A/N: Thank you so much to all my wonderful reviewers! Real life has been too busy for me to reply to all your lovely comments, but I figured everyone would rather I update today instead of wait for me to finish with that.
Another note – for anyone who is keeping track, I anticipate this story ending around 63 chapters.
Chapter Fifty-Four—"Fate in the Balance"
The massive starburst of magic between Rumplestiltskin and Danns' a'Bhàis continued to glow, growing to engulf the entire area between them, humming with power, rhythmically and ominously. The parade of shifting colors began once more, changing from white to yellow to red to black and finally to a deep royal purple, the color of magic itself, untainted by either darkness or light. This was pure magic. This was power of the sort the world had not seen in over a thousand years. It was huge, terrifying, so bright that it hurt Rumplestiltskin's eyes and so strong that he could feel his body starting to come apart at the seams after only a few moments.
This was going to kill him.
Except it wasn't. The same power that was tearing Rumplestiltskin apart also held him together. Muscles tingled and bones ached, but Rumplestiltskin remained intact. This was what being an original power meant. This was their world's original magic.
A tremor ran through him; his upraised right hand was shaking like he had palsy. But he could not back down; should he falter even slightly, Danns would gain the upper hand immediately. But she was suffering, too. Rumplestiltskin could barely see her through the thick magic between them, but the Black Fairy appeared to be shaking as hard as he was, and her hazel eyes were wide with strain. Yet even as he realized that, the starburst only grew larger as they both struggled, completely eclipsing his opponent and swallowing Rumplestiltskin as well.
The magic burned where it touched his skin, a beautiful, intoxicating agony that no words could describe. But the automatic exhilaration that Rumplestiltskin felt when the wild purple swirls engulfed him was misleading, and his every instinct screamed danger!
"Any time now, dearie!" Rumplestiltskin shouted over the wind howling around them. There was no need to say more. Danns knew what he meant.
They could not keep this up. The world might come apart at the seams before they did.
"Surrender and this will end immediately," she replied haughtily, but Rumplestiltskin could hear the tension in her voice.
His laugh was sharp and just a little strained. "Oh, no. We do this together or not at all."
Belle might have words for him later concerning the wisdom of endangering the entire Enchanted Forest like this, but he knew Danns' a'Bhàis. He knew that she wanted to rule the world, not destroy it. Rumplestiltskin only hoped that she was not too reckless today, that she did not wait too long.
The silence between them grew as the magic fed on them both. Rumplestiltskin could no longer see Belle or the others, although he suspected that plenty of fools had stuck around to watch. Humans were always that foolish, that unpredictable. His vision had whited out, merged with the power surrounding them. Everything else was meaningless.
The ominous hum grew louder. Deeper. Stronger.
Minutes ticked by. Rumplestiltskin thought he could hear worried voices speaking, but they sounded like they were coming from behind glass. Muffled. Indistinct. Unintelligible. Was anyone even there, or had he and Danns already destroyed the world between the two of them?
"Very well," Danns finally replied, her soft voice dangerous.
"A deal, Danns," he cut in forcefully, pushing aside the rising pain to speak firmly. It was necessary. The nature of magic would hold them both to a deal, particularly here and now. And Rumplestiltskin would never trust the woman who had once hurt him so badly; he knew her too well. Danns kept to her deals almost as explicitly as he did, but only if she made them.
The hint of irritation in her voice told Rumplestiltskin that Danns had at least contemplated attempting to hold on for a few seconds longer than he did and turning the power against Rumplestiltskin. Of course she was. You considered the same. Danns finally answered: "Very well. A deal." She did sound hoarse, though, as if the pain was inching in on her, too. "Together."
No verbal cue was required. Both could feel when the moment came. It was like everything snapped into place, that the world suddenly stopped bending and waited to balance back out. Much to Rumplestiltskin's surprise, relinquishing his hold on the magic was hard; he had to forcibly detach himself from it enough to drag the power back inside himself. It protested, sending wild chills racing through his exhausted body, but he wrapped his mental hands around his magic and forced it to obey. A dozen feet away, Rumplestiltskin felt Danns doing the same, and after thirty seconds of struggle against their own out-of-control power, they found success together.
The purple starburst exploded, raining shards of magic down like sparkling ash. It was fairy dust mixed with human magic, almost liquid in form but not quite, burning and freezing all at once. The force of the blast threw Rumplestiltskin, slamming him into the ground on his back as the world spun precariously, threatening to tip off its axis and collapse. Rumplestiltskin hit hard, his head slamming into the grass and stars dancing across his vision. The impact knocked the wind out of him, and for a long moment he could feel no magic at all. Deaf and blind, he grabbed desperately for his throat with both hands, expecting to find a bronze band tight around his neck, cutting him off from magic once more.
His fingers found only skin and his own high collared silk shirt. There was nothing there. Nor on his wrists. The blindness had to be a side effect of all that power, Rumplestiltskin told himself, fighting down his rising panic. Focus! The magic still lingered over them like a dense purple fog, lighter in color now but still hanging in the air.
"Rumple?" a worried voice called, and much to his surprise, it was Regina. She and Emma must have managed to get Belle away, at least a little, and he could feel the Evil Queen's magic tentatively pushing the fog aside.
"Stay back," he warned her, struggling to his feet. His limbs felt leaden, and the old ankle injury ached madly, but the dizziness had receded enough that he could stand. He still felt ready to vomit as the world spun, but at least his vision was slowly clearing, and his hands were beginning to tingle. The hum had become a pounding in his hears. Was that power waiting for release, or his own battered body objecting?
"Are you…" Regina trailed off meaningfully.
"Still alive," Rumplestiltskin answered brusquely, not willing to examine himself enough to provide a more detailed answer. He didn't want to know.
"That's almost a pity," a cultured voice interjected, but Rumplestiltskin could hear how ragged around the edges Danns felt in the lack of smugness as she spoke. Even breathing hurt.
"I did promise to continue disappointing you—Awh!" The cry tore out of him even as Rumplestiltskin tried to taunt his opponent. Power had ripped into him without warning, his senses roaring painfully to life and magic leaping to his fingers once more.
Danns' yelp echoed his, and as Rumplestiltskin swayed, she did, too. For a moment, both were overcome by the sensations, but they both acted anyway.
After all, their battle was far from finished, even if both had learned not to dig so deeply and use such raw power. They would finish this battle like sorcerers, albeit ones with a vast depth of magic at their disposal. Both, however, instinctually understood that there were lines they should never cross. But there was still much they could do, would do, and both attacked immediately.
Rumplestiltskin lashed out, aiming not to end their battle in a single stroke but to look like he was. He knew that ending things quickly was impossible, but laying the groundwork now would pay dividends later, and Rumplestiltskin had always played the long game. So, he cloaked subtlety in a whirl of green power, disguising the dangerously tricky spark inside a glove of metaphorical steel. His blow fell hard enough to make Danns stagger, but the spell underneath that went to work far more quietly—only to be dismantled by a flick of her wrist, driven by a millennia's worth of knowledge and experience. He could to nothing to salvage that, even as he saw her break his spell apart—Danns was faster than he was, and the Black Fairy's spell hit Rumplestiltskin like a hammer, sweeping him off his feet and trying to break every bone in his body.
Landing hard on his knees, Rumplestiltskin sacrificed any attempt to keep his balance for a chance to mitigate the magic tearing painfully through him. A few bones fragmented, a rib or two fractured, but his defenses held the worst of it back. Still, the pressure was so great that it trapped the scream in his chest, and the ground in front of him vanished into a green blanket highlighted blue—
Instinct brought his left hand up, and Rumplestiltskin barely pushed the next attack aside in time. The edges of it still caught him, however, and electricity-like jolts raced across his limbs, making him convulse and finally scream in pain. A third spell came in hard on that one's heels, slamming into Rumplestiltskin and taking away the pain—only to replace it with terrifying numbness. He could feel nothing save fear; his magic raged impotently against the spells holding him and Rumplestiltskin realized with devastating certainty that he could never stand against her. Power he might have inherited, but Danns' a'Bhàis had been fighting off impertinent sorcerers for generations. She knew things about magic that he could never even dream of, and—
Power sizzled up inside him, gentle and pure, reaching out to counter the doubts and the fears, filling his soul with love and light. A long moment passed before Rumplestiltskin realized that it was the remnants of Belle's kiss stealing through his system. He had used that kiss to protect her, but she had used it to protect him, albeit unknowingly. And now it did, wiping away the crippling doubts that Danns' most clever spell instilled in him, giving Rumplestiltskin strength where he lacked his own. You make me stronger. An image of Belle's face flashed before his eyes, and Rumplestiltskin finally understood why True Love was the most powerful magic of all. It could not conquer the spells working him over—he would have to do that himself—but it could fill him and give him a reason to fight.
Focus. His vision cleared, and Rumplestiltskin could see the magic hovering before him, black and silver threads perfectly intertwined. But all magic had a weakness, even flawless spells like these. A simple twist of power came as he flicked his fingers, and Rumplestiltskin focused on the three threads required to collapse the interwoven spells around him, pulling them apart in a flash of light. As suddenly as it had come upon him, the numbness vanished, and his limbs came to life once more as Rumplestiltskin teleported himself to his feet. Power raced through him again, and he smiled at his opponent's surprise.
She had thought to win the fight then and there, he realized, so Rumplestiltskin laughed. A bit of the old imp crept into his expression, and his hands twirled with the old flourish. "Expecting something else, old friend?"
Her eyes narrowed, and the power she threw his way was deadly and vicious, but Rumplestiltskin dismantled that, too, much to Danns' obvious surprise. But he had never been a normal sorcerer. He had spent three centuries studying magic and had overcome the limits of his old curse to become something more. Yes, Danns' a'Bhàis was infinitely more experienced, but she had lived in exile for centuries and he had lived. She had never been pushed to her limits, either, not even by Circe when she'd moved to save her sister, and Rumplestiltskin knew he could exploit that. It might well kill him to do so, but he was fairly certain he could take her down with him.
"What I am expecting is not the issue here," Danns replied imperiously, and Rumplestiltskin saw a thousand and a half years of fae 'superiority' behind her aloof expression. "What matters is that you learn your place."
The last three words sounded like thunder, and darkness swept around the Black Fairy like a cloak as she spoke. His opponent's silver and black dress—did she ever wear anything else?—shimmered in time with her magic, glowing eerily under a steadily darkening sky. Cold wind whipped around Rumplestiltskin as power rose to punish him, but he flicked it aside with one impertinent hand, throwing it back at her and watching the magic hit the Black Fairy with unconcealed satisfaction. Danns stumbled backwards, her impenetrable aura fracturing, and Rumplestiltskin grinned.
"I already know where that is, and it's certainly not as your slave."
"It certainly is not," she retorted as they exchanged another trio of spells. Both hit with at least one, and Rumplestiltskin felt fire racing through his bones as her power tried to eat away at him and his tried to counter it. He dumped an icing spell on her head—one he'd learned a long time ago under questionable circumstances—and watched Danns struggle to shrug it off as she continued angrily: "The mistake was Zoso's. You should never have been the Dark One, and I have no desire to have such a flawed specimen as my servant. You'll die."
"Will I, now?" Rumplestiltskin asked lightly, teleporting away from a spell designed to eviscerate his heart stumbling when a wave of raw power took him right in the chin. But he got her back with the same sort of blow, knocking Danns' legs out from under her. Rumplestiltskin landed on his back even as the Black Fairy crumbled to her knees.
"You're of no further use to me," she panted dismissively.
"I hate to disappoint you, dear, but what's useful to you does not define the world." Teleporting back to his feet—Rumplestiltskin wasn't sure if he could get up the normal way; using magic was so much easier, even if exhaustion was already tugging on him—he continued: "If that were the case, we'd not be so willing to fight you."
"We?" One eyebrow rose, and Rumplestiltskin heard the breathless laughter in Danns' voice. At least she was hurting as much as he was—Rumplestiltskin felt like he'd been run over by a truck, but it was nice to know that he was giving as good as he got. "Do you really think that your so-called allies will stand by you for long? They're humans."
A better man would have been offended by the sneer in that last word; Rumplestiltskin just formed a potent wedge of power and slammed it into his opponent, smiling as it snapped her head back and made blood spurt out of her nose. He managed to block the return blow, too, sloppy though it was, and readied another trio of his own spells. He needed to slip something beneath her defenses, needed a hole card of some sort. Otherwise, this battle was only going to get uglier, and Rumplestiltskin had no idea where it was going to end.
"So am I," he reminded the Black Fairy softly.
"You're an original power," she countered, rolling her eyes as if that made him different. And it did, but he was still as human and as flawed as the rest of them, just as unpredictable and supposedly lowly. The fairies looked down on all of them, and Rumplestiltskin found that made him feel more human rather than less, though he doubted that was Danns' intention at all.
"With the way people like you work, I'd rather lay claim to being human," Rumplestiltskin replied, gathering power to himself once more, not on the previous scale that had gotten them both in such trouble, but he'd need quite a bit for his next trick. "It's no secret that I'm not the type to play hero, so when I feel the need to put myself between you and the rest of humanity, you know you have a problem."
Danns didn't answer; instead, a red whirlwind of power swept rose up out of the ground at Rumplestiltskin's feet, engulfing him before he could so much as blink. This magic was so very dark, sharp edged and vicious, and tore into him without warning. The spell picked him up and spun him around, trapping him inside a fast-moving tornado and spinning him like a drunken top. Vertigo assaulted Rumplestiltskin immediately, and he had a hard time wondering which direction was up after a second or so. Blindly, choking on nausea and the sudden influx of fairy dust, Rumplestiltskin reached for the threads he knew would disassemble the spell, only to find they were red herrings and pulling them only intensified the magic holding him. Spasms were starting to roll through his muscles and he could feel blood dripping out of his nose—pressure built exponentially around him, pressing inwards harder and harder until he could barely breathe.
He tried teleporting free of it, but the magic only slammed him into the ground, the whirlwind still whipping around him but now pinning Rumplestiltskin to the grass. It tracked him when he tried to roll away, then the pressure increased to hold him down. His personal tornado, blood red and wild, was starting to wear a crater in the ground, and Rumplestiltskin wished he could scream in pain. The pressure and pain were too much, and he couldn't concentrate. His chest felt so heavy. This was going to crush him to death, crush him like an ogre might have so long ago, and—
No. You are not the terrified spinner any longer. Think. A supreme effort was required to force his mind to focus, and the dizziness kept creeping in no matter what he did. But Rumplestiltskin finally managed to, somehow, suck a deep breath in, and with that came his power. His shaking hands came up, and he pushed.
The tornado broke open with an earsplitting crack, leaving Rumplestiltskin lying in the crater and panting for air. Everything hurt. Dark magic was prickling under his skin and focusing was next to impossible. He was fairly certain that the tornado had broken some bones when it had slammed him down, but right now, differentiating between the separate pains was hard. What was just an ache and what was broken? If it was his ankle again, Rumplestiltskin wasn't sure how he'd cope with it.
There's no time. Get up. Fight. Worry later.
Dragging himself sluggishly to his knees, Rumplestiltskin grabbed ahold of the lightning storm he'd left hanging earlier. A wave of his left hand sent it sailing towards Danns, and he carefully tucked a second spell—hastily constructed, but no less dangerous—inside the outer edges of the storm. That spell was toxic, sneaky, designed to get inside the Black Fairy and do to her what she'd been doing to him. Rumplestiltskin's version was more subtle than the one that had hit him, and would spread throughout her body before attacking, but the effect would be much the same. So, he watched Danns defeat the lightning storm with interest and a crooked smile, noting that she was a little sluggish, too. This all-out fight was definitely slowing them both down, but Rumplestiltskin was prepared to use his brain when his body wanted to fail. White light flashed blue; the lightning storm died with a rumble, but his other spell was already through her defenses and almost ready.
Rumplestiltskin didn't wait for Danns to notice it. Instead, he teleported once more, though this time not just to his feet. Now he landed with his extended right hand just inches from her back, channeling power straight into her. The Black Fairy's body jerked gratifyingly in pain, but her defenses roared to life and cut his spell off before it could gain much traction. Oops. Yet Rumplestiltskin still smiled, even when Danns' retaliatory burst of power hit in right in the chest and made him stumble backwards. The distraction had worked, and any moment now, his spell was going to come to life.
Then it did.
Danns dropped like a rock, howling in pain. Rumplestiltskin sidestepped the mad burst of power and fury that rolled off her, weathering the edges he couldn't block as his own world tipped on its axis. Yes, he was every bit as injured as she was, now, and his magic was too occupied by the battle to try to fix the damage on its own. But it wouldn't kill him any more than it would kill Danns, which was why he ignored the injuries and readied another quartet of spells. He made to fling them at his opponent, but found her teleporting away even as his hands came up, and Rumplestiltskin's first spell bounced harmlessly off the ground because he couldn't stop it in time.
"Look out!" someone shouted—was that Emma?—even as his instincts howled a warning, and Rumplestiltskin threw himself aside. Usually, he preferred to avoid such hasty moves, but this time the urgency was well worth it. He hit the ground hard, grunting in pain and rolling away from the spell that tore a second crater in the ground.
Make that a third crater. The spell he'd missed with a few moments earlier had created one, too.
Huh.
Flinging a hand up—and a shield with it—to defend himself, Rumplestiltskin felt his defenses shudder as Danns hit them with everything she had. His body twitched with them, his heart hammering hard in his chest, and sparks played across his vision. But his shields held long enough for Rumplestiltskin to lob another attack Danns' way, too, and their magic crossed in the air between them, creating a lightshow of epic proportions. A rainbow of colors exploded around them, spells bursting violently against one another. Rumplestiltskin cast one spell, and then two more, dodged a pair, blocked a third, and absorbed another two he couldn't get away from. Danns did much the same; about one out of every five spells Rumplestiltskin threw at her actually hit, with most of the rest wasting itself against her defenses. The Black Fairy wasn't doing much better; however, the frequency at which they were attacking one another meant that something was getting through to each of them every few seconds.
It was like living inside a metal box being while it was being worked over by a jackhammer. Even the very air around Rumplestiltskin was vibrating, thick with magic and blood—blood from both of them. Danns was starting to rock with every blow he landed, clearly as unsteady on her feet as Rumplestiltskin was growing. The blood flow out of his nose was growing heavier and heavier, and his limbs were beginning to shake uncontrollably. Rumplestiltskin could barely see, now, but he didn't have to. He could feel the magic more clearly than anything else in the world, could sense it rushing through every cell in his body. His consciousness had narrowed down to his spells, his defenses, and Danns' attacks. Nothing else—
Finally! Danns cried out as a wave of his raw power connected, and she staggered back a few steps. But her follow-on blow still zeroed in on him, and Rumplestiltskin collapsed to one knee as fire engulfed him. He had to waste precious seconds putting it out, glad all the while that leather took longer to burn than cloth, and the next attack fell before he could stop it.
The world spun; Danns had caught her balance—until he managed to hit her with a bolt of straight-up lightning—but Rumplestiltskin couldn't get further than off of one knee. His left knee still dug into the dirt, several inches further than it should have, though he wasn't quite inside a crater this time, and his entire leg had gone numb. The tiny corner of his brain that was able to focus on anything other than magic reflected that it was a good thing that it wasn't the bad leg, but that thought barely flirted through Rumplestiltskin's mind before it was replaced by the calculations for another spell, the basis for more magic. He was acting on instinct now, instinct and centuries of study, summoning the required emotions and casting spells as soon as he could think of them.
A scythe of power. A freezing spell. A tornado, and then another tornado, just to see if the second one could get through. It did, but then Danns hit him with one of her own, and it almost swept him straight into the air. Rumplestiltskin managed to catch himself, swaying but somehow upright. A burning wave. A splitting spell. Three shadowy balls of power. Those hit, but Danns shot one back at him, and Rumplestiltskin's own magic laced into his system and made him cry out in pain even as he finally managed to stand up. But she did, too, and now they were both swaying drunkenly, barely upright. Another dozen spells later and Rumplestiltskin found himself on his knees once more, a dozen feet away from Danns, who'd likewise collapsed. The next set of spells came slower from both sides, and the follow-on ones more slowly still. Rumplestiltskin felt like he was trying to cast magic from inside a jar of molasses.
How long had they been doing this? There was no way to tell.
"Finished yet, dearie?" Rumplestiltskin managed to ask without gasping too hard. Mostly.
Heavens knew, he was damn near drained.
Danns' response was another wave of power, but it was so weak that although Rumplestiltskin barely managed to block it, what he didn't catch did no damage at all.
"Suppose that's my answer," he wheezed, and suddenly he was on his back, staring at the sky. The clouds were all wrong; darker and more purple, thicker and lower. How badly had the two of them messed up the environment around their battle?
"Don't be a fool," Danns retorted, but she sounded dizzily, and another attack never came. That was good, because Rumplestiltskin was fairly certain he had nothing left.
Painfully, he managed to crane his neck and see that Danns was also sprawled on the ground, too, her face pale and drawn. He was shaking; was she, also? It was hard to tell from a dozen feet away, but Rumplestiltskin thought she was. They were both so drained; he had no idea how long their battle had lasted, but judging from the lasting effect in the sky overhead, it had been awhile. Briefly, Rumplestiltskin was tempted to use a spell to determine just how long they'd been at it, but even thinking so made his head spin—and that opened up the door to all the aches he'd been ignoring, and those pains crashed over him like a tidal wave.
His attempt to cry out fizzled into a pained whimper and a feeble convulsion; everything hurt, although Rumplestiltskin was fairly sure nothing major was broken. Oh, there were plenty of minor injuries, dozens of bruises, and those damned cracked ribs, but the bulk of the strain seemed to be purely magical. He was utterly drained, dizzy and weak. The only consolation of any sort was that Danns clearly felt the same, because she hadn't gotten up, either. Apparently, there were good reasons why original powers didn't go at it like this. No wonder she had to save her sister from Circe. Original power Blue might be, but fighting her was nothing like this, Rumplestiltskin thought tiredly. He wasn't even sure he could pick his head up. His eyes wanted to drift shut; sleep would be so nice.
"Well, will you look at that," a caustic voice interjected, making Rumplestiltskin's eyes snap open.
Damn it all. Jhudora and a host of other fae were suddenly surrounding Danns, helping her to her feet and all crackling with power. Jhudora was smiling her best predatory smile, the one that was even less sane than Norco's and far less restrained. There were a dozen or so other fae with her, and Rumplestiltskin was fairly sure he saw Maleficent in the crowd. Though to be honest, evidence that her ruse was playing out quite nicely did nothing to reassure him at the moment. Right now it was just more bad news.
Look at it on the bright side, he told himself ruefully. They can't kill you without a secondary power, even if Danns might have been able to. So the worst you can expect is—
"It's amazing how some people always want to jump in after the hard work is done," Regina answered Jhudora, and Rumplestiltskin managed to make his head turn to watch the Evil Queen stepping up next to where he still lay sprawled.
And she wasn't alone.
Emma was next to Regina, but so was Bae, though his son's worried eyes were on Rumplestiltskin more than the fae bristling a dozen feet away. The presence of those two wasn't terribly surprising, although Rumplestiltskin half-wished his son would stay the hell away from this. The others, however, were—he might have built the alliance, but Rumplestiltskin had never expected it to bear this kind of fruit. But it had, because there was Jafar, Tinker Bell, Iron John, Lord Soulis, the Sugar Plum Fairy, and even the Lady of the Lake. Impressive magic users, all of them, the types that neither the fae nor the fairies liked to allow to live for long, because they might just give humanity someone else to turn to.
"Isn't it just?" Jhudora retorted, and Rumplestiltskin saw Regina smirk even as Bae came over to crouch next to him.
"Can I help you up, Papa?" his son asked softly.
"Yeah." The word came out in a cough; Rumplestiltskin barely managed to strangle the urge to pass out. "Might not stay there without help, but it's probably a good idea."
He hated, hated, appearing weak, but at least this time no one would wonder why. And at least his opponent looked just as wasted.
Baelfire carefully helped Rumplestiltskin to his feet, and the sorcerer was glad to realize that both of his legs supported him, even the one he'd broken so long ago. He still felt numb all over, but he could feel his magic working subtly to overcome some of the more major issues. No wonder why he didn't dare use it for anything else. What little magic his body could still tolerate was occupied with keeping that self-same body from going to pieces. Rumplestiltskin knew that he'd have a lot of healing to do on himself later, but it was nice to know that his power wouldn't let him die in the meantime.
"So," Emma interjected, "are we done? Or are we all going to continue this fight?"
The implication was clear, and none of the other humans—or part humans, or Tink—contradicted her. They were prepared to stand together against the fae, even if it meant re-igniting the battle here and now. Dizzy though he was, Rumplestiltskin watched Maleficent meet Regina's eye for less than a second, and he knew that the former fairy was still on their side.
"Jhudora…" the female fae to Maleficent's right said in an undertone.
"Be silent," Jhudora snapped, and Rumplestiltskin bit back a smile. Oh, Maleficent was good. She'd never raise her own voice in objection, yet she'd already convinced someone else to do so for her. But Jhudora, still somehow leading the lesser fae with Danns as out of it as he was, returned to glaring at Emma and Regina. She sneered. "Surrender Rumplestiltskin and you may all go free."
"Not a chance," Regina snorted.
"Yeah, unlike you, we don't betray our friends," Emma added, and although Rumplestiltskin knew a number in their alliance certainly didn't think of him as a friend, at least none of them decided to argue that point at the moment.
Jhudora laughed. "You don't want to try this, humans. You really don't."
"Bring it, fairy." Regina's retort hit home; Rumplestiltskin saw Jhudora jerk back in fury. Suddenly, his magical senses caught up with reality, and he realized that Regina and Emma—and the others, interestingly enough—had spent most of his fight with Danns shielding the idiot spectators who still hadn't been smart enough to run out of the courtyard.
Someone would have to do quite the repair job on Snow and Charming's favorite palace, too. Pillars were crumbling, a few walls had utterly gone to rubble, and the grass was torn up in huge swaths, to say nothing of the damage to the ornate plants and flowers that had once decorated the place. All in all, the damage wasn't as bad as it might have been; neither Rumplestiltskin nor Danns had ever truly lost control of their magic, and even when they missed, the spells usually weren't so imprecise as to go after something other than their original targets. All in all, Rumplestiltskin supposed the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been. Hell, they might have brought the entire castle down on everyone.
"I," Jhudora snarled, her voice like ice, "am not a fairy."
"Oh, no. Of course you aren't. You're so very different from the colorful little bugs," the Evil Queen purred.
Bae snorted from Rumplestiltskin's right, but at least his son had the sense not to say whatever it was on his mind. Not when Regina was doing such a good job of pissing Jhudora off, all by herself. Still, this situation was about to spiral completely out of control, so Rumplestiltskin gathered magic to himself—what little his body would accept at the moment, and it hurt enough to make him hiss out a pained breath from between gritted teeth—and pulled away from his son, forcing his limbs to obey his commands and straightening painfully. Limits be damned; he was an original power and he would not let others fight his battles for him. Not because he was some foolish hero type, but because he was Rumplestiltskin, and he had a reputation to uphold.
Cowards hid behind others. He would not let them think that of him now.
Danns had done the same, almost perfectly in synch with Rumplestiltskin's own actions. He could see the power flowing to her, could see the fae glancing her way with both admiration and concern, and their eyes met.
Rumplestiltskin raised an eyebrow, not needing to voice the question. Shall we continue, or have you had enough?
Danns scowled, but her eyes were tired. If they chose to continue fighting, Rumplestiltskin knew it would be far uglier than the earlier battle, and not only because of the extra players. No, they were both exhausted, and any semblance of control would quickly vanish if they started flinging power around again. They might even wind up exactly where they had started, threatening to destroy the world between the pair of them, and that would be…bad.
"Well?" Emma demanded again, obviously unable to take the silence stretching on. "What'll it be?"
Another heartbeat passed; Rumplestiltskin held Danns' gaze and waited.
"This is not over," the Black Fairy finally said to him.
Rumplestiltskin smiled darkly. "It never is, dearie."
Without a further word, the fae disappeared.
A/N: Next up, Chapter Fifty-Five: "Brave Enough to Trust," in which a fae comes for Henry, and Rumplestiltskin deals with the aftermath of the battle.