Okay this idea basically came while playing Gears Of War 3 online, but don't worry there will be other games mentioned as Chapters continue. Hopefully it's funny but it will get funnier as it goes along, just trying to get the premise to the summary up first. Also, none of the GamerTags really belond to me, I don't even know if they are real or not. Enjoy.
Emma closed the door behind her as she stepped inside the apartment. "Henry! Mom! Dad!" She called as she stepped over towards the fridge, yanked open the door and rifled through it to find a beer. Pulling it out she cracked the top as she was met with silence. Emma glanced around the small kitchen, her eyes finally resting on the note lying on the counter.
Dear Emma,
Your father and I are going out for the night to mingle, I knew you wouldn't want to join so I didn't bother asking. Henry is staying at a friends house, if you get too lonely call me or your father and we'll come straight home.
Love from your Mother & Father
P.S. - There is some dinner in the fridge, spaghetti and meatballs. We'll be home late, don't wait up.
Emma dropped the note back onto the counter and took a sip of her beer as she looked around the empty apartment. Her life hadn't been this quiet in so long. So long it was sought of scary. She quickly scaled the stairs with her beer in hand. Stepping into Henry's room she moved over towards his comic book collection and rifled through each magazine, noting what she hadn't read, picking up what she was planning to read and making internal notes on what to return for some other day that her son was away.
She stopped at the game cover that sat in the midst of the comics. Pulling it out she read the back briefly, looked at the small pictures and the cover image and turned to face the Xbox that was slid in between two wooden frames underneath the large flatscreen television. You must make sure these games are suitable for Henry Emma told herself. With a shrug she dropped down onto the floor fiddled with the console and the TV until it was logged in and quickly put the game in.
She spent a few minutes getting familiar with the controllers before starting up a versus match. She needn't worry about the internet, Storybrooke was like a Wifi hotspot. Scrolling down to King of the Hill she pressed select and made her way to the map selection, where she scrolled through until she landed on the best and most comfortable map. Selecting Old Town, she made herself a Gear COG and selected Samantha Byrne. Shrugging she hit play and waited for the game to find it's players.
Not even five minutes in and she had four team mates and five enemies. She noted the gamertag DarkXxMagic, but thought better off it and solely focused on the game before her.
Regina sighed as she sat on the floor in front of the TV with a glass of Cider in her hands. She had the console on and running as it searched in a hopes of finding a compatible match. She remembered playing video games with Henry before all hell went loose and Henry fully became Emma's son. Damn blonde wom- she paused noting the gamertag SavingXxSavior. She eyed the tag curiously as. It was definitely her son's tag, she remembered one conversation in which Henry had mentioned making another account at the Charming residence. So she finally got to play with her son afterall, even if it was a gorey game highly innappropriate for Henry. That's Miss Swan's parenting skills Regina thought that thought through, she couldn't very much reprimand Emma for allowing Henry to play game that he had for the console in her house. Sometimes life sucks like that.
Emma found herself dodging incoming fire from the Lancer rifles of the opposing team. The bloody idiots in her team were to busy running around arguing over the speakers about who gets what weapons, the only person of any use happened to be DarkXxMagic who quickly masacred all five players on the other team with a well thrown grenade that landed in the middle of the group that was awaiting the 'Hill' to lock in red as captured for their team. It was definitely a 'Quinn' medal well earned.
Regina revved the Lancer up and sawed the player from behind in half. She chuckled lightly to herself, as crazy as it sounded the game was a stress reliever. All her fury at Snow White and the rest of Storybrooke was quickly melted away as she picked up another player tagged him with a frag grenade and kicked him into a pile off players watching as her screen lit up with medals.
Emma picked off players with the sniper rifle and whenever she ran out of bullets she downed the players with her Hammerburst and allowed DarkXxMagic to execute them in whatever fashion the player wished. Even without the rest of the teams, Emma found herself and this other player annihilating the other team and winning with one round left to go. The other team mates were still complaining about who got what gun and when.
Regina rounded a sharp corner of the last round and quickly came face to face with a Gnasher shotgun that shredded her to pieces. She screamed, jumped, swore vengence on the player and laughed when SavingXxSavior rounded the corner from behind the enemy player that had just killed her and blew him to even smaller pieces with their sawed off.
Emma sat straight up in her seat, downing her fourth coffee of the morning and it was only seven, as she tried kicking the tiredness out of her body. Her and DarkXxMagic had stayed up all night, neither got any sleep until both surprisingly at the same time logged out. It only hightened Emma's curiosity and belief that Regina Mills was in fact her counterpart online.
Emma looked across the diner table at Henry who was stuffing a burger down his throat as if it were going out of style. She continued staring at the boy as he held the burger in one hand and scoffed down a handful of fries. If she didn't ask, she'd drive herself crazy...well crazier than she was already, if it were possible. "Henry?"
"Yeah Mom?" Henry replied around a mouthful of fries and burger.
"Finishes chewing before you speak." Emma pointed out and Henry quickly shut his mouth to finish chewing. "I was just curious, did you have an Xbox at your Mom's house?"
Henry nodded, swallowed and spoke. "Yeah."
"Did you have Live?"
Henry nodded again and took a bite of his burger.
"Mind me asking what the Gamertag was?" Emma asked leaning over the table with a smile on her face.
Henry swallowed and spoke again with a smile on his face. "DarkXxMagic because of Mom you know. Just like my one at home is SavingXxSavior." He beamed and then stopped to give her a curious look. "Why?"
Emma shrugged nonchalantly. "Just curious."
"Don't get it." Henry shook his head. "Grandma and Gramps already have plans to buy me a new Xbox and Kinect for my birthday."
It wasn't Emma's intention on buying him an Xbox for his birthday but to hide the true reason, she gave smile and nod. "Right. No Xbox."
Emma strode purposefully through the Town Hall and towards the Mayor's office. She gave a curteous nod towards the Secretary that was rifling through page after page off work. After Regina had saved the town from it's inevitable demise the town had accepted her back, not without caution and hesitancy that was to be expected, but they were civil to her and allowed her to go back to her job especially when contact with the outside world came and Storybrooke needed somebody who actually knew what they were doing as Mayor.
She waited for the Secretary to jump to her feet and knock on the Mayor's door with a polite, "Madam Mayor, Sheriff Swan is here to see you."
"Thank you Claire, let her in." Regina's voice came and Emma could almost hear the undertone of forced politeness, but she was trying and nobody was going to ruin it for her or question her on it.
"My, my, I'm surprised." Emma said with a small hint of amusement in her tone. "I mean really Madam Mayor. I mean I'm a kid at heart but you?" She grinned.
"Sheriff?" Regina asked with a sigh in her voice. "Can I help you?"
"Well you did good last night. I must admit I never picked you for an ass kicking girl, well I did but you know..." Emma trailed off in thought. She could have worded that better.
"Afraid I don't, Miss Swan. What on Earth are you talking about?"
"Gear of War. Three, to be precise."
Regina's eyes widened slightly and to someone who didn't know Regina, they wouldn't have noticed it but Emma knew Regina. Knew the woman well. God, she was infatuated with the woman, but that was going nowhere fast.
Regina steeled her expression, something she was good at after so long. "I have no idea what you're talking about." She returned her eyes to paperwork before her.
"Right." Emma drew out in disbelief as her grin grew bigger. "I'll play." Emma nodded and moved towards the door once again before looking back over her shoulder at Regina. "Just in case, I don't know, DarkXxMagic just happens to be listening in on our conversation." She paused a small micheivous smile on her face at Regina's uncomfortability. "I'll be on later tonight. Say around nine." With that she left.
Regina paced back and forth in thought. It was closing in on nine o'clock. Five minutes...exactly before nine and she was contemplating taking Emma up on the subtle invite. She hated even the thought of having teamed up with Emma and just the two of them having actually won, but that just happened to be the case.
With a sigh. She gave in and sat down on the floor in front of the TV once again.
Emma watched as the 'pending' underneath DarkXxMagic, Gamertag, vanished and was replaced with a phrase Henry more than likely came up with. She smirked and pumped her fist in the air. Bringing up the message box she quickly typed out a message.
SavingXxSavior - So not Storybrooke Mayor. How are you?
"Emma?! Henry!" Snow called from the base of the stairs.
Emma jumped to her a feet and bounded down the hallway and down to the base of the stairs. Last thing she wanted was to be caught playing video games in Henry's room. "Hey."
"Hey, where's Henry?" Snow asked with curiousity.
"He's staying over his friends house again." She gave a small smile as she continued. "I actually think he's staying there because of his friends sister."
Snow smiled in understanding. "Well I hate to do this two nights in a row but me and your Father are going out again."
Emma nodded, her insides screaming for joy. Alone. Again. Yes! "It's fine. I get it Queen and King stuff."
Snow nodded. "You sure you don't want to come?"
Emma shook her head. "Nah I think I'll just stay here and...read?" She said the last part as more of a question that and answer.
"Read?" Snow asked with disbelief tinging her voice.
"What can I say? I love books." Emma gave her mother and innocent smile and watched as Snow dropped the conversation altogether.
Emma waited for her parents to leave, giving each a quick hug and wave before she slammed the door, locked it so only a key could open it, prayed that her parents had taken a key with them and sprinted towards and up the staircase and back to Henry's room. She quickly found a message from DarkXxMagic. She opened it with a warm smile.
DarkXxMagic - Ignoring you Miss Swan. Which seems to be actually easier to do online.
Emma chuckled under her breath. With a roll of her eyes she replied.
SavingXxSavior - Okay. Fine. *pouts*
DarkXxMagic - Did you really have to include the '*pout*' part Miss Swan? Because if you don't realize I can't actually see you. Also, it has no affect on me.
SavingXxSavior - Crap! I knew that!
DarkXxMagic - Language.
Emma chuckled. Then laughed. Then laughed louder until her ribs hurt.
SavingXxSavior - What are you going to do about it Mayor? Shit! Fuck! Bitch!
The message came immediately and it ceased Emma's laughing.
DarkXxMagic - Are you forgetting that I am you boss? And that I live in the same town as you? Not to mention know where you live? Also, I still have my magic, Miss Swan.
Emma swallowed and quickly typed back a reply on the controller keypad.
SavingXxSavior - Gears of War 3?
Regina smirked in victory. She could almost hear the innocence behind the question. She could almost hear the fear in the womans voice. With that thought in her head, Regina laughed and laughed loudly.
On the other side of Storybrooke, Emma swore she could hear manical laughter. With a shrug of her shoulders she returned to the game that was beginning as her and Regina once again teamed up together and started their hot pursuit of the enemy. For the rest of the night they didn't message each other or even think about the real world, focusing solely on the game and team work.
Will get funnier. Stick with us.