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.

135. Words of the Wise Woman

A/N: We have a major, MAJOR trigger warning for mental illness, depression, and suicidal ideation/possibly action coming up. Please stay safe.

In more fun news, the songs you're going to want to know for this chapter are "Cedric the Great" from Sofia the First and "The Oldest Established" from Guys & Dolls.

...

"YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT WITH WHOM?"

The veins on Vexen's head were practically bursting from his skin. Actually, since his upper half was disrobed and his lower half was now an ice-blue merman tail, there were a few veins visible all over his torso that were ready to pop from the simple irrationality he'd just been posed.

"I'd repeat myself," Mozenrath told him, "but I'm pretty sure you heard me."

"This is an OUTRAGE!" Vexen ranted. "Never, ever, in DECADES would I agree to such a thing! The very suggestion is moronic beyond BELIEF! I've half a mind to wonder if you're imposters being controlled by the Overtakers, except even they wouldn't believe you would resort to being such SIMPLETONS! AND YOU RIPPED ME AWAY FROM AN INTEGRAL MISSION IN REMNANT FOR THIS?"

"He's taking this better than I thought he would, really," Yzma muttered.

"Well, based on that statement, I'm terrified of this man," Mysterio muttered right back.

"Give me ONE GOOD REASON." Vexen held up an index finger in Mozenrath's face. "A SINGLE reason I should help you with this endeavor! Which is not, mind you, to convince me! It is to prove there is a single BRAIN CELL left inside that hollow thing you call a skull!"

"As a matter of fact, I do have a reason," Mozenrath said. "See, you know how driven these people can become when given an objective. No matter how idiotic. Your presence here is a matter of convenience. If you don't help us, then at least one person here is going to attempt the time heist anyway and try and collect a second Demyx without your guidance. You get to decide whether you want to lend your expertise to this or let it crash and burn."

Vexen was struck wordless by that, but his face alone read a thousand.

"You heard him," Mozenrath taunted. "Or rather his lack of speech. He won't help us, so I guess we're figuring this out without – "

"I'LL DO IT!" Vexen groaned. "I swear, one of these days, you'll all be the death of me."

"But it beats both Radiant Garden and Xemnas, so you won't leave," Wuya reminded him.

Vexen just muttered something unintelligible that everyone knew was a confirmation of Wuya's statement.

"Let's go," Mozenrath urged. "We've put a location on the device we'll need…and I like to think of what we're doing along the way as networking."

He swam off, and Yzma and Wuya were the first to follow. Zevon, Shocker, and Mysterio went next, but Gill hung back a moment.

"This Demyx guy," Gill asked Vexen. "He's like your Ron Stoppable, right?"

"I have no idea who that is" was Vexen's flat reply.

"He's a total squeeb who ruined your life and torments your every waking hour."

"That description fits several people, but yes."

"So?" Gill shrugged dramatically. "You've never had the revenge fantasy of having a personal Ron – I mean Demyx that you could make do whatever you want? You play your cards right and you actually GET one!"

"I wouldn't resort to such base fantasies," Vexen sighed. "First and foremost, I am utterly sex-repulsed."

"Not like that!" Gill protested. "I'm straight, okay? I just think having my own personal Ron to order around and make be my friend and have serve my every whim would be really satisfying!" He paused on that. "I am straight, right? Augh, I don't have time to pick through that! The point is I don't think about doing the nasty with him! Just the revenge part!"

"I can assure you the thought of reconciling with any form of Demyx has NEVER crossed my mind," Vexen seethed, "and the very idea that he and I should become amicable is repugnant to say the least."

As he careened away, Gill muttered, "Yeah, well, that's not what I said at all, so now who's protesting too much?"

...

Qrow had gone out again. And the others all knew there were no Huntsmen left in Mistral to hire. He kept saying he was "exploring other avenues," but Ruby knew the truth.

"I can't take this," she groaned, pacing through the living room as Booster, Nora, and Yuffie sat on the chairs surrounding her. "He just does nothing but drink himself stupid every day, and he's gonna poison his own liver this way and I can't lose an uncle this young!"

"If it helps," Yuffie pointed out, "from what I hear, if he hasn't completely ruined his liver already, that thing's invincible."

"NOT HELPING!" Ruby screeched. "Uuugghhhh, there's gotta be something we can do! Something to make it so he doesn't have to DO this! Or at least…something to help besides getting stronger ourselves, because we all know it's gonna be more complicated than that! Qrow wanted reinforcements, even with all of us here! We need something that can give us an edge! That can make us feel like we're actually gonna come out of this all right!"

"Us?" Nora repeated. "I think you're the one who's scared, Ruby."

"WELL, MAYBE I AM!" Ruby cried. "We don't know what's coming or how many people are involved! …And I'm starting to think we made a mistake just sending Yen Sid on his way instead of asking for help."

"Don't call him," Yuffie warned. "Kairi will probably think you did it because you subconsciously doubt her, and the whole damn boat's gonna tip over."

"Well, maybe there's something else we can do," Booster piped in. "There are always other ways to solve problems. Team Lightyear's had to get creative a lot."

"Define 'creative,'" Nora urged.

"Well," Booster recalled, "a couple times, we've had to go at it from the other side and infiltrate the bad guys in order to learn what was going on. …Of course, now that I think about it, the big time that happened, we didn't do it on purpose. XR just kinda got himself wrapped up in the criminal underworld trying to get rich…which happens more than you'd think…"

"But what if we did do it on purpose?" Ruby realized.

"What, try and get in with SALEM?" Nora's jaw dropped.

Ruby shook her head; "No. We wouldn't even know where to start. But…maybe we can come at it from a different angle. Mistral is known as a crime capital. Someone has to know something. If we can get in from that side, we could learn some information."

"That's a great plan!" Booster realized.

"I'm down," Nora said. "But what are we even gonna do? None of us have the 'find criminals' Semblance. Which would be awesome if we did."

"Well, how would a space ranger do this?" Yuffie asked.

"I don't know," Booster admitted. "That's usually – " His eyes widened. "THAT'S IT!"

Within two minutes, the four of them sat on the floor, gathered around a ringing GummiPhone. The other end picked up, revealing a familiar metallic face. "This better be important," XR stated. "My spa appointment starts in thirty minutes."

"How can a ROBOT even have a spa day?" Nora asked. "What do they even do?"

"That is none of your business," XR replied. "Geez, organics these days, always with the microaggressions – "

"XR," Booster interrupted, "we're trying to infiltrate the criminal underworld of a city. On purpose. We were hoping…maybe you could give us some advice?"

"We-he-hell, now THAT is a droid of a different color!" XR beamed. "I'll tell you everything I know. I am somewhat of an expert in the subject, after all. Listen up, because what I'm about to say, I can only tell you once, and technically should only be said on a device that will self-destruct after."

"Throw the phone off the balcony after this!" Nora gave a thumbs-up. "Got it!"

"DO NOT," Ruby seethed.

"You're gonna wanna follow two things," XR explained. "Money and hedonism. If everyone in town is spending somewhere, chances are they're getting something you can't get anywhere else, if you get my drift. And organics are obsessed with sensory pleasures. Gambling, lust, gluttony, what have you. Not like us robots, who are designed to only focus on what matters."

"You're going to the spa after this," Yuffie reminded him.

"You're gonna be tracking down whatever den of sin can get people their fix," XR went on. "Whatever that fix may be. If you think someone would look at a place like, 'That's where I can have a good time!', and you're not a nerd who thinks that's the library like certain Twilight Town blondes I know, then you've found the place."

"You still have a crush on that girl?" Yuffie smirked. "I thought you'd've been over her by now, but you still keep bringing her up – "

"SHE IS A WOMAN," XR interrupted, "AND THIS ISN'T ABOUT THAT. Oh, and the other thing is you're not gonna come by this cheap, either. The best way to loosen lips is to fork over the unibucks."

"How do we know who the right person is to pay for information?" Ruby asked.

"Suits, cloaked in shadows, probably alliterative names, have a suspicious amount of friends who are just dumb muscle," XR explained. "You want the quickest and cheapest way to do this, just hit up a nightclub and pay off the neoplasma dealer in the corner. You won't get the name of a supplier, but you can buy the address of a client or two. That's the other thing about organics. No such thing as loyalty. Between people like you, maybe. But the average Joe on the street? Will throw the rest of his planet under the bus for a fat paycheck."

"That's not true!" Ruby argued.

"Oh, how naïve they are when they're young," XR sighed. "Anyway, that gonna be enough to go on?"

"It gives me a few ideas," Nora replied.

"Same here," Ruby agreed.

"Thanks, XR," Booster replied. "You're a good friend. Even if you might think you're one of the selfish ones."

"I think no such thing," XR said quickly. "My magnanimousness is bottomless. Like your stomach."

"Hey!" Ruby poked the screen. "No shaming!"

"Call back if you need further expert guidance," XR told them, "but not before three p.m. Radiant time. Actually, better make that four; I've been meaning to redecorate my quarters to something flashier and I better get that out of the way before I start seeing that green carpet pattern every time I close my eyes instead of just in my nightmares. Ciao."

The connection broke, and Ruby said, "Y'know…there's one thing he didn't bring up."

"Are you about to say disguises?" Nora asked.

"I am SO about to say disguises!" Ruby cheered.

...

"What can I do y – " Andy Jason stopped himself as he recognized Ven and Papyrus, not about to make that mistake again. "How can I help you?"

"We heard this was where we could get a clamming permit?" Ven asked.

"You heard correctly!" Andy laughed. "Tell you what. I don't just give those away for free, but I'll cut you a deal. See that display behind you?"

Ven and Papyrus turned to behold said display. There was a purple diorama box on the topmost of the circular shelves, with several molded-plastic bones scattered around it.

"You might have heard the stories of the sea monster that gave Snake Horse Harbor its name," Andy went on. "a.k.a. Cadborosaurus. Though I like to just call it 'Caddy.' That display is supposed to show off what Caddy might hypothetically look like in skeletal form: something like a plesiosaur. Now, I've been working with that display since it shipped in and getting nowhere. I'm more of a businessman than an artsy type. But if you two can make it look halfway decent – "

"STOP RIGHT THERE." Papyrus put up a hand. "WE TWO DON'T EVEN NEED TO; ME ONE CAN HANDLE IT. OR I, THE ONE. BECAUSE I AM SOMEWHAT OF AN EXPERT IN SKELETONS."

"Then have at it!" Andy encouraged, and Papyrus made a beeline for the model, puzzling over the new puzzle.

In the meantime, Ven asked, "Hey, Andy. Did you know someone named Hilda Swenson?"

"Who doesn't know about Hilda Swenson?" Andy replied.

"Did she ever…give you any kind of gift?"

"Well, as I said, I'm not an artist," Andy reiterated. "She made the graphic design for the keychains we give out here at Whale World. I tried to contract her for other pieces, but apparently it was one and done."

"Keychain?" Ven tilted his head. "Can I see it?"

"This is a business," Andy told him. "You want something, you have to pay for it."

Ven then noticed a certain sign on the desk. "But that sign right there says you get one with every whale-watching tour."

"Well, you won yours through blind luck. The keychain is for paying customers."

Ven's brow furrowed. Something about this didn't ring true. "Okay." He fished in a pocket, then placed several dollar bills on the counter. "Now I paid for it."

Andy scanned the money over, waiting a while before withdrawing a plastic item from beneath the counter and gently placing it down. Ven snapped it up quickly before Andy could make a move to reclaim it – which, given his body language, it seemed he very well might.

"DONE!" Papyrus skidded up to the counter. "BEHOLD!" He gestured back to where a plesiosaur in skeletal form graced the shelving unit.

Andy's smile returned in full force; "Nice job! Okay. I'll get your permit whipped up and even throw in a clamming tube."

He presented them with a paper and a rather unwieldy implement, and then they were on their way.

Once outside, Papyrus asked Ven, "DID YOU ASK ABOUT – "

"Yeah," Ven said hushedly. "But he was being weird about it, like he didn't want us to see it. It was a keychain design we were supposed to get all the way back on the whale tour. See?"

He unfolded his palm, revealing the chain. It boasted a tranquil blue design, with an orca as its centerpiece. Tiles that surrounded the whale showed off spindly letters; if you read from left to right, you would get the word "TREN."

"TREN?" Papyrus mulled over. "HOW STRANGE. IT'S GOT TO BE CONNECTED TO 'ONE BUM' SOMEHOW. I KNOW IT."

"Yeah."

"BUT YOU SAID ANDY WAS OTHERWISE…" He glanced back at the Whale World doors. "ACTUALLY, LET'S WAIT UNTIL WE'RE FURTHER FROM EARSHOT."

Back at the counter, Andy took out a flip phone, opening up its texting window. He fired off a quick message: "You were right…..they wanted to see the keychain."

...

Roman Torchwick was apprehensive when he approached the headmaster's office that morning, unsure what sort of reaction he was going to get after his little performance last night, or how much damage control he would need to do. From the other side of the door, it sounded like the others were having a good talk and a laugh over breakfast. Well, best to get it over with. He creaked open the door, striding in and expecting the fallout.

"Ah, Roman!" Snatcher greeted cheerfully. "Mightn't you join us? Mr. Zorg is giving us a most dreadful explanation of things better left unsaid, and Miss Neopolitan and I require bolstered forces to silence him."

"Not my fault ya can't handle the truth," Zorg replied. "I'm just tellin' it like it is."

Neo excitedly waved Roman over, and, after taking a moment to wonder if this was some kind of trap, Roman shrugged it off and approached. If they wanted to forget, then he was more than happy to help in that endeavor.

This particular breakfast circle was made up of Snatcher, Neo, Zorg, and Drakken. The latter offered him a takeout bag, declaring, "Neo was a darling this morning and fetched us all those charming rice bowls for breakfast!"

"Huh. Let's see…" Roman reached into the bag, selecting from a few different bowls. "I won't say no to furikake." Once he had his breakfast of choice, he asked, "So what's the controversy of the hour?"

"Dr. Drakken was the only of us foolish enough to ask what this word 'vore' meant," Snatcher sighed. "Mr. Zorg graced us with an explanation."

Roman nearly choked.

"I'll take the fall on this one," Drakken groaned. "It was my bad."

"I mean, maybe if I'd seen less art of busty ladies straight-up eatin' gangsters an' more male-on-male cannibalism, I'd be into that kinda thing," Zorg admitted. "But no accountin' for taste."

"Things I did not need to know right out of the gate in the morning," Roman sighed. "That. Most definitely that."

The sound of tapping from his side alerted Roman to the traitor; "Neo, are you texting them what I'm actually into?"

He swatted for her scroll, which she held up out of reach.

"Be a bit easier to document what he's not into, wouldn't it?" Snatcher muttered without thinking.

This earned him the lightest of slaps on the forearm; "How dare you!" Roman stifled a laugh. "I swear you to secrecy behind locked doors, and this is the end result of it?"

That gave Neo enough time to finish sending her text, which pinged into the group chat she'd made for everyone on the Remnant mission. Drakken immediately deleted it, Zorg looked it over with a smirk, and in about two seconds, there came all the way from Atlantica a text reading "WAS THIS NECESSARY?" A few seconds later, Kokichi added in, "Kokichi will remember that :D"

"Now, say, Roman," Zorg said suddenly, "on less risqué matters, I was wonderin' if you'd help me with a li'l enterprise I got cookin' for this trip."

"WE'VE got cooking," Drakken corrected. "It was at least fifty percent my idea."

"Just the basic foundation," Zorg reminded him. "I designed all the bells and whistles."

"THE FOUNDATION IS IMPORTANT TO THE ENTIRE DEVICE!" Drakken yelled. "YOU COULDN'T JUST STICK THAT MANY CANNONS TOGETHER WITH A RUBBER BAND AND HOPE FOR THE BEST!"

"This happens every time they attempt to bring it up," Snatcher sighed.

"One: you got no idea what I can do with a rubber band an' a few mismatched pieces a' scrap," Zorg said to the group. "Two: we're hopin' to add some extra firepower to our little expedition. We already know we got enemies an' a lot of 'em comin' for our pretty little heads. So how do we stand a fightin' chance? Why, by stackin' the deck; how else? Now, Drakken here an' I've come up with a plan for your standard doomsday-model mech. The kinda thing what wins wars in two hours. That said, we don't got the tech here to pull it off. We know where does."

"Atlas." Roman nodded. "You wanna outsource."

"Well, there's a problem," Drakken told him. "Apparently, Atlas has cut off all exports. And imports. And is basically a fortress now."

Roman shook his head, clicking his tongue. "Oh, James, James, James. Always strong on the overkill. You keep moving like that and people are gonna wonder who the real bad guy is here."

"But this is your home turf, ain't it?" Zorg reminded him. "Ya got connections. Ya got elbows to rub."

"Lemme guess." Roman smirked. "You want me to pull some strings and get you the good shit flown in from Atlas despite a military blockade."

"You sayin' that's gonna be too tough?"

"Oh, I NEVER said that." Roman's smirk was ever cockier. "But we are gonna have to do some legwork first. There's someone in this city who could point us in the right direction, but you'd better watch your step with her, because the black widow bites."

"Well," Drakken stammered, "could you…maybe…please?"

"Say the word and we'll mosey," Roman told them.

"I already called in sick," Zorg stated. "Better we stop at two, else we're gonna raise some suspicion."

"FIELD TRIP!" Drakken crowed.

Neo clasped her hands together and made puppy eyes at Roman, who ruffled her hair into a mess while saying, "Yes, you're coming along too. Betrayal notwithstanding."

They cleaned up from their breakfast as best as they actually wanted to, then set about beginning their days. But before splitting off, Zorg and Snatcher exchanged a look.

Zorg winked. And Snatcher smiled and nodded in return.

For the two engineers had done exactly as Snatcher had asked, and this would keep Roman off the premises for just long enough.

...

There was one last world that Yen Sid had suggested visiting. One that Eraqus had written of often, and documented finding a companion in. They had a name to go on with this one, so at first, it seemed like an easy task.

But it seemed no one in the whole city of Agrabah knew anyone by that name.

"This is gettin' real weird," Mickey muttered as he and Yen Sid moved down one of the back alleys. "It's like she never existed."

"Given what we have heard of Eraqus' dealings thus far…" Yen Sid shook his head. "There may yet be an unpleasant explanation awaiting us as to why she is missing."

"Aw, I'm sure it ain't that bad," Mickey assured. "Eraqus did a lot of bad things. But always with good intentions. He wouldn't just do somethin' that'd make a person stop existin'."

"I hope you are correct, Mickey. It seems you are the only friend from those days I know I can still trust."

And that sort of title didn't feel so much an honor as a tragedy, Mickey ruminated.

They'd turned to a rather disreputable magic shop in their last hopes, entering the dimly lit boutique to find a saleswoman dressed in earth tones topped off with a vibrant purple hijab. When she saw that she had customers, the woman asked, "What is it you want?"

"Uh, hi," Mickey said nervously. "We're hopin' for somethin' that'd allow us to divine where somebody went."

"Divination does not come cheap," the woman said with a sinister smile.

"We are prepared to pay a hefty price," Yen Sid told her. "After all, such a cost is only secondary to what we have paid emotionally."

"Such a melancholy sentiment," the woman said, far too amused. "I of course have the treatments for many ails. For instance, a spell to let you forget completely about whoever and whatever caused you pain."

"We will be making no detours," Yen Sid said sternly. "Especially not with such dangerous magic as memory tampering."

"You are wise and versed in the arts of sorcery," the woman said, impressed. "For you, perhaps a discount. What sort of person did you want to divine?"

"There was a woman who lived in this city," Mickey explained. "We don't know much about her, but she was a friend of a friend. Her name was Aaliyah."

"Aaliyah - !" The saleswoman's eyes widened. "That is a name I have not heard in almost twenty years!"

"You knew her!" Mickey realized.

"Perhaps…" The woman gave him a sly look.

"How much?" Yen Sid asked.

She named a price. Yen Sid turned over that much, exactly. She disappeared into a stockroom, bringing out a glowing sphere.

"This is an ancient crystal of memory," the woman explained. "Here, I kept all of my memories of my most…prolific customer. It will show you what you wish to know."

"I see," Yen Sid realized. "An Earthen Historia."

"A what?" Mickey asked.

"The sort of crystal used in Radiant technology to record memory," Yen Sid explained. "Most spheres are forged of Earthen Historia."

"But I must warn you," the woman said as she handed over the sphere to Yen Sid's outstretched palm. "What we pay for is not always what we desired. A lesson she had to learn the hard way."

"Thanks," Mickey told her. Even though he didn't know if the price she'd set was actually fair, she'd given them an answer to their question.

"Don't be strangers!" the shopkeeper called out as Yen Sid and Mickey stepped back into the streets.

They took a moment to find a secluded, shaded area in the back streets where they could tap into the crystal. Then, once they were alone, Yen Sid tapped the sphere with his index finger; "Show us the answers we seek."

Though it was a small orb, resting comfortably in the palm of Yen Sid's hand, the image it projected was directly into their minds, resulting in a picture larger than life.

...

With a smile, the woman rummaged through the curiosities of the magic shop, "hmmm"-ing over several items. She picked up a shining crystal, turning it over in her hand.

If this was Aaliyah, and it had to be, she certainly looked striking. Though her skin was paler than that of most Agrabanians, her facial structure matched the ethnicity of the area. Her hair was long, thick, and jet-black, tumbling down over her shoulders in flowing curls. She was clothed in a brilliant pink that seemed more like the wear of a royal than that of a civilian.

"What's this?" she asked, turning around with the crystal in her hand.

From the perspective of the crystal itself, the voice of the shopkeeper: "A Crystal of Ix. Very rare. It allows you to drain the magic from any being and use it as your own."

"Mm…no thanks." She set the crystal back down. "I have plenty already. It'd just be a waste. Is this Megaelixir genuine?"

"How DARE you insinuate anything in my shop is not genuine?"

"So that's a no. Oh, a Midnight Anklet! I could use this!"

"Protection from the Dark?" the saleswoman teased.

"Please," Aaliyah scoffed, tossing her luxurious hair. "I am the dark."

She approached to make her purchase. At that point, the saleswoman brought up, "There are those who say they have seen you with a man who is not your husband. Have you finally tired of his rampant whims?"

"Eraqus isn't like that." Aaliyah shook her head. "He's just a friend. He's…a stranger to this city, like I was when I first married. So I'm showing him everything I wanted shown to me. I know his greatest secret, so he can't get rid of me."

"And what is the nature of this…friendship?"

"Nothing so lascivious." Aaliyah rolled her eyes in a way Mickey almost found strangely familiar. "He KNOWS things. Things about things even you don't sell here. Strange, wild magic. All the Light, though, because he insists on being a bore. That said, knowledge is knowledge, and you know I can never get enough."

"So long as you pay, I won't complain."

"And we're keeping the city safe, you know." Aaliyah knelt to fasten the anklet above her foot. "From the Heartless."

"Your word for the Dark creatures?"

"It's THE word for the Dark creatures, but yes." She straightened up. "So next time I come in here, I'll be expecting a thank-you."

"HA!" the shopkeeper barked. "Not anytime soon!"

Aaliyah was headed out the door by then, giving a curt wave and simply saying, "Yes, yes."

...

Aaliyah brought almost more potion bottles than she could comfortably carry up front, asking, "You wouldn't have a satchel for these, would you?"

"Buy one more and I'll make it complementary," the shopkeeper's voice said.

"You never pass up an opportunity to gouge, do you?" Aaliyah groaned, setting down the bottle and going back to pick out one more bottle.

"As though you can lecture me on ethics. These are all curses. Forbidden ones, at that."

"I only use them on Heartless!" Aaliyah called back. "And…study their formulae. And MAYBE there was a man who catcalled me who got some just desserts, but he's doing much better now."

"What a moral paragon."

Aaliyah returned with a black, spiky vial. "Speaking of, this should prevent any other would-be homewreckers from saying their piece."

"And what does your friend of the Light think of you mastering these wicked ways?"

"They're not evil," Aaliyah insisted. "Dark magic is only evil depending on what you use it for. Though you coulda fooled me with the way he rambles on about it. I can't let on any of the techniques behind my sorcery. He and I have already driven several of the bad kind out of town, and I don't want to know what would happen if he found out about my preferred style."

"So this Eraqus is a fair-weather friend, then."

"Don't go there!" Aaliyah was hoarding her new potions into the leather bag she'd been given.

"Do you feel he would drive you out of town if he knew?"

"No. Just give me a lecture."

"Then I suppose you're more than happy to drive off competitors who might raid my stock before you get to it."

The leather satchel clicked closed. "I'm not evil," Aaliyah re-asserted. "But there are benefits to being the local peacekeeper."

And with that, a brief wave and she was gone.

...

A Corridor of Darkness yawned; the shopkeeper stumbled back, nearly knocking over a display, as Aaliyah stepped out. The Corridor closed behind her, and Aaliyah said in awe, "It worked!"

"A new Dark enchantment, I suppose," the shopkeeper panted.

Aaliyah got a good laugh out of that. "Awww, did I fwighten you?"

"Startled. Not frightened. Now go about your business!"

Aaliyah started browsing once again. "I need to cut back, you know. But the Heartless keep getting bigger and bigger, and unless I break out something big, obvious, and incredibly Dark, I have to stick to the basics and keep repelenishing. Which wouldn't be a problem if you didn't water down your Ethers."

"You can test my Ethers any day in any laboratory!"

"I already have, and you can't fool me. I should just start brewing my own."

She hustled her new purchases up to the counter. "Maybe I should just let on that I'm a Dark sorceress," she mused. "Eraqus and I have been through thick and thin together…and I'll tell you, I'm not a cheating woman, but my husband is rather lucky I met him first."

"I've seen the man," the shopkeeper taunted. "He is old, and holds his weapon inefficiently."

"Maybe I like men who are older than me, stoic, and battle-hardened," Aaliyah teased. "They say my father was like that, so it could just run in the family. Maybe I've just predicted my son's wife."

"Your son. He is of marriageable age?"

"Pay attention," Aaliyah scolded. "He's seven. I've told you this. But now that I think about it, yes, Eraqus does hold his weapon upside-down. I'll have to scold him about that. We're scouting the outer perimeter today. The sandstorm's bringing the big boys out to play. Maybe that old cobra-head will show."

Just a wave, and then she left.

...

Aaliyah entered the shop looking incredibly ragged. Her eyes were puffy from crying, her hair mussed, and her frame a little more gaunt than usual.

"Please," she begged. "I need something to take away my pain."

"What became of you?" the shopkeeper asked.

"He found out," Aaliyah gasped. "Eraqus, he found out about the sorcery I practiced, the curses I enact, and he – it was as if he wasn't my friend anymore and never had been. The things he said to me…that I was a wretch of the Dark…permanently corrupted…giving my control over to the forces of evil…he…he doesn't think I should live…" A long pause. "In this city."

"You haven't been around in a while to make exorbitant purchases, I notice. This was a while ago."

"I TRUSTED him!" Aaliyah cried. "I told him my own secrets, to match the secret of where he comes from! And in one day, he said such horrible things to me…that I could very well doom the entire world…that I'm poisoning its Heart…like I was a creature as low as the Heartless. He said I might even become one, if I'm not careful! Doesn't he know me by now? Doesn't he know better? How could he say anything like that?"

She'd begun crying again. Through her tears, she wailed, "He's gone now. I got my husband involved, and he…he'll never come back, I don't think. If he does, it might be to actually get rid of me, the way we drove off the others. I hope all he does is run me out of town. It sounded like he wanted to do worse, but I…" She shook her head. "I can't erase his words from my mind. He'd shown me such wonderful new truths. He knows things the people of this city can't even dream of. Is he right? Am I a danger?"

"They say ignorance is bliss," the shopkeeper replied. "I can give you a cure. It will remove all memory of him from your life. It will be as though you had never met him. I suggest you give it to your husband, as well. And if your son ever met him. That way, none can remind you."

"Please," Aaliyah gasped, throat hoarse. "I haven't been able to stop thinking of his words. To stop thinking of myself as…as…"

She traded a sizeable pile of coins for the proper bottle, and made a run for it.

...

At first, when Aaliyah was seen entering the shop and saying "Please, I need something to take away my pain," it seemed to be a repeat of the last memory. But it wasn't, and the big giveaway was that she looked even worse. Her eyes seemed sunken in now, and she was as a skeleton with a thin layer of flesh on.

"Aaliyah?" For the first time, the shopkeeper sounded legitimately concerned. "What is wrong?"

"I…I don't know," Aaliyah gasped out. "For the past month, I've felt…so strange. Rotten. Like I'm constantly trying to prove to someone that my existence is worth something, but that someone can only be me, and…and I'm failing. It feels like I just…shouldn't be." She shut her eyes tightly. "But you have to cure me so that I can continue to care for my husband and…and my son…"

"Is that the only symptom of the ailment?" the shopkeeper asked.

"No," Aaliyah gasped. "I can't keep down food; my stomach rejects it. I feel constant pain, day and night. I cry for no reason. I find myself lying on my bed, wanting to do nothing but find an end to it, but not even wanting to look for that end…I told myself it must be in my head, but this can only be a real disease, and you have to get rid of it for me!"

"Oh, Aaliyah…" The shopkeeper paused. "It sounds as though you have what they call 'heartsickness.' It is a disease of the heart and mind, brought on by an erroneous belief."

"THEN GET RID OF IT!" Aaliyah screamed.

"I…I can't," the shopkeeper stuttered. "Not at this stage. The damage is…already done."

"I HAVE A SON WHO NEEDS ME!" Aaliyah raged. "I can't…I can't leave him all alone…"

With a wordless wail, she broke down into tears.

And the perspective of the memory abruptly turned away from her to speed into the back room as quickly as possible.

...

"So now you know of my sin. My only regret."

Yen Sid and Mickey were startled by the appearance of the shopkeeper. She'd tailed them. Obviously knowing what they would find.

"She did not live long after that," the woman admitted. "All because I sold her the ability to erase Eraqus from her mind…and no longer did she know who to blame for her lack of self-worth but herself. She believed those words had come from within. I have been known to play on exact wording to make a sale, and to play unfairly, but that was the first time one of my little schemes had resulted in the death of someone I knew. Perhaps not a friend, but someone I respected."

She hung her head. "And since then, I have made a point never to care, nor to get attached. Only to look out for myself. I cannot undo the murder I committed. And so I continue to trade in blood money." Slowly, she looked up, glaring at Mickey and Yen Sid. "And if either of you believes yourself righteous enough to destroy me for it…I will fight to my last breath."

"We won't do that," Mickey told her. "Though you should probably take a step back and think about more things."

"If only," Yen Sid added, "because denial of your true feelings may lead to your own heartsickness."

"What happened to her family?" Mickey asked.

"The husband remarried," the woman explained. "And then abandoned the new woman. It seems Aaliyah's unfaithful fantasies were a match for his own. They say she was with child, as well. The boy…her boy…I'm not certain. She never told me either of their names. A standard safety practice in the Dark. But I did learn the husband's name, and I can give that to you, as well, for a price. The son will have to remain a mystery to us all."

"We do not require that information," Yen Sid informed her. "What we wished to know, we learned from these memories." He shut his eyes. Breathed in deep. "And what we have learned…is that Eraqus drove one of his dearest companions in his travels throughout the worlds…to death. Admonishing her for her mistakes. Or…for mistakes she had not yet made."

"It's like what Papyrus said about Ven," Mickey realized. "He wants to erase the Dark and make a better world so badly that anyone he cares about who doesn't fit that vision is…well…" He hung his head. "I'm sorry, Master Yen Sid."

"We were driven apart by this very divide," Yen Sid told him. "Yet I never told him the extent to which my…attraction to the Dark ran. Had I done so…perhaps I would have been the next at the other end of his sharp words."

Mickey looked up despondently to the woman. "We're not mad at you. What you did was pretty awful, but…it looks like you've been through enough over it. You don't need a couple a' strangers makin' it worse."

"You may go," Yen Sid told her, "and I encourage you to follow the path your own heart says you must."

The woman hesitated a moment before turning and bolting, hoping to put this behind her.

"Mickey…" Yen Sid said softly. "I believe we have seen enough."

"Should we go back and tell Aqua?" Mickey asked.

"It is all we can do," Yen Sid replied. "There may already have been irreparable damage done to her, and if that is the case, we must attempt to soothe that pain. As for Ventus…we shall trust in Papyrus."

...

The compass had brought Mozenrath and the others to a rough-hewn cave that really looked more like a pile of debris with an entrance punched through it. "As though someone built the entire mountain specifically to keep something inside," Mozenrath had observed.

"Well, I don't like that," Mysterio commented.

"Ah, yes," Vexen scoffed. "Horrible decision number two. How many more can we commit en route?"
"I agree this looks fishy," Wuya observed.

That got a laugh out of Zevon, a groan out of Gill, and a "REALLY?" out of Yzma.

"I'm only saying this because it's obligatory," Vexen huffed, "but everything down here resembles a fish somehow."

"Then it's SUSPICIOUS," Wuya corrected.

"Then we approach with caution," Mozenrath said, slowing his pace. Once he'd stalled completely, he yelled out, "IS ANYONE HOME?"

He flinched when he actually got a response: "Of course someone is, dear child."

There was a shift in the shadows. Then nearly the entire cavern mouth was taken up by something that seemed to be made of shadows itself. A feminine face, Mozenrath realized, cast in blacks and deep blues and lavenders.

Mysterio immediately shrieked and zipped behind Shocker, who resigned himself to being a meat shield that day.

"I have been trapped in this cave for so long by a horrible evil spell," the shadow-woman said in a mellifluous voice, the sort you'd trust immediately if you didn't find that in and of itself inherently untrustworthy. "Please, help me to break free! I'll make it worth your while!"

"I have a better idea," Mozenrath told her. "Other way around. You give us something we want, and we'll let you out. Or at least think about it."

Her demeanor shifted immediately. As did her appearance; her hair melded into a Gorgon's cluster of snake, writhing and snapping as she shrieked, "YOU INSOLENT BRATS! HOW DARE YOU!"

A flurry of motion. Mozenrath turned to look. Wuya had flitted behind Shocker, pulling Yzma along, but Yzma had gotten behind Wuya, and Zevon was hiding behind his mother, with Gill behind him, and at the back of this cowardly conga line was Vexen, floating in place and trying to act nonchalant.

"We truly are the cream of the crop," Mozenrath said sardonically. He turned back to the woman who was now obviously identifiable as a sorceress; "Actually, based on that performance, I've bumped that 'think about it' up to actually delivering if you give us what we want. Or did you never stop to think that some people would pity the wicked more than the innocent?"

"Well, well." She smirked, her snakes softening out into hair again. "What a fortunate meeting we've made, then. Tell me what it is you're looking for."

"Be careful!" Wuya hissed. "I don't have a read on exactly what she is, but it's far beyond Heylin."

"Though, on the bright side," Yzma added, "that confirms she'd have a reality-warping device."

"Reality-warping?" the Sorceress repeated. "Why, whatever do you mean?"

"You have a time-travel device inside that cavern somewhere," Mozenrath accused.

"Whyever would I possess such a thing?" the Sorceress asked. "After all, had I a device that altered time, I would simply use it to turn back the clock and release myself."

"…She has a point," Mozenrath realized. "Did we just need to go a bit farther or – "

"Oh, for Kingdom Hearts' sake!" Vexen groaned. "The device causes a DIVERGENT timeline, therefore anything she does that doesn't involve bringing something up to the future won't stick! All she can do is travel back into that very same cavern before the enchantment was cast and avoid getting thrown back in for another however many years she's been imprisoned! …Actually, I'd wager she's already tried that."

"DOES EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT THE ALTERNATE TYPES OF TIME TRAVEL EXCEPT ME?" Mozenrath howled.

The Sorceress scowled. "He is correct. I have undone my sealing so many times, and yet that foul TRITON always catches me at every turn. He has no idea how many times he has repeated the same history. It's been so long, I've spent centuries here, while he sees it as merely decades! And if I should travel back and change something crucial about the timeline, it merely makes another line altogether that I cannot be part of once I return to my future! And because this is my inevitable future, anything I bring from the past ends up trapped in this cavern with me!"

"So you can't travel back from inside there," Mozenrath suggested, "change locations, and then travel forward in that new space?"

"Do you have any idea what he's talking about?" Zevon hissed to Gill.

"Nerd stuff," Gill replied. "Just nod and act like you get it."

"Alas," the Sorceress bemoaned, "the Astrolabe of Ages will always return you to your beginning point. I can pass it to you, but all you will be able to do with it is retrieve figures from your past and bring them to the place from which you activated it."

"Sounds workable," Mozenrath told her.

"But how do you intend to free me?" the Sorceress asked. "You don't have the power of the Trident!"

"Nooooo," Mozenrath replied, "but I do have an ancient and mystical gauntlet that draws upon life force itself to commit atrocities against nature, and also a Heylin Witch."

"I'm magic too," Mysterio attempted.

"No, you're not!" Yzma scolded.

"Well, don't TELL people that!" Mysterio hissed. "I'm trying to keep up an image!"

"Isn't he a mage?" Gill pointed to Vexen.

"How is cryomancy at all helpful here?" Vexen asked.

Gill just nodded and acted like he got it.

"IT MEANS 'ICE MAGIC,'" Vexen seethed.

"THE POINT IS," Mozenrath said loudly, "disorganized as we may be, we have the firepower to break through whatever barrier surrounds you. As for the WILLpower, that comes once we have the Astrolabe of Ages. And I'm afraid since you're in no position to bargain, then we simply won't take 'no' for an answer."

The Sorceres scowled. "You are blackhearted indeed. I suppose I should be impressed. Here. Take the Astrolabe. Then make good on your deal, or I shall find a way to haunt you."

There was a clatter. Then a small, golden instrument bounced its way out of the cavern mouth and down the rocks. Mozenrath called it up into his right hand; it was an astrolabe, all right, and he could sense the power radiating from it.

"Deal," Mozenrath said. "Wuya? If you would. And Vexen, you can at the very least contribute some raw energy to this."

The two he'd named swam up to him. He held out his left hand, which Wuya grasped, and she offered hers to Vexen, who surrounded it with his own in a way that barely touched. Vexen's left hand was then seized by a fourth party.

"WILL YOU – " Vexen snarled at Mysterio.

"Just…" Mozenrath interrupted. "Just let him act like he's helping."

Mozenrath reached into the auras of his two magical allies: one large and sparkling and very bright, the other cold and sharp and hard. Then, combining this all into one blast, he fired it from the gauntlet toward the cavern in the form of a great iceberg, point first.

The iceberg pierced an invisible barrier. Cracked it into millions of hairline fractures. Shattered it, as it itself disintegrated into diamond dust.

"At last!" the Sorceress shrieked. "AT LAST! I AM FREE! A-HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!"

She put forth a hand, enormous yet bony, to claw her way out. Though it looked like a much bluer version of a human hand, once she had both hands up to get leverage, the rest of her body that oozed through the cavern entrance like amorphous goo was absolutely the furthest thing from human. No one present really wanted to remember what her true form looked like. It had a few too many writhing appendages.

Still cackling, the Sorceress fled into the sea, warping as thin as a shadow before disappearing entirely.

"I'm glad she's happy, at any rate," Wuya said.

"And the best part is," Yzma said gleefully, "we've wreaked havoc on Atlantica that we can bank for later! What do you think? Swoop in once she's ruined everything, or play false hero and make exorbitant demands in return for stopping her?"

"Ooh, I like that second one!" Mysterio said.

"Like you said, that's for later," Mozenrath told her. "Right now, we're after a gem worth a thousand seas." He dangled the astrolabe from his thumb and index finger. "And for that, we'll need to get back to the North Pole of the Water Tribe. Vexen, I hope your calculations are precise, because if we're off by a minute, on your head be it."

"My calculations are always precise," Vexen insisted.

"Then this'll be your moment in more ways than one," Mozenrath told him. "After all, the only way to make sure this works is to send you as the emissary."

"Yes," Vexen mumbled. "How…honorable."

He had no way, just yet, of articulating just why that was so much more complex than it sounded – and it already sounded pretty hefty of a task.

...

Another bustling day on the deck of the Van Eltia. Harley was pretty sure by this point that this many people weren't normally supposed to be able to fit on the deck of your average pirate ship, but dreams were dreams.

Spinel had singled out Ben as a dance partner, spinning him round and round as he got dizzy and screamed for her to just let him go already. So she did, and the momentum threw him right overboard into the sea. Spinel was then in charge of fishing him back out with her lengthening limbs.

Garfield had reunited quite joyfully with Ragdoll and congratulated them on the pronoun change. Now the pair was lying on the deck, as disrobed as they could get from their villain costumes without showing off too much, and soaking up the rays of the high-noon sun.

Dark Star was simultaneously impressed by and sympathetic toward Electro's mutated state. He kept asking Electro what he could bring him to make life more convenient, which amused Electro – he wasn't that much of an invalid now, but there was a time he would've wanted someone at his beck and call like that, when he'd first been imbued with the power and confined to a hospital room of solitude. He made up a few busy-work errands to make Dark Star feel like he was being helpful. Dark Star managed to dream up an inflatable duck tube that Electro could wear around his midsection in case he did fall overboard, and though that didn't at all address the real problem with Electro hitting water, Electro still appreciated it.

Car Crash had decided it was his turn to play father/brother-figure to Molly, and since he shared Giovanni's love of nail-painting for aesthetic, he conjured up a few bottles of brightly-colored polish to do Molly's nails with. He then used brown polish to doodle tiny teddy-bear faces on each nail. Sylvie was in charge of guarding both plush Normin during this time, making sure they didn't get any stray polish on them. Car Crash offered to fix up Sylvie's nails next, and Sylvie grumbled "Only if I have to" in such a way that suggested he really wanted someone to say he had to.

Spike didn't have the brain to design robots. That said, if given a base, she could adjust a design for aesthetic, so Abigail dreamed up a fairly standard fighter bot for her and let her go wild adjusting it. As Abigail fixed up her own speed-based bot, Spike turned her new toy into basically a sea-urchin of pointed spines. They went to battle, surprisingly evenly matched – Abigail's bot was definitely more able to maneuver tightly, but Spike's bot had near-impenetrable defense. "It's the hedgehog principle," Spike had explained.

Flamethrower had ended up blurting his love for cheerleading during his school days. At first, Jinnai had gotten a good, loud laugh out of this, and Flamethrower regretted having said anything. Until Jinnai clarified it wasn't the act of a man cheerleading that was funny – it was "the very idea that YOU could pull off a better routine than ME!". This led to a cheer-off in which it turned out that Jinnai was really all talk, but they were both having fun, so Flamethrower threw a couple of his matches on purpose to keep the mood light.

"Eizen!" Benwick called over. "We'll be approaching Hexen shortly! How do you want to land?"

When Harley had spoken of her dream, saying there was an odd half-location that seemed to be an island distanced from Westgand, Eizen had figured pretty safely that it would be Hexen Island: an Abbey-owned property that was said to be the location of government experiments. Though of course, no proof had ever turned up of that little rumor, and it was unclear what the Abbey would even want with that patch of nowhere anyway. It was worth a look, at any rate.

"Put the ship to wear," Eizen commanded. "I don't like this wind."

"Okay!" Benwick looked up the mast, pointing; "That one! Fold it up!"

"Hm?" Eizen would think this usually a job Benwick would do himself after securing the sylphjays. Apparently someone else was on sail duty today.

The stranger furled the sail Benwick had indicated, tested to make sure it was secure, and called down, "That good?"

"Yep!" Benwick responded.

He gripped one of the ropes and used it to slide back down onto the deck, though Eizen couldn't imagine that was without getting serious burn on his hands. "You've sailed before?" he asked this newcomer.

"Nnnnnope," Rokurou repled. "Never a day in my life. Seems pretty easy, though."

"You'd think that, after only being here a day or so," Eizen teased. "But there are intricacies to sailing that you could only understand after years of experience."

"Well, look who's Mr. Know-It-All."

"Damn straight."

"I don't suppose you could impart some of your secrets on me to save on time," Rokurou suggested.

"Maybe," Eizen responded. "If you're willing to learn and pay attention." Something was odd about this all. Rokurou was definitely a stranger, and yet he had the most peculiar feeling that somehow…he wasn't a stranger at all. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"I've been trying to figure out that same thing," Rokurou admitted. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Eizen."

"Mm, no, not familiar. Anyway, I'm Rokurou Rangetsu. That ring any bells?"

"Not a one," Eizen admitted, shaking his head.

"Really?" Rokurou deadpanned. "See, I was expecting you to say you'd never met me personally, but you haven't even heard of me?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Eizen teased, "but the only stories I pay attention to are the ones that impress me."

"Then you just haven't heard mine," Rokurou retorted. "How about we trade? I'll tell you all the reasons you SHOULD be impressed by me, and then you frame sailing lessons as a chance to claim how awesome YOU are."

Crusher, observing this as he leaned back on the ship railing, couldn't help but smirk. Eizen and Rokurou had a definite chemistry between them. Maybe friendly. Possibly romantic. And if it was romantic, that meant he still had the best shot at Giovanni, who was leaning next to him to enjoy the breeze. So Crusher elbowed Giovanni, interrupting his highly-embellished tale of the robbing of Meirchio (which included about four more shops than he'd actually robbed), to say, "Boss, I hate to break it to you, but that guy you've got a crush on likes somebody else."

"Huh?" Giovanni looked over to where Eizen and Rokurou were laughing at a mutual amusement. "They're just talking to each other."

"That can mean a lot of things!" Crusher sputtered.

"Look, Crusher," Giovanni sighed, "I know you're a pretty hardcore shipper, but you have to stop seeing subtext where it's not – "

Rokurou reached out to clap a hand onto Eizen's shoulder, and Eizen smiled back at him.

"Oh my God," Giovanni stated. "They have a THING for each other."

"I TOLD you!"

"Huh." Giovanni stared off into space. "So this just got complicated."

"I'm sorry, Boss," Crusher said, even though he wasn't sorry at all. "I know you liked the guy a lot."

"Sorry?" Giovanni repeated. "But it's not over yet. I just gotta figure out…a thing."

"You're not planning to sabotage their relationship!" Crusher gasped.

"Nah," Giovanni replied. "See, the thing is…I dunno, maybe this is weird, but I've always kinda thought that if I find the right person, well, obviously I'd be the best boyfriend they could ever have, and that would make me completely confident that if they wanted, y'know, MORE than one boyfriend, that'd be weirdly not horrible? I mean, look at how happy Eizen is making him! I can't ruin that. And I know he probably just wants the one, but…if they WERE okay with me horning in…I dunno…I'd be willing to give it a shot. And that's the thing I gotta figure out."

Somehow, this felt more uncomfortable to Crusher than if Giovanni had just said he was going to try and snare Rokurou for himself. "Um…good luck, Boss," he muttered.

Why was this such a problem? It seemed to leave the door open that maybe Giovanni himself would date more than one person, which would be good, in theory. At least it meant he and Spike would no longer be love rivals, which was an auspicious prospect, since he really liked Spike far too much to resent their mutual crush.

But that would mean Crusher would have to share him, or be open to being shared, and that, he realized, was the problem. Because Giovanni could love him wholeheartedly, but he didn't know if he could stop himself from being horrendously jealous if another person ever made it into the equation on any side.

Well, Crusher certainly had a new roadblock to hurdle. Maybe he wouldn't mind an arrangement like that, in the end. Or maybe he would. It was too soon to tell after only just realizing this could be an option.

And he didn't even know if Giovanni felt that way about him to begin with, which was the essential prerequisite, so there was that.

Everyone's attention was caught by a burst of rainbow lights dancing in the air above the island they were closing in on.

"FIREWORKS?" Harley yelled. Because that was what they were.

"That's new," Yang remarked.

Giovanni approached them to stand with them as they looked over to Hexen Isle's shores; "Well, that's kinda proof they're one of us."

"Let's go check it out!" Harley insisted.

"We'll wait back here," Eizen told her. "Shouldn't take more than three people to convince whoever's on that island to come aboard."

"Though you could probably throw in some of our cargo as a bribe to sweeten the deal," Rokurou suggested.

"It's my cargo and I'll decide if we use it as a bribe!" Eizen snapped at him. Then, after some deliberation; "I can find you things to offer if the bribe works."

"Thanks!" Harley chirped as the gangplank was lowered and she, Yang, and Giovanni scuttled off.

Hexen Island looked pretty unremarkable as the trio first disembarked. It was a lot of rolling green punctuated with hills, and the island itself was fairly small.

"I feel bad for whoever got stuck on this piece of crap," Giovanni groaned. "Zero aesthetic whatsoever."

"Just one thing's botherin' me," Harley muttered. "Was 'Hexen' the name a' that cranky science guy that works with Gar an' Ragsy? It don't sound quite right."

"I have literally no way to confirm or deny that," Yang told her.

Just then, another round of fireworks went off, blues and reds and purples that shimmered above the isle with sonorous pops. Now that this had gotten the attention of the trio, they could see a quite peculiar sight: people who seemed to be slipping in and out of existence, like holograms. Most of them were dressed as maids and butlers, carrying fine clothing or trays of exquisite steaming food.

"What the hell?" Yang said incredulously.

"This is weeeird," Harley said as a footman appeared long enough to cut in front of her path and promptly disappeared into thin air.

"Just spitballing here," Giovanni said, "but is this somebody trying to make a legion of loyal servants using the dream logic? 'Cause this reminds me of what happened when Solar Flare tried to give herself a new arm before Teleportentious (name pending) fixed her up."

"Actually, that's probably not too far off," Yang realized. "I'm guessing you can't actually make living beings here for more than a couple seconds."

"But whoever's runnin' this show apparently don't mind that," Harley observed. "Who's doin' all this, anyhow?" She gasped a deep breath before yelling out, "HEL-LOOOOO!"

"HELLOOOOO!" Yang echoed. "ANYBODY THERE?"

A lilting British voice called right back, "Is anybody here? IS ANYBODY HERE, THEY ASK? Why, not just ANYONE is here! Allow me to demonstrate just who you are in the presence of!"

There was a great rush of purple smoke at the center of the isle's meadow, and out from it stepped a lithe man with dark hair featuring white streaks of age, his clothing a deep-plum robe with a sickly green necktie in an ornate bow.

He began to sing, gesticulating dramatically as he did so; "They have always told me since I was a lad that I'm the worst sorcerer Enchancia ever had!" He then began to waltz around the meadow with no partner; "Whenever things go wrong, King Roland simply stands and claaaaims! It must be Cedric that's to blame!"

He flicked his hand, and a long, thin wooden wand appeared in it; he used this to leave a comet-trail of glittering sparks around him as he continued to dance. "Anytime I'd try to cast a little spell, no one thinks it turns out very well! But that won't last for long; it's time for me to make my claaaaim!"

The sorcerer raised his wand high, casting an orb of blue light around himself and using it to hoist himself high into the air: "SOON, EVERYONE WILL KNOW MY NAME!"

The orb burst into more firework sparkles of deep blue, and the singing sorcerer descended gracefully; "As it seems, I failed to swipe that amulet! But I can still show you who I am, you'll bet!" He twirled the wand round and round, collecting the sparks into a constellation that he directed to circle himself. "So I got the Medusa Stones and couldn't go through with their power, but here on this island, I have – " The sparks settled atop his head in the shape of an ornate crown, and around his wrists and neck as shimmering jewelry, gaining more colors to make them pop. "MY FINEST HOOUUUUR!"

An entire throne embroidered in purple and gold materialized, and the sorcerer let himself fall back onto it as it rose into the air, flying him around the island. "You can tell me I'm no good!" he bellowed. "And call me second rate!" His wand flicked to now send a lightning bolt kabooming toward where he'd been standing before the throne had picked him up. "But soon you'll see I'm meant to be!"

The throne did a flip in the air, leaving a trail of lavender smoke as the sorcerer came to rest floating before Harley, Yang, and Giovanni; "KING CEDRIC THE GREEEEEAAAAAT!"

Harley applauded, hopping up and down excitedly, and Yang clapped politely as well. Giovanni's jaw dropped; "You're a fucking WIZARD?"

"Oh, such coarse language!" Cedric tutted. "But in the simplest of senses, yes. I am a wizard. But also so much more! For once, I've finally found a whole isle of my own, where all of these people obey my every whim! And you've arrived just in time to become my newest subjects!"

"Oh boy," Harley groaned.

"Just look!" Cedric bade them, his throne backing off so he could conjure up a small scale model of a castle, just a bit taller than Giovanni, with toy soldiers parading its balconies. The soldiers began to bob and weave in time with the beat of Cedric's self-styled song, and he went on: "When I'm the king, everyone will bow and only do the things King Cedric will allow! Every spell I cast will always go as planned!"

The toy armada leapt off the castle, forming up into a squadron with weapons pointed at the three newcomers. "And those who used to tease me will be at my commaaaaaaand!" Cedric belted. He then gestured to the toy soldiers; "Take it, boys!"

"One trick will show them all!" the soldiers sang in baritone chorus as Cedric pumped his arms in the air enthusiastically. "Cedric isn't second-rate! We kiss the ring; avow you kiiiiing! KING CEDRIIIIIIC!"

Cedric formed up a sphere in his hands, blue again, resembling a planet, though its continents didn't quite match those of Earth or Desolation. As he held it high to assert his dominance over the little world he held, the chorus mounted: "KING CEDRIC! THE GREEEAAAAAT!"

Cedric tossed the orb from hand to hand, making it explode into still more fireworks that rose high and burst into a further radius than any pyrotechnic they'd seen come from Hexen so far.

"Well?" Cedric's throne floated down before Harley, Yang, and Giovanni once again. He delicately crossed one leg over another. "Any questions?"

"Yeah," Yang replied. "We're not your subjects."

"Not a question," Giovanni hissed.

"Okay," Yang corrected. "What makes you the right to declare yourself king of us?"

"Well, I'm king of this island, you see!" Cedric explained. "I've created all the wonders you see before you! Take a look around!"

As it turned out, servants weren't all he'd conjured up. There were some multi-tiered fountains, some ornamental flower patches, and peeking out from behind one of the steeper hills was a gigantic statue of Cedric himself carved of shimmering gold. A rather disgruntled raven stood on its hand, eyeing it up.

"Before I arrived, this isle was a desolate wasteland!" Cedric went on.

"Kiiiiinda still is," Giovanni argued before Harley elbowed him hard enough in the side that he yelped.

"But now, I have turned it into my own personal nation!" Cedric continued. "After all, it's not as though anyone was using it."

"Actually, Eizen said the government of the central kingdom bought this place up for top-secret purposes," Harley informed him. "They just never check in on it."

"They did?" Cedric looked crestfallen for a moment before puffing his chest out again; "Well, if they don't check in, then it might as well be mine! And so long as anyone sets foot on this island, they are my subjects and must submit to my rule! Of course, when you're, er, ready to leave the island, I can't really order you around anymore, but do stay and take part in the coronation ceremony, won't you?"

"Why would we wanna stay where you're gonna order us around?" Yang asked.

"I won't give you orders that are too terribly demanding!" Cedric protested. "Mostly I need respect and tribute to commemorate my ascension! The praise I've always deserved!"

"You're a real lonely guy, ain't ya?" Harley realized.

"What? ME? Lonely?" Cedric sputtered, folding his arms. "No! Certainly not! Never! What rubbish! What utter NONSENSE!"

"Sounds like ya just wanted to make a buncha friends who'd tell ya that ya did a good job," Harley pointed out.

"And they don't EVEN!" Cedric slumped forward. "I can call as many of these cheap illusions into being for several seconds, but I can't get them to so much as make a sound, let alone talk to me! You're the first people I've seen since I arrived on this horrible island! Until then, all I've had for company is Wormy, and he doesn't talk!" Cedric gestured back to the raven, which was now admiring his reflection in the fountain's lowest tier.

"But you're a bad guy, right?" Giovanni asked.

"Ohhhhh, I am indeed the vilest of villains!" Cedric replied excitedly. "Why, don't you know? I was thrown out of my home kingdom of Enchancia for attempting to use the Medusa Stones to petrify the royal family and take the throne by force! As you heard in my song. They banished me to exile on this island, where all of reality responds as though it is my dream!"

"That's because it is a dream," Yang said. "And also, that's not how it went. A girl with way too much eyeshadow threw you into a nightmare vortex because she was trying to get back at us. So something about your story stinks."

"I DID overthrow Enchancia using the Medusa Stones!" Cedric insisted.

"Uh-huuuuuuhhhh," Harley said doubtfully.

"…And…undid all of my coup d'etat once the guilt ate away at me," Cedric sighed. "It was all the fault of that blasted Sofia! If she hadn't been NICE to me, then I wouldn't have made friends with her and gone all soft! Now I can never attempt to overthrow Roland again, no matter how much he demeans me! I'd just feel terrible! Not to mention he's got his eye on me now, and I'm on parole…but outside of Enchancia, I don't have to feel that guilt! Here, I don't have any friends whatsoever, so I can conquer as I please!"

"How's that working out for you so far?" Giovanni asked. "With the whole, y'know…nobody to actually verify that thing?"

"Well I…er…you know…" Cedric sputtered. And then the whole throne vanished from beneath him, dumping him to sit cross-legged on the grass. Every single person he'd conjured up for his false kingdom, as well as all of the ornamentation, also evaporated into thin air, leaving the raven with nowhere to perch. The raven fluttered over and gave an ominous caw as Cedric muttered quietly:

"They can tell me I'm no good…and only second rate…but soon they'll see I'm meant to be…King Cedric the Great…"

"Okay, counter-offer," Harley said as she extended a hand down to him. "We're puttin' together a squad of bad guys with consciences. We do bad stuff, but not the REAL bad stuff. We just take what we want! So we'll be yer new friends, AND we can help ya take over a new kingdom! Or at least one town. We promised Katsu a town, soooo…"

"Really?" Cedric looked up to Harley tentatively. "You'd…you'd really want to be my friend, even if I did things that were horribly selfish?"

"Um, we wanna be your friend BECAUSE you're horribly selfish," Giovanni clarified. "Like, all that magic shit was waaaaay awesome. Me? I'm more of the rogue type. Y'know, a bandit. A highwayman. A cat burglar."

"He's a petty thief who takes candy from gas stations," Yang clarified. "But also one of our fifty Team Dads."

"So c'mon!" Giovanni urged. "I'll get you a cool new villain name and everything."

"I'd rather not have a new name," Cedric admitted. "I'm rather attached to 'Cedric the Sensational.'"

"Boom! There you go!" Giovanni told him. "Though I'll just be calling you 'Sensational' 'cause it rolls off the tongue better."

"Let's get goin'!" Harley urged, thrusting her hand a little further toward Cedric. "We got a whole crew who's gonna LOVE ya!"

Cedric smiled warmly, then took Harley's hand, letting her help him up – an easy task, since he was so incredibly light. "Thank you. Tell me, what is your name?"

"Harley! Harley Quinn!"

"That pun is terrible," Cedric told her, "and yet strangely charming."

"I'm Yang!" Yang said brightly.

"And I'm Giovanni Potage," Giovanni added. "Normally, I'd have you call me 'Boss,' but Harley's our boss this time around, so save that title for her."

"As I'd mentioned quite a few times, I'm Cedric," Cedric explained. "And this is Wormwood. Say hello, Wormy!"

Wormwood the raven gave a very sardonic-sounding caw that didn't seem very much like a greeting.

And that would have been the end of it, but then the portal crackled to life in the midst of the meadow without warning, spitting out another person.

"OhmyGOSH!" Harley shrieked as the woman stumbled and fell in the grass.

She, Yang, Giovanni, and Cedric rushed over to her, observing her. She seemed disoriented, rubbing at her temples. Her short brown hair was combed up into spikes, and she wore well-pressed clothing of sky blue beneath a standard-issue lab coat.

"Oh, goodness!" Cedric sputtered. "Are you quite all right?"

"Jona…than…" was the first word out of her mouth.

"Actually, it's 'Giovanni,'" Giovanni corrected, "but a lot of people make that mistake."

"No…" The woman shook her head. "I didn't come here alone! I was with…I…" She attempted to stand, only to collapse yet again.

Yang caught her this time. "Easy there," she said softly.

"Let's getcha back on the boat," Harley told the stranger. "Then we can talk more. Ain't nothin' ya want on this place now that we're takin' Cedric."

They hustled her onboard. Once the five had gotten onto the deck, Ifurita asked, "Was one of them the one causing all the pretty lights?"

Giovanni pointed at Cedric, who, flabbergasted, replied, "You really thought they were pretty?"

"Oh, yes!" Ifurita beamed. "I want to learn how to cast spells that make lights like that! Mostly, my magic just destroys things."

"Same here," Cedric sighed, "though it sounds like at the very least, yours was MEANT to destroy things."

"Maybe you could teach me!" Ifurita said, clasping her hands. "And then I can teach you how to wield dangerous magic safely!"

While the two of them chattered, Harley, Yang, and Giovanni escorted the strange woman straight to Eizen, who demanded a space cleared for her to sit on the deck. The ship shoved off, and Aifread himself came out to investigate.

"What is your name?" the captain asked.

"Sylvia," the woman replied. "Sylvia Lopez. I…I came here from New York City."

"I haven't heard of that port," Aifread admitted.

"I don't think it's in your world," Harley suggested.

"Then this truly is another dimension!" Sylvia said in awe. "The portal…I had thought when we entered, that would be the end of it…"

"Portal?" Abigail rushed over at the very mention of the word. "Who said 'portal'?"

"My love, Jonathan," Sylvia explained breathlessly. "He and I were working on an experiment for the Kingpin. But the Kingpin wanted to abuse our hard work, and a portal was accidentally allowed to grow large enough to swallow the city. The only way to stop it was for Jonathan to sacrifice himself to it…but I couldn't let him go alone! So I leapt in with him! And then…then…it gets harder to remember…but we were together…and there was a place, it looked like a great temple…and it reacted to Jonathan's power, and suddenly he was gone, and I was on that island and I…I…"

"Give her some space," Abigail demanded. "We got our info; she's gonna need to rest before she can think clearly. Trust me; portals mess you up pretty bad."

"I shall leave you to take care of her, Miss Callaghan," Aifread said. "You may borrow any supplies you need from our brig."

As Harley backed off, she moved toward Eizen; "Sounds like she an' her boyfriend accidentally got thrown right into our dreamland. It ain't too much to hope that fella ended up here too, is it? I'd hate ta see her be all lonely…"

"Actually, I'm working on a theory," Eizen admitted. "She said there was a temple, and then, through the bending of space through a portal, she ended up on Hexen Island. You remember how I said Hexen was Abbey territory? There are rumors that they constructed a gate of transport connecting it to their newest temple of worship: the Empyrean's Throne. I wonder if maybe this Jonathan activated something at the Throne that transported Sylvia to Hexen."

"How soon until we get close to the place?" Harley asked.

"Our next stop is Port Zekson," Eizen replied, "which is the closest establishment to the Empyrean's Throne. We should have our answer in a matter of days."

"Cool!" Giovanni said, grinning. "A sidequest!"

"I mean, we gotta do SOME good deeds," Yang added. "That's our rep. Some good, some bad."

"I just hope the gal turns out okay," Harley sighed.

...

At the end of a long and involved scavenger hunt for the informational centers of the underbelly of Mistral, Ruby, Booster, Nora, and Yuffie had been left with one phrase that came up again and again: follow the spiders.

It was only after it was brought to their attention that they noticed the webs carved strategically into the posts of the buildings in the poorer districts, the spiders within tilted a certain way to indicate a direction. And after going from web to web, the four ended up outside a tavern with a blue flag as its door-curtain.

They'd gone overboard with the disguises, as Ruby had wanted. Booster had gotten ahold of an immense blue hooded cloak, and beneath it, he slipped on a pair of thick-rimmed glasses with the lenses popped out. Ruby had traded her skirt for pants and her corset lacing for a waistcoat and dress shirt, with an obviously mustache stuck to her upper lip. Nora's long blonde wig reached almost to her waist, complemented by the flowing green cocktail dress she wore. And Yuffie had opted for a wide-brimmed hat and a trenchcoat, the edges of both of which she'd roughed up on purpose.

Still and all, Booster hesitated outside the bar. "I don't think I should go in with you," he said. "Your disguises actually hide who you are, but…I'm the only person who looks like me in this entire world. It's safer if I wait out here."

"But that's not fair," Ruby moaned. "This is your adventure, too."

"I know it's not fair," Booster sighed, "but it's safer this way. Besides, I have something I wanna take care of on my own time, if that's all right."

"We can do this," Yuffie said with a nod. "C'mon, Rubes. We're so close!"

"Okay." Ruby nodded, not taking her eyes off Booster. "But you stay safe out here, okay? Call us if anything goes wrong."

Booster nodded back; "I will."

"All right." Nora pounded a fist into the opposite palm. "Let's see what this Li'l Miss Malachite knows."

The interior was spacious and bustling, with people drinking and chatting at most tables. Considering how well this place was hidden, it was presumed that most everyone there was on some sort of shady business – a theory corroborated with the spider tattoos that showed up on most of the people the three girls passed.

The proprietor, one Li'l Miss Malachite, sat at the far end of the room, clearly positioned as the authority of the entire establishment. Eating a bowl of what appeared to be whey garnished with fruit, she was a rather plump woman, dishwater-blonde, dressed in a rather fabulous gown of purple and white with layers aplenty. She was flanked by two guards who appeared to be of her family, judging by the facial structure and hair colors: one male, one female.

Nora cut right to the chase by storming up to the table and slamming her fist down upon it hard enough to spill the whey bowl. "You Li'l Miss Malachite?" she asked.

Malachite furrowed her brow. "Obviously," she replied, "y'all can't believe I am, or ya wouldn't'a just done somethin' so disrespectful."

She clapped, and the bodyguards moved toward Nora, who backed away slowly yet confidently, her overly high heels clicking on the boards. "I'm just making sure you know where we stand," Nora said as she folded her arms. "We're not afraid of you."

"Then you're three idiots through an' through," Malachite responded.

"But more importantly," Yuffie said, retrieving a fat purse from within her beaten-up coat, "we're willing to pay you THIS much for something." She tossed the purse onto the table, right into the whey.

Malachite sniffed, using a napkin to dab the pouch clean. Then she opened it up to take a look at the lien inside. "I'm listenin,'" she drawled, giving an askance look to the trio of intruders.

"We want to know where the missing Huntspeople have gone," Ruby told her. "There's no way you don't know what we're talking about."

"Is that an accusation?" Malachite asked, her lips twitching into a smirk.

"No," Ruby told her. "We don't have any reason to believe you had anything to do with their disappearances. But we do have reason to believe you know what happened."

"And that reason would be?" Malachite prompted.

"That you know everything," Yuffie replied. "Or so they say."

Malachite leaned back in her chair. "You don't really want me to demonstrate that, do y'all? I don't think you'll like what I've got to say."

"The hey is THAT supposed to mean?" Nora asked.

Malachite unfolded a lacy fan, gently beating herself with the wind. "Well, if I knew everythin' about everythin', like you so claim," she said smugly, "then I might know that ain't your natural hair color, missy. An' the squeaky one ain't no boy, no matter how much facial hair she's got."

Ruby gave one of the implied squeaks, covering her fake mustache with both hands.

"An' whether it's hats, coats, fancy gowns, or mustaches," Malachite went on, "ain't nothin' can hide from me that you three ladies came into this city with the last Huntsman left: Qrow Branwen."

"NOWEDIDN'T!" Ruby blurted.

"An' furthermore," Malachite said, "two of ya're Huntresses-in-trainin', yerselves. Y'all thought ya could go sniffin' around this city an' I wouldn't catch wind?" Her smirk widened. "Tell me. Whadday'all know about spiders an' how they hunt their prey?"

Nora, Yuffie, and Ruby exchanged worried glances. "Webs?" Yuffie volunteered gingerly.

"That's right," Malachite said condescendingly. "A spider don't go chasin' its prey down. A spider builds a web an' makes the threads reach out real long. If a fly comes sniffin' around where it shouldn't be, no matter how far away from the spider it is, so long as it touches the web, the spider feels the vibration. An' a spider don't bother eatin' somethin' unless that somethin' went and got itself stuck where it had no business bein', first. Y'all realize how dangerous it was to come pokin' 'round my web?"

Silence.

"But I ain't about to close in on the prey just yet," Malachite went on. "After all, you little flies could be useful. That is if you keep silent and don't call in any dusty ol' crows to try an' tear down this web. 'Cause the web's stronger than steel."

"We won't tell Qrow anything," Ruby said. "I promise."

"Same here," Nora said, and Yuffie nodded.

"Even though he's the one who wanted to know what happened ta all his buddies?" Malachite posed. "Though I doubt he ever thought y'all'd stoop this low. If I give y'all information, how're ya gonna bring it back without lettin' on where it was got?"

It took a minute of thinking before Ruby supposed, "Well, we could just…use that information for ourselves, and let him figure it out on his own."

"That's a mighty big risk," Malachite told her.

"LISTEN," Nora seethed. "We're PAYING YOU. And we're normally supposed to be the GOOD GUYS. If we promise not to sell you out, then we're not gonna sell you out, so why don't you want our money? Because we just gave you A LOT of money."

"Not all of which was money we had when we started out," Yuffie said. "Or that necessarily belonged to us."

"Got some sticky fingers?" Malachite asked Yuffie.

"Rough childhood," Yuffie replied. "And that's something you won't find any information on here."

Malachite laughed, bemused. "Well, now, sweethearts, that was the point I was hopin' y'all'd hit upon eventually. I ain't gonna put my faith in cowards. I am gonna take what I can get, but only on the condition y'all keep your word. Ya don't…an' it gets ugly."

"What do you know?" Ruby asked.

"Not enough, yet," Malachite admitted. "I ain't never been given a reason to look too deep into that one. I'll have an answer for ya this time tomorrow…but it's gonna cost a li'l bit more than what ya just paid."

"How much?" Nora demanded.

"Nothin' y'all can measure in cash," Malachite replied. "Ya see, the Huntspeople goin' missin' affects more than just the good people of the city who keep their noses clean. We little folk who make the messes y'all gotta clean up, we're feelin' the hurt as well. Coupla those people were on my payroll. As it were, there ain't nobody protectin' my end of the city from the Grimm. Though all my intel is still standin', an' they say we got some mighty nasty hordes headed for the border."

"So you want to contract us for Huntsman work?" Ruby realized. "We kill the Grimm that threaten your sector, and you give us the information you find?"

"That about sums it up," Malachite told her. "Though these ain't no garden-variety Grimm they use for classroom demonstrations."

"We'll do it," Ruby promised. "We can tough it out."

"That's what I thought," Malachite replied. "I'll give ya what I know on the Grimm I want y'all to target. They better be gone within twenty-four hours."

"Deal!" Nora told her emphatically.

Waiting in the street outside Malachite's establishment, Booster had dialed in a particular call. After two rings, it picked up on a familiar face. He began, "Hi, XR – "

"What did I tell you?" XR replied sternly. "Because I believe it was NOT to call me before four p.m. Radiant time."

"Sorry," Booster said sheepishly. "I thought it was. My mistake. I'll just call back – "

"It is exactly three fifty-nine and thirty seconds, so you might as well stay on the line."

For half a minute, they stared at each other in silence. Then XR commanded, "Proceed."

"So, uh…I kind of need advice on girls," Booster told him. "Well, just one girl."

"And have you ever come to the right place!" XR replied. "Tell me all about her."

"So…it's…uh…" Booster flushed.

"Lemme guess. The redhead princess?"

"No. Kairi's taken, and she's just a friend anyway. I'm looking at…well…Ruby."

"That's the short and fast one with the hood, right?" XR asked.

"Yeah." Booster's naturally crimson Jo-Adian skin was deepening even redder. "She's also really nice and a lot of fun and a great hugger and SO, so pretty…"

"So what's the problem? You can't just walk up to her and sweep her off her feet? Literally, you're like three times taller than her, she should be real easy to pick up."

"I'm just not as confident as you," Booster admitted. "I don't even know how to start without getting all tongue-tied. I'm not sure she'd like me back, anyway. I'm…well…I'm not like the human guys she'd have around, that's for certain. But then there's another piece to it. You, uh…you remember Petra?"

"How could I forget?" XR asked. "Almost a sharper tongue for insults than I had. And need I remind you her boyfriend nearly destroyed an entire planet on our watch. Why? Is she back in the picture? Is this a love triangle situation?"

"Gosh, no!" Booster cried. "I couldn't get between her and Plasma Boy again! But that's the problem. She was the last girl I really, REALLY liked this much, and I just got all possessive and ruined it. It was like some monster in me took over, except I know I was in control and didn't keep it in check as much as I should have. I haven't heard from her since the incident, and honestly…I don't blame her. I ruined things with her and Plasma Boy, and I couldn't even be friends with her properly. What if that happens again with Ruby? She might want to just be friends, and if I get that consumed by anger again, I could really hurt her. Emotionally speaking. I wouldn't ever harm her physically."

"But you're a bigger and better person than you were back then," XR told him. "No, despite all odds, I think you somehow actually are larger than back then if your suit measurement is any indication. I know, I know." He flicked the glass of his own helmet. "Shame on me for shaming. Geez, between Ruby and Rach, a guy can't have any fun anymore…"

"I'm used to it," Booster told him. "And what about Rachel?"

"What about her? You want to know trivia? I know a lot of things."

"No," Booster clarified. "I mean…if she started hanging around other guys, how would you…not get jealous?"

"Well, for one, I'd just have to be secure in my own good looks, wit, and charm," XR said. "She can't do much better than me, and I'm sure she knows that. And Ruby'll be hard-pressed to find a more true-blue fellow than you, Booster. I mean that. And…on the other hand…well…"

"XR?" Booster sensed his hesitation. "Is everything okay?"

"Strangely, yes," XR said. "I think. See, what you were talking about, and this is funny, you're gonna laugh…I was just up in Twilight Town the other day and another guy DID drop her off outside our rendez-vous point. A real looker by organic standards, too. Tall, black hair with one of those sexy white streaks, sharp dresser, completely ripped. Now, I have no evidence of anything yet. Could just be a pal. But all in all, I'm not mad. Just maybe hoping this doesn't change me getting a piece of that attention pie. It's not that I want to commit. You know me; I don't do commitment."

"I thought you wanted 42 to join our team so you could be with her forever and ever," Booster reminded him.

"Thatneverhappened," XR said far too quickly. "And I definitely, TOTALLY don't want to be tied to Rachel Inlustris every waking moment. That'd be torture. In fact, I should text her just how much torture that would be so she knows. And ask how she's doing while I'm at it. THE POINT IS, the other man is whatever. I just don't want to be left out in the cold once she realizes she can do better. Not that I think she can do better, but…" He sighed. "She can probably do better. That doesn't leave this conversation, got it?"

"Aww, I think she'd be lucky to have you, XR," Booster told him.

"Tell me something I don't know!" The robot forced a smile. "Anyway, you called me for advice and I didn't give you any, so let me leave you with one of the basics. I don't know how to curb your anger problem, but I do know something critical to ANY relationship, and that's if you overhear your girl saying things about you that are unflattering, you stay and eavesdrop on the rest of that sentence until you get the full context. TRUST me."

"Okay." Booster nodded. "That actually is really good advice! I'm glad I called. How'd your shopping trip go?"

"Room's decked out," XR told him. "You want the virtual tour?"

The curtain flapped, and Ruby, Nora, and Yuffie exited the bar. "Maybe later," Booster said. "It looks like the girls finished with the thing we asked you about earlier."

"I'll just vlog it," XR told him. "Good luck, lover boy." With a metallic wink, he disconnected.

"Was that XR?" Ruby asked.

"We were just talking about space ranger stuff," Booster said hurriedly. "How'd it go?"

"Can't tell Qrow anything," Ruby told him, "but we can get some info tomorrow if we take care of a couple Grimm problems outside of town."

"They're pretty big problems," Nora clarified. "See, I'm thinking so long as it doesn't go any farther, we should at least tell Kairi and the gang. You know, everyone who isn't Qrow."

"And besides," Yuffie said, "I cracked a joke in there about telling Ozpin, and she just laughed and said we could tell that dead man anything we wanted. I'm gonna use that as a loophole to say we can let Oscar in on this."

"That's one thing she can't know," Ruby agreed.

"Then let's head back," Booster decided. Then the implications settled upon him of their promise to not tell Qrow; "Aww, are you saying she saw through your disguises?"

"I worked hard on this mustache," Ruby grumbled.

The four of them headed out, taking the path to the east. And if they'd stayed in place just a moment later, they would've had a very enlightening run-in with four others approaching Malachite's from the west.

"Now, I'm just gonna warn you," Roman told Neo, Zorg, and Drakken. "Mistral is where I got my start in the crime circuit before Salem waltzed into my life. So I have…shall we say…a history here."

"I think we all know what that means," Zorg sighed.

"How many enemies did you make?" Drakken groaned.

"It's not THAT bad!" Roman protested. "Anyway, Li'l Miss can get you information on anything and everything."

"But we don't need information," Drakken told him. "We need robot parts!"

"Information can tell you where and how to find robot parts," Roman said condescendingly. "Not to mention a fair amount of contraband passes through this waystation. There might even be something in the cellar she'd be willing to part with." They'd reached the curtain by then. "Just follow my lead."

He batted the curtain aside with the Cudgel's barrel, striding into the tavern. Neo followed, head held high; Zorg and Drakken trotted in afterward.

And the minute the clientele spotted Roman, all babble suddenly stopped dead, leaving a heavy silence.

"Oh no," Drakken muttered. "Here we go…"

Someone from a side table called out: "Why…it's…!"

And then the entire room broke out singing: "GOOD OLD RELIABLE ROMAN! ROMAN, ROMAN, ROMAN TORCHWICK! IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR ACTION, THEN HE KNOWS THE SPOT! EVEN WHEN THE HEAT IS ON, IT'S NEVER TOO HOT! NOT FOR GOOD OLD RELIABLE ROMAN, FOR IT'S ALWAYS JUST A SHORT STROLL! TO THE OLDEST ESTABLISHED PERMANENT FLOATING DICE GAME IN MISTRAAAAAAL!"

"…Okay, that wasn't what I expected at all when he said he had a 'history,'" Drakken pouted.

"Just take the win," Zorg advised. "Means we don't got a billion and one guns at our throat."

"Yeah, I used to run a bit of a gambling ring in these parts," Roman explained, far too smugly. "And maybe I got a little popular."

Neo just rolled her eyes, but smiled all the same.

"Well, well!" Malachite leaned forward, elbows on the table. "If it ain't Roman Torchwick. Word on the street is you were our dearly departed."

"Word on the street is wrong, Black Widow," Roman replied, able to saunter right up and lean his hand on the table the exact way Nora wasn't allowed to. "Face it. I managed to hide the one place your eight eyes couldn't find me."

"You always were a sly little bug," Malachite replied. "Though ya seemed ta forget all about this town once that femme fatale came waltzin' in on her two glass heels. An' here I thought ya didn't swing that way."

"Didn't," Roman confirmed. "Still don't. She had a hold on me through extortion, pure and simple. She wasn't even how high up the conspiracy went. And believe me, it went higher than you would ever believe. Now that my strings have been cut, I'm more than willing to play the snitch. But you know me, Malachite. I don't give something for nothing."

"Whatcha want?" Malachite asked.

"My friends here want to get in on the combo weapons engineering business," Roman replied. "And they want to take it a step beyond."

He was shoved aside by Zorg, who reached out to pluck Malachite's hand off the table. "Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg," he introduced, pressing a quick kiss to Malachite's knuckles. "I've been told your name is 'Malachite.' Beautiful ore, one the copper industry would be flat broke without."

"Oh, I like this one," Malachite replied slyly. "He's quite a charmer."

"And also does not swing that way," Roman groaned.

"You're just out to ruin a perfectly good performance, ain't ya?" Zorg sighed, gently lowering Malachite's hand. "Now, the good news for you is ain't a single one of my investors walks away empty-handed. A portion of proceeds always goes back to those who elevate me to where I got today. How big a portion? Well, that depends on your cooperation. You get out what ya put in. Gimme somethin' worthwhile, an' you can expect a check in the thousands at your doorstep. Gimme somethin' less worthwhile, an' I might see fit ta make it fifty cents and done, an' that ain't somethin' I tell most investors, but you're a kindred spirit, I can tell."

"We're not going to be SELLING the robot!" Drakken protested. "What PROCEEDS can she even get?"

"I don't build anythin' I don't intend to patent in the long run," Zorg replied. "We ain't sellin the prototype, but you can bet your bottom dollar these blueprints are destined for mass production if the prototype passes the introductory stage. Which it will."

"I won't say no to that," Malachite said, "though really, depending on what Roman has to tell me, it might just be icin' on the cake. But somethin' tells me y'all didn't come all this way to ask for a monetary investment."

"Well, it's lookin' like we're comin' up short on resources," Zorg told her. "Used ta be ya couldn't make a penny without some malachite, an' we can't make our prototype without some distinctly Atlesian technologies."

"Which we can't get because SOME IDIOT GENERAL cut off our export line!" Drakken growled.

"Ah, I see." Malachite nodded. "Well, can't say I wasn't expectin' someone to ask for that eventually. I've had the girls in wait for just such an occasion…that is, needin' somethin' outta Atlas. Mr. Ironwood can't've thought his little blockade wouldn't have a hole in it a spider could crawl through."

"The girls?" Roman repeated. "Oh, gods, you don't mean…"

"GIRLS!" Malachite called out. "GOT SOMEONE HERE TO SEE YOU!"

Another curtain flapped. Roman sighed when the pair of agents Malachite intended to deploy came into view. Neo smiled and waved as though they were old friends.

"Ugh," the young woman in red sighed. "It's Roman Torchwick."

"I thought he was dead," the woman in white deadpanned. "I guess we just aren't that lucky."

"Girls, girls!" Roman protested. "You aren't happy to see your uncle Roman and aunt Neo are back in town?"

"Neo, maybe," the one in red sighed. "But that's a big maybe."

Neo stuck out her tongue.

"Gentlemen," Roman said as he gestured to the two women, "I'd like you to meet Melanie and Miltia Malachite. Don't ask me which one's which because I can never remember."

"I'm Melanie," said the one in white.

"And I'm Miltia," the one in red insisted.

"I just refer to them as 'the Terrible Twins' and call it a day," Roman stated.

The two women were clearly twins. They had the same physical structure, the same pale complexion, the same long dark hair, and the same face, with eyes bordered in eyeshadow – blue for Melanie and red for Miltia (short for "Miltiades"). They wore fairly similar ensembles: strapless gowns with flowing combat skirts that stopped above the knee.

"Mel an' Miltia are my nieces," Li'l Miss Malachite explained. "Not to mention my top operatives an' inter-kingdom liaisons. They kept their peepers on Roman best they could once he transferred to Vale, but only 'cause I had work I needed done on that side of the planet. Junior Xiong wouldn't be anywhere without my funding, after all. Mel an' Miltia just make sure he does what I ask of him without any protest."

"Not easy," Miltia explained. "He whines. Like, a lot."

"He can't even handle minor requests from Roman," Melanie added. "So, like, Roman keeps getting his hirelings offed in battle. Big whoop; hire some more."

"It's like being around two miniature Shegos," Drakken realized, to great chagrin.

"But Vale just ain't been profitable no more," Malachite explained. "I don't think I need to tell y'all why."

"So we came home," Melanie sighed. "It's so boring here."

"Question I'm probably going to regret asking," Drakken realized. "You're, er, showing a lot of skin, and it occurred to me that all of Miss Malachite's other agents have that very distinctive tattoo…"

Melanie gave what might have been a mischievous smirk. "As top operatives, we keep our marks where people can't see them easy. In a special, private place."

"You wanna see?" Miltia asked.

Drakken realized his mistake; "Oh, no, no, I'm good – "

They both spun around, and Drakken covered his eyes, squeaking.

"You can look," Roman informed him dryly, and Drakken peeked through his fingers to see that both twins were holding up their hair, revealing the spider marking on the backs of their necks.

"He, like, totally almost burst a blood vessel just then," Miltia told her sister. "These ones are gonna be fun to play with."

The twins spun back around. "Wow," Melanie observed. "He actually blushes blue."

"HE'S STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU AND DOESN'T APPRECIATE BEING REFERRED TO IN THE THIRD PERSON!" Drakken growled.

"Anyway." Melanie waved dismissively. "If the dirt you give our aunt is good, you get us for a day. And we know exactly where to start looking for a way to break into Atlas."

"The Lavender Lounge," Miltia added. "You're going to spot our admission and get us to our contact. We'll take it from there. But you also have to get us ready for a night out on the town. You can't just turn up to the Lavender Lounge looking all gross."

"We'll need full makeovers," Melanie agreed. "And new clothes. And you'll owe us dinner."

"Now, that seems outside the realm of our li'l agreement," Zorg began.

"Like half the reason we're going is because you're such a silver fox," Melanie argued to him.

"Just let them have their way," Roman advised, and Neo nodded for emphasis. "It's the fastest and cheapest way to get things done. Besides, if they're going to the salon, no one said we can't treat ourselves while we're there."

"Roman so totally knows how this works," Miltia affirmed.

"Though we would appreciate it if you would stop hitting on the gays," Roman added. "You can look, but no touching and no weird come-ons."

"Noted," Melanie replied. "Plenty of eye candy at the Lavender Lounge that'll actually do girls anyway."

"Maybe a treat for you, too," Miltia told Roman.

"Actually, ladies," Roman replied slyly, "I'm off the market."

"What an unlucky guy, to get you," Miltia deadpanned.

Neo nodded agreement. Roman lightly bonked her on the head for that.

"For the record, I ain't," Zorg pointed out. "Just sayin'. Might be lookin' for a good time, dependin'."

"I don't really…pick people up at nightclubs," Drakken said nervously, tugging at his collar.

"Well, Roman?" Li'l Miss Malachite asked. "We're talkin' like the deal's already sealed, but you ain't said shit about what ya found out all this time you've been gone."

"Oh, get ready to have your socks knocked off," Roman told her. He leaned in close, whispering, "What if I told you the Grimm were someone's bioweapon, and I know who's giving them the orders to horn in on everyone's territory?"

Malachite's eyes widened. "I'd say that better be true, Roman, else I'm gonna hafta have ya killed for lyin' to me that bad."

"I can corroborate it seven times over," Roman told her. "But I suggest we move somewhere more private to hash out the details. After all, the deal is YOU get this info. Not your entire nest of spiderlings."

Malachite stood, beckoning Roman and Neo with her fan, and the pair trotted after her.

"So, like, you're a pair of total nerds?" Melanie asked.

"Um…yes?" Drakken confirmed.

"Cool," Melanie said curtly.

"I think this could end up bein' an amicable partnership," Zorg announced.

"If you say so," Miltia replied, rolling her eyes.

...

In the midst of the cavern, amid a lake of water, an island topped with grass and trees flourished. The heart of this island was host to a pool that nearly formed a circular shape but for one dent. A pair of koi swirled around each other in this pool: one white with a black spot and the other black with a white spot. Apparently, Demyx had heard, these were the spirits of moon and tide, though one of them, and Demyx was fuzzy on this detail, was apparently the soul of a lost princess.

Demyx had no intention of disturbing the koi beyond robbing them of a little bit of their home. He had made one stop along the way to this heist: to retrieve a large flask that was bound at his hip, sized to hold enough water for at least two shots at the healing. He hoped, anyway. He hadn't been told exactly how dire his patient's situation was. Or, he realized, his patient's name.

"Way to kick off a kinship," he muttered. "You'd think they'd have a little more faith in the guy who's here to save their boss's life."

He wanted to know ever so much more about this entire situation. What was Vexen doing with this crowd? Why wasn't he with Xemnas? Where did the WHAM ARMY come from? Who were the rest of them? As badly as he wanted to know the answers, he figured the only person who understood his background enough to give him the right context was Vexen, and he wasn't about to go grilling Vexen for answers.

Demyx uncorked the flask, waving at the nearly-circular pool. Water trickled up out of it in a line, feeding directly into the flask. The koi circled each other a little more rapidly, but made no other motion.

When the flask was at last full and the pool's surface line a little lower, Demyx capped the container. "What did I get myself into this time?" he moaned before turning back to set out for the inn.

He slipped out of the cavern and found his forearm immediately seized by a broader hand. With a "WAH!", he turned to look up into Vexen's face.

"Listen to me very, very carefully," Vexen hissed. "I'm not the Vexen you're about to meet in that inn. I'm from the future."

"Aw, geez, not this time-travel stuff again," Demyx sighed. "As if trying to listen to Xemnas' origin story wasn't weird enough."

"If you don't follow my instructions to the letter," Vexen hissed at him, "you will meet with a terrible fate that cannot be undone. In order to avoid this horrible end, you must heal Mozenrath as planned, because if you let ANY iteration of him die we'll both never hear the end of it, and then you must rendez-vous with me on the bridge on the main channel so I can take you somewhere SAFE. Am I clear?"

"I dunno." Demyx wrested his arm away from Vexen, putting his hands on his hips. "You're kinda giving me a lot to take in."

"Demyx," Vexen seethed, "I am giving you the one chance to – "

He stopped himself. Well, that was where they'd gone wrong from the very start. He'd known this. He'd always known this. But couldn't bring himself to admit it, or to admit how painfully curious he'd been, always wanting to know the answer to the burning question.

"…No," he corrected. "What is your name? Your true name."

"WHAT?" Demyx, or the one he'd been calling "Demyx" at any rate, flinched away, eyes wide as dinner plates. "You're ACTUALLY asking? Is this some kind of trick?"

"No," Vexen sighed. "I have resolved not to make any of my past mistakes that led to your…awful fate. If there is to be a bond of trust between us, then I must address you by the proper moniker."

The other was silent for a long time. Then, at last, offered, "It's 'Deymos.' With a Y. Used to go by 'Deym' for short, that turned into 'Demy,' and you see where Xemnas got the name."

"Deymos," Vexen repeated. "How…strangely fitting."

A name that meant fear and dread: the thing Deymos' nobody had always been famous for among the Organization. So all this time, the only thing to fear had been Deymos himself. (A joke that Vexen smirked at himself for making mentally.)

"You're serious, aren't you?" Deymos realized. "You ACTUALLY want to save me from the bad timeline."

"Am I ever not serious?"

"No, but you're not very NICE."

"NEITHER ARE YOU!"

Deymos waved him off; "Point to Vexen. Or should I call you 'Even' now?"

Of course. Vexen's original name had never been a secret. All these years he'd just flaunted it to the other Nobodies, and never, ever thought to ask.

"It's just 'Vexen,' and you should stop wasting time," he said. "I gave you instruction. Unless you need it repeated – "

"No, I got it, I got it!" Deymos backed away. "Now if I don't hurry, Righty IS gonna croak on us and your whole plan goes up in smoke!"

"THEN GO!"

Vexen watched him run away, wondering if he could trust this. After all, Demyx – Deymos – had never been a trustworthy entity. Just one he'd assumed was weak. Weak enough to control. The one person in the Organization he could feel safe around with no trust required, because he could be steered.

How wrong that all seemed in hindsight.

Vexen made his way to the bridge, wondering if Deymos could pull off the escape from the WHAM ARMY in order to reunite with him as planned. Or if he'd even want to. He stared down into the icy waters below, reflecting.

He had always just seen Deymos as a benefit due to what he wasn't rather than what he was. Then again, Deymos had never given him much to actively appreciate – besides his talent at reconnaissance, which was the field Vexen believed most important anyway (after scientific research, that is, but he needed to corner the market on that one). But it wasn't as if Deymos had ever actively used that for anything productive. He'd simply developed a talent for getting out of the things he wanted to do, and that was what Vexen had missed. How darkly humorous, that such an observation was out there in the open all along and Vexen, who considered himself a superior recon conductor, had missed it. It was never that Deymos hadn't measured up. It was that he had chosen not to reveal how much he was capable of.

Or how heartless he could really be.

This was a bad idea, such a horrid one, and Vexen was still going through with it because Mozenrath had demanded and definitely no other reason. Not even an allure to the idea that Deymos had somehow managed to build a rapport of success and cruelty by being exactly what Vexen wasn't, and such a thing hardly seemed possible. Nor any curiosity as to how he had managed to become such a sly trickster while also actually enjoying himself.

"Yo! Vexerino!"

Ah. So he'd gotten away. Vexen's gaze snapped over to him, and all he could think to say was "That's not what I asked you to call me."

"So sue me," Deymos replied, trotting up beside him. "Anyway, it's gonna be like five minutes before they figured out I pulled a runner, so can we just hit the good timeline already?"

"You trust me?" Why had Vexen just asked that? He had Deymos on the hook; all he needed to do was reel in!

"Not particularly," Deymos replied. "But the you in that inn hasn't asked about my true name ONCE. Hence you can only come from the good timeline."

Vexen nodded, retrieving the Astrolabe of Ages from within his coat. "Then let us be off. Oh, and prepare for the transfiguration."

"Prepare for the WHAT – "

A flash of brilliant light. And suddenly they were both treading the depths of Atlantica beside the immense statue of Deymos, with Mozenrath and the others standing by.

"WHAT THE WHAT?" Deymos recoiled, noting he'd been forced into sporting a deep-blue tail and no shirt. "WHYYYY? WHY'D YOU BRING ME BACK HERE? LITERALLY RIGHT NEXT TO THIS!" He gestured to the statue. "THEY'RE GONNA RECOGNIZE ME, YOU KNOW!"

"So start talking," Mozenrath barked. "Explain why that's you and how."

Deymos sighed, which left a long trail of bubbles. "Okay. I'm gonna try and make this quick. So I was in line for the throne at one point when my stupid little brother Red got fed up with me and said I was 'too lazy' or some excuse and wished, of all things, that the Goblin King would take me away, and so guess what happened? And Red was the ONLY PERSON IN HISTORY not to make it to the stupid castle by thirteen o'clock, so guess what? Now I'm in line to the throne for goblins. Well, it's still a lap of luxury, so I get used to it. I may have picked up a few style tips here and there. Jareth wanted me to learn, like, waaaay more magic than water, but it's not like it was ever useful to me. So I chill out there for a few decades. I don't age because when you're the adoptive Goblin Prince, you don't age, that's a thing. Jareth was just as bad as my birth family if not worse, lemme tell ya. When that stupid rock-and-roll sorcerer ended up there because he'd wished his talking dragon-cat-thing there on purpose to infiltrate us, Jareth actively bet against me winning a magical music duel against him. Can you believe that? Dad of the year, am I right? …He collected on that bet, but still. So eventually, I just got sick and tired and bored, and I wanted out, but nooooooo, when you're Goblin Prince, you're there for LIFE. So I eventually made a last-ditch effort, abandoned myself to the Darkness in order to get out of Boredom Town, and next thing you know, you've got Demyx and a Parasite Cage. I think you can fill in the blanks from there."

"All except one," Mozenrath said. "I don't know of any 'King Red' in Atlantican history."

"Sheesh, it's a nickname!" Deymos protested. "He hated the name 'Triton.'"

"You…" Mozenrath was flabbergasted. "You were the older brother…of King Triton."

"Yeeaaahhhh?"

"That…would make you…HOW old?"

"Ugh, don't remind me." Deymos rolled his eyes. "Not fond of the senior citizen feeling."

"The princesses are all your NIECES," Mozenrath went on.

"Can you stop making me sound so stupid old?" Deymos protested.

"Mozenrath," Wuya advised, "we can talk about the timeline later. Let's go."

"…Right," Mozenrath said with a nod.

Vexen cleared his throat; "I move that DEYMOS chooses where we hide out, being that he is familiar with the territory."

"And I know so many hiding places, you won't even believe," Deymos said.

"Deymos?" Yzma repeated. "Well, at least we have a way to tell the difference between him and – "

Wuya clamped her hand over Yzma's mouth before she could let on about the other Demyx in their timeline, who was very definitely not a friend.

Deymos ignored it. "C'mon. I got a spot for us. Then you can all tell me what's up with this timeline stuff."

As they proceeded, with Deymos in the lead, Wuya took over negotiations. "We're trying to steal something very important," she explained. "We had a Deymos in the past. He's no longer with us." Not a lie. Not phrased very truthfully. "And all we could think of when we realized we needed a thief who was native to these waters was you."

"This is a contract job," Yzma told him. "In order to prevent any mishaps, you're free to go the moment you've retrieved the object we're looking for."

"And what's the thing you're looking for?" Deymos asked.

"A gem of immense power," Mozenrath told him. "Useless to you; priceless to us. It's located in a cavernous abyss, guarded by a Morphlacc we can't get past."

"A what now?"

"A toothed worm that submerges itself in the bottom of the trench and digests its prey over the course of several days," Mozenrath clarified.

"Oh, you mean the FLOWMONSTER!" Deymos realized. "Yeah, that thing's easy to get past if you know how, and not many people know how. I used to hide from Grandpa Neptune down there whenever he wanted me to go to dinner with all his diplomat buddies and talk politics. Booo-ring. So I'd just go missing for a few days, turn up again later, and never tell anyone where I was."

"You're horrible," Gill told him. "I love it."

"There must be a secret to your methods," Vexen realized. "How are you so easily able to sneak around areas others can't?"

"Oh, you want my SECRET?" Deymos teased. "I'm gonna have to charge for that one." He winked. "Nah. I'll let you in on it. You guys couldn't copy it anyway."

And then he promptly vanished.

"WHAT?" Yzma cried.

"Doggone traitor!" Shocker yelled. "He was waitin' for that!"

"WHAT DID I EXPECT?" Mozenrath bellowed.

And then, from behind Vexen, there came a very loud "BOO!" that sent the academic careening forward in a panic, heart thundering. This was followed by a mischievous giggle. "Oh, man," Deymos' disembodied voice said, "I've wanted to do that for SO long."

"THAT WASN'T AMUSING IN THE SLIGHTEST!" Vexen yelled at him.

"But it did demonstrate what you wanted." Deymos re-materialized. "One of the primary properties of aquamancy is that the right spell lets you become completely invisible. And that's only something you get if you specialize in water for a LONG time. But when you master it and you're literally surrounded by water twenty-four/seven, you can just disappear off the face of the earth whenever you want. Works anywhere in the worlds. You want up Mount Olympus? Better spend like ten years training in aquamancy so you can make yourself undetectable to the gods. And thus does Deymos become invaluable."

Twice, now, Vexen had peered past the veil by simply asking the right question. He supposed there was a lesson in there somewhere. "Well, as we said," he emphasized, "once we have the gem we require, you're free to go."

"No strings?" Deymos asked. "I can just…leave?"

"You can just leave," Wuya confirmed.

"Why?" Deymos inquired.

"The horrible fate I spoke of," Vexen told him. "And believe me, you DON'T want to know."

"All right," Deymos relented, but he wasn't about to give up that easily on figuring it all out. If only to know what he should be prepared to dodge this time. "Anyway, we're gonna wanna chill out in the Great Abyss until exactly two in the morning. That's when Mr. Flowmonster gets its one hour of sleep per day, and we have a clear path into the trench."

"That would be wonderful if we could actually tell time underwater," Mysterio snapped.

"Oh, gee!" Deymos replied. "I never thought of that! All these years I've been timing out two a.m. exactly so I can get past the thing into the ultimate hiding spot, and it never occurred to me that it's impossible to tell what time it is underwater! Sheesh." He paused. "And for the people in the back, that was sarcasm."

"Iknewthat," Zevon said too quickly.

"Well, if nothing else, we can use the wait to get a little better acquainted," Mozenrath stated. "Or our two resident ex-Xehanort stooges can reminisce on the good old days."

"Whaddaya say, Vex?" Deymos swam right up to Vexen, nudging him in the forearm with his elbow. It appeared that doing something so simple as asking his name had really warmed him up. "Ready for a swim down memory lane?"

"Don't touch me," Vexen murmured out of habit.

"Oh." And Deymos actually backed off.

Which, as it turned out, was the equivalent of Vexen asking Deymos' true name. He really just hadn't expected the notoriously clingy Deymos to actually acquiesce the request.

"Perhaps we can find some common ground to discuss after all," Vexen muttered, mostly to himself.

...

A/N: Sylvia Lopez is notably from the 1990s Spider-Man animated series, as is her boyfriend, Jonathan "The Spot" Ohn. I know I have about five thousand Marvel properties in this and have begun cross-referencing them but hopefully this plot is still legible.