Author's Note: I'm so sorry for posting the third chapter this late! I started going to university, and I've also started a new project, so I haven't had that much time to go on with this fanfiction… And probably future chapters will have the same delay. Please be patient and R&R :).

Chapter 3: Night at the Museum

"As soon as we get in our room, I'm going to turn on that display and start playing something on it!" said Carlos after they finished speaking with the girls; and so he did, discovering in the meantime that the games were a lot more advanced than they could even imagine on the Isle. He chose a first person fighter game, meant to be played through a couple of highly perceptive motion sensors, and started fighting. Richard stared at him for a few minutes, admiring his perfect physique, glad to finally see a smile of real happiness on the younger's face, then he took Ursula's notebook from his bag, and started walking towards his bed, freezing in the movement.

"Jay, where do all those things come from?" he asked to the other, who was putting on his bed a great amount of stuff, from smartphones to jewellery, and even a laptop.

"Oh, pockets, bags, necks, some arms…" was Jay's uncaring answer.

"You stole them?" Richard interrupted the other, trying not to shout.

"We may have one single occasion to get a real life, and you waste it like this?" Jay's reply made him even angrier:

"Well, maybe I actually want to get back to the Isle of the Lost, since it's my home, where I already have a life"

"It's your home so much that there you sleep on a rug under a shelf, and your life consists in spending your days stealing for your father! Here we have beds covered with silk sheets! At this school they're going to teach us something actually useful, that we can use to build our own lives!" Not able to hold back, he started to shout halfway through his little speech, causing Carlos to pause the game and get closer to the angry older boy, attempting to calm him:

"Richard, don't shout! Someone's going to hear you and worry something happened." He then faced Jay, who didn't even raise his eyes, "Jay, you have to admit that today hasn't been so bad… Let's see what happens once school begins before deciding that we want to go back. Besides, if our parents see us on the Isle without the Fairy Godmother's wand they're not going to be proud of us, if you know what I mean… What I'm trying to say is that it's better if we don't get caught doing bad things, at least before we've decided how to proceed… Ok?" While he was speaking he held his boyfriend hand, keeping his eyes locked on Jay's. After a few moments, the Arabian boy turned around, glaring at Richard one last time, and went back to sort out his loot; Richard considered trying again to change Jay's mind, but then decided that it would only anger Carlos, now back at his game, so he returned to his original plan: he laid on his bed and started reading through Ursula's notebook. When they heard knocking on the door after a few minutes, he invited the girls in:

"Come in, it's opened." Mal and Evie entered the room, locking the door behind them; while the half fairy started chatting with Jay about the things there were on his bed, the queen's daughter asked Richard about the violet book he was reading.

"Oh, it's my mum's copybook. She wrote down all the spells and potions she knew back in the days… There are lots of useful things in it" answered the boy.

"Isn't it similar to the book Maleficent gave Mal?"

"Well, yes, I guess so… Probably the spells and the recipes are different though, since my mum was the sea witch and Maleficent was a fairy living on a mountain, but the concept is the same." He was smiling at the girl, his anger for Jay completely forgotten. Mal caught the attention of the others clapping her hands:

"Alright! We've already lost enough time, let's see if we can find that wand. Evie, mirror me." She gestured for Evie to sit with her at the desk, while the blue haired girl took her mother's magic mirror out of her bag.

"Magic mirror on the… in my hand, where is the Fairy Godmother's wand… stand?» Being the first time, she pronounced the formula clumsily, making her and the others worry that nothing would happen, but a smile formed on her face when a marvelous white wand covered in blue twirls appeared in the mirror's glass, making her exclaim:

"Here it is!"

"Zoom out!" Carlos, having paused his game, had approached the others.

"Magic mirror, not so close" The request was perhaps too generic, and the mirror "zoomed out" more than she intended, showing now the whole planet, like a picture taken from space; Evie tried to remedy:

"Closer… Closer… Closer… Perfect!"

"It's a museum! Do we know where it is?" asked Mal, while Carlos was already pushing keys on the laptop Jay stole; he found it in no time:

"2.3 miles from here!"

"Perfect, let's go!" exclaimed Mal, clearly satisfied that the plan was proceeding so easily.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Richard voice came from his bed, from which he never got up until now.

"You really want to screw up our only possibility to live a life making our own choices?" He wasn't shouting. He wasn't even angry. He was staring at Mal, trying to wordlessly beg her to stop, but she refused to give in to the silent plead:

"Richard, this is our one chance to prove ourselves to our parents. To prove that we are evil, and vicious, and ruthless, and cruel! I'm sorry, I know how you feel about these things, but we won't stop, right?" She turned around to look at all the others in the eyes, then returning to face Richard.

"You can choose to stay here, but don't try to drag us with you. Just don't. We want our parents to win, we want to rule the world with them. We have the occasion to make them proud, we won't waste it." The others were all ready to go to the museum, and Mal closed the jacket she was wearing, making sure to have the spell book inside a pocket, finishing her speech:

"So, are you coming with us?" Richard hesitated, and didn't answer, but, his heart heavier than a boulder, he stood up and placed his black bag on his shoulder, putting the notebook inside.

"Ok, now that we decided who's in, let's go!" Mal took the lead, opening the door and rushing outside, followed by the others; the rotting maze that was the Isle of the Lost had sharpened their sense of direction, so they managed to get out of their new school in no time; running through the straight road to the museum, no one said a word, silently thinking that maybe it was too easy, maybe the wand would be guarded, everyone concentrated on their part in Maleficent's plan except for Richard, still fighting inside his head and his heart, trying to decide if he did the right choice. At the museum, Evie guided the group towards the entrance, which they found to be also the security center: there was a man, surrounded by displays showing all the powerful objects that carved the history of Auradon, from King Triton's trident, to Shan Yu's sword, to the Fairy Godmother's wand. In the center of the room, the first exhibit: Maleficent's spinning wheel, filled to the brim with magic even after all those years had passed, but not everyone could perceive this:

"That's your mother's spinning wheel?" asked Jay laughing, while Carlos was chuckling besides him:

"Yeah, it's kinda dorky." Richard, feeling the strong evil energy radiating from the object, couldn't take his eyes off it, in a state of both strong admiration and fear. He told them:

"Guys, this is Maleficent's spinning wheel; she was going to kill a sixteen years old princess with this, and you are saying that it's dorky? Shut your mouths!" He turned to Mal, still admiring the spinning wheel, "Mal, it's your mother's, isn't there a spell that we can use to distract the guard? Just try not to kill him…»

The girl took the spell book from her pocket and started scrolling through it, "This book is full of crap… There's even a spell to change hairstyle… I can't find anything… Wait! Here it is!

Magic spindle, do not linger,

Make my victim prick a finger.

Prick the finger, prick it deep,

Send my enemy off asleep!"

As soon as she finished the spell, the short, lump security guard started to fall in a trance: he was unable to look away from the magical object, and started walking towards the needle; when he touched it, the old spell was revived, making him fall asleep almost instantly. A satisficed grin appeared on Mal's face:

"Not so dorky now, hun?" she was smiling to the boys, while grabbing the handle, finding that the door was locked.

"Stand back." Jay, wanting to show off, prepared to open it with brute force; Mal, ignoring him, used a spell she had seen scrolling the book:

"Make it easy, make it quick

Open up without a kick!"

The spell did its magic almost instantly, opening the door in the same moment that Jay jumped; he flew inside, crashing on the floor, while the girls were already getting in.

"Come on, Jay!" Richard was trying not to laugh while he helped the Arabian boy back to his feet.

"I'm good!" Jay frowned, following the others through the long corridor of the museum; Evie guided the group upstairs, following the mirrors' directions, until they found themselves in a room full of statues.

"Villain Gallery" read Carlos on the sign at the entrance of the room: the statues represented their parents, among all the other villains, at their most powerful moments: the vicious glares that scared people back in the days, now lost in the long isolation, were frozen in the wax that stood in front of the five. The most shocking statue was Ursula's: the name of the sweet, gentle, tall woman they all knew and loved was written under the statue of a half human half octopus witch, her tentacles positioned as if she was ready to grasp anything that got too near. The worst thing was the look in the eyes, an evil, crazy look, scary even in the reproduction; and still, Richard's eyes were able to catch the details that linked that horrible witch to his mother, like the colour of the irises, as grey as the dim light that reached into her den at the bottom of the ocean. The same den where she tricked all those mermaids and tritons into horrible contracts; where Ariel signed the contract to get a pair of legs in exchange for her voice. In that den, with that body, Ursula did all sorts of terrible things, and yet… Yet she became the dearest person on the island, showing love to those who didn't even know what it was. Richard's mum was the proof that you can cross the separation, you can change, stop being a villain. Was that separation even actually there? Ursula wasn't even the only one. Queen Elsa, the beloved queen of Arendelle, once was considered a threat to her people, but then turned her life around and unfroze her kingdom. Hadn't King Beast been a horrible person until he met Queen Belle? The statue in Auradon Prep garden still changed shape 'to remind us that anything's possible', but that was only for the heroes… A villain stays a villain… There's no way you can get out the Isle… But they were out; it meant that something had changed; maybe the new generation would accept them. Thinking about it, Ben was the one person that convinced the King that they deserved a chance, and maybe there were others of the same opinion…

While he was thinking, he never stopped staring at the statue, lost in his mind; in the meantime, the others had started searching around for the wand, involuntarily leaving him and Mal behind. When Carlos found the magical instrument, Evie went back to call the two, finding them still deep in thought:

"Mal, Richard! We found it! Come on!" They both shook their heads, waking up from their daydream, and followed her, finding themselves right in front of the wand, surrounded by a cone of blue light.

«We did it! Guys, we did it! It was almost too easy» commented Mal, too overwhelmed by satisfaction to notice that Jay was jumping towards the wand.

"Jay! Don't!" Richard tried stop the Arabian boy, but his hand was already centimetres from the wand. As soon as he reached the blue light, he was thrown back by the protection spell, while an alarm started ringing throughout the whole museum.

"An alarm and a force field? Isn't it a bit excessive?" wondered Carlos.

"Love, it's the Fairy Godmother's wand, did you expect anything less? Now let's go!" Richard darted out, following Mal towards the entrance of the old building. When they got there, the guard had disappeared, probably woken up by the alarm and trying to find the intruder. While the others were running out, Carlos stopped to answer a ringing phone.

"Uh, hello? Oh, just give me a second," tapping buttons on a screen, the young boy made the alarm stop. "Yeah, it was just a false alarm, there was a malfunction in the LM714 chip in the breadboard circuit. Okay. Say hi to the missus"

"Carlos!" As Mal called for him, the guard rushed back in the room, catching the white haired boy by an arm.

"What are you villains doing here? Were you trying to steal the Fairy's Godmother's wand? There are camera recordings, by tomorrow you'll be back on that Island!" The guard started shouting and threatening them, so Richard made up his mind and used magic, hoping for it to work:

"Magic spindle, do not linger,

Make my victim prick a finger.

Prick the finger, prick it deep,

Send my enemy off asleep."

Again, the guard fell into a state of trance, being drawn to the pointy spindle, and again he fell asleep like before that night.

"Thank you, sweetie. He was starting to really hurt my arm…"

"Well, now we've got another problem. He's going to wake up sooner or later, what do we do then? We can't go back to the Isle without the wand, my mum will skin us alive," said Mal, staring at the sleeping man.

"I'm already thinking about that," replied Richard, scrolling through the violet notebook, "I was reading the spells before, and I found exactly what we need now… Here it is:

This man's memory poses me a threat

The intrusion I want him to forget.

Delete the recordings, minutes and such,

From this event loosen reality's clutch.

With this his memory should be gone, along with the cameras' recordings and any other proof we may have let behind. Now let's go back to Auradon Prep"

"Way to go Jay, now we have to go to school tomorrow…" commented Mal bitterly.

Once they smuggled back into their respective rooms, they all got ready to go to bed; after the evening's events, Richard and Carlos decided to share a bed, sleeping together, hugging and cuddling, until they both fell asleep. Richard's last thoughts before a troubling night of upsetting dreams were about his mum, and all the distance she had gone from the statue they saw in the museum. He hoped to, perhaps, manage to draw his friend away from their malevolent parents. In some way, he would need to think about this, he was going to make them understand that Ursula's words were not empty. She, and Richard as well, really hoped for them to make their own choices, even if they were bad, but their indeed. After this series of last thoughts before sleep, Richard entered the realm of dreams, reflexively keeping Carlos as near as possible, the younger's head resting under his neck, with a hand on each other's hearts.