So . . . .
Somebody already got the correct answer. I was expecting it to be a couple chapters, but they guessed this character because they looked him up that morning. The lucky contestant was LabRatsWhore and the character was . . .
Hadie!
There was a reason why I chose that particular character, but I won't reveal it just yet. As of now, LabRatsWhore is the only one that knows all of the 'juice'—as they had put it—that I promised last chapter AND because they answered so quickly, they know one more detail about the story that I haven't revealed to anyone.
As for their decision regarding the epilogue, epilogues, or one-shot series, I will let you know during the engagement party chapter.
Enjoy.
Within half an hour, Mal and Celia arrived at the Bridge Plaza, where Jay, Carlos, and Evie awaited them. The trio didn't have any of their rides, which essentially meant they would have to walk back to Auradon. That wasn't the news Mal was hoping for, but at least they planned ahead for a backup escape route.
"Let's go . . ." Mal ordered with a brave smile, teasing softly, "I want . . .this iron . . . off me."
With a small nod, Jay clicked the remote, the barrier flickering open just large enough for them to walk through. Mal squeezed her father's ember tightly in her palm, silently praying to her uncles that it would work just enough for her to be free.
And it did.
As Mal crossed over the barrier, the ember ignited into dancing blue flames. The immense power surged through the god's daughter, inadvertently prying the iron chains off her. It was quite a strange sight to see the chains slide out from underneath her clothes and slither away on the broken bridge, like it was in search of its next victim.
It was even stranger to see a random bolt of lightning strike the iron before it could get away, disintegrating the chains into ashes, which blew away in the wind.
Her friends had been so distracted by the unusual events that they failed to see that Mal had collapsed onto her hands and knees, the ember falling out of her grasp and somehow sliding behind her. It was only when she had a coughing fit that her friends rushed to her aid. From what they could see, the iron left behind imprinted burns of the chains.
While Mal was trying to regain her breath and get over the feeling over of her entire body being on fire, her friends were once again distracted by another chain of events. As the barrier over the island was slowly closing again the mischievous pirates of Harry Hook and Gil jumped through, somehow managing to land safely on the other side.
"We made it!" Gil cheered, his eyes wide with amazement about finally being off the Isle. Gil went to give a Harry a bro-hug, but Harry had crouched down to grab something just a foot in front of him.
"Would you look at this?" Harry straightened to full height with the object between his fingers as he raised it to the sky to get a better view of it. "What a beautiful ember . . . Now it's mine."
"That doesn't belong to you! It belongs to my godfather!" Carlos snarled as he stepped forward. "Give it back, or else—!"
Once the pirate heard it belonged to an all-powerful god, Harry carelessly tossed it to the sea.
"No!" Mal screamed with her scratchy voice, coughing once again as she spoke.
She and her friends watched helplessly as the precious ember plummeted toward the deep dark water below. Any chance of saving Auradon from Audrey would be extinguished the moment the ember became wet.
And yet the dreaded splash never came.
Instead, a long, slimy turquoise tentacle emerged from the sea. It stretched to its impressive full length and skillfully snatched the ember out of the air. With a whoosh, Uma, in her part-octopus form, rose grandly from the rough waters and gripped the powerful ember. She looked magnificent, wilder, and more in her element than she had at Cotillion.
"Drop something?" Uma teased as the ember started sizzling in her dripping grasp.
"Uma, it can't get wet!" Celia warned since Mal was still trying to get her breathing and coughing back under control. "Please! Your cousin still needs that ember and so does your uncle. He needs it to save his wife!"
Uma laughed, perhaps not believing a word the young teenager was saying. She wrapped her tentacle tightly around the ember and sank into the dark water. Uma's marvelous gold shell necklace brightened beneath the fiery sea.
Suddenly a whirling burst of water gushed upward out of the ocean's roiling surface, exploded, and rained back down on everyone who stood on the bridge. Mal, her friends, and the pirates were completely drenched. Mal wasn't going to complain though. The water helped to cool her skin for a brief period of time.
"Hi, boys," greeted a voice behind them.
Those who could—meaning everyone, but Mal—turned around to see teenage-form Uma on the Auradon side of the broken bridge, the ember somehow still lit in her hand. They expected her to boast about her freedom from the Isle, but they were quite surprised when her snarky smile transformed into worry.
"What happened to her?" Uma interrogated as she gestured to the fallen queen, who nearly had her breathing back under control.
"She's none of your concern," Jay retorted as he roughly held out his hand expectantly. "Just give us the ember so we can go!"
"The hell she isn't!" Uma argued as she outstretched her arm out so it dangled over the edge of the bridge, where she could easily drop the object into the ocean. "Mal is my cousin and her father is my uncle. I have every right to have this ember. Unless you tell me what happened to her, I'm going to toss it into the water. How useful will this be to you at the bottom of the sea?"
"Sleeping Beauty's daughter, Audrey placed a curse on her," Celia quickly explained, as she was the only one that truly knew what the ember would be needed for. "Iron chains had been wrapped around Mal's body. The curse was finally broken because of the ember, but it couldn't heal the burns because she only has half of her father's blood in her."
"We still need the ember," Carlos added in hopes he could help the situation. "Audrey stole Maleficent's scepter and placed a sleeping spell on the people in Auradon too. The ember is the only thing stronger than the scepter and Mal's the only one that can use the ember."
"Interesting . . ." Uma mused, moving her arm so the magical object was away from the edge. "Sounds like the five of you are going to need some help saving Auradon, especially since your best chance of doing so is practically helpless. You can have the ember back and me and my pirate crew will help you, on one condition."
Evie raised a cautious eyebrow. "We're listening."
"Mal, our precious Queen of the Isle," Uma began as purposely mentioned her cousin's title, "has to let every villain child, that wants to, come to Auradon."
Without any assistants from her friends, Mal shakily stood to her feet. Her friends could tell that she was becoming paler with every minute, but that didn't stop Mal from promising, "I will talk to Ben . . . since I'm not Queen of Auradon yet. It will take some time . . . but we'll make it happen. In exchange . . . you have to give Celia the ember to hold."
This time, Uma raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Care to explain why?"
"I have a feeling Audrey . . . was watching the five us . . . after she left when she cursed me," Mal informed as she unconsciously leaned on the closest person for support, which luckily was Jay. "She probably knows we went to the Isle . . . to get my father's ember. If or when she sees you . . . and your crew with us . . . she will assume either you or I . . . will have the ember since we are relatives. It's best Celia has the ember. It will protect her from any surprise spells . . . maybe more so since . . . my father is her godfather."
Uma contemplated the offer for a few moments, turning the ember in her hand as she did so. Coming to a decision, Uma actually removed her own gold shell necklace to place the ember with in it, sealing it away safely. Once she did, the sea-witch tossed the necklace to the voodoo girl, who barely managed to catch the chain.
"Keep my necklace hidden so the princess doesn't get suspicious," Uma instructed, watching as the young teenager slowly did as she was told. "Maybe my shell will help trick the ember into thinking you are blood."
"You act like the ember has a mind of its own," Carlos joked.
Instead of answering, Uma adverted her concerns back to Mal's current condition. "What are we going to do about you and your burns? When you touched iron when we were kids, you were sick for nearly four days, and that was with a simple burn. I'm surprised you haven't passed out yet."
"I'll worry about it after . . . we have an idea . . . on where we can find Audrey," Mal claimed, though the others could see her health slowly declining.
"Well there's no way in hell I'm letting you walk in your condition," Jay commented before he crouched down in front of her. "Climb on my back. I'm carrying you."
Not bothering to argue with him, Mal slowly wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Standing to full height, Jay locked his arms under her legs to keep her securely in place.
With that, the strangely united band of villains started the long walk across the magical bridge toward Auradon.
The motley crew of villain kids marched over the bridge, hiked along the craggy coast, and wound their way up the road that let to Auradon Prep. The scene that greeted them was shocking. The school's green lawn was littered with sleeping students.
"They're asleep," Evie announced as she absorbed the alarming sight.
Slipping off Jay's back so he could rest from the long trek, Mal still leaned up against him as she tried her cell phone. After a couple moments, she sighed in frustration. "I can't get Ben."
"Or Dizzy and the twins," Evie added after using her own mobile device.
" 'Twins'?" Harry repeated skeptically as his anger slowly started forming. "You mean Squeaky and Squirmy? You left my twins alone?!"
"Your twins?" Evie questioned in return.
"Harriet and I took turns watching them for their father, Smee," Harry explained a little harshly. "They are practically my brothers. If anything happened to them—"
"Relax, Harry." Uma rolled her eyes in annoyance. "The worse that could happen is them falling under the sleeping spell. All you have to do is break the spell when you see them."
Before they could say more, Carlos groaned as he angrily hanged up his phone. "I almost got Jane," he informed as tried texting his significant other. "She picked up, but there was too poor of a connection. From what I could hear, she's fine, but I think she's out of breath, not sure what from. Hopefully I can get a text to send through. If I get a text back from her . . ."
Carlos trailed off as he noticed something out of his peripheral vision. Doing a double take, he broke out into a huge smile. "Dude?"
Dude, the campus mutt, sat beneath a picnic table, eating a hot dog from a conked-out boy's hand. The golden-fur dog was living his best life. Dude looked up, caught in the act, and belched. "He wasn't eating it."
Rolling his eyes at his dog's dry humor, Carlos wondered, "Dude, do you know what happened here?"
"Yeah, Audrey put everybody to sleep. Oh, and then some of them—"
"Guys!" Evie shouted. She pointed at a granite statuesque girl wearing band clothing. "Hannah's turned to stone."
"Since we're here, let's check the school," Uma suggested, making a move to head to the entrance.
"Not yet," Mal denied before her cousin could get any further. "Audrey's out for revenge because she . . . lost her chance of being Queen of Auradon. She went after the crown . . . then after me. It's highly likely she would go after Ben . . . to curse him. The castle is where we need to go."
Uma huffed in slight annoyance, but didn't argue. "Fine," she relented, "but Gil's carrying you there."
"I can carry—"
"You carried our queen for nearly five miles," Uma reminded Jay when he began to argue. "You have to be at least a little exhausted. Gil has more than enough strength to carry her to the castle. After that, you can take over her care again."
"To the castle," Mal repeated, hoping they could solve the problem quickly.
Though she didn't realize that this was only the beginning.