Emma felt as if every cell in her body was being ripped apart and just when she thought she couldn't take the pain anymore, it ceased abruptly and the air around her went still. She opened her eyes and there in the middle of the swirling waters stood the man she had risked everything to bring to this world.
He blinked and looked around his surroundings before his eyes alighted on the woman standing a few feet away with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. He quickly took stock of the situation and concluded that this woman, whoever she was had every reason to feel proud of herself. He could feel the power and arrogance rolling off of her but he couldn't quite put his finger on the source of her power. He subtly reached out to feel out her magic. It wasn't like his of course which made her feat all the more surprising, for a mere mortal. It was tinged with something dark enough that would have raised hell even in his world and yet the most shocking thing was he could sense a lightness about it, a lightness that was so familiar to him that it almost severed him at the knees to feel it again. How was it possible both magic were contained within this slip of a girl?
He narrowed his eyes at her. "So what is it you want with me Dark One?"
"You know who I am?"
He snorted in amusement. So arrogant and yet so naïve. "You have no idea what you've done little lassie. Tearing open the boundary between the living and the dead? That takes some major ego." He paused, "And something else. I know the dark power isn't anywhere near enough to accomplish this."
She smirked. "No it wouldn't." But she wasn't about to enlighten him further. With a quick flick of her hands she threw out a force of magic to knock him off his feet.
He let out a growl of surprise at the unprovoked attack and quickly responded in kind.
They were both locked in a battle with each of their powers holding the other in a metaphorical chokehold when Emma heard his voice.
"Papa?"
They both froze. Emma whipped her head around to see Killian and Merlin here in the vault. That quick lost of concentration was enough for her to get knocked back forcefully into the wall behind her. Before he could take further advantage of her getting distracted, Killian held up his hand at the man as if he had any magic and yelled "Stop!"
Shockingly he halted and slowly turned towards Hook. She saw him take a couple of quick shallow breaths and furrowed her brows in confusion. He seemed almost nervous but why?
"Killian" he breathed quietly in wonder.
And then it hit Emma, Killian had shouted the word "papa." No. No it couldn't be. She must've misheard but sure enough their eyes seemed to be locked on one another.
"Killian" he repeated and reached out with his hand. That gesture seemed to shake Hook out of his thoughts and he took a step back, shaking his head in rejection.
Hook turned towards Merlin, "What the bloody hell is going on?"
Merlin sighed. What a colossal mess.
"Can't say it's nice you to see you again Hades."
"Well well well, if it isn't Merlin the obedient little slave of Olympus. How are you, you son of a bitch?"
Killian sucked in a harsh breath. Hades? Did he hear that correctly? Merlin addressing his father, as Hades? As in Hades, the God of the Underworld Hades? No no no. Not possible. No way in hell…..
Hades looked back at his son, drinking in every little detail about him. It had been several lifetimes since he last saw his little boy. He gave a quick frown at the hook in place of a hand. Who had dared hurt his son? Oh they were going to pay a thousand fold for that. Now that the Dark One had lifted the veil between the worlds, he was finally free to roam this realm again. This time the self-righteous bastards on Olympus wouldn't be able to band together to punish him again for breaking the rules.
"Hades is Killian's father?" Emma whispered in shock. She pivoted towards Merlin in deep anger. "You! You knew all along. Why didn't you tell me?" She reached out with her magic to strike out at him.
Merlin transported himself away quickly, appearing again behind Hook. He figured with these two, behind Hook was just about the only safe place left on this realm. "Now Emma, I did warn you. I told you to leave things alone. I told you that there were things beyond your control, even with your powers. You chose to ignore my warnings."
"You know exactly why I couldn't do what you wanted me to!"
"What the bloody hell is going on?" Hook repeated in a shout. Emma, his father, Merlin, it was almost too much for him to take in.
"Killian" Hades said lovingly stepping towards his son but he stopped when Killian took a step back.
Merlin touched Hook's shoulder in comfort. "Yes your father is Hades, God of the Underworld. I'll leave him to tell you the story" he continued nodding towards Hades.
"Oh no, you can tell the story" Hades sneered at Merlin "You can tell my son how the ones you unfailingly served, tore my wife and son away from me. You can tell him how they consigned me to hell and my son to this world" he spat out angrily. He looked over at Killian. "My son" he breathed. "Three centuries of waiting, that was my punishment but that time is now up. I've come for you, Killian. We can go home now."
"No!" Emma yelled. Ok so the daddy thing threw her off but that didn't change her goal. She didn't come this far just to lose him, father or not.
Hook plopped down onto a bench, the load of information coming at him was too much. For years he had lived with the deep-seeded scar of having been abandoned by his father. A no good man who left him at sea. But now? He shook his head as if that action could clear his thoughts.
Merlin slipped in beside him, eyeing the other two occupants of the vault with wary. This whole thing was so volatile, one wrong move could push them to blow up the realms.
"You see Killian, this all starts with you." He addressed Hades, "Tell him about his mother."
"Don't you dare breath a word of her!" Hades boomed out.
He looked up at this man, or god? and stared right into his eyes. "Then you tell me about mother."
Hades narrowed his eyes and seemed to make a quick decision. He zapped up his throne and plopped down on it, across from his kid. "Your mother" he said softly and his whole demeanor also seemed to soften. "Your mother was the most beautiful soul created. I took one look at her and knew I had to have her." He closed his eyes as he let the memories wash over him. In a bitter tone, "But that pure soul of hers wouldn't allow her to cross over into my world, not by the River Styx. So I found another path. And why couldn't I? It was my world after all."
Killian waited for his father to continue. He barely remembered his mother. She had died when he was just a baby but he always carried an image of her around in his heart. He knew what she looked like because the one thing his father had given him was a painting of her.
Merlin picked up the story, sensing that Hades didn't want to continue. "Your parents broke three laws. Hades took a living soul that didn't belong to him, into the Underworld. Your mother abandoned her duty." He turned slightly towards the man beside him. "And you, you were born in the Underworld and that was the biggest affront to the other Gods. Giving life in the land of the dead? It was an abomination."
At that the vault shook and became engulfed in flames as Hades acted out in fury. "You dare call my son an abomination?" he yelled.
Trying to absorb all of that, Killian picked out the one thing that screamed at him, "My mother abandoned her duty?" he asked his father.
Hades made a conscious effort to control his rage and put out his flames. He would take care of Merlin later but for now his son was his priority.
"She didn't abandon anything! She just wanted a life with us. She never asked to be the Savior."
At that word both Killian and Emma froze in horror. Emma up until that point had been listening passively while she tried to reconfigure her plans.
They locked eyes on one another.
Merlin gave a small smile. Fate sure had a wicked sense of humor. "Yes Killian, your mother was the Savior. For as long as humans have existed, so too have light and dark. Good and evil. The two need each other for balance. When your mother departed for the Underworld, she took the light from the realms. The darkness grew in strength and power and was threatening everything in its path. The Gods on Olympus had to band together and interfere." He glanced over at Hades. "They took her soul to be the light of the realms on Mount Olympus while they waited for another to be created. Hades was banned from Olympus henceforth and constrained to the Underworld."
He checked on Hook to see how this man, correction demi-god was handling the information dump. "You, born of the waters of hell belonged there too, never to be able to walk this earth. But as punishment for your parents' sins, they cursed you and your father to be separated for however long it took for another Savior to be born."
As an aside he added, "That time is just about up."
Hades smiled to himself at that. "We no longer need to wait my son." He glanced back at the Dark One, "She sped things up a bit by freeing me so for that I thank you." He flexed his wrists in anticipation, "Just let me take care of her and we can be on our way home."
Hook jumped to his feet at the threat but before he could say something himself, Merlin interrupted.
"Hook, you might want to tell your father that the woman he plans on burning to nothingness is your wife."
Hades stopped his stream of magic, mid-air. It was almost comical what came next. "What did you say?"
Hook slid around his father to stand in front of Emma and crossed his arms over his chest belligerently. "She's my wife" he confirmed.
Hades lowered his hands.
Merlin continued, "You might also want to inform your father that Emma bound your soul to hers. Should hers be destroyed, yours would too."
Hades narrowed his eyes at the pair but he addressed his words to Merlin. "That's not possible. No matter how strong her magic is, that isn't possible." He knew because he himself had tried it with Killian's mother. There was no way her magic could equal his and his love's. A god's power and the savior's magic wasn't powerful enough so no way in his hell would hers.
Merlin smirked at that, knowing exactly what Hades was thinking. "No the Dark One's power wouldn't be enough. A savior's power wouldn't either. Nor would a god's" he added salt to injury. He paused in dramatic fashion, "Hook, this might be a good time to tell your father that not only is your wife the Dark One, but she also happens to be the Savior too."
And just like that the pieces of the puzzle snapped into place for Hades. Light and dark, dark and light. Both were represented equally by the two. Killian by his birthright from the God of the Underworld and the Savior. Emma by birthright as the Savior and by choice to be the Dark One.
"Kindred spirits" Hades breathed out shakily. They were one and the same and it was that fact that had overridden all the laws set forth.
Emma peeped over Killian's shoulder, a naughty smirk on her face. Yes this god had underestimated her power. "It's nice to meet you Hades. Or should I call you father?"
Merlin frowned at Emma. Hades was quick to understand the implications of the massive knot of destinies that had been created, but the two that had started down this road were still ignorant. He was quick to correct her assumption that it was her own power that enabled her to do the impossible. "Oh and Emma you might want to tell your husband why you dragged Hades here."
Hades growled at that reminder. "She wanted to usurp my throne!"
Killian turned to face Emma. It seemed the more information he got, the less he knew. His original question remained unanswered and he only had more. Why had Emma succumbed to the darkness and now what did she want with his father?"
Merlin answered for her, "You see Hook, what I told you earlier about the Gift of Sight? Emma thought she knew enough of the future to be able to change it. She knew that she had to be both the Light and Dark to change your future. The future that told her you were destined for the Underworld. It wasn't her power alone however that made that happen."
Finally both Emma and Killian understood. "Kindred spirits" they both said to each other simultaneously as their foreheads came together in pain. Killian closed his eyes in anguish as the implications of what Emma had done and what his heritage was, slammed into his body.
Merlin was loath to interrupt the touching moment between the two but there was still an urgent matter to be taken care of and the one piece of information he was missing. "What I don't know, however is why you brought Hades here and why you tore apart the veil between the living world and the dead, Emma?"
Emma took a small step away from Killian and addressed both Hades and Merlin. "Because you told me yourself that the future couldn't be changed. So I had to be the one to dictate what happens in the future. I could do that as ruler of the Underworld that now encompasses this realm" she finished quietly. That outrageous plan of hers now couldn't come to fruition obviously given the fact that she could no longer battle Hades. It was a risk to take on a god she knew but she was going to try it. Now however, she couldn't very well fight Killian's dad.
Hades stared at her in amazement. Yep he was right in his first assessment. So arrogant and yet so naïve. Closing the boundary now wouldn't appease his family on Mount Olympus. That much he knew. He had thought to sacrifice her as payment rendered for laws broken and it would've been enough, for she was the lone one who acted against them. But now? He looked at his son and Emma clutching each others' hands and sighed.
Addressing both of them, "Well then my dears, I hope you're ready to take on my brothers and sisters."