Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

Note: This story's present takes place concurrently with the battle against The Sorcerer's Apprentice in Storybrooke in "The Outstanding Balance of Morality".

Warning: Spoilers for "Murder Most Predictable"... I mean "Fowl".

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

UNNATURAL BORN KILLERS

Inhuman screams came from a stony pit behind him as the late Prince James stood in contemplation of a volcanic eruption in the distance. The geography of Tartarus really was more absurdly pieced together than Wonderland, no physical laws determining the proximity of anything, be it forests and deserts or waterfalls of fire that spilled into rivers of ice. Or the strange monsters that roamed the expanse, stranger than the chimera, manticore, and sphinx that he'd slain back home in life.

Tartarus was full of creatures more terrifying and difficult to take down than anything back in The Enchanted Forest. James was sure he'd put Odysseus to shame in how he'd dealt with the Cyclopes. And even that wussy little brat Hercules needed help dealing with those hundred-armed and fifty-headed Hecatonchires that had been turned from prisoners into guards after that war between the Titans and the gods. Though, really, the more humanoid and dimwitted monsters were Gaston's preference while James found the most pleasure taking down the more clever creatures akin to the ones he'd hunted to gain his reputation as a monster slayer.

Another scream drew James' attention back to the pit. He was letting Gaston have his fun. The younger man was a bit of a sadist who enjoyed torture more than killing. Frankly, James didn't see the point in the messiness of tormenting some creature you were just going to kill in the end. Even his father, ever the tyrant, had only ever used torture in attempts to draw out information about his enemies, not for kicks or convoluted marriage and property acquisition plots.

But then he'd always been told that there was a increased incidence of madness in Avonlea attributed to the run-off in the mountain streams from the Great Dwarf Mines, the caverns from which enchantable metals were mined during wars between Giants and Fairies with their less intelligent Ogre, Troll, and Dwarf minions. The families with ancestral lands closest to those streams seemed to be the most afflicted, at least according to one of his mistresses from the region, and along with the recurrent Ogre problem, it kept the people there fairly isolated from outside trade. And marriage. And, of course, conquest. Even if there might still be some veins of metal ore deep in the mountains, it was less perilous to steal from Giants than deal with the risk of acquiring the same magical madness as the residents while fighting off the Ogres that lived in the mines and were also, apparently, far more brutish and unpredictable.

That described Gaston in his less civil moments, James mused. But it wasn't exactly the lunatic's fault that he acted like that third cousin of George's who'd been dropped on the head as a baby and spent his time in the castle garden smashing beetles for no reason... and thus his father's desperate need to manufacture a legitimate heir and keep his internal enemies or opportunistic villains like the Evil Queen from usurping his throne. So, really, the downfall of his kingdom was due to some wet nurse dropping a baby. If that wench had done her job right, King Albert would have been named the heir and perhaps James would have grown up on that farm with his brother... or maybe he'd have ended up sold into slavery like that Liam fellow and his brother, though it did seem more likely that if George wasn't preoccupied for years trying to produce and heir he might have spent a bit more time using his authority to arrest small town racketeering rings like Bo Peep's who bankrupted farmers to build their own little fiefdoms.

James could have lived a simple, happy life as a child without brutal expectations and responsibilities. Then he could have formed his own racketeering ring. Probably, his brother who have needed to suffer some terrible accident, but everyone had been so gullible regarding his biological father's death, that would have been fairly simple. He could have even switched places with David, gained his parents' love. Oh, it would have been wonderful!

But that was not the path fate and the gods had bestowed upon James. Whether a more nurturing family would have curbed his tendencies could never be known. He was not even truly sure how envious he was of his brother's upbringing and how much of those violent, vindictive feelings were due to what a curse had made him. It didn't matter now, of course. James had taken a gamble and lost, though there was never going to be a happy outcome for him.

Another howl of pain and James' patience wore out.

"Haven't you had enough of that yet?" he snarled at the other man. "It's not as though we're going to flay her and bake her like a trout!"

Down in the pit, Gaston stepped back from the whimpering and some-scales-removed she-dragon they'd tied down with the chains long ago used to contain the Cyclopes.

"The flaying would be quit exciting!" whined the Avonlean nobleman.

James sighed at that. Maybe it would, but they had limitations best not tested and he didn't want to make a foolish mistake here. Kampe was one of the more fearsome chimera-like humanoid creatures here. With the face and upper body of a woman, lower body and wings of a dragon, and tail of a scorpion, she was beautiful and deadly. And ancient. James didn't know her origin despite his study of "mythical" beasts and though Gaston had learned a great deal from listening to his former fiancée prattle on about her beloved books, he as well had no insight into Kampe other than she was one of the earliest living beasts placed in Tartarus by the Titans as a guard during its construction.

Not that her beginnings mattered. Her eternity, whether in service or imprisonment, was surely no fun since Zeus took over. She was still fearsome and dangerous, but there was a pathetic-ness about the she-dragon that almost made James feel bad for Gaston's torturing. Almost. James was evil after all. Mostly he was just annoyed that his companion was taking his sweet time and the ash cloud was drifting this way with its sulfuric fumes.

"And with what are you planning to flay this beast?" James scoffed. "I doubt the two of us together could pick up one of the Hecatonchires' blades. I don't have my rightful enchanted sword, as you'll recall. My bastard of a brother took it along with my kingdom!"

Now it was Gaston who rolled his eyes while picking up one of the viper heads he had severed from the pet serpents Kampe used to wear around her reptilian ankles. "Calypso's cunt, do you ever shut about that, Jamie?" he complained while merrily affixing it to the restrained she-dragon's belt of animal skulls.

"You were already dead of being an arrogant fool," Gaston reminded, "by letting that half-troll monstrosity stab you through your liver. Is it unfortunate that you turned out to have a surviving twin that you only learned about after you perished? Of course. Who would even consider an Evil Twin having a counterpart that had survived let alone a mother alive to get shot dead by your dear adoptive father's goons, but not before passing on her 'gypsy' charm to your less overtly afflicted brother so he could impregnate an exiled Queen Regent who was able to bring to term a spawn of True Love who thanks to a shady savior-making spell and that charm magically merged with her less savior-y half in the womb until the half-sister of your adoptive father's evil-cleavaged ally cursed her well and good enough to let her not-so-good twin take over, become the Dark One, turn a pirate into another Dark One, kill her pirate lover Dark One, and drag her family to The Underworld to rescue him, resulting in your goody-goody twin tossing your sorry ass in the River of Lost Souls because you trusted the god who, it turned out, wanted to bang the aforementioned half-sister.

"As if you were ever going to end up somewhere better," Gaston scoffed. "You wouldn't have taken Hades' deal otherwise. Even if you'd bested wee little David, he'd have gone to fertile fields of paradise and you'd still have ended up here when Hades' coupe failed... or if he'd succeeded, he would have stabbed you in the back just like he did his own 'true love' who restarted his heart. The gods are far more self-absorbed and cruel than either of us."

"First of all," James corrected, "I knew about my twin brother well before I died. I conspired with my adoptive father to take out my birth father who was raising up a stink about getting me back and could have sent our whole kingdom to ruin if it had gotten out I had no blood claim to the throne. And I put on quite a convincing act too. I swear, as a child I looked like one of those big-eyed children in those paintings at Granny's. Very easy to fool people when you're that adorable."

"You helped get your old man murdered? Cold, man!" laughed Gaston and James shrugged.

"I did what had to be done for the kingdom. And securing my place on the throne. I have to admit, it's rather amusing that instead of the guardsman it ended up being the pirate who would marry my evil niece who offed old Robert," mused James. "I might not have lived to produce any surviving heirs and regrettably sired more than few bastards that had to be put down, but it does warm the cockles of my blackened heart that my curse does live on to torment my dear brother."

After a pause, James continued, "And second of all, you took the same deal."

"I'm a little bit mad," shrugged Gaston. "If not by birth or drinking tainted well water, then certainly from my time as a withering rose. Have you ever been transfigured into a rose and unknowingly dismembered bit by bit by your former fiancée who thought she was trimming your stem to preserve your bloom? Never mind she kept putting some potion in the water that burned my wounds like acid! I was begging for the sweet relief of death by the time the Dark One finally allowed me to perish. And that little bitch had the nerve to still get high and mighty about what I did to an Ogre to try and wake up her foolish town to the threat. But then, I suppose, her mother getting eaten by one wasn't warning enough!"

James rolled his eyes. "You're the one who went gold-digging for a madwoman from a line of madwomen, my friend. And I doubt your tree is free of rot."

"Better a psychopath by metal poisoning than by a curse," Gaston argued with a shrug. "One can be cured with a price paid in gold. The other takes magic and that's never worth the compound interest."

"I'd rather pay it than go to some shady clinic in Oz," scoffed James. "And you realize that monkey man was a huckster. Doc the Dwarf probably knows more actual medicine than that 'wizard'."

Gaston rolled his eyes. "All right, fine, perhaps he would have been a shifty choice. But those people from Storybrooke that Hades' dumb bitch lover killed at their healing center while stealing a baby to travel through time said that world's got cures for some metal poisoning. Perhaps if I'd lived to be cursed instead of turned into a flower and compost, I'd have been cured of my utter lack of empathy and heinous cruelty and won Belle's heart with honor!"

Gaston paused and then both men burst out laughing at the absurdity of that notion.

"Right," snorted David. "Well, you're dead now with a heart blackened by all your heinous crimes. As you said, Hades or no Hades, the gods hardly care if metal building up in your brain made you torture animals as a small child. It's your story. This is your fate. Fair or not."

"And I am making the most of it!" huffed Gaston, holding the blade of his sword over an open flame. "So quit trying to hurry me up! We've got eternity here!"

"We've also got a volcanic eruption. And do you want to find out if the ash is accompanied by a river of lava? I say we leave this creature, get to higher ground, then come back tomorrow and see if she's been turned into a lovely magma statue."

Gaston sighed and looked toward the darkening sky. "I suppose."

Turning to Kampe, he crooned, "What do you think of being drown in a pit of liquid fire, mademoiselle?"

Kampe let out a growl and struggled against her chains.

James uttered, "She's not very conversational for having such lovely lips, is she?"

In response to that the she-dragon hissed, "I will shred you both into tiny strips and throw you through the deepest doors in Tartarus where the souls you have wronged will kill and dismember you for eternity!"

"And how are you going to shred us, mademoiselle, when you cannot free yourself?" Gaston taunted.

"Others have escaped you!" Kampe growled.

"We were unprepared to deal with the undead, I will grant you that," James conceded, "but you're very much alive, rather something of an anomaly down here. I do wonder what killing you will do to the magic here?"

"Maybe killing shouldn't be an everyday thing. Maybe it should be harder for the good guys," uttered Gaston as he grabbed the makeshift rope to climb out and earning a curious look from James. "Oh, just something Belle said once after reading one of her silly books and commenting on the war. And perhaps it should be. But we aren't the good guys."

James returned a smirking grin - just before pain flared in his back. He stumbled forward as there was a pffft sound and Gaston was struck in the upper chest, propelled back over the edge of the pit. As he heard his companion land with a thud, James turned and drew his sword, ready to flay whatever pathetic soul had given him a new blemish only to stumble a bit when he discover the person with another arrow trained on him was a old woman with gray hair and wads of something stuck up her nose. She was vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite place her.

"You think an arrow in my back is going to take me down, you old bat?" James scoffed and ignored the burning pain in his side as he rushed the old bitch.

He only got two steps, however, before his hand and knees went slack and he slumped to the ground unable to move.

"You silly boys," the old woman tutted, coming to stand over James. "I suppose you were saving the Lernaean Hydra for last. I'm sure you've heard it not only has poisonous breath but blood so virulent that even its scent is deadly. Of course, less deadly to the already dead since Hercules sent it here with a sword forged in the River of Fire. More like Squid Ink for the soul... that'll turn you into something particularly unpleasant."

Still smirking, the old woman shouldered her bow and climbed into the pit. The she-dragon eyed her warily as she retrieved a key from around a paralyzed Gaston's neck.

"You've had your fun, son," she told him while unchaining the she-dragon. "I hope it's enough to sustain you for eternity. Yours isn't going to be bluebirds and rainbows."

Kampe stretched her wings and addressed the human. "I owe you a great debt. But why would you help me?"

"It's what the good guys do," the old woman answered and amended, "And truth be told, I wasn't always a sweet old lady, or I wouldn't have ended up in The Underworld that far down on the trial list. I tried to make up for some of my rabblerousing with my youngest sister's girl, but seems you can't wipe your slate entirely clean in life. You have to face the music for your crimes when it's over, prove that you learned those lessons before you can move on. I just figured I'd be moving on eventually to Elyssium, not used as a prop by Hades and spat out of that acid green river down here. I was a bit of a troublemaker, but this is definitely not my final resting place. And something tells me it was not meant to be yours either."

"Tartarus was meant to be a prison," returned Kampe, "but only for the worst immortals, predominately the insane. Those who could not control their monstrous forms any longer and indiscriminately slaughtered others, immortal and mortal alike. Each was meant to have their own prison to contain and control them. But Zeus changed the plans, altered the punishments, made it a vast torture chamber for mortals, some who deserved it - some who do not.

"And here," she sighed, "he also trapped those who had served his grandparents, who minded the mad monsters to protect others. We sacrificed much for the well-being of others. But all he perceived was loyalty to his enemy. He freed the insane monsters I contained, restored them to life, and when he could not tame them in Olympus after his victory, he returned them here, but with free reign to do as they pleased... which has included hunting me tirelessly."

With a growl, Kampe concluded, "More the fool am I to have eluded them for so long only to be trapped by two insane mortals."

"From what I understand," the bow-wielding woman replied, "they pulled one over on quite a few respectable persons and creatures in life and death. And who expects a sadist and a psychopath to be tossed down here without being assigned a cellblock? Hades got sloppy when he thought he'd won. Everyone was collateral damage. Seems it might be the same with his brother, though. Lots of rumors circulating about the currents and tides in the rivers shifting, more eruptions than usual. Magic being out of sorts. Even that Death himself was slain."

"If Thanatos is dead, then magic is in flux," mused Kampe and she looked to the paralyzed mortals. "But not enough to save them from their final just resting place," she hissed and scooped both up in her claws.

To the old woman she offered, "I will fly you clear of the lava field and signal Davy Jones. Perhaps he can take you to the wayland between Tartarus and The Underworld and you can find passage back to face your own justice. No mortal soul sane of mind should be sentenced here without trial."

AN: Anyone catch the Game of Thrones reference? Have you figured out who the old woman is? Should Kampe hook up with Geryon? I mean, really, two half-beast people living in Taratus and they haven't knocked... whatever they have? Seems just wrong! As for James and Gaston, agree or disagree with my characterization? I see James as a blood-thirsty and empathy-lacking braggart who likes killing things for sport like a big game hunter while Gaston is a pure sadist who takes pleasure in causing pain to non-human creatures. Here, James turned out that way because he is an "Evil Twin" and a blood curse on his family line caused all of his good potential to be destroyed before he was born and prevents him from changing/learning how to be good in spite of his disadvantaged beginning. Gaston, I decided to amplify his evil behavior with a metal poisoning plot device and had it insinuated that Belle and her mother's line also suffer from this Avonlea Madness... but Belle doesn't remember that her mother was crazy or that she had the potential to become crazy either because the blow to her head when her mother was killed caused her to forget that as well, or because her father, when she was unconscious from that head injury, had some magic done to give her only good memories of her mother and forget her own possible fate so she could live a carefree life and maybe be able to follow her dreams of traveling the world. I don't really like Maurice/Moe, but I wanted to give him a justification for trying to erase Belle's memories in Season 2... that perhaps he'd noticed she was now exhibiting crazy behavior like her mother and thought if she left Storybrooke, away from magic, and forgot everything she might be able to live a sane and happy life. Assuming I get back to "The Outstanding Balance of Morality" after this story, Belle's diagnosis and her attempts to recover and regain respect in the community will be covered. She's a bit like Emma, essentially becoming someone else without anyone knowing why she was behaving differently and making selfish and nonsensical choices, but also like Snow in that she lived her life idolizing a false narrative about her mother, trying to be more prefect than she needed to be and in doing so making terrible mistakes.

"Maybe killing shouldn't be an everyday thing. Maybe it should be harder for the good guys.." - Rufus, Timeless