[center][img=http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d94/Malfoys_one_and_only_girl/Male%20Characters/Rumpel.gif?t=1406852255][img=http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d94/Malfoys_one_and_only_girl/Signatures/240x160Regina.gif?t=1407701155][/center]

Regina immediately squared herself off in the direction the blast came from, a ball of flickering fire appearing in her hand by instinct, however when she saw Rumpelstiltskin walking with a purpose towards her, she let the flame diminish into nothing and crossed her arms over her arguably inappropriately exposed bosom.

"Belle...where is she? I swear to God I'll-" Rumpelstiltskin closed the distance between the two rather quickly, but Regina didn't budge and instead took a moment to examine her nails from the position they were folded on her.

"Relax Imp, she's still alive...for now. So long as you cooperate." Regina replied coolly.

Rumpelstiltskin took a side-step across Regina so that he was finally able to look into the cell where Belle was located, immediately feeling tears welling up in his eyes as he looked down upon her unconscious body on the stone floor, no doubt her body had given up on his way here. He took a minute to close his eyes and breathe in deeply. She was unconscious; yes, but still alive.

"What do you want?" He practically spat at Regina, never letting his eyes off of Belle. Regina simply nodded to the remaining guard. With a light huff, the guard opened up the cell door and stepped inside, pulling Belle to her feet. Rumpelstiltskin took an instinctive step forward when the Beauty let out a slight whimper in protest, but Regina held her arm out firm to keep him from getting any closer.

The guard walked Belle out of the cell, apparently she wasn't quite unconscious yet, but startlingly close. He made brief eye contact with Belle before Regina spoke again.

"Get in, Imp."

Rumpelstiltskin looked away from Belle and shot Regina a sideways glance.

"Get. In. We both know you have something planned. I know you helped Charming find Snow, but it never ends with you does it?" Regina continued.

"That? That's what this is all about?" Rumpelstiltskin asked, turning up his hands in question. Regina only glared at him coldly and Rumpelstiltskin took the initiative to put himself in the cell.

"Wait...not that one..." Regina suddenly said, causing Rumpelstiltskin to roll his eyes and followed the direction of Regina's glance towards a peculiar looking cell that seemed to be made out of pikes instead of iron bars.

"So you finally managed to build it..." Rumpelstiltskin walked from the current cell to the other, waiting for Regina to open it up before he stepped inside. Regina closed it up tight and smiled, finally content and feeling a huge amount of weight being lifted off of her shoulders.

"The curse, I have the final ingredient. Now what do I do?"

Rumpelstiltskin's eyes glanced over to Belle for a moment, his heart slightly fluttering as she began to stir a little more into alertness. Good, she was going to be okay. He placed his hands on the wooden pikes serving as bars, pressing his face in-between them to speak to Regina directly.

"There's a price..." He began, but Regina cut him off directly.

"What do you want?" She asked, initially expecting that.

"In this new life...I want comfort; I want a good life!"

"Fine!" Regina spat, her patience wearing thin again. "You'll have an estate; and you will be rich-"

"I wasn't finished!" Rumpelstiltskin interrupted, clear that his own patience was running thin with The Queen. "There's more!" Regina shook her head slightly.

"There always is with you..."

Rumpelstiltskin couldn't help but to crack a wide smile.

"In this new land, should I come to you for any reason...you must heed my every request!" He raised his arm up, pointing directly to the ceiling to accentuate his words, and then turned his hand so that his finger was pointing directly at Regina. "You must do whatever I say...so long as I say..." He paused, watching the anguish on Regina's face become more and more clear the longer he waited to finish his sentence. "...PLEASE!" He practically shouted, followed up by a breathy laugh. Regina didn't flinch.

"You do realize that should I succeed, you won't remember [i]any[/i] of this..."

Rumpelstiltskin made the face of a child being caught in the larder in the middle of the night; guilty but not so ashamed of being caught.

"Oh, well then, what's the harm?" He asked Regina with a light shrug. Regina just snickered softly.

"Deal."

Rumpelstiltskin's grin widened, threatening to crack his dry lips as he let out a soft snicker of his own.

"Drop it in." He said at last. Regina blinked, unsure of what he was talking about at first, and then it clicked. 

"That's all? No written spell? No...enchantment?"

"You already did the hard part dearie, just drop it in and watch it unfold."

Regina nodded twice and backed away from the cell a few feet.

"You did it." Rumpelstiltskin said, almost sounding surprised, catching Regina off guard as she was just about ready to leave.

"That's right. I did it." She replied with an edge of pride in her voice, even more-so than what she usually carried. "And I wanted [i]you[/i] to know it, before you, like all the pathetic citizens of this wretched land forgets everything."

"How did it feel?" Rumpelstiltskin asked in reply, and watched Regina's face fall ever so slightly. "How did it feel to kill the thing that you love most?" He asked again. "R-r-r-r-r-ripping the heart out of your father?"

"It was the price of the curse!" Regina replied hotly, defending herself. "How it felt doesn't matter. You would have understood. [i]I took my life back[/i], I had to...I WON."

"And yet...here you are...feeling the need to gloat..." Rumpelstiltskin inhaled a deep breath, as if realizing something important. "Something's missing, isn't it dearie?"

"Not at all! I have everything I want! Nothing can stop me now..."

Rumpelstiltskin fell into a fit of laughter, causing Regina to step away from the cell pikes a step out of surprise. This...this was [i]exactly[/i] why Regina wanted him here; where she could keep an eye on him in a cell where he was unable to use any of his magic. 

"But now there's a hole...in your heart..." He said, coming out of his fit of laughter as if it never happened. "And someday...you'll come to me to fill it..."

Regina sternly shook her head no, smirking.

"You overestimate your powers of foresight." She snapped coldly.

"AND YOU UNDERESTIMATE THE PRICE OF WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"

Regina glared at him coldly. Just what was he playing at now?

"You shall see you will come to me-" Rumpelstiltskin sang, wagging his finger along to the beat. "-there is more you need! Oh!" He popped off with an amused grin.

"Your taunts will get you nowhere!" Regina snapped once again, feeling her blood beginning to boil and her skin beginning to crawl. He was bluffing; he had to be, that's all he had left. "I know you too well...you wanna make another deal..." She observed, and then pressed her own face against the pike bars, causing Rumpelstiltskin to back up this time. "WELL I WON'T!"

"A deal?" He laughed, genuinely amused this time. "You already promised me a good life in this new land. What more could I want...from you?" He asked, pointing at her again.

"Oh..." Regina started. "...to be let out of this cage? To...be let out of our last deal? To escape the curse?" She tried, as if tantalizing him with the idea. Rumpelstiltskin tiled his head to the side slightly.

"But why would I desire that dearie? I'm [i]exactly[/i] where I want to be..."

This took Regina totally by surprise. Just what the [i]HELL[/i] did he mean by that? Furrowing her eyebrows, Regina backed away from the cell once more and walked over to her guard and Belle, and turned her head towards Rumpelstiltskin.

"I agreed she stay safe while you did as you were told, but now that I no longer have things to tell you to do, that deal is up." She said sternly, and looked back at Belle, plunging her hand into Belle's chest wrist deep.

Even in her weakened state, Belle let out a sharp gasp of breath and collapsed to her hands and knees as soon as Regina removed her hand, Belle's heart beating wildly inside of it. Rumpelstiltskin's eyes snapped wide open and instinctively moved his arms to put a magic hold on Regina, however The Evil Queen simply laughed as she spotted this and squeezed down hard on Belle's heart, causing Belle to gasp out for breath once again.

"Did you forget already? You are MINE Rumpel, at now at least I can have the satisfaction of the look on your face when I have finally beaten you at your own game.

"NO!"

Regina gave the heart one last squeeze, clenching the heart in her palm and fingertips as hard as she possibly could until little beads of what looked like a mixture of sand and dirt began to trickle from her hands, rendering the helpless Belle completely motionless.

"BELLE! [b]BELLE![/b] Rumpelstiltskin grabbed at the pike bars, willing to break them apart with his own strength but the bars refused to submit. Regina tossed her head back and laughed, letting what was left of Belle's crushed heart fall to the ground at Rumpelstiltskin's feet.

"I would love to stay and chat Rumpel, but I've got a curse to put into motion." With a white, flashy smile, Regina disappeared into a sudden appearance of thin, black mist, her laugh continuing to echo through the dungeon.