Deep beneath the Lockwood mansion, the air was damp and stale, the tunnel splitting ahead of them, Damon stopped at the junction, flashlight beam sweeping left… then right.
"Well," he drawled, "this feels promising. Alright, left or right?"
Mason shrugged, resting his shovel against his shoulder. "I don't know. Flip a coin."
Damon snorted. "I thought you ghost will be all knowing?."
"Hey I'm a ghost not God." Mason said then gesture towards a direction, "Fine. Left." Damon took two steps then veered sharply right instead.
Mason blinked, then shook his head. "Man, you've really got a nasty case of trust issues. Has anyone ever told you that?"
Click.
Damon froze as the walls moved.
Wooden spikes shot out with brutal speed and thud, crack, wet impact slamming straight through Damon's torso and pinning him in place like an insect in a display case.
"GAH—son of a—!" Damon gasped, pain ripping through him as his body jerked violently. He groaned, breath hitching. "Okay… okay, not my best call."
He tried to grab one of the spikes and hissed sharply as he couldn't move it at all. He turned his head, wincing. "Yo, help a brother out here!"
Silence.
Damon frowned. "Mason?"
He twisted as much as he could and looked back but Mason was gone.
"…Of course you are," Damon muttered through clenched teeth. "Why would this night stop being awful?"
———————
Stefan, Lexi, and Elena rushed through the streets toward Mystic High as sirens wailed in the distance.
BOOM.
A violent crash echoed through the night, followed by a sickening smack audible to both Lexi and Stefan.
Liz Forbes was shouting orders, her voice sharp and commanding. "Move! Everyone move away from the building! Clear the area now! Multiple explosions reported!"
Elena's head snapped up. "What was that?"
A figure sprinted toward them. Harry got to them with his outfit looking dirty and smeared dust across his coat.
Lexi stepped forward. "Hey, what's happening?"
Harry didn't slow. "It's Ankhar. He's here."
Stefan frowned. "Who?"
Lexi's expression darkened. "One of the harvesters. Ankhar. Giant mummified creature and a massive pain in the ass."
Another deafening impact shook the air.
They turned just in time to see Ankhar slam into a tree, snapping it in half like a twig.
Smoke billowed from where it came from and from within it, Michael emerged.
His hands were cracked with fire, molten lines crawling up his arms. Claws formed as he moved fast. He pointed his finger and made a spear shape with them and drove forward.
The mummy barely managed to twist aside as Michael's strike cratered the ground where it had been standing. Michael's hand clenched into a fist mid-motion.
Boom.
He uppercut Ankhar square in the chest, launching the massive creature clear across Mystic High. It tore through the roof of the building, collapsing it in a thunderous explosion.
"Michael!" Elena shouted.
Without even looking back, he barked, "Do not interfere! Get the civilians out now!"
He turned to Harry. "Find that damn banshee." Then he was gone vanishing in a burst of motion.
Lexi swore. "Shit. We need to move."
Harry nodded. "Now."
Back Beneath the Lockwood Mansion
Damon was still pinned, breathing hard, when footsteps echoed down the tunnel. Mason reappeared with a shovel in hand.
"I thought you might need this," he said casually.
Mason stepped closer and began smashing the mechanisms holding the spikes in place.
Damon groaned as the pressure shifted. "You're welcome," Mason said dryly.
One spike came free.
Damon hissed. "Okay yeah hurts."
Another.
"And for the record," Damon grunted, "I'm starting to feel like I'm weirdly on the receiving end of being impaled lately." Mason didn't respond, just kept working.
Damon clenched his jaw as another spike was pulled free. "So what's your game, man? I killed you."
Another spike slid out.
"I jammed my fist into your chest," Damon continued, voice tight with pain, "and ripped out your heart. There's no way this buddy-trust act is real."
The last spike came free and Damon slumped forward, breathing hard.
Mason stepped back. "Do you have any idea what the Other Side is like, Damon?"
Damon looked up, silent now.
"We're alone," Mason said quietly. "We watch the people we left behind and we regret every choice."
"That's it," Mason continued. "Look, I can't change what happened to me. But maybe I can help protect my little brother."
Damon's eyes narrowed.
"The Original hybrid out there?" Mason went on. "He's hunting werewolves. Turning them into hybrids."
Mason met Damon's gaze, unwavering.
"I don't want revenge," he said. "I need redemption."
Bonnie's hands tightened around the steering wheel as she sped down the dark road toward the old witch house.
"Okay," Caroline said, exhaling sharply, "there's been a new development." Bonnie looked up from the window. "What kind of new development?"
Caroline glanced at her. "I just got off the phone with Elena. There's an attack at Mystic High. Some sort of… mummy thing. A harvester of souls from what she's saying."
Bonnie blinked. "What?"
"Yeah," Caroline continued, voice tense. "Apparently it's already killed a few people. But my mom evacuated everyone else from the area. Michael's handling it now."
Bonnie swallowed and nodded.
A beat passed before Bonnie asked, "So… what now?"
"Jeremy's bringing the necklace to the witch house," Caroline said.
Bonnie nodded once and pressed harder on the accelerator.
A distant boom echoed out and they both looked to the direction. But neither of them spoke as Bonnie just drove faster.
—————————-
Michael landed hard on the cracked pavement as his claws ignited once again, flames licking along the edges.
His red eyes swept the smoke-filled ruins!and found nothing. He straightened up slowly with an unreadable expression.
"So," he said calmly, his voice carrying through the broken courtyard, "how long do you intend to keep this little game going, Ankhar?" Nothing responded for a few seconds until something launched at him from the darkness.
Michael twisted aside at the last second as debris smashed into the ground where he had been.
But the distraction was enough.
Bandage-like wrappings shot out from the wall, coiling around his left arm and yanking it tight.
The stone beside him burst open.
Ankhar emerged in a blur of rot and fury, its massive fist already in motion.
The punch connected and Michael's head snapped to the side as he was sent skidding across the ground but he used the momentum, planting a hand, flipping backward into a controlled spin.
Fire erupted from his arm and the wrappings ignited instantly, burning away in a flash of hellfire.
Michael landed on his feet with his eyes blazing, "You're persistent," he muttered.
He vanished and reappeared directly in front of Ankhar.
Michael drove his fist forward and hellfire surged into the creature, flooding its body with incandescent orange light. Cracks spread across the mummy's form as the heat overwhelmed it from the inside.
Ankhar let out a deafening roar and then exploded.
The blast tore through the structure behind it, ripping apart an entire section of the building as fire and rubble rained down.
Michael moved to strike again as the fire coiled around his arm, his instincts screaming to finish it and to burn it down to nothing, scatter whatever remained across time and ash—
Then, his expression shifted, surprise flickering across his face for the first time that night.
What is that…?
The wrappings on the ground moved and leapt at him.
Michael barely had time to curse before the bindings shot upward, snapping around his torso, arms, and legs like chains.
"Shit—"
Ankhar surged forward looking Half-regenerated now, the bandages hung loose in places, revealing putrid flesh beneath and a pulsing black mass inside Its mouth yawned open far wider than it should have, a black cavern lined with rot.
But the worst part was the thing in its chest.
A churning void, grinding and folding inward on itself. Michael struggled, fire flaring up, but the bindings drank the heat, tightening up instead.
Ankhar closed the distance and the void in its chest expanded, unfolding into a deep, lightless cocoon, a writhing blackness that swallowed Michael whole.
Under the Lockwood Mansion
Damon and Mason reached a junction deep beneath the mansion, stepping forward and slammed into something invisible.
"Oof, what the hell?"
He pressed his palm against the air and it felt solid.
Mason walked right past him.
"What?" Mason said, confused.
Damon frowned. "I can't get in. It's like… like I'm not invited."
Mason kept moving. "I'm not stopping at all."
Mason moved in and looked around but frowned, "Who the hell are you?"
Damon stiffened. "Mason?"
No response.
"Mason?" Damon stepped closer to the barrier, peering through the darkness. "Hey, who are you talking to?"
Inside, Mason stood frozen.
In front of him was a chamber but the most shocking thing was the woman who stood at its center.
She was beautiful in a way that made the skin crawl, unnaturally pale, her features sharp and serene, eyes looked lightless and endless. She wore flowing black robes that seemed to absorb the light.
She stood atop a massive pentagram etched into the stone floor. At its center was a black blot. Smoke poured from the woman's chest in heavy, rolling streams, feeding directly into the blot below her feet.
Mason's eyes flicked to the walls.
Murals covered them and they looked ancient and detailed.
Stories of the Originals no doubt.
Their rise, their blood and their sins.
Things no one was supposed to remember.
His breath hitched as he looked back but the woman was gone.
Outside the barrier, Damon's voice echoed. "Hey! Man, not cool! What the hell is going on in there? Who are you talking to?"
Mason turned to speak but she was there again and much closer this time.
Her mouth opened and Mason felt a stretch on his body. He screamed in pain as his body weakened instantly, fractures spiderwebbing across his skin as if something inside him was being pulled apart piece by piece.
She reached out.
Her hand wrapped around his chest as the smoke ripped out of him faster.
She moved just enough for Damon to see what was happening and his eyes widened.
"What in the, hey! HEY!"
He slammed his fists against the barrier. "HEY! LET HIM GO!"
And just like that, Mason was gone.
The smoke tore free of him in one violent rush, his whole body collapsing inward as the last of him was ripped from this world and devoured by the blot beneath the woman's feet. What little remained of him crumbled to dust, scattering across the stone like ash.
The woman turned. She looked directly at Damon.
Damon stared back, with his jaw tight and cold eyes but there was something grimly respectful in the way he nodded once.
"Huh," he said flatly. "So you are one of those harvesters I've heard about, I'm guessing."
The banshee tilted her head in curiosity.
Damon swallowed, then added, a little more seriously, "So… did you seriously just eat Mason?."
Her mouth opened and his eyes widened as he hurled the lantern in his hand with all his strength. The throw was vicious and precise. If it had been a human, the impact would've taken their head clean off.
The banshee screamed.
The sound came out as a shriek that bent the air itself. The lantern shattered mid-flight, glass and metal disintegrating into powder.
The scream surged toward Damon and before it reached him, a hand yanked him downward.
A gunshot rang out.
Mystic High
The cocoon exploded as fire tore through the courtyard in a violent bloom as the black mass was consumed, shredding apart in a blaze of hellfire. Debris rained down in burning fragments.
As the smoke cleared, Michael stood there with his clothes were in tatters. Cracks ran across his body like shattered porcelain, molten light glowing faintly beneath his skin as the flames bathed his form. He then looked down to see a mummified hand jutted clean through his chest.
Michael clicked his tongue. "Tch."
He grabbed the hand and ripped it free in one sharp motion. The wound hissed and steamed, flesh knitting back together as fire sealed the damage.
His gaze shifted towards the surge he'd felt earlier.
The flames around him dimmed, black smoke rolling across his body like soot staining marble. The fire remained beneath the cracks, but it was now dimmed down and restrained.
Then, he was gone.
Under the Lockwood Mansion
Harry crouched near the pentagram, examining the space where the black blot had been faintly pulsing earlier before the banshee disappeared.
Damon staggered back as Michael appeared beside them without warning.
"Jesus—" Damon started, Michael sighed, rubbing his neck. "What happened."
Harry stood. "She used this place to coalesce the souls."
Damon blinked. "The hell does that mean?"
Michael straightened up with his eyes scanning through the chamber, "The harvesters don't just collect souls they are able to fuse them. Condense them. This place—" he gestured to the pentagram, " must have been a crucible."
"Why?" Damon asked. "What's the point?"
Michael didn't answer immediately.
He looked to Harry.
Then, inwardly, the thought surfaced heavy and unwelcome.
'Did she send them down to Cade…
Or was there something else she was trying to make?'
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