Chapter 27: Taming the Dragon

Mal looks around utterly confused. She's just come through a portal into a strange looking land with people staring up at her. She watches as the green portal that she and Uma had come through close and she sees her friends lying in the middle of the street. She lets out a loud roar that seems to rattle the surrounding buildings. She watches as more figures exit buildings into the streets of this strange land, that looks like a small town of some kind.

She watches as a girl with a jean jacket attempts to get near her friends, to which Mal lets out another roar to keep the stranger away. The two lock eyes for a moment, the dragon girl pauses for a moment as the two make some sort of connection. She can see the girl's blue eyes seem to glow for a brief moment before Mal has to look away in order to keep herself in flight. She becomes tired of flying, plus the strain of keeping Uma up in the air is now causing her wings to become tired and her scaly body to become heavy.

Uma is also frightened but does her best to hide it. She's twenty feet in the air with one of her tentacles wrapped around her archrival's scaly leg, hoping that her tentacles will not fail her. She feels several jolts of Mal's leg.

"DON'T YOU DARE DROP ME!" Uma screams. Her tentacles are struggling to keep a grasp as Mal's scaley foot continues to try and shake the cephalopod off.

Uma's heart is pounding in her chest, she knows that her rival either wants to let her drop or she can't hold her up any longer. The turquoise-haired cephalopod looks desperately for another place to grab on from the height she is at. Fortunately, the highest point in this strange land is a clock tower; so, stretching as far as one of her additional limbs could reach, the daughter of Ursula grabs the tip of the red dome just above the clock's face. Once her suction cups makes contact with the tip of the roof of the tower, her other tentacles slowly release Mal's legs. Once she's safely on top of the roof, Mal takes off further into the sky, beginning to circle above them, trying to find a place to land and deal with Uma once and for all.

Both Regina and Emma's hands light up in anticipation of protecting the town. Whatever the portal brought through included a dragon and a knock-off of Ursula hanging from its legs. They watch with hearts in their throats as the beast continues to roar at them and as the parody of Ursula except with blue hair escaping the dragon's clutches by clinging to the clock tower.

"This is why you should never mess around with portals Crystal!" Regina sighs upset that now both she and Emma must clean up the mess.

"Where the hell did that thing come from?" Emma mutters. Killian stands next to his wife, his cutlass in the air, trying to maintain eye contact with this beast. Rumpelstiltskin stands very still, admiring the beauty of the creature and watching the spectacle like it was an amusing show.

"I think it's best not to ask," Regina mutters.

"It's not Lady Lily having a temper tantrum is it?" the captain asks.

"No, wrong colour," Emma answers. "Plus, Lily doesn't have horns like that."

"What about Dragon Lady herself?" Regina asks.

"Different horns and colouring," Rumple says, seemingly very calm and almost amused by this display of imminent danger to the citizens of Storybrooke. Perhaps he missed the excitement that came with having a magical town.

However, his daughter has not said a word since the dragon came through, she was letting her vision take over to detect the energy of this new creature. Her aura was glowing a harsh bright purple, with flecks of green and blue mixed in. The heart had spots of gray mixed into the red and the symbol of a flaming heart, that slightly resembled a dragon appears below the glowing organ. The shape is very familiar to her… She seemed to be just like Maleficent, human/dark fairy but could turn into a dragon. Crystal could also detect the magic radiating from her. She was a powerful being, almost too powerful for her own good. Despite how threatening the dragon looks, Crystal can tell that the creature is a she and she is very afraid and confused.

The creature begins circling above them, everyone flinches in fear, but the daughter of the Dark One remains completely calm, trying to make a connection with the female dragon again. She was trying to find out more until she sees a flash of Emma's white magic about to attack.

"Wait don't!" Crystal says.

"What why?!" Regina asks.

"I don't think she wants to hurt us."

"SHE?" Emma asks.

"Yes, it's a she."

"What the bloody hell does it want then?" Killian asks, grabbing Emma's arm to protect her.

"She's scared, she sees us as a threat of some kind. I don't think she wants us to go near her friends… watch…"

Crystal takes a step towards the pile of teenagers still unconscious in the middle of the street and the dragon growls loudly. She then takes a step away and the growling stops.

"She must know them," the young adult concludes.

"But how are we supposed to help them if she won't let us near them?" Emma asks.

"We have to show her that we're not a threat to them or her, which means the magic has to go away."

"You can't be serious?" the former Evil Queen gasps.

"It's the only way she'll calm down. She is a lot like Maleficent and Lily, scarily so. She's human but can change into a dragon. We need her to turn back to normal, so we can talk. We need to be super careful in human form too, she also has powerful magic."

"Interesting," Rumpelstiltskin purrs.

"Dad don't even think about it!" Crystal snaps.

"What about the Ursula thing on the clock tower?" Emma asks.

"She's safe for now, let's focus on one thing at a time. So first, we need to power down the magic."

The daughter of the Dark One is the first to power down her magic, the purple magic leaving her hands. She stares at the Saviour and the former Evil Queen, giving them an insistent look to listen to her. If they wanted to protect the town, they'd have to show they weren't going to attack this she-dragon. Very slowly, both women let the lights in their hands' flicker and go out completely, they were hesitant to do so, but as soon as they did, the dragon's demeanour changed. The growling stops, and she seemed to circle less and less. The dragon's wings seem to slow down enough that she is hovering just above the buildings and is close enough where she can face the protectors of the town, her eyes looking at them uncertainly.

"Weapons too," Crystal says.

With a deep sigh, Killian also puts his cutlass back on his belt, but his good hand remains on the handle, just in case the beast decides to change her mind.

With all the courage she can muster, Crystal takes a step towards the hovering dragon.

"It's okay," she says loudly. "We don't want to hurt you or your friends. We were just surprised by everything and we see dragons more often than you think. We're like you… we have magic like you. I know you're like Maleficent."

Everyone notices a shift in the dragon's eyes. They no longer look angry and they seem to glow with less aggression. At the mention of the name, the dragon slowly lowers herself down until her four claws reach the street level. Her wings fold inwards, but not without taking a few shingles off some of the buildings and loosening a gutter pipe. The creature seems to wince at the damage she does. Her claws also scrape up some of the asphalt as she lands, but Crystal gives her a reassuring smile.

"We can fix that later," she says gently.

The dragon's wings fold in like she was covering herself for protection, then a cloud of light purple smoke engulfs the form. It then seems to shrink and with a poof, there is a human girl standing in the place of the dragon.

Everyone is shocked by how young the girl is. She begins to pat areas of her purple leather jacket and outfit that were smoking. She has light purple hair that reaches a little bit over her shoulders and has bangs hovering over her eyes. Her eyes are green with flecks of gold within them. She wears a purple leather jacket with patches of green mixed in, along with gold studs everywhere on the outfit. She has a few belt chains at her hips and wears blue jeans and what looks almost like combat boots. She could pass for a punk rocker at a concert. She looks at the group of adults with confusion, but there was no longer anger on her face. Emma and Regina recognize that look that she's masking fear, trying to appear to be tough, as they too had used the expression many times in their pasts.

Crystal is the first to take a step closer to this girl, and she takes a step back.

"It's okay," Crystal says calmly. "We don't want to hurt you."

"I don't want to hurt you either," she says in a low voice. "Now what did you say about my mother?"

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