Here you go, another chapter!
I have been quite busy recently, so there might be a slight decrease in the number of chapters I manage to upload, but I will definitely continue.
A big thank you to everyone that has been keeping up with the story thus far.
As always, please leave a review if you feel like it, I appreciate all feedback.
Don't be afraid to ask any questions, I always reply.
Enjoy!
Chapter 8: Uncertainty
Solomon had led the crew to the place they would call headquarters while they were in Auradon. Even CJ had to admit that the ruined watch tower would make an excellent base of operations. Its walls were covered in a thick layer of vines and ivy, making it nearly impossible to distinguish from a distance. On the inside, it was surprisingly roomy, meaning that everyone in the crew had a sufficient place to sleep.
One of the walls that previously separated a room from the rest of the tower still stood and Solomon had naturally claimed it as his own, not that anybody disputed him on that.
Zevon and Maddy slept next to each other right in front of Solomon's room. Uma, Harry and Gil were huddled together in one corner, and Anthony, Clay and the other two pirates in the other.
In the final corner of the room stood a makeshift table, this was the place where the crew would have their daily discussion on what to do for the day and the following days.
CJ was the only one who didn't sleep downstairs, instead opting to sleep on the roof of the ruined tower. This meant that she had no roof over her head, but since Auradon appeared to not have either cold or rainy nights, this didn't bother her.
This also meant that, while the others were loudly arguing downstairs over things that couldn't interest her in the slightest, she would be gazing at the stars.
This had become a routine for CJ. On the first night she spent at the top of the tower, she had tried to count the stars, which had always been blurred on the isle, and had fallen asleep doing so. On the second night she had simply stared at them, and it had amazed her when she found out that the longer she stared, the more stars would appear.
During the days, CJ would spend most of her time looking at Auradon from her position on top of the tower. She could not get enough of the colors of the trees and the flowers surrounding them. Multiple birds had flown up to her and had happily pecked at the seeds she would sprinkle in front of them.
When Solomon or Uma would call her down for a meeting, she would as usual stay on one of the rood beams and simply look on while the others bickered. This was one of those moments.
"I don't see why we shouldn't just do it now! I mean, we're here! We can do it! So, why won't we?" Clay Clayton loudly declared to the rest of the crew.
"First of all, because you don't make the decisions around here! When it comes to the cauldron, me and Uma make the final call!" Solomon retorted.
Clay stood up, now standing nose-to-nose with Solomon. "Every second we spend cooked up here, is another second we give the enemy to prepare! We can attack now and overrun them before they even know what's happening!"
"You do also realize that every second we spend 'cooked up' here is another second for us and our allies to prepare? This is exactly how previous villains failed in their conquest! You all just run into battle without a sufficient plan and then dare to act surprised when it all comes crashing down." Solomon spat back.
Clay's face turned red. "This is just like the last time with the invasion! Harriet said from the start that we should have attacked fast and not delayed our plans! But did you listen? No! You went ahead with your own stupid plan and now the Auradonians found out about what we are doing!"
"But as you can see, we are here. We are in Auradon. As much as the 'heroes' might have believed that they have foiled our plans, we are still on track." Solomon replied calmly.
"So, why not attack them now? While they're unprepared?" Anthony joined Clay.
"Because we want to have a little fun with them first." Uma interjected, as she walked up next to Solomon. "We want to make them bleed!"
Anthony pointed at Uma. "Isn't this the exact cockiness our good friend Solomon just warned us against?"
"Come again?" Solomon asked.
"You have this entire rant about us villains not taking things seriously and not planning ahead, but are you saying that you support Uma's idea of teasing our enemies a little?" Anthony retorted.
"Not in those exact terms." Solomon answered. "I agree with Uma that we should tease our adversaries a little, but we will do so anything but unprepared."
"Why? What could be the possible reasoning behind this nonsense?" Clay replied.
"Reasoning that apparently goes right over your head." Uma teased.
Clay reached for the shotgun on his back, but Anthony grabbed his arm and prevented him from doing so. "So, would you be so kind to inform us of this?"
Solomon walked over to the makeshift map of Auradon, which hung on the wall of the ruined watch tower they now called headquarters.
"Look here." Solomon explained. "The largest amount of Auradon's forces are gathered here, around Auradon Bay, keeping watch on the isle."
"We know that." Clay spat.
"You let him finish!" Maddy retorted.
Solomon sighed, before continuing. "To give us the best chance of victory, we will need Harriet and the rest of the army to make the cross, this will be easiest to accomplish without a horde of Auradon soldiers standing in the way. You do realize that, right?"
Anthony and Clay both begrudgingly nodded.
"We will soon make our presence known to the Auradonians. We will do so by attacking several small villages near Auradon City." Solomon went on as he pointed at several spots on the map. "This will serve us two purposes. First, king baby-beast will have no other option than to call most of his troops inland to help capture us, which will take some attention away from the isle. Second, by raiding these villages, we will force a large number of people to flee for Auradon City."
"How will that help us? What use is it to us if people flee for Auradon City?" Clay asked.
"It will be integral for the latter part of our plan." Solomon clarified.
"How, exactly?" Anthony followed up.
"That is something I will tell later. For now, I don't think it will be wise to reveal the entire plan yet, just in case any of you get captured." Solomon told the crew.
"And what if you get captured?" Harry Hook said from the shadows. "What do we do then?"
Solomon grinned as he stared at Harry. "If they capture me, which I highly doubt, I will escape. The Auradonians have no force strong enough to keep me in check."
CJ smirked from her position above the rest, which caused Solomon to throw an extremely unpleasant glance at her.
"Anything you would like to add, CJ?" He asked particularly unenthusiastic.
"Nothing, just admiring your distinct lack of humility, your excellence." CJ replied in a sarcastic tone.
Both Zevon and Maddy stared at her with fury, but CJ saw how Harry had to suppress a smile.
Solomon appeared relatively calm, until he suddenly raised his arm and threw a small ball of fire towards her.
CJ looked on in horror as the ball of fire grazed her and the corner of her coat was caught aflame. She let herself fall of the roof beam, landed exceptionally unpleasantly on the ground, and did her best to stomp out the fire on her coat.
Abruptly, she was doused with a large amount of water, drenching her from head to toe.
CJ looked up and saw Uma smiling down at her, her necklace glowing.
"It looked like you needed help." Uma said with a wicked smile.
Everyone else in the room shattered with laughter, safe from Solomon and Harry. The first had not paid any attention to her after throwing his fireball, and the latter looked at her in an uncertain way.
CJ hastily picked herself up, doing her best to keep the tears of anger and embarrassment out of her eyes. "Asshole." She mumbled at Solomon.
"It would be in your best interest to keep your snarky comments to yourself from now on." Solomon disinterestedly told her without even so much as a glance in her direction.
Feeling no need to reply, CJ turned around and stormed up the winding stairs to the roof of the tower. She slammed the door behind her, after which she was sure a few of the already loose bricks in the walls fell out.
CJ walked over to the side of the roof where she had made her little nest of blankets and pillows. She saw a small bird that was rooting for food inside her bag.
"Go away!" She yelled, and the bird made a loud, chirping sound and flew off.
CJ plopped down on her makeshift bed and buried her head in her knees. Never, never had she felt this alone, not even after Freddie had left her on the isle. Despite herself, she felt the tears start to well up and the first sobs escaping her mouth.
What should she have expected? All of the people she had joined up with hated her, and that hatred seemed to only have increased after their arrival in Auradon.
CJ had never expected Uma to show any signs of forgiveness towards her, she wasn't capable of that. CJ similarly felt no need to make things better between them.
Harry had apparently given up on trying to connect with her, something she felt very conflicted about. On the one hand, she was glad that he stopped trying to be in her life, since all he would undoubtedly do was disappoint her. On the other hand, Harry was pretty much the only person in the crew she could somehow fall back on.
She felt no particular animosity towards Gil, who was too stupid to even make up his own mind and only did what Uma and Harry told him to.
Her patience had most definitely run out with Solomon. After all the threatening, lying and violence he had put her through, she had long been ready to call it a day. She would have bluntly refused to join the journey to Auradon, if not for the fact that she would have then been left on the isle with only Harriet as company. As much as CJ hated Solomon, Harriet still took the crown for most despicable person she knew.
Both Zevon and Maddy were fiercely loyal to Solomon, far too much for them to have anything resembling pity towards her.
Anthony and Clay were both lackeys of Harriet and it thus came as no surprise that they treated her with little regard to her wellbeing.
CJ had not clashed with the two pirates Harriet had sent along before, but it was now obvious that she did not have to count on them for any sympathy points. Especially after one of them had been far from secretive about his intentions with her, and CJ had unkindly but appropriately responded.
So now she was here, in Auradon, a place she did not know at all, with all these people she could not stand, and she had nowhere else to go.
Out of anger, she kicked out at the loose rocks on the edge of the tower's roof, and again, and again. She kicked them harder each time, and each time she screamed louder. In the end, she managed to loosen the rocks on the top enough that they tumbled down the side.
"Will you cut that crap out!" A voice suddenly yelled from behind her after she also heard the door bang open.
CJ did not look back, she recognized the voice of Harry.
"They might not have heard you over at Auradon City if we're lucky." Harry continued as he stared across the vast landscape of Auradon.
CJ did not answer, instead sulkily keeping her gaze straightforward.
"You should know that both Solomon and Uma wanted to go up here by themselves, to shut you up." Harry followed up. "I told them that I'd get you to quiet down, so you should."
"Just to make life easier for you, is that it?" CJ replied, her voice slightly muffled.
"No, to make sure that you don't get beaten half to death." Harry coolly retorted.
"I wouldn't let them." CJ replied, softly stroking the hilt of her sword.
"Goddammit CJ! Do you even hear yourself talk!?" Harry suddenly yelled at her, making CJ jump slightly in surprise. "You are here, saying that you'll take on both Uma and Solomon on your own! That will be the death of you!"
"You don't know what I can do!" CJ rebelliously replied.
Harry moved closer to her. "I know perfectly well what you can do, and I know that you're more than a match for most people, but not these, sis. Have you seen what they can do here in Auradon? All I'm asking is that you don't try to have yourself killed."
"Why am I even having this conversation with you again?" CJ spat back, looking Harry in the eyes for the first time. "I believe I have made it clear that you should stay away from me!"
"You have." Harry replied calmly. "And Uma has urged me as well to distance myself from you."
"You should listen to your girlfriend!" CJ retorted.
"I do. Did you see me intervene at what just happened?" Harry asked.
"No, not that I wanted you to." CJ answered.
"Don't play games, CJ. I know you're unhappy. I can see the tears in your eyes." Harry told her.
CJ angrily wiped the leftover tears from her face before looking at her brother again. "Surrounded by people I hate, all alone in a land I have never been to? Oh boy, I wonder how I could ever be unhappy!?"
"You're not alone." Harry said softly.
"Will you ever stop!?" CJ shrieked.
"NO! You are my sister! Whether you like it or not!" Harry yelled back.
"So? Just because you're my brother doesn't mean I want you in my life! I have made this clear to you!" CJ retorted.
"You know what!?" Harry said with a raised finger. "Maybe Uma is right, maybe you deserve to be unhappy if you keep pushing away the only people who care for you. You pushed Freddie away, and then me!"
CJ rolled her eyes. "Please, you know damn well that Shrimpy put these thoughts in your head, so you would stop caring for me."
Harry raised his hook. "Don't insult Uma!"
"Who? You mean Shrimpy?" CJ teased.
It really seemed like Harry was gonna blow, but his look softened after a few seconds. "All I'm asking is that you try to make things as good as possible for yourself around here, preferably without standing in our way."
CJ scoffed. "And what would you have me do, Harry? Try to mingle with the people downstairs, all of whom would rather see me dead than alive?"
Harry paled a bit at this. "I already made clear to you that I won't let them kill you."
"But you're perfectly fine with that snake nearly burning me and your girlfriend almost drowning me?" CJ retorted.
"You know damn well it would have never come to that." Harry said.
"So, I should just accept being the group's punching bag then? What if those two brutes decide they would rather see me without clothes again one night?" CJ then asked.
Harry angrily slashed at the tower's wall with his hook. "I would hook 'em, no matter what."
"Oh, how noble of you." CJ sarcastically replied.
"There really is no pleasing you, is there?" Harry snapped back.
"With whatever stupid ass council you give? No! No, with that there's no pleasing me." CJ countered.
That apparently made the kettle boil over in Harry, since he turned around and marched back to the roof's door. "Good luck being miserable then!" He spat, before slamming the door behind him.
CJ sat back against the wall, her thoughts again boiling with anger. Had Harry actually hoped to somehow make her feel better with everything he said? All the constant bickering over how he had always wanted to help her, please! CJ knew better than that. The one time she had actually trusted Harry to come to her aid, he had again abandoned her when push came to shove.
CJ felt a lump in her throat when she thought back to the moment when she tried to protect Freddie from Solomon, only to have Harry side with that snake. If the risk would be to have to feel the pain of that kind of betrayal again, then she would never let Harry in.
With another flash of anger, CJ thought back on what Harry had said about Freddie. He had said that CJ had pushed her away. What nonsense was that!? Freddie had left her when she left for Auradon! Freddie had been the one who had done the abandoning, not her. Out of habit more than anything else, CJ again kicked at the wall of the tower.
What was Freddie doing right now, CJ wondered to herself. Everything that had happened to her after she had been transported off the isle was a complete mystery to CJ, but she could only imagine that it would not have been pretty. When Freddie had visited her in her own room, she had enthusiastically told CJ of the magical powers she possessed in Auradon, but this was now something Solomon had taken away from her. How had Freddie taken this? Would she be alright?
All this worrying somehow calmed CJ, as if it was reassuring that, even in her predicament, she was still able to care for someone else.
She knew to herself that, if it had to be anyone, Freddie was still the person she cared about most, even though she had abandoned her.
In their younger years, Freddie had been the only one to reach out to her after the large falling out between Mal, Uma, Solomon and herself. For a large part of her adolescence, Freddie had thus been pretty much the only light in her world of darkness.
However, that wasn't completely true. Back then, she had occasionally been able to count on Harry. They had often formed a feared brother-sister duo, mainly created to torment their older sister, who had always hated CJ.
But now she was snapped back to reality. A reality where there was no Freddie, no Harry, no people she could count on. No people she could call friends. No people who cared for her.
When she came to think of it, she could hardly remember the last time anyone had done anything nice to her.
Harry's attempts at making up were mainly to boost his own ego and trump his guilt for leaving her. Furthermore, CJ had rejected all his pleas.
Solomon had helped her when she had been shot up by Clay, but he only did so for his own selfish reasons. Had CJ not been friends with Freddie, he would have gladly let her bleed to death.
There had for a long while now not been anyone on the isle who had tried to help her. Every time she had grown hungry or needed shelter and decided to beg, people had not been secretive about gladly not giving her anything. The worst thing was that CJ could hardly blame them, since she had seldom behaved properly herself.
Then, to her astonishment, her thoughts went back to another day. The day Mal was rescued from the isle by a group of Auradonian soldiers. CJ had seen a few of them from a distance but could only recall the face of the swordsman she had fought.
CJ remembered how the two of them had been fighting for several minutes, while she herself knew that he was extremely pressed for time. This was the major reason why she had continued to stall him by fighting him with a dagger alone.
CJ had always taken pride in the fact she was considered as one of the best swordfighters on the isle. In her teens, she had really only always had Jay, the son of Jafar, in front of her in the pecking order. But most times when she'd had to fight, be it against her brother, sister, Solomon, Uma or Mal, she had mostly come out on top.
This only made her sound defeat at the hands of this swordsman the more infuriating. Zevon had said that he was called Archer, son of some king Arthur, and that he wielded some kind of powerful magical sword, Escabilur or something. CJ had been glad to find out that the person she had lost to was apparently some kind of mythically powerful warrior, and not some basic Auradon soldier.
Even with the cut she had delivered to his head, he had managed to disarm her and trap her. That was one of the only moments that CJ had feared for her life, when she had felt the cold steel against her throat.
To her astonishment however, he had let her go. He had told her to go away, to leave. He had not hurt her, even though they had been fighting.
Having been raised on the isle, this was extremely strange behavior for CJ. On the isle, people would hurt each other even if they weren't in a fight. Back there, it was just considered fun or a daily routine. Yet this Auradon boy, who she had never met in her life, had refused to hurt her even though they stood on opposite sides in a battle.
It had only been after she had put her dagger in his leg that he had hit her on the head and thrown her off the roof.
Then CJ felt something extremely strange to her, guilt. She felt guilty about having stabbed that Auradon guy in the leg. Even though they had been fighting, he had let her go without so much as a scratch. She had then repaid him by stabbing him in the leg, CJ now had to admit to herself that was kind of a dick move.
She then remembered how he had complemented her. He had called her fast, and a good swordsman. Were all people in Auradon so damn polite? Were all people so damn nice as this Archer?
If they were, then this plan of them would get troublesome. Because, even though CJ was a villain, she did not particularly like to hurt people who did not deserve it.
He had spared her life. Something unthinkable for anyone who has been raised on the isle. CJ recalled how he had eventually bested her, not that hard of a task given that she was only armed with a dagger, and had held his blade to her throat. She recalled how she had been unable to move her body, seeing as how the guy kept her completely immobile. He had looked down on her, and she had stared right into his eyes.
He had such blue eyes, CJ remembered. Amazingly blue. She could have sworn that they had started glowing during their fight, and that was when CJ had really had a rough time.
Was that some kind of magic that he had used? CJ wouldn't know, she wouldn't be able to distinguish magic from a tree frog, but it did seem like it.
CJ also had to admit, to her shame, that this Archer guy was very attractive. Those incredibly blue eyes paired with his jet-black hair and wide grin were easily enough to convince CJ of this.
CJ had never dated on the isle. In her youth, any boy that would merely look at her too long would undoubtedly get beaten up by Harry. By the time she had to fend for herself, no other guys wanted to be involved with her, in fear of suffering the wrath of either Uma, Mal, Solomon or Harriet. CJ did not really mind this though, most of the guys on the isle were dumb, mean, filthy, unpleasant, egotistical and unattractive.
As she grew up, CJ had seen several others pair up on the isle. Uma and Harry had had their odd type of relationship for as long as CJ could remember. She didn't know however if any of the two had ever made things official.
Solomon and Ginny had sometimes been a rather strange couple. CJ always thought it was more like Ginny pouring all her affection on Solomon, and him simply deciding whether to stomach it for a certain period or not.
CJ had also always been bugged by other girls, who were all fawning over how gorgeous they thought Harry was in front of her. Some of them had even had the nerve to ask her to introduce them to Harry, which CJ had naturally always refused.
Harry had, to CJ's own admission, always been one of the better-looking guys on the isle, alongside maybe Jay and Anthony Tremaine.
CJ herself had also always been counted as one of the prettiest girls on the isle, or so she had always heard from others. Others, like Uma, Evie and of course Mal had always gotten most of the attention though, not largely because CJ had been shunned by all of the large gangs.
"Maybe I could find someone else in Auradon?" CJ thought to herself. "Someone I actually like, and who actually cares for me? Someone who doesn't feel the need to strangle, burn or drown me like all the other people in my life right now. Someone like this Archer…"
CJ shot up straight as the pushed all these thoughts aside. What was she thinking!? She wanted to start a romance under all these circumstances!? She was in the middle of a war and she was part of the attacking side! How could she even think of getting all lovey-dovey with someone? She had long learned that in war, there is no place for love.
And even if she would manage to live through all the fighting, it's not like someone like him would ever fall for someone like her. No way.
