A/N: As with 27 & 28, chapters 29 & 30 were basically one chapter split into two, because a) too long! and b) it fit the pacing/didn't wanna leave y'all on a cliffhanger.

Contains: Major character death. Not one of the Isle kids but major and somewhat descriptive nonetheless.

• • •

When the day came, it was attended by thousands. All those from the Isle were there, and Mal was beginning to retrain the Auradon soldiers like her own army, so it was getting harder and harder to tell them apart. She'd kept her promise to the dwarves, and paid them fairly for a new scepter. Doug had provided the other three crowns he'd crafted, and they would be used for the ceremony. Anyone was allowed inside the great hall on a first-come first-serve basis until the place was filled, and thousands more watched from their televisions at home.

Evie was dressed in a gorgeous indigo dress, all chiffon and lace, and it clung to her curves, accentuating the beauty that everyone who knew her could see, inside and out. Mal was wearing a warrior's dress with leggings underneath, that looked more like a frilled jacket sometimes than a dress. It was high-collared, but sleeveless, with ribbons that wrapped around her arms instead, like galdiator sandals. This dress was as violet as her hair, and wrapped about with the briar motif, her family's ancient symbol.

Jay wore the traditional robes of his father's country, in blood red tones with golden threads woven throughout like the magic manacles burned onto his wrists. It was all flowing fabrics that made him seem like he was made of the red smoke of his djinn form, and his hair was braided down his back, and interwoven with golden rings and coin-shaped charms. It was sleeveless, to better show off his belovedly inked arms. Carlos wore a tuxedo that fit him like a glove, black jacket with a dark red tie, and a white button-up underneath. Shorts, of course, but his boots were so high that you could only occasionally catch a glimpse of knee. A dalmation-head tie pin.

Mal had kept her promise to the Dwarves (through proxy of Ben), and commissioned a silver scepter. She remembered what Diaval had said about the fact that seelie faeries had wands and unseelie had wings to channel magic, but those who had neither (like Mal, like Maleficent), used a staff or a scepter. Her mother's staff had been black alder, a wood that lent itself to Fae magic and justice, and was not inclined to helping humans. Maybe one day, she'd make a wooden staff, but for now, she had a scepter of silver, and the top was shaped like a crescent-moon. When she'd asked the original seven dwarves to include powerful lunar runes, they looked at her like she'd grown another head.

Runic craft, for which dwarves were well known, had been outlawed for decades. They were all quite eager to start work on it.

They all stood at the podium on that grand coronation day, and Doug presented them with their new crowns, all on velvet cushions. When they'd seen them a week before, Mal was touched to know that Ben had ordered one for each of them based on their own tastes, and Doug was immediately appointed to be the court jeweler. No one in Auradon save the Whites had had a dwarven smith in their employ for years, and Evie was so ready to gloat about that to her dear step-sister in the dungeons as she awaited trial (after the coronation, Mal intended to let the other descendants go first, and save the best four for last.)

Mal's crown has already been described, but it was still as beautiful as the day she first got it, as radiant as the queen who wore it. Evie's was a glorious golden affair with a huge blue diamond in the center, and smaller blue and white gems speckled along the sides like radiating stardust. It was feminine and thin in design like a diadem, with three points tapering down onto the sturdy base. Jay got a simple crown of burnished gold, with points that were all the same size, and two fire rubies that glowed like the gems of Jafar's staff. Carlos' crown was the most like King Adam's old crown, but silver instead of gold. It was lined with black and white fur (not actual dalmation fur but still), and had a round beret-like extension on top made of crushed red velvet.

They were crowned with pomp and glory, and the world stood still for one young man in the entourage. Like Jane and Lonnie, and Doug, Ben was allowed to stand very close to the podium, but while Jane looked pleased and Lonnie looked bored, Ben felt like he looked so wrong he was amazed no one noticed. Of course he didn't really look any different, aside from a sallowness and ringed eyes that was due to lack of sleep and stress combined.

Chad was in the audience, with dyed-brown hair and sunglasses to hide himself. It occurred to Ben that Mal had never actually seen him before, wouldn't even know what to look for if he reached out to her and shouted "Assassin!" And God above, all that was good, he wanted so badly to tell her, to get down on his knees and beg her forgiveness for not doing his best to keep her safe. But this was his penance. For once in his life, he would do something selfless, and sacrifice the one girl he'd ever truly loved for the sake of his people.

There was so much Ben didn't know. He genuinely thought that Mal was a girl of the Isle more than she was a High Queen, and had convinced himself that she would destroy all he had ever known. In another life, he might have been okay with that, would have given it up for her, but in this universe, Ben couldn't do it. He couldn't have known about the tarot reading that Evie had done while still Isle-bound. He couldn't have known that while a sacrifice was needed, Mal wasn't that sacrifice.

Sacrifice and penance, was always, always The Hanged Man.

"I'd like to usher in a new age of plenty-" Mal was saying, and Ben didn't hear a word of it. He was fixated on Chad, who was fiddling with something in his seat. No one noticed. Why did no one reach out, and scream "Assassin!"?

"Where we will all be judged by our actions, and not by our race, culture, or the color of our skin!" The violet woman exclaimed proudly, met with a cheer by the crowd, and was that truly evil? For magic to be free? The thoughts were chasing circles again in Ben's thoughts, and it all happened so fast, but his blood and bone, and Mal's magic happened faster.

In the days to come, none of the bystanders could explain what happened, and only the eight atop the podium could really tell you how it went.

It happened like this.

First, Chad Charming stood from his seat, and aimed an iron crossbow at Mal, who saw him, and her eyes glowed green.

Ben couldn't decide, couldn't decide, and in the split second he had before Chad pulled the trigger, he let the magic decide for him. The love spell that had controlled his emotions so strongly for the past two years told him to protect her (protect your true love, it screamed), so he did.

And when the bolt shot through his chest, the blood splattered across Mal's violet dress like an inkblot that meant something to someone, somewhere. But to her, it only meant that Ben was dead, dead, and he wouldn't have done it if he wasn't in love.

"Seize him!" Carlos shouted, taking charge (he was the best at hiding his emotions, compartmentalizing and ignoring what was inconvenient.)

"Oh Ben, oh Ben..." Mal whispered, crying genuine tears (her mother had told her he'd break her heart) over the blue and gold suit that was turning just as violet as the dress she wore.

"I told him where to be." Ben whispered. "I betrayed you." He cried, seeming like it hurt him more than Mal.

"You were under a love spell, Ben." Mal cried. "You wouldn't have stepped in front of that shot for me if you weren't."

"I'd do it again." Ben choked, swallowing hard, despite the pain. "I'd always save you."

"But you've been fighting the magic, haven't you?" Mal pressured, suddenly noting the signs of lovesickness. He had seemed off for the past week, hadn't he? Ever since Mal took over, he was struggling with his feelings for her and what he felt to be right.

"You didn't want to help me, but you did, because of the magic. That's why you told Chad I'd be unprotected- oh, gods above, Ben..."

"There is no magic." Ben whispered, voice hoarse and on the verge of cracking. "Doug doused me with enchanted lake water."

"You stupid boy." Mal hissed, running her hands a bit less tenderly through his hair. "What is fucking lake water to the greatest love spell ever woven? You know that nothing, nothing, breaks true love."

"T-true...?" Ben stuttered out, and Mal took a deep breath, holding back the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks and onto Ben's body.

"Evie, you stupid boy. I used my true love's tears to ensnare you." Mal murmured, low and angry, and she wished she had time to make the antidote, to see what his real and true feelings were, but time was the one that thing Mal didn't have.

When she rose to her feet from Ben's body, Chad Charming was brought before her, and forced onto his knees.

"He- he's dead," Chad whispered, eyes wide. "He jumped in front of the bolt... Why?"

"You're damn right, he's dead!" Mal screamed, hair beginning to smoulder and eyes glowing green. She backhanded Chad across the face. "And you killed him."

"Why couldn't you have just faded into the background? Why did you need to be a hero?" Mal wracked her brain for his identity, and came up with a single name. Ben had blurted out that he'd had no success building an army.

"Chad Charming, you are hereby found guilty of murder, attempted murder, and high treason!" Mal shouted, and the two guards who'd detained Chad, led him off to the dungeons, too shocked to fight back.

When he was gone, Mal allowed herself to cry. Heavy ugly sobs, and shuddering shoulders. Evie held her close, and the Auradon friends gathered round, the only ones who'd heard Ben's last words.

"I never meant to hurt him." Mal sobbed, hitching breath and burning throat and running mascara.

"I know you said that lake water wouldn't do anything, but it's kind of known for breaking powerful love spells." Doug interjected. "I wouldn't blame yourself if I were you. If he still loved you after the dunking he got, it wasn't your doing."

Doug had at first been going along as a means to survive, but he'd worked closely with Mal on some of the new laws, and he was starting to like her a lot. He didn't think she was capable of hurting someone like Ben. He hadn't known her his whole life like Evie, Carlos, and Jay, who offered no platitudes and no excuses. Only comfort and sympathy. They'd all seen it too, lack of sleep, pale complexion and sweaty brow.

"Symptoms of lovesickness need not come from fighting a love spell." Jane chimed in, as always, knowing what her queen was thinking. "It could also come from knowing that your love was unrequited."

"Oh gods, like when I came back from the Isle and we kissed." Evie whispered.

In the end, no one could say whether Ben was under a love spell or not, and whether or not he might have jumped in front of that bolt anyway, even if he wasn't.

But Mal knew the truth.

No enchanted lake water could break true love, and she'd woven her true love's tears into that spell. She considered Ben's death as much on her hands as Chad's, and out of all the people Mal had killed, this was the only one she regretted.

Life went on. Mal keenly remembered her mother's admonishion about loving a betraying human, and how it could ruin all her plans if she let it. So she didn't think too much about it if she didn't have to, and the people were assured that Ben would get a hero's funeral as soon as the sentencing of the original heroes was over (she didn't want to put it off any longer, so Evie cast a spell to preserve the body until they could get around to it.) Mal planned to let every single descendant in her power take their revenge, if they wanted it.

The first were Cora and Hart, who gleefully announced 'Off with her head!' before taking back their family's crown from the usurper Alice.

Next came Freddie Facilier, who walked into the room with a wicked grin, and said "Hello frog boy, frog bride. I think you owe me a little something." Before she slit Tiana's throat with a simple motion, and collected the blood in a long vial, soon doing the same to Naveen. The new Shadow Woman had no use for a kingdom, and Mal had vetted Tiana and Naveen's children for the throne one day. (They had a lot of catching up to do after the shoddy education at Auradon Prep, and Mal refused to let anyone rule who didn't know what they were doing.)

Then came Harriet, C.J. and Harry, the children of Captain Hook, who looked down upon Peter Pan and Wendy with scorn (they'd never had children, so there were no descendants to sort out).

"You drove our father mad." Harriet hissed, and Peter whimpered, cowering down against his wife, and whispering in reply that he thought it was just a game! He was a child, and thought it was all a game!

"You believe that, mate, an' you're madder than I am." Harry chuckled, and taunted Pan by running the blunt end of a hook along his face while his sisters killed Wendy.

"Mm, I do love some good bloodshed in the morning." The boy whispered, before Peter Pan followed his beloved into the afterlife.

Antoine and Daria came next, Ginny and Dizzy tagging along with them (little Anne-Marie was being cared for by the new nannie, which they now had the luxury to afford).

"Hello, dear step-uncle." Antoine purred, pulling a silken rope from his back pocket.

"Yes, hello indeed, aunty Cindy." Daria grinned wolfishly, pulling her own rope from a purse.

"I heard you were found guilty of murder," Dizzy told a shell-shocked Chad, carrying of all things, a pillow.

"I believe some payback is in order for stealing our family's wealth and estate, dear aunt Cindy, uncle Charles." Antoine smirked, and he and Daria said no more as they strangled their step-aunt and uncle into silence while Dizzy asphyxiated Chad with the pillow until he stopped kicking. The youngest child, Cindy, had never wanted to be ruler of Charmington, which was just as well because Antoine and Daria did. Mal sent her off with a scholarship to a college of her choice on the condition that she relinquish the ruling seat to the Tremaine family. She even got to keep the spring mansion (one of four - the Charmings owned four separate estates) for her own.

Soon came Shan Mei's turn, and Mulan and Shang were killed with quickly slit throats. Mei wasn't the type to gloat. She had a problem with letting Lonnie live, but that's a story for another time.

Uma was the next, and she stood proudly before Ariel and Eric, and with a low voice that was scarier than a shout, she whispered; "My mother was the first born, and she deserved that trident."

Then she cast a spell, and sealed their life force into a shell, just like Ariel's voice so long ago. They fell back, dead, empty husks, and Uma smirked triumphantly, with Gil and Harry on either side of her, looking every inch the queen she was.

Gil himself, had the next execution. He stood before Belle and King Adam, with all of his brothers (and one sister), and they each stabbed the Beast and his wife at least once with swords (there were so many of them, it was hard to fairly split the kill between them.)

Then came all the minor characters, the villains and heroes that played little role in this story like Clay Clayton and his vendetta against Tarzan, or Michael Medusa and Penny, whom he cared little about. Claudine Frollo, who was sweet as could be and had no desire to exact revenge on Phoebus (and Quasimodo, who did).

Life went on after death, as life always does.

• • •

Notes:

1. What are those little velvet things on top of crowns, like the Red Queen has in Alice In Wonderland? That's what Carlos has.

2. We're wrapping up now, I consider this something of the last chapter, but there's also an epilogue coming up which will be quite extensive, and I've tried my best to tie up all the loose ends, so if you notice any after the epilogue, do tell!