Chapter 1:

Summary:

Amelie is dead. Oliver is dead. Morganville is in disarray and it needs a new leader. What if the ideal candidate is Claire? But will being the 'Founder' change her? And will it be for the better or for the worse?

"No!" Amelie screamed as she saw her father about to drain Sam, about to kill the one she loved. She had enough momentum, she thought, in order to be able to wrench herself out from the silver chains in which she was bound, especially because Oliver had released her. Never before had she shown so much emotion to the public as she did in that scream; the roar which came as she launched herself through the air to bat her lover away from Bishop louder than anything the horrified public had ever heard from their Founder.

But all she did was put herself in harm's way.

"My daughter, you are a silly girl," Bishop hissed, having righted himself within an instant, as he dragged her up by the ends of her hair, ignoring her escaped squeal of pain – the most normal she had ever been, and she was going to die. "Ysandre, please take Oliver. It seems he is in fact on this weak thing's side, and not ours as I had previously thought, which is rather disappointing. We could have been great allies, Oliver, with your history and desire for blood, but you chose the wrong side." he gave the order to have Oliver bound, something which Ysandre took great delight in doing, lashing Oliver's wrists together with silver chains. Though he bared his fangs, he was at the disadvantage, and there wasn't anything he could do to change that…not now, anyway.

"Go, Sam, go!" Amelie cried as Sam simply sat there, in the position he had landed when Bishop was made to drop him, waiting for her to be released so that he could take her place. But he knew, in his heart, that now Bishop a hold on Amelie that she wouldn't be released. It was always going to be him or Amelie, and she had ensured that it was now her.

So he did what she wanted. He ran across the stage and barrelled into Francois with all his might, as the dangerous vampire was reaching across to attack Claire. Sam threw him so far that he landed on the stairs on the other side of the stage, one hundred metres away – he wasn't normally that strong – in fact, he was weakened because of the poison in his system – but the fear for his Amelie drove him to new strengths that he had never considered before.

"You, Amelie, need to learn what respecting your elders means," Bishop snarled at her, lifting the sword that lay to the side of the throne, previously obscured by a sheet of velvet. Nobody had noticed its presence before, but now it had been noticed, every single one of vampires and humans below stopped fighting to watch in amazement as their strong queen, their brave fighter who fought for all of them, was forced to her knees. They watched as she couldn't fight back, how she turned to look at Sam with tears in her eyes. They watched as she betrayed her pain, her fear, her heartache, in that glance, especially when Sam cried out for her.

They watched as her perfect, golden head was separated from her body.

"NO!" Sam, Claire, Michael, Myrnin, Richard and Hannah all yelled simultaneously as this happened, especially when Oliver followed to his death in quick succession, on the already blood-soaked stage. The public below suddenly began fighting back harder against Bishop's vampires, knowing that if he could treat his own daughter like that, killing her so brutally and swiftly, they could – and would - be decimated in minutes.

Sam collapsed back to his knees near to the crimson coloured section of the stage, unable to fight anymore as the realisation his Amelie was dead hit him. Dead. She had died, and left him there – how could he move and leave the site of where she gave her life for him? He didn't want to, and he certainly wouldn't move by himself, not if there was a chance that he could always follow Amelie on into death.

"Come on, Sam, you need to move!" Claire yelled at him, dragging him out of harm's way to the corner of the stage, adrenaline aiding her to get him all the way over there. He couldn't move without her help; he was motionless when she left him on the side, knowing that she had to go back and fight – fight for Amelie, and even Oliver, fight for the woman who let her father kill her so that they could have a chance of fighting back and winning from the surprise angle. But even as she left, her eyes stayed on the forlorn man, his head still pointing in the direction of where Amelie had been, mere minutes before.

"Dodge!" Michael roared across the stage to Claire and she moved to the side, narrowly missing Ysandre, a vampire who seemed to have a personal vendetta against Claire. Claire span back around, ready this time for the impending attack, and lifted the small silver knife that Richard had handed to her.

Ysandre attacked…and Claire stabbed her in the heart with the knife, watching with a vindictive smile as the peroxide blonde fell backwards onto the stage. The area around which the knife had penetrated – a reason for Ysandre to have worn a slightly less revealing top – turned black, looking more than considerably painful.

"You little—" Ysandre began, but soon stopped talking when the wooden stake hidden in Claire's trouser leg met the side of the silver knife, forcing itself down into her chest. Easier than I remembered, Claire thought, remembering the time that she had staked Myrnin, mere months before: that had been difficult, probably because Myrnin was trying to kill her at the time, but this seemed ridiculously easy in comparison.

Myrnin… where was he? She looked around for him, having forgotten that Bishop had already given him the cure…she half expected to see him either writhing in pain on the floor, or attacking their allies as well as their enemies. But, alas, there he was, a grim expression on his face as he fought for vengeance for his longest ally, and the man who he had hated for many, many years, a steely determination in his face that Claire could quite easily understand.

"Claire!" Eve and Shane yelled her name, almost making her turn back to them; it certainly made her jump, and realise that she couldn't analyse Myrnin in the middle of a battle. But she gritted her teeth and ignored them, heading for the same place that Myrnin was. She had to take her revenge for the murder of Amelie - if not for herself, then for Sam. He had lost Amelie and it was because she had died to save him, as well as Morganville. He needed to have her murderer killed.

Claire didn't have anyone to confirm this decision to kill Bishop with, because, well, there wasn't anyone to confirm it with! Every human on the stage was fighting to the death, Oliver had been murdered along with Amelie although nobody seemed too fussed about him, honestly, and Myrnin was a little preoccupied fighting with three vampires at the time. There was nobody to take charge – therefore, she needed to make her own decision.

So she went for it. Bishop was still standing there, untouched by a single vampire as nobody dared to take on the vampire who had just murdered the town's strongest two vampires. He had destroyed the struggle between Amelie and Oliver as to who would be in power by killing them both. Who would dare contest him now?

Claire would.

Claire did. Claire snuck up around the side, dodging the huge pools of blood that belonged to Amelie and Oliver, her one time allies. They were the people she was fighting for, the people who were good, scary as it was to admit that vampires could be good. And look how easily he had managed to destroy them! They were gone within seconds, as soon as he had gotten a hold on them. Their dismembered bodies were lying almost on top of one another, carelessly dumped once the ceremony of beheading them was complete.

They were forgotten about.

Shutting her eyes and mind to the horrific sight of Amelie's head lying on the floor, her grey eyes unseeing and unknowing, Claire realised that there was no point in sneaking up on Bishop – the eldest vampire in the world ought to have no problem in hearing a human approaching him.

"Child, I wouldn't bother to do that," he said, as she lifted her silver stake, covered in blood and sweat from when she plucked it up from the floor. Of course, he would be able to hear.

"You don't get to call me 'child'," Claire hissed, a pang of guilt and pain – who knew she would feel upset that a vampire had died – hitting her as she remembered Amelie. "The only person who could call me that, who actually called me that, is dead. So don't you dare insult her memory by calling me that!" she exploded at him, barely able to hear her own voice through the screams caused by battle but she knew that he would be able to hear her, without a doubt.

"I see that you had a certain…bond with Amelie, hence the Protection she gave you," he smiled smarmily, a certain bitterness about him that made Claire want to just go and stake him right then. "But she is dead, Claire. And now, you choose to either swear allegiance to me right now, or I will kill you. You are nothing to me, Claire, and therefore, those are your choices," he informed her, an almost grin stretching onto his face. That was a scary sight. He knew he had her right where he wanted her…

…or so he thought.

"What if I choose option three?" she said, closing her eyes to him, in order to confuse him. "What if I choose to kill you?" she stated and he threw his head back in laughter, a sound that, again, was strange to be issuing from Bishop's mouth. But this pause in concentration to laugh would cost him.

It would be his downfall.

Whilst he was distracted with her talking, Myrnin had snuck up behind him. Claire was all set to stall Bishop for longer, so that a vampire on her side could sneak up behind him, but there was no need. Myrnin was waiting, and motioned for her to move forwards at the same time as throwing his arms around the elder vampire and squeezing as tightly as he could.

"Fool, you die along with your pathetic friends, my good for nothing daughter and her idiotic follower!" Bishop yelled, but couldn't continue because soon, a silver stake was in his chest, thrown by Claire almost effortlessly.

It was so anti-climatic, watching him fall backwards, that Claire almost laughed at the absurdity of it – Bishop floored with merely a well placed stake! She almost laughed as Myrnin jumped out of the way, releasing the man in the process, so that Bishop's head smacked the stage so hard that blood began to converge behind his head. She almost laughed as he took his last breaths, evidently having an extreme reaction to the silver…something that she never knew he would have a problem with. He's been good at keeping that a secret, Claire thought, unable to understand how he could be killed so quickly.

"I tested out increasing the strength of the silver over the last months, and switched some of the previous assortment of weapons with my own creation," Myrnin explained as he noticed her questioning glance at the speed by which Bishop died. Yet nobody else seemed to have noticed the vampire's death – the fight to the death was still continuing, although it was apparent that their side was winning quite easily. Nearly every human, including those who hated all vampires, was fighting on their side to ensure that Bishop would be wiped out, knowing that Amelie's people would be much fairer to them. Perhaps even their new ruler would give them everything they wanted.

"So he is dead?" Claire questioned, unsure that he could be truly dead so simply. Myrnin, to prove he was dead, picked up the stake from his chest and used it as a blunt axe to cut his throat so deeply that there was no way that nerves could get through to the rest of his body – not even a vampire could survive something like this, she thought.

"He is dead," Myrnin confirmed slowly, dropping the stake and surveying the fight scene. Claire turned around as well and saw that the last of Bishop's vampires had realised that their ruler had perished, that they had nobody to follow. There was nobody left to follow, nobody to unite them against Amelie's former people, and therefore, they had to admit that they had lost.

The only person who didn't know what was going on was Sam. All he could see was Amelie's face as she turned to look at him, using her last seconds on the earth to show him that she loved him; all he could see was those final seconds over and over again in his mind, on a sort of loop that he couldn't stop. All he could see was how terrified she was, how she knew she was going to die and couldn't do anything about it.

Across the Square, there was a feeling of intense joy, a desire to rejoice, that was muted by the events that had sparked their victory. Nevertheless, Amelie's side had won.

But now, there was no leader.

That was a bit of a problem.