Chapter 1: The Lord of the Lycans

The struggle for supremacy is eternal, inevitable... Victory is the natural objective of every creature on this world. They will kill and die for their kind to dominate. Some call this eternal struggle "equilibrium", the balance between light and darkness...

My name... is Michael. When I was little, I read stories and fairy tails of a secret society called the Brotherhood of Light. My mother would read me the story of Gabriel the Great—the man who saved our world from the Three Evil Kings. Cornell the Savage, Carmilla the Lustful, and Zobek the Deceitful. As a little boy in my innocence, I would play knights with my friends. I would be Gabriel the Great! But when I was young... my mother died. She caught a fever that just... wouldn't go away. I begged and cried to God to save my beloved mother... but nothing. Nothing at all. My mother was all I had, my father had left when I was very little. But she was taken from me as a mere boy... At that moment, sitting with her on her death bed as the life was stripped away from her... I lost all faith in "God". I stopped playing "knights". I had no desire to even pretend to fight His war. He had stolen my mother from me. But... some things are unavoidable. I guess, some part of me, never lost faith.

It was the year 1457. The rain poured so hard that night... I'll never forget it. It was my eighteenth birthday. My friends and I went out to celebrate. Needless to say, we got a little... intoxicated. I was walking home when I saw a man on a horse riding quickly away from a flying monster. A man with bat-like wings. I now know it was a vampire. But back then, I had no idea what the hell it was. Just my luck, we were on a cliff, and the rider knocked me down. I fell all the way down the steep cliff, but not before hearing the flesh tear off his bones and blood curdling screams of the rider that had sealed my fate. By the time I hit the bottom, my body was bloodied and broken. The many jagged rocks on the way down had a hand in that. My vision was blurred, but the vampire had flown down to "greet" me.

I could see him sniffing me. The blood must've driven him into a frenzy. He was practically licking his lips. But, the creature turned. He seemed to have... gotten frightened by something he saw. He flew away, scared. I turned my head slightly to see a man in a red uniform.

"...Who... are you...?" I managed to choke out.

"I am a member of the Brotherhood of Light." The knight in red said.

My vision was still far too blurry, but I could see his gray, almost white, long hair.

"I can save your life, young man. ...But at a cost." He continued to explain. "The Brotherhood could use your assistance. We need one more guardian to look after the final God Mask piece. ...You have the blood necessary for that."

I was a fool... A young fool. Despite my questions about me having the "blood" necessary to be a guardian, I got excited... I had always dreamt of being a Brotherhood Knight. Plus, I was desperate. I was eighteen. I didn't wanna die at the prime of life! That would have fucking sucked!

"Do you accept... old friend?" Ah, the offer that would condemn me to the fate of being a monster.

I nodded my head "yes" with the last of my strength. He placed the fragment upon my broken chest. A strong light shined and an immense pain, a pain like no other, ran through my body. I screamed in agony as my body flailed and contorted. Absorbing the mask and fixing my broken bones.

After the transformation process, I lied there motionless. With eyes as pail as the moon. A cold, blank stare. Directly upwards, towards the half moon. The rain stopped then. I could hear my heartbeat. It was... irregular. Getting up, I saw the devil I made the deal with.

"My name... is Zobek." He said.

"Wait—what!" I screamed.

"You are now the Lord of the Lycans, Michael. Feel proud. You're following in your ancestor's footsteps."

I heard growls and bushes shaking coming from the sides of me. In seconds, I was surrounded by primitive lycans. The biggest one on the high rock on the side of the cliff that lied in front of me. Every last one of them on all fours, seemingly bowing to me. The full moon broke through the clouds, and its light shined down. All the werewolves howled, dignifying me... as their king. King of the Wolves.

...

It is now September 11th, 2011. 554 years after my... crowning. I am 5'8 with shoulder length brown hair. Parted directly in the middle. I have brown, almost black, eyes. I wear a back leather trench coat, a sleeveless black shirt, blackish jeans, and black boots. There are brown straps with metal on them making an "X" shape across my chest which connect to two metal shoulder plates. Silver colored, but made of bronze for obvious reasons. I have learned many things in my 500 years. Fighting styles, strategies, even cooking techniques for the hell of it. Hey, you get bored in 500 years. Don't judge.

I've even evolved the lycans. Lycans were so primitive in Cornell's time. So boring. Luckily, time heals all wounds. Now, they can change when they want to. They retain intelligence in their transformed state, and even keep individual identifying marks. Like hair color, or length. Even the wargs can remain as dogs until given my command.

But I suppose the most important information are the things I found on Zobek. He gave me a piece of the mask because he needs subservient Lords to help him defend against the returning Satan and his hoard of demons. As for "blood"? Well, through trial and error, he apparently discovered that blood relations between the host and Cornell must exist or the mask... rejects the body. In other words, they explode. My father, whoever the bastard is, was a decedent of the late Cornell, which allowed me to take on his portion of the mask without issue. Gabriel's father, whom he never knew, was a decedent of the witch Carmilla. Huh, lucky him. That mask coulda killed 'em.

And here we are. Present day. Me, living an immortal life. Sleeping on a huge mattress with two beautiful... voluptuous black haired women on both sides of me. All of us passed out from the party we threw at an abandoned jail, now with graffiti on the walls, and beer cans everywhere. Surrounded by passed out lycan brethren. Yep, this is the-

"Lord Michael!" I could hear Spike calling me from the steps.

I turned around, still sleepy. And annoyed at the disturbance.

I sighed heavily, I opened my eyes only to have them forced shut by the light coming through the open door. I slowly reopened them. Careful not to harm my sensitive eyes.

You know, hang overs for lycans suck. We have amazing ears and the sound of rain drops hitting the roof is slicing through my skull. It was night time, the sky was still pitch black.

Grunting, I responded. "What do you want, Spike?"

"You have a visitor." He quickly responded.

"A visitor? What time is it?" I asked, still half asleep.

"About five in the morning." His response annoyed me.

"Five in the morning? Who the fuck comes to visit at five in the goddamn morning!"

"It's Gabriel, sir."

I looked at the open door to see a, blurry, vampiric Gabriel.

I sat up, only two words were able to force their way out.

"Oh, shit."