Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.
Answer to Chapter 36 Question: Frank on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
PART II
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
HAIL CAESAR
They found the Merlin's Apprentice in his mansion. This was after they stopped by the library to retrieve Belle who was in the middle of a knock-down-drag-out girl fight with Ruby over having been left chained up in the Library all night over a year ago, something for which Belle apparently held a deep and simmering grudge.
But, it seemed, both held more animosity toward Snow and Regina than against each other and so a tag-team grudge match was on between the bookworm and werewolf and princess and sorceress until Emma pulled the fire alarm and Elsa turned the sprinkler spray into painfully ice hail.
It didn't help that Anna and Kristoff showed up and started fighting with David over the shady secret business the two peasants had been involved in at some point a few years plus a Dark Curse ago that may or may not have involved a kitten smuggling ring for a troll poker den. And Belle over the whole her leaving Anna to die thing... though Emma wasn't quite clear on how the details of that were different since Belle swore she'd never been to Arendelle. Possibly, it was the Sorcerer's Apprentice impersonating Belle to try and maintain some fucked-up timeline to achieve his end, but whatever the case, Anna nearly impaled Belle with her own stripper heal before David pulled her off.
And then Tinkerbell wandered out of the Dark Star with a bunch of looted beef jerky, punched Regina in the tits and told Hook his guyliner was smudged and he looked like a drown racoon which made him cry.
But they were all more angry at the Apprentice than each other, so with pitchforks and torches that Regina had conjured, they bashed in his fancy door and caught the old geezer just as he was about to make a run for it through his wardrobe.
"Oh, no you don't, you old creep!" shouted Regina throwing him into his empty bookcase. "Was this part of your plan all along? Did you leave all of your magical shit out so that crazy woman would find it and screw up breaking the Dark One's Dark Curse? Did you trap that stupid writer in your book so we'd unleash him instead of just killing the asshole who was clearly a homicidal psychopath, which would have been the obvious thing for a villain to do unless he had some shady ulterior motive like wanting the Underworld unleashed on us all? Are you working for the Devil?"
"And she means the real Devil," interjected Emma, "not that gas-stove-haired douche with a classic car and expensive suit fetish."
The Apprentice shrugged. "I guess you'll never know, you pricks!" he laughed and then zapped himself with his dildo wand.
Emma took his pulse and swore, "Goddamn it, he's dead!"
"I didn't know you could Avada Kedavra yourself," mused Henry.
"That's not a real spell for killing people," said Belle.
"Isn't it a play on 'Abracadabra', a derivation of Aramaic words meaning 'to create'?" asked David, which got a weird look from everyone. "What? I read Harry Potter. I had too! I woke up from a coma and everyone was talking about it!"
"In other words," scoffed Regina, "Mary Margaret gave it to you as part of your book club and you read them so you'd be able to answer her book club questions which would be rewarded with sex."
"Well... yes..."
"David!" cried Snow.
"I was cursed!"
"Actually," interjected Belle, "the magic word 'Abracadabra' is not originally from an Aramaic phrase that means 'I create as I speak' because even if it could come from the root which means 'to direct', given the context, it cannot possibly be a verb. If it was a noun, it would have to mean 'plunder or booty'-"
"Works for me!" said Hook with a grin.
"But if it were the verb 'to speak'," continued Belle, "it would also have to be Hebrew, rather than Aramaic. Which means it really is a myth, one of several competing Aramaic etymologies for the phrase that actually arose in the late 1800's and is more likely from third century Greek and Latin, but some lazy 'authority' was simply looking for a combination that works and settled on Aramaic. Which means that J.K. Rowling's attempt to seem witty by turning a creation spell into a destruction spell is really just poorly researched bullshit."
"Um... that's great to know," said Henry.
"Nerd," said Ruby through a cough.
"Bitch," Belle coughed back.
"Sluts," added Regina, earning glares.
Belle threatened while holding a letter opener, "Don't make me shank you! You held me prisoner for years, never apologized, turned me into that slut, never apologized, and then took my heart to take Rumple's heart just to be a stuck-up bitch while Emma was away!"
"Oh, well, I'm sorry," snarked Regina, "that we have to go over this again, like you haven't been bitching about it since the Library!"
"Regina does have a point," said Snow. "It's getting old."
"You're getting old," Belle countered. "Who's the fairest in the land now? Not you, you washed up has-been in your granny panties with a massive ass who actually thinks that frozen yogurt you're consuming by the gallons is fat free! But then you clearly lack common sense when you assigned the man who physically assaulted me on multiple occations and tried to murder me with a gun to protect me and basically threatened me to not protest about it for my own good just to please your real slut of a daughter!"
"It wasn't to please our slut daughter!" huffed Snow. "We were in a hurry. And Hook had changed."
"Yeeeeeeeeah, not really," said Hook. "If it had been to my benefit, I'd have betrayed you and thrown you in a woodchipper. Ordinarily, I'd say also soil youfor your husband, but I don't like fatties."
"I AM NOT FAT!"
"You are a little bit," said David.
"I JUST HAD A BABY! DO YOU THINK WOMEN'S BODIES JUST IMMEDIATELY RECOVER!"
"Oh, spare me," scoffed Regina. "You put on thirty pounds of Zelena's bullshit health foods in the last two weeks of your pregnancy. You are fat and dumb, honey."
"Yes, well, you have a big ass too!"
"Point proven," snorted Regina, smacking her enviable ass. She then scowled in annoyance. "Where is that damned archer to drool over my perfect ass!"
"I thought you didn't want him anymore?" asked Emma.
"I don't! But I want him crying in his cookie dough over what he can't have! Damn it!"
"Hey, uh," interjected Henry, "can we get back to the dead wizard? I mean, how do we know he's not just in some magically induced opossum state and just waiting for us to leave?"
"Oh, right, he could be only mostly dead," Neal snarked. "How about we all go to the Underworld to save him. I mean, he's clearly such a nice guy for all the lying to us and using us, and trying to leave us for dead. Hmm, who does that remind anyone of? Oh riiiiight," he glared at Hook, then turned to Henry. "Got any catchy operation names to further insult me? How about 'Operation Tallahassee' or 'Operation My Dad Is a Loser So Let's Save This Douchebag Instead'?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Henry snapped.
"I'm talking about Emma being right that you're a crappy son! You never honored my memory. You didn't give a shit about my things, about knowing who I was. And you just caved like bitchy little wuss and made friends with that asshole who ruined my life!"
"That never happened!"
"IN ANOTHER LIFE IT DID, AND I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN THAT YOU REPLACED ME WITH A FAKE REFORMED HOMICIDAL RAPIST!"
As father and son glared at each other, Hook stabbed the wizard in the shoulder with his sword. "Nope. Not faking it. So... we can rule out the Underworld bit, yeah?"
"Just to be sure..." David stabbed him with his sword. "Yeah, definitely dead."
"David!?" Snow huffed.
"What? He's dead. You said I like to stab things. Maybe I do!"
"Let me try! I never get to stab anyone!" said Belle.
"Stop hogging the dead guy!" snapped Emma with her pocket knife.
"This is for fucking true love!" declared Neal, stabbing the dead wizard right through the heart with a fire poker.
A few minutes and a lot of blood later, Ruby sniffed and inquired, "Does anyone else smell gas?"
"Yes, actually," nodded Regina. "It's quite strong. But where is it coming from?"
Tinkerbell suddenly ran into the room and exclaimed, "The kitchen! I pulled the line on the stove and lit all the candles in the fancy-ass ballroom! Wildcard, bitches! Yeeeeehaaaaw!"
Everyone looked at Tinkerbell like she was insane and then Emma and Regina magically poofed everyone outside just before a massive fireball erupted behind them, lighting Storybrooke's night sky and shooting up fireworks from the various burning magical potions.
"YOU NEED SERIOUS HELP!" Regina growled at the ex-fairy.
"I know, that's what Archie tells me."
"YOU DESTROYED OUR WAY HOME!' shouted Anna, trying to strangle the ex-fairy and then bursting into tears when Kristoff pulled her off.
"You have serious emotional issues, honey."
"I know," sniffed Anna. "It comes from being the less physically attractive sibling of a monarch. I channel my insecurity and jealousy into illogical quests to gain justice for other people I know nothing about to curb any innate royal sibling drive to murder my sister and take over the kingdom. It's why I trusted Ingrid. Elsa, I'm so sorry about that! And the whole thing with the maid!"
"It's okay, Anna," Elsa assured her.
"That's really a thing?" asked Kristoff. "I mean, the sibling thing not the lesbian thing."
"Oh, it's a thing," nodded Regina.
"Yeah, definitely a thing," agreed David. "Though it's more nurture than nature. We all blame our parents, step parents, or fake parents that we had to pretend were ours to keep from being executed."
Kristoff frowned. "Man, I liked you better when you were an easy-going kitten smuggler."
"That is so wrong, David!" exclaimed Snow. "Kittens are adorable!"
"And trolls are less likely to attack innocent villagers when they are tired from gambling all night and full from eating adorable kittens," he countered.
"That is true," nodded Regina.
"Aye," said Hook. "During my recent highway robber days, I stole from some trolls after an all night kitten poker bender. Smee was even able to draw penises on their faces they were so docile from their kitten gluttony."
"Can we please stop talking about eating kittens - and anything to do with Hook and penises?" groaned Henry.
"Can we get back to us getting home," reminded Elsa. "If the wardrobe is destroyed, then what are our options? Because as grateful as I am to you, Emma, for freeing me and helping me reunite with my sister and defeating our aunt, I really don't want to spend any longer in your company than I have to. You people are not especially likable, to be honest."
"Now you know how I feel!" scoffed Tinkerbell. "But don't worry, there's a new portal doohikie every couple of weeks around here."
"True," said everyone with a nod.
"Seriously," amended Belle, "it's almost to the point of absurdity. I mean, Rumple went through centuries of trouble to augment a demonic ball of energy to transport us all here because of some bullshit the Blue Fairy told him, we get here, and suddenly a unicorn queef could open a portal."
"It's the thinning of the membrane between worlds due to the Dark Curse," imparted Neal. "Every time it has been cast, the soft spots get softer resulting in the creation of new or manifestation of presumed extinct portals. At some point, the actual forming of enough new portals began to cause cracks in that barrier which has caused the laws of magic to start going wonky, and if enough cracks form before they can before they can be patched, the worlds will attempt to merge and one will be completely obliterated from existence."
"Of course! That makes complete sense!" nodded Belle. "But how to patch the cracks. And, of course, send Elsa and Anna home without worsening the issue..."
"Nerds," coughed Regina.
"Nerds are the people who'll save the world, you know," scoffed Belle. "Not wizards or queens. Henry should be proud that he inherited intellect instead of magic, as it seems the two are entirely incompatible without one self-destructing the other."
"It does kind of seem that way," sighed Emma.
"I suppose," grumbled Regina.
That's when they realized the violent urges had abated into their usual daily animosity and dysfunctionality which was more public humiliation based than homicidal, and they all blinked confused by their strange clothes and bloody weapons.
Really, they should have noticed the blood and wardrobe change earlier, but it was pretty dark out and other than Belle and Henry, none of them were going to win Mensa awards.
"Wait... did we just repeatedly gang stab a dead wizard?" asked Snow.
"Pretty much, yeah," said Ruby. "Well, I mauled him a little while you were stabbing."
"To be fair," considered Neal, "he was probably a demon minion of Satan."
"Right. Obviously. So we did the universe a great service by ensuring he hadn't enough blood or intact body parts left to regenerate as demons are want to do," agreed Hook.
"Yes, exactly," nodded Snow. "It was very heroic of us."
"Extremely," said Belle. "I only wish Rumple had been here to join in the demon disemboweling. He would have enjoyed it so much."
"Right... so... we're never going to discuss this, right?" said David.
"Yeah, definitely not," groaned Emma. "Well, other than in therapy. I think we all need therapy."
"Poor Archie," lamented Ruby. "Who's he going to go to for therapy?"
"Well, that's assuming Geppetto didn't kill him for murdering his parents," reminded Belle.
"True. Would we be so lucky that Archie threw August into a woodchipper?" asked Henry.
Emma and Neal gave Henry a slightly perturbed look and the teen shrugged and defended, "What? August is an asshole! And he's not even real. Plus, he stole my lunch money and flushed my homework down the toilet at school twice. And before that, he had a stash of naked pictures of Emma in his typewriter box!"
Emma crossed her arms. "Oh, I won't need a violence-inducing curse to throw his ass in a woodchipper!"
"Right, throw the puppet in some sort of mulching machine," nodded Hook. "I can get into that. But can we get ice cream first? Last chance before we send the crazy bitch home!"
And so, with Ingrid tied up and unconscious in the walk-in freezer, the still mobile and with only minor cuts and bruises people of Storybrooke and three interlopers from Arendelle raided Any Given Sundae.
"I wonder if Olaf is okay?" mused Anna as she dug into a pint of Butterscotch.
"Who's Olaf?" asked Emma.
"Oh, this snowman that was brought to life when Elsa's magic went crazy!"
"Er..."
"I'm sure he's fine," lied Hook. "Probably laying on a beach back in our land."
"He's a snowman, he can't-"
Just then Snow gasped, "Oh, ice cream headache!" and then slumped over, hitting her head on the table on her way to the floor.
"It's like her head is a hard object magnet or something," said Kristoff.
"I guess we should call 9-1-1," sighed Regina, "and hope the paramedics didn't lobotomize each other."
"Couldn't we just magically poof her to the hospital?" asked David.
"When do we ever do that when someone is injured? You know how Whale feels about people being poofed in the ER. Besides, I'm not paying those paramedics to sit around on their asses all day!"
"Whatever," shrugged Henry, "but I'm taking my ice cream with me."
"Damn right!" said Hook, trying to initiate a fist bump which got a glare from Henry.
"My wife is bleeding out of her ear on the floor and you people are concerned about ice cream?" huffed David.
"What? She's Snow White. She's like... literarily incapable of not being okay," said Henry.
"Yeah, well," Emma mumbled, uncomfortable, "the literary thing might be changing..."
AN: Nothing good ever comes of post-success parties with this group! Belle's bit about Aramaic is from /2014/01/29/abracadabra-is-not-aramaic/ and I have no idea if it's correct or not. "Wildcard, bitches! Yeeeeehaaaaw!" is Charlie's line from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia "The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis" after he cuts the brakes on the rape van crammed with trashcans of gasoline. (If Tink is the Wildcard, then Hook is the Looks, Belle is the Brains. David is the Muscle, and I suppose Snow is the Useless Chick? Or maybe that would be Robin who has yet to show up for some reason!)
Next up: What's wrong with Snow White?