Chapter 28

Chapter 28

A plan

"Harder, put every ounce of strength you have into the strike, that goes for both of you" I criticised. I had been training Elena and Caroline for over an hour at the moment trying to get them to be able to use a stake effectively. "vampires have tougher skin than humans if you hold back at all it won't go deep enough to kill the vampire and then they will kill you" I continued before instructing them to continue. I stood waiting for them to strike watching as each strike they made gradually increased in effectiveness. "Remember to twist the stake as you drive it in" I said, getting a slightly annoyed look from Caroline. Perhaps I was being too hard on them, but they did ask me to train them to be able to defend against a vampire and going easy on them would only get them killed.

Bonnie was missing from our training; usually, I would be helping her train her magic at the same time as I taught Elena and Caroline. Unfortunately, a few days ago she released a lot of magic and since then has been scared of her power, resulting in her avoiding training it with me. It was expected to be fair, as she had obliterated everything in the room. Luckily, I had sensed the blast coming and managed to shield Elena, Caroline, Alexandria and even Bonnie herself from the debris. I did get impaled by a few dozen flying objects though, and lost a fair amount of furniture in the process. I would give her a few more days before going to convince her to come back and let me teach her how to control the power better, for now, though I had two other students to teach.

I let them strike at me, knowing full well that they did not have a chance at piercing my skin which was even tougher than a regular vampires. Yet their strikes were not too bad, certainly enough to at least pierce a regular vampire's skin, though I doubted they would go deep. Both came at me again, striking my skin with their stakes. The strikes were good, but I saw that they had both started to slow. The training was starting to take its toll. "Let's call it a day, you have both improved a fair amount, but you need to rest" I said, gaining thankful looks from both Elena and Caroline. "Sure thanks Asmund, I think if we continued much longer I wouldn't be able to feel my arms" Caroline responded with a grin on her face.

They walked over to join Lexi and Alexandria both of whom had been observing the training, watching with interest as the two young women improved. Lexi especially seemed to be carefully observing them, she knew that Caroline was the daughter of the woman who tried to kill her, yet she had remained silent on the fact that I was training her. Perhaps the silver ring inlaid with lapiz had something to do with that, most vampires, after all, would never get a daylight ring, yet I had given one to her willingly. Yet I noticed every time she looked at me her eyes held a slight bit of suspicion, but even more was a look almost like I was a puzzle she could not quite understand.

I looked around at the small group, more specifically the jewellery each wore, daylight rings for myself, Alexandria and Lexi. Whereas Elena and Caroline wore necklaces to make compulsion useless against the man, and all four wore the rings to alert me if their lives were in danger. Simple magic really, but it has been helpful to have. I wore some rings, the main one being the daylight ring that I did not need at all times, but it was still useful for me as my resistance to the sun was still far from perfect. The rest had many different uses, one protected against the brotherhood's daggers, although they were destroyed. I had learned that being paranoid would keep you alive. The most important one was to give me immunity to anyone trying to erase or control my memories and mind; they could still view my mind, like Bonnie did, but that was it.

"How did we do Mr Mikaelson"? Caroline asked with a slight nervous edge in her voice. Caroline who always needed to be assured that she was doing well, "You did well, though don't get overconfident, especially in this subject. Vampires will always have the advantage, so only use these teachings if you need to" I assured Caroline while also warning of the truth.

I was impressed by their progress, yet worry still found me. A letter had been delivered in the early morning from Europe, specifically from Louis, my first sired vampire. We had both stuck to letters even when technology increased as he was slow to change. His letter told of a few worrying things, a civil war in the Strix due to Elijah's absence, Tristan had since moved away from the rules Elijah put in place to keep the organisation intact. Aya had led a large group of loyalists, separating from the main group and feigning to enter the lands controlled by my sire line.

The letter also spoke of a couple of new groups, from Kol and Finnish sire lines, building strength and moving into territory controlled by the remaining Strix. Louis had warned that a war may be on the horizon, complete and utter carnage between all sire lines. The only sire lines that actually stayed intact were mine and Rebekahs, as we were both still involved in the politics of vampire. I had feared that war may be inevitable between the sire lines, if only my siblings and I could have stayed a united **** we would have been able to snub out any chance of war.

The last thing it spoke of was two threats, large groups of werewolves gathering power, joining together in larger packs. They had also seemingly been picking off vampires in places where vampire power was not completely solid. The last threat was a few covens of witches seeming to be turning against vampires. Witches out of all the supernatural species they always seemed to be put in the best light. Yet I knew when left to their own devices they were the worst, sacrificial magic, burning entire towns of innocents to ash and far more. I knew that they could become the most serious threat to the vampire species as a whole.

All that information concerned me, but I could do very little about it at the moment. Right now, the best thing for me to do is secure Mystic Falls, leaving Louis and my heirs to keep peace in Europe. They were, after all, capable of doing exactly that; magic was the best weapon after all.

"Lexi, I wish to speak to you alone", I said, my first words in the conversation they were having. "Of course, Asmund, let's take a walk," she responded, getting up to leave the room. We left the others to there conversation to find somewhere quieter. "We need to move forward, my plan to gather power in Mystic Falls needs to be sped up" I stated watching as her face changed to one of confusion. "How so Asmund, you said yourself that it is almost impossible to get rid of the founding families vampire hunting group without destroying most of the town" she responded.

Thinking for a second, I started to think about the best way to get rid of the Founding Fathers' power. The truth is they were smart, the entire town rested on their shoulders, the mayor, the sheriff, the head doctor at the local hospital, hell, even the headteacher of the high school, all of them were founding family members. All of them were also in the town's vampire hunting group, taking all or even the majority out could cause havoc across town. Usually, I would just compel any of them that I needed to, unfortunately, that would not work as they were all on vervain.

"The first thing we need to do is destroy the towns' vervain supply, luckily I know where they get it all from", I told her, waiting for the inevitable question. "Where is it then"? She asked me, with a smile, I responded, "In the possession of Zack Salvatore, grown inside his family home, the question is, do you want to risk infiltrating his home and destroying or stealing it?" I answered. "No, it's too risky if I am caught, I would have to fight off Damon and maybe Stefan, it is also a bit suspicious if the vervain is all destroyed", she spoke, adding the least bit after thinking for a moment.

"Okay, you are right, it would be suspicious, the only other option then is a bit of arson, we could make it look like their fireplace was not put out and the fire spread". At my words she nodded, obviously not happy about us torching the Salvatore home but having no other solution. "Won't they just find more vervain"? She questioned. "You would think that, but what is not well known is that only one specific strain of vervain can harm vampires. The strain originally came from a tree that gave vampires life; as such, the original vampires did what they could to try and wipe out that strain of vervain. They may not have been completely successful, but they did make it extremely rare, to the point that it is mostly owned in small amounts by witches. I have no idea how Zack managed to get such a large amount of it. His family must have been growing it for decades" I explained, Lexi nodding along with my words.

"What about after we destroy the vervain, we can't compel all of them", she said, obviously referring to the Lockwood family, as they were werewolves. "That's true, the mayor, Richard, will have to die. I can cast a curse on him, killing him quickly and painlessly, but most importantly, it will look like natural causes. After he dies, his wife Carol will take his place. As a human, she can be compelled, allowing us to undermine the group and control them" I explained my plan. Lexi thought on that for a while before agreeing to it, though I could tell she was hesitant to kill an innocent man.

"Then, after all that is do,ne, we can implement the same structures that I put in place in Europe and keep the peace between humans and vampires. Most importantly, it will keep the loss of life to a minimum, it's truly the only way to save as many lives as possible," I continued. "Okay, we will do that, like you said, promise me though that you will try to keep the loss of life to a minimum, please Asmund". "Lexi, you have my word that I will keep the loss of life to a minimum, nobody will die that does not need to". She seemed far more certain of the plan after I gave her my word.

Before we could continue our planning we were interrupted by Alexandria busting through the door. "Father, we have a problem. Damon and Stefan have kidnapped Bonnie to perform some ritual. We have to help her, we need to stop whatever they are planning".