Star Light

Chapter Fourteen: Europa Has Moved and Changed Her Name to Tiffany

After that absolutely insane week, I was glad to get back into a regular routine. I was back to work, the kids were in school, and the Scooby gang was back at it. The first order of business? In Elena's mind, it was training for her and me by Rick. 

Early in the morning, like at five frigging thirty, two days later, Elena completely recovered from her generous blood donation and dragged Rick and me out to the forest near the Salvatore Boarding House. Rick fitted us with stake injectors that release the stake with a strong enough punch. 

"So the pressure of your punch ejects the stakes," Rick explained to us, giving a demonstration as he buried his fist into the chest of the mannequin we were facing off. 

Not entirely understanding how hard what Rick just did was, Elena, nodded confidently. "Easy enough." She punched, but the Stakes didn't move. "That's weird." She tried again for the same result. "Must be jammed or something." 

I snorted, and Rick shook his head. "You're not strong enough. Better start lifting some weights, put some meat on your bones." He told her point blank, "Europa, you try." 

"Thanks for not sugar-coating it," Elena mumbled as she stepped back and watch me try. 

Lucky for me, I had already taken self-defense classes and knew how to throw a punch with all of my weight. I pulled back and then attacked. The stakes didn't move, but I knew I was close. So I took a breath, focused my anger, and tried again only to find success. I turned back to the Rick and Elena with a proud smirk on my face, "Rick, have you been playing Assassin's Creed lately? Because this is just like that." 

"Shut it Europa." So he did get his ideas from Assassin's Creed. Oh, this boy is never living that down. He pulled out a vervain grenade and held it up. "You know what this is?" 

Elena was the one who answered, "A vervain grenade. I've used one before."

"Then you know the element of surprise is your only advantage when it comes to a vampire." He told her. Then he pulled the pin and tossed Elena the grenade, "Surprise."

In shock, my little sister's eyes widened as she held the grenade, "Oh my god." I reached over, grabbed it, and tossed it in the air. It exploded, thankfully a safe enough distance from us. "This isn't a joke to me, Rick." She grumbled in annoyance, pulling off her staking sleeve. 

Alaric turned to her, and he looked deadly serious, "You think I'm joking? Vampires will take whatever they want. They will hurt whoever they want. And they'll do it without remorse. It's their nature." 

"Want to loosen up there a bit Rick? She knows that-" I started, trying to diffuse the tension.

Elena sighed and looked at him, "You don't have to use pronouns. You can say Stefan."

Glancing over at me, Alaric sighed and softened up a little bit. "Look, I get why you're here. Stefan hurt you. You don't want it to happen again."

"But you think that I'm crazy. To believe that I can protect myself from a vampire who's flipped the switch on his humanity." Elena assumed. People really need to stop putting words into other people mouths. 

Shaking his head, Alaric looked Elena dead in the eye. "I think you found a way to get out of bed this morning. And that makes you the strongest person I know. I think that you can do pretty much anything."

After training with rick was over, I quickly showered and changed before driving to work. Halfway there, my phone rang, an unknown number popping up on the screen. Answering the phone, I put it on speaker. "Hello, this is Europa." 

"Europa, Darling, what are you doing today?" Rebekah's voice filtered through the car. 

I smiled as I stopped at a stop sign, "Bekah, I am driving to work, I should be off around five and home no later than six. Did you want to hang out?"