Ben.

Seventeen. Senior Year.

Ben knew that the transition with the second lot of VKs would be harder than the first.

There were exponentially more VKs in Auradon Prep this year. At least four in every year group, and the school covered both middle and high school age ranges.

He'd taken Evie's steer on who to bring over for the most part - the at risk kids, the ones for whom it was early enough to intervene and avoid villainy all together. The only deviation had been bringing over Uma, Harry Hook and Gil Gaston.

Evie had said they should remain on the Isle to protect the remaining VKs, but Ben saw one flaw in that plan. Mal and Uma had a rivalry that had been going on since at least the age of six. He was afraid that if he left Uma until next year, when he planned to bring over everyone else, he'd be creating the villain of his own Story.

So he'd quietly arranged a meeting with Uma. Had her brought over a week before term started, two days before the next lot of VKs were due to leave the Isle, with magical blocks from fairy godmother herself binding her wrists. The pirate was pissed at being overlooked again, until she realised he was bringing her to the table as an equal.

He outlined both options. Asked her what she would do to best protect the remaining VKs. Then he gave her a day to mull it over, informing her that if she wanted to come to Auradon, his only stipulation was that there had to be a plan in place to keep the island stable in her absence.

Uma had impressed him. Within six hours he had a plan on his desk and an assertion that she was bringing Harry and Gil with her. Loyalty. He could appreciate it.

Unfortunately, that also meant accepting the risk that she and Mal would inevitably clash.

And if he was being honest, he was more surprised that it had taken three weeks for tensions to spill over than he was at the fact that they had.

…

"Why does she always get everything!" Uma screeched, flying at Mal in a rage.

Ben heard the fight before he saw it, rounding the lockers at full speed with Carlos a few steps behind him.

He spotted the fight instantly, with about a dozen students converging around blue and teal heads.

Not that it seems to be much of a fight, he noted as he sprinted over, trying to work out which of the angry females he needed to grab first.

Uma kept charging at Mal, but every time she got close Mal simply poofed out of the way, appearing two meters away looking bored.

That meant he should probably grab Uma. But he did not think that would go down well with Mal.

"I can do this all day Uma." Mal called, examining her nails in faux-boredom.

The pirate turned and charged again with another screech. Mal poofed out of the way again the second Uma thought she had her, this time appearing behind her.

"Missed me."

Just as Ben reached the edge of the circle, Fairy Godmother poofed in from nowhere. "Enough!"

The gathered crowd gasped in shock, suddenly very keen to be somewhere else. Fairy Godmother lifted her hands in a warning, glaring at everyone with equal disappointment, "Oh no. No one goes anywhere. You are all in big trouble."

There was a collective groan, and Ben ignored it as he tried to slow his breathing. He'd probably just set a personal best, if running from one end of the school to another counted towards his stats. Carlos had appeared from nowhere to tell him about the fight, and he'd really hoped he could diffuse it before Fairy Godmother arrived to start handing out detentions. Now he'd probably be lucky to escape one himself.

Mal spotted him at the edge of the fray and grinned, sending him a little finger wave. He threw her an incredulous look, trying to ask what the hell he'd missed, but somehow, their exchange only set Uma off again.

Ben started forward, his hand extended as he watched Uma make a grab for Mal's hair. Mal simply lifted two fingers and Uma froze in place. "Don't even try it, Shrimpy."

Uma's eyes went wide in fear. Even Ben hadn't seen Mal this free with her magic before. Clearly, Hades had been showing her a few tricks.

Fairy Godmother huffed in annoyance, attempting to simultaneously tell Mal off for using magic on another student while also telling Uma off for starting a catfight.

Neither one looked particularly guilty, but there was something about the rage in Uma's eyes that had Ben wondering just what kind of rivalry he'd unleashed on the school.

..

"Why am I not surprised they sent you." Mal mused, not even looking up from her sketchbook when Ben entered the room.

"My programme, my problem."

Ben had just spent an hour in crisis mode with Fairy Godmother. The incident itself wasn't the issue - there was a degree of tolerance built into the VK programme that accounted for teething issues, and a catfight on the lawns didn't even rank on the evil scale. No, the issue was the logistics of giving detention to thirty people at once. They'd had to take over three extra classrooms and bribe a couple of teachers with overtime and wine.

Mal and Uma had been placed in separate rooms, in different wings of the school. Their detentions would finish at different times - Mal's just after Ben spoke with her, and Uma's just before dinner. Ben's job was to make sure they didn't run into each other tonight, which he was really struggling to see as a responsibility and not an opportunity to get her to have dinner with him.

Mal was getting off with one evening of detention - from what they'd been able to work out from school gossips, Mal had been walking away when Uma swung for her, but instead of retaliating she simply kept poofing out of Uma's reach. It hadn't been the perfect reaction, and Ben was sure she'd been doing it to infuriate Uma rather than de-escalate things, but it was better than rolling about the quad pulling hair and gouging eyes.

Uma would have six weekly sessions of extra goodness classes with Fairy Godmother. It was most likely going to be worse than it sounded.

Nodding to Mr Dealay, Ben quietly updated him on the current strategy and let him get back to his rooms in time for the latest episode of his favourite crime drama.

Sighing heavily, Ben headed across the room and dropped into the desk next to Mal. She was still ignoring him. He was never going to win an argument against her. Ever.

"I'd have come to check on you anyway." Ben admitted to the side of her head. He glanced down at her sketchbook and was surprised to see a double page drawing of...a harbour?

The detail was staggering. He could almost see the waves moving in the bay, angrily shifting into a whirlpool. The drawing wasn't finished yet…but was that a person at the centre of it?

Ben watched her sketch for a few more moments, and as he'd suspected, the shadow in the whirlpool slowly took the shape of a person. A very small person. A child.

This was all black and white, but Ben had a horrible feeling that it should have purple hair. "Want to tell me your side?"

"What's the side you know?" Mal tilted her head to the side, curiously, like a puppy.

She felt absolutely no remorse, of that Ben was certain. It was like she was waiting to see everyone's reactions. Like it was all some kind of science experiment she still didn't understand.

Ben sighed, leaning back, one elbow resting on the desk with the other on the back of the chair. He stretched his feet out so they were under her chair. He wasn't sure what he was doing exactly, but he was taking up the space unapologetically.

Reminding her this couldn't scare him off.

"You and Evie were crossing the quad, Uma storms up and picks a fight. You said something snarky and walked away, she tried to throw a punch and then the magic started." Ben recounted, deliberately leaving out the details. Like the way Hannah Hale swore Uma had said something like 'you don't get to be queen of the Isle and Auradon'. Or how Jilly Cricket was adamant she saw both girls eyeing up a suit of armour and Uma's necklace glowing.

Mal studied him carefully for a moment, then shrugged, "Sounds about right."

"M." Ben sighed, leaning forward and catching her eye. "Talk to me."

"Uma has a bit of a complex." Mal finally admitted, putting her pencil down and closing her notebook. She paused for a moment, then let out a wry chuckle, "Can't say I'm totally innocent because I was more than happy to make her feel that way when we were growing up. There could only be one Head Bitch on the Isle, and it sure as hell was going to be me."

She gave him the look she always did when it came to talking about her childhood. The one he described in the safety of his head as 'I'd rather wear pastels'. He knew it had to be hard. Looking at themselves and seeing everything wrong with how they were raised, and trying to be better, even though they'd never had a choice.

Mal pulled a face, "I guess you could say we bring out the worst in each other."

"And that relates to today because…" Ben trailed off, raising an eyebrow. He was still missing something here. The spark that turned this into something bigger.

"Today Uma realised that my dad is Hades. I don't know why it took so long. But suddenly, she realised I'd gaslit her when we were six." Mal admitted in a rush, her tone suddenly harsh. As if she was angry with Ben for making her face this.

"Gaslighting. At six. Why am I still surprised?"

"Because you only see the good in people." Mal snapped. It didn't sound like a compliment. She turned her attention to the front of the room, glaring as she admitted, "She tried to drown me, okay."

Ben made a choking sound, and Mal threw him a scathing look. "Don't look at me like that. It was the Isle, that was normal. And it isn't even the point of the story."

She didn't give him a chance to respond as she pushed on, the words coming fast and heavy now, "I can't swim. I started to panic. And then this whirlpool appears around me and lifts me up and dumps me back on the dock. Little help from my uncle." She cupped her hands together and made a little tipping motion, kind of like how you'd help a bunny up onto a ledge. The visual did not fit with the story.

"Obviously, we're both totally terrified because oh my god magic...so we run off in opposite directions and pretend it didn't happen. Dad catches me on the way home, tells me he'll deal with it. He appeared to her later that night pretending to be Posiedon and told her it was amazing what happens when the sea turns on you." Mal let that statement hang in the air for a moment. Ben could see it. He knew his horror was clear for her to see. Mal, struggling in the water, going under… and Uma. Terrified in her bed, believing that the one thing she should have known picked someone else.

Then Mal deflated, and something like regret passed over her features, "The next day at the playground I called her Shrimpy and told her she wasn't bad enough to be in my gang. She spent the next decade trying to prove she was, only for me to knock her right back down again. Every time. And then when you came knocking..."

"She wasn't 'whatever' enough to be in the first lot of VKs either." Ben finished, suddenly understanding the anger in Uma.

His heart hurt. For both of them.

Mal wasn't that girl now. Trying to prove to her mother how bad she was by being the biggest bully on the playground. She was smarter than that. She was brash and blunt and took no prisoners. But she wasn't evil.

And Uma...well she was now realising just how badly the cards had been stacked against her. Anyone would be angry.

Fairy Godmother was going to have her work cut out for her.

"Pretty much." Mal shrugged, tossing her things in her bags. Clearly done with this conversation. Odds were, she was leaving whether she was meant to or not.

"There's something else." Ben said suddenly, and Mal raised an eyebrow. "Why'd she kick off when you waved at me?"

"Oh that," Mal laughed, spinning to face him. "When we came over here I was hooking up with Harry Hook. Nothing serious. She just thinks I've managed to bag myself the biggest fish in Auradon too."

"What's with the think?" Ben shook his head, and then with a glance towards the door, he kicked his feet up and pulled her chair towards his.

The movement caught Mal off guard, and she ended up half in his lap. "Hi." she breathed, catching her balance by bracing herself on his thighs.

"Hi." He laughed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, "I'm not mad, by the way. But I do need to keep you out of Uma's way tonight."