Dragon

"Sosuke." Alaric says while knocking on the teen's door, knowing that he's the only student locking his.

"What?" Sosuke asks shortly after, peering out of the door, only wearing shorts.

"I'm about to talk to Landon again and I could use your help." Alaric tells him.

"Help?" Sosuke asks confused, scratching the scar over his cheek.

"Yeah. I would like to convince him that he has to leave before we whammy him." Alaric replies.

"Why? It doesn't matter. No one ever showed me that courtesy before, or anyone I think." Sosuke replies, Hope stepping out of her room in her pjs behind the headmaster.

"That is exactly why I'd like to start. I have started to look at your file." Alaric tells him.

"Well great for me. Give me a few minutes." He says sarcastically and glances at Hope one more time before closing his door and dressing himself.

"Can't he just stay or at least keep his memory?" Hope asks solemnly and Alaric turns to her.

"No. It's too dangerous. No matter how much you may like him. All your good intentions and feelings don't matter when he can die any second he's in this school." Alaric tells her supportively.

"I don't get it. Why do you let Sosuke stay here then? He's just a human." She asks loudly, annoyed at her father figure.

"Hah, all of a sudden I am human huh? Make up your mind." Sosuke scoffs, brushing past both after stepping out of his room.

"What is he talking about?" Alaric asks.

"Don't ask." Hope replies, shaking her head.

"Anyways, my decision is final. Landon has to go." Alaric tells her.

"But why. Answer me. You're human, Sosuke is human, why can't he be here too?" Hope asks.

"Because he's not cut out for this. I have made many mistakes and learned over many years how to handle supernatural creatures and Sosuke ... might become even better than me." Alaric says.

"Yeah, become. Why couldn't Landon?" Hope protests.

"Come on, do you really think Landon and Sosuke are cut from the same cloth? You heard how I found Sosuke. And apparently his history with the supernatural goes deeper than I ever imagined." Alaric says, looking down before leaving and joining Sosuke in the headmasters office.

Minutes later Landon is brought into the room and he sits down on the chair in the room while Sosuke leans against a wall.

"24 hours have passed. We're going to erase your memories of this place and what happened." Alaric tells Landon.

"Why? He told me he's human. Why can't I stay then? I can work, I'll cook. clean, anything." Landon begs.

"Landon you have become just aware of the supernatural and have no idea what these creatures are like. Vampires are driven by the feed ans the joy of the kill. Wolves can't control themselves very well and witches when provoked have created some of the world's worst atrocities." Alaric tells him.

"But I... I just want a way out of my life." Landon sighs tiredly.

"I get that. But this is not the way." Alaric tells him.

"So how come you are fine here?" Landon asks Sosuke.

"Because other than Hope, I'm able to and willing to kill every single creature in this school if it comes down to it." Sosuke tells him sternly.

"But you haven't, right?" Landon asks, concerned for his brother.

"No one from the school at least." Sosuke replies.

"Please have MG come in now." Alaric says over his intercom and the Vampire enters, compelling Landon once again to forget everything and to go home.

Landon however isn't affected again and just leaves all the while keeping his memories.

Later that day

Dorian Williams, one of the school's teachers and a trusted comrade of Alaric calls him to the mystical object museum inside the school.

"What's going on?" Alaric asks.

"The alarm didn't trigger, no clue why." Dorian answers, showing him the broken glass and a missing item of a podium.

"What was it?" Alaric asks.

"Some kind of dagger from the 12th century. Nothing else known." Dorian tells him.

"I think I know who took it." Alaric says and checks something before seeking out Hope, who was training by the docks, by herself this time.

"How do you know it was him?" Hope asks, after Alarik told her what he thinks happened.

"A mystic artifact goes missing at the same time as a too good to be true hapless human? You do the math."

"That would make him a liar okay? And I have known my fair share of liars and he isn't one. There was nothing about him..." Hope tells the headmaster in disbelief.

"Hope." He tries to stop her, Sosuke arriving at the same time at the docks.

"What is going on?" He asks, but Alaric shakes his head motioning for Sosuke to stay quiet.

"You don't understand Dr. Saltzman, There is no way that the one time in my life I choose to get close to someone that they turn out to be a liar. It's not possible. I'm not that stupid." Hope says in protest.

"When he walked out that door we compelled him to go home. We checked, he didn't. Which means his memory wasn't erased. He was pretending it was. And if his mind can't be controlled by a supernatural being then that can only mean one thing. He is a supernatural being himself." Alaric explains.

That evening Alaric calls for a student meeting and addresses them "For 10 years we have gone undetected. We have been safe. But tonight I ned your help to find Landon Kirby before he exposes us all. He stole a artifact and faked being compelled, so it's entirely possible that this was not a spontaneous action but a deliberate plan. So be careful and keep your eyes open."

On the way out of the meeting room and back to the dorms, Hope sees Josie light her ex's jacket on fire when she intentionally flirts with other girls.

Hope follows her to her and Lizzie's room and asks for her help in tracking Landon, using dark magic because she wants to fix the problem she helped cause.

With the spell Hope can see Landon on a bus on route 29 with the knife in his jacket and sees a flash of red.

|The next morning|

Hope, Alaric and Sosuke are getting filled in by the sheriff, who knows to look the other way when it comes to the supernatural.

"Let's see what we have." Sosuke says and is the first to step onto the bus which is burned to the crisp along with its passengers, Hope looking around the burned people with shock, disgust and anger.

"That's some hot flame." Sosuke says, seeing metal parts of the bus bend and distorted.

"Are we really sure this was Landon? I mean I saw him almost crap his pants at the sight of a wolf. He didn't even know it was Hope." Sosuke asks the headmaster quietly.

"Hope used dark magic to track him here and she said she saw the dagger glow a bright red. So it could be the fault or misuse of the artifact." Alaric replies.

"Well we won't get far here until the Sheriff is done. So at the moment, you need to go back and have a meeting with Emma Tig." Alaric says strictly and drives the two of them back while Sosuke wants to stay behind and look for Landon already.

"Well his tracks aren't hidden at all. So either he is a normal dude or he just sucks super hard." Sosuke says to himself when he's standing in the woods, having followed a trail for a couple of minutes.

Hearing movement nearby Sosuke turns in the direction and whips out his switchblade.

"Landon? If that's you come peacefully or I'll have to hurt you." Sosuke says loudly.

The noise comes nearer and moments later a woman steps out from behind a tree, glaring at him when she sees his knife.

"Sorry. I'm looking for someone." He says holding his hands up in a surrendering gesture, only for her to spew out a blast of fire at him.

Sosuke rolls over his shoulder to the side, where a tree would block the stream of flames.

"Oh damn." He curses, hiding behind a bigger tree.

He waits patiently and listens to her walking around slowly, looking for him obviously.

Once she's close enough Sosuke rounds the tree and slides underneath her stream of fire, slashing at her leg and making her buckle to one knee, which he uses to stab his knife in her back, between her shoulder blades.

"That did the trick." He sighs relieved and takes out his phone, but sees its remains burned on the floor melted into pieces.

"Great. And I still need to find Landon." Sosuke sighs and looks around for a good half hour before finding his trail again and follows it into the storm cellar.

"Whoah, I surrend... wait it's you." Landon says relieved.

"Where is the dagger?" Sosuke asks.

"Dagger? Oh, I must've lost it." He replies looking confused himself.

"But we have to hide. There is some fire breathing woman out there and it was after me." Landon warns him.

"Was. I killed her. So come on." Sosuke says.

"You killed her? Seriously?" Landon asks relieved.

"Yeah... I thought I did." He answers when they hear a shrill scream from in the woods.

"Apparently not so much, so I'm gonna continue to sit right here." Landon tells him.

"Fine. But Hope will be coming, so I have to find and kill that fire bitch again." Sosuke says, leaving the storm cellar and goes looking for the woman.

In the meantime Hope, Alaric and Rafael have arrived in the woods and come across the woman, not being able to see the blood and stab wound on her back. They split up and Alaric offers to take the woman for some help while Rafael and Hope continue to look for Landon.

Minutes later Sosuke comes across the woman again while Alaric catches up to Hope, Rafael and Landon, who tried to apologize to Hope and claims not to know where the knife is and that he doesn't remember taking it at all.

"What the actual fuck! Guys! Anyone still here?" Sosuke shouts, having just managed to kill the woman again, only for her to transform into a full blown dragon the size of 2 horses.

"That was Sosuke." Hope says and the group hears a thud on the root cellar door.

"This is almost as bad as yesterday." Sosuke whines, picking himself up, only to get pulled down into the cellar by the headmaster.

"What are you doing?" Sosuke asks, rubbing his nose in thought.

"Rescuing you?" The headmaster says questioningly.

"No you're not, you just trapped us." Sosuke replies looking around the cellar, his eyes lingering on Hope longer than intended.

"It's just one pyromancer. We can probably handle her." Alaric says, trying to calm down the group.

"Pyromancer? She turned into a friggin dragon man." Sosuke tells him.

"Wait what?" Alaric asks in shock.

"Yeah, Dragon." Sosuke replies.

"Now, give me that dagger and I'm gonna kill her for the third time. You know third's the charm right?" Sosuke says, holding his hand out for the blade.

"I don't have it." Landon says.

"It's in your backpack. I can see its shape." Sosuke tells him and Landon looks, finding the dagger there.

"I don't know how... I swear Hope I don't." Landon apologizes.

"Shut up. Everyone is just a damn liar." Hope yells angrily.

"Hey. Earth to Hope, can you put a levitation spell or something on me?" Sosuke asks, accepting the dagger from Landon.

"No, but I can bring it down to earth I think." She replies after giving him the stink eye for a moment.

"good, then do that... You guys, just don't get in the way." Sosuke tells them before he and Hope hop out of the cellar, facing the dragon. It breathes a stream of fire at them while flying over them and Sosuke manages to push them both out of the way, helping Hope on her feet afterwards.

She takes out a piece of paper and uses a deadly dark magic spell on the dragon. The creature falls from the sky weakened and in a mixture of her forms, she looks at the two of them while it's lying on the ground. As it breathes a stream of fire at them again Sosuke pushes Hope to the side, the tribrid being weakened from the spell and Sosuke draws the fire of the dragon to himself, running the opposite direction of Hope and trying to circle around the dragon, but its stream of fire seems to be never ending.

Seeing that he's running out of room due to other fires being created around them thanks to the dragon Sosuke steels his nerves and runs directly at it before jumping up and pushing off one of the trees in the area, just barely leaping over the fire streams way as he flies towards it and lands next to the large creature, wasting no time he stabs the dragger through the dragon's maw, closing it just before another stream of fire can escape.

The dragon tries to claw at Sosuke, but Hope recovered enough to use a spell to make some roots spring up from the ground and contain its limbs.

"Hurry up." She tells Sosuke who nods and yanks the blade back out, Stabbing the dragon in the heart again. It goes down, but for good measure Sosuke also slices off its head this time.

"Come back from that, bitch." He pants, calming down slowly and takes the blade with him as he goes over to Hope and helps her to her feet.

"You guys can come out now." Sosuke says loudly and the trio in the cellar step out of it, seeing damage and destruction all around them, some fires still burning while Hope is putting them out one by one with her magic.

"Good job you two. And what the hell, it really is a dragon." Alaric says, seeing the creature beheaded on the ground.

"Yeah, no shit." Sosuke replies leaning over exhausted.

"Alright, you two go ahead to the car. We'll clean this place up." Alaric tells the two boys behind him and spots a piece of paper he is standing on, picking it up in shock.

"I'll get some shovels." Sosuke says with a sigh and uprights himself, going into the cellar to look for tools.

"What is this? This isn't earth magic Hope!" Alaric reprimands her angrily, holding up the paper.

"This wasn't an earth magic problem." She says after a shocked look that he's yelling at her.

"We don't allow black magic. It gets inside your heart and poisons your mind. I looked the other way his morning because you were upset but... this is a death spell and you couldn't have known that we would be facing a dragon, which means you had other plans for it."Alaric tells her angrily, Hope being speechless and looking guiltily at him.

"Landon did something stupid, maybe evil we don't know yet, but he's still just a kid Hope. This hatred and vengeance, this isn't you Hope. This is your father." Alaric tells her disappointed while she looks at him in a mix of anger and sadness.

"Cool it with the lectures and help me dig old man." Sosuke says, coming out of the shed and tosses a shovel to Alaric.

"This is not your problem so stay out of it Sosuke." Alaric says sternly.

"Cut her some slack man. She had plenty of time to use the spell on Landon, but didn't. It would have been just a bad thought, if well that dragon didn't appear." Sosuke defends her, pointing at the dragon.

"This is black magic, there is no room to cut slack Sosuke. I know this from experience. Now you two will bury her and I'll meet you back at the car." Alaric tells them, leaving disappointed while Hope wipes some tears out of her eyes.

"He went too far." Sosuke tells her after a long silence, during which he started digging.

"He didn't. I did. He's right, I gave in to my thoughts of revenge and took this with me to confront a human." Hope says, clutching the paper in her hand.

"You don't understand." She says, shaking her head and puts it away, picking up the other shovel.

"Maybe I don't, but if you didn't have that spell none of us would be alive right now." Sosuke tells her.

"Maybe, but that doesn't excuse my intentions before coming here." She says.

"If you're going to judge intentions now as well, then I must be the evilest creature at school. No wonder no one can stand me." Sosuke says lost in thought.

"What are you talking about?" She asks confused and they stare into each other's eyes a good while.

"Doesn't matter. Let's just dig." He says, shaking his head.

"For the record. I can stand you... most times." Hope tells him quietly as they are digging.

A handful of minutes later the two now dirty teens come out of the woods and see Alaric waiting at the car alone.

"Where are the other two?" Sosuke asks.

"Gone, He left this for you." Alaric says, handing Hope a letter from Landon, where he apologizes and tries to explain why he ran, insisting that he doesn't know why he took the knife.

"Are we gonna chase them?" Sosuke asks, handing the knife which caused all this to the headmaster.

"No. I'll ask a friend of mine to keep an eye on them for now." Alaric answers shaking his head.

"Your call." Sosuke replies shrugging his shoulders and gets into the back of the car.

"Ah damn." Sosuke says a minute or so into their drive.

"What?" Alaric asks.

"It's my loss again." Sosuke answers.

"Who would have thought I'm loosing so bad when it comes to keeping quiet?" He murmurs to himself.

Later that evening Hope is in her room re-reading the letter over and over while being confused if she was stupid to trust Landon or if she was right and he is a good person.

Looking around her room with tired eyes she sees Sosuke's clothing she borrowed after going full wolf.

She wordlessly picks them up and heads across the hall, knocking on Sosuke's door.

He opens it and steps back over to his table and continues in taking off the bandage on his hand, the wound having already healed to a large degree.

"Looks like your blood healed me even with all the vervain in my system." Sosuke says, flexing his healing hand.

"Thank you." She says, sitting down on his bed and puts the clothes on it next to her.

"For the clothes? Don't mind that." Sosuke says off handedly, twirling a knife around in his hurt hand and throws it at a target board hanging on his wall, many kinds of knives sticking in it already.

"For everything these past days." She tells him.

"Why are you helping me and actually nice to me anyways?" Hope asks, looking at him confused.

"Why not? You're the only friend I got." He says, sitting down next to her.

"We're friends huh?" She says tiredly and leans into him a bit.

"What did the letter say?" Sosuke asks.

"He apologizes for running but insists he didn't take the knife... in a touching way." She answers.

"That's good right?" Sosuke asks looking at her, with her returning the eye contact.

"If I could believe him. You don't just take a knife without knowing about it." She says with a sigh.

"Maybe someone else compelled him to do it." Sosuke says.

"Why would anyone do that?" She asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Why would a dragon want a knife?" He asks in return with a chuckle.

"Why do you like him so much?" Sosuke asks after a long silence between them.

"He's kind, sweet and honest." She replies, playing with her fingers nervously as she admits this.

"Guess that makes sense." Sosuke says, leaning back on his bed.

"Why?" She asks curiously.

"Because he's my opposite and even after over 5 years you still keep a wall up between us." Sosuke says, closing his eyes.

"I... I'm..." she stammers, taken by surprise that he would be open about this.

"It's fine. Not like I even think I deserve for you to let me in." He tells her, patting her arm while getting up.

"I'm gonna go grab a bite." He says while leaving the room, Hope looking after him surprised.