"It's now or never. Rally the entire army. We'll kill Maleficent for good. Perhaps that's the only way to remove the curse." The knight commanders and advisors gathered around King Stefan as he gave his final order.
Despite their hesitation, they all nodded and left to do their jobs.
'He's truly gone crazy now. He'd forgotten Maleficent's statement that no power on earth could lift it…' Henry couldn't help but shake his head in disappointment yet also understanding.
As they dispersed, the King of Ironmere shifted his attention to Henry, "Come with me. We'll see if this True Love's kiss truly exists." Despite stating his intentions, the tone of his voice tells Henry that even the King was not that confident in this solution.
Meanwhile, Henry could sense that Maleficent and Diaval were already tailing the servants carrying Aurora's sleeping figure as they brought her to her room.
A few minutes later, King Stefan and Henry also made their way to the same room, but just as the King opened his mouth, his body suddenly went limp and he fell to the ground with a hard thud.
Henry barely reacted except for a sigh, "Was that necessary?"
Both Maleficent and Diaval suddenly manifested behind him out of nowhere. The former barely glanced at the sprawled body on the ground as she walked past it, entering the room followed by Diaval who may or may not have accidentally stepped on the King's face.
Henry looked left and right down the hallways and dragged the body of the King inside. Some wandering servants might accidentally stumble upon the King's body if left unattended.
Inside, he simply pushed the body to the furthest corner of the room and left it at that.
Maleficent and Diaval stood while looking over Aurora sleeping peacefully on the bed. There was a tinge of sadness in Maleficent's face. She's no longer hiding the fact that she secretly cares for the girl she cursed years ago.
"The true love's kiss did not work. I already did earlier while I was in the dungeons." Henry revealed before Maleficent could ask regarding the matter. He knew she already knew that he knew what she wanted him to do when she accepted him as her apprentice.
Combined with the fact that Maleficent is in a state of mourning and not to mention, she wasn't that confident in the true love's kiss in the first place, she didn't find his words odd or that he was lying.
She just nodded her head and replied, almost in a choking manner, "…Leave us for now."
Both Diaval and Henry looked at each other as tacit understanding flashed between the two of them. They collectively nodded their heads and left the room. If Maleficent wanted some time alone with Aurora, they would gladly do so.
They also dragged King Stefan's unconscious body right as they were leaving the room.
———
Outside the room, Diaval spoke, "This is my second time seeing her sad like that…" As her most faithful servant, Diaval wanted to straight-up pull the King's head off his body but refrained from doing so.
"What was the first one?" Henry asked.
"When Aurora confronted her when she learned the truth."
'Any moment now.' Henry mentally counted in his mind.
It took a few minutes before there was a sudden noise inside. At first, Maleficent was talking, which is pretty normal until someone replied to her with a giggle, someone familiar.
Diaval flashed a look of surprise towards Henry, as if asking him if he heard it right or he's just the one hearing it. When Henry gave him the look indicating he's not the only one, they both rushed back and what they saw inside made them stop in their tracks.
Aurora was there sitting on the bed, arms around Maleficent, and likewise, hugging each other as a small amount of tears trickled down her sharp cheeks.
Diaval smiled and so did Henry even though he was already expecting this moment to happen, but he was still happy for Maleficent and Aurora, perhaps also because his appearance did not change the ending of their fate.
After hugging Maleficent, Aurora turned her head to Diaval and Henry and flashed them a pure unadulterated innocent smile, as if she hadn't just been on her deathbed earlier.
Diaval responded with a smile of his own while Henry waved his hand. The entire scene was filled with joy and optimism and would continue to be so if it weren't for the commotion outside disturbing the lovely reunion.
"Your Highness! Quick! Call the guards!"
"It must've been the intruders!"
Diaval clenched his fists in anger while Maleficent held Aurora's hand and pulled her out of her bed. Her intention was clear, she wanted to escape the castle with Aurora in tow. Or perhaps Maleficent only sees Aurora as safe for as long as she's with her.
Either way, Maleficent doesn't want to be separated from her daughter anytime soon.
"I'll handle them." Diaval puffed his chest and walked towards the door.
Until Aurora's voice stopped him, "Don't kill them!"
Diaval turned to look at her in confusion. On the other hand, Henry immediately understood where Aurora was getting at. Since she stayed in the castle far longer than usual, and with her kind personality, she had grown to like the servants and knights in the castle.
So obviously, she doesn't want to see them die doing their jobs all because of her.
Just as Diaval was contemplating her words, Henry already replied before he could, "With pleasure, princess." He tapped on Diaval's shoulder and walked past him
Diaval followed him outside.
———
As soon as they got out, the entire hallway was already filled to the brim with knights, their pauldrons locked tight between one another, their iron and steel weapons brandished and pointed at the two of them. Behind the army stood a panting Stefan who had just finished gulping a glass of water.
With his shaky finger, he barely cared about Henry's status anymore and yelled a command, "Seize them!"
The army rushed towards them together, which made the entire scene look comical as the small hallway wasn't large enough to accommodate them all. And when they all launched in unison, some quickly tripped and fell, dragging the others along with them. While others were trying to push through but were unable to do so because of their fallen comrades.
If the situation wasn't that serious, Henry would've burst out laughing.
"How are we supposed to knock them out?" Diaval asked, his grip tightened around the candelabrum he had grabbed from inside the room earlier.
Henry also contemplated the same. However, he soon recalled when he first met Maleficent. And in an instant, he had an idea.
He raised both of his hands together and as he did so, they immediately lit up in blue flames, the searing heat so intense it penetrated even through the knights' iron armors.
Everyone stared at what he was doing, even Diaval. Behind the army, King Stefan suddenly had a bad feeling about what was about to happen. Just as he was about to warn his people, it was already too late.
"I see. I understand it now." Henry murmured with his head down, eyes staring at the blue flames in his hands as it stares right back at him.
Without uttering another word, Henry suddenly spread his arms to his sides, the left hand stretching to the left side of the hallway and the same goes for his right hand.
Eyes widened and panic ensued among everyone as the realization dawned upon them.
"Henry wait, we're not suppo—" Diaval failed to finish his sentence as the entire hallway exploded into a sea of deep blue flames.
Every nook and cranny of the hallway wasn't spared. Each side of the hallway was submerged in flames including the tall ceiling. The sea of flames continued to rage forward, pulling every single one of them one by one inside its enormous body of intangible volcanic heat.
Despite being at the back, the King wasn't spared. He too wasn't spared. And it didn't stop there, the flames seemed to have a mind of their own, as they turned left and right down the hallway, rushing forward to cover the entire floor with unstable fervor, until eventually the windows finally couldn't contain the heat anymore and the glass exploded into pieces, excess blue flames escaping through the now open windows.
Only then did Diaval finally react and grab Henry's shoulder, "Henry, stop! We're not supposed to kill them!"
The flames spewing out of his palms finally trickled down to a stop, finally ending the madness that had just ensued.
Before Diaval could panic over the unnecessary killings and breaking their words with Aurora, the hallway was finally cleared of the blue flames and what showed next surprised him totally.
All of the knights were still alive, groaning and moaning, and some were unconscious on the ground but clearly still alive as their chests were heaving up and down which indicates so. Diaval glanced over them, taking note of the burnt marks on their iron armors and the scorched ground. He also noticed the lack of weapons in their hands, rather they were replaced by some sort of molten goo that they all hurriedly shook off their hands in pain.
Even King Stefan was still alive, though he was being held by his advisors as the man seemed to have passed out in sheer fear of being swallowed by flames.
He turned his head back to Henry, "What did you do?" He already had an inkling as to what happened but he still wanted to hear it directly from Henry.
"It's nothing much. You could say that I just had some sort of enlightenment. Thanks to the teacher, I finally mastered the hidden side of absolute mastery over an element." He breathed deeply, "It turns out, true mastery of the flames means I only need to burn what I want to be burnt."
He turned to him with a smirk, "Now that they're weaponless. Knocking them out would be much easier isn't it?"
Diaval twirled the candelabrum in his hands, using it like a Bo-staff, and replied not with words but with a smile of his own.
———
Back inside the room, Maleficent pulled Aurora back in her arms and hugged her again, deliberately covering her ears so she wouldn't hear the painful screams and commotion occurring outside the room.
Aurora knew this of course but didn't stop her fairy godmother. She trusts both Diaval and Henry to keep their word to her from killing anybody.
After more than 10 minutes had passed, the screams had turned silent, as if time had stopped except for the room they were in.
Eventually, there was a soft knock on the door, "It's done."
That was the cue. Maleficent stood back up and helped Aurora get out of her bed. They made their way through the door and opened it. The scene outside could only be described as chaotic and messy.
The windows were broken, scorch marks were everywhere, broken pieces of furniture were lying on the ground, and last but not least, the entire ground was littered with unconscious bodies.
"Knocked them all out. None were killed just like you ordered missus." Stepping forward, Henry revealed himself without an ounce of exhaustion on his face, his entire appearance looked as if he had barely made a move in the brawl.
On the other hand, when Diaval revealed himself, his clothes were in tatters, the candelabrum he had earlier had been snapped in half and his hands were holding each end of the bronze stick. He was breathing heavily, there were streaks of blood over his face, his own blood mixed with others.
Despite it all, there was a huge grin on the former raven's face, "Huff…huff…That was the most huff…thrilling experience I ever had throughout my entire life."
Maleficent then shifted her attention back to Henry as he dragged a familiar face in front of her. It was King Stefan and unlike the others, he was left mostly untouched, minus the balding on his head as his hair seemed to have been included among Henry's must-burn lists alongside the weapons earlier.
Henry stared straight into her and pushed the unconscious King near Maleficent's feet, "Your call, Teacher."
—————————————
[Honestly, I wanted things to go exactly the same way as the one in the film where Maleficent was about to be defeated by the guards, and then be saved by Aurora as she frees her wings and all those things. But I decided to change things a little bit. After all, what's the point of Henry's presence when small things like that would still go the way they originally happened?
Anyways, we're maybe 1 or 2 chapters away from finishing the Maleficent arc.]