CHAPTER TEN | WOKE UP WITH A MONSTER
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
JO WAS CERTAIN THAT WITH THE RIGHT HELP AND TRAINING, SHE COULD WIN THE MERGE WITH KAI. Damon feeling guilty, had offered up his living room as somewhere for the out of practice witch to train with the help of Liv and Riley. The strawberry-blonde witch was mildly concerned about whether Jo really had what it took to beat Kai, but they had to put their faith in her— she was their only option.
"Okay, that's good. Just keep your focus, Jo." Riley slowly spoke as the woman stood in the middle of the room while she tried to keep a candle burning.
Jo suddenly lost her concentration and ended up scorching Liv's shirt. The witch-in-training clapped her hands over her mouth in shock once she set her eyes on her little sister. "Oh, my God. Sorry! Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, fine. It's just clothes and skin." Liv shrugged sarcastically and then turned to Stefan, who had walked down the staircase with brows knitted together in confusion. "Hey, where can I get a T-shirt?"
"Damon's room. Up the stairs, end of the hall." The Salvatore pointed up to the staircase where Liv ran off to, then he wandered in the living room to see Jo stood by a broken chair while Riley had her head in her hands. "What are you doing in my house?"
"Fire spell. Sort of." Jo explained as the strawberry-blonde just looked up. "It turns out getting back in touch with magic isn't anything like riding a bike. I am sorry about that vase though. Was that expensive?"
"Well, I don't know, the Smithsonian would. You should call them." Stefan sarcastically glanced up at Jo and then around the room once she saw most of the furniture was in tatters.
"Finally!" Riley jumped up to her feet when she saw Alaric wander into the house with a bag full of breakfast in his hand. "God, I'm starving."
"Please tell me that you brought mimosas."
"You actually think I'd watch this sober?" The human questioned his girlfriend as he pulled a bottle out from the brown paper bag he was carrying.
"And, what exactly are we watching?" Stefan tilted his head in confusion.
"Liv and I are going to teach Jo how to get back into the swing of things so that in thirty days she can win the merge and save all of mankind." The witch sent the Salvatore a light shrug as if it were no big deal.
"And, this teaching has to happen in my living room, why?"
Alaric took a breath. "Damon feels guilty."
"Well, that's new." The youngest Salvatore then turned back to the strawberry-blonde. "Where the hell is he?"
"He went to visit Liz in the hospital," Riley informed. She knew that Damon wanted to be there for Liz since her cancer diagnosis. Almost as soon as she mentioned him, Damon walk in. An immediate smile lit up his face as he slammed the door, but then Jo lost all concentration on her levitation spell. "Seriously?" Riley groaned out as she heard the thump of the book.
"That doesn't count." Jo tilted her head from Riley to Liv. "I was distracted."
Damon glanced over to the blonde witch who just gave him a grin. "Are you wearing my shirt?" Before he could question Liv about why she was wearing his shirt, he was interrupted by his phone. "Magic camp. How may I help you?"
"Damon. Kai has me at the high school, I need your help."
"Woah, Elena—" Damon questioned when he listened to the shaken voice on the other end of the phone. There was a loud echoed crash that erupted through the speaker and then the call went dead. "What the hell?" The Salvatore then eyed up Liv and Riley. "You two, you're coming with me."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
"To think, a day almost went by where I wasn't roped into saving one of your friends." Liv groaned out in annoyance once she had unbuckled her seat belt and climbed out of the back of Damon's car.
"Cry me a river." Damon rolled his eyes, clearly irritated that he had been dragged out to save Elena once again. "Just do this stupid cloaking spell so we can go grab Elena and you can get back to wrecking my mansion." Liv began to set up her candles on the hood of Damon's car, which caused the couple to seem confused.
"Uh, wanna explain what exactly you're doing?" Riley placed her hand at her hip, eyeing up the witch who almost scoffed in disbelief.
"I'm not going in there. If Kai even gets a glimpse of me, I'm dead. I can do the spell from out here while you sustain it at Damon's side. No need for us to both potentially die." Liv explained seriously as she glanced over to the strawberry-blonde witch who just nodded in agreement. "Just you."
"Whatever. I hope you cloak better than you teach." Damon snapped which caused Liv to roll her eyes. "Cause from the looks of my living room, Jo's not learning very much"
"Relax! With a bit of practice, she'll be merge-ready in no time." Liv then turned to Riley and nodded as the two extended their hands and began to chant the cloaking spell. After a few moments, Riley's chanting stopped. She opened her eyes to see that Liv had disappeared.
"Liv? Liv? Hey, Liv!"
"Sorry." The familiar voice of Luke Parker, Liv's twin brother, echoed from behind them. Both Riley and Damon were caught of guard by the witch's sudden arrival.
"Luke, are you kidding me right now?!" Riley whisper-yelled in irritation as her posture suddenly dropped.
"She doesn't have time for this," Luke responded with a stern voice just before he mumbled spell which caused him to disappear just as Liv had previously.
"No!" The Salvatore yelled in protested before growling and dialing a number on his phone before holding it to his ear. "So, Liv's gone. I need a plan B."
"What do you mean, she's gone? Riley's with you, just get her to do the damn spell."
Riley rolled her eyes. She knew that Alaric would protest, and quite rightly, too. "Right. But, there's no way I'm letting Damon go in there alone, which means I'm gonna have to cloak myself, Damon and Elena. Kai's powerful, he'll sniff me out. I need help, okay? I need another—"
"—I can do it."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Jo made her case that she was more than capable of assisting Riley with the spell, she headed inside the high school with the two at her side. The Gemini witch was too weak to stand outside on her own to sustain the spell, so she entered the high school. "I can hear Kai yammering," Damon whispered quietly as the three of them wandered the halls in search of where the siphoner had Elena.
Jo tilted her head and looked at the vampire, curiously. "What's he saying?"
"He said it's a shame you don't have vamp-hearing." The Salvatore vampire mocked, pulling a face toward the witch that caused Riley to roll her eyes.
"Do you really have to be a dick now?" Riley groaned out from beside him and then nudged into him with her elbow.
"I get why you don't like me, you know? You and Alaric were bros. A girl comes into the picture. It's awkward."
"It's not awkward. It's annoying." Damon was quick to correct the witch.
"Because he's looking out for me?"
"Yes. At all the expense of logic and reason." He snapped again, though his eyes were wandering the halls to make sure Kai wasn't lurking.
A scoff left Jo's lips as she rolled her eyes. "Oh, let me guess. You've never done that for a girl before?" Her eyes then drifted over to the strawberry-blonde who had her hand within Damon's. "Something tells me you have."
"Plenty of times." Riley smiled and nodded at the woman comfortingly. "Ignore him. He's just being a dick."
"Sh!" Damon hushed the two witches just as Kai walked out from around the corner while he took a drink from his soda. He wasn't able to see them but Riley, Jo, and Damon were all stood frozen in front of him. He simply shrugged it off and threw his can into the recycling and headed back around the corner.
Jo let out a sigh of relief as the psychotic siphoner just wandered away. "What do you know? It's working."
"This way." Riley pointed into the cafeteria where she saw Elena tied up against an upturned table. The three of them entered the room and Riley undid the vervain ropes that sizzled against Elena's skin. She then placed her hand on the doppelgänger's shoulder and suddenly her eyes widened when she saw all three of them. "Hey."
"Riley?" Elena's eyes widened in surprise once she had gotten to her feet. "How are you here right now?"
Damon smiled and a sigh of relief escaped his lips. "Riley and Jo are doing an invisibility spell. If you can see us, that means you joined the party."
"Come on, we need to get out of here." Jo ushered for the group to hurry up, though everyone was unaware of how pale and disorientated she looked.
"My ring." Elena lifted up her hand to show that her daylight ring has disappeared. "Kai melted it into nothing."
"You're kidding me, right?"
"Not to cut this reunion short, but the meters running on this spell." Riley turned her head toward Jo who appeared to be growing weaker by the second. She knew could quite literally feel how weak Jo was.
"Okay. We need to move. There are tunnels underneath the school." The strawberry-blonde grabbed Jo's hand and headed out of the cafeteria with her as they all rushed down the halls.
"Is she okay?" Elena raised an eyebrow at Riley once she saw Jo's nose bleed.
"No. She's not." Riley confirmed with a nod just as the older witch spell into Damon's arms. "This spell is too much for her, I should've just done it alone."
"Magic's hard. Isn't it, Jo?" Kai suddenly spoke from the end of the hallway with a look on his face when he turned to his twin sister.
Jo wiped the blood from her nose and turned to the three supernaturals. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't sweat it. I want him to see me while I kick his ass. Now, get out of here, okay?" Damon whispered to Jo as he sent her off down into the next hallway as Elena followed after her. He then rolled his shoulders in an attempt to attack, back but then Kai made Riley invisible with his magic. "Where's Riley?"
"Oh, are we not cloaking people anymore?" Kai rolled his eyes sarcastically. "I thought that's what this was."
Damon sped straight to the siphoner, but he just disappeared and then reappeared behind Damon. He whistled which caught his attention while Kai waved condescendingly toward him. The Salvatore sped over and broke the handle of a mop and threw it straight into Kai's abdomen.
Then, Kai appeared beside the illusion of himself. "That's gotta hurt. I am definitely getting the hang of this. Cloaking spells, illusions. You know, it's all the same wheelhouse." He waved his hand and revealed that Damon had actually thrown the blunt end of the mop into Riley's abdomen, not Kai's. The strawberry-blonde immediately held onto the wooden end of the broom and fell down against the lockers.
Kai used his magic to drop Damon to his knees then he headed off down the same hall that Jo went down. At the sound of his girlfriend dying, Damon used what little strength he head left and managed to pull himself onto his feet to save her.
"Stay with me, okay, Riles?" Damon breathed as he yanked the wooden mop from her abdomen and then bite his wrist, he forced his blood into her mouth and then sighed in relief once her wound healed. "I didn't come all this way just for you to die on me."
"You'll never be rid of me."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───