A/N- So, even Sheila Bennett screws Bonnie over. Think about it, she 'saved' her granddaughter by sending her to a bubble of existence where- had she not been holding on to Damon at the time- she would have been alone forever and likely gone insane.
And how much do we want to bet that Alaric screws up somehow and Elena's happy memories of Damon won't come back until after several episodes, possibly an entire season of angst.
Sorry about the delay in update.

At this stage in his unnatural life, Damon Salvatore had only served in one war.

That wasn't to say he hadn't been in warzones- after realising Lexi was nothing more than a control freak drunk on her own idea of herself- he'd followed his little brother to Egypt and quietly worked his way through the enemy soldiers, hoping to provide Stefan with an easier task of getting his wounded out alive.

But even though it had been over one hundred years since the Civil War, Damon still remembered the rules of combat that had been drilled into him.

Firstly, he had to find cover or concealment and set up a local secure base.

Which of course in Mystic Falls was easier said than done.

He should have known. That's what bugged him the most, he should have known he was walking into a trap but he'd been so focused on making sure Liz- one of the few people in this world he could call a friend- was okay that he'd ignored the warning lights he was sure would have been flashing through his brain.

He had known that Hopkins was working against him. He had figured out there was an attack plan in the works but he had never thought that the first shot would be in an area as crowded with humans as the hospital.

Hopkins always waxed poetic about the rights of the humans in Mystic Falls- what the hell was he doing putting them in danger?

Never mind. He couldn't think about that now, not with Stefan and Elena following him down the street, completely exposed as he carried a dazed and bruised Liz on his shoulder.

Get to a secure location.

The Boarding House was out. If Hopkins had lured them to the hospital, likely he had hunters waiting for them at their house.

Rick's apartment was no good either, close quarters were good in hand-to-hand combat but another grenade or a bomb and they'd be stuck five floors up with limited escape options.

Ditto the caves, a couple of vervein smoke bombs and the entire network would be lethal.

The Grill would probably be one of the first places they'd check…

The high school. He knew the layout, he knew where they could hide without drawing too much attention and if Hopkins sent armed men in to draw them out, someone would see the weapon, scream holy murder and before anyone could blink there'd be federal police, hostage negotiators and every local media station gathered around the perimeter watching their every move.

It was still school holidays but there would have to be some sort of program happening that required student attendance.

Even Hopkins wasn't stupid enough to risk a life sentence in prison just to try and make Mystic Falls vampire free.

But first, he'd have to get Liz walking under her own strength.

He leads them to the local park, they're exposed but with a clear line of sight, they'll be able to see any attacks coming.

"Okay, here we go"

Damon lowers Liz down onto the sidewalk as Stefan crouches down and begins checking out her injuries. Seeing that she's taken care of for the moment, he turns to Elena and notices that her fangs are still out and her eyes are red with blood and lined with veins,

"Hey" he cups her chin and gives her a gentle shake, "Come on Batman take off the mask"

She frowns but swallows and closes her eyes, taking two deep breaths before reverting back to her human features,

"Damon" Elena's voice is shaky with fright, "What the hell was that?"

Well, going on the fact that he'd just had to yank a rather large overgrown vervein soaked splinter from his forehead, he's gonna go with vampire hunter as his final answer.

Question is- what the fuck is a hunter doing committing murder in broad daylight…and with freaking humans outnumbering the vampires in the immediate vicinity ten-to-one?

He blinks at Liz as his head clears from the penetrating injury,

"Hey, what were you doing at the hospital anyway?"

She doesn't immediately answer, she chooses to push Stefan out of the way and throw up in the gutter instead, wiping her mouth afterwards and giving herself a shakedown, pulling herself together in less time than it takes other people to fall apart.

Damon's always been a fan of Liz and her no-bullshit attitude, but she was thrown around in a bomb blast and will have to be handling everything that's currently hitting the fan so he takes a bite out of his wrist and offers it to her,

"Just don't die today and you'll be fine" he offers as assurance,

She glares at him, "I'd rather go back to the hospital"

"You went to the hospital, it got blown up remember" he flickers his eyes at her and Elena steps around him,

"Liz, Klaus was the person who called us saying you were in the hospital…that means Caroline was called as well and probably headed straight here from New Orleans. We have to get out of town and intercept her and we can't do that if we're carrying wounded"

Damn.

What does it say about the last few years that Elena can now strategize and plan ahead with the same thought process as a ground soldier?

Nothing good.

Although useful in this situation. He hadn't even considered retreat but now that he thought about it, get everyone the hell out of dodge to a safe area, come back and scope out the enemy before eating every last one of them.

He takes another bite of his wrist as the first wound heals over, "Come on" he urges,

"Sooner we get this done, sooner we can find Caroline"

Those were the magic words, the promise to a mother that she would see her child.

Liz takes his wrist in her hand and drinks the barest sip, making a disgusted face as she pulls away,

"Okay" she wipes her mouth and swallows, "We need a car"

The Camaro was still at the hospital, the tyres had been slashed so they'd been forced to abandon it, besides even if he wanted to the car was far too recognisable for them to drive around town.

Still, the thought of abandoning the vehicle he'd spent so many years in- the car that had been his home when he'd lived life moving restlessly from place to place, waiting endlessly for the comet that would release Katherine from the tomb- hurt.

But he had Stefan and Elena to worry about.

His eyes swept the surrounding area before landing on an old jeep, it had clearly seen better days but if it could make the two hour drive to Richmond or hell just get them out of town it'd do.

He hoped Liz knew something about hotwiring cars, the only experience he had with auto theft was compelling people to give him the keys or beating Jeremy at the video game.

Jeremy.

Shit.

"Call your brother" he tells Elena, "Now,"

Her eyes go wide with horror and she's ripping her phone out of her back pocket, pressing number two on the screen and tapping her foot with supernatural speed.

Damon waits with the barest sliver of patience, hoping that since it's barely nine am Jeremy and Matt will still be at the Lake House sleeping off their hangovers and will stay put until he can collect them.

Unless Hopkins plans to take them captive?

No. They're both human, besides if someone pointed a weapon at little Gilbert his Five hunter training would kick in and bodies would be dropping left, right and centre.

And Elena would be horrified but Damon has no problem with Jeremy joining in the fight if the odds are stacked in his favour.

"What's taking so long?" he demands as Elena hangs up and redials,

"The call isn't going through" she complains and he runs a hand through his hair in frustration before Liz offers to try on her phone.

But a minute later she's cursing, "The lines are down" she explains,

"And today of all days I don't think something died on the wires"

"They're jamming us" he surmises.

Damn.

So, Hopkins had somehow tricked Caroline into thinking her mother was injured, which would bring her running from New Orleans and he'd either been betting on the group's love for one another or their concern for Liz to draw them back into town and to the hospital where a hunter had been waiting for them.

Liz had likely just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, Damon knew she liked to swing past the ER during her shift to ensure that nothing was going down but he'd been there for the tail end of her conversation to Klaus, so he would know something was wrong.

Hopefully he'd be hot on Caroline's tail and keep her somewhere safe for them.

But with their luck, it was more likely that blondie was gunning it to town and would be another vampire running around clueless on the day that Hopkins had declared it was hunting season.

Okay.

One problem at a time.

Turns out Sheriff Elizabeth Forbes did know how to hotwire a car.

"If you ever tell anyone I will kill you" she mutters under her breath as they approach the jeep, keeping an eye out for potential dangers,

"But I had a juvie record longer than my…"

The second explosion was less deadly than the first.

At least this time there was no casualties, they had simply been knocked to the ground, stunned as their brains tried to reorient themselves and they tried to get air back into their lungs.

Elena and Stefan had been a few feet behind Damon and Liz so they were less winded and when the bullets started flying, Stefan was first up and throwing himself at the attacker, catching a bullet to the chest but tackling the woman to the ground.

Damon was just getting to his feet as he heard the tell-tale sound of an arm being ripped from its socket.

Crap.

He was worried Stefan had relapsed but he staggered over to see Stefan wasn't feeding, he was just making a mess of his kill.

His brother pulls himself back and crouches by the body,

"If these bastards are going to hunt us in broad daylight" he growls ominously,

"Let them hunt all of us at our worst and know that we're throwing out the rulebook as well"

Fine.

Let the Ripper of Monterrey tear through whoever was after them.

The South wasn't lacking in underground basements for him to throw his little brother in to detox him later.

And if by chance they ended up in the North…well he was sure there was a storm cellar or two there as well.

So the jeep had been rigged to blow, knowing that they'd be looking for a large car to carry them to safety, that meant Hopkins didn't want them leaving town.

Unfortunately for the Murderous Mayor, Mystic Falls was surrounded on all sides by deep forest, and even he couldn't have stationed hunters in every corner of it, it would be tough going for Liz but they could hike over the town line and once they were on the highway, steal a car or call a cab or hopefully make contact Caroline or Klaus and be in Richmond by nightfall.

Failing that, Damon would find Bonnie, take her hostage and demand that every vampire in town be allowed to leave peacefully.

Back in 1863 he'd been able to get all his men out alive, on no small part due to the deals he'd made with the Devil but he no longer had the same tools at his disposal.

Still, he'd managed a lot more on a lot less.

First things first.

"Right" he sighed, clapping his hands "Time for school everyone"

"I would much prefer you simply give me the information I require" Elijah politely requested as he stood in the middle of the road leading to Mystic Falls, surrounded by corpses and dangling the vampire hunter by the throat.

After the catastrophe that was Virginia airport, what with the attack on Caroline in the parking area and then security classifying the situation as an act of domestic terrorism, the planes had all been rerouted.

Well, almost all the planes.

Niklaus had been very determined to land in Virginia and thankfully the pilots had not been on vervein, however they were now very likely fired for breaking several laws in landing on the tarmac in clear violation of instructions.

After the debrief from Rodney, it had been very, very difficult to convince his little brother not to follow Caroline to Mystic Falls.

In the end Elijah had taken Niklaus' face in his hands, sworn he would find and extract the entire coven and then snapped his brother's neck, thrown his body in an empty dumpster, jammed it closed and told Rodney to book a hotel suite for when the King of New Orleans managed to work his way out of the metal contraption.

A quick text to Katerina, asking her to locate and hide the silver daggers and white oak ash and Elijah had been in a rental car headed straight to Mystic Falls.

He had been approaching the outskirts of town when a line of tyre spikes had been thrown across the road and his car had come to a rather sudden, unpleasant stop.

From there, a weapon he would later learn was a grenade launcher had been fired at him.

Elijah abhorred modern weaponry, as did many vampires who had existed before the twentieth century.

He believed there was more honour in a sword fight, when both parties were more or less equal, he'd considered canons gauche and unnecessary and guns…

There was no honour in firing a gun, in killing a man without having to look him in the eye.

And nuclear weaponry.

Elijah was often known as the chivalrous Original, the brother who lived in suits and turned his face from the gauche advances of modern technology, but that was because it broke his heart to watch the world run screaming into the abyss as it tore itself to shreds.

So it was with aversion that he picked off the toy soldiers or as he was sure they would call themselves- vampire hunters- leaving only one survivor.

This one appeared to be the leader.

Although how natural selection had failed to kick in and let this one reach maturity was beyond him.

Being a fan of a televised serial did not give one license to hunt the supernatural in his opinion.

"You are a vampire hunter" Elijah mused to the man's rapidly reddening face and flailing legs,

"That is quite obvious from your pathetic attempt to kill me…you aren't a very good hunter, as proven by the fact that you attacked me without first determining that I am indeed a vampire"

He gives the man a shake and loosens his grip just enough to let him breathe,

"Now, before I go into Mystic Falls and start killing everyone who aims a crossbow at me, I would like to know the exact figures so that I might estimate how long this shall take…I have a fiancée at home you see and if I am not back by nightfall I am worried that she shall be frightened, or worse, angry enough to use my bank account for her shoe addiction"

"Twe…" the man coughed and spluttered, spittle flying and Elijah turned his face in disgust,

"Twenty-something"

He drops him to the ground and uses his handkerchief to wipe his face,

"Twenty?" he murmurs in disbelief, "Twenty hunters for four vampires?"

The man is gasping for breath and tries to drag himself away, "For one hundred vampires!"

Elijah scoffs, "One hundred vampires in a small country town two hours from Richmond?! The entire state of Virginia would barely be pushing thirty vampires"

The hunter stood up and flung holy water in his face, chanting rapidly in Latin as Elijah sighed and checked his watch,

"Well, I have to assume you were found over the internet by someone who is as much an idiot as yourself"

He snapped his neck and stepped over his body, striding down the road into town, it was a deceptively warm day and had he not been supernatural speed he might have been enjoying the wondrous scenery.

As it was he was so concerned with finding Caroline and her extended family that he only just sensed the person before the spell hit him.

Brain boiling pain.

He falls to his knees, clutching his temple as the witch burned him with bursting aneurysms and although it wasn't the first time he'd been attacked in this manner, or sadly even the thirtieth it still hurt every time.

And just as suddenly, the pain was gone and his brain was able to heal, slowly the tissue came back together and he was no longer blinded. Gathering his strength, he rose to his feet and faced down the young witch in front of him,

"Once upon a time" he began lightly, "Humanity greeted one another with formal introductions, not weaponry and attacks…Hello" he held out a hand, "It's a pleasure to meet you"

The woman snorted indelicately and crossed her arms, not that he was surprised or in any way fazed by her actions,

"Very well" he fiddled with his watch, "Then perhaps you'd care to tell me why it is you don't want me entering Mystic Falls proper today?"

"We've been expecting you" she sneers, "Hybrid Klaus running to the vampires rescue!"

He had been correct then, Klaus had been the target and poor Caroline and her beloved friends had been the bait, a way to lure the Original back to Mystic Falls and kill an entire line of vampires.

He doesn't let the horror of this attempted genocide show on his face.

He's unflappable, he's spent a thousand years seeing those he loved at their best and their very worst.

Just because this worthless witch doesn't understand the enormity of her actions, it doesn't make her a monster, just a little fool.

"Ah…" he grins ruefully, "I'm afraid you're mistaken, I'm Elijah Mikaelson, the eldest Original not my dear little brother I'm afraid"

He raises his voice so that the witches in the forest, the ones who are trying to hide from him can hear his words. The woman in front of him is about to contradict him, possibly with another round of torture but he watches patiently as she takes him in for the first time.

He was distinguishable by the suits which he wore every day. Niklaus preferred the more casual clothes available to them all, his daylight ring also was a signature piece of jewellery- once again something his brother did not wear.

"Now that we've cleared that up" he opens his arms to address them, "I'm searching for a beautiful blonde woman…although I must ask that you do not tell Katherine Pierce that I referred to this vampiress as beautiful, my fiancée is rather the jealous type"

This was not information pertinent to the conversation but he did enjoy being able to call Katerina his fiancée.

"Blonde hair, blue eyes, black pants and a green top" he continued, "Caroline Forbes" Elijah let her name sink in, "You should know of her by now, several months ago my brother offered immunity to witches around the world for the assistance they gave her in destroying Silas once and for all. She might not be your personal ally but she is not your enemy"

"She's a vampire!" the woman interrupted, "Impure and monstrous, she deserves to die"

"Lucy" a voice hissed and Elijah delayed his response as the rest of the witch coven emerged from the trees, his eyes darting about for a familiar face before settling on one who was not a witch.

At least not anymore.

"Ms Bennett?" he questioned bewildered, "Forgive me" he added when he saw the startled look on her face, "The resemblance between your daughter and yourself is quite telling…but I do not understand why you are here, Caroline's actions are what brought Bonnie back from the Other Side"

"You mean the deal she made with Silas" she seethed, "Thanks to her, Silas died and was released from his torment, Qetsiyah's work of thousands of years undone by a nineteen year old brat"

"A brat who traded Silas' life for your daughters and considered it quite the bargain" he countered before deciding that he was getting nowhere,

"Your opinion of vampires is noted but as I do not feel like discussing ideology today, perhaps you would be so kind as to let me pass? If you wish to kill my brother then by all means he is staying at a hotel in Richmond, shall I give you his number so that you may call him?"

The witches were quite put out by Elijah's presence in place of his brother's, they had clearly been banking on Klaus to come roaring into town, distracted and vulnerable.

But clearly they decided that they would make do for Elijah was driven to his knees again by the crippling pain and though he threw himself at Lucy and rendered her unconscious, the pain did not relent for all the witches were chanting now.

They undid the spell on his daylight ring and his flesh began to burn, instinctively he sought shelter in the trees, throwing himself into the forest, away from the witches and under the cool cover of old canopies.

Right into the trap that had been meant for Niklaus.

Still in pain, still disorientated he was unprepared for the six hunters who assaulted him, he could only kill three of them before his shirt was ripped open and the weapon driven into his body.

The white oak stake penetrated Elijah's chest.

Nine hundred miles away, Katerina screamed.

Caroline held her shoes in her hand and her pants hitched up to her thighs as she carefully made her way upstream.

Being the daughter of a policewoman, having spent long afternoons as a child in the police station while her mother's deputies had explained basic rules of finding criminals or hiding from the law to keep her interested had given her a knowledge base to build on. So she had guessed that if people were hunting her, there'd likely be roadblocks on all the routes out of town.

But what they wouldn't be expecting would be for her to walk in.

Granted they'd likely have hunters stationed around looking for a blonde girl and they might have even got a photo of her outfit. So that was why she'd ditched her car on the side of the road and decided not to leave any tracks by walking in the shallows of the river that led right to the Quarry.

From there she knew one of the closest houses belonged to Ms Woods who lived in velour tracksuit and always did her washing on Wednesday nights and had to hang her outfits outside on a washing line because she sprayed so much perfume into them that she had to air them out. So if Caroline was lucky- and so far she wasn't dead yet- there should be a tracksuit for her to 'borrow' and change into and then perhaps she could get around town in disguise as a jogger.

She could find her mom, find her friends and figure out what the hell was going on.

But first things first…

"Yes!" she gasped as she saw the familiar black tracksuit with gold threading hanging in the backyard of statues and a hot tub that Alaric Saltzman had once apparently spent four hours in.

Before he and Jenna started dating of course.

Caroline shuddered but eased closer to the fence, keeping an eye and ear out for anyone around her. She could hear a soap opera playing on the television inside the house so she flashed over the fence, grabbed the tracksuit as quickly as she could, her fingers fumbling on the pegs but yanking the clothing down with little trouble. She's back over the fence and hoping Mark Branson, a junior who lives two doors down isn't watching as she ditches her clothes and slithers into the black and gold tacky outfit.

And it even came with a hood.

Wow, her day was getting better and better.

With the hood up to try and cover her blonde hair she began a brisk walk down the street, trying to look like, at best a young girl trying to keep fit and at worst what passed for a criminal in Mystic Falls.

It was such a beautiful, sunny day- even with everything going to hell around her Caroline could see and appreciate the lovely weather but then again Mystic Falls was her home, she had always worked hard to contribute to the town and its surroundings, to make it a better place for everyone.

She wished Klaus was with her.

The thought came so suddenly in her head that she somehow managed to trip for the first time since becoming a vampire.

But it was totally true, she wanted Klaus with her, if he was here he would be confident and calm, marching around and ordering the hunters from 'his' town before confronting whoever had been willing to fork out thousands of dollars for their murder.

She stops at a pedestrian crossing and considers this as her brain finally starts connecting the dots,

No one person in Mystic Falls had thousands of dollars just lying around earmarked for vampire hunting.

For years, the richest families in town had been the Lockwood's and the Salvatore's.

Damon and Stefan clearly weren't behind the attack and surely if Tyler was going to crawl out of the woodwork after so long he'd have sent the hunters to New Orleans?

Individual citizens in her town didn't have those kind of finances but an organisation…

Such as the local government, headed by Rudy Hopkins, the man who had once thrown vervein in the water supply.

Caroline hesitates and looks around her.

She is at the edge of the town centre, she had been hoping to cut through and make it to the police station where her mom would be, or at least deputies who had known her since she was a baby and would help her.

Except she didn't need protection.

She needed to stop whoever was trying to destroy her town.

She takes a deep breath and sets her path for the town hall.