Unconfirmed reports of guerrilla fighting have surfaced from the Philippine jungle, as survivors have come forward to independent journalists with first-hand accounts of the brutal fighting that took place deep in the jungle.

Bullets whizzed by everyone's heads. Their opponents seemed less concerned with actually hitting them at medium-to-long range, instead focusing on suppressing them to come in for the kill. They were all aware of that, and that's why they lined up as good as they could, sticking to the few cover remaining and concealing their just-thought-out plan. While shooters were still going to be posted in vantage points, letting the assaulters getting near them was an effective way of eliminating the majority of the enemies in one single move.

As of the moment of this report, no group or organization has come forward claiming responsibility for the violence, neither have the local authorities issued statements on their claimed involvement in the events that took place.

"If we get out of this one I'll buy everybody a drink" Daniel muttered, earning silent chuckles from the group, unheard because of the amateurish yelling of the enemies that drew near to them. They practically had them on top of themselves, at which point they pulled the pins on the grenades they were holding and tossed them above their precarious cover. The fuses were short, and the trap froze the assaulter in place for just a second, but it was all they needed. The detonations rang loud, and the hissing of shrapnel flying past their heads was enough to haunt even the bravest soldier. Hey emerged from cover, now their turn to mow down their foes, who never stood a chance after the grenade assault. The shooters in elevated positions returned fire at them, but their number was limited, and their morale had been mined by the elimination of their backup. The Marlow brothers' teams moved by the sides of the street, covering each other on their flanks, opening fire on the enemies harassing them, carrying their wounded… it was chaotic. They relied on their training to keep themselves alive and saving their friends. One burst of fire, one more advance. Always under the shelter of their friends' fire.

"Down the alleys! Follow them to the river. Our exfiltration team is waiting for us in there!" Robert shouted, being one of the last men in the column, along with Johnathan, and still laying down covering fire. Daniel guided the group through the dirt streets, focusing on speed rather than stealth. Despite the shooters being in high points where they couldn't relocate very easily from, they still had a high ground and could fire in their direction, so they had to stay away from open spaces

The international community has condemned the government silence, while groups opposed to the current administration in Manila have used the opportunity to make evidence of government corruption public, facing possible violent backlash for their actions.

"There's the extraction team, go!" Daniel shouted, helping one of his men carry another wounded.

"I thought you said we would RV in the town hall!" the extraction leader shouted over the noise of the battle, motioning to help the wounded-men carriers.

"That was before they tried to assault our position. You said the Army was coming, didn't you?"

"Yeah, along with some unknown hard asses. I'm willing to bet those shooters on the top floor are some of those guys. They are no push overs, so we need to high tail it out of here while we can. The boats are ready, and their air support is coming from the mainland, so our route from the river to the ocean is clear"

"Good, get everyone on board! Rob, Johnny, get your asses in here, we are leaving!"

One week later

"Well, at least it's not our ugly mugs on the news, so there's that…" Robert pointed out as the news report finished, while he brought his coffee up to take a sip.

"If that were the case, we wouldn't have much time to mourn that fact" Johnny retorted dryly, looking around at the strangers that surrounded them. The stress of still being technically hunted by someone didn't allow him to ease up on his awareness, so he was still always on his toes.

"Well, seven of our men had to go home with severe injuries, and three more with flesh wounds, so I wouldn't go around celebrating exactly. The rest are on standby if we decide to go against the guys we encountered, and I think they really want to go out there and cause some hurt. Which begs the question, what's our net move?" Daniel was being as pragmatic as he could, obviously, but he was obviously itching for a fight. Ten men injured in a single go was not something he wanted to go unanswered.

"First things first. Johnny, you are out" Robert wasted no time telling his brother.

"What?! That's it? I'm out?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. You are out. Van Helsing is dead, Mavis is now safe. Your involvement in this is finished. You can either go home and resume life… or…" the next part of the sentence was better not said, but the three brothers knew it by heart.

"No, I started this, I dragged you into it, I must follow it to…"

"The end? No, you don't. Robert is right, Johnny, you did your part in this, you killed the bastard, you are done. The rest is up to us"

Johnathan sighed and rubbed his forehead. On the one hand, they were right, Van Helsing had gotten three new breathing holes in the head, and that was about the extent to which he had compromised on it. He was free to go, decide whatever he wanted to do next (and that was a big decision, just waiting for him to make it), yet he knew that the men injured had been there because of him, and so, he had a responsibility to see it to the end. However, before he could make the decision himself, both his brothers stood up and motioned to leave, briefly saying good bye to him.

"If you do decide to go back to her, give Mavis our regards, and condolences. Hope you can take her home some time" Robert invited before leaving. Shamelessly, as he soon found out he had to pay the tab.

"Nice trick, assholes" he just muttered to himself.

Mavis had healed very slowly. The first weeks had been excruciating. Sometimes the pain had been so bad that she spent a complete day unable to sleep, crying loudly in pain while her body tried to heal the silver-inflicted wounds. Her father would rush to her side and take her in his arms, trying in vain to lessen the pain of the healing, but not helping much in the end. It was dreadful, to see his daughter like that. Her husband dead, her Zing still gone, her body hurt by a poisonous metal… He had wanted to keep her safe from this. The very same reason why he had faked the village a few years ago, and why he had, misguidedly, ran Johnathan out of his Hotel. To keep her safe, to never see her like this… And to think his old nemesis was behind this... he should have killed the bastard all those decades ago. But he didn't want to feel hate, not while he was holding his daughter, and so he cleared his mind of such thoughts and instead tried to comfort the injured girl. While she still whimpered softly, Mavis would run out of energy after some hours, the pain and the screaming taking most of it away, and would just lay in her bed, sometimes in her father's arms, and curse the day where she had started walking this path.

She wasn't regretting meeting her late husband, and she certainly didn't regret having Nathan with her, but at the same time she wished she could have done something to avoid all of this. No matter how much she tried to convince herself that a lot of the things that had happened were out of her control, her self-guilt would always slap her down and instead make her feel like it was all her fault. It was her that ran away from the Hotel all those years ago, it was her who had been so needy that she'd had to form a bond with her husband, it was her who'd entered a relationship with him, ultimately giving birth to the living proof of that love. It was her, whom Van Helsing had been looking for, and the reason why he had killed Padraigh… Whichever way she looked at it, she was guilty of it all, and that added up to the physical pain.

After the first month, the pain became bearable, to the point where she was able to stay more than a few minutes away from the bed. At first Claire would help her stay on her feet, letting the girl lean on her to keep her balance. At this point, little Nate got to be around his mother more often, and the baby seemed really happy about it, even if he was still way too young. In a certain way, the baby had helped his mother keep her sanity. She would catch herself smiling every now and then whenever the baby was around, mainly while looking at him fiddle and toss around happily. She would berate herself for daring to be happy after it all, still feeling extremely guilty for everything. Claire had done a better job at helping her see reality, but not completely. It would be a long and painful process, and she was barely starting to walk the path to recovery.

By the third month some of her curiosity came back, along with some of the bad memories. She would ask where Johnathan and his brothers had gone, what had happened while she had been unconscious. How Johnathan had saved her.

She remembered that, how she had thought that he was going to kill her, only to see him face Van Helsing before blacking out from the pain and exhaustion. She would think back on him fondly, and then she would feel guilty, as if she had betrayed Paddy's memory. She wanted to remain loyal to him, even in his death. Just like her father had been loyal to her dead mother, Martha. It never occurred to her that the answer to her problem was now right before her: While her father still thought highly of his dead wife, he had found the strength necessary to move forward and continue living. Maybe it was just the fact that she was young… she was trying to live up to things she hadn't fully realized. She was inexperienced, and naïve in certain aspects still. Maybe she would wake up to these things with this experience, but she was still too emotionally scarred to sit down and actually think things with clarity. So for a whole month she would berate herself for even thinking about Johnathan, trying to remain loyal to the memory of Padraigh O'Donnell, no matter how irrational the idea was.

By the fourth month it seemed like common sense had returned to her head. While she would still sometimes feel some guilt, she was now able to understand that she was forcing herself into something she couldn't do. That didn't mean she hadn't loved her dead husband. Far from it. In fact, she was finally able to convince herself that he would, indeed, not have wanted her to remain miserable the rest of her (immortal) life, that he would prefer she being happy again rather than being a painful memory that never let her move on. Even then, she wasn't itching to jump on top of the first man that came up to her. Just because she was accepting the fact that she was perfectly able to move on with her life didn't mean she was eager to do so.

No, she would wait. For the right person. For the only person that could possibly occupy such an important place in her life. Even if she wasn't sure he would ever come back, or if he felt anything for her still. But even if the answer of those two questions was 'No', she would wait. Her family and friends would be with her, and her son too. Even if she had to wait forever, she wouldn't be alone.

It would be another week until he made his decision, and even then, he had second thoughts all the way. After the plane landed in Transylvania, Johnathan still held doubts, and that's why he checked himself into the nearby village's only hotel with a free room (coincidentally, also the most luxurious) for a still-to-be-determined amount of time.

Five months. It was the time he had been away, dragging his ass around Europe, then Asia, looking for the guy who had killed Mavis' husband, that had physically hurt her, and had tried to make him kill the girl. Five months of playing fast and loose with very dangerous people, where the probabilities of dying and never coming back were real. And he finally got some rest.

In the thirteenth day of his staying in Transylvania, the news came on the TV: pharmaceutical corporation raided by Interpol and PMCs, CEO arrested for murder and charges on corruption, government officials investigated for ties with him… that could only mean that his brothers had made it. They had smoked the rats out, and they had come up on top of it.

Yet it felt extremely anti-climactic to him.

Maybe because it wasn't him who had put his boot on top of the bastard's skull, or the one who had dragged him out to the street for the public to see... Sure, he had put three rounds on Van Helsing's head, but the guy was just a lackey, and he had been forced out of the job before it was over…

He was over-thinking the situation, a defense mechanism that prevented him from addressing the real issue at hand. Being a man of action above everything, on the seventeenth day he had grabbed his few belongings and started the two-day trek along the forest. The weather was miserable, and camping was just as miserable. Any normal camper would have given up on the trip, and he spent two hours previous to sleep seriously thinking about quitting and never coming back again. But just remembering everything he had forgotten before was enough to uphold his morale, inspiring him to make it through the second day. Despite the bone-chilling cold and the thick fog, he soldiered on, until he arrived to the familiar stone bridge. The towering hotel stood defiantly in front of him, but he wasn't known for just giving up, so he accepted the challenge and entered the same place he had been ousted from… God knows how many years ago.

The fifth month was when life seemed to have returned to normal. Mavis would occasionally suffer from traumatic bad dreams, and wake up screaming or crying profusely. Her father would rush in and calm her down, remind her where she was, and she would calm down.

The scars would never go away, that was for sure. The ugly patterns scribbled into her skin would remain there for eternity, and the psychological torture would always linger deep in her brain. But even then, she would do her best to overcome it, for her son, if nothing else. But she really felt alone at times. She had gotten used to the company of her husband, and five months having no one be with her when it mattered… it weighed down on her.

She was still waiting. But not for long.

It was late in the day when he appeared in the lobby. The zombie bellhops greeted him again, having seen him and his brothers in their brief stance after his rescue, but were still happy to see him, nonetheless. They sent discreet word to the manager, who was in the lobby within minutes, feeling mixed emotions. He was relieved to see the human well and alive, but he was worried about what could happen now that he had finally returned (the reason for it incredibly obvious to anyone that was paying attention). Dracula wasn't sure if his daughter was ready to see, much less talk to, Johnathan. Sure, it had been five months since his daughter had been saved, and the vampiress seemed to be in a better mental and emotional condition than expected, but that could very well change at any moment.

"I… have to admit I didn't expect you to come back" the Count started, truthfully.

"I had my doubts… I still do, honestly… But I don't want to leave things unresolved. Even if Mavis doesn't… want to go back… I just need closure. And maybe she does too."

Drac wasn't as convinced as the young man was of the idea, but at this point he owed him at least the opportunity to go home with a clear conscience and a heart at ease. The man had traveled far and wide to see Mavis, even if only to say a proper good bye, had faced dangerous situations, and had selflessly risked his life to bring her back home from the hands of a fanatical murderer.

Yes, he had earned some privileges.

The end is close for this one. I don't think I can squeeze more than one or two chapters out of this, plus an Epilogue. It's had its ups and downs, there were points I didn't know where I wanted to go, but I think I was able to solve the problems I faced. If you have liked the story so far, please leave a Review with your thoughts, I really appreciate them, and I'll see you around in the next updates.