Admiral Victoria's Mansion, four hours later.
The sun shined bright over the horizon, yet the curtains remained closed. It's beams licking and bathing the mansion in light. Yet it remained passive in the eyes of by passers, as if uninhabited.
The truth was quite the opposite. Inside Death Dealers and cleaner patrols were walking backward and forwards throughout the wings of the building. Viktor had a room directly from the main hall. The largest of the guest rooms of course (Victoria would sigh rolling her eyes with a smirk "How did I know?") Emelia however was inside the room in the left wing on a floor that was always abandoned. Here father and daughter and their respectful advisors would often have their rooms. Since her separate activity her father hadn't contacted her for personal meetings any more since two years. Not since she began to actively start to oppose the lycans in this war.
Thus the rooms were mostly empty except for her own advisors. Emelia stared at her, glaring just to make her aware of her presence as Victoria didn't look up from the screen a moment before her hands folded and put her elbows on her desk. "So why, why did you involve yourself in this war, giving up your neutrality to side with us, the vampires?"
A single smirk escaped the sitting immortal but it was gone as quickly as it came. She got up and looked her deeply in the eyes. She placed a hand on both shoulders of her guest and looked at her with her white blue eyes. "For years I and my father have stood by watching the destruction my brothers wrought on each other... And on humanity."
She turned away her fingers tracing the sides of her wooden desk. She looked up watching her companion with sadness. "Not the legacy he prayed for when he watched them into this world."
She now paced around the room her hands clutched behind her back, they were evidently shaking. "And a tiresome duty, keeping the war contained, cleaning up the mess... Hiding our family's unfortunate history..."
Emelia watched the woman succumb to her grief a moment as she returned to her chair behind the desk clutching her head sobbing violently as she leaned her elbows on the desk for support.
"Crying will not solve this, Victoria. You... Know this best of all. I knew of your activities long before I was awakened for my second rule. I knew you wouldn't go down without a fight. Yet you were at your fathers side. Neutrality. Why did you give it up?" She watched her impatiently.
Victoria looked up, her eyes red with grief and her mouth curled in a sad pose as she leaned back letting out shaky breaths.
"When Lucien started to abduct and kill the Corvinus descendants, he killed many of my friends I knew. Also a few of my loyal soldiers lost friends, not just the descendants. Many lost women, friends, children. One night, the highest officers came into my room. Stating 'They couldn't take this', that 'We should do something, anything.' To 'Grab an opportunity to forget what we witness everywhere in each war zone.' Yet I was already ahead. I found a lycan den and decided."
she sighed again starting to pace through the room up and down as she continued her explanation.
"We were to wipe it out. Destroy the mindless beasts they had become." Emelia shifted and looked at her angry.
"You had sympathy for them before. Is the loss of friends all? Didn't Alexander say something about this?" She shook her head.
Victoria was sitting, her hands were shaking thus kept under the desk. "Do not pity me Emelia! Too many have made the wrong assumption already; I have lost my friends and gone mad in my grief."
She said so in a cold voice, it was indeed unmistakable. She did not want pity, she wanted the lycans dead.
Calming down Victoria leaned back in her chair absently thinking what the hell she was going to do with all these vampires in her house. "Emelia, I suggest you call , you might be here a while and I'd rather not have to see vampires drain my men dry." She turned to the large map of the city that hung on the wall behind her desk studying intently a few moments turning her back on the elder.
Emelia walked out, searching for Viktor. She walked down the stairs and into the main hall in order to find her companion. Viktor was staring at a wall, sitting in a leather arm chair. "Viktor, we need to talk."
He looked back sighing he rose to his feet. "Yes my dear?"
"I know why the admiral decided to go homicidal on the Lycans." He raised an eyebrow waiting impatiently.
"She's gone mad. Really, you should talk to her. She can hide it well, but not forever in a conversation. She's absolutely mad. We should also direct Zionex to get us some blood to this mansion. She said we might be here a bit."
Inhaling softly after a very long speech she awaited his response. "What do you think dear, should this be our new coven?" She looked at him confused.
He continued, his voice sweet as nectar at the idea of this mansion which, might he add, was larger then their former. "And if what you tell me, she has gone mad. It would have little consequence dethroning her and taking it for ourselves."
Her mouth ran dry at the thought. "Viktor... She has destroyed lycan dens, she has sided with us in this war, granted us sanctuary in her palace like mansion, saving our lives! And what are you telling me!? You wish to dethrone her?" She trembled in anger as her thoughts shoot back, centuries ago. To a time, most don't know, was the peak of the lycan war.
Hungary, 1209. The demolishing of the Werewolf clan
Emelia tasted the air, the tenseness able to be cut by a blade. The snow of the late winter lay bare as the mountain stood lonely, the cave a dark mouth barely visible at this distance. Yet even miles off she could smell them, William's breed. Their time had finally come. Behind her an army of more then four thousand men ready to descend upon them.
Emelia didn't have such an army alone. She sired it from a friend who's aid she had requested on the condition it would be used to create order during her rule. A stunningly beautiful young woman sat on horseback beside her. Her black and gold ordinated armor shining in the moonlight.
Yet she knew better, she hadn't enlisted her for her beauty. This woman was older then she was. More then a century older perhaps and even more so in experience. Even though her skin was also nearly just as pale as any vampire, her white blue eyes shone in superiority over any lycan or vampire. For she was more powerful then both and could walk in sunlight.
The vampires silently took note of their surroundings waiting for their scouts to return. "Emelia, even though we might even have strength in numbers we must be precise in our strategies and keep our plans. I will not tolerate defeat at the hands of these savage beasts, old friend." She noticed her friend left out the word 'mindless' rather on purpose. Her attention was drawn as black figures moved through the forest towards them.
The admiral held her hand up and half of their men sat at ease. Victoria had their scent. It was vampire. Emelia knew half of her men weren't going to follow her orders regardless of plan unless her companion approved of the plan, her generals weren't beside her. They were discussing the plan with her lower ranking officers.
The ranks amongst the death dealers were simple. But the men loyal to admiral Corvinus had a different system that they had kept, to easier relay orders across a battlefield. It took several weeks of preparation to get Emelia's men to know them and act satisfactory to them according to Victoria's generals. Indeed, this battle may be going better then usual, though the elder had to keep her hopes to a minimum and her mind at maximum. Yet she couldn't help but think here men were better trained then usual.
Five on horse back riding Death Dealers returned, one wearing the Corvinus crest. "We've seen several ways in and were careful to ensure we erased our scent. They will not know what hit them, there's higher ground were the entrances are located and it's rough terrain." The scout stopped to catch his breath, understandable as he had just made a full sweep of the area.
The admiral turned to her own scout. "Report, how many?" The scout redirected his horse along hers and Emelia's and began to motion across the mountain, first he motioned to the entrance. "I could sense at least ten along the entrance, I thing at least a few hundred inside." Victoria nodded and dismissed him.
She turned her neck to one side making the sound of a loud crack then did the same to the other. "A few hundred, this will be easy." She drew her blade from it's scabbard and signaled something to one of her generals.
"When Lady Emelia attacks so do we, listen to her orders but report any changes and progress of the battle-plan to me." The general merely made a movement with his open palm followed by a clenched fist and a tilted head. 'Confirmed my lady' They descended upon William's breed like wolves on cattle. Fighting their way to the core and destroying it from the inside, demolishing their defense structure and killing them all. Yet as the vampires returned to Castle Corvinus and celebrated their victory. Emelia found Victoria. Sitting in a garden Mourning her losses.
Emelia sat down next to he and pulled her into a hug. "Shhhh. There, there now. You are so much like a daughter, still young." 'What did she just say?' Victoria didn't seem moved in the slightest, only continued so sob with her head on Emelia's chest. 'Still so young in her mind.'
She remained cold, trying not too much to seem caring. She was, after all an elder now. "Come now, we won. Casualties are always there in a war."
The girl on her chest was trying. Trying enough to move heaven and earth to hide her tears yet no good came. She tried to think of her father, of her brothers of how happy they had been. Of Thomas and of Marcus. To no avail, the thought clung to her mind, each death cry a spear to her own heart. She counted her dead, how many had fallen to drive the beasts to extinction. Three hundred. Three hundred faces she would never see walking, talking and laughing again.
Yet her tear stained face wasn't crying because of her men, but because she could've saved them, hadn't she given Emelia what she wanted. A army to destroy. Why did she? This woman was cleanly no longer her friend. Not the princess she once knew. Pity.