Note- I had a rough idea for a fic where Persephone and Hadie break out of the Isle and Mal keeps avoiding them as everyone else is fighting and it all ends up being messy. But I'm not doing that fic, if I do a longer Descendants fic instead of oneshots it'd be based on my other story Magic Stays first, so here's a one shot of the most thought out part rejiggled into something that can (hopefully) stand, mostly, alone.

That being said this fic deals heavily with Mal being Hades' daughter, so expect death talk, corpses, and so on. This is marked as MATURE for a reason.

Also had another Descendants fic I might make a one shot out of, one where Ben gets teleported to the Ocean of the Lost instead of there being just an Isle and gets picked up by the "Malevolents", a group Mal leads. If you're interested in that one shot give it a shout out and I might make it sooner.

Oh and obligatory "this is Disney Hercules", I'll draw some mythology a bit, you'll see, but this isn't myth Hercules. This is Disney, the more...nice guy himbo Hercules.

Hercules stopped, in an open field was a table growing from the ground, a wooden cup filled with tea on the edge towards him. On the other side sat Mal, the young fae calmly drinking from another cup.

"Sit Herakles." Mal told him. "Sit while you can."

Hercules stopped and considered her before sitting on the stool near him. "The control can't be held for long. So I hope you have a plan."

Mal smiled cheerfully as he took a drink of his tea. "Well, my plan is pretty simple Herakles. You're going to hold on as long as you can and when you fail, I'm going to rip you to shreds and hope you get saved before I kill you."

Hercules smirked. "Confident, aren't you? I know you're some fae princess or whatever, but I am nearly a god. I think I'm out of your league."

"Nope." Mal said simply, taking another sip. "Maybe it was once a question I don't know. But as you are now, you could never even challenge me. I bet it's because of Junior."

Hercules swirled his tea, idly wondering how the liquid wasn't emptying as he drank it. "I'm normally called Hercules these days. And my son is Herkie."

"I'm old fashioned like that Herakles. And I reject any name as bad as 'Herkie'." Mal answered primly making him snort.

"You know...I don't think we've really talked before." He noted calmly.

"I was avoiding you." She answered just as calmly.

"I see...you know your eyes look gold." Hercules informed her. "They aren't, but it's like a trick of the light that keeps happening."

"Yours as well." Mal agreed. "Although the whites are a little blue right now. Probably a side effect from how Hadie is controlling you."

"He's somehow channeling power from Persephone." Hercules informed her before drinking again.

"Really? I thought it was from Demeter." Mal cocked her head in thought then shrugging it off. "But Ben and Jay will fix that all while the others distract his little controlled army."

"And you distract me?"

"And I beat you." Mal corrected.

He considered her again. Those golden eyes, that confidence… "I think I like you cousin." He finally told her.

Mal smirked. "I knew I'd like you cousin. It's why I avoided you, so I never got attached."

"Was Hades that bad?" Hercules wondered, Hades was a sore spot for him for obvious reasons, but with how Hadie acted he had figured the god was at least a good father.

"Not bad, just not there." Mal answered him after another long drink from her too-small cup. "He and my mother didn't get along in my memory, and everyone knew me mostly as Maleficent's heir. He was easily cut out from my life."

Hercules took another gulp; it was high quality Greek Tea made from the best Sideritis he'd tasted in years. "Sounds like that was as much your mother as your father, if not more so." He noted curiously.

"Probably. But she was there, and he wasn't. So, I wanted nothing to do with the divine." Mal paused, looking him up and down. "But Herakles, I can't stand back any longer. This has gone too far."

Hercules nodded slowly. "And so now you're going to fight me?"

"I'm going to beat you." She corrected again.

"Why are you so confident about that?" He asked curiously. "Don't get me wrong I want you to win. I'd rather die, horribly, before I hurt Meg or Herkie, but I'm not exactly a hero for being weak."

Mal nodded, looking around and taking another long sip. "I am Hades' child, but also the daughter of a fae. I'm between life and death, inside of dreams and souls." She smirked. "I know that doesn't MEAN anything to you beyond fancy words so here's the baby version. I can live inside of dreams and thoughts, and if you let me, I can worm my way inside, into your very soul. And for a good empathetic man like you, there are so many ways to convince you to let me in."

Hercules looked into the sky; his eyes were almost as blue as the cloudless expanse by now. "I can't hold out much longer, so I hope you're right cousin."

Mal took one more drink and set her cup down. "Herakles...If you survive then let's have a dinner together. How about it? No more running away from my father's side."

He smiled broadly. "Sure, I'll put in a good word. I'm sure you know how our family can get."

She snorted and looked at him before she pressed a finger into her opposite palm. She drew her finger across her palm like a knife, drawing a line of blood. She squeezed her fist, and the blood seemed to gush out, flashing gold before vanishing and her hand returned to normal. "On my blood."

Hercules bit the knuckle of his pointer finger, just like Mal blood seemed to gush out like a faucet before flashing gold and vanishing. "On my blood cousin. I'll get you a proper Greek dinner."

Their eyes both seemed to flash gold, only to the other. And Hercules stood up. "Sorry cousin but...my head is pounding."

Mal blew him a kiss. "Give it your best shot Herakles. You cannot win. My father had rules as a god, I do not."

"I don't either." Hercules reminded her, and then suddenly SLAMMED his fist into her face, Mal's body exploded in spectacular gore. He waited for the punchline, and it didn't come until he looked down. Instead of a body destroyed by his godly strength it was just a body of a blond woman.

"She was eaten by the Nemean Lion." Came Mal's voice behind him. "The day before you got there, although I prettied up her corpse for you. She was probably prettier when alive, but you were too late for that."

Hercules turned around and took the sight in. The right side was still Mal, although she seemed to be wearing some kind of smoke robe. But her left side was billowing purple fire, only the shadows of something human inside. "Looking good."

Mal chuckled. "Hades is lord of the underworld, but his fire and smoke also imbued into me. I could burn this field to ash in seconds but wouldn't help me against you."

"Neither will this." Hercules gestured at the corpse. "It's horrible, it keeps me up at night, but I can't be everywhere at once."

Mal chuckled as he rushed forward, trying to stab her but a ball of fire took the stab and threw his sword to the side, so he punched her again. This time he hit something, he felt it, but his hand went through her. "But you already are Herakles. Look." Hercules looked down, instead of a ball of fire his sword was stuck inside of a kid, and where he had punched was a teenager, both girls with dead green eyes. "They were killed by the Erymanthian boar, do you remember? You got into the village, were talking to the chief, and the boar ran through the walls. It crashed into a house just inside, THEIR house. You were talking to the man in charge to earn points instead of guarding the walls, and they paid the price."

Hercules shook his head, taking a deep breath as he felt the control of Hadie urging him forward. "Even if I had been protecting the walls I wouldn't have known which side to guard without talking to the guards and chief first. I can't see the future."

Mal chuckled, from her purple fire more corpses emerged, covered in purple fire, puppeted by the godly power. One Hercules even recognized as a large man that had been crushed by the Cyclops Titan, he had been a jerk but hadn't deserved how he had died. "If you were more willing to accept the dark you might believe that, like Aladdin or Mulan could. Or if you were more logical you could convince yourself, like Belle or Jane could. But you, you're already letting me burrow inside. Soon you'll even feel it, how you welcome my fire, the pain that shall cleanse you."

Hercules growled and ran forward, ready to try and batter her down as the corpses moved to her will to defend her.

~1 week later~

Hercules groaned after Meg had left and door closed behind her, his left arm still ached and was covered in scars shaped like fingers. He acted tough in front of his wife because he knew part of her wanted to hold a grudge against Mal despite knowing Mal had done her best for him, so he was trying to make it easier on her. Although being stuck in the hospital for another 3 days wasn't exactly helping.

"You know dad talks about her sometimes." Mal's voice seemed to come from his bedside curtain. Slowly smoke came from the innocent material. "He'd never admit it, but I think he has a soft spot for her. Over other normal mortals at least." The smoke condensed, slowly forming Mal, again covered in her smoke robe but no fire in sight.

"She's just amazing like that." Hercules shamelessly bragged, not reacting surprised at all to his cousin's sudden appearance. "Haven't seen you in the last week though."

Mal shrugged. "Had to deal with Hades, Hadie, and Persephone since technically I'm basically the ruling monarch of the underworld with Hades and Persephone being punished and Thanatos is to busy delivering souls to control them. Not to mention Auradon issues. Ben's been great at least so I've been trying to be more open about this stuff with him."

He chuckled in response. "Something we have in common then, we got great partners."

Mal smiled gently in agreement. "Yes Herakles, if nothing else we both have that." She considered him, sitting on his bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Hurts. But I'm happy." Hercules smiled. "No one else was hurt, I'll be fine with a bit more time beyond some cool scars, and I got a new cousin that I still owe dinner to." He ended with a pointed look.

Now it was her turn to chuckle good naturedly. "I remember, like I said just busy. How about the Monday after this Monday?"

He raised an eyebrow. "And why are we waiting almost 2 full weeks?"

"Because if you're hurt during the dinner Meg just might poison me." Her dry response got a laugh out of him.

"Fair enough. Bring Ben at least?"

"Deal cousin."

I wrote this in just a few hours, it's not too long and probably has some mistakes, but still for something I did after work while hugging my cat I'd still say it was good. Inspiration is a wild thing. If I could write like this consistently it'd be horrifyingly productive.

Anyways tell me whacha think thunk.