Taking Back the Crown

by JCMorrigan

Mozenrath. Archibald Snatcher. Roman Torchwick. Mad Madam Mim. Yzma. The Huntsman. Wuya. Ayam Aghoul. Their mission: take over the multiverse, or look fabulous trying. Rated M for swearing, steamy implications and VERY bloody battles. Contains slash and het shipping.

156. Nightlife and Death

A/N: You might know that I'm writing a fic (currently AO3-exclusive) called "Pray for the Wicked" that serves as a side story for villains I currently don't have room for in this fic. This chapter is set after the end of that story. The thing is, even I don't know how that one ends yet, so it's pretty vague for now. Just roll with it and I promise that when the rest becomes relevant, I'll recap it all for you! Though on that topic, I have decided to be interested in NEO TWEWY after all but haven't gotten around to it so please forgive the lack of references to it because I know NOTHING about it except the spoiler that made me want to not write it off. Also, for this one, the song to know is "That Beautiful Sound" from the Beetlejuice musical!

...

Most of the planet Sakaar was a cosmic landfill. Leaving the door behind, Mozenrath and the Huntsman had to wade through an ocean of junk and scrap.

The Huntsman took a glance behind him at the door. It appeared to be a freestanding frame, and only if you looked through it could you see that it was connected to the potions closet of Borgin & Burkes. From behind, it seemed connected to nothing at all.

"That was only necessary for the first entrance," Mozenrath informed the Huntsman, fiddling with his bracelet. "Admittedly even I need the help of this little device to get here and back, but now that we ARE here, I can set its parameters to return us to this exact location. In essence, creating an artificial Safe Point."

"Is it really going to be efficient to return us to the junk wasteland every time?"

"Are you questioning me?"

The Huntsman realized he just had to get used to the idea of walking through the garbage. "As a matter of fact, it is a good idea to keep our eyes out for anything discarded here that we could repurpose."

"My thoughts exactly!" said Mozenrath, who really hadn't thought this part through that well at all.

"When did you want to release our companion?" the Huntsman asked.

"I suppose any time will do at this point," Mozenrath stated, holding up the Amulet of Candor (really, Kamdor) in a hand and letting the purple crystal dangle. He and the Huntsman came to a halt so Mozenrath could charge up the crystal, letting sparkling blue energy flow down the amulet's cord into the stone. The crystal itself grew closer to the blue end of the purple spectrum until it was blue through and through, and then, from it emitted a beam of light like that of a projector, revealing an image before Mozenrath and the Huntsman. As the light dimmed, the image solidified into reality, leaving them with a living, breathing person.

She was slender, almost lanky, with her raven hair in a bob. She dressed in a purple uniform cut like that of the ninjas of old, albeit much more ostentatious. Her first reaction upon solidifying was to take a deep breath and then withdraw a pair of swords from her hips, striking a defensive pose with the blades pointed to her rescuers.

"Who are you," she barked, "and what do you want?"

"Well, THAT'S no way to thank the people who broke you out of amulet jail," Mozenrath sniffed.

"You think I care about etiquette?" the woman barked. "My closest ally and mentor was the one who stored me there. I guard my trust carefully now, as I should have done even before."

"As it was my protégé who spurred my own defeat," the Huntsman replied. "You and I are halves of a whole, and in such a way that our sharp edges do not connect, but only harm one another. I know you do not want to rely on trust. Think of it instead as a repayment of a favor."

"One that we won't be too happy to see you skip out of your end on," Mozenrath added.

"I can fight you," the woman snarled.

"What would be easier?" the Huntsman asked her. "To test your might against an unknown foe? Or to throw in your lot with an ally who has offered?"

She thought it over. Then slowly sheathed her swords, standing to full height. "If you betray me," she seethed, "I won't be so merciful."

"Why would we go to all the trouble of bringing you out of that amulet just to betray you?" Mozenrath asked sweetly. "At any rate, we haven't even been introduced." He bowed; "I am Mozenrath, soon to be ruler of all existence, or at least as much of it as can be conquered in a lifetime."

"And you may refer to me as the Huntsman," the Huntsman stated.

The woman nodded gruffly. "I am Miratrix. And let me guess: you want me to assist you in building your empire."

"It's an honor, really," Mozenrath told her. "You should be proud to be one of the chosen few."

"Our syndicate, the WHAM ARMY, has slain gods and nearly destroyed the multiverse," the Huntsman told her. "We are a force of power to be reckoned with. Join us, and you can partake in that power. After all, you do remind me quite a bit of the protégé I mentioned…but with far less weakness."

"As it so happens, I have nowhere to go," Miratrix replied. "After my master betrayed me, I lost all purpose. I devoted my life to him, and I would be lying to say part of me did not still long to be with him. But not as big of a part as the one that wants to rip him limb from gear."

Mozenrath and the Huntsman had discussed this beforehand. Going after Kamdor's former apprentice was a calculated risk, and Kamdor wasn't aware of it at all. What Mozenrath and the Huntsman had agreed upon was to keep playing both sides, warming Miratrix up to their cause on one stage while Kamdor enjoyed life with the WHAM ARMY in a more casual setting. In time, they would find out they were slated to be reunited. And if it ended in bloodshed, then the stronger would be the one who they needed anyhow.

"Put your old master from your mind," the Huntsman told her. "You now serve a new cause."

"And we have a special treat lined up that's right up your alley," Mozenrath explained. "You see that city in the distance? Ugly, isn't it?"

Miratrix looked over her shoulder to take note of the one visible landmark on the whole planet: Sakaar City. "It is."

"In that place lives a man who prides himself on arranging tournaments of the bizarre to gain clout among his followers," Mozenrath told her. "Of course, it's all panem et circenses to cover for the fact that he's a shoddy leader who can neither provide for his people nor keep them in line if they figure out the concept of revolution. But that's neither here nor there. This world is nothing but a cosmic waste heap anyway, so what goes on here isn't exactly relevant to us, except for one thing.

"One teeny-tiny little object ended up here. And we happen to be in league with a scientist who desperately wants that teeny-tiny little object. It contains data that will allow him to create…let's say an artificial person with inhuman capabilities. He hopes it will be the pride of his body of work. I hope it's going to serve as a weapon of mass destruction. This object is currently on this planet, and, furthermore, being used by a participant in the current tournament. The only way to get it out of here without invoking the security systems of the idiot despot is to enter the tournament, kill the person who has it, and make a great escape. Entering won't be the hard part. Just turning up on his doorstep and being as unique as we are will let us clear the bar. The hard part – "

"Will be slaying the warrior," Miratrix said with a knowing nod. "You want me to do that."

"It is a three-pronged approach," the Huntsman told her. "We do not yet know the scope of the tournament. The bracket is likely wide. If the three of us enter separately, there is a greater chance of us finding the opponent who is using the device we need."

"And of course," Mozenrath clarified, "if we find out that there are a few more people than we thought to cut down…we might get you some backup. A few new friends."

"I don't do 'friends,'" Miratrix spat.

"That's what they all say, more or less," Mozenrath sighed. "Even I said it. And look where we are now."

Miratrix nodded. "I will fight in the tournament and help you acquire your weapon. In return, you will provide me with a goal to fight for, but on the condition that any betrayal is grounds for your execution."

"I mean, you can sure try and kill us if you want," Mozenrath told her.

"But on the way to the city," Miratrix urged, "you WILL tell me more about your group and how you came to be on this path. I am not going into this blind."

"Then let's walk and talk," Mozenrath told her, resuming his stride through the garbage.

The Huntsman and Miratrix followed. "I suppose I should have asked this to begin with," Miratrix realized, "though it really doesn't make any difference. What is the weapon I am to capture?"

"It's a suit of armor," Mozenrath replied. "Very, very high-tech armor. An ordinary mortal alone couldn't run it without basically killing themselves. But they say one man did. A man with a name that our scientist is very concerned with. That name is what he wants to call his replica."

"And this man?" Miratrix asked. "Was he a sorcerer? An extraterrestrial immortal of great strength?"

"An aggregate of fragments of artificial intelligence," the Huntsman clarified. "They referred to him as the Meta."

...

In the small house in the Third District of Traverse Town, a preteen girl ate a bowl of sugary cereal at the breakfast table. She was as bright and saccharine-looking as the cereal: blonde with a purple streak, dressed in a mint-green and lacy minidress with a fluffy skirt as well as a pink bear-ear hoodie and teal-and-purple striped stockings. And that wasn't even taking into account all the plastic accessories that clacked around on her person. This was Coco Atarashi, a former Shinigami turned into a living being that still had all the powers of her old position. Just unable to access the Netherworld or any other afterlife with them.

Her eyes flicked to the clock and back. Time was running out. "WTF?" she grumbled to herself. "WTH is he?"

The "he" in question strode into the room: a tall, slender young man dressed all in black, long jacket draping over charcoal-colored jeans. His steel-gray hair was kept back by a distinctive brimmed hat. This man, Sho Minamimoto, was in much the same situation as Coco. Once a Shinigami who had performed responsibilities in a game for those in the realm of the dead. But then he'd been exiled to the land of the living, and that was only the beginning of the troubles he'd been having recently.

"Took you long enough!" Coco spat.

"Whatever," Sho grunted. "I'm only 13.7 seconds late, and your jabbering is extending that number. So. You ready or what?"

Coco slid the chair back, hopping to the floor. "As I'll ever be. Here goes everything."

"Hey." Sho tipped his hat to her. "You wanna know the good news? No matter what outcome it ends up, there's a 100 percent probability we're not gonna have to lay low anymore."

Coco's eyes lit up; "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking we show this town the real majesty that is me," Sho said with a wink.

"HEEEEYYYY!"

"Eh, and you're here too, I guess," he sighed. (Though, really, she'd been a lifeline for him these past weeks.)

"LOL!" Coco cried as she raced for the front door. "Let's go wreck this town!"

Sho swept a megaphone into his hand. "ATTENTION, TRAVERSE TOWN!" he called as he followed her outside to the upper level of the Third District. "YOU MIGHT'VE SEEN SOME JERK WITH A CAULDRON PUSHING YOU AROUND, BUT I'M GONNA BREW THE PRIMORDIAL SOUP!"

On the terrace outside the house, a couple of bystanders had stopped to stare at Sho, since he was yelling delusions of grandeur through a megaphone. "What are you looking at, yoctograms?" he spat once he became aware of them.

"Nothing!" one of the bystanders said.

"Remember!" Coco chirped. "No more laying low!"

And with only a single knowing glance exchanged between them, Sho and Coco surged forward, shoving the pair of townsfolk over the edge of the terrace.

Sho leaned over the edge, a hand to his ear as their victims screeched all the way down. "Do you hear that sound?" he asked, a melody creeping into his voice.

Then came the THUD.

"That beautiful sound?" Coco asked, pointing over the ledge.

Down below, in the plaza, other townsfolk happened upon the crushed corpses and let out shrill shrieks of horror.

"That is the sound of 255/255/2555 shorts turning brown!" Sho cackled. He tugged Coco's sleeve to pull her toward the door to Second – cutting through Third would've been faster, but this would leave their victims in the dark as to the perpetrators and also offer them opportunities to make more mischief on the way. "Torture and pain!" Sho belted. "Dividing a brain! A sound that says 'I will never sleep well again!'"

They entered the back alley of Second, and Coco skipped ahead; "The sound of a screeaaaam! Is music to me!" Turning the corner, she blew a kiss, sending several razor-sharp hearts to impale another bystander. "A sound that says '5ever full-time therapy!'"

"Trauma and fear!" Sho belted. "It sings in my ear!"

He reached for Coco's hand, and the two fallen Reapers gallivanted across the Second District's lower level, harmonizing; "AIN'T IT THE MOST ACUTE NOISE AROUND? THAT BEAUTIFUL SOUND!"

Up the stairs to the upper level of the district they skipped, only to come face-to-face with a pair of strangers. Strangers to them, at any rate. To this story, they are well-known.

"Well, well, hello there!" Aghoul said slyly. "Aren't you two making a mess of things?"

"You know it!" Sho replied. "You hear all that screaming in terror? That's the sound of everyone realizing the real powerhouse in this town is ME! I'm the omega, the greatest common factor!"

"Wonderful!" Mim chirped. "See, we were just coming along to invite you on a little business venture of ours – "

"No thanks." Coco waved a hand dismissively. "We've got our own agenda."

"But you haven't even heard what we're going to ask!" Aghoul urged.

"And YOU haven't heard that you shouldn't stand in my WAY!" Sho thrust out a hand, sending a blast into Aghoul that propelled him over the edge of the balcony.

"GHOULIE!" Mim cried, leaping over the edge and using her skirt as a parachute to drift down.

Aghoul grunted as he peeled himself up; "Been a while since I've had a good legitimate back-cracking like that." He adjusted his spine back into place. "But it looks like those two are going to be a hard sell."

"I know!" Mim's eyes sparkled. "They're violent and cantankerous! They're PERFECT!"

Up on the walkway, Sho had smashed the display window of the boutique nearby, and he and Coco had begun to pluck accessories out of the display to add to their ensembles. "Panic and stress!" Sho belted, holding up a necklace to his throat.

"Panic and stress!" Coco slid on several rings.

"Oh, ain't it the best?" Sho tossed away the pendant.

Coco caught it and fastened it around her own neck; "Ain't it the BEST!"

The cashier on duty, a woman with golden stars set in her curly dark hair, rushed to the broken window. "HEY! You have to pay for that!"

"The sound of a HEART!" Sho picked up a heart-shaped pendant, twirled it once, and then hurled it at the cashier so hard that it knocked her out cold.

"HEART!" Coco cheered.

Sho swept the whole rest of the gems to stuff his pockets; "Exploding inside a chest!"

"Exploding inside a chest!" Coco agreed, dripping with costume jewelry. She then turned to extend her arms to the rest of Second; "IT FILLS YOU WITH PRIIIIIIIDE!"

"WE'RE RUINING LIVES!" Sho dumped the broken glass of the window in his tracks; whoever would come up the stairs would have a nasty surprise. He then reached down, looping his arm through Coco's.

They skipped through the district together, singing out, "Ain't it the 1337est noise in town? That beautiful sound!"

Sho kicked through the door to the First District, and the two fallen Reapers ran to the edge of the dropoff, ejecting a pair of skeletal black wings each to coast down to the lower level of First. "Mersenne!" Sho barked. (It was his nickname for Coco, since she was "less than prime," but the concept of Mersenne Primes seemed to have escaped him.) "You know what would multiply the awesomeness sum of this matrix?"

"What?" Coco asked.

"A work of MY beautiful art!" Sho gave a twirl.

That was their cue to begin pulling together random items from all over the District and gathering them into a pile in the midst of the square.

"All we wanna do is hear that sound!" Coco swiped two chairs from the nearby upscale restaurant.

"All we wanna do is hear that sound!" Sho threw a public wastebasket into the center of the cobblestones.

"All we wanna do is hear that sound!" Coco jumped with her full weight onto a branch-off of a lamppost, sending the metal arm and its lamp down onto the pile.

"All we wanna do is hear that sound!" Sho grabbed the neon "S" from the sign of the "ITEMS" shop to throw it on.

"All we wanna do is hear that sound!" Coco ripped a blue vest from a man who stood watch nearby, causing him to flee in fear as she tossed it on the pile.

"All we wanna do is hear that sound!" Sho attempted to kick over the mailbox, but it held firm. So he fished inside, but instead of getting any mail, he just got a pinch on his arm from the mailbox, which then spat him out because it was done with his shenanigans.

"All we wanna do is hear that sound!" Coco jumped onto a barrel with all her weight to splinter it into planks, which she then arranged artfully around the pile.

"All we wanna do is hear that sound!" Sho swiped the candles from the restaurant's outdoor tables, planting them strategically to make his sculpture glow.

"CRUNCH!" Sho pumped his fist. "ADDED TO THE HEAP!"

"GG!" Coco cheered.

They shared a fist-bump, then took off striding down the back streets.

"MAIL DELIVERY!" Mim, dressed in a postal worker's uniform, skidded in front of the two of them, holding a large and ostentatious package wrapped in brown paper. "DELIVERY FOR SHO AND COCO!"

Sho rolled his eyes. "Like I'm gonna fall for that!" He wrenched the package out of her hands and used it to clock her over the head before dropping it beside her.

Mim fell to a sitting position, shaking away the visions of flying bats circling her dizzy head as her charges got away. The top of the parcel split open, and the scary jack-in-the-box head inside sprang out.

Aghoul was the next one to skid in front of the two fallen Reapers, a flat, square cardboard box in his hand. "Pizza delivery! Did anyone order pepperoni and snakes?"

"No." Sho ripped the cardboard box out of Aghoul's hands, popping it open. "But I'll take the remainder." He charged up a red disc of energy blades in the air, setting the pizza atop it. Then he sent it flying; it slammed into Aghoul and careened him away. Sho then held onto the box – the "remainder" he'd wanted.

Then Mim, in the tall, statuesque form of a supermodel with flowing lavender hair, danced over to them. "La-la-la-laaaaaa, la-la-la-laaaaaa…oh, hello! Have this pie I baked out of the goodness of my heart!" She offered them a rotten-apple pie on a plate, flies buzzing around it.

Coco just slammed upward on the bottom of the pie tin. The pie smashed into Mim's face. She laughed as she and Sho continued on.

"Yes, I hear that sound!" Sho belted.

"That beautiful sound!" Coco echoed.

"Yes, we do, it's beautiful!" Sho did a kick and a spin.

Coco began to kick in between her skips; "A sound that means no more condescending pleeb n00bs hanging around!"

"Every groan!" Sho sang as he skipped into the dark of the waterway.

Coco splashed beside him, and they sang in unison: "Each wail and each moan! Adds up to Composer's LEAVIN' US THE HELL ALONE!"

There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it brought them into the Fountain Plaza. There, they grabbed each other's hands and began to dance, swinging each other.

"HEY, LOOK AT ME, HEY!" Coco yelled.

"AND LOOK AT ME-2, GIRL!" Sho added.

"I'M FINALLY FREE!" Coco screeched.

"WE'RE FINALLY FREE, GIRL!" Sho yelled.

"I WAS INVISIBLE – " Coco cried.

"I WAS INVISIBLE!" Sho echoed.

They halted to point at each other: "BUT NOW THEY ALL SEE!"

Coco leapt up to do a loop-de-loop in the air. "THEY'RE OUT OF MY GRIIIIILL!"

Sho dropped to his knees and scooted; "BECAUSE OF THAT SHRILL SYMPHONY!"

They clasped hands again to dance toward the fountain: "AIN'T IT THE SWEETEST NOISE AROUND? THAT BEAUTIFUL SOUND, SOUND, SOUND, SOUND! THAT BEAUTIFUL SOOOOUUUUND! THAT BEAUTIFUL SOUUUUNNND! THAT BEAUTIFUL – "

They danced over top of one of the circular metal grates that separated the street from the subterranean waterway. And just like that, the grate disappeared entirely. Sho and Coco plunged down into the dark, giving twin screams of surprise.

The grate materialized over top of them, trapping them below. Mim and Aghoul planted their feet on the grate with a hollow ring, looking down upon their victims; "THAT BEAUTIFUL SOUND!" And then broke into laughter.

The song was quite obviously at an end. "HEY!" Sho shook his fist at them. "DIDN'T YOU GET THE MEMO? WE'VE GOT PLACES TO BE, SO FACTOR OFF!"

"Well, WE need a Reaper!" Mim yelled down at him. "And you two fit our bill!"

"Your résumés are quite impressive," Aghoul added. "Coup d'etat, urban destruction, microphone theft – you've done it all!"

"IDIOTS!" Coco shrieked. "We don't have time for that stuff! We're BUSY!"

"Busy doing what, exactly?" Aghoul asked. "You couldn't have been doing anything more important than working toward domination of an empire that will be the gateway to multiversal conquest."

"Oh, yeah?" Sho retorted. "Wanna bet?"

"Why don't you tell us your sob story?" Mim asked. "Then MAYBE we'll let you out. But probably not!"

Sho gave a dramatic sigh. "Look, you two seem like you're from the same function domain as me and my coefficients, so I'll give you the word problem. For the past few weeks, we've been playing the Reaper's Game without playing the Reaper's Game. A mathematical paradox! Divide by zero! A bunch of negative integers got thrown into the UG while we stand on this side of the number line, and then we hear there's a new Composer hanging over it all like a numerator!"

(Neither Aghoul nor Mim needed to ask the meaning of "UG." It stood for "Underground," a slang term for the Netherworld that Aghoul knew all too well. "Real Ground" was the living realm.)

"And he's a JERK, too!" Coco spat.

"We've been trying to subtract him," Sho went on. "Divide him down to size! But getting close to the end of the sequence, it's clear we can't do the same work as the integers in the UG."

"By 'integers,' he means dead souls," Coco explained. "LOL."

"Yeah," Sho clarified. "They've been tossing around a bunch of new Players, but the Players fought back. We can't help any more than we already have, but the Composer planned a squared operation."

"Our BFFs are fighting the actual Composer and his fake Reapers," Coco explained, "but they have one guy who can be in both the UG and the RG at the same time, so he's been after US! We're on our way to take him down, because once we get rid of that jerk, then our BFFs will have way less to worry about!"

"Then that leaves us two options," Sho clarified. "Stay here for the fallout. Or get outta here and do something bigger and better, like I was always meant to do!"

"You could just leave now, you know," Aghoul told him.

"Can't," Sho responded. "One: can't abandon my coefficients like that after all this."

"Does he have his own WHAM ARMY?" Mim murmured.

"Two," Sho went on, "this guy's infinite! He'll chase me down even if I try to lose him over 10^6 worlds!"

"And that's why Arawn Death-Lord is cancelled," Coco stated.

Mim gave a start; "ARAWN DEATH-LORD? WELL, WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING?" The grate shimmered; she leapt back, and Aghoul teetered as the grate suddenly vanished to release Sho and Coco.

"You know the man?" Aghoul asked her.

"He's a thorn in my side, all right!" Mim huffed. "He's been in the game almost as long as me and Merlin! Even if he did spend so much of it inside that fancy bowl. Which is just like that coward, to turn himself into dishware so he doesn't have to fight! He always takes the sneaky way out, and I hate, hate, hate, HAAAAATE that! The sneaky way is only fun when WE do it!"

Sho landed up on the street beside her, wings folding into his back. Coco soon followed. "Then how about an exchange?" he asked. "You help us turn the Death-Lord into an absolute zero, and since there's not much I can do about the UG anyway, I help you with whatever you need." He put out his hand.

"DEAL!" Mim clenched it in both of hers, shaking it so hard that Sho's entire body ended up flung around like a chew toy.

"And your, er, BFFs?" Aghoul asked.

Coco pouted. "Not much we can do here in the RG."

"We could bring them back to life, you know," Aghoul told her. "We have the means."

"Useless if the Composer isn't taken down too," Coco grumbled. "The whole thing's a mess. They gotta win on their end if they wanna catch up."

"You're going to have to tell us about this adventure one of these days," Mim demanded. "How has this much been happening in Traverse Town and we haven't been part of it?"

"Well, then, let's get a move on!" Sho demanded.

"Name game first?" Coco pleaded.

Mim gave a twirl; "I am the magnificent, marvelous, merciless Mad Madam Mim!"

Aghoul slid in beside her; "And I'm the abhorrent, anathema, abominable Ayam Aghoul!"

"Some Old Horses Can Always Hear Their Owners Approach," Sho laughed. "This might be the solution we were looking for after all!"

"LET'S GO PWN ARAWN!" Coco chirped.

And the four of them set out together, skipping along.

...

Once upon a time, Soleanna Port was one of the districts that Radiant Garden could call its pride. The sea flowed in at the shore, then was tamed to form a network of canals that served as the town's veins. In its day, this port had been filled with people bustling between its tall, squarish buildings, sitting at the edges of decorative fountains and strolling over the bridges that crossed the canals.

But then Maleficent had changed everything.

Now, the port was abandoned. Not a single person to be seen. Most of its architecture had collapsed, leaving jagged edges and exposed interiors. Many of the bridges had collapsed, but that was a moot point, since there was no water anyhow. Maleficent had stolen the seas to create her Rising Falls, and the water had never settled back to where it should've been in this part of the city, leaving flat, exposed seabed out as far as the eye could see and dry valleys instead of canals.

"Here it is," Vexen announced as he stood at the district's edge with Deymos and Xerxes. "A horrid place. One might even say I lost everything here. And yet…in its current state, it may yet serve me well."

As he led the way into the streets, Deymos brought up, "I'm guessing this has to do with your history in this town."

"Observant as ever."

"Soooooo. You wanna talk about it?"

"No."

"Come onnnnn," Deymos urged. "You'd get to tell me about all the things you hated and want to complain about! Don't tell me you don't wanna do that much."

After a pause, Vexen admitted, "Only somewhat."

"We're bonding, Vex. You tell me your deal and I'll tell you mine."

"I KNOW your story. Triton and Jareth. You'd explained it."

Deymos shrugged. "I mean, that's the way it reads on paper. There's more to it, of course."

"You won't stop bothering me until I divulge, will you?"

"Nnnnnope."

"Xerxes bother too," Xerxes added with a cackle.

"Very well," Vexen huffed. "It was here that I used to come with my…companions of youth. The man you know as Ansem the Wise, as well as Zexion's mother Evie, who I mentioned, and Braig, who needs no explanation."

"So you four were best friends," Deymos realized.

"You could use that term, I suppose," Even replied. "It may even have been accurate, back then. Radiant Garden would hold a sun celebration festival here at Soleanna Port, and a mirror ceremony for the moon in Crystarium. My companions and I would ensure attendance at both. They were of course crowded, garish events, and looking back, I probably could've spent the time on more useful endeavors. But it was here, during one particular sun festival, that Ansem doomed us all."

"What happened?"

"The princess," Vexen seethed. "Her name was Elise. A pitiful, lonely thing. She was the heir after her elder sister, Queen Sarah. The two of them arrived at this location to light the sun altar." He gestured.

Through a gap in the buildings, Deymos could see it. A massive bowl brazier, bordered by intricate stonework.

"Alas, there was a nefarious plot afoot," Vexen went on. "The captain of the guard, Garland, went rogue. It seems he wanted to harness the power of the god Chaos. He and another turncoat they called Kain worked to abduct the princess. Ansem insisted upon dragging us all on a pointless quest to retrieve her. How I wish he hadn't."

"You guys failed?"

"No, we SUCCEEDED," Vexen seethed. "And then, with the help of Elise – if you can call it that – we went on to battle Chaos himself in order to prevent the apocalypse of the entire world. Kain returned to our side, and Sarah and her personal bodyguard Celes decided to add themselves to our party as well. I should have put my foot down and never let those newcomers disturb the sanctity of our alliance! It was only when Elise came into the picture that Ansem began to ignore the rest of us entirely!"

Deymos gestured as though he were literally placing two and two together. "Ansem ended up king. So I'm guessing he and Elise tied the knot."

"Precisely."

"And which one did you have a thing for, again?"

Vexen gave a start. "How DARE you ask such a thing? It was merely Ansem's companionship I mourned! And besides, that phrasing labels my attraction experience entirely incorrectly."

"Okay," Deymos corrected, "you obviously had a crush on one of them or you wouldn't be this angry about it. You liked the girl too?"

"Of course not! She was far too vapid and bland for a man with Ansem's potential! It was she who dulled the edges of his mind, made him soft and weak!"

"It was Ansem," Deymos realized. "You totally had a crush on Ansem."

"Will you stop INSINUATING – "

"Vexen love Ansem," Xerxes said. "We know now. Can't not know!"

Vexen shook his head. "I suppose I cannot persuade you of otherwise at this point. Fine. Go ahead and believe that I had feelings toward Ansem. In truth…I had hoped more of him. That we could bring this kingdom into a new age of science and research. But he let himself be hindered by what he called ethics. Self-imposed, arbitrary rules."

"So what happened next?" Deymos asked.

"Well," Vexen went on, "they were married. They produced a child."

"Oh, right, the princess of heart! Whatsherface."

"Kairi," Vexen corrected. "Though really, perhaps 'whatsherface' is a more fitting moniker. Meanwhile, Evie and Kain procreated, and this resulted in Ienzo." A long pause. "One night, we were betrayed by a member of the guard. Lightning Farron. A traitor who has escaped us to this day. She somehow murdered Evie, Elise, Sarah, Celes, and Kain in one fell swoop. Leaving Ansem to the throne. By that time, of course, we also had Dilan and Aeleus in our number. It was they who ensured that the rest of us escaped that grim fate. But even with Elise removed from the picture, Ansem would not return to being the companion I knew, the man of intellect. No…he spent his time obsessing over the plights of the people, taking in stray children like dogs, worrying over infrastructural minutiae. If ever Ansem was my friend…then his grief of Elise put an end to that. And after that came Xehanort, and the rest, I suppose you can fill in."

"Wow," Deymos replied. "So…you miss 'em much?"

"Vexen must be lonely," Xerxes said.

"I am not lonely," Vexen huffed. "Certainly not with all of the WHAM ARMY distracting me from my work."

"Hey, then that means you found the better friends!" Deymos said happily. "But real talk: if Ansem and Evie and Xigbar showed up at our door right now and said 'Hey guys, turns out we're evil and WHAM ARMY loyal!', would you want 'em back or is that bridge burned?"

"I know what you are asking," Vexen snapped. "And I would rather not spare any of them a second thought. Not even the dead."

"Harsh."

"And yet…" He sighed. "What I wish was that they had not sacrificed their potential, or in Evie's case, her life. What they could have become then, had they not turned their backs on me…I suppose Braig was the only one who lived up to it, but made it clear his allegiance lay elsewhere. I now know that I played an oblivious role in his and Xehanort's schemes. The two of them knew upon what scale they operated. I was a tool of theirs who they let play with human subjects in order for them to channel my skills and eventually amass a vessel. They thought of me as a fool, and perhaps…I was."

Deymos reached up to Vexen's shoulder, then remembered he wouldn't like that, and lowered it.

Vexen was half tempted to begrudgingly tell him he could complete the gesture, but then realized that there was literally no reason for him to do that. (He certainly didn't secretly appreciate the attempt.)

"Not your fault they blindsided you," Deymos said. "Look, that's the thing about this whole WHAM ARMY bit. There are so few of us actually from the same world. You just grew up surrounded by losers, so you tried to make something out of it. And they weren't the right friends for you. You needed somebody a bit more…conniving, that's the word. Less conscience, more ambition. Organization XIII was one heck of a flop attempting what Moze put together. Xehanort just grabbed all the scraps he could get off Radiant Garden, then rounded up the next batch based on their backstories. There was nothing about that team that actually could've worked in practice. Well, okay, the Mar-Lar contingent was pretty solid – "

"I remember well."

"And I'll bet you a LOT of munny that Luxord would've ended up running with 'em too," Deymos mused. "Actually, now that I think about it, there was always a part of me that regretted not knowing about the mutiny, 'cause I wanted in on the winning side. Good thing I never found out, I guess, 'cause it wasn't the winning side, and anyway, they killed – "

Realizing what he was about to say, Deymos corrected himself sharply: " – any hope of freedom from the monologue machine. Yeah."

Vexen had noticed Deymos' shift in tone. Had he been about to say…?

No. Their working relationship hadn't been that long. This was the best they'd ever gotten along, to Vexen's recollection.

"What I'm trying to say is I'll also bet you about five hundred munny that the other me is cozying up to them right now," Deymos said.

"Not inaccurate," Vexen realized. "You and I faced their Demyx in Lalotai, and when I returned to Remnant, another branch of their forces had Marluxia under heel. Doubtless Larxene and Luxord are soon to be recruited, if not already."

"Are we sure Zexion's corrupted to the Light side for good now?" Deymos asked. "He seems like he'd play nice with that group too."

"Rest assured," Vexen told him, "Ienzo is unfortunately VERY far gone. Just like his father."

"I thought you said – "

"Ansem adopted him after the death of Kain and Evie. Making not one but two brats I had to look after. And that was before he even decided to feed and clothe Subject X."

"You know," Deymos said, "I'm almost jealous. See, at least you HAD friends when you were a kid. Which, honestly, I didn't see coming, because you're you. But me? Well…Red called me a bother, and nobody else in Atlantica wanted anything to do with me. Either they were intimidated because I was upper crust or they just thought I was a loser."

"Not incorrect," Vexen teased.

"Hey now!" Deymos laughed. "Just because it's true doesn't mean they had to act it out! Anyway, my own brother wished me away, and from then on, it was just goblins and goblins. Some of 'em tried to play nice, but I could tell it was all fake. Nobody there wanted to be my friend. I was the human prince, the ugly little weakling. They just took care of me because they had to, then went off to party when I wasn't around. And Jareth? Forget about it. Mentor, yes. Actual family figure? Please. I have him to thank for a few style cues, but honestly, it's good riddance. And you know how I was in the Organization. No friends there either."

"I had thought you were somewhat close with Axel at some point."

"WHEN?" Deymos spat. "You mean when Xemnas forced us to buddy up and I leaned on him to do all the work, and he took it because he was trying to kiss Saïx's butt? No way, man. He and Roxas could go be the big softies on their tower. Which, by the way, they spent, like, every night on. EVERY night. You'd think they'd get bored. A whole multiverse's worth of adventures and they just wanted to sit on the one tower and eat the one flavor of ice cream."

"Obviously you went to the same place in order to learn that," Vexen told him.

"I wanted to keep an eye on things," Deymos replied. "When everything went sideways, I wasn't surprised to know it was those two. I kept it to myself, though. I thought maybe I could use it to my advantage. Never got relevant, of course." He made a show of tapping a finger to his jawline. "Though I remember one more person I tried making friends with once. Who could it have been? All I know is after a pretty solid recon mission together where he spent the whole time ignoring me and picking up the slack so I could doze off, I brought the idea up, and he flipped out on me because co-workers on the Organization couldn't be – "

"You would've been a distraction I couldn't have afforded," Vexen grunted. "And moreover, I didn't take over the mission to let you relax. I did it so it would be done correctly."

"Still ended up a win-win," Deymos reminded him. "I think we could've made a great team."

"Then I suppose this is the experiment," Vexen mused. "Our time in the Organization was the control. Our performance here will tell us if you were correct in your supposition, or if I was correct in my rejection of the very idea."

"I like the way you think," Deymos told him. "And I think you'll find I have a few surprises up my sleeve."

After a while, Vexen said, "To begin with, it surprises me that you were no social butterfly. I'd thought your exuberance would lend itself well."

"All this time," Deymos said, shaking his head, "I was the one with no friends, and you were the one with, like, seven. Who knew? Guess it just goes to show that the worlds don't always run on logic." He shrugged. "How about you, Xerxes?"

"What?" Xerxes replied.

"What's your story?" Deymos asked. "Friends or no friends?"

"…No one ever ask Xerxes before," Xerxes realized. He hadn't minded; listening to Deymos and Vexen speak was somehow very entertaining. Maybe even heartwarming.

"Guess that answers that question," Deymos said.

"Xerxes had Mozenrath," Xerxes said. "Only Mozenrath. Mozenrath had only Xerxes. But Xerxes know Mozenrath needed someone…not Xerxes. Xerxes for assistance and taking anger. Xerxes for bragging what Mozenrath made with magic. Mozenrath always talented one. Mozenrath have real friends now. Xerxes…should stay out of it."

"Whoa, no!" Deymos told him. "You fit right in here with us! I needed a little sea-creature guy to go with my aesthetic, and you're basically a living experiment, so Vex can appreciate you too."

"Don't put words in my mouth!" Vexen snapped. "That said…I would be interested to know more about your composition. Perhaps it can help with my engineering of a superior batch to the Tsviets."

"Xerxes can talk about self long time!" The eel beamed.

"That makes three of us!" Deymos cheered.

On the other side of a bridge, Vexen announced, "We're here."

"Huh?" Deymos looked up at the multi-level building that towered over them. "The HOSPITAL?"

"Soleanna Hospital was one of the foremost facilities for medical treatment in this kingdom," Vexen explained. "Which means its equipment and technologies are advanced enough for my work. Its abandoned state leaves us free reign to utilize it, and the abundance of medical cots gives us a place to camp as well."

Deymos shrugged. "A bed's a bed. Just don't make me do any of the science stuff."

"Believe me, I wouldn't trust you with it."

"Wanna go stake out some territory?"

"I would like to take inventory of the tools at our disposal, yes."

"Xerxes want look at cafeteria," Xerxes piped up.

Then Vexen's scroll buzzed. "NOW what is it?" He lifted the device to his ear. "You'd better have found something!"

"Chamberlain has found something indeed," skekSil replied. "But perhaps is best discussed face-to-face. Chamberlain has found meeting location, if Academic is willing to meet halfway."

...

"Ow. Ow. Ow."

Such was the sound that accompanied Yzma, Wuya, Indus, and Mera as they hiked through the field of tree-sized dandelions outside the borders of Enchancia.

"Here's a thought," Wuya told Mera. "Maybe somebody with brittle bones shouldn't be wearing wedge heels."

Mera had opted for a bright lavender sundress, with a few extra layers of fabric to it to account for the inevitable rips. Her feet were wrapped in open-toe shoes with chunky heels, similarly lavender and showing off the chipped toenail polish she bore.

"Beauty knows no gain," Mera replied.

"Did you mean 'beauty knows no pain' or 'no pain, no gain'?" Yzma asked.

"BOTH," Mera snapped. "You know how I feel about this already. I'm not going to settle for looking tacky when I don't have to wear a disguise just because my Epithet makes it hurt." She folded her arms. "I'm taming this beast one way or the other. Also, I think you all know I really need the height."

"I think you are perfect at the height you are!" Indus told her. (He was wearing the museum uniform khakis again, and no shirt.)

Wuya shrugged. "Your feet, your business. Anyway, the path to the Mystic Isles should be somewhere nearby."

"The Mystic Isles!" Yzma cried. "The source of all magic in this particular world! A floating archipelago with a landmass dedicated to each type of magical creature, object, or spell! A place ripe to become the next Yzmopolis, and whose magic shall fuel the WHAM ARMY conquest!"

"Why did you say all that?" Mera asked. "You told us that before we left Sweet Jazz City. There was literally no need to explain that."

"Oh, really?" Yzma retorted dryly. "Because I'll wager you everything in my magically enchanted bag that Barrier Boy forgot at least one of those pieces of information."

"I had forgotten all of that information!" Indus confirmed. "Thank you for reminding me of that important exposition!"

"Then you'll also remember the way won't be easy," Wuya told him. "First, we need to find the path. But then comes the challenge of opening it."

"Okay, not to be weird or anything," Mera said suddenly, "but do you guys feel like we're being watched right now? Because I'm getting that feeling."

"Well, now that you said THAT, we're all going to be paranoid!" Yzma snapped.

Wuya put up a hand, coming to a halt. "No. She's right. We're not alone in this forest."

A rustling noise nearby confirmed that.

"Oh." Yzma gave a low chuckle. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

"Yes, please come out!" Indus added, completely seriously. "It is okay! I will not harm you!"

"I hate him," Yzma said flatly.

The rustle increased, and a young woman stumbled from the dandelion stalks. She was dressed in an earthy green dress with a flowing skirt, a circlet of twine wrapped around her hair. Dark auburn locks flowed over deep-tan skin, and radiant ice-blue eyes stared above a wide smile.

"Hello!" the young woman greeted. "Are you looking for a way to the Mystic Isles?"

The four villains bristled. Wuya leaned forward; "Who wants to know?"
"I am too," the woman replied. "Actually, I'm more accurately looking for a way BACK to the Mystic Isles. You see, I used to be a Crystal Master, but then my awful, evil sister Azurine stripped me of all of my powers and banished me down here! I'm Prisma, by the way."

"No one asked," Yzma responded.

"So if you could help me get back to the Isles," Prisma continued, hands clasped, "I'd be ever so grateful! I'd make you all the magic crystals you desire! Only to do good things with, of course, but they'd be very, very powerful! I can even tell you the first step! You would need to summon – "

"Unicorns," Yzma said dryly. "We're well aware."

"Is this the place we ride them from or not?" Mera asked.

"You're standing in exactly the right spot!" Prisma chirped. "Now, if only we had something magical we could use to call them…"

"Oh, we've got something, all right." Yzma reached down the front of her dress.

"Oh, dear!" Prisma shielded her eyes with an arm. "Indecent!"

Yzma then fished a familiar purple stone on a chain out of her bosom, holding it high with a "HA!"

"Oh," Prisma realized, lowering her arm. "Well, that's all right."

"BEHOLD!" Yzma cried. "THE AMULET OF AVALOR!"

Prisma gasped; "Where did you get it? It's one of the most famously magical pieces in all of history!"

"Would you believe it was gathering dust in the back of my friend's dresser?" Yzma replied. "I mean, seriously! She went to all the trouble of stuffing an archnemesis inside it and then she never wears the blasted thing! Never mind that it would bring out her hair AND match the vast majority of her wardrobe, but no, she won't listen to ME, she needs to tailor her look to be as tacky as possible on purpose!"

"Mim's a lost cause," Wuya sighed.

"Mim?" Prisma repeated. "Like…Mad Madam Mim?"

"You know of her?" Wuya asked.

"I've heard the name," Prisma admitted. "She's spoken of as one of the villains who just missed out on being labeled the Wicked Nine. You do know the Wicked Nine, don't you?"

"Pretend we're stupid," Mera told her. "What's the Wicked Nine?"

"Why, nine of the most awful, evil villains to ever wreak havoc on this or any world!" Prisma gasped. "They're infamous for their crimes, worse than any other villain! You know, Maleficent, Jafar, Ursula, Dr. Facilier…"

"Because of COURSE it's them!" Yzma groaned.

"Grimhilde," Prisma kept going. "Lady Tremaine. Mother Gothel. Shan-Yu. And who was that last one? Oh, they had something to do with turning people into animals…"

Yzma leaned toward Prisma, a bright smile upon her face. "That wouldn't happen to be 'Yzma,' would it?"

Prisma snapped her fingers. "Mor'du! It was Mor'du!"

Yzma's face fell. "What?"

Wuya patted her shoulder. "There, there."

"But Mim was a very, very close runner-up," Prisma reminded the group. "Not that I have any interest in villains or anything. I'm just repeating what a friend once told me." She gave a bubbly giggle.

"So what you're telling me is that you're a goody-two-shoes heroine?" Yzma reiterated.

"Only the best!" Prisma affirmed. "Some would even go so far as to call me pure of heart!"

Mera grinned. "WE GOT HER!"

"Got…me?" Prisma began to back away. "Oh, oh no…I figured it out! If you're friends with Madam Mim, then that means – "

She hit a wall that hadn't been there before. Indus had cast a glowing disc of golden energy to bar her way, keeping her pinned before the four visiting villains.

"Funny thing about that Amulet of Avalor." Yzma advanced slowly, her grin widening. "If someone evil and dark-hearted such as ourselves attempts to use it, it'll only curse us. We couldn't summon a single unicorn even if we wanted to. But if someone like you used it…"

"Then that knocks one sidequest off our itinerary," Wuya added.

"Please, wait!" Prisma shook her head fervently. "You don't understand! There's been a mistake!"

Great shards of glass rose to either side of her, further pinning her in place. Mera held them steady with a hand, bringing their points just close enough to graze Prisma's skin.

"A mistake, you say?" Yzma taunted. "You know what I would consider a mistake? If you refused us at this point. All we want you to do is call us four little unicorns, and then you'll be on your merry way. But if not…"

"Well," Mera volunteered, "we'd make sure you got the POINT."

"GOOD ONE, LADY MERA!" Indus cheered.

"You!" Prisma pointed to Indus. "You said you wouldn't hurt me!"

"I am not hurting you," Indus told her. "I am just keeping you in place. Lady Mera is deciding whether or not to hurt you, and I trust her judgment."

"It'd be a shame, really." Mera looked Prisma up and down. "You're a pretty thing. I'd hate to riddle you with scars over this."

"But I can't!" Prisma protested. "It wouldn't – you won't get what you want out of me!"

A new wall formed in front of Prisma: not of energy or glass, but of green flame. Wuya sauntered through without a singe, extending the Amulet of Avalor on her open palm. "Last chance," she said. "I think you know what happens if you say no."

Prisma swallowed hard. "I really dug myself into this mess, didn't I?" She accepted the amulet with a trembling hand. "Okay. I'll…I'll try, but I'm warning you – "

"No, WE'RE warning YOU," Wuya told her.

Prisma nodded. "All right."

Wuya doused the flames so the others could see as Prisma clutched the gem timidly in both hands.

"Here…here we go." Prisma shut her eyes. Concentrated hard.

There was a rumble in the air, and several pockets of Darkness concentrated themselves. They solidified into a horde of Heartless – the Parasol Beauty variant, shaped like women in voluminous hats and skirts. Parasols were clutched by gloved claws.

"WHAT – " Yzma flinched hard.

"Oh," Wuya realized. "I get it now."

The arsenal of parasols was turned upon the squad of five like a host of guns.

"TAKE THEM DOWN!" Yzma yelled, withdrawing her atlatl.

The Parasol Beauties opened fire. Indus put up a large Barrier to cause most of the ammo to ricochet back, resulting in friendly fire among the horde. Many of the Beauties rushed to circumvent the Barrier, but were soon met with Yzma's hammer-atlatl from one side and Mera holding a self-conjured glass spear from the other.

"OW!" Mera flinched as she took damage from the energy exerted to use her own powers. "DAMN IT! Hold on…"

Her hand shot out to close around the throat of a Beauty. The Heartless seemed to shrink as Mera regenerated her stamina by draining a little off the Heartless. "Ewwww," she groaned. "Whatever these things are, their stamina feels NASTY."

"I tried to tell you – " Prisma was cut off when several Beauties rushed her. "EEK!" She put up her hands, unable to fight.

Several more Barriers appeared around her, and Indus took out the entire squad that had been charging Prisma with one punch. "BARRIERRRRRR!" he roared, continuing to fly into the fray.

Then in came Wuya, flipping and kicking and blasting. Beauty after Beauty fell at her hands, and at her feet, and one at her hair. It was she who removed the final Heartless from the horde, striking a pose and tossing her hair as she did so.

Yzma was visibly salivating looking at Wuya after the fact.

"Okay, good work, team!" Mera called out. "Indus, Barriers down. I think our friend owes us an explanation."

The gold energy circles dispersed into vapor while the glass spikes retracted into the ground.

"I tried to tell you!" Prisma stamped a foot, huffing. "You didn't understand, and it was a mistake!"

"I get it now." Wuya approached her rapidly. "But just to confirm it…"

Before Prisma could make a move in return, Wuya had planted a forefinger on Prisma's forehead. Prisma was now an open book to her. "Yep," Wuya related. "That whole story she told us was a lie."

"It WHAT?" Yzma barked.

Prisma gave a nervous giggle. "See, I thought you were heroes on a quest," she explained, "and that you'd help anyone in your way who seemed pitiful. The truth is…Azurine is the good sister. I was the one who wanted to mine the powers of the Mystic Isles and drain the magic of all the creatures that lived there in order to create the most beautiful, magical crystals ever known! And I was lying when I said they could only be used for good things, too. I was going to make some very beautiful Dark crystals! The plan was to get you all to overthrow Azurine because you thought the title of Crystal Master should be mine by rights, but then I'd betray you all in the end! I didn't know you were villains!"

Through gritted teeth, Yzma growled, "YOU REALLY SHOULD'VE LED WITH THAT."

"What do we think, team?" Wuya asked.

"I think she could be an asset to our operation," Mera said. "Sorry for almost impaling you, by the way. Your act worked just as well as you wanted it to."

"Thank you!" Prisma beamed.

"Are you sure you're truly vile?" Yzma asked with suspicion. "You seem…unfortunately sweet."

"Well, the thing is I've always wanted friends who had the same values I did," Prisma admitted. "Azurine says that real friends look out for each other first and value kindness, but I wanted friends who would help feed my ego, and I'd do the same in return! I wanted friends who would look at me sapping all the magic from the Mystic Isles and go 'That Prisma sure is amazing!'. And now I want friends who can help me get rid of Azurine."

"When you say 'get rid of'…" Yzma pressed.

"Hmm." Prisma thought it over. "I was just going to imprison her, but I don't know. I'm really, really mad at her. It would be very nice if she didn't exist anymore. I guess I'd have to think about it."

"If we could help you get rid of Azurine," Wuya posed, "would you be able to supply us with some decently evil crystals? Say, for a takeover of the Isles, and maybe a takeover of a larger empire later?"

Prisma gasped, eyes sparkling. "That sounds like so much fun! And you'd be using MY crystals to take all that control, meaning everyone would know how amazing my work is! Yes! If you help me get rid of Azurine, then I'll help you, too! I need to get my Terra Crystal back from her anyway in order to cast any magic." She clapped her hands. "This is so exciting! My first real friends who supported my dreams! You should tell me more about your dreams so I can support them, too!"

Yzma still couldn't believe that someone this bubbly and sympathetic had an evil core, but here they all were. "I'm envisioning the Mystic Isles remade in my own image," Yzma said, putting out her hands as though framing the scene. "Yzmopolis: a metropolis in purple and black. It will all be stunning, not a bit of it drab or lacking in style. Everyone will bow to me and my cabinet, which, as of now, consists of the four of you. Other members pending. All of the economic and magic flow will divert to the grand Yzmopolis Palace, and everyone else will be left high and dry! Of course, when the poverty sets in, that's when people always start whining and complaining, but we can set up a suggestion box outside that connects right to the shredder."

Prisma clapped all the harder. "This sounds like such an adventure! I'd love to see what Yzmopolis would look like in real life!"

"Is…is this girl for real?" Mera asked.

"I'm very real," Prisma told her. "As real as those glass shards you used to keep me in place. Those were very impressive, by the way. It reminded me a lot of crystal magic, but you didn't even need a Terra Crystal! How did you do something so amazing?"

Mera looked away, blushing. "It's not exactly amazing. It's a superpower that comes with a world of hurt."

"I thought it was beautiful," Prisma said sincerely. "Anyway, since you all have the Amulet of Avalor, that will make part of our journey so much easier! The problem is we still need someone actually of pure heart to wield it, which means we'd have to find a hostage. And not just any hostage, but a special person who believes in all of those things like kindness that Azurine wouldn't stop talking about!"

"Well," Yzma reminded the group, "when Mim was last here, there was a certain innocent little girl who'd never done anything wrong in her life that managed to interfere between her and Morgana."

"Sounds like the exact precocious hero type we'd need," Wuya added.

"Who's up for a trip to the Enchancia castle?" Yzma called out.

"Castle?" Mera repeated, eyes wide. "Like, for real CASTLE-castle?" She shook it off. "I mean. That's not special. I've seen plenty of those."

"Which is strange, because I have not," Indus said, "and Lady Mera and I have mostly traveled together. I wish to see this castle and to judge if it looks like something out of my favorite fairy tales!"

"You must be talking about Princess Sofia!" Prisma realized. "Oh, EVERYONE talks about her and how wonderful she is! It would make me so mad if I didn't hold out for hope that I could one day trick her into taking me back to the Isles!"

"One teensy-tiny correction," Yzma said. "We're not going to trick her. We're going to STRONG-ARM her."

Prisma let out a laugh like silver bells; "EVEN BETTER!"

...

Sakaar City was designed in a very specific way. The poor and desolate were left to slum on the lower levels, but the further up you went, the more elite of a class you would find. The leader of the whole planet and its tribe of misfits occupied a quite tall building indeed, with an audience chamber on the upper levels. But below that, he had a club set up for himself and guests of his choosing. Here, people would gather to mock the poor, discuss upcoming tournaments, and take advantage of the buffet.

Mozenrath, the Huntsman, and Miratrix walked in without an invitation to speak of. They were immediately greeted by the motley crew of extraterrestrials that populated the club, chitchatting and occasionally making out with one another.

The Huntsman glowered at where a large man who appeared to be made entirely of stone was loosely chained to a wall – bound so he couldn't escape, but he could at least get comfortable in the nearest chair. "Anyway," he was saying, "I hope all these stories about me and Mum are entertaining, because they brought me up here to entertain you and they said if I bored you too much, I'd be crushed in a compactor, so put in a good word for me, all right then? A five-star review? Though I suppose it might be more effective if they just covered me in paper. Get it? Like in rock-paper-scissors…"

The Huntsman rolled his eyes and turned away.

Mozenrath couldn't help but have his attention drawn to a bald man in armor, wielding a pair of rifles. "But then Amora sent me into exile," he was explaining. "Biggest mistake of her life. She threatened to replace me with someone more muscley, but who can she possibly get who can wield these like I do? I call them 'Des' and 'Troy,' by the way. Put them together, and you get…DESTROY. Got them from a place on Midgard called Tex-arse, though Amora insisted that's not how it's pronounced, but what does she know? Not like she's been there…"

Mozenrath's eye-roll was even more dramatic than the Huntsman's.

Miratrix felt her blood boil as they passed another armored man, this one with pale irises but otherwise seemingly human. "In the end," he hissed, "I proved I was the one stronger. Vers refused to bring herself to my level and defeated me by cheating, relying on her powers. That's no victory at all. The Kree may have fallen, but it was not a true defeat. And to think, after all the time I spent grooming her to be the perfect warrior, she would turn that against us…I should've imprisoned her instead."

Miratrix's upper lip curled in sympathy for whoever this Vers was.

But at last, the trio of visitors neared the guests of honor. Most notably, a gray-haired, tanned man in multicolored robes, who was rambling: "I think your problem is the compulsion to put your own face on everything. If you expand the merch into the booty shorts like I recommended – and I'm a size medium, by the way, wink wink hint hint – no one is gonna want to wear your face. Consider instead – and I know this is gonna sound like a long shot – MY face. It's symmetrical, it's got a winning smile…this is the face of the revolution. The face of freedom. And of course by 'revolution' and 'freedom' I mean the kind that stays in line and follows all my rules, but you get the gist." He took a long swig from a glass of lavender liquid.

To one side of him was his conversation partner: a nonhuman extraterrestrial, quite rounded and deep green, clad in a business suit and exhaling smoke rings from a fat cigar. "Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say," he huffed. "Look, just because you got a poster-boy face doesn't mean you're gonna win the algorithm. Trust me. People don't want poster boys these days. They want guts and gore."

"I am also the face of guts and gore," the first man added, "as the tournament will evidence."

To the robed man's other side was an armored woman, thickset and muscular, with white face paint in elaborate markings. She clutched a rather large metal rod with a sphere at one end. When she noticed the arrival of Mozenrath, the Huntsman, and Miratrix, she quickly pivoted the rod to face the three of them. "Maintain the six-foot radius," she snapped, "or I will be forced to deliver capital punishment."

Mozenrath halted, the look on his face more sour than ever. The Huntsman and Miratrix stopped to either side of him. "I am SO scared of your fancy stick right now," Mozenrath mocked. "Note me shaking in my cape."

"That's a nice cape, by the way," the robed man said. Before immediately turning back to the one in the suit. "I want a cape like that. You think I should get a cape like that? I'm gonna get a cape like that. Add that to your merch plans."

"Y'know," the suited man said, "I think a cape like that would look real good on you with those shorts you just mentioned." He leered, obviously salivating bright green. "And nothin' else."

The robed man winked. "I do have the figure for it."

"HELLO?" Mozenrath yelled. "WHY AM I BEING IGNORED?"

The woman jabbed the staff at him. "SIX FEET OR YOU'RE MELTED."

The robed man waved Mozenrath off. "We're talking business."

"I'M talking business!" Mozenrath argued. "I come to you bringing entrants for the tournament of champions! WHY do I bother planning how I'm going to approach these situations if no one's going to pay attention to me?"

The suited man took a drag from his cigar. "Just noticed. Buffet ran outta slug rolls."

"Topaz, get some more slug rolls for the buffet," the robed man commanded. "And then bring me about half of them."

"Sir," the woman – Topaz – replied. "I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because there are intruders hovering over you who want to discuss a business proposition. I think I should just melt them instead, but until you give the word, I have to keep them within the acceptable distance."

"WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?" Mozenrath screamed.

"Perhaps this takes the negotiation of a more forceful hand." The Huntsman stepped forth, brandishing his own staff and lighting it up. "You WILL listen to our proposal, or else."

That finally got everyone's attention. Well, they already had Topaz's, but now the other two were finally focused.

"That's a good way to get melted," the robed man said. "You know that's a good way to get melted? Topaz, you might wanna give these people the newcomer's handbook."

"I don't see why I should do that when I can just melt them," Topaz retorted.

"This is insufferable!" Miratrix protested. "Is this necessary?"

Mozenrath pondered it. Was it actually necessary? Since getting yelled at by Vexen was not the lesser of two evils, then yes. "Unfortunately." He pointed to the robed man. "You're the Grandmaster of this planet."

"Presumptuous," the robed Grandmaster replied. "But not wrong."

The suited man gestured to himself; "Name's Swackhammer. Zilchnix Swackhammer. Owner and proprietor of the Moron Mountain theme park – "

"NOBODY ASKED!" Mozenrath yelled at him.

"I'm Topaz," Topaz said, "and this stick will melt you if – "

"WE KNEW THAT PART ALREADY!" Mozenrath screamed. "YOU SAID BOTH OF THOSE THINGS!"

"This one's awfully irritable, isn't he?" the Grandmaster pointed out.

"Hardly ever without good reason," the Huntsman said. "…At least, not in this instance."

"Are…you going to listen…to my proposal…OR NOT?" Mozenrath seethed.

"Can I pick 'not'?" the Grandmaster asked.

"NO!" Mozenrath yelled.

"Well, then, why even ask?" Swackhammer snarked.

After a long pause, Mozenrath simply said, "I'm done. You two handle this. I'm not doing this anymore." And then stepped back behind Miratrix and the Huntsman, turning his back on the whole scene so he could mutter angrily to himself.

"Congratulations," the Huntsman said. "That's a new record, I believe. Even Megavolt lasted longer than that without incurring his complete and total meltdown."

"This is a SHUTDOWN, not a MELTDOWN!" Mozenrath yelled over his shoulder.

"Well, I do tend to have that effect on people." The Grandmaster gave a coy look to the Huntsman.

"Shall I melt them now?" Topaz asked.

"Hmm…actually, I don't think I want you to melt them," the Grandmaster said.

"I see." Topaz handed him the stick.

"I don't want to melt them either," the Grandmaster told her.

Topaz gruffly wrenched back the stick.

"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Swackhammer asked.

"This could be a win-win for both of us," the Grandmaster replied. "Maybe even a win for them, depending on if one of them wins. Win-win-win. But the other two would have to lose, so it's more like win-win-win-lose-lose." He drew in the air with his fingers. "Win-lose-win-lose-win? Lose-win-win-lose – "

"So you want in our tournament," Swackhammer broke in. "Fine by me. After all, the Grandmaster here and I have set up a SPECIAL gauntlet. Thrills, chills, fun for the whole family. We even rounded up some special guests for the occasion."

"The only teenagers I've ever seen beat up a crew of Makluans," the Grandmaster clarified. "Also apparently they have alternate-universe counterparts here who might be famous or something. I don't know. I was more interested in the kids. You can't tell me this universe's version of 'Tony Stark' managed to best an entire elite interplanetary army."

Mozenrath was biting his tongue.

"Then you will admit us into your gauntlet," the Huntsman said.

"Admit you?" Swackhammer replied. He then broke into a wide smile; "ADMIT you? Will you listen to this guy! He wants us to just admit him!"

"That's pretty funny," the Grandmaster admitted.

"YOU WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT USING US IN YOUR GAUNTLET!" Miratrix reminded them. "THREE WINS AND TWO LOSSES!"

"Well, yes, if you pass all the tests," the Grandmaster said. "We require a strict entry examination. You have to meet fitness requirements, demonstrate the proper amount of flashiness…we can't have just ANYONE in this tournament, see."

"This is an all-star smackdown!" Swackhammer explained. "The best of the galaxy's best and then some in a multi-bracketed fight to the death where only one will prevail! And the lucky winner gets to become Moron Mountain's new mascot in an unbreakable contract…FOR LIFE!"

"How is that a prize?" Miratrix asked.

"Well, the losers all die painfully," the Grandmaster replied. "Probably at the hands of the Champion." He paused. "That's with a capital 'C.'"

Miratrix looked to the Grandmaster incredulously; "Why are you cutting deals with someone who wants to use your prized champions as toys for his park?"

"Because I didn't have anything better to do with them," the Grandmaster replied. "I'm just here to put on the show. And anyone who walks into my territory with an ass like that – "

"DO NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE!" Mozenrath yelled, whirling back around. "I…am already…AT MY LIMIT!"

"The tournament trials could make a good punitive action to avenge the insults they're giving us," Topaz suggested. "Especially if we engineer the death of one of them."

"It isn't much of a trial if you fix the outcome," Miratrix seethed.

"You don't understand how the show works, do you?" the Grandmaster replied. "I'm willing to bet that back home, none of you understand how to do anything with flair. Probably a bunch of boring wet blankets – "

In an instant, Mozenrath was on the Grandmaster, his left hand holding up the immortal's collar and his right glowing in his face. "NOW LISTEN HERE, GRUNO MARS – "

Topaz brandished the melt stick.

"NO MELTING," the Grandmaster said firmly but calmly.

"Spray bottle?" Swackhammer offered the exact item he'd just named.

"Thank you." The Grandmaster took the spray bottle. Then sent a spray of water in Topaz's face, which got her to back down. Then sprayed Mozenrath's face as well.

The Huntsman and Miratrix had to drag Mozenrath away and hold him back, the former reminding him, "We need them ALIVE to participate in their TOURNAMENT!"

"Though this one does have fire," the Grandmaster said. "I could see him being a headliner."

"A headliner?" Swackhammer repeated. "You serious? If this guy were ever part of a branded lineup, he'd be an exclusive for a spinoff series that didn't get preserved with the rest of the franchise and died out two decades ago!"

"I don't know why," Mozenrath seethed, "BUT I TAKE EXTREME OFFENSE TO THAT!"

Neither the Huntsman nor Miratrix lessened their grip.

"Tell me something," the Grandmaster said. "Why do you want to partake in this tournament? What do you get out of it?"

"Must we give our reasons?" Miratrix spat. "You get your playthings. What other questions do you have to ask about that?"

"…She has a point," the Grandmaster realized.

"There could be a catch to this," Topaz argued.

"There isn't," the Grandmaster said.

"Always is," Swackhammer corrected.

"No, this is fine," the Grandmaster insisted. "And if it's not, well, the trials will weed that out of them." He leaned over to Topaz and said quite audibly; "Set it up so the blue one gets vaporized."

"I think you wanted to whisper that," the Huntsman told him.

The Grandmaster lowered his voice considerably; "Set it up so the blue one gets vaporized."

"Mozenrath," the Huntsman hissed. "You will have plenty of targets to take your anger out on in the tournament setting, but we need a way to circumvent these trials!"

As if a switch was flipped, Mozenrath forced himself to at least appear calmer. "Actually," he said, "I have another idea. One that doesn't involve me getting destroyed before I can even build up excitement for your precious tournament. And believe me…I WILL have your audience screaming."

"Yeah," Swackhammer chuckled. "Screamin' with laughter at this two-bit hack! What's with the one glove, anyhow?"

Mozenrath twitched. Reminding himself that he could very easily win his first round by pretending his opponent was one of these annoyances. "Listen. En Dwi Gast. Zilchnix. Topaz. I think we got off on the wrong foot here."

"What was your name again?" the Grandmaster asked.

Mozenrath gave a bow that was definitely stiff and forced compared to how he usually introduced himself. "I am Mozenrath."

"I don't think we're on a first-name basis, Mozenrath," the Grandmaster said.

After a long, blank stare, Mozenrath forced out, "You. Just. Said. Mine."

"If you're going to just bypass the tournament trials and postpone your inevitable vaporization to the tournament instead," the Grandmaster said, "we're going to need a pretty good reason why."

"Make it good, kid," Swackhammer added.

Mozenrath's brow furrowed. "Why don't we do this the old-fashioned way? Send me your three most…well, your guests who strike the exact balance between powerful and EXPENDABLE."

"Ohhh, trial by fire," the Grandmaster said, grinning widely. "Always a good choice."

"Shall I get the lighter fluid?" Topaz asked.

"It's not literal fire," the Grandmaster replied.

"He means he wants to decimate a few chumps," Swackhammer clarified. "So if you could round us up three of the chumpiest – "

"Get Korg over here," the Grandmaster said. "I think I saw somebody yawn during his story. And can we get that Asgardian? Tell him there's free ale; Asgardians go all in for that."

It ended up being the three that Mozenrath, the Huntsman, and Miratrix had noticed on the way in. "Korg" was the man made of rock, who'd been released of his chains. He waved; "Hello! Name's Korg. Good to meet you. You'll understand if I try to kill you, then. I don't very much want to be the one who dies here. I think you'd see it my way if you were in my shoes, yes?"

The Asgardian, the exile who still held onto the pair of rifles, sneered. "I am the Asgardian formerly known as Skurge," he said. "Loki's last act before carrying out Amora's banishment for her was to sentence me to surrender my name so she could use it on the next model. But I think this is the perfect place to work my way back up to the glory I deserve…and prove Des and Troy worth their names."

The man with the pale irises gave a sniff. "Yon-Rogg, of the Kree. You shall not win." He scowled at Miratrix. "Particularly her."

"I want to engage that one in the fight," Miratrix snapped.

"And so you shall," the Huntsman told her. "I myself would prefer to eliminate that beast of stone that attempts to pass itself off as a warrior."

"And I'd like to put the Asgardian poseur in his place," Mozenrath added, "so this all works out just fine."

"Is everybody ready?" The Grandmaster stood up, spreading his arms. "Let's get started in three!"

The crowd backed off, thirsting to see the violence.

"Two!"

With a leer, Swackhammer pressed a button on a nearby sound system, filling the room with a techno beat.

"Aaaand HAVE AT THEM!" The Grandmaster waved before sitting back down.

As the music asked "Y'all ready for this?", Skurge (or the Asgardian formerly known as, but that would be much too much of a hassle to repeat) immediately opened fire with Des and Troy. The Huntsman ducked left, Miratrix flipped to the right, and Mozenrath put up a planar shield of blue that repelled all the ammo, scattering them on the floor. Skurge did not let up for a while, the rat-a-tat filling the air for quite some time.

With a wild yell, Miratrix leapt into the air, spinning to deal a roundhouse kick to Yon-Rogg's head. He caught her by the ankle, trying to use her own weight to send her off course, but she responded by drawing both blades and dealing out a pair of devastating slashes that carved deep into Yon-Rogg's armor. Yon-Rogg dropped her, startled, before drawing his pistol and opening fire. Miratrix struck a defensive pose before, quicker than lightning, using her blades to slash through every blast he sent her way.

The only weapon Korg had been allowed was a trident carved of wood. "A wooden fork wouldn't have been my first choice," he admitted as he used it to parry the huntstaff. "Really only useful if you were battling three vampires that were huddled together."

The Huntsman saw red; "THAT IS NOT THE CORRECT WAY TO SLAY A COLONY OF VAMPIRES!" His next stroke took away the entirety of Korg's non-weapon arm.

"Oh," Korg realized. "Oh, that's going to leave a mark." He jammed the trident at the Huntsman's face, catching it on the horns of the dragon skull to temporarily hold the Huntsman at bay.

Skurge had finally figured out that constant firing wasn't going to work, because Mozenrath would just hold his shield steady, and the bullets were starting to ricochet into the crowd and kill off some of Skurge's only friends. So he employed a new strategy, running around Mozenrath and firing at intervals. Mozenrath boredly conjured a new shield that formed a full ring around himself as protection.

"You can't hide in there forever!" Skurge yelled as more bullets bounced.

"And your proof is where exactly?" Mozenrath gave a dramatic yawn.

"Because this doesn't end until one of us is dead!" Skurge barked. "And YOU CAN'T HURT ME FROM IN THERE!"

Mozenrath gave him a sidelong glance, then waved his right hand idly. The next stream of bullets from Skurge's guns froze in midair, surrounded by a blue aura. The discarded shells in the crowd also rose into the air, propelled by the same glow of blue.

The metal shrapnel arranged itself around Skurge, surrounding him completely. By the time he realized he had no way out, Skurge had just enough time to yell "SURTR'S ARSE – "

Every single piece of metal he'd fired slammed back into his body at top speed.

"You were saying about you not being dead?" Mozenrath said as Skurge collapsed.

Miratrix and Yon-Rogg were going directly hand-to-hand, limbs clashing with limbs. "You cannot hope to win!" Yon-Rogg seethed. "But at least YOU put up a fairer fight than Vers!"

"WHY SHOULD I CARE WHO THAT IS?" Miratrix yelled.

"You should care," Yon-Rogg growled, "because she was the one whom I survived to come here. My faithless apprentice, who TURNED HER BACK ON THE KREE IN ORDER TO – "

With a flash that glowed in the club lights, one of Miratrix's swords cut right through Yon-Rogg's neck, decapitating him. The other stabbed into his chest, then was immediately drawn back out to let the body fall.

"That should keep you QUIET," Miratrix spat. "I didn't ask for your life story!"

The Huntsman dealt Korg's solar plexus a hard kick, causing Korg to lose the trident. The weapon spun through the air until the Huntsman caught it in his free hand, giving it a deft spin before ramming it into Korg's face.

As the stony man screamed in agony, the Huntsman noted, "For vampires, it would be a horribly inefficient tool. It was, however, perfectly spaced for your eyes."

He withdrew the trident, leaving Korg blind and one-handed.

"Looks like this is the end," Korg sighed. "No hard feelings, then?"

A downward slash split him into hundreds of shards.

"There are plenty of hard feelings remaining," the Huntsman seethed at Korg's dust. "After all…you forced me to listen to you speak."

As Mozenrath dismissed his barrier, Skurge twitched on the ground. "I'm…not dead," he panted, trying to peel himself off the floor. "It will take more than that to kill an Asgardian! A single mortal sorcerer couldn't even hope!"

"I mean, if you were Loki, I might believe it," Mozenrath replied, taking two strides forward to plant a shoe right into Skurge's bald scalp and force his head to the ground. "But you're Loki's trash he forgot to take out all the way. Let's just say, for humor's sake, that you're right. I am just…one sorcerer. Would the odds be better if it were a sorcerer, a ninja, and a dragon slayer?"

Skurge realized what was coming and desperately tried to crawl away; "No no NO I WAS GOING TO DIE IN A HEROIC SACRIFICE AND A BLAZE OF GLORY – "

The Huntsman and Miratrix descended from above like avenging angels. Their weapons bit into Skurge and tore him apart, finally ending him.

"For the record," Mozenrath told them, "you wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't gotten him worn down first."

"No one will argue," the Huntsman said, replacing his staff at his back.

Miratrix scowled at her swords. "All your little friends did was get my blades dirty," she told the Grandmaster.

The Grandmaster was currently gaping, in a state of shock. As were Swackhammer and Topaz.

"Well?" Mozenrath asked. "Do you still want us to pass tournament trials? Or have we just made the cut?"

The Grandmaster rose, slowly clapping. "EVERYBODY, APPLAUD THE NEW ENTRANTS!" he yelled. "COME ON, EVERYONE CLAP! IT'S NOT THAT I'M SCARED OF THEM OR ANYTHING BUT LET'S STILL GIVE THEM THE VERY WARM WELCOME THAT YOU SHOULD ALWAYS GIVE SOMEONE YOU DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU!"

Topaz and Swackhammer were the first to follow suit, clapping fervently, and the rest of the crowd joined in, applauding and screaming.

(Except the ones who'd died to Skurge's shrapnel. They didn't clap.)

"ZILCH!" the Grandmaster yelled. "WRITE THEM IN ON THE FIRST BRACKET! TOPAZ, TAKE THEM TO THE DESIGNATED COMPETITORS' FIRST-CLASS RESIDENCES!"

...

Arawn Death-Lord was waiting in the Coliseum in the Fourth District, his tall, shadowy frame a distinctly jarring dissonance from the colorful tiles and pastel banners that decorated the Coliseum's interior. He was a nightmare in a room designed for dreams. His head was skeletal, a skull hidden beneath a hood. And from beneath that hood, there sprouted a pair of horns, cinched at the base by a glittering crown. The rest of Arawn was shrouded in flowing, dark robes that cascaded to the ground as though he were wearing Darkness itself.

He gave a throaty, growling chuckle as he saw who approached. "Sho and Coco of Shibuya," he greeted. "You have finally arrived, and…what is this I see? The witch of the woods. A poor imitation of the sisterhood of Morva. You bring her in hopes that she will destroy me?"

"What am I, chopped liver?" Aghoul asked. "I mean, sure, my liver isn't in the greatest of shape, but…"

"Don't you try and insult me, Arawn!" Mim shook a finger as she approached with the most sinister bounce in her step that could be imagined. "We all know you're just a big coward who would rather run than fight! You know quite well that bloodshed is only fun when you're the one shedding it!" She then gave a laugh. "Well, I meant other people's. Shedding YOUR blood will only be fun for ME!"

"Well, I look quite forward to seeing it," Aghoul snickered.

"You bring a pale imitation of the Death-Lord of Annuvin," Arawn sneered.

"I bring a handsomer dead man than you'll ever be," Mim snapped, shaking her fist. "If anything, you're the one whose look has gone long past cliché!" She halted, looking around. "So? Where is it? Obviously you didn't call Sho and Coco here to this enclosed space for a FAIR fight, now, did you? You've got some kind of trap waiting in the wings!"

Arawn bristled. "You assume the worst of me. And yet you fail to recognize that I rely on more than brawn to win the day. The old fool Merlin truly was correct about you…your mind is a shriveled, rotten fruit, all but useless. Brute force is all you've ever known, and it will hardly save you against a true conniver."

"THAT'S IT!" Mim shrieked. "THOSE ARE FIGHTING WORDS!"

"Whaddaya say we just get this show on the road already?" Sho asked. "I'm sure itching to kick your asymptote all the way across 5+ districts!" He pounded a fist into the opposite hand. "Consider it my greatest work of art: your broken, bleeding body in pure NEGATIVE!"

"You're going down!" Coco insisted.

"Now, wait just a moment." Mim put up a hand. "This is old hat for me and Arawn. What do you say you leave the actual fighting to the two of us?"

"WHAT THE – " Sho was fuming. "THIS WASN'T PART OF OUR ONE-TO-ONE AGREEMENT, LADY!"

"Shhh!" Aghoul grabbed Sho's shoulder, pulling the Reaper down to hiss in his ear. "She's got a plan! Can't you see?"

"The boys and the little girl sit back and watch me take you on all by myself," Mim went on. "THEN we'll see who's laughing!"

Arawn glowered at her. "Such underestimation. You will fight me as one or not at all."

"Balking, are we?" Mim teased. "Why, if I didn't know better…I'd think you were so very eager to get us all distracted away from that trap you all but admitted to setting up."

It hit Sho. His eyes widened. "SOHCAHTOA," he muttered, impressed. Of course that was Mim's gambit – she'd keep Arawn busy, and the other three would be left to disarm whatever he'd set up in the wings!

"Very well," Arawn told her. "You and I shall duel. Then, after you have fallen, I shall decimate the remainder."

"STEP OFF THE MATH PUNS!" Sho barked.

"Shall we do it the old-fashioned way?" Mim asked. "Ten paces, then start?"

"I think that would be very fair," Arawn replied. "Even though you are not."

"Let's establish rules," Mim told him.

"Let us not," Arawn replied. "This is a fight to the death. The better mage will arise."

Mim grinned wickedly. "You're ALMOST a man after my own heart. Almost. But if you want no rules, you GET no rules!"

She spun on a heel, turning her back to Arawn. He humored her by doing the same, albeit much more gracefully.

"Well?" Aghoul elbowed Sho in the waist. "You're the one who loves numbers. Count them in, will you?"

"ONE!" Sho yelled. "TWO!"

Mim and Arawn took one step for each count. Arawn forward, and Mim just in place. Three, four, and on "five," Mim vanished from view.

On "six," Arawn transformed first, becoming a small, slender, jet-black snake. He turned to strike out with fangs extended, but bit down on empty air.

At the same time, the trap sprung. Skeletons in armor swarmed the arena from the outside.

"CAULDRON-BORN!" Mim's disembodied voice rang out. "THEY'RE INDESTRUCTIBLE UNLESS I TAKE OUT THE CENTERPIECE! HOLD THEM OFF!"

Aghoul turned to face the rim of the Coliseum, where the Cauldron-Born were rushing him, all manner of weapons held high. He cast a large, glimmering, transparent shield of energy that encased the entire inside of the Coliseum. "WELL, DON'T JUST STAND THERE!" he yelled at Sho and Coco. "ADD TO IT, OR WE'RE ALREADY OVERRUN!"

"EQUIDISTANT POINTS!" Sho hurtled across the field from Aghoul to slam his hands down upon the barrier, feeding energy into it. Making it stronger.

Upon hearing Sho's instruction, Coco raced to the other extreme of the field; had you drawn lines between the three of them, they would've made a perfect triangle. She pressed her hands to the barrier's inside as well, and it was not only strengthened but given a cute pattern of softly-glowing pastel pink cat faces.

The Cauldron-Born came up against the barrier, pounding at it with their bony hands and their multitude of blades and bludgeons. "It won't last forever!" Aghoul yelled, even though for now, the combined energy of himself and the two Reapers was preventing them from meeting a more imminent demise. "Throw me some of that loot you picked up from the display window! I've got a plan!"

The snake that was Arawn had planned to strike, land a bite, then make a hasty getaway. But the barrier that was keeping the Cauldron-Born locked out was also keeping him locked in. That wasn't too terrible; he could find alternate ways of escape. And besides, now that Mim had shown up, he realized that leaving his victims to their fate didn't guarantee a death. She always managed to find some way to weasel out of it – often by literally becoming a weasel.

Though in this case, it was a badger that dropped out of thin air and scuttled toward Arawn, mad giggles escaping through snapping jaws.

He managed to avoid several of her bites, taking the opportunity to morph into something that could fend off a badger. A long, slender black coyote took a lunge at Mim.

And was met with a mouthful of the thick flesh of a magenta grizzly bear. Mim roared in Arawn's face, daring him to retaliate.

The shield that blocked the Cauldron-Born off was cracking under their pressure. Aghoul, Sho, and Coco held it up as best they could with one hand each, using their free hands to toss the stolen jewelry back and forth to one another. Sho and Coco fed it to Aghoul, he would deliver a quick enchantment, and then he would return to sender.

After so much abuse, finally, the barrier came down in a shatter of sparkling shards. The crazed skeletons swarmed the field, ready to rip, to tear, to slaughter.

Necklaces locked around their necks. Rings slid onto their fingers. Bracelets clamped on their wrists. As Aghoul, Sho, and Coco played dress-up with their assailants, the enchantments Aghoul had placed took hold. Nothing so complex as what he used to ensnare new wives, but on the same principle. The magic simply took the principle behind the stone used in each accessory and used it against the wearer. A Blizzard-resistant ring now froze the Cauldron-Born over in frost. A Thunder-resistant necklace caused one to freeze and convulse with spasms of electricity. The Cauldron-Born, as a horde, were slowed significantly, many of them even stopped.

"Much like life," Aghoul said, "those spells won't last forever! If you want to kick some bony behinds, now's the time!"

Sho had two spinning red discs of sharp red blades loaded up into his hands. "CRUNCH!" he yelled. "I'LL ADD YOU ALL TO THE HEAP! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A LOAD OF GARBAAAAGE!"

Coco flew in, wings extended, with a cry of "COCOOOOOOOO ATARAAAAASHIIIIIII!"

Arawn had gone back to an escape attempt. He was now a squirrel, jet-black, able to outrun Mim's grizzly-bear form by a good deal. And now that the barrier was down, he had his chance to get to higher ground.

"OHHHH NO YOU DON'T!" A purple osprey descended from above, claws extended.

In response, a black raccoon leapt up with claws slashing at Mim's feathery chest.

"ZETTA SLOW!" Sho unleashed a disc, then teleported across the field, then unleashed another. "ZETTA SLOW!"
"NOT THAT AGAAAAIIIIN!" Coco yelled as she summoned cutesy hearts to pummel the halted Cauldron-Born, pushing them back alongside Sho's energy attacks.

Aghoul was using his scythe to make things a little harder for the Cauldron-Born. They couldn't be killed by dismemberment, but it sure would slow them down trying to put the pieces back together as he hacked off limb after limb. "It was a very clever plan," he told them, "but it's lacking in…EXECUTION!"

"At least he has some fresh material!" Coco yelled at Sho.

"Shut up, Mersenne!" Sho barked back, dealing another magical blow to the slowly rampaging skeletons.

"THAT'S IT!" Mim screeched after recoiling from Arawn's raccoon paws. "I'M ENDING THIS NOW!" She ballooned into something truly enormous: a dragon with red-hot embers pouring from nostrils and mouth alike. Too large for the ring, she took to the skies on a pair of wings too small to physically carry her were they not magical and nonsensical in their very nature.

"I tire of you," Arawn growled. He, too, began to morph and change, becoming an impressive serpentine beast with four furred paws. A dragon in his own right. On shadowy wings that threatened to block out the stars above, he joined Mim above the Coliseum, chasing her down.

They circled each other. She sent a stream of fire to him; he evaded, coming around to bite her leg and attempt to rip it off. She sent him tumbling through the sky with one swipe of her bulky tail; he blew a more focused fire directly at her face.

"THAT DOES IT!" Mim shrieked after enduring a singe. "You want to play the evasion game? FINE! TWO CAN PLAY AT THAT ONE! I'm getting out of here, same way YOU would! No rules means I don't have to fight all the way to the death, you know!"

All at once, she imploded. Where there had been a massive dragon, there was now a little purple horseshoe bat, winging its way frantically to safety.

"Fool," Arawn snickered, lunging toward her without losing his draconian shape. His jaws opened wide as he closed in quickly on the tiny Mim.

And then his teeth snapped shut around her, sealing her in darkness. He swallowed.

"NO!" Sho screamed in rage. "THAT CAN'T HAPPEN! INCORRECT OPERATION!"

Coco sniffled, blinking back tears. "F in the chat."

"Wait for it," Aghoul said with a smirk.

Arawn shrank himself back down to humanoid size, planting himself in the midst of the Coliseum. "Compose yourselves, my Cauldron-Born!" he commanded. "With the witch gone, focus your energies on the jesters who dare challenge me! Reduce them to…to…"

He shuddered. Placed a hand over his bony teeth.

Inside of his stomach, Mim had decided, all at once, to become a rhinoceros.

This destroyed Arawn from the inside out; his body erupted and tore into fragments that bathed the Coliseum in gore. And with him gone, the Cauldron-Born shuddered to a halt, dropping where they stood until they were mere piles of bone and dust.

"WHOSE MIND IS A SHRIVELED FRUIT NOW?" Mim yelled at the pools of blood that she stood in. "I CAN LEARN THINGS, YOU KNOW! AND I LEARNED FROM MERLIN TO USE MORE THAN JUST BRUTE FORCE!"

"SHE DID IT!" Aghoul cheered, throwing a fist into the air. "I KNEW YOU COULD, CORPSEFLOWER!"

"He should've learned to chew his food," Mim said as she dusted off her hands. "More polite that way."

"That was a genius-level operation!" Sho told her. "Kinda miss that I didn't get to F.O.I.L. him myself, but…" He shrugged. "So it goes. Now, I'm free to do whatever I want! And I'm gonna BRING DOWN THE SKY!"

"zomg!" Coco skipped around the group in circles. "Now we get to go on a road trip with Mim! Road trip road trip road trip!"

Mim bowed. "Always a pleasure to be a displeasure!"

"This just leaves the question of your very dead friends," Aghoul brought up.

"Already told you," Sho said. "My part of the equation was to subtract the Death-Loser. The rest of 'em are on the wrong side of the number line. I can go on. They gotta figure out the rest themselves."

"But if they pwned the Composer," Coco pointed out, "they get a free ticket back to life!"

"I never liked 'if,'" Aghoul spat. "It's the worst word you can hear following a marriage proposal."

Mim gasped; "Ghoulie! WE have a free ticket back to life!"

"So we do!" Aghoul told her. "But do they have what it takes to make the cut? Would they even be able to keep up? Would they even want to?"

"Hmm." Mim thought it over.

"Y'know," Sho brought up, "I think I got a way we can just let the odds decide."

...

The sound of bubblegum-tinted pop-rock filled the air as Vexen, Deymos, and Xerxes entered the rendez-vous location they'd agreed upon with skekSil and Simon. And immediately Vexen hated it. The only good thing about the Nine Bean Hill coffee shop was the smell of freshly brewed grounds, and maybe the earth tones of the interior. Otherwise the music was awful and the clientele looked far too rowdy, with several members of the Balamb Academy Wildcats having a celebratory outing in one corner and Enna Kros singing to herself along with the music in another.

"This place is GREAT!" Deymos yelled, eyes wide.

"Xerxes like!" Xerxes chirped.

"Of course," Vexen sighed, his eyes rolling.

"You want anything?" Deymos asked him. "I'm gonna get a caffè latte while we're here. You can find us a table."

"Nothing," Vexen replied, searching for the most isolated table in the shop.

"You sure?"

"…Fine. Small cup, black."

They split up. As Vexen staked a claim, Deymos hustled up to where Lann was rocking out to the music from behind the counter.

"What'll it be?" Lann asked, Tama sitting nearby on the counter and twitching her multicolored tail from side to side.

"One medium caffè latte, one small black coffee, and…" Deymos looked up to the ceiling where the speakers for the PA system were installed, nodding his head in time. "Is this the Veronicas?"

"Yeah!" Lann replied, beaming. "I LOVE them!"

"So…you're in charge of the music." Deymos grinned.

"Uh, yeah. Why?"

"You got the Hook Me Up album?" Deymos asked.

Lann nodded.

Deymos put down a considerable sum. "This is the tip you can keep if you set the track to 'Revenge Is Sweeter (Than You Ever Were)' every time you see me and my friend there come in this shop," he muttered. "Play it once every time, then keep the rotation moving. Don't let on to him. I'm doing a thing."

"Uh…" Lann thought it over. He shrugged. "Okay." He wasn't quite sure why he was being asked this, but he couldn't see the harm in it, and the tip was considerable. "I can start after this song finishes."

"Cool!" Deymos saluted him. "So do I give you our name for the coffee, or – "

"I'll bring it to you," Lann said. "No worries."

When Deymos returned to the isolated table Vexen had picked out, he found the latter folding his arms in great discontent. "Why must we talk such sensitive matters where we can be so easily overheard?" he huffed.

"Think about it," Deymos replied. "If we cordon ourselves off, it'd be so easy to bug us the way Tsum-Tsum already did to me. All it takes is one listening ear in the right place. But here? So long as everybody stays in their lane – and we'll notice if anyone's attention gets on us – eavesdroppers can't listen in on us without getting way too much background noise. I couldn't have asked for better than a high school sports team coming in here."

Vexen attempted to argue, then realized, "You may just have a point."

"I don't do things the stupid way," Deymos told him. "I do them the fun way. I do them the low-effort way. But not stupid."

Hadn't Vexen been thinking that almost exactly of Deymos – that his methods were unintelligent compared to Vexen's own expertise? He still thought there was a lot of merit to isolation, but now he wasn't going to argue for it in this case. Maybe they did make as good of a team as Deymos suggested, with Vexen's ideal suggestions and Deymos' wild-card suggestions in tandem.

It took skekSil and Simon a few minutes to show up. During that time, the music rotated to an emotion-laden song about a young woman who'd been left for another, and how she swore revenge after her pleading chorus failed to convince her ex-lover. Deymos had been idly nodding to every song up to then, but he smiled that much brighter during this particular piece, and Vexen supposed it must've been a favorite of his.

In came the Skeksis and the replica, and Deymos waved them over to their table. "What is music?" skekSil asked, craning his head up to regard the ceiling. "Has good rhythm. Good for dancing."

"I'll get you the album when we get a breather," Deymos promised. "You guys need to order or no?"

"Later," Simon insisted. "We gotta talk business."

"Indeed." SkekSil nodded. "Has become interesting escalation of events."

"Tell us quietly," Vexen bade him. "We're hoping the rest of the chatter should drown out any sensitive conversations."

Simon lowered his voice to a loud, harsh whisper: "We found your old experiments. They have some kind of…colony underground. There have to be a hundred buildings down there!"

Vexen flinched. At full volume, he said, "In the DEEPGROUND?"

"SHHH!" Simon, skekSil, Xerxes, and Deymos all hissed at him. (The latter rather cheekily.)

Vexen, rather embarrassed, lowered his voice as well; "The Deepground was a subterranean neighborhood that was well-populated during my time in this kingdom. However, once Maleficent usurped it, she collapsed most of it, rendering it an unusable mass grave. It sounds as though either a pocket has survived or they have excavated it out. To think…they could've used it to hide themselves away for up to ten years!"

"That's not all," Simon went on. "They're planning for some kind of insurrection. They're building war machines. Dunno what they're waging that war on yet, but their metal army is HUGE."

"WHAT?" Vexen yelled.

"So much for secrecy," Deymos said idly.

Further steamed, Vexen hissed, "They have had a decade to put together whatever plot they are hatching. And I get the feeling I know what they hate enough to wage war upon."

"Does it have to do with Academic?" skekSil asked. "Because experiments are well aware Academic is in town. Saw three of you – " He pointed to Vexen, Deymos, and Xerxes. " – wandering city. And are already planning to track down and exact revenge."

"That is the ENTIRETY of their – " Vexen began to yell.

Everyone glared at him.

"Their PLAN," Vexen hissed. "They want revenge on me and the institution I represented. My guess is that the 'insurrection' is upon the kingdom itself."

"Okay, but doesn't that solve one of our major problems?" Deymos realized.

"Lots of enemies in castle," Xerxes clarified. "Vexen's old experiments kill them all! Less work for us!"

"That is a good point to consider," Vexen mused. "Though it is equally likely that the denizens of the castle will destroy my hard work in those experiments. Every time we have attempted such an invasion, it has failed miserably. At any rate, what happens between those two parties is hardly our concern until it comes to a conclusion and one side or the other is eradicated."

"There's more," Simon insisted. "First of all, Sephiroth isn't there. But you know who is? A teenage girl. Didn't match what you told us about Xion, but at the same time…didn't you say Xion could look like anybody?"

Now Vexen was struck silent.

"Whoa, we got a lead!" Deymos clapped. "I mean, what are the odds? A teenage girl hanging out with your old experiments? That's gotta mean something."

"We have placed agent to gather more information," skekSil explained. "Ultimate Cosplayer currently wears face and look of missing One-Winged Angel."

"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME – " Vexen began to bellow.

Deymos slapped a hand over his mouth. "Okay, SERIOUSLY, you're gonna give the game away faster than I ever could! Geez, I see why you like isolation now!"

Vexen lightly swatted him aside, then forced out as a harsh whisper: "You mean to tell me she is attempting to replicate Sephiroth and hoping to pass among the group? If any of them discovers her robotic nature, the game is over!"

"Even if she gets caught," Simon said, "she gets information. We talked about the risks. And agreed it was a better idea to send a robot than anybody organic. At least if she gets carved up, we can put her back together again."

"Hopefully does not come to that," skekSil offered.

"Okay," Deymos said. "So we need a counterplan."

"I maintain that my expertise in bio-engineering has increased tenfold since I created that batch," Vexen reminded the group. "If I were to have access to any new memory banks, I could develop a set of living weapons to offset their entire force."

"Funny story," Deymos brought up. "Remember when you – "

That was when Tama came over with their coffees on a tray that balanced on her head. "The-hi! How is everything the-going?"

Deymos, knowing he had to change the subject to something more innocent and quickly so, switched gears to the first and most random thing he could think of. "And then the guy goes 'It's not Al anymore. It's DUNK.'" He mimed scratching a record at a turntable; "What's my name? Dunkacino. It's a whole new game! Dunkacino!"

Tama chuckled. "What are you the-saying?"

"Very good meme ripped from a HORRIBLE movie," Deymos explained. "Here! Lemme show you."

He took out his scroll, giving the others a nod as he led Tama away to show her a clip from said horrible movie.

"Wha – " Simon threw up his hands. "HE HAD THE PLAN! What does he expect us to do?"

"We do not know if Nocturne had plan entirely," skekSil pointed out. "Nocturne had suggestion."

"Probably good one," Xerxes said. "Deymos smart."

"And I am moreso," Vexen added. "I can think of my own suggestion while he is away – "

"HI THERE!" Hyper-Potamus zoomed right up to the table.

Vexen flinched dramatically. "What are YOU doing here?"

"The Sisterhood's strategy!" Hyper-Potamus explained, giving a thumbs-up. "Each of us is staking out a different restaurant, café, or fast-food place in the city!"

"What good is that supposed to do?" Simon asked. "We're not looking to see who has the best-quality dollar menu, you know!"

"Everyone in every town has to eat!" Hyper-Potamus replied. "If we keep asking around, we'll eventually get good information!" She placed several munny crystals on the table; "Also we're picking up good tips!"

"Chamberlain will take that." SkekSil scooped the munny toward himself.

"Sounds like good plan, actually," Xerxes mused.

"No, it doesn't!" Vexen hissed. "We already have a lead! Why should we wait for the robots to sift through everyone in the kingdom to find out what we already know?"

"We're just trying to help," Hyper-Potamus said in a tone that sounded unmistakably pouty. "You don't have to be such a big meanie about it."

"Have…have you MET Vexen?" Xerxes asked.

"We have this situation under control," Vexen told her. "Do what you must and we will not interfere, because we do NOT need your assistance."

Hyper-Potamus gave a metallic sniffle. "I need to be alone right now!" Off she zipped to hang out behind the counter. The group could see Reynn giving her a couple of sympathetic head-pats.

"That's not alone," Simon droned.

"Still," skekSil pointed out, "Academic could have been more tactical."

"To what end?" Vexen barked. "She and her Sisterhood are doing nothing of any value to our mission! They are only here to keep occupied!"

Deymos returned before it could escalate. "Sorry about that. You know how improv goes. Sometimes it gets weird." He took up his caffè latte, taking a sip. "Man, was that kitsune thing entertained by Dunkacino, though. She laughed harder at it than I've ever seen ANYONE do."

"Was that truly necessary?" Vexen asked. "Perhaps next time you improvise, it could be with something that does not disrupt our entire conversation."

"Hey." Deymos pointed to him. "One day, you're gonna be GLAD I taught the kitsune about Dunkacino."

"Is that a threat?" Vexen raised a brow.

"If you want, it can be a BET," Deymos replied.

"You mistake me for Roman," Vexen sighed. "At any rate, you were about to suggest a source for new memory banks."

"Oh yeah!" Deymos lowered his voice; "So you remember the mission where you picked me up? Where you dropped me off outside the big creepy abandoned tech factory and left me to my own devices? See, here's the thing. First of all, wasn't abandoned. I'm like ninety percent sure the janitor is actually the CEO in disguise, but I don't have proof yet. Second…the stuff in their basement is…interesting."

"Interesting in what way?" Vexen asked.

"The place," Deymos explained, "Myers Corporation, it didn't just make regular tech. There was this entire underground operation where they made cyborgs."

"Cyborgs, is it?" Vexen's eyes sparked. "Replicas with metallic augmentations…artificial brains that can process information in the same way as computers…that may just be the next innovation in my replica line, now that you bring it up."

"I went poking around," Deymos said. "There are way, WAY too many booby traps down in the cyborg part. Told myself I was never going back again, but for this, I could make an exception. From what I can tell, to make the borgs sentient, they have to give them a preset personality. And they use real people for that. There's a whole drawer full of human memories. You want banks? There's about five hundred up for the grabbing."

Vexen's jaw was slack. "You should have mentioned this UPON YOUR RETURN!"

"Uh, yeah, I was dealing with other problems at the time," Deymos reminded him. "Apparently some people didn't want me hanging around because of a time clone."

"Deymos is time clone," Xerxes pointed out. "Traitor was original."

"Yeah, but I'm the new and improved model," Deymos replied. "Oh, and did we already forget I had to tell you guys about Xion? Yeah."

"Did you take any of the memory banks with you?" Vexen asked eagerly.

"No," Deymos replied. "Wish I had, but one of the traps activated and I had to run for it. With a team like this, though? We could bypass the security system fairly easily. Especially if we make Simon run on the ceiling with his magnet boots. But it should tell you something that SIMON'S bank was easier to get to than any of theirs."

"I'm worth it, though," Simon said flatly. "Anyway, if you need someone to disarm a security system, I'm your man."

"And Chamberlain can provide moral support!" skekSil contributed.

"Xerxes small," Xerxes reminded them. "Can dodge through tight areas."

"Well?" Deymos asked Vexen. "You're the replica maker here. Sound like a plan?"

"We shall depart at once," Vexen stated. "The memory banks are our primary objective, but if we can get away with any equipment or raw material as well, all the better. The new, augmented replicas will be assembled at the Soleanna Hospital."

"All RIGHT!" Deymos put out his hand over the table. "Let's go, team!"

"No," Vexen snapped. "We are not – "

Simon and skekSil already had put their hands out over Deymos'. Xerxes added a fin.

"Not breaking it until you put the hand on, Vex," Deymos said.

Vexen stood. "I refuse and am leaving."

"Cool. You remember how to get there without me, right? And you totally know all the traps that are waiting for you there, right?"

Gritting his teeth, Vexen slapped a hand onto the pile.

Their hands rose as one, breaking the pile. "WHAT TEAM?" Deymos yelled.

"Uh…" Simon considered it.

"Team does not exactly have name yet," skekSil told him.

"Right," Deymos realized. "Anyway, let's make like my Nobody and get out of here as fast as humanly possible!"

...

In a quiet yet homey coastal Italian village, Roman Torchwick strode proudly down the rough cobblestone street. Archibald Snatcher was at his side, and slightly behind and between the two of them trailed Symonne.

When Roman noticed how many people were turning heads to stare at him, he thought at first it was simply because he and Snatcher were two dapper gentlemen who knew how to strut. Then he realized that several of the staring folks were looking directly behind him. "If I didn't know better," he muttered, "I'd think everyone was staring at our invisible girl."

"That's because I'm not invisible here," Symonne huffed. "Seraphs are invisible in Glenwood because the land is tied to Maotelus' domain, and Maotelus is what keeps us suppressed. Even if his hold is weakening as of late. Out here, where there's no Maotelus, there's no suppression."

"This Maotelus," Snatcher clarified. "He's somewhat of your god?"

"One of them," Symonne confirmed. "Unfortunately. For an entity with supposedly center stage in our divinity, he certainly appears about as often as a bit player. The resonance you used back in Camlann cut through his influence, but here, you don't even need to do that much."

"Ah, I see," Snatcher realized. "Then, er…it's rather unfortunately apparent why we're drawing stares."

"Because people can tell our evil intent simply by a glance?" Symonne asked haughtily.

"Well, erm, no," Snatcher corrected. "Rather because you're…er…well, how you're dressed. It's not entirely ladylike. Definitely far too revealing for a girl your age. These men, you know, they've got vicious minds, and that's coming from someone much older and more experienced in the matter. Wouldn't want to know what they were thinking of someone like you."

"Are you insulting my ensemble?" Symonne snapped.

"Archie, let the kid dress how she wants," Roman urged. "We're WHAM ARMY! No rules, remember!"

"And make her easy prey for the truly vicious and vile?" Snatcher spat. "Not a chance. There's little possibility she's chosen to dress like that of her own volition, as well!"

"Oh, because she so isn't old enough to dress herself," Roman argued.

"She's still suggestible," Snatcher told him. "Why, when I was her age, I was told in no uncertain terms that being seen in a dress would result in a severe beating! You think I could've chosen what I wished to wear in that case?"

"Your parents are dead, right?" Roman asked. "Because if they're not, I think I have to beat the shit out of them."

"Not my mother," Snatcher said quickly. "She was also suggestible. My father, you could have."

"The point is," Roman sighed, "you can't make her responsible for what the pervs are thinking. If she wants to wear that – "

"She CAN'T truly want to – "

"Why don't you ask HER what she wants to wear?" Symonne huffed.

The two men exchanged a rather guilty glance. "Okay, Purple Princess," Roman told her. "Does that outfit stay or go?"

"There are many things I like about this aesthetic," Symonne replied. "For example, its suggestion that I am neither demure nor submissive. Black, violet, and red are the only colors I really think suit my soul, untainted by the metaphysical forces of malevolence but corrupted by cynicism and bloodlust. However, the cut was designed by one of my elders in our seraph clan, and he was insistent I wear it to keep up appearances with the group's look."

"This…elder," Roman asked. "Was he...straight? Like, painfully?"

"Yes," Symonne answered. "And yet couldn't keep a wife down."

"And how old?" Roman asked.

"Slightly younger than you are," Symonne told him. "In seraph years, to be clear. In reality, much older than that."

Roman bristled. "Ooooo-kaaay, I changed my mind. We're DEFINITELY getting you a wardrobe change as soon as we pick up our pal here. Also, that guy's dead too, right? Because he also just made my shit list."

"Perverts, I tell you, all of them," Snatcher insisted.

"If he's not dead and gone," Symonne told him, "then good luck trying to abuse a house-sized dragon singlehandedly."

"Then let's just assume he is for our own sakes," Snatcher suggested. "As for the changes, I've got a few ideas. We needn't alter much, just add a bit more layer, cover the essentials. She's got it right about the colors…"

They came to a back alley, and a door almost hidden in its shadows. A sign over the building proclaimed it to be the "Red Lobster Inn."

"Here we go," Roman said, adjusting his hat. "Let's go meet our guy."

Almost mockingly, Symonne asked, "Isn't he one of the perverts? Don't you need to shield me from him?"

"No, he's on our team," Roman corrected.

"An actor's life is gay, indeed," Snatcher teased.

Into the pub they went: a dark, crowded little building with smoke-thick air. The dim lights might've made it difficult to find their target if not for the fact that he stood out like a sore thumb, as did his constant companion. The clientele was a mixture of humans and anthropomorphic animals, and the one they sought was the brightest of the bright, a fox with crimson fur and dressed in bright blue and green rags. The short, shaggy brown cat beside him seemed to leech some of his brightness, visible because his partner in crime was.

Roman took a seat down beside the fox, with Snatcher and Symonne filtering in beside him. "Three pints, if you will, my good sir," he told the bartender.

"Did you just order me a beer?" Symonne scoffed.

"What," Roman replied, "you got a problem with that?"

"Well, she is a child – " Snatcher began.

"My poison of choice is zinfandel," Symonne interrupted.

"Apologies," Roman told the bartender. "Two pints and a glass of pretentious rosé for me and my friends here, and while we're at it, two more pints for the handsome men sitting on my other side."

Though it seemed those handsome men had already drunk their fair share, surrounded by empty glasses. Yet while the cat seemed quite dazed and tipsy, the fox's eyes were sharp and clear. The way fear could make a seasoned drinker. The fox turned to Roman, picking up Roman's hand to shake it in both of his; "Why, you're too kind, my good sir, too kind! Especially on such a dreadful occasion as this."

Roman winked. "Let's just say I'm interested in your potential. They tell me you're infamous around this town. You're the one they call 'Honest John,' right? Except you are very much not that in practice."

"Yes, yes, that's me!" the fox said with a bright grin. "Ah, so my reputation has preceded me! How wonderful! If only it were on a brighter day. Not much time left to boast of my accomplishments, you know. The full name's 'John Worthington Foulfellow,' by the by, and you can use that if it's preferable. After all, you don't look the honest type either. This, of course, is Gideon."

The cat, Gideon, just wobbled a little, waved while looking two feet to Roman's left, and hiccuped in a rush of bubbles.

"See, I knew we'd be friends!" Roman grinned right back. "But what's with all the doomsday talk?"

Foulfellow dropped Roman's hand, hanging his head. "I'm afraid this is Gideon's and my last round. After all, if you've heard of us, you've likely heard of the other miscreants who frequent this town…and how we've run them afoul. I'll tell you, pulling the wool over old Stromboli's eyes was always as much fun as a rogue could have, but if only we'd known it didn't work that way on everyone! We've crossed the wrong man, and as we speak, he's on his way to…" He made a dramatic motion of slicing across his neck with a finger.

"If I may," Snatcher broke in, "it seems we've had excellent timing, then. After all, we'd come to ask you to abandon your previous ventures and join ours."

"We represent the WHAM ARMY," Roman told him. "Criminal syndicate of magic, murder, and mayhem. You know, we really should've gotten business cards printed before this whole thing. You seem to fit our bill just fine – drunk cat included."

Gideon gave another hiccup and fell off the barstool.

"Oh, that would hardly be any good for you," Foulfellow gasped. "Normally, I wouldn't mind throwing you under the wheels of the carriage, but you see, it wouldn't even help me to do so. The man we're running from…well, we aren't sure whether he's human or something else entirely. All we know is that when he wants you dead…you die for certain!"

"Sounds like a challenge," Symonne droned. She'd been handed a glass of red wine and was swirling it dramatically in her hand. "After all, I'm certainly no ordinary little girl."

Foulfellow leaned in to Roman; "Are you certain it's a good idea to bring her in here dressed like that? Some of the clientele in here…well, they can get handsy, and some aren't deterred by age limits."

"We've had the discussion," Roman replied. "We're working on it. But for now, rest assured, anyone who tries gets murdered slowly and violently. By all three of us."

"I see," Foulfellow replied. "What a lovely family the three of you make. Am I reading the situation correctly, that you're two parents and a child?"

"Well, Roman and I are in fact so involved," Snatcher said hastily, "but I don't know about calling Miss Symonne our daughter. That's a bit of a stretch to say so soon, isn't it? What we know is that for her age, she's got a shrewd mind, a sharp tongue, and plenty of power to spare."

"It's also quite an assumption that I want anything close to parental figures," Symonne snorted. "Even though they fill the bill for being as harmlessly annoying as any worthy parent would."

"And just to be clear," Roman told Foulfellow, "if you're planning to sell her off to that jackass island, don't. I'll kill you myself."

"Oh, I would never!" Foulfellow replied. "Not an associate of a friend. And certainly not a girl. Too well-behaved, you know. Only the boys ever seem to go in for the vices of Pleasure Island. Hearsay is that girls tend to shy away from the good stuff and have to get thrown in the ocean instead of getting recycled as anything useful."

"Please," Symonne scoffed. "I'm anything but well-behaved. Though to be clear, the problem with the girls isn't their moral fiber or lack of a sense of entertainment. It's because they're kept strictly in line by their guardians. Boys are left to run rampant. It's been the same for centuries. I despise seeing it in action. They work so hard to discourage all the little girls from becoming…well, me."

"That…seems to track with what I know of Cheesebridge society," Snatcher agreed.

"That still doesn't give you the right to sell me to a jackass rancher, by the way." Symonne took another sip of wine.

Foulfellow gave a heavy sigh. "That's the thing, that's the thing! My days of doing business with the Coachman of Pleasure Island are over! He's the one after me! Everyone who's heard of him in this town fears him – no, I'd venture to say the whole country, the whole world! As I said, if I joined forces with you, he'd only send his men to track me down and kill us all!"

"The fuck did you do to piss him off?" Roman asked.

"Sold him defective stock," Foulfellow replied. "In other words, the last three boys I handed over to him were a little TOO rebellious. They found ways to escape his clutches, and now some of them have been warning the other children about what Pleasure Isle REALLY is! I may have caused the downfall of the entire isle!"

"Remind me again," Snatcher told Roman. "This was the isle that transformed its victims into animals via much flash and glitter."

"Enigmatic magic," Roman ticked off on his fingers, "multicolored lights…if it really is the end of an empire, we should keep that in mind. I bet Righty could be persuaded to move in on the territory."

Foulfellow gasped; "You would attempt to TAKE OVER PLEASURE ISLAND? You must be insane! Blithering idiots!"

"I mean, I won't deny it," Roman told him. "But also, you have no idea how big this really gets, do you? The WHAM ARMY isn't some back-alley thieves' guild. You say this Coachman shitter will find you anywhere on the planet? Well, we were planning on taking you straight OFF the planet anyway."

"Into the voids seen by Monstro?" Foulfellow gasped. "Among the worlds in the tales of Jiminy Cricket!"

"Bingo," Roman told him. "Also, we've killed gods before. Well, a god. But that's still more than most people can say."

"What would an organization that powerful want with me?" Foulfellow asked.

"You are a con man, are you not?" Snatcher posed. "Er, con fox. We could always use more of your sort of talent."

"Trust me," Roman told him. "Cons are a big part of the everyday process. From what I hear, you're halfway decent at improv, good coming up with plans on the fly, and even fairly talented with a knife."

"Giddy's more of the strongman," Foulfellow clarified. "If it's a bruiser you want, it's him you need. My assassinations are committed in more stealth."

"See!" Roman spread his arms wide. "We already have so much in common! For example, I bet you my gorgeous other half already has a scheme in mind for how to outwit your stalker! Just like the kind you come up with on the daily!"

"That's a bit presumptuous," Snatcher said. Then: "…I do, by the way, but it's still presumptuous."

"Why, we could just leave into the void now and avoid him altogether!" Foulfellow suggested. He clapped Roman hard on the back; "My boy, you've saved this old con and his dearest friend from a terrible fate!"

"See, here's the thing," Roman told him. "We could just escape. But if the guy's coming fast…do you REALLY wanna just take off without dealing him a taste of his own medicine?"

"I think he still underestimates us," Symonne stated. "He thinks we couldn't begin to stand against this Coachman."

Foulfellow handed Roman a fat cigar while sticking another from his stock into his vulpine jaw. "I had thought this to be my last cigar," he said, striking a match on the bar countertop, "and if you insist upon staying to come to blows with the Coachman, well, it might still be. But let's hear this plan. Perhaps it's celebratory instead!"

He put the flame to the cigar that was now in Roman's mouth. After the first drag, Roman said, "Holy shit, we are DEFINITELY coming back here for the tobacco. Is this laced? Why is this so good?"

"On the contrary," Foulfellow replied. "It's very pure. Now talk to me."

Symonne stepped down from her stool to lightly kick Gideon on the head, since he was still lying on the floor. "You'll want to hear this exposition," she growled to him when he drowsily pried his eyes open.

When the Coachman arrived, the whole pub knew. He threw aside the door of the Red Lobster Inn forcefully, slamming it against the outer wall. "WHERE IS FOULFELLOW AND HIS STOOGE?" he yelled, barging into the pub. He cut an impressive figure – though he wasn't the tallest of men, he was rather broad, and wore a bright crimson coat that stood out against the hazy shade of the pub. That was nothing to say of the aura of menace that inexplicably seeped from the man.

"Why, Coachman!" Foulfellow rushed right up to him as though greeting an old friend. "So glad you could make it!"

"This is no pleasure visit!" the Coachman barked, glaring menacingly at Foulfellow as he stepped right up against the fox's chest. "You've ruined me, and now I've come to collect!"

"But here's the thing!" Foulfellow told him. "I've just reversed your ruination! Salvaged your empire, rebuilt your throne!"

"Your tricks won't work on me!" the Coachman yelled.

"Even if I said I had a GIRL who wanted to visit Pleasure Island of her own will," Foulfellow said, "and wished to take advantage of its many amenities?"

"Girls never want to come to Pleasure Island!" the Coachman barked. "You think you can escape your fate by saddling me with dead weight that will decorate the bottom of the sea?"

"But look!" Foulfellow pointed. "There she is!"

Symonne had draped herself across the top of the bar counter, pouring zinfandel into her mouth lazily. When the glass emptied, she swallowed, wine dribbling down her cheek. "I don't think I shall ever return to my school again!" she said loudly and dramatically. "This experience makes it pale in comparison! I need more, more, more! Won't someone hand me a cigar?"

Gideon did so. Symonne pressed a finger to it to light it, then held it gingerly in her teeth – she hated the taste of tobacco, but knew the importance of getting properly into a role.

"…You're still not off the hook," the Coachman said, "but I suppose I could have a look."

He approached Symonne, the sweetest look in his eyes. "Why, hello, little girl!" he greeted. "Aren't you quite a far ways from home?"

Symonne tilted her head to look at him, puffing out smoke into his face. "Are you a stranger?" she asked. "My parents always told me never to trust strangers. But I know that's simply their way of keeping me from the true adventures of life."

"Indeed it is!" the Coachman agreed. "I can show you many wondrous things that most children would give their later years to experience! Imagine an isle of paradise, with every forbidden pleasure you'd ever wished for!"

With the way he was laying it on, what Symonne wanted to say was that if she hadn't heard there was really an island, she certainly wouldn't have bought it. Instead, she said, "I have longed for something beyond what the earthly pleasures of this village could deliver. Tell me more about this paradise."

"You can drink all you want!" the Coachman advertised. "Smoke, too! We've got carnival rides, and all kinds of things to break for the fun of it, and so many games to play!"

"I've been forbidden from rides, games, and destruction," Symonne replied in an ennui-laden tone. "How I long to experience them. You know how us girls are treated, after all. One toe out of line and – "

They were getting closer behind the Coachman. Roman and Snatcher, exchanging a look. Symonne had to keep her best poker face to keep from giving them away.

" – and I'm given an array of colorful bruises that mar my skin," Symonne went on. "What a tragedy."

"What a tragedy indeed," the Coachman replied. "So many parents are awful, terrible things! There's no escape, you know, unless you come with me."

"Are you certain about that?" Symonne asked, knowing the time had come to set up the punchline. "What if a pair of well-meaning rogues showed up with an intent to recruit me into their criminal family? I wouldn't want to pass them up unless it was truly a better offer."

A pair of glass flagons was raised high.

"My dear," the Coachman said in a syrupy, reassuring voice, "there is no one out there who cares about a bad, lonely child like you. Not your parents, and not anyone else but me."

"And if you are wrong," Symonne said, her lips twitching into a slight smirk, "then may you be struck down where you stand."

"Yes," the Coachman agreed, "let me be – "

Roman and Snatcher brought down their flagons over his head, both at once, in a horrible crash of glass and liquid.

The Coachman recovered with a roar, turning cherry red as he rounded upon them; "TRICKERYYYYY! I'LL HAVE YOUR HEADS ALONG WITH THAT HONEST JOHN!"

"I've been doing bar fights longer than you," Roman said as he braced the Melodic Cudgel. "Watch the shiv."

"WHAT SHIV – "

Symonne cracked her wine glass against the counter and rammed the broken stem into the Coachman's back, a glass stinger.

"YOWWWW!" He leapt as high as the ceiling, crashing down hard enough to jostle the planks of the floor. "THAT DOES IT!" The Coachman reeled back his fists.

"You wanna go?" Roman danced back tantalizingly, swiping another flagon from an unsuspecting patron. "Then LET'S FUCKIN GO!"

As he dashed the flagon against the Coachman, Snatcher climbed atop a table; "THEY'RE HAVING A ROW, AND I DOUBT ANY OF YOU WANTS TO BE LEFT OUT OF IT!"

At the notion of a bar fight, the entire clientele of the Red Lobster Inn leapt into action. Glass broke, beer sloshed, and weapons were drawn all around. Roman was now firing indiscriminately, blast after blast, leaving holes in the pub as the Coachman slipped away into the crowd.

The Coachman's beefy hands crept up around Foulfellow's neck from behind. "HELP!" the fox cried. "THE ASSASSIN IS BECOMING ASSASSINATED!"

The Coachman was shoved roughly aside by an entire team of Symonnes. Illusions, yes, but with enough magic inside of them to make them tangible, and the points of their staffs sharp. Symonne, atop the bar, swung the real staff to conduct them, making them stab the Coachman en masse.

This, somehow, didn't kill him. Maybe he wasn't human. He crawled away, then hefted an entire table into the air, throwing it at Roman. Snatcher came spinning by, taking Roman's hand to lead him into a frenzied dance, and they both twirled halfway across the pub as the table splintered onto empty floor.

Gideon took that opportunity to swing the hammer. And bash a person who absolutely wasn't the Coachman.

"No, no, no, you drunken fool!" Foulfellow swiped the hammer, raising it high. "Like THIS!"

And it came down with a THUNK on the Coachman.

The Coachman turned, dealing Foulfellow a punch that sent him flying. Snatcher sent Roman on a spin away from him, catching Foulfellow and dipping him deeply in return.

"My, my!" Foulfellow remarked. "You know, I hadn't agreed at first when our benefactor said you were attractive, but you are a dashing one indeed, aren't you?"

"It always takes a moment for them to realize it." Snatcher righted Foulfellow, continuing the dance with him to keep them both moving. Roman leapt onto a table, sprang into the air, and tackled the Coachman from on high, beating him repeatedly with the Cudgel. Several more magical Symonnes came along to assist.

The tables were flipped – and, more accurately, the Coachman and Roman were flipped. The Coachman now had Roman pinned, using his meaty fists to pummel Roman's face again and again. The Cudgel lay just an inch out of Roman's reach, his fingers grasping futilely for it. The Symonne illusions had been tossed aside, dissolving.

Foulfellow came two-stepping over, saying "I will take THIS, thank you!" as he bent to latch onto Roman's shoulders.

The Coachman couldn't really keep his hold, as Symonne had summoned a bright, searing X of magic to cross him in midair, perpendicular walls of flaming energy that set his coat alight.

Foulfellow dragged Roman away as Snatcher tossed several flagons' worth of beer at the Coachman, which caught Symonne's flames and expanded the fire significantly. And, just to finish the blow, Gideon threw a chair at him (and missed).

"Okay," Roman panted, "NOW we're good to leave!"

As the Coachman burned, and the rest of the inn threatened to, Roman, Snatcher, Symonne, Foulfellow, and Gideon raced out into the street to catch their breath. Roman put a hand to his face, feeling where his Aura was working to reduce the patches of discoloration left by the pummeling he'd gotten; "I know this looks bad, but you should see the other guy."

"You know," Foulfellow remarked, "I think it would be most disadvantageous of me NOT to join in with you after that display!"

"And you won't have to worry about that brute coming after you anymore!" Snatcher crowed.

"No, he's very likely survived," Foulfellow said mournfully. "Trust me, I've done worse to him."

"Then I think it's incredibly likely he's a hellion," Symonne scoffed. "But do we need to harp on it?"

"No, we do not!" Foulfellow said gleefully. "I think we should proceed on to this WHAM ARMY and – well, what would you have us do next? Thievery? Deceit? Bloodshed? And while we're at it, what are your names? You know ours."

Snatcher sighed; "Let's just get it over with; it's Archibald Snatcher."

Roman followed hurriedly up with a tip of the hat and "Roman Torchwick."

Foulfellow flinched. "Hmm. Giddy, wasn't there a schoolboy with that name around here a while back?"

Gideon shrugged, staggering drunkenly around the street. Symonne grabbed a sleeve to stop him from wandering right back into the pub.

"I swear on my mother's grave there was!" Foulfellow asserted. "Of course, she doesn't have a grave YET, but she will eventually, matter of time!"

"Anyway," Roman said, "we're off to another one of those worlds to sack a desert town. Wanna come help me rob the place blind?"

"Blind, blurry, or vision clear as day," Foulfellow replied, "you'll have all the riches that town has to offer! After I take my generous cut, of course!"

Without warning, he seized Roman and Snatcher each by the arm, linking his elbows through theirs. Symonne, reading the room, hustled Gideon up to Roman's other side, and Roman and Symonne kept him in the chain with linked elbows as well.

Foulfellow set off skipping, dragging the others in a chain; "HAI-DIDDLE-DEE-DEE! WHAM ARMY LIFE FOR ME!"

And the others, well, saw no reason not to join in skipping and singing along.

...

The place that Sho and Coco brought Mim and Aghoul to didn't seem like it belonged in Traverse Town at all. But they were assured that yes, the End of Line Club belonged here. It just wasn't very easily accessible.

It was a very upscale nightclub (far better than what Mozenrath was battling his way through at that very moment), all dark blues and bright whites. It was also housed entirely in cyberspace, meaning that here, living and dead could interact freely.

It was one more thing: empty. The music was still playing – a heavy synth – but there was no DJ in sight, and the song had just been set to loop.

"Heh." Sho shrugged. "Was hoping some of 'em woulda come back here. Guess we missed 'em. Well, they'll turn up eventually. Give 'em the bag, will ya?"

It had taken Mozenrath a long time to engineer the initial concept for the Death Bombs. They couldn't be replicated by your average mage on the street. But these items were in the hands of Mad Madam Mim and Ayam Aghoul, and the legwork of invention had been done for them. All they had to do was replicate, and they had done so, filling up a very large canvas bag with Death Bombs. More than enough for the people Sho had described.

Coco handed Sho a heart-shaped notepad, and he dashed off a note: "These + you = RETURN TO LIFE! Solved by the WHAM ARMY! I'm in their matrix now, and we're going to plot a new slope of conquest on Atlantis (with the living heart)! Come follow us if you're not cowards!"

The note was laid atop the bag of Death Bombs, which was settled at the bar. And the group waited just five minutes more, enjoying a little dance to the looped electronica, until it was clear that the club's clientele would take a while to get there.

"Like I said," Sho sighed. "Up to the odds now."

"I do hope they come along eventually," Mim said. "It would be so much fun to have extra miscreants on board."

"And we can talk about death!" Aghoul agreed. "My FAVORITE subject! You could say we could…beat the dead horse!"

"Fail," Coco grunted. "Anyway, g2g."

"You're right," Mim agreed. "Let's get out of here! Before anything else, we've got an Asgardian to HUMILIATE!"

They left the club in order to travel back to Asgard. The bag and the note lay bathed in the strobing white lights, waiting for someone to find them.

...

Deymos had not exaggerated the complexity of the security system in the basement of the Myers Corporation. Maybe the aboveground area might have seemed normal, less horrifying, but down here, it was twisted, shadowy passages in which not a soul was visible but there were definite signs of recent activity. Many of which took the form of blood spatter.

There were several tunnels that contained false floors; Simon had to walk the ceilings first, then disarm the traps at the other end to let skekSil, Vexen, and Deymos walk across. There were codes to tell them which way to turn in the labyrinths below, and the only reason anyone realized that the codes were printed backward on purpose was because they'd gotten to the right place despite Xerxes having incorrectly read the numbers upside-down. Vexen had used Frozen Pride to deflect a falling anvil once already. Deymos had nearly fallen into a pit, only saved because Vexen had yanked him back to solid ground by the hem of his jacket.

Then, at long last, the five intrepid explorers reached the drawers. They took up a whole wall, large and metal. All locked.

"Last time I tried this," Deymos explained, "the room basically set itself on fire with lasers." He gestured around to the scorch marks present. "Looks like I wasn't the only one, either."

SkekSil gave a sharp cry. The others turned to look at the corpse he'd spotted lying against a wall of drawers.

"But I may have been the only one to actually make it out with my skin on," Deymos amended. "Ew. Gross."

"We need to figure how to disarm it," Vexen muttered.

"If I can find a central control pad," Simon suggested, "I can disable the functions."

"Like this?" Xerxes had found a small door in the wall blocked by a keypad.

"Exactly like that," Simon replied. "Now we just need the code for it."

They'd been picking up codes all the while. Vexen blew a haze of dust at it – dust they'd acquired for this purpose – so he could look over which buttons had been pressed most recently.

"Ka-ching," Deymos said with a grin. "Easy. 1625195."

Simon raised a hand to punch it in, when Vexen quickly put out a hand to stop him, lightly pushing Simon back and away. "No," he said. "Some of the numbers were doubled. I know because if the code were actually 16-12-5-1-19-5 – "

"Then it would be 'Myers'!" Deymos gasped. "Okay, maybe I AM stupid sometimes."

"I knew at least one keypad would have to be protected by that exact code," Vexen said. "The designers of this building preferred brawn over brain when it came to designing their security."

Simon entered the code that Vexen had told him, and there was a sound like an old-fashioned television powering down.

"Xerxes think we're safe now," Xerxes said.

"Just be ready to run, like, right away," Deymos added. "In case we're not."

He knelt before one of the lower drawers. "Hey, Vex," he beckoned. "This'll go a lot faster if you help me."

Vexen stood over him, hovering. "What is it you would have me do?"

"I'm gonna fill the lock with water," Deymos replied. "You freeze it."

Without waiting for a response, he sent a jet of water shooting into the lock, a handle-sized protrusion sticking out. Vexen, immediately seeing the sense in it, froze the water. Deymos grasped the icy handle, turning it like a key. The drawer clicked open.

"Who needs a Keyblade when you've got skills like that?" Deymos boasted.

"Should we open them all?" Simon wondered out loud.

"I want to see what the inventory array looks like," Vexen replied. "That will tell me what is best to take."

So they pried open every single drawer using the ice-key method. The drawers contained row upon row of metal spheres: memory cores. Each core was labeled with two letters and a number, such as "JB-078" or "BK-002." Many times, the letters were repeated.

"Betcha they're the initials of the people whose memories are inside," Deymos said. "Numbers have gotta be how many times it was copied."

Even though the numbers themselves climbed high, there wasn't an excessive amount of copies of each set of initials. Maybe ten of each person rested in a drawer, all grouped neatly together. There were exceptions, however. Two drawers were each filled with only one set of initials.

"Whoever 'VE' and 'VB' were," Vexen remarked, "they must have been truly special, to have been copied this many times. This corporation wanted several of them around."

"Meaning they won't notice if a couple walk off," Deymos said, rifling through another drawer.

"And more importantly," Vexen said, "we acquire the cream of the crop firsthand."

After pocketing VE-065 and VB-017, Vexen backed away, closing the drawer. "Unless anyone else has a stunning argument in favor of another memory bank," he said, "our work here is done."

"Hold on." Deymos fished a core out of the drawer he was looking in. "I wanna know the deal with this one."

Most of the cores sat in designated indentations, rounded to admit them. This one was kept in a separate glass box that sat in a square indentation.

"It's…almost like they wanted to keep this one contained," Deymos said. "Like they were afraid of it."

"A bold accusation," Vexen replied, "but if it's true…"

"There's another thing," Deymos said. "It's the only one of its kind. AK-001. There are no other AKs. Not in here, and I don't remember them being in any other drawer."

"But that's bad, right?" Simon asked. "If VE and VB were good because they were copied a bunch of times, then whoever AK is, they didn't wanna bother with them more than once."

"Unless…" SkekSil tapped at his beak with a finger. "Unless AK is truly singular enough to only warrant one try."

"Something's going on with this one," Deymos said, weighing the cube-encased core in his hand. "They don't want this one just getting spread around at random." He looked Vexen dead in the eye. "I want it."

"I must at least peer into it," Vexen replied. "I can file through the memories back at the hospital. Then we can make our decision. Given all you've said, I do believe there is at the very least something unique about that particular set of memories. We'll take it along."

That was when a far-off roar shook all of them in the bones. Deymos fumbled AK-001, but caught it before he could drop it.

"Don't like that," he said nervously.

"Was that part of the security system when you were here?" Simon asked incredulously.

"I would've told you about a giant monster!" Deymos argued. "That's DEFINITELY new! Or it was asleep when I was here!"

"Whatever it is," Vexen realized, the hairs on his neck prickling, "it is distant…but large enough to be heard from such a distance."

"I say we run now," Deymos suggested.

"Chamberlain agrees!" skekSil squawked.

"Go go go!" Xerxes insisted. "And no forget Xerxes this time!"

Vexen hastily cast a Corridor that led them back to Soleanna port, and he, Deymos, skekSil, Simon, and Xerxes made their great escape. They only really felt any relief once the Corridor had closed behind them.

At the broken-down reception desk, Vexen set his prizes. "VE-065," he addressed. "VB-017. AK-001. What secrets do you hold for me?"