Rotten Core Descending

It was a pleasant morning, everyone looked full of vigor...except our seven heroes. They have been dealing with the constant surfacing of the six deadly sins (six because wrath has completely come to pass..but Ben still got his hands full with Chantre).

Last night, as Audrey, Evie, and Mal made a shocking discovery about their memories, the three boys experienced a phenomenon just as similar.

After Fairy Godmother delivered them to their room, they immediately climbed up their beds and prepared to sleep. However, just after a few minutes, Carlos sprung up his bed, went out the room, and returned with a handful of snacks. He started munching the foods away in a wild and loud manner that woke up the other two.

"What the fuck Carlos?" Jay finally decided to get up and confront him. "We are trying to fucking sleep! Sleep is such a good thing and we should get a lot of good things for ourselves. You're unbelievable, eating is for the day and sleep is for the night. Getting the most out of it is a must!" It doesn't really make sense, so Carlos just shrugged him off and continued munching with his mouth overflowingly full.

What's wrong with these retards? How can they be so lively at night? Must have been nice living in the Isle..they got themselves some unusually good skill sets. I'm sure I could've learned how to perform surgery if I lived there too. I could've been the one who gets all the glory, not Carlos. It must be nice having Cruella as my mom. These are Chad's thoughts as he listened to the other two bicker.

Chad didn't bother to get up and join the two, but something's definitely up with his strange thought process. Sure it's Chad, but it's still strange to think that way.

Things escalated, but they were so occupied that they didn't even noticed all their eyes flashing a crimson glow. Chantre is currently laughing his ass off in Ben's room about how Evie manifested a deadly sin earlier than usual because of the relaxants, which mitigated the effects by spreading it over a longer period of time. It's a shame he didn't witness what's happening with these three, he'll surely find it more interesting...they're manifesting some deadly sins themselves.

Jay and Carlos started to wrestle. Jay somehow decided to take the foods instead, an idea that Carlos didn't like. It's becoming more and more noisy, which prompted Chad to finally retaliate at the two.

"Shut it fuckers!" He shouted, the choice of words stopped the two in their tracks as they finally noticed Chad's eyes glowing in crimson.

"W-Woah, your eyes dude." Jay was taken aback, as if his own eyes are not in the same state.

"Hory shet. You two guysh looksh like beasht Ben!" Carlos exclaimed while mouth still full and eyes glowing in the same color.

It's like they snapped back to reality. They started to blink profusely in panic as it dawn on them, they finally noticed their marks burning a little although not more than an itch, especially with gluttony, greed and envy marks.

"Shit..that was close.." Jay whispered under his breath as Carlos and Chad's eyes widened in their realization. "We should go to sleep." Chad added as he fixed himself to sleep. "Should we tell them about this?" Carlos asked with eyes still widened as Jay pulled him up from the floor.. "I think we should." Chad answered before closing his eyes. "Yeah, let's do that tomorrow." Jay added as the three of them went to bed and fell into slumber.

And so that's how in that pleasant morning, everyone looked so full of vigor...except our seven heroes.

They arrived at their class exchanging anxious glances all throughout. They all have the same first subject that day and they are itching to talk, it's a perfect time. But, they attempted to talk to no avail.

"Hey, you look so tired Aud. Did you sleep at all? I hope you didn't pop a lot of those you-know-what." Lonnine was worried but still careful to never let her tongue slip with Audrey's secrets, she has no idea that three more people learned about it last night.

Audrey didn't answer and just proceeded to hug her, which looks more like drooping her body weight over Lonnie for balance. She did look tired, as well as the other six. All of them were constantly yawning which elicited some stares from some of their classmates, especially Jay and Carlos whose yawns are especially wider and louder as it can be.

"Settle down everyone. We got some announcements for today." Their Sociology professor arrived and started to write something on the board as the students became restless in anticipation. It seems like they were waiting for this.

Evie went to her seat beside Doug, with Mal and Ben to their back, and Chad and Aziz in front. Across the alley were Audrey and Jane, with Lonnie and Ally to their front, and Carlos and Jay behind. They were slightly at the back, with other students seated at the front.

"Hey, you okay?" Doug immediately asked Evie as she tried to suppress her yawn. "Yeah, totally fine. Thanks." Evie flashed her usual sweet smile which charmed Doug, making him stop with the inquiry. She badly wanted her beauty sleep and decided to just droop over her desk, overhearing Mal and Ben's conversation behind. Well, noone can really blame her for having such good ears.

"So, I was thinking..things were getting a bit out of hand lately and with all these stuff I was thinking that mayb-" Mal was cut off, she was resting her head on Ben's shoulder as she mumbled the words. She was just getting so stressed out and she is now thinking that she won't be able to be a good girlfriend to Ben anymore with how things are.

She's still a bit unsure but she felt that it's the right thing to do. Ben held her head, patting it gently before squeezing her hand as he cut off her words.

"You don't need to explain, M. I understand..the situation is a bit different now and I also think that we should sort it out first." They both felt their heart clench as they held each other's hands. They are having the urge to tear up but just can't bring their selves to. The Deadly Sins were messing them up, and they simply want to be their best self for their loved ones, which is not the case at the moment. There was no hard feelings though. It was mutual.

It was without warning and Evie wanted to console her friend but just don't have the energy, maybe later. Others seems like they didn't noticed the break up happening at the moment except Audrey. She definitely noticed and overheard it also, she's got the penchant at eavesdropping even though she's trying to avoid it lately.

However, she's definitely not planning on breaking up with Chad at the moment, she just can't see the point of doing so. She wanted to think about why Mal and Ben did but also lacked the energy, so she just shrugged it off.

The professor finally finished writing. He clapped his hands, getting the class's attention to the writing on the board.

AAA INTERSCHOOL FESTIVAL

The class cheered except the four Isle-landers. "A-A-A? Is that lame or what?" Jay turned to Carlos while suppressing his laughter and waiting for answers.
"I guess it's read as Triple A..?" Carlos knew nothing either. They reached for Audrey, but she didn't budge and seems to be dozing off, however Jane turned to them and explained kindly.

"Guys, those A's with I and F stands for Annual Atheletic and Academic Interschool Festival. It's basically an interschool event where the best students of the chosen subjects and sports faces off, there are prizes and stuff, but the schools and students mostly goes after the prestige of simply winning. It's like a big deal." Jane whispered, avoiding to be noticed by the professor, but she is definitely noticed by other students, including Evie an Mal.

"Chosen subjects and sports?" Mal chimed in, to which Jane immediately answered. "Yeah, with all the possible subjects, only a few where chosen, 10 academics and 5 athletics excluding Tourney. Well, most athletics representatives comes from our Tourney team though. Audrey was actually bummed last year when Astronomy was not included, but I heard that it may be this time. Sometimes the teachers chose the representatives, but when it's not unanimous, there are usually some preliminary examination rounds, although sometimes they simply choose the student with the highest quizzes in that subject's class."

"Sounds like a lot of trouble." Mal sneered, an act that Jane already learned to ignore. and accept.

"But it sounds fun, don't you think?" Evie sounded excited knowing that she got the highest scores in her Chemistry class. Although she thinks that it could be troublesome with the deadly sin stuff they're dealing with right now, she thinks that it's a perfect time for the four of them to really show what they are worth to the people of Auradon, plus it will be nice if they'll be a pride of their school, not to mention the prizes.

"You think there'll be Biology or anything with Electronics?" Carlos was getting as excited as Evie.

"I'll just go with sports I think." Jay, on the other hand was strangely as enthusiastic as Mal, which is not much.

"Hey, what's wrong with you two?" Evie definitely noticed Jay and Mal's lack of enthusiasm. "Yeah, what's the matter? It sounds fun." Carlos gently bumped Jay's shoulder but got no reaction from him. Then, Jay finally spoke. "I got Greed dude. And if there's one thing I learned about sports, it's teamwork..greed will definitely spell trouble." He was actually thinking hard about it.

"Hey! People at the back!..Less talking and more listening will be a great favor." They jolted at the professor's louder voice and started to just listen. "So as I was saying, our school is going to host the event this year, so expect busy weeks. It was already integrated to the schools' syllabi so you don't have to worry about missing classes or any lessons this month." He continued.

"This month?! Like the whole month?!" Mal exclaimed under her breath which made Ben chuckle a bit.

"Yes M, it's a two-week event but the host school normally allocate a month to include proper preparations and post-festival cleaning and celebration." Ben explained in a whisper. "Wow. It really is a big deal.." Mal was in complete disbelief, just like the other three.

Their Sciology class ended earlier than usual, they were given the rest of the period as study hall. It was the perfect chance, they were so anxious to finally have time to themselves and tell each other about what happened last night to sort things out. The students started to form study groups and the seven kids took the opportunity to group themselves in a corner, without getting much attention.

"So what's up?" Ben spoke first, he was hoping to verify if what Chantre said about Evie manifesting a deadly sin is true.

"Okay look, first of all, we all look obviously anxious to say something. So who goes first?" Mal took the lead, just like how she usually does.

"Ladies first." Jay quipped just as Chad was about to open his mouth, which he promptly closed.

Audrey shot a look at the two girls, trying to send a message to just leave out the pills thing, which the two somehow understood. "Ok, so the thing is, I manifested a deadly sin last night. Not that long and without much pain from the marks." Evie's words answered Ben's thoughts, Chantre did say the truth.

"Really? Actually, the three of us did too." Carlos was as surprised as the two boys to hear Evie.

"Yeah, it's true. I got envy..Jay got greed..and Carlos got gluttony." Chad added. "What did you get?" His comments and questions doesn't sound too helpful but at least he's engaging with the conversation. This surprised Ben, Chantre didn't mention this, maybe he doesn't know either.

"Is it just me? or do the seven deadly sins seems to fit us? I got lust by the way." Evie added without malice in her voice.

"Yeah, that fits you too." Jay jokingly added. "What did you do then? We just practically wrestled and bickered before realizing it," Chad really has a talent to make things a bit uncomfortable and awkward with his snarky comments.

With this, Audrey shot him a look and changed the topic, she figured that the two girls probably don't want to talk about it like this. It's her way of being grateful that the they didn't bring up the topic about her pills. "That just leaves pride then..that means Mal will get it, or did you get it already?" Audrey was not so sure. She remembered how Mal's eyes glowed last night but she was acting just fine, so she can't really tell. There were no signs of pride that she took note of.

"I'm not really sure. But I think things are getting a bit more strange." Mal didn't know either if she already manifested pride.

"I guess the relaxants is simply spreading the manifestation over a longer period of time to mitigate it's intensity." Ben was borrowing Chantre's words this time, but he made sure to sound casual about it. The others nodded as they realize Ben's point.

"Oh and one more thing.." Audrey turned to the two girls. "I guess you should be the one to tell them, M." Evie turned to Mal and waited as Mal remember the part that they've been really anxious to tell them.

"Our memories..I think someone's twitching them." With Mal's voice, the boys' eyes widened a bit in anxiety and disbelief.

"Remember Dude last night when Audrey manifested sloth? Where is it?...and my spell book, did any one of you remember about it?" That last part made their nerves twitch.

They completely forgot about all those things, especially the spell book, it could've been their life line but they didn't even remember that it exists before Mal mentioned it. Jay and Carlos was especially surprised, they've been fond with Mal's magic and spell book ever since. They can't possibly just forget it exists.

These words also made Ben remember Chantre's words about the memory magic stuff. He knew Chantre did it and it's making him furious.

The study hall was fine and all until Ally came rushing through the door. It was almost lunch time and everyone is starting to get hungry, but Ally seems to still have a lot of energy.

"Hey you guys!!! They already posted the representatives for the festival! And I for one can say that our chances of winning won't definitely go down the rabbit hole this time!" She practically squealed all throughout her speech.

The class immediately sprung up and raced to the gathering crowd in front of one of the bulletin boards just outside the room. The seven kids followed suit, they struggled to see the little tarpaulin post, which reads:

ANNUAL ATHLETIC & ACADEMIC INTERSCHOOL FESTIVAL

ATHLETICS
Boxing: Gordon Dwarvon
Fencing: Artie MacArthur
Gymnastics: Aziz Aladdinson
Martial Arts: Li Lonnie
Swimming: Herkie Godchild

ACADEMICS
Accountancy: Jane Fairy Goddaughter
Astronomy: Audrey del Auroria
Electrical Engineering: Carlos de Vil
Chemistry: Evie Queen
Linguistics: Mal Bertha O'Drakontos
Physics: Jayden Jafarson
Political Science: Benjamin Florian
Trichology: Anxelin Fitzherbert
Visual Arts: Ally N. Wonderland
Zoology: Chad Charming

MASTERS OF CEREMONIES
Jordan O'Genie
Douglas Dwarvon

"Are you kidding me?" Mal uttered in disbelief as Evie started to squeal under her breath while passionately shaking Mal in excitement. Evie then high-fived Carlos who is as thrilled as she is.

"Wow. Our school offers all these subjects?" Jay was astounded, but he was more surprised that he's not on athletics but Physics. Well, he's cool with it, Greed manifesting won't seem to be a problem with it, unlike sports. With that in mind, he's fairly starting to get excited too...he's actually confident with himself in Physics.

"Wow! Look at all these names. I really think we can bag the crown this year." Doug exclaimed, which prompted the other students to cheer as Audrey slowly went away from the crowd unnoticed.

Chad however, noticed, making him uncomfortable and alert the other five. They immediately went after her with Mal gently grabbing her arm to ask what's wrong. Audrey simply stopped and turned to them.

"It feels like the festival will be a lot of hassle. I'm gonna go talk to the Headmistress to count me out." Audrey unenthusiastically explained. They can feel that something's off.

"Are you sure? Jane said you've been waiting for Astronomy to be finally included in the fest." Evie didn't understand what's going on, until she noticed a glint in Audrey's eyes.

"Shit!..Guys look at this.." Evie exclaimed under her breath as she turned to them. They moved closer to Audrey and saw the crimson glint in her eyes. "Sloth.." Ben muttered. "I think we should wait before you talk to Headmistress. You've been wanting this Aud..you've been waiting for this chance. You can't just quit..especially while under the influence of the sloth mark." It was barely above a whisper to make sure noone hear and noone did.

"I know what I'm doing. But fine, I'm just tired and I just want to sleep." Audrey blurted out and walked away. She went pass Lonnie who just appeared from the corner with her martial arts uniform. With this, they decided to just meet again later before lights out at the girls' dorm room and immediately dispersed as to not attract attention or make Lonnie suspiscious.

Lonnie didn't really notice anything odd with the group except the part where she overheard that Audrey wanted to sleep.

"Uhmm. I didn't mean to overhear it, but did Audrey just said that she's gonna sleep?" Lonnie proceeded to ask Evie and Mal in disbelief, she knew about Audrey's difficulty in sleeping and what she just heard surprised her.

"Uh Yes..yes, she's a bit tired and all." Mal answered in a friendly manner as she dragged Evie away, hoping to evade any inquiry that Lonnie might decide to make.

She continued to drag Evie to the ladies' washroom and locked the door behind them after making sure that no one is around. Mal was hoping to discuss about the Festival and about Audrey, but it seems like it was not a good idea as Mal started to feel the stare that seems to pierce her back.

She immediately turned around to Evie, who is now riskily close to her. Evie continued to close the distance between them with her ever sultry look. Mal can feel Evie's stare on her lips as she felt hands gently grabbing her hips. Mal started to protest but she doesn't want to make much noise and attract attention from the outside. Evie started to gently kiss her neck which made Mal moan a bit, as she struggled to push her away. Mal can feel her body shiver but she maintained her composure, even though barely.

It's not that long before Mal can see the faint crimson glow in Evie's eyes. She reached for the doorknob but was having second thoughts. If she opened the door and a professor or even a student happens to be just outside, they will definitely attract attention which certainly spells trouble.

She was trying to think of something..anything. Then, a magnificent idea hit Mal, she was hasitant but she can't think of anything else. She stopped struggling against Evie, which made Evie pause for a second and look at her in the eyes. As this happened, Mal took the lead which pleases Evie. Mal grabbed her and gave her a deep kiss on the lips as she slowly led her to one of the cubicles and lock the door behind to enact her plan.

Mal started to take off her leather jacket as Evie started cupping her breast and kissing her collarbone. Mal almost winced from resisting the pleasure, she is starting to like it, which means that she should accomplish her plan as fast as possible. When she finally took off the jacket, she gently tied Evie's hand behind the girl, and quickly pushed her down to sit on the covered toilet before proceeding to sit on Evie's lap facing her and effectively restraining the girl with Mal's hands pushing her shoulders.

"Wow M. I didn't know you like these kind of plays." Evie slyly smiled as she tried to reach for a kiss. But Mal just continued to hold her shoulders away while still sitting on her lap. "You're no fun M."

Mal was actually getting a bit hot but she really wanted to talk, she'll just take care of it later. "Stop it already E. You're making things so much harder. I just broke up with Ben and here you are doing this to me. We need to talk about the festival and Audrey."

These words jolted Evie, making the crimson glow fade away from her eyes. She remembered how she planned to console Mal about the break up. She closed her eyes tightly and shook her head as if trying wake her self up. She lifted her head and met Mal's gaze, but this time Evie's eyes are back to normal.

"Oh my God M. I-I just...Sorry." Evie uttered with a painfully apologetic look. Mal smiled gently and leaned closer examining her eyes, and after making sure that the glow is gone, she untied Evie and proceeded to hug her. Evie hugged her back. She held her wrist where the jacket left some marks.

"Sorry about that E. Does it hurt?" Mal worriedly asked about her wrist. "Yes, totally fine." With this, Evie flashed her smile, not sly like earlier. "But I think you can get off me now. You're actually a bit heavy." Evie joked with Mal still sitting on her lap. Mal faux hit her and stood up.

"So about the festival..you still think we can participate without making much trouble?" Mal immediately took the chance to ask, preventing Evie from opening the topic about the break up. They opened the cubicle door and went in front of the mirror to fix their smudged lipstick and wipe some lipsticks from their necks.

"I'm actually having second thoughts now. I don't want to end up making out with other contestants once lust take over again. I'm glad you're the only one I've almost made out with so far M." Evie answered as she applied her lipstick.

"Me too." Mal added while fixing her own lips, which elicited a weird look from Evie. Upon realizing, Mal chuckled a bit. "Wait. That sounded wrong. I mean I'm glad that you haven't attacked a lot of people, it will be trouble otherwise." They both smiled. Mal meant the words but both of them felt funny for a moment there, as if they liked the idea of Mal being glad that Evie is making a move only to her.

They fixed themselves, hiding any trace of what just happened. They went out the washroom where they bumped into Jane who seemed relieved at seeing them, smiling even though she stumbled down the floor. The two girls helped her up and apologized. "Oh, Evie, Mal. Thanks...So here you are. I've been looking for you two. All the Festival representatives are summoned in the Headmistress's office. Everyone is already there, come with me."