Prologue

Before she had awoken all Maleficent was trapped within a void that could only have been death. A place where light nor time existed and where she could feel, hear and see nothing. Maleficent had then known without a doubt that she was dead.

Then when she had suddenly been jolted by an influx of senses and cascading light did she realize that she had once again been brought back to life. At the time, the how and the why hadn't mattered, instead Maleficent had been filled with thoughts of revenge and of domination. Maleficent was going to make her way back to Auroria and raze it to the ground. She was going to track down each of those who had wronged her and deal upon them a fate far worse than anything they could ever imagine. She would track down the prince who had slain her and show him a slow and agonizing death. She would find the traitor King Stefan and relieve him of his limbs like he had done to her wings a long time ago. Finally, she would locate the young Sleeping Beauty and have her watch as the dark fairy burned her beloved Auroria to the ground before showing Aurora the meaning of an eternal rest.

Yet, as she would quickly find, these dreams of grandeur and of evil would not come to pass as soon as the dark fairy had imagined. Maleficent would learn of the true reason she had been brought back to life, to live out a pain worse than death, a life of without magic and trapped with all the imbeciles that thought they could carry the name villain.

For the first few days, every wretched person on the island attempted magic or set off explosions and tried all they could to get their way off the island. Yet nothing they could try worked and even the likes of Maleficent made no real leeway. It began to set in that the villains may be on the Isle of the Lost for a long time. The more cunning villains realized that it was time for a power grab and Maleficent and many other villains of true villainous claim began to fight for power. In the shadows, many of them continued to look for their way off the island. The Lost War, as it would be dubbed by many of the island's youth nearly 20 years later, was brutal, bloody and brought even some of the island's toughest residents to their knees. When the dust settled, Maleficent came out on top, feared and begrudgingly respected by the villains and petty criminals that had been cast on the island. Only the people that survived. Maleficent was the Mistress of Evil, Ruler of the Isle of the Lost. Others called her the Blood Crowned Queen, a ruler who killed those who stepped out of line...

Maleficent's victory was not absolute, she was challenged constantly whether in the shadows or in public. Those who openly challenged the fairy eventually faded away… Some tried to poison her even using iron, the material was fatal to the pure-blooded fae, and yet others opted for more direct routes. Trust no one... Eventually, Maleficent staked her claim on the building known as Bargain Castle and secluded herself from the rest of the Isle of the Lost. The Mistress of Evil turned her focus to the land known as Auradon.

It would be 4 years since King Beast had trapped the villains on the Isle of the Lost, when Maleficent had finally found her way out.

You see, Fairy Godmother had used her wand not only to trap the villains on the Island, but to prevent the use of the dark magic that many of the island's residents were famed for. That did not limit the death and destruction left in their wake... At first prospects of escape had seemed bleak, even to as powerful of a dark sorceress as Maleficent herself. Regardless, this did not dissuade the dark fairy, after all magic was all about loopholes and all she had to do was to find one.

It quickly came to the attention of the Maleficent that the barrier did in fact have a major flaw in it. Most magic users, such as the Evil Queen or the sea witch Ursula, draw from the magic in the existing natural world and the which surrounded the isle cut the villains off from accessing these magics. However, there are other types of magic users, magic users such as the genies and the fae, who's magic comes not from the surrounding world but from within. Maleficent was of the fae, she knew the feeling of the magic within her blood. She knew what the faint hum that festered beneath her skin meant. An ever-present feeling that had only been silenced by her brief time in the black void that existed as death. It had not yet been three months since she had first awoken on the island when Maleficent knew that the barrier did not destroy the magic existing within her.

Maleficent knew that while the magic still existed, she needed to find a way to access. She could no longer draw upon the reserves of power that resided deep within her blood like she had been able to in her prime. It would seem that the barrier did in fact do its job. The magic did certainly still exist within her and yet no amount of spells or chanting could bring it to the surface. Her first few days on the Isle of the Lost had proved that well enough. Maleficent ventured across the Isle of the Lost, searching for a way to unleash the magic that was beneath the veins of many on the island. The evil sorceress tried blood magic and even the arts of necromancy. She did not care for the lives lost…

It was only after two years of searching passed that the answer became clear to Maleficent. The dark fairy had been taking one of her rare trips outside of Bargain Castle and when she stumbled across the answer. Abandoned, on the side of the road, lay a young child. Child, more like an infant, the villains had only been on the island for two and a half years. The fairy did not care for the child's life, only for her own gain… In more recent years, there had been a baby boom on the island and even some of the most devious villains were settling more like marking territories and having children. Not all intentionally, few cared for the children, the thieves and sidekicks, most saw them as servants or means to an end, like the

Tremaines and Mother Gothel, others did not care for them… Even Jafar was expecting a child, he insisted it was a boy, in about 8 months.

It was in this moment that Maleficent remembered a long forgotten moment from her youth among other fae. In that memory she was present for the birth of another fae, a moment of pure joy and of magic. Magic and the Fae are so wholly intertwined that when a Fae is born, the inner magics of the child are released in a burst of pure power. A child was the Maleficent's key to getting off the island. She only saw her child as a means to an end. Useful up to their birth… There was only one problem, the barrier was a truly powerful piece of magic and it would take nothing short of the birth of a full-blooded fae to generate that kind of power. There were no other fae on the Isle, Maleficent had made sure of that….

I wouldn't be until about 9 months later, when Maleficent finally cracked the last piece of the puzzle. Maleficent had been traveling the isle, searching for a being of great magical energy to create a child with enough power to break the barrier. She had already ruled out Genies, their magic was tied to wishes, and humans and witches had been out of the question by design. But one day, as she went and collected food from the barges sent by Auradon, she noticed a figure hiding in the shadows of the square. His once flaming hair had dulled to a dark blue and his noble robes were now in tatters but it was still clear as to who the man was. His voice would bring whispers of the judgement that preceded the oblivion once known by the proud fairy in the fields of punishment… The god of the underworld had lost much of his former glory but he was exactly what Maleficent needed. Like faeries, gods had a large level of inborn power that would pass on to their children.

Months later Maleficent was preparing for the birth of her daughter and her subsequent escape from the Isle of the Lost. She was ready to enact her revenge on Auroria and all of Auradon for their slights against her. When she went into labor it had been a sort of relief for the dark fairy, carrying the child had been a long and tedious endeavor. The dark fairy quickly secluded herself, not wanting anyone else to see the magic she was about to perform and to prevent the risk that her actions may spur copycats using such magic to rip take control. Trust no one… Most would find the pain of giving birth unbearable, but Maleficent was of the fae and they had a stronger pain tolerance than others. At the final moments of the birth, Maleficent felt the magic begin to emanate from herself and from the child in waves.

All thoughts of the child were cast aside as the dark fairy began to snatch the magic from the surroundings and chant. She quickly used her magic to begin testing and prodding the barrier. It was here that she would hit the final block on her quest for freedom. The magic of the barrier was powerful, far more powerful than any other magic that she had ever felt. More importantly, the magic was tied not to the caster but to a single magical artifact, the magic wand. In that moment Maleficent knew that there was no magic that was going to be able to break the barrier, not without Fairy Godmother's magic wand. Maleficent was going to have to find another way off of the island.

The dark fairy then turned her attention back to the crying newborn, half-breed child her Daughter, not that she cared... was crying near her feet. Maleficent had initially intended to abandon the child, she didn't care for the work that would come with raising a child and figured she'd escape the Isle of the Lost anyways. She also didn't trust that the child wouldn't betray her… But now the fairy was stuck on the island and still had a large amount of magic that was slowly slipping away. If she wanted to do something with the magic, she had to act quickly.

The soft mutterings of an old curse began spilling out of the horned fairy's mouth. Her green eyes began glowing a jade green and the magic began collecting above the child's body. As Maleficent finished the spell, she was surprised to see the young child's eyes open and mirror the glowing eyes of the Mistress of Evil.

The curse was an ancient spell, in the past it had been used to ensure the obedience of servants and minions of other dark fae. Maleficent herself had once dabbled in the spell in her prime but had never been able to truly recreate the effects of the ancient spell before now. In order for the spell to work it had needed a very strong form of blood magic and magical connection to link the caster and the victim.. In the past she had never had the opportunity to use it on another being as magical as herself. Yet, the child had been the perfect opportunity to use the spell.

The spell was linked to the internal magic of a being and to their connection with the caster. If the child were to disobey a direct command from the dark fairy, their internal magic would cause them to feel an agonizing pain, a pain that many have claimed to be worse than death. This backlash caused by disobedience would only end when the child obeyed the Maleficent or she saw fit to relieve them of the command. That could be for days and the child could die before it is let up… However, if the child were to truly betray the Mistress of Evil, the spell would cause the child's magic to slowly burst from their body and would eventually kill them. This part of the spell wouldn't work on the Isle of the Lost, Maleficent knew this when casting the spell. The child would still feel the immobilizing pain of the magic in their body attempting to burst from their body, stopped only by the sealing magic of the barrier. The child would still die, not of the magic but from a lack of water or food or of physical wounds. If the child ever found their way off the Isle, their obedience and Maleficent's eventual freedom would be ensured.

With the spell now complete, the dark fairy let her eyes settle on the child. She did not care for the child, not in the way that other mothers cared for the children. She saw the child as a servant, a possible way to freedom and as a slight burden. If the child survived, they would be a useful servant and an extension of the great Maleficent's power. All that was left was to give the child a name, she couldn't call it the child forever. That would never strike the fear of Maleficent into the hearts of the dark fairy's victims. Finally, a name came out of the sorceress's mouth, it was a moniker, one that one day would tell people that the child was an extension of the dark fairy's evil:

"Mal"