The Salvatore School had never felt more like a pressure cooker than it did in the days following the arachne incident. Monsters kept coming. No one knew why.
James Harlan—still wearing Landon Kirby's face, still carrying the weight of a life that wasn't originally his—moved through the chaos with practiced ease.
But beneath the surface, he was calculating.
The dryad had appeared exactly as the timeline predicted.
It started with the comas.
Three townspeople in twenty-four hours—two men and a woman, all found slumped in the woods near the old mill, lips swollen, eyes glassy, breathing shallow. No wounds. No bite marks. Just… sleep. Deep, unnatural sleep.
Alaric had pulled the senior squad together in his office before breakfast. Hope, Josie, Lizzie, MG, Kaleb, and Landon (James) sat in a loose semicircle while Dorian flipped through old grimoires.
"It's a dryad," Dorian said, sliding a yellowed sketch across the desk. The drawing showed a woman with bark-like skin, vines curling through her hair like living veins, eyes the color of new leaves.
"Tree nymph. She doesn't kill outright—she feeds on memories. Kisses her victims, drains their experiences, leaves them in a vegetative state. She's looking for something."
"The knife," Hope said quietly. Everyone looked at her. She shrugged. "It's the only thing that makes sense. Every monster so far has either wanted it or reacted to it."
Alaric rubbed his temples. "We find her. We stop her. And we figure out how to keep the next one from showing up."
James stayed quiet, letting the others talk strategy. He already knew how this ended in canon: the dryad would be cornered, would explain her torment in Malivore, would beg to be returned to nature, and then, poof—tree. Tragic. Poetic. Final.
But James had no intention of letting it play out quite so neatly.
After the meeting broke, he slipped away to the old boathouse by the lake—the one place on campus where the wards were thin enough that the system's interference didn't set off every magical alarm. Alone, he opened his Inventory.
Three Poké Balls floated in the void of his storage space, each glowing faintly with its own color:
Red for the dragon.
Gray for the gargoyle.
Black for the arachne.
He selected the black one.
The arachne materialized in a shimmer of shadow, eight legs curling beneath her as she rose to her full, terrifying height.
Her human torso was pale and beautiful in a grotesque way, long black hair falling over compound eyes that glittered like oil slicks. She hissed softly, a sound that might have been a question.
James smiled. "You're going to help me with something. Quietly. No one sees you unless I say so."
The arachne tilted her head, mandibles clicking once in acknowledgment.
Obedience wasn't loyalty, but it was close enough.
He gave her instructions, simple and clear.
Then he closed the Inventory, and the creature vanished back into nothingness.
That night, the squad moved into the woods.
Hope led, Malivore knife strapped to her thigh, hybrid senses sharp. Josie and Lizzie flanked her, both witches ready with containment spells.
MG and Kaleb brought up the rear, vampire speed on standby. Landon—James—walked in the middle, hands in his pockets, expression carefully neutral.
They found the dryad at the edge of a clearing, moonlight spilling over her like liquid silver.
She was breathtaking and terrifying in equal measure: skin the texture of birch bark, hair woven with living ivy, eyes glowing faintly green. She stood barefoot on moss, vines curling up from the earth to cradle her ankles.
She didn't run when they approached.
Instead, she smiled—sad, almost gentle.
"You've come for me," she said, voice like wind through leaves. "I knew you would."
Hope stepped forward, knife in hand. "We don't want to hurt you. But you're hurting people."
"I don't want to," the dryad whispered. "I was… taken. Pulled into darkness. Endless nothing. Then I woke here, and the hunger came with me. I need the knife. It calls to me. It can send me back."
Hope's jaw tightened. "Back where?"
"To the place that swallowed me. Malivore." The word hung in the air like a curse. "It takes everything. Names. Memories. Entire species. It erases them from the world. I was one of the first. I want to go home."
Silence fell over the group.
Josie's voice cracked. "That's… awful."
"It is," the dryad agreed. She looked at Hope. "Please. Let me touch the knife. Let me go back."
Hope hesitated.
That was when James acted.
From his hiding place—fifty yards back, crouched behind an ancient oak—he whispered a single command.
The arachne dropped from the canopy like a nightmare made flesh.
She moved faster than any of them expected. Eight legs blurred. Silk shot from her spinnerets in thick, black ropes. The strands wrapped around the dryad's arms and torso before she could react, pinning her in place.
Hope spun, eyes blazing gold. "What the hell—?!"
The arachne didn't attack the squad. She simply held the dryad immobile, mandibles inches from the nymph's throat.
James stepped out from behind the tree, hands raised in mock surrender. "Easy. She's under control."
"Landon?" Hope's voice was sharp with disbelief. "What are you doing?"
"Helping," he said simply. "She wants to go back. But she's dangerous. She's already put three people in comas. If we let her touch the knife, who knows what happens next? Maybe she gets stronger. Maybe she takes more memories. Maybe she doesn't go back at all."
The dryad struggled weakly against the silk. "Please… I just want to rest."
Hope looked between James and the arachne, then at the dryad. "You brought her here? How?"
James shrugged. "I've been… practicing. Turns out I can store things. Living things. And release them when I need to."
Lizzie's mouth dropped open. "You've had monsters in your pocket this whole time?"
"Three of them," James admitted. "Dragon. Gargoyle. Arachne. They're not exactly pets, but they're useful."
MG blinked. "Dude. That's… actually kinda badass."
Kaleb snorted. "Or insane."
Hope's eyes narrowed. "You didn't tell anyone."
"I'm telling you now," he said softly. "Because I trust you. All of you."
It wasn't entirely a lie.
The dryad sagged in the arachne's grip. "I'm tired," she murmured. "So tired. Just… let me become the tree. Let me go back to the earth. That's all I want now."
Hope looked at her sisters. Josie nodded slowly. Lizzie crossed her arms but didn't argue.
Hope turned to James. "If she wants peace… give it to her."
James met her gaze. For a moment, something real flickered between them—something that wasn't strategy or secrets.
Then he nodded.
He gave the mental command.
The arachne struck.
Her fangs sank into the dryad's neck—not to feed, but to kill. Quick. Clean. Merciful.
The dryad gasped once, a soft sound like wind through branches. Her body shuddered.
The vines around her ankles tightened, then loosened. Bark spread across her skin like frost over glass. Leaves unfurled from her fingertips.
She didn't turn into a full tree.
There was no gentle transformation, no roots sinking into soil while the squad watched in solemn silence.
Instead, she simply… died.
Her body slumped in the arachne's webs, eyes dimming to dull green. The vines withered. The bark cracked. Within seconds, she was nothing more than a husk—beautiful still, but lifeless.
The arachne released her. The body fell to the moss with a soft thud.
Hope stared. "She didn't… become the tree."
"No," James said quietly. "She went somewhere else."
He didn't elaborate. No screen had appeared.
The arachne looked at him, waiting.
He opened his Inventory.
In a swirl of shadow, the creature folded back into the black sphere. The Poké Ball reappeared in his palm—still black, still faintly glowing.
The clearing was quiet now. Only wind and the distant hoot of an owl.
Hope walked over to him slowly. Her expression was unreadable.
"You killed her," she said.
"I ended her suffering," he corrected. "She didn't want to hurt anyone. She was trapped. She wanted release. I gave it to her."
Hope studied him for a long moment. "You could have let us do it. With the knife."
"Maybe," he said. "But I didn't want you to have to carry that."
Something shifted in her eyes—gratitude, suspicion, and something softer, all at once.
Josie stepped forward. "We need to get back. Tell Dad what happened."
Lizzie muttered, "Yeah, good luck explaining the murder-spider."
James gave a small, crooked smile. "I'll handle it."
They walked back through the woods in silence. Hope stayed close to him, their shoulders brushing every few steps. Neither spoke.
When they reached the school gates, the others peeled off toward the main building. Hope lingered.
"Landon," she said—using the name he still answered to: "whatever you are… whatever you can do… thank you. For tonight."
He looked at her. Really looked.
For the first time since he'd taken this body, he let a piece of the real James Harlan show through.
"You're welcome, Hope."
She gave him a small, tired smile, then turned and walked inside.
James stood alone in the moonlight for a long minute.