Choosing Love

Chapter Nineteen

Ben sighed as he walked over to the gym. It was the best place to find Uma and right now, he needed to talk to her. He knew everyone changed, that was just a way of life. But Mal's request to not have the dragon nickname be used...well it honestly bothered him.

Uma would know if anyone was giving Mal a hard time about being a VK. They were practically glued to the hip ever since Uma got from the Isle, or at least that's how it seemed to Ben. Not that Ben blamed them. If he'd been separated from Chip for even a week, he'd be hard pressed to leave his side.

Walking into the gym, he couldn't help but smile as he watched Uma and Harry once again go at it with swords. They truly were good at what they did. Though, as Harry once told him one of the first times Ben had seen them in action, they were pirates. They couldn't not be good at sword fighting otherwise how could they protect themselves and their crew?

The Isle was probably the most dangerous place in Auradon after all, and they had younger crew members to look out for. Mal would have killed them if they let anything happen to Hadie while she was across the bridge.

Plus, Harry was a Hook. They were practically pirate royalty after all. It would have been more alarming if he hadn't been good at swordplay.

"Nice match," he said as Harry's sword hit the ground with a clang. Uma and Harry looked over at him with a little bit of shock as if they weren't expecting him to be there. Well, granted, it was class time but all the classes got cancelled due to Cotillion prep. Fairy Godmother figured that it would elevate stress if there were a few days off here and there—Mal had told him she figured it was because Jane was the one planning the thing this time.

Ben thought that made sense. Fairy Godmother would want to try to elevate stress for her daughter where she could and if that meant the whole school got a day off from classes here and there, they weren't going to argue.

"Thanks Benny," Uma nodded as she picked up Harry's sword and handed it to him. "Mal's not here."

"I know," Ben nodded. "I'm looking for you. I'd like a word."

"I know nothing about that smoke bomb that went off in Charming Jr.'s face," Uma said instantly.

"What smoke bomb?" Ben asked with a small chuckle. He knew which smoke bomb she was talking about, how could he not? The thing went off right in front of him, and of course Uma had to know something about it. It was a bright teal smoke bomb after all.

Chad hadn't minded though, to Ben's surprise. Then again, Chad had been more of himself ever since Leah had been sent to the Isle. Every so often, especially if he was around Audrey, he would act 'prattish' as Akiho would often say but more often than not Chad would be the way he used to be back when he and Ben were kids.

Kitty and Lucy were a bit apprehensive about the change but Alexandria seemed to welcome it. Then again, she was the youngest Charming. To her, Chad might have just been changing for the better and not going back to the way he used to be.

"Right. So what did you want to talk about Benny?" Uma asked as Harry looked over at her with a raised eyebrow, as if he didn't know what she had been talking about.

Ben sighed. "Has...has Mal seemed different to you?"

"Oh thank Gods someone else has noticed it! " Uma sighed in relief. Ben blinked in surprise, that definitely hadn't been the reaction he had expected.

"I don't know if I should be happy that someone else has noticed it or sad that I'm not the only one," he sighed.

Harry sheathed his sword and shook his head. "Benny, I think everyone has noticed that something's going on with Mal. She couldn't make it more obvious that something was wrong than if she shot a cannon at us."