My Golden Life

Chapter 63

At long last, we managed to sneak backstage and re-join the others who were crouched down and waiting to jump into action.

I peeped my head slightly over the top of one of the props and spotted Shrek on stage chained up. It pained me to see him like that, but what was even more painful was the fact that he had to be in the centre of the Charming's terrible performance. His acting was awful, and his singing was just as bad. However, Shrek was using this as an opportunity to totally ruin the show by making fun of him, which made me and everyone else in the audience laugh.

"Be quiet!" Charming yelled.

"Oh, come on, I'm just havin' fun with ya," Shrek chuckled. "That's actually a very nice leotard."

"Oh, Thank you."

"Do they come in men's sizes?" Shrek asked.

The crowd erupted again in laugher. Even the villains were finding the whole thing hilarious. I turned back to where Artie had been standing and realised, he was now nowhere to be seen. I looked around everywhere and couldn't spot him at all.

"Guys, where did Artie go?" I questioned.

They too scanned around, and they also were quite confused.

"He was just here a minute ago," Puss said.

"ENOUGH!" Charming screamed.

I popped my head back towards the stage and saw that Charming was losing it. The crowd went silent as he turned back to face Shrek.

"Now, you'll finally know what it's like to have everything you've worked for," He stated. "EVERYTHING that's precious to you taken away. Now you'll know how I felt."

As he raised his sword at Shrek Dragon blasted a giant fireball at it, melting the blade to nothing. I guess that was the signal to move as everyone began jumping onto the stage, and so I headed on up too. Everyone came on in such a heroic entrance; it looked really fierce, and I could tell that Charming was totally taken aback by our sudden appearance. Fiona smashed through the cut out that was supposed to look like the swamp and made her way to Shrek.

"Hi, honey! Sorry, we're late," Fiona said. "You okay?"

"Much better, now that you're here." Shrek smiled.

The audience all aww'd, and a round of applause soon followed. Despite all that was going on, they were still able to be all romantic and cute.

"So Charming," Shrek said sternly, holding his wrists out to Charming. "You wanna let me out of these so we can settle this ogre to man?"

"Oooh, that sounds fun," Charming uttered. "But I have a better idea!"

He clapped his hands, and all the villains rushed onto the stage, holding weapons. They then began grabbing and bounding people. I felt the sharp point of a dagger against my back, so making any sudden movements wasn't a good idea.

"You will not ruin things this time, ogre. Kill it." Charming ordered.

A group of villains started to advance towards Shrek, but then a massive spotlight was shone into their faces.

"Everybody stop!" A voice cried from high above us.

"Oh, what is it now?!" Charming said in an annoyed tone.

"Artie?" Shrek asked.

A smile grew on my face as I saw his silhouette jump from the spotlight and land on one of the hanging clouds. He leapt effortlessly from cloud to cloud before swinging down and landing in between the villains and Shrek.

"Who really thinks we need to settle things this way?" Artie asked.

As I expected, every single one of them raised up their hands.

"You're telling me you just want to be villains your whole lives?

"But we are villains," Hook replied. "It's the only thing we know."

"Didn't you ever wish you could be something else?"

"Well, it's easy for you to say," One of the trees added. "You're not some evil enchanted tree."

"You morons! Don't listen to him! Attack them-" Charming yelled. Thankfully, the second tree used their bark hand to cover Charming's mouth.

"What Steve's trying to say here is that it's hard to come by honest work when the whole world's against you." He explained.

"Right, thanks, Ed."

The tree did make a good point. I mean, trying to change when everyone doesn't give you a chance is hard.

"Okay, fair enough. You're right. I'm not a talking tree," Artie began. "But, ya know, a good friend of mine once told me that just because people treat you like a villain, or an ogre... or a thief... or just some loser... it doesn't mean you are one."

Everyone was so focused on listening to Artie's words. He was genuinely speaking like a king, with such passion and power in his voice.

"The thing that matters most is what you think of yourself," he continued. "If there's something you really want, or there's someone you really want to be, then the only person standing in your way...is you." Artie then pointed to Rumplestiltskin.

"Me?" he asked.

"Get 'im lads!" The pirates next to him yelled, but Artie quickly intervened before they could hurt Rumple.

"No, no, no! What I mean is each of you is standing in your own way," he reiterated.

"Oooooooh," they all nodded.

"I've always wanted to play the flute," The headless horseman said. How that was going to work, I had no idea, but hey dream big, I guess.

"I'd like to open up a spa in France," The Evil Queen added.

"I grow daffodils!" Captain Hook announced. "And they're beautiful!"

That had to be one of the sweetest things I heard, and coming from a guy like Hook was even more incredible. He looked at his sword and threw it onto the ground, and everyone else started doing the same thing with their weapons. They released us and started talking with us as well. It was all so crazy but wonderful to see everyone getting along. I ran towards Artie, and he immediately embraced me, his loving smile staring back at me.

However, unbeknownst to us and everyone else, there was one who wasn't at all happy with this new alliance, and that, of course, was Charming. He managed to break free the tree's grip, grabbed the closest sword, and made his way towards Artie, and I. Artie saw what was about to happen and quickly pushed me out of the way, causing me to fall to the floor.

"Arthur!" I screamed as Charming's sword was about to come down on him.

Shrek immediately stepped in by flinging the chains from his shackles around the blade to stop the blow. Charming grew frustrated and suddenly charged at Shrek, plunging the sword into him. A sea of gasped rippled throughout the area as Shrek dropped to his knees. Artie pulled me up from the floor, and I held his hand tightly. A look of worry and fear was spread across people's faces.

"A new era finally begins!" Charming declared. "Now, all of you, bow before your king!"

I looked over at Shrek, and he gave Artie, Fiona, and I a smile, which was such a relief for us to know he was ok and that the sword just went under his arm and not into his chest. He casually got up and stood behind Charming before tapping him on the shoulder.

"Ah-hem, you need to work on your aim," Shrek said, lifting him by his shirt.

"This was supposed to be my happily ever after," Charming argued.

"Well, I guess you need to keep looking..." Shrek smiled, looking at all of us and then turning back to look at Charming. "cause I'm not giving up mine."

Shrek tossed him near the tower, and Dragon, ever so casually, flicked her tail to topple it over.

"Mummy?" He whimpered before it came crashing down on top of him. That, my friends, was the end of Prince Charming.