Robin comes back to herself with a hard cough as on instinct she pulls at the bonds holding her arms as if she were some common scarecrows. Only in far more fashionable attire.
Alright, it was just her normal hunter's gear just a little more cleaned up than usual considering she'd been on her way to visit her girlfriend but at least her clothes didn't have any…
Almost as soon as the thought passed her clearing mind Robin hears the telltale sounds of fabric ripping along the right sleeve of her shirt as the darkened shadow of her capturer crossed into her still foggy vision.
"Look who's finally awake." Gothel chuckled along with an ominous sting of a needle being stabbed harder than needed into Robin's exposed arm. "We were worried you'd miss all the fun."
"We?" Robin repeated through her teeth when the needle as retracted after injecting something into the groggy archer's system.
"Hush." Gothel quieted her hardened gaze flashing in warning to meet Robin's own before she gives the trust up archer an amused smile "my friend will be here soon. This has made sure of that." The woman still considering herself to be Alice's mother says conversationally as she holds up the now emptied syringe giving the useless thing a light flick against its side as Robin once more gave an experimental tug against her restraints.
"Who would ever consider being friends with you?" Robin muses as Gothel once again pulls a knife from the sleeve of her shirt. One of Robin's hunter's blades the young woman recognizes when said blade came close enough to see as Gothel set to work cutting the bonds holding her captive hostage.
"Seriously?" Robin asks more surprised than anything when the ropes around her middle fall away.
"Don't look so shocked. I didn't bring you here to kill you this time." The elder woman scoffs bringing the point of the blade under Robin's chin before she'd freed either of Robin's trust up arms or her bound feet from the pole at her back. The move earning a small, nicked cut against Robin's skin as it moved tilting her head up a little higher to meet Gothel's own. The woman was so interested in her attempted intimidation she didn't see Robin's now slackened wrist tugging the mystery syringe back from the folds of Gothel's cloak.
"Only because I gave up my magic so I'm no good to bring back what's her name." Robin taunted unable to resist the small dig regardless of having a knife so close to her neck as she spoke. Her instinctive tensed posture also giving good cover to the fading archer's smuggled concealment of the last drops of the poisoned liquid that had been injected.
Maybe if she got it back to the Dark One or her aunt Regina in time they could undo whatever it was Gothel had started.
"But that doesn't mean you are completely useless to me." Gothel muses already seeing the drug she'd injected starting to take effect as Robin dropped to her knees with a pained groan. Both her clenched hands going to either side of her head with a whimper of pain.
"Wh…What the hell did you d…do to me?" Robin growled but it was as weak as a kitten as her vision blurred making the smirking woman looming over her smile even wider instead of giving a true answer.
"Are you sure this is going to work?"
Gothel rolled her eyes as she sends the once again whimpering archer away with a wave of her hand before turning to give the questioner a hard glare. "Unlike your attempts in swaying my daughter back to me this one is foolproof to showing her who her true family is." The forest spirit snapped this time earning an uninterested eye roll from Drizella.
"But how can you be sure this so-called fear toxin will truly work more to the point how can you know the next person to cross her path will be the pirate. You said all the would-be heroes are out looking for her. Alice included."
Gothel reaches out to brush her fingers along the binding pole Robin had been tied against her gaze unfocused for a few long breaths of quiet before she speaks. "All forest beings are connected. They whisper to me as sure as any human voice. This plan will work. My daughter will return to me just as planned once her little girlfriend finishes tying loose ends keeping my child from her true family. Her true potential."
Whatever it was making up the oddly yellowed liquid Gothel had used on her, it was fast-acting considering it had taken three tries alone for Robin to regain her footing after being dropped non to gently back in the middle of the woods. By the look of it she wasn't that far from one Nook's latest sentry postings. Maybe she could even make it back to the farm if she just stayed awake long enough.
But no. no she wasn't in the forest….the forest smelled like well the forest. It was all woodsy and fresh air and safety. The stench clogging Robin's nose now was none of those things. This was sulfur and ash. Dampness and the pungent smell of death.
This was….
"Hello, Baby Hood."
Robin's foot slipped out from under her shaking crouched stance sending the already unstable archer falling back to the no longer dirt and leaf padded ground. This time Robin lands on the hard resistance of red haze light concrete copy of the middle intersection of the main road into Storybrooke, Maine.
Or should she call it Underbrooke?
"Did you really think you were rid of me?" the fire for hair man looming over her jeered with what some (her own mother) had thought to be a dazzling smile.
"Robin? Robin are you alright, lass?"
The sound of that voice snaps all thoughts even those of Gothel and her curious stabbing injection from her fogged mind as Robin scrambled to her feet.
"Only Nook calls me that." Robin barked her voice wavering as cold fear settled over her as she came face to face with the one who'd hunted her nightmares ever since she was a toddler.
The one who'd broken her mother's heart.
The one who'd threatened to kill her dear aunt Regina.
The one who'd taken her father from her before he'd even gotten to give her a proper name.
"Henry, lad go get the others. Have Zelena or someone find whatever this was that vial contained."
Robin's hand immediately dropped to the pocket she'd thought held the small bottle the witch had used on her only to come up empty. It must have shaken loose during the unintentional trip from captive to free woman.
"I'll be fine, lad. I may be an old sea dog, but I do know a thing of two about talking down stubborn lasses."
That did make Robin blink a time or two against the tiering drain now pulling her strength as she gives another hard cough as she sways on her feet.
"Even sickly Robin is far from an upset bar maiden, Killian." A more muffled version of her cousin's voice argues as Robin once again tries to find a more stable footing on the tauntingly smooth concrete of the copied roadway.
"Henry? Henry, what are you doing? Get away from him before he takes you from me too." Robin pleads her unfocused eyes staring directly passed the true point her nervous cousin was standing at this very moment.
"You're not well Robin, but I can help you…"
"Just like you helped my father?" Robin spat gathering up her courage as the two begin to circle one another like wolves sizing the other up before they strike.
Henry pauses at the hissed question exchanging a puzzled look with the one more than a few have started calling Nook rather than his actual name or even his true nickname. Killian 'Hook' Jones.
"I did know a version of your father that's true, lass but sorry to say the one I knew wasn't the true man himself," Killian confesses once more waving a nervous Henry away when the young royal once again tried to offer some support. "She's running out of time Henry, go." The pirate reminded jabbing with his hook much harder than before back the way they'd come.
Cold sweat was making it hard for Robin to focus on the smirking face of the should have been the actual dead Lord of Death standing so casually in the middle of the empty street.
"I already have your mother's love. Her true love that is." Hades summarizes his eyes and hair glowing electric blue as the crystal in his hand glowed even brighter as it charges itself up the longer he talks. "I've already obliterated your father so he's no longer a problem, soon I'll be strong enough to take away your auntie and everyone else you've ever cared about all the way until I finally reach that darling young blonde of yours." The Lord of Death muses
"Robin, lass you have to listen to me." Nook tries to sway seeing Robin's hands clench to fists at her side the more glazed her eyes become as they bore furiously into his own.
"I wonder if her soul will be just as easy to rip out of her as your fathers had been." Hades threatens once again twirling the glowing end of the crystal between his fingers.
"Stay. Away. From. My Alice!"
It was the only warning he was given before Robin was running full speed towards him tackling him to the ground.
"Well, this just got a bit more difficult." Killian grunted when the furious punches started raining one after another down onto him even before the pair had finished coming to a skidded halt with the angered archer pinning him to the unforgiving forest floor.