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.

178. No Idea What's in Store

To brew a Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion, one needs a great plethora of odd items. Items that were hard to come by in normal circumstances. Mozenrath was ready to begin plotting a multi-world trip to collect them all, but thankfully, Wuya and Mim glanced over the list and gave him a tip-off for somewhere that might be a one-stop shop. A place where you could get just about anything you could imagine.

And so Mozenrath, the Huntsman, Wuya, Yzma, Mad Madam Mim, Ayam Aghoul, Archibald Snatcher, Roman Torchwick, and Vexen found themselves within the confines of Area 15 (not 51, 15) in the Nevada of one of the many Earths out there, fairly close to one of the many, many Las Vegases in the cosmos. In fact, the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign lay as shrapnel in the area, obviously having seen better days.

"Hopefully this is the last time I say this," Mozenrath remarked, looking at the building before him, "but this looks like a good place to find some ingredients."

It looked to be an ordinary supermarket. Barring the giant Greek letter omega emblazoned in neon yellow on its façade.

"Welcome to Omega Mart," Mim introduced. "If you can't get it here, then…well, you'll have to get it somewhere else, I suppose."

"Never actually been here," Wuya said. "I've just heard about it in the cosmic evil circuit."

"Oh, I've been loads of times," Mim told her. "It's the pinnacle of capitalistic greed. I wouldn't spend my money anywhere else!"

"We're spending money?" Roman asked. "I assumed we'd do this the old-fashioned way. You know, find the camera blind spots – "

"I intend to pay for as little as possible," Mozenrath stated, leading the group closer to the grocery store. "However, I did raid our emergency fund just in case security calls us out and happens to be some Eldritch entity we can't fight."

"We have an emergency fund?" Yzma asked.

"Yes," Mozenrath replied, "and it's called me finding out that Tony Dracon has been secretly hoarding a luxuries fund that is now legally jointly mine because that's how being in the WHAM ARMY works."

"What items are we looking for?" the Huntsman asked.

"I'm glad you asked," said Mozenrath. "I took the liberty of transcribing the ingredients section of the recipe down."

He handed the Huntsman a leather-bound book that was about the size of your average best-seller fantasy novel. Flipping through, the Huntsman realized that every square inch of paper was used to write the list.

"This isn't baby's first potion, I see," Wuya remarked. "We're in for the long haul."

"Then we had best waste no time," Vexen said. "Easier said than done in present company."

"Wasting time is half the fun!" Aghoul protested. "I intend to waste as much of it as possible while we're here. After all, Omega Mart exists outside space and time. We could spend a thousand years here and come out without having lost a day in the rest of the cosmos!"

"All who are in agreement that we should spend a thousand years of grocery shopping, speak up," said Mozenrath. Then, immediately, he said, "Oh, wait, no one wants that. We're not doing that. Actually, I know we could get this done faster if we split up, but – "

"NO SPLITTING UP!" Yzma, Wuya, Roman, and Snatcher insisted as one.

"And there we have it," Mozenrath remarked.

Into the store they went. Immediately, they were greeted with a saccharine jingle: "Omega Mart! Your super family store! The savings start when you come in our door!"

"This is going to be a test of my patience," Mozenrath grumbled.

"This is going to be a GLORIOUS outing," Mim said at the exact same time.

Just from the first impression, it looked like your ordinary piece of consumerist Americana. A vast expanse of metal shelving stocked with products, bright lighting, obnoxious music, and signage pointing out departments like Produce and the Deli. Other than a certain otherworldly quality to the music, one might not have noticed anything amiss at first glance. The devil, however, was in the details.

On a sale rack marked "This can't be happening!", Yzma discovered a great bargain on such things as Lil Meow Pigeon Mousse and Healthy Wolf Lonely Hiker Protein Feast. Both boxed. "Anyone need mashed pigeon or…disembodied protein?"

"No," Mozenrath said, "but I'm not stupid enough to think we're limiting this trip to what we NEED. Let me handle the list, and the rest of you…do what you do."

The Huntsman took down a box of Lonely Wolf, scooping it into his enchanted bag. "One never knows when they might need disembodied protein while on the hunt."

Mozenrath sped right to a shelf carrying several black-and-white cans. "Perfect," he said. "The first things I need." He discreetly pocketed three cans of liquid antimatter and two cans of anti-time particles.

"Hey!" Roman took down a similar can with a rainbow label. "Gay pride in a can! See, I think this might be the one thing we have TOO much of."

"There's no such thing," Wuya told him.

"Yeah, but we generate it naturally," Roman argued. "The canned stuff probably tastes like shit."

"Let me know if anyone spots a bottle of poison collected from the river Styx, or a box of cathotymic flotion," Mozenrath said.

"Found canned peaches," said Wuya. "No, wait, those are canned BEACHES. Should I open one up and see what happens?"

"That would blow our shoplifting operation pretty fast," said Roman. "You want to do that, it has to be the last thing on the way out."

"I haven't had a good moth milk on my cereal in years!" Aghoul proclaimed, holding up another can.

The lights began to flicker. The store dimmed, with flashing aurorae strobing throughout. "Hello, customers," a deep, distorted voice on the overhead PA said. "Enjoying DramCorp's solutions a little TOO much? That's because they're made with Additive S – "

"Are they talking about drugs?" Roman said immediately. "Because I would not say no to that."

"They say Additive S is the very concept of wanting," Mim told him. "That it's diluted greed. That it can be whatever you want it to be! It's in pretty much every product here."

"That won't ruin the potion quality, will it?" Mozenrath asked.

"It will IMPROVE the potion quality," Mim told him. "Remember, what we're brewing is all about WANTING."

Yzma had found a cosmetics display with a tester row. She dipped her finger onto the eyeshadow palette, rubbing it around. When she removed the finger, the tip was see-through, as though it had been cut off entirely. Yzma then experimentally rubbed the shadow onto her eyelids; it now looked like pieces of her head had been cut out, turning her eyelids and everything behind them invisible so that you could look through her closed eyes like a pair of binoculars and see the rest of the store. After admiring this effect in the mirror, Yzma plunged her fingers into the other colors.

Roman excitedly rejoined the group after a quick detour to the pharmacy; "Found the drugs! Can you believe they let me just TAKE these? No ID or anything!" His arms were laden with bottles of multicolored pills. "I don't even know what half of these do!"

"Kill you, probably," Wuya said. "You're letting me inspect your candy when we get home."

"Party pooper," Roman huffed.

Yzma, now looking like she had a blacklight being shone on her face at all times, sauntered over to Mozenrath. "Tell me. Does this bring out my cheekbones?"

"You are now scarier than you were before," Mozenrath said, "which is impressive, because I really thought 'beyond all reason' was the cap."

"You're exaggerating," Yzma accused.

Mim walked by and pointed; "Yzma! You've hardly looked more gorgeous!"

"…Never mind, it really is hideous, isn't it?" Yzma wiped at her face with one arm.

"NO!" Mozenrath yelled. "You're making it worse and ACTIVELY turning yourself into a mini-Cthulhu."

Vexen peered over Mozenrath's shoulder. "How – HOW is your face currently the host to two simultaneous optical illusions?"

Wuya conjured a wet towel and handed it to Yzma. "Here. Use this."

"Hang on a minute!" Yzma plucked a bottle off the shelf. "This micellar water should – "

Vexen plucked it from her hands. "That says MYCELIUM water. And I don't even want to know what it would have done." He turned it over, reading the label. "Ah. The first ingredient listed is Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. I now have a fairly good idea of what it would have done."

Mozenrath rolled his eyes as he stuffed his enchanted bag with snorkels.

They came to the meat counter, observing the display inside the glass case. There was a lovely array of sculptures made of ground meat (not necessarily beef), as well as processed meat that was colors meat normally doesn't come in. A smiling employee hopped up to the counter as though this were a normal department; "Hi! What can I get you?"

"I need two pounds of fresh brain jelly," Mozenrath ordered. "Actually, better make it three. No, make it five; I know Aghoul's going to eat some of it out of the container on the way out."

The employee set a plastic container on the scale and began filling it with a gooey, gelatinous substance that was a very sick shade of gray.

Snatcher gave the counter display a glance, sneering at a display of perhaps the only cheese in the world that Lord Portley-Rind would rather die than eat, and a display of meat marked "HMF" that looked so delicious that it was obviously bait of some kind. Then, noticing a very artful row of whole raw chickens on the top shelf, asked, "You see these…tattooed chickens? They're not human skin sewn onto a chicken skeleton, are they? They've just drawn the ink onto the birds…right?"

"I think they just grow that way," Aghoul said. "Tattoo chickens as a breed."

"Does it need to be an 'or' scenario?" Mim asked.

Aghoul then pointed to a lower shelf. "Now, THAT looks like a tasty treat!"

It looked like it was still alive, and was somehow bubbling. Snatcher quickly stepped away before he could become horribly nauseous at the sight of it.

The employee handed over Mozenrath's brain jelly. "Anything else?"

"Would you have shlemielized ectoplasm here?" Mozenrath asked.

"Sorry, no," said the employee. "The fresh ectoplasm is actually over in Produce, but the shlemielized we only have canned. It's in aisle seven."

"Good enough." Mozenrath took the jelly container and started walking. "Move out."

"Can't we get some of the strawberry marshmallow fluff?" Aghoul whined as he brought up the rear of the group. "They have the naturally boneless kind!"

"Did no one else notice the bloodstains on the wall behind the counter?" Roman asked. "Just me?"

"We noticed," said Wuya. "But you seem to have forgotten where we are. There are no answers. Only questions."

Back through the aisles they all wandered. The dairy and juice cooler seemed to have glitched in reality, stretched out much further than it should be and mildly pixelated. Roman couldn't help but reach out to try and poke the glitch. Vexen immediately slapped his hand away, knowing exactly where this was going.

Yzma picked up another bottle. "Well, here's MITOSIS water."

"One Yzma is enough for me, thank you," Mozenrath sighed.

"I don't know," Wuya said mischievously. "I can think of some applications for a second Yzma…"

"No," said Yzma as she read the label over. "This is localized to the head, so I'd just end up with two faces. I've been there and I'm never doing THAT again, no matter how much extra glamor it lets me show off to the world." She put the bottle back on the shelf.

"Are you going to elaborate on that?" Snatcher asked.

"No," said Yzma.

So Snatcher sauntered on past the dairy and juice shelf, or at least what parts of it were still joined to reality. One particular item caught his eye. "Millk, with two Ls," he muttered. "Wonder if I'd still react to it, or if it's the solution to all my problems."

"Yeah, I wouldn't drink that," Roman said, appearing at his side.

There was a pause of disbelief.

"Okay, actually, you and I both know I would totally drink that," Roman said. "Put one in the bag. It's not really MILK, so that could actually be useful to us. We'll just need to have the potions experts on standby."

"Out of the way, you two!" Mim barged between them, shifting her arm to double length to reach the top shelf. "It's not every day you see a price like that on pure Silt."

Wuya discovered a candy endcap display. "Ohhhh, Georgie-Porgie," she taunted. "You might want to come see this."

"Don't…call me that," the Huntsman sighed as he approached. "What did you find – "

Wuya lobbed a bag into his hands. The Huntsman read the label on the small, round, green candies. "Leprechaun kidneys…" His eyes widened. Because that's exactly what they were. He would know; he'd removed his fair share and dried them out to make this sort of sweet. "I…I haven't had these in ten years."

Wuya gestured to the endcap. "Anything else here that catches your nostalgia?"

The Huntsman started reading off labels. "Ogre flesh…manticore scat…"

Wuya winced. "That has to be a niche market."

"No," the Huntsman corrected. "Manticore droppings are far more sanitary than any other fecal matter you will ever encounter, and have a sweet undertone to their earthiness."

"Well, I'm learning a lot of things I can never un-learn today," said Wuya.

The Huntsman gave a loud gasp, snatching a package of what might have looked at first to be red licorice. "They're here! I've found them!" He held it aloft. "DRAGON ARTERIES!" He then began to clear out the shelf.

"Never had those," said Mozenrath, who'd just pocketed a unit of perversion particles.

"They are a delicacy like no other," the Huntsman said. "When a kill was made among the Huntsclan academy staff, and there was enough to go around, they would be passed among the students. I, however, was not well-liked by my peers, as you'll recall, and a slow learner at the time. The others made it their mission to deprive me of the arteries as much as possible. It was a rare day that I could get my hands on one…and now I HAVE ENOUGH TO FEED THE ENTIRE ACADEMY AND THEN SOME!"

"That's a glowing review," Mozenrath pointed out. "I better get to taste at least one of these."

The Huntsman glared at him.

"Or…none of them," Mozenrath corrected. "I taste none of them and you eat all of them. I just don't recommend doing it in one sitting."

The Huntsman handed Mozenrath a different package. "You can have this."

Mozenrath gasped, legitimately touched. "Manticore scat? Destane banned this after my first year as his apprentice! He always called it disgusting, but what did he know?" Mozenrath tore it open, popping one of the droppings into his mouth. "Exactly as delicious as I remember."

"EH-EHEM." Yzma pointed to a sign stating "No eating in the store!".

"You actually thought any of us were going to pay attention to that sign?" Mozenrath replied. "Yzma. I'm disappointed in you."

Mim poked the sign with a finger, setting it on fire, and the group moved on.

"So…is it bad that I want to try the root-beer-flavored-vape-juice-flavored root beer?" Roman wondered aloud.

"Repeat that question to yourself," Mozenrath said, "really enunciate every word, then think about it, then answer it yourself."

"I say get it," Wuya told him. "Life's short, and they say you only live once."

"We have a necromancer," Roman told her.

"I know," said Wuya. "I'm just saying that's what they SAY. And if it was true, that would be a reason NOT to taste-test the Eldritch products."

"Ohhh, I getcha!" Roman clicked his tongue.

There was a scuffling sound as Snatcher hastily backed away from the soda shelf. "Thought here of all places I'd be safe," he grumbled as he hustled to the other side of the aisle. "But no, it's in those carbonated sugar drinks now, even here I'm harangued – "

"What, you found cheese soda?" Wuya inspected the shelf. "Yep. He found cheese soda."

"GET THREE BOTTLES!" Yzma cried.

"WHY?" Mozenrath yelled.

"Ooh, they have Zalg products here!" Aghoul was bagging a pink drink. "I'm going to have to frequent this place more often!"

"What is Zalg?" the Huntsman asked.

Aghoul broke down, practically into hysterics. "What is Zalg, he asks! You don't – you don't even know what Zalg is! Well, at this point, I'm not going to tell you, because THAT'S JUST TOO FUNNY!" He turned away, laughing so hard that he would've been reduced to tears, had his ducts worked.

Vexen trailed his hand over the more bizarre soda flavors. Doomed Expedition. Vegan Goat Pus. Then a bottle marked "Please, wake up!" caught his eye. He lifted it, reading its nutrition label:

"None of this is real. You're only a fictional character, created by a team of corporate authors. None of this is canon, either. This is all the musings of an individual's interpretation of your character, and you have diverted wildly from the timeline originally laid out for you. You are a shadow of a shadow of something that never existed. Wake up to the truth. Canon doesn't disappear just because of fanwork, and you can't hide from reality in fiction."

"Preposterous." Vexen put it back on the shelf. "If this weren't reality, I would know."

For a moment, when he blinked, he saw a sort of illusion, a split-second hallucination. A round portrait of his face to the lower right, with green and blue bars curled around it, and a menu of commands to the lower left, filled out with words like "Magic" and "Items." But then it was all gone.

"…And if it weren't reality," Vexen muttered, "it would probably be preferable to whatever is."

"THERE!" Mozenrath swept a bottle of green soda into his bag. "Poison from the river Cocytus! …As a soda, which is probably more than I can ask for at this point."

"Look!" Mim pointed to stacked boxes. "Overpriced flavored carbonated water that caters to rich people!" She hustled over to the L'Omega display. "We've got to get at least one. What flavor? There's pine-apple—that's two words, pine and apple—Very Barry with an A, new car, dispassionfruit, mashed potato, and plain plain."

"I say mashed potato," said Yzma. "It's the only logical choice."

Vexen and Mozenrath both began to yell "HOW IS THAT THE ONLY LOGICAL – " before realizing at the same time that it was pointless to ask.

"Yes, but is it BUTTERED mashed potato?" Snatcher asked. "Because I won't have any of that garbage anywhere near."

"Oh, good point," Yzma realized. "Erm…no one here is allergic to Barry, right?"

"No, we have to do new car," said Roman.

"I second new car," Aghoul chimed in.

After an awkward pause, the Huntsman muttered, "If I cared, I would say new car."

"New car it is!" Mim bagged the box.

Turning the corner, Snatcher was faced down with a human-sized barrel of cheese puffs. "WHY?" he growled. "Have I not suffered enough?"

Truth be told, the repeated sight of dairy products was starting to actually make him physically sick, because as hard as he tried to block out the Tasting Room and the Anti-White Coat from his memory, it still seeped through the cracks. Like spilled milk. That analogy didn't help one bit, but Snatcher really had only himself to blame for it. He turned to exit the aisle, just about colliding with Roman.

"You HAVE to see the toys they have in the cheap toy aisle," Roman gushed. "These are like regular crappy grocery store toys on steroids. Look!" He held up a container with a plastic limb inside. "Leg! Just leg! Or how about these?" A bag of plastic horses labeled "Weird Dogs" was next on display. Then, noticing Snatcher's lack of reaction to this, Roman asked softly, "Um, everything okay?"

"Yes. Perfectly fine."

"We still haven't talked about what happened – "

"And we're not going to."

"Didn't think so," said Roman. "Still, just so you know, the floor would hypothetically be yours."

"It was only a long dream," Snatcher insisted. "Nothing whatsoever to concern yourself with."

Without another word, Roman pocketed the strange plastic toys, gently seized Snatcher's upper arms, and pulled him into a deep kiss. After some time, when they separated, Snatcher asked, "What was that for?"

"Nothing to concern myself with, apparently."

"Roman, I am FINE."

"I know. Still needed an excuse." Roman gave a smile that didn't seem quite sincere. "We…have been through some shit this round."

"Ah, so this is for you," Snatcher said mischievously.

"Never said that."

Snatcher gently ran a hand through Roman's hair, around the back of his head, pulling him in for a second kiss. "Well, we seem to be at a reprieve."

"Thank the gods for that."

"Now, what were you saying about those bizarre children's toys? Got to be worth a laugh at least…"

Yzma was now deliberating over a box of cereal branded "Oh, THOSE." Aghoul walked behind her and pointed out, "With a name like that, you can't just leave it behind, you know."

"I know," Yzma grumbled. "I hate myself for giving in to so many of these. Though if we're going to break the eating taboo, I should know if I'm getting the money's worth I'd be concerned with if I were paying for this." She pried off the lid, taking out a handful of crispy black loops and marshmallows shaped like staplers and batteries. Then, keeping that handful off to the side, she dumped cereal out of the box directly into her mouth.

"Well?" Wuya asked. "How's it taste?"

Yzma made a face. "Oh. It's THOSE."

"What 'those' are you referring to?" Vexen asked.

"You know," Yzma said. "Those. Those things that – well, I can't describe it. It's just that feeling you get. Taste for yourself!"

"This is ridiculous," Vexen sighed. "At the very least, I can make an approximation of what it tastes like in more concrete terms!"

But after eating a handful, all he could say was "Oh. THOSE."

"You know," Mozenrath realized after picking up no fewer than seven bottles of literal crocodile tears, "all this reminds me that we're out of peanut butter again. Or at least we were before we split up. Wuya, how's the Yzmatopia supply?"

"Out of it," Wuya said. "Why is it always the peanut butter?"

"Well, luckily for us, there seem to be a multitude of peanut-butter approximations here," Mozenrath said as he looked over a shelf of exactly that. "Unluckily for us, NONE OF THEM SEEM TO ACTUALLY BE PEANUT BUTTER."

"This looks right," Aghoul said as he held up a jar of something called "Cracker Spackle."

"I don't even think that's food," Mozenrath told him. "But if you disagree with me, you're welcome to eat it in front of me and tell me otherwise."

"I think I will!" Aghoul pried open the jar, digging the goo out with a bare hand and plunging it into his mouth. He chewed twice, and then that was all he could do, because the Cracker Spackle had sealed his mouth shut. He pointed to his face with a panicked "Mmmm!"

"No, I think I'm going to leave you like that until we leave the store," Mozenrath told him. "It's going to be so much more peaceful with one less motormouth."

"Hmm!" Aghoul put his hands on his hips and gave Mozenrath a disgruntled look.

"You realize this also lessens the probability that we'll be forcibly evicted because you sexually harassed the employees."

"HMM!"

Mozenrath turned to Yzma, who held out a cereal box. "Don't ask. Eat."

Without even considering the consequences, Mozenrath followed orders, chewing and swallowing the cereal. "Oh. THOSE."

Vexen meandered down an adjacent aisle. Here were large cans, the sort you might assume would contain economy-size quantities of product, but instead, they were labeled as "Canned Romantic Dinner." Meat, vegetables, dessert, and even the silverware suspended in gelatin.

Vexen thought it over. Disgusting as it seemed at first, it actually struck a chord with him for the sheer logic of it. Was it not all the trappings in one convenient package? And it would all end up in the stomach anyhow, save the forks. Romantic gestures, to him, had always seemed so frivolous until now. On what he considered a whim, he bagged a can. Perhaps Deymos would appreciate being surprised with it later. On second thought, it was so logically attuned to the concept of romance that really, it would be a quick and convenient way to fulfill the dining needs of all couples present, so Vexen bagged four more. "Never let it be said I didn't do anything for my friends," he muttered.

There was a display of outdoor and camping equipment. Mozenrath rolled his eyes at it. "I knew there would be ONE department here that would be outside the 'grocery' category in an attempt to pick up extra sales," he sighed. "There always is. But I was hoping it would be electronics. We're going to need an all-new Hellish computer to process some of these formulae."

"The most disappointing part is that it seems to be ordinary camping equipment," the Huntsman stated. "I'm…not sure what I expected, or what I wanted to be here, but this wasn't it."

"It's not a bad tent, though." Yzma got down and crawled inside. "It seems about henchman-sized. Inhumane for any of us, of course, but this might be a good place to keep Snipe."

Onward they all proceeded. "Careful!" Vexen snapped as they came across caution tape and a slew of ecru traffic cones outlining a difficult spill on the floor. It seemed that someone's groceries were slowly melting out of reality, turning into indeterminate sludge that was devouring the tile.

"I love it here," Mim sighed.

It was in the produce section that Wuya realized. "I think we lost Yzma."

Sure enough, she wasn't in the group.

"Hmm hmmm?" Aghoul commented. "Hmm."

"He said losing her in Omega Mart is bad," Mim translated. She grinned wickedly. "How WONDERFUL."

"Hang on." Wuya brought out her scroll, texting Yzma: "Where r u kitty? ᓚᘏᗢ"

The response came quickly: "I AM VERY LOST."

"Got a landmark for me? ( ˘ ³˘) "

"I AM AT THE GAS STATION. HURRY UP."

"What gas station?" Wuya asked aloud. "There's no – all right, I'm going back for her. Nobody leave Produce until we come back." She sauntered away.

"Great," Mozenrath groaned. "Well, you can all help me out by finding me the schizothalmic myrrh."

Mim found instead the display of Happles – apples that were little misshapen smiling faces. One of them smiled wider to greet her, so she chucked it on the floor and squashed it with a foot. "Can you believe the nerve, Roman?"

Roman's reply was a distracted, almost monotone "It's beautiful. I finally get it. The secrets of the universe."

"Oh, no," Mim realized.

Roman was looking at half of a watermelon. However, it was more than that, because if you looked at what would be its flesh end, normally spongy pink, instead you would see a corridor of multicolored lights that stretched further and further on with no end in sight.

"What's wrong with him?" Mozenrath asked.

"He looked into the Infinity Melon," Mim said.

Aghoul gave a bunch of hums that vaguely translated to his disbelief that anyone would be so stupid as to fall for an Infinity Melon.

"What is an – you know what?" Mozenrath realized. "I don't want to know. As long as it's keeping Roman occupied, I say this is – NO, DON'T DO THAT!"

The Huntsman was now looking over Roman's shoulder, into the Infinity Melon. "We are all but infinitesimal in the grand scheme," he said dreamily.

Mozenrath pointed at Snatcher. "Snatcher. DO NOT look at that melon."

"What?" Snatcher snapped. "You think I can't handle it? I'll show you otherwise, you see if I don't!"

"You fool!" Vexen yelled at Mozenrath. "That was the wrong way to command him, and YOU KNOW IT!"

Snatcher was now staring into the depths of the melon. "The White Hat never mattered at all," he said in a trance. "None of the hats mattered. They're but fabric leaves in the wind of the great void."

"And that leaves four," Mozenrath sighed. "Though, again, if it keeps them occupied, that might not be so bad. Let's just find that myrrh, THEN take care of this."

Vexen rifled through a shelf of lettuce, only to feel a sharp pain in his finger. He withdrew it, watching drops of scarlet blood well up. He could now see that hidden among the lettuce had been a tiny plant, like a Venus flytrap with lips and teeth – one that would have been more familiar had he seen a particular round of the Grandmaster's tournament. "Feed me!" the plant begged in an unnaturally deep voice.

Vexen froze it, as well as all the greens on the shelf, and moved on.

Mim picked up a root vaguely shaped like a humanoid creature, with little limbs in the form of branched-off sub-roots. "Please, ma'm!" the root begged. "I don't belong here. I come from another world. The CEO ruined everything when she tampered with the Source, and now my siblings and I are trapped in this store, and we just want to go home!"

Mim responded by biting its face off. "Delicious."

Mozenrath finally found the syrup he sought. "Schizothalmic myrrh. Took long enough. We have almost everything; now let's snap the entranced out of it and – "

Of course, Roman, Snatcher, and the Huntsman had all vanished into thin air.

"WHERE did they go?" Mozenrath yelled.

"I warned you this would happen if you let them stare into that thing!" Mim barked.

"NO, YOU DIDN'T!" Mozenrath snapped.

"Oh, that's right," said Mim. "I didn't. Oh, well! I'm sure they'll turn up at some point."

"Oh, for Kingdom Hearts' sake…" Vexen took out his scroll. Making a new chat with the eight founders and himself, he asked, "WHERE has everyone gone?"

The texts came in almost immediately:

"We are lost." The Huntsman.

"at the gas station" – Roman Torchwick.

Snatcher started typing, and Vexen knew this would be a while. "Mim," he asked, "are we certain there is no gas station in the store?"

"Definitely," said Mim.

"Then we appear to have a problem on our hands," said Vexen.

Mozenrath sighed. "We'll take care of it after we finish what we came for here."

"You're not going to rescue our friends immediately?" Mim asked. "Oh, I like the way you prioritize!"

"They can wait at whatever cosmic gas station they found until we have all the ingredients," Mozenrath insisted. "I still need a gallon of catafalcious polyglom. And a jar of peanut butter. We find those, THEN we send out the search party. Let's go."

They wandered here and there and everywhere, but Mozenrath, Mim, Aghoul, and Vexen alike all had no idea of any trace of either of the two missing items they sought. As they passed the drinks cooler, Mim announced, "I'm going to get one of those toxic energy drinks. Anyone want anything? Because if so, too bad!"

She opened the cooler. Aghoul peeked around her to look inside. Mozenrath and Vexen kept walking. "There has to be a more logical way to go about this," Mozenrath said. "That polyglom is somewhere in this store. I KNOW it."

"We will just have to make a more efficient search pattern," said Vexen. "I propose we begin in one corner, walk the perimeter, and spiral inward."

"It'd be impossible not to find it that way. Mim, think you can stay on task and NOT ruin our precision plan?"

There was no response.

Mozenrath and Vexen turned back. Now they'd lost Mim and Aghoul too.

With a sigh, Mozenrath brought out his scroll, texting, "Mim? Aghoul? Gas station?"

"certainly!" Aghoul wrote back.

"YoU should mEet uS HerE!?" Mim wrote. "it'S a SPecTacLE To behold!?"

Mozenrath winced. "This reminds me why I don't text Mim. Anyway, they're – "

"At the gas station," Vexen sighed. "I don't even have to read the response to know this. I suppose we may as well look for…wherever they're talking about as we sweep the inventory."

"Could kill two wyverns with one brimstone."

Unfortunately, as Vexen and Mozenrath swept the entire store, they couldn't find polyglom, they couldn't find peanut butter, and they definitely couldn't find a gas station. They finally arrived at the endpoint of their perfect pattern empty-handed.

"If the polyglom is here," Mozenrath said, "we would've seen it."

"I suppose we've no recourse left," Vexen stated. "We must ask for assistance from an employee."

Mozenrath fired him a look of pure disgust.

"Do you not understand a joke when you hear one?" Vexen barked.

When the humor clicked, they both started chuckling. "As if we don't already know more than any minimum-wage fool they've hired here!" Vexen snickered.

"Ask for help," Mozenrath wheezed. "That's a good one. I didn't know you HAD a sense of humor. But really, what's the play now?"

"Well, polyglom can be used as a cleaning agent for certain messes, can it not?" Vexen pointed out. "I would think it a useful tool if one comes across a spill that is neither truly wet nor truly dry."

"Like that mess surrounded by the ecru cones we found earlier," Mozenrath said. "Which means, if it's a common mess to clean up in this establishment – "

"And we already know it is – "

"Then they'd have to have it on hand – "

As one, they finished, "IN THE JANITOR'S CLOSET!"

Mozenrath shook his head. "I don't understand why we don't do more of these missions with just the two of us."

"Because that would apparently make us TOO competent," Vexen teased. "I remember where the Janitor's cCoset door was – "

"About thirty cubits that direction?" Mozenrath pointed. "Make three lefts, but NOT just a right?"

"Precisely."

They set out on what they hoped would be the final leg of their journey. Along the way, they were treated to the store's obnoxious jingle for what must have been the thirtieth time: "Oh-oh-oh, Omega Mart! You have no idea what's in store for youuuu!"

"I won't miss hearing that tune," Mozenrath grumbled. "If we were to run a cost-benefit analysis on attempting to override that PA system – "

"You would certainly trigger some sort of collapse in reality, knowing how this place runs," Vexen sniffed. "Obnoxious as it is, I do believe we have to leave it as-is."

"Fiiiiine."

They stepped into the Janitor's Closet, which seemed like a small room at first, except for near the back, where a partition wall blocked off what seemed to be a smaller segment of the area. The shelves were lined with cleaners, and brooms were arrayed neatly on the walls next to stacks of multicolored traffic cones, but after a quick search, Vexen and Mozenrath determined that their desired polyglom was not to be found here.

So they did the natural thing and moved to check behind the partition wall, for one last look. They didn't find it there either, but they did find a second partition wall that indicated another room to the closet. In that room, there was also no polyglom, and some of the shelves seemed to be slowly melting in place, as well as the products on them. Another partition wall beckoned with its entrance. Behind it, there were more brooms on the wall, but instead of being hung neatly, they were fused there, handles twisted out of shape. The lighting was beginning to dim, but not to black – no, more to a deep blue that tickled Mozenrath's fancy. There was yet another wall, yet another entrance.

Back and back Vexen and Mozenrath kept going, until the cleaning supplies were so warped and melted that there was no way to even tell if there was polyglom there or not. "It's as if the further back we go, the closer we are to the original Janitor's Closet," Vexen mused. "It seems that whenever the…anomaly we are witnessing consumed the prior closet, a new one was built further up."

"Well, if the system works." Mozenrath shrugged. "Though it does beg the question of where the end of it is. We still haven't found the back wall."

Vexen suddenly stopped in his tracks. "And I…don't think we're going to."

Mozenrath did the same, looking at the vista before the both of them. The closet had technically ended; they'd walked around the last partition wall into the next area. But something new began where they stood.

They were outdoors – or at least, that was the best they could tell. It was difficult to say what in that realm was sky and what wasn't, because it pulsated with colors that would put interspace to shame, rainbows and fractals and mosaics that flitted around and flowed into each other like a massive kaleidoscope. The ground was just as luminous, sparkling as though it were completely made of crystal, colors spiraling and expanding up from below. There was a rough semblance of a road, leading into a small town characterized by a smattering of rustic, rural homes. Ordinary people walked from one place to another, but always with a sense of trepidation, watching their backs. And not without good reason: there were other creatures here, too, creatures that looked to be made of light and bore features that were identifiable as coming from thirty animals per organism. A very large example winged its way overhead, a dragon with elements of a cat and fur-scales that glistened prismatically.

"What…is this?" Mozenrath said, completely stunned.

"Likely the source of the spacetime contradictions in the supermarket," Vexen said, "and the method by which they are able to obtain such specialized products – "

"I know that!" Mozenrath snapped. "I was being rhetorical. Though if you have a name for this place, that would be helpful."

"All I can say is that it's a rift between worlds," Vexen said. "The likes of which I haven't seen before. It's as if interspace were…compressed into a concentrated area. The amount of specimens there must be here that require study…!"

"Look." Mozenrath spotted a worn-down wooden sign that really didn't look like it belonged, given its dullness and the fact that it looked like it was made on Earth. "Seven Monolith Village. That's where we are, if that sign is accurate. Now, you don't suppose this village has a gas station, do you?"

"As a matter of fact – "

A familiar voice calling out "MARCO!" interrupted both.

"Mim…?" Mozenrath confused.

"That was definitely Mim's voice," Vexen mused, "but who in the worlds is Marco?"

"Oh, for the love of - !" Mim appeared between the both of them. "You're supposed to say 'Polo.' Now you've ruined the game. Anyway, everyone else has already met up without you!"

With a POP, she teleported all three of them to a tiny, old-fashioned gas station, the sort where you'd pump your own fuel. Like the town sign, it looked alien against the otherworldliness of the rift, especially since around the gas station in particular, fish swam in the air and there were distinct patches of coral growing without the need for water. Beneath an umbrella, Roman, Snatcher, the Huntsman, Aghoul, Yzma, and Wuya waited.

"TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!" Yzma seethed.

"How…again…did you get here?" Mozenrath asked her directly.

"I already told you I got lost!" Yzma huffed.

"That doesn't explain anything!" Mozenrath yelled. "How does you getting lost in the store end you up – "

"No, no, I was lost in the TENT!" Yzma rolled her eyes.

"In a one-room tent." Mozenrath blinked. "You got lost." Blink blink. "And now you're in a spacetime rift."

"Precisely."

"Well, I thought she might've gotten lost in the hedge maze," said Wuya, "so I – "

"There was no hedge maze!" Vexen urged.

"You didn't actually go INTO the gardening section, did you?" Wuya accused. "Anyway, I had a little adventure in there, and I came out here."

"Don't ask me," said Roman. "All I know is one minute I'm staring into the vast depths of the multiverse, and next thing I know, I'm here."

"An experience I would rather not repeat," said Snatcher. "We were all informed just how infinitesimal the worlds believe we are. I refuse to be infinitesimal."

"The sentiment is shared around the table," the Huntsman seethed.

"We found a portal to here in the back of the drink cooler," said Mim, "and by that time, Ghoulie and I knew what was going on, but we also knew it would be fun to just dive in! We figured we'd let the wet blankets finish the important part of the shopping while we transcended the bounds of reality."

"Mmhmm!" Aghoul nodded.

"Well, we're all back together now," Mozenrath groaned, "and still short one ingredient for our spell."

"What about the peanut butter?" Yzma asked. "You DID find the peanut butter, didn't you?"

"Alas, no," Vexen informed her. "It is distinctly out of inventory."

"Can we go home now?" Roman asked.

"Not without my polyglom," Mozenrath insisted. "And if it's not being sold in stores…we'll just have to harvest it from the wild, won't we?"

He turned to expand his arms, indicating the rift. "In a place like this, there's no better way to collect it."

Roman sighed. "Okay, I'm picking up cheap gas station candy before we start the next road trip through oblivion. Any requests?"

In contrast to Omega Mart, the Alpha Gas Station sold only products that were usual to the realm of mortals, including the cheapest of candy that one would expect. Once the WHAM ARMY had stockpiled an inventory of it, they set out on a quest.

This quest took them through a cavalcade of otherworldly sights. A cavern where light sparkled on the walls. A forest of titanic trees with bioluminescent leaves and similarly luminous vines and fungi leeching off the trunks. A neighborhood of what had been the taller buildings in Seven Monolith Village, now decaying after being overturned by what looked like a massive earthquake tearing through, followed by a sinkhole. Places where the lights in the sky seemed to be spelling out messages in languages unknown. Portals that peered into gods' realms, but closed as soon as they were truly perceived. Palatial labyrinths with stained-glass walls and ornate gates – all of which turned out to be the Omega Mart delivery room. The break room, which looked exactly like you would think a grocery store break room should, with brown stains on the ceiling and everything. Massive machinery lined with neon arcade lights, the purpose of which seemed unknowable. A reception area for a place called "DramCorp," staffed by a robot that was none too keen on letting villains pass and politely escorted them out back – by the time anyone got the gumption to attack, the robot and the reception desk had both just vanished. Fields of grass where every blade was twice the size of the average human, and massive flowers were arranged like a forest's trees. Reflective chambers where the WHAM ARMY found their own reflections infinitefold in a plethora of mirrors not made of glass. Dark voids where the faces of massive humanoids simply stared in silence at those who dared walk between them. A research and development office that was fused in seamlessly to the void. Glass cases that displayed the best-selling products from Omega Mart's inventory, as well as posters of the brand names. Crystal cavern hallways, with fire burning within the stones. Fields of fungi that grew and died right before the WHAM ARMY's eyes.

A dimly-lit bar with mandala patterns on its walls seemed the most stable place to stop for a breather. The WHAM ARMY's supply of red licorice and fruit chews was running low anyway, and they needed to replenish. All nine took their seats before the bar, trying to ignore the fact that the wall behind them had an enormous beating heart with luminescent veins and arteries embedded into it. A bartender-shaped mass of intangible light that was somehow wearing a bow tie approached them. "Good existence," he greeted. "What may I produce for you?"

"What's the strongest liquor you got that will fuck me up but not kill me or leave me with any permanent mutations?" Roman asked.

"Don't give it to him," Wuya said. She glared daggers at Roman. "You're already playing fast and loose with that millk."

"I don't suppose I can order a catafalcious polyglom cocktail," Mozenrath grumbled. "Since it seems to be NOWHERE ELSE."

"Oh, we have plenty of that in stock!" said the bartender. "Actually, too much of it, but no one ever seems to order it! I can't get rid of it fast enough."

"Wha – "

"Here you are, sir!" The bartender put down a wine glass filled with a shining ferrofluid.

Mozenrath stared in disbelief. "Can I get about ten of these in a growler to go?"

"Of course, sir!"

"And what will it cost me?"

"Hmm." The bartender thought it over. "Not everyone these days uses the same currency. But I have been running low on cheese soda for the cheddar martinis. Those are the most high-end drinks, you know, beloved by all the rich and famous – "

"Because of course they are!" Snatcher yelled. "That only tracks after everything else we know so far, DOESN'T IT?"

"To be clear," Wuya said flatly, "he's not making fun of how bizarre this place is by saying that. He's referring to actual real-life experience."

Aghoul produced a two-liter bottle of cheese soda and plunked it onto the bar.

"Thank you!" said the bartender. "I will settle your tab."

"WHY DID YOU ATTEMPT TO BRING THAT WITH YOU?" Snatcher yelled.

Aghoul just gave a mischievous "Hmmhmmhmm" to remind Snatcher that he couldn't give an explanation at all.

"We're having a conversation when you get your teeth unsealed," Snatcher warned him.

"If I may," said Vexen. "We had a few questions about the nature of…the area."

"Of course!" said the bartender. "What don't you want to know?"

"It's what we DO want to know," said Vexen.

"Well, there's so much to know that sometimes, it's easier to say what you don't want to," said the bartender.

"Well," Mozenrath said in frustration, "We don't want to know anything unrelated to this particular spacetime rift and how Omega Mart made it."

"That is still a lot," said the bartender. "Can you specify further?"
Vexen thought it over. "What we want to know, in simple terms, is how Omega Mart directly contributed to this rift, but we do not want to know anything but the single most important incident that led from Point A to Point B."

"I understand!" said the bartender. "I'll do my best. See, this all used to be spread out like it should have been among the worlds and beyond. Past, present, future. Then the Dram family came from one of the mortal worlds and got their hands on the Source, which is…well, it's anything and everything you want it to be. It's the most powerful ingredient to anything in existence. It's the very concept of…conceptualization. You have to be very, very specific with what you want, but it can give you literally anything you want, so the Drams began to take what was immaterial and turn it material in order to sell it to their world. That was a massive disruption in reality, however, as you can imagine. You can't just grab onto more power than a god has and expect it to stay stable. The old town around the supermarket collapsed, and this is the rift you see, where concepts were drawn in from across a wide expanse both temporally and spatially. All because the Drams wanted to sell concepts as physical items in their market."

"That sure explains the Doomed-Expedition-flavored soda," Roman pointed out.

"So they abused the powers that be in order to turn a profit in a capitalistic market?" Mim chuckled. "That's one of the most evil things I've ever heard!"

"Oh, I'm not sure it's that," said the bartender. "It was a disruption to be sure. Many, many entities believed it was evil, especially those who lived in the town before the collapse. But the fact remains that without the Drams and their supermarket, this rift would not be here, and nothing that has happened since would have happened. I wouldn't have this wonderful job, you see, and this wouldn't even be an alternate timeline that existed anywhere. Can you imagine how awful it would be for something not to exist at all? Not anywhere, or in any timeline? You mortals, even if one of you dies, well, there are always alternate universes where you live instead. There's infinite possibility, and even what seems bad to those who weigh morals is a state of being. If the event you qualify as 'bad' never happened, then the entire world state, in space and time alike, associated with it would not exist, and while it would seem that the space aspect would still be in place, it would really just be a different timeline entirely. This way, we can rest easy knowing that our existence is certified, but alternate existences are also present where none of this happened at all. That said…there are an awful lot of mortals who think none of that is relevant because there is harm being caused to them right here and now, regardless. It's an interesting debate to – "

"This is falling into the territory of things we didn't want to know," said Mozenrath. "Though…I am starting to realize something. These Drams. They have something that can give them literally anything they want, and that's how they're getting the products for their store. There is something THEY HAVE that can turn into anything WE WANT."

"I don't like where this is going," Yzma said.

"Mozenrath," Wuya urged. "Think about it. The bartender literally said that the last time anyone used that thing to get what they wanted, it destroyed a significant portion of space and time. Our entire M.O. is to HAVE and OWN space and time. Well, space at least. Time comes after."

"But if that's what we ask of it," said Mozenrath, "then it will have to give that concept to us, and it can't be taken away from us. I call that a checkmate."

"Well, I call it a paradox waiting to be triggered," said Vexen. "You wish to ask a reality-destroying substance not to destroy reality? Do you not see the inherent contradiction?"

"I think it sounds like a great idea!" Mim said. "Let's see what we can wreck!"

"If Mim believes it worth pursuing," the Huntsman warned, "then that should be a waving red flag in the wind."

"Okay, so we're just going to leave the Source alone and not exploit it to get SOMETHING," said Mozenrath. "We're going to walk away empty-handed. Does that sound like something we do? Does that sound like something you'd all be happy doing? WELL?"

There was a poignant silence. "Erm, no, I do want to at least do something with it," Snatcher mumbled. And everyone else nodded.

"All we have to do is figure out how to outsmart it," said Mozenrath. "And, being that I've dealt with genies and other such magical word-twisters, I think I'll figure out how very quickly. You don't come from the world I come from without learning how to win a battle of wits against the supernatural."

Aghoul fired him a smirk and a raised brow. "Hmm hm Hmm hm Mmhmmm."

"THE BOOK OF KHARTOUM WASN'T MY FAULT!" Mozenrath snapped. "There were extenuating circumstances surrounding it. You have no right to talk, OR the ability to!"

"All right, we'll at least look at this Source thing," said Yzma. "But if you break the multiverse, then that's on you!"

"We'll start small," Wuya suggested. "Something just big enough that it's not something we could just make. But small enough that it won't…do this." She gestured all around.

"Could we not use it to form the Notion Potion without having to go through all of the rigamarole we've been experiencing?" Vexen asked.

"And not get to BREW THE POTION?" Yzma was slack-jawed. "But – but that's the best part!"

"It's still worth a try," said Mozenrath. He looked to the bartender. "Which way to this Source?"

"It's at the DramCorp factory," said the bartender; finally, he placed the polyglom growler on the bar. "Cecelia Dram is the current CEO, and she has it under lock and key. I wouldn't go messing with it if I were you…or perhaps I would, just to see what state of existence would result. However, the route to the factory changes every moment and a half or so. You'll have to follow your hearts and intuition and hope they get you there. Which is why I won't really try to stop you, because there's a very good chance you won't get there in the first place, and if you do get there, well, by that point, there's no point in stopping you."

Mozenrath bagged the growler. "Then let's go."

"One moment!" said the bartender. "I don't get many customers this way that aren't Omega Mart staff. What worlds are you from, and what do you do? I don't want to know details beyond a single sentence. I'm just very curious."

"Not our problem," said Wuya.

"We owe the man something, though," Roman argued. "You always tip your bartender. Wait. Man? Or…"

"My gender?" said the bartender. "Bartender."

"That works," said Roman. "Anyway, let's just humor 'em for the sole reason that burning a bridge with the bartender is always a horrible, HORRIBLE idea. So I'm from Remnant, and I WAS one of the most successful criminals in the underground circuit before I was drafted into a ruin-the-world conspiracy against my will. Shame, because I had such a good track record stealing shit before they just put me on Dust patrol for weapon ammo."

"From, erm…Cheesebridge, I suppose," said Snatcher. "A man of no station attempting to gain station through the slaughter of the city's sewer vermin – trolls wearing boxes. An unsuccessful endeavor all around, and the direct origin of why I will never order one of your putrid cheddar martinis."

"From one of the Earths," said Wuya. "The one with the Shen Gong Wu, if that narrows it down. Heylin witch, lived in a box for a millennium and a half, tried to take over the world, formed alliances, broke alliances, got in a lot of fights over magic artifacts that resulted in otherworldly sporting competitions."

"From the Empire of the Sun," said Yzma. "The emperor's advisor. I wished to get rid of the emperor and succeed the throne! However, I accidentally turned him into a llama instead of killing him, aaaaaand the rest is history."

"From another Earth," said the Huntsman. "A New York City in which magic mingles with the mundane. From birth, I was given a solitary goal: to eradicate magical creatures from that world. I have since learned that perhaps my conditioning narrowed my view, but I still have little tolerance for dragons and their kind."

"From Arthur's kingdom of Camelot," said Mim. "Why, I delight in the gruesome and grim! They know me as malignant, miraculous Mad Madam Mim!"

"From Radiant Garden," said Vexen. "A scientist whose worldview was opened to that of the very nature of the heart and the many worlds that are affected by that fickle concept. Too long, I served under someone else's thumb while my heart was separated from my body. I had thought I was seeking my heart returned, but while I do prefer it to stay where it is in my person, I must say it was quite the eye-opening experience to learn of what can be done when one has no conscience speaking up. Unfortunately, I was destroyed in a memory simulation and sent back to square one."

Aghoul just shrugged. He still couldn't talk.

"He and I are both from Agrabah," Mozenrath said. "He's dead, and I'm, well. Living, but closer to the concept of death than most. The two of us are sorcerers who have used every item of magic at our disposal to attempt revenge on one very particular royal family in one very particular kingdom that pathetically still sits unconquered as a slap in both of our faces. Though, oddly, we never worked together until we met the others."

The bartender thought it over. "Weapons built on dust? Trolls in boxes, in the sewer? Otherworldly competitions for magical artifacts? Turning an emperor to a llama? To be both malignant and miraculous at once? Dying in a simulated memory, with your heart separated from your body? Sorcerers who flirt with death? I have to say…this is the most bizarre story I've ever heard take place."

"YOU'RE SAYING THIS?" Yzma yelled. "AND YOU LIVE AND WORK HERE?"

"Let's just go," Mozenrath sighed. "We have a factory to infiltrate."

"And I should return to my job," said the bartender. "After all, new patrons may enter at any moment, and one of them could even be named 'Bart.'"

"Why does the name matter?" the Huntsman asked.

"Because if the patron is named 'Bart,'" said the bartender, "I have to end them. It's all there in the job name, really. Say – none of you were named 'Bart,' were you?"

"Sorry to disappoint you?" Roman couldn't keep the confusion out of his voice.

"GOING," Mozenrath said as he stormed off. "NOW."

"Wait, WAIT!" Yzma hustled after him. "Don't split the group again!"

"Especially when you don't know how to play Marco Polo!" Mim called out, catching up.

The odyssey resumed: a brisk walk through flaming mountains, false horizons, the lairs of giant snakes, and optical illusions made real. Combined with the walk from Omega Mart's back rooms to the bar, the entire journey seemed to take forever, but also no time at all. At last, the WHAM ARMY found themselves on a factory floor, with strange machinery marked "DramCorp" pumping unknown substances through its pipes. The lighting here was about the same as everywhere else: dim, but vibrant in its ever-changing color.

Stairways and catwalks led up, down, and all around. "All right," said Mozenrath. "Split up."

"NO!" yelled all the other eight at once.

"Then we'll do this the slow way," Mozenrath relented.

They stumbled through the maze of iron and steel, coming at one point to the end of a catwalk that seemed to lead into a pipe big enough to accommodate even the largest humans comfortably on a gentle spiral downward. "It looks like a playground slide," said Wuya. She peeked over the catwalk edge; "And it looks like it just ends at the bottom. I think this is literally just a playground slide."

"Why would there be any need for a playground slide here?" the Huntsman wondered aloud.

"I wouldn't know," said Mim, "but we've obviously gone the wrong way, so it'll do us good to use this as a turnaround!"

She jumped right in and slid all the way to the bottom.

"Mim, NO – " By the time Mozenrath completed his warning, she was already at the lower level, waving up to them;

"Oh, don't you all worry! It's just a boring old slide. No booby traps or sadistic twists to be had. It is, however, fun, and the type of fun I don't normally enjoy because it's so saccharine, but you all might get a kick out of it!"

"Well, then, I suppose we have no choice but to use the slide, no matter how undignified it is," said Yzma.

"We can just turn back around the way we came," said Mozenrath. "Or use magic – "

"NO CHOICE BUT TO USE THE SLIDE!" Yzma reiterated, louder, before jumping down the slide and being unable to contain a "WHEEEEE!".

Wuya then shrugged and followed, and her cries of "Ohoho, this IS fun!" echoed back up. Aghoul followed her immediately.

"Why do they do this to me?" Mozenrath asked the Huntsman.

"I have no idea," said the Huntsman. "This hardly seems like a good use of our time. However, now that the less serious of us have gotten it out of their system – "

Roman gestured to the slide. "After you, milord."

"Certainly not!" Snatcher argued. "You…you wouldn't catch me dead on one of these!"

"Did you even have one of these when you were a kid?" Roman asked. "I'm sure you didn't. Back where you come from, kids didn't have any of the cool stuff. They ate mud or something."

"I did not eat – "

"Close enough. I'm just saying, it's something you still have to reclaim from everyone who ever told you it was stupid…but if you REALLY think it's not mature enough to be worth your time, then – "

"All right, if it will get you to be quiet," Snatcher said, hurrying over and getting in for the slide down. Roman followed soon after with a whoop.

At the lower level, as Roman got up, he prompted, "Well?"

"…Had to be done once," Snatcher relented, not very sourly at all.

"Hey, party poopers!" Wuya yelled up. "If you use magic to skip the slide, you're a bunch of chickens."

Mim hammered in the point by shapeshifting into a hen. "Ba-bawk! Ba-bawk!"

Aghoul bent his arms, flapping them like chicken wings.

"Your opinion doesn't matter to us!" Vexen called down.

"Actually, their opinion directly correlates to how smoothly the rest of this mission goes," the Huntsman reminded the other two.

"…Fine. FINE." Mozenrath entered the slide. "If it puts an end to this."

He kept his arms folded on the whole ride down, and when he skidded to a halt, he made sure the expression on his face was appropriately sour so that the others knew he hadn't enjoyed it one bit.

The Huntsman then plowed into him after coming down immediately after, and both sprawled on the floor before scrambling to their feet. The Huntsman took the opposite approach from Mozenrath: not betraying any emotion at all and therefore giving the others no material to work with.

Then came a sharp scream and a CLANG, and Vexen tumbled out askew, rubbing at a red spot on his head. "Explain to me how this is supposed to be a source of AMUSEMENT, again?"

"I don't know," said Wuya. "I'm pretty amused right now."

"Do leave the man alone," Snatcher said with a chuckle. "I'm certain this is one incident we can afford to…let slide."

"HA!" Yzma laughed. "LET SLIDE! It's funny, because we're not actually letting it slide, and the wordplay shows it."

"Kinda just ruined the entire banter," Roman told her.

Vexen stood, dusting himself off. "Now, if we may please resume our search for the Source!"

(Meanwhile, in the CEO's office, a signal light flickered. It did so whenever a living subject used the slide. Cecelia Dram's head perked up from where she'd been bent over her inventory papers; it had been a while since she'd gotten some new material.)

The next catwalk chosen was more fruitful. This one led to a lookout point over the whole factory floor, graced with a terminal that read "SOURCE PARTICULIZER."

"This is IT!" Mozenrath seized the terminal giddily. "Whatever we can dream of, right here at our fingertips!"

In response, the terminal began to light up and glow, strobing patterns on its screen. "Please state concept to particularize," a robotic, androgynous voice urged.

"The conquest of all that exists!" Mozenrath yelled.

"I'm sorry," said the terminal. "That is too broad of a concept. I will need specifications such as the definition of 'conquest,' the scope of 'all that exists,' the rate of conquering, the nature of your continued – "

"I want to own the multiverse," Mozenrath told it. "How is that too much for you to handle?"

"Please define parameters such as your personal definition of 'ownership' and the boundaries that encompass the multiverse," said the terminal.

"Mozenrath," the Huntsman sighed, "we're not going to get anywhere that way."

"We would like one Satanarchaeoliacohellish Notion Potion brewed for us," said Vexen.

"I can do that," said the terminal. "Please provide detailed instructions as to how that concept is normally created."

"WE HAVE TO GIVE IT THE WHOLE LIST?" Mozenrath yelled.

"We really should've seen this coming," said Mim. "We're all so used to magicking up whatever we want, but when it comes to literally asking for something that can give you ANYTHING, well, you have to be specific enough that it knows what you want. Or else instead of playing rules lawyer on you, it just won't understand anything you tell it at all!"

"They use this machine to make things here," said Mozenrath. "There's a way to get this machine to work!"

An alarm blared, tinting the factory interior red. "Warning," said a louder pre-recorded voice from overhead. "Unauthorized personnel detected in restricted area. Returning consumers to sales floor in ten – "

"Now look what you've gone and done!" Snatcher admonished.

"HOW IS ANY OF THIS MY FAULT?" Mozenrath yelled.

"Eight – "

"Out of my way!" Yzma shoved him. "I'm not leaving here without SOMETHING!"

"Uh, no!" Roman snaked around her to seize the controls. "I'M the one who's going to get something out of this – "

"Six – "

"WILL YOU STOP FIGHTING LIKE CHILDREN?" The Huntsman forcibly pushed Yzma and Roman apart. "Is there not one singular thing you can agree that we all want?"
"Smive – "

"Uh…" Yzma gaped. "I'm blanking?"

"I need more time than ten seconds!" yelled Roman. "And that thing's not even going by regular numbers!"

"Pi – "

"YOU!" Vexen bellowed at the terminal. "Give us the simplest thing that you know we can all agree on conceptualizing!"

"I will need more specificity," said the terminal.

"Square root of seven – "

"THIS ENDS NOW!" The Huntsman seized the Particulizer. "YOU WILL GIVE US – "

"One. Returning consumers to sales floor."

All nine stood once more in the deceptively normal-seeming aisles of Omega Mart.

"Well, that was a bust," said Wuya.

"George," Mozenrath pleaded. "Please. Please tell me you got SOMETHING out of that."

"I…seem to have," said the Huntsman. He held out a plastic jar, twisting off the lid.

Inside was a very simple concept: peanuts crushed into a sticky paste.

"WE FOUND THE PEANUT BUTTER!" Yzma crowed.

"We may just have to take that victory and leave," Vexen sighed.

Just then, an employee with short-cropped blond hair hustled toward them, a bright smile broad on their face. "Hi! Welcome to Omega Mart! Are you finding everything you want?"
"We don't need help," Mozenrath spat.

The employee's face fell. "Oh…oh. Well, did anyone tell you about our rewards program – "

"LEAVE," Mozenrath commanded.

"Okay," said the employee, "but first, I just wanted to say thank you for shopping at Omega Mart, and I hope you have a fantastic evacuation and the rest of your day after! Now, if you would please take your item to the checkout lane – "

"EVACUATION?" Yzma yelled.

"Yeah," the employee chuckled nervously. "We're about to have a Meat Event."

"What, like sales on brisket?" Mim asked.

"N…no, the other kind of Meat Event," said the employee. "Everyone in the store is going to need to leave if they don't want to become meat. We're sorry for the inconvenience."

Nine incredulous stares were the only response they got.

"Will that be the only thing you're getting?" the employee asked, pointing at the peanut butter jar.

The Huntsman wasn't even sure it was going to scan, since he'd made it out of the recesses of his mind and it shouldn't have had a code in the inventory, but it rang up at $5.9#&, which was a reasonable enough price for peanut butter. The Huntsman, not wanting to delay the evacuation any further, slid the cashier $6 and told her to keep the change.

"Thank you for shopping at Omega Mart!" she said as she grabbed the till and began to run. "Have a wonderful day, and be sure to run for your life!"

Starting from the back of the store, the Meat Event was taking over. The walls crumbled into massive amounts of ground flesh. Aisles and shelves unraveled in the form of sausages. It rained fatty bacon. The whole store was filling with a tidal wave of unidentified meat, all to the tune of the brand jingle: "Oh-oh-oh, Omega Mar-EAT! MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT – "

The WHAM ARMY booked it out to the parking lot with the rest of the customers and staff. From outside, the store looked no different, but it was easy to envision it packed solid with meat on the inside.

"So…does this mean the store…" Wuya began.

"It'll be open again in one to two business days," said the blond employee. "This happens every so often. You must be first-time shoppers. Has anyone offered you any of our coupons?"

"We'll just come back when the place is…meatless," said Roman.

"Vegan, in fact," Snatcher added.

As they shuffled away, the employee called out, "Come back soon! We hope to see you for the next Meat Event! Or…you know, maybe we don't…"

They had what they'd come for, and they'd only needed to pay for one jar of peanut butter that was roughly less than six dollars. It had been a successful trip, and now they knew of a hub for their more otherworldly groceries. A last resort to be sure, but proper opportunists will make do with what they have.

With that, the WHAM ARMY fled back to Yzmatopia.

...

When working with something as finicky as the Source, it helps to have a blueprint. That was why Cecelia Dram so often encouraged factory tours for the shoppers. Guided, of course – she wasn't going to have anyone get near the Particulizer without her permission. Hence the system that would bring them right back to the sales floor if anyone did.

However, the consumer base did more than give Omega Mart their money. They also gave it their traits, and in doing so, its products. Cecelia's father had perfected the slide mechanism; it read a person's aura as the person slid down, thinking they were just reliving some of their childhood nostalgia. The slide then read the person's aura and created a digital copy. The person would arrive unchanged at the bottom, but it was that digital copy that gave Cecelia the data she needed to feed to the Source. That data was the parameters that the Particulizer needed. Hopes, dreams, fixations. A way to get people to say what they wanted most without words getting in the way.

Every person who slid down gave Cecelia the parameters for a new range of products. She currently had prototypes for nine more brands sitting out in front of her, the flagship products already tickling her imagination.

A new type of coffee grounds, which would give you enough energy to keep going far past the point that you would make wise decisions. A carton of eggs that were proudly labeled as being normal but had to find their own yolks, because this sort of egg had been manufactured specifically to be an empty shell and required fulfillment of its potential. A pink substance that could only be described as "anti-gravy," with no discernible expiration date; it could go bad at any minute, or maybe never at all. A type of instant rice that freshened up immediately out of the box tasted better cooked but would try to revert to dehydration if not watched, because it was never truly satisfied with the state it was in. A non-dairy cheese substitute that you could try to dress up however you wanted but couldn't change what it was on the inside. A pint of frozen yogurt that gave off strong, sweet flavors but always left you hungry for more due to a pit in one's stomach, similar to the feeling of deep-seated dread. A durian-like fruit that was always rotten to the core, but still gave a sense of fun if you could stomach eating it all. Candied spiders that had expired even before they were made but were going to be sold anyway, because they tasted very sharp. Ice cubes that would never melt or warm up, but had undeniable glowing red centers like little hearts, hearts that you couldn't remove from the cubes even if you broke them apart completely.

The customers would go wild for these. Cecelia couldn't wait to start stocking.

A phone call came through. She put it on speaker. "What is it?"

"Ms. Dram? We have a bit of a problem. There's been a Meat Event – "

Cecelia groaned loudly. "I keep telling you those aren't my problem. Make the wagies clear it out. If we lose any to the meat, reopen the job board."

Then she hung up the call.

...

In order to transport Team RWBY to Glenwood, Rosalina had connected that world to the Comet Observatory through the garden. The flock of Lumas came back to pick their charges up, only to be informed that there was a long-term project that would be stalling the permanent return of many. Still and all, it would be necessary to come and go, and Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang insisted upon escorting Ansem the Wise back home to Radiant Garden while the others kept working on matchmaking and diplomacy.

Ansem agreed, for he knew he had to return eventually. As his feet touched down on the soft grass of Rosalina's garden, however, he felt his whole body wracking and churning. He hadn't truly come home in over ten years, and in that span of time, he had become such a different person. A darker soul, one who had made a gallery of awful mistakes.

He realized he'd resigned himself to the idea of never coming home long ago. Yet he knew he could not refuse, for as much as he believed he would never see this castle again, he missed it and the memories it held.

"Let's go!" Yang rallied, and Ansem followed the four Huntresses onto the Observatory deck.

"A curious outpost," Ansem remarked. "What I wouldn't give to observe from its vantage point and study the myriad of worlds it can look toward."

"I mean, you can do that," Blake pointed out. "We all do that. I understand that after being gone so long, it doesn't seem like you have much freedom of choice, but once you realize that you do…everything will just fall into place."

"Wanna explore a little bit before we go to the castle?" Ruby suggested. "Get it out of your system a little?"

"Why, yes, I would," Ansem said.

So they descended to walk the Observatory perimeter. What they hadn't known, however, is that Rosalina had invited Mickey and Aqua to a picnic on the miniature meadow, with a blanket spread out to protect from spills of food or tea.

Mickey was the first to see who was walking the deck. "Is that…" he gasped. "It can't be."

Aqua turned to look, then gasped, dropping her teacup completely and staining the blanket. "Ansem!"

Ansem heard this, and he looked to the source of the noise. When he saw who sat there, his eyes went wide. "Mickey…Aqua?"
Both Mickey and Aqua leapt up from the picnic blanket and rushed toward him. Rosalina followed – she may have had no close relationship with Ansem, but she knew his importance to Aqua.

Aqua stopped short, dropping to a knee. "Your majesty! I thought we lost you."

Mickey, however, took a flying leap right at Ansem, who caught him in midair with a laugh. (How long had it been since he'd laughed?) The pair hugged warmly. Then Mickey encouraged, "Aqua! Get in here!"

"Is that allowed?" Aqua gasped.

Ansem nodded. "I think you of all people have no need to exercise propriety here."

So Aqua rose and jogged into the opening embrace, clutching at Mickey and Ansem tightly. "It wasn't fair," she said, her voice choking in her throat. "That after all that time, I got to come back home…and you didn't."

"Think of it not in terms of equity," Ansem told her. "I wish only to thank you for keeping me company in that dark time."

"I should be thanking you," she said. "And Mickey. If it wasn't for you two, I might've lost myself in that realm."

They let go and backed off gently. "I have to tell Ven," Aqua gasped.

"More important than that," said Mickey, "we gotta tell Kairi and Ienzo!"

With another sharp gasp, Aqua withdrew her GummiPhone, dialing Kairi's number. As soon as Kairi picked up, Aqua didn't let her speak; "Come meet us out front of the castle! We have a big surprise!" She hung up immediately.

Now Ansem couldn't turn back, not with such an impending meeting. He shivered at the thought of seeing his daughter – he'd missed her growth, he'd missed her milestones, and she was a different person from the small child he'd known. The only other time he'd seen her was at the World That Never Was, and then, he couldn't bring himself to address her either, not knowing what he was about to do. Better she not know his relationship to her as he made his sacrifice.

Mickey was doing the same to Ienzo; "You gotta come down to the front of the castle! We got a real big surprise for ya!"

Ienzo. Ansem had spent part of his miserable existence actually trying to harm Ienzo, to…erase his own son. Or what was left of him after his heart had been removed. A thousand times Ansem had replayed that decision. A thousand times, he wasn't sure what to have done, because he knew that he'd turned his back on his son, which is something he ever, ever should have done – but at the same time, Ienzo had chosen a path of hurtfulness, and at times, Ansem had thought only one or the other could survive in the grand scheme. He'd thought Ienzo would never again be the kind boy he'd once known. And he'd been wrong. If he'd succeeded in his task, would Ienzo have reached this conclusion? Most likely, since his Nobody had required destruction anyway in order to reform. But if Ansem had gotten to Ienzo in the basement of that labyrinthine castle of memories before Axel and the Riku Replica had, this story might have had a much more complex ending than it already had.

He needed to go to them. He knew this.

It was easier with Aqua and Mickey leading the way so enthusiastically. Team RWBY and Rosalina walked along with him – he had never met any of them before this incident, and from what he could see, those he'd left behind had fallen in with a good crowd. Somehow, from all the tragedy, something good had grown.

Then they stood just outside the castle gates. Kairi stepped out into the sun, flanked by Sora and Riku, and she'd gotten a little bit older and changed her appearance again since Ansem had glimpsed her at Never Was and his heart broke for how much he'd missed in her life, how alone he'd left her, even if not by choice.

"What's going – " Kairi began to ask. Then she saw. And gasped.

"Kairi," Ansem said, his voice hoarse. "It has been too long. I am truly sorry – "

She practically tackled him, holding onto him with an iron grip, and he gently wrapped his arms around her, the feeblest attempt at protecting her that he'd made in recent years. Sora and Riku were now babbling excitedly about the reunion as well –

"YOU MADE IT! YOU CAME BACK!"

"I wasn't sure we'd ever see you again…"

Kairi's own voice was a whisper. "Is this real? Is it really you?"
"I'm here," Ansem assured her. "At long last."

She squeezed his midsection harder. "I missed you, Dad."

"What's all the – " Ienzo stepped out front of the gates. He, too, gasped at the sight of Ansem.

Kairi immediately let go and backed off of Ansem. "Your turn," she told Ienzo with a tearful smile.

Ienzo couldn't bring himself to. Instead he fell to his knees. "I'm sorry, father," he said, tone quavering and tears beginning to fall. "I'm so sorry for everything I've done – "

Ansem came to him, kneeling and gently wrapping his arms around Ienzo. So much older, so much more weary than the child Ansem had known, and Ansem couldn't help but remember how much he'd failed Ienzo too. "You need not apologize. What is important is that you know the difference between right and wrong, and are now choosing right. And I…I apologize for not giving you the grace and forgiveness you deserved."

"They told me you'd gone mad," Ienzo sniffled. "And I always told myself that's why I did it, but that's not true, I did it because I was selfish – "

"You and I both have acted in our own self-interest when it would have been better to stop and think," Ansem assured him. "I took an oath to Evie and Kain to raise you as my own, and when you turned on me, all I could think to do was to get revenge. It seems we have both realized our error, so perhaps it is best to put it all behind us."

Ienzo's shaking arms wrapped around Ansem. Sometimes, it was easy to forget exactly what he'd done that was so bad, when his new friends gave him so much forgiveness. Sometimes, it was easy for him to let himself off the hook. But now, it was clearer than ever, as he was forgiven by the person he'd cast out, left for dead, and commandeered the work of to begin twisted human experiments under Even's watch. He wasn't sure, suddenly, if he deserved that forgiveness.

When Ansem let go and stood, however – and Kairi smiled so broadly at them both – Ienzo realized that whether or not he deserved it, he did have it, and it was now his responsibility to be worthy of it. He'd done a good job so far, since recompletion, so perhaps it was just best to stay the course.

Then Ansem made his mistake: "Would only that Elise and Strelitzia were here. We do carry them in our hearts, and it is from there that I believe they are with us still."

"Wait," said Kairi. "Who's Strelitzia? I know Elise is Mom – "

"You do not remember?" Ansem said in surprise. Ienzo had frozen, going bloodless in the face as the receipt of perhaps his greatest sin came to light.

Kairi shrugged. "I…don't remember much about Radiant Garden. Mostly just from the Destiny Islands onward, when I landed there and met Sora and Riku. That's why I didn't know who you were, back when we…well…I'm guessing you didn't say anything because you thought you might not make it, and…anyway, who was she?"

Ienzo's breath caught in his throat. Ansem knew it would be too much to say, here and now. "Someone we all once knew," he stated, "but it is a difficult story, and not for this moment. It can be discussed at a later date."

He wasn't surprised, one bit, that Ienzo had said nothing about her.

Kairi cocked her head. "Okay. But you owe me that story later."

"In due time," Ansem said. "There is so much else to catch up on in the meantime."

"Like where you've been this whole time!" Kairi blurted. "Riku told me all about DiZ, and I really wanna know – "

Ansem shook his head. "Those are not happy stories. I would rather hear about the life that you and Ienzo have built in Radiant Garden, and what has led you to this path."

Then Lea, Roxas, and Xion came out the gate. "What the – are we interrupting something?" Lea teased. Then he realized who he was looking at. "OH."

Roxas and Xion cringed back, both summoning their Keyblades.

"Roxas," Ansem said, his heart heavier than ever. "I was not expecting to see you, but…I am very glad to. I wish to offer my sincerest apologies for my words about you as a Nobody. I have had…far too much time to think, since then, and to tell you you had no right to be…I can think of no crueler words."

"It's okay," Sora told Roxas. "I think he's figured it out. But if he bullies you again, you can go ahead and kick his butt."

Ansem smiled softly. "You would be well within your rights to do exactly that if I say such words. I was blinded by a prejudice that I…" He looked to Ienzo. "That I had no right to hold onto."

"But I understand why you adopted it," Ienzo said. "We gave you so many reasons to."

"Yeah…kinda messed up there," Lea said, scratching his head nervously. "Sorry. For everything. Mostly the, you know, the mutiny. And joining the bad guys. We had reasons, but they…probably weren't good."

Ansem nodded. "I am more than willing to forgive you, Lea. If you have earned the trust of Kairi, Ienzo, Sora, and Riku…then there is nothing to fear from you."

His eyes traveled to Xion, who was still striking a defensive pose. "You…I believe I remember you." It slowly came back to him. "I am…not sure how I forgot."

"Everyone did," Xion said. Her grip on the Keyblade trembled.

"I gave you a reason to distrust me as well," Ansem realized. He thought back, going over these new memories as they trickled in one by one. "Ah…yes. It is because I…sought to integrate you with Sora. You had such an impossible burden placed on your shoulders."

"I was okay with it," Xion reminded him. "But that's why I need you to know that…I'm not anymore. Not now that Sora is safe, and everyone is here. Because I want to exist. I don't want to feel like I shouldn't anymore. I'm finally ME, and I want to stay me."

"There is of course no reason to wish your nonexistence now," Ansem assured her. "And perhaps…a better solution could have been found back then. I apologize to you as well, for everything you have suffered."

Xion lowered her own blade. "Xemnas needs to apologize more. But thank you."

"I…I guess I forgive you," Roxas grumbled. "I mean, I know why you hated Nobodies. I hated most of the same ones. And you get it now. That we're people. So…I'm still angry, but don't let that matter anymore. I'll learn to let it go."

Ansem smiled softly. "You are quite different from them, but there is so much of Sora and my daughter in you. I vow from this day forth that I shall work to protect the both of you, not destroy you."

"What'd you come out here for, anyway?" Riku asked.

"Uh…the one thing that could make this reunion even more awkward," Lea said nervously. "Aaaaand there he is now."

Isa took cautious steps onto the landing. He looked to Lea first, of course, putting a hand to his scar. "There is no more connection," he said, quite incredulously. "He is gone."

"How's it feel to be a free man?" Lea asked.

"Like a weight I have carried for years is gone," Isa said.

Ansem turned to regard him. "Hm. I had not expected this one to turn."

Isa's eyes widened. "Oh. You're back. I'm – I know I've – " His voice dropped to a mutter. "I'm sorry."

"I suppose you too can be forgiven," Ansem said, though it was clear from his tone that he was suspicious. "If the others trust you. Make sure, however, that you earn that trust."

"I will," Isa said. "I've…truly realized who it was I cared about most, all this time, and it was never Xemnas or Xehanort or any of their lackeys. I've decided to fight for my friends, not against them."

"See that you keep that promise," Ansem said brusquely.

"Dad," Kairi interrupted. "Give him a chance. He really means it. He helped us save Xion."

"And I'm the one person he had the least reason to save," Xion said softly.

"What I have done to you," Isa explained, "I've…done far worse to Xion."

Ansem looked to her. "And you forgive him?"

"We have something important in common," Xion said. "We both care about Lea. And…we both like sea-salt ice cream, too." She smiled. "So as long as he keeps his promise, I think it'll be okay."

"Hey, y'know who else would love to get in on this?" Lea said. "Ael – "

As if called, Aeleus appeared at the door. "What is the reason for this crowding? A problem?"

"Aeleus?" Ansem was in even more disbelief than with Isa. "This…I had not expected either."

Aeleus was dumbstruck for a moment. Then he, too, was down on his knees. "I am sorry," he said. "I…" And then he could find no words.

Ansem looked to Ienzo, who nodded at him; "He's learned, too."

Ansem put a hand on Aeleus' shoulder. "It is good to have a friend from before the fall of this kingdom at my side." He knew that the memories of Dilan, Braig, and Even were shared between the two of them. "I welcome you back to service, though it seems you have been holding the role for quite a while."

Aeleus nodded wordlessly.

"He's even training the next generation of warriors," Sora said smugly. "Wait 'till you meet Finn and Sokka. You're gonna love 'em! They always make everyone smile, AND they can take down pretty much any threat that shows up at the castle!"

"Any threat smaller than a Turk or a Weasel," Riku corrected mischievously.

Kairi pulled at her father's hand. "You should come see everyone else! There's a whole new group of scientists working the lab. So many people are here from other worlds, and so many people came back from before the fall!"

Ansem wondered, briefly, if Aerith were there. He remembered her well. A close friend to Strelitzia, who'd often visited the castle to spend time with her and play with the younger children. And the other girl she would bring. Rinoa, the headstrong one. He did not ask, for now. That would put the topic of Strelitzia back on the table, and it still needed time before it would be right to say.

"Lead the way," Ansem said, feeling his heart lighten. "It would bring me such joy to see life in this castle again."

Aqua and Mickey finally stepped up from the back row. "We'll come on the tour, too!" Mickey said.

It was Kairi, Ienzo, Aqua, Mickey, and Aeleus who went with Ansem to tour the castle. Yang then saluted; "Looks like our work here is done."

"We really need to get back," Blake said.

"Get back?" Riku repeated. "What's going on?"

"Right," Weiss realized. "You don't know."

"We have a new mission!" Ruby told them. "Nothing special, just…stopping a war between two empires."

"Pretty sure only one of them qualifies as an empire," said Yang. "The other one's just a kingdom."

"Did we actually have that confirmed?" Blake asked. "I'm just saying."

"Okay, but you GOTTA tell us all about it before you go," Sora urged.

"I would like to know as well," Rosalina added. "It seems it would serve well to leave a path to Glenwood in the Observatory for a while. Shall we proceed to Nine Bean and discuss it over hot chocolate?"

"That sounds yummy," Ruby said.

"Let's do it!" Yang agreed.

That left Lea, Isa, Roxas, and Xion. "Soooooo…" Lea trailed off, not sure what to say after all this time.

"Mhm." Isa was similarly out of ideas. "Yes."

"…How about we go through the door to Twilight Town?" Roxas asked. "We can get ice cream like the old times. Have you ever sat up on the tower, Isa?"

Isa shook his head. "Not for any great length."

"It's got a beautiful view," Xion said. "You should really get to enjoy it."

Isa smiled. "I have spent far too much time…overlooking what is worth observing. Roxas, you have other friends in that town, do you not?"

"Hayner, Pence, and Olette!" Roxas said proudly.

"If you wish to invite them, I would like to…know them better," Isa admitted. "Well, really, what I would like to know is…what experiences and relationships I've been missing out on all this time."

"Yeah!" Roxas nodded. "I haven't really told them about you, so it'll be a clean slate."

"Can Naminé come too?" Xion asked.

"Call 'er up!" Lea encouraged. "It's a party!"

So this was what Isa had been missing, he realized. Love, connections, friends and family. He had so much ground to make up for. While he'd spent his time using heartlessness to avoid his pain, everyone else had learned where to find happiness. At this moment, he longed for nothing more than to do the same, to cast off his shell of solitude once and for all. Never again to be lost in the emptiness of Nothing.

Even if it meant giving up on Subject X. Moving on from her. It was likely what she wanted.

"Lea?" Isa asked.

"Yeah?" said Lea.

"Remember to bring your wallet with you this time. I believe you still owe me twenty munny from the old days."

Lea snickered. "No problem."

...

However, while Twilight Town's bell tower may have been a place for fond reunions and heartfelt conversations, the old mansion was filled with a distinct malaise. Giovanni, Percy, and Ramsey had sat Molly down to tell her exactly what had become of her homeworld.

It wasn't easy to believe. That everything she'd ever known, barring the loved ones that sat with her then and there, was gone. She didn't want to buy into it. But she also knew that Giovanni wouldn't lie to her, and Percy definitely wouldn't lie to anyone.

Trixie and Feenie sat at the repaired dining table along with them, heads hung low as they relived the tragedy through their words. Molly's seraphs lined up behind her, and Laphicet sat beside her, having rushed to the mansion once word had gotten back to him via Ben traveling through Katz Korner. Fernald and Fiona also took their places in the corners of the room, feeling that this was relevant to them; Teresa and Silva had stepped out for a moment, not sure if they had the capacity to act as a comfort right there and then.

There came the point where Molly could no longer deny the truth. She simply broke down sobbing all at once. And once she began, then Trixie and Feenie followed suit, and Giovanni, Ramsey, and Percy all became misty-eyed.

"I know I wanted to get away from Dad and Lorelai," Molly sniffed. "But I didn't want anything bad to happen to them. I was hoping they'd be okay after we beat Cyclonis, but now they – "

Laphicet reached for her, but Lailah and Zaveid beat him to the punch, crouching to embrace her from either side as a mother and father would. "I'm so, so sorry," Lailah said sincerely.

Zaveid sighed. "That's the kind of pain that sticks with ya. Sorry, kid. All I can tell you is to feel it out and keep remembering 'em. And don't let this turn you into someone that you're not."

"What am I supposed to do now?" Molly sobbed. "I'm the Shepherd. I'm supposed to be protecting people. I couldn't even save my own family. I didn't even know they were in trouble!"

"Molly," Feenie croaked, "don't beat yourself up about it. It was…it was my duty to save the city, like it always was. And I didn't even get as far as transforming or using any of my powers or anything. I just…froze because I was afraid."

"I doubt one Fleecity alone could have stopped that cataclysm," Percy said firmly. "If you had attempted to do so, you likely would have been lost."

"And I doubt the Shepherd woulda had much power over it either," Ramsey added. "The whole planet went out at once. Whatever weapon Zora got her hands on, it was bad news."

"We think it was that Dark magic stuff," said Fernald. "We're still learning about the whole…magic thing, but it seems like the Destroyers are leaning toward using a lot of it. Which is bad news for us if we have no idea how it works."

There was suddenly a thundering of feet. Cedric, Ifurita, and Jack Sparrow practically broke down the door. "Are we still discussing the destroyed world?" Cedric panted.

"Yeah," Giovanni said morosely. "Except I don't know what else there is to say left except…" He trailed off, looking at Trixie. Trixie extended their hand to him, and those hands clasped in memoriam for the Potage–Roughouse family.

"But we don't think anybody died!" Ifurita cried. "Or maybe a few people died, but maybe not everyone!"

"Where did you get this information?" Fiona asked, standing up at once.

"Well, the sorcerers have the gist of it," said Jack. "All I know is that it matches up with what Sora said about Light and Darkness and other worlds and all of those sundry complicated topics."

"It sounds like the world was lost to Darkness, barring a few fragments you recognized," Cedric said. "Am I correct?"

"How d'you know all this?" Ramsey was lost.

"Car Crash came to me," said Cedric.

"And Spike told me all about it," Ifurita chimed in.

"And Crusher vented his sorrows to me, despite my never having claimed I wished him to do any such thing," Jack added. "Then again, I never claimed I did NOT wish for such things, so perhaps I am the one at fault there."

"But when a world is lost to Darkness," Cedric went on, "it isn't gone. A twisted version of it remains in the Realm of Darkness, and if that world is ever restored, then the majority of its population will be restored along with it!"

"We just have to figure out if that's what happened or not," said Ifurita. "But that could make all the difference! It could turn out your friends and family were okay the whole time!"

"My dad?" Molly asked, wiping her tears. "Lorelai?"

"The Fleecity clan?" Phoenica asked.

"Our family?" Trixie and Giovanni said as one.

"…Howie," Percy muttered.

"So then what?" Ramsey asked. "How easy is it to just, y'know, go down to this Realm of Darkness or whatever place on the pirate ship and put it back?"

Cedric gave a long groan. "You have no idea the magnitude of what you're suggesting, do you? It's never been achieved by any one ordinary person! The only world restoration we have on record is VERY recent and was achieved by a Keyblade wielder who went through a myriad of trials before he could even get close to the Realm of Darkness – and even then, largely stumbled into it unintentionally!"

"But that doesn't mean it's impossible!" Ifurita said cheerily.

"IFURITA," Cedric scolded. "It all but means that it is in fact impossible!"

"It means that, or it 'all but' means that?" Ifurita asked innocently.

"An important distinction of words," Jack Sparrow noted. "After all, we are unable to do the impossible, as the impossible, by nature, is out of the realm of possibility. However, if it is not, in fact, impossible, that does open the suggestion that it can be done, and we may as well take the opportunity to do it."

"Well, I guess it's not impossible," said Cedric, "but it would take time to even figure out where to BEGIN planning a rescue mission of that order. And it would be second priority to figuring out if that was even the case in the first place!"

"But I think it is," Ifurita said. "After all, it doesn't seem right that everyone would just die. That's too sad!"

"Unfortunately, Ifurita," Cedric said morosely, "the grand cosmic order cares very little about what would be 'too sad.' That said, it warrants investigation, and I say we open one immediately."

"You're talking about rebuilding what the Destroyers destroy," said Fiona. "A novel concept."

"Generally, when something burns down, it stays burned down," Fernald added. "That's what we've seen our whole li – "

"It could change the game entirely," Fiona interrupted. "We could skip right to solving the problem without wasting our time defining the problem."

"But can we solve a problem we haven't defined yet?" Fernald asked. "That seems like a – "

"It's better than sitting back and observing, the way they'd have us do according to our official orders," said Fiona. "I want to conduct a survey of this town. It seems that this mansion might make a suitable base of operations for our investigation, and that morale here is decidedly more productive than in V.F.D."

"You are aware that this is a hive of criminals?" Percy reminded her. "I myself have accepted the fact, but I do not know if I can say the same of you."

"I mean, I'm a criminal," Fernald said. "Or I was, and Fiona still likes me. A lot of my best friends were criminals." He then looked away, a wave of guilt washing over him by even invoking the concept of the friends he'd known.

"I have learned many things during my time working as an agent of V.F.D.," said Fiona. "One of those lessons is that morality may seem simple, as though you can only either be good or bad. But really, it's more like a chef salad, in which every person has good elements and bad elements mixed together, as well as elements that cannot be classified as either."

"You used my metaphor!" Fernald said excitedly.

"And after discussing the nature of this group with Flint and Electro," Fiona went on, "I'm led to believe that this 'villainy' is really only technical. Laws may be broken, but I have difficulty envisioning anyone within these walls actually doing damage."

"I beg your pardon!" Cedric folded his arms. "I'm more than capable of doing damage!"

"Ah, yes," Jack verified. "Which is why the day we need a world…you know…" He fanned out his hands, making an explosion sound with his mouth. "We will call upon your unfailing resolve, as you out of all of us would be most suited."

"MERLIN'S MUSHROOMS, NO!" Cedric yelled in horror. "What do you think I am? The WHAM ARMY?"

"And that is the proof you sought," Jack stated. "Villains we may be, but monsters we are not. Friends of monsters is another subject entirely."

Fiona regarded him with interest. "You dress like a seafarer."

"The greatest pirate to sail the seas of the world where I come from," Jack replied. "Additionally, I would in concept be the greatest pirate to sail the seas of any worlds where I would do such a thing, though I haven't yet found the opportunity."

"I myself have spent much of my life on a submarine at great depths," said Fiona. "Do you believe, as I do, in the adage that he, she, or they who hesitate are lost?"

"Perhaps not as a mantra said aloud," Jack replied, "but aside from strategic waiting for the time to be right, there's no glory that comes of procrastination, shall we say."

"You made a friend!" Fernald told Fiona with a bright smile.

"I should hope," Fiona said. "After all, if we are to frequent this place – or even stay here – I would rather us make friends than foes."

Fernald shifted in his seat. "Fiona. About staying here. I'm not sure that's such a – "

"I'll talk to you about it in private," she said.

"Obviously, the girl is the younger sibling," Jack observed, "but the way you two carry yourselves respectively, it seems the other way around in practice."

"That's not very nice, I don't think," Fernald muttered.

"I took it as a compliment, of course," Fiona said mischievously. "Now, I will need to conduct reconnaissance on this town and the surrounding area in order to determine if it will be suitable for our needs. Might I request an escort party for such an expedition?"

"I…I'll go with you," Molly said hoarsely.

"Molly, are you sure?" Laphicet asked.

Molly nodded. "I just…want to help someone. This is how I can help."

"Then I'll go too," said Laphicet. "It's not that I think you need someone to take care of you, I just – "

"I'd love you to come," Molly told her.

"Molly!" Trixie moaned. "We literally haven't hung out since you left to party with the cool villains! Feenie and I gotta come along too!"

Molly beamed. "Okay!"

"And we should invite Silva!" Feenie gasped. "He does need to get out of his shell, you know!"

"Um…I guess that's okay, so long as you don't invade his space," said Molly.

"I'll make sure that doesn't happen," Trixie promised.

"You don't trust me?" Feenie gasped. "You wound me! But also…you have a point. Hands to myself, I promise. But he really does need someone to keep him company, and we're all around his age."

"Then I might as well tag along," said Edna. "Since I'm in the target demographic and everything."

"Lailah?" Molly asked. "Zaveid? Mikleo?"

"I don't know," said Mikleo. "I kind of want to look into something else. Like how these worlds can fall into Darkness but the people still survive. It sounds like it might be related to Malevolence and Hellions."

"And I wanna be my own seraph for a bit," said Zaveid. "See how far we can spread out and do our own thing, you know? You're one hell of a Shepherd, but a man needs personal space."

"And I…" Lailah yawned. "Very much need a nap after all we've been through."

"Should we ask Sylvie, too?" Molly pondered. "He's really smart like Fiona."

"I should like to meet such an intellectual-sounding acquaintance of yours," said Fiona.

"Should we send adult supervision with this group of well-intentioned minors?" Percy asked.

"Nah," said Giovanni. "Just, like, a signal flare so that if they get in a pinch, one of us can make Ohn portal right there. I think it'd be good for the kiddos to hang."

"Then invite the other boys and return to me at the mansion entrance," Fiona commanded. "I shall await you there. And remember – "

"She who hesitates is lost?" Edna asked cheekily.

"Or they," said Trixie.

"Or he," added Laphicet.

Fiona nodded. "Exactly."

The kids scrambled to prepare and to find Sylvie and Silva (another set of names that would no doubt be confusing). Fiona began to take her own leave, striding out of the dining room to let the adults continue to speak.

"Fiona?" Fernald hurried after her. "You said we were going to talk, and I really need to – "

"Out of earshot," said Fiona.

They stepped into the hall and around the corner. "Fiona," Fernald said, "I do want to be here when Ainsley wakes up so I can…say goodbye to them properly, but I don't know about staying here long-term with them here, because, well…I…wasn't the best friend to them in the end. I just think – "

"Fernald," Fiona snapped. "Do you think it's going to be helpful to anyone for the two of you to not talk about whatever happened?"

"Well…"

"Were you planning never to talk to them about it at all?" Fiona asked. "Did you want to lose a friend that way, knowing how precious few we have?"

"I was just hoping to…maybe…wait?" Fernald said sheepishly.

"Fernald." Fiona scowled. "What is a synonym for 'wait'?"
"Bide?"

"Try again."

"Linger?"

"No."

"Loiter."

"FERNALD. You know what word I mean. Say it."

Fernald sighed. "Hesitate. And he who hesitates – 'he' being me – is lost."

Fiona nodded. "Then you know what you have to do. What happened between the two of you, anyhow?"

"Well, you know how I left Count Olaf to join you on the Queequeg and reunite with Stepfather?" Fernald asked. "And…you know how by that time…I was one of only three legitimate henchpeople he had?"

Fiona shook her head. "Fernald. You never told any of your former friends from the troupe that you were with me."

"It's just – there was this incident on the mountains," Fernald babbled. "And everyone left except me, because I was stupid and I was in…I wanted to follow someone that I shouldn't have, and I know I should've gone with them then instead of trying to impress that other person, and I just don't know how I can really explain why I made such a horrible choice. It always feels so awkward to even think about beginning the conversation."

"So you hesitated," Fiona said. "Don't wait any longer. Tell them."

"But what if they hate me? We can't stay here if they hate me."

"We also can't make a decision before knowing if that's true," Fiona replied. "Tell me whether or not they hate you, and that will influence my decision. But you won't know it until you've had the conversation."

Fernald sighed. "You're right. This is just going to be so…"

"Difficult to admit you were wrong?"

"I think I hurt them and I never really owned up to it."

Fiona nodded. "I have my own mission to take care of, so come back to me with the verdict once you've spoken. Don't hold me back any longer."

She briskly walked away, toward the entrance, and Fernald knew there was only one right answer to this all.

Back in the dining room, Cedric cleared his throat. "Before half of everyone left, there was one other thing I had wanted to say. The clearest sign that the Lexicosm is only in Darkness and not in fact…well, completely eradicated…is that often, when a world falls to Darkness, not everyone is taken down to the Realm of Darkness with it."

"Sometimes, people get scattered!" Ifurita said. "It probably happened there, too!"

"If there is one thing to watch out for," Cedric explained, "it is stragglers you know from that world who have been thrown onto other worlds."

"But there's like a billion of them!" Giovanni pointed out. "How are we even gonna know where to look?"
"That's where we may have to trust in old sayings and spiritual beliefs," Cedric sighed. "I'm not very certain about this myself, but many people say that when hearts are connected, they find their way back to each other eventually. I would sooner write that off as coincidence, but IF it is in fact correct, then if anyone close to you escaped the fall, they might appear sooner and closer than you think."

Percy nodded. "I will keep a watchful eye out for anyone I know appearing in this town. I intended to integrate myself into the local law enforcement anyway, provided that it runs on a distinct code of ethics that promotes protection and assistance over violence."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Giovanni groaned. "I mean, I don't KNOW the cops here, but they're cops. Come on."

"Yeah, you have a certain bias in that department," Ramsey reminded him. "But I might as well take a look around, myself. Check for anybody I know. And I guess I gotta try and put down some roots in this town or somethin'. See how the appraisal game is and if there's a hole that needs filling."

"I'm sure it will all work out in the end!" Ifurita cheered.

"Ah, yes, certainty," Jack Sparrow commented. "Like any other resource, it's good to have stored in a specific place, so how about you hold onto the bulk of it for the rest of us?"

Ifurita saluted. "Can do!"

...

The next step in the setup for the brewing of the Notion Potion was for Mozenrath to hook up a Hellish Computer in the Secret Lab. He'd finally managed to acquire one secondhand via the Internet, thanks to a tip from an anonymous "friend" about a villain posting and exchange site. Upon seeing that the site's name was "Braig's List," Mozenrath was pretty sure the tip was no longer anonymous, especially since half the items on sale were salvaged weapons from fallen Grandmaster tournament competitors.

Either way, the computer arrived at the Yzmatopia doorstep with few complications. It was a large mechanical beast, and one that required more than one pair of hands to hook in every wire and cord. Mozenrath enlisted Vexen and the Huntsman to help him, then Mim under the argument that "I know you know how technology works; you time-hop just as much as Merlin and you just like pretending you don't know what computers are because you're a crabby old lady who would rather not touch one."

So those four started work on that project while Yzma began a full chemical analysis of the millk to see whether it would trigger a dairy allergy or anything worse. Aghoul, in the meantime, started chugging solvent until the cracker spackle in his teeth dissolved. Upstairs, in one of the smaller tearooms, Roman and Snatcher decided to not wait until Yzma's analysis was finished in order to take a very stupid gamble, which was why Wuya insisted on sitting in beside them to act as emergency control.

Roman had set up two shot glasses: one for himself, one for Snatcher. He poured each a shot of millk, which looked visually indistinguishable from milk. Then he left the carton in the center of the table, sitting back down before his shot glass.

"This might be literally the dumbest thing you've ever done," Wuya told them both. "I'm honestly excited to see how this turns out."

"Okay," Roman said. "On three, we take the shot. Sound good?"

Snatcher stared down at his shot glass of what looked exactly like the one thing he knew could kill him. On a round table, not unlike the one in the Tasting Room. A round table at which other people sat. His stomach churned. Didn't he just learn how this ended seventy times consecutively?

"Uh…you okay?" Roman asked.

"Yes!" Snatcher gave a sudden start. "Yes, perfectly fine. Nothing to worry about. Just…perhaps a countdown from five or seven would be more appropriate. Or ten. …Twenty. …A hundred."

"Something's up," Roman realized. "I mean if – well, I know someone like you wouldn't be SCARED of this experiment per se, but if you happened to, you know, lose interest in it, that would absolutely be a valid call."

"I love how soft you are about this," Wuya told Roman. "But I won't be. This is a bad idea, you're probably allergic to it, and if now is when you're thinking maybe this isn't the smartest thing, this is your last chance to bail, so take it."

Snatcher glowered at her. "I assure you it is more complicated than that."

"I was wondering," said Wuya. "Given that you used to eat things that poisoned you willingly all the time. I thought you were used to this."

"I'm just saying maybe it's lost its luster," Roman stated. "There are WAY more fun and productive things we could be doing – "

"I refuse to let this affect me," Snatcher growled, his fingertips gripping the table and tightening.

Roman and Wuya both stared at him, a little confused. "Okay, this goes beyond the simple explanation," Wuya said.

"Should I make this a No Redhead Bitches zone so we can talk?" Roman asked.

"Why would you want to kick both yourself and me out?" Wuya asked slyly.

"Shut up," Roman spat.

Snatcher really didn't want to discuss the underlying reasons. But it occurred to him that if he didn't, well, that would just make things all the more complicated down the line. So perhaps there was a middle road to strike. The basic truth, but downplayed just enough.

"Miss Wuya can stay," he resolved. "Roman. You recall…what I saw atop that tower on our last outing."

Roman nodded. "You're sure you want her here for this?"

"I have no idea what you're even talking about," said Wuya. "I feel like that's important context."

"Let's just say I…relived my lowest hour with new perspective," Snatcher grumbled. "It was unfortunately a humbling experience, and I refuse to be humbled. It's best left behind me, but that's precisely where it refuses to stay. And this may be no coincidence. Our white-coated enemy who required we wear these?" He held up an arm, pulling back his sleeve to reveal the bracelet with the twinkling charm that the Huntsman had ordered. "Met me while I was so indisposed at the hands of Lord Heldalf…er, Lord Ansem, I suppose…and ensured I saw exactly what happened, as it happened, repeatedly."

Roman's hand hit the table. "How many times – "

"Three," said Snatcher. "That's all it took, really."

It didn't feel quite right to lie to Roman's face about that. But he had already said more than he thought he would. He couldn't bring himself to admit more yet.

Roman was obviously considering this. Ultimately, however, Roman figured that if Snatcher was fudging details, it would either come out in the wash or be something he'd take care of on his own time. Roman was well aware this was more than he was supposed to know from the start. He'd better calm down, actually, and stop making a big deal of this. "Yeah, this guy was already on my list, but now? He kiiiinda made it personal."

"You know where it was," Snatcher said. "At a table just like this. Before an item similar to this."

"Oh," Roman realized.

"I just figured out he's talking about him dying," Wuya realized. "You're talking about you dying, right?"

"Assuredly," Snatcher confirmed. "Not a pleasant experience when one is clear of mind."

"…So this really was just a dumb idea," Roman said. "Like, in general. Eyeliner's right – "

"No," Snatcher resolved. "I REFUSE to let him or ANY OF THEM control me. If this is what he hoped I'd fear, then – "

Without any more warning or hesitation, he seized the shot glass and knocked back the millk.

Roman gaped for a moment. Then grabbed his own glass and threw it back also.

"And now we wait," Wuya said.

There was a thundering of high heels clip-clopping down the hall. Yzma threw open the door; "DON'T DRINK THE – oh no, you already did."

Roman and Snatcher stared at her, wide-eyed. "Wh…what sort of discovery did you make?" Snatcher asked, anxiety building.

"I ran every test I could," Yzma said, "and what I found…is that while it has almost every liquid property of milk with one L and can mimic any of its purposes, it is an altogether different compound that is edible without any known side effect BUT won't trigger an allergy either."

After a brief silence, Roman yelled, "Then what was with all the yelling 'oh no, don't drink it'?"

"Because I wanted to share with you my findings without you stumbling into the same conclusion with only a fraction of the work and good judgment I had to use just now," Yzma said through gritted teeth.

Wuya waved her over. "Water under the bridge now. Let's watch the fireworks."

"Didn't you hear me?" Yzma sighed as she pulled out a table. "There won't be any fireworks. It's safe."

"With the new information on the table," said Wuya, "that might actually be a good thing."

Roman and Snatcher stared at each other. "So how long do we give the field test before we call it a success?" Roman wondered aloud.

"Are you implying that I haven't researched it well enough to know exactly what the field response would be?" Yzma groaned.

"How do I look?" Snatcher asked.

"Like a fucking angel," Roman replied.

"No, I was asking if I have a rash," Snatcher told him. "Though it's appreciated."

"Nothing I can see," Roman pointed out. "I mean, it's very possible it's somewhere I can't see, but we'd have to kick the girls out for a proper inspection."

Yzma and Wuya both groaned.

"I think we can go ahead and say this was a success." Snatcher was half dumbfounded. "It…worked. All I ever needed was…whatever that was from that market between realities."

"Not gonna be easy to come by," said Wuya. "Want anything special done with the last of it? I can do a lot of culinary transfiguration and artificial magical flavoring."

Roman turned to her, eyes wide, with one question on his mind: "CAN YOU FROYO THIS?"

"Sure," Wuya told him. "What flavor."

"I think you know what flavor!" Roman snickered. He looked to Snatcher. "We're on the same page about that, right?"

"Neapolitan," Snatcher said with full confidence.

"Only right choice," Roman reiterated. He broke out into a big grin. "I can't believe I FINALLY get to show this to you and you won't die."

Wuya flicked her wrist, and the carton of leftover millk transformed into a glass sundae dish that contained the exact same amount of frozen yogurt as it had its previous substance. One very large twist of soft-serve, with ribbons of cream-white, brown, and pink braiding into each other. Two spoons, one jabbed into either side.

"Again, the flavoring's all artificial," Wuya said, "so it's not gonna taste real AT ALL, but also means no actual chocolate. Also, you're gonna have to sit together because I'm making you be cute about it."

"Are we just a show for your entertainment – " Snatcher began. He was cut off by Roman putting down his chair right next to his and giving him doe eyes. "…I suppose we are, then. And it's not all bad."

Roman took some of the yogurt onto one of the spoons, holding it out toward Snatcher, a softly pleading look on his face. "Mm?"

Snatcher, understanding, ate it off the spoon. It was perhaps the strangest thing he'd ever eaten.

"Well?" Roman urged.

After swallowing the bite, Snatcher remarked, "All this time…they were making cheese…and they could've been doing this." He pointed to the froyo dish for emphasis. "They COULD. Have been MAKING. THIS."

"Oh, we are so picking up more of this stuff," Roman said. "There is a whole WORLD out there for you to explore. Pudding, ice cream, assorted baked goods – "

Snatcher thrust the other spoon, laden with frozen yogurt, toward Roman's face, and Roman ate it eagerly.

"Yeah, I'm about done with this," Wuya said as she got up. "Call me if one of you two starts mutating into a squid monster."

Yzma followed her out of the room. "How's installation coming?" Wuya asked.

"Well, Aghoul drank all my sulfuric acid," Yzma said, "so that will need replacing. Other than that and a couple small electrical fires, I'd say they're just about done with installation. It really all depends on if Mozenrath and Vexen have stopped arguing over what order the wires go in the monitor yet. Both of them have placed compelling arguments, and I'm pretty sure Mozenrath's right, but neither of them wants to yield."

("RED WIRE!" Mozenrath yelled.

"BLUE WIRE!" Vexen barked.

"RED WIRE!" Mozenrath yelled back.

"BLUE WIRE!" Vexen screamed.

"YELLOW WIRE!" Mim and Aghoul chimed in together for the sake of throwing a spanner in.)

"Mmhm." Wuya nodded. "Say, now that we're out of earshot, I've just learned something that changes the game a little. You know the reason we're wearing these?" She rolled back her own baggy sleeve to show Yzma her dream charm.

"I must admit, they look far more fashionable than even I'd imagined," Yzma said proudly. "But yes, go on."

"So our White Coat man apparently put Snatcher's death on replay in his dreams," said Wuya. "But you didn't hear it from me, and I definitely don't feel bad about it."

"He…he WHAT?" Yzma blurted.

"Shh!" Wuya hissed. "He won't want it getting out, so we have to let it out slowly enough that he won't notice. But if that's what happened to him, you can imagine what White Coat will do to the rest of us if we don't keep our charms on."

Yzma seized her charm bangle. "If he weren't so proud, we could've understood just how serious this is!"

"Luckily, the Huntsman assumed it was pretty dang serious," Wuya stated. "But I think we need to do a little more than just take back control of the dream. Now that we're all lucid, I say our top priority while sleeping is that if you see that White Coat, you rip off his hood and expose who he is. I want a face and I want a name."

"All the better to know exactly which Nightmare we have to dispose of," Yzma said with a grin.

"The manhunt starts next beauty-sleep session," Wuya declared.

In the lounge, Roman and Snatcher continued to eat the conjured frozen dessert, leisurely feeding each other spoonful after spoonful. "You know," Roman said, "technically it isn't even yogurt."

"Give it two Gs," Snatcher suggested. "Befitting the theme."

Roman leaned into him, resting his head on Snatcher's shoulder as he was spoon-fed another bite of yoggurt (now with two Gs). "This is nice."

"It's wondrous that we finally got some sort of reprieve," Snatcher agreed, nuzzling into Roman's soft hair.

"Damn right," Roman said as he guided Snatcher's next spoon.