Bangor Air National Guard Base, Bangor, Maine, 8:15am
"Holy shit." Tech Sergeant Holton muttered, looking at his monitor.
"What's wrong?" Colonel Lisa Sanders demanded, coming over to Holton's station.
"I just got massive EMPs coming out of Storybrooke, Maine."
"Where?"
"Some shittown four hours from Boston. Uh, population around five hundred."
"Any nuclear plants nearby?" Lisa asked nervously.
"None."
"How far from here?"
"Fifteen miles."
"Why aren't we down then! The pulse would've reached us in nanoseconds!"
"The lights did flicker for a few seconds right around that time, but nothing major. Do you think it might have to do with the Arrowhead Project?"
"Shhh! That's classified! No, that's out by Bridgton. Alright, send up a few Humvees just to make sure; get an Apache to cover them just in case." She started walking back to her office.
"Where're you going?"
"I'm gonna alert Augusta."
Main Street, Storybrooke, Maine, 9:00am
"Geiger meters are clear, Sergeant Major!" Staff Sergeant Patton Acadia shouted up to the command vehicle, a Bradley fighting vehicle. The wind lightly swept through her wavy blonde hair as she took the readings.
"We ain't done yet, Staff Sergeant." Sergeant Major Basil "Iron Hickory" Apricot replied, driving forward.
The town was quiet, almost too quiet. In the streets, there was barely a soul out as the Bradley drove up, its engine roaring as it came to a stop near the town hall. The line of Humvees, about five, followed in suite, their machine gunners scanning the rooftops for potential targets.
"Keep the engine running." Hickory ordered the driver as he left the vehicle, jumping down from the hull, his steel-toed combat boots hitting the asphalt.
Patton walked forward, being the crew's WMD expert, flashing around her Geiger counter.
"Still clear, Sergeant Major."
"Maybe not." Andre replied, looking down the intersection. What appeared to be a family were hugging each other in joy, two women, a young boy and the apparent father. The father looked up from the hug first, seeing them. The hug broke up rather quickly as they noticed the heavily armed soldiers down the street.
"Who are you?" the father demanded, walking closer.
"133rd Battalion. We picked up an EMP blast right around here," Hickory stamped his boot on the ground, "and thought it might've been nuclear."
The father looked confused, then a bit wary; Hickory could see it in his eyes. "No; we didn't see an explosion or anything."
"Really?" Iron Hickory knew something was off.
"Yeah."
"Where is everyone, mister…?"
"David. David Nolan. And what do you mean?"
Patton responded. "Where is everybody? This is a town of five-hundred; it's a beautiful Sunday morning; where's the joggers, the bikers, women with babycoaches, shoppers, people walking dogs?"
"Well, it's pretty early still."
"I grew up in Bath and everyone was up or getting up by seven."
"Well, ma'am, you're in Storybrooke now."
"I'll take this, Staff Sergeant." Hickory insisted, putting his hand up. "Look, our sensors are very sophisticated and always dead-on. If they read an EMP here, there was a damn EMP here. Now, did you see anything unusual?"
"No."
"Alright. Staff Sergeant," Patton looked up at the towering man before her, "I'm gonna radio Bangor, tell them that…"
"David!" a voice suddenly called out. A man with curly hair and glasses ran up. "David! There's a town meeting to talk about the… oh, hello."
The man looked in semi-shock at the soldiers before him, running off to the town hall before any more could be said.
"He sure seems in a rush." Hickory noted. "Well, I reckon we oughtta sit in on this 'town meeting' just to make sure. If it's all clear, we'll move out. Staff Sergeant, go throw off your gear."
"Sir?"
"Take off your armor; keep your sidearm. If anything happens, they won't know you're a soldier."
"I'm not sure what it is you want me to…"
"You're gonna sit in on that town meeting for me." His attention quickly turned to his vehicles, leaving Patton as confused as she had been originally. "Let's go! Move these vehicles out of sight! Into the sidestreets, let's move!"
Town Hall, Storybrooke, Maine, 9:38am
It had taken about half an hour for everyone to trickle in, but as far as Patton could tell, the whole town had showed up. She had just snuck in the back with some bimbo with red highlights and cutoffs and blended rather neatly with her tanktop and shorts. Nobody seemed to notice she didn't belong, at least.
"Hi." The bimbo suddenly greeted in a whisper as more people poured in. "Who're you? Haven't seen you around."
"Uh, I'm from the other side of town."
"Who were you? In the forest?"
"What?"
"The Enchanted Forest? Who were you?"
This chick was a loon, Patton thought. Might as well go with it. "Rapunzel. I was Rapunzel in the 'enchanted forest.'"
"Really? I was Red."
"Who?"
"Red Riding Hood."
"Oh, I should've guessed." She gestured to the highlights. The crazy bimbo laughed heartily.
Patton's eyes widened a bit as an old lady- octogenarian- walked by with a freaking crossbow.
"Granny," the bimbo pleaded, "Do you really need that?"
"We've got a lawless town, Ruby," the old lady replied, "damn right I need it!"
Lots of people scurried around to their seats, and that took another few minutes. Then, the doors burst open. Everyone jumped up and turned nervously to see a beautiful woman with her hands on her hips, grinning a bit unnervingly as she sized up the people.
"My," she began in a poisonously smooth voice, "what a nice turnout."
She strutted up the aisle that had cleared, towards the front of the room. "No need for a fuss," she continued on, walking still as everyone's gaze followed her, "it's just little old me."
The man from the street stomped up with a determined look on his face. "Regina! Think about what you're doing!"
This "Regina" turned towards him, and shouted "Bug!" before, to Patton's dismay, hurling him across the room with a mere hand motion. The Staff Sergeant blinked a few times; that woman hadn't even touched him!
"Hey!" a short bearded man shouted in rage, rushing Regina. Just like the other man, he was thrown down with a simple hand gesture. At this, the old lady with the crossbow took aim and fired upon the woman. Almost lazily, Regina caught the arrow between her fingers. Again, to Patton's absolute disbelief, the arrow then caught on fire as Regina held it between her fingers.
"How sweet." The woman noted, looking at the flaming arrow with a demonic grin. Then, again to the Guardswoman's shock, Regina proceeded to hurl a fireball from her hands at the crowd. Patton was no exception as everyone ducked down in fear as the fireball whooshed around the room. It came back and lit town seal on fire in front of this woman.
"What do you want?!" the crazy bimbo, Ruby, demanded, walking defiantly out into the center aisle.
"Me." a little boy spoke up, and all eyes went to the child. His appearance reminded Patton of her own nephew a bit; she was compelled to just scoop him up in her arms to protect him as he walked towards the human flamethrower. "She wants ME!"
He walked right up to her, in a cute little plaid shirt and jeans, with a backpack on like he had just been in school. "I'll come with you, just leave them alone!"
The flamethrower walked towards the boy, and Patton could barely watch as she lifted his chin up, smiled again and said… "That's my boy." She was his mother? Regina put her arm around him and they walked out, and she snapped her fingers as the doors magically shut behind them.
"What the HELL was that all about?" Patton demanded very loudly as all eyes went to her.
