CHAPTER 2: TUTORIAL MODE
Morning light filtered through the shattered windows, painting gold stripes across the disaster zone that used to be Davina's attic. Glass crunched under Kol's bare feet—when had he lost his shoes?—as he attempted the simple act of standing upright without demolishing something.
Three steps. That's all he'd managed before vampire speed kicked in unbidden, sending him careening into a bookshelf. Books exploded outward. Several impacted the opposite wall hard enough to dent the plaster.
"Bloody hell," Kol muttered, righting himself with exaggerated care. Everything felt wrong. Too fast, too strong, too sensitive. His hearing picked up conversations three buildings over. The smell of blood from a cut on Davina's hand—when had she cut herself?—made his teeth ache.
Davina watched from her perch on the windowsill, legs dangling over the two-story drop, looking torn between amusement and concern. "You're the worst vampire I've ever seen."
"I'm having an off day." Kol focused on the mirror propped against the far wall, studying his reflection. Kol Mikaelson's face stared back, but the expression was all wrong—confusion where there should be smirking confidence, genuine uncertainty instead of calculated chaos.
He tried mimicking the expressions from his inherited memories. The predatory smile that made enemies reconsider their life choices. The aristocratic disdain perfected over centuries of dealing with Klaus's dramatics. The manic gleam that preceded his most creative experiments.
Each expression felt like a Halloween mask, obvious and ill-fitting.
"What are you doing?" Davina asked.
"Practicing," Kol said. "If I'm going to convince anyone I'm still... me, I need to remember how I'm supposed to act."
"The amnesia story only works if you're consistent," Davina pointed out. "Right now you look like you're trying to remember how faces work."
Fair criticism. Kol turned away from the mirror and attempted walking again. This time he made it five steps before his foot went through a floorboard.
Davina pressed her lips together, suppressing a laugh.
"Go ahead," Kol said, yanking his foot free. "I know you want to."
"You're like a drunk toddler with nuclear weapons," she said, grinning.
"Fantastic. Add that to the list of my many accomplishments." Kol surveyed the wreckage he'd created in less than twelve hours. The broken beam, the demolished furniture, the crater where his foot had just been. "Marcel's going to love this."
Davina's smile faded. "About Marcel..."
"He'll have felt the magic last night," Kol finished. Every supernatural in the city would have. The grimoire's arrival had been about as subtle as a bomb. "When's he coming?"
"Soon." Davina hopped down from the windowsill, landing with the grace Kol currently lacked. "He'll want answers. So will the ancestors." Her voice dropped on the last word, fear threading through.
Right. The ancestral spirits. Another problem on a rapidly growing list.
"Walk me through the resurrection," Kol said, carefully lowering himself onto the least-destroyed piece of furniture—a chair missing one leg that somehow still held his weight. "Everything that happened."
Davina settled cross-legged on the floor, magic flickering around her fingers as she reconstructed the memory. "I used Expression magic, channeled through the ancestral well. The spell should have been simple—call your soul from the Other Side, anchor it to your body, resurrect you." She frowned. "But when I opened the pathway, it felt... wrong. Like I didn't just open a door to the Other Side. I opened a door to everywhere."
The void. She'd accidentally punched through to the space between dimensions, the darkness where Marcus Chen's consciousness had been drifting.
"The ancestors aren't happy," Davina continued. "They're saying the resurrection was an abomination. That you're not supposed to be here." Her eyes met his. "They want me to let them kill you. Again."
"How do you feel about that?" Kol asked carefully.
"I didn't bring you back just to let them destroy you," Davina said fiercely. "You're my—" She stopped, reconsidering. "The real Kol was my teacher. My friend. If you're him, even if you don't remember everything, I'm not giving up on you."
The certainty in her voice made something twist in Kol's chest. She barely knew him—the real him, the transmigrator wearing Kol's face—but she'd already decided to protect him.
He didn't deserve that loyalty. But he'd use it anyway, because the alternative was death or revealing the truth, and both options ended badly.
"Then we need to prepare," Kol said. "Because they're coming."
As if summoned by his words, the temperature dropped twenty degrees.
Frost spread across the floorboards, creeping up the walls in crystalline patterns. The shadows deepened, warping into shapes that shouldn't exist in natural darkness. Three figures materialized from the gloom—transparent, spectral, radiating fury and power.
Ancestral spirits. The dead witches who guided and controlled New Orleans' magical community, and they looked pissed.
"Abomination," the central figure hissed, voice layered with centuries of authority. "Your resurrection violated natural law. You must return to death."
Kol's void sense, that new extra awareness he'd inherited from his time in the between-space, screamed danger. These spirits weren't just angry—they were terrified. Of him. Of what his resurrection represented.
The grimoire, still hovering near his shoulder, flipped open without prompting. Pages turned themselves rapidly, settling on a spell Kol didn't remember learning. Information flooded his mind—barrier magic, defensive wards, how to channel power he shouldn't have access to.
The spirits lunged.
Kol threw his hands up on instinct, no idea what he was doing, just knowing he needed to stop them. Power surged from somewhere deep inside, cold and familiar from his time in the void. The grimoire's spell diagram glowed purple-black.
A barrier erupted between them and the spirits, shimmering like oil on water. The ancestors slammed into it, spectral forms rippling on impact.
"You wield magic that doesn't belong in this world," the lead spirit snarled. "You are corruption given form."
Davina stepped beside Kol, her own magic flaring to life. "He's not corruption. He's my friend."
"You don't understand what you've done, child." The spirit's attention shifted to Davina. "You opened a door that should never be opened. You pulled something back that should have stayed lost."
The barrier flickered. Kol's control was slipping, panic overwhelming whatever instinct had let him cast in the first place. The void energy in his veins churned, responding to his fear, and the barrier warped—too much power, too little control.
"I won't let you kill him," Davina said, stepping fully in front of Kol. Her magic wove into his, stabilizing the barrier through sheer force of will.
The spirits regarded them for a long moment, calculation replacing rage. Finally, the leader spoke: "We will return. And when we do, the abomination will face judgment." They dissolved into shadow, taking the unnatural cold with them.
Kol let the barrier drop, and immediately collapsed to his knees. Using magic—real magic, not just vampire strength or speed—drained something fundamental from him. The grimoire snapped shut and settled at his side, warm and almost... satisfied?
"Are you okay?" Davina crouched beside him, one hand on his shoulder.
"Define okay," Kol managed. His hands shook. His vision swam. And beneath it all, that constant whisper from the void, reminding him he wasn't supposed to be here.
The attic door slammed open.
Marcel Gerard stood framed in the doorway, perfectly tailored suit somehow unstained despite having just kicked down a door. Behind him, Josh Rosza peeked around his shoulder, eyes wide.
Marcel's gaze swept the destroyed attic, lingering on the broken beam, the shattered windows, the scorch marks from magical combat. Then his eyes found Kol, and something complicated crossed his face—shock, suspicion, and underneath it all, barely suppressed fury.
"Well," Josh muttered. "That's new."
Marcel's hand moved to the stake at his belt. "Kol Mikaelson. Heard you were dead."
Kol forced himself upright, drawing on every borrowed memory of Kol's personality. The smirk came easier this time, muscle memory from a brain that wasn't his. "Rumors of my demise were... slightly exaggerated."
"Davina." Marcel's voice hardened. "Step away from him."
"No." Davina planted herself between them, magic crackling around her hands. "I brought him back, Marcel. He's under my protection."
"You don't know what you're dealing with," Marcel said, but he didn't draw the stake. His eyes never left Kol's face, searching for something. "Kol's dangerous. Unpredictable. He's gotten more people killed than Klaus."
"Was dangerous," Kol corrected, putting careful emphasis on past tense. "I'm... different now. The resurrection changed things."
"Different how?" Marcel took a step forward. Josh grabbed his arm, whispered something urgent. Marcel shook him off but stopped advancing.
Kol stood, swaying slightly, and met Marcel's stare. This moment would determine everything. Marcel controlled New Orleans' vampire population. His word could mean sanctuary or a death sentence.
Time for the performance of his life—or rather, Kol's life, borrowed though it was.
"Let's talk," Kol said, letting Kol's accent sharpen. "I have a proposition that might interest you. One that benefits us both."
Marcel's eyes narrowed. Josh looked between them, confusion evident.
Across the city, in the compounds and covens and hidden places where power gathered, word spread: Kol Mikaelson had returned from the dead. And this time, something was different.
The game had changed.
And nobody knew the new rules yet.
Note:
Please give good reviews and power stones itrings more people and more people means more chapters?
My Patreon is all about exploring 'What If' timelines, and you can get instant access to chapters far ahead of the public release.
Choose your journey:
Timeline Viewer ($6): Get 10 chapters of early access + 5 new chapters weekly.
Timeline Explorer ($9): Jump 15-20 chapters ahead of everyone.
Timeline Keeper ($15): Get Instant Access to chapters the moment I finish writing them. No more waiting.
Read the raw, unfiltered story as it unfolds. Your support makes this possible!
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/Whatif0