In seconds, the meeting disbanded. Everyone realised that there was no possibility of it continuing after Blue's shriek. So, without conscious thought, belying a practice only available in Storybrooke, the vast majority of the room stood up and allowed the magicals to handle it. This left Blue herself, Emma, Regina, Elsa and Belle. Only Ariel, who had been taking notes for the meeting, looked as if she wanted to stay and help, but Eric took hold of her hand and pulled her from the room after Marco and Archie.
Blue had her wand ready to transform herself into her smaller fairy form, but Emma caught her hand to stop her. At Blue's affronted look, most likely believing Emma was somehow involved in the attack on the convent, Emma quickly held up her free hand in defence.
"I'll transport you," she offered, knowing if Blue miniaturised herself, it would take much longer for her to get there than if she'd walked. "It'll be quicker."
Blue nodded, flushing at thinking the worse immediately despite Emma never actually having done anything against the fairies, unless they had heard of Emma's new status as being part dragon, and finally accepted Emma's hand. The blonde nodded at Regina who had Belle and Elsa already linked onto her. Emma realised she must have missed their brief discussion that the Mayor would transport them, and without any further ado, the two transported their groups to the convent.
As soon as the two purple and while clouds of smoke evaporated, they saw just exactly who was wreaking havoc to the fairies despite her back being to them.
Lily.
She was standing at the front of the stairs, her eyes ablaze and her palms ignited with fire. However, as soon as Emma arrived, the fire erupted straight up her arms and Lily grinned in triumph. She had heard the tell-tale sound of people magically transporting and she didn't need to turn around to see that Emma and Regina were now on site. The presence of her suddenly more powerful flames told her who had arrived, this was so much better, they would get to see the destruction first-hand.
Laughing manically, Lily threw her arms towards the convent and two fireballs launched from her palms and flew through the air, landing inside the convent by way of the open windows. The rooms caught alight immediately, flickers of yellow and orange emitting despite the bright summer sun shining on them, and ear spitting screams filled the air from within the walls of the convent.
"Lily!" Emma snapped and she rushed forward to challenge her half-sister. "What are you doing?"
Elsa rushed past the two half-sisters and shot into the convent, taking it upon herself to put out the fires. She had to access the flames directly as she couldn't aim properly from outside, given the positioning of the windows, it was going to be too awkward, not to mention dangerous to try to control the fires from outside. Blue followed her, her wand at the ready, wanting to make sure all her fellow sisters were okay. Belle and Regina flanked Emma as she made her way towards her half-sister but went to help the fairies when they started escaping the flaming convent, each hacking up what sounded like their lungs.
It didn't take long after Elsa and Blue entered the nunnery that different fairies started slipping out, but Emma couldn't concentrate as there were more pressing matters. She quickly reached Lily who hadn't stopped throwing fireballs at the convent through every open window she could find, not bothering to approach the building for a direct hit. The random strikes were much more satisfying, even when she missed a window and hit the solid stone wall, enjoying how the old brick crumbled against every fireball.
"I'm just having a bit of fun," Lily taunted. "Mother's at home devastated at the divorce papers that our dear father sent her this morning and wanted me out the house. She told me to go have fun and to leave her to weep for a while." She shrugged. "I don't do well with tears and there's nothing I could say. I think she's much better without the prick, so I thought I'd visit the fairies. Never seen one before and I've never been the religious type so it's a two in one."
"So, you thought you'd torch the place?" Emma cried with frustration. "Why the fairies? They're innocent in all of this."
Lily continued to grin, now caressing a fireball in her hand that she'd not yet launched. However, Emma felt something stab her gut every time the fireball flickered as if it was taunting her just like its conjurer. She just tried to ignore it, she needed to find out exactly what had triggered this proverbial witch hunt against the fairies.
"Mother said one was my Fairy Godmother," Lily replied, shrugging again. "She didn't do a very good job as I was stolen and forced to a different realm, so I came to show my appreciation for their error. Your arrival was perfect timing to watch me burn the place down. I do love fire."
The point was emphasised as she launched the fireball in her hand over her shoulder which somehow shot through another window. Lily clapped her hands with glee as the glass smashed and smoke flew out the window. There was a hint in Lily's voice that matched the Dark One's when he had been eerily gleeful whenever there was mass destruction. Emma was starting to wonder if Lily had somehow taken over as the Dark One, but it wasn't possible. Gold wasn't dead, just banished. It was only a matter of time before he found a way to return to the town and Emma knew that he and Lily couldn't ever meet as the carnage that could create would be irreversible.
She vaguely remembered the Lily of her youth always being fascinated by fire and flames. She had never thought much of it, because she herself had always liked the heat and caress of flames, like it was family and home. Emma now knew her love of fire was to do with her dragon within, however, she had never had any indications of Lily becoming a pyromaniac! Something told her that this was another lovely perk from the prophecy; it really was a gift that kept giving.
"Do you even know which one it is?" Emma asked. "Not that that really matters! They don't deserve this!"
"Blue could have helped me!" Lily snarled, launching another flame through the top window. Emma could see the whispers of smoke escaping the window, the smoke was swiftly replaced by a steady glow as the room was illuminated by fire once more.
"Blue wasn't even in there when you came!" Emma snapped. "They're innocent. All of them are innocent, Lily!"
Lily just shrugged. "It doesn't matter."
The dull pain in Emma's gut started to fade but as Lily prepared the largest fireball yet, Emma felt an even sharper stab to the gut and when she tried to conjure her own fireball, she couldn't muster the energy. Instead, she gasped in pain, unable to ignore it anymore.
Lily turned from where she was standing and smirked delightfully.
"Oh, the dear Saviour can't access her magic whenever I'm around, huh?" She teased. "What a shame that all the fairies and all your friends are going to fry. Perhaps being the Saviour or the Fairest of Them All doesn't mean you're the winner."
By now, most of the fairies were out of the convent and Belle and Regina were with them, making sure that they weren't hurt or helping with any injuries they did find. One glance over and Emma saw that there was at least one fairy still inside. Nova was missing and the last fairy who'd managed to escape, Emma vaguely remembered her name was Iridessa, was looking very singed with ash settled in her hair and her dress was charred.
Emma didn't have time to worry as to why none of the fairies had used their wands to put out the fire. Now the curse had broken, they had all chosen to continue in the life of a nun, but they were allowed to carry their wands as their one personal belonging. Even Tinkerbell, who was always strong willed and brave, looked very shaken with ash on her face. Despite not having officially joined the convent, the Green Fairy was staying there for a while. She had tumbled out of the Convent clutching a fellow fairy tightly.
A loud yell from behind her pulled her out of her puzzlement over the missing wands.
"Lily! Stop what you are doing and get out of here!"
Turning around, Emma saw Grumpy and the other dwarves approaching with their pickaxes, noticeably Dopey wasn't with them. His limp pained him to move so they had started leaving him behind more often to rest. The six other men still travelled mostly as a pack, with the exception of Grumpy who could often be found in Emma's cells sleeping off a hangover; with Snow or tailing Nova like a puppy.
Emma screamed internally, believing that the dwarves were coming to help Lily on Snow's request. Surely news of the attack would have spread through the town quicker than a bushfire. Her magic wasn't strong enough to go against all of them, but she was quickly mistaken when Grumpy led his brothers towards Lily with their pickaxes aimed at her.
"Get away from here!" Grumpy screamed. He turned to his others. "Attack!"
However, they were no match to Lily's power. She turned on her heel and threw out her arms. All the dwarves but Grumpy flew backwards and crashed in a heap. Every single one of them knocked out. Another quickly flick of her wrist and their pickaxes were burnt to a crisp.
At the force of the magic, Emma gasped out loud and fell to the ground as if all the air had been knocked out of her. She blinked rapidly, her vision blurry with pain, before she gingerly got to her feet.
However, Lily was now face to face with Grumpy, who looked even more furious if that were possible, she was too busy confronting the dwarf to notice that Emma was up again. Then again, Emma was pretty sure she'd not even been aware that Emma had been knocked down n the first place.
"What happened to always being on Mother's side?" Lily asked, in a mocking voice. Her eyes were glinting with delight at all the destruction.
There was still the sound of smashing and screams coming from the convent. Emma was internally panicking that Elsa still hadn't come out. Nova was still missing but Blue had returned and was with Belle checking over the fairies who were outside. However, now Regina was missing and panic thickened in Emma's blood.
"I thought you were best friends with Mother," Lily continued when Grumpy didn't reply. "You said that your friendship was the most important thing and you would always be by her side, no matter what. I thought that would have extended to me too. You know, as her daughter."
"You messed with the fairies," Grumpy growled. "My friendship with Snow is not worth risking the lives of the innocent. You've tainted her pure spirit."
Lily barked out a laugh. "My mother, the pure? How lies are believed. She is the Darkest you could ever meet and she doesn't need magic to do it."
Grumpy's eyes widened to Lily's delight.
"Who else killed Stealthy and made it look like an accident?" Lily teased. "She killed him before your very eyes, but you saw it how you wanted it to. You didn't think a harmless girl could do such a thing. Men are pigs."
A scream was heard from the convent and Emma's heart clenched, panicking that it was Regina, but the squeal was too high pitched to be the Mayor's. Also, Emma had hardly ever heard Regina scream in distress, so for now at least; Regina was safe.
"Nova!" Grumpy cried, identifying the voice quicker than Emma had.
"Ah yes, your girlfriend," Lily taunted. "I made sure nutty Nova was in the perfect place before I started my little game." She grinned evilly. "You won't be seeing her again."
As soon as Lily said that, Emma looked to the front door of the convent and saw the moment that Regina stumbled outside, holding a very ashen looking Nova. Her dress was charred and she had burn marks over her body, but she was just about able to walk despite the slight limp as she favoured her left leg over her injured right. However, to Grumpy, none of that mattered. The most important thing was that she was alive.
Seeing her love snapped Emma out of the weakness that she had almost succumbed to after Lily had blasted the dwarves away. Recuperating had taken too long and it was time this chaos was over. She was the Saviour after all and too much destruction and harm had already happened because she'd not been at her full strength.
"You were wrong!" Emma sneered as she made her over to where Lily had been taunting Grumpy.
Now Emma was on the attack, Grumpy rushed away from Lily while he could, dropping down at Nova's side where Regina was running her hands over the fairy, the white light of healing spells illuminating her palms. Emma's only worry now was that Elsa was still nowhere to be seen. Even Belle was now scanning the crowd, looking for the Ice Queen who had disappeared into the building minutes ago. Emma suspected that Belle was just as worried about the blonde and she was, knowing that smoke inhalation was deadly.
"You'll never win!" Emma cried and she summoned her dragon strength and her palms illuminated with an acid green fire that slowly rose until it was covering her arms. Her eyes flashed yellow as she had the dragon on standby, her controlled hatred for Lily allowing her to control the dragon easily. She remembered her mother reminding her not to rely on anger as a crutch to trigger the dragon, but for now needs must.
Finally, Lily stalled, fear flashed through her eyes at the poisonous flames, knowing she couldn't defeat that. She mimicked producing a fireball, but her palms remained blank as Emma was now fully in control.
"Get away from here!" Emma screamed, although it was partially due to the sheer concentration that she had to maintain to produce the dragon flame. "If you know what's good for you, you'll leave Storybrooke completely and never come back. The prophecy be damned!"
"You can't defeat me!" Lily yelled back. "I am the daughter born of the Queen with the Darkest Soul. We will win!"
And with that, Lily threw out her arms so powerfully that Emma's acid fire disappeared instantly and Lily was enflamed all over by the deadly green flames but instead of throwing it towards the convent or at Emma, she disappeared in a flash, leaving the singed, deadened grass behind her.
Emma felt as if her entire being had been blasted out from underneath her. Her vision burst with bright light and she fell to the floor. And then everything went black.
oOoOo
The sound of a steady beeping woke Emma up what felt like hours later. It didn't take her long to realise that she was in the hospital. She could feel the sting in her hand where a cannula had been attached and when her eyes fluttered open slowly saw that she was on a drip.
"Emma!"
She looked around and saw that she wasn't alone. Regina, who had been the one to call her name, was sitting beside her bed, holding onto Emma's other hand that the needle wasn't in. Henry was sitting beside his mother and Maleficent and Charming were at the other side. All four of them looked relieved to see the blonde wake up.
"What happened?" Emma croaked.
Regina picked up a glass from beside her and lifted it to Emma's lips to drink. Emma was aware that she could probably have done it herself, but she was enjoying the attention from her girlfriend.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Maleficent asked. She looked paler than Emma had ever seen and her face was etched with panic at her daughter's presence in a hospital bed.
Emma concentrated on what she could remember before she passed out. Her palms felt hot as if they remembered being on fire, but she was pretty sure that she wasn't the cause of the destruction.
"The convent was on fire," she murmured but there was a slight question in her voice.
Regina nodded. "Yes, Lily set the convent on fire."
"Is everyone alright?" Emma asked. "Elsa–"
"She's okay, she's safe," Regina assured Emma softly. "She took it upon herself to put out all the fires, but she exhausted her power. There wasn't much moisture in the air by the end so she was unable to access her ice as easily as she normally did. Fortunately, the fire service got there just in time before she passed out herself, but she inhaled a lot of smoke. She's down the hall with Ruby and Granny getting her own treatment. She's going to be okay. Don't worry."
"Good," Emma murmured. "Why did I pass out? I've never had that issue before."
Mal and Regina exchanged a worried glance.
"We're not sure," Mal answered. "Our best guess from what Regina and others have said about what was happening, it looked like you just weren't using your magic to fight her off until the end. Then you exerted such an enormous amount of power that when Lily outdid you, it took all your energy away."
"Belle is looking into it at the moment," Henry added. "She and Mulan are looking into it at Grandpa's store."
The first time Henry had referred to a grandfather that wasn't Charming, Mal had been rather confused until she was reminded that she now shared a grandson with the Dark One. That was going to take some getting used to.
"She's going to come visit when she's found out," Henry said.
Just then, there was a knock on the door. Believing it to be Belle, it wasn't unusual to speak of someone in Storybrooke and for them to serendipitously appear, everyone turned to the door looking hopeful. However, when Whale walked in, everyone sighed, dejected.
"I came to see how the patient was," he said, confused at why everyone looked disappointed to see him. He was pretty sure that he had done nothing to merit that reaction; at least this time.
"Of course," Emma said quickly, ignoring the other's reactions. She had though perhaps the librarian was at the door but hadn't had a chance to get her hopes up as she was still feeling a little bit out of it.
Whale checked over her vitals and asked her a few questions to make sure she didn't have a head injury before nodding.
"It looks like you're on the mend," he said as he wrote something down on her notes and clicking his pen, slipping it back into his pocket. "I'd just say you need a bit more rest and I'd suggest you take the rest of the week off work." He looked at Charming pointedly who nodded in agreement.
"Ruby and I can take over for now," Charming confirmed.
"Group visiting hours are over in ten minutes," Whale reminded them. "Then only one visitor can be in the room."
Maleficent glared at the doctor's retreating back. "I can stay by my daughter's hospital bed as long as I like thank you very much."
But Whale had already left the room and hadn't heard her.
Emma chuckled before wincing slightly as her chest felt rather bruised as if she'd been hit several times over.
Four sets of worried eyes glanced over at her, but she flashed them a reassuring smile. "I'm fine. Honestly, you can go home if you like. It'll be much more entertaining that sitting here."
"But we were enjoying staring at you," Henry said sarcastically.
Emma rolled her eyes at her son. "Be useful and go get me a coffee from the machine."
"No can do," Henry said. "Whale said you're not allowed any caffeine for the next two days."
"Yippee," Emma groaned as she flopped back in the bed. "How are the fairies? Why didn't they use their wands to stop the fire?"
Now it was Regina's turn to roll her eyes. "They're all here too for smoke inhalation, but in a ward down the hall. Actually, they had to open a separate ward for them, they refused to be split up and there's too many of them to share one room. They're all okay though, even Nova who had it the worst. She's in a separate room with Blue and Grumpy making sure she's okay. As for why they didn't have their wands, it was wand cleaning day. Yes, apparently that's a thing," she added when Emma's eyebrows shot up in shock. "So, they were all in the same room before Blue added the final varnish to them, so they were all burn to a crisp within moments. Tink was the only one who had hers, but she dropped it when she was carrying Silver out of the Convent. They'll think twice about deserting their wands again. Ridiculous."
"Not everyone has magic in their blood," Mal reminded her softly. "I'm grateful I don't need a wand for my magic."
Henry seemed to be more interested in the conversation than Emma was as she was starting to feel sleepy again. She heard her son ask his grandmother more about the different types of magic, but she didn't hear the answer.
oOoOo
When Emma woke again, she was still in the hospital room but instead of her previous visitors sitting around her bed, it was now only Belle sitting beside her. The brunette's nose was buried in a book as usual. There was a small notepad just to her side where she was making notes. However, Emma was distracted by the sight of the food beside the librarian and Emma felt her stomach gurgle appreciatively at the sight. Sure, hospital food wasn't great, but she hadn't eaten since Zelena's pancakes that morning and she was rather happy that she'd snuck an extra one.
"Oh, you're awake," Belle murmured as she realised that Emma's green eyes were now open. "Your dinner arrived a few moments ago but I told them to leave it until you woke."
Emma nodded and slowly sat up in the bed. She was happy to realise that her chest was no longer hurting and she felt much better. When Belle passed over the tray, she accepted it eagerly and started munching on the sandwich provided before even checking what it was. The first bite revealed it to be ham. She'd have rather it was cheese, but beggars couldn't be choosers in this place.
"Where did everyone else go?" She asked after a couple of bites, swallowing them down with a sip of water.
"They didn't want to go but Regina was called back to the office to finish the meeting from this morning at Marco's request," Belle revealed, "and she had to finish some documents off which is why she's not here now. Your father needed to replace you on the board and I was needed too so Maleficent needed to look after Neal. Henry had to go as he wasn't allowed to stay by himself given his age. Regina didn't want to you to be alone so she asked me to come over as I'd already contributed to the meeting and wasn't need there anymore and Mal has Neal."
Emma nodded, just about keeping up with the reason Belle was now at her bedside. Belle didn't speak often but sometimes she could ramble a little which Emma found rather adorable.
She nodded to the book in Belle's hand, now halfway through the second sandwich. "What have you been reading?"
"About the prophecy actually," Belle said as she closed the book. "I think I've figured out why your magic seems to be faulty whenever you're around Lily."
Emma bit her lip anxiously. She braced herself to hear the words that Lily was more powerful than her which is why she was affecting her. However, what she heard was what she was not expecting.
"She actually doesn't have any magic of her own," Belle revealed. "She's using yours."
"How?!" Emma gasped, almost choking on her final bite of the sandwich. Belle quickly passed her the glass of water so that Emma could clearly her throat. She coughed to clear it and swallowed some more water. "Sorry. How is she using my magic?"
Belle picked up her notepad and found the corresponding page in the book before showing both to the blonde in the bed. Now Emma had finished her food, Belle felt better revealing more information, knowing she wouldn't choke on anything else.
Pointing to the specific paragraph, Belle waited for Emma to scan it, knowing she wouldn't take long. Barely a moment later, Emma looked up at Belle with wide eyes.
"So, she's managed to tap into my magic?" Emma said.
Belle nodded but bit her lip nervously. "But it's slightly more than that. She doesn't just have access; she can complete override it which is why you passed out. You channelled all your power into defeating her, but she managed to control it. It's also how sometimes she appears to not have any magic. Whenever you're with her, she can produce just as much as you can normally. When you're not there, she can access it but on a very reduced scale which will fade rapidly with use."
When Emma looked slightly confused, Belle tried to think of an example to help explain what she meant. She had it pretty solid grasp of the concept in her head but found she wasn't explaining it very well.
"Take when Lily attacked David," Belle said. "David said the fireballs she used weren't big and she couldn't continue to attack after she'd shoved him."
Emma's brow furrowed. "Because he put the cuff on her?"
"I don't think she'd have been able to do much more damage even if she wasn't wearing it," Belle said. "She only had remnants of your magic still in her at that point and fighting her father took it out of her."
"Right," Emma said, following what Belle was saying but then a horrid thought filled her with dread. Her eyes flickered side to side as she realised something. "Then I'm fucked."
"What?!" Belle gasped. She wasn't a fan of swearing at the best of times and hearing Emma so dejected panicked her. "Why do you think that?"
"Think about it, Belle," Emma said, her tone urgent in her panic. "Lily may not have magic of her own, but she can access my magic on such a large scale that she can take pretty much all of it and render me useless in a fight. You saw what happened today. I don't have a chance of defeating her in the final battle. She's going to win and I'm going to die."