(*Quick AN: Okay, I bawled like a baby while typing all of this out. It was tough as hell to write, but it will get better for the characters... remember that! And now I'm going to go cry my heart out again...*)

Chapter Zero: A Prequel of the Present

Running through the charred, burnt down forest around Storybrooke, a broken Skylar pushes towards the town at a sprint in her wolf-form as she fought through her physical and emotional pain of her bond with Ruby shattering. Hearing a scream of heartbreaking agony coming from near the outskirts of the blazing town, the she-wolf smoothly changes directions as she heads towards Regina's old house.

Catching sight of Ruby in her mortal form laying on the ground, she notices that her body is battered and life-less before hearing another scream, but this one of pure rage. Looking up as her own vision turned red Skylar watched as Regina threw everything she had at a small group of the approaching army that was close to them, while the necklace Regina was previously enchanting floated to the ground as the spell finished.

When the last of the small group of magically controlled knights almost took off Regina's head, Skylar let out a ground trembling roar of rage as she darted forward and snapped her iron-like jaws closed on the plated knight before shaking her head and flinging the now dead man like a ragdoll towards the house.

"Skylar," Regina muttered as she stumbled, exhausted from the amount of magic she had been using to by them time as well as the deep bleeding wound on her side, "I can hold them off for only a few more moments... you need to take the necklace and go back to Storybrooke before Neverland. Go back and stop this..." She paused to look back and seen the lights a bit of a ways away before looking back at the whining she-wolf next to her, "I'm dying Sky, and I won't be able to make that kind of a trip. Save them... save ALL of us Skylar Swan, because I know you, you stubborn headed mutt. I know that you can make us believe!"

Skylar shifted back to her human form for a moment to carefully hug Regina before pulling back and picking up the enchanted necklace, "Gina... I'll fix this. I promise you that I will, Sis."

Pulling the necklace loop over her head and around her neck, Skylar looked ahead to see the army getting close before Regina held out a hand as if touching a mirror. Placing her left hand over her sister-in-law's right hand, Skylar and Regina both softly spoke the one-time activation phrase together. The one that left promises unsaid, "When I see you again..."

Wind whipping around them, Regina covered her face and waited out the strong winds. As the sudden gust died down, she looked up and seen that Skylar was gone and relieved that the enchantment she placed really worked.

Turning around to poof to the Main Street in Storybrooke to face the incoming army, the woman who was known as the Evil Queen once upon a time, spared a heartbroken look at the destroyed town around her as tears streamed down her face. Her eyes slid closed as she started having short flashes of the deaths of the ones who ended up being her family... her happy ending.

Snow and Neal had died while Snow was trying to protect young Neal from a blast of magic when the ceiling of the Police Station collapsed when they all ended up separated... both had died from the attack.

Charming had died soon after, ever the hero as he took an arrow to the heart to save Regina, the woman Emma married and who he and Snow ended up creating a life-long friendship bond with, and had died instantly.

Grumpy, the last of the dwarves who ended up being a witty and sarcastic friend, had drove directly at a Gargoyle to buy them time to get away... he died when it crushed Emma's yellow bug that he drove to the town line, killing him but throwing the beast into the shield which destroyed the completely magical creature.

Belle and Rumple were killed by a surprise attack not long after the start of it all when they went to go help a young woman who had called the Station for help, only for it to be a trap.

Granny had died while trying to protect one of their safe zones near the docks by a large dragon no one recognized, not even Lily or the resurrected Maleficent. When her death was announced to the remaining survivors, Ruby took it the hardest out of all of them and she was never the same.

Zelena, the sister who they fought tooth and nail, but ended up welcoming to their really odd family had been killed by a fast acting poison. Regina remember's holding her redheaded older sister in her arms as she passed on, tears streaming as her sister thanked her for accepting her after everything and for spelling away the pain from the poison before she took her last breath.

Emma and Henry were both killed by overwhelming numbers of the army that marched before her. It was just a routine run to check for any possible survivors and supplies when they were spotted by a patrol and ended up being chased right into the main army's new camp. The soldiers wasted no time in firing arrows and shooting the two down before Emma could toss up a magical shield since her power stores were depleted. When Regina and Skylar heard this, both women collapsed into a heap, clinging to each other as they completely lost it.

Maleficent and Lily were both killed by a brute force attack on the remaining group. Both women had refused to go down without a fight, had shifted to their dragon forms and just gave it their all to take as many of the enemy down with them. In the end, they both perished but had taken down at least a hundred of the knights down together in a fiery storm that charred the forest inside the barrier surrounding Storybrooke.

Ruby was the most recent death of the remaining three, now one. Regina remembers how the she-wolf made her promise to find a way to stop this all from happening before she ran towards a group of twenty knights. They were all defeated, but not without Ruby sustaining too many injuries. She ended up near Regina, stretched out on the blood stained grass as she told her with the mind link to keep creating the necklace. When Ruby had succumbed to her injuries, Regina let out a scream as she pushed the last burst of magic into the necklace that was needed to finish the enchantment before she stood up and started throwing all she had at another group of ten knights.

Snapping her eyes open once more, determination shown brightly as she started drawing magic from anything still within the barrier and pulled it within her. Feeling an almost overwhelming amount of pain from so much extra magic, Regina narrowed her purple glowing eyes at the army she could now see with clarity as they were only a block or so away from her. Letting her emotions build with all of her memories, both good and bad, the Evil Queen knew that releasing magic in a blast like she planned on would not only wipe out Storybrooke completely, but also kill her in the process.

Taking a soothing breath, Regina looked up at the star filled sky and whispered out as tears of joy took place of her tears of sorrow at the thought of reuniting with everyone, "I'm coming home..." Before she channeled every last bit of dark and light magic into a large multicolored explosion that quickly left Storybrooke as one giant crater. It wiped out the entire army within and anywhere else in the barrier was leveled out flat, completely erasing any and all physical signs that anything had ever been there.

When the dirt settled, the area that used to be known by it's past residents as 'Storybrooke' was gone. The forest, the magic well, and the toll bridge were gone as well. All the places that could trigger a memory were wiped away and nothing but a vast emptiness was left in it's place as not a single thing, living or non-living, was left.

While Skylar's memories were thrown back into her past self, she would never see that when Regina left... she took everything else of that time with her. Both happy and painful memories, the remains of what was once Storybrooke, the Army that wiped out everyone they knew, and it was all just... Gone.