“Silly, silly boy,” she said, her voice amplified by the microphone she wore.
Presuming that Charlene was in place and that Philby had temporarily turned off the fire effect in the dragon, Finn took another step closer.
“We know about Epcot,” he said. “The seat belts.”
Her face reacted like a child opening a Christmas present only to discover coal inside the box.
The plan was in place. Finn was to antagonize her to the point she’d leave her mark on stage, stepping away from the cauldron. He would keep her focused and mad, so that she would direct Chernabog, or whatever force inhabited the stage dragon, to lash out at Finn with his fire breathing. But Finn would lead her mistakenly to enter into the path of the fire—the release of which would be controlled by Philby, not the dragon—and just as the beast unleashed its fury, Philby would drop Finn through Mickey the Brave Little Tailor’s trapdoor to safety, while Maleficent would be caught and consumed—and eliminated—by her own evil plan.
If all else failed, he had the sword with which to defend himself, though he had known all along he would never actually strike her with it. The idea of that repulsed him, no matter how many times he’d seen it in a movie, or made it happen in a video game. No matter that Wayne had obviously believed it would come to that.
Finn crossed the stage, keeping the steaming cauldron between himself and Maleficent. Philby had done an excellent job—none of this was in the script. The cauldron should have been gone by now. Maleficent should have already summoned the dragon. As agreed, Finn took these changes to mean that Philby was in control and would trip the trapdoor when needed. Knowing that Philby had his back gave Finn added confidence.
“You silly, silly boy,” she retched at him. “Do you actually believe a few children have any sort of chance against our powers?” She waved a hand and the cauldron tipped over, spilling a steaming green, viscous goo that would have caught Finn’s feet had he not jumped quickly out of the way.
The Fantasmic! cauldron was always empty; the steam that poured from it was merely an effect. She did that! Finn thought.
The fairy reeled back her arm, and a fireball appeared in her hand. She launched it at Finn, who raised the sword and deflected it. The ball flew into the wings and exploded. He heard fire extinguishers whooshing as stagehands tried to extinguish the flames.
A pair of stagehands approached her. “Loretta!” the first one called at the witch. “What’s going on?”
She threw a second fireball at them. They ducked and that fireball also flew offstage.
“We have a rehearsal going on here!” she hollered crisply. “The show’s been through a rewrite, didn’t you know?”
One of the stagehands held up an outstretched palm—he didn’t want any more of her. The pair gingerly backed off the stage.
“The new show includes the defeat of the Kingdom Keepers.” She motioned toward Finn and, as she did, a fence of bright laserlike beams surrounded him.
Finn heard, “The Kingdom Keepers! Of course! I knew I’d seen that kid somewhere!” and other such remarks trickle through the wings.
Finn couldn’t allow Maleficent to hold him—it would all be over quickly if she contained him. He drew in a calming breath. The sword fell from his hand as he achieved all-clear, and he stepped through the beams without harm.
She snarled, her eyes rolling back in her head.
Finn glanced back at the sword—it was trapped inside the lasers, out of his reach. He wondered how much of this Philby was aware of. Things weren’t exactly going according to plan.
“Tricky, tricky,” Maleficent said. “That’s a new one.”
Finn had to move her, had to shift her to her left, his right—and he had to do so quickly. Any second—
Maleficent raised her arm.
BOOM! A blinding flash of white light preceded a dazzling wash of fog and smoke that rose high into the sky revealing…Chernabog. It was her spell, her show now—no longer Fantasmic!, all Maleficent’s doing. Finn had to change that somehow—to take it away from her.
The creature was only visible for a matter of a second or two. Had anyone else even seen him? But his image lingered in Finn’s thought: a horrific giant of a beast. In his place appeared a four-story dragon. It looked like the dragon puppet that Finn had seen before in the show—only it was real.
Charlene was supposed to keep the dragon up there on the platform. The one thing they could ill afford was for the dragon to leap down onto the main stage and come after Finn. He couldn’t fight both Maleficent and the dragon at the same time.
Maleficent grinned and threw another fireball at him. Finn stood still. It passed right through him and landed in the water.