The Dark Backward
Chapter Two
Once Emma walked inside the apartment she shared with her parents and sometimes her son who also often stayed with his adopted mother as well, David and Mary Margaret turned to face her as she walked past them towards the stairs leading up to her bed within the loft without saying a word. Mary Margaret wanted to say something to her… to say to her something that would help their daughter to forgive them, but David understood a little easier how much Emma needed space and time to allow for their past sin to sink in. So, he laid his hand gently on his wife's shoulder to stop her from trying to talk to Emma again and the Savior continued up to her room while they finally focused on Neal again so they could put him to bed for the night.
Henry had returned to Regina's for the night, so when she climbed the last step, she was alone again and she was grateful she was. Emma sat down on her bed and pulled off her coat she had been wearing most of the night while they were searching the woods, then she leaned down so she could pull off her boots she was also wearing. She stood up again, pulled off her jeans and blouse until she was wearing nothing but her bra and underwear, walked over to her dresser to take out a pair of shorts and a t-shirt she could wear to bed, then pulled them on before she sat down on her bed again, reached out to turn off the light of her lamp on her nightstand, and laid down with the back of her head on her pillow.
Emma stared up at the ceiling hoping that sleep would eventually fall over her despite the sounds and lights coming up from the main room below her. She listened while her parents talked quietly between themselves, except she could hardly make out most of what they were saying. Honestly, she didn't want to hear what they were talking about. She wanted nothing to do with them even though she knew how irrational she was being towards them. She just didn't care.
She hadn't been laying down long before her phone beeped to indicate she had received a message, so she quickly sat up as she reached over to her nightstand again to pick up her phone and then she laid back once more while she opened the message to read it, finding a text from Henry, who was asking her if she was okay. Emma smiled, then immediately she texted him back to let him know she was fine and that he needn't worry about her.
A few more messages were sent back and forth between them before she finally said good night to her son, but before she could set it back down on her nightstand, another message came through and this time she saw it was from Killian. She smiled upon seeing his name light up on her screen. However, when she opened the message, Emma quickly sat up once again while she read it with dread. The Savior tossed her phone onto her bed and immediately pulled her pants and boots back on, grabbed her phone and coat again, then she ran back downstairs towards the door to leave until her father suddenly reached out to grab her arm to stop her.
"Emma… what is it?" he asked while he did so, as she glanced between him and her mother again. "What's wrong?"
"Killian's in trouble," she curtly responded and swiftly yanked her arm away to free herself. "I just got a message coming from his phone, but it wasn't from him. It's from Maleficent. She has him and she wants me to come out to meet her."
David took her phone to read the message when she showed it to them, as he read aloud for his wife to hear, "I have your pirate, Savior. If you wish for him to remain alive and unharmed, come to talk with me alone down in the caves where you slayed me in my dragon form some time ago. Hook and I will be waiting for you."
After David finished, Mary Margaret looked at her daughter again while she said fearfully, "Emma, you can't go. She's luring you into a trap."
The Savior glared at her as she answered, "I don't care if it's a trap. I can take care of myself. And besides, Maleficent can't hurt me, anymore than Zelena could before. I'm the Savior, remember? So long as I have my powers, I'm perfectly safe. Killian isn't."
"Then I'm coming with you," her father adamantly replied when he started towards the coat rack by the door to grab his own jacket again.
"No… I'm going alone," Emma retorted. "That's what she wants. Besides, I can't trust you right now. Don't follow me."
With that said, she rushed out the door and slammed it behind her, then Mary Margaret walked over to where she had tossed her own phone onto her bed as well and started to text a message while she stated worryingly, "I'm texting Regina so she can meet her down in the caves instead. She may not be able to be killed by dark magic, but she can still be killed. Emma may not trust us to look after her right now, but I won't let her confront Maleficent alone with that sorceress being determined to seek revenge against all of us because of what we did to her."
After a few minutes, David turned back to his wife again after he finished helping Neal fall asleep inside his crib and asked, "Did she answer you yet?"
The Princess shook her head worryingly as she responded, "She's not. It's not like her not to answer her phone unless she's angry with us and as far as I know, she's not. David, we have to go after her."
"I'll go," he answered her, as he quickly pulled on his jacket, then kissed his wife before he went to the door to leave. "Stay here with Neal and try not to worry. I'll get a few people to back me up. She's going to be fine, Mary Margaret. So will I."
"I hope so," Mary Margaret whispered fearfully to herself once her husband left to go after their daughter despite Emma wishes for them not to.
A few minutes later…
Emma walked inside the town library and quickly entered the elevator which descended down into the vast caves beneath the streets and the woods surrounding Storybrooke. She had no idea what to expect from Maleficent. She only hoped the sorceress had kept true to her word that she wouldn't hurt Killian.
Once the elevator finally stopped at the bottom of the shaft, the Savior cautiously stepped out into the wide open cavern where she had fought Maleficent in her dragon form nearly two years ago. Strangely enough, with all that's happened with the number of villains the heroes have fought against and the people they have saved, Emma almost couldn't believe it's only been just under two years since then.
However, her mind wasn't really focused on the time that has passed, but solely on Killian and her doing whatever it took to get him back from this villainess, who she soon found to be wearing her all black gown and horns that stayed true to her character from the Disney movie based on hers and Princess Aurora's fairytale characters she remembered seeing a long time ago when she was a little girl, when Maleficent stood before the Savior as she approached her.
The sorceress spoke first saying, "I knew kidnapping your boyfriend would be the fastest way I could get you to come to me alone."
Emma kept her eyes on the villainess while she asked darkly, "Where's Hook? I want to see him. You better not have hurt him."
"I told you I wouldn't hurt the pirate so long as you kept your own word and it appears that you have," Maleficent coolly replied, then she turned her head to look behind her and waved her hand to make Killian appear among them as well, as Emma saw he was unconscious while he laid on his side against the rocky ground and bound by leather straps with his arms tied behind his back. "Don't worry… he's perfectly unharmed as I promised. He's just asleep until my spell wears off, which shouldn't be long now."
"Okay," the Savior responded, then turned back to Maleficent once again when she was satisfied enough upon seeing Killian apparently unharmed like she said. "So… what do you want from me? Your text mentioned you just wanted to talk?"
The other woman nodded and then answered, "I did. I wanted to know if your parents ever told you about a particularly dark encounter between them and me thirty years ago before Regina's dark curse swept over us? Did they ever tell you why I hate them so much and why the revenge I seek is on them?"
Emma remained before the villain while she calmly, yet coldly replied, "They did actually. Just tonight in fact. You being brought back to life again and you putting all of us asleep under your sleeping spell today really backed them into a corner. They knew it would come out eventually, so they told me before I found out from you instead… like I would have right now had they not told me. It didn't make it any less difficult to hear though. Is that what you wanted? For me to turn against them? I may be angry with them and I may not trust them any longer, but that doesn't mean you've succeeded in turning my heart dark like you, Gold, and Cruella want either. I'm perfectly in control of whatever darkness might reside within my heart."
"Because you still have people here like Hook and your son who care about you and who are doing everything to help protect your heart," Maleficent responded quietly. "I realize that Gold's plan isn't going to work as he hoped it would. You are strong, Savior. And I admire that in you."
"For what it's worth, Maleficent… I am sorry for what my parents did to you and to your child," Emma said again out of remorse that the sorceress could tell was sincere. "It was wrong and…"
However, the villainess abruptly cut her off as she interrupted angrily, "It's because of you my daughter was stolen from me! That all I feel is the pain of losing her! All these years, I believed she was dead because of what Snow White and Prince Charming did to me, and until Gold showed me through magic my child was a girl, I never even knew what I had when she was born all those years ago. Thirty years! You have no idea how it feels to only feel that kind of pain. And neither do your parents. At least not with the pain of believing their child to be dead."
All of a sudden, Maleficent knew talking wasn't all she wanted from the Savior in that moment any longer, and so her eyes darkened as she summoned the magic of the purple crystal atop of her staff while she continued, "I did bring you down here so we could talk, Emma. But seeing as you already know the truth, then this talk is pointless. It's time your mother and father feel the kind of pain I felt."
Emma raised her hands in front of her to defend herself against whatever dark magic the sorceress was about to fire at her by her own power. However, as soon as Maleficent fired the ball of light at her, the Savior was suddenly shoved backwards hard against the cold, rocky ground. Only her head didn't strike the ground, as she had been protected by the hand of the person who protected her. And when she weakly opened her eyes once her breath from being barreled into came back to her while she turned her eyes to see who was now lying completely still on top of her, the Savior was terrified to discover it was Killian. Especially knowing the dark magic had stuck him instead.
"No!" Emma screamed out in fear as she struggled to pull him off of her, then carefully laid him down against the ground beneath him while Maleficent remained standing nearby with a look of surprise on her face by the pirate's sacrifice. "Killian! Killian, wake up! No… please!"
"It appears that your pirate is rather resourceful when the woman he loves is placed in harm's way," the sorceress stated when she turned her head to look behind her again and found the leather straps she had bound him with were cut through and left lying where Hook had been moments earlier, then she turned back to the woman weeping over him now. "How very brave of him. It's hard to imagine he was once every bit the villain I am. Now Hook is just weak and pathetic. Which is why there's nothing you can do for him now, Savior. I'm afraid he's dead. My magic would have only rendered you to a death like state which would have made your parents believe I had succeeded in killing you, until it was eventually discovered you were still very much alive and trapped within the darkness of the back of your own mind. My magic isn't powerful enough to kill you because of what you are, but him… Hook had no magic to protect him. That's why it killed him. I wish I could kill you, but then perhaps this really is better after all. You once killed me and your parents tried to kill my daughter. It's only fair I make you all suffer and his death is only the beginning. I can't kill you, but your brother…"
Emma held Killian's body in her arms with tears streaming down her cheeks while the villainess ranted, until the Savior couldn't take her threat made against her brother and her parents on top of losing the man she had yet to be able to admit she loved out loud. She carefully laid him back down on the ground and stood again on her feet as she turned to face Maleficent again before she could finish, with anger and a darkness in her eyes the villainess never thought she would see in the eyes of the Savior. A darkness which shook her to her core.
Emma then answered angrily, "I won't let you hurt anyone else I love ever again. If destroying you means I lose myself and stop being the Savior, then so be it."
"You villains wanted to darken my heart… Congratulations," she added darkly as Maleficent summoned her power through the palms of her hands, then the Savior summoned her own magic to fight her. "It looks like you've succeeded."
Before either woman thought about the consequences of their actions, Maleficent released her power against Emma, while the Savior unleashed her own against the sorceress too and their magic clashed together between them as they struggled to strengthen their power until one of them was at last struck down.
Neither of them noticed the Dark One hidden amongst the shadows behind one of the boulders while he watched on with fascination at the outcome of their confrontation, until he raised a magic wand and suddenly summoned its own power to use against theirs. Within only a matter of seconds, the three powers ignited together and burst causing a portal to somewhere unknown to open up too close to Emma and Maleficent, as they were both forced through it along with Hook's body.
"Emma!" David suddenly shouted out in fear upon seeing them being pulled into the open portal once the elevator made its way down into the cave while he, Tinker Bell, and Leroy all rushed out too late to save her and Hook, as Gold immediately vanished again before the others found him there.
