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

Feedback: Always appreciated.

The Lone Wolf

In the centuries since the Chain had been created, Marcus could safely say that he had never experienced such an interesting Awakening.

Obviously the fact that all three Elders were awake at the same time would have been a notable event on its own, but the news that he had been awoken to pass sentence on Viktor himself was so amusing that Marcus almost couldn't believe his good fortune. He had spent so long regretting his agreement to the Chain from the moment it had first been established, but the effort involved in trapping William had been so much that the concept of taking time out had appeared a good idea at the time before he actually woke up a few centuries later.

When he realised how his own influence over the coven had waned by the time he woke up after that first 'sleep', he was left fuming about how much damage Viktor had done to his own reputation, even as he had to admit that the other vampire had at least been relatively honest about everything. Marcus would stand by his decision to try and protect William from other vampires, but he had to concede that he could have avoided being so desperate to help his brother that he had put the lives of his new soldiers at risk. He couldn't believe that Viktor had gone so far as to cover up his own role in the history of the vampire race, but it served to undermine Marcus's own reputation with the vampires.

By the time he had been first Awoken, he still had enough of a reputation that he was trusted to lead the coven while Viktor and Amelia slept, but they had enough agents in place that Marcus knew he wouldn't be able to find William even if he managed to get any other vampires on his side. He had briefly considered working to set up his own coup against the system, but he knew from the start that trying to outright kill Viktor would only make him a pariah among the vampire race if he couldn't prove that Viktor had done anything more serious than work to keep a dangerous lycan contained.

Marcus had learnt enough through the Chain to confirm that Viktor had moved William from his original prison to some new location after he had entered hibernation, but he'd only learned more details once he and Viktor spoke in private during the transition of the subsequent Awakening. When Marcus had asked Viktor for news of his brother, the other Elder had expressed subtle 'regret' about how the key he had designed for William's prison had been permanently destroyed when his daughter had been killed by a former lycan servant at the start of the current war. Fortunately, by that point the lycans were basically an uncoordinated mess, so all Marcus had to do was focus on keeping up his usual old routine of cleaning up after his brother's creations and not think too much about waging a more active campaign against the other immortal race, but it still rankled at him to know that he had lost any hope of getting through to his brother.

With the present situation, however, Marcus had been faced with a range of intriguing opportunities and conflicting emotions from the moment he awoke to learn that Viktor was on trial for provoking the lycan war, and those had only become more intense since the final execution. He could appreciate how Amelia chose to give Viktor a swift execution rather than something more torturous, such as exposing him to sunlight in the same manner that he had killed Sonja all those centuries ago, but he still wished that she had chosen to indulge her anger. He supposed that he could recognise the symbolic value of appearing as though they were the more benevolent option after exposing Viktor's sins to the rest of the coven, but there was something to be said for the goal of making the true villain hurt…

On the bright side, that method of execution should also ensure that Viktor's half of the key to the William's prison remained reasonably intact. If Marcus could just get access to Viktor's body, and assuming that he was right about what had happened to the other half of the key…

In all of Lucian's thoughts about what he would do with himself after claiming his vengeance, he was embarrassed to find that he hadn't formed a specific plan for victory. He had always operated on at least the general idea that he would essentially lead the lycans to achieve authority over the vampires once the Elders had all been killed. Kraven had ambitions of leadership himself, but Lucian had basically anticipated that Kraven would be easy to manipulate into nothing more than a puppet role while he basically took charge.

As it was, Lucian was unsure how he should feel about the idea that one of the conditions of this new treaty was for him to withdraw from power. He had made it clear that he would only step back if certain conditions were met, including that his people would have an equal dynamic to the vampires rather than automatically being relegated back to being the vampires' slaves, but so far Amelia and Marcus had respected his demands without complaint. It wasn't as though he was arrogant enough to think that he was the only lycan capable of leading his people, but he wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself once he had achieved his centuries-long quest for revenge.

Sitting in the rooms the coven had provided for him in the mansion, Lucian could only stare idly at the book he had grabbed from the library out of a lack of anything else to do. He wasn't even sure who maintained the library or why one was still here- since Tanis's exile most vampires in his experience were either Death Dealers or hedonists like Kraven, neither of whom indulged in more intellectual leisure pursuits- but while he'd tried to distract himself he found it hard to really relax enough to actually read any of the pages. He wasn't sure if he even knew how to do anything but wage war after this long, even as he wanted to find a way to move on from that part of his life…

The sound of knocking on his door drew Lucian's attention away from that particular train of thought. Lost for anything else to do with himself at this point, and curious as to who his visitor might be anyway, Lucian got up and opened the door.

"Marcus?" he looked at the Elder in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"I… wished to talk," Marcus said, walking into Lucian's room with a cautious pace. The Elder was wearing the dark leather jacket and trousers common to most modern Death Dealers, but he wore a smart velvet shirt underneath the jacket, balancing the usual 'kick-ass' attitude of the Death Dealers with the style Lucian usually associated with Kraven's men.

"Talk?" Lucian repeated curiously. He noticed that Marcus was being particularly careful about his left hand, leaving it in the pocket of his coat as though he was hiding something in the pocket.

"I was interested to hear more about your… hybrid research."

"I have no intention of continuing-" Lucian began, already prepared to accept that particular prohibition.

"And I would never ask you to go against the rulings of the covenant when your people are so close to receiving everything you should have been granted long ago," Marcus smiled reassuringly at Lucian, holding out his right hand in a placating manner.

"Should have been?" Lucian repeated, eyes narrowing as he looked sceptically at the Elder.

"Do you really think Viktor would have left any loophole open that would have allowed me to declare peace once I Awoke in the past?" Marcus responded with a grim shrug. "He didn't just undermine your species, Lucian; he made every effort to ensure that my own authority over the coven was diminished as much as he could without doing anything that would have actively threatened me."

"You were his enemy?" Lucian didn't bother to hide the scepticism in his voice as he studied Marcus. He recalled Sonja's talk about her father's attempt to have her become a fourth Elder before everything went wrong, but he had never heard anything to suggest that the Elders were actively against each other.

"Oh, Viktor was careful to keep our disagreements out of the public eye, but he… had ways of keeping me contained even when he was asleep," Marcus said, giving Lucian a probing look. "Of course, you did remove one of his main potential hostages against me when you killed Nicolae…"

"Ah," Lucian said, wincing at the memory of one of his earliest significant battles against the vampires. Marcus's son had been away from the coven for some time before Lucian began his revolution, but he had apparently reunited with Viktor and the other survivors of Lucian's raid shortly after Tanis evacuated the Elders to safety. There had been rumours of Viktor making plans for an arranged marriage between Sonja and Nicolae, officially to bring the Elders closer together as a unit, but Sonja had affirmed to Lucian that she would never have chosen Nicolae even if Lucian hadn't been in her life. Nicolae had been among the Death Dealers who set out to hunt for Lucian early in the war, but when they had first confronted each other, after Nicolae made certain… demeaning comments about Sonja…

"I…" Lucian looked cautiously at Marcus, lost for how to talk with the father of the man he'd killed so long ago.

"Do not apologise if you don't mean it," Marcus cut him off. "I am aware of who and what my son was, Lucian; I tolerated him as far as I could, but when immortality meant that I would likely have no need of an heir…"

The vampire shook his head with a grim smile. "When I look back, I sometimes wonder if my disinterest in training him properly came first, or if he just gave up on caring once he realised the extent of the situation."

"It's… an interesting question, certainly," Lucian said, increasingly lost as to what this Elder was doing here in the first place. He hadn't thought about Nicolae for centuries, and it sounded as though Marcus hadn't been a particularly invested father in the first place, but at this stage it seemed pointless to try and clear the air about this topic…

"Of course," Marcus observed, looking at him with a more curious grin, "that does leave us to answer the more interesting question of the nature of your pendant."

"My- Sonja's pendant?" Lucian said in uncertain surprise. Even after he had owned the memento for more centuries than Sonja had even been alive, he couldn't stop himself thinking of it as hers, but he couldn't think of any reason why Marcus would have questions about it.

"It's an intriguing little thing, isn't it?" Marcus said, his expression becoming more probing in a manner that made Lucian feel particularly uncomfortable. "Of course, you would have had no way of knowing what you had done when you took what you doubtless thought was a simple keepsake, but Viktor's memories were very clear on that front even after being diluted through Amelia…"

Even with his suspicions already aroused by the situation, Lucian was still barely able to evade when Marcus lashed out with a powerful blow that nearly caught him in the throat. The lycan's former leader was only just able to lean back in time to avoid the attack. He fought down the urge to vent his full rage at the vampire by transforming, aware that attacking an Elder like this wouldn't help the current treaty, but he had to hope that he could hold Marcus back until help could arrive. Lost for better ideas, Lucian grabbed Marcus's wrist and threw him into the wall before he ran for the door, only be caught out when Marcus leapt on him from behind, his hands scrambling around Lucian's throat.

"I just need-" Marcus began, before Lucian forced himself upwards so that they both crashed into the ceiling. The impact wasn't enough to seriously hurt Marcus, but was enough to make him release his grip on Lucian. Throwing the vampire Elder to the side, Lucian made for the door, diving out into the corridor, only to find Selene standing outside.

"What-?" the Death Dealer began in surprise, before Marcus emerged from the door himself, looking at her with a grim smile. "Marcus?"

"Selene," Marcus grinned malevolently. "Just the other person I was looking for…"

Lucian had no idea what was going on as Marcus leapt towards Selene, his mouth open as he forced her head to the side, clearly intending to bite her neck. The only thing he was sure of was that the Elder was focused on something else now, which meant that he had a chance to turn the tide of this particular fight. As Selene fought to hold Marcus away from her throat, Lucian moved in and slammed his hands over Marcus's ears, driving his little fingers into the earholes in the process.

Marcus threw his head back so sharply that it almost broke Lucian's fingers, but the blood from his ears confirmed that Lucian had achieved his goal and ruptured Marcus's eardrums. Elder healing would take care of that injury soon enough, but right now Marcus was in pain and bereft of a key sense, which should be enough to turn the tables. Lucian slammed his fist into the back of Marcus's head, followed by Selene delivering her own blow to Marcus's face. The satisfying sound of something crunching confirmed that Marcus's nose had been broken, before the Elder fell to the side and hit the ground, slumped into unconsciousness.

"What… was that about?" Selene looked at Lucian in confusion as she flexed her fingers.

"I… don't know," Lucian admitted apologetically as he looked back down at their attacker before he turned back to Selene. "But I hope you will speak in my defence-"

"Marcus was clearly the attacker; all you did was defend yourself," Selene affirmed, before she glanced down at the unconscious Elder. "But we should probably get him secured somewhere so that we can establish why he was doing that in the first place."