An American Tribrid in London

Chapter 15: Alter Ego

A/N1: Hi, so I'm back again. And I've published on Wednesday again. Yay! I aim for Friday but always things push me to publish on Wednesday. As usual, you'll know the reason for the title by the end. Also, skip the next para if you don't want spoiler but it contains a trigger warning.

A/N2: There is some non-consensual accidental kissing. Not graphic. Extremely mild. But I'm warning just in case if anyone finds it uncomfortable. 

Josie's hands started shaking as she started panicking when the siphon realised that she could do CPR. While Hope always said 'Non Consensual kiss is never the answer', Josie figured she can argue on it with the tribrid after the said tribrid is safely alive. So, the siphon vigorously pumped air into Hope by opening it and making mouth to mouth contact. While Josie's mind tried to wander with feelings, she shook away those thoughts as this was not the time for it and she had to help Hope.

But when Josie's attempts failed, she started trembling again. All the while, it looked like Hope's ship had sailed. Hope was a fully activated tribrid. So, her pulse was always less than an average human, but was always detectable. There was no pulse for about 10 seconds, after which Josie felt a nerve beat on Hope's wrist. Hope was holding on to her life, but now it all boiled down to what Josie would and could do.

Josie's mind was now going into overdrive as she finally figured that the reason was magical and she placed her hands near Hope's right side of her breast, where a huge hole was increasing in size. Also, red-black veins were forming all over Hope's body, which meant Josie had to hurry and come up with something.

And hurry up, she did as she now siphoned the magic from the hole. The barriers within herself between her and the dark version of her were breaking as dark nerves now started popping on the right side of Josie's forehead.

The siphon figured that she had to save Hope's life first even if she went dark and dastardly. So, she siphoned and siphoned and siphoned. She put up a silencing spell first as the pain was unbearable due to the high flow of magic in her.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" She let out the unholy cry she was holding within herself all this time as the size of the hole over Hope's chest started reducing along with the red-black veins slowly disappearing from Hope's body when she felt something poking her right hand.

Josie jerked her right hand backwards to find that it was a small sliver of some red wood. Oh, red oak! Now it all made sense. Lizzie had told Josie about Hope's only weakness, Red Oak. If someone had poked it a little left, directly in Hope's heart, she would have been dead by now, but fortunately, that wasn't the case.

Josie, having now understood the core issue, did a red oak collection spell, which was basically a modified version of the blood collection spell which Hope taught her once when they were young. So Josie collected all the red oak from Hope's blood as the veins on Hope's body now turned black.

Josie audibly groaned as the red oak was only a part of Hope's problems and not everything. She still had to take out this extremely powerful magic out of Hope. So Josie went back to siphoning the tribrid again and this time with more determination. She completely let herself go and opened herself up to her darker version.

Josie could feel herself getting more powerful and magic coursing through her veins. The feeling was nothing short of euphoric. Her veins started turning more dark now as Hope's veins turned back to normal and the hole around her chest closed up.

Hope woke up with a gasp to look at Josie, who was having dark veins pop out of her forehead.

"Josie..." Hope treaded the waters tentatively. This did not look good.

"Hi Hope!" Josie smiled deviously.

'Great! She's gone dark again,' Hope thought to herself. While she was sure that Josie had just saved her life.