Greetings from Underbrooke (5th Book of Heroes and Villains Quintet)

Chp 22: Wicked Always Wins

Flashback: In Oz before the first curse, Dorothy returns back to Oz from Kansas, now hunted by the Wicked Witch but not yet a princess of the South, As Toto runs off, and Dorothy tries to find the dog, after Dorothy initially goes the wrong way. She come upon a Tin man, which she pours a bag of fairy dust on him that restores him to human form, and he thanks Dorothy for helping him, he reveals his name, Stanum, and decides to help her find Toto. Later in the woods, a flying monkey whom Dorothy fights off with help from Stanum. Have found Toto in a hunter's trap, Dorothy and Stanum rescues Toto from the trap and plans to head for the Emerald city. At the same time, the King sends Edward to Emerald City to sell their butcher shop, as they lack the resources to maintain it. Disguised as a peddler, the bounty hunter drugs Edward in order to use his guard dog, Sheev, to track and capture Dorothy. When Edward comes to, Sheev leads him to the bounty hunter's wagon, Dorothy, locked inside, advises Edward to run. He instead tries to break the lock with a knife, but is interrupted by the Bounty hunter's return. They fight, and the bounty hunter bashes a hole in the wagon, enabling Dorothy to hold back the Bounty hunter's arm so Edward can kill him. Dorothy tells Edward that it would be safest for him to never see her face, so he hands the key through the hole. Edward's faith in Dorothy's resourcefulness convinces her that she can live by her wits and stay in her own home, hearing that Edward is in need of money, she gives him her Sliver Slippers as a reward. As their hands touch, a magical spark of true love gives birth to a sapling at Edward's feet. End of flashback

Present day Storybrooke, At Belle's grave in the cemetery, the major power-players, have come to pay their respects to Belle. Later after the memorial, Anthony finds himself haunted by the voice of the lightness inside of him, which has manifested as personification of Hyde. He struggles to resist, and vows not to hurt the Storybrooke residents but to protect them. Then, Anthony walks up to a homeless man, only to become consumed by Hyde's guidance, to the point of nearly using his light magic to kill the homeless man, but instead Anthony uses his powers on the homeless man which he now has nice clean clothes and gave him his parents penthouse. Elsewhere, Dorothy takes Eddie to the park when the Wicked Witch emerges from behind a tree, reminding her of how lucky she has been, only to remind Dorothy that she still desires her heart, and with Edward having the other half, the Wicked Witch tells Dorothy that she'll acquire it too for a "little bit more." She gives Dorothy a mysterious potion and disappears, Dorothy then shows Zelena the potion, and identifies it as water from the River of Lost Souls. Zelena believes the Wicked Witch obtained it from Facilier as a part of a plan to destroy the whole town. Mother Superior/Fiona believes that a magical sapling could be powerful enough to entrap the Wicked Witch, and Zelena hatches a plan by sending a note to Regina demanding that she meets her other half at Facilier's Pawn Shop. At the mansion, Grace is at the table, who then lays out a selection of different writing materials and ask that Henry choose one as a test. Henry picks the magic quill, meaning that he has been appointed as the new Author, also Grace chose him to be her new Apprentice. Elsewhere, the Wicked Witch promised Regina that there was nothing going on between her and Facilier, but when Regina stops by the Pawn Shop, she catches the Wicked Witch and Facilier snogging, just as Zelena planned. Around the same time, Anthony enacts a spell that should help Dorothy, Edward, and Zelena get to the sapling. It leads them to a trapdoor in the ground, and they hop right in. As Dorothy and Edward find the sapling, they both touch it and the history of their love flashbacks right before their eyes, only to have the Wicked Witch appear to steal the sapling, snaps it in half, and vows to destroy Storybrooke if they don't surrender their hearts. At the Emporium, Liam calms Renee down when her hands start to tremor and uses Grace's storybook to make Renee feel better and to remind her that her parents' love can overcome any obstacle. They "always found each other." As she grows worried about her parents' fate and how Renee inherited the strength of that love. "Remember who you are, the product of pure love," he assures her, at which moment her hand stabilized. Later on at the TownHall, the Wicked Witch gathers the town to tell them her plan to kill them all if Dorothy and Edward don't appear in the next few minutes. Just as Renee is ready to fight, the couple arrives and asks Zelena to lift her protection spell from them, allowing the Wicked Witch to rip out their hearts and hold them in her hands. She declares that killing them would be too easy and that she wants them to feel her loneliness. She thrusts their hearts back in, and both quickly passes out. The Wicked Witch calls it a missable curse "with a twist," and makes Dorothy and Edward's bodies disappear, then taunts Renee to go find them, she and Liam searches Dorothy and Edward out at the apartment, they find them asleep in the bed. They both awoken at 12:00pm, Dorothy and Edward go to embrace but it only throws them backwards as they realize their hearts are poison and that the Wicked Witch placed poison in both sides of their shared heart. The curse becomes active when Dorothy and Edward tries to hug each other, causing the corruption of their hearts whenever they get close to each other. Additionally, both Dorothy and Edward gains a strange mark on their wrist resulting from the curse. The Wicked Witch used the Curse of the Poisoned Heart by spreading it across both of their hearts, meaning that the lovers can be harmed or killed when they are touched by each other. Back at the mansion, Using the blood of the "Sorceress," Grace, Henry writes, "The Wicked Witch of the West gets exactly what she deserves."