A Savior Too Late
Hello everyone! I have recently become obsessed with OUAT, especially with SwanQueen, and this is also my first attempt at a Once fic after much deliberation. I hope everyone enjoys it. Please, let me know what you all think! Thanks!
Chapter 1
Fate has a strange way of changing things: past, present, and future. It also has a way of changing people, for better or for worse. At least, that's what Regina thought as she gazed at her reflection in one of the many mirrors in her manor. The woman she began to have an inkling of respect for had ruined things for her, just as her predecessor had back in the Enchanted Forest. The former Queen glared at the thought before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath in. She exhaled with a sigh. In her heart, she knew she shouldn't think such things. Those thoughts only led back down a road she had traveled so many times now that the trail should be completely flat and barren. She had won a battle in the war that raged inside her mind on a daily basis, her strongest general in that war being her son, Henry.
A knock on the door broke Regina away from the battlefield of her mind. She turned on a heel and clicked down the stairs of her foyer. She opened the door to the Sheriff. Speak of the devil.
"Miss Swan," Regina started in a dark tone, but she was cut off by Emma's voice. How could the blonde dare to interrupt the Queen, her eyes said.
"Regina, I just wanted to apologize again, for ummm," Emma began to say, but rolled her eyes and placed her hands in her back pockets as she tried to find the words. "I'm not sorry for saving Marian, but," she trailed off.
"You're sorry for the unforeseen consequences of your actions," Regina finished for the Sheriff. Silence befell the two women. The dark haired woman stared down The Savior as she crossed her arms over her chest.
Emma felt strangely uncomfortable under the gaze of the older woman. "Uh, yeah," she replied as she averted her gaze down to look at the hose-covered legs and heels of the once Evil Queen.
The next words took every ounce of strength for Regina to formulate. "Apology accepted," she said with a huff. These idiots had begun to grow on her.
The blonde looked up suddenly as those words were uttered to see that Regina's expression had softened. "Really?" she questioned in surprise and then saw the other woman's face turn to an expression of offense. "S-sorry, I just wasn't expecting to get off that easily." Why was she suddenly so uneasy around Regina? She had destroyed the woman's happy ending, of course. Emma had actually wanted to see her happy for once.
"I know," Regina's dark tone returned, "Now, is there anything else you wish to bother me with?"
Emma suddenly remembered that there was, in fact, another reason she had brought herself to the Mills' residence. "Oh, yeah!" she exclaimed, "Henry told me to ask you if you would like to come to Granny's to have lunch with me-…er, us." She had no idea why the inquiry had come out like that.
The slip up merely rolled off Regina's shoulders, thinking the woman before her had just not thought before she spoke like most people in this cursed town. "Could you not have just called me rather than showing up to my residence?" Regina asked.
Red leather covered shoulders shrugged. "I felt I should apologize in person," she answered.
"Very well, Miss Swan," Regina started, "But only because my son asked."
It was a quiet normal day in Storybrooke, as normal as the small fairy tale town could get, of course. Business was as usual at Granny's Diner with the usual customers and their everyday orders.
The two women and the son they shared sat at a booth, enjoying their lunch. Emma and Regina sat opposite of each other, with Henry seated next to Regina. He had said something that had made the both of them laugh at the same time, which was a rare occasion to say the least.
A rough rumble beneath everyone's feet cut short the laughter as well as everyone else's meals. What followed next caused gasps from everyone within the diner and stopped anyone on the sidewalk. The bright shining sun seemed to disappear from existence and blanketed the entire land in darkness.
Emma groaned and slipped out of the booth. "What now?" she asked the universe with a hint of annoyance in her voice.
Regina rose to her feet as well and turned to Henry, who was about to get up. "Stay right here, Honey," she ordered him. She and the Sheriff made their way out the door of the diner.
Once outside, they both looked up to the sky. It had been a clear day, so if the sun had left, why could they not see the stars clearly? It was as if a barrier was covering the sky, obscuring the possibility of seeing anything.
Henry had not listened to his adoptive mother and opened the door of the diner to peek out just as a blinding white light appeared straight down from the blackness. It was followed by a deafening boom that rocked the entire town again. It was so loud that its energy shattered almost every window in every building and knocked people down and kicked up a strong wind.
"What the hell?!" Emma shouted as she barely maintained her balance, shielding her eyes from the light.
"Mom!" the boy yelled towards both women as the blast knocked him back.
"Henry!" Regina almost screamed as she rushed towards the door only to be thrown to the ground by the force of the energy.
Almost as suddenly as the light had appeared, it disappeared and daylight shone again as if nothing strange had happened at all.
Emma stepped towards the downed woman and held her hand out. Regina took the hand reluctantly and the blonde pulled her to her feet. The blonde didn't let go of the other magic wielder's hand as soon as she should have. Instead, Regina pulled her hand away in a tug.
The royal brushed off her black skirt and straightened it out. Her eyes lifted to see people staring at her as if she had done something wrong. Great, this again, she thought to herself. She had seemingly become the scapegoat now whenever anything went wrong in the town.
"What the hell was that?" Emma asked her, shock in her voice.
"If what you're really asking is did I do this, then your answer is no," Regina answered, obviously offended by the assuming glances she received from the townspeople. She growled beneath her breath and pushed through the entrance of the diner to help her son to his feet. "Are you ok, Sweetie?" she asked the boy in a soft voice. He gave a worried, but assuring nod.
"No, I didn't mean," Emma began as she followed Regina, "I just meant to ask if you had any idea what that was." She had truly not ever believed Regina was behind the strange event.
"Yeah, that was insane," Henry added in, "It sounded like what my science book calls a sonic boom, but those usually don't cause damage."
"To answer your question, no, I haven't the slightest idea," the sorceress replied while she returned to their booth in order to retrieve her purse.
A ringtone erupted from Emma's phone and she shouldn't have been surprised. She answered with, "Sheriff."
David's voice answered on the other end, "I'm sure you saw that. We need to meet up and figure out exactly what just happened."
"Agreed," Emma answered her father shortly.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"I'm at Granny's with Henry and Regina."
"Regina," he said hesitantly, "You think it could be-." His words were cut short by his daughter.
"No, David, it's not," she answered somewhat irritated that he would even insinuate that Regina would do such a thing. She could understand though, seeing as how she indirectly tore Robin away from Regina by bringing Marian back. In the past, it would be understandable to assume that the woman had concocted some evil plan for revenge, but not now. Emma wholeheartedly believed that Regina had redeemed herself and had come too far to slip up now. She found herself gazing at the beauty before her as she thought this. She was glad her father's voice broke her from her thoughts because for some reason, she felt like she was about to start undressing the older woman with her eyes.
"Alright," he accepted her answer. He knew his daughter's superpower and if she believed the once evil sorceress wasn't behind this strange event, it was good enough for him. "Let's meet at home. Bring Regina. Perhaps she may have some insight. Magic is obviously at play here."
"Will do," she answered, "See you soon." Emma ended the call with her father and turned to see Regina with the look of fear in her eyes. She stepped forward and placed a hand on the woman's shoulder, the unexpected physical contact causing Regina to flinch.
Regina met Emma's eyes as she turned towards her. "You don't feel that?" she questioned.
"Feel what?" the blonde answered with a question, a confused look on her face. "Are you ok?"
"Of course you don't," Regina said with annoyance, "Whatever, whoever caused what just happened has a very large amount of magical power."
"Just how powerful are we talking?" Emma asked.
"Unimaginable," Regina replied, but the look she received said that the other woman wasn't following. "Let's put it this way. Even people who wield magic as powerful as Mr. Gold or I are usually not able to be sensed unless they are about ten feet away. Whoever or whatever this is, I can feel their power and they are at least a mile or more away. I can feel exactly where they are."
"Looks like we're changing the meeting place then," Emma said as she grabbed her phone again and swiped her thumb across the glass screen.
Regina reached forward and put a hand out to stop Emma. "What do you think you're doing, Sheriff Swan?"
The blonde looked confused once again. "Uh, David wants us to meet up with him at our place, but if you know exactly where we can find the cause of this event, then we should just head that way."
"Are you out of your mind?" Regina asked with a harsh tone, "Did you not hear a single thing I just said? This being has unimaginable power. Are we to just venture into the forest blindly?"
"So they're in the woods," Emma assumed and began typing a text to her father. "Ok, Henry, I want you to stay here with Granny and Ruby. We're gonna go check this thing out."
"But I want to go with you," he replied, curiosity dripping from him.
"Absolutely not," Regina broke in, "Miss Swan, we are not charging into this head first." The dark sorceress was not normally worried about such situations. She was usually very confident in herself, but something felt very off at the moment. For some reason, she didn't feel right with the fact that the birth mother of her son could be put into a highly dangerous situation.
Emma cocked an eyebrow and smirked at the older woman. "I think both our powers combined can handle it. Scared, Regina?"
That did it. Regina frowned for her confidence even being questioned. "Not in the least bit, Miss Swan."
She blinked in and out of consciousness as she made her descent from the sky, undoubtedly from her fear of heights and falling. However, she knew if she didn't get a grip on herself, she would be dead in a matter of seconds and her mission would all be for nothing. She focused with everything she had in her and opened her eyes to see the tree tops coming towards her rather quickly. She held out two leather-gloved hands and shot out a blast right before she smashed into the first branch. The second branch, as well as the others, she was not lucky enough to avoid. Thankfully, she was able to use her power to break her fall just enough to only bounce on and off the branches of a tree and hit the ground with a sickening crack of her left forearm.
She groaned into the damp dirt of the ground and mistakenly tried to use her newly broken arm to push herself up. The pain that radiated from the middle of her forearm made her nauseous and angry at the same time. Unintentionally, a fireball erupted from her good hand because her anger rose due to the pain. With a wave of her hand, she snuffed out the flames and rolled over onto her back, cringing at her disfigured arm.
The woman was about 5'9" and had a slender, yet toned frame and lightly tanned skin. Black eyeliner lightly rounded her greenish-blue eyes, and a purplish color covered her lips. Her hair, which fell midway down her back, was a dark brown, almost black, with the exception of a golden blonde streak that framed the left side of her softly squared jaw. The woman, who appeared to be about 30 years of age, wore tight fitting dark blue jeans and a black tank top. Her feet were clad in black leather combat boots.
She grabbed her broken arm and deeply inhaled before cracking her bones back into place. She cried out in pain causing a soft pulse of her power to rustle the leaves in the forest.
"Son of a bitch," she groaned before swiping her hand, which was faintly glowing blue, over the injury. This healed the bones almost instantly. She breathed a sigh of relief as she rose to her feet and brushed the dirt off of herself. She gripped a pendant around her neck and gave a determined look. Time to kill a thief, she thought to herself as she scouted out the best route into town.