Author's Note:
Hi guys, it's me again. I'm really sorry about the confusing time jump. It was just taking too long to get to the main plot. I hope nobody's too confused by the jump. I'm sorry if this chapter isn't all that great as well. I wrote it at like two in the morning because I couldn't sleep.
As always I want to thank everyone who has reviewed or even just took the time to read my story. And thanks to enigmagirl2727 for her review. Post your next chapter soon, or else.
Chapter #4
Mina woke up suddenly when the bell rang. It felt like no time had passed but it had been a whole two months later since Mina had begun training at The Knights Of The Holy Order in Rome. Once again she was waking to the first bell, then her day would begin. She could hear Rosita stirring in the next bed over. Claudia was already sitting up in her bed.
She and Rosita were now the best of friends, they were almost always found together. Claudia, on the other hand, was not their friend. Rosita tried often to get Claudia to hang out with them but she would have none of it. She had her own group of friends and could care less about her roommates. Mina tried, for Rosita's sake, to be nice to Claudia but it was hard.
As usual they basically slept through the beginning religious services. They weren't alone, most of the students thought that attending religious services were boring and didn't pay attention. People only really woke up during morning exercises. Then they went to The Cardinal's religions class. That month they were working on languages. Mina had found out that she hated languages, while Rosita and Claudia were the best in the class.
During the next class, potions and healing, Mina worked on the class assignment for Potions and Healing. Rosita, Mina's partner, wrote the essay that was due during their Making Weapons class. Mina also had to do hers too so during their Monster Awareness class Rosita did the work while Mina did her essay. It was an arrangement they had done many times to finish homework. It worked out since luckily most class assignments were for pairs to do.
Rosita finished her essay minutes before the bell that announced the end of class rang. Then she and Mina started towards their Monster Awareness class. When they got there they were told to research the best climates for basic monsters. Rosita started the research while Mina began her essay for their Making Weapons class.
Mina was almost done her essay when she heard a cough over her. Looking up she found Ms. Nikmis, their teacher in Monster Awareness looking over her shoulder and reading her essay.
"Your essay is very good Ms. Monstrous," she said taking it off the table and holding it up, "the only snag I see is that it is not for the class you are in now. I thought you and Rosita were supposed to be working together on a assignment for my class. But since you seem to enjoy writing essays so much you will get to write an extra one for my class due tomorrow." At that moment the bell went off and everyone stood up. Ms. Nikmis beckoned Mina over and handed her a piece of paper with the assignment written on it. Mina took the paper silently and left the classroom.
"Mina," said Rosita as soon as they were out of the classroom, "I'm so sorry she crept up on me. I never saw her coming."
"She must be the only person in the world who actually took Undercover and Concealment seriously."
"What's the essay on?"
"How climate effects," Mina read from the paper, "the lifestyles of monsters. Pick an example from each continent except Antarctica."
"Don't worry I'll help you," said Rosita, "we can do it during free time before diner."
"Thanks Ro," said Mina, "I think I'll outline it during our Making Weapons Class."
And she would have except that during their Making Weapons class Mr. Eivets set them to work making sais with a set complicated design around the handle, without a mold. Making them took forever to do even with a mold. To make matters worse insane Mr. Eivets had brought his parrot with him. It spent the whole class swooping at unsuspecting students and ruining their work. Every time it did Mr. Eivets would feed it a cracker.
At lunch Mina and Rosita came up with a list of monsters to highlight in the essay. They had just finished when the bell rang calling them to afternoon classes. All the students now expected to get beat up during Hand To Hand Combat class by their teacher, Mrs. Korei. Before she had begun Mrs. Korei's class Mina had always considered herself to be a very good at hand to hand fighting. Now she knew that she was nowhere near being good at it.
Things were only slightly better in their class on using weapons taught by Ms. Hiracep. This was because if Ms. Hiracep actually used weapons on the students seriously it would leave visible marks. The impression the students had gotten from Ms. Hiracep on the first day was accurate. Woe to the careless student who used a weapon incorrectly in her class.
In their horseback riding class Ms. Snave had them all work on their jumping over objects that could be in their way. When she demonstrated Ms. Snave made it look so easy but it wasn't. The horses really had to trust their riders and none of the students horses trusted them the way Ms. Snave's horses trusted her. But still Mina like riding a lot and she really loved her horse. She was hoping that she could convince her mother to let her buy the horse she was using in class when her training was complete.
In Undercover and Concealment their teacher now had them doing a new complicated stunt. She had set up scales with a bag of coins on one end and a glass statue on the other. Their task was to switch the bag of coins for a bag of stones fast and smooth enough that the balance didn't tilt enough for the glass statue to fall and break. And as usual they had to make no sound whatsoever. Predictably when they left the class their teacher was short a few hundred statues.
But there was no rest for Mina and Rosita who went straight to the library when classes were over. Rosita worked on the worksheet from Potions and Healing, (match the ingredients with their potions) while Mina was finding maps for the areas the monsters she had chosen lived.
"Hey Ro," Mina called from the index cabinet, "what monster do I have written down for Europe?" She heard Ro standing up and checking Mina's list.
"You have vampire written down." In the slide archive Mina selected several slides marked 'vampire' and ' Transylvania'. She brought it over to the table where Rosita was working and Mina had set up a projector.
The first three rolls of slides Mina looked at didn't have a map. They had images of stakes, teeth, and even the best garlic for repelling vampires but no map. The forth however had a map on the first image. Looking at it Mina began the paragraph.
About ten minutes later she got up and looked at the map closer. Then she sighed and turned to Rosita.
"Damn, why doesn't this map have any city names?" Rosita stood up and came over to look at the map too.
"Maybe," Rosita said as she found the controls for the projector, "there's more details on the next image." But when she clicked to the next slide the picture of a man came up instead of a map.
"Who," asked Rosita, "is that?" Mina didn't answer even though she knew the face already. It was Count Dracula, she had seen his picture in an unused room in the school her mom ran in Budapest. The large mansion had been the count's summer home at one time. She remembered the face since he had completely destroyed her family. She picked up the case that the roll had been in. She opened it and checked its label.
"That's Count Dracula. The next slide is-" but when she saw the name her breath caught, "Valerious The Elder." Rosita clicked the machine not noticing how Mina had reacted to the name. The name wasn't the only thing that shocked Mina however. The label next to the name, Valerious The Elder, read: 'Count Dracula's Father'. "His father…" she hadn't realized she had been talking aloud. Rosita looked at her worried.
But Mina's mind was racing, no one had ever mentioned this. Not her mother, not Carl, not Frank, not even Gabe. Why hadn't they told her? Did they think she couldn't handle it?
"Mina," said Rosita in a concerned voice, "Mina you don't look so well. Are you okay?" But Mina was going over to where she could control the projector herself. She clicked the button and the next picture was displayed. It showed a man with long scruffy hair and an eye patch. Consulting the name and caption written on the case Mina looked back at the picture and stared. It read Boris Valerious: King Of The Gypsies.
But even as Mina's muddled brain tried to work through still more new information about her family, (if her grandfather was a king what would that make her?), her eyes fell upon the next name on the list. It said Velkan Valerious. Her father.
She franticly pressed the button to see the next picture. When it came up she sank down into a seat. It was the exact same picture her mother kept on her bedside table.
"Mina," Rosita now sounded panicky, "Mina talk to me. What's wrong?"
"That's my father." Mina didn't know what else she could tell her friend. There was so much here that she had never known. She had always knew that her family had some significance but she had always been told it was nothing important. According to this she was a descendent of Dracula himself. Apparently she was also the ruler of the gypsies. "I have to know more," she decided, "it's time I learned about my father's family."
When the bell for diner rang Mina and Rosita were pouring over books that referred to the Valerious family. But there were huge gaps in the information the library had on her family, and on her father in particular.
"Rosita," she said slowly, "I need to go to Transylvania."
"Why?"
"Ro I need answers, I just do."
"Well then I'm going with you."
The two girls snuck out that night while the rest of the students were eating diner. Or almost all of the students. Claudia saw Rosita and Mina leaving and began to follow them. But they didn't see or hear her. Claudia paid attention during Undercover and Concealment.