Hello, everyone! Welcome to Renegades, the tie-in story to 'Warriors'. If you haven't read that story, don't let that discourage you - I promise you will be able to understand what's going on. This is a series of one-shots detailing different events that happened before and after 'Warriors'. There will be twenty-four one-shots in total, all varying in length. This story will be sporadically updated, which means you'll have to wait a minimum of a couple of days to a maximum of one month.
Anyway, I've said enough now. You're here to read the story, not my AN. So, without further ado, here it is. Enjoy!
-Writer207
Neverland truly is the land of opportunities. It is not connected to the mainland of Auradon in any way, so it could easily be overrun by someone with bad intentions and nobody on the mainland would notice something was off. What made this island also attractive, was that it had this certain element of darkness and grimness. There was the Mermaid's Lagoon, with its treacherous waves and sharp rocks. Skull Island lay nearby as well, and that name alone just screams 'evil'. But there was one other place within Neverland everyone thinks of nowadays, once they hear the name of the island. That location is the Hangman's tree.
When the villains first broke free from the Isle of the Lost, some decided to charge at Auradon and see what happened. The others, luckily, could stop them before they betrayed their position to the heroes. Together, with every last man, they traveled to Neverland. Their first instinct was to claim the island for their own, finally receiving a larger living space, that was also much more enjoyable to live on. They still thought of getting their revenge – that one thought always lingered in the back of their mind. While they were on Neverland, they could easily take the island first.
They completely surprised Peter Pan and his friends, capturing them as soon as they found them. Captain Hook had the honor of taking Peter's life. Tiger Lily and some of her tribe tried to cross the ocean to Auradon, to warn them – they had banned all electronics from Neverland – but Ursula dragged them to the depths of the ocean. Tinkerbell and her fairies unanimously decided to go into hiding, to be never found again. The Lost Boys, who were given the opportunity to join their course, refused this chance. As a response, the villains strung them up to the Hangman's tree, which finally earned its given name. They left the corpses there to rot and as a warning.
The villains decided to give Auradon a warning. Watch the Hangman's tree, they said, spreading visions of the Lost Boys across the country. The Lost Boys lost their lives opposing us, they said. Do not stand in our way, they said. The people spread this message until everyone in Auradon knew about the message the villains, led by Maleficent.
While the villains were taking over Neverland, Ursula took back the seas. Her minions quickly took control of the sea in her name, and she converted some people to her cause with the help of a little magic. Ursula herself was occupied fighting both Triton and Poseidon. Triton was killed, but Poseidon survived and left the ocean. Ursula slaughtered all of Triton's family in the seas. Ariel survived this because she was on the mainland, living together with Eric and her young daughter Melody. If she wanted to stay alive a little longer, she had to remain on the mainland.
With control of both the seas and Neverland, the only possible safe haven the heroes could have, the villains flooded the mainland. Wherever they went, the civilians let them take control of their part of the country, the image of the Hangman's tree ingrained into their mind. Every now and again, there was an idiot who dared to oppose the villains. These idiots usually lost their lives, being hanged to remind the crowd once again of the Hangman's tree.
Before their deaths, most of them would pray to the gods on Olympus for help, for salvation. Poseidon, after his battle with Ursula, returned to Mount Olympus to tell his brother Zeus, King of the Gods, about what was going on, wondering what could be done about it. the Gods had promised not to interfere with what the mortals were doing to their world. Hades had sworn the same thing, and as of that moment, he had not done anything to help the villains. And so Zeus decreed it that as long as Hades did not support the villains with some power in any way, they would not interfere in the war either. Most gods and goddesses agreed with this and listened to their King. But there were few who went down to earth, to help in small, nearly undetectable ways, to walk among the humans and inspire hope within them.
But even when the gods stayed out of the fight, the heroes could not, as they were the targets. They heard about Ursula and Hook, about the silence of the gods. They knew they were dead as soon as a villain would find them. Most of them fled their homes, hoping to evade death for as long as they possibly could. This did not guarantee their safety and more often than it, it proved to be fatal. Jasmine, for example, was running away from Jafar, who only wanted to capture here. With one ill-cast spell, a building collapsed on her and she died. Tarzan and Jane stayed in the forests most of their time, but Clayton and his band of hunters picked up on their trails. Jane was shot dead first. This caused Tarzan to go berserk. He took down a lot of hunters before he, too, with at least seven bullets in him, died. Quasimodo was tracked down in a similar fashion, being followed by some of Frollo's friends in the clergy. He made a miscalculation, he thought he could land on the roof on the other side if he jumped. He landed on the hard ground and never moved again.
Then, there were the heroes who tried to fight off the villains that pursued them. Dr. Facilier found Phoebus, who urged a pregnant Esmeralda to make a run for it. He eventually could persuade her to go and not to fight herself. Esmeralda would never see her husband again because Facilier gave Phoebus's life to his friends on the other side as a payment. Hercules himself faced off against Shere Kahn, Scar, and the hyenas. Even with his strength, he couldn't hold off the wild beasts and got shred in pieces, while his father watched from above. Eric came across Shan Yu by accident, and they held the sword fight of the century. It ended with a victorious Shan Yu and a sword sticking out of Eric's chest.
While all of this was going on, most of these heroes disappeared. Those were the heroes that fled in the first place. Some of them tried to reintegrate into society, albeit under a different name and different appearances. Others found each other again and formed what would be the first iteration of the alliance, then only known as a secret society of the heroes and their allies, to hide from their common enemies: the villains.
After a couple of months, all of the heroes had either gone into hiding or were dead. Everything went back to the way it was for the civilians. The only thing that shifted was their governor, who would now be one of the villains that invaded their land. Hook took control of Neverland, Skull Island and the Isle of the Lost. Ursula was the supreme leader of the seas and oceans. Hades only wanted a seat on Mount Olympus. Zeus granted him this seat and the permission to hang out at Olympus. Hades did not take any territory, since he believed the mortals were weak and stupid – he'd rather rule the dead than the living, anyway. The rest of the country was equally divided among all the villains, while Maleficent received the biggest piece of land.
Things went back to normal, but their fear and terror remained. Over the years, the Hangman's tree became synonymous with dying heroes, and later with dying for the heroes or a cause. Many civilians started to use it in their daily lives, telling their kids they were going to the Hangman's tree if they didn't do what the authority figure, be it parent or villain, told them to do. The children, born during or a year or two before the uprising of the villains, only shrugged it off as an idiom derived from a lugubrious tale their parents told them to scare. They did not think too much of the tale.
But the adults did, and the adults knew what happened there. The villains knew, as well as their minions. And the Hangman's tree? That tree, in which still hung the nooses that killed the Lost Boys, was now a sacred place. For that was the place where they had their victory. That was the place where their reign truly began. A reign of terror, fear, and evil.