I can neither confirm nor deny the influence of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag or POTC 4 on this fic, but you don't have to have seen/played either of them to read this. It's probably better if you haven't, actually.
I'd intended this to be canon compliant, but then the underworld arc happened and blew holes in it, so we'll just call this canon-divergent after 5A. Basically, Zelena's been off in Oz and Robin is still alive, but no one can get out of Storybrooke without turning into a tree.
(Storybrooke, Present Day)
She knew it couldn't last. Part of her wanted to crawl under the covers and never get up and hope that the world would stay perfectly, peacefully content with itself, but Henry's insistent "please please please" wore down her stamina and her town-line-tree-curse claustrophobia made the wide expanse of Storybrooke's harbor seem like the closest thing to freedom she could hope for, so Emma conceded defeat.
Henry had the wheel, Killian next to him, the Jolly Roger as far from shore as the town line would allow. Emma's hair swirled in tune with the flapping of the canvas above and she noticed that Henry almost, but not quite, matched Killian's height now. Killian's murmured guidance brought a straight edge to Henry's shoulders that made her wonder how much longer she could get away with calling him "Kid". She decided at least sixty more years and slid over to lay her head on Killian's shoulder. Killian put his other arm around her and leaned in as if to kiss her temple, but a rumble in the water set the ship bobbing.
She knew it couldn't last.
The water around them churned. A pulse of bright light burst from the water. A wall of energy slammed into the ship. The deck tilted violently, Henry hugged the helm while Emma and Killian clung to each other for stability. The light focused into a beam until a familiar golden pillar beamed up from the ocean.
"No," Emma groaned into Killian's shoulder as the waves swirled into the deep recess of a time portal. Henry turned the Jolly Roger away from the danger, just missing a collision as the tapered wooden stay and bowsprit of a ship thrust out of the portal.
"What the hell?" blurted Emma.
"Maybe it's a friend?" Henry offered as Killian slipped between him and the helm.
The teensiest bit of hope flickered in Emma's chest, but it snuffed out when a figurehead burst out of the water—a human skeleton, its bony hands clutching at the bowsprit as if throwing a massive javelin.
So probably not a friendly visit.
Emma's fingertips lit with power as she stepped between her boys and the emerging ship. The rest of the vessel burst through, a vicious-looking vessel with three masts, a high stern castle, and a blackened bow; its red sails, tattered and putrid, billowed with the wind. Its hull, thick with sea grime, cut through the water nearly as quickly as the Jolly Roger itself. The high sides of the ship bore decks of cannons that swiveled on them in perfect sync. The whole of it rattled warning bells in Emma's magic radar.
"Blackbeard?" hissed Killian as he spun the wheel to angle them between the portal and Storybrooke.
"That's Blackbeard's ship?" asked Emma.
"It's his flag, at any rate," replied Killian, pointing to the main mast. Above, the wind tore at a black flag with a grim emblem—a skeleton spearing a bleeding heart—and Killian's grip on the helm tightened. "But that ship..."
Emma lifted a hand to poof Henry back home, but a sudden yank at her waist pulled her from her feet. She slammed against a mast of the Jolly Roger. Her head bounced off the wood and her vision blurred. Rope cinched around her wrists and wrenched her arms back so hard that it strained her shoulders to breathe. But worst of all was the sensation as the rope bit into her skin—not the pain, but the drain—as her magic seemed to suddenly sink out of her body. She couldn't summon the slightest spark of light magic.
"Emma!" screamed Killian, who was now tied to the helm by ropes that slithered around his arms and waist. Henry, too, was tied to the mast. A sharp press of rope to her ribs drove the air from her lungs and ropes tightened. As the roped drew taught, the slack rose from the sides of the ship, pulled free of the sea, and Emma saw they were rooted in the rigging of the other ship. Tighter they pulled, withhout a human hand touching them, slowly drawing the two ships together. The Jolly Roger lurched heavily to one side, then groaned and cracked as it was dragged on its side through the water until the ships were so close that one could practically step between them.
A puff of smoke appeared on the Roger, bright orange-red, like the swell of a fresh bonfire, and when it dissipated it left a dark figure that could only be Captain Blackbeard. Though his long hair and beard bore streaks of grey and his face was deeply creased, he stood menacingly tall, a brace of pistols across his chest. He pulled one of these on Killian.
"A time portal, Thatch?" Killian drawled, trying to appear unimpressed with the other pirate's magic, but Emma could read the surprise in his eyes. "To come kill little old me? I'm flattered."
"Kill you, Hook?" chuckled Blackbeard. Convinced that Killian was indeed bound to helplessness, he relaxed his arm. "No no, I didn't come to kill you."
The fiery cloud enveloped Blackbeard and he poofed away, reappearing next to Henry. He pressed the barrel of the gun against the underside of Henry's chin, using it to tip Henry's head this way and that as he inspected him, then smiled in recognition. "Ah, the young Author, is it? You I have a use for."
Killian writhed against his bindings, "You leave him alone!"
Blackbeard only chuckled again at Killian's reaction. He waved a hand and Henry disappeared in a puff.
"Henry!?" Emma shouted.
This caught Blackbeard's ear and he poofed again, appearing this time in front of Emma. "Ah, and the wench who put the golden leash on our dear Captain!" He took a moment to bow mockingly, but as he rose, he cocked his gun and leveled it between her eyes. Killian let loose a string of curses as he wrenched against the unrelenting ropes.
"Sadly for him, milady, I came to kill you."
-0-
Granny's seemed much as it always had during the lunch rush—seats filled with chattering customers, the scent of grilling burgers in the air, the jukebox playing some sappy tune—the horror of standing in the midst of it all again made Zelena shiver. She'd just poofed in and was considering leveling the place out of pure spite when Snow, wedged in a booth between the wall and the moron she married, let out a gasp that brought Zelena back to her senses.
"Oh, right," she huffed, then waved a hand.
The entire room froze: Snow with her eyes wide; Charming, his hands going for his gun; and dear, deluded Robin Hood, seated across from them, dove for one of two strollers pulled up to the open edge of the table.
Zelena walked to the stroller nearest Robin and bent to pick up the crying bundle within, but a flash of white and a searing pain at her wrists made her take a step back.
She spun on her heels to find Regina, hands raised to attack.
Regina's eyes followed the path of a single curl of grey through Zelena's hair. "I love what you've done with your hair, Sis; you look terrible."
"Wait for the crow's feet you develop," snarled Zelena. "On second thought, I'll spare you."
She launched a green fireball at Regina, which the queen met with a bright white flame of her own. The two met and fizzled into nothing. Regina dusted her hands together, smiling with feigned sweetness. Undeterred, Zelena smoothed her dress. "Ah, yes, your first bumbling attempts at light magic; how humiliating, I thought them. How incredibly long it took you to re-learn the simplest tasks, like changing your outfit or manifesting a snack, or-"
Zelena threw a hand up, engulfing the room in green smoke. When it disappeared, three Zelenas stood in the diner, each with a fireball trained on a different target: Robin, Regina, and Roland, who was frozen halfway between the booth and the counter, a plate of pie in his hand.
"Fighting multiple targets at once," three voices hissed in unison.
All three Zelenas giggled at the panic that Regina tried to hide behind a scowl. The Queen quickly realizing this was not the same Zelena she'd stuffed in a tornado and flung back to Oz.
Then they fired.
With no time to think, Regina poofed in front of Roland. Though she made a valiant effort to deflect all three attacks, the division of her attention proved too much for the unpracticed queen to handle. Regina took the brunt of the blast aimed at Roland. She hit the ground and slid straight into a table. Robin bounced off the wall and back into the booth with a delightful thud. The third shot blew across the diner and slammed into Granny's bar with a crash of glass and dishware.
The two twin Zelenas disappeared with stereo snickers. Robin was out cold, though Regina stirred. Everyone else, still frozen, could only watch as Zelena waved both hands at the strollers and the two children appeared in her arms, howling.
"Mommy's already made one monster," she cooed at the wailing children. "Why not make it three this time around?"
She allowed herself one more triumphant glance around the room, then disappeared.
-0-
Emma learned two things as she stood strapped to the mast, her magic gone, unable to escape the barrel Blackbeard pointed at her face: First, that whatever happened between Killian and Blackbeard, past or future, he was hell bent on making Killian suffer for it. Second, that a properly motivated dragon can emit a screech shrill enough to incapacitate a human.
Lily dove out of the sky above the ship, shrieking so loud that Blackbeard jolted and his shot went wild. Before he could recover, the dragon swooped between the two ships, severing the ropes with her talons. Instantly Emma's bonds went slack and the power she couldn't grasp earlier surged out of her. Blackbeard flew backward, off of his feet and clear off the Jolly Roger's deck, but before he could hit the water, he poofed away.
Emma's ears rang with the pain of the dragon screech, but all her thoughts turned toward Blackbeard's ship.
The other crew had been stunned by the sound, but now scrambled to action. She caught sight of a scuffle on deck as a handful of pirates swarmed a struggling Henry. Emma flicked a hand to poof him back but sensed a tingle of denial as she focused on the ship.
"It's shielded," she said to Killian, who shimmied and kicked away his bonds. "I can't poof us in or Henry out."
More of the living ropes shot out from Blackbeard's ship, catching Lily in their snare. The she-dragon howled in anger, rolled in the air, and whipped her head around to let loose a long burst of dragon fire. To Emma's shock, where her own magic had failed, the dragon's breath cut straight through Blackbeard's shield, consuming the upper masts and canvas in flames.
"No! Lily! Stop!" Emma shouted, fearing for Henry, but Lily was either too far away or too enraged to hear her. It took a glancing blow from a bolt of Emma's light magic to get her attention.
Back on the deck, Henry stepped on a toe here and elbowed a gut there and, suddenly free, dashed away from his captors, toward the Jolly Roger. Lily dove around the ship to sweep up Henry with her tail, but it rammed up against the red flare of the shield. Whatever magic that allowed the dragon's breath to pass through clearly wasn't letting her body through. Men at the cannons started to fire on Lily, and she was forced to roll to safety. Still strapped to the ship, her maneuver pulled the ship hard to one side. The rigging ropes holding the canvas to the yard arms, weakened by the fire, gave way and the flaming mainsail fell. Emma screamed, but Henry disappeared in a red poof just as the burning mess hit the deck. He reappeared on the sterncastle in the grip of Blackbeard. Another pirate, a woman with dark and sprawling hair, searched through Henry's pockets as he writhed and squirmed. Realizing he couldn't break away, Henry leveraged his weight against Blackbeard to heft himself in the air and kicked the she-pirate square in the chest. At the same time, Lily, at last, broke free of her bonds and the ship lurched again with the sudden release. The woman stumbled back at Henry's hit, Henry's pen in hand, but the lurch of the ship threw her further off balance and she went overboard.
More ropes shot out as Blackbeard's ship tried to grab the woman, but Lily snatched her up with her claws.
Blackbeard glanced between the dragon's prisoner and the spreading fire behind him. He cursed loudly, then let out a command Emma did not hear. The dark ship took off for the town line at surprising speed considering the state of its sails. Only at this angle could Emma make out the half-rotten script at the base of the other ship's sterncastle: Queen Anne's Revenge. Killian made the attempt to chase, but even Emma could tell by the groans and shudders that something was wrong with the Jolly Roger. Lily zoomed past them, screeching, but the cannon shots kept her at bay. Helpless, Emma could only watch as the Revenge, with her son aboard, sailed over the town line.