Once Upon a Time Season 4 Part 2 - Frost Bites

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Author's note:

First off, let me just say that I don't own Once Upon a Time, the characters, or anything else relating to the show.

Now, with that out of the way, here's a few notes about this story: it's part two in a three part series. You can read part one here: s/10344285/1/Once-Upon-a-Time-Season-4-Part-1-Cold-Front

Secondly, though this story is mainly set in the present, there are some flashbacks. Just for the sake of reference, said flashbacks take place roughly 400 years before the Dark Curse. The modern day elements begin one week after the events of part 1 of this story.

Thirdly, I love reviews, so if you like the story and think it's worth it to keep it going let me! And if there's any characters or plot elements you'd like to see added or addressed, let me know that too!

Thanks, enjoy.

CHAPTER 1

The Enchanted Forest, Many Years Ago

The carriage careened through the woods at a dangerously fast clip, the horses sliding around trees and dashing through narrow passages, their passengers swaying helplessly behind them. Those unfortunate enough to be riding in that particular carriage on that particular evening were huddled together, for comfort as much as warmth. No one could quite pinpoint why, but something about the events leading to that carriage ride gave everyone the impression it would be the last night they'd ever spend together.

"How much further is it?" Anna clung to her father's jacket as she whispered the words, barely audible over the howling of the wind outside and the shouting of the carriage driver.

"Not long now," the king responded, looking at the vial of green liquid in his hand. It was funny, he thought; it had been less than an hour since Tiana had come into his room to tell him that Baba Yaga had overcome their defenses and was now coming to kill them, yet somehow that hour seemed to be lasting an eternity.

"Don't worry, dear." The king was brought back to reality by the sound of his wife's voice, calm and collected beside him. He could tell just by looking at her eyes that she was terrified, but she kept her tone remarkably even. Still, as he looked around at their motley crew he knew that the queen was more than aware of how dire their situation was.

He supposed he should have felt guiltier, letting his kingdom burn as he and his family - and their maid - rode away to safety… though he supposed they would have felt guiltier were the "safety" they were riding away to not the lair of the woman who was trying to kill them all.

"Father, tell me where we're going." This time it was Elsa, the king's eldest daughter, who had spoken. She was seated across from him, her right hand clutching the window and her left wrapped around Tiana's fingers. It was just the five of them… only the five of them. A kingdom of two million people and in a single night Baba Yaga had killed all but the king, the queen, their two daughters, and their teenage maid.

"We are going to put an end to all this… to save whoever we can," the king said. Again, he looked at the vial of green liquid. He flashed back to that morning, when the kingdom's magician had given it to him.

"It's true love potion… very hard to come by. You must use it if all else fails… if the kingdom falls, you must go to the Vault and pour it in. It can defeat her. True love is the strongest magic of all." That magician was dead now, the king supposed.

"But how can we end this? That witch is the most powerful being ever created!" Elsa said. It was amazing, the king mused, how like her mother she was even at the young age of seventeen; she always kept her cool, never showed any cracks. She was composed, but also guarded. Not at all like Anna. His youngest daughter, thirteen years old, wore her heart on her sleeve and didn't care who knew it.

"It's time I told you. This," the king motioned to the small glass vial in his hand. "Contains true love. It is the only thing more powerful than her. It can defeat Baba Yaga… if we pour it into the Dark One's Vault."

"What? We can't go there! We must never go there!" Anna shouted, tears forming in her eyes.

"It's too late. We're already here," the king said, shaking his head as the carriage rolled to a stop. He was resigned to the idea that he would not live beyond that night… he only hoped that his daughters might not have to face the same fate he did. At his words the group looked out the window and saw through the thick, fast falling snow the one place they all dreaded most: the Dark One's Vault.

"It'll be alright, children, we will all be alri - " The queen's words were cut short by a blast of energy that smashed into the carriage, flipping it onto it's side and throwing the occupants violently to the ground. The five people inside watched in horror as the carriage began dissolving around them, leaving them sitting in the snow face to face with the very witch they had come to destroy.

"Baba Yaga," Tiana said, clenching her fists to keep the fear at bay. She needed to be strong. She had to be. The witch smiled, worms crawling out of her mouth and her jagged teeth gnashing up and down. She stalked towards the plucky maid, dirt trailing after every foot fall. She grabbed Tiana by the shirt and dragged her to her feet, sticking her nose in her face before speaking.

"I suppose you are the one who warned the king and queen I was coming? Why else would they bring a worthless servant girl on their pathetic escape mission?" Tiana's eyes began to water as she inhaled Baba Yaga's breath, a sickening mixture of blood and sweat. "Perhaps I should kill you first, then?"

"Go ahead," Tiana challenged, fighting hard to keep her voice from quivering and giving away her complete sense of terror.

"Or…" Baba Yaga dropped Tiana to the ground, blasting her with a spray of black magic that threw her across the field into a tree trunk. The witch scratched her head, matted clumps of lice filled grey hair falling to the ground. "We can start with the youngest and work our way up." With that Baba Yaga whirled around and faced Anna, summoning another blast of magic.

"No!" Elsa shouted, leaping to her feet. "I won't let you!"

"Foolish child," Baba Yaga said, laughing furiously. "Love is weakness. You will watch as I kill your sister and you will know that there is nothing you can do to stop it!" The witch raised her hands again, summoning the most horrific form of dark magic she could find. With one final cackle she willed it towards Anna and watched with satisfaction as it smashed into… Elsa.

"Elsa, no!" Anna said. Her sister had thrown herself in front of her moments earlier, sacrificing herself. She crawled out from under her sisters lifeless form and held her in her arms. "Please, please don't leave me!" Anna cried.

The king watched helplessly from the remains of the carriage, remembering the magician's words to him that morning and desperately hoping that they were true: "True love is the strongest magic of all."

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New Orleans, Present Day

Belle French was troubled; troubled because a week prior she and Regina Mills had set out on a road trip to rediscover themselves and had been locked out of town altogether; troubled because Rumple had given her a list of obscenely cryptic clues to go on and had expected her to make sense of them; and troubled because somehow she had actually agreed to go on a road trip with the Evil Queen.

"I got you a hamburger," Regina Mills said as she opened the car door and handed Belle a greasy paper bag stuffed with fast food. It had been three days since they'd gotten to New Orleans, a week since they'd left Storybrooke, and their diet in all that time had mostly consisted of fast food and take out.

"Thanks," Belle said, opening the bag and taking her own food out before passing it back to Regina.

"Any luck finding this 'Doctor Stevens'?" Regina asked, taking the list of clues from Rumple out her pocket and reading it again.

New Orleans

Anna and the maid

Baba Yaga

Doctor Stevens

"Nope. We've tried six hospitals since we got here and none of them have a Doctor Stevens on staff, or have even reported anything strange going on… not that we'd even know what constitutes 'strange' in this case," Belle joked, taking a bite of her hamburger.

"Right… well according to 'Skip', the rude peasant who served me our food, there's a Doctor Stevens who treated his aunt at a hospital a few miles out of town. I figured we might give that a try before torching this town," Regina said, making her opinions on New Orleans perfectly clear. She stuck the key in the ignition and the two women headed off to finally find Doctor Stevens.

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Storybrooke, Present Day

Emma Swan was seriously begin to rethink her life choices as she sat around the small table in her apartment with her parents, Snow White and Prince Charming, Captain Hook, a waitress who moonlit as a werewolf, and the Dark One discussing how they were going to survive their town being plunged into an eternal winter.

"OK," Emma said, silencing the bickering fairytale characters that surrounded her. "Belle and Regina have been gone a week. The ice encasing the town is getting thicker every day… and it's blocking out our cell phone signals."

"Which means we can't talk to Belle and Regina to give them any more clues," Ruby added.

"Exactly. Now I've read this book cover to cover," Emma motioned to the book that Belle had given her concerning the original Dark One. "And it's mostly a collection of stories and folk legends about Baba Yaga… there's nothing really concrete in here."

"So… why did you call us all here?" Hook asked, seeming slightly annoyed… come to think of it, he'd been seeming slightly annoyed since the day he'd been attacked by the Snow Queen.

"Because… not everything in here is useless. Mr. Gold and I have some new information to share," Emma said, motioning to Gold.

"The woman we are up against is called Baba Yaga," Gold explained. "Nobody knows where she came from, but she is the original Dark One… the most powerful Dark One… and now, it seems, she's woken up."

"But why now? Why after all these years?" Snow asked.

"Because your daughter let the Snow Queen out, which released Baba Yaga's powers as well has her own."

"But how is that possible? How does freeing one woman from a prison mean another one suddenly has magical powers and a desire to kill everyone in Storybrooke?" Charming asked, frustrated.

"Miss Swan, I believe you have a story to explain that one." Emma opened the book and began reading.

"The witch was only to be defeated at the height of her power, on a cold winter's evening after she had wrought total destruction upon the world. The land of Arendelle, which has since faded to myth and legend, was once the most powerful kingdom in all of the realms until Baba Yaga appeared to destroy it. From the fiery ashes of the kingdom the King, Queen, their daughters, and a maid escaped, travelling long and far to the Vault of the Dark One, where they planned to kill savage witch. Though they did not succeed, an act of true love was enough to keep the Dark One from continuing her reign of terror. At great cost the witch was banished to another land, her dark magic intertwined with light and sealed away forever in the Matrix for all eternity… yet legend persists that one day this dark being will rise again, and that on that day only the Queen of the Snow shall possess the power to defeat her."

"What the bloody hell does that mean?" Hook asked, annoyed at the cryptic tone of the story.

"It means…" Rumple began to explain. "That Baba Yaga once came close to having total power over all the realms. This land of Arendelle was a real place, a place that she destroyed. She killed millions of people before being stopped… before being sucked through a portal to this land."

"This land?" Charming asked, now more confused than ever. "How is she here? And what the hell is this Matrix thing?" In answer, Rumple held up the golden container that had once imprisoned the Snow Queen.

"This is the Matrix. It is an enchanted prison capable of containing the most powerful magic. The Snow Queen created it and had herself imprisoned in it."

"Why would she do that?" Ruby asked.

"Because it was the only way to stop Baba Yaga. Don't you all understand? The Queen of the Snows was the little girl. We can't know how, but somehow, on a night long ago, she did something very brave - something very loving - to counteract Baba Yaga's magic. An act of True Love is the most powerful light magic, and the Dark One's is the most powerful dark magic. If the two were to become fused, to be used at the same moment on the same person, the users would be linked together by magic. One could not exist without the other."

"So this 'Queen of the Snows' did something that magically linked her to Baba Yaga who somehow ended up in our world and the Snow Queen knew the only way to stop her from destroying the universe was to trap herself in an all powerful magical prison… which also trapped Baba Yaga somehow…?" Charming asked. Rumple and Emma nodded.

"Well that's bloody more confusing than before," Hook said. Snow was about to open her mouth to interject something when there was a knock on the door. Emma looked at her watch; four in the morning. Who would be there at that hour?

Snow got up to open the door, tea mug in hand. She sipped it as she unlocked the various deadbolts and unhooked the chain. She twisted the knob and opened the door. The mug clattered to the floor. Emma and the others rushed to her side to see who it was. Five jaws dropped simultaneously at seeing the Snow Queen standing in the doorway of Emma Swan's apartment. With a weak smile the woman spoke, twisting her blonde braid nervously.

"Right then, this is where my part of the story comes in…"

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Author's Notes:

-Did you like it?

-Reviews are welcome!

-Will Belle and Regina find Doctor Stevens and sort everything out?

-On a scale of 1 to 10, how confusing was the explanation of the Snow Queen/Baba Yaga thing? It'll be revealed in greater detail later on, it just seemed like information readers needed going forward.

-How awesome is Tiana? And of all the new characters coming this season, who's gonna be your favorite!?

-Will you actually keep reading this story?