Time for the kids to get the spotlight. Lena and Scout are about to make some new friends! Plus Angel is going to be having her own reunion.
What's Lost Can Be Found
"So, you're a sorcerer or something, right?" Lena asked as she and scout explored the Resistance base.
"A sorcerer's apprentice," Scout explained. "I'm training under Yen Sid to use the power of music to bring life and creativity to the world."
"So you use cutesy lights and sounds to create rainbows? Yeah, no thanks," Lena said, fake gagging.
"Hey, the power of Fantasia is actually pretty cool," Scout defended. "It's not just conducting music, it's remixing and adding in your own sounds that allows you to truly master the magic." She put on her headphones and raised her hands, the sounds of an orchestra preparing to play filled the room, bringing to attention some of the people within the base. "Does anyone here have a suggestion for a song?" Scout asked.
"We've got one," said one of the Resistance members. She was a teenager with long purple hair and a leather outfit.
Scout brought a hand up towards the girl, then quickly threw it upwards, blue sparks coming off of the apprentice's hand. Music suddenly started playing through the area, and the girl with purple hair and her friends got out of their seats and started dancing and singing to the song.
{Cue "Rotten to The Core" from Descendants}
As the four teens danced, Scout used her magic to conduct the music, magic flying out of her hands in time with the instruments as it flew around the room. The magic seemed to make the other Resistance members livelier, some of them even joining in on the dancing until a small party was being formed.
"Okay, so you can make music happen. Anything else?" Lena asked.
"Oh, I can do much more than this," Scout bragged. He swung one of her hands to the left, and suddenly the music shifted from a Trap beat to one in the style of Punk Rock. "Like I said, I can remix music to change its style."
"It's definitely more my style now," Lena admitted.
"That's not all," Scout said. She threw her other hand to side, and the rock and roll guitars were replaced by an electronic piano. "I can mix and match the music parts however I want. Like a magic DJ." Scout then brought her hands together before throwing them outwards, surrounding her and Lena in a starry field. "And here I can add my own part to the song. Why don't you try it out?"
"Yeah, I don't think I can do that whole 'Magic DJ' thing," Lena said.
"Come on, at least try," Scout said.
Lena looked at the human uncertainly but activated her amulet and started interacting with Scout's magic. She wasn't anywhere on the apprentice's level, but Lena managed to create a simple beat. Once Scout deactivated the starry field, Lena's tune was added into the song, flowing seamlessly into the music as Scout picked up conducting the song to the end.
"That was great!" Scout said, giving a thumb's up to Lena.
"It really wasn't," the duck said.
"Are you kidding? Look at how our music made everyone happy," Scout said. The two looked around to see people happy and smiling, with the overall feeling the base seeming to be lighter. "That's what magic can bring to people: happiness, laughter, fun. Your aunt uses dark magic, but you don't have to use it the same way she does."
Lena looked down at her amulet, clutching it slightly in her hand. Her attention was taken away by the dancers from before, the girl with purple hair in particular staring at her. "What is it?"
"Your aunt uses dark magic?" the purple-haired girl asked.
"Never seen her on the Isle of the Lost," said a boy with white hair.
"That's because she's from a different world from ours, Carlos," said a girl with blue hair. "It's like how we've seen different versions of our parents around this world."
"Guys, we haven't even introduced ourselves yet," said a boy in a red beanie. "I'm Jay, and my friends here are Evie, Carlos, and Mal."
"We're all kids of villains, so we're called VKs for short," Mal explained. "I'm the daughter of Maleficent, Carlos is the son of Cruella de Vil, Evil is the daughter of the Evil Queen, and Jay is the son of Jafar."
"Wow, you're parents we're really creative with the names there," Lena said sarcastically. "Let me guess, you guys were raised to be perfect little followers from your parents, but after you left that 'Isle of the Lost' place you got a taste of true friendship and stuff and turned against what they wanted for you."
The VKs stared blankly at the duck. "Wow, that's really spot-on," Evie said.
"Yeah, I went through something similar with my own friend," Lena said. "Unfortunately, I'm stuck with my Aunt again, so I'm back to square one until I can find Webby again."
"Maybe we can help with that," Jay said. He pulled out a device from his pocket which looked like an old-school portable gaming device. "I 'borrowed' this from Rocket when he wasn't looking. He said that it could track different things if you type it in, so you could use it to find your friend."
"Isn't taking something that's not yours a bad thing?" Scout questioned.
"Hey, just because we're good now, doesn't mean we aren't bad," Jay defended.
Lena took the device, and immediately the machine sparked to life and started blinking. Her amulet started glowing in sync with the machine, lightly pulling at Lena's neck. "I think my magic is reacting to something," she said. "It might lead us to Webby. Let's go, Scout!"
"And we'll go with you too," Carlos said, his friends nodding. "If anything happens, we can back you guys up."
"And there's at least one other person we can pick up as well," Mal said.
The teens, now a team, headed out to follow the mysterious signal to wherever it was taking them.
[***]
"Thanks for meeting with us, General Organa," Oswald said.
"The more people we have on our side to fight against CLU, the more likely we are to win," Leia Organa, general of the Resistance, said.
"And boy what allies you guys have," Oswald complimented. "Space pilots, superheroes, magicians, a whole pack of dogs. I think that CLU doesn't stand a chance against us!"
Angel nodded in agreement, but then she picked up a familiar scent in the air. The experiment followed the scent, climbing on the ceiling to go to where the smell was coming from. Angel found herself in one of the living quarters, which looked to be empty at the moment. She looked around the room quickly, sniffing occasionally to see where the scent was coming from. The experiment looked down sadly when she couldn't find anything, but then the door opened up behind her.
"Angel?" said a distinct voice. He looked similar to Angel, yet without visable antennae and being of a blue coloration.
The experiment's ears perked up, quickly turning around and glomping the new arrival to the room. "Boojiboo!" she cried, affectionately kissing the confused yet happy Stitch.
"Angel, are you in here?" Oswald asked from the door. "I just ran into this girl, Lilo, and she said that you were part of her Ohana. I'm guessing that's important?"
"Lilo is part of my Ohana," Angel said. She picked up the dazed Stitch and cuddled into him. "And this is Stitch, my Boojiboo."
Oswald glanced at the two experiments, but then let out a sound of recognition. "Oh, I get it! Stitch is to you what Ortensia is to me." He then frowned. "You know, I just realized that I need to get around to finding her after we get done with this whole CLU business." The rabbit then turned to leave the room. "Anyway, I'll let you two have some time to catch up and stuff. I need to see how Magica and the others are doing. See you around!"
[***]
Back with Lena and Scout, the group found that the tracker had led them into a barren room that was originally blocked off, until Jay managed to pick the lock on the door.
"You know, they really should have put better security on there if they wanted to keep us out," said Peter Parker, better known as Spider-Man.
"But why would they want us to not be in here anyway?" Lena asked. "All that's in here is a chalk circle on the wall." Her amulet glowed as she ran a hand on where the chalk circle encompassed the wall. "Okay, there's definitely something behind here."
The duck took a step back, clutching her amulet and channeling magic towards the wall. When it didn't look like it was doing anything, Scout and Mal used their own magic to assist Lena in the spell. The chalk circle started to glow, the interior of it crackling open like static on an old television.
"It's a portal of some kind," Spider-Man said. He experimentally shot a web into it, only for the line to attach to something on the other side. Pulling at it, a candlestick came flying out of the portal.
"The portal must lead to some kind of house, and an old one at that," Evie said. "Those candlesticks are so 1700's."
"Well, Scrooge is the kind of geezer to keep old things like that," Lena stated. "It probably just leads to his mansion. Come on, let's go in so I can find Webby."
"Someone needs to stay behind and keep the portal open," Mal said. "I can do that while the rest of you go through."
"No way Mal, we're a team," Carlos stated. "Lena and Scout can go through. The rest of us will cover to make sure no one finds out what we're doing."
"And I'll go with them in case there's any bad guys over there," Spider-Man offered.
"If we're done here, then let's go through the freaky chalk portal already," Lena said.
Scout and Spider-Man nodded, with the duck leading the way as they jumped into the portal.
[***]
Unknown Location
Falling onto the floor, Lena groaned as she felt an extra weight on her back. "Hey, get off of me!" she shouted.
"I'm not on you," Scout said. "You're on me!"
"It's too dark to see anything," Spider-Man said. "Here, I'll just activate my Spider-Signal so we can get some light."
The superhero turned on his light, and the group came face-to-face with a red-skinned gargoyle and a small purple-tinted hyena. The two groups screamed in surprise, with Brooklyn readying his claws with Lena charged up with magic.
"WHO THE HECK ARE YOU GUYS!?" everyone in the room shouted.
A banging was heard from a nearby box, and everyone looked over to see a coffin with a zombie hand holding up the lid. "Would you youngsters quiet down?" said an old, raspy sounding voice. "Some of us are trying to enjoy being dead, thank you very much."
As the hand brought the coffin shut, Scout looked at Lena nervously. "Lena, Scrooge doesn't deal in necromancy, does he?"
"Not intentionally," Lena replied.
Everyone looked around to see that this was in fact not a normal mansion, but instead one that had an old, decrepit, and haunting feeling to it. A raven cawed from on top of the coffin lid, opening its beak to speak in a voice that had a distinct echo to it. "Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion."
Author's Note
Welp, instead of finding Webby, Lena has gotten herself and others trapped within the Haunted Mansion! This chapter is more of a transitional one, so the next one will have more important plot beats.
I had the cast of "Descendants" show up as a tribute to Carlos' actor, Cameron Boyce, pasted away recently at the too young age of 20. He was also an actor on "Jessie" and someone that I remember watching grow up. Seeing a famous star so close to your own age die is tragic, so having one of his characters in this story is my way of saying thanks for the memories you've given to viewers all around the world.
On a lighter note, Angel is now reunited with Stitch! Also, Brooklyn is now out of the Twilight Zone, though how that happened is a bit of a mystery. Shenzi has also been pulled along due to Lena's portal shenanigans, so it'll be a bit of a shock for her to not be in the Animal Kingdom anymore. Spider-Man is here as well, so let's hope that his Spider-Sense works well against ghosts.
This chapter also has a reference to a famous episode of "The Twilight Zone", so tell me if you find it! If you know what's up with the talking raven as well, then congratulations on being as big of a Disney Park fan as I am!
Next time, we'll continue the journey through the Haunted Mansion as Lena finds someone that she wasn't expecting to find but will be helpful to her cause.
Don't forget to leave a review on what you thought of this chapter!
Characters that premiered this chapter:
Mal, Evie, Jay, Carlos (Descendants)
Stitch (Lilo and Stitch)
Lilo (Lilo and Stitch) mentioned only
Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Spider-Man) This is the MCU version of the character
The Raven/ The Ghost Host (The Haunted Mansion) This is based on the ride character, not the Eddie Murphy movie