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

Feedback: Always appreciated.

AN: Sorry about the delayed update; RL issues took priority and meant I couldn't get as much writing done as I would have liked. Still hope you enjoy the result, as we look back at Lucian's current activities while a new party arrives in Budapest…

The Lone Wolf

Lucian had always been prepared to acknowledge that his experience of contemporary human popular culture was limited, but as he walked along the streets of Budapest, he was surprised to find how little here actually surprised him. It was still a bit odd to see humans talking into modern mobile phones and not receive stares from people who assumed the speakers were madmen talking to themselves, and it was a bit disappointing that he found himself instinctively moving into the shadows when he didn't have to do so, but overall he thought he was doing well with this first walk. So long as he reminded himself that he didn't have to hide away from anyone any more, and let himself just enjoy the peace of it all, it was actually rather pleasant to walk among humans…

He wasn't sure when he became aware of the fact that he was being followed, but he was aware that he had adjusted his pace a few moments before he consciously acknowledged that there was someone behind him. He would have liked to assume that he was just being paranoid after literally centuries on the run, but as someone had once observed, it wasn't paranoia if someone really was trying to kill you. The vampires might have agreed to an official treaty at this point, but it wasn't as though everyone was going to just accept the change to the old ways that easily.

The thing that disappointed Lucian the most right now was that, if his senses were accurate, he was being followed by an unknown lycan rather than an unknown vampire.

Lucian maintained his composure on the outside, but inside he allowed himself a brief curse at this confirmation of his suspicions. He had been aware that the prejudices that had provoked the original war between vampires and lycans wouldn't just stop overnight even with Amelia's acceptance of the treaty, but there were so few lycans who would have dared to argue with him that he hadn't expected something this relatively open.

He thought about just turning to confront this unknown lycan directly, but he pushed that thought down; maybe it was a pointless indulgence, but if he was going to have some kind of confrontation, he wanted to be sure he needed to confront someone. It was possible that he was just being paranoid and he was dealing with some unknown secret 'bodyguard' someone had appointed, but if he let himself appear vulnerable… if he gave the impression that he was off-guard and sloppy…

Carefully making his way through a crowded street, Lucian let his experienced senses focus on 'watching' his potential target, keeping just far enough ahead that he wouldn't lose the scent without making it obvious. One advantage of being the oldest known lycan was that his senses were often just a bit sharper than people might expect, so while the other lycan was being cautious he wasn't as cautious as he truly needed to be. Lucian let the 'pursuit' continue for a few more moments, allowing the surrounding humans to move away as he headed further out of the busy streets, until he turned around a corner and waited in an alley. Just as he'd anticipated, his pursuer picked up the pace to 'catch up' to him, most likely unaware that Lucian had just entered a dead-end street, the other lycan coming around the corner only to be met by a punch to the face.

"So sorry," Lucian said mockingly as he grabbed the man's lapels and hauled him into the alley before he could draw any attention to himself from any passers-by, "but I dislike being followed."

"I wasn't-!" the lycan began, before Lucian slammed him against the nearest wall.

"Do me the courtesy of not lying to my face when I know that you have been following me for the last several minutes," Lucian glared at his would-be pursuer. "I am not an idiot, and you can't be that foolish if someone thought you were a suitable choice to follow me; what is this about?"

For a moment the lycan seemed to be about to protest, but then there was the sound of something hitting the ground at the end of the alley. Lucian turned his head just enough to see what had happened, and found himself looking at a taller, more muscular figure, this one with a thick neck and what Lucian could only think of as a flat face.

It had been quite a few decades at least since Lucian had last seen this particular lycan, but he still remembered how their last argument had led to the other man relocating to America to build up his forces.

"Marius," Lucian said, his eyes narrowing as he took in his former associate.

"Lucian," Marius responded with a cool smile, once again showing the cool self-control that had won him so many followers even as it had put Lucian on guard. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"And it would have been longer if I had my way," Lucian countered.

"You still disapprove?" Marius shook his head in an expression of mock pity. "I would have thought you would have realised by now that your slow and steady method isn't going to get you anywhere…"

"And yet the war is now essentially over because of my way of doing things." Lucian folded his arms as he directed a cool glare at the other lycan.

"You consider this over?" Marius countered, spreading his arms and giving a sick smirk. "All you did was get the vampires to agree to stop shooting at us for a while; if you were the leader you claim to be, you would pursue this opportunity-"

"And be the monsters they want to believe we are?" Lucian cut him off, privately relieved at this evidence that he had been right to reject the other lycan all those years ago. "You do not win wars simply by throwing numbers at the other side until they're dead."

"Which is why you spent so long in hiding and had to resort to deals with the vampires to get what you wanted," Marius retorted, shaking his head with a cool glare. "It's no wonder even some of your own decided I was the better candidate to finish this; at least I let us indulge who we truly are."

"You intend to finish this?" Lucian repeated, raising a critical eyebrow. "I already have a treaty, Viktor is dead-"

"And you're so satisfied with that you'll accept any offer until we're back to sitting at their feet like good little lapdogs," Marius countered, the smirk replaced by a colder glare. "I thought this was about freedom-"

"It won't reach that level," Lucian retorted. "The treaty doesn't require us to return to their service-"

"But the potential will always be there," Marius said, waving his hand as a few other lycans emerged from the other end of the alley. "Which is why I need to make sure you don't do anything to sell us back into slavery."

The sound of movement from behind him prompted Lucian to carefully glance over his shoulder, wincing at the sight of a further few lycans moving in from behind him. He didn't immediately recognise any of the new arrivals, but the scent confirmed he was faced with a few additional lycans, none of them as old as Marcus even if they were still obviously powerful.

"Don't think that you're getting out of this by using your old reputation to get what you want, either," Marius said with a pointed glare, waving his hands at the other lycans. "These lycans haven't been groomed on your legend; they know you only as the man who would hand us back over to our oppressors."

"And what do you promise them?" Lucian countered, looking cautiously around the small street at the gathering lycans. "Do you think that you can attack the vampires and end the war in your favour? There is a reason I didn't try and end this particular fight with a direct assault a long time ago myself…"

"Oh, we have a few alternatives in mind for that," Marius observed with a smirk. "After all, we now know the location of the most powerful weapon we could wish to unleash against the vampires."

Lucian didn't want to assume that he knew what Marius was talking about, but the timing of this particular confrontation, coupled with what the remaining Elders were currently up to with Michael and Selene, raised some disturbing possibilities.

"Do you seriously think that's a realistic option?" he looked at Marius, not wanting to give away too much if he was wrong but needing to test what his opponent might know. "Or do you think that I just ignored that option because I didn't feel like it?"

"When you never even knew where he was before that bitch of a Death Dealer realised what she knew?" Marius gave a mocking laugh. "The return of the original werewolf offers so many options-"

"You do understand that William is nothing more than a feral animal who currently has nothing more than rage and power behind him?" Lucian countered, glad that he had at least confirmed Marius's plan. "The only thing he's currently good for is a weapon to be unleashed on enemies that could easily turn on the people who sent him out; do you seriously think that will win you anything?"

"If we use him the right way-"

"Is he a werewolf or a weapon?" Lucian countered. "You can't seek to use him as a symbol if he's just going to tear your enemies apart. He'll be just as dangerous to us as you believe he would be to the vampires; I saw the original werewolves in action, and believe me that there is a reason I never went looking for more after that first clash."

"First clash?" another lycan said, a question in his voice that Lucian chose to view as a good sign.

"The first major assault I led against the vampires used werewolves as part of my attack, but that was only because the werewolves still lived in the woods around the vampire stronghold," Lucian explained, hoping that the fact that someone was asking this question in the first place proved not everyone was behind Marius's plan. "Many of those wolves were killed in that first assault, and those that remained… they may have only obeyed me due to my unconventional circumstances, and even then I had to be careful to keep them focused on the target. You would have none of those advantages if you attempted to use William, and at best all you would achieve is starting a new wave of terror that would reinforce the reason the vampires hated us in the first place."

"They hated us because of their egotistical belief that they were 'better' than us-!"

"Because William couldn't control himself and essentially went on a rampage through Europe, turning countless people into feral werewolves before the original Death Dealers were able to contain him," Lucian countered Marius's rant. "There is nothing that you can do to control him or use him in any kind of clear plan; he would barely even listen to his brother back in the day, and he has no reason to listen to you."

"We can make it work-!" Marius began, only for another figure to jump down from the nearest roof and land practically on top of one of Marius's lycans (not the one who had previously asked the question, Lucian was pleased to note).

"You cannot," Raze declared, standing up from his point of impact to glare at Marius, his coat seemingly strained at the edges as though he was fighting down the urge to transform. "I was there when Lucian rallied the last of the werewolves in our first attack on the vampires, and the best that we could achieve was to keep them pointed in the right direction. William would never have been a solution to this war; even if he could have been used to destroy our enemies, he would have then created a new wave of feral werewolves we could have barely kept contained at best."

"So we put ourselves in a stronger position to resist the humans-" Marius began.

"Who aren't even aware we exist and have no reason to fight us right now; we will not provoke a second war when we haven't even officially concluded the last one!" Lucian declared. "Contrary to your methods, Marius, I only recruited new lycans if I was sure they would accept my offer; I didn't just go out and bite people to build up an army by forcing them into it!"

"You- Hey!" one of Marius's lycans suddenly turned to glare at Marius. "You said that it was one of his lot who probably bit me!"

"Are you seriously going to believe him when he's preparing to-?" Marius began.

"Oh, the guy advocating for peace is going to try and build up an army to stage a coup at the same time?" the lycan practically snarled at Marius, a couple of the other lycans shooting similarly hostile glares at their leader as they took in their comrade's words. "If he was that violent wouldn't he be trying to kill us all straight away?"

"Not working out quite as you planned, is it, Marius?" Lucian observed with a smirk of his own at the discomfited expression on the other lycan's face, even as he made a note to talk with the other lycans once he had a moment. "What was the plan here, exactly? Catch me off-guard, provoke a fight, and then claim it was all 'self-defence'?"

"And did you honestly think that you would ever be leader in Lucian's absence?" Raze asserted with a cold glare at the other lycan. "Without meaning to sound arrogant, you would only achieve that level of power if virtually every other possible candidate was dead… and I include myself in that category."

"He's led us-!" one of the other lycans protested.

"To do anything more than attack people?" Raze cut the lycan off, even as his glare remained fixed on Marius. "You never did have much of a sense of strategy beyond consolidating power and attacking when you had the advantage."

"Like you aren't the same?" Marius countered. "I've seen you in action, Raze-"

"The difference is that I recognise what I'm good at and accept insight from others," Raze observed. "I follow Lucian because I respect his ability to find us a path that doesn't involve constant war; do you have any strategy for what you would do if you won your conflict tomorrow?"

"Well said, Raze," Lucian nodded at his old ally before he turned back to glare at Marius, whose stubborn stare reinforced Lucian's opinion that the other lycan had probably basically ignored that particular argument. "So, if this particular attempted coup has backfired, I don't suppose you would be willing to step back?"

"Step back?" Marius repeated.

"We are approaching an unprecedented era of peace," Lucian observed, looking around at the rest of the lycans present. "In the spirit of that new age, I would be… willing… to forget that this particular event ever took place-"

"So long as I just accept your authority, is that it?" Marius cut Lucian off with a cold glare. "And if I do that, we're just to resign ourselves to the idea that this is how things are going to be? Reduced to nothing more than the vampire's daylight guardians all over again?"

"That's not what this is about-" Raze began.

"Like we should believe any of that?" Marius glared. "Your precious Lucian were the one who started all this because he got in some vampire bitch's pants-"

Lucian knew that he should have developed a stronger skin towards the topic of Sonja over the centuries, but when someone like Marius acted as though what he had shared with the only woman he would ever love had just been some pointless fling, he couldn't control his own rage. He had begun to leap towards the other man before he could stop himself, only to be intercepted by an attack from the side before he reached his opponent, the new attack leaving Lucian pinned to the wall as the fanatical lycan roared at him, its face already starting to change.

With no better option available, Lucian rammed his head forward into the rapidly-protruding snout, sending the lycan staggering backwards. Seizing the opportunity, Lucian forced the lycan to spin around and wrapped one arm around his attacker's throat, cutting off the man's oxygen and hindering his attempt to transform further. As he forced his opponent into submission, Lucian glanced around the alley to see that a couple of the other lycans were struggling with Raze, while a few of the others were standing back and looking at the struggle with the hesitation of people undecided about which side they should be on. The two fighting Raze had managed to get in a few blows, judging by the damage to his jacket, but Lucian could see that his old ally was holding his own easily enough, the fight ending even as Lucian watched when the former slave slammed both of his attackers against the wall behind him. As Lucian's own adversary collapsed, he turned around to take in the rest of the alley, but wasn't surprised to see that Marius had already run off.

"I take it you don't know where he went?" Lucian observed, looking over at one of the remaining lycans.

"N-no," the man said, shaking his head as his gaze shifted from the lycan now lying on the floor to Lucian, as though trying to work out what was going to happen to him next. "H-he ran off while you were… and then he went…"

"Of course he did," Lucian muttered half to himself as he followed the other lycan's gesture to see that Marius must have become part of the crowd of people Lucian had been walking through himself only moments before. It wouldn't be impossible to pick up Marius's scent again, but by the time he'd retraced Marius's steps Lucian had no doubt that the other lycan would have moved on somewhere else.

On the brighter side, Lucian reflected grimly, if whoever tipped him off told him about recent events, there's only really one place he could be going if he wants to attempt his next plan.

He felt justified assuming that Marius already knew where he could find his target- for all of Marius's faults as a leader, he wouldn't talk about doing something unless he was sure he could pull it off- but Lucian could only hope that Marius's resources weren't sufficient to cover the distance needed to get to William's fortress in secret before Lucian and the others could make it there themselves…