What follows is more or less based on an RPsite that I play on called Time To Pretend, which began in July of last year. Pretty fun concept, and with enough characters to make a story out of. So yeah, have fun reading.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Disney. Disney owns Disney. Various characters are copyright the people who play them.

Plot: The spirits of Disney characters were made real by mass belief in them, and they've manifested themselves inside of teenagers in the near future. The kids are their own people but the presence of the characters is definitely felt in all of them. And they attend a boarding school together to control what exists within them. These are their stories.

WE'RE FATED TO PRETEND CHAPTER ONE: ISN'T IT NEAT?

There was a majesty that accompanied September at Grimm's. At least for the kids that attended the school in question. For the staff it was more of a whirlwind period of pre emptive strikes on potential groups getting ready for hazing, breaking off fights, and trying to introduce the newest students to the madness. For the kids it was kind of like going to an even more exclusive version of Hogwarts because in every kid there was a spirit. And for each kind of spirit there was a section of the school. For example, if a student had a royal hanging around inside of them of good or neutral alignment they went to the Ingraea tower and made their home there. If the student had an ordinary protagonist, sidekick, or animal friend in their soul they went to the Citomis dorm on the ground floor. If there was a magical creature that was good or neutral inside of the student they went to the Vesperium wing. And if they were a villain on the inside they lived in the Elithos dorms in the dungeons.

Some students were lucky enough to get magical powers from the spirits that were inside of them, others just had their natural abilities enhanced by an animal spirit of some kind. Most often though the kids were just as ordinary as any others, but they saw things in the world. Things that were different, that ordinary people couldn't see. And that was because on some level, in a strange way, these kids were all created out of fantasy.

But that's all background stuff. The kids attend the school. They act mostly normal; they have a good time…mostly.

Tiffany Clearwater hoped that she was going to have a good time this year. Well she hoped at the very least that she'd have at least something that resembled a good time. She was fifteen now, that meant that she was officially one of the senior students as she was entering the last three years of attendance at Grimm's. That meant that she got to hang out with the older students. The coolest kids in the school, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't a little exhilarated. Tiff was the kind of person that relied very heavily on what other people thought of her to define herself. And so as she lugged her final suitcase up to her room in Ingraea tower and tossed it on her bed, she made sure she looked her best. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a messy bunch held with a big brown clip. Her outfit, comprised of a pair of athletic brown short shorts and an aqua coloured hoodie as nice looking as her meager summer job's earnings could manage, and her stride was long and confident. She held her head high until she dumped the suitcase on her bed with a heavy sigh and ran a hand through her hair.

She wondered how long before she could escape to another part of the grounds. The lake maybe. She knew she probably wouldn't be seeing her friends until later that night. Tiff had always been attracted to the lake. She could breathe under water, it was one of her lucky gifts from the spirit thing. She happened to have Adella, one of Ariel's sisters from The Little Mermaid making up a chunk of her soul. And she rather liked it thank you very much. She could resist water pressure, and talk to fish, and swim around and never have to come up. Except for food of course. And it was awesome. She got off pretty well for an obscure character only mentioned once.

Glancing out at the lake, Tiff was fairly certain she could probably get out there before any administrative people came looking for her. Making her sign things. All that jazz. Her roommates weren't in just yet. That was good, she'd known the girls for five years, but she either wanted to see her best friends, or none at all. Slipping off her flip flops she hopped up onto her bed and was about to lie down when…

"BOO!"

"AAHH!"

THUNK.

Will Chepi had a way about her that made her almost impossible to notice unless she wanted to be seen. Most Vesperium did. It was sort of a fairy trait that they all seemed to possess. And so it worked out well when she was trying to startle her very non-Vesperium friends. She smirked at Tiff from her place behind the door with a smirk on her face as Tiff got up onto the bed once more. She'd fallen off. Things felt sore.

"Ugh. Will, you know how I hate it when you use that on me. It's not fair!" Tiff whined, nose wrinkled. Will sat down on the bed next to her, legs crossed.

"Muffin, you were just off guard because you haven't had that happen for two months." She reasoned. Will was great at that. Making things make sense, even if they were ridiculous. Her spirit helped with that. Will, fittingly, had Grandmother Willow kicking around inside of her. She was a tall girl, much more than her age, thin and lithe with tan skin and long straight dark hair. She definitely looked the part, especially due to the hippie way that she tended to dress. She grinned widely at Tiff and promptly embraced her, a tight hug around her friend. Tiff hugged back. They were in the same year and had met on the very first day. It was very lucky of them to bond like that. Though at that school they tended to stress fate over luck.

"When did you get here?" asked Will.

"Umm, got out of the taxi about a half hour ago, been lugging up luggage ever since. I never noticed how much that word made sense." She mused with a casual shrug. "What about you, how long have you been waiting to jump me?"

"Oh I followed you in just now, but I've been here since this morning. Got the early flight out here." She replied. The two of them got up. "Let's grab lunch, I wanna see if anybody else is here." Tiff grabbed her student card and locked her door, heading out of her wing and then down the spiral staircase out of the tower alongside Will.

"Seen Brick or Lyle yet, then?" asked Tiffany curiously. Brick Lemeux and Lyle Decklen were the other two members of their foursome. They stuck together like strands of hair drenched in Aquanet. It functioned well, and now as senior students they were ready to take on that populace. If only they knew more than just a handful of them. Lyle had Junior, the little elephant from the Jungle book in him, and was therefore considered a sidekick animal friend. Brick was another kind of sidekick, a henchman. Lefou to be exact. And despite what his spirit might entail he was actually a fairly decent guy. It was often stated at Grimm's that it wasn't smart to judge people solely by their house or spirit. But it happened nine times out of ten anyway. It was just the way that kids were.

Will shook her head with a sigh. "I checked out Citomis, only found Adara Corrigan and Cam Penn in some kind of argument. So yeah, I booked it out there as fast as humanly possible. And obviously, well, I'm not gonna go check on Brick." It was never smart for a non Elithos to go to the Dungeons alone until they were old enough to defend themselves. You never knew when you were about to run into a senior villain. Those kids packed one hell of a punch, even if they weren't magical.

So just to hammer this point in a little bit more, Villains are bad. But that also happens to make them undisputedly the coolest kids in the whole goddamn school. Everybody in Grimm's knew that. They didn't challenge it. They just stayed the hell out of the Dungeons, and everything was kosher.

"That sucks, I mean, we shouldn't be afraid to go places in our own school. It's just not natural." Tiff muttered.

"What exactly about Grimm's is natural, Tiffany, enlighten me." Will retorted dully, wrinkling her nose. She folded her arms. "So you heard that silly hazing rumour that's going around?"

Tiff cocked her head to the side a little. "What do you mean rumour, hazing is real." She said as they continued on their path to the cafeteria.

"No way, with the amount of magical kids we have running around Grimm's hazing would be too dangerous to take part in. It just doesn't make sense." She mused. Tiff shook her head.

"Uh uh, I was talking to Benji Harris last year, and he said to me that when kids in Ingraea turn fifteen they get ushered into the senior years with a badass hazing ritual." Benji Harris, Simba. And he acted a hell of a lot like Simba too. Bug eating tree swinging Simba, not responsible king Simba.

"Benji's lying, and even if he's not, it probably just applies to Ingraea. You know how ridiculous people in your house can get." It was true. Ingraea did have a reputation for being full of frivolous royal types. Tiff pulled a face and looked around for a second or two.

"Know what, I'm gonna prove you wrong. I'm gonna find an older kid from your house and they're gonna tell you that people in Vesperium haze too." Tiff stated determinedly as she looked around. She ground her teeth and grabbed Will's arm before she could protest, then charged around in search of someone. After about ten minutes of nothing she saw a face she recognized, if only barely, and it was indeed beneficial to her argument.

November Windsor, nice girl, tiny, wild brown hair. She was an eighth year Vesperium, and also the Fairy Godmother. And was also apparently some kind of British sophisticate in the summer months. But that wasn't what needed considering right then. Though currently engrossed in reading a text, Tiffany marched up to her and stood in front of her.

"Vembie Windor?" she sort of asked, in a semi confident way that revealed a lack of confidence in what she was doing. Vembie turned her gaze up to Tiff expectantly.

"Yeah, Tiffany?"

"Will doesn't believe that they haze the fifth years in Vesperium too." She said firmly. "Please correct her." Vembie shot both of them a look like they were crazy and set down her phone.

"Wilhelmina Chepi, does it make sense to you that the house with the reputation for the best parties, the most insane students on average, with total access to magic would NOT haze their younger kids?" she asked plainly. Will paled considerably and Tiff got a look of pure satisfaction.

"Hah, I knew I was right."

"I was afraid of that."

Lyle Decklen had a problem. The scrawny, red headed young Citomis boy was currently standing before the dormitory with a grimace on his face. He'd heard rumour as soon as he'd made it through the gates that there was hazing to come. It was a ritual. It happened to all the fifth year kids apparently. But Lyle was not made for hazing. Lyle was made for standing there and waiting it out, or escaping. He had neither the staying power nor the physical strength of the elephant that he housed. He had the durability, he supposed, but that didn't help the mental scars he feared he'd received. Citomis folk were pretty screwed up at times. He knew he was likely to get screwed over. So Lyle decided to get in, sneak up into his room, and then get out as fast as he could. And it would have worked too, if he hadn't rushed into a man wall and almost broken his glasses. His eyes bulged. AHH! Was it an upper classman?

"What's up, Lyle, you look like you've seen a ghost! Did you see a ghost? I hope not…" Ohh, okay. It was Brick, now looking frightened at the prospect of Grimm's being haunted. It probably was, but Lyle wasn't going to tell the poor simp that. He grimaced up at Brick as he readjusted his glasses.

"No, no. No ghosts Brick. Happy to see you though." He gave him a slap on the shoulder haplessly. Brick was hardly a Lefou in appearance. He was more likely to get mistaken for Gaston. Right down to the low IQ glint in his eyes. But he was good on the inside, and ridiculously loyal. So those were all points for Brick. He chuckled a little and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah, for sure. You seen the girls yet?" asked Brick as they started walking away from the Citomis dorm. Lyle shook his head. "Awww, because I went to both their dorms and couldn't find them. How're things in Citomis?"

Lyle shrugged. "I was only there for five seconds, but I'm assuming the same as in Elithos?" Brick blinked in surprise.

"YOUR couch is on fire too?" he asked dumbfounded. Lyle's eyes bulged.

"Nonono, and I guess not then. WHY is your couch on fire, and why hasn't anyone put it out?" It was typical that shit went down in Elithos, but that was just silly. Brick shrugged.

"I think Daphne got mad at it." He said with a shrug. "Or mad with someone on her phone, or you know, bored. I don't care, I ran." Daphne Weber. Maleficent. Enough said. The two boys shuddered in union.

"So hear about the hazing?" asked Lyle as they wandered more or less aimlessly down the hall. In a general forward direction would be the best word for it. Brick nodded his head vigorously.

"And I have a plan for it too." He said with a broad grin. Lyle raised an eyebrow. What the hell did this mean? "Okay, we're gonna find Will and Tiff and then we'll see, okay?"

Still a little shaky on this premise, Lyle gave him a cautious look. "…Okay…"

And so the four of them were reunited, standing and waiting for whatever Brick was going to do. Arms folded, Will gave the thug a questionable look and Brick grimaced. "Bare with me, we just have to go out into the grounds." He explained, hoping this helped get his point across.

"The grounds? Why? It's almost dinner." Lyle questioned.

"I swear to God, Brick, if this is you making a rite of passage as a villain by leading us into the woods to get jumped, we're all going to be very pissy." Said Tiff firmly. Brick's brow furrowed and he ground his teeth a little.

"I swear that that's not the case!" Brick asserted in an exasperated kind of way. "Now come on!"

So they followed him out into the grounds as the sun dipped beneath the horizon in the background. Much to their pleasure, they actually found that Brick had done well. Will nodded in approval and looked to Brick who grinned broadly in his own triumph. "I gotta hand it to you, Brickey, you did good." She stated. Brick had managed to get a tent together on the grounds.

"Yeah, I got granola bars too. We can just sleep out here tonight and wait out the hazing. It won't be that bad, it's practically summer after all." He said.

"We can't live off granola bars." Lyle muttered. "Can you conjure food yet, Will."

"I've actually never tried. But it's not like my powers really lend themselves to that in the first place." She muttered. "But we'd only be here for a few hours. Until sunrise." She stated.

"Sunrise? How far away is that?" asked Tiff.

Lyle shuddered. "About ten hours."

"So just before sunrise then. We can probably swing that." Brick mused.

"This all seems a little much to avoid what's going on." Tiff mused. The group nodded. "We're still doing it though, aren't we?"

The group nodded.

There was a quiet lull to the grounds at night. A soft summer breeze ran against Tiff's body as she lay wedged in between Brick and Will in the tent, now dozing for reasons she couldn't quite place. What had woken her up? She didn't quite know. Yawning she decided to make herself comfortable again.

And then she heard a crunch in the grass.

Her brow furrowed as she tried to place it for a second or two. Her heart began to slowly quicken in tempo as she slowly began to sit up. There was another one. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise as she felt tempted to open the window of the tent. A third. Biting her lip she turned to wake up her friends and then just as the words were about to pass through her lips…

"ATTAAAAAAAAACKKKKKKKKK!!!!!"

The tent was literally hoisted out of the ground and they all sunk together like a bag full of kittens. It shook and the kids inside of it screamed bloody murder before it was unzipped and they were dumped on the ground. Weighing in at 218lbs, standing at 6'7", with wild mercurial hazel eyes and a mischievous smirk, Angus Rex, Zeus, stood holding their tent. He tossed it to the side as from all angles it seemed people were charging at them. The kids immediately screamed and started running in whatever direction they could find.

"YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY THAT EASILY" cried a voice from the crowd and a boy in a ski mask booked forward tossing a net at Lyle which promptly covered him. "IN ORDER TO JOIN US IN OUR MIGHTY FRATERNITY YOU MUST SUFFERRRRRR!"

"SUFFER LIKE A KID WITH A FESTERING BOIL ON DATE NIGHT!" cried another in a ski mask who ran after Tiffany as she screamed and started making for the lake. None of them could get her there.

"SUFFER LIKE A KID WHO JUST ATE INDIAN FOOD AND NOW HAS TO SIT THROUGH AN EXAM! SUFFFERRRRRRRRR" cried the net boy as a bunch of his friends started hoisting up a struggling Lyle.

"SUFFFERRRRRRRRR-that was actually really good Thom-ERRRRRRRRRRAARWRRRRRR" cried the boy chasing Tiff.

"RAWWRRRRR-thanks Benji-RRRRRRR"

"GUYS YOU'RE BETRAYING THE AWESOME." Called a third voice through the crowd. It was female, and it was in Will's direction. She was booking it into the woods, presumably to camouflage amongst the trees. "GET BACK HERE YOU WILLOW VARMENT!" Magic flashed through the trees. A wild cackle came out of the woods. It was very clear that Will was toast.

Brick was booking it in the direction of the school, only to get side tackled by a short, stocky girl in a striped shirt and a ski mask. She cackled as she held him down and a second boy appeared to help her steady him. Two young ladies appeared to see what was to be done about that. One bent down to say something to Brick as he looked up at her to try and figure out who she was. No such luck, a mask. "Bonjour" she said with a smirk, squatting down next to him and poking him with something very hot. She was immediately shoved to the side by another who sent a shockwave of magic through him, paralyzing him.

"Back the fuck off, I'm in charge of this." Snapped the witch. She levitated him off of the ground much to sounds of disdain from the others. Two men, both tall, one muscular, one scrawny and sticklike started chuckling and prodding and disorienting Brick as they pulled a bag over his head. The French girl wrinkled her nose and then re lit her cigarette.

"Dawww, Brick, you're not SCARED are you?" asked the tall one, leaning in real close. Brick was fairly sure he recognized his voice. Panicky he hoped to be thrown a bone.

"Dusty, is that you?" he asked jerking his head around wildly. The scrawny one's finger's wrapped around the back of his head and lifted up the front of his mask to shove the end of a beer bottle in his mouth.

"Don't go asking stupid questions, Brickey, relax, have a BEER." And then he let it drop, cackling to himself.

Brick was scared, he knew the big one was Dusty now, but why would he get involved in this. He guessed even friends helped out with the hazing, and even though Dusty was two years older than him, he was his buddy, he was Gaston, how could he not be?

"Why don't you two stop acting like some dipshit thugs and maybe let me cart this straggler to the dungeons?" Daphne growled, dragging the petrified Brick away.

"Why don't you shut the fuck up and maybe let someone other than YOU enjoy this, dragoncrotch." Snapped the scrawny one in response with a "HEAR HEAR" and a beer bottle raising from Dusty to back up his sentiment. What followed was squabbling and magic being thrown back and forth between all the villains who could dish it out. The two henchmen looked at each other and started guiding the levitated Brick away, down to the dungeons. The rest of them would catch up later. That was the trouble with Villains, they worked excellently on their own, but it was only special circumstances in which they could really truly work together before getting pissed off, stabbing each other in the back, or arguing over how things were to be done.

Tiff was still running for the water, with an impressive amount of space between her and the rest of her house that were apparently involved. She was just about there, just about, and so she waded in, flipping the mob off as she did so. Then she dove down into the deeper parts, sighing as the serenity of the water started to seep into her. She'd be alright here. Tiffany smirked up at the surface and then…

Her wrist was grabbed. SON OF A BITCH! She found herself looking at, through the dark water, an older boy, seventeen now she was fairly sure. From her house. God damn, she hadn't thought Leo'd be interested in something like hazing. He never seemed to want to help out with the things that went on within Ingraea otherwise. Very aloof he was, or at least gruff. She gave him a pleading gesture. She just wanted to go to SLEEEP. Appeal to his paternal instincts. What paternal instincts? Triton or not, she knew that Leo could give a shit about most if not all of the girls who had the spirits of his daughters. Or at the very least they really grated on his nerves.

"No, fuck you, I win." Said Leo with a nod, and then he pulled her up to the surface where she was immediately tossed into the crowd with a yelp. She groaned as she was carried off mosh put style back to the castle, hordes of older kids running around and partying. Tiff felt something like a human sacrifice.

It was a lesson the four kids would learn over and over again. The older kids ran the show, and there was nothing that they could do about it.