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

Ursula’s Fish and Chips sat on a dreary wharf on the Isle of the Lost.

A swashbuckling young man, Harry, son of Captain Hook, strolled toward the shop, holding a glinting silver 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 green eyes and sharp cheekbones made him both beautiful and frightening.

Harry 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.

Harry 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 URSULA’S FISH AND CHIPS and featuring Ursula 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 Ursula’s powers, but the whites of Ursula’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 Harry 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, mortified. Harry turned on his boot and sauntered through the seaweed-green swinging doors of the diner.

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 dock beams, smashed lobster traps, an old waterlogged 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, gulf goo, and pickled lamprey. Harry stashed 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 a motley crew of dim-witted teen pirates who talked over trays of fish and chips. Among them was Gil, Gaston’s brawny son, who had dirty blond hair peeping out from under a cap and wore an orange-brown leather vest. What Gil lacked in IQ he made up for in muscles. Harry 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 Mal and Ben at their press conference.

A teenage girl with long turquoise hair plopped a tray of food down on the table in front of Harry, 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 a pirate punk and also the spitting image of her sea witch mother, Ursula—back in the day, of course. Uma was the girl’s name, and she wore Ursula’s gold nautilus shell on a gold chain, though the necklace had no powers on the Isle of the Lost, where magic was forbidden and as obsolete as the old TV at which she glared.

Uma turned and grabbed fish sticks from Harry’s tray, then chucked them angrily at the TV screen. “Ugh!” she yelled. She turned back to her pirate crew. “Poser,” she shouted, referring, of course, to Mal.

“Traitor!” Harry called out at the TV.

Leaning on the table, Uma 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.

Harry 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.

Uma turned on dim-witted Gil, who was busy eating eggs. “Gil!” she barked.

“Huh?” asked Gil, completely and utterly unaware.

Uma leaned toward him. “You want to quit choking down yolks and get with the program?”

Gil mumbled with his mouth full of food and pointed. “Yeah, what they said!”

Uma turned back toward the others. “That little traitor, who left us in the dirt.”

Harry sucked food off his fingers. “Who turned her back on evil,” he said.

“Who said you weren’t big or bad enough to be in her gang,” Gil told Uma as he refilled his empty tray with food at a serving counter connected to the kitchen. “Back when you were kids. Come on, you guys remember,” Gil said to a seething Uma. “She called her Shrimpy, and the name just kind of…stuck.” As he had been speaking, the pirates had all grown very quiet.

Uma rolled her eyes at Gil. “That snooty little witch, who grabbed everything she wanted,” Uma snarled. “And left me nothing,” she added quietly.

The pirates looked from Uma to each other solemnly.

“No,” said Gil through a mouthful of soggy fries. “She left you that sandbox,” he explained, oblivious to Uma’s annoyance, “and then she said that you could have the shrimpy shovel—”

Uma wheeled on him. “I need you to stop talking.”

“Look, we have her turf now,” Harry told Uma. “They can stay in Bore-adon—”

“Harry, that’s her turf now!” Uma cried, pointing at the TV showing Mal’s press conference. She switched it off. “And I want it, too. We should not be getting her leftovers!”

She grabbed the arm of Harry’s filthy red jacket. “Son of Hook!” she said. She latched on to Gil’s bicep. “Son of Gaston!” She looked at the grimy ceiling. “And me, most of all, daughter of Ursula.” She looked at Harry. “What’s my name?” she asked.

Harry took off his hat and bowed down to her. “Uma,” he said, smiling.

She stared at Gil, who looked up, startled. “What’s my name?” she yelled.

“Uma?” 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.

“Uma!” they boomed in unison.

That’s right. Uma. She felt in her heart that she, not Mal, was the true Princess of Evil. Uma felt that she and her crew of pirates were the rottenest to the core. She’d show Mal…somehow. Uma 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 Uma.

Shrieking, Uma leaped up and dodged it.

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

“Shut your clams!” bellowed Ursula’s voice from the kitchen.

“Mooooom!” Uma 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 evil on Auradon, I will take it! They’re gonna forget that girl. And remember the name—”

“Shrimpy!” yelled Gil, slamming his fists on the table.

Everyone looked at him in silence.

Harry glanced at Uma, who nodded. Harry then led Gil to the door and threw him out of the diner.

Uma was satisfied that Gil had gotten what he deserved. But she wouldn’t truly be happy, not until Mal got what was coming to her.