Team Beta.
They were the second, or third, best superhero team around. When the going got tough, they...ran the other way. Not for long, mind you, but long enough for Granny, the enforcer, to redirect their fleeing behinds back to the fight. With her crossbow, she threatened the men and women of Team Beta back to the battle at hand, reminding them, not for the first time, that they were the only thing standing between Storybrooke and the dark forces that threatened to destroy the town and its citizens.
Frankly, Emma Swan had long come to the conclusion that Granny could stuff her crossbow where the sun surely did not shine. Come hell or three a.m., the elderly woman did not quit; did not sit back to think that her little minions needed time to rest their powers or recapture their high scores on Ms. Pacman from some foul-mouthed little shi- ahem, shining example of Storybrooke's burgeoning future leaders.
The minions were sleepy, dammit. Emma slammed her head back into the plush pillows on her extraordinarily small twin bed, cursing the lack of proper housing for the only thing keeping Storybrooke from the destructive powers of Evil. The Bed and Breakfast, tucked behind Granny's diner, had been turned into headquarters sometime after the establishment of Team Beta- the arrival of Emma and her super powers spurring on the organization efforts Granny had been touting for years. But still, shouldn't bigger beds be a top priority? Right after the rocket launcher she had asked Santa for at Christmas, Emma amended.
If Evil had shiny sports cars and all sorts of cool gadgets, why couldn't she have a rocket launcher? Or six more hours of sleep?
"Go away," she mumbled into the pillow, willing the person on the other side of her knocking incessantly to disappear. Honestly, she wished her powers included more than being able to detect when someone was lying and random bursts of energy. She wanted the power to make annoying people poof into thin air and annoy other people in other rooms that weren't her own.
"Rise and shine, sleepyhead!"
Emma grunted and let her body slide from the warm sheets with a distinct thump when her feet made contact with the floor. With a grumble, she shuffled across the floor and unlocked the door, revealing an altogether too perky Mary Margaret Blanchard, the archer of their little ragtag group. Sometimes, secretly, Emma wished the dark brunette would shoot herself in the foot, breaking that unerring aim, just to shake things up. It wasn't that she wished harm on the perky brunette (read: yes, she did. Just enough to shut her up for ten minutes), but she needed something to break the monotony of saving the town, not saving the town; rinse and repeat until the end of time. "I hate you," the blonde informed her former roommate with a scowl.
The archer had the decency to look mildly affronted by the declaration, but it didn't last long enough for Emma to fully appreciate the gesture. "Duty calls, Emma. By the powers of Good, we must heed the call."
Fuck. She was like a damn robot, reciting the party line with such conviction it was nauseating. For one brief moment, Emma was glad she hadn't been raised to enact the powers of Good; at one point in her life, she had been nothing more than a foster kid with a penchant for getting into trouble due to her abilities. Then, the irritating little Boy Wonder had tracked her down, all the while claiming she had to defeat his mother, the Evil Queen, and pull Storybrooke from its stasis under the ruling thumb of those evil enough to ascend to power.
It didn't help that she had given birth to Boy Wonder some ten years ago- really, he was a cute kid- and given him up for adoption to get him out of the superhero life. But no, that would have been too simple a solution. Instead, he had to be adopted by one of the most evil super villains Emma had ever encountered. And hot. Really freaking hot. Like, depths of hell, yes, Mistress, I'll have another, kind of hot. All that leather and silk and- wait! was Mary Margaret still talking?
"..and so Rumplestiltskin threatened to burn down the town unless Belle is returned to him by nightfall," Mary Margaret concluded, shoulders straighter than any Army recruit at inspection, as she stared ahead to await approval that the blonde would join the scout team to determine the imp's terms.
"So, you woke me up at three in the morning to tell me we have to neutralize the gimpy imp by, let's say, ten tonight?" The blonde didn't bother to wait for a response, not when she already knew the answer. When there was an actual threat, not one made on a consistent basis (at least three times a week), then she would rally the troops and find her underwear, but until then- "I'm going back to bed. Wake me up when Granny's switches to the lunch menu."
"But-"
"Lunch menu. I want a double cheeseburger with chili cheese fries." Emma waited a beat, considering her options with as much concentration as she had devoted to the SAT's (ok, more concentration that had been designated to that particular misadventure in doodling). "And a chocolate milkshake, extra chocolate. Three quarters chocolate with a little bit of shake to make things interesting."
Mary Margaret stomped her foot, looking the part of a pouting toddler in her fuzzy pink sweater and blue jeans instead of a kick ass archer on the second, or third, best superhero team around (well, they weren't exactly housing Superman or Batman in the back rooms; more like Robin and the Butler, whatever his name was). "But what about Rumplestiltskin?"
"He's a little man with a limp and a cane. I think we can probably wait until after lunch to knock his lights out," Emma offered with a small, albeit forced, grin. The bed behind had begun to sing-song her name, 'Emma. Emma, come back to me. You know you want to come back to me and imagine the Evil Queen was here with you.' Doing awful things, the blonde amended with a harsh head shake. Awful, nasty things, like kissing along her jaw, moaning her name, running her long, slender fingers through Emma's blonde tresses, using that wicked tongue for something other than spewing curses- awful things, Emma reaffirmed.
The fuzzy and pink archer really needed to find someone else to bother.
"Do you even care that he threatened to burn down the town?"
Not really.
"At three in the morning? No, but, then again, I don't care about many things at three in the fucking morning, Mary Margaret. Granny had us running drills until midnight, which means I've had less than three hours of sleep. That's not enough to deal with the golden imp."
"What if he has Regina with him? Then will you care about the destruction they could wreak on the town?"
Regina? Emma visibly perked, shoulders straight and head cocked to the side as she considered the need for sleep versus the desire to see what kind of outfit the Evil Queen would don on behalf of her former mentor's plight to reacquaint himself with his beloved librarian. Was leather inappropriate before nine a.m? Or, maybe it would be one of those business suits that made the Mistress of Evil look more like a relatively harmless town mayor than anything else. No one would be the wiser to the fact that the brunette could, and would, shoot fireballs from her hands whenever the mood struck. "I probably should...go along. For Henry. He wouldn't like it if Regina was being evil and whatnot."
Sure, she should go check out the kid's other mother. Maybe not check out, but...determine what evil Regina might up to if she really was back in cahoots with Rumple, Emma amended silently. The last the blonde had heard regarding the status of Team Evil was that there had been a breakdown in leadership- something about the Queen of Hearts, the Evil Queen's mother, being involved with the golden-hued deal-maker in years gone by, which had incited an epic fight between mother, daughter, and imp. The latter of which had, apparently, decided to dedicate his newfound time to bringing Belle around to the dark side until order could be restored amongst the trio.
Or perhaps it was he who was trying to go the light side. Either way, Emma decided she should probably find a thong, a pair of worn jeans, and a shirt before confronting the super villains about their dastardly plans. It wouldn't do anyone any good if their sacred white knight was too transfixed about her commando status that she let Evil take over some key tactical position in town.
Mary Margaret nodded in response, pleased that her powers of reasoning had finally influenced her former roommate into doing the right thing, for the right reasons. With a broad smile, she patted the blonde on the hand and murmured a quick, "We'll be waiting in the diner," before she turned to wake up the rest of the superhero's dwelling at the Bed and Breakfast.
With a grunt, Emma shut the door to her room, ignoring the enigmatic pull of her bed in favor of finding her clothes from the night before. With any luck they would be a viable option to wear on the scouting expedition. Otherwise, well- there was a pair of wrinkled sweats somewhere in the room, probably buried under the mounds of laundry she had been meaning to take care of. As she searched the room, she felt...off, like something or someone was watching her.
It was an eery feeling, and not one she was keen to repeat after the little itty bitty stalking incident with the Mad Hatter that had only ended when he had flung himself out the window of his home like a big, crazy ass bouncing bunny. "i can feel you watching me," Emma called out, eyes searching the dark crevices of the room. "I swear on a stack of pancakes, if you don't come out now, I will shove this..." she searched the room and came up short of anything besides her beloved t.v. remote, "remote down your throat!"
A rumble and a crash later, the Kid stood before her, looking sheepish at having been caught. "Hi, Mom," he said with a shy wave.
"What are you doing here, Kid?"
Henry shrugged his small shoulders and scrunched up his face into a frown. "I came to warn you that I saw my mom going to her lair this morning. I think she's up to something."
"She went to her lair?" There was a part of her that wanted to send the kid on his way without further explanation other than, "You're ten, go home," but she probably owed it to the rest of Team Beta to find out the inside scoop on Regina's lair.
"Yeah. It's under the mausoleum," Henry confirmed.
Huh. And here Emma had been operating under the belief that Regina had merely been planning her days from the comforts of her mansion on Mifflin Street. Apparently it just wasn't big enough to handle whatever plans of world domination the woman had, so she had to build a lair under the cemetery (and wasn't that creepy?) "Have you ever been down there, Henry?"
The boy nodded eagerly, eyes widened and grin broad. "One time. She didn't know I followed her down there, but I saw this really cool car. It's like her Mercedes, but newer, and it shoots fireballs from the headlights and has spikes on the bumpers."
That would be one killer round of bumper cars, Emma thought as she cringed at the boy's continued description of all the neat things Regina had built into the vehicle. Thinking back to her own mode of transportation, an older model VW Bug whose only line of defense was a layer of rust and a fussy radio, she couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor thing should she ever be in the position to battle with the Evil Queen on the road. "That's great, kid, but you really need to go home now before she realizes you've gone missing, again."
The again part actually worried her. Ever since the Boy Wonder had dragged her from her comfy apartment in Boston where she'd been working as an independent bounty hunter to bring lower level villains to justice, he had developed a habit of running away from home. Which only led to lectures directed at poor Emma about her negative influence on the boy.
"But she's evil, Emma," Henry explained in that exaggerated whine only spoiled children could produce when it was time for them to get their way again. "And I brought dynamite."
"Dynamite? Where the hell...heck did you find dynamite?" Then, she silently added, please don't tell me it's from your mom's lair, because there was no known dimension in which that conversation would be fun.
"From the mine," the boy replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
Of course, from the mines. Where else would a ten year old boy come across unprotected dynamite? (Besides his mother's lair, of course, or Granny's not-so-super-secret stash in the back room of the diner). Again, if Evil had shiny sports cars and all sorts of cool gadgets, why couldn't she have a rocket launcher? Especially if her son got to run around with dynamite and a lighter stuffed into his backpack.
"Go find Ruby and ask her to take you home," Emma ordered in a tone that belied her worry. "And leave the dynamite with me, and whatever else you have shoved into that bag. You know what, just give me the bag and then go find Ruby." With deft fingers, she slipped the bag from Henry's shoulders. "She can get you through the security at your mom's place without setting off the dogs, and the trip wires, and the-"
Henry leveled her with a piercing stare. "Mom got rid of the dogs when they peed on her rose bushes," he said succinctly. "And the trip wires were pulled after Grandma set them off last Fourth of July when the fireworks were pulled 'cause Archie said the town might go up in flames. They went sky-high and almost lit Mom's apple tree on fire."
"That's great, but I'm still not letting you walk out of here with a bundle of dynamite like Wile. E. Coyote."
"Who?"
Emma silently amended her earlier assessment of the Evil Queen; the woman was gorgeous and all sorts of kick ass, but she was definitely evil. What kind of mother deprived their child of cartoons? "Go get Ruby and have her take you home," she reiterated, slowly this time. "I'll go check out your mom's lair and make sure she isn't doing anything evil." Which would happen some time after she checked out Rumplestilskin's ploy for Belle.
"I could go with you."
"Or, you could go find Ruby like I told you and go home! You can't walk around town playing with dynamite, Henry, no matter the reason- which, by the way, why are you walking around town with dynamite?"
The small boy shrugged his thin shoulders, glancing up at his mother from under floppy brown locks of hair. "I wanted to help you, you know, get rid of evil. I was going to blow up the well in the woods."
If only it were that easy. But, at three-thirty in the morning, Emma was darn well willing to hear the kid out before she took the dynamite out and blew it herself, probably not in the well, though. That wasn't likely to destroy the Evil in Storybrooke. She kneeled down until she was at eye level with her son and peered into his curious eyes. "That's a really...sweet gesture, Henry, but you can't get rid of Evil by blowing up the well. All you'd end up doing is blowing up yourself, and that would land me in even hotter water with your mom than I already am. Also, you'd blow yourself up, so, again, go find Ruby and have her take you home."
"You'll go to mom's lair, won't you, Emma? I don't want her to be evil anymore."
God, the kid should be an actor for all the tears that blossomed in the corners of his puppy dog eyes. Still, she nodded in response, made promises that she would do as he asked, provided he left soon and she had the opportunity to find clothes that weren't covered in what could be ketchup and beer stains, and shoved him out the door to find Granny's granddaughter.
When she rose to her feet, she discovered two things. The first being that she had managed an entire conversation with Mary Margaret and Henry without either of them mentioning the potato chip clinging valiantly to the edge of her t-shirt, and the second that her clothes from the previous day, including an errant pair of lacy panties, were strewn about the middle of her small room. Disregarding the mess, Emma dressed quickly and snagged her keys off the dresser.
As she bounced down the stairs to the main room, then through the doors that would eventually lead to Granny's diner, she felt a sense of accomplishment. Rather, one part accomplishment and three parts hungry, but nonetheless, she made her way to Granny's to determine the situation with the golden pain in her ass and then to check out what kind of goodies Regina had stashed away.