Chapter Thirty Four

A/N: I do not own anything other than my OCs when they come out to play. Everything else belongs to either Disney or the Greek Myths.

Woo! Another chapter for the record books! Thank you guys so much for your patience, I know I haven't been updating as fast as normally but unfortunately as we get closer to the holidays, real life starts to interject into my writing time.

Just a head's up too: next chapter will have a mini-time jump! I'll be sure to put it in the a/n for that chapter too but didn't want it to be a sudden announcement :D

Also yes there is a Taylor Swift reference in this chapter. I regret nothing.

Katt Kiki: Glad you liked it!

AmethystDragon14: Yay! Something tells me it'll be a lot better than it was in Choosing, that's for sure! And I couldn't let a chapter like that go by and not have Mal call Steph 'mom'! :D

danifan3000: That is a good point, but thankfully Anastasia was there to help out!

CrystalKaouri: So much mischief! Will the Isle/Auradon still be standing after it all? Who knows?! So glad you liked it!

SaikoGoyangi: It certainly will be! :D

Hope you guys enjoy this chapter! Let me know what you think! :D

Mal couldn't help but smile slightly as she looked at her baby brother. Her baby brother, which meant it was her responsibility to protect him from the Isle. At least while she was on the Isle. She didn't know yet how things were going to work out with Hadie's ability to live in both Auradon and the Isle but Mal knew that as long as she was on the Isle, nothing would happen to him.

After all, Steph had asked her to look after Hadie and Mal kept her promises!

"Oh Hadie, don't you ever grow up, don't you ever grow up. Just stay this little. And no one is gonna hurt you…" Mal sang under her breath as she watched Hadie sleep in the bassinet Steph had brought over from Boreadon; Estelle curled up on the floor as close as he could get without being a danger of tripping anyone. Steph even got special permission from Ben's mom to ship it over since her due date would be so soon after their arrival and Steph had wanted to make sure Hadie had a place to sleep when he arrived.

"What are you singing?" Ben asked as he walked into the room, taking care to keep his voice down since Hadie was sleeping. Apparently Mal hadn't been singing as softly as she had thought but thankfully only Ben seemed to have heard her.

"Steph sings this to Hadie sometimes to get him settled," Mal told him, glancing over at him as Ben stood next to her. "I figured it couldn't hurt to sing it too. So he knows me, knows his big sis is here."

Ben smiled and nodded. "Well…that song is right. No one is going to hurt Hadie. Not if you, me, Uma, and Harry have anything to say about it."

"You?" Mal asked, tilting her head.

"Yeah," Ben nodded, looking a little surprised Mal even had to ask. "I'm a big sibling too, you know. We have to stick together and look out for our little sister and brother."

Mal smiled and nodded before pausing as an idea came to her and she looked back at Ben. "Hey Benny? Did you mean it? That you'd help protect Hadie?"

"Of course," Ben nodded. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Well it's just…Uma, Harry, and me…we have to protect you too," Mal said. Yes Ben had progressed with his sword training with Harry but he wasn't quite at Harry's level. Or Uma's. Or even Mal's, and Mal had lost a step with that time spent with her foot in a cast!

Yeah she was still upset about that thank you! Just another reason to hate Maleficent but thankfully, since Steph and her dad had adopted her, Mal didn't have to worry about Maleficent ever getting her talons in her again.

"That's not fair to you guys," Ben said, shaking his head.

"You're under our protection, we look out for you," Mal said. "Besides, training you at least allows Harry to pretend we didn't also agree to put Gil under our protection as well."

"He saved our lives by pulling his papa's arm away, I'm not going to just forget that," Ben said.

"Neither will I," Mal told him and then paused, still looking at Ben. "Just checking, you're not in here to try to convince me that we should put Blueberry under our protection again are you? Because one party invite isn't going to change things."

"What? No," Ben shook his head. Yes he wanted to be allies with Evie but he didn't want to anger Mal!

Besides, he found he liked hanging out with Mal, Uma, and Harry a lot more than Ben did with Evie and her gang. It wasn't that they were bad per se but just…the amount of trust from the other VKs wasn't the same.

"Okay then," Mal nodded.

"But…maybe we should bring someone else into our gang?" Ben asked. "It can't hurt to have more people to rely on right? Especially once Abby's able to come over. And we'll want people to look out for Celia and Hadie."

Mal nodded slowly. She couldn't deny that Ben had a point, especially since there would be six months where she wouldn't be able to help Uma keep an eye out for Celia.

"Okay…but we can't just go around and ask kids. We'd look weak," Mal said. "Who would we even ask?"

"Well didn't you say there was a library in one of the schools?" Ben asked. "We could go there and see there's anyone who stands out?"

"You just want to go to the library don't you?" Mal asked.

Ben shrugged but Mal couldn't help but chuckle at the light in his eyes at the thought. Benny would always be a fan of books no matter where he went, she couldn't help but think.

"Alright, let's go," she said.

"Really?!" Ben asked with a grin.

Mal nodded. "Yep. If we're going to find kids to join into the gang and not just provide protection, then we need to know who's out there for us to recruit."

And more importantly, we need to see who we can bring into our gang before Freddy Frollo recruits for his, Mal thought as the two of them made their way out of the Underworld. There had been talk about the older boy trying to entice people into joining him but so far there wasn't any luck.

Oddly enough, the looming threat of burning for all eternity wasn't exactly enticing people who lived on an island of villains.

His sister's alright though, Mal thought. Sometimes Claudine lets Benny and I hang out in the bell tower when we want to escape Beast and Steph's 'homeschooling'. Why can't we just go to Harry and Uma's school? Or better yet, don't send us to school! Benny's smart enough anyway, why does he even need it? And even without school, I'm smarter than most of the Gods on Olympus.

Yeah, that had been fun to learn. That Beast and Steph expected her and Benny to be homeschooled, not that she was smarter than most of the Gods of Olympus. She was pretty sure that went without saying.

Benny had liked the homeschooling at first and Mal had tried to go along with it but it just didn't make sense. Why did she have to learn Boreadon stuff when she could be sword fighting with Harry and making smoke bombs with Uma?

It was surprisingly Virgil who had made the lessons interesting for Mal, much to everyone's surprise.

"I don't know why I have to learn this," Mal muttered as she and Ben did their 'independent study'. Well more like Ben worked on math problems and Mal doodled on the side of the paper. The best part about having a baby brother and your other teacher had to work at your father's restaurant? You got a lot of breaks from your lessons. "Why do I need to know how many apples someone has if he decides to give some away? Why give away food?"

"Chip says math is important to know for everyone to know," Ben said as he looked up. "Plus I don't want to disappoint papa."

Mal shook her head. No matter how long Ben was on the Isle, his Auradon-ness came through in full force at times. Not that Mal would want to change him.

"H-Hiya M-Mal," a nervous stammer could be heard over her shoulder and Mal smiled as she saw Virgil in the doorway.

"Hey Virgil," Mal said.

"W-What are y-you working on?"

"Math."

Virgil couldn't help the nervous chuckle that slipped out as Mal made a face at the subject. Of course it didn't hurt that Ben had also chuckled so it wasn't as if Virgil was the only one laughing.

"W-what's wrong with m-math?" Virgil asked, sitting down on the arm of the sofa.

"It makes no sense! Why would anyone give away apples?" Mal asked and crossed her arms to punctuate her point. "It's stupid to even think anyone would give away food unless it was to an ally or family but I don't think that's the case here."

"W-why?"

"The question came from Boreadon."

Virgil couldn't help but smile at Mal's annoyance at the question. "W-why not m-make the q-question more Isle?"

"What do you mean?" Mal asked, tilting her head.

"C-can I s-see that?" Virgil asked, motioning to the worksheet. At Mal's nod, Virgil took the worksheet and a pencil. Striking out some of the words and writing some new ones, Virgil looked at the worksheet and nodded.

"T-try it n-now," he said softly as he handed the worksheet back to Mal.

Mal took the worksheet and her eyes lit up. "Oh! So if I have five smoke bombs and I throw two at Zevon…then I'd still have three smoke bombs to use!"

"T-there you g-go," Virgil said with a small smile.

"Why not make all the questions smoke bomb related then?"

"M-maybe whoever m-made the question d-didn't think of them?"

Mal crossed her arms and, unbeknownst to her, pouted. "That's dumb!"

Virgil and Ben couldn't help but chuckle at her reaction and Virgil quickly wrote some more 'Isle worthy' questions for Mal to continue to work on.

Mal shook her head as they arrived at Dragon Hall. It wouldn't do to be caught unawares by anyone even if they were at a school.

"Okay then…where's the library?" Ben whispered. "Will there be a sign? Chip says there're signs all over his school for the library."

"I think you might be right about the sign thing, Benny," Mal said as they rounded the corner and found themselves smack dab in front of the library. How did they know it was the library?

Well the cobwebs from the giant spiders that were rumored to guard the inside were a giant hint.

"Let's go in!" Ben grinned and pushed at the door. His grin faded when he found that the door wouldn't move.

"It's locked," he told Mal. "Who locks a library? And how do we get a key?"

A small chuckle caught their attention and Mal looked over her shoulder to see a tall boy with long, dark brown hair leaning against the wall across from the library.

"What are you doing here Jay?" Mal asked, recognizing the older boy from her brief time living in Maleficent's castle.

Jay snorted. "You haven't spent that much time in Boreadon that you can't recognize someone skipping can you Mal? Besides, an empty hall is the best place to practice my lock picking on the lockers. But what are you doing here? Word around the Isle is that you're being castle schooled like Evil Queen's daughter."

"…Why is Blueberry being castle schooled?"

"Something about her sixth birthday party, I dunno. If it's not related to my dad's shop or Jade, I don't really pay attention."

Mal shook her head, never noticing Ben's slight frown at that. He didn't think that was right, that Evie should have to be punished especially since she didn't do anything wrong. He made a metal note to ask her about that the next time he saw her.

"So, why are you two trying to get into the library?" Jay asked, pulling Ben out of his thoughts.

"Benny wanted to see what books were available," Mal lied on the spot. Like she had said back in the Underworld, they couldn't just go around saying they were looking for people to protect their siblings. It'd make them look weak and put targets on their siblings.

"You know where we can get a key?" Ben asked.

Jay shook his head and held up his lock pick. "With this, I've got all the keys to the school…just don't tell Dr. F. I know you two are allied with Uma and he's her dad and I'd rather not get turned into anything for this."

"Secret's safe with us," Mal promised.

Jay nodded and opened up his lock picking kit. "Let me know if anyone's coming," he told Ben."

"Okay," Ben nodded.

"We both will," Mal said. She wasn't entirely fond of the idea of someone else ordering Ben around. That was her job thank you!

Jay shrugged and got to work picking the lock. He wasn't exactly sure why Mal and the Prince of Auradon wanted to get into the library but he was no dummy. He knew his dad's golden rule: whoever holds the gold makes the rules. And there was no one with more gold or more ability to make rules than the High Queen of Auradon. Who also happened to be Ben's mother.

Jay had seen the changes that had been made on the Isle and maybe it went against everything VKs were supposed to be but…if he could ally himself with Beastie Jr, then maybe he wouldn't have to spend so much time in his dad's shop. At the very least, he might be able to negotiate for a bed that was someplace other than under the shelf of televisions.

The click of the lock brought Jay out of his thoughts and he smirked as the door opened. "There you go, enjoy."

"Appreciated Jay," Mal nodded.

"You want to come with us?" Ben offered. "I mean if you're skipping class anyway, why not skip in the library?"

Jay resisted the urge to bite his lip as he considered the offer. Normally he would have just gone to the lockers to see what was there that he could steal for his father's quota. No sense in wasting thieving time after all.

But Beastie Jr's offer seemed genuine, which was rare not only for the Isle but for kids talking to Jay. No one wanted to hang out with the best thief on the Isle in fear that their stuff would be stolen.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jay could see Mal roll hers and he knew he likely seemed like an idiot to her. Who takes longer than a second to consider an offer made by the future King of Auradon and someone who had been adopted by Lord Hades and Lady Persephone? Who would turn down that chance at protection?

"Sure," Jay shrugged, trying his best to play it cool. "Besides, you two squirts might need me in there. Rumor has it there're giant spiders who guard the shelves."

"Who are you calling squirt?" Mal rolled her eyes, purposefully ignoring the fact that she was the smallest between the three of them. Instead, she made her way down one of the aisles; a smile pulling at her lips as she saw Ben following her.

"So…"

"Yes?" Mal asked.

"Think Jay could be someone we might bring in?" Ben asked. "I mean…he did help us and I know the rules. We'd be owing him a favor anyway, why not make it a favor on our terms?"

Mal couldn't help but chuckle. "You catch on fast Benny."

Jay would be a good addition to the gang, Mal wasn't going to lie. Plus he was older which would increase their power and give them an ally with Jade by association. And with her father's restaurant, it made food more readily available even with the changes Belle had made to the Isle. The only questions were now: would Jay agree to join the gang and would Harry agree to bringing Jay into the fold?