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.

113. Chapter 113

" – and believe me, it was a GOOD thing Duckmue went under," Quackerjack was ranting as he and Megavolt strolled down the hallway of the warship. "Imagine how much the toy industry would've taken a dive if they'd actually managed to pull off a video game that would allow you to simulate a whole other world!"

"I dunno," Megavolt mused. "That actually sounds pretty cool. I mean, who hasn't wanted to play a game where you get to drive a forklift – "

Quackerjack's fiery glare indicated he should drop this subject.

"I mean, actually, I hate forklifts," Megavolt corrected.

Quackerjack shrugged. "Good enough for me."

They had passed the area where the laboratory levers were inset, and Quackerjack halted, leaning back to peer into the small alcove. "Oooooh," he cooed, "what's thiiiis?"

Megavolt backtracked. "I think that Roman Candle guy said that was the 'secret lab' or something," he mused.

"Secret lab!" Quackerjack cried joyfully. "C'mon, Megs, we gotta check it out!"

He seized Megavolt's jumpsuit, hauling him along and eliciting a sudden "WHOA!" as he skidded to where the levers were set in the wall.

"Oh, boy!" Quackerjack cried. "I know what this is! If I were designing a secret lab, I'd make it so that one of these would open up the door, but the OTHER one would unleash some kinda horrible booby trap!"

"Why would you even HAVE that lever?" Megavolt asked.

Quackerjack shrugged. "Don't ask me. I'm insane!"

The duck reached out to touch one of the levers – then withdrew his hand after only brushing it. He had no idea which was which. "Actually," he said, rocking on his heels, "I think YOU should do the honors."

"Is this just so I'll activate the booby trap instead of you?" Megavolt asked in suspicion.

"Oh, no, no, noooooo!" Quackerjack lied. "Trust me, I know which one of these levers would be the real one and which would be the fake! And the right one is…mmmmmmthat one!"

He pointed at what was definitely not the right one.

"Well…" Megavolt thought it over. "You are the kinda guy who'd build this thing anyway, so that checks out. Okie-dokie! Here goes!"

As Megavolt grasped the wrong lever, Quackerjack took three big steps backward.

Down went the lever with a mechanical clack. Three conductors jutted out of the wall, striking the hapless Megavolt with thousands of volts of deadly thunder. The rat convulsed and gave a cry that was partly of pain and partly just of being startled. After all, he'd handled worse strikes than this before.

When the electric barrage subsided and the conductors retracted, Quackerjack was doubled over laughing; he then collapsed and rolled on the floor, guffawing all the harder.

"HEYYYY!" Megavolt accused. "You WERE using me to figure out which one was the right lever!"

"And it was soooooo funny!" Quackerjack laughed, wiping a tear from his eye. "Aw, c'mon, Megs, don't look at me like that! I knew you would be able to handle whatever happened! You're practically invincible, you know!"

"Yeah, but it still hurt!"

"Not REALLY hurt, though! Not permanently!" Quackerjack pouted. "It wouldn't be funny if you actually got hurt."

Megavolt rolled his eyes. "Oh, suuuuuuure."

"Let's just go check out the lab!" Quackerjack sprang to a standing position. "We know which lever is the right one, at any rate!"

"Fine," Megavolt groaned. "I'll do this again – "

His hand settled on the same lever he'd just pulled.

"NONONONONONO!" Quackerjack hurried to catch Megavolt's wrist with his own hand. "You are NOT pulling that one again." He guided his friend's hand to the other lever, having to press his chest to Megavolt's shoulder in order to do this. "THAT one."

"You PROMISE that's the right one?"

Quackerjack put out one hand, curling it all into a fist except a waggling little finger. "Pinky promise!"

Quackerjack could be known to play with people in quite twisted ways. He found things funny that others would find disturbing. However, the duck knew the honor and integrity of a pinky promise, and to this day, he had never broken one, at least not one made to Megavolt. Megavolt hooked the little finger of his free hand around Quackerjack's; "All right. You're telling the truth."

"Now pull that lever!" Quackerjack said, excitedly standing directly behind Megavolt, his hands braced on his friend's shoulders.

Down went the correct lever, and the pair was flipped over into the rollercoaster cart on the other side.

Megavolt gasped; "A ROLLERCOASTER?"

"THIS IS GONNA BE SO MUCH FUN!" Quackerjack squealed as the safety bar went down.

The car plunged, and all four hands went high into the air, accompanied by joyous howling. When they were deposited in the lab at the bottom of the track, both were laughing uproariously.

"I KNEW these were my kind of people!" Megavolt crowed.

"Oh, we are riding that at LEAST once a day!" Quackerjack added.

"Let's go see what other fun stuff they've got in here!" Megavolt cried, and together, he and Quackerjack took off into the depths of the lab.

They knew better than to bother Vexen as he pored over the arrangement of crystals on the table before him; they could practically smell the killjoy vibes emanating from him. Yzma was busy arranging machinery atop her own table, clearly invested in her work. The Potions alcove was empty, and so was the med bay, so Megavolt and Quackerjack proceeded to the only remaining area: the engineers' sector.

Jack Spicer slammed the back panel shut on the newest Jack-Bot model: "Okay. I've situated the Chroma Crystal into the prototype. Now to see if it works." He clapped, calling out, "RISE, JACK-BOT!"

The bot's eye-lights glowed, and it rose to hover a few feet off the ground.

"Okay," Jack went on. "Jack-Bot…CHAMELEON MODE!"

The bot instantly began to turn every color of the rainbow in slow succession, fading from red to orange, from orange to yellow and so on.

"YES!" Jack began to dance in place. "IT WORKED! IT WORKED, IT WORKED, IT WORKED!"

"I'M SO PROUD OF YOU!" Irmaplotz threw her arms around him.

"Nice!" Scarlet Overkill complimented. "So that'll work as camouflage, right?"

"Actually, no," Jack stated. "The Chroma Crystal isn't designed to read and match the bot's surroundings."

"…Then why make it change colors?" Scarlet asked.

"For the aesthetic!" Jack insisted. "Jack-Bot! Bloodlust!"

The bot deepened to crimson.

"Mozenrath's right-hand bot!" Jack called out.

Now it shifted to a brilliant royal blue, gold trimming at its edges.

"Green with envy!"

The truest of greens.

"Circus clown!"

Orange now, with multicolored polka dots.

"Bi pride!"

A gradient from dark pink to navy blue, hitting up deep purple in the process.

"Valentine's day!"

Pink, with bright red hearts throughout.

"CHRISTMAS PLAID!"

Red and green, but in a plaid pattern.

"And most importantly…" Jack snapped his fingers. "Intimidation!"

The entire bot went black, save its blazing red eyes. From deep within, a radio began to blast a hard guitar riff.

"That is SO rad, dude!" Herb Overkill gushed. "We are gonna crash so many parties in style! Which reminds me, I've been working on this awesome new cloaking device. Okay, watch." He heaved off the table a belt the size of a wrestling prize. "So you put this on like this…" He fastened the belt around his slender waist. "And you push this button here…"

With that, Herb and all he was wearing went invisible.

Except for the enormous belt.

"I know, I know," he sighed. "Obvious design flaw. But I'm working on it." With a click, he was back to the realm of the visible.

"Megs!" Quackerjack gasped. "I think we just found our new HOME!"

Jack, Herb, Irmaplotz, and Scarlet all turned to look at the intruding pair. "Oh, hi!" Scarlet cried. "You're two of the new guys, right?"

"Sure are!" Quackerjack affirmed. "Well, technically, three of the new guys." He withdrew Mr. Banana Brain, holding the doll out toward Scarlet. "Don't forget about me, Bea!"

"You guys supervillains?" Herb asked excitedly. "You're totally dressed like supervillains. Please tell me you're supervillains."

"You are CORRECT!" Megavolt raised an arm high, extending the index finger. "I am the one, the only…QUACKERJACK! And with me is the deadly, the dangerous…MEGAVOLT!"

Quackerjack slapped his forehead. "No! I'M Quackerjack! YOU'RE Megavolt!"

"Oh, right," Megavolt realized. "I forgot."

"Yeah, that makes more sense with the whole giant battery thing," Herb admitted. "Not that I'm judgin'. I dig it either way."

"So what do you do?" Jack asked, trying to keep his tone as judgmental as humanly possible. "Pranks and static electricity?"

"Actually, we were hoping to join the engineering crowd here!" Megavolt said excitedly, clasping his hands together. "I'm a technokinetic with the ability to manipulate electricity, and I'm also a great inventor! You ever wanted a light-up sword that radiates heat energy? I've made, like, three of those!"

"Meanwhile, I do gadgets!" Quackerjack chimed in. "Check this out!"

He produced from a hidden pocket what seemed to be an ordinary can with a plastic pop-off lid.

"Ooh, chips!" Jack remarked. "You gonna eat those?"

"No, no, no." Herb put up a hand. "I have so seen this before. This is a can of snakes. Believe me, I've been on the receiving end of so many cans of snakes. And the giving end."

"Awww, I remember the first time you pulled can-of-snakes on me on April Fool's!" Scarlet reminisced.

"Oh, but this is no ORDINARY can of snakes!" Quackerjack emphasized. "Everybody, stand back!"

He set the can on the ground, then quickly pried back the lid and backed away, pulling Megavolt along with him. Several folded pieces of wire and fabric leapt out of the can, then proceeded to explode in a rainbow of fireworks.

Startled by the noise, Jack leapt up at Irmaplotz, who caught him in her arms and pulled him close, as she was a bit frightened herself.

"Using the sudden exposure to oxygen to trigger the powder!" Herb realized, his eyes wide enough to reflect the colors of the blasts. "That is so rad!"

"Okay, so, I'm still learning how any of this 'technology' stuff even works," Irmaplotz reminded the group at large, "and this is kind of a lot to take in at once. First, someone's gonna have to explain to me what a can of snakes is." Once the explosions had subsided, Jack shifted to indicate he wanted back on the floor, and she let him down gently.

"Well," Quackerjack told her smugly, "it's a can…that has snakes in it!"

Megavolt did a double take. "Oh. I finally get it now."

Quackerjack gave him a baffled look.

"But we'd love to have you join the crew!" Herb said pleasantly. "Looks like we're building ourselves a little tech division back here!"

"If this is gonna be a thing," Jack posed, "could we shorten it to TechDiv, and can everyone please remember I came up with that name?"

"Yeah, not really that great at the whole 'remembering' thing," Megavolt admitted. "Sure, I can remember that I had a turkey sandwich for lunch on Friday, June 17th in the park, and the bread was a little stale, but it was whole wheat, so it wasn't like it was gonna taste good anyway. Meanwhile, I don't even remember my own dog's name!"

"You don't have a dog," Quackerjack reminded him.

"Are you sure?" Megavolt asked.

"Pretty sure," Quackerjack replied.

Megavolt shrugged; "Case in point; I don't remember if I have a dog!"

"Oh, honey," Scarlet said sympathetically. "Are you…you know…okay?"

"I'm trying to figure out how to ask this without being rude, but…" Jack tapped his head.

"What, you're asking if I'm cuckoo?" Megavolt said casually. "Crazy? Bananas? Bonkers? All of the above! And proud of it! I think my brain got fried in the same accident that gave me my powers…but then again, I didn't really have street smarts before then, either. I dunno, I just roll with it at this point."

"Well, let us know if there's anything we should do to help you out with things," Scarlet requested, "like writing reminders or…anything, really."

"Well, okay," Megavolt replied. "I mean, I've been doing fine on my own so far, but we'll see."

"Megs is the smartest guy I know!" Quackerjack piped up. "There was this one time when we were gonna break into City Hall, but I accidentally ended up bringing a hair dryer instead of the gadget that was supposed to short out the security system, but he – "

The sudden sound of a voice screaming "CONFOUND THESE DEVICES!" and the noise of metal on metal echoed all the way back to the engineering wing.

Megavolt gasped; "I CAN SENSE AN APPLIANCE IN TROUBLE!" He turned and bolted.

"Gotta go!" Quackerjack waved goodbye, and then used Mr. Banana Brain to say "Seeya soon, June!"

After they'd left, Irmaplotz said, "Okay, am I the only one who REALLY wanted to know where that hair dryer story was going – "

"Nope."

"Me too."

"Why did he even bring a hair dryer?"

"Which leads me to my next question," Irmaplotz went on. "What's a hair dryer?"

What had happened was that Yzma had been attempting to use a microcentrifuge to spin apart one of her potions. However, the machine proved faulty, starting to spin and then stalling at random intervals. So Yzma had done the sensible thing, which was to yell at it and use a small hammer to beat it.

She was not expecting to get tackled by a technokinetic.

"HANDS OFF!" Megavolt yelled at her as he shoved her to the ground. He then immediately sprang up, gathering the microcentrifuge into his arms. "Oh, you poor thing! Was the big bad lady hurting you?"

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" Yzma yelled from the floor.

Quackerjack skidded onto the scene. "YOU! YOU'RE THE ONE!" He pointed accusingly at Yzma. "…What did you do?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Yzma cried in frustration. "ASK HIM!" She pointed at Megavolt.

"She was abusing this poor baby just because he doesn't feel well!" Megavolt protested. "It's okay now, little microcentrifuge. You're safe!"

Yzma pulled herself up via the edge of the table. "…You know, I really wish I could say I was confused, but I've been desensitized to the point where I've already accepted that this is just happening."

"He doesn't like it when you hurt electrical appliances," Quackerjack informed her.

"You do know they can't feel anything," Yzma told Megavolt.

"How DARE you!" Megavolt snapped. "This microcentrifuge is a living being, just like you and me! He has a heart! He has a soul! He breathes and he bleeds!"

"LITERALLY NONE OF THAT IS CORRECT!" Yzma seethed. "TELL HIM, VEXEN!"

"I am staying as far away from this discussion as possible," Vexen stated calmly, not taking his eyes off his crystals.

"You know, somehow I thought he'd jump at the chance to correct somebody and explain how he was right and you were wrong," Yzma said with a shrug. "Go figure."

"Y'know, you could've just asked me to help fix the poor thing up when he wasn't doing what you wanted!" Megavolt argued.

"Oh, and I suppose you know exactly how to configure a microcentrifuge!" Yzma cried, throwing her hands in the air.

"Well, actually…" Megavolt lay the device on the table, bringing out a screwdriver from his utility pocket. "If you're not getting the proper G-force from the sample, that means your rpm is off, and THAT means something's blocking the rotor." He was undoing a panel as he spoke. "I'm guessing metal stress put something out of whack. Anyway, what I'm doing right now is examining the rotor for any – "

As he spewed jargon, Yzma turned to Quackerjack and gave him a very confused shrug. Quackerjack returned it in response.

"And that should fix it right up!" Megavolt returned the panel after making adjustments. "But when all else fails, of course…"

He pointed at the machine, letting a stream of electricity pour from his index finger into the small device. It instantly crackled to life and began to run flawlessly.

Yzma's jaw dropped. "HOW did you do that?"

"Oh, easy," Megavolt told her. "I'm technokinetic!"

"Is that like a technology wizard?"

"More of a mutant, actually."

Yzma shrugged. "You know what? I'll take it."

"Chemistry never was my thing," Megavolt remarked as he watched the little potion sample spin until it pelleted. "I was always more into electrical engineering. Who woulda thought a guy named 'Elmo Sputterspark' would go into THAT field?"

"Is he being sarcastic?" Yzma asked Quackerjack.

"Just go with it," the duck replied.

"Anyway," Megavolt went on, "I sure would like to know how all this solution and reaction stuff really works."

"HA!" Yzma cried triumphantly. "Finally, something I can lecture YOU on in words you don't understand!"

"You really mean it?" Megavolt asked, starry-eyed. "I'm so flattered!"

"Wha – no – I didn't mean it like – " Yzma let out a groaning sigh. "You know what? Yes. I will ramble about anything you want to hear about."

"Cool!" Megavolt cried. "And I could keep fixing your appliances for you so you don't have to abuse them anymore!"

"Hold on a minute," Yzma realized. "You're willing to help me keep my lab space in order in exchange for listening to detailed explanations of my projects?"

"Uh, yeah? Isn't that what we were just talking about? …No, really, now I'm not sure that's what we were talking about."

"How good are you at fetching things?" Yzma asked.

"Uhhh…I'm not sure I get it," Megavolt told her. "How can anyone be BAD at fetching things?"

"You'd be surprised," Yzma said dryly. "Anyhow, bring me a dark ingot. I have several of them stashed in the cabinet to your left, below the – "

He'd already found it. "You want the five-pound one or the seven-pound one?"

"Five."

Megavolt plunked the black metal with its purple sheen onto the table. "What next?"

"There's a sky shark liver in the cabinet above your – "

"Done." Megavolt placed the jar with the organ in it beside the ingot.

"Now chop that up," Yzma commanded.

Megavolt attempted to unscrew the jar, which was the only area of any difficulty in this task. He decided to cut time by giving up. He was going to use his laser pocketknife to slice the liver anyway, so he simply seared through the bottom of the jar to drop the organ out. From there, he diced the sky shark liver into neat squares.

"…How would you like a position as my lab assistant?" Yzma asked tentatively. "You continue to assist me, and I teach you a thing or two about alchemy."

"You BET I'd like that!" Megavolt cried excitedly. "…Wait. Would I still get to work in the TechDiv?"

"The Tech…Div?"

"The Tech Division," Megavolt explained. "The engineer side of the WHAM ARMY. The tall guy in the green suit came up with the name."

"Well, I suppose your powers would be more fitting there," Yzma mused. "Then again, I can't be at my station all the time. All right, we'll split the difference. Half your time with them, half with me. And you don't get him, Vexen!"

"I am still keeping distant from this entire situation," Vexen replied calmly.

"You'll have to excuse him," Yzma explained. "He's usually not like this. Normally, he's even ruder."

"I can do that!" Megavolt said eagerly. "I just know we're gonna be best pals!"

"I'm looking forward to this partnership," Yzma stated. "For once, I actually get to work with someone competent. …More competent than I'm used to, anyway."

"Call me Megavolt!" Megavolt extended his right hand.

"Yzma!" Yzma replied, taking it –

And receiving a sudden snap of static electricity to her palm.

As she shook the pain out of her hand, Megavolt sheepishly explained, "Did NOT mean to do that. You know mutant powers…they get a little out of hand sometimes…"

"Now, to deliver the bad news." Yzma retrieved her scroll, dialing a number. As it picked up, she yelled, "SNIPE!"

"WHAT?" Snipe barked back.

"You are hereby FIRED as my lab assistant!" Yzma snapped.

"Fired?" Snipe replied. "What do you mean, FIRED?"

Yzma's lips curled into a wide grin. Oh, how she did love to use this callback. "It means you're being let go. That you're part of an out – "

"Since when am I your LAB ASSISTANT?" Snipe said gruffly.

Yzma simply hung up without a word.

"Can I hang out with you guys, too?" Quackerjack asked excitedly.

"I suppose I don't see why not," Yzma told him. "As of yet, anyway."

"What can we help you work on next?" Megavolt inquired.

"Well, I've got to examine this potion first," Yzma stated. "I need to know the exact componentry that makes it up."

"So you can concentrate its isotopes?" Megavolt asked.

"…No," Yzma admitted. "Because I keep forgetting that all of my potions look the same, and I'm finally labeling them more clearly. But before I can do that, I need to know what this one IS." She put a small spyglass up to her eye. "Ah! As I thought. Rat transfiguration."

"Keep that stuff away from me," Megavolt warned. "The last thing I wanna do is turn into a giant rat."

Yzma looked to Quackerjack. "Do you wanna tell him?"

"He'll figure it out," Quackerjack assured her.

"Where you come in is with the labelmaker." Yzma gestured to the other device on the table. "I'll need a lot of labels printed in incredibly short order."

"Font preference?" Megavolt asked.

"Surprise me," Yzma told him.

Unfortunately, that was his cue to quite innocently choose Wingdings.

As that situation sorted itself out, Vexen continued to simply ignore it. He'd been focusing on the Key since he'd gotten it back to the laboratory, attempting to figure out what arrangement of Atmosian crystals could possibly amplify it enough to produce portals on the scale of what Mozenrath was looking for.

Finally, only one arrangement remained. It simply had to be correct. All logic pointed to it. The multicolored stones were ringed around the Key, placed at exacting angles, and then activated, their powers linking to one another in a prismatic spiderweb. The threads converged upon the Key, which thrummed with power, rising a foot into the air –

And then collapsing to clink back down onto the table like a harmless marble.

"NO!" Vexen screamed, pounding the table so hard, the crystals jumped. "It was the only way! The only POSSIBLE method! I CANNOT have failed! I…I cannot have failed." He let out a sigh. "No. There must be another way, something I'm missing…"

"Trouble in paradise?"

Mozenrath's voice cut through Vexen's shell of self-pity. He snapped up to see the sorcerer approaching, another figure in tow. A figure who was looking rather wide-eyed around the lab in a way Vexen already didn't like.

"A little ghostie told me you picked up something on Atmos that was supposed to solve my Tesseract problem," Mozenrath went on.

"And it will," Vexen seethed.

"Oh, I have no doubt about that," Mozenrath stated. "However, I thought the process might go a little faster if I gave the project a…boost."

He slammed a certain item down onto the tabletop.

Vexen's eyes widened. "Is that…"

"A pandimensional vortex inducer?" Mozenrath finished for him. "Your job just got a lot easier, didn't it?"

Vexen wasn't certain, at first, how to reply. Then he decided to simply put on a confident façade; "Though my studies lie in more metaphysical matters than technological, the principles cannot be too difficult to reconcile. After all, the difference between magic and science is merely – "

"DON'T," Mozenrath warned. "And I had a feeling this type of tech wasn't your area of expertise."

"I never said - !"

"Which is why I brought you a lab assistant." Mozenrath stepped aside to gesture to the guest. "Vexen, meet Dr. Drakken. Dr. Drakken, this is Vexen."

Drakken stepped forth; "A pleasure to meet you, VEXEN. I'm certain working with someone whose genius nearly rivals my own will be refreshing."

Vexen's left eyelid twitched. "You cannot possibly have the breadth of knowledge I possess regarding matters of magic and technology at play."

"Oh, I have the breadth, all right!" Drakken insisted defensively, far too loudly for Vexen's liking. "I have the breadth AND the depth! Not to mention the HEIGHT!"

Vexen let out a long, loud sigh. "I do not work with…assistants."

"Well, then, it's a good thing you're working with an assistee instead!" Drakken countered. Then, taking a moment to ponder it; "Is that the right word? 'Assistee'? Or is it more like 'assisted'?"

"Clearly, our new roboticist and engineer is more talented in the fields of science and mathematics than he is in grammar and vocabulary," Mozenrath sighed. "All the same, it's clear from an outsider perspective that each of you has something the other needs. For Drakken, he has intimate knowledge of electronics all the way down to nanotechnology, but has never really delved into magic. As for Vexen's case, he's worked with crystals like the stone that sparked a hullaballoo back on Atmos since primary school, but a pandimensional vortex inducer? Well, I'm afraid that's a little beyond him."

"Did you just come down here to belittle me?" Vexen snapped.

"Did you just bring ME here to get belittled?" Drakken added.

"You two are going to be a team for the duration of this project," Mozenrath explained. "Drakken, you bring the knowhow of the vortex inducer. Vexen, you tell him everything you know about that crystal. By the time I come back tomorrow morning, I expect to see a fully functional portal generator here, one that combines both devices into a phenomenally powerful object."

"You CANNOT expect me to put up with this BOOR for such a task!" Vexen argued.

"Excuse you!" Drakken snapped back. "RUDE! Didn't your mother teach you any manners?"

Vexen slammed his hands on the table again, using that as leverage to stand up; "I am well-versed in royal etiquette! I simply CHOOSE not to bestow it upon those who obviously do not DESERVE it!"

"Well, then," Drakken challenged as he glared, "do unto others as you'd have done unto you. I'm rubber and you're glue."

"What does that even – "

"It means everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you, so there!"

"THAT ANALOGY IS SENSELESS! HOW CAN I POSSIBLY BE AFFECTED BY INSULTS TAILORED TO YOUR CHILDISH DEMEANOR?"

Mozenrath rolled his eyes dramatically. "All right, girls, break up the catfight. OW!"

He whipped about to see Megavolt holding a smoking index finger, which he'd used to zap Mozenrath in the posterior. Megavolt immediately pointed that finger to Yzma; "She told me to do it."

"I thought Wuya had shocked all the sexism out of you," Yzma said dryly. "Apparently, I stand corrected."

"All right," Mozenrath muttered as he turned back to the squabbling scientists. "Memo to self: revenge on Yzma and Sparky."

"HEY, I HEARD THAT!" Megavolt cried. "AND I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME THAT!"

"THE POINT IS," Mozenrath growled at Drakken and Vexen, "whether you two like it or not, you need each other's knowledge in order to complete this project, and if I find that you didn't learn to play nice for the sake of THE KEY TO THE ENTIRE OPERATION I'M PLANNING, there are going to be consequences."

Vexen gritted his teeth. "Understood."

"…Consequences?" Drakken repeated. "What kind of consequences are we talking about? Torture? Or just emotional put-downs?"

"I'm just going to let your imagination do my job for me," Mozenrath said slyly. "That will scare you sensible far more than any threat ever could."

Drakken cringed. "So…torture, then."

"Work together," Mozenrath stated. "Combine the devices. Make a portal generator. One night. Your time starts now."

He then turned on a heel and stalked away, cape fluttering.

Vexen and Drakken watched him leave in silence. Then, filled with rage and revulsion, they glared each other down.

"I'm going to go find a boom box," Drakken seethed. "The only way I'm going to get through this night is if I can drown YOU out with the O Boyz."

"If I get through this night without deep-freezing your internal organs," Vexen growled, "it will be perhaps the greatest scientific achievement of my life."

One table over, Yzma, having noticed a cabinet full of potions labeled with pictography, had assigned Megavolt to making a Wingdings translation legend.

...

Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko had been offered a place to stay in the castle, but it was Maki who had stood up and spoken for all three, stating that they'd been through quite enough after a killing game, trying to make their way in their homeworld alone without any guardians, and finally ending up in Dilan's clutches. However, they didn't really have a permanent place in their homeworld to go back to, either.

So a compromise was found. A home whose occupants had been proven dead in the blackout. The Committee gave it a quick renovation, cleaning it up and stocking its pantries with food, before turning the three teens loose on it.

"You sure you're gonna be okay here?" Kazuichi asked anxiously.

"Trying to make it on your own will be hard," Nani added.

"I'm used to doing hard things," Maki insisted, "even if only in my memory."

"And I can solve any problem with magic!" Himiko chirped happily.

Shuichi nodded. "I think what I've learned is that no matter how tough things get, I'll be able to make it through. It's what Kaede and Kaito would want me to do. And you said kids our age could get jobs in this town, right?"

"I'll be a professional magician!" Himiko cried.

"I think I'll pick something a little more boring," Maki huffed. "I've had enough of both assassination and child care."

"Well, I guess I am a pretty good detective." Shuichi shrugged. "I'll see if this town needs some help in that area."

Kazuichi was already sniffling, blinking away tears. "Fuck, you guys," he whined. "You're already so strong and awesome, and when I was your age, I was letting a warlord fashionista talk me into building bombs, not making a happy found family in a cute fairy tale kingdom…" He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. "It's something unpredictable, but in the end, it's right. I hope you have the time of your lives!"

"Are you…uh…are you gonna be okay?" Shuichi asked gingerly.

"Yeah, I just – " Kazuichi choked a moment, then looked at Shuichi with mostly clear eyes. "I just wanna thank you guys for taking care of your Kaito. At least one of our Kaitos should get a happy ending, right? Okay, happy-ish. Or, y'know, less being horribly slaughtered by a traitor." He swallowed hard. "It's…really kinda sad. Because this just proved that Kaito is the guy I still love the most, IN A FRIEND WAY, but you were better to him in a month than I was in all the years we were buddies."

Shuichi stepped forward and gently put a hand on Kazuichi's shoulder. "Your Kaito wasn't so bad off," he assured. "If he saw you now, he'd be so proud of – HEY!"

Kazuichi had swept Shuichi into a tight hug. "No, he wouldn't," the pink-haired man sobbed, "but you gotta stop sayin' shit like that, or I'm not gonna be able to stop cryin' all day!"

He let Shuichi go. "Come visit, okay?" he implored. "Or call me!" He held up his GummiPhone, of which the three survivors of the Academy for Gifted Juveniles had copies.

"I will," Shuichi promised.

"We'll see," Maki huffed.

"I will call you AND I will text you!" Himiko insisted.

"I just feel kind of bad dropping you off here," Nani sighed.

"It's a lovely house," Shuichi assured her.

"I know that," Nani groaned. "It's just…the neighbors."

"What about them?"

"Let's, uh…not tell them that just yet," Kazuichi implored. "I mean, we don't have any proof things'll go wrong. Oh, that reminds me, I gotta go next door and drop off the good news that I'm fine."

"We'll meet you back at the castle," Nani told him as she, Aerith, and Leon turned to leave.

All parted ways, leaving Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko alone in their front yard. "So…this is it," Shuichi remarked. "We finally found a place where we belong."

"I know I said I didn't want to take care of any more children," Maki grunted, "but we're not kids anymore. Not after what we've been through. So if I decide I'm going to take care of the both of you, that won't be as bad as a child. And I'm going to do it."

"I'll help, too!" Himiko insisted. "This is just the start of our grand magical adventure! Ahead of us lie treacherous fields of enemies and untold riches! From here forward, our lives will be filled with wonder and amazement!"

A water balloon filled with maple syrup drove both the point home and itself into Maki's face, exploding and leaving her covered with sticky sugar.

"NICE SHOT, LANCE!" a high-pitched boy's voice howled across the adjacent yard.

Maki whirled to glare murderously at the neighbors Nani had warned her about. "YOU."

Pietro Maximoff was already doubled over laughing, and Lance Alvers let out a loud snort upon seeing Maki's face directly, being that half of it was covered in syrup. "What," Lance taunted, "mad because it's gonna take forever to wash out of your pretty hair?"

"Do you want to die?" Maki hissed. A flash of silver, and she brandished a butcher knife that no one had realized she'd been carrying.

"MAKI, NO!" Shuichi cried.

"UH-OH!" Pietro sped a full 360 around the house and back into it, leaving Lance completely in the dust.

"PIETRO!" Lance screamed, bolting away from the charging Maki. "YOU JERK! IF I SURVIVE THIS, I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"

"MAKI!" Shuichi yelled as he and Himiko chased after the young assassin. "CALM DOWN!"

At the very least, all parties involved would get some good cardio in over the next quarter hour.

...

Mozenrath knew that the situation he walked in on in the lab would be less than ideal. Asking Vexen and Drakken to get along was a fool's errand. Still, Mozenrath was rather famed for trying what people thought only fools could achieve and expecting to triumph. Not to mention that the fallout was sure to be entertaining if nothing else.

Already, riding the coaster down to the lab, he had his ear out for the cacophony that had surely erupted. He wasn't sure what to expect. Screams? Breaking glass? The clash of weaponry?

As it became clear that none of these things was audible, Mozenrath figured one of them had just killed the other. Vexen had probably disposed of Drakken. A quick resurrection would fix that.

The sorcerer landed, smirking as he beheld the sight of Vexen's lab table.

It took him a few minutes to actually process what he was looking at.

A boom box sat to the side, softly playing a song about wanting one's way to a sickeningly infectious pop beat. Drakken was taking a miniature welding torch to the device before him as Vexen carefully arranged crystals within it.

"…but they LAUGHED at me!" Drakken was explaining from beneath a metal mask. "I thought they WANTED dates to the dance! And my robots were advanced! …For the time."

"I don't doubt it," Vexen said as he shook his head. "Ingrates, all of them. If only I weren't familiar with the feeling."

Drakken lifted his mask to give Vexen a plaintive look. "Could they not see the pain in my eyes? Can YOU not see the pain in my eyes from remembering that fateful day?"

"Safety," Vexen said curtly as he lowered Drakken's mask back over his face. "But also, yes."

"And that's what led to the whole Bebe thing I mentioned earlier," Drakken said with a rather nervous laugh. "That should tell you everything you wanted to know…"

"I believe the question I asked, Drakken, was why you were no longer employing the Bebes, given their proficiency."

After Drakken was silent a long time, Vexen sighed. "They decided they were too intelligent to take orders from their creator, didn't they?"

"NO!"

"It's really nothing to be ashamed of. More common than you would think in academic circles, actually. Not that you're to be blabbering this about the base, but I had a similar problem with the prototype replica I developed in Castle Oblivion."

"Ooh, really?"

"The concept was supposed to be flawless! But once he developed his own sense of identity – "

Mozenrath was done trying to make sense of this. He stormed up to the table, snapping, "WHAT HAPPENED HERE?"

Vexen and Drakken both looked at him in mild surprise; Drakken clicked off the torch so he could remove the mask and look Mozenrath in the eye. "Is…there a problem?" the blue-skinned man asked gingerly.

"You…you two were at each other's throats when I left!" Mozenrath sputtered. "You HATED each other! And now you're just…GETTING ALONG?"

"Oh, do not misunderstand." Vexen shook his head. "I may yet murder Drakken if these horribly catchy 'O Boyz' songs remain in my mind for as long as I fear they will."

"You're all talk," Drakken countered. "Also, you were singing 'Quit Playing Games With My Head' on that last round."

"Stockholm Syndrome. I blame you."

"HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?" Mozenrath yelled. "WHY ARE YOU TWO FRIENDS NOW?"

Drakken folded his arms. "Why do YOU care?"

"It isn't as though we owe you an explanation," Vexen said sternly.

Mozenrath stared them both down.

Drakken's resolve dropped first; "We, ah…we don't really remember."

"At some point, I developed a tolerance, I suppose," Vexen stated. "Truly, he isn't as unprofessional as I thought."

"And I'm trying to prove my hypothesis that Vexen has a fun side," Drakken said with a toothy grin.

"You never will," Vexen challenged.

Mozenrath sighed, pinching a brow with his right thumb and index finger. "You know what? I don't care. I don't even care anymore. Just please tell me that in the midst of doing whatever this is, you made me a portal generator."

"In fact, you've arrived just in time!" Drakken let out a cackle. "Allow us to present to you…" He fired a glance over his shoulder at Vexen. "Did you want to, or should I…?"

"By all means," Vexen encouraged, "do the honors. I prefer to let my work speak for itself; the pageantry will be more fulfilling to you."

"Then ALLOW US TO PRESENT…" Drakken repeated, standing aside to gesture to the device with both hands. "THE PANDIMENSIONAL ORACULAR TESSERACT-ALTERNATIVE TELEPORTATION ORGANIZER! …The name still needs work."

"…That acronym spells 'POTATO,'" Mozenrath said flatly.

Vexen sighed. "I told you he'd notice."

Mozenrath surveyed the light blue metal box on the table, giving a slight smile. "It actually echoes a scaled-up Tesseract in its design. Clever."

"Wait until you see what it looks like on the inside!" Drakken waved him over as he lifted the upper panel. Mozenrath peered inside to see a glittering arrangement of crystals positioned around the pandimensional vortex inducer.

"And the Oracle Stone is inside the vortex inducer," Drakken explained, "connected to its circuitry with the most advanced magitech fusion known to humanity! However, we can't show you that part without risking collapsing the entire warship into a vortex that would erase us all from existence permanently."

"Past, present, and future," Vexen affirmed with a nod.

Mozenrath shrugged. "Well, what is life as a conqueror without a little danger?"

"EXACTLY!" Drakken crowed.

"I'm impressed," Mozenrath stated. "It seems this unconventional friendship paid off with interest. Well done. I'm actually looking forward to seeing what you two come up with in the future."

"Well, are YOU ever in for a treat!" Drakken swung his fist. "Because Vexen and I have brainstormed a veritable TORRENT of ideas for our next advancements!"

"Once Atlantean crystal energy is within our grasp," Vexen stated with a cruel-looking smirk, "our combined knowledge shall make the possibilities limitless."

"And I have SO many other boy bands to introduce you to while we work on them!" Drakken insisted excitedly.

Vexen shut his eyes. "I hate that you've made me love this one. Please spare me any more."

"I'll just…leave you to it," Mozenrath decided. "Obviously, you have more commiserating to do, and I have other affairs to tend to."

As he turned, he lingered a bit some feet away from the table, hoping if he listened in on the conversation, he could make some sense out of anything that had just happened. Vexen and Drakken should have been oil and water.

"You were telling me about the replica prototype?" Drakken stated.

"An insolent, bratty teenage boy," Vexen sighed. "Perhaps that was the first mistake…designing him after the rebellious youth."

"Ooooooh, yeah, wrong move. You know, I have some workarounds if you want to try with replicas again. A couple blueprints from leftover mind control devices. Did I tell you yet about the time I tried to hack MP3 frequencies to create an army of teenage mind-slaves?"

"No. Do tell."

"Well, I, ah…hacked the frequency of hearing aids instead. But you'd be surprised at how effective an army of the elderly can be!"

"Knowing Yzma, I'm actually not."

"That was the adventure where I tasted the best lemon squares I've ever known," Drakken said wistfully. "I've never found any that matched up to Nana Possible's since then."

After a short silence, Vexen ventured, "I always was fond of lemon-flavored treats. All too many people write them off for being too sour. Sour does not mean devoid of value."

"You know what? You're so right! …Wait a minute, are you talking about the lemons or is this a metaphor for you?"

"It…may be a metaphor for me."

"Huh."

Mozenrath rolled his eyes and moved on. He wasn't going to get anywhere this way. Some things would just have to remain mysteries.

...

"WE'RE HOOOOOOOME!" Ruby Rose shrieked as she burst into the castle foyer. "AND WE BROUGHT FRIEEEEEENDS!"

"You wanna say that a little louder?" Rainbow Dash winged in after her. "I'm not sure the entire castle heard you."

"See, I'm pretty sure that you're being sarcastic," Ruby replied, "but I also recognize there's a nonzero chance you actually want me to try and get the whole castle on alert."

After them filed the Storm Hawks, all of whom except Stork were gaping at the castle's interior. "Whoa," Piper said in a hushed tone. "It's – "

"Kinda busted up," Finn observed.

"Finn!" Piper chided. "Be nice!"

"And this is a real actual castle!" Junko argued. "It doesn't have to be fancy!"

"Yeah, well, blame Mozenrath and Quicksilver for that," Ruby sighed.

"Who are they?" Aerrow asked.

"The two worst people you're going to meet here," Ruby growled.

"Quicksilver is not that bad," Rapunzel argued as she followed the crowd inside. "This is going to be so exciting. New teammates means new friends!"

Finally, Lea and Roxas filed in. The former had his arms hugged around his chest to stave off the shivers while the latter regarded him anxiously. "I really think you should get that checked out," Roxas said worriedly. "It's not going away, and your hair just keeps getting whiter."

"I'm f-f-f-ffffine," Lea chattered. "It's j-just a ch-ch-chill. I'll h-have Yen Sid look at it in the morning."

"Yeah, you're gonna die before then," Stork guessed.

"Will you knock it off?" Lea snapped. "I'm not g-g-gonna d-die. Geez. Anyway, you're the one who r-really needs to t-t-talk to somebody about th-that – "

Rapunzel made a sharp, high-pitched noise as she waved her hand in front of her neck.

"No, I know," Stork sighed. "The sooner I diagnose the evil within, the sooner I know if I need to die to take it out."

"No one is going to die," Rapunzel stated definitively. "We are going to figure things out."

"Yeah, well, I'm gonna get upstairs and get about five blankets on me with a space heater going," Lea grumbled as he pushed past the others. "You guys don't worry about it."

As he entered the lift station, Rapunzel asked Roxas, "Is he always like this?"

"He doesn't really…like to let on that he's not in control," Roxas sighed. "He always thinks he has to control everything. That was one of the problems we had back in the Organization. He thought he could fix everything without making waves, so he kept stuff bottled up. But so long as he shows up for training tomorrow, Yen Sid will have to see what's going on, and no way is he gonna take a sick day with his pride."

"Well, that's one mysterious infection down," Stork remarked. "One to go."

"Hm." Ruby thought it over. "How about we try and find somebody who knows a lot about Dark magic? That way, we could get it off your mind, or at least start looking for a solution."

"I like the way you think," Aerrow told Ruby with a smile.

Ruby gave a rather nervous chuckle. "It's…basically like everybody else thinks. Just…Rubier."

Then she very nearly kicked herself.

"Ah, Miss Rose!" Merlin had strode into the atrium. "I had thought I heard your call from several rooms away!"

"TOLD you," Rainbow Dash huffed.

"A successful quest, I take it?" Merlin asked, surveying the youths assembled before him. "Ah, so these are the infamous Storm Hawks! I hadn't wanted to risk altering the future by providing advance knowledge, but I've happened to glimpse this fine squad quite often in years to come, and therefore was fairly certain everything would go all right!"

"DUDE!" Finn cried excitedly. "You can see the FUTURE?"

"Why, I can see a great many things," Merlin explained. "Not all of which are privy to mortal knowledge, mind you."

"Oh, yeah?" Finn leaned forward, arms crossed, as he gave Merlin side-eye. "But can you see why kids love Honey Cirrus Flakes?"

"Two words," Merlin replied. "Refined sugar."

"Oh, he's goooood," Finn whispered to Junko as Stork sighed and buried his head in his hands.

"Um, Merlin?" Ruby stepped forward. "Actually, we have a question, and you might be the one person here who would know the answer to it."

"Stork had kind of an…incident back in Atmos," Aerrow chimed in. "He blacked out during a Post-Traumatic Sky Shock episode, and then, during his delusions, he started showing off powers we didn't know he had."

"Powers I STILL don't know if I have," Stork pointed out. "I may or may not have been trying to make things explode with my mind the whole way here. None of it worked."

"Like, things nopony would miss, or…?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to," Stork replied ominously.

"Hmm." Merlin thought it over. "I suppose it is possible for latent magic to manifest out of the subconscious, but it is equally possible that outside interference was at play."

"We never thought of that!" Piper realized.

"Wait," Rapunzel clarified. "So you're saying that somebody else put an evil spell on Stork, and that's why everything went all…Dark?"

"At this point, I have no way to tell," Merlin stated.

"Hang on!" Roxas retrieved his GummiPhone. "I've got it on video! I can show you!"

He ran up to Merlin to give him a view of the screen. Ruby, Aerrow, and Stork crowded behind him, eager for answers.

"While they're doing that," Rapunzel suggested, "why don't we get the rest of you settled in?"

"TOUR! TOUR! TOUR!" Junko and Finn cheered as Radarr chattered enthusiastically.

"We're gonna make this lightning-fast!" Rainbow Dash bragged.

"But the point of a tour is to take it slow enough that you can enjoy everything you're seeing!" Rapunzel argued.

That contingent moved toward the lift station doors, and on the way out, Rapunzel lightly tapped Stork on the shoulder. He glanced to her ever so subtly.

"It's gonna be okay," Rapunzel whispered.

Stork gave her the smallest of smiles, then a barely-perceptible nod.

As the tour group went in, another group came out: Leon, Buzz Lightyear, Mira, Booster, and XR. "Well, it's been an honor seeing all the good you're doing from this outpost," Buzz told Leon, "but with Hater still out there, we've gotta keep on the move."

"What do you wanna bet that idiot sent Mira another 'love letter' transmission that we can trace right to him?" XR posed. "Not that I blame him…heh heh."

Mira rolled her eyes with a scoff.

"Anyway, do I hear two unibucks?" XR called out. "Two unibucks, anybody?"

"It was real nice of you to offer us a place to stay here," Booster told Leon. "I'm almost sorry we can't."

Buzz put out his right hand; "You're a good man, Leon. Take care."

Leon grasped Buzz's hand and shook it once. "And you keep things safe out there in interspace."

"All right, everybody!" Mira clapped. "Last bathroom break and then we hit the road!"

And that would have been the end of it.

Except that at that moment, the audio from Roxas' phone a couple feet away quietly but clearly stated, "The name's Darkmatter, Warp Darkmatter, and I'm here to tell you you're messing with forces you don't wanna be!"

Buzz tensed immediately, his blood running cold. Then he bolted around to get a look at the phone. "Did I just hear the name DARKMATTER?" he asked in a near frenzy.

"Plot twist!" XR cried.

Ruby pointed to the screen, where Warp and Amora were counting down to Aggar's execution. "You know that guy?"

"KNOW that guy?" Buzz repeated. "Warp and I are old enemies! He's one of the most dangerous people in all the worlds! We thought he was off the grid!"

Aggar's blood splattered.

"But clearly," Buzz growled, "we were wrong."

"Hey, hey, let me get a look!" Mira led Booster and XR around to glimpse the screen as well. "Wha – it really is him!"

"How'd you get video footage of Warp Darkmatter?" Buzz asked. "What world is this on?"

"Atmos," Aerrow replied. "Land of a thousand mountaintop kingdoms."

"But there's kinda…no guarantee he's even there anymore," Stork pointed out. "After all, he was working with Maleficent, who tends to just dispatch her little pals to worlds at random to cause chaos we can't possibly predict and could in fact be destroying civilizations as we speak."

"Y'know, I wanna say he's overreacting," Ruby admitted, "but he's kinda not overreacting."

"Tell me more about this…Maleficent," Buzz demanded.

"She's horrible," Roxas stated.

"She's an enemy of all that is good!" Merlin huffed. "Our own personal oldest archnemesis, and a former tyrant of this very kingdom! We've had to renovate to make up for her destructive rampages several times over by now!"

"Now I remember," Buzz mused. "Soda said the same thing."

"Wait." Ruby's head flicked toward Buzz. "You were with Kazuichi? Why do I just know he got in some kind of serious trouble while we were gone?"

"Because he did," XR stated, "which is apparently a repeat occurrence around these parts."

Suddenly, Booster cried out, "THAT'S SO COOL!". The descent of the train Attraction Flow had begun.

"I know, right?" Ruby chirped. "That's why Keyblades are so awesome!"

"I knew they were cool," Booster replied, "but I never knew they could do something like that!"

Ruby suddenly really got a good look at the boy she was talking to for the first time. "Whoa," she whispered, eyes wide. "You're taaaaaall."

"I, uh…" Booster flushed, putting one hand behind his head.

"That's a good thing!" Ruby said hurriedly. "You never have to use a stepstool to get to the cookie jar on the high shelf, which is only on the high shelf because your sister put it there, so of course it turns out she ALSO hid the stepstool so you couldn't get up, and now she's hiding somewhere in the kitchen WATCHING YOU TRY TO GET JUST ONE COOKIE DOWN – "

"I'm sensing some…personal issues?" Mira broke in.

Ruby folded her arms. "YANG ISSUES." She then sighed. "…I miss her."

"I'm sure this tangent is going somewhere incredibly heartfelt," XR told her as he patted her shoulder in mock sympathy, "but we are getting incredibly off-topic. Is anybody going to explain how WARP DARKMATTER GOT INVOLVED IN THIS WEIRD COSMIC WAR YOU'RE IN?"

"No need to explain," Buzz said as he turned away. "I've seen enough." He began to pace back and forth with deliberate footsteps. "Hater's one thing, but he gets in his own way. He's never really managed to pull off a legitimate conquest. Darkmatter, on the other hand…he's a higher priority."

"Um, okay, Buzz?" Mira broke in. "Are you saying this because it's true, or are you just saying this because of your whole weird history with Warp?"

"You know," XR whispered to Stork, "I have money on him admitting one day that they're bitter exes."

"Thaaaaat's nice," Stork replied. "I have no idea who we're even talking about."

"Whatever background I have with Warp Darkmatter doesn't make it untrue that he's a threat," Buzz pointed out. "Not to mention…this could be the key to the other missing piece."

"Ohhhh," Booster realized. "You mean Zurg."

"Zurg?" Merlin repeated. "As in Evil Emperor Zurg?"

"The very same," Buzz confirmed. "After NOS-4-A2 mutinied against him and hijacked Planet Z, Zurg disappeared, presumably to try and rebuild from another base."

"Yeah, we think he was mostly just angry because the giant 'Z' on the front of his tower got turned into an 'N,'" Mira explained, "and he couldn't put it back, so he either had to change his name to Nurg or move to a different base."

"That kind of villain, huh?" Leon remarked.

"The longer Zurg's been in hiding," Buzz mused, "the more suspicious I've been. Where is he, and when is he planning to strike? Could he be connected to all of this?"

"And Warp is his right-hand man!" Mira realized.

"Oh, please," XR huffed. "The man would switch sides for a bag of chips, so long as he got to do something textbook evil."

"Maybe so," Buzz muttered. "Still, it's the only lead we have."

"Y'know, I was on the fence about Warp versus Hater," Mira admitted, "but if this goes all the way up to Zurg…this really is a higher priority."

"Does that mean we get to stay?" Booster asked hopefully.

"Oh, we're staying," Buzz affirmed. "Soon as I patch back to Nebula the latest report and let him know we're on Zurg's trail now. Team Parsec can pick up Hater detail."

"Oh, suuuuure," XR groaned. "Send the team with my ex on it to go after the big money. She won't let me live this down for weeks."

"Hey, Petra's on that team too, and you don't see me complaining!" Booster argued. "I'll be happy if she helps bring in Hater before I get the chance!"

"Y'know, I only just realized that Team Parsec has one of all of our exes?" Mira said in confusion. "Fop Doppler's co-pilot, and, well…"

Buzz fended off three stares from his teammates. "What?" he asked. "I don't have an ex on Team Parsec!"

"Suuuuuure," Mira replied teasingly.

"Riiiiiight," Booster chimed in.

"Definitely NOT Captain Ty Parsec himself," XR stated cheekily.

"How many times do I have to – " Buzz groaned. "We're just friends!"

"For now," Mira stated.

"Dooooooo I hear twenty unibucks?" XR asked.

"No," Mira told him, "because nobody's gonna bet against that."

"I will," Ruby volunteered. "Twenty of your money that that guy and that other guy are NOT going to end up together."

"Why are you betting?" Roxas asked.

"Because they're part of our team now," Ruby responded. "It…just kinda felt right that we start getting some bonding in."

The video ended, and Merlin turned to Stork. "Well, this is a predicament indeed," he stated. "I can't quite tell what the source of the episode was, and I'm certainly not about to induce another bout of stress into you to repeat the results. We'll simply have to monitor your condition. Thankfully, it only manifested once, under extreme duress, and is highly unlikely to happen again outside of very special circumstances, leading me to believe your powers are either incredibly deep-seated or the cause of outside interference. Not to mention that once the root of the stress was removed, the Dark went with it. With the support network you currently have, we should have no trouble keeping you safe!"

"So basically, you're saying I have two weeks to live," Stork extrapolated.

"That is most certainly the OPPOSITE of what I said," Merlin sighed. "Why don't you take your mind off the matter for a little while and help escort our new friends – our new non-Storm-Hawk friends, that is – around the castle?"

"TOUR TIME!" Ruby hopped up and down, clapping. "Okay, honesty time, I was kinda jealous that the others got to do a castle tour without us."

"Haven't you seen all the castle?" Roxas reminded her.

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" Ruby shrieked. "THE POINT IS WE GET TO BE TOUR GUIDES!"

Buzz looked to Leon once more. "I'm looking forward to working with your operation."

"And I am with yours," Leon replied calmly.

"This is gonna be so awesome!" Booster gushed as the new crew contingent made their way into the lift station. "I just can't wait for us all to become best friends!"

"Me either!" Ruby squealed.

XR shrugged. "Well, there are worse places to spend shore leave than a multimillionunibuck fortress of luxury."

...

"FINALLY!" Yzma cried as she stacked up the last of her freshly re-labeled potion vials in a gigantic pyramid, a sole vial of human transfiguration potion making up the very top of the structure. "Organized to perfection!"

"Thank you!" Megavolt replied. "Or was I supposed to say 'You're welcome'?"

"You knowwww," Quackerjack teased, "this looks like a serious temptation to do a little BOWLING!"

"Don't you dare!" Yzma seethed at him.

In a flash of green, Wuya, who'd regained human form a while ago, appeared behind Yzma, playfully putting her hands on Yzma's shoulders to peer out from behind her like a spy looking around a corner. "Now, that's what I call organized to perfection," she mused.

"RIGHT?" Yzma gestured at the pyramid.

"However," Wuya went on, "it also looks like an enormous temptation for some of the more immature members to decide to take up bowling."

"SEE?" Quackerjack huffed.

"I'd move that if I were you," Wuya told Yzma.

"No one's going to knock it over!" Yzma protested.

The rollercoaster cart came to an abrupt stop, and Zevon, who hadn't kept his arms and legs inside the cart at all times, was hurled directly into the glass pyramid, knocking it over in a clatter of tinkling glass. The only vial to survive was the human potion, which landed in Yzma's hands after some fumbling.

Quackerjack simply stared at the scene, stone-faced.

"I thought you'd think that was funny," Megavolt told him.

"Comedy is about subversion of expectations," Quackerjack replied. "We all KNEW somebody was gonna crash into that thing right when she said that."

"Well, I didn't," Yzma seethed, "and I think it's THE LEAST HUMOROUS OUT OF ALL OF US!"

"Oh, sweetie." Wuya began rubbing Yzma's tensing shoulders. "Don't get mad. Get even."

"That's the worst part!" Yzma groaned. "I can't take revenge on my own son!"

Zevon sat up from the puddle of pink. "MOTHER!" he cried. "I HAVE COME TO – "

Then the potions took effect, and he turned into a fish.

"NO!" Zevon bellowed as he flopped up and down. "I'VE BEEN TRANSFORMGURED INTO A – "

"STOP!" Yzma cried. "DON'T SAY IT!"

"What?" Megavolt scratched his head.

"He's a humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa," Yzma explained. "Trust me. You don't even want him to try."

She uncorked the vial, dumping its contents onto Zevon, who scrambled out of the mess of broken vials as soon as he had human legs once more. "I HAVE COME TO ANNOUNCIATE SOME NEWS!" he declared. "ALSO, THERE ARE MULTIPLICITIOUS SHARDS OF GLASS DIGGING INTO MY BODY, BUT I AM IGNORANCING THE PAIN!"

He reached into his pocket, producing the Toru Diamond so he could hold it aloft. "BEHERALD! THE FIRST OF THE GEMS OF THE CORONA AURORA!"

"WONDERFUL!" Yzma cried, clapping her hands together.

"Nice find," Wuya congratulated.

"Now only four more to go," Zevon cackled, "and I will be capabilitous of unleashening ULTIMATION POWERS! Until then, I will have to lock this up for safetykeeping."

"You do know that the gems have powers on their own, right?" Wuya informed him.

Zevon blinked at her. Then, finding his voice, "Yes! Of COURSE I knew! I'm not an imbecidiot!"

"Either he's pronouncing a lot of words wrong," Megavolt mused, "or I'm suddenly learning that I'VE been pronouncing a lot of words wrong my whole life."

"He's one hundred percent serious," Wuya sighed.

"Ah, the new engineericals!" Zevon identified. "Megajack and Quackervolt!"

Megavolt shrugged. "Eh. Close enough."

"Y'know," Quackerjack mused, "I kinda like the sound of 'Quackervolt'…"

"Oh, oh!" Megavolt cried. "If that diamond gives you new powers, maybe we should make you a cool new weapon to mount it in so you can more accurately aim it at your enemies! It'll also do wonders for your aesthetic!"

"A CAPITALIZATIONED IDEA!" Zevon cried, wide-eyed. "I will have only the most elegornate of weaponries to situationate the Toru Diamond! Then I will be able to channel its powers to double or even triple my attack capacitority!" His face fell. "If only I knew what weapon I truly wanted! A sword? An axe? A kusarigama?"

Wuya flinched. "Did he just pronounce 'kusarigama' right?"

"I'm scared too," Yzma whispered.

"Well, then we gotta make you all kinds of 'em so you can test 'em out!" Megavolt gasped.

"Won't that take an eternitality?" Zevon asked.

Megavolt grinned. "Not necessarily."

Yzma gasped. "Megavolt! You're not thinking what I'm thinking?"

Megavolt raised his index finger into the air; "We'll be able to save so much more time…IF WE DO IT AS A MONTAGE!"

"EXCELLENT!" Yzma cried. "We must get to work at ONCE!"

"Do you have any idea what they're talking about?" Wuya whispered to Quackerjack.

The duck shrugged. "He says stuff like this all the time. You kinda gotta just go with it. Not to mention you can't question what happens next."

"What happens ne – "

...

As Megavolt calibrated the circuitry inside of a sword handle, Quackerjack pounded out its blade into a pleasing sharpness, watching the metal slowly cool from red-hot to gleaming silver.

...

"TA-DAAAA!" Megavolt cried as he offered the sword out to Zevon. "The diamond goes in the pommel, and the circuits should conduct its natural energy to power the sword!"

"WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" Wuya looked left, then looked right, then twirled a 360. "We were just – and then – and all of a sudden – ohhhh, I give up."

"Someone hasn't done montages enough, I see," Yzma muttered.

"I TOLD you not to question it!" Quackerjack huffed.

"I am also surprisartlingly free of injuriousness," Zevon observed.

"That's because you spent your part of the montage in the med bay getting cleaned up," Yzma told him flatly.

"I have no memorizationy of this!" Zevon declared, oddly proudly.

"Give the sword a shot!" Megavolt told him. "I wanna see how cool it looks!"

Zevon gladly accepted it, fitting the diamond into the pommel. The sword gleamed with an iridescent aura upon contact, and Zevon swung it about. "Hmm…I am uncertaintous," he mused. "Something about the feel of this weapon does not fit me."

"Well, we're just gettin' warmed up!" Megavolt proclaimed. "How about you try THIS on for size?"

Wuya flinched; "Are you about to do that thing again – "

...

Megavolt and Jack Spicer argued over the placement of wires in a long handle while Quackerjack and Yzma ground both sides of a double-bladed axe.

...

"And here we are, I suppose," Wuya sighed as Megavolt offered Zevon the axe.

"Wait a minute!" Jack cried. "HOW DID I GET TALKED INTO THIS?"

"You put the diamond in the CENTER of the blades of this one!" Megavolt explained. "That shortens the circuit for even more raw power!"

The aura once again surrounded the axe, and Zevon swung it experimentally. "It still does not fit my aesthetyle," he muttered. "Not to mentionate its reach is shorter!"

"Hold on," Megavolt told him. "I wanna try a different direction."

...

Next, Megavolt handed Zevon a scythe. "Try now!"

"Wait," Wuya realized. "When did we make that? HOW did we make that?"

"I…think I was involved?" Drakken, who had shown up, piped up. "Somehow?"

Zevon shook his head. "It doesn't work!"

"All right," Megavolt mused. "Time to pull out the big guns."

...

"Oh, you meant LITERAMENTALLY!" Zevon realized as he hoisted up the diamond-powered missile launcher.

"Yeah!" Herb Overkill asserted. "The horrible puns are part of the fun of being a mad scientist!"

"Are you aware of how we even got here?" Wuya asked him.

"Stop pointing it ouuuuut!" Megavolt whined. "People don't notice unless you point it out!"

"Point what ou – " Herb realized it then. "Wait. I don't remember actually helping you make that thing."

"This is too…too modernizationed!" Zevon complained. "I want something older-fashioneder!"

"Coming right up!" Megavolt proclaimed.

...

Zevon scowled over the upper edge of the shield that had the diamond set at its center. "I'm not VEXEN, you know!"

"EXCUSE YOU!" Vexen cried. "I am standing DIRECTLY BEFORE you, and as you'll recall, this was my idea! And I didn't hear you complaining when I suggested it!"

"Yes, but do you remember suggesting it?" Wuya asked.

"I – " Vexen stopped short. "Wait. Something isn't right."

"YOU ARE RUINING MY MONTAGE WITH YOUR NITPICKS AND YOUR LITERALIZATION!" Megavolt shrieked.

"Yeah," Yzma asserted. "Stop being a killjoy."

"YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS," Wuya seethed, "AND YOU WON'T TELL ME?"

"It's rather difficult to explain," Yzma admitted. "But I'll try as the next weapon is forged. See, sometimes, when a series of actions have to take place rapidly – "

...

"So this is what a kusarigama is," Zevon realized as he fiddled with the chain and hand-scythe. "I don't like it."

"Understand now?" Yzma asked Wuya.

"NO!" Wuya shrieked. "BECAUSE THE LAST THING I REMEMBER IS YOU STARTING TO EXPLAIN, AND SUDDENLY, ZEVON HAD ANOTHER WEAPON!"

Yzma sighed; "All right; we're starting over! But THIS time, we're leaving the room!"

She led Wuya away.

"Is breaking free of the hold of this time anomaly that simple?" Vexen wondered.

"It's not a time anomaly!" Megavolt groaned. "It's a MONTAGE! Ooh, you people don't understand ANYTHING!"

"Yeah!" Quackerjack, who also didn't understand anything, asserted. "What a bunch of idiots!"

"WHY, YOU – " Vexen stormed over to Quackerjack to begin chewing him out.

...

"Now, THIS is more my velocitation!" Zevon cried as he held up the spear that had the Toru Diamond situated just before its point. "And yet…still unfitting. I do not see how poking people is efficiencient!"

"Wait a minute!" Megavolt chuckled. "It's so simple! I didn't even realize!"

Meanwhile, Quackerjack folded his arms and leaned back on a heel. "Sorry," he told Vexen as he looked up to him smugly. "I didn't catch a word of that."

Vexen, flummoxed, couldn't even form words.

Yzma led Wuya back in; Wuya looked as though she'd been privy to the meaning of life. "I get it now," she said in an absolutely stunned tone.

"THEN WILL SOMEONE EXPLAIN IT TO ME?" Vexen cried.

"Oh, it's really simple," Wuya began. "You see – "

...

Zevon's face lit up like a lantern as he held his new staff, the Toru Diamond set at its top. "JUST LIKE A TRUE SORCERIOR!" he cried, aiming the staff's tip at various objects throughout the room.

"Who woulda thought I just needed to go back to basics?" Megavolt chuckled. "Man, I wish I coulda at least done some circuitry in that thing. Oh, well. There'll be others."

"And just so you know," Wuya told Vexen with a smirk, "I timed that on purpose so you wouldn't get any of it."

"WHAT – " Vexen sputtered. "HOW – THIS ISN'T – THIS IS NOT SCIENTIFICALLY POSSIBLE!"

He felt a pair of rather small hands clutch at his forearm. "I'm scared," Drakken whimpered.

"Yeah, well, we found the perfect weapon," Megavolt declared, "so the montage is officially over!"

"I have no idea how to feel about that," Jack stated, looking quite like a deer in headlights. "The concept of time has currently lost all meaning to me."

"Dude, this is when you just…chill and go with the flow," Herb stated.

Zevon aimed the staff at a nearby lab table, blasting a beaker off of it with the Toru Diamond's concentrated energy. "IT WORKS!" he cried.

"YOU BUFFOON!" Vexen shrieked. "THAT WAS MINE!"

Zevon ignored him. "You have all of my uttermost gratituity for the creatification of this weapon!" he told Megavolt. "I will be sure to rememberate you for my further armorory needs!"

"PLEASE, LET'S NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!" Jack shrieked.

Zevon stalked away, and Wuya and Yzma exchanged smirks. "You know," Wuya said, "it's really a lot more fun if we DON'T explain it."

Yzma shrugged. "I've just never met anyone else who was aware of it before!"

"Probably because we're both from comedic styles that rely on meta-commentary," Megavolt mused. "I'd like to know more about your world, now that I think about it."

"And I am taking my leave before this becomes any more asinine," Vexen declared, storming away with Drakken at his heels, begging him for any scrap of explanation he could provide.

"Yeah, I'm out," Jack said before dashing back to the engineering wing, Herb in tow.

Megavolt hopped up onto a seat, leaning toward Yzma across the table on his elbows. "Now tell me everything," he bade her.

Yzma looked aside, wistfully. One could almost hear a solemn violin begin a melancholy tone as she began, "Long ago, somewhere deep in the jungle…"

...

"Hmm." Yen Sid's gaze traveled up and down Lea curiously, taking in his now frosted frame, a small icy coating growing in patches on his skin, his hair completely white. "I see. This is quite a problem indeed."

Lea shivered violently, pulling the three coats he'd managed to borrow before catching that morning's train around himself ever tighter. "Wh-what's going on here? Wh-why am I all icy?"

"It seems you have been struck with the curse of a frozen heart," Yen Sid said solemnly, shutting his eyes. "A severe magic that could, left unchecked, result in your own death."

"LEA!" Roxas screamed. "I KNEW YOU SHOULD'VE GOTTEN THIS LOOKED AT SOONER!"

"So s-s-s-sue me," Lea hissed through chattering teeth. "I die if it's unchecked. H-how do I CHECK it?"

"There is only one known way," Yen Sid stated. "Yet a rather simple way. Only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart."

"Oh, not again!" Kairi cried.

"This is…happening a lot lately," Aqua explained.

"S-s-so you m-mean like g-getting one or g-g-giving one?" Lea asked. "Do I gotta be loved or love somebody?"

"Either will be sufficient to break the curse," Yen Sid stated, eyes opening once more. "The act represents the warming of the heart. Letting true love flow through you in either direction will induce the thaw."

"One p-p-problem," Lea told him. "I d-don't have a p-p-partner right now, and n-no crushes, either." Unless you count Isa, he thought, but you most certainly couldn't do that at the present time.

"It doesn't have to be that kind of love, I don't think," Aqua broke in. "Even a truly strong friendship would work."

"We literally JUST had to go through this with Kazuichi," Kairi sighed.

"…Do I wanna know?" Lea asked. "So okay. All I need is to do something nice for a friend, with feeling, or have them do something nice f-f-for me. Should be easy, right? I've got l-loads of friends I love. Roxas, N-Naminé, even Sora…where is that guy, anyway? And R-Riku?"

"Didn't we tell you?" Ven gasped. "They've been missing a lot of practices."

"A worrying prospect at such a critical stage of training," Yen Sid sighed. "As of yet, only Aqua, Ventus, and Mickey have been able to master Command Styles, and Mickey the only one who had learned it anew."

"Where'd they even go?" Lea asked. "Why would they leave NOW?"

"They wanted some time to themselves after the incident," Ven explained.

"They've texted me every so often," Kairi added. "They're kind of on a road trip through the smaller galaxies together. Like a date!"

"WHAT?" Lea's reaction was so strong, some of the frost melted right off his skin. "You mean to tell me that they've just been playing hooky to go on a DATE? At least Roxas and I were getting backup and helping Stork reunite with his friends! They're doing NOTHING when they should be HERE doing SOMETHING!"

"Lea," Aqua reminded him sternly, "we've all been through a lot."

"And everyone needs time to take care of themselves!" Mickey added.

"I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT!" Lea yelled. "I'm literally DYING here, and they just took off and LEFT!"

"But they didn't know!" Ven argued.

"Hmm," Goofy mused. "If I didn't know better, I'd think there was somethin' else goin' on here. Somethin' more personal to ya."

"WHERE are they now?" Lea barked.

"Last I heard, they were on their way to the Flash Black Galaxy," Kairi explained.

Lea turned on a heel. "Well, now they're on their way back here."

"Wait! Lea!" Roxas protested. "You can't go on your own! You might freeze!"

"Consider this my act of true love," Lea growled as he stormed out of the room. "I'm bringing them back where they belong. With their friends."

"I…just don't think that's what love means," Ven sighed once Lea had departed.

"I'm going to go after him," Aqua resolved.

Yen Sid put up a hand. "No, Aqua."

"No?" Aqua snapped. "What do you mean, NO? He'll die!"

"There are some lessons that must be learned through experience," Yen Sid reminded her. "I do believe this may prove more helpful to Lea than even he realizes."

"Like how Ienzo and I had to trick Kazuichi in order to break his curse!" Kairi realized.

"Sometimes, it might seem like Yen Sid is settin' ya up ta fail," Mickey explained, "but really, he knows when ya gotta just learn things yourself!"

Yen Sid smirked. "Simply forbidding you from my hat would not have taught you anything, Mickey. You and I both know this."

"That just seems so harsh," Aqua argued. "If we can protect Lea, why not do it?"

"Because then we'd just be doing the same thing to him that he did to me, and he's doing to Sora and Riku right now," Roxas asserted. "Forcing him to go where he doesn't want to because it's what WE want."

"But it's what's best for him!" Aqua cried.

"Is it?" Ven asked.

Aqua bit her lip. After some time, she relented; "All right. I'll let it play out. But if we get word that things have gotten any worse, I'm going in."

...

Flash Black Galaxy was one of the most fascinating locales that Sora and Riku had visited, if only for its strange play with light and shadow. Such a phenomenon could only have been the work of Lumas who had grown up to love the interplay of the two and implemented the system on their planetary cluster. For much of the time, the entire galaxy was shrouded in darkness. However, every so often, a brilliant flash, strong enough to serve as daylight, would illuminate the entire galaxy, showing off its multitude of planets – and the mansion that graced the largest one.

"This is so COOL, Riku!" Sora yelled, practically dragging Riku along behind him to the mansion's drive. "I wonder if anybody lives here!"

"I'm not sure I'd want to," Riku replied.

"Bad memories?" Sora asked with concern.

"More like the practicality of not being able to see all the time," Riku clarified. "Trust me, once I took off the blindfold for good, I knew I was never going back."

"Oh, yeah…I almost forgot. You're already really good at finding your way in the dark."

"Yes. At the price of it being really annoying."

Sora came to a stop before the mansion's gates. "You shouldn't have to do that anymore, you know," he told Riku.

"Do what?" Riku, who had also skidded to a halt, asked.

"What you did back then," Sora told him. "Give yourself to the Darkness. Tie up your own eyes."

"It was the only way."

"I'm not so sure. When I think about it…it makes me really sad that I wasn't awake. That I couldn't have been there to help you. All I know is that for the year I was gone, you were sad and alone. You told me that yourself. You never even went back to the islands. Then you almost sacrificed everything you ever knew…for me." Sora sighed. "Riku, I wanna mean a lot to you, but not if it means you giving up YOU."

Riku traced his foot through the soil sheepishly. "There's a lot of things I regret. I'm sorry. You're right, you know. When I left Castle Oblivion…when it all started…I thought I knew where I was going. That I could rely on the Darkness my own way, without letting it consume me. I'd banished Ansem from my heart. Or so I thought."

"So what happened?"

"I…I'm not sure I can explain it," Riku admitted. "Sometimes…strong people fall back into weakness. They lose sight of what's ahead, or faith that things will be all right. In a moment of weakness, I gave up on everything I'd grown into. And after that, I felt like I'd already fallen so far, there was no use climbing back up. Just getting you out before you fell too."

"Riku…" Sora sighed. "Promise me you won't ever do that again. If I'm not there, and you feel like that…you should've gone back to the islands. To Kairi, or even Selphie or Tidus or Wakka or your dad. You need to talk to someone. Anyone! It can't just be about me, Riku. Because if you don't make it out of the Dark…I'll get lost there, too."

The brilliant flash showed Sora the sad smile upon Riku's face, the glisten of the single tear rolling down. "Thank you, Sora," Riku said softly. "It was…a time when I made a lot of mistakes. I should've known it wasn't what you or Kairi or anyone would've wanted. And now…now, there are so many others counting on me. Others I'm counting on. Even if I stray, I won't lose myself. I can't. WHA – "

Sora had suddenly thrown both arms around Riku, holding him tight. Riku wanted to reciprocate, but Sora was pinning his arms down. He chuckled; "Sora – "

"I love you, Riku."

"I love you, too."

A brilliant flash. The presence of a third figure, startling Sora into letting go of Riku with a scream. Riku gasped, bracing for battle.

"Y'know," Lea seethed, "I always used to complain that the Superior would stick me with the icky jobs. Turns out that never had anything to do with him. Just how my life goes."

"Lea!" Sora cried in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" Lea replied. "WHAT AM I DOING HERE? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? You were supposed to be TRAINING! You were supposed to be HELPING!"

"But Riku – " Sora tried to argue.

"I DON'T CARE!" Lea bellowed. "This is what always happens! You don't even know what happened to me while you were GONE! You don't know if I NEEDED you!"

"Lea," Sora protested, "we were hurting! Riku was hurting! I love him! I couldn't just stand by! And…and I was starting to feel hurt, too. I needed to get away! Just for a break!"

"Oh, that's always how it goes, isn't it?" Lea countered. "You, you, you. You didn't even think about where it is you REALLY BELONG!"

Sora's reply stunned Riku. Gone was Sora's high-strung energy, the tension with which he had been arguing for himself and Riku earlier. As if he were a whole different person, he replied in a calm, even tone:

"But what if that isn't where I belong?"

"You know I want you to be where it is you belong," Lea growled. "But after all this time, it still bugs me. It still stinks!"

"It was for the good of everyone," Sora replied, still calm, still deliberate.

"But how do you know that?" Lea seethed. "Everybody thinks they're right…"

"This is right," Sora said sadly.

"WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?" Lea cried. "You both…you think you can do whatever you want. Well, I'm sick of it. Go on; you just keep runnin'! But I'll always be there to BRING YOU BACK!"

"STOP!" Riku rushed between Sora and Lea, as if worried it would come to blows. "You can't do this to your friend! How do YOU know what's best?"

"OF COURSE I KNOW WHAT'S BEST FOR MY FRIEND!" Lea roared. "WHAT'S BEST IS TO COME BACK WITH ME AND ROXAS! TO MAKE THINGS NORMAL!"

"But they AREN'T normal!" Riku yelled. "No matter what, you just can't let a friend go to what's best for that person! You're saying we only care about us, but what about you? Your friend needs my help. I'm trying to help, because YOU'RE NOT DOING IT!"

"WHAT THE HELL'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?" Lea screamed. "YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"

"I know that I'm helping your friend find a REAL place to belong. A place where – "

"A place where a person I swore to protect will END UP DESTROYED! IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED?"

From Sora, there suddenly came a scream most unlike him – raw, primal. "Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!" he bellowed, silencing Riku and Lea alike. "I should've said this all the way back then instead of letting it get this far! Axel, what's best for you isn't what's best for me! Riku's right! Things aren't normal! And I need to find my own way! You can't just drag me back every time I want to leave! I'll never figure anything out! I know you want me beside you. I want to stay with you, too. All I've ever wanted is to live a normal life with my friends. But that was just never in the cards for me."

The flash came, and Lea gasped. For the brief moment the light had come on, he could swear Sora didn't even look like Sora anymore. He was someone else – someone with short, dark hair and soulful blue eyes.

But the moment the light winked out, Lea could make out the familiar spiky-headed silhouette. It was only a trick of the light.

"We'll never get anywhere this way." Sora's voice was strained now, choked, almost crying. "Axel…it isn't right. We can't keep doing this. If you bring me back just to be with you, then you don't really care about me. You don't care if I find the answers I'm looking for, or figure out how to make my heart whole again. And I'm sorry! I'm sorry it couldn't be that way! Every day, I hope the future will be different, and maybe it can! But please, Axel…you can't keep me in a cage! You have to let me go! You have to trust me!"

"But…" Lea was faltering. "I'll…I'll lose you…"

"Isn't it better to lose me, knowing I fulfilled a purpose I chose for myself, than to decide my own destiny for me?"

Chilly tears rolled down Lea's frosty face, solidifying at the halfway point. "It's not fair."

"I know. It hurts me, too. It hurts me so much. And I never told you how much it really did. That was my fault, Axel. I'm so sorry. I didn't want it to end like this. If I thought staying with you was the better choice, I would have done it in a heartbeat. But I have to do what I think is right. I hate hurting you. But you're not the only person that needs my help. And I'm going to make sure that everyone who needs me…can at least have whatever I can give."

Lea found himself gasping, sobbing. "I'm sorry," he muttered. Then he bellowed it to the skies: "I'M SORRY! I JUST WANTED YOU BACK! I WAS AFRAID! I…I didn't think about what it meant to you. How you must be feeling! You were just another victim of my lies. Another person I hurt! And the only way I know how to deal with that is to just…jump in and try and fix it!"

"You can't fix it," Sora told him softly. "You don't have to fix it. It's okay."

"But I do. Because if I don't – "

"If you don't, you'll always have Roxas in your heart. And you'll always have me there, too, even if we're apart. Even if you forget me. I'll never forget you. And there are so many friends out there waiting to get to know and love you."

Lea wiped at his tears with his sleeve. "It wasn't fair…that whole year…forgetting about you, after you showed me how to be a better person…guess I didn't get that lesson memorized, did I?"

"But you can always try again," Sora said calmly.

Lea dropped to his knees. "I'm sorry," he bawled. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…you're your own person, not something that belongs to me…I'll let you go. I promise. I'll let you go wherever you need to. I was scared, and I was lonely, and I thought I was afraid for you, but…I was just afraid for me."

"I love you too, Axel. In the friend way."

"I'll always love you in that way," Lea sobbed, only vaguely aware of the sensations taking over his body – the warmth spreading from his chest outward, the melting of the ice, the reddening of his hair to a deep, fiery crimson. "But you have to do what's best for you. I see that now."

In the dark, Sora turned to face Riku. "I have something to tell you, too."

"Anything," Riku replied. "I'm here for you. I'll always help you find your way."

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to help you, back then. You and me…we were both hurting in the same way. But I wasn't awake enough to see it. I should've been there to take off your blindfold for you. Because even if I could never be real…you were more real than you ever knew."

"You were real," Riku insisted.

"Thank you," Sora said hoarsely.

A great silence fell over the field. Then a longer flash showed the three situated near each other – Sora, Riku, and Lea, with nothing out of place – snapping them into a state of confusion.

"Wait," Sora said. "What was THAT? I'm not sure why I said all that stuff. It was just a little vacation. Just a date."

Lea slowly stood. "I dunno," he said, "but I think it was…more than that. I don't think I was talkin' about the year you were asleep at Oblivion."

"But what else could you have meant?" Sora asked.

"It was almost like…we were talking to someone else," Riku mused. "I don't get it. With Roxas and Ven awake, there shouldn't be anyone else. It's just you now, Sora."

"It…FELT like I was someone else," Sora admitted, closing his hand over his heart. "I felt a kind of hurt I don't think I've ever known before. And I don't even know why I was hurting so much."

"Listen," Lea told him. "Forget…forget what I said to you. Your place is with Riku, Kairi, and your little Mozen-squad you put together with the others. Sure, we're friends, but I think…I think the stuff I said was for something a little different." Now he was aware of the warmth spreading through him; he shed the outermost of his coats. "Someone I needed to learn to let go, even if it hurt."

"This is all just so weird," Sora muttered.

"Well, we won't get any answers here," Riku reminded them both. "We really should head back. We've been away long enough."

"…There's no hurry," Lea said softly. "If you two still have business to finish – "

"No," Sora insisted. "We had fun. We healed. Maybe not completely. But now it's time to do the right thing. It's what – it's what feels right. Let's go home."

...

DNAmy put the finishing touches on her lab space. Her table wasn't too far from Yzma's and Vexen's – when she'd first arrived, she'd had to take care to tiptoe around a mass of broken glass, all the while trying not to get distracted wondering what the POTATO was. She'd then set up camp on a bare table, spreading her lab equipment as well as a great many pink and/or fuzzy and/or sparkly decorations, including a framed photo of a kitten she'd once genetically spliced with a squid (her "squitten" had ended up running away, and to her knowledge, it was still terrorizing the sewers of Upperton as an urban legend that high-schoolers used to scare each other).

"There!" she cried happily. "Home, sweet home!"

She then became aware of a great crash behind her. Someone had entered the lab carrying a cardboard box full of equipment, tried to hop the sea of broken glass from Zevon's crash, and fumbled the landing on the other side, tripping and scattering the box's contents that consisted mainly of plant pots and gardening tools.

"Oh, dear!" Amy scuttled over to the site of the fall, beginning to pick up a pair of shears, a tiny handheld loupe, a pack of plant-tissue test kits to put back in the box. "That was a nasty fall! Are you – "

She then lay eyes on the box's owner, who lay splayed out on his stomach before her, and she was at an utter loss for words.

Green. He was so vibrantly green. And not an ounce human. In structure, he seemed to be more like an anthropomorphized duck – he had a bill, and large feet that seemed that they should be webbed. But they weren't. They were clawed, made of the same substance as tree roots. He was root from the waist down, save a cluster of leaves that served as his tail. From the waist up, such a beautiful chlorophyll green, topped at the head with a tuft of purple petals. He was a mutant like nothing Amy had ever seen in her life.

And he was beautiful.

"I'm sorry!" Reginald Bushroot cried as he scurried to his knees, picking up his own tools quickly so that Amy wouldn't have to do that for him. "Augh, I'm such a klutz! I d-d-didn't mean to make you have to pick that all up!"

"Oh, don't you worry about that, sweet pea," Amy purred.

Bushroot was struck by how sultry Amy's tone sounded. He did not, however, pick up right away that it indicated her interest in him. What it did succeed in doing was get him to look at her, really look at her for the first time. He was still getting used to the looks of humans – you only saw them every so often in St. Canard. He couldn't ever really recall having seen one like Amy. Warm eyes behind sparkling spectacles. A solid, round frame that looked rather cuddly. Short, wispy dark hair that seemed as jaunty as its owner.

She was gorgeous.

"I-I-I-I-I…" Bushroot stammered, his cheeks flushing a deeper green than before.

"Don't even worry about it!" Amy set the last of his tools back into the box. "Now, did you get hurt by the glass, sweet pea?"

"Did I?" Bushroot asked himself. He hopped to his feet, giving himself a once-over. "Huh." He plucked away several large shards of glass.

"Oh, sweetie!" Amy gasped, rising up. "That has to hurt!"

"Oh, n-no, it really doesn't," Bushroot assured her. "Actually, sharp things don't really affect me. I've been chopped up by a whole weed-whacker before and I just grew right back!"

"Well, isn't that handy! I'm so glad! Still, you should let me help you get some of those out."

He'd been impaled with shards all up the front of his body, and he made no move to stop Amy as she began to gently pick them away from his upper body, keeping to chaste, innocent areas. Still, the proximity and the gentleness with which she moved, the way she so caringly hurried to remove each sharp shard, sent Bushroot's xylem and phloem coursing through his body much more quickly than they had been previously. The mesophyll located closest to his chest was now beating like a heart would on a member of the fauna classification.

"There! All better!" Amy flicked the last shard away with a "ping" as it hit the floor. "Now, were you coming down here to set up a lab space? Let me guess: you're a botanist!"

"Oh, yes!" Bushroot affirmed. "I am! And also a geneticist!"

"I'm a geneticist too! What a coincidence! Say, were you going to pick your own table, or would you wanna be my lab partner?"

Bushroot swallowed hard. "N-no one's ever asked me to be their l-lab partner before," he choked. Memories of being relegated to the lonely table in the corner in every high school science class flooded him. "S-sure! If you have room."

"Plenty of room, sweet pea! Just gimme a second to clean up."

Amy rearranged the table, tucking a few of her decorations (including the squitten) into an upper cabinet and compacting the space of her equipment to leave half the area bare. "That enough for ya?"

"Oh, more than enough!" Bushroot set his box down on the floor, beginning to arrange his tools on the tabletop.

Amy placed her elbows on the table, head in her palms, leaning forward to gaze at Bushroot. "So, sweet pea, that's some mutation you have going on. Mind if I ask how you got it?"

"Oh, this?" Bushroot replied. "Well, I used to be just an ordinary duck. No, wait. I g-guess to a l-lot of you, d-d-ducks don't talk or come this t-t-t-tall. But on my world, I was an ordinary duck! …Or maybe l-less than ordinary."

Amy pouted. "I'm sure you were special, and people just didn't notice it. I'm the same way."

"Y-you barely know me," Bushroot pointed out shyly. "You don't know if I'm any g-good…b-but, okay, the m-m-mutation came when I was t-trying to advance an experiment that would allow d-d-ducks and others to photosynthesize. B-but they cut my funding, so I had to p-p-prove it would work, and fast!"

"Those CADS!" Amy snapped.

"So I used it on m-myself," Bushroot explained, "and it t-t-turned me into a p-plant-duck! The b-bad news is that m-most people t-treat me like a monster. But the g-g-good news is everything else! I can talk to plants, I can survive d-deadly attacks, and I'm just a really g-g-good supervillain! I think. It's the only thing I've ever b-been good at." He waved a leafy hand. "Oh, b-but enough about me. What about you? You look like you're a s-supervillain, too! Have you done any mutations?"

"Oh, tons!" Amy gushed. "Mostly on other animals. I liked to genetically fuse them in order to replicate Cuddle Buddies."

"Wh-wh-what's a Cuddle Buddy?"

Amy gasped. "You don't have Cuddle Buddies on your world?" She practically ripped the cabinet open to pull out a beanbag toy animal – a rounded marsupial with large feet, a pouch, and a distinctly black-and-white color palette. "This is Pandaroo! He's a Superstar Edition. They only made twelve of them, but I collected all twelve! Too bad I lost five of them when Kim Possible blew up my first lair. But I still have seven! He's my second favorite, right after Otterfly." She then retrieved a soft-blue toy, the winged otter she so often wore on her zipper. "Otterfly is my favorite to end all favorites! …Oh, I'm probably boring you, aren't I?"
"No, no, no!" Bushroot protested sincerely. "Those are ADORABLE! I wish I'd been able to collect those on my world! They're so c-creative! And m-maybe I would've at l-l-least had some f-friends to talk to, even if they w-were only toys."

He thought, briefly, about recommending Amy show her collection to Quackerjack, who would surely love it, but he held back. He didn't want the resident toy guru to know about this just yet. Amy had shown him, and he wanted some things to stay between the two of them, at first. She was the first person outside the Fearsome Five who had made him feel special. He wondered how she would take to a plant mutation of her own – the type Rhoda Dendron had refused. After all, Amy would look very good with green skin.

"S-so you made g-genetic fusions b-b-based on the Cuddle Buddies?" Bushroot urged.

"Yes!" Amy cried. "Except these were my own original designs! Rhinorabbit was my finest creation! Well, actually, Naked Mole Man was probably my peak, but he BETRAYED me, so I'm not going to give him the credit! After that, I helped splice fossilized DNA to engineer a dinosaur for use in attacking a city. You know! Supervillain stuff."

"You made a whole DINOSAUR?" Bushroot's lower beak dropped. "B-b-but that's…that's like creating life! Like b-being a god!"

"Oh, not really," Amy dismissed. "I was working off latent blueprints that were already there. He was more like a clone than anything, and he didn't have much personality. Maybe a zombie clone would be a better way to put it, but that just sounds so morbid!"

"It's still amazing," Bushroot said, looking at Amy dreamily. "Have…have you ever thought about mutating yourself?"

"Oh, I actually did that, once." Amy's tone had turned sour, her lips shifting into a pout of anger. "I augmented myself into a gorilla physique and then reverse-engineered it all the way back. And that's precious time of my life I'll never get back!"

"Why did you d-d-d-do that?"

Amy sighed. "I was in love," she said wistfully. "I thought Monty-Wonty loved me back. But all he wanted was to get away from me. Just like every other man I've ever met. Well, except Drakken, but he doesn't count, since I was never interested in him."

"Oh," Bushroot replied. "That's terrible. I don't see how anyone c-couldn't like you. You're so nice! But also twisted and evil!"

"Oh, thank you, sweet pea!" Amy replied, warmth flushing through her face.

"I w-would've KILLED for a woman who'd mutate herself for m-me!" Bushroot explained. "In fact, I d-d-did go a little murderous to try and get the woman I loved to m-mutate into a p-p-plant-duck like me!"

"What happened to her?" Amy asked, nervous – though she didn't know what would hurt more: hearing that Bushroot was taken or that he was broken-hearted.

The plant-duck sighed. "Same as you. She d-didn't want anything to d-do with me. And I thought she liked me!"

"She probably didn't see just how sweet and adorable you are," Amy told him. "And it sounds like you've got a naughty little bad-boy side, too! I like that. Now, me, I wouldn't mutate right away in a new relationship, not after MONTY, but it would never be off the table! I've never thought about plant genes before, though! That's a whole new interesting area I haven't even considered! There are so many possibilities!"

"Sssssso…m-maybe…" Bushroot gulped. "You'd…go p-plant?"

"If I met a plant I liked enough," Amy teased. "Now, where, oh, where might I be able to find that?"

Bushroot hung his head, thinking her serious. "I don't know. I g-guess I could help you look, since you're my l-lab partner."

Amy's face fell. "Oh." She thought about leaving it at that, but felt the need to speak her mind: "I had thought we were on the same page. I liked you, and I thought maybe you liked me, too. But you're telling me you WEREN'T flirting with me?"

"W-W-WHAT?" Bushroot flinched. "You L-LIKE me? B-b-but…I'm me!" He gestured toward himself. "L-l-look at me! I'm a s-s-stuttering mess! Also, you're a human! And I'm a p-plant duck! And I h-have killed people before, and I d-d-don't mind doing it, b-but I'm also…I'm also…ohhh, there's a part of me that's NICE! And I thought you'd want a b-b-bad boy!"

"Oh, honey!" Amy gasped. "You're not a mess! You're adorable! I love your little stammer! And I've never been into plain-old ordinary HUMANS that much anyway. Men are always more interesting when they have a little monster in them!"

"I'm ALL monster!" Bushroot said proudly.

"Also…" Amy winked. "I'm a little nice, myself. But don't go around telling everybody! I want them to focus on the blood on my hands!" She giggled. "Oh, to think I'm finally at the point where I can admit that! It just feels so freeing! But if anything, I was worried you might do the same thing all other men do to me and just ignore me. What if…what if it IS something about me? Do I come on too strong? Or am I…not cute?"

"You're INCREDIBLY cute!" Bushroot asserted. "And I love that you come on s-strong! I'm actually j-j-jealous. I'm…really, REALLY bad at expressing myself. I just g-g-g-get so shy!"

"Then let's make a deal," Amy proposed. "How about whenever you don't want to express yourself or be an extrovert, you just tell me what you need said and I'll say it for you?"

"That would be wonderful!" Bushroot said, rather relieved. "I'm so excited! I d-d-didn't expect to fall in l-love at first sight down here! And now we get to be l-l-lab partners forever, and you might even m-m-mutate for me!"

"I'd love to do that some day!" Amy told him. "Once I'm comfortable enough to trust you, and also once I've figured out exactly what plant attributes I want. I have to be picky, you know!" She then found herself getting slightly quiet: "But…you really think this is love at first sight?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Amy trotted around to his side of the table, approaching him, getting quite close. "It's just that that's what I thought it was," she told him, "but I wasn't sure if you'd feel the same way."

"Oh…oh, I want to say your name really lovingly and dramatically, but I don't even know it yet!"

"Amy! It's Amy Hall! Though 'DNAmy' is my villain name."

"And I'm Reginald Bushroot! Though I usually just go by 'Bushroot.'"

"Has anyone ever called you 'Reggie'?"
He flushed. "No," he admitted softly. "N-n-not if they weren't making fun of me."

"Oh, Reggie…"

"Oh, Amy!"

They threw their arms around each other, locking into a passionate kiss. Gripped by the heat of the moment, Bushroot twisted around to dip Amy low toward the floor as he held onto her.

"GET A ROOM!" Jack Spicer yelled as he passed them; this had absolutely no effect.

...

Sonia had been journaling. Upon her request, Aerith had found her not the spiral-bound notebook she'd wanted but instead a blank leather-bound parchment volume, and so she began to take down her thoughts on a medium she thought was perhaps too beautiful to deserve such ugly things. Thoughts about friendship and betrayal. Old thoughts about Junko Enoshima. Worries that had occurred to her when Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko had turned up in town.

She had hoped the act of journaling would make things better. However, the further she delved into her anxieties, the worse it seemed to exacerbate them. Her hand shook, marring her handwriting. At one time, she had been able to main perfect composure while being a hostage. At one time, when despair was in control, she had been able to stare blankly as she sentenced her subjects to the guillotine, letting the blood spatter her dress. And now she could no longer hide anything.

Maybe that was a good thing. It was better than being desensitized.

"Hey, Sonia!"

The sudden call got her attention, and she turned to see a group of young women approaching. Kairi, who had called her name, was in the lead, waving. Along with her were Jasmine, Rapunzel, Mal, Moana, and Mira Nova, most of whom were laden with wicker baskets.

"Oh, hello!" Sonia greeted. "It is good to see you." She gave a nod as she rose. "I must be in your way. I will take my leave elsewhere."

"No!" Kairi protested. "We came here to invite you to come out with us!"

"The more, the merrier!" Moana asserted.

Sonia flinched. "You…came to invite me…"

"Don't act like we just told you to go kick a puppy," Mal laughed.

Rapunzel held her basket high. "Guess what's in here! Guess. Guessguessguess."

"Is it…a picnic basket?" Sonia asked. "I am not hungry."

"No!" Rapunzel was hopping up and down. "Guess again!"

"It's paintbrushes and paint," Moana volunteered.

Rapunzel pouted. "She was supposed to GUESS."

Sonia chuckled. "You are doing art projects today?"

"Not just ANY art project," Rapunzel said with wide, excited eyes. "We are going to go make a public art mural to help pretty up some of the parts of town that are still damaged!"

"Moana and I came up with the idea," Kairi stated, "but watching Rapunzel work kind of inspired it. And after that, we realized that a lot of people we wanted to invite were coincidentally princesses – "

Moana and Mal both cleared their throats.

"Well, and one chief's daughter and one usurper heir," Kairi went on, "but we've all been in a position to inherit some kind of power or another."

"So we just went with the theme," Jasmine finished.

"Oh." Sonia clutched at her forearm, looking down sadly. "I am afraid I am not much of a princess anymore."

"Maybe not legally," Jasmine told her, "but you are one on the inside. I can tell there's still a part of you that wants to make the worlds better places."

"If only to make up for how I have made them worse," Sonia sighed.

"Cool," Mal told her. "Same here. I mean, I know it was, like, two days tops, but those were a rough two days. Ex-villains are allowed."

Sonia glanced back up to Mal with a soft smile. "I thank you. I suppose it would be better for my mental state to leave these walls and contribute to something productive. I shall come with you."

"All RIGHT!" Rapunzel cried. "The first official outing of the Princesses with Paintbrushes organization is a GO!"

"I know you love the alliteration," Jasmine told her, "but that name just isn't accurate."

Moana shrugged. "I'm willing to be a 'princess' for a few trips out for alliteration that good."

"Same," Mal stated.

"YES!" Rapunzel squealed.

It didn't hit Sonia until a few minutes later that her loss of royal merit had never been in question when it came to that name, and when she would realize it, her heart would be warmed. "Did you not also ask your sister to accompany us?" she asked Mal. "After all, she is of the same lineage as you."

The others glanced back and forth nervously. It was Mira who spoke up; "Funny thing, so we tried talking to her, but she already made plans to hang out with the one guy, what's his n – "

The sheer amount of venomous glares she was getting from her cohorts silenced her. "…Okay, so I take it I'm missing some important context," she said sheepishly.

Sonia gave a sigh. "I suppose I cannot fault anyone for wanting to be his friend. Even if it does not feel fair that I was not given that chance."

"I mean, to be fair, Li still really likes you," Mal said. "She totally promised to catch up with you later and not even say the K-word."

"What happened wasn't fair," Kairi agreed. "But right now, we don't have to think about that. We can just spend the day with each other and have fun! And I wanna see how well you can paint, Sonia!" She beamed.

"I have heard you are quite crafty with beads," Sonia replied. "I suppose you are going to be better at it than I. Do you not also draw for a hobby? I believe I heard Riku mention that."

"I do," Kairi admitted, swaying back and forth playfully with her hands clasped behind her back, "but I only started because of Naminé. She's the real artist, not – "

Suddenly, she gasped; "Naminé! We should invite her, too!"

"Well, she is related to you," Jasmine affirmed. "She's as royal as you are."

Mira shrugged. "Hey, I'm meeting, like, all of you for the first time. I'm up for making more friends."

"Let's go!" Kairi cried, turning to dash from the library.

"PRINCESSES WITH PAINTBRUSHES!" Rapunzel yelled, a battle cry. "AWAY!"

As the others filed out, Jasmine lingered a bit – she had suspected Sonia would need a bit of a push to get moving. "I know a lot has happened," she told Sonia.

"A lot has happened over the past several years," Sonia sighed.

"You don't have to come if you don't want to," Jasmine told her. "But I really think you'll feel better if you do."

Sonia nodded. "I want to make new friends. I know I can do better. Part of me is still afraid I cannot, or that I do not deserve it."

"Everyone deserves friends, Sonia. In a weird way, I think this whole Mozenrath business is kind of a lesson that way. You just need to find the friends that match up with what you want." She gave a flippant laugh. "Never thought I'd be defending HIM as a role model."

"I want to make things better," Sonia stated glibly.

"Then come with us," Jasmine urged. "Because that's exactly what we're going to do."

Sonia nodded. "I shall!"

Naminé had spent a great deal of time cooped up in her chamber of her own volition, adding to her sketchbook drawing upon drawing at a small rolltop desk. The knock at the door came suddenly, and she had no idea who it could be. "…Come in?" she said tentatively.

Kairi practically threw open the door; "Naminé!"

"What…why?" Naminé did a double take at the assembled heiresses.

"PRINCESSES WITH PAINTBRUSHES!" Rapunzel yelled, hoisting her basket as though that explained anything.

"We're going out to do public art to clean up the city!" Kairi told Naminé. "You're a Radiant Garden princess just like me, so you definitely count, and you love art almost as much as Rapunzel!"

"And that is a pretty high bar to clear," Mal said mischievously.

"Oh." Naminé lowered the sketchbook. "I don't know. I haven't spent much time…outside."

"That is exactly why we wished to invite you," Sonia stated.

"Aerith said you LOVED going out last time," Kairi urged. "We thought you might wanna come out and enjoy the sun again!"

"I guess I'm just not used to it," Naminé sighed. "So much of my life has been spent in rooms I couldn't leave…I'm not sure it feels right."

"Do I ever know how that goes," Rapunzel sighed. "Trust me, the world might seem scary, but once you get out there…it is SO worth it."

"I've never regretted leaving my palace walls," Jasmine stated.

"And I've never regretted leaving my island," Moana brought up.

"I didn't really leave my island in the best way," Kairi laughed, "but now that I'm here, I'm really glad it all happened that way."

"Hope's Peak was my first big adventure," Sonia said with a smile. "I learned of so many things I am glad to know about. Before then, I was very naïve. I was quite nearly taken advantage of by many people who were less clever than Junko Enoshima."

"I wasn't even really designed to leave this castle," Mal brought up. "Weird, when you think about it."

"It's funny," Mira chuckled, "because when I was a teenager, my dad wouldn't let me – whoa, wait. Hang on. Why did this happen to all of us? Is this some kind of weird princess thing I didn't know about?"

"I suppose that's what comes of having parents in power," Jasmine theorized.

"Nnnnno," Rapunzel brought up, "I was kidnapped by definitely NOT the queen of Corona, and she still made me stay in my room."

"And I got thrown into interspace!" Kairi reminded them all.

"I don't know if you can call Marluxia the same kind of king as your families," Naminé brought up. "It seems more like just a big coincidence."

"That is so weird!" Mira stated.

"I wonder what else we all have in common!" Rapunzel gasped.

Naminé pushed back her chair, rising from the desk.

"Oh, and don't worry about bringing paints!" Rapunzel told her. "We brought way too many, and we have NO idea how long we're going to be out! It's just that kind of girls' day!"

"Sure, the brush kind," Mal muttered. "Never mind that some of us are only artists with aerosols."

Naminé cocked her head; "Isn't it kind of a bad idea to go out in public? The people have…mixed opinions on us. Especially you, Kairi."

"Hmm." Kairi thought it over. "I had thought it was worth it, but now I'm having second guesses."

"Do you not want to come anymore?" Sonia asked.

"I never said that," Kairi argued, shaking her head. "Maybe I just need to go in disguise or something."

She hadn't been fully committed to the idea, almost saying it to get the most ridiculous suggestion off the table first, when Mal replied, rather unexpectedly, "Actually, I can help with that."

Kairi gasped; "COULD you?"

Mal set down her baskets. "Okay. So you want anything in particular?"

"Surprise me!" Kairi hopped up and down on the balls of her feet.

Mal shrugged. "You asked for it. First, let's take care of the obvious. Beware, forswear, change Kairi's hair!"

A green aura surrounded Kairi's head, sinking into her hair and deepening it to the most ebony of blacks.

Naminé gasped.

"What's up?" Moana asked her.

"…Nothing," Naminé said softly.

It wasn't nothing. Seeing Kairi with dark hair had triggered the remnant of a memory within her, but she couldn't quite bring to light what it was. The concerning part was that she, who had control over memory, had forgotten anything at all. Though perhaps it was only déjà vu. She couldn't really expect to get answers at this time.

Mal cracked her knuckles; "Okay. Now let's have some fun."

"Ready!" Kairi cried, putting out both arms.

"Beware…forswear…" Mal smirked. "Captain Hook's coat she will wear!"

In a flash of green, a red overcoat with gold trim settled itself over Kairi's pink garments, covering them up completely.

"Are you really okay with wearing that?" Jasmine asked.

Kairi laughed; "The point is to not look like me, right?"

"Oh, there is so more where that came from," Mal chuckled. "Beware, forswear, Cruella's stole might give a scare!"

Now a fuzzy stole, white with black spots, was wrapped around Kairi's upper body. Kairi looked momentarily concerned; "Is this fur – "

"Faux," Mal affirmed. "Magic-synthetic. Now, beware, forswear, sprout my mother's horns from Kairi's hair!"

After feeling a sudden extra weight, Kairi reached up only for her fingernails to tap solid horn, protruding from her scalp like the crest of an ibex.

"Okay, so I know that my mom has a horned headdress and not real horns," Mal disclaimed, "but I figured literally putting Maleficent insignia out there would freak people out, so I went with something that cuts a more heroic look while really not keeping true to my mom's spirit at all."

"Though they are fun," Rapunzel pointed out. "Maybe not true to Maleficent's spirit, but I think some people could find that fun."

"This sounds like something I'd really rather not start right now," Moana sighed.

Kairi giggled. "It feels like the only thing I'm missing is Hook's mustache."

"Oh, I can fix that," Mal said mischievously. "Beware, forswear, add a little facial hair!"

A black mustache curled out beneath Kairi's nose; Kairi snorted, doubling over with laughter.

"Okay, I'll get rid of it," Mal relented.

"NO!" Kairi guffawed. "Leave it! Please! It's funny! And the point was for people not to recognize me, right? And who says a girl can't have a mustache?"

"That is a great point!" Mira brought up. "Okay! Anyone else need a disguise before we go?"

"I think we're good," Moana said after surveying the crowd.

"Then let's GO!" Rapunzel cried. "PRINCESSES WITH PAINTBRUSHES! MOVE OUT!"

...

Within half an hour, the Princesses with Paintbrushes were in the thick of the city, walking toward parts virtually unknown.

"So, okay," Rapunzel rattled off, "after comparing everyone's stories here with what we know about the Princesses of Heart, here's the incomplete list of commonalities – not requirements, but commonalities – between princesses." She cleared her throat. "Magic hair. Magic hands. Animals talk to you. Being poisoned. Being cursed. Being kidnapped and/or enslaved. Experiencing True Love's Kiss. Having daddy issues. Having no mom. People assuming all your problems got solved because a big, strong man showed up. Wearing formal gowns or dresses more often than pants and shirts, regardless of growing up in a royal household or not. Love of singing, especially about our dreams. And, weirdest of all, self-reflection inspired by any and all forms of water. Wow. Weird."

"Perhaps we're all just connected by heart." Jasmine shrugged.

"Does the art thing count?" Mal asked. "The thing we're doing right now?"

"ART!" Rapunzel cried. "THAT, TOO!"

"This is getting kind of freaky," Mira mused. "Like, I was going to say I didn't even have the water thing going on, but…yeah, my ideal mind-link location is right by a river, so there's something going on there."

"Mind-link?" Naminé repeated. "Like…a chain of memories?"

"More like being able to talk to someone special without having to be close to them," Mira corrected. "It's kind of a Tangean thing. And also a Grounder thing. Not that…not that my mind-link is connected to a Grounder or anything."

"We don't even know what that means," Moana pointed out.

"And if we did, we are certainly in no position to judge," Sonia added.

Before that discussion could go further, Kairi halted in her tracks. She recognized this place, perhaps a little too late – its high walls, its cramped buildings, its laundry lines hung between the upper stories. "We have to go back," she said suddenly.

"Why?" Rapunzel asked. "This place looks the most broken of all! It could REALLY use a fresh coat of paint."

Of course that was how they had ended up there, Kairi realized. They'd been following the damage. "This is Shadow Alley," she explained. "Leon and everyone else always say that it's the bad part of town. That we're not safe here."

"Why not?" Jasmine asked.

"Because…it's just not," Kairi told her. "People get things stolen from them, and they get attacked."

"Hmm." Jasmine thought it over, then simply said "I don't think I like that" and proceeded further down the alley.

"Jasmine!" Kairi called after her. "Where are you GOING?"

Jasmine glanced back over her shoulder. "There were 'bad parts' of Agrabah, too," she explained. "Some of them really were places where villains gathered. But some of them, my father was wrong about. Even after leaving the palace, it still took a little…life as an actual street rat to see that sometimes, the bad parts were just poor, and when people were ready to steal your valuables, it's because they needed them. And those people would really need some color to brighten up their lives."

"…You know what?" Kairi puffed out her chest, following after Jasmine. "I'm in. I wanna help."

"I mean, I made a lot of my first friends at the local thugs' tavern," Rapunzel said as she, too, walked along.

"I AM the bad part of town," Mal said mischievously as she fell in step.

"Come on!" Moana put her hands on her hips and grinned. "Even if it is dangerous, it's not like WE can't handle it!"

That convinced the rest.

They moved slowly through Shadow Alley, passing people dressed in rags who regarded them with curiosity, unsure if these wealthy-looking strangers were friend or foe. It seemed, so far, that Jasmine was right, and this place really wasn't so dangerous.

"We need a wall," Rapunzel mused. "A wall that could really use a new mural."

Without warning, a cluster of Shadow Heartless rose up from the ground, surrounding the princess contingent.

"LOOK OUT!" Kairi cried.

"I'M ON IT!" Mira dropped her baskets of art supplies, turning her laser on the nearest of the creatures. With a zing, the Heartless was wiped away. Mira then rushed into the crowd, limbs flying to knock aside the rest of the monsters.

"ON YOUR LEFT!" Moana skidded in beside her to assist.

"And on your right!" Jasmine fell in on Mira's other side.

"And me without a frying pan," Rapunzel sighed as she undid her hair to form a whip.

As bursts of green fireworks evaporated more of the Heartless, Mal muttered, "The strength of evil is good as none when stands before this many hearts as one."

"Kairi!" Naminé cried in horror. "I…I can't fight!"

"Get behind me!" Kairi urged her, materializing her Keyblade.

As Naminé did so, Sonia ran around behind Naminé; "I will guard your back!" She squared up.

Though the Heartless were small, they were many. For every five taken out, fifteen more rose from the shadows, crawling toward the princesses. The passerby in the street had already retreated indoors to barricade the entrances, with a familiarity that indicated this happened far too often for anyone's good.

"Okay, I'm starting to see why this MIGHT be called the bad part of town!" Mira realized.

"Why aren't the Claymores activating?" Kairi gasped.

Naminé screamed; the others turned to see that several of the Heartless had forged a small Tower, surrounding Naminé to try and carry her off.

"NAMINE!" Kairi was the first to leap, blade swinging. "Tea cups, tea cups, TEA CUPS!"

There was no Attraction Flow this time. She did manage to carve her way into the cyclone, which offered Jasmine an opening to dive in and retrieve Naminé's hand. "I've got you!"

But the Tower was attempting to reforge, squirming and rocketing. In a blur of motion, Naminé was ripped away from Jasmine and thrown across the square, where she collided with a large brass bell. Its sonorous tone echoed throughout Shadow Alley.

Then, like a chorus of angels, one by one, a series of distinctly Cockney-sounding voices piped up from all over the neighborhood: "PANIC BELL!"

"PANIC BELL!"

"PANIC BELLLLLLL!"

A veritable army of men leapt from practically nowhere, their dark clothing having hidden them almost as well as the Heartless had been concealed in the shadows. Warriors, Kairi thought at first as she saw them brandishing their weapons. But those were not blades, nor were they cannons or even bludgeons. They weren't weapons at all. They were the long brushes used for one particular occupation. These men had skin and uniforms streaked with soot.

Not warriors. Chimney sweeps.

"STEP IN TIME! STEP IN TIME!" one of them cried as he swung his brush at the offending creatures.

In a perfectly coordinated dance, the other sweeps began a defensive maneuver, splitting up to batter the Heartless. As they attacked, they chorused out, "TAKE OUT THE HEARTLESS! STEP IN TIME! TAKE OUT THE HEARTLESS! STEP IN TIME! NEVER NEED A REASON! NEVER NEED A RHYME! TAKE OUT THE HEARTLESS! STEP IN TIME!"

Mal mouthed a shocked "What" to Jasmine. Jasmine shrugged. And Rapunzel had already picked out their battle pattern to fall in line with them.

"Well, we are princesses," Mira recalled. "And princesses like random singing and dancing, right?"

With that, the entirety of the group – even Naminé, who simply hung in the back of the chorus line – began to sing and dance along with the sweeps:

"PROTECT SHADOW ALLEY, STEP IN TIME! PROTECT SHADOW ALLEY, STEP IN TIME! NEVER NEED A REASON! NEVER NEED A RHYME! PROTECT SHADOW ALLEY, STEP IN TIME!"

After a few more improvised verses, faster each time, the Heartless were finally eradicated. The sweeps let up a great whooping cheer, congratulating each other with "Jolly good show!" and "Well done, mate!"

"If only Bert could see this now!" one of them yelled.

"Wonder what he's doin' at the Academy this fine day?" another replied. "Servin' up those hot dogs and melon pan, or washin' the windows?"

Kairi approached the sweep who seemed to be the leader of the pack, remembering at the last minute to dismiss Destiny's Embrace before it could identify her. "Thank you," she said, quite relieved. "We were almost in real trouble there."

The sweep turned to her with a wink, "Ah, it's no trouble at all, young…er…"

His eyes traveled over her face, lingering on the mustache. Kairi could tell he wasn't sure, and really didn't want to offend her.

"Oh, I'm a girl," she said. "I just have a mustache."

"And a lovely mustache it is, too!" the sweep replied. "As I was saying, young miss, its' the sweeps' job to protect everyone around here! 'S why we had the panic bells installed!"

"But isn't that supposed to be a job for warriors?" Kairi asked. "And what about the Claymores? You shouldn't have to do such dangerous things when all you signed up for was chimneys."

"Well, that's how it is, here in Shadow Alley," the sweep told her. "Don't get much rest. Claymores don't work here. We don't got the funding, you see. Most of the people around here work fourteen-hour days just to scrape up a living. And when we don't got no defense system, we've got to pitch in where we can. But it's not all bad, once you make it fun like we've gone and done. After all, a very wise woman once said to us that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!"

"That is smart," Kairi replied.

"I knew it," Jasmine muttered. "This place isn't bad. Its people just need help."

"Been this way since before the whole Maleficent catastrophe," the sweep said, "but since then, it's only gotten worse. No use in tryin' to tell the royals up at the castle. Got enough on their plate…and they ain't cared about us in decades. Think Ansem came down here to dance with his fiancée at Club 13 once, long ago, and now we don't see none of them no more."

"Well…maybe that needs to start changing," Kairi said softly. "You never know. Up there, they think that you're just thieves and ruffians, but they're wrong."

"Oh, we've got our fair share of thieves," the sweep confirmed, "but not really the evil sort. Some of 'em just tryin' to scrape by. Others…well, it's a bit of a mix. They get a thrill from the crime, but they ain't about to admit they need help anytime soon, and that's the REAL root of the problem. Like them two boys over there. Turned up only a short while ago, and they're actually from a little better-off neighborhood, but somethin' brought 'em 'round here, and it ain't hard to figure out what that somethin' is."

All turned, only for Kairi to sigh, "Oh, NO."

There was a wall in Shadow Alley that was blank and ripe for a mural. However, it was already in the process of being painted. With aerosol spray cans. By Pietro Maximoff and Lance Alvers.

"…I mean, we WERE looking for a wall," Moana said with a shrug.

Sonia pointed at them dramatically; "They cannot take away the space we were to use for public art!"

"I don't know," Naminé said softly. "That graffiti isn't really different from what we were going to do. It's just more abstract."

"Oh, now THAT'S the kind of paint I work with!" Mal was already on her way.

"Wait! Mal!" Kairi cried. "That's…" She sighed. "I think we're going over there, now. Thanks again."

"Oh, no trouble, young miss! You be careful out there, now! An' ring that panic bell if ya get in another spot of trouble; the sweeps's always listening!"

With that, they dispersed.

As soon as Pietro realized who was all approaching him and Lance, he let out a long, dramatic "UUUGGGGHHHHH. Seriously? Youguysdidn'thavenenoughwhenyousetthatASSASSINonus?"

"On US?" Lance lightly slapped Pietro's forearm. "On ME, jerk!"

"I knew you'd be fine! And I came back for you, didn't I?"

"Yeah, after Wanda literally threw you out the window to get me!"

"You set an ASSASSIN on them?" Mira asked, boggled.

"No," Kairi muttered. "We just…moved an assassin and her two friends in next door to them because she needed a place to stay."

"I…guess that makes sense?" Mira shrugged.

"Mind if we join in?" Mal asked.

"Mind if you join in?" Pietro's speech was now intentionally slow, deliberate. "MIND IF YOU JOIN IN?"

"If you let us paint with you…" Kairi leaned forward. "We won't tell anybody you defaced this wall without permission."

"DONE," Lance said quickly.

"Uggghhh," Pietro sighed. "Fine."

"Actually," Kairi went on, "we hereby GIVE you permission to help us with this wall. It's…actually kind of pretty." She stepped back to survey the play of red and silver that they'd been making together, a symbol of how they came together – a silver streak blazing across a deep red surface that was sometimes a solid foundation and sometimes incredibly shaky.

"Y'know, you seem like an actual cool guy." Pietro raised a brow. "You sure you're with them?"

"I'm not a guy or cool," Kairi teased. "It's me."

"Wha – " Lance flinched. "It's HER!"

"Her?" Pietro looked from side to side. "Her who?"

"The prin – "

"SHHHH!" the other women chorused.

"That's kind of a secret right now," Moana hissed.

So Lance whispered it to Pietro, whose jaw dropped.

"I know," Kairi told them cheekily. "I make this mustache work."

"This is so cool," Rapunzel gushed as she began to set up her paints. "So…how do you wanna do this? You get half, we get half?"

Pietro gave her a sly smirk. "Sure thing." He then fired a wink and a nudge toward Lance, who picked it up immediately.

"AWESOME!" Rapunzel set brush to wall. "Okay, so I was thinking of doing, like, a meadow of flowers, and a pretty blue sky to look cheerful – "

"Ugh, gross," Pietro groaned. "Could you GET more cliché? You already look like you walked out of a greeting card."

"Actually," Namine piped up, "I was thinking about what we all figured out on the way here, and…what if we did something to do with water, instead? Like the ocean at sunset?"

"That…is even BETTER!" Rapunzel squealed, trading her green paint for red. "I LOVE it!"

The women converged on their side of the wall – all save one. Mal reached into the pile of aerosols Lance and Pietro had amassed, shaking up a can of green.

"Mind if I do?" she asked.

"Surprised to see one of you girls actually knows how to use that," Lance said with a smirk.

Mal stuck her tongue out at him before beginning to draw electric-lime flames on the Brotherhood half of the wall. "I was born knowing how to do this. I came programmed with all the bad-girl skills in the book. So. I hear you guys are hanging out here because they get you in this part of town."

Pietro said "Uh, DUH" at the same time Lance said, rather flustered, "No WAY!" They then continued to express opposite opinions in unison:

"See, unlike you nerds, the people around here actually know what, oh, I don't know, SUFFERING feels like. Like how real people live, not rich kids piled in a mansion or a castle."

"Why would we ever say the POOR people got us? We don't do what we do because – we do it for FUN, okay?"

"Wowwww," Mal said sarcastically. "You two are so on the same page."

The boys looked to each other, rather flustered, before sighing in simultaneous defeat. "Shut up," Pietro muttered.

"And you can FORGET about offering us any more handouts," Lance grunted.

"So we won't ask you for handouts!" Kairi called over from her half. "All we want is to paint together!"

So they did. And it wasn't horrible. Until the seascape was nearly finished, and Pietro, putting the final stage of his master plan in action, breezed over to the princesses' half and sprayed a garish rainbow of scribbles to block it all out.

"YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!" Sonia barked authoritatively.

"We worked HARD on that!" Moana growled.

"I thought we were in some kind of truce!" Mira huffed.

"Hey!" Rapunzel said to get the attention of all. "Girls, seriously. There is no sense in getting mad right now. After all, they say you don't get mad." She smirked mischievously at Kairi.

Kairi realized exactly what she was going for. "You get even!"

And so the princesses descended on Lance, Pietro, and Mal's perfectly imperfect graffiti, doodling whatever they wished: flowers, stars, suns, moons, butterflies, a knife dripping blood (in Sonia's case), palm trees, clouds.

"HEY!" Lance and Pietro barked together.

"Excuse you?" Mal put her hands on her hips. "That was MY side, too. Don't punish me for what the silver guy did."

"Too late!" Kairi laughed. "This is war now!"

"Oh, yeah?" Lance growled. "Well…take this!"

He started to put a large black blotch over what was left of the seascape, eradicating it entirely.

By sundown, there was no organization whatsoever to the wall. It remained the obvious site of a battlefield, hokey doodles battling for dominance with spiky shapes. And yet, once both parties had simply decided to give up and go home, the interplay of color, shape, and ultimate mirth ended up making the end of Shadow Alley look just that much brighter to all who passed it.

...

The Huntsman couldn't remember there ever having been a Japanese-style sliding door anywhere on the warship. He supposed with all of the new recruits, there had been some requests for alterations in architecture. Curious, he gently slid the wooden panel aside.

Beyond lay a perfectly accurate replica of a chashitsu – a Japanese tea room – decorated with tatami mats and a tokonoma alcove bearing a small yet striking collection of decorative artifacts collected from the world over.

Seated on one of the tatami mats, Monty held a delicate white teacup in one prehensile foot, slowly sipping from it as its brothers lay expectantly before a teapot that bore a slight wafting steam from its spout.

"You know," he said by way of greeting, "traditionally, a garden path would lead to the entryway, but that was less feasible here. When we are situated in a proper empire, that will be remedied."

The Huntsman took the liberty of entering, sliding the door shut behind him. "It seems we must set aside old grievances in order to achieve that goal."

"They say forgiveness is a tenet of enlightenment. Of course, in the supervillain trade, that tenet is usually ignored, but perhaps it has merit in this case and this alone. Do have a seat."

The Huntsman acquiesced, folding his legs to sit across from Monty. He was beyond even attempting to tell the man that literally none of this came from his own heritage. Everyone was at this point.

"Tea?" Monty offered.

"I shall." The Huntsman poured a cup, taking a tentative sip. Macha, and well-brewed. "You seem to have been expecting company."

"Oh, no one in particular. I was simply hoping a kindred spirit or two might drop by." Monty took another sip from his own cup. "This is the first time I've seen you without that garish mask over your face."

"The helmet is a mark of the first kill and ascendance to the upper ranks of the Huntsclan."

"That doesn't make it look any less…oh, what's the word they use nowadays…edgy. As Gill spells it with a '3' for some reason."

The Huntsman flinched. "I see teenage apprentices rarely vary. Thorn herself was…difficult to keep focused on her work, at first. Especially where teen idols were involved. A teen idol, at that, who we believed to be the American Dragon for a time. …He was a copy. A shapeshifter. We knew early on. And yet still she kept up the charade she had met the true boy for several months. Perhaps to spite me."

Perhaps to have something in her life, to her name, besides the grand purpose he'd thought she would be so honored to be marked for.

"As for the helm," the Huntsman went on, "things have…changed. The WHAM ARMY is quite different from the clan. Here, we have…less pretense. Less formality. More camaraderie. It seemed, after so long, that showing my true face was only…appropriate."

"After you'd hidden it so long, you'd forgotten how to do it?"

The Huntsman didn't reply.

"I wasn't much different, you know," Monty went on. "Up until the final Jade Monkey was accumulated, my face had to be that of the perfectly poised gentleman. Oh, there was so much inside of me I wanted to express, to set free! But none of it could come true until the plan was set into motion. But now, Monty Fisk and Monkey Fist are one. I am me, and there need be no charade! You, however…you never wore your true self at the same time as your true face, did you?"

"I did not come here to be psychoanalyzed."

"I'm merely making conversation, that's all."

The Huntsman thought it over. "…No. I did not. And that is what makes this…so fulfilling. Perhaps even cathartic."

"I'm starting to think you were on the wrong side all along, Huntsman. Did you ever really belong with the clan, or did you belong with us? Drakken, Killigan, Shego, the lot?"

"I would rather not prod the past," the Huntsman stated. "After all, my destiny was decided by the stars before my birth. I had no say in the matter. I played for the side I was written to be on."

"And I was written to be an aristocrat with no skill whatsoever in Monkey Kung Fu. Strange, how brittle destiny is, isn't it?"

The Huntsman felt he should have been enraged, yet for whatever reason, he did not throw his cup at Monty. Instead, he swirled it around, watching the liquid lap at the rim. Perhaps it was simply that this room was too relaxed in atmosphere. A person couldn't really work up a tantrum here – no, Mozenrath could, but he was Mozenrath and could boil over anywhere.

"What did you do when you weren't chasing down the monster of the week?" Monty asked.

"Accounting," the Huntsman stated. "I had attained quite a high rank in my office."

"Egad, that sounds simply soul-sucking."

"It was."

"I do think we're both much better off here, don't you?"

The Huntsman drank enough tea to get down to the dregs. "If destiny is brittle," he mused, "then divination is a fickle science. Hardly a reason to bother with the leaves for anything other than flavor."

"Ah, but it is entertaining to guess at it, is it not?" Monty drained his own cup. "If only to see what might appear in the road ahead." He took a good look at the dregs. "Ah. It seems I am doomed to a sudden and painful death in the near future. What about you?"

The Huntsman almost laughed at that. Divination was a fickle science indeed, prone to giving you either what you were looking for in the first place or utter nonsense. And yet, as he gazed into his own cup, it occurred to him that it might not be without merit. A circle in white, surrounding a great black orb. They said a shape in white was good fortune while a shape in black was ill, but to the Huntsman, it looked like only one phenomenon he had ever seen, and he couldn't see how that could at all bode negatively for him. "An eclipse of the sun," he identified. "A Light…snuffed out for a world of Darkness. Prosperity."

...

Piper had seen enough of the castle. A different area of Radiant Garden had caught her attention. Escorted by Donald Duck, she explored the crystal fissure, running her fingertips gently over the glimmering lavender-blue rocks that extended from the stone walls.

"Gosh," she gasped. "I've never seen crystals like these!"

"Ah, they're a dime a dozen," Donald remarked. "These aren't special!"

"But how do you know?" Piper challenged. "Have you ever tried to experiment with them?"

"Why bother? We already have all the magic we need!"

"Well, I say we leave no stone unturned." Piper laughed to herself. "Literally in this case. Now, let's see. How can I get one of these out of the wall?"

She grasped and tugged at a smaller crystal that jutted from the hewn rock. "Ugh! Looks like I'm going to have to go against UPCHUC protocol and get tough."

"What's UPCH – " Donald did a double take. "WAK! GET DOWN FROM THERE!"

Piper had climbed up onto the rock wall to brace both feet on it while attempting to yank the crystal out of its bedrock. "Come onnnn," she groaned. "I can feel it…almost…"

"YOU'RE GONNA GET HURT THAT WAY!"

"I know what I'm do – WHOA!"

Piper slipped, and would have landed quite hard if not for an Aero spell that kept her suspended a few feet off the ground.

"Thanks, Donald," she sighed. "That coulda been bad."

"I thought you were the sensible one!" Donald chided. "Why'd you climb up there? I didn't sign up for babysitting!"

Piper gave a "Ch" of frustration. "I know that was reckless, but I NEED one of these crystals. Crystals are…well, they're my life's work! They're how I make sense of things! And I can't just see a new crystal and not wonder what it does!"

"Then allow me to lend you a helping hand," a new voice broke in. "Or, perhaps more accurately, a helping WAND."

"WHA – " Donald whirled. "MERLIN!"

The wizard made his way into the fissure. "Ah, Piper!" he greeted. "How wonderful to see the Storm Hawks' c…rystal master at work!"

He hoped she hadn't caught his hesitation. He'd very nearly let something very important slip.

"Crystal master?" Piper laughed, righting herself. "Oh, I don't know about that. I'm just a regular old crystal mage."

"But you did wield the Key between the sides of Atmos, did you not? And master the Binding? Those are not the skills of a mere crystal mage!"

Piper shrugged; "Isn't that…kind of what a crystal mage is?"

Merlin sighed. "Oh, dear. They haven't taught you, have they? Well, first things first. Let's get you a sample."

With a flick of his wand, he carved away a sampling of the lavender-blue translucent stone, levitating it into Piper's open palms. "Thank you!" Piper cried. "Do you know what these do, anyway?"

"You know," Merlin realized, "I don't think anyone has studied these particular stones before. That's the sort of inquisitive thinking that will propel you to your ultimate destiny, my dear!"

"Merlin knows what he's talking about!" Donald emphasized. "He's a trainer of heroes!"

"Trainer of heroes, huh?" Piper repeated. "So…what was that you were saying about what no one taught me?"

"Why, about crystal mages and masters, of course!" Merlin emphasized. "A crystal mage is garden-variety. Anyone can pick it up. It is only through study that one ascends to a crystal master. The difference is staggering. Once one has attained crystal mastery, then, when in possession of a terra crystal, one can transfer magic about to form one's own crystals with varying properties! Keeping all in balance, of course. You cannot make something out of nothing, you know! Think of it like using a Crystal of Ix to – no, you wouldn't know what those are. Well, suffice to say, where ordinary sorcerers have resorted to using power-draining stones to do the work, crystal mages can transfer that power without a conduit and form entirely new sources. It is not an easy path to take, of course. Only those who devote their entire lives to study of crystal magic and only crystal magic can hope to attain mastery."

"I'm ready!" Piper insisted. "I managed to survive learning the Binding! How much worse can crystal mastery be?"

"That's quite the spirit!" Merlin said with a swing of his fist. "Exactly what I was hoping you'd say!"

"Can you teach me?" Piper asked. "Are you a crystal master?"

"Not by trade, but given that I've got a lifespan that dwarfs that of most wizards, I have managed to study to mastery before moving it to a secondary discipline. I can certainly begin your instruction tout de suite!"

"YES!" Piper cried. "When do we start?"

"Shall we say every afternoon, an hour after the luncheon? I can provide tea and refreshments, but it is better to show up well-nourished. I would bring that new sample of yours. Feel free to experiment on your own, of course, but unlocking its secrets will make a fine first curriculum!"

"Thank you SO MUCH!" Piper cried. "This is great! I gotta tell Aerrow!"

"Do run along," Merlin encouraged her. "After all, friendship is power in these worlds. Your relationship with him will prove crucial, especially since you two partner to achieve the Binding."

Piper grimaced. "Relationship? You mean – "

"Oh, purely platonic, of course."

"Phew." Piper wiped her brow. "I was almost scared there! Anyway, gotta run!"

As Piper dashed away, Donald regarded Merlin with a suspicious look. "What was that?"

"That was me extending a helping hand to a prodigious young student – "

"Not that!" Donald barked. "When you almost said somethin' else instead of 'crystal master'! What were you gonna say?"

"Nothing you can know about, Donald Duck!" Merlin huffed, folding his arms. "You're a most notorious gossip, and I can't have knowledge of the future being bandied about willy-nilly! Now, if you'll excuse me I've places to be, so let the matter drop!"

And with that, he vanished, leaving Donald to mutter angrily to himself.

Back at the castle gates, as close as Merlin could teleport in before the barriers prevented that sort of entry, he ruminated on how he'd almost slipped. If he had told Piper of the future he'd seen for her, it might have altered the path. The Piper he knew from years to come was, in fact, a crystal master. But that wasn't all. Many years down the road, Aerrow would realize he was best suited as a co-pilot, and the structure of the entire team would rearrange.

What Merlin had almost called Piper was "captain."

...

The Great Expanse was a misty wasteland where you could barely see two feet in front of you. Magic was nullified and technology completely dulled. Warp navigated by means of an analog compass and exacting directions pace-by-pace Maleficent had doled out before he and his cohorts had entered the field. Amora, the Dark Ace, and Zhao strode behind him, keeping close, for losing their navigator could mean losing their way for eternity.

"Y'know," Warp muttered, "Malef sure talked a big game about this place being dangerous, but so far, the biggest danger here has been dying of boredom."

"This is not a place to take lightly," Amora warned. "The greatest dangers hide behind innocuous faces."

"You don't think I know that? I had to pull a double-agent gambit on my archnemesis for half a decade!" Warp snapped back. "Anyway, we're almost to the spot."

None of the other three truly trusted Warp with all their heart. But in the Great Expanse, he was all they had to choose.

"And nothing happened whatsoever," Warp sighed. "All that talk about danger was a bunch of balo – "

His next step took him to a place where the mists cleared entirely, and before him stood a sight he certainly hadn't expected to behold here on Atmos.

" – ney."

He stood on the deck of a space station. No, not just any space station. He knew this one. He had called it home for years. It was Star Command. However, the ships that bustled back and forth from the galactic hub were decidedly purple. Far more planets were visible from Star Command's vantage point than usually would be, and purple fogs clouded them, indicating that they had been conquered by a certain ally of Warp's.

"Darkmatter. Reporting for duty."

Warp turned to see Buzz Lightyear standing beside him at attention. Not the Buzz he knew, of course. This one was different. Dressed in purple and black. Sporting a classy evil goatee. Alongside him, wearing similar palettes of uniform, were Mira, Booster, and a red-eyed XR.

"No stinkin' way," Warp said in a soft hush.

"Awaiting your next command, Commander Darkmatter," Mira stated, sounding strikingly hollow. "Be it business or pleasure."

"Now, that's what I like to hear." Warp smirked. "But of course, I'm already spoken for, princess. You want a piece of me, you have to talk to – "

"DARKMATTER!"

Now, that voice was music to his ears, even when it was scolding him. Oh, but Warp was a glutton for punishment in that respect. He turned the other direction to see a familiar figure gliding his way – one who wore armored robes of the deepest violet, a mask shielding his face from the worlds.

"Hey, babe," Warp greeted.

"Don't you 'Hey, babe' me!" Zurg snapped. "We still have much work to do! Only Karn remains in our conquest of the entire galaxy!"

"You mean to tell me that while I was gone, you actually did it?" Warp asked, jaw dropping. "You took over the whole stinkin' place?"

"Oh, you bet I did," Zurg cackled. "Wait. How don't you know that? You helped me. It was your strategic mind that allowed us each and every critical victory. That's why I changed Trade World's name to Warpopolis."

"I have…no memory of doing this," Warp admitted. "Last time I saw you, you were still holding a pen undecidedly over those name-change forms for 'Nurg.'"

"Well, I decided against it," Zurg said with a dismissive wave. "After all, Star Command made a far better base of operations than Planet Z, anyhow, and you're the one to thank for earning it for me. And also for turning all of Team Lightyear to the dark side for us to use as our elite force of fighters, of course."

"Somethin' stinks here," Warp muttered. "How'd all this happen in a few days? How'd I do things I know I didn't do? How'd I even get here from Atmos?"

"Oh, don't question it," Zurg sighed. "Just let it happen. You and I rule the entire galaxy now! All other villains bow to our command, except for NOS-4-A2, who is in a perpetual cycle of being crushed in a trash compactor and then rebuilt and reactivated so we can crush him again! Buzz Lightyear licks your shoes clean!"

"That's pretty much everything I've ever wanted," Warp said with a smile. "All right. Not gonna look this gift horse in the mouth."

The Dark Ace had entered a completely different scene. For all intents and purposes, he appeared to be back on the Cyclonian warship.

"Now, how did I end up back here?" he muttered. "Wasn't this overtaken by – "

"HELP ME!"

How hadn't he noticed before? Cyclonis was tied up in crystal-reinforced bindings, lying on the floor before him.

"Dark Ace," she hissed, her voice cracking in panic. "Help me. You're the only one who can save me!"

The Dark Ace chuckled. Then it escalated to a full-blown roar of laughter. "You want me to save you?" he retorted. "After all that's happened?"

"YES!" Cyclonis pleaded. "After the fall of Terra Merbia…after Mother was slain…you were the one who picked up the pieces of the empire! You were the only one who ever looked out for me! And now I need you!"

"Oh, how I've longed to tell you this," the Dark Ace said in mock sweetness. "Of course I picked up the pieces of the empire. I was the only one with the mind and the ambition to do so. However, there was one thing I lacked: royal blood. Only you, Cyclonis, named for the glory of Cyclonia, were named the true heir to the throne. A traitor from beyond could never hope to ascend to a seat of such power. Nor did I want that much responsibility, in the end. I only ever wanted my freedom. Still, I played along and bound myself to your whims in order to leech off your power."

"So everything you ever did was a LIE?" Cyclonis cried, eyes widening in utter fear.

"Of course it was," the Dark Ace assured her. "And if you weren't such a child, you would've seen that a long time ago. Dismissing Ravess and Snipe was your greatest error. Had you not turned on them, they would surely have remained loyal to you. Unlike me. For, you see…"

He withdrew his sword, lighting up the fiery red.

"Now that I have the Overtakers, you no longer matter. You are an unnecessary piece in the game. And I can finally rid myself of your sniveling."

Cyclonis screamed in terror.

The Dark Ace raised the sword high above her, ready to chop her in half. "I must say…I never realized how this was everything I've ever wanted."

Zhao went from the mists of the Expanse to walking down the halls of the Fire Nation palace, eyes set on a door to a balcony that overlooked the courtyard. When he emerged, the wind billowed his robes, and he became aware suddenly that they were shimmering gold, not the armor of a naval officer but the attire of the Phoenix King himself.

The warriors of the Fire Nation court stood in an organized mass in the courtyard below, setting up a cheer to see Zhao appear. "LONG LIVE THE PHOENIX KING!" they chanted. "LONG LIVE THE PHOENIX KING!"

"Ahhh…yes," Zhao sighed. "Truly, I shall live on in memory, even if only in infamy. Ozai shall be forgotten to make way for my own name."

"Congratulations."

The voice came from the balcony's other occupant. Cyclonis. No…before Zhao's eyes, she changed. He had thought she was Cyclonis. He had thought she would be Cyclonis, given everything. But now her hair was longer, bound up in a dark bun. She wore red, not purple. And instead of Cyclonis' tired-eyed stare, she wore a confident smirk.

"I'm proud to say you were the only man I could truly call my father," the girl stated coldly yet with affection. "After all, you were always there for me when he wasn't."

"That I was," Zhao boasted. "I'd hoped one day you would see it. For every time he forgot you in the city, and I made an errand of escorting you back to the palace. For every time he hurt you, and I did my duty of wiping your tears. For every time I engaged you in agni kai in order to keep your skills sharp enough for his approval."

"This was never his place. It was always ours."

"And you have finally grown from a cowardly girl into a fierce warrior," Zhao congratulated. "Perhaps I hadn't acknowledged it, but this, the sum of it all, is exactly what I had wanted."

Then, in one fell swoop, the three dreams ended. The Dark Ace's sword bit down into the dust. The three men looked entirely confused until they spotted Amora standing out front of them, standing over a corpse.

The dead body appeared to be that of a woman, hair and skin both blue. Her spine had been snapped at several angles. "You're welcome," Amora scoffed.

"What the – " Warp shook his head. "What just happened?"

"A siren happened," Amora sighed. "She trapped you all in your own sweetest dreams. But a seductress cannot fool another seductress. Even without magic, I was able to break through her charms, for they were but a more feral, untamed version of my own refined skills. Her bestiality did her in, in the end. All she could do was rage at me as I attacked strategically. Now I am left only to wonder what your deepest desires were. Is it too much to hope I starred in any?"

The Dark Ace and Zhao were both suddenly confused as to why Amora hadn't appeared to either one of them. After all, now that their vision of the situation was restored, they remembered that she was supposed to be what they loved most. "We would be glad to inform you of the details, Enchantress," the Dark Ace said smoothly. "Though my tale will undoubtedly be of more interest to you than the admiral's."

"No, mine will burn yours to the ground!" Zhao seethed.

"There will be plenty of time for that later," Amora said with a smirk. "Now, shall we proceed?"

They found their target rotating gently in the air several feet above the basin of a volcanic caldera, sunk deep into the earth and filled with a pool of glowing red lava that tinted the mists crimson. The Helix Crystal itself was magma-colored, burning red from its heart and tipped with gold, a twisted infinity symbol.

"It did exist," the Dark Ace gasped. "The crystal of legends."

"How are we going to get to it?" Zhao inquired.

It was a good question. The caldera was wide, and the crystal suspended from it with no bridge. Amora tested out her magic, only to see green sparks fizzle dead in her palms.

"Yeah, this isn't going anywhere," Warp muttered as he tried to engage his jetpack only to be met with weak sputters. "You'd practically have to throw someone across to catch it in midair and hope they made it to the other side."

"Hmm…perhaps not a bad thought," Amora mused. "After all, I have two who are willing to do my bidding and take such a flight." She regarded the Dark Ace and Zhao coyly. "Who here is the lightest?"

Warp smirked. "You heard her, boys. She wants you to pick the LIGHTEST PERSON to throw across, all together. Just follow my lead. Trust me."

"Oh?" Amora asked. "You know which will be a simpler throw?"

"Oh, I know," Warp practically chuckled.

By the time Amora figured out his game, she'd already been launched by the strength of three across the caldera. She set aside her blazing anger just long enough to have the presence of mind to snag the Helix Crystal and press it close to her chest. She hit the other side, rolling on the bank.

"YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT!" she shrieked across the caldera.

"BUT YOU GOT THE CRYSTAL, RIGHT?" Warp yelled back. "ALSO, MOST WOMEN TAKE IT AS A COMPLIMENT IF SOMEONE CALLS THEM THE LEAST HEAVY IN THE GROUP!"

"ZHAO!" Amora screamed. "DARK ACE! THIS WAS NOT WHAT I WANTED! PUNISH EACH OTHER!"

"This is YOUR FAULT!" Zhao yelled at the Dark Ace.

"MY fault?" the Dark Ace countered. "You set the example I followed, and handled her more roughly!"

With the Dark Ace's sword unable to blaze and Zhao's bending muted, the two of them resorted to fisticuffs.

Amora strode around the caldera, glowering at Warp as her toys dealt bruises to each other. "You know not when your revenge will come. But it will come eventually. That is a promise and a threat."

"Challenge accepted," Warp said with a wink. "I can take it."

Amora rolled her eyes. "We have what we sought." The glimmering stone in her hands revitalized her aura, filling her with magic once more. She cast a Corridor to take all four back to base. "Now let us leave so I never have to lay eyes on this peasant planet again."