A/N: This is just a short one shot I wrote for my sister's birthday. She's eleven now. Gosh, she's so grown up. If you want to put it in the canon storyline it would be somewhere between book two and three. It follows a morning in Charming's life, so it's sort of from his perspective. Hope you enjoy it.
"MR. SEVEN!" Mayor Charming's scream echoed throughout the mansion. It wasn't a girly scream, however. It was a many scream, a scream of rage and fury. This was the kind of scream that instilled fear into the hearts of all who heard it, well, everyone except Mr. Seven of course. Mr. Seven was the mayor's PA, he had volunteered for the job (although Charming didn't know that), and he was not scared of his employer in the least. Charming may play the bad guy, but, the truth was, he needed as much help as he could get. What with most people despising him because he wanted to buy out their homes, Prince Charming had a lot of enemies in Ferry Port Landing and not nearly enough friends. Thus he needed the few supporters that he had, he needed them desperately. If anyone had ever been completely secure in their job, it was Mr. Seven. After all, who else would put up with the ridiculous fairy tale hero turned mayor?
Mr. Seven, who was actually the seventh of the seven dwarves, came running at the mayor's call. "Mr. Seven," Charming cried as the dwarf toddled into the room. "Tell me this isn't true. Tell me that there is not a life threatening crisis happening in the middle of town."
Mr. Seven hesitated for a moment, unsure of what the mayor wanted to hear. "There is not-"
"DON'T LIE TO ME, SEVEN!" the handsome man bellowed, for he was handsome when he wasn't being a total jerk.
"Yes, sir. No, sir. Sorry, sir." the dwarf mumbled, busying himself with straightening the mayor's clothes. The boss was in a bad mood today. Charming pushed his assistant out of the way, with enough force to send the dwarf flying. Strutting forward, the mayor began his descent to the main hall, leaving Mr. Seven to follow in his wake.
"Sheriff Hamstead!" Charming called out to the everafter who was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. "You had better hope the rumors I've been hearing aren't true, Hamstead. A blunder like this could cost you your career."
Hamstead gulped at the threat. Unlike Seven, Hamstead did not have as much faith in his job security. Charming had already fired his deputies, Swineheart and Boarman, Hamstead was simply waiting for the day when Charming deemed the entire police force unnecessary and sacked him as well. "I'm afraid some of what you heard might have possibly been true, but I can assure you that it is completely not my fault. I-"
"I don't care whose fault it is, I just want it fixed!" Charming bellowed. "Now tell me, is there or is there not a giant guinea pig rampaging through the city?"
"Well, you see, it's like this…"
"Is there or is there not, Hamstead?"
"Yes, sir, there is, sir."
Charming's face was the absolute picture of rage. " !" He called to his dwarf companion. Mr. Seven scurried up to his boss's side. "Gather the three immediately. This situation calls for magical involvement." Mr. Seven set out to follow his orders. "Oh, and pull up the car." Charming called as an afterthought. "I need to see how bad it is."
The three were a coven of witches who worked for the mayor. They were his consults where anything magical was involved. He called on them whenever there was a magical crisis, like a herd of centaurs galloping through the streets or sword fights between Robin Hood and King Arthur turning into all out war. A gigantic guinea pig definitely qualified as a magical crisis, and their help in the matter would no doubt be invaluable.
Charming thought the situation was bad, but he had no idea just how bad it actually was. Upon reaching the center of town, he hardly recognized the place. The street was smashed up, cars were thrown everywhere, and several buildings were completely gutted. A crowd had formed at one end of the street. Humans and everafters, both were quaking in their shoes with fear. Puss in Boots could be spotted, passed out in the middle of the group, clearly having fainted with fright. Charming walked up to the citizens, preparing to make a motivating speech, when a very old, very noisy car came flying up the road. William groaned. It was Relda Grimm.
"Even I know you're not supposed to be driving, Relda." The former prince chided as the car came to a lurching stop right in front of him. "I could get you into deep trouble for this."
"Desperate times, call for desperate measures I'm afraid." Relda exclaimed cheerfully, getting out of the car. Her three brats followed in her wake, the girls looked vaguely sick after being their grandmother's passengers. The fairy prince, however, looked absolutely ecstatic.
"That was awesome! It was like a rollercoaster, except more dangerous! You should drive all the time, old lady."
The oldest of the girls…what was her name? Serena? Susan? Well, whoever she was, she gave the trickster king a look of disbelief. "You are crazy! She almost killed us!"
The girl and the fairy began to bicker, and didn't notice the ground begin to shake as giant footsteps approached the group. Everyone else noticed though. Screams filled the air as humans and everafters alike began to flee down the street in terror. Charming cursed under his breath. Where was the three when he needed them? Soon, it was just the Mayor, Mr. Seven, Sheriff Hamstead, and the Grimms left. The guinea pig approached, and the two children's voices trailed off, their argument forgotten. The rodent was huge, easily the size of two houses combined. He was walking slowly, and, if he had been normal size, wouldn't have seemed threatening in the least.
"Aw! He's so cutadorable!" The youngest Grimm squealed, biting on the palm of her hand as she was known to do when she got excited.
"Cutadorable?" Her older sister asked incredulously.
"Yeah, it means beyond cute and adorable."
"I get the word; it's just that that thing looks like it wants to eat us. You should find it terrifying, not cute or adorable." Serena/Susan retorted. The younger Grimm stuck her tongue out at her sibling.
"Both you guys are wrong!" The fairy boy shouted. "This thing is amazing! Just look at him! I bet he could destroy this whole town in a matter of minutes!"
At that moment, the guinea pig lumbered up to a building, sniffing it very seriously. Everyone watched in horror and amazement as the oversized rodent took a big bite out of the stone wall. He was trying to eat the building!
"Quick! We have to stop him!" Sheriff Hamstead called out. His nose morphing into a pig snout as his emotions flew out of control.
"How are we supposed to stop that thing? It's huge!" Charming cried out in despair. "It could eat the whole town and still have room for seconds!"
"Well, we have to try to stop him." Relda joined the discussion. Fortunately, she remained calm, her brain quickly thinking up solutions.
"What if we magiced some guinea pig food bigger? Then Peter would eat the food instead of the buildings." The younger Grimm sister suggested.
"Peter?" Her older sister asked.
"Yeah, I named him."
Sabrina (that was her name!) looked like she wanted to say something sarcastic about her sister naming the guinea pig, but she restrained herself. "Well, we don't have guinea pig food, and we don't have a way to grow it. Even if we did though, that would be an extremely bad plan. Because then, not only would we have a giant guinea pig on our hands, but we would also have a giant mountain of food. That would be much more trouble than it's worth."
Mayor Charming had never agreed with a Grimm more than he did at this moment. He cringed to imagine the clean up job that a mountain of rodent feed would entail. It would also call for a mountain of forgetful dust, and that stuff wasn't cheap.
Relda spoke up. "If one of us could get back to the hall of wonders and grab one of the 'DRINK ME' potions from Alice in Wonderland, we could use that to shrink him down."
"I can assure you, Grimm, your assistance is not required." Mayor Charming snipped. "My coven will be here soon and they will take care of everything."
"Providing that the guinea pig doesn't level the town before they have a chance to stop it." Relda muttered.
Puck unfurled his wings, lifting himself up off the ground. "Sounds like what we need is a distraction. Lucky for you, I'm great at distractions."
"Puck! Wait, no!" It was too late. The fairy prince already had his wooden sword out, and was flying straight towards the gigantic animal.
At first it appeared that Peter was going to ignore Puck, and eat his building peacefully while the fairy poked at him with his sword. Then the trickster slashed slightly too close to the animal's eye and everything changed for the worse. Peter snapped at his attacker, nearly catching the fairy's wings with his teeth. Impressively, Puck managed to stay out of his grasp, leading the animal on a merry chase down the street. It looked as though the fairy might actually be able to handle the fight, but even Puck couldn't fly like that indefinitely. As the large guinea pig swung it's head around, the trickster king moved just a little bit too slowly when getting out of the way. The animal's snout rammed into Puck with enough force to send the fairy boy flying. He landed on the ground, unmoving, and the guinea pig began to shuffle towards him.
"Granny, do something!" Daphne cried.
Then the old woman did something so brave that even Prince Charming found himself staring at her with admiration. She ran forward, positioning herself between the mountainous rodent and her adopted grandchild. The guinea pig sniffed her, and then reared its head back. Both the Grimm Sisters screamed, believing their grandmother was about to be eaten right before their eyes. Puss in Boots chose that moment to become conscious, and, after a minor panic attack, promptly fainted again. Then, just as the guinea pig was about to bring its head down, something happened. Peter stiffened, his head looking up in alarm. With a deafening squeak the guinea pig rapidly began to shrink. It was a bizarre sight, and everyone simply stared on in confusion. Finally, when the animal had shrunken to a small enough size, they saw her. Morgan le Faye was standing, a wand in one hand and her son Mordred's ear in the other.
Morgan released her son, throwing him forward. "Go on. Pick up your pet, Mordred."
"It was an accident." Mordred grumbled, going over to the now dog sized rodent and gathering it in his arms.
Charming boiled. All this happened because that armature warlock had been experimenting with his pet? There would be serious consequences for this. At the moment, however, there was a more serious issue at hand. How were they going to clean up this mess?
"I can explain everything." Morgan started as Charming walked up to her.
"No need. I know exactly what happened, and I assure you there will be a penalty for this disaster. For now, we will focus on cleaning up this mess. Where is the rest of you coven?"
"They're on their way."
"Very well, clean up this mess. Then we'll talk about the consequences your son will be facing. Mr. Seven, pull up the car." Charming called for his assistant. Unfortunately, the dwarf was distracted, and didn't hear his boss. After all, he was in the presence of the gorgeous Morgan le Faye. "MR. SEVEN!"
"Yes, sir, coming, sir."
As they drove away in the car, Charming ran a hand over his face. It was only ten in the morning and already he felt like he had been working for hours. He let his mind wander to pleasanter things, knowing that as soon as he got back to his office he would be working his tail of trying to raise the funds to rebuild that street. Oh how he envied other mayors that didn't have to deal with magic and other fairytale nonsense. It didn't help that he was criminally understaffed. At least he was having dinner with Snow later. That was just about the only good thing happening today.
"Mr. Seven," He called out wearily
"Yes, sir?"
"Cancel the visiting hours today. We'll be far too busy to take any civilian complaints."
"Very well, sir." Mr. Seven replied sympathetically. It was going to be a long day for Mayor Charming.