Descendants 2 [H.S. & C.S.]

Chapter 8

Splashing of fish, behind the magical barrier keeping all the baddies on the Isle of the Lost was afoot in its greasiest, fishiest, dare I say, shrimpiest form . . .

Elizabeth's Fish and Chips sat on a dreary wharf on the Isle of the Lost.

A swashbuckling young man, Louis, son of Captain Troy, strolled toward the shop, holding a glinting sliver hook in one hand. He wore a black pirate hat, a long red leather coat, black pants, and a smirk on his face that made other pirates quake. His piercing blue eyes and sharp cheekbones made him both beautiful and frightening.

Louis passed through a dusty lane where bedraggled pirates were selling their gaudy wares. The dirty pirates regarded him with fear, leaping aside, huddling together, hiding, shaking, and watching him with wide eyes as he walked by.

Louis smiled to himself. He loved the attention.

He crossed a dock with frayed coils of rope and cracked crab traps on either side. His footsteps sounded heavily on the wood, drawing the attention of pirates lounging on barrels and surrounding platforms. He stopped in front of a rotten storefront.

A plaque reading Elizabeth's Fish and Chips and featuring Elizabeth the sea witch in her glory days hung outside it. Painted wooden tentacles spiraled out of both sides of the building. The paint had faded, just like Elizabeth's powers, but the whites of Elizabeth's eyes still glowed in the gloom. Below the plaque was a sign that read You'll take it how I make it! Below that was a lantern illuminating an inspection notice, marked "F" for fail, awarded by the Isle Department of Unhealth.

With his hook Louis lifted a string of silver fish from a pan resting on a dock beam, and he regarded a red-haired pirate holding a fishing rod. He tossed one of the fish back into the sea with a smile. The red-haired pirate looked on. Louis turned on his boot and sauntered through the seaweed green swinging door of the door.

He entered the dumpy, smelly eatery, which was filled with slovenly scalawags hunched over mismatched tables. The place stank of rotten fish, which fit the filthy aesthetic splintered organ, chandeliers made out of steering wheels, and signs that said things like Tip or Else! and Employees must not wash hands. Besides fish and chips, the diner sold other slop, such as sea slugs, golf goo, and pickled lamprey. Louis smashed his sword in a rusty sword-check urn by the door that held others. Then he handed his string of fish to a diner and sashayed across the room.

He approached a long wooden table. Its stools were taken by s motley crew of fish and chips. Among them was Ross, Mark's brawny son, who had dirty blond hair peeping out from under a cap and wore an orange brown leather jacket. What Ross lacked in IQ he made up for in muscles. Louis knocked a pirate aside, used his stool to hop over the tabletop, and turned on the ancient fuzzy-screened TV by twisting a manual dial.

There was the infamous-on-the-Isle clip of Harry and Cole at their press conference.

A teenage girl with long turquoise hair plopped a tray of food down on the table in front of Louis, who looked hungrily at it. The girl wore a turquoise leather jacket with fringe epaulets, a fringe skirt, and a brown pirate's hat with starfish embroidered on it.

She was every bit of a pirate punk and also the spitting image of her sea witch mother, Elizabeth—back in the day, of course. Sabrina was the girl's name, and she wore Elizabeth's gold nautilus shell on a gold chain, though the necklace had no power on the Isle of the Lost, where magic was forbidden and as obsolete as the old TV at which she glared.

Sabrina turned and grabbed fish sticks from Louis's tray, chucked them angrily at the TV screen. "Ugh!" She yelled. She turned back to her pirate crew. "Poser," she shouted, referring, of course, to Harry.

"Traitor!" Louis yelled out at the TV.

Leaning on the table, Sabrina scanned the lounging pirates. "Hello?" she yelled.

The pirates instantly heaved every bit of food within reach at the TV. They swore loudly, then slouched back into position and howled with wicked laughter.

Louis shook his fist at the TV. "I would love to wipe the smiles off of their faces. You know what I mean?" He grinned, and his scary-pretty eyes glinted.

Sabrina turned on dim-witted Ross, who was busy eating eggs. "Ross!" she barked.

"Huh?" asked Ross, completely and utterly unaware.

Sabrina leaned towards him. "You want to quit choking down yolks and get with the program?"

Ross mumbled with his mouth full of food and pointed. "Yeah, what they said!"

Sabrina turned back toward the others. "That little traitor, who left us in the dirt."

Louis sucked food off his fingers. "Who turned back on evil," he said.

"Who said you weren't big or bad enough to be in her gang," Ross told Sabrina as he refilled his empty tray of food at a serving counter connected to the kitchen. "Back when you were kids. Come on, you guy remember," Ross said to a seething Sabrina. "He called her Shrimpy, and the name just kind of . . . stuck." As he had been speaking, the pirates had all grown very quiet.

Sabrina rolled her eyes at Ross. "That snooty little witch, who grabbed everything he wanted," Sabrina snarled. "And left me nothing," she added quietly.

The pirates looked from Sabrina to each other solemnly.

"No," said Ross through a mouthful of soggy fries. "He left you in that sandbox," he explained, oblivious to Sabrina's annoyance, "and then he said that you could have the shrimpy shovel—"

Sabrina wheeled on him. "I need you to stop talking."

"Look, we have his turf now," Louis told Sabrina. "They can stay in Bore-adon—"

"Louis, that's his turf now!" Sabrina cried, pointing at the TV showing Harry's press conference. She switched it off. "And I want it, too. We should not be getting his leftovers!"

She grabbed the arm of Louis's filthy red jacket. "Son of Troy!" she said. She latched on to Ross's bicep. "Son of Mark!" She looked at the grimy ceiling. "And me, most of all, daughter of Elizabeth." She looked at Louis. "What's my name?" she asked.

Louis took off his hat and bowed down to her. "Sabrina," he said, smiling.

She stared at Ross, who looked up, startled. "What's my name?" she yelled.

"Sabrina?" he said through a mouthful of food.

She sighed and turned to the other pirates amassed before her at the table. "What's my name? What's my name?" she called out to them.

"Sabrina!" they boomed in unison.

That's right. Sabrina. She felt in her heart that she, not Harry, was the true Princess of Evil. Sabrina felt that she and her crew of pirates were the rottenest to the core. She'd show Harry . . . somehow. Sabrina strutted along the top of the long table, and her pirate crew cheered for her.

Just then, a long tentacle slithered out from the kitchen and lashed at Sabrina.

Shrieking, Sabrina leaped up and dodged it.

Her pirate crew ducked on the sides of the table to avoid it, too.

"Shut your clams!" bellowed Elizabeth's voice from the kitchen.

"Moooooom!" Sabrina shouted. She tossed back her hair and regarded her pirates. "It's all right." Her voice got louder. "Because when I get my chance to rain down on Auradon, I will take it! They're going to forget that boy. And remember the name—"

"Shirmpy!" Yelled Ross, slamming his fist on the table.

Everyone looked at him in silence.

Louis glanced at Sabrina, who nodded. Louis then led Ross to the door and threw him of the diner.

Sabrina was satisfied that Ross had gotten what he deserved. But he wouldn't truly be happy, not until Harry got what he was coming to him.