Sofia's POV
We were all astonished by what we had done. Here we were in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom right in front of Cinderella's Castle. Lucas looked so happy I thought he might start jumping and running to all the different attractions; but he held his composure. Eli looked mesmerized by how enormous it was. Emma couldn't take her eyes off the castle, she had probably read all about the artistry of it. Alex was looking at Peter in astonishment. After we had convinced ourselves it wasn't a dream, we stood in silence, thinking. I broke the silence.
"So, are there other characters like you?" I asked Peter. He had subdued the item he had caught earlier, which he had told us was his shadow.
"Oh, yeah. There are quite a lot of us. Wendy and the Lost Boys are back at my attraction. Prince Charming and Cinderella, but she prefers just Ella, stay backstage in their castle. It's mainly like that: we stay in our attractions. We talk sometimes, we're all friendly. If you want a good laugh, head to the Laugh Floor, Mike and Sully are great comedians. They host their show every night. I like going there." He smiled, as if remembering good times. Lucas spoke up, looking worried.
"If the good characters come alive, do the villains as well?" he asked.
Emma, Eli, and Alex zoned back into our conversation. We all watched Peter, waiting for an answer. Peter looked uncomfortable. He took a shaky breath and started a story.
"Quite a few years ago, a group of villains started gathering. Before then, they had been there, but never had been united. They called themselves the Overtakers. They started causing problems: stealing, changing parade routes, a cast member playing Mickey was caught on fire by the dragon over at Fantasmic! The Imagineers decided they needed to do something. An old guy, Imagineer, named Wayne Kresky found an answer. He developed the idea of hologram hosts. 5 kids were modeled for the program. At night, the kids showed up at this very park. They could see us, something no one had been able to do at that time. They solved this riddle, The Stonecutter's Quill. The Imagineers had been trying to solve this since it was given to Wayne by Walt. They found the pen. It's crazy powerful. We can't touch it though. The leader of the kids, Finn Whitman…" he cut himself off as all 5 of us gasped. Alex, Emma, and Eli looked at Lucas and I. I looked at them, then at my brother. He was staring at Peter; I could practically see his brain whirring.
"What? Weren't you guys sent by them? They have to be, like, in their late 30s now. They all work here. Well, Charlene Turner is technically a 'consultant' but she is so high up, she is practically an Imagineer." At the mention of his mom, Eli looked more confused then I'd ever seen him. He had always projected himself as one of the most confident people I had ever met. Now, he looked like he doubted everything he knew. I could see in all of my other friends' faces they were doing the same thing.
"Oh, look! There is Finn now!" Peter said.
I turned quickly and saw my dad lying on the ground. I knew if my dad saw us, we would be in a lot of trouble. He seemed to be sleeping for a moment.
"Peter, is there any way we could go to the comedy club?" I asked. He looked confused, but he led us into Tomorrowland quickly. We walked into the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor's backstage entrance. We walked straight into a large room with a stage, scattered tables and chairs, and a bar. As soon as we entered, the room went silent. I looked around and saw characters that I recognized from movies I had seen all my life. Mike Wazowski was on stage, Sully was standing off to the side talking to Celia Mae, Mike's girlfriend. Winnie the Pooh and Piglet were sitting together at a table close to the front. Alice was sitting with Megara and Lilo was sitting with her older sister Nani. The bartender was The Abominable Snowman. He had been serving a yellow snow cone to Phil from Hercules. They all were staring at us. Peter tried to break the silence.
"Hey guys! This is… um, what are your names again?" he asked as he looked at us. My friends seemed frozen in shock. I realized they weren't going to speak up.
"I'm Sofia. This is Lucas, my brother, Emma, my cousin, and Alex and Eli are our friends." I said to the silence. The characters seemed shocked. I looked towards Peter. He shrugged.
"Alright guys, quit the staring. They are just kids." He flew over to a long empty table and lowered himself into a chair. With that, the other characters seemed to snap out of their trance. They continued the show as Peter told us the rest of our parent's story. When he had finished, I couldn't believe what he had said. Our parents were considered heroes among the characters. My mom and Aunt Jess had helped somehow, convincing my dad and his friends to have them become DHIs. Peter seemed not to know why. He didn't know a lot of details. I felt like his story had a lot of chunks missing. He told us how our parents had solved a fable, how they had run around Animal Kingdom defeating animals and how Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty helped Chernabog from Fantasia escape his confinement in the Yeti. Then, he had heard stories about them helping the Kingdom in other ways, but he was unsure about why or what they did. Ariel helped them on multiple occasions. Then, a lot of the Overtakers went on a cruise with the 'Children of Light', as Peter called them sometimes, and they had killed Maleficent and trapped Chernabog and some other villains down somewhere along the cruise. Then, they had broken out and gotten to Disneyland in California. There was a huge battle, and Wayne Kresky had died. The good guys won and all was fine for a few years. Then, all of a sudden, there was a series of attacks with superhuman kids called Fairlies. When Peter had told us this, Lucas and I caught each other's eye. We were both thinking the same thing: Are we fairlies?
Our parents were nowhere to be found. Peter then told us how an Imagineer named Brad had crossed over and helped organize the good characters in Disneyland with the help of a fairlie named Mattie. Mattie? My parents had mentioned her. A lot of other stuff happened that Peter just couldn't remember. He hadn't been there. The good characters won, the Overtakers were gone for good, and somehow our parents came back with the old guy Wayne, who was supposed to be dead, and another boy, who was also supposed to be dead. We were now just as confused as Peter. We still hadn't told Peter who we were. I think he was curious, but he didn't ask. My mom and dad had been lying to Lucas and I forever. I had seen him for myself.
"Just a few days ago, Wayne Kresky went missing. The Keepers have come again. They are looking for him. They haven't crossed over in at least 15 years. But, they are looking for Wayne. Why are you all here?" he asked. He expected an answer I wasn't sure I should give. My friends looked dumbfounded.
"Look," I said, "You can't tell the, um, Keepers that we are here. Can we trust you?"
Peter looked intrigued. He nodded. I looked around at the characters and Mike on stage. This was crazy. But I was seeing it, and I believed everything I saw because, well, if my brother and I had powers it couldn't get much weirder or so I thought before tonight. My friends had no idea of our powers, so I could see why they might think it is crazy. But right now we have bigger problems, and two big questions kept swirling in my mind: 'Where are my parents now?' and 'How do we get home?'.
"Do you know where they might be?" I asked.
Peter nodded and led us towards the door.
3rd Person POV
In a room under the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, a green fairy, a woman in a high collar, and a woman wearing polka dots and smoking sat waiting for their report. A pirate came in with a satyr who looked nervous. The pirate threw the satyr, half man, half goat, on the floor. It looked up at the three women, terrified.
"What's this?" the woman in the collar asked: the Evil Queen.
"The satyr has seen something very interesting." The pirate replied.
"Well?" she said, looking at the satyr.
"There were 5 children, my lady." The satyr, Phil, stumbled.
"5 children?" the woman smoking said: Cruella De Vil.
"Yes, ma'am." He said.
"What did they look like?" she asked.
"Two girls and three boys, around 14 years old. One girl spoke up. She had dark brown hair, brown eyes, dark tan skin. She said her name was Sofia. She introduced a boy with lighter skin, brown hair, and brown eyes as her brother Lucas. She said the other girl was her cousin Emma. She had almost white hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. The other two were their friends Eli and Alex. Eli had almost black hair, brown skin, and brown eyes; Alex had white skin, red hair, and green eyes. They came in the Laugh Floor with Peter Pan." Phil stuttered.
The women observed him. He was sweating under the pressure of saying this.
"They were holograms?" the green fairy: Maleficent asked.
"I believe so ma'am." Phil replied.
"Interesting." She replied. "They weren't with anyone else?"
"No one except Pan." He said.
"Have you seen the Keepers?" she asked him.
"Not tonight."
"So they may be here alone." She said, more to herself than anyone else in the room.
"Thank you, satyr. You may go." She said.
Phil and the pirate left.
"What do you think?" the Evil Queen asked, addressing Maleficent.
"I think…" she said, a smile creeping onto her face. "The Keepers have sent their children into the field."
She got up and went over to a cork board, hastily put up. It showed pieces of photos of 5 children, matching the descriptions of the kids the satyr had seen.
"And now…" she said to the women, "We have names."
The evil fairy picked up a piece of paper, wrote Sofia on it, and put it on the cork board under the child's picture.