Update!


Doug hadn't listened to Mrs. Potts's frantic warning from Blaine. It was a classic villain move to scare the opposition into taking no action to stop said villain. And if there was anything Doug was certain of, it was that it was always possible to stop the villain of a story no matter what they claimed. The whole Isle was proof of that. The villain's threats were typically the product of one of two things - overconfidence in their plan or a fear that the chink in their armor would be found and targeted. Doug was betting on Blaine being a member of the latter group.

That's why, after promising Mrs. Potts everything would be kept safe and secret, he immediately found Evie, Jay, and Carlos and filled them in on the situation. He figured they didn't apply to his promise. After all, he would need help in finding a way to either defeat Blaine or wake Mal up. He hoped that if they could only pull off the latter that Mal would take care of the other half of the problem. She had already proved twice in the past few months that she had a talent for saving Ben's life.

A week after Mrs. Potts's news, the four friends were no closer to a solution than they had been originally. They couldn't risk telling someone else about Blaine. It was already incredibly difficult to act ignorant around Blaine when they saw him as Ben at school. If too many people knew and started changing the way people behaved around 'Ben', Blaine would surely figure it out, and he would kill Belle and Beast.

How Blaine planned to get away with a double murder if the need arose was a mystery to Doug. But, he guessed it would involve some type of "travel accident." Over the past week, Belle's, Beast's, and Mal's disappearances had been explained as impromptu trips to prepare for the wedding. Supposedly, Mal and Belle were on a mother-daughter bonding trip in a private cabin in the mountains, and Beast was off preparing an expensive wedding gift in an obscure town in northern Camelot.

To Doug, these sounded like weak cover-ups, but perhaps this was because he knew the truth. No one else questioned it because Blaine played Ben so well. No one else suspected anything, and why would they? If Ben's behavior or mood were a little off, anyone would write it off as wedding stress. They would never assume that Ben had been possessed by the soul of his deceased brother no one remembered. That would just be absurd.

"What are we going to do?" Evie asked for the third time that day, laying her head down on her arms.

It was going on their fourth hour at the library that day. All week, the four of them had stayed in the library from the minute classes let out for the day till closing time. They split up the work, having two people browsing internet articles and the other two researching from books. But, so far, their efforts had proved fruitless. Doug was beginning to think that the only source of information on spirit possession available in Auradon was in the one book he and Mal had found a week ago. All that had been was a paragraph description and had said nothing about how to exorcise a soul.

"Keep looking," Carlos answered without looking away from his computer screen. "That's our only choice."

"It's been a week," Evie said, raising her head. "The information simply doesn't exist. At least not here."

Carlos frowned and stopped typing his next search. He looked down at the desk, contemplating hard for several long moments. Then he slowly said quietly, "We're looking in the wrong place."

"What?" Jay asked, glancing up from his computer opposite Carlos's.

"I said, we're looking in the wrong place. Evie's right; the information doesn't exist here. But, it does exist."

"Such as where?" Doug asked and closed his book and stacked it on top of eleven others next to him that he had already combed through.

"Think," Carlos said and spun around in his chair to face Evie and Doug at their study table. "No one in Auradon would want students of heroes and other good guys reading dark magic books, so they got rid of them. I bet you anything that was one of Beast's early orders was to get rid of any evil references to prevent accidentally raising any more villains."

Doug nodded, catching on. But then he frowned. "He would have burnt them. Actually, I'm fairly positive he did. It's in the proclamation archives somewhere."

"Ok, yeah," Carlos said. "But what if there were some he overlooked because he never had them?"

Evie gasped and shook her head, her eyes wide in horror. "Of course. There's a library at Dragon Hall!"

"Dragon Hall?" Doug asked.

Jay abandoned his computer and moved around the computer stations to sit in a chair next to Evie. "Yeah, it's the school on the Isle."

"There's a school on the Isle?" Doug asked.

"Hey, we weren't completed uneducated before we came here," Jay grumbled.

Doug's cheeks flushed. "No, I didn't...I just...I never thought about it. I don't know a lot about the Isle. No one really does since it has that barrier."

"Anyway, yeah, there's a library at Dragon Hall. Well, it's..." Carlos suddenly turned pale. "Crap. The spider."

Both Jay and Evie shivered at the mention.

"What? What spider?" Doug asked.

"The library is forbidden, and only Dr. Facilier has the key," Jay told him. "Yeah, we could easily pick the lock, but there's a spider the size of a cauldron that stands guard in front of the doors. No one has ever messed with that thing. Villains may be devious to get what they want, but they're not that stupid to mess with a monster like that over some dusty volumes."

"But, you're saying this library could hold the answer we need?" Doug prompted after several seconds of silence.

Carlos nodded. "Almost definitely. If there's anywhere we'll find a book about possession and exorcisms, it'll be there."

"That's great news," Doug said, "but how do you suggest we get that information? Even if we were to go to the Isle, what about the spider and the other villains?"

"There's no 'we' going to the Isle," Evie said flatly. "At least, not where you're concerned." When Doug opened his mouth to argue, she hurried on, "Someone has to stay here to be in the loop with what Blaine is doing. That has to be you. We know the Isle best, obviously."

Doug nodded, slightly annoyed. He was interested in seeing the Isle for himself, but he realized now was not the time to test his luck arguing when there were so many lives on the line. "So, all three of you are going?"

"I don't think we have a choice," Evie said. "It'll take all three of us to get there and back safely. I mean, we're going to have to steal the remote control that opens the barrier from Ben's limo anyways. And we can't take the limo to drive there. Blaine will be sure to notice that missing."

Carlos and Jay nodded, their expressions solemn.

"So, when do we leave?" Jay asked.

"Tonight," Evie said and stood.


Meanwhile, in the back of the library, Blaine sat on a windowsill and played with a plastic yo-yo. He had been there for hours, just listening to the foursome research quietly and tap at the computer keys. Occasionally, they would chat, and he could hear most of what they said. But he didn't try to get any closer in case they heard his footsteps.

He raised his wrist, and the yo-yo traveled back up its string into his waiting palm. He smiled when he heard mention of the spider at Dragon Hall. If Evie, Carlos, and Jay got killed on their rescue mission to the Isle, that would only make his job easier. No one else would even dare trying to get to the Isle, even Doug, without the VKs to help. After all, if Mal's closest friends couldn't pull of a heist in their old stomping grounds, who else could have even the smallest hope of doing so?

And they thought they were so smart snooping around and planning right under his nose. They thought he didn't have a clue, but he had caught on quickly. None of the four of them looked at him the same anymore. Even if they tried to have normal conversations and look him in the eye as they did so, there was a stiffness in their postures and sometimes their words that they could not disguise. So, he had figured it out pretty quickly that Doug had told Mal's three friends. And honestly, he had expected Doug to do this. Well, if they wanted to go on a suicide mission to try to help Ben and Mal, Blaine wouldn't stop them. Let them run to their deaths. That would only leave Doug to deal with then. And deal with him he would, as soon as the other three had left for the Isle.


Thoughts on this chapter? I'm so glad you guys are liking this story. :D Also, hope you guys caught the references to Dragon Hall that are mentioned throughout the prequel book to the movies. I always try to incorporate details from the books if I can.

Foarrin