Thanks for the reviews friends! I thought I'd post Chapter 2 right away to get the establishment chapters moving a bit quicker but I'll probably leave it a few days before the next.
Also thanks to Laura for all of her help with this story!
The two women made their familiar trek down to Regina's vault. Regardless of how many times she had been within it, it still filled Emma with a chilling reminder of how much her life had changed - even if for the better.
"If you have a preservation spell on some type of magic why didn't you just do that for everything?" Emma asked, a slight hint of insolence in her voice.
"Magic isn't a limitless supply, you know. And the balance is important. There needs to be just enough to slip below radars and just enough to not burn out. You may be powerful, Emma, but there is still a lot that comes from experience." Regina muttered as she struggled to prize open open a vault on the wall.
"You forgot you put the emergency magic behind broken magic?" Emma smirked as Regina threw her another glare. Instead of rising to the bait, she decided to torture her companion a different way. Forcing her to reflect.
"So, what do you think has made you give up on magic then, wise one?" She demanded, wincing as she continued to lever at the latch. Emma's immediate recoil showed that the jibe method had worked as payback. The lock finally clicked open as Emma perched against the wall trying to find an answer. She thought back through her experiences of the past few years and as she filtered through all the times she had fought against her power, she failed to find one where she hadn't resolved to want to keep it. Catching Regina's knowing gaze, she began to admit to herself that the theory about this being a side effect of the magic drain was gaining evidence.
"I just think we should consider whether this was something non malicious. Something more...destined." She bluffed, not wanting to concede just yet.
"Well either way, if this was destiny then these shouldn't be working either." Regina pulled out a collection of amulets, each dormant but with a glisten of the light catching the corner of their silverware.
"If there's one thing you taught me, Emma, it was to be prepared for unexpected disruptions." She added, placing one around her neck. As it settled, Emma saw a purple flash of light glaze over the main stone.
"Glad I could help." She mumbled bluntly, her eyes trapped by the glow of the necklace.
"The first time we were magicless here in Storybrooke I had to give up every trinket I had because I had run out of my supply and didn't have enough to cast a spell. After that point and a few other scares I decided to always be prepared and distil some magic. Pour it into these amulets. It's just about the one good thing I learned from my sister."
"What was the spell for? Trying to kill me?" Emma asked with a hint of a laugh, but seeing Regina's un-phased expression, the smile faded as she was reminded that a few years ago that wouldn't have had any humour in its reality. "Right..." She added with a flush of embarrassment. Regina held the second amulet out to her as Emma watched it dancing on its chain in front, hesitant to take it.
"Don't you see what I mean though? Things are pretty good right now." She looked back to Regina who was standing motionless, firm in her task despite her delaying tactics. "We're all friends. Family. Nobody's trying to kill each other."
"And that all happened with our magic." Regina reminded her, impatiently. "Besides, us all living in friendship land and not killing each other doesn't mean nothing else is trying to kill us. All it means is that we're defencelessly living in friendship land."
"We don't know something else is trying to kill us..."
"Winged shadows invaded our dreams and scoured our bodies of magic." Regina jerked the necklace down again in frustration. "If you can't see anything suspicious in that, Sheriff, we really need to have a discussion about your position. Now take it or I'll make you take it using mine." She ordered as Emma rolled her eyes an finally relented. Seeing the genuine nervousness in her handling of the jewellery, Regina softened a little from her tough love stance.
"Look, I get it. Your entire history with magic has been over a short period of time. It's been a roller coaster." She sympathised, thinking back over the harder challenges they had faced. "A complete but subtle magic drain after such a tumultuous period with magic has hit you hard and it's knocked you right back to where you were at the beginning. You just need to remember what it feels like to use it again. It's perfectly normal to fall back to back habits when you have had a physical change like this. We all revert to our survival instincts. You retreat, I get more irritable and defensive..." She reassured her, acknowledging her own flaws as Emma screwed up her face.
"You seem absolutely normal." She replied, petulantly as Regina threw her another glare.
"Fine. Then don't push me further." She jested, squinting her eyes and motioning to the necklace as Emma finally put it round her neck. The same occurred as with Regina's as the glow flowed down it. She watched it go and closed her eyes, trying to feel any difference it could have.
"Now," Regina commanded. "Let's see if this worked." She flicked her arms and the two of them disappeared in a wisp of purple smoke.
"Thank goodness for that!" She sighed with relief. "See, experience. Now you do something." Regina suggested, looking at the forest around them.
Emma looked around and waved her arms, though nothing seemed to occur before shrugging towards Regina.
"Unless something invisible is doing a dance for us, you're not trying hard enough." She reprimanded in an unimpressed tone as Emma raised her hands up.
"Maybe it just didn't work. Maybe it only works with your magic?"
"Don't try and tell me how my spells work. Me doing this alone is not an option. You're one of the most naturally gifted people I know and we need your help too. I need your help. Now try again!" Regina hit back. This reluctant Emma was pushing the buttons she had done at a much earlier stage in their companionship.
Not wanting to push too far, Emma closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, focussing back to the first times she'd tried to learn the craft.
"Come on, you remember how to do it, don't you?" Regina prodded, wondering if her old technique of ruffling her feathers may work. "Show me what you've got, Saviour."
"You're not helping..." Emma growled as Regina moved closer, trying not to break her façade.
"It looks like you don't even need to give up on magic. It's giving up on you." She baited. "You're the one who always plays the hero, why did I get mine back and you're still as powerless as your useless parents?"
"That's not helping!" The blonde fired back as the amulet whizzed but ultimately nothing happened, now making Regina a little more scared. Emma had come so far, she had expected it to come back a lot faster than this. She looked her friend up and down as Emma breathed slowly, her insecurities whizzing round her head. She couldn't tell if she was relieved it wasn't working or disappointed. Right now everything just felt empty and everything about her was jaded.
"You've lost confidence in yourself." Regina finally mused. "You're not just retreating, you're losing your belief again."
"What?" Emma squinted as Regina tried to think back over other methods. She had been teaching her for a long time now and knew Emma better almost better than she knew herself. "You need a kick. We said before it's always been adrenaline that has avoided this before. Time to generate some."
"Regina?" Emma queried nervously as the sorceress got an excited glint over her teeth before disappearing in a puff of smoke.
"Regina! Please, not this again. Maybe it is to do with the amulet...maybe it just doesn't connect to my power..." She looked around to try and find a sign of the missing witch, growing agitated as she suddenly felt herself sucked away again. She was now catapulted to the beach."This isn't funny..."
"The amulet is fine." A voice boomed back, although it was still missing a body that Emma was desperately looking around for. "You're the one not connecting with it." It added as Emma swirled to check behind her. A flash landed by her feet and she was whipped away again back to the forest.
"Will you quit that? Just let me try again!" Emma added, her voice now becoming more flustered.
"You want to try again, try again. I'm still here...I'm helping you!" Regina cackled, materialising for a second, as 3 balls of fire hit by Emma's right side.
"By trying to kill me? We were just talking about how we were past that!" Emma blasted as she roll ducked out the way.
"If I was trying to kill you I would have gone for your left. You are always slower on the uptake if I hit on the left. I know how you fight, Miss Swan, now you try and remember."
"Regina -"
"Stop complaining and fight me!" Regina appeared behind her offering a blast that sent Emma to the floor. She could feel the rage growing inside her, the taunts finally working as she felt a surge through her and finally felt a rush through the amulet. Blasting her arms forward both her and Regina were zipped back to the beach where Emma, now in control, whipped up a wave of sand that she sent crashing over Regina, but it wasn't powerful enough to complete its task.
"Good...good!" Regina laughed as she scattered the sand with a blast and conjured a sword in Emma's hand to match one in her own. "Now let's see your reflexes!" She smiled, a wicked glimmer in her eye as they suddenly appeared on the familiar wooden, slat bridge.
"I've got magic back..." Emma struggled to say between each sword clang of a relentless Regina while attempting to balance her footing on the shaking bridge. "Why...are you...not...stopping?" She grimaced as she ducked and flew, Regina's eyes not breaking gaze.
"Because you're still only defending yourself, Swan. You're better than me with a sword. You need to lead. You need to want it!" Regina hissed, breathless in her own way but determined to complete Emma's restoration.
"Why does that matter?" She yelled back, still desperately trying to fend off the constant stream of attack, added now to a fireball or two flying by as she blasted a ball of light of her own. Finally having had enough of these games she zipped Regina's sword straight form the air and sent the witch flying back to cling on the rope of the bridge.
Panting desperately, Emma looked down and saw Regina was not attempting to restore herself.
"We know we're not going to kill each other. What is this even achieving?" Emma breathed out trying to re-fill her lungs from the exhaustion.
"It's not your wanting to kill me I'm trying to fix." Regina grinned as Emma winced through the pain in confusion.
"It's your wanting to save us." Regina grabbed the amulet on her neck and before Emma could yell her name, Regina had magically slashed the bridge edge, collapsing it down before ripping off her amulet. All three began plummeting downwards, Emma using her last force of projection from the bridge to dive forward and grab the speeding rope as she watched her friend fall, voluntarily powerless, and still with a maniacal grin. In a split second she felt another surge and waved her arms in a determined slash as both she and Regina zipped into a puff of light, both of them materialising on the edge of a hill, rolling downwards and splattering metres apart from each other in the grass.
"What is with you and that bridge?!" Emma yelled, spitting out some grass from her mouth and wincing in pain, panting again from the ordeal. "What if that hadn't have worked or I hadn't seen you take off the amulet?!"
"Do you feel it?" Regina glowed, ignoring Emma's protests and placing her necklace back on. She was more possessed by her own adrenaline rush than bothered by the pain of the landing.
Emma was about to fire back again but paused for a moment, feeling the pace of her heart. Regina was right. The doubt was gone. She could feel her sudden confidence flowing through and pumping with every pound of her heart.
"I'm grateful and all, but can we work on your methods please?" She gasped collapsing back as Regina laugh and heaved herself up before offering a hand to Emma.
"I'll change my methods when you change how hard it is to break down your walls." Regina puffed before forcefully grabbing the arm that Emma had been reluctant to give. She pulled her up as Emma finally gripped back, grabbing onto Regina's shoulder for support and then dusting herself off. She rubbed her face down and squinted into the sun.
"How do we get it back then?" She asked before coughing out the last of the exhaustion and Regina took the third amulet from her pocket.
"These amulets should give us magic for several days wherever we end up. There will hopefully be magic wherever we go but it's always better to be able to use your own in case it's unpredictable. This third one we will have to use to try and reopen whatever portal they used. I think it will take up all its power. Now we need to see what the others have found about this box so we can figure out the rest."
"So we are going to chase something we don't know into a land we don't know to get our magic back from a thing we don't know?" Emma winced as they began to walk back.
"You got a better plan?" Regina challenged playfully as they began to make their way back. "Anyway, this is just what we know now. The others should have more information when we get back. I've never known Belle to fail to hunt something out."
Emma began to trek through her mind looking at all the things she had been resisting to think about before. Piecing a few together she felt another wash of confidence, the returned presence of magic guiding her senses.
"Well, lucky for you I think I do have a plan to get more clues. Looks like you did need me for this..." She smirked, her enjoyment of a challenge now emerging from the power surge.
"Oh, it's like that then! Your power has come flooding back with extra cocky. Well, I suppose your void induced whiney needed something big to fill it back up." Regina nodded, striding forward as Emma scurried behind.
"I was not whiney -" She protested as the two made their way back to the mayor's office, their bickering fading into the distance.
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"And what about for the journey back? With the amulet open it twice?" David asked as Regina looked nervously at Emma who was quickly understanding the plan. Latching onto it herself, Mary Margaret turned in horror.
"We're not sending you through a one way door!" She insisted looking between the two women as they both tried to avert eye contact.
"You did it before and that turned out OK..." Emma shrugged playfully, trying to tone things down. The quick glimpse she got of her mother's expression when she dared to look quickly proved she had failed.