Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

PART II

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

DEAD FOREST RESIDENTS

"RETREAT!" Robin Hood shouted, giving up trying to hold off the attack and making a run for it.

It all started when they found Aurora and Philip murdered in their gazebo where they'd clearly been dragged after being pulled from their beds and then killed. Everyone had been on high alert, but none of them had really expected that when night fell the mysterious mass murderers would attack!

"WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM!?" Regina yelled right back, trying to create a shield with magic, but an arrow flew right through it, nailing Friar Tuck in the back. "AND WHY THE HELL ISN'T MY MAGIC WORKING!?"

"I don't know!" Robin gasped, "but it would explain why all those wards the compound people claimed to use were worthless."

"And here I was hoping those wards were bullshit! Damn it!" Regina swore as another arrow whizzed past her head and took out a Dwarf. The arrows just kept coming, like an assault riffle version, or an arrow-firing or conjuring spell that she could not counter!

"We have to get out of here! We have to get past whatever wards they've put up! Run faster!"

"I'm running as fast as I can, Regina!"

It was dark and there was that annoying lake fog as they stumbled in the direction of the hospital. The arrows kept coming, slamming into tree trunks like bullets, until finally Regina felt the anti-magic bubble pop and she pulled the energy around her, transporting them to her crypt.

"That was a close," she gasped and turned to find an arrow protruding from Robin's chest, right through his heart. He looked mildly surprised, and then his gaze went blank and he crumpled to the floor.

"NO!" Regina cried. She reached into her ex-lover's chest and pulled out his heart, the clearly magic-imbued arrow piercing the crystalline organ that cracked and shattered in her hand.

"I won't lose you like this! I won't go through this again!" she wept, pulling out her own heart and splitting it. She shoved one half into Robin's chest... but nothing happened

A voice from behind tisked, "Oh, dear, you actually thought that was going to work? Your heart is too blackened, Regina, even for this sad little attempt at true love."

The voice slightly wrong, but the inflections were all there and Regina spun, half heart in her hand to face... Snow White. Snow White dressed in her mother's blue sequined gown.

"It was you!?" Regina gasped, horrified. "Mother-"

"Oh, I'm not Cora, not really," laughed Snow. "She's permanently dead. But let's just say... fascists of her personality were not entirely erased by the good doctor.

"David," she snapped, producing a heart from her pocket.

David obediently emerged from the shadows to stand at her side, "Yes, my love."

"You really never should have gotten the Dark One to summon that mad scientist to revive Daniel," Snow told Regina. "He can't help himself with his experiments. He could have succeeded that night, of course, in a fashion, but Rumplestiltskin wanted him to fail so you'd continue your lessons and cast his spell. Of course, in this world, the resurrection didn't work, not just because magic is different but, well, you actually can't bring back the dead in any world without horrible consequences. Viktor brought back something in Daniel's form, but not Daniel, as you know. Only vestiges of his memory remained enough to recognize you, and conscience enough to be aware that he was in soulless torment.

"I believe Emma knows something about that," Snow mused. "And Whale did find some loopholes, but magic will always find a way around them. Mix magic and science and there's bound to be some success... but also... well... collateral damage."

"You murdered dozens of people!" Regina exclaimed.

"Yes, but they were all bad. Well, mostly bad. Those compound people. That Dwarf who stood in the way of Dreamy and Nova finding true love together..."

"And Friar Tuck? And Robin?"

"Friar Tuck diddled little kids," said Snow. "I came upon him when Robin's men passed through Haven. I dare say, if there was one good thing to you and Robin getting together, it was getting the poor boy away from that monster... but then you dumped him, and I can't disagree, given Locksley is an idiot who is witlessly best friends with a pedophile and in love with his wife's murderer. Now, Roland is free of all of that horror."

"Free? You orphaned a little boy, Snow... or Mother... or whoever the hell you think you are right now!"

"You orphaned many little boys, Regina. But is it such a bad thing when his real family were such awful people? A group of drunk, unemployed, child-diddling idiots? I'm sure someone qualified can adopt him," said Snow. "Maybe Archie. Sure, he accidentally got Geppeto's parents killed, but he was just trying to kill his parents, who were assholes. Just like Snow killed me, because, let's face it, I was a horrible person without my heart. I wasn't the mother you needed me to be."

"And what's your excuse now?" Regina spat. "Apparently, you have both, and you're soulmates or some annoying garbage, who share one metaphysical something or other."

"Well, that's true, we share Cora's mind and her heart," conceded Snow, "but I suppose there are some... incompatibility issues to be worked out since I still have my own heart and David still has his own brain. Overloaded metaphysical circuits, you might say."

"That drove you to mass murder to prove your motherly devotion!?" Regina cried and conjured a fireball. "You are batshit crazy!"

Regina launched the fireball at Snow/Cora who squeezed David's heart and he threw himself in front of the fire.

Swearing, Regina put out his ablaze clothes before he was badly hurt, but that gave her sometimes nemesis time to make a run for it. And David, of course, immediately started trying to knock her out.

"She doesn't want to hurt you!" he rasped. "She just wants you to make the most of your life and not settle for anything less than what makes you truly happy!"

"I DON'T DESERVE TO BE TRULY HAPPY!" Regina shouted and David released her and gave her a cocky smile.

"Took you long enough."

AN: So, Snow White/David is Cora is the mass murderer who just killed Robin Hood and it was all to teach Regina a lesson? Crazy, huh!

Next up: Emma returns to this clusterfuck of a family.