Cherry, Atticus, Darla, and Patch looked for a costume department. Cherry fell behind a little and tried to catch her breath and catch up with them at the same time. A little boy tugged on her shirt.

"Not now, sweetie..." Cherry said to the boy before noticing he looked a lot like someone she knew. "Oh, my..."

The little boy smiled to her and gestured for her to come to his stand.

"I'm sorry, I don't have time for-" Cherry was about to say.

The boy began to pull her over to his stand.

Cherry sighed and pulled up the stool that was in front of the stand and had a seat. "Okay, let's get this over with."

The boy took out a rubber red ball and showed it to her face. Cherry nodded to show she could see it. The boy then put the ball under a cup and started to spin the cups all around and smiled once he was done.

"Um... That one?" Cherry pointed to the cup in the middle.

The boy removed the cup to see if she had gotten it right. There was no ball though. The boy cupped his mouth and shook his head. Cherry then tried the cup on the right. The boy picked up the cup and fluttered his lips.

"Uhh... This one." Cherry pointed to the cup on the left.

The boy removed the cup, but still no ball, he then pouted and shook his head. He then grabbed his throat as he hiccuped and sounded like he was suffocating and then coughed roughly and took her hand, spitting up the ball in her hand and smiled with an eager nod.

"Whoa!" Cherry winced out of both disgust and amazement.

The boy smiled to her.

"Raymond!" an older female voice called. "Where are you!?"

The boy put his ball in his pocket, collected his cups, into a box that was scribble titled as a 'MAGIK KIT' and the boy ran off after clicking the box shut and rushed to his mother.

"Wait!" Cherry called. "Where are you going!?" She then saw as the boy ran off to a lady that seemed to be looking for him.

"Raymond, there you are!" the woman hugged the boy. "You worried me sick!"

The boy frowned to his mother apologetically and nuzzled against her in the hug.

"Still giving the silent treatment, huh?" the woman sounded disappointed. "Honestly, boy, your father and I told you, if anything is bothering you, just tell us and we'll try to fix it, we'll believe you no matter what."

The boy slowly shook his head, looking like he was fearing for his mother's safety if he said anything.

"Oh, never mind, come on, your father's waiting." The woman told him.

The boy nodded and followed his mother, looking nervous as they ran into a butler who carried heavy bags while chasing after Prince Naveen as he was in casual clothes in order to blend into the crowd. The silent little boy looked around nervously, almost as if he had been haunted by something or someone, and stayed close to the childish comfort that was his mother's warmness and endless nurturing.

"That has to be him." Cherry said.

"Cherry?" Atticus called. "Cherry! Oh, there you are... Come on, let's go."

Cherry nodded to him and started to follow as she studied what she had discovered, but looked back to keep up with her friends.

"Where could we find costumes?" Patch asked.

"There's a place!" Darla pointed to a costume department that was across the street.


With that, they all went into the costume shop to hurry up and get costumes before the good ones would be gone for tonight.

"Busy day... I hope I don't miss my date with Miss Charlotte tonight," the worker man who was in a court jester costume panted, then smiled to the incoming group. "Can I help you all?"

"Yes sir, we're looking for costumes to wear for the masquerade ball tonight." Atticus said.

"Well, we got costumes of all kinds," the worker smiled. "We got animal suits, Medieval suits, magic suits, super suits, anything you can get your hands on and since it's Mardi Gras, there's a special discount! Just come see me if you find whatever you like."

"Do you have a Hercules costume?" Atticus asked.

"Check the back in Mythical and Supernatural, I'm positive I saw that earlier." the worker suggested.

"Thank you." Atticus smiled before running off to that very section.

Patch decided to go with him to find a Pegasus costume, only in dog size and in a way for him.

Darla looked at the princess dresses and loved every one of them. "They're all so lovely... Which is more like me?" she wondered as she saw the different kinds and options, unable to pick just one.

"Why not just close your eyes and follow your instincts?" Cherry suggested.

Darla shrugged and did as she said to find a dress that would make her stand out and feel like royalty in her wild and craziest little girl imagination.

Cherry hummed as she looked at the costumes. "What would be appropriate and fun enough to wear?"

"If you're the goth type, I'd go with the supernatural." The worker told her.

"Well, I am..." Cherry shrugged. "I'm a perky goth though... I like to save the dark and scary stuff for Halloween."

"Well, what are some things you like?" the worker asked.

"Vampires, aliens, magicians..." Cherry shrugged.

"Oh, well then you should be able to find them in that section." The worker smiled.

"Hmm..." Cherry hummed as she looked for a costume that would strike her fancy. "These alien costumes are too goofy... These vampire costumes are too cliche..."

"You gonna be a magician then?" Patch asked.

"Eh... Might as well..." Cherry shrugged as she took a black suit that had a white collared shirt with a red tie and came with a shiny pair of black shoes.

"Great." Patch smiled.

"Found it!" Atticus called out.

"Does it come with a Pegasus costume?" Patch asked with high hopes.

"Yep, it sure does." Atticus smiled.

"Yay!" Patch cheered. "We can be Hercules and Pegasus."

Darla found a purple dress that didn't come with its own shoes for some reason and she wore her curls down. "Call me 'Darlpunzel'." she said with a giggle once she found the perfect princess dress.

Cherry tried on the magician suit costume and shrugged. "I'm cool with this."

"We'll have these costumes." Atticus smiled at the worker.

"Pleasure doing business with you all," the worker smiled as he ran their costumes in to give them their final total. "Are y'all heading to Big Daddy LaBouff's masquerade ball?"

"Yeah, are you going?" Darla asked.

"Why, of course I am," the worker chuckled. "Miss Charlotte's my date!"

"Cool." Darla smiled.

The worker handed them their costumes back. "That'll be $10.25 please."

Cherry took out her money and decided to pay for the costumes since Atticus paid for their breakfast.

"Have a wonderful day!" the worker cheered after they left. "See you tonight at the LaBouff house!"

"Back at ya!" Atticus smiled.

"Oh, I hope time passed by fast enough for us to go to the party..." Darla was eager and anxious about going to the ball tongiht that her childish impatience acted up and every minute that passed felt like at least an hour to her.

"Don't worry, the ball will be here soon." Atticus assured.

"Hello." A man's voice greeted.

The others looked around and turned to the source of the voice. And it belonged to the same man they met before.

"Can we help you?" Atticus asked.

"Erm... Hello..." Cherry greeted, pushing her glasses back. "Can we help you?"

"I just wanted to see if I can make a deal with y'all." The man said.

"Who are you?" Atticus asked.

The man handed his card.

Cherry took the card and adjusted her glasses to read it. "'Dr. Facilier: Tarot readings, charms, potions, dreams made real'..."

"Um, no thank you, sir, we like to make our dreams come true ourselves." Darla said.

Patch began barking at the man, not trusting him at all.

"Not too friendly, is he?" the man chuckled to Patch. "He'll warm up..." he then took out a random dog biscuit. "You want this, doggy? It's got extra bacon."

"Are you bribing a dog?" Cherry looked in disbelief.

"Back off, buster!" Patch barked, surprising the man.

"Oh, well, your choice..." the man shrugged and stood up then. "Maybe I could interest y'all in something you may like... I always have a satisfied customer," he took Darla's hand and stroked his fingertips on her palm to read it like a psychic. "You all come here from far away, don't you?"

"H-How can you tell?" Darla asked.

"Oh... Just a lucky guess..." Dr. Facilier smirked. "Why don't you all just step into my little shop and we could maybe work something out?"

"No, thank you." Darla said, taking her hand back before hiding behind Atticus.

"We really must get going..." Cherry added. "There's a party and we wanna be ready for it."

"You seem familiar somehow..." Dr. Faciler looked to Darla. "Have we met, little lady?"

"No." Darla said.

"We really must be going." Atticus said.

Patch still growled to Dr. Faciler, having a strong feeling he was trouble. Atticus began to carry Darla away from this man, having a feeling that she was beginning to be too scared to move. Darla clung to her adoptive brother again.

"Don't you disrespect me, boys and girls!" Facilier demanded in a dark tone.

"Leave us alone!" Atticus told him as he shoved the man away with his full strength.


Dr. Faciler nearly was pushed back, but he didn't want to hear it. Cherry ran with them to get away from the man before he could go after them. However, it seemed as though a shadow grabbed them and threw them into Faciler's shop whether they wanted to or not.

"We told you to leave us alone!" Patch growled.

"I'm sorry, kids, but you have to understand," Dr. Faciler smiled darkly as he forced them to stay inside. "You're in my world now, not your world... And I got friends on the other side."

"He's got friends on the other side..." a voice repeated, seeming to come from nowhere.

"That's an echo, my friends," Dr. Facilier said as the door creaked open by magic and forced the four of them nside. "Just a little something we have here in Louisiana, a little parlor trick. Don't worry."

"This is seriously a waste of your time, we don't want anything you have to offer." Atticus glared.

"I insist..." Dr. Faciler wasn't going to let them go. "Sit down at my table, put your minds at ease, If you relax, it will enable me to do anything I please... I can read your future, I can change it round some too, I look deep into your heart and soul..." he then leaned over to Cherry with his walking stick as it glowed against her chest. "You do have a soul, don't you, Cherry? Make your wildest dreams come true, I got voodoo, I got hoodoo, I got things I haven't even tried, and I got friends on the other side..."

"He's got friends on the other side..." the voice said again.

"Might as well humor him..." Cherry scoffed with an eye roll.

"Fine." Atticus said while holding onto Darla's hand to make sure nothing bad happened to her.

Darla gently squeezed his hand, even if he wasn't her brother in reality, he was still the older brother she had always imagined of having and she would never ever replace him.

"The cards, the cards, the cards will tell; the past, the present and the future as well," Faciler said once he sat down in front of them with a mysterious deck of cards. "The cards, the cards, just take three, take a little trip into your future with me."

'This guy is up to something.' Patch thought to himself while picking three cards.

The others took their three cards.

"Now, shall we go ladies first?" Dr. Faciler chuckled.

Cherry and Darla gazed at him.

"O-Okay." Darla said, scared.

"Oh, dark and gloomy Cherry..." Dr. Facilier read the perky goth's history. "You feel like an outsider and thought you'd be better off alone... No one really understood you and you didn't know what else to do other than to put yourself in the distance and fade into the background and you felt like you didn't need nobody else in your life."

"Sometimes I just feel like I don't belong in this world..." Cherry shrugged.

"That's not true, Cherry; you do belong in this world." Darla said.

Cherry shrugged and shook her head. "I dunno..."

"You just wanna roam around to where you can be appreciated..." Dr. Faciler said. "You don't want to live in this world anymore... It will get better... Now for you, Blondie..."

"Me?" Darla asked.

"You have an interesting case..." Dr. Facilier looked to her cards. "You used to be pushed around all your life and you were alone and empty... Even after you finally got a warm home with a roof over your head, you were still unhappy... You had fame, fortune, and product endorsements, but something was missing..."

"Y-Yeah..." Darla remembered that.

"A family." Dr. Facilier said.

Darla rubbed her eyes as she seemed to have a small cry.

"You also wanna go back to Hollywood someday..." Dr. Facilier read her future. "But you're worried that those animals won't forgive you since you endangered their lives by flooding the stage. You just wanna be loved by all again, but since you were a spoiled, obnoxious, self-obsessed brat, you feel no one will want to bother with you ever again."

"Yes they will, Darla." Atticus assured her.

"How can you be so sure?" Darla asked her older brother.

"Because if they hold a grudge against you for what you did that long ago, then they have missed out on the most cutest adorable and best little girl/sister." Atticus told her while hugging her.

Darla blushed from those kind and thoughtful words and hugged him right back.

"That was so sweet, it gave me diabetes." Cherry muttered.

"Now time for the boy and his puppy." Dr. Facilier said.

"Uh, what could you see in a puppy's past, present, and future?" Darla glanced at the strange man.

"Oh, trust me little lady, everyone and everything has a past, present, and future." Dr. Facilier told her.

"Good to know." Darla responded.

"You come from a very big family," Dr. Facilier said to Patch. "One of 101, that's gotta be 'ruff'..." he then made an incredibly lame pun with a light chuckle. "You just wanna become one of a kind and stand out from your brothers and sisters, so you met the one and only Thunderbolt and now you're a super puppy with your own brand of Puppy Power and you're going to be one fine adult dog someday."

"Wow, are you like some kind of psychic?" Patch asked.

"Now for you..." Dr. Facilier moved onto Atticus.

"This should be interesting." Cherry whispered to Darla.

"Yeah." Darla nodded.

"You're a very interesting young man," Dr. Faciler said to Atticus. "A good and trustworthy friend and family member... So sad to hear about you being kidnapped as a baby and dumped at an orphanage."

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me." Atticus groaned.

"Hmm..." Dr. Facilier hummed once he saw the rest of Atticus's past in the first card.

"What? What do you see?" Patch asked.

"What's it say, what's it say?" Darla and Cherry asked, coming to Dr. Facilier's side.

Atticus chewed on his fingertips a little nervously.

"It seems that you're also the nephew of the evil king King Sombra and that you are also a Wiccan." Dr. Facilier said.

"Mmm..." Atticus lowly squeaked.

"I'm dark and depressing and even I find Sombra terrifying." Cherry spoke up.

"Um, w-what does his second card show you?" Patch asked.

Dr. Faciler came to the present card. "Nothing much has changed, except that you can unleash the magic when provoked or corrupted by the dark magic inside of you, Atticus... Usually friendship or love can restore you..."

"That is true." Atticus said.

"Anything else?" Cherry asked Dr. Faciler.

Dr. Faciler soon turned over the final card to show two sides: one was showing Atticus in a shining light and the other was with him wearing the same crown as his Uncle Sombra.

Atticus looked nervous about that. "This can't be my future."

"Oh, but I'm afraid it is, boy." Dr. Faciler replied darkly.

"What does this one mean?" Darla asked.

"Your future is what you make it," Cherry said. "My Uncle Emmett told me that and there is no way Atticus is gonna turn to the dark side and betray us all!"

"This card is actually showing two possible futures." Dr. Faciler said.

"That's right and that one won't happen!" Cherry glared at the darker future.

"Oh, you sound so sure," Dr. Faciler smirked. "Atticus is the nephew of King Sombra."

"Wait, he said two possible futures; that means one of him not being like King Sombra and the other of him being just like King Sombra." Patch said.

"Exactly!" Cherry replied.

"You still sound so sure of yourself..." Dr. Faciler said.'

"Quit scamming us," Cherry folded her arms. "You can't fool us to think Atticus would turn dark."

"Can you tell us about what you see in one of his futures?" Darla asked.

"King Sombra will keep feeding off as long as Atticus is still alive, even further down the family tree and might even try to track down his future son." Dr. Faciler said.

"Future son?" Atticus smiled nervously.

"Yes," Dr. Faciler smirked. "But let's continue on, shall we?"

Atticus gripped his collar nervously.

"What else is in store for us then?" Darla firmly demanded.

"Let us take a look into your past, present, and future then, my dear." Dr. Faciler said.

"Try me." Darla challenged.

"Let's see..." Dr. Faciler looked at the first card. "It shows here that you were once a princess in your own way. You lived atop a hill in a glittering castle and there you had a servant who kept your castle in order. You had fame, fortune, and product endorsements, but you were not what you seemed."

"Not really." Darla admitted.

"What else do you see?" Patch asked.

"You seem to be happy with your new family, or are you...?" Dr. Faciler asked.

"Get to the point!" Darla glared.

"Ah, you still have rage about your former self and how you were when you were a movie star." Dr. Faciler smirked at her anger.

"That's true." Darla nodded.

"But what does your future hold for you?" Dr. Faciler asked. "What if you became rich again?"

Darla tilted her head curiously.

"So rich that you live in Paris and you are as famous in the fashion world as Coco Chanel." Dr. Faciler continued.

"Can you show us what it shows in the last two cards?" Darla asked.

Dr. Facilier shuffled his cards and showed the two cards as the blonde girl had requested.

"They look promising." Patch smiled.

Darla smiled to the good ones, then saw a small blonde child who looked a lot like a mini version of Darla, only the hair was styled differently and she appeared to wear black and white clothes with a pink bow in her hair. "Is... Is that my daughter...?"

"Yes." Dr. Faciler smirked.

"Oh, she's beautiful..." Darla smiled at her future daughter. "I bet she's as precious as me."

"Oh, she can be, but she's a bit of a nuisance sometimes..." Dr. Facilier chuckled.

"But I'll tell her from right and wrong," Darla then said. "That's what I'm there for as her mother."

"Now how about Cherry's past, present, and future." Patch said.

"Say what?" Cherry's eyes widened. "Um, no, no, we don't need to see my life, it's pretty boring and uninteresting."

"Oh, I disagree." Dr. Faciler said.

Cherry deeply gulped.

Dr. Faciler spun a yarn about how Cherry was pushed around a lot, especially by a certain someone who lived in a different realm far from their own. "You seem a little unlucky, huh, Perky Goth?"

"Sad but true..." Cherry shrugged.

"It's true." Patch said.

"You ever consider the dark side?" Dr. Faciler put his arm around her which overwhelmed the others.

"I am the dark side." Cherry replied.

"I mean the darker dark side..." Dr. Faciler said. "You do what I want and I will guarantee you'll be rewarded."

"No, Cherry, don't listen to him." Patch said.

Cherry looked curious. "What do I have to do?"

"Are you serious?!" Darla asked.

"You just let me start this..." Dr. Faciler smirked. "I can make your dreams become reality... What do you say?" he then held out his hand for her. "Come on, girl, won't you shake a poor sinner's hand?"

Cherry held out her hand to shake his hand.

"Cherry, don't do it." Atticus said.

Cherry held out her hand and shook Dr. Faciler's.

"Yes..." Dr. Faciler hissed as the masks started to chant. "Are you ready?!"

"Are you ready?!" the masks echoed.

Cherry backed up slightly nervous as the others became nervous themselves.

Dr. Faciler then took out his talisman which then pricked one of Darla's fingers and took her blood.

"OW! Hey! Why'd you do that?!" Darla glared.

"Can ya feel it?" Dr. Faciler taunted as he sang and there were suddenly going to be changes for young Darla. "You're changing, you're changing, you're changing all right... I hope you're satisfied... And if you ain't, don't blame me, you can blame my friends on the other side~"

"You got what you wanted, but you lost what you had!" the chorus added in as Cherry was taken to the dark side.

"We have to get out of here now." Atticus said as he used his magic to teleport him and the others away from Dr. Faciler.

Cherry was the only one not teleported.