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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐎.
[0𝟐]. 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄
𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐍.
【 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 】
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❛ 𝘖𝘏, 𝘔𝘈𝘙𝘝𝘌𝘓𝘖𝘜𝘚, 𝘈
𝘏𝘖𝘗𝘌 𝘔𝘐𝘒𝘈𝘌𝘓𝘚𝘖𝘕 𝘐𝘋𝘌𝘈 ❜
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𝐒𝐌𝐎𝐊𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 dragon-woman's nose and mouth as she growled, staring at the cellar doors in anger. Then suddenly, the doors flew open, Hope and Nathaniel jumped up from the inside, landing slightly on the ground before the dragon. The nephilim wasted no time in telekinetically shoving her back several yards with just a simple thrust of his arm.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you smoking's bad for you?" Hope humored.

Nathaniel scrunched up his nose. "That's so corny."

Hope rolled her eyes at his words but didn't let her eyes leave the dragon-woman as she landed on her side, facing away from them. She proceeded to flip herself onto her front before starting to stand, glaring angrily at the two supernatural entities as Nathaniel smirked, sarcastically shrugging at the dragon's temper.

"She looks about ready to blow," Nathaniel snorted.

And as expected, the dragon-woman's growl turned into a roar as she breathed a massive fiery blast at them. But before it could hit, Nathaniel raised his right hand to block the flames by clutching the knife. Hope on the other hand, reinforced him, using her own magic to stop them from being torched.

"And you said you could do this alone," Nathaniel scoffed, sweat lacing his brow.

Hope huffed in response. "Scutum."

Blocking the fire was quickly tiring Hope as she winced due to the heat of the fire and it was scarily evident to Nathaniel. The nephilim, in a moment of panic, breathed in deeply through his nose before placing the palm of his hand on the tribrid's arm, concentrating on getting her up. Nathaniel didn't know what he was expecting, but he felt a surge of power pass through his fingers onto Hope's skin as she slowly regained herself, standing straighter.

As the hot knife began to blister in Nathaniel's hand, the fire inched closer until Rafael appeared, tossing a brick at the dragon-woman. It hit her in the head, knocking her onto the ground to distract her long enough from blasting Hope and Nathaniel with her fire. Hope breathed in heavily, giving Rafael an exasperated look.

"Took you long enough!" Hope reproached.

Rafael shrugged; eyebrows narrowed. "Sorry. I couldn't find a rock."

Nathaniel narrowed his eyes, baffled. "You couldn't find a rock in the woods?"

During their exchange, the dragon-woman recovered from the hit before getting ready to stand on her feet. Nathaniel and Rafael quickly noticed as the werewolf redirected Hope to the task at hand.

"Alley-oop!" Rafael exclaimed.

The werewolf sprinted toward the dragon-woman, and Nathaniel, quickly grasping the term, turned in Rafael's direction to toss him the blade. Rafael leaped into the air towards the dragon with his werewolf ability before plunging the blade into her chest. The three shared a look before eyes landed on the seemingly dead woman.

"It's too easy," Nathaniel murmured to himself, shaking his head.

Rafael yanked the knife out of the dragon-woman's chest before pressing it to Nathaniel's chest with a hard expression. The werewolf paused, giving his following words a punch. "I don't do empty promises."

Nathaniel's eyebrows raised at the werewolf's nerve as he held the knife so Rafael would be able to let go. The nephilim was never one to be impressed. But in that moment, Rafael Waithe could proudly call himself one the few that were able to leave him with his words in his mouth.

"You guys alright?" Alaric questioned, coming out of the cellar while followed by Landon as a concerned expression placed itself on his face. Doctor Saltzman paused, taking a look at the body of the dragon they had slayed as a relief washed over him. Then his face turned unhappy and Nathaniel could only speculate Alaric didn't like his students having to have taken it down. "Let's give her a proper burial. See if you can find a shovel."

"Yes, sir," Nathaniel saluted with his hand.

The four teens did as instructed as Alaric's phone rang and he answered. From what Nathaniel actually paid attention to, he gathered it to be Dorian. There was slight banter and chuckles until it got serious with Alaric still doubting the creature they had just killed was actually a dragon.

"This doesn't make sense," Alaric shook his head. "It has to be something else."

As Doctor Saltzman said it, a deep growling noise was heard behind him. Alaric froze for a second before he slowly turned around. And when he did, behind him the dragon-woman was completely gone, turning into an enormous dragon that spread its wings over Doctor Saltzman's head.

Alaric gulped. "Nope, it's a dragon. Ah, I've gotta call you back."

Dorian called Alaric's name a few times, but Doctor Saltzman hung up the phone without acknowledging it. Just then, Landon, Rafael, Hope and Nathaniel came out of the cellar, shovel in hand, oblivious to what was happening just a few yards away from them.

"Doctor Saltzman?" Hope asked as the four stopped in their tracks and looked wide-eyed at the dragon before them. "Oh, my God."

The dragon took that moment to roar before stretching out its wings and taking flight, breathing a large blast of fire once it was up in the air. Hope quickly turned to face Landon and Rafael, who had matching horrified expressions on their faces, as she tossed the shovel to the ground.

"You two go," Hope ordered. "Get to the car and get out of here."

Rafael furrowed his brow. "What about you?"

"I have an idea."

Nathaniel closed his eyes for a second. "Oh, marvelous, a Hope Mikaelson idea."

Alaric gave Nathaniel a warning stare and the nephilim raised his hands in submission.

Hope rolled her eyes at Nathaniel. "She wants this," she took the knife that was tucked in the waistband of Nathaniel's jean as he protested before holding it up. "She's going to be back."

Alaric nodded before repeating the tribrid's instructions to the two boys. In the meantime, Hope walked forwards, the knife in hand as she waited for the dragon to circle back around to where they were. The dragon, who had been following Rafael and Landon as they ran through the woods towards Alaric's car, circled back to Hope, Alaric and Nathaniel, eager to get the knife.

"Wednesday's rubbing his angsty shit off on you," Nathaniel huffed. "You've got a death wish."

Hope shrugged. "You could say that."

"Alright, it's coming back," Alaric announced as the dragon circled the root cellar. "Now what?"

Hope gave the dragon a glance. "You should take cover."

"Like hell," Alaric looked at Hope as though she'd lost her mind.

Hope turned to him, a serious look on her face. "Then tell me how I'm gonna explain to your daughters that all that's left of you is hot ash?"

"The dad card? That's a low blow," Alaric looked visibly appalled at her retort.

Nathaniel hummed as he shrugged, eyes still on the dragon. "I think it's fair."

Alaric sighed once thinking it over. "Alright."

Doctor Saltzman then turned and ran towards the cellar. It was evident to the nephilim that Hope had wanted him to leave as well, but Nathaniel wasn't having any of it. There was no chance in hell he would leave her out there by herself to fight off a dragon.

"Go with him," Hope commanded.

Nathaniel scoffed out a humorless chuckle. "No chance in hell."

Hope breathed heavily in frustration. "I'm serious, Nate."

"I am too," Nathaniel stated firmly.

"Fine," Hope said through gritted teeth.

Nathaniel watched as Hope turned her back to him before noticing her take out a piece of paper from her pocket. The tribrid quickly unfolded the paper, revealing the Mortem spell she tore from her spell book. Once seeing the distinct color of the paper and the drawings littering the page, Nathaniel soon realized where it came from and what she was previously going to do with it.

"What the hell is that, Hope?" Nathaniel piped up.

The nephilim knew.

He just wanted to be wrong.

Hope ignored him. "Tenebris anima vestra contundito mortem-"

"Stop," Nathaniel pulled at Hope's arm and whipped her around before her chest collided with his. "I'm not letting you go that far. What the hell are you thinking?"

Hope's nostrils flared. "You can't stop me."

Nathaniel snorted. "Watch me."

The nephilim brought his hand up, ready to use sedation to render Hope useless. But before his fingers could touch her forehead, Hope pressed her palm to Nathaniel's chest and soon after he was flying into a tree. Two thuds followed as the nephilim hit it and then the ground.

As Nathaniel tried standing up to try and subdue her, Hope brought her hand up, turning it into a fist. And once again, Nathaniel folded and fell to his knees. The nephilim felt like he was burning from the inside as blood vessel after blood vessel popped and regenerated just to pop again.

"Hope, stop!" Nathaniel whimpered, his voice wavering.

But the tribrid was too far gone. Chants followed Nathaniel's pleads and before he knew it, the nephilim was coughing up his grace. Blueish-white glowing essence oozed from Nathaniel's mouth and he was sure the spell had been black magic because of the fact there wasn't any other earth spell that could make him do that. For the smallest of seconds, Nathaniel was terrified she'd drain him.

Just as the thought passed, it stopped. And Nathaniel slumped to the floor on his stomach. The chants reemerged, though this time with another tone of voice and directed at the flying creature. As they became louder and louder, the dragon, seeing the blade in Hope's hand, descended towards her while the tribrid tried remaining fearless.

"Ut sub terra esse!"

With the last chant, the dragon screeched in the air before a white light blinded Hope.

After a moment, the tribrid woke to find herself laying on the ground, the grimoire page laying in her left hand and the knife in her right. Hope then proceeded to look around to find the dragon reverted back to her human form as she laid flat on her stomach. The tribrid quickly got up to her feet before standing in front of the dragon-woman, holding the knife as though she was to stab her.

"Where did you come from? Why do you want this so badly? What's so special about it?" Hope's voice shook, making it obvious she was scared. But the woman remained silent, begging non-verbally for the knife with an outstretched hand. Hope, overwhelmed, quickly lost her patience. "Say something!"

The dragon-woman, still on her hands and knees, turned around, eyes glowing reddish-orange as she prepared to fire at Hope. But before she could react, Alaric appeared behind Hope and immediately grabbed the knife out of her hand, stabbing the woman in the throat before the flames could reach full intensity. After a moment, Hope and Alaric looked down at the lifeless creature.

Hope crouched, examining the dragon-woman. "Guess that was the soft spot."

Alaric furrowed his brows. "Where's Nate?"

Hope completely stilled, remembering the nephilim. The tribrid quickly stood before turning to Alaric, her frown growing once noticing Doctor Saltzman looking at the grimoire page she left on the ground. After skimming the page's contents, he looked at up at her with a shocked expression.

"What is this?" Alaric asked and Hope, knowing no answer was going to get her out of it, remained silent. "This isn't earth magic, Hope!" He rose his voice in anger.

"This wasn't an earth magic problem."

"We don't allow black magic! It gets inside your heart and it poisons your mind. Now, I looked the other way this morning, 'cause I knew you were upset, but this is a death spell," that's when something clicked in Alaric and he paused. "Nate. Where's Nate?"

Alaric followed Hope's stare to find the nephilim sprawled out on the ground just a few meters away, traces of his grace seeping into the dirt. Doctor Saltzman swiftly sprang into action, running towards his boy before falling on his knees next to him, instantly turning Nathaniel on his back.

"Nate," Alaric pulled at Nathaniel lids, looking for some anomaly in his eyes.

Nathaniel heaved, crazy eyes searching Alaric's face. "I'm fine. I'll recharge. I'm okay, Ric."

Alaric let out a hefty sigh of relief before carefully pulling the nephilim to his chest, hugging him tightly. "Thank God."

It was a second before they separated and Alaric helped the weak nephilim to his feet. Nathaniel's stubborn legs took a moment before he could actually stand on his own, but he was just glad he wasn't dead. And when the thought passed, Nathaniel's eyes landed on a guilty-looking Hope.

"Nate," Hope's eyes avoided his face. "I'm sorry."

"Go to hell," Nate responded shortly after.

"I didn't mean to go that far."

Nathaniel turned to Alaric. "Did you see the grimoire?"

Alaric nodded.

"Ask her what that's about," Nathaniel spat, hurt filling him as thought of Hope actually wanting to kill him played in his head. "That spell wasn't meant for the dragon, she didn't even know. Tell him what your plan was, Hope."

But she stayed quiet and Alaric deduced it on his own.

Alaric looked at her with a mixed expression of disappointment, anger and sadness. "Landon did something stupid, maybe evil. We won't know until we learn more, but he's just a kid, Hope. And so are you and Nate."

Hope's eyes filled with tears and she looked up at the sky in an attempt to keep them from spilling onto her cheeks.

"If you wanted to get rid of Landon, I wouldn't have minded," Nathaniel hissed as he shook his head. "It's the fact that you went out of your way to find a nephilim spell to disarm and possibly kill me in the process that I don't want anything to do with you anymore."

And with that, Nathaniel stalked off towards the SUV, leaving Alaric and a pained-looking Hope behind.

"That's not what I wanted," Hope told Alaric.

Alaric sighed. "This is your father, Hope. It can't be you. I won't allow it," Hope looked away and Alaric regained his composure, pointing at the dragon's body. "Now, you bury her. And I'll see you back at the car."

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unedited.
hope really be out here trying to
de-grace her man, the audacity.
BEFORE ANYONE ASKS!
Nathaniel is stronger than Hope,
hands down. But, witches have an
advantage when using black magic,
which is the reason she disabled him.
Other than the fact that, subconsciously,
Nathaniel didn't want to hurt Hope.
Draining Nephilim's from their grace
can be lethal, so now you know one
of Nathaniel's weaknesses.