Rumpelstiltskin stiffens in the middle of a theatrical sentence, aware that something is very, very wrong.
"Dark One?" A timid voice questions.
He does not even answer them before he disappears to the Dark Castle (the Dark Castle where Belle is home alone, where she has only her wedding ring-a ring shielded against magic, not brute force- and the wards to protect her, wards that are open to guests, guests who appeared multiple minutes ago, and now everyone, even Belle, especially Belle, is gone, disappeared like smoke).
He materializes in the middle of the great hall, feeling for traces of unfamiliar magic (magic that could let them cover the distance between here and somewhere leagues away in moments). A transportation spell with traces of fairy magic still lingers in the air. (If Rheul Ghorm is behind this, her seconds are numbered.) He looks around frantically; there must be a clue as to what happened. Chairs are overturned; the fire poker is halfway across the room from its stand. A note is on the table.
Dark One,
Since I had nothing you wanted when I called you to me last, I have now acquired a suitable price. If you wish to have your whore back, you will fill the royal treasury and ensure my usurper of a nephew is found and killed.
She is a pretty little thing. You had better hurry or I may partake of your harlot's services myself.
Rupert
Duke of the Grasslands
He can feel the monster in him battling to take control and the man in him lets go (for both the man and the monster love Belle with everything they are, and today he needs the monster's viciousness).
All magic, even fairy magic, comes with a price . . . and that walking dead man is about to pay.
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Jefferson is walking back from town with a bag of flour under his arm when the weather changes dramatically. The warm (almost hot), summer breeze drops what must be close to forty degrees, picking up force until it is whipping leaves and branches around and biting Jefferson in the face (and it feels as if all the oxygen has been sucked out of the air). He wraps his coat about himself and looks for shelter (for he knows this is the work of magic). Just as suddenly as the temperature shifted, black, angry clouds with a life of their own cloak the sky. They shout at each other in their thunderous voices, throwing massive bolts of deadly light across the heavens and at the earth. (He only knows one not-quite-human with this kind of power and he must be furious, more furious than he has ever been in all the years Jefferson has known him, in all the years Jefferson has been alive.)
Hail begins to join the fires falling from the sky and Jefferson can feel the magic in the air (choking him). All of the sudden, he remembers a conversation he had with the imp close to three months ago ("No mortal alive has seen the things I can do in my fury and I can guarantee that no one would be thick enough to try to cross me again once they have seen it. After the demise of the first imbecile to try such a thing, word will spread"); he knows exactly what has happened: the first imbecile has appeared.
He prays (as the ground shakes and trees splinter and Jefferson's bones rattle so hard they may shatter) to every deity from every realm he has ever visited that the Dark One does not destroy this world in his rage.
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The Dark One materializes in the throne room of the keep of the (soon-to-be-dead) Duke of the Grasslands. The soldiers in the room form a human shield in front of the bastard that has his wife, but most run as far as they can get from him when they see his eyes (eyes that are all beast, full of dark, burning fury). Those foolish enough to remain in his way are picked up by his magic and slammed against walls; he suspends them (crushing them with his anger) in the air without a second thought. It is then that he gets his first look at Belle and his wrath spikes to a level it has never before reached. (He can feel his power explode out of him.) Belle's dress is torn, breasts exposed, face bruised and bleeding, skirt hiked up to her waist, restrained by the weight of the duke on top of her. (The soldiers stood here during this!) His magic reaches out and slits the throat of every single soldier in the room. (Their blood flows out of them, painting the marble floor a beautiful shade of deep red.)
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Regina has been watching the world from her window since the moment the temperature dropped. She assumes walls of her palace are cracked and chipped, but she cannot know because she cannot see (and her magic is confined in the same way it was five months ago, the day she directed magic at Belle).
Seconds after the earthquake that crumpled buildings like paper and fractured an impenetrable fortress, the roiling clouds above joined the terrified mortals on the ground. They are not made of condensed air and water; they composed of fury and wrath and violence and panic and horror and terror and fear (so much fear, fear so deep she is drowning in it). These emotions solidify to a substance of something as slick as oil, as dark as pitch, as thick as blood. She would pity the person that is going to die a terrible death at the hand of the Dark One (for it will be the Dark One; not the imp, but the beast, the monster), if she didn't want to kill bastard herself for taking Belle (and he must have for Rumple's magic to be so uncontrolled, so primal).
If Regina thought the magic that has done such feats was impressive, it is nothing (absolutely nothing) compared to the surge of pure, raw power (oppressive, suffocating power) that surges through the entire realm and forces her (and everyone else) to her knees. The magic is palpable, but she tries to shield herself from it as much as possible (for it burns, scrapes, freezes, squeezes the life out of her). She wonders what state he must have found Belle in for such excessive amounts of intensity and viciousness to roll off him in these overwhelming, overpowering waves. (If a hair was harmed on her head, Regina swears she will find a way to break the laws of magic and bring them back from the dead, so that she has a chance to torture them herself.)
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He turns toward to duke who is hurriedly standing (pulling up his trousers). His power grips the duke by his neck and dangles him six feet above the ground, but Rumpelstiltskin is only concerned with Belle. He rushes to her and pulls her into his arms, staring into her defiant eyes that refuse to be dominated. She breathes a sigh of relief, collapsing into his chest. He cradles her against him, holds her face into his dragon-hide jacket (shielding her eyes with his body), and turns his animalistic gaze to the letch that calls himself a man. The pig has soiled himself, but that only encourages Rumpelstiltskin's blood-lust. At the sound of his first scream, Belle tries to turn around, but he doesn't let her, gently yet firmly keeping her face where it is with one golden hand and stroking her back (her bare, exposed back) with the other. The cries of pain (pleas for mercy, then for death) continue and Belle does not try to look again, does not attempt to stop him; she simply clutches herself to him (as if she wants to crawl inside his scaly flesh). No one is fool enough to enter (although he thinks the streams of burgundy that flow from the lifeblood of no less than thirty soldiers that are seeping under the doors are an excellent indicator to stay away).
By the time he is ready to leave, the mangled heap of muscle that was once a duke is missing everything with which he touched the Dark One's wife (including his skin) and Rumpelstiltskin knows exactly where the wretch got that transportation spell that was contained in a jade bracelet and could be activated on demand (one that was given to him for the express purpose of stealing Belle away, one that the stupid man who called himself a ruler was not supposed to use yet).
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Snow is planning with Charming, Red, Granny, Blue, and the dwarves when the bitter chill comes. They run for open ground when the shaking starts (trying to break them to slivers of muscle and bone) and hold on tightly to each other when the thick, oily mist (full of hidden emotion and darkness and magic) surrounds them, as if it wants to swallow them whole. But as petrifying as those events are, nothing could have prepared her for the power (gut-wrenching, authentic, brutal power) that pulses through them and throws them to the ground (pins them, prostrate in submission). Snow knows of only one being who could be doing this: Rumpelstiltskin. (Not even Regina, for all her malice, could ever hope to match even a tenth of this display.)
It seems Blue is of the same opinion, as she curses the imp's name (held down forcefully like all the others; it seems not even her magic can compete with this unrelenting fury, much less claim a victory). The magic scalds her, turns her to ice, tears her insides to ribbons. Snow is suddenly aware that the imp could rip the entire world to pieces and no one would be able to lift a finger to stop him.
They are forced to stay flat on the ground for what seems like days, but is probably only a few hours. The mist retracts, creates a large, inky circle around their group. Suddenly, the Dark One appears in all his wrathful glory (his loathing and malevolence filling her mouth with its bitter taste). His eyes are strange, as if he is not himself (or more himself than ever before); there is no amber at all, only blackness. He is holding a battered, half-naked woman in his arms (and Snow is repulsed at what he's just done).
"You," he hisses, his voice as deep as Snow has ever heard it. Blue audibly whimpers and desperately wriggles on the grass (still firmly subdued by his power).
"Did I not explicitly tell you to leave Belle out of your scheming, Rheul Ghorm?" is what next comes slithering out of his serpent's mouth. Snow glances askance at Blue (who has gone bone white), striving to put it all together.
"Did I not?" Snow can see that the stunning, defiled woman in Rumpelstiltskin's arms watches Blue as if she is afraid the fairy will take all that is good and right in the world and annihilate it just to make someone cry.
"ANSWER ME," he roars, a beast protecting what is his own (and Snow understands; the girl is beaten and broken, not at the doing of Rumpelstiltskin, but because of Blue.)
"Yes," Blue moans as more pressure is exerted on her.
The Dark One snarls. Snow can hear Blue's bones snapping under the weight of his hatred. (None of them dare speak, cannot speak for sheer terror of him; he is like nothing they have ever seen, hope never to see again.)
Blue shrieks and her eyes and ears are leaking blood.
"Have you not done me enough damage already, you sanctimonious bitch?" There is an underlying desperation in his voice that Snow knows can only come from a heart that has been utterly crushed (and she wonders what Blue could have possibly done to him).
"No," is the growled rebuttal. "It will never be enough. You are all that is evil and you leave pain, destruction, and brokenness in your wake and I will always pit myself against that sort of darkness," Blue gasps out.
The imp sneers at her, stepping closer to the group (the stench of blood and dark magic filling their nostrils), hauling Blue up with his magic and forcing her to look at the bloody, undaunted woman in his arms (and the rest of them regard her more closely as well). "You caused this darkness."
And then Blue is choking and her bleeding eyes are rolling in her head and deep gashes appear all over her arms and legs (blood is seeping through her clothing). The girl in the imp's arms observes without pity, without attempting to stop the creature that holds her (clutches her as if she is his most precious treasure).
Blue finally gasps out, "Let's make a deal!"
Rumpelstiltskin laughs (a wicked, unnerving laugh that sends shivers down their spines). "Too late, dearie," he mocks.
There is a pulse of power in the air and Blue screams (a sound filled with so much agony that Snow cannot imagine what he must be doing to the inside of her body) until the noise is abruptly cut off; Blue slumps over, boneless (literally; her face has collapsed in on itself and her frame is flattened) and quite obviously dead.
Everyone begins to demand explanations and yell accusations all at once, but one sharp glance from the dark sorcerer shuts them up quickly.
"Rum," the silent woman speaks in a hollow, yet firm tone (and Rumpelstiltskin's head snaps to look at the girl so quickly that Snow is surprised he didn't break his neck). "I want to go home now."
They can see the animal in his eyes recede (until all that is left is a broken man that has had what he loves most destroyed right in front of him). "Alright, dearest, alright," he whispers (Snow can hear the tears he is desperate to hide).
Rumpelstiltskin turns to the group that is still pinioned to the floor. The pressure releases as the darkness disappears and the sky can be seen, blue and brilliant once again. They scramble to their feet, but wisely keep their distance from the dangerous beast with a treasure to protect.
"You will tell the populace what happened to Rheul Ghorm. You will also tell them that the same thing will happen to anyone else who attempts to attack my wife," he snarls, then Rumpelstiltskin and the woman (his wife? Rumpelstiltskin has a wife?) disappear in a cloud of purple smoke, leaving them to their bewildering confusion and disturbed astonishment, the dead body of the Blue Fairy beside them.
FIN.