In all of Stefan's time as a vampire, there had only been a few people who could overpower him-other, older vampires, the members of the Five that he had met, and a few witches-so, when an unknown assailant crept up behind him on his way home from work, wrapping an arm around his throat and actually succeeding in cutting off his air supply, he was stunned.

He struggled, of course, fighting to break away, but the strength of his attacker was unlike anything he'd ever felt before; as it tightened, black spots began to bloom before his eyes, and he was forced to his knees, still clawing futilely at the arm coiled around his windpipe.

"Relax, I don't you dead," a deep, cold voice spoke next to his ear, sounding strangely familiar-and yet not-and sending chills down his spine. "But I do need you unconscious, so-"

The younger Salvatore didn't have time to say a word before he felt the familiar sensation of his neck being broken-and then everything went black.

He woke up in a small, unlit room; his hands were chained on either side of his head to the dark olive green wall, and his legs were manacled in front of him to the stone floor. That was the first thing he noticed.

The second was that he wasn't alone.

"Hello, brother," Damon greeted him from his position leaning up against the mirror on the opposite wall with his thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his tight black jeans.

Stefan's breath stuttered in his throat. He couldn't believe it; he had seen his brother die nearly four months ago and had been certain that there was no way for Damon to come back. Yet, there he was, standing in front of Stefan, looking exactly as he had when they'd first returned to Mystic Falls four years ago. And that scared Stefan more than anything.

Damon was looking at him almost exactly the same way he had when he'd shown up in Stefan's bedroom that night after he'd attacked Vicki in the woods; eyes cold and mocking and lips twisted into a malicious sneer. The only difference was that he no longer looked even the slightest bit human; his eyes were now pupilless pools of liquid ice-a sharp contrast to his ivory skin and all black attire. Tendrils of blue crisscrossed and coiled around his pale throat, glowing like nothing Stefan had ever seen before. There was nothing human about any of that.

"Damon?" the younger Salvatore choked out, hardly able to say his name, his shock was so intense. "When did you get back? How did you get back?"

His brother's sneer widened.

"Funny story, actually," he said in a conversely humourless tone. He pushed himself off the wall, loping towards Stefan in a distinctly predatory manner before continuing. "Enzo brought me back about two days ago. I would have come to see you right away, but I didn't think you wanted that-you know, since you gave up on me and all."

Stefan tensed in his shackles. How did Damon know about that?

"Did Enzo tell you that?" he questioned cagily, trying to sound as if he were offended; but obviously he didn't quite pull it off because Damon was completely unmoved.

"The witch who helped Enzo bring me back told me-even though Enzo asked her not to," he revealed, still speaking in that same soft, frigid tone that was setting Stefan's teeth on edge. The elder took another step closer, bending forward so Stefan was forced to look into his practically glowing crystalline eyes.

"You know, in all this, I thought you would be the one I could always count on, Stefan." He let out a dark, ironic chuckle. "It was just like Augustine all over again; I thought you would be the one to save me from the Hell I was trapped in. I thought my only family would be the one who never gave up on me-but instead it was someone who died hating me. Someone who had every reason to leave me rotting in oblivion for eternity, and yet he did the complete opposite-while you, my brother, did nothing. What does that say about you?"

The fact that Damon had said all of that without a single trace of emotion, and in just barely above a whisper, unsettled Stefan more than the words themselves. He pressed his lips together, swallowing hard; he had no idea what to say, or how to even begin to defend himself. There was no way he could-because Damon was right. He had given up-he'd stopped looking for Damon and he hadn't been the one to bring him back. There was nothing he could do to make that okay.

He tried to lift his shoulders in a shrug, forgetting for a moment that he was chained to the wall. "I don't have any explanations that are going to placate you, Damon. I wasn't there when you needed me the most, and I'm sorry."

Damon straightened back up fluidly, expression still giving nothing away.

"I'm afraid sorry isn't going to cut it this time, Stef-you're going to have to do better than that."

Stefan pulled again at the shackles holding him in place. "Okay," he said in a deceptively calm tone, "But what can I do while I'm tied up?"

"Let's start with this," Damon snapped his fingers-and that was when Stefan felt it.

It was like a thousand freezing needles piercing his skin at the same time, like a thousand fragments of vervain were being pressed against every part of his body. He screamed, head reeling back and chains rattling as he thrashed in place.

"Damon, what-?" he tried to ask, but then the pain came again-in the form of an icy wave this time-and another scream burst out of his mouth, causing him to shudder violently.

He was still shaking and panting hard, when he noticed that whatever Damon was doing to him was actually having an effect on the outside of his body as well as the inside: frost was clinging to all of his exposed flesh, and there were icicles embedded into it-and when he looked over at Damon, all of it seemed to be coming from him.

"Damon what-what's going on? Wh-what's happened to you?" he actually managed to get the full extent of his question out this time, though his voice was still trembling from fear-and the sudden cold.

Damon's cocky sneer returned.

"Well, you see, brother, when I was in oblivion, I learned something quite interesting about myself," Damon replied, and there was more danger in the silkiness of his voice than in the most potent of curses.

"What are you talking abou-?" Stefan started, but once again he was cut off when a sudden force made him collide with the wall. He cried out again, and his pain intensified as another layer of frost spread rapidly over his chest, effectively freezing him in place.

"D-Damon," he repeated his brother's name, teeth full-on chattering now. "H-how a-are y-you doing this?"

Damon's sneer turned even colder, and he advanced a step closer, trailing his fingers over his brother's shackles and revealing that frost was now covering them as well as the rest of his hand and continuing even past his wrist.

"Well, Stefan, as it turns out, I'm not exactly what you would call a regular vampire-and I don't mean just because of my uniquely sparkling personality," the elder Salvatore drawled smoothly, loping around his brother with an unfamiliar liquid grace, something beyond that of any vampire Stefan had met before.

Stefan gaped, still shaking from head to toe as Damon came to a halt mere inches away from where hung, unable to look away from Damon's flashing azure orbs.

"Wh-what a-are you?" he exclaimed in a horrified whisper.

Damon placed a hand on the wall next to Stefan's head, and Stefan couldn't suppress a gasp when he saw ice bloom on the stone around it-just like it had over his chest.

"Oh, there isn't a name for what I am," the elder Salvatore declared, voice turning soft and even silkier, like a snake's hiss. His smile was no longer cold: it was amused, exultant as he continued. "I am the only one, after all; but I am more than you are, more than our old friend Klaus, and more than even Silas was. I can do everything they could, and what they couldn't. And, perhaps most importantly, I was not created by magic, so there is no way to end my power; I have no balance, no equal. I'm really indestructible."

Before Stefan could make any kind of comment about that, Damon pushed and the cold flared up inside Stefan again, this time actually making his bloodstream slow.

He groaned as it increased and his blood began to freeze in place, causing his veins to rub together and his vision to blur.

"D-Dam-mon, pl-please," he all but whimpered, hardly able to get the words out because he was shivering so badly, black spots once again dancing before his eyes.

Damon bent forward again, lowering his lips to Stefan's ear.

"You know, when I promised you that eternity of misery all those years ago, I never planned on actually physically torturing you-but now I think doing so is the perfect way for me to practice my new abilities," he mused. Then, he straightened up again, and added, "I'll let you have a brief respite before we start up again. I'm really going to enjoy this."

He let out a low, icy snicker before turning and walking out the door on the other side of the room.

As soon as he was gone, whatever force had been holding Stefan immobile dissipated, and the younger Salvatore slumped down, letting out a stuttering breath. He bit his lip, trying to step his shudders enough to focus on breaking out of his chain;he didn't know what had happened to Damon, but that was the brother he knew, and he didn't think spending any more time with him would be very good for his health-or his state of mind.

He pulled fiercely at the shackles, trying to break the metal hooks that were attaching them to the wall-but his arms were trembling too badly to exert much force. He tried to separate his legs to break the manacles holding them together, but that also came to no avail. Nothing he attempted seemed to work-but that didn't stop him from repeatedly trying over and over again for the next while.

After about an hour, though, he got frustrated and began to cast his fading gaze around, desperately looking for anything that might be of help to him.

When his eyes fell on the mirror that Damon had been leaning against, he discovered that it was two way one-and what he saw on the other side was something that made him blink in shock: his brother was kissing another man.

And, even more startling, it was a man that Stefan recognized all too well.

Enzo.

Damon stood on the other side of the two way glass, a cruel twist to his lips as he watched his brother continuously try and fail to break free of the chains binding him to the wall. He'd never thought he would have so much fun seeing his brother in pain; but then, he'd never thought anything that was happening now would-especially not the whole him having these crazy new powers thing.

He lifted one of his hands and momentarily moved his gaze away from the mirror to observe the frost that was spreading over it, extending all the way to his fingertips. He felt strangely unaffected by the sight, only intrigued by how he'd been able to control it earlier, given the fact that he'd only just found out about it. He had no idea how he'd done what he'd done to Stefan-he barely knew anything about these abilities. He didn't even know if what he had told Stefan was true-he'd just thought it sounded good.

And yet, he was oddly untroubled by it; the lack of knowledge was only making him more eager to see what would happen next. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had this much fun.

"Enjoying yourself?" a familiar accented voice cut into his thoughts, sounding as amused as he felt.

Damon grinned, turning around just in time to see Enzo walk through the door, mirth flashing in his brown eyes when he glanced at the younger Salvatore, before looking back at the other.

"Where have you been?" Damon asked, arching an eyebrow at the faint red spot on the corner of Enzo's mouth; he was pretty sure he already knew the answer, though.

Enzo lifted one of his broad shoulders in a shrug. "I let the witches know we had what they wanted, and, while I was out, I decided to have a little fun of my own," he said casually.

Damon chuckled.

"Well, I hope you didn't leave any messes behind, because drawing attention to ourselves isn't part of the plan."

"Don't worry," Enzo replied, raising his palms in a mock defensive gesture as he came to stand in front of his former cellmate. "I cleaned up after myself. Wouldn't want to screw up the plan-not after everything it took to put this together."

By way of a response, Damon seized the front of Enzo's gray shirt, pulling him forward and pressing their lips together.

Enzo let out a soft laugh of his own before wrapping a hand around the back of Damon's neck and kissing back fiercely.

The fact that they-most likely-had an audience didn't deter them at all; if anything, it spurred Damon on even more. He wanted his brother to see this-he wanted Stefan to see just how much he had changed since coming back from the dead(again).

He gripped the short hairs at the base of Enzo's head, tugging the younger vampire closer and twining their tongues together.

"Are we just showing off to torture your brother more?" Enzo questioned lowly, the force of their kiss making him a little breathless. He didn't sound offended, though-in fact, he sounded just as amused as before.

"Maybe," Damon said, mischief dancing in his azure eyes as he nipped playfully at Enzo's bottom lip.

Enzo smiled, sucking briefly on Damon's top lip before pulling away.

"Mind if I take a turn before Jo's coven picks him up? They said they'd be here soon," he queried tilting his head at their captive with a dark gleam in his bronze orbs.

Damon waved a hand carelessly. "Go for it," he consented, bumping his bottom lip against Enzo's top one before releasing the other vampire completely.

Enzo shot him a smirk before walking past him and heading for the entrance to Stefan's cell.

~about 30 minutes ago~

"I'm guessing your plan is working?" Luke surmised as Jo walked into his dorm room with an unconcealed smile on her glossy red lips.

Jo inclined her head in an affirmative as she closed the door behind her.

"I just heard from Enzo; they have Stefan Salvatore at the staging area," she informed her companion, tucking her phone back into her jacket pocket.

"And you still think it was a good idea to have the elder Salvatore and his buddy be the ones to hold him until the spell is ready?"Luke's twin sister, Liv, quipped from her spot on his bed, folding her arms over her chest.

"Yes," Jo replied without hesitation. "They are the keys to all of this;the more rapport we establish with them the better-and giving Salvatore a chance to get a little revenge on his brother will help with that."

Liv pressed her lips together, slinging one of her jean-clad legs over the other. She couldn't really argue with that; thought that didn't stop her from trying.

"And when they find out what we've been keeping from them?"

Jo barely batted an eye at her rebuttal.

"I'll tell them when they need to know," she said flatly, before changing subjects. "Now, why don't you two make yourselves useful and go get the prisoner in place and I'll be along in a minute?"

Liv shared a brief glance with her brother before acquiescing.

"All right," she consented, uncrossing her legs and getting to her feet. "Come on, Luke."

Luke stood up as well, and the two of them vanished from the room, transporting themselves to Damon and Enzo's current location.

Jo waited until they were gone, then she opened the top drawer of Luke's desk, pulling out a slightly worn black and white photograph and tucking it into her jacket along with her phone.

She knew that not telling the two former Augustines everything about what she wanted them to do right from the beginning was probably not the safest idea-but she had a feeling that would change when Damon and Enzo found out that it was all to get them to be more than they were.

They had a greater part to play in this-and she had a feeling that they would like it.

This is their rise to power

Stefan let out another agonized, shuddering scream as Enzo plunged another vervain-laced knife into his leg, making his skin burn-a sharp contrast to what Damon had done to him earlier.

Misery is all you deserve

There wasn't a single ounce of pity on Enzo's olive-skinned face-only enjoyment. He'd wanted to do this to Stefan for a long time; as far as he was concerned, the older vampire deserved it for letting Damon down so many times. The only thing that had stopped him had been that, despite all those times he'd failed him, Damon had still loved Stefan-but now that had changed.

As a matter of fact, Damon was watching him, once again leaning up against the two way mirror with a capricious gleam in his unearthly azure eyes. That spurred Enzo on even morel he wanted to give Damon a good show, after all.

He started to pull out yet another knife when the door next to Damon suddenly swung inward, interrupting him.

"Well, isn't this nice," Liv commented dryly as she and her brother entered, gazes travelling over Stefan's bleeding, shaking form and the layers of frost lining the wall behind him, before turning to Enzo. "I see you two have been having some fun."

She didn't sound reproving, so Enzo didn't try to defend what they'd done. "We have," he admitted without reservation.

The blonde warlock cast a brief look over his shoulder at Damon before speaking. "Well, I'm afraid we're going to have to put an end to it; we need Stefan now," he declared.

Enzo stepped aside without argument, but, before they could grab Stefan, Damon pushed himself off the wall and moved fluidly into their path.

"What is this spell you're using him for?" he questioned, piercing the two magic-users with an intense, scrutinizing stare.

"Why don't you come and see?" Liv suggested. Not flinching as she walked around him, dislodging Stefan's chains from the wall and using her powers to levitate him out of the cell.

Luke, Damon and Enzo all follower her as she took Stefan up the stairs and down a curved, dimly lit hall before setting him down in what looked strangely like a throne room.

Jo was waiting for them there, wrapped in a forest green robe with the hood drawn up, and holding an odd disk-like object in one of her gloved hands.

She wasn't alone, either; in addition to the twins, there were two other robed figures standing on either side of her-a man and another, dark-skinned woman, both holding similar objects.

"I was hoping you two would join us," she said by way of a greeting, aquamarine eyes bright in the darkness. She nodded at Liv and Luke. "Let's begin."

The twins separated, moving away from Damon and Enzo and joining the others to form a circle around Stefan's still shivering form.

Once they were in formation, Jo and the other robed figured placed the objects they held down onto the floor in front of them-and then, the dark-skinned woman began to speak.

"In virtute loco sacro vi

quid est occultatum revelare

ostende mihi faciem tuam secretum

et ad gelu dimittere."

no masters or kings

when the ritual begins

As she chanted, the candles illuminating the room all went out, plunging them into complete darkness. But then, an odd white blue-light appeared, its glow spreading slowly over Stefan and causing him to thrash, hoarse, pained noises erupting out of his mouth like he was being tortured again.

His skin roiled and a mysterious bubbling substance began to seep out of him and onto the floor, drawing everyone's attention to what was happening beneath him.

As the substance covered the floor, it began to change; what had previously been completely normal hardwood began to morph into crystal-coloured marble. And that wasn't all: as the glow filled the room, it revealed that a dais had risen at the far end, upon which two distinctly throne-like chairs, one black, one blue, now sat.

"The first step is now completed," Jo declared as her companion finished her incantation, sounding as if she were speaking more to herself than to anyone else, satisfaction etched into her porcelain features. She snapped her fingers, lifting Stefan, who was now unconscious again, off of the floor, then turned to address Damon and Enzo. "I'm afraid you'll have to let him go now, at least for a little while. We need him alive and back at full strength for what comes next."

Damon appeared largely indifferent. "Looks like it's my little brother's lucky day," he commented in a bored tone, lifting one of his shoulders in a shrug.

Enzo, however, was confused.

"What do you mean? What was the point of this?" he wondered, gesturing to the thrones with a frown on his olive-skinned forehead.

An enigmatic smile curved Jo's red lips.

"You'll find out soon enough," she responded evasively before waving one of her gloved hands. "Feel free to stay here as long as you want. We'll see each other again soon."

She tipped her head to them, then she and the rest of her coven disappeared-along with Stefan.

Enzo's frown deepened; he wasn't sure what he had just witnessed, but he had a feeling that it was only the beginning.