Rise of the Forgotten (Closed to New Members)

Fern usually enjoyed little gatherings with Del and her healers. It usually meant getting stuff done within the Coven and it was usually a chill time. Unless they were there to discuss a problem. While Fern was very capable of handling problems on her own, she liked to get their input as well. Especially Del. Her most trusted advisor was one of her best friends and like a daughter to her. Del also excelled in the parts of leadership that Fern lacked, so they made a good pair.

But did that mean that Mori and Tait were any less important? It didn't. She valued both of them just as much.

So when Mori turned around and Fern saw that whatever she had to share wasn't good, the woman's smile disappeared from her face. Five transfers? That was a lot. She wanted to take them in under her wing right away, but she needed to be sure she wasn't bringing danger into the group that had become her family. She listened to what Mori had to say with a straight face for a moment, to distracted by the issue at hand to notice how Mori didn't greet Del like she had with Tait and Fern.

"What's Ian doing about the arrival of the transfers?" she asked Mori. She wasn't really sure what to expect from either Ian or Collie. Or Jace. Did Jace even know about the transfers? Hopefully not. The last thing Fern needed was the ferals trying to get their claws into the Auradon kids - both literally and figuratively. "Because I think we - the three of you and I - need to meet these kids before their first day at Witch School. I know that taking in a bunch of Auradon kids isn't... ideal when everyone on the Isle is already struggling, but a good relationship with them may be key. We don't... We don't know what Beast might be planning if any of them get hurt or upset while they're here."

Beast scared her. All she'd heard about the King was negative things and she had no doubt that he could destroy the Isle if he wanted. He could get them all killed or make sure anything useful from the garbage was taken away. He could make their life here worse than it already was, and he could increase the amount of Isle kids that never made it to adulthood and that thought... it angered Fern. She rarely got angered, but she didn't like how easily he could destroy the little life they'd built here if even one transfer came home with a black eye.

Still, she kept an unbothered look on her face. This was no time to share her own uncertainties about the transfers. If she felt the need to share and strategize with someone, it would be Junior or Del or Fausto when she could be alone with one of them.

Fern wanted to make sure the kids were taken care of. It was the same instinct she had with the majority of people around her. Sure, her desire to protect them wasn't as strong as it was with Monty or Fausto or Junior's siblings or Del and her siblings or anyone else that Fern considered close to her, but leaving their homes for an island of villains was scary, and she doubted any of them were much more than high schoolers.

Still, she was going to be cautious about this. If it came down to it, she was going to pick her own people over the transfers. She couldn't just... blindly trust them. She didn't care about getting herself hurt, but she cared about those she cared for getting hurt.  

Ah! Del was here too. What a happy coincidence, Tait couldn’t help but notice. Really, what was the likelihood that all four coven officials and such happened to be right around the same area? Sure, this was where they technically meet up and whatnot for school and meetings, but there wasn’t anything planned as of yet to meet about. It was an impromptu meeting, Tait landed on in belief thoroughly. Or maybe it was discussed and he missed it, and it was a happy coincidence that Fern found him after all.

As the conversation actually continued, Tait tried to follow along, although they’ll admit they got a little distracted in the transfer component at first. They thought it had something to do with changing back and forth what kids went to what school, with some amount of dread of being forced to go to Serpent Prep or Dragon Hall - they weren’t pirate or mafia material - before catching onto Fern’s mention of the Auradon kids. Again.

Oh! “That’s what the Auradon kids are,” they mumbled to themself. What were they doing here? That made very little sense. Didn’t they know that the Isle wasn’t a very nice place? Dreadful parenting on the parent’s parts, absolutely dreadful. If it were in reverse and the Isle kids were transferring to Auradon, then Tait was almost certain the villain parents were going to volunteer themselves instead to handle the dreadful task. Tait shook their head lightly, heroic parents should have volunteered themselves instead. How sad.

The continuation of realization continued on Tait’s face as the softness of understanding turned to something of a louder curiosity. It wasn’t quite the excitement kind of cheer, but it certainly wasn’t negative. It was like- aha! It was like sitting right in front of a gift for your birthday or Christmas, uncertainty and unknowing what could lie inside. Was it something you’d like or something you’d hate, that was untold until you opened it. Instead you sat in waiting, a smile in your face as you waited for the ribbons tied around to come undone until-

Well, Tait didn’t really know what this gift was, but the emotion was clear on their face. “Wait, we get to meet them too?” Good or bad, it was something to do. Maybe they were excited over that…. Hmm. Well, that would render their previous explanation out to nothing.

"It's better than creating a mess," Aria shrugged, in reference to bootlicking. She didn't love it either, she was a Goddess, after all. She was heir to the Underworld. Not that she knew how that even worked with Auradon nowadays. She wasn't even sure who was running it anymore. Her mom was still in charge of Spring, that's why she traveled between the Isle and Auradon, but she had never actually asked after her father's Kingdom. She knew all about it, but not to the point of its current location or ruler. 

She had gone off a tangent and had to refocus while Kenny was speaking. She was trying her hardest to listen and regain context, since he seemed pretty serious about what he was saying. The young women smiled encouragingly while he shared his idea. Aria was proud of him, for finding his voice and having his own ideas. It was part of the reason everyone acted like he and Homie were also their Capos, when Montana wasn't around at least. 

"You should bring that up to them," Aria nodded, not being able to wipe the grin off her face. She couldn't help herself. Kenny deserved all the love and respect on the Isle. He was smarter than people gave him credit for. He could do more than his current stress-balls twin gave him credit for, specifically. "I would wait until the dinner is ready. Or maybe after? Homie, what do you think the best time would be?" She didn't have a very close relationship with Collie. She wasn't about to go to her boss's boss with her questions. 

It was a good way to prove to them that they only meant to help. It's not as if there was a lot of room on the Isle. There were definitely cons, like the loss of income, but who knows what kind of cool things the Auradon kids brought over. Before they left, the Mafia kids could get in the rooms of kids who didn't pay up. 

A wave of annoyance washed throughout Billy. Information that could have been helpful - could have made them not look like completely ignorant fools, bar the fact they were such people - had been neglected. How Kassi knew and didn’t manage to find the time to tell someone part of the transfers was slightly unbelievable to her. Even if Kassi didn’t feel comfortable telling Billy, there was bound to be someone in the squad she was comfortable with telling who could eventually tell Billy.

It would have been far preferable than learning after they were on the Isle with determined plans right after meeting someone who could turn on them at any moment.

Still, the idea that there were multiple leaders was startling in itself, much less the fact that they were kids. Kids. Like her or anyone else on this trip- children of well-known figures, whether it be in a positive light or negative. They were on the same level as the villains- and the villains hadn’t put a stop to that. Now that, that was a scary thought. Just how awful were these kids that people who had killed and planned worse would defer to them.

She gave a slight nod to Raf meanwhile. He seemed like he’d be doing fine and that was good news. Especially given he was the only one not irritating her at the moment. Just concern, but nothing that was making her internally scream.

Nothing like Shimmy. Who, at this current moment, she might even be content at strangling him. In something of a hiss, she said, “Bonbob Shimmwyn Cometir Malarkey. Shut up now or you will be going back on this ship now before it has the chance to leave.” As much as she wished that this could be done without a potential threat standing right there, Billy was not going to permit this. Threats- threats that gave a bit too much information, threats that revealed and allowed the opportunity for threats against them, were not welcome. She thought she had made that clear, but apparently not clear enough for the sugar rush junior racer. “If one more word comes out of your mouth pertaining to the idea of fighting someone for the rest of the day, I will have Hana call my brother in order to set up another ship to come back here and specifically for you. I told you, we are not looking for a fight.”

With a careful glare aimed towards Fausto now, Billy took in a deep breath and spoke, “I genuinely hope you’re not looking for a fight with us, right?” Sure, perhaps she wouldn’t be able to trust this stranger’s word, but at least verbal confirmation would be nice enough to establish that this guy was being a douche rather than attempting to start a fight where at least one, if not two, people here were willing to jump him .

The Outlands made sense as a place to find Scar. Nothing like staying in familiar territory, she supposed, but it was difficult to imagine all of the people that now had to survive outside of familiar home territory. Until she realized that they probably didn’t deserve the comfort of home given these people were villains. Were awful, bad people.

Of course, Fausto’s warnings seemed reasonable until the mention of- lack of boundaries and decency. What was that supposed to mean? Just how uncomfortable were they expecting to be? Should she be questioning this fact and trying to judge whether or not that whatever was going to happen was worth talking to Scar?

She could currently just wait and see. That seemed like a reasonable way of doing things here. Observing was something that could come into use over their time here- hell, it was extremely important in the long run of things here. That was their purpose- observe and report and make decisions. Be judge, jury, and executioner… in a theoretical sense.

Then he asked a different question pertaining to animal kids. On instinct, she felt her appendages on the top of her head try to fold back against the hate she was wearing, something thoroughly covering her head and any possible movement. This was a day where she couldn’t permit even the slightest hint. Generally, she could attempt to claim she inherited the weirdest trait from beast- the little nubby ears, but even then, such small things wouldn’t make large movement. Slight breath, not noticeable, and she could respond.

“Well, I suppose the animal folk here are similar to the ones on Auradon then. They look human with what seems to be random traits of the animals their parents are, so I’d say they are halfway like the ones here then,” Billy started. Of course, she couldn’t exactly leave it that because Fausto wasn’t quite wrong on what he heard either. “There is such a thing though of animal children to-” she paused. Billy hated this word with all her heart, so it wasn’t much her fault when she accidentally spat out “beast out. That’s… the term people use.” It sounded terribly conceited saying it out loud, given the fact it was named after Beast. Though, Billy wasn’t sure whether he reveled in having a thing named after him or despised it, given the association it had with changing between a human and animal, or rather monster in his case. “Caused with extreme emotions or, if the person is skilled enough, wants to transform, they can turn into the animal they are. So by all accounts, both them being an animal and half animal, half human are accurate. I… don’t suppose there is any change into animals here then.” It made sense, given the lack of magic, though Billy had never always just associated it with magic. It was genetic and normal but- she supposed there was something different when it came to beasting out.

The question from before unfortunately reappeared in her brain, unwilling to leave now that a seed of doubt had been placed in her mind, “Just how important is Scar in the Isle’s political hierarchy? When compared to these…. Other leaders?” Sure, it would be extremely disappointing to anyone how easily she was falling to a possible misleading statement.

"I know you didn't mean to say that. You would never intentionally hurt her." Cliff's anger washed away quickly. This was his big sister too, and staying mad at her was something he had to actively work at. It was much simpler to just talk about everything calmly and rationally. "But you did hurt her unintentionally. That means you have to fix it." He wasn't exactly sure how she was supposed to do that, since Cheri was pretty stubborn. In fact, the girl grew more stubborn every day. His two sisters were similar, in that aspect. 

Cliff wanted to move to wrap her in a hug, but he wasn't about to move off the stairs and he doubted she would come to his side even if he asked nicely. "She's still a child. When she's older, she'll understand why you've had to step back from the family so much. Right now, she's just hurt and she doesn't care." In fact, Cliff was pretty sure that she wouldn't care even if she did fully comprehend what was on the line. This was Cheri they were talking about, and the little girl was a savage when it came to people not in her family. Or who weren't Red. She continued to see Red as her icon. They should probably be more concerned about that.

Oh well, nothing they could do now.

"You're keeping us all safe, and you're doing an amazing job at it." He needed to praise her, since she deserved way more than she was getting. He knew he could trust the Mafia to listen to her, but sometimes she needed someone to tell her she was doing the right thing. "Maybe we could do family dinner sometime soon? Everyone is so in and out that we haven't sat down together for awhile. Ask Dad to come?" Cheri would like that, it would make her feel normal again. At least, more normal than what she'd been getting as of late. 

He had probably been paying too close attention to his sister. The entire time he had been talking, he was also watching her. She was retracting from him, not meeting his gaze. She might've tensed up, he couldn't be sure if she was tense or just very still. His sister was, however, very out of it. His worry set in quickly and he stood, gently grazing her arm to settle her. He wasn't sure where she was, but she wasn't present. Even her little questioning murmur wasn't enough to convince him that she had been actually listening. "Collie." His voice was firm, not leaving space for emotion. He needed her focused. 

Shimmy was having an extremely hard time with Billy's orders. He wasn't usually this aggressive towards people - his threats of a fight were because it was fun - but he was starting to wonder if this strange guy actually scared him. He knew that he was definitely more fight than flight, but he'd never truly been scared. That's what happened when you grew up in a world where you were practically immortal.

Billy was right. She could tell Hana. And then Hana could either join in the fighting or tell Shimmy to knock it off. He trusted the opinion of Hana, Hono, Peppevieve, Tino, and even Bellonso more than he trusted anyone else. The video game kids saw things the same way he did, and he liked to believe they saw the world differently than humans and animals.

But he kept his mouth shut for now, crossing his arms and glaring up at Fausto as the others talked.

When the topic of animal kids came up, Shimmy began to speak again. "What about virtual kids? You got any of them around? Ralph kids?" he couldn't think of any other major video game villains at the moment, so he focused on Ralph. There was Bellonso, but he was a special case and safely in Sugar Rush where he belonged. "Video game kids, computer kids, even robot kids?" He was curious about how that would work here. It wasn't like animals where they could just lose the ability to beast out. Not when Shimmy and all of his friends were made human by a magic 3D printer. He wasn't sure how that would translate to the Isle. In fact, he was half surprised that he had made it here alive.

He really should have been paying more attention. He'd gotten the animal part but wasn't sure what else had been talked about. 

"Ian sent a group out to greet them and offer them shelter." Mori reported firmly, "Tana, Farris and Mair are telling them they can stay in that little shack on the beach." Mori understood why Ian chose his group, and chose to do something like that immediately, but it was still rather irritating. She wanted these kids off her Isle. 

She sighed before adding, "He doesn't know what Collie is doing but figured that she already would've held a war council." Those hadn't been Ian's words, of course, but it was close enough. She could embellish a little, mostly because it's probably what Collie did anyways. Chick was highkey paranoid since the shooting. Mori really couldn't blame her. 

Mori hadn't been paying close enough attention to Tait to notice their mumbling, but did raise an eyebrow at her cousin's question. "Yes. They are coming to school with us too." She forced herself to keep a level, polite tone. Morgana would have her tail if she was mean to Tait and had to deal with Ursula over it. This was a fairly difficult task, since Mori wanted to snark. 

At Del's words, Mori decided to drop the anger for now. She needed her friend, the one person in their little leadership who would fully agree with her attitude towards the transfers. They were unexpected and unwanted. She knew for a fact no one from the Isle invited them into their home, let alone the schools. How would they even survive? Mori didn't want to spend a week on potion basics because stupid Auradon kids decided they were going to blend into the Isle education system. 

"Best case scenario is that no one dies, really." Although, Mori was totally down to burn their ship. That was, without a doubt, a horrible plan, but it did pop up into her mind. She could pull it off too, she would just need Beast's permission. If he wanted them dead, Mori was up to the task. She just needed express permission. It's not like any of the kids on the boat were her friends. 

Okay, now Cliff was just being a jerk for the sake of it, and Collie wasn't a fan of this at all.

"I didn't say they were talking, I said I thought I heard something that could be talking, but I didn't hear it clearly. It could have been the damn cats or something." Collie bristled, mildly hurt by the fact that Cliff was either playing dumb, or just not believing her in general. She didn't have time to argue over some pointless sound coming from God knew where, if Cliff just missed it or if he was just messing with her. But why would he mess with her? Cliff wasn't exactly known for pranking his siblings or making digs at their sanity. Maybe he'd genuinely just...not heard whatever the hell it was, and he was just as indignant that he wasn't dead as much as Collie was that she wasn't crazy. The older twin softened, slightly, although her frown was still solidly on her face. "I'm not saying you're deaf, it was a quiet noise that just caught my attention while you were talking. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was calling you deaf." Because that was clearly the problem, because the noise definitely, for surely, existed.

At his mothering, though, Collie drew the line. "I don't need a nap, Cliff. I need Red to report back to me about the dinner." She could sleep after she knew what their current stance was with the transfers.

And eat at the damned dinner, if he was so concerned about it.