After Hope was sent back to the past (to 2010) and disappeared from the present, Josie Saltzman's dark alter ego was nearly about to kill another student (like she had killed Alyssa Chang), when Lizzie Saltzman interrupted her, arriving with Milton Greasley by her side. The blonde siphoner agreed to do the merge that was likely to kill her. If it didn't get anyone else killed, she didn't have much of a choice, despite the fact she had been close to running away.
"Siphon me. You've got to be at full strength." Milton Greasley, MG, said as he held out his hand for Lizzie to take. He needed to do whatever he could to help her.
Lizzie ignored the hand and put her hand on the back of his neck as she pressed her lips to his. Her other hand moved to his cheek as she continued to kiss him, ignoring the crowd that was still around the match. Her lips lingered on his as she siphoned some but not too much, unable to help herself from wanting this to be part of his last memory of her. But she also wanted it to be part of her last memory if this went south and she died. It was bad enough that she had seen Hope disappear in front of her eyes, but she was now about to die herself, and this had been her last opportunity to kiss MG, something she had forced herself to believe she hadn't wanted but was something she had since he came to the school. She knew she wasn't good enough for him, though she was getting better, becoming a better person, if she was about to die, which she was sure she was, then she didn't want to go out without kissing him.
When she finally pulled away from him, thesiphonermade sure her facial expressions were composed as the lie escaped her lips. "Just for the record, that was for me and not you," she said to MG, who was shocked at what had just occurred. She knew she only had a minute before Josie forced her to get started, so she quickly added. "Whatever happens next, once it's done, go get the hobbit. Tell him Hope disappeared. That the evil hot topic version of my sister did something to her."
"I will. I promise" MG said.
Lizzie gave him a weak attempt at a smile before heading over to Josie. "Now it's time for me to kick your ass"
The Saltzman twins did the Merge, and they both collapsed, the room now dark. It didn't take long for Alaric Saltzman to rush into the room with horror over what had occurred, and soon Josie Saltzman woke up, black veins still visible on her body. She left the school, satisfied by the turns of events, and MG carried Lizzie to the headmaster's office, where they waited for her to wake up.
"Go find Landon." Alaric finally said.
"But Lizzie-" MG began, not wanting to leave her side until she woke up.
"-would want you to tell him the moment he wakes up. You can come back after. And remember, don't tell anyone she might come back. Not unless we are having the discussion here. Things didn't go according to plan. He needs to know"
MG swallowed hard and looked at Lizzie's temporary corpse before quickly heading out to find Landon. The sooner Landon woke up and MG could pass on the message, the sooner he could get back to Lizzie. He found Landon's temporarily dead corpse on the dock with Rafael standing beside it, and MG arrived just in time to see him burst into flames. When the flames settled down, Landon burst free of the ash casing around his body and stood up. Ignoring the ash on his body that was all too familiar to him, he looked around and blinked in surprise at the sight of MG.
"What's going on?" Landon questioned, confused at the sight of MG. "Aren't you supposed to be with Hope and Lizzie?"
"We need you back at the school" the vampire replied.
"Now? I'm kind of dealing with another issue too" Landon said, glancing at Rafael, who hadn't said a word since Landon came back from the dead. Not since they were no longer alone. He wasn't sure if it would be a good or horrible idea to tell MG. He didn't want Rafael getting hurt.
"It's about Hope. Things didn't go according to plan, and now she's missing. We have no idea where she is or what Josie did to her"
The phoenix inhaled sharply and looked between Rafael and MG, forcing himself not to immediately take off in the direction of the school. Why couldn't there be only one problem at a time? Now he had to choose between helping his brother and helping the love of his life. He wasn't sure there was anything that could be done for Raf, considering he was already dead. But that didn't mean he wouldn't try.
"Put him unconscious," Landon said under his breath to MG, who shortly sped behind Rafael, confused but did as Landon asked. And shortly the werewolf was in MG's arms, unconscious. "Put him in the cellar for now," he said hesitantly. "I'll explain later. I promise."
Once MG sped Rafael to the cellar and locked him up, Landon took off towards the school to the headmaster's office. He had to at least figure out what happened to Hope before he could go downstairs and figure out how to help Rafael from being tethered to the Necromancer. There had to be something that could be done to save his life and something to get Hope back from whatever it was that happened to her. He went inside the office and shut the door behind him, and Dr Saltzman was explaining to Lizzie why she wasn't dead.
Lizzie looked over at him. "Thank you," she said. She hadn't had a chance to say it earlier and it wasn't something she often said, but now that it worked and she was alive, she felt the need to say it.
"You're welcome. I'm just glad you survived. What about Hope? Did either of you see what happened to her?" Landon asked, cutting straight to the point.
"No. MG and I got there just in time to see Hope disappear" Lizzie said, letting out a sigh. "I don't know what incantation was used or if Dark Josie-mort used a nonverbal spell to make it happen so no one would be able to figure out what she said."
"Which would mean that if it was nonverbal then only she knows exactly what happened." Landon realized. "So we have to help Josie before we can start to help Hope"
Lizzie nodded, trying to figure out if there was a way they could handle her sister without hurting her. She would never forgive herself if her sister got hurt because of her in any way, which was one of the reasons she stood no chance of surviving the Merge without Landon's resurrection assistance.
"There's another problem we have to deal with. Rafael isn't in control of himself anymore. He's dead and he's a puppet of the Necromancer. I had MG lock him up so I could hear about what exactly happened with Hope, but there has to be something we can do to help him too"
"If there is something we can do to save him, we will" Alaric assured him. "Our biggest priority at the moment is Josie and the Necromancer. Lizzie, Josie thinks you are dead, so we can't risk her seeing you yet. If we fake a funeral for you, it will seem like our focus is on mourning you instead of stopping her. I have an idea on how to at least handle some of this, but you've got to keep her thinking things are how they would be if you had died."
Lizzie sighed and nodded. "Alright, no one will see that I'm alive except those in here right now" she promised her dad. " Go work on your plan and let me know if there is anything I can do to help"
"I'll need your help if this goes the way I hope it does," Alaric said before heading out of his office to start arranging the funeral. Once that got in motion, he left the school secretly to work on his plan to make a deal with the Necromancer. Because as he learned over the years of working with Damon Salvatore and everyone else in that time frame, sometimes you had to make a deal with an enemy to handle another situation.
Meanwhile, Lizzie went over to her dad's supplies in his office, pulling out Clarke's ring that she knew Hope had stored there.
"What are you doing?" MG questioned.
"I'm no use here. I might as well pretend to be someone I'm not so I can actually do something." Lizzie said.
"And who are you going to be? Because you're supposed to be dead. And Hope's who knows where instead of being asleep like the plan was" MG pointed out.
"Rafael's locked up, right? I can just pretend to be him for a couple of hours" Lizzie said with a small shrug.
"You're going to pretend to be Rafael? Your ex kind of fling?" He raised an eyebrow, looking at the girl he loved, unsure of if he should comment on how much he thought this was a bad idea.
"It can't be difficult. Relax, I've got it handled" Lizzie said and slid the ring on, her body appearing as Rafael.
The vampire sighed softly, not wanting to protest too much. "Alright but try to keep a low profile, please. And keep the ring on unless you're in here"
"I'll work on planning my funeral while the hobbit here does research on how to help Rafael, you help with my funeral and help my dad with whatever he needs. The sooner we get Josie back, the sooner we can help Hope. And hopefully, Rafael can get saved in the process."
"Hopefully?" Landon frowned at Lizzie, not liking how casually she said that.
"Well, he's already dead. The Necromancer is keeping him alive as you said. I don't what exactly we can do for him. Not that we shouldn't try, but I don't know about you but I don't have any ideas" Lizzie pointed out, taking off the ring for a moment. It was really weird being someone else.
Landon sighed. "Alright. Let me know if Dr Saltzman comes up with something to help Josie" he said, wanting to be able to help Hope but knowing they couldn't without Josie being back to normal so they could find out what on earth Josie did to her. In the meantime, he was going to help try to find a way to save Rafael.
"I don't know if Rafael would work on planning your funeral;" MG said, looking at Lizzie. "You two barely spoke after your 16th birthday party. You might have to trust me with that"
She groaned and sighed dramatically. "Fine. But only because I don't have someone else to pretend to be. And it better be great"
"It will be" He looked at her for a moment. "Help Landon out. Look at some of the books on witchcraft and sit by Landon in the library. Hopefully, together you will find something to help Rafael. I'll see you later. And Lizzie-"
"Yeah?" the siphoner looked at her friend curiously, wondering what he would say, wondering if his mind was on the kiss as hers was (not that she would admit it).
The vampire was silent for a moment before he finally spoke. "I'm really happy that you're okay"
Lizzie smiled brightly at him. "Thanks MG"
MG smiled back at her before leaving the office.
Lizzie slid her ring onto her finger and turned back into Rafael, her gaze lingering on where MG had left. She looked over at Landon. "Let's go" And with that, the siphoner headed out of the room. Landon took a deep breath before following after her, ready to get to research.
Eventually, Alaric Saltzman got a solution resolved, and Lizzie, once they managed to get Josie unconscious, magically transferred the dark magic from Josie to the Necromancer by using her siphoning abilities and the same spell she used to get the Hollow magic out of Hope and into Klaus Mikaelson.
Josie, now back to being the person she was before being taken over by her dark alter ego with dark magic influence, didn't feel comfortable even lighting a candle with her magic, so she stored it into a coin and put it in a piggy bank. Then she headed downstairs, back to the library where she knew the others had headed to do research. It was time to tell them what exactly she did to Hope... And to break some not so pleasant news.
Lizzie looked up as her sister entered the library, concerned about how she was doing after everything that had happened. She knew she wanted to make time to ask Josie how she was doing, something she knew she should have been doing all throughout her life but hadn't (trusting that Josie would just tell her if something was wrong).
Alaric and Landon were at a different table, but Alaric stood up at the sight of his daughter, who he had been very worried about ever since he saw her as her alter ego. It had brought far too many memories back to the surface, seeing his daughter with an alter personality willing and wanting to hurt people she loved. It was all too a familiar situation, something he partially wanted to tell her about and partially was too ashamed to tell his children that truth about him, especially since it still existed buried deep within
"Hey, how are you doing?" Alaric asked, walking towards her a bit.
Josie rubbed her arm a little, still uncomfortable and overwhelmed with memories of what she had done and nearly done. "As good as I can be, I guess" she said softly. "How I'm doing isn't what's important. We still need to help Hope"
"What did you do to her?" Landon asked, looking at Josie. "I mean, what was the spell?"
"It- it was a spell I saw once that I wasn't sure would even work. It sent her back in time. I have no idea how to reverse the spell or where to even begin" she explained. "I don't even know what year I sent her to. The point was to get her out of my way permanently, not risking her finding a way back."
Landon inhaled sharply. "There's got to be something. Some way to get her back. She can't just be stuck in the past" He said, his voice full of determination.
"Where did you see the spell?" Lizzie spoke up, looking at her sister
"In one of the books Clarke let me look at when he was getting me to use dark magic" Josie said.
"And who knows where that ended up" Lizzie said with a sigh. " Alright, tell me everything you know about the spell. We'll fix this, Jo" she promised her sister, who she knew was feeling really guilty about everything she did.
After Josie explained what she knew, everyone began to research. Lizzie and Josie worked on trying to reverse the spell by rewriting a new spell. But as weeks passed, their spells usually ended up in a disaster or only sending them back a few seconds, which going back in time hadn't even been their goal to begin with.
Alaric, MG, and Landon was hitting the books on anything to do with theoretical time travel, hoping they would find something that would help them all. Landon hadn't been getting much sleep, too worried about what could have happened to Hope. He knew she was a powerful and soon to be an immortal being, but that didn't mean she couldn't get hurt. And what if the spell had gone wrong to begin with and that was why these weren't working?
And with Rafael now living out his life in a prison world because he would die due to the Necromancer removing the magical strings keeping him alive, Landon felt a sense he didn't belong at the school. Josie wasn't really talking to anyone, much less him, and Wade had left for the school break.
Eventually, Josie and Lizzie created a spell they were pretty sure would work. Lizzie headed over to the library, where a tired Landon Kirby was flipping through yet another book. Alaric and MG were out getting more books from a friend of the ex vampire hunter. The phoenix looked up at the sound of her approaching. "Did you find anything?" Landon questioned.
"We are pretty sure we figured out how to reverse engineer the spell and then manipulate that to what we need" Lizzie said
"How much is pretty sure?" Landon questioned.
"More than 50 percent"
"I'm not sure how comforting that is" he commented, thinking of the fire she had accidentally caused during the last attempt. "Alright, let's do this. What do we need?"
"Candles. Josie is going to get them. It's a strong spell, being time travel and all" Lizzie said. "Some extra support would help"
He nodded a bit at that. "So what is the spell supposed to do exactly?"
"It anchors to Hope and the time she is in. Then it pulls her to our time and location. Anchoring to Hope helps ensure we don't end up time traveling ourselves to the 80s or something."
"Is Josie still not helping?"
Lizzie shook her head. "She's scared to touch her magic. To use any of it. She's worried she will get too attached to using it and hurt people again. And it doesn't help this spell is a bit of dark magic." Josie arrived with the candles and began setting them up in a circle in the Salvatore library. " Alright, come on, Hobbit. You're up" the blonde siphoner said.
Landon stood up and headed inside the circle, taking Lizzie's extended hands. She began to do the spell, siphoning magic from him. Suddenly, it seemed like light was swallowing them whole. And the Salvatore library looked very different. But even moreso the two people standing in the library with them now. Landon's gaze lingered on them as his mind went to where he had seen them before. Josie was staring at the two strange men in shock, recognizing them.
Lizzie, who had yet to turn around and notice, sighed. "Well, that was a bust."
"I don't think so" Landon said as his eyes on who he recognized to be Stefan and Damon Salvatore. "But I don't think it worked exactly right either.""
"Damon?" The word was out of Josie's mouth before she could to stop it. Damon was so familiar to her. She knew him and Elena and their children as though they were family, been though she didn't see them we often these days. But Damon looked younger.
"And who the hell are you?" The older Salvatore demanded as he stared at the three newcomers in shock