New Beginnings
DG32173
Sarah: welcome back to Chapter 3 of New Beginnings. As I'm sure everyone is wondering how closely this story will follow Season 2, I will tell you right now: not very closely at all. Only a few major scenes from Season 2 will make an appearance before Katherine realizes that Elena is now a vampire and as such can't be used for Klaus' ritual. Anyways, enough spoilers. Time for the review replies and then the story.
REVIEW REPLIES
Leann Nickerson: glad you enjoyed the chapter. As for questions about Jeremy and Anna, well, who knows at this point. Isobel will inevitably be dealt with this book. As of right now, Isobel doesn't know how drastically their plan had failed because John didn't get a chance to get word to her before his death. All will be answered in time, but not just yet. Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy it as much as you've enjoyed the other two.
amazing Aisha: yeah, Damon is completely devoted to Elena by now. Here's the update.
HoneySexy: glad you enjoy it so far. Here's more.
Chapter 3
Training and the Spells
Beginning the very next morning after discovering what Katherine had done to Caroline, while Stefan is trying to convince the witch to make a daylight ring for Vampire Barbie, I start training the two newborns. I already started some stuff with Elena in her final months as a human, as Katherine had with me. Blondie had called her mom and said she was staying with Elena for a few days, 'to help her overcome her grief over her uncle's death', or so she said as her excuse.
Because I had already started with Elena before her transition, she can help explain some things to Caroline in a way the blonde will understand. Surprisingly, it isn't long before both of them catch on to the ways of their new lives. One thing that perked up both newborns considerably was the knowledge that they can drink however much alcohol they want and won't suffer any consequences.
Finally, as the first afternoon starts drawing to a close, Stefan shows up with Judgy in tow. That was fast work. Wonder what he said to convince the witch to make Vampire Barbie a daylight ring so quickly? But I doubt he'll ever tell me.
It isn't long before Caroline's ring is made and Elena and I've kicked Judgy out again because we're still pissed at her. Though I can sense that making Caroline a ring earned the witch some brownie points with Elena, it's still not enough to even begin negating nearly causing my death. And I doubt I'll ever fully forgive her for being the reason Elena died in my arms the way she did. I'll eventually have to tolerate her being around when Elena finally forgives her, but I won't ever make the mistake of trusting that witch again.
As it is, it takes several days to finish the last of Elena's training then about three more days of both Elena and I working with her tag-team style to finish Caroline's training.
It's only when Caroline's training is finished and she's gone back to her mom's house that Elena and I decide to stop wasting time and use those spells Gemma had left us. We can both sense the impending storm brewing and know instinctively we will need the powers those spells will grant us to survive unscathed.
Elena and I are now in our room with the journal I had transferred Gemma's messages to, Elena watching me as I locate the message that includes the spells. It doesn't take long. I see that whatever magic had been blurring the spells I'm to cast on my girl has vanished, allowing me to read the spells.
I look into my girl's eyes. "Are you sure you're ready?" I ask. "She said there'll be side-effects when I cast these spells on you."
Elena nods, determination etched in every fiber of her being. "Let's get it over with," she says. "We can't keep postponing it."
I sigh and begin casting the first spell on her. As soon as I complete it, Elena collapses with a cry of pain. "Elena!" I cry, dropping the journal.
"Keep going!" she manages to get out around the agony I can sense she's in. "Don't stop!"
I want to argue with her but I know it will be futile. I know I have to finish casting all three spells. I start the second spell. As soon as that one is complete, sparks of ice blue electricity start rolling over Elena's skin in waves while balls of blindingly bright blue light float in the air around us. Both the orbs of light and the electricity match my eye color. Maybe the third one will be the key to stopping these horrible side-effects. I cast the third spell. Once it's complete, the electricity and balls of light vanish and I can sense with relief that the pain the first spell put her in is dying away. Elena lays on our bed, gasping like a human who had run a marathon with no preparation. I gather her in my arms, holding her close to me.
"I understand now," she whispers when she finally catches her breath, confusing me.
"Understand what?" I demand.
"You'll understand, too, as soon as I'm recovered enough to cast the spells I need to cast on you," she says mysteriously.
"How can you even cast those spells? The ones I had to cast used a great deal of my Power and I've been building it up since the day I was turned," I protest. "You're only a newborn. You don't have that kind of Power available to you."
"The spells change us, Damon," she says. "It changes us from mere vampires into something more. I've now got more Power in just my pinky than any normal vampire ever will no matter how long they live."
This confuses me greatly until she allows a small portion of her Power to uncurl from within her so I can sense it. I gasp in shock. The amount of Power she had let out is more than enough to destroy an entire continent if she so wanted to. And somehow I can tell that this is only a minute sliver of the Power she can now tap because of the spells I had cast on her.
To say that I'm horrified is an understatement. And to know that as soon as she recovers, she'll cast spells on me that will grant me that kind of Power as well? That's beyond horrifying. No being should ever have that much power at their disposal!
Now I understand why Gemma had left me warnings to never again turn off my humanity after these spells are cast. The monster I had come to town as wouldn't hesitate to use all that Power selfishly and with no regard for how it affects those around him. Not to mention as the elder vampire in our mating bond, I was automatically made the leader. Whatever I do or don't do, Elena will follow my lead all-too-willingly.
Elena recovers from her ordeal slowly, taking several hours and no few blood bags to overcome the shock her body had gone through. Finally, shortly after midnight, she turns to me. "It's time," she says. I know what she means and everything in me rebels at the thought of going through the same thing she went through. She kisses me tenderly on the lips. "It's okay, Damon. Everything will be fine. I know it will," she reassures me.
I take a steadying breath and pass over the journal, opened to the page with the spells she will need to cast on me. "Go ahead," I say through grit teeth, bracing myself.
As soon as she completes the first spell, I cry out in agony and collapse. A million images buffet my brain, nearly driving me insane. Sensations I have never experienced become part of me as my memories of my entire existence are altered to include new, unidentifiable senses that I am now magically 'graced' with. It feels like my entire being is being altered, cell-by-cell. And to think Elena had managed to talk to me through this!
Unlike me, Elena continues on with the spells in spite of everything in her crying out to comfort me. She experienced this first, she knows what to expect though she couldn't explain it to me in a way I ever would have understood without going through it myself.
The second spell causes sparks of brown-tinged electricity to roll over my body in waves, leaving strange sensations behind. The blinding orbs of light that appear for me are also tinted with a brown hue. Both electricity and orbs are the same color as Elena's eyes. And now I know that two of the powers granted by the second spell are what caused those effects in Elena because I can feel my own Power being tapped to create the electricity and orbs of light, though I don't yet know how to control them. I feel my own, natural Power grow so tremendously it's a wonder that it doesn't rip my body to shreds.
Finally, when Elena finishes the third spell, I find myself filled with knowledge on how to control every power granted to me as will as every power granted to Elena. And there is even more knowledge granted to me on top of that, knowledge that makes me understand exactly why Elena's first words after my spells were done were "I understand now." I immediately put an end to the new powers I had been granted. The pain that had been caused in the first spell slowly fades away.
I find myself laying on our bed, held tightly in Elena's arms as she whispers soothing nonsense to me. I also feel like I was a human who had just run a marathon with no preparation. I lay in Elena's comforting embrace, gasping for air I don't really need.
That 'something more' that Elena and I have become? The only thing I can think to call it is 'super vampires'.
We now have magic even the most powerful witch or warlock in history would be jealous of. We can control the elements with barely a thought. We can now use telepathy to communicate with each other from any distance in the universe. We are so damn powerful now that if we so wanted to, we could alter the fabric of space and time itself. We can wipe entire worlds from existence if we so wanted to, using very little of our Power.
And that's just the least of our capabilities now. We're super vampires, the most powerful beings to ever to be created in the universe outside of the Seer. "I agree," Elena whispers in my ear. "We will have to be very careful from here on. We now have the power to destroy everything if we're don't."
I realize that I had been unknowingly broadcasting my thoughts to her. I had previously had the rarely granted vampiric power of telepathy, but only within a limited range and only to people I knew well and only when I used a lot of concentration. Now I find I have to concentrate to block my thoughts from Elena. Of course, she's having the same difficulty since I can mentally 'hear' her inner worries over how dreadfully powerful we now are.
'We must have been the imperial king and queen that Gemma so revered in her time,' Elena thinks at me.
I agree. I had suspected beforehand. Now I'm sure. We'll become that all-powerful couple that will rule an empire spread across countless galaxies in the distant future.
"Gemma said that our powers won't even reach full strength until after we've had them several decades," I remember suddenly.
I feel the fear tightening Elena's throat at the horror of that realization. I share it. If we're this powerful now, how much stronger will we be when a century has passed? I dread the answer to that question and I know Elena shares the feeling.
Sarah: well, you finally know what the spells Gemma had left them do. And I barely even touched the tip of the iceberg of their many powers. More powers will appear over the course of this story and the next. Review and tell me what you think.
