Rotten to the Core

It is quite annoying when important meetings get interrupted by songs. Everyone on the Isle of the Lost felt when the wind blew the exact wrong way to bring Auradon random singing to the Isle, but they shook it off, hoping that it wouldn't affect them. The barrier surrounding the Isle cut off all magic except for whatever it was that forced songs out of people, probably as extra punishment for everyone there.

"So, anyway," Harry Hook, son of Captain Hook, said, "Uma wants a meeting."

Una, the youngest daughter of Ursula, thought for a moment before she shook her marker pen and wrote on Harry's arm, today at noon under old pier don't be late

Harry smirked and pushed a curl of white hair escaping from one of her braids behind her ear. "Wouldn't dream of it—"

He was cut off by the music ringing through the air. It sounded like when Diego de Vil rapped on his desk during class with his makeshift drumsticks. Then some unlikely bastard started singing.

"They say I'm trouble, they say I'm bad, they say I'm evil, and that makes me glad."

Well, Harry and Una both recognized that voice. It was Mal. She was going to be so mad when this song was over. Una could almost hear her yelling now. Maybe she should make that meeting with her sister later so that Mal didn't want to stab Uma any more than usual?

Before Una could change anything she felt a tickle in her throat, the kind that she had only felt once before in her life but remembered very well. The feeling leading to the only time she had ever heard her voice wasn't something she could forget. It appeared that this was going to be a group song, or at least a duet.

"Treacherous bastard, cold to the bone. Your worst nightmare, can't take me home," she sang.

Without any input on her part, Una reached into Harry's jacket and pulled out his pocket watch. She swung it in front of his eyes for a moment while she finished her verse before running off to whatever group performance she was going to be part of. The magic at least allowed her to stow the watch safely in an inside pocket of her vest. Harry would not be happy if she lost it.

There was a verse from Evie next. "So I got some mischief, in my blood. Can you blame me? I never got no love."

A group song then. Judging by the people who'd been afflicted so far, Una could correctly guess that Carlos de Vil, the last of the Rottens, was next.

"They think I'm callous, a low-life hood. I feel so useless, misunderstood!"

Una took a running leap and pulled herself onto a rooftop. She did a handstand on a length of metal that braced two buildings against each other and swung down to the lower roof of the building between them, catching sight of a familiar head of blue hair in the street below. She slid down the roof and jumped down to the street, landing behind Evie, who despite the magic managed to look back at Una and roll her eyes. Una quickly replied with a simple hand sign, her palm turned towards her, her ring and middle fingers down, and the rest of her fingers up. Since she was allowed to do that she assumed the magic didn't know that for them it meant "long live evil", or maybe since it fit with the song the magic didn't care.

The four of them sang the chorus about how they were wicked and rotten to the core while they knocked people over and pushed them into pails of water. Then they each got a second verse, proving that Auradon really hated them.

They danced through the marketplace. Mal seemed to vent her frustration by spray painting an M on a curtain and then pulling it aside to reveal the man who slept in the bathtub behind it. He let out a little squeak that was drowned out by the next part of the song.

First, Mal sang, "Call me a schemer. Call me a freak. How can you say that? I'm just unique."

Then, as if to make up for the fact that the sign language she had created to communicate with her gang didn't include a question mark, Una's verse was made entirely of questions. "What, me a liar, a no-good brat? Are we not friends? What's up with that?"

Evie's verse, "So I'm a misfit. So I'm a flirt. I broke your heart, I made you hurt," allowed her the opportunity to steal a handful of scarves while the young man she was flirting with was distracted. He was the son of one of the Forty Thieves so they were probably stolen already, but Evie could put them to much better use than anyone else could.

Carlos also managed a good bit of thievery, tossing some of the apples he'd taken over to Una before hitching a ride on a passing cart. She managed to fit all of them into the pouch on the belt around her waist. That would be breakfast for them and maybe a bit of lunch too.

He sang, "The past is past. Forgive, forget. The truth is, you ain't seen nothing yet."

During the chorus the magic decided to punish more of the Isle by forcing about a dozen other people into a synchronized dance: Analise Tremaine, Claudine Frollo, a few of the Gastons, and some children of common criminals. After dancing around with a smile on her face like that, even if it was a wicked smile, it was no surprise that Mal scraped the bottom of the barrel of working out her anger by snatching a lollypop from the hand of Harriet Hook's baby. It wasn't like she wanted the candy; it had to be carrying a bunch of germs and stuff from whatever Auardon brat had thrown it out. Carlos had once read about something called 'vaccines' in one of his magazines and, once he had mostly figured out how they worked, declared candy the vaccines of the Isle.

Finally, the music ended. Everyone who had been forced into the farce immediately turned to run away and pretend that it had never happened—Una was planning on running into Harry so that he could properly steal his watch back before she headed to the hideout—but were stopped by the one sound that struck fear into the heart of even the most hardened criminals on the Isle (though not the evilest villains): the voice of Maleficent.

"Stealing candy, Mal?" the Wicked Fairy drawled.

Una, Carlos and Evie joined the rest of the crowd in slowly backing away and letting Mal deal with her mother.

Mal smirked. "It was from a baby."

Maleficent chuckled. "There's my evil little girl. Now give it back to the little brat."

Mal complied, tossing the lollypop in Harriet Hook's direction for the practiced swordswoman to catch. Then she and Maleficent walked a little ways while Maleficent's goblins came up behind Una, Carlos and Evie and growled quietly.

Una sighed and crossed her arms, causing the black trident she had tattooed on her upper left arm to twitch. She imagined that she could feel Harry's watch ticking away the minutes against her ribs, even though it had probably stopped again. Harry was always forgetting to wind it.

"You four will be going to a different school," Maleficent finally announced, "in Auradon."

"What?" Carlos and Evie exclaimed. Una's eyes widened.

Their second attempt to run away was stopped by the goblins behind them grabbing their arms and refusing to let go. The one holding Una grunted when she struggled enough for one of the fishing hooks sewn into the leather around the bottom of her vest to pierce his flesh but still wouldn't budge. They weren't getting out of this one.

"We are not going to school with prissy, pink princesses," Mal said.

"And perfect princes," Evie added, sounding more wistful than angry.

"I read that there are dogs in Auradon," Carlos said. "Dogs are vicious, rabid pack animals and I refuse to be anywhere near them."

Since her movement of her hands was restricted by the goblin holding her prisoner, Una had to settle for shaking her head and putting a scowl on her face.

"Bring them back to the castle," Maleficent ordered the goblins.

Mal was immediately grabbed by another goblin and Maleficent led the way while they were marched to Bargain Castle, the home of Mal and Maleficent. Behind them, Una could hear the marketplace going back to its usual chaos. Even the people who paid for the protection of the Rottens weren't going to risk going against Maleficent to help them escape. Mal's gang had a lot of power, but still not as much as her mother.

The goblins finally let them go when they were inside Bargain Castle. Una rubbed her aching wrists and scowled. There were already bruises forming around the Rottens tattoo just below her inner elbow. The red marks from the goblin's fingers were plainly visible on her brown skin and even the black ink of the tattoo's two mirrored Es barely covered them. Goblins never knew their own strength. She was lucky her bones hadn't broken.

The rest of their mothers were waiting for them in Maleficent's throne room, which was also the kitchen and the laundry room. The Evil Queen was touching up her makeup in one of her many mirrors, Cruella de Vil was talking to the tiny stuffed dog head on her coat, and Ursula was sitting at the table with her legs crossed and her tentacles spread around her like a skirt. The hybrid form was another part of Ursula's punishment. It was a "gift" from King Triton that allowed her to live in water and on land—and caused her pain every day. The bottle of alcohol in her hand (rum, from the smell of it) was half empty and it wasn't even eleven yet, which told Una that the pain was at its worst today. If she had any choice she would be far away from her mother. Instead she stood next to Evie at a bit of an angle so she could watch her mother out of the corner of her eye while Maleficent gave them orders from her throne (also known as a ratty armchair that only had one stitched up tear in the upholstery).

"You will go to Auradon, find the Fairy Godmother and steal her wand," Maleficent said while she filed her nails into sharp points.

"Why?" Una signed, holding her hands out so that Mal, Evie and Carlos could all see.

"Exactly!" Maleficent said with a wink. "Easy peasy."

Maleficent didn't know Una's sign language, which was a small part Auradon Sign Language (ASL) taken from one of Carlos's magazines but mostly created by her. No one outside of their gang did. Mal translated Una's question with one of her own. "What's in it for us?"

"Matching thrones? Her's and her's crowns?" Maleficent flashed a smile at her daughter.

"I think she meant us," Carlos said, gesturing at the rest of them.

Maleficent stood and leaned on the railing that surrounded her throne's little space by the one mostly clean window. "Don't you like watching innocent people suffer?"

"Well, yeah," Mal replied. "Who doesn't?"

Una nodded, trying really hard to look like she thought more about causing suffering than surviving each day as it came. They might have more time for being evil if they weren't worrying about what they were going to eat every day.

Maleficent was just talking to Mal now. "Then get me the magic wand. You and I will get to see that and more when I use it and my staff to bend good and evil to my will!"

"Our will," the Evil Queen said. Una saw that she even looked away from her mirror to make the point.

"Our will, our will," Maleficent said dismissively. "First, I will break the barrier trapping us here and then we will conquer the world. Just you and me, baby!"

"And us," Ursula grumbled. She took a swing from her bottle and cut through the air with the carving knife from her restaurant that she held in her other hand. "Triton will die in agony."

Mal looked around to gauge Evie, Carlos and Una's reactions. There were wary looks all around.

"And if you don't you're all grounded for the rest of your life, missy," Maleficent said with a smirk.

"What?" Mal exclaimed. "Mom!" She wasn't a kid, she was a gang leader, but Maleficent was still able to ground her plus the rest of her gang. Una thought that perfectly showed how screwed up the Isle was.

Mal got tangled in a staring contest with her mother that had both of their eyes glowing green with a sliver of dragon magic. Mal looked away first.

"Whatever," she said. She tried to sound like she didn't care, but Una knew her too well to believe that. Mal was mad that she had lost.

Maleficent caught Mal by the arm and dragged her over to the broken refrigerator. While she was struggling to get the freezer open, Cruella and the Evil Queen called their own children over to them. Una stood alone by Maleficent's throne until her mother started glaring at her.

"Lazy girl," Ursula slurred. "Get me Triton's trident in Auradon. Prove to me I don't have three useless daughters."

Una meekly held up two fingers. She and Uma did have another sister, but she wasn't raised as Ursula's daughter. As far as all the other villains except their fathers knew, Uma and Una were Ursula's only children.

"Two useless daughters," Ursula corrected. "Useless your sister, with her ship and her playing pirates." Ursula gestured with her sharp, shiny carving knife. Una wished that her mother wasn't so paranoid about that knife being stolen. Things would be so much safer if she didn't insist on carrying it with her whenever she left the quote unquote fish and chips shop (they didn't have enough fish and chips on a regular basis to justify calling it that).

"Useless," Ursula snarled again. As if in response to Una's thoughts, she slashed at her daughter with her knife. Una jumped back and just missed getting her cheek sliced open with the length of the blade. Instead, the knife cut deep into her right bicep just below where the sleeve of her t-shirt ended. Blood ran down her arm.

Una didn't cry out—she couldn't—but Mal noticed her injury almost immediately. "We're going to go pack," Mal announced. "Come on guys."

Ursula slashed at her again, but Una dodged and ran out of the room after Mal, leaving Ursula muttering behind her.

A/n: Realized I should have put the massive note in the next chapter in this chapter seconds after I posted it. I'm great at thinking ahead, right? Anyway, for those of you who are worried, Jay is here. He will be a major character, he's just not in the first chapter. Or the second. It'll make sense, I promise. I hope. I'm babbling. The other note says this too. Jay's not gone. Jay's my favourite character (well, one of them), I'm not going to get rid of him. He just has a different role. I'm babbling again. For the last time, Jay is in this story.

-Cynder2013