Most people don't look to discover new things. New things are discovered by accident while people look to confirm what they believe to be true. That's why a little all-vampire village existed within a highly populated area without ever being discovered. That, and a little bit of magic.
The village was called Cetten, and every Vampire there believed it to be the most perfect place on earth. They lacked nothing - there was more than enough sunscreen to protect their sensitive skin, and none of the other supernatural types ever bothered them much. And, most importantly, there were no humans they had to hide from.
However, one of the younger members of the community was a bit of a trouble maker by their standards.
"Alexander!"
"Sorry!" Alexander yelled back as he raced through the streets, laughing. He squeezed between a couple going shopping and cut through the park, making it home in record time. "Maman!" he yelled into the quiet house. "Maman!"
"Hush, Alexander!" Alexander's mother, Rachel, rounded the corner, step betraying the amount of purpose she constantly portrayed. Ever since they had moved here two years ago, right after Alexander's father had left and taken his older brother with him, Rachel had seemed to be bouncier, yet also somehow more bogged down, and it showed in her walk. "He's asleep right now, but I want to know is where you found him. Last I heard, Nagas were extinct."
"I found him in the woods right outside of town, Maman," Alexander chirped. "Is he really a Naga? Can I see him?"
"Yes, he is really a Naga, and I suppose you can see him," Rachel led her son back into the house, where she had laid the young Naga down to rest. Except when they got there, he was wide awake.
"Don't hurt me!" the little boy squeaked and backed against the wall. "I don't know anything, I promise!"
"Know anything? I just want to know your name, sweetheart. You were bleeding rather badly," Rachel attempted to calm the young Naga down.
"I-I guess I can tell you my name, since you healed me," the young child stuttered. "I'm A-ajax."
"Why did you think we were gonna hurt you?" Alexander asked, completely perplexed.
"You're Vampires," Ajax whispered fearfully. "And Vampires hunt us."
"But why?" Alexander asked.
"I've never heard of anything like that," Rachel commented. "Course, I also heard that all the Nagas had been killed off."
"M-most of us, yes! B-because of y-you!" Ajax continued to fumble his words, scared out of his wits, trembling against the wall.
"Well, we aren't mean like that!" Alexander declared, impassioned by the injustice of the idea that someone would try to kill a group of people just because they were snakes from the waist down. "Maman and I will keep you safe, promise!" Alexander grabbed Ajax's hands and gave the young Naga a beaming grin.
Suddenly, a loud blast thundered through the entire village, a rippling wave warning of destruction to come. Screaming began to fill the air, and Rachel's face flickered with panic before settling into a steely calm.
"Maman?" Alexander sounded uncertain, "What was that?"
"The Witch King has decided to pay Cetten a visit," Rachel said, grabbing Alexander's school backpack and shoving clothes into every bit of extra space it had.
"The Witch King! J-james said Witches were even worse than the Vampires during the War!" Ajax looked panicked, eyes wider than many would think possible, shaking from terror.
"The Witch King does not like non-witches," Rachel said, handing Alexander his backpack, which he put on but also looked very confused. "Alexander, I want you to take Ajax and run. Hide in the woods. I'll find you, but I need to check on the rest of the town first. You know how much the town relies on me."
"But, Maman -"
"No buts, Alexander! I have to do this. Gofor your safety. Both of you. I wish I could go with you. Now, go!" Rachel told them before turning and sprinting out the front door.
Alexander looked after her a second before turning and grabbing Ajax's hand and pulling him towards the back. "Come on, come on, we gotta go!"
"Obviously!" Ajax cried, and suddenly Alexander was the one being pulled along.
The two of them easily made it to the edge of the woods, the other inhabitants of the town being too panicked to pay attention to the two young boys, even if one of them had a snake tail instead of legs. After all, the other one was Alexander Hamilton, one of the youngest, most troublemaking, and most powerful Vampires in town. He probably did something to that other poor child. But after the two boys made it to the woods, things started to go wrong almost immediately.
Firstly, Ajax let go of Alexander's hand, and appeared to be deliberately trying to lose him, but Alexander was still keeping up at the moment.
Secondly, now that they were in the woods and not in the town itself, some of the other Vampires were beginning to snap out of their panicked haze, so the two boys had to be more careful.
Thirdly, Alexander kept tripping over things. Tree roots were truly evil, you know. Despicable things.
Despite all the opposition, though, they were still doing alright at first. And then there was an earsplitting scream from the town, so loud some of the other members of town clapped their hands over their ears and let out mini-shrieks from the pain. And although Alexander hoped he was wrong, he thought he recognized that voice.
"Maman?" Alexander whirled around, hoping that he was wrong. "Maman!" He began to panic. Where was his mother? What was happening? Where was Ajax? "Ajax?" Alexander turned back the way he had been going, but the Naga in question was no-where to be seen.
Alexander, now completely alone in the woods, mother quite possibly in a lot of danger, began to truly panic.
Rachel was concerned for the town. She'd helped it modernize, updated the school curriculum, lead a campaign to clean up the park. They'd even renamed the town after her, which she thought was supremely embarrassing, but Alexander had been so excited she'd let them go ahead and do it.
The town was her home, plain and simple, and she was not going to let some high and mighty Witch King destroy it! This was a Vampire town, he had no jurisdiction here!
Rachel made her way to the town square, where the King was riding in a horse-drawn coach like the last two centuries just hadn't happened, his two young grandchildren sitting across from him. The boy, Jake, if Rachel remembered correctly, looked rather scared of his grandfather, but the girl, Georgette maybe? Looked rather angry for a four year old. The King himself, Witch King George the Second, looked gleeful.
Rachel slowed to a walk, and, step heavy with purpose, weighed down by the livelihoods of everyone in the town, approached the coach.
The King turned and saw her, grin growing impossibly wider, a delighted expression that did not match those of his grandchildren at all, and they were more of an age where that kind of face would look alright. On the King, it just looked kinda creepy.
"So…" The King drawled, licking his lips, hopefully just to wet them, "A little Vampire has come to protect her town! How quaint. Positively adorable. Isn't that right, Jake?" His voice suddenly filled with venom as he turned to address his grandson, who said nothing, but slid closer to his sister.
"Jake!" The King prodded his Grandson with a walking stick. "I said, isn't that adorable?"
"Wha'evah you say, Gran'fafer," the boy finally spoke with a thick lisp, but even through it you could tell he didn't feel what he said. He sounded dead inside, like a husk of a person. He was only four, how was that possible?
"Witch King!" Rachel yelled to reclaim his attention. "Leave this town at once!"
"Why should I, little Vampire?" the King smirked at her. "I am the Witch King, the most powerful individual in the world!"
"Your title means nothing here! This is a Vampire town! We answer only to the Vampire President!" Rachel clenched her fists, glaring.
"Nothing? Really?" the King shot a blast of magic at her feet. "Perhaps my title holds no weight, but my power surely does!"
"I won't let you destroy my home!" Rachel yelled, unfurling the bat-like wings on her back and shooting into the air, reaching the tops of the tallest buildings in mere seconds.
"Oh," the King grinned. "Playtime! This will be fun!" he aimed another blast at Rachel, this one headed straight for her chest.
This time, Rachel was prepared for the attack and deftly swerved out of the way and began to dive-bomb the King's coach, glowing orbs of dark energy gathering in her hands, like little spiders of electricity, trailing darkness behind the angry vampire.
Down below, the King only laughed, but the young Princess gasped and dragged her brother out of the vehicle, afterward turning and glancing at her grandfather with an expression that could only be called dissapointed disbelief, carefully curled hair now falling into her face, completely disheveled.
The King continued to giggle and swished his scepter through the air, summoning a wave of flames ten feet high, causing Rachel to have to pull up sharply. As it was, she could feel some of her sunscreen melting off, causing her expression to briefly morph to one of alarm as her skin began to burn.
"Scared, little Vampire?" The King continued to let the fire burn, not noticing his grandchildren scrambling away from it in a panic, as he had payed no mind to their location before, why should he care now?
"Never! I will protect my home for the sake of all who live here!" Rachel cried and flung the orbs that she still had in her hands.
One of the dark orbs missed, breaking the wheel of the coach and causing the King's composure to slip for a nanosecond as he fell, but he quickly righted himself, just in time to block the second orb. He then made a show of yawning before sending a volley of blasts at Rachel, a sadistic smirk on his face.
Rachel yelped and wove through the blasts, none managing to hit her, but failed to notice that she was being herded. She was forced to land with her back to the monarch, and he took that opportunity to slice through her body, very nearly cutting her body in half.
Rachel's eyes flew wide as her body stilled and she fell forwards with a scream, landing with a thud not ten feet from where the prince and princess had hidden in their panic. Seeing them on her way down, Rachel thought, 'I refuse to leave Alexander by himself…'
Then the strangest thing happened. Rachel began to feel… weightless, she supposed, would be the closest word. She opened her eyes and saw… herself? She lifted her hand in front of her face and -
It was transparent. She was a ghost. She was dead. She had unfinished business. Business? No. Alexander.
"Well now," The king grinned. "A ghostie! Can't fight me anymore, can you! Hey - where are you going!"
Rachel took off towards the woods, not really stopping to think about what she was doing or really how she was doing it. There was one thing that mattered, and that was Alexander. She'd tried to protect the town, tried to protect their home, but she'd failed. She couldn't fail again, not in protecting the one thing more important than the town. The one person more important than the town.
"Alexander!" she yelled as she entered the woods. "Alexander!"
Alexander was beginning to panic. That scream had sounded like his mother, and… well… that wasn't good. On top of that, he was lost, and Ajax had disappeared. Nothing was going right, it seemed.
"Alexander! Alexander!" Came a yell that sounded like his mother from elsewhere in the trees. Alexander nearly sobbed in relief.
"Maman!" he yelled back.
"Alexander!" His mother yelled again, just as she came into view, and Alexander gasped.
"Maman… you're a ghost…" Alexander began to tear up.
"I'm sorry, Alexander," Rachel reached out and sort of passed her hand through Alexander's cheek. "I failed you."
"Maman…" a tear rolled down his face. "Why…?"
"The Witch King… destroyed everything…" Rachel looked slightly wistful. "I couldn't leave you alone, Alexander."
Alexander nodded and wiped his tears off with his sleeve.
"You can't stay here, love," Rachel told him, "He'll kill you too. Follow me, we'll get out of here."
"O-ok," Alexander said, and Rachel took off again, wishing she could cry.
Alexander didn't know how long he'd been following his mother. He did know that he was slowly getting less and less of a shock every time he saw his mother and she was all white and see-through. It was still off-putting, but less so. He wasn't sure what to think of that.
"We can't stop here, Alexander," Rachel's voice filtered back through the trees. "We have to find a larger group."
"I don't understand, Maman," Alexander whimpered. "Who are you looking for?"
"Werewolves," Rachel replied. "Witches usually try to avoid werewolves, I'm not sure why, but it means if we can find a wolf pack, we'll be safe."
Alexander seemed to consider his mother's answer for a minute, and then nodded. He didn't know much about inter-supernatural type politics as of yet, but knew that the werewolves had only the loosest of central governments, especially when compared to the Vampire Presidency and the Three Kingdoms.
Alexander did know, however, that he was dead on his feet. He felt groggy, like he was looking through science experiment slime and walking through syrup. He wasn't sure how much further he could go.
With how out of it he was feeling, it was hardly surprising when he tripped over a root and made an awful lot of noise in the process. What was surprising were the two… what were they? Alexander couldn't see them clearly… that emerged to investigate. There was a tall one and a short one, and the last thing Alexander heard before drifting off to dreamland was the tall one, a male, saying:
"Bring him to the clearing, Maria. We need to know why he's here."