Author's Note: Just to clarify on my last note, I will finish this story here at FFN, but new titles will most likely be exclusive to AO3. Anywhoooo, there's going to be nothing but action in the next several chapters as we roll into the full climax. I think it's going to be 31 chapters with an epilogue. As always, thank you for staying with me through all the twists and turns. I appreciate all the readers, especially those that take time to comment. You're very VERY appreciated.
"What were you thinking?" Damon's volume was increasing by the second. "You finally cut off his balls and you decided to give them back?"
Fed up at the fact that he'd been harping on this for the last ten minutes, Bonnie stepped behind to grab his neck and threw him effortlessly towards the large window in the living room. Before he could bounce back up and retaliate, she flashed over and turned him roughly so that he could see outside. "Considering the current state of things, I think I made the right move, Asshat. So shut. Up. Unless you'd like to be the lamb for slaughter? Maybe I can offer you to them as an appetizer while the rest of us escape."
Damon slithered out of her grasp and scowled, frown lines edged deeply into his forehead. "So we nuke 'em, then. Mass casualties are a part of war, Witchy. But now we've got to worry about Voldemort, here, on top of all the other people who now want us dead."
"That's not how magic works and you know it. I can't take out that many people simultaneously without risking all of your lives." Pursing her lips in irritation, she let out a grunt of annoyance. "Although, now I'm thinking if you'd gotten hit in the fray, I wouldn't have minded."
Kai was watching the argument take place, slurping loudly from the blood bag in his hand. He tossed the empty plastic onto the kitchen counter before yanking another one from the fridge. Ripping open the top, he shifted to face the other darker-haired man. "First of all, I just watched all the Harry Potter movies and...Voldemort is ugly, so...I can't even entertain that comparison." He took a hard gulp. "Second of all, we're on the same side. I'm doing this for the greater good. My greater good. I promise I won't kill you." He glanced at Bonnie with a dark smile. "Well, not today, anyway." Punctuating his sentence with an exaggerated wink that made her emotions rage, he swallowed the rest, frowning a bit as the bag met its twin on the counter. "Guys, how do you all live like this? It's like eating McDonalds when there's freshly-seared steak surrounding you. Amirite?" He glanced at Damon when he said this, who begrudgingly had to agree.
"We don't have time for this," Stefan spoke up. "We need to organize ourselves. In about an hour, we're going to get hit from all sides and we need to make sure we have a plan."
"Getting hit from all sides, kinky," Kai called out, earning simultaneous glares in his direction.
Choosing to ignore him, Stefan continued on. "How do we do this? Freya, is there a reason why we can't just keep adding layers onto the protection spell you have covering this place?"
"We can, but they're cutting into the root of the Mikaelson magic," Freya replied, her palms pressed against the window to try to assess how much of the barriers had been sliced through. "No matter how much I add on, it'll be significantly weaker than the original. The only way to make it relatively impenetrable again is if I take everything down and rebuild the wards. We don't have that kind of time and it would leave you one person short...and us completely defenseless."
"How many points of entry are there?" Damon asked, finally dropping his anger for the good of the team. "Considering we're outnumbered, like, fifteen to one, it'll give us an idea of how best to break up the group."
"The odds just make it more fun," Kai said with a flick of his wrist, adding absolutely nothing productive to the conversation. "Worse comes to worse, I can nuke 'em like you said, right?"
The last thing Damon wanted was to agree with the hybrid more than once, so he shrugged noncommittally. "I obviously didn't think that part through."
"We're not nuking anybody", Liv called from the top of the stairs as she trotted town, hands laden with spell paraphernalia. Tossing them unceremoniously onto the dining room table, she joined the rest of the group. "I did a reading of the their progress before coming down. We have a little more than an hour, I think. They're hung up on some of the older Mikaelson spells woven into the barrier."
"This place is a gigantic square with only the front and back door for access, so that makes controlling how they come in a lot easier, " Bonnie said, thinking out loud. Her mind was whirring to life, working to figure out a plan. She shifted her gaze between her three fellow witches. "We don't have time to set up defensives on the entire manor, but we can put centralized curses against the larger windows or anywhere they can possibly get in. It won't keep them out completely, but it'll force them to redirect to areas we can pick them off." She spun around the room, evaluating and creating a mental picture of the space. "Once we do that, Kai and I can handle the foyer. Freya, you, Liv, and Damon can handle the back entrance. Caroline and Stefan can deal with the overflow that gets past us."
"You're forgetting that once the shield is lifted, Kai's people will be able to track his leader-beacon and come storming in," Caroline stated, peeking through the grand window in the foyer. "How are we going to be able to distinguish which ones are the baddies we're ousting vs the innocents?"
Kai had been unusually subdued during Bonnie's spiel, but finally piped up to answer. "Ah, leave that to the almighty leader." He moved to stand next to the blonde vampire. Closing his eyes, he placed his palms out, facing upwards. "Phasmatos discernere." Bonnie could hear his magic practically hum as he concentrated on the spell.
"Bon, look," Caroline whispered, staring out at Joseph. The hybrid shuffled until she was standing in front of her friend and gave attention to the group. They were still chanting, but it almost seemed like they were getting encased with a transparent aura. It caused them to glow a clear and soft blue, but they seemed to be none the wiser at what was transpiring.
With a final breath, Kai released the spell, a draft blowing through the room. Smirking in satisfaction at his handiwork, he nodded to the group. "It's something I was tinkering with a couple weeks ago. It lets me pick out my people from a crowd, allows me to keep tabs."
"Stalkery much?" Liv balked. "You told me you were working on a locator protection spell. I helped you with it."
"I did say that, yes," Kai said with a laugh. "Should've known better than to believe me. Besides, it worked out, didn't it?" Enjoying her ire, he continued to egg her on. "Oh, Livvie. You knew I had my switch off. Not my fault you chose to trust what I said."
"Stop," Bonnie barked, yelling over Liv's swearing. "It doesn't matter right now. We can deal with his assholeness later. Focus." She met Kai's gray orbs. "The spell won't fade or dissipate?"
"Not unless they find out about it..which they won't." He was very sure of himself. "I always build failsafes into my spells." The last statement was a dig at her and if they weren't fighting on the same side, Bonnie would have put a curse on him.
She chose to ignore him this time and laid her hands upon the glass of the window. "I'm going to put up my own magic and then you all should infuse yours. If we weave all three ancestral lines, it should provide enough webbing to keep them from making any creative entrances."
They worked methodically, each witch taking a possible point of entry, putting up their respective barricading spells before switching off with one of the others. For added measure, Liv and Freya created potions to pour on the entryways, creating additional roadblocks.
Knowing that their time was limited, they chose to seal the staircases to the cellar and second floor altogether instead of going room by room.
Kai seemed particularly gleeful when he weaved his magic into the barriers separating the floors. Grinning wickedly at the others' look of confusion, he gave them all a thumbs up. "I wove in a disintegration curse. Anyone that tries to take down the barrier will turn into sand. Fun, right?" He seemed so proud of himself; he was in his element.
When nobody replied, he merely scoffed and stared at the seemingly empty doorway as though admiring his work. "The fact that you all don't appreciate my creativity is very disheartening."
"It will also destroy your own people, Kai," Bonnie seethed, trying to control the anger for the man. "Or did you forget about them?"
"Sweet Bonster, always the hero thinking of the little people," he sneered with a roll of his eyes. "No, Miss Perfect, I, in fact, did not forget about them. That little spell I put on them to make them glow? So you can pick them apart from my followers? I wove it into this as well." He raised an eyebrow. "See? Failsafe."
"They've nearly broken through." Freya's voice cut through the argument, clear and crisp. She faced the group. "We need to be ready."
"Um...it's probably too late to ask this question, but is there a reason why we didn't just run?" Caroline asked, nerves setting in.
Bonnie stopped what she was doing - rechecking the wards - and turned to face her friend. She'd been running in defensive mode since Liv had burst through the door and never once stopped to think about anything besides ending this fight once and for all. It'd been incredibly selfish of her, just assuming that everybody was on the same page. Clasping the blonde's hands in her own, Bonnie squeezed affectionately.
"I never thought to run because I just want this whole thing to be over and I'm sorry for that, Care. I didn't think of you." She turned to the others sans Kai and Liv. "Any of you." She shifted to look at all of them from a better angle, but didn't let go of Caroline's hand. "Liv and I can teleport all of you out, if that's what you want. I should never have assumed you'd take on this fight. You're my friends and, for a second, I lost sight of that. I'm sorry."
It was the blonde vampire's turn to be placating. "Bonnie, I was kidding...kinda." She let out a tinkle of a laugh. "We said we were staying to help and we meant it. You said it, we're friends and we want you to be okay." Another giggle, this one a bit more apprehensive. "Just...maybe...kill as many of them down as possible before they get to us?"
"I promise I will," Bonnie was so grateful to this woman and, when Stefan and Freya agreed with much of the same sentiments, she couldn't contain her elation.
The only person who hadn't spoken up was Damon. While he didn't join in on the friendship powwow, he didn't seem ready to skip out, either. Merely quirking an eyebrow, he chugged straight from the bottle of bourbon he was holding. "Baby bro won't leave, so I'm stuck. Don't take it as me caring about you in any kind of way."
Moment sufficiently ended, everybody broke apart to go to their respective spots. Caroline and Stefan stood in the long hallway between the two areas, staying alert and on the defensive.
"King and Queen together again, hm?" Kai whispered, hovering over Bonnie's shoulder. "I distinctly remember a time when I couldn't think of anything that would make me happier, fighting with you by my side. Thank God that's over with."
It was hard for her not to heed his words, but she steeled herself and didn't react. "Well, then let's count this as a last hurrah before we part ways. Or maybe before you get maimed and die." The adrenaline was pumping through her; she felt petty and angry.
Kai chuckled, breezy and unconcerned. "So cute when you're mad, Baby. I love it, I do."
Before she could bite back with a scathing retort, a weird sensation ripped through her body, like somebody had momentarily sucked all the air out of the room. Bonnie turned her attention to the window. Joseph had breached.
Breath hitching in her throat, she waited for the witches to move forward, to converge on the home. She was surprised when it was only Joseph who stepped out of the line. He strode towards them until he was several feet from the door.
"As this is a Mikaelson home, I have to assume that you have the family witch on your side," he began diplomatically. "My followers and I do not wish to start a war against you or the Original family, Miss Mikaelson. Our concerns lay only with Malachai. I ask that you send him out to us to be tried by the newly-formed Gemini council."
Kai let out a noise of disbelief. "Tried means executed and you all know it." With the exception of Bonnie and Liv, the rest of the team seemed relatively intrigued by Joseph's words. Affronted, the hybrid's form became taut and prickly. "It's clearly a trap, assholes. There's no way he'd let Bonnie or Liv survive."
Almost as though he could hear the coven leader, Joseph spoke again. "We will leave you in peace, Miss Mikaelson, including the others that are inside. All of them."
"He won't," Liv spoke softly. "Kai's right. As far as Joseph's concerned, Bonnie is Kai's queen and I'm the traitor who took her brother's side."
"But if we give them Socio-Parker, it'll lull them into a sense of security," Damon said, pondering out loud. "Let us launch an offensive attack."
Before Bonnie could even say something to disagree, Kai shook his head and curled his fingers into his palm, blowing the front door clean off its hinges. The move surprised Joseph, who immediately threw up a shield spell.
"Yeah, definitely not using me as a bargaining chip," the hybrid growled. "Nice play, though Old Man. Didn't think you'd be so brave." He stepped outside into the open air. "Your lackey that I sent back didn't tell you what I was capable of?" To prove his point, he threw a large fireball that completely encompassed Joseph and would've killed him were it not for the shield.
Bonnie quickly followed him outside, screaming that the others hold their place. This plan was already going wildly awry. She'd hoped that all of them could use the manor as a fortress, methodically disposing of Joseph's followers and keeping control of the environment. Of course Kai had to go off-book.
Joseph didn't respond. Instead, he backed up to reset himself, his followers quickly coming up behind him as a collective group.
This was worrying. At this point, they could attack all at once and, regardless of how powerful the two hybrids were, it was entirely possible they wouldn't survive it. She had to try and separate them. With Kai having most of their attention, she had a moment and she intended to use it. Raising her head to the sky, Bonnie called upon nature, willing her magic to reach out and pull from the earth.
"Ignus fulgur." Above them, a cloud formed directly over the area and seemed to darken before a crack of lightning split the sky. Her aim was true and she hit the group dead-center. It wasn't enough to hurt them - Bonnie needed a much more complicated spell for that - but at least it knocked them back and scattered them a bit.
Eyes opening wide, she threw out her hands and pushed through her fingertips. "Vodux." A strong force slammed against a handful of witches and tossed them yards back from the main group.
Kai took this as license to play and laughed giddily as he threw his palms up. "Phasmatos superous em animi." A cluster of witches dropped to the ground, curling into themselves from pain.
"Yey," he shouted, "time for killing."
"Kai," Bonnie shouted, ignoring his exhilaration. "We need to go back inside and make them come to us. We won't win like this." There was too much going on at once; it was overwhelming. Reactively and without thinking, Bonnie clenched her fist in the direction of a witch who threw fire towards her. The woman's neck snapped and she crumpled to the ground.
"Aww, my little hypocrite likes to kill, too." She disregarded his comment; this was going to be a brutal battle against those who sought to harm her and the people she loved. Bonnie needed to regain control of this. Ready to call a spell to drag Kai back inside the manor, she was caught by surprise when a hot pressure hit her chest. The hybrid flew back and hit the front wall of the home, causing the siding to collapse down around her. She jumped up quickly, her wound healing, but before she could gain her bearings, another strike pounded into her sternum. This one was particularly painful, heat radiating into her organs. Coughing and using her magic to try to heal faster, Bonnie looked around to see who'd managed to get her.
Yet another beam headed towards her, but she was ready with a shielding spell. She kept it up and assessed her surroundings. What she saw caused the blood to practically freeze in her veins.
Kai's followers had arrived. And they were all aiming directly for Bonnie.