Part III:

More time slipped by and even Rumplestiltskin's magical timepiece started to fail in fits and starts. Finally, he began to understand why none of the other bothered; you could never tell when the timepiece was going to start stuttering, and by the time Rumplestiltskin noticed it wasn't working properly, his own sense of time was too warped to fix it, no matter how much magic he employed. So he finally gave in and surrendered himself to the timeless existence the others had already embraced, marking time by battles fought and blood spilled.

His alliance was an ever-shifting thing, Rumplestiltskin realized fairly early on. Loyalty was not a trait that many Dark Ones shared, even when it was loyalty to power. One by one, each ally he'd assembled in the beginning turned on him, sometimes in company and other times separately. After the first two betrayals, Rumplestiltskin no longer even pretended to be surprised; their curse was a selfish beast, and no host of it would ever recognize anyone greater than themselves. He was no different, after all; like the others, Rumplestiltskin was determined to remain on top. The only real difference between him and them—aside from the fact that he was a more practiced sorcerer than any but Arwan and (probably) the old man—was that he had the dagger. It still bore his name, and the entirety of the curse still answered to him. Or at least what was left of it after he'd killed himself, anyway. The power was muted in the Vault, but it was still enough of an advantage.

Once, just once, Dallben, Taran, and a very fractured Tia Dalma had come close to taking the dagger from Rumplestiltskin, catching him by surprise and driving him down into a pit of oozing darkness for what felt like an eternity. His timepiece—which had still been more or less working at that moment—told him that it had been seven days, as Prospero, Zoso, and Sekemet joined in against him. He would have been able to break out had Hectate not signed up with his attackers at the last moment, and her power only made things worse. They kept him under long enough that Rumplestiltskin wanted to give in, and almost did, but his nasty habit of self preservation reared its ugly head and he doggedly hung on to coherency despite the all-consuming pain. He forced himself to be patient, forced himself to draw in the oozing darkness once more and use it again, and finally Rumplestiltskin fought free of their trap.

Still, that treatment left him reeling for days afterwards…or whatever passed for days in that place. But he couldn't afford to let the pain show, so Rumplestiltskin buried it in darkness after having torn Hectate and Dallben to pieces and savaged the other five badly enough that Tia Dalma was still mumbling incoherently even once Rumplestiltskin was back on his feet. He'd found himself a corner after that debacle and barred himself in with magic, lashing out at anyone who came close until he felt well enough to face them again.

Another indeterminable amount of time later, Arwan tried one last time—but soon enough, when Dallben turned against him, Rumplestiltskin found the Horned King his newest ally. Keeping up with the ever-shifting alliances within the vault would have made anyone else dizzy, but with the exception of those two significant challenges, Rumplestiltskin stayed on top of things. The others were brilliant enough to keep him on his toes, but eventually, Rumplestiltskin knew he would start to get bored. It might take him years, or even centuries, but he was too smart to find this confined space—and these eighteen other Dark Ones—enough of a challenge keep him occupied for all eternity. He'd have to find a hobby of some sort, but what could he do down there? Tormenting his fellows just wasn't fun.

And although letting them torture him certainly kept his attention, that wasn't exactly an option, either.

It was a miracle, Rumplestiltskin marveled, that his predecessors had not gone mad in this place. Or perhaps they had. Or they were mad already. Of course, Rumplestiltskin was well acquainted with madness. He'd been mad before, had felt his curse stirring within him and lashing out against its own host and scrambling the mind that contained it. Perhaps the dilution of the curse was a good thing, then; at least it meant that the vault didn't house nineteen Dark Ones who were even less sane than they had been in life.

Still, enough time had passed that Rumplestiltskin was starting to grow bored. Exploring had only taken him so far. He'd uncovered everything there was to see…except one thing. On his first walk around, Rumplestiltskin had noticed a doorway, cleverly disguised by magic unlike anything else in the Vault, so eight months after his arrival, Rumplestiltskin sought that doorway out, and knocked.

Moments later, the old man stood before him. "I was wondering when you might come," the only other human-looking Dark One in the lot said.

Rumplestiltskin shrugged. "I've been busy."

"Of course you have. Care to join me?"

It could be a trap. Step through that door and doom yourself! the curse screamed, and suddenly Rumplestiltskin got the feeling that the curse did not much like its original host. The darkness surged within him at that thought, that realization, and Rumplestiltskin could sense his curse railing against the very existence of the wizened old man who stood in front of him. You are not like him!

Except Rumplestiltskin was beginning to think that he was.

"Oh, why not?" Another shrug brought him through the doorway, and the old man stepped aside to allow him entrance.

Disguised as it was, Rumplestiltskin had expected something spectacular within the hidden chamber within the caves. However, inside the old man's haunt looked much like everything outside the doorway, lined with darkness-oozing rock walls and full of the same eerie red light. There were a few outcroppings that almost resembled chairs, but overall the chamber was identical to the world outside the door. How…uninspiring, Rumplestiltskin thought, looking around critically. He'd expected better, somehow.

"Disappointed, Rumplestiltskin?" the old man asked with a very crooked smile.

"Well, I have to admit that I expected to be more impressed."

The old man chuckled, a high-pitched cackle that sent a shiver down Rumplestiltskin's spine. "The longer you're in the vault, lad, the more you learn that this place cannot be changed. It was designed to be a very special sort of personal hell, after all."

"Personal?" Rumplestiltskin echoed, keying in on that specific word.

"Very." The crooked smile became a manic grin, and Rumplestiltskin watched the old man's blue eyes go from human to reptilian and then back to human again. The transition was sudden, and jarring, and happened so quickly that Rumplestiltskin half-wondered if he was imagining things. But there was more than a little insanity in the old man's expression, enough to give Rumplestiltskin pause.

It made sense, he supposed. If the old man was the original Dark One, he had been created here, at the vault. And if the curse had been created to be passed on the way it was, then this place might have been created to contain this man. But why?

"Who are you?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"The Dark One. Are you someone else?"

That made him blink. "Rumplestiltskin."

"That's just your name, lad. What you were. Not what you are," the old man countered immediately, wiggling a little bit. But the insanity in his eyes seemed to have faded somewhat, and Rumplestiltskin got the feeling that the wiggle was just for show.

So he took a chance, and decided to be honest. After all, every Dark One within the vault knew that the old man stayed out of every fight, and no one had been stupid enough to try to take him one since Arwan had arrived. Six other Dark Ones had died between the Horned King and Rumplestiltskin, and over six hundred years in the outside world with them. But during all that time, no one had so much as dreamed of trying to attack the old man.

"No. It isn't," Rumplestiltskin answered. "Not for a long time."

"Then you've not been under the curse for long?" the old man asked curiously.

A snort of laughter bubbled up—quiet and not the old high giggle—before he could stop it. "Over three hundred years."

"Either you are lying, or you discovered something." The blue eyes were nearly black now, narrowed and dangerous. Power crackled beneath the surface, power of a type Rumplestiltskin had never felt before—something deep and something terrifying, absolutely mind-boggling in its intensity. This power was more than magic, didn't come from the curse and certainly did not come from the vault. Apparently, Rumplestiltskin was not the only Dark One who was more than met the eye.

Yeah, I discovered something. Or something discovered me, Rumplestiltskin didn't say. True Love. Just thinking about it made Belle's face come to mind, made him think of Bae, and a painful ache blossomed in his heart. It took everything Rumplestiltskin had to hide the utter longing that swept through him, to bury it within the darkness that he had to embrace in order to survive. Oh, he wanted so much more than to spend eternity in this miserable prison. But then, he'd always wanted things he couldn't have, hadn't he?

"Well, I've always liked to think of myself as special," he replied noncommittally, watching fury dance across the old man's features. For a moment, Rumplestiltskin thought that the power rearing up might reach out for him, and started wondering if the curse was something he could use to defend himself against that—because this man was more than just the Dark One that he claimed to be.

Not for the first time, Rumplestiltskin wished that the origins of his curse were not so shrouded in mystery. During three hundred years of research, he'd found tidbits on some of his predecessors, tantalizing pieces of information that were more often legend than not. But nothing on this man. No one knew who the first Dark One had been, how the curse had been created, if it had been created, or even when it had happened. Even his fellows here in the vault didn't seem to know who the old man was, and that was more than a little disturbing.

Surprisingly, however, the old man laughed instead of lashing out, and his temper seemed to subside. Abruptly, a smile replaced the obvious fury. "I think you might be."

Watching emotions whip through his elder was like riding a drunken seesaw, and Rumplestiltskin's chest tightened ominously. Now he understood why the others stayed clear of this man. He was dangerous. Unbidden, the whispers in his mind grew louder. Keep the dagger away from him at all costs. Do not trust him! A chill ran down Rumplestiltskin's spine.

Even the curse was afraid of him.

"And you?" Rumplestiltskin countered without missing a beat, refusing to show weakness or worry.

"Broken," was the immediate response, terrifying in its honesty. "Not special. Never that."

A shadow of old pain crossed the old man's face, and Rumplestiltskin wondered. What must it have been like to be the first Dark One? He'd more than half expected the original curse holder to be a literal demon, a scaled and hard-edged monster from which they all descended, to be the owner of the whispers in his mind. But this man was human, or at least appeared to be and had once been (Hadn't he?). Shaggy and tangled gray hair hung down past the middle of the old man's back, and he wore the traditional long beard of a sorcerer in one messy braid. This was the face that he associated with himself, broken though that self-image sometimes was by reptilian eyes that went purely black when angry. A few scales dotted pockmarked skin, mostly around the edges of his wild beard and bristly sideburns. This was a man stuck between what he had been and what he was forced to be.

Forced? That was a new revelation, and Rumplestiltskin wondered where it had come from even as he refused to doubt its authenticity. Had it come from the residual memories he had inherited via the curse, or was the old man up to something?

There was no way to tell. Sometimes, however, the best way to get an answer was to not ask the question, so Rumplestiltskin remained silent and waited for the old man to damn himself. After all, if the others steered so clear of him, how long had it been since the old man had anyone to talk to? The others feared him, and Rumplestiltskin was not such a fool that he did not, but he was unbearably curious. And besides, what was the worst the old man could do to him? He could take the dagger! the voice of the curse screamed in his mind, but Rumplestiltskin ruthlessly suppressed that surge of fear. Different or no, the old man was bound by the same rules as Rumplestiltskin and the others. He couldn't take the dagger. If he wanted it, he would have to force Rumplestiltskin to give it up.

And there was nothing in this place that could make him do that. Nothing at all, not now, not with those he loved forever lost to him. Don't think of them. Love is weakness in this place.

"I'm what she made of me," the old man finally continued, sounding empty.

"She?" Rumplestiltskin echoed.

"Danns' a'Bhàis, of course." Hatred, loss, and longing whipped across his face; Rumplestiltskin felt like he'd left the seesaw and hitched a ride on a drunken carousel instead. 'Round and round the Dark Ones go, where they'll stop, no one knows…

But his agile mind translated the name quickly enough, and then whirled through centuries' worth of study and knowledge. Once, Rumplestiltskin had made it his life's work to read every book on magic, magical theory, and magical history that had ever been written. Then, when less than three decades had passed completing that endeavor, he read them a second time. And then again. He might have built Belle a library in the Dark Castle—Don't think of her! It will only break your heart—but the books had always been there, shoved into nooks and crannies, storage and shelves, scattered all over the castle and awaiting his magical call. He'd just organized them for her, shared his most precious possessions (his only companions for so many centuries) with the girl who had stolen his heart.

Don't think about that.

Flipping through page after page of memories brought him to the right conclusion. Danns' a'Bhàis. Dance of Death. Rumplestiltskin's eyes snapped up to meet those of the original Dark One. "The Black Fairy?"

"Is she out again? I understand Ruel Ghorm exiled her some centuries ago." Was that a flicker of hope in the old man's eyes, or fear?

"No. No one has seen her for close to a millennia." But Rumplestiltskin had held her wand, twice now, and he had felt the residual power within it. And then the realization hit him like a ton of bricks, slamming into Rumplestiltskin hard enough to make him rock back on his heels.

Broken. It's what she made of me.

"She did this." The words ground out, tasting like acid in his mouth. "This was no accident. No natural occurrence or magical consequence. The Black Fairy made this curse."

The old man smiled sadly, madly. "Who else?"

Fury blossomed within Rumplestiltskin even as the curse shied away in fear. He had always assumed that the curse was a price to be paid, perhaps the price for humanity's lust for power or even for magic itself. He had never really thought that any being, no matter how powerful, would want to shoehorn such darkness into a human shell, would want to doom someone to the anger and rage and power and pain that being the Dark One was. Oh, so many of them had taken the curse on willingly, some even knowingly, but not one of them truly understood the price until they had already brought it crashing down upon themselves. The Black Fairy had done this, made them, meticulously and purposefully. And she had made them controllable, ever a slave to the dagger, no matter how hard they fought.

Then she had made this place, too. A personal hell, the old man had called it. For him, or for all of them?

Words died on his lips as he stared at the old man; as their eyes met, the shadow of old memories flashed between them. A demon—an elemental demon of darkness, Rumplestiltskin's years of study filled in—raging over the prone form of a man. A man (old already, bearded and gray, but not frazzled and frayed; no, then, he'd cared about his appearance) fighting and losing and yet not dying, screaming in pain as the curse and the demon were forced into him. Bit by bit, she worked her magic and her pain, binding them together and to the dagger. Slowly, a name etched itself into the blade—

"You see now," the old man said, his voice high and singing in the way Rumplestiltskin's so often did when he embraced his inner monster. "You see."

No, he didn't. Not really. But power swirled around them, between them, and it was the echo of something far greater than anything any Dark One had ever been. Greater, not darker, the remnant of something extraordinary that the Black Fairy had destroyed to make her curse.

"Who are you?" he asked again, the vision having snapped aside before he could see the name on the dagger.

"No one, now." The old man turned away. "Just the Dark One. Danns saw to that." His voice dropped to a whisper, broken and sad, and thick with betrayal. "I escaped it once, you know, only to find myself here. Convinced Tia Dalma to kill me, though she never knew what she was in for. Then Danns called the dagger and when she was tired of her 'new' Dark One, she forced Tia Dalma to use the key. To resurrect me, so that I could be her slave all over again."

"Resurrect?"

Foolish, stupid hope leapt up within him before Rumplestiltskin could stop himself. So there was a way out. Would it only work to swap one Dark One for another, or was there another way? But the drained look on the old man's face gave him pause, and the practiced sorcerer within Rumplestiltskin started to wonder: At what price?

"She built this place to hold me. The rest of you are just…consequences."

There was always a price.

"Why you?" Rumplestiltskin asked, burning for a name. Names had meaning, and this one, he sensed, was important. Particularly since the old man seemed to think that his name no longer applied to him—but names were more than labels, they were windows to the soul. They were shapes and definitions and oh so very significant. But the old man was convinced that he was no longer who he had been, and that had to mean something, too.

"Power, of course," was the answer. "It always comes down to power. Power, power, power, trap it and own it and make it your slave…"

Some time later—three major battles, four minor (three of which Rumplestiltskin only watched), and another fruitless conversation with the old man later, something changed. By then, even Rumplestiltskin had been in the vault long enough to know that nothing ever did that; each moment bled into the next, all illuminated by the same eerie red glow and punctuated by the dripping ooze of darkness. Time passed in the vault without really passing, and the only change the others had ever experienced came when a newcomer died and joined them. But by now, all the others knew that there would be no further Dark Ones. Word had eventually gotten around that Rumplestiltskin was the last—though most of them didn't know how he'd come to be that, and he'd heard a half-dozen theories on the subject—which meant there would be no more variations to the routine.

Until, suddenly, there was. It was subtle, at first, a taste of magic in the air that was different from everything else. Darker, even. Slowly, potent and powerful magic started to fill the vault, igniting the particles in the air and sending a shiver tearing down Rumplestiltskin's spine. It was almost like…

"Someone is trying to summon the Dark One," Arwan said with a sneer. "Someone close."

"The book," Sekhmet confirmed with a nod, very obviously not looking at her (at the moment) enemy.

"The key," a third voice rasped, and they all—all seventeen of them, gathered in the main chamber by mutual desire to know what was happening—turned to face the old man. "Someone has the key."

Tia Dalma shuddered, and the old man grinned out a grimace. He turned to look at Rumplestiltskin, his black eyes going blue.

"It's your turn, lad. Be grateful you still have the dagger, else whomever controls the key would own you."

Rumplestiltskin wheeled to face the old man, instinctively reaching for the dagger and only just stopping before the blade landed visibly in his hand. Protect the dagger! the curse screamed desperately, even as he felt its excitement rising within him. Rage and victory warred inside him; someone was foolish enough to raise the Dark One from the dead, and that someone would pay the price—

"…Then Danns called the dagger and when she was tired of her 'new' Dark One, she forced Tia Dalma to use the key. To resurrect me, so that I could be her slave all over again." The old man hadn't had to tell Rumplestiltskin what the price was. Tia Dalma had paid it at the Black Fairy's behest. Command.

Who was up there now, sending a chill down Rumplestiltskin's spine as they walked on the face of the vault? Who was tricking who into paying the price? When he'd first heard that resurrection was possible, Rumplestiltskin had thought of Belle, of Bae, of the possibility that those he loved more than life itself would somehow find a way to bring him back, but he had known that such hopes were foolish. Neither his son nor his love were the type to dabble in such dark magic, and dark magic this was. The one who raised the Dark One would have to be steeped in such magic, consumed by it. No one else would ever think of reaching for the most evil curse in all creation.

"Why him?" Zoso stepped forward to demand, his eyes wild with desire. "It could be any of us."

An ugly growl swept around the chamber, but Rumplestiltskin could think of calling magic to defend himself, someone else stepped forward. No matter who was orchestrating this resurrection, he intended for it to be him who returned to the land of the living—and apparently the old man agreed, because power swept out around the two of them, power enough to make any Dark One pause. It carried with it that echo of greatness, of eternity, and Rumplestiltskin almost drew back from the magic as the old man straightened, the molding scales vanishing form his skin as order imposed itself upon his feral hair and beard. For a moment, the old man looked like a sorcerer straight out of legend, a good sorcerer, and not the wildly mad Dark One they all knew he was.

Or did they?

"That's the nature of the curse," the old man answered even as Zoso shied away from the burst of power. "The last one in is the one who can be called, and no other. Ask Tia Dalma, if you doubt me."

The dark-skinned madwoman only shook her head wildly, retreating to the back of the group and staring. Her eyes never once left the old man, wide and worried, full of terror. The old man, however, smiled viciously.

"This is what we are," he laughed. "Now you'll pay the price."

The last part was directed at Rumplestiltskin, who tried hard not to swallow. But life was better than this, wasn't it? Damn the costs—he couldn't escape the pull, anyway. Even when he thought about moving away, he suddenly found that his feet were stuck to the floor, held firmly in place by oozing black darkness that gathered around him. A circle of it was forming, one about eight feet in diameter, thick and dark and potently painful. Well aware of the agony that ooze could cause, the others all backed away—all but the old man, who stood his ground, still smiling a smile that never reached his eyes. He looked at Zoso one last time.

"He'll be back, lad. You can have your fun then." But the old man sized Rumplestiltskin up one last time. "Or perhaps he won't."

The terrifyingly perceptive comment made hope surge within him. Rumplestiltskin was going to live. He could find Bae, find Belle, maybe even be who they needed him to be. And he could avoid this place again. They were back in the Enchanted Forest, and that meant his curse could be broken. Not right away, perhaps—he still had uses for the power—but eventually he could end this, could escape the darkness and the evil, could just be Rumplestiltskin. Oh, he'd made himself embrace all of it down there in the vault, had turned to power and evil instead of love, but he didn't have to do that. He'd have a choice, so long as he held onto the dagger, just like he always had.

So he tried to ignore it when the darkness gathering around him, the curse inside him, laughed at the thought. Love is weakness.

The ooze reached his knees, burning darkness in, turning Rumplestiltskin's legs into liquid evil. It hurt enough to make him want to scream, but it was also a victory, an escape. And then the dagger was in his hand, power swirling around him and the call of the curse echoing more strongly than ever in his mind. Suddenly breathless, Rumplestiltskin was reminded of his early days as the Dark One, when nothing could stop him and he was never afraid, when the rage and the power and the darkness was enough to fill his soul. Had he just killed Zoso, or had that been three centuries in the past? Small distinctions like time no longer seemed to matter. He was the Dark One. Rumplestiltskin could avenge those who had wronged him, do whatever he—

A hand on his wrist, his right wrist, the one holding the dagger, brought awareness crashing back in. The old man met his gaze with knowing eyes, and somehow, it never entered Rumplestiltskin's mind that the original Dark One might want to take the dagger and take his place.

"Make your choice, Rumplestiltskin," the old man said softly. "And choose well."

"What?" The darkness was up to his waist, now. It would swallow him in moments, bring him to the surface, and spit him back out again.

"I did not," the first Dark One replied. "Until the last. You'll understand someday, I expect, though not without first paying the price."

The curse—his again, and no other's—wanted Rumplestiltskin to scoff at the notion. But the careful sorcerer he'd become, in addition to the power granted by the curse, felt a touch of alarm upon hearing those words. There was something he wasn't seeing, something he could not know. His visions of the future remained firmly planted in the living world, so this wasn't the Seer's powers cropping up again. Was this just experience? Instinct? A bit of foresight left behind? He had no way to know.

"Merlin," the old man whispered before releasing him and stepping back.

"What?"

A small, sad smile touched the wizened face, and Rumplestiltskin watched the wildness come back to the blue eyes, watched scales crop back up and the polished exterior fade beneath centuries of darkness. "You asked my name."

The darkness swallowed Rumplestiltskin before that name had a chance to sink in, before he could ask if the old man was serious or if he was lying—but he couldn't be lying, wasn't, and suddenly everything made too much sense. Pain raced like lightning through his body, and Rumplestiltskin suddenly felt like his entire being was being deconstructed and eaten away by the ooze, transformed into nothing but liquid darkness that brought him to the surface, boiling out of the vault and into the world of the living. He didn't belong here, Rumplestiltskin realized belatedly, despite his passionate desire to live, despite the nasty habits that had kept him alive for so long. Even as the darkness, the liquid of the curse, slowly rose to give him new form, Rumplestiltskin knew that was true.

But the dagger was in his hand when he found himself back in his old scaled and imp-like form, clutched as if it was a lifeline, tethering him to sanity. Or to something. Protect the dagger! the curse demanded, and Rumplestiltskin's fingers clung to it tighter. He would be no one's tool, no one's slave. He was the Dark One, and no one could stop him. Already the memories of the vault were beginning to fade into the background, to become less important than the sudden sensory input of being alive. He could smell snow, feel cold, and the light around him was eerily blue with moonlight, not red as he'd grown far too used to. He was alive! He had won.

And then he saw his son lying on the ground, a distinctive mark burned into his hand as he lay dying, and all thoughts of victory fled.

Thank you to everyone for reading! Those of you who have also read "Original Powers" can probably see a few echoes of that fic here, since the two share an origin story for the curse of the Dark One. Here, I've tried to examine why Rumplestiltskin is different when he emerges from the Vault in 3B, so please let me know what you think!