A/N TRIGGER WARNING! This chapter contains very detailed, graphic descriptions of insides of a body. This chapter can be considered horrifying and triggering. It can be considered as a scene from a horror film. You may take a break after reading it. But if you like such stuff or don't care, enjoy reading!

Emma's POV

I'd been searching the whole week, every day and every hour, for the solution to get rid of the evil queen inside of Regina. It was probably going to be a magical solution, but I was not a great expert in that. So, after some research alone I figured I needed some help.

When you think of magical knowledge you probably think of Gold first, but with him everything comes at a price. I didn't want the burden of owing him something. I wasn't going to ask him until I had searched everywhere three times at least. I wanted Regina to find happiness, but I knew better then to trust that imp. So I asked his wife. Gold might have the most knowledge about magic, but Belle knew something about everything. She could search for information like no other and probably five times quicker than me. She was by far the smartest in the whole town, so I knew she could help me a little further.

I explained the situation to her, but didn't say it was about Regina. I didn't want to lose Regina's trust, although she had told my mother herself, so maybe she wasn't too bothered that other people came to know about it, because we all knew she couldn't really keep a secret. Maybe it was still a bit obvious that it was about her, but Belle put much effort in it to help me, so I hope Regina could appreciate that.

So I had told my mom about my search for the solution and she wanted to join the search right away. The past between her and Regina was very complicated and full of hate. She was only glad that she was able to play a part in destroying the evil queen once and for all.

Henry also quickly found out about it, he knew I was up to something and he had puzzled the pieces together quite quickly. So, when I told him what I was doing, he wanted to help right away. He was a smart kid, and most of the time he was faster at finding things out than anyone else. So every day after school he went to meet me and Belle in the library.

He loved his mother so much that he would do anything to see her happy. Even though he had been through so much already with me when I went through my huge heartbreak, he was determent to still help his other mother. He was such a brave and strong kid, he was only sixteen and already handled things like an adult or actually better than an adult. I told him sometimes that he needed to back off and be the kid he still was, but he was so stubborn about helping people that I just couldn't stop him from doing that. He became happy seeing other people happy. And now he wanted to help his mother, and he was going to until she was happy.

No one else deserved a happy ending more than she did. When she told me about what she was dealing with all the time, my heart broke a couple times. Those tears that ran over her face constantly reached deep inside of me. She always hid behind those huge walls of her. She never showed how she was really feeling all the time. She always was this stiff, direct mayor and seeing her completely falling apart now could only make me cry with her. For some time I thought the evil queen only had hurt people around her, but what I didn't realize was that she was hurting Regina maybe the most of all. That constant battle inside of her, it ate her out from the inside.

Hurting people was a way for her to deal with her problems in the past, but she couldn't do that anymore now. She got a déjà vu of course when Robin got killed brutally, because that's exactly what happened to her first love, Daniel. They were both killed because of her.

I just felt such a great need to help her with this and not letting the darkness defeat her. I am the savior and I needed to save her, that's my destiny, to save people.

After a week of intensely searching and a lot of dead ends, we finally found the best solution. A solution that wouldn't kill Regina in the process too. We kept reading about deadly potions and magical vortexes that would suck up all darkness including the person it possessed. That was not really the idea of Operation Viper, as Henry called it. We needed Regina to kind of stay alive, that was the point. If we would use one of those solutions, we could have killed Regina already without any difficulties that included magic.

Eventually we found a recipe for a sort of potion that would split the darkness from someone's body into another human being. So if the darkness became a human being that meant it could be killed. The potion needed to be injected directly into her veins, so it would make contact with her blood right away. It needed to be mixed with a strong source of that person's DNA. When the evil queen was out, she would not have her powers immediately, and that would be the moment we would tie her up with a wave of magic and rip her heart out.

We hadn't told Regina herself about the research, because I wanted it to be a little surprise. She knew that I was going to help her of course, but she didn't know it was this soon. She kept saying that whole week to Henry that she would do anything to be happy. So I liked it to be a surprise as a beginning of her happiness.

Henry went to tell Regina the plan of Operation Viper when we had found the solution, because he would be the one Regina would most likely accept it from. When he came back with her into the library, I knew she had agreed.

She was surprised that we had figured it out so soon. Luckily she wasn't angry about the amount of people that knew about it. She was only glad that we had found it and was all for it. Those deep chocolate eyes sparkled as if the galaxy had moved into her eyes when she found this hope for her.

Belle went home to Rumple and left the rest to us. After that we discussed the working of the potion and the plan to wipe away the evil queen. Regina was a bit scared, but she was all in for finally getting rid of her evil half.

So with that settled, Regina, Henry, my mother and I went to Regina's vault to make the potion. It wasn't a hard potion to make, Regina had all the ingredients in her vault and she knew what to do.

The only specific ingredients were DNA from the person she hated most and from the person she loved most. She needed to think about those two for a little while. But eventually a long dark brown hair went into the boiler for the person she hated the most, a hair of her own. I was curious about who she chose, because the one who she really hated the most was dead and that was Hades. Many years ago she hated many more people, for example my whole family tree except Henry. It was just sad to know that the one she hated the most now was herself, she deserved better. Luckily that was why she was there.

The second hair was a short brown one, the one from Henry. It was just too cute that she loved our son so incredibly much. If she loved someone she would literally die for them. Like she did for Henry in the alternate universe 'Heroes and Villains'. She gave Henry more love then I could ever have given him, and I was grateful that our son could have someone like her. She was truly the best mother Henry could ever get and I didn't want our son to grow up with anyone else.

When Regina dropped Henry's hair into the mixture it began to boil shortly. I grabbed a syringe and filled it with the fluid shortly after that. It was a red, thick, transparent liquid and it creeped me out a little.

I saw how Regina's face went from determined and concentrated to sad and fearful. The tension filled the room, and my heart began to beat faster. The moment had all been waiting for had come, but we weren't that excited anymore. Was it going to work?

Regina took the syringe from me and looked at us. "As we go outside I want you all to leave me. This isn't going to be pretty." She said very tense. But she didn't really think that I was going to leave her, right? 'We' had planned to do it together, so we were going to do so. I wanted to stay as much as I was scared.

"I'm staying!" I said determined.

"Me too, mom. You are not going to do this alone." Henry said with a bit of fear in his voice.

"I'm staying too!" my mom said stubbornly and much more fearless than Henry and I did. "I was there when the evil queen was born. I…kind of helped bringing her into the world… I want to see you END her!"

Regina looked at all of us with a questioning look, but nodded eventually in agreement. We walked outside to the wide green field of the graveyard. There my mom slowly took the syringe from Regina. Regina looked troubled, but trusted my mom to do the job and rolled up her sleeve.

"Get ready to stand back because…" she sighed heavily. "I have a feeling we're about to meet a very ANGRY queen and she didn't like you on a good day!" she stated rapidly with a nervous wavy voice as she looked at my mom. "Emma? Henry?" she then looked at us.

"I'm ready!" I said very determinedly. What did she think? I wasn't going to back down after all I had done for her.

"Yeah, me too!" Henry said brave.

My mom made the syringe ready and looked at Regina for approval to inject the needle. Regina nodded nervously.

Slowly My mother pierced the needle into the flesh of Regina's forearm and then pushed the liquid through the syringe until the last bit was in. Then she pulled the needle out quickly and stepped back. No fear was seen on her face, not even a bit.

It was quiet for some time and Regina looked aimlessly around with her arm still stretched. I could only hear the rapid breathing of Regina, Henry and myself dancing through the air.

Just as I closed my eyes to take a deep steady breath, the muscles in her arm contracted intensely and she let out an obstruct moan. She balled her fist and her whole body tensed. I grabbed Henry's hand, that was all clingy from sweat.

Her whole body went to shake tremendously, and she let out another moan of pain. From head to toe, every part of her shook. She couldn't control any of it, because she always made sure she looked good, but this was everything except pretty.

I squeezed Henry's hand, but kept watching. The level of fear was intense, and my heart was pumping like a maniac, but I never considered leaving. When it would get out of hand, I would be there for her.

She looked at us with even more fear and tears in her eyes than we had. She begged for help without saying a thing, but with those wide horrified eyes alone. Her jaw was trembling, and her bottom lip was pouted as if she was cold, but by the sweat on her forehead I knew it was the other way around.

I wanted to go to her, but got held back by my mother. Snow still didn't show a sign of fear. She knew this wasn't the time to interfere and gave me a stern look not to do so. My eyes began to sting immensely as I literally saw her suffer. Her look told me that she wanted help, but my mom kept holding me back. It was too dangerous to come close.

She moaned intensively a couple of times as her body went to move tensely like she had some kind of seizure. It became worse and worse every second. She constantly switched from trying to grab her head, chest and stomach. She rolled her head around causing her hair to get messy.

Henry grabbed me around my waist and buried his face into my shoulder. I felt warm liquid fall into my sweater where his eyes were rested. I put my hand on his scalp and gently caressed him trying to give him comfort. He never should have gone with us. I never should have let him stay with us. I always believed he was strong, but this time I noticed it became far too much.

Some trembling moans came out of Regina again. It felt like it was going to last forever. She was already moving like this for some minutes now and it only became worse. It already felt like hours. She was in so much pain. As it became worse, her moans became louder and louder until they became deafening screams. Her face was bloodred and covered in a moist mixture of tears and sweat. Her always perfectly done make-up was now leaking and smudged all over her face.

My mother wasn't looking as fearless anymore, she too had horror spread all over her face now. Regina and she were very good friends now. They had grown so much in their relationship. From mortal enemies to best friends. My mom had told Cora Regina's secret about Daniel. She was always an annoying spoiled princess that made Regina's blood boil. Regina had hunted my mother for so long and wanted her dead, but now they only wanted to see each other happy.

Henry and I were trembling with fear against each other. Neither of us liked to see Regina suffer. We couldn't do anything to stop it, and neither could she. We couldn't hold each other tighter. Henry still sobbed heavily into my sweater and didn't dare to look anymore. I only looked because I needed to be ready when the evil queen would come out. If I had known the serum would do this to her, I would never have thought this was a good idea.

Then she threw her head back and stood still for some time with her arms wide and with a troubled look on her face. Something was going to happen now. A little crack began to grow on her face as if her skin was made of porcelain. It grew and grew all over her face until her face wasn't recognizable anymore. Not only her face began to crack, but also down to her neck and then her chest until her whole body was covered in cracks, big and small. She opened her mouth widely and let out a scream of pain louder than humanly possible. The cracks grew wider and wider like her flesh got ripped apart violently. Her flesh came away a bit where her insides were exposed by the cracks.

I heard a deafening sound alongside her screams. Something was breaking, but I knew it wasn't just her skin, it was something else. Right there her arm bended, except it wasn't in a normal way. It bended right out of its joint. Many bones broke and began to stick out of place. Because of the cracks in her skin, I could see those bones. Everything broke, but somehow she could still stand on her feet.

I squeezed my eyes tight as tears came down like a waterfall. I couldn't look anymore. It was too much. I began to sob heavily against Henry and even let out some screams myself.

Did we throw the wrong ingredients into the potion? Did we still make a deadly poison instead of the separation potion? Why didn't I read about this when we found the recipe for the serum? How could I be such an idiot? Was I going to be Henry's only mother after this? Was I also going to lose her because of my actions? I couldn't lose anyone else. If she would die, I would die too.

But then I looked up and saw something rising deep from within her chest. Were it fingertips? They were beautifully polished black fingernails of a feminine hand. The hand quickly turned into an arm with glittery wide sleeves. Something grew out of her face too. It looked like another face, but it looked exactly like hers. The only difference was the amount of makeup. This makeup was very dark and much more than Regina usually wore now. The head also wore lots of jewelry. From the big hanging earrings to the headpiece that was full of glitters too. The head became attached to the arm that was already out and it became one form right there. The rest of the body followed and the human being stepped right out of Regina.

As that happened all the cracks in her body magically healed itself until Regina became recognizable again. Also her bones were smoothly set into place again as her natural standing posture restored. She looked better, but still very sloppy and ruined. Her face was full of sweat and tears, just like before her skin got cracked. Her hair was extremely messy. It fell into her face and it was all tangled curls. It was a whole lot different from the straight, always in place hair I was used to. Parts of her clothing were ripped. Her whole appearance and Regina herself looked completely drained.

I looked at the human being that wore a very big black glittering gown with a collar as high as her head and her hair even higher. She was evil, she was The Evil Queen! She turned around and then stood face to face with Regina. She looked her up and down full of disgust. I always thought that Regina wore a lot of makeup, but this was just extreme. She looked scary with that dark lipstick and much darker eyes. She looked angry, very angry.

"Look at what you've become!" she said with the disgust flowing from her tongue. Regina looked absolutely horrified as her chest moved rapidly up and down from exhaustion.

The Evil Queen snarled and reached out her hand to attack Regina. Finally my moment had come to help her. I intervened quickly and used my magic to make chains appear around her wrists that were bound to the ground. She tried to move out of it, but as she did that I tightened the chains even more so she couldn't move a limb. She looked furious as she gritted her teeth.

"Regina, now is your chance! Destroy her!" I tried to encourage her. I was terrified, but she looked even more terrified. She just stood there, breathing heavily and doing nothing.

The Evil Queen laughed at her devilishly. "You destroy me?" Her evil smirk covered her face. "You don't have what it takes!" Regina stood there, completely frozen, only her face became more horrified.

"Regina!" I stepped forward to try to help her, but my mother held me back again. My mother looked like she was full of courage again. I got so annoyed by her. Regina needed help. I already let her deal with the process of the serum alone. Did my mom really think I needed to back down now too?

"You're weak!" The Evil Queen continued with a low, scary voice. Regina walked towards her slowly and carefully. The Evil Queen just looked wrathful at her. "No matter what you do, you can't destroy our darkness! Deep down inside you know the truth. You NEED me!" she stated without even a bit of fear to die.

Regina's face turned from fearful into a face of courage. She began to stand more steady and then she extended her arm. Her open empty hand reached towards The Evil Queen's chest and then stopped. A big evil smile covered The Evil Queen's face. I saw how much she enjoyed this moment. Regina's fingertips were stuck on top of The Evil Queen's chest and couldn't get any further into it. The fear on her face was back, but even worse. Her eyes couldn't help, but cry again, maybe the last bit of tears that were left.

"EMMA! HELP ME! I can't do it!" she cried out as she stepped back and fell on the grass in defeat. I rushed towards The Evil Queen and looked her in the eyes, she still had a big smirk on her face.

"I said you can't do it, you're too soft!" she said to Regina full of confidence. "Are you going to kill me now?" she cooed with pouted lips toward me. "You are too much of a hero! And we all know, heroes don't kill!" She now got on my nerves. No one tells me what I can and can't do! And how she tried to humiliate Regina made me even angrier.

"We will see about that!" I said confidently, putting my anger into it.

I stretched my arm and looked at The Evil Queen's chest. I didn't know why, but I couldn't help staring at it for just a little moment. They were very outstanding; hard to miss. That corset contained them so tight and made them extremely round and bulky.

But then I realized what I was going to do. I needed to rip that pounding organ right out her chest. So quickly pushed my whole hand into her round chest. I felt some kind of twinkles in my belly, but ignored it. The inside of her chest felt really warm and soft. My fingers surrounded a firm, but squeezable chunk of pounding flesh with the veins swirling around. I grabbed it tight and she squeaked.

I took a deep breath and with a strong tug, I ripped it out. I looked at it and it was almost entirely black, like coal, just a little spot of red was left. Some blood dripped from my fingers and turned the grass red beneath me. Now some kind of fear sparkled in her eyes, and she sort of looked at me begging for mercy. But I didn't let it hold me back. I wasn't going to fall for her pretends to be innocent. She wasn't and needed to be vanquished from existence.

So I held the heart firmly in my hand and started to squeeze until the heart was just a pile of ash in the palm of my hand. The ash ran smoothly through my fingers and got taken by the wind. I looked at her and for a moment I felt a deep ache of guilt in my heart as if I had squeezed Regina's heart instead of hers. Her face began to slowly fade into dust as well and her body followed. Another blow of wind came and dragged all the dust with it. The chains clattered when they fell on the ground into each other. The Evil Queen was DEAD!

I stood still with the blood on my hands just trying to process everything that had happened. My whole body was trembling from adrenaline as did my heart. I had killed someone again and you could literally see the blood on my hands. The Evil Queen may have looked like Regina, but she definitely wasn't. She had made Regina suffer for so long, she wasn't worth life any time longer.

Behind me I heard something, a quiet sound of little sniffs. I turned around to see Regina sitting in the grass with her legs arched and her arms around them like a ball. She was in very poor condition, which was only understandable after this whole experience.

"Regina?" I said carefully and a bit scared. "Are you okay?" She looked up to me and all I could see in her face was the lack of life. I couldn't see many emotions. She had tears in her eyes but she didn't really look sad, just lifeless.

Henry walked over to her and embraced her tight. He had a relieved smile on his face as he laid his head on her shoulder, although his tears didn't stop falling. "I'm so happy you are still alive. I really thought I was about to lose you!" he said between sniffs. She didn't move to embrace him back, but instead she began crying with him.

"Regina, we did it! She is gone, we won!" my mom said trying to help, with her ever optimistic thoughts.

She didn't reply, she just sat there and cried, sobbing heavily. I lowered myself to the ground and wiped away most of the blood of my hand in the grass. I slowly placed my other hand on her shin where her stockings were totally ripped.

"Please don't cry, Regina, you'll make us cry too." I said trying to make a subtle joke, but no one replied to it.

"I'm weak!" she began to speak in a monotone way.

I looked clueless at my mom with wide eyes, because I didn't know what to do with her. "Regina, you did great! And the fact that you went through this all and you were still able to try to stand up to The Queen, that proves that you are stronger than everyone. This was really a horrifying experience, but you are still here. You may not have been able to kill her, but you were able to carry her around for so many years and you didn't give up on hope. You kept fighting for being a good person and that makes you strong." My mom speeched, hopeful like always.

"She is right. Regina, you are maybe the strongest person who has ever lived, because you were able to fight the darkness inside of you to become a good person. And now all this! What the hell!? Only that you are still here with us is very strong. So you're not WEAK!" I added.

She looked up to all three of us. "You really do think so?" she said with a cracked voice. We nodded in sync and smiled lovingly at her.

"Yes, of course we do!" Henry said and he hugged his mother even closer. She smiled weakly and gently closed her eyes. She now wrapped her arms around him to hug him back.

After a moment Henry broke out of the embrace, slowly, but Regina kept leaning into him. Her face was buried in his shoulder and her arms hung loosely around his waist. "Mom, you can let go of me now" he chuckled awkwardly as the embrace became a bit too long.

He put his hands on her shoulder and pushed her a little away from him. Her head fell forward as he did it. "Mom?!" My heart stopped. I couldn't see any movement in her body. Henry tilted his mother's head to see her face, her eyes were still closed.

"REGINA!" I shouted and grabbed her by her back with both my hands. I didn't care about how one of them still had a little blood on it. Henry pushed her a bit backward so she began to lay down in my arms.

I looked at her motionless, perfect face. Why wasn't she moving? Why didn't she react?

Henry began to cry as he looked at her too. "Mom? Wake up please!" he said, crying. My mom came to sit next to us with more fear in her eyes than she had shown this whole evening.

"Regina, you can't die like this when you are finally free!" she said with a lump in her throat. She brought two fingers to Regina's neck and pushed a bit. One of my tears fell on her face when I held her close to me. "She still has a heartbeat!" my mother said relieved a moment after that. And that's when Regina exhaled deeply with a little moan. I smiled when I patiently felt her breathing.

"I think she has fallen asleep." I chuckled as I wiped away the tears.

"It must have been so exhausting for her that she couldn't stay awake any longer." Henry said with a grateful smile. I looked at him and nodded.

"We care so much about her that we didn't even notice her breath and assumed the worst." My mom said. A little snore came from under her nose. I began to laugh a bit.

"Not the queen anymore, huh?" I giggled.

"Yeah, it looks like it." my mom added. "Let's just go home! We could all use some sleep."