FIDGET, BATRISHAN PRINCE OF DARKNESS

How The Bat Got To Storybrooke

1998, Hopkins, Minnesota, in the Land Without Magic

Fidget kept hiding in the canopy of one of the oak trees surrounding the lake in that shabby town known as Hopkins, Minnesota, and keeping his binoculars on the daughter of Maleficent as she managed to break into one of the empty rental houses with the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming.

More than a decade ago, just after he returned from his trip to get his eternal invincibility from Dracula (who had lately been building a monster hotel in a hidden area where his cave used to be), his Batrishan ears overheard the scared human citizens from almost every area in the Enchanted Forest, saying that the Evil Queen was planning to cast a dark curse that would expel everyone into a Land Without Magic where they would lose their old identities and memories and lose their happiness.

This was a problem for Fidget. He couldn't outrun a curse even if he teleported himself or tried to fly as fast as he could, which would be stupid. He couldn't get himself a magic bean to get himself out because they were scarce nor could he go to Neverland because of his bad experiences there. Evidently, he wasn't going to let the curse of Cora's daughter make him forget his revenge, so he had to find another solution.

Fortunately, the Apprentice who had given him the information concerning the Elixir of Nine Lives was sadly willing to give Fidget a ticket out of the Enchanted Forest and into the Land Without Magic, if in exchange, he kept an eye on the daughter of Maleficent, whom the Apprentice knew would be forced into the foreign world. Fidget swore on the River Styx to keep an eye on the child until it got its own offspring and was led by the old man to the kingdom of Andalasia, where the local king Edward and Queen Nancy gladly showed him the way towards their castle's magical well, which led straight to a man hole in New York City.

The Batrishan had been shocked to see such a city. Unlike those in the Enchanted Forest, almost everything was made of stone and metal, used advanced methods of living called technology, and much to Fidget's initial frustration, had no magic. Thankfully, Queen Nancy had given him the address of somebody she knew from New York: her ex-fiancé Robert Phillips, his daughter Morgan, and the girl's stepmother actually native from Andalasia, Giselle. The kind woman and her husband let Fidget stay in their apartment until the Batrishan managed to finally adapt to the world of technology and discover, thanks to Giselle, that despite the name, the Land Without Magic did have magic, but you need to look a little more carefully. He spent two years in their home until he finally decided it was time for him to resume his promise to the Apprentice.

Which was a good thing for Mr. Phillips because he didn't like how his daughter was batting her eyes at the immortal not-exactly-seventeen humanoid bat who managed to ignore her moves on him.

Fidget then spent the next years spying on the daughter of Maleficent, named Lily Page by her foster parents. He morphed from simple bat forms at night to common people from night to day to observe Lily as he promised. She grew, from his perspective, into a brat who didn't seem to appreciate that some people bothered to adopt her when the odds seemed against her. This only reminded him of his own foster parents adopting him and his heart ached even more for their losses.

And now here he was, spying from a tree on the girl who had just run away from home due to some 'sappy tantrum of her parents not understanding her' while she was breaking into a rental house with the child destined to bring an end to the Dark Curse. Talk about ironic.

Fidget hopped off the tree, landing hard on his peg leg.

"Sir, what were you doing on that tree?" A passing park ranger asked him. Back in the Enchanted Forest, peasants would have run away at the sight of him, but here, due to the bare amount of magic this world had, normal humans couldn't see supernatural things as they were. So to the park ranger, Fidget looked just like an ordinary brown-haired American dressed in cargo pants, a black sweater, brown hiking boots, and a fitting backpack.

"I'm sorry," Fidget said in his best apologetic tone. "I'm a big fan of bird-watching and I couldn't resist climbing on one of those trees to get a better view of the flying birds. Personally, I find it fascinating whenever they fly above water."

"Glad to see you enjoy nature's fliers," the park ranger said in a serious, but smiling tone. "But unfortunately climbing trees are unauthorized here because they are part of the rental houses sector. I won't charge you this time because my late grandmother used to love bird-watching as well."

"Understood." Fidget put his binoculars in his bag and waved at the ranger before seemingly making his way out of the park and towards a nearby telephone booth. After inserting some coins in there, he dialed a certain number.

"Mr. Page?" He asked. "Hi, I wanted to inform you that I just saw a teenager resembling your daughter Lilith breaking inside a rental house nearby..."

More years later

"Push, Lily! Push!"

Lily's father instantly brought her home, separating her from her now hurt friend Emma, and grounded her for months. While his wife was busy trying to talk to Lily about how much they were worried about her, Mr. Page was outside the front porch and giving Fidget the reward money.

"We can't thank you enough for locating our daughter," he said. "I still don't understand why she would run off like that when we try to make her as happy as possible."

"Foster children should be grateful that they have parents who bother taking care of them," Fidget said stiffly as he put his new five hundred dollars in his wallet. "I know from personal experience."

"You came from the system?" Mr. Page guessed.

"No, I was left behind. My foster parents adopted me when they found me outside in the rain. They were the best things that ever happened to me...Sadly, they are dead now."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Well, thank you again." The two shook hands and went their separate ways; Fidget going back to his hiding hole in order to keep spying while Mr. Page went back to scolding Lily.

Eventually, a year after that event, Lily got kicked out for good by them and was on the run again, only this time causing her old friend Emma some trouble that cost the latter both her foster family and any possible way of trusting anyone else. The Batrishan pitied them but didn't intervene for he could care less about their teenage issues. His job, in order to keep his promise to the Apprentice and get his ticket towards the codfish, was to keep an eye on Maleficent's daughter until she got her own offspring.

Finally, now that Lily was in her eighteen years, she had met a human named Raoul and the two had a romantic relationship, which led to the reason why Fidget was now hiding in an air vent at a hospital in Las Vegas and spying on Lily giving birth.

"Push, Lily! Push!" The young woman kept screaming until they ended at the sound of another scream: the scream of a newborn infant. Lily and Raoul cuddled together with their new baby daughter, making the Batrishan smile. Not because the scene was touching, but because he had completed his part of the deal.

Storybrooke, after the events of THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA and before those in A BAT IN STORYBROOKE

"Talk about uncomfortable," Fidget muttered as he stretched himself. "But disguising myself as a speck of dust in that pathetic monster hotel was worth it."

In exchange for guarding an eye on Maleficent's daughter, the Apprentice had given him a foreshadowing tip on how to reach the place where he'd find the codfish. After some researching, he found the American Bigfoot, an underground monster going to the still hidden Hotel Transylvania, and followed the creature overseas until they arrived at Hotel Transylvania, Dracula's new living area, where Fidget hid in the shadows in the appearance of a normal bat. Then, as predicted, the codfish and his new love interest where opening a time traveling portal to go back home, which gave Fidget the opportunity to disguise himself as a speck of dust that stuck on the pirate's jacket and traveled with them to the future, where he floated himself away from them and morphed back into his usual self.

"Now to get my revenge on the codfish." He walked towards one of the hills until he got a good view of the entire town of Storybrooke at night. The town seemed so peaceful, unaware of the presence of a new enemy. The moon shone on him as he picked up the scent of his foe.

"There won't be anymore escaping this time, codfish," he growled as his fist tightened and his fanged teeth gritted. "This time, I will kill you for good. I swear, codfish, you will die in my hands. In the hands of Fidget the Bat."

Back to the apocalyptic future with Vjero and Zadnji

"Poor ancestor," Zadnji said sadly as his father finished the tale. "And poor Killian. Their friendship would never last."

"Indeed." Vjero helped his son get up as they prepared to leave the shrine. "But some people just can't control fate. As much as our ancestor did have goodness in him, the powers from above led him to a dark path..."

"And everything that happened in Storybrooke because of him." Zadnji looked up at the statue of Fidget the Bat. "I hope you can finally find peace, great ancestor," he told the statue genuinely.

A small wind came through the windows, making the two Batrishans shiver. For Vjero, it was one of those cold nose-giving flaws of nature, but for Zadnji, it was almost as if he could feel a ghostly presence shielding him from the cold and warming him in an invisible embrace.

"We'd better get going." Vjero led Zadnji out of the shrine and the two took of into the skies to go back, unaware that just behind them, the ghost of Fidget the Bat was standing at the doorway, nodding approvingly at his descendants flying off before going back inside his shrine and closing the door behind him.

THE END