Hi folks! Back with another chapter, sorry it's taken so long. School really caught up with me but now midterms are over so I can be back to bringing you more story. I'm not going to keep rambling, just don't forget to review when you're done! Thanks again for reading and enjoy the chapter!

"Now come here and say hello to your grandmother." Cora ginned at the child, who was now struggling to push out of Emma's arms. Regina knew she had to act. Her hand flung in Cora's direction, releasing a wave of purple magic directly at her that Cora dodged with little effort.

"Come along Elora. It's time to go." Cora held her hand out to her granddaughter. Elora felt herself lose control of her own body, she flung her hands at her mother, effectively sending her across the room and dropping her on the spot. Her legs walked to Cora, who scooped her up in her arms. Regina ran for her daughter, flinging every spell at Cora that she knew but Cora dodged them or neutralized them before they could reach her. "She'll be safe with me, don't you worry about that dear. You'll see her again someday."

"Mother no please! You can't take her! She needs her mother!" Regina plead with the older woman.

"Just like you needed me when you forced me through that portal?" Cora spat bitterly. "You've become weak, your love for them has made you pathetic. Oh well, we try again. Perhaps your daughter will prove to be a more viable option than yourself. Elora. Can you do magic?"

"No..." Elora lied, her tiny heart pounding in her chest.

"That's a lie and you know it. Show me your magic child." Elora felt her arms motion upward and begin to form a very misshapen ball of energy in her hands before getting a small idea. She shot it back in Cora's face, the woman actually somehow feeling pain from little blast, so much so that she dropped Elora on the spot, who quickly ran back to Regina. The brunette woman scooped her daughter up right away and held her tightly, refusing to let her go.

"I'm so sorry baby..." Regina cried. By this point Emma and Henry had recovered and joined the other two.

"I'm surprised. That actually caught me off guard. Never again." Cora healed the charred spot on her cheek. "Elora. Come here now." Elora was powerless.

"Don't listen to her!" Henry finally piped up, running out with his sword, only to be nocked back by another blast. Regina continued to fire as many blasts as she could but Cora was simply too strong. Emma ran after the little girl but she was once again knocked back.

"When did she get this strong?" Emma shook her head, the magic still dizzying her.

"Elora don't go with her! You can't!" Regina cried out in a last attempt to keep her child safe. Elora was powerless, the curse on her was too strong and for some reason, Cora's orders were sticking far better than her own.

"Mommy!" Elora screamed, feeling magic tingling at her fingertips the second Cora grabbed her arm. She tried to shock the old woman again but this time Cora countered. They vanished in a quick puff of black smoke. Leaving the family broken on the stone floor.

"I was just the first in a series of kidnappings. Newborns were stolen from their cribs, toddlers would wander off and never be seen again. Cora was and still is raising an army. So many of the children in our world don't even know that they ever had parents, much less ones that wanted them. I don't think I can begin to tell you the horrors those children have gone through." Elora sat, defeated on her bed.

"We are older than the rest so we eventually remembered who we were." Violet added.

"And the parents who never stopped looking for us." Puck noted. "I can't even begin to count how many search parties and armies have tried to take their children back and the same amount have all lost their lives for the cost. "

"Cora raised us to be monsters. Before...before we remembered who we were we were mindless killing machines. She snapped and we charged. Children are destroying whole cities and killing their own parents in cold blood without even knowing they ever had them. Many of them don't even know why they kill, they just do. The power each of them holds is incredible, true love is a very powerful source of magic...they are all surpassing their parents in strength more and more by the day, lying in wait until Cora decides to end our world as we know it and rise as their leader. We can't even stop her now, she's too strong and... there's the matter of the curse..." Elora refused to speak it's name, she couldn't truthfully, Cora had made sure of that years ago.

"A new curse?" Regina shook her head, she was unable to process all the things she was hearing. Their words rang in her ears, making her brain ache. They seemed so...normal...yet now all Regina could see was three vehicles of destruction, wretches of the underworld...just like her.

"Yes...an obedience curse that was placed on Elora by an unknown force when she was really young. She has to obey every order and of course she is powerless to resist."

"Cora has taken full advantage of it's power..." All three put their heads down, Elora's face was streaked in silent tears. Violet instantly moved to comfort the blonde child.

"Henry...it wasn't your fault. Cora made you do it, you know that..." Violet soothed.

"It's my fault he's dead, that's enough guilt for a lifetime." Elora sniffed. Regina's heart hit the bottom of her stomach when she understood what they were talking about.

"Cora made you...she made you kill Henry?" Regina's eyes welled with tears.

"I didn't have a choice...he tried to rescue me but Cora found out and...she ordered me to kill him. I didn't even realize it was him until I looked him in the eyes...I saw my brother for the first time in so many years...and I had to end him."

"Thankfully she didn't say how. She placed a sleeping curse over him, he's not really gone, he just has no true love yet to wake him." Violet corrected. "He will die eventually, just not yet."

"Ever since I was a child I had taught myself to fight the curse, I have to think about ways around my orders. A sleeping curse may as well be death for somebody without a true love so it counted." Elora wiped the tears from her eyes. They all sat in silence for a moment, remembering the man in the coffin in the darkest basement who grew colder by the day.

"Our reality...your future...it's all at stake. The day Elora came to us and told us about what she had to do to Henry we decided we had to act. We aren't without our resources. The Wizard of Oz helped us by showing us the secret spell used to travel between worlds and so we used it to send Elora here to make sure that Cora is killed." Puck's fists clenched.

"She needs to die now before she becomes too powerful. We can't do it alone either, we need you and we need the Savior." Violet added as she rubbed Elora's back.

"Surprise!" Elora gave an unsure grin. "Emma Swan is my other Mom!" She shrugged slightly. At this, Regina's face drained of all it's color.

"Miss Swan...is your Mother...but I'm your Mother...no that's not possible! I hate her!" Regina defended. She stood quickly and felt her unsteady legs taking her to the back wall.

"You don't, not really at least, you've been jealous and scared. It's like the same thing as covering up your feelings. She's always had a crush on you, that's easy enough to see from viewing this world in the Wizard's crystal ball. You're just scared that she's going to make you feel things that you haven't felt in a while." Violet smiled sweetly.

'And that's the Ruby side of her coming through. Nosy brat.'

"I don't understand how the Wizard of Oz is apart of all of this. That idiot has no real power. I knew him a long time ago before he vanished." Regina evaded the very idea of Emma Swan and moved to a new, through admittedly less intriguing topic

"The original Wizard of Oz was a powerless oaf. That much is true. However one man that you may have heard of, the boy that can fly between worlds? In your time you may have known him as Peter Pan." Elora explained. "When the Hero of Oz chose to go home, Glinda, who was now acting as temporary ruler of Oz, endowed the ruby slippers with fairy dust and requested that Peter take her home. Well instead they fell in love and ended up staying in Oz. Little did Peter know, this would make him age and then when the time came that Dorothy wanted to go home...Peter simply couldn't go with her. He was trapped in Oz and without his ability to travel between the worlds though he wasn't without his magic. So when Glinda finally decided she didn't want to rule anymore, Peter stepped in as the new ruler." Elora had to keep track on her hands to make sure she wasn't confusing parts of the story.

"He's a very bitter man. Poor Oz didn't even see it coming. He quickly made an alliance with Cora to grow their powers together." Puck shook his head. More silence.

"Mom? Are you okay?" Elora stepped toward Regina cautiously.

"So you're telling me...the happy ending you described to me...it's a lie?"

"Not initially...everything leading up to my kidnapping had happened...after however...not so much..."

"And what of Leota and Simon?" Regina almost dreaded the answer.

"My children...sort of. I merely gave birth to them."

"I've raised them like my own pups. Elora is too busy to take care of them." Violet added, looking over to Elora briefly.

"Considering I never wanted to in the first place then I shouldn't be blamed." Elora scowled. "I was used as a vessel to give Peter and heir. Lucky him, he got two. He's entrusted them to our care until they were old enough to be taught magic and politics. As Violet said, I'm too busy to care for them anyways. Between warming the Wizard's bed, Cora's training, my regular missions and looking for a way to get here I've been a bit preoccupied for children. This is why queens have nannies." Violet's expression dropped. "Of course I wouldn't ever consider you a nanny. You're more of a mother than I'd ever have been fated to be." Elora clarified, Violet's expression remained unchanging. Regina could suddenly see a bit of Cora flash through Elora's eyes, there really was no escaping that woman. Regardless of how hard you fought or tried to escape, Cora would always be apart of the both of them. Regina's blood ran cold.

The older woman took a breath and sighed.

"So...I'm married to Emma Swan, my son is in a coma and my daughter has been in captivity with my mother and I've been powerless to stop it all?"

"Yes...yes you have been. You've been busy working with my grandpa to find a way to get us back. We would help but Cora has had us all on a very tight leash ever since Kopa escaped." Elora spoke, her voice finally tensed again.

"Kopa was a lion cub from a land far, though connected to our own. He was one of the oldest, like us. He found an opening in the stones lining the dungeon and escaped one night. We don't know how far he got or if he truly made it out of the kingdom and back to his home but if he did...just think of what he could do? He could have gotten to the castle and told everybody about what we were going through, he could help!" Violet became excited very quickly, so much so that she let out a small howl of joy, two ears that looked more like they belonged to a dog than a human revealed themselves through the dark curls on the top of her head. "Just think of it! He might be preparing forces as we speak!" A tail appeared from under her nightgown.

"Woah! Vi! Calm down! You're gonna transform again by mistake." Puck tried to calm her.

"Aww! But she's so cute!" Elora cooed, flopping back on the bed and allowing Violet to lay with her belly in the air on her lap. Violet's tail wagged with abandon as Elora scratched her stomach as one would with a dog.

"What has my life become? I don't even know anymore...I just wanted my son back and instead I get three time traveling refugees who are asking me to kill my mother...this is what my life has become." Regina sputtered, feeling as though she could snap at any moment. The very fabric of her mind seemed to be slipping more by the second.

"I can assume this is a lot for you to take in. We should all go to bed and we can talk about this more when we wake up. It's past midnight as it is." Puck resolved, helping Regina back to her room while Elora calmed Violet back down until she had control over her own body again, this may or may have not involved whacking the top of her head with a newspaper until she changed back. Puck stood in her doorway while Regina wobbled her way back to her bed. "I'm sorry, this all must sound like an insane nightmare. It's all true. Normally I wouldn't give any details away without Elora's specific orders but she has been exposed to far more than she has eluded to. The massive purple magic bruises on her stomach and the cuts on her arms from defending herself...those are just the start. You haven't seen the scars on her back. Cora has used Elora in every way one can think of. I can understand if you don't want to help us, but think of your daughter. You can prevent all of this from ever happening. You can do good. You want redemption? Well you've got it if you save us..." Puck paused, noting the overwhelmed confusion in Regina's eyes.

"I...I need to think all of this over. I just wanted my son back..." Regina whispered.

"I know you do. Just think it over. We can't do this without you and Emma. Goodnight Regina." Puck turned the light off and closed the door, leaving Regina alone to think.

'I married Emma Swan...I don't love her. No. That's impossible. She ruined everything...and then she saved me...multiple times. I'd be dead at the hands of the Wraith if it weren't for her. No! She only saved me because Henry insisted. There were no ulterior motives behind Emma helping me. None whatsoever...but then again...all of the staring...sometimes our eyes do lock and I get an odd burning in my stomach but that's just anger or frustration...isn't it?' Regina paced back and forth, her mind wandering back to the perfect future Elora had made up for her.

Her son was grown with his own children. Grandchildren that loved her...Henry loved her. She and Emma were apparently happy enough to have three more children. Elora, Simon, and Leota... she could almost picture them. Elora holding two brunette children in the air with her magic, they giggled as they flew about the room before she settled them back on the carpet where they would instantly ask if they could fly again. Regina crawled into bed with a smile, hoping the image would stick.

It hadn't, instead it devolved into a fiery mass of death with her own daughter standing upon a heap of flaming bodies. In one hand, a leash for a demon like dog snarling at her feet and in the other a mystical pickaxe. People screamed at the sight of her as she made her way down the pile of bodies. She approached a lone figure in the chaos.

Cora. It had to be.

The older woman placed a hand on Elora's cheek and smiled.

"Finally. Your mother has done something right. She gave me you." Cora held her granddaughter's hands. "You have made me very proud today."

They vanished into the flames, leaving Regina with tears running down her face.

So hopefully the situation makes a little more sense now. Just wait, we are gonna get to the good stuff! Next stop: Fairytale Land! R&R! Thank you once again for reading.

Jenny