A/N: Alright my lovelies! Here's the next chapter! Sorry it took longer than I actually anticipated. Finals are officially done for me, thank the lord. I meant to take a break from studying during the week to start writing this, but I just really didn't have the energy to do it. I'm free now, so get ready for some updates! I wanted to make sure to update as a Happy Valentine's Day gift to you all! Also, you may notice that not all the things go completely in line with the movie (as you will see in this chapter).

Chapter 4

The group had finally finished eating and began to clean up. Mal set aside a plate full of food to take back to their room, something that both Ben and Doug had noticed but didn't comment.

"So," Ben finally said after a beat of silence, "What classes do you guys have first?"

"Well, we have Remedial Goodness 101 first," Mal replied, scrutinizing the schedule. "Evie, Jay, and I have a class together after that, but we have to split up for 5th. Evie has Chemistry."

"Great," Doug exclaimed, "I have that too. So you'll already have a friend in the class."

"Yay!" Evie said gleefully, clapping her hands together. "I'm not actually alone."

With that, the four dispersed off to class, waving goodbye to Ben and Doug. The minute the quartet was alone, their demeanor changed and slumped into exhaustion.

"Wow," Jay remarked, "I didn't think being peppy was going to take that much energy."

Mal let out a small noise in agreement. "But we have to show them that we're fine. If not, they'll be all up in our cases thinking something's wrong."

"But there's nothing wrong with us," Carlos stated, confused.

Evie sighed. "True, there isn't. But don't say you haven't noticed the way they're looking at us. Especially when it came to eating and conserving and about our parents."

"Yeah," Mal affirmed. "They already think that something might be wrong with us, since we are born into villains, but we can't show them any weakness. We are here because of a certain goal. Besides, it's already bad enough that we're different. I doubt that their parents act like ours. Imagine what will happen, all the pity for something they don't understand. But that's life guys."

They continued on their way to class, although stopping at the dorms to drop off the food and place a spell on them.

Remedial Goodness 101 wasn't very eventful. They were going through schemes while choosing which decision is the best, or in the class's case: good. Mal seemed to be getting the answers right, which surprised her friends and their teacher, the Fairy Godmother. Out of all their parents, her's was the most evil of them all.

"I just choose the one that sounds the most boring," she explained. The others nodded their heads, finally getting it, but in truth, it was like that for Mal. Yes, the others were far more exciting, but what was the point of doing that? If you gave the baby a bottle it would shut up and less an annoyance for you.

They also officially met the Fairy Godmother's daughter, Jane. Well, they saw her when she walked into class, but she was too scared to even look them in the eye. Mal smirked, this could prove useful to help achieve their goal.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Mal knew she was garnering looks since she always took an extra plate back to her room. In retrospect, it was a little suspicious. People probably thought they were pigs or hoarding food. Let them think what they will, Mal thought vindictively. It's our business not theirs.

After lunch, they separated to their own classes. Evie nervously made her way towards Chemistry. Oh, how she wished Mal or Jay were with her! She never knew how Carlos did it; being able to go to classes all by himself. Carlos is braver than most people give him credit for, Evie mused. After all, he had to survive his mother and the Isle. Evie knew how of the four, Carlos is the youngest and is often looked down upon as the weakest. However, she knew that wasn't true. If anyone was the weakest it was her. Not that she would tell anyone that.

Evie shook her brain out of her daydreaming and took a deep breath. She opened the door and entered the classroom. Most people looked up at her and regarded her with some interest, but they left her well enough alone to her relief. She noticed Doug sitting at a table and visibly brightened. Finally, a friendly face in this sea of people.

She made her way towards Doug and plopped into the seat next to him. She vaguely noticed the teacher staring at her apprehensively but couldn't bring herself to care.

Smiling, she greeted, "Hi Doug! Thank god for a friendly face."

Doug smiled at her, albeit rather shyly, she noted. "No problem. Happy to help. This is Chad by the way. Chad Charming." He gestured towards the boy in front of him.

Evie threw another smile his way, "Nice to meet you Chad! I'm Evie."

Chad had been rather bored in the class. He had run out of things to pester Doug with about the new arrivals. Who they were, what they were like. In all honesty, he was rather curious. Maybe he could make some new friends! Not like most of these dimwitted preppies at this school. Although he was included in that majority, one can only wish to be different!

"Hi, nice to meet you," he replied.

"So you're a prince then? Cinderella's son?" Evie asked. In truth, she could far be more interested, but she was reminded of her mother's words: to find a prince for a husband and to provide for the Evil Queen.

~Flashback~

"Good morning, mother!" seven-year-old Evie greeted the Evil Queen.

"How was your beauty sleep darling? You know, you must sleep at least 8 hours or else your skin will start forming those horrid dark circles under your eyes. Not to mention all the lines that your face might get!" the Evil Queen exclaimed.

"Of course mother! Nothing but the best for me! And you," Evie hastily added.

"Alright dear, if you insist. But you must start moisturizing your face. It seems like it's beginning to dry up."

The Evil Queen guided Evie to the mirror and proceeded to explain everything that was wrong for the next 20 minutes. "Watch out what you eat! Look at that fat." and "Don't smile, do you know how many wrinkles you'll get" were some of the more revisited insults.

Evie knew she should've been used to it by now, but she couldn't help the tears beginning to form in her eyes. She tried blinking it away before her mother saw, but it was too late. Evie fell to the floor as the echoing of the slap pittered off the walls of the room.

"What have I said about crying?" the Evil Queen said primly although the anger in her voice was abundant. Evie briefly wondered that she probably would have been snarling if it didn't create wrinkles.

"I shouldn't cry because it makes my eyes red and will make my face rough from wiping them away," Evie mumbled, getting herself to sit upright.

"Good girl," her mother cooed, patting her head, "now we must get you some skin moisturizer, who knows what you have done to your complexion you careless fool."

With that, the Evil Queen strided out of the room muttering some more about her ignorant daughter.

"We must hope that a prince won't care too much about looks, otherwise you'll never get married and become a princess," she muttered.

Evie scrambled up to her feet and ran to catch up with her mother. "But Mother, aren't I already a princess?"

"No," the Evil Queen said shortly, her voice trembling with rage, "you have to earn your title. And so far, you have failed at even that."

Evie stopped short, lips trembling as she stared at her mother's retreating form through the hall. If she wasn't good enough now, then when will she be? She thought, blinking furiously again in the past five minutes. A despairing thought entered her mind. If her mother didn't love her, then who would?

~Flashback~

Evie shook her head, attempting to clear her mind of all those negative thoughts. The whole reason for coming here was to get a fresh start, not wallow in the past, she chided to herself. Well, that and to get away from their parents, and to retrieve the wand for Maleficent so their parents to get ultimate power over the kingdom. Evie didn't really see any sense in that, but as long as Mal was happy, she was too. Heavens know that Mal needs all the support and good things in her life she can get. Besides, she is a princess (well, not an official one, but she technically is), and princesses are supposed to be positive and nice.

Evie noticed that she unintentionally tuned Chad out. She vaguely had heard about him wanting to become as great as his parents, if not better but her thoughts about her past caught her up too much.

"That's great!" she smiled enthusiastically, hoping that was the right response. It probably was as he smiled at her in return.

"It's nice for someone to understand my predicament," he smiled gratefully. "People think that I have it all. Like Doug over here." Chad nudged Doug playfully. Doug shrugged but grinned back.

"Well it's true," Doug defended. "Your parents overcame so much to be together. Not to mention they, and you, are both good looking. Many have problems with that you know."

"I think," Evie cut in, "that it only means he has so much more to prove. I mean, I feel the same. My mother was a Queen. My mother was the best potion maker of her time. She was also able to cast such powerful magic of course, excluding Jafar and Maleficent of course, but everyone was always expecting so much from us, to be like them."

"That must be tough," Doug sympathised. Chad looked at Doug incredulously; here he was agreeing with Evie but not in the past with him. He rolled his eyes, Doug must have it bad for her.

"What do you mean 'was?'" Chad asked curiously.

"Well," Evie said carefully, "no one here really expects us to be them. At least, they don't want us to be them because they believe in us or they don't want us to become a problem. Back at the Isle, everyone looked to us as leaders of evil, ready to take over the world again alongside our parents. It sucked though, since we just wanted to be normal and not with all the expectations smothering us. Especially our parents, they still want to rule the world, so they were always training us and pushing us into shape."

"What was the Isle like?" Doug asked curiously. Now what a perfect time to learn more. Doug was mentally cataloging everything to tell Ben later. He knew it wasn't the nicest thing to do as she is telling them in confidence, but he would just make a general highlight of things. Not that it wasn't generalized already, since it was so vague.

Evie hesitated. She didn't really want to talk about it, and she knew the others wouldn't want her to as well. What happened on the island was horrible and probably horrific to the blunted people here at Auradon. They were living in such luxurious lives; they probably haven't seen anything more bloody or tortuous than a broken bone or tourney game.

She decided to settle on saying that it was what she was used to, but she got cut off by the teacher making his way in.

Doug and Chad didn't miss the relieved look as the teacher called for attention. However, Chad hadn't talked to Doug and Ben since yesterday morning since Ben had been busy. He looked at Chad questioningly, but Doug only shook his head, mouthing 'I'll tell you later.'

Throughout class, Evie was attentive. There was so much to learn! Evie always liked chemistry best since it was like potion brewing. You could create so many things using it. Her mother was reluctant to have her learn chemistry. She claimed that Evie was working hard enough without her having to lose more beauty sleep and that she wasn't smart enough to be ready yet. The comment had always stung, but Evie wondered if she was just put off by her eagerness to learn and her talent for it. Out of the four of them, Evie was always the one with the thirst for knowledge. Carlos did too, but it was more for technology, and he practically learned or created everything he knew. Jay didn't really care for it, preferring brawn over brains, and Mal was better with quick thinking and creating plans.

Evie noticed that the teacher was surprised with her eagerness to learn, and even more startled when she showed that she was fast at picking things up. By the end of the lesson, she wasn't sure if the teacher was pleased or not by the prospect and voiced her concerns with the two new friends she had come to make.

Doug waved her worries off, "I bet you he was in for the loop. They've never taught new students before. It's been the same students for years, just their level of difficulty and subject sometimes changing."

Chad's opinion was somewhere along those lines, although a bit more cautious. "I think you should be proud. Nothing gets past that old man, really. Worst case scenario that he hates you, he still can't fail you if you're getting right answers."

Evie smiled and thanked them gratefully. As they made their way to their Algebra 2 class, they were joined by Mal and Jay.

"Hey guys!" Evie greeted, "this is Chad Charming."

"Nice to meet you," Chad said, albeit a little nervously. Evie couldn't deny that Mal and Jay were probably the most intimidating of the group. They were both scrutinizing him.

Mal finally must've decided he was fine as she greeted him," Charmed, I'm sure."

The group cracked up at the joke and started a little chatter amongst themselves. Evie knew that Mal and Jay still didn't really trust him. They didn't even trust Ben or Doug yet, but she knew that they would try. She smiled softly as she looked at her friends, old and new. This new life is starting to become really nice.

A/N: Well there you have it! It's a little extra long as an apology for the wait. I probably need to explain. In this fanfic, Chad is not the bad guy. Nor is Audrey or Jane. It is their parents. Yes, Audrey, and in turn Jane, Chad, and Lonnie, will have some mishaps and things will happen, but they are the type of people that can learn from them and grow. That's how I always felt about their characters. It's their parents that will create problems, as you can already see.

On another note, what do you think? Leave a review! They're always appreciated. And if you ever want to see the progress of the chapters as I write them, they're in my profile!