18: Every Injustice and Deadly Fate.

When Nova opened her eyes at last she was not in the creepy basement lab at Whitmore. She actually had no idea where she was. It looked as if it were in the works of being set up with tarps and plastic still hung up. She let out a soft groan, her throat drier than a desert. Thick, leather straps and chains held her firmly to a metal table. The bright lights hurt her weak and still blurry eyes.

"Subject 21052 appears conscious," she heard Maxfield before he appeared beside her with his tape recorder in hand.

"What the fuck is this?"

Maxfield just smirked down at her. "21052 resume prep for blood dialysis."

Damon and Elena stormed into the boarding house which took Stefan by surprise. "All hands on deck," Damon told his brother hastily. "Maxfield has Nova. Again."

"What?" Stefan jumped to his feet. "What the hell happened?"

"He had kidnapped Damon and I," Elena explained. "Nova partially channeled Damon and came to the rescue but as we escaped he got her. She's not at Whitmore either."

"Yeah, so we need to find Zina, get Bonnie and Jeremy, you need to get your ass in gear, and whatever other Vasiles would care to help would be lovely. He's trying to turn vampires on one another for food sources instead of humans to wipe out our whole race."

Stefan's eyes widened as far as they could go. "If that's his goal, who the hell knows what he can accomplish with Nova's blood and genes!"

"No shit. Start rounding up the team. I'll find Zina."

Back in Maine, Zina could feel deep in her gut that something had gone horribly wrong with her twin. She had been mad when she first woke up, but then the feeling of dread set in quickly. She tried to use her emotions to channel into her magic, but Oblivion could see she was off her game. Even the celestial vanished for about a half hour which further concerned the ravenette.

"You need to return to Virginia."

Zina looked up to the white haired woman with a hint of fear in her dark eyes. "Augustine took Nova again, didn't they?"

Oblivion nodded solemnly. "I can and will send you there. This is a matter of urgency."

When Zina appeared in a cloud of purple smoke in the boarding house with everyone else, most took a collective step away from the ravenette. Except Damon. As soon as he laid eyes on the younger twin he knew she was there because she found out about her sister. He didn't give a damn where the smoke and magic came from so long as it was useful. "There is one person who could possibly lead us to my sister," she announced with a solemn look over to Elena. "And it's Aaron."

Ignoring the doe-eyed brunette's dismay, Zina, Stefan, and Damon went straight to Whitmore to grill Aaron Whitmore. "I have no idea where Wes took her," he tried to assure them.

"Well, they're not at his lab, so where else could he hide a vampire?" Stefan snapped back at him.

Aaron blinked a few times. "I'm sorry. Am I supposed to know who you are?"

Damon sat on a desk next to Aaron much too close for his liking. "That's my brother Stefan, but I'd watch your tone with him because he's kind of in the midst of a psychotic break. We've been dealing with some bullshit and he and Nova have always had a bit of a complicated relationship. That one there with the icy stare in her black - and yes I do mean black - eyes would be Nova's twin sister having returned from the dead. She got her heart ripped out like a century ago, you see."

"Whatever your guardian is doing to my sister," Zina spoke coldly as she stared him in the eye without so much as blinking for added effect, "it's going to turn her into a monster worse than he's expecting."

"I don't know anything," Aaron stressed. "All that Wes told me was to go about my life as usual."

"Oh, there is no 'usual' anymore, Aaron." Stefan commented. "Not once you know about this stuff."

"And it gets even worse, kid." Damon added as he patted Aaron's back mockingly. "Wes Maxfield and Augustine are nothing compared to two psychotic archangels."

Aaron's eyes widened with shock and fear. "A-archangels?"

"We're gonna call Wes, and you're gonna tell him that if he doesn't give us Nova the next experiment that he conducts it's gonna be sewing your arms back on."

"So you're the infamous Nova," an unfamiliar accented voice spoke beside the ravenette.

Her head lolled to the side, the weight helping it move from how weak she had become. Another vampire lay strapped to a table beside her, but with many fewer restraints than she had. "Oh great," her hoarse voice remained sarcastic. "A fanboy."

He chuckled. "Actually, my name is Enzo. I was a friend of Damon's at one point."

"Damon and I don't have a lot of friends. I would know you."

"Ah, but you wouldn't, sweetheart. Damon and I were in Augustine together in 1953. His friendship over the next five years made it remotely bearable. We had a plan to escape, but then he left me to die in a fire and shut off his humanity. All he did when we weren't being poked and prodded was tell me about you."

Something stirred deep in Nova's chest. Damon… was captured by Augustine those five years…? She thought. That's why he had shut off his humanity before he returned to me… that was why I was so broken that I did the same… and he never spoke of it…

"Everyday was a new story about his beautiful Nova," Enzo continued on. "All of the adventures you two had been on. I made the mistake of calling you his girlfriend once. He laughed, but I could hear how sad it sounded, and said you were his best friend. When I asked why all he could say was that it was 'complicated'. I told him if he ever got out of that bloody cell that he best make it not complicated anymore. Leave it to him to complicate things worse."

While Nova laid there in her thoughts of Damon trapped for five years, Wes released Enzo with a mission. She could barely hear them as her body grew weaker and mind surrounded by thoughts. Part of her could almost reach out and touch the smallest shred of humanity, yet it was still just out of her grasp. For a while Enzo kept Stefan and Damon under wraps by discussing what happened in the 1950s until Stefan went to bring Aaron to his dorm to retrieve information on Augustine. Enzo kept Damon in the classroom for collateral out of bitter spite. They had been thankful that Zina slipped out before Enzo arrived to acknowledge her presence.

Zina hastily wandered about downtown Mystic Falls searching for something. With her psychic abilities she could feel a significance somewhere nearby. Training with Oblivion had helped her control the voices from the astral plane, but they had slowly began to grow louder again as she wandered. In some places they were quieter than others so she backtracked curiously to where they were louder. It was the old office of one Grayson Gilbert.

Oblivion appeared beside her. "You are learning to merge your psychic abilities with the feed from astral plane. Good work."

"So Nova is in there, then." She muttered before taking out her phone to send a text to Damon. "That Maxfield prick… he's working on some virus to turn vampires on one another; to make us our own sustenance until we wipe ourselves out."

"Your sister is not a good candidate for that. You've bore witness to what she has done to humanity, even angels."

Zina knew the cosmic entity was correct. If Maxfield's Ripper Virus worked on Nova… it could be the end of them. She couldn't wait for Damon to escape Enzo or magically change his mind. Her boot collided with the door, nearly kicking it off its hinges. The first sign of electrical work she laid eyes on she put her hand on and fried it with her newfound power. Down in the basement Wes had the syringe of his supposedly perfectly Ripper Virus poised to stick into Nova when the power surged until it blew.

Nova, even in her weak state, managed a smirk. "Hope you're not afraid of the electric chair, doc."

The needle pierced her skin. Zina kicked open the basement door. Most of the virus was pushed through into Nova's bloodstream when a bolt of bright red lightning launched straight at Maxfield's chest. He may as well have been unnecessarily hit with AED paddles at full strength. While he twitched and fought for consciousness on the floor, Zina sped over and ripped the restraints from her sister. She found the needle still in Nova's neck but had at least a shred of hope because the entire syringe had not yet been emptied.

"Come on," she spoke quickly as she helped her sister up. "Before Doctor Douche gets up and tries for a pair."

Nova's arm was thrown and held around Zina's shoulders as she carried the tortured ravenette upstairs. Nova could barely keep her eyes open. "I'm not worth saving anymore, soră. I'll always be a monster."

"Why? Because Remiel fried whatever she could of your humanity? Because of this supposed Ripper Virus nonsense? We'll figure it out, smarald fluture (emerald butterfly)." She offered her sister a gentle smile and noticed the bit of surprise Nova could muster on her face.

"You think she'll be okay?" Damon asked softly. He and Zina stood at the foot of Nova's bed in her home in the woods as she slept off what Maxfield did to her.

Zina let out a soft sigh. "Honestly? I have no clue. Doctor Douche did get some of that virus in her and who knows what her body will do with it. Especially with her humanity fried thanks to Remiel. She's pretty fucked up right now. What about Enzo?"

He scoffed. "I found the antidote for him, but he didn't give a damn. He's still pissed at me. You wanna know the last thing he said to me?"

"Hm?"

"'You were the most important person in my life, and you ruined me, but that's just who you are, that's who you'll always be… A monster.'"

Zina's face was solemn as the last two words really sank into her. "Funny," her tone dropped low; almost broken, "that's all Nova sees herself as - a monster. She told me she wasn't worth saving anymore because that's all she is."

"Maybe that's all we really are." Damon's voice was dark and grim. His eyes never moved from his fiancee's sleeping form. "Humanity or not, backhanded reasoning for what we do or not… we're just monsters."

"Don't you think we could do better?"

"Don't you think we've tried?"

Back at the boarding house, a decaying Katherine was walking downstairs on the phone with Nadia. The two had been bonding over the loss of Katia which Nadia had to find out the hard way, and Zina's 'abandonment' as Katherine called it. She had tried to find her adoptive and resurrected vampire, but Zina was always off doing something else. When she caught wind of Zina actually working with Nova… she couldn't believe it. After all she had done for Zina and all Zina gave for her. She had been ready to just give in and die at last when the anger finally set in. If Zina Vasile could be resurrected then Katherine Pierce wasn't going to die.

She was discussing the details with Nadia when suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her chest. Her brown eyes widened with horror. Suddenly she couldn't breathe. Next thing she knew she was tumbling down the stairs. Nadia called for her through the phone but she couldn't hear. With one final whack on the landing, Katherine Pierce was unconscious.

Stefan and Elena, who had been in the process of discussing rekindling their relationship, rushed to her aid when they heard the thud echo. They rushed her to the hospital where she was given CPR and tried to defibrillate her heart from the heart attack she suffered. As Katherine laid in the hospital bed reliving her years in Bulgaria, her daughter being ripped from her, Nova still remained out cold in her own bed reliving flashes of her childhood and Remiel's vicious attack on her mind. Zina returned to Maine to train with Oblivion while Damon sought liquor at the boarding house so Nova could rest with the 'monster' comments in the back of his mind. After hearing of Katherine's fall, he sat with Matt and Jeremy and a couple of bottles of bourbon.

"Rule number one: Name the worst thing Katherine Pierce has ever done." He announced. "Rule number two: Toast to the glory of her impending death. Rule number three: If you come across something that's worse, which you will, repeat rules one and two. She pretended to be buried in a tomb for 145 years, while I waited for her lying ass which caused me to lose Nova for over a decade." He swigged from the bottle before passing it to Matt.

Matt didn't even reach with for the bottle with slight panic in his eyes from being unable to think on his feet. Damon rolled his eyes and handed it to Jeremy instead who took it gladly. "She fed me to Silas and I died which caused my sister and Nova to shut off their humanity." He took a shot. "Then, she made me crash my car into a pole and left me for dead… again."

Damon snickered. "Double doozy. Drink."

"My sister is dead because of her." Matt finally spoke with a small shrug.

"Yes she is," Damon confirmed as he grabbed three shot glasses. "Because I wouldn't have even been in town to turn Vicki into a murderous vampire if I wasn't trying to get Katherine out of a tomb she wasn't in. Group shot!"

Bonnie, Caroline, and Elena entered just then ready to chastise the three males. Elena, however, surprised them and changed the mood of the girls. "If anyone is drinking to Katherine's last days, it's going to be me. She impersonated me… repeatedly." She took a shot from the bottle. "Made Aunt Jenna stab herself in the stomach and she cut off Uncle John's fingers."

Jeremy shrugged. "He might have deserved that."

Bonnie took the bottle from Elena and took a shot. "My Grams died trying to close a tomb she wasn't in."

Caroline did the same. "Tyler's werewolf curse got triggered because of her."

Before they could continue, the familiar sound of thick, boot-like heels clicked across the floor earning everyone's attention. Above them all stood Nova Vasile fully dressed with her makeup done. She snatched the bottle from Caroline's hand as everyone stood or sat frozen awaiting what was to happen next. Her emerald eyes looked at the bottle that was ¾ of the way gone before she finally spoke. "Terribly sorry, Elena, but if anyone deserves most to drink that pizdă's last moments on Earth, it would be me. She terrorized me in 1864 from the moment she stepped into Mystic Falls. She continued to pit Stefan against me even more than he already was on his own. She's the reason the boys got turned. She got Damon to bend over backwards for her so much that even after we were led to believe she was locked in a tomb, he still searched for a way to free her. And that was for over a century while we traveled together without saying a damn word to me. When I finally found out, I turned my back on my best friend and ran like a hurt child. Come to find out she wasn't even in the fucking tomb! Instead, she manages to lead Klaus Mikaelson around who fought so hard to force me to marry him just for the power of the Vasile that I shut off my humanity. We go looking for Silas and the cure and this bitch follows us. She kills one of the only human friends I had, and all the while my wolf best friend is here at home getting murdered and turned into a hybrid. Come to find out she also raised the twin sister I never knew I had and fueled her hatred against me. I think that covers the basis of my personal loathing of Katerina Petrova." She raised the bottle in cheers before tipping it back and chugging what was left.

Jeremy started a slow clap which Damon joined first and soon all of them were clapping for her. When the bottle was empty she slammed it on the table. Matt snickered. "We're going to need more booze."

Damon smiled at her as he stood. "Are you sure you should be drinking so quickly, dolcezza?"

"What, because I've been viciously tortured over and over again by some dickhead doctor and a psychotic archangel? Well, I haven't yet tried to tear into any one of you, have I? I guess - what did my sister call him? - Doctor Douche didn't calculate Vasile genetics very well into his stupid virus. Aside from being fucked in the head, I'm peachy. And I even get a reward for all of my suffering: Katherine Pierce is finally fucking dying. Where is the old hag anyways? I want to rub it in her stupid face that I can get tortured over and over but she's getting old and got a fucking heart attack." She grinned toothily.

"Absolutely not," came Stefan's voice as he descended the stairs. "Just leave her to die in peace and go throw a party at your house."

She rolled her eyes and groaned loudly. "Oh gods what the fuck is Saint Stefan doing defending that wretch?" She turned to Elena questioningly. "You're just letting him? Are you two back together or what? Like, what the hell have I missed recently?"

"Elena and I are working on things, not that it's any of your concern. Everyone deserves to die in peace. Even you would, Nova."

She scoffed and boldly approached the younger Salvatore. Everyone stood on their feet behind her waiting for something bad to happen. "Says the guy who caused my first death by drowning in a river. Yeah, that was super peaceful. Don't worry, Steffie, I plan to outlive you. You don't have to try and bullshit some peaceful deathbed for me. Nor does Katherine deserve one."

Stefan tried so hard to bite his tongue, especially with his memory of June 18, 1860. For a quick second he saw the innocent human Nova tumbling down the stairs because of him all over again. "She's dying slowly of old age, Nova. She's suffering enough."

"No, not by any means. Not after what she put any of us through. She deserves the worst possible Hell there is out there for her and even that would be too generous. Now, I know she doesn't have the ability to compel you again, so why are you bothering to defend her?" She quirked a brow and stared him coldly in the eye when she finally thought of an answer. Her brows raised curiously. "Oh, my, fucking gods. You totally slept with the dumb bitch while you were on your little hiatus with Elena, didn't you?!" She started to laugh while others gasped and stared wide eyed. "Wow, really Steffie? I show your girl a good time once and months down the road you sleep with Katherine Pierce? Was it pity cause she's old and decrepit now? Oh gods, you technically slept with an old hag. That's fucking hysterical. You're a real piece of work, Stefan." She mockingly pat his upper arm before flipping him her middle finger and sauntering off to the back of the boarding house.

Nadia had taken Matt when he went to get more liquor. In exchange for his return, Elena and Stefan had to meet with Travelers. Nadia wanted to do the spell to make Katherine a passenger in her body. With everyone else gone looking for Matt, Damon found Nova out back enjoying a cigarette. "Wanna have a little fun since the warden is gone?"

She immediately grinned and put out the cigarette. "Lead the way."

The two went upstairs and used the morphine given with Katherine's return to keep her "comfortable" in death. They gave her a little extra to keep her asleep and extra weak while they invaded the confines of her mind. They taunted her with Jenna, which Nova had never known about and found positively messed up. Knowing she had a thing for Elijah for some time, Nova pulled that card. It had been priceless to watch Katherine's face turn to horror as Elijah morphed into Nova before her eyes.

"Figured I'd stop you before you tried to kiss me," she smirked. "I may swing both ways, but certainly not for you."

"What the hell is this?" Her voice shook as she took a step back. "First Damon, now you?"

"I'm sorry, did you actually think that that was real? Nope. No one's coming to say goodbye, Katherine. Because no one cares. You fucked over too many people for too fucking long."

The two were thrust from Katherine's mind suddenly. Damon's neck had been snapped which strangely alerted Nova before it happened to her too. She whirled around to Nadia's hands on her head and immediately started throwing punches. She held the young Petrova off her feet by her throat against a wall. Her fangs had extended, and eyes darkened with the veins beneath. "You are no better than your filthy excuse of a mother," she hissed venomously.

"If it were not for me then your darling niece never would have survived the world," Nadia bit back boldly.

"From what I understand you kept Katia sheltered from her lineage. You loathe the Vasiles. And now you're trying to keep a pathetic excuse of a life continuing when she's already lived over 500 years and tormented everyone she has come in contact with. With Katia dead you have no leverage as to why I shouldn't kill you right here. It would stop Katherine from having another body to hop into."

The Traveler Mia entered then, chanting a spell that started to hurt Nova's head. It wasn't enough to force her to release Nadia, however. With her free hand she swiped it up, causing a large shard of solid ice to pierce the Traveler's throat. She choked on her own blood until she fell to the floor dead. Panic flooded Nadia's face but it was too late. Nova rammed her hand into the Bulgarian vampire's chest, gripping her beating heart with her nails digging in and a fierce sneer on her face. "May all of you fucking Petrovas rot." She then yanked Nadia's heart from her chest, allowing the body and the organ to drop to the floor.

With blood dripping from her hand and her maroon lips downturned in the most vile look she could muster, she leaned over a still unconscious Katherine and whispered in her ear, "Die nice and slowly, Bulgarian curva. I'll see you in Hell one day."