Disclaimer: Everything you recognise from the film series isn't mine.

Feedback: Always appreciated.

The Lone Wolf

Selene wasn't sure if Amelia's decision to accompany her to meet with Michael on her own was motivated by simple curiosity or some deeper concerns, but for the moment at least she was grateful for the Elder's presence. Once Amelia had established that only Kahn was aware of Michael's existence, the Elder had informed them both that the best strategy for now was to let most of her forces return to Ordghaz to prepare the mansion for the apparently planned lycan assault and put Kraven under arrest. The guards had reported that a few lycans had escaped the assault on the train, but Selene doubted that any of their enemies would be able to alter their plans quickly enough to attack the mansion this quickly.

For the moment, Amelia had also declared that the Awakening was essentially on hold until the current crisis was resolved, to ensure that the lycans couldn't take advantage of the temporary power gap during the day when Amelia would fast and Marcus would be fed blood to restore himself to health. It was unfortunate, but at least there was a precedent for such situations; there had been a few occasions where Awakenings had been postponed until some sudden crisis had been resolved. Amelia's forces were under orders to keep Kraven contained and his followers under house arrest until they had clear evidence of Kraven's agenda, which should at least ensure that he couldn't do anything to alert Lucian or his associates without making it obvious.

Selene still wasn't sure how they were going to convince the rest of the Death Dealers to spare Michael, but at least Amelia was willing to meet with her friend in private before making any decisions about his fate. Amelia had agreed with her that it was best to keep Michael's existence secret until they had a plan for how to explain the situation to the rest of the mansion residents, but she insisted on talking with him before she made any official proclamations. As far as the rest of the group were concerned, Selene was taking Amelia to Ordghaz via a different route from the main party to throw off possible pursuit, but only Kahn knew where she was really going. The car was one that Soren's team had used earlier, but Selene wasn't petty enough to waste time going back for her preferred vehicle when Michael's life was potentially at stake if he remained unprotected for too long.

"How did you first make contact with this Michael?" Amelia asked, once the two of them were some distance from the station.

"It was… I was lucky, really," Selene said with a thoughtful shrug. "I spotted him while I was on my latest patrol and caught the scent of a lycan leaving the hospital."

"He was ill?"

"He works there, actually," Selene clarified with a small smile. "After he lost his fiancé in the accident that turned him, he decided to leave America to get away from his memories of her and began training so that he wouldn't be so helpless as he was in that accident."

"Commendable," Amelia nodded. "May I ask why you didn't just kill him?"

"At first I reasoned that he was likely part of a larger pack and it made more sense to keep an eye on him until I knew where the rest of them were," Selene explained. "By the time I realised that he wasn't part of any kind of pack, I was also satisfied that he wasn't… well, that he wasn't an active part of this war."

"Because you never saw him attack any of us?"

"Because he actively locked himself away every full moon to ensure that he wouldn't harm anyone," Selene clarified, careful to keep her tone respectful as they moved deeper into Budapest. "I could accept a standard lycan living alone to avoid detection, but I couldn't imagine a lycan so concerned for innocents that he would lock himself up like that."

"Quite," Amelia nodded thoughtfully. "That is… certainly unusual behaviour."

"Have you ever seen something like that before?"

"There were… a few back in the early days of the werewolves who attempted such things, but they naturally didn't have the same opportunities as someone would have today…"

"Werewolves?" Selene looked at Amelia curiously. She was aware of the popular term, but something about the way Amelia said it suggested some more significant distinction between werewolves and lycans.

"In the early days of the immortals, what you know as lycans hadn't yet come into existence," Amelia explained. "Back then, the werewolves were essentially trapped in their transformed state after the initial infection, reduced to nothing more than feral animals; at least lycans have a mind for tactics and can return to human form depending on the demands of the situation."

"So they were the animals we're taught to think of the lycans as?" Selene said. It was only after the words had passed her lips that she realised what she'd just said; thinking of Michael as an exceptional lycan was one thing, but actively thinking that other lycans could be like him was something else.

"Essentially," Amelia nodded. "In the early days, some humans who were bitten on the last nights of the full moon were able to resist the transformation long enough to get out of sight, but they simply lacked the means to secure themselves somewhere where nobody could find them."

"How… courageous of them," Selene said, struck by a sense of sympathy at the thought of those long-gone humans. Even if most people didn't believe in them these days, modern media had at least given people some idea of the 'rules' that defined vampires and lycans and how to cope; Michael's example alone was proof of that. The idea that anyone from a culture so primitive that they dated back to Amelia's humanity could have had the courage to at least attempt such a feat was something to be commended, even if it apparently hadn't worked.

Have we just grown used to underestimating humans? Selene found herself wondering. Amelia's policies in the last century had encouraged a greater awareness of human achievements, but it was easy to just see how humans had advanced technologically and think that was it. Michael had spent months thinking of himself as a monster, unable to share his nature with anyone else, and he'd still had the courage to find a way to protect others from what he had become…

When Selene made the final turn into the street with Michael's safehouse, she was immediately shocked to see an unfamiliar van on one corner, the strong scent of a large group of lycans filling the air as soon as she stopped the car and opened the door. Selene glanced at Amelia, but it was clear that the female Elder was ready into action despite the fact that she was still wearing her elegant gown.

"If you see a fair-haired male lycan, don't hurt him," Selene said, hoping that the Elder wouldn't take offence at her words. "Michael should be more focused on getting away than fighting in a situation like this, so I doubt he'll transform, but if he's defending himself he could be in the middle of the fight…"

"Understood," Amelia nodded, shoulders tensed and a slight smile on her face as she took in the building before her. That detail clarified, the two women emerged from the car and advanced towards the building, the scent and sound of transformed lycans already clear. Selene drew her weapons as she advanced, although Amelia just flexed her arms; with the raw strength of an elder behind her, she shouldn't need more than her bare hands to deal with a group of relatively random lycans.

"Michael!" Selene called out as she entered the building, stealth irrelevant in the face of the threat to the man she'd come here to save. "Get out!"

The sound of growling lycans from above confirmed that the safehouse was already under attack, but Selene couldn't let herself wonder how they'd found this place so quickly. The priority right now had to be to get Michael to safety and stop this current wave of lycans; questions about the reason they were after Michael had to wait. Looking up, Selene's eyes widened as she saw four lycans jump off the stairs above her, two transformed and two more still in human form.

Selene quickly turned her berettas on the human-form lycans while Amelia leapt up to intercept the ones that had already changed, grabbing a neck in each hand before she spun around to slam them both against the ground. The large creatures struggled against her grip, but the strength of an Elder was more than enough to keep them pinned as Selene fired at the humans. One lycan went down swiftly when Selene's shots struck it in the chest and head, but she adjusted her aim to hit the other one in the knees when she registered the contrast between him and the usual lycans she saw in the field. The older man was clearly a lycan if he had attempted that jump in the first place, but in Selene's experience vampires and lycans turned the young and healthy unless they had a reason to make an exception, and there were several questions about this situation that still needed answers.

Satisfied that her immediate attackers weren't a threat and that Amelia had her own enemies under control, Selene ran up the stairs towards the safehouse level, but her hopes of an easy resolution were halted when she found that the door had been broken down. Even knowing that it was likely hopeless, she ran into the safehouse, quickly confirming that Michael had already been taken before she headed for the window. Looking out, she saw Michael being forced into a police cruiser by two other lycans, these two disguised as police officers to go with the false car. Lost for better ideas, Selene leapt from the window down to the ground, but by the time she had reached the street the car was already too far away for her to catch up.

"Shit," Selene allowed herself a moment of lost self-control before she turned back to the main building. She might have lost Michael for now, but if she was right about that older lycan…

When she re-entered the building, Selene was grimly satisfied to see that the older-looking lycan was still alive, even if he was still too injured to move from where he'd fallen. The transformed lycans had already had their necks broken by Amelia, but Selene wasn't too concerned about that; hiding the bodies for later disposal would be easy enough when they were already in a safehouse.

"Michael?" Amelia looked up at Selene as she moved to stand over the last living lycan in the hall.

"He was abducted," Selene said, before turning her attention to the lycan. "But we have a potential source right here."

"Do you believe that I will talk?" the lycan glared up at her, managing to look reasonably defiant despite the pain on his face.

In response, Selene walked over and slammed her foot down on the lycan's still-bleeding knee, refusing to allow herself to smile when her prisoner let out a yell of agony. As satisfying as it was to have a clear enemy, this was about finding someone important to her rather than punishing a lycan.

"We have time," Selene said, hoping that she wasn't faced with some other time limit she didn't know about. "Tell me why you are interested in Michael Corvin, and we'll see about getting you medical attention and a comfortable cell."

"Cell?" the lycan repeated with a pained smirk. "That is actually an option?"

"We are willing to consider it," Amelia observed, moving to stand beside Selene as they looked down at the lycan. "Which is admittedly more than you deserve considering your forces took part in an attempt to kill me and my entourage less than an hour ago, but it is becoming clear things are more… interesting… than I expected."

The lycan stared up at them for a few moments, but when Selene ground her heel into the lycan's knee, he nodded in pained resignation. Selene moved him to a position close to the wall so that he could lean against that, which should hopefully give him a sense of dignity about his current situation, and then moved back to stand alongside Amelia as they looked at him.

"For some time now, we've been searching for someone with a special trait…" the lycan began, his expression trembling as though he didn't like giving away what he was saying now. "A direct descendant of Alexander Corvinus… Hungarian, a warlord who came to power in the early seasons of the fifth century, only to watch a plague ravage his entire fiefdom."

Even in the current situation, Selene was intrigued to see that the lycan's explanation was picking up speed. Recalling some of the films she'd watched with Michael over the last few weeks, she wondered if he was one of those people who just liked to talk about his knowledge to anyone who would listen, even if it was an enemy.

"Corvinus was the only survivor," the lycan continued. "His body was able to shape the illness, somehow… to mould it to his benefit. He became the first true immortal…"

"And years later, he had three mortal children, one of whom became the first lycan, another the first vampire, and the third who inherited Corvinus's mortal titles while Corvinus himself vanished," Amelia finished with a bored shrug.

"You know the truth?" the lycan looked at her with a curious expression.

"Marcus has his flaws, but he was honest when he brought Viktor and I into the fold," Amelia replied.

"What truth?" Selene asked, confused at this apparently irrelevant turn in the conversation. "What does Marcus have to do with this-?"

"Marcus's full name is Markus Corvinus."

Despite herself, Selene could only stare at Amelia as she processed that declaration.

She had spent so long believing that Viktor was the oldest and strongest vampire alive, and now Amelia had essentially revealed that Marcus was actually the first vampire? The older Elder had no reason to lie about that in this situation, but that also raised questions about why anyone had started telling that particular lie in the first place…

"Which doesn't answer why you would go to so much trouble looking for a mortal descendant of Corvinus," Amelia turned her attention back to the lycan. "We know that Kraven has been working with Lucian for centuries; what was stopping you from getting to the Elders' chambers and taking a sample from Marcus?"

"Aside from the fact that we did not wish Kraven to know our full agenda?" the lycan replied with a grim smirk. "There were… concerns… that the vampire traits in Marcus's blood would contaminate the sample and make it… unsuitable… for our intended purpose."

"But that's not a problem with Michael, is it?" Selene looked cautiously at the lycan. "But… why is that so important to you?"

"As to the first, with my own knowledge of the lycan gene, it was simple enough to identify the original virus in Michael Corvin's genetic code by screening out the lycan elements from the sample," the lycan affirmed, his expression briefly becoming more regretful as he continued. "As to the second, for years we've been trying to combine the bloodlines… and for years we failed, as though even on the cellular level our species are destined to destroy each other. With the Corvinus strain taken from Michael, we can achieve a perfect union; a triple-celled platelet, which holds unspeakable power… which was where you came in."

"Me?" Amelia looked at the lycan with renewed curiosity. "I thought that… Kraven just knew the cover story for the attack against me, correct?"

"Killing you would cause chaos among the vampires, but that was not our sole goal," the lycan confirmed with a smirk. "With the blood of a pure-born lycan mixed with the blood of a powerful Elder… such as yourself… along with a sample of Michael Corvin's blood…"

"A hybrid?" Amelia looked curiously at the lycan scientist.

"Half-vampire, half-lycan, but stronger than both," the scientist affirmed.

"Which is how Lucian intended to enforce his 'treaty' with Kraven after the Elders were dead, correct?" Selene cut in.

"How did you guess?" the scientist asked.

"Kraven is too much of an egotist to just let the lycans live given how he feels about them, and I doubt that Lucian is stupid enough to trust Kraven not to try and betray him eventually," Selene clarified. "Kraven would at least recognise that he needed to let Lucian's forces kill the Elders so that he could come away from the deaths relatively clean, but after that Lucian would have wanted some guarantee that he could maintain his own power no matter what kind of limited numbers the lycans might have."

"Quite," the scientist nodded, his expression grim even as his eyes retained a slight sense of satisfaction that his work was being appreciated. "The hybrids would guarantee Lucian's ability to surpass any threat that Kraven or the rest of you could make against him, and Kraven's ego and Viktor's prejudices would ensure that none of you could explore suitable alternatives to oppose him if they survived."

The scenario sounded overly complicated to Selene, but there was a reason she'd never been very interested in politics, and at least she understood enough to establish what Lucian had been intending to get out of this particular scheme. The treaty he was intending to create with Kraven would still be valid either way, but the existence of the hybrids would give Lucian a useful trump card. If they were as powerful as Lucian apparently believed they would be, he could use them to enforce his own authority, and thus ensure that Kraven could never turn against him later. It would be more of a détente than a true peace, but Kraven would have power and Lucian would have dealt with his enemies, so each would be satisfied.

"Lucian would do all this to end the blood feud?" Amelia asked.

"Blood feud?" the scientist chuckled as he looked at Amelia. "Has Viktor managed to conceal the truth from you for this long?"

"What?" Amelia glared at the lycan scientist with new intensity. "What are you talking about?"

"Lucian has his reasons for hating your kind, but be assured that Viktor is the one who started this particular conflict so many centuries ago," the scientist explained.

"Viktor?" Selene said, fighting down the instinctive urge to reject that accusation. She couldn't pin down the moment that she had lost her former admiration for her sire, but the moment she had acknowledged that Viktor would just treat Michael as a lycan without showing any concern about his unique circumstances, she had been forced to acknowledge that he wasn't the ideal warrior she had perceived him as for so long. She wasn't ready to completely abandon her past respect for him, but the idea that Viktor had helped to start the war suddenly wasn't as impossible as she would have tried to dismiss it as before she met Michael…

"What did he do?" she looked cautiously at the lycan. "How did Viktor start the war?"

"You wouldn't believe me without evidence," the scientist said, adjusting his posture for a moment before he turned to Amelia. "But if you wish this evidence… I want a guarantee that Lucian will be allowed to speak his piece, rather than face summary execution the moment he is discovered."

"You will give us the location of Lucian's base?" Amelia asked.

"And the most direct route to his location, so long as you guarantee that he will not be harmed… any more than is necessary to bring him in," the scientist affirmed.

"And you believe that I will do this?"

"I believe that Selene here wishes to ensure that Michael Corvin survives, and I believe that you are more… reasonable to the evidence," the scientist shrugged. "Viktor has his own prejudices, of course, and even Marcus has a questionable history in this regard, but you?"

"You trust her to be reasonable when you were planning to kill her as part of your existing plan?" Selene pointed out, unable to stop herself.

"Lucian and I are adaptable," the scientist shrugged, although Selene was grateful to see that Amelia was looking at the lycan in an assessing manner as he turned his attention to her. "If it helps, your own death was merely a convenient part of the scheme; neither Lucian or myself bear any true grudge against you…"

Amelia and Selene stared at their lycan prisoner in silence for a moment, considering the implications of his offer. Selene wasn't sure how to react to the offer that this lycan had just made, torn between her long commitment to the war and the part of her that had been inspired by Michael to find another way of doing things. Despite that, as she looked at Amelia, she found that she had a cautious faith in the female Elder's ability to do the right thing at this point, suddenly certain that the older vampire would take a more practical view rather than continuing the apparent cycle of violence that had started for a reason she was starting to suspect almost nobody knew the truth behind…

"Very well," Amelia nodded at last. "You will provide me with a suitable entrance point for your headquarters, and then I will return to the mansion to ensure that Kraven has been secured and enlist a team of my most trusted Death Dealers. Selene will take you to your chosen entrance and you will accompany us to make it clear that we are here to talk rather than fight."

"Understood," the lycan nodded, wincing as he tried to stand up; his wounds might be healing, but the silver bullets would still be painful.

"And be warned," Selene said, walking over to stare directly into the lycan's eyes. "If you betray us, I'll make sure you die before any of your fellows can save you."

"And be sure that Michael Corvin survives," Amelia added, giving Selene a brief smile as she looked back at the Elder in surprise. "I trust that, given the history between our people, we can both accept the need for self-defence before we can establish terms, but I would prefer not to talk over the blood of an innocent."

Innocent…

It was the ease with which Amelia used that word that allowed Selene to relax for the first time in what felt like months.

Having Kahn on her side had been one thing when he was a friend who trusted that she wouldn't betray the coven, but to have an Elder support her belief that Michael was a victim rather than an enemy…

Selene didn't know what she should expect from what was about to happen, but it was good to know that Michael had at least one more important ally in the coven who seemed ready to speak up in his favour.