Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Time marched on as the family settled into routines. Bonnie, like a lot of their clan, wasn’t in college for the education, but for the experience. Her future would lay in magic like most of theirs did. She was planning on a two year occult studies degree. She might go back for more one day if she ever decided to take over the classes from her grandmother, but she doubted it. Especially since Sheila would most likely end up immortal soon enough too, so wouldn’t need a replacement until or unless she wanted to retire. Sheila enjoyed her job too much for that to be a danger anytime soon. They would just need to update the ‘records’ and claim her as her own granddaughter every so often. The amulets to not question age would do the rest.

Caroline and Elena, knowing that they would end up as witchpires one day too, took that into consideration when choosing their majors. Caroline hoped to take over the boarding house from Zach and Gail one day assuming Sarah and Jeremy didn’t want it, which they probably wouldn’t, so she went to school for hospitality management. Elena wanted to be a healer, and more knowledge of the human body would be helpful for that. She didn’t plan to go all the way to med school, but pre-med with all the anatomy, pathology, and biology classes was a given.

Sarah also wanted to go deep into magic and didn’t even see the need for an occult studies degree so wouldn’t be going to college. Partially since Jeremy wouldn’t either. He didn’t want to do anything but art and finding ways to incorporate magic into art would keep him happy. Chris and Noel would go to Whitmore though, Noel for business management to help his girlfriend with her planned takeover of the boarding house. He had no interest in taking over the entire Salvatore portfolio. That could go to one of the other Salvatore vampires, but he would take care of the boarding house part as long as he and Caroline were running it. Chris wanted to study history and anthropology and incorporate that into his magical research. Once his kids were grown up, he wanted to go visit all the ancient tribes his family had contact with in the past and maybe find some new ones.

Portia and Henry completed their soulbond in twenty-twelve, the first to break the ‘five year’ tradition by doing so after three, and Henry picked up the practical side of magic quickly, quickly joining forces with the ‘pranksters’ of the group and exercising his magic by turning people into animals on a regular basis. It always happened every so often anyway, but it took on an almost alarming frequency for the first couple months after Henry finally got the magic he’d been studying for three years. Often becoming full on ‘wars’ filled with laughter and teasing.

Sheila and Beau ‘tied the knot’ not long after. Sheila wasn’t getting any younger after all. She had everything in place to restart her career as her own granddaughter since becoming a vampire would deage her to some degree. In that it would restore any lost health including the elasticity of her skin and melanin to her hair. It would straighten out her bones, restore vitality to her muscles, shine to her skin. The overall effect would have her looking not a day over thirty instead of the almost sixty she was. They would have a ‘honeymoon’ of sorts before the bonding while they went away for a week after Sheila became a vampire. Then they came back and had their bonding ceremony which gave her magic back to her.

Sarah and Jeremy would be the first of the kids to be soulbound when they were nineteen, giving Jeremy siphon magic. They wouldn’t become vampires until after they finished having kids though. They hoped that conceiving them with two siphon witches would bypass the human generation, but it didn’t end up that way. They would have two boys and a girl, Jackson, Mirabelle, and Galen, all human and still loved dearly. They’d been together for a year longer than Stefan and Valerie who were only a few months after them.
Stefan and Valerie had long decided to bring their son back once they were soulbound. And they made sure that Valerie would be able to carry him, though they did have offers from Sarah, Caroline, Elena, and Bonnie for surrogates if they were needed. They’d done plenty of research to make absolutely sure, but vampires could carry babies no problem. It was just the conceiving that was an issue. Which meant that Valerie would be able to carry and birth her own child. It would just be the only one they would ever have. He entered her womb at the same developmental age he’d left it, so it was only seven months later when little Damian Jacob Salvatore was born. A name that had Damon tearing up with happiness.

Oscar and Bonnie were ‘down the aisle’ shortly after, with Oscar ready to settle down once Bonnie got the degree she wanted. Bonnie already had magic of her own which she didn’t lose. She just added the ability to siphon more. She, too, would become a vampire after she finished having children, which Oscar was on board with too, surprising even him. Seeing how much joy the others were getting from parenthood and playing with little Jack Gilbert and Damian Salvatore, the first to be born, made him want some of his own too. Since Kai had plenty of sperm magically stored, just as they all did from the moment they turned sixteen all the way back to Josh, he offered to donate for Bonnie. He would appreciate the tighter genetic tie to his daughter in all but blood. The fact that she had siphon twins, Emily and Marie, because of it, she just found amusing. They’d wanted two anyway so getting them both out of the way at once worked for them.

Caroline and Elena both wanted to graduate college before getting soulbonded and having babies, so they ended up going last. Caroline and Noel did end up getting human married early though. In the spring of Caroline’s junior year and Noel’s freshman year of college. When Caroline’s mother got sick, that part got moved up so that she could be there for it. It wasn’t as though either of them had any doubts that they were forever. And it turned out to be good timing since Liz didn’t even make it to summer. Only the love and support of her new husband helped her through it. Noel took the Forbes name since Caroline was the last Forbes, but the Forbes house would end up going to Chris and Elena Salvatore since Caroline and Noel would take over the boarding house and Jeremy and Sarah Gilbert would have the Gilbert house.

Caroline and Noel were also the first to soulbond, a week after they graduated college, Noel with his two year degree in business. They took a month long honeymoon, since they hadn’t done one for their human wedding, to the caribbean. When they came home in time for Chris and Elena’s soulbonding, Caroline already had a positive pregnancy test. It wouldn’t be until Chris and Elena returned home from their month long honeymoon, also pregnant, that they realized that Caroline was pregnant with twins. They would end up being a boy and a girl, William and Elizabeth, or Liam and Liza, both siphons. Both the siphon gene and the twin gene ran /very/ strong in Kai’s line clearly. Almost like magic was trying to tell them something. Especially since Chris and Elena also had siphon twins. Grace and Abel. They were done after those two but Caroline and Noel would have one more that thankfully wasn’t a twin, but was still a siphon. They named him Kenneth, Kenny for short.

That would give them a total of eleven children under the age of three in the family once Sarah gave birth to her last, but thankfully not all in one house. The three Forbes children lived in the ‘owner’s suite’ of the boarding house since their parents were running it. The only other baby that lived in the boarding house was Damian on the family floor. Little did they know, their family was in for one more expansion very soon. And one that would bring far more trouble than they bargained for.

Josette Parker never wanted children. She just wanted to focus on her healing and let that be her legacy in the world. Which was why she was very careful to keep sterility spells up at all times. But when her youngest brother Luke, who had won the merge with his twin Liv, couldn’t manage to father twins, she let herself be talked into doing so. Luke was gay, so fathering children the natural way was never an option for him, but magical insemination had been an option. He had seven children with four different surrogates, but no twins. Their other five siblings had two to three children each and no twins. They were looking at the end of the line if /someone/ didn’t have twins. She tried to suggest that magic was trying to tell them something, but no one would hear of it. Her first try did get twins though, but they were born wrong. Deformed. They were siphon abominations. Luke wouldn’t touch the things, despite promising to raise them. But maybe they could be useful as bait at least. To see if whoever took her deformed twin brother would come for them too.

Chapter Text

The clan was gathered to welcome Caroline and Elena back from their week away to adjust to vampirism. Their husbands had to turn a year before, shortly after their twenty-second birthdays, when they both got sick. The family was working on a way to make that not necessary, but without a merged twin to study, they had hit a brick wall. Caroline had just gotten pregnant with their third child at that point though and she and Elena wanted to wait until they were twenty-five anyway, as was tradition when possible, and they wanted to do it together, so Elena waited until Caroline’s birthday. Bonnie had turned on her twenty-fifth too, happy with her two children and not wanting anymore. The only ones of that generation that hadn’t turned yet were Sarah and Jeremy. They were only twenty three, plus Sarah was pregnant with their third and planned to be last child.

It was halfway through the party when the alert he’d placed in the Gemini wards went off and he called for silence. “There has been another siphon baby born to the Gemini. Two, actually,” he added when the second one came.

Josh and Rose shared a look before Rose spoke up. “We’ll take them.”

“Alright. Be ready to go in ten. Grab two carseats, and pack bags for them and you,” Enzo said seriously. They weren’t wasting any time with these either.

“Sorry Elena. Caroline. Welcome back,” Damon told them, hugging them both, echoed by Enzo, Josh, and Rose, before they all split to pack up. Damon and Enzo were the only ones able to get through the wards, but Josh and Rose would need to register them at a hospital and name them and may as well start bonding during the drive.

It ended up being more like fifteen minutes before they were on the road, but they were all plenty familiar with babies to know what they needed to bring and they were high-tailing their way to Portland just as fast as Damon’s classic muscle car could take them. And since it had long been improved by Stefan, that was faster than it normally could have. While they were driving, Josh did a simple spell to expand the backseat. The already expanded vans would be too slow for this, but there wasn’t room for two car seats and two adults in the backseat without help. At least it was only a minor expansion, and it wasn’t anchored like the permanent ones so it would wear off in a week. Which was plenty of time.

They got to Portland a day and a half after they left and Josh and Rose had to wait in the car a good distance away while Damon and Enzo cloaked themselves and slipped in through Damon’s hole in the wards. A few silent spells led them to the siphon babies, which were thankfully still alive. But their condition when they got there was appalling. It didn’t look or smell like their diapers had been changed in the day and a half since they were born, and they weren’t sure if the little ones had even eaten in that time. They didn’t look particularly healthy and the silencing wards around their cribs spoke of parents that didn’t want to be bothered. They’d gotten there just in time.

They got the prepared golems out, created by Enzo and Rose during the drive, magically drew as little blood from the sickly babies as they could get away with, put it in the golems, and quickly made the switch, blankets and all. They didn’t even have clothes on. They would take care of the diapers and feeding the second they got to the car. They even used vampire speed to get there, the delicate skin of the newborns protected by their coats. Josh and Rose were just appalled at their states and were quick to take them for diaper changes. Changes that were enhanced by magic to go quicker, especially with how dried to their skin some of it was. A quick healing spell, one formulated to work fast for siphon babies, created by Elena, took care of the rash, and then the babies were placed in their car seats to eat while driving. They still needed to get out of there as quickly as possible after all.

Unlike in the early seventies when Kai was a baby, driving with the baby not in the car seats was unheard of, but they did pull them out long enough to burp as they got as much distance as possible between them and Portland. Since the babies had been starved, they fed them every two hours instead of the usual three during the drive, and the next few diaper changes were done by switching spell until they felt safe enough to stop. This time the babies would be registered at a hospital in Colorado. Rosalie and Dinah Salvatore, Josh and Rose named them. They’d been in too much of a rush to get the little ones safe to even think about looking around to find out what their names were. Assuming they’d been named at all and not just left to die. They got birth certificates done and ordered along with social security cards, and were out of the hospital in two hours.

They didn’t need the big shopping trip that Damon and Enzo had the last time they’d done this. There were plenty of babies at home to have hand-me-downs from, especially since Sarah’s impending baby was a boy. And still four months away from being born. Naturally, they would want to buy them /some/ things of their own, but that wasn’t urgent in any way, so they were right back on the road headed for home. They got there four days after they left and took the newest additions to the family up to start working on a nursery off their room. And to let them meet the rest of their family. Almost three year old Damian had little interest, having seen plenty of babies come through, but all the adults were enamored. Just the ones that lived there. The rest would come by the next day, giving the new babies a chance to settle in. They had plenty of pictures sent from the road already.

Anyone in the family who objected to the kidnapping of babies found their minds changed quickly at the state the babies were found in. If they had been much later, the poor things surely would have died. They’d wanted to believe that no one could be so cruel in this day and age. Even since the seventies there had been so much social progress that any kind of prejudice, bad enough to mistreat innocent babies, just seemed unthinkable to the younger generations. The elders, thankfully, knew better. In close knit communities like the Gemini coven, minds and hearts didn’t change so easily. Not until they were forced to change.

Josh and Rose slept in shifts that night, still feeding the babies every two hours until they stopped eating that often. They weren’t the only ones worried about the Gemini, but hoped that the circumstances of this one would work in their favor. Since Kai’s failed merge, the Gemini knew that he was alive and kidnapped, but since these babies were just left alone to die, it would be much more believable that they did so. Would the Gemini even care to check? It would be a few days before they could finish the specialized pendants to allow a siphon to be protected and keep them from siphoning them up. Part of the reason that they were so eager to get home so fast. Their wards would block any tracking and the babies wouldn’t be out of the wards until the new pendants were finished.

Meanwhile in Portland, Oregon, the current Gemini leader Luke, the retired Gemini leader Joshua, and the mother of the stolen twins Josette, were gathered in the leader’s mansion. Luke’s husband had their seven kids occupied while the three of them tried to track the stolen babies. The kidnappers had clearly used cloaking spells since the recordings caught nothing. Just a flicker of the babies, clearly during a switching spell, as the copies were left behind. Even their wards didn’t go off. Not even the ones designed to alert if they went down from a siphon. This time, they’d thought to take blood from the babies the moment they were born though, and thus had blood to track the children with, which they were doing every ten minutes, starting half an hour after they were taken which was when they noticed the switch.

They followed the path as the kidnappers were clearly traveling. They wanted to be sure to find /everyone/ involved with this mess. Meaning tracking them to their home rather than catching them on the way. They thought they had them for a while in Colorado, but they’d only stopped for a few hours before they were back on the road. Almost two days after the babies had been taken, they disappeared from their radar though. The last place they’d gotten a read was as they crossed over from West Virginia into northern Virginia. How they were able to keep a siphon from sucking up any anti-tracking spells, they had no idea, so they kept trying for another whole day before giving up on that. Then it was a matter of figuring out where they were. They used how fast they’d been moving as a base to track how far they could have gotten in ten minutes and came up with an arc to search. Including if they doubled back, though they would try that last if they struck out everywhere else, and they started getting search parties sent out. Looking for wards and any sign of heretics.

Chapter Text

The expanded Salvatore/Bennett clan were unaware that they were observed at the park with all the babies by one of the hunters sent out by the Gemini. A hunter that realized that the infestation was worse than they ever could have imagined given all those little abominations present. Plus the parents who all seemed to be the dreaded heretics. How the hell had they gotten so many without them noticing? And there were probably more that weren’t even present at the park. Once he got an accurate count, from a distance of course, ten siphon children and six heretic adults, he took off to call it in. They’d found them, now it was up to Luke to decide what to do with them. Which would end up being information gathering as a young couple was sent to ‘make friends’.

It was Damon and Enzo who first noticed the new witches in town. They had been hanging out at the grill, drinking and shooting pool, when the young couple came in, radiating magic. While they weren’t going to be completely territorial, as long as any visitors or newcomers were peaceful, they still wanted to make themselves known. Make sure these new witches would be peaceful or make them leave. Whichever happened. “Hey mates. We haven’t seen you around before. I’m Enzo and this is my husband Damon.”

“I’m Brad and this is my wife Janet,” the man introduced themselves, forcing back his revulsion as he shook the monster’s hand. They were chosen because they were excellent actors after all. Just in case the magical backup didn’t work as well as they hoped. “It’s nice to know we’re not the only ‘special’ people around.”

“Yeah, we have a rather large family,” Damon chuckled at the understatement. “This town is something of a sanctuary for us.”

“I hope you don’t mind company,” Janet played coy, trusting the amulets they were wearing to do their job and facilitate trust. “We just love this place and are buying a house here.”

“Not at all, luv. We’re happy for company so long as you don’t cause any trouble,” Enzo assured them, not reading anything off about them. And rare was the person who could get one over on him.

“Yeah, we’re careful to keep the humans in the dark, especially with so many of us around,” Damon said seriously.

“Oh that’s no problem at all. We’re used to hiding,” Brad agreed. “We’re not even really sure what we’re doing with this whole ‘magic’ thing,” he whispered the word.

“How so?” Enzo asked curiously.

“Well we met in a group home. We’re both orphans. And I guess we were blocked or something because it was only a couple years ago that we were able to do anything,” Janet explained. Since these creatures were clearly breeding an army for some purpose, it was decided that the best way to get close would be to position themselves as needing help and guidance to get on the inside. They would almost certainly recruit anyone they could get.

“I can understand that,” Enzo said sympathetically. “I was an orphan too. And we have a few adopted orphans in the family as well. The youngest are twins, almost six months old now.” Brad and Janet exchanged a look, guessing that they were referring to the kidnapped twins, but managed not to show their outrage at the audacity of calling them orphans.

“We’d be happy to help you out. Find your way and all,” Damon offered. Something they would do for any orphaned witch. “I mean, some things will always remain family secrets of course, but for the basic and common stuff we can teach you if you want.”

“Really? That would be wonderful. We would appreciate that,” Brad said gratefully. He might even be taken in by the nice guy act they had going if he didn’t know any better. Heretics were dangerous monsters who needed to be put down or locked away, and they were just proving as much with their recruitment of anyone possible with that offer.

“Great. Why don’t you come by the Salvatore Boarding house when you have some time. Someone who can help you is always there. Just give your names at the front desk. We’ll tell them to be expecting you,” Enzo said cheerfully. He wouldn’t burden Caroline or Noel with teaching. Not with them running a business and raising three children under three. They could call up for someone who did have the time though. No one would get access to the family floors until they knew them better and they’d earned their trust, but there were other places they could go to teach.

“Yeah, we’ll do that. We’re moving the rest of our stuff into our temporary apartment tomorrow morning, but we can come by in the afternoon,” Janet told them, hoping that they would go away now. Contact had been made and they clearly weren’t going to learn anymore here, tonight, in public.

“We’ll see you then,” Damon nodded as he got his next drink from the bar. Since they had an actual time frame, he and Enzo could make sure to be home for it.

“And welcome to Mystic Falls,” Enzo added, taking his own drink as he followed his husband back to the pool tables. Brad and Janet didn’t stay much longer, giving the impression that they were just looking around and seeing what the town had to offer.

When they got home a few hours later, Damon and Enzo spread the word that there was a new witch couple in town, that they were orphans and had their magic bound until recently, and that they would be teaching them. Brad and Janet were making their own calls that evening, reporting in that they’d made contact and had an in. And that the two they’d met weren’t one of the ones that had been spotted in the park. Images had been taken of all of them. That meant that the supposition that there were more than had been there that day was correct. It was their job to find out how many more, what weaknesses they had, and the best ways to get rid of them all at once.

The next afternoon Brad and Janet headed to the boarding house, recognizing the hostess as one of the ones from the park surveillance, and gave their names. She asked them to wait and then went to the phone and a few minutes later the couple they met the previous night came down. They followed when they were asked to, but as they headed towards the woods they started getting nervous. “Where are we going? Into the woods?” Janet asked, figuring it wasn’t unreasonable to be nervous and might even be more suspicious if she wasn’t.

“Don’t worry. We promise not to hurt you,” Damon said with a hint of amusement. He couldn’t really blame them for being worried. “But we can’t really do magic out in the open and we’re careful about who we invite into our private spaces. We have a warded ritual clearing not too far away where we can stay hidden.”

“And anyone can get in there?” Brad asked curiously as they got moving again.

“You can get in as long as you’re with us,” Enzo explained. “Maybe once we know each other a little better we can talk about getting you keyed in with guest access, but for now, only the adult members of the family can bring you in.”

“What about leaving?” Janet asked, hoping they weren’t going to end up in a trap. They were sure that they hadn’t let anything on that they shouldn’t.

“You can leave at any time. The wards only stop people from entering, not leaving,” Damon assured them.

“We’ve never heard of wards, but we can guess what they are in general. What kinds are there?” Brad asked curiously.

That conversation filled the rest of the walk and the new couple could sense the wardline even without the hands on their shoulders as they passed it. Neither of them had ever felt such strong wards. They were much stronger than the passive wards around the boarding house. Stronger than any of the Gemini wards. They looked around the clearing, plastering looks of awe on their faces that weren’t even all fake. Just the reasons for them. This was an incredibly high quality ritual area. Easily as good as the Gemini clearing and they’d been there for four hundred years building it up. They knew that there was probably a smaller ritual space in the house, but it would apparently take time and earning more trust to get that far. At least they were sharing this much.

Brad and Janet found it difficult not to show their familiarity with the magical lessons that started at the beginning, but the casual conversation sprinkled throughout gave them little gems of information that they could use. Including the fact that the wards around this place only registered someone crossing it. They should be able to come back tonight and do some analysis from the outside without tripping anything. They would also be comparing notes about the randomly mentioned ‘family members’ as they built an overall picture. It was definite progress for only two days.

Chapter Text

Brad and Janet spent the next few months nurturing a friendship with Damon and Enzo that extended to the rest of the family. They kept detailed notes of everything they learned and even started putting together the family tree. How those marrying into the family got the twisted magic was still unknown, but they did figure out that Damon was the originator born almost two hundred years before. The mentions of the ancient tribes that had been found in seclusion that they’d lived with for times was definitely concerning. They didn’t learn any of the proprietary magic from them, sadly, citing promises not to share it outside the family. The fact that the ancient Bennett family had been subverted into this horrible cult was a cause for mourning. That one of the oldest magical lines would be lost forever was a tragedy. All the more reason to stop these monsters before they ruined all magic.

Over those few months, they played friends to everyone they met, but did take care to avoid letting any of the children touch their amulets. The more they learned about this family and how perceptive some of them were, the more they were sure the trust enhancement of their amulets were the only thing keeping them from being found out. If that magic were to be absorbed by one of the little demons they would be done for. They did end up getting guest access to the clearing wards, but not the family rooms as they’d heard them called. They’d learned, among other things, that the family was spread around town anyway, so any attempts to bottle them up in that house would likely fail without very serious planning and still run the risk of missing someone.

They’d been there for two months before they got the best idea they had yet. The entire family gathered in the warded clearing for the third birthday party of Damian Salvatore, the eldest of the children. It was the one time that they could be certain that the entire family would be present. It was too late to pull it off for this birthday, but the third birthday of Jack Gilbert would be in two more months and it was mentioned that, due to their expanding numbers, all birthday parties were held in the ritual clearing. The fact that the Gilbert children were human wouldn’t change that, though they would try not to harm them. They were young enough that they could still be raised right. The two human Salvatore grandparents were a lost cause though. They were old enough to know better, and even if they were compelled slaves, death would be kinder.

After the first party that they’d been invited to, they called Luke with the suggestion for the next party in two months. The Gemini had tried destroying the heretics with prison worlds in the past and that clearly didn’t work, so they would go for a more permanent solution this time. They would make sure that the children had quick painless deaths as much as possible. They weren’t the monsters. But this whole disaster was proof that even one of them left alive could spiral out of control before they knew it. Every heretic and siphon would die once and for all. It didn’t dawn on them that their ancestors chose the prison world option because they feared their power and knew that, even in numbers, they couldn’t stand against the combined power of heretics. And it had only been six of them then. Not the almost two dozen there were now. They were far more arrogant now than they had been in the past.

As Jack’s birthday party approached, Portia started getting a niggling from the universe. Impressions that any detail about was hidden. She spent most of three days meditating on them, trying to clear them up, before she realized that she had all that magic wanted her to know, and so she took it to the family. Only the family, of course. This didn’t concern their students. “The birthday party next week is going to be a crossroads,” she told them once they were all gathered.

“What kind of crossroads?” Sarah asked, cuddling her oldest son protectively. She already didn’t like the sound of that.

“One that will determine the future of magic,” Portia answered.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Jeremy asked, rocking their youngest in his swing while their daughter sat on his lap playing with one of her little toys.

“It depends on the outcome. Hence the crossroads,” Portia pointed out.

“And you can’t see any more than that?” Damon asked with a frown.

“Just that magic wants this to happen. Maybe /needs/ this to happen. And has been working towards this for a long time,” Portia told them the last of what she could get.

“Maybe we should consider canceling the party,” Enzo suggested. “I don’t give a bloody toss what magic wants if our kids are going to end up in the line of fire of some big watershed.”

“It’s possible that the party will spark some sort of cooperative magic from the children that will have major effects. There’s nothing to say that it will be a fight,” Portia told them.

“So you think we should just continue as normal?” Stefan asked dubiously, easing Damian’s thumb from his mouth for the fifth time that day. He was the most overprotective of the parents for obvious reasons. His son was the center of his world. Valerie’s too.

“I do,” Portia said sagely, following the recommendations of magic as she always did. It didn’t even dawn on her that, in this case, magic could put their children at risk.

“We have to at least take some sort of precautions,” Josh said, cradling his little Rosalie to his chest. “If Portia thinks we should let things play out, okay, but we should prepare for the worst.”

“Why don’t we have the ritual circle prepared for a prison world escape hatch. If things go pear shaped, we can send the kids there until it’s all over,” Zach suggested. “Gail and I can go with them since we’re just humans and wouldn’t be any use in a fight anyway.”

“I will too for magical support,” Sarah added reluctantly. She wanted to be part of the fight too, but her parents would need at least one witch with them to keep control over so many magical children. Even just two adults to thirteen was a bad ratio with the oldest being three.

“No, I will,” Elena said. “You’d be more useful in a fight. I’m just a healer and the kids might need me in that respect too.”

“All adult non-vampires should also have vampire blood before the party too. Just in case,” Rose suggested. That would include Zach, Gail, Sarah, and Jeremy. The latter two of which planned to turn in a little more than a year anyway. The former two would rather not, especially since they wouldn’t have magic, but could live with it if it came to it in order not to leave their family so young. Not to miss their grandchildren growing up. Besides, they would be bustled off to a prison world the minute things got hairy, so it wasn’t likely that it would be needed.

“We also need to consider the fact that, if it does come to a fight, we’d need enough people held back to pull off the prison world spell first. And they would be sitting ducks,” Henry pointed out.

“With our power, we can pull it off with three minimum. Make it our least able fighters, and the rest of us will focus on defense as we keep them covered until they’re done,” Damon suggested.

“We’ll be two of them,” Nora and Mary Louise offered. Neither of them had ever been much for fighting. Keeping the children protected first was a good job for them. But once they were safe, they would definitely do their best to destroy anyone threatening them.

“And I’ll be the third,” Oscar chimed in. He was a lover, not a fighter. And it didn’t bother him in the slightest that his wife was a beast on a battlefield and would be doing the protection in the family. He too would fight his best when it was time, but getting his precious little girls, and the rest of the children, safe was his best use first.

“So that covers us if it’s a fight,” Lexi said. “What if it’s something else?” They didn’t have nearly enough information to plan for anything that could possibly happen. Especially anything big enough to change the future of all magic.

“That covers us for any sort of threat really,” Enzo pointed out. “Get the children safe. Anything that’s not a threat, I don’t think we need to worry about.”

“You don’t think the Gemini found us, do you?” Valerie asked worriedly, hugging her son tighter. That was the only threat she could think of that was big enough to even matter with them.

“If they did, we’ll be ready,” Rose was the first to say, reluctantly letting her little Dinah down to play as the ten month old started squirming.

“We’ll make them regret ever coming for us,” Kai agreed with her. He even had a spark of an idea for a backup plan of his own that he would have to mull over if that was the case. None of them suspected the young orphan couple they were mentoring that knew so little of magic.

Chapter Text

By the time the party came around, Brad and Janet had managed to slip a few holes in the wards around the clearing, much like Damon had in the Gemini wards that they’d finally found soon after the most recent kidnapping. The fact that there were Geminis already keyed into the wards made it easy to do, and easy to hide. Unless they did a full analysis of their wards, they would never notice. And even with a full analysis, they would have to know where to look. It wasn’t changing any of the parameters. It was just broadening the one that was already broad enough to be weakened. There were a total of twelve individual Gemini, that hadn’t been removed from the coven, keyed in. Ever since they got full access to the wards two weeks before, it pushed that aspect far enough that they could open it up for access to any Gemini.

They did get a little nervous when they got there and saw the clear setup for a prison world ritual created, but they weren’t supposed to know that much magic, and if they /were/ ready for them somehow, that just made it that much more important for Brad and Janet to stay on the inside. See if they could manage to sabotage whatever plans they had. There was nothing wrong with recognizing a ritual setup in general though, so they did ask about it, only to be told that it was something they were working on for later. They did notice that they did their best to keep the playing children in that area and stayed spread around them, so they followed the cue, taking places in the protective circle.

It was an hour into the party, to allow for any latecomers, when all hell broke loose. The Gemini had brought /everyone/, taking no chances of failure. Any sixteen and seventeen year olds were left in charge of the younger children, and everyone over eighteen, Luke included protected at the back, was part of the attack as they streamed out of the trees and past the wards like they weren’t even there. They were surprised that the abominations were as prepared as they were and just jumped into action.

No one spared any thought just yet as to how they got past the wards. They would figure that out later. Now was the time for fighting. The children were quickly gathered into the ritual circle along with Zach, Gail, and Elena. Knowing that Brad and Janet had only a few months of learning magic and weren’t up for a fight yet, Elena called to them. “In here. We’re going someplace safe.”

Brad and Janet took the invitation, jumping into the circle just as the three casters started chanting. They knew they wouldn’t be able to kill anyone in the prison world though, so they had to find a way to prevent it from happening. Thus, their first option was to distract the casters by sending silent heart stoppers at the only two adult humans. They didn’t have enough experience with siphons to realize that they could sense the magic leaving them and hitting the other two. They couldn’t sense what the magic was, but they knew the second Zach and Gail died and realized they’d been betrayed. Elena waved a hand and threw the two traitors out of the circle, knocking down some of the attackers as they landed. “Don’t stop,” she told the three chanters. Getting the children safe was even more important now. Even if she would have to take care of them alone for however long this took.

The fighters were clued in that something was going on by Elena’s yell and the flying witches, but there wasn’t time to worry about what was happening back there. They would have to trust that whoever threw them out had a good reason and act accordingly. They were all holding up shield spells and throwing simple defensive knockbacks for now. Anything truly damaging would require moving or enough distraction to risk leaving a hole in the line. The Gemini were throwing everything they could to break down the shields and stop the ritual that would lose them the demon spawn. Which would turn out to be a huge mistake because by the time the bright flash lit up the clearing, many of them were already tired. They didn’t have the nearly unlimited batteries of the witchpires, after all. Even Sarah and Jeremy, without the stabilizing effect of vampirism, were holding strong, letting their shields siphon the magic that was hitting them to keep them from running too low.

The moment the flash of light went off, and Oscar yelled, “They’re away!” everyone burst into action, taking a strong offensive. They used their vampire skills to jump up and over the invading lines, trapping them in the middle now to prevent anyone with the gall to attack a baby’s birthday party from escaping. Sarah and Jeremy were carried by Rose and Lexi, the oldest and strongest of the vampires as the formed their new line, throwing everything they had at the enemy. There were smaller battles breaking out all over the place, often five and six on two. The invaders had the numbers, but the home team had the power and home field advantage on their side. Not to mention the speed and strength and agility of vampires that definitely came in handy with both casting and moving. Spells were dodged, throats were ripped out in the blink of an eye, and it didn’t take long for it to be clear who would win.

Jeremy and Sarah, unfortunately, didn’t have the advantages of vampirism. They still held their own for a good while, even against four opponents before Jeremy was the first to fall. Sarah let out an enraged shriek and tripled her rate of fire, fueled by rage and adrenaline, until one of the remaining two dropped her as well. Damon and Enzo, the closest to them, started that way the moment Sarah shrieked, but didn’t make it before she dropped. Their own anger kicked in as well, especially when they noticed it was Brad and Janet that were fighting her. They’d directed their group to the weakest links intentionally. Neither Damon nor Enzo had any intention of making this easy for them. “Traitors,” Enzo hissed dangerously as he threw a slicing spell at Brad’s fingers that took two of them off.

“Abominations,” Janet snapped back as Brad cast a cauterizing spell at his nubs.

“You will pay for bringing this down on my family,” Damon snarled, throwing a series of low powered cutting spells that caused blood to erupt in half a dozen places on her body.

“We will take you apart piece by piece,” Enzo snapped another three spells, two of which were dodged and the third took off one of Brad’s ears. The other fighters that were standing against them were dealt with as though flicking away gnats as they focused the bulk of their rage at the ones who betrayed them. Who pretended to be their friends to learn their secrets. Who wormed their way into their family and even their hearts. Who spent months spying and were almost certainly at fault for the enemy being able to slip past their wards. They would suffer.

“You’ve heard of death from a thousand cuts?” Damon sent a dozen more at Janet, only half of them she managed to dodge.

“You played on our compassion. On our sympathy. You used our kindness against us, and call us monsters in the same breath,” Enzo sneered.

“You attack children, /babies/, at a three year old’s birthday party. And you call /us/ the monsters,” Damon added as the couple was slowly taken apart as promised. Every so often one of them would disappear in blur, rip out a throat with their teeth or a heart with their hands, and be right back as the couple was crying on the ground by then. A good half their spells were aimed at other fighters with deadly accuracy, but their focus was on these two. And, of course, on guarding Sarah and Jeremy’s bodies.

Only when there wasn’t enough left of them to do anything but lay on the ground and bleed out did they turn to the two that would wake up vampires in a few hours. They each cast a cloaking spell over one of them and then levitated them into the woods, behind a bush, and out of the way. They would be safe until they woke up. They then turned back to the battle to see who else might need help, and headed for Nora and Mary Louise who were struggling in a stalemate.

Chapter Text

During the defense portion, Kai had let himself study all of the invaders, with his magic more than his eyes. He hoped for one person in particular to be there. He knew that with a full war with the Gemini, there was only one way it could really end. And if they could save all the innocent kids on the other side that were wrapped up in this mess, he had to try. By the time they went on the offensive, Kai had found her. The way his magic was resonating, she could only be his twin sister. He directed his wife her direction once they started fighting and found themselves engaged six to two. He used the telepathic link with Abby, the main reason that they always paired up in couples, to tell her not to hurt Josette. He wouldn’t make his move until the odds were more in their favor though.

He had no idea how long this would take or how it would affect him when it was over. Other than his wife, the only person who had any idea what he was planning was Beau. The only one who had ever attended a merge ceremony and knew the spell to initiate it. They hoped that it would work with him a vampire, but there was no reason it shouldn’t. Becoming a vampire meant that it wasn’t /required/, but not that it wasn’t possible. He knew that Jo’s magic was reacting to him the same way when her eyes went wide and she stumbled as the fight started and he smirked. “Fancy meeting you here, sis.”

“You should have been drowned at birth,” Jo snapped at him, sending an explosion spell at him with as much force as she could muster. He just dodged it and ripped the throat out of the man next to her. One of her brothers. Not Luke who had the best fighters surrounding him thankfully. That just pissed her off more though.

“How you can possibly think you’re on the right side of this thing advocating for the murder of babies, I will never understand,” Abby scoffed as a spell took out one of her allies while ripping the throat out of another. All the vampires would be eating well today for sure.

“Siphons are a curse on our line and bring nothing but destruction,” Jo yelled, increasing her attacks even more out of desperation, adrenaline pulling more magic than she knew she had.

“All we wanted was to live in peace. You are the ones bringing destruction. To our home. Trying to kill our children,” Kai said disgustedly, blurring over and breaking the neck of another fighting with her and taking her hands in the same move. “Sanguinem desimilus... Sanguinem generis fiantus,” he chanted as he bit both their hands.

“No! There’s no celestial event!” Jo cried in denial even as she could feel the little magic she had left fighting his so much stronger magic.

“Just because we can’t see the lunar eclipse during the day doesn’t mean it’s not happening on the other side of the world,” Kai smirked while Abby took out the last fighter at her side.

“No!” Jo cried one more time, turning into a death shriek as she was consumed by her twin brother.

“You miserable little freak!” Luke roared, flinging his hand and throwing Kai back while he was still reeling from absorbing his sister. Abby took a defensive position deflecting and absorbing everything the four people coming against them threw long enough for Kai to get back to his feet and back in the fight.

This group proved much more skilled than any others and it didn’t take long for them to figure out that the lead two were merged twins. Clearly one of them was the current head of the coven and the other was either the heir or retired. Either way, they had a lot more power at their disposal which made for a tougher fight. The other two were brilliant fighters as well. Clearly the leaders surrounded themselves with the best as the battle raged. Kai and Abby focused on the two support fighters first so that they could then focus all their attention on the heads.

When the first of the support fighters went down, Luke was distracted by the death of his husband and barely missed losing his head as his father shoved him out of the way and then he was back in the fight with a vengeance just in time for his mother to go down too. It was two on two then, neither side holding anything back. The difference ended up coming down to the question of power. As more and more of the Gemini fell in battle, so too did the collective power that Luke and Joshua could call on. Meanwhile, Kai and Abby were replenishing power as fast as they were using it. All the blood they’d had empowering their vampirism which in turn empowered their magic. The two merged twins ended up going down at the same moment, each with a set of fangs in their neck.

Kai fully stumbled that time before falling to a knee as he felt the full weight of the Gemini fall on his shoulders. On top of what he’d just gotten from Josette, not even having the chance to process the memories and whatever else he’d gotten from her yet, he was pretty much done for. But then the battle was almost over at that point too. He let the power settle, taking a few deep breaths, before struggling to his feet with a call of, “Enough!” laced with the magic of the Gemini head.

That was enough to stop the remaining battle in it’s tracks, barely more than a dozen fighters remaining that had been in the process of being mopped up. They were torn between the obligation to obey their leader, and their disgust at that leader being an abomination. The only thing that kept them from outright disobeying the order was looking around and seeing how few of them were left. They were outnumbered almost two to one and since they started at almost ten to one odds, they didn’t have much hope of survival. But then surrendering wouldn’t necessarily help them survive either judging by the looks they were getting from the other side. Including their new leader.

Stefan was the first to jump into action, throwing out a spell that he knew well and had been wanting a chance to use. To date, he had been the only one turned into a dung beetle before. That particular transformation was reserved for the most heinous of offenses. He put enough power into it to hit the entire group and then followed it up with a spell to make the transformation permanent. It could still be siphoned off, as any other magic could, but it wouldn’t wear off in an hour. “If anyone’s a dung beetle, those who would attack a kid’s party with the intent of murdering those kids qualify.” Mostly he just wanted to make sure that no one killed surrendering people. No matter how much he wanted them dead for threatening his son, he just couldn’t stomach the idea of doing it that way. It didn’t dawn on him until after it was done, that all he’d done was make it /easier/ to kill them.

“Works for me,” Damon said dismissively, having had enough of killing that day anyway. The life cycle of a dung beetle meant that they wouldn’t last long and it was a fitting end for them.

“Check this out, love,” Enzo said from where he was crouched beside the bodies of the betrayers. Now that there was time, he was checking them to first make sure they were dead, and second seeing if they had anything like what he found.

“What are they?” Damon asked curiously as Enzo yanked a pendant from each of the bodies

“They’re how they were able to fool us. The enchantment in them feels like trust,” Enzo said before pocketing them. They would study them more fully later on and even see if they could recreate that spell. It could come in handy for a lot of things.

“At least we’re not just idiots,” Damon huffed. That did help a bit.

“We need to hurry up and get the kids back,” Nora cut in before anyone could go off on a tangent.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine for a while longer while we get all this cleaned up. They don’t need to come back to a sea of bodies,” Josh shuddered at the idea.

“Zach and Gail went down to Brad and Janet before we finished the spell. Not only is Elena alone with all of them, but Zach and Gail will wake up in transition soon,” Oscar informed them.

“Dammit!” Damon cursed.

“We’ll clean up fast. Everyone start vanishing,” Rose said urgently.

“Wait! Where are Sarah and Jeremy?” Lexi asked worriedly.

“They also went down. We cloaked them and moved them behind that bush out there so they wouldn’t get trampled or their bodies accidentally destroyed,” Enzo assured them.

“Any dung beetles that are still here, you better clear out if you want to live,” Valerie called before the group started vanishing blood and bits of people just as fast as they could.

Chapter Text

They got every trace of battle cleaned up in record time, while Damon and Kai, the best with practical magic, got everything ready for the reversal of the prison world. Enzo went to get Jeremy and Sarah’s bodies to take back to the house to wait for them to wake up. The battle was finished for about twenty minutes by the time they were ready to bring the kids back. The same three that put them there took their places to bring them back the easy way. They would have been able to get around it if, god forbid, they’d lost any of them. It just would have been more difficult. They’d been lucky overall not losing anyone permanently, though dealing with four new vampires at once wouldn’t be easy. Vampires had much less to avoid and those few things took priority. Cuts, broken bones, and the like healed quickly enough, especially with as much blood as they were getting keeping them in top shape no matter how much damage they took.

Enzo was back from dropping off Sarah and Jeremy’s bodies, knowing they had at least another two hours before they would wake up. The entire battle, start to finish, had only taken about half an hour. Which meant there should still be plenty of time for Zach and Gail too. It took another ten minutes to finish the ritual, leaving Elena and thirteen children in the center of the ritual circle. All the parents rushed in, grabbing their kids and hugging them tightly, glad that their cleanup spells included them too. Those who didn’t have little ones, waited until they were all claimed and distracted before asking an exhausted Elena, “Zach and Gail?”

“Cloaked here,” she could sense her own magic and put a hand on each of their bodies. “I think I got it before the kids noticed. I almost left them, but didn’t want anything to happen in the fight.”

“That was a good call. It was a nasty one,” Damon told her as he and Enzo picked up one of the invisible bodies each.

“Wait…Jeremy and Sarah?” Elena asked, seeing that their kids were being taken care of by Joe, Lexi, and Valerie while Stefan had Damian.

“They’ll both be vampires when they wake up too, luv,” Enzo told her. “We’ll take care of the kiddies until they’re back. I know you’ll have your hands full.”

“Okay. Thank you,” Elena said gratefully as they headed back towards the house. She would have kept them if necessary, but her twins were getting into their terrible twos and were a handful.

All the kids were put down for naps once they got back, partially because it was that time, and partially so they could figure out who would go with who for the new vampire lessons for the next week. Joe and Lexi offered to take Zach and Gail and Portia and Henry would take Sarah and Jeremy. The bodies were moved to the respective cars, as they always tried to do when possible, and they would have a few blood bags in that enclosed environment on the way.

Once they were all off for the next week, the questions turned to Kai. “So you’re the new big bad Gemini leader now huh?” Josh asked amusedly.

“I can’t believe you merged in the middle of a battle,” Valerie shook her head wryly.

“If I didn’t, every Gemini left, kids and babies included…my grandchildren included…would be dead now,” Kai pointed out. “I can’t believe they were stupid enough to send not only their leader, but their backup leader into the same battle.”

“Arrogance. It’s the only answer,” Beau said sagely.

“So what are you going to do with it?” Rose asked curiously.

“I don’t think I have a choice. I’m gonna have to go back to Portland. See the people. Lay down some rules. They probably would have felt the leader change,” Kai shrugged. “How long we stay and what we do from there, I have no idea yet.”

“We’ll see what the situation is and how they handle things before we decide,” Abby slipped her hand into her husband’s, letting him know that he wasn’t in this alone.

“You two aren’t going by yourselves,” Damon said seriously. “You can wait until the others get back and any of us who don’t have little ones at home can go back you up.”

“He’s right. If it comes to a fight there and they refuse to accept you as the leader, you’ll need the backup,” Enzo agreed.

“Yeah, okay. We’ll wait a week,” Kai easily agreed. Had they known that it was only kids left there, waiting for word from their parents, it would have been a harder choice, but since they didn’t know, they would wait.

“What all did you get from your sister?” Mary Louise asked curiously. Aside from the horror of having to essentially kill a twin, she’d always found the concept of the merge fascinating.

“Well…I’ve got a lot of memories. She was apparently an amazing healer. I’d be happy to teach you a thing or two Elena,” he told her.

“I would love that. Thank you,” Elena said gratefully from her position leaning against her husband. The chance to learn from a real healer who’d been studying for possibly decades was like a dream come true.

“I also have the experience of giving birth,” Kai shuddered at that. “Have I told you lately how amazing you are, Abs?” At the looks he was getting he was quick to add, “And all you ladies who’ve given birth.”

“Good save,” Abby laughed as she stole a kiss.

“But you’re still you? Completely?” Caroline asked.

“Yeah. I’m still me. I just have a few more memories is all. No feelings or anything transferred over though. Whether it’s always like that or it’s because the merge was so contentious and we never knew each other or something like that interfering, I don’t know,” he shrugged.

“All I ever heard was that the twin lives on in the survivor. I don’t think they ever really talked about those details,” Nora told him all she knew.

“That would make sense. I’m having enough trouble dealing with the emotional weight of killing my twin and I never met her, we were on opposite sides of a battle, and she was trying to kill my family. I can’t imagine that anyone who actually grew up with that twin and loved that twin would want to talk about such a traumatic thing.”

“I don’t think I could ever do it at all,” Noel shuddered at the thought.

“Me either,” Chris agreed. “I think I would rather us both die the slow painful death than have to live with that or ask you to live with that.”

“Yeah, at least that way we could die with clear consciences,” Noel nodded.

“We’ll make sure that no twins ever have to merge again,” Sheila promised. “Now that we have a merged twin to study the connections with, we can get back to that problem.”

“And the fact that Dad is immortal, which means they won’t have to be worried about being without a leader while we figure out how to prevent everyone from dying without a merged twin,” Bonnie added. Preventing anymore twins from having the required merge to be an heir shouldn’t be difficult. Preventing the coven from needing a merged twin to lead would be considerably more complicated.

“I wish we’d thought to ask Portia before she left about the whole ‘message from magic’ and ‘future of magic’ thing,” Stefan sighed. He really wanted to know why all this was necessary.

“We’ll figure it out. Or we’ll ask her when she gets back,” Oscar shrugged, not particularly worried about it. Things would happen how they happened. Not that he didn’t greatly appreciate the advance warning. Thinking what could have happened to the kids if they’d been caught unawares would give him nightmares. And he was far from the only one who would suffer such an affliction in the coming days.

Once the kids started waking up from their naps, the parents started streaming out as theirs were collected. Aside from the ones that lived there of course. For the moment, there would be six of them in the family floors. Three in each wing incidentally enough. Josh and Rose would have their new twins and then Stefan’s son in the east wing while Damon and Enzo would be keeping the three Gilbert kids in the west wing. Caroline and Noel took their three down to their rooms too, especially when Jack and Mirabelle Gilbert both went into tantrums when they realized their parents weren’t coming back soon. Galen was only ten months old, so hadn’t quite gotten it yet, but Mirabelle was two and Jack just turned three. They noticed.

It wouldn’t take them too long to calm down though and get excited about the sleepover with their grandpas. Only when they were calm did Damon and Enzo head out to the Gilbert house with them to pack them some stuff. At least that was the plan until they got there and decided they were doing this the stupid way. The kids would need a lot more stuff and would feel more comfortable in their own rooms anyway. They would just go pack themselves bags the next day and stay at the Gilbert house while Jeremy and Sarah were gone. They knew Jeremy and Sarah wouldn’t care aside from jokingly demanding that they replace the mattress and bedding. Well partially joking anyway.

Chapter Text

Luke and Joshua Parker arrived in a white space with the rest of their lost coven around them. They quickly found their partners and had a happy reunion, but not for long before a voice rang out in the emptiness. “I am so very disappointed in all of you,” the voice said, sadness evident in its ethereal tone.

“Who are you? Where are we?” Luke asked, not the only one looking around.

“I am the consciousness of magic,” the voice answered. “And you have been thwarting my plans for far too long.”

“We have only ever served magic. Everything we have done has been to keep magic pure and strong,” Joshua said offended.

“And yet, you destroy the special children that I have been sending to you for nearly a millennium,” Magic responded.

“You can’t mean the freaks of magic that twist your gift in unnatural ways?!” Luke said disgustedly. Those were the only ‘children’ they ever had anything against.

“Who are /you/ to decide what is unnatural for /me/?” the voice boomed angrily, making everyone present in the space wince.

“You /wanted/ those abominations in the world?!” Joshua asked incredulously.

“If I did not, they would never have existed,” Magic said impatiently. “It was never your place to decide who got my gifts and how. They were to be the future of magic. The bridge between the factions. To bring /peace/ to magic.”

“How could monsters bring peace?” Luke scoffed.

“Because they are people like anyone else. When vampires were created, creatures of magic that could not use magic, it created an imbalance. Not so much of one that couldn’t be corrected in time. And so I created a sort of magic that could unify vampires and witches. That could bring them together,” Magic explained. “Your coven was special. The largest coallition of witches in the world. The strongest. You were to be the trailblazers of magic. And so it was your coven who was given the gift of the future. The gift that you squandered.”

“Why now then? If you’ve been doing this for a thousand years, why now?” Luke asked.

“I am a patient entity. I have been waiting and waiting for you to see the errors of your ways. For someone to lead you out of the darkness. Perhaps even for human society to open your eyes. But even as human society evolved, became more open and accepting of differences, you held your ground. And my patience wore thin. Always, the choosing of your leader was done by twins. And so I gave you a special twin. Firstborn of the leader of the coven. In hopes that you would understand my message.”

“He was kidnapped before we even had a chance,” Joshua bluffed.

“You were mistreating him from the moment he was born,” Magic then changed the white space to broadcast the scene. And a few others. Joshua all but throwing his newborn son at the midwife, calling him a beast. Touching him no more than necessary. Not even referring to him by name and calling him abomination or beast or thing instead. “You had him for barely more than a day. Let me show you what would have happened if he stayed with you.” The scenes continued as the baby grew up. Malnourished until he was old enough to feed himself. Beaten at the slightest provocation, which included just existing. Degraded and publicly humiliated at every turn. “Everything good in this child was broken and destroyed. Until he became this,” Magic said as she showed a massacre of children. The boy slaughtered his siblings, attempted to slaughter the toddler twins that were born to take his place. To rob him of his rightful position.

“You see?! He is a beast. A monster! To slaughter children!” Luke said horrified, and he wasn’t the only one.

“As though you have not been slaughtering children. You are /here/ because you attacked a party for children with the intent of murdering more than three times as many children as he did there. Not only children, but /babies/. And you call /him/ a monster?” the incredulity slipped through the voice of magic. “Let me show you who he is now,” Magic got back on track, showing scenes of a happy, loving child. A defender of the innocent. A proud father doting on his beautiful children. A proud grandfather cherishing every moment with his seven grandchildren. “With him as the rightful leader of the Gemini, your coven would have flourished. As it will now that he is in his place.”

“You said that you used twins to designate the next leader. Why give me Lucas and Olivia then if they weren’t meant to lead?” Joshua asked pointedly.

“To buy time. I saw how the future would unfold. That Malakai would be prevented from taking his place. But the Gemini coven was too important to be lost. So Lucas was to hold the position until he could be maneuvered into place,” Magic explained. “It is also why you were not able to father any twins,” Magic directed at Luke. “When you refused to give up, even to the point of pushing your sister who never wanted children to have some, I thought a more heavy handed message was in order. Especially since she seemed to understand that I was trying to give you a message in the first place.”

“She had twins though,” Joshua didn’t quite get it yet.

“Yes. Twins with siphon magic. A last ditch effort to make you see my message since all other attempts had failed. To make it clear that the Gemini would only continue with siphons at the head. But once again you rejected them. Left them alone to die of hunger and thirst. Had they not been rescued when they were, they would have been dead within hours. They are with a kind loving family now who will raise them well and love them and cherish every moment.”

“So because we didn’t understand your message, you saw to it that we were /all/ killed?!” Joshua asked angrily, motioning to the hundreds of people surrounding them.

“Not because you didn’t understand my message. It was because you were a stain on magic. Murderers and abusers of innocent children and babies. It was /your/ choice to start that war. You could have left them alone, kept your isolationist ways and your bigotry and intolerance. While they rose up to take the place you should have had. You sealed your fate when you attacked them. That was more than a battle. More than a war. It was a desperate fight for the future of magic.”

“The future of magic?” Luke asked skeptically.

“Had they fallen, magic would have eventually been destroyed. Not soon, but eventually. The constant battles between witches and vampires would have spilled over into the human world and the humans would give no quarter. There will still be outliers, of course, who cannot let old feuds go, but within a few generations they will be small in number and not pose a threat. But the union of magical beings, the bridge that the witchpires form, will bring an era of peace to magic. Allow it to survive indefinitely. While your way would have seen it destroyed.”

“What about our children?” someone from the crowd spoke up for the first time. All of their children had been left behind at the compound alone.

“They will be adopted and raised with love, tolerance, and acceptance by those you attacked. It will be difficult for some. The ones who have been most indoctrinated in your cruelty, bigotry, and hatred. But they will all be saved. The family will see to it. I will personally see to their safety until the others arrive to take charge of them,” Magic promised.

“What will happen to us now?” Luke’s husband asked, not wanting to think about his children being raised so opposite to their values.

“You will move on to The Other Side, as you would have if I had not intercepted you. Unlike most witches though, you will not have access to the gardens. To your ancestors. Even to each other. You will suffer the same fate as your ancestors. The void. From there, you will be able to watch the world go by. You will be able to see anything that happens in real time. But you will be unable to interact. Until or unless your hearts and minds truly understand your crimes. Until you find true peace within yourselves and the acceptance that you have turned your backs on in life.”

“How do we…” someone started to ask, but then it was all gone. Everyone disappeared and they were all in their own individual pockets of the void.

Chapter Text

Once the four new vampires got home, they all spent a day reconnecting before talk came of what to do with the Gemini. “We need to go see what’s up in Portland, but the dads insist that Abby and I can’t go alone in case of a fight,” Kai told everyone.

“And they’re right,” Abby said with an exasperated look at her husband who knew that full well and just didn’t want to admit it.

“We’re not taking our kids into a potential war zone again,” Sarah said quickly, hugging her babies that she missed so much.

“And we would never ask you to, luv,” Enzo was quick to assure her. “What we were hoping was that anyone who doesn’t have little ones here come with us.”

“They surely would have sent anyone who was a decent fighter for this attack, so we shouldn’t have too much trouble on that end even with fewer numbers,” Damon explained.

“Of course we’ll come,” Henry said for himself and Portia.

“Us too,” Joe motioned himself and Lexi.

“We will too,” Gail chimed in. “We may be new vampires, but we can still put up a fight.”

“As will we,” Sheila answered for herself and Beau. “I still have six weeks before I have to be back on campus for the new school year.”

“And my opera group is taking a break for new auditions this month as well,” Beau agreed. They took a month every year to get ready for the new ‘season’ and give their people a chance to rest, take vacations, etc.

“Of course we’ll help,” Nora said as Mary Louise nodded. It would be their first time back ‘home’ since they left as teenagers.

“Any objections to leaving in the morning?” Enzo asked. When everyone agreed, he made the call to file a flight plan for an eight am departure to Portland, Oregon. They only needed an hour of advance notice, but more was better when possible.

Since they weren’t sure how long they would be gone, they all packed for two weeks and filed on the plane first thing the following morning. Their plane was equipped to take a few vehicles along, but there wasn’t enough space for everyone to bring a car. Or even every couple to bring one between them. They had room for four vehicles and one of which would obviously be one of the two enchanted vans. The other would be left for the group in Mystic Falls. Aside from that, they took both Kai and Abby’s cars, since they were the most likely to stay longer term and just left the fourth spot empty.

Once they landed in Portland, and the plane was parked, Kai and Abby drove their cars while Damon drove the van, leading the way to the warded compound. The wards had transferred to Kai automatically once he got leadership of the coven, so he would be able to let them all through for now. Keying them into the wards would be a priority, but where it would fall on the priority list would remain to be seen. Once they got there, driving up at the main house that now rightfully belonged to Kai, they looked around for someone to ask directions from. Someone that came from the house. Looked like an older teenager.

“Hello. I’m Kai, the new coven leader. Could you tell me the way to whatever gathering space is used for meetings?”

“You’re one of the abominations,” the boy said horrified. “Where are our parents?”

“Everything will be explained at the meeting I will be calling,” Kai told him, less sympathetic than he would have been after being called an abomination.

Only the fact that his magic was calling him to obey this interloper made him answer. “Go that way, two streets down, make a left and then your second right. The large building in the center of the community.”

“Thank you…”

“Peter,” the boy said his name with a bit of bite.

“Thank you, Peter,” Kai told him before heading back to the cars to head that way, sending out the magical call for everyone to gather for the meeting.

Abby took the place at the podium with him while the rest of the family stood in front of the stage defensively. They would take the front row if it didn’t end up turning into a fight. The more people filed in, the deeper their frowns got. Sure some people may just look younger than they were, but if they had to guess, there wasn’t a single adult here. Plenty of looks were exchanged between them as a total of fifty-three people came in, the oldest they would peg as older teenagers and carrying any babies and toddlers. There were dark looks sent at the group of strangers up front, but no one said anything and there was no violence. Yet.

Once everyone was seated, very nervous looking kids included, Kai asked the most important question on his mind. “Are there any adults here?”

Peter was the only one to stand up. He’d been put in charge of the children of the leader because he was the oldest. “I turned eighteen three days ago.” He was rather bitter that he was a week too young to join the fight when they others left and they wouldn’t make an exception. They had for Greg who turned eighteen two days after they left. Which was a day before the attack.

“That’s it?” Abby asked horrified. “They left only children? Alone?”

There were quite a few protests against being children by the older ones until Kai held up his hands, feeling guilty now for waiting so long to come. “Alright, alright!” he called for silence. “That will make this harder then,” he sighed.

“Where are our parents?” more than one little voice called out.

“I’m sorry to tell you all that your parents didn’t make it,” he said sadly, which set off a round of tears, cries of denial, and even some anger. A few spells had to go off for those who actually attacked, but they weren’t going to hurt kids. Or even the barely eighteen-year-old. Especially in front of other kids. They just put a temporary binding on their magic and pushed them back to their seats holding them there.

“You killed them!” a couple voices rang out.

“We defended ourselves against a violent attack,” Kai said seriously. “An attack that took place, intentionally, during a three year old’s birthday party. An attack that had the intent of killing not only us, but a dozen kids and babies no older than three years old.”

“Because you’re abominations who should never have existed!” Peter called out.

“If we shouldn’t exist, we wouldn’t,” Abby said firmly, in the manner of correcting a child.

“And besides, I am now the magically recognized leader of this coven and you /will/ respect me as such,” Kai said firmly.

“Or what?” one of the older teens asked snottily.

“We have yet to decide that, since we didn’t know what the situation was here. But rest assured that we will come up with something. And soon,” Kai didn’t feel comfortable making such a big decision without input. “For now, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take down names, ages, and relations and then get you all dinner. We’ll discuss the rest in the morning. Everyone line up with someone up front here.”

They hoped it was obvious that someone else would need to talk for those that couldn’t, and thankfully they seemed to get that hint as every baby and toddler was brought up with one of the elder teenagers. They gave names, ages, and parents names for all of them in the fourteen different lists while Kai and Abby had a quiet discussion thinking of different ideas. Then everyone was bustled to the school cafeteria where the children could all eat together and the adults took a separate table, simultaneously keeping an eye on the group at the same time as they quietly discussed options. Which first involved combining the lists. That they would all end up adopting these kids, more or less, younger ones especially, was a given and they wanted to be sure they got all siblings together rather than risk splitting them up.

Most families only had two or three children, but the leader Luke and his husband had seven that needed to be taken into consideration. They had eight couples there and fifty three children to figure out. The separated the list by ages as well to find seventeen kids thirteen and up. Eleven between the ages of ten and twelve. The other twenty five were under ten, and would be the easiest to bring around to their way of thinking. They were separated almost in half, twelve aged five to nine and thirteen aged four and under. They then added in siblings with the youngest, and were glad that there wasn’t much overlap. Three older siblings were in the five to nine group and none older than that.

By the time the lists were done, the children were finished eating, so they were separated from there by age. Everyone twelve and under was taken to the library, bedded down for a sleepover in sleeping bags and told to get comfortable before sleeping spells were cast on them all. All but the infants who would need to be fed overnight anyway. The teenagers were taken to the school gym and were much more difficult to wrangle, but a few firm commands from Kai, backed up by magic, got them bedded down, despite their protests about it being too early, and sleeping spells were cast on them too. Now the group had all night to figure out what to do next and how to handle all this.

Chapter Text

Once all the kids over a year old were down for the night, wards went up to keep the children safe and let the adults know if anyone threw off the sleeping spell before they all gathered in the meeting hall with the four littlest ones to work out a plan. “Okay, so first thing I think we should keep the teenagers separate from the younger kids,” Kai suggested.

“So they can’t keep poisoning their minds as we’re trying to change them and put the younger ones in the middle of a tug of war,” Abby nodded her agreement.

“What about the ten to twelve year olds?” Lexi asked. “They won’t be as difficult as the teenagers, but could still be more of a problem.”

“Let’s see,” Damon picked up his copy of the list separated into families. “Of the ten to twelve year olds, only two of them have a nine year old sibling. The rest have their siblings in that age range, so if we keep them together for adoption, they can be kept somewhat separate as needed.”

“That would make thirteen of those and there are seven couples here, assuming you’re all willing to adopt, so we can split those kids up six and seven,” Joe said thoughtfully.

Beau and Sheila had a telepathic conversation before Beau said, “We will take the six group of the older children.”

“And Zach and I will take the seven,” Gail said after the same silent conversation.

“As for the younger children, Damon and I will take the seven siblings under five,” Enzo suggested. They had the most experience with raising children.

“Which leaves sixteen in groups of two and three siblings to split between four couples,” Damon frowned as the math didn’t quite work.

“Three couples,” Zach pointed out. “Someone’s going to have to handle the teen dorm on a dedicated basis.”

“Abby and I need to be the ones to do that. Magic will encourage them to listen to us as the coven leaders,” Kai said.

“Okay, so let’s see how to work this,” they all went over the list of the last sixteen little ones, putting them in the best groups.

“Right, so Nora and I will take these two sets of three siblings,” Mary Louise decided.

“Portia and I will take these two and three siblings,” Henry decided.

“Which leaves these last two sets of two and the only child to us,” Joe nodded his acceptance as the information sheets on all their new children were passed out, and the next subject was raised.

“I don’t think we should rely only on them listening to you because of magic, Kai,” Damon got around to. “We got the enchantments on those trust amulets that the traitors had reverse engineered. We may as well use them.”

“We all should to help the children adjust easier,” Enzo suggested. “We shouldn’t need them for as long with the younger ones, but they’re still missing their parents and scared and dealing with strangers.”

“Yes, let’s cause them as little trauma as possible,” Abby agreed. “And Kai and I will most certainly need them with the older children.”

“Let’s take a break and get those made while we think of other things to consider,” Kai nodded.

It took them about half an hour to get the trust amulets enchanted, which didn’t have any effect on them since they already trusted each other completely. There was also time to feed the two babies that woke up hungry. The other two that were closer to a year old would probably sleep through the night, but they didn’t want to assume. Once they were back to the table, the adoption issue was revisited as Lexi considered something. “Given that we have more kids than those in Mystic Falls, should we give them the option to take a few of them?”

“These little ones lost their parents. I don’t think they should be mixed with kids who still have their parents. While /we/ know that our families wouldn’t have any favoritism, these kids won’t know that and they’ll feel like they’re less,” Portia suggested, trying to see different future paths and which way would be best.

“That makes sense,” Henry agreed with his wife. “Even Josh and Rose have had almost a year to bond with their adopted girls whereas these new ones would be coming into that already established family.”

“So no changes to the current adoption list,” Damon nodded his acceptance and moved them on. “Now as for the teen dorm…what are thoughts on that?”

“Obviously there will need to be two wings. Boys and girls,” Abby said. “We’ll need to figure out where to put them though.”

“Why not find two houses close together. We can do some magical renovations to make rooms to share with two or three kids each. We can put a room for us in between, connecting the two houses,” Kai suggested.

When that idea was suggested, Enzo brought up the next subject. “What about schooling?”

“Let’s break and go see what we can find out about the current curriculum before we decide there. We need to know what levels these kids are on,” Damon decided. The schoolhouse was connected to the meeting hall so it didn’t take them long. “Yeah, these kids aren’t keeping up to date with any kind of normal school curriculum. It’s mostly magic with plenty of brainwashing thrown in. Only the basics of science, math, literature, and anything else,” they figured out.

“So it won’t be a big deal to take these older kids out of ‘school’ for the most part and just focus on reeducating the bigotry aspects for a while,” Henry pointed out. “They’d have a lot of work to catch up regardless.”

“And the youngers can easily catch up. They can read and write and do basic math already, so a little bit of encouragement for the rest of the summer and they’ll be fine,” Portia nodded. “The olders might need a bit more help.”

“It’s a good thing I’m an experienced teacher then,” Sheila said amusedly. “I can take a sabbatical from the college for a few years. I should be able to get these middle kids caught up by winter break to join class in January and get rid of their brainwashing in the process.”

“Naturally we’ll help,” Zach offered himself and Gail since they would also be parents of middle kids.

“You’ll take lead, obviously with your experience, but we’ll assist,” Gail agreed.

“As will I,” Beau nodded.

“We should consider taking the youngers back to Mystic Falls,” Nora suggested. “They can probably learn as much through mixing with our littles as they would from any lectures. Get them integrated with other kids and all.” She’d finished college with a degree in early childhood education. She and Mary Louise had grown up a lot in the seven years since they’d gotten back from the prison world and they did love children. Nora had been planning on teaching their littles once they were old enough and was even pitching the idea of magic school.

“The only problem with that is that this is their home. If it was closer, I would say sure, and we can ease them into the move by going back and forth, but throwing that many changes at once at them won’t go over well,” Enzo pointed out.

“Unless we could figure out some instant transport method between here and there,” Damon said thoughtfully. “There is a very large magical library here to explore that I wouldn’t want to be too far from either.”

“How about we take the summer to see what we can figure out there, but get them to Mystic Falls in time for the school year to start either way,” Portia rolled her eyes at Damon’s childlike glee over the idea of a new magical library. “Then they have time to get used to us in a familiar place before we spring more changes on them by moving.”

“And the older kids can continue at the school here while Abby and I run lessons on tolerance, kindness, acceptance. Throw in cultural studies and correct all the poison they’ve been fed about us ‘abominations,” Kai nodded.

“And if we can slip in some science, math, and literature too, especially the last to get lessons across, all the better,” Abby nodded. Two teachers to seventeen teens was a better ratio than most schools got. Even boarding schools.

“We need to consider the dangers these older kids will pose too,” Beau pointed out. “They are nearly fully qualified witches who see us as the enemy. Even the trust amulets and their instinct to listen to Kai will only go so far.”

“We need to handle the ward situation anyway. Why don’t we add some wards to prevent any offensive magic to the compound wards. We can put stronger ones on the school and the dorms if it becomes necessary,” Kai suggested. They generally put those wards on the kids’ rooms and/or their houses as needed when sibling rivalries kicked in during the teen years.

“And worst case scenario, we can have a prison world as a backup solution. Teach them there were anything dangerous would be undone the next day until they’re ready to rejoin society,” Lexi added.

“We would really rather avoid that if possible,” Abby said. “At least in this world we have phone calls, video calls, visits, pictures, and so on to keep in contact with our kids and grandkids. And the little ones are growing so fast…but if it comes down to a matter of safety, yeah. It can be a last resort.”

“Okay, let’s go ahead and get the main wards fixed before we have to go wake up the children and get them settled,” Kai sighed. They would all be going without sleep for the day, but it wouldn’t be the first or last time.

Chapter Text

Kai and Abby went alone to lift the sleeping spells on the teens, after first checking for anyone that had an accident due to their inability to wake up and casting a few cleaning spells to avoid embarrassment. Something the others would be doing with the younger kids as well. They got them up and headed to the cafeteria where there was an array of baked goods for breakfast. They waited until everyone was eating before addressing them with the new way of things. They offered them the opportunity to choose their own roommates and there would be four rooms each for boys and girls. Only one was assigned as the youngest three boys, two thirteen and one fourteen, would share one of those rooms and the rest would have two people each. They would rotate out meal preparation, two per meal based on room assignments and supervised by Kai. That would start at lunch. They would also be helping with the renovation spells to the two houses that would be combined as their dorms. While each house would keep a kitchen for snacks which would be available at all times within reason, meals would be had in the school cafeteria. Which was why they chose the closest two houses to the school to connect.

While the compound was the size of a small town, and thus were mostly self-sufficient, the next few years at least would involve a lot of ordering things from outside with all the adults gone. Farms were tended magically and helping with those to keep them going would be part of the teen’s ‘education’, as it always had been. Now the bulk of it would just be on them. There were many other jobs that they didn’t have the people to manage though. Food production was the priority mainly because someone needed to care for the animals and the fields would be far more difficult to get running again if left to sit for too long too. No one wanted to waste the sprawling compound and all its resources after all.

That would all take a backseat for the next few days though as the focused on getting their house ready and getting a routine started before adding other things into it. Other than the animals that would be fed and tended of course. Then there would be a few days of adding in the farms for half a day, before throwing in school for the other half of the day after the first week. Not that there wouldn’t be plenty of lessons passed on even before school officially started back. There wasn’t as much grumbling over that since the kids here didn’t usually /get/ a summer break. Instead they had one week off school per month most months. Two weeks in the spring and two weeks in the fall during harvest times.

As they explained how things were going to go from now on and then got started on the house after breakfast, they noticed an immediate difference with the pendants. The teenagers were more rebelliously hostile rather than violently hostile. Kai still had to give more orders and fewer requests than he would like, but it was manageable. They knew it would get worse once they started challenging and tearing down their core beliefs, so the new wards would come in handy either way. Which was also why Kai was the one supervising meal prep where weapons would be available. But for the moment, it was tenable, proving that the trust amulets would at least soothe the worst of the issues. And Kai’s ability to use the Gemini magic to give orders meant that they should be able to get through this without the need to resort to the prison world.

While Kai and Abby were dealing with the teens, the other twelve were waking up the rest of the kids. They’d brought the rest of the already made baked goods for their breakfast, but rather than let them eat in the library, they took advantage of the nice morning to take breakfast out on the lawn. The kids were grouped for the meal based on their new families and their new parents sat down to share the meal with them and start getting to know them. They would be nothing else for the next few days but spending time with their new families, helping the children through the loss of their parents, and getting to know their new parents. Damon and Enzo’s youngest was almost two years old with the oldest being four. A few parentage spells, knowing that their two dads would have had to use surrogates, told them that there were four different surrogates, two of them apparently being twins as well, and they seemed to have been impregnated every four months for a couple years. Probably just gave it long enough to make sure they weren’t twins before moving on to the next, only stopping when Josette agreed to try. Lucas Parker was the father for all of them of course.

Those seven children would be staying in their own home for the time being, with Kai gladly offering it to his dads since he would have to stay between the dorms regardless. Best to keep as much sense of routine as possible. For as many of the kids as possible. The rest of them would be staying in the home of the most and/or the eldest of their kids since they had more than one household represented, but after breakfast the new parents took them to the homes of the others and used magic and vampire speed to pack up all the children’s belongings there to take with them. And all the food from the kitchens while they were at it. Anything else could be handled as time permitted later and they would be getting food from all the now unoccupied houses as needed, leaving everything at the market and most of the harvest for the teens before they started bringing in from outside.

How to resolve the bedroom situation was left to each new set of parents and different ones chose different methods. Aside from Damon and Enzo who just let the kids have their same rooms as they had before. Some of them paired up the kids to share rooms in different configurations. Some of them added walls in existing rooms to give each kid their own room. Some took the middle ground with not quite solid room dividers. All gave the kids input on the choice. Their long experience with construction magic in the boarding house left them in good stead for that project as well as Kai and Abby overseeing the changes to the dorm houses.

After those first few days, they started working towards new routines. Including Damon taking time in the library on a daily basis, often with Enzo and the kids who brought along toys to play with. They were particularly clingy, as expected, not wanting to lose their new parents too, but adjusting well enough otherwise. They never asked the kids to play alone in the library for more than a couple hours at a time though, and included the family library time with nap time. Creating a children’s nap area was one of the first things they did with the library and their kids were hardly the only ones using it. That gave them three hours a day of dedicated library time with the hour nap included. Damon also generally took a couple hours at other points of the day too, finding the new research fascinating. Enzo kept the kids during that just like Damon kept the kids while Enzo helped those working their way through the town collecting the personal belongings of the dead and clearing out the unused houses. Enzo wasn’t the only one having a lot of fun with it.

The park area got plenty of use, though they would need to work out different times for different groups once the teens started earning enough freedom to be allowed park privileges. They didn’t need the playground, of course, but the ball courts and the picnic areas and the like they would appreciate. They did, at least, have the school gym which was something in the meantime. For now though, it was free for the kids anytime and families often coordinated visits. The four families for the little ones especially. There were minor separations between the pre-teen group and the littles, but not completely. The pre-teens were spending part of every day learning what they should have already educationally. The kids between five and nine mostly just played games to close their smaller gaps organized by Nora.

All of the parents of the youngers removed their trust amulets after the first two weeks, once the worst of the hump was over and the kids had the chance to learn to trust the right way. Sheila, Beau, Zach, and Gail would keep theirs for a month, giving the older kids more time. But the major breakthrough that Damon made came barely two weeks into their stay. One that would make all their lives considerably easier.

Chapter Text

Damon called a meeting for all the adults, Kai and Abby included, after all the kids were in bed that night. They were left with monitoring wards, of course, and at vampire speed they could get back to the house if needed in as much time as human parents could get from one end of a large house to another, so there was no worry about leaving them alone. Once they were all gathered, Damon explained what he had. “So, you know how we were talking about coming up with a way of instantaneous transport between here and Mystic Falls?”

“Don’t tell me you came up with something. Already,” Kai said in surprise.

“Well the Gemini did most of the work before abandoning it because of the difficulties,” Damon admitted. “I just had to clean it up a bit and finish a couple loose ends.”

“What kind of difficulties?” Sheila asked curiously.

“Well for one thing, both sides have to perfectly coordinated. Something we can do thanks to our mental links through the soulbonds,” Damon said. “There have to be three people at each end in perfect sync. Those three people have different parts and timing too, making the coordination even more difficult.”

“For anyone without mental links to their partner on the other side,” Abby nodded her understanding.

“Another difficulty is the amount of power each of the six casters have to expend. Only the most powerful witches would have been able to pull it off. But we’re more powerful than normal witches, so also not a concern for us,” Damon continued.

“What exactly does this spell do?” Enzo asked since Damon hadn’t wanted to talk about his ‘project’ until he got it figured out.

“It creates a static portal connecting two points. I figure the one here we can put in the back room of the meeting hall while the one in Mystic Falls can go in my and Enzo’s bedroom. That way they can be secured to keep little feet from stumbling through them accidentally,” Damon answered.

“So theoretically, we could all live here where there’s more space, but still appear to be living in Mystic Falls where the kids can go to school,” Portia smiled brightly at the idea. It was much better than the other option of shutting the boarding house down and turning it into a children’s home.

“All the Mystic Falls kids could come here for play time where theres plenty of room to run around and the park and everything too,” Henry nodded happily.

“Then the kids could get plenty of socialization without packing everyone into the boarding house and still keeping a presence in Mystic Falls. Genius,” Joe grinned proudly at his ‘grandpa’.

“So I’m thinking Enzo can fly himself, Portia, and Joe back to Mystic Falls while Henry, Lexi, and myself run it on this end. You can come back through the portal and be home in time for dinner,” Damon suggested.

“Josh and Rose could move out here with their girls too, and Stefan and Valerie with Damian. There are plenty of empty houses. Then the family floor of the boarding house could be used as a sort of indoor playground for all the kids or study rooms for homework or whatever,” Lexi continued thinking. Everyone else had their own home aside from the Forbes’ who were running the boarding house. They’d all been starting to feel a bit cramped in the boarding house anyway, even with the expansion magic at play. The same at the Bennett house with four generations there.

“Okay, so here’s the layout of the ritual, including ingredients and I have all your parts marked,” Damon handed it out to everyone, not just the six who would be participating. Zach and Gail weren’t likely to read it at all. The fact that they didn’t have magic meant that they didn’t bother learning it, but they did appreciate being included anyway. The couples had been chosen as they were due to Kai and Abby having the bigger job of being on hand for seventeen difficult teenagers. Sheila and Beau had older kids in class for a couple hours a day and there was no point disrupting the routine that was finally settling when there were other options. Nora and Mary Louise just weren’t as good at magic in general as some of the others and they ran the kid’s games most days anyway.

“When are we thinking of doing this?” Enzo asked, already reading through the complicated ritual.

“As soon as the rest of you feel ready to pull it off,” Damon shrugged. “I’ll call Josh if you want to call Stefan to let them know about the new possibility so they can decide whether they want to move or not and they can explain everything else to the rest of the family there unless some of us end up talking to them before then.” They kept in close contact with the family back there, of course, so whoever talked to who when could pass it on.

“We’ll get back to you then,” Henry said distractedly, reading through as well as the group split up, heading back to their sleeping children.

Josh and Stefan’s families would both agree to move if the portals worked as planned, and it was two days before the three couples that would be doing the casting were comfortable with their parts. Which included practicing the timing with each other. So, the morning of the third day, the three that were leaving headed to the airport after breakfast. It was evening by the time they landed in Mystic Falls with the different time zones but that side had all the ingredients and setup done by the time they got there. It was the middle of play time for all the Portland kids so the three parents casting were easily able to slip away for the hour this would take.

Even with their greater amounts of power it was a draining ritual and the back and forth between the couples on different ends took a lot of concentration just as the timing between the three that were together on either end did. Finally, the portal sprung to life though, the three crystals sunk into the wall that would be holding it. Both sides took a moment to celebrate that much before testing it. Enzo grabbed one of the kids’ balls that had found it’s way into their room and tossed it through. Damon caught it, perfectly intact, on the other side and tossed it back the same way.

Damon then sent the compelled cat that they’d inherited through, just to test it with a living thing and the cat wound itself around Enzo’s legs begging for attention. They wouldn’t have risked the cat if they hadn’t been at least ninety percent sure it was fine. Enzo chuckled as he bent down to pet the cat before shooing it back through. It hadn’t even seemed at all disoriented. Either direction. It probably would have been different if the portals were outside with the rapid weather change and different scents and appearance and the like, but this way it was like stepping from one room to another and Chester was completely unbothered by it.

Since he made it back safely too, they could then start transferring people and stuff. Josh, Rose, Stefan, and Valerie had already been all packed and ready so Josh, Rose, and Valerie stepped through with the kids first. Rose and Valerie took the kids to find houses to claim, led by those waiting to the best options. Josh stood back catching and organizing all their stuff that Stefan slid through from the other side. Even with magical packing and no furniture three toddlers made for a lot of stuff. Once everything was sent, Stefan stepped through as well and both guys levitated their stuff behind them as they followed the mental instructions from their wives to their new homes.

Not far behind them were Enzo, Portia, and Joe who had packed up the rest of their stuff that had been left behind in what was supposed to be a short trip to check things out. The rest of them could go back and pack up whatever else they wanted to bring anytime now that the portals were running. They took quick trips home with their stuff before getting back to the park for the last hour of ‘play time’ that the new three toddlers were quick to join in on. The rest of the toddlers from Mystic Falls would be joining the next day, coming through the boarding house portal. Probably with their parents who would want to see the place and meet the new kids in the family. Even Caroline and Noel had put other people in charge of the boarding house for the day so they could come for what was shaping up to be a big party.

Kai and Abby would even hold attendance over the heads of the teens for good behavior. They could hardly convince them that siphons and witchpires were just people like anyone else if they didn’t get to interact with them and there would be more than one adult per teen to smack them down if they got out of line. And they would be watching carefully. Especially with as soon as it was. There were certain lessons they wanted made clear as soon as possible before heels could be dug in too deep though. Seeing with their own eyes the sweet babies that would have been murdered without a second thought thanks to their beliefs would do more good than all the lectures in the world. They hoped. Anyone misbehaving, or worse, trying to harm a little kid, would be confined to their rooms and have extra chores for a month.

Chapter Text

The party the next day went as well as anyone could have hoped. The younger kids had heard their parents talking about ‘bad people’ of course, but didn’t equate those ‘bad people’ with their new friends any more than they had with their new families. Had there been siphons growing up there and they had the experience of seeing them mistreated, it may have been more difficult, but all any of them had was verbal indoctrination. Which didn’t start getting detailed enough for them to connect the dots until they were old enough to understand it. Generally around the age of ten. Which meant that the pre-teens still struggled a bit.

The last almost three weeks with their new families had seen quite a bit of pushback and standoffishness, but seeing all the babies that were supposed to be ‘bad’ caused something of a disconnect. While they did have their issues, like any toddlers did, regarding misbehavior, they were generally good kids. Their frequent socialization from the crib made them good at making friends. They were well used to sharing and came across as generous, affectionate, sweet children. Aside from the normal tantrums and pouting that were usually short-lived. The pre-teens watched them confusedly for a little while before tentatively wading in to get a closer look.

The teenagers were watched carefully for any misbehavior, including trying to poison anyone’s minds, but they’d been sufficiently threatened and were very aware of the eyes on them. They were coming to a lot of the same conclusions as the pre-teens, but had a lot more of the brainwashing to overcome too. They mostly spent the party sulking around the edges, sitting all over the picnic tables. They were watching the little demons just as closely as the adults were watching them, but for most of them their hatred made way for confusion as the afternoon wore on. Some quicker than others. And some made it farther down that road than others.

It was after ‘snack time’ two hours into the party, when the first of the teens wandered away from the sulky group to get a closer look. One of the thirteen year old boys who had far less indoctrination than the older teens. He was followed soon after by a seventeen year old girl who just thought all the babies were so adorable and couldn’t resist anymore. Over the next couple hours, three more of the teen group wandered in to play. The roommates of the first two. They were watched much more carefully, but didn’t do anything wrong. Unless one counted being surprised by the toddlers being so nice. But Damian didn’t even realize there was an implied insult in the surprised compliment, and just beamed brightly at the older girl he’d just given his toy to and plopped to sit in front of her waiting for her to play.

When Hannah looked nervously back at Abby, the first one whose eyes she met, she just got an encouraging smile and nod, so she started playing with the sweet little boy. When he touched her at one point and she felt him siphoning magic from her she instinctively jerked away in horror, but when the little boy started tearing up at the rejection, she stopped and thought about it. That hadn’t hurt at all. It didn’t feel ‘evil’ in any way. She didn’t notice Kai moving to step in or Abby taking his arm and gesturing him to watch. She just furrowed her brow at the toddler with the quivering lip and tentatively reached a hand back towards him. His tears disappeared immediately as he smiled again and took her hand. She smiled back when she felt him taking just a little bit of magic. Magic that she was replenishing as fast as he took it.

That was when Kai did come up to give her an explanation rather than step in this time. “They can’t take much magic at once when they’re little. We teach them as they grow up to me more conscious of it so they don’t accidentally hurt anyone. They’re able to understand that long before they can take enough to do any damage.”

“Why’s that so bad then?” Hannah asked confusedly. It didn’t sound any different than them learning magic and having to understand the dangers and potential to hurt people.

“It’s not. That’s the whole point. Our magic may work differently, but in the end we’re all the same,” Kai put a hand on her shoulder and gave a squeeze. “You’re welcome to pull away if you want to. He was reacting to the strength of your reaction before rather than the pulling away itself,” he felt the need to let her know before heading back to his wife, daughter, and son in law.

“You really are adorable,” Hannah told Damian as he let her hand go, having enough magic for the moment, and turned his attention back to the toy they’d been playing with. “What’s your name?”

“Damian,” he answered with his prominent three year old lisp. “Who you?”

“I’m Hannah,” she answered with a bright smile.

“Dis Dack,” Damian told her as Jack came to see what they were doing.

“Jack?” she confirmed, getting two nods. “Hi Jack. I’m Hannah.” It didn’t take her long to figure out that Jack didn’t have magic at all and was just a human. If they could coexist, why couldn’t they all, she wondered.

When things were going so well, Kai started making the rounds with a suggestion. Even the most stubborn teens weren’t causing trouble, so maybe everyone could gather in the school cafeteria for dinner too before breaking up the party. Everyone agreed with the idea so when Kai grabbed the two teens who were on dinner duty that night, a few more of the adults joined them to help with the extra load. That those two teens were among those that had been questioning things meant that there was a bit of conversation during the preparation of dinner, particularly with the new people, where some of those questions got answered, giving them even more to think about. Those two, once dinner was ready, mingled in with the bigger group, joining the other five teens who had already ‘crossed the rubicon’. The other ten still sat a table to themselves, half of them still figuring out and the other half digging in their heels.

Unlike with the littler kids, peer pressure was more likely to work in their favor with the teens. When the prejudice had no basis in fact, reason could usually win over. And they would listen to their peers much easier than they would parents, teachers, mentors, or any other adults. Which was why, when it was suggested to separate out the still troublesome ones, it was decided against. The five who had been questioning also switched sides within the next month, leaving it twelve against five, and soon against four as a roommate switched too. Those last four, including Peter who they wouldn’t let leave despite being eighteen, were the toughest nuts to crack. That they were the oldest and so close to each other didn’t help. One set of best friends and roommates dating another set of best friends and roommates.

The problem four just continued to get worse as they found themselves in the minority and the rest of the kids were always looking at them like they were such horrible people when they were the only ones that were staying loyal to their families and everything the Gemini stood for in their minds. They started acting out more, starting fights, even getting into vandalism. The wards were tightened to prevent magic from getting involved and they were watched more closely. They always got caught before any real damage was done, but that wasn’t the point. Eventually, four months after they arrived, Kai and Abby decided to take more drastic measures. They talked to four other older kids, ones who could hold their own, and got agreements to switch rooms temporarily. The four of them would be split up with more moderate roommates. Roommates that had a way to call for immediate help just in case violence came into play. The wards /should/ alert them, but they didn’t want to take any chances.

That did, thankfully, start doing some good. Slowly but surely. As did the school curriculum that was focused on the horrors that bigotry can lead to. Among the reading list were books like The Diary of Anne Frank, Beloved by Toni Morrison, Burn My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, and other similar novels. It would end up taking a whole year before Kai and Abby were comfortable calling them ‘graduated’ from what they secretly called ‘the school of being a decent human being’. By then most of the other teens had not only moved on from that, but had studied hard with other adults and the older ones had already taken high school equivalence tests as home schooled students and were figuring out what they wanted out of their futures. The younger teens were moved on to Mystic Falls high and were getting their first taste of the world outside the compound.

Chapter Text

Most of the rest of the summer was spent with all the kids just getting to know each other and having fun and figuring out their new lives while preparing those of school age to start school. Come September there were twelve kids between the ages of five and nine registered at Mystic Falls Elementary. They all had the boarding house as their address of record and commuted by portal. That was when the lessons for the preteens picked up more too, getting them ready for middle school after the winter break. They could get ready sooner if they pushed it, but didn’t see any need. So they spent half the day learning academics and the other half learning magic, music, art, and any other extracurriculars.

Damon and Enzo saw their new eldest two off for their first day of school, wearing magical suppression bands just like the rest of them. Even the older kids would for a while as they got used to being around humans. Most of them had never left the Gemini compound and never needed to hide their magic. Next year would see their next three going and the youngest two the year after that. With the start of the school year, there were also more organized ‘programs’ for the toddlers. A few afternoons a week they would all gather for arts and crafts or nature hikes or the like. Those were done either in Mystic Falls or Portland depending on the day.

It was October when, during one of their nature hikes in Mystic Falls, the unexpected happened. They’d all pretty much forgotten about the dung beetles that they presumed had either died or moved on elsewhere. It was very easy for someone with a human mind, even if they /did/ listen to the animal instincts, to end up dead if they weren’t careful, and they didn’t have much faith in those self-righteous morons to adapt to their new reality. Thus, they’d been put out of their mind long ago with everything else they had going on. This particular hike was for the three and four year olds since they tended to split them in half due to sheer numbers. And plenty of adults were there to supervise which everyone would be particularly happy about when things took a turn.

Greg had only survived to the end of the battle because he wasn’t fighting that hard. In fact, he had been doing his best to stay out of it. Talking about wiping out freakish monsters was one thing. Coming face to face with little babies that he was expected to kill was completely different. Once they were gone and it was just the adults, it had been easier, but that doubt had set in enough that he was only half-heartedly participating in the battle, which meant that he hadn’t been targeted specifically as the ‘monsters’ tore through the rest of them like a hot knife through butter. Those doubts had been what kept him close as all the others took off. He stayed close to watch this family, see if he could find out why they needed to die. But he couldn’t see it. He was even becoming more than a little fond of them. He was careful not to be spotted though. No one ever paid attention to random bug unless it drew attention to itself after all.

Greg’s bug mind and human mind were always at war with each other to some degree. It made it difficult to think through consequences of his actions. Which was why, when he saw his baby cousin walking through the Mystic Falls woods with a group that included some of the little ones that lived there, his happiness to see him combined with his curiosity had him flying that direction before he even realized what he was doing. He attached to David’s jacket and then almost got knocked off as the four year old started to freak out. Which ended up getting his barbed leg stuck in the wool jacket.

“It otay,” Marie Bennett, just having turned three last month along with her twin sister, calmed him down and plucked the bug off without a trace of fear. “Tee? Dust a bug.”

“Daddy! What tind bug dis?” Damian called out to Stefan, pointing at Marie’s hand.

“Oh that’s a…” it was just dawning on Stefan and he was in the process of reaching out to slap it out of Marie’s hand when her siphon of the magic in it finished and the bug became a man.

Stefan was quick to push all three children behind him while throwing up a barrier spell around the man. He would have cast something much different if not for the twelve little children surrounding them. “Gweg? Why you bug?” David asked confusedly.

“I’m sorry! Peace! I surrender! Whatever!” Greg held up his hands as he was quickly surrounded by all six adults on the trip.

“Dat my tousin,” David said as though that should make everything okay.

“What are you doing here?” Valerie asked, motioning Nora to take the kids elsewhere. She and Stefan would catch up.

“I’m sorry I attacked you guys. I really am. I never wanted to hurt kids. They told me that you were all evil, but I know better now. I’ve been watching you all and you’re not evil. They were wrong. I’m sorry I followed them. Please don’t make me a bug again. I’ll make a magical vow. Whatever you want,” the boy babbled.

“How old are you?” Stefan asked with furrowed brow. That would definitely make a difference in his decision.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to keep track of time as a bug. I might be nineteen now or something. I…I turned eighteen the day before I became a bug,” he thought of a way to answer truthfully. “I saw my cousin and wanted to say hello and moved before I even thought.”

“Your cousin is adopted now. By my brother. Which makes him my nephew. All of the children left behind at the Gemini compound have been adopted,” Stefan told him, watching for his reaction.

“He looks like he’s well taken care of and happy and healthy so I have no objections. I won’t cause any trouble. I swear,” Greg assured them.

“Would you be willing to go back to the compound. To participate in the classes for the teenagers to teach them that hate is always wrong?” Valerie asked, conscious of the fact that he was less than a week older than their oldest ‘student’ and but for a chance of fate, he would never have been on that battlefield to begin with.

“Yeah. Definitely. I’ve seen with my own eyes how wrong it is and I’ll tell everyone else as much,” Greg promised tears filling his eyes at the prospect. “Just please let me go home?”

“I’ll take him. Explain to Kai. You can catch up with the kids,” Stefan told Valerie.

“Okay. Just be careful,” Valerie told him, pulling him into a kiss before dropping her part of the barrier spell.

“Come on then,” Stefan told him, leading him back to the house, asking a few probing questions about just how much ‘watching’ he’d done while he was a bug. “I’ll explain later,” he told a confused Caroline as he went through, heading up to the top floor. He would only be able to get up there because Stefan was taking him, and once he was through he wouldn’t be able to come back again. Very few people had access to the portal for obvious reasons.

Greg’s eyes widened in awe as he got a look at the portal, even more so when they walked through it and were in Portland. It took them three days to drive all the way across the country and they just got there in a single step. “Follow me,” Stefan jolted him out of his stupor, heading for the dorm houses, but they went to the structure connecting them where Stefan knocked on the door. “Hey Kai. Feel like taking on another delinquent?”

“Okay…” Kai said leadingly, inviting them both in. Once he got the story, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “We might need to call off the nature hikes in Mystic Falls. This one turned out alright thankfully, but in the future…”

“The others all left. Or got eaten. Or something. I don’t know. I just know that no other dung beetle I ran across showed any signs of being anything more than a normal beetle and they all scattered after the battle. Those that were fast enough to get away from the vanishing in the first place,” Greg let him know.

“We can send a couple extra people on future nature walks there just to be safe,” Stefan suggested.

“Or even better, throw up a ward to repel dung beetles around the areas we walk,” Kai decided. He would make sure it was done before the next one. “Come on, Greg. Let’s get you settled. We’ll need to switch up the rooms, and make another room while we’re at it.” They could split up their group of three. While they headed into the boy’s house, Kai let him know the way of things, including the chores and kitchen duty rotation. He wouldn’t regret letting Greg in. The new oldest boy there was an excellent influence on the others.

Chapter Text

The kids continued to grow up between Mystic Falls and Portland, making good use of the portal between the two locations. The two older teen couples stayed together even through their enlightenment and it wasn’t long before they were adding new kids to the compound. The younger teens, who had still been young enough to make it to high school mostly went to college, where they found partners and moved back to the compound. Since those partners were human, the soulbonding ritual was offered to give them magic as well, and it was accepted in most cases. Since neither party was immortal, they would just have their normal lifetimes together, but that wasn’t a problem for anyone. The pre-teens and younger kids followed their example for the most part, though some of them did pair off with each other, skip college, and stay in the compound that they grew up in.

All three of Sarah and Jeremy’s human children found love in siphon witches that they grew up with. Jack Gilbert and Marie Bennett fell in love and Marie let her twin sister Emily carry the Bennett name so she could continue the Gilbert one. Mirabelle Gilbert and Damian Salvatore became a couple, bringing the Salvatore name and bloodline back together. Galen Gilbert and Kenny Forbes became a couple as well and they just hyphenated their names and became the Gilbert-Forbes family. That meant that all of the children of the Salvatore Bennett clan became witchpires and the immortal family continued to grow.

Of the other siphon children, Liza Forbes married Taylor Lockwood who didn’t activate his werewolf curse before he bonded with his wife and became a vampire. Their children would continue to carry the curse that no one knew they had, until eventually one of their grandchildren activated it thanks to a car accident. They managed to handle it though and expanded the ritual clearing in Mystic Falls to cover most of the remaining forest and tightened those wards up so she could have room to run. Grace Salvatore married and bonded Preston Fell, which gave the witchpire clan control over all five founder lines cementing their place in Mystic Falls. Liam Forbes, Abel Salvatore, and Emily Bennett found love with other Gemini children they grew up with who, after their bonding, became witchpires as well.

All of the new witchpires had more children before turning, a lot of them twins. And twins weren’t so much of a curse anymore since the elders of the family hadn’t taken long, once they had a merged twin to study, to figure out how to make the merge unnecessary. Changing the leadership of the Gemini to not have to be a merged twin took much longer, but since Kai was immortal, no one was too worried about it. Kai and Abby found peace and happiness in their leadership of the new Gemini. While they would take time away every now and then to do some traveling and see the world, for the most part they were good right where they were. They even ended up having and raising more children from the stored genetic samples they kept a few generations later.

Most of the family only waited one more generation for those who wanted to raise children of their own from the start. While Rose didn’t have any eggs preserved, she was happy to raise Josh’s children that she even got to birth with an egg donor. Lexi did the same with Joe’s children. Henry didn’t even have that much involvement with the birth of him and Portia’s children, the next generation of Wattles’, but he loved them just the same. Sheila and Beau were the same, having a few more children to raise together from babies. Neither Nora nor Mary Louise had anything stored, and would have needed a sperm donor anyway, but they were always happy to adopt.

Zach and Gail waited a few more generations to have more children as did the generation below them that marked the first stage of the expansion of the family. Zach and Gail’s children were siphons, just as Sarah had been, but Sarah’s grandchildren marked the end of the skipping a generation. The siphon gene was just as prevalent in their line as it was in Kai’s. And would all siphons going forward. Just as magic intended. The union of the magical races would become most prevalent. Well, all but werewolves who were content in their forests and they became allies as the witchpires were happy to ward up large areas of forest to prevent the human expansion into them. The magical world was at peace, aside from a few outliers, for the first time since the creation of the second magical species in werewolves and magic was pleased.

Damon and Enzo, by that point, had raised ten children together, eleven for Damon including Josh, and those ten had practically been back to back, so they were done for a while. In fact, once that group of children grew up and had children of their own, they went out to do some more traveling. Learn some more magic from ancient tribes, check in on the ones they already knew, even find some that were lost where they could learn from the ruins or anything else left behind. They would, of course, keep in close contact with the family and even visit often. Especially since they figured out how to use magic to charge electric devices as well as get a magical signal even in the deepest forest under the strongest wards. They even had an instant transportation method home in case of emergency. It wasn’t the most comfortable ride. In fact, it was pretty miserable all told, but if it was urgent enough to need it, that would be the last thing on their minds.

They weren’t the only ones taking up traveling once they finished raising kids. Most everyone did at some point, some more than others, but eternity was a long time to stay in the same place. Zach and Gail were the most common travelers, tending to feel out of place as the only ones in the compound, and eventually in Mystic Falls too, without magic. That did get resolved a few decades later when they both fell in love with another woman who was brought into their soulbond. A siphon woman who shared magic with her two bondmates. The soulbond wasn’t limited to two with as common as polyamory was in the ancient tribes that came up with the soulbond ritual after all. They weren’t the only triad in the clan.

By the time kids of the adopted Gemini were ready for school, there were enough of them to warrant putting a school at the compound. A school that combined academics and magic. The portal to Mystic Falls meant that those there could attend as well. The kids from Mystic Falls, including all the founders by that generation, just claimed to be attending a private school in a nearby city and no one questioned it. Sheila Bennett got back to teaching at the Gemini Secondary School as they called it, and was headmistress as well. Nora was headmistress of the Gemini Elementary school and one of the most popular teachers. Between Enzo and Beau, and Damon to a lesser extent, music flourished in the future generations. Thanks to Jeremy and Caroline, art did the same. There had been enough sporty kids when they took over the Gemini to have people to teach that too.

Over the next few generations magic ended up taking over Mystic Falls as well as the family expanded, so they had two towns for the renamed Salvatore Coven. The Gemini name was kept only in the schools as a remembrance of the past. As Mystic Falls became all magical, and wards were placed around the town keeping humans out, the magical portal was moved to a community center and out of the private rooms of the Salvatore House, which became Salvatore Magical University. They took witches from anywhere in the world, not just from the Salvatore coven. There and in the Gemini Schools in Portland a few years after opening. Just increasing the peace that was brought to the magical world as more and more witches were brought in. Many of them marrying into the coven, though they kept their magical names and lines under the Salvatore Coven umbrella, just like the Bennetts did. And the Wattles, Gilberts, Fells, Lockwoods, Forbes, and so on.

While Kai had done away with the magical oaths to the leader, the lesser connection that anyone previously sworn was born with, passing down the line in perpetuity was still there. It was still a relatively large pool of magic as those lines expanded too, just not quite as much as it would be with everyone sworn into the active connection. Especially since they found a way to prevent everyone connected from dying if Kai did. Magic itself would choose the next leader when and if that happened. Or when Kai chose to retire. Even keeping it in his bloodline had more than a hundred possibilities within a few generations. Within a few hundred years, ninety percent of all witches were ‘Salvatores’ and three quarters of them were witchpires. Those last few would hang on for a very long time though. Within five hundred years, humans were extinct. Most of them had been wiped out due to their wars and destructive tendencies. The survivors ended up marrying into magic. Between the lower population giving the Earth more breathing room and the nurturing of that from the witches, the planet recovered nicely from the beating it had taken and magic spread to every corner of the world, led by the witchpire/werewolf alliance. Magic was pleased.