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.

136. Defrosting by Song

A/N: Oof, I wasn't planning to make this one so dark, but as it turns out, we require a content warning for violence, general horror, death of people who don't matter, and discussion of mental illness and suicidal ideation. Also abuse!

On the bright side! For this one, you're gonna wanna know "Brand New Day" from the RWBY OST and the lyrical version of the "Vs. Sayu" theme from No Straight Roads. That last one's going to be used for probably exactly what you've guessed it's for.

...

Ven and Papyrus knelt together over a hole in the sand. It was a very small hole. That indicated the entity they were tracking was directly beneath.

"You think there's a clam here?" Ven poked the sand around the hole.

A small spurt of water emitted, wetting the sand around his hand.

Ven, agape, looked to Papyrus, whose jaw had also dropped, and on that command, Papyrus smacked the clamming tube down onto the beach and used it to overturn the sand.

The clam was longer and thinner than they had expected, its shell beaten and worn to look almost gold in the right amount of shadow.

"One down!" Ven said as he placed it in the bucket.

"AND ONLY FOURTEEN MORE TO FIND!" Papyrus commented.

It was a veritable treasure hunt, hiking up and down the beach to find the clam-holes. They'd resolved to start on the beach nearest the lighthouse, where they'd found the luan driftwood, and then round off the trip by looking around their secret beach.

"I THINK WE'VE COMBED EVERY BIT OF SAND THERE IS," Papyrus sighed as he collapsed into a sitting position on the sand several clams later. "I CAN ALMOST TELL YOU HOW MANY GRAINS OF SAND THERE ARE HERE."

"Please don't," Ven sighed. His eyes then trailed up to the horizon, to the lighthouse on the hill.

"HMM?" Papyrus noticed his gaze wander. "IS SOMETHING WRONG?"

"Well…Hilda wanted us to send her something from the lighthouse, right?" Ven recalled. "I know we ruled it out because it said to keep out, but…"

"BUT OBVIOUSLY, OUR NEW FRIEND IS ENCOURAGING US TO BREAK THE LAW," Papyrus mused. "AND I DO BELIEVE IT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO BE GOOD ABOVE LAWFUL, THOUGH IT'S BEST WHEN YOU CAN BE BOTH."

"We don't even know if it's a law," Ven corrected. "Maybe we can just see it as a…polite suggestion?"

"…OF COURSE THAT'S WHAT IT IS," Papyrus said slyly. "AFTER ALL, IF THEY DIDN'T WANT US TO BE IN THAT LIGHTHOUSE, THEY'D DO MORE THAN JUST PUT UP A SIGN. THEY'D LOCK THE BUILDING UP."

"Let's go!" Ven yelled, bolting.

"VEN, WAIT!" Papyrus scrambled to his feet, starting to charge after him before remembering the clam bucket, backtracking, and then jogging as quickly as he could with the clams in hand.

At the hilltop, the lighthouse was fenced off, but the gate to the fence had been left open. Ven entered, slowing his pace to get a good look around. It was a beautiful old building, its cracked walls now scuffed but obviously originally a glistening white.

"IT'S A HISTORICAL MARVEL," Papyrus said as he entered the grounds. "AT LEAST, I'M PRETTY SURE IT IS. AT ANY RATE, IT'S OLD."

"I think it's pretty marvelous," Ven said. "It even looks older than the walls of our school in Departure."

"AND HORRENDOUSLY MESSY," Papyrus tutted. "LOOK AT ALL OF THIS! ARE WE SURE THIS IS SAFE? THERE ARE CRACKS IN THE WALLS, AND – AND LOOK AT THIS DUST LYING AROUND!" He stepped closer to the base of the tower, where several crumbs of stone lay scattered on the dirt.

"Does it matter?" Ven laughed. "It's outside. Dirt's supposed to be outs – "

His eyes caught the small, subtle movement. As it turned out, the rocky chunks were out of place. Because more were falling off the top of the tower. And Papyrus, bent over to look at the ones on the ground, didn't notice.

A horrible instinct of dread filled Ven, and without even thinking, he grabbed Papyrus' hand to pull him away from the tower, bringing him closer to the door.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, VEN?" Papyrus asked sternly.

"Something bad's gonna happen!" Ven cried.

"OH, NONSENSE," Papyrus scoffed, waving a hand. "IT'S JUST AN OLD BUILDING – "

A very large chunk of stone, bigger than Papyrus' head, plummeted down and landed hard in the dirt near the tower, causing both Papyrus and Ven to yelp and cling onto each other.

"I COULD'VE BEEN CRUSHED TO FINE POWDER!" Papyrus realized. "VEN! YOU…YOU SAVED MY LIFE!"

"Why are you saying that like it's special?" Ven asked. "I don't want you to die! Why would I ever want you to die or get hurt?"

"WELL, WHATEVER THE CASE, I OWE YOU ONE NOW."

They'd been clinging to each other for a long time now and they knew it. They quickly uncurled from one another, hands behind each of their backs.

"Seriously," Ven muttered, feeling the blush deepen, "don't worry about it. You're my friend, and I…I'm glad you came here with me. It's not a big deal."

"OH, NO, YOU'RE NOT GETTING OFF THAT EASILY," Papyrus protested. "I'M IN YOUR DEBT NOW, AND I WON'T LET YOU FORGET IT!"

A silence. Then Papyrus cleared his throat; "NOW LET'S SEE ABOUT THAT DOOR."

As he approached, Ven realized the full extent of his horrible feeling. "You think that was just the lighthouse falling apart?"

"OF COURSE IT WAS. LIKE I SAID, THIS PLACE IS VERY UNSAFELY BUILT."

"But we're trying to look into a crime," Ven reminded him. "Do you think that was someone…trying to get us to stop?"

"ALL THE MORE REASON WE SHOULDN'T, THEN!" Papyrus said. "YOU COMMIT VANDALISM, AND THAT'S ONE THING. YOU TRY TO KILL THE INVESTIGATORS, AND NOW WE'RE JUST GOING TO SEE THIS THROUGH OUT OF SPITE!"

That lightened Ven's dread a lot, and he smiled. "Then let's see if anyone's home." He summoned his Keyblade to hand in case of a fight.

"NOT SO FAST." Papyrus tapped a bony fingertip on the lock around the door. "THEY DID, INDEED, LOCK THE DOOR. BUT IT'S A NUMBER COMBINATION LOCK, AND I WILL TELL YOU THIS RIGHT NOW: IF THEY REALLY, REALLY DIDN'T WANT US TO GET INSIDE THIS BUILDING, THEY WOULD'VE USED A PADLOCK THAT REQUIRED A KEY."

With that, he began spinning the tumblers, starting at 0000, then 0001, 0002…

"THIS COULD TAKE A WHILE," Papyrus sighed. "IF YOU DON'T WANT TO WAIT HERE, YOU CAN GO DO SOMETHING MORE FUN AND I'LL CALL WHEN – "

"I'm not gonna leave you to just spin random numbers while I have all the fun," Ven huffed. "I'm staying right here."

"BUT IT WOULD TECHNICALLY SETTLE OUR DEBT."

"Nope! Not doing it!"

Papyrus looked to Ven to see him giving a little smirk, and somewhat lamented that, lacking lips, he couldn't fire back so subtle and mischievous a gesture. Instead, he simply said "METAPHORICAL SMIRK," which Ven accepted with a nod, and left it at that.

He'd gotten to 0877 when he asked, "WHAT IS YOUR HAPPIEST MEMORY FROM BEFORE YOUR LONG SLEEP?" He had wanted to ask Ven several questions to pass the time, really, but knowing what Ven had been through, he wasn't sure there were a lot of answers safe to fish for. That, at least, was phrased in such a way that Ven would only have to think of the good.

"I think…the last night before the Mark of Mastery exam," Ven mused. "That's when Aqua gave Terra and me our Wayfinders. We sat out on the training ground, watching the meteor shower fall while we talked about the future. That's…back when we thought we had a future." Ven shook his head. "No. We still do! I'm here, Aqua's here, and Terra's not lost yet! I just…keep feeling like maybe that was the last night we were supposed to spend under the same sky."

"AS USUAL," Papyrus added quickly.

"Huh?"

"YOUR LAST NIGHT UNDER THE SAME SKY AS USUAL," Papyrus told him. "YOU COULD BE TOGETHER UNDER A DIFFERENT SKY. THERE ISN'T MUCH TO GO BACK FOR IN DEPARTURE, AFTER ALL."

"Yeah. Yeah! I like that."

"AND I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING TERRA," Papyrus went on. "FROM THE SOUNDS OF IT, HE'S QUITE AN ATTENTIVE SIBLING."

"He always looked out for me," Ven said with a soft smile. "Always. …Come to think of it, I'm in his debt. I'll pay it off by finding a way to bring him back from Xehanort."

Click. "AHA!" Papyrus crowed. "3475! NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH."

They spilled into the lighthouse foyer together, taking note of the cramped and dingy interior. There was a worn wooden table with a single chair. A black iron furnace. And a short hall leading to a ladder going straight up.

Of course, Ven and Papyrus ascended the ladder as quickly as possible. Ven leapt out onto the landing with Keyblade in hand, yelling "A-HA!"

But there was no one.

As Papyrus clambered up behind him, Ven remarked, "If there was someone throwing things at us, they're gone now. Or maybe it really just was…an old building."

"THE STATE OF DISREPAIR CONTINUES EVEN IN HERE," Papyrus agreed. "LOOK AT THAT TABLE! HOW LONG HAS THIS MESS BEEN HERE?"

A table was set adjacent to the massive lamp in the tower. A strange electronic device connected to a much smaller light was bordered by a calendar, a pile of candy wrappers, several soda cans, and a plate with half of a sandwich on it.

"Uh…Papyrus?" Ven realized. "If this was an old mess…that sandwich wouldn't look like that."

"GASP!" Papyrus cried. "SOMEONE WAS HERE! AND THEY TRIED TO KILL US AND DIDN'T EVEN CLEAN UP AFTER THEMSELVES!"

Ven picked up the calendar. "The seventeenth is circled," he observed. "I wonder what that means."

"THAT'S SOON," Papyrus reminded him. "WHAT IT MIGHT MEAN IS THAT WE HAVE VERY LITTLE TIME TO WRAP UP THIS INVESTIGATION."

"Or what?"

"OR…WELL…I DON'T KNOW. BUT I HAVE A FEELING IT ISN'T GOOD."

Ven set the calendar back down. "What do you think this is?" he asked, tapping the large electronic box.

"OH! I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!" Papyrus realized. "I ALWAYS WANTED ONE OF THESE FOR MY OWN, YOU SEE, SO I COULD COMMUNICATE WITH UNDYNE FROM ACROSS THE MOUNTAIN. IT'S A MORSE CODE MACHINE. YOU INPUT A MESSAGE IN THE BOX, AND THE LIGHT FLASHES THE CODE. OF COURSE, THAT WHOLE PLAN FELL THROUGH BECAUSE UNDYNE SIMPLY REFUSED TO LEARN MORSE CODE, MEANING ALL THE HOURS I PUT IN MEMORIZING IT WERE FOR NOTHING…"

"That's gotta be how Hilda wants us to send the thing we're supposed to send!" Ven realized. "It has something to do with 'ONE BUM' and 'TREN.' Maybe if we put those letters in…?"

Papyrus activated the device, typing the letters out that would form those words. Then set it to broadcast.

Nothing happened.

"Oh," Ven realized, picking up the light. "There's no bulb in it."

"WE CAN PICK ONE UP IN TOWN ON OUR WAY TO THE SECRET BEACH," Papyrus suggested. "IT'LL GIVE US TIME TO THINK ON WHAT ORDER THE LETTERS SHOULD GO IN, TOO."

"I just…really think we'll need to see Jenna's gift before we can put together all the words," Ven mused. "Guess that's one more reason we should get outta here."

"YOU'RE RIGHT. LET'S GO."

Ven spotted Papyrus to make sure his balance was properly on the ladder before the skeleton descended, and the Keybearer followed.

Maybe, had they taken the time to poke around the furnace, they would've found just a little more than they'd bargained for.

...

Ruby, Booster, Nora, Yuffie, Kazuichi, Weiss, Donald, Goofy, Ren, Kairi, Jaune, and Oscar hiked out of town, directly from Malachite's district outward, until they were practically lost in the rolling emerald hills of the plains that surrounded the city.

"You know," Ozpin said through Oscar's mouth, "you really should've consulted me before going through an information broker in the criminal underworld."

"Would you have gotten the answer we did?" Ruby jeered.

"As of now, you have no answer," Ozpin reminded her. "Though…in a strange twist of fate, it seems we are now defenders of the disenfranchised who live in Malachite's district. We would not have known about these Grimm without her watchful eye."

"So in a weird way," Kairi mused, "even if we don't get any answers, it's kind of a good thing Ruby went hunting."

"So it is," Ozpin agreed with a nod. "Then again, once you've seen enough of the world as I have…you really must stop being surprised at its complexity. Why am I still tempted to see things as the black-and-white issues they clearly are not?"

"Because it'd be a lot easier if they were," Jaune told him.

"And a fella like you's gotta be hopin' to catch a break somewhere," Goofy added.

"I suppose you're right." Ozpin halted. "According to Malachite's intel, this is the best place we should divide. As there are three targets, it would be best to send four to a Grimm. To begin, I think Ruby – "

"HAS DIBS ON BOOSTER, WEISS, AND KAZUICHI!" Ruby shrieked.

"Thanks, RUBY," Nora scoffed. "It's not like I was your partner in crime just a few hours ago!"

"No big deal," Yuffie told her. "This way, we get Ren."

"Professor Ozpin," Donald realized, "if you go with Ren, Nora, and Yuffie, then that way, Jaune and Kairi can stay together, but Goofy an' I can still look after her!"

"A perfect arrangement," Ozpin said with a nod. "Now, before we divide, I want to go over the specifics of our assignments. We haven't been dispatched to pick off any ordinary Grimm. These are extreme variants that it would require a fully-licensed Huntsperson to be able to handle. I am, however, confident that our forces can match that and more.

"The first target is the Arachne. These spider-like creatures can be of any size from small to moderate to large, but it is not the Arachne's brute strength nor its agility that makes it dangerous. What you have to fear from the Arachne is its ability to project what is either a shared hallucination or an illusion absorbed from the thoughts of those around it: a most terrifying ability that elevates the Arachne above other Grimm.

"Second, we have the Blind Worm. It is not, despite the name, blind. The name comes from the darkness seen if you are ingested by the worm, which I recommend avoiding at all costs. The Blind Worm travels beneath the earth and can erupt without warning. There is a mouth at both ends. A normal Blind Worm is fairly large, though shorter variants exist, mostly formed when a Blind Worm is cut in half and heals over as two new Worms. If you were planning to bisect it in order to destroy it, I will suggest doing so horizontally.

"Finally, there is a Kraken. It takes the form of a skull with many protruding tentacles. Hopefully, the Kraken will not have met any other Grimm en route to Mistral. In that case, it should be our easiest target. If it has met other Grimm…well, we'd best cross that bridge only if we need to."

"Soooo…Spider Grimm, Blind Worm, and Tentacle Grimm," Ruby reiterated.

"Those aren't the names," Ozpin chided. "Well, two out of three aren't."

"Those names are way easier to remember, though," Kazuichi whined.

Ozpin sighed. "All right. Who would like to take the…Spider Grimm?"

"I think we can handle that one," Weiss said with a nod, and no one contested it.

"And the Blind Worm?" Ozpin asked.

"I'll give that one a go," Kairi told him.

"Leaving Nora, Yuffie, Ren, and myself with the Kraken," Ozpin said with a nod. "Or the 'Tentacle Grimm.' You know, this would be an invaluable training opportunity."

His very Aura flickered, and it was Oscar who spoke next; "What – oh. Okay. I see how it is. Apparently I get to drive for this one so I can learn a lesson. Which is more important than my life, I guess." He waited a moment. "All right, he says he'll take back over if it's an emergency, but he wants to see how I handle things on my own first."

"Let's split!" Nora cried.

And the three groups went their separate ways.

Striding out front of Booster, Kazuichi, and Weiss, Ruby began to sing a jaunty song: "I've been feeling sad, luck's been bad, living in a painful way! In disarray! It's like every day was dark and gray; I'm just another washed-up cliché. It sucked to be that way!"

Booster was about to ask the origins of this very catchy tune, but then he found he didn't need to – the words were already within him. "But I've got a plan; I'm gonna change direction! Gonna claim this life as mine! And I'm just moving forward; I don't need perfection! Gonna try a redesign!"

"Gonna branch out and see what's up!" Kazuichi added.

"Might bloom like a buttercup!" he and Booster sang in unison.

Ruby joined for a three-part harmony; "All starts with a new haircut! YEAAAAAHHHH!"

Weiss rolled her eyes and smiled to see her three idiot friends dancing their way over the meadow, belting out their own personal musical number; "But nothing's wrong today! Everything is looking right, okay! Taking everything in stride! The sun is shining in the sky! The birds are smiling; so am I! Kicking butt in every way! I think this change is here to stay! It's feeling like a brand new day!"

It was comforting, watching so much positive energy unfold right in front of her. That put Weiss off guard. She wasn't expecting it when the trio stopped dancing and held their position just long enough for her to outpace them – allowing Ruby to seize her right arm and Kazuichi her left.

"HEY!" Weiss cried, disgruntled.

"I've been weak and lame!" the duo holding onto her sang loudly at her, dragging her along to the beat. "Filled with shame! Trapped inside the place I made: a house of pain!"

Booster looped his arm through Ruby's free arm, and joined in the aggressive sing-off at Weiss; "Well, I finally saw what I became! Beaten at my own dang game! In drunk loser hall of fame!"

"No," Weiss said flatly.

But they refused to let go, getting louder with every step: "But now I think there's time for me to make corrections! Turn this ship around! Gotta look inside; a little introspection! A better me might come around!"

They harmonized in a nonsensical "Ba-bada-bada-bada! Ba-bada-bada-bada!" Which then culminated in Ruby shrieking, "TAKE IT AWAY, WEISS!"

"But nothing's wrong today," Weiss sang softly. "Everything is looking right, okay. Taking everything in stride. The sun is shining in the sky! The birds are smiling; so am I!" She really was smiling.

"I'm kicking butt in every way!" the four sang out. "Think this change is here to stay! It's feeling like a brand-new day!"

Weiss amplified her tone for the bridge, which she sang solo: "I know I failed so many times. Drowned my troubles; hid my mind. Buried everything in hundred proof. A skillful coward hides the truth so well! As every season gets the chance to change, maybe all this self destruction could be rearranged!"

Ruby joined her for the next line: "You never know; I might just win!"

Then Kazuichi; "Defeat the enemy within!"

Then Booster; "Put a full stop on the trainwreck that I've been!"

More bada-bada-baps until they reached the peak, and then they stopped, drawing back four right feet to kick them out in unison, skipping along as they belted, "But nothing's wrong today! Everything is looking right, okay! Taking everything in stride! The sun is shining in the sky! The birds are smiling; so am I! I'm kicking butt in every way! Think this change is here to staaaay! It's feeling like a – "

Kazuichi landed on his prosthetic foot at just the wrong angle that he tumbled to the grass, shrieking "FUCK!" as he let go of Weiss. But the mood was good enough that he just laughed it off the moment his back hit the grass, sitting up to declare that it was a "BRAND-NEW – "

He froze, gasping, stopping short at the view before him. Gone were the rolling green hills of the surrounding Mistral plains. This view looked more like downtown Tokyo. His Tokyo. Very particularly his, because it was in ruins.

The sky was red, ash and smog leeching coal-black into the blood-tinted clouds. Glass shattered all around, and people screamed in terror. The cars had crashed into one another, a mangled traffic jam of twisted metal. And corpses leaked blood that painted the ground to match the skies.

"No…" Kazuichi crawled backward, hoping to escape the apocalyptic vista. "No, no, no, NO NO NO NO NO!"

A sharp-heeled shoe planted into his back. "Whoa, there, pard'ner," a dramatic Southern accent proclaimed. "Where d'ya think yer goin' on a mighty fine day like this?"

The accent was new but the voice was all too familiar. Kazuichi let out a shrill, wordless shriek as he spun to see Junko Enoshima looming over him.

"One a' my Despairs done got outta the pen again!" Junko laughed. "Better do some roundup. Aww, but this ain't one a' MY Despairs. I branded 'em all up, an' this one ain't got my mark!"

"Your…mark?" Kazuichi wheezed.

"Yer leg, pard'ner," Junko told him. "Now, I thought we went'n had somethin' special, you'n'me. After all, once Miss Sonia went'n' rejected ya, my lovin' arms were right there waitin'. I gave ya everythin' ya coulda ever wanted. An' this is how ya repay me? By quittin' on me? Ain't no QUITTIN' this job, Kazuichi."

She took three strides around, and before Kazuichi could move, Junko had jammed her foot right down on his prosthetic leg. It hurt like it was flesh. "This used ta be mine," she growled. "But ya went'n' threw it in the doggone trash. Y'know what we do to fuckin' traitors like y'all?"

She stomped harder. The prosthesis snapped in half, and yet again, it felt like a leg of bone being cracked, the pain coursing right up into Kazuichi's entire being.

"Please, just let me go!" he sobbed, tears dripping immediately. "I'm not one of those anymore! I'm not a Despair! This is some kind of trick, it's over, it's done, I'm never doing that shit again – "

"Aww, but lookit all your pwetty pwetty Monokumas!" She'd changed to a high, cutesy voice as she danced around. "Looklooklook!"

Variants of the robotic bear clambered through the debris, around the bodies, revealing gun-arms that opened fire on any straggling passerby, throwing explosive bombs from hidden cavities in their bodies, slashing flesh to bits with their extended claws that were knife-sharp.

"You built ALL of those pwetties!" Junko squealed. "That was you, it was you, it was you you you! And didn't all those bad, BAD people deserve it for making fun of you and hurting you?"

"H-hey!" Kazuichi sputtered. "It was never about deserving! You used to say despair was all there was, so we might as well give in! If…if you think that some people deserve it for being mean to good people…then…then you're admitting those good people are good for more than just despair! How about that?"

"Ooooh, good catch." Her voice had gone cold. Neutral. "But it's not like it really matters. See, I don't need you here. Not when I can just have the old you. The better you."

On cue, the cars that blocked the road were thrown into the air, heaved by the blade of a bulldozer that was speeding through the street at a much higher speed than any bulldozer should reasonably be able to accomplish.

And Kazuichi knew exactly who was driving that bulldozer. For a moment, he hoped it would just plow him down, crush him beneath its wheels, so he didn't have to face the driver.

But it stopped a hair short of running him over. The driver disembarked from the cabin, leaping to the ground on one strong leg and one that was basically dead flesh braced in place.

"Fuckin' weakling," the Kazuichi of despair from not long enough ago chided. "I turn into this? That's fuckin' pathetic. What gave you the right to go all soft, anyway? We don't deserve any of that! We're horrible. Fucking. People. Haven't we ALWAYS known what we were doing to Sonia was wrong?"

"We didn't," the real Kazuichi protested through his tears. "I didn't. I mean – if I did, then I guess I acknowledge I just ignored it!"

"You're a terrible person," the despair-Kazuichi seethed. "And you're gonna do the same thing to Weiss that you did to Sonia. Because you're just a shitbag of a human being. But hey…at least you're not as bad as this waste of space."

He reached up into the bulldozer. Grasped another human body. Pulled down the limp form, which collapsed to the asphalt splayed in purple. An unmistakable shade of lavender.

"No," the real Kazuichi cried. "No, no, NO!"

"Do the thing, honey!" Junko encouraged. "Oooooh, I get so turned on when you eviscerate people!"

The despair-Kazuichi removed a miniature circular saw from his pocket, flicked it on, and descended it toward Kaito, whose eyes opened just in time to see his death approaching.

Then a high-pitched shriek: "AAAAAAAI-YAAAAAA!" And the despair-Kazuichi had been sliced in half, torso flying away in shock as his legs collapsed.

Though he now seemed to have four legs rather than two, and they were spindlier than before. His entire torso was disfigured, looking nothing at all human. In fact, it looked exactly like an overlarge black widow spider.

Ruby vaulted over the fallen spider-legs, making a three-point landing as her free hand positioned Crescent Rose. "It's the Arachne Grimm!" she yelled at Kazuichi. "Remember what Ozpin said about it?"

"Oh, NO YOU DON'T!" Junko yelled, spinning to deal a flying kick at Weiss, who was flying in from above. Weiss neatly pivoted, using Myrtenaster as a javelin to vault over the ground; she landed behind Junko, spinning Myrtenaster and running the mastermind of despair through.

As the impaled Junko morphed slowly and disgustingly into her true spidery form, the Arachne hissed, "But YOU know I'm right about WHO YOU ARE!"

The body of Kaito leapt up, wound still dripping red, and rushed Weiss, his upper lip peeling back to reveal spider fangs. Weiss spun, finding no time to react. The Arachne would devour her in a moment's time –

A bright red laser blasted through its chest, causing the Kaito-spider to crumple to the ground. And with all three Arachnes down, Booster flew in on his jetpack to land in the middle of a street that no longer existed.

It was once again a rolling green meadow beneath blue skies. Kazuichi sat in the grass, his prosthetic leg not actually damaged at all. Upon finding he could stand just fine, he proceeded to do so, dusting himself off from stray blades of grass.

"What WAS all that?" Weiss asked, brow furrowing.

And here it was. Kazuichi trembled. "So…so you all saw the same thing, right?"

"We saw that lady talking to you about you being a horrible person," Booster said. "But we know it can't be true. No way would you ever do anything like inventing all those deadly machines or hurting a friend!"

"You wouldn't," Weiss asked coldly. "Right, Kazuichi?"

"Those had to just be intrusive thoughts," Booster went on, "and intrusive thoughts are okay, because they're things you don't actually want to do. Don't tell XR I told you this, but he gets them – "

"SHUT UP!" Kazuichi screamed. It was clear Ozpin's warning hadn't been for nothing. The Arachnes had soaked up his memories in particular because they were so dark –

Ozpin had flat-out warned him of this. Why hadn't he put that together? That the Arachnes might show the others his own personal hell?

"It was real." He shook. He wept. "It was all real. That was me. That was who I used to be, right down to the bulldozer. I've been trying…so hard to be better…but I don't know if I can…if I'm actually better…because how can anybody ever come back from doing that much horrible stuff?"

Weiss rounded on Booster and Ruby; "Did you two KNOW about this?"

"No!" Booster cried. "I had no idea!"

"I did," Ruby said flatly. "I've known for a while. Listen – Booster – Weiss – Kazuichi is trying his best. He's really done a lot to turn around, and I trust him. I'd trust him with my life! He wouldn't hurt anyone anymore! Well…except maybe himself. Which is why we kind of…have to keep an eye on him. But that's because we don't wanna lose him, 'cause he's such a – "

Weiss put up her hand, palm out, and Ruby shut herself up. Weiss then turned to Kazuichi, taking a few graceful strides to stand before him.

"That was horrifying," she told him. "I won't lie. But…Ruby trusts you. Ruby's my team leader, and I trust Ruby. If she says you aren't that person anymore…well…I guess I won't judge you until you give me a reason not to trust you anymore."

This was punctuated with the slightest of smiles.

"Are you…" Kazuichi sputtered. "Are you fucking serious? But I…"

"But you went through all this," Weiss told him, "and you used it to sympathize with the things I was going through, and you didn't ONCE whine at me that you had it a million times worse than I ever did, even though you clearly did." She shifted, her smile fading. "I mean…this is disconcerting, yeah. It's gonna take some time to get used to. But…I don't see why it has to change anything big just yet."

A large hand settled on Kazuichi's shoulder. From above, Booster told him, "It's okay. I'm friends with a lot of people who've done bad things. I think in the end, people can change if they really want to. And it's like Weiss said. Ruby trusts you, so I do, too."

"Guys…" Kazuichi frantically wiped away at his misty eyes with the back of his sleeve. He'd almost run out of tears to cry. "That's seriously way more than I deserve…HUH?"

Weiss had locked her arms around him, head nestled on his shoulder. And it occurred to her that she was holding onto a serial murderer with the intent to comfort. Her body stiffened as her conscience argued with her, replaying the grisly scene she'd just been witness to. But still, she didn't let go.

"I'm sorry I acted like your problems were as small as mine," she whispered.

"Your problems weren't small, though," Kazuichi replied, letting his own arms settle around her.

And while he was aware of her form against his, of the gentle scent of the perfume she doused herself with to keep presentably fragrant, the softness of her hair against his face, and it did all feel very good, he was in no mood to entertain a lewd fantasy. Because she was giving him far more forgiveness than he thought he deserved. He owed her a lot, now.

She was amazing. And not in the way he'd initially thought.

Then Weiss let go, and Booster removed his hand, and Ruby asked, "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah." Kazuichi smiled. "Thanks, guys. All of you. I mean it. You're so awesome…I gotta pay you back for this…"

"Let's just head back to Mistral," Ruby suggested. "We took down our target, and it'll be dinnertime soon. If we beat the others back, we can have food on the table for them."

"You say that like Lionheart isn't gonna drop off another cart of that rabbit stew," Weiss sighed. "I'm honestly getting so sick of rabbit stew."

"You wanna just keep it simple and go for burgers or something?" Kazuichi suggested.

"We could build a burger bar!" Booster cried. "And let people pick from their own toppings to make the perfect burger!"

"That's not keeping it simple, though," Kazuichi retorted.

"Burgers," Weiss said tentatively. "…Yeah." She dragged the toe of a shoe through the grass. "Um. Don't freak out, but I've never actually…had one?"

"THE FUCK?" Kazuichi was gobsmacked. "YOU'VE NEVER HAD A BURGER?"

"My father thought it was crass food for the lower class," Weiss muttered.

"It is!" Kazuichi asserted. "THAT'S WHY IT'S GREAT! Okay, that's it. We're doing burgers because I'm just NOT letting you get through your whole life without knowing that deliciousness."

"Start rattling off toppings!" Ruby demanded as Weiss smiled. "I'm gonna take 'em all down in my phone so we can build the ultimate burger bar!"

They headed back to the city chattering about vegetables and condiments, and strangely, even though two of them were still processing a horrible new truth, the air felt lighter than it had before.

...

As the masseuse worked into that of Melanie's skin that was left exposed by the white satin blanket embroidered with the salon name, Melanie sighed. "It's been too damn long since I've had this done."

Miltia was having hot stones laid along her spine. "You think it's been too damn long for you? It's been too damn long for me."

"Ladies, please," Roman said from the next table over. "We're here to have a nice day out. No arguing, no squabbling."

"And you, sir?" the third masseuse asked.

"Listen," Roman replied. "I can get the gentle stuff any old day of the week. What I need is to take some abuse. Make it hurt."

The twins then had their hair washed and bound up in towels as a creamy lavender facial was spread over each of their faces, round cucumber slices protecting their eyes.

"But there's one thing I still don't understand," Drakken said from the next chair over. (His particular facial was sandalwood, for dryness.) "Why is it cucumbers? Is there a biological benefit to it?"

"Yeah," Miltia said. "Cucumber juice leaks into your eyes and improves your vision."

"That…doesn't sound right," Drakken replied.

"That's 'cause it's a joke," Miltia replied.

"And the Shego-ness increases by the minute," Drakken grumbled.

"I've got a science question," Melanie piped up. "Why are you blue?"

"That's not a science question," Drakken hissed. "It's a personal one!"

"So I have a personal question," Melanie corrected. "Why blue? Your name doesn't even mean 'blue.'"

"Well…you see…" Drakken laughed nervously. "You know how we were JUST talking about improved vision? I had found an ingenious way to cure my own astigmatism just as I was first setting out on the path of supervillainy. I didn't want to have to prance around wearing glasses like some kind of dork, after all. I'm going to leave out the details so no one ever repeats the procedure, but let's just say things went very, incredibly wrong. And if you were wondering about the scar, same incient."

"Cool," Melanie replied. "And, I mean, it's totally worth it. You do look like a dork, but you'd look like an even bigger dork with glasses and if you weren't blue and didn't have a badass scar."

"Thank…you?" Drakken replied tentatively.

Roman was seated next to the twins again when it came time to style hair. As the hairdresser assigned to him curled out the particular sweep of bangs that made his face asymmetrical, Miltia, who was having her own hair braided up into a complex beehive, asked, "So we've got Drakken's scar story. I've always wanted to know. Is your eye, like, fucked up under that half of your hair or what?"

"Well, ladies," Roman replied, "there is a very poignant story as to why I arrange my hair this way. I don't know if you're ready to handle it."

"Please," Melanie scoffed, rolling her eyes. (Her hair was being coiled to match Miltia's. Of course.)

"And that story is: because it's an aesthetic," Roman concluded. "And became I'm never going back to the cotton-candy curls look. Don't know what I was thinking there…"

Layers of gradient greens were painted above the twins' eyelids. After giving it some thought, Neo pointed to the green eyeshadow herself.

"Oh, honey," the makeup artist in charge of Neo's face cautioned, "that green won't go with your pretty pink hair."

Neo jabbed her finger at the eyeshadow again, and her scowl served as a warning – a warning her artist didn't take. "I know what's best for you," the artist said, "and I – "

The next thing she knew, Neo was standing on her rotating chair, making herself taller than the artist with that boost, and holding an eyelash curler out threateningly, indicating that if she didn't get the shade of green she had very particularly specified, the artist would be down one eye at least.

"I'm sorry, ma'am!" the artist sputtered. "My mistake! That green would look LOVELY with your hair!"

Neo smiled sweetly as she settled back into her chair.

"You go, girl," Miltia told her. "Don't take shit from anyone. We're the ones paying for this."

"And on that note…" Zorg sighed, observing his face in the mirror. "I am…a proud man. Some might even say vain. But very, very secure in my own masculinity, an' when I say I want winged eyeliner, I ain't talkin' about no chickadee. I mean majestic, dramatic wings, like a condor. See what you're drawin' on those two ladies? At LEAST that level."

"Sorry, sir," his artist replied. "But you do realize large wings look rather gaudy."

"Well, that's the entire point, ain't it?" Zorg urged.

At the nail-painting table, Neo had some fun gaslighting her artist, using her Semblance to make it look like her nails had spontaneously changed colors. Drakken nervously asked for "Um…blue? But a subtle blue, like…not obvious there's paint on my nails…"

"Green-orange blend," Zorg ordered. "Make it look mango-orange-key-lime. And it better shimmer, or I ain't tippin'."

"You know what?" Drakken said confidently. "Forget it. DARK blue, and add GLITTER."

"There you go," Melanie encouraged. "You're, like, getting how this works."

"How come Roman didn't introduce us to his actual fun friends before?" Miltia lamented.

Neo shot her a glare as she convinced her nail artist that she'd accidentally been painted half blue.

"Except Neo," Miltia corrected. "You've always been cool."

Neo smiled and nodded.

"But you guys are, like, way more entertaining than Junior," Miltia went on. "More punch."

"Well, we are called the WHAM ARMY," Drakken reminded her. "To signify that we come at all of our endeavors hard and hit with a glorious and showy WHAM!"

"It's also an acronym," Roman said from the nearby waiting chair where he flipped through a gossip magazine. Then he practically collapsed in half, suddenly wheezing with laughter.

"What's so funny?" Melanie asked.

"Oh, nothing." Roman smirked as he regarded the headline "Party Guest Insinuates Jacques Schnee's GAY AFFAIR?". "You…had to be there."

After they left the salon, the next trip was down to the most high-end boutique in town to find clothing for their night out. Neo danced between the racks, memorizing ideas from several different dresses before conjuring up her patchwork creation: a pink minidress bedecked in rhinestones and sequins, its main sleeves hanging dramatically off the shoulder and ballooning into bells. Green straps, the same color as the sash of the dress, connected the bodice to a halter around Neo's neck.

"What about this one?" Melanie held up a cocktail dress with a plunging neckline that would dip below her chest.

"Hmm, I don't wanna show off that much," Miltia replied. She held out another; "This?"

"That cape thing just looks stupid," Melanie told her.

"You know, ladies," Roman said as he shrugged on a long, form-fitting black jacket with flames crackling up from the hem in red-orange sequins, "you don't HAVE to wear the same dress to the lounge."

This earned him twin glares from the Malachites.

"Ooooooor I don't know what I'm talking about," Roman muttered.

The twins went back to their search as Zorg emerged from a fitting room in a gaudy, shiny jacket that flowed to the ankle and zipped up as a turtleneck, a shade of green that should have been hideous but somehow worked on him. Beneath it were burnt-gold leggings that clung noticeably tightly.

"Can someone call the modern art museum?" Roman teased. "One of their exhibits just got loose."

"Well, I'll thank ya for sayin' I look good enough to put on display," Zorg replied.

"How did I walk into that one?" Roman muttered.

Drakken walked past in a navy-blue vest and tie over a softer-blue dress shirt and pant. "You know, I think this look works for me," he said.

"No, it don't," Zorg said coldly, taking three strides to a nearby rack and plucking a garment off it that was flung unceremoniously at Drakken. "Do we gotta police you every damn minute to make sure you ain't the weak link of the group?"

Drakken unfolded the neon-blue jacket in his hands, watching it sparkle, tracing the black and white diamond patterns with his eyes.

"See, if you're gonna wear something like that," Roman added, "then you gotta go redux beneath. Which, in your case, is a good thing, because navy is objectively the worst fucking color."

Neo shoved a jet-black satin dress shirt into Drakken's hands atop the jacket, along with a black bolo tie capped with a chunk of turquoise. She then took her place beside Zorg and Roman, and all three waved at him to send him off to the fitting room.

As Drakken entered, Miltia and Melanie exited, having settled on matching dresses – white for Melanie, red for Miltia. They had high necklines and collars in the backs that covered up their spider insignia; the skirts ruffled dramatically, shorter in the front than in the back, with at least three layers of fabric and the uppermost being textured like feathers.

Neo began to hop up and down excitedly (which would've been a lot more dangerous if the heels she'd conjured were real), applauding the decision.

"Thanks," Miltia replied, still unsmiling.

Drakken exited then, wearing his new, more glimmering ensemble, and he remarked, "You know, this IS better!"

"You look like the CEO of a taco chain," Melanie told him. "Which is an improvement from before, so take that as a compliment."

"I'm…never sure what is and isn't with you two," Drakken admitted.

Roman led the procession to the place he'd selected for dinner – which didn't sit well with either Malachite. "Where the hell are you taking us?" Miltia asked as they headed into a much lower-end district.

"Listen, kiddos," Roman replied. "I have just blown my ENTIRE budget for this enterprise on your hair, makeup, nails, and wardrobe. I've been to this ramen shop recently, it's surprisingly good for the price, you're gonna put up with it."

"Whoa, now!" Zorg broke in. "Is that any way to treat a pair of young ladies who demand only the best?" He raised a hand, flicking it to reveal a silver credit card shimmering between two manicured fingers. "Your budget might be out, but mine ain't."

A waitress led them over the miniature bridge that spanned the artificial river in the kaiseki house, proclaiming, "We just got a new shipment of clams an hour ago. I'd highly recommend them."

"Now this is way better," Miltia said with a smirk.

Once they were seated, Drakken immediately stuffed his napkin down his shirt front and fanned it out as much as possible so as to protect his shiny new jacket from stains. Then the appetizer – vinegar-soaked crab and sea urchin – was passed out.

Neo gestured to Roman that it was simply unfair; the two of them had lived in poverty for so much of their lives, and people were eating this sort of food the whole while!

"Of course it's unfair," Roman affirmed. "Which is why we are now taking our opportunity to eat as much of it as we can out of spite." He crammed altogether too much sashimi to look at all graceful into his mouth to drive the point home.

"Mm." Zorg put up a hand, swallowing the bite in his mouth before observing, "I can tell this bass was grilled with soy, which gives it just ever so much of a tang, but I gotta say, y'ain't s'posed to do that with bass. A bass is best complemented by a charcoal roast that brings out the – "

"Yes, yes, we GET IT, you're a billionaire," Drakken groaned. He spooned up a mouthful from his own dishes; "Mmm, this savory pudding is delicious!"

"It ain't…" Zorg sighed, rubbing at his temples. "It ain't SAVORY PUDDING. It's Chwanmushi, an' why did I spend this much on you in particular?"

"You know, Roman," Melanie said, "we'll throw you a bone tonight. You've done well, so we'll go for that trashy sorbet we know you like for dessert."

"Eeeehhhhh…" Roman squeaked. "Tempting, ladies, but I'm on a bit of a non-dairy kick. Permanently."

"The hell?" Miltia asked. "You keep coming into Junior's dripping fucking frozen yogurt on the floor and making slipping hazards and suddenly you don't eat that anymore?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Roman replied. "Long story short, I found a higher priority."

"It's gotta be related to the boyfriend," Melanie guessed.

"Totally the boyfriend," Miltia agreed. "And if Roman Torchwick gave up trashy dairy desserts, he's gotta be a real looker."

"Damn straight," Roman replied.

Neo made a circle gesture around her eye.

"Eye of the beholder situation?" Melanie read.

Neo nodded.

"Neo," Roman scolded. "Rude."

As the group left the restaurant, something suddenly occurred to Roman. "Yo, J.B.E.Z.," he whispered to Zorg. "I thought your business went belly-up after the whole Shadow incident. How did you have enough on that card to pay that off?"

"It's my last one, and I am in a monstrous amount of debt," Zorg whispered back. "That account's gonna close out any old day now. Took a necessary calculated gamble on account of the gals."

Roman nodded, admiring the guts it took to take a risk like that.

"This was weirdly not horrible," Miltia pointed out.

"I think it was actually enjoyable," Melanie added. "Maybe."

"Sooooooo you'll get us the goods?" Roman asked.

"Totally," Melanie replied. "I was on the fence, but the kaiseki sold it."

"I dunno," Miltia countered. "I was ready to work with them by the hot stones already."

"Then let us proceed to this Lavender Lounge!" Drakken commanded. "Ha…mwaha…HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!"

"Don't, like, do that at the club," Melanie groaned.

...

"Okay!" Harley debriefed as the Van Eltia moved toward its next port. "So here's the plan! As usual, me, my sweetheart, an' Gio are gonna make the advance party. We'll stop at an inn to get the dream goods, then head on out to the Empyrean's Throne to find our missin' polka dot! The rest of ya do whatcha want, but it's pretty important that we need Sylvia for this one – "

"What now?" Sylvie Ashling, who hadn't been paying attention, said.

"NOT YOU, DAMMIT!" Giovanni yelled at him, so Sylvie went back to not paying attention.

Harley cleared her throat. "As I was sayin', we're gonna be bringin' the Doc – "

"WHAT?" Sylvie Ashling yelled. "STOP SCREWING WITH ME AND TELL ME ALREADY!"

"Okay, we've gotta do something about this," Yang stated. "I'm thinking we start calling you 'Sylvester.'"

Giovanni stifled a laugh; "Your real name is SYLVESTER."

"YOU KNEW THAT!" Sylvie yelled.

"I don't mind being 'Dr. Lopez' for convenience," Sylvia Lopez brought up.

"Then there we go!" Harley declared. "We got one Sylvie an' one Dr. Lopez!"

"ALL ASHORE WHO'RE GOING ASHORE!" Benwick yelled; the Van Eltia was coming to port.

Zekson was a strange little town that was basically shaped like an "E" tilted on its side. In other words, it hugged the harbor squarishly, with large walls separating the districts down the middle. Harley, Giovanni, Yang, and Dr. Lopez made for the easternmost district, where the inn was situated, though it was also the most retail-focused, which made for some distractions.

"Whaddaya think?" Harley tied a red-fabric belt around her waist. "Does this make my butt look big?"

"We're way past the era of body-shaming," Yang told her. "If it did, it shouldn't matter. Also, it doesn't, but your butt always looks good."

Harley beamed, blushing bright pink.

Yang was then tackled from behind by a yelping Giovanni, his hands covering her eyes. "Hey, hey, hey!" She attempted to peel him off. "What's this for!"

"Don't look now," Giovanni hissed in her ear squeakily, "but LOOK OVER THERE!"

He pointed briefly.

"Your hands are over my eyes!" Yang reminded him. "I can't!"

"Oh." Harley saw them first. "I see what he's lookin' at."

"What's wrong?" Dr. Lopez asked.

"Giovanni – UGH!" Yang finally threw him aside, turning to get a glimpse. "Yeah, I have no idea what I'm looking at."

"I do," Harley told her. "It's Edgy an' Floaty."

They, unlike Eizen and Rokurou, looked a good deal different than what Harley and Giovanni had seen in Sweet Jazz City. "Edgy" in particular seemed a whole different person, with a spring in her step, a sparkle in her eye, and a most uncharacteristic smile. Her wavy dark hair was bound neatly into a braid behind her head, and instead of the ragged crop top and short shorts she'd worn to their duel, she was clothed in a modest maroon tunic, black leggings, and brown leather boots.

"Floaty," on the other hand, wasn't floating, for one. His dirty-blond hair was longer, and he wore a beige tunic, baggy olive pants, and a fluffy green jacket, making him look far less regal. He appeared to be an ordinary child around Molly's age. He, too, was smiling in a way that didn't seem to fit.

"C'mon, Velvet!" His high voice cut through the crowd as he grabbed onto Edgy's sleeve and pulled her toward the shops. "I wanna get a new compass before the shops close!"

"Be patient, Laphi!" Edgy laughed, forced to run along with him.

"I'm gonna go say hi!" Harley decided.

"WHAT?" Giovanni sputtered. "NNNNOOOOO! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"

"Why?" Yang asked. "What's wrong? I thought that was the one you brought down in one shot."

"I did," Giovanni said quickly. "But, uh, we have no idea what Floaty can do besides float, and it's probably some real high-level magic shit – "

"C'monnnn, Gio," Harley groaned. "None of the others we met up with remember anythin' about that. If they're the same people at all, they don't know, an' we sure don't know! An' they've made great friends so far! Maybe Edgy an' Floaty are the same way! I'll bet a thousand dollars on it!"

"Checks out by my logic," Yang said with a nod.

"I'm…not sure what's happening," Dr. Lopez admitted, "but I trust Harley so far."

Floaty – or "Laphi" – had dragged Edgy – or "Velvet" – further into the district. Harley glanced over at the vendor who'd given her the sash; she'd intended to pay, but noticing he had gotten distracted, she simply walked off without bothering to intercept their course. As the two parties neared each other, Harley put up a hand and waved; "Hi hi!"

The moment Velvet laid eyes on Harley, her entire demeanor changed. Her mouth downturned into a scowl; her eyes lost their shimmer. "Why?" she asked softly in a voice that was considerably deepened from earlier.

"Huh?" Harley tilted her head. "Why what – "

And in an instant, Harley's back was slammed against the wall, Velvet holding her up by the neck. "WHY?" Velvet roared, her tone tinted with despair. "WHY ARE YOU HERE? WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LET ME AND LAPHI DREAM?"

Harley had several responses to make to that, but they came out as stifled chokes.

"VELVET!" Laphi cried in horror, rushing to her side. "WHY ARE YOU – " But when he laid eyes on Harley, his own face changed. "Oh," he realized in a cold monotone. "I see, now."

An ominous click, and Velvet perceived Yang's fist, backed up by Ember Celica, out of the corner of her peripheral vision. "Put my girlfriend down," Yang seethed. "NOW."

So Velvet did, looking quite shell-shocked; Harley collapsed to the ground before Yang swept in, gathering Harley's upper body close to her in her metal arm and keeping the flesh one trained on Velvet, ready to eject ammunition at a moment's notice.

"Are you trying to get us to wake?" Velvet yelled through very definite tears. "Are you trying to end our world? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"

"Excuse me," Giovanni piped in. "But WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

"You saw me outside of this world," Velvet reminded him. "I was never supposed to leave this dream. And neither was Laphi! And what it means for either of us to be awake – it means all our sacrifice, all our suffering was for nothing!"

"Not for nothing," Laphi said coldly. "Time has passed in the waking world. I'm not sure how much. But the people of this world at least got some time in a world that allowed them their free will."

"Stop! STOP!" Dr. Lopez rushed in, hands raised. "There's a miscommunication going on here! I don't think either of you knows what the other is talking about, and someone needs to start explaining their side for it all to make sense!"

"An' I'm thinkin' that's you," Harley coughed. "Since ya seem to know what we're for, though I'm guessin' ya got it all wrong."

"You remember, don't you?" Yang prompted. "You were the one Harley faced in Sweet Jazz City."

"That place…" Velvet held the heel of her hand up to her head.

"Start from the beginning," Dr. Lopez advised.

"That's…complicated," Velvet admitted. "But I'll try." She lowered her hand. Straightened up. "My name is Velvet Crowe. This is my little brother, Laphicet. Several years ago…I had to watch our older brother, Artorius, kill Laphicet."

"Wait, WHAT?" Giovanni yelped.

"It was all a lie," Velvet went on. "He didn't die. His body was just made into a vessel for the Empyrean Innominat."

"Though I retain aspects and memories of both entities," Laphicet clarified. "Laphicet and Innominat. You may call me what you prefer. Though I am rather used to 'Laphicet' at this point."

"What's an Empyrean?" Yang asked.

"It means something from Heaven," Dr. Lopez clarified.

"Like…a god?" Giovanni guessed. "You're some kind of god?"

"My role in this world was to suppress evil," Laphicet answered. "Evil is born of free will. I myself was suppressed by the other Empyreans so that humanity had the power of choice. But as a corrupt Abbey saw to use me for its own grasping for power, I was allowed free reign. I suppressed all of humanity, forcing them either to conform or to remove themselves from the grand scheme if they were already too corrupted. …The Innominat part of me sees that as a necessary sacrifice. But the Laphicet part of me finally realizes how awful that was."

"You made people…kill themselves if they were the bad guys?" Harley gasped.

"Speaking as Laphicet, I'm no longer proud of it," Laphicet admitted. "Speaking as Innominat, it's better not to ask."

"Our brother, Artorius, used Laphi's power to create his own vision of the world, where everyone acted according to his rules and was free of sin," Velvet went on. "But he didn't count on me. He kept me as a therion: a daemon who devoured malevolence to feed to Laphi and make him stronger. I was kept hidden away in the deepest cell of a prison island. But I got free. And all I wanted was to destroy Artorius for what he'd done to our little brother. To my reason for living!"

"Honestly?" Yang realized. "I can empathize with that. Not enough to let you bat my girlfriend around, but if anyone ever killed Ruby, or used her as some kind of god sacrifice, there'd be hell to pay."

"But your brother shouldn't be the only reason you live," Dr. Lopez volunteered.

"No," Velvet agreed. "I journeyed the world over. Made new friends. Found other reasons to live. The other Laphicet…Phi…my sister's son…" She smiled sadly. "In the end, there was only one way to stop Innominat from destroying everything. As a therion, I could deprive him of malevolence by devouring it. But doing that would have thrown the whole world out of balance…and also been unthinkable. He's still Laphicet."

"So we made a pact," Laphicet clarified. "We would devour the malevolence from each other in an eternal cycle. The other Empyreans sent us to sleep in the midst of the earth. Our cycle would allow the world to continue without interference from either Innominat or the Lord of Calamity."

"Our bodies are still there," Velvet said. "But our minds, our hearts…they created this dream. This is the world we wanted. Here, the Abbey isn't corrupted, Artorius is a good man, Laphi never contracted the Twelve Year Sickness…we could have all the adventures we wanted. Every place and person either of us had ever met is here in our dream. And so we didn't have a need to remember reality. Everything was perfect."

"Until we were brought out of the dream by force to fight you," Laphicet stated coldly. "Was the girl who did that a friend of yours?"

"Once upon a time, maybe," Harley sighed. She had now gotten to her feet, Yang rising with her. "Now she's just doin' all this to get back at me 'cause I don't wanna play with her no more."

"She ate my friend's Epithet," Giovanni added. "That gave her, like, crazy control over dream stuff – "

"Did you just call Sylvie your friend?" Yang's jaw dropped.

"I MEAN MY NEMESIS' EPITHET," Giovanni seethed. "HE'S MY NEMESIS AND I HATE HIM AND I'M GLAD SHE TOOK ALL HIS DUMB DREAM POWERS AWAY. But no, like…he used to summon these weird things out of his dreams. And that goth girl, she could do what he did except a hundred times worse. So I'm guessing she just kinda reached into this dream and pulled you guys out?"

"But what about the other fellas?" Harley wondered. "Eizen an' Rokurou? An' the other two?"

Velvet found herself smiling again. "The friends – no, the family I made on my journey to avenge Laphicet," she said wistfully. "They'll all be dead now, except for Eizen – "

"He was tainted with malevolence," Laphicet reminded her. "If he hasn't already been turned into a dragon and slain by Zaveid, it's going to happen eventually."

"Then they may all be dead, depending on how much time has passed," Velvet stated. "The ones you saw when we were summoned…they're Dream Eaters that Laphi and I imagined to populate our perfect world. They have no memory of us, of our adventure together. Only of meeting these versions of us fleetingly on our travels."

"Question," Giovanni brought up. "Are Eizen and Rokurou a thing?"

"Yes," Velvet said, her smile broadening. "And so were me, Magilou, and Eleanor."

"Oh, so some of you already were doing relationships with more than two!" Giovanni realized. "And, um, Eizen and Rokurou…?"

"They never showed interest in anyone but each other," Velvet told him. "I get the feeling I'm disappointing you."

"No, it's cool!" Giovanni said nervously. "No feelings here. And if I did, I'd sure know better than to let it get in the way of a love that apparently transcended death and dreams…"

"So you only just all remembered it was a dream when that girl summoned you to the city," Yang realized. "And even then, four out of six of you still were dreams."

"That must be why they don't remember!" Harley gasped. "'Cause they're part of the dream! But you two're real!"

"We wanted to go back to forgetting," Velvet insisted. "But then you followed us here, and we didn't know why!"

"Cykes made us," Harley seethed. "She threw us into a big ol' dream-portal, an' all our friends, too. Includin' some we ain't met yet."

"What an irrational reaction to her jealousy," Laphicet noted.

"Tell me about it." Harley rolled her eyes. "Anyway, we've been goin' 'round pickin' up our lost pals. Eizen an' Rokurou ended up with us. Ain't found those other two yet, but…I'm gettin' an idea. Velvet, right? Y'know this world better than anyone, 'cause ya dreamed it!"

"I also contribute half of the dream," Laphicet said indignantly.

"Sorry, Laphi," Harley amended. "But if you two could help us round up the others, well, we can already reunite ya with Eizen an' Rokurou. How 'bout it? Your girlfriends too? An', uh, Laphi, ya got somebody?"

"Artorius was the closest I had to a friend in those days," Laphicet clarified. "It wasn't a healthy friendship, or a healthy brotherhood. However, there was the other Laphicet. The malak formed when Celica's son died."

"Celica?" Yang repeated. "Like Ember Celica?"

"What's Ember Celica?" Velvet asked.

"These babies!" Yang cocked her guns, holding her arms out.

"Your weapon has the same name as our sister," Velvet realized. "Maybe…there's some kind of destiny to this." She shook her head. "At any rate, we know where the other Laphicet is. The version we dreamed, anyway. He lives in our hometown of Aball, growing up in the childhood the real one never got to have."

"Soooo?" Harley urged. "Whaddaya think? Wanna help us out? We're travelin' all over the world! It's fun stuff!"

"We've…adventured through this world so many times," Velvet realized. "It never felt like more than a few years…but it must've been an eternity, hasn't it?"

"I don't know," Laphicet told her. "Even I can't sense how much time has passed. But I'm not opposed to this adventure. We do still have an eternity to go, here in this dream. We might as well spend the time."

"An' what's eternity without your girlfriends?" Harley posed.

"It…didn't seem right," Velvet muttered. "I wanted them to have their freedom. To not be weighed down by the burdens that thrust us together."

"Oh, SCREW THAT!" Giovanni yelled. "The whole reason villains collect minions is to break up the loneliness! To have each other in the hard times! AND in the good times! Even if they're not quote-unquote real, there's still a part of them that wants to be squad goals! And you know you get along with them, so stop being so self-sacrificial and go GET 'em!"

"Is it really even about that?" Harley posed. "Or is it maybe that you're so used to bein' unhappy, it feels wrong for ya to be too happy? Which is all wrong. Ya get to be happy! Sounds like ya saved the world!"

"You're…you're right," Velvet realized. "It's been my own selfishness preventing me from reconnecting with them."

"What must we do to help your mission?" Laphicet asked.

"First, I gotta take a nap," Harley said. "Give us some idea of where we're goin'. Oh, but also, can ya confirm somethin' for us? In your world, was this place called the Empyrean's Throne connected up to Hexen Island, an' were portals involved?"

"Not that I recall," Velvet replied.

"It was," Laphicet corrected. "You just wouldn't have known. Melchior engineered a gate of travel between the two locations so the Abbey could more easily step between the Throne and the Calix."

"The what?" Giovanni asked.

"The pocket dimension engineered within Hexen Island," Laphicet explained, "where dragons were imprisoned to harvest their malevolence."

"WE WERE STANDING ON TOP OF ONE OF THOSE THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME?" Giovanni shrieked.

"Then the Throne has to be where Jonathan is!" Dr. Lopez cried. "His powers must have reacted with that gateway to send me there!"

"More than that," Laphicet added, "if his power specifically linked to gates of travel, the Throne was used as a way for me as Innominat to warp above and below the earth. Velvet used it to follow me and fight me to the last before we entered our dream pact. Any number of things might have been a target for a power like his."

"Then let's rest up and move out," Yang suggested.

"Before we go," Velvet broke in, "I'd like to…change something."

Her body was surrounded in a red aura. Her braid came undone, and her hair lengthened, becoming the wild tangle she'd borne earlier. Her clothes shredded themselves into her more threadbare wardrobe, a ragged jacket and haphazard pieces of armor acting as coverings.

Laphicet nodded, changing his own appearance. His hair shortened, whitening at the ends. His earth-toned clothing swapped for the robes of white, and he lifted his feet half an inch off the ground.

"Now THAT'S a more evil aesthetic!" Giovanni proclaimed.

"They aren't evil," Dr. Lopez corrected. "They saved many."

"I…don't know if I can call myself good," Velvet admitted. "So much of it, I didn't do for the world. I did for myself. For my own vengeance."

"I thought I was good," Laphicet added. "Spending time in this dream with Velvet, I've reflected on the fact that I wasn't. I'm not even sure how to tell the difference."

"Then you're in the right place!" Harley beamed. "We're a little good an' a little bad!"

"It…sounds like I'll enjoy traveling with you," Velvet admitted.

"And perhaps I'll learn a little more about what's truly right and wrong," Laphicet added.

"I'm sorry for trying to strangle you," Velvet told Harley. She then turned to Giovanni; "And for beating you into submission back in that city, and making you cry."

"I KNEW IT!" Yang barked triumphantly.

"WHAT THE HELL?" Giovanni shrieked. "WHAT I ACTUALLY WANT YOU TO APOLOGIZE FOR IS TELLING THEM THAT PART!"

Velvet chuckled, really laughing. "No," she teased. "I don't think I will."

"You're gonna fit in just fine!" Harley proclaimed.

...

As it turned out, there were many, many clams hiding on the secret beach.

"It's almost like Hilda knew we'd need to do this," Ven remarked.

"SHE IS ONE AMAZING LADY!" Papyrus replied.

The clam shells gently clacked into the bucket. The count came up fourteen: one short. The two of them combed over the whole beach, tearing up every layer of sand, and there wasn't a clam left to be found.

Until Ven looked to the horizon and spotted the sandbar. "Hey," he observed. "There might be at least one clam out there."

The sandbar was a good distance away from the beach, and at first, Ven contemplated just using his Keyblade to skim across to it. Noting the chain of rocks that rose between the beach and the sandbar, however, got him thinking about something far more daring.

He hopped onto the nearest rock, wobbling slightly but catching his balance.

"VEN!" Papyrus shrieked at him. "YOU BE CAREFUL ON THOSE!"

"C'mon, Papyrus!" Ven beamed back at the skeleton. "I'm a Keybearer. This is just simple balance stuff. It's not even harder than a game of Step in Time Syncopation." With that, he hopped to the next-flattest-looking rock.

"I'M WATCHING YOU," Papyrus threatened.

"Well, now I gotta make it!" Ven laughed.

He nearly slipped on the third hop, but that just gave him an adrenaline rush that made him want more. Two more hops and he'd be at the sandbar. He leapt –

And his foot slipped out from underneath him, sending him horizontal. As he fell, he wondered if this was where he'd have to come to terms with his own mortality.

"VEN!"

It happened without even any thought put into it. A bridge of bones built itself from the beach to the sandbar, and Papyrus didn't walk or run but rather just slide across it, getting a running start and then jumping and just sliding on his own magic, until he reached Ven in the nick of time, catching him in a bridal carry and scooting him the rest of the way to the sandbar.

"You – you just saved me!" Ven sputtered. "I thought I was gonna die!"

"NOW WILL YOU BE CAREFUL WHEN I TELL YOU TO BE CAREFUL?"

"Yeah, yeah, I promise!"

Well, now they'd been like that far too long, and Papyrus practically dropped Ven into the soft sand. Ven, finding himself flushed, pointed out, "So, uh…we're even now."

"YES. WE ARE."

There were several holes in the sandbar, and Ven was able to turn up three more clams. "Jenna will like that we got extra, right?" he commented.

"I DON'T SEE WHY SHE WOULDN'T. WE DID GO ABOVE AND BEYOND."

"Let's, uh…" Ven scratched the back of his head nervously. "Let's use your bridge to get back this time."

They strolled across, pacing themselves so no one slipped. Once they touched down on the beach, Papyrus brought up, "NOW, THIS MAY NOT BE A UNIVERSAL CUSTOM, BUT I FEEL AS THOUGH MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, SINCE YOUR LIFE WAS SAVED, WE SHOULD MAKE A CELEBRATORY SAND CASTLE. BUT ALSO BECAUSE IT DOUBLES AS A STUDY OF STRATEGIC FORTRESSES."

"I mean, I was gonna suggest that without that last part," Ven admitted.

...

Kairi glanced around the field, searching for a visual on her target. It had to be here somewhere, and she wasn't giving up until she spotted it.

A movement above, in the sky. She pointed; "THERE! It's that white bird! It's white and has feathers, like you said!"

"Sorry!" Goofy chuckled. "Guess again!"

Jaune sighed. "It's Donald, isn't it?"

"Ya got it!" Goofy congratulated. "Now you get ta spy the next thing!"

"Okaaaaayyyy…" Jaune cast his gaze around. There was a large exposed boulder nearby, oddly shaped, that would do. "I spy something – "

"You gotta say the whole thing!" Donald scolded.

"Sorry," Jaune amended. "I spy with my little eye, something jagged and…uh, brown…and it's very solid and rigid."

He knew the game was probably too easy, but I Spy wasn't so much about the challenge as it was just being silly.

"There!" Kairi pointed. "It's that rock!"

"Don't be silly!" Donald chided. "It can't be that rock! Jaune said the thing he spied was solid and rigid! That rock's movin'!"

"Wait, what?" Jaune took a glance at the boulder he'd selected, which was definitely trembling.

"Is it that tree over there?" Goofy pointed off in the opposite direction.

"Guys?" Kairi realized. "Why IS that rock moving?"

The boulder was shaking. So was the ground beneath it.

"Ohhhhh no," Jaune realized. "Oh no, oh no, oh no – "

He grasped Kairi's shoulders tightly, pulling her backward as he leapt. Goofy tackled Donald and rolled him away like a ball. And where they'd stood just seconds prior, a gigantic, ropey Grimm burst through the earth's surface, displacing the grass. Four white mandibles clacked around a throat rimmed in an orange glow and far too many teeth.

"IT'S THE BLIND WORM!" Donald shrieked.

Kairi rushed forward, flicking Destiny's Embrace to her side. Remembering to straighten her stance. "I've got it!" she cried, breaking into a run toward the worm.

"KAIRI!" Jaune hurried after her. "WAIT!"

The worm dove at her, and she zigzagged. Though she pointed Destiny's Embrace as she did so, in the hopes of propelling herself even further with a magic spell that would harm the Grimm. A faint golden light fizzled and popped out as the worm re-entered the earth at a much nearer miss than Kairi was comfortable with.

"OH, COME ON!" she cried, banging her Keyblade on the grass.

"Okay!" Jaune yelled, noting the worm was taking its time diving back underground. "Strategy window!"

"I could use a Zetta spell to take it down!" Donald suggested.

"But Donald!" Goofy protested. "Master Yen Sid said ya shouldn't even be learnin' those! They use up too much energy! Ya can't cast even one without passin' out!"

"Are you SERIOUS?" Kairi yelled. "Yen Sid doesn't even use Zetta spells! We need to have a chat about your ego – "

"WHEN THERE'S NO MORE WORM!" Jaune yelled, noting the creature sink completely beneath the earth.

"We're a pretty magic-heavy team!" Kairi called out. "Donald, back us up with a Flare Force! I'm gonna try and summon an Attraction Flow to distract that thing! Jaune, remember the Goofy Bombardier? Can you do a double thing with Crocea Mors?"

"Here goes nothing!" Jaune replied, feeling the tremble of the ground. "SCATTER!"

He and Goofy paired up to run one way while Kairi and Donald fled to another. The worm resurfaced, its mouth swinging this way and that as it attempted to figure out which pair would be the tastier treat.

"FLARE FORCE!" Donald flicked his staff at the worm, and several colorful fireworks blasted toward it. The Grimm writhed from the impact.

"HEEYAH!" Kairi's blade pointed at the worm as well. To no effect. "Oh, come on, COME ON!" she cried, pounding on the shaft of it with her fist. "Why doesn't this WORK for me?"

The Flare Force had worked as a good enough diversion; Goofy and Jaune had linked arms, using each other as a counterweight to spin round and round until they were able to lift off, each hiding behind his shield as they careened down and battered the worm like a pair of meteorites.

They rolled off the worm from either side, landing on the ground near Kairi and Donald. And the Blind Worm, sensing there was no longer any factor of choice in picking up its meal, lunged for them all.

Kairi, Donald, Goofy, and Jaune turned to run. The former three were on a good pace when they heard Jaune shriek.

He'd tripped, and was lying prone before the Blind Worm that dove for him.

"JAUNE!" Kairi screamed. "NOOOOOOOO!"

She was bolting back toward him at top speed, working on instinct alone, putting no thought into what she was doing. Her hand linked through Jaune's –

And then they were soaring up into the air together, leaving the Blind Worm on the ground.

"WHAT?" Jaune cried. "WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

Kairi gasped, taking in the situation. She'd sprouted a gigantic white wing, thrice the size of her own body, and the matching wing was protruding from Jaune's back, holding them aloft as a pair.

"I think I'm doing this!" Kairi realized. "Actually, I know I am! It's a Limit!"

The worm swiveled its head to face the airborne couple.

"Hey, Kairi?" Jaune realized as the two of them made an about-face to stare down the worm. "You…remember what Ozpin said about bisecting the worm horizontally?"

She braced her Keyblade; he drew his sword. "GO!" Kairi yelled, and their wings angled in unison, driving them downward. The two weapons met in the middle, tips clinking.

The Blind Worm's maw yawned. But the force of Jaune and Kairi riding pure Light energy was stronger than it; they cut into the corners of its mouth like a blade, careening through the rest of the worm, and the worm's trajectory kept its body flowing up toward them until there was no more worm. Just two very long halves of a dead Grimm lying in the meadow.

Jaune and Kairi panted to catch their breaths as they landed, the white wings vanishing. "That…was super awesome," Jaune said with a bright smile.

"And I have NO idea how I did it," Kairi admitted.

"Well, at least we got rid a' that nasty worm!" Goofy declared. He surveyed the remains of the beast. "Now wait a minute. Ozpin got it all wrong. That thing only has one mouth."

"Ozpin wouldn't get something like that wrong!" Donald scolded. "He's been alive for thousands and thousands of years!"

"Then why's it got no mouth in the back?" Goofy asked.

The quartet thought that one over. "Maybe that's where it got cut in half," Kairi suggested, "and it just healed over?"

"That makes sense," Jaune said with a nod.

And it was a good thing they'd figured that out, else they might've written off the slight tremor as a freak of nature.

"Oh, HELL – " Jaune cried, grabbing Kairi's hand and looping through Goofy's elbow once more to get them out of the way.

Donald followed with an urgent "WAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAK!"

And the second half of the worm, which was a worm in and of itself, erupted like a geyser from where they'd been standing.

Donald, who had now been through that exact scenario twice, declared, "I'VE HAD ABOUT ENOUGH OF THIS WORM!". He raised his staff, turning to glare down the second Blind Worm.

Realizing too late what was about to happen, Goofy cried, "DONALD! DON'T!"

Donald's staff flourished. "ZETTAFLARE!"

A beam of red energy as wide as the worm itself pierced through the Grimm, utterly disintegrating it from the inside out and continuing on to burn into the sky like a distress beacon. It held steady until Donald had finally poured all of his energy into it and fainted clean unconscious, flopping onto the grass.

"I warned ya!" Goofy scolded the unconscious duck. "Now lookitcha! We'll hafta carry ya all the way back!"

"Y'know," Jaune remarked, "I don't think I mind that so much if it means no more worms."

Goofy hoisted Donald up over his shoulder, and Jaune told him, "Lemme know if he gets too heavy; pretty sure I can carry him." And they set out.

"It's just so weird," Kairi muttered. "Why does my magic only seem to work in emergencies? One day, it might not, and then – "

"That's why we work together," Jaune reminded her. "And for the record, maybe you don't know how you did what you did, but it was pretty awesome, and it took out a whole worm. If that thing hadn't gotten cut in half somewhere else, it would've taken out the ONLY worm."

"You should write that down to tell Master Yen Sid!" Goofy laughed.

"Yeah!" Kairi agreed. "And, I mean, I'm still standing after my attack, so…"

She, Jaune, and Goofy shared a laugh as Donald muttered in his sleep about getting dangerous.

...

The Lavender Lounge was a few shades darker than lavender, really. Which made sense for the ambience. The main walls, the floor, the ceiling were all varied shades of deep purple. An open dance floor area dominated the center, and shooting off it were glass-walled yet soundproof chambers subdivided to give certain groups more privacy audio-wise. Within each of these rooms sat a table with a shining purple hookah; many of these were in use, and a purple smoke billowed out of many a room, adding to the general palette. The illumination came from thin tubes of neon pressed against the seams where wall met ceiling and floor. Purple again, of course. The last thing a person usually noticed was the men in plum-dark suits and sunglasses, stationed every few feet between the smoking lounges. Security.

The patrons of the club weren't required to wear purple. To Drakken, this was a relief, because he was afraid his group would stick out otherwise. As it turned out, most everyone was dressed in a loud color that rivaled the WHAM ARMY contingent's glamor.

To Roman, this was a disappointment. He'd hoped that he, Neo, Drakken, Zorg, Melanie, and Miltia could stick out like six sore thumbs up.

"Okay, divide and conquer," he said. "I assume that's how this works."

"Pretty much," Miltia confirmed. "We work the floor at opposite ends of the building. But there's creeps everywhere, so two chaperones each should call it good."

"Well, I mean," Roman chuckled, "Neo and I are the only ones here who are armed, so you'll need to divide us and then the other two are moral support at best – "

"You think I wouldn't enter any premises with a concealed carry?" Zorg interrupted. "You really think so low of me?" And from a pocket Roman hadn't even seen, he retrieved what appeared to be a small pistol. It then expanded like a Swiss army knife, revealing several extra barrels and miniature missiles.

"Where the FUCK did you get that?" Roman asked him.

"Made it on the fly," Zorg replied, tucking all the pieces back into one package. "Didn't have much time to improv, but I think I did okay."

"WHEN?" Roman yelled. "WHEN DID YOU HAVE TIME TO MAKE THAT?"

"I've got these!" Drakken held up a handful of bugs. Robot bugs, on further inspection. Ticks, to be precise.

"THE HELL ARE THOSE SUPPOSED TO BE?" Roman yelled.

"Once a tick attaches," Drakken explained, "it never, ever lets go. Until it explodes, that is." He was silent for a while, then asked, "I…sang that in my head that time, right?"

Neo flashed him a thumbs-up.

"Oooookaaaaay," Roman groaned. "We're all armed. Take your pick."

"Give me Roman and Neo," Melanie demanded.

"Guess I'll take the nerds," Miltia sighed with a poignant eyeroll.

"Now, before we go," Drakken brought up. "You two were…aaahhh…looking at maybe picking up some…companions?"

"You mean one-night stands?" Melanie replied.

"I think he means hot pieces of ass," Miltia clarified.

"What I MEAN," Drakken asserted, "is that if there are truly 'creeps everywhere,' we'll need a system for you to let us know if attention is wanted or…unwanted."

"Right," Miltia said with a nod.

"How about the classic?" Roman asked. "Green light good, red light bad."

"Sure, dad," Melanie sighed. "Can we just start working the floor? I like this song."

"You would," Miltia scoffed. "Because you're basic."

"Shut up, Miltia." Melanie nudged her sister with an elbow.

The groups separated, filtering into the crowd toward opposite ends of the club.

"Question," Zorg brought up to Drakken.

"Is it about why I'm blue?" Drakken groaned. "Because I already did that origin story."

"Nah," Zorg replied. "I was just wond'rin'. You've seemed, shall we say, reticent to the idea of casual trysts. You're asexual, then?"

"Wha – no!" Drakken replied. "Not that it matters if I am or not, but I don't want people getting the idea I don't want to do the do AT ALL. I've enjoyed it! I just have ACTUAL STANDARDS about who I choose! Such as people I know!"

"Fair, fair," Zorg muttered. "So. Fellas? Ladies?"

"Both," Drakken replied. "Maybe all? I'm still working through that bit. But again, where it doesn't matter is that I'm not just throwing a hook into the ocean. I'm looking for a very specific prize catch and adjusting my bait accordingly! And dirty-dancing on any of these complete and total strangers is – eurgh!" He flinched.

"Well, Miltia don't agree," Zorg said with a grin, drawing Drakken's attention over to where Miltia was necking passionately with a tall man.

Drakken's "EURGH!" was even louder.

The stranger's kisses moved down the side of Miltia's face, into the hollow of her neck, and his hands wandered. A squeeze at her chest, and she moaned "Mmm, stop." But he didn't. And since that hand was starting to get uncomfortable in how strong the grip was, she asserted, "I said stop."

And his second hand brushed somewhere it definitely shouldn't have gone, so Miltia barked, "RED. FUCKING. LIGHT."

A resounding chorus of booms echoed throughout the Lavender Lounge as every single barrel in Zorg's mega-pistol emptied into the offending man, his body crumpling to the ground lifelessly.

"PYROTECHNICS!" Drakken yelled. "All just special effects! Putting on a little show for you – "

"That literally doesn't matter here," Miltia told him. "Not if I gave the order to pull the trigger. But you don't wanna give these guys the idea that you're a wuss."

"ACTUALLY, THAT MAN IS DEFINITELY DEAD!" Drakken amended.

One of the guards approached, adjusting his sunglasses. "He was harassin' you, Miss Malachite?" the guard said in a booming baritone.

"Yeah," Miltia confirmed. "Didn't know when no meant no. Clean up this mess for me."

"I'll get body disposal on it," the guard said.

"Let's go somewhere else," Miltia suggested, leading her two chaperones away.

"So y'all're pretty high up on the totem pole to get away with somethin' like that," Zorg noted.

"That's how it works in Mistral," Miltia explained. "Rep is everything. A Malachite can do whatever the hell she wants. But that means there are people here who could shoot me dead and get away with it. Not that they'd want to. I'm a charmer."

"Yes, we can see that much," Drakken groaned sarcastically.

"Well, I'll just hafta be a faster draw," Zorg noted. "An' quick to run, sounds like."

"You get it," Miltia confirmed.

The scene hadn't gone unnoticed by the other faction; Melanie, Roman, and Neo watched as three of the guards teamed up to mop up the pooling blood as though someone had simply spilled a drink. "Gods, Miltia," Melanie sighed, "can you go anywhere without causing a scene?"

"Well, at least we're in no shortage of entertainment," Roman mused. He didn't break his smooth-flowing dance in order to make that statement; Neo bounced excitedly to the beat beside him.

"Melaniiiiiie!" a feminine voice broke in. "I should've known from that casual murder that there was at least one Malachite here."

The woman who approached wore a strapless minidress of a shade of yellow that assaulted the eyes, with glittering gold on the sleeves and waist. An incredibly gaudy necklace with gold and silver interwoven was situated at her collarbone.

"Lemon," Melanie greeted. "Didn't expect to see you here."

Lemon tossed her hair. "Gotta secure trade before Vermillion gets his claws in the city. Big shipments going down."

"You're Wave, right?" Roman realized.

"What do you mean, 'You're Wave, right?'" Lemon scoffed. "I'm the current Wave matriarch. Have you been living under a rock for the past few months?"

"Eheheheh…close," Roman teased.

"Lemon, this is Roman Torchwick," Melanie explained.

"Ah, yes," Lemon said with a nod. "The vagabond who controlled the gambling ring. Should I be impressed?"

"If you only knew." Roman shook his head. "But that's a story too long to tell."

"And who is this?" Lemon sneered at Neo. "Another vagabond in fancy packaging?"

"This is Neo," Roman explained. "You've heard of the Blackshrine Ripper?"

Lemon laughed; "Are you claiming SHE'S the Ripper?"

"No," Roman told her. "But keep up the mockery and she'll be telling him to hold his beer while she decides how she wants to rearrange your body parts."

Neo drew a finger across her neck, sticking out her tongue and winking playfully.

"Can we get back to business?" Melanie asked. "I'm looking for some really rare stuff. Stuff the Wave could shore up for me. And I'm paying big money."

"Darling," Lemon scoffed, "don't pull anything like that on me. That hair? That eyeshadow? That gown? You've obviously been throwing your budget away."

"No, I paid for most of that," Roman said. "And…seeing now why this was an entrance requirement. I thought you were just being selfish."

"I mean, that was a bonus," Melanie told him. "But I've got a nest egg for some particular purchases. Unless the Wave can't deliver."

"The Wave always delivers," Lemon seethed.

"Good," Melanie replied. "I'd hate to have to track down Vermillion for a job you could've done."

Lemon's eye twitched. "Why don't we book a room?"

And so Melanie, Miltia, Roman, Neo, Zorg, Neo, and Lemon sat around a circular glass table in one of the side lounges, resting back on plush booth seats. Lemon took a drag from the central hookah, expelling purple smoke. "Why don't you all have a go?" she suggested, passing it over to Roman.

"I, er…don't think I will," Drakken said nervously.

"Don't be a square," Melanie urged.

"And don't YOU peer pressure me!" Drakken yelled back at her.

Roman's secondhand smoke trajectory blew right past Drakken's face, and he was sent into an immense fit of coughing. This was why he hated hanging out in smoking areas.

"Leave the poor man alone," Zorg urged. "He just don't wanna damage that big brain with all that nicotine! Me, on the other hand…well. It's a little too late for that." He took the pipe from Roman.

"You're all going to exchange mouth germs that way," Drakken muttered. "Though maybe it serves you right for setting off my – " He didn't even need to say it, because in came another hacking fit.

"So tell me about this business proposition," Lemon urged.

"How rude!" Zorg remarked, purple smoke curling up from his mouth as he replied. "We don't even know your name, an' here you are tryin' to cut right to the money!"

"Lemon's the matriarch of the Wave," Roman explained. "One of two high-level rival crime syndicates in Mistral. The Hana Guild is the other, and honestly, they probably supplied the tobacco we're inhaling."

"Not all of us by – HACK – choice," Drakken muttered.

Neo gestured to him, and he yelled, "NO, I DON'T NEED TO STEP OUTSIDE!" Neo shrugged; suit yourself.

"Hana gets no profits off this," Lemon explained. "After all, who do you think the Lavender Lounge is named after, if not the Lavender family who provided one of the Wave's personal Huntresses? Maybe Hana's labor went into the procurement, but no pay." She chuckled. "Vermillion and his guild always thought too small, sticking to narcotics. The Wave thinks bigger. We deal in everything that can be obtained, legally or illegally."

"I'd expect no less from the infamous Lemon Pastel," Roman said.

"Oh, no," Lemon corrected. "It's not 'Pastel' anymore. See?" She held out a hand, showing off a glittery diamond ring. "I just tied the knot with Syke Bill last week."

"That makes your name 'Lemon Bill,'" Roman realized before breaking into wheezing. "Oh – OH my gods, that name is TERRIBLE!"

Lemon scowled. "Aesthetic sacrifices were made for power. Though there are those who wish to deem me the tackiest-named ne'er-do-well in this city since Clancy Putnam."

This made Roman stop laughing right away.

"Something wrong?" Lemon asked.

"No," Roman grumbled in a tone that indicated something was definitely wrong, but he was in no mood to discuss it.

"Now you know about me," Lemon said. "And what about you?"

"Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg," Zorg introduced. "Enchanté, if I may."

"And I," Drakken proclaimed, standing up to put a foot on the table, "am the infamous DR. DRA – hhhhaaaAAAAAAAGH!" He was sent into another coughing fit.

"Drakken," Roman finished for him. "Dr. Drakken. Also, if you need to leave – "

"IDONOTNEEDTOLEAVE!" Drakken snapped.

"We're innovators," Zorg explained. "Pioneers of engineers. Some might call us evil, but really, without a little evil, could good exist? We're doin' a public service by providin' all the doom devices and kaboom devices that the bad guys use to do their worst. Ain't no heroes until somebody's stepped up an' stopped one of 'em. 'Course, if the bad guys win, well, that's just good for business, so I ain't gonna say no!"

"Charming," Lemon said tensely. "So you will want…robotics."

"Yeah," Melanie said. "They're building this extreme robot, the blueprints are cray-cray, and they need Atlas-flavored tech."

"But you know Atlas is blocked off right now," Miltia added. "To civilians, that is."

"Not to the Wave, of course," Lemon said haughtily. "Not even Vermillion has managed to penetrate Atlas' blockade."

"That's like the fifteenth time you've namedropped your supposed archnemesis," Roman brought up. "I think you should just fuck him and get it out of your system."

Lemon glared. Neo pinched Roman's thigh under the table, and he let out a sharp "OW!"

"You'll forgive Roman," Zorg said. "Some of us were born with a silver spoon in our mouths…and he was just born with a foot there."

Lemon chuckled. "Now, you, I like. And that ensemble! Very…mango-orange-key-lime."

"I do my best." Zorg winked at her across the table.

"So let's talk turkey," Drakken broke in, stifling a couple of coughs. "If we give you a list of what we need, and the Malachites fund the effort, when can we expect results?"

"Hmm." Lemon thought it over. "I would think about a week would do – "

"Bullshit," Melanie told her. "You can go faster. I say we take the usual arrangement to make sure you deliver."

"Very well." Lemon scowled.

"The usual arrangement?" Roman asked.

"This is how we climbed to the top of the Malachite ladder," Miltia explained. "Melanie oversees one half of the deal and I watch the other. She'll make sure Lemon and the Wave don't dick around, and I'll make sure your WHAM operation follows through on their end of the deal."

"…Yeah, you won't be any more annoying than Cockmouth, so I'll allow it," Roman muttered.

"And if there's any funny business," Miltia said, leaning across the table to glower at Lemon, "I'll know." Her eyes brightened in intensity.

"Ah, yes," Lemon said sourly. "The infamous Malachite Twin Telepathy."

"Wait, are you serious?" Drakken asked. "You two have – HURK – telepathy?"

"Not really," Miltia told him. "Our Semblance connects us to each other in a more subtle way. Like, if Melanie gets stabbed in the gut, I get a bad stomachache. If I die, Melanie would know like that." She snapped her fingers.

"Built-in insurance," Roman noted. "You dump Terrible Twin Number One in a ditch, and Number Two sings like a canary."

"Which brings us to numbers." Lemon withdrew a small notepad from within the front of her bodice, placing it on the table and scrawling her price. "This, at least."

Melanie dropped a purse full of lien cards on the table. Lemon sifted through it. "Not quite enough for what you're asking," she replied.

Miltia dropped a second purse, even fatter. "Keep the tip," she said.

"Now," Lemon said with a smirk, "we're in business."

Outside the Lavender Lounge, in the chill air of the night, Melanie and Miltia hugged each other. "Don't die, loser," Miltia stated.

"Stay out of trouble, jerk," Melanie replied.

When they parted, Melanie turned to follow Lemon off into the streets. Miltia turned back to Roman, Neo, Zorg, and Drakken – the latter of whom was gasping as though he hadn't had air to breathe in hours.

"So," she asked, "where's your place? It better be decent."

"We have one of the premier territories in all of Mistral!" Roman told her. "So much breathing room. You're gonna love it."

The fact that he was referring to the Huntsman Academy campus and Miltia would probably need to camp out in a sleeping bag on a classroom floor? Well, that could be revealed when they got to the premises.

...

The Empyrean's Throne was enormous. It was designed to look somewhat like a throne in and of itself, with two immense stairways flanking a steep dropoff wall, looking like arms of a massive chair. Courtyards marked by pillars spread out to either side of the great temple. It looked as though it had been designed to be beautiful, and yet –

"Okay, this place just creeps me out," Giovanni said with a shudder.

"It should," Laphicet affirmed. "This was where I, as Innominat, presumed to suppress the will of mankind the world over."

"So…up the stairs?" Harley suggested.

"Noooo," Giovanni moaned. "That's too many stairs! That's gotta be like a million stairs!"

"It's closer to two hundred and fifty stairs," Laphicet corrected.

"THAT'S LIKE A MILLION STAIRS!" Giovanni protested.

"Hey." Yang put a hand on Velvet's shoulder. "You doin' okay?"

Velvet realized she'd been staring quite ominously at the Throne, hypnotized by its very existence. "Yes," she said slowly. "I'm…fine. This place just carries a lot of memories with it. Artorius nearly killed me in this temple, and I only survived because I entered a rift in our reality, where I was nearly trapped for eternity. This is where I battled for the entire world, but more importantly, for my revenge. Revenge for letting me think Laphicet was dead. This is where…I fought Laphicet."

"It's all right, Velvet," Laphicet said without turning to face her. (He didn't think he could, with those memories, that guilt on his mind.) "Artorius would always ask us why birds fly. You were just answering his question."

"I don't want to hurt you anymore." Velvet was less prickly about hiding her emotions than Laphicet; her voice cracked. "When I see this place, I think of how I battled you to both of our dooms – "

"I see what you really mean," Laphicet realized. "You don't feel guilty. You're afraid this place will inspire me to do what I did back then."

"No!" Velvet gasped, "Laphi, that's not what I - !"

"I don't hold any ill will over it," Laphicet told her. His gaze fixed on the ground. "Because you're right. If I become what I was back then, you would need to fight me again. It's simply what would need to happen. I want to promise I won't do anything so horrible. But I also want to ask that if I do…the rest of you do what needs to be done."

"We're not gonna fuckin' kill you," Giovanni scoffed. "Maybe knock you unconscious and stuff you in a time-out room until you're ready to not be a jerk, but the whole point is we go the selfish route, right? I say we both have and eat the soup."

"Cake," Yang corrected.

"No, soup," Giovanni said with conviction. "We stop Floaty here from doing his thing, but also, we don't kill him, 'cause we're gonna want him around later."

"Please stop calling me 'Floaty,'" Laphicet said sternly.

"What was that other name you had?" Giovanni asked. "It sounded really cool."

"Innominat," Laphicet replied.

"Yeah, that one!" Giovanni snapped his fingers. "I mean, it sounds like gibberish, but really badass gibberish, so run me through it a few times so I can say it. Then it's all yours, villain-name-wise."

"Everything's gonna work out just fine," Yang assured Velvet.

"That goes for you too," Harley told Dr. Lopez. "He's gonna be there. I know it."

"But what if he's not?" Dr. Lopez asked. "What if he's somewhere I can never find him?"

"Then after we break outta this dream, he's gonna be our next priority," Harley assured her. "And we ain't gonna stop until we've scoured all the worlds for 'im!"

"Let's go." Yang led the way, and the others followed.

"Greeeeaaaat," Giovanni sighed as they began to ascend. "Whose idea was it to build this many stairs anyway? Was this your idea, Instrumentalist?"

"Innominat," Laphicet replied, "and I gave the idea, but it was Artorius who decided the exact amount of stairs."

"Well, fuck that guy," Giovanni groaned.

"We can agree on that much," Velvet said with a smirk.

By the time they had ascended the circa two hundred and fifty stairs, Giovanni was claiming he'd pulled a muscle and reminded them on every step with an "Ow. Ow. Ow." On the final landing, he gave one last dramatic "Owwwww" before standing in such a manner that they knew he hadn't actually pulled anything anywhere.

Dr. Lopez gasped, pointing straight ahead. "This place! This was where we got separated! And that light - !"

On this landing, two rows of stone columns flanked the pathway to an altar. Beyond was a door, presumably to the inner chambers of the temple, but the altar was what drew everyone's attention. A streak of golden light shot upward from it, into the sky.

"That's what it looked like when it was connected to Innominat," Velvet recalled. "Wait. No…"

Every now and again, a streak of pure black, like Darkness, flickered in the light.

"It didn't have those dark streaks," Velvet said. "I wonder…"

"Jonathan's portals look like that," Dr. Lopez clarified. "This must be what his power set off!"

"But will this still lead to Innominat when Innominat is here with us?" Velvet wondered out loud.

"I wouldn't rule it out," Laphicet told her. "After all, this is a dream. I'm sure it's broken the laws of reality in several respects already."

"Tell me about it," Harley said while hoisting a gigantic pink inflatable hammer.

After a silence, she admitted, "Yeah, I dreamed this up just to prove the point. And also comedic timing!"

"You're a goof," Yang told her with a smile. "So? Are we ready to see the light?"

"It's not more stairs, so yes," Giovanni replied.

Tentatively, Velvet was first to approach. She put out a hand, gaping as it brushed the column of light. Then, as she stepped fully into the beam, she was transported to a place she'd never thought to see again, in dreams or in reality.

High up in the blue sky, almost astral, the crystalline labyrinth bordered not by walls but by the immeasurable fall off either side of the path glimmered with opalescence. More beams of light indicated more portals to get to other segments of the maze, as did doors with no walls that glowed gold.

"Whooooaaaa!" Harley's declaration made Velvet flinch; she turned to see Harley, Yang, Giovanni, Laphicet, and Dr. Lopez having arrived behind her.

"This is pretty neat," Yang observed.

"Eh, I dunno," Giovanni muttered. "It's kinda…goody-goody-looking."

"Well, it wasn't," Velvet told him. "This is where Innominat took his final form and attempted to spread his suppression over the world as we know it. In other words, the lair of the greatest evil this world has ever known." She fired a playful smirk to Laphicet, whose stoic exterior broke for just long enough for him to return it.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS THAT IS SO SWEEEEEEET!" Giovanni squealed. "Okay, NOW I see the badassery!"

"This was my body, once," Laphicet added. "Now just an empty shell."

"SO IT'S LIKE A GIANT CORPSE?" Giovanni's voice got a little higher.

"You couldn't tell from this angle," Laphicet went on, "but it takes the form of an enormous dragon."

"Waaaaiiiiit." Giovanni rounded on Laphicet. "So you're telling me that if I were to die in this maze, I would be surrounded by the bones of what is more or less a dinosaur." His eyes sparkled. "Just like I always wanted…"

"How exactly were you expecting to die to end up like that?" Yang asked.

Giovanni waved at her frantically; "SHUT UP; IT'S IN MY WILL!"

"Well, got any interest in bein' alive inside a giant dinosaur?" Harley asked.

"Dragon," Laphicet said softly. "I was a dragon."

"Oh, I am SO game for this!" Giovanni crowed. "So, uh…Increment."

"Innominat."

"This is your corpse. Which way do we go?"

"If I had to guess…" Laphicet's vision glazed as he recalled the distant past. "I didn't design this place to go easy on the people who tried to stop me. I made special rooms with malakhim designed specifically to reflect qualities or fears of the people who entered this domain, save Artorius and myself. A Gorgon of vengeance to face Velvet; a multi-armed swordsman to face Rokurou. If Sylvia's lover is here, and this place still adheres to my design, then he may very well be trapped in a chamber tailored to his exact chagrin."

"Then you have to lead us there!" Dr. Lopez wailed.

"Follow me," Laphicet demanded, floating ahead of the group at a brisk pace.

He brought them to a stone pillar that hovered a foot off the ground, making a remark that a special orb would be needed to open it. Then the group had to split up to comb the dragon-maze to find the altar where that orb would be housed.

It was on one of the upper strata of the maze that Giovanni, moving through an auspicious-looking door, realized: "Waaaaiiiit. The ramps, the long hallways…WAS THIS A WAY TO TRICK ME INTO GOING UP MORE STAIRS WITHOUT ACTUALLY LOOKING LIKE STAIRS?"

The glimmer of a golden orb on a pedestal in front of him distracted him from that thought. "Ooh, shiny! And also probably what we're looking for!"

"I GOT THE SHINY THING!" Giovanni yelled as he ran to the rendez-vous point around the stone pillar, hoisting the orb high.

Laphicet nodded. "Place it into the pillar. That should open the way."

The orb was slotted into a dent sized for it, and a jet-black sigil burned itself into the crystallized floor beneath them. Laphicet gave a nod, and all together, he, Velvet, Harley, Yang, Giovanni, and a very anxious Dr. Lopez stepped into the circle's confines.

They were transported to an area that looked as though Darkness had infected a segment of the maze they'd just left. The floor was a deep amethyst-purple, the surrounding abyss garnet-deep. But they didn't have long to admire the scenery, for chaos erupted before them.

The first thing one noticed was the mole. It was vaguely mole-shaped, at any rate, and had great digging claws. It was much larger and more colorful, though, reminiscent of the Wargoyle and the Spellican. Only its top half was really visible, protruding from a portal that emanated Darkness, and where exactly that portal was depended on when you were looking at it. It began on the floor right in front of the group, then had vanished and rematerialized in the air, then had done so again but at a different angle. Its aquamarine claws were complemented by a host of prickly white spines, more at home on a porcupine than a mole, that tore through the puffy-sleeved tunic it wore. Its head was encased in an old-fashioned helmet with polka-dotted feathers flapping from it, but atop that, there was settled an old, rusty-looking crown that provided a stark contrast to the rest of its pastels.

As the Nightmare disappeared and reappeared on the field, it appeared to be trying to attack something, given the way it was continually ripping out its white spines (which always regrew) and flinging them in a certain direction before disappearing, reappearing, and trying to get a closer slash at its target. And once one got one's eyes off the Nightmare itself, one noticed exactly what it was trying to attack: a man in a bright white suit dotted with black Dalmatian-esque spots, frantically leaping away from the Nightmare and teleporting across the field.

"JONATHAN!" Dr. Lopez shrieked when she recognized the man.

He halted in his tracks. Turned to look at her. Gave her a smitten smile, radiating joy. "SYLVIA – "

And then the Nightmare smacked him clear out into the atmosphere, from which he hurriedly teleported back.

"Be careful," Laphicet warned. "The creature itself is a Dream Eater, but it has some features it shouldn't. That's from this place, from my aura. It's read something off Jonathan and used itself to become more dangerous. Don't – "

Velvet, Harley, Giovanni, Yang, and Dr. Lopez had formed a charge, racing toward the Nightmare and screaming while doing so.

" – do that," Laphicet sighed. He then readied a bolt of clear white light in each hand, preparing to end the fight by striking down the Nightmare.

Jonathan Ohn, known in villains' circles as "The Spot," landed hard on the cold, crystallized ground. Dr. Lopez rushed to him, dropping to her knees to draw him onto her lap and embrace him.

"Oh, Sylvia!" the Spot gushed in a distinctly British tenor. "I'd no idea where you were! Thank heavens you're safe. No, wait, you're NOT safe, because now you're here!" He pushed her away, terrified. "Have you any idea what you've gotten into? This place – I can teleport to anywhere I want within it, but I can't seem to leave!"

"Betcha we gotta kill that thing first," Yang said, bracing her fists. The Nightmare reappeared before her, slashed, and was blocked by her metal arm, forced to recoil.

"Who are these people?" the Spot asked. "Friends of yours? …Maybe friends of mine?"

"They're here to help us," Dr. Lopez affirmed, getting to her feet and pulling the Spot up with her. "We came to save you from this place!"

"Oh, Sylvia…I love you so much…but you really shouldn't have come here!" the Spot protested. "I don't know how much longer I can hold out!"

"Well, now ya got a backup cavalry!" Harley told him with a playful salute.

"And I wasn't going to let you go," Dr. Lopez insisted. "I followed you into the void, and I would follow you into the most dangerous places there are!"

"Sylvia…" The Spot looked about ready to cry with joy. "I would do the same for you – "

"LESS TALKING, MORE FIGHTING!" Giovanni yelled, smacking away a cluster of thrown spines with the Doom Bat. Or trying to. Because as it turned out, giant spines just tended to embed themselves into wooden implements like Soul-Slugger Doom Bats.

"Whaddaya think?" Yang asked Giovanni. "Double Crit Explosion Extraordinaire?"

"Do we have TIME?" Giovanni pointed out, swinging again to catch more spines. "It's right here and we're in close quarters!"

Laphicet descended in the midst of the group, hands blazing with swirling light. "I can defeat it on my own," he said.

"I'm not letting you fight by yourself," Velvet told him. She raised her left hand, which expanded, becoming an enormous crimson claw with wickedly sharp edges. She then used that hand to counter another blow from the Nightmare (as Giovanni freaked out over how useful such a hand must be to a villain).

"Velvet," Laphicet said sternly. "Remember the dragon from Hexen? The one I created? If you do, then you know I can do this."

Velvet did remember. She swallowed hard. "Silva…"

"And I'm sorry for what happened to him," Laphicet insisted. "But we can talk about that another time."

"RETREAT!" Velvet screeched, and everyone but Laphicet went running while Laphicet faced down the Nightmare.

Laphicet raised both hands, engorging the Light he held. Then, when it was at its peak of brightness, he launched it –

At a Nightmare that was already gone.

It reappeared right beside the others; Velvet had to slice at it with her claw to stay it while the others ran. Laphicet aimed for another pitch, but the Light once again flew through empty air as the Nightmare rematerialized so close to the others that the only reason they were spared its deadly claws was that the Spot had created a portal beneath them all that they sank into before being deposited several feet away.

"WILL YOU JUST BLOW THAT THING UP?" Giovanni yelled.

"IT'S TOO FAST!" Laphicet cried, sounding the most like an actual child that he had since before the illusion had broken in Port Zekson.

"We gotta get that thing to – " Harley gasped, cutting herself off midsentence. "Johnny! You can teleport anybody anywhere with those portals, right?"

"Correct!" the Spot replied. "Well, I shouldn't really use them with reckless abandon, lest one of them grows large enough to obliterate the dimension – "

"This is its own pocket dimension!" Laphicet yelled. "It won't make a difference!" He made another wild shot.

"I know how we're gonna take this thing down Harley-style," Harley proclaimed. "We're gonna make it play whack-a-human."

Laphicet missed yet again, gritting his teeth in anger. He swiveled around to see where the Nightmare had gone, and by the time he had laid eyes on it, another portal, much smaller, opened up next to it.

"Heyyyy, ugly!" Harley teased from within. She blew a raspberry.

As planned, the Nightmare lashed out at her with its claws, but Harley had already vanished back into the portal.

Behind him, another rift. "That wasn't very clawesome," Yang jeered.

By the time the Nightmare had slashed, Yang was gone. Another portal was open, clear across the field, from which Giovanni groaned, "CLAWESOME? SERIOUSLY? Anyway, COME AT ME, FIEND!"

The Nightmare disappeared in order to get closer, but by the time it had reached where Giovanni had been, there was no more Giovanni. A roar of "I WILL TEAR OFF YOUR FACE!" alerted it to Velvet's portal. So it repeated: vanish, reappear, find no one.

"Oh, hello!" The Spot waved. "I'm over here now!"

The Nightmare rushed. And found no one.

"But now I'm here!" Dr. Lopez called out.

"Up here, buddy!" Harley teased, upside-down.

"Your mom, and also your face!" Yang cried from the middle of the ground.

"EVIL RULES!" Giovanni screamed.

"I'LL DEVOUR YOU!" Velvet threatened. "You'll tide me over for a few hours AT LEAST!"

"Ah, pardon me, but I'm actually over here!" the Spot teased.

"Look at me!" Dr. Lopez yelled.

"Hi hi!"

"This is a hole lotta annoyance, isn't it?"

"YOU FALL EVER FURTHER INTO MY FIENDISH TRAP!"

"You really thought you could cross a therion?"

"Over heeee-eeeere!"

"This way!"

The Nightmare was rapidly popping in and out of reality, getting dizzier by the minute. At last, it tumbled altogether out of its extradimensional burrow, flopping defeatedly on the ground. One could easily imagine little birds flapping 'round its brow.

And with one last clear shot, Laphicet obliterated the exhausted Nightmare in a brilliant white beam.

Portals dropped Harley, Yang, Velvet, Giovanni, the Spot, and Dr. Lopez off in the center of the field, then disappeared with a wave of the Spot's hand. "Absolutely marvelous!" he cheered.

"Couldn't'a done it without ya!" Harley told him.

Laphicet nodded; "Let's go."

As he turned to lead the way to the reopened black sigil, he felt Velvet's hand – her human one – on his shoulder. "You did good," she told him. "Real, truthful good."

"Thank you," Laphicet muttered.

They exited into the iridescent maze, and Harley asked, "Soooooo…any chance you'd wanna join a crime syndicate? Since we're all here?"

"Oh, I don't know about that," the Spot told her. "You see, while I was a criminal for a while – a thief, mind you, not a murderous sort – and it did make me feel quite alive, well, few things disgust me more than those who simply hoard wealth and money and use it to disenfranchise others."

"Well, the good news for you is we're perpetually disenfranchised!" Giovanni declared. "Y'know how there's always, like, that one band of thieves who has to keep stealing things because they can't afford anything else? Say hello to the Heathens! Impoverished and robbing the rich since 1996!"

"We ain't been together that long," Harley told him. "Also, I ain't sure time works the same on all our worlds. Also, did you just brag about us bein' poor…?"

"First of all, 1996 is my birth year," Giovanni said. "Second, we're going by my 1996 because I'm the cool one. Third, everyone knows that white-collar villains like billionaires are THE WORST! They hide behind philanthropy so they technically aren't even villains while they're screwing everyone over! They're the exact person an accomplished criminal works to stick it to!"

"I mean, we do have a couple of guys who wanna be king," Yang pointed out. "Of, like, a town at least. Is that the same thing?"

"Eh." Giovanni waved his hand. "Cedric the Sensational and Katsuhiko (neato minion name pending) are about POWER, not money. It's way different."

"Well, that does sound rather – " The Spot shook his head. "No! No, no, no! I gave that life up completely after cutting ties with the Kingpin! It isn't right at all! I…I couldn't do that to Sylvia…"

"But it…made me feel a certain way, too, when I used to be part of the Kingpin's syndicate," Dr. Lopez admitted. "The same way it made you feel, to take things that didn't belong to you and cause havoc. Where it all started to go wrong was when I realized how ruthless the Kingpin could truly be. To me, to you, and to anyone else. I never wanted to cause harm. Only to have that sort of power, which is different from money. I wanted to feel…important. Feared, but without anyone truly getting hurt. And since it all ended, I've thought so many times about rising up as a crime lord of my own right to take on Fisk and cut him down – but I could never!" She shook her head. "What I'm saying is…if you wanted to join them…then following you wouldn't be the only reason I would, too."

"I…have rather missed the fun of being a public menace," the Spot realized. "Without all the, er, risk to the world, of course. Just the part where I attracted the attention of certain costumed defenders."

"Sounds like they're in," Yang noted.

"We haven't got anywhere else to go, at any rate," the Spot added. "And you did save my life! I owe you a great deal!"

"Nah, ya don't!" Harley waved a hand dismissively. "We don't do that here! Ya gotta take what's yours, even if ya don't deserve it!"

"I think I like your Heathens more and more by the minute," Velvet said mischeviously, which gave Harley a pang of regret because she was pretty sure Velvet absolutely wouldn't be able to leave the dream with them all in the end.

(If they ever found a way to leave the dream.)

"So one thing's still really bugging me," Giovanni said. "I get the whole concept of a mole using portals to warp everywhere, and that's really neat, and I get how that connects to this John guy – please tell me he has a really cool villain name to go with that costume – "

"They've referred to me as 'The Spot,'" the Spot clarified.

"Not cool," Giovanni noted, "but still is a villain name, and it's already established, so I'll let it slide. Anyway, what was with the rest of it? All that spiky stuff? Was that part of the dungeon rules or whatever?"

"At its core, that Nightmare was a Holey Moley," Laphicet noted. "It – "

"EUUUURRRRGH, ARE YOU SERIOUS? THAT'S WHAT IT'S CALLED?" Giovanni groaned.

"That pun was TERRIBLE," Yang noted. "And I'm the one saying that."

Harley giggled behind a hand; "I think it's funny!"

"It had some features that aren't standard for its type," Laphicet went on. "For instance, the rusted crown, and the spines. Those must have been growths that it developed in Jonathan – the Spot's presence, due to being part of Innominat."

"For the life of me, I can't make a connection!" the Spot lamented. "What's a crown got to do with me? I've never been royalty! And spines like a porcupine or some sort of pincushion? What – "

Harley let out a shriek, then slapped her other hand over her mouth. "Oh my gosh. I just got it."

"What?" everyone asked.

"Didn't ya use to work for somebody called the Kingpin?" Harley asked.

"Yes," Dr. Lopez confirmed, nodding. "But how – "

"King," Harley repeated slowly. "Pin." A long pause. "IT HAD A CROWN LIKE A KING AND IT HAD PINS."

This was followed up with several groans; Harley simply fell over at that point, rolling on the floor with laughter she could no longer contain.

"That was awful," Velvet said flatly. "I ought to devour you alive for that."

"Don't look at ME!" Harley shrieked. "Your baby bro did it!"

"I never would've intended for a pun that horrible," Laphicet stated, shaking his head.

Harley then realized Yang didn't look even the slightest bit amused and was simply staring at her with a completely straight face. "Whaaaaat?" Harley asked. "You don't think it was funny?"

"It was a bad pun," Yang stated evenly. "A really bad pun."

"Yeah? And?"

"A big pun, too," Yang went on. "A big, bad pun. It's practically pun royalty." Her mouth cracked into a smirk she didn't intend as she delivered the punchline: "Kingpun."

Harley's screams grew louder. Giovanni, Velvet, and Laphicet were that much more done.

"I hope we can call ourselves friends at least," Dr. Lopez said behind a smile and a few errant chuckles. "You have a good sense of humor."

"Oh, I agree!" the Spot added. "Now, er, if you don't terribly mind…where are we?"

"We've got a lot to explain to you," Yang informed him.

"An' a lotta time to do it," Harley added. "We gotta make for that forest! If I gotta think about those two bein' stuck there much longer…I'm really gonna lose it!"

...

"No…" Aqua clutched a fist before her chest, before her beating heart, as she stepped back a pace from Yen Sid's desk at the summit of his tower. She shook her head vehemently; "NO! NO, YOU'RE LYING!"

"Aqua," Mickey cautioned, "Master Yen Sid doesn't have any reason to lie to you. And it's like we said. Master Eraqus thought he was doin' the right thing. He just went about it all wrong."

"He was all we had!" Aqua cried. "He LOVED us! He cared for us! He…he was my father! Don't you understand?" She felt a tear, the first of many, begin to slide down her cheek.

"I do," Yen Sid told her. "I would not have wanted to believe such things of one of my oldest and dearest friends. The news devastated me, as it is devastating you."

"But ya gotta look at the facts, Aqua," Mickey argued. "He sure knew that whole time that Ven was gonna be used as a weapon by Xehanort, an' he never told him the truth. Does that sound like somethin' a good father would do?"

"He had his reasons!" Aqua cried.

"Of all we have told you," Yen Sid asked, "what story seems the most unbelievable? Or perhaps I should ask you this way, one by one. Do you believe that in the face of a suspected threat, Eraqus would not rally everyone at his disposal?"

"He would," Aqua replied, "but the threat would be real!"

"Were you and Terra ever pushed to compete with each other to prove who was more pure, much like Eraqus would have put the monsters and humans into conflict?" Yen Sid asked.

"When equal powers clash, their true natures are revealed!" Aqua argued. "All it ever did was prove what Darkness lurked in Terra!"

"Had Eraqus ever sought to salvage a world or more by removing all of its Darkness entirely?" Yen Sid asked.

"Who WOULDN'T want that?" Aqua yelled.

"Riku," Mickey said sternly, and Aqua bristled.

"Would he ever force you to abandon a 'bad behavior' with no explanation of why it was bad other than his own declaration?" Yen Sid inquired.

"I…" Aqua shifted uncomfortably. "The only time he did that was when we were…bad."

"Were your relationships ever under his control so that you could reach what he believed to be your full potential?" Yen Sid asked.

"We didn't have…relationships," Aqua replied. "Just each other."

"What if you shared a quality with someone Eraqus had declared a threat?" Yen Sid asked.

"That never happened," Aqua said softly. "We…knew better."

"And had you ever felt…" Yen Sid paused. "As though if you did not live up to Eraqus' expectations, you did not deserve to exist?"

"Eraqus was a guardian of Light," Aqua stated. "A defender of good. Like Sora. If he doesn't like someone…then of course that someone doesn't deserve to exist. If Sora made an enemy, would you trust that person?"

"But you know Sora doesn't work like that," Mickey told her. "Anyone he's ever killed was fixin' to hurt somebody else if he didn't act. An' he's just sworn off all that 'cause respectin' his friends is more important to him than getting rid of the bad guys. In the end, if he made an enemy, maybe that person'd be a little harder to trust, but until that person made a move to do somethin' real harmful, Sora wouldn't even flinch. Just get angry, 'cause everyone gets angry at someone."

"Aqua," Yen Sid admitted at last, "I realize this may be difficult to accept, and perhaps…perhaps you are not meant to. Close as you were to him, I would not blame you if you didn't. I merely wished to present to you what we had discovered and what it implied. But before you make a decision, there is one last piece you should know."

"Tell me," Aqua urged. "What horrible story do you have left about him that could possibly change my mind?"

"We began our quest because we were told that another who was close to him still suffered his effects," Yen Sid stated. "That Ventus still believed himself unworthy to exist, all because Eraqus wanted to eradicate the x-Blade."

"That can't be RIGHT!" Aqua screamed. "The Master had his reasons! He was concerned about the worlds! He was – "

"Aqua," Mickey said softly, somberly. "Do…you think Ven shouldn't exist?"

"What?" Aqua flinched. "No, no, I could never think that!"

"If you'd been there when Ven found out what he was, as half of the x-Blade," Mickey went on, "would you have tried to put an end to him?"

"No," Aqua said. "No, I couldn't…not even when he…he asked…" It hit her then. "After the Master's death. He asked. He wanted us to put an end to him if it came to the x-Blade. He said it scared him, and that he…he was asking as a friend…but I…"

She collapsed to her knees, sobbing harder. "I don't want to believe that the Master was hurting us!" she wailed. "I believed in him! I took his teachings to heart, all of them! I watched over Terra and tried to keep Terra under control because of him! I vowed to eradicate Darkness for him! I ordered Ven around, I endangered our friendships because I was doing it for his honor, and if that's a lie, then what am I? And…what have I done?"

She fell silent for a moment, dabbing at her eyes. "Only my heart could be hollow enough to be a demon's," she croaked. "My reflection knew."

"Aqua," Mickey told her, "you grew up with Eraqus. You didn't even have much contact with anyone outside the academy. Just Terra and Ven. No one could blame a kid for doin' what, well, basically her parent told her. You were scared for Ven and Terra, an' you thought makin' 'em follow Eraqus' rules would save 'em. But it only just hurt 'em in the end. Ven felt like he had to stop existing in order to make the worlds a better place, an' Terra's broken heart led him right to Xehanort."

"I ask myself, sometimes," Aqua admitted. "If he knew that I'd saved Terra from the Dark…that I'd let Xehanort exist…would he ever be able to forgive me?"

"You were savin' your friend," Mickey told her. "Someone who really loved ya would see that."

"Though I do not think it inaccurate to say Eraqus loved you," Yen Sid broke in. "His love was simply…difficult and incomplete. It was not a healthy love for you."

"It…" Aqua's voice quavered. "It feels like my whole world's just collapsed. I loved him. I loved him so much. How could he be like that?"

"I dunno if anyone really knows why a person turns out the way he does," Mickey said. "But if I had to guess…see, nobody's perfect. But nobody wants to admit that. Eraqus really wanted to be able to make a perfect multiverse, one without anything bad to hurt anyone. But in order to be the one to do that, he had to believe that he was perfect to begin with. And so anytime he did somethin' that was part of the same problem he was tryin' to fix…well, he just couldn't reconcile that with his idea of himself as a flawless savior."

"It is a healthy practice, to acknowledge our flaws," Yen Sid stated. "Perhaps it will bring you solace. Admitting you could have been callous or deceived is an admittance that you will not fall prey to the same trap. To know one's Darkness is to be better able to battle it."

"But how can I live with knowing I made Ven feel so…horrible?" Aqua shuddered. "And Terra…"

"I'm sure Ven'll forgive ya," Mickey told her. "But even if he didn't, ya gotta forgive yourself. 'Cause I think you're worth existing. And ya gotta have faith in your own heart if you wanna believe that too."

"There are stories among our circle of those who have done horrendous deeds for various reasons," Yen Sid reminded her. "What you have done may pale in comparison to the misdeeds of Riku or Ienzo, depending on your perception. But they have all chosen to better themselves. They have all put faith into their current state as their true selves, and only remained on this path because it has brought them true happiness, not superficial reward. At heart, Aqua, I truly believe you wanted nothing more than to protect the family you'd found. There are many ways to go about that. Which is the path you would choose?"

"And don't say what you think Eraqus would want you to," Mickey chided. "Answer honestly."

After a long pause, Aqua admitted, "It's hard…not thinking of what he'd say to the decisions I make. For so long, I judged whether I was doing right or wrong by how he reacted. Right away, I know he would want me to walk a perfect line. To still keep control, but to introduce more compassion into it. Or maybe the illusion of compassion. Whatever made Ven and Terra happy on the outside. But if I had to throw out everything he ever taught me? Then…I guess…what I want is for Ven to feel sure of himself. To not want to stop existing. I don't know how I can make that possible, but maybe apologizing for what I've done is a start. After that, I want Terra back. And maybe…the path to him isn't one of Light. If I stop thinking about what I'm supposed to do and more about what I want to do…"

She rose, nodding firmly. "I want to help them," she said. "Not because it's what I've been told. But because it's in my heart. I love them."

"Then you have an answer," Yen Sid told her. "And it is a very noble one."

"Just don't forget," Mickey told her. "It's okay to look out for yourself, too. Sometimes ya gotta put yourself first."

"A concept Mickey knows well," Yen Sid said playfully.

"Is it wrong of me to still…have love for Eraqus?" Aqua asked. "Or will that go away over time?"

"What ya feel is what ya feel," Mickey told her. "I think it's kinda great, really, that ya still find the good in him to see after all the bad shone through. That's what forgiveness really means. But ya gotta be careful. Don't let anybody else trick you the same way, now that you know how it all works!"

"I won't," Aqua said with a determined nod. "I'd…like to be alone for a while, if that's all right. I want to think again about Terra and Xehanort and see if I come up with new answers."

"You may take your leave," Yen Sid assured her.

She turned, prying open the door, when Yen Sid said one more thing: "Aqua."

She paused.

"I also suspect that Eraqus was not accepting of relationships outside of his standard. To a greater degree than his disapproval of one of Light pursuing one of the Dark. I wish for you to take to heart that to romantically love Rosalina or any woman is no shame, nor is it sin. And if you should like, we can speak more about the possibilities in that regard."

"Thank you," Aqua said softly. Then she exited, ready to do some heavy thinking.

...

Oscar, Ren, Nora, and Yuffie stood atop a steep cliff, looking down at their target with wide eyes and pursed lips.

"So…it found other Grimm," Oscar began.

The Kraken was, in and of itself, a skull-like creature that sat in the midst of the King Taijitus it had possessed. It acted as a linchpin, a nexus, binding them together into an eight-headed monstrosity that crawled the valley below.

"Yeah," Yuffie groaned. "Eight Grimm."

"Technically," Oscar said, "Ozpin's saying that since a King Taijitu has two heads, it's only four – okay, seriously? SERIOUSLY? That's your priority here?"

"Well…?" Nora shrugged, looking to Ren. "You took down two – I mean one of those things our first day at Beacon. Think you can pull it off again?"

"I remember the maneuvers I used," Ren replied, "but…it depends. We're dealing with a lot of King Taijitus here."

"I mean, four of them, four of us," Nora divided. "That's two heads each. So if you take down two heads, and I take down two heads, and Yuffie and Oscar take two heads each…"

"Still risky," Ren said. "We'll be fighting in close quarters. That means any of the heads we're not focusing on could drift away from the assigned warrior and do some hefty damage."

"Well…what if I could slow them down?" Yuffie asked.

"How would you slow them down?" Ren replied.

Yuffie smirked playfully. "You know, I could tell you. But I'd rather show you!"

"Yuffie," Oscar cautioned.

But she was already withdrawing several shuriken as well as a handful of colored spheres.

"Marbles?" Nora asked.

"Nope!" Yuffie told her. "They're Materia!"

"What are Materia?" Ren asked.

"It's crystal tech from Radiant Garden," Yuffie explained. "Not sure exactly how they're made. Something something earthpulse. I didn't pay attention to…I don't even remember who was telling me. But the 'how' doesn't matter. What matters is the kaboom."

She fixed a glowing Materia to the center of a shuriken, snapping it into a designated slot. Then, from on high, she let it fly.

The shuriken struck one of the King Taijitu necks. The snake looked up and around for its attacker – and fell promptly asleep.

"That's…really handy," Ren noted.

"I've got a few more tricks that can stack the deck before we make this personal," Yuffie told him. "Watch and learn. Or don't, because I'm not gonna tell you my secrets."

Seven more shuriken hit home, and the King Taijitu heads swung about woozily, either hit with Sleep magic or Mystification. "Okay," Yuffie declared. "We're good to go."

And with that, she leapt clean off the cliff.

Oscar flinched, but Ren and Nora both knew better. They peered over the edge to see Yuffie running vertically down the cliff, a clock sigil glowing beneath her feet. She was using Materia to manipulate time around her, meaning she could slow her fall and throw in a dramatic run.

"Remember your landing strategy?" Nora asked Ren.

"Do you?" Ren asked Nora.

"I don't have one," Oscar squeaked.

Stormflower's blades screeched on the rock face, throwing up sparks as Ren overtook Yuffie and landed before her, his fall cushioned by the drag. Nora rode on Magnhild's cannon as it blasted her a comfortable distance above the ground; she let herself drop. Oscar, riding a hint from Ozpin, had just used his new weapon, The Long Memory, to surround himself with a green energy sphere and simply drop right off the cliff. The sphere landed, protecting Oscar but still shaking him up with quite a thump, then flickered twice as he stumbled onto his face before finally disappearing.

The King Taijitus attempted to look in the direction of all the noise, but were utterly too drowsy to make heads or tails of anything.

"Let's do this," Nora said with a smirk. She rushed the first snake head she saw, raising Magnhild high. With a resounding crack, the skull of the Grimm was broken.

Yuffie rushed the next nearest head, withdrawing a much larger shuriken and wielding it like a disc in order to slice the throat open.

Ren launched half of Stormflower so its blade lodged in the neck of the next snake head, sending a massive wave of aura after it to propel it all the way through.

Oscar cringed as he put up another defensive shield. The King Taijitu that tried to bite through the sphere was utterly repelled, with only rippling vibrations showing that it was making any effect. After muttering "Oh, cool," Oscar focused on The Long Memory, pulsing lightning bolts of green outward from the shield; the King Taijitu head exploded.

Nora, not to be outdone in pyrotechnics, retracted Magnhild, exposing all six missiles encapsulated within. They fired as one. The King Taijitu didn't stand a chance.

Yuffie spun around, launching the enormous shuriken from behind and under one leg. It flew right home, into one eye of the King Taijitu head and out the other.

Ren ripped out the fangs of the snake, thinking about how he'd had a lot of opportunity to refine this move since the Emerald Forest. He plunged them both into the snake's forehead, using another Aura wave to blast them right through.

Chancing a lowering of the defensive shield, Oscar charged the last head with a "YEEEAAAARGH!", swinging The Long Memory. He battered at the snake quickly and brutishly, feeling Ozpin take a bit of control back, and by the time they'd finished, the snake's skull was as broken shards of glass in a sack of skin.

Turning to face the others, Ozpin yelled through Oscar's mouth, "DESTROY THE KRAKEN!"

The central skull had detached from the dead Grimm bodies and was attempting to use several tentacles to skitter away. Yuffie and Nora exchanged a look. Then Yuffie handed Nora a Thunder materia, telling her, "Think of it as a jawbreaker and trust me."

Nora popped the materia into her mouth, sucking raw energy right off its surface. Oh, this would do nicely.

The two girls charged. Yuffie performed three front-flips, two backflips, and one more front-flip until she'd caught up to the Kraken, at which point she slammed two Materia-heavy fists into the ground and yelled, "LANDSCAPER!" This had the effect of jolting the ground beneath the Kraken upward.

At that same time, Nora had sucked quite a lot of electricity off the materia in her mouth and absorbed it into her system. When the Kraken was jolted upward, she channeled that electricity into Magnhild's head and brought the hammer down.

The Kraken practically exploded from the dual impact.

"YEEAAAH!" Nora yelled, pumping a fist. "WE DID IT! DREAM TEAM!"

Yuffie simply stood there and stared at her.

"What?" Nora asked, shrugging.

Yuffie let out a grunt.

"Uh…Yuffie?" Nora prodded. "Something up?"

"Ooh…" Yuffie closed the gap between the two of them. "Just KISS me, you idiot!"

And Nora did, sweeping Yuffie into her arms and dipping her deeply. Their lips pressed together, and only then did Nora remember the materia in her mouth. The jolt ran through both of them.

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh – " Nora released Yuffie quickly, worried she'd killed her newly-established girlfriend on their first kiss.

But Yuffie flashed her a thumbs-up and a smile, her short hair standing on end. "That was fantastic," she said.

"Well," Ren said as he and Oscar caught up, "that was about time."

"I'm happy for them," Oscar said with a smile.

"So am – " Ren flinched. "NORA, SPIT."

"Oops!" Nora hocked the Thunder materia out of her mouth and a good distance across the meadow before going in for a second kiss.

...

Waiting for the Morphlacc to calm down in the wee hours of the morning was a rather boring activity overall, so everyone found a different way to pass the time until Deymos gave the cue. Yzma described any and all new outfits she could think of off the top of her head, and Wuya made them reality, with the two of them acting as mannequins (though Yzma hadn't accounted for the physics of designing underwater, leading to some very heavily-soaked skirts and pointed collars that didn't stay pointed). Zevon was analyzing Gill's slime for use as an ingredient in transfigurative potions, and Mozenrath was sure that was doomed to fail but also wanted to see how far this would go, so he observed the process. Mysterio was describing his dream screenplay (or, rather, the thirty-second one he wanted to release in an ideal world) to Shocker, who was admittedly rather entertained by Beck's dramatic regaling and ability to make a hypothetical sound incredibly vivid and immersive.

Which left Vexen to do what he did best: examine the area and determine what information he could. He knew actually entering the canyon was too dangerous at this point, so he kept his sweep confined to the edges. To hammer the point, every so often, the Morphlacc would begin to suck its whirlpool down. Not something you wanted to be close to.

A surprising amount of human-made objects could be found in the sand on the edges. Shipwreck debris, Vexen supposed. The Morphlacc might have been strong enough to pull entire boats down from where it was buried. More interesting was the percentage of items that appeared to be clothing or jewelry. Vexen ran his fingers over an emerald necklace, thinking about the ramifications. An optimist could suppose that these discarded items were flung away by survivors who'd swum quickly away. But more likely was the possibility that –

"You're thinking about how the people who wore those probably got lunched by the Flowmonster before it belched the inedibles back up, right?"

Vexen flinched. Right. Deymos. He'd almost forgotten. He'd wanted to forget.

"Those are ineloquent terms, but yes," he replied. "Once again, you demonstrate your capacity for deduction and no drive to use it productively."

"That's my M.O., all right!" Deymos saluted.

"Well, you've arrived at the correct conclusion," Vexen urged, hoping he would pick up the hint that there was nothing more for him to want here.

"Yeah," Deymos replied, making a point of not leaving.

So Vexen attempted to ignore him, putting all his focus on the necklace. But Deymos had other ideas; "So…what have you been up to since the Organization disbanded?"

"I don't see why or how you care."

"I'm just curious. Me? I've been world-hopping, trying to keep Xemnas from tracking me down. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff I saw."

"Mm."

"I just thought…like…maybe you had some weird mad science adventures or something – "

"Deymos, don't pretend we are at all amicable," Vexen snapped, looking up from the necklace. "I wish to be civil allies, as you always were the least dangerous of the Organization and by default the most trustworthy. I have no desire to hinder you, conversely. But if you insist on perpetuating a falsehood, I won't stand for it."

"What falsehood?" Deymos asked. "Well, I mean, okay, you and I were never friends. I can count the times you and I have hung out on one hand. But, I mean, we were co-workers. We shared a Gray Area. We're – "

"Dilan informed me that after the Castle Oblivion massacre, you had some choice words about how much you enjoyed the Castle That Never Was without 'loudmouths.'"

"Whaaaaat?" Deymos squealed nervously. "Me? Say that? No. Nooooooo! I wouldn't – " He sighed. "Okay, you're not gonna buy that. Would you buy that I meant Marly, though?"

"Of the six of us deployed," Vexen reminded him, "Lexaeus barely spoke, Marluxia – who would not appreciate that nickname in the slightest – wasted no words, Zexion also wasted no words, Axel kept to his own circles, and I suppose Larxene was too talkative for anyone's good. But I am not unaware of my reputation among the Organization. 'Loudmouth' pointedly refers to one."

"Why do you even care, anyway?" Deymos asked. "So I said that ONCE. Or. Maybe eleven times. Who's counting? But you're the one acting like we hate each other, and here you are STILL angry about that when you weren't even alive to hear it? If I don't matter, why does that even BOTHER you?"

Vexen had no answer for that. "You're right. It shouldn't. And as of now, it no longer does."

He turned sharply away from Deymos.

"Y'know…they didn't like me either."

Vexen wasn't going to take that bait.

"I thought about that a while when I was on sabbatical," Deymos continued. "I'm not stupid. I know they sent me out to die at Hollow Bastion. Joke's on them that I came back ready to run, heart and all. But I think you were the only person in that whole castle they hated more than me, if your seat height was any indication Where Nothing Gathers. Man, pretentious name, am I right?"

Vexen still refused to answer, though he did find these particular words…interesting. Not that there was anything to be made of them.

"I'm saying I probably should've tried to get on your good side," Deymos huffed. "This isn't an apology. You absolutely deserved to be the bigger loser out of the two of us. But man, thinking back, I overshot when I tried to get Xigbar on my good graces."

Now this was worth a response: "Are you implying you should've courted my favor because I was the lowest rung and therefore the easiest to manipulate?"

"No! Dangit – " Deymos shook his head. "First of all. Stop saying 'courted.' That makes it sound – just don't say that. Second! I didn't mean 'overshot' like that. It's like…Xiggy, he was always standing around Xemnas' shadow, and I dunno if he was trying to be Xemnas' right-hand or murder him as soon as his back was turned. I mean, I thought about doing that same thing, multiple times, but Xiggy actually could've gotten away with it if he wanted, and that's saying something. My line of thinking: I get up close and personal with the Xemster and I'm set for life. Except they never wanted anyone like us. We were the pawns, the tools, the disposables. The only valid strategy was exactly what Marly was trying: to get out from underfoot. And I think you're the only person in that whole castle who actually would've gotten that if I'd brought it up, 'cause you've been through the same wringer I have. Does that make more sense now?"

Vexen slowly turned back to Deymos. "So you regret not recruiting my alliance to begin a revolution."

"Yes!" Deymos cried, flinging out his arms. "Is that so hard to believe?"

"No," Vexen admitted. "But it wouldn't have worked."

"I mean, 1v1, no, and we'd have to have escaped Axel's kill-a-thon, but – "

"Not in that respect," Vexen told him. "I would never have gone through with such a plan. After all, I was convinced my path upward relied on courting Xemnas' favor as well. I had thought if only I could get him to see how brilliant I truly was, I could secure my place. But of course, it was the one detail I couldn't notice, because I simply refused to see it. He wanted a vessel. Someone who happened to be there when he reaped his first batch. And to think the time we spent together in Radiant Garden, answering the questions of the Dark, meant nothing in terms of loyalty. I was always meant to be cast aside. Never seen for what I truly am. And had I survived Castle Oblivion, I think you know who would have taken your place holding the charge at Hollow Bastion."

A silence passed between them. Then Deymos said softly, "You ever think about how Xemnas basically had us all on strings? We were basically roommates, and we never TALKED to each other. We were titles and weapons."

"That is perhaps why I have remained so drawn to the WHAM ARMY," Vexen admitted. "We work as a symbiotic organism, even if some of the cells are dead weight. They are…tolerable to me."

"Coming from you? Huge compliment." Deymos paused. "So would they be open to – "

"You wouldn't appreciate being recruited," Vexen said hastily. "Moreover, joining the WHAM ARMY was the crucial detail that led to your horrible fate in our timeline."

"Right."

Another long silence before Vexen said, "It may also interest you to know that the Organization is not truly gone. Whispers have reached me that Xehanort is rebuilding anew. Even recruiting some of the former members of the first Organization, such as Xigbar, Xaldin, and Saïx. Neither you nor I was invited. If it's any consolation, I highly doubt you were pursued as of your recompletion."

"Whaaaaa – okay, NOW I'm just mad," Deymos fumed. "No way would I have ever wanted to join the guy again, but I at least wanna be CONSIDERED! I'm strategically valuable!"

"I fail to see how."

"Hehehhhh. So I've managed to baffle the great Vexen."

"No. You haven't."

Deymos was wringing his hands together. "Um…by the way…what was it like? Recompletion, I mean."

"Why do you ask?"

"I wanna know if I'm the only person it was so surreal for," Deymos said. "I haven't aged for decades. I thought I was untouchable. Lose my heart to Darkness? My body's up and running, good to go! But then…" Was his lip quivering. "Guess I should've known I'm not immortal. I wasn't even sure I'd wake up. It sure hurt like no one's business. There's a way to use a Keyblade to deal an efficient kill strike, and Sora did NOT know it. Took me a while to come around. Lotta bruises. Guessing you had it easier."

"…No," Vexen told him. "I most certainly did not. Do you know how I was executed?"

"Um…no? Should I?"

"Axel set me aflame," Vexen seethed. "From the inside out. Hardly the recipe for a quick recompletion."

Deymos grimaced. "Yeah, didn't know that part. Yeesh. Sounds like it hurt even more than mine."

"I'll leave that to your imagination." Vexen shook his head; "Why are you even bothering? You're too…gregarious."

"What?"

"Friendly. You're being far too friendly! I can see now what Xemnas thought was your fatal flaw. No ambition, no drive, and I'm beginning to think you're far too goodhearted for any Dark enterprise."

"So you think I'm a good guy, huh." Deymos' expression turned cold. "You want proof I'm not? Too bad; you're getting it whether you want it or not."

He reached out with a hand and beckoned. A fish broke away from its school, riding currents that Deymos created to ferry it to him. The fish struggled, attempting to leave the current, but the pull of the water was too strong.

Once the fish had arrived, Deymos looked at it, then, very sardonically, to Vexen. And with the crushing motion of a fist, he blew all of the water out of the fish's gills, depriving it, drowning it in air. He set the corpse afloat, nudging it along.

"I could do that to you at any time," Deymos said coldly. "Don't give me a reason."

Vexen recoiled. Apparently he'd made exactly the wrong mistake.

Then Deymos broke into a smile; "Nah, I'm playing with you. I wouldn't do that. To you, anyway."

"You're a sociopath," Vexen choked out.

Deymos shrugged. "Maybe. I just take it as it comes and look out for number one. But you're batting a thousand right now, so it makes more sense to keep you alive than not. Don't look at me like that. It's not like you've never thought that about your weird clones."

Which Vexen supposed was fair. Replicas: they were meant to be either useful or disposed of. Was it truly so different because he'd made them from the ground up? He had always waxed about how they were supposed to be as real as could be. Maybe, if he wanted to advertise them as life created from scratch, he had to consider the implications that he was quite callous when toying with others' lives.

He could live with that.

"Besides," Deymos went on, "it's kinda nice getting to talk to somebody about Nobody stuff. Y'know? And like I said." His voice dropped to an almost embarrassed mumble. "You get it."

Vexen flinched. "I can't tell anymore if you're a pathetic and lonesome soul seeking companionship or playing an intricate game of chess."

"Does it really need to be 'or'?"

"…No. I suppose it doesn't."

Another silence. Then Deymos mumbled, almost unintelligibly, "I wouldn't hurt you, though."

"And why not?"

"Because I need you to trust me for this. And I could lie to you or I could let actions speak louder. I don't just kill for fun or anything. We're going our separate ways after this, right? Might as well make the best of it." There was something hidden in all of this, something Vexen couldn't quite figure out, but he was diverted when Deymos began laughing; "Oh, man. Look at this. You, Mr. Creepy Mad Scientist, are more creeped out of me than I am of you. That's not how this WORKS. This is so backward."

"Indeed it is." And Vexen was smiling at that. "I see now that thinking I could trust you for not being dangerous was an error." (Though why had he still clung to it after everything with Hans?) "But perhaps, had you swayed me from Xemnas, your deceptive nature could've proven ultimately very useful indeed. We could have succeeded where Marluxia's coup failed."

"Too bad it's too late for that."

"It is somewhat of a regret, isn't it? But we've both left that far behind."

"Yeah."

Vexen supposed he should be keeping a tally of the awkward silences at this point. Why was anything about this awkward, anyhow? It was Deymos. Demyx. He still had no reason to care.

(But was there, once upon a time? And if so, what was it? Why did it feel like he'd overlooked something crucial in their shared history?)

"Ooh!" Deymos cried. "Currents changed. It just hit two sharp. Now or never."

With a flick of his tail, he was off to inform Mozenrath that they needed to sally forth.

As the nine swam over the edge and down into the darkest depths, Mysterio felt the need to declare that "Despite my earlier…INCIDENT, I'll have you know I'm not frightened in the least. And I never was. It was a mild inconvenience at best, and right now, I'm just annoyed with the low visibility."

The fact that he was practically cutting off the blood to Shocker's fingers in a vise-grip said otherwise. Shocker gritted his teeth and said nothing.

Yzma, swimming behind them and noting their interlocked hands, nodded toward Wuya; "We should get a good high-quality picture of that. Better than a scroll. Use it for blackmail. Make one of those fancy digital cameras."

"We're underwater," Wuya told her.

"And why does that matter?" Yzma asked. "The lighting? That's the canyon's fault, not the ocean's."

Wuya just stared at her.

Then she got it. "Oh. Right. Scroll will do."

Wuya brought out the (waterproof) scroll and snapped a shot.

"If that was a camera click I heard behind me," Mysterio called back, "it had better be for paparazzo purposes."

"More or less," Wuya replied.

"Feels even homier down here," Gill remarked.

"Do NOT abandon mission because you want to live in the scary abyss," Mozenrath growled.

"I think I might be growing gills from handlating your slime," Zevon piped up.

"No," Mozenrath told him, "you already had gills because I gave them to you so you could function underwater."

"Ohhhhh."

Eventually, the low point of the Abyss narrowed, and they threaded through a tunnel that emptied out in a cavern below. Mozenrath put forth a sphere of blue light to illuminate the way. The closed lips of the Morphlacc twitched shortly beneath them.

"Fan out," Deymos warned. "Just in case. We're in the caves now, so we can put some distance here."

He looped a loop and moved away from the Morphlac, into the dark; the others followed his lead.

"All right," Mozenrath told him, "your part here is done. You can go."

"You really don't get it, do you?" Deymos retorted. "This is the Great Abyss. The Flowmonster wasn't the only thing standing between you and the whateveritis. You're gonna need me for a lot more than that. For instance, we've got a hagfish approaching. Watch."

By "hagfish," Deymos apparently didn't mean a worm. It was an old and green woman, a fish who was also a hag, clothed in a flowing cloak that made her look quite ominous. She clutched in her hands a bulging rucksack.

"My, my," she chuckled. "You certainly look familiar. But you couldn't be HIM. He died too many years ago."

"Yeah, dunno who you're talking about," Deymos lied. "Never been down here before."

"You look lost," the hagfish cooed. "I might be able to help with that."

"No," Deymos replied. "We're fine." Then he thought it over. "You're gonna offer us whatever's in the bag, right?"

"I do think it could help," the hagfish replied.

Deymos backpedaled. "Open it from there," he demanded, "and let me see inside first."

"Are you sure you haven't been here before?" the hagfish cackled, prying open the bag. It was a good thing Deymos had asked to see it from a distance; green light spilled from it, and within, the sound of screams.

"Oh, sweet!" Deymos' face lit up. "It's the Fade! Okay, can I actually take a rain check on that? I might actually wanna go in the bag later."

"You do know that those who enter the bag tend not to leave," the hagfish said.

"Yeah, I know how the Fade works," Deymos scoffed.

"This is ridiculous," Mozenrath growled. "That's not the Fade! It's physically impossible to store a rift in a rucksack!"

"No, it's not," Zevon said quickly.

"…What?" Mozenrath seethed.

"I learned that in Numeria, too," Zevon explained. "The Fade can be containered in bags or boxes. I don't think he's telling fibbicles."

"Can you stop using your forbidden Numerian knowledge to make me look bad?" Mozenrath growled.

"No," Zevon replied indignantly.

"Like I said!" Deymos pointed at the hagfish with both fingers. "Rain check! I might be back." He turned to the others in his group. "For now, give her a big personal bubble. Juuuuust in case."

They curved a wide berth around the amused hagfish, plunging deeper into the dark.

"How uncharacteristic," Vexen mused. "The Demyx I knew would've been frightened beyond reason at all of this oddity."

"Wha…?" Deymos seemed to have remembered something. "I mean, uh…oh, nooooo, I'm really so scared! I'm only doing this 'cause I owe you one! Monsters might get me down here!"

"Please," Mysterio scoffed. "I've seen soap opera actors less wooden."

"Okay, okay," Deymos admitted. "But it's not like you think."

"Ya pretend ta be chicken so nobody'll hand you the work," Shocker stated.

"I just said it's not like you think!" Deymos insisted. "I am scared, okay? Like…all the time. But that's my big secret. I live with it. Sometimes it gets the better of me. Sometimes I can use it like armor. Right now? This place terrifies me. Always has. But it's not gonna feel any worse than it ever has, heart or no heart, so I know I can make it. Now, yes, I do exploit my 'fears' to get out of things. Like you've never done that."

"I ain't never shirked my responsibilities," Shocker stated. "That's the difference 'tween you'n'me."

"You mean how I'm an ageless mage who knows mermaid magic and goblin magic, and you're just a mortal dummy who can't even use his signature weapons down here? Right. Big difference in your favor. Totally."

Shocker clenched his teeth. Mysterio patted his shoulder twice sympathetically.

Light began to filter in. A bioluminescent field, with glimmers punctuating the ground ahead. It seemed to be emanating from coral. And Deymos ground to a halt.

"From here," he explained, "it gets way harder. This is where the big things live, and they're hungry. After this comes the waterlamps, which you do NOT want to see you, trust me, and then you get to Lightning Bumblebee Goby territory, and those things sting! Oh, and after that? Yeah, you're gonna wanna keep me in the lead until we're through the Sea Sorcerer citadel. Those guys can do so much worse than kill you. I've seen what they do to the ones they catch. Yeesh. Theeeen I think your biggest problem is the Pink Jellies, which is nothing if you've survived the Sea Sorcerers, and then you're into the Deep Reef, which is…safe-ish. And also the end of the caverns. So whatever you're looking for, it needs to be somewhere in that stretch."

"So we have our work cut out for us," Mozenrath determined. "I trust you have a strategy to defeat each segment."

"Weeeelllllll…" Deymos replied.

"You've got a different idea entirely," Vexen realized. "All right, let's hear it."

"I mean, we could go area by area," Deymos suggested. "Oooooooor we could use my personal patented strategy to beat them all in succession. Fairly foolproof, since I'm the one who uses it and I haven't messed it up yet."

"There's a REASON you're not telling us what it is outright," Vexen groaned.

"Oh, trust me." Deymos smirked. "That reason is because I wanna see your faces on the reveal. We can get through this pretty easily…if we use a musical number."

"I'm sorry, WHAT?" Mozenrath replied.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Mysterio was overjoyed.

"You'd better not be pulling our legs!" Yzma, also overjoyed, cried. "Or…or fins, or tails, or whatever!"

"Musical number," Deymos repeated. "It's exactly what it sounds like. Ever wonder why my weapon of choice doubles as a musical instrument?"

"To annoy everyone in the vicinity of your battlefield?" Mozenrath replied dryly.

"To show off your prowess in the musical arts?" Mysterio guessed.

"Both of those," Deymos responded, "and also, because music has power. Especially down here. It's a big part of merfolk culture. Singing and dancing can actually be harnessed to cast magic spells for the otherwise not-magic. It can even let Dark-aligned guys cast Light magic, which is handy in a pinch!"

"I can't believe I'm listening to this," Mozenrath groaned.

"I see now why you were so reluctant to inform us of this," Vexen sighed. "But do go on."

"You guys ever wondered why sometimes, if you start a song, then everyone around you naturally knows the lyrics and the choreography and joins right in?" Deymos went on. "That's because of something they call 'heart resonance.' Basically, your heart connects to the other people around you who wanna sing too, and boom, instant flash mob. You're linked by the song, and now the song has even more power."

"You mean all this time we've been poking fun at that and questioning it," Mozenrath asked through gritted teeth, "AND YOU KNEW HOW IT WORKED?"

"This is why I love holding out on that info until the last minute," Deymos said proudly. "Anyway, if we start a song down here, and at least some of you want to join in – which I see two of you do already – then we can charge up enough Light to get past all that nasty stuff I mentioned. Though if you don't feel like singing or dancing, well, I can't exactly promise you'll survive."

"This is incredulous," Vexen groaned.

"Awww, c'mon, Vex, live a little!" Deymos urged. "You're always so uptight. Haven't you ever just wanted to, y'know, go all out? Cut loose? Sing your heart out?"

"No," Vexen replied, "never, and absolutely not."

"I think you're lying." Deymos smirked proudly.

"I have a better plan," Mozenrath suggested. "How about Wuya just blasts everything in a ten-mile radius until the path is clear?"

"Yeah, no go," Deymos replied. "You might get as far as the Sea Sorcerers. But they'll chew you up and spit you right out."

"I'm glad that's the case," Wuya said, "because I'd rather see how this musical thing works out."

"WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO BETRAY ME?" Mozenrath cried.

"Because I'm a traitor by nature," Wuya reminded him. "I can't backstab you by selling out the WHAM ARMY or leaving, so I have to get my kicks in other ways."

Shocker sighed. "I ain't too fond of the prospect a' singin'…but if I gotta warm up these pipes to pass the gauntlet, then so be it."

"You KNOW I want – no, I NEED to hear you sing," Mysterio urged. "And if you're terrible, don't worry. Just harmonize with me and I'll make you sound good. I can carry a tune for two."

"I can do it," Shocker replied sharply. "I just don't find it real fun, that's all."

"I haven't been in a musical number since…" Gill thought back. "Yeah, preschool. Might be fun. But if this makes me look like a nerd, I'm strangling you and throwing your body to the big hungry things you mentioned."

"Try it," Deymos challenged. "I dare you."

"I think this sounds like a marvelicious plan!" Zevon cried.

"Shocker…Vexen…" Mozenrath hung his head. "We've been outvoted."

"I'll live with it," Shocker said.

Vexen just grumbled, "I refuse to take part in this pageantry."

"Suit yourself." Deymos shrugged. "Your funeral."

"What song are we to be performing tonight?" Yzma asked.

"Glad you asked!" Deymos replied. "All this underwater nostalgia has put Sayu on the brain. You guys picked up her latest album? Well, her latest one in the time when you got me, anyway. Was there another one after that? I hate time travel."

All he earned was several blank stares.

"You…you guys listen to Sayu, right?"

The stares got blanker. And less amused.

"Where even is your base?" Deymos scolded. "Under a ROCK? How are you missing out on THE ur-example of a digital bubblegum cutecore idol with nautical themes?"

"I'm pretty sure whatever you just said, this 'Sayu' is the only one in the category," Wuya stated.

"Okay, it's fine," Deymos said. "Like I said, I can start the number and the heart resonance will fill you guys in. But geeeez, get with the program!"

"Could we at least pick a song we all know better?" Mozenrath asked.

"Oh, are you leading the group now?" Deymos mocked. "Are you the only thing standing between this faction and certain doom? No. You're not. And it's common knowledge that the driver is the DJ."

"No, shotgun is the DJ!" Gill argued.

"Well, there's no SHOTGUN underwater, is there?" Deymos replied.

"I'm beginning to see why we hated him," Yzma muttered to Wuya.

"No, no," Wuya replied. "I'm actually starting to see why we shouldn't have thrown him out. Which is really the other side of the same coin, when you think about it."

"Anyway, upbeat stuff works better to cast Light magic," Deymos went on. "The bubblier, the better. I'll give you all a couple minutes for vocal warm-ups if you need – "

"Let's just get this over with!" Shocker groaned.

Deymos shrugged. "You asked for it."

He reached out, clenching a fist. In a cluster of bubbles, his sitar came to hand. He spun it dramatically before letting it float freely, tapping it twice. The sitar straightened up to attention, then leaned slightly in the direction Deymos indicated: further into the caverns.

Under his breath, Deymos counted, "One, two, one-two-three-four – "

His fingers twitched, and the sitar began to play of its own accord, a peppy melody to a quite distinct throbbing beat. He took off, and the sitar followed. Already, the water around them seemed to sparkle luminously, contrasting the darkness that had previously blanketed.

"Undercurrents pull at your heart!" Deymos sang jauntily, diving toward a jagged silhouette. "Feeling so powerful, it leads you on!" He reached the silhouette, and the luminosity around him revealed that he had discovered a dinosaur-size skeleton, belly up. He began to weave in and out of the pointed rib cage, singing on, "The waves of emotion wash over me! But can you see the ocean through the reef?"

He spun, and several star-shaped lights popped around where he'd flourished. Then Yzma overtook him, swimming out front and belting, "Undercurrents drag at your heart! Feeling so powerful it leads you on!" Every "R" was rolled.

Mysterio spun like a cyclone as he pulled into the lead; "A new tide comes in, and I'm washed away! Forces stronger than hate are left in the wake!"

He, Yzma, and Deymos slapped a three-way high five, which released a shower of starry sparks. Zevon rode the fountain of sparkles high, throwing out his arms to either side.

"I guess we're doing this," Mozenrath grumbled as he, Shocker, Vexen, Gill, and Wuya followed along – the latter two trying to plan out their entrances. The former three just swum on straight.

The cavern took on the form of a straight, sandy alley then. Great reeds that extended several feet high twitched at the sensation of motion. Within their leafy buds, luminescent pods shone down with heavy beams of light, not unlike streetlamps. So these were the Sea Lamps that were best avoided.

Deymos charged into the fray without thinking. The beams of light attempted to catch him, but he careened around them adeptly, belting, "Stron-ger! Than hate!"

"Anchored through the tidal waves!" Yzma weaved along with him.

"Go on!" Mysterio had caught up. "Take the bait!"

Wuya shot out front of them all, spinning and crying, "You can't fight the currents of love!" passionately as she threw her arms upward, emitting fireworks that slammed into the glowing pods and knocked out all the lights in the first half of the alley.

That let the non-singers through. But one of them was already changing heart.

"Lifts you from the deep!" Gil arced over the entire crowd, weaving into the next batch of lights.

"Rescuelated when you're lost at sea!" Zevon yelled, catching up to him.

Mysterio was startled when Shocker, having given in, appeared next to him, muttering, "Only surge you'll ever need…"

Mysterio grasped him by the wrists, spinning him round, and the two chorused, "You can't fight the CURRENTS OF LOVE!"

At which point Mysterio let Shocker go, and Shocker was able to point his knuckles at the remaining lights. Two bubbles erupted from where his shockwaves would usually be emitted, and they knocked out all the Sea Lamps ahead by erupting in a pair of rainbow shockwaves.

"Aaaand we've been betrayed," Mozenrath groaned.

"All the same, I refuse to give in to this nonsense," Vexen grunted.

They were all glowing with the light now – save for Vexen and Mozenrath, who staunchly refused to have anything to do with this other than following the path cleared for them by the others. The area ahead was more expansive, a great black void marked by several pockets of glimmering golden specks.

Wuya and Yzma were at the lead now, whirling around each other like ribbons as they belted, "STRONGER! THAN HATE! ANCHORED THROUGH THE HURRICANE!" The glimmers around them were interested, but as they attempted to get close, they were repelled by the luminosity from the two women.

Gill soared by on his back, propelling himself with only flicks of his ankles. He backhanded the glimmers away as he continued, "Go on! No need to wait!"

Zevon careened in, bombing a patch of the glimmers with a dramatic dive and scattering them as he cried, "YOU CAN'T FIGHT THE CURRENTATES OF LOVE!"

"What are those things supposed to be again?" Mozenrath groaned. The others were so much brighter than him by that point, it was embarrassing. (But for him or for them? Depends on who you ask.)

"Apparently 'Lightning Bumblebee Gobies,'" Vexen informed him. "And I fail to see how they are any sort of danger."

The glowing glimmers closed in on the only two entities not glowing: Mozenrath and Vexen.

"Awww, lookit da cute widdle fishies!" Mozenrath mocked when he realized they were tiny fish with gold-and-black stripes. "Did the big stupidhead get us all worked up for noth – OW!"

One of the Lightning Bumblebee Gobies had just stung Mozenrath on the exposed shoulder, jolting a slight burst of Thunder magic into him. And once the first one had made a move, the rest of the school closed in.

"OW! OW! OWOWOWOW!" Mozenrath flailed wildly with his right hand aglow. Vexen casually froze the schools that attempted to accost him in strategically-placed ice chunks, a little bit at a time.

"Lifts you from the brink!" Mysterio and Shocker were harmonizing. "Rescued when you start to sink!"

"Only dream you'll – " Deymos began.

A radiant Mozenrath zoomed past him, hurrying to catch up on the beat; "ONLYDREAMYOU'LLEVER NEED! YOU CAN'T FIGHT THE CURRENTS OF LOVE!"

The rays he emitted blasted away all the bees, and Deymos pumped his fist for having corrupted another one.

Vexen just kept freezing the Gobies. No sense in embarrassing himself if he could just take care of this with his own magic, and if Mozenrath had only calmed down –

Then they were through the void and into, if it was possible, a larger and darker void. There seemed to be no obstacles ahead, so Vexen continued his current strategy. Let the others take care of the musical number. He would be having none of it.

And that seemed to work. He wasn't far behind, and his compatriots were clearly visible thanks to all the glowing they were doing. What could go wrong?

The moment he thought of that very question, a wall of darkness cut him off from the others, as though they'd never been there. "WHAT?" Vexen yelled, quite annoyed.

"Are you lost?" a smooth, husky voice asked from the shadow that was his entire surroundings.

Another one, just a stitch higher, piped in, "Why don't you stay with us a while?"

"Stay!" another, this one much deeper, urged. "Stay!"

Their faces emerged from the shadows, fanged. Vexen understood, now, not why these were the "Sea Sorcerers" but rather a connection, because they were rather obviously of the same breed as the Sorceress they'd freed earlier. Just smaller, presenting more masculine, and in possession of sharp fangs.

Vexen's shield went up, and he was at the ready, his free hand building crystalline icicles.

"Such aggression," a voice said. And literally none of the faces had moved an inch, so Vexen wasn't sure entirely who had spoken. "How unwarranted."

The faces multiplied by the moment. Surrounding him like a wallpaper. So he fired off several icy spikes into their midst.

It was like shooting a hologram. They rippled. And took no damage. Vexen thought to the Sorceress from above, what she'd really looked like behind the cavern's mouth, and took a moment to remind himself that such a body probably existed on every single one of these faces.

Or did it? "If my attack has gone through you," he muttered, "then you mustn't be here."

So he sped forward, ready to break through the wall of faces.

He was repelled backward as though he'd crashed into a solid barrier of rubber, only with a more painful shockwave. As though his bones were about to shatter from sheer vibration. Sparks of deep, dark shades popped before him, threatening him to stay in place or else.

"How rude," one of the voices said.

"Let's teach him some manners!" a shriller one cackled.

Then there was a pair of bony green hands rising from the void below, fingers flexing to clutch him. Ropy strands of seaweed swayed in the dark currents as they became closer and closer, proving how large they truly were.

And as the hands drew frighteningly near, the faces closed in, the walls they formed constricting.

Panicked, Vexen shot ice shard after ice shard at them, hoping to do some damage. But the faces just rippled and let the projectiles pass through, and when the arms were stabbed, they just kept moving like nothing had happened. Vexen backed as far as he could away before feeling the prickling of the approaching surge of faces, the fingernails of the great green claws about ready to tear him apart –

And it all exploded in a rain of bubbles that popped into rainbows and starry sparks, pushing away the Sea Sorcerers in one great drive. The shadowy creatures flickered back to the far corners, scattering in every direction.

"Y'know, I don't wanna say I told you so." Deymos. Of course Deymos. How else could that possibly have ended? His glow was rapidly fading, and Vexen realized the sitar was still. The music had gone silent.

"Then," Vexen seethed with every amount of rage he could muster, "don't. SAY IT."

Deymos extended a hand toward him. "Only one way out, Vex," he said casually enough. "Take it or leave it."

And the thing was simply that Vexen really didn't want to die.

"ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!" Deymos was doing all the singing, but they were both dancing, connected where their right hands gripped one another. "MOTION ON THE OCEAN FLOOR!" They swung each other round and round, synchronizing, mirroring to a pattern, using their free hands to hurl the rainbow-sheen bubbles at any other Sorcerers that dared appear and drive them off. "FIVE! SIX! SEVEN! EIGHT! DOUBLE BUBBLE, SWIM SOME MORE! ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! MOTION ON THE OCEAN FLOOR!"

They'd caught up to the others now, and Deymos let Vexen go free to assimilate back into the crowd, but Vexen knew better than to stop at least moving rhythmically at this point. He swam on in the direction his heart pointed him, the one he'd ripped out and stuffed back in, forming a chorus line with the rest of the group. Everyone but Vexen vocalized for the final stretch of Sea Sorcerer territory: "ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! SWISHING FISHES, BRING IT IN! FIVE! SIX! SEVEN! EIGHT! TRIPLE RIPPLE, SHAKE YOUR FINS! ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!"

A group flourish caused a radiant light to extend outward from them, banishing the last of the Sea Sorcerers. What awaited now was a slightly brighter area, with luminous-leaved seaweed, pink jellyfish the size of human beings swimming among them and letting their deadly tentacles wave in the current idly.

"ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!" Vexen knew the game by now. "SALMON JAMMIN' EVERYWHERE!" Just keep up. Move along with them. No need to sing. "FIVE! SIX! SEVEN! EIGHT!" Was Mozenrath actually having fun with this? He looked as though he was. "SLAMMIN' CLAMS, I JUST DON'T CARE!" Yes, Mozenrath was dancing and also singing. "ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!" And Shocker had been a lost cause a while ago. "SALMON JAMMIN' EVERYWHERE!"

Oh, no. Vexen was actually enjoying this. He was enjoying this and he hated it.

Deymos mugged his field of vision again, egging him on as he swam backward and gestured in his direction; "ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! SWIMMIN' UNDERSEA PARADE!" Well, now Vexen had to take that bait. "FIVE! SIX! SEVEN! EIGHT! CUTESY-WOOTSY PINK MERMAID!" They faced off against each other, weaving together, moving in symbiosis. "ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! SWIMMIN' UNDERSEA PARADE!"

At some point, Deymos had taken Vexen's hand again (or was it the other way around?) and as the sitar played them out, they finished the song front and center of the party, free hands flung out into the waters dramatically and emitting bubbles that exploded in a rain of colors.

Eye contact was made. And Vexen might have smiled for half a second before instantly pulling away from Deymos, retracting his arms closer around himself and muttering, "I'll admit that was effective."

"C'mon, big finish! Curtain call!" Deymos swam after him as Vexen headed haughtily into the bright territory ahead. "We just upstaged Mysterio, and you're gonna shrug it off?"

"Really!" Mysterio groaned. "After all, upstaging me is – wait, YOU DID WHAT?" Now he was giving chase quite angrily. "DO-OVER! DO-OVER!"

"I mean, I didn't hate that." Gill shrugged. "I liked it more than I thought I would, actually."

"Oh, by the way," Yzma told Wuya, "I sent you the new pictures."

"Picturimages of what?" Zevon asked.

"Let's just never bring this up again," Mozenrath grumbled, surging forward.

"Oh, you know…" Wuya hid her hands behind her back. "Our indomitable no-nonsense leader getting mugged by underwater bees and then singing tenor."

"All on tape," Yzma said with a grin. "Low-resolution but glorious tape."

Mozenrath knocked Shocker with an elbow as he passed; "You're flushing. Or blushing. Or both. Thought you should know."

"WHAT – " Shocker snapped out of his reverie of reminiscing on the fun just had. "DON'T YOU GO MOCKIN' ME NOW – "

The territory was now glowing with varied pastel colors thanks to the coral that budded in various shapes. "Don't let your guard down here," Deymos warned. "This is the least dangerous area so far, but that doesn't mean there's nothing here that won't totally kill you."

"And I'm certain one of those things could very well be you," Vexen grumbled.

"Awww, c'mon, Vex, really?" Deymos teased. "I mean, I get not believing me earlier, but you think I could bump you off NOW? After that show-stopper?"

Vexen didn't get a chance to respond because that was when Mysterio caught up to Deymos, snarling, "WE'RE DOING ANOTHER MUSICAL NUMBER AND WE'RE DOING IT NOW. WHATEVER THE SECOND TRACK IS ON THAT SUYA SINGER'S ALBUM – "

"It's Sa-yuuuu," Deymos corrected. "Also, no! That part's over!"

"IT'S NOT OVER UNTIL MYSTERIO SINGS THE HIGHEST NOTE!"

"Can we please focus?" Mozenrath breezed past all, following the compass' needle upward to where a blue coral formation formed a miniature tunnel. Just inside lay a sparkle of ruby red.

Mozenrath swiped his hand across the coral, and it came away with the Star of Isis enclosed. "And I'll call that a victory," he declared.

"So!" Deymos put his hands on his hips cockily. "Am I free to go, or do you still need me to stop you from killing yourselves by accident?"

"No, the last stop on our little road trip is Lalotai," Mozenrath stated. "And we'll have to figure out a way in without any demigodly powers, but that's nothing you can help with."

(He couldn't have even asked Xerxes about his method, had he known, for Xerxes sure didn't remember.)

"EH-AHEM," Deymos coughed dramatically. "I believe we passed a certain in-between-type place that directly links the Realm of Light to god stuff. I'm just sayin'. And I'm the one who found it, sooooo…"

"Now you're making things up," Mozenrath told him.

"Oh, well, of course you'd say that," Deymos replied. "I mean, you still don't believe it could be in the bag."

And then Mozenrath recalled. "If we take that road," he seethed, "you're going in FIRST. That way, if it ends up to be a cosmic garbage disposal, YOU end up shredded before the rest of us."

"You wouldn't see the shreds on the other side," Deymos countered.

"True, but I'd die knowing you went first," Mozenrath told him.

"Are you saying we'll need to fight our way back rhythmically across all of those things we just faced, only in reverse order?" Mysterio asked excitedly.

"Yeah," Deymos told him. "I am. Whaddaya wanna do with that information?"

"SAYU REPRISE!" Mysterio bellowed.

"I got your rock remix right here." Deymos set his sitar to attention. Then glanced back at Vexen.

"I suppose it won't kill me," Vexen muttered.

He had no idea what to make of Deymos' smile upon hearing that.

One epic rock remix reprise (featuring Mysterio) later, they had assembled around a canvas sack pried off the unconscious body of a knocked-out hagfish. Deymos slithered in first, after which Mozenrath finally deemed it all right to follow, seeing as Deymos hadn't even objected to the plunge.

When he found himself standing in what was very definitely the Fade, with green mist rising up from the rocky earth as crags punctuated the foggy green of the horizon, he had never felt so spiteful toward the fact that he was alive.

...

"Oh, assholes, we're home!" Roman sang out as he, Drakken, Zorg, Neo, and Miltia strode into the Headmaster's office.

"Welcome back," Hannibal greeted. "Whatcha got there?"

"You convinced Lionheart to work with you?" Miltia asked Roman.

"No," Roman replied. "Just a guy who looks a lot like Lionheart. The real one's dead. Terrible Twin Number One, meet Hannibal Roy Bean. Mean Bean, meet Miltia Malachite."

"Actually, I'm Melanie," Miltia said just to start drama.

"No, you ain't," Zorg told her. Then he thought it over. "…Ain't you?"

Kokichi doubled over laughing; "Ohhh, I like her already!"

"Me too!" Mim cawed upon realizing that Kokichi had spotted a fellow liar in his midst.

"Wait a tick." Roman glanced around the office. "We seem to be down by two."

"Oh, Snatcher and the Huntsman just decided to have a little bonding time," Mim explained. "All that boring talk about how to gut gremlins and the like. None of us wanted in for certain."

"Just that some incredible lies got told in this office," Kokichi said smugly.

"Yeah, I bet they did, Cockmouth." Roman shrugged. "We got an ETA?"

"Should be back within the hour," Hannibal told him. "Though I can't guarantee ya sobriety."

"Well, they are my boyfriend and my bromance." Roman smiled. "I'm just gonna take advantage of the late-night quiet to step out and have a smoke outside for once."

"Technically, it's morning," Drakken told him. "Also, DIDN'T YOU HAVE ENOUGH AT THE LAVENDER LOUNGE?"

"Never," Roman laughed, turning to take his leave. "Troops, fill in the Terrible Twin on what she needs to know."

He strode out into the courtyard, eventually choosing a tall cherry-blossom tree with bright pink leaves to stand beneath and lean on as he lit up his cigar. The night was still, peaceful, quiet.

But not for long, as a familiar voice said, "Y'know, I'm surprised you didn't wanna know more about where your friends ran off to. You do care, right?"

Roman let out a long, smoky sigh. "Shut it, Cockmouth."

Kokichi emerged from the shadows. "I'm just saying that you should care which bar they went to," he urged. "Me? I don't care. I don't fucking care one little bit."

"Then why the hell are you harassing me?" Roman asked around a mouthful of cigar.

"Hmm." Kokichi made a big show of thinking. "Where are they? Turns out…I don't care."

"Are you trying to get at something here?"

Kokichi's face screwed into a terribly malicious grin. "Think about it, Roman," he urged. "Really think about it. Where are they? I. DON'T. CARE."

And then it finally sank in, like a lead weight in a lake.

"No…"

The cigar was dropped to the lawn below. Kokichi quickly stamped it out before it could light a massive fire. "Knew you'd figure it out eventually," he stated. "Like I said. Some incredible lies got told in that office."

"No, no, no, NO NO NO NO NO FUCKING NO!" Roman was hurtling toward the administrative building at top speed, not even bothering to notice his newest hat flying off and landing in the grass.

And if anyone had seen Kokichi's expression as he watched Roman run, that person might almost think he was displaying sympathy.