“Your Excellencies! Our army is finished!” Charcoaline announced.
The Snow Queen and the Sea Witch stood up from their thrones, and eerie smiles spread across their faces.
“Release them from the ovens!” the Snow Queen commanded. “And line up the children. They must greet the army they’ve created.”
The witches rounded up the Boy and Girl Scouts and forced them to stand in groups facing the ovens. Charcoaline pulled open the door of each oven, and smoke filled the air. Like something straight from a horror movie, hundreds of gingerbread soldiers slowly crept out of the smoky ovens like zombies, moaning like the ghosts of tortured souls. They were tall, their bodies were burned, and they left behind trails of crumbs as they walked.
“You must be starving,” the Sea Witch hissed. “Come, have a snack and gain your strength before the big battle.”
The gingerbread soldiers skulked toward the groups of Scouts. The children tried to step back from the frightening cookies, but none of them could move. They looked down and discovered that Tarantulene had sprayed the grass with her web—the Scouts’ feet were stuck to the ground! Conner and his friends didn’t understand the point of this, but as they watched the gingerbread soldiers approach the children, it all made sense.
“They’re going to feed the Scouts to the gingerbread soldiers!” Conner exclaimed.
“That’s horrible!” Red said.
“Obscene!” Goldilocks said.
“We have to do something!” Bree said.
Conner and his friends jumped to their feet and shook the bars of their candy cane cage, but no matter how hard they shook them, the bars never budged. The Boy and Girl Scouts started screaming as the gingerbread soldiers crept closer. The demonic cookies opened their wide mouths and revealed their sharp candy corn teeth.
“Alex, you’ve got to help those kids!” Conner yelled at her. “The sister I know and love would never stand by as innocent children were devoured—no matter what kind of curse she was under! Come on, you’ve got to fight it! You’ve got to save them!”
For a brief moment, the expression on his sister’s face changed. Alex tightened her brow, clenched her jaw, and made fists with her hands. Conner could tell she was fighting the curse with every fiber of her being. Her glowing eyes started to fade, her floating hair started to fall, and the shield she was keeping up around Central Park began to flicker like a dying lightbulb, until it finally disappeared.
“Don’t let him distract you!” the Snow Queen screeched at her. “Keep the shield steady!”
The command reinforced the curse. The expression faded from Alex’s face, her eyes glowed brighter than before, her hair floated back above her head, and the shield reappeared around Central Park. However, the brief moments she had managed to let the force field down had been long enough for a few familiar characters to sneak through it. A split second before the gingerbread army took their first bite out of the Boy and Girl Scouts, a colorful cavalcade suddenly charged out of the trees.
Mother Goose and Merlin swooped onto the Great Lawn aboard Lester’s back, and the Fairy Council soared through the air beside them. On the ground below, Froggy and Rook rode in on Cornelius, while Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table stormed onto the lawn on foot. Conner and his friends were shocked and ecstatic to see their friends arrive.
“Am I seeing things or is that Mother Goose and the Fairy Council?” Jack asked.
“It is—and they’ve come in the nick of time!” Goldilocks cried.
“And Charlie’s with them!” Red shouted in disbelief.
“How is this possible?” Conner asked. “The Fairy Council were statues, Mother Goose was in Camelot, and Froggy was trapped in a magic mirror!”
“Who cares?” Red snapped. “After all the crap we’ve been through, just be glad we have some happy questions for a change!”
The Scouts had no idea who any of the newcomers were, but their flashy entrance was enough to distract the gingerbread soldiers from eating them. The unexpected company infuriated the witches beyond belief. They had come so far; they weren’t going to let anything stop them now. The Snow Queen, the Sea Witch, Charcoaline, Arboris, Tarantulene, Serpentina, and Rat Mary formed a line at the south end of the Great Lawn, preventing the newcomers from coming any closer. The other witches cowered at the sight of the Fairy Council and hid behind the ovens.
The Fairy Council, Mother Goose, Merlin, and Lester landed on the lawn in front of the witches. Froggy, Rook, Cornelius, Arthur, and the Knights of the Round Table joined the fairies and stood by their sides. The fairies and the witches stared at one another for a tense moment before anyone said a word.
“Release these children and surrender your army at once!” Emerelda demanded.
“Or what?” the Snow Queen asked.
“Or we’ll remove them from you,” Xanthous said.
The witches glanced at one another and roared with cocky laughter.
“Is that so?” the Sea Witch asked. “And how exactly is that going to happen? After all, fairies can only use their magic to help others.”
“Witch, please,” Mother Goose said. “We’re the ones who write the rules, and we can break them just as easily as you.”
“This is your last warning,” Skylene said. “You will surrender and go back to the kingdoms where you belong.”
“Don’t be foolish and make this worse than it needs to be,” Tangerina said.
“The witches are not going back to the old world!” the Snow Queen screeched. “We’re sick of your limitations, sick of your regulations, and sick of your laws! Your kind has forced us into the shadows for centuries—so we left the kingdoms before you could suppress us into oblivion! We’ve found our own world to rule as we please, and there isn’t room for fairies here!”
“You mistake our mercy for mistreatment,” Emerelda said. “If our goal was to exterminate you, we would have done it a long time ago. Your survival is thanks to our generosity and nothing more. We’ve never suppressed you, we’ve simply protected the innocent people you harm without remorse—and a new world isn’t going to stop us.”
“Then let’s settle this once and for all,” the Sea Witch hissed. “If the universe isn’t big enough for both the fairies and the witches, it’s high time we take our proper place on the magical food chain! Sisters, if we want a world for ourselves we must destroy the fairies!”
The witches charged toward the fairies, and an overdue battle of good versus evil began. Each member of the Fairy Council paired with a witch and spread out across the Great Lawn to duel.