Chapter Twenty-Eight:
Realm Zone – 1937
Tracy could not stop staring at her hands the entire time
she was standing within Queen Grimhilde’s private chamber…as Queen Grimhilde
herself. The situation was a nightmare coming true and all that she could do in
response to it was scream. Of course, Tracy was not screaming in her voice, but that of the Queen; it
terrified even Tracy herself as it escaped from her (the Queen’s) mouth, so she
stopped immediately. Once the screams ceased, Tracy suddenly heard a hallowed,
deep, and eerie voice address her…
“The howls of terror are not your solution. To escape
your prison of flesh requires more intuition.”
Turning to the direction that she heard the eerie voice
speak from, Tracy soon realized that it was the voice of the Queen’s “Magic
Mirror” that addressed her. It was heavily odd for Tracy to be interacting
with a real Disney character, but she
had to speak with the mirror in order to get answers to her sudden problem.
“What’s happened to me?” The Queen’s voice came out of her, sounding
uncharacteristically terrified – mainly because it was Tracy that was so.
(Authorial Note: When writing the dialogue for the Evil Queen, Livingston imagined more of the voice of Susan Blakeslee than Lucille La Verne, the actress that voiced her in the 1937 film. Blakeslee has taken over the role since 2001 and has voiced other classic Disney villainesses, such as Maleficent, Cruella De Vil, and Lady Tremaine. Her best known voice work outside of Disney is Wanda from the Nickelodeon cartoon series The Fairly Oddparents.)
“Her Majesty has discovered a secret path to your
world…seeking out the fairest one that has her purled.”
Tracy tried to guess how the queen discovered the real
world from within the Disneyverse, and her deduction led her to one conclusion:
“Bunsen’s machine…something weird happen to it before I winded up in here…it
had to be her that caused it to happen.”
“Your intuition is strong, for you are far from wrong.”
The mirror complimented.
“Yeah, thanks.” Tracy acknowledged before coming into
realization. “Wait a minute. This is where Joanie said Aunt Diana ended up.”
She then quickly turned to the Magic Mirror and asked, “Can you show me where
Diana Navarro is?”
The image of the Magic Mirror’s face soon dispersed as
swirling purple and gray mist appeared, and an image within a dungeon area soon
transpired. Within the dungeon, there were two unconscious figures kept within
two separate cells; they belonged to Snow White and Belle. Seeing the two
Disney princesses, Tracy was surprised and confused of why they were there;
however, she did not spend too long pondering on the matter as she had soon
spotted Diana within her cell, pacing
back and forth. Tracy was beyond delighted seeing her aunt, who she had not
seen in years, standing there in the cell and looking just the way she did when
Tracy last saw her.
(Pop Culture Note: The imprisonment of Snow White and Belle while in sleep parallels that they shared with other Disney Princesses in Kingdom Hearts when Maleficent was on task to use the hearts of the "Princesses of Light.")
“Wow. She hasn’t changed one bit.” Tracy muttered.
Soon another figure entered the image – the Evil Queen’s
guard – and approached Diana’s cell. Diana walked right up to the bars and
inquired to the guard, “What’s going on?”
“I’m getting you out of the castle.” The guard told her.
“I believe the Queen will put you to sleep just as she has the other two
maidens.”
Diana smiled at the guard’s chivalry, which was
practically dead from where she came from. “Oh. You’re a sweet man…but I can’t
leave without first knowing if my daughter will come back for me.”
“Your daughter would be brave to come to this place, but
foolish as well.” The guard informed. “The Queen is more relentless than I have
ever seen her before, if not completely mad. Talk of other worlds…other fairest
ones that she intends to end…not even I know when her insanity will end.”
(Authorial Note: There was intention to bring more Disney Princesses into the Evil Queen's plot, but Livingston did not want the story to be so much of a rehash of Kingdom Hearts, so he instead opted for just Belle and Snow White.)
Diana took heed in the guard’s warnings as he unlocked
the door to her cell and freed her of the shackles that she was restrained in. With
the guard guiding her, Diana escaped from the dungeon; however, once she was halfway
out of the area, she looked back to Snow White and Belle. “Wait a sec! We can’t
just leave them here!”
“I am afraid their fates have already been sealed.” The
guard declared. “Quickly, we must move.”
Watching Diana depart from the dungeon with the guard,
Tracy grew alert from the sight. “Oh, no! I’ve gotta stop her!” She then rushed
out of the chamber as fast as the Queen’s legs would allow; surprisingly, the
Queen was quite fast when she wanted to be.
------------------------
Diana and the Queen’s guard emerged out of the castle and
onto the courtyard outside. The two escapees were just about to bolt for the
woods until they heard a voice cry, “Aunt Diana! Stop!!” They turned to see
that it was Queen Grimhilde, emerging from the castle herself with a pleading
look that Diana had found to be completely out of character for a villainess
like her.
(Narrative Note: Diana has been absent for 20 consecutive chapters before reappearing in this one. As the most important character of the story, she has the fewest scenes right next to Tracy.)
“We have been spotted!” The guard exclaimed and then
instructed to Diana, “Go! Run as far as you can! I will hold her off!”
“Wait!” The Queen cried. “It’s me! Your niece! Tracy!!”
Upon hearing that name come out of the Queen’s voice,
Diana did not move an inch from where she stood; instead she started to
approach Grimhilde with a stunned look upon her face. “Tracy?”
The guard soon held Diana back, preventing her from
taking another step toward the Queen. “No, it’s a trick!”
“How the heck is it a trick?!” Diana hysterically
inquired.
“Her Magic Mirror must have revealed information about
you…information the Queen can use to prevent you from ever leaving the castle like
she is at this moment.”
Listening to the guard, Diana realized that he was right
in his assumption; of course, that did not keep her from quizzing the Queen
just to be certain. “Alright. If you are
my niece, then you wouldn’t mind answering this…” She then asked the Queen a
question in Swahili, a language born out of Africa – a place that she knew
Joanie and Tracy had been prior to the insanity that she was involved in.
After the question was asked, the Queen had done
something that neither Diana or the guard saw coming – she responded in
Swahili. Diana understood exactly what was said to her, but the guard did not;
curiously, he asked, “What did you ask her?”
Diana smiled and revealed, “I asked what her favorite
Disney movie is.”
The guard raised a confused eyebrow. “Diz...nee…move…ee?”
(Authorial Note: Livingston opted to leave it to interpretation to the reader on what Tracy's answer is, though he imagined the answer to be Lady and the Tramp, which translates to "Lady na Jambazi" in Swahili.)
Leaving the guard to figure out what took place, Diana
approached Tracy and warmly embraced her. “I’ve missed you so much, Aunt
Diana!” Tracy said with tears falling from the eyes of the woman whose body she
had possessed.
After the embrace, Diana looked up and down at Tracy,
shaking her head in disbelief. “What happened to you, kiddo? How the heck did
you end up here as the Evil Queen?”
Tracy shook the Queen’s head in the same manner. “It’s a
long story, Aunt Diana…”
-------------------------
Tracy brought her aunt and the Queen’s guard back to the
private chamber where she revealed all of the details that followed after Diana
was imprisoned within the Snow White
realm. The things that Diana heard from Tracy sounded like something out of a
bad science fiction film, including the fact that Bunsen’s machine transported
Joanie and the Muppets thirty-three years into the future and that the “Tracy”
she was hearing all of this from was the one from the year 2010. As soon as
Tracy’s story concluded to present time (or a reasonable facsimile thereof),
Diana felt as if her head were to explode from all of the craziness that
happened while she was imprisoned in the Queen’s castle.
“Whoa.” Diana uttered. “As Joanie would always say, that
is one groovy scene if I ever heard
one.” She then looked to Tracy and inquisitively asked, “They still say that in
2010?”
Hesitating with her response a little, Tracy informed,
“Well…let’s just say there are too many to keep up with myself, Aunt Diana.”
The guard himself appeared surprised from all that Tracy
explained, glancing to the Magic Mirror and concluding, “So the Queen hasn’t
gone completely mad, it seems. Her
stories of other worlds beyond this one are true.”
“Is there any way we can see what’s going on in our world now?” Diana hopefully
inquired.
Tracy turned to the mirror and asked, “Can we?”
“The place that you wish to see…can certainly be offered
to thee.” The Mirror answered. “Behold…”
The Mirror’s face once again changed to a swirling mist
as Tracy and Diana looked on with much zeal, while the guard looked on with
great curiosity. As soon as the mist settled, the group was met with the
shocking sight of an intense confrontation taking place between their friends
and family and the Queen, who masqueraded as Tracy, in the real world. The
Queen was practically ravaging her way through the Muppet Theater, using evil
magic to hurl a group of people whom Tracy and Diana did not recognize into the
empty seats closest to the stage before focusing on the others. Sean, Kimberly,
Ciciley, and Meagan retreated into Bunsen’s lab with the Muppets and a wounded
Joanie. Upon seeing the wounded Joanie, a nervous hand went to Diana’s mouth,
signifying the horror that went through her as she helplessly observed the
scene.
Buzz Lightyear soon emerged into the scene, hearing the
commotion from inside the dressing room where he kept watch over Beast, and
confronted the Evil Queen. The space ranger gave her a warning to cease her
attacks by pointing his laser directly at her head. Robin, who was being held
under the Queen’s arm, wisely informed Buzz that it was not Tracy who he was
warning, but the Evil Queen from Snow
White possessing Tracy. Although Buzz did not understand what the small frog
told him, he knew whoever the woman was posed as a threat to everyone
inside the theater.
(Authorial Note: Livingston wanted to dedicate an entire chapter for these scenes but had chosen to depict them in summary, having felt that the story had been drawn out enough and another chapter would have focused more on the action than plot-driven scenes.)
Observing Buzz’s impressive, high-tech suit, the Queen
chanted a magic spell that suddenly caused the suit to malfunction on the space
ranger. Buzz’s wings activated without his command, and he rocketed upward,
crashing through the ceiling and ending up inside the attic. Chunks of debris rained
down in front of the Queen before she walked across and entered Bunsen’s lab.
Once the Queen was within the lab, Bunsen bravely stood before her and stated,
“Stay where you are! If you take one more step, I’ll have my assistant Beaker
set a miscalculation over the machine that will activate an ‘event horizon’!”
(Factual Note: An "event horizon" is "the point of no return," i.e. the point at which the gravitational pull becomes so great as to make escape impossible. Black holes are commonly associated with it.)
Bunsen sounded extremely nervous on his threat, and
Beaker was equally so when he meeped in the same manner while standing near the
computer. Because of the nervousness within the two Muppet scientists, the
Queen grinned as she motioned to the computer and uttered another chant that
caused it and all of the other equipment in the room to explode in a hail of
fiery sparks. A massive tremor then came over the lab as the Magic Gateway’s
chamber door again exploded outward, flying into Sean and knocking him unconscious to
the floor. Joanie cried out her son’s name and attempted to go to his aide, but
the Queen kept her from doing so by hurling her to the floor. Having already
sustained major injuries, Joanie fell unconscious herself.
An intense white light emerged from the exposed chamber;
upon seeing it, the Queen used her magic to hurl Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Bean,
Scooter, and Kimberly into it. Meagan, Ciciley, Rizzo, Bobo, and Clifford were
soon flung into the light as well, disappearing instantly. Witnessing what the
Queen was doing to their friends, Bunsen and Beaker tried to stop her by
grabbing onto her arms. The attack by the two Muppet scientists led to Robin’s
freedom from the Queen’s grasp, and the tiny frog escaped from the lab before
he could have been banished from the real world as well. The Queen physically threw Bunsen
and Beaker off of her, sending them smacking into the floor and dropping into
unconsciousness just as Joanie and Sean were.
The Queen finally focused her attention on the Magic
Gateway and uttered a long chant that consumed the mechanism in strange flames that
melted it away, extinguishing the light that was emitting from the chamber.
With the deed done, the Queen departed from the ravaged lab with a sinister
smile. Tracy and Diana watched on the mirror as the fiery sparks from the
destroyed equipment grew into larger bits of flames that scattered through the
lab, consuming the wooden staircase leading into the area; thankfully, the
flames only ravaged it partially, still allowing some access. The image of the
staircase was the last thing that they saw before the Magic Mirror returned to
its normal form – his emotionless face staring back at them.
Feeling cold after witnessing the horrifying scene from
the real world, Tracy and Diana turned to each other, both women scared
senseless. Not before long did they heard a weird noise within the chamber,
followed by the sound of bodies hitting the cold, hard floor. Tracy, Diana, and
the Queen’s guard turned to find the very same people who were sent through the
Magic Gateway by the Evil Queen within her private chamber in the Snow White realm. Kimberly, Ciciley,
Meagan, and the Muppets were all there, alive and well yet slightly beaten-up
from their rocky arrival.
(Narrative Note: These scenes fully reroute the story back to where readers began in the prologue, explaining how the primary players ended up in the position they were in, as well as why certain supporting characters were not to be found.)
Pleased to see that everyone made it safely through the
Gateway and arrived in that particular realm, Tracy and Diana smiled; however,
their smiles vanished once they realized there was no way back to the real
world for any of them with the Gateway destroyed.
(UP NEXT: Another world, another time.)
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