quite quickly toward the courtyard exit, Roman taking the Cudgel along with him. "They just told you they didn't so they didn't look like cowards."

"How many people have YOU known who got their arms cut off?"
"One, and it was both LEGS, and he actually liked to brag about how long he screamed to win sympathy points, thank you very much. Which isn't why I slept with him. I think I've got a kink for being bossed around, and he outranked me big time – "

"Wow!" Lady Caine cried in mock enthusiasm. "That's the thing I absolutely needed to know THE LEAST about you! …Second least. The first was the pumpkin underwear."

"Like you're not wearing lingerie with skulls embroidered on it."

"I'm not, and if you try to prove me wrong, I'll take that arm I just saved."

"Listen," Roman told her, "I'm a perv and a jerkass, but I'm not THAT kind of pervy jerkass! So, uh, what's the plan here?"

They had reached the dungeon interior this time, racing down its halls.

"YOU were the one who said YOU had a way off this island," Lady Caine reminded him.

"Yeah," Roman reminded her, "but the crazy bitch is still wandering around here. You think she doesn't have a Plan B?"
"I'm banking on her having a Plan B," Lady Caine admitted, drawing her blade. "I'm just going to cut through it on sheer willpower."

"Geez, lady, you are HARDCORE!"

"Well, to be fair, I haven't been all but naked in the blizzard of the century for several hours. Just wearing thin fabric and a sleeveless shirt in it." Lady Caine winked.

"You know what?" Roman decided. "You're my friend now. You're not allowed to argue. I don't even care. You're my friend, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"I'm impressed," Lady Caine replied. "You managed to impress me more in an hour than Pocket and Axel did over the course of five years. Not by doing anything actually impressive, mind you. You're just the first thug I've met in half a decade who actually has a sense of humor."

"Just so we're clear, I'm not flirting with you. I am taken and also gay."

"Good," Lady Caine replied. "I didn't want you to get the wrong idea, either. You're not my type."

"And what is your type, if I may ask?"

"Women," Lady Caine replied flatly.

"Gooootcha! We're that M-L-M-slash-W-L-W solidarity, then."

"We're WHAT?"

"Right," Roman realized. "Medieval slang. I'll catch you up later."

Implying, of course, this partnership would last, but it seemed neither had any doubt that this escapade had earned Lady Caine a free pass into the WHAM ARMY.

"Watch your feet," Lady Caine warned. "Sharp things get dropped on these floors. Sometimes the guards get careless with their things, but more often, we just like to mess with them and throw hairpins on the floor on the off chance that one of them has a hole in his shoe."

"That's…plebeian as fuck, but I like it."

"Hey, it's the only entertainment we have around – " Lady Caine came to an abrupt halt. "Shhhh!"

From up ahead, around the rounded curve of the wall, Gothel's voice trickled past: "I would have thought rushing to him would be an INCENTIVE to get you to GET UP AND ACT LIKE A MAN."

"Now or never," Lady Caine whispered, grip tightening on her blade.

"Payback's a bitch, Mom of the Year," Roman muttered, raising the Cudgel. "And so are you."

They strode briskly down the hall and round the curve, and Gothel was the first person to come into their view. Roman took care to aim just to the side of her, not really registering she was in the act of attempting to cajole someone else.

"Do I have to DRAG YOU THERE MYSELF – " Gothel growled, pivoting to grab the shoulder of her companion.

Roman pulled the trigger, and just as he'd planned, his shot blasted right behind her, very nearly lighting her hair aflame. "That was a fucking warning shot," he stated.

Gothel let go of her charge, staring at Roman and Lady Caine in utter horror.

"Yeah, that's right," Roman told her. "What still has two arms and gives zero fucks? ROMAN GODS-DAMNED TORCHWICK."

"Also, you don't know me," Lady Caine told her, "but trust me, my revenge on you has been eighteen years coming."

When he'd heard Roman speak, Snatcher had whipped about to look over his shoulder. Before he knew it, he was on his feet, wide-eyed as he stared in disbelief. "Torchwick…you're not…?"

"Huh?" Roman glanced over at him, noticing him for the first time. "Archie?" It hit him like a battering ram. "Ohhhhh, I was supposed to be a BARGAINING CHIP. That means you thought I actually – oh. Ooooooh, yeah, I could've planned that better." He shrugged. "But I mean, it was part of the con, you know? You get that. So you thought I got maimed for five minutes, tops. Can you blame – "

Snatcher hadn't responded in words. His most base instincts had taken over, and he barreled toward Roman, catching the redhead up in a vice-clamp of an embrace, thinking of nothing but drawing him as close as was humanly possible, because he was all right, he was whole, he was free, he was here, he was the most important thing, this almost certainly was actually love but that didn't warrant saying in the least, he was –

Laughing softly as he let the Cudgel drop to the ground, his own strong arms slipping around Snatcher. "Hey," he said casually, "it's all good now. I gotcha. Geez, you're acting like I came back from the dead."

"Torchwick, you are nothing short of an absolute moron."

"Uh, yeah, that's kinda my THING."

Snatcher let go first, and Roman loosened his grip after, and the two of them made a rather awkward attempt to pretend they hadn't just been victims of sentiment. "So," Roman said with a grin, "how about – "

"Um, HELLO?" Lady Caine said to draw their attention. "We still have a woman mad with power to take care of?"

They both turned to glare daggers at Gothel, who was becoming more irate with each breath she inhaled. "THIS…ISN'T…OVER," she declared before turning tail and bolting.

"AFTER HER!" Snatcher cried, and he, Roman, and Lady Caine gave chase, Lady Caine easily outpacing both of them. Therefore, when the auburn-headed thug came to a stop, the other two figured she'd come across something that signaled it was a lost cause.

Indeed, Gothel had led them directly to what appeared to be a blank wall, a dead end.

"Where'd she go?" Roman barked in frustration.

"She could've slipped down a side hallway while we weren't looking," Lady Caine suggested.

"Or gotten back into the tunnels," Roman realized, "which would mean the door could be literally anywhere and most likely sealed."

"Or Miss Maleficent's already come to spirit her away," Snatcher theorized.

"Wait, what?" Roman flinched.

"Miss Maleficent," Snatcher repeated. "She'd been en route to our location as per Miss Gothel's agreement – did she not tell you this part?"

"UM, SHE CONVENIENTLY MANAGED TO LEAVE THAT OUT!"

"Miss Gothel has apparently, if she's to be believed, been in covert correspondence with our everlasting nemesis," Snatcher explained. "Maiming you was her way of threatening me and making good on it. To buy my cooperation, she was to deliver you, in both pieces, to Maleficent."

"Fucking hell," Roman grumbled. "And she got away with it."

"Well," Snatcher resolved, "after Lord Mozenrath hears what we've got to say, she won't be allowed anywhere near WHAM ARMY territory again unless she wants a taste of her own bitter medicine." He then nodded toward Lady Caine. "You seem to have made an acquaintance here."

"Name's Lady Caine," the woman said with a smirk, hand on her hip as she shifted her weight to one leg. "No first name given."

"None required," Snatcher replied.

"So YOU'RE the one," she realized.

"I'm the one what?" Snatcher replied.

"Well, putting all the pieces together, you're the one he's been mooning over," Lady Caine said smugly. "At least in the form of making it very clear he was taken. If you turn out to be the bossy type, I'll have it confirmed."

"'Bossy'?" Snatcher repeated. "Lady Caine…I would so prefer you to call me 'confidently officious.' Sounds better rolling off the tongue, it does, and paints a little better picture, especially toward the illiterate."

"Okay, now I REALLY see why you two are a thing," Lady Caine remarked.

"So, uh…here's the thing," Roman told Snatcher. "I kinda…sorta…adopted her?"

"How did I know it?" Snatcher groaned. "How did I absolutely know it? Is this just what you do when on your own? Take the nearest young criminal-ette under your wing and hand her a sword?"

"Hey, at least I'm not the person who adopted fifty million cats," Roman countered.

Snatcher froze. He hadn't told Roman about that.

"Because whoever did that has WAY bigger issues than I do with adopting things," Roman went on.

"…Well, no one's really denying that," Snatcher replied.

"Look, Archie," Lady Caine broke in.

"You will refer to me as MR. SNATCHER," Snatcher emphasized before she could get in another word.

Lady Caine shrugged. "I think I will, just to prove I'm better at following directions than your boyfriend."

Roman gave a snort.

"Anyway, Mr. Snatcher," Lady Caine went on, "your crime ring sounds like way more of a good time than my crime ring. Do you know how many times I've tried to invite that fake painter out drinking? Always with the 'Mamma mia, I have better things to do.' That's not even your real accent, GIOVANNI! I need to actually get things done in under a decade with a crew that knows how to blow off some steam once in a while. And I never want to talk to anyone with the last name 'Stabbington' ever again. I did you a favor. Now you get to do me one."

Snatcher considered it, then shrugged. "It seems a fair reward for what you've done. After all, I assume 'twas you who freed Torchwick and attempted to lead him to freedom. Very well. We'll have a go, then."

"I'm looking forward to this," Lady Caine said with a twinkle in her eye.

"Now can we make like a tree and get out of here already?" Roman asked plaintively. "I'm freezing my pumpkin-patterned ass off here – "

No sooner had he finished that thought than the red fabric was extended toward him. Roman looked from the coat in Snatcher's hand to Snatcher himself, who was now coatless.

"Well?" Snatcher said, practically challenging him. "Take it, then! I've still got SOME layer on without it."

"I think I will." Roman gleefully swiped the coat, settling it around his shoulders, slipping his arms through the sleeves. While the coat as a whole was more voluminous than would be tailored to Roman's frame, the sleeves actually fit quite tightly. He buttoned the jacket up over his chest, now only having bare legs to worry about. Though the fabric was thin, it already felt so much warmer. And it smelled like Archibald Snatcher, which was really only a good thing if you were Roman Torchwick.

"So cute," Lady Caine mocked. "Do I get to be the maid of honor at your wedding?"

"Shut it," Roman replied. "Let's just go get our skimmers. Archie, I'm assuming you rode one in."

"Yes…" Snatcher had retrieved his scroll, dialing a number into it. "However, given the rather inclement weather, I've opted to secure us a faster route back homeward. If you'll allow me."

Roman had noticed the smirk at the very corner of his lips. "Okay, you're UP to something. What are you – "

"Hush, now," Snatcher said firmly as he put the scroll to his ear. "I'm making a VERY important call. CAN'T be interrupted."

The call patched through. On the other line, a familiar voice groaned, "What is it now, Snatcher? I'm in the middle of a very intense plotting session."

"Lord Mozenrath!" Snatcher said in pretend panic, falsifying breathlessness. "It's terrible! Come quickly! Miss Gothel – she's gone rogue – she had Torchwick up in chains, threatening to maim him if I didn't comply – she's utterly betrayed you, and even now, she's running about the premises, and if action isn't taken, she'll take Torchwick apart and ship the pieces off to Maleficent, you see if she doesn't – "

"WHAT?" Mozenrath barked. "WHERE IS SHE?"

"The dungeons of the Corona castle," Snatcher explained. "You've got to hurry. Track my scroll if need be. Much longer and she'll – "

The Corridor had already opened, Mozenrath storming out of it with murder written on his face. "WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON HER," he snarled, "SHE'S BEYOND DEAD. IF SHE THINKS SHE CAN GET AWAY WITH TORTURING HIM – "

Roman flinched in surprise. "That's a bit of a strong reaction for your token klutzy fuckup loser, isn't it?"

Mozenrath froze, then turned to look at Roman, knowing he'd essentially been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Don't take it personally," he grumbled. "Also, put on some pants!"

He flicked his hand toward Roman, and now Roman was wearing a pair of warm pants in a blue shade that didn't at all go with the red jacket.

"You came storming here to rescue me," Roman said with a smirk. "How am I not supposed to take that personally?"

"Because she messed with what's MINE," Mozenrath insisted.

"Oh, I'm YOURS now?" Roman winked.

"JUST TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!" Mozenrath yelled.

"Oh, did I forget to mention?" Snatcher feigned innocence. "She's flown the coop completely. Nowhere to be found! Danger's passed!"

Mozenrath gaped at him. "You…I…I've been HAD! You set this up so I'd show up, gauntlet blazing, to protect HIM!"

"And did it not work?" Snatcher asked with a smirk. Then his face fell. "The bad news, of course, is that Miss Gothel actually has gone turncoat."

"What did she do?" Mozenrath asked.

"Oh, nothing," Roman answered. "Just. You know. Stripped me near-naked in a catastrophic blizzard, tried to chop my ARM OFF, and apparently threatened to ship me off to Maleficent if Archie didn't do what she said."

"And she said you should do…what exactly?" Mozenrath asked Snatcher.

"Conspire with her to divert energy from our plans toward her immortality," Snatcher told Mozenrath.

"I could GET her immortality!" Mozenrath yelled, hands clenching into fists that he shook for emphasis. "All she had to do was say the word!"

"She wanted it immediately and exclusively," Snatcher explained. "As in prioritized above the Atlantean Empire."

"Well, THAT wouldn't fly," Mozenrath admitted. "Oh, well. This is just the hazards of employing exclusively egomaniacs. I'd say the payoff makes it worth it." He gave a dramatic shrug.

"So, uh, speaking of employing egomaniacs…" Roman pointed to Lady Caine, making insistent head-nods in her direction.

"And what about her?" Mozenrath asked. "…Ohhhh, DON'T tell me."

"In Lady Caine's defense," Snatcher stated, "she's quite bold, almost inconceivably athletic, and quick with a witticism when needed."

"Look, Mozzy," Lady Caine snorted, "if you don't want me around, I'll survive. But it'll be your loss. And either way, I'm not wasting time on my old stooges anymore. Not after actually interacting with a crook who wasn't a total stick in the mud."

Roman mouthed the words "That's me!" excitedly.

Mozenrath found himself smiling just a little bit. "Well, you've definitely got the attitude. I must admit I have my doubts about letting a dainty little nonmagical girl into the fold, but – "

He found Lady Caine's sabre point against his throat. "You wanna keep that big head on your shoulders where it belongs?" she asked.

"I could kill you before you ever got the chance," Mozenrath told her.

"Do we wanna put money on that?" Lady Caine asked. "Or is surviving enough of a win?"

This actually got a laugh out of Mozenrath. "You might just actually have what it takes. You're in!"

"That's better." Lady Caine sheathed her sabre. "Besides, you and I now have one major goal in common: we both want Gothel's blood."

"We're talking an eighteen-year grudge in the making here," Roman pointed out.

"Is your quest for vengeance going to derail the foundation of my empire?" Mozenrath asked, not wanting a repeat incident of Gothel.

"Nah." Lady Caine shrugged. "I think being part of the governing body of a magical empire is gonna be enough of a distraction to tide me over until it's my turn."

"We'll start you with a military title," Mozenrath told her. "Then see if you can work your way up to the government level."

"I can live with that," Lady Caine told him. "So long as it means I get to deal back out the abuse I suffered at military hands to the innocent populace for kicks."

"If you don't think that's on the table," Mozenrath said with a grin, "then you don't know the first thing about what the WHAM ARMY stands for!"

"I thought the first thing 'WHAM ARMY' stood for was your names," Lady Caine bantered.

"Okay, this love-fest is great," Roman broke in, "but can we PLEASE! GO! HOME! WHERE IT'S NOT FIFTY FUCKING DEGREES BELOW ZERO!"

Mozenrath gestured to the still-open Corridor. "Follow me. Lady Caine, I think you and I should have a little chat by the fire over a nice hot drink."

"If you're coming onto me, you're not my type."

"Please. If you think I'm coming onto you, your delusions of grandeur are worse than mine."

Roman barreled into the Corridor without waiting to hear another word, and one by one, Mozenrath, Snatcher, and Lady Caine followed.

Elsewhere on the island, Gothel waited by a shore bordering turbulent, frigid waters. As the winds threatened to rip away her cloak, she watched a new Corridor open before her, and the person it deposited stepped out to stand on the waters as if she weighed nothing at all.

"Before you say anything," Gothel said dryly, "he got away."

Maleficent smiled softly. "Oh, dear. This is a conundrum. What could you possibly be worth to me without a delivery of one of Mozenrath's cohorts?"

"Don't give me that," Gothel snapped. "I know you know SOMETHING I'm worth to you, or you wouldn't have said it all cryptic like that. Let me guess: valuable insider information about the WHAM ARMY that only I can provide?"

"I already have all I need from Demyx and Hans Westergaard," Maleficent said smugly. "Perhaps, however, there are other ways you can help me. Ways that would earn you immediate or advance payment in the form of eternal youth and immortality."

"Oh?" Gothel's face lit up maliciously. "I must say, I can't put up with those…those WHAMMERS a second longer."

"Nor should you have to," Maleficent told her. "I simply ask you this: what do you know of the legend of Zhan Tiri?"

Gothel's face immediately contorted into an expression of shock.

"I have a feeling," Maleficent went on, "that you know far more about the dread sorcerer than you would like others to believe."

"What do you know?" Gothel growled.

"Sugracha," Maleficent said playfully. "Tromus. Should there not be a third?"

Gothel wasn't quite sure how to react.

"If there were," Maleficent stated, "then that person would be invaluable to my Overtakers' goal. So much that she would be immediately rewarded with what she desired. My potions master would make it so."

That brought out an even nastier grin from Gothel. "Very well," she resolved. "You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours."

She vanished along with Maleficent, leaving Corona to crumble beneath the snow and ice.

...

"Okay, okay, okay!" Ruby Rose squealed. "Now do my sigil!"

"All right," Mal said with a smile before raising her hands, swiping them through the air as though making a drawing.

In the center of the air of the lobby of the Radiant Garden castle, Ruby's red rose emblem appeared in glowing red energy, like a holographic projection but so much more opaque.

"Now," Eugene Fitzherbert suggested, "for a REAL challenge, do Blondie's sundrop flower."

"You got it," Mal responded. The rose was erased, and her next magical drawing was the golden flower, unfolding with sparkling petals.

"OH MY GOSH!" Rapunzel squealed. "That's so perfect! I LOVE it!"

"Sadira?" Mal asked. "Any requests?"

Sadira sat on the nearby banister, obviously struggling with the decision. "Do…a dragon," she decided. "No, no, wait! Not a dragon. Do a ROC. WAIT! NOT A ROC! DO AN IFRIT!"

"Fire ifrit?" Mal asked. "Ice ifrit? Or Ifrit the summon?"

"I…um…" Sadira was torn. "Ice maaaaybeeee? Or maybe I don't want an ifrit. Maybe I want a butterfly. Yeah! A butterfly! You get to pick the color!"

"One butterfly, coming up," Mal remarked, beginning to spin the image. The insect's wings were a deep, royal purple shot through with venomous green.

"That's kind of a…villainous-looking palette, don't you think?" Eugene pointed out.

"I wouldn't say 'villainous,'" Rapunzel corrected. "I'm thinking more like…'edgy.'"

"What can I say?" Mal shrugged. "Old habits die hard."

"And it looks way better when you use it than when your mom does," Sadira pointed out. "SOMEBODY had to make those colors look good."

"Has there ever been a team with those colors?" Ruby wondered out loud. "NDGO, maybe?"

The sound of two pairs of approaching feet escaped everyone's notice, but the accompanying voice sure got the attention of all five: "Now that brings back some memories!"

"KING MICKEY!" Ruby cried.

"IENZO!" Rapunzel added.

The butterfly was dissolved as the quintet flocked around Mickey and Ienzo. "Where were you?" Ruby asked. "What happened? Why'd you leave? What's the surprise?"

"One thing at a time, please!" Ienzo said softly, somewhat flustered.

"We wanted to show off what we made to everyone!" Mickey declared. "Since we have such a big network now, and Radiant Garden needs to be connected to more worlds technologically, Ienzo and I put our heads together with Chip and Dale over at Disney Castle to come up with some new innovations!"

"Well, you'll have to wait for the Key people to come back," Sadira informed him. "They're all still at their morning training with Yen Sid."

"Except for some reason, Sora and Riku didn't show up," Mal went on.

"How do you know that?" Eugene asked.

"Roxas and I walked to the station together," Mal explained. "We hung around a bit. I wanted to check in with Riku, but he never showed up. It's not like anyone's worried. You know those two. They probably found some urgent adventure that needed venturing in the middle of the night."

"Wait a minute," Rapunzel realized. "Did you just say you and Roxas walked to the train station together?" She rocked on her bare feet playfully.

"Um, yeah," Mal replied. "Is that a big deal or something?"

"Maybe," Rapunzel teased. "Maybe not."

"He's a good friend, okay?" Mal nervously tucked a loose strand of hair behind an ear. "And he gets it. I dunno, I like talking to him. I feel like he doesn't judge me, and I just can't judge anything he says. He's a good guy."

"They're going to be together by the end of the month," Sadira predicted.

Mal expected to be in for a good deal more of teasing. She was saved when Ruby shrieked, "Can we GET BACK ON TOPIC ABOUT THE SURPRISE?"

"Well, it seems the public unveiling will have to wait until we're all here," Ienzo went on. "Is anyone else missing?"

"We didn't really count or anything," Ruby pointed out. "But now that you mention it, it's kinda weird to go a whole day without Papyrus turning up somewhere."

"The last time I saw him, he was headed out with Katara to check in on Rosalina's Observatory," Eugene stated. "Haven't seen either of 'em since."

"Speaking of the Observatory," Rapunzel went on, "one of the Lumas brought me a note saying Moana wouldn't be able to meet me for our bonding time this afternoon. We kinda found out by accident that dancing is waaaaay different where we both come from, so we were going to trade dance moves. I guess she got something higher-priority to do. I'd imagine being the ocean's chosen one involves some important things."

"And Genie and Merlin are doing major renovations in the residential district," Sadira recalled. "With that much magic going into it, we might be able to send a whole ton of people home today."

"That's great!" Mickey cried. "Though it does put our surprise on hold."

Five faces fell.

"Well…" Ienzo said cautiously. "I suppose there's no reason we couldn't give them a little sneak peek…"

Mal, Sadira, Eugene, Rapunzel, and Ruby all gasped with excitement.

"Here." Ienzo withdrew a small device from his pocket. It was largely rectangular, with a top fashioned in the shape of a crown. A black screen took up the majority of the object. "This is what we call a 'GummiPhone.' Some of you may already be familiar with the concept of 'phones.'"

"Yup," Mal confirmed.

"Phone?" Ruby repeated.

"I have…NO idea what that is," Eugene admitted.

"Nope," Sadira added.

Ienzo nodded. "A phone is a device that two people can use to communicate. Each phone is assigned a special number that, when dialed, allows the phones to connect and transmit audio of the owners' voices to each other."

"OH, IT'S A SCROLL!" Ruby cried. "I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!"

Ienzo nodded with a smile. "Mickey, Chip, Dale, and I all worked very hard to make the GummiPhone special, with a lot of functions and capabilities. For one, communication will be possible between more than just two parties as a standard. Here. I'll demonstrate."

He passed one GummiPhone to Rapunzel and one to Sadira. "Now," he said, "let me start by calling Rapunzel…"

The phone in Rapunzel's hand let off a catchy jingle. "Ooh!" Rapunzel squealed.

"Press the green button to answer him," Mickey told her. "The red button will drop the call!"

Rapunzel gingerly tapped the onscreen green icon, then gasped at what she saw. "IENZO, IT'S YOUR FACE, BUT IT'S TINY!"

"And I'm seeing your face on mine!" Ienzo told her. "See?"

He held out his GummiPhone, and Rapunzel turned to look at it, now noting the view from her own GummiPhone, where her golden hair had fallen over the camera aperture. "This…is…AWESOME!"

"Now," Ienzo went on, "if we wanted to add Sadira to the mix…"

He opened a new window, dialing a second number. Now Sadira's phone jingled. After confidently tapping the green icon, Sadira noted, "Yup. I see you, Ienzo."

"Swipe the screen like this to change views," Ienzo said, demonstrating on his own device. "I can go back and forth between Rapunzel and Sadira, and all three of our voices can be heard on the audio channel."

"Ienzo," Rapunzel said as she looked at his face on her display. Then she swiped, identifying, "Sadira." Swipe again. "Ienzo…" Swipe. "Sadira. Ienzo, Sadira! Ienzo, Sadira!"

"We get it," Mal told her.

"Sorry," Rapunzel said meekly. "This is just so exciting!"

"That's not all, of course," Ienzo continued. "For one – "

"Why is it video calling?" Ruby broke in. "That's not how scrolls work back home."

"Ruby!" Rapunzel chastised.

"No, it's more than fine," Ienzo assured. "There is an option to turn the video off and use audio alone, but Mickey and I decided that defaulting to video chat would allow a personal touch that better simulates being in the same room as the call's recipient."

"Plus, it allows you to see my handsome face," Eugene remarked.

"What were the other features you were talking about?" Mal asked.

"For one," Ienzo resumed, "a GummiPhone isn't complete without a camera. Shall I take your picture?"

Ruby immediately smiled brightly, and Mal lined up beside her to give the camera a thumbs-up.

"Picture?" Rapunzel repeated. "Am I supposed to smile?"

"If you want," Ienzo told her.

Eugene struck a pose beside her. "Make sure to get my good side."

"Both of your sides are good," Sadira laughed as she fell in line.

"I know!" Eugene cried. "That's what's so great about me!"

The phone clicked and flashed. Ienzo then turned it around so all could see the still image of their group displayed on its screen. "I think it turned out rather well," he said.

"It's like having our portraits painted really, really fast!" Rapunzel identified.

"The GummiPhone can also store large amounts of data," Ienzo went on. "We've installed notepad and word processing functions for note-taking, including an application that allows you to link text to a photo you've taken. Say you're visiting another world, and you want to take a photo of the city you're in and label it with its name to remember later, as well as a brief description of its major landmarks and history. We're working on a clock function that will sync to the time of each world visited, and once that's done, we'll pass it around as a downloadable file. There's even a selection of simple games programmed in. Once we structure an Internet, the GummiPhones will also be able to access that network."

"You're making a WHAT?" Ruby gasped.

"The GummiPhone's not all we did!" Mickey said excitedly. "We also developed a prototype for a television, as well as coming up with ideas for programming!"

"We figured we could ask around the community for contributions," Ienzo stated. "This would open up new careers for news anchors, actors, even animators. We're starting with one channel for Radiant Garden and seeing how it takes off. More importantly, our prototype should be able to receive signals from other worlds and broadcast programming from across the cosmos."

"It'll all help our worlds stay more connected!" Mickey asserted. "We also developed some upgrades for the computer terminal that will allow it to connect to an Internet we designed! This is also gonna be compatible with the Internets of worlds we visit, so we can share data from all over!"

"I know it must seem like a lot of big ideas at the moment," Ienzo stated. "I'm a little nervous myself as to whether we can pull it all off."

"But I know we can!" Mickey argued. "I've always felt like you should dream big, and if you can dream it, you can do it!"

"I like the sound of that," Rapunzel decided.

"So are we gonna have to pay for a data plan?" Ruby asked.

"What?" Ienzo replied.

"A lot of worlds have their phone services owned by providers that charge depending on which you pick," Mickey explained.

"Hmm." Ienzo thought it over. "I suppose that makes business sense, but I don't really think that's the direction I want to go here. The system we're running the GummiPhones on is renewable magic that takes no cost to operate. As the name indicates, we've implanted Gummi blocks into the very mechanism. Everyone in our little group would get to keep one so we can stay connected, of course. I haven't yet decided whether we should sell or simply distribute the phones to the rest of the community. We wouldn't charge for service, though. There's only one source providing any data, after all."

"Don't you need to cover the cost for making the phones?" Mal asked.

"Not really," Mickey explained. "It took us time to make the first one, but after that, I duplicated them a bunch of times with a modification of an old spell. I, uh…I kinda accidentally figured out how to make a bunch of identical animate broomsticks when I was younger. They work as castle staff now, but oh, boy, did they give me some trouble back then. Thanks to my studies with Yen Sid, I was able to isolate the duplication component of the spell I used and use that to make more phones identical to the prototype!"

"We've tested them in every way," Ienzo clarified, "and there is no difference whatsoever between a duplicate and the original."

"Well, don't let Scrooge McDuck find out about this," Sadira joked. "If he thinks he can make a buck selling ANYTHING, he'll try and get his hands on it!"

That got a laugh out of the group.

"We'll get him his phone last," Ienzo stated. "By that time, he won't have a market. I appreciate his head for business, but it seems he just doesn't understand that some things are better off for the people when they're not for profit."

"At least he's finally backed off about Radiant Garden having free health care," Mickey related. "After Huey hurt his arm falling out of that tree, he COULDN'T argue anymore!"

"…You guys have free health care here?" Ruby said in disbelief.

"Yes," Ienzo replied. "It was a staple of Ansem the Wise's rule, and we carried it over after the restoration."

"WE DON'T GET FREE HEALTH CARE IN VALE!" Ruby lamented. "THEY CHARGE DOUBLE IN ATLAS! THANKS, WEISS' DAD! Okay, that does it. Next time I break my arm, I'm gonna do it in this city."

"Please don't break your arm on purpose," Ienzo said in concern.

Another laugh was shared.

"Seriously, Agrabah could take some pointers from Radiant Garden," Sadira groaned. "I feel like I wouldn't have to live on the street here."

"It's not perfect by any means," Ienzo informed her. "After all, there are still wounds from the past that will never completely heal."

Mal shrugged. "And that's why you need the free health care."

Even more giggles.

"You know, I wonder if there's some way I could get the healing power of the sundrop back and sort of…get it out of me and give it to other people," Rapunzel mused. "That way, Corona could have – "

The sound of the castle's entry doors exploding loudly and violently cut her off.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" Sadira yelled.

Mickey, already sensing trouble, called his Keyblade to hand. "Everyone, stay behind me," he warned.

No one argued. As silly as it might seem to line up behind a mouse less than half your height, they silently agreed he was a better warrior than the rest of them combined, and the most fit to face whatever had just torn down the doors.

They expected Mozenrath. They expected Maleficent. No one expected the young-looking man who strode confidently down the hall into the atrium, dressed all in black, a smug smile plastered across his bone-white face.

"You left your door locked," Blackheart taunted. "That was very rude. I even knocked, but of course you couldn't hear me because the hallway is so long. How were you going to react if a friend came knocking?"

"Our friends all have keys to the door," Mickey argued, already feeling dread settle in. "We locked that door in case our enemies tried to just walk in again."

"Then I've got some bad news for you," Blackheart said as his smile grew wider, wider, just wide enough that it wasn't natural anymore. "It didn't work."

Before anyone could even move, he'd backhanded Mickey into the wall, where the mouse king fell unconscious, limply on the floor.

The others mobilized immediately. Eugene and Ruby, each lacking a weapon, braced themselves for a fight. Rapunzel ripped the ties out of her braid, letting her hair flow loose. Ienzo called up his spellbook. Sadira brought a fine stream of sand out of her purse. Mal's hands glowed with raw magic energy.

"This'll be fun," Blackheart chuckled.

The sand was thrown right back into Sadira's face, and she stumbled back, screaming as she tried to blink the grains out of her eyes. With superhuman speed, Blackheart surged forth, grabbing Eugene by the shoulders to pick him up and launch him across the room. His hand swept back to catch the magic bolt Mal had fired at him, launching it right back over to Ienzo. Ienzo instinctively turned the spellbook to catch it, and once he closed its cover, Blackheart took the opportunity to slam his other hand as a fist into Ienzo's face, sending him flying as well.

Then the demon found himself suddenly bound with a long, thick sort of cord; looking down, he saw Rapunzel's hair wrapped around him, pinning his arms down and his legs together. "You don't get to take one more step," Rapunzel growled.

"This is interesting," Blackheart remarked. "Not that I'm not down for bondage play, but I think I'd rather take this a different direction. You are the sundrop, aren't you? I wonder what would happen if we cast a little shadow."

He leaned in as closely as he could to her; she couldn't tear her gaze away from his own, for his irises seemed to be alive and writhing, holding back a gateway to something much worse. Like the jet-black ashes of a fire, underneath which red-hot embers still burn and occasionally make themselves seen on the surface.

Then, playfully, he began to sing. "Wither and decay," the song went, to a tune Rapunzel knew too well: her own healing incantation. "End this destiny. Break these earthly chains and set this spirit free…"

Rapunzel wanted to tell him that whatever he was doing, it was just a cruel joke that wasn't even funny. Yet she found herself unable to speak, unable to do anything but listen to his singsong mockery.

"Wither and decay," Blackheart kept going. "End this destiny…"

He watched Rapunzel's pupils grow, taking over the entirety of her eyes in blackness.

"Break these earthly chains…"

Her golden hair turned jet black in a rush, loosening its grip on Blackheart and beginning to flow freely.

He didn't even bother to sing the last line, simply saying "Now set the damn spirit free" and easily casting her hair aside, where it floated in cloudy locks of inky black. "And if you ever figure that out on your own," he mocked, "you're gonna be glad I gave you the light version of that first."

He dashed around Rapunzel only for Ruby to zip into his path, holding up a hand. It was inherently hilarious; a sixteen-year-old girl thought she had a chance. Blackheart roared with laughter.

"SHUT UP!" Ruby shrieked. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY FRIEND?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Blackheart teased. "If you were the sundrop, I'd gladly show you, too."

Behind him, Ienzo was slowly getting to his feet, moving quietly as he opened his spellbook and turned one page past where Mal's magic was stored.

"You…" Ruby seethed, "don't…hurt…my…FRIENDS!" Her own eyes filled with another color: brilliant silver.

It happened more quickly than anyone could perceive. Blackheart was suddenly across the room, out of Ruby's range. Ienzo had held his book up, intending to trap Blackheart in it, but instead, only Ruby was left in his range, and before her silver eyes could pour forth their magic, she was little more than an illustration.

"Silver eyes," Blackheart remarked. "Can't have that. Anyway, I'd love to stay and maim, but I have business here."

He practically warped, speeding through the door to the lift station.

"NO!" Ienzo cried, rushing after him. By the time he'd opened the door, Blackheart was out of sight.

He fumbled with his spellbook, releasing Ruby, who cried, "WHAT?" as soon as she stood beside him.

"Ruby," Ienzo said in a shaking voice, gripping her upper arms desperately. "Go into town. Find Merlin and Genie. Bring them back here as fast as you possibly can."

"But I can help!" Ruby insisted. "That guy was afraid of my silver eyes! That's why he sent me into your book! I can beat him!"

"NO, Ruby," Ienzo warned. "I have no doubt your eyes would have an effect on him. But he planned for it once. Next time, you might not get off so easily. GO GET MERLIN AND GENIE. You're the only one who can find them in time!"

Without arguing further, Ruby nodded once. Then she became a streak of pink, shooting out of Ienzo's grip and coursing back through the atrium, rose petals falling in her wake.

Ienzo rushed into the atrium to find Rapunzel dizzied, a hand upon her head as she stumbled, her hair paling back to gold. "What happened to me?" she asked, utterly terrified.

"Something you thankfully recovered from," Ienzo told her. Looking around, he saw that Mickey and Eugene hadn't been so lucky yet, still unconscious on the ground. Hopefully only unconscious.

"We gotta stop that guy," Mal insisted.

"What we must do is evacuate," Ienzo stated. "We need to get everyone from the residential area into the Great Hall and seal it. It's the only room that can hold them all, and we'll be able to get them there more quickly than outside the castle. My magic can make it a saferoom."

"And if he wastes your magic the way he does mine?" Mal asked.

"We have to hope he can't," Ienzo told her. "For now, I need your help spreading the word about the evacuation. We need to get everyone moving. And if we can…we need to locate him within the castle."

"Uh, guys?" Sadira broke in. "I still can't see. There's sand in my eyes."

"I'll take her to get water," Rapunzel volunteered, "and we'll tell everyone we see on the way. Then we'll go straight upstairs."

She took Sadira's arm, and Sadira didn't resist, letting Rapunzel lead her quickly away.

"I can work with your book," Mal stated. "I might need some help, though."

"I will do what I can," Ienzo promised.

After several enchantments were cast, Mal began to write on the pages of Ienzo's spellbook.

Down in the kitchen, Stork, Nani, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie all saw the words write themselves in midair: "A big scary guy just showed up and is way too powerful. GET OUT. Get everyone to the Great Hall NOW."

"What?" Nani asked.

"Is this a prank?" Pinkie added. "Because if it is, this person seriously doesn't understand the point of comedy."

"I don't think it's a prank," Applejack said nervously.

Stork was already backed against the wall. "No," he was babbling. "No, no, no, nononononono – "

"It's going to be okay," Nani reassured him. "Just breathe. We're going to go up to the Great Hall. We'll be safe there, okay?"

"No we won't," Stork said as he shivered violently. "He'll find a way to get through whatever magic they put up. We're all going to die. We're all going to die PAINFULLY."

"We don't even know what this guy is even here for, or what he can do," Nani stated calmly. "Let's not jump to conclusions. He might just be an annoyance, like the Brotherhood."

"Exactly," Blackheart said. "Or he might be the physical incarnation of your doom. Who knows?"

No one had noticed him enter. Nani, Pinkie, and Applejack all recoiled with yelps. Stork was hyperventilating, his vision going blurry from a lack of oxygen.

"You're not the only one who can break the laws of physics," Blackheart said with a smile toward Pinkie. "You just do it in a sillier way. I do it in the way that's fun."

With that, he spun on one leg, roundhouse-kicking Applejack toward one of the large ovens. The door opened on its own, and once the pony had landed inside, the oven shut itself, turning on.

"HEY!" Pinkie yelled. "THAT'S NOT VERY NICE – "

She was kicked into the industrial freezer, which locked behind her. Blackheart knew she would die of exposure within hours if no one rescued her. And given that the only person around who could rescue her was plastered to the wall shaking –

He took two strides toward Stork, enough to stare him down directly. He and Stork looked at each other in silence, save for Stork's whimpering.

Then, all at once, Blackheart simply thrust his hands outward, using no magic, instead crying, "BOO!"

Stork fainted.

"Too easy," Blackheart remarked as he departed.

Then the walk-in pantry opened. Nani had hoped that hiding would cause him to forget about her. She rushed to the freezer, quickly undoing the lock.

Applejack, in the meantime, had kicked her way back out of the oven. "That was a close shave!" she cried. "But if that fella really wanted to cook me up, he woulda sealed that door better!"

The freezer lock clicked, and Pinkie trotted out, icicles already hanging off her body. "Th-th-th-that wasn't f-f-f-fun at all," she chattered.

"Come on." Nani rushed to the fallen Stork, hoisting him up into her arms; he was as light as he looked. "Let's get him upstairs." Though her mind wasn't on Stork, but rather depositing him as quickly as possible so she could search for her sister.

They bolted. En route, Pinkie came to a screeching halt – literally, her screech composed of "WAAAAIIIIIT!"

"We don't have time!" Nani insisted.

Pinkie stuck out a hoof toward the door beside her. "But that's Rarity and Pleakley's fashion studio! We need to see if – "

Nani didn't need to hear another word. She gasped upon being informed of the room's identity, not bothering to set Stork down as she kicked the door in.

Two cocoons of ribbon and silk were pinned to the wall and ceiling, respectively, larger knitting needles holding them firmly in place as they squirmed and smaller sewing needles hovering outside to await the prisoners should they break free.

"GET THOSE NEEDLES AWAY FROM THEM!" Nani cried.

The longer, thinner cocoon on the wall uttered something that sounded like "Did you just say NEEDLES?"

"I'm on it!" Pinkie produced an enormous magnet, swiping it around the room. The needles' magic was counteracted, and they all were attracted to the magnet, which soon resembled a great disheveled hedgehog.

This happened not a moment too soon, for Rarity burst through her prison at that moment, falling screaming to the floor below. As soon as she landed, she forwent complaining, focusing on the other cocoon. "PLEAKLEY!" she cried, levitating a scissors. "HOLD ON, DARLING!"

With a few deft strokes of the blade, Pleakley was freed from his own cocoon. "Thanks!" he panted. "Any longer and I think we woulda suffocated!"

"You won't BELIEVE what happened!" Rarity cried. "This AWFUL bully of a stallion marched in here and – "
"We don't need to hear it," Applejack told her. "Same fella nearly turned me into apple pie and Pinkie into a Pie-sicle."

Rarity then let out a loud shriek; at first, the others thought it unwarranted, but then they realized her gaze was fixed on the unconscious Stork. "IS HE – "

"He's alive," Nani reassured, still able to feel the pressure of Stork's breathing, finally more even, against her own body. "Our visitor just scared him." An idea occurred to her. "You can levitate him, right?"

"But of course," Rarity asked. "Why?"

"Because I need someone to take him upstairs to safety while I look for Lilo," Nani stated.

"Lilo?" Pleakley repeated. "She went out to the courtyard to watch Nora and Jaune spar!"

"Then that's where I'm going, too," Nani stated. "Rarity – "

"I'm on it!" Her plum-colored magic surrounded Stork, taking him off Nani's hands. "Don't you worry. He's in good hooves. My, he does look so much more peaceful when he's asleep, doesn't he? It's almost adorable – "

Nani didn't stick around to hear it. She'd already bolted.

Out in the courtyard, Blackheart easily caught Magnhild in one hand, letting Nora's electricity course through him. He used it as a pivot to throw her over himself, and her body bowled over Jaune and Ren, nearly becoming impaled by their weapons in the process. They tried to regroup, but Nora was disarmed and bleeding from a deep cut caused by contact with Crocea Mors, and the two young men were easily dispatched when Blackheart tossed the rest of Nora's electrical energy at them. With them out of the way, Blackheart turned to the remaining person in the yard: Lilo.

And Lilo, realizing that Blackheart was indeed as bad on the inside as he looked on the outside, screamed.

The demon charged, only to find a new obstacle in his way. Almost superhuman herself, running on pure willpower, Nani had thrown herself between him and Lilo, growling, "Not…my…SISTER!"

"Yes, your sister," Blackheart responded as he drew back his arm.

It was smacked by a bolt of electricity. He turned to look quizzically at the source, who stood in the doorway to the courtyard.

"Am having to agree with Nani," Jumba growled, clutching a large and intimidating-looking gun. "Also, where did you think Valkyrie girl got lightning?"

"RUN!" Nora shrieked, trying to stand on her slashed leg and failing. "EVERYONE RUN NOW!"

"Yes, run!" Blackheart agreed. "It's more fun when it's a game of tag! Not you, though."

Nani had gathered Lilo into her arms, attempting to slink away while Jumba provided the distraction. Blackheart zipped over to block her path. "You can't leave when the party's just starting," he told both Pelekais.

Then, momentarily, he was launched across the courtyard himself by the strength of two blows.

Nani and Lilo gaped. Jumba could hardly believe what he was seeing, either. Leon and Aeleus had both managed to intervene. Leon's gunblade had transformed into a grand sword with a shining blade, and between that and Aeleus' bludgeon, they'd managed to temporarily stymie the demon. "Get your sister out of here," Leon told Nani.

Without another word, Nani fled.

"Aeleus," Leon commanded. "Get Team RNJR out of here."

Aeleus rushed to Jaune, Nora, and Ren, all of whom he was able to pick up in his massive grip, the men draped over his arms while Nora sat on his shoulders.

Jumba decided to use the tumult to his advantage, slipping away. He felt some guilt over leaving Leon undefended. However, he reminded himself, he was evil. If he wanted to focus on preserving himself and Pleakley, he had that right.

Besides, he didn't even know what he could do if his weapon hadn't even dented the demon.

Blackheart leered at Leon, his final opponent on the field. "Shall we dance?" he teased.

"I'll even let you lead," Leon replied.

Leon's blade surged at Blackheart. The demon slid casually beneath it, leaning back further than the human spine would allow in order to do so. He let Leon think he was getting somewhere for a little while longer, avoiding blow after blow. Then, taking advantage of one small window, he sent a punch to Leon's gut that rocketed him right through the courtyard wall.

Leon tumbled, rolling to a stop that halted Cid Highwind in his tracks. As Blackheart casually strolled after Leon in pursuit of his prey, he raised his eyebrows at the sight of Cid.

Cid, in a panic, shot a furtive glance back down the hallway.

"You weren't…protecting someone, were you?" Blackheart asked, licking his lips.

"I don't know what you're fuckin' talkin' about," Cid growled. "All I know is you better STAY AWAY an' GET BACK. I ain't got no kids with me."

Stay away. Get back. Obviously coded messages. Blackheart skidded giddily around the corner, looking for the "kids" Cid had denied having around. Seeing no one, he figured Cid's charges must've escaped down a side hall. "OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE!" he yelled as he barreled down the hall.

"You dead?" Cid asked as he knelt to help Leon up.

"No," Leon replied. "Not yet, anyway." He dusted himself off. "Also, that little stunt didn't do Jim and Kazuichi any favors."

"Didn't it?" Cid leaned over and rapped on the door of a nearby broom closet in a very specific pattern.

Jim and Kazuichi spilled out of the closet, Kazuichi shaking like a leaf. "Is he gone?" he whimpered. "Please say he's gone. PLEASE SAY HE'S FUCKING GONE!"

"He's gone from here," Cid assured, "but we ain't outta the woods yet. Leon and I gotta catch up with the gals. You two get movin' to the safehouse."

Jim nodded. "Right away."

"As soon as fucking possible," Kazuichi whimpered.

As soon as Leon and Cid had gone, Jim turned to Kazuichi and smirked. "Or, instead, we don't." His face fell. "Hey. You're really shook up."

"Yeah," Kazuichi confirmed with a nod.

"You still wanna do this?" Jim asked. "It's not too late to bail."
"I HAVE TO DO THIS!" Kazuichi cried. "IF HE GETS HER, THEN IT'S ALL OVER! SHE'S THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE, AND I CAN'T LET HER DIE!"

"Then let's go," Jim asserted.

Up in the residential sector, people were panicking. The guests of the castle had all gotten Mal's warning, and while everyone thought, as individuals, they could get out in a streamlined manner, an entire group of people trying to spill out of their apartments single-file was turning into chaos.

That was why Twilight had created a raised platform along the wall for Sonia, Jasmine, and herself to stand on, directing the flow of traffic.

"PLEASE PROCEED CALMLY!" Sonia told the fleeing refugees. "SLOWING YOUR WALKING SPEED WILL GET YOU TO SAFETY FASTER!"

"The hallway's five wide, so five at a time!" Twilight declared. She put up magical marks above the five people nearest to her; "You? GO!" Five more. "Now you: GO!"

The sound of a crying child prompted Jasmine to immediately jump down and fight through the crowd to find the little one. "What's wrong?" she asked, putting on a brave face for the small girl with brown pigtails.

"I can't find my dad or my brother!" the girl wailed.

"Come with me," Jasmine told her. "We'll look for them from up high."

She brought the girl to the pedestal where Twilight and Sonia stood, helping her up. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Marlene," the girl said softly. "Marlene Wallace."

"She's lost her family," Jasmine said firmly to Twilight and Sonia.

Twilight conjured up a magical megaphone that amplified her voice: "ATTENTION! WE'RE LOOKING FOR THE FAMILY OF MARLENE WALLACE! IF MARLENE WALLACE IS RELATED TO YOU – "

"MY DAUGHTER!" A burly, dark-skinned man cradling a small boy in an arm that seemed to end in a short cannon pushed through the crowd to the pedestal.

"DAD!" Marlene cried in response.

Marlene was quickly passed off to her father, and Sonia urged them, "You MUST keep moving!"

Soon, the crowd had dispersed, leaving only the three princesses. "That's everyone," Twilight stated.

"Are you certain?" Sonia asked.

Twilight conjured up a scroll to show her. "I've got a list of everypony who lives in this wing," she stated. "And I made sure I saw all of them. Literally all of them."

"Then let's go," Jasmine asserted.

They dissolved the pedestal, hopping down. That was when he rounded the corner.

"Now, you're three lovely ladies," Blackheart stated, licking his lips once more.

Sonia held up a hand; "BACK AWAY, PERVERT!"

"I'm not a pervert," Blackheart responded. "You just don't know how to take a compliment."

Sonia and Jasmine squared up for a fight. Twilight's horn glowed almost menacingly. "What do you want from us?" Jasmine growled.

"I was sent here on a very important mission from Maleficent," Blackheart stated. "And once I carry it out, I get to spend the rest of the day however I want. She said so. My dad would never let me have this much fun. I like her better than him already."

"Maleficent," Jasmine spat. "If she wants you to do something here, she's NOT going to get her way."

"Let me guess," Blackheart replied. "You're going to be the plucky trio of heroes who stops me against all odds?"

"If the horseshoe fits," Twilight told him.

"Then let's see how much of me you can handle," Blackheart said smugly.

He put up a hand, palm outward. An orb of Darkness crackled suddenly to life against it, spinning and growing, small thunderclouds orbiting its surface.

Startled by the noise, Jasmine and Sonia instinctively reached out to either side, one of each of their hands landing on Twilight's back. The moment she was touched, Twilight opened her eyes a little wider, feeling an all-new rush.

"Don't let go," she said, stunned by the magic she now felt surging within her heart. She wasn't certain why physical contact with two people she'd only barely become friends with was activating this new sensation, but it was the only factor, wasn't it?

Blackheart clenched his hand into a fist, and the sphere of Darkness became a beam, pouring toward Twilight.

Spreading her wings wide, Twilight fired a beam right back at the attack. It was made up of both Darkness and Light, weaving around each other like a braid, until they finally meshed upon collision with Blackheart's magic. The two forces pressed against each other, their midpoint moving back and forth, and as they did so, Twilight's ammunition deepened in color, now a distinct blended gradient of all the colors of the sunset.

Blackheart scowled as he pushed back harder. Finally, his magic overtook Twilight's, and in a rush, it all flooded right back to her, bowling her over along with Jasmine and Sonia. As the trio lay on the ground, prone, Blackheart muttered, "No idea what THAT was, but I'd rather not do it again."

To his surprise, Sonia stirred. The blonde peeled herself off the ground, propping herself up.

Instantly, Blackheart hovered over her. "You smell like recovering Darkness," he identified.

"Pointing out how a woman of noble blood smells is rude!" Sonia said through gritted teeth.

"Something tells me you like to flirt with the dark side," Blackheart teased. "Wanna be my Dark Queen?"

Sonia's eyes widened. It was Gundham's nickname for her, and she felt a wave of nausea at the thought of this villain using that special term to describe her. "Please, leave me alone!" she cried in a sudden panic, thrown off by the attack to her emotions.

Physically, she was left vulnerable just long enough for Blackheart to scoop her up in his arms. She struggled vigorously and in vain as he drew her close, pressing his lips to hers firmly, then widening his lips out to their true extent, his too-long and too-flexible tongue finding its way inside Sonia's mouth as his fangs nipped her lower lip hard enough to draw droplets of blood –

"HEY, DICKHEAD!"

The repulsion beam struck him full force. He dropped Sonia, stumbling past her. The pink blur zipped up behind him, planting itself between him and Sonia.

Blackheart turned to sneer at the pink-armored Kazuichi, who was regarding him from beneath his visor with an almost feral expression, jagged teeth bared. "You can fuckin' kill me," he snarled. "I don't fuckin' care. You can tear me apart. That's fine. I already cut one leg off. I know how bad it hurts. Rip out my heart, crush my skull, whatever you get off on. But you'll have to wipe me from fuckin' existence BEFORE I LET YOU TOUCH MISS SONIA!"

"K…Kazuichi…" Sonia gasped.

Blackheart let out a hearty laugh at this turn of events. "You're either really in love or you're just suicidal."

"Who said it had to be just one?" Kazuichi growled. "Now are we gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?"

"The hard way for you is the easy way for me," Blackheart remarked offhandedly.

"You sure about that?" Kazuichi asked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Blackheart asked.

"You know that whole trope where the hero starts mouthing off to the villain, and the villain's all 'What's with the monologue?' and then the hero says 'It was just to keep you talking'?"

Blackheart pondered this. "I don't see how that's relevant to – "

That was when Jim Hawkins crashed directly into his back with the solar surfer, bowling Blackheart to the ground.

"GO!" he yelled.

"C'MON!" Kazuichi yelled at Sonia, rushing to pick up Jasmine and carry her unconscious body away bridal-style. "Get the horse and let's – oh, God, oh, fuck, your MOUTH, you're bleeding – "

"I am fine," Sonia lied as the blood dribbled down her face. "Let us go!"

She scooped Twilight into her arms, and the pair prepared to escape.

Blackheart threw Jim and the surfer off of himself, whipping around to rip the surfer away from its rider and spill the brunette boy onto the floor so hard, his spine almost snapped. Blackheart then looked up and down the length of the surfer, an almost childlike awe lighting up his eyes. "Hyperdrive," he remarked. "That's impressive. It must've taken a long time to build. Probably one-of-a-kind, right?"

Then, taking one end of the surfer in each hand, he effortlessly snapped the board in half. "Ooooooops," he cackled as he slung the broken vehicle aside.

At the sound of the surfer clattering against the wall and subsequently the floor, Sonia and Kazuichi chanced looks back over their shoulders, freezing as they saw the demon advancing on Jim. Each was trying to work out the math: could they go back and save him without losing the precious cargo in their arms?

Jim crawled backward as Blackheart stepped casually toward him. "Don't worry," he remarked. "Soon, you'll have bigger things to worry about than the fact that I broke your toy."

Jim didn't doubt it. He fumbled at his waist for his blaster.

That was when the next aerial assault zoomed through the hall; a Sonic Rainboom exploded between Blackheart and Jim, propelling the demon away. Rainbow Dash brought herself to a halt to taunt, "HA! Take THAT, loser!"

Like a knight in shining armor, Aladdin aboard Carpet followed her around the corner, Abu also parked upon the animate fabric and Fluttershy flanking in the air. "JIM!" Aladdin yelled. "GET ON!"

Carpet swooped down low, and Jim clambered on hastily. "Your wife," he babbled. "She's over there. She's not fine."

He pointed, and Aladdin saw where Kazuichi held Jasmine's unresponsive body. "JASMINE!" he yelled.

Fluttershy gasped as well; "TWILIGHT!"

Then her expression of fright hardened. One could almost see flames building up in her eyes. "YOU," she growled as she hovered before Blackheart. "You might be big. You might be scary. You might be a bully."

"Stop flattering me," Blackheart told her.

"But none of that," Fluttershy went on, voice building in intensity, "AND I MEAN NONE OF IT, MEANS YOU CAN HURT! MY! FRIENDS!"

She rammed into Blackheart's stomach like a bullet. Rainbow Dash was quick on the uptake, delivering a solid kick to the back of his head.

While the two pegasi attacked Blackheart like gulls on scrapped fast food, Carpet whisked over to Sonia, Kazuichi, Twilight, and Jasmine. "Get them on!" Aladdin ordered. "We'll fly out together!"

In the time it took to load Twilight, Jasmine, and Sonia up onto Carpet beside Aladdin and Jim – thoroughly testing Carpet's limits, though he held firm – Blackheart had managed to seize Fluttershy by the tail, whirl her around above his head like a lasso, and chuck her down the hall after the rest of her company. He then reached out and deftly caught Rainbow Dash's right wing in his right hand.

"HEY!" Rainbow Dash struggled to escape him. "WHAT GIVES?"

He then seized her left wing in his left hand, restraining both of her wings at once. "You really rely on these wings, don't you?" Blackheart chuckled. "It'd be a shame if you didn't have them anymore."

He raised a foot, poised to drive it into Rainbow Dash's back. Had he succeeded, he would've separated her wings from her body by force, in quite a bloody manner, no less.

Jim Hawkins was faster. Momentarily not caring about the agreement not to blow to kill, he took a shot with his blaster at Blackheart's head.

It hit Blackheart in the eye, and dark blood like ink oozed down from the socket as Rainbow Dash slipped free, wings intact. As she hurried to catch up with the group, they all saw Blackheart reach up to wipe away the blood with his sleeve. He kept that lid closed momentarily, but his jaw moved as though he were suddenly chewing gum. His eyelid pried open. The eye beneath it was whole and undamaged, as though nothing had happened. He then opened his mouth, sticking out his tongue to reveal the blaster shot resting on it in the form of a glowing sphere.

Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Kazuichi, Carpet, and all of Carpet's passengers had shot out of the hall by the time he spat it back out, implanting a dent in the far wall.

Far above, Aerith and Yuffie ushered the crowds into the Great Hall, checking in the last of the refugees. Now they were waiting on their fellows among the heroic contingent to catch up. Some had already arrived; Delbert Doppler was having a meltdown of panic in the entry chamber, and Amelia clutched his hand tightly, whispering reassurance to him.

The crowd filled the room. Up above, near the equipment meant to activate the Door to Darkness, Ienzo, Mal, and Lianna stood watch over Ienzo's book. Mal and Ienzo had enchanted a set of spread pages to act as a castle map, and they'd managed to pinpoint Blackheart as a dot of black ink moving throughout it. Lianna had little to offer by way of magic, but she held Mal's hand out of fear, and Mal was all too happy to provide the comfort.

"Oh, no," Mal said when she saw it beginning to happen.

"No…" Ienzo whispered.

"What is wrong?" Lianna asked, trying to get a look at the book.

"He's headed for the chapel," Ienzo stated. "The chapel is the only way he could reach…here."

"He may or may not be coming to kill us all at once," Mal said in a tone meant to be lighthearted but betrayed by the shaking in her voice.

"What do we do?" Lianna asked worriedly.

"The only thing we can do," Mal replied. "Fight."

She released Lianna's hand to walk out to the edge of the raised platform. "HEY, EVERYONE!" she yelled. "QUIET DOWN!"

It took a moment, but the panicking crowd eventually turned to her, largely because they all suspected she had even worse news.

"THE GUY WHO CHASED US HERE IS COMING THIS WAY," Mal cried out. "HE'S TOUGH, AND IF HE GETS THROUGH OUR BARRIER, HE COULD TRY TO KILL US ALL. BUT WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO TAKE HIM ON IF WE ALL BAND TOGETHER AND FIGHT!"

Horrified gasps and screams rippled through the crowd. Mal continued to deliver instructions as to how if they all acted as one, they could perchance stop Blackheart in his tracks.

As she spoke, a few in the crowd were rightly unsettled. One teenage girl, by the name of Shelke Rui, clothed in a pink tank top and brown shorts and bearing brown hair in a bouncy pixie cut, asked her older sister in a calm, almost monotone voice, "Do you really think we will be able to take our assailant on with so many unarmed among our number?"

Her elder sister and legal guardian, Shalua Rui, a woman with long red-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, one bespectacled eye sewn shut from its loss, a cybernetic left arm, and clothing in the form of a maroon-and-black tank top with a matching miniskirt, shook her head. "The idea may seem solid, to take him on as a group. Yet so few of us are trained to fight. I do not, however, know any other way we may face him."

"That's not going to be good enough." This hard-edged voice came from a man with a short chestnut ponytail. He was clothed in a long robe of purples, blues, and greens tied out front with a turquoise sash. Shalua knew him well; his name was Isaaru. "I know I stand a chance against him with my Summons. However, if he is turned loose among this crowd as a whole, Maroda and Pacce will not be able to withstand him. Am I to send my brothers as lambs to the slaughter?"

He nodded back toward his aforementioned brothers, who couldn't have looked more different from him. The barely-adult Maroda had much darker skin and short-cropped black hair. Pacce, a child still, had hair the same color as Maroda's, with eyes bearing epicanthic folds. Pacce chatted nervously with a friend of his: a blond boy his age, dressed in red, who Shalua recognized as being named Peter.

"What else can we do?" Shalua asked.

"We can filter those who are skilled in combat," Isaaru suggested. "Send a force of only elite fighters."

"Even that leaves us no guarantee," Shalua reminded him. "King Mickey, the alicorn, and the Princess of Heart were all knocked out cold. They're lucky to be alive. If they stood no chance, what of the rest of us?"

Isaaru let that sink in. "It does concern me," he admitted. "Though what concerns me more is what those three think they're doing."

For a triad of others had begun to move in entirely the wrong direction: toward the door.

Shalua stepped out front of them; "Where do you think you're going?" Shelke and Isaaru walked up to take their places beside her. From slightly further away, Maroda, Pacce, and Peter all listened in.

The leader of the group was a tall, silver-haired man with the pointed ears of an Elezen; he wore a long tunic of solid chain mail, a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. Near his left shoulder floated a small, green man – a gremlin – with a round orange nose and a bushy white mustache; he was clothed in a red engineer's jumpsuit and a hard helmet and he carried a sizeable red monkey wrench. To the Elezen's right was a figure anyone would recognize: a tall, broad-chested, redheaded man clothed in purple and blue, casually wielding a baseball bat. This was Casey Thayer, often thought of as the star athlete in all of Radiant Garden, heading up one of the baseball teams that represented the kingdom's many competing districts.

"We are going to attempt to halt our malicious intruder in his tracks!" the Elezen said, all too cheerfully given the circumstances.

"Why would you do that?" Isaaru asked, taken aback.

"Is it not the job of those who can fight to protect those less fortunate?" the Elezen asked. "The Committee is trying their best, but there is no guarantee their magical barrier will hold. My companions and I are going to slip past before the ward is cast, and we shall either detain, delay, or slay the wicked one before he can harm another innocent!"

"After all," Casey bragged, "who could stop him better than I? A simple blow to his head should strike him out!"

"While I doubt not Casey's prowess," the Elezen went on, "it would do no good to let him go alone. It was my idea to slip away to begin with, and I would be most happy to put my own self on the line for the good of the others. If I did not…I should feel remiss my whole life long, presuming we survive this encounter."

"And I'm going, too!" the gremlin said in a gruff voice. "I'm pretty handy with a wrench, but there are plenty of people in this room who can't even say that much! I don't blame the girl for trying to rally the troops, but it's a big risk, to put children and the elderly in the fray with everyone else!"

"You'll never survive out there," Shalua warned. "The intruder took down King Mickey."

"I cannot accept such words!" the Elezen insisted. "Not while there is yet hope that we may succeed where he failed, with a little luck and the power of our will! We must try nonetheless! And if my life must be given to save the rest, then so be it! I am certain that will not be the outcome, however."

"I know it won't," Casey scoffed. "He'll be dead the minute I look at him, just you watch!"

"I know the risks," the gremlin added. "And so do the ones who matter." He shot a quick look over his shoulder, picking out in the crowd the shapes of several other gremlins from the Gremlin Village district of the kingdom: gremlins who couldn't fight to save their own lives and sadly let their green-skinned patriarch go forth to protect them all, knowing they had to trust. The green-skinned gremlin was terrified beyond all reason, and had spent much of his time hiding out of sight, but knew it was now time to answer the call to arms. "I can't let fear stop me now!"

"You're not expecting us to join your cause," Isaaru snapped.

"No," the Elezen said honestly. "We are not. We intend to fight for you. I go because I believe it to be my own duty."

"I'm going along because I think it's my duty, too," the gremlin insisted.

"I'm going because I'm the only person around here who even has a chance," Casey sighed.

Shalua and Isaaru exchanged glances. Then they silently agreed.

"You may not expect me to join you," Isaaru decided, "but join you I will, all the same. I am a Summoner, capable of calling Aeons from realms beyond to assist me. I believe this could be a valuable asset in your campaign."

"I'm a good shot, despite the eye," Shalua said as she patted a gun holstered at her hip. "If a direct frontal assault fails, I can provide cover from a distance."

"And I – " Shelke attempted.

"No." Shalua turned to look eye-to-eyes at her younger sister, leaning down enough that their gazes could meet. She placed her hands – one flesh, one metal – on Shelke's shoulders. "You stay here, Shelke. If this doesn't work…I want you to be safe. I also need you to explain to Maroda and Pacce where their brother has gone. You need to live, even if I don't. And above all, remember that I will always love you."

After a long pause, Shelke agreed; "I love you, too. Be careful."

"Let's go," Isaaru decided.

They all turned to move toward the door as Shelke relayed the news to Maroda and Pacce with more clarity.

"If we are to fight side-by-side," the Elezen said, "then I must know your names, my friends!"

"Isaaru," Isaaru stated.

"My name is Shalua Rui," Shalua contributed.

"You can call me Gremlin Gus!" Gus chirped.

"I shouldn't need any introduction," Casey scoffed.

"And I am Haurchefant of the house of Greystone!" the Elezen said in a chipper manner. "I am pleased to meet you all. Should we live past this day, I would like to become acquainted with all of you more deeply!"

His energy was infectious. None of the other four could really deny the idea of sitting down for a chat with Haurchefant. If only, they thought, they had met under better circumstances.

Shelke was well-behaved, heeding Shalua's warning. However, there was one child who was not. After hearing the basic gist of where the five had gone, Peter pulled Pacce aside and said, very firmly, "I want to help, too."

"You totally should!" Pacce insisted.

"I can handle myself out there, no matter what!" Peter boasted. "If your brother gets hurt, I can step in and save him!"

"Yeah!" Pacce laughed. "You're the bravest out of all of us Kinderguardians! Remember the time you and Ivan and Sonia and Sasha caught that wolf that was prowling around the kingdom limits?"

"Everyone told me it was too dangerous to go," Peter recalled, "but I sure showed them! Don't tell your brother, though, and don't tell Grandfather, either! He'd never let me go!" He fired a glance back at the old, white-bearded man, who was keeping Peter's aforementioned animal companions company. He couldn't count on the help of Ivan the cat, Sonia the duck (no relation to the princess), or Sasha the bird this time, not without alerting his grandfather to his plan.

"Okay!" Pacce whispered. "I'll cover for you!"

Haurchefant, Shalua, Isaaru, Casey, and Gus paused at the entryway, where Aerith and Yuffie were standing guard. They knew they had to find a covert way of sneaking out, or those two would send up the alert to put the room on lockdown early.

Luckily, they didn't need to plan. Aeleus showed up then, bearing Nora, Jaune, and Ren, and because the wound on Nora's leg had bled, she, Aeleus, and Jaune were all covered in the red substance. Yuffie screamed; Nora tried to reassure her that "It's not as bad as it looks! Really!"

While Aerith pulled them aside to apply healing magic to Nora's leg and Yuffie flitted about nervously, the five were able to slink past, barging out the door and through the lift station passage to the chapel. Shortly after, so was Peter, bearing a coiled rope and a pop gun.

Blackheart finally entered the chapel, giving it a look around. The goal he'd been sent for was close. For now, he turned up his lip at the holy space. "I really expected better, Maleficent," he grumbled. Yes, he understood the point was to defile a place of worship by turning it into villain central, but you could never really scrub out the acrid smell of sacred candles and prayers made out of good faith, no matter who it was all in worship of.

Just beyond the door to the lift station, Haurchefant, Isaaru, Gus, Casey, and Shalua waited. "It is now or never, my friends," Haurchefant stated.

"Wait here, Shalua," Isaaru told her. "Keep watch on us, and fire from this position if need be."

"I will," she told him.

Something unspoken passed between the two of them, something that they couldn't quite name beyond a desire to mine for it later and put a name on it if they made it out alive. All they knew was that it was a bond, something that they knew could be deep.

"Stop flirting already!" Casey sighed. "We have a monster to kill!"

"He looks almost like an ordinary man," Haurchefant observed quizzically, "and yet something about him suggests he is more."

"Or less," Casey argued.

"Are you all right, friend?" Haurchefant asked Gus, whose complexion was rapidly paling to lime.

"Well, strictly speaking, no," Gus whispered, "but can it be helped?"

Haurchefant's sword and shield were braced at his sides. "For Radiant Garden," he declared softly, "and for all of the friends we have made and had yet to make. We go forth!"

Blackheart flinched at the sudden sound of three pairs of feet storming the chapel floor; he turned to see Haurchefant leading the charge, blade drawn, as Casey gained on him, Isaaru brought up the rear, and Gus flew after. He greeted this new turn of events with a smile.

"And I thought it was about to get boring," he said through teeth that looked considerably sharper than they had when he'd entered the building.

He caught Haurchefant's blade in one hand and Casey's bat in the other. He decided not to break their weapons just yet, instead feeling the urge to play the game for a little while. He was so close to his goal; couldn't he have some more fun with his prey than he'd done on the way up in the name of keeping things speedy?

He pushed back on both weapons, sending their owners stumbling. Gus had by then flown around back to repeatedly bash him on the back of the head with the monkey wrench, which made a rather hilarious metal-on-metal clanking sound. Blackheart just continued to let him do so while watching Casey and Haurchefant. Haurchefant was more guarded and strategic with his attacks than Casey; the glory hound of a baseball player was so eager, he took a swing right at Blackheart's head, and it was easy for Blackheart to just duck and let the bat smack Gus all the way across the chapel.

He then rose up to see Haurchefant's blade striking out at him; he balled up the fist of his left arm and used it to parry. It was as effective as using a pike. The ordinary sword didn't even make a dent. This did not deter Haurchefant from trying anyway; he struck again and again from all angles, and Blackheart deflected using only his arm, his right arm covering a dramatically fabricated yawn in the process.

Isaaru was the one he really had his eye on. He could smell the stench of "holy" on him. This man was something strong, like a priest or a monk or a…Summoner. Yes, he was definitely a Summoner, for the enormous glowing and sigil-studded circle was forming above his head even then, without him needing to use an implement, and Blackheart's lip curled as the circle erupted into a cannon of light, materializing from it a massive dragon, dark blue with red wings and a golden disk on its back. A Bahamut. Blackheart did not care for Bahamuts.

Isaaru's trusted Bahamut companion Spathi landed on the tile hard enough to shatter it, kicking up fragments. As Isaaru pointed, Spathi opened his jaws wide, charging up a glowing, prismatic energy sphere inside. The disc on his back began to spin as he made his attack more and more potent before release.

"STAND ASIDE!" Isaaru warned. Casey, Haurchefant, and Gus heeded his warning, scattering.

Spathi let the energy out as a gigantic Mega Flare, training the rush of pure, raw magic on Blackheart.

Blackheart rolled his eyes. He really, really did not care for Bahamuts.

The Mega Flare slammed him into the opposite wall, where he left a distinct imprint. He could feel his flesh tearing away. That was always the worst part.

When the attack subsided, he steadied himself on the tile, thinking about how gruesome his wounds must look from the outside. His flesh tingled as it all healed completely over right in front of the aspiring heroes' eyes.

"That smarted," he told Isaaru as though he couldn't actually believe Isaaru would be so mean as to almost disintegrate his entire body.

Isaaru gasped, taking a step back. Spathi had used up all of his staying power on that plane by breaking out his most powerful attack, and promptly dissolved. The stakes were all the higher. What could five ragtag heroes really do against a man who had taken a full-on Mega Flare from the mouth of a Bahamut and live to tell the tale?

The only thing they could do.

Fight all the harder, for this meant that Blackheart was definitely more than capable of breaking through the magical wards Ienzo meant to put on the rest of the populace inside the castle.

Gus, Casey, and Haurchefant swarmed him again. Once more, he ducked a blow from Casey. He parried Haurchefant's sword by lifting his knee this time, just to shake it up. He swatted Gus like an annoying fly.

It was all a diversion to keep him occupied while Isaaru reloaded and he knew it. The next Summon to come forth in a flaming sigil from the floor was a massive Ifrit, horned, bipedal, and long-clawed, one that Isaaru called Grothia. Grothia summoned two spheres of flame, one in each hand, and plunged them toward Blackheart.

"STAND ASIDE!" Isaaru called again, but his companions were already prepared for this. They scattered once more, and Blackheart was engulfed in a column of flame.

He reveled in this one. After all, fire was his element. Hell was the place he had once called home, and still liked to think of as his stomping grounds. He lifted the flames to hold high above his head, like Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders, and once he carried Ifrit's attack above him, he grinned at Isaaru like a child in the candy store.

"That tickled," he laughed. "Also: Hellfire? That's a good one. I'm glad you at least went out on a joke."

He plunged the massive deluge of flame right down into the tiled floor.

It rose up again beneath Isaaru, engulfing him, charring his skin, turning his robes to ash, tearing his body away as he let out one final scream. Within less than half a minute, he was no more, and the fire flickered out.

Shalua very nearly screamed with anguish, but bit her lip hard. She couldn't give away her position yet, not now. She raised her gun, keeping her hand miraculously steady.

The bat came at Blackheart from behind. He crouched, letting it pass over him. He then rose up, grabbing Casey's weapon and wrenching it from his hands.

"STEEEE-RIKE THREE!" Blackheart yelled. "YOU'RE OUT!"

He slammed the bat into Casey's head hard enough to decapitate him, his head soaring across the chapel and smashing into bloody chunks of skull.

As Gus buzzed back toward him, he simply sighed, "Getting tired of you," and grabbed Gus by the neck. His other hand went around the gremlin's waist. With one quick movement – snap. His spine had broken neatly, and the gremlin's lifeless corpse dropped to the ground.

Blackheart's next item of business was dispatching Haurchefant, but the sudden sound of gunfire distracted him. He turned in time to catch Shalua's bullet neatly beneath his teeth. Haurchefant had rushed him again, and he simply backhanded the Elezen aside, letting him live for the time being.

Then Blackheart pulled the bullet into his mouth with his tongue, closing his lips and crunching the bullet to bits in three chews before swallowing it and remarking, "Tasty." Then, "So they set up a hidden sniper. That was almost clever."

He strode a few paces to get a clear view of Shalua, who could no longer hide as he faced the door. "Guns aren't toys for little girls," he said as he began to amass a dark and deadly-looking beam in his hand.

For one horrible moment, Shalua froze. It occurred to her she was good as dead.

The projectile launched, tearing across the chapel straight for her heart.

Instead, it impacted Haurchefant's shield, the silver-haired warrior having slid in front of Shalua and holding the protective implement up. There, the projectile did not stop, still digging into the hard metal until finally, the shield gave way. Blackheart's magic only halted once it had passed completely through Haurchefant, leaving a gaping hole both in his shield and in his body.

A spurt of blood escaped his mouth.

"HAURCHEFANT, NO!" Shalua screamed.

He teetered on his feet unsteadily, dropping the now-useless shield. As he turned to Shalua, she could see that his wound was festering at the edge with tiny black flames that continued to eat through his mail and skin.

"You are unharmed?" Haurchefant coughed. "F-forgive me…I could not bear the thought of…of…oh, Shalua, I regret this had to end so…"

Tears streamed from her only eye.

"Oh, do not look at me so, Shalua," he rasped, somehow still jovial. "A smile better suits a hero…"

Then he slumped to his knees and fell back, stone dead.

Shalua knew she couldn't waste the chance she'd been given. She made to run, but on the first step she took backward, she stumbled, landing hard on her back.

Coils of thick, dark vine held both of her ankles fast to the floor. Blackheart's doing.

"Oh, what a shame," Blackheart mocked as he advanced. "Your boyfriend's sacrifice is going to be all in vain now."

Shalua fired as rapidly as she could. He swatted away each bullet, scattering them around the chapel. When finally he reached her, he put out a hand to her face.

She recoiled, her heart about ready to explode.

And Blackheart simply swiped away her glasses, snapped them in half, dropped them to the ground, stomped on both of the lenses, and began to laugh raucously.

Shalua waited, bound in place, for him to stop finding such a small act of cruelty funny. Then he got a good look at her face and realized the anomaly. "You only have one eye?" A look of shock, perhaps even remorse, crossed his own visage. "I didn't know. I'm so sorry. If I'd've known you only had one eye…I wouldn't have done that. There are a lot of lows I'll sink to, but breaking the glasses of a woman with only one eye isn't one."

She wondered what he could possibly be playing at. He put out a hand, stroking the side of her face with her good eye –

And plunged his thumb into it, his nail sharp as a tack. Red-hot pain shot into her skull, and she screamed hoarse.

"I'd normally just do this instead," he cackled, his smirk returning. "Really, just the glasses? I'm slipping."

Shalua dropped her gun in the agony, and when Blackheart removed his hand from her face, pausing to lick her blood off his thumb, he let her have a moment of pure blindness. Then: "You know, the one bad thing about you being blind is that you won't even see this coming."

He seized her cybernetic arm; she struggled, but couldn't break free. The temperature of his hands increased a thousandfold, melting the metal. He pooled it into his hands, and it levitated in a fluid sphere held in place by magical means.

"This is actually my favorite way of offing one of you I came up with," he remarked casually before holding the molten metal up over Shalua's face, parting his hands, and letting it flow.

Her screams were even better than Isaaru's.

She slumped, her face now a charred skull.

"You know the best part?" Blackheart laughed, thinking the room empty. "You probably all thought you were stopping me from getting to the rest of your PEOPLE. That's on my to-do list, but that wasn't even what I was going for. Literally NONE of you died for anything important." He let himself genuinely smile. "Mortals. They're morons."

The room wasn't empty.

In all the commotion of executing Shalua, Blackheart hadn't noticed the small shape slinking past him. He turned away from the door to the lift station, making his way instead to the passage to the hourglass chamber.

En route, he stepped in a snare of rope, and was temporarily lifted up off his feet.

He gasped. Whoever had laid that trap was good. They'd only had a very short time to rig up the snare to one of the torches overhead.

They'd also thought for some reason that rope could stymie him.

He bent upward to grab the cable with his hands, biting it in half. He landed on his feet as neatly as a cat would. Then he visually located, among all the carnage, the perpetrator.

Little blond Peter raised his pop gun at Blackheart, crying out, "I'M NOT SCARED OF YOU!"

"You're not?" Blackheart asked.

"No!" Peter insisted. "And I'm gonna avenge my friend's brother!"

"Oh, really, now?"

Blackheart zoomed right up close to Peter for his next question: "And how, exactly, are you going to do that?"

The cork of the pop gun bounced off his knee.

Blackheart grinned.

Outside the doors to the Great Hall, in the lift station, the seventh and final warding shield went up, sealing everyone but Ienzo inside – or so he thought. Perhaps more than seven would be better? No, seven would compound as a magical number and bolster the effect more than simply stacking shield upon shield. Besides, he was already drained from casting so many. Another might just make him too weak to use more magic – and he wanted to save a little bit for Blackheart.

He went running after the demon then, thinking the man almost his sole responsibility. He could wait for Merlin and Genie to return, but his heart drove him onward, propelling him to fly solo. This was his castle. His home. His father's home. And these were his friends, the ones who'd given him a second chance.

This was his responsibility.

All of those thoughts dried up like water in the desert sun when he made it into the chapel. First he almost tripped over Shalua's body, gasping at the sight of her ruined face. Before her was Haurchefant, almost completely eaten up by Blackheart's fire. Then Ienzo stepped into the chamber proper to see the rest of it: Gus, facedown, in the center of the room. Not too far from him was the decapitated body of Casey. It didn't take Ienzo long to find Casey's head, and when he did, he nearly vomited.

A weak cry of "H…h…help…" snapped Ienzo to attention. He rushed toward the source of the sound, kicking up the ashes of Isaaru's bones on the way.

Peter lay on the ground, both arms ripped off, bleeding out. His eyes were wide and frantic, and his legs didn't move at all, suggesting they'd been paralyzed in the attack. Ienzo gasped with horror as he came upon the child.

"Help…please…" Peter gasped when he saw Ienzo.

Ienzo knelt, pulling Peter into his lap. He didn't have the medical supplies on hand that were needed to patch such grievous wounds. There was one way he could at the very least stop the bleeding. If he could just stop the bleeding, then the boy could rest, replenish his blood, be given a way to live with prosthetic arms and an alternate method of mobility.

The problem was it involved a brand of magic Ienzo hadn't been able to cast properly since reforming as a whole human being.

"Heal," he said hoarsely, holding up a hand over Peter.

Still the blood flowed. In mere minutes, the boy's veins would empty out. He would be lost. "Heal," Ienzo insisted, pouring all of his energy into the spell that had eluded him ever since he'd regained a heart. "Heal, heal, HEAL! FOR THE LOVE OF KINGDOM HEARTS, HEAL HIM!"

When Ruby finally arrived with Genie and Merlin in tow, they were greeted with the sight of Ienzo kneeling on the floor, cradling the dead boy close to his chest and sobbing heavily.

In the hourglass chamber, Blackheart sized up the enormous glass implement. He was almost impressed by its construction. They'd had to go all the way to a Balmera for that crystal! Who would think to do that? Obviously the nutcases who lived in this castle. They just didn't know when to stop.

Well, today they were about to learn.

He charged up another bolt of Darkness like the one that had killed Haurchefant, loosing it directly into the lower bulb of the hourglass.

The effect was one of the most satisfying things he'd ever done in his life that didn't involve murder or maiming. The glass shattered and came tumbling down in a glittering avalanche of diamond dust. The Balmeran crystal cracked in half, hitting the floor to either side of him in jagged pieces.

It was upon this scene that Merlin, Genie, and Ruby arrived at last. "HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, PAL!" Genie yelled.

"NOT ANOTHER STEP!" Merlin threatened, taking out his wand and aiming it at Blackheart.

"You remember what my eyes do, RIGHT?" Ruby added.

Even Blackheart had to admit that despite being able to withstand a Bahamut's Mega Flare, he probably couldn't hold his own against the combined powers of a Silver-Eyed Warrior, a freed genie, and the famous Merlin himself. They would find some sneaky way to outdo him and immobilize him without killing him, which was Haurchefant's group's mistake not to consider.

He put up both hands, palms outward, and began to walk backward, toward the gaping hole in the wall where Hämsterviel's ship had crashed through. "You got me," he said with a fanged grin. "I surrender. In my defense, Maleficent really, really, REALLY doesn't like being spied on. You might wanna think about today before you make something else that scries."

"Is THAT all you came for?" Ruby shrieked. "All of this to break an HOURGLASS?"

"Well, that was my first priority," Blackheart admitted. Almost to the edge. "Maleficent said I could do anything I wanted after I got that done. I actually WAS going to go kill everyone off I could find after this, but then you three showed up to spoil my fun." A pout.

"Maleficent?" Merlin repeated. "This…all of this, the damage you caused…was ordered by MALEFICENT? I can hardly believe it! I mean, well, yes, I can absolutely believe it, but for all she's done, it's never been this – this – "

"Up close and personal?" Blackheart asked. "Or is 'gory' the word you're looking for?"

"What does Maleficent WANT?" Ruby cried. "WHY IS SHE DOING ALL THIS?"

"Don't ask that," Blackheart replied mischievously. Further and further back, step by step. "Ask what it is you're REALLY dealing with now."

"And, ah, that would be…what?" Genie asked.

Blackheart's heels hung off the edge of the floor; his body was situated in the gap in the wall. Behind him, the wind blew at his back. He spread his arms out wide to either side.

With a smile, he answered, "All the powers of Hell."

Then he tipped gracefully backward, falling right out of the tower.

Ruby, Merlin, and Genie rushed after him. By the time they got to the precipice, Blackheart had taken advantage of being free from the castle's layered enchantments to teleport away. All that was left of him was an evaporating wisp of black smoke.

---

A/N: Super duper trigger warning for graphic violence and character death. One of them is a child. There's also non-con kissing and suicidal implications, but the characters involved in those situations come out all right. Last warning: THINGS GET GRUESOME. GORE, BLOOD, AND A COMPLETE LACK OF GLOVES STAYING ON. Stay safe, readers.