Disclaimer: none of this franchise is owned by me.
Special Author's Note: The COVID-19 pandemic is stressful for all of us. My heart and support goes out to those who are working on the front lines of this, especially those service jobs workers whose labor is too often undervalued. I am abundantly privileged to be able to work from home (teaching virtually: I am not trained to do at all, like every other public school teacher. We're going to do our best!) Please, please take care of your health and do whatever self-care is necessary to make it through to the other side.
My stress-related coping mechanism: writing! I am certainly not the only one who may need to escape reality for a little while. Next chapters are already in drafting and scrupulous editing stages.
Story-Related Author's Notes: Many of these pieces were hashed out when I first started this story. Others were absolutely inspired by the third movie, taking place of less-defined ideas or weaker magical theories or scenes that no longer seemed as compelling as my newer inspirations.
Ginny's background is an as-promised subtle homage to a loved one. Humanity is richly diverse: thank you for helping me show more of it.
Two authors inspired a few lines here: Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" and N.K. Jemisin's "The City Born Great."
Playlist songs for this chapter: "Mother's Daughter" by Miley Cyrus, "Night Falls" from Descendants 3, "Victory" by Two Steps from Hell.
:: ::
let the shadows fall behind you
::
part 17
::
Dawn gives way to early morning, blanketed by thin gray clouds. The dim sunlight glow alights on smoke and ash, shipwrecks and broken walls and shattered storefronts. A faint static emanates from city-wide screens, blank and no longer showing any scenes of importance.
The living clutch their pitchforks, torches, and swords. The dead remain safely entombed, or lie motionless where they fell. And, for a moment, the city breathes.
:: :: ::
Maleficent is evil. This is a fact.
Mal's not sure of herself. There's a wand behind her. Mal could use it.
For revenge… she could make this death slower, more painful. Because after everything (dungeons, punishments, threats, a coronation and her childhood and being torn from the sky by teeth and claws)—
This is how Maleficent gets to go? Quietly, infected by iron? She deserves drawn-out misery. Fear. (Doesn't she?)
Auradon, though.
(Wait for those rattling breaths to cease. With them goes the path of mindless destruction.)
Maleficent would never give her answers. Not to what last plot her allies face, not her unspoken childhood questions about her own heritage. Not what made her keep Mal instead of shoving her off on her father—
(As if he wanted her. Cared.)
There's a wand behind her, but Mal doesn't move.
(Inaction is still action.)
And—
Finally, those rattling breaths cease. With them goes her last hope, her stoked anger, her daily fear. She is left with relief. Triumph. Lingering dread. (They'll know.)
When she turns away, the red-headed siblings are shoulder to shoulder in the alley, waiting for her, watching the skies and streets rather than the gruesome scene. Her weapons lie in between Megan and Mervin.
("Love is not your weakness.")
Megan meets her eyes, grim tension in her jaw. Her fingers are still and steady on her bow. "She's wrong."
"About?" Mal picks up the wand and tucks it into her belt.
"We won' turn on you. Not for bein' fae," Megan says.
Her experiences at school have been proof opposite. The sword goes to Mal's other side, into the makeshift sheath. "And for being related to her?"
"Nah."
Bent to pick up the broken staff, Mal pauses and glances up through a lock of hair fallen into her eyes. "Just… 'nah'?"
(Their reactions when she took the wand from Jane. Family Day.)
Megan grins, lopsided and awkward. "No, we haven' much proven tha' yet. I know I wasn' louder than those who were afraid. But now, they know what true villains are…so, we will be keepin' ye."
(What is fear louder than?)
Maleficent's body is behind her and her head aches and the battle's not done, yet. She does not have the energy to refute.
Megan glances back down the alley from which she appeared. "Whatever she threatened, at the end—I bet we're needed back."
Mal straightens, broken—and useless—staff in her hand.
"Not that I'm sayin' it bothers us," Mervin interjects, his expression far more serious than his sister's. "But ye' might wan' to consider a bit o' magic for that." He gestures at his own head.
Mal raises an eyebrow at him. But when the twins simply stare at her—Mervin with a rising blush, and Megan with an apologetic twist to her smile—she eventually has to ask, "For what?"
They glance at each other, surprised. Megan, scuffing her heel to the ground, says, "I don' suppose ye' seen a mirror yet?"
Her heart thumps loudly in her ears.
"No," she says slowly. "Why?"
The twins look anywhere but at her. "Mmm," Megan hums. "The bit about heritage, that she said. Well. I think." The other girl snorts, rolls her shoulders, and meets Mal's gaze head-on. "Fix your hair."
"Oh, that's how ye' think to—"
"I didn't see you helpin'—"
Mal tunes them out the moment her hand brushes…something unexpected. Right where her headache centered, when she awoke on the rubble of a city street. A questing hand across the top of her head—
At her—
Oh.
("You can't escape your inheritance.")
Smooth as bone, warm as the air, tiny circling ridges. Set just back from her temples. Curving up, just a little longer than her own thumbs, ending in delicate, sharp points against which she almost nicks her thumb. There's two of them.
(No. No…)
She pushes at her skin, where one of the damned horns is growing out. Surely, she can—
There has to be a—
(Can't look like her, too—)
A light mist of (not) tears furls at the bottom edge of her vision.
"Mal!" Megan's outstretched palm. The distant sounds of battle in the city. Plenty of air between them. The redhead meets her eyes, same as always. "Like we said. So, you're fae. So, what?"
"So, you see how you handle it," she snaps, "when you wake up with something unexpected growing out of you." The skin around them hurts. In her hand, the horn feels huge and awful.
"An' we're followin' ye' anyway," Mervin says, adjusting his sheath of arrows on his shoulder. Though he feigns nonchalance, Mal can see his growing tension. "Against whatever that might be."
She follows his gesture, breath growing short as she puts together the decreased sounds of battle with the crackling lightning zipping over their heads. It's multi-colored, rich with indefinable power, and her awakened senses can tell that it's a lot. From many sources. And none of it is benign. The sheer malevolence streaking through the city tingles across her skin and makes her grimace.
"Come on." Mal darts into the alley with the siblings at her tail.
They emerge into a new street, a plaza, where the fountain's metal forms begin to untwist themselves. Zaps of magic radiate from them.
On the other side of the plaza, a trio stumbles out of another street. The siblings jerk at her sides.
Who knew that one day, seeing Audrey would be a relief?
Having appeared with Audrey, Janet and Felix instantly call out to Mal's little group. It's gratifying to hear her own name, even when their eyes widen at the clear sight of her. Audrey bites her own lip against whatever comment burbled up in her mind. The perfect princess looks totally out of place, clutching her sword with both hands.
(That's…okay.)
Mal swallows hard, rolling her shoulders back. Sword and wand are needed, but the broken staff is still potentially dangerous. It cannot be left behind. And while her allies at her side are mostly capable of fighting—
Well. Except Audrey. The princess has little to no experience using weapons. But she has long proven that she can easily hold on to unnecessary things…
"Hold this."
Mal keeps one eye on the lurching statues as they make their way to the ground. The broken staff waves under Audrey's nose: the princess gapes and does not reply.
"We can't lose it. And I need both hands to fight." (It can't infect anyone. Not anymore.)
Audrey finally sheathes her own sword to take the staff. She holds it as though it will bite her. "Get this away from me as soon as you're done," she sniffs, adopting a haughty tone.
"Trust me, I want it out of your hands, too."
Audrey flitters to stand behind Mervin, watching their backs and gripping the staff like a club. The statues reach the edge of the fountain.
"Swords in the air if you're with me," Mal murmurs, a habit rather than an expectation. Her gang is nowhere near close enough to answer the call. But then...her Auradon allies raise their weapons in acknowledgement.
Mervin whistles. "Ye should get to the rooftops," he murmurs to his sister, bow safely stored over one shoulder and a blade in hand, instead.
"Would arrows even work?" she retorts, clearly just as inclined to use her own sword.
The first of the statues climbs out, onto the street.
Mal interrupts the beginning of their sibling banter. "You take the left," she tells them, already pacing away, gesturing with one hand, "and the rest of you can follow me."
:: :: ::
"This is my crew!" Uma declares, after a lull in the clashing swords and frightened whimpers. The streets are a mess of average citizens getting in the way and random henchmen, goblins, and low-level traitors to Auradon. Sending the flunkies fleeing gained time for an explanation.
Citizens didn't much like them dropping from the rooftops. (Swimming in new waters, here…)
"And this is my city," the woman cuts back, angling her blade defensively. "We're taking it back!"
Perfect. "We got a view from the rooftops," Uma says, balancing on the low wall, her height advantage keeping her closer to the perch from which she'd come down. "The next street over's fair clear. This one's almost a straight shot to the steps of the palace, not too many in your way. My first mate's keepin' an eye ahead."
The woman, sad eyes and tense jaw, lifts an eyebrow in consideration. Perched above, Harry poses at his strongest. The crewmates they picked back up along the way keep an eye out.
Uma sighs, gusting back to the wall that'll get her close enough to climb. "Fall back, let me lead. You hold the line, and we'll bring 'em to their knees."
She's flipped herself back onto tiles, sea legs wobbly but holding true on land, when the woman calls up to her, "We'll follow behind you, then, girl."
Tossing her hair and flicking the rim of her hat, she replies, "Say my name. Uma."
The tiles clatter under her feet as she runs. Like there's rigging around her, like there's an ocean under her feet. One of her amulets, a broken seashell's spiraled heart, beats against her chest. She clutches at it, grief swelling in the deep.
(Despite Mal and Gil acting as go-betweens, she knows by sight at least one amulet that her Uri always carried. His inheritance from their mother, the heart-core of a shattered shell from her twisted plans. As if she wouldn't recognize it.
As if she'd have refused the damn thing. Not when he must have seen—)
Battle now. Anger (not regret) later.
Those down below in the streets do, indeed, hold the line. Sweeping like a net, catching up runners and knocking them out or tying them up. She gets them closer and closer to the bigger mess and mass at the foot of the castle. When she reaches the end of her rooftop line, there's a woman bellowing and blistering the air as she throws down her directions. Blond hair glimmering in the weak daylight, filtering through storm clouds gathered high. Alice, of Wonderland fame. Who knew she was in the city?
A spotty white-black head bobs up on the edge of a fountain near her. Ah, Carlos—and he still has one of the Hercules twins dogging his steps. And another Auradon girl, whose looks mirror the Wonderlander warrior—
Harry skids to his knee beside her. They lock eyes before grimly making their way to the ground, dispersing their remaining crew to do what they did best in the mess out here. Gil must have blazed through here, but her second mate is not in the slowly ebbing tides of battle that make up this street. He can only be up at the palace, seeking Gaelle—
They'll get to him. Back him up.
Henchmen always were easier to subdue. She meets the eyes of regular Auradon folk who don't look like they know what to do with them. Carlos, when he spots them, turns to the commander Alice, who raises an eyebrow but not her spade.
The citizens actually picked up pitchforks, shovels, and hammers. (Auradon's not so shiny after all, is it?)
Uma and Harry sweep to the side, powering on to the steps of the palace. Carlos and his shadow meet them on the first step, the four of them clearly of the same mind. Storming upwards is their common goal. "Uma—"
Her name's eclipsed by the sharp taste of brine in the air and a bolt of magic zig-zagging out from above. Up the sides of the castle, down the stairs, across the topiary and fizzling around the fountain in the square. Bouncing from decorative statue to decorative statue.
"Tha's not likely t' be the heroes, now, is it?" Harry murmurs, lifting his blade again, wary.
Crunching. Stone jaws opening stiffly around stone teeth. Carved wings unfurling in stop-start motion.
"No," Uma replies, hoarse at the sight. "That magic's not on our side."
:: :: ::
Evie twists away from the battle, away from a glimpse of Jay—standing though injured, jaw tight, pale. Away from scanning the skies, not a single scale amidst the burning wrecks highlighted by grey clouds. Away from the broken briar wall's enclosure, where she can find no trace of Carlos.
The Auradon allies who came out with her blew past the briars, searching for the rest of their allies on the airships. Several of the adults followed them out.
Catching her breath to build up her magic again was a decent plan…before Mother Gothel and the incredibly mad Madam Mim set off their last-ditch effort to wreak destruction.
Up the side of the castle, grinding stone echoes from the very top of the walls. Statues of all shapes and sizes slowly begin shifting their way down the walls, forcing handholds into solid stone as she watches. Ominous clanking comes faintly through the arching doors from which she emerged.
Too many. There are too many.
Madam Mim, having unleashed her fury in spell and then on poor Seth, turned herself into a hawk and took flight. Her luminescent pink form soars further and further away. Evie's not sure that she will be held at the border. If she feasted the night before, if she drank just like everyone else…but there were too many villains to be certain all did unknowingly trap themselves.
Those that remain are unconscious, or dealt with—Mother Gothel fled through the briars, pursued by her daughter who, in turn, was followed by Chad. Then there's Lonnie, pale and trembling, standing between her equally grim parents. There's no sign of Shan Yu or his daughter. Ben and Alim with their fathers, a little cut and bruised, eyes a little more haunted.
(They're not used to this. Remember that.)
To Evie's left, Tiana is done hastily wrapping Anthony's side. Gaelle and Gil guard them, grim eyes warily watchful. Diego and Yzla have disappeared, perhaps a sign of betrayal—
Jay leaps for the stairs and Evie's heart lifts to her throat. Carlos races through the broken briars. Two pirates are at his back, both with eyes only for their missing crewmate. Gil nods sharply to his captain.
Bringing up the rear, Hugh calls out, "All the statuary down in the city has also come alive. Alice is leading citizens to fight."
"But it doesn't look good," Carlos adds. His eyes flash to the glowing stone at the center of the plaza—a stone around which they have unconsciously gathered, wary of being too close and afraid to move too far. "Who did it?"
"Mim," Evie answers, finally having caught her breath from the earlier strain on her magic. Both her boys look at her like she's been under constant threat—assessing, intense. She's not the only one drinking in the sight of them. (Still moving. Still whole.) "That's not just her magic mixed up in there."
"The sources are all different," the Coach of their school confirms. The Genie. He's the only one close to it, one palm glowing faintly above that unpleasantly radiating magic. His eyes are closed in concentration. "All competing and all united. Fae, human, creature. None of it is like mine. This will take time."
"Are we fighting statues?" Gil asks, a bemused crinkle between his eyebrows. He looks from one clenched fist to the other. "I don't think statues feel anything."
"But they can still be destroyed," grins the pirate at his side. Harry's at his most manic, a new edge underlying each move.
He doesn't see that the adults shift at his tone, and not in a way that the Isle gangs would understand. Evie sees it (through painful experience). Adam's furrowed eyebrows, Mulan and Shang exchanging glances. Aladdin's jaw clenching. They don't trust her old-enemy-turned-ally.
Framed between her two crewmates, Uma's not much better off. Evie can see it in the gleam of her eyes as she twirls her sword. With her shoulders thrown back like that, a twist in her lips—
This isn't just due to the shipwrecks burning in the sky. Either they are certain, or have little hope, for Uri and Harriet.
(So they did always— Her gang can't be the only ones who truly— Was there love on the Isle after all, even between—
Confirmation like this is a bitter pill.)
Evie knows them, recognizes the curl in their blade-thin teeth-bared grins. (Isle grief.) The heroes don't: Hercules' shoulders flex and Kida's fingers curl tightly around her lance. As though their allies think—
"Stay back," Adam instructs, tone flat—even though he stands shoulder to shoulder with Ben, eyes on the statues. "We'll take the lead."
The command falls on bristling shoulders—Harry and Uma open their mouths in sync, and Jay's not far behind from snarling. Ben steps in front of his father, shoulders angling— Does he realize what he's telegraphing? That he's backing up his allies?
"No, you won't," he replies, confident, jaw's clenched against some unknown strain that Evie can't read. "This is our fight. Their fight."
The unfamiliar adults barely hear. Hercules comments, "They shouldn't have to be involved." He says it lightly—an Isle slight, an Auradon truth.
Harry leans in, hook flashing in threat, snapping, "Take your shouldn't an'—"
Eyes wide, Hugh steps in front of his father.
Isle, Auradon, neither speaking the same language, and those statues are slow but closer to the ground by the minute.
("This is my turf—"
"Only if you're strong enough to keep it.")
Enough.
They breathe and she moves, slipping between them with one palm to each chest. Hugh's jaw twitches when he meets her eyes. "Put your differences aside." Evie turns her head and Harry's right there, snarl twisting his lips, hook pressed to her stomach. But Isle is her native tongue. "Right now, we're on the same side. Until the night falls."
Unspoken knowledge drifts in the charged space. (Alliances can end. No betrayal before then.)
Harry's lip twists, but he backs off. She breathes more easily without that wicked silver pressed against her side, and refuses to meet the eyes of adults who should know better by now.
The clanking from the palace grows abruptly louder, truly and finally cutting off further disagreements. She's not the only one whose eyes turn to the darkened entrance. Unoccupied suits of armor clomp out, jerky and stuttering in their steps, just as the first of the statues fall to the ground, feet breaking paving stones as they land.
Her free hand reaches out as she moves, synchronous with Jay's as their fingertips brush. His palm fixes to her wrist, tugging her into alignment, and she turns to look—Carlos, fitting into place at her other side, eyes sharp and focused.
(One piece still missing. To be found.)
"We'll stay together," Evie calls out, holding out her sword. Lower, just for her boys, she reiterates the warning that they received earlier—one just emerged from an underground tunnel, one in a corridor on their way to an execution. "Watch your back."
"Hit 'em 'till the armor cracks," Jay counters, holding his sword stiffly. His arm is weaker: injured?
"They're too heavy to react," Carlos adds, leaning in, eyes glimmering between her and the approaching forces. "Jay. Back to back." He grimaces, but shifts to obey.
Evie checks over her shoulder, where the Genie stands. As soon as she feels like her magic's stable again… as soon as she thinks she can try… That's their best bet: not brute force, but ending the spell. Shattering its hold.
No matter what it takes.
:: :: ::
"I just need my feet on the ground, Doug. I know what I'm doing, Doug. I can handle the sheer amount of magical power I've never directed before in my life just fine and you don't need to worry, Doug—"
He shouldn't have trusted her. He should have listened to his gut, which was telling him that she was keeping a secret. She wasn't over what had gone down at the Coronation. None of their classmates wanted to look at her too closely, so they let her get away with a lie.
Doug shouldn't have let his own desperation cloud his judgement of her state of mind, making those promises...
Instead, he's a foolish guardian who rants all of Jane's broken promises quietly back at her as he stalls, having found a bench on an empty street.
"I've got this, Doug…" He finally trails off in his mimicry, throat dry, arms sore. Their initial rooftop landing had worked for a while, but they couldn't stay in place. Exposed like that, open to the early morning light and easy to attack.
So, he'd picked Jane up as best he could, stomach queasy with her limp weight in his arms. Somehow, he got them both back down to street level. Luck's on their side. All the sounds of swords just distant enough to pose no immediate threat.
He's no fighter, even if he does have a sword. Just a guard for Jane while she had the ships up in the air. That was the plan: Jane does her magic, Doug stays with Jane, two stationary pieces on the chessboard. Well, the ships are indeed still up there, so maybe she's actually still working to keep them up—
Which is not good. But he doesn't know how to stop her. To all appearances, she's unconscious now. Doesn't respond. Probably wouldn't listen, even if he could tell her to let the wrecks go right now.
She had screamed. So much. When the fire scoured the decks of those wrecks in the air, she acted like it was her own bones. He's never going to forget those screams.
Guarding her is the only task he took on. Once he gets a bit more strength back, he'll keep carrying her to—
Well. Somewhere at least a little secluded. Away from fighting. Just until she wakes up, or the fights stop. Jane has to be protected.
Maybe that plaza where there's a nice little donut shop, with the fountain…
:: :: ::
Rooftops are precarious under Quinn's feet. His godfather always found his discomfort at heights amusing. The earlier jaunt to pick up supplies hadn't bothered him as much as this battlefield excursion, of course. Working through it is a challenge right now: he's not confident in leaping the short distances between buildings, and his fear is made all the worse at seeing ships aflame and dragons falling.
As planned, he had followed in Uma's wake, obeying her commands, until they rejoined a number of Auradon citizens in the fight despite the danger and their unconventional weapons. Peeling off from her was the next natural step, once her focus on reaching the palace became clear. And his own task—to aid in the streets—took on new meaning.
He thought he would appreciate being back on solid ground.
He decided to rethink that when statues came alive.
"So wrong," he mutters to himself, hacking at the head of a particularly persistent goldfish. The crawling metal creature uses its fins to propel itself closer, backing him further into the alley, and he shudders at those gaping flat eyes.
The silence is the worst. Statues do not speak. Nor do they react when hit. Just scraping on roads or walls or swords. Expressionless. Untiring. Eerie.
Some statues are creepy, like this one. The goldfish can only wriggle menacingly and block his path. Getting pinned into an alley by it is just…not right.
Two fins flap threateningly. He lost his sword earlier, but picked up a broken ledge of stonework. That's how he hits it just right, bending and twisting one fin out of shape. Without that side fin, the goldfish topples over. The other fin waves helplessly in the air.
"I am eating so much fish when this is over," he tells it.
Emerging from the alley, he carefully takes in the streets—just in time to catch sight of Ginny Gothel, lips stretched into a grimace, as she emerges from a different alley into the empty street ahead. She knocks back a much larger statute, one of a woman carrying a stone bouquet of flowers. Flowers now serving as a club.
Backing up, he returns to the goldfish. Lifting his sword, he hacks into the lazily flapping fin, weakening the joint until he can wrench the fin away. In his hands, it falls still. Quinn looks it in the gaping, flat eye, and says, "Think I'll need this more than you."
Ginny's not made much progress, but at least he's in time to help.
She catches his presence from the corner of one eye. He can tell because she shifts to adjust for it, lets him leap in and take the brunt of stone flowers with the makeshift shield. Her eyes dart to the side, to where she emerged, and—
They spoke, before coming here to the land of his birth. Small conversations, between practicing with weapons. And at that Isle party. Though their interactions mostly seemed to go unobserved and unremarked, he spent some time with her, on the Isle. Not a lot.
But enough.
("I ran away before I hit double-digits. She's no 'mother'…and I couldn't pretend anymore to be her s—son." A defiant chin, a daring comment on the stuttered slip of a tongue. "I wasn't one and that made her…worse."
"I can't imagine. The courage it took, to be true to yourself. Even more so, to be brave enough to leave."
"Brave? For running? What do you know about that?"
"My mother's people—we're outsiders, always moving, often…not understood. Even now. So we all dance away our troubles!"
A performer's smile, a practiced move and sweep. Surprised laughter caught on an inhale.)
Ginny's childhood features a parent blinded by both the past and her own prejudices. Quinn can't pretend that she's in this battle just to help Auradon, and…he can't find fault in her response. Her motivation. He can still see it in her eyes, as they continue to dart between her attacker and the shadows behind it.
What else would be drawing her attention away from the present, but the past?
"Go," he says. Their eyes meet, Ginny's wide green gaze startled and suspicious. "This isn't what you came for," he adds, then grunts at the pressure his wrists bear at another mindless, silent strike. "You were following her, weren't you?"
They both break away from the statue, backing up. He breathes heavily, wary, as the statue shifts forward, closer to him, target shifted from one running to another one fighting back.
Behind it, Ginny meets his eyes, lips thin. He's surprised to see hesitation in every line of her body. Respect.
Quinn shifts his increasingly dented shield in his hands. "I'm not going to stop you." He'll withhold his thoughts on revenge, on what he wishes she would do, on what Auradon would want, even what advice his own extended family might have given if they knew.
Because she's not the only one who wants revenge. Because maybe she has the right, more than anyone else, to retaliate for the years of pain that only she can know. Because he has no right to tell her what to do, even if they were better friends. And because, well, there's just—
("A drink, a dance, a howl at the moon. A goodbye. Like what you see?"
"It's fitting."
"You're not going to judge? Like your friends?"
"I'll tell you about the catacombs of Paris, someday. Romani celebrate in ways that others don't like, too."
"You really do get it.")
Potential. Maybe. He might be totally alone in thinking that, which is fine. It's not going to stop him from getting battered at by bunch of fake flowers.
Her short-cropped hair flips out around her head as she spins away, disappearing quickly into the shadows of the alley.
The statue swings again and his borrowed shield crumples a little bit more. Now that he has no backup, he has to figure out how to stop this statue. He can't get it the way he did the goldfish.
But maybe…
He drops his shield and darts several yards away. The statues have already proven unable to move quite as quickly as people. He leaps as high as he can, scrabbling at a well-positioned drainpipe and window ledges to pull himself back onto a roof.
The statue moves sightlessly in his direction, frozen eyes staring blankly ahead. The silent awareness of where he's gone is not enough to stop it from heading toward him. None of the statues stop, despite distance and height. They'll just beat down whatever structure he's on to get at him.
From here, though…
Chunks of roof tiling, a little at a time, don't do much. A cascade of tiles, with chimney stones thrown in for good measure? He sets to work. Sweaty, aching arms and a lot of leverage later…
A small avalanche, right on top of it.
Now chipped away at, the armless and flower-less statue is surrounded by debris. It'll take a while to dig itself out when it has no brain to tell it to lift, carry, or move rubbish aside. Better than a line of salt around a slug.
"Take that, ugly," he calls down. Quips aren't his specialty, especially not when he's tired from destroying someone's house.
Making a mental note of the address, he takes off again, stomach curled in knots every time he leaps from one roof to another. There are clangs and shouts all around the streets, and he's looking to help—
To help…
He turns away from the palace, scanning for short-cropped hair and a pirate's rig. If she went far, he might not know, but—
Four streets down. Lady Fate is on his side, luck holding, when ahead is the girl he's already helped once. And she's getting what she sought—her mother, whirling violent and deadly in defense. Gothel pushes forward and they disappear, their movements blocked by the next corner of a battered building.
("No one here really listens like you."
"Well, no one there really speaks like you.")
He drops back to the street faster than his own stomach. There are far less broken bits out here to use, and a broom might not be much, but he snatches one anyway. Thinking toward stealth, he dips low at the last second, rounding the corner—
Silver flies.
Cackling smirk.
He's saved by the mercy of a lowered center of gravity, having planned to lurk for a moment to leap in when ready. Not having foreseen a thrown blade at all, or the wild eyes of a woman who looks like she'd love to peel his skin from his face. There are levels of insanity in those eyes that stop his heart in his throat.
Mother Gothel claws one hand at him, which he bats away with the broom, back to the wall, and—
A swish of her cloak, and she's flit away, into the shadows on the other side of the small road. Quinn's not sure why she didn't press her advantage, what with Ginny glaring at him, mostly whole, brushing blood from her nose.
He grimaces, anticipating her anger—he'll take it, for interrupting her vengeance at the wrong second. "I'm only here to help," he tells her, adjusting his grip on the broom.
She snarls through her teeth, wordless noise borne in fury.
("I won't let her win."
"How do you win, then?"
"When she loses." A rustle, a raised eyebrow. "What was that, little dancer?"
"You're worth more than just being her loss.")
He leans against the wall, breath evening out, his skin prickling up and down his arm where he barely missed getting stabbed by her mother. The street around them is quiet, almost empty. He hopes the statue enchantment has somehow been broken.
Ginny's in front of him by the time he realizes she has moved. Her hands tear the broom out of his hands and it lands with a hollow clatter. "You shouldn't have done that," she hisses. Her eyes burn—there's such pain, such fear.
His hands clench in useless fists. "I won't get in the way again—"
"That knife is cursed," she spits. "Your friend Chad tried to help, too, after you distracted that statue. He went down—deathless sleep."
Oh.
Ginny's eyes rake down over his arm. "She almost got you, too." Neither of them has to tilt their chin to look the other in the eye. "You should've stayed away."
"You don't have to do this alone," he counters. His scowl is probably not helping matters, but he can't help his own irritation. "I'll be careful. If you let me, we can—"
"No!"
He blinks in the wake of her vehemence. "She can't be that far ahead."
Ginny looks away. "I can't stop her." Breathing deep, the girl in front of him shrugs her shoulders once, like it's inconsequential, but her next words come out too soft not to matter to her greatly. "She'll hurt anyone who tries to help me."
(Does she care the way he thinks he's—)
Quinn hates the thought the minute it comes to mind, his stomach twisting the way it was with every step above the streets. He'd give anything to be able to offer sage wisdom. But that's not right. He's questioning of the morality of revenge and his own internal crisis cannot interfere now.
"Then I won't follow." Even if it hurts.
A breathless pause lingers between them.
Finally, Ginny looks back up. Undercurrents have risen to the surface. He swallows hard at the new depth in her gaze when she says, "That won't make a difference." A flicker of hurt, and a whole lot of shame, and she grimaces. "You weren't the reason she got away. I am. I couldn't do it."
The confession carries the weight of a death sentence. Of guilt.
("I won't let her win.")
He can't stop himself from reaching out, an open palm. "That doesn't make you weak," he says.
She looks from his face to his hand, a scowl overtaking her face. "On the Isle, it does." Nevertheless, her hand lifts.
"You're not on the Isle anymore." Her outstretched hand hovers between them. "Maybe you're not used to promises, but… I promise. You don't have to go back."
Another heartbeat fills the silence in his ears until, at last, her hand lands softly in his.
:: :: ::
"I have never…used a garden hose…for such a ridiculous…reason," Audrey huffs. Hoses are for garden parties and laughter in the summer sun, not for hampering the movements of an enchanted statue.
"If it works, it works," Felix says, more than able to keep pace with her light jog and speak. She wants to trip him. If they weren't being followed by smiling cherub wall ornamentation… No matter that such an action is unbecoming of a princess.
Leading them onward, Mal turns her head just enough to cast a glance over her shoulder at them. The slowly-brightening morning light catches the arch of her petite horns.
Audrey suppresses a shudder at the sight. Fae attributes are genetic. The knowledge doesn't help soothe the memory of her evil mother looming far too close to Audrey's own frozen face. Acidic in the back of her mind, that memory remains lumped with all the rest of the moments she and her classmates suffered during imprisonment.
She just hopes Maleficent is out of the picture for as long as this battle continues. Mal hasn't said what happened, though the plan had been for her to take on the older dragon. Audrey knows, by now, that if her rival is here, she must have accomplished that task in some way. Auradon will find out.
Janet, at her side, leans into the curve as they turn a corner in the street. Through her own sharp inhalations, she asks, "Do we know where the spell originated?"
"The castle," Mal calls back over her shoulder. Her battered sword is still held firmly in one hand as the group weaves through the increasingly damaged streets, leaping over trash, broken bits of buildings, and other remnants of hastily-fleeing citizens. The closer they get to the palace, the more noise they hear in adjacent streets.
All sound is sucked out of the air when Mal skids to a stop around the next corner. Megan and Mervin nearly run into her, the only warning Audrey gets before she, Janet, and Felix almost pile into them, too. Over their shoulders and around four sets of scrambling arms, Audrey glimpses blue fire.
"What'cha got there, Mallie?"
A god of the dead is standing in the street.
Hades is grungy and displeased, though not, apparently, angry. Flaming hair but not flaring fire, not readying for a charge. He slouches against a wall, coldly surveying their reeling cluster. Unconcerned by their weapons. Undefeatable. Divine power, divine retribution. That's what it took to place him on the Isle, an unprecedented gesture of favor on the kingdom's plans, taken as a sign of righteousness.
Divine interference is their only slim hope if he decides—
"Get lost."
Pure venom. The minuscule chance that Hades could let them pass goes up like smoke. Mal's playing with fire and Audrey wants to smack her. Even fae don't mess with the gods. Even if a god is bound by the rules of the universe to refrain from too much interference in mortal affairs. Gods are all on their own side, whether villainous or not.
Audrey bites back her accusations. Keep the attention off herself, maybe the rest of them can get away if he focuses only on—
Hades chuckles. "No can do. You and me, we need to have a chat."
Mal takes one step away from them, body shifting—resembling not a protective, fierce warrior, but a bristling cat surprised by a rainstorm. "All of Auradon and the Underworld at your feet, and you want to talk now." If she is rolling her eyes the way her tone implies, Audrey is willing to leave her to be roasted. "What do you want?"
There's something wrong, here. Audrey can't put her finger on it. There's simply the fact that a god of the dead should not be smirking at such disrespect.
"Your inheritance came knockin' earlier than we thought." He flips something palm-sized, flaming blue, over and under the fingers of one hand. His eyes flicker, as though eyeing her new horns. "In a couple of dramatic ways."
"What. Do you. Want."
They know each other. That's the only explanation Audrey can think of to account for Mal's disrespectful yet familiar demeanor. She's even shifted one hip to the side, like a sarcastic punctuation of her words.
One blue eyebrow rises approvingly. "Smart girl," he purrs. "Got a deal to make with you, Mallie. Not sure you want your little followers around for this one."
He sought her out. This is a new danger. But, at least it seems that no one is going to be set on fire today. Least of all the unknowing Auradon people who should not be blamed for Mal's unhappy responses.
Mal turns her head just enough that Audrey sees her eye. "Go."
Janet reaches out blindly. Mervin hisses between his teeth, then says, "Mal—"
She turns fully, back to Hades, and—well, that's far more trust than expected, given the clearly turbulent nature of their interactions so far. But it's as clear a signal as anything they'll ever get. "I've got this. Go." She looks each of them in the eye. "Tell Evie I'll be there soon to help end the enchantment."
Mal keeps herself between them and Hades as they skirt around the still-posing god, taking themselves as far to the other side of the road as they can. With many a backward glance, their run resumes—and the whole time, the two remain frozen in place, watching, waiting for their departure. Mal looks at them—but Hades doesn't seem to notice them at all. He doesn't watch them move, like they're ants far beneath his notice. Mal is the center of his attention.
Audrey's certain: they know each other, better than Mal's hostile responses indicated.
A mystery for later. One she would pursue.
Out of sight around a further corner, Janet and Mervin attempt to stop or slow. Janet snaps, "We can't leave her without backup."
Megan snaps back, "If she needed it, she'd have kept one 'o us."
Audrey adds, "She had a message for Evie." More than once, now, the coded messages between Carlos and Mal have been abundantly clear. This may be another one.
Scowling, Mervin spins on his heel and resumes a punishing pace toward the palace. "We'll be the ones tah suffer for it, if she's in over her head."
From what they've seen of the Isle? Quite possible. A risk they'll have to take, then.
Two streets pass and they finally emerge to the chaotic steps of the palace, where far too many statues are lumbering around, chasing citizens. Alice of Wonderland shouts orders over her shoulder, keeping morale up. The eerie silence of the attacking enemies is just as unsettling to witness from outside a battle as it was to experience within it.
With all the fighting, though, it's clear that the citizens are not outnumbered—yet. And facing down an army that cannot die. Decorative pieces of the castle are starting to spill down the steps, as are metal suits of armor marching with swords and shields. They're coming from the plaza in front of the palace.
From where she and her companions emerged. Where their parents still are—
Audrey loses track of time. Of danger. Just for a moment, while racing to the steps.
Adjusting her grip on the awful staff in her hands, she knows. A princess is made to lead by example. She might not be good at fighting, but she must.
The staff connects with a helmet and sends it flying off and rolling down the stairs. Its suit does not stop marching. Megan and Mervin charge ahead and trip several, causing more to tumble into each other, though none of them stay down. Felix manages to snatch another sword from one and swings both. Audrey ducks under several slow yet stone-strong arms and finds herself several steps higher than her companions.
"Audrey—find Evie!" Janet calls, smacking aside the decorated arm of a suit of armor.
Mal's message. That's more important than trying to aid with her weakest skills. Her strength has always been words.
Audrey turns tail and runs.
Her streak of luck continues as she reaches the top of the stairs, breathing hard, seeking blue hair across a messy battlefield. There are suits of armor and wobbly statuary scattered all over, and near the center of the plaza lies a glimmering, malicious rock. The tendrils of magic are visible even to her eyes—and she hardly has any bit of lingering curse from her own mother clinging to her, nothing like what Ben seemed to have latched on to him. (And that's a conversation they'll need to have, someday, too.)
The shifting, visible threads of magic are almost painful to watch—like trying to read a page just barely out of focus, straining in a dim room. Easier not to see, most of the time. Except now.
The spell-stone is given a wide berth by all, even with the enchanted objects causing havoc all around. Coach Genie stands closest, hands gesturing. The frown on his face—and continuance of the enchantment—are clear. Djinn magic is not enough.
Seeking Evie, Audrey's eyes alight on parents, on classmates, on Isle allies. There's Ben and his father, back to back. Lonnie, and tourney boys, and suits of armor. There's those pirates, shouting at each other, words caught between clashes of metal.
"—shell could work—"
"—drains ye—"
"—take that bet!"
The blue-braided sea-witch twirls and spins, calling across an empty expanse of space in the center of the plaza. "I'll do it, djinn!"
Coach casts a semi-distracted glance over his shoulder. Flickers of lightning shine at his fingertips. "You take that which may respond to your magic. Evie—"
"Yes. Together." She's got a sword in one hand, swinging it high over Carlos' ducking head. Smooth as silk, his leg sweeps low and hits at the same time as her swing, upending a suit in fluid synchronization. The girl she's seeking whirls away before the armor's even hit the ground, looking from Coach to the pirate girl in turn. "Mother's mirror. Between Uma and me—"
"Better, but not all." Coach steps further back from the stone, forming a partial circle with the other two. Faint lightning crackles still appear between him and the spell-stone. "I will do what I can with my power. Neither of you can naturally counter fae power. It will fight you."
"Without that divine power y' claimed would work best, we're all y' got," the sea-witch Uma snaps back, blocking a swung sword in the same breath. Her hook-handed companion covers her back when she turns her gaze in, toward the artifact in which this enchantment is tangled up.
Divine.
Mal's encounter. A deal, Hades claimed. But why—
Audrey darts around Lonnie's fight with a stone gargoyle and shouts, "Evie!" Ignores the other heads that turn her way, focused on the one that needs to hear her. "Mal's on her way to help end it!" That's as close as she can remember—and hates the flash of a smile that appears on those faces, because she has to pant, to catch up her breath, to warn them, "Hades stopped her!"
Relief drops like stones. Straining to catch her own breath, Audrey watches as Evie visibly collects herself, avoiding Carlos' sharp glance. "We can't wait for her to get here. Uma, now."
"Mal's—"
"She's on her way."
Without hesitation, Evie drops her sword. Carlos shifts to cover her, Hugh at his side. Evie holds her mirror with both palms. The enchanted stone reflects odd arcs of magical light on its surface.
She chants, "Magic mirror, magic's lack, fill the gaps in this attack—"
The mirror glows, lighting up strains of blue that whisper out, a glimmering web of light.
"Suit of armor strong and true, make this metal bust a move!"
The glimmer turns to sharp steel wires, crisscrossing the battlefield. Armor slows to molasses speed, jerking clunky and awkward, no longer fluid. As if resisting her pull. Each piece of inhuman masonry shudders, but does not slow like the metal.
Evie snarls, "Slow this stone back to sleep—held in place, to our words keep—" Her eyes dart away from the stone, to the sea-witch—
Uma holds her necklace cord in her palm, eyes closed, brows twitching, lips moving at a low murmur. Lingering green-gold threads appear like waving smoke over the field.
Uma's lips part and a cackle emerges, gleeful—before her lips purse and an inhuman call throbs through the air. One hand remains clasped around a golden glow at her chest, while the wisps of smoke pulse and throb further and further across the battlefield.
Stone slows as golden smoke reaches them.
Audrey shudders and steps back from the enchanted stone. Her fingers twitch uncomfortably around the broken staff to which she still clings. The spell-stone flickers, colors pulse and throb. Fighting their power.
The living on the battlefield stall like the statues. Breathless waiting. Standing guarded, ready, in case… Audrey's hands twitch around the staff pieces Mal forced her to take.
Face paler by the moment, Evie chants, "Magic mirror, work in time, let her song ring with mine!"
Uma's eyes slowly peel open, lazy-lidded and fierce. Her other hand rises at her side, reaching out as though to touch the smoke or the statues. A voice like the undulating sea, pitching high and low as though many voices at once.
Silver steel and gold smoke entwine, encroaching further and further upon the battlefield, stalling an enemy that won't die. An enemy that still won't stop, straining against the magic that both animates and constrains.
Evie's knees hit the ground. Carlos appears at her side, instantly, one leg bracing her as he stands guard. The mirror never wavers.
Uma tosses her head, braids swinging like living tentacles, on her feet due to one of her pirate companions slinging his arm around her waist. Her outstretched hand claws the air with the force of will she's placed behind her song.
Coach doesn't move. One way, or another. He's older and stronger.
Statues strain to continue their mission. The lull on the tense battlefield fills with voices—warriors at the ready for the enchantment to snap back into place, breathless for it to break, fearing it won't.
"What can we do—"
"Fairy Godmother, maybe she—"
"Inside, have to find—"
"Genie, there has to be more—"
Coach shakes his head. His shoulders remain far too still. "Agatha is weakened without her wand. This combination is beyond me when I am unbound."
"But not me!"
Late, flushed, and nearly flying at the speed with which she leaps up the stairs: Mal.
She's a threatening sight. A white wand in one hand and a glowing blue in the palm of the other. Dainty horns upon her head. Leather and ringlets and glowing green eyes.
Lonnie and Alim leap out of her way. Jay appears at her side, bristling-ready with his sword in hand. She does not pause, but her hand reaches out and her eyes lock on Ben's as she nears him. He reaches back—
Takes the wand from her fingers. There's a warning and a question in his tone when he says, "Mal."
"I can," she answers, turning from him in the next breath.
He lets her.
Her breath is not caught in her throat because of them. Audrey's concern is the blue fire in Mal's palm. She has doubt. Questions.
What makes that object better than the wand? Because it is from Hades, is divine? More powerful, in this instance, than her own fae magic? Does she trust the god? What kind of a deal did she make with him? What does that deal mean for Auradon?
Coach asks, through gritted teeth, "Mal, what is that?"
She leaps into the little circle formed, a fourth spoke in the wheel of magic users trying to end the enchantment. "Hades' ember."
… his what?
Coach snaps, "No—"
True to form, Mal does not listen. She tosses the blue flames directly at the spell-stone.
Roaring blue fires. Golden smoke and wicked cackling, wild and untamed, under song. Silver steel spokes on screeching metal. Lightning, livid green. Pressure—bone-deep. To the point of pain.
To silence.
