England, 1493
Michael had not crossed the sea for scenery.
England was grey, damp, and loud with human ambition. There were kings clawing at crowns, churches bloated with power, wars disguised as righteousness. None of it interested him.
What did interest him was the message carried across continents by mouths that no longer lied to him.
The werewolves he had bitten.
They were loyal now and not through compulsion, not through fear alone, but through something older and more binding. His bite had done more than spare them the agony of the moon. It had given them clarity. Purpose. A tether.
Over the centuries, Michael had hunted packs across the world. Some resisted him and died. The rest became something else entirely, an intricate, living network. Eyes in forests. Ears in courts. Shadows trailing immortals who thought themselves unobserved, the Originals
If there was one thing Michael would not tolerate, it was ignorance.
Gaps in information got people killed.
So he closed them. Some of his wolves watched the Mikaelsons while others tracked witches.
Most hunted vampires specifically those older than three centuries. The ancient ones. The clever ones. The ones who survived long enough to believe themselves untouchable.
England, it seemed, had become a crossroads.
And Michael had come to confirm something for himself but along the way a memory flashed into his mind of when he had wondered, after his rebirth, whether anything could truly kill him.
Not idly or philosophically.
Obsession had a way of setting in after a thousand years.
He tested everything.
Even white oak before his confrontation with the elder Mikaelson.
Normally he would hate the fact that he's immortality would know no end but in a world where at least a hundred thousand are immortal he decided to go with it and even fortified himself in the process a long time ago.
⸻
FLASHBACK
1120 AD
The forest was silent. Three hundred vampires stood frozen in time, held in stasis by Michael's magic. They were not bound. They did not scream. They simply waited with their eyes wide, bodies rigid, arranged carefully within a massive pentagram carved into the earth.
Each point of the star burned with towering torches, their flames bending unnaturally inward, as if drawn to the center.
Michael stood there alone.
Before him rested a small vial of glass aged smooth by centuries. Inside it, dark and potent, was Tatia's Preserved blood.
Around the ritual circle, werewolves stood watch.
These were not cursed beasts trembling beneath the moon, they were his pack now. His sentinels freed from pain. Masters of their own change.
Their alpha.
Michael inhaled and the world responded.
Cracks formed along his skin, glowing faintly like cooling magma. Hellfire stirred beneath his flesh, licking eagerly at the seams as his eyes burned red.
He raised his hands and the wind rose.
Leaves tore free from branches. The torches flared violently, flames shooting skyward as if trying to escape the night.
Michael began to chant.
"Phasmatos Sanguinem Vinculum(Spirits and blood, be bound).
Vita ad Vitam(Life to Life).
Mors ad Mors(Death to death).
Quod cadit, me firmat(That which falls, strengthens me).
Quod finitur, me aeternum facit(That which ends, makes me eternal)."
The spell was old, older than witchcraft as it would be practiced in centuries to come. A working of fortification and binding, fueled by death, vitality, and the cruel arithmetic of sacrifice.
Three hundred lives.
Three hundred strengths.
Three hundred immortal anchors.
The pentagram blazed as the very air screamed in protest at what he was doing but Michael didn't care what nature had to say.
At the circle's edge, a werewolf named Brandon tightened his grip on the stake in his hand. He looked to Michael awaiting the signal.
The chant ended and Michael lifted his head.
His eyes locked onto Brandon's and nodded.
A low growl rippled outward from
Michael, the werewolves all around him felt it more than heard and they moved.
Three hundred stakes plunged home in near-perfect unison.
The vampires desiccated instantly, their bodies collapsing inward, skin tightening, mouths frozen mid-silent scream. As they died and something pulled.
Michael arched back, roaring not in pain, but in overwhelming euphoria.
Power flooded him.
Their Strength, speed, hunger. Centuries of stolen survival pouring into his veins like liquid fire. His flames surged wildly, the forest bowing beneath the pressure.
Then, he drank Tatia's blood ignited the spell completely.
The fortification locked and the link established.
Three hundred corpses were now bound to him.
Anchored batteries and the silent witnesses to his eternity.
That was when the world went white and Michael collapsed.
Darkness greeted him first. Not the absence of light no, this was something deeper. Pressurized. Like the moment before a storm breaks, stretched into eternity.
Then came applause.
Mocking.
"Well done," a voice purred from the dark. "Marvelous. Truly marvelous. I have never seen anything quite like you, child. You piqued my interest so thoroughly that I simply had to meet you."
Michael closed and opened his eyes. They glowed red instantly, cutting through the void. Heat rolled off him in quiet waves as he exhaled and scoffed.
"I was wondering when you'd show up."
The darkness shifted, folding inward, reshaping itself. A man stepped into view, well-dressed, composed, eyes burning with an intelligence that had curdled into cruelty long ago.
Michael folded his arms.
"Arcadius."
For the first time in millennia's, the man faltered.
Then he laughed a sharp and delighted laugh. "My, my. You do know of me? That is unexpected. No one among the living knows I exist."
Michael's flames stirred, cracks of ember-light tracing faint lines along his skin.
"Except your cannibal sirens," he replied flatly. "Of course."
Cade's smile widened. "Oh, you are exceptionally well informed."
The space around them shifted again. The darkness peeled away, revealing the clearing, the ritual site. Michael could see his own body at the center of the pentagram, the desiccated remains of vampires, the torches frozen mid-flicker. His werewolf pack stood guard at the perimeter.
Everything was there.
Greyed out and suspended.
"Tell me," Michael said calmly, eyes following Cade as he circled him, "is there a reason you're hijacking my consciousness?"
Cade chuckled. "And how are you so certain you aren't dead instead? Perhaps I'm here to claim what's mine."
Michael raised a clawed hand. Hellfire crept along the fractures in his skin, glowing brighter. "Improbable."
He pointed the claw directly at Cade.
"Neither you nor death has earned the right to be graced with my presence."
Cade's eyes darkened. "Presumptuous."
"Cut to the point," Michael said. "Ruler of Hell. Why are you here?"
Cade stopped pacing then faced him, "I want you," he said simply. "To work for me."
Michael blinked once then smiled softly, almost pitying.
"I refuse."
The word landed like a slap and Cade frowned, stepping closer. "Oh, that wasn't a request, Hellhound."
His own hellfire flared and the space trembled under its weight. "Souls are escaping my domain because of you. Burned clean. Guided away. You will serve me whether you wish to or not."
Michael tilted his head, studying him.
"How intriguing."
Then his smile sharpened.
"You call that hellfire?" Michael said lightly. "A construct. A poor imitation. All heat, no truth."
Cade snarled at him which made a cruel almost monstrous expression to grace Michael's face. He had survived and lived for over a thousand years he wasn't about to enter a shake down with a fucking fake.
"You posture like a king," Michael continued, voice calm and cutting, "but you are nothing more than a child who threw a tantrum so loud it echoed through millennia."
Cade froze.
"You were human once," Michael said, stepping closer. "A psychic. Betrayed. Tortured. Burned alive by your own kind. You didn't become Hell, you built a cage and called it a throne."
Shock rippled across Cade's face.
Michael leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper.
"And I know exactly how to kill you for good."
The flames around his body then detonated outwards in a massive burst through the space itself.
Cade was hurled back as hellfire roared in impossible waves out of Michael, reality screaming under the heat.
—
Michael gasped and snapped awake.
Forest air filled his lungs as the night insects chirped and the torch crackled normally again.
Time hadn't moved at all since he was pulled into that place by Cade.
His werewolves stared at him, tense but unafraid. Brandon stepped forward. "So," he asked carefully, "now what?"
Michael rose slowly, flexing his clawed hand, watching the fire retreat beneath his skin. He felt the new surge of power that undoubtedly put him up there with the Originals.
"Box them up," he said. "Divide into six groups and take them to different corners of the planet."
Brandon nodded instantly, already barking orders.
Michael looked down at his hand one last time, embers fading.
A faint smirk touched his lips.
"Presumptuous indeed."
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