Operation All Realms

Chapter 1

Henry chuckled at his sister Hope's book report on the "The Great Gatsby". She clearly wasn't impressed by Fitzgerald's book. She made some good points too, in a very sarcastic way. He could definitely see mom's influence.

Hope hadn't complained about him being her senior English teacher like Roland had. Hope liked analyzing things, so she enjoyed writing book reports. She also liked talking about the books with him when the family got together. She hated reading her reports in front of class, though. She was the polar opposite of Roland as a student.

A weird gleam caught the corner of his eye. Henry turned around in his chair. He'd made his home office the room where all the storybooks had been shelved. Something had flashed back somewhere in them. The light flared again. He stood up and walked over to the shelf he'd seen it coming from. Something was up with the storybooks on that shelf.

When he looked, he could see it wasn't the books, but something behind them. He pulled the volumes out and saw it. A storybook shoved against the back, behind the others. Then he remembered. A number of years ago he had hid it there. It was the awful alternate Storybrooke storybook. The one where terrible things kept happening, where mom never learned about the curse on her family, where Robin never came back, mom split her soul in two, and just more and more awful stuff. He had shoved it behind the other books and did his best to forget it. Until now, he had.

The book was letting out a sickly yellow-green miasma; every so often it would flare out. Even though he was only low level magic, he was attuned to the books as the current author. The magic coming from that book was wrong, very wrong. This was beyond dark magic; it was chaotic magic, literally spilling out of the book. Henry needed help, and fast. He didn't even know a binding spell and this needed that now. Henry pulled it out of the bookcase and quickly emptied a locked draw of his desk. He dropped it in the drawer and locked it quickly. It had felt disgusting. The locked drawer was pitiful protection, more for his momentary wellbeing than anything else.

Regina looked in on the girls. Hope was explaining some scientific concept to her sister.

"Why can't the book say it that way?" Grace said with exasperation. "I understand it when you explain it, but the stupid book just says all this junk that makes no sense."

Hope shrugged. "They just write it that way, for some reason."

Regina smiled and walked on into Robin's and her bedroom. Robin was reading an environmental report and grumbling about gobbledygook words under his breath. It was so like what she'd just overheard from their youngest daughter that she chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Robin grumbled, but with a faint smile. Hearing Regina laugh was the salve to his irritation.

"Our youngest was complaining almost exactly the same way to her sister."

"Ah. Grace has her father's mind, unfortunately. "

Regina kissed Robin. "I think it's wonderful. You just learn in different ways."

"Unfortunately, not in ways we need to sometimes. It's a struggle for me to take in things I read if it's in too scientific language. But if you say it to me I understand it much better."

"Grace is the same way. When the teacher lectures she can write it down in her own words so she remembers, but textbooks can frustrate her sometimes. You're both oral learners."

"I hope it's not a problem for her in college. She wants to go into medicine. I know that's hard."

Regina nodded; she worried about that too. But Rebecka had assured her that no matter what Grace's grades were, she had the talent and skills to be a doctor. She might not get good enough grades to qualify for a doctor in the hospital but she was assured of a job in Rebecka's clinic. Rebecka would soon need an assistant doctor now that Douglas was interning at the hospital and doing quite well. He could only help out at the clinic on an occasional basis.

Regina's phone buzzed. "Hello, Henry? Is something wrong with the twins?" She asked.

"They're fine mom. But I've got a problem that needs your magic right away."

"What?"

"One of the Storybooks; magic is leaking out of it."

"Dark magic?" Regina said with a tense calmness.

"No. Not light magic either. It feels chaotic, broken, all mixed up."

"I'll be right there." Regina didn't waste another second; with a brief nod to Robin she disappeared.

Robin calmly nodded back and pulled out his phone, ready, just in case. Then he walked to the girl's bedroom. They were old enough to know something had happened again. Something bad.

Regina appeared in Henry's office. "Where is it?"

"I locked it in this drawer. Something told me I needed to get it away from all the other books, and make sure no one could open it, not even me."

"Good. I can put a barrier spell on it." Regina grimaced with disgust after she did. "It's repulsive, and I've touched the darkest magic. We're going to need more help with this. This will hold for a while, but it won't last. I don't have the power to shut it down alone. I can tell that already."

"Could you and Emma shut it down?"

"I don't know. I would need to see if there's any spell that can first. I hope the barrier spell will hold long enough. We need to let all the high level magic users in town know about this. We may need all of them."

"Including Grace and Hope?"

Regina looked grim. "Yes. They are fully trained, even if they aren't experienced."

"What about the moderate level magic users? There's a lot more of them than high level users."

"Yeah. We might even need low level users like Robin-"

"Violet and me."

Regina nodded. "Everyone that has even a bit of magic."

"So meeting tomorrow night?"

"Yeah."

"Here. I have the most room and we can show everyone what it feels like. Maybe someone will know of a spell."

"Maleficent is our best chance of that. She has an older knowledge of magic than I do. Tinkerbelle does too, but her knowledge is mostly light magic."

"So is it a kind of dark magic?"

"Not really. Dark magic has rules as well. This is just chaos, but there are threads of darkness in it."

"Okay. I'll get started on contacting everyone."

"I'll get the oldest texts I have from my vault and start looking. I have a feeling we'll need to look in the oldest sources we can find. I have one from Avalon that Morgan gave me years ago."

"Could they help us?"

"Avalon? Maybe. It's difficult to connect to them, even through my mirror spell, but I'll try."

Regina appeared in her vault and pulled out the Avalon text. She'd look through it at home. She glanced at the mirror. She had the ingredients to enhance the spell here…

"Regina" A voice called out from the mirror while she was gathering the ingredients. She set the bottle down and turned around. "Morgan? I was going to contact you."

"About the book?"

"You saw?"

"We felt it first, then searched for the source."

"Do you know what's causing it?"

"It's the authors-"

"Authors? I thought there could just be one at a time."

"Not always. There have been a few cases of two, and once there were five at once."

"Five? Were they together?"

"Yes, a writers group, five women, refugees from some terrible war in their realm. They all decided to stay here after they completed their book and passed the authorship on to the next. Around a hundred years ago. There are alternate worlds of the Land Without Magic as well as the Enchanted Forest and the other realms you knew. That's why there are so many storybooks."

"You told me about the one where I was your daughter. "

"Yes, Morgan smiled. There is also one closer to the story you lived, but you never married Leopold. You married Robin and came to Avalon."

"So one where page twenty-three continued?"

"Yes, but earlier."

Regina smiled. "You'll have to tell me the story someday, or tell Henry what book it's in so he can tell it to the family."

"I will. But now we have two authors and several subordinates who live in one of the other versions of the Land Without Magic. A darker version- teetering on the edge of destruction. They do not even realize they are that kind of authors. They think they have come up with the people and concepts they write about. They don't realize the concepts are real and so are the people. Those authors don't know what they think are characters exist in their world; just outside of what they think is reality. Those authors are writing a devastating chaos that is beginning to touch other realities."

"They are treating the stories like a toddler would their toy blocks."

"Yes. It is permanently damaging the reality for the people they are writing about. Perhaps we should have tried intervening earlier when we first noticed it having a negative effect on that reality . We expected things to correct by itself, though, as they have in every other reality. This reality is too infected by a chaotic darkness now, far beyond magic. The side of light is struggling just to keep things from sliding into utter destruction. They do not have the power to reverse it now. The light forces are too scattered, too shut out from power to fix things. There is no one to spare to stop the authors' damage. We have to stop this chaotic madness from spreading any more, then shut it off from all the other realities."

"How?"

"Thankfully, the damage they have done to other realities is minimal right now. The chaotic magic they've unleashed is breaking down the boundaries between realities to leach more chaotic power into theirs. This damage can be used by us to connect our magics. We can reverse the damage, shut off that reality from all others, and restore the boundaries between realms."

"So this really is worse than the darkest magic."

"Yes, we will need as many magic users as possible to do this."

"We're meeting tomorrow to discuss what to do. Should I contact the other ley line guardians too?"

"Yes. They'll need to hold the balance of the power lines of your realm."

"Is there anything more I can do right now besides the barrier spell?"

"Just strengthen it with anyone else that knows how to do the spell. The combination of magics will help hold the infection from getting any worse."

"Are we the first reality? Did all the others break off from ours? I was wondering because all the storybooks are here."

"Nearly, yes. The first reality was the one where you were my daughter. Then came this reality. Every other reality broke from ours at different points."

"I guess reading those comic books, science fiction and fantasy stories I was getting for Henry paid off. I actually understand this."

"You liked the stories too, didn't you?" Morgan smiled.

"I did, quite a bit. Liked most of the movies too."

"You have a questioning mind, Regina. You don't just want to know what, who and how, but why. And not only why, but what behind the why."

"I wish someone would have seen that when I was a child, saved me from the horrors I lived through and did. Taken me from my mother and brought me to you." Regina sighed.

"Our past is our past, but we can change our futures."

Regina nodded. "I learned that lesson the hard way."

"But you learned it all the same. Became the person your soul wanted you to be."

"Thank you." Regina felt a warm glow inside her at those words. But then her expression turned somber. "Now we have to save everyone's future. That dark reality, when we shut it off, will it destroy itself?"

"That's a possibility. But I think when it's shut off that will break the power of chaotic magic, and the balance of light will strengthen."

"So shutting them off will help them too."

"I believe so. The chaotic magic won't be able to drain magic from other realities. That will weaken it enough it will strengthen the power of hope, and that will spread the power of light magic. They may even get allies with those tending toward darkness that hate the chaos. Chaotic destructive magic is the enemy even of disciplined dark magic. If light magic users are wise, they can sometimes bring over those in the dark that dislike chaos and destruction. Those people realize that there is a good kind of order in light as well, that light is not weak but strong."

Regina could see the parallel to her choice to turn back toward the light. "I hope that happens too."