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.

177. Rendez-Vous

A/N: Not really a trigger warning, but there's some gross humor later regarding bodily fluids, as well as a depiction of a couple characters willingly entering sex work temporarily (but not in an angsty way; everyone's on the same page about what they wanna do here). Basically, normal Friday night at Ozzie's. Also, references to a character dynamic that was heavily implied to be incestuous in canon, but we're leaving one of those characters out of this altogether because he's boring anyway so there's no actual incest in the here-and-now.

...

The nearest town to Glaivend Basin was Marlind. This was about where Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Kazuichi, Booster, and Moana had parked the small Gummi ship that Cid had let them take, so that particular contingent led Ansem, Harley, Yang, Giovanni, Velvet, Molly, Laphicet, Elsa, Rose, Lailah, Edna, Zaveid, Emerald, Mikleo, Rokurou, Magilou, Eizen, Eleanor, Dezel, the Scattered Bones, and the Banzai Blasters toward the former plague town.

"So!" Yang ventured. "All's well that ends well, right?"

"I can't help but feel like we're forgetting about something," Giovanni murmured. "Something kinda important."

"No way," said Yang. "We saved the world, and now everything's fine!"

"Great," Weiss huffed. "You had to say it. Now everything's NOT going to be fine."

They passed through the Marlind gates into the quaint town where the buildings were all built on wooden platforms to give them stable ground on an otherwise lumpy hill. It soon became clear that there was a commotion: many of the townspeople were gathered in one particular area of the village.

"Wonder what that is," Ruby said.

"Probably something we should check out," Booster ventured.

"Probably whatever's gonna ruin our day," Kazuichi sighed.

The group moved closer to the throng. Now they could hear a pair of voices booming out, addressing the audience –

"And that's why if I were you, I'd take up my swords. You wouldn't want to be overrun by the enemy, would you?"

"No! Please! There must be another way!"

This caused the heroes (and anti-heroes) to hasten their steps. Elsa was the first to see it and gasp. "We did forget about something."

"What – " Giovanni then caught sight of who was cajoling the crowd. "Ohhh. Great."

Hopper was at the epicenter of it, urging, "If you don't fortify this town, you'll be overrun by the people you THOUGHT were your friends. Get the drop on them before they wipe you off the map. It's called survival of the fittest."

"Don't listen to him!" The other voice belonged to Sergei, the knight from Lastonbell. "He's obviously a hellion!"

"That may be," Hopper replied. "My secret might finally be out. But tell me, since you're from Rolance and you claim to be impartial – IS it a lie that Rolance is taking up arms to restart the war, or is that actually happening?"

"I…" Sergei hung his head. "The preparations are…being made for attack."

Gasps rattled through the crowd.

"I'm sorry," said Sergei. "But if we respond to Rolance with peace, then maybe – "

"It's TOO LATE FOR PEACE!" Hopper barked. "But you're probably already done listening to the big evil hellion. I'll let you figure out what needs to be done from here."

He stalked off into the crowd, seemingly searching for someone. When he laid eyes on Velvet, it was clear he'd found what he was looking for. "Well, well! Took you long enough!"

"YOU," Giovanni snarled.

"Whaaaat, did you forget about me?" Hopper laughed. "Did you think everyone ELSE forgot about me? Because that was kind of the point. Mr. Torchwick asked me to double back and take care of some…loose ends."

"What kind of loose ends are you talking about?" Ruby asked coldly.

"Well, obviously a lot of our Rolance troops were going to die in front of that temple," Hopper stated. "They were a bit more delicate than we are. And after so many losses and being forced to retreat like a swarm of cowards, well, the survivors had a lot of pent-up anger. I just helped them redirect that anger to a target they could actually beat: their former enemies in Hyland."

"YOU DIDN'T," Rose growled.

"And, well, once that stone started rolling, I had to encourage Hyland to defend themselves," Hopper went on. "What kind of monster would I be if I didn't warn them about the impending slaughter? Luckily, the do-gooder over there was interested in stopping the war from reigniting, which means he was able to verify my story and inspire the people of this lovely nation to get some well-deserved revenge."

"How could you?" Blake asked. "We protected your friends from Heldalf."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hopper told her. "I wasn't there, remember? But more importantly, even if I was, I wouldn't care. See, I'm guessing you all ended up in an alliance of convenience against the bigger threat, but that doesn't make us friends or after the same thing. And that doesn't make the monsters you just helped any less monsters."

Several members of the group began to speak out, but it was both Yang and Ruby who put up their hands to quiet them. "We knew that," Yang said. "It wasn't about what they did or what they'd do. They needed us."

"We didn't see this part coming," Ruby added, "but even if we had, it wouldn't have changed what we did. What we NEEDED to do. And now, we know the war is young enough that we can stop it from starting up again."

"Well, good luck with that," said Hopper. "I personally don't have any more time to waste making sure your plans are foiled, so I'll just leave you to it. To be transparent, though, I don't think you have a worm's chance in a bird's nest."

"Try us," Yang and Ruby said as one.

Rose withdrew a dagger. "I can't believe you reignited the damn Hyland–Rolance war. The one Sorey and I worked so hard to STOP. I know the WHAM is in a truce with my guys and all, but if you force my hand, I WILL have to get rid of you."

"Oh, that's right!" Hopper replied cheekily. "I had something for one of you. Now, what was it…?"

He held out his two right hands. In each was a Death Bomb.

"Didn't you ask for these, Crowe?" Hopper pushed them toward Velvet. "If I hadn't stayed back, you would never have gotten these. Would you really want to have left without them? No. I don't think you did. So you can be mad at me all you want, but I did get you what you needed in the end."

Velvet swiped the two death bombs. "Honestly, it doesn't matter to me whether there's a war or no war," she said. "People will always fight each other and try to kill each other. What's important is that they have the free will to choose to fight. You didn't start this war, no matter how much you want to claim it. The people chose. And that means they're living full lives as humans."

"How can you not care?" Rose snapped.

"Because of what I've been through," Velvet told her. "But I never said you couldn't, or that you shouldn't. For those who care to bring peace, that free will is just as important. I'm not that kind of hero, but you are, so it's critical that YOU take up the sword to stand up for what you believe in. Fight until you realize your dream of peace. Fight to save those who need saving."

"I'm not sure what sense that makes," Rose said, "but weirdly, it kinda makes sense. It's like…it's not your problem, but it is someone's problem to figure out, and you wanna make sure that gets solved."

"And I stand by what I said." Velvet glowered at Hopper. "YOU can't take credit for this war. All you did was speak. If people hadn't chosen to listen to you, you would have no power."

"You keep telling yourself that," Hopper replied, beginning to saunter away. "Anyway, enjoy your death bombs. I'm going to call for a pickup."

He suddenly crouched, ejecting his wings to take sudden, noisy flight.

"Welp," Yang said as she watched him depart. "Our job just got that much harder."

"Ugh, I don't wannaaaaa," Giovanni whined. "I mean, I don't want people to start killing each other for no reason, but I've got other stuff to do!" He lowered his voice to the quietest mutter: "And maybe some people to pick up, I dunno."

"So how about this?" Yang offered. "Anyone who wants to go home, go home. You've earned it. Seriously."

Ruby nodded. "Anyone who wants to stay here, this job is for us. Us Huntresses are definitely gonna try and save this situation."

"Right," said Blake, and Weiss nodded also.

"And so will this space ranger!" Booster declared.

"And this Wayfinder," Moana said with a big smile.

"And wherever Weiss goes, I go!" Kazuichi said with an even bigger smile.

"I'm with Yang!" Harley swung a fist. "Time for her, me, Blake, and Moana to do some epic team bonding!"

"I'm not turning my back on Glenwood now," Rose said. "I'm staying." She looked to Molly. "What about you?"

"The four of us who are bonded to you must go where you go," Lailah reminded her.

"Then I'll stay," Molly said. She looked to Giovanni; "If that's okay."

"No problems here," said Edna.

"I'm down!" Zaveid beamed.

"I need some time here anyway," said Mikleo. "I'm excited to explore a new world and all, but I need to say goodbye to this one properly first."

"And I will stay with you." Laphicet floated toward Molly, smiling at her. "In case you need to armatize."

"In case," Molly teased.

"Hmm." Giovanni thought it over. "How are you gonna get back?"

"We'll just drop her off in Twilight Town in the ship we brought," Weiss stated. "Harley and Rose, too."

"And me," said Elsa. "I'm a guardian of this world."

"And I'm staying with Rose." Dezel put a hand on Rose's shoulder.

Rose teared up, trying to blink the water away. She still had a hard time believing that Dezel was back with her after all. She reached back to put a hand on his.

"And we gotta follow the boss!" Talfryn urged. "Though we'd like to go check out this Twilight Town place eventually."

"Yeah!" Felice agreed.

"Okay!" Giovanni turned to the group. "Anyone else who wants to stay here?"

"I shall," said Ansem.

"Wait, no," said Yang. "You have to go back to your family. They MISS you."

Ansem hung his head. "I…cannot face them yet. First, I must do some good to atone for the lives I have ruined. Whatever I can do to heal this world's wounds, it will help me to heal my own."

"Then join us," Ruby said. "We'll keep an eye on you to make sure no more bad guys turn you into a monster again."

Ansem smiled. "I am deeply grateful for your kindness, Huntresses."

"Okay, anyone else?" Giovanni called out. "Aaaaanyone? Three, two, that was last call and now we're goin' home!"

"This was fun and all," said Rokurou, "but I feel like we're past the 'beating up bad guys and killing big monsters' part, so I'm good for the day. Also, I'm in a knife mood, so if we swing by for ingredients on the way home, I'll take care of group dinner tonight."

"I'll help!" Eleanor chirped. "One person can't feed our entire family alone. Plus there are some desserts I wanna try!"

Eizen and Edna faced one another. "You understand – " Eizen began.

"You have to go your own way," Edna told him. "You always do. But you wouldn't be Eizen if you didn't."

"But you also understand that this time," Eizen said, "when you come home…I'll be waiting for you. In a new world of our own."

"You better be," Edna threatened. "Or I'm going to have to hunt you down and kick your butt."

"And if you didn't do that," Eizen told her, "you wouldn't be the Edna I know and love. But I'll spare you the effort." He smiled.

And she smiled back.

Giovanni and Velvet led the Banzai Blasters, Rokurou, Eizen, Eleanor, Magilou, and Emerald out of the gates of Marlind.

"Then I'm calling a strategy meeting for the rest of us," said Sergei. "Immediately, if that isn't too much trouble."

"Hey!" Harley protested. "We just got done fightin' off the big bad guy and hikin' all the way here! It ain't occurred to you we might be tired about now?"

"I mean, you don't need ALL of us, right?" Yang asked. "Or maybe you can have some of us now and all of us later."

"I…I mean, I suppose – " Sergei sputtered.

"Give us an hour," Yang said.

"Just one little hour!" Harley urged. "And Blakey and Moana should come too so we can get that bondin' on!"

"Blakey?" Blake let out a snicker. "I like it. You're gonna be good for Team RWBY."

"I mean, it is a LITTLE weird that you're friends with…people who are trying to kill us," Moana said, "but at the same time, if I hadn't shown compassion to Te Ka, we would never have returned Te Fiti to the islands."

"And I sure learned my lesson about crossin' the traffic lanes," Harley sighed. "From now on, Cinnamon mission time and WHAM mission time stay separate, and Yang only comes on Cinnamon missions. Sound good?"

"I mean, I'm not gonna turn my back on it if one of the villains needs help from an apocalyptic force," said Yang. "Especially if it humiliates them as bad as we did to Roman."

"That was pretty satisfying," Blake agreed. "Even more satisfying that I got to kick him in the face again."

Harley, Yang, Blake, and Moana were already wandering toward the town square, continuing their conversation. "ONE HOUR!" Sergei called after them. "THEN BACK TO THE INN!"

"Uh…heyyyyy," Ruby said. "Since we're not starting the mission off with everyone, is it okay if I hold back for an hour too? I just want some time to gather my thoughts if that's okay."

"Yes," Sergei told her. "One hour."

Ruby gave him a thumbs-up, then blasted away, a comet of red light spilling petals in her wake.

"Huh," Booster said, observing her exit. "I better make sure she's doing okay. A lot happened recently. I'll catch up with you guys later!"

He set off jogging up the hill, following Ruby's path.

"Well, I for one actually see the urgency of the situation," Weiss said. "I move we start the meeting right now. Any more objections?"

Kazuichi moved beside her, flashing a thumbs-up. "I consent!"

"Probably a good idea," Elsa agreed.

"Can we do it in a comfy room?" Molly asked.

"There's a private lounge at the inn I can request," Sergei said. "Let's go."

Ruby had settled herself against the great tree at the zenith of the town, sitting down with one leg extended lazily and the other knee drawn up. She looked up into the tree's canopy, watching how the light filtered through, taking in the glittering patterns between the leaves.

She smiled, just letting the breeze blow against her.

"Hey, Ruby?"

"Oh!" She was mildly startled to see Booster arriving. "Hey. Probably should've asked if you wanted to come along, shouldn't I?"

"Oh, no, no!" Booster put up both hands. "It's okay if you need time to be alone. I just want to make sure you were okay."

She patted the grass beside her. "Yeah. I'm good. Have a seat."

Booster settled himself beside her, leaning on the great tree trunk as well. "Gosh, it's beautiful from here."

"It really is. I almost wonder if it would be even better from up IN the tree, but that might be asking for trouble."

"Yeah."

Ruby paused a moment, plucking a blade of grass and wringing it in her fingers. "You know…what I was thinking about…is that I am okay," she said. "No, I'm more than okay. It's just – I don't know if you heard it, but there was a point on the battlefield where Roman was taunting me, so I was ribbing him back, you know…hero–villain rivalry stuff, I guess…and I was just trying to annoy him, but it did make me think about something I hadn't thought about before. Do you ever…realize that the way things turned out was so good, and you were so lucky to have it be this way, that you get just a little sad thinking about how you might've been if it was different? And…scared that you might lose it all someday?"

"Hmm." Booster thought it over. "Sometimes…I wonder what would've happened if I hadn't gone on that first mission with Buzz. If I'd just gone home after failing the Academy. I don't know what I'd even be doing right now. Probably farming bunzels, which is…not what I imagined doing with the rest of my life. I don't think about it all that often, but it makes me glad things turned out the way they did. What were you thinking about specifically?"

Ruby looked up through the canopy again. "Just how much I've had to be responsible for. Atlas falling, losing Amaterasu, having to protect the guy who is currently wearing her, almost losing the World of Twelve, my friends getting hurt, entire worlds I can't even get to in time to protect them because there's just so many. But the thing is, I know I'm not alone. And it's in a way I…don't think I ever could've had if Sora hadn't crossed my path. I had great, wonderful friends on Remnant, and there's a reason we all came together to Radiant Garden. Well…after the whole…hiatus until Haven thing. But we made it back together. But I think…what if all of this had happened, and that was the only world I knew? I love my friends. But I don't know if it would have been…the same."

"What do you mean?"

"With the Cinnamons," Ruby said, "I know more people than I ever have who've fought hard, sacrificed, and lost things. When something bad happens, it's not just a few of us who come together. It's a family. A big family. The things I've heard that the others have been through…especially the Keybearers. I know that protecting people is still my responsibility, and I have a duty not to fail it. But we've all tried, and we've all failed, and we're all just doing our best. And I think…if I'd just set out with Ren, Nora, and Jaune on that road to Haven, what might've happened? Would I have been able to handle it the same way? Would I have wanted to be me?" She shook her head. "But that's all kinda selfish, don't you think?"

"No, I don't think so."

"But it is," Ruby continued. "Because even then…I still had a team. You know who didn't, for a long time? Yang. Blake. Weiss. Penny. Do you know how happy it makes me to see Blake and Moana on their reading dates, or Rapunzel trying to get Weiss to join Princesses with Paintbrushes, or Penny and Lapis doing rounds of the city? And Yang has a whole other family of her own now, and it looks like they don't mind me being part of it. And I think…this, all of this, this is why I was able to stay positive. Even when things happen that…" She sighed. "Did I tell you I'm the reason Cinder is…hurt?"

"No," Booster said softly. "What happened? If you don't want to tell me, that's fine, too."

"We were in a fight," Ruby said. "She was out of control, and I was angry, and things just…lined up wrong. I wasn't aming to kill, but even though she's still alive, I think maybe that was wrong of me." Her eyes watered. "But that's always so easy to forgive. Because Kazuichi was a Despair, and he's trying to be better. And Riku fell to Darkness, and he's trying to be better. And you know Papyrus thinks anyone can be better. And…and I know I should just be grateful and happy, and this, ALL of this, is why I've been able to be basically the same person I was when I was at Beacon. I don't know who I'd be without this support. I'm afraid of what would happen if I lost it all."

"There's too many of us to lose," Booster assured her. "And as long as you need me, I'm not gonna let anything take me down!"

"What if I can't protect you someday?" Ruby asked. "I know you're a Space Ranger, and it would take a lot to hurt you, but…Pyrrha was so strong and powerful. And all it took was the wrong person to show up."

"Even if something bad did happen to me," said Booster, "which it won't, you'll still have everyone else. It'd be okay to be sad, but I wouldn't want you to be sad about me forever, Ruby. I'd want you to move on and have fun with your friends. And I know that Buzz, XR, and Mira would help take care of you and help out with anything you needed." He gave a soft laugh. "You're right, actually. I love my team like a family, too. But there's something about all of us coming together for one thing. All of us gathering under one roof. Everything we have, we share, so we don't have to carry it alone. And you know what else? It feels like since we learned how many worlds are really out there, it should feel like some big impossible task to protect it all, but it feels more like…just one thing. It's all connected. And we're all working on it together."

"That's it, that's exactly it!" Ruby said. "And when we fail in some ways…we succeed in others." She mopped her eyes with her sleeve. "I don't know why I'm still crying. Maybe because it could still be ruined so easily if I lost even one of you."

"I'm afraid of losing my friends too," Booster said. "Not in the way where we fight, I mean. You know, if someone…if something…"

"Yeah."

"But right now, we're all okay," he said. "You're here, and I'm here, and the rest of Team RWBY is here, and the rest of Team Lightyear is back at base – and I think no matter what happens next, it's all gonna work out just fine. And hey, I can't think of anything that would manage to wipe out all of us at once."

"I dunno. Apparently Xehanort wrecked Radiant Garden once."

"Yeah, I know he's supposed to be the big scary villain," Booster pointed out, "but he hasn't been doing a very good job at actually showing up and doing things. I think him making that other guy turn Ansem into Heldalf was the first time I've even run into something he did, and he didn't even do that himself. It was that other guy Ansem talked about."

"Braig?" Ruby filled in.

"Yeah, that one!"

Booster then leaned in to Ruby, putting an arm around her waist and pulling her close to him. She nuzzled against him, putting her own arm on his back, leaning fully against him and shutting her eyes to give a sigh of relief.

"Gosh, Ansem must be having a really hard time, though," Booster said. "His two best friends from when he was our age ended up turning on him, and they're the reason he was here. And now he's not even sure his own kids want to see him again."

"Then it's a good thing we have a home where he can come back," Ruby replied, moving one leg to bump her ankle up against Booster's. "He's part of our family now. And if what you said is true, then he'll be okay."

"Yeah. I know he will."

They sat in silence for a moment, watching the activity downhill in town. Then Ruby said, "Thank you for being here for me."

"No, thank YOU for being here for ME," Booster told her.

"I kinda don't want to talk about the things I'm worried about anymore," Ruby said.

"You know, we really should taste-test the food here before we go," Booster said. "We can order at the inn, right? Maybe we should bring a big dish to the strategy meeting for free serve!"

Ruby nodded. "Rose mentioned those curry buns on our way here. I really, REALLY want to try one. Or four. Or seven."

And so they spent the rest of their hour speaking of culinary delights and other silly diversions.

Down below, Yang, Harley, Blake, and Moana meandered through town, examining the wares on sale. Blake eventually found the bookstore, and all four ended up inside.

"Too bad this world hasn't figured out comics yet," Harley sighed, thumbing through a large tome on psychology. "I read enough of these for my dissertation to last my whole life."

"Seriously, why are comics not a bigger thing on more worlds?" Yang agreed. "It's just pictures that tell stories. It's a pretty simple concept."

"Probably because graphic novels are stigmatized as lesser," Blake said, moving through the fantasy novels and fairy tales. "I wonder how many of these legends are based on things that happened in Velvet's time, and how much of it the authors actually got right?"

"We should buy one storybook," Moana said, "and one history book, and take them back to Twilight Town and show Velvet. We'll probably learn some surprising things. History can sound very different depending on who tells the story."

"Don't I know it," Blake agreed. "Okay, now which one should we get…"

"Think we should pay for what we get this time?" Harley whispered to Yang.

"This time," Yang told her. "We can skip it when we're out with Giovanni or Emerald."

"Good call."

"It's all about reading the room."

There was a sudden gasp. "Yang? HARLEY? That you two?"

Yang and Harley turned to see none other than White Turtlez beaming at them, several books clutched in his arms. "Hey!" Yang waved. "Didn't expect to see you here!"

"This is home base, after all!" White Turtlez reminded them. "How'z you two gettin' on?"

"It's one wild world," Harley told him. "Makes sense you're from here, though. It's cozy but full of surprises, like your shop!"

"Yeah!" White Turtlez agreed. "Y'know, I used to hate this place, 'cause I was a wanted turtle, but now that my shell is all cleaned up, the other Turtlez assume my act is, too! And it is…mostly. You galz goin' back to Twilight Town after this?"

"We've got some work to do here," Yang told him.

"Well, lemme know," White Turtlez replied. "I'z got my phone on me, so we can chat. Ain't phonez a miracle? Especially the magic kind they makez in Twilight Town!"

"I hear that!" Yang said.

"We probably won't be done by the time you gotta leave, though," Harley said.

"Well, that'z okay!" White Turtlez replied. "It'z easy to get back and forth, y'know. I got a secret, special shortcut!"

"You what now?" said Harley.

"Yeah, I just cut through Katz Korner to get from one world to the other," White Turtlez said. "It's technically an in-between place, but youz can only use it if you'z in good with the Katz. You galz are trustworthy, so I'd be willin' to let you in on it!"

"Hey, we could go home and come right back!" Harley realized. "That way, if this takes a while, we can still check in!"

"Too bad we didn't figure this out before Giovanni and Velvet left," Yang said.

"Eh, they'll be fine!" Harley said. "They got the Van Eltia!"

"And it's not that bad of a walk," said Yang. "Where'd we leave it, again? Oh, yeah! At that desert town that's…the furthest…geographical point…away from here…on the continent."

She and Harley looked to each other and gave a synchronized "Oh."

"Well, too late now," Harley said. "They're already an hour out."

"How much money you wanna put on it that Giovanni only just realized this and is on his knees screaming?" Yang asked.

"Yang, I ain't gonna bet against that," Harley replied. "We all know it's gonna happen."

Blake cleared her throat. "Could we also…use this shortcut? We can already hop from Twilight Town to our home base pretty easily."

"Y'know," White Turtlez replied, "I usually ain't so sure about lettin' strangerz know…but you're practically Katz already! They're gonna love you! Bring anyone you wantz!"

Blake twitched her cat ears with a little smirk.

"That's a lot of pressure off," Yang noted. "Means we can take our time with the strategy stuff."

"Is anyone else nervous about this?" Moana asked. "Having to stop an entire war – "

"Is something we at least have to try," Blake insisted. "Trust me, I know it's hard. But people can be reasoned with, and peace can be possible. You just need to be brave enough to take the first step."

"And get rid of asshats with katanas who just want to throw their weight around," Yang pointed out. "That's priority number one."

"Katanaz?" White Turtlez asked. "Who'z got the katana? Waz it one I sold? It's not legally required for me to run background checkz, I swear!"

That got all four young women laughing.

Back in the inn's lounge-turned-conference-room, Sergei sat at a small table, drafting a letter. "The first order of business is to contact Princess Alisha," Sergei said. "The sooner she knows about this…" He shook his head. "She'll find something to do. She always does. I trust her. But it may take a while, and we may have to be creative. We just can't keep this from her. I have to tell her the truth."

"It sounds like you're not even writing to her because she could help," Molly said. "It sounds like you're writing to her because you care about her a lot, and you want to warn her. And that's honestly really important."

"I want to say it's purely business," Sergei stated. "I want to say that I won't let my relationship with her affect how we proceed regarding Hyland–Rolance relations. I know every second counts. But I…have to put her first. To do anything else would be to betray my own heart."

"Wait a sec!" Kazuichi realized. "Are you two…you know…heh-heh?"

Sergei lay down his pen. "It wasn't how I imagined things would go," he said. "We met on the battlefield at the war's end. She and I were part of the frontline that united our troops to defeat a greater hellion. Then, she and I brokered for peace between the two nations. And then…we had to spend a lot of time in each other's company, at diplomatic meetings, and soon we found ourselves spending time together when it wasn't required. As much as the nations proclaimed peace between the end of the war and the insect hellion stirring things up again, there's still…a stigma to a high-ranking Rolance officer courting Hyland royalty, and vice versa. The other members of her court and the Pendrago royalty have been speculating, and issuing…warnings. Not to let it go too far."

"But how far did it go?" Kazuichi asked.

"We've…kissed many times," Sergei said, wistfully. "Away from the eyes of the court."

"Why are you telling us this?" Elsa asked. "We're strangers to you. How do you know we won't use it against you?"

"Actually, that's not entirely true," Zaveid pointed out. "Me, Lailah, Edna, Mikleo, and Rose, we've been tight with Sergei for a while."

Dezel cleared his throat loudly.

"Man, I keep forgetting you're still alive," Zaveid said.

"Thanks," Dezel grumbled. "What wonderful praise."

"No, no, not like that," Zaveid backpedaled. "I can't forget you're HERE. I just thought we'd said goodbye to you pretty thoroughly. How'd you even come back, anyway? One of those death bomb things like Velvet has?"

"I…remember a tree," Dezel said. "It felt enormous. I was forced into its roots, and I couldn't struggle away…but once they wrapped around me, I felt safe. Like I was home. I heard a muffled voice asking me…who I wanted to be. And then I heard another voice answer for me."

Weiss gave a "Hm" that didn't go unnoticed.

"Huh?" Kazuichi looked to her. "Something about that is important?"

"No, it's just – " Weiss shook her head. "Silly. It just reminds me of a book I read when I was a kid. A girl fell through the world into a magical other realm, and there was a tree at the heart of it, and that's literally the only thing my story has in common with his. Though I guess the idea of there being other worlds wasn't as silly as I used to think."

"You know," Kazuichi recalled, "in that other world, where the crazy lady did the killing game and made it into reality TV, she kept saying my world was just a story from video games. That means a lot of things that were just stories and pop-culture stuff are real, right? Maybe the world from that book is out there. Maybe that's the tree Dezel saw! Or, not saw, but – you know."

"I…hadn't thought about that," Weiss realized. "There are a lot of stories and fairy tales I knew when I was younger that could be…out there waiting for me to find them in real life. Okay, that's…making me feel the need to sit down." She plopped onto a chair. "The universe is so complicated."

"There are infinite trees across all worlds," Dezel pointed out. "There's even one here in Marlind that's said to be sacred. I don't think the odds are very good that I was inside the tree from that exact storybook."

"How intriguing," Ansem muttered. "Such a thing would reject all that is known about the order of the multiverse and hearts. Something that could change the very nature of a heart or body, or undo the destruction of both…"

"Can we stop talking about the tree?" Mikleo sighed. "This was supposed to be about relations with Hyland and Rolance. Though to be honest, the more I think about it, the harder I think it will be for one person's speech to reignite a war that Sorey already put a stop to."

"We'll have to hope for that," said Sergei. "And that's why I shared with you the secret that I did. Because you – those of you I knew – were the ones who could be trusted to bring peace in the last conflict, and you needed no secrets hidden from you. The Shepherd may be new, but I trust her too."

"Trusting us may be a mistake," Laphicet murmured. "We aren't always good people."

"But we can be," Molly told Laphicet. "Right here and right now. For this world. I trust you. Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do," Laphicet replied.

"Then you should trust the fact that I trust you," Molly told him.

Laphicet's eyes widened.

"I think I'm finally figuring out how to use psychology tricks," Molly bragged. "But you won't do anything bad here. I promise."

Laphicet looked to Sergei. "Do they still tell the story of the Empyrean Innominat?"

"Innominat?" Sergei repeated. "That's an old legend. Only that he was the fifth Empyrean before being lost to time and history. Maotelus supposedly defeated him in a great battle."

Laphicet nodded. "He needed to be defeated."

"But he wasn't all bad," Molly pointed out. "He messed up a few times, especially because someone tricked him. But I think he thought he was doing the right thing, and in the end, he realized that hurting the people he loved wouldn't actually help the greater good."

"I'm…a little concerned with how specific you're being about a god supposedly vanquished long ago," Sergei said. "But I guess I can't be surprised anymore."

"So," Edna said. "Anybody got any ideas how to actually, you know, solve our problem?"

"We can't do anything that would infringe upon the will of the people," Laphicet muttered. "No matter how tempting that may seem. We have to guide them to making their own choice."

"Well, in my experience, it's all about PR." Weiss crossed one leg over the other. "With enough money, good appearances, and political sway, my father could do just about anything he wanted in Atlas, which was good for him and bad for literally everyone else. It sounds like we have connections with royalty already, and Sergei is a high-ranking officer. That bug man was a nobody from a place no one even knows. We have that advantage. AND the Shepherd, which is seen as a universal symbol of peace. We just have to figure out how to…arrange it to counter this specific situation."

"Sergei," Kazuichi urged. "How long have you been with Alisha? How serious did you two get?"

"Do I need to be worried about you asking about this man's girlfriend?" Weiss asked Kazuichi.

"No, no, it's not like that!" Kazuichi shook his head. "I might have a plan, but it's only gonna work if you two are, like, SERIOUS."

"I…" Sergei swallowed hard. "Alisha is the first true love I have ever known. She has said the same to me. I cannot imagine my life without her."

"Okay then," Kazuichi said, completely seriously. "So get married in public."

There was an awkward silence before Rose blurted, "WHAT?"

"I'm serious!" Kazuichi went on. "Everyone loves a good love story, right? And if people read it as a metaphor, like, we don't have to hate each other because even the higher-ups of our countries love each other, maybe they'll get the same idea!"

"A marriage of political convenience." Weiss nodded. "It could work, in theory…but ONLY if there's actual passion behind it. Because I was a product of a marriage of pure convenience, and let me tell you, it's no way to live."

"I love Alisha!" Sergei insisted. "Nothing about our love was meant to be convenient. It stopped being about Hyland after so long. It's really about her. It's always been about her. And I know she will do whatever it takes to keep the peace between our nations. She would marry anyone to protect that peace, even someone she doesn't love. I trust that she loves me…but could I be the man she would need?"

"You're asking the right questions," Rose said. "You know, it's kinda funny. I was almost married to the prince of Pendrago, once."

"I'm sorry," Dezel muttered. "I don't think I can ever make that up to you."

Rose shoved him playfully. "It's not your fault he turned hellion, idiot. Yeah, yeah, Symonne said your curse led to it and all, but also, I've heard a lot about this Light and Darkness stuff lately, and it sounds like Darkness – which is malevolence – doesn't just hit you all at once because of a bad-luck charm. Konan went off the deep end because, well…he was probably already most of the way there. He just never let it show. And honestly? If you hadn't tipped him over the edge with your curse, I might've been trapped in a marriage with a monster. Who knows what he did behind closed doors?"

"A curse?" Weiss asked. "You…cause bad luck?"

"To put it mildly," Dezel grumbled.

"Eizen had the same problem," said Rose, "but apparently it got lost in translation over the years. It was 'The Reaper's Curse' in his time, and now people who have it are called 'angels of death.' Same thing. Bad things just tend to happen where people with that curse go. It runs in certain seraphs."

"Which is why you may want to keep me from the more delicate procedures of this effort," Dezel stated.

"No way!" Weiss insisted. "We just learned recently that one of our most important mentors back home had, well, basically a Reaper's Curse. And it's never slowed him down. In fact, he had it broken recently, and we're all kind of hoping he gets it back, because it came in handy sometimes."

"The curse can be broken?" Dezel said, a sudden vigor in his eyes.

"Well, sort of," Weiss said. "Powers like that work differently on my world, and it was a potion that came from a witch who is very firmly on enemy territory. We could try to look into it, though. It's just…losing that bad luck actually worked against Qrow in our battle at Haven. Do you really want it gone? Like Rose said, apparently you already unmasked an abuser with it."

"That sounds more like good luck," Kazuichi said.

"I…I've never seen it as a good thing," Dezel grumbled.

"I think having Sergei and Alisha get married is a great idea," Molly brought up to get the conversation back on track. "Especially if both the kingdoms sign off on it."

"I…I just don't know," Sergei said. "I love Alisha so much. That's why I'm afraid to get her into something she can't take back. Something that will shackle her down. Because she won't say no once she figures out the advantage it could have for Hyland. She always puts herself last, and I won't stand to see her suffer with a smile on her face!"

"That, there," Eguille said, "is why you are perfect for her."

"But maybe we should loop her in on this," Weiss said. "Like…if she'll just say yes no matter what, let's tiptoe around it a bit, maybe not pop the entire question right away, but we can sort of…figure out how she's feeling, and how the two of them might work out together. We're in her neighborhood, right?"

"We aren't too far from her home in Ladylake," Sergei confirmed.

"Then rip up that letter!" Kazuichi urged. "We're gonna go see her ourselves!"

"And then we can ask her if she has other ideas, too," said Molly. "Plan Bs and Cs."

Sergei nodded, tearing the letter in half. "You're right. The word should always have come from me directly, and to even begin to think of how to solve this without her…no, we must leave for Ladylake as soon as possible!"

"We don't have long before the others get back," said Elsa. "Let's use that time to stock up for our journey."

"I want to thank you all for your support during this time," Sergei said. Then, turning to Kazuichi: "Keep this between us, but you give off a far better impression than your thieving brother."

"My…uh…who now?" Kazuichi was confused.

"Your brother," Sergei reiterated. "The one with the same hair and teeth. The one who carried the bat-knife."

"That guy wasn't my brother," Kazuichi pointed out.

"You two are very similar in a lot of respects," Sergei countered.

"He's white," Kazuichi argued.

"White?" Sergei thought it over. "No, his hair was pink. Or were you referring to an alliance he swears to?"

"…Never mind. He's just not my brother."

When the hour was up, Ruby, Booster, Yang, Blake, Harley, and Moana had reconvened with the group, and even White Turtlez decided to tag along in order to show the others how to access Katz Korner during their down time. Yang, Ruby, and Sergei took the lead of the group, standing at the Marlind gates and looking out at the road ahead.

"Always something, huh?" Yang nudged Ruby.

"Yeah," Ruby said. "But we can figure it out. I know we can."

Off they set, on their way to Ladylake, over green pastures beneath a bright summer sun.

...

"Well, well." Mozenrath cast his gaze around the interior of the throne chamber of Yzmatopia. "You're certainly well off."

"I told you!" Roman urged.

"You think this is nice?" Wuya teased. "You should see the beachfront vacation property."

Finally, the core WHAM ARMY had reconvened: Mozenrath, the Huntsman, Wuya, Yzma, Roman, Snatcher, Aghoul, and Mim…and apparently they had simply accepted Vexen as one of their own rank at this point, because they made no move to chase him away when he insisted on hanging around the strategy meeting that was to follow. Deymos and Xerxes, on the other hand, took advantage of the moment to stride off and look for the rest of Yzma's lesser recruits; he would end up trading water-magic techniques with Morgana.

"Well?" Yzma asked. "Shall we move to the conference room to discuss our next move?"

"That sounds – " Mozenrath began.

Wuya waved a hand, and suddenly all nine were standing in a room with lavender walls and several crystalline, beaded decorations.

"You didn't know how I was going to finish that sentence," Mozenrath sighed.

"Yes I did," Wuya told him. "Now have a seat."

A shining mahogany table, circular in shape, was ringed by nine chairs that were loaded with purple cushions. It was certainly a comfortable sit.

"All right, we have a lot to catch up on," Yzma said. "Where do we start?"

Snatcher cleared his throat. "What I personally find pressing is that we have a new enemy."

"What, the Grandmaster?" Mozenrath scoffed.

At the same time, Mim huffed, "What, ZELENA?"

And simultaneously, Yzma groaned, "Yes, yes, we know, Chrysta. She's under control, but admittedly it's volatile."

Snatcher took a moment before saying "I have…quite literally no idea who any of those people are, and frankly, this concerns me, but I'm going to choose to finish my thought before we go running down any of those alleyways. No, I'm referring to…" He needed another pause to gather himself. He swallowed hard. "While on the mission assigned to Roman and myself, I encountered a sort of…comatose…scenario. And while asleep, I experienced vivid dreams – a. Vivid. Dream of something that spoke far too eloquently to have been a figment of my subconscious."

"Wait," said Roman. "You didn't mention this. What – "

"It was a small matter," said Snatcher, the smile on his face quite obviously forced. "I took care of it myself. However, the miscreant made an escape once I had awoken, and we may want to be aware of his presence, as he...implied he may be after our kind. The ne'er-do-wells, the lawbreakers, the scum of the worlds and so forth."

"Are you sure – " Roman tried again.

"QUITE sure," said Snatcher. "That he was of no issue to me personally. I merely seek to nip this in the bud before it has blossomed into a rose garden of inconvenience and possible torment."

"Well?" Mozenrath asked. "What exactly gave you the idea that this mystery man wasn't just something you dreamed about? Nightmares exist, you know."

"Yes, but Nightmares also have wills of their own," Mim reminded him.

"Well, er…" Snatcher fumbled for the words. "He was – he said – first off, perhaps a physical description is more appropriate. He was enshrouded completely in white, face hidden in a hood, in fact much like the standard cloak of the Organization from which Misters Vexen and Deymos departed but in an inverted palette."

Aghoul pointed suddenly at Snatcher; "I SAW HIM!"

"What?" Mozenrath looked to Aghoul.

"I saw EXACTLY who you were talking about!" Aghoul urged. "And he had this sort of chunky, squarish metal Keyblade, didn't he? One of the tackier ones I've seen. I encountered him on the way to pick up Mimsie's son. We crossed paths in the Sleeping Netherworld."

"…Son?" Yzma said. "Mim, you have a – "

"We'll get there," Mim told her. "One thing at a time!"

"And the timing would make sense," said Aghoul, "because I KNEW when I heard him disappear that he'd gone into a dream where a human being exploded. I know that sound all too well: music to my ears! And we all know that Snatcher's worst nightmare would be – "

When he noticed the wide-eyed look of terror on Snatcher's face, he realized. "Oh. Oh, that would be bad, wouldn't it?"

Roman quickly slipped a hand onto Snatcher's shoulder. "Did this guy – "

"I'd rather not speak of it," Snatcher said quickly. "You may remove that hand."

"No, seriously, if this guy fucked with you – "

"It seems he did such with Mr. Aghoul as well," Snatcher grumbled. "I would rather not dwell on my half of the story. It was an inconvenience at best."

Below the table, he twitched the fingers of his right hand. Roman suddenly got the message, taking the hand away from Snatcher's shoulder – and bringing it to interlace with Snatcher's hand below tabletop level, where it wasn't as obvious.

"What DID he do when you confronted him, Mr. Aghoul?" Snatcher asked.

"Tried to tear me apart with that tacky Keyblade," Aghoul said. "Battled me on a field of flames. The usual. But he was no match for me!"

Yzma pounded the table with her fist. "I'm not going to be able to concentrate on anything else until I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON WITH MIM HAVING A SON!"

"Oh, fine, fine," Mim huffed. "Don't get your glittery underthings in a twist. It was centuries ago, and to be honest, I'm as surprised as you are. I thought he'd've died a couple centuries back, but am I ever glad he didn't! My boy Rumplestiltskin grew up to be the Dark One of the Enchanted Forest! He's having a minor identity crisis, but I assured him the WHAM ARMY could assist with such things."

"I, for one, like the man," said Mozenrath. "I think he and I are going to get along pretty well. He'll teach me the secrets of the Dark Ones and the Aether, and I'll let him in on a few choice spells from Destane. Not the BEST ones, of course, but they'll still be valuable."

"But really," Mim went on, "you shouldn't be so surprised. I've lived a long time. Had some wild oats planted. There's a lot about my past you don't know."

"Is there ANOTHER kid or something?" Roman asked.

"Of course not!" said Aghoul. "I would know about it – "

"Yes, there was," Mim said, "but she was a complete and utter disappointment in comparison."

A silence fell over the room. Then everyone tried to say something at once:

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN – "

"THERE'S ANOTHER ONE?"

"HOW MANY DO YOU HAVE?"

"WHAT ELSE ARE YOU HIDING FROM US? IS 'MIM' EVEN YOUR REAL NAME?"

"Pipe down, all of you!" Mim barked. "Again, it was centuries ago, and she was an utter disappointment, so I abandoned her at the edge of the village of Far, Far Away. Though I guess it's a kingdom now. Well, she's definitely very dead. I checked in a couple times, and her lifespan was normal. I do believe her descendants are in the piemaking business now. Utterly horrid. Whoever carries that half of the bloodline is probably all 'What a good boy am I' and that."

Mozenrath glared at Yzma. "Is your curiosity satisfied?"

Yzma nodded. "Why, yes, thank you."

"Then let's get back to talking about the SENTIENT NIGHTMARE THAT TARGETED ONE OF OUR OWN WITH A VERY TAILORED FEAR THAT HE SHOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN ABOUT," Mozenrath growled. "We know he has a Keyblade, and that already creates a headache. Anything else we should know about what he can do?"

"He could adjust the…the setting of the dream in which he played a role," Snatcher piped up. "Choose exactly what sort of scene to show, and he had knowledge of certain events that transpired outside the field of view of the dreamer. He showed me…things that happened in the interval of my absence from the realm of the living."

"Oh, so it's omniscient and it can alter dreams," Mozenrath grumbled. "Wonderful. And I just KNOW it's not stopping at you. You're not even the biggest prize it could go after. You were just the easiest one to reach once you were put under a sleep spell."

"He was actually eaten," Roman reminded the group. "Vored, in fact, by Vexen's ex."

"Do NOT use any of those words in that order ever again," Vexen seethed.

"He's probably coming after me for revenge," said Aghoul. "At least, I hope he is. What an honor!"

"There may be a simpler solution to this problem than it seems," said the Huntsman. "An old standard-issue upper-level Huntsclan device was a charm that would allow the wearer control over their dreams. Not only complete and utter lucidity, but a way to design the dream and tailor it to perfection. Should we begin wearing these into our slumber, we should have little trouble overriding a rogue Nightmare's power. Unfortunately, I have none left with me – but on the other hand, I have well-memorized the recipe to alchemize one."

"Did someone say 'secret lab'?" Yzma perked up.

"No," said the Huntsman.

"…Did someone imply it?" Yzma said softly.

"If you know how to synthesize these charms," said Wuya, "then it would be quite convenient for someone with a SECRET LAB to put them together."

"I have one of those!" Yzma proclaimed.

"Yeah, she does," said Roman, "and she put the usual two levers out front. Why do you do this? Is it a compulsion? Is it some kind of daddy issues coming out sideways?"

"Wait," Snatcher realized. "So she has ONCE AGAIN engineered a laboratory that has a fifty-percent chance of causing grievous harm to he who enters? Miss Yzma…why?"

"I have my reasons!" Yzma spat. "By the way, how's your hand?"

"You TOLD her – " Snatcher glared at Roman.

"I TOLD her I was worried about what would happen when I inevitably try and use the teleporter to phase somewhere I've never been," Roman said quickly.

"Can confirm that's what he said," Wuya volunteered. "But we all knew what he meant."

"You know what?" Snatcher realized. "That's exactly how it would have happened. Roman, you're forgiven. Misses Wuya and Yzma, THIN ICE."

"Is there any other kind worth skating on?" Wuya winked.

Mozenrath did a double take. "Snatcher, did you phase your hand into a wall – "

"NEXT TOPIC, shall we?" Snatcher said.

"All right, status report," Mozenrath said. "Anyone want to report a recruit that wasn't acquired?"

There were several head-shakes and murmurs of "No" and similar.

"Anyone want to report having taken EXTRA recruits who I didn't plan?" Mozenrath asked.

Slowly, every hand around the table went up.

"George, put your hand down," Mozenrath growled. "I've been working with Albel for days. You don't need to tell me. Anyway, I'm going to call 'the more, the merrier' and leave it there. So, our missions had five goals. Let's check in, starting with the Huntsman and myself. We managed to get out of the tournament arena with the Meta's armor, as planned. Vexen, this means you can start work on the replica whenever you're ready."

"Perfect," said Vexen. "After all, I had been considering the flaws in Vincent, Victor, and Albert's designs. I can improve on them still further in the revived Meta."

"Vincent – " Mozenrath shook his head. "I don't know those names. You made more? You MADE MORE REPLICAS. I understand stumbling into new alliances that turn into mouths to feed, but you MADE THREE?"

"Reserve your judgment for when you see them," Vexen snarled. "They compete with Anima for my proudest achievement yet."

"Anima?" Mozenrath repeated. "Who's Anima? Never mind – never MIND, I don't want to know. I don't care. You can tell me later. Actually, you can report in on your mission goal right now. Were you able to…"

He paused. "I didn't…send you on a mission."

"No," Vexen affirmed. "You did not."

"How did you end up on a mission?"

"My goal was to capture an old experiment of mine," said Vexen. "She proved…insufficient. Therefore, I improved upon her. I will also report that we have apparently forged an unofficial alliance with a society of immortals left over from the world BEFORE the Age of Fairy Tales, which should prove beneficial to us in the long run, so long as our representative holds as much sway as he says he does." His vocal pace then quickened: "And that Deymos and I are romantically courting, mostly as revenge on Ravess, and now that you know, I say we move on to Aghoul and Mim's report."

Dead silence.

"…Mim?" Vexen ventured. "Aghoul?"

Then the table exploded:

"YOU'RE DATING WHO?"

"THE ENEMY!"

"WHAT IN THE – "

"YOU? HIM? YOU…HIM?"

"WHY WOULD YOU EVER?"

"WILL YOU ALL CALM DOWN?" Vexen barked. "It is NONE of your business. And dare I say that this may be a factor that keeps our current Deymos more loyal than our prior Demyx? Had none of you considered it?"

"So it's just a romance of convenience," Mozenrath said. "Strategy. No emotions involved."

"…No," Vexen muttered. "I cannot lie and call it that."

"Do you LOVE him?" Roman asked.

"Why, I don't know," Vexen retorted. "He and I have never shared a True Love's Kiss. Have YOU?"

"SHUT…UP," Roman growled.

"Roman and Snatcher did a TLK?" Wuya was suddenly interested. "When was this?"

"NEVER," Roman and Snatcher said as one.

"Right before we showed up to save them from certain doom at the hands of Vexen's ex-paramour," Mozenrath said.

"STOP REFERRING TO ANSEM AS THAT THIS INSTANT!" Vexen roared. "I won't have you put him anywhere NEAR the same level as Deymos."

"He's…really not joking about this Deymos thing," Yzma said, wide-eyed. "I thought it was an April Fool's joke."

"It's August," said Roman. "…I think? I don't even know anymore; the calendar's different everywhere we go."

"Roman and Snatcher TLK'd and we missed it," Wuya sighed. "This is what we get for having the most successful mission, isn't it?"

"MIM AND AGHOUL," Vexen snapped. "REPORT. NOW."

"Well, everyone definitely knows that Loki is ruling Asgard now!" Mim said gleefully. "The problem is…they seem to have no issue with that."

"Of course," Mozenrath sighed.

"The bigger accomplishment is that we put down a wielder of the Infinity Stones for you," said Aghoul. "You're welcome!"

"The…Infinity Stones?" Mozenrath repeated. "That name's familiar. Destane had a text about six primal forces. Time, space, reality, mind, soul, power."

"Those are the ones!" said Aghoul. "This nasty fellow Thanos got ahold of almost all of them, but we showed him what for, and you don't have to worry about him darkening your doorstep!"

"That's…good," said Mozenrath. "Someone who wielded all six of those primal forces could have been…a problem for us. I'm sure I don't need to explain why."

"And now that Rumple has the Aether – " Mim began.

"…THAT Aether," Mozenrath realized. "Now I see the connection. Continue."

"It means that the Overtakers only have FIVE of the stones that Thanos left behind," Mim concluded.

Mozenrath winced. "Oh, and your report was going so well, too."

"Are we truly surprised?" the Huntsman sighed. "Maleficent and her apprentices seem always two steps ahead. Perhaps it is time to treat her as the dragon she is and stop rushing her from the front. A dragon must be crept upon from the shadows."

Mozenrath gestured to another section of the table. "Roman. Snatcher. We saw the tail end of your mission, and all but two of us are caught up on that point, but was there anything else we should know?"

"Yeah, be careful when working with the Heathens from Twilight Town," said Roman. "They play nice with us, all right…and with the goody good guys. And apparently they straight-up have the missing one from Team RWBY we were looking for. Yeah. With the crime guys. I'd say not to burn the bridge, since they're obviously just trying to be friends with everyone across the board, but just…watch what you say around them if it's something you don't want passed on to the hero types."

"Good to know," said Mozenrath. "…Are you sure it wouldn't be more efficient to obliterate them as a precautionary – "

"Don't you dare!" Snatcher retorted. "They're good company when needs be. And we all share a mutual hatred for Mr. Westergard."

Mozenrath winced. "I'm sorry, you said – "

"You remember his sob story about Queen Elsa banishing him from her gates?" Snatcher grumbled.

"Let me guess," Mozenrath sighed. "Wasn't homophobic. …Actually, no, I'm going to put my money on it that she's gay and he really just wanted to spin a sob story."

"A man with no honor from the beginning," said the Huntsman.

"I hate honor," said Mim. "I don't have any of it either, and I don't want to. But Hans…he was missing something else. Something even more noticeable. Something unforgivable not to have in this business."

"Otherwise, the whole thing was part of some gambit Braig is pulling off," Mozenrath said.

"Who's Braig?" Wuya asked.

"The guy sitting in the corner playing 4D chess while the rest of us are on Remnant: The Game," said Roman. "No idea yet if he's gonna be friend or foe."

"He was Xemnas'…I suppose left-hand," Vexen mused, "as he kept Saïx at his right. Braig was the second in our Organization. He and I…knew each other for quite some time."

"Another ex?" Roman said.

"I'm ignoring you," Vexen replied. "Braig always was a curious sort. He was difficult to faze and even more difficult to surprise. Given what leads he dropped for us at the end of it all, I'm starting to think it went beyond him simply being a bizarre man. However, I do intend to make for the Shattered Library with Deymos as soon as we have recuperated from the prior stress. We WILL learn who this 'Luxu' is, one way or another."

"And I think I know Yzma and Wuya's report," said Mozenrath. "The only truly flawless victory here."

"Ehhhh…about that," said Yzma. "Sure, we may have control over an archipelago of immense power, a coastal duchy that gives us strategic access to multiple kingdoms of the Everrealm, and coffers filled to bursting. But…wellllll…"

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely," Wuya sighed. "We're in the phase where it's starting to get boring."

Mozenrath raised a brow. "Boring?"

"If all the rest of you were helping us hold it down, it probably wouldn't be," said Yzma. "It would be easier just to use and abuse the civilians and quell riots as they appear. I'm sure Snatcher could do a fine job at that."

"Are my services needed?" Snatcher asked.

"No need," said Wuya. "We replaced you with a literal child."

"Ah," Snatcher said. "Then don't blame me when the empire goes under."

"Then the rest of it is us…sitting here, making sure no one can take over the castle, and managing finances and redirecting complaints," Yzma sighed. "I thought this would be more fun."

"It would be," said Mozenrath, "if you'd waited for all of us. Because you're right. All of us – and I don't just mean those at the table, I mean everyone we've recruited so far – could put down the riots, juice the archipelago dry, oust any heroes who want to play savior, turn the complaint line into the new dungeon, and have actual fun. You understaffed, and now you're feeling the stretch. And I say this because now we're going to have to figure out how to take you away from this post long enough to finish the rest of our pre-Atlantis business, and, lest anyone had forgotten, Atlantis itself."

"Weren't you the one that recommended we take this place over?" Wuya sighed.

"That's not important right now," said Mozenrath. "What is important is that we find a way to put this archipelago on hold until the rest of the plan is carried out."

"We could name a regent," Yzma said.

"Can you name one who could stand up to your detractors without Wuya's help?" Mozenrath asked.

Yzma and Wuya thought it over before saying "No."

Yzma then sighed. "If only there was some way to install one of the would-be heroes on the throne, but curse them so that any improvement they tried to make would in fact work in OUR favor instead! Any time they would wish for something to go their way, it would backfire and result in the most evil outcome possible! That way, we'd still get what we want, but the revolutionaries would think they'd won. Too bad there's not a potion we can brew up that could magically do that for us. Turn good intentions into evil deeds. Ah, well."

As one, Wuya, Mozenrath, and Mim all said, "You mean the Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion?"

"The…" Roman blinked. "WHAT?"

"What he said," said Yzma.

"I'm surprised I didn't think of it before," said Wuya. "It's one of the most ancient and well-known evil spells."

"But also one of the most difficult to pull off," said Mozenrath. "Of course, for us, that should be no problem."

"It's such a wonderful little brew!" Mim laughed. "It's a potion that grants wishes – but only if spoken in rhyme, and only if you wish for the reverse of what you want! So if you thought it was just a wishing potion, and you took a big sip and rhymed your desire for a fair and just world – "

"It would become more rife with corruption than ever!" Yzma gasped. "WONDERFUL! We must begin work on this potion immediately!"

"The charms first," said the Huntsman. "We cannot put them off any longer than necessary. None of us may sleep until the threat of the rogue Nightmare is put aside."

"Will it take long to make the Satanar – the Satan – the potion?" Yzma asked.

"Ehhh…" Mozenrath waggled a hand. "See, there's only one recipe, and it changes worlds every so often."

"Only one COPY, you mean," said Mim. "Remember it had to come from somewhere, and that happens to be somewhere we're very well-acquainted with."

Aghoul grinned. "She means Hell!"

"Ah, yes," Vexen sighed. "Because going back there is what I had truly hoped we would do next."

"Believe me, I share the sentiment," Mozenrath groaned. "But…it does make sense. As you could probably tell from the name, it came right from the Devil himself. Or, you know, one of the Devils. I'm sure you figured out now there are more than one. Whatever the case, a trip to Hell – a ROUND TRIP – would probably be the most efficient way to round up the text, since who knows where the other copy is now? And since Aghoul has a foot in the door with none other than Asmodeus – "

"Aghoul has WHAT?" Wuya's jaw dropped.

Yzma looked from her to Mozenrath and back. "Is that important? A big name in the demon world?"

"The Prince of Lust," the Huntsman explained. "A god among demons."

"And a real riot at parties!" Aghoul laughed.

"Believe me," Vexen sighed. "The true torment of Hell is not whatever punishment you've been taught is waiting for the damned. It's the fact that Asmodeus' entourage, including the Horsepeople of the Apocalypse themselves, doesn't know WHEN TO PUT AN END TO THE PARTY!"

"So as I'm hearing it," said Mozenrath, "our first item of the itinerary should be to create the dream charms and chase the white-coat Nightmare out. Then, we need to go to Hell one more time to pick up a copy of the recipe for the Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion. After that, we collect necessary ingredients, brew the potion, and come up with some intricate ritual to pass it off to some well-meaning do-gooder who thinks they're going to use it to save the world. Then we can leave here, knowing it's in awful hands, and make our way to the next set of missions I have planned out." He gestured, and a stack of papers appeared on the table. "We'll use the same division as last time. Me and the Huntsman, Snatcher and Roman – "

A loud, wordless, eightfold groan cut him off.

"Is there a problem with my flawless strategy?" Mozenrath growled.

"Yes," Yzma said, "and that is that IT'S FLAWED!"

"Were you even at this meeting just now?" Wuya said. "With all the 'you did what' and 'who's dating who' and 'what is that' and going over all the exposition? Do you really want to do that a second time? We all missed out on each other's adventure big-time."

"And I don't know about you guys," Roman said, "but Archie and I have had THE WORST TIME. Nightmares, being separated by the Bigger Bad, having to actually stoop to the level of saving the world with the good guys, the teleporter being stupid about walls – "

"That was actually a very clear rule you broke – " Mozenrath interjected.

"And even more snotty rich people," Roman moaned, nearly breaking down. "So many snotty rich people. There was an airplane. WATTS on an airplane. A water bird made by the Demyx that Vexen isn't fucking!"

"I'M NOT…DOING THAT…TO EITHER OF THEM!" Vexen snapped. "How many times do I have to REDEFINE asexuality for you? All we've done is kiss!"

"YOU DID KISS?" Mim yelled. "YOU TOLD US YOU DIDN'T! YOU LIAR!"

"I said we hadn't experienced TRUE LOVE'S kiss," Vexen snarled.

"Right, right," said Roman. "I keep forgetting you don't do that, that's a whole thing. That's on me."

"Weird that you have trouble grasping the concept," said Mozenrath, "since your boyfriend is on the asexual spectrum."

"Oh, for the LAST time – " Snatcher began.

"DO NOT START THAT AGAIN," Wuya snapped.

"He's CLEARLY – " Snatcher attempted.

Wuya cut him off, pointing at him, before any more mention of neurodivergence could be mentioned. "No. NO. I'm not listening to you two call each other what you blatantly are only for you to deny it AGAIN and turn it into a three-hour debate."

"But I'm not - !" Mozenrath attempted.

"SHUSH," Wuya told him, turning her finger on him.

"You know, our mission wasn't exactly a walk in the park either!" Aghoul broke in. "A certain Enchantress managed to halve our forces, and we had to fight each other until a cabaret ghost forced us to take part in his musical number! And, as I brought up earlier, we had to fight THANOS and the INFINITY STONES! We nearly got destroyed along with half the populace!"

"Of Asgard?" Yzma asked.

"Of everything," Aghoul said. "Literally everything."

"I wonder which ones of us would've died if Thanos had gotten his way," Mim mused. "Vexen for sure."

"Why do you say that?" Vexen asked.

"Just seems right," said Mim. "It's all luck of the draw, but I also know Roman's going down. Snatcher lives, though."

"The point is that it would've gone much more smoothly with all of us there," said Aghoul.

"We JUST got done explaining why this whole Mystic Isles thing should've been a founder group venture," Wuya sighed, chin in hand and elbow on the table.

"Obviously, you all struggled given that hardly any of you thought to reference me," said Vexen. "My expertise could have saved you all a lot of trouble."

"Well, MY team managed to get what we wanted without complaining," Mozenrath growled. "Back me up, George!"

"Had we arrived as a group," the Huntsman said, "we could have immediately razed the arena and made off with the armor and Albel long before Ardyn had a chance to arrive."

"Ardyn?" Mim scratched her chin. "There's a name I haven't heard in a couple hundred years…"

"You have information on him?" the Huntsman asked.

"Just that I was never really able to replicate the Starscourge plague," said Mim, "and he was a bit of a joke in mage circles for having managed to personally annoy Bahamut himself. That takes talent."

"I mean, I give it only so much longer before we manage to do the same," said Aghoul. "It really seems like an honor that should've gone to us, given our track record."

"Well, depending on how close of attention he was playing to Altissia," Mozenrath said, "don't count the idea out yet."

"See?" Wuya rose to her feet. "SEE? By splitting up, we end up with all these BIZARRE INCIDENTS that we have to explain to each other!"

"Also, Archie and I have a romantic getaway planned," Roman said. "Back to Cheesebridge for White Hat Murder Mania. You're all not invited. But we're gonna need to put the usual on hold so that can happen."

"You want me to hold up the entire operation so you two can vacation?" Mozenrath groaned.

"Precisely," said Snatcher.

"I must admit," Vexen said, "as counterproductive as it may seem…if we split up to take care of our own personal business before reconvening to tackle the larger tasks, we could streamline our productivity. I can already tell you that I won't need more than one companion to search the Shattered Library."

"I remember that library being incredibly huge," said Mozenrath. "Are you sure you won't need anyone else?"

"I would rather keep this in my inner circle," said Vexen. "If anyone other than Deymos accompanies, it will be my creations. Though Deymos will likely want to borrow Xerxes again."

"He can have him," Mozenrath muttered. "You're not the only one whose earlier work had room for massive improvements."

"My first replica was far more put-together than Xerxes!" Vexen argued.

"The Riku one?" Mozenrath asked.

"No." Vexen realized he'd made a mistake. "The first replica I actually made was before the WHAM ARMY. I called him 'Lazard Deusericus.'"

"And I haven't heard this name because…?"

"Because…he…" Vexen averted his gaze. "Disintegrated almost immediately after awakening. But at least he wasn't the mess that XERXES is!"

"The alive mess," Mozenrath said. "Anyway…it sounds like despite all my hard work, we in fact are just throwing my perfect schedule out the window to slow ourselves down."

He slammed his hand on the papers on the table, setting them on blue fire.

"Was that your only copy?" Wuya asked. "Because we're still going to need to know WHAT is on the list. We're just going to do it in a different order."

Mozenrath cringed. "…It doesn't matter; I have it memorized."

"I'm surprised you aren't more receptive to the idea, Lord Mozenrath," Snatcher said slyly. "After all, would you rather not surround yourself with your most trusted and proven rather than a host of underripe apprentices? And it seems that all together, we are quite the repository of knowledge about ancient magical doohickeys and somesuch. Furthermore, I should say that as the leader, YOU deserve a moment to rest on your laurels…perhaps while Roman and I are away on our endeavor? The working class taking on the working-class mission."

"The working class strikes back," Roman said with a grin.

"I…" Mozenrath sighed, then slumped back in his chair. "I hate that you're right. Okay. But the previous assignments weren't a mistake. I want that on the record."

"Of course not," said Wuya. "We're trying out different formats to see what fits. That last one ran its course, and now we're doing something better."

"Is there any other business to attend to?" the Huntsman asked.

"Just listing the new itinerary," Mozenrath said. "Dream charms, Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion, go to Hell, find ingredients, brew potion, pass baton, let Snatcher and Roman go on their honeymoon while Vexen finds out what Braig wants, and then…the rest of the list, I guess. Planning the order of that right now is probably futile because by the time we get there, you'll all outvote me to change it all around."

"Now he's getting the idea," said Yzma.

The Huntsman rose. "Then we shall make our way to the Secret Lab to forge the charms at once."

All rose. Wuya waved a hand again. Now everyone was standing at the levers that marked the lab entrance.

"Couldn't have taken us inside the lab?" Roman asked. "No? We gotta do the lever thing?"

"Some traditions can't be broken," said Wuya. Yzma nodded agreement.

"Very well," said the Huntsman. He stormed forward and seized the wrong lever. Roman, Yzma, and Wuya couldn't yell in time to stop him from pulling it down.

...

" – and I'll tell you one thing," Giovanni grumbled as he stumbled over a particularly rocky patch of pasture. "If I'd remembered that we were parked ON THE LITERAL FURTHEST POINT ON THE CONTINENT FROM WHERE WE ENDED UP, I'D – WELL, I GUESS I'D – I'D HAVE BEEN REALLY ANGRY A LOT SOONER!"

He had taken the lead of the group that included Velvet, Emerald, Eleanor, Magilou, Rokurou, Eizen, Car Crash, Flamethrower, Darkstar, Spike, Crusher, and Ben. Emerald was having herself a giggle at Giovanni's frustrations while Crusher attempted to console him: "Well, on the bright side, it's a really nice day, and it's not like there was anything else we could've done…"

"A very astute observation, Crusher," Giovanni said. "Really, this is literally the only choice we had, no shortcuts or anything, so who am I to complain?"

"Hey." Velvet knocked a hand against his forearm. "I want to stop here."

"Huh?" Giovanni halted, inspiring the others to do the same. Everyone got a good look around. There were silhouettes of villages in the distance, but not anything close enough to be of merit. All that was in the immediate vicinity was rolling green plains and a small pond of silvery water.

"You okay?" Emerald asked.

"…Yeah." Velvet produced the two Death Bombs that Hopper had handed off to her. "I just…wanted to use the water to finally make up for my mistake."

"Ohhhh, right!" Magilou remembered. "Those resurrection things! And based on our trip down memory lane, I have a pret-ty good idea of who you're going for."

Velvet approached the shore of the pond. "There were so many who died on our watch," she said. "So many who should've lived. But there's always one that I wish had been…different. I might regret this, maybe even enough to want to kill her all over again, but…I can't keep going unless I know what she would have said. What she will say."

"Yep," said Magilou. "It's exactly who I thought of for bomb #1."

Velvet held the first bomb out over the water. "You had better be reasonable," she muttered. "I'm doing this because what happened to you wasn't right. I just…want to believe that it could've ended differently."

She softly lobbed the bomb into the water. It splashed in and sank. Then, up bubbled the light, and in a flash, there stood the person Velvet had most regretted needing to kill.

The woman who stood in the water had once been a tall, beautiful woman, with long, golden hair and green eyes. She used to wear all white. Now, she was still tall, and a woman, and, by many metrics, beautiful, but no longer in the pristine, orderly way she used to pride herself on. She was dressed in tight, revealing black armor that seemed to fuse with her skin like a carapace. The skin over the left side of her face had become covered in this carapace, and that eye was no longer green but bright pink. Dark, jagged wings made of the metallic exoskeleton that covered her body extended from her back. Her hair was still quite long and golden, but now much messier, a far cry from her former perfect coiffure.

It took her a moment to realize where she was. Who she was. Then she fixed her glare on Velvet. "You," she snarled. "YOU!"

She surged forward. Velvet caught her in the palm of her Nightmare claw, and at the same time, Eleanor, Magilou, and Emerald drew their weapons, ready to converge on the woman if necessary.

"Will you LISTEN to me before you go attacking me?" Velvet seethed. "I brought you back for a reason! That reason is that your death didn't have to happen! So I'm giving you one more choice. Take your second chance, or, if fighting me is more important, go back where you came from!"

The demon-woman gasped, taking several steps backward, eyes widening. Velvet lowered her claw, but her girlfriends still remained at the ready, just in case.

"You…undid it," said the demon-woman. "You killed me, and you gave me away as a sacrifice to the Empyreans…but you just undid it."

"I was almost afraid it wouldn't work," said Velvet. "After all, I wasn't sure the Empyreans would give you up so easily. Either they were done with what they needed you for or the fact that you're two souls fused gave you a loophole."

"Okay…what is going on here?" Emerald asked. "Who's that?"

"Teresa Linares," said Eleanor. "She was once my superior. I looked up to her until I realized how much corruption she stood for. Then she became one of our strongest enemies."

"We kiiiiiinda sorta killed her," Magilou said, "and it was sort of an accident, but also sort of not. Really, we killed her brother, and it was one of those do-or-die things, so then she decided she was going to hate us even more than she already did. She fused with a daemon to become uber-powerful, we killed her in another act of self-defense, and then we sacrificed both their souls to the Empyreans to save the world! Hooraaaaaay!"

Teresa clutched her fists. "I still remember that day," she said, voice quavering. "All I wanted, more than anything, was to save Oscar from himself. I was willing to put aside all the hate I had for you, just so long as you could save him. I believed in you. You'd already done so many things that were impossible!"

"Yeah, well, guess we hit our limit with Oscar," said Rokurou.

"How can you be so callous?" Teresa barked at him.

Rokurou shrugged. "Daemon. You're one now, too. You should get it."

Teresa's eyes began to water. Then she sank to her knees in the muddy shallows, sobbing.

"Is this a chance you want to take?" Velvet said. "Do you want another lifetime to live? Or were you content where you were before?"

"I…I always felt it was too soon," Teresa sobbed. "Even a thousand years later, I…I couldn't let go of the pain from that day. Even after Oscar gave up that pain completely and let himself become one with the Empyreans."

"Sounds like he might be a tougher sell to bring back," Velvet told her. "That doesn't mean its out of the qu – "

"NO!" Teresa shrieked. "…No. He was content. He was finally at peace. It was the happiest I'd ever seen him…when he was…when he was dead." The tears came more strongly. "I never, ever saw him want to live so much as I saw him be proud to die. He wanted to give his soul to this world, to fix what was broken." She wiped at her eyes with the back of a scaly hand. "In the end, there was a visitor to Maotelus. A Shepherd, like Artorius. But…not like Artorius. Oscar just wanted to talk to him, to explain how things became the way they are. He wanted to follow his new Shepherd. He…wanted it more than he wanted to be with me."

"So…awkward question time," said Magilou. "You were probably aware of the whole rumor going around that you and Oscar were more than just siblings. Was that actually true, or did you two just act so weird that everyone drew that conclusion on their own?"

Teresa looked away from Magilou.

"Ohhh, she's not answeriiiiing!" Magilou teased. "I think that tells us – "

"Magilou, please," Eleanor urged. "She's been through enough, and those rumors are old. Even in the Abbey, other exorcists used to say that she and Oscar…that it was inappropriate."

"I…I don't want to go into too many details," Teresa said softly. "But the bond Oscar and I had…I loved him more than anyone. But it…it was killing me from the inside. To see him accept his fate as part of the order of the world and the Empyreans, while I was still broken and unable to heal…that's when I knew. I knew then that everything we'd had together on this world was…for nothing. We had to let each other go."

"It wasn't for nothing," Eleanor urged. "The two of you had a bond. You made memories. Even if it's over, those moments will always be real."

"And I'm betting you sure did make some spicy memories to revisit!" Magilou teased. "Eh? Ehhhh?"

"MAGILOU!" Eleanor spat.

"She still hasn't answered my question!" Magilou pointed out.

"You may be right about those moments and memories," Teresa said softly. "But now…the bond I had with him, however you choose to see it, doesn't matter anymore. We were divided from the moment we died. From the moment he…chose destiny over me."

Velvet nodded. "He was too far gone to save. Even we could see that. There was no choice left but to fight both of you, and only one side could survive."

"I pushed you into that corner," Teresa said softly. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Why did you give me back my life? My world? I've wanted it back for a thousand years, but I don't deserve it! Not after everything I put you through – not after I failed to get through to Oscar! Not after I couldn't answer the Empyreans' call the way he did." She shook her head. "I've tried for so long to let my life here go. But in the end…I have to make the other choice. The choice I thought I could never make. I…I have to let go of Oscar. Because I want my life back. And he's probably so intertwined with the Empyreans that he couldn't come back even if he wanted to."

She turned her face skyward. "OSCAR! I WAS READY TO GIVE EVERYTHING FOR YOU! WHY DID IT HAVE TO END?"

Emerald slowly holstered her guns. "So I'm…sort of getting the picture about her and her brother? Kinda? And it really, really sounds like they needed some space from each other."

"Let me live," Teresa sobbed. "Let me live again. And as punishment, it will be in a world that isn't mine anymore, a world changed by a thousand years – "

"Don't pity yourself too much," Velvet huffed. "If you're willing to try again, there's a place for you. But if you decide to make enemies, then the offer will be taken back. You could come with me and my new friends. We've formed a bigger group than before, but it's for doing what you knew us for. Taking back what we want, taking our revenge, going against the laws set to keep the peace, but always because of what we believe in."

"Are we heroes?" Giovanni asked. "Are we villains? That's the beauty of it! We're neither and both at the same time! Except me. I'm definitely a villain. But Velvet's, like, halfway between 'Chosen One who saved humanity' and 'wrecking ball with anger issues.'"

"No one would expect anything of you except to play along," Velvet went on. "Or, if you wanted to leave, then you could leave and go where you wanted. That's the meaning of free will. That's what Artorius tried to take from you and from all of us. I'm guessing you've spent your whole life being told what to do."

"And I've always been good at what I was asked," Teresa sniffled. "That's why I became an exorcist. Because I was good at doing what they wanted me to do. And I loved to make the legates happy."

"So the choice is yours," said Velvet. "You can go wander off on this world. You can come with us to a new world, and find a new path that isn't Light or Dark. You can take a third option if you think of it. But if you fight me or any of my friends…then I will fight back. And I'll make sure you don't hurt any of mine."

"I…couldn't," Teresa choked.

"Is that Teresa talking?" Velvet barked. "Or is it your pride and the guilt that the Abbey made you wear?"

"Where do you want to go?" Emerald added. "Really. Just tell us where you actually want to be. Don't make it a yes-or-no thing."

"I…I want to be…" Teresa trailed off, obviously grappling with herself. "I want to be with other people. I want to see what they believe outside the Abbey. I want to live, I want to love, and I just want to move on from all of it!"

"We're other people," Magilou reminded her.

"You are," Teresa affirmed. "And it's…the only place I know where to go. You're the only people who remember what this world was like…before." She looked from Velvet to Magilou and Eleanor, then back to Rokurou and Eizen. "I never thought it would be you."

"Hey, I have a question," said Rokurou, "and no, it's not about Oscar. While you were, you know, not alive, did you see the first me? I guess the real me, but I feel plenty real. Was he having the time of his life – uh, death? Did he meet up with the first Eizen again?"

"I don't know," Teresa admitted. "The souls given to the Empyreans were kept in a realm of their own, by the Empyreans' side. Melchior lost all sense of himself and did what he was told in silence. Shigure…vanished, somehow and Melchior had to take over his duties."

"Why doesn't that one surprise me?" Rokurou huffed. "Always did what he wanted, no matter what."

"Then Maotelus came to rule with us," Teresa went on, "and he had no one until the new Shepherd."

"Sorey," said Velvet.

"Yes," Teresa confirmed. "But I never saw another soul from what we would consider mortals."

"So what's with the whole demon fusion thing?" Giovanni asked. "Like, is that the reason you couldn't move on? Because your second soul had business here?"

"I don't know," Teresa said shakily. "When I merged with the therion, we mixed together. I…I pushed her back and drowned her out, but she seeped in through the cracks. There are pieces of her in me, and I can't tell which was me beforehand and which was her. Even the Empyreans didn't bother to separate the two of us. As far as they were concerned…we were one soul. So it must have been true. We became me."

"Yeah, but how'd you do it?" Giovanni asked. "And why?"

Teresa began to talk, but Velvet interrupted; "She wanted power, so she fused with a demon, and she was able to do it because she believed in it." She addressed Teresa once more; "He's not from around here. To tell him the whole story, we'd have to explain a lot more."

"I mean, it's not like we don't have the time," Giovanni said, "since we're walking ALL THE WAY FROM HERE TO THE CITY OF LOG-ROLL!"

"Do you…wanna get up out of the mud?" Emerald asked. "I'm kind of getting sad looking at that."

Velvet extended her hand – her claw retracted – down to Teresa. After some hesitation, Teresa clasped it and let Velvet pull her up to her feet.

"Come over here and sit with the cool kids!" Car Crash urged. So Teresa approached, ready to do just that.

"Who are you?" she asked. "I've observed this world for so long, but you…"

"We're new!" said Spike. "We're from another world. Not the one we're going to, but another one besides that. But right now, you can call us your best buddies!"

"So, what do you like for hobbies?" Flamethrower asked. "Video games? Comic books? Cheerleading? Vintage cars? …Cheerleading?"

"She won't know what any of those are," Ben sighed.

Teresa didn't, in fact. But she was starting to feel far more at ease given the cavalier demeanor of Giovanni's minions. "Well, I…"

As she fell into conversation with them, Velvet palmed the last Death Bomb. "One more soul," she said. "I'd expected her to want Oscar. But now, there's a new opportunity."

She looked back to Magilou and Eleanor.

"Don't look at me!" Magilou shrugged. "It's all up to you."

"Whatever choice you make will be the right one," said Eleanor.

So Velvet looked back to Rokurou and Eizen.

"There's only one choice, if you ask me," said Eizen. "But I won't let it interfere with what you want."

"Yeah, especially because I can see in your eyes that you've made up your mind already," said Rokurou. "And once you've made up your mind, no one and nothing can stop you. Not even me."

Velvet turned back to the pond, putting her faith in herself. She tossed the bomb.

Teresa was drawn out of her conversation by the flashing lights. When she saw who'd been resurrected, she let out a gasp of pure shock: "NUMBER ONE?"

It was a small boy with long silver hair, clad in a loose white tunic and baggy white pants.

Velvet turned back to look at Eizen. "Was that your choice?"

Eizen nodded. "Yes. It was."

"Not Aifread?" Eleanor said in confusion.

"Aifread wouldn't have wanted this," Eizen said. "If I know him, he's at home sailing the waters of whatever life comes after this. And let's not forget that the original version of me is in the same place. For all I know, that version is reunited with Aifread, and I wouldn't let my own desires deprive that Eizen of that connection."

"I'm on that pirate ship too, right?" Rokurou asked.

"I wouldn't set sail without you on board," Eizen assured.

Velvet turned back to the little boy. She bent down, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Is this what you want?" she asked him. "To live again?"

He trembled violently, as though feverish. Tears welled up in his own eyes as he nodded. Then he raised a hand, pointing at Teresa.

"I'm sorry, Number One," Teresa said. "I won't have anything to do with…with that again. I don't control you anymore. I don't want to."

"I think it's safe to say she's telling the truth," said Velvet.

"So for those of us who are confused right now…" Giovanni brought up.

"He was Teresa's personal malak," said Eleanor. "Meaning she used him as a slave to do her bidding."

"Well, that's all kinds of messed up," Giovanni told Teresa. "And, I mean, we take messed-up here, but just…don't do that to any of our people, okay? Or anyone else."

"He was killed in a clash with Laphicet," said Eizen. "Reuniting the two of them won't be easy. But I think it will allow Laphicet to heal from his own guilt to see his victim alive again."

"Also," Rokurou told Teresa, "his name isn't 'Number One' anymore. It's Silva."

"Silva," Velvet said softly. "Do you want to see Zaveid again?"

Silva nodded fervently.

"Right now, he's on an important mission," said Velvet. "But when he's done, he will come back to the home where we all live. If you come with us, you can see him again. He'll be glad to see you."

Silva looked pleadingly to Teresa.

"What do you want from me?" she asked. "I won't do it again. I won't control you!"

"That's not what he's asking," Eizen said sternly. "He wants to be sure he can trust us."

"…Oh," Teresa realized. "And I'm the only one he knew well enough to listen to."

She stepped forward. "Numb – Silva. I give you my word as an exorcist that you can trust these people."

That was difficult for Silva to parse out, since he wasn't even sure how trustworthy Teresa was to begin with. However, in the absence of any other choice, it was all he knew to agree to. Especially if there was even the slightest chance that he could see Zaveid again. Zaveid, who had been his caretaker for such a short time and promised to be a surrogate father to him…before Laphicet had removed Silva from the equation.

He trudged forward, out of the water.

"Uh, you okay?" Giovanni walked over to him. "You seem a bit down. Anything you wanna get off your chest?"

Silva simply looked up at him with shining eyes.

"You don't talk, do you?" Giovanni realized. "Hey, that's okay! You don't need a voice to be a badass. So, I'm Giovanni and I'm your new boss, and I wanna make your stay here as part of the Heathens as comfortable as possible. So if you see anything you want, just point it out and we'll stop and make it happen. We'll even steal stuff! We do that a lot around here, actually, but you don't have to join in on that part if you're not comfortable with it yet. Though I will say that once you've tried evil, you never wanna go back. Just sayin'. Y'know, you need a cool minion name, but 'Silva' is actually kind of perfect as-is. I mean, it's because you're SILVER, like a silver bullet or a silver spoon or a silver…uh…porcupine? Yeah, I ran out of silver things. But I promise we're gonna take care of you. There's one thing you have to do, though."

Silva nodded.

"Be honest about when you want something," Giovanni said. "I'm guessing that you're kinda used to waiting for Devil Lady over there to tell you what you want."

"I do not approve of that name," Teresa scoffed. "If anything, use 'Ice Queen.'"

"Ice Queen!" Giovanni said. "Wait, that's also what they call Yang's buddy. Eh, you two can share. You're hardly ever in the same room. Anyway, Silva – geez, that's such a perfect villain name, I can't really improve on that – you're used to Ice Queen telling you everything you should think and feel, right?"

Silva nodded.

"Well, you gotta start deciding what you think and feel on your own!" Giovanni urged. "Deep down, you can't just be okay with someone deciding who you are. You already are someone. Right?"

Silva thought it over, then gave one uncertain nod.

"There we go. No one's gonna tell you what to do anymore. Here at the Heathens, we decide for ourselves what we wanna do. Even if it's a really bad idea! …Okay, scratch that, there are some things that are OBVIOUSLY not safe and I won't stand by and watch those go down. Like, if you spill thumbtacks on the carpet and don't pick them up, or if you don't look both ways before crossing a street that the trams use. But anything else is fair game! You can do whatever you want! Whaddaya wanna do right now?"

Silva pointed at Giovanni.

"Right, come home with us," Giovanni said. "You are gonna love the mansion. We can have our resident sorcerer enchant you a special room. Trust me, we found out that he can totally abuse his spells to make more rooms, and the mansion is WAY bigger on the inside than the outside now. We could make you a cool silver room where everything's shiny. Or anything else you want."

Silva nodded.

"Okay!" Giovanni clapped his hands together. "We've got Silva and Ice Queen on board, and resolved a whole lot of trauma that's apparently a thousand years old! And now that Bear Trap is staying back with Innominat and all the hero types, we don't have to be so hush-hush about the secret side trip. We're gonna get on a pirate ship, and we're gonna go to my world to pick up some new old friends! And after that, it's straight home!"

Velvet nodded. "Let's get moving."

The troop marched once more, now with Silva and Teresa in step.

"I am just so excited to see the look on Bear Trap's face when we bring Trixie and Feenie home with us!" Giovanni squealed. "It's gonna be perfect!"

...

The same dream. Over and over, since Rapunzel had come to the Mystic Isles. Each time, a little clearer, a little more discernible, but always the same series of events.

It began with a perfect flashback to Radiant Garden, when Blackheart had stormed the castle and left so much destruction in his wake. He'd looked her in the eye and begun an incantation that had a familiar cadence but unfamiliar words: "Wither and decay, end this destiny…"

She couldn't remember it all. Not from just that memory. It was two lines. The incantation had four. But she had a strong feeling that the other two were in her memory somewhere, for different reasons.

Those reasons were what came next. She was a little girl again, sweeping up the dust from the tower floor. Gothel milled about in the background, humming the Healing Incantation, but with the wrong words: "Wither and decay…end this destiny…"

Rapunzel still couldn't recall, exactly, the words. All she knew was the memory that resurfaced in this dream, of the day that she had tried to sing that strange song: "Wither and decay – "

"NO!" Gothel rushed to seize Rapunzel. "YOU MUSTN'T EVER SING THAT SONG! NOT ONCE! NOT EVER!"

Rapunzel was in tears for having disappointed Gothel. Gothel quickly changed tacks, smoothing her hair: "Ohhhh, no no no, sweetie, that was Mama's fault for singing a grown-up song in front of a little girl. I won't sing that song again, and you won't ever sing that song again. Do you understand me?"

"Yes…"

But this was where the dream became unfamiliar. No memory of Rapunzel's. She was walking across the wooden floorboards of a dim study dominated by giant gears set in the walls, stained-glass windows, and stacks of books with gorgeous covers. A man sat at a desk at the far end. He was cloaked in black leather, with not a single part of his body showing.

"Let's see…" he muttered to himself as he pressed a pen to a blank sheet of paper inside some sort of journal. "How about…okay. Flower, gleam and glow…let your power shine…make the clock reverse…bring back what once was mine. Okay, corny, but it can work. So how about we repeat it one more time, but now the third line is 'Heal what has been hurt.' Ha, gotcha. That one's gonna filter out the Fountain-of-Youth chasers from the real champions."

Rapunzel drew ever closer to the man. "Hello?" she asked. "Who are you?"

He didn't answer. He wasn't even aware she was there. "Now for the Darkness half," he muttered. "This one has to punch hard. For phase one, how about…hm…wither and decay. Yes. I like that. End this destiny." He wrote the words hastily on the page. "Break these – "

Then the entire scene was gone. The study, the man, the book, everything. Rapunzel simply stood in a void of pure white.

There appeared a new figure. Cloaked, like the writing man, but in white, not black. His exact wording changed every time, but it was always a similar sentiment.

"That vision is not for you to see," said the Anti-White Coat. "You cannot taint your Light with such Darkness. Stick with the incantation you know. How is it that you keep coming back here? Is it the power of sun and moon attempting to reach you themselves, or is it a sinister force that tries to corrupt you? No matter which, I will not see you corrupted. Go to fairer dreams."

He then changed the void. Every time, Rapunzel somehow knew that he was the reason that the void took a new landscape. From there, the dream played out almost too happily. It was a dream in which she relived her escape from the tower, except this time, Sora was there along with Eugene, and was rather uncharacteristically grumpy about Eugene relegating him to sidekick. Then they undertook the journey to Corona. The Snuggly Duckling was bypassed, but Rapunzel got to indulge in all sorts of small pleasures, like blowing dandelion seeds and having a splash-fight in a nearby pond.

By the end of it, she would have almost forgotten about the incantation and the strange vision of the man at his desk. Then, all at once, before she woke up, it would come rushing back at great speed, and she would feel a revulsion, because she couldn't afford to forget –

That was always when she woke up. Today, it was to the sound of a loud bugle.

"Hey!" Elena greeted, waving at Rapunzel. Judging by the bugle in her hand, she'd been that day's alarm. "So I know this is about an hour earlier than we usually get going, but I'm guessing every minute counts when we're going up against tyrants, and honestly, I'm just REALLY excited to start today's training. I've been practicing the featherwalk for about an hour already. And way late last night. I actually am not running on that much sleep. But that's okay! Heroes don't need sleep! And – are you okay?"

"Yeah," Rapunzel replied. "Like you said, heroes don't need sleep." She forced a smile.

"Yeah, now that I said that, I'm rethinking it," said Elena. "Maybe you should go back to sleep for another hour. If you want to. I'll just – "

"No, no," Rapunzel said as she slid out of bed. "It's just…weird dreams. It'll be good for me to get out in the field so I can…forget about them."

"Oof, been there," said Elena. "I'm always surprised when I wake up every morning and I'm not in the Amulet."

"I'll get ready," Rapunzel told her. "Then we get to go to the Isle of Forever Frost!"

She proceeded to the nearest bathroom, telling herself repeatedly that whatever the incantation had been, it surely didn't matter now.

...

The Van Eltia sailed peacefully onward through interspace, with Eizen at the helm and Giovanni right by his side. The others had all gotten involved in a very intense game of on-deck hacky sack, which confused Teresa to no end despite her being incredibly good at the game.

"Man, this is gonna get even better when we pick up the others," Giovanni remarked. "Prediction: Once-ler is going to be SO BAD at this game."

"I thought we dropped off Electro and Sandman to get Molly's friends back," Eizen said.

"We did!" Giovanni affirmed. "But Ainsley and Once-ler ended up wanting to come along too, and since they have all that baggage to work out, I figured, why not? They'll probably end up talking it out on their adventure and coming to some kind of mutual understanding, around the same time that Electro and Sandman finally stop beating around the bush and kiss."

"Giovanni – "

"I know what you're going to say. Playing matchmaker is a dangerous game. But this is a bet I'm willing to go all-in on. Sometimes, when two people are made for each other, you just know. Like you and Rokurou, who is…somehow worse at hacky sack than I imagined."

"LISTEN TO ME," Eizen hissed. "I've been on course. We should have seen your world by now, right?"

"Nah, you're probably off by a mile," Giovanni said. "There's been no sign of the Lexicosm for hours now. You might wanna recheck…your…"

A chunk of disembodied land, an asteroid, floated past the ship. On it was a small wooden shack. To many, it might not have meant much. But Giovanni knew Sheriff Gorou's office from Redwood Run when he saw it.

On the other side of the ship, more debris was coming into view. Glass and metal rebars. The type you'd see in skyscrapers that made up Sweet Jazz City.

"I…" Giovanni was at a loss for words. "That was…this is…"

"I was hoping I was wrong," Eizen said softly.

"It's gone," Giovanni said, barely a whisper. "It's…all gone." Then he fell to his knees, and a scream tore from him: "WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE IS IT? WHY ISN'T IT HERE?"

That got the attention of the others; Velvet, Emerald, Rokurou, Crusher, and Dark Star were the first to arrive. "What's wrong?" Crusher asked frantically. "How can I fix it?"

"This is…home," Giovanni said, his voice cracking more than ever. "This is where our world should be. And it's…it's all…"

Crusher felt his heart drop like a stone. "You mean…our home is gone? Everyone we knew is…is…"

"How is that even possible?" Dark Star asked. "Did it just – did it just blow up or something? Or did someone…are you SURE this is where it should be?"

A floating piece of the sign of the Blyndeff Toy Emporium confirmed the worst fears.

Spike let out a wordless scream. Car Crash burst into tears, falling to the deck, and Ben immediately dropped to his side to try and comfort him. Flamethrower started laughing; "Ha ha, really funny, now whoever did the prank and hid the entire world can stop! You hear me? I didn't fall for your stupid prank!"

"They're all dead," Car Crash whimpered. "My mom and my family and – and - !"

Ben didn't know what to say. He didn't have that many attachments back home – not many people liked him – but even if the loss of all he held familiar hadn't affected him at all, to see Car Crash destroyed like this would have broken his heart anyway. He just placed a hand on Car Crash's arm, wondering what he could even possibly say.

"My moms," Giovanni sobbed. "The old library hangout. The museum! It's…it's all…" He sniffled, wiping away his tears. "No. No, I don't get to be sad. Not when…not when we sent those four here to get Trixie and Feenie, and now…Bear Trap might never see her friends again."

"And we might never see ours," Velvet realized.

"You can't just KILL Sandman," Emerald said quickly. "This was established. He's immortal. He has to have survived. And he would've figured out how to get the others out with him. Right?"

"If anyone, it'd be him," Magilou agreed, "and I can't see the big lug messing it up that badly."

"Then let's sweep the perimeter," Rokurou suggested. "See if we can't find him around here."

The Van Eltia made a circular course around where the Lexicosm would have been. There was no sign of life whatsoever.

"So that's it," Giovanni said softly. "They're…and it's…"

"Eizen," Velvet commanded. "Take us home to Twilight Town. We can process this better once we're home."

"Assuming our home there is even where it's supposed to be!" Car Crash sobbed. "What if that's gone too?"

"Let's not jump to conclusions!" Eleanor said hastily. "We have no proof that Twilight Town isn't exactly where we left it. Let's just go there and see for ourselves!"

Giovanni was now slumped sitting on the deck, feeling the smallest he'd ever felt. Quietly, Crusher knelt beside him, and, at a loss for words, just pulled Giovanni into a gentle yet all-surrounding embrace.

Giovanni returned it, clinging tightly.

"Was it because of us?" Teresa muttered to herself. "Number – Silva and I were returned from the dead, and in exchange, so many more were lost."

"It wasn't anything like that," Velvet snapped, having heard those words. "This was unrelated."

"But…" Eleanor said softly. "How are we going to tell everyone else that Electro, Sandman, Ainsley, and Once-ler are gone?"

...

While riding the flesh train back to Hell, Yzma suddenly said, "I have it! What if we held – "

Snatcher was on the exact same wavelength. He said, in the same cadence as her, "AN EVIL ROYAL BALL!"

She put up her hand for a high-five, and he missed, smacking her in the face. "I can assure you I did not mean to do that," Snatcher said quickly.

The two of them, plus Mim, Aghoul, Mozenrath, the Huntsman, Roman, Wuya, and Vexen, were the only passengers aboard Enmu. They'd arranged themselves to have a conference as the train proceeded.

"The karaoke divas have done it again!" Yzma crowed.

"As always," said Snatcher.

"And you couldn't've done it without your emotional support redheads in eyeliner," said Roman. "Right, Eyeliner?"

Wuya didn't hear him. She was preoccupied looking at her scroll.

Roman snapped his fingers in her face, to which she just said "Eh." So then he took the scroll away from her completely. "What are you doing, playing one of those match-threes?"

"Texting the young'uns," Wuya replied. "Draco, Irmaplotz, Drake, et cetera. Not to be a Boomer, but none of them so far have been able to tell me what the Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion is. Draco disappoints me the most. He's from an accredited school of witchcraft and wizardry! Seriously, what are they teaching the kids these days? Back when I was their age, that was basic knowledge…"

"Not really related to your gripe," said Roman, "but what's a Boomer?"

"Earth terminology for people of a certain age," said the Huntsman. "An age that Wuya is far, far older than."

"Oh, shush, you," Wuya huffed.

"So it has nothing to do with explosions," Roman said. "Just to be perfectly clear."

The looks he got from Wuya and the Huntsman confirmed that.

"Anyway," said Roman. "Evil royal ball. The solution to all of our problems! …How exactly is it a solution to all of our problems?"

"Don't you see?" said Yzma. "We'll announce the plan to abdicate the throne, but ONLY to a suitable heir whom we meet at the ball."

"To which we will invite the common people, of course," said Snatcher. "That's who we're targeting. But also, a good portion of our own. Just so the others think we're actually looking for someone more devious."

"Someone will try to trick their way to the top," said Yzma. "Not an evildoer, but a liberator who wants to usurp the throne from me. Which is why we need it to look like this event was by villains, for villains, with the rest of our subjects as set pieces. The do-gooder ascends to the throne – "

"Drinks the potion," said Snatcher, "about which we have let slip JUST ENOUGH that they know about the rhyme aspect – "

"And wishes the Mystic Isles into oblivion!" Yzma clapped. "It's brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT!"

She and Snatcher went for the high-five again, and this time, it actually hit, reverberating throughout the train car.

"It really is brilliant!" Mim realized. "That's new for you, Yzma?"

"I resent – " Yzma began.

"Well, I came up with half the idea," said Snatcher, "so that explains that rare success."

"We came up with the exact same plan at the exact same time!" Yzma reminded him.

"Says you," Snatcher grumbled.

"Either way, it will be quite delicious to get to wear our funeral best and dance the night away," Aghoul pointed out.

"We should invite the newbies," Roman said. "All the recruits. I feel like they need one big finale where we combine the squads. Also there are some combos I really just wanna see interact."

"Verosika and Vincent," said Aghoul.

"Is nothing compared to the chaos that would be Hiss and Pinstripe," Mim cackled.

"Carrion and Prisma," Wuya volunteered. "Can I have my scroll back now?"

"One, Striker and the lobster," said Roman. "Two, no you can't."

"I'm sorry," said Mozenrath, "where exactly does a 'black hole sun' factor into this plan?"

"It…doesn't?" Yzma replied.

"No one said that," Wuya told him. "That's the song playing overhead."

"Oh, is it now?" Mozenrath's voice dripped with sarcasm. "I suppose it is. Maybe I would be able to differentiate it from the conversation we're having if it wasn't PLAYING AT A VOLUME THAT WOULD LEGALLY QUALIFY AS TORTURE!"

Enmu's construct-head dropped down from the ceiling on a snaking tube of flesh to grin at Mozenrath. "You know, I think I will turn it up."

"It's at least a MILD improvement on the insipid dance-pop from earlier," Vexen muttered. "I think, at any rate. I still have plenty of time to gather evidence."

"What can I say?" Enmu chuckled. "The others like to party, but when they're away, I like to play a little better to my own sensibilities. Though if any of you has a request, I could change the song." He turned to smirk at Vexen. "Perhaps 'Revenge Is Sweeter Than You Ever Were'? I'm sure you're not tired of it yet."

"I've had enough of it for the moment," Vexen told him. "I'd rather you play something more akin to – "

Then he stopped himself.

"Were you about to request music?" Roman asked. "Who are you, and where's the real Iceman?"

"It's nothing," Vexen huffed.

"He is dating a bard," Mim pointed out. "That's got to be the difference!"

"Is it one of YOUR songs?" Aghoul teased.

"One of you request something from your ridiculous library before I select one of you at random as a 'volunteer' for my next human trial!" Vexen snapped.

"Karaoke night, train edition?" Yzma asked. "You do instrumentals?"

"Some," said Enmu. "What were you thinking?"

Which is how the others ended up watching Yzma sway seductively up and down the aisle; "She wanted to test her husband. She knew exactly what to do! A pseudonym to fool him; she couldn't have made a worse move!"

Snatcher followed her steps, putting on Frou Frou's voice; "She sent him scented letters, and he received them with a strange delight! Just like his wife, but how she was before the tears!"

But the other founders weren't the only ones watching. A scrying portal peered right into the train car without any of them aware. The sight of Yzma and Snatcher harmonizing on "She signed the letter AAAAAALL YOURS! BABOOSHKA, BABOOSHKA, BABOOSHKA, YEAH YEAH!" was on full display to Ursula.

"Hm…Yzma's voice is on point, but her choreography was meant for a woman with curves," Ursula remarked. "As for Mr. Snatcher, he knows how to sway, but he's oddly pitchy today. But that's not what we came here to see, is it?"

She waved a hand, muting the scene but leaving the visuals going. "So now we know their game. The Satanarchaeolidealchoellish Notion Potion? Absolute child's play, but if that's what they think of as a deus ex machina, then it will make a fine shipwreck in the end. As for the ball…I couldn't have asked for a better opening. Why, it will be a trip down memory lane for you, won't it?"

She grinned at one of the latest newcomers to Maleficent's operation. A stately, elderly woman clothed in deep purple, her steel-gray hair perfectly coiffed atop her head.

"Indeed," said Lady Tremaine. "I shall tell my daughters to select appropriate attire. After all, we have a prince to…charm."

...

At the base of the mountain on the Isle of Forever Frost, Rapunzel, Sofia, Ven, Papyrus, and Stork waited. The latter was finally wearing a thick coat that doubled his size and made him look like a marshmallow, and that made the climate at least tolerable.

"She's got this," said Rapunzel.

"SHE'S TOTALLY GOT THIS," Papyrus agreed.

"You've both been saying that for the past half hour," Stork pointed out.

"Are you implying I'm afraid she failed?" Rapunzel asked. "Because…I'm not. I don't think that. Haha…ha…I really hope she didn't."

"We gotta have faith in her," said Ven. "And even if she fails the test, the most important thing is that she comes back okay. The test doesn't mean everything."

"That's right," said Rapunzel. "Honestly, that's what I'm worried about most. Not if she gets the enchantlet, but if she makes it up and down the mountain okay."

"I wouldn't underestimate Elena," Sofia volunteered. "She's already been tougher than a lot of people."

"Someone's coming down!" Ven announced, pointing to a small patch of red that was careening down the mountain slope.

It soon became visually clear that it was Elena, riding a stray plank of wood like a snowboard. She drifted to the bottom of the mountain, kicking up a wave of snow as she pulled to a halt. "Oops…"

Rapunzel, Papyrus, Ven, Stork, and Sofia were covered in the snowdrift. "This is fine," Stork said flatly.

Then they all shook and brushed away the snow.

"Well?" Rapunzel asked. "Did you get it?"

"I don't know." Elena held up her right arm. "You tell me."

There glistened an enchantlet, bright red and shimmering gold.

"YOU DID IT!" Rapunzel began to leap for joy. "YOU'RE A PROTECTOR!"

"AWESOME!" Ven added.

"I knew you could do it!" said Sofia.

"YOU'RE GOING TO BE THE BEST PROTECTOR EVER!" Papyrus gushed.

Stork just gave her a thumbs-up and a sincere smile.

"Like it was hard," Elena scoffed. "Honestly, piece of cake! …Once I got my crystal magic to stop reacting to my anxiety. But we're good to go now!"

"There's still more stuff we need to train you in," Ven pointed out. "But it should all go a lot easier now."

"Maybe we should get somewhere warmer for that part," said Stork. "Just sayin'."

The group began the hike to the bridge off Forever Frost. However, halfway across that bridge, another person began to run at them from the other side, very intently heading for them. She was unarmed, and her expression spoke of desperation.

"Wait a minute," Ven said, taking in the purple dress of the newcomer, the red locks. "I know that girl – "

"Isn't that one of Cinderella's stepsisters?" Sofia wondered aloud.

Ven immediately drew his Keyblade on instinct, bracing it.

The woman didn't recognize Ven, but she did recognize the blade. She halted, putting out her hands; "Whoa, whoa! Stop! I'm a friend! I'm not here to hurt you!"

"Yeah, right!" Ven snarled. "I still remember what you did to Cinderella, and Aqua told me all about how you let the Darkness take you over!"

"Ven, I think she might be telling the truth," said Sofia. "When I saw Cinderella, back when I first became princess, she told me that she always wished she and her stepsisters could've become true sisters. I think she knew that there was good in them."

"Believe me, I have a lot of ground to make up with Cinderella," said the woman. "But that's not important right now. There's an emergency, and I…I don't know who else to go to."

"Am I supposed to believe that, Anastasia?" Ven hissed. "Not after what I saw."

Anastasia did a double take. "Do we…know each other? Wait, you said Aqua. That's that blue girl, isn't it? Urgh, if Cinderella could've just married that girl instead of the prince, then we could've had him all to ourselves! …But that's not important anymore. Where were you? I just remember that girl, and the…handsome man who escorted Cinderella to the door." Anastasia gave a dreamy sigh. Then shook herself out of it.

"I guess you didn't see me," said Ven. "On your world, I was small as a mouse. I helped Cinderella put together her gown for the ball. Roosafee almost ate me!"

"Roosa…" Anastasia puzzled that one over. "Oh, you mean Lucifer! He was a pretty mean old cat. So you're telling me you were sneaking around my house without any of our permission?"

"I know you tore that dress to pieces," Ven hissed. "It was all Cinderella wanted! To have one night to herself and wear something that was just for her!"

"She WANTED my PRINCE – " Anastasia halted, inhaling and exhaling. "No, no. I'm done with that. I promised myself I was done with that. Look – "

"Aqua said you and your family were incinerated by the Heartless," Ven snapped. "That's the price for getting too close to them. I'm guessing when your world returned from the Darkness, so did the three of you."

"You know, I liked it better when the little girl was standing up for me," Anastasia said flatly.

"Ven, we should listen to her," Sofia urged. "Then we can decide whether to trust her or not."

"Look," Anastasia sighed, "I know how my story sounds. But you have to believe me, things are different! I'm good now! Things got all fiery and weird and dark for a bit, and when the sun finally came back up on our world, I realized I didn't want that life with Darkness anymore! Mother was too used to it, and honestly, it was starting to scare me! So I made some changes. I started going out, talking to townspeople…I met someone, and we dated for a little bit…and then of course Mother got ahold of the Fairy Godmother's wand and changed time so I fit the slipper instead of Cinderella, but I'd had just about enough of her by then! And now, ohhhh, things are just going so wrong…"

"What's the big emergency?" Rapunzel asked.

"So, here, on this world, there's gonna be a royal ball," Anastasia explained. "Mother just learned about it from her…friends." She looked to Ven. "If you thought Mother was scary, you aren't ready for the people she's working with. There's this witch who can turn into a dragon, and this other witch who can use a mirror to see anything – "

"I think I know who you're talking about," Ven realized. "Trust me. I'm ready for them."

"No one's said anything about a royal ball," Elena argued.

"Because the word hasn't been put out yet!" Anastasia urged. "Only Mother, her friends, and these WHAM people know about it! And Mother…thought it would be a good place for me and Drizella to make up for…failing her at the ball on our world."

"The WHAM ARMY wouldn't invite Maleficent to their ball," said Stork. "Meaning either you're lying, or…"

"Mother and her friends are going to crash the ball," Anastasia said desperately. "I'm afraid of what might happen. It's going to be dangerous, and I…" She blinked rapidly, as her eyes were welling up. "I'm scared. Drizella has never wanted to leave Mother's side. I'm ready to go and get out before we have to go to this ball, but I…I can't leave without her. I need someone to get her away from Mother and convince her to come with me! It never works when I try it on my own, and I know Cinderella's not the right person to ask for this – never mind that she still annoys me a little bit – but you're all heroes! That means you can help! And I…I just want my sister back."

"SHE SEEMS TO BE GENUINE," Papyrus said.

"You think that about everyone," said Stork. "I smell a rat here."

"WELL, THAT'S WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT EVERYONE," Papyrus retorted.

"Touché," said Stork. "Ven? Rapunzel? Sofia? Elena? Thoughts?"

"Hey, I don't know anything about this situation," Elena said defensively.

"I still don't trust her," Ven growled.

"I do," said Sofia. "I think she's telling the truth. And I know Cinderella wants to make things up to her."

"Well…innocent until proven guilty?" Rapunzel suggested. "It does sound a little weird, but if she's telling the truth and we don't help…"

"I'm with Rapunzel on this one," Elena agreed.

"So we'll go halfway," Stork suggested. "We'll help, but I'm keeping a close eye on her."

"Honestly, I'm just glad someone's going to be paying attention to me for once," Anastasia sighed. "I don't have anything to hide. You can watch me, you can ask me anything…I don't care. I just want my sister."

"What if your sister doesn't want to go with you?" Ven asked.

"She…she can't," Anastasia sputtered. "Drizella and I are a team. She's just doing this because…well…because Mother has always made us compete, and it's hard to drown her out."

"We might not be able to convince her that your mother is doing anything wrong," Rapunzel pointed out. "She's your mother, which means that your sister is…probably used to seeing her as the person who knows best and will look out for her. She probably isn't ready to look at the flaws."

"But you're still going to try," Anastasia asked softly. "Right?"

"Of course we are," said Rapunzel. "We'll just have to…get creative."

"What else do you know about this ball the WHAM ARMY's holding?" Stork asked.

"Well, Mother said they were going to be using this kind of…reverse wishing potion," said Anastasia. "They're going to try to trick someone into taking over the throne and drinking it. But whatever you wish for, it comes out the opposite, so if someone good takes the throne and wishes for good things – "

"They'll ruin the Mystic Isles," Elena gasped.

"There has to be a way we can counteract the spell," said Rapunzel. "All we need is to find out how. And now that we know what we're up against, we have plenty of people around us who are well-versed in magic. We can ask."

"Good call," said Stork. "Back to the forge? Or should we pick somewhere else just in case we're being played?"

"Anastasia isn't tricking us!" Sofia insisted.

"If it'll make you feel better, you don't have to show me anything important," said Anastasia. "I promise."

"Then we can split up!" said Rapunzel. "Stork and I can go ask at the forge, while Elena, Sofia, Anastasia, Ven, and Papyrus ask around other places on the Isles and look for a new place we can set up camp!"

"I LIKE THIS IDEA A LOT!" said Papyrus.

Anastasia looked to Ven, who was still giving her the most venomous of glares. "Are you going to be mad at me the whole time?" she asked.

Ven finally put away Wayward Wind. "No. If you're telling the truth, then you need my help. And that's what I trained to do."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Anastasia flew forward, practically smothering Ven in a tight hug.

"H-hey!" Ven was thrown off balance, but then gave in; it was rather nice to be hugged by an old enemy.

"If the WHAM ARMY and Maleficent want to play games at the ball," Rapunzel declared, "then we're shutting this party down."

...

Not a few hours before the Van Eltia cruised through the wreckage of the Lexicosm, the world had been there, perfectly intact. In fact, things couldn't have been going more perfectly. Ainsley, Once-ler, Sandman, and Electro had been able to find the children in question fairly quickly, and due to the horrid state that Cyclonis had left the city in, neither was keen on sticking around.

"Because the next thing you know," Phoenica "Feenie" Fleecity XV scoffed, "the Songstress will be back, and my family will be pushing me to go fight, and you know what fighting is? Scary. It's SCARY. And I don't like scary! That giant…nightmare emo girl was bad enough."

"My relatives are taking advantage of the chaos to ransack the city," Trixie Roughouse said flatly. "I don't feel like ransacking. Also, I'm pretty sure my one cousin is dead at this point, and nobody cares, so you know what? I'm gonna go missing too. See how fast they realize I'm gone."

"I feel like maybe we should help these kids work out their problems," Sandman mused.

"That would be the healthiest option for all involved," said Ainsley, "but it's also the exact opposite of what we came here to do."

"We could stay here and work things out with our relatives," Trixie said, "or we could go with you and see Molly. I think it's pretty obvious which one is the right choice here."

"It's hanging with Molly," said Feenie. "In case there was doubt."

"Well, the children have spoken," said Once-ler. "Now all we have to do is kill some time until our ride shows up."

"Hey," said Electro. "I know you said no ransacking. But is a heist ransacking?"

"No, a heist is classier than a ransack," said Trixie. "What were you thinking?"

And that was how they ended up clustered in a back alley full of miniature castle towers, about the size of dollhouses, that generated a forcefield keeping them captive while the last remaining cop in Sweet Jazz City and her accomplice stormed toward them.

"Last time I ask nicely," Percival King snarled. "Give me the ancient pharaoh's tiara."

"You'll never take me alive!" Sandman barked.

"With all due respect, Flint," said Percy, "earlier, when we had that very complicated chase sequence that resulted in much exposition about one another's lives despite our consideration of each other as rivals, you made it very clear that you cannot die."

"Yeah," Sandman said with a grin. "Which means you just WON'T TAKE ME. Or any of my pals here!"

"Just to be clear," said Ramsey. "When Nurse Lucafont was flirting with me, that was just an act? A diversion?"

"I wasn't…flirting?" Ainsley said, confused. "I was trying to talk about nurse stuff. You know, like emergency craniectomies."

"Which isn't nurse talk," said the Once-ler, "but it also isn't flirty, so I'm not sure where you were getting…" His eyes flicked to behind Percy and Ramsey. "OH MY GOSH!" He pointed dramatically. "IS THAT A CRIME IN PROGRESS?"

No one flinched.

"Okay, I thought that would work," Once-ler sighed.

"I thought it would too," said Ainsley.

Electro charged up electricity by rubbing his palms. "This won't be pretty – " he began.

"HEY!" Feenie stamped. "What was our deal? NO RANSACKING!"

"Yeah," Trixie agreed. "This cop's annoying, but she hasn't earned death by electrocution yet."

"I wasn't going to kill her," Electro clarified. "Just stun her." Still and all, he lowered his hands. "But a deal's a deal."

"We'll just have to get out of this with the sweat of our brows and the grease of our knuckles!" Sandman proclaimed.

"I don't think you used a single word in that sentence correctly," said Once-ler.

"He used 'we'll' correctly…?" Ainsley was confused.

"Geez," Ramsey sighed. "They really don't make thugs like they used to. I thought that Giovanni kid was an oddball, but you all make him look downright normal."

"Giovanni?" said Trixie. "You mean like the name of my missing and presumed-dead cousin, and also what happens to be the same name of one of the crime bosses that my new friends here started working for shortly after he disappeared? Which are two unrelated incidents, by the way. Anyway, my point is, that's obviously a third, also unrelated guy and that's a way more popular name than I thought."

No one saw any problem with this logic.

"So…um…can we actually fight our way out of this?" Ainsley wondered. "Or is this where we have to admit that our life of crime has finally caught up with us and we have to face the consequences of our own actions?"
"I REFUSE to face the consequences of my own actions!" Once-ler proclaimed, raising his fist to the sky. "CHARGE!"

He took off running, his slender body zigzagging through the gaps in the forcefields. Not exactly sure what he was going to do once he got to Percy and Ramsey, but ready to definitely do something to get past them.

"That's it!" Ramsey yelled. "You're getting GOLDBRICKED!"

And all at once, Once-ler turned into a golden statue and hit the ground. Ramsey was quite proud of himself –

Until the process undid itself.

In exactly the reverse motion of how he'd fallen, Once-ler rose back up and transformed back into a human of flesh and bone. "Okay, what just happened?" Once-ler asked.

"Why did you let him go?" Percy asked Ramsey.

Ramsey, white as a sheet, barely croaked out, "I didn't…"

"Least you could say is 'You're welcome.'"

Ramsey and Percy turned around. Sandman, Electro, Ainsley, Once-ler, Trixie, and Feenie peered around them to see who had arrived.

Zora Salazar stood tall, pleased as could be, aiming a gun directly at Ramsey's head. "Y'know," she said, "I didn't even come here expectin' to find ya. This was just a bonus."

"You just got SUNDIALED!" Yoomtah Zing was dancing sprightly in place beside Zora.

"Her Epithet must be 'sundial,'" Ainsley deduced. "It must reverse the chronology of particular isolated events, which is how she was able to reverse exactly what Ramsey did."

"Sharp mind," Zora said. "If only you were dressed to match it."

"Zora Salazar," Percy growled. She reached to her hip for her real-ass goddamn sword, drawing it and pointing it directly to Zora's chin. "Come to settle a score for Bliss Ocean? I will warn you that I won't go down without a fight."

"A fight you'd lose," said Zora. "Oh, the fun I'd have wringin' the life out of both of ya…and your little pals for good measure. Just in case."

"She just threatened us," said Once-ler.

"That means we have only one choice left!" Feenie proclaimed. "Team up with the law in order to bring down the greater evil!"

"I'm not opposed to that," Percy called back to her.

"Oh yeah?" Zora moved the gun to aim at Percy. "You gonna call my bluff?"

"Try it," Percy warned.

Zora's finger tightened on the trigger. Then there was the sound of a beep. Yoomtah held up her phone; "It's time! The Rot's finished setting in, and the trigger's about to be pulled!"

Zora then broke out into a great smile, putting down and holstering the gun completely. "I sure did get ya!" she laughed. "I'm not lookin' to end ya here. That wouldn't be a lick of fun at all! Nah, we're here 'cause this is the pickup site."

"So you're…not gonna kill us," Ramsey said. "You're not gonna age us into mummy dust."

"Nah!" Zora cackled. "I'm not gonna do a damn thing to ya."

"HUZZAH!" Feenie crowed. "WE LIVE TO HEIST ANOTHER DAY!"

Zora stopped her laughing, giving Feenie the most menacing smirk imaginable. "Now, now…I never said that."

The first explosion went off right behind her, shattering the glass of the skyscrapers one block down. Then came a chain, again and again – block after block being obliterated. The streets beneath their feet began to crack and split apart. The sky turned black, and orbs of Darkness floated down from the heavens, their energy pulling anything loose toward them. They swallowed up the remnants of the buildings – numerous pedestrians, all screaming for help – vehicles, debris, everything not tied down.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS, ZORA?" Ramsey screamed, unable to believe how quickly the entire city had turned into an apocalypse.

"Cyclonis made a good start," she said, "but this is how a real destroyer does it."

"It's even better than I imagined!" Yoomtah cheered.

"Why would you DO THIS?" Percy barked. "You're here in this city RIGHT NOW! You'll be destroyed along with it!"

"No, I won't," said Zora. "In three…two…"

A massive Heartless, a Dustflier, divebombed from the sky, landing exactly behind Zora and Yoomtah. Yoomtah sprang up onto its back immediately, waving.

"So this is Bliss Ocean's new tactic?" Percy growled. "They've stopped targeting the Inscribed and are just trying to kill EVERYONE?"

"Bliss Ocean?" Zora vaulted up onto the Dustflier. "I'm done with Bliss Ocean. I found a better gig. And to really answer your question, PERCE, this world may be goin' down…but I sure ain't gonna be on it!"

The Dustflier rocketed high into the air, taking Zora and Yoomtah with it.

"WHAT IS GOING ON?" Trixie shrieked.

"I'm…" Ainsley swallowed hard. "I'm thinking it might be a bad idea to, you know…be here…"

"TAKE DOWN THE FORCEFIELDS!" Electro yelled. "WE CAN'T DIE HERE!"

Percy was in complete agreement. She dissipated her parapets immediately. "I'm going to make a shelter!" she announced.

"Can you even make one that big?" Ramsey asked.

"I HAVE TO!" Percy yelled.

By that time, a fierce wind whipped through, tousling hair and clothes. Feenie, finding this to be quite fearsome indeed, had crumpled to the ground, hugging her knees as she sobbed.

"Hey, hey!" Sandman quickly scooped her up in his arms. "It's okay. We're gonna get you out of this. We're gettin' you back to Molly."

Percy began to concentrate, summoning the largest parapet she'd ever made. She sweated, trying to pull a structure out of the ground that would be suitable for human habitation.

A Dark orb materialized over the alley. Once-ler and Electro were caught in its pull; Ainsley grabbed onto Once-ler's ankles in time to hold him down, but Electro went flying.

"ELECTRO!" Sandman went into overtime on his sand-generation ability, becoming immediately massive enough to keep Feenie cradled delicately in one palm while he reached out his other to seize Electro. He grabbed on before Electro could disappear; a CRACK sounded out, followed by another. Electro was giving off shockwaves of panic, and the hand around him was being galvanized into glass.

"I'm sorry – " Electro began.

"No, you don't apologize!" Sandman told him.

"Save yourself," said Electro. "Let me go – "

"NEVER," Sandman declared. "That mighta been okay for Doc Ock, but not here! Not with me! AND I AIN'T LETTIN' YOU GO!"

"I…I can't do it," Percy realized as her attempt at a parapet crumbled in front of her. "This is our final stand. I suppose…this is where I join my brothers and sisters on the force…only about three of whom I actually liked. Make that two; one was tolerance. All the same, this is a great tragedy indeed."

"HEY, LADY!" Once-ler yelled. "If you had something to build it out of, like a WHOLE LOT of sand, could you get it working?"

"I…suppose that might help," said Percy. "Where do you propose we get that much sand?"

"It's not like anyone here is just MADE OF SAND!" Trixie yelled.

"TRIXIE," Once-ler said.

"Ohhhh," Trixie realized.

Sandman knew his cue. "Cop lady! Start doing, you know, the thing! I'll try and turn into it, and you give me that forcefield stuff if it works like that!"

Percy wasn't too sure if she could trust a thief like Sandman. But she was one hundred percent sure there was no other choice remaining.

Sandman dipped low, dropping off Electro and Feenie next to Percy and Ramsey. Trixie, Ainsley, and Once-ler hurried to their side. Sandman then built himself into a tower-shaped structure, hollow on the inside, surrounding his friends and not-quite-rivals-anymore.

Percy concentrated on the very essence of the word "parapet," directing her energies not to creation but to augmentation. The powers of her stat-boosting structures – defensive, healing, repellent – infused Sandman, turning him into a proper bastion against all that was outside. He felt himself changing, solidifying into a downright castle tower made of sandstone walls and glass windows. He put his face on the low inside of the wall to get a better look at the others and make sure everyone was on board; Percy let him, fixing the face there. Sand rolled beneath everyone's feet, and Percy had everyone jump so a thick sandstone floor could pack itself in.

"Stay here," Percy commanded. "I'm going to see if I can get any other civilians in before it all blows!"

"WHA – NO!" Ramsey yelled. "This is definitely a survival-of-the-fittest situation! Perce, don't you DARE go out there and get yourself killed!"

"IT'S MY DUTY!" Percy yelled. "YOU WON'T STOP ME FROM – "

It never mattered. They'd run out of time. There was a massive rumble, then a great BOOM, and the Sandman tower was now flying straight upward like a rocket ship. Percy pressed herself to a glass window on the lower wall, and what she saw couldn't have been more horrifying.

Her entire home planet imploded. Collapsing into a black hole that ate it from the inside out. Only stray chunks of debris escaped, tearing away when the planet crushed itself.

"No…" Percy whispered. Then, a scream of desperation: "NO!"

Feenie was still sobbing on the floor. "Um…" Ainsley had the feeling they should do something, but had no idea how to begin comforting a child whose entire homeworld had just been destroyed. "Yeah, this is pretty bad, but…yeah, it's pretty bad."

Trixie flew to throw their arms around Feenie. "We're okay," she said softly. "You and me and Molly. We're all okay."

Feenie could think of plenty of things that weren't okay, but her tears were too strong to let her form words.

"Okay," Ramsey panted. "What…the HELL…was that about? Zora's not with Bliss Ocean? She teamed up with someone whose endgame was to do THAT?"

"Well, there has been a surge of interest for villains in teaming up to form large alliances," Ainsley pointed out. "That's what happened to us, and we know of at least two other large entities that are acting as teams."

"If I find out the WHAM's behind this one," Sandman growled, "they're gonna get a piece of me. A piece they wish they never had."

"This doesn't…feel WHAM," said Once-ler. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't put it past them. But I feel like if it was them, it would've been a whole lot less dark and edgy and a little more…how should I put this – "

"Theatrically flamboyant," Ainsley supplied, "with colorful pageantry and witty one-liners meant for everyone to hear as a parting gesture."

"That exactly," said Once-ler.

"When I was with them," said Electro, "they wouldn't have been able to call one of…those creatures. They just used a helicopter."

"Yeah, and then there's the whole thing about how if they blew up this world, they couldn't add it to their big empire thing they're planning," said Sandman. "Again, there are some potential world-blower-uppers on the team, but that's not really the main thing they're doing."

"If I know Zora," said Ramsey, "and unfortunately, I do, then I know she's after something. Something big, something…focused. She doesn't just chase whatever's most shiny. That woman's always on a mission. There's something…bigger going on here."

"Something…scary," Sandman said.

"Something I'm not really sure I even want to know about right now," added Once-ler.

"You don't think that whatever happened here is some sort of multi-world epidemic that will eventually close in on our homeworld, do you?" Ainsley asked.

"Wha – no!" Once-ler's reassurance felt quite forced. "No. Nooooooo. Twilight Town's safe. Safe as safe can be!"

"How do you know that?" Ainsley asked softly.

"I have an eye for architecture," Once-ler said, not quite as smoothly as he was hoping. "It's built on, uh, exactly the kind of foundation that resists…giant dark orbs in the sky and…okay, look, I just really need to believe right now that whatever that is is NOT OUR PROBLEM."

"But it is our problem," said Electro. "It's THEIR problem."

He looked to where Feenie had lay down her head in Trixie's lap.

"But we're alive," Trixie said hoarsely. "And we're going somewhere safe. That's more than we can say for…"

She didn't have to fill it in.

"I suppose Ramsey and I have no choice but to ride with you to this safe location," Percy said. "Far be it from me to team up with known criminals, but in this case, I think we're all on the same boat, or, quite literally, in the same tower made of sand. That's wordplay based on a common expression, but tailored to our current situation."

"And it's not like they have the pharaoh's tiara anymore," said Ramsey, setting said artifact on top of his head. "I swiped it while the rest of you were moping."

"Hey!" Once-ler whined. "It looks better on me!"

"Look, I'm COPING, okay?" Ramsey's voice quivered. "Stealing things is a coping mechanism, and I have a hell of a lot to cope with right now, in case you haven't noticed."

"So, I, uh…I hate to burst everyone's bubble," said Sandman, "but how are we even gonna get home?"

"The Van Eltia is coming for us," Electro said quickly. "…Isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's going where we WERE," Sandman corrected. "Except the planet's gone, we got blasted way out of orbit, and we're still drifting. They weren't supposed to be here – be there for another few hours. Plenty of time for us to just…get lost."

Electro turned to look out the window. Interspace, as always, was filled with gorgeous colors and the twinkling lights of other, distant worlds. "We have to find a way," he said. "You…made sure I wouldn't be lost. And that means we can't lose anyone."

"Don't you dare say I should've let you get sucked away," Sandman said forcefully. "I know you're thinkin' it."

"I…" Electro shook his head. "Not anymore. Like I said. We can't lose anyone. And…" His voice became low as he turned away: "Thank you."

"So, uh…we're stuck here for a while," Once-ler said. "How should we pass the time? Twenty questions? Anybody got a deck of cards? Anybody, and I know this is a long shot, wanna help me come up with new jingles for the inevitable sales pitch when the Heathens start selling knockoff name brands?"

"This isn't the time," said Percy.

"Actually." Feenie sat up, wiping away her tears with her sleeve. "I decree there has never been a better time than now to play twenty questions."

"You gonna be okay?" Trixie asked.

"It's…far less frightening in here," Feenie told them. "And the only way to move is forward."

"We are not moving forward," said Percy. "We are drifting aimlessly through the void."

"But forward we are going all the same!" Feenie declared. "In spirit. Now, I will start the first round of questions, and I am thinking of something! Who would like to ask me the first question?"

And so, to keep themselves at least a little hopeful, they played. Passing the baton from person to person, guessing at animals and philosophical concepts and pop culture that didn't exist on half the homeworlds of those present at any given time, which led them back to animals. The game got old after Ainsley informed everyone that they had in fact managed to guess correctly (they had used "capybara" every single time they were at bat), so they turned to conversation.

"I must say you have defied my expectations," said Percy. "I had thought you common thieves, but after what I have seen…you're still common thieves. But you have hearts."

"No duh," Trixie sighed.

"Sometimes I wonder if I have fallen into a trap of looking at morality as black and white," Percy admitted. "As a woman of the law, my career has been staked on knowing the difference between good and bad, and assuming that these correspond to legal and illegal, respectively. However, there have been days when I ponder that perhaps it is an oversimplification I tell myself in order to justify working in a field that relies on taking prisoners and hoping someone will step out of line in order to give our department meaning. I in no way regret having become an officer, as it is the best way I know to dutifully protect my community, but it is the system that is often corrupted."

"Yeah, the police system is really messed up when you look at it with a magnifying glass," said Ainsley. "I mean, if I were you, I wouldn't be a cop, but also, I'm not you, so I think maybe what you should do is find some sort of equilibrium in which you stand up for what you know to be the right thing while fighting injustice both inside and outside the system."

"That sounds like a capital idea," Percy replied. "What was your career of choice?"

"Evil henchperson," said Ainsley. "But I wanted to be an actor. They're kind of the same thing, but not really. Except now I'm more, like…semi-evil independent public nuisance who identifies with an organization with similar values. Which is even more like acting than being an evil henchperson, so that's good. But I was starting to question the value of moral relativism when I identified as evil. Because, truth be told, I was still kind of in the closet about being evil, and I used moral relativism a lot to justify what I did when I worked for Count Olaf, but my conscience really just wouldn't let me get away with that, and I thought maybe it would be better if I started seeing morality as a clearly delineated binary with a defined line between good and evil." They paused. "But nothing is ever a true binary, so I also knew that view had to be wrong."

"There is always a difference between right and wrong," said Percy. "But maybe that difference depends on the eye of the beholder."

"You mean what's right for one person is wrong for another, and vice versa?" Ainsley ventured.

"Precisely," said Percy. "I think the truth is somewhere between your old flawed philosophy and my old flawed philosophy."

"That neither black-and-white thinking nor moral relativism quantifies good versus evil."

"And labels like 'good' and 'evil' may just obscure the complication of the human condition."

"So it's something that relies more on the individual weighing a set of values gained through knowledge and experience."

"It is not an easy path to take, but the correct path hardly ever is."

"I have no idea what they're talking about," Once-ler whispered to Electro. "But. Ainsley…is…SO smart. And cute."

"Have you told them that?" Electro asked softly.

"No," Once-ler said. "It's complicated."

"It doesn't need to b – "

"Have you told Flint?" Once-ler hissed. "Huh?"

"Told me what?" asked Sandman, who'd heard it all.

"Nothing," Electro muttered.

"Checkmate," Once-ler declared, folding his arms.

Trixie stationed themself at one of the windows, watching the gorgeous scenery and pointing out colorful blobs to Feenie. "That one looks like a bird," they said, "and that one looks like a top hat, and that one kinda looks like a rainbow submarine that can fly and is headed in our direction. But then that one looks like a shoe with a way-too-high-heel – "

"Trixie!" Feenie grabbed onto her friend and began to shake them. "Trixie, Trixie, TRIXIE!"

"WHAT?"

"That IS a rainbow-colored submarine headed our way!" Feenie shrieked. "EVERYONE, LOOK! WE'RE SAVED!"

Percy, Ramsey, Electro, Once-ler, and Ainsley hustled to the window. Sandman tried to reposition his face, but "parapet" locked him in position. "Okay you're gonna have to tell me what's out there," he said.

Ainsley described it precisely: "It seems to be an average-sized submarine that one might expect to see trawling an actual ocean. The big difference is that it's composed of Gummi blocks and therefore able to travel between worlds. It's definitely headed right for us."

Feenie was dancing across the sand floor; "SAVED SAVED SAAAAAVED!"

Once-ler held up a hand. "We don't know if that's a friend or an enemy."

"But we kinda have to test the waters," Ramsey said. "Don't we?"

The submarine circled the tower, looking for an entry point. Seeing no door, it pulled in parallel to the window, its entrance hatch just outside.

"We'll climb out through this window," Percy said, adjusting her Epithet to move the glass aside. "All of us. Then, when we're inside, I will release my Epithet, and Flint will be able to move freely and can follow us into the submarine."

"So long as you don't conveniently 'forget' me out here," Sandman warned.

"I owe you my life," said Percy, "as do my best friend and these mostly innocent children. I have no interest in punishing you."

She climbed out the window. The hatch of the submarine was open, and she began to clamber down the ladder.

"You know," Ainsley said as they followed, "I can't help but feel like this is…weirdly familiar."

"Where have you seen a submarine between worlds before?" Once-ler asked skeptically as he followed. "Where have you seen a submarine in general?"

"SAAAAVED!" Feenie practically divebombed down the hatch.

"Whoa, hey, FEENIE!" Trixie scrambled after her.

Electro hesitated. "What?" Sandman asked. "What's the holdup?"

"It looks…cramped," said Electro. "There's probably metal. If I can't control myself in there – "

"I won't let that happen," Sandman told him. "Promise."

"You don't have any control over that," Electro told him.

"You don't know the half of what I have control over," Sandman said mischievously, with a wink on top.

Electro looked him directly in the eye. "I…trust you," he said. "I just don't want to…hurt you."

"Can't be hurt. Physically impossible. Think about that first thing. If I stand between you and everybody else, and I take the hit, everyone lives."

"I don't want that to happen to you," said Electro. "I'm not going to sacrifice you just because you can take it. You're better than that!"

He flinched after saying that, as though he'd come close to admitting something he shouldn't have.

"Yeah, I am," said Sandman. "Which is why I ain't gonna let it happen. Trust me. We're both gonna be just fine. Just make sure you tell the cop lady to let me go. And if she doesn't, then you have every right to go full ballistic on her."

"I'll make sure," Electro promised. Then he vaulted out of the window and down the hatch.

Sandman waited just long enough to fear that Percy wouldn't actually uphold her promise, but the moment he began to doubt, he felt the binding force leave him, releasing his stone and glass back into loose sand that he had complete control over. After jettisoning enough of his body mass to go from tower size to human size, he slithered down the hatch as a sandy avalanche, trickling onto the floor of the submarine's entry chamber.

It was cramped. Like a hallway that led straight on toward a small arched door, presumably with more hallway beyond that. As Sandman gathered his human shape, he surveyed his allies. Electro was already starting to shiver and back away, obviously trying to figure out how much of the submarine was metal. Trixie and Feenie were gawking at the fact that they were in a real submarine, and that was good, since it seemed to temporarily override what they'd lost. Ramsey and Percy mostly seemed mildly confused about the whole situation. Once-ler was mostly concerned with Ainsley, because Ainsley had gone quite pale and was leaning against the wall.

"I thought – " they attempted. Then stopped to swallow down bile. "It would be okay because. Because it isn't water. But. …Feels like water."

"Okay, it's gonna be okay," said Once-ler. "Just breathe with me. In on four – "

"That doesn't actually work on me – "

"One, two…" Once-ler gave a dramatic cleansing breath, looking as though he had inhaled the concept of peace itself. "Three…"

Ainsley just bit their lip hard.

Sandman moved back toward Electro. "You're gonna be okay," he said, putting a hand on Electro's arm. "I got you."

Electro flinched, but not completely away from the touch. "You're always helping me," he said. "Saving me. It isn't fair to you – "

"Who's keeping score?" Sandman laughed.

Maybe someone who wanted to see this relationship evolve in a new way that would require equal footing was keeping score, Electro thought. But he kept that to himself.

The tiny door opened, and in stepped a girl about Feenie and Trixie's age. "Welcome," she said in a voice that was stern yet pleasant at the same time. She was dressed all in red sailor's garb, with eyeglasses shaped like upside-down triangles. "I presume most of you are with the Heathens? You'll have to forgive me; the intel didn't give me an exact roster on who was who. However, when I saw the floating tower, and I remembered what intel I was given on a man made of shapeshifting sand, I was able to put two and two together."

"Huh?" Sandman replied. "How do you – "

"I belong to an organization that has been watching events unfold on many a world," said the girl. "Though to be quite frank, I personally believe said organization has spent a little too much time watching and not enough time doing. However, to give the benefit of the doubt, we only recently discovered the existence of other worlds, thanks to a series of bizarre events that began with an undead movie-theater employee, a mute mad scientist, a stage magician whose powers may have been real, a femme-presenting person who was so perfect that she was likely rendered in some sort of digital realm, and a loose-cannon man half made of metal ordering lunch at a diner on Damocles Dock within an hour of a sighting of what should have been a very dead woman. That, however, is an irrelevant story. The relevant piece is that until these strange events, we were in fact a one-world operation, and perhaps our inaction can be attributed to the fact that we are not yet equipped to face such things as sorcerers, monsters, and supervillains."

"What's your – " Feenie began.

"Did you say – " Ainsley managed to sputter.

"Fiona Widdershins," said the girl. "Operative for, as I said, a very secret organization dedicated to doing good throughout the worlds, except for the parts of it that are dedicated to doing bad. And yes, I said an undead movie-theater employee – "

"Dock," Ainsley panted. "Damocles Dock. I think I'm from. Your world."

"Your face does look familiar," Fiona said. "I'm certain I've seen it printed on an urgent fax with an informational profile declaring you a person of interest, but obviously not one of enough interest to warrant my immediate attention, or I would remember your name. Regardless, I must inform you that I cannot divulge the name of this organization – "

"V.F.D.," Ainsley managed to spit out, along with some actual spit. "It's V.F.D. I know."

Fiona hadn't expected that. "…Well, I guess you…already know more than I was planning on letting on about. Very well. Aye, we are the Volunteer Fire Department, also known as V.F.D."

"The fire department?" Percy repeated, to ensure she'd gotten it right. "I had thought the job of a fire department was to put out fires, not profile persons of interest on a cosmic sca – "

"We do put out fires," said Fiona. "Sometimes, however, the fires are metaphorical. And some of our less-esteemed members are far more concerned with setting them than dousing them. 'Dousing,' of course, meaning to extinguish a fire."

"We know what words mean," said the Once-ler. "Most of them, anyway."

"I knew a guy once whose Epithet was 'douse,'" Ramsey mused. "He was also pretty good at puttin' out fires. And, well, at settin' 'em, since 'douse' can also mean to cover something in a liquid, and in his case, that liquid was gasoline."

"Then V.F.D. has something in common with your obviously distant acquaintance," said Fiona. "One might say it is a literary parallel."

"You knew about our presence - ," said Percy.

"I knew about your presence on the Lexicosm," Fiona clarified. "I also was aware of the actions of another organization intending to destroy the Lexicosm. Again, I put two and two together. We have been following this malicious organization's steps for some time now, and are close to identifying its leader. What we are to do when we identify that leader, I do not know."

"Bigger bad guys, huh?" said Ramsey. "Not the same fire-setters you were just talkin' - ."

"No," said Fiona. "This likely goes outside the bounds of the confidentiality that I have sworn to, but we have positively identified that this organization uses the moniker…'the Destroyers.'" She paused. "'Moniker' means – "

"Name," Once-ler grunted. "It means name. I know. I get it."

"I didn't!" proclaimed Feenie. "I learned a new word today!"

"And I learned that 'douse' has two meanings!" Trixie declared. "Meanings that are actually opposites, especially when it's about fire! Just like the word 'nonplussed'!"

"…Everyone knew that," said the Once-ler, who was nonplussed.

"The Destroyers?" Sandman said flatly. "Really? Come on. 'Sinister Six' ain't exactly a high bar to clear, and they didn't even get close to – "

"The name does not need to be anything more than it is," Fiona went on. "It is to the point and communicates exactly what they wish to do. They have one goal, and that is destruction. To what end, we are not yet sure, but many worlds have already fallen to their machinations. That is why it is crucial that we identify the ringleader of the organization: so that we may proceed away from the task of finding the ringleader and actually begin the task of stopping him or her."

"Or them," choked Ainsley, who had slid halfway down the wall into a crouch.

"Yeah," Trixie affirmed. "Don't forget the 'them'!"

"My mistake," said Fiona. "Stopping him or her or them. Thank you for correcting me. At any rate, we discovered the existence of the Heathens and declared them 'harmless until such time as they are not.' We have been tracking your movements, but have yet to compile an exact roster of your members."

"Spying," Once-ler accused. "NOT COOL."

"I'm guessing this is another one of those 'we watched you do everything and didn't do anything about it' scenarios," Ramsey sighed.

"Indeed," said Fiona. "And I share your frustration at the sentiment. At least in this instance, we were able to make a positive impact. We shall return you to Twilight Town immediately. The Queequeg has been perfectly outfitted for inter-world travel and shall last us the whole journey, unless there is a horrifying and unpredicted incident."

"DON'T SAY THAT," Once-ler scolded. "DO NOT SAY THAT." He looked over at Ainsley. "Yeesh, you're literally green."

"I'm fine," Ainsley choked. "Going home. Fine." They were sitting on the floor now.

"You said the word 'we,'" Percy noted. "As in – "

"The Queequeg is crewed by two," said Fiona. "The other shall be along at any moment. We used to be a crew of four: my brother, my stepfather, myself, and our associate Cookie. However, my stepfather and Cookie have remained at our homeworld to attend to urgent business in Stain'd-by-the-Sea, for which there is hardly anyone more qualified."

"I get it!" said Sandman. "Because your dad's a submarine guy, and it's by the sea – "

"The sea of Stain'd-by-the-Sea is long dried," Fiona said briskly.

"Wait," said Sandman. "I don't get it anymore. Why – "

"The town is also an optimal safe place for my stepfather and Cookie to go over what we know about the Destroyers," Fiona went on. "Thankfully, my brother was more than willing to keep me company on this great adventure. Feel free to step further inside and meet him."

There was a sound of footsteps. "On second thought," said Fiona, "it seems he has come to greet us instead."

The door opened a second time. Into the entry hall came a man who was quite obviously related to Fiona, though the family resemblance was interrupted by his copious facial scars. He was dressed in black leather, with a billowing trenchcoat, and he seemed to have no hands, each replaced instead by a prosthetic hook. One of these hooks held what looked like a commercial plastic Easter basket filled with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

"Fiona!" said the man. "Have you welcomed our guests? I put the submarine on autopilot so I could bring them cookies, because everyone loves – "

He stopped, frozen midsentence, because he'd just now taken in who was among the party they'd picked up. All of them. And Percy, Ramsey, Trixie, Feenie, Sandman, Electro, and Once-ler were all strangers to him, people he did not yet know well enough to have an opinion of. However…

His voice was barely a whisper, raspy and stunned. "Ainsley?"

If there was one person that Ainsley hadn't expected to see here, it was this man. This was the best and the worst thing that could possibly have happened. Ainsley had been desperate to reunite with him and equally as desperate to put him behind them and never look back. Right now, both emotions were fighting for dominance, and it wasn't clear which one would come out on top. There was simply too much to be said, a thousand words that needed to meet the air –

But the stress acted as the tipping point toward Ainsley's interspace-sickness. All they managed to choke out was "Fernald?" before they passed out completely.

...

The Anti-White Coat sat atop the towers of a gorgeously pristine palace that was perched at the summit of a mountain, overlooking a glittering kingdom where magic had reigned to the point where technology had never needed to become relevant. A place called "Mewni." He liked to come here when he had the time. It was one in a rotation of places that felt right and familiar.

Maybe this had been a place that belonged to him, once. When he was someone.

There were two friends, a girl and a boy, down in the courtyard. He could see them from that height, but not hear them. The boy wore a long white coat, much like the Anti-White Coat himself. He had dark hair in a ponytail, the way the Anti-White Coat used to. He was engaged in a competition of spectacle with the girl, showing off the complexity of the magical spells he could cast. Waves of water that he guided around the courtyard. Flames that rose and fell at his command.

The girl had silver-white hair that fell nearly to her ankles, and was clothed in a dress of soft pastels. Atop her head was an almost gaudy crown signifying her as one of the royals. She watched patiently as the boy with the dark ponytail finished casting and dismissed every element he'd conjured. Then she began her own display, a far more imaginative one that included shimmering rainbows and heart-shaped balloons summoned from thin air. The boy had stood still while casting, focusing intently, but the girl automatically moved into a fluid dance, like a ballerina, a new pose for each enchantment.

Her name was Moon Butterfly. The Anti-White Coat knew that much. He technically knew the boy's name, too, but he didn't like to think about it.

The Anti-White Coat wanted to watch their competition to the end. Alas, he felt the creeping sensation that a dream was occurring where it should not be. He knew, too, exactly which one it was.

Why was the Coronan princess plagued with the dreams of the incantations? Yes, they were from her world, and that was strange in and of itself. But the man she always saw, the one creating the incantations in his journal. The knowledge was real. It was something she hadn't known before, and it was being transferred to her through a dream. Something from outside her mind. The man was dressed like one of Organization XIII, so he had to be a suspicious figure at least. Who was he, though? Why was he writing Coronan incantations in his journal? Was his strange study located somewhere in Corona, or somewhere else among the vast worlds?

The Anti-White Coat had a strong suspicion that whoever this mysterious man was, he was the source of the dream. The reason the princess was plagued. He must have been a rogue Dream Eater, the way the Anti-White Coat now was.

(Was he, really, a Dream Eater? All he knew was that his heart had been extinguished, but not completely. He'd spent far too much time trapped inside someone else's heart, someone who believed him dead. But he'd managed to break away during the dreams of his captor, or perhaps it was his captor's captor. A gateway to the Final World, where death and dream overlap. A place where he could finally take action, make the difference he had always failed to make.)

He had to go, now. He'd put a special spell on the princess to make sure it wouldn't happen again. She couldn't hear the Moondrop's incantations of Darkness, not at any cost. Then she would end up corrupted and lost, just like Moon had.

"Going somewhere?"

The Anti-White Coat flinched. He wasn't supposed to be perceived here, not unless he wanted to be. He turned to find that he wasn't alone, sitting out on this gable. There was a man, dressed all in black but nothing like the Organization's garb. A man with gray skin and glowing eyes.

He knew who it was immediately.

"Don't look so surprised," said Pitch Black. The Boogeyman slowly kicked his legs back and forth. Playfully. "You've turned all of dreams into your playground, but you never expected to cross paths with the master of Nightmares here? Either you knew this was inevitable, or you're quite naïve for your age."

The Anti-White Coat leapt to his feet, summoning his Keyblade. The Master's Defender, even if who it was defending was hardly a master anymore.

Pitch pretended he didn't see it. He turned his gaze downward. "What a beautiful friendship," he said. "Perfect Princess Moon and her faithful companion. I wonder, whatever did happen to him? Surely he remained loyal to her all of his days, as he'd promised. Surely it would take more than a mere mistake to separate such a strong bond…and surely not a mistake he could have prevented, if only he'd been there in time."

The teeth of the Master's Defender were shoved in front of Pitch's face. "You know nothing about what happened," the Anti-White Coat seethed.

"I know that when the Septarians came calling," Pitch said, "you were nowhere to be found. Wherever in the worlds you were, I do hope it was more important than preventing Comet's death."

"I won't say I never made a mistake," the Anti-White Coat seethed. "And my greatest mistake was allowing HIM to tempt me away from my duties. I swore loyalty to him, as I had to her. But while she was corrupted…he was rotten from the very start."

"Who, Xehanort?" Pitch laughed. "Oh, how little you really know. You could have saved him, too. Though really, that's putting it mildly. Why in the world do you think he did go as far as he did? It's almost as if someone pushed him past the breaking point."

"I was his friend," the Anti-White Coat reminded Pitch. "I did everything I could to save him, and still it wasn't enough."

"Hm…well, if that's what you believe." Pitch smirked.

"Leave me be," the Anti-White Coat threatened, "before I am forced to – "

"Destroy me?" Pitch chuckled. "Look at yourself. You could have left. Here I sit, doing nothing to intrude upon you, nothing to hinder you. Yet you keep yourself from your own self-appointed duty, and why? Because there's a creature of Darkness in front of you, and you won't rest until it's killed. It's a futile endeavor. You can't harm me here, in my own realm."

"This is not YOUR realm," the Anti-White Coat snarled.

"In the sense that I don't reign over it," said Pitch. "Yet. It is, however, where I dwell, where my essence is. Where is your essence? Have you even been keeping track? Are you at the center of a nesting doll, or have you spread yourself far too thin?"

The Anti-White Coat had had enough. He drew back the Master's Defender –

Pitch was suddenly behind him, shoving him off the tower. Then he caught the Anti-White Coat by the back of the neck, keeping him from falling by that one tenuous point of contact. "You had your chance to walk away," he said. "That said…it wasn't a chance I ever intended to let you take. I have reasons for the girl to learn the truth about the moondrop. What she can REALLY do. The fear she will spread once she knows the Hurt Incantation will be so glorious…it's always the fallen that are so much more fearsome than those who were villains to the core."

"You – !" The Anti-White Coat began to panic, trying to pivot himself around and drive the Keyblade into his opponent. "You must not be allowed to – "

"And the funny thing is, the girl isn't even my target," Pitch snickered. "No…it's the one who loves her. Oh, the things that can be done when a youth loves a princess. All it takes is for just the wrong thing to happen to her, and he'll be a breeding ground of all sorts of horrors of the mind. You would know, wouldn't you?"

If Pitch had let the Anti-White Coat go, then the latter would have fallen directly down into the yard where the boy and Moon were playing with magic. His red eyes were locked upon them.

"But this is only one chapter in your long, sordid life," Pitch went on. "You wanted to forget her. You moved on. There were others. Friends, prospective lovers…so many of them."

His mouth was right next to the Anti-White Coat's ear. "And you failed every last one."

"You cannot trick me with your lies!" the Anti-White Coat seethed. "I did everything I could!"

"Everything wrong that you possibly could," Pitch amended. "Do you want to know how Xehanort defeated you? His grandest manipulation was simply…telling Terra the truth. That's when he came to find you, and, well, you know the rest." He was laughing now. "He didn't even need to lie in order to make it all fall apart. Do you want to know the funniest part? When I say that it was you who was responsible for all of their suffering…I'm only doing what he did. Telling the honest truth."

His arms encircled the Anti-White Coat. Then he withdrew them, leaving in their place thick masses of black sand that kept his victim pinned.

"The princess is mine," Pitch snarled. "Maybe you would've won if you hadn't tried to keep the truth from her, too."

A Nightmare, a horse made of black sand, burst from a nearby shadow. The Anti-White coat was held firmly by the sand and could do nothing when the horse caught him up on its back, galloped into the sky, and bucked him off so that he plummeted straight downward into the towers of the Mewni castle.

When he hit the roof of the nearest tower, it shattered. Mewni was gone, or at least the dream of it. Down and down and down the Anti-White Coat fell, through a black void riddled with white shards that sparkled like mirrors. Voices bounced off the glassy surfaces, voices from past and present alike. A long story that even he hadn't stopped to recount in all its entirety.

"I did what I had to do! You weren't there – you weren't there to fight the Septarians!"

"I think you knew I was born to be the Child of Light. I might've made my choices, but you made yours too. You could've helped me, but you just pushed me away. Some friend."

"As my student, you should have known. I always told you that Light and Darkness work together in a delicate balance. Why is it that you only listened to me when I proved my own hypocrisy?"

"I had to leave. The two of you were my best friends, but you…both of you…it was too much…"

"Thanks to you, Xehanort was corrupted! Well, guess what? So am I, now! And we can FINALLY be together the way we were meant to be."

"I told you to stay calm. I told you we could work this out!"

"I told you to give in to your base emotions. But didn't it ever seem weird to you that I knew TOO much? You walked right into my web. This spider ate well."

"You left me to the curse!"

"You left her to the curse."

"Why didn't you choose me instead of Moon? I believed in you, I agreed with you! I…loved you…"

"Athena is DEAD because of you! You tarnished your own kind, the wielders of that horrible key!"

"yeah, you were just part of the problem the whole time. thanks for the eye thing. but no thanks for, you know, your whole outlook on morality and wanting us to stay in the mountain. not cool, bro. very not cool."

"Sometimes I think…you didn't actually save me. Sometimes, and this is going to sound crazy – but I think you stopped me from learning what I should have figured out on my own."

"You really are taking my side regarding the cheese debate? After you spent all that time fighting it? I guess I'm really not sure where your loyalty lies. You don't really seem to have principles. Oh, well, so long as it means we're getting along!"

"I didn't love him. I NEVER loved him. You told me to leave her behind, and like a fool, I listened. Now I spend every day in a drunken stupor, trying to escape what YOU told me would be my paradise."

"You're still not a shining example of humanity. You never were. You still haven't learned."

"I DON'T EXIST ANYMORE! AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!"

"Master, why did you lie to me?"

"Master, why couldn't you just tell us all the truth?"

"Master…was I ever doing the right thing?"

A story he would one day have to sit down and tell himself, from start to finish.

A blinding light came rushing up from below. His descent was about to end; as he plummeted into the next dream, so far away from Rapunzel's innocent mind, he reached up to try and grab onto anything at all.

He seized not a handhold or an object but a concept. One that he had for so long been trying to leave in the past where it belonged.

His name was Er –

...

Giovanni's feet dragged as he led Velvet, Emerald, Magilou, Eleanor, Crusher, Car Crash, Ben, Dark Star, Spike, Flamethrower, Rokurou, Eizen, Teresa, and Silva back through the streets of Twilight Town. Thankfully, it was still there, where they'd left it. The very idea that its absence could now be a concern weighed heavy on everyone.

"How am I gonna tell Bear Trap?" Giovanni sighed. "Her dad might've been a tool, but…"

"She'll have to know the truth," said Velvet. "No more and no less."

"Let me be the one to tell her?" Giovanni asked. "I know you think we should just be blunt and all, but…I just feel like it should come from me. That was our home."

"All right," said Velvet. "But it won't matter for a while. She's still offworld. Right now, our focus should be how to bring it up with everyone else back home."

"Yeah," Giovanni sighed. "You're right."

Which was why, when he heard the high-pitched cry of "Giovanni! BOSS!" from across the Tram Common, he felt his blood freeze

There was Molly, rushing toward him at top speed, with Laphicet, Lailah, Zaveid, Edna, and Mikleo in tow. She waved cheerily. Giovanni gave a halfhearted wheeze and put up a hand.

"How did you get back here so fast?" Eleanor asked once Molly had caught up. "I thought you were staying behind on Glenwood."

"There's a shortcut," Molly said. "White Turtlez uses it to get back and forth from here and there, so he said we could use it so long as we don't ruin it. We're still working on Glenwood, but some of us wanted a little break, so here we are!"

She held up what appeared at first to be a photograph of several people. "Take a look."

Giovanni did so, gingerly plucking the paper. In fact, it wasn't a photograph, but an expertly detailed painting of Molly, Laphicet, Elsa, Harley, Team RWBY, the seraphs, Rose, the Sparrowfeathers, Ansem, Sergei, and one more – a young woman with golden curls pinned in a side-ponytail.

"We had an idea to have Sergei and Alisha get married," Molly explained. "He's from Rolance and she's from Hyland. The problem is we have to kind of figure out how to make sure she wants to get married first, because if she just knows it's a diplomacy plan, she'll say yes even if she doesn't want to marry him, and we all want to be sure she honestly wants to. But if it turns out they're both ready, we could use it as a jumping-off point for peace between the nations."

"And we're invited to this wedding too, right?" Rokurou asked.

"It would need to be an utter spectacle," said Lailah. "The more guests, the better. And it will be on a royal budget, so there's no need to worry about overbooking."

"That's IF the marriage is warranted," said Eizen.

"I don't like that we can't be open and honest about the plan," Mikleo sighed. "But…I know Alisha. If we're honest with her, there's a good chance she won't be honest with us or herself. I wish there was a way for us to really get her to know it's okay to say no."

"So right now, we're just dropping hints to see how she feels," Edna said. "Hopefully we'll be able to figure out what her answer WOULD be if there was nothing at stake, and that will let us know whether to even ask the question or find something else. I was worried that the big-mouthed pink-haired guy would blow it for us, but he's letting his girlfriend do all the talking, and honestly, she speaks Alisha's language. I'm sure Alisha's about to crack soon."

"But I sure hope she says yes," said Zaveid. "Gettin' the lovebirds together and savin' the world. How does it get any better than that?"

"And we don't really have a backup plan," said Mikleo. "But Blake insisted that she'd be working on one, and her friends said if there's anyone to trust with that, it's her."

Velvet smiled at Laphicet. "I'm so proud of you, Laphi."

"I'm…proud of me too," Laphicet said, almost in disbelief at himself. "I want to make up for what I've done to that world."

"You don't have to make up anything," Velvet told him. "You should help because it's what your heart says to do."

"And it is," Laphicet affirmed. "It's saying that. But I'm glad we found the shortcut, because I was already starting to miss you."

"Yeah, that's all…really cool," said Giovanni. "Hey, um, why don't we start walking home?"

"Good idea," said Molly. "Let's go!"

Velvet, Emerald, Magilou, and Eleanor exchanged worried glances. Car Crash's lip was quivering, and Crusher was biting his lip.

They proceeded onward, to the wood outside town. "So, uh…" Giovanni said. "Does this mean the one guy…the guy who was the bad guy…he's going home to his kids now?"

"He needs more time," said Laphicet, "but he said he intended to go to them soon."

"He'd better," Velvet snarled. "He can't just keep himself away because of how he sees himself."

"Agreed," said Eizen. "I knew someone who made the same mistake once."

"Hopefully, that person learned from it, so I don't have to punch him in the knees," Edna said flatly.

"He learned," said Eizen. "But if he ever forgets, he'll deserve that punch."

"It will be armatized," Edna told him.

"Uh, nooooo it won't," Molly said nervously, "because I'm not armatizing with you just to punch one of our friends. That's…over the top, even for us." She looked to Giovanni. "How'd the ride home go?"

Giovanni trembled. His eyes watered. "Fine. Just fine – "

Velvet gave him a loud "HEH-hem."

"Hey, we didn't even introduce you to the newbies!" Giovanni said quickly. "Bear Trap and company, I'd like you all to meet Teresa!"

"A hellion, huh?" Zaveid observed. "All right, I'll trust you on this one, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Though this is the prettiest hellion I've ever – "

"Do not," Teresa hissed.

"And," Giovanni added, "coming atcha with the best prepackaged minion name ever, take two for Silva!"

"Silva?" said Zaveid. "Hey, I knew a kid named that once. He – "

"He's right here," said Eizen, stepping aside so that Zaveid could see Silva.

The whole time, Silva had been watching Zaveid, quietly hiding behind the others. He had so much he wanted to communicate, but still couldn't say a single word. He had wanted to run and jump at Zaveid, but he was too afraid, trembling with anxiety. Now, Zaveid realized for the first time that Silva was there, and stopped in his tracks, eyes widening. "Well, I'll be damned. It's really you, isn't it?"

Silva nodded, wide-eyed.

Without further ado, Zaveid rushed the child, picking him up into a bear hug before letting him sit on Zaveid's shoulder. "Thought I'd never see you again!" Zaveid laughed, almost inspired to tears. "I would know, seeing how I killed the hell out of your corpse back on Hexen Isle."

"I'm sorry, run that by me again?" said Magilou.

"Long story and unfinished business," Zaveid told her. "The short version is, when Laphicet killed Silva back on that island, he didn't exactly finish the job. I had to fix that about a thousand years later."

Laphicet looked sheepishly up to Silva, heart racing. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'll never – "

Silva just nodded.

"Are you…upset?" Laphicet asked. "Are you afraid of me?"

Silva needed a moment to think it over. Then he pointed to Zaveid.

"I think the little guy's sayin' I'll protect him from you," Zaveid said. "Don't worry, Silva. Laphi's clean. He's actually cleaning up his own mess! …He?"

Laphicet nodded.

"But if he even looks at you wrong," Zaveid said, "I'll break his face. Promise."

"You wouldn't dare!" Velvet snapped.

"Uh-ohhhh!" Magilou teased. "Looks like we have two older siblings willing to fight the fight of the kiddos."

"No one has to fight anyone!" Lailah said hastily. "We can all just get along, since Laphicet apologized for his actions as Innominat, and has anyone else noticed that people seem to be looking directly at us? Are we visible here?"

"Well, Maotelus was the one keeping us invisible," Mikleo worked out, "so any world where he's not, we're just like anybody else."

"Actually," Eizen said, "while that is true, there may be more to it. As I've researched Twilight Town's history, it turns out that this entire world had past dealings with angels. There's a legend about an Angel of Death, and a historically recorded event when angels wanted to destroy this world for being neither pure Light nor pure Darkness, but the inhabitants battled them for their right to exist here, and they won. It's a fascinating story. The point is, in a lot of languages, 'seraph' translates to a type of angel, and so does 'malak,' the word I grew up using to refer to myself. This can't be a coincidence. Angels are said to be long-lived and have supernatural powers. Even if Maotelus were able to extend his reach here, we may, by virtue of being who we are, be tied into the very lifeblood of this world. Now, I will say that we're a far cry from actual Heaven-dwellers, which, to my understanding, are often depicted as beautiful humanoids in pop culture, but really looked more like – "

"Geez, I forgot how long you ramble," said Zaveid. He sighed. "Silva, you're gonna have to get used to this guy blabbing all the time. He's the biggest nerd I know."

Silva just nodded.

"Hey," said Rokurou. "I was getting invested in that ramble, you know."

"It's fine," said Eizen. "I believe that there are other conversation topics we should be addressing, anyway."

They were almost to the mansion. "So, uh…Bear Trap," said Giovanni. "The thing is…on the way home, I…I kinda…sorta…swung by our old world, y'know? And…"

Molly looked up at him with concern. "Why did you do that?"

"Well…" Giovanni's voice became ever higher with his nerves. "It was…I mean…I had this idea, but – "

Then came two children's shrieks: "MOLLY!"

Giovanni and Molly were both surprised by the sight that greeted them, but for entirely different reasons. Trixie and Feenie barreled out of the garden gate, rushing to tackle Molly in a dual hug.

"GAH!" Molly cried as she went down. But soon, she was laughing as her friends dogpiled on top of her. "You came to Twilight Town!" she gasped. "I don't believe it!"

"It's such a beautiful world!" Feenie affirmed. "The ambience is to die for!"

"And we wanted to pal around with those criminals you're friends with now," said Trixie.

All three children stood. "So that's why Giovanni stopped!" Molly said excitedly. "To pick you two up! This is amazing!"

"Well, there's something else you should know," Feenie said. "because it sounds like you don't…know."

"WHAT THE – " Trixie cut her off. "GIOVANNI? YOU'RE THE SAME GIOVANNI?"

"TRIXIE?" Giovanni said, equally stunned. "It was you the whole time! …You know, in retrospect, I really should've figured that one out. Well, welcome to the family! Glad to have ya here!"

Trixie ran up to give her cousin a light punch of a greeting. "By the way," they said, "you missed some things back home. Like…I'm a 'they' now."

"SERIOUSLY?" Giovanni gasped with glee. "AWESOME! Being cisgender is sooooo overrated."

"Totally!" Trixie agreed. "We're the cool ones in our family. Trans AND pink hair!"

Giovanni crouched so the two could exchange a fist bump.

"I don't get it," said Ben. "How are those two alive when – "

Crusher elbowed him hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. "Don't say it yet!" he hissed. "We gotta break it to her gently!"

By that time, Sandman, Electro, Once-ler, Percy, Ramsey, Fiona, and a rather sheepish Fernald had also stepped outside the gate. "Welcome back!" Sandman grinned cheekily. "Have we got a story for you!"

"YOU GUYS BROUGHT THE COP?" Giovanni pointed in horror at Percy.

Percy put up a hand, palm outward. "There was a time that I would have been extremely proud to bring the notorious Giovanni Potage to justice," she said. "However, circumstances allied me with your…crime family, and I owe them a debt, one that is compounded by awakenings as to the nature of morality. I still intend to serve my community and put an end to dangers that threaten innocent lives, but as I think about it, you, so far, have not truly qualified as a threat that requires my attention, and thus, I think we can call ourselves allies. I will turn the other way to your crimes, unless you make it so I need to look back."

"…You know what, I'll take it," said Giovanni. "Didn't expect the cop to be on my side, but, uhhhh, if this means you stop chasing me around, then yeah, it's cool." A pause. "Wait a minute, are you saying I'm a shitty crook?"

"That is exactly what I am saying, in kinder words," said Percy. "It is, in this case, something to be proud of."

"NO IT'S NOT!"

"Also." Percy cleared her throat. "I, erm, I heard what you said just now. I did not know that about your identity."

"Someone shoulda warned me before I outed myself to a cop," Giovanni grumbled.

"No, I – " Percy wasn't sure how to proceed. "I wanted to say that…we may have more in common than initially perceived. Perhaps, despite being on opposite sides of the law, we are not so different after all. You see, I…"

Giovanni pointed at her, wide-eyed. "You're…?"

"You're trans too?" Ramsey was gobsmacked. "I mean, there ain't nothin' wrong with that, but I never woulda guessed. Giovanni, I always suspected – "

"HOW?" Giovanni asked. "I'm flawless!"

"But it didn't even occur to me with you," said Ramsey.

"Really?" Percy was surprised. "I would have thought it was obvious. I have a masculine appearance, most of my interests regard topics that boys are socialized into during youth, and my legal name is 'Percival.'"

"…Yeah, I really shoulda questioned the name part," said Ramsey. He shrugged. "Cool. Every day's a school day. And for anyone wondering, I ain't part of the trans club, but you guys are awesome. Keep on keeping on."

"Y'know, I didn't expect to see you here," Giovanni told Ramsey. "What is this, a cast reunion party?"

"Yeah, I didn't expect you to turn out to be the same Giovanni who was also the Heathens crime boss and Trixie's cousin," said Ramsey. "Again, something I really, REALLY shoulda picked up on."

"Soooo, there was kind of…an incident," said Once-ler. "But you probably know all about the incident, since you probably stopped to pick us back up and found out that was…impossible."

"What's going on?" Molly asked. "What incident? Did something bad happen at home?"

"Molly," Feenie said seriously, "our home is – "

Giovanni pointed at Fernald; "Who's that?"

At the same time, Trixie grabbed onto Fiona's arm; "Molly, you should meet our new friend Fiona! She's gonna hang out with us!"

"Uh…hi?" Fernald put up a hook to wave. "So I'm, um, I'm sort of an old…work friend of Ainsley's."

"Work friend," Once-ler scoffed. "If that's how you want to put it…"

"Fiona and I were on a mission," said Fernald, "and then…Ainsley showing up just sort of…happened…and I really need to talk to them about a lot of things that I would rather just avoid talking about altogether, but I know that's not going to help anything. The problem is that they're, um, sort of sleeping off a whole lot of interspace-sickness right now, and I don't want to go anywhere until they're feeling better, so…here I am…I could help you out with some of the minor heists if you want. I used to be really good at that!"

"Well, we don't NEED your help," Once-ler sneered. "So you can just go back to kicking around the kitchen making pickled herring or whatever until Ainsley wakes up. Then it's bye-bye."

"I'm not so sure that's the best plan," said Fiona. "This town may just be a better observational vantage point for the actions of the Destroyers than our submarine would be. It seems to be a hub world of sorts, where activity from all sorts of worlds gathers. This crime syndicate is a prime example. We may be able to cut the detective work far shorter if we base our operation out of this world, and then, once the detective work is over, we can focus our efforts on actually doing something about it."

"Yes, well…one thing at a time, Fiona?" Fernald said sheepishly. "How about that? Can we do that?"

"We're all getting off topic!" Feenie insisted. "We can't just keep changing the subject to avoid talking about the great tragedy of – "

Zaveid helped Silva down off his shoulder so the small malak could stand on the grass. At the sight of him, Feenie gave a gasp. "Who is THIS?"

"This is Silva!" Zaveid introduced. "Doesn't talk much, but he's a good kid. You're about his age, right? He could use a couple good friends – "

"Silva!" Feenie rushed toward him, taking both Silva's hands up in hers. "You are the most beautiful boy I have ever seen in all of my existence. You may just be the future husband I've been looking for all this time!"

Silva stared blankly, unsure how to react.

"Okay, back off," Zaveid snapped. "Let the kid breathe."

"But I can already tell just from looking in his eyes that we have a nigh-unbreakable connection!" Feenie pouted. "This, and no other, is my soul mate!"

Silva still didn't know how to react.

"Why, yes, Zaveid," Magilou teased. "This IS how you look from the outside."

"Am I really this much of an ass to the ladies?" Zaveid pondered. "Nah. Couldn't be. Anyway – "

He reached down to physically push Feenie away from Silva. "At least let the kid figure out if he even wants to date," he scolded.

"I will wait for you for all eternity!" Feenie promised, blowing kisses.

"Uhm…so I'm getting the sense you're all trying to tell me something," said Molly, "and it's bad news, but no one wants to say it out loud, and now I'm scared."

A silence fell over the group.

"The truth is – " Giovanni sighed. And stopped there. "…Can someone please interrupt me? I don't know how to even…start with this."

"Why don't we discuss it inside the house instead?" Fernald suggested. "We could make hot drinks of our choice. I think that always makes things easier."

"I'll put on a pot of properly bitter tea," Fiona volunteered.

"Yeah," Giovanni agreed. "In the house. Let's go."

Everyone crossed the threshold of the familiar old mansion, gearing up for a very terrible talk.

...

Asmodeus was ready to greet the WHAM ARMY at the club door; "Ayam! You brought the whole damn crew! Good on ya!"

"I believe we should meet your requirements this time for entering with dates," said Mozenrath.

"Hmm…what about that one?" Asmodeus pointed to Vexen.

"Asexual," Mozenrath stated.

"And aromantic?" Asmodeus said.

"No," Vexen broke in, "and I would appreciate you letting me speak for myself. I have a partner, but he is not accompanying us on this mission, as he would rather have some time off from business."

"Well, then you're lucky I'm still lettin' Ayam make exceptions, or you'd be out the damn door," Asmodeus said. "But, since you're here, you got any particular kinks we should play up to accommodate your tastes?"

"I have no kinks," Vexen said. "I thought I made it quite clear – "

"What?" Asmodeus was taken aback. "All aces got kinks. They may not wanna do it with a warm body, but there's somethin' that works for 'em, usually. Leather, spankin', weird art…"

"Not me," said Vexen. "There is nothing."

Asmodeus stared at him quietly before saying, "You're gonna have a terrible time here."

"I knew that even before this conversation."

"Well, come on in!" Asmodeus beckoned. "It's a hoppin' night."

"Actually, Ozzie," said Aghoul, "we were hoping to discuss a matter of business with you. Won't you join us at our table?"

"Business?" Asmodeus raised three of his six eyebrows. "Ayam, why don't I like where this is going?"

"I promise, it won't be nearly as painful as you're imagining."

"That's what she said," Asmodeus retorted with three winks.

"Hilarious." Mozenrath folded his arms. "Also, for your in-house entertainment, do you engage in bloodplay?"

"Once in a blue moon," said Asmodeus. "Still waitin' on a shipment from Wrath before we can do the next show."

"That's a pity," said Mozenrath.

"Why. You into that?"

"You could say."

Asmodeus nodded. "All right, let's get you settled in and talk turkey."

As the group moved to the nearest empty table, the Huntsman muttered to Mozenrath, "Your inquiry was…appreciated."

"We'll just have to be creative on our own time," Mozenrath replied. "As it stands, I see no reason for either of us to linger here once we have what we want."

They were seated, and Fizzarolli flipped hand-over-foot to plop down in the remaining chair. "Hey, what's with the orgy setup over here?"

"And the terrible time commences," Vexen sighed.

"I presume you've heard of the Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion," Aghoul began.

Asmodeus burst out laughing. "Presume? This is HELL. I helped write the damn recipe. Lemme guess: that's what you're after."

"I know it's a tall order – " Aghoul began.

"Too bad you weren't here a couple weeks back or so," said Asmodeus. "I actually had one of the more famous brewers of the spell here in the club. She was from the Vampirella witch clan, old money among Satanists, and had quite the APPETITE, if you know what I'm saying."

"Well?" Mim piped up. "Where did this witch go?"

"Walked off with a couple ragtag dead souls who got thrown down here from the Netherworld by accident," said Asmodeus. "Maybe you'll cross her path someday if you keep muckin' around in the afterlife."

"Obviously, she's a last-ditch option," said Mozenrath. "Since you apparently are so familiar with the spell, we wanted to request – "

"A copy of the recipe?" Fizzarolli filled in for him. "You realize that's like bidding for the Mona Lisa down here, right?"

"But you could so easily just write another copy," Aghoul told Asmodeus. "For an old friend?"

"Sure thing!" Asmodeus said. "For an old friend…and about half a million dollars."

A loud "WHAT?" chorused around the table.

"Look," said Asmodeus. "I got plenty of friends in the business. Plenty of people want that potion because it's a shortcut. The most evil – or good – in the shortest amount of time. Some in our circles say it's cheating, but that doesn't change that it's POWERFUL. I can't just give it out to anyone who asks. You gotta pony up if you want – hang on just a second." He'd noticed a particular patron entering. He whirled around and bellowed, "HEY BEEJ! CHECK THE DOOR!"

Betelgeuse took one look at the patron – an incredibly tall and thin (one might even say slender) man with no face, pale skin, and a black suit. With a grin, he flipped the ambient music, and the speakers now blasted "NO WIFIN' IN THE CLUB! GIMME TWENTY DOLLARS! GIMME TWENTY DOLLARS! GIMME – "

"Gotta do that every time ol' Slendy walks in," Asmodeus laughed. ("Slendy" just gave the closest thing to a sigh and an eyeroll that one could without a mouth or eyes, then escorted his date, the famed Kuchisake-Onna, to an empty seat.) "But back to business. I don't give out reality-warping potions for free. You're getting a BARGAIN because you're a pal."

"Well, I don't have half a million in my pocket!" Aghoul protested. "I don't even have the twenty you're asking Slendy for!"

"Too bad," said Asmodeus. "No cash, no recipe."

"Can I trade you items of equivalent value?" Wuya asked. "Sports cars, private jets – "

"Can you just conjure him money?" Mozenrath asked.

"That's a separate branch of magic I never bothered to learn," said Wuya. "And no, I can't make that make sense. If we had a money witch here – "

"Hey, that's hilarious," said Fizzarolli. "You know who was a money witch? The Vampirella broad you missed. Shoulda got here earlier."

"Why wouldn't you learn how to make money?" Mozenrath asked.

"Because there's literally no point to having money if I can conjure myself literally any other luxury I want," said Wuya. "What about you? You're talking big. Can't you just – "

"If I could have," Mozenrath growled, "then we wouldn't have been robbing banks with squads of supervillains. Or did you forget about that part?"

"While they're arguing," Roman said, "can I get a Cuba Libre?"

"Do I look like the bartender to you?" Fizzarolli snapped back.

"There's only ONE way to solve this!" Yzma declared, standing tall. Her expression gave away that she had some sort of plan already. "First of all…Roman walks over to the bar or finds a real waiter."

Roman sarcastically applauded. "Never woulda figured that out without you, Yz-mom. Your back must hurt so much from carrying the team."

"Second," said Yzma, "we'll just have to find a way to raise half a million dollars, right here, right now, before it comes time to leave. Now, traditionally, there's only one way to do that! We put Roman and Snatcher's hats out upside-down – "

"Oh no," Snatcher sighed.

"And wow them with the most priceless musical number they've ever seen!" Yzma crowed.

"…Do you understand where we are?" Asmodeus asked her.

"You have to think like the Lust ring, Yzma," Aghoul urged. "If we're going to make the money here and now – "

"It would have to be for something perfectly awful, like selling our bodies off to this crowd," Vexen huffed. "Or, worse, AUCTIONING ourselves."

There was a silence. Then Aghoul yelled, "THAT'S IT! I can't believe that idea came from you of all people."

"I was just thinking about the most repulsive idea to me personally," said Vexen. "And you can't be serious! No one here is going to agree to that! I, for one, won't partake for SEVERAL INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS reasons!"

"Yeah, no, this ride has two seats only and both are filled," Roman said as Snatcher defensively put an arm around him. Mozenrath, the Huntsman, Yzma, and Wuya nodded as well, affirming that was their main concern.

"I wouldn't debase myself that way," Mozenrath sighed. "And I think I speak for George too."

"I would speak for myself," said the Huntsman, "but Mozenrath has the right of it."

"I may be easy, but I'm not a SLUT," Wuya said flatly. "There's only one pair of legs here I'm getting between."

"…I'm those legs, right?" Yzma asked.

Wuya nodded.

"Also, vice versa what she said," Yzma added.

"Well, I'll do it," said Aghoul. "There'll be plenty of demons here who will bid pretty high to go home with me!"

"I'll put myself on the docket!" Mim said. "I can be whatever this crowd WANTS me to be."

"I should have known the two of you would consent to this," said Vexen. "However, I highly doubt the two of you are worth half a million."

"Oh, don't underestimate me," Aghoul said. "Plenty of demons appreciate a more mature figure. Ozzie, set up the stage for an auction! Someone's going home with THIS!" He gestured up and down his body.

"And, more importantly," said Mim, "someone's going home with THIS." She did the same.

"Most importantly," said Mozenrath, "we're leaving with the recipe. Try to remember that and not make this about proving that you're hot stuff."

In a few minutes, the music had been cut, and Aghoul and Mim stood onstage. "Hey, sluts, bitches, and playas!" Fizzarolli called out. "Are ya nasty?"

There was a massive cheer from the crowd.

"We got two volunteers who are lookin' for somebody to take 'em home," said Fizzarolli, "but they ain't comin' for free! Some lucky demon – or couple of demons – gets to spend the night, but that's gotta be the highest bidder!"

He stepped back while Aghoul stepped forward. "Let's start with this, uhhh…this unconventional…beauty?" Fizzarolli shook his head. "Whatever. Bidding starts at five hundred!"

No one said a word.

"Two hundred!"

Silence.

"I'm worth at least one-fifty!" Aghoul argued.

"…Seventy dollars?" Fizzarolli suggested.

Someone yelled "BOOOOOO!" and threw a red mass that splattered when it hit Aghoul in the face.

"I'll take the bidding to start at one tomato!" Aghoul declared.

"Hate to break it to ya," said Fizzarolli, "but tomatoes ain't usually made of rubber, and the goo in 'em isn't usually WHITE." This got a laugh from the crowd.

"Oh," Aghoul realized. "Well, then we'll start the bidding at…one of those." He wiped away said goo with one arm.

"This is ridiculous." Mozenrath marched up onstage to give Aghoul a piece of his mind. "Get down from there! We're changing tactics. I say we track down the witch – "

"TWO THOUSAND!" someone yelled.

"Now THAT'S more like it!" Aghoul cheered.

"Not you!" yelled the bidder – a shark demon from the Greed ring, front and center of the crowd. "I'm lookin' at the hotsie-totsie pretty boy!"

"Wha – " Mozenrath sputtered. "I'M NOT FOR SALE!"

"Three thou." The shark winked.

"That's three thousand from Chazwick Thurman for the hot wizard!" Fizzarolli proclaimed.

"I AM NOT FOR BIDDING!" Mozenrath yelled. "RETRACT YOUR OFFER OR I'LL – "

"Whoa, WHOA!" As soon as Mozenrath's gauntlet glowed blue, Roman sensed a scene about to be made, and rushed up to halt him. "Let's not start a bar fight until AFTER we have what we came for."

"Ooooh, fifty thousand for THAT ass!" Chaz offered.

"You don't have fifty thousand!" Asmodeus yelled at him.

"Just put it on my tab and I'll get you a loan, then!" Chaz argued.

"I'M NOT FOR SALE EITHER!" Roman yelled. "…I mean, yeah, you appraised that about right, but IT'S NOT FOR YOU!"

He grabbed Mozenrath's nonmagical arm and forcibly dragged him offstage.

"Okay, the bidding is definitely for the tarnished-silver fox who consented," Fizzarolli went on. "Let's hear some serious bets!"

All he heard was crickets.

Wuya, flanked by Snatcher and Huntsman, met Mozenrath and Roman at the edge of the stage. "Follow me," she said. "I have a plan."

She led them all into the men's restroom. The area was empty save for one demon, a very handsome Korean man who offered two rolls of toilet paper – one red, one blue. "The stalls are all empty," he said. "Might I offer you your preference?"

"Not today, Aka Manto," said Wuya.

Aka Manto pouted. It looked like he wasn't going to get to do a color-coded murder today.

"We just need a place to hide," Wuya said. "Now…"

She magically ripped three human-sized chunks out of the floor, fashioning them into her rock creatures. Then, with a flourish, she glamoured them, and three exact replicas stood in the room – Mozenrath, Roman, and Madame Frou Frou. All three stood ready at attention.

"Nice!" Roman said. "You're selling the fakes and we get to keep our autonomy."

Wuya nodded. "They'll do whatever you ask them without minding. They can't talk, though, so we have to get them through the system before anyone notices what's off. And also, each of them weighs about a ton, so anyone who has them top is in for a world of hurt."

"That sounds like a win-win," said Mozenrath.

"Why am I here?" the Huntsman asked.

"So you didn't fly into a rage when you saw what appeared to be your boyfriend getting on that stage," said Wuya.

The Huntsman nodded. "That was wise."

"As was making THAT one." Snatcher smirked at Frou Frou. "Not to brag, but that one's going to be the best-seller."

"No duh," said Wuya. "It didn't make sense any other way. Now, you all stay in here. Can't have anyone seeing the doubles until the bidders leave with their dates."

She sauntered out with the rock-replica trio in tow.

"Stay in the bathroom," Mozenrath groaned. "That's exactly how I wanted to spend my evening."

"It is sequestered away from the chaos," the Huntsman reminded him. "And from all of those DEMONS." The bloodlust dripped from his voice.

"If I may," Aka Manto interrupted, "could I interest you in a game to pass the time? I promise you will not be killed."

"I find that hard to believe," the Huntsman told him.

"I will pay you money for victory," the demon went on. "I understand that is what you seek at this time."

"…Go on," said Roman.

Aka Manto brought out a briefcase, opening it to reveal two piles of envelopes, red and blue. "Your choice of color," he said. "The game is Ddakji. I will put an envelope of my color on the ground, and my opponent will use their envelope to try and flip mine over. For each round you win, I will pay you fifty dollars."

"And for each round we lose, we owe you how much?" Roman asked.

"No money at all," said Aka Manto. "However, I do get to slap you."

"That's all?" Roman laughed. "Okay, I'll take that fucking bet. Let's go."

"Roman, I DO NOT like this," Snatcher hissed. "At the very least, he's aiming to annoy you immensely."

"It's a stupid kids' game," said Roman, "and it costs nothing. How hard can this be?"

The stone replicas were lined up onstage, and bidding was going crazy. "How did they ever agree to this?" Vexen asked.

"Did you notice they're not talking and have heavy footfalls?" Yzma said flatly.

"…Wuya's rock creatures," Vexen realized. "How ingenious. It will, however, mean that the auction has to hurry before anyone notices the discrepancies."

"That's their problem," said Yzma. "Anyway, I've been looking over the drink menu, and you should see some of the potions they have here! They're offering Tears of the Dead like it's a common cocktail!"

"The deadly poison?" Vexen was intrigued. "It's normally much harder to come by. I would have expected lust potions, like Amortentia."

"They have that too," said Yzma. "And liquid lyrium."

"I wonder," Vexen mused. "Perhaps by combining some of the menu items, we can acquire even stronger potion-based weapons for our own operation."

"You read my mind," Yzma told him. "WAITER! BRING US ONE SHOT GLASS OF EVERYTHING!"

In the restroom, Roman finally flipped Aka Manto's envelope after what seemed to be countless rounds. His face was quite red and starting to show bruising from the slapping. Now, Roman reached out and flailed at the demon; "HA! FINALLY! HOW DO YOU LIKE IT, BITCH?"

Aka Manto sidestepped each blow. "I said I would pay you. Not that you could slap me."

"This is why one shouldn't engage in games with demons," said the Huntsman.

"The house always wins," Mozenrath agreed.

"You promised us a monetary reward!" Snatcher reminded Aka Manto. "Pay and let's be done with it!"

"NOT UNTIL I SLAP THIS FUCKER'S FACE OFF!" Roman was still trying his hardest to do just that, but Aka Manto was graceful enough to avoid every strike.

Wuya threw open the door; "All three of them sold, and the buyer's out the door!"

"The buyer IS?" Mozenrath asked.

Wuya nodded. "One person. Guess."

Mozenrath sighed. "Chaz."

"But we made bank on it," Wuya said. "Come back out so we can see Mim!"

"With all due respect," said Snatcher, "we are owed – "

Aka Manto slipped Snatcher the fifty. "I believe we are even."

"Then let us be on our way," Snatcher proclaimed, beginning to stride away.

Roman looked about ready to tackle Aka Manto and strangle him with his bare hands, so Snatcher quickly doubled back and gently seized him to escort him out; "It's not worth it, love."

Aka Manto handed Mozenrath a business card. "In the mortal realm, they call me 'Gong Yoo.' If you are interested in playing more games, feel free to give a call."

Mozenrath took one look over the business card, which was adorned with three symbols – an "X," a square, and a circle – and ripped it in half. "No."

Then he and the Huntsman left.

They just managed to glimpse Chaz leaving with his prizes and bragging up a storm ("Welcome to the foursome of your dreams! I promise, you've never seen a cock this MASSIVE!"). Mozenrath, the Huntsman, Snatcher, Roman, and Yzma quickly hustled back to their table. It wasn't hard to find, given the amounts of purple and green smoke billowing it from it.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Mozenrath yelled at Yzma and Vexen, who had safety goggles on as they stirred glasses of vibrantly-colored liquid.

"Weapons engineering," Yzma answered. "Vexen, hand me the Denore Bottle. I think I can stabilize this."

"A trade," said Vexen. "You hand me the truth serum. I'm adding psychological warfare to my design."

"If you aren't careful," the Huntsman hissed, "you'll cause an explosion!"

"And totally take my job," Roman huffed. "I'm supposed to be the one who blows random shit up and ruins everything. It's like you forgot the natural order."

"DOES ANYONE, LITERALLY ANYONE AT ALL, WANT TO BET LITERALLY ANYTHING FOR THIS ROTTEN OLD CORPSE?" Fizzarolli called out as Aghoul flexed onstage.

"I'll bet this fifty I pickpocketed from the wet blanket in the red hat!" yelled someone.

Snatcher's hand flew to his pocket. Sure enough, empty.

Aghoul happily left with the woman who'd paid. Then came Mim, front and center.

"Hate to tell ya," Asmodeus said as he sauntered back to the WHAM ARMY table, "but you're only about halfway there. Technically, you're only about fifty there, since Chaz paid me in IOUs, but that's his problem now, not yours. You're gonna need a miracle to round up two hundred and fifty K."

Mim shapeshifted into a writhing mass of nigh-incomprehensible features, with limbs from human and beast.

Slenderman and Kuchisake-Onna quietly held up a sign that read "$300,000."

"You were saying?" Mozenrath sneered.

"SOLD TO THE FREAKY SWINGERS!" Fizzarolli declared. "Go have fun, you little harlots!"

Mim happily left with the pair that had won her. "I suppose everyone consented to the events that transpired here," said Vexen, "so there's nothing I can object to."

"I can object to the fact that you're about to gas us all out of my club," said Asmodeus. "Put it away or leave."

"In fact, I paid for these drinks, so I will take them with me." Vexen rose, taking a bottle from his enchanted purse and pouring his progress into it. Once it was corked, he pocketed the bottle. "Yzma?"

Yzma poured her own work into a bottle and handed it off to Vexen. "And with that, I have no more business here," he said. "I suppose Enmu is taking off soon?"

"You can grab him if you hustle," Asmodeus told him.

"Then we'll also be leaving once we have the recipe," said Mozenrath, the Huntsman nodding. "There's nothing for us to do here."

"There is ONE thing for me to do here," said the Huntsman, "but I'm certain you wouldn't want me to slaughter half your clientele."

"Aww, can we stay?" Roman asked. "It's a sex club in Hell. When are we gonna get this opportunity again?"

"How the priests back home would blanche to see me now!" Snatcher crowed.

"And someone will have to give Aghoul and Mim a ride home," said Yzma. "Presumably."

"I mean, you two, me, and Yzma could stay here for a couple more hours," said Wuya.

"A suitable compromise," said Mozenrath. "Now. The recipe."

Asmodeus nodded in triplicate. "Gimme a minute."

He disappeared into the back.

Vexen felt a rising heat coming from his inner pocket. With a shriek of "IT'S LIVE!", he withdrew the potion flask that was overheating, then chucked it across the room. It exploded, taking out a good chunk of the VIP section's furniture and leaving its tenants dazed.

"If anyone asks," Mozenrath said, "that wasn't us."

"Again, that's MY thing," Roman said. "If you take the role of the guy who blows shit up, what exactly am I supposed to do here? Oh, right. Fifty-thousand-dollar ass." He winked. Then turned to Snatcher; "And I do allow hands on the merchandise."

Within a few minutes, a demon with deer-like features sauntered out of the kitchen, a name tag delineating her as a staff member named "Thorny." She brought with her a covered silver dish; she raised the domed cover to reveal a scroll of paper. "Your recipe for the Notion Potion," she said.

"Good." Mozenrath swiped it. "I believe we're done here."

Thorny saw what had been done to the VIP section. "Who was responsible – "

"WE'RE LEAVING," Vexen insisted. He, Mozenrath, and the Huntsman made a beeline for the door.

Yzma, Wuya, Snatcher, and Roman sat back down at the table. "That just leaves the party crew," Wuya said.

One table over, they were being observed by War, Famine, and Pollution. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Famine asked.

"I believe I am," War replied.

"Are you two about to induce hangry?" Pollution asked.

War and Famine grinned. Then they concentrated on the WHAM ARMY table, trying to make its four occupants as hungry and irritable as possible.

"I'm sorry, what were you thinking doing amateur lab work at a nightclub?" Wuya snapped at Yzma.

"Where's this coming from?" Yzma retorted back. "You were fine with it earlier!"

"Yes, BEFORE your concoction blew up half the VIP section!"

"Mine?" Yzma growled. "That was obviously Vexen's bottle!"

"Yeah, no, it was you," said Roman. "It wouldn't have been Iceman. He's, how do I put this? Competent."

"I suppose as competent as you think you are, having been 'appraised,'" Snatcher grumbled.

"…Excuse you?" Roman turned to him.

"I suppose now you think you're too good for me," Snatcher accused. "Is that it?"

"Too good for you?" Roman barked. "What the – you still don't believe me when I say I'm into you? After HOW LONG?"

"You have been known to lie, as well as cheat, steal, and survive…"

"We have been THROUGH THIS!"

War, Famine, and Pollution snickered.

"But you want the proof?" Roman asked. "Fine. Doubt me after this!" And he pecked Snatcher on the lips. It was actually supposed to be a gesture of frustration, but as soon as they made contact, there was a spark of white light, and suddenly, all four at the table felt much more clear-headed.

"…Soooooo someone was definitely manipulating our moods with magic," Wuya realized.

"Quite so," Snatcher said. "I wasn't that bothered until suddenly, and I hadn't had doubts until they arrived quite unexpectedly."

"And I wasn't annoyed about anything until just now," Roman agreed.

"So you don't actually think it was my potion that exploded?" Yzma inquired.

"Oh, we do," said Wuya. "But that's not a bad thing. It's actually funny."

"Hilarious," Roman agreed.

Famine, War, and Pollution gaped at the table as though they'd seen horrors beyond mortal comprehension. Then the three of them leapt up, barreling across the club toward a panic button reserved for a special occasion. All three mashed it at once.

A loud siren pierced the club's atmosphere. A rotating warning light, in the shape of pink hearts, lowered from the ceiling and flashed ominously. The activity at every single table ground to a halt.

Ozzie came storming out, aflame in blue and looking scarier than he'd ever been. "WHO DID A TRUE LOVE'S KISS IN MY CLUB?" he bellowed.

No one was willing to own up to it. So War, Famine, and Pollution jumped up on chairs behind the WHAM ARMY and pointed at Roman and Snatcher; "THEM! THEY DID IT!"

Asmodeus regarded the pair with fire in his eyes.

"What the – nooooo!" Roman whined. "I don't know what they THOUGHT they saw, but it wasn't…that!"

"Preposterous accusations!" Snatcher agreed. "I won't sit here and be slandered – "

Asmodeus stormed toward them. "I run a CLASSY establishment," he snarled. "This is a club designed around LUST. Now, I don't refuse service to boring old married couples so long as they keep it to themselves. But a True Love's Kiss? THAT'S INDECENCY. You people make me sick! Get out of my club before you make someone else lose their libido!"

"But we didn't – " Roman argued.

"It was certainly not – " Snatcher attempted.

"NOW!" Asmodeus yelled, flashing so bright that for a moment, everything inside the club was seen in negative.

Roman and Snatcher got up and scurried away, bolting out the front door. Wuya and Yzma just shrugged to each other.

"Club's ours, I guess," Wuya said.

Outside, Roman and Snatcher hurried up to catch up to Mozenrath, the Huntsman, and Vexen. Once they'd reunited, Mozenrath asked, "What happened?"

"…Kicked out of the club," Roman grumbled.

"Why?" Mozenrath pressed.

"Public indecency, apparently," said Snatcher.

"In the Lust ring?" the Huntsman was baffled.

"Well, if anyone could be indecent enough to shame Lust itself, it would be those two," Vexen said.

"Yeah," Roman laughed nervously. "Even Hell couldn't handle us."

"We shall, erm, wear it as a badge of honor," Snatcher muttered.

Both of them were starting to suspect that there was now even more to their relationship than they'd thought.

"Well, truth be told, this is somewhat of a relief," said Vexen. "Because if I know the two of you, you'll flood Enmu with requests, Snatcher will likely take over vocals, and I won't have to sit through any more of Enmu's…grunge."

"I did not mind his taste," said the Huntsman. "He selected well, for a demon."

"Are you saying you'd rather listen to my serenading than Mr. Enmu's musical stylings?" Snatcher asked Vexen. "Why, that almost sounded like a compliment from you. For that, I may just take ONE request from you."

"Then I will make it count," said Vexen.

...

Rapunzel, Elena, Stork, Sofia, Ven, Papyrus, and now Anastasia found a new place to spend the night, on the Isle of Haunted Houses. They had to ask around to differentiate between the houses haunted by malicious ghosts, those haunted by pranksters, and those haunted by the benevolent, but eventually ended up in a home whose only occupants really just went about their day phasing through people and walls as though no one else was there.

When the candles were automatically doused by the spirits at day's end, Rapunzel knew it was time to give in to sleep. She lay down, shut her eyes, and began to hear it all over again –

"Wither and decay, end this destiny…"

That dream again.

"Wither and decay…end this destiny…"

"Wither and decay – "

"NO! YOU MUSTN'T EVER SING THAT SONG! NOT ONCE! NOT EVER! Ohhhh, no no no, sweetie, that was Mama's fault for singing a grown-up song in front of a little girl. I won't sing that song again, and you won't ever sing that song again. Do you understand me?"

"Yes…"

She knew how this went. Always the same.

"Let's see…how about…okay. Flower, gleam and glow…let your power shine…make the clock reverse…bring back what once was mine. Okay, corny, but it can work. So how about we repeat it one more time, but now the third line is 'Heal what has been hurt.' Ha, gotcha. That one's gonna filter out the Fountain-of-Youth chasers from the real champions. Now for the Darkness half. This one has to punch hard. For phase one, how about…hm…wither and decay. Yes. I like that. End this destiny."

This was where the Anti-White Coat would show up. Except, that night, he didn't.

When the man at the desk finished his thought – "Break these earthly chains, and set this spirit free! Yeah. That'll work," Rapunzel was genuinely stunned.

"I've never gotten this far in the dream before," she muttered to herself. "Is this something that really happened somewhere, or is it all in my head? Is that the real incantation? It can't be. I'm having a dream! I just made it up!"

"Well." The man in black rose from his seat. "Should probably go check in on Ira and Aced. Make sure they're not dueling to the death…yet."

He turned around and walked out, through the study, right through Rapunzel like she was a ghost. The book sat open on the table.

"…Am I okay to look at that?" Rapunzel wondered aloud. "It's not mine. But this is my dream! This probably doesn't exist in the real world. If it's just words my head made up, then it's fine to look at, and it's not snooping! …Right?"

She gingerly approached the desk, picking the book up in her hands. The Healing Incantation was indeed written on the verso. On the recto was its twin, the one she could only ever remember two lines of.

"Or maybe I'm just…remembering what I heard," she thought to herself. "The demon said it to me…and Mother obviously sang it once…so…"

"Oh, by the way."

Rapunzel turned, giving a gasp.

The man in black was looking into the room. Not directly at her, just generally in her direction. "Take your time. That's gonna belong to you eventually, you know."

Then he walked away.

"Can he…" Rapunzel shook her head. It was a dream. There was no need to question this.

She took another look at the words on the page. Committing them to memory. Then, out of curiosity, turning the page.

The man in black's voice. "Nope. Not yet."

There was a flash of light. Rapunzel awoke, the sun streaming through the window of the haunted house.

Strange. She'd always heard that dreams only took up a little bit of the time that one spent sleeping, but that short sequence seemed to have taken up her entire night.

She tested herself on the words. Only the last two lines. "Break these earthly chains, and set this spirit free." A chill washed over her skin.

Something had just happened that she didn't fully understand. And it had changed the game.

...

The idea of Salesman being one and the same with Aka Manto is from an AU by silentfcknhill – she and I are actually doing a long-term roleplay that involves the concept! She's named the character "Gong Yoo" after his actor. We actually have lore that he's from the universe of The Good Place and is Michael's far more evil nephew, but that's for another time.

Thorny is an OC belonging to the13throse.