Wicked World...
Have you ever wondered what would have happened if Mal Daughter of Maleficent had just let her mother get Fairy Godmother's magic wand?
Disney's Descendants graced our screens and our lives on the 31st of July in 2015. But we all knew this story would not end. Before it begins again, I have given you an alternate ending of it. And I really hope you enjoy it 💜
An Alternate Ending of Auradon~
“Do you solemnly swear to govern the peoples of
Auradon with justice and mercy as long as you shall reign?”
Ben Beast is kneeling at the front of the throne
room, dressed dapper in a blue suit with brass buttons. And there is a crown on
his head.
He looks up at Fairy Godmother, “I do solemnly swear.”
“Then it is my honor and my joy to bless our new
king,” Fairy Godmother christens him with a tap on each shoulder from her sparkling wand.
But then everybody screams.
The room breaks out in commotion as people try to
get away, as sparks fly from the wand, as the barrier breaks.
“Child, what are you doing?” Fairy Godmother
screams.
“If you won’t make me beautiful, I’ll do it
myself!” Jane struggles with the fairy wand.
Ben rushes to shield Mal.
“Careful, Mal!” Belle yells.
For Mal had run up to throw her arms around Jane,
reaching to grip the wand.
Everyone screams as Mal gets a firm hold on the
wand, and then they all stop.
“Mal, give me the wand,” Ben runs to the front of
the throne room again.
“Stand back!”
The large doors behind Mal open up, and her friends
run in.
“It’s okay,” Ben bravely steps forward.
Mal shouts, “Ben, I said, ‘stand back’!”
“I told you so!” Audrey tries to run to her
ex-boyfriend.
Mal points the wand toward her so that everybody
screams and pulls her back.
“Let’s go!” Carlos reaches her.
“Revenge time,” Jay tries to pull her back.
“I know,” she breathes out.
Ben catches her attention once again, “You really
want to do this?”
“We have no choice, Ben!” she cries. “Our parents…”
“Your parents made their choices,” he says.
“I know,” a tear
slips from her eyes. “And they’re on their way here, right now. Our parents are
not good people, Ben. They are not princes and princesses who love their kids.
I have seen Cruella hit Carlos before. Jafar has spent Jay’s whole life making
him thieve for him, all for that ‘one big score’. And Evie. Precious Evie has
been kept locked up with her mother much like Rapunzel and Madam Gothel. And if
we don’t get this wand to them, they will kill us.”
“If you do get
the wand to them, they’ll kill us all!” Ben shouts.
She shakes her
head, “I can’t do that to my friends.”
“Are you saying
you love them more than me?”
“I really love
you, Ben,” tears are pouring down her face now. “But I have grown up with these
three. I have been Jay’s partner in crime since before we could walk. Who do
you think has helped him try to steal his big score?”
Jay reaches over
and squeezes Mal’s hand.
“And Carlos
throws a bomb party.”
Carlos laughs.
“Even if he does
accidentally release my mom’s evil bird from its eternal sleep while throwing
it. And I may have held a ten year grudge on Evie once…”
Evie starts
crying too.
“But she is my
sister now, and I couldn’t ask for a better one.”
Ben looks from
one of the kids to the other to the other, before his eyes finally fall back on
Mal, and he studies her for a minute. “Who are you really?”
“I’m rotten to
the core, and I come from the Isle of the Lost.” Mal tosses the wand up in the
air, “I’m sorry, Ben.”
The room flashes
three different shades of purple. The fear around them is palpitating. You
can’t even hear one mouse scream.
Maleficent
catches the wand mid-air and lads just between her daughter and Kind Ben.
“Let’s go!” Jay
pulls on the hand of Mal that he’s still holding.
Mal hesitates
for only one moment before she takes off running after him.
Evie and Carlos
follows. Carlos scoops Dude up in his arms as the dog comes running in for him.
They flee. They
flee from the throne room. They flee from the school. They flee as far as Mal
can remember to get them.
Chapter One~
Ben grapples
with Maleficent for the other side of the fairy wand. Lights of purples, blues,
and greens flash around them as they fight for it. Finally, something shoots
out of it and knocks Ben back on the ground.
Maleficent
cackles evilly.
Ben snarls.
“Mal, wasn’t
that great?” Maleficent cackles. “Mal, I wasted your little pet! Mal-”
The citizens in
the room start to clamor as Maleficent looks around.
“Well, Mal,
where did you go?” she asks out loud.
“Mal’s gone?”
Ben whispers, looking around, himself.
Maleficent turns
back to the king, “Where is my daughter?”
“I didn’t even
know she left,” he answers honestly.
“But you know
where she went, don’t you?” the fairy asks.
Ben doesn’t
answer that time, knowing he won’t be able to lie.
“I said-”
Maleficent points the wand straight to the right of herself.
Queen Leah
screams, “No, don’t hurt me!” The wand is pointed straight at her heart.
“You’ve taken enough from me as it is!”
“Who says I’m
going to hurt you?” Maleficent skooches the tip of the wand a little bit
forward.
Audrey doesn’t
even have time to scream before a large hole appears in the place of her heart.
She falls to the floor, dark blood staining her pink princess dress. It looks
really wrong.
Ben knows that
you’re supposed to be able to remember everything about a person after she
dies. But all he can think about is the pretty look on her face that she had
when she told him that the evil fairy was just that, an evil fairy.
“Where is my
daughter?” Maleficent turns back to him.
“Audrey!” Queen Leah’s
shrill squeal bounces off the council walls. It was so loud it should’ve
actually broken the stained glass window.
“Don’t,”
Maleficent points the wand to her once again. Her eyes still bore into Ben.
“I-” Ben looks
at Audrey again. “I can only think of three places where she could be.”
“Then give them
to me,” the malice drips from her tongue.
“The- The
courtyard-”
“Then that is
where I shall go.” Maleficent’s cloak covers her as she turns around. She runs
down the red carpet and pushes out the castle door.
The tension
inside the castle melts slowly. People start mumbling again. Everyone crowds
around the dead body.
“Audrey!” Ben
crawls over to her and puts her head in his lap. He caresses her brown hair off
of her fine face. Her brown eyes are still looking up at him. But they’re
empty. Ben drops her eyelids respectfully. He leans over her face and carefully
kisses her already cold lips. He whispers over her dead face, “I’m so sorry I
never gave that to you when you were alive.”
“This is all
your fault,” Leah screeches.
“No, I didn’t do
anything,” he looks up at her in a rush.
“You brought
those- those kids here!” she yells.
“Quiet!” Fairy
Godmother races over. “It was my daughter that opened the portal on the isle.”
“But those kids
just left us here with that witch!”
“She’s a fairy,”
Ben whispers.
Leah glares down
at him.
He shrinks back.
Fairy Godmother
says, “What did you expect them to do? You heard what Mal said. She’s terrified
of her.”
“I’m terrified of her!”
“At least she
did something about it,” Fairy Godmother argues.
“She just ran
off!” Queen Leah screams.
“That’s right,
she ran off,” Ben whispers to himself. He gently rests Audrey’s head on the
floor and scrambles to his feet. He runs down the red carpet after Maleficent.
Chapter Two~
“Do you think
we’re safe from our parent’s wrath?” Carlos asks as Mal leads them across the
bridge.
“Where are we?”
Evie looks around. They settle down at a rock emcropment near a lake.
“This is the safest
place I think we could be,” Mal says to Carlos before explaining to Evie, “It’s
the Enchanted Lake.”
Jay wanders from
the back of the group to lay his hand on Mal’s arm. Concern fills his eyes,
along with a small brim of tears, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she
says. “I’m just fine.”
“No,” he turns
her around to fully look into her eyes. “You’re the very first friend I’ve ever
had - the only if it weren’t for these two - and I can see right through you.”
“I- I-” she
shakes her hand, drowning in his dark eyes. “She broke the barrier. I wasn’t
going to take the wand after all.”
“I know.”
“Would you
have?” she asks, knowing his answer already.
“No.”
“Hey,” Evie
comes around and slips an arm around Mal. “It’s beautiful here. Isn’t this
where you had your first date with Ben?”
She chokes back
a sob.
“What’s wrong?”
Jay asks.
“I just left
Ben,” she cries.
“If Ben really
knows you,” he says intently. “Then, he’ll understand.”
“But that’s just
it. He doesn’t know the Isle of the Lost side of me. The only side of me he
knows got left behind when I ran away from that castle.”
Jay sighs, “I
think that tells you all you need to know.”
“Well, what
about you?” she says.
“I know every
side of you,” he shakes his head.
“No,” she
whines. “I mean, did you leave anybody you care about behind?”
“Everybody I
love is standing with me,” he says
“Oh, my,” Evie
throws her hands over her sparkled red lips.
Mal swings
around in Jay’s arms to look at her.
“Doug.” Her
hazel eyes are wide.
“Oh, no, Evie,”
Mal says.
“No, it’s
alright. Doug’ll be alright,” Evie shakes her head as if assuring herself. “I
have no doubt he can take care of himself.”
“Well, I brought
Dude with me,” Carlos speaks up. “So, you know, I’m all good.”
Mal chuckles,
trying to add light to the mood.
“But- But-” Evie
stutters for just one minute. “But what if somebody does die?”
“Hey!”
Mal swings back
to Jay, “How did you make yourself sound like Ben just now?”
“That wasn’t
me,” Jay furrows his brow.
“Uh, guys. I
think that actually was Ben,” Carlos points.
Mal swings
around to see King Benjamin Beast running across the rope bridge. “Benny-Boo!”
she cries.
Ben races down
the bridge to her, his face tensing up at the nickname Audrey gave him. He
says, “I thought for sure you’d be here.”
“I came to the
one place I knew you might meet me,” she says.
“Did Doug..?”
Evie moves up to him.
“Doug’s okay,
and I have no doubt he’ll remain safe,” he looks at her. “I’m just so glad the
four of you are safe.
“What’s that?”
Mal points to the things crowding Jay’s arms.
“My bag! “ Evie
grabs for the red little box bag showcasing an apple on the front.
“It is your bag,”
Ben hands it to her. “Along with all of your bags.”
“You brought our
bags?” Mal takes the rest and hands them out. Carlos struggles to keep Dude
still while he straps his onto his back
“Well,” Ben
turns away from watching Carlos’ fidgeting. “I figured as long as you’re in
hiding, you may as well have some provisions.”
“So where’s your
bag?” Mal looks at his empty hands.
“I didn’t bring
my bag,” he said. “I- I’m going back.”
“I was afraid
you would say that,” Mal mumbles.
“I have to
protect my kingdom,” he tells her.
“You have to
protect me!” she cries, wanting to pitch the kind of fit her mother never
allowed her to before.
“I’m their king,
Audrey!”
Mal’s jaw
touches her collarbone, leaving her almost speechless. Her face turns red, and
she spits out, “What did you just call me?”
Ben takes her
shoulders in his hands, “Mal, Audrey is dead.”
“No,” she shakes
her head, denying. “No, that doesn’t make any sense. My mother has never killed
anybody. She’s only put them to sleep. Are you sure she didn’t just put Audrey
to sleep?”
“Mal, Audrey was
not asleep.”
“D- Do you love
her more than me?” it’s close to what Ben asked her about her own friends
before she fled the castle.
“I never loved
her,” he grips her shoulders tighter. “That’s what I regret most of all of this.”
“But, do you
still love me?” she looks at him, open-mouthed.
“The choices of
others don’t change our feelings for them,” his jaw clenches. He kisses her
forehead. “I have to go.”
“N- No,” Mal
watches him turn to go. As soon as he takes a few paces away from her, she
yells, “If you leave me right now, it will
change how I feel for you!”
“As much as I
love you,” he says without looking back at her. “I care more about how my
kingdom feels for me. You’ll find a cave behind the lake. Hide in there if you
must.”
Jay watches Ben
leave them to fend for themselves, before taking Mal’s arm again. “Did you mean
that about changing how you feel for him?”
“I don’t know
what I mean anymore,” she watches the empty space where Ben had just stood. “I
really just wish we had never left the isle at all.”
“None of this
would have happened then…” Evie looks away.
“Hey, Mal?”
Carlos points a thumb behind him. “The cave? Dude is getting pretty restless in
my arms.”
“You’re right,”
she turns away from Ben’s empty space. “I think I remember seeing it the other
day.”
“I really hope
Prince in Shining Armor packed some clothes for us,” Evie sifts through her
little red bag. “I am not getting my brand new coronation dress all torn up.”
“Come on, Evie,”
Mal waves her forward. “It’s this way.”
“Okay.” Evie
takes Dude from Carlos to relieve the weight in his arms. She shifts him on her
hip and climbs up after Mal to get to the cave.
Jay stays behind
the girls to catch hem each time they slip. He has to pull Carlos up along as
well. He’s the last one to make it to the cave, and scouts behind him to make
sure nobody else is around. “We seem to be pretty safe,” he tells the others
over his shoulder.
“Thanks, Jay.”
Mal pulls Ben’s tourney jersey out of her bag and frowns. She tosses it away,
and it snags itself on a crag in the cave. She pulls out a pair of leather
skinnies and digs inside the bag for another top, but, “There isn’t one.”
“Did you say
something?” Carlos asks. He’s busy fishing beef jerky out of his pack to share
with Auradon Prep’s mascot.
“It’s nothing,”
she mutters.
“I think she’s
looking for something to wear,” Jay says. “Here,” he grabs his own bag and
opens it up at Mal’s feet. His own jersey is at the top of it and he hands it
to her.
“Well, at least
it won’t remind me to worry about Ben,” she holds it close to herself.
“Do you guys
want to, like, go outside so us girls can get changed?” Evie props her elbow on
Mal’s shoulder.
“Oh, right,”
Carlos blushes. “I don’t even like being in the boys locker room.”
Jay rolls his
eyes, grabbing Carlos’ arm, and drags him outside.
The girls look
down at the brown little mutt they left behind. Evie purses her lips, “I guess
it’s safe to say Dude won’t gawk at us.”
Mal laughs for
the first time since she left Ben’s castle.
Chapter Three~
Maleficent’s
cloak flutters as she turns around and around and around in the courtyard. She
comes face to face with King Ben once again, “I have yet to find my daughter.”
“Well, that’s
because you wouldn’t listen to my full list of places she might’ve gone,” he
says.
“Give me the
rest, then,” she snivels.
“Her dorm room
or the boys’ dorm room,” he stares her down.
“I do not know
where those places are! You will have to show me, boy,” she presses a finger to
a button on his crisp white shirt.
“I figured you
would ask,” he says.
She flicks the
button and removes her hand. She tells him, “Lead the way.”
Ben turns on his
heel and heads straight toward the school. He pats his leg twice as he comes up
to his father’s statue, so that it will transform right before Maleficent’s
eyes.
“Well, color me
impressed,” she slurs sarcastically. “My daughter, you relentless little
prince.”
“I’m a king
now,” Ben mutters under his breath. “And I’ll show you exactly what you need.”
As they head
into the school building, Maleficent moves to climb the stairs, just like her
daughter once did.
“Uh, M- Ma’am,”
Ben points behind him as he looks up at the bad fairy halfway up the stairs.
“Dorm rooms are this way.”
“Right, of
course,” she turns and trots down the stairs, her black cloak flowing behind
her. “I knew that.”
“Of course you
did,” he leads her in the right direction. It doesn’t take him long to reach
Mal’s and Evie’s dorm room door, and when he does, he knocks twice.
“Oh, just-”
Maleficent pushes past him and twists the doorknob. It opens. “Ew.”
The dorm room is
very pink. Pink curtains, pink bed, even the light coming in through the
windows is rather pink. There’s a mess of blue fabric over the sewing table.
Books and loose pages scatter over both of the beds. Clothes hang out of
dressers. But neither girl is there.
“She’s not in
this one,” Maleficent turns on Ben. “Show me where Jay and Carlos sleep.”
“It’s just down
the hall,” he says. He leads her to it and opens its door without even trying
to knock.
“Now, see, why
couldn’t my poor girl have this room? I would’ve gone crazy in the other one,
too,” Maleficent looks around the room coated in reds and blues. It’s even
messier than the girls’.
“Mal didn’t go
crazy,” Ben leads Maleficent inside. “She just wanted to be with me and go to
school. And all Evie wanted to do was sew. The boys, they just wanted to play
turney and video games.”
“What are you
talking about?” the evil fairy snorts, She’s standing against one of the boy’s
canopy bed.
“I’m talking
about,” Ben steps close to her, “how you interrupted the life they actually
wanted to live.” He grips a corner of the red canopy curtain and swings it
around Maleficent.
She doesn’t even
notice what he’s doing to her. “Where is my daughter, Prince Ben?” venom drips off of her tongue as she speaks the words
ever so slowly.
“She’s hiding in
a very safe place.” He yanks the curtain, and suddenly Maleficent is all tied
up. “And I’m the King.”
“Wha- What are
you doing, insolent boy?” Maleficent tries to fight herself free, but she’s
caught.
“Buying myself
time,” he says.
“You know it
won’t take me long at all to get out of this,” she growls. “And the other
villains are already on their ways here.”
“Yes, but by
then, I’ll have my army ready to fight them.”
Chapter Four~
The shrill
screams of villains’ kids echo around the Isle of the Lost.
Static crackles
throughout the hallways of Dragon Hall, trying to catch the attention of all of
the children running around.
“Villain Kids,
Villain Kids,” Dr. Facilier’s voice comes through the intercom. “Calm down all
Villain Kids. This is not a drill. School is in session until we figure out
what is going on. Please return to your classes and calm down.”
Freddie Facilier
leans against her father’s desk tossing a skull shaped pencil holder up and
down. “I know what’s going on,” she says. “The barrier was broken, Dad.”
“What?!” he
turns around to face her, his tall spindly frame towering over her shorter one.
“How can that be?”
“Turn on the TV
screen,” she tells him.
He gapes at her
for just one moment, before he huffs and moves over to the armoire he has set
against the far wall. He jerks it open to reveal a TV screen small enough to
fit the requirements of Auradon’s rules over the isle. He turns it on.
Mayhem is
playing out on the screen. The halls of the castle are showing, lights flashing
across like lightning.
“That looks like
magic,” he says.
“It is,” she
steps closer. “Look again.”
He squints at
the TV screen, “Is that one of their princesses, dead on the floor?”
“Audrey,”
Freddie studies her chipped nails, non-chalantly. “Daughter of Sleeping
Beauty.”
“What happened
to her?” he asks his own daughter.
“Maleficent
happened,” she answers.
Dr. Facilier
turn fast to face his daughter. “Maleficent?!” he squawks. “How did she get
there?”
“One of the
prissy princess daughters of Auradon stole the wand.”
“Why would she
do that?”
“She wanted to
be pretty,” she waves her fingers in
the air. “Whatever all of that means.”
“And where are
you getting this information?”
“Dad,” she exasperates.
“You had the coronation playing on all of the screens in the school! Well,
obviously, except for yours.”
“I didn’t feel
the need to watch it, no matter how many reminders that King sent me.”
“Former king
now,” Freddie answers.
“Ben was crowned?”
Freddie nods,
“Just before the princess took the wand.”
“Wait a minute,”
Dr. Facilier taps his chin with his long tapered finger. “Wasn’t Mal supposed
to be the one to take that wand? I thought she was headed this way with it.”
“Mal flaked.”
His face whitens,
“What does Maleficent think of that?”
“Nobody knows,”
she shrugged. “All anyone knows is that Maleficent is looking for her.”
Dr. Facilier
turns to his window to look out toward the kingdom, lost in thought, “I wonder
what she’ll do when she finds her.”
Chapter Five~
“Mal, we have to
find Mal!” a lilac haired girl runs through the dirty streets of the isle. So
much noise fills her ears. Shop windows are breaking as villain kids loot what
they can. Heavy footfalls echo off the walls as their parents drag them away.
Directions to the bridge to Auradon is shouted over every head, over and over
again.
“Mom!”
Yzma, former
advisor to Emperor Kuzco, turns around in the middle of the street. She looks
straight at her eighteen-year-old daughter, “Isa, what are you doing? Our ticket
out of here has finally come!”
“I know, Mom,”
she calls over all the noise still cascading around her. “But we have to make
sure to find Mal when we do.”
“Why?” Yzma
asks. “What does it matter to you that Mal is found?”
“She started all
of this.”
“No, she could have, but she let that little
fairy girl start it, instead.”
“Mom!” Isa
whines.
“You’re not a
little child, Isa,” Yzma reprimands.
“But Mal still
is,” Isa stands her ground. “I’m going to be the one to help her grow up, now.”
Chapter Six~
Carlos groans
and sits on the cave’s cold floor, “I’m soo bored!”
“You want me to
throw you in the lake?” Jay smirks at him.
“Ha ha ha,” he
laughs.
“But seriously,
Mal,” Evie settles down next to her best friend, resting her hand on her
shoulder. “Are we just going to sit here while all of that is going on?”
Mal peers out of
the cave toward where they can see magic flashes across the sky. She says,
“We’re just going to sit here and watch the fight that’s going to happen until
it’s our time to rule next to our parents.”
“You want to
rule beside Maleficent?” she asks.
Mal turns to
her, “You know that all I’ve ever
wanted for myself is what my mom wants for my life. And this is what she
wants.”
“But you didn’t
grab the wand,” Jay says.
“Because things
were different when she couldn’t get to me,” she turns to him.
“And then Jane
grabbed the wand instead,” Evie speaks back up. “It’s all her fault.”
“No, it’s really
mine,” she shakes her head. “I’m the one who put all of that in her head about
needing magic to be beautiful.”
“But nobody told
her to grab the wand,” Jay says. “You were told to grab the wand, and you didn’t. You’re different from her.”
Evie grabs Mal’s
wrist, “What do you think would have happened if you did grab the wand?”
“Everyone in
Auradon would be after us,” she says.
“You don’t think
they’re after us now?” Carlos asks.
He resituates Dude in his arms so that his legs aren’t so cramped up.
Mal shakes her
head, “They’re all too busy dealing with what’s going on over there.” As she
looks out toward the kingdom again, she finds her cheek pressing against Jay’s
shoulder next to her.
Chapter Seven~
Ben stands in
front of the castle doors, arms crossed over his coronation lapels.
Grumpy almost
looks cheerful as he leads the Sidekick Council to the castle stairs. “So,
you’ve decided to let us sidekicks in on this fight?” Grumpy pulls of his grimy
mining cap and squeezes it between his hands.
“I can’t think
of anyone better,” Ben shrugs.
Grumpy grumps,
“Typical King of Auradon, getting us sidekicks to fight their dirty battles.”
“No, it’s not
like that this time,” Ben drops his arms, a show of good faith. “I’m fighting
alongside you.”
“You’re-” Grumpy
drops his cap. “You’re fighting alongside us?”
“It’s been too
long,” Ben shakes his head. “Too long without magic and our weapons. You guys
have done amazing things. Grumpy, you yourself helped to save Snow White.”
“And now it’s
time you help to save us?” Grumpy asks.
“Exactly,” Ben
says. “My dad may have always thought it best to make you do all of our dirty
work, but I… I never thought that was too fair. Maybe I can’t get the other
royals to fight with us, but I know a bunch of their kids who are willing to
help.”
“Like, who?”
Andrina bubbles to the surface of her bathtub. “Not my niece?”
“No, not your
niece,” he shakes his head.
“Doug,” Ben
gestures to Dopey, “your son.”
Dopey nods,
making a tiny sound in the back of his throat.
“Mulan’s and
Shang’s child, Lonnie,” Ben nods.
“That makes
sense.” Still worried Ben might be holding out on her about her niece fighting,
Andrina asks, “Any other children?”
“Yes. Chad
Charming.”
A rumbling gasp
moves throughout the sidekicks, Grumpy being the loudest. “Boy,” he says. “I
never thought I’d see the day.”
“Why is that
brat helping us?” Andrina says.
“With all due
respect, don’t talk about it like that,” Ben crosses his arms over his chest
again. “That ‘brat’ lost his girlfriend today.”
“I thought
Audrey was your girlfriend,” the
mermaid tilts her head inquisitively.
“I-” he grits
his teeth and looks away. “I chose Mal, instead.”
“And look what
she’s done to you,” Adrina says.
Ben turns back
to her, his face heating red, “Mal didn’t do any of this! If Jane hadn’t grabbed that wand and broken that
barrier, Mal would still want to go to school here and Audrey wouldn’t be
dead!” He sighs, “And that is why Jane is fighting with us.”
Grumpy lifts a
curious eyebrow, “I can’t believe her mother is letting her go through with
this.”
“Fairy Godmother
is the one who told her to do it,” Ben answers.
At this, there
is a bit of a revolt. Grumpy shushes all of the sidekicks, long enough to say,
“She’s putting her own daughter up for dead?”
“Godmother isn’t
putting anybody up for dead,” he says. “That’s why she’s fighting alongside
us.”
Dopey sways, his
eyes rolling into his head.
After catching
him and setting upright, Grumpy says, “Now that’s the most surprising of all of
this.”
“Godmother
doesn’t believe in sitting back and letting them fight us when we have the
magic and power to keep us protected,” Ben shakes his head, “And neither do I.”
“So, together,”
Grumpy kneels down on one knee in front of the king, “we fight.”
Chapter Eight~
“Where do you
think she is, Mom?”
The villains of
the Isle of the Lost made it past the barrier and are now picking their way
through the outskirts of Auradon, finding a way to the kingdom itself.
Yzma turns back
toward her daughter, “What are you talking about now?”
“I’m talking
about the same thing,” Isa says. “Mal.”
“I still don’t
know why you want to find her so badly,” Yzma shakes her head and continues her
hiking. She no longer has the luxury of Kronk carrying her on his back like she
did in the days of Kuzkos. Now she has to walk on her own, dragging her ratty
dress behind her.
“She deserves to
know,” Isa tells her.
“To know what?
All that’s going around her? She started this. I’m sure she knows.”
“She didn’t
start this,” Isa says. “That other little fairy girl did. And you know what I’m talking about.”
“I can see the
kingdom!” one of the other villain kids cries. A cheer starts up among the
villains.
Yzma, who is the
loudest of them all, yells, “Let’s go!”
Chapter Nine~
“M, where are we
going?” Evie asks. She’s standing against the back of the cave, feeling the
rocky wall underneath her fingers.
“I don’t know
that we’re going anywhere,” still, the purple haired fairy is packing up her
bag.
“But you’ve
decided you don’t want to rule next to your mom after all?” Jay watches Mal as
she kneels next to him.
“I don’t know
what I’ve decided,” she huffs, her hair falling over her face. “I just know I
can’t stomach watching that anymore.”
For the past
five minutes or so, the four villain kids have been watching as sparks fly and
different colored lights shine, the villains from the isle learning how to use
their powers once again.
“You know
they’re just going to take it all out on the kingdom,” she looks up at her
friends, tears trying to fight their way to her eyes.
“I know,” Jay
whispers.
“Yeah,” Evie
agrees.
“If we are going anywhere,” Carlos stands next
to Evie, jostling Dude up and down in his arms. The mutt whines. “He’s gonna
have to, you know, go, before we do.”
“Well, take him
outside, man,” Jay tells him.
“I don’t wanna
go by myself!” Carlos says.
“You won’t be by
yourself. You’ll have the dog with you,” he grins.
Mal reaches over
and slaps the hard muscle of Jay’s bicep. She turns to the younger boy,
“Carlos, just go right outside the opening. We’ll all be able to see you.”
“Yeah, yeah,
okay,” Carlos sets Dude down and leads him toward the entrance of the cave,
making soft kissing noises as he does. “But you should really think about where
we’ll go.”
“He’s right,”
Evie says. “We can’t stay here forever.”
“I know he’s
right,” Mal says. But she doesn’t want to think about that right now.
“And, uhm, M, I
have a problem myself,” Evie shifts against the back wall.
“What’s that?”
Mal looks over her shoulder at her friend.
“I have to go
too.”
Jay chokes back
a snicker.
Well, at least
that’s something else to think about.
And Mal thinks
about it while she stares wide-eyed at Evie for a full moment. “W- Well, you used
to have to go outside on the Isle of the Lost too. What’s so different about
doing it here, really? Except that there’s a lot less of a chance for people to
see you.”
“I guess I just
got too used to indoor plumbing,” Evie groans.
She lets out a
long sigh, “Nothing we can do about that now.”
“Carlos and I
can stay in the cave,” Jay says. “You might as well both go if we’re getting
ready to leave.”
“Alright,” Mal
groans and stands up. She gestures Evie to the cave opening.
“He was such a big
Dude!” Carlos cheers the little dog as he comes back in carrying him.
Mal pats Dude’s
head as she walks pass and leads Evie outside.
“Wait, are we
leaving already?” Carlos calls after them.
“You don’t want
to go where they are,” Jay tells him.
Carlos shoots
him a confused look.
“Evie has to
pee,” he says.
Carlos’ freckles
pop out as his face flushes red. He resituates Dude in his arms and settles
down next to Jay on the floor. He watches the older boy flex his fingers in and
out of fists. “Ready to punch somebody?” he asks.
“It’s strange,”
Jay says. “I haven’t wanted to punch anybody in days.”
“Well, then,
what’s wrong?” Carlos asks.
He looks at him,
a corner of his mouth up in his signature smirk, “I keep thinking about what
Mal wants now.”
“What do you
mean?”
“I mean,” he
shrugs. “When we first came to Auradon, grabbing that wand was her only goal,
and I thought it still was. All the way up to the end, that is.”
“I think she
started changing when she saw how much Ben loves her,” Carlos speaks honestly.
“But he didn’t
love her enough to stay with her through this,” Jay speaks even more honestly.
“And her mom has
never loved her enough to raise her right,” Carlos sighs. “It’s just like
nobody has ever loved her enough.”
“Hey,” Jay looks
at him. “We love her, don’t we?”
“Who do you
love?” Mal steps in, drying her hands off on the seat of her pants. She must’ve
rinsed them in the Enchanted Lake.
“I don’t love
anybody,” Jay reaches out to playfully pinch her side as she passes him. “I
don’t need to.”
“Stop it!” she
pushes his hand away, and bends over to pick up her bag.
“Are we going?”
Carlos scrambles to his feet.
Evie stand close
to the back of the cave again, clutching her red bag, and almost looking
scared.
“Are you okay?”
Jay asked her.
“We were just
thinking about it,” she nods. “If the fight goes on, and the kingdom comes
crumbling down, we don’t want to be stuck here with no way out.”
Jay nods
solemnly.
“It makes sense
I think,” Mals shrugs, shouldering her bag, “to leave before it all really
starts.”
“Where are we
going?” he asks.
“I can only
think of one place,” she says.
Chapter Ten~
“You call this
puny little gathering an army?” Maleficent laughs. She stands before Ben and
his group just at the castle steps. She is flanked by Evil Queen and Cruella de
Ville on either side, while Jafar stands tall, shielding her back. All of the
most evil characters and their children stand behind all of them. But it was
Jafar, Cruella, and EQ who rescued her from her, honestly quite measly, trap in
the boys’ dorm room.
“No,” Ben
crosses his arms. “I call this a kingdom.”
A cheer takes up
behind Ben. All of the sidekicks. The children that agreed to fight with them. And
loudest of all, Fairy Godmother, holding her sparkling wand high above her head.
Maleficent
chokes on a laugh, a horrid sound. “A kingdom that will soon be ours,” she
says.
“Speaking of ours,” Jafar leans over Maleficent’s
shoulder. “What have you done with our children?”
“I haven’t done
anything with your children,” Ben looks at him. “As I’ve told Maleficent about
Mal, they’ve taken hiding in safety.”
“Safety from
us?!” Jafar asks, bewilderment spilling out of his mouth. “ I thought my Jay wanted to fight with
us.”
“Jay is done
doing your dirty work,” Ben’s jaw is stern. “It doesn’t make him happy
anymore.”
“Why you-” Jafar
tries to push past Maleficent.
But she holds
him back, “Ah, ah. This one is mine.”
“Well, then, what are you?”
Everybody turns
to see Evil Queen studying Doug in disgust. He puffs his chest out to seem even
taller.
Evil Queen asks,
“Are you a spawn of one of those puny dwarves that kept my own step-daughter
away from me?”
Doug steps
forward, only to be stopped by Ben’s hard arm. He shouts, “My father is not
puny!”
Dopey pulls off
his purple little mining cap and twists it around in his hand.
Evil Queen
laughs, stepping forward, “Your father is that little dopey one? He can’t even speak to me! What can his child do to
me?”
Jane is standing
next to Doug, wringing her hands and biting her lip nervously. There’s a small
hand mirror sticking out of the waistband of the fluffy skirt she’s wearing.
Doug grabs it by the stick handle and yanks it out. Feeling it, Jane turns in a
circle to see what’s going on. She’s just in time to see him lifting it up and
swinging it at Evil Queen like a tourney stick.
Glass shatters
all over Evil Queen’s cheekbone, and while it hardly fazes her, blood does
stream down the side of her face. She slowly glares back up at him.
He says, “That’s
for raising Evie to think she has to play dumb to get by in life.”
Her lip raises
in a growl, “You love my daughter, do you?”
“I do.”
Her hand raises
now.
“Doug, run!”
screams Ben.
Doug chases heel
and moves faster than he ever knew he could until he’s safe inside the castle
walls.
The oak double
doors slam behind him.
And that’s when
all the fighting starts.
Chapter Eleven~
“Hey, Mal?”
“What’s up,
Carlos?” Mal pushes past a strand of tree branches. They’ve just passed the
bridge they watched Ben walk away from them down not long ago.
Carlos shifts
Dude in his arms, “He’s getting a little heavy, here.”
“Come here,
baby,” Evie takes the dog from her friend’s arms and gently tosses him up and
down. He pants in happy response.
“Man, stop
complaining,” Jay lightly shoves Carlos at the shoulder.
Carlos turns on
his heel and tries to shove Jay back. Only that’s like trying to shove the wall
of the cave they just left from. Jay grabs him at the neck and noogies his head.
“Hey, stop that,” but Carlos is laughing.
“Boys!” Mal
claps.
Jay lets go of
the younger boy, his signature smirk set on his lips.
“We really need
to find a leash for the dog,” Mal looks around. “Evie! Does the strap of your
bag come off?”
“Well, yeah,”
she looks at the red leather across her torso. “But, then how would I carry
it?”
“We can put it
in my bag,” Mal says. “That’s the plus of having such a small purse.”
Evie shrugs and
passes Dude over to her purple-haired friend. She works the strap off of her
little box bag and hands it over to Mal.
Mal sets the dog
on the ground, kneeling down beside him, and attaches the strap to the collar
at his neck. She passes the loose end to Carlos.
“Cool,” Carlos
laughs. “Now you can walk with us, Dude!”
The dog yips.
Mal rolls her
eyes as she accepts Evie’s little bag and sticks it inside her own. She slips
the strap back over her shoulder, and Evie helps her stand to her feet.
“Where to now?”
Jay asks.
“We continue
on,” Mal says.
Chapter Twelve~
On the Isle of
the Lost, blood is a regular thing. Villains get in street brawls, villain kids
tear their skin on fences as they try to get away from their mischief, even
animals bleed as they get in fights from time to time. Isa never thought she’d
see more blood than from a random nose bleed in Auradon. But every single
person in the kingdom must be experiencing nose bleeds for all the blood she
watches pool in the streets.
Honestly,
though, most of it is coming from the villains.
They’re all
still learning how to use their magic and powers again, and for the most part
they’re only using them on themselves.
They are their own punching bags. All the Auradonians have to do is stand and
wait for them to wear themselves out.
As the villains
start to thin out and Isa’s own mom accidentally drinks a potion to turn
herself back into a cat, Isa slips into a grove of trees to the side and ran
off.
Under her
breath, she sighs, “I’m coming to show you, Mal.”
Chapter Thirteen~
"Ouch!"
Mal slams into something and falls sprawling.
Jay scrambles to
help her to her feet.
"Oh, come
on," Isa daughter of Yzma brushes her own self off. She mutters under her
breath, "This dress is brand new."
Mal studies the
figure before her, from her lilac clad feet, to her Aztec-style purple dress,
and finally up to her lilac topped head. "Isa?" she asks.
"No,
way!" Carlos pushes forward, Dude pulling his leash taut. "Is your
mom here? She never let me into her lab while we were on the Isle!"
"Along with
everybody else," Isa shrugs. "But she's accidentally turned herself
into a cat."
"Again?"
Mal sets her palms on her hips. Yzma had only been a human again for the past
twenty years, as she was graciously turned back from a cat when Beast banished
all the villains.
"Are all of
the other villain kids here?" Jay asks Isa.
"Every last
one of them."
"Some of
those are as close to friends as the two of us have ever had," Jay
whispers to Mal. Only the two of them had been friends from childhood. Mal was
merely schoolmates with Carlos until the event that brought them together to
find Maleficent's scepter a while ago. And, as everybody should by now know,
Evie was castle-stuck up until her sixteenth birthday. Which is why she hangs
back now.
"I
know," Mal looks at Jay for one minute before turning to Isa again,
"How's it going over there?"
"Not too
good," the older girl replies honestly.
"Oh, my
badness," Mal sighs.
"For us
villains that is," Isa grins.
She looks back
up at her with bright eyes.
Evie finally, if
a little shyly, steps forward, "And our parents?"
"All four
of them are still standing." Isa raises her eyebrows, "And I think
they're still going to try to take the kingdom even when nobody else is standing
behind them."
Mal stutters,
"So, why- Why aren't you-"
"Back there
fighting with them?"
She and Jay both
nod.
"I came to
find you."
"To get me
to fight?" Mal backs up, finding her spine pressing warmly to Jay's chest.
"Oh, no, I'm not doing that."
"And
neither am I," she says.
Mal tilts her
head.
Jay grips her
shoulders.
"I'm simply
showing you where you come from."
"I already
know where I belong. It's the only place I'm meant to be." Mal shakes her
head, "It's all I'm meant to
be."
"You only
know half of your upbringing," Isa tells her. "The part who raised
you."
"You
mean-" Mal tries again to find the right words, "Are you talking
about my-"
"I'm here
to bring you to your father."
Chapter Fourteen~
"Woah,
would you look at that?” Jane solemnly stares at the landscape all around Ben
and herself. Most of the villains and even some of the villain kids have
rendered themselves incapacitated by their own newly found powers.
“Yeah,” Ben
rests his hand on her bony little shoulder. “Looks to me like good conquers
evil, after all.”
Jane smiles up
at him.
“Well, then,
look again.”
They both pop
their heads up to see Maleficent striding toward them.
She says, “I
have both my scepter and Fairy Godmother’s wand. It looks like I conquer all.”
Jane whimpers.
“It’s okay,” Ben
presses her gently behind him. “Stand back.”
“Oh, I’m not
going to do any harm to the little fairy girl,” Maleficent smirks. “She’s the
one that got me here in the first place.”
She bites back a
sob.
“My daughter,
however…” Maleficent tilts her head at Ben, “Where is it again that you said
she is? She and I have some business to attend.”
Chapter Fifteen~
“So, who is my
dad?”
“I can’t tell
you that, Mal,” Isa stomps to free her boot of some sort of thorny plant.
“Where is my
dad?”
“I can’t tell
you that, Mal.”
“How do you know
my dad?”
“I can’t tell
you that, Mal.”
“How do you even
know he’s my dad?” Mal presses as they trudge toward the end of the grove of
trees.
Isa stops and faces
her, “Mal, I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?” Mal’s
bicep is tense in Jay’s hand.
“Because he
doesn’t know he’s your dad.”
Mal doesn’t take
another step forward even as Isa continues ahead of her and her three friends.
She calls out to her, “Why not?”
Isa waits for
the four of them to catch up to her, then sighs, “Your mother hid you away from
him because she didn’t want you to be influenced by his humanness.”
“He really is
human?” Mal’s eyes shine again.
“Isn’t that the
only thing you knew about him?” she smiles at the slightly younger girl.
“And how do you
know he’s my dad again?”
“It’ll all make
sense when you meet him.”
The four of them
press on again. They finally make it through all the trees and dumb green
foliage, and reach a clearing with a bunch of braying animals.
“There he is
over there,” Isa points.
Mal squints to
see the figure silhouetted against the setting sun. She asks, “With all of the
llamas?”
Chapter Sixteen~
Ben continues to
push Jane back toward the castle doors. She fumbles only a little. “Try to find
Doug,” he whispers to her over his shoulder.
Once the castle
doors are slammed again, and Ben is certain Jane is secured behind them, he
turns to Mal’s mother, “I already told you about the three places she’d most
likely be. It’s not my fault that you don’t listen.”
Maleficent lifts
her scepter up and eight of an inch. “You’re holding one other place out on me,
aren’t you?”
“No other
place,” he shakes his head.
“Someplace the
two of you have shared together.”
“Hey, this
school is the only place we’ve ever shared.”
Maleficent lifts
up the wand to match its height with the scepter. “You’re not saving her life,
noble prince. You’re only belaboring
our fate to rule this place.”
“Mal would never
take my kingdom away from me,” the king sets his jaw. “And I’ll prove that to
you.”
Chapter Sixteen~
“Uncle Kronk!”
Isa moves toward him. She explains to Mal and her friends, “He’s not really my
uncle. I just call him that since he still assists my mom from time to time.”
Mal nods. She’s
slower at approaching the man still feeding the llamas grass by handfuls.
“Hey, Isa!” he
looks up as he scratches a llama under the chin. “Where’s your mom?”
“Still at the
castle,” Isa shrugs. “Turned herself back into a cat.”
He sighs, “I
told her not to take part in the fights. But she hasn’t listened to me since
that day the Emperor fired her.”
“That’s your dad?” Jay whispers in Mal’s
ear, and it reminds her of the time he mocked her mother’s spinning wheel. She
doesn’t blame him, though. She kind of wants to mock the man too. He cannot be her father.
As if seeing the
four villain kids for the first time since Isa brought them, Kronk asks her,
“What’s Mal doing here?”
“Uhm, I thought
you said he doesn’t know who I am,” Mal tells Isa.
“Everybody knows
who you are.” She explains to him, “Mal wanted to meet you.”
“I didn’t-” Mal
interjects.
But Kronk
interrupts her, “Why did you want to meet me, little fairy child?”
Mal blurts out,
“Are you really my father?”
Kronk blanches,
“Surely your mom let you meet your own father.”
“No, I have no
idea who he is,” she shakes her head.
“I- I mean, I
was only with her for those few times,” his face whitens.
“Mal, I think he
is your father,” Evie leans forward.
“You have his misguided goodness.”
Dude whimpers in
Carlos’ arms, though it’s as if he agrees.
“Yeah, I do,
don’t I?” Mal reaches out and touches Kronk’s hand slightly. “I think you are
too.”
Kronk lays his
other hand over her own, sniffling, “I have a daughter.”
Chapter Seventeen~
“Doug!” Jane
practically barrels into the dwarf kid, but she catches herself by grabbing his
shoulders.
“What’s going
on?” he fixes the bow over her bangs, an instinctive measure to protect the
little fairy, kicking in.
“Maleficent,”
she fights to catch her breath. “She’s still going after Mal and the rest. I
think Ben needs us to shelter them.”
“Evie?” he asks.
She nods, his
shoulders shaking under his fingers.
“Let’s go find
her!”
Chapter Eighteen~
“So, you’ve
figured it out, have you?” Maleficent asks. She stands behind the four VK’s,
facing Kronk. Mal and her friends all turn around.
“I haven’t figured
anything out,” Mal says. “Somebody finally told me! Why didn’t you?”
“All that I have
or haven’t done for you has been the means for the same end,” Maleficent says.
“To teach me to
be more like you,” she whispers.
“I couldn’t very
well let you run off to the parent who isn’t me.”
“I sure wish you
would have,” Kronk whispers.
“Your humanness
would have destroyed her,” Maleficent seethes at him.
“Mom!”
Mal’s mother
turns on her, “Ever since that day you picked up the spilled apples for that-
that goblin when you were only
five-years-old, I’ve done everything I could to push that humanness out of you.
And I really thought that I have.”
“Well, maybe you
just pushed too hard,” Mal crosses her arms.
“And what is
that supposed to mean, young lady?”
“When we lived
on the island, I didn’t think I was human at all,” she sighs. “But the minute I
got here, I realized that human is all I am. And maybe it’s all I want to be.”
“Now, Mal-”
“Who says you
have to be one or the other?”
“What?” Both Mal
and Maleficent turns to look at Kronk.
He continues,
“You have both human blood and fairy blood. And isn’t that enough? You are you
no matter what you’re made of.”
Mal gasps, “Are
you telling me-”
“Enough of
this!” Maleficent says.
Still, Kronk continues,
“You don’t have to be your mom or dad. We may have made you, but that doesn’t
mean we have to make who you are.”
“You shut your
mouth!” Maleficent shouts.
Kronk ignores
his old flame. He speaks to his daughter instead, “Back in the days of Emperor
Kuzko, he had to learn how to be both a llama and a human. And that was how he
found where his heart lies.”
Mal asks, “I’m
made up of both of you?”
He nods, “You
most certainly are.”
“And that is why
you’re coming with me, little missy,” Maleficent grabs Mal’s wrist.
“No!” the fairy
child pulls free. “I wish I hadn’t met you!” she tells her dad, before turning
to her mom and crying, tears spilling out of her eyes, “And I wish you hadn’t
gotten to be as evil as you are!”
“Hey!” Jay grabs
her shoulders and turns her so that her tear-stained face looks up at him. “You
can’t say things like that! You should be grateful for the way you were raised,
because it did make you who you are
today.”
“But, Jay, my
mom-” she sobs. “She raised me to only be evil.”
Jay’s face
softens, “At least you have a mom.”
Jay never got to
meet his mom, just like Mal hadn’t met her dad. Only his story is much more
tragic. He never got to meet her, because she passed away before she ever even
held him. The Isle of the Lost isn’t exactly the safest place to have children,
after all. He always saw it as a miracle that Mal, Evie, and Carlos all got to
keep their own moms. But then again, maybe that’s just because they were all
such powerful villains. Maybe his own mom wasn’t.
When Mal and Jay
were just children, he never much liked talking about his mom to her. After
all, villains aren’t supposed to care what happens to their loved ones. The
truth is, however, that Jay has always cared just too much. And right now, Mal
can see it in his eyes.
“You’re right,”
she reaches up to dry her own eyes. Jay helps her with his calloused thumbs.
“I’m sorry,” she sighs.
“It’s not your
fault,” Jay winks at her. “I feel that way about my dad too, sometimes.”
“I think we all
do,” Evie steps toward her.
“Yeah,” Carlos
bounces Dude up and down. “You think I liked being the servant of my mom?”
“Of course not,”
she laughs.
“Blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah,” Maleficent waves her hands in emphasis. “That’s enough, Mal,
let’s go.”
“No, Mom!” Mal
turns to her. “All you’re going to do is loot, and kick everyone out of their
castles, and imprison their leaders, and destroy everything that is good and
evil. And I want no part in that.”
“You’re walking
out on me?” Maleficent’s body is trembling in anger.
“I’m offering
you a chance to rule on your own,” Mal stares her mother down, her eyes turning
a neon-potion green. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”
“Well-”
“And I want no
part in your life, either,” Mal turns to her father. “Because you didn’t raise
me, and I don’t know you, and I don’t think you should know me.”
“Mal, we should
go,” Evie holds out her hand.
“You’re right,”
Mal accepts it.
“You’re turning
your back on me?” Maleficent asks.
“No, Mom,” she
turns to look at Maleficent over her shoulder. “I’m turning my face to what I
want for me.”
Chapter Nineteen~
“Where is
Maleficent?” Jafar asks.
“Oh, who knows,”
Cruella de Ville studies her chipped nails. “Who even cares?”
“Don’t you think
we should find her?” Jafar asks her.
“I’ll find her.
I’m not letting her rule this place by herself,” Evil Queen says.
Chapter Twenty~
“Are you sure
you’re okay?” Jay asks again for probably the seventy-seventh time.
“Yeah, I’m
fine,” Mal answers, wrapping herself up in her arms. They’ve moved on from her
mom, and are heading toward the edge of Auradon. “That whole thing just felt
pretty pointless.”
“It is you,”
somebody sighs behind them.
Evie is the
first one to look, stopping short, “Is that you, Doug?”
“Heigh-ho.” He
looks worn out, with ash smeared across his face and bloody tears in his
clothes. It must’ve taken him a lot to find her. And now he’s standing there, and
Evie has never seen him look so great.
“Doug!” Evie
runs to throw her arms around him.
He holds her
tight.
“So, it is you,
Doug,” Mal laughs. “How’s everything going?”
“Pretty great,”
Doug reluctantly peels himself away from Evie. “I like to think we’re winning.”
“I don’t know
about that,” Mal chews on her bottom lip.
“M, I can’t go
anywhere,” Evie says in a rush. “I’m staying here with Doug.”
“Oh,” Doug
touches her tenderly on the cheek.
“Darn-tootin’
you’re not going anywhere.” A new voice cackles behind them.
Evie turns
slowly, “Mommy?”
“Hello, Evie, my
little evil-ette in training,” Evil Queen grins, showing off menacing white
teeth.
“Don’t call me
that.”
Doug tightens an
arm around Evie’s waist.
“Well, why ever
not?” Evil Queen asks.
“I don’t want to
be called that anymore,” she answers.
“What do you
mean you don’t want to be that? Don’t you want to be bad like me?”
“I don’t think I
want to be… anything,” Evie speaks slowly. “Why do I have to be either bad or
good? I don’t want to live in a world where the two sides have to fight
anymore. All I really wanna be is me.” She looks over to her greatest friend,
“M, I think that’s what your daddy was trying to tell you…”
Mal shifts
uncomfortably.
Evil Queen
glares at Evie.
She turns back
to her mother, “I just want to be smart, and I want to be talented, and I want
to be with Doug.”
Evil Queen looks
the dwarf son over, “He does not look like a prince.”
“In his own way,
he is,” Evie looks up at him lovingly.
Doug smiles back
just as endearingly.
“Hmm,” Evil Queen
places a finger on her chin. “Here. I think I have something for you, son.”
Evie gasps. She
gets a feeling like somebody is piercing her heart as Evil Queen pulls out the
bright red apple. She turns around and pushes Doug back. “Doug, don’t take the
apple!”
Doug smirks at
Evil Queen, “My dad told me all about you and your poisonous apples. You think
I’m dumb enough to take a bite out of that?”
Evil Queen
humphs, “You will not stand in the way of my daughter’s chance at a prince.
Surely you’ll fall for this.”
As Evil Queen
throws the apple straight at her daughter, Doug leaps to catch it. A flurry of
black cloaks and dark winds fill up Evie’s vision. When she looks back up,
Dough is gone, already falling fast down the well that is hidden behind him. “No!”
The deep walls
of the well echo the sickening sound of Doug’s bones snapping. He’s surely
dead.
Evie throws her
hands over her gaping mouth, and tries her best not to sob in front of her evil
mother.
Her three
friends are positively quiet.
“Bipidee-bopidee-boo!”
Evie turns again
just as Ben and Jane run up to fight for them. Evie seethes at the sight of
Jane holding Fairy Godmother’s wand. But she needn’t wield it, for there is no
fight to be had. Evil Queen is already gone. “What did you do?!”
“Everything’s
okay,” Ben holds out a reassuring hand. “You mom’s just run away.”
“Everything’s
not okay,” she sobs. “Doug died.”
“What?” Ben’s
face pales as he looks down the well. A wince tears from his throat.
“This is all
your fault,” she seethes.
“Wha- But, I didn’t
do anything,” Ben holds up his hands. “Doug was a good friend. I would- I would
never…”
“I mean, her fault!” Evie thrusts her arm out to
point at Jane.
The fairy girl
lets out a little cry.
“If she hadn’t
grabbed that wand she uses so flippantly in the first place, none of this would
ever be happening.” Evie’s practically screaming now, “Have you ever stopped to
think that in her quest to be beautiful, she’s killed off so many good people?”
Jane backs up to
the well, grabbing the side of it hard to keep from falling.
Evie turns on
her.
“No!” she cries.
“No, please don’t send me down the well. I don’t want to end up like him.”
“Oh, you’ll have
a fate much worse than his.” Evie’s eyes practically blaze as she spits her
next words out at Jane, “If you harbor darkness in your heart, you will surely
look the part. The face is the woe of a witch: pimples, puss, and pockmarks.
Moles will surely pitch. Black lips no prince will want to kiss, say goodbye to
your bliss. And with it, your looks, you’ll begin to fear.”
“Wha- Wha-” Jane
sinks to the ground as a tiny blue light floats around her. She cringes as it
sinks into her face. “What did you just do to me?”
“Mirror her, E,”
Mal folds her arms over her chest.
Without
hesitation, Evie digs into her purse to bring out her little magic mirror. She
holds it out toward Jane.
The once plain
fairy gapes in horror at the image of her new face. Her skin is gray and
wrinkly, covered in red blots and boils. Her once shining eyes now look as if
they’re sinking. Her black lips look as though they’re rotting, her tooth
crooked and yellowed underneath them. Her hair is also graying and decaying,
falling out in clumps. She brings her gaze back up to Evie’s gorgeous face,
“Why?”
Evie whispers
for her ears only, “You broke my heart, so I broke your face.” She stands up to
turn to Mal again, “You were right, M. It’s time to get out of here.”
Chapter Twenty-One~
“Are you okay,
Jane?” Ben helps her up after the VKs have left. He doesn’t even have time to
be heartbroken about Mal anymore. She’s made her decision. Or, just maybe… he
made it for her when he put his kingdom first.
“Don’t look at
me!” Jane tries to cover her face.
“Hey, you don’t
look all that bad,” he smirks. “You’ve just got a little something all over
your face.”
She doesn’t want
to laugh, but a tiny little tinkling escapes anyway.
“My daughter is
getting really good at her spells,” Evil Queen walks back, sounding almost
speechless. “It’s too bad she had to waste it on a little fairy like you.”
“Well, well,
well,” Maleficent walks up behind Evil Queen. The step-mother of Snow White had
just found her like she told Jafar she would, after all. “Look what the queen’s
dragged in.”
“Leave us
alone,” Ben pushes Jane behind him again. “We’ve already defeated most of your
army.”
“Oh,” Maleficent
laughs. “The villains only need to learn how to use their powers again. And
once they do, we’ll more than outnumber you.”
Jane whimpers
behind Ben’s shoulder.
“Get back!” he
whispers to her.
“You may as well
bow down to me,” Maleficent says.
“You mean us,” Evil Queen shoots her a glare.
“I mean us,”
Maleficent gestures with her hand.
“I will not,” he
says. “And I will not lose to you.”
“Listen up, you
little prince,” venom practically drips from the evil fairy’s tongue. “We will
loot. And we will kick you out of your castles. And we will lock up your
leaders. And we will destroy all that is good and beautiful, just like my
daughter said we would.”
“How many times
do I have to tell you I’m the king?”
Ben exasperates. “And we don’t need Auradon to be a great kingdom.”
“What are you
going to do?” she asks. “Take Mal’s
lead and leave?”
“Maybe that’s
what it takes,” he says. “Maybe the bravery is not in the fighting, but in
knowing when to call it quits.”
“You have spent
way too much time at that goodness
school,” she tells him. “You can quit and go somewhere new, but know this, I
will come after you.”
“Not if we go
somewhere you’ll never want to.”
“And what is
that supposed to mean?”
“Come on,” Ben
gingerly lifts up Jane. He turns his back on Maleficent, being the second
person that day to do so.
Chapter Twenty-Two~
“Come on, E,
just a little bit longer,” Mal coddles a sobbing princess Evie.
“Where did you
say we’re going again?” Carlos asks, pulling on the leash of his tired puppy.
“We need some
place to rest for the night,” Mal tells him.
“We’re going to
Doug’s house,” Evie sniffles, trying to dry her tears as fast as they spill.
“We’re breaking
into someone’s house?!” he asks.
“We’re villain
kids,” Evie states only a little proudly. “That’s what we do.”
“But what if his
parents are home?”
“They’re not,”
Jay answers for the girls. “They’re out there fighting the battle.”
“I really hope
they win,” Mal rubs on Evie’s arm.
“I really do
too,” Evie whispers to her.
“Come on,” Jay
gestures them forward. “Is this it?”
“That certainly
looks like some place Doug would live,” Evie says.
They all stop
and take in the sight of the tiny little cottage. It’s the color of cream and
kind of shaped as a mushroom. The top- er, roof – is light green.
“It looks like
that’s his bedroom window over there.”
Sure enough, the
window which Mal is pointing to displays blue and gold Auradon Prep curtains.
“Or maybe his
parents are just big fans of the tourney team,” Carlos says.
“Come on.” Jay
playfully shoves him and then races to the window. It opens easily under his
expert lock picking hands.
“Thanks, Jay,”
Evie says as he lifts her up under the knees to slip her inside.
“You’re
welcome.” He takes Mal’s hand and helps her as well. She, of course, won’t let
him lift her up, because she’s not a prissy princess (that’s not to say that
Evie is exactly). Jay clambers in
after her.
“Oh, great,
leave me to climb in by myself,” Carlos states, rather annoyed at Jay.
“Here, hand me
the dog,” Evie reaches out for Dude.
Carlos passes
the little mutt to her.
She sets him
down on the floor, and he whimpers happily as she takes his leash off. He lies
down next to her.
“Now you be a
quiet puppy. We don’t want anyone to know where in here,” Mal points a finger
in Dude’s face. She moves to Doug’s bedroom door to put a locking spell on it.
She tells Jay, “Just in case.”
He nods wisely.
A whole lot of
noise is made as Cruella de Ville’s son fumbles in through the window.
“Carlos!” all
three of the other kids turn to shush him.
“Sorry,” he
brushes off his jacket, not at all sorry. “It’s not like anybody would help
me.”
“You’re such a
nerd,” Jay tells him. “Even the girls could get in by themselves. I only helped
them because it’s gentlemanly and Auradon actually rubbed off on me.”
“Shut up,”
Carlos says. “Just because you’re better at everything.”
“Guys!” Mal
seethes at both of them.
Jay holds up his
hands.
“You’re good at
the computer stuff,” Evie pets Carlos’s hair. Her face is still streaked in her
leaking mascara, blue for brown eyes.
“Thanks, Evie,”
he reaches out to wipe a stray from her face.
Mal closes the
window behind Carlos and puts a locking spell on that too.
Jay sits in a
leather recliner close to the wall opposite the bed.
Carlos settles
on the window seat.
Evie sighs and
plops down on the bed. She looks up at Mal with big, teary eyes, "It
smells like him."
"I know,
E." Mal grabs Carlos's bag and digs through it, being careful of all of
his computer stuff, and pulls out Dude's box of beef sticks. There's no reason
for him to starve just because the kids have been finding it hard to feed
themselves. Maybe they can raid Doug's kitchen in the morning if they really have to.
As Mal feeds
Dude a couple of the sticks, Carlos asks Evie, "Hey, can you hand one of
those extra blankets to me?"
"Oh,
yeah," Evie shifts over so she can lift a fuzzy Auradon throw from off of
Doug’s plaid blue comforter.
"Thank
you," Carlos takes it. "Hey, remember that time you gave me your
extra comforter on the Isle."
"Yeah,"
she smiles at the memory. "I gave you a pillow too."
"You know,
you're the reason I'm not so scared anymore," he looks over his shoulder
at her; the way he's sitting, he's facing Jay.
"Oh,"
she places her hand over her heart.
"You cared
more for me in those first few days of knowing each other than any of those
Auradonians have in all our time here," he continues on to her. "It
makes me wonder if things would've been better if we'd just stayed on the Isle.
Nobody would be dead."
Evie chokes on a
sob.
He shakes his
head, "And you wouldn't be hurting so much."
Tears start
pouring down Evie's face, afresh. She curls up on her side and lies on Doug's
bed.
"I'm so
sorry," Carlos looks down.
Evie rocks,
sobbing, "M, M, M, M."
Mal takes her
cue and slides in next to Evie. She carefully pulls Doug's comforter back and
places it over Evie.
Evie clutches a
handful of the comforter close to herself, and then she grabs Mal's arm to wrap
it around herself.
"Oh, it's
going to be okay," Mal settles in next to her, resting her head in the
mass of blue curls. She can't believe that just earlier this year she called
the girl Princess Blueberry with sarcastic venom. Evie is far from a plump,
delicate blueberry. She's beautiful. And she's brave. Last year she wouldn't
have even known what death felt like if she saw it right in front of her. Today
she's moving forward even through the tear Doug's death rendered on her heart.
"Does it
hurt less," Evie hiccups, "knowing that Ben is still alive even
though you'll never have him again?"
"This isn't
about me and Ben," Mal tells her, sweeping the blue hair off of the
shattered face. Looking at her like that reminds Mal of the old vases and
dishes they got on the island. The ones that were sent from Auradon because
they were broken, but had been repaired with melting searing hot metal between
the cracks. Evie is still standing, even between her cracks.
"But, does
it hurt?" Evie asked.
"I
guess..." Mal sighs. "Knowing he's still alive makes leaving him
worth it, because he has a chance to be happy again."
"Is it
awful that I'm sort of glad I was the last person to make Doug happy?"
Evie looks up at her.
But Mal doesn't
know what to say.
"Of course
not," Jay speaks up for her.
Mal turns her
head to look at him. He's still relaxed in the recliner, one leg propped up
over an arm of it.
She can see
Carlos too, leaning against the closed curtains of the window. It seems that
he's fallen asleep with Dude curled up on his chest.
Jay continues to
Evie, “He loved you, and he died because of that. Of course you’re happy that
you made him happy until the very end of his life.”
“Thanks, Jay,”
Evie says, but it’s barely audible because she’s already falling asleep.
After Evie
starts snoring softly, Jay says to Mal, “Was it just last night that we were in
our dorms thinking about how much we didn’t even want this to happen?”
“It was,” she
sighs, “just last night that I made the cupcake to break Ben’s love spell for
me.”
“I’m sorry,” he
tells her.
“I’m not.” She
gathers up another throw blanket and stands up off the bed. “Can- Can I sit
with you?”
“Oh, yeah, of
course.” He shifts to move the leg he has hanging over the arm of the chair so
she can fit beside him, but she places a hand on his tensed up thigh to stop
him. She curls up right in the middle of his legs and drapes the blanket over
both of them. He looks down at her softly, “This is weird.”
“Why is this
weird?” she whispers to him, not wanting to wake up their two sleeping friends.
Or the puppy.
He shrugs, “It’s
just that, usually, whenever I’m this close to another person, I’m pounding on
them.”
She giggles,
covering her mouth so that it doesn’t come out too loud. She asks him, “Is it a
bad weird?”
“No, it’s an
alright weird.” He shrugs again, “What’s really
weird is how much I don’t want to pound on you.”
She laughs
again, “I’m so glad. Everybody knows you shouldn’t hit even villain girls.”
“Yeah,” he
smirks. And then, “But, really, does it hurt?”
“You mean would
it hurt for you to hit me?” She pinches his biceps, “Have you seen these
things?”
“No,” he
chuckles. “I already told you I’m not going to hit you. I’m talking about what
Evie was asking you.”
“You- You mean
about Ben?”
He nods.
“Why do you care
about that?” she asks.
“You’re my
oldest and closest friend. I… care about you,” after living on the Isle of the
Lost for so long, it was still hard for Jay to admit that he cares about…
anything, let alone his best friend.
“I love you
too,” she says, taking it one step further. “With friends like you, I think
I’ll be okay.”
“Okay,” he nods.
He leans his head back against the chair and closes his eyes.
“Are you going
to bed?” she asks.
“It’s been a
long day, Mal; I need to get some rest.”
“Then I’ll go to
bed too.” She curls her legs up into herself and presses even further into him,
her head fitting right in the hollow of his shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-Three~
“Come on, you
have to get some sleep,” Ben kneels down next to Jane. She’s curled up on his
bed, covering her face.
“I can’t sleep
knowing they’ll all see me like this tomorrow,” she’s talking about the
Sidekick Council he called to meet first thing in the morning.
“So you’re just
letting Evie win?” he says.
“What?” she
reluctantly removes her hands to look at him.
“Evie knows that
the superficial is your weakness, so she used it against you. She felt like you
took her down, but really, she’s taking you down, now.”
“Just go to bed,
Ben,” she turns away from him under the covers. “I’ll fall asleep when I’m
ready.”
Ben sighs and
stands up. He doesn’t know why he’s taking such good care of this ungrateful
fairy that started the whole thing to begin with. But something about her
innocence and insecurity makes her seem like a homeless puppy in need of help.
Ben crosses the
room to the door so he could make it to his parents’ room.
Chapter Twenty-Four~
“Carlos?” Mal
wipes Jay’s long locks from in front of her eyes and gently lifts her head up
from his shoulder. Light is streaming toward her. Carlos is peeking out through
the curtains. “What are you doing? Close that curtain before somebody sees us.”
“I’m sorry,” he
does as she asks. “I just wanted to find out if I can see what’s going on out
there.”
“Can you?”
He shakes his
head.
Mal gets up,
making sure to leave the throw blanket over Jay. She walks over to Carlos and
wraps her arms around his neck, “It’s going to be okay, little brudder.”
“You think of me
as your brother?” he looks up at her.
“Yeah,” she
loosens her arms enough just to look at him. “We all think of you as a little
brother.”
“Really?” tears
shine in his eyes.
“Really,” she
taps his chin. “And we’re kind of sorry for dragging you into this mess.”
“I’m not sorry!”
he sits up. “If it wasn’t for coming with you guys, I wouldn’t have grown as
much as I have. And, I, you know,” he scratches Dude’s ear. “Wouldn’t have this
little guy.”
She scratches
behind Dude’s ear and then accidentally does the same thing to Carlos by
reflex. She blushes, but he just laughs. “You’re braver than you know,” she
tells him.
He finally hugs
her back this time.
She holds him
for a moment longer, until Evie starts mumbling in her sleep. “I should,” she
tells him.
“Go ahead,” he
says. “Fight her nightmares away.”
Mal taps his
chin again and turns to slide into Doug’s bed. She wraps her arm around Evie
and wraps herself up in the comforter.
Chapter Twenty-Five~
Evie is sobbing
as the morning light streams into Doug’s bedroom.
“Are you okay,
Evie?” Carlos asks her sleepily, his voice vibrating against the window he’s
still leaning on.
“I’m fine,” Evie
mumbles. “A little cold. Mal is a blanket hog.”
Mal pops her
head up to look at the other girl. Her eyes are only partially open, her
eyelashes casting shadows over her cheekbones. Her face looks fresh and seems
at peace. She’s not sobbing at all. “Then who-”
All four kids
jump up.
Mal stares at
the bedroom door as the sound creaks even closer. She whispers, “Go, go, go!”
“Dopey must’ve
found out about his son,” Jay says as he double-taps the window to undo its
locking spell from the inside. He throws it open and starts tossing their bags
outside.
Evie scrambles
to find Dude’s leash strewn across the floor. She puts it back on him, then
attaches the free end to a bracelet on her wrist.
“Let’s go,” Jay
strains through clenched teeth. He grabs Carlos’s arm. “You first, brave boy.”
“Ah, okay,
okay,” Carlos practically shouts as Jay shoves him through the small opening of
the window.
“Guys, shush!”
Mal whispers just as the sobbing sound reaches the other side of the bedroom
door.
“Are you sure
you’re ready to go in there?” a momly voice says outside the door.
A whimpering sob
is her answer.
“Evie, go!” Mal
pushes the back end of the other girl.
Evie passes Dude
through the window, and Carlos grabs him. Jay gives her a hand up so she can
climb out.
The doorknob
jiggles, but Mal’s locking spell from the night before holds hard.
She whines,
“Evieee!” as Evie seem to stop right in the middle of the window frame.
“I can’t-” she
jerks her arm. “I’m… stuck!” she
jerks on her arm again, and the bushes next to her rustle as Dude’s leash yanks
against her. Dude whimpers. “It’s the leash!”
“I’ve got ya!”
Carlos grabs Evie’s wrist to pull the leash free.
“Come on, come
on!” Mal bounces on the balls of her feet as she waits for Evie, standing
beside the bedroom door.
With one last
pull on her wrist from Carlos, Evie sprawls through the window, tossing both
her and the boy into the bushes nearby. Dude stands next to them on all fours,
tilting his head inquisitively at the pair.
“Mal, let’s go!”
Jay tries not to yell.
Mal double-tabs
the knob of the door as quietly as she can, then flies across the room as if
she was one of those carpets Jafar had gone after years ago, to get to the
window.
Jay lifts her up
and all but throws her out the window, sliding right out after her.
She stands up
and slams the window shut just as the bedroom door opens on the other side of
the glass.
Jay pulls her
into him down in the bushes as Dopey’s sobbing sounds much too close to the
window frame.
“What? Did you
hear something outside of the window?” Dopey’s wife’s voice carries outside to
the kids.
As does Dopey’s
whimperings.
Mal presses as
hard into Jay as she can to avoid being seen, her feet digging into a pile of
drying leaves.
Across the
window from them, Carlos and Evie are huddling close to the ground, hiding a
whimpering Dude under them.
Much to Mal’s
chagrin, she hears the window sliding open. Jay’s heartbeat swiftens against
her back.
Evie lifts her
head up, and mouths to her, “If he turns his neck, we’ll be goners.”
Mal nods that
she knows.
Suddenly, Dude
shoots out from underneath Evie’s chest and runs straight for Dopey’s front
door.
“Du-”
Evie slams her
hand over Carlos’s mouth and pushes him even deeper into the ground. She throws
her cloak over both of them as Dopey starts to turn his neck.
Dude starts
yipping around the front of the house.
Dopey makes an
inquisitive sound and slides the window shut.
All four kids
let out a collective sigh, but Evie and Carlos stay on the ground while Mal remains
in Jay’s arms.
In the distance,
they hear a door opening.
That’s when
Carlos takes off running.
“Carlos!” Evie
stage-whispers. She goes off after him.
“Time to go!”
Mal grabs Jay’s hand and pulls him to his feet. They quickly follow the other
two.
Dude runs back
around the house and leaps into Carlos’s arms from yards away. Carlos only
stumbles a smidgen as he fully wraps his arms around the dog.
Mal grabs Evie’s
hand just as the blue haired girl finally reaches Carlos and grabs the other
end of Dude’s leash to keep her tethered to the young boy.
Jay’s hand stays
on the small of Mal’s back so he can keep watch on the girls as well.
And the four run
straight for the barrier at the edge of Auradon.
Chapter Twenty-Six~
Maleficent steps
slowly up the castle stairs. Her eyes shift from Evil Queen to Cruella de
Ville. She looks over her shoulder at Jafar. She tells the three, “It seems
like even the castle is empty.”
“Everyone has
left?” Evil Queen asks.
“Where do you
think they’ve all gone?” Jafar asks.
“And what are we
going to do about it?” Cruella de Ville scratches her scalp.
“Well, I scared
that little prince into thinking I’m
coming after him, so I don’t think he’ll be coming back for us,” Maleficent
reaches the tall double doors.
“So what do we do now?” Evil Queen looks at her.
“Well, now we
loot and destroy all that is good and beautiful.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven~
“I think it’s
time we all learn how the other half of this kingdom lives,” Ben stands in
front of the Sidekick Council at the edge of the Enchanted Lake. Maleficent
never did find out that was Mal’s secret hiding spot. In fact, he’s not sure if
she ever found her daughter at all.
“Why?” Grumpy
asks.
“Well, it’s just
like Doc once said,” Ben says to Grumpy. “I decided to step foot outside of the
castle. I’m not that same little boy I was at our very first Council meeting.”
“Well, doesn’t
that seem like it was forever ago?” Grumpy crosses his arms.
“Why is that
little girl hiding her face?” the hearing device in Ben’s ear that allows him
to understand the animal sidekicks squeaks. He turns his head toward Mary the
mouse who is settled next to a bird’s nest on a branch. “Isn’t that the little
fairy daughter?”
Ben turns over
his shoulder to look, “Jane, drop your hands!”
“I can’t,” she
shakes her head. “I don’t want them to see me like this.”
“Hey,” he moves
closer to her and wraps his fingers around her wrists. “We talked about this.
You have to let them see it. And if you feel like it’s a punishment, then maybe
you shouldn’t have taken the wand.”
She lowers her
hands, if only to glare at him, “Well, you don’t have to be so harsh.”
“But it got you
to drop your hands, didn’t it?” he grins. He squeezes her wrists a smidge
before turning back to the Sidekicks.
Most everybody
is looking at Jane with horrored expressions.
Adrina, Ariel’s
sister, pops her head up to the surface of the lake. She asks, “Why does that
little girl look like that?”
“This,” Ben
grabs Jane by the shoulders and pulls her to stand in front of him, “and worse,
is what’ll happen to all of us if we return to that castle. It’s time for us to
build a new kingdom.”
“And you expect
us to build it for you in our neighborhood?” Grumpy grumps.
“No,” Ben shakes
his head. “I expect the princes and princesses and all of the children of
Auradon to rebuild their own kingdom. It’s about time we learn how to work for
ourselves and meet our own goals.”
“Impressive,”
Doc says. “It looks like you’re really learning what it means to be king.”
“Yeah, well,” he
shrugs. “Now that they have a new king, I’m ready for them to have a new
kingdom.”
“Hmm,” Grumpy
lets his arms drop by his sides. “Seems like something we could be ready for as
well.”
“And it’s
something,” Ben turns toward the lake. He looks out toward all of his kingdom,
watching him from the opposite shoreline, “I want all of you to prepare for as
well.”
Jane looks up at
him in awe.
Chapter Twenty-Eight~
“This kingdom is
ours,” Maleficent holds her arms out wide. “That little prince gave up defeat and left us to live here by ourselves. I
guess he wasn’t all that relentless, after all.”
The whole
kingdom of villains and villain kids roars up in a cheer.
Maleficent
laughs maliciously. “That’s right,” she says. “We get to keep everything they
left behind here. We get choice pick of all of the houses and castles.”
“I know which
castle I’m going to pick,” Evil Queen mumbles under her breath next to her.
Maleficent
glares at EQ from the corner of her eye. “However, I,” her voices raises loud enough to be heard on the Isle of the
Lost, “will be taking ownership of the castle of the little prince.”
EQ gapes at her
unabashedly.
Chapter Twenty-Nine~
The four VKs
stand at the edge of the bridge overlooking the broken barrier of the Isle of
the Lost. They’re all clasping each other’s’ hands.
“Are we all
ready?” Sofia asks everybody.
“Yeah,” Carlos
tells her.
“Let’s go,” Jay
says.
“No.”
Everybody turns
to look at Mal in shock.
She doesn’t look
at anybody as she says, “Not until I tell you something.”
Evie leans
forward to get a better look at her; she’s on the other side of Carlos from
her, “Well, what is it?”
Mal looks
straight at her, “I love you.”
She lets out a
little, “Oh.”
“I love all of
you,” Mal looks from one of the boys next her to the other. “We all started
this together from the moment we ventured out to get my mom’s scepter. I’m so
glad we’re ending it the same way.”
“We love you
too.” Carlos jokes, “But we’re not ending it with the scepter.”
Mal laughs.
“No,” she shakes her head.
“And I agree
with Mal,” he looks to his other side at Evie. “We’ve been through too much
together to not end it like this. I love you, Evie.”
“Oh,” she
touches his cheek. “I love you too, my little bedding buddy.”
He laughs at
that.
But she’s not
done yet, “If not for you, I wouldn’t have been through all of it with any of
you guys.”
He smiles
through tear filled eyes. He turns to Jay, “I love you too, man. And so does
Dude.” He jiggles the red leash wrapped around his wrist, “Dude loves all of
you.”
“I love you
too,” Sofia bends down to kiss at the tan, little mutt. She straightens up to
take a peek at a Jay, “And you know I love you over there.”
“I know,
Princess Blueberry,” he smiles shyly.
She returns his
smile, brightly.
The three VKs
watch Jay, waiting for him to say it to all of them.
Jay looks down
and kicks a stray rock that has found its way upon the magical bridge. “Do you
remember that night Lonnie came into the kitchen and found us making Ben’s love
spell?”
Carlos and Evie
nod.
“Uh-huh,” Mal
squeezes his hand gently.
He smiles up at
her a little. “She came to that conclusion that our parents don’t love us or
whatever,” he says. “I was looking at the three of you and you all looked so
broken, but I- I mean, my dad has always loved me in his own way. He chose me,
after all. It’s just that I’d never had those words said to me until we were in
Doug’s house the other day.”
“They were
true,” she whispers.
“But I’ve never
said them, either,” he looks up at the three of them. “My dad always taught
that it was Aladin’s love for Jasmine that ruined his life. So, I always- I
always thought that-”
“Love could ruin
the world,” Mal finished for him. “That’s what we were all taught.”
“And maybe
there’s some truth in it,” Carlos said.
They all three
turn to look at him.
He finishes,
“Audrey loved Ben, and look at what happened to that. This whole mess started
after Maleficent killed her. And don’t you think she killed her because Audrey
had wanted to protect Ben?”
Mal nods slowly,
“I guess you’re right.”
“But even if you
are,” Jay looks at him and then each of the girls in turn, “and even if it
destroys us all… I love you guys. More than I ever even knew what love feels
like.”
Mal bites her
lip, eyes shining. “Well, let’s go,” she says.
“Wait,” Jay
holds them back this time. “We’re new people now. We’re not castle-stuck,” he
looks to Evie. “Or slaves to our moms,” then Carlos. “Or thieves,” finally, he
looks at Mal. “But there is one more thing I need to steal before we go in
there.”
“And what is
that?” she asks.
He doesn’t even
answer as he leans down to kiss her.
She quickly
pulls back. And then she laughs, “You can’t steal something that is given to
you willingly.” She grabs his face and kisses him back.
Their friends
cheer them on.
Mal pulls back
and states, “Let’s all go home and make it ours this time.”
The four step
foot on the Isle of the Lost.
Chapter Thirty~
“I was having so much fun, I almost forgot… You
didn’t think this was the end of the story, did you?”
