Just a little forewarning and PSA.This chapter talks about severe child abuse and therefore needs to be read with caution. I do not think it requires an M rating but it is just a sensitive topic to many.

Finally, if you see that someone is being abused or bullied, no matter of he or she is young, old or even an adult, tell another grown up or the authorities. You might just end up saving a life. Abuse is no joking matter and many die from it each year.

If you know someone who is being abused, and you report it to the authorities only for nothing to happen, don't just give up. Be a friend to that person and shine some light into their darkness. You never truly know the power of friendship.

Stop abuse, save a life.

By writing this, I just want to say I'm not advocating abuse and that it's something that shouldn't even be happening in this world. In our troubled world, we must strive for peace and humanity. We must be the change that we want to see in this world. Stop looking at things that don't affect you as things that do not matter because it does. It may not now, but it could in the future. Help make a change. For me. For you. For the over 7 billion people in the world today. And for the many more still to come.

Mal's POV

"MAL! COME BACK HERE!!!" Hearing mom shout, I ran up the stairs and into my room, quickly hiding under my bed. I'm by no means afraid of my mom. No, fear is the furthest thing from my mind. The only thing is that, well, her punishments are slightly more than harsh. I remember on of the first times I got punished, and it wasn't exactly painless.

Flashback starts.

Mal is 2 years old

"Mal..." I hear mom calling me and I immediately know that this was not a good sign.

"Yes mother." I quickly scamper down the stairs and stand at full attention as soon as I'm right in front of her.

"What's this I hear about you helping a boy in the streets today?" Mom asks calmly. Bad sign number 2. A calm mom is not a good mom. It means she's going to be unpredictable. I haven't exactly faced her wrath just yet but judging from the time her minions have suffered from it, I don't think I ever want to.

I relax my posture into a slouch and give an air of not caring. "I wasn't helping the poor boy mother." I said flat out. "I was pretending to help him to make him terrified of me. You should've seen the look on his face when I started to 'help' him. He almost peed his pants." Mom didn't look too impressed.

"If you really wanted to scare him, you should've kicked him while he was already down and hurt him where it hurts." Mom explains, extremely annoyed she has to tell me this.

"Yes mother." I nod and half expect her to let me go when she pulls me back.

"Maybe I have to show you how to take someone down." She grabs me by the collar of my shirt and drags me upstairs. I try to struggle but she just pinches me so hard a bruise the size of my fist has already started to form.

Once we reach the top floor, she throws me down and starts to kick me. "This. Is. How. You. Hurt. Someone. Understand." She punctuates each word with a kick and I start to scream. I feel her foot digging into my belly and I don't know-how much more if it I can take.

Seeing her glare however, I try to stop my screams, knowing they'll only make her madder. It hurts too much though so I can only manage muffling them by bitting on my shirt. The cloth is dirty and yucky though and soon my mouth tastes like dirt.

Not soon enough, she finally stops kicking me and tells me to get up. "If I ever hear of you helping any of these isle rats ever again, you're going to have more than just bruises. Understood?" Mom warned and all I could do was stop myself from wincing in pain and nodded.

She then left to go back to her shows. While I made my way to my room. I climb onto my bed, trying to find the most comfortable position to soothe my wounds. Finally, I end up curled up in a ball. Not to protect myself against the outside world but because it doesn't stretch the bruised skin as much.

The next few days I learn to walk with the bruises and hide the pain as well as the limp. It takes a while but the bruises finally disappear after a few weeks.

Flashback ends.

"MAL!!!" Mom's getting madder and definitely louder but I'm not in the mood for a beating or punishment today so I remain under my bed.

"Where are you, you little brat?" Mom's voice suddenly becomes super sweet and sarcastic. That's when I truly know I will be in a hell of trouble once she finds me. Hopefully she won't and will forget about everything by tomorrow.

Hope's for suckers though, I soon realise as mom spots me under the bed and begins pulling me out. I cling onto the broken legs of the bed, trying to use them as an anchor but the broken beams only serve to help my mother as they scratch my hands and ankles, causing me to release them and enter into my mother's hands.

As she drags me to the top of the stairs, I blank out and remember one of the times she did some real damage on it.

Flashback starts.

Mal is 5 years old

"You're late!" Mom calls out from behind the sofa as I tried to enter the house as quietly as possible. Curse that door for squeaking. I almost got away with it.

"Sorry mom." I apologise but for whatever reason, it seems to make her angrier.

"Sorry Mal? Sorry?!" Her face turns red like a tomato and I know that I was done for. An unfulfilling 5 years of life and this is how I go. "We're villains! We don't apologise! Not to anyone! Not to anything!"

She starts holding me by the ear and dragging me up the steps. Even though my mother has possibly the smallest stature of any adult, young and old alike, on this isle, she has enough strength to rival Gaston and his twin sons.

Once we reach the top of the steps, she kicks me until I'm black and blue. I definitely also feel funny in the area slightly above my stomach. After a while, she gets bored of kicking and starts screaming at me things I don't understand or bother to understand while throwing me around and punching me just before I hit the ground, making me fly onto the walls.

I hear something's crack and the pain is so immense that I start to cry. My cries only fuel mom's flames and everything gets worse.

"You're weak. Just like your father." She sneers as she throws another punch. "I don't know how I ever gave birth to a weakling like you." She throws another punch and I start to see stars. "You're no fairy. You're a mere mortal. You can't even fly."

The pain is unbearable and she finally had enough of me. Picking me up one last time, I feel her throwing me. This time however, I'm airborne for much longer than usual and when I land, everything feels numb.

I can't cry. I can't scream. I can't move. Everything soon turns dark.

I wake up a few days later at our hideout and Jay tells me he found me unconscious on my living room floor when he came to look for me after I hadn't been to our hideout for over two days.

He says that I broke a few ribs, that he somehow tapped into place, had a concussion, which explains my confusion and temporary paralysis after what I assume was a flight down the entire staircase, and a few bruises and cuts.

He tells me I'm very lucky that I even survived and that he managed to find everything he needed outside Yen Sid's shop.

For the next few days, Jay took care of me and I had to wonder why because we're villains. We only look after ourselves, at least that's what mom tells me.

"We're partners." He says simply as he unwraps one of the bandages to inspect the wound beneath. "In crime." He continues and I hiss as he pokes it, seeing if it still hurts or is starting to heal. "And well, I need someone to watch my back anyway."

I knew he was teasing about the last part but I play along anyway. "Haha. Yeah you do. Son of Jafar is too weak to defend himself and needs a girl to protect him." I retaliate and he responds with a pinch on a particularly sensitive patch of skin. "Ouch."

"But, thank you." I tell him as he finishes checking the wound and sits beside me on the couch that has temporarily become my bed. "Don't tell anyone I said that though. I'll deny it and turn the tables to make it sound like you said it."

Jay nodded and started getting ready to leave as it was going to be nightfall soon. Once he left and I was alone in the darkness, something kept replaying itself in my mind...

I owe you my life.

Flashback ends.

The pain in my ribs and chest is immense as she continues kicking and punching. Each blow knocks the wind out of my lungs and I find myself struggling to breathe. I don't cry though. It only makes her angrier and I don't think I'm actually capable of crying. I haven't cried ever since that fateful day almost five years ago.

Flashback starts.

Mal is 7 years old

"Stealing candy Mal? I'm so disappointed." I hear mom behind me and slightly gasp because mom never leaves her castle. Ever. Unless it was something important.

"It was from a baby." I tell her, hoping it would soothe or reduce her disappointment. Everyone knows she hates babies so the best way to get on her 'good' side is by doing something to or hurting them in anyway.

"That's my nasty little girl." The way she says it makes it sound so horribly fake and she takes the candy, does despicable things to it, and returns it to the baby. "Give it backto the dreadful creature."

As soon as her minions turn, she gives me a stern look. "Mom!" I was going to eat that. I tell her straight forward, not whining because knelt prissy pink princesses whine, not villains, and especially not me.

"It's the deets Mal that makes the difference between mean and truly evil!" She raises her voice slightly at the end as she calls out to the mother and her child as they quickly walk away.

Her face quickly turns into one of reminiscing and I'm forced to sit through her same speech again. "When I was your age, I was cursing entire kingdoms." She recites. She does this so often by the time I was two, I could quote her word for word.

"Yeah well! It's not exactly like I have the chance to on this forsaken isle!" I burst out, shocking mom and obviously making her mad. I was just so tired of hearing her complaints about it though and just ignore her, continuing my rant.

"I don't have any magic on this isle so excuse me mother of I can't curse any kingdoms or poison kings or kidnap princesses. I'm sorry that I'm not the perfect girl you wanted nor am I ever good enough for you!" I yell and as I do, my chest feels lighter and I feel freer, although I can't stop my heart from beating so fast at the thought of how much trouble I was going to be in. Now I don't care though and just want to let everything go.

Finally she snaps and a huge evil grin breaks out on her face. She put an arm over my shoulder in a moment of 'affection' when she was literally trying to squeeze my neck at the nerve endings. "You. Walk with me." She chuckles and begins to lead (half drag) me away and back to our home.

Once we do, the adrenaline has gone. I'm not scared by any means though. She's my mom. I have her blood running in my veins. The only reason I am weaker than her is because of my human father. He was such a weakling I mean who abandons a baby-

Mom slams the door but I don't jump, villains aren't afraid, they make others afraid. "You are a disgrace to me and to the whole family." She growls.

I smirk at that. "I thought you wanted me to be a disgrace!" I shoot back at her and I watch as her face grew redder, chest started to heave faster and her hands clenched and unclenched themselves at an uneven rate. Without thinking, I ran. I ran to my room and locked the door shut, thinking she wouldn't get in.

I underestimate her though and she burst through it splinters and all. I try to jump out through the window but to no avail, she holds me by my ear and drags me through the door, the splinters from the now broken door tearing up my clothes and bare skin. Blood lines my entire body. I try not to scream in agony.

She drops me in the hallway and looks around for something to use as a weapon. Her eyes finally set sight on one of the broken bottles her dumb henchmen have left behind. She then approaches me. The glint in her eyes matching the sparkle of the broken emerald bottle.

Like an artist perfecting her craft, she draws lines on me, painting my porcelain skin with crimson red, making my entire body look like a delicate chinese portrait.

I can't hold it in anymore. The sight of all the blood makes me start to feel lightheaded and I cry and scream. My screams seem to agitate mom more and she stops her artwork. Putting aside the broken bottle, she crouched down beside me and took my left arm in her hands.

She gently strokes it like a mother would stroke a newborn baby before the force on it grows stronger and she breaks it in half. The pain is unbearable and I scream louder as tears continued to paint my face.

Mom wasn't satisfied though and went on to my legs. She repeated the same process she used for my arm. I try not to scream but as I see the white ivory bone in the midst of bloody red flesh, I panic.

Deciding that she's inflicted enough pain to my extremities, she decides to focus on her favourite spot, the torso. She continues to kick and punch until I stop crying, not because I was becoming unconscious but because I had no tears left to cry.

Finally when I was no longer crying or screaming, my left, saying "You're a villain. Villains don't cry. Not for anyone or anything."

Once she left, I drag myself into my room and lie on the bed, wishing for death to claim me soon. It doesn't happen however as I wake up each morning and wonder how in the isle I survived the night while others didn't.

From there, I learn to take care of my own wounds including breaks and splinters and cuts. It took a long time and was tiring at first but with Jay's help, that came in the form of window deliveries because he was too afraid to use the front door, I manage to heal.

Flashback ends.

As time passes, the pain increases by hundredfold. It consumes my entire body like fire to a corpse. But I don't cry. I don't scream. Maybe if I don't, mom will stop soon.

She does stop soon, but only because she got bored and felt like her knuckles were being bruised. So she grabbed my foot and started taking me downstairs. I try to hold my head up as we go down the stairs to avoid hitting it against the steps. It is inevitable however and I soon see stars.

Once we reach the bottom, she throws me around a little, making me crash into objects, breaking them and decorating my entire body in sprays of glass and splinters of various objects.

Finally deciding she was bored, she kicks me a few more times before throwing me out of the house and leaving me on the streets. If I survive until tomorrow, I can return home. But if I don't, then she'll see me in hell.

Hearing the door shut firmly, I stagger to get up. As I move, the wounds ache and my skin is pulled but I don't say or make any sound. I then limp towards the hideout that will be my refuge for the night and next few nights.

Hades' POV

Panic tells me how Mal looked today, all bruised and beaten up. Shards of glass and splinters of wood stuck in her hair, beads of blood forming and running down her arms, making her look like the most terrifying girl in the world and the worst part if it all, she had a stoic face as if it didn't hurt her at all.

It's times like this when I truly doubt my decision of leaving her alone with her lunatic of a mother. It was something that had to be done however as I know under my care, she probably wouldn't have lived past a couple years old. Like Maleficent says, I would have made her weak.

I sigh as I sit in my chair and shoo Panic to continue watching over my girl. My poor strong little baby girl. I wish I could give you the life you deserve, far away from this place because the isle is no place for the princess of the underworld, not that you even know you are.

I slump in my chair. I miss my baby everyday and it breaks my heart that I don't get to watch her grow up. Listening to her day however helps a little and I can't imagine how strong she is to endure her mother's brutal beatings.

She's so strong. So brave. And I wish I could be with her. To tell her I love her.

That's it for now. I hope you enjoyed these two chapters.

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