A/N: Jay's surname comes from Jafar al-Shadiq, a historical Jafar who was a Muslim scholar during the golden age of Islam.

Present Day: 1 Day After Coronation

"So... What do we do now?" Jay asked, during their morning meeting.

"Please don't tell me we have to be good." Carlos sighed, laying back on his bed. They were in the boys' dorm since it was bigger. He turned, watching Beelzebub lay beside Dude, purring softly as black fur rose and fell with her every breath. He'd abegged Ben to let him bring her along when he was invited to Auradon.

("My mother won't feed her and she doesn't know how to hunt. I'm all she has." Carlos had said, ready to smuggle her along in a half-closed suitcase if Ben said no. Fairy Godmother had just smiled, as if she was proud, like she hadn't expected a villain child to look after anyone but himself, so she agreed, and never once asked why he'd named his kitten after the Lord of the Flies, and how the hell had he even known that name?)

"We have to keep pretending if we want the plan to work." Mal replied, a bit snippy

She had something heavy on her mind this morning. "If your cat can get along with Ben's dog, you can play nice with the Auradon babies."

"And what is the plan?" Evie chimed in. She was noticably happier this morning, because Mal had told her Ben was interested in her. And him. And all three of them. Together.

"What would you do, if I told you we could take over Auradon? Without war, and without our parents?" Mal smirked. "Get our revenge, and corrupt a few innocent Auradon kids while we're at it?"

"Sounds like fun." Jay grinned wickedly. "I've been waiting to do something entertaining for once."

"Oh, I get it." Evie practically purred, clapping her hands excitedly. "We'll make a coven."

Jay perked up at that. A coven was a concept entirely foreign to Agrabah magick, where sorcerers were always alone, save for a familiar (Iago) and a sentient magic staff (the Cobra). His father had taught him some of his trade when he wasn't beating Jay for not bringing in enough stolen goods to sell, and Jay had taught himself the rest from his father's books when he could get a hold of them. So Mal was the one who'd first explained the concept of a coven to him.

("We need at least three people." Mal had explained one night, tracing out an elaborate ritual circle on the floor of the room Maleficent called her daughter's workshop. The Mistress of All Evil had her own, of course, but Mal and her friends weren't allowed inside. "Ideally, we should have thirteen, the most magical number.")

Carlos moved his lips without speaking, thinking of something. Jay grinned even wider.

"So are the rest of the gang coming over? I can't wait to see everyone again." Jay asked, twirling a pen almost anxiously in his fingers.

"Ben is going to try his best." Mal replied. She turned to the window, and didn't see the surprise on Jay and Carlos' faces.

"Ben?" Carlos asked, pulled from his thoughts as he turned to face her. "How much does he know?"

"Everything." Mal breathed, the magic rolling off her tongue as she remembered last night. "Besides, how would I get him to help us otherwise? Unless we wanted to spell him again."

"What!?" Jay exclaimed, and Mal heard (rather than saw) the clatter as he dropped the pen he'd been holding. "How could you tell him!?"

"I didn't." Mal hissed in reply, offended that after all this time, Jahid al-Shadiq, her Jay, could think so little of her. The silence remained, and Mal pretended to focus on the tiny little people walking outside on the school lawn, all busy with friends and dating and evil knew what other spoiled rich kid hobbies these Auradon brats got up to. All their hobbies had been born from a need for survival.

(How Mal designed sigils in her sketchbook and painted them on walls to spread their power and influence, and mark what was hers. How Carlos designed machines to sell as his only source of income, and cared for Beelzebub because no one else would, and a warlock needed a familiar. How Evie made them all clothes to wear so that they wouldn't be clothed in torn up rags, a nd brewed potions because there was no hospital. How Jay loved sleight of hand because it helped him to steal enough food to keep them all alive another day.)

She turned from the window, and gave up pretending to watch Audrey making puke-inducing eyes at Chad Charming, just in time to see Evie smirk wickedly.

"He figured it out by himself?" She asked, but her eyes and tone of voice said that she already knew the answer.

"He's more wicked than we thought." Mal answered, with a nod and a smile. "He figured everything out, and swore a magic oath to secrecy."

She still remembered last night, sitting on a bench in the school gardens, and watching the colored lights play over his face as she spilled the contents of her soul to him.

All three let out a small sigh of relief at that, and Jay shook his head, smiling.

"I'm sorry I ever doubted you." He spoke, meeting Mal's gaze with a thoroughly repentent look. "I should have known you were better than some Auradon girl, who got blinded by love."

"Blind puppy love is for the weak." Mal snorted. "If you're going to love someone, you might as well do it right, in a way that gives you power."

And a year or two ago, they would have argued with that, and said love couldn't give you power, that love was weak. But they knew now, that that sentiment was wrong. Love was one of the most powerful magic forces, and ignoring it as a source of power was the downfall of many a villain. These four were better than that. They'd use it to their advantage.

"So Ben's one of us now." Carlos mused, smiling faintly. "That changes things."

"After he was sworn to secrecy, I told him about what we do. Magick, I mean." Mal explained. "He was so eager to try, I bet he'd become the tenth member of our coven."

"A human?" Jay asked, raising an eyebrow. "Can he even do magic?"

Mal shrugged, as if she didn't care one way or the other. It was the opposite of how she felt. It would be stupid of her to say she had nothing against humans, not after everything they'd done to her mother, merely for the sake of being fae. But she hoped Ben could be different. She hoped their children would be made more powerful with his blood, instead of weaker.

"Dunno. But we can try." She said plainly. "And if it works, just imagine how powerful we'd be."

"Are there other potential Auradon recruits?" Carlos asked, and Evie smirked.

"I can think of one." The witch grinned. "Jane is the perfect combination of raw magical power, and easily manipulated insecurities."

"I was thinking the same thing. I have a little speech worked out and everything." Mal chuckled. Her best friend was always on the same wavelength.

"We basically only have one major, pressing concern." Mal continued, glancing away from the others. "What to do about my mother."

Back on the Isle, Maleficent was the only one of their parents who actually acted like one. Mal told them in quiet whispers, about how all her mother ever wanted was to be Briar Rose's fairy godmother. And how she'd been betrayed when Aurora sent her here, as if all her good deeds since putting a kingdom to sleep were for nothing. Because Sleeping Beauty knew the truth. And she said nothing.

"If that's what goodness gets you, I want none of it." Maleficent announced bitterly.

She'd embraced her title as Mistress of All Evil, and to everyone on the Isle, she was intimidating. She was vicious. She was a merciless killer. There were rumours spread about her, that she could kill you with the flash of her eyes and curse you without your knowledge (she spread them on purpose. If everyone was afraid of her, she would never have to get her hands dirty). The screams that echoed out across the Isle from her castle were known, and feared.

But to Mal, she was just mom.

Maleficent couldn't make the other villains treat their children better. To do so would show weakness, and Isle villains had a serious policy of staying out of each other's business. Maleficent couldn't use her fae magic to force Cruella to stop beating her son and working him like a slave, or prevent Jafar from whipping Jay if he didn't bring home enough loot. She couldn't make Grimhilde treat her daughter like a human being, to stop constantly criticizing and belittling her. And ritual magic didn't work that way.

But while they were in the bargain castle, Maleficent made sure they were fed, and left them alone instead of beating or berating them, which was better than the other three parents combined. She saved her private, stilted parental affection for when she and Mal were utterly alone, with no one to overhear, at a time of night when no one was likely to be looking at the magic map. She rarely showed it (too jaded and bitter by the life she'd had), but she loved her daughter. She loved her a lot.

"What about her?" Carlos asked, getting back to the question Mal had asked. "I think you should let her stay a lizard until we've properly taken over."

"I know my mom can be... Unsubtle." Mal frowned. "But we can't leave her like that."

"Wait, wait," Jay interjected. "Fairy Godmother said your mom became a lizard because of the amount of love in her heart, which we all know is bullshit."

Mal nodded. Even if Maleficent didn't love her daughter (which she undeniably did) she'd still have more love than that in her heart. Maleficent loved the moors. She loved freedom and Briar Rose (the child she remembered, not the woman she became), and she loved power and magic. Even if Maleficent didn't love Mal openly, and treat the others like her children in secret, she'd still be bigger than a four-inch lizard.

"So with that out of the way, how did she get turned into a lizard?" Jay asked, tilting his head to the side.

"It was a ruse." Mal smirked. "You all know how mom didn't really want the magic wand. There were lots of people who didn't deserve to be on the Isle, but lots of others actually kind of do."

Although, if it was Mal's choice, she'd make an actual prison, and not just a slum. She'd have guards to keep the peace and appropriate punishments for appropriate crimes (as opposed to now, when theft carried an Isle banishment sentence the same as murder and rape and malicious apple poisoning)

Oh, and Mal wouldn'thaveactual children being stored in a cesspool with hardened criminals.

Evie nodded as she recalled. "Right. Maleficent only ever hung around our parents because the four of us had an alliance."

"Well, it's simple." Mal continued. "Once the barrier was down, Mom flew over here and made a big deal about wanting the wand. I went bibbidi bobbidi boo and poof, she's a harmless lizard, and I'm Auradon's darling."

"Wicked. I love it." Carlos smirked, relishing his expression as it was mirrored on Mal.

"I know." Mal nearly purred, preening in her victory. "And now we have that incident to look back to. Anytime anyone questions my loyalty, I can point to Coronation, and say 'I made my own mother a lizard for Auradon. What did you do, Audrey?'"

"These charming, innocent, naïve darlings will eat it up." Evie laughed. "I can't wait to be famous."

"I can't wait to be rich." Jay added his own wish, elbowing Carlos playfully.

"I can't wait for you idiots to hush so I can continue." Mal rolled her eyes, but her tone of voice said she was only teasing. This was how they played on the Isle, with sarcasm and insults and thinly veiled threats. Compliments were considered weak, but jabs weren't.

"Go on, M." Evie giggled.

"So, here's the plan." Mal began to explain, sliding onto the couch like a queen, and gesturing with her palms out. "King Adam is never going to let my mother be anything other than a lizard. But will they actually go so far as to kill her? That's the real question."

"They wouldn't. They didn't kill her the first time, remember?" Jay interjected. "They put her on the Isle."

"But will they put her back on the Isle, as a lizard?" Mal asked, waiting for the others to bounce around ideas.

"That would be as good as a death sentence!" Evie exclaimed. "She'd get eaten alive. Maybe literally!"

"Ah, but they wouldn't actually be doing the dirty work." Carlos added. "We all know how King Adam likes to put people on the Isle and then turn his head and ignore them."

"So there's a strong possibility that they'll kill her that way." Mal spoke solemnly, losing her typical smirk. "There's also a possibility that she only has the lifespan of a normal small lizard now. A few years at most."

"The way I see it, we have no choice but to get your mom out of there." Jay spoke then, pounding his fist into his palm. "If we get her out of that magic cell, she can transform back on her own, right?"

"Yes." Mal nodded. "But we can't let it come back to us. We need to figure out a way to deflect suspicion."

"Like a fake! A fake lizard!" Carlos exclaimed. "That one will have a lizard lifespan for sure, so it'll die before anyone can realize what's going on."

"But where are we going to find a black and purple pet lizard?" Mal asked, scrunching her eyebrows.

"We can get a regular one, and transfigure it to match Maleficent." Evie mused. "It wouldn't be hard, not with the four of us and a magic circle."

"And with an electromagnet to temporarily block the video feed, It'll be easy as shit to make a quick swap." Carlos added, grinning. Of course, Mal thought, leave it to Carlos to know the exact high-tech way to scramble a video feed.

"Alright. We've got a plan. Good." Mal nodded, finally allowing herself to smile again. She'd never, ever say it aloud, but she really loved her mother, and was worried for her.

"We can do this. Easy." Evie smirked, grasping Mal's hand, and smiling brightly.

"Because we're rotten." Jay added, sliding onto the couch and bumping shoulders with Mal.

"Rotten to the core!" Carlos smirked, throwing an arm around Jay affectionately.

"To the core." Mal echoed, confidently. Proudly. They were the villains, the rotten four, the worst of the worst, and nothing could change that.