Chapter Four: Penetrate
Warning: A bit OOC with pretty much everyone and especially Pan.
Disclaimers see Author's profile page.
The beast was inches from her face, its drools pooling down her shirt, Emma desperately pawed at the wet grass around her, feeling for anything, something, to dislodge this troll away from her. She will not end like this, she made a promise to Pan, and she will not end like this, she made a promise to Pan, and she also swore to herself that she will not break it like all her predecessors Tink had told her about. She could her screeches as Snow or Regina yelled out her name, running to her position.
A yellow binding chain roped around the beast's waist, and Pan yanked, hard. It flew, tumbling over and over in the air before landing unceremoniously on the forest floor. Emma scrambled up.
The true form of the all-powerful Master of Neverland, the one that imprisoned and tortured Peter Pan for about a week and a half, was a giant, single-minded, blood thirsty troll that wants to rip your links right out of their sockets. Who saw that coming?
The toll swung its chains at Pan, his getting-up-after-being-yanked-by-a-magical-chain-wielded-by-a-teanager time was surprisingly quick, successfully knotting the chain around a thick branch of a hundred something year's old tree. Pan got to the hulking beast first, vehemence glinting in his forest green and narrowed eyes, and he rapidly slammed his foot down at the tangled knot the chain is at the end, swinging his own chains, he launched them straight at its neck. With swift precision Pan's quick feet carried him along the large metal links, aided by his own, and unto the broad shoulders of the damned troll.
It screamed in anger, jerking and flailing at the weight being on top of him and the strangling pull of the chains about its neck. Breaking through the shield of scaly, thick shadows to get to its center has decreased the power of his shot when he had fired his spell at a distance. By bringing himself closer to such a vulnerable spot, Pan could be sure his spells hit home. He threw his hands up, palms out only seconds later, strong legs maintaining his balance upon the shifting beast and fired.
At that moment, it howled and turned, destroying Pan's aim. The blue fire crash down struck the tough skull helm of the beat, and was flung haphazardly to everywhere else.
Pan grunted in frustration. However futile, his attack did not go unnoticed. Howling like a demon it is, it flared and reared, desperate to top its former servant from its shoulders. Pan gasped and fell, losing his steady balance and slipping. The boy hit the ground hard of his left side and cried out. The chains that circled his wrist were torn off him. He lay there a moment, propped on his right elbow, wheezing.
It rounded on Pan's hapless form. The pirate, panic pulsing his heart, leap forward, furiously shoving those blasted wraiths aside with blade and hand. He yelled, slashing at the master, drawing his attention. It grunted, charged towards him. None of them noticed the wave to black arrows fired from the monster's back. Aiming for Pan.
"Hey!" Came a shout from the far corner of the clearing, where the rubble of broken branches and scattered leaves were piled high. Snow cocked another arrow at the beast; Tink hurled a knife right after Snow released. Henry stood behind them, his cheeks white yet vehement, half hidden in between the leaves.
Their distraction proved adequate, and though Hook was somewhat relieved the monster diverted its attention from the severely injured Pan, his worry was not beating for the boy everyone cares about, the warrior princess and the fallen fairy that he may or may not have a crush on. They no match for a monster of this caliber. The hulking beast thundered towards the trio, and if just realizing what they have done, they scattered and sought refuge in the trees.
Charming fought to see them, but the battle demanded his attention more as he blocked another mace hurtled at his direction. In the corner of his eye he saw the troll crush his fist into the ground with a rumble, further separating everyone.
"HENRY!" Someone cried. Was that Pan?
Henry has scrambled to a nearby oak and pressed his compact to it, hiding in the shadow and behind the strong tree. Emma saw the monster creep around the barrage of trees and she moved fearfully, the troll's feet ever one step ahead in the sick game of cat and mouse. In her one moment of distraction, a sword slammed into her arm. The momentum knocked her back into the foliage, her cutlass disappearing out of her hand.
The beast roared, whether in fury or sick minded bliss. Emma could barely hear it above the rush of her own heart and breath. Then came a desperate cry. "Mom!" There were suddenly arrows and spears fired from the troll to press her against the cold floor underneath and she fought desperately to rid herself of them. "Mom!"
She couldn't get up, and with a startling breath she saw the troll grasp Henry's leg to restrain him, its strong hard fist lifted overhead and poised to strike. She screamed to everyone in earshot. To save her son! She tore herself up from the floor, ripping her already tattered clothes in the process…Just as the beast brought its fist down.
In barely a heartbeat, two chains of yellow links and pale red fire snaked around Henry's waist and the troll's fist and it yanked, hard. The death hold on Henry was broken and he was flung to in the air. Henry squeezed his eye shut as he felt the emptiness beneath his body. The landing knocked every bit of air out of his lungs, but the pad was soft. He's OK.
In the same beat, Pan leap forward and drove his dagger straight through the beast's neck; pouring all the spells he learned that could blast open a skull into the small blade. In a furious last attempt, its arm reached to its back, found the boy and yanked him off and threw.
Fear pulsed through Emma right then as a thousand senseless thoughts stampeded through her stricken mind. Cold sweat prickled her skin. To her right she saw the beast fall, throwing a dark shape from its shoulder, the company with weapons still apprehensively raised. But she found that she could not care for that now.
She rushed to Henry's side as everyone else did. He's half sitting on a blue trampoline like thing. The boy groaned, grimacing and breathing quite heavily. "Is everyone OK?" the nerve to answer that question can only be found in the Charming family. Weariness and relief struck them all for both the safety of themselves and their friends and family. Pounding hearts slowed, tense muscles were drooping as the strength was snapped from limbs, rushed breaths quieting.
Everyone began to check their injuries, somehow squeezing out a smile or two, rubbing bruises or slowing blood from cuts. Everyone's relief over Henry's safety was still evident upon their faces, but they are all alive and relatively unscathed. Tink was the only one that bothered to do a head count. Her face cracked. "Where's Pan?"
Cold terror washed over Emma, and it was followed by the sickest sense of a memory momentarily forgotten.
Rapidly her eyes scanned their surrounding and she charged forward, praying that the stupid teenager was not lying on the grass floor as a corpse. Pan stood facing the remains of the entrance of the underground cavern. "Pan," she said urgently. He did not turn to face her, his hands at his side, his body still. A stiff silence followed that was filled with a strange but beautiful melancholic sound that seemed starkly misplaced.
Pan was singing. The melody was sad and ancient, but also with sense of life. Emma recognized it immediately, even though she only heard Tink talk about it once. Its forlorn grace was unforgettable. The lyrics are simple. Broken.
When does the Never Blossom go when they dance?
When they comfort the lonely child under its tree.
When does they Never blossom go when they play?
When they rescue a lost child to play in the stream.
When does the Never blossom go when they sing?
When they find the promised Child under the sea.
Where does the Never Blossom go when they dies?
They go with the Never child up to heaven.
The rhyme for the passing of a Lost boy. Only for a Lost boy.
Pan was the first Lost Boy to ever set foot in Neverland.
Pan quietly finished his song just as Emma came to stand before him. When she did, she saw the horror he had sought to quietly hide from them. The entire right side of his stature was covered in slick red; his once green tunic turned a sick brown from the stain. Blood poured endlessly from a deep injury, the laceration in his shoulder violent and menacing. There were holes in his leggings where the black arrows had punctured through. The savior could only watch numbly as the blood rushed from various holes in torrents. His heart was pumping his life mindlessly away.
He opened his eyes and lifting his face to Emma, and they are filled with the sadness of one who knows the wound he has received to be mortal. There were not tears to slide down his weakened eyes anymore. "Hello Emma," he whispered. There was no fear in the meek tone. He gave her the smallest of smiles. "I am to die this this realm, after all."
Peter pan had never feared death, the stories that mothers tell to the children in bedtime to beware the night. Peter Pan had never feared the dark. And so, he welcomed the death that he so feverishly prayed for, to claim him.
A/N: Please review, favorite. Tell me how many plot holes I have forgotten to plug but no flames please.
I always wanted to leave a lot of blank spaces in between to created suspense. Do not kill me or you will never find out whether or not Pan lives or not.
Clearing something up: Pan has Henry heart! That means he has magic more powerful than anyone else. The wraith that was mentioned for a couple of times was made by the troll as a mindless minion thing. The reason I left out how Henry was saved and how Pan was brought to the underground well and how the master transformed into a stupid troll was 1) I can't be bothered to write it and I am still mourning my confiscated phone and 2) if I had put everything in there, there won't be any space for the readers' imagination. If I wrote everything then it wouldn't fit so well in the story and I would scrape this one to the bucket.
I got the magical bits from the Kidou spells from Bleach. Sorry. Don't regret it though.
The song was from Hell Girl's Sakura Uta. I just translated it to English and changed the lyrics around a bit.
I need a beta. Someone? Anyone?