2-10

Three people really moved, walking within the smoke, unfettered by its effect. I slowly moved my head, making sure my breathing was slow and controlled, breathing only when I needed to because there was still enough of the smoke around that time would jump though it was shorter now.

Seven people were still in the ceiling, some connected by their weapons while others by their bodies. There were expressions of pain from those who were forced to keep themselves aloft, for most it didn't look like exercise was something they did much. Though I wasn't one to speak on that matter.

The floor was littered with clusters of people, members of the Allied Council that were bound in groups of three, duct tape plastered on their mouths; vampires were also bound though they'd been do so with ropes, their expression still scrunched in pain which made me think that music box was still in play.

Bonnie was at the furthest end of the church, bound much like I had been, beside her were Elena and Jeremy, the latter of which looked worse for wear. Lucy was still on the ground, though her breathing had even out and she didn't look as pale as she had before she'd been shot; that either meant she had protective spells on her or the three had healed her. The former made the most amount of sense.

The other Salem Witches were also scatter, none of them too closely to the other. Then there was me, who was just sitting and watching everything without doing much. But really what could I do?

I didn't have access to magic, because every time I focused on the will power to create a spell, my concentration slipped as time lagged. It was likely that the same had been said for the others and now they were trying to think on ways to move forward.

Slowly, I took a breath, feeling as the smoke hit the back of my throat and time jumped again, the three having found different positions; I pushed my mind towards thinking this through: What do I have?

I had magic. But I couldn't use it.

I had my vampire friends. But I couldn't use them.

I had Luka and his dubious allegiance. But his allegiance was too dubious for him to be let out of his temporary cell. Not to mention that it would be harder for me to do that than it would be Bonnie or Jared, the people who'd created the boundary that held Luka.

I had my body. But it was bound sufficiently enough that I couldn't use it. Not that I was much of a fighter in the first place.

I had my mouth. But I couldn't use it and I didn't have enough knowledge to know how to use it.

There was the knowledge of the future. But again, I couldn't use it because this situation was unfamiliar and worse, I was at the back end of it. Elijah wasn't here personally which meant I couldn't manipulate him. Instead I was dealing with forces that were under compulsion, working on a limited set of orders.

I took another breath and time jumped again.

What else did I have? I had connections stretching outwards, to my sister and to Jared and to the ancestors though they couldn't help me here. I had connections to the boundary spells I hadn't anchored, which meant the boundary spell around Mystic Falls' welcome sign and the boundary spell around this place.

An idea hit and in my excitement, I took in a gulp of air, it was too much too quickly and the smoke hit too harshly; time jumped and there was one standing in front of me, a phone held in hand and pressing before they stopped, moving away.

They couldn't contact anyone outside, but if there was any mole keeping track on the comings and goings of members of the Allied Council, they would have called Elijah or Mr Martins. These three were just waiting for Elijah to come and strip the boundary and the message to be sent.

But how would Elijah react to this? How would Luka's father?

I pushed the thread of thought down and instead focused on getting us out of here. I had a boundary spell that I controlled entirely, enough that I could control the physics of this place, but doing that would require energy and contraction; the former was made hard because of the smoke and the jumps in time, while the latter was hard because too much energy moving through me and I might die.

Have to start small, I thought. Do the least of work for the most amount of damage.

Which meant what? A minute passed thinking on the matter before I had to breathe again and time jumped. An inkling of an idea formed and I hoped that it would work.

Sound was just vibrations that passed through particles. If there was a vacuum, then sound wouldn't travel.

I felt the urge to take a breath but I held it back, instead I conceptualised what I wanted. I glared in Enzo's direction, imagining the straight path between me and him. I imagined a thick pipe that was made of air, imagined the air moving through it; around the tube, I imagine another tube, and in this one I slowly pulled out the air, imagine that it was in penetrable as glass.

Doing all this, I felt as energy left me in quick order, my head growing heavier with each second that passed. I looked at the three, tracking their positions and preparing to speak when I took a breath and time jumped, the entire image falling apart.

I wanted to shake my head but it would be too much work. I'd been target Enzo because a part of me wanted to see if he was really being affected by their countermeasures of if he was playing dead. He was the one with the highest pain tolerance in the room and maybe he could end this if the music boxes effect were dulled.

But that's unlikely, the thought came. If he has a high pain threshold then the music box shouldn't have affected him in the first place. More likely they have Vervain through his system.

Which meant looking for help from the vampires wasn't likely. It would have to be the witches, people I was sure weren't affected by Elijah's compulsion. But if our captors were smart, they would be keeping track of the witches…all except the witch that was grievous injured.

Another idea was ringing through my mind and I had two targets. Jared, who was knocked out and likely in a coma with how long he'd been asleep, or Lucy who'd been shot but looked better than she had.

A second's thought and I decided the coma was too much of a gamble.

I glared towards and imagine a ball of air around her head; the ball was layered, the layers moving in different directions. I imagine air moving into the configuration, moving through hole in the bubble, but the holes steadily got smaller. The overall effect was supposed to be oxygen rushing in while the gas was kept at bay.

In my mind, the more complicated the compound the larger it was supposed to be, which meant that magic would interpret me wanting holes in the configuration, as me wanting holes that only oxygen could move through and keeping out anything larger.

My head started getting heavier again, edges of darkness starting to encroach on my vision. I felt something cool starting to trickle down my nose and our captors noticed.

"He's doing something," said a man, his voice deep and coming out queerly under the mask. "Should I gas him?" he said, looking at another.

The woman sighed. "It's our last canister," she said, "and we don't know when Elijah will get here."

"We don't do anything and he could kill himself," said another woman.

"Rather him than us," the first man said.

The woman shook her head. "We do that and we're as good as dead," she said. "The boss said the Bennetts don't die."

"Unless they cause too much trouble," said the first man. "I think this is too much trouble." His tone was biting, a hatred there. But even with this I couldn't pinpoint who he was. Instead I focused on keeping the darkness at bay and working my configuration.

I didn't know how long the gas would be there before she could focus again, but I didn't have the energy to conceptualise anything else. An idea came to conceptualise pulling the gas out of her system but that was dangerous at my normal state much less when I was this heavily inebriated. I continued working, feeling more blood starting to leave me

"Gas him," said the woman.

The first man pulled out a canister and pulled it's pin. He put the thing in front of me and stepped back, the smoke already starting to billow out. I held my breath, fighting back the darkness and moving the thing in my mind. But it was trying to do too much and the first to go was holding my breath.

A breath in and it caught the back of my throat and time jumped: The image was stilted, anchoring and jumping too fast. It didn't show that my bid had done anything and what was worse there was the periphery feeling of something going on beyond that.

All of it culminating in a large sudden pressure, enough that it momentarily pushed away the effects of the gas and gave me an image of the church. The church was shaking with the door doing the major part of it. Looking up the windows were near to shattering.

Mr Martin and he was trying to get in.

One person with a lot of power running through them wouldn't have been able to brute-force my boundary spells. No doubt he was using his connection with his father, but there were just too many layers for him to do it neatly.

If Bonnie and Jared had been smart, and indeed they were, then they would have made it so that the barrier holding Luka in would be a separate room entirely to the church. Mr Martin would first need to break that barrier before he could use his connection to his son to break into the church.

But even so there was resistance. Technically, the room was a separate entity to the greater church, but the thread from Luka to his father ran through the church. Which meant it took more effort to break into Luka's boundary since a lot of power would have to go into breaching my boundary spell.

All of this together, though, didn't make it any less a certainty that he would be able to breach the boundary.

The doors to the church all at once swooped open and with them a massive gust of wind. Even that wind didn't do very well in pushing away the smoke that still hung around me. Time jumped and when I came to the windows around us had shattered.

There was another whoosh, this one powerful enough that the pews shifted. The smoke shifted and time jumped again, this time there was a fourth person in the room; Luka strut, looking around before he moved a hand, muttering something I couldn't really hear.

Our captors were heaved off their feet and thrown into the ceiling. They stuck there.

He looked at the door for a long moment before he sighed and walked in my direction. He stopped short of reaching the smoke and closed his eyes, his arms spread out at either side of him. I felt another whoosh of wind passing over me and this time I could breathe without the smoke hitting the back of my throat.

But focusing enough for a spell was still hard.

"This is all coming to a head faster than I thought," he said. "I didn't think I'd have to face Dad this soon. Especially since I don't even rightly know if you're going to help me. But I guess a leap of faith is in order."

He took in a large breath before he started reciting a spell, short and quick before he touched my forehead. All at once everything was wiped away and I felt invigorated while Luka faltered, his arms moving to stop him from hitting the ground face first.

I couldn't see the thing around my mouth but I could feel it. I pushed it off of me and the first thing I did was whimper because pulling duct tape off hurt.

"Fractos," I muttered and there was a snap. I pulled my arms free and glared at my legs next. "Fractos," I said again and the zip ties snapped off.

"Thanks," I muttered, pushing myself off my feet. I held back the impulse to mention that if I were in his position I wouldn't have chosen me as the person to receive the healing, but one of the Salem Witches. Because right now I was at a loss what I needed to do.

I took a breath and focused on the room. The gas was an impurity, bad. I held that concept strictly in my mind. I imagined all the badness seeping away, gravity affecting it differently and forcing it upwards and into the second floor of the church.

Power left me, but it wasn't as hard to concentrate this time which meant I could better handle the movement of power. Still, it was slow going, especially since a foreign force was working to get inside.

A part of me thought that perhaps fighting wasn't the best thing to do. But things would be harder from this point on, with the only option left being working with Elijah, and I didn't like that.

Another concept hit, how light interacted with the gas, that if it hit it would be a green colour. Another burst of power and I had to wipe blood away from my nose. But it worked and I could see splotches of green scattered the room, with that identifier, it was easier to pull the gas to the second floor.

"Okay," I muttered. "Okay, path forward."

I didn't feel the pressure from an external attack, which probably meant Mr Martin was resting, preparing for another bout. Elijah would be with him and Andrew could be with him too if I was unlucky, but maybe I could use that. I moved through the church towards the office, I passed by Lucy and she was holding onto her stomach though she was breathing lighter.

"Please tell me you're up," I said.

Slowly she gave a nod. "Vervain laced vampire blood," she whispered. "It's helping, but it's taking longer than regular blood should. That was you?"

"Yeah," I said. "I was hoping you'd waking up and act."

She shook her head. "I don't think I can do that," she said, a groan interlaced with the word. "There's just too much pain for me to focus."

"Don't you have protective spells on you? Something to help ease the pain?"

"Protective enchantments aren't the easiest things, hun," she said. "But what I do have on me works best if I die. I think they knew that, or the expected it enough to keep me alive. That's why they haven't wiped us out, I'm sure. How bad are things?"

"Everyone's been taken down, between Vervain and this enchanted object that incapacitates vampires, and the smoke though I've pushed that upstairs. But above all is that Elijah and Mr Martin are outside, breaching my boundary—"

"I get it," she said. "We're in it bad. But you can think your way through this. You're a smart witch even without taking account your powers. Just calm down and think of something. Everyone here trusts you, even if they don't act like it."

I shook my head. "I don't do well under pressure," I said. "I do stupid things."

"We're in a desperate situation," she said. "I don't think doing something stupid will make things worse."

"I don't know what Elijah's plan is," I said. "It could be that he isn't going to kill anyone. That he could just be sending a message."

"But how likely is that? What does that mean for the future? What does that mean when Klaus gets here?"

"I don't know," I said. "It's all a mess, compounded by the fact that too much is happening in too short a space of time. I can't deal with this, especially not alone."

"I don't think you have a choice, there, kid. We need you." She let out a long breath. "Put me to sleep," she said. "It's all I can do to keep functioning with this pain."

I hated it, but I couldn't say no. I touched her head and muttered the sleeping spell. Her breathing got more tranquil and I felt all the more alone.

I stood, feeling out the fear and then pushing it to the side, instead reaching for the anger. I moved to the back of the church and into Pastor Young's office. I pulled through his drawers until I found a knife; moving back to into the main room I put Luka to sleep and then held the knife above him, holding it in place with a spell.

With a glare, bindings snapped off, but I didn't focus on that, instead letting the anger ran through me. The doors flew open as I neared, enough force that they were pulled off their hinges. I walked down the small walkway and stopped at the border.

Elijah stood within a circle, still neatly dressed, and Mr Martins did the same though he looked tired and unkempt.

"Mr Bennett," said Elijah.

The fear tried to take over but I pushed it back, instead letting the anger take more of a hold. I looked past Elijah to Mr Martins.

"As you no doubt know, we have Luka," I said. "I've got a knife hovering over his person, over his left eye, you continue with the spell and I let it drop."

My tone was cold, each word measured and through the anger, the red-tinted world, I was fully prepared to go through with the threat. He recoiled, his expression quickly warping into anger before he schooled it into calm.

"No need to act," I quickly said. "I know you enough to know that you're impulsive under that façade. More than anything right now you want to lash out. I'll say this once, that would be stupid."

"I think you're forgetting that your entire family is in one place," said Mr Martins. "You do that, kill Luka, and your only leverage is gone. You do that and I will burn this place to the ground."

I let a smirk grace my expression. "I'm not afraid of death," I said. "Countermeasures are already in place for one thing. But for another, you're forgetting where you are. I die here, then I feel vengeful, my ancestors feel vengeful, and we take all those vengeful feeling out on your son in the Other Side."

His expression flickered, too many things going through for me to accurately read.

"The thing that makes the most of sense is non-action from you," I continued. "I can help in getting your daughter back. I can help you more effectively that Elijah, because unlike him Klaus isn't my brother."

"You do me discredit, Mr Bennett," said Elijah. "You seem to be implying that I would break my word."

"You would," I said, certainty in my voice.

"What do you know that I don't?" said Elijah, interest in his tone.

"Quite a bit I assure you," I said. "But that's neither here nor there. You have choice to make Mr Martins. To trust a man who's family motto is 'always and forever.' A person who's forgiven his brother for far worse than this?"

"Or should I trust you, a manipulator?" said Mr Martin.

"That's the thing though, isn't it? I manipulate and I think I do it well. But the common point in all this is that I don't lie. I might hide things, information, after all, is power. But when I say something, it's always true." I looked him dead in the eyes. "When the time comes, you won't get what you want and given the choice, Elijah will choose his brother."

I was surprised that Elijah hadn't said anything and looking at his expression he had the most intrigued expression I'd ever seen, his eyes working as though he was trying to work something out.

He wasn't the focus, though. Mr Martins was, because though Elijah could probably punch his way through given enough time. Mr Martins would be able to do it faster and he'd be harder to fight when it came down to it.

He looked conflicted, looking between me and Elijah at times as he considered the path forward. I really hoped that this wouldn't turn out into a fight. Even with all the bravado I wasn't that good at a fight, I'd noticed that from Bree and the hunters that had attacked me, more especially I'd noticed it when Andrew and I had had a little spat. If he had really been gunning to kill me he would have succeeded.

Mr Martins would be several leagues more knowledgeable and thus several leagues more powerful.

"Luka," said Mr Martins, a hint of desperation in his voice. "How did you capture him?"

There was a cadence to the way he asked the question and I wasn't the only one who detected it. Elijah turned away from me and looked at Mr Martin.

"I think you already know the answer," I said. Mr Martin let out a sigh and moved his fingers; Elijah teleported and grabbed the hand, squeezing it. There was a snap as the man's hand broke.

Mr Martins moved to speak but Elijah had already moved: A hand stretched out and covering Mr Martins' mouth. Elijah glared in Mr Martin's direction and I could see the unadulterated fear that shone through the man's eyes.

Elijah gave a little push and the man stumbled back.

"And I will make it a reality," said Elijah. He turned to face me. "As useful as you could be, Mr Bennett, keeping you around is not worth the trouble. Kill him."

Mr Martins steeled himself before he spoked, arms stretching out and eyes closed.

"I will kill your son!" I said, but the anger was weening out and the fear was there. My mind was reeling from the fact that I would have to kill a potential ally, that I would even do this; in its panic mind might sought to figure out the morality of the situation and whether I'd be able to live with myself if I killed Luka and then somehow survived this.

My mind worked on every possible situation except how to get away from this one. Mr Martins continued, blood pouring out of his eyes, nose and ears, draping his face. The pressure around me increased while my mind continued to shout about how wrong this was and how I was supposed to have won.

I knew the future and aspects of the past and it all amounted to nothing because Elijah was smarter. I shook my head. It couldn't be like this. I had to figure out a way to win this because even though I could probably get out of the Other Side, I didn't want to die just yet.

Think.

More pressure around me.

Think.

I could feel the damage in my barrier, concentrated in one point.

Think.

"I know where the place of power is!" I shouted at Elijah. "I've bound it in a blessing so powerful that its unlikely anyone but me could break it."

"Or your sister," said Elijah.

I shook my head. "That's not how magic works. Every spell is different because of who casts it. I cast the spell, I know how much power I put in places and where its weak points are. I'm the only reliable witch who could break it."

Elijah shook his head. "I'll take my chances."

"But will you?" I said. "When Klaus…" An idea. I turned and ran into the church, finding Elena. She was one of the few people that were awake, trying to cajole others into doing the same thing.

"I need the locket," I said.

"What? Why?"

"Please," I said, desperation in my voice. I hadn't used its power since connecting with my ancestors and had given it back to Elena. She reached under her shirt and pulled it out, giving it to me.

I took hold of and started muttering a Tracking spell under my breath, pushing power through the thread and moving along it. There was a barrier, but I pushed more energy into it and weaselled my way through; an image hit, a truck moving down a winding road. I pushed more power into it and the image of the witch hit me.

He was sitting beside a woman with curly hair.

They both looked up in my direction and immediately I could feel a thread shooting, running parallel my own thread. I didn't fight it and felt as it slammed through the boundary and making it fall apart, and then hit me with the strong image that someone was looking at me.

I started running out of the church, feeling as the sense that I was being watched followed.

They would have seen Elena and now they saw Elijah.

Mr Martins strode forward, a spell already being recited. I ignored him and looked at Elijah.

"I've bumped up the timeline," I said. "Klaus now knows that you're here. You have no choice but to work with me."

Elijah gave me a smug smile. "You have no idea the hell you've unleashed on Mystic Falls," he said.

"I do," I said under my breath. But this was my only way not to die.

"Don't kill him," said Elijah to Mr Martins. "But a message needs to be sent. Resistance in any form will be punished." Elijah disappeared and appeared again in front of me, holding Jeremy by the throat; with one motion he punched and even through his dazed stated I could see Jeremy react.

It didn't last too long because Elijah pulled. All the life left Jeremy, his skin turning grey and lines drawing themselves all through his face. Elijah threw Jeremy's body to the side and then showed me his heart.

"Your gift, Mr Bennett, for thinking you could ever go against me."

My body moved of its own volition, taking the offered heart. Feeling it in my hands I could feel as bile started to churn its way up my throat, my legs giving out and the world around me tilting.

There was a flash of anger, of desperation and just as quickly all of it washed away into nothing but a dull melancholy.

Every fight and all of them take something away. Grams. Dad and Jeremy's humanity. The lives of all those who'd been turned by Damon's machinations. What's worse, this isn't the end.

After this there'll be another fight and someone else could be taken away. And then there'll be another and then another and then another.

Maybe…maybe it isn't worth fighting. Maybe just giving them what they want is the best way. Making sure that my family, friends and I don't have to go through this hell.

I didn't know how I would be moving forward, but I knew one thing. I didn't want to lose anyone again, and what was worse I already had a plan to make sure that didn't happen.

888

AN: A part of me feels like Luka might have been a Deus Ex Machina. But before posting this I hoped on over to TV Tropes and under the technical specifications, it's not. Still the feeling lingers