Surprise!
Here is the next chapter!
I hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving and I hope you were eagerly awaiting this chapter. I worked on this chapter when I was supposed to be working on a final for one of my college classes. I am a really bad procrastinator when it comes to schoolwork. Next chapter may be posted on Saturday or Sunday.
This is the parents' (Mal's and Ben's) reaction to the fight with Ben and Audrey along with an extra scene since it would have been a very short chapter without it.
Enjoy.
On the Isle of the Lost, Maleficent and Hades were adjusting to life without their daughter. It had been less than a week since Mal went to Auradon to start her new life with her three friends. There were times that they wanted to write to their daughter to see how she was adjusting to her new-found freedom, but they opted to watch the progress on the Auradon News Network.
When their daughter first arrived in the kingdom, the parents noticed her first moping attitude, until she caught sight of Prince Ben. Though she tried to control it, her parents could still see the blush on her cheeks when the prince knew her name. Then Mal called the prince out for the injury on his wrist, who lied about the cause of the bruises. Before the program abruptly ended, the parents came to the same conclusion that Princess Audrey, the daughter of Aurora, was the cause of the prince's injuries.
Since then, Maleficent and Hades kept a close eye on the television program in fear that their daughter would be caught in the crossfire.
Monday afternoon, the married couple had just come home from having lunch with Cruella at Ursula's Fish and Chips restaurant when Hades decided to turn on the television set. Immediately, the Auradon News Network showed a live feed of a loud argument between Prince Ben and Princess Audrey. Of course, Maleficent walked over to see what the ruckus was about.
On the screen, Prince Ben scoffed at the princess, claiming that she was jealous that Mal was more beautiful than her. In a fit of rage, Princess Audrey slapped the prince across the face, leaving a scratch on his cheek that went through his eye.
"Ouch!" Hades winced at the abrupt action. "Beast is going to be pissed when he sees this."
Speaking of being pissed, the parents continued to watch in horror as their daughter decided to play the mediator, only to get burned by the princess's jewelry, which was made of the one thing she was vulnerable to. Luckily, her friends were there to prevent anything else from happening. Princess Audrey stormed off when she realized the news reporter had recorded the whole thing, which was where the video feed subsequentially ended.
"I can't believe it!" Hades shouted furiously as he shut off the television set. "Malef, you talked for years about how nice, sweet, and beautiful Aurora was as a teenager. How could her daughter be so rude, vicious, and internally ugly? How could Aurora let her daughter turn into such a monster?"
"I'm not sure," Maleficent mumbled under her breath. "But I don't think it would hurt to ask her . . ."
Meanwhile, back on the mainland, King Beast and Queen Belle had just discovered her son's abusive relationship when their loyal servant, Lumiere, showed them the live feed that was being posted everywhere on social media. Blood boiling at seeing the footage, King Beast demanded that his son be brought into their hearth room to explain what happened—
Which leads us to this encounter.
"Ben, your eye is incredibly red and irritated!" Queen Belle declared as she examined her son's injuries. "And your face is going to scar if you don't put something on it. Why didn't you tell us sooner about Audrey's abusive behavior toward you?"
"I tried," Ben insisted with a soft sigh, "when it first started. You and Dad assumed it was from Tourney and didn't have another thought about it. From then on, every time she hurt me, I said it was from Tourney or R.O.A.R. to cover it up."
"How long has this been going on?" King Beast wondered as he sat in his chair in frustration. "Days? Weeks? A couple months?"
"Three years," Ben retorted bitterly. "No one knew about it until over a week ago when Grandpa Maurice saw my bruise when it first formed. Then the new girl from the Isle, Mal, noticed my bruise and figured out in less than five minutes that Audrey was the cause of it."
Queen Belle raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Was she the reason for the last fight between you and Audrey?"
"No," Ben denied with an adamant shake of his head. "Lonnie wanted to show me her new hair style when Audrey was next to me. Audrey became jealous that I went 'behind her back' to talk to Lonnie and blew up on me."
"That's ridiculous!" King Beast exclaimed. "You and Lonnie are practically brother and sister! Did you try telling Audrey that?"
"Every time we argue about her, but Audrey doesn't listen," Ben claimed before he sighed softly. "Can we be over now, me and Audrey?"
"I'll set up a video-call with her grandparents to end the arrange marriage," King Beast promised reassuringly. "For now, get some rest in your bedroom. We'll have Mrs. Potts bring you something for your cheek. Hopefully, your eye can heal on its own."
"Why not use magic?" Ben suggested with a light shrug. "I wouldn't have to worry about losing my vision and my face scarring."
"Magic is forbidden," King Beast reminded sternly. "Though we are royalty, we must never use it for personal use to keep the balance between the people. Now, go do as you are told."
"Yes sir," Ben grumbled as he trudged off to his room.
The next day, Tuesday morning after Remedial Goodness class, Mal was once again at her locker when she heard someone leaning against the one next to hers. Closing the door shut, she came face-to-face with the still badly injured prince.
"Hey," Ben greeted with a small smile.
Mal clutched her mother's spell book tightly to her chest. "Should you be talking to me?" she wondered worriedly. "I mean, Audrey will probably find out and get jealous again."
"She could," he agreed as his smile slowly began to grow, "but it won't matter. My father called off the arranged marriage last night. She and I are history. Now I can choose who I want to be with."
"That's wonderful." Mal offered a small smile as she leaned her head against the wall. "But, for now, I would worry about your eye. Can you see out of it?"
"Not really," Ben admitted with a disgruntle huff. "If it's not fixed by tomorrow, I won't be able to play in the big Tourney game, which means we lose our chance of winning back the trophy this year."
"Why not use magic?"
"Because my father believes using it will unbalance the people," Ben explained with a roll of his eyes. "In other words, he's telling me that rules are rules."
"Well rules are meant to be broken," Mal retorted bravely as she opened the spell book, flipping the pages urgently. "And I know just the spell to do it."
Stopping at a certain page, Mal read through the instructions before exhaling to relieve her stress. Gazing up at Ben with her beautiful green eyes, she carefully rested her hand on his injured cheek. A moment later her hand began to a yellowish-gold color, which seeped into his nearly flawless skin. Right before her eyes, the long scratch faded away to nothing while his damaged eye returned to normal, revealing his bright blue-eyes.
The smile that was on her lips slowly faded away as Mal allowed her hand to linger longer than she probably should. When she was about to remove her delicate hand, Ben suddenly took hold of it, forcing it to stay in place. Locking eyes once again, Ben thought of the one thing he really wanted to do: kiss her.
As soon as he made the move to swoop down to kiss her, he was abruptly stopped when a teammate roughly placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Practice in ten," the teammate warned as he already started to walk away. "Coach will be mad if your late."
Sighing softly, Ben adverted his attention to the beautiful fairy standing before him. "I have to go," he mumbled as he reluctantly let go of her hand, who kept it on his cheek for a few moments longer. "You're still going to wait for me, right?"
"Depends on how you ask me out, remember?" Mal teased good-naturedly.
Despite teasing the prince, Mal leaned up to kiss him on his newly healed cheek. Not giving him time to react, Mal turned on her heals and headed to class with a blush on her cheeks. While she was walking away, Ben noticed the way her hair subtly changed hues once again—
Giving him hope that he won't make a fool out of himself tomorrow.