Regina

The black cloud began to consume her and she felt her magic pulsing in her veins. She felt it swelling and vibrating as the cloud swirled around her. In the distance Regina heard a voice call out and the blackness vanished. Her vision adjusted and she let a breath out she didn't know she was holding. She looked around and realized what happened.

Emma. What a moron.

Regina watched helplessly as the black cloud sweep over Emma. Emma made eye contact with her and said, "You came too far to be dragged back. Let me-" Emma didn't finish her sentence before she was swept away into the night.

Everyone stood quietly, looking in the direction of the darkness that took Emma away. It was impossible to understand what happened. It felt like that moment lasted forever before that damned pirate shouted, "SWAN!" For all his drama, she could hear the pain in his voice. He loved her, for some reason.

Snow and Charming clutched each other and spoke in hushed tones. Regina rolled her eyes but then remembered that Emma was their child. Regina imagined Henry being swept away by dark magic and she could feels flames forming at her fingertips at the very thought.

Robin wrapped his arms around her and sighed in relief. She hugged him back as she noticed the knife in the middle of the street. The pirate noticed it too and went to it. They all approached it and read the etching on the side of the knife. "Emma Swan."

Hook snatched the knife off the concrete and shouted, "Swan! I command you to appear!"

Everyone waited.

Nothing happened.

Regina huffed and grabbed the knife, "Give me that before you lose another hand." She pushed her magic into her voice and held the knife into the sky, "Emma! I command you to show yourself!"

Everyone waited again.

Nothing happened again.

The pirate looked at her and scowled. He sneered, "Yeah, thanks for handling that. Where is she?"

Regina felt Emma's presence in the knife but it was distant. It was like she was worlds away or even…

"The enchanted forest," she muttered. Of course. It's where the Dark One was born, it would be where Emma was reborn. Regina explained that to everyone calmly and they all nodded gravely.

Charming was the first to speak up and he said what she knew he would say, "We have to go save her."

Everyone nodded, even Robin. Regina would never understand how heroes drum up so much hope and gumption day in and day out.

Telling Henry what happened was somehow worse than she thought. She thought about what to say over and over as she trudged down the street with the Charmings. Robin left to check on his son and Hook went to the docks to collect himself. Regina assumed he needed to cry in private then reapply his eyeliner.

Henry took the news like a shot. He sat there quietly for a long time before finally saying, "Okay, then what is the plan. We can save her."

They stayed up all night thinking of a plan, but they were too tired to come up with anything useful. Around 4am they remembered the Apprentice. He would be able to help! Snow slammed her hands on the table and said, "Sleep." She said it firmly and in a way that no one questioned it. Somewhere in the back of Regina's mind she hated this about Snow. It was that Snow White royalty seeping out of her, and everyone listened. Regina nodded and poofed herself back to her own bedroom where Robin was waiting.

Robin gazed at her with tired eyes and asked, "How are you?"

Looking in the mirror, Regina made eye contact with Robin's reflection. She sighed quietly and admitted, "I am scared. When I was surrounded by that darkness I felt my happiness waning. I felt all that goodness within me shrinking away. I felt the love I have for you morph into something… different. And you know the worst part? There was part of me, a deep part of me that was thriving in it. A part of me was smiling."

Robin's face shifted and he sat on the edge of the bed. He looked up to her with his exhausted eyes, "And how do you feel now?"

"Tired."

They said nothing else for the rest of the night. They changed for bed in stoic silence and crawled into bed like beaten down warriors. Regina thought she wouldn't be able to sleep, but the moment she wrapped herself into her blankets she was gone.

Emma

Nothing felt the same.

Everything felt different.

She didn't feel like herself.

Wait, who was she?

Emma.

She was Emma? She didn't know. All she knew was that she was standing in a clearing in a battered brown cloak. Her hands were shaking. Why were her hands shaking?

They abandoned you.

That didn't seem right. The woman who thought her name might be Emma shook her head to clear the thoughts. Her blonde hair billowed down her shoulders and it distracted her. This hair seemed different.

Different from what?

She wasn't sure. The being that thought she was named Swan took a step forward and felt a surge through her body. It pulsed, it radiated, and, in that moment, it was breathing. What was it?

Darkness.

Yes. That feeling was darkness but it was also…

Power.

Oh, it felt amazing. She had never felt this strength before. Or had she? She still wasn't sure where she came from. As she considered her existence and observed the new power within her, a dark pool of liquid filled around her feet. She found her voice and shouted, "No!"

Before she knew what she was doing, her hands were exposed and displacing the dark liquid with her magic.

Emma Swan. Dark One.

It all came rushing back to her in that moment. Who she was and why she was there. She withdrew her hands and the dark liquid continued to flood in around her feet. Emma tried to pick up her feet but they were stuck.

Emma sat there helplessly as the dark liquid crept up her legs. The liquid felt warm and inviting. It pulsed with the magic within her. This was part of the process, she determined.

The liquid covered her head to toe and asked her, "What do you want?"

Emma thought, "Nothing!" but it didn't believe her. It asked again. This time Emma thought, "To protect the ones I love."

It accepted this answer.

She felt the liquid rush over her and she felt like she was being cleaned and massaged. She felt her angry swell. She felt a growing presence of darkness and she tried to push it away. It pushed back.

"I don't want this!"

"You chose this."

In the distance Emma felt a tug near her belly button. She felt like she was being summoned but from a distance.

Too far.

The liquid washed off Emma's body and she felt her feet release. She was free to move and explore. She realized she was in the Enchanted forest quickly but she had never really known her way around. Emma had never spent enough time in her birth place to have a decent sense of directions.

There was a river nearby and Emma made her way to it. She didn't know what she was doing, but she did know she was thirsty.

Leaning over the river Emma caught a glimpse of herself. The look took her breath away,

Her blonde hair was coiled up in braids on her head like a crown. Her eyes were an icy silver lined with deep blank smudging. Her cheeks were contoured with something silver and metallic. Emma brought her hand to her cheeks and felt them. These felt sharper than her normal cheeks, firmer. The metallic color didn't rub off; it was like the color was part of her skin.

Her lips were a dark purple color with glitter accents. Touching her lips she saw her pointed black nails and she stepped away from the river. She looked down at her hands and saw no polish. She felt her cheeks again and they felt the way the usually felt. She didn't understand.

That was your Dark One form. Embrace the darkness, welcome the change.

Emma shook her head and waved her hands to no one. "Never. I will never accept this darkness. I will find a way to defeat the darkness."

The voice within her chuckled and she felt her magic sing out.

Suddenly, footsteps approached. Emma whipped her head to the sound and saw someone running towards her. She assumed it was someone in her family finding her.

A tall young woman appeared before her. She was holding her bow drawn and her shock of red hair all over the place. "What are you doing here?" Her Scottish accent was think and Emma placed it immediately.

"I'm not here to hurt you. I need some help."

The woman with the bow squinted at her and called out, "I'm not interested in your trickery, Dark One."

Emma stumbled back. The name hit her like a shot. She opened her mpouth to defend her self but the red haired woman loosed her arrow at Emma.