The jig is up, the news is out
They've finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
This will be the end today
Of the wanted man
Styx – Renegade
Storybrooke, Main
Ten Days Prior To The Final Eclipse
Still seething from being bested by the crocodile's whore, once Hook returned to the ship he was going to enjoy working out his frustrations on the still incapacitated Commander Ozopov. He retrieved his sword from its place on the wall in his quarters and went down to the hold where Ozopov was still tied up. He laughed evilly and pressed the blade against the older man's throat.
"Now I think I'm ready to dissect a cricket and there's not a damn thing you can do to stop me."
"Well I'd hate to disappoint you but you're not dissecting anyone today," Archie laughed and summoned another sword from the cabin that flew through the air and sliced through his bonds. He raised his foot and kicked the pirate in the groin. Hook moaned and doubled over, clutching himself.
"How…how…did you escape the cuff?"
"Because I wasn't in it until now," Archie said triumphantly. "Cora's not the only one who can create a construct, mate. Oh, get up! You're acting like I kicked it up into your throat but unfortunately I didn't. I've been waiting years for us to finish our duel." He gestured and teleported them on the deck of the Jolly Roger.
"Mind if I join you?" Rumple asked, stepping onto the deck. "I still have a duel to finish with you too, dearie," he hissed at Hook. "And then I'm gonna take back what you stole from me. You took it because SHE made it, didn't you?"
"You look different in this world, Crocodile. Like the coward I met so long ago, limp and all."
"And yet, you still can't kill me. I don't need this to walk anymore." Rumple tossed his cane in the air and it transformed into his katana sword.
"Let's have it, Dark One, Commander Ozopov. What magic are you gonna hide behind today?"
"Oh no, not magic. We're gonna kick your arse without it," Rumple sneered.
"Unless you think you can't take both of us," Archie taunted.
Hook howled with rage and attacked Archie who blocked his sword with his own. Hook then lunged at Rumple who jumped back as Hook swung his sword at the sorcerer's leg. "You crippled yourself once and I'll be bloody glad to do it again when I cut your leg off!"
"Not before Exner cuts off your head!" Archie growled. "Unless I do it first!" He swung his sword, the blade slicing into Hook's cheek.
"First blood lad! Well done!" Rumple praised.
"I wasn't named commander of the Ozian royal army for nothing! I earned it!"
Hook wiped the blood off his cheek and turned to Rumple, thinking him the weaker of the two and attacked him full force. Rumple cursed himself for not brushing up on his swordplay, but he wasn't going to use magic. Not this time. Out of the corner of his eye Hook could see Archie getting ready to attack and swung his sword in his direction, leaving Rumple an opening. He swung own his sword and sliced into the pirate's leg just above the knee.
"Better get fitted for a peg, dearie!" he giggled.
"Bastards!" Hook growled.
"Not going to dissect this cricket now, are you?" Archie teased.
"Maybe not but I can still skin me a crocodile," Hook boasted and attacked Rumple again, barely missing cutting him on the shoulder. "Your form is weaker than the Commander's, crocodile!"
"Maybe…maybe not!" Rumple's sword nicked him in the arm. "Oh, damn and here I thought I was gonna get your other hand."
"I'm not done yet!" Hook panted. Where the hell was that damn Cora when he needed her? One of them he could've handled but not both. The crocodile proved to be more difficult than he thought without his magic and he recalled he hadn't been so lucky the last time he'd crossed blades with Commander Ozopov. He could feel himself getting tired both from a loss of blood and exhaustion, but he wasn't willing to surrender yet. He yanked his dagger out of its scabbard and threw the dreamshade tipped weapon at Archie, the amber pendant on his neck glowing and blasting it back. It fell onto the deck at Hook's feet.
Seeing the pirate tiring, Rumple kicked Hook's legs out from underneath him and sent him crashing to the deck, pointing the blade of his sword at his throat. "Now do you yield, dearie?"
"Rot in Ephesis, crocodile!" he snarled and rolled to the side. Rumple slammed the blade of his sword into Hook's shoulder, pinning him to the deck while he howled in pain.
"You first!" Archie snarled and summoned a set of shackles. "I arrest you in the name of Queen Regent Lavinia Ozopov of the OZ and if you have a hundred years I'll list the charges…a raping bastard at the top of my list!" He hauled the bleeding pirate to his feet and secured him to the mast with a set of chains as Az and Belle teleported onto the deck of the ship, Belle holding the box containing Hook's heart. There'd been no need for her to use it to control him during the battle when she had every confidence that Rumple and Archie could handle him themselves.
"Now, where is Bae's shawl?" Belle demanded, squeezing the heart in her hand.
"My…my quarters…" he panted.
Az walked up to the mast and kicked Hook in the groin again. "THAT is what I owe you for what you tried to do to me all those years ago!" she hissed. Belle handed the heart and box to Rumple while she went below deck to search for the shawl while Archie tossed a travel storm token onto the deck and a shimmering green portal opened.
"Elmer Gulch and Jebediah Cain, Commander Ozopov summons thee!" he shouted. Moments later the two men stepped through the portal.
"Jiminy Crickets Commander, you got him!" Elmer exclaimed. Archie glowered at him. "Ooops!"
"Next time I am turning you into a cricket Gulch! We're taking this raping bastard back to the OZ."
"The Queen's expecting him and you Commander," Jeb informed them.
"We're going with you," Rumple said, indicating himself and Belle who had just returned with Bae's shawl in her hands. Archie released Hook from the mast and Jeb and Elmer seized his arms and started dragging him toward the portal with Rumple, Belle, Archie and Az following behind him.
Oz (The Outer Zone)
Emerald Palace
DG tried desperately to remain focused during one of the many High Council meetings she'd been required to attend now that peace had been restored to the OZ, but she couldn't help fearing that it was merely the calm before the storm and she lay the blame for it at the feet of Ozmalita, Adora or whatever name she chose to call herself.
Now you know how it feels to have the man you love taken away from you, she thought bitterly. You did it to her…twice.
Claiming she had a headache DG excused herself and left the council room for the solitude of her suite. She locked the door with a spell and walked over to the wall where the portrait her husband Nicolai had commissioned for her in her first life as Dorothy hung and moved it aside revealing a small compartment. She grabbed a silver box off the shelf and opened it, revealing a heart inside.
"The Queen of Hearts ripped hers out, so she wouldn't love my cousin anymore…." she said through her tears. "I ripped mine out, so I can't love you anymore Wyatt because I don't know who you are now."
"Oh cousin, dearie, what have you done?" Rumple whispered. DG spun around, glaring at him.
"How did you get in here?" she demanded.
"You are powerful cousin but not as powerful as me," he informed her. "And now that part of your soul belongs to Alemedia, she will use your magic to disrupt the Balance and destroy not just the OZ but all of Nonestica."
"I just don't understand!" DG sobbed. "How could he turn on me so suddenly?"
"You now have her memories, Dorothia. Look in them and see the reasons for yourself," he encouraged, summoning a seeing globe.
"You don't know? You're a Dark One too."
"The curse is weakened on me now, dearie but it's not on you and it will only grow stronger the more you give in to your darkness. "
DG waved her hand over the heart and cast its memories onto the seeing globe, her eyes wide with shock and horror, a chill seeping into her bones as she watched Jeb being tormented for the goddess's amusement and Ozmalita's difficult choice; seduce her husband back to her or watch her son die. Given the same choice, DG knew she would've chosen any of her children too. She banished the seeing globe and slammed her heart back into her chest, the pain within it rushing over her like a tidal wave. She sank to her knees on the floor, gasping for air.
"I…I don't want to feel this again…I can't!"
"Yes, you can! Don't you understand Dorothia, you have the power to defeat this inside you! Your love for Wyatt isn't your weakness, it's your strength! Use it! Wyatt is one of the anchors to your humanity as you are to his. If you can weaken her hold on you, it will weaken her hold on him! Fight for him, dammit! You know what's at stake if you don't!" He helped her to her feet. "Now get your arse to the Northern Island and bring that Tin Man back here!"
DG hugged him and vanished in a puff smoke.
Rumple heard laughter in the mirror behind him and spun around to see Wyatt's reflection staring back him.
"Still think it's gonna be easy?" he challenged. "You know what it takes to free yourselves from me, but you've always gotten someone else to do the deed for you. You'll never turn your blade on yourself knowing you'll never see your precious Belle again."
"If it's what it takes to save her from you and the bastard that spawned me, so be it Alemedia," Rumple growled and threw a fireball at the mirror.
But do you have what it takes, Tin Man? he pondered. You sacrificed yourself for Dorothy's love once before. Would you be willing to do it again?
It was a question he was now afraid to learn the answer to. There were only ten days left and they'd made little progress.
Upon their arrival at the palace Hook had been taken to the Healer's Ward under guard to treat his wounds while Az and Archie had been summoned to a private audience in the Queen Regent's chambers. Ambrose was happy to entertain Belle with a tour of the palace library. Lavinia and Ahamo seemed to have aged ten years in the days since Az and Archie's return to Storybrooke.
"We only have ten days my angel and the OZ still is not secure. But I'm afraid there's worse news. Zero has been released from his prison," Lavinia announced. Archie's hands clenched into fists.
"Wyatt released him," Archie growled as Rumple walked into the room with Belle and Ambrose. "Or more appropriately, Alemedia did. She's pitting them against each other so that we'll be short two Guardians when the Final Eclipse comes."
Rumple closed his eyes. "When the crimson moon appears in the Ozian skies, that is the time when this world dies," he murmured. Everyone shivered for those were the very words spoken by Aramon centuries earlier, words that damned him to an eternity spent in one of Ephesis' darkest prisons.
"Az!" DG cried when she ran into the room and threw her arms around her sister. "You look great! How's the baby? I missed you so much!"
Az laughed. "I wasn't gone that long Deege."
"It felt like a lifetime to me."
"Are you going to stay?"
"We can't Deege. I'm sorry. It's just not safe for us here."
"But I need you here!"
"I'll still be with you Deege, just in a different place and you know you can always come visit me in Storybrooke. But the OZ needs you more than you need me right now. There's still so much rebuilding to do and the people need to see that you're willing to be there for them. That's all they've ever wanted, and we haven't been the rulers they needed. You can change that."
"But it's not my right. You should've been queen Az. I know all about the change in the succession." DG glared at her mother. "You started all this."
"DG, my angel…"
"Stop Mother. Just stop! Why did you do it? Az was training to be queen since she was born, and YOU took it away from her, so your little 'angel' could inherit the throne after you died. You did to Az what your mother did to Katia!"
Lavinia gasped.
"Shocked I know about her? I'm one of the Dark Ones now Mother and have access to her memories." She glanced over at Az and Archie. "She's Zero's mother. I'm so sorry, Az."
"She is Katia?" Archie growled, recalling the night of Ambrosia's birth and the seemingly innocent face of the midwife who delivered her. Neither could see a family resemblance in her face or Zero's but had she been using a glamour spell it would have been difficult for them to notice.
"Does she still have her magic?" Lavinia asked worriedly.
"Yes," DG murmured. "And she's the High Priestess of Shadowlands which makes her doubly dangerous. We have to find the third Dark One dagger before she does."
"We already know where it is, dearie. Wyatt has it. He's had it all this time," Rumple spoke up.
"What?! How?" DG demanded.
"It was merged with the remains from his first life," Belle replied.
DG sank into her chair, pressing her hand to her heart. "His sword. Oh, I should've known. That was her plan all along…to get the other two blades in our hands and pit us against each other. The perfect revenge." DG's eyes glowed red with rage. "But she is NOT going to win this time! Neither is Ozmalita! Wyatt is bound to me and he always be!"
"DG be careful. Don't let your love turn into an obsession," Archie advised.
She made a face. "You sound just like those doctors I had to listen to after prom night."
"Well you're going to listen to me, young lady!"
"I will…"
"You will," Rumple said, leaving no room for argument. "The fate of our world depends on it, Dorothia. If you cannot resist surrendering to your inner darkness, how can you expect Wyatt to?"
"I can't." She sighed. "I have to try to break her hold on him but Ozmalita is making it difficult."
Rumple frowned. "How?"
"Alemedia has her heart. She's ordered to seduce Wyatt back to her or Jeb dies. Were I placed in the same situation centuries ago, I would've done as she asked to protect my children. Rumple, she may try the same attacks on you with Belle, Henry and Baelfire."
"I'm aware of that cousin. She also has another ally at her disposal. My father," he said bitterly. "He is after Henry's powers because once Henry is at full strength he will be the most powerful Guardian that has ever lived. You must go to the Northern Island and try to reawaken Wyatt."
"She must perform her first official duty as queen first," Lavinia pointed out. The others frowned at her. She raised her hand. "Hear me out first. We've apprehended one of the OZ's most wanted criminals and his execution will send a message that the Ozopov are back in power and we will not allow this realm to be divided again. Killian Jones' crimes were one of the reasons why the East and West seceded from the OZ."
Ahamo, Ambrose and Archie nodded in agreement.
"What did he do here?" DG asked.
"Captain Hook and his crew raided ten villages in Lowlands. They raped and killed dozens of women, forced their men to watch then killed them too. Your sister was almost raped by him too, but Archie got to her before the deed could be done." Ambrose replied. "And every year on the anniversary of those atrocities the surviving women wear torn white dresses stained with blood. They're wearing those dresses to represent the innocence that was lost, and the blood spilled."
"Then he will be executed on the anniversary of the day this took place," DG said coldly. "Have Gulch go to those villages and inform them. He doesn't have to have a trial, does he?"
Lavinia shook her head. "He was tried years ago."
"Glitch, can you make the preparations for the execution?"
"I can, DG. Otille tells me his wounds weren't that serious."
"Unfortunately," Rumple snorted. "I would gladly behead that pirate myself."
"We've already summoned Exner."
"The anniversary is when?" Belle wanted to know.
"In two days," Ahamo replied.
"Well then it looks like that pirate better get his affairs in order…again" Rumple quipped. "Oh, you must allow me to be the one to give him the good news."
"Knock yourself out," DG murmured. Rumple laughed and vanished in a puff of smoke. When he reappeared in the Healers Ward he growled in rage seeing Hook attempting to climb down the open tower window using a bedsheet, the nurses on duty in the ward dead. He flicked his wrist and sent the pirate flying into the wall and pinned him there.
"Should've known you'd try to escape, dearie!" he hissed. "But you won't be this time. Get your affairs in order again because you're going to be losing your head on the block!" He teleported them into the Queen Regent's chambers and pinned Jones to the floor with his magic.
"I caught him trying to escape again. He's killed the three nurses on duty in the ward."
DG approached the pirate and lifted him off the floor with her magic. "Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted. Jeb, Gulch, take him to the dungeon and make sure he's heavily guarded. We're not taking anymore chances."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
She dropped him and conjured a set of shackles. After he was led away she sat back down again, shaking her head. "I think we'll all rest easier when he's dead."
Central City Square
A large crowd gathered in Central City square two days later to await the trial and execution of one of its most notorious fugitives, the pirate Killian Jones, alias Captain Hook. A group of women moved to the front of the line, all of them wearing white dresses torn and stained with red paint, a reminder to all the horrors they'd endured when he and his crew raided their villages and raped them while their husbands and lovers watched, killing the men once they were finished. The women were stunned when the Princess Azkadellia approached them also wearing a stained and torn white dress.
"Will you allow me to stand with you?" she asked softly.
"You may for I was there the day that monster attempted to assault you," said one of the older women. "And we beg your forgiveness for thinking that you were responsible for what…what has happened to our land."
"I thank you for that." She waved her hand and a clay figurine wearing the same clothing appeared in it. "I will make larger ones that you must take to your villages. No one must be allowed to forget the sisters we lost."
The women nodded through their tears.
It never would've happened to your sister had your mother not exiled her to Northern Islands for something that wasn't her fault! She heard Wyatt's voice hiss in her mind. Take a good look Princess and see what else your carelessness has done to this realm!
DG leaned back in her chair, her hand pressed to her heart.
"What is it, doll?"
"Nothing," she said quickly.
The Northern Island
Wyatt waved his hand over the seeing globe, his eyes narrowed to slits. "Is it?" he asked bitterly. "That's it, do what you do best. Forget. But you're not going to forget because I'm going to be there to remind you. You're as weak now as you were then, and this realm is damned because of it!"
"We can still save it Wyatt. Together," Adora vowed. "Come with me."
"Not yet. I've got some business to attend to." He vanished, leaving her sitting alone in the bed.
Central City
DG rose from her throne. "Bring the prisoner!" she called out.
"Stretch him out good!"
"Hang him by his balls!" yelled one of the women at the front of the crowd.
"Put his head on a pike in the square!"
Hook glared at the crowd as Jeb and Elmer dragged him up the steps to the scaffold where the executioner, Ambrose, Rumple and Archie waited. DG raised her hand, her signal to Ambrose to begin.
"Killian Jones, do you have any last words before your sentence is carried out?"
"Go to Ephesis and rot…Crocodile and Cricket!" he snarled. Rumple approached him smirking.
"You first, dearie!"
"Get on with it!" yelled a man in the crowd.
"Cut him into pieces!" yelled another.
Elmer and Jeb removed the shackles and dragged Killian over to the block, the pirate fighting them all the way. They forced him to his knees, still struggling.
"Be still or he will cut you into pieces!" Jeb ordered.
"Do it! Cut him up the way he cut my papa up!" screamed a young girl.
"Make him suffer!"
"The crowd's getting restless," Archie said worriedly. "If he doesn't stop squirming this is going to get messy and I'd rather the women in the crowd didn't see it."
"Maybe one of you could ahhh….assist."
Archie waved his hand to cast a spell and felt pain surge through his arm. "Someone's blocking me! Rumple!"
"It's not me!" he protested.
DG drew her finger across her throat in a slicing motion. The executioner picked up the axe and brought it down not on Hook's neck but between his shoulder blades. He screamed in pain and Exner pulled the axe out.
"What in the name of Lurline…?" he muttered and tried again, this time slicing off one of the pirate's ears.
"What in the hell is going on!" Ambrose asked angrily.
Rumple and Archie tried casting their spell again only to be knocked off their feet by a blast of dark magic. Exner raised the axe again and once again missed, this time cutting off Hook's other hand.
"YES! Chop him up!" some in the crowd cheered while many of the women started feeling ill. The axe seemed to have a will of its own, slicing off parts of the pirate's body while all anyone could do was watch in horror for if they tried to look away, something compelled them to keep their eyes to the scaffold. Finally, the axe descended, and Killian Jones' head was severed from his body but by that time he was already wishing for death.
"DG, what have you done?" Az whispered, glancing up at her sister but DG seemed as confused as everyone else.
"I wanted justice but that….that….was horrible," one of the women moaned.
Suddenly a mob of people ran to the scaffold and began dipping cloths into the blood, smearing it on their faces and clothing and some even tried to steal parts of the corpse until they were blasted back by DG.
"That is enough!" she bellowed. "All of you…GO HOME. And I would like an explanation, sir!" she demanded of Exner once the crowds began to disperse.
"I…I don't know, Your Highness. It was as if the axe had a will of its own."
"Like it was enchanted. Let's see it, dearie," Rumple ordered. Exner held the bloodstained weapon out to the sorcerer. Rumple waved his hand over it, faint traces of an enchantment spell lingering over it.
"So, what was it?" Archie asked him.
"An enchantment, one I believe you may be familiar with Dorothy," Rumple said, scowling at his cousin. "Was it your intention to hack him up the same way Nick was, dearie?"
"I didn't do it!" DG cried.
"This is his axe. You know it is."
"Rumple, that's not possible. Nick Chopper's axe was a woodcutter's axe," Archie disputed.
"Watch." Rumple waved his hand over the axe again and it changed into a woodcutter's axe. "Someone switched Exner's axe with this one and enchanted it with the same spell Nessarose cast over Nick's axe."
"It wasn't me," DG said firmly.
"And it wasn't me." Az quickly turned her head while Hook's remains were being loaded onto a cart. "But whoever it was had a spell over me that was dampening my magic…and yours too," she said to Rumple and Archie.
"Did you try to stop it DG or did you just sit there and watch?"
"Glitch…I swear to you I was so horrified I couldn't move!"
"Come inside my angel. We need to talk about this," Lavinia informed her daughter.
DG bit her lip and fought back her tears. She was innocent but who would believe her?
Once they were in the council room Rumple set the axe on the table and began casting a locator spell. Seconds later it vanished.
"Dammit!"
"Now you know it wasn't me!"
"Then there's only one other person it could've been. Wyatt," Rumple said gravely. "Hook deserved to die but this….this was a warning. To us. Wyatt's losing his humanity and darkening his heart." Rumple removed his own heart. "See all the darkness in mine? Belle keeps my darkness in check, but darkness unchecked in a Dark One vessel is more terrifying than you can possibly imagine."
"Mother, all this royal protocol will have to wait. I have to stop him," DG informed her mother before she teleported out.
"And we must return to Storybrooke. Cora is still there chipping away at Regina and we will need her because my father's people will be trying to snatch Henry any time now." Rumple took a travel storm token out of his jacket pocket and teleported himself, Belle, Az and Archie into an open field where he tossed the coin.
Storybrooke, Maine
Nine days prior to the Final Eclipse
A couple stood outside the town line, the woman holding a device in her hand. She held it out and there were several beeps before a set of tunnels appeared.
"This is it. The one we've been looking for. The original," she proclaimed. "You'd better call it in."
The man took a cellphone out of his pocket and dialed a number.
"We've located it…the source."
Neverland
"You know what to do. Find the stone and activate it then bring me the boy," Pan commanded. He disconnected the call and gazed over at the hourglass. Three more days. How quickly time had gone by. He'd been in Neverland for centuries but now he was living on borrowed time. He only had three more days to take the heart that would ensure his survival.
Storybrooke
Greg Mendel got into the car alone and started the engine, his fingers caressing the only item he had left to remember his father by. Kurt Flynn was still trapped in that damned town and he was going to get him out before it turned back into the forest that had been their sanctuary until that bitch who called herself the Evil Queen stole it from them. He rolled down the window and smiled at his companion.
"I'll meet you at the abandoned cannery at midnight Tamara," he said. She leaned down and kissed him.
"We're finally getting your revenge Greg. This town's gonna be nothing but forest when we're done with it and it'll take the others down with it."
"We do nothing until I get my father out. That bitch Regina has him hidden somewhere in there and I'm gonna find him!" He floored the gas pedal and sped down the road, zipping around an emerald green Fiat.
"There's no passing you bloody bastard!" Zelena yelled, beeping her horn.
"Wonder what he's in such a hurry for," Bae mused from the backseat. "What the hell…Zee look out!" he yelled as the front of the Fiat slammed into the back of the Ford Taurus that had passed her earlier, now parked in the middle of the road.