Blessed are the powerful, for they shall be reverenced among men."
- Anton LeVay
Ben was ten years old when his father first showed him the magic map.
"It isn't really meant to be seen by anyone outside the Isle Council." His father had explained. "But I think an exception can be made for the heir to Auradon."
(He was going to be king one day, he was going to rule them all, and the Isle was part of his domain, like King Mufasa had once said: "All that the light touches.")
"Who are we going to observe, Papa?" Ben had asked, and the king chuckled warmly.
"Map, show me Gaston." Adam commanded, and immediately, there was footage of the man himself, the man whom his father had told him about since birth.
His villain.
(The man who'd wanted to marry his mother, who'd blackmailed his grandfather, who'd gathered an angry mob to kill the beast)
The man was just a drunkard now, with a pretty, young wife, who looked frazzled beyond her years. She was bouncing a baby on her hip, and watching two more play on the floor as her husband fitfully dozed. Ben noticed his father's anger, the tension in his neck and the strain of his shoulders, the way he still looked at his villain with such hatred, even after all these years. Ben saw the shabby home and both parents with rings under their eyes. He saw the concrete floor with no wood or even a cheap rug, with empty bottles scattered around, and the children who had no toys, stacking smooth pebbles on the floor as hunting hounds barked outside in the yard. He felt only pity.
"Now it's your turn, Ben." Adam spoke, fighting to keep the long-gone Beast out of his voice as he looked away from the man who would have murdered him. "Pick any target on the Isle."
Gaston was the one his father always talked about, and that was the one that Ben was most interested in seeing. What other villains did he know of? The only one that came to mind was Maleficent, whom Audrey always spoke about in whispers.
("They call her the unseelie queen, Mistress of All Evil. She has dark magick, the kind that no good Christrian would ever touch.")
"Show me Maleficent." Ben commanded the map, and footage showed up, of a young girl the same age as him, with fiery green eyes and leather gloves, and hair the color of bloodstained blue. It wasn't anything like the fearsome woman described by Audrey, and Ben was terrified and enthralled. Her lips were redder than any Auradon girl's could be (good girls didn't wear provocative lipstick, especially not at age ten), and even behind the magical barrier, her skin crackled with golden sparks of magic.
"Stay away from me!" She screamed, kicking at an assailant. The man was wielding a knife, an actual knife, and the girl screamed, a visible wave of magic bursting forth from her little body and shoving the attacker backwards with a blood splatter that seemed almost comical. He'd never seen one in real life, only on television (and he so rarely was allowed to watch anything with such violence at home).
Another attacker appeared from out of the view of the magic map, offscreen so to speak, and brandished another knife at the girl. She was actually pretty beaten up already, Ben noticed. His eyes seemed to focus on her face and it occurred to him that her lips weren't actually covered in lipstick - it was her own red blood that made her look so alluring.
"Think you can fight me, little bitch? You and your slutty friend are gonna learn your place!"
Ben's eyes widened. He'd never heard such words before and didn't know what they meant - didn't know what was happening when the man menacingly stalked up to the girl, who backed against a wall, clutching her hand. He reached out and caressed her cheek almost tenderly, before backhanding her hard, and dragging her to the ground. Adam knew what was going on here, but he didn't want to believe it. He wanted to believe that he'd done the right thing by putting villains in one place, a prison with no wardens. He wanted to tell himself the child deserved it, probably evil in her very genes.
"P-papa?" Ben asked with a shaky voice. "Who is that girl? Is she going to be okay?"
Suddenly, their attention was drawn to the screen by a scream of horror, and a blur of blue that launched itself at the assailant. The blur solidified into a girl, desperately clutching the first attacker's knife, and stabbing the second man feverishly as she sobbed, and he choked on his own blood beneath her.
"Leave! My! Mal! Alone!" The girl screamed, and punctuated each syllable with a stab, making sure the bastard stayed dead. She was joined by the purple-haired girl, who held nothing but a shard of glass in her gloved palms and stabbed at the man just like her companion did, even though it meant more rivulets of blood trickled down her wrists.
At age ten, Ben first saw the magic map and his father's villain. At age ten, Evie and Mal fought off two would-be rapists, covered in bruises and streaked with tears, and wearing someone else's blood like war paint as the life left the criminals' eyes.
"I guess I should have explained this," Adam chuckled awkwardly as he dismissed the screen and rubbed his hair. "Maleficent has a daughter. She's called Mal, but I think it's just a nickname, because the mirror gets them confused sometimes. If you want to see Audrey's mother's villain, you must specify 'Maleficent The First'."
"I - I don't think I want to see anymore, Papa." Ben whispered, still thinking about the dark and enchanting girls he'd seen through the map. The cruel and beautiful people. Prince Ben didn't discover it until much much later, but after they looked away, the girls on the isle began using their own blood, and the blood of their attackers, to trace out a magickal circle upon the hard asphalt ground.
"Blood of my friend, blood of my enemy." Evie chanted, placing two pendants in the center of a circle above the thug's head.
"Take these amulets, and charge them with power." Mal continued the chant, reading from a small black notebook. "Make the wearer undamaged by magick and charm, make the user untouched by hate and by harm."
"By the power of blood, and the ancient ones three," Evie began the last rhyme, and Mal slammed her hands down onto the pendant necklaces, screaming:
"As I command, so mote it be!"
As the ritual commenced, several people passed by the alley. They would have passed by if the girls were being assaulted, they would have kept walking as the two were being murdered. Such was life on the Isle. As it was, witches were the scariest of all the magical creatures living on the island, and if a magickal blood circle was drawn, people walked a little faster.
As the ritual concluded, a long dark shadow was cast upon the ground, and Mal looked up, to see her mother standing there, in all her dark glory.
"Good job, my little dragon." She smiled, tilting her head to better observe the bloody circle and it's occupants.
"Evie is my first follower." Mal announced, glancing sideways at her mother, but refusing to back down. She wasn't asking Maleficent. Mal was telling her. The mistress of all evil didn't seem to mind, merely smirking, as she nudged the body with her staff, raising her gaze to look over Evie.
"You're the daughter of the Bavarian witch queen." Maleficent said airily, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, your majesty." Evie curtseyed. "I'm a witch myself, not that it matters behind this barrier."
"It matters an awful lot if you're playing the long game." Maleficent replied, before smiling, just ever so briefly. "Welcome to the family."
Ben knew his first proclamation before he knew he'd be allowed to make one. He was going to bring them to him, to Auradon, where they would never suffer again. He'd make sure of it. He'd heard the rumors spoken by the adults who gazed regularly at the magic map. He knew that Mal wanted to be a queen, and Evie wanted a prince. He knew that the other two (Jay and Carlos, both beautiful like the girls, but not Ben's type) were close as siblings with them, so they would have to come as well. He'd never separate Mal and Evie from their best friends, the only friends they'd ever known.
(Despite the fact that they're potential rivals, the beast part of him added in a slow, husky voice, and Ben swallowed it down like bitter medicine.)
He watched Maleficent all the time now, even though her daughter (and that daughter's best friend) were rarely home, and scarecely seen. But Maleficent was a good study by herself. She wasn't nearly as evil as Ben had been led to believe, firstly. She ruled the Isle with an iron fist, but that was only because she wanted to maintain order from the chaos. Ben was learning every day, and every day he lost more and more faith in his father, and his father's choices. He watched from afar as they all grew up. As Mal saw the bright talent in Carlos DeVil, and pointed to him from a crowd.
"He's mine now, Mother." She'd explained, and she brought him into their fold. He brought Jay with him, because they were always together, and Jay protected Carlos. But Mal protected Jay. She kept watch over all of them, even from their own parents. Ben thought her enchanting.
More came to join them, eventually. Uma, the sea witch's daughter, who had to fight to overcome her long animosity against Mal to become her friend again. Ginny Gothel, daughter of one of history's most infamous witches, behind the Evil Queen herself. Freddie Facilier, the world's youngest voodoo high priestess, and Hadie, the daughter of Hades, who'd been born a male, and willed her body to change through magic, even behind the barrier.
(The magic was only meant to keep the gods inside. Otherwise, with Hades and Persephone behind the barrier, no one would ever die or be reborn. Still, they weren't supposed to be able to do magic like that, even outside the barrier. The last god who'd been able to do it easily was Loki, and his pantheon was long gone. No one believed in them anymore, save the witches who followed the olde magick.)
Mal attracted magic like a flame attracted moths, and just like fire, she'd burn anyone who got too close. He would have brought them all over if he could, but his father would barely allow just the four.
"Are you sure you want to invite the son of Cruella?" Adam had asked, swallowing hard.
"Of course dad! He barely speaks, and he's very shy. He really deserves a chance." Ben replied. And Mal won't leave without him.
"Let the boy choose, Adam." Belle smiled warmly, if her smile was a bit strained.
"Darling, they say his mother sold her soul to get her empire!" Adam whispered, as if Ben couldn't hear him.
"And you believe that fear mongering nonsense?" Belle insisted. "I believed you better than that."
"How else would a mad woman become such a success?" Adam muttered, but looked ready to concede to his wife.
And so Ben got his wish, and they all came over to Auradon, Mal and the first three members of her inner circle, her most trusted lieutenants.
And so the grand sequence of events were put into place, beginning the greatest magickal work of his time. Ben, who didn't even realize the full extent of his move, who merely fell in love with two beautiful girls, and wanted to be with them. He, a human, put it into motion.
That was how it all started.