Mickey's Halfway House

Into the Café

Maleficent hated Café nights.

A whole evening of failed careers wallowing in a bar with nothing stronger than Fairy Nectar to down the humiliation with? Certainly, it was not a place for the Mistress of Evil! She'd have never placed a claw in such a depressing place if it wasn't for Jiminy Cricket's rehabilitation program. The little insect had the bright idea to force all the villains to undergo "moral sensitivity training," as he called it. Very likely - the bug must have figured that no one actually read the books they were sent. It was easy enough to annihilate them in a blaze, but she had no choice about the annual Café Nights. Skipping one meant being sent back to the way she was at her moment of defeat. However much bile came to her lips at the thought of the café, she liked being a pile of ash even less.

When arriving at the café, she met the Ace of Hearts standing guard. Rotten traitor had betrayed the queen in exchange for the position and probation. If it weren't for the steep penalties she would surely recieve, Maleficent would have taken the Ace's head herself.

The Ace must have sensed the fairy's loathing, for he wouldn't stop trembling as she approached. "I-identity please - " the card stammered.

Maleficent cut him off with a rolling of her yellow eyes. "You are quite daft," she snarked as she showed the card that had been sent to her the week before. It showed her picture followed by the words: "December 2023. Maleficent, former Mistress of Evil: You have been invited - "

The rest had scorched off in the fury that followed once Maleficent had read those words. Not that it mattered - she knew the drill.

The Ace shrunk to the side, and before Maleficent entered the café, she stood over the card and declared, "You should know - I am still the Mistress of Evil!"

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The Mistress of Evil stormed into the foyer, passing under the sign with the words "Mickey's Halfway House" painted in now-fading acrylic. At the host stand sat the sorceress Yzma with her face buried in a magazine.

"Is that enrichment from the outside?" Maleficent demanded upon seeing reading material other than Jiminy Cricket's awful books.

Yzma ignored the Evil fairy long enough to finish a paragraph, then looked up into a yellow glare. "My holiday allowance, dear," she replied. "That Ace really is a simpleton, you know. I easily snuck this in."

"Ah." Maleficent pressed the magazine against the stand when Yzma tried to resume her article. "Say, Yzma, why do you suppose Café Night was a month late this year?"

Yzma scowled at the Evil fairy but didn't resist. "Beats me. It might have been so the newcomer would be able to attend."

"Did you just say newcomer?" Maleficent inquired. It had been some time since the café had a new villain.

"Yes, apparently he arrived just last month," Yzma replied with a shrug. "But it was probably too soon for him anyway; he seemed out of his wits when he arrived earlier."

Then I shall have to meet him and give a demonstration on how things work around here, the Evil fairy pondered. Then aloud to Yzma: "Never mind that - I request my regular booth tonight."

Yzma shook her head. "That's too bad, because someone has already taken it."

Maleficent's eyes flared. "What?! And who is it who dares to be so insolent as to take what I have for decades established as mine?!"