A/N I won't apologize for this, not even one bit, Evil!Emma is one of my best corrupted preferences on a character and the idea that she is going to show a darker side only gave me more ideas to write!
(This is also loosely based on a prompt that my girlfriend asked me weeks ago about Emma showing a darker side, I suppose that the time gave you the reason for me to write this, hun)
Disclaimer: I don't own neither of them
I don't want to say I'm sorry (Even if I am)
It had always been good versus evil, light against dark, life over death. They had always being playing with an easy palette of only two colors, painting the world in a monochromatic scheme that had lasted for far too long.
But, as Regina had discovered when she had fought against the idea of her being nothing more than the Evil Queen, the white and black had always a myriad of other shades that conformed the gray areas in which everyone moved and grew, even the ones that wanted to still see the world in either good or evil. And now that she was seeing how, once again, evil was trying to destroy everything before her she wanted to cry out that it was enough, that she had already discovered the truth: That no one wanted or liked being played.
Rumplestiskin's return had been strange and full of something that she now could only call mysterious but the appearance of the three Queens of Darkness had been downright worrisome.
And now, that all what she could see was the smug smirk on Emma's lips as Rumplestiskin laugh resonated around her she only wished for another chance to make everything right.
"Emma" She called again, her voice trembling just as Henry's had when he had called for his blonde mother not even ten minutes ago as she had entered in the dinner with a strange light glowing on her emerald eyes.
But just as Henry she was met with a raised eyebrow and that smirk, the eyes of the sheriff rimmed with red as the dark blue magic inside of her body swirled and reflected in them.
Henry was safe, Regina reminded herself, just like Snow and David and everybody else, the magic blast that had nearly destroyed the dinner had made the enough commotion to actually save everyone from the epicenter of the earthquake that Emma Swan seemed to have become.
Regina bit her lower lip as the words that she had once knew by heart appeared in her mind, "A Hero can be corrupted" and as she saw how Emma quietly looked at her over the dust and rubble that were now covering the dinner she suddenly understood Rumplestiskin's plan.
"It's curious how you were corrupted to bring all of us to this realm whereas she had been corrupted to destroy everything from it" Rumplestiskin said somewhere inside her, the man nowhere to be seen. "Two sides of the same coin, a slightly different reflection of the same power, one bathed with darkness and one with light but, at the end, everything is as twisted as life itself"
Regina clenched her teeth as Rumplestiskin cackle resonated in her brain, Emma already nodding as if she could also hear the venomous words.
"Why?" Regina asked, and even if her question was meant to the Imp it was the blonde who answered, her voice full of a strange lure that Regina could recognize as dark and unadulterated magic.
"Have you ever felt trapped?" Emma asked and laughed at that softly, almost as if she was talking with herself in an empty room. "Of course you have, you have been trapped since you were Henry's age, maybe even younger"
Regina swallowed as memories of her mother and Leopold flashed while she tried to focus on the younger woman who had finally took a step.
"The worst thing about being trapped is that we really don't know how much we are until we see how is to be free" Emma continued, her voice almost a purr that blocked the sounds and screams of the people at the other side of the now crumbled walls of the dinner. Regina felt the blue magic of Emma touching hers in an imperceptible way, almost as a soft caress just as the blonde took another step towards her. "And then, when we manage to see the sky… somebody is there to take it and to make us live in a box once again"
Regina tilted her head, Snow's voice could be heard at the other side and she found herself wishing for being helped.
Because there wasn't any way on earth that she was going to deliberately hurt the woman in front of her.
"They won't come in" Informed Emma as she raised one hand languidly and pointed with it at the destroyed wall "As far as I know they are going to be a little bit busy with some kind of present that Rumple had prepared. So here we are, all by ourselves"
Regina raised her chin and steeled herself, she had been a Queen once, she had make everyone around her believe that she was made of diamond and cold iron even before she actually knew how to rule a kingdom and she would do that again it that meant a few more seconds.
"Anyway, once we are inside a box and you grow out of it you are actually swapped inside of another one until you are so full of names that you can't seem to know what you really are anymore"
Emma's voice was now soft, open and vulnerable but her eyes were still cold and made Regina shudder a little under them, the woman before her taking another step, making the distance between them too little to being comfortable with.
But Regina managed to focus on Emma's eyes, trying not to respond at the strange openness that now Emma showed with her words.
"You told me once that you wanted to die as Regina" The brunette nodded mechanically, not quite knowing where that was going "But once we were on Neverland the only thing I heard was that I needed to be the savior, I needed to embrace that part of me that made me the boss, the mother without knowing how to actually know how, the perfect daughter for the perfect couple and, ultimately, the orphan who had returned back home"
Emma was now crossing her hands behind her back, her chest moving quickly as her words turned out more passionate with each moment, Regina could see the truth behind the dark magic that was still present and she wanted to ask for forgiveness, fate already playing games on the woman that she had grown to respect. The woman whom had helped her to see that she wasn't Evil anymore, that she deserved another happy ending.
"Emma…" Regina tried but Emma kept talking, as if she hadn't heard her, the screams at the other side of the wall becoming louder but Regina decided to be there, listening to the enraged woman before her, a woman that had accepted her place in destiny without a word only because she believed that it as her duty.
"This is what good people do" Emma had told Regina when they had only being two women fighting for their son, when the magical mishaps were nonexistent and Regina could still think and pretend that she hated the blonde deputy soon to be sheriff.
And maybe Emma had been right, being there was what good people did.
But she wasn't that Emma anymore, that woman had been forced to change once and again to please what others wanted and Regina wanted to close her eyes and now think about how much it had that been her fault.
"My entire journey had been full of moments in which everything seemed to tell me that I wasn't good enough, that I needed to be the savior, that I needed to be full of light and compassion. But I'm not like you, or like my parents, I'm not from some kind of book. I was raised here and I choose to be someone from this realm"
At this point Emma's magic was visibly floating between them, Regina's own magic being called from inside her body as Emma kept talking, her smile now a sneer as she trembled, full of rage.
"I can be evil, I can be bad, I can doubt and I can believe in other things, but if I wasn't anything but perfect then what could I be? Nothing. My parents, my so-called-full-of-love parents wanted a savior because that was what I needed to be. I needed to save everyone because it was written way before I was born" That last sentence was finished with an open laugh, Emma's lips settling in a more relaxed smile, almost as if she was thinking about something else apart from what she was saying. "You knew that you were the product of another experiment Regina? Rumplestiskin made you the way you were, tainted you because it was written by fate itself that it was you the one who was going to help him to help his son"
Regina nodded and took a step back, mentally thinking in any spell that she could use without hurting the blonde; Henry would never forgive her if she do that. And she wouldn't forgive herself either.
"And now his son is dead, karma really sucks if you think about it" Continued Emma "But well, I am his new addition, the savior that won't be anything anymore, the chosen one that had decided to be the one who choses for once. It's almost poetic. Or not, I'm really done with all of that"
Emma's dismissively words were the only sign that Regina had before the younger woman launched at her, her moves quickly and focused as the sense of danger and dark magic grew inside the almost collapsed room.
"Don't" Regina called, her voice rising over the screams and shouts at the other side of the wall, her hands touching the pieces of concrete that were now at her back as Emma stilled, looking at her curiously, as if she was resolving some kind of puzzle. "It's not poetic Emma, it's another trap and inside of you you know it because if you enter in his game then you are going to be trapped once again"
The blonde laughed at that, her leather covered arms crossing now in front of her as the magic moved over her, caressed her skin as if it was alive.
"And why is that Regina? Who sent me here the first time? Who allowed others to trap me? Who named me the savior for the first time?"
Regina clenched her fists, old fears resurfacing as Emma moved closed to her once again, this time more slowly than before, her eyes glowing with magic, pain and rage.
"Fate did" Replied swiftly, almost smiling when her voice didn't waver as much as she had feared to.
"Liar" Emma spitted back, lowering her head. "You are the ones to blame"
And with that the blonde finally released the magic that had been growing inside and around her frame, the blue magic almost a light shade of black by now.
Regina had only the enough time to make a magic shield, the force of the magical bomb making her feeling dazed for a few seconds as the dust settled once again, the place in which Emma had been standing a mere hole.
"Over here" Emma called, looking at Regina from the other side of the room, a few walls moving with what Regina supposed to be the aftershocks. "Rumplestiskin was right, you are a tough one"
"I needed to be" Regina said, wiping her mouth as elegantly as possible as she was the one this time that moved towards Emma. "And I still do"
Emma nodded and moved towards her, her magic growing darker as her eyes shifted once again, showing it.
"They told me that you were going to say that"
Regina licked her lips as Emma's body stilled a few inches away from her, the emerald eyes that once had been open and full of light were now twisted in pain and rage, the smugness of the first moments momentarily gone as the sense of danger grew once again around them.
"I suppose we have all made the same choice once" Regina replied, her voice barely a whisper "To be tough enough"
Emma's smirk returned and Regina focused on that movement, the pale skin wrinkling with what seemed to be lines of worry more than anything else. She still could recall the freshness that Emma had brought to Storybrooke the first months that she had been there all that time ago. Even if she had hated her.
"It's strange how much they know you" Emma was saying, never moving closing but neither stepping back from her position. "They even knew that you wouldn't hurt me, even if I let you do it"
It was Regina's turn to make a humorless smile.
"You already knew that"
Emma nodded and hummed, her eyes flickering towards Regina's lips for a moment and Regina felt the relief of that few seconds as she found herself in a territory that she was familiar with as she had been there with Emma for too many times before that.
"It's true" Emma said "I already knew that without the need of them telling me that but I suppose I enjoyed hearing what I already knew."
And with that Emma's rage and venomous magic returned in full force making Regina think about the myriad times in which she had been as trapped as Emma had felt and the only thing that she had done was turn more and more into the darkness that Rumple and her mother had feed her.
"Emma" Regina whispered, her voice a plea as her hands started to light up with magic.
"They are going to suffer without their savior" Emma suddenly said, moving her head quickly over Regina's right, the other side of the road strangely quiet by now. "But they will find another thing to worship when their hero won't be that anymore. Maybe you could try that place. It would be a nice change"
"I'm not a hero" Replied Regina, her voice soft but strong, her plea still present but her mind set.
She would not leave Emma behind or chained to the corrupted magic that lurked inside of her, but she wouldn't see how many lives were destroyed because of her. She wasn't dark or only evil anymore. That had been her journey had Emma had put it and as much as Emma she wanted to make her own decisions. Even if the blonde's words were dangerous enough as they talked about what she had felt once, when she had had a crown and had been feared and worshipped as much as she had been hated.
"I suppose you are not" Emma conceded and it was there, a flicker of light, of wonder behind the evil, a light patch inside the darkening heart of Emma Swan, the woman who had told her that she wanted to be friends even after everything that Regina had said and accused, the woman who had offered her to find her happy ending. Not only to search it but found it. The woman who had been so full of force that Regina suddenly saw that it wasn't light or goodness but Emma unique quality to believe that even if she didn't understand she could help because that was what good people do.
Even if the first thing that they said was something closer to "The next time this happens I will not help you" Because at the end everything is made by choices, fate be dammed.
"I really hope this works" Thought the brunette as she moved forward and kissed the other woman, trying to clench the sudden fear that stirred inside of her when the magic blast crossed over her body. The first time that that had happened too far away in time to actually be a representative moment as she held Emma's face between her hands.
"I suppose we aren't fit for being heroes, at least not to the rest of the world" Regina muttered, her lips still touching Emma's as the blonde woman closed her eyes, the dark force that had been between them thinning with each passing second.
And just as the sounds of the exterior returned and the walls around them started to move and crumble Emma finally opened her eyes, emerald and gold once again.
"Regina" Emma whispered