𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙎𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙉
ミ★ ( reign of wolves, act one ) ★彡

The sound of a neck being snapped was louder than any of the cheers and hoots that surrounded them, sending the room into silence. It seemed that Marcel liked to hold fight nights in order for nightwalkers to try and win their daylight rings with a little violence. Dozens of vampires congregated in the courtyard of the compound, where they all talk amongst themselves and drink—at least until there was the beautifully timed introduction made by Rhea as she sped into the middle of the circle.

"Good evening! I'd like a word." Klaus boomed angrily as he and Elijah walked into the middle of the circle where Rhea stood; the unconscious vampire body at her feet, ignoring the shocked and angry gazes of the nightwalkers that surrounded them in the circle to look up at Marcel.

"What do you think you're doing?" Marcel asked them in annoyance. 

"It appears that we've interrupted a collection of filthy amateurs! We've come here for the girl." Elijah explained, a look of murder in her eye, "Give her to us, or we kill everyone here... starting with you." He looked at Marcel directly.

Marcel chuckled, "You three got a lot of nerve, coming into my home and making demands."

Klaus smiled fakely, "Your home, is it?"

"The girl!" Elijah shouted angrily, "I will not ask again."

"I assume you're talking about Hayley? Yay high, dark hair, bitchy attitude, looks like she could be a relative of your fiancée?" Marcel nodded at Rhea, who smirked, "Who is she, anyway?"

"She's an old friend." He answered vaguely before smiling fakely, "You know how sentimental I am about old friends."

"I ain't got her." Marcel shrugged, "And before you start whining, I did pay her a little visit earlier tonight. I was feeling nostalgic, so I took a trip out to the plantation where I used to be a slave. And, imagine my surprise when I realized that the Original family of vampires had taken up residence. Your girl, Hayley, answered the door, we exchanged hellos, that was it." He explained, "You don't believe me? Look around. But, the question that I'd ask is: if Hayley isn't here, then where is she?"

Rhea and Marcel eyed each other off, challenging each other when Marcel let out a smirk, "I would lend you guys have a locator spell to help you out but because you came here accusing me of kidnapping her, I'm not sure I want to give it to you."

"How about I challenge you for it then?" Rhea suggested instantly as she's been itching to fight him the minute she met him, "It is fight night tonight. Me against your best guy. These people came to see a fight, right? So, let's give it to them."

Klaus stifled a chuckle, knowing whoever Marcel's best wasn't going to stand a chance against Rhea, "No biting." Klaus pointed at her.

"No promises." Rhea smirked back, looking back at Marcel as she flashed him her hybrid eyes, her fangs protruding from her mouth.

Marcel chuckled nervously, "No need." He tells her as he looked at everyone, "Fight night is over. Clear out!"

Elijah, Rhea and Klaus were still sitting in the courtyard when the sun began to come up. Some of the vampire fighters were milling around the compound that they assumed were Marcel's daywalkers, waiting for Marcel to join them, "They're not the most attractive bunch, are they?" Elijah commented as he watched Marcel's people go about their day in the middle of the compound.

"Well, I would hope you wouldn't find them attractive in the first place." Rhea retorted with an eyebrow raised and arms crossed.

"You do realise they can hear you?" Klaus raised an eyebrow.

"You do realise I don't care?" Elijah responded and Rhea chuckled.

Klaus only looked at Rhea, "You've rubbed off on him."

Rhea only shrugged innocently.

Marcel then appeared, followed by some vampires, and Sabine, "You know, Elijah, I liked you better in that box." He said, pointing at Elijah with a smile, to which Rhea glared at him. Marcel turned to Klaus, "But, Klaus, my sire; you, I owe the world, and I always show respect to my elders. If your special lady friend is missing, you could benefit from the help of a witch. And, since I control all the witches in this town, I'll grant you one little locator spell. Sabine's the best guide in the Quarter. Need to find someone? I guarantee, she's your girl."

Marcel turned to leave them to their business, "Where are you going?" He asked his adoptive son in confusion.

Marcel turned to look at them as he kept walking, "I hate to cut this short, but, the sun's coming up soon. My nightwalkers need to get inside and I have got a city to run. I leave you to track down your lost sheep."

Elijah looked at Sabine urgently, "Can you find her?"

Sabine looked nervous at the task at hand, "I can try." She quickly set up a map on the table in front of them and she had Klaus pour his blood onto the map as his blood ran through the baby, and therefore through Hayley. Sabine waved her hands over a map. As she casted the locator spell, a puddle of Klaus' blood traces across the map from their current location to where Hayley is being held in the Bayou, "She's in the back country. Way up past Houma, deep in the Bayou."

"I don't suppose you could be more precise?" Elijah's eyebrows furrowed.

"What's the matter, Elijah? You're worried a bit of splashing about in the bog might ruin your expensive shoes?" Klaus teased.

"As a matter of fact, after my recent confinement, I could use a decent stroll through the countryside." Elijah responded.

"There are stories of exiled werewolves, encampments. If Hayley went out that far, chances are she went to find them." Sabine stated.

"I doubt she would just go without telling anyone." Rhea disagreed, shaking her head, "Especially since she knows she practically has a bounty on her head."

"Clearly, she hopes to make the acquaintance of more like herself. I suppose our company wasn't good enough for her." Klaus snubbed and Elijah only looked at Sabine worriedly.

Rhea followed Klaus and Elijah in their search for Hayley in the bayou near the werewolf encampments, "We should head south towards the water." Elijah suggested as he hurries further into the woodlands.

"You seem quite determined to find the little wolf." Klaus stated.

"Well, someone needs to be since the father of the child she's carrying isn't." Rhea responded, "If we're moving too fast for you, Klaus, you're welcome to wait in the car. Make sure to leave the windows down though, I hear dogs don't do well in hot cars." She smirked cheekily.

"It's your mistake if you insist on treating her like a walking incubator, rather than the mother of your unborn child." Elijah stated with a shrug right as Rhea caught a familiar scent, as did Klaus. She freezes in a state of mixed emotions. She didn't think she'd ever smell that scent again after it being the only scent that felt like home for years. Now it was nothing but a painful reminder of how far they've grown apart.

     Klaus walks towards the source of the scent which was an old beat up SUV and rips open the door to search through it, "Have you found her scent?" Elijah asked his brother, spotting the SUV and started to search through its contents.

"No, but I found someone else's. This vehicle reeks of someone I thought I was rid of..." He sighs in response, making eye contact with Elijah, "Tyler Lockwood."

Elijah looked to check on Rhea at the mention of her twin, only to see that she had disappeared, "It seems she's figured that out, too." Elijah observed before he turned to Klaus, "And why would your little hybrid-sidekick from Mystic Falls have any interest in Hayley now?"

"He wants revenge because I went after his girl." Klaus questioned before he chuckled remembering that time, "Although, you might've been a bit distracted in keeping your soulmate in line after she turned her humanity off to recall."

Elijah let out another sigh, "Why do I suspect this is the least of your offenses?"

"Back when I had the means to sire hybrids, he and Rhea were my first, Although, I didn't give them much choice in the matter." He remembered and Elijah sent him a look as he pulled a blanket out of the abandoned car and sniffed at it, "He was loyal in the beginning, unlike Rhea who's bond with you stopped her from being completely sired, but eventually, he grew insubordinate, turned my other hybrids against me. I couldn't have that, so I massacred the lot of them. Tyler ran like a coward before I could finish him off."

Elijah sighed in frustration, "Anything else that you would like to share?"

Klaus winced, "Well, there was this business with their mum..."

Elijah's eyes widened in shock, remembering when he and Rhea found Carol Lockwood drowned in the fountain in the front of their family's mansion and how distraught she was about it for days after her humanity was turned back on, "You killed their mother. Wonderful." He grit in anger, "Do you have any idea what Rhea will do to you when she finds out that it was you who killed their mother?"

"He needed to be taught a lesson!" The hybrid snarled.

"That lesson hurt my soulmate! It was her mother too." Elijah reminded him, "And mind you, what lesson will you be taught, Niklaus, if Tyler retaliates by harming Hayley?"

"Enough. I'll kill Tyler Lockwood myself." Klaus says, "There will be no lesson taught and Rhea will not know what I did to their mother."

Klaus then disappeared.

Meanwhile, Tyler angrily continues to look for Hayley in various tents, "Hayley! Don't make this harder than it has to be! Give up now... I'll end it quick."

Rhea appeared behind him, "That's quite an offer, Ty! Though, it's not one you should be offering to people." She greeted him and Tyler immediately braced into a fighting position when he saw his twin sister. She clicked her tongue, "Threatening a pregnant woman to exact revenge against Klaus? I never expected you to sink so low." She said as she walked toward him.

Tyler's eyes narrowed as he ducked away from her and put more distance between them. "I used to hang out with you and Klaus. I guess something must've rubbed off."

"Caroline would be so disappointed to hear about what you've been doing while she's been stuck worrying about you all this time—mom would be so disappointed." Tyler's eyes narrowed at the mention of their mom, "I guess I'll let Caroline know what you've been up to when I call her tonight to tell her to dump you since you're a lost cause now."

Tyler smiled sinisterly, "If anything happens to me, Caroline will hate you!"

"I doubt that. But, I do think Caroline would hate the fact that her runaway boyfriend likes to kidnap and harm pregnant people." Her face then went cold as she ran toward him to toss him into a tree.

Tyler glared at Rhea and braces himself to fight, but at the last minute, he ran away. Rhea scowled, and waited for a moment before chasing after him.

She went searching through random tents for Tyler, "Is this your idea of revenge, Tyler? A game of hide-and-seek? You know I always won those games, you can't hide from me!" Rhea called out to him, knowing he was listening from afar and Tyler ran up behind her and stabbed her through the chest with a stake. Rhea yelled out in pain and backhanded Tyler away, before she pulls the stake out of her chest and readies herself to fight back, her eyes narrowing in on him, "You always were a backstabbing piece of shit."

The two continue to glared at each other. Before they lunge forward to fight, their hybrid eyes and fangs emerge. Tyler tackled Rhea, and they both rolled down a small hill and land in front of Dwayne's shack. Rhea punched Tyler in the face and quickly grabbed him in a choke-hold to try and knock him out.

Tyler staked her in the side and Rhea let out a groan of pain, "Perhaps it's best mom didn't live to see you like this: trying to kill your own twin." Rhea stated, spitting the blood out of her mouth and Tyler grew more enraged before he began to pummel Rhea in the face. The younger twin grabbed his fist, flipped him over so she was on top of him, and staked Tyler in the chest with the stake that was stuck in her side, just missing his heart. Tyler moaned in pain, and they both get back on their feet.

Tyler pulled the stake out of his chest and threw it aside, "I can't believe after everything that they did to us, you really did choose their side." He said to his sister, "He killed our mom, Rhea!" He said feeling completely betrayed, his own twin sister was picking the side of their alpha, "He held her head down in that water and smirked while she took her last fighting breath! He rubbed the fact that he killed her in my own face with no regrets. That's the person you're choosing over me!"

Rhea halted for a second. She hadn't known that Klaus killed their mom, no one had told her that—she really had just assumed that she had drowned in the fountain because of her drunk-ness. She should've seen it coming; Tyler had turned his hybrids against him and then ran like a coward, the only person available besides her to exact revenge on him would've been their mom. She should've seen it coming since he refused to look at her in the days after it happened, she should've known it was out of guilt. But, despite the fact that she was torn up about the news, she knew Tyler was using it as a way to get the advantage against her. He wanted to turn her against them.

     She rushed at him and pushed him against the tree by his neck, "And you nearly killed me!" She snarled back, letting go of her hold on him to slump to the ground in a puddle of tears. "You nearly killed me, Tyler. I could never do something like that to you, and yet, you had no issue doing it to me."

Tyler looked saddened by her words, they had really lost their way. Rhea looked at the ground as she said, "You need to leave before both Klaus and Elijah find your here; because they will kill you." She knew that Elijah most likely felt everything from their fight and would've been enraged, and Klaus would've killed him on sight since he promised he would months ago. Rhea then looked up at him with hardened eyes, "But, know that after this, I am done trying to protect you. You're no longer worth it."

When Rhea found everyone else, they were back in front of the shack, Elijah was by her side in an instant, "There you are!" Klaus exclaimed, "I was just asking these two fast friends about our friend, Dwayne here." He said kicking the dead body in front of him, "He's a hybrid that I didn't sire and apparently there's some new conspiracy against me."

Despite wanting to tear his head off after learning the truth, Rhea looked confused at what he was talking about instead, "Tyler took Hayley here to test a theory that the blood of her child could be used to sire hybrids. He claims that Niklaus knew that." Elijah explained and her eyebrows furrowed, "Furthermore, that he intended to use this knowledge to build an army."

"And, of course, you assume it's true. I mean, why else would I show interest in my own flesh and blood?" Klaus scoffed, clearly hurt and angry by the accusation, "A heartbroken little crybaby points his finger at me, and my own brother falls in line, eager to believe it! How quickly you believe the worst, especially when it comes from a stranger."

"Oh, spare me your indignation. When have you ever demonstrated any kind of concern towards Hayley or her child, beyond your own selfish pursuits?" He groaned, "And what was it you once said to me? 'Every king needs an heir!"' He mocked.

"Stop it." Rhea said tiredly as she tried to push Elijah away, "Let's just go before we say anything else we regret."

"My big brother. So, you doubt my intentions? Well, I can't say I'm surprised, standing next to the noble Elijah, how can I be anything but the lesser brother? A liar, a manipulator... a bastard." Klaus continued and the two stared at each other as Klaus approached him. Elijah seems to be reconsidering his position, "That's all I am to you, isn't it? And Rebekah. And Rhea. And, judging by the way Hayley hangs on your every word, it's clear she feels the same way!" He paused, looking even more hurt, "No doubt my child will as well."

"Klaus, stop—"

"You've said all that needs to be said, brother." He stepped back a few steps and held his arms out in defeat, "I'll play the role I've been given." He turned as though he's going to walk away, but instead, he turned back quickly and ran over to Elijah before biting him savagely on the neck. Rhea screamed in horror and shoved Klaus off of him. Klaus wipes his mouth with his hand, "You three enjoy each other's company. You'll have much to bond over, once the hallucinations and dementia set in. Consider that bite to be my parting gift to you all." He said before he walked away, leaving Elijah, Rhea and Hayley to fend for themselves in the Bayou.