chapter 2 originally posted on tumblr 11/21/17; draws slightly from OUAT 1x02 The Thing You Love Most, but after this we're all AU.

Mysterious Attack on Local Store

Last night, at the jewelers on Maple Lane, multiple witnesses reported a strange woman attacking them in what is presumed to be an attempted robbery. No official description of the attacker has been released, nor has there yet been anything reported missing. Credit for stopping the attack has been given to an unknown savior calling herself Sailor Moon…

She made the front page of the paper.

It was hardly her intention, and yet— There it is, staring her in the face. There's even a picture. It's grainy as hell, her face impossible to make out, but it's still there. To be fair, people getting attacked is news, probably pretty major news in a small town like this, but still – where had that picture even come from? She hadn't seen any cameras around. And the angle isn't right for a security camera in the store itself, not that the police would be likely to release any images from that this soon after the incident. Especially not if they were still investigating to see if anything had actually been stolen, like the paper claimed the incident was supposed to have been.

If she was anyone in this town, some random person who didn't know exactly what had happened, she would at the very least suspect herself of being either the attacker or the one to fend them off – being a total stranger whose arrival coincided with this happening, and all. Which is why it's a surprise, then, that not one person has given her so much as an obvious second glance all morning, as she had made her way from the B&B to the diner, sat herself at the counter and picked up someone else's discarded newspaper. But, she hasn't even heard a whisper about it, about the incident at all, despite its status as front page news — though if Henry is right about everything and his adoptive mother was the Evil Queen to cast the curse, her visit to Emma's room with a basket of apples and a thinly-veiled "get out of town" may indicate that she, of all the people in town to have possibly caught on, at least suspects. Also, it hasn't exactly been long, and she hasn't exactly encountered many people as of yet. It very likely is gossip, and it's entirely possible the reason she hasn't heard about it from any word of mouth is exactly because she's the stranger in town.

Beyond that, she has other things on her mind, and it is just as entirely possible that the reason she hasn't heard anything is because she's been too distracted by her thoughts to listen as well as she should.

Because, well, truth be told, Emma's still considering the possibility of getting out of town rather than letting herself get drawn in deeper. While the power of the transformation was undeniable, while this place is clearly a link to her unknown past… There's something terrifying about the possibility of knowing. And, obviously, about the possibility of facing more things like Morga.

Alone.

There were four other girls in the woods that day; four people to find. Three more Guardians, and a princess. But until then? Unless the mystery man in formalwear shows up again, she's on her own.

Not exactly an appealing thought.

But if she doesn't stay, then what?

The attacks aren't going to stop just because she's not fighting; leaving will get people hurt. And as much as she's not a mother, she couldn't in good conscience leave the kid in the town where these attacks are happening, where he might get hurt, and he would never forgive her if she kidnapped him and ran. And that's what it would be, kidnapping – not exactly something off her bucket list.

Meaning, logically, that she's stuck here, in this place, fighting this fight that she didn't even believe in less than 24 hours ago.

Staying.

At least, until she can figure out where the other girls went, figure out how to find them and convince them to come and fight alongside her, even though all they had was first names. She knows the best place to start looking is at her own records, but she hardly knows which of the others to start with, does she?

She sets the paper aside with a sigh, hands going to her temples as a headache begins to build. Overthinking and stressing herself out isn't about to help anyone, here. Instead, she focuses on what she can do most easily, first. Find a place to stay more long term than Granny's, and find a way to make money to live on in the meantime. She didn't fail to notice that fighting monsters came with no monetary incentive, and there doesn't exactly seem to be call for much bail-bonds work around this area of Maine.

Two achievable goals.

One step at a time.

He doesn't remember when he found Storybrooke, exactly. He knows it's been a while, since he arrived, but something about the town makes the days blur by, indistinguishable.

When he found it, he had been following the dreams he's had since the day he woke in the forest, no memories, but instinctive knowledge in wilderness survival, like he'd been doing it all his life.

The dreams had been constant, a girl in shadow that he felt like he knew asking for his help.

The only constant, even as he had been found in that forest and taken in, at least for a few days, by the vacationing couple that found him. After that, it had been a revolving door of people, speaking when they thought he couldn't hear about the coincidence of the timing and how at least the girls had names.

All these amnesiac kids in the woods, one had said, like they were all nothing but an inconvenience. As much as he had suspected, though, that one of those girls being spoken of, the ones who had names, must be the one from his dream, he had known he would have no way to find them. Instead, he had let himself drift – get through the schooling that the authority figures had insisted upon, and then… Try and find her by instinct.

The dreams hadn't stopped or changed at all when he arrived in Storybrooke, but he still hadn't been able to bring himself to leave – and now it's been… He doesn't quite know how long. He's stuck to the woods, because he has an easier time of it away from people, but he's still stuck around Storybrooke much longer than he intended.

But today, for the first time in a long time, his head feels almost clear as he lets his feet carry him closer into the heart of the town than he usually ventures. There's something different, happening, an almost-imperceptible shift in the air.

A change.

And the first obvious manifestation of that change he encounters is the clock tower about the shuttered library— moving, running, ticking away like it was never stopped.

It's been stopped as long as he's been here.

Whatever changed, it must have been powerful, to make that happen.

He's perhaps distracted, by the obvious change and by the clarity like he's not felt in a long time, when the mayor's kid – he thinks it's the mayor's kid, anyway – who is walking with a stranger, takes an apple from his companion and throws it without so much as looking where. And, somehow, it manages to hit him in the foot.

"Henry," the blonde woman hisses, stopping in her tracks. The kid pauses too, before he turns to follow her gaze to him and where the apple now lays before him.

"Oh," the boy lets out. "Um, I'm sorry, sir."

Truth be told, he doesn't quite know how to react. Despite the years of interacting with people that he can remember, since that couple found him, he's simply… Not good at it. He's fairly certain that it has something to do with why he's so at home in the woods, but having suspicions about the root of the problem does nothing to mitigate the effects.

Still, it was obviously an accident, not intentional.

"It's alright. Maybe pay a bit more attention to where you're throwing things next time."

And then they continue to walk on, the boy talking animatedly about how things are going to start changing now that you're here, and he can't help but wonder if… If it's that simple. If the palpable changes in the air are simply because that woman has arrived in town.

But no, it can't be. Can it?

When he finds her in the morning, Henry seems surprised to see that she didn't run off and leave town in the middle of the night.

She had promised that she wouldn't – it had been the only way to get the kid to go home, for the time being, since, actual real-live monster aside, his adoptive mother would be quick to realize if she took him, or, more accurately, if she let him stay with her. So she had promised to stay the night and think about longer. The kid wouldn't know it, yet, but she'd booked a room for a week.

A week. She fights one monster and decides that a week is a suitable length of time to completely change her life – move to Storybrooke, find a job, become a hero.

She is screwed, isn't she? And by no one's hand but her own.

(Well. Her own, and the hand of whoever was in charge of handing out Magical Guardian Powers and picked her for the job. How did that happen? What was it that had qualified her to be Sailor Moon? There must have been something, right? Some special quality that she had possessed – even as a child, because Henry had said that the book mentioned them training, for years – that meant she was the best choice. Now, she can't even imagine what that would have been.)

"So I think we should start with Sailor Mercury," Henry says, when they're almost to the gates of the school. "She's the Guardian of Wisdom, so she'll probably be really good to have around to help."

"And do you have an idea which of the girls that came through with me is Mercury? Because I'm pretty sure that I can't look her up by that name just yet."

"Okay, no," he admits. "Not actually. But if I had to guess? You all came from a fairy tale world. If I was going to pick a Guardian of Wisdom based off of fairy tales, I would choose Belle."

Belle.

Yeah, that was the name of one of the others. The shy brunette who had read every book the people from the state had been willing to give her, who had been the one to ask what they were talking about when they asked if some of them had picked their names from Disney movies just to screw with the search to find out where they actually came from. The rest of them had been just as confused by the statement, and perhaps even more offended by the implication that they would lie about the one thing they remembered, but only Belle had actually had the curiosity to ask what a Disney movie even was. Or at least, the only one who cared enough to act on that curiosity. Wisdom probably isn't a bad guess, for her, and, well, it is a place to start.

They need a good place to start. Or any place to start.

She's still mulling it over when Henry joins the throng of other students, when his teacher makes her way over to Emma's side, intent on a chat if the look in her eyes is anything to go by. The woman had seemed nice, kind, yesterday, and as far as Emma can tell, she cares about Henry. Every word she'd spoken had been sincere, at the least.

(And, throughout the conversation, Emma had felt a nagging sense of familiarity. Like she should or did know the woman. Still feels it now.)

"You stayed," Mary Margaret says, but nothing about it is a question. It's not even surprised, not in the least.

"I stayed." Emma confirms. Not much of a conversation starter, but then, neither was the not-question.

"It'll be good for him," the teacher says, smiling, "Having you in his life. He's— Yesterday, I told you about how he's lonely. Staying for him, even if it's only a little while, if he sees that you're willing to do that for him… Maybe it'll help him open up to others."

It's a pretty sentiment. And it's not a question or a condemnation or even an assumption that her presence in Storybrooke is permanent – and because it's none of those things, it's not as uncomfortable as it could be, otherwise. Still, there's not a lot of places she can go with it, conversation-wise, and Mary Margaret is lingering, like she feels like there's something to be said between them.

Emma doesn't know what it could be, but, she does know something else – this is an adult that Henry trusts. Someone who knows where he runs away to, who didn't even seem angry that he'd stolen her credit card.

As much as she's been forced to believe in the things he got out of that book, there's something else that's bothering her about it, and maybe this could be the person to ask.

"Do you know… His fairy tale thing?"

Regina had been clueless as to what she was talking about two nights ago, when she thought she was just returning the kid and leaving. But, since she might be the Evil Queen – okay, probably is – who caused all this mess, it makes sense that Henry would keep it from her. Maybe Mary Margaret…

"Yes, I do," she agrees. "What about it?"

"He got it from that book, right? Do you know where he got the book from?"

"It was here," the teacher's face looks thoughtful. "In my classroom. It was sitting on his desk one morning, about a month ago. I'm still not entirely sure how he convinced me to let him actually keep it without knowing where it came from, but… I looked over it. It seemed like just a regular book of fairy tales to me. And fairy tales are about hope, and he needed hope so much. I didn't expect him to start telling me that I'm Snow White and I've been cursed not to remember it."

Snow White.

That would, according to the story as Henry's been telling it, make her the mother of the princess that Emma's supposed to be finding. Would mean that the last time this woman saw her child, she would have been a teenage kid, and now… And now that same girl will be a grown woman. A grown woman who'll have made some sort of life for herself out in the world beyond Storybrooke – who knows what kind of life, but a life all the same.

It also probably means that Emma would have known her, before… All of this. When she was training, with the other girls – if she's a Guardian to the Princess, she would have to know the princess' mother, wouldn't she? Which neatly explains that sense of familiarity that's been bothering her – though it still persists, like she hasn't quite connected all the dots just yet.

"It's…" She can't let on that she believes without risking people thinking she's crazy. And considering that the whole Guardian thing comes with a costume and a code name, she's going to edge towards secret identity, with it. "It's a very creative theory." The words might sound disbelieving, but they're not dismissive. Or at least, she doesn't mean them to be. She just… She knows that she has to protect what secrecy they have in this whole… Operation Rabbit, as Henry termed it.

"He's a creative kid," Mary Margaret agrees, nodding. "And that is something I like encouraging, it's just, believing in this curse thing…"

Wouldn't seem healthy to someone who hadn't transformed into a Guardian of Love and Justice and fought off a monster with a tiara. Yeah. The teacher doesn't even need to finish saying the words.

"You probably have to get to class, though," Emma says, changing the subject, if not particularly deftly. "And I have some things I need to take care of, too, so. I'll let you go."

The only sound that echoes out is her own heels clicking across the stone floor of the vault in the mausoleum she keeps as a shrine to Daniel.

The curse, as Rumplestiltskin had given it to her, called for a sacrifice – the heart of the thing you love most. Her beloved steed hadn't been enough, he'd said, when she had demanded to know why the curse hadn't worked the first time she had attempted to cast it, as he implied that thing meant person.

A sacrifice she had been unable to make, as his heart had already been crushed to dust in her mother's hands, was the entire reason she had set out to take Snow's happiness with this curse in the first place.

She had been unwilling to find out if her father's heart would make for an acceptable substitute, and so she had sought out a being more powerful than even the imp – Metalia. The Demon Queen. The trip to Metalia's frozen waste of a kingdom had been far more arduous than she would have liked, but the results had been favorable; Metalia could bypass the sacrifice, given enough life energy. Could allow her to cast the curse without losing her father.

It would take time, more time than seemed strictly necessary, fourteen years, for Metalia to gather all of that energy, but there would be an added bonus – if she had been the one to cast it, Snow's child alone would have been able to break it, in time. With Metalia's help, the princess could not possibly do it alone. Would need the help of five others. And the likelihood of the so-called "heroes" finding a way to transport six teenagers into the Land Without Magic was… Not much of a likelihood at all, in her opinion.

It had also meant agreeing that in the realm the curse created, Metalia could feed as much as she needed to exist without true magic, but those living under her own roof were exempt, and, that was enough for her. Her father was safe, she was safe, Snow was miserable. Things could hardly be better. Even once she decided that she wanted a child, that child was safe from Metalia, under the protection of her household. There wasn't really anything else to take into consideration – she had wanted it, and she had done it, brought a child into Storybrooke to raise, named the baby boy after her father – who, of course, had no idea all the deeds that stained her hands, being affected by the curse's memory-altering powers, but that just made it all the more possible for them to be a happy family.

Yes, the child had started to rebel and insist that she was evil, but she would find a way to stamp that out of him, she was certain, given time.

But last night they had lost Morga. Not one of the stronger servants, that the Demon Queen had chosen to come as an energy gatherer in their new paradise, but whatever had happened, whatever the Guardian brat had done, whichever brat it was that had shown up in her town, this wasn't good.

So, the moment she had the time, she had headed to the vault. It is her domain, but it is also where the Demon Queen sleeps while her servants work.

They would need a plan, to gather more energy, to make up for the loss of last night in its entirety. And they would need a plan, too, to get rid of this… Sailor Moon.