The Divine Ascendant

Marcel Gerard nearly cracked his fangs from how hard he was clenching his jaw.

‘Who the hell do they think they are…?’ The growl rising in his chest was something he wanted to let out, but he forced it down, burying it deep in his chest. He couldn’t afford to look shaken.

Not here. Not in front of his inner circle. In his city, if the King looked afraid, his kingdom would be torn apart by the sharks waiting in the shadows. He glanced at Rebekah, who was draped like a broken doll in the arms of one of his men. The sight made his stomach churn with a mixture of old love and new, bitter resentment.

After everything, after the mercy he had shown them. He remembered the moment he learned the Mikaelson siblings were still linked to Klaus, that killing the hybrid would mean the end of all of them. He could have ended it then.

He could have found a witch to unlink them, or simply killed Klaus and let the rest of the toxic bloodline rot. But he hadn’t. Because he cared for Rebekah, he had let them live in exile. Yet here they were, back in his city, trying to distract him with his own feelings while they plotted to free their monster of a brother.

The moment he had realized the ruse, Marcel had raced back to the tomb where he held Klaus captive. Once he was certain the hybrid was still safely impaled by the Tunde Blade, he had ordered his men to scour every inch of the Quarter.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the message to arrive from Josh.

They were at the bar.

He gathered some of his men as they went to the bar, ready for a fight and ready to end this rotting bloodline once and for all.

Entering the bar, he was graced with a scene he didn’t expect at all. The Mikaelsons are all on the ground bound.

His eyes shifted, finally landing on the man whom he assumed was responsible for the current state of the room. Standing there as if none of this mattered.

Because to Harry, it really didn’t.

Harry glanced at Marcel once, made a face that suggested he had just smelled something slightly sour, and turned back away from Kol, whom he was speaking to as he made his way to the bar to pour himself another drink. He downed it in one go.

“…Marcellus,” Harry spoke, his voice cutting through the silence of the room.

Marcel’s eye twitched. No one called him that anymore. It was a name from a life he had burned to the ground. “…Who are you?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

Harry shrugged, unbothered. “Just a passerby.”

Marcel stepped closer, his movements slow as he carefully made his way to the man. Around him, his vampires spread throughout the bar, forming a silent perimeter that blocked every exit.

This was his territory. He was not just going to let an unknown act as he pleased. But he was also not stupid enough to just attack right away.

The bottle Harry was drinking from seemed to empty itself; with a lazy wave of his hand, another bottle flew off the back shelf and landed perfectly in his grip. He popped the seal and poured a fresh glass.

“A witch,” Marcel said slowly. He remembered what Sofya had reported, strange, magical activity that had been buzzing around the city. She had suspected Vincent was plotting a coup, but Marcel had doubted it.

Vincent was many things, but he wasn’t reckless. Looking at this stranger now, Marcel realized he might be looking at the source of those rumors. This could be the witch his spies had picked up that was acting in his city without his knowledge.

“Now, this is interesting…” Marcel said, walking over to the bar.

“Hey, why don’t you….”Kol tried to speak, a sneer forming on his bloody lips, but he went instantly silent as chains wrapped around his mouth, keeping him shut and not only him, but all the remaining too.

Marcel’s eyes flicked to Kol, then to Harry. The man hadn’t even moved. He hadn’t spared Kol a single glance, yet he had silenced an Original vampire with the same effort one might use to swat a fly. The man was powerful, without a doubt.

“I didn’t know a witch like you was in my city,” Marcel said, leaning against the counter and emphasizing the word my.

Harry slid a clean glass toward him. “Well, I just arrived a day ago and was just passing through, to be honest. Not really all that much to see anyway. A bit too much drama for my taste.”

“Is that so,” Marcel hummed, his eyes narrowing. He briefly glanced at the Mikaelsons. He couldn’t help the surge of glee at seeing Elijah, the man who had always looked down on him, chained to the floor like a common thief. He wanted to enjoy the moment, but his focus kept being dragged back to the man sitting by his side.

“So why did you come to New Orleans, if you don’t seem to like it?” Marcel asked, his voice regaining its poise, like he was trying to intimidate Harry.

He was more patient than the Mikaelsons, he knew how to act, at least before attacking.

Harry gave him a look. It was almost a look of approval. “I didn’t expect myself to be here, actually. It was nothing more than an accident. A wrong turn, if you will.”

“I’ve never heard of someone appearing in a city like this by accident,” Marcel replied.

Harry smirked faintly. “Really? Then you really should go out more and see the wider world. There are a lot of things that’ll surprise you, like this.”

Suddenly, Harry’s tone lost its friendly edge. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees, and a cold shiver raced up Marcel’s spine.

All of his instincts began screaming at him to run. Those green eyes glanced at him, and for a moment, Marcel saw not a man, but an endless, churning void.

“But you’re not here for me,” Harry said, his voice flat and cold. “So why don’t you finish your business and leave me be? I didn’t come to this place to be bothered by you people.”

Harry turned back to the TV, dismissing Marcel as if he were a nagging child. Marcel wanted to keep talking, to demand more, but every fiber of his being told him to let it go. He turned his attention back to the Mikaelsons, watching as the gag on their mouths vanished.

The old anger he felt swelled in his chest as he looked at Elijah.

“You find some way to survive my bite, and you have the audacity to come back?” Marcel growled. “What happened? Immortality just got boring? Are you looking for a place to die, is that it?”

Elijah, despite being bound to the floor, managed to look up with that same infuriating, noble arrogance. “We’ve come for our brother. Nothing more marcellus.”

The mention of Klaus set Marcel off. He sped forward and landed two brutal punches on Elijah. The man’s head snapped back, blood spraying onto the floor.

“You’d have me pay for my sins? So be it,” Elijah said, spitting blood. “Exact your revenge on me. Just let Niklaus go.”

Marcel let out a short, humorless laugh. “Is that supposed to be an apology? You think your suffering balances the scales for Davina? For everything your family took from this city?”

“My brother has suffered enough, Marcellus,” Elijah pressed. “Let him go, and we leave the city today. We will never return.”

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say as Marcel started to beat the everloving daylight out of the so called nobel original as his sibling screamed at Marcel to stop.

“Elijah!”

Rebekah had finally woken up. She saw the man holding her and didn’t hesitate, she snapped his neck with a sickening crack and tore through the other guards who tried to restrain her. At that same moment, Freya seemed to have finished her chant, and the chains holding the others shattered into shards of light.

The Originals stood together now, a unified front. Marcel was outnumbered, but he didn’t move an inch. He was faster and stronger than all of them combined, and his venom was a death sentence they couldn’t afford to get bitten even once.

“Marcel, please,” Rebekah said, her voice soft and pleading. “Just let us take Niklaus and go.”

Marcel’s expression softened for a moment, his love and history with her warring with his duty to his city. Then he scowled. “So I just let you take the most dangerous monster in history and walk out of here? After you killed my people? After you ruined everything?”

“Please, Marcel. Just do the right thing,” she told him.

“The right thing?” Marcel’s voice rose to a roar. “The right thing according to who? You? Your family has spent a thousand years burning down everything they touch! You killed Davina, you murdered my friends, you people are the reason so many lives have been lost, and now you’re swearing vengeance against me like I’m the villain? I’m the one who cleaned up your mess!”

Harry, sitting at the bar, rolled his eyes at the sheer melodrama of it all.

“Stop this, Marcel,” Elijah spoke.

“Hah!” Marcel laughed bitterly. “That’s rich coming from you. You act like I’m the monster, but you’ve done worse to the world than I could in ten lifetimes.”

“Enough of this!” Kol lunged.

It was a mistake. Marcel caught Kol by the throat mid-air and bit down hard on his shoulder. Kol screamed in agony as the lethal venom was injected directly into his system. Marcel tossed him aside like a discarded toy.

“Kol!” Freya rushed to him, her face pale. “We have to go. Now! If we stay here, Kol will die.”

“Oh no, you don’t,” Marcel said, rushing toward the witch, but Elijah intercepted him, taking a heavy blow to the chest to buy them time. Freya quickly threw up a shimmering blue barrier, a desperate piece of magic to block Marcel’s path.

“Who gave you permission to leave?”

Harry’s voice rang out, calm but absolute. The Mikaelsons slammed into an invisible wall as they tried to reach the exit. The door was right there, but it might as well have been on the other side of the moon. Freya threw spell after spell at the barrier, but it didn’t even ripple.

Harry finally turned to them properly. “We didn’t finish our conversation from before. I don’t like being interrupted, and I especially don’t like being used as a backdrop for your little soap opera.”

Silence fell.

Then, suddenly, Freya raised her hand in chant, and in a violent flash of light, they vanished out of the room before Harry could decide what to do with them.

Silence returned to the bar. Harry blinked once, then let out a long, weary sigh, then raised his right hand, and there, it was the right hand of someone.”…How annoying.”

He kept the arm on the desk and picked up his drink and took a slow sip, then glanced at Marcel, who was still staring at him in shock.

“You…you just….” Marcel started, but didn’t know where he was going with that.

“Yeah, I did,” he said, pouring another cup.

Elsewhere.

The moment the Mikaelsons appeared, the first thing that came out was a scream, a gut wrenching scream from Elijah. he fell on the ground, clutching his arm.

“How… how is this possible” Freya said as she looked at the ripped off right arm.