"This isn't just a normal spell, Bonnie. This is a sequence so complex its very mechanics shouldn't exist in our physical dimension."
Abby leaned over the kitchen table as she explained to her daughter that what she was asking for was all but impossible, "Believe me when I tell you this: hundreds of covens over the last millennium have tried to reverse-engineer the Original spell. They wanted to find the 'undo' button for the Mikaelsons. Every single one of them failed because they were trying to solve a puzzle where the pieces were forged in a dead language."
Damon stood by the open refrigerator with a jar of pickles in one hand and was currently mid-crunch, he moved away from there and approached the two witches again.
"What do you mean 'not possible'?" Damon asked around a mouthful of dill, "I thought you witchy types thrived on the impossible. Isn't magic just a cosmic 'yes' to every 'no'?" He pointed a half-eaten pickle at Abby, "If a witch made the line, a witch can break it. That's basic witch math isn't it?"
Bonnie ignored the snack-time commentary and went over the other esoteric theory she'd been harboring since the drive, "What if we aren't looking for an 'undo' button, Abby? What if we develop a counter-resonance? Think about it, the sire line is essentially a feedback loop of gratitude and blood-magic. If we treat the line like a frequency, we don't have to 'break' it; we just have to introduce a dissonant chord. A localized surge of individualistic intent that vibrates at a higher frequency than the Original's blood."
"We would have to use something like a lunar anchor to stabilize the subject's existence, then channel the burst of magic directly into the subject's body so it wouldn't erase the bond, it would just drown it out until the connection atrophies from lack of signal."
Damon paused eating, his pickle hovering in mid-air and he blinked twice trying to grasp what Bonnie had just said, "I understood exactly zero of that. But yeah," he pointed at Bonnie, "what she said. Sounds very witchy and science-y. Let's do that."
Abby shook her head at her daughter and at the suggestion already seeing multiple things wrong with it, "Even that isn't possible, Bonnie. You're thinking of this as a general nature spell but It's not. The sire line isn't a byproduct; it's a personal preference of desecration. Esther developed it with components that are impossible to find now and the spell to un-link them probably requires components that don't just exist in nature."
Abby stepped closer, trying to let her understand the gravity of the spell itself. "The requirements for the spell involve reagents that haven't been seen on the earth till recently when you used one of the products to kill their father. There are features of the spell that are anchored to celestial events that occurred once with a unique condition even I don't know. You can't perform a counter-spell when the fundamental components of the original no longer exist to be countered. Esther was more than thorough; she nature-bound the spell in a way that creates a logical paradox. To undo the bond, you would essentially have to unmake what is already there and in doing so it will kill all your friends you are trying to save."
"Nature didn't just allow this spell Bonnie, it tried to reject it but Esther went on ahead and ignored the rejection and forced the spell. It is an impossibility, Bonnie."
Damon let the lid of the pickle jar clatter onto the counter as he'd lost his appetite. Based on what mama with was saying this is a shackle neither more his brother would be escaping from. He leaned back against the fridge as his casual demeanor finally cracked.
"So, what you're saying in a very long, very depressing way is that it's useless," Damon summarized with his voice sounding flat, "The invisible leash between the Originals and every vampire on the planet isn't just a knot, it's a part of the DNA of the universe."
Abby nodded slowly with her silence confirming the weight of his words.
"Now that's just great," Damon snapped, pacing the narrow space between the table and the stove. "That just ruined our only insurance policy. If Mama Crazy and Homicidal actually succeeds in her DIY project to kill her demonic offsprings, we all just... poof. Spontaneous combustion. A thousand-year-old family feud ends with us as the collateral damage."
Bonnie sighed, rubbing her temples as the weight of the impossibility pressed down on her. She looked at her mother once more with a question in mind, "What about the Order, Abby? You mentioned the Order of Michael's witches. They've been practicing for centuries under a man who was walking the earth when the Originals weren't even a thing still. They have to have something surely, anything. A scroll, a footnote maybe something buried somewhere out there."
"Exactly," Damon jumped in, gesturing with his hands. "Saint Michael is twice the age of the Mikaelsons. He's seen the fall of the great old world and watched empires crumble. He must have found a loophole in this unfavorable contract we've got with the Originals. I refuse to believe a man that old and that powerful hasn't figured out how to cut the cord."
Abby pulled out a chair and sat down heavily, she looked at them both with a pity that made Damon's skin crawl.
"Where do you think I learned that it wasn't possible, Damon?" she asked quietly. "The Order and the Death Dealers have been at Michael's side for almost a almost a thousand years now, centuries upon centuries of knowledge has been shared with both factions. He has shared practically every secret of the 'Old World' with his factions and we've scoured the archives of the Interstice. There is nothing on how to 'de-sire' a vampire from an Originals and even if there was, the order doesn't have it."
She leaned forward to explain, "Can you break a sire bond? A simple psychic obsession between two vampires? Yes. That's a mental glitch. Can you break the link between a vampire and their sire if they're both just common night-stalkers? It's difficult, but possible. But the Sire Line itself? The metaphysical tether that binds every vampire's life force to the heart of an Original? That isn't a spell, Bonnie. It's the foundation of their species."
"Why?" Bonnie asked in pure frustration,
Abby stood up and began pacing the small kitchen, "The Sire Line isn't just a connection, Bonnie. It's a closed-loop feedback system. When Esther turned her children, she didn't just give them strength; she anchored their existence to the heartbeat of the world through an undying object which was the white oak tree. But to keep that anchor from dragging them into the grave the originals burnt it to the ground, now I don't know if this was intended or just a happy couple on her part but her spell make sure it tied every vampire created thereafter into the same circuit."
She turned to face them again with a grim expression. "The line is what keeps you functional, Damon. It's a constant stream of borrowed vitality. You stay away from the reaches of death because your life force is tethered to the Original's infinite reservoir unless you are killed ofcourse. You are alive and surviving solely because they are alive and surviving."
Damon's eyes narrowed as he processed the mechanics, "Wait. You said 'loop.' If we're taking from them, what are they getting from us? Aside from the ego boost of having a fan club?"
"Energy and power," Abby said flatly. "It's a symbiotic tax. The more vampires an Original has sired, the more 'nodes' they have in their network. Every time you feed, every time you heal, a fraction of that energy bleeds back up the line and makes its way to them. You are making the Original stronger just by existing. In short, you are a battery they didn't even have to plug into."
Damon let out a sharp, disgusted bark of a laugh. "Oh, great! So every time I enjoy a snack, I'm indirectly making that insufferable hybrid more powerful? I'm basically Klaus's protein shake?"
"It would seem so," Bonnie muttered as her brow furrowed in deep thought.
"Damn it!" Damon slammed his hand against the counter. "So we can't kill them because we'll die, and we can't let them live because they just keep getting 'buffed' by our very existence. It's a rigged game."
Abby sighed, leaning against the table. "Even if there was a loophole, a way to cut the wire without the house blowing up, the only people alive who would understand the blueprints are Esther and well of course..."
"Michael," Bonnie finished the sentence with her voice heavy with the realization.
Damon looked at the two Bennett women with a sour, curdled expression. "Of course, It always comes back to the man with the glowing eyes and the 'I-know-everything' attitude. That is of course if he truly didn't share everything with his two pet clans. I'm starting to think he's the one who wrote the fine print on the universe."
Bonnie stood suddenly, her eyes went wide as a spark of inspiration hit her, "Wait, if the Sire Line is a closed loop that can't be broken... What if we don't break it? What if we just... reroute it?"
Damon squinted at her, not understanding what she was getting at, "Reroute it? Bonnie, this isn't a plumbing issue. We're talking about our souls here."
"Listen," Bonnie said, "Think of the Sire Line like a power grid. Right now, the Original is the only generator. If the generator fails, the lights go out. But what if we install a backdoor? A secondary connection to a different power source, something equally eternal, or at least something that doesn't rely on the Mikaelsons' heartbeats."
She grabbed a salt shaker and a pepper shaker, placing them on the table. "This is Klaus. This is you, Damon. The line goes from him to you. But if we create a secondary link, a 'Parallel Anchor' to something like the Interstice or even Michael's own reservoir of power... then if Klaus dies, the primary line collapses, but the secondary one kicks in. Like a backup generator for a hospital. You wouldn't be 'sired' to him anymore; you'd be tethered to a source that doesn't have a mother trying to kill it."
Damon stared at the salt and pepper shakers with a question brewing in his mind, "So we're talking about a metaphysical jump-start? We hook ourselves up to a different battery before the first one explodes?"
Bonnie nodded. "Exactly, It wouldn't remove the link; it would just make the link redundant."
"Uhhh, this is all good Bon-Bon and I'm no expert in the spooky arts, but wouldn't these two links just... crash into one another?" Damon circled the salt and pepper shakers on the table with a skeptical finger. "I'm betting on the Original line unless of course if the other lines so happens to be the flaming man. It's got a thousand-year head start. Seems to me the 'Old Power' would just swallow the new one whole and leave us exactly where we started or, you know, exploded due to compatibility issues."
Abby agreed with Damon, "It's worse than that, Damon, you see tampering with a foundational spell like this isn't just about 'clashing' energies; it's about the structural integrity as well. To even attempt a secondary link, we'd need a vampire to volunteer as a test subject, a lightning rod for the transition. If the spell collapses during the rerouting, that vampire doesn't just die; their soul becomes a vacuum. They'd most likely be erased."
She looked from the table and at them, "And secondly, we would need a source suitable to be linked to. You can't just plug a vampire into a car battery. You need something of equal or greater metaphysical weight than an Original. Something ancient, something eternal. And let's be honest, those kinds of power sources don't exactly have 'Available' signs hanging on them except of course you are thinking of using Michael. Don't even bother he's not going to agree… ever."
Bonnie opened her mouth to argue, but Abby held up a hand.
"Lastly, and the most importantly," Abby continued, her voice dropping into a solemn, heavy tone, "a spell of this complicated magnitude essentially creating a new law of nature would requires a sacrifice. Not just any blood, but a Natural Binder. For this to work, we need a linchpin. A bridge between the physical and the spiritual that can hold two conflicting immortality spells in place at the exact same time."
Damon's restless pacing stopped abruptly. He looked at the salt shaker which was the representation of Klaus and then at Bonnie as the realization hit him.
"Of course," Damon muttered as his voice dripped with bitter recognition. "A Natural Binder. Nature's favorite little 'Ctrl+Alt+Delete' for every magical problem we've ever had."
He looked at Bonnie, his eyes darkening, "What other Natural Binder do we know to be Nature's go-to for every high-stakes binding agent in the history of ever?"
Bonnie's breath hitched as the pieces clicked into place. "Oh..."
"Yup," Damon popped the 'p' with a cynical grin.
"The Doppelgänger," Abby said, putting the final nail in the coffin, "Elena Gilbert."