Chapter 28: Hooked on Guilt

"What did you just say?" Emma asks, her eyes going wide at the girl's words.

"My mother, what do you know about my mother?"

"Who is your mother?" Regina asks.

"Maleficent," Mal says as if it's the most obvious thing ever.

The group from Storybrooke look absolutely shell-shocked by this girl's statement. All of them knew that Maleficent did have a daughter, her name was Lily, but she was here in town and she'd been in The Land Without Magic since before Emma was born. This purple-haired girl didn't look a day over 16 or 17 and she'd clearly come from another realm altogether. No one knows how to speak or respond to this girl. Mal folds her arms, becoming impatient by not having any sort of answer.

"Your mother is Maleficent?" Crystal asks, her shock recovering a bit faster than the others.

"Yes, she is, why is that so hard to process? You guys did say you knew about magic, don't you?"

"We do… it's just, the Maleficent we know already has a daughter…"

"Yeah, me," Mal says sassily.

"No, her name is Lily,"

"What?" Mal's head becomes clouded and confused by everything. She was the only daughter of Maleficent, and always had been. With whom the horned woman had conceived with was still a mystery, but she was downright certain that her mother was the mistress of all evil. Where had they gone? What was this place? What the heck did Uma, Harry, and Gil do? Had they truly travelled to another realm entirely? If they did, which realm was it? Her heart begins to beat loudly in possible excitement, but then she remembers her friends. She pushes past the group and goes to the heap of students still laying in the middle of the road.

"I've got an ambulance on the way," a blonde-haired woman says, on her cell phone, while she holds the hand of a small girl with blonde pigtails. "You might have to make a few trips to get them all to the hospital," she says into the phone.

Mal kneels next to Evie and Ben; she looks over her ex-boyfriend with great concern. His face was badly bruised and there were also cuts in some places. His clothes are torn, and she can see the ugly marks that Uma's tentacles made on his neck, they were turning purple which meant they were starting to bruise. The daughter of Maleficent becomes very enraged that Uma would do this to him, basically trying to suffocate Ben when he'd done nothing to her. As she tries to move him closer to her, the pain on his face becomes evident. She knows that trying to move him further might make it worse. She then tries to free his wrists instead. Despite everything that had happened between them, Mal still cared about Ben… more than anyone else it seemed. She struggles with the knots that she decides to use magic to burn the ropes off.

However, when she mutters the unbinding spell, nothing happens. She says it a bit louder, but still, nothing happens.

Suddenly, a hand appears on her shoulder.

"Would you like some help Lass?"

Mal looks up to see a hand filled with many rings on her shoulder. Attached to that hand is a man completely clad in leather, chains dangling from his chest, which is partially exposed by a v-neck shirt. He wears a long overcoat, also made of leather. He has dark black hair, a full beard, and the most vivid looking blue eyes the daughter of Maleficent has ever seen. She finds them slightly hypnotic. He is a handsome looking man, almost more so… she then notices that he has no left hand. Her heart climbs into her throat when she sees the curved piece of metal in the shape of an infamous tool. The same tool that Harry wore in order to idolize his…

"Father," Mal gasps to herself in a barely audible whisper.

"What was that love?"

Now the teen could definitely see the resemblance. The bright blue eyes, the dark hair, the similar sounding accent. There is no doubt that this is Captain Hook, father of Harry Hook, who is amongst the pile of students. Had they landed on some new version of Isle of the Lost? No, the Isle was a dump compared to this place, which is nice and seemed to have nice furnishings, good clothes, and great places to shop and eat all around. This was not a version of the Isle, but then again, that portal could have taken them almost anywhere.

She starts to become slightly defensive, not wanting Ben to be handled by this notorious villain. Ben has had enough experiences with pirates. However, this Captain Hook seems softer, gentler in a lot of ways as he kneels down next to the teenager and removes a small dagger from his belt. Mal becomes very tense and grinds her teeth together; she needs to be ready to use her magic… only it wasn't working properly. How is she going to defend the king of Auradon without magic?

She only lets out a small sigh of relief after the pirate uses the dagger to cut Ben's bonds and then puts it back in his belt.

"Are… are you, Captain Hook?"

"Aye, that is usually my more colourful moniker, but here I'm usually known as Killian."

"Killian?"

"Aye, and who is this handsome lad, someone special to you?"

"He was…" she mutters to herself. The pirate looks at her with his piercing eyes, she feels as if he's looking into her soul. She does her best to avoid eye contact.

"Here," the brown-haired girl says, coming up to the group, spooking the teen once again. The girl offers her jean jacket to be put under Ben's head. With a little reluctance, the purple-haired girl allows the new stranger to help him.

"It will keep his head supported until the ambulance gets here… What's his name?" she asks.

"Ben."

"Is he your boyfriend?" she asks.

Mal bites her lip to fight back the tears filling her eyes. She shakes her head quickly and then goes to look at her best friend, Evie.

"Evie… Evie…" Mal says, shaking her friend's shoulder.

"Be careful Love," Killian says. "We don't want to hurt her anymore."

Mal swallows a large lump in her throat. She feels the tears come back up, she's kicking herself for not better protecting her friends. Instead, she let her inner dragon out and became hell-bent on stopping Uma, instead of helping those who needed her more. This time, Mal removes her own leather jacket and puts it behind her best friend's… her sister's head.

"I'm so sorry Evie…" she whimpers. She takes Evie's hand in hers and squeezes it.

The daughter of Maleficent then notices that other people have begun appearing, coming out of the buildings in this tiny town and approaching the wounded children. They immediately begin helping the others, wrapping them in articles of clothing to keep them warm, tending to any wounds they might have, and overall trying to make them as comfortable as she can. She is surprised by the genuine kindness that these strangers are giving them… it's as if they were used to people falling out of portals into their town.

"We could just heal him now," the brown-haired girl is saying, still helping with Ben.

"I think we should let him decide," the blonde woman says. She wears a red leather jacket over a white sweater, that looked slightly too big for her. She wears jeans and black boots and wears a strange looking weapon and star on her belt. The woman begins to help Carlos and Dude. She examines the son of Cruella De Vil all over.

"This one is fine," she says. "He's just unconscious."

"And the dog?" the younger brunette girl asks.

"Same thing as far as I can tell." The woman then gets out her phone and seems to dial a number. Once she gets an answer she says… "Hey Dad, we've got a hurt animal out here, which is more your cup of tea than mine."

A black-haired woman from the group also kneels down next to Jay, who is not too far from where Gil lays. She also begins to look him over. Although Mal doesn't know what they are doing, it is standard first-aid for everyone. Mal wants to go towards her other friends, but she feels obliged to stay with her best friend and her boyfriend… ex-boyfriend.

Soon after, a man with dirty-blonde hair arrives, with a woman with ebony coloured hair cut into a stylish bob, he kneels down next to Dude and begins to inspect the animal all over. Mal vaguely hears the words "former vet" said aloud.

Eventually, several ambulances show up with red lights flashing. A team of emergency workers begin to put the children on stretchers or gurneys and put them in the back of the white vehicles. They appear to be able to fit two in each of the three ambulances. One by one, the pile of children dissipates, all being carried up to what the purple-haired teenager can assume is the hospital ward. Mal stays with her friends the entire time, staring blankly at the action happening around her. She is unable to do anything. She's still very much in shock about what has happened to them and she's overwhelmed with guilt about their current situation.

Eventually, only a handful of kids remain. The daughter of Maleficent watches as Jane is loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher, followed by Dizzy Tremaine.

The ambulance people check on both Carlos and Jay, muttering that they were okay, but still needed full check-ups. Mal is unable to say anything as her best male friends are put on stretchers and rolled to the awaiting emergency vehicle.

Finally, the last set of workers reach where Mal has been staying with Ben and Evie the entire time. She's still in some sort of deep trance because she doesn't hear one of the workers asking her a question.

"Huh?" she says in confusion.

"I said, can you please move Miss, so we can get them on the gurneys?"

A hand reaches out and places itself on the teen's shoulder. Mal looks up to see the brown-haired girl giving her a reassuring smile.

"It'll be okay," she says quietly.

The teenage girl feels reluctant to let go of both Evie and Ben's hands. She hadn't even noticed that her hands had become numb from clinging to those she loved so hard. With some persuading, after she sees Ben being put in a neck brace and then lifted carefully onto the gurney does she let go. She follows them to the ambulance and stands there, watching as her loved ones are loaded inside. Once both Evie and Ben are secured in the vehicles, the workers herd the purple-haired teenager into the back as well. She sits on a bench as only catches a glimpse of the group whom she'd met earlier before the doors are slammed shut and the vehicle drives away with the lights flashing and the sirens blaring.

Crystal stands on the street, holding her jean jacket in her arms. Emma comes up behind her and taps her on the shoulder.

"Let's get over there, we're going to have a lot of reports to write up."

A/N: Please Review.