1926, April 29th
Imperial Capital, Berun
Tanya stood at attention in front of the General Staff, the Imperial Research Staff (including that bastard Doctor von Shugel), the Reichskanzler, and the actual Kaiser himself, Kaiser Frederick III. She had turned herself into a monster, and now she had to justify it to the entirety of the Empire. It wasn't like she could hide it- the entire world had been subjected to blood red darkness for nearly twelve hours.
She was more than a little shocked at herself, at the time, when she had bitten her adjutant, but hindsight showed she had been correct. Had she not, the absolute best case scenario was her death, and the death of everyone else there. Not to mention being remembered as someone who had lost the single best weapon the Empire had immediately after her promotion.
Now she just had to convince everyone else that she hadn't gone mad. Major General von Zettour was the first to speak up.
"Now… Lieutenant Colonel… What exactly did you do to yourself?" A fair question, Tanya supposed, but not the one she was hoping for.
"Everyone here is familiar with the concept of vampires, correct?" A number of people paled at her question, but no one denied being familiar. Just as she was about to speak, Major General von Rudersdorf cut her off.
"You turned yourself into a bloody vampire!?" The man's ever-present cigar fell from his mouth as he practically shouted. Tanya did everything she could to not recoil at his tone.
"Indeed… sir. I saw no other path to rescue my men that wouldn't result in more damage in the longer term. As it stands, this transformation has-"
"How did you do it? And what exactly has this done to you? Are you repulsed by crosses or bibles, would you only die to a stake, how-" Tanya was glad when the Kaiser raised his hand to silence Doctor von Shugel.
"Doctor, I feel I should remind you that you are already on thin ice, so to speak. Do not push your luck on such sensitive matters as these." Doctor von Shugel was at least sane enough to indeed not push his luck and quickly silenced himself.
"Lieutenant Colonel Tanya von Degurechaff. You stand here and claim to have transformed yourself into a vampire, is this correct?" It took every year of training and discipline Tanya had to not tremble under the man's gaze. There was an air of power behind every word he spoke, the might of an empire, the Empire, seeming to bolster his voice.
"That is correct, your excellency. I have documents on the process of transformation and what exactly I am, though they are… somewhat cryptic, your excellency." Tanya shifted under the man's scrutinizing gaze, adjusting herself such as to weed out any possible flaw in her stance.
"Cryptic, Colonel? Where did you acquire these documents?"
"From Bran Castle, your excellency. In Dacia, specifically Sangsylvania" Everyone froze at this, gazing at her wide-eyed. After a minute of silence elapsed, Major General von Zettour finally spoke up.
"So, the legends of Dracula… they are true, then?" Tanya nodded sharply.
"Indeed, sir. I don't know what became of Count Vladimir von Dracula the Impaler, but he left a not-inconsiderably sized journal documenting his vampirism. He… had a somewhat poetic flair to his writing, so I've had to decode everything he's written. It has been difficult, but I had figured out enough to discover how to complete the transformation-"
"Complete? What do you mean complete?" Tanya cursed herself internally for slipping up, and cursed Doctor von Shugel for suddenly finding his voice. She had wanted to avoid too much information getting out about how to transform, for fear of others trying to become like her.
"Well, Colonel?" The voice of the Kaiser sent chills through her body, and got her mouth moving.
"Well… he had a very… flowery way of describing the process, but put simply you have to kill thousands of people to initiate the first half of the transformation, and then drink blood to finish it. The sky turning dark and red is a part of what is apparently known as the Longest Night. Essentially, when a new vampire is created the ambient mana in the world reacts violently to their existence, and won't return to a normal state until the transformation finishes. In order to finish the transformation, a… large amount of blood needs to be… consumed by the vampire." Tanya knew that last part was going to unsettle people, and sure enough most of the people there looked quite pale after she was done. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, the question on everyone's mind finally was asked; and by none other than the Reichskanzler.
"Do you need to… drink blood, Colonel?" Tanya couldn't keep gaze with anyone in front of her and ultimately had to look away. Tanya was disgusted with her own nature, having to consume human blood. What was more disgusting to her, though, was the fact that it tasted so damn good to her. She could honestly see herself adding it to her coffee or, really, any other drink or even some meals. And then there was… her adjutant's blood. Visha's blood had tasted…
"Colonel?" Tanya snapped back to reality, quickly clearing her throat.
"Ehm, apologies sir. Yes, I do need to drink blood, sir." For whatever reason, she felt it was suddenly easier to explain that. Perhaps a side-effect of the transformation was for the brain to normalize the consumption of blood in the mind of the transformed?
The research staff had been furiously scribbling in their notes non-stop, and now the sound of them writing was the only sound that could be heard.
"Colonel… are you certain there was no other way?" Rudersdorf. He had always tried to be like a father to her, perhaps as a remedy for his own failures in producing a child. While Tanya had no interest in being adopted by the man for anything beyond career advantages, she had made use of his gentler handling of her to attempt to further her own goal of peace.
"I suppose I could have used one hundred percent of the power of the Type 95, but Second Lieutenant Serebryakov talked me out of it. I am glad she did as well; the Empire would have had to hunt me down and kill me before I could exterminate humanity. The casualties would have been… immense, to say the least. I certainly did not wish for my body to turn into a puppet of destruction, sir." Though the man had a somber expression, he seemed to accept this. Tanya only hoped that the others would be as understanding.
"If I may, sirs; your excellency." With how poorly the war was going, Tanya knew she needed some strong bargaining chip for how the Empire could benefit from this going forward; and Tanya had just the thing. The Kaiser nodded, and a slight, now fanged, grin slowly crept onto her face.
"My mana capacity has nearly doubled since transforming." Tanya let her words hang in the air as the scribbling of the scientists completely halted. Just as it seemed like Doctor von Shugel was going to speak, she spoke up again.
"Furthermore, if the Count's documentation is correct, I am not only immortal but also, effectively, unkillable." Once again, silence dominated the room. If this were a cartoon, Tanya thought, I'm fairly certain I would have heard people's jaws hitting the floor. Tanya could only hope that that alone would be convincing enough.
It took nearly three minutes of the Empire's leadership staring at each other and at her in shock and awe before someone said something. Unfortunately, it was Shugel who said it.
"I need her in my lab, and I need her there now!" He yelled as he slammed his fists onto the table, throwing his chair back as he rose from his seat. Tanya failed to keep a cool head, images of dissections and tortuous experiments flashing in her mind. She lept backward with supernatural agility into the nearest point of darkness and hissed at the madman threatening her with autopsy.
Wait, hissed? Tanya put a hand to her face, and found her fangs prominently displayed before them. Taking deep breaths, she worked to calm herself. The transformation had definitely changed her mentally. That kind of reaction was… she didn't even know what to make of it.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a searing pain on her face. She shielded herself, only to find her hands were burning as well. She looked past her fingers to find a bright light emanating from where everyone else was sitting. A light in the shape of a cross.
"P-put that cross away! It's burning me!" Tanya felt herself slam into a wall behind her, desperate to escape the new sun that had suddenly appeared in the room. How were the others not being blinded by it?
"What cross- Shugel, your necklace! Quickly!" Tanya heard movement, but it barely registered. She didn't know exactly what the cross was doing to her, but she knew it hurt. She quickly leapt forward and slashed at the source of light, shredding it with her claws. As the pain finally subsided, she looked up to find that not only had everyone quickly moved away from her, not only had the guards in the room, members of the Kaiser's personal guard, pointed their rifles at her, but Doctor von Shugel now had slight pricks of blood dripping from the knuckles of one of his hands. Looking down, Tanya saw her own clawed hand indeed had blood on it.
She had messed up, and bad. In her panic from the pain, she had lashed out and injured a member of the Imperial Research Staff. She knew that she had just painted herself as an animal that needed caging rather than an esteemed member of the Imperial military. Slowly, she raised her hands in a sign of surrender. Her only hope was to salvage this so she at least had rights comparable to a human. Tanya made sure her every word was carefully measured.
"I… apologise, herr doctor. Your cross was incredibly painful, and it blinded me with the light it produced." Tanya looked down at the shards of metal now scattered across the table.
"Destroying it has… eliminated its effects, and I don't seem to have been harmed as I had thought I was. Once again: I apologise. This will not happen again, sirs; your excellency."
This was going to be a long and arduous conversation; of that, Tanya could be certain.
