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.

175. But It's One Exciting Ride

A/N: You're gonna want to know The Mob Song from Beauty and the Beast, and unfortunately, I am recommending the 2017 remake version because I need to make something good out of those tunes. Also helpful would be "Do You Hear the People Sing" from Les Mis.

...

Mim and Aghoul's plan was in motion for the final round of the Grandmaster's tournament. They just had to wait for that round to actually begin. In that time, Rumplestiltskin had made a request for a side stop, to a place that no one could go without his help. It was a place devoid of magic, but the Aether wasn't magic.

He created an ornate red door that led from the back roads of Sakaar into a crowded pawn shop filled with curios of all types. A thin layer of dust coated everything. As Mim, Aghoul, Ebony, and Mysterio followed, Rumplestiltskin allowed his scalier look to dissipate, leaving him to portray more of the persona of Gold. At the same time, he gave a flick of his wrist, lifting the world's excessive restrictions on magic from Mim and Aghoul and bending their reality to allow them to access all their sorcery.

"I'd say it's good to be back," Gold sighed, "but really, these items are the only thing in this town worth anything."

"Where are we?" Mysterio looked over the inventory in stock. "This is hardly the setting of a dramatic encounter."

"A most curious world," Ebony muttered. "A world like that Earth which held hostage so many of the Infinity Stones, and yet…barren, lifeless. A sense of lacking."

"Well, it does have kitsch," Mysterio said as he looked out the window to behold a small Maine town. "If there's one thing it's not lacking, it's kitsch."

"This is the Land Without Magic," Gold explained. "Where I designed the Dark Curse to take the residents of the Enchanted Forest. In particular, we're in my old shop in Storybrooke. Now, at the moment, most every resident wants my head on a plate, so we'll have to work quickly and from the shadows. I'll need that last Death Bomb."

"What?" Aghoul flinched. "We used the last one to get YOU back!"

"And I presume you took it from your own pocket?" Gold sighed. "Do you not yet know my mother well enough to be fully aware that she would keep a spare on reserve without telling anyone?"

"Just because I would doesn't mean I did," Mim huffed.

"In your bag, to the left, next to the jar of those horrid jelly beans that taste like anything," Gold told her. "Don't think I didn't come prepared for this."

Mim scowled, taking out the hidden Death Bomb as well as the jar of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans that he'd mentioned. "You know, sometimes I wonder if you inherited the worst of the gene pool in this family, but it's times like this I'm proud of you."

"Well, your face certainly doesn't show it." Gold took the Death Bomb. Mim started to pick beans out of the jar and pop them into her mouth. "Now, let's see about this…it would've been more poetic to do this at the well in the woods, you know."

"Then let's go to the well in the woods," Mysterio urged.

"If you feel like fighting off an army of the greatest heroes to grace the pages of fairy tales," Gold told him, "then be my guest."

"Ugh, that sounds like a job that will require us to work ourselves to death," Aghoul huffed. "No thank you."

"I actually do think that sounds suitably cinematic," Mysterio said, "but I can already see I'll be outvoted here. …Unless – "

"No," said the Maw.

"Yeah, I'm outvoted," Mysterio relented.

"Besides," Gold told him, "we can make do right here."

He waved his hand over the center of the pawn shop floor, and a shimmering pool of water bordered by perfectly cut rocks appeared at his behest. Gold flexed his fingers, grinning at the power the Aether allowed him to wield. Then he held up the Death Bomb, taking in a shaky breath. Obviously unnerved.

"Once this is done," he said, "we won't have long. What we do afterward will require the utmost haste. Is that clear?"

"As crystal," said Ebony.

"Yes, yes, just get on with it!" Mim urged.

"Wait," Aghoul realized. "We don't even know what this mission even is! What if we don't actually want to – "

Gold gently lobbed the Death Bomb into the pool, willing it. The water began to fizz and bubble.

"Or we'll find out in a trial by fire, I suppose," Aghoul snorted.

A man rose from the pool, taking a stand on the creaky pawn shop floor. Brunette, short-haired, clad in a sweater and jeans. A man whom Gold had never thought he would see again.

"What in the – " The man looked at his own hands, down at his body, unsure of what had just taken place. Then he registered who he was standing in front of, and immediately went into a defensive stance.

"Baelfire," Gold greeted. "I've…I've made it come to pass. You're alive."

"WHO'S BAELFIRE?" Mim, Aghoul, and Mysterio yelled.

Gold shot a glare at Mim. "My son. Which you would know if you weren't dead set on being an absentee parent."

"What's going on?" Baelfire (or, as he went by more commonly in this realm, Neal Cassidy) asked, perplexed. "Did you – did you just bring me back from the dead?"

"That I did," Gold said, turning back to him. "I thought you'd be more grateful."

"I'm…" Neal relaxed his stance. "All right. This…this is happening. I can't actually say I'm angry about this. I mean, for the record, I was in a very, very good place, but – "

"But it couldn't be perfect, now, could it?" Gold finished for him. "Not without her."

"So you do pay attention," Neal muttered. "Somehow I can't actually believe you went out of your way just to reunite me and Emma."

"Ah, we're getting down to business," Gold said. "Regretfully, there is a price to be paid for your return to the land of the living. Before I let you leave, I want you to make a deal to me."

Neal threw out his arms. "Really? Your own son? Really. Here I thought you'd – "

"Changed?" Gold told him. "See, that's exactly my problem. I've been trying all this time to change, when it seems what I needed to do was take a hint from that ice princess and let it go. Bae, you would never accept me for what I really am: a creature of the Darkness. Belle…never could accept it either. And yet, much as I know the old Cora-ism that 'love is weakness,' I couldn't bring myself to let either of you come to harm – or stay in the consequences of harms past. And so, your end of the deal is what I'm sure will be something you'll be glad to be offered. If you agree to my terms…then I'll leave you alone. Forever. You're to your own devices. You can find Emma and Henry. You can reunite with the other citizens of Storybrooke. You can even go back to New York or move to Tallahassee if you like. Or return to the Enchanted Forest, take your throne at the right hand of the heir to Snow White's kingdom."

"Okay, stop bringing Emma into it," Neal told him. "Yes. I miss her. I love her. No, I'm not going to call her my one true love unless I hear her say it. If she and I are supposed to be together, she needs to decide that. You acting like she's some princess bride to marry off to me is getting on my nerves."

"Ah, how gallant," said Gold. "You really are the best she'll ever have, and do believe me, after who she tried to make it work with upon your demise, you're what she'll need. But I'll let her tell you that part. I'm sure you won't think any less of her."

"I'm sure I was engaged to Tamara, so no, she couldn't have done worse than that," Neal replied.

"Ohhh, you'd be surprised." Gold could still recall what it felt like to have the dagger driven into his own back. "Now then. You know what you receive. Now as to what I receive."

He flicked his hand, and in it appeared a contract on yellow parchment, written in shimmering golden ink. "You leave ME alone."

"I'd say 'gladly,'" Neal replied, "but there's a reason you're stipulating that."

"I'm not saying you can't talk or interact," Gold clarified. "I'm saying that I mean it. I've made my final choice. I know who I am, and I've found others – four of whom you see here – who are willing to foster my…creativity. Unfortunately, our goals are rather unaligned with yours as one of the 'heroes' of the story. Sooner or later, our paths will cross, and you WILL feel compelled to battle us, to put a stop to what we're doing. By this binding contract, however, you won't be able to put a toe out of line or lay a finger on me or mine. No heroics. My villainy goes unchecked by you. I think that's a fair deal, don't you?"

Neal regarded him with a pensive look for a moment. As he mulled it over, he asked, "That's your mom?"

"And your grandmother," Gold replied.

"I can already tell you're a disappointment," Mim huffed.

Neal looked among the other three. "Undead…you just look like Squidward from Spongebob…wait, is that Mysterio? Literally from Marvel comics?"

Mysterio gasped. "MY REPUTATION PRECEDES ME ON OTHER WORLDS!"

"As it turns out, more stories are true than even we gave credit for," Gold clarified.

"I'd be more than happy to give you my autograph," Mysterio babbled. "Or, better yet, I'm sure I have a headshot – "

"Not now, Beck," Gold snapped. "Now. Have you thought it over?"

Neal threw a look over his shoulder, at the door of the shop. Red crystals suddenly sealed its edges, trapping everyone inside.

"I knew you'd think of that solution first," Gold said. "Sign the contract and you walk out of here an unencumbered man."

"And if I don't sign," Neal said, "you'll kill me again?"

"No," Gold told him. "I couldn't. Not again. But I could make sure you could never, ever leave me again. Where I'm going, the only place you would be truly safe is in a prison cell, and while I would give you every comfort you could possibly request, something tells me you'd rather sacrifice some of your agency than all of it."

Neal nodded. "Let me see the contract."

Gold handed it to him. Neal's eyes scanned it. His mouth, briefly, twitched into a smile.

"Okay," Neal said. "I'll sign it."

Gold conjured a pen, handing it to Neal. "Either of your names will work as legally binding."

Neal took it over to the cash register, scrawling a messy signature before handing the parchment back to Gold. "There you go. I can't do anything to you now. And you leave me alone starting now."

The crystals cracked away from the door, leaving it in working order again. "Now, I MUST ask," said Gold. "You put up very little fight, and you agreed once you saw the exact wording of the terms. You are my son, and more like me than you think. Knowing that I intend to keep my agreement to the letter, what loophole are you exploiting?"

"I'm surprised you didn't figure it out earlier," Neal told him. "Or maybe you did, and you already know you couldn't get the signatures of the people you'd really need. I signed away my ability to try and stop anything evil you do. But that contract says nothing about anyone who isn't me. And I'm not the one you need to worry about."

"Ah." Gold nodded. "You're to make Emma pick up the slack."

"All I'll do is tell her my terms of resurrection," Neal said, "and she'll make her own choice. But I know her. She won't be stopped by anything. She won't be discouraged. Once she gets an idea in her head, she'll chase it to the very end. And she has more power to stop you than I ever did. All I could ever do was escape you. She's backed you into a corner more than once." He grinned. "And, failing that, well, I'm sure there are others around here who would have something to say about it. I doubt Dr. Whale would be too happy to hear that you'd gone all the way back to the dark side."

"Let's not discuss the good doctor," Gold countered. "Now, off with you. You've a life to live and a son to parent. Do be better to him than I was to you."

"I'll try," Neal promised.

He and Gold stared at one another from across the pool in the floor. Then Gold made his move toward Neal, and Neal, knowing how the contract protected him from harm, made no move to get away.

Gold wrapped his arms around his son for what he was certain would be the last time. "Don't ever doubt that I loved you."

Neal returned the gesture. "I know. You just weren't always great at it. Just…whatever evil thing you're doing, you take care of your own heart. Don't let it become what you don't want to be."

"I assure you, that is the entire point."

Gold let go. So did Neal. And then Neal bolted, out the door and down the street.

"THAT'S what we came here to do?" Mim spat. "Bring someone you loved back to life and give him freedom? If I'd known – "

"Then you wouldn't have come," Gold grumbled. "Hence the vagueries and deception. That said, if you were hoping for something a little more black-hearted, that's not the only thing we came here to do."

"…I mean, I thought it was kind of cute," said Mysterio. "And cathartic. And he knew who I was. Did you really have to let him go before we could talk about that?"

"Yes," Gold told him. "Yes, I did. Because then YOU would be the one who would have kept him trapped. In a pointless conversation that would likely slow us down, and I will remind you, now that Baelfire is on the move, it won't be long before he tells someone exactly how he returned, who was behind it, and what we've implied we're looking to do. So I suggest we hurry toward our next destination."

"This had better be something ACTUALLY devastating or morbid," Mim growled.

"Trust me," Gold said. "You won't be disappointed. But I couldn't just leave Baelfire to his own devices without giving him one last gift from his father. One that will certainly give him an easier time in the long run, even if he doesn't think so at first." He started to head for the door. "We're going to the children's park."

And so Gold, Mim, Aghoul, Ebony, and Mysterio ended up spying on the playground. "This feels like an altogether different brand of evil than what we usually do," Mysterio pointed out. "Just saying."

"There." Gold pointed. "That's the one. I'll need him lured in."

"Oh, I've got this." Mysterio removed a silver cube from his pocket.

"Why not just let me herd him this way with a series of explosions?" Aghoul asked.

"Or let me set a wild animal upon him to chase him this way?" Mim asked.

"Flies," Mysterio grunted. "Vinegar. Honey. That's all."

He tossed the Zorg-made holo-cube out onto the lawn. Where it landed, it spawned an image of a black cat that meowed plaintively.

"Really?" Gold sighed.

"Kids love cats," Mysterio replied.

"I know," Gold told him. "Which is why you're going to end up with the whole playground instead of the target – "

"SHH!" Mysterio hissed. "He's coming!"

The little boy that Gold had pointed out was, indeed, following the cat back to where the WHAM ARMY lay in wait.

"Good," Gold hissed. "Come here, you absolute blight."

The little boy passed by the waiting five, not even noticing. "Here, kitty!" he urged.

"Now seize him," Gold commanded.

Mim clapped her hands together. The child was suddenly bound in several layers of thick iron chains, his limbs strapped together. He fell and faceplanted in the dirt with an "Oof!"

The five gathered over him. The boy looked up at them with fear in his eyes; "Who are you?"

"Are you certain this is the one?" Ebony asked. "As a matter of fact, are you certain any of this is worth pursuing?"

"Oh, it is." Gold's brow furrowed. "Pinocchio, is it?"

"Father told me not to tell my name to strangers," the boy replied.

"You certainly are more obedient this time around," Gold taunted. "Now, as you are, you've really done nothing wrong to me, but we can't have that, can we? Let's bring out the one I really came for."

The boy trembled in fear in his iron cocoon. "What are you – "

Gold waved a hand. The boy was surrounded in red smoke that obscured him from view. Then, when it cleared, what lay there was no boy but a fully-grown man. The oddest part, however, was how this man seemed to be carved entirely of wood, but still animate, struggling as though he had human muscular control.

"Did that jog a few memories?" Gold hissed.

The wooden man scowled up at him. "What do you want?"

"Tell me your name," Gold commanded. "And I will know if you lie."

"It's Pinocchio," said the man. "I'm only a child – "

Gold set one hand aflame, lowering it to the man's face. "The truth. NOW."

"…August," the man admitted. "August Booth. And yes. I remember everything."

"Very good." Gold dismissed the flame. "I've wanted to have this conversation with you for quite a while, Mr. Booth. Would you mind telling my friends here exactly what you did to incur my wrath?"

"What," August spat, "is this still about me pretending to be your lost kid so I could get close?"

Gold paused. "You know…I was moreso referring to how you ruined the life of Neal Cassidy. But you've just managed to remind me of the time you also ruined mine. You owe me twice over."

"Ah, he's a rival to the son you resurrected!" Mysterio proclaimed. "Also known as my biggest fan."

"Go on," Gold said. "Tell them what you did to my son Baelfire."

"Why should they care?" August snarled.

"Because once they know the truth about you," Gold said, "they're going to let you go."

"We're going to WHAT?" Mim shrieked. "RUMPLESILTSKIN, DON'T MAKE ME GROUND YOU – "

Gold turned to Mim. Winked. And then she got it. "…Oh, yes, of course," she said. "We'll let you go immediately."

"I don't buy it," August spat.

"Do you have a choice?" Gold teased.

August sighed. "Look. I was supposed to look after the savior. The one who would save the town from this man right here."

"Not exactly what the prophecy referred to," Gold told him. "But go on."

"His son got in my way," August said. "He lured the savior off the path of righteousness and into temptation. She became a criminal. She was going to spend her life in some maximum-security prison, never to break the Dark Curse, unless I did something. So I stepped in and did what I had to do."

"You barred my son from speaking to her," Gold reminded him, "and urged him to set her up for a fall – and you blackmailed him with his true identity to make sure he couldn't do anything but what you commanded. After all, what young woman would believe his tale that he was told by Pinocchio to leave her to fulfill a magical destiny? Certainly not Emma Swan."

"Wait." Mysterio was trying to connect the dots. "Your son? The savior who broke the curse? They found each other BY ACCIDENT?"

"It's enough to make one believe in fate," Gold told him. "If one hadn't already known that fate was true. Now, for one who claimed to have Emma's best interest in mind, what do you think he did after separating her from Baelfire?"

"One would think he would take the savior beneath his wing," Ebony said with a smirk. "And yet…I doubt that is how this story ends."

"He left Emma to her own devices," Gold clarified. "Steering her from the shadows like some sort of…well, VILLAIN."

"I'm nothing like you," August seethed.

"No, I'd argue you're worse," Gold told him, "because of all the pretense you put up. But thankfully, when my son gifted you a fair amount of cash to help Emma along, you delivered it to her as promised. Did you not?"

August knew what he was supposed to say here. "No. I took it and ran."

"And there you have it!" Gold stated. "He took away the woman my son loved, for what? Absolutely nothing at all. Oh, the curse was broken, all right, but not because of anything HE had to do or say about it. Wait – no – I'm wrong. It wasn't all for nothing. It was an elaborate scheme to con Baelfire out of his wealth."

"That's not what I was doing!" August argued. "I was…I was weak, okay? YOU of all people know what that's like."

"And I, of all people, knew exactly which events were ordained to happen regardless of fate," Gold told him. "Emma would have broken the curse regardless. Her destiny would have found her. It was her relationship to Baelfire that wasn't set in stone, and that was the only, single, solitary thing you changed. Her coming to Storybrooke was an unavoidable fate, and had you left her and Baelfire alone, she would have come here regardless, and brought my son directly to me, sparing us all a lot of time and unnecessary interactions with Greg Mendell."

"How was I supposed to know all that?" August spat. "I'm not a seer!"

"Are you a seer?" Mysterio asked.

"Was," Gold clarified. "I stole the power from another, but that seemed to have been tied to the Dark One more than it was to me. So whatever ridiculous question you were about to ask me about your future, I don't know the answer."

"You don't know that it was ridiculous," Mysterio muttered.

"I told you everything you wanted!" August pleaded. "Now let me go!"

"Well, there you have it," said Gold. "That's how he hurt my son. And, as he so graciously reminded me, he would later assume Baelfire's identity in order to con me as well."

"You're sure you identify as a hero?" Aghoul asked. "You sure don't sound like it."

"And how convenient of you to hide in the form of a little boy," Gold urged. "So you would never have to own up to what you'd done."

"I wasn't hiding!" August spat. "It was the only way the Blue Fairy could save my life."

"Yes, yes, from the woman who damn near killed me too," Gold sighed. "At any rate, I think we've heard enough. Mother, dismiss the chains."

Mim snapped her fingers, and August was free. He leapt to his feet, saying incredulously, "Mother?"
"Why, yes," Gold replied. His skin scaled right over, his hair curling. "And wouldn't you know it," Rumplestiltskin laughed, "I promised her a show!"

He threw a hand out toward August. August flinched, but then could find no effect that Gold had put upon him whatsoever.

"That supposed to scare me?" August asked.

Then he felt it.

"You feel it, don't you?" Rumplestiltskin urged. "The gnawing of the thousand teeny-tiny jaws of guilt."

It was gnawing, all right. It ws a thousand jaws, all right. But it wasn't guilt. August tried to make a break for it, to find someone before his fate caught up with him.

But before he could even run so far as ten feet, the Aether-generated termites that Rumplestiltskin had generated inside of him completed their work. He was devoured, leaving nothing but a few streaks of sawdust.

Rumplestiltskin dismissed the termites from existence. "Was that evil enough for you?"

"Well, it was justice served," Mim told him, "so I could have stood to see someone a little more innocent harmed…but that was quite brutal, and I love few things more than an interrupted redemption arc. It gets a pass."

"Good," Rumplestiltskin told her, letting himself fade to Gold again. "Because there's one more stop we're making on this world – far, far away from this town – and I needed you on my side before we confronted the next target. It just wouldn't be right to show up on her doorstep without a witch of at least her caliber."

"Oh?" Mim's brows raised. "Who am I dueling?"

"The most troublesome person I've ever had the displeasure of knowing," Gold seethed.

...

After the Giovanni incident, the people of Lastonbell were none too pleased to see someone else get up on the stage. Yet what really made it worse was the fact that the person who had just gotten up to the ridge of the elevated park and yelled "BELEAGUERED PEOPLE OF LASTONBELL!" was a human-sized grasshopper.

"A HELLION!" someone yelled.

"KILL IT!" someone else shrieked.

"Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Hopper put up all four hands, palms outward. "Maybe we think for two seconds before charging in with the attack plan? Not every Hellion is on HIS side, you know."

"ARE YOU SAYING YOU'RE A HELLION THAT'S TIRED OF HELDALF AND WANTS TO HELP US BEAT HIM?" This, of course, came from Roman.

"WE SHOULD BE LISTENING TO THIS HELLIONISH FELLOW!" Don Karnage called out.

They'd spread out through the crowd. It was time to stir up some real mob mentality. The Heathens had been asked to do the same, though Yang had expressed a lot of discomfort with not knowing exactly what the plan was until she heard it from the grasshopper's mouth.

"That's right!" Hopper announced. "I WAS one of them. But now, all I want is to be one of you. You think we LIKE what we do for the big boss? You think we LIKE being sent out to die in hordes? Well, good news for you! Ninety-nine percent of us do! But not me. So here's the deal. I'll give you the moxie you need to get rid of that ninety-nine percent."

"You can't be saying that we, ordinary mortals, can fell those dreadful beasts by the strength of our own fragile hands!" Foulfellow called up.

Roman took a moment to text him "not what we put in ur script".

"Here's the thing," Hopper said. "You seen some of those guys lately? They spawn in, what, hordes of ten? Twenty? And we have a whole city full of brave, strong warriors. Or am I not right about that and in fact looking at a bunch of cowards?"

No one wanted to be called a coward. Even by a Hellion. Even if he wasn't really a Hellion.

"If I were to throw a rock at one of you," said Hopper, "one tiny little rock, it wouldn't hurt. I bring down a mountain on you, and – well. Just be glad I see how counterproductive it would be to demonstrate in real time. Now think of this city – " He pointed down at the street. "As the mountain. We drop the entire thing on the Hellion horde, and we can't be stopped."

Tawna asked, very stiffly and unnaturally, "But what. About Heldalf? Is-n't he too big and bad?"

Roman could see her from his position, and mouthed "You call that acting?". She shrugged.

"You think ONE HELLION is too much for this town?" Hopper urged. "Sure, if we sit back and do nothing, he can come pick us off like an anteater on a colony. One by one by one. The only way to mow him down is to rise up before he can get close. We hit him first, and this problem is erased forever!"

"As it should be," Symonne muttered.

Elsa turned to Rose. "I don't like this. I know it's for a good reason, but…"

"I'm not going to complain if it kills the actual bad guy," Rose responded. "That's just how it has to be, sometimes. He turns this on innocents and I'll get involved."

"That's just it," said Elsa. "He could do that so easily."

"You were ready to rise up and kill me, weren't you?" Hopper reminded them. "You didn't hesitate! You know you could take me on, and I know you can take HIM on!"

"But we don't even know where he's hiding!" Yang offered up. She then turned back, spying Roman through the crowd and winking.

Fine. He'd give her that one. She could've said it without the smile, though.

"That's why you have me," said Hopper. "He's camped out at Artorius' Throne. Seems like the most obvious place to look. Now, that whole magic barrier in the way might have been a problem, but not with me!"

"More like not with me," Symonne muttered.

"Of course, you don't HAVE to take up this righteous mission," Hopper said. "You COULD just wait here and barricade yourselves in your houses until something happens. Which, by the way, would be nothing good. You know that, right? There's no hero to save you this time. No Shepherd. He's dead and gone!"

"No he isn't," Mikleo seethed.

"Shh," Zaveid cautioned. "Don't give away the act."

"Can anyone give me an example of what might happen if we all choose to stay here sitting on our behinds?" Hopper urged. "Go on! Don't be shy!"

This was where the real show began.

"We're not safe until he's dead!" Foulfellow gasped, faking horror very convincingly.

"He'll do the stalking!" Don Karnage added. "In the night!"

"Set to sacrifice our children to his…" Lunarre licked his lips in a way that was hardly subtle. "Monstrous appetite.

"He'll wreak havoc. On the em-pire. If we let him…wander free!" Tawna added, as badly acted as ever.

"So it's time to take some action now!" Hopper threw two fists high in the air, his speech turning into an impassioned song. "IT'S TIME TO FOL-LOW MEEEEE!"

He jumped down into the crowd, using his wings to soften the landing. Here, he went from citizen to citizen, speaking directly into their faces one by one: "Through the woods, up the hill, through the dark, abandoned village! It's a nightmare, but it's one exciting ride! Say a prayer, then we're there, at the altar of a temple, and there's something truly terrible inside!"

He made himself tall as could be, arching his arms in the air to strike a frightening silhouette. "It's a BEAST! He's got fangs! Razor-sharp ones! Massive paws; killer claws for the feast!" He went back to grandiose gestures, prompting the crowd to join in on his frenzy. "Hear him roar, see him foam! But we're not coming home 'till he's dead! Good and dead! NOW KILL THE BEAST!"

Lastonbell was whipped into a frenzy. Farmers, artisans, and warriors alike were gathering up anything that could conceivably be used as a weapon – pitchforks, torches, family heirloom swords. A squadron of knights stationed here polished up their weapons, bringing out horses aplenty.

"Get your torch!" they sang along. "Mount your horse!"

Hopper took to the skies, his wings buzzing. "SCREW YOUR COURAGE TO THE STICKING PLACE!"

"We're counting on that one to lead the way!" knight captain Sergei Strelka belted, pointing up at Hopper.

Hopper sang very softly, to himself, "Call it war, call it threat…you can bet they all will follow. For in times like this, they'll do just as I say!"

Giovanni tapped Velvet and Yang on a shoulder each. "There's at least one wild beast! That's no question," he sang cautiously. "Are we sure the right monster's released?"

Yang and Velvet worried about that as well. But in the current situation, they didn't really have many other options, and it wasn't as though the mob was ganging up on someone they didn't already want dead.

"Sally forth," Velvet said.

"Tally ho," Yang resolved.

"Grab your sword! Grab your bow!" It seemed there was hardly any adult Lastonbell citizen who wasn't getting ready to join the horde in some way, and quite a few juveniles too. "PRAISE THE SHEPHERD; HERE WE GO!"

They burst from the gates into the Tintagel woods, on horseback and foot, illuminating the dark forest with their blazing torches. The WHAM ARMY and Heathens scrambled to the front of the mob; after all, this was their show.

Yang, Velvet, Giovanni, Molly, Laphicet, Elsa, Rose, Lailah, Edna, Zaveid, Emerald, Rokurou, Eizen, Eleanor, and Magilou thronged together, the second wave back. "We don't like what the old legends said," they agreed in song. "In fact, it scares us, and this Hellion is quite infamous at least."

Of course, on the frontline, Foulfellow, Symonne, Pinstripe, Tawna, Mad Dog, Dump Truck, Cat, Melanie, Miltia, the Mukhtar, Maltran, Lunarre and – yes – even Roman were singing about a different priority as Gideon and Neo swung eager fists; "BRING YOUR GUNS! BRING YOUR KNIVES!"

"Save the children!" Roman gestured to Symonne and Cat.

"And our wives!" Pinstripe indicated Tawna.

"WE'LL SAVE THE EMPIRE AND OUR LIVES!" WHAM and Heathens chorused together.

"WE'LL KILL THE BEAST!" Hopper proclaimed.

It was about now that the Hellions decided to come at the group in full force. With fur and feather, scale and claw, creatures slunk from the shadows, tigers and dragons and oversized skunks with murder in their eyes. Here, it was proven that in fact, Hopper was correct. With the weapons, both legitimate and makeshift, wielded by the townspeople, and with the two leagues of villains in the lead, no Hellion horde could stand a chance.

"HEARTS ABLAZE! BANNERS HIGH!" They cut down creature after creature. "We go marching into battle, unafraid although the danger's just increased! Raise the the flag; sing the song! Here we come: brave and strong!"

"AND THE WHAM ARMY CAN'T BE WROOOOOONG!" Hopper trilled at the forefront, squashing an enemy critter's skull beneath his foot.

"LET'S KILL THE BEAST!" the other WHAM ARMY members cheered.

"KILL THE BEAST!" the Heathens agreed – some more reluctantly than others.

And then everyone, the whole mob several hundred strong, came together for one last cry: "KILL THE BEAST!"

They exited the wood, crossing the massive Glaivend Basin and heading toward the Hyland border. Toward the temple that held the secret entrance to Heldalf's domain.

And for once, Yang Xiao Long and Roman Torchwick were in complete and total agreement about what had to be done.

...

Times Square was lit up in a rainbow of advertisements. The massive screens served to fence in a colorful crowd of pedestrians, most of whom were too focused on their goals to care about anything being offered.

Really, it was just like the New York City Mysterio knew from home. A little boring for his tastes, but at the same time, there was a rice noodle stand in exactly the same place here as it would've been on his world, and he took advantage of that while somehow convincing Ebony Maw to try chocolate syrup and vanilla ice cream on a waffle.

Mim, in the meantime, passed the time by snacking on the Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans she'd found in her purse. She popped one into her mouth and winced.

"Ear wax?" Gold asked. "Vomit?"

Mim shook her head. "Peach. Disgusting." She popped another. "Vinegar. Mildly better!"

"Where, again, does this nuisance live?" Aghoul asked.

"As far as the scrying ritual we performed told us," Gold replied, "she'll be…in…"

No. The universe was never that kind to him.

"Well, apparently it doesn't matter." He gestured ahead. "Because there she is."

To most New Yorkers, it just looked like the woman had gotten lost on her way to a Renaissance Faire. Her dark, curly hair spilled over shoulders draped in a long red cape, with a pale dress beneath.

"Shall I crush her now?" Mim asked.

"No," Gold replied. "I want to talk to her first. There's more than a little resentment that need be addressed here. That said, I would advise the discarding of all dishware, as the battle is indeed nigh."

"Hey, you said the fight was for you, Mim, and the target," Mysterio argued. "That means the liege and I can stick with dinner and a show."

"Suit yourself," Gold said as he marched out toward the dark-haired woman, with Mim right behind.

"Go get her!" Aghoul cheered. "And if you need a little eleventh-hour assistance, you know where to look!"

The target waited at the crosswalk for the appropriate sign. There were others, the nonmagical, around her. Gold didn't care. He stormed toward her –

(How odd it was to be in this form, with this face, and not need the cane anymore. He almost wanted it back out of familiarity.)

Grabbed her by both forearms, and slammed her against the streetlight pole. "How did you do it?" he seethed through gritted teeth.

The woman gasped. "H-help!" she screamed. "This madman is trying to – "

"HOW DID YOU DO IT?" Gold yelled. "You were supposed to be DEAD. I killed you with my own hand! It was that murder that parted me from the woman I thought I loved more than anything in the world. But you came back, wearing HER face, and you spoke to EVERYONE without them suspecting a thing! Even I was none the wiser until my mother's magic showed me the truth!"

"Hey, BUDDY!" One of the pedestrians decided to play hero, rushing him. "You got a prob – "

Gold flicked one hand outward, using the other to keep the woman pinned up to the pole. The civilians were all flung backward as though riding the aftershock of a bomb, leaving a wide berth.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" the woman wailed, tears in her eyes.

"You know who I am!" Gold yelled. "SAY IT!"

"Not out here," she whispered. "There's no magic – "

"There is now," Gold seethed. "Say my name."

"Mr. Gold – "

"MY REAL NAME!"

"Rumplestiltskin," the woman sobbed.

"Now say yours," Gold growled.

"Marian," the woman bawled. "Maid Marian! And I don't know what I did to you to hurt you. Is this still about Robin stealing the magic wand from your collection – "

"Where is Robin, anyhow?" Gold asked. "I wasn't sure I wanted him to get in the way, but I also don't want him to miss out on seeing what he's overlooked this whole time."

"He's at home!" Marian sobbed. "I just stepped out to get – "

"Something you didn't want him to know about," Gold accused. "Something from the magical pockets in this city! Well, I hardly care anymore, because you'll never make it there. Now tell me your name."

"Marian – "

"YOUR. REAL. NAME."

The tears ceased. Her brow furrowed. Then, in a voice most unlike what she'd been displaying thus far: "How the hell did you figure it out?"

"As I said," Gold growled. "A scrying ritual. I wanted to be certain you were dead and gone. After all, I've just undone your gravest sin, and I'm not leaving you alive to commit it again."

"Undone?" Marian – or at least the woman who'd said she was Marian; the new voice cast a lot of doubt on that story – replied. "Rumple, darling. Even you can't raise the dead."

"None from our realm ever could," Gold replied. "Nor any of the others connected by the portal. But as it turns out, there are far, FAR more realms than you were ever aware of…dearie."

Marian smirked at him.

Several pedestrians had come back with police. Gold cast an invisible wall to keep them out, baffling those who pounded on what they believed to be empty air. (Mysterio got himself on the other side of that wall, too, so he could remain in the audience with his rice noodle rolls.) "The sympathy card won't work anymore," he said. "No one can rescue you from me but you. Why not show everyone your real face?"

"Hm." She smirked. "I suppose I don't see any reason why not, anymore – "

There was an explosion of emerald-green light outward from her body. Gold and Mim were both temporarily thrown back (Mim, adjusting her shape just a little, only bounced harmlessly off the pavement like a rubber ball). Where Marian had cowered, there now stood a different female figure, standing tall and confident.

She was cloaked in black, a dress that flared and scooped to show off a little flamboyance. Atop her head, a tall black hat with a wide brim, like a witch's hat but with a modern flair. A mane of fire-red hair spilled down her back. However, the most striking feature of this woman was her skin. She was a vibrant shade of green all over. It looked inhuman.

"The name's Zelena," she said haughtily. "That the name you wanted?"

More and more onlookers were trying to break through the invisible shield. Zelena flicked a hand; they toppled like bowling pins and slid across the square. Mysterio, unfortunately, was caught up in the same attack and unfortunately lost all his rice paper rolls down a sewer grate as he was dragged across the pavement.

"Well, who's this?" Mim asked. "It LOOKS like the Wicked Witch of the West, but obviously trashier."

"I AM the Wicked Witch," Zelena argued, incensed. "Believe me, I've seen the movie that supposedly tells my story, and I'm here to tell you it's all slander and lies. I'm not some hideous old crone. Then again, at least it wasn't half as offensive as the musical."

Mim folded her arms. "I wasn't talking about someone I knew from a MOVIE. Or a musical."

"What a relief, to know that parallel realms have put the soul of the Wicked Witch to better use than ours," Gold taunted. "This here is a liability walking. She was the one who murdered Baelfire – "

"You did that," Zelena said with a pearly grin. "Actually, no, the Savior did that, if you want to get technical."

"YOU WERE THE ONE WHO FORCED OUR HANDS!" Gold screamed. "And all for what? So I would tell you that you were a worthier heir to my magic than Regina? You know, most people actively ask me NOT to lie to them."

"YOU KNEW I WAS THE BETTER CHOICE!" Zelena roared.

"You don't even have ANY idea of what I was attempting," Gold told her. "You have NO idea the intricacies of the Dark Curse! Had it been you, I would have lost everything! But no, thanks to you, I ONLY LOST HALF OF IT! It's disappointing that I couldn't have made Cora love you, but I couldn't even make her love ME, so how much power do you think I had?"

"All my life, everyone's put me down and shoved me aside," Zelena snarled.

"As though that's not what's been done to me," Gold growled.

"I've seen enough here to have made up my mind," Mim resolved. "I say we dispense with all this and get to the brawl!"

"Now, who's this?" Zelena asked. "Another harlot you picked up in Regina's place? The substitute for the substitute for me?"

"DON'T YOU TALK TO MY SON LIKE THAT!" Mim yelled.

"Your son." Zelena began to laugh. "You brought mummy dearest to chew me out for being mean to you? Oh, Rumple, you've sunk lower than I realized."

"Are you going to duel me or aren't you?" Mim urged, getting up close to Zelena, practically bumping her aside. "An old-fashioned wizard's duel! On the count of three – "

"No." Zelena threw a bolt of green magic right at Mim's heart.

It bounced off. Zelena's eyes widened, and she took a step backward. Then she fired a longer, more continuous beam, which just splashed against Mim like water on pavement.

"You think you can hurt me with that pitiful spell?" Mim snickered. "Rumple was right to fire you."

She then became a purple-striped tiger, crouching and leaping. Zelena became smoke that Mim phased right through, her claws ripping at nothing. Mim spun round to see Zelena behind her – and behind Aghoul, her green hands on his dessicated shoulders.

"Let's see how tough you are when your friends' lives are on the line!" Zelena roughly tossed Aghoul aside.

Mim became a hyena, snapping as she ran for Zelena's ankle. Zelena stood perfectly still and let Mim bite down.

"Ooh!" Aghoul's eyes widened. "This must be turning me on far more than I realized!"

To say Zelena was flabbergasted would have been putting it wildly. "WHAT?" She flung Mim away with a wave of green, then quickly healing over her bite wound and the tears in her skirt. "No, you should be having a heart attack right now. I enacted a curse that every wound she gives me harms you – "

"Oh, didn't you notice?" Aghoul taunted. "I'm a little bit dead for that to work. All you're doing is giving me the most pleasant tingles."

Zelena knew she'd have to change tactics. She reached to withdraw the curse from Aghoul –

He slapped his chest, giving himself a sparkling protective enchantment. "You can only cast it on one at a time, is that right?" He smirked. "I've just sealed it inside my own rib cage. Now, by all means, DO succumb to FAR more injuries."

With a scream, Zelena sent a veritable firestorm hurtling his way,

Mim was soon between the two, calling up a cyclone of winter wind that blew the fire right back at Zelena. Though the witch and her dress were lit on fire, she seemed unbothered.

"I'M TEAM MIM!" Mysterio yelled.

Zelena turned to bark at him "YOU SHUT UP – "

He wasn't even looking at her. He was looking up at the Times Square ad screens. Every single one of which was broadcasting Zelena and Mim.

"HOW – " Zelena rounded on Gold. "YOU?"

"Guilty," Gold replied. "I thought the people could use a little higher-class entertainment."

Zelena became immaterial again to phase through a barrage of burning beams that Mim sent her way. When she rematerialized, she held in her hand a rough wooden broom. "If you think you're so much better than me," she called, "THEN FACE ME IN THE SKY!" She flipped one leg over the broom and rode high into the air above Times Square.

"Ooh, now it's getting fun!" Mim cackled, summoning a broom of her own and giving chase.

The two circled each other at high speeds, flinging spell after spell at one another. Then Zelena was nearly bowled off her broom when someone else hit her from behind. She spun, unsure of who else could have risen this high, only to see Aghoul riding a scythe as though it were a broomstick.

"Surprise!" he cackled.

Enraged, Zelena steered her broom right to him, tackling him physically. The two bowled through the air until they were able to push away from each other – at which point Zelena no longer looked like Zelena. Two identical Ayam Aghouls, riding identical scythes, faced each other down.

"That's the imposter!" One yelled, pointing at the other. "Kill her!"

The other one shrugged. "Kill us both. You know it will only stick on one of us."

As Mim conjured dual halberds, the fake realized her mistake. "No, WAIT – "

She returned to her true green form, freezing the halberds as they hurtled through the air to cleave the twin Aghouls in half.

"I didn't know you could shapeshift too!" Mim gaped. "That just made this SO much more interesting!"

"Oh, you'd like if I transformed into some crude animal, wouldn't you?" Zelena snarled.

"Spoken like someone who can't," Mim told her.

"I'll show you who can and can't – " Zelena's form folded inward on itself. It unfolded again as a massive vampire bat with dripping fangs, screeching and hurtling toward Mim.

Mim responded by transforming into something even larger. A dragonlike body, batlike wings, front claws that were bigger than her head, and that head bared not fangs but the snipping incisors of a rabbit.

"Ooh, a Jabberwock!" Aghoul cheered. "Nice reference!"

Down on the street, Gold stared, flabbergasted, at Ebony from across the barrier. "THAT'S WHAT YOUR JABBERWOCKS LOOK LIKE?"

The purple Jabberwock snapped at the vampire bat, fire spilling from her eyes like tears. Zelena couldn't outmaneuver fast enough to land a single bite. Fire shot right from Mim's tear ducts into Zelena's wings, sending her up in flames, charring her to ash.

Mim swooped down to the ground, returning to human form just in time to make a three-point landing on the pavement. Aghoul touched down delicately behind her.

"That should take care of THAT," Mim said, dusting off her hands.

"Don't count her out," Gold reminded her. "I've killed her before. Or thought that to be the case."

Mim was suddenly enveloped in a hurricane of green smoke. When it cleared away, there stood two identical Mims.

"OH, COME ON!" one Mim groaned.

"You've hit a new low," said the other.

"Don't you ever die?" said the first.

"Don't YOU?" said the second. "You're the one who just came back as me!"

"No, YOU'RE the one who just came back as ME!"

"WHYYYYY YOUUUUU – "

Gold had had enough. He threw a spell that immobilized both, then sank them both into the pavement, making the asphalt fluid enough to envelop them up to their waists before freezing it solid again, trapping both Mims in the street.

"I'm getting tired of this pageantry," he said. "And so I've decided I'm not going to waste any more time on this. I'm just going to kill both of you and be done with it."

"YOU WOULDN'T!" both yelled at him.

"Oh, I would," Gold said. "I am your son, after all. One of yours, anyway."

"That's my boy," both said in unison.

"I will offer you one last grace." Gold held out his hand, upon which shimmered two red jelly beans.

Both Mims' eyebrows went up. Gold knew that one of them understood his game and the other was still trying to work it out.

"Your last meal," he said. "A sweet goodbye."

"What does this have to do with – " said both.

"Or you can forfeit my last mercy," Gold said. (Of course the real Mim was playing along too.)

Both pouted and scowled at him. He tossed the beans into the air, watching them fly, and then they landed in the mouths of their respective Mims. Both of whom cringed, screwing up their faces in a completely reflexive reaction to the taste of the candies.

"Now, you see," Gold stated, "THAT one had cherry berry."

"Disgusting!" Mim coughed.

"And THAT one…" Gold loomed over the other. "Had old bloodstain."

"Yuck!" said the other. "How could you feed something like that to your own mother?"

"Because he knows I would've loved it," the real Mim said haughtily.

Zelena's eyes widened. Then Aghoul's scythe took off her head.

Gold freed Mim from the asphalt as Zelena's body dissipated into a cloud of green smoke. "If you can't be killed – " he began.

"THEN ENJOY A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH!" Mim screamed.

She, Gold, and Aghoul hit the green smoke with the exact same spell. It crystallized into an intricate polygon of glass, then dropped uselessly to the street, inanimate.

"You may be able to outrun death," Gold growled, "but in that form, you won't be going anywhere at all."

He then turned to Mim. "Well? Was that villainous enough for you?"

"I still would've liked to commit a crime on at least one innocent," Mim told him. "But for now – "

"Hold that thought." Gold spied a particular pedestrian who'd managed to get through the invisible barrier. Obviously someone who had some spare magic in his pocket. "You may get your wish after all."

Quickly, before the man could reach them, he transformed the green glass, morphing it to take a statuesque shape. The statue being one of the guise of Maid Marian.

"MARIAAAAN!" the man yelled. "MARIAN, WHERE ARE YOU?"

"Let me guess." Gold stepped out in his way. "You figured out there was trouble in Times Square with the Dark One, who you thought you'd left far, FAR behind. You were afraid your dear wife got caught up in the struggle."

"Don't play with me," the man – one Robin Hood – growled. "Was she caught in your crossfire?"

"See for yourself." Gold stepped aside with a smirk, revealing the glassed Zelena. Who, to the naked eye, looked like a Maid Marian transformed.

"Marian – " Robin gasped. "Why? Why would – WHAT DID YOU STAND TO GAIN FROM HARMING HER?"

"Hm." Gold thought it over. "Satisfaction."

Then he gave Zelena a shove. She shattered into innumerable inanimate shards on the street.

"MARIAAAAAAN!" Robin dropped to the pavement on his hands and knees, grasping for every stray shard he could find. Pressing a kiss to each fragment, hoping True Love would break the curse.

"Now?" Gold asked Mim.

"Oh, now I'm VERY pleased," Mim said with a smirk.

Mysterio nudged Ebony. "It's funny because he thinks we killed his wife, but his wife probably never actually existed."

"I get the joke," Ebony replied.

"And thus ends the world tour of vengeance," Gold stated as Robin collapsed, sobbing, on the sidewalk. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to put as much distance as possible between myself and this magic-deficient rock."

After making a full rendez-vous with Mim, Aghoul, Ebony, and Mysterio, Gold transported them all back to Sakaar in a blink. Leaving the rest of the crowd never to realize the significance of the fact that the witch was finally dead.

Ding dong.

...

Wuya, Morgana, and Daria set to take off into the air and hover above the Avaloran duchy of Nueva Vista. Twitch transformed into a jaquin once more, urging Yzma to get on board, but she declined.

"I have REAL power now," she said, hoisting high the completed Scepter of Night, its purple orb glimmering in the sunlight. "And it's about time I used it!"

As the orb shimmered, Yzma's heels lifted off the ground. She took flight, making pace with Wuya, Morgana, and Daria. Twitch was confused, but then let it stand and winged his way after the crowd.

"WHAT are you doing?" Daria asked as Yzma caught up.

"Utilizing my new magical powers," Yzma stated, showing off the glowing violet orb.

"How?" Daria was flummoxed. "That's not how the Scepter of Night should work. An ordinary sorceress would need to train to use it, and say incantations out loud. You can't just…think about the scepter really hard and make it do what you want."

"What are you suggesting?" Yzma asked. "That this is a counterfeit scepter?"

"No," Daria replied. "That's definitely real. We used all the riddles, we found the pieces where it should be, and it IS doing magic."

"Then are you suggesting that I'm a counterfeit Yzma?" Yzma was even more offended now.

"No!" Daria barked. "Look, there's something weird going on here. Something about you and that scepter. I'd say you were just that kind of sorceress, but you don't even have powers unless you count the alchemy skill. It's more like…there's a bond between you and that thing, which shouldn't even be possible. You aren't from anywhere near the Everrealm."

"Did we not go chasing down the Scepter of Night because I said it would be apropos to my aesthetic and motifs?" Yzma scoffed. "Of course we're bonded! I knew it was meant for me the moment you brought it up!"

"I'm just…surprised it's meant for you like THAT," Daria said rather softly.

"Can't you just let her have this?" Wuya asked.

"Fine," Daria groaned. "I'll just let her have this. But when this turns out to be some kind of magic secret that concerns the fate of the Everrealm and our mission, don't say I wasn't curious."

The four women and their Strangeling halted high in the sunny sky over Nueva Vista, admiring the view. The duchy was aptly named, with its colorful houses lined up in orderly squares and its lavish palace of pink marble.

"We'll barely even need to redecorate the palace," Yzma mused.

"I'm glad," Daria told her. "Because you remember the deal. We leave it standing."

"Yes, yes, personal vendetta," Yzma said, waving it off. "Let's just get down to business!"

She and Wuya took off toward the ocean. Morgana and Daria exchanged smirks before following, and Twitch brought up the rear.

Now all five levitated over the blue ocean, looking at the palace and how it was designed for ships to dock right at its gates. "Well, girls?" Morgana asked. "Ready to party?"

"I'm still here," Twitch reminded her.

"…Girls and Twitch," Morgana corrected. "Party time?"

Twitch grinned. "Party time!"

Morgana pointed the trident down. Yzma pointed the Scepter of Night straight up. Both fired.

The waters began to recede quickly, pulling away from Nueva Vista, exposing the sea bed and its embedded stones and shells. Overhead, the daylight sky dimmed to night, the moon swinging around far earlier than it was supposed to have done. It also shone not its usual bright white, but instead a garish lavender. The word "Wuyzma!" wrote itself across the moon's surface in deep plum script.

"That's my girl," Wuya said proudly.

"Um." Daria shook her head. "What?"

"It's our portmanteau couple name," Yzma explained.

"It's kind of awful," Daria told her. "How is it even pronounced? Wheez-mah?"

"Woo-eez-mah," Yzma clarified. "Three syllables."

"Yeah, no, your names just don't work for that kind of thing," Daria scoffed.

"Well, I don't care," Yzma huffed.

"And trust me," Wuya said, "it's a lot less pretentious than what SOME of our friends would do. Unless you want Yzma to change it to 'RedHairPurpleGown.'"

Beneath the fresh dark of the night, the waters of the ocean rose into a massive tidal wave, looming tall over Nueva Vista. There, Morgana froze it, giving the people just enough time to see the doom overhead.

Yzma then retrieved a rounded bottle of violet liquid, uncorked it, and hurled it into the wave with a "HA!"

It splashed into the water. It wouldn't have done much damage on its own. However, when Yzma turned the Scepter of Night on it, it energized the poison within the waves, spreading it out as veins of purple through the tsunami. (And not an inch further back. No one was risking harming sirena territory.)

Wuya flicked a hand, creating a massive magical deflection shield – bright green – around the pink marble palace. Then she raised both hands high.

"Any last-minute quips?" she offered.

"Only that we're about to be DROWNING in tears of laughter!" Morgana laughed.

"WAVE goodbye before the duchy is flooded!" Yzma cackled.

Twitch just laughed and said "TSUNAMI!"

Daria shook her head. "No."

Wuya flung both hands outward, and the tidal wave shot forward, dark blue shot through with the glowing veins of poison. It crashed down over Nueva Vista, swallowing the central district entirely. A cacophony of screams of the innocent was quickly cut short as the waters hit.

"If the water doesn't get them," Morgana cackled, "the poison will."

"Phase two, everyone!" Yzma declared. "To the palace!"

She conjured a purple bubble around herself as protection, then plunged down beneath the floodwaters.

"She still should NOT be able to do that," Daria muttered.

"Yzma does what she wants." Wuya conjured herself a green bubble. "Get used to it." And off she went like a shooting star.

Morgana created three more bubbles of green – for herself, Twitch, and Daria – and they too cannonballed into the water.

All five rolled through the palace gates, where the air had been preserved inside the shield. The five transport bubbles burst. "Now, if I were a tyrannical despot," Daria mused, "where would I be hiding?"

"I know EXACTLY where I'd have my throne room in this layout!" Yzma crowed. "Follow me!"

The way to the throne room – which was, of course, exactly where Yzma had guessed it – was barred by several troops of Avaloran guards, brandishing broadswords. "HALT RIGHT THERE!" the troop leader yelled.

"Ohhh, noooo!" Yzma said dramatically. "The royal guards! It looks like we're sunk, everyone! It's just too bad that no one – "

Half of the guards collapsed, falling on the floor stone dead. The rest yelped; "WHAT HAPPENED?"

"They're – they're DEAD – "

Yzma shook her head. "You were supposed to wait for me to finish the bit! As I was saying, it's just too bad that no one thought to work ahead and poison the water supply of the palace, causing the entire royal troop to DROP DEAD!"

She then looked to the survivors, who were very definitely still surviving.

"NOW you can die!" she urged.

"We…drank water at different times of the day," one guard piped up.

"Oh, for the love of – " Yzma brandished the Scepter of Night, which unleashed a shockwave of purple.

The remaining guards were thrown about like dolls, their bodies cracking against the walls and ceiling. There certainly weren't any survivors left now.

"Let's go!" Daria surged ahead, throwing open the throne room doors.

The room itself was spacious, with curved walls and stained-glass windows. The throne itself was slightly more meager, a gilded chair with sparing gems. A rather round man in a teal jacket sat not on the throne, but behind it, with his back to its. He hugged his knees, trembling.

"Well, well." Daria slowly floated around to face the man. He was getting on in years, and had festooned his teal jacket with a garish pink bow tie. "Duke Cristóbal. Or, should I say, Shuriki's lapdog?"

"Please," Cristóbal wheezed.

"Of course you didn't die from the water," Daria sneered. "A coward like you would've had his men taste it. The others probably don't know where you stored the corpse of the poor idiot who drank your water." She smirked. "You know Shuriki fell. She doesn't hold Avalor anymore."

"I – I don't know what you're talking about!" Cristóbal stammered. "I was never – "

"You were taking DAILY donations of gold from her in exchange for facilitating her trade routes and covering up her crimes," Daria growled. "If I were a human, I'd have plenty of reason to be mad at you. But…as you can see…I'm not a human. I'm a sirena. So I have MORE reason to hate you than even that."

"Please," Cristóbal whimpered. "Spare my life! I'll give you anything you want! All of the gold! My yacht! The palace!"

"We get those things if you die anyway," Daria reminded him flippantly. "Do you remember exactly how many sirenas were brought into your CUSTODY because of your hunts?"

Cristóbal finally was able to look her in the eye. "Your kind has killed my familia," he said hoarsely. "Running their ships onto rocks."

"Did you really think it was EVER that simple?" Daria barked. "We were tired of humans intruding upon our territory. Our fish were being depleted, our children were being pulled up in nets, and we were already being demonized as sea monsters. So we struck back. Sure, it started out with a couple of bad actors. But most every ship we sank deserved it. I don't know exactly which of your 'familia' we killed. But I know whoever it was wasn't the saint you remember them as."

"How…" Anger rose within Cristóbal, overriding his fear. "How DARE you – "

"And if they were?" Daria scoffed. "I'm sure they would be so proud of you using their name and Shuriki's resources to start a quiet war that no one in Nueva Vista ever knew anything about. All they knew were the bedtime stories of the evil sirenas. Not the man who kept those stories being told because it worked for him." She leaned in close, her face inches away from Cristóbal's. "Was it really all to avenge your family? Or was there another reason?"

"It was for my familia, nothing more – "

"You're going to die anyway," Daria told him. "No sense lying now. Though, actually, if you're honest, I might – MIGHT – be persuaded to spare you."

"I…" Cristóbal trembled. "I was given a bonus from Shuriki for…for every sirena pelt delivered…"

"That's what I thought," Daria spat. Then literally spitting, into his left eye. "You honored your ancestor's memory by trading my people in for a new boat or twelve. Do you even have any idea who controls Avalor now?"

"Obviously you – "

"Actually, the throne just went back into the Flores line," Daria said with a smirk. "Turned out Elena wasn't so dead after all."

"Elena?" Cristóbal's face lit up. "Elena…we were so close as cousins! We were constant playmates, the two of us and Esteban! When I speak to her – I can start again!"

"You wouldn't ever tell her the truth!" Daria barked. "I have no love for the Flores family. But I almost feel sympathy for her, since you'd try to cover up your entire past and everything you EVER did to betray her. You're a man with no honor." She sighed. "Luckily for you…I'm a woman with honor. You're the only man who will walk away from Nueva Vista alive. Don't forget this conversation. Never, EVER forget this moment. From now on, you will live a life of penance, and you will pay for your crimes against human and sirena alike, starting with admitting your guilt to the new ruler of Avalor."

"I will," Cristóbal stammered as he got to his feet. "I will, oh, I will, thank you for your mercy!"

He began to run.

"What?" Yzma's jaw dropped. "We're just letting him go like THAT? But I thought – "

Morgana elbowed her. "Wait for it."

Daria waited until Cristóbal was at the throne room door. Then she opened her mouth wide and began to sing an ethereal melody; "Ah-ah-ahhh, ah-ah-ahhhh…"

Cristóbal froze as the sirena song washed through him. His eyes glazed over, glowing a haunted green.

"Remember what you were saying earlier about finishing the bit?" Morgana chuckled. "She's finishing the bit."

Cristóbal turned against his will, his movements stiff, to face Daria once more. As she continued to sing, she beckoned him with a hand. Come closer.

He did. Almost eagerly, save for the blank look on his face.

Morgana sidled up to Daria. "You know, this is a special occasion," she said. "I think you should play with the fancy toy for this one."

She passed the trident to Daria. Daria took hold of it, aiming it at Cristóbal. "Honor means nothing to me," she told him. "The only thing that will right this wrong is payment. Duke Cristóbal, by military law of the Kingdom of Coronado, I declare you a war criminal, a traitor…and a dead man."

The trident blazed. A single shot of red burst outward, into Cristóbal. His body was wracked with the pain of an electric shock, red lightning crackling over his skin. He did not cry out or react; Daria's song kept him docile, anaesthetized. Then he collapsed, motionless, on the floor.

"How did that feel?" Morgana asked.

Daria smirked. "Wonderful."

She passed the trident back. Morgana tapped it on the floor twice, sending out a massive ray of green.

The poisoned floodwaters were absorbed into the ground. The stone streets and canal beds of Nueva Vista filtered out the poison; the waters would no longer be dangerous, but the glowing purple veins in the roads indicated that caution should be used throughout the rest of the city. The palace was left unscathed, save for the corpses.

Yzma, Wuya, Daria, Morgana, and Twitch walked out the back of the throne room and onto a balcony that overlooked the sea beneath the violet night. "This will make an excellent summer home," Yzma said. "Of course, someone should probably do something about the poisoned roads, but it'll be easier just to pave it over and erect a few law firms for the freak cases than it will be to remove the entire vein."

"It's not like we'll be leaving the palace anyway," Wuya said. "The city is for whatever hapless schmoes we end up ruling over…after we figure out how to clear the corpses out. That's the bigger problem as far as I'm concerned. They'll ruin the view AND the smell. It might be time to flood this city with fire just to clear out all the flesh."

"Ooooooor…" Yzma realized. "We leave them where they are, and we let MOZENRATH know where they are."

"Oh." Wuya's eyes widened. "Oh, that's – that's brilliant. A city full of undead servants just for us. He'll probably regenerate new bodies for them, but we can just make them clean out their old ones themselves."

"I wonder how he's doing in that tournament, anyway," Yzma muttered.

Daria then spotted them: the sirenas, rising to peer out of the waters closest to the palace. Excitedly, she made a swan dive, using her levitation magic to gently fly down to greet the rest of her kind.

"Daria." King Pescoro's tone was as cold and hard as his chiseled physique. "What have you done?"

"I've freed us from these humans!" Daria stated with a smile. "They'll never hunt us again! There's no one left to hate us!"

"Daria." Pescoro glared directly at her. "When the humans of Avalor…of the Everrealm…hear about what you have done to Nueva Vista…what do you think they will make of us then?"

"We'll deal with them when they come!" Daria argued. "This HAD to be done! It was the only way!"

"No," Pescoro told her. "It was not the only way."

She scowled. "What, do you think peace with the humans was an option? I would never think you'd go for THAT."

"We could have bided our time," Pescoro growled. "Perhaps, in the generations to come, fences could have been mended. But now, all the Everrealm will believe that the sirenas do more than sink ships that intrude upon their territory. They believe we are taking up arms against the human kingdoms."

"WELL, MAYBE WE SHOULD!"

"YOU ARE HEREBY BANISHED FROM CORONADO'S WATERS!" Pescoro screamed.

Daria gasped, reeling. "No. You can't. I did this for YOU. I did this for CORONADO."

"You did this for yourself," Pescoro told her.

Daria looked to the other sirenas gathered. "Queen Camila! Are you going to let this stand?"

"You forget that I was once human." Tears streaked Camila's face. "You would do this to the place I was born? You would do this to me, if I had never reached Coronado?"

A tiny pink octopus bobbed alongside the royals. Daria supplicated him; "Ocho! Tell them this is wrong!"

"Daria." Ocho's voice was hoarse. "I thought we were friends, but I also thought you didn't want to do this kind of thing. I don't even know who you are anymore."

Daria bared her teeth. "YOU. ALL OF YOU – "

A cold hand settled in on her shoulder from behind. Her head whipped round to see Morgana looking into her eyes with concern.

"You don't need them," Morgana told Daria. "We have a place for you. There are humans there, some of them less friendly to magic than others…but it beats this."

Daria turned to scowl back at Pescoro. "You will regret this," she seethed. "If you thought you could tame me through exile, you were wrong. All you've done is made a monster. I won't forget this, Pescoro. Maybe next time, the poison currents flow your way."

Pescoro sighed. "Retreat. If there is any sign of her around our kingdom, put up the alarms. I am finished here."

He vanished beneath the waves. One by one, the others did as well. Finally, Ocho, with watery eyes. Then it was merely the roll of the surface of the sea.

"Banished?" Daria repeated, her voice catching in her throat. A far cry from the tough act she'd been putting on. "How could they do this to me?"

"I ask myself all the time why my own mother could treat me like dirt," Morgana told her. "I never got an answer, and she's long gone. Sometimes, you just gotta let it go."

"And move on," Daria surmised. She placed her hand atop Morgana's, still on her shoulder. "I guess the WHAM ARMY has a sirena soldier on its side."

"That's my girl." Morgana smiled warmly.

Daria smirked. "Your girl?"

"I mean – my friend!" Morgana coughed. "I assume we're friends at this point. Friends who are girls. Gal pals!"

"You've helped me more than you'll ever know," Daria told her.

"You don't…regret having cast your lot here, do you?" Morgana asked hesitantly. "Because if you hadn't, then they wouldn't have banished you."

"They would've made me live in a world of terror," Daria replied. "I would've had to hold my tongue for the rest of my life while Coronado collapsed. And when the humans destroyed it, I wouldn't even have been able to say that I told them so. Now, when they come to ruin, it'll be their own fault."

Morgana cocked her head upwards. "Wanna go check and see how many hot tubs Wuya installed in Nueva Vista?"

"I could use a soak."

...

In the deepest dungeon of the Asgardian palace, Loki opened the door to the most hideous cell: about the size of a closet, it contained nothing but a chute for food to go in and one for waste to go out. That, and a prisoner. Even its door was hidden, unable to be found by anyone but Loki or Doom; only their magic could reveal the trick in the walls.

"I have news," Loki told the prisoner. "As far as everyone is concerned, 'Odin' is dead. But his ever-faithful son, Loki 'Odinson,' crawled his way back from the grave to avenge him. I now sit the throne in my own name. Are you not proud of me?"

The real Odin snarled at him through a face caked with dirt, sweat, and saliva. "I will take no pride in this mockery."

"I bet you never thought you'd live to see the day." Loki grinned. "You know, I'm almost glad Hela's seal requires you to be alive. It means you were around to witness the proudest moment of my life."

"Then it is finally time you know the truth," Odin coughed.

"Oh, let me guess." Loki's smile grew brighter. "I'm adopted? Oh, I already knew that one. And it can't get much more flooring than that little piece of information."

"I was a coward," Odin spat. "I wanted you to keep me alive. That is why I…why I did not tell you when…"

Loki rolled his eyes. "Where is this going?"

"When Hela…escaped. Her seal is broken even though I…live."

Loki certainly hadn't been expecting that.

The change that came over him was instantaneous. He seized his father's grubby breastplate, slamming him against the far wall. Stretching out the magic-resistant chains that bound Odin's limbs. "HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?"

"Only a great Darkness…could have pierced my defenses," Odin told him. "A great, great Darkness. This is…what has unleashed her."

"And I suppose she's already learned about the realms outside the Nine!" Loki hissed. "That's why I haven't heard of this. That, or you're lying to me even now, but to unleash Hela upon Asgard would be a low even you would never sink to!"

He threw Odin down, backing off to the threshold of the tiny cell. "You know nothing other than that it was a 'great Darkness'?" he urged.

"The purest Darkness," Odin wheezed.

"Ah, that description could be just about anyone, couldn't it?" Loki grumbled. "Every world's got at least one pure evil – "

"Not pure evil. Pure Darkness."

"Still hardly narrows it down."

"There is no reason to prolong my miserable existence," Odin coughed. "Let me die. Let me be reborn after thousands of years, as someone who will know better, will do better. You may torment me, kill me slowly and painfully…but the time has come for it to end."

And Loki was tempted. His scepter materialized in his hand, and he raised it high, ready to bring it down hard.

He stayed his own hand. Lowered it slowly. "…No," he realized. "Or, perhaps, yes, but I will be exploiting a very particular choice of words."

"What have I said that appealed to your devious mind?" Odin asked.

"That I could torment you slowly and painfully," Loki said. "As long as I wanted, I presume. I think I shall kill you, but not all at once, oh, nooooo. I think a few hundred years before you finally depart your divine coil. Every few days, a little more will be severed, but never enough to end it all."

"Do you not wish me dead?" Odin coughed. "Is that not why – "

"You see, I had thought that," Loki realized. "Until I did in fact keep you here. And I heard your responses to everything I told you about my ascension, my plans, my ever-burning hatred. Over all this time, I've come to realize…I never wanted you dead. No, that would be too easy, too much of a relief for you. I wanted you to suffer. That is what has brought me so much joy all this time you've been in my custody. And that is what I shall continue to revel in as you slowly waste away over the next several centuries. How many centuries shall depend on my mood."

"I had once thought you merely misguided," Odin wheezed. "Now I see…you were never – "

"Meant to be the hero of Asgard?" Loki asked. "Nor its rightful king, nor your son? Perhaps that's where I should thank you. Had you not abused me so…I might never have realized what I stood to gain from this path."

He brought the scepter back down again, slicing only the tip of Odin's nose off. Odin barely flinched at this point.

"Oh, the next one will hurt," Loki promised. "Before I get to it, however, I should like to consult Victor. I'm certain he will have ideas aplenty for what to do with the All-Father in order to progress the flow of science." He scowled. "That said, I WILL be on the watch for Hela. I've come too far to let her destroy what I've worked for."

He turned on a heel and slammed the door behind him, phasing into the dungeon proper. He didn't leave Odin room for the last word, but Odin was too exhausted to take it anyway.

From there, Loki stormed upward. Just outside the dungeon, he crossed paths with a woman in silver armor; she bowed to him, putting an arm across her chest as a signal of loyalty.

"My king," she greeted. "How may I serve Asgard in your name?"

"Call the other Valkyries to a conference," Loki told her. "There is a woman for whom a watch needs to be set. She will attempt to enter this realm the same way that Thanos did, and that cannot be allowed to happen."

As Valkyrie departed to round up the rest of her troop, Loki ran through plan after plan in his mind. Amora would be back from the dead soon, and the moment she arrived, he wanted her brought in on this strategy meeting. Hela would never be allowed past the front gates.

...

This was supposed to have been Rydia's pilgrimage as a Summoner. And so she had chosen, as her three Guardians, her immediate family: her mother Anima, her father Jyscal, and her older brother Seymour.

This was probably a mistake. It really just seemed that Seymour, who'd already become a legitimized Summoner years ago, wanted to make it his second pilgrimage instead of Rydia's first.

She supposed she could hardly blame him. He had been going through mood swings, feeling as though there was no point to life. Jyscal and Anima had tried multiple methods of giving him back his spark, and Rydia had to admit that she had invited him along partly to see if she could cheer him up. However, she was paying the price for it.

She couldn't have cared less about the Lost Aeon of Baaj. But Seymour, upon hearing the rumor that someone had cleared the hazards and unleashed the temple, had insisted upon making the stop. "To be the first to wield the Lost Aeon will certainly make yours a fulfilling life," he'd told Rydia.

She knew what he meant. It would make his life fulfilling when he too underwent the ritual. Still and all, how was she supposed to say no? Jyscal and Anima had both looked to her to make the call either way. And she hadn't been able to think of a good reason why not.

Still and all, as they crossed what had once been a river of sludge and was now merely a stony ravine, Rydia wished she wasn't there. She couldn't really explain why. Only that she hadn't cared, and still didn't.

"Rydia," Anima said, noticing her daughter's glumness. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Rydia muttered.

"You mustn't be afraid to speak up for yourself," Anima reminded her. "You are the Summoner upon this pilgrimage. You decide where we go, and we are merely to follow your orders."

"But a Summoner needs to look after all her people," Rydia insisted. "Unlike the people who rule us."

"I do not believe the situation in the Radiant Garden castle was so black and white," Jyscal broke in.

"Do not pester her, Father," Seymour sighed from up ahead. "She has only come to the proper conclusion that those above us care not for us. As it always has been, since the dawn of politics, and as it always shall be." Always with that smug little smile that masked his inner turmoil.

"Those above us are human," Jyscal reminded him. "For good or for ill."

"Perhaps that is the problem," Seymour mused. "After all…the only good human I have ever known is at my side at this moment."

"Seymour," Anima said sternly.

Jyscal was fully Guado. Anima was fully human. Their romance shouldn't have been unlikely in that day and age, but unfortunately, the world still had growing to do. Their children were the only half-Guado, half-human people in the whole kingdom.

"Do not take me so seriously, Mother," Seymour said flippantly. "Of course I'm well aware that – "

He paused. Rydia stopped alongside him. "What's wrong?"

"We are not alone," Seymour muttered.

"How do you know?" Rydia asked.

Without a word, Seymour simply turned, hurling a high-powered Holy spell at what seemed to be a patch of empty air. It rippled, then dissipated, revealing quite the crowd: Vexen and Deymos at the forefront, followed by Tsumugi, skekSil, Simon, Vincent, Victor, Albert, Agnus, Arius, Discord, Peepers, Ludwig, Emet-Selch, Noodle Burger Boy, Crushroom, Hyper-potamus, and Hangry Panda.

"…Awkward," Deymos said.

"An ambush," Seymour growled.

"No, seriously, HOW did you know where we were?" Deymos urged.

"I heard the soft whirring of machinery," Seymour said calmly. "Perhaps having that much machina among you was an unwise decision."

"Hey, that's robophobic!" Tsumugi yelled. Then she placed a hand to her mouth; "Oh no. I'm doing it now."

Jyscal and Anima stepped out front of their children, readying their Summoner's staves. "Stay back," Jyscal warned.

"What do you want?" Anima asked. "Do you come in peace, or in combat?"

"I wouldn't say we want a fight," Vexen stated. "We merely wish to take possession of one of your number to use as an experiment. If one of you should volunteer, then there will be no need for brute force."

"You will not harm my family," Anima seethed.

"Pity," Vexen said, his grin broadening. "Then I suppose a fight it is."

His shield rushed into his hand with a rush of winter wind. Jyscal, Anima, Seymour, and Rydia all flourished their staves.

"Please," Rydia muttered. "Please let this work…"

A rush of wind, and her Valefor was at hand. Seymour's Ifrit rose from the ground in a column of flame. Jyscal's Ixion crackled forth on lightning; Anima's Shiva sparkled with frost. Then all four attempted a second conjuring – Rydia's failed, but not only was Seymour able to put a tall-statured, broad-shouldered Yojimbo, and Anima a trio of insect-humanoid Magus Sisters, but Jyscal managed to summon a great Bahamut from the sky above.

"That sure looks like trouble," Deymos said as his sitar bubbled into hand.

"Trouble we are certainly prepared for," Vexen stated.

"GO!" Anima yelled to Seymour and Rydia. "THE SUMMONS WILL HOLD THEM – "

Seymour's brow furrowed. "Not without my Aeon."

He seized Rydia's wrist and, to the horror of Rydia and her parents, dragged her not away from the temple, but across its threshold and deeper into its halls.

"SEYMOUR!" Anima and Jyscal bolted after him.

Not that it was an ultimately unwise strategy. The Aeons they'd left behind barred the door, glaring down Vexen and his troop.

"TAKE THEM DOWN!" Vexen barked. And that was all the direction anyone needed. They split up into groups, each focusing on a different Aeon.

Valefor swooped low to the ground, emitting laser beams trained on Tsumugi, Simon, and skekSil. The former two had to grab the latter and pull him out of the way before the ground erupted where they'd been standing.

"We must clip wings of wind beast!" skekSil screeched.

"You know, it looks a little bit like a dragon," Tsumugi said. "Or just enough that I think this is the most justified route – "

Her paneling flipped, a cosplay taking place. Her frame became bulkier, and she produced a staff from inside her machinery – a prop more than anything, but still sharp.

In the Huntsman's voice, and using his body and face, Tsumugi raised the faux Huntstaff high. "DRAGOOOOON!" Then she leapt.

Valefor ducked and dove, but was no match for robotic reflexes. Huntsman-Tsumugi landed on her back, seizing the skin at the scruff of the Aeon's neck and using it to try and steer her.

"Quickly!" skekSil hissed. "Apex Captain shoots hook into stomach of godling!"

"I have no idea where you're going with this!" Simon brought out his grappling hook, training an eye on Valefor's underside. "But I'm gonna trust it's somewhere good!" He pulled the trigger, launching the hook.

It buried itself into the flesh of Valefor's underside. Valefor screeched, jerking and straining to try and break free; on her back, Tsumugi kept steering.

"I can't hold it!" Simon stumbled like a child with a kite caught in the wind.

"Hold it for only moments more!" skekSil yelled. "Reel in, REEL IN!"

He drew his curved blades.

Simon began the process of reeling in the hook, digging his heels into the ground. He wasn't quite sure how Valefor didn't just lift him off the ground and take him for a ride, but he supposed being a Vexen replica had a little to do with it. Slowly, between his efforts and Tsumugi's, Valefor circled lower to the ground in her escape efforts – lower –

With a wild screech, skekSil slid beneath Valefor, plunging both swords straight up. They cut through her deeper than the hook, slicing her body into thirds as she passed. Valefor dissolved into sparkles on the wind, and Tsumugi made an expert landing, reverting to her blue-haired shape as she did so.

"Okay," Simon told skekSil. "That went somewhere good."

"You doubted Chamberlain, hm?" skekSil smirked. "For shame, for shame!"

Arius soon had Marx on the field, and with a wild "HEEHEEHEEHEEEEE!", Marx went careening toward Ifrit. Ifrit had other plans, hoisting a pair of spheres into the air and hurling them at Marx one by one. They hit home. Marx burst into flames, giving a scream of the dead.

"That seemed rather anticlimactic," Agnus murmured, taking furious notes.

"Wait," Arius said. Dramatically and smugly.

When the flames subsided, Marx had a more skeletal form. Basically just a spherical ribcage with bones for his wings and limbs. Then a crackling ball of light that cycled through garish, ugly colors at a rate that wasn't at all easy on the eyes formed up in the center of that cage, where his heart might be in a normal case. It ricocheted around the case before Marx broke his own ribs open, sending the light straight at Ifrit.

It punched into Ifrit's chest like a bullet. Ifrit howled in pain. With a loud POP sound, Marx's flesh grew right back into place all at once.

"Are you not to assist?" Arius growled at Agnus. "You, as an angel – "

"I will when I'm f-finished sk-sk-ketching them all!" Agnus snapped. "You think I'm going to let this B-BE?"

Arius rolled his eyes. Apparently Angelo Agnus was no help today.

"WHEEEEE!" Marx spiraled up above Ifrit, spinning round and round, as his body suddenly wrung itself twisted and flat like a towel. From it, red liquid spilled in a torrent, dousing Ifrit's flames below. Ifrit staggered, on his last legs, until Marx's eyes popped out and cracked him on the head twice. The sound of his skull giving way was very apparent. Finally, Marx swooped down to stare into Ifrit's eyes, but his own were still not back in place. Any strength Ifrit had left was sapped by his sojourn into the swirling voids of madness that lay in Marx's sockets.

Ifrit burned up to ash. Marx, his power spent for the time being, cackled as he dissipated, returning to his home in Arius' staff.

"…I was not finished d-drawing," Agnus grumbled. Arius simply stormed away in frustration.

"HEY!" Peepers barked, twirling his blaster. "OVER HERE!"

Ixion charged massive amounts of lightning into his long, crooked horn. Peepers waited until the last possible moment; when Ixion let the bolt fly, Peepers dodged.

In his place, Discord put a toaster. The electricity was absorbed into the toaster, powering it. Cinnamon toast popped out. Discord grabbed the bread and started buttering it with a knife and butter he'd gotten from nowhere.

"I'M OVER HERE NOW!" Peepers yelled.

Ixion, not having learned his lesson, went after the Watchdog again. This time, when the bolt struck and Peepers moved, Discord put down a fan, whose blades started whirling at high speeds once the electricity was coursing through it.

This trick worked over and over and over again. Discord kept putting down new appliances: a blender with a strawberry smoothie in it, a television that played loud music videos, a gaming console that had Pong loaded up. "You know," Discord laughed, "I'm beginning to think this is your special talent! Just for that, I'm going to bequeath upon you what every skilled unicorn should have: your own Cutie Mark!"

Ixion felt a twitch on his flanks. He stole a look; now, for some inexplicable reason, there was an emblem of a wall outlet drawn on both.

"I dub thee…Sparkplug," Discord said mischievously.

Ixion reared and whinnied in dismay.

"Now, don't be mad at me!" Discord scoffed. "I was of half a mind to call you 'Horsemeat Famine,' so thank me for being generous! Oh, and by the way, I'm the diversion. You know I'm the diversion, right?"

As he'd been doling out the Cutie Mark, Peepers had grabbed cords and plugs that trailed from every appliance. Discord had already created the receptacle for them: a surge protector that was curiously shaped like a grenade. Once Peepers had all the appliances plugged in, the protector stopped the surge, all right – by absorbing it into itself. It began to hum and shudder ominously. Every appliance died with a POP.

"SEND IT FLYING!" Peepers yelled.

Discord flicked his wrist; the surge-grenade hoisted itself into the air, hurtling toward Ixion. Peepers let off a round of ammo – his aim was perfect, so really, all he needed was the first blast, but you could never be too careful.

The grenade exploded. All of Ixion's electrical energy was regurgitated back at him, and the shockwave produced was too much for the Aeon to handle. With one last whinny, Ixion melted away into soft crackling bolts in the air.

"YEEEAAAAAH!" Peepers leapt high to smack his hand against Discord's paw. "WE SHOWED THAT UNICORN WHO WAS BOSS!"

"I think we make a great team," Discord said. "Don't you?"

"THE BEST – " Peepers cleared his throat, then calmed down. "Yeah, a pretty good team, all right."

Discord winked. "No, I agree with what you were GOING to say before you embarrassed yourself."

"Fine, fine, if you insist on it. We'll have it YOUR way and say we're the BEST team, then."

Bahamut crouched on all fours in front of Emet-Selch and Ludwig. Ludwig gave a bow, then backed off.

"You don't care to join in the festivities?" Emet-Selch asked.

"I never agreed to PARTICIPATE in your dreadfully simian affair," Ludwig reminded him. "This is your business alone."

"Ah, I see." Emet-Selch watched as Bahamut opened its jaws wide, charging up a brilliant light, and its golden ring spun round and round. "Then 'tis I who shall reap all the glory. A fine arrangement, if you were to ask me."

Bahamut let fly his magic attack. Emet-Selch, in the blink of an eye, was in Grimm form, using one massive claw to block the incoming beam with a planar magic shield. Bahamut's stream of magic couldn't pierce it, and in fact partially ricocheted back, singing the dragon from which the assault had come. The other of Emet-Selch's hands held a massive staff of pink crystal, which he lifted high into the air.

The staff sent a spark into the sky. Hence descended Zalera, the stitched-on head of Melinoë giving a war cry. The angelic Grimm commanded Darkness to erupt from above and below, piercing through Bahamut's body, breaking the gold ring on its back. Then Emet-Selch himself threw the shield outward, pushing the full force of Bahamut's magical breath back on the dragon.

Bahamut dissolved into rising sparks of light. Ludwig nodded, giving light, polite applause. "Aside from the part where you were clearly showing off, well done."

Emet-Selch returned to humanoid form, bowing and smirking.

Deymos had only gotten in the intro chord of a powerful wave before Shiva managed to freeze him in an iceberg, which was so not fair, since that was supposed to be Vexen's schtick. Vexen twirled his shield, forming an icy blade that protruded from its lower point, as Shiva extended her hand to complete the attack.

She snapped her fingers.

The ice around Deymos broke and Vexen didn't even notice it. The sound of the snap rang in his ears. Shiva was little more than a blue blur.

He threw everything he had at her: a blizzard's chill, snow and ice galore. Wordlessly, Vexen descended with the ice blade, slashing at the blue thing that had made the noise over and over and over again.

Then his fog lifted just enough for him to hear someone yelling "SHIELD UP!"

Without even thinking, he listened, raising his shield high over his head and holding it so its flat faced the sky. How he even knew the position intended, even he couldn't have said, other than some fleeting memories about the explanation for heart resonance.

Deymos, mildly battered from the iceberg's explosion, leapt high and landed on the flat of the shield, then bent his knees and sprang, flipping high into the air over Shiva. "ICE IT!" he yelled, beginning to play what sounded like the rousing chords of an obnoxious 80s ballad.

Vexen knew what he meant this time, too. He conjured a white sigil – what might once have contained the Organization's symbol, but now featured an inset shaped like Vexen's shield – in the air above Shiva and below Deymos. Deymos played, conjuring long, spear-like projectiles with sharpened ends; as these bursts of water passed through the sigil, they froze into solid spears of clear ice.

Shiva might have been resistant to most things cold. She was not resistant to a hail of spears from above. She was pierced through, disintegrating into snow.

"YEAH!" Deymos pumped his fist. "Turns out we work GREAT together when there's no stinkin' Xemnas!"

"Yes," Vexen panted.

Immediately, Deymos was beside him. "You okay? Or, y'know, at least that kind of not-okay where you actively want me to go away and leave you alone?"
"I'll be fine," Vexen muttered.

"Answers that," Deymos said. "Cool, but I'm keeping an eye on you."

"There's no need for – " Vexen sighed. "Very well."

Yojimbo approached the four fast-food robots, slightly popping his katana out of its sheath.

"Uhhhh…hey, Mister!" Noodle Burger Boy waved. "You don't really wanna fight us, do ya? I mean, we could make a deal instead! What if I gave you all the salary I saved up from working at miscellaneous restaurants in Radiant Garden? Huh? Here!"

He opened up a panel, withdrawing several munny crystals and scattering them on the ground.

Yojimbo stopped, clearly interested.

"Take my salary too!" Hyper-potamus yelled, throwing more munny on top of the pile.

"And Crushroom's life savings!" Crushroom added more.

"…I mean, I was gonna buy a light-up fidget spinner, but not being destroyed is good too." Hangry Panda cast her munny into the lot.

Yojimbo was a strong fighter, but highly motivated by money. Had Jyscal and Anima thought to pay him a decent sum to move in for the kill, perhaps he would have thought twice. Then again, what they had in their pockets wouldn't have scraped the amount he was looking at now.

His robe hem swept over the pile of munny, which vanished. Then Yojimbo evaporated as well, satisfied with his haul.

"That actually worked?" Hangry Panda said in disbelief.

"CRUSHROOM SAVES THE DAY!" Crushroom pumped both fists in the air.

"My college fund…" Hyper-potamus moaned. "But I did what had to be done to save my siblings!"

"Don't worry!" Noodle Burger Boy reassured her. "We can find you a restaurant program to put you through college! We have experience at literally all of them now!"

Vincent had gone full cyborg mode in order to fistfight the eldest Magus Sister, Sandy. His skin peeled, unable to contain the bulk he'd added to his figure. Victor had morphed his arms into a pair of laser-charged blades, stabbing at Mindy again and again only for her to duck and dodge his every blow. Albert led Cindy on a merry chase before vanishing, only to pop back out at her, ready to tackle her and tear her limb from limb.

But before he could make physical contact, Cindy jumped into the air, landing on the ground hard. The shockwave that ensued transported all three Magus Sisters and all three cyborgs into a pocket dimension of cosmic starscapes.

"I will admit I didn't see that coming," Victor muttered.

Cindy, Mindy, and Sandy arranged themselves at equidistant triangular points around Vincent, Victor, and Albert. Spheres of Light surrounded them, and they began to pull from a larger Light reservoir overhead, charging up their powers.

Vincent, Victor, and Albert hovered in the air, back-to-back-to-back, as they saw the sisters prepare their death blow. "I need both of you to trust me," Victor said.

"Until my dying day," Vincent replied, "and for as many dying days as I have."

"I sense this plan involves letting me commit violent atrocities," said Albert, "so yes."

Victor smiled warmly. He really did love hearing it from both of them. He shifted one arm into a cannon, then seized Vincent around the waist. "Albert, get down. You're next."

Albert slid beneath Vincent and Victor as the latter angled his arm and opened fire, starting to send himself and Vincent on a slow spin. Victor fired again and again, and the two spun faster and faster – and, at just the right moment, Victor flung Vincent outward, toward the sphere that held Sandy. Vincent broke through, and in a rush of rage and fear, he completely shed the skin and flesh of his right hand, leaving behind his metal skeleton and the needle edges of his fingers. These needles stabbed right into Sandy's chest.

Victor had now grabbed Albert by the waist, keeping up his spin and launching Albert into Cindy's sphere. Albert reached out with his own hands, which lengthened into Dream-Eater claws, and as he finally was able to tackle Cindy, he dug those claws into the corners of her eyes, wrenching out the two eyeballs and casting them aside. He pressed both palms over the empty sockets, placing Dream Eater eyes where once had been Cindy's own, and Cindy now saw nothing but a nightmarescape.

Victor aimed both arms, now a pair of cannons, at the right angle to send himself flying toward Mindy. He collided into her, back-to-chest, then reached back, seized her, turned himself around, shifted the cannons into blades, and plunged them crosswise through her midsection.

All three launched their targets right back where they'd come from – Sandy's mangled body, Cindy's convulsing and panicked form, Mindy's nearly detached halves. Then Vincent, Victor, and Albert pulled upon the magic that the Magus Sisters had been gathering for them, calling upon a Trinity Limit and their affection for one another in order to shoot the entire artillery right back at the Aeons who had started to collect it.

All three were singed to ash immediately. Vincent, Victor, and Albert were deposited back in Baaj, the starscapes gone. Vincent's flesh hand clutched at the metal hand he'd exposed as he winced in pain.

Victor quickly took that metal hand into both of his own. "It pains me to see you hurt yourself like this, you know," he said somberly.

"Not me." Albert strode over confidently. "I, for one, rather enjoy seeing Vincent in pain…when it means he's engineering our survival. That metal hand was an impressive tool. I'm almost jealous, though really, my claws are far superior."

Vincent couldn't hold back a smile – the warmth of feeling cared for was mixing with the mischievous feeling of being joked with, and he wouldn't have traded it for anything.

Looking around, Vexen cried, "THAT IS ALL OF THEM! WE HAVE SLAIN THE AEONS!"

The first response was a low, raspy voice: "XERXES HELP! XERXES MORAL SUPPORT!" Xerxes was attempting to clap his fins. "GO TEAM VEXEN!"

"You did literally nothing!" Vexen snapped.

"Not the time," Deymos told him. "We need to block off the exit, or there go our subjects."

"Discord, Emet-Selch, make sure all four do not leave at the same time," Vexen demanded. "Deymos and all my replicas, to me!"

Vincent, Albert, Victor, Simon, and skekSil fell in step alongside Vexen and Deymos, who headed into the Baaj temple. Discord and Emet-Selch stepped in to keep watch.

"Did he not mean to ensure that none would leave?" Emet-Selch asked.

"No, just not all four at the same time," Discord replied.

"What sense does that make?"

"Too much," Discord said. "Which is to say, there's ACTUALLY a strategy here, I know EXACTLY what it is, and it's nowhere near as fun as your confusion makes it sound."

Jyscal and Anima were attempting to drag Seymour back and away from the temple. Seymour was in a panic, screaming, "WE HAVE NOT FOUND IT! IT MUST BE HERE SOMEWHERE!"

"But we have to go!" Rydia yelled.

"NOT WITHOUT THE AEON!" Seymour screamed. "THERE MUST BE AN AEON! WE DID NOT COME ALL THIS WAY FOR NOTHING!"

"Funny," Vexen said from the doorway. "I'd said the same thing, when I was here."

Jyscal, Anima, Seymour, and Rydia gaped at where Vexen, Deymos, the cyborgs, Simon, and skekSil blocked their path. Behind them, Deymos had put up a wall of water, and Vexen was sealing it over in ice: an extra layer of security.

"Apparently, that Aeon is long gone," Vexen stated. "A frustrating mystery to be certain…but thankfully one that worked in my favor."

"How can it be?" Seymour asked. "There are spheres here – arranged in a definite pattern – and a sigil carved into the floor!"

"Funny story!" Deymos replied. "Those are ours. Ritual stuff. You know."

Jyscal held out his staff threateningly.

"Go ahead," Vexen stated. "By my calculation, you should have all expended your power after that display out front, and that is little more than a bluff, but if I am wrong, feel free to disprove me."

Jyscal's staff hand trembled. Then he lowered it. It was true. He had no more magic left with which to summon an Aeon. None of them did.

"What do you want?" Rydia yelled.

"To make an offer," Vexen stated. "After all, for my purposes, I need ONE subject. ONE body. Ergo, if the four of you can be in agreement upon who should stay behind, the other three may go in peace."

"YOU'RE A MONSTER!" Rydia screamed.

"We will fight you to the last," Seymour seethed.

Vincent flaunted his needle hand, the flesh strips dangling from it. "You are welcome to try."

"Seymour, no." Jyscal put a hand on Seymour's breastbone. "You have nothing left to give."

"But I have something left," Anima said. "I will be the one to remain. Jyscal, Seymour, Rydia…run home. Tell the kingdom of what has happened here. Tell them not to bother with the Lost Ae – "

"ANIMA, NO!" Jyscal cried out. "You cannot! Let me stay in your place – "

"I have no sway in Guadosalam," Anima reminded him. "You always were the de facto leader of the district. To send a human back in your place would cause ripples that no one would wish. Let me stay, so that you and our children may live."

"Mother, no," Seymour pleaded, a tremor in his voice. "Without you…what life is there worth living?"

Anima smiled at him. "For you, there is as much value in this world as for anyone else. You simply have to find it. But this is the only way. Leave me be. Return home."

Rydia shook her head. "No." She pointed at Vexen. "I hate you. I HATE YOU!"

"I'm hardly a stranger to being hated," Vexen stated. "And it sounds like you've all made your choice. If you're going to take your sweet time about finalizing it, well, we may just have to speed along your decision."

"And we'd take the girl instead," Simon added on the spur of the moment. "You wouldn't let the family baby get taken by the bad guys, would you? It'd be better for you to pick someone now than to make us choose for you."

Rydia's eyes watered. She wondered if perhaps, she should be the one to be taken. If she should let her mother go free. But the words wouldn't form themselves.

"Go," Anima whispered. "Please."

Jyscal took a step forward – the hardest step forward of his life. Then another, and another, again and again.

"Look after Seymour and Rydia," Anima called after him.

He nodded, but could not look at her again.

Seymour and Rydia knew they, too, had to follow. With heavy hearts and heavy feet, they dragged along behind their father.

"A wise choice." Vexen placed a hand on the ice wall, taking it down. "Do try not to be heroes on your way out. You are far outmatched here."

Anima dared not risk trying to escape with that threat on the board. She watched tearfully as her family exited the temple and the ice wall closed up behind them. "I love you," she whispered, long after they could hear it no more.

Outside, as Jyscal, Seymour, and Rydia exited in a somber promenade, Discord laughed. "You chose the MOTHER! Very good. I was hoping you wouldn't be so horrific as to leave one of the children!"

Emet-Selch bowed, gesturing for Jyscal, Seymour, and Rydia to walk past and leave Baaj. The other villains stood down as well. Even without putting up any more fight, they had thoroughly defeated the three Summoners, who walked silently into the surrounding forest and vanished among the trees.

Back inside the temple, Vexen simply said "Now, then. To work."

He walked to the nearest sphere, pressing his fingertips to it. It glowed brightly, and, one by one, so did its brethren. The sigil in the floor, drawn to Ludwig's exacting specifications, shone with a rainbow light.

The ritual began its work on Anima, the light entering her, distorting her form, connecting it to the spirits of the original pantheon of Bahamut. She was becoming divine, but not of her own will, nor with her own will: a slave of the gods and anyone who would come to this temple seeking an Aeon.

The original Aeon of Baaj had been a golden-armored vision, an avenging goddess who possessed radiant beauty. Now, in her place, Anima was becoming something twisted, something ugly. Her skin expanded, ballooning into a monstrous sort of fiend; she felt scales crusting her over, and her body folding in on itself in such a way that it was leaving her with no lower half at all – just two torsos and two heads, stitched to each other at the waist, one head on top and the other on the bottom.

Vexen watched in horror and awe as the massive Aeon took shape before him. He had hardly expected the final product to be that large, or that horrifying. Perhaps this was who Anima had truly been all along – or perhaps this was the curse inflicted upon her by the artificial creation of an Aeon, ensuring that she would not have the beautiful physique of a true servant of Bahamut. Chains formed around her reptilian body, as did a carapace that surrounded her like the mouth of a Venus Flytrap.

"It's…far better than I expected," Vexen said proudly.

"Your own pet Summon to experiment on," Deymos told him. "Whenever you want. Now, isn't THAT loads better than that worn-out old Xion?"

"In every possible way," Vexen stated. "Xion was a mere prototype. This can become so, so much more."

Before Anima was even finished transforming, he traced a symbol on the sphere, and Anima's life force flowed into his shield. The massive monster disappeared, now waiting to be summoned. The shield, the seal between her reality and this one. "There will be more research to be conducted when we arrive back at the warship laboratory," Vexen stated as he tapped the shield. "After all, I am hardly a Summoner, so this affords me an opportunity to learn to control an Aeon without that particular power being a skill set of mine. There is so much I can do that will revolutionize Summoning as we know it. The WHAM ARMY may be able to unleash hordes of monsters at will!"

He grinned at Deymos. "And you played an indispensable part in this."

"I know," Deymos said mischievously. "Couldn't've done it without me."

Vexen lightly brushed his fingertips over Deymos' upper arm, and Deymos grinned back, recognizing it for the intimate gesture it was. "Now let us return," Vexen commanded, striding back toward the temple entrance. "After all, Vincent will require FAR more reparation than usual this time."

"Yeah, VINCENT," Deymos jeered. "Way to screw it up."

"Why, you – " Vincent went to tackle Deymos, but Albert and Victor held him back, knowing the sort of disruption that would cause.

Really, though, they all knew they had won that day. And each knew they had the others to thank for it.

...

Several of the Grandmaster's guards burst roughly into Mozenrath and Miratrix's cell, seizing them both and planting electric buzzers on their necks.

"WHAT'S THE MEANING OF THIS?" Mozenrath yelled.

"Final round" was all the explanation he got.

The only thing keeping him from launching an all-out attack on the guards was that he definitely had wanted to get to the final round, and if this was just their very rude way of taking him there, he wasn't going to mess up his chance. Miratrix, seeing his silence, followed his lead.

The same thing was happening in the winner's quarters; Albel and the Huntsman were frog-marched out.

"You can't treat me this way, you worms!" Albel spat. "I was supposed to be ESCORTED to the final round, not dragged there unceremoniously!"

"Albel," the Huntsman cautioned. "Something has gone wrong."

Whiplash and Blizzard heard Rhona being dragged away just as she was about to reveal critical information. What they did know was that the enemy knew about their alliance. They had but five minutes to contemplate that before they too were apprehended.

There was a rather small turnout for the final round, which stumped the Grandmaster. "Did I not hype this up enough? Was I hype-deficient?"

"Eh, some people probably got turned off by the fact that there's a twist villain," Swackhammer suggested. "That's kind of a hot-button issue these days."

"Yes, but I'm not doing that trope in the way that sucks," the Grandmaster urged.

Still and all, there were some new faces in the stands, at least to him. Had he and his associates scanned the bleachers one by one, they might have spotted the ones who didn't belong: Mim, Aghoul, Mr. Gold, Ebony Maw, Mysterio, and two others who wore full-length black hooded cloaks to conceal their identities. They were the "bad idea" Mim and Aghoul had entertained.

"Will they just hurry up?" barked the bulkier of the two hidden figures. "I want this to be over with!"

The slimmer sighed. "You don't have to be all impatienced about it."

"And besides," Aghoul snickered, "we still want to see the fight, don't we? We just have to get involved before any of them get, well, you know." He made a slicing motion across his neck. "Like me." Then he pondered it. "Or maybe we do want to see that happen so long as it isn't Mozenrath. I mean, we'd have them right back, and it would make considerably better dramatic effect – "

"QUIET!" Mim snapped. "The show's starting!"

They were all roughly deposited on one end of the field: Mozenrath, the Huntsman, Miratrix, Albel, Jihl, Loqi, Whiplash, Blizzard, Striker. And the Huntsman cardboard cutout, which the Huntsman punched in anger, knocking a hole through its head.

"Hey!" the Grandmaster complained. "That was a dark-horse fan favorite!"

"Some people got no sportsmanship," Swackhammer criticized, clicking his tongue.

"All right," Mozenrath said, dusting himself off. "A little abrupt, but – " He turned to Albel. "It seems YOU'RE the final opponent – "

"STOP!" Rhona was also being dragged out. "He's not who you're fighting! They KNOW about the WHAM ARMY! Didn't ANY of you get my message?"

Mozenrath would have keeled over if anyone had known just how much it horrified him to hear those words. As well as the next words, which were Whiplash saying "We barely had time to inform anyone!"

"Hey." Blizzard nodded upward.

Clear as day, the lettering over the field announced the match:

THE WHAM ARMY

VS.

THE MON-STARS

AND

?

"HOW DID THEY – " Mozenrath sputtered. "WHO'S THE FINAL OPPONENT?" He turned to Rhona. "YOU KNOW, DON'T YOU?"

"I knew about the Mon-Stars," Rhona said. "Whoever they are. I have NO IDEA who the question marks are!"

The gate across the field opened up. Out waddled what was, apparently, the Mon-Stars.

"You got no idea the amount of finagling I had to do to get them to sign the contract to do this," Swackhammer grumbled. "The five of those dolts thought they could be 'Looney Tunes' and they were 'owned by Warner Brothers now.' But I made them an offer they couldn't refuse."

"And that offer was grabbing their hands, shoving the pen in them, and using their own hands to sign their names for them," Topaz filled in.

"Hey, how'd you know?" Swackhammer asked, genuinely confused.

Not as confused, however, as Mozenrath was when he saw the five incredibly tiny, sluglike extraterrestrials waddling toward center field. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" he yelled.

Up in the stands, Mysterio broke out laughing. "LOOK AT THAT! THOSE ARE THE FINAL OPPONENTS?"

"Hey!" snapped Pound, the team leader and the largest at about ten inches wide. "Stop laughin'!"

"Or we'll GIVE you somethin' to laugh at!" yelled the skinnier, greener Bang.

"I, uh, I, um, I don't think that's how that works," volunteered Nawt, the tiniest of the group, who looked like the Huntsman could kill him simply by stepping on him.

"Yooooo," said Blanko, a slender blue creature who was clearly out of it. "Look at all that audience. They must love us. And look at all those guys who wanna kill us. They must hate us. We're loved AND we're hated. Cool."

"CONTROVERSY!" yelled Bupkus, the purple one, who was hopping up and down with excitement.

"Now, let's see." Pound looked over the WHAM ARMY. "Who do we wanna take out first?"

"Oh, what are you gonna do to us?" Mozenrath taunted. "Are the widdle bitty baby aliens gonna punch us in the ankles? Oh, I know, they're going to bite our toes right through our shoes! I'm soooooo scared – "

And then, in an instant, he was. Because Blanko had turned into a slimy blue mist and, in a lightning-crack blink, shot toward Mozenrath and into his mouth, sliding down his throat.

"Dibs on the big one!" Pound yelled, surging right toward the Huntsman.

It was too late for anyone to run. Miratrix and Albel tried, but Nawt and Bang, respectively, went right down their throats. Striker pulled out a pistol and attempted to shoot Bupkus, but the bullets passed right through the mist.

Then all five felt a lurch of nausea, vomiting the misty aliens back out. Blanko, Pound, Nawt, Bang, and Bupkus reunited in physical form.

"I feel sooooo weird," Blanko said. "That one has some kind of magic or something."

"Ohhhh, I picked the right one!" Pound laughed. "I feel stronger than ever!"

"Why you LITTLE – " Mozenrath threw out his right hand.

Absolutely nothing happened.

"…What?" he hissed, trying again and again to cast a destructive spell at the five aliens. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?"

"HEY!" Swackhammer's voice rang out over the intercom. "NO THROWIN' BLOWS BEFORE THE FIGHT STARTS!"

"I AM ATTEMPTING TO START THE FIGHT!" Mozenrath yelled.

The sound of two bodies falling behind him caught his attention. One was the Huntsman, and that was all that mattered. "GEORGE!"

"I…am…" The Huntsman sat up, pressing a hand to his skull. "Feeling…not myself. Tired and…and weak and…off balance."

"Thanks for the concern," grumbled Striker, who'd been the other to fall. He attempted to stand up, then wobbled as he stepped forward. "It's like someone took all the fight outta me…"

Mozenrath's eyes widened. "Albel. Miratrix. Tell me you can still do what you can normally do."

Albel's eyes widened. "My Overclock! IT'S BEEN SHUT OFF!" He let out a primal scream of rage.

"WHO CARES?" Miratrix yelled. "I…I can't transform…and my limbs feel so stiff!" She threw a few awkward punches. It looked like it was the first time she'd ever tried to punch in her life.

"YOU…" Mozenrath pointed at the five aliens. "YOU TOOK OUR POWERS!"

"What took you so long, dummy?" Pound jeered. "Wanna see what we can do with 'em? It's WAY cooler than what you were doing."

"GIVE THEM BACK NOW!" Mozenrath screamed.

"Lemme think about it," said Bang. He thought about it. "No."

"I wanna try out the cool new stuff!" Nawt was hopping up and down with excitement. "I wanna try it!"

"Then let's TRY IT," Pound said with a wicked leer.

"TRY IT!" Bupkus cheered. "TRY IT, TRY IT!"

Then the five aliens began to grow and morph, ballooning to sizes far taller than any of the WHAM ARMY, taking on bulky, muscular proportions that would make professional wrestlers shy away.

Blanko clutched his right hand, and an aura of blue magic surged around it. Pound and Nawt struck martial-arts poses with clearly borrowed athleticism. Bupkus did a handspring and cracked his knuckles. And Bang –

"WHYYYYY?" Mozenrath yelled, nearly in tears as Bang summoned the Meta's armor, which had resized itself to fit the over-nine-foot-tall Mon-Star.

"Exactly WHEN is the fight supposed to start officially?" Jihl snarled. "Because I would say now is the time – "

"The fight starts when the super secret plot twist is revealed," said the Grandmaster. "And – oop! – it's that time now. Get ready! Here comes the reveal that's gonna change everything!"

One more figure hulked in the door frame at the other end. As he stormed out onto the field, electricity crackled around him in a massive field.

He threw both hands into the air, giving a cry that Mozenrath had never wanted to hear again: "WHAAAAAM ARMYYYYYYY!"

If he had any doubt about what he was looking at, the overhead label had finally changed to reflect it:

THE WHAM ARMY

VS.

THE MON-STARS

AND

LORD HATER, #1 SUPERSTAR

The crowd was already going wild, and Hater was eating it up. "YEAH, EVERYONE CHEER FOR ME! LEMME HEAR YOU SAY IT! HATE'S GREAT; BEST VILLAIN! HATE'S GREAT; BEST VILLAIN!"

"WHY IS HE HERE?" Mozenrath yelled.

Hater rounded on him. "Because I was promised revenge on YOU for making me look stupid!" he snarled.

"It wasn't us that did that," Mozenrath sighed. "We were there, but that was all you."

"And once I pick you off," Hater snarled, storming ever closer, "I'm gonna have my own amusement park that I'm gonna be the mascot of, and a mascot is basically king! …I think. I'm gonna rule Moron Mountain!"

"Say that again and listen to yourself," Mozenrath groaned. "That's not an accomplishment!"

"Okay, folks!" the Grandmaster announced. "I think we've had enough of the pregame! This fight starts in tres…dos…"

"GET BACK WHAT THEY STOLE!" Mozenrath yelled, pointing at the Mon-Stars with his now dormant right hand.

"Oh, dear," Mim sighed. "This part isn't going to go well at all.

The Grandmaster lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper, and drew out the final word as long as he could. "Uuuuuuunooooooo."

Jihl, Loqi, Whiplash, and Blizzard charged at the Mon-Stars as Rhona screamed "WAIT! WAIT!". The Huntsman, Striker, and Miratrix stumbled forward, attempting to charge as a second wave. Albel went running forward almost blindly, whipping his sword like a weed-whacker.

Blanko casually threw Jihl off her feet with a blast of magic. "Cool," he said, looking at his own hand.

Pound ran right up to Loqi and kicked him. Loqi sailed across the field, smacking against the wall hard. "HA-HAAAA!" Pound laughed. "LOOOOO-SER!"

Blizzard and Whiplash fared slightly better, concentrating their efforts on Bang and Bupkus together. Blizzard threw ice into the joints of Bang's armor, slowing his movements, while Whiplash threw whip after whip around Bupkus' neck – only for the purple alien to laugh it off; "Hey, that tickles!"

Nawt ran, screaming, toward Albel. Albel ran, screaming, toward Nawt. Nawt chickened out, even with the knowledge that Albel couldn't use his sword properly, and turned tail to run.

"These idiots!" Swackhammer groaned. "I swear!"

"That's what makes this such a good show, though," the Grandmaster said. "Because, really, who's the bigger idiot, the idiot or the guy who got his talent stolen by an idiot?"

"The guy who stole the talent of the idiot," said Topaz.

"That was not an option," the Grandmaster corrected.

"Anyway, five-point penalty to the Mon-Stars for stupidity," said Swackhammer.

"Five-point penalty applied," said the Grandmaster.

After a moment, Topaz asked, "What points?"

Lord Hater summoned a wall of lightning, surging it directly into the Huntsman, Miratrix, and Striker. As the three keeled over in agony, writhing and shaking, Hater just laughed like a playground bully. Mozenrath took two steps toward them, but he could feel the energy crackling off Hater's massive energy burst, and it kept him back out of fear.

"WE SHOULD HAVE STRATEGIZED!" Rhona yelled from behind him. "THIS IS HORRIBLE! EVERYONE'S BEING AN IDIOT AND IT'S WORKING AGAINST US!"

"Should we step in now?" Mim asked.

"It seems like the dramatically appropriate moment," said Mysterio.

"No, wait," said Aghoul. "I want to see how much longer they can stick it out."

But one of their mystery guests was fixated on Miratrix, caught in perpetual lightning, screaming and shivering as her muscles were worked to their breaking point. Absolutely incensed by this sight, he stood tall, casting away his cloak to reveal bright blue armor.

"YOU'RE GONNA LET ME IN THERE NOW!" Kamdor threatened.

"As you wish." Gold waved his hand.

In an instant, Gold, Mim, Aghoul, Mysterio, Ebony, Kamdor, and the other mystery guest had all bypassed the field barrier, standing in the arena itself. Kamdor wasted no time in flying toward Lord Hater and body-slamming him from behind. Hater's electricity surged through his armor and his machinery, but Kamdor refused to let that stop him, pushing through the pain.

Hater was knocked over and sent somersaulting. His previous lightning finally let up, and the Huntsman, Striker, and Miratrix collapsed.

Miratrix looked up to see what had happened, and when she beheld that familiar blue armor, she muttered, "I'm dead. I'm only seeing what I want to see."

The evidence for that theory only mounted as Kamdor – the man who'd betrayed her, who'd absorbed her energy to add to his own – scooped her up into a bridal carry, sprang to the arena's edge, and unceremoniously dumped her there. "Now you STAY THERE!" he ordered. "You're not strong enough to do this and you never were! I'M going to be the one who cleans up over you as always, and you better not get hurt again!"

"You're not real," she muttered. "This isn't real. You'd never – "

Kamdor drew his swords, bracing them before giving a wild yell and a leap toward Pound. Pound immediately met the challenge, rushing toward him.

"HA-HAAAAA!" The second mystery guest threw off his cloak. It was exactly who you'd expect. "THE OTHER MYSTICALERIOUS GUEST STAR IS ME! ZEVON!" The Corona Aurora sparkled upon his head.

"You have the – " Mozenrath flailed wildly at Zevon. "GET OUR POWERS BACK! NOW!"

"You'll have to pry it out of our cold, dead hands!" Bang shattered all of Blizzard's ice, surging toward Zevon. At the same time, Blanko threw magic at Zevon from behind.

"YIPES!" Zevon conjured a shockwave that blew them both back.

"That's right," Mozenrath grumbled through gritted teeth. "He doesn't…actually…KNOW…how to use…the Corona Aurora."

By that time, Jihl and Loqi had returned. "YOU TWO!" Rhona yelled. "Don't just run at them like idiots! We just got backup, so stand guard over the fallen – and for the love of Madame Curie, help me get all three of them together!"

Rhona, Mozenrath, Jihl, and Loqi worked together to bring the Huntsman and Striker over to where Kamdor had left Miratrix.

Blanko was now conjuring the only thing he could really think of, which was loads and loads of Doritos, and Zevon was dramatically countering by zapping each and every single Dorito out of existence. In a rush of red smoke, Gold became Rumplestiltskin, brandishing a jeweled sword against Bang. Aghoul joined Albel in chasing Nawt around the arena, his scythe cutting at the empty air. Ebony tore out half the ground of the field, throwing the dirt at Bupkus. Kamdor and Pound were blow for blow.

"No one…" Hater stormed toward Mim. "AND I MEAN NO ONE…MAKES LORD HATER LOOK LIKE A – "

Mim clapped twice, and Hater was thrown off his feet in a surge of magical fireworks, bouncing on the arena floor. He quickly was on his feet. "I WAS SAYING NO ONE MAKES LORD HATER LOOK LIKE A – "

She did it again. He bounced twice this time.

"THAT'S IT!" Zevon yelled. "YOU ARE ABOUT TO TASTE THE FULL EXTENSIONATE OF MY FURIOUSNESS!" He raised his arms high, summoning a rainbow cyclone of magic. It shaped itself into countless weapons, which hurtled toward Blanko.

"NOT COOL!" Blanko threw up a defensive wall with his newfound magic. And if that wall hadn't been made of solid Doritos, it might've acted as actual protection.

As it were, the blades surged right through the wall of chips. Powdered cheese and blood spurted across the floor. Mozenrath felt revitalized, his magic flowing through him yet again.

"THIS IS FOR MY BOYFRIEND, YOU MUSCLE-BOUND DUNCE!" Mozenrath yelled, sending a wave of magical flame and lightning, interwoven with one another, toward Pound, who was already tied up parrying Kamdor's blows.

Pound had only enough time to look at the incoming energy and say "Uh-oh – "

It hit him, throwing him to the ground. It didn't kill him, though. When Kamdor leapt on his fallen form and drove both swords into his gut, well, that killed him.

The Huntsman, feeling renewed vigor, leapt to his feet, twirling his huntstaff. Just in time to see Bang breathe a rush of fire at Rumplestiltskin, which Rumplestiltskin simply brushed off like it was nothing.

"That is FAR too much like a dragon for my tastes!" The Huntsman charged.

He leapt, and Rumplestiltskin added an extra magical spring to his step, giving an impish giggle. Propelled on Aether for precision, the Huntsman soared right toward Bang.

Rumplestiltskin then used the Aether to tear away the helmet of the Meta. The Huntsman sliced Bang's head clean off, and the rest of the armor melted away into binary code as the headless corpse dropped.

Albel was suddenly able to summon that very armor for himself. He sprang over Nawt, blocking the Mon-Star's path and bracing his fists. Nawt threw on the brakes and turned to run the other direction, only to meet Aghoul's scythe head-on.

Miratrix frontflipped into the fray, beside Kamdor. "You're REAL?" she barked. "HOW? WHY? You imprisoned me in that amulet so you could – "

"JUST SHUT UP AND FIGHT!" Kamdor yelled at her.

Miratrix had seen enough that she could trust that at least in this moment, Kamdor wasn't about to betray her again. She gave a scream, leaping high, and Kamdor did the same.

The Maw had buried Bupkus under several layers of dirt, hoping to suffocate him. Bupkus surfaced, taking an enormous gasp of air, and then met Miratrix and Kamdor's blades both at once. His skull split right in two, and Striker was back on the field.

"Now let's see." Striker twirled his pistol in his hand, aiming it at the only opponent left: Lord Hater, who somehow hadn't realized how drastically the odds had turned against him. Striker let off a shot with an angel-killer bullet.

"HA HAAAAA!" Lord Hater jumped up over it. "YOU LOSE – "

"I'm done with you," Mozenrath hissed, conjuring a massive cement block around Hater's feet. Hater fell down, anchored to the ground.

Zevon, Mim, and Rumplestiltskin approached him from an equidistant triangle. "YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS!" Hater screamed, unleashing an electrical storm that seemed to engulf the field.

Jihl, Loqi, Blizzard, and Whiplash surrounded Rhona, keeping her shielded from the blast. The Huntsman tackled Mozenrath down to the ground with the same intent.

Rumplestiltskin began to flick his hands through the air, making a motion as though he were weaving on a loom. The lightning bolts curved and changed direction, darting around each of his allies but never striking one.

Mim leapt up high, transforming into a massive tortoise. Her hard shell came down forcefully on Hater; his joints shattered, his bones scattering. Zevon then took up those scattered bones on a crimson wave, shooting them up and out of the arena.

Of course, Hater was still alive, and his disembodied skull screamed out, "I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS, WHAAAAM ARMYYYYY!"

"YOU STILL HAVEN'T FIGURED OUT WE STOLE YOUR RIGHT-HAND MAN!" Mozenrath yelled after him.

Hater was left wondering how that made any sense at all, since Commander Peepers, as far as he believed, was in the kitchen and making him a hundred sandwiches.

After a glance around to confirm that Hater had been displaced and the Mon-Stars all slain, Rumplestiltskin said, "Well! Looks like we won!"

"I didn't even get to do anything." Mysterio folded his arms. "Worst tournament finale round ever."

As the team reconvened on the field, Swackhammer and Topaz gaped. "Th-they just knocked out our mascot!" Swackhammer yelled. "It's gonna take us days to find and pick up all those bones!"

"And they killed your beloved minions," said Topaz.

"Eh, 'beloved' is a bit of a stretch," Swackhammer replied. "It's gonna be a pain replacin' 'em, though."

"Yeah…pretty wild, wasn't it?" The Grandmaster grinned.

"How are you so calm about this?" Swackhammer yelled. "The whole point of getting them into one place was so that they WOULDN'T WIN and would ALL DIE. Did you forget that part?"

"Unless you know something we don't," said Topaz.

The Grandmaster pointed at her. "Smart. You're smart. I'm gonna give you a raise just for being smart." He turned to Swackhammer. "Lord Hater, well, he was a fun plot twist. But you know what's even better than a twist reveal of a final opponent?"

"Okay, I'll bite," Swackhammer grumbled. "What's better than a plot twist?"

The Grandmaster grinned. "Two plot twists."

Swackhammer's eyes went wide. "No. You didn't. Without me knowing?"

The Grandmaster just smiled all the broader, showing off his teeth.

The WHAM ARMY was first alerted when the audience suddenly gave an "OHHHHHHH!" that signified a new development. Then Zevon pointed upward; "They seem to have assignated us a new name that isn't any of the people we just annihilationed."

"Wh…" Mozenrath backed off. "What do you mean…they gave us…ANOTHER OPPONENT – "

The Huntsman pointed to the entrance across the field. "There!"

A scrawny young man was approaching, with a casual gait that suggested he had all the time in the world.

"THE GUARD?" Rhona screamed.

Mozenrath looked up to see the current label:

THE WHAM ARMY

VS.

BAD LUCK STRIPPER JOEL

"Where does this end?" he groaned.

"I will put an end to this farcicality!" Zevon stepped forward, summoning a massive blue shockwave and throwing it at Joel the guard.

Joel halted in his tracks, smirking as he watched it hurtle toward him. Then, with one hand, he swept the magic away, redirecting it to warp the far wall.

"I truly must commend you for getting this far," Joel said in a voice quite unlike what Rhona remembered him having. "You've no idea how much entertainment you provided me as I bided my time behind the scenes. Then again, my fellow guards were quite the sideshow themselves – oh, if only I wouldn't have given the game completely away by tattling on Miss Burchill. Then again, things don't seem to have worked out in her favor, have they? Didn't you have a friend – the one they mistook for the Collector?"

"You're not an ordinary guard," Rhona realized. "What ARE you?"

Joel smirked. "The bar really is so low to label a prodigy these days. No, I was never a guard. Yes, every time you saw this face or body, it was me in all actuality. And if any one of you had stopped to think, you might've realized – "

There was a shimmer. Joel was gone. In his place, Valkyrie sauntered toward them. "That a Valkyrie would never leave Asgard, no matter the tragedy that befell it. They are such loyal creatures."

Overhead:

THE WHAM ARMY

VS.

VALKYRIE(?)

Loqi realized it first, pointing a shaking hand. "Y-you – "

"Ah, you've figured it out." Valkyrie smirked broadly. "I was so proud of you when you ripped those gauntlets away from me, you know. I take pride in my work, and you are certainly a shining example of my craftsmanship."

"You know this woman?" Jihl barked at Loqi.

"No…no woman," Loqi said hoarsely. "This whole time, it was…you LET me…"

"And to think I viewed you as just another disposable face among the troops of Nibelheim!" Valkyrie laughed. "Perhaps I should have kept you close to the chest, given what you've accomplished…but then again, it would have caused quite the conflict of interest with my current arrangement, which is far superior to your little WHAM ARMY. What a silly name that is."

"LOQI." Jihl seized Loqi's upper arm. "WHO IS THAT?"

"It's him," Loqi said hoarsely. "The whole time, it was him…he was watching…" His eyes were wide with fear.

"Who am I?" Valkyrie winked. "Why…only the man you owe everything. And I do mean EVERYTHING."

One final shimmer. The form that stood before them, only Loqi recognized. A man with wild locks of purple hair and rough stubble, clad in layers on layers of gray, with a jaunty hat topping it all off. His smirk looked more mischievous than ever before.

"A hobo," Mozenrath said. "Our final enemy is a hobo."

Loqi finally regained his energy, jumping forward to slap Mozenrath across the back of the head. "Will you LOOK?"

So Mozenrath looked one more time:

THE WHAM ARMY

VS.

ARDYN IZUNIA, NEE LUCIS CAELUM

"Where do I know that na – " Mozenrath's eyes widened. "Oh. I know where I know that name."

"No doubt Loqi has regaled you with all manner of tale as to how I left him in the gutter," Ardyn said mischievously. "I'm certain he underplayed it; my true accomplishments are far more worth listening to."

"You know," said Rumplestiltskin, "I think we should stop this before it starts." He gestured in the air –

Whatever change he'd been making to reality, he felt it halt jarringly, vibrating in his bones. Ardyn, with one hand up, had stopped it.

"The Aether!" Ardyn laughed. "How primitive. Now, the Corona Aurora, that's MILDLY more impressive, and yet…" He shook his head.

"Look here!" Mim shook a fist. "I don't know who you are and I don't know who you THINK you are, but against the Aether, the Corona Aurora, and the rest of ALL our powers combined, you don't stand a chance!"

"I might beg to differ," said Ardyn, "but it did occur to me that there might be a small margin in which you could overpower me. Which is why I took a page from your own tome. After all, did you not come this far by relying on your friends? I have friends as well, you know, and I have them to thank for my return to the land of the living." He gave the arena a look. "Why don't you step out now? If ever there was a moment, this is it."

A massive column of flame erupted in between Ardyn and the WHAM ARMY. When it subsided, there stood the last god any of the WHAM ARMY wanted to see. "Hey, how ya doin'?" Hades greeted. "So, I heard you picked up a poser who has the same name as me. Can't let THAT happen. Wish you'd brought him."

"As do I!" Ardyn laughed. "I ought to pay sir Hades back for all the…affection he showed me in millennia past. Ah, well. Beggars can't be choosers."

A blur zoomed up next to Ardyn. "Truer words hardly spoken," said Russell Edgington.

That was the cue for Steve Newlin to flank his other side. "We'll just have to track him down AFTER we're finished with this bunch."

"You two again!" Zevon gasped. "Of all the unmisfortune!"

"Pleasure to see you as well," Russell told him. "I always hate when there's one that got away, and I'm in the mood for a special feast tonight. Your blood will take center table."

"Save some for me, boys." Fish Mooney slid down from the audience on a ramp of ice. "I have a few orders I'd like to give to these ruffians."

"Hey," Swackhammer whispered to the Grandmaster. "Where'd you get the vampires and the ice lady? I know Hades, but who're they?"

The Grandmaster whispered something back to him.

"No way!" Swackhammer growled. "Those are B-list Warner properties AT BEST!"

"So says you," the Grandmaster told him. "But I think if you give them a chance, they'll pay back in dividends."

There was a distinct smell of sulfur, and suddenly, one more figure appeared. "Surprise!" Blackheart greeted, throwing out his arms. "I bet you thought you left me in Asgard."

"WHY YOU – " Mim leapt, fists swinging. "LET ME AT HIM – "

Blackheart threw her back with a wave of his hand, a burst of Darkness. "I wasn't going to come, actually," he said. "But then they showed me exactly who would be leading the mission, and, well…some temptations are too good to pass up." He looked to Ardyn, licking his lips.

"Aren't we the saucy one!" Ardyn laughed.

"Is that it, then?" Mozenrath asked. "A brat demon, two vampires, the least impressive Maiden, the has-been Olympian, and what I can only assume is the kind of man who spends most of his time rummaging through the bargain bin at thrift stores? Please. I'll remind you: Corona Aurora. Aether. ME. If I were you, I wouldn't like those odds."

"Care to put them to the test?" Ardyn asked with a smirk.

Mozenrath's brow furrowed. "As a matter of fact."

He vanished, reappearing behind Ardyn, a practically nuclear burst of magic built up in his right hand. Ardyn spun, calling a massive sword into hand as several other ancient weapons flashed into view around him; he slashed, sending a wave of maroon-pink energy that more than countered Mozenrath's blast, sending Mozenrath toppling.

Hell broke loose as Loqi and Jihl attempted to avenge him, running at Ardyn full-tilt. Ardyn backhanded both away purely with magic, not even touching them.

"THAT'S IT!" Zevon yelled, his eyes luminous with the Corona Aurora's magic. "I've had to put up with a wall of chips all day, so now it's your turn! I hope you're ready for HURRICANE TORTILLA!" (And yes, he pronounced the hard Ls.)

An actual cyclone of magically-generated tortillas surrounded Ardyn, each tortilla hardening and breaking into sharp shards. Ardyn felt them slice the skin of his face as he was pummeled; he healed it right back over. Zevon, obviously out of ideas, was directing the tortillas like a flock of attack birds, superheating them to sizzle against Ardyn's skin. Mozenrath, who was in no mood to stop and tell Zevon off about the idiocy of using tortillas, started hurling blue orbs at Ardyn, who drew a second sword, slashing through the magic tortillas and the orbs at the same time – only pausing to backhand Jihl and Loqi away a second time.

"Well, well!" Rumplestiltskin laughed, approaching Hades. "If it isn't the Lord of the Dead! You know, given the stories where I come from, I thought you'd be shorter, boring, and inexplicably attracted to green witches."

"Eh, one out of three," said Hades. "Oh, hey, you were the Dark One, right? The one Hook just hooked all that power away from."

"Ah, but that doesn't matter anymore!" Rumplestiltskin conjured a flame in each hand. "I'm working with a power of Infinity now!"

"Big whoop," Hades groaned. "My team has five. But go on ahead, show me what you got NOT SO FAST!"

He whirled, shooting an inferno storm at the Ebony Maw, who had been raising a hailstorm of debris to rain upon him. Hades then set the floating trash afire, teleported himself up to the same level at it, and shoved it back at the Maw.

Rumplestiltskin teleported his ally out of the way, and the two found relatively safe ground from which Rumplestiltskin could conjure all sorts of furniture, weapons, and sundry heavy items and Ebony could shoot them directly at Hades. Hades, very annoyed, simply burned through the projectiles one by one.

Russell leapt toward Mim, fangs bared. She transformed before his eyes into a lanky, garish desert bird, giving him a cheeky "Beep beep!" before zooming off at twice a vampire's speed.

"Why did she have to remind me of that guy?" Swackhammer groaned.

Russell gave chase; Blizzard took the opportunity to concentrate a winter storm around the vampire. Russell veered, hoping to get to Blizzard and stop him before doing anything about Mim. "I'M GONNA PRY OPEN THAT TIN CAN," he threatened as he leapt, "AND THE MEAT INSIDE IS GONNA TASTE SO SWEET – "

Mim returned as a massive direwolf, tackling Russell to the ground. Blizzard slid off to safety; Mim became a fantastical roadrunner once more and put the chase on again.

Steve, on the other hand, had already pinned down Aghoul, ripping off one of his arms only to be met with dismay when no blood poured out. "Bone dry!" he pouted, like a child who learned the candy store had closed.

"Oh, and you're SURPRISED?" Aghoul huffed. "You couldn't tell just from looking at me?"

A metal whip lashed around Steve's neck from behind, surging hundreds of volts into him. Steve whirled, grabbing Whiplash's whip and using it to pull Whiplash closer; Whiplash disconnected the whip from his armor and backpedaled. Aghoul threw a skull that erupted into nothing more than a smokescreen; Steve couldn't see which way Whiplash had gone.

"Why, you little – " Steve groaned. "I'm gonna get you for that! And you better not be all lean and bony under that suit!" He dashed into entirely the wrong direction.

The Huntsman, Kamdor, Albel, and Miratrix ended up facing down Fish Mooney. "Well, aren't I the belle of the ball?" Fish joked. "Everyone's linin' up for a dance."

"This ends here, Maiden." The Huntsman set the huntstaff alight.

"You will rue the day you crossed myself and the Huntsman!" Albel seethed.

"AND ME MOST OF ALL!" Kamdor bellowed.

"And ME," Miratrix seethed. "And given who I'm standing next to, I have a LOT of anger that I need to take out on SOME target!"

Fish levitated a few feet off the ground, icy winds swirling around her. "Well, put your money where your mouth is, then," she challenged.

The Huntsman charged; she threw him back, freezing his lower half to the ground. Albel punched him loose as Kamdor and Miratrix feinted two different directions and then leapt at Fish crosswise, only for her to toss them away like dolls with only one hand each.

"THIS IS RIDICULOUS!" Kamdor screamed.

"I know," Miratrix growled. "NO ONE makes such a fool of us!"

She erupted into monstrous owl form, bellowing a shockwave of magic at Fish. Fish delicately flew around the assault, like a kestrel in flight, before taking one sharp turn right into Kamdor's fist.

As Fish hit the ground, Kamdor bellowed, "WE'VE DONE IT, MIRATRIX!"

"DID YOU…MISS ME?" Miratrix boomed in her monstrous voice.

"NO!" Kamdor yelled back. "BE SILENT! AND DEFINITELY DON'T SLANDER ME LIKE THAT IN THAT GIANT VOICE!" Since Fish was back on her feet, he ran back to join the Huntsman and Albel in trying to break down the ice walls she was building.

"HE MISSED ME," Miratrix realized aloud.

"I SAID NO SLANDERING THAT LOUDLY!" Kamdor yelled back at her.

Miratrix let fly more magic at Fish, quite smug in what she had just deduced.

Striker had managed to produce another assault rifle and a broadsword that he'd snuck into the arena disguised as more things that generally wouldn't be removed in a strip-search. He unloaded a round of ammo directly at Blackheart, who smacked each bullet away with a supersonic movement of his hands except for the last one. That one, he caught, then threw into his mouth, chewing. "Angel-killer?" he asked. "Tastes kinda weak."

"I'm takin' you to the slaughterhouse," Striker threatened, lashing the gun to his back and proceeding forth with the sword. He feinted so he could get behind Blackheart, then jumped up on the demon's back, driving the sword right through him, back to chest.

"Ow!" Blackheart gasped. "Okay, that ACTUALLY hurt. I'm sick of you."

He lurched, hurling Striker over his head to lie flat on his back. Then stomped on Striker's stomach.

Striker was about to laugh about the pitiful blow until he realized that Blackheart's foot was morphing, becoming larger, stronger, more able to pin him directly down with prehensile clawed toes. The rest of Blackheart was also becoming a hulking black beast with shaggy fur; the mercenary sword was ejected from his back and clattered on the ground.

Striker actually feared the worst. Then Rhona slammed one of her high heels into Blackheart's ankle-joint, and the resulting jolt caused the larger demon to let up his grip a little, enough for Rhona to seize Striker and pull him away.

"Simple biology," she explained. "By striking at the weak point of the tendon, I ensured there was no need to – "

"No one cares," Striker hissed.

All of a sudden, Mysterio gasped. "IT'S TIME!" He then rushed toward Blackheart. "FINALLY, MY MOMENT HAS ARRIVED!"

"What the – " Rhona whipped her head around to behold him. "FISHBOWL-HEAD! NO!"

Mysterio struck a dramatic pose, arms outward, before Blackheart. "HAVE AT ME, DEMON!" he barked.

"If he wants to be that stupid," Striker muttered, "let him."

Blackheart's slavering jaws parted to reveal a gleeful grin with needle-sharp fangs. He tackled Mysterio, his claws swiping through him again and again, eviscerating, tearing, rending his flesh –

At least, that's what it would have done to a normal human. This just felt like swiping at empty air. When he realized that, Blackheart backed off, seeing Mysterio standing in the exact same pose as before.

With a chuckle, Mysterio humiliated him in a single sentence: "It's a hologram."

Mim had to take a break from her cat-and-mouse with Russell in order to shift her hand into an enormous baseball glove, using it to catch Mozenrath after Ardyn had sent him flying for what must have been the twenty-second time. Mozenrath landed on Mim's swollen palm with an "OOF!" before asking "What exactly is your play with Mysterio here?"

"I…have no idea," Mim admitted. "He's gone completely rogue. I had no idea he sent an illusion in his place." She then grinned widely. "If this isn't what gets us all destroyed, it's going to be FUN."

"You know what everyone loves?" Mysterio monologued as Blackheart tried in vain to kill the hologram. "A plot twist."

"NOT EVERYONE LOVES THOSE!" Blackheart growled.

"Well, most plebeian audiences do," said Mysterio. "And the more advanced cinephiles like myself…well…we enjoy it every once in a little while. As a treat! Anyway, I spent a while setting up YET ANOTHER plot twist of my own. Really, you're going to want to stop doing that; you literally can't hurt me because I'm not here. Anyway, finally, my dominoes are all about to fall into place! Observe – AND BE AMAZED!"

He then stood right where he was and began to sing, "Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men!"

"HARDLY THE TIME FOR A SHOW TUNE!" Aghoul yelled as he quickly attempted to stitch his arm back into place with crude needlework and a needle whose eye was shaped like a miniature skull.

"It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again!" Mysterio continued. "When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums – "

Then everyone in the arena froze. The singing wasn't coming from just Mysterio anymore. It was audible everywhere, coming out of the arena tunnels –

The Sakaarian revolutionaries burst onto the field, surging toward the bleachers so they could climb them and assault the VIP box. The barrier between arena and audience went fully down from preplanned tampering. Hundreds upon hundreds of Sakaarians chorused, "THERE IS A LIFE ABOUT TO START WHEN TOMORROW COMES!"

At their head was Quentin Beck, no longer costumed as Mysterio but instead as a Sakaarian, with clothing fashioned from scraps from the landfill. This one was most likely not a hologram. "Will you join in our crusade?" he sang alongside his hologram. "Who will be strong and stand with me? Beyond the barricade, is there a world you long to see?"

He wasn't alone in leading the charge. Beside him marched Snipe, Megavolt, and DJ.

"Then join in the fight that will give you the right to be free!" Megavolt sang proudly as he bounced along.

"Do you hear the people…sing?" DJ chimed in. "Singing the songs of angry – "

"NOW LIFE HAS KILLED THE DREAM I DREAMED!" Snipe belted.

"WRONG!" Quentin and Megavolt yelled at him.

They may have been ordinary people, but they were a very angry mob, and that alone served as a surprise that overtook the Overtakers; a sudden sea of civilians separated them from the WHAM ARMY. Up above, Iron Man, Rescue, War Machine, and the Mandarin descended to supervise the crowd.

Mozenrath quickly seized Zevon's shoulder. "Get all our allies who matter to one place! NOW!"

Zevon called upon the Corona Aurora, and instantly, the group was teleported into a tight-knit crowd: Loqi, Jihl, Rumplestiltskin, Ebony, Mim, Blizzard, Aghoul, Whiplash, the Huntsman, Kamdor, Miratrix, Albel, Striker, Rhona, Quentin, DJ, Snipe, and Megavolt.

"I said WHO MATTER!" Mozenrath yelled, gesturing at the last two.

The Huntsman slammed a hand on Albel's armored shoulder. "If we leave, does the armor come with us?"

"Yes!" Albel assured. "It is tied to me once more!"

"Then we have what we came for!" the Huntsman declared. "Let us depart!"

The Sakaarians proceeded to climb the bleachers, heading for the Grandmaster's box. "So…this…might not be good," the Grandmaster said.

"YA THINK?" Swackhammer yelled.

"Or it could be a blessing in disguise," said Topaz.

"No, it's not that," the Grandmaster told her. "I'm thinking we should – "

There came a slamming at the back door. They'd come from the other side, too.

"I'm realizing now the red flag was the empty audience," the Grandmaster said. "This is…where they all were. Huh. Really shoulda seen that coming. The triple plot twist."

"WILL YOU SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR PLOT TWISTS?" Swackhammer yelled.

Down on the arena, Ardyn spared no mercy, using his arsenal – the Lucian Arms – to carve a bloody path through the throng toward the WHAM ARMY. By the time he got there, however, there was only a Corridor of Darkness fading from view, wisps of blue and purple magic dissipating from it into the air.

And the echo of what had been said just before he'd gotten there, of course: "KISS MY ASS, CHANCELLOR IZUNIA!"

How he wished Loqi had been but a step slower, so he could wring the former brigadier general's neck.

"I'm starting to get real sick of those guys slipping away at the last minute," Blackheart seethed, coming up to stand at Ardyn's side.

Once the WHAM ARMY contingent was deposited safely in the Lost Lounge of the Sun, Mozenrath immediately set to destroying every door that connected it back to the Sakaarian prison cells; Rumplestiltskin and Zevon gladly joined in, though the latter blew a few more holes in the walls just because he felt like it. Then, once he was sure there was no direct tie back to Sakaar, Mozenrath rounded on Quentin; "EXPLAIN. NOW."

"Gladly!" Quentin said with a grin. "It all started when – "

"The short version."

Quentin sighed. "I knew the Grandmaster wouldn't stop at one plot twist. People like him never do. So I started coming up with my own counter-plot-twist: I was going to arrange the revolution to storm the field during the last round! I thought about telling Mim and Ayam, but really, they would've just inserted themselves into my plan and taken the credit for it! I set up the arena with holographic projectors ahead of time so I could plant a body double and no one would suspect a thing. Then I approached Tony Stark out of costume – apparently, there's no Mysterio on his world, or at least there isn't YET, so he had no idea who or what he was negotiating with! I also ran into a couple of the D-list dumpster diving out back – "

"That's us!" Megavolt said proudly.

"And knowing the good electrician's knack for gadgetry," Quentin went on, "I had him give the Stark Tech weapons a few…UPGRADES. Stark himself swallowed his pride for the greater good. They're probably carving up the Grandmaster right now with Megavolt-brand electric cutlery…like a Thanksgiving turkey."

"I put some of my finest work into that batch!" Megavolt said.

"I'm not sure how they got here in the first place," said Quentin, "but I'm willing to overlook that. Then this fine fellow ran into me – no, literally, he knocked me over in the street trying to book it out of the area – and we came to an understanding."

Rhona looked to DJ. "You tricked me all along." She beamed. "You just went to get help! I should've known – "

"No, I was trying to get far out of d…odge and never see any of you again," DJ told her. "That really was a betrayal. But Qu…entin here said he'd make it worth my while in cold hard c…ash if I helped with his thing, so I figured, why not?"

"Your guilty conscience led you back to your friends, and you KNOW it," Quentin said smugly. "From there, it was merely a question of when my little backup plan would arrive and prompt me to reveal my hand. I figured letting the hologram get a little mauled would add to the dramatic effect – my death may be more imminent than I had hoped, but it was not going to be this day!"

He trembled, slightly. Rumplestiltskin was the only one to notice. He kept it to himself.

"There was no guilty conscience involved," DJ muttered.

"And I DIDN'T miss Miratrix!" Kamdor barked.

"No one even brought that up!" Miratrix, back in human form, was shaking some extra gray feathers out of her hair. "And what nerve did you have barging in here to make a fool of me by saving my life?"

"What are YOU doing on my WHAM ARMY?" Kamdor retorted.

"YOUR WHAM A – " Miratrix rounded on Mozenrath and the Huntsman, fury in her eyes. "YOU KNEW. AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME."

"In my defense," said Mozenrath, "we were going to break it to you more subtly, but then Mim and Aghoul invited themselves."

"It was too juicy to pass up!" Aghoul cackled. "And it's not like you two wouldn't benefit from sorting out your differences."

"He imprisoned me in a magical amulet and left me for dead!" Miratrix yelled.

"And she…was surprised when I did that!" Kamdor argued, obviously grasping at straws.

"All right," Mozenrath said flatly. "So whichever one of you wants to leave, leave."

"THIS WAS MY TEAM FIRST!" Kamdor yelled.

"I did NOT put up with Albel Nox for that long to abandon this team!" Miratrix argued.

"Well, then." Mozenrath gestured to a nearby door. "That's a room that's big enough where you can fight it out. Kill each other as many times as you need to; I'll just bring whoever back. Just don't damage any of Kamdor's mechanical parts, because that's the one thing I CAN'T resurrect."

"I can," Rhona said with a grin. She then turned to Megavolt. "By the way, you're going to explain to me EXACTLY what upgrades you made to those weapons. Because if there's weapons tech knowledge you beat Tony Stark to, I NEED to know it!"

"I mean, it's kinda nerd stuff," said Megavolt. "Unless you wanna talk about electromagnetic fields and how I get around Ohm's law, you'd probably be real bored."

Rhona was actually squealing and tapping her feet on the floor in excitement. "Tell me EVERYTHING!"

By that time, Miratrix and Kamdor had barged into the adjacent room – even arguing over who would get there first – and set to fighting right away, with the sounds of explosions and ominous thuds galore.

"I may not have missed YOU," Kamdor barked, "but I sure did miss putting you in your PLACE!"

"And I missed teaching you why not to underestimate me!" Miratrix snapped.

"Well, they're clearly having fun," Mozenrath sighed. "Anyway, Beck, is that the end of it?"

Quentin bowed. "That is, indeed, the end of the tale about how the great Mysterio, ONCE AGAIN, saved the entire team's behinds, and this time, I didn't NEED the Aether to do it, because it isn't ABOUT the Aether; it's about raw talent and creativity – "

"Careful with that envy, dearie!" Rumplestiltskin laughed. "The last person I saw go green with it…well, you saw what happened with Zelena."

"Please," Quentin scoffed. "The difference between me and her is green is my color." He turned to Zevon. "By the way, hurricane tortilla? How out of ideas WERE you? You could have made anything!"

"You could have made me an MA-X Cuirass," Loqi grumbled.

"That – that was a missed opportunity," Mozenrath realized. "But water under the bridge. Speaking of the Nibelheim military, apparently that was the infamous Ardyn Izunia?"

"A foe not to be taken lightly," Loqi warned. "The most powerful and devastating force on Eos short of the gods themselves."

"I don't know if you figured this out from his entourage," Mozenrath groaned, "but the enemy forces aren't exactly lacking for that archetype. Well, our job got harder again, but what else is new?"

"That's what's so fun about it all!" Mim snickered.

"At any rate, we had best drop off the recruits at base," the Huntsman suggested. "I'm certain if we don't, there will be complaints about well-deserved rest, or the lack thereof."

"Are you insinuating I complain too much?" Quentin gasped.

"Are you going to tell me you don't?" Mozenrath retorted.

Quentin thought it over. "…No, that's about right. And to be honest, I could use a breather. My only question now is…what do you think happened to the Grandmaster and Ardyn after we left?"

"No one cares," said Mozenrath.

For those who care:

The Grandmaster, Swackhammer, and Topaz had barricaded the door to the VIP box, trying to figure out a strategy from there. The Grandmaster had radioed his security forces, but they had just sung Les Miserables lyrics back at him, which was not a good sign.

Before any of the revolutionaries could break in, however, Ardyn Izunia crashed through the front window, advancing upon the trio. All three ended up on the couch, Topaz and Swackhammer on either side of the Grandmaster, and all clutching onto each other for dear life.

"Ah, I see you can tell I'm less than pleased," Ardyn stated. "That will make this far easier. I was promised a chance to rid the playing field of those nuisances, and had it been a fair fight, that chance would have been fulfilled."

"But there's…" The Grandmaster swallowed hard. "There's still one more thing you get…"

"And what, pray tell, could make up for the wasted time I devoted to your cause?" Ardyn asked, the Lucian arms shimmering and slowly spinning around him.

"You're…uh…technically the new mascot for Moron Mountain?" the Grandmaster volunteered.

"Oh, joy!" Ardyn said with sarcastic enthusiasm. "What a prize to walk away with! I suppose I shall take it and my leave, but not before terminating our contract."

"You'll, um…let us leave too, right?" the Grandmaster asked.

Ardyn waved a hand. Every single one of his ancient weapons turned to point at the trio.

There was a rush of Darkness, and someone with a harsh voice said "YOINK!". The Grandmaster, Topaz, and Swackhammer were confused to find themselves no longer at Ardyn's mercy, but sitting on a cold metal floor, looking up at a high-tech room with a glass dome for its walls and ceiling, giving way to a view of stars and galaxies galore.

"Welcome to the Mirage Arena!" A man with a black leather coat paced before them. His hood was raised, making it impossible to tell much more beyond his mischievous rasp. "Trust me, you're gonna like this WAY better than your old place. Don't worry, I'm not gonna hurt you. Actually, I think you'd be useful for a little side project I'm putting together, and cooperation means big returns for both of us. I mean, for starters, neither of us is a big fan of that guy with all the weapons, so what do you say we come together and hold out against him? Sounds like a good idea to me!"

There was no response yet from the trio, who were still wide-eyed and in disbelief, so the hooded man went on: "Truth be told, the original plan was just to take the Grandmaster, buuuuut after seeing how well you three worked as a comedy trio, I couldn't break up the party. You know, you can RELAX now. I'm seriously not here to hurt you. And if you wanna leave, I'll show you the door. It's just that you might wanna hear me out first in case it's something that interests you."

"You have a…" The Grandmaster choked out the words through his waning terror. "Business proposition?"

"You could say that."

He reached up, taking down his hood. One golden eye stared directly at the Grandmaster. The other eye was patched.

"More of a safety net, really," said Braig. "See, I'm just starting to get the idea that maybe the job I've BEEN doing isn't in my best interest. And before you quit – or if you expect to be let go – you gotta have your foot in the door somewhere else, right? And if I'm wrong and my cards are all still on the table, well, a little moonlighting never hurt anyone. After all, everyone else is doing the whole villain syndicate thing! I think it's about time I got on board with that."

Back on Sakaar, Ardyn watched as the Lucian Arms penetrated the couch and his actual targets vanished into Darkness. "An interloper?" he murmured. "Not a very reassuring development."

Blackheart clawed his way up into the box through the same window Ardyn had used. "Get 'em?"

"Unfortunately, no," Ardyn sighed. "I had hoped to ring in my grand return with something more triumphant. It seems, however, we shall have to go elsewhere to make such a thing happen."

"I have plenty of ideas of things we can wreck," Blackheart said. "Things Maleficent wants taken over anyway."

"Then let us make our way there posthaste, so as to salvage my remaining dignity," said Ardyn.

Iron Man flew into the window, confronting both of them; "You! You're the ones who killed the civilians down below! You have to be stopped – "

Ardyn flicked a hand. Iron Man was thrown off-balance and hurled across the room, slamming into the wall. "Teenagers," Ardyn groaned, shaking his head as he and Blackheart exited.

"Hey!" Iron Man yelled at them, trying to get his bearings.

"I'm sorry," Ardyn told him, "but we simply haven't the time, the inclination, or the resources to trouble ourselves with…whatever this is."

Out the window they went, to round up the others and head back to base. By the time Iron Man left, there wasn't a single Overtaker left on the field.

He deposited himself on the ground beside War Machine, Rescue, and the Mandarin. "Grandmaster's gone," he said. "At least for now. I don't think they killed him unless they got rid of the evidence. Two of the murderers got away."

"More than two got away," the Mandarin grumbled. "We weren't able to contain a single one here."

"But if the bad guys are gone, that means we won, right?" Rescue asked excitedly. "Right?"

"I mean, I wouldn't count the chickens," said War Machine, "but at least for now we have something."

Then, finally, the last of Lord Hater's bones finished piecing themselves together, and Lord Hater himself, fully recompleted, barged into the arena. "LET ME AT THEM!" he screamed.

"There's no one left to let at," Rescue told him. "Everyone you were fighting is gone, and so is the guy in charge."

"But that means…" Hater thought it over. After intense calculation, he arrived at the joyous truth: "That means I win. I'm the mascot!" He began to do a happy jig; "I RULE MORON MOUNTAIN! I RULE MORON MOUNTAIN!"

And not a single soul present thought that was anything less than the correct fate for him.

...

A/N: The joke about finding the good Bertie Bott's flavors disgusting comes from Silentfcknhill