MOONS.
020. | ❛ darkest time in your hybrid life. ❜

"You are far more affected by this world than you care to admit. You want to control it rather than to allow it to control you. The inevitable, unavoidable parts of life make you uneasy." Luna said to Klaus while wandering the woods in the bayou.

"Some might say death is inevitable, and yet here I am, a thousand years old, sipping an exquisitely aged whiskey while a beguiling muse walks across from me." Klaus gestures towards Luna, who smiles at him.

"I am the perfect picture of health and vitality, a master of my fate, a conqueror of death itself!"

Luna gives Klaus a stern look,"See? That's exactly my point. You make some glib throwaway line about death as though it means nothing to you, but it does. If not your own, then at least the death of others."

"So, beneath the devilish banter and charming wit, Klaus Mikaelson bears the burden of a deep-seated psychological trauma about death?"

"I'll tell you what I know about death, Luna-- Death dances silently in everyone's shadow, and she doesn't give a damn. So... Why give a damn about her?" Klaus sips his whiskey and Luna gives him a skeptical look.

"You do give a damn. Why else surround yourself with immortals if not to avoid the agony of loss?"

Klaus huffs a laugh as he sips his drink again and Luna rolls her eyes with a sigh.

"You disagree. Fine. I hope it's a long time before I'm proven right." Klaus smiles devilish at Luna as she gives him a kiss on the cheek before speeding away from him.

It is the next morning now, and Hayley, Luna, and Jackson are in the middle of getting the rest of their belongings from the werewolf encampment to load them into Jackson's truck to bring them to their apartment.

"I still say we should take my dartboard..."

Hayley rolls her eyes,"Your calendar girls, too? Some things are best left behind, Jack. And besides, I let you take your bow and arrow! Not exactly sure how you're going to hunt in the French Quarter, though..."

"Hipsters!"

Luna laughs at the joke,"Count me in on that."

"Luna, don't encourage him." Hayley chuckles.

Just then, Jackson is shot in the neck with a wolfsbane dart and groans in pain.

Jackson falls to his knees, dropping the box in his hands onto the ground, and pulls out the dart as Hayley rushes over to him.

"Jack!"

In the nearby woods, a man aims his tranquilizer gun at Hayley and Luna and shoots, but Hayley catches the dart in mid-air before throwing it on the ground and walking toward them.

"You gonna come out of the woods, or are you gonna come out and fight?" Aya vamp-speeds behind Hayley and stabs her in the shoulder with another wolfsbane dart, which causes her to groan in pain.

"Gladly!"

Hayley's hybrid eyes come out as she spins and backhands Aya hard in the face. Jackson, recovering from his own wolfsbane dart, groans and pulls himself to his feet so he can help Hayley fight the Strix vampires. Luna pulls out her dart and helps them fight the vampires. But they get a hold of Luna and inject her with more wolfs bane which causes her to drop to the floor. As Hayley punches Aya again in the face, Jackson growls and partially shifts into a werewolf as he lunges for another vampire, hitting him hard in the nose with the heel of his hand before punching a second, and biting a third on the neck. The second vampire comes up behind Jackson and pulls him off, but Jackson kicks the third vampire in the chest so hard he's able to back-flip out of the second vampire's grip and return to the fight. He flips the second vampire onto the ground and bites him on the wrist to weaken him before standing to his feet and looking over at Hayley, who is still fighting Aya.

"HAYLEY!"

When the vampires begin to overpower Jackson and inject him with more wolfsbane, Hayley gets distracted and shouts for him.

"JACK!" This distraction allows Aya to grab Hayley in a choke-hold, which gives the sniper in the woods a chance to shoot her with two more wolfsbane darts as well, and she passes out on the ground when Aya drops her.

__________________

Luna wakes up, covered in blood and bruises, to find that Hayley and Jackson and her have been chained up in the back room of Marcel's fight gym at the church, suggesting that they were both beaten by the Strix while unconscious. They're sitting in chairs with their wrists shackled, and behind them are IV bags filled with clear fluid. Luna immediately begins to break through her restraints to save them, but Jackson and Hayley, who awakened before her and whose face is beaten and bloodied as well, weakly tries to stop her.

"I tried that. I tried that. The more you struggle, the more wolfsbane gets pumped into your veins."

Luna looks back and realizes that their shackles are hooked up to IV lines inserted into their veins, and that the IV bags behind them are full of wolfsbane-laced water. When Hayley looks down at the floor, she sees that Jackson's pant leg is stained red, and that a huge puddle of blood surrounds his foot on the floor.

"Jack, your leg. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, they worked me over pretty good. With all the... the wolfsbane in my system, I ain't healing so well."

"Just breathe. When we get a chance to fight, be ready."

Jackson gives Hayley and Luna a sadden look as she continues to try to break free of her chains, despite the increasing amounts of wolfsbane being infused through her body.

"Hayley. Hayley, listen. I don't know if I'm gonna get that chance--"

"Stop. We are gonna get out of here, Jack."

"I love you. Okay? I've... I've always loved you."

"Don't--"

"When I first saw you, I broke. You broke me, and nothing has ever been the same since. I just want you to know that it was all real. Every moment, every touch, every word." Luna cries at the declaration of love that Jackson was giving Hayley.

Hayley looks devastated by how defeated Jackson sounds just as Tristan walks into the room.

"How absolutely darling! Or pathetic. I suppose it's all relative."
Hayley glares at Tristan with hatred and continues to try to break out of her restraints as he walks toward them.

"You let us out of here, or so help me, I will kill you!"

"Hmmm. Somehow, I doubt it. I've been pondering this moment since you tortured me--" Hayley tries even harder to break out of her shackles as Tristan stands next to Hayley and stares at her.

"What's the best way to truly hurt a hybrid? And then it came to me." Just then, Tristan grabs Jackson by his hair and yanks his head back so he can plunge his hand into Jackson's chest at vampire speed, causing Jackson to groan in pain as Hayley screams at the top of her lungs.

Tristan rips out Jackson's heart, killing him, and Hayley and Luna become hysterical with fury and grief, desperately trying to break out of her shackles to kill him.

Tristan lets go of Jackson's head and stares in satisfaction as Hayley continues to scream hysterically. Tristan makes his way over to Luna and touches her smooth cheek. Luna tries to move away from his touch.

"One hybrid down, another to go. I've always had a soft spot for you, your beautiful face, and the dark secret that Aurora told me . Why not take you back to the darkest time in your hybrid life?"