CHAPTER 40: FRIENDS IN MY HEART

At the very end of the hallway was a large octagonal room with full-length mirrors on every side. He stood in the very center, waiting for Jill to come.

In many ways, he resembled the younger Daniel Bones that Jill had seen in his old Night Raven portrait. Pale skin, dark hair, and a tall, slender form. But the similarities ended there. He wore a skintight black suit from toe to chin, which contrasted with the large white cape that encircled him like a sail in a storm. Rather than hands, he had long golden claws that were black at the tips. A clockface held his cape together, both little hands pointed up, and a second clockface was in place of a left eye. This clock was red and its hands were slowly spinning around, which was almost dizzying to look at for too long.

Jill slowed to a stop. Her curiosity warred with her instincts, wanting to get closer and stay away at the same time.

"Jillian," Minuet-Hand greeted. "It's been too long, my dear. It was about time we met face-to-face." He chuckled at his own joke, tracing his claws lightly over his clock-eye.

Jill swallowed bile. She had wanted to confront this demon for so long, but now that she was here, she didn't know what to do. Could she fight? Could she squeeze answers out of him? Could she trap him somehow? The Skeleton Key glittered subtly from around Minuet-Hand's neck, taunting its original owner.

"Why so quiet? Are you scared?" Minuet asked. He stepped forward, and Jill reached into her pockets for her magestone pen—and it was gone. As dreams often worked against their own dreamers, Jill found herself weaponless and defenseless.

"Looking for this?" Minuet pulled out the same magestone pen that Daniel had earlier. Jill's pen.

"GIVE THAT BACK!" Jill darted out to grab it, and Minuet tossed it to her. Jill examined her pen from all over, her hands shaking like autumn leaves, and she found that the gemstone inside was still completely orange. None of the blot from Minuet's claws had sullied her hand-me-down.

"The only thing I'm scared of," Jill drew her pen, "is that I won't have a mop big enough to wipe the floor with you!"

She launched various spells from memory—a torrent of freezing water, a tangle of thorny vines, a small inferno of orange fire, blinding spheres of light, shadows in the forms of vengeful ghosts…

But Minuet easily wove himself around all these attacks, stepping in front of Jill in what took no time at all. In hindsight, it reminded Jill of the bullet scene from The Matrix—this Phantom moved in a completely different time than she did.

"Fighting me in a dream is pointless," he said. "I hate pointless things—like those boring battles with that old crow. I'd rather talk, wouldn't you?"

"Talk?" Jill growled. "I don't talk to bad guys!"

Minuet-Hand frowned. "…You already do that every day," he reminded her.

"Don't you dare try to play the moral high ground!" Jill snapped. She glanced backwards. "Look, I heard and saw the whole thing—I know how you were made," she confessed at last. "You're Grandpa's… Heartless, aren't you? Or something like that. You reflect all the pain and anger he's been through. I've been bullied before, both here and in my world… I know how horrible it feels, like you're all alone, but…"

She glared into the creature's mismatched face. "That gives you no right to corrupt the students of Night Raven College!" she scolded. "I know the guys have their own issues, and maybe they can be unscrupulous sometimes… but they never would've become monsters if you hadn't messed with them! And you even did the same thing to me! The only monster I see in this school is you!"

Minuet-Hand glared down at her. His human eye was pitch-black, and it somehow managed to get even darker.

"I overblotted you?" he asked quietly. "Is that what you think? Why would I bother with that?"

"Well…" Jill lost her steam. "Mr. Crowley said it was because I kept thwarting your overblots… because I got in your way, and you wanted to punish me—"

"I've said no such thing," Minuet interrupted. "That was Crowley's theory. Of course I'll take full credit for the other five overblots, and that mangy direbeast as well. But I didn't cause your overblot—you did that entirely on your own."

"You expect me to believe you?" Jill asked. "Why should I?"

Minuet waved his hand lazily, and some of the mirrors shone brightly, showing the Great Seven alongside the dorms that represented them.

"My goal," the Phantom said, "is to destroy the Great Seven's reputation, and everyone who honors them. Night Raven College is the main target. But you have nothing to do with them. Overblotting you would be a waste of my time… though in hindsight, it was amusing to watch." He chuckled and touched the Skeleton Key. "I used the last drops of Daniel's magic to curse your inheritance," he went on. "to bring you and the Key over to me. You were an afterthought, a means to an end. I could've killed you or even sent you home, but…"

"But…?" Jill shivered at the thought. It was true—another door could've opened up underneath Jill and sent her anywhere Minuet-Hand liked. She had been at his mercy the entire time.

"But you surprised me on your first day here," Minuet said. "When this school was unkind to you, you nearly broke… but you didn't. You even had the idea to change Ramshackle into another dorm. I wanted to see how it would play out—if you could really overwrite a history of cruel hierarchy just like that."

"…I did," Jill said, puffing out her chest a little. "Thanks to me, no one in that house will be mistreated the same way you were."

"Bully for you," Minuet chuckled, a playful smirk on his face. "I was so touched by the idea of a 'new dorm' that I… decided to give your family a vacation. Well, a reward, really, for raising such a strong little princess."

"That's why you sent my family to Twilight Town?" Jill gasped. "What kind of 'reward' is that?!"

"Oh, things were getting bad in your hometown because of your disappearance," Minuet explained. "People were even blaming your parents, and, well… I felt a little bad about that. But I couldn't take you back to Crittenden—you were so much fun to watch, and I didn't want to end the game! So I opened a door to give a detour for your parents… and your little dog too. A safe, boring little place for safe, boring little people where they could restart their lives. Isn't that nice of me?"

Jill's fists shook again as they clenched. "You played around with our lives, and you think you're nice?!" she thundered. "You're still destroying the lives of a generation of innocent people! Falcone and all the students who bullied you are either old or dead! You're not getting revenge, you're making things worse!"

The smirk slipped off of Minuet's face. "Innocent?" he asked softly. "No one in Twisted Wonderland is innocent… for they all adore villains. It wasn't until Daniel discovered Disney films that I finally saw the Great Seven for what they really were… and what I should reveal them as."

"The Great Seven, and all those other figures… they're bad guys in Disney canon," Jill argued. "But this world is different. The Great Seven are good—"

"Are they?" Minuet snapped. "Come now, you're supposed to be a good reader. Surely you've noticed… discrepancies in our world's histories?"

Jill bit her lip, for she knew what Minuet-Hand was talking about. The Great Seven were constantly gushed about and praised for everything they had done… and yet there was still evidence of their cruelty.

"This world has been thoroughly lied to," Minuet went on. "These villains took over their respective nations and destroyed the heroes who tried to stop them. Then they wrote their own history books to make themselves look like saints. No matter how many generations pass, the root of evil will be the same until the Great Seven's legacy is crushed."

"But… then why are the Disney heroes revered too?" Jill asked. "That doesn't add up."

"That's irrelevant," the Phantom dismissed. He stared at the mirror showing Hades and Ignihyde.

"…You caused Idia and Ortho to overblot, didn't you?" Jill guessed grimly.

Minuet grinned. "Well, the Ortho you know is just a mindless puppet," he sneered, "but Idia! Out of all the people I've pushed, he was one of the easiest!" He turned back to Jill, still beatific. "He's going to unleash an army of Phantoms onto the world… and reshape it in his own image," he explained. "No one will ever respect Night Raven College, or the Jupiter Conglomerate, or the Great Seven ever again! Twisted Wonderland as you know it will no longer exist in a few short hours."

"We'll stop Idia!" Jill tried to say. "Then we'll stop you—"

"Oh, with what, the power of friendship?" Minuet chuckled. "Face it, you've lost. You, my dear, will be destroyed… unless you want to leave?" He put one hand over the Skeleton Key, and raised the other hand palm-up.

"….Leave?" Jill echoed. This Phantom had changed subjects so many times, but this turn was baffling.

"Like I said… you were the only natural overblot," Minuet said. "You've been in grief for so long, unable to process it, constantly facing distractions and obstacles and disappointments. You don't want to be here. You want to be with your real loved ones, living out your safe and happy life. I can tell."

"I… but I promised…" Jill tried to say.

"I can take you away from this place," Minuet promised. "I can take you to your parents, or Crittenden, or anywhere else you'd like to go. All you have to do is say that I'm right—that this world is evil, and deserves to be destroyed. You can end your nightmare, Jillian. You can wake up."

Jill squeezed her eyes shut. There was some truth—she was exhausted beyond belief. A part of her just wanted to leave the Isle of Woe behind her, to be in Twilight Town or in her room or somewhere warm and comfortable. But in that same instance, she realized that she couldn't.

"You're right about some things, Minuet-Hand," Jill admitted. "There's still a lot I don't know about this world's history—who's the hero and who's the villain. But even if what you say is true… I contradict that, don't I?"

"What?" Minuet demanded. "Jillian, what are you blathering about?"

"…I'm connected to the Pumpkin King," Jill confessed. "I don't know how it works—if I really have free will, or if every member of our family is like that, or whatever. But that's what I am. And even though he's a hero… I was a villain that night. That awful skeletal creature… that's what I am, too. So if a heroic figure can be twisted into a villain… then the villains can be twisted into heroes. Right?"

"Unbelievable… you're still trying to save that broken school?" Minuet spat. "I only used my blot to reveal those mages for what they really were! They're cruel, selfish, envious people who will abandon you if it meant saving their own skin! You overblotted from the stress of dealing with them! And you're risking your life for them?!"

"Yep," Jill said simply.

"I was wrong… you're just as foolish as anyone in this world," the mastermind scoffed. "In that case, you're free to drown in their blot."

The world suddenly turned white, and Jill emerged from her unrestful slumber.

Author's Note: So there's more leaked info about the Pumpkin King event. We finally get a twisted version of Jack (who looks awesome btw), and my immediate thought was "he's gonna be Jill's crazy uncle".