Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.
Note to Mir: I completely forgot to award you credit for getting the answer to 42 in Chapter 37/22. It is the answer to everything... but more than just the Hitchhiker's Guide, it was also a reference to Fox Mulder's apartment number (which was itself an homage to HG), since I had used to X-Files references and dialogue in this story. It would have been more fitting if it had been in Chapter 42, but oh well!
PART II
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AUTHORS SUCK
(12 hours back in time from Camelot due to the offset frequencies of the two worlds or some similar bullshit...)
While Emma was chatting with Merlin under a light dusting of snow in a field of frozen fuck flowers, Storybrooke was in the midst of a "Code Frozen", a blizzard that had come up like a monster nor'easter shortly after the residents had grumbled their way home from the town hall.
"Code Frozen" wasn't actually a thing, just something Snow White made up in her last emergency alert broadcast before the power went out again.
A quasi-Red Cross-like shelter had been set up at the Convent by the nuns to provide magically-conjured heat and hot food for those who couldn't fend for themselves - like the Merry Men and other latecomers to Storybrooke who'd never integrated into the town of limited housing options for unemployed persons with no money, education, or job skills relevant to this who lacked the looks and charismatic bullshit skills to mooch off of gullible First Cursers.
Belle had taken it upon herself to help with the distribution of food and blankets and reading to the young children who were frightened by the howling wind and branches scratching against the stained glass windows.
Of course, Rumple had refused to join her, and she'd not really argued, knowing the Blue Fairy would not want her still land lord there and spend the entirety of the magical snow storm making that snooty 'bad smell' expression and insulting Rumple... as she had been doing to poor Tinkerbell who'd brought meals from Granny's and ended up stuck there when the storm started howling.
Belle just hoped that Rumple was keeping warm and heating up the soup she'd made. She knew the bad weather was making his leg ache more than usual.
"Please, please! I already told you everything I know!" August W. Booth howled in agony as his dildo-like nose blistered in the cracking fire.
"LIAR!"
"He's dangerous!"
"So is knowledge," Rumplestiltskin hissed. "And you have used it more than once to ruin the lives of others for your selfish gains. You hurt my son."
"I'm sorry!" August wailed. "It wasn't my fault! I was conned by the Darlings! I really thought I was helping Emma and your son!"
His nose sprouted another inch and he whimpered, throwing a desperate look at his other captor. "Please... please tell him to let me go! Help me!"
"Like you told the cops to let my mom go because you set her up?" scoffed Henry. "Like you helped her not be able to keep me by taking her twenty grand? Or how about you helped me with Operation Cobra - but all you really were doing was using me as a pawn so you could trick my grandfather into fixing your petrified condition that you earned by being a lying, stealing, no-good manwhore!? At least as a piece of firewood you're actually useful!"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" August gave one last cry of agony before passing out, the chair to which he was bound toppling sideways to the floor, his dildo-like nose black and smoking.
"Douche," remarked Henry with a roll of his eyes, to which Rumplestiltskin smiled.
"You have quite an aptitude for this, Henry. I'm sure your mothers and father would be quite appalled, of course..."
The teen shrugged. "Eh, I've got a bit of evil DNA. Might as well embrace it and channel it for good rather than fight it and end up having a mental breakdown and going full psycho like my mom... or repressing it and ending up a basketcase like my other mom."
"Indeed," agreed Rumple and he poked Booth with his cane. "He was poorly written anyway. Now, we just have to turn the key..."
"You really think that's a good idea?"
"I think we cannot count on your parents and that diseased pirate to free Merlin and dispatch of the Darkness before I have no choice but to attempt using the hat on myself. And if that fails, then this ice witch will be the least of this town's problems. Or... she'll become an even bigger problem if the Dark One chooses her."
They had hoped to be able to use a crystal ball to keep tabs on the "away party", but once they were captured and taken into Camelot, Excalibur's dark magic prevented any magic from accessing it. Well, perhaps the Dagger might have been able to penetrate it, but someone had bait-and-switched his own bait-and-switch. Rumple wasn't sure if she should be impressed by his son's sneakiness or insulted at his lack of faith. Regardless, it was in another world, so they were left to come up with contingency plans. And even though Henry had reminded him that Emma and Snow had succeeded against his odds that other time in the Enchanted Forest, that was also when Emma wasn't a dark-hearted hoe tainted by pirate stink and Snow was with her and helpful instead of being this down's dumbshit mayor who just kept making things worse.
No, he had no little faith in Emma Swan, none in the pirate, and to be honest, after his son got conned by a talking candlestick... well... Rumple just couldn't count on anyone else to have the brains to save his life and theirs.
The best thing they could do was work on Plan B... or was it now Plan C? Regardless, using The Author's magical world-altering ability was a last ditch manner of containing the Dark One, at least temporarily, by writing a different story that transferred and imprisoned the Darkness in someone who was not being killed by it yet. Of course, attempting to use any magic to alter the Dark One wouldn't hold forever, and, presumably, neither Henry nor Emma would be affected by the "fanfiction" as Henry called it, so they would buy time to find a more permanent way to settle that score.
Really, this was a necessary contingency plan given the terrible track record of magic-related planning for all of those involved in the quest for the unHoly Grail.
Together Grandfather and Grandson moved to the cabin's small table where a sheet of paper with a door drawn on it sat beside a small key. Henry had found both in the glovebox of the Bug, stuffed in between a stack of roadmaps. His parents really sucked at hiding things.
Taking a deep breath, Henry inserted the key into the lock. There was a golden glow...
And then a weasely-looking man was standing opposite them. He appeared shocked, then afraid, then made a run for the door and pulled it open - only to run face-first into four feet of snow.
"Damn it!" cursed Isaac.
"Sit," said Rumple, using magic to force The Author into the other chair. "We may require your services in the near future."
"What makes you think I'd help you, Dark One?" scoffed Isaac.
"You're greedy and arrogant and looking for revenge against your former employer. To achieve that, you need a book of a certain parchment, a particular quill, and special ink, all of which only I can provide. All you have to do is, if it comes to it, write a story in which I defeated the Dark One with Excalibur and all is well. You can even write it, for the most part, however you like."
"Why would you give me that leeway?"
"Because the alternative is the Dark One is unleashed when I soon expire and it destroys everyone and everything. That or the attempt to retrieve Excalibur fails and even worse, that insane king you helped unleashes The Underworld on our town.
"I'm sure everyone here would rather have a fraudulent happy ending than a massacre."
"Fine," agreed Isaac. "You have a deal. Can I at least get something to eat?"
"How about," a new voice offered and they all turned to find Ingrid standing just inside the now cleared snow drift, "some ice cream?"
Before any of the men could react, a blast of ice shards flew toward them like bullets. Rumple had only a split second to use his magic to stop the ice daggers from impaling himself and Henry - and that split second, the Snow Queen vanished with The Author.
Henry and Rumple exchanged a look and a groan of, "Oh, farts."
On the floor, August regained consciousness and whimpered, "I think I need medical attention."
"Oh, shut up and put some ice on it!" snapped the Dark One.
AN: Nothing good can come of this!
Next up: One step forward, two steps back in the Enchanted Forest.