FACING DESTINY

Return of the Masked Girl

"Eleven more days until the end of the world as we know it," Rosetta mumbled to herself as she jot down some notes and sketches on the sketchbook she kept with her ever since she first came to Storybrooke and not the usual parchment that the Aztec gods had expected her to write every detail about the story-of-everybody's-life.

She had gone for a morning walk at the beach by herself with Ared (her father still went under papa wolf protection by having at least one of his jackal sons watch over her) and was now sharing her disturbing visions to her sketchbook while Ared kept an eye on her.

"OH, GO AWAY, ARED!" she barked at him. "I DON'T CARE IF DADDY CURSES ME IN THE NEXT LIFE, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" Ever since her trip with the pilgrims, Rosetta had lost most of her childish innocent and acted quite abrasively lately. She managed to make Ared whimper and race away from the beach and into the road that they usually took to go back home.

"After three centuries, the sun will darken again. From the underground the maze shall rise," Rosetta recited the prophecy that Kaa had told her when she encountered her visionary peers Hak and Ah, the two halves that formed the embodiment of Kaa, the all-knowing snake. "From his crown, the Prince of Darkness' evil will terrorize. The cursed dagger will bond with the dragon, who seeks her enslaver's demise and the loyalty of her heir. The worlds' town will face the agony as darkness, evil, and malevolence rule the air." She wrote down the prophecy in her sketchbook. "Then Fidget has visions related to the prophecy..."

"Say what now?"

"GAH!"

Rosetta jumped when she saw a familiar person from her travels sitting right next to her. The girl she had encountered at the ruins of the Batrishan Palace hadn't been so quiet, Rosetta would have mistaken her breathing for the wind.

"Seriously, what is with you and giving me heart attacks?" Rosetta got up and glared at the Masked Girl. "And...what the heck are you wearing?"

The first and last time the two girls had encountered one another, the Masked Girl was wearing medieval robes and a Cuban Devil mask that covered her entire face, which had made her look like a demonic nun. But now she was wearing some sort of black catsuit with the zipper opened just enough to reveal her cleavage, the fabric so tight that her adolescent curves could not be concealed (and interestingly, the folds were able to look like dragons), and her Cuban Devil mask had been replaced by those masks a woman would wear at a Venetian masquerade ball. If Rosetta hadn't been decent enough to know that all those movie adaptations about her maternal grandmother, the Black Widow, were not based on reality, she would have thought that the Masked Girl was auditioning to play the Black Widow's role in the first IRON MAN movie.

"Oh, you mean this?" The Masked Girl's lips (now visible) were covered in ebony black lipstick and smirking as she showed off in diva poses her new outfit. "I thought I'd get myself a bad makeover. After all, I'll be getting a new sense of fashion once the prophecy has passed."

"I still can't believe it's all coming together in just a matter of eleven days," Rosetta said. "Anyway, how's your boss doing?"

The Masked Girl grimaced, her teeth gritting and her eyes, still hidden beneath her mask, burning at the mention of her master. "That creep has a brain as empty as a worthless crystal ball! To think that I had to endure almost eight years of my life at his servitude, listening to him babble and plot for his revenge, his obsession at getting his son back, and the price he wants the most...Pale Face."

"Yeah, Pale Face really got his attention when she visited his hometown the first time."

"Ugh, tell me about it!" The Masked Girl groaned. "Hollywood and its lies about his crush on a human girl! If they new how the Evil One truly treats his paramours, they would have cancelled the movie! The Evil One practically turned the room he molested Pale Face in into a shrine that plans to turn into a...matrimonial bedchamber once he's forced her into the altar."

"Is that part really gonna come true?" Rosetta asked with concern. "The part of Pale Face getting...You know?"

"Is this about those 'visions' that you were mumbling about?" Rosetta nodded and watched as the Masked Girl waved her hand, summoning a cloud of dark crystal colored smoke that created a couple chairs, a table, and a tea set. "Let's talk about it..."

Meanwhile, barely a few feet from here

Emma and Regina were following Periwinkle and Hermia as they scouted the area, trying to find more clues about the location of the dark fairy Romana who broke into the fairies' hidden vault.

"There's still one thing I don't get," Regina said as the women walked.

"What is it?" Emma looked at her.

"The dark fairy who broke into the vault and took the scroll was your friend Lily's daughter, who somehow disappeared from the face of the Earth as a six-year-old when her father was murdered," Regina told her. "If she's here in Storybrooke, why is she stealing something involving a prophecy about the end of the world rather than searching for the only relatives she has?"

"Maybe she gave up?" Emma suggested. "That's what happened to me at first when I was in the foster system and became a bounty hunter. I stopped searching for clues of my real parents and began to accept that they might have abandoned me until Henry found me..."

"I don't think so." Emma and Regina looked at Periwinkle, who walked ahead of them and used the dark fairy body dust to locate any possible remnants of the fairy. "No matter what kind of fairy you are, good, evil, the cursing kind, the wish-granting, the fairy godmother or guardian or dark fairy, childcare and maternal love are natural characteristics that can't be revoked. Even if a dark fairy is evil, she still must love the children she bears and raise them while they cherish her love. But the only way a fairy can't care for her child and love it would be if the child was forcibly taken away from its parents."

"And you think the Evil One kidnapped Romana and is forcing her to do her bidding?" Hermia asked her mother. Periwinkle said nothing. Her spare hand grabbed her daughter's and held it tightly. "Mom?"

"If that bastard god thinks he can get away with one fairy's daughter, he'll have to think again if he wants to harm mine!" The words were so strong that Emma and Regina could have sworn hearing the trees shaking brutally and the summer breeze turning cold.

"Wait!" Hermia let go of her mother's hand and held out her Batrishan ears, listening very carefully. "I hear something. It's faint, but I'm positive somebody is at the beach nearby. Maybe it's Romana."

"Let's go check it out!" Emma said.

"We'll give you a lift." Without hearing a word of it, Periwinkle grabbed Emma and Hermia grabbed Regina and took flight.

"You're sure I'm not too heavy for you?" Regina asked Hermia loudly as they flew above the trees.

"Nah. My heritage as a descendant of Ashiva kind of gives superhuman strength."

The ladies flew for like five minutes in the air until they arrived by the beach. They hid behind some large beach rocks and cautiously spied on the people there.

"I see Rosetta with some sort of black dressed teenager," Hermia whispered. "Who is she? Romana?"

"Perhaps." Periwinkle analyzed the dark fairy body dust, which glowed a lot in its vial. "The body dust is reacting a lot, but there could be a possibility that it's just reacting to the presence of another dark fairy..."

"Still, what is Rosetta doing with a dark fairy?" Emma asked. Their whisperings got cut off when they heard Rosetta and the Masked Girl talking.

"This isn't good," the Masked Girl said to Rosetta as they finished their tea. "The eclipse isn't here yet and the Batrishan starts having visions related to the prophecy?"

"I don't think 'related' even fits," Rosetta told her associate (at least that's what the spying ladies assumed the Masked Girl was). "C'mon, I like saw what he saw and all it took him was to merely touch those chalices..."

"Chalices?" The Masked Girl leaned close enough to face Rosetta by nearly an inch. "What were those chalices made of?"

"Crystal."

"DAMN IT!" The Masked Girl got up her chair and paced around the sandy beach angrily. The ladies had to make sure they were still well hid and in a good position to listen even more. "This is a disaster! My boss can see through crystals balls or anything made of the same material! Anyone related to him has the same ability! If the Batrishan touched a crystal chalice and saw things through it, his touch could have triggered the blood link that connects him to his father, the Evil One!"

"Splendid," Rosetta muttered. "In other words, your boss could pop up at anytime and go like: 'Greetings, Storybrooke! Don't mind me, I just came to pick up my son and use him to reincarnate myself as the Dark One again in order to unleash epic chaos on your town and the universe as we know it! Have a nice day!'" Rosetta made a dramatic, farewell pose worthy of a conqueror as she finished her sentence. "You don't suppose he'll use that spell on him before the eclipse, do you?"

"Well he'll definetly make sure Nimue accepts his offering and takes his Batrishan son as an avatar. When he performs the bonding ritual and destroys his son's soul from within like a lethal parasite by the time the eclipse comes, he'll become the Dark One...permanently."

Emma and Regina stared at one another in shock while Periwinkle covered her daughter's mouth in order to keep her from screaming.

So that's what the Evil One was after.

He wanted to become the Dark One.

A god playing the avatar of the Dark One.

And to do that, the Evil One needed his son that hid among the Batrishans currently located in Storybrooke.

"But of course we aren't going to let your boss kill him, right?" Rosetta said.

"He won't die, but you can't do it directly."

"Oh, c'mon! You can't be serious! Don't tell me it's because I'm a kid!"

"I'm a kid, too, you know, with a four to five age difference. But that's not why. Don't forget that my master granted one sparing for you back in the Batrishan Sanctuary when I saved you from Darwin. And if he found out how...closely connected you and his son are, he could easily use you against his son, maybe even blackmail him to join his side by threatening to kill you."

Rosetta remained silent, her face clearly looking heartbroken. "But I can't just leave him out like bait! He's like a big brother to me!"

"I know, Rosetta," the Masked Girl said sincerely. "I understand how you feel, but it's too dangerous for you and him. I think he made a wise chose to let his recent bitter attitude alienate everyone surrounding him."

"Except my teacher."

"Teacher?" Regina mouthed at Emma, who shook her head to indicate that she had no idea what was going on.

"Teacher?" The Masked Girl asked.

"Yeah, my summer class teacher, Ms. Rogers. Aside from getting weird visions, Fidget has been sleeping with my teacher..."

This definetly did not hold the women any longer.

"FIDGET THE BAT IS THE EVIL ONE'S SON?" Regina got up and shouted at the startled Rosetta and Masked Girl.

"H...How long have you guys been spying on us?" Rosetta gasped as Emma and the frost fairies got up.

"How long we've been here?" Emma scowled at Rosetta. "How long were you going to tell us that you knew Fidget was the Evil One's son all along?"

"And that you knew Romana Castro?" Hermia added.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Rosetta replied flatly.

"You can quit the charade, Rosetta." The Masked Girl removed her mask and let it drop on the sand. The ladies were shocked to see the true face that had been hiding beneath the mask: a younger, tanned, and prettier version of Lily's face, only with Cuban tanned skin and extremely dark eyes and hair that went down her waist.

"So I broke into the monastery in order to get my boss the scroll he wanted with further details of the prophecy," Romana said. "Big deal."

"Then what the heck are you doing, going one way to help him take over the world and go another way to tip off his plans to Rosetta?" Hermia pointed at Rosetta while speaking. "What's the sense in that?"

"Romana, listen..." Emma took a careful step forward .

"Don't bother, Emma Swan. I know what you're going to do to me," Romana scoffed. "Give me a brief story of your life, how we're not so different, and that my mother and grandmother are desperately looking for me. Spare me and yourself the waste of time, I won't fall for that classic."

Her comment was so stunning that Emma dropped her jaw in shock. "But..."

"Emma, it's pointless," Rosetta supported Romana. "She's like Fidget. Life wrecked by the Evil One, stripped away from your native people at a young age, taught and tormented by years of sufferings and evil. Romana could care less about her maternal family the same way Fidget doesn't give a damn about not being like his people."

"They at least deserve to know that she's still alive and in Storybrooke!" Periwinkle exclaimed.

"It wouldn't change a thing," Romana said. "Ensuring the prophecy's fulfillment for my benefit and that my enslaver's blood is shed matters to me more than a pitiful family reunion."

"Rosetta." Regina turned to look at Rosetta. "How could you possibly let things go like this?"

"You're the daughter of heroes." Emma agreed. "Why..."

"I try to contribute with my visions and be heroic and what do I get? Grounded!" Rosetta spat. "I'm done helping anyone! I quit!"

Rosetta stormed away from the beach. "And you can tell my parents that I'm NOT coming back home!" She briefly stopped to give Romana a sincere glance. "By the way, thanks for the tea."

"No problem." Romana nodded before addressing the women who have been spying on them. "Tan larga, inútil enemigos! We'll be seeing you when the worlds end!" Magical smoke then teleported the girls away from the beach, Rosetta in a cyan one and Romana in an obsidian black one, leaving Periwinkle, Hermia, Emma, and Regina alone on the beach.

"Well, the good news is that we now know that Romana's in Storybrooke and that it's Fidget the Evil One wants," Hermia said, trying to sound positive. "The bad news is how the heck do we tell the others?"