A BAT IN STORYBROOKE:
Chapter 22
From Anubis' perspective
While the Batrishan and the pirate were too focused in their sword duel, Anubis went back to tracking down the origin source of the demon army. He finally arrived, panting like a dog, at the location, where masses of demons could be seen flying out of the Jolly Roger.
He planned to frame the pirate, thought the god as he jumped aboard the ship. Two demons charged at him and he disintegrated them instantly. He was in a rush: he had to destroy the artifact that unleashed this hellish nightmare and find his little girl. He knew he couldn't live by himself if he failed to save and protect her, as he had sworn he would when he saw her come out of Marion's womb eight-years-ago.
Among all the chaos that the demons were causing, flying in twirls around the ship's mast, Anubis noticed that the demons were coming out in packs from the pirate's cabin. The door was broken as if somebody had tried breaking his way both in and out. The god frantically clawed and disintegrated his way through the demonic mob; he grunted in pain as his godly healing powers soothed the scratches that the demons gave him with their claws.
He fell onto the cabin's wooden floor and yelled in pain; even immortals could experience physical pain. He struggled to lift his head up until he saw what he was looking for: a glass vial lying on the floor with demons crowding their way out of it as if they were spilling their way out of Hell and not out of some villain's bottle. And they said back in 40 BC that nothing could be compared to Pandora opening the infamous box.
This seemed too easy for the god. He reached towards the vial and smashed his hand down on it, crushing the glass in the process. The demons froze after Anubis' action and wailed in agony as magic pulled them towards one another until they formed a giant ball of ooze. The creatures gathered in numbers and got thinner in size. They looked like a thousand Gollums melting into ooze.
Sensing the danger that was about to happen, Anubis turned into a jackal and ran his way out of the cabin just as an explosion of translucent light occurred, finally killing the demons.
Anubis should have felt relieved, but he couldn't. Such a blast of magic would at least cause a fire in the cabin or the ship to break apart. So why did nothing happen?
He turned back into his human form and took a step back until a black circle of flames, similar to the one the Batrishan had created earlier, appeared around his feet.
"HE HAD A PLAN B!" Anubis realized in horror as the wooden circle he was standing on fell apart, causing the god to crash down the main deck and hatch and into the waters of the Harbor.
Which was a problem, since he couldn't swim.
From Rumplestiltskin's perspective
While the Batrishan and the pirate were too focused in their sword duel, Rumplestiltskin was frantically banging on the hourglass. He had to get his wife and their unborn child out of there before the tar filled the entire bottom half of the hourglass, suffocating them and Emma.
"Emma! Can't you use your magic to break yourself free from this quick, tar-full death?" Rumple exclaimed as he continued banging.
"I'm trying!" Emma tried to summon magic from her hands, but every time a spark of light magic appeared, it flickered like a birthday candle being blown away. "Fitzgerald must have placed a spell that nullifies magic other than his when he put us in this hourglass!"
"We have to find a way out!" Belle cried. "The tar is increasing in level!" She was right: the tar was now reaching the bottom of the women's waists. "Rumple, do something!"
"Belle…BELLE!" Rumple cried out as he banged one more time with his left fist to no avail. He hunched in near defeat, clinging on to his cane with his right hand.
HIS CANE!
Despite the possibility of him collapsing from his crippled foot, he grabbed the shaft of his cane with both of his hands and began swinging it back and forth, hitting the hourglass with the cane's handle as if he were hitting a piñata full of candy rather than rescuing his wife, their unborn child, and the Savior.
BANG! A small crack was beginning to appear.
"You can do it, Rumple!" Belle smiled encouragingly. "You can do it…for our child!"
BANG! The crack was getting slightly bigger.
"Hurry! We're not going to take much longer!" Emma struggled to paddle in the bath of tar that had now reached the top of their stomachs.
BANG! Now the crack was half Rumple's size.
Killian and the Batrishan were still swordfighting, but so many swings and lashes made it clear that the Batrishan had the upper hand and was now preparing to slice Killian's throat.
BANG! The crack had now expanded throughout the entire bottom half of the hourglass.
Anubis reached towards the vial and smashed his hand down on it, crushing the glass in the process.
BANG!
The last cane strike crushed the glass, releasing a flood of tar and freeing Belle and Emma.
From Killian's perspective
While Anubis ran towards the origin source of the demons and Rumplestiltskin was frantically banging on the hourglass, Killian and Fitzgerald were too focused on their sword duel.
They had started of with an absence of blade and glared at each other in silence.
"It's time," Fitzgerald said. "En garde!"
The Batrishan flicked his sword towards Killian's stomach; the latter managed to block his attack just barely, for this caused him quite an unbalancement. Fidget swung his peg leg at the pirate's legs, causing him to fall on the ground. He then managed to dodge the Batrishan's attempt at striking him on the skull and aimed his sword at Fidget, who managed to block it without a blink.
"Will you ever stop wiggling your way out of death?!" Fidget demanded angrily among every sword swing they gave to one another.
"What about you?" Killian answered back. "Haven't you fled death for centuries." He aimed his sword at Fidget, but the Batrishan hit him on the stomach using his head like a bull, sending the pirate to crash onto a bench.
"I had my reasons! You ruined my life!" Fidget swung his sword at Killian, who barely managed to dodge the attack: he got a cut on his arm that caused him to groan in pain and the ground got a large crack from where the tip of the blade touched it. "Betrayed my trust! Impaled my nation's princess, my true love, and my fatherly general! Burned my country down to ashes! You took away everything I had!"
"You only believed what you saw!" Killian aimed his sword at Fidget. "Why couldn't you at least try to listen to me? Why did you only let your anger and hatred take over you?"
Fidget glared angrily at Killian, officially losing it. "You want to know why? FINE!"
The Batrishan swung the handle of his sword, making a twister of blades that knocked Killian's sword out of the latter's hand, and pushed the pirate down to the ground, threatening the human throat with the silvery blade.
"I've lost too many people," Fidget said, his voice darkening and breaking painfully at the same time. "A god annihilated my people; I never got to know my own biological parents. The malaria took my adoptive mother and she was the person I loved the most before I entered the Aldoradian army when I was ten. I've lost childhood comrades on the battlefield while I came out victoriously. I've lost respect due to my appearance, my status as the last Batrishan, and people thinking that I was a monster. When we met back in Aldorada during that royal reception, I felt happiness that I haven't had before: I found myself a friend who ignored my bat-like differences and respected me for my inner self. I believed that it would be an everlasting friendship…but then you had to go and kill Isabella and Hernan while I had my back turned during that cursed expedition!"
Fidget prepared to slice off Killian's head until the sound of breaking glass caught his attention.