The dawn broke on Twilight Town, filling the sky with more blue and pink. It would settle to orange and gold later. And because it was never truly night in Twilight Town, daybreak occurred much earlier in the day.

It was clear neither Roman Torchwick nor Rachel Inlustris was built to be up this early. They were both falling asleep there at the break room table as Mozenrath was attempting to give instructions to them, Snatcher, Yzma, and Mim.

"That team setup should be fairly easy to understand," Mozenrath was saying. "Each of us will spread out to a different district of Twilight Town and put up the posters advertising WATYR Fest." He gestured to several tall, thick stacks of posters – not even all of them that the Liquidator had made. "And there's no way the people of this town won't see exactly what we're doing. We'll HAVE them."

"By the throat!" Snatcher added.

Rachel and Roman each put up a hand to wave assent.

"Let's see here…" Yzma picked up one of the posters, scanning it. "Lovely water aesthetic, though I was half hoping for something more avant-garde. Fire, for example."

"…Fire for the WATYR Fest," Mozenrath said dryly.

"Well, it sounds idiotic when you say it like THAT," Yzma scoffed.

"Free food?" Mim read off the poster. "Where are we getting free food?"

"Did you not see my internal memo?" Mozenrath groaned. "It was forwarded to everyone. Multiple times."

"Yes, well, I have your contact information filtered to go straight to trash," Mim informed him.

"Wha – WHY?" Mozenrath reeled.

"Because half the time you send messages," Mim told him, "it's to complain about things I don't care about."

"NO I DON'T – "

Yzma leaned over; "Can you show me how to set that filter on mine?"
Mozenrath's left hand met his face.

"If it's any consolation, milord," Snatcher broke in, "I always appreciate hearing your ravings and rantings."

"And I don't appreciate you sending me twice as many back," Mozenrath muttered, "but it's really not like I can stop you at this point."

Roman's head finally collapsed onto the table and he emitted a soft snore. Rachel pointed to him; "Can I do that?"

Mozenrath nodded to Snatcher. "They're on your team. Your call."

"I see no harm in it," Snatcher said. "After all, our district is more local – "

There was a FWUMP as Rachel hit the break-room couch and dropped unconscious immediately.

"Well, she certainly had the energy to do that," Mim chuckled. "She sleeps like such a little angel! It almost makes me NOT want to search her playlists for the loudest metal possible and blare it at a random interval to wake her up!"

"Do NOT," Snatcher warned. "Also, do be a lamb and conjure a pillow."

"No," Mim said.

"Here." Mozenrath passed over a blue velvet pillow with black tassels. Yzma gently lifted Roman's forehead up to scoot the pillow under his face. Snatcher had to reach over and reposition him so he wouldn't suffocate face-down on it.

"Now," Mozenrath said, "if that's all the shenanigans – no, wait, it's NEVER all the shenanigans. I'm finding the rest of my team and heading out for poster duty. The rest of you do what you want, but there had better be posters all over this town by the time the sun sets."

"Which one?" Yzma asked.

Mozenrath flinched. "THE NORMAL-SUNSET-TIME SUNSET." And with that, he stormed off mumbling.

"Let's go!" Mim leapt up from her seat. Yzma had to reel her away by the back of her dress to keep her from messing with the PA controls, and then they set out to look for their own teams.

Snatcher looked from Roman to Rachel. It was more than all right by him that half his team was asleep. He would just roam the shop a little, make certain everything was in working order, fire off a quick message to the fourth of their assigned team –

What he ended up doing was falling asleep on the floor and hoping he'd wake up before the others saw that he'd given in to the same temptation.

...

With half their shopping done, the Remnant crew in Twilight Town – Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, Weiss Schnee, Penny Polendina, Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, and Lie Ren – decided to bring their shopping bags to Tram Common to have a sit-down.

"Doesn't Scrooge have a business around here too?" Nora asked. "I could sure go for some ice cream…"

"He runs a movie projector, actually," Ruby answered.

"I could also go for a movie!" Nora said. "Especially if there's popcorn!"

"Weren't you just at the movies?" Ren asked her.

"CAN YOU EVER HAVE TOO MANY MOVIES?" Nora argued.

"Was that a figure of speech?" Penny asked. "Because I can think of many negative effects to devoting twenty-four hours per day to watching movies."

"It was," Ren told her. "But it's okay. Sometimes it's hard to tell."

"I'd be down if we wanted to catch a movie," Jaune said.

"Me too," Blake added.

Weiss shrugged; "Why not? These bags are getting heavy anyway."

"I'm carrying half your bags," Blake reminded her.

"Why?" Nora asked. "I'm the one who can actually haul that much weight around."

"That's a good point," Blake realized. "Won't matter if we're watching a movie anyway."

"I'm gonna go check to make sure we can catch the beginning of one!" Ruby zipped away, then immediately back. "GUESS WHAT? They're showing one in ten minutes!"

"What kind?" Blake asked. "Action? Comedy?"

"Superhero," Ruby told her. "Something called 'Bolt: The Motion Picture.' I'm guessing it's based on a TV show? But the best part is the superhero is a DOG!"

"That sounds delightful!" Penny gasped.

"And absolutely a Ruby choice of movie," Weiss teased.

"Heyyy!" Ruby retorted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means we need to hurry up," Ren insisted, "or we'll miss it."

"Nora," Jaune sighed, "please try to not get us kicked out of this one."

"I can only promise to try," Nora replied as they set out across the common.

Meanwhile, crossing the common at exactly the right time that they would've seen the Remnant contingent had the latter been a little bit slower, Harley Quinn and Yang Xiao Long each walked a hyena. Bud and Lou were very excited to be out, and had already attempted to bite several civilians, but Harley and Yang held tight to the leashes and were sure to scold them properly.

"You two are sure cranky!" Harley remarked. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you was hungry!"

"Maybe they are," Yang theorized. "I kinda am."

"…Me too," Harley realized. "You wanna stop at the fancy rich-duck French place?"

"Can we spare that much of the Terminus Fund?"

"You didn't hear?" Harley gaped. "Emmy's been bringin' in a ton more money from pickpocketing! We can order the whole menu!"

"Cool." Yang flinched.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just…" Yang sighed. "I get it. Emerald is trying her best to do what's right for her. And it sounds like she never really…wanted the Fall of Beacon to go the way it did. But still I have to wonder sometimes…she's part of the reason I have this." She shrugged her metal arm. "I know I can't hold that against her. But…"

"It's a big house," Harley told her. "If you gotta have some space from her, then do it."

"Thanks. I don't want her to think I hate her or anything."

"She won't," Harley promised. "I'll clock some sense into her if she complains. Also, she's been distracted by Velvet lately."

"Wait, what?"

"I ship 'em." Harley winked.

"Velvet already has two girlfriends," Yang reminded her. Then she realized: "Which…means she's open to having more than one in the first place." She grinned. "They'd be a pretty good match, now that I think about it."

"Hey, look!" Harley pointed with the arm that wasn't walking a hyena. "There's the French place!"

"Outdoor table?" Yang suggested.

"Indoor would be more fun with the boys," Harley said with a nod to the hyenas. "Buuuut it'd probably get us banned for life, so let's see how the food is first."

"Good call."

They chose a table, tying the hyena leashes to its base, and picked up the menus lying there. Yang flinched at hers. "Uhhh…are these code words?"

"It's French!" Harley told her. "That's right…ain't no France where you're from."

"Okay," Yang replied. "Since you know what this stuff is, how about you let me know what the best thing on the menu is?"

Harley felt mischief creeping up within her. "You should get the Sweetbread Poêlé."

Yang smirked. "Now, why do I get the feeling that's actually something really gross you're telling me to order as a prank?"

"Naaaaaaw!" Harley protested.

"Okay," Yang told her. "Gimme a second choice in case."

"Well, you can't really go wrong with a crab bisque. I think Giovanni would agree if he was here."

"So it's soup," Yang inferred. "Got it. In that case, it's a BISQUE I'm willing to take."

Harley snorted.

"Whaaaat?" Yang grinned. "No bisque, no reward."

Harley was losing it laughing by the time Tallulah Robinson rolled out to them on her tram-skates, the replica of the bell tower still nestled in her orange hair. "Hi there!" she greeted. "What can I get for you two?"

"I'll take one sweetbread poêlé," Yang said, "and ALSO a crab bisque, in case one of them ends up being a prank."

Tallulah wrote that down.

"I'm feelin' adventurous," Harley said. "I'm gonna try the seafood tartare. Nice hat, by the way!"

"Thanks!" Tallulah adjusted the tower in her hair. "I made it myself."

"And you're makin' part-time as a WAITRESS?" Harley gaped.

"Well, one thing at a time," Tallulah replied with a smile. "Any drinks? Appetizers?"

Yang looked again to Harley for guidance; "What would you wanna split?"

"Let's go for a caprese salad," Harley told her. "Veggies an' strawberries. Winning combo! Oh, and one more thing. Could we get a filet mignon poêlé for the boys?"

"Sure!" Tallulah jotted it down. "Those are such cute dogs – " Suddenly she flinched. "HYENAS?"

Lou sniffed at her hand, then licked it. Tallulah edged away. "Sorry," she squeaked. "There's a good reason my mom doesn't work with hyenas anymore!"

"LOU." Harley snapped her fingers. "DOWN! The waitress isn't the food; she BRINGS the food!"

Lou sat down immediately.

"We'll tip extra," Yang promised.

A short distance away, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Nora, Jaune, Ren, and Penny were in the midst of Bolt: The Motion Picture, which had turned out very enjoyable. There had also been more than enough fresh buttered popcorn to go around.

The film concerned a young girl, younger than Ruby by a good margin, who was a secret agent partnered with Bolt, a superpowered dog. Penny Polendina in particular had been glad to hear that the film character's name was also Penny, which she whispered to the others was "Objectively the best name you can give a heroine. …That is a joke."

Blake did flinch every time Bolt let off a supersonic bark, her feline ears lying flat in her dark hair, but she was entranced by the film's villain, Dr. Calico, who also had a feline feature in the form of one slitted-pupil eye. He was a very vile villain, and sometimes his methods put Blake in mind of Adam, so when Penny (the fictional one) finally showed up to deliver him a satisfying punch to the face, Blake grinned.

"Hey!" Nora whispered over to Blake and Weiss. "Are you getting the same vibe I'm getting off the henchmen?" Referring to the pack of quirky minor villains Calico employed, of course.

"You mean the undeniable sexual tension between Chartreux and Devon-Rex?" Blake whispered back with a little smirk.

"Exactly!" Nora squeaked. "I knew you'd get it!"

"Excuse me?" Weiss hissed. "No! That's platonic energy! Devon-Rex goes way better with Bob Tail!"

"Says you," Nora teased.

Ruby's eyes practically sparkled as fictional Penny, Bolt, and Dr. Calico had an epic showdown at the heart of a toxin factory. There became a vehicle involved, and it smashed through the wall, taking the fight out to a conveniently-placed canyon with a lot of rocky ledges to leap from and look cool doing so. "I am SO writing a story based on me and Zwei in this movie when I get home," Ruby whispered to Jaune.

"Shhhh!" Jaune hissed. "This is the best part!" Then, a little too loudly; "YEAH! GO GET 'EM, PENNY!"

"Jaune!" Ren snapped. "Quiet! I'm trying to watch!" He then re-riveted his gaze to the screen.

At the bistro, Tallulah put down the sweetbread, bisque, and tartare on the table. Then considered putting the filet mignon down on the ground by the hyenas, but thought better of it, setting it on the table so Harley could do that herself. And judging by how fast Bud and Lou leapt into action when Harley flung the steak down at them and yelled "SNACK TIME!", Tallulah was glad she'd kept her hands away.

She skated off, and Yang poked the sweetbread with a fork. "Yep," she said. "Called it. You were trying to get me to eat something gross. What is this, a brain?"

"Pancreas," Harley giggled.

"So it turns out my GUT feeling was right." Yang winked. "Well, I'm not gonna let you win this one." She dug in a fork, scooping a heaping helping of pancreas into her mouth. Her eyes widened; "Okay, that's WEIRDLY good."

"Gimme!" Harley urged, not having expected that reaction.

They split the pancreas, as they had done with their salad earlier. Then Yang started in on her soup; "I should ask Giovanni to make this so I can tell who did it better."

"Y'know if this place beats him," Harley pointed out, "he ain't gonna stop until he does it better."

"Which might be part of the reason I wanna bring it up," Yang said with a wink. "We could get this in our own home."

"You sneak!"

The film ended, and the audience filtered back out into Tram Common. "That was SO EPIC!" Ruby cried.

"That was just a movie you feel good after watching," Jaune added enthusiastically.

"For the LAST TIME!" Weiss groaned. "DevonTail is SO much better than Devontreux! It's got more spice to it!"

"Devontreux would be classic friends-to-lovers," Blake argued.

"And hot together," Nora added.

"Guys!" Ren barked. "Stop arguing about this!" He sighed. "It's so dumb because Weiss is obviously right."

"HA!" Weiss cried.

"I thought it was very inspiring," Penny said. "If that Penny, who is younger than all of us and not trained for combat, could accomplish so much, then that says a lot about what we can do if we try!"

"That's why action movies are glorious," Ruby told her. "We've really gotta get you to see more movies."

"The best part is that I recorded this on my hard drive so I can recall all the best parts," Penny said with a smile.

Ruby's eyes widened. "Penny, you realize you just pirated it, right?"

"Is that…bad?" Penny asked.

"Depends on who you ask," Blake replied. "I'm just wondering…are you able to make copies?"

"And if you are, can I PLEEEEASE have one?" Ruby begged.

"Sure thing!" Penny told her. "We can watch it again at a good old-fashioned slumber party!"

"Okay, I'm starving," Weiss sighed. "Who wants to go get some food? There's a nice-looking restaurant over there."

"Pretty expensive-looking restaurant," Ren pointed out.

"I'll treat," Jaune told him. "I've been picking up some spare cash from Leon while helping out with the rebuilding effort."

They headed toward Le Grand Bistrot, and Blake was the first to smell the food. "Mmm…that smells so good," she remarked.

"Okay, the hunger just hit," Jaune said.

"Can we get tables outside?" Nora asked.

"We'd have to push two together," Ren noted. "And only one's open right now."

"I will scan for people who look almost finished with their meals." Penny looked around the front courtyard of the restaurant. "Aha! There! That woman who looks like Yang Xiao Long just took the check! Both her plate and that of her partner are clean!"

Ruby's heart just about stopped. "Penny?" Her voice was hoarse. "I think…that IS Yang."

Yang, having heard several familiar voices – especially a higher one that cut through the rest of the noise – told Harley, "Hang on. I could swear that sounds like – "

And then she turned, locking eyes with Ruby.

"Oh – oh my gosh – " Ruby's eyes watered as she pressed her hands to her mouth.

"Is it…really…?" Blake half-whispered.

"RUBY!" Yang launched herself out of the chair, flying to her sister, enveloping her in the tightest embrace she could muster. "Oh my gods, Ruby, I was so worried about you – "

"All I heard was that you got sucked into some kind of unstable portal!" Ruby choked. "I kept saying I knew we'd find you, but I was so worried that we wouldn't, and you were gone!"

Yang backed off, looking to Weiss. "Sorry I left you hanging," she said, eyes misty.

"Just let me in!" Weiss charged into the group embrace.

Then, finally, Yang looked over to Blake. The first glance she gave was cold and uncertain.

"Yang," Blake said softly, "I'm sorry. I really messed up, and I know you might never want to forgive me after what I did, but – "

"Blake," Yang said, extending her arm. "Get in the hug. We'll talk later."

Blake rushed to them, and there they were, Team RWBY whole once more, embracing in Twilight Town, and it felt almost too good to be real. Team JNPR watched on, smiling softly.

"How'd you guys get here anyway?" Yang asked. "You – you guys were going to Haven!"

"We did," Ruby replied. "And…a lot of stuff happened. Not all good stuff. But some good stuff." Then it hit her, what she'd have to tell Yang. But not yet. "What about you? How'd you get to Twilight Town?"

"Stuff happened," Yang explained. "Mostly good. Some of it…well, actually, we kicked ass when the bad stuff happened, so I can't really complain. Oh, and you guys are never gonna believe this, but…" She broke away, waving Harley over. "Harley! Come meet my team!"

Harley trotted over, though the spring in her step was somewhat manufactured. She'd known this day would come. Yang's first friends, her truest friends, would show back up, and then Harley would have to realize how secondary the Heathens came in. And to make matters worse, here was the other woman. Blake, the one who seemed to be the love of Yang's life. The illusion was about to shatter.

"Harley," Yang said, "I'd like you to meet my sister Ruby and my friends, Weiss, Blake, Jaune, Nora, and Ren." She did a double take. "Wait, what the hell? PENNY? YOU'RE ALIVE?"

"And combat-ready!" Penny saluted.

"Penny's here too!" Yang announced. "Guys, this is my girlfriend, Harley Quinn. She and I have been through a LOT. We're – "

Oh. Oh, the Heathens would be hard to explain. "We…made a lot of friends," Yang explained. "We hang out in this town now."

"Nice to meetcha!" Harley put out her hand. "Oh, that'd be a lotta handshakes…eh, pick a rep and it'll count for all of ya."

Ruby zipped to shake Harley's hand enthusiastically while Blake gaped on. Yang had gotten a girlfriend. Blake had run away, and Yang had fallen in love with someone else. And all Blake could think was that this was what she deserved. Or, if not deserved, what she should have expected, when she'd disappeared.

"So," Harley said, "I, ah…I guess you'll wanna go with your sister and your pals, then."

Yang nodded. "You get it."

Harley could feel her heart breaking. "Yeah, I do. I know we got somethin' real special – or I hope we had somethin' – but that's your family right there. Can't turn your back on 'em."

"We have a lot to talk about," Yang said. "Might take a couple of days."

"Yeah…"

"So I'll come back, let's say…morning after tomorrow?"

Harley flinched. "What?"

Yang snorted. "The look on your face. You look like you were expecting me to leave permanently."

"So you're NOT coming back with us?" Weiss said indignantly.

"I told you," Yang said. "I have a life here with Harley now. It's…complicated, but this last journey changed a lot of things. I wouldn't give you guys up, though. Think of it like part-time custody. I'm gonna stay at your place for a couple of days, and then we can meet up here, and I'll stay over with you again."

"That…" Blake shuffled a foot. "That makes sense."

Ruby gave a sigh. "Yeah. It does."

"Hey." Yang ruffled Ruby's hair. "One day, you'll get a partner, and you'll get it."

"Actually…" Ruby smiled rather mischievously. "I have a boyfriend."

"WHAT?" Yang burst out laughing. "Okay, I missed WAY too much! You gotta tell me about this boyfriend!"

"Weiss has one too," Ruby said cheekily.

"WHAT THE – " Yang's laughter got harder. "You two cleaned UP while I was gone!" She looked to Blake, asking the question with eyes alone.

Blake averted her own gaze, and Yang understood perfectly. So she dropped the subject.

"Hey!" Nora suggested. "While these four catch up, whaddaya say we finish out our shopping? Y'know…" She gave a wink.

"Oh!" Jaune realized. "Right!"

"We still have a lot of errands to run!" Penny said.

"I thought we got just about everything," Weiss replied in confusion.

"No, we didn't," Ren said hastily.

"Something's going on with all of you!" Weiss accused.

"Or is something going on with YOU?" Nora retorted.

"I'm lost too," Yang admitted.

Ruby leaned up to her ear on tiptoe; "I'll explain later."

"We should all pick up some food before we go, though," Jaune suggested. "Hopefully they'll let us take it out as doggy bags."

"We got offered that," Yang explained. "Not sure why you couldn't. And if they say no, I'll strongarm 'em. This place has got pretty good food, by the way. You should all try the sweetbread!"

And even though poêlé wasn't a concept they knew on Remnant, the Schnees ran in the circle of the elite few who did eat the rarer parts of cattle, so Weiss was quick to say "Don't fall for it. It's pancreas."

Yang turned to Harley. "You gonna be good for the next couple days?" she asked sweetly. "Promise I'll be back."

"I'll be fine!" Harley insisted. "You go have fun! Just be sure to come back."

Yang leaned forward to suddenly kiss Harley, which caught Harley off guard, sending her heart into overdrive. She put out her arms to embrace Yang, who returned the gesture, and just when the others were wondering how long they'd have to watch Yang and her girlfriend make out, the two of them parted. "Love you!" Yang said as she waved a goodbye.

"Love ya too!" Harley walked back to the table to undo Bud and Lou's leashes.

"Are those…hyenas?" Blake wondered out loud.

"Yeah, we have…a lot to talk about," Yang admitted, scratching the back of her head.

...

The door of Artez & Craftz opened with a jingle, and the newly scrubbed and polished White Turtlez turned eagerly to see who was entering.

"I'm telling you, pants should be optional," Roman said as he led the way.

"No," Rachel groaned. "They really, really shouldn't."

"Spare the lady such a sight, will you?" Tony urged.

"Well, you know I'd find it a pleasant view…" Snatcher nudged Roman lightly.

"What do you call them, again?" Tony remarked. "Allos?"

"…YOU'RE an allo," Rachel reminded him.

"Still." He shrugged.

"YOU GUYZ!" White Turtlez rushed up to them, reaching up to seize Tony's forearms in his own mitts (he had to reach up quite a distance, given his height) and attempt to shake him (the key word being "attempt"). "Oh, thank goodness it'z you! I gotz a big problem! Big, I tell yaz!"

"Is this related to how you haven't been delivering our cut of your business?" Tony asked, a brow raising. "Because that's why we stopped off here."

"Also I kinda wanted to look at craft supplies," Rachel added. "But mostly you're late on payment."

"There's big reasonz for that!" White Turtlez protested. "A rival gang just moved into town! I ain't gotz a good read on who'z in charge, but they've sent a fella to tell me to send your cut to them or else! You gotz to help me! I wanna stay loyal to you guyz, especially since ya polished my shell up all nice! But I've had to raise prices by double just to get a little extra scrap to pass on to youz! Here!" He shuffled off to the register stand. One could have assumed he'd meant to run, but he was, after all, a Turtlez.

"So there is a rival," Tony murmured. "This could get interesting."

"Do we have to crack some heads?" Rachel asked. "You need me to do a fake voice on the phone to lure them somewhere?"

"Now, don't go claiming you can do so better than I could," Snatcher told her. "Mr. Dracon, if you should need such a service, do turn to me."

Rachel glared up at him indignantly before saying in her best Cockney impression, "Is that so? You doubt my abilities?"

And Snatcher volleyed her own Twilight accent (which sounded basically American) back at her: "I should say I do."

So she retorted, in a Russian accent, "Please. Have nothing on me."

In Frou Frou's voice, Snatcher replied, "Darling, until you've reached THIS level of mastery, you can't even speak!"

And they kept back-and-forth like that until White Turtlez shuffled back with a small bag. "It'z all I could muster," he wailed, offering it up to Tony.

Tony weighed the bag in his hand; Roman peered over his shoulder at it. "That doesn't look like much," Roman observed.

"It's not much," Tony replied. "I'm not sure this in and of itself fixes our little problem."

"Oh, please!" White Turtlez begged. "They'll do me in if I don't pay up! Please, get rid of 'em for me an' spare my little life!"

"I don't know…" Tony's inflection was playful. "I think we'll need something to spice up the offer."

"You still getz your discount!" White Turtlez insisted. "I swearz! I only charge people who ain't affiliates!"

"A little better…" Tony smirked.

"Name your price!" White Turtlez begged, rivers of tears flowing down his cheeks. "Anythin' but the munny I don't got!"

"Well, you said the others had been in contact with you," Tony reminded him, "but you don't know who the leader is."

"No! I don't!" White Turtlez sobbed. "Only that she goez by the nickname 'Queen of Gotham'!"

Tony's brow furrowed, momentarily. He remembered where he'd heard that. Then he was back to his playful grin; "How about as they keep coming to collect, you wear them down for information? Act loyal. Pay the piper. And get the name."

"Oh, I can do that!" White Turtlez cried with joy. "Oh, thank you, THANK YOU!" He flung his arms around Tony's waist.

Tony put a hand on his head and gently pushed him away. "I'll thank you once you hand me that name."

(He'd thought about if White Turtlez needed to die for the transgression. But if he was right, it looked like this Queen of Gotham was on his tail, winning every associate he had in this town, and would continue to do so even if he replaced them all. That wasn't a good business model. The best course of action for now was to try and figure out how to liberate them from the Queen's clutches and stop her from getting any more of the pawns on the board.)

"That impression was PALTRY!" Snatcher scoffed in Mim's voice.

"Paltry, is it?" Rachel yelled back in Yzma's rasp. "PALTRY?"

"OKAY, STOP!" Roman yelled, pointing at both of them. "This is starting to get creepy!"

"Well, we still have our discount," Tony pointed out. "I say while we're here, we take advantage of it. We can get back to hanging posters in the park once we've taken our fill."

"LET'S GO!" Rachel scurried off into the aisles.

Once the four of them were properly lost in the store, White Turtlez sighed with relief. It seemed like things were looking up for him. He wasn'g going to die, and in fact could play a vital role in the operation!

Another jingle alerted him to new customers, and these, he could make pay the higher fees! "Helloz!" he greeted with a wave. "Welcome to – "

He froze. His skin blanched nearly as white as his cleaned-up shell. "No…" he hissed hoarsely. "NO…NOT YOU GUYZ…"

"Well, well." Velvet Crowe smirked at him, flicking a hand in the barest effort of a wave. "Look who it is after all these years." Magilou, Eleanor Hume, and Emerald Sustrai filled in behind her.

"Y-Y-Y-YOU'RE DEAD!" White Turtlez protested.

"Did you really think the marvelous Magilou could die for real?" Magilou taunted. "I was just waiting to make my grand re-entrance!" She then leaned over to Velvet; "Who's this guy again?"

"A traveling merchant from our world," Velvet replied. "He would always have everything we needed…at a price just slightly too high."

"Now that's just wrong!" Eleanor grunted. "Independent thievery is one thing, but white-collar crime and exploitation of consumers? That's morally corrupt! I'd better not find anything overpriced in here!"

"YOU DON'T EVEN HAFTA BUY ANYTHIN'!" White Turtlez protested. "PLEASE! IT'S JUST A CRAFTZ STORE!"

"Which is why it had better be selling at reasonable rates," Velvet threatened. "I have a friend who needs a craft-store fix, and he rarely has two cents to rub together." She flinched. "He already spent his share of the Terminus Fund on a race-car bed…"

"Well, it does tie the mansion together," Magilou said mischievously.

"I mean…" Emerald put up her fingers. "We can always exercise our five-finger discount."

White Turtlez was sure she'd just said something, and to him, it had sounded like "I think we should pay up what he's asking," but it felt strangely hazy, and he had a headache to boot. "Listen to the lady!" he urged. "She'z got a point!"

Emerald winked, and Velvet, Magilou, and Eleanor all knew that what White Turtlez had heard hadn't really been what Emerald had said.

"You're right," Velvet said. "She does."

"I say we get our shop on," Magilou said. "Giovanni will want a full report, after all…and if we find something that catches our fancy, well, how can we leave it behind?"

"But I'm watching you," Eleanor grunted at White Turtlez. "If I find out you're committing extortion, I'll have you reported to the proper authorities!"

White Turtlez gulped. Considering his current affiliations, he didn't want that. "You ladiez, uh, enjoy your stay!"

Eleanor went right for the first aisle she saw, which contained bushels of fake greenery and faux flowers of all colors. "How wonderful!" she gasped, eyes sparkling. "These would make our mansion look so nice, don't you think? If I put some of these up, what color should it be?"

"Uggghhh," Magilou groaned. "Nobody cares about fake plants."

"These blue ones?" Eleanor picked out a handful. "Or how about the red? Hmm, let's see. Blue…red…"

"Just pick one and go," Velvet grumbled.

"Actually," Eleanor muttered, "these violets might be a perfect compromise…or should I go with all three?"

"Eleanor," Emerald hissed. "We don't wanna hang out in the fake plant aisle. We want to look at stuff for actual crafts."

"This IS for actual crafts!" Eleanor insisted. "It's for floral arrangements that won't wilt! Making them is an art! And a good bouquet can really liven up a place and improve people's moods!"

"Then just take some of each color and let's go!" Emerald groaned.

"Fine," Eleanor whined. "But don't think I don't get to rush YOU in YOUR aisles!" She hemmed and hawed over the display, making sure she'd gotten an armful of each color she wanted.

"We're going to end up needing a cart," Velvet sighed. "Let's double back."

So once Eleanor had a suitable bouquet's worth, they did so. As they went to fetch the cart, they completely missed the other four patrons of the store walking into the same aisle.

"Is it just me, or is half this fucking store gardening stuff?" Roman shrugged. "Well, at least they improve the atmosphere." Without thinking, he reached out to a red rose on the display, plucked it –

"Roman," Snatcher attempted, "you do know that's – "

Roman took a deep whiff of the flower. Then it sank in. "This is fake, isn't it?"

Tony and Rachel were snickering. "The fact that they were sitting out of water wasn't your first clue?" Tony teased.

"Shut up," Roman grumbled. "I did that on purpose, you know."

"REALLY?" Rachel barked. "Are you REALLY sticking to that story?"

Roman turned around and chucked the flower at them. Tony caught it, turning to brush aside Rachel's bangs and tuck it behind her ear. She froze, all systems offline from the interaction.

Roman stormed ahead but was stopped by a different rose, black in color, held out in his path. "I should think you more than deserve this, my dear," Snatcher said coyly.

"Aww, just what I needed!" Roman cheered up, fixing the rose into the band of his hat. "And y'know what?" He plucked a false lily. "I think after everything, you deserve just a LITTLE white on that hat."

There was a cry of "Think fast!" and Roman, thinking fast, turned to catch a false pear that had been tossed his way.

"Why?" Roman asked Tony.

"Figured you might wanna try and take a bite." Tony winked. Rachel, behind him, squished the fake grapes.

"Fuck off." Roman chucked the pear at Tony's head; Tony caught it with one hand before it could hit. "You smell one fake flower and you never live it down."

They of course skipped entirely the aisle filled with fake birds for yard ornamentation. This left it wide open for Velvet's group to come down that aisle, yet again missing the other contingent completely.

Velvet ran a hand over some of the bird replicas. "Emerald," she said suddenly. "I have a question for you."

"Yeah?" Emerald replied.

"Why do you think birds fly?" Velvet asked.

"Wh – " Emerald did a double take. "Why?"

"It's a question I've found everyone answers differently," Velvet said. "I want to know what your answer is."

"Well, the real answer has to do with some aerodynamic shit," Emerald replied. "But…if you ask me, birds fly because it's an escape from what's on the ground."

Velvet nodded. "The way you did?"

"Yeah. More or less."

"How much of your life have you spent fighting, anyhow?" Magilou asked.

"As long as I can remember," Emerald answered.

"That wouldn't leave much time for self-expression, would it?" Magilou went on.

"Oh!" Eleanor flinched. "I get it! We're in a craft store! The things they sell here are for people to have fun and make art with! If you've missed out on that your whole life, then you should have some?"

Emerald shifted from foot to foot. "You're right," she muttered. "I've never needed any of this stuff before. Never had time."

"Well, what do you want?" Velvet asked.

"I don't know," Emerald admitted. "I haven't thought about it."

"Well, you'd better make your mind up before we leave the store." Though the words were harsh, Velvet's tone suggested a lilting taunt.

Emerald nodded. "I will."

A sharp gasp from Magilou got the attention of the group; she'd turned around to see the other side of the aisle was lined with strings of tiny lights, some of them illuminated for display. "Now, THIS is an art form worthy of Magilou!" Magilou cried. "All I need is the proper container, and then I can bring a veritable RAINBOW into the mansion! It'll get way more attention than some fake flowers!"

"Hey!" Eleanor stuck her tongue out as Magilou began to collect lights.

"Hold on!" Rachel said, halting Tony, Snatcher, and Roman before the display of colored party plates. "We're gonna need some of these for WATYR if the catering actually gets delivered. Which I doubt."

"Well, I should think the color scheme we're going for should be obvious," Snatcher said.

"Couldn't agree more!" Roman said.

Snatcher reached out to pluck a pack of red plates. "I should say this would – "

He turned to face Roman, who was holding up one pack of white and one of black.

"I say go with the red," Tony urged.

Rachel cleared her throat, holding up a pack of royal blue plates.

"I'm not changing my mind on this," Tony told her.

"…But Lord Mozenrath would prefer the blue," Snatcher realized, "and I think we all know it."

He casually tossed his red plates onto the floor, and Roman did so with the white and black. White Turtlez could earn his place in the syndicate even further by cleaning up after them.

As they passed by the confetti display, Snatcher simply said "Need this" and put a pack of rainbow in their cart.

"I'm not gonna question that," Tony remarked.

Eleanor, Velvet, Emerald, and Magilou had made it to the sticker aisle. "Now this is something I always wanted but never got to mess with," Emerald remarked. "Stickers."

"Well?" Velvet gestured. "Get on it."

Emerald reached out, taking a pack into her hands. Butterflies. "Yeah, I like these."

"What're you gonna stick 'em on?" Magilou asked.

"Dunno yet," Emerald replied. "It's kind of a big commitment. Can't waste your first pack of stickers."

"Hey, Magilou!" Eleanor said. When Magilou turned around, Eleanor slapped Magilou's forehead. She'd exercised her right as a technical villain to open up one of the sticker packs without paying for it, and had put one on Magilou's face.

"What did you just put on me?" Magilou asked, already offended.

"Let me look." Velvet walked around to get a better view. Then she sighed. "It says 'Believe in yourself.'"

"Because you should!" Eleanor said cheerily. "Oh, and Velvet – "

Smack.

"What does mine say?" Velvet asked gruffly.

"It says 'Be you'!" Eleanor smiled. "And that leaves…"

Emerald hadn't thought she would get one. After all, those three had a relationship already, and she was a fourth wheel. (Which was how many wheels a car usually had, come to think of it.) But then Eleanor rushed up to her and SMACK.

"What's mine say?" Emerald asked.

"It says 'Shine bright'!" Magilou laughed. "It's funny because you'll never shine as bright as I do!"

"Here." Velvet sliced open a pack of circus-themed stickers, peeling one away and placing it on Magilou's cheek.

"Is that a reference to my show-woman-ship and natural talent as a performer?" Magilou asked.

"No," Velvet said flatly. "It's a reference to the fact that you're a clown."

Magilou gasped; "THOSE ARE FIGHTING WORDS!" Lightning-quick, she grabbed and sliced a pack of stickers meant for Halloween. One that read "Creepy" in bloody red letters was peeled off and slapped onto Velvet's collarbone.

"Sticker war!" Eleanor couldn't bring herself to insult anyone, so she put a sparkling purple star on Emerald's chin. Emerald retaliated with a butterfly over Eleanor's nose.

Rachel held up a pad of Halloween-themed construction paper; "I want this."

"What are you even gonna do with that?" Roman asked.

"I dunno," Rachel replied. "I just need it."

"Not more than I do." Roman plucked it from her hands.

"What are YOU even gonna do with that?" Rachel retorted.

"Stationery," Roman replied.

"That's not what it's made for!" Rachel made a grab for it. Roman pulled height on her, whipping it up out of her reach while making a run for the next aisle. Snatcher and Tony hurried after them.

Snatcher, Roman, Tony, and Rachel exited the sticker aisle, not without their own marks of combat. They'd passed up the cutesy patterns and gone right for letters to spell insults on one another. Snatcher was "JERK," Roman "HIMBO," Tony "ASS" and Rachel "DITZ." (Roman had intended to call Tony an ASSHOLE but he was too good at evasion.)

They turned the corner and Snatcher's eyes went wide at the sparkling treasure trove before them: row upon row of rhinestones on one side of the aisle and sequins on the other.

"It's occurred to me," Snatcher said as academically as possible, "that Madame Frou Frou could use an upgrade. These items could be…useful." Then with all the fervor of a cat in a catnip patch, he began to hastily load the cart with every color of rhinestone and sequin he passed. "Oh, yes, this shall CERTAINLY make a statement…"

"Do you even know what you're gonna make with those?" Tony asked skeptically.

"Must I have plans drawn in exactitude for every inkling I get?" Snatcher defended. "They'll be put to use. That's all you need care about."

"So in other words, no," Tony inferred.

"I don't see any reason to have blueprints down to the letter!" Snatcher argued. "After all, I am a rather spontaneous sort!"

"No," Roman told him. "You're not. You usually DO have blueprints drawn up for all your ideas."

"THEY'LL GO TO USE," Snatcher insisted once he'd cleared out half the stock. Then he moved to buttons; "Might as well take some of these – "

"Hey, Archie," Roman asked. "Hypothetical question. If you had to pick a pair of these buttons to replace your eyes, which one?"

Snatcher blinked at him. "First off, I'm not certain where that question's come from. You're most likely confusing me with someone else. Second, quite OBVIOUSLY these." He held up several red buttons that sparkled with inset glitter.

"REVEEEEEENGE!" Magilou's war cry sent Velvet, Eleanor, and Emerald scattering; the mage came barreling down with a large rubber stamp slathered in red ink. She'd wanted it to be the silliest non sequitur available, so she'd chosen a giant squirrel.

Eleanor tripped down another aisle, sprawling out. "No!" she cried. "NO! SPARE ME! MAGILOU, NOOOOOO!"

Velvet and Emerald watched from but two feet away; Emerald was using her Semblance to ensure neither of the other two saw them. "I owe you one," Velvet remarked.

"I'll let you know when I've thought of how you could pay me back," Emerald said mischievously.

In the now-vacated stamp aisle, Tony got Rachel's attention. "Hey. Cupcake."

"Yeah – "

She turned to face him and felt a stamp pressed to her cheek. "Now everyone knows what you are," he told her with a smirk.

Rachel sighed. "It's a cupcake, isn't it?"

And it was. Deep blue ink. Sprinkles and a cherry clearly visible.

"Just be careful," Tony warned her, "or Roman might try to eat it."

"Okay, I feel like we've lost the original thread that it was a fake flower that got me," Roman broke in.

Snatcher breezed past, dropping a pair of scissors with shining gold handles into the cart. "Need these."

"For WHAT?" Roman asked.

"It's more of a 'why not' sort of situation," Snatcher explained. He then dropped a large bottle of red glitter atop the stack. "Need this also."

"For the last TIME!" Eleanor yelled at Magilou as they stormed through the construction paper. "I am DEAD SERIOUS about starting a crime scrapbook! I don't joke about scrapbooking!"

"Hey, look!" Roman gestured up to an absolutely enormous picture frame. "This is ALMOST the minimum required size to hold a portrait of Righty!"

Rachel broke down into laughter, then slowly realized, "Oh…oh, you're dead serious. There's a minimum requirement?"

"Each founder has their minimum portrait size on record," Snatcher stated. "It's simply a necessity to know."

"I'm good with wallet size," Roman stated.

"Dear, dear Roman," Snatcher said as he sidled up to his boyfriend, "you think far too small."

"Well," Roman remarked coyly, "out of the two of us, you always were the one who could boast BIGGER – "

"OKAY, ALLOS, I'M OUT." Rachel stormed off.

While Magilou and Eleanor brushed each other's faces with soft paintbrushes, Magilou's eye wandered to a shelf of hollow glass bricks. "AHA!" she crowed, abandoning Eleanor. "This will be the perfect container to hold my cavalcade light show!"

Emerald mulled over a mosaic-tile display as Velvet and Eleanor flanked her. "See something you like?" Velvet asked.

"Considering these," Emerald admitted. "Not as much freedom as the markers, so that's good. Still wouldn't know where to start."

"You could use one of the premade kits with a set pattern," Eleanor suggested.

"I'm not gonna do kids' stuff," Emerald grumbled.

"Well, life's short," Velvet told her. "And sometimes you spend three years of your life chained up in the darkest cell of your brother's prison. If you're going to let pride stop you from doing something you want, then be my guest."

After a hasty glance side to side, Emerald plucked a premade kit for a butterfly-tiled mosaic off the shelf. "But if anyone back at base asks, I came up with the pattern myself."

When she looked up to see Magilou holding a giant pair of googly eyes over her own eyes, she let out a small scream and flinched back.

The WHAM ARMY cart had now piled higher with glitter stock paper and multicolored pom-poms. "Okay, not that I'm questioning your decision," Roman said, "but is this all for the same dress, orrrrrrr…?"

"With these raw materials at my disposal," Snatcher said with the grin of a madman, "I intend to construct a gown that will put even Yzma's wardrobe to shame. The pinnacle of WHAM ARMY haute couture. Flamboyance, DISTILLED." He shrugged; "And also some of it's going toward costuming for our production."

Passing through an aisle of small paintable knick-knacks, Magilou pressed something into Emerald's hand. "Glass donut," she said. "You know what to do with it."

Emerald looked. She was indeed holding a perfect replica of a frosted donut, made out of glass. "Uhhhh…"

The WHAM ARMY contingent had to bring out yet another cart, because they'd come across an aisle that stocked masquerade masks, feather boas, and the large sort of colored rhinestone. "One of these," Snatcher said as he dropped item after item into the cart. "And one of these, and yes, one of these – "

"I have a hard time believing he's going to make these into one dress," Tony remarked.

"Oh, ye of little faith!" Roman replied. Then: "Buuuuuut so do I, truth be told."

"I'm just wondering if I can commission a replica of whatever he's making," Rachel whispered.

Emerald finally stepped into the bead aisle, and the multitude of shining colors caught her attention. She strode up the aisle, running her fingers through the hanging chains of beads.

"Caught your interest?" Velvet asked.

Emerald jumped; she hadn't even realized Velvet had gotten up close behind her. "I'm pretty good at appraisal on the fly," she said. "I know what makes a piece valuable. I had to learn, so I'd know what to prioritize taking for sale later. I'm realizing I could absolutely recreate something that looks high-end if I had enough of these."

"Is that really what you want to do?" Velvet asked. "Just make copies of what you used to take?"

"What," Emerald retorted, "that sounds wrong to you? Can I not make my own decisions?"

"You can," Velvet told her. "That's what free will is all about, and I'll put my life on the line to defend free will again and again. But you want to escape from the ground and take flight. I can see it in your eyes. You're holding back. There's something else you want to do with these beads. It's stronger than you felt about the mosaic tiles or the bottle. Now tell me: what does your free will tell you to do?"

Emerald felt as though she'd had her soul pierced. "I…never got why things sold as high as they did," she admitted. "A lot of it is just…ugly. Why do people pay top dollar for the blandest shit? Now that you mention it…it was never what I WANTED to take. Not what caught my eye, anyway. But I wasn't stealing to accessorize. I was stealing to win money. If I could make my own from scratch…it would look so different." She nodded. "I'll make something I'd wear. Something I'll be PROUD to wear."

Velvet smiled softly. "That's what I was hoping for."

Now Snatcher had to raid yarn, which got Rachel reminiscing. "I used to be big into latchhooking," she admitted. "I spent a year once making a latchhook tapestry of a cat. Then got sick of it and never picked it back up again. Good times."

After a pack of multicolored twist yarn hit the cart, Snatcher declared, "TO THE RAW FABRICS!"

Rachel, without missing a beat, yelled even louder: "TOOOOO THE RAW FABRICS!"

As the two of them raced onward to the bolts of fleece and cotton, Tony hung back to look at the latchhooking kits at the end of the aisle.

"Noooooo," Roman groaned. "Don't. I know you like her, but that's just a bridge too far."

"Seems fairly harmless," Tony replied. "Besides, when you're after a girl, you gotta know how to play her game."

"Harmless? Yes," Roman confirmed. "Boring as shit? ALSO YES. Trust me, you'll lose patience with that thing and set it on fire before you're through the third row. Literally the only thing a latchhook is good for is as an ear pick, and not even that because one wrong move and you've made an open wound, with Neo telling you how lucky you were it wasn't the eardrum."

Tony stared at Roman blankly for a moment before saying, "Those 'himbo' stickers are paying for themselves, you know."

"Shut up."

"Rachel is entertained by the little things," Tony went on. "The puns and wordplay. I think if I show her a completed version of this…" He tapped a box that featured a pattern of, of course, a cupcake. "She'll be enamored."

"Did you not hear the part where she said she spent a whole year on a fucking cat?"

"I'm one of your kind, right?" Tony said with a grin. "We do things with more determination. I'd give it a week."

"You're the one being a himbo now. Seriously, it's not worth it to bore yourself to death over a woman you can just ASK OUT."

"Is that really the WHAM ARMY way, though?"

"Worked for me," Roman grunted. "I kept it simple."

"Well, now I know what bar to clear." Tony buried the box in the cart, pattern-side down so Rachel wouldn't see.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Roman murmured as the two of them proceeded to the shelves of fabric.

From the opposite side, Velvet was approaching the fabric selection as well, with Emerald, Magilou, and Eleanor in tow. "I've been meaning to take a look at these," she admitted. "It might be time for a change in wardrobe."

"I can help with that!" Eleanor volunteered.

"Oh, what brought this on?" Magilou asked. "I always thought you loved to let it all hang out."

"I chose rags that were torn and distressed, like my soul when I found them," Velvet grumbled. "And I still really like the way they look. It's just…" She sighed. "I forgot."

"Forgot?" Emerald repeated.

"How easy it was to have…accidents," Velvet growled.

Emerald snorted; "Did you have a nip slip in public?"

"It's not a laughing matter," Velvet seethed.

"You let one show in the street," Magilou gasped, "and you didn't even wait until I was there to see it? That's not just scandalous; that's hurtful!"

"Well, it is pretty easy to see how that might happen," Eleanor pointed out. "I'd be more than happy to help make you some shirts that cover more."

"You don't remember," Velvet told her, "but once we joined Eizen's crew, we picked up outfits from all over the world. I still remember some choice favorites. For you and for me, come to think of it."

"Well, I need at least five alternate wardrobe choices at any given moment!" Magilou added. "So what are we waiting for?"

Rachel skidded in front of Snatcher, holding up a bolt of fabric with bright blue and purple swirls. "Sooooo?" she asked. "Whaddaya think?"

"Mmm…has potential," Snatcher noted. "This, however…" He brought into his hands a bolt of black fabric patterned with white cats edged in embroidered jewels. "This speaks to me."

"Really?" Tony said mischievously, holding out a length of dark blue paisley. "I'd've thought a refined woman like Frou Frou would go more for this."

"…Of course that's what I meant." Snatcher stuffed the cats back on the shelf. "What I had was a slip. I meant THAT pattern, of course."

"My dude," Rachel sighed, "fuck what he thinks. Get the cats. You want the cats. DO IT."

"Did you really just say to – " Snatcher pointed between her and Tony.

"She has the right," Tony replied. He'd always liked the feisty type, anyhow. Truth be told, he rather liked how much conviction her declaration to "fuck what he thinks" had.

"Let's see." Roman ran his gloved fingers across bolt after bolt. "No, no, no, no…maybe. No. Definitely not. Could be – "

His hand bumped into the arm of someone else who'd been touching the fabric on the same shelf coming his way. "Sorry," a feminine voice said.

Roman was about to shrug it off. But then his nerves lit up. He knew that voice. Suddenly, he pivoted to look at the woman he'd run into.

Sensing the movement out of the corner of her eye, Emerald spun to look right at him.

Instantly, weapons were drawn.

"YOU!" Roman screamed, the Cudgel in his hand trained on her. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!"

"Guess that makes two of us," Emerald sniffed from behind both pistols.

"I guess it doesn't matter," Roman snarled. "Because after that little stunt you pulled on me, I deserve to be the one to MAKE you dead."

"You think I'm not the victim here?" Emerald snapped. "Cinder took everything from me. YOU took everything from me! What was I supposed to do when I saw you again?"

"Now, now!" Snatcher immediately stepped in between the two. "Let's not be hasty." A hand went to the barrel of each weapon. "Certainly we can come to some sort of agreement – "

"THIS is the little shit who made me hallucinate you as a Griffon and nearly KILL you back in Vale!" Roman yelled.

Snatcher flinched. Then backed away. "On second thought, HAVE AT HER."

"Let me know if you need help taking out that trash," Tony added. "I'd be more than glad."

Rachel rolled up her sleeve to show off the wrist gauntlet that could become her new crossbow at a moment's notice. "I don't know who you are, but what I do know is that no one, NO ONE, fucks with one of my friends." And now that she was a villain full-time, she didn't have to restrain herself in expressing that.

Velvet, Magilou, and Eleanor all jumped in front of Emerald, braced for battle. "You want her?" Velvet roared. "YOU'LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH US! I'LL DESTROY YOU BEFORE I LET YOU HURT HER!"

"I know Emerald!" Eleanor insisted. "She wouldn't've hurt you without a good reason! And it sounds like you hurt her a lot first!"

"I just want an excuse to turn someone into a toad," Magilou admitted.

Snatcher, Tony, and Rachel filled in behind Roman, ready to battle.

"Can I just say something first?" Emerald barked. "Face-to-face. Then we can settle this."

"Fine," Roman snapped. "Gimme what's gonna become your FAMOUS LAST WORDS."

Magilou and Eleanor parted; it took Magilou tugging Velvet aside to get Velvet to abandon her post defending Emerald.

"Before you kill me," Emerald said, "or I have to kill you…I just want you to know that I…" Her eyes welled up. "I'M FUCKING SORRY, OKAY?"

That gave Roman pause. "For…?"

"For everything!" Emerald sobbed. "Look, I know you never liked me. You joked about killing me and I'm pretty sure you meant it. I was always afraid of you. But the more time I had to think about it, after the Fall of Beacon, after we ran into each other again, I realized we were BOTH afraid of Cinder. She was forcing us to clash, abusing us, wearing us down until we had nothing but our anger. Because anger was all she cared about. You hurt me a lot. But I know you were just as stressed out all the time as I was. I thought it was my only way to survive, and – and I know that was part of your mantra! You were doing what you had to! We both had no other choice, and if we did, then we wouldn't have picked to bother each other! But I ended up hurting you too by enforcing what Cinder said. I used her as a card to play on you, to threaten you into doing what I thought I wanted, but was really what she wanted me to do. And when I saw you again, I just – I blamed you for everything because I still couldn't get it into my head that she was so awful! That's why I left her instead of following her to Salem! Because she broke my trust…and I wanted to remember her as I thought she was, not the way she really is!
And the worst part is I KNOW what it's like to be traumatized, and I KNOW what it's like to feel like you've just hurt the person you've sworn to be loyal to. I still gave you that punishment, so I don't blame you for sending your friends to kill me!"

Then she admitted the final piece; "And now that I see he's here, and I see that I almost made you hurt him…" The guns shook in her hands; the water flowed freely and blurred her vision. "The way I was always so afraid to hurt Cinder…what I did to you was unforgivable! So if you have to kill me, then maybe I deserve it! But I'm still gonna fight for myself because one of us deserves a second chance, and I may not be the kind of person to enjoy the destruction of Vale, but I sure as hell am the kind of person who'll save herself before YOU!"

Her fingers tightened on the triggers of her pistols. She couldn't see through the tears at all, and so realized that if Roman was making the opening move of their fight, she wasn't sure where he was or how to counter it.

Then she felt a hand softly lay upon her head. She repositioned the guns, jamming the barrels into the stomach of the man who'd situated himself before her.

"You always were an annoying little shit," Roman sighed. "But technically, I'm part owner of this place, and I'd rather not waste the effort cleaning your blood off the carpet if I don't have to. So how about we call it off? Live and let live. Sounds like that's all we wanted to do anyway."

Emerald threw down the guns to the floor.

"You're pathetic." Roman mussed her hair before stepping away. "But that might work in my favor."

"I'm so sorry," Emerald repeated.

"I get it," Roman replied, softer than before. "Trust me. I get it." Then: "You realize I'm not apologizing to you, though."

"I don't care," Emerald sobbed. "It's enough already that you put down your weapon. You don't have to be sorry. You shouldn't be."

"Well, I think he still owes you an apology," Velvet hissed.

"I don't know that I'd bother him to the point of picking up that weapon again if I were you," Magilou cautioned.

"She's right," Eleanor whispered. "If he's willing to just let it go…then we should take that and just get out of here."

Snatcher took a step forward; "Perhaps we have gotten off on entirely the wrong foot."

"I'm sorry to you, too," Emerald sniffled. "I almost made him hurt you – "

"Yes, yes, we're all well aware," Snatcher huffed. "As it were, it seems we've decided to let bygones be. And if you're willing to put your talents toward our benefit…perhaps not directly, but in the vein of not using them against us again…"

Eleanor took a step forward. "If you're all willing to start over," she said, "then so are we."

"No, we're not!" Velvet hissed.

Eleanor gave Velvet a plaintive look. "Are you sure?"

Then Velvet remembered. She and Eleanor had once wanted to kill one another. Maotelus, Phi, had forced them to work together. And now…

"Fine," Velvet snapped. "But you harm a hair on her head – or one on any of ours – and I'll make your final moments painful."

"You know," Tony remarked, "they're not so bad. I like her spunk."

"So we're friends now?" Rachel reiterated. "This is okay?"

"Ehhh…I dunno about friends," Roman replied, "but at the very least my urge to turn her into a pulp has subsided considerably."

"Well, maybe we CAN be friends!" Eleanor chirped.

"Eleanor!" Velvet hissed.

"No use trying to stop her now," Magilou reminded Velvet.

"We're both looking for the same craft materials, right?" Eleanor urged. "Maybe we can help each other pick out colors!"

"Perhaps, perhaps…" Snatcher mulled over.

"Okay, that's maybe going a bit too far," Roman urged.

"Let's not burn a bridge where it needn't be," Snatcher replied. "Or would you rather have four more powerful enemies when you yourself have admitted to no longer bearing animosity?"

"Eh, you do you," Roman decided.

"We're actually trying to pick out material for new clothes for Velvet," Eleanor said. "Maybe you can help? I don't know how much you'd know about women's clothes, but – "

Roman, Tony, and Rachel all knew exactly what switch Eleanor had just tripped. Now it wasn't even about the diplomacy anymore. "Well, of course she requires new clothing! She's only been traipsing about in harlot's attire!"

"I LIKE the way it looks," Velvet insisted. "It's just not CONVENIENT is all."

"Well, we'll provide you with something you'll like even BETTER," Snatcher told her. "After all, I'll've designed it."

"I have designs already!" Velvet argued.

"Inferior ones, no doubt," Snatcher retorted. "Let's see…the crimson color does suit you quite well. We'll build on that."

"I love that color on her!" Eleanor cried. "Let's definitely start with it!"

Velvet could already tell there was no escaping this. "At least let me have a say in this," she grunted.

Meanwhile, Tony had put one arm around Roman's shoulders and one around Emerald's. "You know," he said, "I think this reunion – or maybe 'fresh start' is better – calls for something to break in the next phase."

"Okay, I don't think you really get it here," Roman sighed. "We made peace. We're not gonna kill each other. That doesn't make us besties."

"But we are fighting on the same side of the battleground, right?" Tony added. "Who knows when we might need to come to each other's rescue."

"Is this about the Queen of fucking Gotham thing?" Roman grunted. "Are you trying to get us reserves for the gang war?"

"Strength in numbers," Tony replied.

"Who's the Queen of Gotham?" Emerald asked.

"Some jerkass crime boss who's been horning in on our territory," Roman replied.

"You…have territory in this town?" Emerald realized. "Anything we should step off? I'm…kind of with another syndicate right now, but it's mostly just petty thievery and whatever else we feel like. Not the hard stuff. That's all you guys."

"Eh, makes sense," Roman realized. "You always were the spineless one."

"Prouder of that, now," Emerald said.

"Listen," Roman told her. "All our associates know who they work for. This…this Boss Bitch stepped right on our toes and played higher cards. If someone says they're under the WHAM ARMY, don't buy them out. Otherwise, just stealing shit should be fine, so long as it's not from Liquid Assets. Leave that place alone."

"WHAM ARMY?" Emerald repeated.

"For the love of the gods, it's an acronym!" Roman sighed. "Anyway, you need to tell me more about this other syndicate."

"We're called the Heathens," Emerald said as Tony let go and slowly backed off. "Which is an actual name that makes sense."

"Yeah, no, it's just boring," Roman told her.

"I think they're gonna get along just fine," Tony whispered to Rachel.

"Good," Magilou said from Tony's other side. "All's well that ends well. Does anyone want to look at the giant jigsaw puzzles?"

"ME!" Rachel chirped.

So the three of them headed to that corner, and, noticing this, Roman said, "Look, just to make sure we don't spoil a good thing, let's maybe not rush the whole 'hanging out alone without a buffer zone' thing."

"Good call," Emerald said. "But hey. At least we're free of the Bitch Queen."

"That we are."

She put up a fist. He bumped it lightly with his own. "This just might work in our favor," he resolved.

By then, Velvet had managed to negotiate her way into wanting her new dress to be a replica of an old favorite from Desolation, and with the carts filled up with the necessary fabrics, she, Eleanor, and Snatcher proceeded to the puzzles.

"What's this one?" Magilou pointed to a box.

"Rabanastre royal palace," Rachel answered. "Capital of the whole empire."

"I like this one," Eleanor said, pointing to a puzzle that depicted a Moogle. "Lots of pieces, too. We could have fun with this for days at the mansion!"

"And we could use one for the warship." Tony picked out the jigsaw puzzle that depicted the Rabanastre palace. "Of course, we'll be taking the one with more grandeur."

"Okay, I'll admit I'm kinda dying to know more about this little 'Heathens' operation you all have going on," Roman stated. "Where exactly are you living in this town? And can we or can we not talk you into spending exorbitant amounts at our establishment?"
"I don't know whether this is keeping friends close or enemies closer," Velvet grunted, "but I think we need to know more about your group too, and what we can expect to see in this town because of them."

"We were going to hang posters for the WATYR Fest in the park," Rachel pointed out. "We could go chat there."

Emerald nodded. "Okay. Let's do it."

Velvet curled a hand over Emerald's shoulder; "But REMEMBER what I said. You hurt her and our peace treaty is off."

"Okay, okay, we get it!" Roman groaned.

They wheeled all their carts out the front door, and on the way out, Tony told White Turtlez, "Put the four ladies' purchases on our tab. Which means, in simple terms, waive it all."

"B-b-b-but how can I pay YOUZ off?" White Turtlez moaned.

"The name of the Queen of Gotham," Tony reminded him. "That's worth your entire inventory to me at this point."

The bell jingled, and the eight had left to discuss things further at the park. White Turtlez simply lay his head down on the cash register station and bawled.

...

The public library was one of the oldest and largest buildings in Twilight Town. One could see its base, its lower floors in the main wing, constructed in the same brick and wood as many of the other buildings in the city. However, as the literature catalog had expanded, so had the building, and the additions, up and to the sides, were glass and chrome that shimmered in the setting sunlight.

Libraries, generally, are a good place to take children to keep them occupied for a while. At least that was the logic of Sylvie Ashling, who was currently in charge of several children – that being Laphicet, Molly Blyndeff, Sleepy Sheep, and Neko Zombie.

"This looks like a fairly well-stocked library," Molly remarked.

Laphicet's eyes already traveled the shelves in the early rooms; "There has to be so much to learn here about this world…"

"Well, you can learn it in the kids' section," Sylvie explained. "That's where I'm dropping all of you off while I go hunt down some real literature."

"As an avatar of an Empyrean, privy to all the knowledge of that Empyrean, I resent that," Laphicet said dryly.

"You won't see me complaining," Neko Zombie huffed. "I've been a child for longer than any of you have or will, and I spent that time in the dark, barely able to open my eyes. Now that I can finally read something for recreation, I'm not going to make a scene about what that something is."

"Don't worry," Molly whispered to Laphicet. "We can sneak off to older reading demographic sections when Sylvie isn't looking."

They entered a colorful room of low shelves, and immediately Sleepy Sheep started laughing and giggling. "Look at all these books!" he cried, running to the shelves – and leaping atop one of them.

"Wait, NO!" Sylvie yelled, stretching out an arm. "Get back here!"

"YAAAAAY!" Sleepy Sheep began to leap from shelftop to shelftop with wild abandon. "WHEEEEE! LOOK AT ME!"

"GET DOWN FROM THERE!" Sylvie yelled, pointing at the floor. "RIGHT! NOW!"

"COUNT ME!" Sleepy Sheep encouraged. "ONE!" Leap. "TWO!" Leap. "THR – "

The shelf he stood on tipped over, and almost in slow motion, Sylvie saw it go down, books spilling and Sleepy Sheep tumbling with them.

"HEY!" Sylvie rushed over to the youngest of their group at top speed. "SEE WHAT YOU JUST DID?"

Sleepy Sheep was bawling, fidgeting with his hooves, and at first, Sylvie thought he'd been hurt in the crash. Until he put up his arms on Sylvie's approach; "Please don't hurt me! I'm sorry! I thought it looked like fun!"

Sylvie recoiled.

"Punishments for misbehavior in Gregory House were severe," Neko Zombie pointed out, though Sylvie had realized that himself.

Sylvie sighed, dropping to his knees. "Look, I'm…sorry I yelled like that. I won't hurt you. I promise. I like to consider myself a friend to all sheep, after all. But you realize you could've gotten seriously hurt yourself by doing that, right? When that shelf fell, all I could think was 'Oh, God, he's dead!'. And I don't wanna think that about someone I'm supposed to be taking care of. I want you to be safe, okay?"

Sleepy Sheep sniffled, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. "I'm sorry."

"It'll be fine." Sylvie reached out to pat his shoulder. "Just don't do that again, okay? Because it might get you hurt. …Or kicked out of the library, and you don't wanna get all this taken away from you on your first day here."

"I understand," Sleepy Sheep hiccuped.

"You gonna be okay?" Sylvie asked. "You, uh…" He wondered what Giovanni would do in this situation. "You need a hug or something?"

"I'd like that."

So Sylvie pulled the small sheep close, pressing him to Sylvie's puffy sweater, and in time, the crying stopped.

"Maybe I shouldn't leave," Sylvie mused.

"I'll help take care of the others if you want to," Laphicet told him. "I know you were excited to look for specific books. I know what that feels like."

"God dammit," Sylvie barked, "are you gonna make me feel guilty now about not letting you go for the books you want?"

"Maybe." Laphicet smirked.

"Why don't we do this in shifts?" Molly asked. "Sylvie can go get his book, then come back here to take over with Neko Zombie and Sleepy Sheep, and then we can go look for ours."

"That's right," Sylvie reminded her. "You're unusually world-weary and cynical for your age. Of course you're into the classics."

"Got it in one," Molly affirmed. "That and once you learn the language needed to file taxes, it opens up a whole new vocabulary of literature."

"Just go get your book," Laphicet urged. "Unless you're stalling because you know you'll need me to get it for you off the high shelf."

"I DO NOT NEED ANYONE TO GET ME A BOOK OFF THE HIGH SHELF!" Sylvie yelled. "THE NERVE OF YOU TO – grrr, I'll be back to take my shift!" He made an about-face and stomped off.

"It is entertaining to see him mad," Neko Zombie admitted.

"Which is probably why Giovanni makes it happen so often," Molly said. "C'mon. Let's find some books."

Which they did. Laphicet and Molly passed for the time being, but Neko Zombie found some genres he was willing to try in the chapter books, and Sleepy Sheep was ready to check out every single picture book on the shelf until Laphicet and Molly helped him narrow it down.

"Look, look!" Sleepy Sheep pointed to a sizeable table where many other children and two obvious teenagers were gathered around, working with beads. "What are they doing?"

"I dunno," Molly admitted, "but it looks like they're having fun, so I kinda wanna check it out."

The group meandered over. It was a jewelry-beading event, where kids were making their own bracelets. As were Hayner and Pence.

"Check it out!" Hayner held up his bracelet of varying greens. "Tactical camo!"

"Nice!" Pence replied. "I'm still trying to settle on a palette."

"Can we join in?" Molly asked; the nearest open seats were beside those two.

"Yeah!" Hayner urged. "Everyone's welcome! You don't even have to be a kid!"

Molly, Laphicet, and Neko Zombie took up the chairs. Laphicet urged Sleepy Sheep to sit on his lap to be better able to see and work at the table, and Laphicet guided him through the craft.

Upstairs, Sylvie had entered a more modern section on metaphysical science. This room had floor-to-ceiling windows on the far wall, letting in the sunlight and giving a good view of that part of town. Sylvie wandered a bit until he found a section of relevant titles.

"Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sleeping Realm Theory," he read off a spine. "Now that's what I'm talking about! After all, knowledge is power…and I'm not gonna let some emo chick dream bigger than I do!"

He reached up for the spine of the book, which was situated on the topmost shelf. His fingers just brushed the bottom of it.

"Shit," he said under his breath. It was a good thing Laphicet wasn't here to see this. He rose to tiptoe, stretching further. "Almost…almost…"

"Oh, here!" Another hand reached up, taking down the book. "Lemme get that for you!"

"I was doing just FINE, you know!" Sylvie barked, whirling on the person who'd assisted him.

Olette was reading the back of the book, eyes alight with curiosity. "Oh, I should check out a copy of this too!" she gasped. "Thanks for the tip. We're in the basic dream theory unit of our magical studies class, but I just need something a little more in-depth, you know?" She looked up to give Sylvie a smile. "I don't recognize you from school. Are you new?"

Her smile was so bright, her eyes so wide, and her face so soft that Sylvie immediately regretted having snapped. "I, uh…" He fidgeted. She was adorable. "Yeah, I'm new. Also I don't go to school. I'm a doctor."

"Oh?" Olette tilted her head. "Wait. Are you making fun of me? You better not be making fun of me."

"Nonononono!" Sylvie put up his hands. "I'm one of those kid prodigies, though I'd prefer if you left off the 'kid' part. I kinda zoomed through school, got my diploma, and got right to work. I'd show you, but my diploma is back on my world of origin, and we had to make a bit of a hasty getaway."

"Oh, you're from off-world!" Olette realized. "That makes a little more sense. If someone around here had gotten through school that fast, he'd be the talk of the town."

Sylvie was well aware that he'd bragged, and he felt a pull to not make this conversation so one-sided. "Uh…what about you? You sound like you're smarter than the grade you're in."

"I dunno about that," Olette replied. "I'm a pretty straight-A student, but I'm not sure I'm ready to jump a grade. Especially since that would mean leaving all my friends behind."

"Yeah," Sylvie sighed. "That part sucked."

"I take it you didn't have many."

"Nnnnope."

"And you had to leave your world in a hurry?" Olette asked. "Was there a Heartless attack?"

"Nightmare, actually." Sylvie tapped the book. "Hence looking into it more. Dreams have always been my specialty, but what I saw…what I saw was something else."

"Well, knowledge is power," Olette said.

"Exactly!" Sylvie affirmed.

As Olette reached for her own copy of the dream book, Sylvie cleared his throat; "So. Uh. You doing anything else while you're here?"

"Mostly just looking for books."

"Of course! Because that's what you do. In a library."

Olette chuckled. "My other friends are here. I left them downstairs in the kids' section. One of them likes kids' stories because they're fun, and the other…that's just his reading level. They've probably sat down at the crafts table right now. Wanna go meet up?"

"Yeah, I have friends down there too," Sylvie said. "I'm kinda…sorta…babysitting."

"Oh! Little siblings?"

"…Weirdly, the answer's yes," Sylvie realized. "So while we walk, tell me some of the dream theory you've already studied."

"Not before you tell me your name, silly." She put out her hand. "I'm Olette!"

He clasped it; "Dr. Sylvester Ashling!" He flinched. "But…call me 'Sylvie.'"

"Nice to meet you, Sylvie!"

The things Olette said on the walk down to the lower floor, Sylvie already knew. They were basics. But he liked hearing her talk about them anyway, and held back from saying that he already had all that knowledge and more.

They returned to the craft table, and Olette put up a hand; "Hayner! Pence!"

"Hey, just in time!" Hayner called back as he held up a second bracelet. Bright orange all around, and very shiny. "Check out what I made!"

Pence slid out of his chair, proceeding to hand Olette a black-and-red bracelet. "This one's for you," he said. "I made myself a match, see?" He put out his arm. "And I gave Hayner one too."

"It's not better than my camo one," Hayner insisted. "But this one? This one's the best of them all!" He held the orange bracelet aloft to catch the light.

"It's really pretty!" Molly told him.

Hayner brought it back down to cradle in his hands; "I hope she thinks so, too."

"I don't think you'll have the courage to give it to her," Neko Zombie spat.

"Do so!" Hayner retorted.

"What'd you guys make?" Sylvie asked.

Molly showed him a bracelet whose beads were in the shape of teddy-bear heads. "I lucked out with the bead choice."

"Look what I made!" Sleepy Sheep hoisted up a host of bracelets of various colors; Laphicet smirked proudly to take credit as his jewelry mentor.

Neko Zombie just presented something that looked like barbed wire in a loop.

"Good job, guys," Sylvie congratulated. "Another score for the Heathens."

"YAY!" Sleepy Sheep flailed his creations, clacking the beads.

"So you guys are Sylvie's little sibs!" Olette squealed. "Nice to meet you!"

"We never agreed to that arrangement," Laphicet said dryly.

"It's basically true, though," Molly argued. "Hey, it's kinda cool that you two are friends, and now we're friends with your friends."

"We're all pals now!" Hayner insisted.

"Anyway, I'm taking over my shift if you two wanna go look for some better books." Sylvie nodded to Molly and Laphicet.

With some quick rearranging, they'd put Sleepy Sheep on his chair and the two of them were off, floating and running into the library respectively. "Thank you!" Molly called after him.

"Were you guys up to anything specific?" Pence asked. "Or can I invite your new friend along to the fanfiction room?"

"The what now?" Sylvie did a double take.

"There's a room that's just for fanfic authors to trade their hard copies," Olette told him. "It's not really policed by the library – it's more of a free-for-all. You never know what you might get!"

"Wouldn't it be easier to use the Internet for that?" Sylvie asked.

"The what?" Hayner replied.

"Oh," Sylvie realized. "Right. Okay, yeah, we can go there."

After brief introductions, they set out, keeping Neko Zombie and Sleepy Sheep alongside them. "We'll find you some kid-rated fics if you want," Olette told them.

"We can handle tougher stuff," Neko Zombie grunted. "At least as far as death and gore are concerned."

"We're all kinda…from rough backgrounds," Sylvie said quickly.

The fanfiction room was an octagonal alcove where amateur writers either placed stacks of papers on designated shelves or browsed looking for relevant ones. They were sorted by fandom, and every work was required to have a placard that advertised rating, content, and summary.

Olette zoomed right across to a very particular shelf, rifling through the contents. "Come on, RedSnow action fic!" She pulled out a document, holding it aloft. "YES!"

"So, uh, remembering that I'm new and all," Sylvie said, "what did you just pick up?"

"It's a fanfiction for Bulletproof Hearts!" Olette chirped. "It's the most popular young-adult fantasy book series in town, and for good reason! It's really suspenseful! A lot of people ship the protagonist, Red Kazora, with his best friend, Snow Hajiku. That's where you get the name 'RedSnow.' And then I always like fics with a bit more plot than just coffee shop AU, so a RedSnow with some action is the jackpot! Now all I have to hope for is that there's no Victory bashing. Victory Chikai is the character that Red actually gets with in canon, but…it's sticky. I hate the ship, but she's a good character, so I hate when she gets left out."

"What are the canon books actually about?" Sylvie asked. It had been too long since he'd read fiction, he realized. And now he was interested in it after more than a year because of a cute girl.

"Well, it's a story about discovering multiple worlds," Olette said. "There are sixteen best friends, and they learn about the worlds out there and go exploring. They all come from a specialized school for warriors where they learn to use magic and weapons, and each one has a signature spell and a signature weapon. But the villains, No Heart and Monokrome, keep trying to convince them that they're each other's worst enemy so they'll kill each other. And sometimes it actually works, and they have to figure out who in their midst went traitor. So there's a lot of fun, but also a lot of angst. You have to go in expecting that. And the finale had mixed reactions, but there's a spinoff series going that might fix it, and hints about a sequel series. Otherwise we just fanfic it out and make the ending better."

"Let's say I was interested in these books," Sylvie said. And they did sound unique at least. "Where should I start?"

Olette lit up. "Come on! I'll show you!"

She took Sylvie's hand in one of her own, clutching the RedSnow fic in the other, and she raced to the Young Adult section with Sylvie in tow. The books were given their own display, out front and center due to their popularity.

"You'll wanna start with book one," Olette said. "Darn it! Looks like every copy's checked out! That's okay. We can put a hold – "

"Excuse me?" a chipper voice said from nearby. "Are you looking for a first-time read, or a reread?"

Olette turned to face the girl who'd spoken: a tall redhead who seemed oddly familiar. "It's Sylvie's first time reading the series," Olette said.

"Oh!" The girl passed over the book in her hand. "I was just checking it out for a reread. I got through all of them in a week, and I wanted to relive them again while waiting for the next Despair Days to come out! If it's your first time, then you should have it. I'll just start on book two."

Sylvie took the book into his hand. Middling thickness, titled "Bulletproof Hearts I: Hopevale Isles," with a particular logo – the text was blocky and square, superimposed on an emblem made up of a blue rose and a red heart. He looked it over. "Looks campy. In a good way."

"Oh, it is!" the redhead insisted.

"Wait a minute!" Olette realized. "I know you! You work at Le Grand Bistrot!"

"That's me!" the girl – one Tallulah Robinson – beamed. "Just finished up my shift!"

"I almost didn't recognize you without the tower in your hair," Olette admitted.

Tallulah patted her short red hair; she had also thrown a cardigan on over her dress. "I figured it was okay to dress down while I was off the clock."

Olette and Sylvie exchanged glances. They were both thinking the same thing: of excuses to get her downstairs to the fanfiction room.

"So what's your OTP from the books?" Sylvie asked.

Tallulah laughed nervously; "It's Victory and Spice from the spinoff."

"Is there a lot of fanfiction about that?" Sylvie continued.

"Not really," Tallulah admitted. "Most people keep the two plotlines separate unless it's to reunite Spice and Red. They're implied to be long-lost siblings, and I think that's the big reveal that's coming."

"Well, you could always check again," Sylvie told her. "You never know. Could've shown up today."

"I might as well!" Tallulah agreed.

"Let's go!" Olette said.

On the way down, they crossed paths with Molly and Laphicet, who were carrying stacks of very large books that towered over their own heads. The topmost book on Molly's stack slipped; Sylvie caught it in a hand. "See?" he taunted. "You do need me to watch out for you."

"Find anything good?" Olette asked.

"Atlases and history books," Laphicet replied, satisfied.

"Novels about the tragedy of humanity," Molly added. "Also a teen fantasy novel involving anthropomorphic bears."

"I really like your hair stars!" Tallulah complimented.

"Thanks!" Molly beamed. "They grow naturally as part of my body. They're edible, but you wouldn't like the taste."

Tallulah wasn't sure what to say to that, exactly, so she settled on "Cool!"

Pence was taking a while to pick out a selection from the video game crossover pile. Hayner rolled his eyes; "I'm bored." He looked to Neko Zombie and Sleepy Sheep. "You guys bored?"

"A little," Sleepy Sheep said.

"No," said Neko Zombie, whose eyes were buried in a mature-rated gorefest story.

"HEY!" Olette greeted as she ran back in. "Look who we ran into upstairs!"

Hayner's heart caught in his throat as Tallulah skated on in, making a pirouette as she entered. "Hey, I know you!" she realized. "You come to the bistro all the time!"

Hayner puffed his chest; "So you noticed." Then he whirled around to hyperventilate.

"Say, Hayner," Olette said, "weren't you talking one day about how you wanted to get into Bulletproof Hearts?"

"Huh?" Hayner flinched. "No way. That stuff's too complicated!"

"Too bad," Olette sighed. "Because I had an idea. Tallulah likes B.H., and Sylvie's starting out, and I'm always up for a reread, so I thought maybe we could put together a little book club. But if you weren't interested, then oh well…"

Hayner spun back around; "Oh, I just misheard you the first time! I TOTALLY wanna start those books, yeah!"

"I'm so excited!" Tallulah cried. "We can go on the journey together!"

"I'll pass on my copy soon as I'm done with it," Sylvie promised. "Molly? Laphi? You guys in?"

"Sure!" Molly beamed.

"Might as well," Laphicet added. "Though that means it'll take three times as long to leave the mansion."

"Not if we all read it out loud together," Molly suggested. "We could do funny voices."

"That…" Laphicet flushed. "That sounds fun, actually."

"Can we read it with you?" Sleepy Sheep asked.

"There are some heavy themes that might not be appropriate for someone your age," Olette warned him.

"We're Heathens," Neko Zombie argued. "We can handle it."

"Just trust him," Sylvie said flatly. "We've all seen worse."

"Y'know," Pence said, "I dropped the series about halfway through, but I kinda wanted to start fresh and reacquaint with the lore. How about I join in? Hayner, let me at it first. I'll finish it faster."

"This is gonna be so much fun!" Tallulah squealed.

"You have to be Tallulah," Neko Zombie realized.

"The one and only!" Tallulah pointed to herself proudly with a thumb.

"Here." Neko Zombie tossed something at her. "This is yours."

Hayner, recognizing the object, gaped; "THAT'S NOT – HOW DID YOU – WHEN?"

"Your pocket," Neko Zombie replied as Tallulah caught the orange-beaded bracelet. "You should watch it more carefully. You never know what kind of company you're in."

Tallulah examined the beads; "It's so pretty! Did one of you make this?"

"Uh…yeah," Hayner said, flushing. "You can keep it if you want. It goes with your hair."

"Are you sure?" Tallulah asked.

"I've already got two!" Hayner held up the wrist with the camouflage bracelet and the black-and-red friendship bracelet on it.

Tallulah slipped on the orange. "It's LOVELY! Thank you – um – what was your name?"

"I'm Hayner!"

"Thanks, Hayner!"

"Sooooo should we plan on meeting back up here in the library in, say, a week?" Sylvie asked.

"We can meet in the dungeon!" Olette cried happily.

"There's a dungeon?" Sleepy Sheep asked in awe.

"Not a real one," Olette explained. "There's a basement where they keep outdated books or ones they don't wanna stock anymore, but also don't wanna throw out. It's another grab-bag situation. But it's free space to just use for whatever. People tend not to because it's dark and has concrete walls, so there are stories that it's haunted."

"Well, I'm not afraid!" Hayner proclaimed.

"Me either!" Tallulah chimed in.

"Yeah, I make my own Nightmares," Sylvie said dryly. "Bring it on."

"Then we should get to reading so we all have something to talk about when we meet up again!" Molly suggested.

Pence told Sylvie where he could drop off the book when the Heathens were done, and on the way out of the library, the little group exchanged last introductions and very, very brief biographies (that were carefully edited to remove any and all associations with criminal syndicates). Then they parted – Hayner, Pence, and Olette one way; Tallulah another; and Sylvie, Molly, Laphicet, Neko Zombie, and Sleepy Sheep a third.

"That Hayner really agreed to start a book because of a girl," Neko Zombie huffed. "That's pathetic."

"I agree," Laphicet added coyly. "Don't you, Sylvie? You would never start a book because of a cute girl…right?"

"Sh-shut up!" Sylvie sputtered.

He felt a tug at his hand. "Thanks for taking us out today, Dr. Sylvie!" Sleepy Sheep chirped.

Sylvie's heart warmed. "Yeah. Anytime."

"We'll hold you to that," Molly teased.

Overall, Sylvie felt pretty good.

...

"Come on come on come on come ON, you guys!" Giovanni would run ahead a few paces, realize that the other four he was leading weren't matching his pace, then back up to them, walking very quickly backward as he ushered them on. "Okay, I feel like you're not matching my enthusiasm on this."

"I mean, I still have pretty much the same emotional range I had as a daemon," Rokurou Rangetsu explained. "Which isn't much."

"I just don't think whatever he found is that impressive," Eizen sniffed.

"Are you at LEAST going to tell us what it is?" Electro urged.

"Nnnnope," Giovanni said with a smirk.

"C'mon, man!" Flint Marko begged. "You're killin' me here! Is it money? Jewels?"

"BETTER," Giovanni said with a grin. "Okay, we're almost there! In three…two…"

They entered the Sandlot: a wide open space, suitable for holding massive crowds at a time.

"…This is it?" Sandman put up his arms in a dramatic shrug. "What's so special about this place?"

"Nothing," Eizen grunted. "He just got us all worked up over nothing."

"Eh, you guys weren't exactly worked up," Rokurou observed. "Then again, neither was I."

"Well, we came all the way out here." Electro folded his arms. "There better at least be SOMETHING."

"So as you may or may not have noticed," Giovanni explained, "this is some kind of sports field for athletics. Take a look around you. You will notice the large building at the far end, the one with 'TL TW' written on it. Direct your attention to the garage-door-esque…ah…door."

"What's behind it?" Rokurou asked.

"Well, that's the thing," Giovanni said with a wide grin. "It's normally kept locked, so I figured whatever was behind it had to be super important. Lucky for me, all their valuables were kept behind a really shitty lock, sooooo…"

He bolted across the sandlot, leaning down to pull up the lip of the massive door. It slid up into the ceiling of the chamber it guarded, revealing a spacious interior packed with various equipment.

"Check this OUT!" Giovanni rushed inside; by that time, the other four had caught up. "See this? They've got giant speakers for setting up huge concerts or maybe announcing a public citywide heist to the unsuspecting populace. But even better…wait for it…WAIT FOR IT…"

He turned around, hoisting a massive white rubber ball that was half the size of his body. "TA-DAAAAA!"

"Congratulations," Eizen said dryly. "It's a ball."

"You really don't see the opportunity here, do you?" Giovanni sighed.

"I think I get it," Flint realized. "That looks we could have some real fun with it!"

After a long pause, Electro admitted, "It's…been a while since I've just…had fun with anything like that."

"I know, RIGHT?" Giovanni squealed. "We should take it for a spin!"

"So you called us here to tell us that you found a big ball," Rokurou stated. Then he shrugged; "Cool."

"Not just ONE ball!" Giovanni gestured to a bin full of smaller rubber balls, comparable to tennis balls, in various colors. "As many balls as we want!"

"Don't," Eizen told Rokurou.

"The joke's right there," Rokurou protested. "And it's not like we're not all fully grown adults with our own sets of balls."

"Not anymore," Flint corrected.

"Not yet," Giovanni added.

"Okay, three out of five." Rokurou nodded. "But innuendo aside, what're we thinking? Got a game in mind?"

"We could structure something similar to Chamballoon," Eizen said. "Whoever destroys the most wins."

"NO!" Giovanni spat. "We're not gonna DESTROY people's public sporting equipment! We're just here to have some unlicensed fun!"

"This wasn't exactly worth dragging us all the way out here," Eizen sighed.

"Think of Electro!" Giovanni argued. "He hasn't had a chance to do anything that isn't angsting for, like, a year!"

"I at least want to see if I can play games without destroying things." Electro flexed his fingers beneath his containment suit. "I'm working on control. Being able to do things without…breaking everything I touch."

"And you've been doin' great!" Sandman gave him a light pat on the back, to which Electro flinched, because he still wasn't used to people being unafraid to touch him.

"C'mon, Eizen," Rokurou argued. "Think of Electro's sake! Also, don't you wanna know which of us is better at…whatever game Giovanni's gonna come up with?"

"Admittedly yes," Eizen sighed.

"So I've seen some people doing this in public," Giovanni explained. "Basically you try and keep this huge one in the air as long as you can. People usually just do it alone, but we could make it a team effort! More fun that way."

"Yeah, sounds simple enough!" Flint resolved.

"I'm not – " Eizen began.

"Hey, Eizen," Rokurou said quickly. "Bet I can hit that thing more times than you do. I also bet you'll let it hit the ground the first time it comes near you."

"You're on," Eizen growled.

"Ehhhh?" Giovanni raised his brows at Electro. "Whaddaya say?"

"That…sounds very easy for me to pop it," Electro noticed.

"So it's better practice," Flint told him. "You'll do fine. And if you don't, well, we'll blame a cat or somethin'."

"Okay," Electro resolved. "I'll try."

"But the real question," Rokurou said. "Are there weapons built for this? I'm sure Eizen wants to just punch it, but I'm a swordsman at heart, and you let me go to town on that ball with my real sword and it's gone in a heartbeat."

Shifting the enormous white ball to one hand, Giovanni gestured to the back of the room, where several mock weapons of blue foam rested on a rack. "I THOUGHT YOU'D NEVER ASK."

When they returned to the field, Giovanni, Electro, and Flint all bore Struggle Swords; Rokurou took a pair of sleeker Struggle Hammers (which, despite the name, were also very sword-shaped) to replace his traditional shortswords. Eizen, as predicted, was just going to punch the ball.

They fanned out to five equidistant corners. Then Giovanni yelled "HEADS UP!", tossing the ball high. With his other hand, he arced the bat to connect to it, and with a SMACK, it went flying across the field.

Electro was ready for it, surging forth to meet the ball on currents of electricity that allowed him to skate across the lot. With a WHACK, he sent it toward Eizen.

Eizen drew back, wound up –

And was intercepted by Rokurou, who performed a dual-sword combo on the ball to launch it high.

"Show-off," Eizen said with a smirk.

"Yeah?" Rokurou challenged. "You think you can do better?"

The ball finally came back down, and Eizen's fist rammed hard into it, shooting it across the lot. "Does that answer your question?" His smirk grew wider.

Rokurou nudged him. "Jerk." Then rushed to catch the ball on the next round.

"NOT BEFORE I DO, YOU DON'T!" Eizen followed at top speed.

Flint set the ball high, then rocketed up on a geyser of sand, his lower half melting into shapelessness, before he spiked it like a volleyball back down. Eizen was there to punch it again, then Giovanni to whack it, then Rokurou to demonstrate some impressive swordplay, then Electro hitting it harder and feeling euphoria when it didn't break.

This was the scene in motion when the WHAM ARMY contingent dedicated to renting the Sandlot for WATYR Fest showed up.

"It really could be no place but here," Grant van Warner was telling the Huntsman (who came dressed in a suit and tie, no skull helmet involved and his facial birthmark on full display) as they entered the field. "This is the only place big enough to hold as much of the town as you wanna advertise to."

"And you swear it's got the goods?" Felix urged. (Also dressed in a suit and a bright-orange tie, no armor to be found, looking uncharacteristically small.)

"Oh, our speaker system will fill the atmosphere!" Grant boasted.

"What do you think?" Zeron Alpha asked the Mukhtar. "You and your girlfriend set up the stage and I'll handle the electronics?"

"Our label is not yet established," the Mukhtar corrected. "She should also choose her own task. However, as far as you and I are concerned, that sounds like an appropriate division of tasks."

"Yeah, I've got a question," Miltia brought up. "Are we gonna have an open bar at this thing or what?"

"No alcohol," the Huntsman replied. "This is supposed to be a family-friendly event."

"Then why the fuck am I even here?" Miltia rolled her eyes. "Whatever, I'll help you set up the sound system. Which is gonna be real shitty compared to Junior's."

"It will serve our purposes," the Huntsman insisted.

"She's right, though," Felix piped up. "I mean, I've never been to Junior's, but there was this club back where I come from, I handled a hit there once…heh. Favorite job I ever pulled. First hostage situation. Took care of it all by myself like a badass." (No, he hadn't. Not even close.) "But the music was bangin'. No way some outdoor kids' event can match up."

"FAMILY as in ALL AGES," the Huntsman seethed. "It is not SOLELY FOR CHILDREN."

"Besides," Alpha said, "with the no-censorship policy, I'm guessing this is gonna get ugly fast. Or at least I hope it will."

"HEY!" Grant yelled, no longer really paying attention to the group he was leading. "HOW'D YOU GET THAT DOOR OPEN? NO ONE GAVE YOU PERMISSION!"

He was yelling at Eizen, Rokurou, Electro, Flint, and Giovanni.

"What's he supposed to be?" Flint asked. "Some kinda cop?"

"If he is," Giovanni urged, "then that's EXACTLY why we shouldn't stop!"

"Using that equipment without checking it out is equal to stealing!" Grant scolded.

"Uh-huh," Rokurou replied as he stole another hit from Eizen. "Soooo…what're you gonna do about it?"

"Well, first I'm warning you!" Grant threatened. "But if you don't stop and put that all back where you found it, then I might have to get the authorities involved!"

"OHOHO, JUST YOU TRY IT!" Giovanni bellowed. "Because now I see it's obvious you DON'T know who you're dealing with! I'm not just any ordinary delinquent! I'm GIOVANNI POTAGE, supervillain extraordinaire, captain of the Banzai Blasters, and founder of the Heathens! Which means I do what I want, and I don't have to listen to YOU!"

With that, he gave the ball a whack. He hadn't been counting, but that was his thirteenth, meaning the ball blazed across the Sandlot like a meteor, practically leaving a trail of fire.

The Huntsman couldn't move fast enough. The ball whacked him hard, right across the chest, and sent him stumbling. Of course, he was stable enough to catch himself before he could fall, but that had actually smarted. The ball, having bounced off him, zoomed right back across the field to where Electro caught it on a knee and kicked it up.

"I'm so sorry," Grant said as the Huntsman dusted off his suit. "I had no idea these delinquents would be here! I'm not even so upset about them taking a ball – that stuff's free to check out anyway – but breaking into that supply room means they could damage your audio equipment! Sit tight and I'll go call – "

The Huntsman put a hard hand on his shoulder. "Let me handle this," he seethed.

"Oooooh," Felix teased. "Someone's in troouuuu-bllle."

"Big-time," Miltia agreed.

The Huntsman stormed onto the field, then, in a sudden and unexpected display of agility, leapt up to catch the ball midair, holding it hostage as he landed in the center of the lot. "I propose a challenge," he said. "I am aware there is a sport native to this town in which opponents spar one another for points." He looked back to Grant. "Is that correct?"

"Yeah, Struggle!" Grant affirmed. "This is the primary field for it, actually, but you can play it pretty much anywhere in town. You name the site, we have the fight!"

The Huntsman turned his steely gaze back to Giovanni, who faltered a bit beneath it. "We will participate," the Huntsman said. "You and your associates versus me and mine."

"This just got good," Alpha said with a toothy grin.

"If you are the victors, then you may keep the field," the Huntsman said confidently. Even a little mischievously. "However, if I come away victorious, then you will vacate the premises immediately. And if you do not wish to have the authorities on your trail, you WILL NOT return until daybreak the day after tomorrow."

Giovanni let out a booming laugh. "Is that all? PATHETIC! My boys and I can kick your asses halfway across the city! If you're REALLY sure you can take us on, which you can't, then go ahead and try your luck!"

"He's right, y'know," Rokurou said with a sly grin. "You can't actually beat us."

"Besting even one of us would be a challenge," Eizen added. "Besting all five? You'll need a lot of luck. And unfortunately for you, I'm the Reaper."

"Doesn't that mean OUR side gets the bad luck, though?" Flint asked.

"Don't question it," Eizen barked.

"Flint," Electro hissed. "An actual fight? I won't be able to hold back."

"Look, I TRUST you," Flint whispered back. "And if one of these chumps gets hurt? Well, they insulted us first, didn't they? I'd say a few accidents aren't unwarranted."

Electro slowly nodded.

"Then let the games begin," the Huntsman said in the most ominous tone he could muster. Giovanni fought off a chill just hearing it.

Grant got them all set up. "The game's simple," he said. "You'll all get standard-issue belts with hook-loops on them, and then the pouches of Struggle balls. Blue for Mr. Thorn's team, and red for the delinquents." (He stopped to ponder why he was helping a bunch of thieves and vandals get dolled up for a legitimate Struggle match. Then why they were just standing there, letting him clip belts on them.) "Use the carabiners on the pouches. You can attach them to your belts, or if you have another place on your clothes to put them, you can use that. But they have to stay on your person, they have to be somewhere visible, they have to be secure, and after the Shirley incident, we've specifically banned putting pouches down your shirt front."

Miltia discreetly removed the two she'd thought she could cleverly hide.

"The pouches are delicate enough that they'll break if hit with enough force," Grant continued. "Your object is to hit each other with the foam weapons enough that your opponent's pouches break and you can collect their Struggle balls."

"Don't," Eizen said quickly.

"But it's literally a ball sack!" Rokurou pleaded.

"Lose all your pouches and you sit out," Grant went on. "But the game is also timed, and when that timer runs out, whichever team has the most points wins."

"Hey, so, uh…" Giovanni put up a hand. "Do we have to use the foam weapons?"

"Yeah," Felix asserted. "Do we really have to use the fake ones?"

"YES," Grant insisted.

"We would not have assumed otherwise," the Huntsman said quickly and sharply. "After all, we are representatives of a trusted small business and the hosts of a community event." Emphasis on this, to remind the others on his team to behave.

He'd found a Struggle weapon that suited his tastes, informed that only expert players used the foam-tipped distaff. Miltia had a wand with a star topper, Felix a hammer (which was again more sword-like than hammer-like), the Mukhtar a traditional bat, and Alpha a pair of foam chakrams.

Eizen, in the meantime, had been forced to use a Struggle Bat instead of his fists.

"All right!" Grant called out. "Line up!"

And they did, in pairs across the Sandlot. The Huntsman, in the center, faced down Giovanni. To his left, Alpha glared at Electro while Felix curled his lip at Flint. To the Huntsman's right, the Mukhtar gave Rokurou an icy stare while Miltia rolled her eyes at Eizen.

"May the best competitor win," the Huntsman said.

"Psshh, yeah right!" Giovanni scoffed. "You're going up against a bona fide villain! You are SO out of your league right now! But the next ten seconds or so before we wreck you oughta be interesting.

"THREE!" Grant called out. "TWO!"

The Huntsman leaned in close. Then, in a hiss that gave Giovanni the biggest chill yet, he said so quietly, "You are a fool to assume you are the only 'villain' present."

It was at that moment Giovanni began to have regrets.

"ONE!" Grant yelled, getting to a safe distance. "STRUGGLLLLLLE!"

The Huntsman came barreling at Giovanni like a freight train.

With a "YIPE!", Giovanni put up his bat, and it caught the impact of the distaff only for the other end to but a moment later strike him hard at the waist and burst one of the pouches of red balls. They'd been magically shrunken for the game; once the pouch was open, they expanded from marble size to the pseudo-tennis-balls seen in the storage room bin.

"Hey," Giovanni remarked, "you might wanna go pick up all those stray points I just droppedNOT THE FACE!"

The Huntsman's distaff whacked him in the face, sending him reeling.

"Okay, that is IT!" Giovanni raised his own bat, steam building around him. "I didn't wanna have to break this out, but desperate times call for desperate Epithets!"

On a geyser of steam, he launched high, doing a flip over the Huntsman's head before he landed. The Huntsman whirled, only to see an empty space.

"Teleports behind you." Giovanni raised his bat high, having gotten back around to the side he'd launched from.

WHACK. Blue spheres went scattering across the field.

"Don't," Eizen barked.

"THEY'RE LITERALLY BLUE BALLS!" Rokurou yelled back.

"You…" The Huntsman put a hand on the destroyed pouch. "You will not break another."

The next blow from the staff sent Giovanni flying. Several pouches broke, unleashing red. "Oh, that is IT!" Giovanni yelled, leaping back to his feet and seeing red. Tomato red.

The red-hot sphere went barreling toward the Huntsman before the Huntsman could even register; he had only enough time to cry "MAGIC?"

It splashed him in the face. He licked his lips. "…Tomato soup," he remarked. "How disappointing."

"Yeah, but THAT shows you I'm not afraid to break the rules!" Giovanni was creating a barrage of soup spheres behind himself, floating in midair. "Now I'll show you how a VILLAIN fights!"

The soup went rushing toward the Huntsman. The distaff spun deftly, and every single ball of soup exploded into harmless droplets. The Huntsman then pointed the staff toward Giovanni.

"Now," he growled, "I will show you how a villain fights."

"I wouldn't do an ironic echo unless you can back it up – "

Giovanni was cut off when the distaff pummeled him mercilessly, hitting so hard it didn't even feel like it was only made of soft foam anymore.

Eizen and Miltia were having quite an awkward time of their matchup, their bats halfheartedly whacking each other at odd angles.

"If I wasn't using this bat," Eizen threatened, "then I could really face you in a fight."

"Same here," Miltia replied.

"You know what?" Eizen resolved. "I say we don't play by the rules anymore." He tossed his bat aside.

Miltia did the same. "Let's dance."

"Now, I won't go easy on you just because you're a – "

Eizen screeched the word "GIRL!" when Miltia's heel hit him in the solar plexus.

"That was a warning shot," she stated. "I can and will go lower."

"You think you can hit me again?" Eizen growled, drawing back his fist. "Then TRY IT!"

His arm surged forth. Miltia dropped down low, spinning about and sending a leg jackknifing into Eizen's ankles. He stumbled, catching himself on one hand while reaching out and grabbing Miltia's offending ankle with the other. She shifted her weight, flipping Eizen over onto his back before she jumped high, intending to bring the full force of her high-heeled shoes into his stomach. Countless red Struggle balls were already rolling. Eizen quickly rolled away, leaping up to a standing position – and remembering what else he had at his disposal.

"THAT WAS YOUR LAST MISTAKE!" he yelled, his dragon wings unfurling. A Dark aura seethed off him.

"Cool," Miltia replied. "An actual challenge."

Eizen dove at her; she leapt, catching his shoulders, vaulting directly over him. Ripping apart a Struggle-ball pouch in the process. He plunged into the ground hard, kicking up dust and breaking another of his own pouches.

"Sure," she taunted. "Keep trying to hit me."

Eizen pried himself up; "I think I WILL!"

He surged toward her at winged speed; she was ready, sidestepping every blow he aimed, a definite rhythm to her movements. Which meant a rhythm to his as well.

The Mukhtar was holding his own against Rokurou, spinning his sole bat quickly to catch the blows from both of Rokurou's foam blades. "You carry yourself with the confidence of an advanced swordsman," the Mukhtar hissed. "Yet your skill does not match what is advertised."

"If I weren't a Nightmare," Rokurou replied, "that would probably sting. Also, I'm just getting started."

His blows increased in speed. Two pouches were ripped from the Mukhtar, dropping to the ground.

The Mukhtar's brow furrowed. He let out a battle screech, rushing Rokurou hard.

Rokurou's Nightmare eye gleamed bright red beneath his shaggy hair. "NOW this is a fight!" he cried with joy. "COME AT ME!"

The movement that Rokurou performed would've diced an ordinary person to shreds, were it done with real blades. But not only was that in play; the Mukhtar was not an ordinary person. He evaded the blows, slamming a single hard stroke right to Rokurou's stomach. Red struggle balls cascaded from him like blood from a wound.

"That's what I'm TALKING about!" Rokurou cried with joy, rounding on the Mukhtar. "The harder you fight, THE MORE INSPIRED I GET TO BEAT YOU!"

A feint, and then Rokurou's dual hammers caught the Mukhtar at odd angles, flipping him head over heels. Now it was blue that cascaded across the ground – a little closer to the color of the Mukhtar's own blood.

The Mukhtar scuttled back, righting himself. "It seems were are of the same breed of warrior," he noted.

Rokurou, rushing him, cried out, "I KNOW! ISN'T IT GREAT?"

And their weapons clashed again.

Alpha was attempting to catch Electro. Electro's first thought was that if he couldn't go whole-hog on his offense, he would focus on defense. Keep out of the way, guard his pouches, not worry so much about ripping open his opponent's spoils until he saw an opening. Which really wasn't even the way he liked to do things, but his priority was making sure no one was seriously harmed.

Alpha soon tired of swiping fruitlessly at his speedy opponent with his foam chakrams. He kept one in hand, then, behind his back, discreetly drew a blaster.

Flint was also playing relatively fair. Felix had gotten in a few hits on him, since he hadn't really been abusing his mutation. But when Flint opened the first of Felix's pouches, spilling blue, then Felix had made a decision:

"FUCK IT."

He tossed the hammer aside, pulling out a combat knife and driving it into Flint's chest.

"WHAT THE – " Flint looked down in awe at where the knife sank harmlessly into packed sand. "You just stabbed me!"

"AND YOU'RE NOT BLEEDING!" Felix yelled. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?"

Flint laughed; "Oh, now this can finally get GOOD! 'Cause if you ain't gonna play fair…" He began to expand, growing taller, sprouting an extra set of arms that picked up the discarded hammer. "THEN I DON'T HAFTA EITHER!"

"Fuck," Felix muttered under his breath before the tidal wave of sand descended upon him.

There was a high-pitched ballistic sound; a yellow laser shot past Electro full speed. It had missed him by a hair's breadth. His head whipped about; through his mask, he saw Alpha readying the blaster for a second shot.

"YOU," he growled. He slid quickly sideways, evading the next blast. "YOU'RE SHOOTING AT ME!"

"What a coincidence!" Flint said from where he was throwing Felix about like a rag doll. "I got stabbed! I personally took it as a cue to go all-out. You know what that means!"

Electro laughed; "Yes. Yes, I DO!"

His mask retracted, showing that the golden electricity coursing across his skin was shining brighter than before. Both hands were held out toward Alpha.

"Man," Flint said to himself, "I love when he shows off."

Alpha had to make a strategic and athletic dive in order to avoid being cooked by twin blasts of lightning. "So that's how it is," he muttered before throwing not his foam chakram but one of his combat discs.

Electro easily crushed it with a thick bolt of lightning. Alpha snarled; "Do you KNOW how much Zorg is going to mock me when I ask for a new one?"

"No, and I don't care!" Electro rose high into the air. "BECAUSE I AM ELECTRO! AND NOW YOU ALL GET TO SEE WHAT THAT MEANS!"

"DOUBLE fuck!" Felix screamed before the lightning rained down.

The whole sandlot was being pummeled by the lightning bolts now, setting the stage for the final act. Miltia baited Eizen into following her so that he would stand under the path of the next bolt. The Mukhtar used this opportunity to take a reforged collection lantern from his belt, sapping up the electricity and using it to finally get the edge on Rokurou with a massive blast and a thunderclap. Felix was now using every weapon hidden on his person (which was far more than you would think could fit in a tuxedo) to tear at Flint's mass, which had the beneficial side effect of occasionally ripping open the pouches. Alpha ducked and dodged, knowing himself to be the primary target of the electric assault; he took every available opening to fire off a shot. Electro only manipulated the energy propelling him to dodge narrowly.

Steam blossomed in the center of the field. Through the Fog of Lost Souls, which smelled very much like chicken soup, the Huntsman and Giovanni's silhouettes approached each other, becoming more defined with each strike of lightning that pierced Giovanni's smokescreen.

"I know something you don't," Giovanni said with a smirk. "Have you been counting how many times I've hit you?"

"I can't say that it has mattered," the Huntsman replied.

"Oh, are YOU ever in for a surprise." Giovanni then launched himself toward the Huntsman; "AAAAAIIIIIII!"

The Huntsman dropped the distaff. Sidestepped. Then, as Giovanni flew past him, plucked the soup-toting thief's ankle deftly out of the air and used it to suplex him into the ground – which cracked under the impact of his lucky thirteenth hit.

"You thought I would forget the power with which you struck me earlier?" The Huntsman kicked the distaff back up into his hands, shoving its point at Giovanni's neck to keep him down. "Your mistake was announcing it."

"Please don't kill me!" Giovanni shrieked.

Then, all of a sudden, everyone froze based on a single word called across the battlefield:

"TIME!"

Grant was making a T, one hand laid flat over the outstretched fingertips of the other. The WHAM ARMY and Heathen contingents quickly backpedaled away from one another.

"I…uh…" Grant faltered. He couldn't even believe how many illegal moves he'd just witnessed. "Let's have the final count!"

Pouches were emptied out, their contents presented. The WHAM ARMY had picked up far more red Struggle balls than the Heathens had blue. Felix had managed to edge out Flint at the end, when Flint had gotten careless about guarding his own pouches; otherwise, the only Heathen to have collected more points than his WHAM ARMY opponent was Rokurou.

"Mr. Thorn wins!" Grant declared. "But, uh…that was…that was a whole lot of violence. I'm starting to wonder if you guys are what you say you are."

The Huntsman glowered at Felix and Alpha. "It was a lot of violence INDEED."

Felix and Alpha flinched.

"Whoa, whoa, hey, hey, it's okay!" Flint spoke up suddenly. "We know these guys, all right? We had this whole thing scripted out. You saw how none of us got really hurt, right?"

"Yeah!" Giovanni chimed in. "We're all pals. We go way back. Except these guys are more of the rules-sticklers. We broke into the garage to have some fun, and I TRIED to get them to come along, but they were all 'Noooo, that's illegal!' Bunch of party poopers. So I told them, if this causes trouble for that thing you're planning later, then we're gonna stage a big old Struggle fight to see who wins: party poopers or the fun guys. And I said they could even go a little ham on Flint and Electro here, since they're pretty much invincible."

"I've been trying to actually beat this guy in a fight since I moved into this town," Rokurou added, pointing to the Mukhtar. "It's still one victory to your four, but should we make it best five out of nine?"

"We admittedly should've told you about the ruse before we broke into it," Eizen said. "But Giovanni knew you'd shut it down, and we all wanted to show off. I knew if anyone could dodge my fists, it was her."

"All just a big show," Electro said with a cocky grin. "Though I did most of the convincing for the other guys. I just wanted to let loose for the climax."

Grant looked around in confusion; "Is this true?"

None of the WHAM ARMY had expected this. There was an expectant pause before the Huntsman finally yelled, "I TOLD you we should warn him if we were going to stage this duel!"

"Well, sor-ry," Miltia said. "I thought after so many minutes of Blondie not hitting me, he'd get that it was faked."

"Do not look at me," the Mukhtar hissed. "My opponent and I played by the rules."

Felix pointed to Flint; "I stab this guy all the time!"

"Looks like our need for theatrics overtook our common sense," Alpha said with a grin. "Sorry if we made you worry."

Grant mopped his brow. "Phew. You guys had me worried there."

"Yeah, our bad," Giovanni said. "So we're clear? They won, so my boys and I will scram so my other boys can set up their thing."

"That will be all," Eizen insisted, and the five Heathens attempted to slink away.

"NOPE, IT WILL NOT BE!" Grant yelled. "You still broke into our storage and almost ruined the audio equipment! Give me one good reason I shouldn't turn you in for theft and potential vandalism!"

"Because we didn't actually get to the vandalism part?" Giovanni suggested.

"Because they will work away their debt by helping us set up for the festival," the Huntsman corrected. "The very task they attempted to shirk in the first place when we arranged the charade."

Grant sighed, then nodded. "Good. Glad that all worked out."

"There is no further need for you to be present," the Huntsman informed him. "The setup process will be long and dull."

"You don't need me to show you how to set it all up?" Grant replied.

"Trust me," Felix replied. "If there's one thing this outfit knows how to do, it's set up audio speakers." Then, under his breath: "And commit violence."

"Okay!" Grant waved as he left the Sandlot. "Happy setup!"

The ten waited until he was officially gone. Then the Huntsman asked, "Why did you say that?"

"Because you're obviously the REAL DEAL!" Giovanni's eyes sparkled. "Real ruthless criminals! You even do the murder part! Which I'm personally not comfortable with, but I'm a believer in letting people do themselves, even when it's things I find personally repugnant. Like writing fanfiction about taboo subjects or applying headcanons."

"Who things headcanons are a bad thing?" Flint asked.

"You'd be surprised," Giovanni grumbled. He perked back up; "Anyway, you guys are obviously HARDCORE! You coulda wiped us all off the map if we weren't so awesome! Which means you need to teach us your ways!"

"That was actually the most even fight I've had in a WHILE," Rokurou admitted, his red eye finally dimming. "Kinda wanna do that again."

"I agree," Eizen said with a look toward Miltia. "You actually tested my skills. That doesn't happen often."

"Look, I ain't happy you stabbed me," Flint grunted to Felix. "But one good turn deserves another. I covered your butt, and now you OWE me."

"What do you want out of it?" Felix asked.

"You don't try to stab me again," Flint demanded, "and your pal over there lays off Electro!"

Electro shrugged; "I had fun."

"We'll take the deal," Alpha said. "After all, you're in an interesting position to blackmail us."

"Which they wouldn't be in if you hadn't drawn your weapon," the Huntsman reminded him.

"Felix drew his first," Alpha argued.

The Huntsman sighed. "The fact of the matter is we gave ourselves away. Not that we had much choice, against such brazen nuisances…"

"But we proved we can hold our own, right?" Giovanni squeaked. "We impressed you by not dying in that fight, and now you're gonna hold us in esteem and trade some of your battle secrets to us and form an unlikely alliance with our group!"

"No one said that," the Huntsman grumbled.

"Yet it would seem useful to have their sort on our side," the Mukhtar pointed out. "Better than making enemies out of them."

"We could just kill you guys anytime, you know," Felix said, "but if your corpses wash up on shore, people will start to get suspicious."

"Yeah, how well did that go when you stabbed me in the chest?" Flint reminded him mischievously.

"Let's not be enemies," Rokurou pleaded. "I really, really, REALLY wanna fight you guys again."

"Very well," the Huntsman resolved. "We shall remain…civil. After all, it does intrigue me that there is another syndicate lying low in this very town…albeit a sorry excuse for a band of rogues."

"HE COMPARED US TO A BAND OF ROGUES!" Giovanni cheered, starstruck.

"Look, these guys obviously love us," Miltia pointed out. "That's a big win."

"Wait, is this thing you need the speakers for a front for something totally evil and devious?" Giovanni asked. "Are you gonna pump, like, some kinda hypno-music through it and enslave the whole town?"

"Nothing so direct," the Huntsman informed him. "Help us put it all in place, and we shall divulge the broad strokes. I expect you to do the same regarding your syndicate."

Giovanni pointed dramatically to the supply garage; "BOYS! TO THE SOUND SYSTEM!"

In the end, it was a good thing they'd decided to work together, because they found one of the speakers to be out of working order in such a way that couldn't have been fixed without an electric mutant nearby.

...

Entrapta's first order of business was to round up the proper machinery to rebuild Spinel. She had a list of gadgets and parts she needed, and had invited several of the more scientifically minded Heathens – Ohn, Lopez, Abigail, and Mel – as well as Emily of course to wander Tram Common with her and scavenge for them. And of course, once they heard that Abigail and Mel were going, Felony Carl and Globby decided to tag along and make a day out of it for the San Fransokyo crowd, despite having no idea what any of the devices Entrapta needed were.

They'd all filled bags with many bits, bobs, and circuitboards, but Entrapta scowled at her grocery list. "I knew this last one would be hard to find," she grumbled.

"What is it?" Abigail asked.

"An ultrasymphonic vapor depositor," Entrapta replied.

"Yeah, nope." Abigail shook her head. "Whatever that is, they didn't have those in San Fransokyo."

"It's an Etherian technology designed to create designer crystals out of sound," Entrapta explained. "I used it all the time to synthesize crystalline material back home. Hordak's stabilizer is held together by one I made. If I had one of those, it would be incredibly easy to seal up Spinel's cracks and rejoin her fragments. And if I didn't…well…I don't want to say it would be impossible, but I'd need a lot more time at the drawing board."

"Then let's find one of those devices!" Ohn urged.

"Where?" Mel replied. "We've been to every shop in the square."

"Weeeeeeell, there's one place I know we haven't checked yet," Entrapta replied. "But you'll all have to trust me."

"Of course!" Dr. Lopez asserted.

They began to rethink it when Entrapta steered them all right to the communal garbage repository.

She climbed the hills of scrap, seemingly unbothered by the filth that her pant hems were dragging through. "Hmm…I don't see one here," she remarked. Emily scuttled alongside her, casting a wide scanning beam. She beeped disappointedly.

"Going on a limb here," Abigail said, "but is there any way you can make one? Are there parts here to do that?"

Entrapta snapped a finger, pointing to Abigail; "You READ MY MIND!" She dropped to her knees, using hands and ponytails alike to sort through the rubbish. "And even if we don't find them, I wanna save some of this scrap metal for other inventions later!"

"I'll help!" Abigail climbed onto the refuse piles beside Entrapta. "Just tell me what we're looking for."

"Me too!" Mel scrambled up alongside.

"Finally," Globby remarked. "That tie's where it belongs."

Carl and Dr. Lopez snickered. Then Dr. Lopez scaled the garbage as well.

"Erm, I'm not…" Ohn looked at the garbage warily. "I'm not entirely certain I wish to…but then again, I can't very well leave you all to such a disgusting task alone…"

"You don't have to," Dr. Lopez assured him as she cleared away debris. "The four of us can probably find what we're looking for, if it's here."

"Five," Entrapta reminded them all, pointing to Emily, who'd burrowed into a pile.

"Yeah, I'm not one for dumpster diving either," Globby pointed out. "But since our resident portal guy's here…Carl, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Dr. Ohn," Carl said. "It would be an incredible honor if you could please utilize your powers to allow us unrestricted access to the storerooms of the shops in this square."

"Oh!" Ohn nodded vigorously, the void shifting across his face to denote that he was now the Spot. "I see! Yes! Some good old-fashioned thievery! I'm in!"

"Have fun!" Dr. Lopez waved as the three rushed off.

"REMEMBER TO CLOSE ALL THE PORTALS!" Entrapta yelled after them. "I mean, an apocalypse would be awesome to watch, but probably not on the world we're living on!"

On the other side of the common, Quackerjack was having regrets. When the WHAM ARMY had divided up teams for posters, immediately Megavolt had chosen to team up with Ravess, Randall Boggs, and Jack Spicer to discuss some project the four of them were all working on. So, naturally, Quackerjack had wanted to tag along with Megavolt. Megavolt had warned him that the four of them would be speaking in technical jargon, and Quackerjack had insisted he would be fine.

He wasn't fine. It was like they were speaking Brutopian.

"I dunno," Megavolt said. "Commander Peepers puts a lot of faith in this thing called the 'quacka' or whatever – "

"Qwaza," Ravess corrected. "It's 'qwaza.'"

"And I mean, I'm sure it's a solid energy source," Megavolt went on, "but if we're gonna test out the Sonic Devastator 2.0, I'd rather we use crystal energy first to make sure we got it right, since that's what's on the blueprints."

"Why can't we use scream energy?" Randall sighed. "Or, here's a bright idea: Unversed. You know, the technology I've been trying to research SINCE I GOT HERE?"

"Because we have to make sure the Devastator 2.0 can actually function the way it was intended to before we go changing its energy source!" Megavolt barked.

"And are you an idiot?" Jack asked Randall. "Qwazas specifically recycle sonic energy. The only way scream power would work on the Devastator is if we all took up screamo. And Unversed energy? That's even less predictable! Save it for the next Zorg line."

"Fine," Randall grumbled, "but eventually you'll realize I was right."

"Mm, not likely," Ravess stated with a smirk.

"You wanna put a bet on that?" Randall asked.

"As a matter of fact, yes," Ravess replied. "One hundred munny. We'll rebuild the Devastator, then engineer it to run on both qwaza AND Unversed energy. Whichever one has the stronger output wins."

"But can we focus here?" Jack barked. "Without a supersymphonic vapor depositor, we won't be able to synthesize the exact crystals we're gonna need. And not a single shop here carries one!"

"So we'll go off-world for it," Randall said. "Easy enough."

"We'll have to finish poster duty first, of course," Ravess huffed.

"Well, I mean, I'll have mine put up quicker than you can say 'energy revolutionary,'" Randall boasted. "So long as you guys don't slow me down."

"Slow you down?" Ravess was appalled. "I can have them installed far more quickly than you could!"

"Is that so?" Randall leaned back, smirking at Ravess. "Because I think you're bluffing."

"Shall we put it to the test?" Ravess posed. "My method versus yours."

"YOU'RE ON!" Randall yelled.

"On your mark," Ravess said smugly.

"Oh," Randall teased. "Oh, we're doing this already, okay – "

"Get set."

"Think you can slow me up by taking away my prep time? Hate to tell you this, but – "

"GO." Ravess pivoted, sticking an arrow through a poster she carried.

Randall cut himself off to leap into action, scaling the nearest wall and climbing alongside it, sticking the posters at intervals as he went. Ravess launched an arrow, and it punched into the wall, holding the poster in place without her even having to move – and she had the next one loaded in less than a second.

As Randall leapt from surface to surface around the common and Ravess shot her posters rapid-fire into the walls, Jack fished a remote out of his pocket. "Yeah, I'm not part of this," he said, "but I just want this part over and done with."

With the press of a button, he'd summoned several Jack-Bots, which had seemingly just been hiding in the alleys. He passed the poster stack to them; "Hang these up around town. Make it relatively equidistant. And visible."

The Jack-Bots took the posters and made off with them.

"And you know what?" Jack decided. "I'm gonna do the desperation play." He strutted off.

"Where are you even going?" Megavolt called after him.

"To the dump!" Jack yelled back. "If I'm lucky, there's parts there I can use to MAKE a depositor."

"What about us, Gus?" Quackerjack asked, using Mr. Banana Brain to convey the message. "We still got all these posters to hang! Lucky for you, Lou, I know a way we can cheat!"

"Really?" Megavolt's face lit up. "Let's see it!"

"Right this way!" Quackerjack pocketed Banana Brain and began to lead Megavolt across the common. "Also, what's the machine you're building again? I know you explained it – "

"It's a Sonic Devastator," Megavolt reiterated. "A copy of a weapon that Ravess had back on Atmos. It converts sonic and melodic input into a palpable force that can cause massive damage."

"What now?"

Megavolt thought over a better way to phrase it. "It's a music cannon. You play music at one end and it shoots out the other."

"Ohhhh, that sounds like fun!" Quackerjack realized. "But that name you have for it sounds so stuffy! We gotta think of something better."

"Yeah, I wasn't a fan either," Megavolt admitted. "We're obviously upgrading the design so much that it's hardly even anything like the original Devastator. It deserves its own name. Something fresh! Something original, something catchy!"

"Oh, ohhhh!" Quackerjack realized. "What about…Pachelbel's CANNON in D?"

That set Megavolt off laughing uncontrollably, and Quackerjack blushed at the sight. Oh, how adorable he was. "You – " Megavolt sputtered. "Pachelbel's CANNON – it's funny because of the classical song that plays everywhere! I LOVE IT! Y'know, Quacky, you really are a genius."

"Well, I'm not the one putting together the giant music cannon," Quackerjack replied, completely flustered. "Oh, here we are!"

They stood before a mailbox outside a shop. "It's a magic mailbox," Quackerjack said. "The Moogles here told me all about it! You put something in, you say who you want it to go to anywhere in all the worlds, and they'll get the letter!"

"So all we have to do is say our posters should go to everyone in this square," Megavolt realized, "and the mailbox will do the work for us!"

Quackerjack knocked on the mailbox; "Send these out to everyone in Tram Common, will ya?" He slid his stack of posters inside.

"Mine too!" Megavolt urged, following suit.

Within seconds, messenger birds were dropping the posters off in the hands of the people walking between the shops. Several of them were starting to murmur about WATYR Fest and what it might be.

"Like I said," Megavolt told Quackerjack. "A genius."

"C'monnnnnn!" Quackerjack urged. "Let's do something fun!"

"Like rob the candy store?"

"You read my mind!"

They hurried over to stand in line for the candy store, whispering to each other about how they wanted to set up the heist. "I'll pull a weapon when we get to the counter," Megavolt began, "and you can make the demands!"

"What do we want?" Quackerjack asked. "I'm in the mood for gummies and giant lollipops."

"I could go for some high-end chocolate."

That was when a flash of movement within the shop caught their eye. They were second in line from the front, and though the person currently at the counter didn't notice, and the shopkeeper definitely didn't notice, but a definite dark portal opened up briefly behind the shopkeeper, and through it, a burly human arm and what appeared to be a whip made of purple gelatin thrust through and began scooping candy off the backstock shelves with wild abandon. The haul was brought through the portal, and Quackerjack and Megavolt both noticed the trio that hustled off, pleased as punch with a bag full of candy. A man in a white suit with black polka dots, a larger man in a bandanna, and some sort of purple slime monster.

"Hey!" Quackerjack pointed after them. "They just pulled that off without attracting any attention! Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That it's a really boring way to do crime?" Megavolt replied.

"Well, yeah," Quackerjack affirmed, "but if we use whatever they're using, we can commit MORE robberies in the same square before they catch onto us!"

"Let's go see if we can join in!" Megavolt said excitedly.

Carl, Globby, and the Spot crouched behind the accessory shop. "All right," the Spot said. "I'll open the portal as per usual, and you two – "

A loud throat-clearing alerted them to the presence of Quackerjack and Megavolt nearby. The three looked, wide-eyed, at the pair. Then Globby hissed, "Darn iiiiiiit…"

"So!" Quackerjack pointed at the three robbers. "Thought you could just take whatever you wanted from Tram Common, huh?"

"It…isn't what it looks like?" the Spot said sheepishly.

"Really?" Megavolt replied, scratching his head. "Oh. Okay. Never mind, then. See, it looked like you were committing robberies with portals, and we wanted to join in, but if you're NOT doing that, then we'll go find something else to do."

Quackerjack slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. Oh, he did so adore Megavolt, but the man could be an utter airhead.

"Nonono," Globby said quickly, "we're stealing things!"

"We were just expecting you to be some sort of authoritative figure come to put a stop to it," Carl added.

"Would you like to join us?" the Spot asked. "After all, you seem like affable fellows, and with wonderfully campy attire at that. Perfect for villainy."

"WOULD WE!" Quackerjack and Megavolt's eyes lit up, and they smiled broadly.

"What are your names?" the Spot inquired. "They refer to me as the Spot."

"And I'm Globby!" Globby added.

"Felony Carl," Carl said gruffly.

"I'm Megavolt!" Megavolt introduced.

"And I'm Quackerjack!" Quackerjack added. "But you can just call me…Quackerjack."

"Oh, I like 'Megavolt'!" Globby said. "It's such a cool name! So do you have any superpowers? Like…water-related, or, oh, how about ice?"

Quackerjack looked from Globby to Megavolt in disbelief. "He's an even bigger idiot than you," Quackerjack told Megavolt.

"I feel like I should be offended by that," Megavolt replied, "but mostly I'm just disappointed somebody took my title."

"I am guessing he has electrical powers not unlike that of High Voltage," Carl explained.

"Oh, that makes way more sense than what I was thinking!" Globby admitted. "I mean, as you can see, my power is that I'm a giant glob."

"What kind of powers go with the name 'Spot'?" Megavolt asked. "Do you put spots into people's carpet that are really hard to get out or something?"

"Or do you turn into a dog?" Quackerjack asked. "Y'know, not like a person-dog. Like a dog-dog."

"I make portals, actually!" the Spot said cheerfully. "It's how I've been breaking us into the storerooms. Shall I give you a little demonstration?"

He opened up a small hole into the back of the accessory shop. Cabinets of bangles and gems awaited them. Once again, Megavolt and Quackerjack were practically salivating.

"What are we just standing around here gabbing for?" Quackerjack proclaimed. "Let's get to stealing!"

Randall leapt to the stone of the road just as Ravess loosed her last arrow. "HA!" he proclaimed. "Done a whole half second before you!"

"It was ABSOLUTELY the other way around!" Ravess scoffed.

"I mean, I'm not complaining it was a close victory," Randall told her. "After all, I wouldn't waste my time on somebody who couldn't measure up. And you ALWAYS could from the get-go." This with a wink.

"Now you LISTEN HERE – " She leaned in close to whisper harshly. "I won't say this again. It was just sex. And we are just friends. This goes NO FURTHER. If you can't let it go, then – well, I won't abandon the Devastator project, obviously, but I can complete it WITHOUT having to speak to you."

"I'm just really confused here," Randall replied, at normal volume. "Yeah, I was on board for something casual, but the more I sit on it, the less sense it makes. You and me, we're both the same kind of person. You saw what we did just now? We're the only ones who could match up to each other. You've heard my stories from the college days – "

"Far too many of them."

"But even I never took over an employer's base of operations and beat a brute in a fight to do it!" He shrugged. "Well…YET. If Mozenrath ever has to have someone babysit the upcoming empire, you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be giving that a shot."

"It doesn't matter how similar we are!" Ravess spat. "The fact remains that I still care very much about HIM."

"And that's the part I don't get," Randall said coldly. "Because you still had to come to me to get something he couldn't give you. And you spend way, way more time aboveground while he's down in the basement. And you have to spend ten minutes at least talking him into it if you want to dance. Now, if it were anyone else, I'd think, well, maybe that's how she likes it. But you're like me, and that's where it stops making sense. Because people like you and me, we don't settle, we don't sacrifice, and we don't stop until we get EVERYTHING we want. And you're telling me that because this guy likes you well enough, and you think he's pretty, you're okay with just not getting anything in the bedroom, on the dance floor, or anywhere that isn't the lab?"

"Oh, and you're saying YOU'RE everything I've ever wanted?" Ravess scoffed. "The audacity…"

"I mean, I am," Randall said smugly, "and there's no denying that. But on the off, off, OFF chance what you want isn't me, then you still need to dump the ice king anyway so you can go get whatever it is. Because are you really happy? Are you?"

Ravess bit her lip. She looked askance, then back to Randall. "And you think I'm everything you've ever wanted."

"Pretty dang sure."

"If I say no, are you going to still pursue me relentlessly?" Ravess' brow furrowed. "Because that is a good route to an arrow through the heart. As many times as necessary until Mozenrath stops bringing you back."

"At a certain point, I gotta cut my losses," Randall told her. "If you didn't want in on it, then obviously you WEREN'T what I was looking for and now I gotta find who is so I can show you how far I could trade up."

"And you want me to use you to make a fool of Vexen."

"Look, are you happy?" Randall blurted. "The last thing I want to do is get all sentimental on you, but are you? Really?"

For a moment, the façade was dropped. "I…" Ravess hesitated. "I fought hard for him. There were trials and tribulations. If you're truly so much like me, then you understand that when you land a VICTORY, you don't pass it up! Not when you've sweated for it!"

Randall flinched. Then started laughing in a low tone; "You got me there. Can't say my attitude would be any different. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, then."

"If you continue to annoy me on the matter," Ravess threatened, "I will fulfill my needs elsewhere."

"But you'd still rather get it on the side than call Vexen satisfactory," Randall pointed out.

"Of course," Ravess hissed. "You're like me. You should know."

"Yeah. I get it." He sniffed, nostrils flaring. "But before we table the discussion, I'll remind you of a couple things. One: that you know what I can do that normal human bodies can't. And two: you better think carefully about how you wanna play this, because I'm nobody's second choice. If you ever think about crawling up to me because you and him are over, then don't even bother."

"I didn't want to be anyone's second choice either," Ravess grumbled. "Which is why I hope that the situation with his new…PET is not headed where I think it is."

"If that's where it goes and you still stick around," Randall told her, "then I should lose all respect for you, but I might just have to break you two up myself, just so I don't have to see you reduced to somebody's side chick."

"Oh, don't worry," Ravess growled. "I'll walk long before you need to get involved."

"And that's the attitude that turns me on," Randall said with a leer.

Jack Spicer was surprised that by the time he got to the junkyard, there were four other people and a robot already rooting around. "Ohhh, at this rate, we're never gonna find one!" Entrapta moaned. "Well, might as well pick up some consolation prizes." She held up a warped metal pipe. "I can think of about thirty uses for this!"

"Please," Jack scoffed, getting her attention. "I know thirty-one."

"Huh?" She turned to regard him. Then waved; "Oh, hi! Did you come here to look for parts for a device, too?"

"Uh…yeah?" Jack admitted. "Didn't think I'd find anyone else who had the same idea."

"Well, come on in," Abigail encouraged. "The garbage is fine. Doesn't even smell so bad."

Jack started picking through carefully, turning up his nose at the scent. "So, what are you guys? Some kind of evil geniuses?"

"More like morally gray geniuses!" Entrapta proclaimed.

"Oh!" Mel held aloft a chunk of metal. "This could go into a Buddyguard revamp!" He pocketed it.

"Yeah, I've already got more robot base material than I can actually carry," Abigail admitted.

"Well, you're lucky," Dr. Lopez told her. "There's not much here I can use. I'll help you with your load."

"Since you asked," Entrapta said to Jack, "are YOU an evil genius?"

"The best one you'll ever meet!" Jack bragged. "Jack Spicer: inventor of the Jack-bot and everything you could ever want to replace the functions of Shen Gong Wu without using magic!"

Entrapta clapped with joy; "That's AMAZING! Tell me! Have you ever used a Runestone to hack a planet and alter its weather patterns for a desired outcome?"

"You can DO THAT?" Jack squeaked. "I mean OF COURSE I HAVE! That's kid stuff. I've also made a time-travel gate. Have you ever made a time-travel gate?"

"I once made an unstable portal that nearly swallowed my homeworld!" Entrapta replied. "There was time travel involved in that!"

"Okay, that's…super cool," Jack admitted. "You're gonna have to tell me more about that."

"Well, my homeworld used to be stored in an interdimensional pocket that would prevent it from being accessed directly by any other world…"

They chatted for a bit, trading evil-genius secrets, until a booming voice got their attention from the center of the common:

"ATTENTION EVERYONE! It's time once again for the weekly Friday Auction! For those who are newcomers, civilians and businesses all over town offer up their unwanted valuables in exchange for what the highest bidder will pay! Let's start with lot one: an ultrasymphonic vapor depositor from the Moogle shop! Lightly used and still in working condition – just outdated enough that the Moogles are upgrading!"

Entrapta and Jack both gasped happily; "THE ULTRASYMPHONIC VAPOR DEPOSITOR!" Then they pointed to each other; "Wait. YOU want it too?"

"I have a friend I have to save!" Entrapta urged.

"Well, too bad!" Jack replied. "Because I'm gonna help win an important invasion, and we NEED that depositor to make the doomsday device that'll clinch the victory!"

After a tense pause, they both leapt away from the dump, racing to the auction floor.

"We'd better go with," Dr. Lopez advised; she, Abigail, Mel, and Emily scurried off after them.

Quackerjack, Megavolt, Carl, Globby, and the Spot – whose arms were all laden with various trinkets they hadn't paid for – noticed the commotion. "Huh," Megavolt remarked. "Wonder where Jack's going in a hurry."

"That's your friend?" Globby said. "It looks like he's hanging out with our friends!"

"We should go over there and check it out!" Quackerjack suggested.

"I agree!" the Spot said.

They ran past Ravess and Randall, who watched where everyone was gathering. "Who are all those riffraff they picked up?" Ravess groaned.

"I dunno," Randall replied, "but they're headed toward an auction floor. You know what that means, right?"

"It means we've people to outbid," Ravess said. And the two of them headed over.

The man leading the auction called out; "We're starting the bidding at ten munny!"

"Oh! OH!" Entrapta's hand fluttered in the air. "I have that! I can afford that!"

"Make it fifteen," Jack said dryly.

"Fifteen!" the auctioneer said. "We have fifteen! Do I hear twenty?"

"TWENTY!" Entrapta yelled. "No, wait, TWENTY-ONE!"

"THIRTY-SEVEN!" Jack called out.

"FORTY-FIVE!" Entrapta countered.

"FIFTY-TWO!" Jack yelled.

"BID WITH SENSIBLE NUMBERS!" Ravess snapped.

"Do I hear sixty munny?" the auctioneer called out.

"Guys!" Entrapta hissed. "Help me out here! I need some of your Emerald funds! For Spinel!"

Dr. Lopez' hand shot up; "SIXTY-FIVE!"

"SEVENTY-FIVE!" Ravess yelled.

"I didn't ask you to help me," Jack grumbled.

"Do you even have seventy-five munny on you, kid?" Randall asked.

"…No," Jack muttered.

"Do you have the fifty-two you just bet, either?" Randall pressed.

"SHUT UP!" Jack yelled.

"I'LL TAKE IT ALL THE WAY UP TO A HUNDRED!" Mel yelled.

"DOUBLE IT!" Randall spat. "TWO HUNDRED!"

There was a soft "Ooooohhhh" from the crowd.

"Stop trying to outbid me!" Entrapta seethed at Jack. "I need this for my friend!"

"And I need this for my evil invasion!" Jack snapped back.

"Two hundred!" the auctioneer called. "I have two hundred! Do I hear – "

"TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY!" the Spot yelled.

"Two hundred and fifty," Quackerjack said, "and ONE-HALF MUNNY."

"I would like to raise the bid to two hundred and fifty-five," Carl said.

"TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY!" Megavolt yelled.

"Megs, that's LESS!" Quackerjack hissed.

"I MEANT TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY!" Megavolt amended.

"Ooh! OOH!" Globby threw an arm in the air. "ONE THOUSAND!"

The crowd gasped.

"We don't have one thousand!" Entrapta hissed through gritted teeth.

"But we can get it," Globby reminded her.

"Absolutely," the Spot affirmed. "When I started betting, I knew that no matter how high the number became, we couldn't let them put a price on our friend!"

"We will just have to commit some quick larceny," Carl added.

"TWO THOUSAND!" Randall yelled.

"TWO THOUSAND, FIVE HUNDRED!" Globby yelled back.

"THREE THOUSAND!" Ravess cried.

"FIVE THOUSAAAAND!" Entrapta screamed.

Randall gritted his teeth. "I'm NOT losing to you! TEN THOUSAND!"

"This isn't gonna work!" Entrapta wailed. "No matter how much we bet, they're gonna raise it until they're broke!"

"Oh, that's right!" Globby remembered. "Silly me! They steal things too."

"Then that means we can't win unless we have an ace up our sleeve!" Entrapta urged. "Something that breaks their rhythm!"

"Ten thousand munny for this fine piece of equipment!" the auctioneer declared. "Do I hear any higher? Going once! Going twice!"

Abigail thrust her hand into the air; "WE'LL BOT-FIGHT YOU FOR IT!"

"What the – " Jack flinched. "What's that mean?"

"We both want it," Abigail insisted. "You build robots. We build robots. You bring one of your Jack-bots here…and we'll bring one of our own! They'll fight, and whichever one doesn't get destroyed, THAT'S the team who gets the depositor!"

"You know what?" Jack decided. "YOU'RE ON!"

"Prepare to lose!" Randall taunted.

"Half-hour prep time!" Abigail declared. "We meet right back here and SETTLE THIS!"

"Way to go, Abigail!" Entrapta cheered. "Now all we have to do is build a superior robot! And since I'm me and you're you, there's no way we won't win!"

"Oh, how adorable," Ravess teased. "They really think they can build a smarter contraption than we can."

"Let's hurry about it!" the Spot encouraged. "We've got to get our weapon put together!"

The two teams hustled off to opposite sides of the Common.

"Well, it looks like we get an auction AND entertainment today!" the auctioneer laughed. "While they settle their affairs, let's move on to lot two!"

The Heathens circled up. "Okay," Entrapta began. "I need ideas and I need them now."

"We're not using Emily?" Globby said in confusion.

"No! Of course not!" Entrapta barked. "Emily's a friend! She can't get hurt in this! We're making a new bot from the ground up! If she lives, then she gets a name."

"I should think something to do with portals," the Spot said. "Though I'm not sure how we could integrate them…"

"I mean, it could make hyperspace jumps," Abigail pointed out. "And lucky for you, between the Moogle shop and the dump, I have the stuff to construct a basic hyperspace engine. VERY basic, though."

"Can it be in the shape of a dinosaur?" Globby asked.

"Yes!" Entrapta replied joyously.

"I suggest we go with an offensive implement that is tried and true," Carl stated. "For example, the classic miter saw blade."

"And it should be able to go invisible," Mel said. "Don't worry. I brought stuff for that in case we needed to build an impromptu Buddyguard."

"I love you," Abigail told him.

"Can missiles be an option?" Dr. Lopez asked. "It could be a simple mechanism that fires shrapnel from the dump."

"So I'm hearing a dinosaur that has a circular saw blade," Entrapta listed off, "a secondary missile function, and the ability to make hyperspeed jumps as well as camouflage itself. And we have just enough time to build something like that!"

"We do?" Globby said. "That sounds like a lot of stuff to build in thirty minutes."

"But we're us," Dr. Lopez reminded him.

Across the common, the WHAM ARMY contingent tinkered with a Jack-bot. "They're probably deciding how many weapons to stuff it with right now," Jack muttered. "And making sure it can do stuff like turn invisible. Little do they know that's all standard features of the Jack-bots."

"What we need is an instant kill move," Randall said.

"Something just within the lines of not truly being cheating," Ravess added. "Or…depending on the circumstances…something that is cheating."

"We just need to be able to take it down in one shot using something they won't expect," Randall clarified. "No matter how big or bad they make it, it can't escape the death move."

"What about an EMP?" Megavolt asked.

"Yeah!" Quackerjack agreed. "We should install an EMP! …What's an EMP?"

"It's a burst of electromagnetic energy that will kill all the electronics it touches if it's strong enough," Megavolt explained. "Let me charge up for the next twenty-five minutes and I can generate one. All you need to do is get me a container to put it in, like a lightbulb, except not literally a lightbulb, because that'd be so inhumane. Oh, and don't worry. We can get our bot back online later. Theirs too, but the point is…it'll win the fight."

"How devious." Ravess smirked. "They'll never see it coming."

"And they'll fall like chumps," Randall added, "leaving us with the depositor."

"Well, don't just stand there, Megs!" Quackerjack urged. "Get chargin'!"

When half an hour had passed, the auction crowd parted. Entrapta and Jack's teams strode toward one another. Entrapta had under her arm a metal Tyrannosaurus Rex; a particular Jack-bot floated behind Jack.

"This is gonna be so much fun!" Entrapta declared.

"Yeah, yeah." Jack withdrew the remote he'd linked to this particular bot from his jacket. "I'm not here to have FUN. I'm here to kick your butt."

"Oh, but that's part of the fun!" Entrapta dropped to the ground, sitting cross-legged. She leaned back, using her hands for support; her twin prehensile ponytails took over the robot's remote control.

"All right, everyone!" the auctioneer called out. "I guess we're doing this now, so get ready! Three!"

The Jack-Bot floated into the makeshift arena.

"Two!"

The Tyrannosaurus was set down.

"BOT-FIIIIIIIGHT!"

Entrapta's bot surged forth so quickly, the naked eye couldn't perceive it. With a high-pitched whirr, a circular saw blade that ejected from its front scored a deep gash on the Jack-bot.

"WHAT THE – " Jack screeched. "IT CAN JUMP HYPERSPACE?"

He hammered on the remote, engaging laser fire as the Jack-bot flew around the arena. Entrapta's bot deftly dodged each one, seemingly teleporting across the field due to the speed with which it moved, until it halted just long enough to fire twin cannons from its shoulders. Sharp, irregular pieces of scrap metal were launched at the Jack-bot, punching holes in its shell.

"USE THE INSTA-KILL!" Randall yelled. "NOW!"

Entrapta's bot had gone invisible, and Jack realized that if he didn't deploy the EMP, his bot was done for. "Here goes NOTHING!"

He punched the button. A surge of crackling energy radiated out from the bot, whooshing over the whole battle arena.

Both remotes went dead. Entrapta's bot was revealed, its cloaking dropped. Its blade was only a millimeter away from making a strike that would've ended the Jack-bot. The Jack-bot dropped out of the air, crashing on the brick below. Entrapta's bot toppled.

"SUSAN!" Entrapta gasped, leaping up and rushing to gather the bot into her arms.

"Hey, that's cheating!" Globby accused.

"When did you ever say using an EMP was against the rules?" Ravess posed.

"We…we didn't," Abigail admitted. "That's on us."

"But your bot is also down!" the Spot observed.

"No…" Abigail sighed. "I know one of you is set to argue, so I'll cut you off right there. By official bot-fight circuit rules, if both bots are downed in the same attack, the one that performed the attack is ruled the victor. So it doesn't matter that theirs is dead; it made the attack."

"No…" Entrapta said mournfully, pressing Susan the Tyrannosaurus closer to her chest. "Spinel…without that depositor…"

"HA!" Jack laughed, pointing at her. "In your FACE!"

Entrapta looked to him with wide eyes. "I hope your invasion goes well," she said. "Think about what I said about the runestone. If you pair it with that, you're sure to win."

"Hey!" Jack scolded. "Don't be nice to me and talk to me about my evil plans! You're gonna make me feel bad for beating you! Which I don't!"

Entrapta pouted.

"GAH!" Jack shielded his face with both arms. "Don't use PUPPY EYES on me!"

"Let's go," Ravess sniffed. "Before Jack's soft spot loses us our depositor!"

Entrapta stood slowly, clutching Susan close. "Well, that's it," she stated. "We lost."

"Perhaps not." Carl took a step forward, cracking his knuckles. "As the device is imperative to the state of our friend, I do not believe we can let you walk away with it unharmed."

"Oh, so it's a fight you want!" Randall squared up. "I don't think you know who you're messing with."

Globby struck a bizarre pose; "Oh yeah? I think it's YOU who doesn't know who you're messing with!"

Tension built. Jack, Randall, Ravess, Megavolt, and Quackerjack squared up on one side. Entrapta, Emily, the Spot, Carl, Globby, and Abigail did so on the other while Dr. Lopez and Mel stepped back. Both sides glowered.

Before it could come to blows, the auction resumed; "And finally, lot forty-two: a second lightly used ultrasymphonic vapor depositor, donated by Ludwig von Drake!"

The Heathen side all snapped to attention. "NEVER MIND!" Entrapta yelled. "We'll just take that one!"

"FIVE HUNDRED!" Mel yelled at the auctioneer.

"I'm hearing five hundred!" the auctioneer declared. "Going once! Going twice! Aaaand SOLD!"

Both sides collected their identical devices. The Heathens' pooled money came up a few munny short…until the Spot and Globby suddenly found some extra change in other people's pockets.

"This was fun!" Entrapta said with a smile. "We should do this again!"

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "It was fun, wasn't it?"

"NO!" Randall snapped. "We fought them and we WON! They're not friends! They're just a bunch of losers!"

"I mean, Carl, Globby, and Spot are our friends," Megavolt pointed out. "We had a whole heist together!"

"We just put it aside when we had to fight for our gadget thingy," Quackerjack stated.

"Also," Jack said, "I hate to break it to you, but we're also kind of a bunch of losers."

"Well, we're better than THEM!" Ravess huffed.

"For what it is worth," Carl said, "it seems we are cut from similar cloth. I find it difficult to retain hard feelings with that in mind."

"Villains to the end!" Globby declared proudly. Then: "Oh, oops, did I just say that out loud?"

"It's kinda obvious you're…well…y'know." Abigail dropped her voice to a whisper. "From the rough side of the tracks."

"We oughta coordinate more heists together!" Quackerjack declared.

"Maybe you could even make good material for our faction," Jack said.

"Sorry, but we've already got a syndicate," the Spot replied. "And it's got very strict parameters. Until we know where each other stands on certain topics, perhaps it's best we maintain a more distant relationship. But we can still get together for a little fun!"

"That's it!" Randall declared. "I'm out." And he promptly turned camouflaged so no one would know exactly where he stormed off to.

"As am I!" Ravess stalked away.

"We better follow," Megavolt suggested. He waved as he began to walk away; "See you guys around!" Quackerjack and Jack trailed after him.

"Bye-bye!" Entrapta waved back.

"Well, that was fun," Globby said. "Wanna hang out some more before we take the gem thingy home? Megavolt and Quackerjack told us about a magic mailbox in the common that'll deliver a letter to literally anyone, anywhere!"

Abigail gasped; "I can write my dad. Guys, I can WRITE MY DAD and tell him I'm okay! We gotta do this!"

Carl flicked a paper toward her; "I had figured many of us here would want to make correspondences. Therefore, I stole several postcards."

They headed over to sit down at the edge of the common and write to those they wanted to check in with – whether that was Robert Callaghan, the Princess Alliance, or Alistair Krei (who was told in no fewer than three different postcards that he was a loser and smelled).

...

At Station Square, trains took off regularly – the red passenger trains, the green freight trains. No one suspected that the trains' tight routine would be broken, their timetables messed with, their courses altered.

But that day, there was about to be a spanner in the works. Three spanners, actually. And their names were Katsuhiko Jinnai, Fred "Car Crash" Donaldson, and Ben.

"It's so beautifully simple!" Jinnai laughed in the midst of the station. "We'll hijack the train, crank it up to maximum speed, and lo and behold, it's a RUNAWAY TRAIN until our demands are met! A-HOHO! A-HOHOHO - "

"Shut the fuck up!" Ben hissed. "We're in the station and they'll hear what we're up to!"

"This is so exciting!" Car Crash squeaked. "Today, Car Crash becomes…TRAIN CRASH!"

"Okay, which one do we want?" Ben asked. "I think this one – "

His and Jinnai's attention was diverted by the sound of Car Crash, at the far wall, saying "Three tickets, please!"

"NO!" Jinnai hustled over to pull Car Crash away from the ticket booth. "We aren't paying for TICKETS, you absolute buffoon! We're going to sneak aboard the train when no one's looking!"

"Oh, that makes more sense!" Car Crash admitted.

They staked out their train, waiting for a crowd to slip in alongside. Eventually, four people walking quite close together appeared: an elderly woman, a younger woman, and two very definitely human men.

"Go!" Jinnai hissed, and the three of them slipped in alongside the quartet, using the strangers as a shield from prying eyes. Then, once all seven were onboard, Jinnai, Car Crash, and Ben scurried off.

However, what they didn't know was that their strangers had in fact been disguised heavily by illusion. The old woman was in fact a very young woman named Neopolitan. The young woman was in fact a very old woman named Mim. And the two men who seemed definitely human were in fact Demongo and Scaramouche, known inhumans.

"Well, that's in-ter-es-ting," Scaramouche remarked. "I think those three scamps just used us to get onboard without paying the piper!"

"How juvenile," Demongo sighed. "And yet we all have to start somewhere."

"I'm glad we didn't have to resort to such silliness," Mim told Neo. "Your tickets give us a legitimate alibi!"

Neo, holding one of the pieces of blank paper she was presenting via illusion as a ticket, nodded with a grin.

An announcer's calm voice came from overhead: "Please take your seats. The train ride will begin shortly."

"Well, time to go be posterboys," Scaramouche sighed. "This is gonna take eternity and a half!"

"Not as long as it would if we were going on foot," Mim remarked. "You should all thank me for thinking of this idea!"

They scuttled off to an empty row of seats, then planted down and opened the nearby windows a crack. With a final announcement that the train was taking off and all passengers should remain seated, the train began to glide along the rails.

The moment it was outside the station, riding elevated through Twilight Town, Mim, Scaramouche, Demongo, and Neo started letting go of the posters in their hands. Mim's magic fed them through the windows and stuck them to the walls they passed.

Demongo pouted. "Shame we cannot use this time for anything more…entertaining."

"Well, I thought maybe we'd set the engine on fire once we'd finished making the rounds," Mim suggested.

"Things that are on fire," Scaramouche replied. "This train and your brain. Good thinkin'!"

Neo just gave a dramatic sigh, lazily dropping more and more posters.

Up front in the engine car, however, things were about to get interesting. The engineer heard a few clunks on the door leading to his cab, and then the sound of the door opening. He looked over his shoulder, expecting the conductor, but instead was greeted with the sight of Jinnai, flanked by Car Crash and Ben. "Hey!" the engineer barked. "You can't be in here!"

"Oh, but we ARE in here!" Jinnai crowed. "Take him down, boys!"

The unsuspecting engineer was quickly wrenched away from his controls, wrapped in duct tape, and leaned against a wall. His cries of "Hey! You don't know what you're doing!" were silenced by more duct tape.

"Okay!" Car Crash declared, moving up to the controls. "Let's see what Train Crash can do!"

"If you manage to crash something that's on a fixed railway," Ben grunted, "I'll really be impressed."

"I aim to please!" With that, Car Crash threw the train into its highest gear.

Everyone onboard was surprised at the sudden jolt in speed. "WHAT'S HAPPENING?" someone yelled.

"I don't know," Mim replied, "but it's some fun for once!"

"ATTENTION, HAPLESS TRAIN HOSTAGES!" Jinnai's voice declared over the intercom. "Your train has just been HIJACKED! It will now proceed to barrel through town at its highest speed until our demands are fulfilled! And our demands are TWENTY THOUSAND MUNNY!"

"Or, y'know," Ben added. "However much you guys have in your pockets."

"Oh no!" someone cried. "What are we gonna do?"

"We have to give it to them!" someone else said.

"We can't just do THAT!" a third voice chimed.

Ben kicked down the door to the passenger car, stomping inside with gun drawn. "Okay, hand over the munny or the train never stops!" he demanded.

"Don't you mean 'or I'll shoot'?" Demongo corrected.

"No," Ben replied. "Why would I do that, dumbass?"

"What if we don't wanna give you our munny?" someone else piped up.

"We can take you on!" someone else said. "EVERYBODY! GET HIM!"

"Oh, FUCK," Ben cried, taking a nervous step back as passengers began to mobilize. "I didn't think this all the way through!"

"Obviously not," Demongo sighed. "What do you think? Should we give him a hand?"

Neo nodded fervently. She shoved the posters she held at Mim, then slid off her seat.

"Fine," Mim grunted. "Make me do all the dirty work." She continued to feed out the posters, and Scaramouche withdrew his flute in order to play a silly, sprightly tune that fit the speed of the train. Their magics combined kept posters flying out the window, now at a much quicker rate.

Demongo twirled into place before Ben, standing between him and the crowd. "I would like to amend the terms," he said. "This train shall slow down when we receive the riches we have demanded…or I have taken your souls."

On cue, Neo let the illusion fall, revealing his oni form, his glowing blue lights and wicked claws. "Whichever comes first," Demongo said with a grin.

Neo kept her own illusion on – it would be handy around this town – but brought out her sword and brandished it gleefully to hammer in the point.

"GIVE THEM THE MUNNY!" someone screamed, and people started lining up to do exactly that.

"Heyyyyy, this is my heist!" Ben complained.

Neo turned around to make a slashing gesture, drawing numbers in the air.

"What?" Ben replied.

"She's sayin' we go Dutch!" Scaramouche explained, temporarily lowering the flute. "You get halvsies, we get halvsies!" He resumed playing.

"It's only fair, since you hijacked the train!" Mim added. "I wish we'd thought of that.."

"Okay, sounds fair," Ben relented.

The passengers ponied up their cash. It was nowhere near twenty thousand, but it did fit the criteria of "Whatever you have in your pockets." Mim, Demongo, Scaramouche, and Neo were exempt from the collection, having lent their assistance as fellow evildoers.

"Hey, can we borrow that sword?" Ben asked Neo. "Now that we got what we want, we need to put the conductor back before Train Crash somehow steers us into the ocean."

Neo gave a few gestures to indicate that no, Ben couldn't borrow her sword, but he could borrow her while she wielded the sword. She skipped off after him to the cab in order to cut through the duct-tape bindings.

"Well, would you look at that!" Mim put her hands on her hips. "We've gotten the posters all around town in record time!"

"Teamwork makes the dream work!" Scaramouche agreed.

The train slowed down at the nearest station, and Mim, Scaramouche, Demongo, Mim, Ben, Car Crash, and Jinnai beat a hasty retreat in order to avoid the angry mob. Tucked safely away in the underground concourse, they divided their winnings.

"I must say you did us a service indeed!" Jinnai crowed. "Of course, your performance wasn't nearly as useful as our hijacking of the train, but still, with all our heads together, we managed to bring home a truly bountiful haul!"

"Oh, don't even worry about it," Mim said. "We at the WHAM ARMY are always looking out for other villains. We have your best interests in mind! And when we saw such amateurs – I mean youths with such potential working to ransom the train for money, we simply couldn't stand off to the side!"

"But I hope you have taken our lessons to heart," Demongo said. "Decisiveness and a sizeable threat are your friends."

"But I don't like threatening," Car Crash pouted.

"Then we'll stick to the decisiveness," Jinnai declared. "And we, as representatives of the Heathens, are glad to have made the acquaintance of your WHAM ARMY. Maybe we can do business again in the future!"

"Oh, that would be simply wonderful!" Mim squealed. "But I'm afraid we've got to run. Much to do and little time to do it!"

"Thanks again for the help!" Car Crash said sweetly.

"Ain't no thing but a chicken wing!" Scaramouche replied.

He, Demongo, Mim, and Neo scurried away, getting out of sight quickly. "Tell me I understood that plan correctly," Demongo said, "and that Neo has used her power to bamboozle our new…'friends.'"

Neo nodded, beaming brightly as she held out the full haul of the munny they'd picked up.

"That's my girl!" Mim replied. "It was awful, having to pretend to be nice to those young men. But THIS is the way they'll learn the real lessons! You can bet they won't be so trusting the next time!"

"You gotta admit they had potential, though," Scaramouche commented.

Once the four were out of range, Neo's illusion collapsed, and Jinnai realized that the bag he was holding was filled not with munny but with wrapped peppermints from the dining car. "THEY TRICKED US!" he gasped. "THAT WAS ALL AN ILLUSION! THEY HAVE ALL THE REAL MUNNY!"

"And those probably weren't even their real faces," Ben grunted, "so we can't even track 'em down!"

"That was super mean!" Car Crash pouted. "So not called for!"

"Yeah, Fred," Ben scoffed. "They're BAD GUYS. And so are we!"

"It almost reminds me…of my time spent with Diva…" Jinnai sniffled. "Plotting to backstab one another…they were true blackhearts, just like she was. Sometimes I miss her…" He closed up the bag of mints. "We were bested by the better villains today, men. But tomorrow, WE'LL be the better villains."

"For now," Car Crash pointed out, "free candy!"

They headed home with their spoils.

...

A/N: This chapter was originally going to be double length, but the word count is already ridiculous, so the next half of Twilight Town exploration shenanigans will happen next chapter.

Struggle rules were developed in part by Beastrage on AO3 (Beastenraged on Tumblr)! Thank you again so much for your help! I recommend Beast's KH fics if you're looking for some neat worldbuilding!