AN: I don't know how this will work, but I was tired of the same ol' Daughters, and since there is no new book to work off of, I'm just gonna make shit up from the past. Using Followers. And Daughters. And the quest to the ultimate. I hope you like it. If not… Oh well? Review anyway?

Summary: An expose on one man's life as he becomes entrapped in the Atrox as a plot by a gifted Follower to become lecta by making her twin Daughter of the Moon fall into the clutches of evil. As their three lives unfold through his eyes, he shows what it's like in the dog-eat-dog world of Followers. An idea that came to me because new stories were needed that didn't really involve the usual set of characters.

Disclaimer: I, Batsu-chan, once more, honestly does not own the DotM. If I, Batsu-chan, did, well... Chris would be alive. Okay. Alive. Cuz Chris is uber awesome. And Batsu-chan loves Chris more than she loves... Um... More than she loves her Sierra Mist! Also, Book 13 would be out and SotD would definitely not be cancelled. :3

Chapter One: The Protégée

Her name was Gemma.

Gem-Ma.

That was how she pronounced it, so crisply and clean. Gem-Ma.

It was how she introduced herself to me, her eyes dark and curious and inviting as they laid upon me. She leaned in close, her body on mine, her mouth on my ear so I could hear her over the raging drunk, high, and sex addicted partiers of the 1960s. "My name is Gemma. Do you want to find a real party?"

Yes. I wanted a real party. If it involved this sunfire beauty, I wanted anything. She had me the moment she spoke into my young, seventeen-year-old ear. Taking me by the hand, Gemma led me out of the club and into the blackened night.

A real party was what I was told. A lifetime is what she should have said. We danced in a graveyard, her body on mine. We drank in a graveyard, our bottles littering the final resting place of people, some long since dead. I remember rolling around in the dirt, laughing as she whispered dark temptations in my ear with her cool, crisp voice. I remember being shocked when she said she was only sixteen, and that I, a pathetic nobody, was her ultimate ticket to success.

I didn't care what I had to do. I'd do it for her, for Gem-Ma.

That night in the graveyard, in the dirt, on the plots, she made me an Initiate.

Before that night, I had never heard of the Atrox, but once Gemma brought me into the fold, I felt good. You know that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you look at newborn babies? Yeah, imagine the polar opposite, and that's the exciting depth you get from the Atrox.

Gemma and I were some of the youngest in the fold, but it was already known how bright, quick, and ruthless Gemma was, which was why, in under a year she, went from Initiate to Follower. Gemma was amazing, and I was lucky to be turned by her.

She hardly talked to anyone else that was a Follower, besides me of course, unless she absolutely had to. Gemma did her own thing, and she did it well. Except for one guy, one guy that she always went back to for help. He was a scary kind of guy, even today, whose Immortal eyes terrified the shit out of me. She said there wasn't a reason to be jealous when they would speak and I ended up glowering in the corner. This guy, this arrogant, pompous, pretty boy named Stanton was the one who had turned her. He was her mentor, like she was to me. She was one of his many turned, but his few bright, and he liked keeping tabs on my Gemma.

Gemma had plans for her future with the Atrox.

"I'm going to be one of them," she whispered to me on a cool night as we were privileged to a ceremony.

"One of who?" I asked quietly, my eyes on the flames that danced around the body of a boy made lectus.

"Them." The flames reflected in her black eyes as she looked at me. "I want to step into that fire, too."

I blew air through my lips, listening to the chanting of the Followers around me. I was still an Initiate, wanting to be a Follower, and she was a Follower wanting to be a lecta. So, whatever she had planned, I'd go for it.

"How do you plan to do that, Gemma?"

Never before had I seen such a damned, wicked smile.

In the four months that Gemma turned me, she'd been hiding a secret. Her final rung-on-the-ladder to power, you could really say. It was why she turned me, it was why she waited so long to put her plan into action.

Every Initiate learns after they turn about the "enemy". A group of girls, what they call "goddesses". They are these daughters of Selene, the moon goddess. I thought it funny, all these kids this goddess had, all girls. In any case, a bunch of girls are the supreme enemies of the evil Atrox. Go figure.

I don't make the rules…

So when Gemma hit me with the news, I was stunned. I guess it was because I was still so new, I still had those old feelings.

"I'm going to turn a Daughter of the Moon to the Atrox," Gemma explained, a trickle of smile on her mouth.

"You can do that? I mean, you can make a goddess fall?"

She took my hands in hers, eyes bright with that mischief that attracted her to me in the first place. "Yes. And we're going to do it to my sister."

"Eh…What?"

"Right. I never told you, but my twin sister is a Daughter of the Moon."

Her easy manner at which she could tell me she wanted to fell her sister was…frightening. Her twin sister, her enemy.

"How do I play into this?"

"My Initiate, you are going to be her temptation."

I licked my dry lips, but it didn't help. I had to look away from her. I knew, that first night she approached me, that I'd do anything for the sunfire Gemma. Now, though, something began to gnaw at me as I was forced to ask her.

"Is this why you chose me?"

"Yes," came her swift reply. "I knew you were the right one to appeal to my sister. Plus, you wanted to belong. Do you not now?"

It was years before I realized that the empty, gnawing feeling in my gut was the false glitz and dreams the Atrox presented to each and every Follower. Years. Right then, though, I chalked it all up to her request of me.

AN: There you have it. Chapter one of my new story. Tell me what you think.