Town Border, Storybrooke, Maine, 8:30am
Grumpy finished spraypainting the line, then looked up. "This, gentlemen," he began, "is our mission. The great barrier of our existence. Does it remain? We must investigate the line." He shook the can for emphasis. "I made straws. Short one crosses; draw."
Happy drew first. "With the curse broken, we can cross, right? Should be no problem, yeah?"
Sleepy took second. "With magic back, it could be even worse now."
"Like vaporize us." Doc added as he picked.
"Let's go home." Bashful suggested, well, bashfully.
"Guys!" Grumpy shouted. "We are the royal guard! Dwarves loyal to Snow White! This is our chance to prove ourselves to the prince. We must do this. Show your hands."
It was Sneezy. Poor guy sneezed twice as Grumpy broke the news. "You're up, Snotty."
Grumpy brought him forward, right to the orange paint line, ready to make him walk across.
"Stop!" a loud voice shouted, over the roaring of a Cummins VTA-903T eight-cylinder diesel engine. A long line of Bradley fighting vehicles drove forward, followed by Humvees and armoured personnel carriers. Blackhawk helicopters patrolled overhead as the line was established.
"What are you doing?" Grumpy demanded. The soldier's boots stopped right at the orange line.
"This town is under military quarantine by orders of Governor LePage." The soldier replied abruptly. The APCs were disgorging soldiers now, and they were running all around, setting up a line around the perimeter of town.
"What? Why?" Doc asked suddenly as a murmur went through their group.
"Sir, please return to town right now." The soldier ignored.
"No!" Grumpy retorted. "Why are you quarantining us?"
"Sir, return to town." The soldier repeated, more forcefully, standing up to Grumpy.
"Why don't you tell us…?" He didn't get to finish, because the soldier shoved him back.
"Return to town." The soldier enforced as three more joined him.
"Fine." Grumpy replied, getting to his feet. "Fine; we'll go to town. But you can't keep us in here forever, soldier boy!"
Main Street, Storybrooke, Maine, 8:30am
The town was, frankly, totaled. Cars were flipped, power lines were down and there was a line of smoking craters on Main Street where some of the Apache's rockets had missed their target the night before. A towtruck barely managed to maneuver around the rubble, although Hickory's Bradley cleared it with ease.
He drove right up to Town Hall, where a half-assed refugee effort had begun. A "missing persons" board was set up outside, and little red riding hood was apparently in charge of the whole thing.
"If you are looking for a family member come to the front table!" She ordered as she distributed blankets to the people. "If you need counseling, Mr. Hopper has a signup sheet. If the Wraith damaged your house, there are cots at the school."
"This is getting out of hand," Mother Superior noted, taking a few blankets.
"You think?" Hickory quipped, dismounting his vehicle. He breathed heavily as he walked towards them. "This is a piece of shit. We did better in Iraq with half of this."
Red looked offended. "Well then be my guest. Take over, general! Do your best!"
"With pleasure." he replied, brushing past Red, already barking orders. "Alright, move that fire engine back down the street! Plug it into the hydrant; we're gonna need the water! First Sergeant, call in the Medevac vehicle, there's a lot of injured people here!"
"He sure seems to know what he's doing." Superior noted, smiling as the Sergeant Major did in two minutes what Red had spent the better part of an hour trying to accomplish.
"You! Yeah you!" Hickory pointed to a man rushing inside from his pickup truck. "Go fill up those barrels in your flatbed with gasoline; we're gonna need it for the generators!"
Charming came running up suddenly, asking "Have you seen Blue? Mother Superior?"
"No, but everyone's looking for you!" Henry replied.
"Do we know where Rump-er, Mr. Gold, is?" Red asked.
"Wait, does the Queen still have powers?"
"I thought I would find my boy! Are the lists complete?" an old man announced very upset.
"They've gotta be planning something!" Henry continued as Charming walked forward.
"Hey let me ask you something; are nuns still nuns, or can they, you know, date?"
"Hold it! Hold on a minute!" Hickory bellowed. "One at a time! We're not tracking a Mr. Gold, we don't know if she still has powers, the lists are coming together now and I'm not even gonna answer that last one! Now everyone calmdown!"
"Blue!" Charming went up to Mother Superior. "Could there be a tree on this side? The way we sent Emma through as a baby; maybe I could go after them that way."
"It's possible," Blue replied, sighing, "but without fairy dust to guide us, no, it's hopeless."
Henry spoke up. "You'll find another way. In the book, things always look worse right before there's good news!"
"TERRIBLE NEWS!" Grumpy shouted, running forward with the rest of the dwarves. "Terrible news! The military's blockading the town!"
"What?" Charming demanded.
"They came in with tanks and bazookas; shoved us back!"
Everyone started shouting amongst themselves, confused and panicked and just really afraid. It was dissolving into chaos before Hickory fired a single shot from his Colt .45 into the air.
"Now everyone listen to me and listen real good!" he bellowed. "CALM! DOWN! Nothing is going to get solved if we fall into chaos like this! Now, I'm taking Mr. Nolan here with me; we'll be back in two hours with a plan of action! Until then, just stay calm, First Sergeant Reilly is in charge!"
David Nolan's Apartment, Storybrooke, Maine, 9:00am
"People of Storybrooke, I know we're trapped again, and things look bleak, but they're not." Charming put his hands on his head in frustration.
"May I just say, sir," Hickory began, "with the full backing of my authority as a Sergeant Major in the National Guard of the United States, that sucked balls."
"I know." Charming replied, exasperated. "Back home I did the fighting; Snow did the talking."
"So you weren't making that up then?"
"What?"
"The fairy tale bullshit."
"No, we weren't making that up. Didn't we make that kind of clear?"
"The sane part of my brain was still hoping you were nuts."
Charming smiled, walking over to the table. From a knapsack he withdrew the tattered top hat that represented the last thing he had in connection with Snow, Emma and to a much lesser extent Patton.
"What's that?" Hickory asked.
Charming sighed. "Regina used it to open up a portal back to the Enchanted Forest. Problem is, the Enchanted Forest doesn't exist anymore, so when they went through, they went to… nothing."
"Can I see that?" Henry asked. Charming smoothly slid it over to his grandson. "I think I know what this is!" he replied excitedly.
"What?"
In reply, Henry withdrew a big book of fairy tales from his backpack. "It's the Madhatter's hat! It's a portal between worlds."
"Madhatter?"
"You've heard of him?"
"No. Er, I mean, yes. I mean, I don't know him, but David had memories of reading "Alice in Wonderland" in school." He sighed. "I need to get it to work again. Who is he? I mean, is he here?"
"You realize your placing the entirety of your trust in a nine year old, right?" Hickory joked.
"Hey! He hasn't steered us wrong so far, okay? I know you don't know him like I do, but you don't know him like I do. Alright?"
Hickory just shrugged.
"I don't know." Henry replied, answering Charming's earlier question. "Maybe he'll check in at the crisis center. You could check after the thing."
"What thing?"
"The meeting. Where you tell us all your plan; remember, the speech you were doing?"
Charming grabbed the tattered hat and then his coat. "Right." He walked out, followed by Hickory. "I'll be back for that."
"Gramps, come on!" Henry protested, following them out. "You've gotta use me! The curse was broken because of me! Let me help!" His grandfather was already going outside. "Or not."
Mr. Gold's Shop, Storybrooke, Maine, 10:00am
Charming and Hickory burst into the shop, a ringing bell heralding their arrival.
"It appears when I bought that closed sign I was just throwing my money away." Gold noted, turning to face them.
"Looks like it." Charming replied.
"Sorry to hear about your wife and daughter." Gold apologized. "If you're looking for a retrieval, I'm afraid portal-jumping is just outside my purview."
"Of course it is." Charming replied.
"Bullshit." Hickory muttered in a whisper as he stood guard by the door.
"So what's the commotion outside?" Gold continued,
"A little stir at the border. Can't cross the line."
"Do tell?"
"Actually, I'm here to buy something. A way to find someone."
"What, like a map?"
"Something with a bit more kick, like the ring you gave me to find Snow."
"Ah, magic." Charming smiled at the notion. "Whom are you following?"
"Not telling."
"So do you have something of theirs, this 'missing person?'"
"Yes."
"May I see it?"
The reply was abrupt. "No." Hickory chuckled in the corner. Gold laughed too, turning to the counter, grabbing a vial of light blue liquid.
"Pour this on the object, and then follow it. So simple, even David Nolan could do it."
"What do you want?" Charming demanded.
"Peace. Leave me alone."
Charming smiled again, nodding in thought. "What do you care what David Nolan does?"
"No, no, it's Charming I worry about. I'd like a little… noninterference guarantee."
"Fine. If, you give me the same." He paused. "You and I, we stay out of each other's way."
Gold offered the bottle up. "Thank-you for your business."
Charming walked away, and Hickory started out.
"So what happens, when you try and cross the border?" Gold asked.
"You get riddled with bullets." Charming replied simply. "They've got us quarantined."
Town Hall, Storybrooke, Maine, 10:45am
Red was desperately trying to calm the crowds. "Everyone just please calm down! I'm sure he's going to be here any second!" Her grandmother walked by with a crossbow in hand. "Again with the crossbow, Granny?"
"Regina could be here any minute, Ruby! Of course I need it!"
Red sighed and ran up to Henry as he desperately tried to call his grandfather. "He's not picking up!"
"Keep trying!"
At that, Charming and the Sergeant Major burst through the doors, carrying another man through with them, followed by four more soldiers.
"I know," Charming began, "that we've been through a lot in the past few days. But we can pull through. We will pull through. We have with us the best Maine has to offer helping us to keep town safe. We have reason to believe we can get back to the Enchanted Forest now." At that, a hopeful murmur went through the crowd. "We shouldn't be afraid; we should have hope! We're going to get through this! These are good times!"
Then, Regina burst in through the doors, holding a fireball in the palm of her hands. Hickory took aim as she hurled the ball of flame right at him. He dove out of the way right after sending a .45 ACP her way. It hit her square in the shoulder, right where he had aimed for, and the queen collapsed to the ground unconscious as blood gushed from the wound.
"Fireball that." Hickory insulted as he blew a puff of smoke from the barrel. The whole room broke out cheering as Charming went down to take Regina to the clinic, and later to the soldiers waiting outside town.
Shoreline, The Enchanted Forest, 11:00am
Patton had been trying to think of a plan of escape for the past several hours while she, Emma and Snow were pulled along by two women on horseback. Trying the ropes was useless; they were good, and those two women didn't stop for any length of time for her to pick up something to work them. They were good; they had taken all of her weapons; she could see her rifle, service belt and all of her other equipment hanging off the side of the pack horse.
"What is this place?" Snow demanded as the two women surprisingly stopped. Patton quietly bent down to the ground, picking up a small shard of driftwood.
"Our home." One of the riders, and Asian woman, replied simply, riding on. But the damage had been done; Patton was already slowly cutting through the rope.
They were riding towards an island, connected to the mainland via a narrow causeway. There was a small town, with dozens of huts. It actually reminded the Staff Sergeant of some of the villages in Iraq she had fought in. To Snow, it was like a standard village in the Enchanted Forest. To Emma, it was what she had always pictured medieval Europe as looking like.
"It's like they're refugees." Emma noticed, looking around.
"We're survivors." The Asian woman snapped, dismounting her horse.
Snow kicked the other woman down, running and shouting "Emma! Run!"
Patton had sawn through the ropes, and walked stealthily over to the pack horse, throwing on her armor and equipment.
"Screw this." She muttered, just up and jacking the horse and all the valuably equipment on it. The majestic animal galloped away, after Emma. Looking back, their kidnappers had hit Snow with a flail. There wasn't any time to pick her up; they were advancing fast. Patton's body armor was the only thing that saved her from a direct arrow hit to her center mass; Emma was running back to get her.
"Mary Margaret! Mary Margaret!" Emma shouted as Patton's steed thundered by. "What did you do?"
"Take them to the pit." The Asian woman ordered as they surrounded them.
Training had prepared Patton for this; it was called SERE. Survival, evasion, resistance and escape. She hadn't quite escaped yet, and was definitely still close enough to be captured again, so she was skipping to the "resistance" phase pretty quickly, but her allies needed her.
"HOOOOAAAAAAH!" she shouted, riding in fast, gun blazing in short, three-round bursts. She rammed right between their captors and Emma and Snow. Apparently, the locals were terrified of the invisible death that had hit them from this warrior, and started fleeing. Two archers on a rooftop started shooting at her, but she tossed up a grenade before they could hit her. The explosion unintentionally pulverized the building they were in; she had no idea of knowing how weak or strong the construction was (it was incredibly weak.)
Yet, she couldn't keep up that kind of offensive. Her standard days' ammo only consisted of four-hundred bullets, although Hickory had insisted she carry more mags on her when dealing with Regina, so she had more like a thousand on her, a dozen or so grenades plus a single Carl Gustav recoilless rifle with three four shells in her backpack, and she knew from experience that ammo gets used up very quickly in combat. On the other hand, there was a sword and a bow on the horse, too, with a full sheath of arrows. How hard could it be to learn to use that?
Well, there would be a time to worry about that, probably sooner than she would like. Until then, she had a rescue mission to plan…