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.

140. A Haven for the Bold

A/N: Just a heads-up for this chapter and the next – we're coming into some heavy action stuff, so be warned that things might get quite violent indeed. In fact, someone may even die. Or will they?

...

"Oh, you poor, sweet lost girl…you could so desperately use a friend, couldn't you? I've been waiting for someone like you."

These were the words Xion didn't hear as she wrapped up in her ball of panic, unsure where to go or what to do next when she didn't even know what her options were of where to go or what to do. The closest she could get was that she couldn't stay curled up here, so she would have to get up and move.

Breathing long and slow to keep herself from failing, she gently rose, wiping away the tears she'd cried. She had to go…somewhere. Anywhere. Not here.

But she was halted when she felt a distinct rumble in the stones beneath her feet. A rumble that steadily grew and grew until the whole alley was shaking. Xion threw out her arms, stumbling to keep upright.

The entire earth opened its maw before her, the ground splitting into an alley-wide chasm that peered down into infernal orange depths. Tiny flames licked their way around the aperture. Xion felt her entire body recoil in sheer terror as up from this chasm clambered…something. Something that anchored its way to the surface with a host of slithering, inky-black tentacles that undulated.

It pulled itself up onto the stone, lowering its feet down. Xion thought at first it might be something slightly human, given the shape of its main body and the fact that it was wearing a suit, but the head looked just off enough that she knew it wasn't a human being. (The tentacles had already dashed that hope.) Its bright green eyes were practically luminous against its night-black skin; it grinned, revealing a set of needle-sharp fangs. One arm crookedly bent its way toward Xion, a set of angular, claw-tipped fingers grasping in the air.

She gasped, backing toward the wall, a hand over her mouth. Praying the creature wouldn't get close enough to actually touch her.

The claw paused in the air. The green eyes glowed; the fangs shone at her. Then those fangs parted, and the abomination that had clawed its way up out of the depths of the abyss said,

"Hello. My name is Nergal. What is yours?"

And he kept the hand hovering there. It was his right hand, and Xion was hit by a wave of sudden clarity. He wasn't trying to grab her. He wanted her to shake it.

Instantly, she felt awful. Sure, he'd made a quite bombastic entrance, and he looked a little different, but what right did she have to assume that he was a monster? After all, now that she was really looking, there was an awkward cheer to that smile – the look of someone attempting to make a good first impression.

(Also, the faint recollection in the back of her mind that somewhere, somehow, she'd seen weirder.)

So she did what seemed most polite: she put her own right hand out, slowly interlocking it with his. "Hi."

Nergal immediately clamped his other hand over hers and began to pump her arm enthusiastically. "Oh, how wonderful!" he cried in a lilting British tone. "You're the first person who's gotten as far as the handshake, and here I was thinking you were about to run away screaming like all the others and report me as some sort of haunting that wouldn't get taken seriously by authorities. I just know we're going to be the best of friends! …Now, what did you say your name was again?"

He was still shaking her hand, and she was pretty sure handshakes weren't supposed to go this long, but her memory felt faulty anyhow. "I don't know," she admitted. "I just…I woke up, and I don't know who I am or where I am, or what I'm supposed to be doing."

"Ah, I supposed as much when I saw you on surveillance," Nergal admitted. "For you see, most of those in this city, they have their best of friends already. And if I've learned anything, it's that those who already have a best friend or two never seem to need or want my sort of friendship. Also that if I kidnap someone for the express purpose of making friends, their previous friend will most likely follow them into the center of the earth to rescue them." Now he finally let go of Xion's friend. "But you! You quite clearly were lost, and had no friends to speak of! That was how I knew our friendship was simply meant to be!" He was tearing up.

"You…were watching me?" Xion realized. "Did you see where I came from? Do you know anything about me?"

"Well, no, not really," Nergal admitted. "I was watching that part of town where that rock-and-roll sort was dragging you around in a duffel, and I thought it was merely a routine post-murder body disposal ritual when all of a sudden you proved to be quite alive and cut your way out of the bag with a Keyblade. Oh, the screams of your kidnapper when he ran from you…so much like the screams others make when they run from me."

"Keyblade?" Xion repeated. That was right. She had a weapon at her disposal. Immediately, she summoned it back. "You know what this is?"

"Of course I know what it is," Nergal huffed. "I am an ancient chthonic deity with knowledge of all cosmic affairs. It's a weapon oft used as a tool, borne by those with strength of heart and able to seal the very Heart of the World."

"Then do you know why I have it?" Xion asked.

Nergal thought it over, scratching his chin. Or what would've been his chin, anyway, as his head seemed to blend seamlessly into his shoulders. "No, not a clue, really. It seems all sorts of people end up with them these days. Half the time there's no logic behind it."

"Oh." Xion cast her gaze downward. "So I can't use it to go on to figure out who I am."

"Oh, but don't worry!" Nergal said hurriedly. Obviously concerned. "You don't need to figure out who you are anymore because you have a friend! And I will make sure your every whim is taken care of! Provided you join me and my family in an eternity of entertaining board games."

"I need to figure it out," Xion asserted. "Somebody else might need me, and if – "

But when she looked up, she could see how apprehensive Nergal looked at the thought that he might lose his first friend on this world. And deep down, Xion knew few things were more important than friendship, especially when you were alone and a monster.

(How did she know what it was like to be a monster?)

" – actually," she corrected, "can we compromise? Maybe I can stay with your family until I figure out the answers. And then after that, just because we're apart doesn't mean we can't be friends. Did you say you liked board games?"

"I adore board games!"

"I think I might, too," Xion said.

It was stupid to trust a stranger who'd just crawled up from beneath the crust of the earth, and she knew it. But here at square one, where she knew nothing, everyone was a stranger, and everyone equally trustworthy. If she turned him down, she'd be back to having nowhere to belong at all.

"So you'll do it?" Nergal said excitedly, clasping his hands together. "You'll come to stay with me and my family?"

Xion nodded. If he was this loving toward his family, anyway, he couldn't be all bad. "I will. Where do you live?"

"Come with me!"

He threw an arm around Xion's shoulders, leading her down the streets of Radiant Garden. "You know, I think you'll fit in quite well with my family," he explained. "My son, Nergal Junior, is such an intelligent and kind young man, but never seems to have any luck in the social sphere. And my lovely wife, I just know she'll think of you as a daughter."

"I…I don't know what it's like to have a family," Xion admitted.

"It's even better than having friends!" Nergal beamed. "Oh, but before we get there, you'll need a name we can call you for now at least."

Xion began to think on it. What would she want to be called?

Before she could suggest anything, however, Nergal said, "You have no objections to being called 'Ninhursag,' do you?"

"I – "

"Of course you don't. Welcome to the family, Ninhursag."

He took her to an open, flat square that appeared to be a more modern district than most of the city. There was a small shopping center, a cluster of tall houses, and a building Xion didn't recognize but was actually a movie theater based on crystal-sphere technology, one that had gone up once the district had received enough aid from Merlin, Genie, and Ienzo to afford a luxury. An "Opening Soon!" sign was hung across its locked doors. One edge of the district limit dropped right off into the empty seabed, implying it would've been a coastal area if the sea were intact.

"Welcome to Olliewood," Nergal introduced. "I'd thought about opening business in Nine Wood Hills, but as much of a youth district as that is, it's still rather old-fashioned and upscale. I needed something modern! Something that looks cheap on the outside but is fantastic on the inside!"

"Business?" Xion repeated. "What's your business?"

"Why, Nergal's Pizza!"

He gestured up to a low, square building they'd stopped in front of. A sign over the door read "NERGAL'S PIZZA" in neon script letters, a glowing likeness of Nergal etched beside the text.

"Pizza…?" Xion repeated.

"Magical pizza," Nergal told her. "With enchanted sauce, ground crystals in the salt, mystic herbs mixed with the vegetables, and a crust baked in the very fires of – wait a minute, you don't even know what a pizza is, do you?"

Xion shook her head. "If it has a crust…it's some kind of pie?"

"Close enough."

Inside the building was a shining tile floor, green as Nergal's eyes. The interior was spotless and altogether pleasant-looking, ringed with plushy booths.

(One of those booths had, but a moment ago, played host to the double date between Amelia, Doppler, Jumba, and Pleakley. Had they stayed a few minutes longer, or Nergal brought Xion a few minutes earlier - )

Behind the sales counter was a short woman, slender but soft, her face bearing prominent features, a stiff frown, and thick-framed glasses. She wore a yellow blouse and a green skirt; a mane of orange curls cascaded down her head. At the moment, she was tapping a calculator and cross-referencing it with the cash register.

"Sis!" Nergal greeted giddily. "I've brought home a new friend! I decided to name her Ninhursag."

The woman, Sis, gave Nergal a surprised look before sighing, "Honey…"

"I know, I know."

"We've been over this," Sis protested. "If you're going to kidnap a child to befriend the family, then you need to give me a heads-up so I can set the dinner table for enough people!"

"I figured I'd just pull extra weight with the cooking tonight to make up for it," Nergal replied. "Ninhursag, this is my beautiful wife, Sis."

"Hello!" Xion smiled.

"Eh…at least this one isn't terrified for her life," Sis figured. "How long do we have until there's a rescue party launched?"

"That's the thing," Nergal told her. "She's got no idea who she is or where she's supposed to belong, so we don't know. Believe it or not, she's actually here of her own volition."

"I was…hoping I could stay until I figured things out?" Xion added.

Sis's mouth turned upward into a warm smile. "Of course, sweetie! But we'll have to get you some better clothes. No temporarily illegally-adopted daughter of mine is going to go out dressed like THAT."

"I'm…already your family?" Xion felt a warmth inside.

"Why not?" Sis replied. "You got a problem with it?"

"No," Xion said softly. "I just can't remember ever having a family before."

"Well, ya got one now," Sis said, deadpan. "Honey, can you take her down to meet Junior while I finish with the books?"

"Of course, dear." Nergal led Xion along. "Come on, now. This restaurant is the business, but I'll show you where you'll be staying residentially. Oh, and you don't mind joining the waitstaff of the restaurant and pulling double shift, do you? We're rather understaffed at the moment."

"I – "

"I knew you'd be a good sport about it. This is already going swimmingly!"

Well, so far, Nergal and Sis didn't seem to know a lot about boundaries, but they also didn't seem like bad people. Xion had the sneaking feeling that she'd at one point dealt with actual bad people in her living situation, but nothing to actually back that up, so she wrote it off as paranoia. The point was, so far, they may have been odd and imperfect, but could've been much worse.

Nergal walked Xion through the kitchens in back, where she could smell something heavenly cooking. Maybe it was that "pizza" he'd told her about. From there, it was into a door that looked like it led to a janitorial closet but really led to an elevator with two buttons: "L" and "Center of the Earth."

"We're going to be traveling at hyperspeed," Nergal told Xion. "But you won't feel anything."

He pressed the "Center of the Earth" button, and the door closed. The elevator then descended, and it felt for all the world like a normal elevator taking its time to descend a couple of floors. Including the soft and neutral-sounding instrumental music (overlaid with what sounded like the whispers of the damned in reverse).

A ding. "Here we are!" Nergal spread out his arms as the door opened again. "Welcome to the Center of the Earth! Well, center of this planet, at least."

The expanse stretching before Xion was a plateau of purple crystal in polygons, with purple-blue stalagmites of crystal sprouting up in spiky clusters. The darkness overhead looked like that of a night sky with stars and nebulae rather than the caverns Xion had been expecting, which must have been a trick of magic. Ahead lay a modest-sized castle with several turrets, as spiky as the crystal clusters.

"Can you believe someone just left this castle here uninhabited for us to move into?" Nergal asked, passing beneath a sign that read "Pandaemonium Sweet Pandaemonium" and moving through the front entryway. "Really, I suppose that's rather suspicious, but I'm not going to look too deeply into it. No use worrying about a catastrophe before it happens, after all."

Xion wasn't exactly sure that was smart, but also didn't even know how to figure out where she belonged, let alone the owner of a mysterious subterranean castle beneath the planet, so she let it go.

The interior was pink and purple marble tile, with even more crystals placed on pedestals at aesthetically-located corners. "JUUUU-NIOOOOOOR!" Nergal called out. "I'VE BROUGHT YOU HOME A NEW FRIEND!"

A young boy, dark-haired and sporting wide round glasses, came skidding around the corner. Xion couldn't tell how old he was; he was very short, so maybe eight or ten.

(His true age was only about a year, but with the mental age of a hundred-year-old by deity standards, but also inhabiting a possessed body of someone who had been about nine years old before he'd been hollowed out to make room for Junior's consciousness.)

"Dad?" the boy asked. "Did…did you kidnap this one?"

"Only sort of," Nergal told him.

"Hi!" Xion was starting to feel better about the whole situation. "You're Junior? I think I'm your new friend now. I'm staying here until we can figure out who I am. My name is…" She looked to Nergal, as she'd forgotten the pronunciation.

"Ninhursag," Nergal filled in.

"Ninhursag!" Xion repeated.

"Who you are?" the boy repeated. "Do you have amnesia of some kind?"

"Yes," Xion replied. "I'm not sure what my name was before or where I belonged. But your dad said I could stay here, and you'd be my friends."

Junior shrugged. "I mean, I'd never say no to a new friend."

Nergal put his hands on Xion's shoulders, grinning at Junior from behind her; "She said she's pretty sure she likes board games."

Junior brightened; "Do you know how to play Crypt of Failure?"

"No," Xion replied, "but I'd love to learn."

The door swung open, and Sis strode in behind them all. "Closed up shop for the day," she declared. "I want some time to get out on the town with our new daughter so we can get her a decent wardrobe."

"You can pick out any clothes you want!" Nergal told Xion. "After all, I am an elder deity, so money isn't an object."

"If you have enough money," Xion realized, "then why do you sell pizza?"

"Because everyone needs a hobby," Nergal told her.

"My husband can be impulsive sometimes when it comes to his decisions," Sis admitted. "Like opening a pizza parlor, or deciding to move to an entirely new plane of existence because people were too mean on the world we started out on. But that's honestly something I love so much about him!"

She put her arms around his waist from behind; he spun to meet her, extending a few tentacles to wrap around her. "You are truly too good to me," he told her.

"Yuck," Junior spat. "I hate when they get all mushy in front of me."

Somehow, this was something familiar yet alien to Xion. "Are they…in love?"

"Unfortunately," Junior sighed.

"I guess I don't know much about love," Xion admitted.

"Well, love comes in many forms," Nergal said as he turned and strode toward her. "What Sis and I have is a true and eternal romantic love that will last the ages. But you, I have a different sort of love for. The love of a new best friend and daughter who will remain with this family forever and ever, for all eternity."

"What's the difference?" Xion asked.

"Do I really get to be the one to explain metaphysical concepts to my child?" Nergal gushed. "We'll talk about it while we're in town. Oh, Ninhursag, this is the beginning of something truly wonderful!"

Yes, they were very strange, and very possessive at that. But also very warm and affectionate. This wasn't where Xion had come from, but at least for now, she felt like she belonged somewhere, a little more than she had before.

...

Commander Morvok of the Galra should have been the one controlling the Taxalan colony. After all, he'd been instrumental in the taking of it. He'd been the one to bravely organize the squads that went in as the canary to the coal mine and figure out the Taxalan defense system, after all! He'd even contributed a lovely wreath to the subsequent mass funeral. By all rights, because he'd organized the invasion and spared all the grunts, he should've gotten to keep the planet.

But then Taujeer happened.

Taujeer was supposed to be an immense victory for the Galra. The capturing of Voltron once and for all. It had been Morvok's biggest assignment yet, and he probably wouldn't have landed it without Taxalai under his belt. After all, for some reason, the higher-ups seemed to think he was some sort of coward. He was only adopting the doctrine of "Work smarter, not harder," after all!

Taujeer had failed spectacularly. The hundreds of Taujeerians who were supposed to have died in the acid cataclysm? Made it out alive on their evacuation ark. Why? Voltron. Status of Voltron? Still active as ever. Though Morvok's ship had been a casualty.

It was a good thing he'd set up the escape pod and ducked out when he sensed things going south, as far as he was concerned. If he hadn't, then he would've been lost with the ship, and the Galra couldn't have afforded all that!

But apparently, that was seen as the worst thing he could have done, and he could've at least "redeemed" himself in the Galra's eyes by dying on Taujeer for the cause. Redeemed! Who could believe? What would be the point of redeeming yourself if you were dead and couldn't reap the benefits of it?

They kicked him off the throne at Taxalai. Then handed it over to Ladnok. Ladnok! As if she were any more qualified to run a colony than Morvok was! Why, since she'd taken over, she'd wasted all her time trying to monkey with infrastructure, and she'd had all the custom art Morvok had ordered of himself to decorate the Taxalan palace destroyed!

And Morvok? Currently demoted to mucking out the Glaxxphant exhibit at the zoo.

Glaxxphants produced quite a lot of dung, which was probably why he'd been given this exact assignment. To those familiar with Earth wildlife, they would resemble elephant-sized armadillos, bright white, with wide, short trunks that they used to make piercing screeches. Of course, their exhibits were walled so the cries wouldn't disturb zoogoers. Staff who had to be in the exhibit daily weren't so lucky; Morvok's duty was often peppered with shrill shrieking from Glaxxphants who thought it was funny to startle him so hard he would fall into the muck.

Which wouldn't even be a problem if they'd let him keep his hoverbot, but apparently having a hoverbot in the first place without certification for need of an adaptive device was "flagrant disregard of protocol" and "a sign that he valued himself more than the Galra whole."

So there he was, the short, rotund Galra with pure-silver eyes digging through three feet of excrement with a snow shovel and grumbling to himself about how much he wasn't the problem, it was everyone else who didn't appreciate him, and he'd like to feed them all steaming plates of the stuff he was scooping. With another huff of "And Trugg's hair is stupid anyway!", he lifted the shovel to splat the gunk into the hover-wheelbarrow that he used to ferry away the mess.

The hover-barrow suddenly moved five feet away from Morvok, causing him to stumble and drop the shovelful in such a way that it splattered on his shoes.

"Hey!" Morvok yelled at the hover-barrow. "I never said you could move!"

He scooped up the poop again. Hustled it over to the barrow.

The barrow then shot past him the other way; startled, he tripped and fell, and of course landed right in the very stuff he was cleaning.

One of his fists pounded the ground. "I deserve better than this!" He pried himself up and stormed to the barrow to pull it back into place.

The moment his hand lay on the rim, the contents of the barrow exploded. And, somehow, transformed into confetti and glitter in the process.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" Morvok yelled, stamping a foot. "I DEMAND TO KNOW WHO'S MAKING A FOOL OF ME, RIGHT NOW!"

A raucous, screeching laugh went up, tempered by a slightly exasperated voice that groaned, "That's enough, Discord. Now, as we agreed, I get to do negotiations."

"Ohhhh, you're no fun," said the lilting voice that had laughed.

The sound of a snap echoed through the air, and Morvok winced and yelped at the sudden appearance of Mozenrath, Discord, Draco, Megavolt, Zeron Alpha, Tala, Shego, and Dr. Octopus.

"Commander Morvok," Mozenrath greeted. "We have a lot to talk about."

"So YOU'RE the reason I'm covered in the stuff!" Morvok pointed at Mozenrath. "Why, I ought to have you reported! Do you have any idea who I am or what my rank is? I am a Galra commander who can have you EXECUTED!"

"You're a poop scooper at the zoo," Mozenrath reminded him.

"Th…this is my side job!"

Tala broke in now; "What I heard is that you were demoted for an embarrassing and cowardly failure on the planet of Taujeer. Oh, and allow me to clean up my friend's mess."

She waved a hand, muttering an incantation. A silver-blue light surrounded Morvok, and all of a sudden, he was sparkling clean, with no dung in sight.

"How did you know about Taujeer?" Morvok asked. Then his solid-silver eyes widened. "No…you're not…EXECUTIONERS? YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!"

"That's kiiiiinda the point of an executioner?" Shego reminded him.

"Which we're not," Mozenrath clarified. "Quite the opposite, actually. As I understand it, the Galra have disrespected you and stripped you of all rank and honor. If my assumptions are correct, you probably want to get back at them for the disrespect."

"…Why do you ask?" Morvok said gingerly.

"So we can help you carry out that revenge," Alpha told him.

"In that case, YES!" Morvok cried. "Do you have any idea how low they sank me? I'd do anything, ANYTHING to make them all eat – well – eat what I've been scooping!"

"Ooh, too bad," Shego said with a smirk. "See, we're actually double agents FROM the Galra, and Emperor Zarkon isn't gonna be too happy you said that out loud."

"WHAT?" Morvok recoiled. "NO! I DIDN'T MEAN ANY OF IT! IT WAS A PRANK! A LITTLE JOKE, THAT'S ALL!"

"Not funny, Shego," Mozenrath said as Shego chuckled to herself. "No, THAT was the joke. Though it did tell me a lot about your loyalty. And, quite honestly, that you fit our profile about as well as I think you will, which in turn says a lot about my operation that I don't really like but have to accept."

"We have come with an offer," Tala stated. "To take you into our fold – which is not affiliated with the Galra, despite what Shego may think is humorous – and give you power and revenge in exchange for a service."

"…I know better than to agree to this without knowing what the service is," Morvok grumbled.

"To put it simply," Dr. Octopus began, "are you aware of the Quintessence rift that Prince Lotor has begun to build?"

"Nnnnnooooo?" Morvok replied. "Should I be?"

"Lotor is attempting to rip a hole between realities for the collection of Quintessence," Octopus explained. "He and his four generals have been at work at the site for quite some time. It is we who are also interested in that rift, but for different reasons."

"As you may have noticed, we're a villainous syndicate of all walks," Mozenrath explained. "There's someone I would have liked to recruit, but apparently he doesn't exist in this reality anymore. Given his supernatural nature, this is one that ordinary necromancy can't fix. I have it on good word that there may be a copy of him in an adjacent reality, and the thinnest point between the two is here in Galra Space, where Lotor is doing his experiment that's doomed to fail anyway."

"Yeah, not a big fan of the whole Lotor concept," Shego broke in. "Like, what is his game here? Is he actually trying to make a better future or just take things over? Why does he have to be so weird about trying to take over the world and hide it behind all this dumb rhetoric?"

Megavolt scratched his head; "And what does that secret Altean colony have to do with anything? I mean, I would get it if they were outright cattle for him, but he apparently treats them okay until it's harvest time and tries to make up this big thing about being their savior?"

"His what now?" Morvok said quizzically.

"He wasn't supposed to bloody know about that part yet!" Draco hissed.

"Well ex-cuuuuse me!" Megavolt snapped. "It's not like he's gonna be with the Galra much longer anyway once he hears about the WHAM ARMY!"

"The fact of the matter is that we require the use of Lotor's rift," Octopus went on. "In order to best combat such a high-ranking Galran military officer, we thought it best to request the help of a Galra."

"And there was only one who fit the bill," Mozenrath added. "One Galra commander who was so disgraced by his own army that we knew he'd do just about anything to one-up Zarkon's flesh and blood."

"You…want me to kill Lotor?" Morvok realized.

"Not on your own," Zeron Alpha clarified. "After all, some of us want to get in a shot."

Morvok clenched his fists; "Oh, how I'd love to stain the fleet with the blood of that…that…that snobbish upper-crust pretty boy!"

"Don't we all have that handsome prince in our lives who didn't deserve what he got and needs to die for it?" Mozenrath replied.

"That's very specific," Morvok pointed out.

"Anyway," Megavolt went on, "after we secure the rift, Doc Ock and I can build a portal that'll let Mozenrath into the other reality! Then we can split up! Half of us go get our guy, and half of us stay back and watch the ship to make sure nobody messes with our portal!"

"And as I said, you are…unfortunately…very WHAM ARMY, based on my profiling," Mozenrath told Morvok. "Stay on with us and after Lotor, your assignment will be to contribute to the domination of the multiverse."

"I do like the sounds of that," Morvok stated. "All right, I'll join your army. But on one condition: I get a hoverbot."

"Nobody is going to waste time on a hoverbot," Mozenrath said at the exact same time that Octopus said "I will engineer one with pleasure" and Megavolt said "A hoverbot? I've always wanted to make one of those!"

After a pause, Mozenrath slumped forward with a groan of "FIIIIIIINE."

...

In most cases, a train is built to travel the world. In this particular case, the world was built to accommodate the existence of a train.

It was linked to another, more ordinary world, with society and countries and civilization. There were connections between the two areas, allowing people from the ordinary world to visit that of the train. Rarely did it ever go the other way around. The train was something not at all ordinary; it contained wonders and horrors that were fantastical, in some cases unimaginable. The people from the less-magical world would come here, to a place made partly of magic and partly of data, to undergo transformations.

Deymos had been one of those people, once, when he'd had a stint on that more ordinary world. But he had refused transformation. He had, instead, utilized his powers to escape the train, which was thought impossible by most.

After all, the train was literally infinite. Car after car after car, with as many concepts within as the mind could generate, and they would shuffle order depending on what the train needed to be by the day. Standing on the side of the track, Deymos saw it rush by, never to stop rushing by.

"Heh," he chuckled. "Just like old times."

He waited. Then put up a hand, snagging a bar on the side of one of the cars, and his feet lifted off the ground as he let the train whisk him away with a "WHOA!".

Once he had settled himself on the coupling between two of the cars, he set about looking for a specific one, which wasn't easy to do when your parameters were infinite. However, he had faith the train would help accommodate him. It always had.

Passing through a concert hall and a broken-down mall and a neon-lit alley and a spring meadow and countless other locales that he just breezed through without interaction, he finally arrived in a snowy plain, upon which there sat a single cabin. As luck would have it, the lights were on inside, radiating warmth.

"Score," Deymos muttered as he trudged through the snow, toward the little vacation house.

It was bitterly cold, and by the time he reached the cabin door, he began to question if it was worth it to go through all of this for somebody that was probably just going to make him colder by standing around him, because he certainly wasn't enjoying this snow. But at a certain point it was about pride and principle, and the fact was Deymos probably should've quit back when Xion had held him at Keypoint but he hadn't and now that he'd put in all the work, he needed something to show for it.

He entered without knocking. Inside was warm, thanks to a roaring orange fire. Rustic furniture decorated the living room, and the crackling of the flames was offset by the ambient sound of a small decorative fountain. One of the chairs turned to the fireplace held upon it a white-furred cat, who was wearing a purple bathrobe tailored to her proportions.

"What is it this time?" the cat groaned. "I swear, every single time I think I can get away to Le Chat Chalet, someone shows up at my door and – "

"Yo, 'Mantha!" Deymos greeted with a wave.

The cat, Samantha, turned with a start and a gasp. "Deymos? But…but how…" Her jaw dropped. "You look like you haven't aged a day. Where have you been? They were saying you'd been thrown to the wheels, or that a Ghom found you."

Deymos waved that off; "I've been around. Hey, I got a question. You still trade in those black-market memory tapes?"

Samantha scowled. "It's nice to see you too."

"Look, I'm not staying long," Deymos explained. "There's no need to have a big sappy reunion if I'm just getting out of here again. Actually, no need to have a big sappy reunion even if I was staying. I know you just want my munny. Do you have the tapes or not?"

The tapes. Memories of everyone who boarded the train. For use in their transformations, the lessons they learned.

"Do you know what happened after you left?" Samantha asked. "I teamed up with Randall. For a very specific purpose."

Randall, who was the water in the fountain, rose up in a bubble, a crude face forming on his liquid surface. "Hello!" he chirped. "So you're the one I ended up replacing! That means we've got a lot in common already!"

"I wanted to make sure all of the water in my PRIVATE vacation home was Randall so that I could be sure it was never you interfering," Samantha hissed. "The fact that he's a gullible yet persistent businessman is a bonus."

"Yeah, yeah," Deymos groaned. "Look. I'm willing to pay top-dollar for a memory tape. Any memory t – no, not just anyone. It's gotta be someone that failed the whole test. Somebody who, say, I could commission to have cloned based on those memories, and they'd either be totally evil or just a really obedient lab assistant."

"Why would you want that?" Samantha sniffed. "It's not as though you could ever manage more than a pale imitation with those water forms of yours."

"It's like this," Deymos told her. "You know that whole principle of how when a guy is smarter than you and very, VERY loud about how much smarter he is than you, that weirdly makes him attractive, and it's that whole want-what-you-can't-have thing? Like, you just really want to be near the pretentious one because he has that confidence that only total jerks have?"

"No. I can't say I know this principle at all."

"Well, it's a thing," Deymos went on. "And I knew somebody like that a while ago, but…" He waved it off again. "Eh, wasn't meant to be. Barely knew I existed or cared. Always 'Go away!' and 'You're interrupting my research!' and 'We will never be anything more than begrudging co-workers!'. Always that we were not, are not, and would never be friends. Except guess what just happened? He came back. And he hunted me down ON PURPOSE. And get this: now that he's actually giving me the time of day, that should be the part where I stop wanting to hang out with him, 'cause he's accessible now, right? Except that didn't happen. I'm STILL on that whole high. So maybe that means something? I dunno. Look, I did my actual assigned missions for a WEEK to try and impress this guy once, and that should tell you how important this is! Oh, and the fact that he's the most obvious asexual I know and that's cool by me. I mean, who could really do me better than my own hand – "

"There's a point at which you should stop sharing," Samantha said flatly.

"I guess that sideburns guy in this timeline probably does," Deymos mused. "Whatever floats other-me's boat, I guess."

"And that point was two sentences ago," Samantha sighed.

"The point is I need data or memories or something to show up with when I go back to this guy!" Deymos urged. "There's bad history in this timeline that means they don't want me in their club. Long story, and even I don't know most of it. So if I want in at the cool kids' table, I need to bring a bribe. A really awesome bribe. I already tried going back to the experiment he made that apparently everyone just up and forgot about, and THAT went over like a lead balloon. But he'll have more fun making one from scratch anyway! He can do that, you know! Make whole entire people. But there's gotta be something to start it out, and that's where you and your memory tapes come in! C'monnnn, there's gotta be somebody's memories that are just expendable and the conductor doesn't need anymore! Right?"

Samantha's tail flicked back and forth as she regarded Deymos. "If I give you something," she said, "will you not only pay its worth but also leave me alone and never bother me again?"

"Promise," Deymos told her. "Cross my heart and hope to – well, you know the rest."

Samantha made a great leap up to the mantel, then returned with a black cassette tape in her mouth. She set it down on the floor before Deymos. "This one was special to me," she admitted. "He's gone now. Taken by a Ghom. This is…all I have left of him. But the more I let his memories sit and gather dust, the more I remember that I just want to forget. The last of the pain will go away once I'm willing to part with this."

"Sooooo you're saying you should be paying me to take it?"

"Nice try."

Deymos fished in a pocket. Retrieved a munny pouch. Dropped it before Samantha. "And if you say it's worth more than this, I call shenanigans."

Samantha pawed at the pouch to undo its drawstring, then sifted through the crystals inside. "Acceptable," she said.

"And this guy," Deymos clarified. "Is he evil or obedient like I asked?"

Samantha turned her head away. "In the end…there are those who say he deserved to be taken by the Ghom. When I wasn't looking, he became bitter. Cold. Demanding. He believed he was superior to everyone else around him."

"Well, that's exactly like the guy I'm giving him to!" Deymos said as he scooped up the tape. "It's perfect! Anyway, that's all I wanted." He turned. Put up a hand to wave. "Now I won't bother you anymore, unless I really need to, of course. Ciao!"

He got as far as the door, then paused.

Samantha had turned a circle on the cushion of her chair, then sat. "What?"

"What's this guy's name? I wanna look like I know what I'm talking about when I hand the tape over."

She sighed. "His name was Simon. Simon Laurent."

"Well, that sounds pretentious. This just keeps getting better. Anyway, hasta la pasta."

And then he was gone, out into the blizzard, finding his way off the train completely.

"Well, he seemed nice!" Randall the sentient water declared. To which Samantha just turned away, wondering why she ever tried to relax here.

...

The coordinates formed by Hilda's puzzle led Ven and Papyrus' canoe to a bobbing orange container floating in the water, perfectly spherical. Ven used his Keyblade to nudge it closer, and together they opened it, finding inside a rectangular black remote with the word "ZapTech" emblazoned on it.

The moment it was found, Ven's GummiPhone rang. "It's Hilda!" he cried excitedly before answering; "Hi, Hilda!"

"Hello, Ventus!" Hilda replied. "I commend your ability to take direction and to follow through. You're definitely a cut above. And for that, you've just been rewarded."

"What even is it?" Ven asked.

"You'll know once you complete your next mission," Hilda said. "Now listen carefully. I hope you like poems."

Ven and Papyrus exchanged an unsure glance.

"Below ground is a rock with a strange anvil look," Hilda recited. "When you're near it, behold what's above. Letters found at the beach will put a new spot in reach: letters only a sailor could love." She sighed. "Oh, my apologies, dear. I'm many things, but I'm afraid I'm not much of a poet."

Ven and Papyrus could read the same worry off each other's faces. "ERM…HILDA," Papyrus voiced. "YOU'RE…WATCHING US RIGHT NOW?"

"Of course. It's the least we fellow human beings can do, keep an eye on one another."

"AND YOU JUST GAVE US A RHYMING CLUE TO OUR NEXT PUZZLE," Papyrus went on. "WOULD YOU HAPPEN TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT…A RHYMING RIDDLE WE MAY HAVE RECEIVED LATELY?"

"A riddle?" Hilda repeated. "I'm no poet, but I'm even less of a…of a…well, whatever you call a riddle-person."

"Why a puzzle in the first place?" Ven asked. "Is there…a reason you can't just give us what we're looking for?"

"Were I to simply give it to you," Hilda explained, "you might just turn around and toss it away. But if I make you earn it, you'll feel like it's yours and use it properly. Now. Where was I? Ah, yes. As I said, the device will make sense once you've gone where my poem takes you. Goodbye, and good luck."

"Wait!" Ven yelled, but the phone line went dead.

"I DON'T WANT TO THINK THAT SHE WAS THE RIDDLE PERSON," Papyrus sighed. "BUT…SHE IS WATCHING US RIGHT NOW."

"No!" Ven clenched a fist. "We trusted Jenna, and that turned out okay! We can trust Hilda too! We…" He sighed. "We have to."

Papyrus now realized that it was important for Ven to be able to trust. If Hilda turned out to be rotten, he would have to know – but until anything was confirmed, he shouldn't feed into that fear.

"YOU'RE RIGHT. WE HAVE NO EVIDENCE HILDA IS ANYTHING BUT OUR LONG-DISTANCE FRIEND. ANYWAY, I HAVE SOME IDEAS ABOUT WHAT THE POEM MEANT."

He withdrew the clamshell box, opening it with the "ROSEBUD" code again. "SHE SAID LETTERS FOUND AT THE BEACH," Papyrus remarked. "SO THAT MUST MEAN ONE OF OUR OLD PUZZLES IS RELEVANT A SECOND TIME!"

A slip of paper he hadn't noticed before, that had gotten wedged in the box lid, fluttered out and into the bottom of the canoe.

"OR…THERE WAS A THIRD PUZZLE IN THERE THE WHOLE TIME. THAT WORKS TOO."

Ven held up the paper. "It's just the letters 'P' and 'S' in a random order."

"WELL, SINCE IT'S SOMETHING A SAILOR WOULD LOVE, THERE'S ONLY ONE THING THAT MEANS TO ME. ARE YOU THINKING OF WHAT I'M THINKING OF?"

"Yeah!" Ven realized. "Port and starboard! And we already found the anvil rock. This has to tell us directions for what to do with what's above it! Left and right!"

They made quick work of getting back to the lighthouse and down into the tunnels. From there, they rushed to the anvil rock and looked up to see a fissure above, leading to a whole new level of caverns.

Papyrus boosted Ven up first, and then Ven reached down to pull Papyrus up after him. The two stood in the mouth of a new cave, one that stretched ahead in a tight, twisting tunnel. Smaller than what they'd been going through – still plenty of room for them to walk comfortably, but with far more anxiety involved.

"I don't like the looks of this," Ven said gingerly.

"THERE'S ONLY ONE THING TO DO, THEN," Papyrus said.

They clasped hands and began to forge their way through the creepy tunnels.

The letters indicated whether they should go left or right. What was down the paths at the other forks, Papyrus loudly declared he didn't want to know, and Ven agreed. Finally, after the last turn, they came to…

"A dead end?" Ven voiced aloud.

"NO," Papyrus said confidently. "IT'S ANOTHER PUZZLE."

"I don't know. I think maybe we messed up – "

Papyrus was already examining the rock wall. "LOOK! WE DID NOT MESS UP!"

There was an etching in the stone of the ZapTech device. As well as a set of coordinates.

"Put them in the GPS!" Ven urged.

Papyrus attempted, but as it turned out, "NO SIGNAL DOWN HERE. WE'LL JUST HAVE TO WRITE IT DOWN."

On the nearest paper he had, he deployed a thick marker, taking down the numbers. "THERE! NOW WE CAN REMEMBER!"

"And all we have to do is follow the letter clues backward to get back out!"

Silence. Then: "ERM…VEN…?"

"Yeah?"

"SO THE PAPER I JUST WROTE THE COORDINATES ON MAY…OR MAY NOT…HAVE BEEN THE DIRECTIONS TO GET IN HERE."

"Wha - !" Ven flinched.

"I'M SORRY, OKAY?" Papyrus said defensively. "I WASN'T THINKING – IT'S DARK IN HERE – ANYONE COULD'VE – "

Ven just reached up and put a hand on his bony forearm. "Hey. It's okay. We've got plenty of time to figure it out, right? Let's just…try and walk back on memory and see how far we get. Maybe these tunnels won't be so scary after all."

They couldn't recall the exact sequence of lefts and rights forward, let alone in reverse, and ended up discovering the many, many actual dead ends down the other forks. But eventually, they made their way out through trial and error, and the time spent lost in the twisting tunnels gave them plenty of time to make cheerful small talk.

...

There was a new pizza place in Radiant Garden. To the Brotherhood of Mutants, this was a piece of information that couldn't escape their notice, and once they discovered its existence, they needed to have their next meal there, immediately.

The bell rang, alerting Nergal to his new customers. Usually, the maximum he would find was four, which only happened the one time that the double date took place in his establishment. But today, there were five people walking in through his door. Another double date, he figured out by seeing who was holding hands with who and who was perching on whose shoulders, but this time they had a fifth wheel, which was extra exciting.

"I'm tellin' ya, man," Todd was saying. "She saved Christmas. No arguments."

"I don't believe you," Lance retorted. "She's mean, okay? She doesn't even know the meaning of Christmas!"

"Why are we having this dumb argument over a movie character?" Pietro groaned.

"Because this is our life now," Wanda told him.

"No, I mean why were we watching those dumb Christmas movies anyway?" Pietro sighed.

"Hey, I liked 'em!" Fred argued. "I totally didn't cry at that one, though!"

"You so did," Lance retorted. "Which one was that, anyway? It was that one where the girl moved to that little town and she always wore the red dress, and then that guy with the green sweater showed up – "

"THAT'SLITERALLYALLOFTHEM!" Pietro shrieked.

Meanwhile, Nergal was prancing around the kitchen, crowing, "FIVE NEW FRIENDS! FIVE NEW FRIENDS!"

"Customers?" Xion raced to pick up her notepad and pencil. On her outing with Nergal, Sis, and Junior, she had picked up a black dress with a collar, a belt, and two rows of buttons, culminating at the hem in a pleated white under-layer. Black leather boots topped it all off. Sis had called it a smart look; Nergal had pointed out it could easily double as a waitress' uniform. On his advice, Xion had a golden name tag pinned to her chest, reading "Ninhursag."

"Five at once!" Nergal cried. "That's unprecedented! Do be a dear and take their orders!"

Xion trotted out, notepad in hand. "Hi! Welcome to Nergal's Pizza. I'm Ninhursag, apparently. What can I get you?"

"NinhurWHAT?" Todd said before breaking into chortles.

"Wow, your parents must've hated you," Pietro commented.

"I GAVE HER THAT NAME BECAUSE I LOVE HER!" Nergal yelled from the kitchens.

"That name's too long," Fred said. "How about we call you…Ninny?"

This set Pietro off laughing, and Lance had to ask "What's so funny?", which set Pietro off laughing even harder.

"You're all a bunch of ninnies is what," Wanda huffed.

"Um…" Xion wasn't sure how to proceed. "Your order?"

"Oh yeah!" Fred realized. "Get us two family-size pizzas with literally everything!"

Xion scribbled it down.

"Waitwaitwait." Pietro put up his hands. "You're not gonna tell us to not order literally everything?"

"I don't see why you can't have everything," Xion replied. "We have everything in the kitchen, so we should be able to make that pizza."

"I'm not sure that's physically possible," Wanda pointed out.

"We can do it!" Xion insisted.

"And…no comment about how there's no way five kids can destroy two family-size pizzas," Pietro went on.

"Is that a lot for five people to eat?" Xion asked. "A family can be as little as three people, and you have five."

"Stay pure, Ninny," Todd told her. "Stay pure."

Xion went back to the kitchen with the order, handing it off to Nergal, who in turn handed it off to Junior. As the young boy set about assembling every single topping they'd ever stocked, Nergal told Xion, "I've been watching those kids, you know. They're probably the most pathetic losers in town. And the most hated." He smiled wistfully. "I would so adore having a friend or five who know what it's like to be a pathetic loser and hated by everyone."

"Then you should go talk to them," Xion told him.

"But what would I say?" Nergal asked. "Every single time I have attempted to make friends, it's gone so wrong!"

"Not with me," Xion reminded him. "I'm your friend. But maybe you need to try something different. How would you go talk to them right now if you could?"

"Hmmm." Nergal thought it over. "I'd start by asking them what their favorite ancient plague was."

"Um…no," Xion replied.

"What about inviting them to a thirty-hour freeze tag marathon?"

"No, not that either…"

"Then how do people who aren't pathetic losers make friends?" Nergal asked.

"I think…" Xion ruminated. "Maybe if you shared some kind of special food with them. I think that's a big part of friendship. Eating together and using that time to talk about things. You already run a restaurant, so maybe you can share one of the pizzas with them."

"A splendid idea!" Nergal replied. "But…what would we talk about?"

"They're talking about a lot of things already," Xion pointed out.

("DIE HARD IS NOT A CHRISTMAS MOVIE!" Wanda yelled.)

"Maybe you could just listen," Xion suggested.

"Ah, yes, I see now!" Nergal realized. "If I stealthily sit two booths over, I can eavesdrop on their entire conversation without them ever knowing, and it won't be awkward at all!"

"But then you won't really be friends," Xion said. Then she gasped. "Wait. You've been watching them! Do you remember a time when they did something and you wished you could be there?"

"A hundred times!" Nergal replied. "Most recently when they dropped in on one of the concert nights in Guadosalam. After the opening act, they hijacked the stage, and Lance played his guitar for five solid minutes before the real singer managed to round up security to throw him out! I believe the kids would say he was 'shredding.'"

"That's probably news that spread through town," Xion told him. "You should tell him you liked the performance!"

"I should!" Nergal realized. "Oh, Ninhursag, you're a little genius!" He ruffled her hair, and she smiled.

"Dad?" Junior brought over two trays, held up by sets of extended tentacles that protruded from within his stolen human body. "Pizza's ready."

Nergal brought out the two pizzas, placing them down on the booth. "Why, hello, children," he said. "Can I commend you on that wonderful hijacking of the stage at Tobli Productions?"

"Whoa, we don't know nothin' about that!" Todd said on instinct.

"I'm not going to report you," Nergal told them. "I just said I liked it. I said that because I liked it. You really have a talent for horrible, obnoxious music."

"I try." Lance grinned smugly.

Pietro folded his arms; "What kinda grown-up who owns a business wouldn't wanna turn us in to the police, or to Mr. Detective next door?"

"One who admires your gumption," Nergal said. "And sympathizes with how roughly the bouncer tossed you out onto the street. Tell me, have you ever considered that next time you hijack a concert, you tie up the performer with electrified rope and hide them in the closet so they can't interrupt?"

"That would kill them," Wanda said.

"Oh, I suppose it would," Nergal realized. "Barbed wire, then?"

Xion and Junior smiled as they watched from the kitchen. The six kept on chatting, and then, eventually, Fred patted the empty space on the booth beside him, and Nergal slipped in, looking completely at ease.

"You really gave our dad good advice," Junior said. "Where'd you learn so much about friendship?"

"I…I don't know," Xion realized. "I must've had friends once."

"Whoever they were, they were real lucky."

A sorrow she couldn't name settled into her new heart. "I guess they were."

...

From the outside, the Palamides temple to Amenoch didn't look all that impressive. It was rather small for a holy building, seemingly a one-room church on the coastline. However, inside, it turned out the façade was only the foyer. A deep, dark staircase angled down into the shadowy depths, where the true scope of the temple sprawled out completely underwater.

"This place is real neat!" Harley chirped.

"How'd they build a building underwater?" Gluntz gasped.

"I hear there are differing theories on the subject," Velvet stated rather mischievously. "But that's as far as my knowledge goes."

"Actually, it's pretty obvious that the temple was built when the sea was lower," Eleanor explained, "and then the quality construction kept it airtight once it was swallowed."

"Some might argue it was built this way on purpose," Velvet said.

"And that someone would be wrong," Eleanor argued.

Velvet smirked. Eizen was going to love getting to go through this debate all over again.

Down they went, Harley and Yang and Giovanni and Velvet and Gluntz and Eleanor, through massive blue-walled chambers and lengthy halls. The temple was surely an architectural marvel. But one thing in particular caught everyone's eye.

The fact that the temple seemed completely empty.

"I don't get it," Harley admitted. "Sounded in the dream like…well, like there was more than one person here. An' now there's no one?"

"Let's at least keep going toward the sanctuary room," Velvet suggested. "Maybe they decided to take refuge in the center."

"How do you know where the sanctuary room is?" Eleanor asked, taken aback.

"Maybe I have architectural interests of my own," Velvet replied coyly.

Her hunch had played out. The people they were seeking were gathered around the door to the inner sanctum. Said door was marked with seven gemstones, some illuminated and some not. It was also sealed very tightly shut.

The people there very clearly wanted to get to the other side of that door by hook or by crook. Or by blowtorch, as the woman who was attempting to break through held in her hand. She wore a set of deep-purple overalls over a ragged white tank top, and the majority of her appearance was taken over by the two massive purple pigtails that cascaded from her head, the ends of them twitching in almost a prehensile manner.

As the woman opened her flame upon the topmost gem in the door, she was watched by a small crowd. There was a spherical machine, a robot of some sort, propped up on several spidery legs. Atop it, lying on his stomach, was a small creature, the devilish equivalent of a cherub, with babyish proportions, batlike wings and a spiked tail. Then, standing beside those two, there was the inhumanly tall man with pointed ears, chalk-white skin, and eyes of solid green, with no distinction between white and iris and pupil. He was clothed in silver-white armor with gray accents, and while the small creature atop the robot seemed to be content, the larger man was shifting anxiously, biting his lip as his companion worked on the door.

"Nnnnnno," the woman sighed, "we're not getting through this way. Seems that even though this world hasn't advanced to the technological level of blowtorches, it's certainly figured out how to proof against them." She tossed the torch aside, then turned around. "Anyway, looks like the only way we're getting into that room is if we WAAAAAGH!"

Her hair fluffed out like a hedgehog's spines when she saw the others who had arrived without her noticing. Upon her distress cry, the others turned around to see the new arrivals.

"Hi hi!" Harley waved. "Now, I know your voice! You're the one who said we better come and find ya!"

"You actually heard that?" The woman's pigtails relaxed. "Fascinating! So the dreamlike properties of this world allow for a basic form of telepathic communication! We gotta test this out more! What am I thinking right now?" She squeezed her eyes shut to indicate she was thinking quite hard.

"You're thinking about how cool I am," Giovanni guessed. "Naturally."

"No, she's thinking about how stupid it is that people still eat cantaloupe in this country," Gluntz scoffed.

"Are you thinking of a number you want us to guess?" Eleanor asked.

"You BETTER not be thinking about my boobs," Yang warned.

The purple-haired woman sighed as she opened her eyes. "That's zero for four. As a matter of fact, I was recalling the principles behind the communication devices accounted for among the ruins of the First Ones and how much we have yet to decode before we can replicate it."

"So you're a techie type," Harley realized.

"The name's Entrapta!" the woman said proudly, puffing up. "Princess of Dril! Well, I think I'm still princess of Dril. I haven't actually been to Dril in a while since I joined the Horde, and now the Horde has disbanded, so I'm not sure where I'm actually supposed to be right now…" She shrugged. "Oh well!"

"Name's Harley," Harley replied. "An' I'm seein' this is gettin' more magitech now."

"Just so you know, that is one of the coolest villain names I've ever heard in my life," Giovanni pointed out. "But what's your civilian name?"

"Entrapta…is my civilian name?" She tilted her head.

"Okay, yeah, we'll just roll with that," Giovanni decided. "Makes my job a lot easier."

"And I'm not a villain," Entrapta corrected. "I'm – well – okay, so I did admittedly join the Horde, also known as the Evil Horde, for the purpose of making new friends after the actual heroes of Etheria left me for dead…and then I disrupted the planetary workings to test the limits of science…and then did a whole lot of other ethically questionable things in the name of science…hhhhhhuh. Maybe I am evil."

The tall man spoke up; "Sister, I do believe you are the most shining example of goodness I have ever known!"

"So I have no idea what any of these words mean," Yang said. "Wanna explain it like you're talking to people who've come from a bunch of different worlds?"

"Oh, so you want me to get less technical," Entrapta realized. "Well…okay…so I'm a princess, or I was anyway, and then I made friends with more princesses from other kingdoms. But then they thought I died, but I didn't know that part, so I joined up with what really can only be described as the bad guys. And then I made a really good new friend there and I loved it! But then some even bigger bad guys tore us apart, and I had to save my friend, and I made these other friends along the way, but then we all found each other again! And now we're here. So I guess you could call me a villain."

"That's a good thing," Velvet told her. "Our proposition is that you join forces with us, and the majority of us have embraced the label of 'evil.'"

"Hell yeah we have," Giovanni affirmed.

"And it sounds like you're kinda up in the air on where to go, right?" Yang asked.

"Are you saying you'll be my new friends?" Entrapta balled her hands into excited fists, shaking them up and down. "When can we start? Oh, wait – " Her face fell. "I know when we can start, but we have to get past this door first."

"Excuse me," Eleanor broke in. "We'd be more than happy to help you…I think…but shouldn't we meet the rest of you first?"

"Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry!" Entrapta cried. "This is – well, you tell them."

The tall man bowed dramatically; "I am Wrong Hordak."

"…I'm sorry, did you just say your first name was 'Wrong'?" Gluntz replied.

"I began my life as a clone of Horde Prime – " Wrong Hordak began to explain.

"That's the bigger bad guy," Entrapta clarified. "We gotta use smaller words on these people." Her voice lowered to a hiss; "I don't think they're from Etheria."

"I began my life as a clone of a bigger bad guy," Wrong Hordak amended. "As did my brother, Hordak. He took a name while I did not. Upon Entrapta's mission to reunite with him, she met me, the spitting image of Hordak. But because I am not Hordak and was in fact the wrong person, I have taken on the moniker 'Wrong Hordak.'"

"Doesn't that sound a little demeaning to you?" Velvet posed. "To live your life calling yourself the wrong version of someone else?"

"Oh, I guess it is," Entrapta realized. "We should probably get you a better name."

"No, no!" Wrong Hordak protested. "I proudly bear the name of Wrong Hordak. After all, were it not for Hordak, I would not have seen how wrong I was to accept the blind teachings of Hor – of the bigger bad guy!"

"Seems legit," Harley remarked with a shrug.

"Anyway, this is Emily!" Entrapta patted the spherical robot. "Say hello, Emily!"

The robot chirped.

"And that's Imp," Entrapta went on, pointing to the small creature.

"Imp," Imp replied in a perfect mimicry of Entrapta's voice.

"He only copies what he hears other people saying," Entrapta explained. "I'd love to tinker with his biology to see if I can make him capable of creating his own speech! But the thing is I'm really more tech-oriented, so if I tried…" She broke down into laughter. "I can't even imagine what horrible things would happen!"

"Yeah, she's one of us," Yang muttered to Harley, who nodded.

"But what about your other friend?" Eleanor asked. "That's…the right Hordak, right?"

"Well, that's the problem," Entrapta admitted. "We all came here together in the vortex created by that crystal user, but Hordak's gone missing. The only room in this temple I can't open is behind that door, which has some kind of puzzle to it. I've figured out most of the puzzle, but not to the degree that I can actually get it to work. So, failing that, I was just gonna burn my way through! But that's not working out so great either…"

Wrong Hordak teared up. "I fear we shall never see my brother again! That he will be forever lost to the bowels of this underwater prison!"

"Aw, no, sweetie!" Harley said immediately. "We'll get him outta there! Promise!"

"We don't EVER leave a partner in crime behind!" Giovanni added.

"Especially not when it comes to brothers," Velvet asserted.

"Or just siblings in general," Yang added.

"You must really love him, to be that worried about him," Eleanor observed.

"I do," Entrapta replied. "He's the best friend I've ever had."

"Then we'll make sure to hasten your reunion!" Eleanor declared. "The kiss of true love is never sweeter than after – "

"I'm sorry the WHAT NOW?" Entrapta's hair bristled again.

"The…the kiss?" Eleanor repeated. "You said you were in love with him, right?"

"No, no, nooooo, I said I love him!" Entrapta corrected. "You're supposed to love your friends, right? You guys all love each other, right? I'm not IN love with Hordak. That'd be…well, I guess not ridiculous, exactly, but that's just not what we are."

"I getcha," Harley replied. "He's just a real good pal."

"Exactly!" Entrapta confirmed. "You get it! And friends don't leave friends trapped in water temples."

"So what's with the puzzle?" Yang asked.

"It seems to involve the gems that are lit up," Entrapta explained. "What I've figured out is that they correspond to enormous chalices spread throughout the building, and they light up or wink out depending on if the chalices are empty or full. There's actually an amazing technological system built in that seems to work along with magic to empty and fill the chalices out of nowhere. If I didn't know I'd need all the gem panels in the chalices working in order to open the door, I would've cracked one open by now to see if I could reverse-engineer it! The problem is that based on the way the chalices trigger barriers and doors as well, there's literally no way for one person to trigger all of them at once without barring themself in a room. It's not so great with four people, either."

"I tried my very best," Wrong Hordak sighed, looking to the floor.

"We know you did, buddy," Gluntz said reassuringly. "And that's all we can ask for."

"I tried," Imp said, mimicking Wrong Hordak. "I tried."

"The best I can figure is that it's a challenge based on teamwork!" Entrapta said excitedly. "They must only have granted access to people who could work together. And now there's more than enough people here that we can all trigger the chalices at once and fill them up!"

"Wait," Velvet broke in. "That…that doesn't sound right."

"How doesn't it sound right?" Eleanor asked.

"Hypothetically speaking," Yang prompted, "would you have a better idea?"

"I…I can't remember," Velvet replied. "Hypothetically speaking. I just don't think that sounds like the solution."

"But it's better than not tryin', right?" Harley urged.

"I guess," Velvet muttered, racking her brains. She'd solved this exact puzzle once before. The years spent inside the dream had caused her to forget how. However, the knowledge was still inside of her somewhere. Where to find it?

"This place echoes pretty good," Entrapta went on. "I don't think there's a place where you could yell and everyone would hear it, but I think each chalice is within a distance of one another that if someone yelled, someone at the next closest one would hear, and they could yell and pass it to the next – does this make sense? Okay, good. So if we all get in position, and I call out, then the rest of you pass it on and we'll get those gems lit!"

"That sounds good!" Eleanor said with a nod. "Just tell us where to find the chalices!"

They divided up, Velvet still thinking herself dizzy about what the old solution had been. Once everyone was stationed, Entrapta yelled, "READY! AND…ACTIVATE!"

"ACTIVATE!" Harley called out.

"ACTIVATE!" Eleanor yelled.

"ACTIVATE!" Giovanni chorused.

And so on.

The gigantic chalices each stood on a pedestal base with a gem set into it. When a hand was simply pressed to the gem, it would flash, and an empty chalice would mystically fill while a full chalice's water would burn away in a rush of steam. Since the goal was to get them all filled, or so they thought, already-full chalices were left alone.

"OKAY!" Entrapta yelled. "I THINK THAT'S GOOD!"

She, Wrong Hordak, Imp, Emily, Harley, Yang, Velvet, Eleanor, and Gluntz made a rendez-vous by the sanctum door – only to see that about half the gems were glowing while half were still dim.

"That's odd," Entrapta remarked. "Maybe there's a shorted-out connection somewhere. I might have to open the panels up after all…"

"Hey, guys?" Harley realized. "Where'd Giovanni go?"

"Oh, I know where he is!" Entrapta realized.

The chalice he'd filled had triggered a high-pressure waterfall behind him, sealing him inside the small room. "I can't believe I'm getting my ass kicked by WATER," he grumbled from the other side. "Somebody throw extra ingredients into it so it'll become soup!"

"That's not how soup works," Velvet groaned.

"Giovanni!" Entrapta called. "Hypothetically, if you had to seal yourself in that room forever in order for us to solve the puzzle, would you be willing?"

"FUCK NO!" Giovanni yelled back.

Entrapta shrugged. "Had to ask."

"So if the puzzle isn't about getting all the chalices filled," Gluntz mused, "could it be about getting them all empty?"

"Hey, maybe!" Entrapta replied.

"I don't know," Velvet muttered. "That still doesn't sound right."

"I agree," Eleanor piped in. "After all, if half the gems lit up, that means we did something right. Emptying them out might undo that."

"Or it might not!" Wrong Hordak piped up.

"Won't know until we try!" Harley suggested.

They reassembled at their stations, and then Entrapta's cry went up: "DEACTIVATE!"

"DEACTIVATE!"

"DEACTIVATE!"

And so on.

Once the chalices' contents had steamed away, the group, now with Giovanni, reconvened in the hall before the sanctum – only to find that, as before, half the gems were lit.

"Whaaaaat?" Entrapta cried.

"It truly is hopeless!" Wrong Hordak sobbed.

"Hopeless!" Imp repeated.

"Wait," Eleanor realized. "They're the opposite gems that were lit last time. That must mean…that some of the chalices need to be filled, but some need to be empty!"

"That's it!" Velvet finally remembered. "The gems are shaped according to the way they look on the pedestals. There are two shapes, and only one type is lit now. We can ignore any chalice with that shape of gem in its base. We have to refill any with the other shape."

"Wow, that's brilliant!" Entrapta gushed. Then, rather sheepishly, "See, I always like to look at the details of things and see how they work in a linear fashion. That's not always great for seeing the big picture, even when there's an obvious solution. I'm still hung up wondering how the gem relay system works and I didn't even notice the two shapes."

"We all have our strengths and weaknesses," Giovanni assured. "Well, except me. No weaknesses here."

"ONE MORE TIME!" Entrapta yelled.

They took their stations. Then Entrapta gave the signal: "ACTIVATE AND/OR DEACTIVATE!"

"ACTIVATE AND/OR DEACTIVATE!"

"ACTIVATE AND/OR DEACTIVATE!"

And so on.

Now, finally, the lights were all on. Entrapta tested the door to find that it cracked open.

"Oh, joyous day!" Wrong Hordak gushed. "You truly were our saviors!"

"We're not ALL bad," Yang teased.

"SPEAK FOR YOURSELF," Giovanni growled.

Entrapta then forced the door the rest of the way, barreling into the chamber beyond. A man similar in proportion to Wrong Hordak, but darker in features and wardrobe alike, lay on his back on the stone floor, eyes clamped shut, the fabric of his skirt billowing around him to give him an almost angelic appearance.

"Hordak!" Entrapta yelled. "HORDAK!"

She dropped to her knees next to the unconscious man. "Hordak, it's me," she whispered. "Entrapta, your friend. I brought our other friends, too. Wrong Hordak and Emily and Imp. And some people who helped us get to you. You're…you're okay, right?"

His eyes slitted, revealing bright red, then widened. "En…trapta…" He shifted. "I must've…had a spell of weakness in the vortex…" He shifted to begin sitting up.

No sooner had he done so than Entrapta latched onto his torso, squeezing him tightly. "I'm just glad you're okay," she told him softly.

His own arms found their way around her. "As am I to you, my friend."

"Are…are we sure they're not a couple?" Eleanor ventured.

Hordak bristled, peering around Entrapta to answer. "We're nothing of that sort."

"C'mon, Eleanor," Harley urged. "Platonic love's important too!"

"If we return to Etheria," Wrong Hordak suggested, "shall I distribute the word that you are both unengaged?"

The hug disentangled, and Entrapta turned to him to say, "It's okay. Not that many people think we're – "

"I do know Mermista and Frosta had a betting pool on when you would begin to date," Wrong Hordak recounted. "Glimmer said you already had. Bow said you hadn't, but he intended to set you up together. Then word came of Double Trouble referring to your occasional arguments as lovers' spats, and then – "

"Look, we're NOT DATING!" Entrapta yelled.

"Am I not allowed to have a friend?" Hordak growled. "Or must everyone assume it is something completely else?"

"I just want it on the record that there are probably plenty of other alternate realities where you two are dating, and that's great," Giovanni stated. "Whatever cosmic author types are putting the timelines together should have as much fun with it as they want. But THIS reality has you very definitely not like that."

"Well said!" Gluntz chirped.

"Why?" Velvet asked. "Why would you even begin to say something like that? How is that relevant at all to – " She stopped herself. "I'm obviously not going to get an answer."

Something else sank in. Hordak looked to Wrong Hordak. "'If' we return to Etheria?" he repeated. Then, softly, "I suppose we have caused enough damage. And may cause more if we return."

"But fear not!" Wrong Hordak proclaimed. "For our saviors have come to invite us to join a new, kinder Horde, one that values equality and will never leave a partner in crime behind!"

"Unless that partner in crime consents to eternity behind a waterfall," Yang brought up.

"DID YOU HAVE TO?" Giovanni yelled.

"A kinder Horde?" Hordak set about standing. "What does that mean?"

"Crime, but the fun stuff," Harley explained. "Less about the murder."

"It's morally gray at best!" Gluntz advertised.

"It's a villain syndicate with some people who trend heroic," Giovanni corrected. "Let's make no mistake about that. But you used to run some kind of horde of bad guys, right? What if you could do that again, but without, like, whatever pressures got you in hot water with the bigger bad guy, and you could be nice to your friend and also make MORE friends?"

"I…" Hordak trailed off. "The Princess Alliance would not appreciate hearing that such an offer enticed me."

"Then let's just not tell the Princess Alliance!" Entrapta suggested. "I've been gone from Dril so long anyway they probably elected a regent by now. We had fun being bad guys, right? Let's go be bad guys again, but this time, NICER bad guys who make friends!"

Hordak smiled. "I should like that."

"Then welcome aboard!" Giovanni proclaimed. "Also, for the record, 'Hordak' is also, like, really badass, so I'm not giving you a new villain name either."

"Then let's hurry up back to Yseult!" Harley suggested. "If we're quick, we might make it back before shore leave ends, and we can have some fun in the sun!"

As it were, the way back was long, but they made good time, and as such arrived in Yseult with a half-day to spare relaxing in the tropical coast city.

...

If things had gone differently, Lotor might not have brought his generals to his operation in the remains of Daibazaal as soon as he did. However, he felt it best to play his hand sooner for several reasons.

"The Paladins of Voltron have been emboldened," he explained as he steered a small ship toward the planetary wreckage. Daibazaal, home planet of the Galra. Destroyed in an attempt to harvest Quintessence and unlock the borders between realities. "But that is the least of our worries. What worries me is Sendak's betrayal, and the new army he has found. With them shrouded in shadow, we cannot tell what we are up against. If it should come down to a Kral Zera as planned…"

"No nasty surprises." This came from one of the four women piloting the other ships that flanked Lotor. They made eye contact through a comm screen on the dashboard. He was slender, violet-skinned, with flowing white hair. She was thickset with muscle, blue-coated, bearing a pair of wide and soft ears. This one was named Zethrid. "Unless they come from us."

"Which is what this is about, right?" This from a woman with bright crimson skin, a striped tentacle twitching atop her head. She was called Ezor. "Getting some kind of power upgrade so after your dad kicks the bucket, you can win the Kral Zera hands down?"

"I think you're counting too much on this secret of yours being a panacea." This from Acxa, a woman with blue-violet skin and a short cut of deep-purple hair. Behind her stood the fifth of their fleet, Narti, who gave a nod of assent with her lizardlike and blue-scaled head; though she had a mouth, she did not use it, and she could say nothing with eyes, for it was eyes she lacked, bearing instead smooth skin that covered the sockets.

"You say such a thing only because you do not know what it is I have kept from you," Lotor informed the others.

"Are we going to talk about that ever?" Ezor asked. "You know, the part of this plan where you did all this behind our back and expect us to be okay with it?"

"The power I reap for the Galra will benefit you as well," Lotor asserted. "You will one day realize this was a necessary sacrifice to the ultimate outcome."

"But we're friends, right?" Ezor pressed. "And friends should tell each other big things like 'I have a whole entire plan to break reality and seize power.'"

"Ezor," Acxa snapped. "This is a military operation. Not a sleepover. Knowledge is owed as it is required."

Then she flinched; from beside her, Narti had sent a strong telepathic signal to her and her alone: "But did we not require this long ago?"

Acxa furrowed her brow to let Narti know that kind of talk was not welcome here and now.

The four ships sailed into the rocky debris of the pulverized planet, to where Lotor had built his rift, a circular aperture that glowed Quintessence-blue.

"Yes," Lotor hissed. "The gain we shall reap from harvesting the Quintessence of all realities shall ensure Sendak's mystery military is no longer a threat."

"And then it's more power to the Galra!" Zethrid insisted.

"Okay, wait," Ezor broke in. "I'm sorry. Is that a person standing there? In the middle of the wreckage of Daibazaal? Without any equipment?"

"Don't be absurd – " Lotor began. But then flinched. Because Ezor was completely correct. He looked to be either Altean or the same species as the Paladins, standing on a peripheral chunk of rock and simply smiling at the fleet. "…So it would seem there is. Let us handle this matter."

"Be careful," Acxa warned. "If he can survive with no gear, he has strength and abilities we aren't even aware of. And I'll bet he's doing this as a threat."

The ships halted in mid-atmosphere. Lotor, Acxa, Narti, Ezor, and Zethrid ejected, kept oxygenated by tightly-sealed space suits. Jet packs propelled them toward the rocky chunk, where the man in the black coat stood, the same smirk upon his pale face, almost luminous blue hair cascading down his back.

"Here I was beginning to fear you would never arrive," he said slightly smugly. But only slightly. There was an emptiness to him, as though a crucial component of his humanity was simply missing.

"You knew of our operation." Lotor scowled. "Who are you?"

"No one associated with any of your enemies…or your allies," the man stated. "I wouldn't do anything rash. After all, you are undertaking a delicate operation. This reality alone contains world upon world upon world. To speak of other realities is to speak of infinite worlds, infinite hearts, infinite beings. Infinite Darkness."

Acxa raised a pistol. "Give me one reason I shouldn't shoot."

"How about two?" the man replied. "First, that it would take more than a blast from one of your weapons to eradicate me. Second, because I am here to help. My master has taken an interest in your rift and how it might affect an operation he intends to carry out. In short, he wishes to know if the resurgence of the Heart of All Worlds will affect every single worldline, every single reality, or only that in which the Keyblade War is enacted. To that end, I am to study your portal and determine a conclusion based on the weak point at Daibazaal. In return, I am willing to provide you with protection. Surely you have determined I carry with me no small amount of power."

Acxa lowered the pistol. "If you're really offering an alliance…you'll have to be on probation. But we'll – "

"Refuse," Lotor hissed. "This was not meant to be touched by your hands."

"But Lotor!" Ezor protested. "Wouldn't it go a lot better with six of us than with five of us?"

"I could always test his mettle," Zethrid said with a predatory grin. "See if he's as unbreakable as he says. Then we can really talk business."

"You are fully welcome to spar me," the blue-haired man said. "Even attempt to kill me."

"What is your name?" Acxa asked.

"Isa," the blue-haired man replied. "One of the Thirteen Seekers of Darkness. A player in a war that is much, much older and greater than the conquest of the Galra, I can assure you."

"Let's at least get more information from him," Acxa suggested. "Then make a decision."

"No!" Lotor growled. "This not up for debate. He is to leave…or I shall make him depart." In a flick, Lotor had drawn a metal sword, glowing with energy.

"You and I are a lot alike, you know," Isa told him. "You serve your master, and I serve mine. You are called when your master is hurt, and I am called to play a high role for mine. But there is more to you than your servitude, isn't there? You're waiting. Waiting for the right moment to chase what you're really after. There's a type of traitor I have no tolerance for and a type of traitor I am kindred to. Which one are you, Lotor?"

"You will tell me how you know all you know," Lotor seethed. "And who else knows it. IMMEDIATELY."

"I don't believe we have the time," Isa told him. "You can either make an enemy of me and be overrun. Or you can make an ally of me, and THEY will be pushed back."

"They?" Ezor repeated. "Why do you make it sound like we're – "

She turned around on a hunch. "Oh. Great."

Lotor, Acxa, Zethrid, and Narti turned to look at what Ezor and Isa already beheld. A pirate ship. With sails rippling with light energy, bubbled in a breathable atmosphere for itself, it careened toward the rift in Daibazaal.

"They're the ones you actually have to worry about," Isa warned.

"It's a trick of some kind!" Zethrid growled.

Then, as the ship grew closer and closer, Lotor gasped, seeing who was at the prow. Who stood at the frontmost point of the deck, pointing at him directly. Who was grinning as though the victory was already secure.

"OH, LOTOR!" Morvok cried out. "I MAY HAVE MADE A MISTAKE OR TWO ON TAUJEER, BUT I'M PRETTY SURE ZARKON WILL BE VERY, VERY UNHAPPY TO FIND OUT THAT YOU'RE DOING THIS BEHIND HIS BACK! BUT DON'T WORRY! AFTER MY PROMOTION, I'LL BE SURE TO SEE YOU OFF AT YOUR EXECUTION!"

"No," Lotor hissed. Then, louder: "NO!"

"WHY HIM OF ALL PEOPLE?" Zethrid roared.

"The offer stands," Isa said. "Take it or – "

"I WILL TAKE IT!" Lotor roared. "JUST KEEP ME FROM SUFFERING SUCH INDIGNITY AT THE HANDS OF MORVOK!"

Isa summoned a heavy weapon, a Claymore with a gold-and-blue pointed star at its head, and gave it a twirl. "Then let us end this farce."

As Discord spun the wheel of the Vicious to pilot it around the debris field – lending a bit of his own power to ensure the wood of the ship snaked around the chunks of rock in ways that a boat shouldn't be able to – Mozenrath strode to the prow alongside Morvok.

"So that's the handsome prince," Mozenrath declared. "What do you say we show him the importance of earning your place instead of lucking into it?"

"And he'll never be able to lord it over me again that he got that luck while I sweated for it!" Morvok declared.

"I said that's the lesson we're teaching him," Mozenrath groaned. "I never said YOU put in any effort. All the same…"

He flicked his right hand, and rose up, situated upon a disc of blue magic. It was engineered to mimic the hoverbot that Morvok stood on; Morvok activated it, piloting it a couple feet upward to match height with Mozenrath. And then a little higher just because he was feeling arrogant.

"Good luck, kids!" Discord waved. "We'll be on standby."

Mozenrath and Morvok's discs took off like bullets, speeding toward Lotor, surrounded by atmosphere bubbles that kept them both breathing easy.

Lotor ran the calculations. Two targets rushing toward him. A whole shipful of people that could cause problems if left unattended while he fought the incoming duo. "Acxa, Zethrid, Ezor, and Narti," he growled. "Go to the deck of that…that SHIP and eliminate the crew. As for Isa, here's where you prove yourself."

The four women took off like shots, steering a wide berth around Mozenrath and Morvok. Not that it mattered; those two had tunnel vision for Lotor.

Isa leapt forward, claymore swinging. He glowed with a silver aura that charged into his blade.

"Ohoho, a lunar mage!" Mozenrath realized. "Well, this ought to be a challenge at least. I'm regretting now that I didn't have time to recover the Sun of Shamash!"

Mentally, he designed a claymore of his own. A temporary throwaway, not a well-crafted weapon for the ages, but strong enough to counter what he was being thrown at the very moment. It materialized in his right hand: golden, with a tip that was forged to look like the sun itself, the points as solar flares. This claymore twirled independently of Mozenrath and slammed into Isa's weapon, stopping him in midflight. Mozenrath himself careened around back of Isa, right hand raised to strike at his exposed back –

A blast of lunar energy, sapped from the remnants of Daibazaal's broken moon, blasted him down onto one of the flat plateaus that drifted in the debris. Mozenrath hit the rock hard, then immediately rolled to stand up. As he finally reached full height, Isa touched down, a graceful three-point landing, across from him.

"So you are sorcerer Mozenrath." Isa stood, tossing his blue hair with one hand. The broken halves of Mozenrath's sun-claymore jammed sharply into the dust on either side of him; then Isa summoned up five replica Claymores of his own, spinning them around his body. "I wonder how you fare against a power as old as the moon?"

"YOU DON'T GET TO PLAY MY OWN GAME BETTER THAN ME!" Mozenrath had never been wonderful at multitasking, but he was good at one-upping, and so he gained six new sun-claymores floating around him, the broken first dissipating into magical energy that fed the strength of the new replicas. "Say all you want about the moon. I'm fond of it. But the moon is a floating space rock. It's the SUN that gives eternal power!"

(Making a mental note to never, ever let Mim or Yzma hear he'd said that.)

Claymores went flying from both directions, gold and silver light sparking into fireworks.

Morvok, on the other hand, was preoccupied with playing a glorified game of keep-away with Lotor. His hoverbot zipped here and there; every time Lotor slashed out with his blade, Morvok was suddenly no longer there.

"I'm over here!" Morvok taunted. "And now I'm over here! And now I'm over – YEEP!"

The blade had sliced off a bit of the fabric of Morvok's uniform. This shot nearly landed seemed to make Lotor angrier than ever; "You shall NOT usurp my birthright!"

"Oh, please," Morvok scoffed, still zipping this way and that. "You gave up your birthright when you ran away from home after having a fight with daddy because he wouldn't allow you to date your girlfriends."

"THEY ARE NOT MY – HOLD STILL!" Then Lotor realized what was missing from this fight. "You…you aren't ATTACKING. You have no weapon! HOW do you intend to defeat me?"

"I, uh – " Morvok flinched. "I hadn't thought that far – "

"YOU WILL DIE HERE!" Lotor screamed, leaping at him with the blade and forcing Morvok to commit an emergency escape maneuver. "AND YOUR IDIOCY AND COWARDICE DIE WITH YOU!"

Shego, Tala, Zeron Alpha, Dr. Octopus, Draco, and Megavolt rushed to the railing of the ship, looking out at the debris field where Mozenrath and Morvok were dueling their foes. Seeing them assemble, Discord called out, "HOW ARE THEY DOING?"

"Not a priority right now!" Shego called back. "INCOMING!"

They all backpedaled as Acxa, Zethrid, Ezor, and Narti landed hard on the deck of their ship, throwing aside their helmets to take advantage of the atmosphere aboard the Vicious. "Wow, this looks like it's gonna be fun!" Ezor chirped, clapping her hands.

Zethrid gave a stomp, balling her fists; "All I see is a bunch of PUSHOVERS!"

Acxa drew and aimed her pistol. "For Lotor," she seethed.

Narti struck a defensive pose. Beside her, a small black cat, one they called Kova, jumped from her shoulder to the deck, then hurriedly zoomed to the mast, clawing its way up to a higher vantage point.

Once Kova was situated, he broadcast his own eyes and ears to Narti through the telepathic link the two shared. Now the three who were sighted had the usual range of vision, but it was the blind general who could see the entire ship, even the exact position of her own body.

"Hey, DISCORD!" Shego yelled. "We could use a hand here! Now might be a good time for some of your stupid pranks?"

"Of course!" Discord snapped a claw.

Instantly, the air around the four generals was filled with stuffed boxing gloves drawn back on springs.

"What the – " Acxa cried.

The springs all went off at once, a barrage of fake fists pummeling the quartet.

"NARTI!" Zethrid yelled. "THE BIG ONE'S DOING THIS! TAKE HIM DOWN!"

Narti was the first to burst from the gloves, roundhouse-kicking high into the air as her tail spun.

Then Ezor broke free, then Zethrid, then Acxa. They barreled forth to meet their resistance.

Shego took a swing at Ezor, hands aglow. Ezor nimbly sidestepped each punch, hopping and dancing until she had the right opportunity to aim a hard kick into Shego's side. Shego was temporarily felled, which made her angrier; she gave a "RRAAAGH!" as she spun on the planks, forcing Ezor to jump – right up into a dual blast Shego had fired. Ezor was knocked away, into the air – and promptly disappeared.

"What the – " Shego rose, wide-eyed. She already had a feeling she knew what was coming. When the invisible Ezor dealt a hard kick to the small of her back, she was well aware that her hunch was unfortunately correct.

"YOU!" Shego spun. "JUST BECAUSE I CAN'T SEE YOU DOESN'T MEAN YOU GET OFF THE HOOK!" And she began to fire blindly.

"You know what I think it's time for?" Discord decided. "A little inclement weather! Now, let's see. Should it rain grenades or anvils? Oh, I'll just do exploding anv – "

He froze, eyes going wide.

Behind him, Narti trailed a single finger down the length of his spine. He knew the exact trick she was using, and it was far too late to stop it. Her influence washed into him, and with his last lucidity, he cursed that of all the tricks he could fall for, it was this.

It was Tala who first noticed his plight; "DISCORD!"

Narti stepped out from behind Discord, pointing at Tala. Discord gave a malicious cackle.

"Oh, my friend," Discord said smugly. "Why should I help you when I could be assisting Narti? After all, she is so much more clever than you'll ever be."

The exploding anvils arranged themselves in the sky above. Several ringed pins pulled from them.

Tala's hands swept across the sky as she frantically cast swaths of bright-blue magic to detonate each before it could fall too far, casting the debris out of the Vicious' atmosphere. Discord simply chortled, and once the anvils had all been deployed and countered, he rushed Tala with an umbrella in one paw and a turkey baster in the other claw. The umbrella revealed a razor-sharp edge as it spun in the starlight, and on the matter of starlight, Discord used the turkey baster to draw from the air white-hot glimmering magic that was then aimed back at Tala.

Tala's magic again went into overdrive to shield her from the umbrella and push back the rush of starlit energy. Narti watched through Kova, quite amused, until she saw the other sneaking up on her. Within a flash, she'd turned and rushed the interloper, jamming her hand over Draco Malfoy's eyes. She sent her will seeping into him as well until –

"OCCLUMENS!"

She was shut out. Just like that. Narti staggered back, surprised.

Draco held his wand straight out toward her. "You're going to undo that Legilimens you put on my friend," he seethed, "or I'll make you regret it."

Narti squared up, daring him. He let off a blast of magic, and she outstepped it, lightning quick. Her tail whipped into his face; he blasted her away with a Knockback Jinx. She clung to the mast, then launched herself back at Draco. Draco fired, on instinct, with a Conjunctivitis Curse before realizing that would only work on a target with eyes. He was tackled. He threw off Narti temporarily with a Cruciatus Curse; she fought through the pain to reach him again.

Zethrid had brought out a massive gun that had to rest on one of her bulky shoulders; she laughed before opening fire on the crowd, pivoting slowly to affect a wide swath.

Zeron Alpha, noticing Zethrid's intent, withdrew both of his discs, running directly in front of the barrel of her gun at the perfect pace, swinging the discs all the while to catch her fire. It wasn't until he'd followed her and shielded his allies using only his discs for an entire arc that Zethrid realized she was being blocked.

"YOU!" She threw the gun to the ground, clenching two meaty fists. "YOU'RE DEAD MEAT!"

"I think you have this backwards," Zeron Alpha taunted, spinning both discs.

He launched himself at her, slicing and swiping. Zethrid sidestepped him, giving him a punch that sent him halfway across the deck. She then ran after him, only for Zeron Alpha to leap up, catapult himself in a front-flip over Zethrid's shoulders, and make a strike at her back. She reached behind herself, catching his wrist, and then made one smooth motion to turn them both around, Zethrid keeping Alpha in the armlock.

Dr. Octopus slammed himself down in front of Acxa, two of his mechanical arms having brought him before her and two of them crossing in front of him to brace for her pistol fire. Megavolt skidded up next to him, plugging something into the outlet on his chest – a cord that led to a full-size sword with a straight blade like a katana, crackling with energy once connected.

"I do wonder how you'll fare," Octopus bragged, lifting up the two arms not focused on defense. "Two against one…intellect versus brawn."

"Let's see how you electric slide!" Megavolt said before giving a high-pitch cackle.

Octopus cringed. "I would prefer you not undermine me with puns."

Acxa had taken advantage of their banter to poke at the buttons on a wristlet she was wearing.

"Hey," Megavolt realized. "What is that? What are you doing?"

Acxa looked up at the pair and smiled as she pressed the button to execute the sequence.

Megavolt's own technology backfired on him, electrocuting him hard. Octopus' arms, however, detached right from his back, dumping him on the deck before rearing up and clicking. Looking for all the world like a cobra about to strike on its owner.

Staggering about, Megavolt had the presence of mind to unplug the sword. Acxa had hurried off to begin scaling the mast, but she was a low priority, as Octopus' arms were now attempting to pierce through both Octopus and Megavolt. Megavolt took the lead, combatting them with his sword.

"Be careful!" Octopus hissed. "You don't know how much work I put into those! Don't break them!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Megavolt snapped. "I didn't realize your precious arms were more important than BOTH OF OUR LIVES!"

"We are RESURRECTABLE!" Octopus hissed. "My arms are not!"

"…Oh, that is actually a good point."

Bam. They dove to either side at the sound; laser fire hit the planks. Acxa had found her vantage point up by Kova, and was using it to open fire.

"Oh, great," Megavolt groaned. "Now we gotta deal with this too?"

"Give me a spare gadget of yours!" Octopus hissed. "Something ranged!"

Megavolt tossed over a ray gun, which Octopus wielded back at Acxa, the two of them trading fire as they evaded each other's shots. Megavolt continued to duel the rogue octopus arms, though he was stymied once when the cord of his unplugged sword tangled up his ankles.

At last, Lotor got the initial shot he was looking for. His blade cleaved right through the hoverbot, the tip of the sword very narrowly missing Morvok's groin. Morvok went tumbling to the rock below. He rolled onto his back to begin to rise, but Lotor leapt, pinning him down. The two Galra wrestled awhile; then, after a struggle, Lotor had Morvok held down by his knees as the point of his blade pressed to Morvok's throat.

Fear filled Morvok's silver eyes as Lotor seethed, "You had no right to challenge me. What are you? A bloated, incompetent coward with no brain or skills to speak of, and no ambition beyond serving his own hedonistic needs. That's what you've always been. There is no place for you in the world I intend to build."

Morvok whimpered as the sword pressed down a little harder. Lotor hissed all the more quietly, "You represent everything about the Galra that I wish to destroy once I ascend to Zarkon's throne."

"You…the Galra?" Morvok's face screwed up in confusion. "I thought you were working with the Galra to subjugate everyone else! Like we all were!"

"I do not serve the Galra," Lotor hissed. "I serve me. Once I ascend, I shall build a world in which all of my enemies will suffer – and that includes the Galra! You deserve to know that out of all of them, you were the very lowest. And now you will take that secret to your grave!"

A crackling interrupted Lotor. From inside his suit, a muffled voice: "I'm sorry, WHO are your enemies now?"

Lotor froze, his blood running cold.

Aboard the Vicious, Acxa, Narti, Zethrid, and Ezor had also frozen. They'd heard everything come across their comms. And so had those they were fighting.

Shego immediately doubled over laughing; "Oh man, you guys are a bunch of losers! You were working for a guy who was just gonna throw you out the minute he was done with you! See, this is why I always make sure I hold back just enough that my boss thinks he's ACTUALLY in control of me. Because this? Oh, this is RICH!"

"Lotor!" Acxa snapped. "Whatever gambit you're attempting, you need to explain it NOW!"

Lotor decided to cut his losses. "I suppose there's no point in hiding it further. I can always replace you. But know that you have served well."

Narti made a hand gesture, and Discord stopped in the midst of bombarding Tala with acid-filled water balloons in time to say, "Wait. What am I doing? Oh, right, MIND CONTROL."

Tala, now no longer needing to exert the energy defending herself, piped up, "I would not blame you if you decided to surrender. Perhaps you could remember an act of mercy, should it ever come to a necessary alliance?"

Acxa leapt down from the mast, pressing a button on her wristlet to collapse Octopus' arms uselessly. "You can destroy the rift, use it to harvest Quintessence, use it to break into thirty realities for all we care. So long as HE doesn't get to exploit us for it anymore."

"In fact," Ezor added, "the more what you do with it in the end kicks his butt, the better."

The WHAM ARMY contingent knew that in this case, letting the four of them live would be the best revenge, so they simply stood aside, let the four pick up their helmets, and watched them blast back off to their ships so they could leave the scene.

"But how?" Lotor gasped. "How did they hear that?"

"Oh!" Morvok realized. "It must be interfering with your comms. Might be holding down a wire."

"It?" Lotor repeated.

"See, remember how you said I was cowardly? And had no skills? Well, that's pretty much right on the nose. So I decided to do what a coward would do in this situation."

Lotor realized in horror. His hand flew to his back. Magnetically glued to his suit was the distinct disc shape of a Galran sticky bomb. One that Morvok had pocketed all along, and stuck there while they were wrestling.

Morvok used the moment of Lotor's weakness to kick him away, crawling across the rock as quickly as he could. Lotor squirmed, attempting to pry the bomb away until he remembered the only real surefire way to rid himself of it was to cut it off with his blade. He took up the sword, fumbled it, swung it at his own back –

Morvok retrieved the detonator he'd also been hiding, punching the button.

BOOM.

As the remains of Lotor floated scattered in the atmosphere, Morvok pumped his fist; "YES! NOW try and tell me I'll never amount to anything! Also, big is beautiful, you fatphobic ingrate!"

As Mozenrath's golden claymores came back shattered to spike the dust at his feet, he noted smugly, "Looks like your meal ticket just blew you off AND blew himself up."

"It is no matter," Isa stated calmly. "After all…I already knew he was the type of traitor I deplore."

He lifted off the ground, his claymore standing tall behind him. Daibazaal's moon fed further into him, and he cried out, "MOON, SHINE DOWN!"

His eyes filled with moonlight to make them as silver as Morvok's. Incisors sharpened into fangs. Berserk on moonlight, Isa rushed Mozenrath for a killing blow, swinging his claymore.

Mozenrath panicked, teleporting to another debris rock. Isa leapt through the atmosphere, rocketing up toward him; Mozenrath teleported again. They kept up this chase until Mozenrath hit the first rock, where they'd started –

And tripped over something long, heavy, and metal.

Isa had been leaving copies of his claymore wherever he'd landed a blow. A side effect of relying so much on replication spells.

This time, when Isa rushed, he was stopped by Mozenrath wielding one of his exact weapons against him. Not one of the pale imitations Mozenrath had attempted earlier in order to show off.

"I believe they call this 'hoist by your own petard,'" Mozenrath said smugly.

Isa gave him a feral growl in return. Then was blasted aside by a pillow that had been shot from a cannon so fast, it was as strong as an iron ball.

Discord waved from aboard the Vicious, another pillowcase in his hand. "There's more where that came from!" he called out.

"In fact, there is a whole cavalry where that came from," Tala said, making it clear she was charging up an immense aura of magic around her entire body as Zeron Alpha steered the ship on a direct collision course with Isa.

Isa snarled, seeing he was outgunned, and leapt away from rock to rock until he was completely out of sight. Mozenrath floated up to the deck of the Vicious, and then Tala used a lasso of magical energy to quickly whip Morvok back onboard – at which point Octopus immediately handed him the backup hoverbot that he'd had on standby.

"Well done, everyone," Mozenrath said. "Now, let's sap this Quintessence. We have a reality to cross."

...

The Grand Hall of Haven Academy was a cavernous room, a second-level balcony ringing its upper tier. Down the long walk from the door, a statue of a woman in golden chains held up another balcony, one at the top of twin staircases. This facilitated the way into the rest of the building.

Qrow led the advance with his hands behind his back. Unbeknownst to him, the others were all aware of what would be taking place here. Ruby and Booster exchanged a solemn nod. Kazuichi gave Weiss an anxious look, and she mouthed "It'll be fine" at him. Jaune and Kairi clasped hands. Ozpin, through Oscar, gave a reassuring nod to Ren. Nora clapped Yuffie on the shoulder; Goofy and Donald walked in sync, glaring ahead with determination. All weapons were at the ready, positioned for quick and easy draw.

Atop the balcony fed by the stairways, Hannibal Roy Bean in the guise of Leo Lionheart spread out his arms. "Qrow," he said confidently. "Welcome. I see you brought all your li'l friends."

"Leo," Qrow responded, slowly coming to a halt. "You sure are…energetic tonight."

"Why shouldn't I be?" Hannibal asked slyly. "It's a beautiful night out, an' tonight's when we're gonna have all our problems solved, once an' for all."

"…Is there a reason you're putting on that accent?" Qrow asked, suspicion rising.

"Just that I'm finally startin' to feel comfy in my skin," Hannibal replied. "And ain't that what you always wanted for your ol' pal Leo?"

"…Something's not right," Qrow realized.

There was a shudder in the air beside him. A peripheral glance of red and black. The familiar portal gave way to a figure that was even more frighteningly familiar. As Qrow turned to face Raven, she told him, "You're damn right something's not right."

"So…you're Raven," Ruby realized, her voice dipping into a growl. "You're the one who abandoned my sister. And went somewhere to prove how happy you were without her."

"So you're Summer's child," Raven scoffed. "An inferior child from inferior stock."

Ruby practically snarled.

"Raven, what are you doing here?" Qrow asked.

"Why, I invited her," Hannibal stated from on high. "How're we gonna figure out that li'l Maiden problem without the gal in charge of the Maiden?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong," Raven told Qrow. "This is about more than mere diplomacy. This is about ensuring my survival."

"Raven," Jaune said softly. "If that's the only reason you're doing…anything underhanded…then you can stop. We can figure out another way."

"Ruby's sister wouldn't want her mom hurt," Kairi snapped. "No matter how rude she is. So neither would we."

"Do you know something I don't?" Qrow asked.

"You're getting off topic!" Nora replied.

"You're dodging the question," Qrow told her.

"YOU'RE dodging the question!" Nora replied.

"Focus, brother," Raven seethed. "Then again, obviously, you haven't been very good at that this whole time. Does it make sense to you now? Any of it? Why I'm here? What problem we're solving, EXACTLY? Where all your little Huntsman friends were when you went out searching?"

"The Huntsmen?" Qrow replied. "What does that have to do with – "

It hit him. He staggered back. "No."

"Raven engineered their absence," Ozpin said through Oscar's mouth. Then, in a quiet, shaking voice, Oscar himself added, "At least…that's what Ozpin wants to believe. But he's afraid…and so am I…that…"

Qrow whirled to glare up at the balcony. "LEO! Is this true? Did you eradicate everyone who could've helped?"

"Guilty as charged." Hannibal smirked.

"Why the HELL?" Qrow yelled. "We trusted you! Oz trusted you!"

"Oh, the hilarious ironic part's about to come when you figure out that happened 'fore I got the way I am now," Hannibal chuckled. "But let the lady have her say."

"It's about Salem!" Donald realized. "If he took away everyone who could help you fight her – "

"Then he's gotta be workin' for her!" Goofy gasped, hands flying over his snout.

"I think that should tell you something about Big Sis over there, too," Yuffie snorted.

"It's true." Raven smirked. "You might consider Salem to have…overtaken the situation. Leo helped play right into her hands. And now, well…there's only one thing left to do."

She turned on a heel, drawing her blade.

"You BITCH!" Qrow snarled.

Raven sliced the air, opening up another portal. Larger, this time. And from it, like models in a pageant revealing themselves grandly, strode Jafar, Hook, Cinder, Watts, Tyrian, Gothel, Hazel, Mercury, Lauriam, and Vernal.

"Oh, dear me," Jafar said smugly as the portal closed behind him. "Did the crow not see the raven as the omen she was?"

"It's long been known that a crow can't see what's straight in front of it," Lauriam said, bemused.

Before Qrow could even attempt a retort, he heard the weapons of all his companions being drawn at once – without the slightest hesitation.

"Did you KNOW about this?" Qrow asked.

"We knew something was up," Ruby told him. "There was too much suspicious here."

"Ozpin wanted us to be prepared," Oscar added. "So he told us what he thought might be going on. It was only a hunch he had, but it turns out he played it right."

"My, my." Gothel clicked her tongue. "Such precocious children. How I hate precocious children."

"How can you all even BE like this?" Jaune asked. "All of you coming here just to destroy us! How broken can you be?"

Cinder glowered at him. She took a breath, then laboriously and hoarsely asserted, "I…am not…broken."

Mercury shrugged; "We're all just having fun here."

"It's nothing personal, mate," Hook added. "Well, not for me, at any rate. I'm certain Miss Fall has a thirst for revenge that needs to be quelled – and far be it from me to misunderstand the desire for vengeance."

"Can't we just get to the killing already?" Tyrian cackled.

"Because it would absolutely murder the great Tyrian Callows to be patient," Watts said with a roll of his eyes.

Qrow withdrew Harbinger, unfolding it into a scythe. "Then I guess it's our job to take you down. Like Huntsmen are supposed to do."

"Before y'all get to the fun part," Hannibal yelled from above, "I got a little announcement to make. See, you may all be the guests of honor…but I don't think you get who the HOST of this shindig is. An' you might wanna know that little tidbit 'fore y'all get to slicin' an' dicin'. Without further ado, allow me to present the one, the only, you know him, you hate him…"

Hannibal stepped aside, and it was Roman who took his place front and center on the balcony, arms spread out wide. He blew mock kisses as he approached the railing, culminating in a bow; Snatcher followed closely, just behind and to the right of him, looming in view.

"Thank you, thank you!" Roman teased. "Actually, no. Let me rethink that. Thank you to none of you. In fact, I think all of you a big 'FUCK you' for making my life on this world a living hell. And here I was saying if you couldn't beat 'em, you join 'em. Yes, Sir Shitty Stache, I am VERY aware of your viewpoint on the matter. Happy you broke me?"

"Quite," Watts replied with a nod. "Though if I recall, Tyrian was the one who literally broke you."

"Ah, memories," Tyrian sighed wistfully.

"Yeah, don't think I ever for…gave…you…for…" Roman realized it then when he saw the amount of tired looks he was fetching. "You. Are NOT fazed."

"Of course we aren't," Hook told him. "We knew we couldn't get on with it until you'd gone and made your dramatic entrance."

Jafar rolled his eyes almost violently. "And here they are thinking they're unpredictable."

"HOW…THE FUCK?" Roman cried. "Okay, YOU I knew had it figured out!" He pointed to Ruby with the Cudgel. "But YOU asswipes?" He motioned around the Overtaker contingent. "HOW?"

"You might've had us fooled," Watts admitted. "Then Raven returned from her meeting with a very out-of-character Leo Lionheart…"

"And I began to suspect magical foul play," Jafar finished. "From there, it wasn't difficult to figure out who – "

"Wait, WAIT!" Qrow rounded on Ruby. "What does he mean YOU had him figured out?"

"That is NOT IMPORTANT right now!" Ruby barked.

"But how the hell did he know WE knew?" Nora cried.

"WE USED THE SAME FUCKING SOURCE!" Roman yelled. "I can and will put money on it that we passed each other in the street at some point!"

"Oz…" Qrow turned to Oscar. "Is this one of those 'Tell Qrow and he dies' things?"

"Yeah," Oscar mumbled. "Pretty much."

"Oh, too bad they didn't squeal," Raven mocked. "It would've made our jobs so much easier."

"Okay, just – just fuck it," Roman groaned. "Obviously, the ONLY person surprised at any of this is Qrow – "

"And that's not enough for you?" Qrow asked in disbelief.

"So let's just bring in the cavalry," Roman sighed. "Maybe you'll have something to say once you see how FUCKED you are."

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Snatcher called out, clapping his hands together once.

From the door behind him swaggered Mim, the Huntsman, Neo, Zorg, Drakken, Vexen, Miltia, and Kokichi.

"Oh, I see now," Lauriam realized. "Here I was suspecting they may have had some way to actually overpower us. A secret weapon up their sleeves. However, what they have is Vexen, which automatically acts as a handicap to their entire operation."

"YOU WILL BE SILENT!" Vexen screeched. "I'M GOING TO DO WHAT I SHOULD'VE DONE TO YOU BACK IN CASTLE OBLIVION: TAKEN YOU OUT WITH MY OWN HAND BEFORE YOU EVER GOT THE CHANCE TO ORDER ME KILLED LIKE A COWARD WOULD!"

"Ugh, the blonde one's STILL not here?" Miltia tossed her hair. "That's, like, the only one I give two shits about. Eh. Whatever."

"Oh, and Qrow!" Mim waved. "In case you didn't get the punchline, the REAL Leo was the one who ordered your friends dead! My Mean Bean just took up the mantle!"

"And the real Leo's dead, huh?" Qrow realized.

"As a doornail," Drakken said with a wide grin. Then: "That's a weird phrase when you think about it. How is a doornail dead? It was never alive; it's a nail – "

Neo motioned for him to zip his lips.

Ruby paled at the sight of her; "Ohhhhh no."

Neo nodded as if to say: Ohhhh yes.

"Anyway," Roman sighed, "you two are here to kill each other, you're also here to kill us, we're here to kill you – I say we don't drag it out."

"Oh, I do agree," Tyrian said with a grin. "This rendez-vous doesn't have NEARLY enough blood in it!"

Snatcher tapped Roman on the shoulder, then asked in a whisper, "What do they mean he broke you?"

"To make a long story short," Roman sighed, "partner mission, foot stuck in hole in the floor, Scorpion Fuckface broke my fucking foot to drag me out of there."

Snatcher was appropriately appalled. "I'd thought your right toes looked somewhat crooked…" he muttered. "Not a complaint, mind you. Also, we've definitely got to kill him now."

Tyrian deployed his wrist-blades; "The relic is ours. Who wants to come stop us?"

"You're all dead meat!" Mim cried, swinging a fist. "PROVE US WRONG! I DARE YOU!"

Ruby twirled Crescent Rose; "You're not getting the relic OR our lives! We'll stop you, and we'll do it without hurting anyone!"

And all three sides erupted into a melee, with the WHAM ARMY vaulting over the balcony to land on the main level and join the fray.

Roman found himself facing off against Ruby. "And so we meet again, Little Red," he scoffed. "When are you going to stop being a thorn in my side and kick the bucket already?"

"Roman Torchwick," Ruby sighed. "Cinder and Salem have hurt both of us. Just this once, can't you see there's something more important than us fighting?"

"You really think I'm going to lower myself to being your pal so I can give you half the credit?" Roman retorted, raising the Cudgel. "No dice, Red. Also, I owe you one big-time for throwing Neo off Blue-2!"

"HEY!" Booster skidded up next to Ruby. "You wanna hurt her? Well, you're gonna have to go through ME!"

"Oh, because I am SO terrified," Roman scoffed. "Red, you need to pick better guard dogs."

Ruby let out a feral growl. "THAT'S IT! NO MORE MISS NICE RUBY ROSE!"

"Yeah, well…" Roman shrugged. "I was never nice, so nothing of value was lost here."

Before he could pull the trigger for the first shot, Neo leapt in front of him, spreading out her arms and giving him a venomous glare.

"NEO! WHY?" Roman yelled. "Don't you want her dead too?"

Neo nodded emphatically, pointing to herself several times.

"Oh," Roman realized. "I didn't realize that kill was so important to you. May I ask WHY that kill is so important to you?"

And Neo pointed right at him.

"Wha – " Roman sputtered. "How am I supposed to avenge you if you're trying to avenge me?"

"Guys." Miltia strode up beside them. "You're totally giving them an attack window."

Neo whirled, and Roman looked around her. Ruby had been advancing around the side with Crescent Rose drawn; Booster had his laser pointed at Neo. The two heroes' eyes widened once they realized they'd been caught.

"Uh…" Ruby let out a nervous laugh. "We weren't trying to use a window…eheheheheh…"

"You know what?" Roman shrugged. "Three versus two. Everyone gets a shot. This works. Terrible Twin Number Two, consider this the closest you can get to decking Goldilocks."

"Yeah, your sister trashed our clients' nightclub multiple times," Miltia stated. "Also you look like a knockoff of me. I totally wear that color better than you."

"Wha – " Ruby flinched. "NO YOU DON'T – "

"RUBY! LOOK OUT!"

Neo came down out of nowhere from the side; Booster pulled Ruby out of the way just in time, causing Neo's sword to embed itself in the boards. Roman saw that as his cue to open fire; Booster tightened his grip on Ruby, activating his jet pack in order to fly around their opponents while avoiding the blasts. Ruby flowed with that decision, turning Crescent Rose's blade in such a way that it acted as an offensive implement; Booster adjusted his flight pattern to bring the scythe closer.

Miltia leapt off the floor, bounced her high heels off the side of the scythe, and performed a midair backflip – one heel smacking Booster in the face and one heel smacking Ruby. The pair collapsed, Booster dropping Ruby, as Miltia landed gracefully back on the wooden floor. Booster quickly sat up, firing his stun laser rapidly; Neo zigzagged every blast as she charged, blade held high.

Ruby quickly pivoted on the floor in such a way as to try and trip Neo; Neo had to break her concentration to leap over her legs, and it was in that leap that she was blasted by Booster's laser. As she fell back, Roman surged forward; Ruby leapt up to her feet, Crescent Rose spinning to clash again and again with the Cudgel's shaft. Neo tried to shake the temporary paralysis out of her body as Miltia dealt a roundhouse kick toward Booster, who caught her by the ankle and swung her away – throwing her back to knock Neo down again.

"Ah, your majesty!" Snatcher greeted playfully as he advanced upon Kairi. "You've been quite the nuisance indeed."

Kairi braced herself, Destiny's Embrace in hand. Strengthening her stance.

"And, as I recall," Snatcher went on, "the weak link amongst your peers."

"I've gotten stronger," Kairi growled.

Snatcher chose to open by drawing the Sword of the Storm. "Oh, I do doubt that. I wonder what waves your untimely demise will bring upon Radiant Garden?"

He struck out toward her, a fierce blast of wind causing her to stagger and dig in her heels. She forged ahead, pointing her Keyblade outward; as she cast Holy, Snatcher evaded by a hair, pirouetting toward her.

Their two blades clashed in the midst of the tapering wind. Every now and then, one or the other would give a spin to reposition, then go right back to parrying. Kairi then made a sliding dash, and Snatcher prepared to sidestep – only to find that she had missed by a wide berth.

"Oh, your majesty…" He turned to smirk at where she was regaining her bearings. "That was, to be polite, a definite demonstration of how much you HAVEN'T – "

"MAGNET!"

The Sword of the Storm ripped itself from Snatcher's hand and spun twice in the air before the hilt ended up in Kairi's own hand. She then vanished it into her personal inventory.

Gritting his teeth, Snatcher withdrew his chain-pistol. "You're about to REGRET that."

When the first blast of lightning seared toward her, she dodge-rolled away from it, feeling the hairs on her skin rise from the close contact.

Hook and the Huntsman were locked in a duel of blades as well. The Huntsman ejected a sphinx-hair net, which Hook sliced through in a single motion. Then Hook figured it was time to try a trick of his own. He rushed.

The Huntsman was ready for that. He'd expected it, in fact. So he ran to meet Hook halfway.

They moved almost in complete synchrony. Then, when they'd both passed one another, they examined the effects of what they'd done.

Hook, as planned, had slapped an anti-magic cuff onto the Huntsman's wrist. And the Huntsman, in turn, had placed an identical cuff on Hook.

"Really?" Hook turned to give the Huntsman an exasperated sigh. "There's no magic in me to suppress, mate."

"Nor in me," the Huntsman seethed. "My technology is engineered to be anti-magical."

"Well, then. Seems we're at an impasse."

"I disagree." The Huntsman advanced.

"You're right, actually," Hook realized. "No magic just means we settle this man-to-man."

He leapt, bringing down his sword hard; the Huntsman caught the blade with his staff on the descent. The Huntsman lit the staff up, and while his gloves protected him, Hook was violently thrown back and down, so hard that he slammed into the planks of the floor and broke them slightly, sinking an inch into the floor and leaving an indent.

"I don't suppose you spend all your duels in the floor," the Huntsman scoffed.

Hook pried himself up and out; "I'd rather not reply to that."

They rushed each other once more.

Hannibal had taken an interest in Leo's old weapon, Stalwart, which was now affixed to his wrist – a disc bearing a rainbow of Dust chambers. "Now, I wonder what this ol' trinket can do?" he muttered, not even bothering to use Leo's voice at all. "Looks almost like a Shen Gong Wu, if more newfangled."

His eyes were drawn by the pink flash of Lauriam's coat as the flora mage charged across the room, Vexen in his sights. Figuring he was as good of a target as any, Hannibal skidded out in front of him, Stalwart facing out like a shield. "I wouldn't do that to my pal if I was you," he told Lauriam.

Lauriam halted. Smirked. Held his scythe high. "I suppose the same principle holds true," he figured. "Vexen wasn't even worth my time to kill personally back then…and he certainly isn't now. I'll let someone else handle it. But you, I'll enjoy slaying."

The scythe hurtled forward, only to be caught on Stalwart, which was glowing with radiant defense sigils. "You're the plant fella, right?" Hannibal asked.

"You tell me," Lauriam coaxed.

Hannibal could feel the vines creeping up through the cracks in the floor, wrapping around his legs. "Nice try." In a flash, he no longer even had legs, nor Leo's body; his bean form crushed the vines. Stalwart remained glowing on one of his tendrils. "Can't out-plant a bean."

"I would say you being exactly what I control gives me a distinct advantage." Lauriam flicked a hand and another cluster of vines, thorned, erupted from the floor, wrapping around Hannibal. This gave Lauriam a window to dodge to the side before giving his scythe a launch, spinning it toward the bean in a burst of pink energy.

Hannibal whipped the tendril with Stalwart attached, severing the vines before knocking the scythe away in a ricochet. "Think I like this new toy," he said with a toothy grin as he observed the disc's glow.

Lauriam stretched a hand high; pink projectiles, like rose thorns wrapped in the petals of their own flowers, appeared all around Hannibal, ready to descend. The scythe boomeranged back to Lauriam as he flicked his wrist again. The thorns shot toward Hannibal, but each and every one was neutralized by a small fireball that burst from Stalwart. Lauriam lunged forward, ramming the scythe's point toward the ground to create a shockwave of pink energy; Hannibal returned to Leo's form in order to gain legs with which to jump over it as he fired icy blasts back down at Lauriam.

Bullets banged through the air as Tyrian opened fire on Mim. She danced and twirled her way around every single shot of his, so he rushed up to her, slicing violently. She kept on dancing, ducking and dodging his every move – with a little magic thrown in to change her shape ever so slightly, squishing below or stretching around his strikes.

"My, my, you are a tricky one," Tyrian chortled.

"In another world, maybe we could've been something," Mim remarked. "As it is, I have no patience for OVERTAKERS."

With a croak, she turned into a massive frog, using her two strong legs to kick Tyrian several feet back and send him sprawling head over heels.

"You…DO know what a scorpion can do to a frog, don't you?" Tyrian teased, licking his lips, as he rose. "It's in our nature."

"Yes, well, I've heard toads are quite good at battling," Mim responded.

With a spring, Tyrian was on her back, tail drawing back to strike.

The steel tip of his tail clanged against a hard armored shell as Mim's new form curled around him, binding his limbs and holding him in place. "GOTCHA!" Mim crowed, her multitude of legs feeling Tyrian all over to give him an idea of what she'd become: an Amazonian giant centipede.

"You – you let me go!" Tyrian struggled.

"I'm the one with the poison now!" Mim screeched as she opened her insectoid jaws wide, revealing fangs dripping with green venom.

One arm broke free; Tyrian slashed at her mouth, and she screamed as the roof was sliced. She lost her grip on him, and he slid several feet away, opening fire on anything that even resembled a weak point. Though much of his fire bounced right off her carapace.

A bullet of fire dust blasted past the duo, up to the second-level balcony. Watts then retreated as a stream of flame retaliated to his shot, searing the floor where he had been.

Zorg had made it up to that balcony ring, and was using his advantage to rain ZF1 shot on the melee below. The problem came from Watts, who was also equipped with a versatile ranged weapon. The two had become partners in stalemate; when Watts dodged, he'd return fire with something such as an ice bullet. Zorg would then engulf it in flame before turning his own cryo-ray on Watts. Watts altered his pattern to use his friends and enemies alike as meat shields; he darted through the crowd as ZF1 shot followed him, peppering the floor with bullet holes.

"I must say," Watts remarked, "if this is the best that you can do, then I'm a little disappointed."

"Well, I don't think you got the right to say that," Zorg scoffed. "I think you oughta die just for that statement."

"And I think it doesn't matter how many bells and whistles your weapon has if you can't even hit anything with it."

A bullet clipped the edge of Watts' mustache, taking a few hairs to the floor. "Point taken," Watts said as he spun the chamber of his own revolver.

Weiss and Vexen had engaged in a battle of ice. Vexen sent a rush of frozen spikes toward her, erupting from the ground; she used a glyph to launch herself over them, spinning through the air. Vexen raised his shield in time for her heels to land on its surface; she planted Myrtenaster's tip there as well, sending him stumbling back in a blast of ice. She planted herself on the ground, charging with perfect poise; he spun his shield and projected a great swath of ice on the end of it to form an ice-blade that rose and clashed with her own rapier.

"I see you carry yourself as though you are a cut above," Vexen noted. "Such confidence for a young weakling. In my presence, you will learn where you truly stand!"

"Listen," Weiss snapped. "I've been there. Thinking I'm better than everybody else. And it didn't turn out great for me. I'm willing to bet you don't have many friends."

"I HAVE THE FRIENDS WHO MATTER!"

"So do I, and I'm PROTECTING them!"

As they continued to clash, Drakken glared at Kazuichi. "My ice friend is going to kick YOUR ice friend's boo-tay," he declared.

"No way!" Kazuichi retorted. "My ice friend's gonna kick your ice friend's ass!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yeah-huh!"

"NUH-UH!"

"YEAH-HUH!"

This resulted in a small skirmish of them slapping at each other ineffectively. However, it did put Drakken in a position to see the plate that linked to Kazuichi's dormant armor. He slapped it once, crowing, "A-HA!"

"What the – " Kazuichi looked to see a tiny round device, a central light blinking, attached to his armor plate.

"A robot tick!" Drakken declared. "This one is programmed to react adversely to any magical energy! In other words, if you activate your armor, it will explode!"

"HOLYSHIT – " Kazuichi pried the plate away and launched it like a frisbee. "Okay, you SUCK!"

"I know I do."

"…Yeah, I'm gonna leave that one alone," Kazuichi decided. And then it was back to slapping.

Qrow had converted Harbinger back to sword form in order to more properly clash with Raven's blade. "There was a time I thought you were better than this," he seethed at her.

"And there was a time I thought you would never be anyone's lapdog," Raven growled right back. "Do you remember what we enrolled for? What we FOUGHT for together?"

"We fought to kill the innocent," Qrow reminded her. "We made friends who showed us that what we were about to do was wrong!"

"We joined a team that made us WEAK!" Raven barked. "And I'm the only one who recovered!"

Yuffie had employed a strategy of chucking as many shuriken as she could throw in succession at Vernal. Vernal batted them away with her wristblades, retaliating by using those same weapons to fire thick yellow beams at Yuffie. Yuffie simply backflipped out of the way of the shots.

"Man, are you bad at this!" Yuffie taunted.

"You don't know what you're dealing with," Vernal seethed.

"I think I do," Yuffie replied. "A brat."

She drew back her largest shuriken, letting it fly. Vernal clamped her blades together, firing a double blast that melted the shuriken in the air.

"Actually, let me take that back," Yuffie grumbled. "You're not a brat. You're a BITCH."

Vernal smirked. "Takes one to know one."

Hazel stared down Oscar calmly. "I don't wish to fight you," he rumbled.

Oscar could've gotten away with that if not for the little voice in his head that said "Oh…no."

"What is it?" Oscar mumbled. "Is it him?"

"Don't speak," Ozpin warned. "For all he knows, you're just Oscar, and it will stay that way."

Hazel cast his gaze around the room. "But there are those who will need to pay for their sins." He focused in on Qrow, then bent at the knee, balling his fists.

"NO!" Oscar skidded out in front of Hazel, cane braced. "You don't get to hurt him!"

Hazel's eyes widened as he recognized the weapon Oscar bore. "Where…did you get that…"

"Oscar," Ozpin warned, "be very, VERY careful."

"I…" Oscar stammered. "I…uh…"

"Oh, figure it out, idiot!" Tyrian called over while trying to avoid Mim, who was now a very large tarantula. "Why would Qrow bring some boy from the sticks along and then give him Ozpin's weapon? HE IS OZPIN!"

Hazel's breath caught in his throat.

"Oscar," Ozpin said. "This is…not good."

"Ozpin," Hazel whispered. Then it became a roar: "OOOOZPIIIIIIN!"

He ripped away the sides of his own jacket, exposing his bare arms. "You will pay for what you've done," he seethed, retrieving a pair of bright-yellow crystals from straps on his legs. "I WILL KILL YOU OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!"

"What happened to not wanting to fight me?" Oscar cried.

"You should've thought of that when it was MY SISTER on the line!" Hazel roared as he plunged both crystals into his own arms.

Blood spilled from the wounds, but Hazel seemed none the worse for it. The veins in his arms lit up bright yellow; he crackled with an electric vibe.

"What do we do?" Oscar asked. "Do we fight?"

"No," Ozpin warned. "We run!"

Oscar turned tail and bolted as Hazel charged after him in a rage.

"What happened to his sister?" Oscar panted. "What did you DO?"

Hazel's fist slammed into the wall, barely missing Oscar as he began to circle the perimeter of the chamber. "She was one of my students," Ozpin explained. "She perished unfortunately on a training mission."

"IS HE LYING TO YOU?" Hazel roared. "TELLING YOU ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT HE THREW A CHILD INTO WAR? SHE WASN'T READY! HE KNEW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN!"

"I'm not ready either!" Oscar yelped. "I'm a child too! Why do you want to kill ME over it?"

"BECAUSE YOU'RE THE ONLY WAY I CAN GET TO HIM!" Hazel ripped a chunk of plaster out of the wall, hurling it at Oscar. The cane deflected and destroyed it. "IT'S THE ONLY THING I CARE ABOUT ANYMORE! MAKING HIM PAY!"

"He is blinded by grief," Ozpin explained. "Beyond logic."

"I can SEE he's beyond logic!" Oscar squeaked.

Cinder had summoned up a pair of black blades, clashing them against Crocea Mors' sword and shield rapidly. "I…am not…broken," she croaked at Jaune. "I…will never…be broken!"

"I can't kill you," Jaune seethed. "But I can still break you in other ways. And I'm GOING to break you for what you did to Pyrrha!"

"Pyrrha?" Cinder croaked, smirking. "Which one…was that?"

Jaune felt white-hot rage pour through him as he lashed out; "EeeAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!"

Kokichi had requested a special weapon of his own for this fight, and Zorg had obliged, if only to show off. It hearkened back to something he'd wielded at the Academy for Gifted Juveniles: an overlarge hammer able to crackle with electricity. Several round grenades, filled with more electric charges, were pinned to a belt at his waist. Nora approached him with Magnhild in hand.

"We're hammer twinsies!" Kokichi joked.

"Yeah, well, mine's cooler." Nora squared up, lifting the hammer high.

"Nuh-uhhhh!" Kokichi taunted. "I'm gonna prove it to you right now!"

They rushed each other, the heads of their hammers clashing in a massive shockwave that nearly bowled them both over.

They skidded back; Nora drew Magnhild again. But Kokichi was lazily leaning against his hammer, acting as if he didn't even want to participate.

"What the – " Nora flinched. "You're just gonna stand there and let me hit you?"

"Yep!" Kokichi told her. "It's fun for me! Actually, I get off on it! Nee-hee-hee!"

Nora shrugged, then raised Magnhild high. With a roar, she charged.

He sidestepped so quickly, she never saw it. She breezed right past him. And as she did so, in her ear, he whispered:

"I don't want to do this anymore."

Nora halted, spinning to see Kokichi with his head tilted down, his mouth set firmly.

"…What?" Nora urged.

He snapped back up to attention, forcing a wide grin. "It was a lie! I'm a liar, you see. You gotta learn to read between the lines!"

In that moment, when Nora wondered which statement was actually the lie, Kokichi knew he had won. On his own terms.

Jafar's staff spat a beam of pure red electricity; Donald's own staff countered it with a Thundaga blast of bright yellow. The two energies clashed until Donald shoved his magic over the edge with pure rage, blasting it back as an explosion that caused Jafar to reel. Jafar gave a cry of frustration, and it began to rain swords around Donald, causing the duck to dart this way and that in order to avoid being skewered.

"And here I was, wondering what sort of entrée I could present for my dinner with the Captain," Jafar teased. "It seems we'll be dining on mage l'orange! Though if you want my advice on how to make it through unscathed – DUCK!"

That pun incensed Donald all the more. With a wild yell, Donald unleashed a Blizzaga that temporarily encased Jafar completely. Jafar broke out easily, his very form radiating flames, and then transmuted one arm into a lengthy cobra, flicking it to wrap around Donald like a lasso. The snake head reared back, fangs sharp and ready to pierce.

Donald was sweating now.

"I may not be able to kill you like a common variety of snake," Jafar told him, "but a KING cobra knows how to make people suffer!"

All of a sudden, that granted Donald the advantage he needed. "No…more…PUUUUUUUNS!"

Jafar lost his grip and was blasted back in a storm of fire and lightning combined. He sneered at Donald; "Such a flimsy attack! Why, I prefer something MEATIER!"

A great flaming meteor formed at the ceiling, plummeting downward.

Donald made it explode in one shot due to his ire, then charged Jafar, staff swinging.

Gothel had a dagger in each hand as Goofy stepped up to the plate to face her. "I'm warning you," she said coyly. "I've had a thousand years and then some to master these. Are you sure you want to challenge me?"

"Well, I gotta try!" Goofy told her. "After all, a knight's gotta protect! Maybe my shield can stop you from hurtin' my friends!"

He launched into a tornado spin.

Gothel rushed him, knife at the ready – but when she drew back, he'd already left, his pattern too erratic for her to figure out. She tried to stab him thrice more with similar results. Then his shield knocked into her and sent her stumbling to the floor.

"How?" Gothel spat. "HOW are you besting me?"

Goofy came to a halt, quite obviously dizzy. "I just wanna know when the room's gonna stop spinnin'!" he said as he staggered.

Gothel threw a knife at him; he tripped, falling over and evading its trajectory. That was when she realized it didn't matter how long Goofy had been in the game, or how skilled he was.

If he was going to keep on not knowing what he was doing, then she'd have no way of actually predicting his moves and countering accordingly.

Mercury kicked at every shot Ren fired, sending it ricocheting. Ren charged, swiping with the blades of Stormflower; Mercury nimbly dodged before punching Ren in the face.

"Awww, is the little baby boy sad because his mama and daddy are dead?" Mercury mocked. "Lucky you. I had to do that job myself. At least YOU didn't have to suffer."

"How…DARE you!" Ren growled. "I'd say I'm sorry that your own parents obviously didn't care…but after that? I'm not sorry for anything that happens to you."

"And you shouldn't be," Mercury scoffed. "I'm stronger, faster – "

He dealt a kick that sent Ren flying.

"Better than you," he concluded. "Everything I went through made me stronger. Everything you went through made you soft."

Ren gritted his teeth. "No," he said as he pried himself off the floor. He was realizing his own mistake. "Everything I went through…made me who I am. And I'm proud of who I am, no matter what you say. All you can do is talk. It doesn't change who my parents were or who I am. And you – "

His eyes widened. For a brief moment of clarity, he saw through the façade. Mercury was as a monochromatic piece of the whole, but in one flash, there were the sparks of red flying off his being, rage in the air.

"You…you're lying," Ren realized. "You RESENT everything that happened to you. You're ANGRY."

And an angry opponent was one ready to make rash mistakes.

Mercury's brow furrowed. "You don't know what you're talking about. Now fuck off and die."

He charged, using his leg-guns to blast himself high. Ren waited until the last second before shifting his weight, grabbing Mercury by the leg he'd jackknifed down, and using the momentum to fling Mercury aside. A wayward shot Mercury let off, intended to pierce Ren, went wild and instead propelled him further away from Ren.

As chaos reigned around the Grand Hall, Watts, who had found a temporary shelter point while Zorg attempted to locate him, muttered to himself, "I do wonder how our friends in the White Fang are doing outside."

...

From the cover of on-campus foliage, the Mukhtar watched as Adam Taurus and the White Fang planted explosives on every load-bearing piece of every building on Haven campus. So Adam was planning to cheat his way to victory. This made the Mukhtar steam with anger.

Adam himself was dressed in black to blend with the shadows, his crimson hair framing a white mask meant to emulate the Grimm. The Mukhtar supposed there was significance behind that mask, but for now, it didn't matter. He already knew Adam's semblance wasn't connected to his eyes.

The pieces were in place. All he needed was for the first domino to fall.

"ADAM!"

And there it was: Blake Belladonna perched on high, announcing her presence.

From there, it went as the Mukhtar had been told it would play out. Adam seemed to think he could "possess" Blake again, for whatever that train of thought was worth. Blake insisted it was over – did she mean his machinations or their relationship? – and fueled his fire. (Good. The Mukhtar wanted him angry.)

He challenged her, saying she couldn't stop him. She admitted she couldn't, not alone, and that was when pretty much everyone else in the new, more morally upstanding White Fang led by Ghira emerged from the shadows.

Adam then ordered the trigger pulled anyway. The Mukhtar had originally taken him as a target in order to secure his transport with Blake, but now, hearing this, he knew Adam deserved only to die. Adam didn't act out of honor, nor out of desire and ambition. He wanted only for the world to go up in flames as repayment for his pain. A vengeance that, at the end of the day, would mean nothing.

Even Mozenrath was more respectable than that. At least he wanted things, and chased them. What he destroyed was the obstacles in the way of what he wanted, or that destruction was what he wanted, something that would benefit him as he survived it. It was strangely admirable, how he chased his whims full tilt. All the more despicable that, by comparison, Adam had decided that if he couldn't have something, then instead of cheating to take it, he would simply remove it from play so no one could utilize it.

The bombs were disarmed. That was part of the plan. A hidden ally of Blake's, one Ilia Amitola, was in charge of that. She revealed herself from the shadows, showing off the cords she'd pulled. Every single bomb was just an empty metal casing.

His allies were turning on him now. Asking him why he'd been willing to sacrifice them for his own anger. Talking about how Ilia had been part of his inner circle for so long and was a more fitting leader than he ever was. Then in came the police airship, its searchlight sweeping across the campus, and Adam was simply frightened away like a nocturnal creature in sight of the sun.

The Mukhtar began the chase.

He sprinted through the cover of the shadows, springing over obstacles, using walls to his advantage to catch up. Then he headed Adam off, pulling out in front of him with sword drawn.

Adam flinched; "Who are you?"

"I am the one who puts an end to your cowardice," the Mukhtar hissed. "Once and for all."

Adam's teeth clenched hard. "Go ahead and try."

His own crimson blade was drawn. The two swords clashed – and not without the Mukhtar's notice that he was doing most of the work. Adam was only parrying.

As planned.

Adam gave him a bright, toothy smile. "You gave me all you had," he declared. "That was where you went wrong."

He drew his sword back. All the energy the Mukhtar had given him by attacking him full force, he had absorbed into his own aura, and now he would channel it through his blade, sawing through the Mukhtar with his own energy.

The red blade hurtled forward, toward the Mukhtar's own sword. Then broke right through it, sending the tip of the blade flying into the night.

Adam's revelry in his own victory came grinding to a halt when he realized that despite the sword being devastated, the Mukhtar was unharmed. The hunter held in his scaled hand a device that looked reminiscent of a lantern, glowing with red, the same color as Adam's blade and Aura.

Adam could put the pieces together. The Mukhtar – somehow – had collected his Aura. And now all the energy he'd sent to tear the Mukhtar apart was going to come rocketing right back to him.

He braced himself for the end. Better to die fighting than a coward.

The lantern released its deadly contents. Adam's own Semblance ripped through the air toward him.

Then Adam wasn't there. The red tore into the wall of a building that had been behind him. The Mukhtar flinched, unsure how he could have missed.

When he regained his bearings, he noted Adam standing several feet away from where he had been. Clutched by another, whose hands were wrapped around Adam's forearms. When the Mukhtar realized what sort of creature had intervened, he snarled.

Russell Edgington snarled right back.

"I still need this one," he seethed.

The Mukhtar did not comment, but instead withdrew from his belt a long plank that unfolded into a bowgun. A bowgun loaded with sharpened wooden stakes.

He never came fully unprepared for vampires.

After the Mukhtar opened fire, Russell vanished into the night, taking Adam with him.

There was no time to chase a vampire; he'd have gotten halfway across the city by now. The Mukhtar had to focus on the job he'd come to do in the first place: take Jafar captive.

He turned back to the Grand Hall, breaking into a sprint.

...

Inside the Grand Hall, they saw the lights of the Mistral police airship flash through the windows. No one even flinched. If the police thought they could stop what was happening, they were fools.

Raven began to suspect something was off when she realized how she hadn't missed a single step in her entire duel with Qrow. "Something wrong?" she taunted. "I seem to have had incredibly good luck today."

"You're imagining it," Qrow retorted. "That or you're used to it. Actually, I bet that's it."

"Nnnnno…I haven't had to work nearly as hard as usual when I've sparred you in the past."

A lucky stroke caught Harbinger at one of its joints; the tip broke off completely, skittering over the floor.

"Your Semblance," Raven realized. "It's been shut down." Her grin widened. "Something's blocking your Aura!"

"That's bullshit," Qrow retorted. "What could even – "

But the people he'd been fighting this whole time, they had powers not even described in the fairy tales of old. Leo had been a fake. Leo had delivered their dinner nightly, and Qrow had partaken often when he didn't feel like the flavor palette his younger charges brought to the house.

Yen Sid had even said it was good magic. To most people, increasing good luck would have been a favorable charm.

Raven saw the realization wash over him, and felt almost giddy. "Finally!" she crowed. "You've only ever been a match for me because of your stupid Semblance allowing you to cheat! Now, I can finally WIN!"

Her next stroke sliced a tear in his shirt, and Qrow began to seriously fear for his life.

"ON YOUR LEFT!" Ruby yelled, and Booster shifted aside so that Miltia would fly right past him, her high-heeled kick planting into Roman's face and throwing him back with her.

"Thanks, Ruby!" Booster gave her a thumbs-up. Then, with a worried expression, "DUCK!"

She bowed low, and Neo sailed over her head, quickly performing a handspring to save face.

"Oh, and here I thought you were bad enough on your own," Roman grunted, dusting off his jacket. "Then you had to go and get a boyfriend!"

"HE'S NOT MY – " Ruby shrieked by instinct. Then went red, because that would give Booster the impression she didn't want that at all, which was wrong.

"Of course not," Miltia huffed. "Like, only a total monsterfucker would go for that thing."

"HEY, THAT'S RACIST!" Ruby and Booster yelled in unison.

"But am I wrong?" Miltia shrugged. "He's, like…the ugliest guy I've ever seen in my life."

"You – I – " Booster was obviously struggling not to take it personally, even though he knew that words from a villain didn't matter. "You're wrong! And even if you weren't…there'd be nothing wrong with that!"

"He is NOT ugly!" Ruby insisted, dodging another blow from Neo. "And don't you EVER say that again!" She spun Crescent Rose backward, using it to whack Miltia several feet away. "OR THAT HAPPENS!"

"See?" Roman called after the fallen Miltia. "They're one hundred percent fucking."

"Hey, don't make up lies about Ruby like that!" Booster trained his laser on Roman, who spun to sidestep its fire.

Miltia launched herself at Booster from behind; "I'M right. Red Girl here would never."

Ruby leapt up into Miltia's path, batting her away again. "IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ONE OR THE OTHER, YOU KNOW!" she yelled. "MAYBE WE'RE JUST FRIENDS! AND I THINK HE'S BEAUTIFUL BUT ALSO WE AREN'T DOING ANYTHING LIKE THAT!"

"Yeah!" Booster agreed, his laser chasing Roman around their immediate battlefield. "It's good to have friends! We don't NEED to be anything more! No matter how upsetting it might be, Ruby's happiness is more important than anything!"

"Okay, you TOTALLY heard everything I said on the balcony," Ruby said as she continued to strike at Miltia and Neo.

"Yeah, I did," Booster admitted, still firing on Roman. "And, uh, first of all, there's a reason I wear bulletproof pants, so you don't have to worry about that."

"Good! And actually, you fight really well, but it hasn't DISTRACTED me like I thought. I'm weirdly doing better than I have been!" She skidded out in front of Roman and, forgoing Crescent Rose, socked him in the face to send him reeling. "I'm sorry I even thought that would happen!"

Booster threw his weight against Miltia at the right time to avoid Neo. "I just know you were worried about having feelings for me and Aerrow, and I don't wanna make you pick the wrong one, so I decided not to say anything, but that rose wasn't a friendship rose at first! I was going to tell you that I like you too!"

Ruby let out a loud gasp; "I KNEW IT! I FRICKELDY-FRACKING KNEW IT!" She pumped a fist in the air; "YYYYYESSSS!" Then threw that fist into Miltia's face, squaring up to engage in a boxing bout with her.

"Okay, am I even still here anymore?" Roman asked. "Or is this your soap opera now?"

Ruby and Booster pointed at him in unison; "YOU STARTED THIS!"

And even Neo halted her next attack to nod and point at Roman.

"Totally," Miltia agreed. "Yeah, I helped, but you prompted me, so."

"Anyway, I'm sorry I couldn't say anything!" Ruby yelled as the battle raged on. "But if I confessed to you, and we got back and it turned out I had more feelings for Aerrow, then I'd have to hurt you by breaking up with you! But if I wait, and I pick Aerrow but HE'S not the one, then I'll completely miss out on you! But I can't ask YOU to wait!"

"Oh, for FUCK'S SAKE!" Roman yelled, blasting several rounds of ammo that were avoided by one speedy girl and one jetpacking boy. "Do you even hear yourself? You don't give two shits about the other guy! Both the reasons you just said for not doing anything are about THIS one!"

"Unless you, like, totally feel that worried about the other guy too," Miltia added, cartwheeling toward the pair.

"But I don't," Ruby replied. "…I don't. I don't! I'm not worried about Aerrow! I don't care!" She turned to Booster, eyes sparkling. "It's YOU! You're the one I'm afraid to hurt! THAT MEANS YOU'RE THE ONE!"

"Really?" Booster's own eyes were shining. "I'm the one? But…how can I be? You're so perfect, and I'm so – "

"DOUBLE PERFECT!" Ruby insisted.

They rushed to each other. He wrapped his arms around her, and she returned the gesture (as much as her arms would encircle him). Booster dipped Ruby low, then, when he hesitated, she tilted her head up to press her lips to his.

Then, without either even looking, both their fists flew out in unison to punch Roman in the solar plexus before he could attempt to beat them apart with the Cudgel.

"You're shitting me," Roman said as he skidded across the floor to sit between Miltia and Neo. "You are absolutely shitting me."

"HEY!" Ruby yelled once the kiss ended. "YOU get to have a cute battlefield romance! Why can't I?"

"Because you're – " Roman choked on that. "You…you think we're cute? WE ROUTINELY TRY TO KILL YOU!"

"Yeah, but even the bad guys need someone to love them," Booster argued. "It just…should probably be other bad guys."

As Neo nodded solemnly, Miltia said, "You'd kinda have to be stupid to not think you and Mr. Hat Guy are adorable. I ship it."

Roman got to his feet, stating, "I have a MULTITUDE of things to unpack right now and the only one I feel like focusing on is beating the shit out of those two."

"Well, bring it on!" Booster squared up, and Ruby did the same beside him. "Now we're a battle couple, so we're gonna be even harder to beat!"

"Yeah, I hate to break it to you," Roman said flippantly, "but you're going up against a crime family. Which is not good odds for you."

The two sides charged, weapons drawn.

As for the obvious missing member of that crime family, Snatcher was still locked in battle with Kairi, avoiding her blows with dancer's precision. Her magic was now more prone to fizzling out, so she was trying to keep to physical attacks, swiping from the left, from the right, from above.

It happened before she could even make sense of it. Snatcher saw a window in her attack pattern, making quick footwork to get behind her. Then the metal chain that connected mallet to pistol was suddenly looped around her neck, cold and unforgiving and growing tighter.

She flailed. From the end of Destiny's Embrace, which was waving uselessly out front of her, several spells popped and dissipated, leaving no effect at all. She couldn't even think of what she could do, what she was supposed to do.

Only that she was a failure after all, and her delicate neck bones couldn't take much more – unless she suffocated first.

"As I suspected!" Snatcher crowed. "Your sort is all the same. You think yourselves entitled to winning the entire pot just because of your lineage. And yet you've NO skill, NO intelligence, NO dream, NO hope." He leaned to whisper in her ear: "You're only a posturer. You've never had to work for anything so long as your knights in shining armor have been around to save you, have you? That's all you can truly rely on. Well, not…any…more."

She let out a hoarse choking noise. Kairi was about to die with the last thought in her head being that Snatcher was right.

She was useless.

"Look on the bright side, miss," Snatcher hissed. "YOUR death shall certainly live on as a day of festivity. Perhaps even a motivator. I'll decide for what."

When suddenly, his entire body was wracked with searing pain, every muscle seizing. He was vaguely aware of himself screaming as he dropped to his knees, losing his grip on his weapon.

Kairi quickly took hold of it, unwrapping it from her neck and throwing it aside. Her vision seemed a little blurred from the momentary oxygen deprivation, so at first, when she saw that her rescuer, who was standing behind Snatcher, was holding a giant hammer sparking with electricity – what had obviously been used to bring Snatcher to his knees – she assumed it was Nora.

Then her vision cleared. It wasn't Nora at all.

"You?" Kairi said in disbelief. "But…you're…you're one of the WHAM ARMY!"

"Not anymore," Kokichi said in perfect seriousness. "I'm sick of this game. All I ever wanted to do was play. And things just stopped being fun."

Then that immense grin returned; "Also, I just wanted to switch sides to prove how much of a liar I am! Nee-hee-hee! I'm even WORSE than the WHAM ARMY! I'm the guy who BETRAYED the WHAM ARMY! You better watch out for me now!"

"You…" Snatcher coughed, attempting to get his bearings. He couldn't stand yet; his legs were still spasming. "I'll have you DISMANTLED…YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A MALFUNCTION!"

"Awwww, what're you gonna do?" Kokichi laughed. "Throw me into a hydraulic press? Been there! Done that!" He waved Kairi on; "You really shouldn't trust me, but also this is your big chance to hoist these guys on their own petard!"

Kairi nodded firmly, then followed Kokichi, Keyblade in hand. Letting him take the lead.

As for Nora, now that Kokichi wasn't bothering her anymore, she was free to intervene where she saw fit. And where she saw fit was the part of the fight where young Oscar was being pursued by a few hundred pounds of pure electric rage.

"HEY!" Nora skidded out in front of Hazel, Magnhild braced. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size, huh?"

"STAY OUT OF THIS!" Hazel roared. "THIS DOESN'T CONCERN YOU!"

He made to move around her; she moved with him, blocking his path. With a roar, he slammed a hand onto her head, meaning to forcefully toss her aside.

He had no way of knowing that the lightning Dust he'd used to imbue himself with his new strength was the most incorrect weapon to use on Nora.

She escaped his grip, her Aura sparking with what she'd absorbed off his assault. "Wrong move!" she declared, drawing Magnhild back.

Several duels were brought to a temporary screeching halt as everyone saw Hazel Rainart whacked clear across the atrium, hard enough that he burst through the wall and left an entire chunk of said wall missing.

After observing this, Cinder and Jaune went back to their dual-handed combat. A surprise burst of flame knocked Jaune off-balance; one of Cinder's high-heeled shoes pinned his chest down.

"Don't worry," she croaked. "You'll…see her soon. You're going…where she is." She called her bow to hand, drew it back, triple arrows pointed at Jaune's forehead, nose, and throat.

"I don't care," Jaune spat. "I'm not fighting for me. I'm fighting for THEM. And if I have to die so they can win this? Then I'll accept it."

Cinder smirked. "Is that so?"

Her foot pressed down harder, and Jaune realized he had made a grave error.

Cinder pivoted, dismissing the bow and replacing it with a javelin. It took her but a moment to figure out her target.

"You always were…out of your league," she chuckled.

Jaune knew exactly where she was throwing it. She didn't know about Kairi. She would have remembered, from her time at Beacon, who Jaune's first crush was. More importantly, that was the only one of Jaune's friends anywhere near where she was aiming.

Jaune struggled helplessly.

Cinder let the javelin fly.

Jaune screamed, "NO! WEEEEIIIIIISS!"

There was a horrible wet thud as the javelin connected with flesh and pierced it, spilling blood.

Weiss' eyes widened. She gasped.

She was unharmed.

Weiss turned on a heel, feeling her heart drop as she looked into Kazuichi's face, seeing the shaky smile he was giving her as the javelin stuck gruesomely through his body, spilling red from the side of his abdomen onto the floor.

He'd heard Jaune's scream. Known what was happening immediately. Thrown himself into the path of it.

"Close call, right?" he laughed weakly. "Almost thought that was gonna hit you." Then his eyes widened as it sank in. "Holy fuck, I'm gonna die – "

He collapsed to his knees. Then, as Cinder's javelin disintegrated, he toppled face-first onto the floor.

"Not…what I was aiming for," Cinder stated, "but…I'll take it."

"NO!" Weiss abandoned Vexen entirely, dropping to the floor to take Kazuichi up into her arms. "You IDIOT! You STUPID IDIOT! WHY?"

"Was I supposed to let you die?" he choked out. "That's…the one thing that couldn't happen…"

In the next moment, several things happened at once.

Vexen raised his ice-blade high, preparing to drive it into Weiss' back as she fussed over Kazuichi.

Raven had managed to kick Harbinger out of Qrow's hands, and now had him backed up against a wall, her blade at his throat. "Any last words?"

Kairi saw Kazuichi fall, saw Weiss clutch him. In that moment, the crushing reminder of her own failure, her own uselessness, was outright forgotten, replaced with concern for her friends. One of whom was dying. The other of whom was about to receive a deadly strike from someone she'd once considered family.

Her heart cried out, and Destiny's Embrace pointed to the ceiling.

The Attraction Flow burst from the floor in a rainbow of light. Nobody saw exactly how many Mad Tea Cups Kairi had summoned; they came spinning too fast to be counted. But everyone on the battlefield felt their effects.

Vexen was knocked aside by one with a yelp, ensuring Weiss' safety.

Raven was hit by a teacup in such a manner that she fell inside of it, and it spun her on the fastest course away from Qrow.

Overtakers and WHAM ARMY alike suffered the effects. When Kairi noticed Jafar trying to shield his face as a teacup sprayed orange-hot sparks of magic, all the while blasting at it with his staff to try and send it to oblivion, she realized that meant Donald was no longer engaged in battle. "DONALD!" she screamed. "DONALD, HELP!"

Kairi and Donald met where Weiss was now sobbing a river, Kazuichi losing consciousness in her grip. "Is there anything you can do?" Kairi asked hurriedly. "Heal him?"

"Oh, no…" Donald hung his head. "Not even a Zettacure could patch that up. We'd have to get him to a hospital and fast! Unless…" He perked up. "Oh, I know! Weiss! Get out of the way!"

Weiss happily obliged, standing and backpedaling. Anything, if there was hope of saving him.

Donald pointed his staff directly at Kazuichi, who, in one last moment of lucidity, felt the oncoming blast and yelled, "That's as COLD AS ICE – "

Then he was frozen solid, encased in a crystalline berg sized for him alone.

"That'll keep him stable until we can get him more help!" Donald announced. "He can be in there for a real long time now!"

"He BETTER be okay," Weiss seethed, "or you're gonna pay for that."

"Now we just gotta focus on protecting him!" Donald declared.

Enraged, Cinder abandoned Jaune, barreling toward the de facto leader of their group, with whom she had a bone to pick. Jafar had finally managed to blow the teacup to smithereens with an explosive fireball that demolished it from the inside out. Cinder hissed at him, "Time is up. We need…an advantage!"

"I will not take orders from one such as you," Jafar hissed.

With a yell, Hook went flying back to land on the floor beside them both. "Then how about me?" Hook asked, prying himself up. "Anything to spare the humiliation."

"Very well," Jafar resolved. "Open the pathway to the vault while I determine who here is the most expendable."

Cinder furrowed her brow, not liking the sound of that. Until she realized that in one case, she could in fact enjoy it. "Hazel," she croaked.

"I agree," Hook said. "He's a bit too soft for this sort of thing, isn't he?"

Hazel reappeared in the broken-down wall, stabbing himself with fire crystals to accompany the lightning and giving a roar that sounded like it came from three voices at once.

"…In the metaphorical sense," Hook corrected. "I mean that the only child he'll fight is the one that's an old man. Almost wish I'd had him on Neverland. At any rate…"

"It's no guarantee he'll perish," Jafar stated. "We simply need someone to hold the line while those who deserve the spoils take what is ours. All the same…I do so DESPISE granting others such power that could be saved for myself."

Hazel's next charge was interrupted when a tractor beam enveloped him and flung him toward its source: Jafar's staff.

"WHY?" Hazel roared. "I WAS ABOUT TO DESTROY OZPIN!"

"That's not what we're here to do, mate," Hook reminded him.

"Hazel," Cinder choked. "You're the only one I trust. You need to…protect us."

Something in him seemed to abate. He sounded almost rational as he said, "I will."

With an incantation, Jafar cast a new spell on Hazel, and what happened next, no one could tear their eyes away from.

Hazel bloomed, his body expanding to several times its usual size. His skin hardened, the Dust crystals stabbed into his skin melting to become part of Hazel himself. He was a mass of red and yellow, as though carved from massive Dust crystals rather than a human being, though still distinctly Hazel-shaped. The lights of the room flickered against his surfaces, making him seem almost like a monstrous flame.

The crystalline giant that had been Hazel gave a near-deafening roar.

Raven, who was finally dumped unceremoniously on the floor near the statue of the chained woman, realized the significance. "TO THE VAULT!" she yelled.

Upon hearing this, the Overtaker contingent – Vernal included – bolted for the statue, where Raven withdrew a golden pocket watch from her clothing and placed it within the stone pendant worn by the woman. The statue began to shift.

WHAM ARMY and Cinnamons alike gave chase, but this was what Hazel was for. He let his own pass, but when Roman reached him, he batted the man aside; Snatcher narrowly missed being crushed by a giant descending palm. Nora leapt, hammer drawn back; she was flicked across the room and out the very hole she'd created by smacking Hazel as revenge. Donald set off fireworks that did nothing to Hazel; Goofy and Jaune whirled around one another, shields out, only to be kicked aside and sent spinning across the room ("EEEAAHH-HOO-HOO-HOOOEEEE!"). The Huntsman came close to damaging Hazel, his staff leaving a gash in his ankle, but once Hazel had wised up, he made a point of avoiding the huntstaff in particular – and managed to figure out by that point he could throw fireballs, which he proceeded to do, first to get the Huntsman to retreat and second to attempt to light everyone else on fire.

"HEY, DUMBASS!"

Roman looked beyond Hazel to where Mercury was pointing at the statue. Said statue was retreating into the floor, turning the balcony into an elevator platform about to descend into the depths.

"You wanna know where we got the watch for this?" Mercury bragged. "After Raven found out about your dumbass duplicate, she doubled back and swiped it out of his office! And I bet you didn't even know what that thing did."

"You know, you did NOT have to rub that in," Roman groaned. "But you did anyway. I'd ALMOST respect it."

Raven, Vernal, Jafar, Hook, Cinder, Tyrian, Gothel, Mercury, and Lauriam piled onto the elevator platform. And Watts was about to follow.

Drakken, however, had run to the center of the room to yell up at Zorg, "WE NEED THE BIG GUNS!"

"Here comes the cavalry," Zorg said smugly as he withdrew a remote from his coat, pressing a red button.

Within seconds, the immense mecha that he and Drakken had designed burst through the wall. It was a truly impressive design: a streamlined version of a Paladin, with a black sheen that shone blue or purple in the right light. Its arms contained rotating-barrel turret guns, which immediately began to open fire on Hazel, shooting a rainbow of elemental Dust ammunition. From his station at the remote, Zorg assessed that all fire- and electricity-based attacks should be withheld so as not to power Hazel up further, and dialed them back, leaving only gravity, hard-light, ice, rock, and wind blasts firing rapidly.

Hazel stumbled as the barrage pulsed into his abdomen, which was beginning to show definite cracks.

The elevator descended. Watts simply nodded at those onboard, then rushed up the stairs to get into the building proper, up instead of down.

During all of this, Oscar had known enough to stay back. Hazel, realizing he was weakening at the hands of the bot, knew it was only a matter of time before he was out of the picture.

His last act was to locate Oscar, who cowered against the far wall. Hazel reached out toward him and lumbered in that direction, stepping around the others.

"OOOOOZPIIIIIN!" he roared. "YOU…DESTROYED…HERRRRRR!"

The cracks let a blinding fiery-orange light seep through Hazel. His vision clouded over with it, and he fumbled, grabbing blindly.

Then he erupted into a billion tiny shards, a beautiful rain over the Grand Hall.

"I…I'm sorry." It was coming from Oscar's mouth, but even he wasn't sure if it was himself or Ozpin talking. "You should never have gone through that pain."

He dropped to his knees and began to sob. The robot, sensing its target obliterated, ceased fire.

Hazel had caused quite the delay; the elevator was far down the newly-revealed shaft. "Madam Mim?" Snatcher prompted. "Surely you can solve this predicament for us."

Mim stomped her foot, and a second elevator platform appeared. A horrible combination of puce and black tile, with a cobweb pattern – not a spiderweb, but a cobweb – carved in.

"Let us put an end to this," the Huntsman seethed as he, Mim, Snatcher, Roman, Neo, Miltia, Vexen, Drakken, and Hannibal piled on. They then had to wait for an uncomfortably awkward period of time as Zorg made it back to the first floor; once he'd arrived, they were ready. This platform descended as well, bringing them out of sight.

Ruby gritted her teeth, holding Crescent Rose high and preparing to charge. Qrow, however, put a hand on her shoulder to hold her back. "What the hell are you thinking?" he snapped. "We're not going down there! We're lucky to have survived what just happened in one piece!"

"But – " Ruby attempted.

"Ruby?" Yuffie said softly. "Not everyone's in one piece."

"What do you – " She turned sharply. Saw the iceberg. Realized the significance of the flash of neon green inside of it.

"NO!"

As Ruby sped toward Kazuichi's ice-encased body, where Weiss, Kairi, and Donald were already gathered, the others filtered in as well. Qrow, Oscar, Booster, Yuffie, Ren, Goofy, Jaune. Some feet behind where they ringed up, Kokichi watched, shuffling a foot anxiously.

"Nononononono," Ruby babbled as she dropped to her knees beside the ice. "This wasn't supposed to happen – this can't be happening – "

Booster put a large, calm hand on her shoulder from behind, and she began to sob.

"It's going to be okay," Weiss asserted. "All we have to do is get him to help. He's NOT dying. That CAN'T happen."

Jaune knelt beside Kairi, taking her hand. "He'll be fine," he said softly.

But he sensed something else in Kairi's particular sobs, in the tears she shed. Then saw the red marks around her neck.

"Kairi?" He flinched hard. "What happened?"

"I couldn't do it," she wept. "I…you almost lost me too, and I…I'm just useless…"

He pulled her into a soft yet firm embrace. "It's okay," he told her, a hand running through her hair. "Nothing happened, and – and you didn't die – " His voice dropped low and became husky. "I will NOT let them hurt you again. No matter what."

"Uhhhh, guys?" Nora announced, walking back in through the broken wall. "Maybe this is a bad time, but…look what I found."

All eyes turned to her, and the person walking into the room with her.

"Ruby?" Blake said in disbelief. "Weiss?"

There was a pause. Then Ruby and Weiss leapt to their feet, shooting across the room to envelop Blake in a tight embrace.

She returned it. Then asked, "Where's Yang?"

"We…we don't know," Ruby told her.

"We'll find her," Weiss insisted. "For now…I'm glad we found YOU."

"I…" Blake choked on her own words. "I'm sorry. I never should've left – "
"We forgive you," Ruby said, and Weiss nodded.

"I say we move this operation out of here," Qrow suggested. "We've only got a limited amount of time until that ice melts. We can trade explanations on the way."

"But the relic," Oscar argued.

"Oz," Qrow told him. "I get how important the relic is. But if we all die protecting it, then there's nobody left to make sure the other three stay put."

"Qrow, I don't think – "

Oscar's rebuttal was cut short. Because the robot suddenly jerked back to life.

Everyone cowered, expecting the ammunition rain to begin again. But this time, the goal of the robot wasn't to simply destroy wantonly. After all, it was no longer in the hands of the WHAM ARMY.

The hands it was in were two floors up, the rings on their fingers dancing as Watts monitored the bot he'd hacked through surveillance cameras.

The immense robot turned and immediately crashed through the wall, storming the campus in a blatant attempt to draw the others away from the Vault. An attempt that was going to work, because if they didn't follow it at full strength, Haven would swiftly be leveled.

"We gotta stop that thing!" Goofy wailed.

"Let's go!" Donald encouraged.

"And LEAVE Kazuichi?" Weiss spat; she and Ruby let go of Blake. "That's probably what they want. We abandon him, he gets killed, and…"

"I'll get him to safety," Kairi said, rising. "It's about all I can do. I won't be any help against the robot. But I know enough simple magic to transport him out. I'll send a text once we're both safe, and you can come meet us in the city."

"Kairi," Jaune said softly.

"Please," Kairi insisted. "Let me do what I can actually do."

Jaune sighed. "We'll talk later. Just keep him safe for us. I know you can. I…I believe in you, Kairi. I really do."

She squeezed her eyes shut to prevent a new wave of tears. "GO!" she cried.

And the others went running after the mecha, Kokichi giving one last glance at Kairi and Kazuichi before he followed.

Kairi concentrated, levitating Kazuichi's ice capsule in an aura of white light. "I'll save you," she promised.

Then she steered him out of the lobby, leaving the Grand Hall empty and broken.