Disney Castle Arc (Chapters 10-17)

Interesting, the first arc took 8 chapters, so did the second arc.  Anyway.

The Disney Castle arc was a combination of several things that I had set up for myself in Betwixt and Between and due to horrible planning, wasn't able to complete until Remnants.

from the Disney Wiki

First of all, I had this desire for Hades to attack Disney Castle.  It stemmed from a game called "Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom" in the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World.  It's basically where Hades decides that he wants a new summer home and the castle in Magic Kingdom is going to be it.  So he contacts his favorite villain friends (Maleficent, Doctor Facillier, Ursula, Jafar, etc) to rampage around until he can claim the castle for his own.

I fell in love with the idea and wanted to included it, replacing Cinderella's Castle with Disney Castle itself.  Plus, it gives me more of a chance to play with Mickey, who's always a fun character to write for.  I set it up in Betwixt and Between with Namine, Kairi, and Aerith learning of Hades' plot, but I never enacted it because I stopped Betwixt and Between before I wrapped up all of my plotlines (with the full intention of I'd wrapping it up in Remnants.)

The next thing included (at least in chapters 8 and 9) is the idea that Sora and the gang would all be chilling on Destiny Islands, and then be summoned promptly elsewhere.  Granted, given my canon, I'm sure that sort of thing happened all the time, with Cid or Mickey calling one of them up and being like "Hey, can you take care of such-and-such Heartless problem for me" and them being like "Yeah, sure, totally on it!" But I wanted to write it out, so here it was.

Though, as a side-note, originally it was that Aerith was in trouble that pulled them all away, back when I was still trying to incorporate FF7 into my fic like I incorporated FF8 back in the prequel.  I scrapped that idea because it's a fic in and of itself practically (or at least a huge chunk of one) and I didn't want to do it.  (Mostly because I didn't want to kill Zack or Aerith.)

Oh yes, and then comes Axel starting to read through Saix's journal.  Which will have important information in it.

Of course, as all of that's going on, I have Cloud and Tifa off on their little adventures (which happen periodically through half the fic).  Because they're in Agrabah at the moment because Cloud thinks Sephiroth's going to show up there.  Spoiler alert, he does.  I think I stuck them in Agrabah because I liked Cloud's dynamics in Agrabah from rar's fic.  But ignore me.

Tifa using corridors of light is just something so neat.  Since I gave her that ability in the prequel, of course she'd still be able to use it now.  And Cloud's just now learning about it, because she's kept it secret for so long.  But Cloud should know.  And meanwhile, Rinoa's just like, if Sephiroth comes after me, I will fight him.  Okay, kay?

by rongs1234 on dA

I love Mickey fighting.  He only does it when he feels he has to, but Hades attacking Disney Castle kind of gives Mickey reason to fight.  And Hades going after Minnie was just dumb, because the whole "let go of my wife" thing is just beautiful.  MickeyxMinnie is my forever ship.

Oh look, ZackxAerith in chapter 14.  Shameless and I don't care.  But gotta include life in Hollow Bastion even when the action is elsewhere.

And of course, even after they've dealt with Hades, I'm going to also make them deal with a Xehanort Remnant.  (Hint, they'll do that a lot.)  And I loved being in Xion's POV for this because Xion thinks faster than everyone else because she's got a computer for a brain and so she strategizes and then spends the remaining time figuring out how she's going to enact said strategies--in the same time everyone else is still figuring part  a out.

Riku is officially the first person that the Xehanort Remnant tries to go after.  And of course that fails miserably because Riku has actually built up a tolerance to that sort of thing.  And then he's just an ass and he makes everyone believe for three seconds that Xehanort might have done something, before just being like JK NOPE SUCKERS!

Cid and Shera love.  This is me, reintroducing her to the story, because she wasn't around in AtP or in BB.  And now she's back.  And I'm totes cool with that.  I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but I did actually intend on killing Shera in that massive cannon blast in Traverse Town, all that time ago.  She was supposed to die and it was going to freak Aerith and Cid both out.  It would also solve the "where has she been" problem.  But then I decided I didn't want to kill her (especially since she survives in the FF7 timeline--she and Cid quietly get married, even!) So I decided that she went back to work for the King.  But anyway.

Things I'm really okay with:
-Everyone on Destiny Islands being ready to help
-Xion reading upside-down
-Xion giving absolutely zero cares regarding walking in on Axel
-Aerith's hunches and sending the appropriate people to help
-Ven using shotlocks
-Tifa being able to use corridors of light
-Rinoa being like "ima punch Sephiroth if he comes after me"
-Rinoa's dynamic with Cloud and Sephiroth in general, I guess
-Mickey fighting Hades
-Hades out-hotting Axel
-Xion's computer-like battle planning because she's a Replica
-Everyone protecting Ven from Neoshadows
-Namine shattering things and then conveniently not talking about it