A/N: Back to Emma's POV for the narrative conclusion over the next few chapters. Hopefully the reasoning will make sense as the plot unfolds.

Standard Disclaimer: These lovely characters ain't mine, I just play with them gently. Please don't sue me. The mistakes are mine, though.


Chapter 43 – A Swan's Perspective, Pt. 7

In all the years Emma Swan had served as Storybrooke's resident Savior, she had witnessed a number of fantastical things her twenty-seven year and three-hundred-sixty-four-day old self would have laughed off as the absurd delusions of a recently escaped mental patient. That Emma had been a creature of extreme pragmatism who didn't believe in much aside from her own proven ability to survive. Scraping and clawing her way through life had got her that far, and she couldn't fathom that worldview changing anytime soon. Fairy tales were nothing but moral relics left over from an uncivilized bygone era.

And then on her twenty-eighth birthday, a ten year old kid from a town she'd never heard of in Maine showed up at her apartment.

It all seemed so surreal now in retrospect. The whole process of returning Henry to his mother wasn't meant to take more than a day. Being constrained to stay in Storybrooke by forces beyond her comprehension hadn't entered the equation when she dropped Henry off at Regina's house, nor had she anticipated encountering a gorgeous young waitress whose smile did things to her she'd thought she buried alongside her youthfully naive adoration of Neal. Meeting Mary Margaret the next day initiated the sewing of a magical seam that conspired with fate to slowly and methodically transform an aloof bailbondsperson into a Savior she never wanted to be. Of course, she knew now it was no coincidence she'd become best friends with the woman who turned out to be her long-lost mother, but back then she'd just liked the pixie-haired teacher too much and been too suspicious of the tyrant raising her son to leave town just yet.

Then the Curse broke, officially recorded in Storybrooke history as Emma's first act as Savior, and her eyes had been opened to a whole new reality. In the aftermath of that awakening, she'd discovered that her parents actually were Snow Friggin' White and Prince Friggin' Charming. Only their reunion was to be rudely interrupted by Gold's shenanigans.

After being briefly reunited with the family she'd dreamt of for so long, she and her mother – who, by the way, just so happened to be the same age as her – managed to to get sucked into another world inhabited by fairy tale characters and ogres and pirates and scary as hell sorceresses who just so happened to be the mother of her chief rival at the time. Said sorceress making it back to Storybrooke culminated in another interesting stretch where she'd been praying on an hourly basis that Regina wouldn't roast Snow alive for accidentally killing Cora. Somehow, they'd got through all that without destroying the town or each other.

But then Henry was abducted and she'd had to travel to Neverland of all places to rescue him from an evil Peter Pan. Again in keeping with the twisted family trees of Fairy Tale Land, Pan wound up being her son's great-grandfather. The damn stories had gotten that one wrong, alright. Making peace with her status as an unofficial Lost Girl hadn't been a picnic, and Neal's unexpected reappearance hadn't helped matters, either. Dealing with one potential suitor was irritating enough, not to mention two untrustworthy scoundrels vying for her affection. But again, she'd stumbled through doing her Savioring and in the process – and with a lot of help from her compatriots – salvaged a boondoggle of an operation to return Henry back home safely.

Following that tumultuous ordeal, she had to team up yet again with the reforming Evil Queen in order to defeat said reforming Evil Queen's crazy ass sister. And then Zelena went back in time to erase Regina from existence which resulted in Regina's supposed Soul Mate leaving her after they got back to Storybrooke. That went down because, oh hey surprise!, Zelena accidentally let it slip that during Regina's reign of terror as Queen, Marian – her supposed Soul Mate's wife – was executed on her orders, which left Robin a widow and his son, Roland, motherless.

That she and Regina forged a genuine friendship out of this unending crucible was an unexpected boon that soon thereafter turned fortuitous when Regina and Ruby hit it off. If she was being forthcoming, Emma would admit to being a little jealous of Regina back then. She'd still been harboring a bit of a crush on Ruby before she decided to give Hook a chance. Not that she ever would have acted on her feelings anyway; she valued their friendship far too much to risk ruining it by making a move, even if she thought at times Ruby might have reciprocated. Seeing Regina and Ruby together took the sting out of her envy, though. First and foremost they were both her friends, so she was happy to see them happy.

During that stretch, the live action version of the movie Frozen came to Storybrooke in the form of a flesh and blood Elsa. And eventually Anna and Kristoff. As if that were not exciting enough, Emma was soon to learn that one of her former foster parents, one of three she had actually cared about, was the Ice Queen. The end of that conflict was still a bittersweet memory for Emma. As much as the woman had made some remarkably bad mistakes, she'd done so out of a pure if not ultimately misguided love that in retrospect, with her memories restored, Emma came to understand and even appreciate. Ingrid sacrificing herself to save the town was one of the most terrible experiences in a life chock full of them, and were it not for Elsa, she might have dissolved into a mess of tears at the unfair timing of their reconciliation. But Elsa had been reeling from her aunt's death and living in perpetual stress over Anna's fate, so Emma sucked in the pain like she always did and went on with the thankless job of being the Savior.

Elsa. Thinking of the Queen of Arendelle sent a pang through Emma's heart. She missed Elsa more than she could express. The two weeks per year the Queen of Arendelle visited Storybrooke were just not enough in her opinion, though she understood her platinum-blonde friend's obligations to her family and nation. Being a ruler seemed like such a drag. Even so, Emma took what time she could get with her sister-from-another-mister (a phrase that without fail reduced Elsa into a fit of very undignified giggling), and was even making plans to visit her kindred spirit now that reliable bean transport was soon to be an option. She couldn't wait to see Elsa's face when she arrived in whatever corner of Arendelle their monarch was occupying at that moment.

What's more though, Emma was dying to bend Elsa's ear regarding a subject both incredibly exciting but also just as worrisome for those of innate powers of their caliber. Normally Emma would discuss private things with Ruby, but this was too sensitive for even Ruby's ears since her lanky bestie was unable to keep secrets from either Regina or Snow. Elsa, on the other hand, was someone Emma felt safe enough with to confide her most deeply guarded secrets. And this one was certainly a doozy.

Up til now, the icing on the cake of her tenure as resident Savior had been becoming the Dark One. The only silver lining out of that hellish experience was realizing what she had with Hook was real, something she could build on for the rest of her life. A lot of regrettable shit went down in the interim, though. Much of it stained Emma's conscience colors more befitting a Sauron level villain than a Savior with an Atlas Stone burden. As a kid who grew up in and out of foster care, she was no stranger to deeply disturbing emotions, but she'd never imagined she could be so insidious and cruel. The things she'd done to Killian and her parents...to Regina...to Ruby...she shuddered to allow even the fringes of her thoughts to turn there for fear of getting lost in the murky haze of self-loathing.

Needless to say, after so much adversity in the course of her Savioring career Emma thought she had seen it all. She hadn't. Not even close. There really were no words to describe what she had witnessed in the Enchanted Forest with Ruby, from the time dilation near the Dark Palace to the revelations concerning the origins of werewolves. The past hour proved even more daunting to process, seeing as a literal army straight out of the pages of a fantasy novel had invaded Storybrooke only to be heroically defeated. Then Belmordan made his theatrical, mustache-twirling appearance onto the scene. Granny's death at his hand soon followed, and Emma barely had time to register what had happened before Ruby shapeshifted into furry humanoid rage monster. Honestly, Emma thought that Ruby's new form resembled a creature come to life straight out of the digital code of the World of Warcraft.

And then there was the bombshell revealed when Belmordan attempted to crush Regina's half of the heart, her own heart, she had split years ago to save Ruby's life. Apparently True Love couples with hearts in common were protected from one half being destroyed so long as the other remained intact, a tidbit that went a great deal toward easing Emma's mind where her parents were concerned. She'd long harbored anxieties over the heart Snow White and Prince Charming shared, knowing it meant her parents' fates were inextricably linked by the potent magic that made that miracle possible. Sleep would come a little bit easier without worrying about the accidental, or purposeful, death of one robbing her of both.

No matter how relieved Emma was for her mom and dad or how overwhelmed she was by everything that had gone down today, all she could really think about right now was how to escape the damnable bubble Belmordan had trapped her in. Her blood was boiling to help Regina and Ruby kill the bastard, if only for what he did to Granny. It was just wrong that the woman had survived so much, both in Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest, to die that way – and in front of her granddaughter's eyes at that.

Of course, it hadn't really registered to Emma yet that said bastard was in some metaphysically twisted way Ruby's father. That oversight was soon to be corrected.

"I remember my old life again. So does Regina," Ruby said to Artemis, drawing Emma's attention back to what was unfolding in front of her.

She had sort of gone haywire when her friends all but went catatonic for the space of a minute. What happened to them, she hadn't the faintest idea, but she was extremely relieved they both seemed to be okay...ish. All of this talk of reincarnation was bending her gray matter in shapes it wasn't supposed to be in. That kind of shit was more up August's alley. It mostly gave her a headache, and it had to be even worse for Regina and Ruby.

"I was Eleni once, but I'm someone else now," Ruby added, piling on to the mystifying situation Emma found herself mired in. Ruby then shrugged bashfully. "I like being her better, actually. So please, call me Ruby."

What in the actual hell is going on? She mumbled under her breath as Artemis took every opportunity to touch Ruby, roaming exploratory motherly hands over Ruby's face, hair, neck, and arms. That Ruby let the woman paw at her wasn't all that surprising. If what was being said was true, there was a reunion of sorts going on between Ruby and her ostensible mother. That, and Ruby was a very tactile person who loved to both give and receive hugs and kisses from those she loved. Emma was quite fond those hugs and kisses, in a platonic way of course, and returned them every chance she got, but it was weird to see Ruby permitting a stranger to display such intimacy.

"Whatever your name, you are my child," said Artemis, eyes gleaming with happy tears. "My precious girl, I thought to never see you again, to never hold you in my arms. And now here you are, alive and beautiful and grown into a woman befitting your lineage. I have missed so much! Oh, that I could turn back the wheels of time, if only to witness your first steps or hear your first words! If only I could change..."

Ruby cut in, eyes imploring. "But you can't, Mama. We can't go back, and even if we could, I don't want to. I love my life here." Then her features smoothed into steadfast determination. "But there is something you can change: the future. And you can do that by ending this right here, right now. Help us make peace, not only for this world but for so many others that have fallen prey to your mate's ambition. We can start fresh. It's not too late, you know? We can build a relationship, become a real family. You have grandchildren! Oh, and they are so beautiful, Mama! Don't you want to meet them and watch them grow up?"

Emma nodded along, understanding now what Ruby was doing and hoping against hope that it worked. All the better if this weirdest of situations could be leveraged to convince the freed goddess to abandon whatever maniacal plan her lover had for the world. Too much blood had already been shed in Emma's estimation. Far too much.

"I do. More than anything," Artemis replied, eyes glistening. Emma could tell the Olympian meant that, causing her heart to swell with hope. Sadly, it was to be mercilessly squashed as if a wayward insect under a booted heel.

"I've heard enough of this blasphemy!" Belmordan roared from over Artemis' shoulder. He advanced on the embracing mother and daughter, face a storm of hazardous fury. Emma's heart plummeted back into her stomach as the Dark Sorcerer summoned his staff back into his hand then pointed it threateningly at Ruby. She clenched Excalibur, which was humming at her side, tighter in hand. "Eleni is dead!" he thundered, eyes sparking crimson as lightning gathered at the spear-point of his very scary weapon. "This girl is a heretic! Her lies desecrate the memory of our child, a crime for which she must die!"

Emma shouted in horror as Belmordan aggressively leveled the staff at Ruby, murder etched upon his deep features. But before he could send the bolt of lightning streaking into Ruby's chest, Regina lashed out with her magic, knocking the staff from his hand.

"You selfish bastard!" Regina cried, now herself infuriated. "All she ever wanted were her parents and you would keep her from having that? How dare you!"

"Regina, no!" Ruby shouted to no avail, reaching for her irate wife as Artemis held her back.

Ignoring the pleas that came pouring out from Ruby, Regina struck an off-kilter Belmordan with a burst of magic from her palm, sending him careening against the stone wall of the cave. Before his ass ever contacted the ground, she was advancing on him, sword drawn and frigid shadows of death dancing in her eyes. She lifted the sword to his breast upon reaching him and was poised to thrust it through his heart when his head snapped up and his eyes flashed red. Unspoken magic sent Regina flying back against the opposite wall, a return of the favor she'd bestowed upon him. Unlike with Belmordan, though, when Regina hit the wall, she stuck there, frozen in place by tendrils of snake-like magic, red as blood and thick as Emma's wrist.

Belmordan moved to stand, and once upright leveled a glare upon Regina that sent shivers of fear chasing down Emma's spine.

"For that," he growled, eyes now glowing that disturbing shade of malevolent red, "you'll watch while I send the mendacious mongrel you call 'wife' straight to hell." When he extended his hand a moment later, his staff flew toward him. He caught it without ever looking, striding purposefully toward Ruby.

Artemis, panic written across her features, stepped between them. "No, Gryffyn, stop!" Her pleas fell on deaf ears. On came Belmordan, his eyes tinted with unrestrained mania, a deeply furrowed brow, and sharpened teeth bared in rage. "I beg you, please! Can't you see that she is our child? Stop, damn you! STOP!" Her pleas being ignored, Artemis stepped forward, extending her hand out toward her lover's heaving chest.

As if blind to Artemis' presence, Belmordan callously waved a hand through the air, batting her away with his magic. That same hand then reached toward Ruby, making an open fist as though it were wrapping around her throat. Like a scene from Star Wars with Belmordan cast as Darth Vader, Ruby's eyes widened with terror as she began choking and clawing at her throat, her feet leaving the earth one inch at a time.

"Time to die, bitch," he declared, then hefted his staff with the other arm. Spear tip poised at Ruby's breast right over her heart, he drew back to strike the fatal blow.

When Emma caught the twitching of muscles in Belmordan's forearms, she tensed so tightly that her own muscles and bones issued complaint. Her mind flashed back to that night which had terrorized her dreams ever since she'd rounded the corner of a seemingly innocuous basement to find a scene straight out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and her best friend the barbarized victim. Ruby had been dead when they found her, and now she was about to die again with Emma impotent to intervene. Her magic was useless against Belmordan's save for that one instance in the Enchanted Forest that came frighteningly close to draining her. Whatever had happened to empower her then seemed reluctant to rear its head now, leaving Emma to watch as yet again she was about to fail one of the handful of people she loved enough to lay down her life for.

Unable to watch what was about to happen, she clenched her eyes tightly shut, teeth grinding together so viciously that her jaws protested the abuse. The air stilled. A whoosh cut through the oppressive silence. Emma's heart thundered erratically in chest. Another space of stillness. And then a scream shattered the quiet, rattling everything within the cavern. The walls shook and the ground trembled underneath her feet. Dimly, she recognized that the scream was distinctly male. Her eyes shot open, hardly daring to hope.

In equal measures of horror and joy, she was met by the sight of a statuesque woman skewered upon the end of Belmordan's bladed staff. Emma's joy was because the victim wasn't Ruby; the horror because it was Artemis.

Eyes bulging, mouth hanging open in shock as the Dark Sorcerer dropped his staff, and without Belmordan to hold her up, Artemis fell limply upon her side and did not move. For a moment, her lover made no move save to stare in disbelief as the woman his thousand year reign of terror had been designed to liberate bled out upon the cold, filthy cavern floor. His face twisted, ugly with insanity, as his entire frame began to vibrate. A beat later, a low rumbling sound worked upward from his stomach until it erupted from his lips. Another scream of grief was unleashed, this one so forceful that it strained every muscle in his neck and face, causing veins to bulge and his flesh to redden.

In the immediate aftermath of the accident, Belmordan lost control over portions of his magic, which released the bonds holding Ruby and Regina in place. Emma remained frustratingly trapped, but her friends, now freed from his grip, tumbled to the ground in undignified heaps. Ruby predictably recovered with lupine grace and swiftness, after which she deftly rolled onto to her hands and knees, then scrambled to the side of the fallen Olympian.

"Oh, my God, please, no!" she wailed, tears flowing freely as she vainly attempted to staunch the steady stream of blood flowing from what Emma knew to be a fatal wound. "Please don't go! Please! I just found you again!"

While this was happening, Regina got to her feet, pausing for a second to regain her footing; but upon catching sight of Artemis and Ruby, she rushed over and fell roughly on her knees beside her distraught wife. The stricken look on Regina's face when she inspected Artemis' wound up close told Emma all she needed to know. It was, as she initially deduced, fatal.

Regina visibly gathered her nerve, then placed a supportive hand at the small of Ruby's back. "Remove the blade, sweetheart," she instructed, voice impressively neutral considering this latest in a long line of tragedies that had befallen her family.

"B-but she'll b-bleed to death," Ruby said in reply, her agony on full display.

Regina's cheek twitched. Emma could tell her friend was having a hard time keeping her emotions in check, but was being brave for Ruby's sake.

"She is bleeding to death already, Ruby," Regina said, matter-of-fact while remaining sympathetic. She gently rubbed circles over Ruby's upper back. "If Olympians are anything like humans anatomically, her liver is shredded beyond repair."

"You can't save her with magic?" Ruby asked, looking beyond desperate.

A groan escaped Artemis' lips before Regina could reply. "Her magic..." she trailed off to groan again, "is incom...incompatible to Olympian physi...physiology. N-not even Gryff..." she paused to gasp a lung full of air, "can help me now. There is nothing to b-be done. R-remove the...blade." Another groan, followed by a wet cough. "Please, my daughter...let me spend...my last moments looking...at you."

Though Ruby was clearly close to breaking down at the awful request, she nonetheless complied. Whether out of duty or love for her mother or simply because she recognized the truth in the statement, Emma was not sure. One harsh tug from Ruby's trembling hand had the bladed staff sliding free from Artemis' torso with a sickening squelch. Ruby immediately tossed it away, then arranged herself into a seated position, legs outstretched, and with Regina's help, carefully maneuvered her dying mother onto her lap. Cradling Artemis as if a child, Ruby's tears spilled down her cheeks uninterrupted.

Artemis smiled up at her, teeth stained red but her eyes brimming with adoration. She reached a weak hand up to place it lovingly upon Ruby's cheek. When it slipped off because of her rapidly waning strength, Ruby caught it and pressed it back against her flushed skin.

"I love you, Mama," Ruby cried as Regina turned her face away, unwilling to watch Ruby suffer yet another loss, or unable to.

"My beautiful baby girl," Artemis said, voice strong in stark juxtaposition to her rapidly paling skin. The entire front of her purple chiton was staining dark with blood. "I lo..." she gasped a pained breath, "love you, too. So much. So much." Artemis smiled again for one moment. But then Emma whimpered in dismay, right along with Ruby it turned out, upon watching the goddess' eyes begin to glass over. "Tell Diana..."

"Mama!" Ruby screamed upon Artemis trailing off. When the Olympian's head lolled and her eyes rolled in their sockets, Ruby gave her a frantic shake.

Emma held her breath. For a moment, Ruby's efforts were fruitless, but then as it seemed she was about to lose her grip on control, Artemis gasped yet again. After amber eyes refocused, the goddess fixed them on Ruby, who was caught somewhere between despair over what was inevitably coming and an almost euphoric relief she had a few more seconds to spend with a woman she had just met.

Emma didn't need a glimpse into Ruby's mind to decipher the unconditional love her friend was feeling; she'd experienced it herself the first time she looked upon Mary Margaret Blanchard as her mother instead of her adorable roommate. It was a daughter's love that somehow and against all sense transcends the most abysmal failures of her mother to instead embrace, even celebrate, the attributes that make them so very easy to love. For Emma, it had been her mother's fathomless well of love for her that got her past being abandoned; she could tell in a glance it was the same for Ruby.

A moment after, an almost awe-struck quality overtook Artemis. "Tell her she was right about me," she then said, as if she'd written herself off as lost but now realized there was some good left within her.

But before Ruby could respond, Artemis' breathing stilted, becoming irregular and labored as her eyes widened in stark terror. Emma's throat closed in. She knew death was coming to claim the proud Olympian and there was nothing she or anyone else could do to stop it.

Artemis gripped at Ruby's shirt after desperately sucking in oxygen several times, the act appearing painful as if her esophagus had shrunk to internal diameter of a silly-straw. But the importance of the message prevailed, and with once last heroic effort, she heaved out with a rasping voice, "Tell her I love her, and forgive her, and that I wi-wi-wish..."

This time, however, Artemis did not recover to finish her thought. As her speech slurred into an incomprehensible drone that rapidly faded into a decrescendo sigh. Golden eyes dulled as all signs of life left them and a previously imposing body went disturbingly lax. Emma was familiar enough with death to recognize it's arrival.

Her eyes immediately sought out Ruby, and the primal scream her best friend released as she cradled her dead mother was nothing short of bloodcurdling. And just like that Emma was transported back in time to Joshua Woods' basement all over again, a place of excruciating despair where her heart nearly stopped beating at the sound of Regina's crazed banshee wails.

With no one or nothing to anchor her, Emma sank deeply into the turbulent undercurrent of emotions as the present tragedy blended with that god-awful memory. She became so mired in crippling sorrow that it was hard for her to tell how long Ruby released her anguish into the chilly air of the cavern. All she knew was the keening despair seemed to go on in one unending howl, at times sounding more the choked cries of some poor, wounded creature only to surge once again into a pitched screeching that defied the ability of human ear drums to withstand.

Hands over her ears, Emma wept silently as Regina held fast to Ruby from behind, keeping the distraught werewolf stable lest she slump boneless over the limp corpse of her mother. It was to Emma more like a scene out of some overly dramatized tragedy than real life, and she would have been convinced she was locked fast within the inescapable talons of a vicious nightmare were it not for the lingering pain in her side.

During the battle in the town square, she'd been nicked by a glancing blade while trying to muscle three brutish looking soldiers away from delivering the fatal blow to a wounded citizen. Up until the present she'd not felt the wound, but now that the adrenaline of open battle had worn off, she could at last feel the protest of damaged nerves sending frantic bursts of communication to her brain signaling for emergency repairs. The pain wasn't unbearable, which was good, but mostly she was perversely grateful that it kept her grounded. She couldn't afford to lose perspective, to slide so perilously close to the edge of devastation as Ruby was and nearing the precipice of uncontrollable rage as Regina.

Not that Emma begrudged her friends how they felt. Far from it. Ruby deserved permission to scream her head off if she so wished, just as Regina was perfectly justified in seeking retribution for yet another crime committed against the woman who literally carried half of heart inside her chest. Hard pressed as she was to conjure up two people who had seen more tragedy in their lives, Emma could hardly fathom how the couple kept each other from going Humpty Dumpty and shattering into fragments so vast and tiny they could never be put back together again. There was one thing she was certain of, though: when all of this was over, she planned on having herself a good cry on their behalf.

In the present distress, all of Emma's focus was on maintaining a tight leash upon her emotions. Knowing her friends might already have succumbed to irrationality made it imperative she stay in control. Now was not the time to break down. As she clamped down on the complex, visceral feelings swirling within her breast, she felt her heart rate begin slow down, along with an accompanying calmness that ran contrary to the tragic scene before her.

While Ruby remained a prisoner of an almost tangible grief, Regina appeared on verge of unleashing the darkness of the Queen upon the man responsible for all the calamities that had befallen her family over the past decade. Meanwhile Belmordan was still paralyzed by inaction, caught somewhere between his own immeasurable grief and a looming break from sanity that was rapidly tinting his eyes crimson red. They glowed in the dimness of the cave, illuminating his twisted features so that Emma could clearly make out cheeks quaking manically, nostrils flared like a bull set to charge, brow creased in unspeakable anguish, and sharpened teeth bared with unchecked aggression. Eyes burning with malefic intent flitted between Artemis' corpse and Ruby as Regina observed him warily. The moment he snapped a heartbeat later was impossible to miss, what with the way his entire visage blanked as if he suddenly severed himself from all feeling. Emma's gut clenched. She knew what was about to happen.

With a shout of lamented fury, he strode forward, features warped with an animosity that no one and nothing could contain. Reacting more quickly than Emma could have predicted, Regina abandoned Ruby, slipping between her wife and the maddened sorcerer bent on killing her in retribution. An arm was raised toward him as her lips twisted into a snarl.

"Stay away from her!" Regina warned, voice low and commanding and seething with hatred. Ruby's lamentations stopped abruptly at her wife's tone.

Unsurprisingly, he did not heed the command. On he came, red eyes blazing, and when he was within striking distance, Regina lashed out with her magic, sending him sprawling backward. But the ancient werewolf recovered with astonishing dexterity, his lupine reflexes affording him quick purchase back onto his feet.

"You can't stop me with your paltry magic," he said, and when Regina summoned a fireball and flung it at his head, he batted it away with a hand that seemed to be wrapped up in inky darkness. Another five fireballs followed the first, each batted away or sidestepped by a devilishly grinning Belmordan. The last volley puffed into a useless wisp of smoke at a single wave of his hand. In the low light of the cavern, he appeared to grow in stature, casting a pale shadow so hideous and ominous that it stole Emma's breath away. "I've tolerated your interference for the last time," he then bellowed, white teeth glinting crimson from the hellish glow of his eyes. "I'll have my revenge on you both!"

He sped the remaining distance between them in a blur of movement, catching Regina around the throat with an enormous hand before she could even brace herself. As she choked, gagging for air and increasingly red-faced, she vainly batted at his arms. For a moment, Ruby sat stunned, as if unable to comprehend what she was seeing. When Regina's eyes started to roll into her skull, Emma began shouting at the top of her lungs at Ruby to do something. For whatever reason, the pleas registered in Ruby's ears. Irises flashing yellow, teeth on display, she surged forward with inhuman speed.

Belmordan didn't bat an eye as he neatly flung Regina against the cavern wall with such force that the former Queen crumbled to the ground, immediately unconscious. Just as he released Regina, he deftly sidestepped Ruby's advance, using her momentum to push her away so that she lost her balance and pitched forward. Thankfully Ruby was able to roll into her fall, tumbling head over heel, so that she could utilize her momentum to spring up onto her haunches.

"I won't kill your mate just yet," Belmordan said as he swirled to march toward Ruby, who was glowering at him from a position poised to retaliate. "I'm going to end you first. But know that after you are dead, I will visit such horrors upon her that the pathetic whelp who once so callously slaughtered you would balk at them."

The threats, along with the reference to what Joshua did to her, pushed Ruby over the edge. Coming unhinged, she roared with such volume that the cavern shook, just barely, but enough for Emma to feel the ground subtly vibrate beneath her boots. Emma watched, fascinated and more than a little disturbed, as Ruby then began to shift into that freakish hybrid form she'd entered earlier.

"I'm going to tear you limb from limb," Ruby replied, now in her humanoid fur. Her voice was deeper as if in a permanent growl, yet still somehow unmistakably Ruby. The sound of it sent a shiver corkscrewing down the length of Emma's spine.

Belmordan just smirked, unaffected by her ire. And then he, too, shifted into his hybrid form. After lowering his snout, crimson orbs peering balefully at Ruby, he replied in that unnerving wolfen voice, "A bold threat. We shall see if you can make good on it."

A heartbeat passed in silence. Emma felt a drop of sweat run down her temple and could hear her heart hammering in her ears. She braced her hands against the shimmering magic of the barrier keeping her trapped, pressing in close so that her nose was nearly touching it, and waited.

A tick of an eyelid was the only warning sign before Ruby launched at Belmordan with a viscous growling snarl. In the blink of an eye, she was swiping a furry, clawed hand at her enemy. The attack was easily batted away. A flurry of blows followed, each so fast that Emma could barely keep track of what was happening, each of them easily blocked by her opponent. On the last swipe, he caught her wrist, gripping it so tightly that Ruby yelped before closing her free hand into fist and smashing it into his chest.

Reeling back, he stumbled, eyes bulging in disbelief. Ruby did not allow him time to recover before she was on him again, this time punching at his head. The dark sorcerer was able to duck out of the way, but only just barely, so that Ruby's fist clipped the tip of his wolfen ear, folding it back in that funny way that happens to dogs sometimes and usually ends up in an image plastered all over Facebook. Emma might have laughed had the situation not been so perilous.

Ruby's punch had unfortunately opened her up to counterattack, which Belmordan exploited without mercy via a brutal strike to her ribs. Emma heard the snapping of bone just as Ruby doubled over in pain. Belmordan took advantage of her temporary disability by crashing an iron fist into the back of her head. Ruby fell to the ground in a heap, lambent amber eyes rolling and unfocused from the concussive force of the blow.

Kneeling beside her, Belmordan encircled her neck with his right arm, which he locked in with the left. Her oxygen supply cut off, Ruby struggled against the choke hold, slapping and punching as she flailed her legs to find purchase for her feet on the slippery cavern floor.

"Do not fight against the inevitable child," he said as he tightened his grip, causing Ruby's eyes to bulge both from the pressure and the realization that she could not escape his superior position and strength. "This is the moment of your demise. You will join my beloved in the underworld, and who knows what fate awaits you there. Do not fret. I will send your mate along shortly. Then I shall find those pups of yours and groom them in your place."

Mention of her children caused Ruby to struggle even more valiantly, but Emma could see that it was futile. Her resistance only cost her energy that was fading so quickly that Emma could see the light fading from her eyes. Ruby was dying, and Regina would be next. After that, could Belmordan possibly be stopped? If his army was half a big as he boasted, there was little to no chance the defense in the town square had held strong. Likely, all of the citizens who banded together to fight for Storybrooke were dead, and if not, soon would be once their enemy had dispatched Emma and returned to the surface to finish what he started.

As the evident finality of events settled deeply into her bones, she cried out, and quite unexpectedly, her dismay caught Ruby's attention. Casting dull eyes in Emma's direction, Ruby opened her mouth as if to speak, though no words came out.

"I'm so sorry!" Emma cried out, failure lancing her tattered pride. Rendered useless, forced to watch two of the people she loved most die horrible, hot, bitter tears began falling. With her legs suddenly unable to hold her up, she collapsed heavily to her knees. "I'm sorry, Ruby! I'm so, so sorry!"

Ruby opened her mouth again to reply, but again nothing came out aside from a prolonged groan as Belmordan tightened his grip one final time. On the precipice of unconsciousness, Ruby involuntarily shifted back into her human form and mouthed three simple words that pierced Emma to the marrow: "I love you." And with that, Ruby's eyelids shuttered closed and she slumped against Belmordan, who released her then stood to gaze down with visible regret at his fallen offspring.

Emma stared dumbly. Her heart stuttered in her chest. Dread washed over her like the oppressive pall that hangs over a cemetery at night.

So this is what the end feels like, she thought. If so, it was worse than she had ever imagined.