23 Chapter 23

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[Location: Mystic Falls Highschool] [3rd POV]

Walking through the halls of the school alongside Hope, Talia looked around the school. It was pretty much just like any normal highschool, with some very small differences. Hearing someone behind them, Talia glanced and inwardly groaned when she saw that it was Landon.

"This is the senior hallway, where I spent much of my formative years stuffed in every locker...except that one. That one doesn't open. On your left you'll find the bathroom. It's where I had my first kiss with a toilet." Hearing this the two of them basically just ignored everything he said.

"Landon, no offense, but neither of us asked, and neither of us really care" Talia said bluntly. The guy just walked up behind them and began to talk to them, when neither of them gave much of a damn about what it was he was talking about. It's not like either of them really need any sort of directions.

"Shouldn't you be talking with anyone you know?" Hope asked, she was also wondering why Landon just walked up and began talking, when he should be trying to get information about what happened to Dana and where she went.

"That's easier said than done" Landon replied, before he could continue a teen in a cheerleader outfit walked up and interrupted.

"I'm sorry. You both look traumatized. Is this loser bothering you?" The girl asked. It was pretty obvious that neither Talia nor Hope wanted to talk to him, and it was also obvious that the looks he was giving Hope was making her uncomfortable.

"He just randomly walked up behind us and started to talk to us" Talia answered, causing the teen to glance at Landon with a weirded out expression on her face.

"Gross. Well, we're going to lunch. Are you and your girlfriend hungry?" The teen asked. Even a random teen like her, could notice the evident chemistry between the two. The closeness between Talia and Hope, also made her mistakenly think they were together.

"Oh we're no-" "Famished" Hope began with a bright blush on her cheeks, before Talia cut her off. The cheerleader hearing this smiled, and motioned for the two to follow.

Following after the girl, Talia leaned into Hope's ear "Told you I'd get you back" Hope gave Talia a half hearted glare, but Talia could notice the hint of happiness hiding within Hope's beautiful light blue eyes.

Walking into the lunchroom and sitting, the cheerleader introduced herself and her friends "I'm Cheryl, that's Bree, and that's Amanda"

"Talia" Talia introduced herself simply, causing Hope to do the same. After introducing themselves, they sat and talked for a while. The conversation with them was surprisingly rather pleasant. And while they gave off the cliche dumb cheerleader personality, they were all actually straight A students and pretty nice people. Eventually Hope brought up Dana, which caused Cheryl to pretty much blatantly say that not very many people liked her, as she was a bit of a bitch to everyone in the school.

Dana had been sleeping with multiple men behind their girlfriends back, aka cheating. Due to this, most of the school sorta hated her guts, as not only was she arrogant as hell, she also had a horrible personality, and was a bit of a slut. That's what Cheryl and her friends said at least.

After the bell for lunch rang, the group got up so the cheerleaders could go to class, but before they left, Cheryl reached into her bag and grabbed something, before handing it to Hope. "Here, it's a gift. Dana gave it to me, but it's not really my style, it suits you more than me"

Hope looked at the cat ears, before taking them and placing them on her head "Thank you" Hope said, actually sorta liking the gift .

"It looks great on you! Anyways, we got class, you got our numbers already so I hope we can meet up soon!" Cheryl said, before walking off.

Walking into the hallway, Talia began to speak "Well kitten, wanna do a locator spell on those?" Hearing the nickname, Hope blushed.

"S-shut up" Hope stuttered slightly. She wasn't sure why she was reacting this way to Talia's teasing, but she couldn't help it. Talia was very good at making Hope blush and act cute.

"It shouldn't be too hard to find her if we do one....nevermind." Talia began, before stopping herself as she noticed something. Hope, hearing this, still with a slight blush on her cheeks, asked "What is it?"

"I think we may have a lead." Talia said pointing at a girl with a very noticeable scarf, that was not at all appropriate for the sort of weather they currently had. Hope noticing this, blinked in surprise. Looking at one another, they both nodded and began to discretely follow the girl.

It didn't take long before they found the reason why she had the scarf on. Walking up, Hope began to speak "Let her go" After saying this,  Kaleb, who was about to feed on the girl, sighed in annoyance before beginning to compel the girl.

"Date's over. It's not me, its you. Now forget this ever happened and get back to class" After finishing his compulsion, the girl immediately began to walk off.

Before anyone could say anything, Lizzie alongside MG and Landon, walked up. "Great. Hope's already here"

"Thought we were cool, bruh" Kaleb said to MG, who avoided eye contact with him.

"Don't "Bruh" him. Second place or not, we know you killed Dana." Lizzie said, causing Hope to turn in surprise.

"Dana's dead?" Hope asked.

"Dr. Saltzman said they found her dead from a vampire bite" MG responded.

"I didn't kill her, so y'all need to get the hell outta my face" Kaleb responded, before immediately trying to vamp speed away. Only to hold his head in pain, while screaming, as Lizzie siphoned MG to use some basic magic to stop Kaleb from escaping.

"Come on, guys, let's go. It's hero time" Lizzie said. Talia rolled her eyes at this, while Hope spoke "To the blondemobile"

Walking to wear Kaleb was groaning while holding his head, Lizzie stopped her magic, before speaking "Not so fast, Kaleb" Kaleb grunted slightly, before getting up and turning to them "I told you, all I did was feed. Torture me all you want to, but my answers gonna remain the same...because I didn't kill Dana"

"Considering Dana is stumbling out of the forest right now, I would say he is telling the truth" Talia said, causing everyone to turn and look where she was looking. And low and behold, Dana was there, pale as a ghost, slowly stumbling her way over to them.

Sitting on one of the school outside benches, Lizzie asked "What happened to you?"

Dana hearing this, groaned slightly before responding "We were on the way to graffiti that mill at your school. It was a harmless prank. But then I got snatched. Next thing I remember, I woke up in a ditch. So enjoy it while you can, Lizzie. I'm sure I look like crap" Dana said, before she slowly reached to itch her neck, only to noticed two bumps of some sort.

"Oh, my god. What is that?" Dana asked fear clear in her tone.

"It's...Someone help me out here" Hope said, wide eyed at the mark on the side of Dana's neck. Almost like a vampire bite, but a lot worse looking.

"God damn" Talia muttered under her breath, causing Hope to shoulder her in the side, making Talia pout at her, before Lizzie eventually responded.

"It's the mother of all hickeys. You're fine, Dana. You're just a-a little slutty" Lizzie responded, coming up with an answer, while also getting some petty revenge.

Scoffing slightly, Dana responded "I don't even like any of you. I should be talking to the cops" Dana said,  before getting up and preparing to walk off, before she could do that, she dropped to the ground unconscious, courtesy of Talia.

Turning to Kaleb, Lizzie began to speak "So you didn't kill her. You freaking turned her?" Lizzie finished while raising her voice slightly.

"Turned her? You think I want to sit and listen to that for all of eternity?" Kaleb responded, as if it was obvious that he wouldn't do something like that.

"Well, someone did, meaning we have a transitioning vampire on our hands. So what are we gonna do with her?" Hope asked, only for Talia to interject.

"I've never seen a vampire bite in person, but just a single good look at that, and I can tell that that is not an ordinary vampire bite. Do vampire's have bites that big? And do they have that purple color around the bite? Not only that but she's pale as hell. Chances are, it's another monster" Talia said. Causing the group to turn and look at Dana's wound more closely.

"...She's right. This isn't a normal bite from a vampire" MG said, looking closely at the bite. It was bigger, had a weird color, and almost smelled. Vampire bites were big, but not the width of a golfball big.

"We should get her to the bus either way, so she's not out in the open" Hope said, causing MG to nod and pick her up.

"So what monster could she be?" Lizzie asked, not believing it to be another monster.

"Hmm, there's a lot of different monsters that could make bites like that. But it's probably something pretty damn big, and more than likely poisonous" Talia responded, causing Hope to stop and turn to her.

"Poisonous?"

"Well, magic is sort of my speciality, and even without using magic, I can tell she's either poisoned, or is undergoing some sort of change" Talia responded. Putting Dana into the back of the bus, MG couldn't help but ask.

"What sorta change?"

"Well, mattering on the species? It could be turning her into another of it's kind. Or, it's poison like I'm thinking, in which she probably doesn't have much longer to live" Talia responded. Hearing this Hope asked "Can you stop it?"

"I ca-" Talia stopped when she noticed MG looking at his hand, with some sort of web on it. "I know what the creature is" Talia said, walking over to MG and floating the web off of his hand.

"What is it?"

"Webs. We, my friends, are dealing with an arachne" Talia answered.

"An arachne? Are you joking" Lizzie asked, not believing Talia.

Before Talia answered, she noticed that Dana was beginning to sit up, before she could, she knocked her unconscious again "She's probably poisoned right now, so she won't have much longer to live. There's two options in this situation, one, I can heal her and erase her memories of this event. Or two, we let her die, personally I wouldn't mind the second option too much"

Hearing this Hope answered "No no no, we're healing her" Talia pouted at this, but relented and cast a couple of healing spells on her. "What spells did you just use?" Lizzie asked, finding the sight of Talia's magic to be interesting.

"The same heal spell I used on you, as well as a cure poison spell, and a couple of other ones just in case. I also rewrote the memories, so she'll simply think that she got lost in the forest after a car crash, and ended up making it here" Talia responded.

"Well, I guess that's better than nothing" Lizzie responded with a sigh. She sorta didn't want Talia to heal the girl, but "what's done is done.

"Now we just need to find the arachne itself" Talia said. Causing the group to turn to her.

"And how do we do that?" MG asked.

"Well, Arachne take the form of it's prey in order to hunt, as usually they are massive, as in SUV size massive. So chances are, we've already run across it's current form. All we need to do is follow the thing to it's lair, where it's probably keeping Sasha."

"That would explain why it couldn't follow the knife out of town. An SUV-sized insect can't exactly hitchhike unless it inhabits the body of someone"

"Who? Could it be Sasha?" MG asked.

"My money is on mophead over there" Lizzie said, causing Landon to reply "I'm right here you know" Lizzie just ignored him and continued "If we had something from it, we could do a tracking spell"

"Well it's a good thing that I have my own spell, now isn't it?" Talia responded with a smirk, before casting "God's eye" Hearing the spell name, they all blinked and watched as she stood there for a few moments.

Talia spread the eye and eventually found her target. It was the old mill near the school. "Found it. It's taken the form of Connor for now"

"Where is it?" Hope asked, knowing that they need to hurry.

"The old mill" Talia responded.

"Okay then, let's go!" Lizzie said, Talia hearing this chuckled "I've got a faster way to get there" Hearing this she blinked in confusion, only for her eyes to widen as Talia cast the gate spell.

Immediately Hope and Taia stepped, slowly the rest followed "God that was weird" Lizzie said, not liking the feeling of going through the portal.

"Now, should I go kill that thing, or?" Talia asked, only for Hope and Lizzie to shake there heads. "Nope, you've killed the last two, let us get a shot this time" Hope said, causing Talia to raise an eyebrow and allow them to do their thing.

Standing and waiting, Talia watched as Rafael soon came out of the mill with a Sasha wrapped in webs, in his hands. Putting her onto the ground prepared to let her out, she stopped when she noticed Hope, Lizzie, and Josie step out of the barn. They were completely covered in orange goup, that was probably the spiders blood.

Looking at Hope, Talia couldn't help but comment. Said comment caused a snort to escape Kaleb and a stifled laugh from MG. While Hope openly blushed.

"Is it weird that I find Hope really hot right now?"

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That's the end of the chapter. Next chapter probably won't be longer than this one. Next chapter should be the date with Hope though! It might have some spicy moments as well! The date will probably end up lasting for a chapter or two.

This chapter was probably the first real changes Talia has made to canon, as Dana is now alive, and Landon is more and more alienated.

Would y'all want me to include Overlord spells that are not canon, in order to make up the difference of amount? As canonically there are like 3k spells, so I've been thinking of using spells from the Overlord fanon wiki in order to make up the difference. If yes, then I will only use ones that are actually balanced, and not completely broken.

Talia might be going to the dungeon during episode 5/2-3 chapters from now. As it gets unlocked on March 6th, which is when the whole honor council voting thing happens.

Anyways, have a good day! Point out any mistakes! See you tomorrow!