NationStates Jolt Archive

Stephen did not Skadi's comment about him 'doing well for himself for once' comment a single bit. He had been useful many times before, but he knew Skadi was a bitch who didn't care about anyone else spare for Sigrun and Hondur; so he knew he could never expect her to really stay nice to him for more than few micro-seconds.

Stephen grunted as the ancient yanked him up. He looked at a broken mirror on the floor and stared at the gaping hole, the tendons inside were doing fine healing. His torn clothes would be thrown away as soon as they got back to the new coven site. He stumbled for a second before steading himself as they moved towards the stairs. He looked back and stared at where they had been, if he had arrived a second later, both of them would be burning alive.

Stephen followed the ancient quickly as the fire licked the room and the heat began to rise. He heard several more timbers fall in other rooms as the fire spread. He also picked up the sound of gunfire and explsions from the outside, the VP had come back. Stephen hoped that Ivan was still in wolf form and in panic, the VP had gunned him down.

After several minutes, Stephen and Skadi found Hondur and the others. Stephen noted a bit of suprised from several of them as the looked at him.

"I got into a fight with our neighborhood lycan Ivan Kolstolv. Lets scram and I'll explain after we clean ourselves up and I get on some actual clothes."

(OOC: Woops, sorry if I wasn't too clear about that, Assington. Anyway it's just a surprise, not an extermination.)

From a vantage point within the failing building, Zero watched the battle rage on between the VP and the Noble forces under his command, and clenched his teeth in frustration as he watched the VP reorganize themselves and take the fight to his men. It was all he could do not to wince as he watched some of his Nobles dies under a renewed hail of fire from the VP turrets, and he nearly moaned in agony as he watched even more get caught by the RPGs, spectacular explosions marking the loss of even more Noble lives. It was a good idea that had backfired on Zero, and he could only think of one reason why the VP had regrouped as quickly as they did.

It could only have been the work of a good commander on the other side. And there could only be one person who fitted the bill.

"Kolstov", Zero muttered in anger, realizing that the VP Captain was the one who was leading the imminient slaughter of his Noble kindred. "He will pay one of these days", he thought angrily as he continued to watch the proceedings. Fortunately, the Nobles were no idiots in the field of battle, and after the first few explosions, the RPGs and rockets launched by the VP all started to miss one by one. It was evident that they were being pushed aside by telekinetic force from the Nobles inside the vehicle, and the more creative ones actually managed to push them aside right into the VP blockade of vehicles, adding to the destruction they were causing. Even better, the Nobles fighting on foot out in the open started heading for cover after two dozen or so of their comrades were dully cut down by the damnable turrets. The rooftop turrets that Zero had set to engage the VP were doing their job, yet it was apparent that they were not sufficient to the task.

This was not just a sneak attack anymore. This was a battle of wits between two commander on both sides, each attempting to outwit the other. And now, the ball was in the General's court.

"The VP are no slouches with their weaponry", Zero thought to himself. "But there's one thing they can never match, and that's the vampire's natural speed. Let's see what they can do once the Nobles engage them hand-to-hand!"

"Major!", Zero shouted, as Ambrose was still coordinating the attack near to him. "Have our own turrets focus all their fire on the breach in the VP's defenses, and make sure the VP stay pinned down at that spot! Contact the VA Squad, and order them to engage all turrets in the breach. Once that is done and their heavy weaponry is suppressed, order the VA Squad to deploy all available personnel for hand-to-hand combat, and at the same time, order the AA Squad to charge forward and clear the way! Time is of the essence here, Major! We must evacuate as quickly as we may, or we'll not survive this!"

"Sir yes Sir!", the Major responded, and immediately set to work coordinating the Noble forces mentally. With that done, Zero turned back to Hondur and the rest.

"Friends, I suggest you leave without me", he said in a tone of finality, as if he expected that he could very well die. "My place is with my men."

And with that, the Atrosian Lieutenant-General took off out a window, heading for the spot where the heaviest fighting was with his sidekick in tow.......

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The renewal in the Noble offensive was apparent from the get-go, as the VP suddenly faced the prospect of an enemy force enraged by the loss of comrades. The RPGs and rocket launchers, so useful against the turncoat armored cars just a few moments ago, became a liability as they started to malfunction, each one turning away from their intended targets as soon as neared the rampaging Noble cars, and instead slamming into the VP's own vehicles. While the turrets from the other parts of the blockade still engaged vampires as they saw them, they were still relatively far away and not as much of a threat as those in the immediate vicinity of the breach, and the Nobles recognized that. All of the rampaging Noble cars immediately went for the turrets, knocking them over or destroying them completely, and soon, the turrets in the breach was all knocked over or destroyed, rendering them useless.

With that threat out of the way, the doors of the Noble armored cars opened as one, and disgorged a band of angry Nobles in the midst of the VP ranks. Even more Nobles fell as the officers trained their gunfire upon them, but the VP took even more losses in return, and once the Nobles were within range, all hell broke loose as they dropped their guns in favour of swords, spears, and other melee weapons of all kinds. The VP officers had no answer for the sheer speed with which the Nobles wielded their blades, as one by one they got hacked down before they could even think of retaliating. Still, the VP officers were still firing the guns and cutting down Nobles, although they were already losing about three times as many men for every one they cut down with their silver lead, until out of nowhere, the sound of chopper blades resounded over the battlefield.

The stolen VP choppers had suddenly reappeared over the breach in the VP seige line, and as the VP officers looked up, they noticed that the two choppers were raining down small, bottle-shaped objects from an altitude that they couldn't engage with their guns or their RPGs. Bottle-shaped were right, for upon contact with the ground, and even with some of the VP vehicles, the Molotov cocktails tossed out of the choppers turned the bloody field into a fiery one, setting on fire and even exploding even more of the VP blockade vehicles. Unlucky VP officers, set alight by the Molotovs, started running around in a horrifying scene of human torchs screaming in agony, before finally dropping down to the ground in a horrifying death.

Still the fight between the VP and the Nobles were more or less at an impasse, even with fiery death raining down on the VP as well as couple of unlucky Nobles, until the vampires that had been taking cover at the building charged out again. And this time, their lust for blood was sparked anew by a menacing figure leading the charge, like a barbarian chief leading his men by example. As if bathed in blood, Zero's red trenchcoat of Atrosian Command spearheaded the charge by the AA Squad, and they collided right into the blockade, unleashing hell on the hapless VP officers who were unable to respond to the devillishly-quick blade strikes that were the specialty of the Nobles, instead of the shootouts that the VP were so comfortable with.

The breach had been opened, and pretty soon there would be an interval where the vampires in the building can escape through the breach before their comrades from other parts of the blockade can come to their aid. Zero was in his element too, swiftly going through officer after VP officer with Idun's katana, while the Zantetusken remain sheathed to his back. With the far lighter, but still high-quality blade, the Zero of old with his 'whirling dervish' style of swordplay had returned, with his impossibly quick slashes that few except the most skilled of swordmasters could parry. But even as he was sending the VP officers to their deaths with his lightning-quick strikes, his eyes picked out a figure in the distance, with a face he knew he had seen in a photo before.

"That must be Ivan Kolstov....."

Swiftly, the katana was put back in its place on Zero's back, and the Zantetsuken was drawn out instead. With a great swing by Zero, the great blade chewed into the armor of a nearby VP armored car, and the car was lifted into the air by Zero's incredible strength. With another heave, Zero had hurled the car away, straight at where Ivan was......

Hondur and Skadi both watched as Zero quickly disappeared through a window, joining the fray outside. Skadi had to wonder at the wisdom of such a choice, despite Zero's capabilities. The VP were armed with weapons specifically designed to deal with vampires. It went far beyond simple explosives or silver bullets. The VP possessed silver shrapnel hand grenades, flamethrowers, silver nitrate mace, high beam torchs made to tempoarily blind a vampire's sensetive eyes and much more.

Not long after Zero had merged into the fray of battle, the sound of helicopters could be heard roaring above the building. Within seconds several small explosions could be heards as moltolv cocktails were dropped from the choppers, unleashing fire upon the already flaming battle scene. Within minutes the whole street was aglow with threatening flames, blocking off the front exit of the VP HQ.

Skadi snarled slight at the sight of so much fire, something a vampire could never be fond of.

"Alright, we're leaving."

With that Skadi led Hondur, Sigrun, Stephen, Viannor, Luzja, Aeris and any other vampires still alive towards the stairway. Vampiric speed and coordination allowed Skadi to dodge flaming obstacles with ease as she ascended the stairs, yet once they reached the second level they encountered a problem. The stairs were engulfed in flames.

Hondur stopped behind his sire and cursed. For a few moments they were dead silence and Hondur gazed around the stairway, looking for anything that may help.

"There."

The vampire grabbed hold of a long pipe that ran along the wall and quickly yanked it free, breaking it at a joint and releasing water upon the group. Without saying anything he focused his mind and directed the flow of the water towards the flames, Skadi aiding him once she realised what to do. Within a few minutes the flames had died down and the group continued their rush.

Minutes later and they were all upon the roof, the glow of flames illuminating their forms in the darkness. The roof wasn't on fire but judging by the state of the building it would either collapse or be engulfed soon enough. Seeing his chance, a younger vampire made the leap off the roof towards another building and was immediately cut down by still operational automated turrets.

The group merely watched as their comrade was shredded to pieces.

"Shit..."

Hondur looked over the edge of the building and notced the VP blockade, he also noted the whole punched into it by the Nobles. At least they had some slightly safe airspace. Yet now they had another problem. Not all of them could fly or jump the necessary distance.

"What do we do now?"

Hondur turned to Skadi as she inquired as to their course of action. Only a few seconds of silence passed before Hondur spoke up.

"A bridge. A mental bridge across the hole in their blockade. We can create it, Sigrun can reinforce it and everyone can get across."

"Fine, I have doubts about this though."

Hondur merely flashed a brief grin.

"Don't worry, I had some brief psychic training when I was human, in theory it should work."

With that the vampire closed his eyes and linked his own mind to Skadi's directing her where to lay the telekinetic force that would support the group. Within a few minutes the pair had established the bridge.

"Sigrun... could you do something to reinforce the bottom from the gunfire below. They're making it hard for us to sustain it..."
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Ivan's grin was quickly broken as the his efforts had quickly been reversed within minutes. His men had just unleashed a flaming doom upon many of these vampires yet whoever commanded them was no fool and had promptly adjusted orders to compensate for the explosive projectile attack.

The RPGs were now doing more harm than help and so Ivan ordered those men to grab turrets if they could whilst others were ordered to unleash one of the VP's most devastating anti vampire crowd weapons. Without hesitation the command was given and several men bearing a massive hose activated the pump and unleashed a highly focused beam of water into the air, allowing the droplets to fall upon the Nobles. At first one would think nothing was happening, but then the screams occured. There was silver nitrate in the water.

Ivan smiled once again. Unfortunately it was short lived as usual as he had to drop to the ground in order to dodge a car being hurled at him. Swearing loudly, Ivan rolled to his feet and grabbed a nearby 12 gauge shotgun.

"Who's the fucker that launched that car?

Whoever Ivan Kolstov was, he knew his vampires, Zero decided in yet another stab of frustration. As he looked on, the deadly rain was pushing his Nobles back of its own accord, all screaming in agony at the pain that the silver nitrate burning their skin. It didn't take long for the VP to regroup in the brief respite their liquid weapon has given them, and they promptly cut down even more of the screaming Nobles, who no longer had the ability to conduct warfare effectively. Those Nobles of the VA Squad who were still manning the stolen armored cars were evidently well protected from the lethal silver nitrate though, as the cars were still running around the place, gunning down any hapless VP officer foolish enough to get in the way. Yet they were cars, and while powerful, they still needed the infantry support which was now not available to them to push the VP back. It was a dire situation, one which General Raphael Celadrin did not know how to deal with.......

Wait a minute. Armored cars? As he dived into a passing armored car that the Nobles had acquisitioned, an idea came to Zero, one so simple he slapped himself for not thinking of it earlier. Although they had destroyed some of them, there were still plenty of armored cars making up the blockade on the VP side......quickly, he established a mental link with Ambrose, who had seemingly disappeared from the scene of the battle.

"Major! Where are you?"
"Sir, I'm in one of the choppers above, Sir! I'm getting myself a bird's eye view of the whole battle, and I'm coordinating the Molotov bombings right now. We still have enough Molotovs to last us a while, Sir!"
"Cut the crap, and tell me what you're seeing. Where is this damnable silver nitrate rain coming from?!"
"Sir, the VP have activated some kind of giant hose. It seems to be the thing that's spraying out the silver nitrate, and it looks kinda like a supersized version of the hoses you see on fire engines. Or one of those crowd-control water guns you see the regular police use, sir. It's not that well-armored, but there's a score of them officers guarding it, Sir! Oh, and they are starting to bring in some turrets from the other parts of the blockade, so if we don't do something, we're going to be in big trouble pretty soon, General!"
"Relay my orders, Major!"
"Aye aye Sir, what is it?"
"All Atrosian forces who are out in the open are NOT to run for cover, get it? They are NOT to run for cover from the rain. Tell them if they want cover, they're going to get it in those armored cars that the VP have set up as part of the blockade, do you get it?"
"Roger that Sir, nice tactic!"
"Whatever, now Major, order the choppers to make a bombing run to the hose. Flame the hell out of that damnable contraption!"
"Sir yes sir, doing so now!"
"Celadrin, nothing further out!"

With that, Zero broke off his mental link with Ambrose, to meet the eyes of the Noble driver who was commanding the armored car he was riding in. "Where to, Sir?", asked the driver apprehensively, nervous at having a living legend of the Atrosian Nobles sitting in the passenger seat of his vehicle. With a scan around the area, Zero located Ivan Kolstov in the distance again, and grinned devillishly.

"You see that man over there, Sergeant?"
"Yes Sir, now what?"
"Ram the living shit out of him!"

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Within moments, Ivan Kolstov would realize that the Noble commander, whoever he was, had a ready answer to his deadly hose. As one, the Nobles suddenly rushed forward again, taking the VP officers by surprise, who had expected them to retreat from the source of their suffering. Indeed, the Nobles were still suffering from the spray of liquid silver that was still burning their skins, but now they knew what they had to do. To the VP's great surprise, all of the Nobles suddenly went for the armored cars under VP control, and smashed their way into some of the cars that were making up the blockade. Those of the Nobles that didn't take direct part in the extended hijacking operation dived into the armored portion of the cars instead, taking shelter in the mobile shields that would protect them from the deadly rain. Any VP officer hapless enough to remain in the cars in the vicinity were bled dry to heal the silver wounds, their dried-out bodies tossed high into the air as trash.

Before the eyes of the VP officers, the Noble fleet of armored cars had just expanded twofold, and the new additions to the fleet started moving about and engaging their VP former masters. There were now no more Nobles running around in the streets, but the armored cars went on a second rampaging run, mowing down the VP left and right. Instead of an entire company of vampires on foot supported by a platoon of armored cars, the VP were now dealing with half a company of cavalry, and the effects were even more devastating as before. Above the battlefield, out of the VP's reach, a chopper hovered slowly over the giant hose, which was still spraying silver nitrate, although this time it was to no avail as the Nobles were well-protected within the armor of their rides. The chopper adjusted itself to the slight wind that was now blowing across the area, before bottle-shaped objects started falling out of the flying machine again......aimed straight at the hose.

In the midst of all this conflagaration, one particular armored car commandeered by the Nobles went on a kamikaze run, dodging allies and enemies alike as it rushed inexorably towards the VP Captain.......

Lujza followed the others up onto the roof. The fact that some of the automated turrets were still firing unnerved her. They should be crippled. Perhaps there was a time delay, for them to continue working she thought. In that case, they should go inactive right about... now.

While waiting for the others to get the bridge up, she went to the wall and, while doing so, relayed a mental message to any vampires still inside the building. "Evacuate... use roof." Once Lujza reached the edge of the roof (there was a slight wall, one large enough to crouch behind) she began picking off important looking VP officers down below, where the battle was raging. She was using stolen VP silver, but it worked as well as lead. To conserve ammunition, she only fired at VP who appeared to be directing others. This would cause as much confusion as possible. The din of battle obscured the noise of her own weapon, so it was unlikely that any would notice until it was too late. Spotting the VP commander, at extreme range, she fired off about ten rounds. Lujza was sure that at least half of them missed, and almost certain she didn't hit him anywhere more important than the stomach.

A few vampires who had heard the mental summons came up from the staircase, onto the roof, all carrying weapons, some carrying loot as well.

Sigrun nodded and closed his eyes as he sought the scene below with his hearing and senses. The smell of gunpowder, the smell of blood, the sounds of chaos. It was all there, all in one big mess of noise and scents.

Concentrate. Eliminate the unnecessary. he urged himself.

The smell of death and warfare disappeared from his attention. The screams and calls of numerous individuals all around disappeared. Each unnecessary sound or smell was eliminated until at last, he had what he needed.

The sound of the turrets grinding against their supports sounded in his ears as if they were the only noise. The chambers of multiple projectile weaponry could be heard sliding in fresh bullets and releasing them with a bang milliseconds later.

The others watched as Sigrun stepped to the edge of the building, and held his hand out, palm outward. A sphere of blue essence blinked into existence and expanded to the size of a car, spinning in place under his control. He manuvered it to position directly below the bridge formed. Sigrun opened his eyes and looked to the others.

"Cross now. Skadi, stay here. I'm going to need a little help getting out of here after this. It will drain me considerably."

As if on cue, the VP began to fire their weapons at the strange sphere, and the one commanding the strange sight. To their surprise however, the sphere suddenly lashed out with vicious bolts of electricity with deadly accuracy and struck each bullet squarely. The bullets froze in their oncoming paths, as if they had lost all momentum and simply fell to command of gravity. It was in this manner that multiple mana strikes effectively stopped the bullets, and had little difficulty keeping them all away from the telekinetic bridge.

Sigrun kept his attention on the sphere, his eyes closed and listening to the sounds all around. In some cases, he managed strikes to hit the men holding the weapons, causing them to fly back from the impact, the weapons rendered useless. He kept his focus primed, yet he could feel his energy sapping away at a considerable rate. Yet, he had refused the assistance of Arleni or Aeris, as he wished for them to get to safety first. He knew he would be able to handle the barrage of death from below, but it would drain him of his mana to a great extent.

With no one volunteering a conffession about the thrown car, Ivan merely grunted in irritation and turned his attention back to the battle. Things were looking good at the moment. The silver nitrate spray was doing its job and the vampires were retreating in a panic of confusion and pain. Good.

Of course good things never lasted, especially tonight. Ivan watched in disgust as the vampires suddenly changed suite, obviously having recieved orders from their commander. Now the vampires rushed forwards despite their pain and attempted to gain entry into the armoured vehicles composing the blockade. They succeeded and Ivan swore loudly.

The VP captain watched for a few moments, running scenarios through his head, deciding what would work and what wouldn't. Unfortunately he didn't get time to relay his orders as the ground around him exploded in gun fire, a single silver slug catching him straight through the abdomen. The cry of pain could be heard over the gunfire as Ivan roared, withdrawing a blade and digging it into his gut. After a few seconds he felt the bullet, burning away at his insides.

As if things could not get any better, Ivan looked up from his self surgery to find one of the armoured vehicles heading straight for him. With barely a second to react the VP commander heaved himself into the air and landed upon the vehicle as it slammed into a wall behind where he had been standing.

Finally the bullet came free and Ivan sheathed his blade, prefering to use the shotgun within hand. Chambering a shell, Ivan didn't hesitate in aiming the barrel above the driver seat and unleashing two shots. That would show the pitiful vampire what he was dealing with.

The VP captain took a moment to examine the situation. The hose had just been destroyed by a chopper dropping moltolv cocktails and now the water simply sprayed everywhere whilst the men that had been guarding it attempted to salvage themselves from flames. The blockade was in pieces and only a few turrets remained. All automated were gone, evidently the computer systems had gone offline.

And to make things worse, there was lightning arcing down at their bullets.
_____________

With the shield now in place, Hondur and Skadi could relax slightly knowing they wouldn't have to worry about the impact of thousands of bullets fighting their mental will would have. A few more seconds passed before Hondur opened his eyes.

"Alright, it's there. Everyone follow me."

Without hesitation the vampire jumped over the edge of the building, landing squarely upon the invisible bridge. Hondur knew exactly where the bridge was and his path guided the others. Within a minute the ancient vampire had crossed the street and ended up upon a building further down the road, away from the battle outside the VP building.

Obviously spent from the effort, Hondur fell to his knees as he reached the building and spun around again.

"Let's go, I've got it covered."

Skadi merely remained silent by Sigrun's side as she concentrated on sustaining the weight of everyone.

Lujza fired off a few more rounds, cleanly eliminating several more higher ranking VP, and then sprinted after the others. She raced across the bridge as fast as she could, not even hesitating at the fact that it appeared as if she was running on nothing. In battle one had to absolutely trust one's comrades. Quite a few coven vampires had assembled on the roof, and as they apparently didn't know what to do, they followed the group across the bridge.

Once across, Lujza got out of the way for any coming after, and quickly sat down not far from Hondur.

Stephen was unsure of what was meant by a 'mental bridge', but whatever the ancients were doing it would be better than standing on the roof waiting to roast. He stood in awe as Sigrun's mind created the strange, lighting throwing blue sphere. That is so cool.

The young vampire followed the group led by Hondur. Stephen dropped from the roof and hoped he hit the bridge. If he didn't, he knew he would be dead. He felt something solid underneath his feet and smiled as he moved across. It was an interesting sight to see VP officers being tossed left and right from lighting bolts.

It felt good to reach something more visibly solid as they hit the new roof. Stephen pulled out a pistol from his rags and aimed it over the roof. He thought he could try to provide some covering fire for Skadi and Sigrun when they crossed.

Stephen began to aim at any VP officer holding a weapon and started to shoot.

Everything seemed to be going well. The last few members of the group were crossing the bridge, leaving Skadi and Sigrun behind as they maintained the safe passage between buildings. Yet as the vampires new all too well, luck was never something to depend on.

Whilst Sigrun's sphere of elven magic was doing a fine job stopping bullets heading towards the bridge and those upon it, it didn't stop a single stray bullet from following a path that led straight through Hondur's left shoulder.

Hondur was far too focused upon sustaining the bridge as there were still people upon it when the sharp sting of silver ripping through his flesh engulfed everything. Immediately the vampire lost control of his thoughts and his efforts towards the bridge failed.

Skadi felt it on her side straight away as part of the bridge disappeared, leaving it up to her to extend her will and support the others those extra few metres. The ancient vampire groaned with effort as she concentrated, the effort bringing on an intense headache.

Fortunately the bullet had passed through his shoulder and yet Hondur still felt the horrible pain and was having trouble concentrating.

"Stephen... Luzja, keep an eye out for VP, shoot the bastards."

Shaking of the pain, Hondur reapplied his thoughts to the task at hand, giving the remaining part of the bridge closest to him a slight boost as he felt the other end begin to fail due to Skadi's widespread resources.

Stephen promptly dropped the human who had shot Hondur. He looked at the collapsing mental bridge and hoped that the ancients and Sigrun could keep the pathway open long enough for Skaid and Sigrun to get over. As he took cover and ripped a magizine from his pistol, he finally noticed something. During his fight with Ivan, as the lycan had torn into him, he had also torn away much of his gear; including his extra ammo.

Stephen stared cursing when he looked at the other side and spotted a barrel of an VSK-94 sticking over. Curious, Stephen slunk across the rooftop to find a VP officer trying to climb over the last part. Stephen helped him over.

It was then a sudden urge swept through Stephen unlike any he had felt in decades; it was the urge to kill. The still gaping hole in his neck, the torn flesh on his chest and face, and the desire for fresh, warm human blood sent the urge into hyperdrive.

It was then Stephen sunk his fangs into the man's neck and began to suck out the rich, dark liquid. The VP officer began to scream and thrash in an attempt to save his life. Stephen dug his fangs deeper into his victim and continued to drink, feeling the blood heal him and enjoying its rich taste. Finally, the man's thrashing became less violent and finally, the man went limp.

Stephen pulled back and dropped the corpse, licking his lips and teeth clean. It was only then did he realize what he had done in order to save himself from more injury. The young vampire stared at the body, the man's face locked in terror as he had realized he would die. Stephen also noticed a wedding ring around a finger.

It hit him like a tank, for the first time in centuries he had killed. Stephen quickly grabbed the corpse, took some ammuntion off it, and tossed it back over the building and into a dumpster and tried to erase his mind of the event. He would forget it or at least try to forget breaking his vow never to kill another human for food.

Stephen picked up the man's rifle and the magizines and went back to the group. He brought the rifle up and continued to snipe, his aim was off though as the man's terrified face was right in front of him.

Running across an invisible bridge with a sphere shooting lightning was just the latest in a long line of spectacular supernatural situations that Vianorr had found herself in since her arrival in Assington. Kitted out in the finest personal figure-hugging body armour that the VP had to offer it's female personnel, along with a fair few looted weapons from the armoury, Viannor had felt the bridge begin to fail. With a single leap she effortlessly made the last few metres to the building.

"Bloody hell," she said, referring as much to her blood-stained appearance as their situation. She had the look to make a 70s B-movie gore-fest director swell up with pride at his make-up department.

She had stolen a fairly hefty ammount of weapons, stuffing them into a duffle bag. Always have to learn from your sire, she said to herself at the time. Strapped to her back, however, was something that had caught her eye. A Heckler & Koch G36, a gun-fanatic would have told her, but to her it was merely a big powerful-looking weapon. One that she now pointed over the side of the building and aimed at the largest group of officers she could see.

There was something about that particular house that just seemed to appealing. It was old, most definitely and yet it held that polished gleam of brand new materials, freshly put together. Despite Emerald's gloomy inner city, the suburbs were quite a nice place and out of all the houses Svartel had seen, this one appealed to him the most. Of course it was different now, changed since his last visit.

It lacked that certain sense of life about it now. Very few lights were on, the colours seemed just a few shades duller and it reflected the sombre attitudes of those inside. Svartel approached the door and opened it with ease, despite the varried range of locks and bolts in place, his supernatural strength could overwhelm almost any physical barrier.

It was good to get away from the chaos of the city and simply enjoy the simple things. Pain, despair, horror, whatever other emotions he could conjure up within the pitiful humans. Skadi could fight the VP all she wanted, each time suffering casualties and the sort whilst Svartel enjoyed himself and his own men gathered forces from around the region. He would have an army to match hers, then the final battle could commence.

The door closed silently and Svartel slowly glided along the rich rug beneath his feet, following as it stretched towards the kitchen, a light was on. The sound sof liquid flowing from one glass container to another could be heard, bringing a smile to Svartel's lips. The man had turned to drink.

For a moment he simply stood there, watching the emotionall distraught man forsake his wine glass and simply take a long swig from the bottle.

"Nice to see you're looking after your daughter..."

Immediately the human jumped to his feet, spinning around as he recognised the cold slick voice. Now standing inches before him was the same vampire that had murdered his wife, the one that had started all of this. Pain, fear and fury burned within the human's eyes as he gazed upon the pale form of Svartel, powerless to do anything as the vampire took him by the throat.

"Come now, let us see how little Sarah is doing."

The human could only gurgle as Svartel dragged him by the throat, back through the hallway and up the finely carved polished wood stairs. Whatever this man did he did it well, yet none of that mattered now.

At the top of the stairs, Svartel turned his head to find light emerging from a single door to his left. Sarah's room. The vampire and his captive silently slid along the carpet until they arrived at the door.

"Hello Sarah... it's time to play yet another game."

The door slid open to reveal Sarah sitting upon the floor in her room, her eyes swollen and red as if she'd been crying for hours on end. Of course that was behind her at this moment as fear strangled her senses, causing her eyes and nostrils to widen as she took in the sight before her.

Silently Svartel extended his free hand and Sarah found herself flying towards his grip, her fragile neck landing within his harsh grasp. At that point she fainted, the shock of seeing Svartel once again too much for her to bear.

When Sarah awoke, she found herself within that dreaded place again. The basement of her house, the site of her mother's death. The place her father had betrayed her. Immediately she began to whimper, noting this time her mouth wasn't gagged nor her limbs bound. Her father moved to comfort her, yet Sarah moved away. She hated him.

Svartel's pale face filled her vision once again, his cold smile raining down on her like thousands of pricking needles, ripping her to pieces.

"Don't worry Sarah, I'm going to give you something that far too many people recieve these days, yet barely any appreciate."

With that said Svartel stepped forward and took hold of Sarah by the waist, yanking her off the ground and into his firm embrace. The little girl only managed to release a squeak as Svartel plunged his fangs into her soft neck, penetrating the artery and drawing out her precious life force.

It only took a few seconds for Svartel to drain enough blood before he commanded a dagger to unsheath itself and float around his shoulder before moving forward and slicing across his left wrist. Within a micro second he had placed it against her lips, allowing the sweet liquid to flow onto her tongue. All she needed was one taste.

Sarah was weak, she could barely stay awake. She felt the vampire's wrist press against her mouth yet she didn't care, she wanted so sleep. Her heart pounded in her ears and her head swam. Yet within a second that all changed. Once the blood of the ancient had touched her tongue, everything became clear. The sense of pure ecstasy shook through her body as her senses became more acute. She needed more. And so with a hunger alike that of feasting animals, Sarah drank.

Svartel tore his wrist away, giving the wound the freedom to heal. Sarah was now unconscious as her body began to change, as her very being began to change. She was dying, yet she would not be dead.

Svartel now turned to the father, the drunken man cowering in the corner of the room. Within the blink of an eye Svartel was upon him as well, his strength overpowering the human easily as he sunk his fangs into the lightly muscled neck of the father. The taste of wine was strong within the man's blood, yet Svartel didn't care, he would go ahead with his plans. Soon enough the father was unconscious upon the floor, also changing.

Svartel merely stood back and watched patiently, grinning the whole time.

Both father and daughter awoke with a sudden start as they felt something sting their minds, the presence of another. Svartel. Now fully awake, the first thing they noticed was that darkness was no longer a hindrance to sight, nor were their other senses restricted. For a moment Svartel watched before finally speaking.

"The fun hasn't begun yet, give it a few hours."

With that the ancient vampire lay down and erected a mental barrier around his form, preventing the newborn vampires from nearing him. And so time passed uneventfully as the father and daughter explored their newfound abilities and senses, amazed at just how different it was to be a vampire. Then it struck them like a mac truck. The thirst.

Svartel awoke to the screams of pain and desire, the vampires could feel the thirst, it was consuming them. For the last two hours it had lay dormant, building up strength in order to release in one mighty wave of power. The ancient vampire watched in amusement as both vampires spasmed upon the ground, the thirst flooding their bodies with pain. At that point Svartel's voice whispered into their minds.

"The only plausible source of blood is the other one... feed off them, quench the thirst."

"NOOOOOO!!!!"

The father's scream echoed throughout the basement, yet the little girl was silent as she fixed her gaze upon her father. Svartel gave her another mental nudge, reminding her it was the only way to prevent the pain. With the balance now tipped, Sarah leapt at her rambling father.

Sarah landed within the large arms of her father, her fangs inches away from the blood enriched neck of her relative. At first Sarah's dad attempted to get her away, yet the little vampire was determined and as her neck drew closer, the hunger grew stronger. Yet he couldn't do it, he couldn't drink from his own daughter. It was wrong.

That hesitation cost him dearly. Sarah had angled herself into a position where she landed a foot into the crotch of her father, causing his grip to loosen and allow her to launch forward and rip into his exposed neck. Blow after thundering blow pounded into his chest as Sarah unleashed her fury upon her father. He could do nothing as lack of blood left him weak and the unbridled ferocity of Sarah finally led to his death. Eventually Sarah looked up, her father now dry and her face covered in blood.

"I can't say I didn't expect it..."

Svartel stood, releasing his barrier and dragging his metal pole against the cement floor.

"So Sarah, where do you go from now?"

"I.... feed more. I will live as a vampire..."

Sarah's voice was almost a hiss whilst Svartel remained cold as usual.

"Wrong. You die."

With the slightest of movements Svartel brough his pole to bear and flicked a switch, causing a silver blade to emerge from one end as it plunged into the chest of Sarah and pinned her to the wall. Pain, shock and fear plastered across her pale face once again as the sting of silver cooked her internal flesh and ravaged her nerves with unbearable pain.

"You see Sarah, you just proved you are a very dangerous little girl. You cannot be trusted, you are not loyal and you could be a threat one day. That cannot be allowed."

And so Svartel removed the blade and promptly beheaded Sarah. With his fun for the night done, there was nothing else to do but leave. And so the ancient vampire calmly walked upstairs, took a moment to admire a painting and exited through the front door once again, returning to the night.

Perhaps Ivan could have been forgiven for his assumption that there was no more threat to him once he had despatched of the driver who had tried to ram him down, and that there was now no one else in the armored car to pose a threat to him. Still, the one thing about military operations that no good soldier ever forgot, was the fact that you can never make assumptions if you wanted to live. Things must be confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt unless you wish to sign your own death sentence, and unfortunately for Ivan Kolstov, he had made that particular mistake in the heat of battle.

It was lucky for him that he had superhuman instincts and reflexes, just enough for him to realize he was still in mortal danger. It took a lot of instinct, and an equal amount of luck, for him to leap off the roof of the armored car he was sitting on, just as the roof divided itself from the main body of the car by way of a giant sword cleaving right through it, almost getting the VP Captain's legs in the process had not the latter jumped off at that moment. Like a wraith out of hell, the General Raphael Celadrin emerged from the wreckage of the crashed car, his expression now of contorted rage from having seen one of his own men die right before his very eyes. Grief, too, for he was the one who had given the order to the driver of the car, that had sent him to his death. Now the legendary Devilspawn of Noble tales, the Noble commander was now mad to the point of berserking, and there was no stopping him as he bore down on Ivan Kolstov.

With his rival counterpart facing him eye to eye, Ivan tried to bring his guns to bear on Zero, but got taught a lesson in the speed of an Ancient when, in the blink of an eye, the latter had swung the Zantetsuken so impossibly fast for a sword of that size. The next thing Ivan knew was that he was holding onto guns that were now useless, their barrels sawn off cleanly, but he was relatively lucky not to lose his hands instead. But as Ivan learned quickly, there was precious little luck to be had when you are facing off against a pissed-off Ancient, and secret lychan though he was, he could not match Zero's strength when the Noble grabbed him by the shirt, and with all the strength that an Ancient could muster, slammed Ivan into the wall. The wall cracked like glass against the full force of Zero's wrath, and such an impact would literally break the body of any mortal, shattering bone, rupturing internal organs. It was one of the worst instances of pain that only an Ancient can deal out to an enemy, and to Zero's eyes, Ivan deserved that fate. Not caring to see whether Ivan had survived the blow or not, Zero tossed Ivan's broken body into the wrecked armored car, and the Zantetsuken was raised out in the air, ready for another strike.

The Zantetsuken chewed into the armor of the wrecked car, and with Zero's strength, it lifted the car up in its trajectory. With a few great swings with the great sword, Zero tossed the car high up into the air, with the dead Noble and Ivan Kolstov in it. Now Ivan Kolstov wouldn't be able to reorganize the VP for a while, even if he did manage to survive that physical blow he had been dealt.

"Rest in peace, friend", the legendary commander of the Nobles whispered to the one who didn't make it. All around him, the field of battle was in ruins, and it had appeared that the Nobles had won the battle, although it would not be for long if they tarried. The ravaged hose was now no longer spilling the lethal water all over the place, and the rest of the vampiric forces were now escaping over their heads, apparently walking on air. That was not something Zero understood, and it was not something he wanted to understand now. There were more important things to do, for the Nobles had succeeded in giving their comrades the space they needed to evacuate, and there was now no reason for them to stay as well. Putting a hand to his temple, Zero relayed a mental message to all the Noble forces in the vicinity.

"Celadrin to all forces, mission accomplished. All AA and DA troops are to gather at the battlefield and board the vehicles the VA troops have acquisitioned. Retreat from battle, I repeat, retreat from battle. Execute execute execute!"

With that order, the looters of the Arms Acquisition Squad, and the hackers of the Data Acquisition Squad gathered at the breach, and one by one, they began to board the armored cars acquisitioned by the Vehicle Acquisition Squad. The armored cars, which now belonged to the Nobles, began to drive away from the scene of battle, heading into the heart of Emerald City, where the VP, licking their wounds, will not pursue them for a long while. As Zero jumped aboard one of the friendly vehicles, he looked back at where there was so much bloodshed not so long ago.

The Nobles had acquired much from this battle, but they had lost much as well. The General of the troops could only wonder if he had done the right thing in involving his vampiric kin in this........

_________________________________________________________________

Aeris knew right from the start that Sigrun would not accept help from either her or her mother, and although she would usually have argued against her Uncle, even she knew this was not the right time to do so. So there was only one thing left to do, and that was to take advantage of the mental bridge as soon as she was able to do so. Although that still meant she was one of the last few to cross the mental bridge, and thus nearly lost her footing when she felt the bridge weaken.

Instinctively, the Elven Princess leapt into the air, undergoing a transformation as she did so. In a matter of moment, her brown Elvish hair had turned into a brilliant golden crowning glory, and her skimpy clothes had suddenly turned into the pure white, flowing robes of the Nephilim. As she leapt, great white wings sprouted from either side of her shoulder blades, and she flew the rest of the short way, distracting the VP officers who thought they saw a vision of the Lord's messenger above their heads.

Once upon the other side, Aeris's wings had withdrawn back into her body, and the Nephilim looked back towards the other side, at Skadi and Sigrun still standing on the roof of the failing VP Headquarters. There was nothing she could do to help the Lady of Emerald City and the Ruler of Tarlachia now, except........raising her hands, a white light started to glow from both, giving way to reveal that two white roses had appeared out of nowhere, resting on the hands of the Elven Nephilim. With a flick of both wrists, Aeris threw the roses like darts, across the gap, straight at the Elve and the Ancient still holding up the shield and the bridge respectively.

The white rose darts slid right into the arms of Skadi and Sigrun like needles human doctors use for injections, causing them to grunt in surprise and annoyance at the minor irritation, but they immediately worked their magic. Within moment, the mana stored within the petals of the white roses would be transferred directly into the duo, recharging their energies for the flight across the gap.......

Within seconds, Lujza was crouched near the side of the roof, picking off more VP officers. She tried to always go for the commanding ones, but there didn't seem to be many left, so she between shooting the ones she saw, she ended the lives of VP grunts who could hit the group on the roof. A great commotion involving one of the armored cars was happening in the center of the battle, and much of it no doubt involved supernatural powers. It wasn't of much concern to her, as nothing she did could affect it.

She hit several items that seemed to be explosive, wiping out large numbers of VP. She was satisfied with pumping the VP full of their own silver.

However, the fact that parts of the VP headquarters were collapsing was a cause for worry.

Skadi continued to keep her will focused, despite the pain it was causing her. Already her limbs were shaking and blood trickling down her nose from such an abstract use of her powers. It was easy to launch a force at something or sustain herself, yet to hold up a physical bridge of telekinetic power whilst others move across it and have Hondur's will unfocus was an intense mental strain.

Finally Aeris got herself off the bridge and Skadi released her will with a sigh as she collapsed to her knees. She was shaking all over and felt like she could barely move at all. It was at that point she noticed the stem of a white rose sticking out of her arm. The rose held a faint glow and immediately Skadi recognised it had some sort of magical properties.

Of course the vampire's first reaction would have been to yank it out, yet she overpowered her distrust of magic and waited patiently. There was no one else about besides friends that could do such a thing so Skadi had to assume it would help her. Within seconds she felt strength pouring back into her exhausted mind. A minute later and she could move around comfortably again.

Feeling much better, Skadi moved forward and caught Sigrun as he began to fall back, his power obviously spent as well. Yet it was obvious he was regaining strenth as well and soon enough they would be ready to leave. At that point a large chunk of the building behind them imploded, signifying the very near demise of the entire structure.

"Perhaps it is time we leave?"
____________

There was no time to survey the battle as the sound of metal upon metal had warned Ivan just in time in order to jump into the air and narrowly escape being impaled by the biggest damn sword he'd ever seen.

Landing several feet away from the vehicle, Ivan watched in surprise as the roof of the truck was ripped open to reveal a very angry looking vampire wielding a blade taller than himself. Reacting normally, Ivan brought up his guns just in time to see the massive blade swipe down and slice them in half, making the weapons useless. Ivan swore.

Unfortunately this vampire was far older than Ivan could even guess and he doubted even his lychan form would be much help against this evident ancient. Within a blink the vampire had lunged forward, grabbed Ivan and hurled him into a brick wall with such astonishing power that Ivan would have taken time to admire such strength if it weren't for the fact he was on the recieving end of it.

Ivan gasped in agonising pain as he felt several bones crack, snap and even shatter. He was quite sure many of his organs had suffered from the blow as well, indicated by the immense amount of blood he just coughed up. Of course that wasn't enough though and so the ancient yanked him to his feet and hurled the VP captain into an armoured vehicle once again.

At first he thought it was over, yet again that was a stupid assumption. Ivan could barely scream as he felt the car shoot into the air, spiralling this way and that as physics played around with it like a rag doll. Eventually gravity took control once again and Ivan plunged back to earth.

Upon impact the world went from red to black...

At last, the last of the escapees finished their journey of faith across the invisible bridge, and allowed Sigrun to release the shield. He gave it one last surge of arcane energy to send it toward those that might still be alive down below and paying attention to their progress high above them.

He stumbled backwards slightly, but Skadi was there to catch him and steady his feet. It was then that Sigrun felt the rose dart prick his skin, and instantly, the little reserve of arcane energy he had flared for a moment, until he realized the purpose of the rose. He looked across the gap to Aeris and nodded briefly.

"Perhaps it is time we leave?" Skadi's voice called to him, breaking through the haze of his mind that had resulted from such extreneous use of power.

"Yes...yes it is time." he whispered, feeling his strength slowly returning to him.

Skadi felt she now had the strength to make the distance easily enough yet Sigrun was still recovering. Unfortunately they didn't have anymore time as the building rocked beneath their feet as the supports holding the roof below them gave way to the hungry flames. There was no more time.

With a firery doom immient, Skadi took hold of Sigrun and crouched for only a moment as she launched herself high into the air in a massive arc that found her landing with a loud thud right next to Hondur. Turning around, Skadi still supported Sigrun yet did not hold on so tight as she watched the spot where they had stood seconds ago implode into flames. It was unnerving how many times she'd come close to being burned alive tonight.

Hondur managed to give his sire a slight grin whilst still clutching his wounded shoulder. Silver inflicted wounds always took a while to heal, yet at least it had stopped bleeding. He took one last glance at the VP building, satisfied with their work. Many more VP had died this night and now they had no central hub of coordination, it would be years before they could fully recover their capabilities.

"Let's go home..."

Skadi and the others nodded, the Lady of Emerald taking the lead as the group jumped from roof to roof as they moved towards her apartment. Hondur remained silent as he delivered final orders to remaining forces and Zero.

"Zero, we're all safe and heading back to Skadi's apartment. Well done tonight, I appreciate your help."

Whilst the group believed they could enjoy a few hours of piece, it was shortlived as the sound of a gun discharging filled the air. Skadi immediately turned to her side, laying eyes upon a figure standing at the doorway of the rooftop exit of the apartment building. No light was necessary for Skadi to see the figure, yet one was flicked on anyway, revealing the wrinkled and angry face of an elderly woman.

"God damn vampires running around at night, disturbing the peace. I'll get rid of you thugs myself..."

Within an instant the small six shooter had ripped out of the woman's grasp and followed a path directly into Skadi's hand.

"Old humans... why should we await your death when we can cause it?"

Skadi aimed the weapon and cocked it. At that moment the high pitched yapping of an animal filled everyone's ears. Skadi watched, unimpressed as a rat like dog known as a Minpin charged towards her, bearing it's minute teeth.

The ancient vampire merely waited for the oppurtune moment, the right distance before bringing her leg back and unleashing with a might swing, her boot connecting square on the chest of the rodent-canine. With one last yap the dog was launched into the at a tremendous speed, soon falling out of sight. Somewhere within the vast city, the dog thudded to a stop against the cold pavement. It wasn't yapping anymore.

The old woman was now starring at Skadi, eyes filled with disbelief and tears as she attempted to comprehend what just happened. Finally she spoke.

"HELP!!!! Police!!!!"

Gunfire answered. Skadi stood behind a smoking barrel as she watched the old woman's head snap back before her body crumbled to the ground. With that done she pocketed the weapon and turned back to Sigrun.

"Let's get home quickly, I don't want anymore interruptions."

Stephen continued with his sniping, waiting until Skadi and Sigrun could get across to saftey. He put his last magizine in and took aim. A VP sniper had been dueling with him for the last five minutes. Both had taken a few shots and the VP officer had moved after each one. Stephen stared down the sight and watched as the sniper tried to move around some garbage cans. There was a thump as the silence weapon discharged its silver slug.

The VP officer was struck in the back and fell. Stephen didn't bother with a follow up shot. He calmly watched a pair of VP officers firing thier guns in an attempt of cover fire and remove thier comrade. Stephen was glad when Skadi said they could leave, all he wanted to do was to wash up and put on some good clothes.

Stephen followed the ancient as she led them back to her apartment. As soon as the crack came, Stephen hit the deck and began to scan. His hearing picked up the voice of an old woman. Stephen stood and turned to find Skadi pointing a small revolver at a woman who probably was alive when Moses led the Hebrews from Egypt.

When he saw the black and tan form of the minature pincher appear, Stephen's face softened. He had owned one when he was a kid, the little creature definatly enjoyed a good game of tag. Stephen's face turned to shock as Skadi kicked the animal. He tried to make a jump to save it, but the small animal moved faster than a Tomahawk cruise missile.

He spun as several cracks broke the silence. Stephen was in greater shock as Skadi gunned down the old woman. When Skadi turned to Sigrun, Stephen spoke in a raspy, broken tone.

"Skadi...what the hell was that? There was no need for..."

He paused as the ancient's cold eyes turned to him and Stephen quickly shut his mouth; he did not desire another beating from the ancient in his current state. Knowing her, she would probably leave him unconicous on the rooftop and he would fry when the sun came up.

Stephen was silent and tried not to think on the recent events.

The large convoy of Noble-acquisitioned armored cars roared through the streets of Emerald City, taking all available routes as the convoy split into many smaller groups, each group heading for its own destination. Having obtained the the locations of all the safehouses that Hondur's coven owned, Zero had left prior instructions beforehand that after the mission, all the Nobles were to split and find shelter in each of the safehouses, so as not to alert the VP to one location where all their gains could be wiped out in a single strike. By spreading all the Noble forces to all the safehouses available, Zero had ensured that there was no way the VP could recover all the equipment heisted from them ever again.

So, as the convoy seemed to dwindle, from a vast fleet to just several heading to Skadi's apartment, the General himself sat in the front armored car, morose and taciturn in light of all that had transpired. The VP had been savaged, thanks to the involvement of the Nobles, yet it had come at a price even Zero himself was finding hard to stomach. So many good vampires, dead at the hands of the damnable VP........it was making him sick.

"Very well, Hondur. I will be there in a few.", Zero responded.

Lujza had also continued sniping from the roof top as Aeris came over. By now she was hitting any threatening looking VP grunt, as officers were few and far between.

She kept firing as Skadi recovered herself and then attempted to follow as the group gathered and started to leave, still peppering some of the remaining VP positions with their own bullets.

As the group jumped to the next building over what seemed an incredible gap to Lujza, she stood there and contemplated her options. The fire had now spread to this building, and she had no idea how long it would last. She swore loudly in Callisdrunian. She also didn't want to be anywhere near the site of the battle when the sun rose, illuminating the destruction for all to see.

Muttering curse words under her breath, she began climbing down the wall of the building, in a shadow so as not to be conspicous. However, a stray artillery shell hit the building on the wall adjacent to hers, causing that entire side to collapse while she was still only halfway down. With a cry she fell amid the rubble, landing awkwardly. As she got up, she noted that breathing was difficult. One or more ribs were probably broken. "Fucking cunts" she said, indicating whoever had fired the round. Staggering to her feet, she started the long walk to where she thought Skadi's apartment was. Having been almost an entire day and night, she ached everywhere in addition to the burning pain that caught her every time she inhaled.

Hondur watched the whole situation unfold with mild interest. He was more concerned with getting home and figured Skadi didn't need to kill the old woman, yet that was her choice and he wasn't about to get in the way of that. Of course Stephen had to protest at such actions but soon fell silent as Skadi's cold gaze moved across him. Evidently the memory of what happened last time was still fresh in his mind.

Skadi had assumed Stephen would have learned his lesson by now and yet he still persisted on playing the moral police role. Turning around slowly she gazed at the younger vampire, her expression showing just how impressed she was with his complaints. He fell silent.

"Let's go."

Hondur nodded and looked around the group for a moment, noting that Luzja was gone.

"I'll meet you guys there, Luzja's fallen behind."

With that the vampire disappeared from sight as he descended upon the street and began his search for the foreign vampire. Fortunately it was a shortlived search as he found the female vampire a mere street away, holding her ribs as she half hobbled down the road. A few long strides carried Hondur directly beside her.

"Are you alright Luzja?"
___________

The battle was over. The sounds of combat and gunfire had now been replaced with the sirens and intense water blasts of many fire trucks as they attempted to salvage what remained of the VP HQ. By the looks of things, it wouldn't be much.

Ivan was still unconscious yet his comrades had managed to removed his battered form from the mangled remains of the armoured vehicle. More than one gasp escaped the officer's mouths when they discovered he was still alive and injuries only went as far as a few broken bones.

The VP had suffered the most significant blow ever, yet it would not deter them. Once Ivan regained composure, he would ensure the VP had their vengence.

Stephen was completely silent as he felt the weight of Skadi's eyes on him. He prayed she would let him off easy. When no sword, bullet, or fang went through his flesh, he knew she had decided to be merciful for once. Stephen knew that it might also be the last time. He watched as Hondur went to find out where Lujza had gone off to before turning and following the group back to Skadi's apartment.

When he entered, Stephen sagged in a chair, noticing he had gotten bits of dried and partically dried blood on it; he would clean it later after he washed up and changed. He stared at the group as they began to check their things and relax after the battle.

Stephen knew that Zero would pop in later and Hondur and Lujza would arrive later also. He would tell them when they got in.

"I think some of you might be wondering why I look like I lost a fight with a cheesegrater before being tossed to a lawnmower. Our local VP Captain Ivan is a lycan. He could be old enough to transform on his own since the night I sired Viannor there was a moon out and he didn't turn. Being a lycan...maybe one of the reasons how he found Hondur's coven."

Sigrun entered Skadi's apartment, and collapsed onto the floor, not caring of his location as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply at last.

"I feel...so tired..." he said softly as he lay there, covered in the blood of his foes. He fell into a dreamless sleep, letting the weariness seep away.

Hondur watched the whole situation unfold with mild interest. He was more concerned with getting home and figured Skadi didn't need to kill the old woman, yet that was her choice and he wasn't about to get in the way of that. Of course Stephen had to protest at such actions but soon fell silent as Skadi's cold gaze moved across him. Evidently the memory of what happened last time was still fresh in his mind.

Skadi had assumed Stephen would have learned his lesson by now and yet he still persisted on playing the moral police role. Turning around slowly she gazed at the younger vampire, her expression showing just how impressed she was with his complaints. He fell silent.

"Let's go."

Hondur nodded and looked around the group for a moment, noting that Luzja was gone.

"I'll meet you guys there, Luzja's fallen behind."

With that the vampire disappeared from sight as he descended upon the street and began his search for the foreign vampire. Fortunately it was a shortlived search as he found the female vampire a mere street away, holding her ribs as she half hobbled down the road. A few long strides carried Hondur directly beside her.

"Are you alright Luzja?"


"Only hurts..." she rasped "when I breath." Lujza gave Hondur a painful looking smile. Despite being obviously weakened and in tremendous agony, she had not abandoned her weapons, and still carried both her gun and her bag slung over her shoulders.

As if to explain her tardiness as she trudged down the street beside Hondur, Lujza remarked, quietly (for she could not get enough air to raise her voice past little more than a whisper), "I can't fly... or jump that far." She was still attempting to smile though, despite her injuries, she considered the operation a success, the only disappointment was that Ivan had survived. Lujza stopped walking for a moment and clutched her lower chest. "I think I broke some ribs," she said, stating the obvious. She then recounted to Hondur the cause of her more serious wounds.

Hondur could see Luzja had taken quite a beating throughout the night yet he also knew she would have unleashed an equal if not more amount of destruction upon their human enemies.

He was thankful for all the help she had provided over the last few nights and would make a point to visit her in Callisdrun at some point in the future, when he wasn't in the middle of some struggle for power within Emerald City.

"Perhaps I can ease your injuries a little."

With that Hondur lifted his wrist and sliced a small knife across it before offering it to Luzja.

"This should relieve most of the pain and speed up the healing."
__________

Skadi was silent as everyone entered her apartment. Evidently they were all exhausted after the battle and despite Aeris' trick with the flower, she still had a headache and felt she could barely control her own limbs.

Sigrun was unconscious within seconds of entering the apartment and Skadi didn't feel any particular need to disturb him. The sun would be up soon and sleep would be welcome, but for the moment she would wait for Hondur and Zero to return.

"We shall deal with the dog in due time. I have a feeling we will need to worry about other things tomorrow. Svartel has been too quiet lately."

"Thank you," Lujza said tiredly, as she lapped up the blood coming from Hondur's wrist. It did seem to work fairly well, especially on the pain. She could now breathe normally, and walk and stand up straight. Her ribs would still take a little time to heal, but it would be hours instead of days.

"Being here," she said to Hondur as they walked into the apartment, "I sometimes wish I was as durable as the vampires here." She paused for a second. "But then again, I suppose some vampires here wish they could move about during the day, too. Perhaps it's a trade off."

Once Luzja had fed enough to ease her pain, the pair continued through the near deserted streets of Assington, reaching Skadi's apartment unhindered. One advantage of the vampiric nightlife was the reduction in your common human thugs on the streets, they'd been muscled out to make way for a much worse criminal.

Hondur nodded as they entered the apartment, agreeing with Luzja's statement.

"I'd say so. You can't have everything."

Looking around the room, Hondur noted everyone save for Zero and Ambrose.

"Always waiting on the Nobles aren't we?"

Whilst Hondur was attempting to keep a relatively good mood in the room, it was obvious he was exhausted. Yet at least the battle had taken his mind of recent losses.

Stephen began to think about what Skadi had said about Svartel being quiet. It slightly disturbed the young vampire that the crazed ancient could be up to something that would destory them all. He closed his eyes slightly and lifted Ivan's dagger and stared at the silver blade. They now knew Ivan's secret because of it and hopefully he had been killed during the chaos out the VP station earlier.

He looked up as Hondur and Lujza entered the apartment and chuckled slighlty at Hondur's comment.

"Hondur, catch."

Stephen tossed him the dagger and watched as the ancient easily caught it.

"That belonged to Ivan...thought you might want it, may come in handy sometime."

"Thanks again," Lujza said to Hondur before collapsing on nearby couch. She had not gotten near enough sleep in the last couple days, and dark spots were appearing beneath her eyes. She got up again just long enough to find a closet and get a thin old blanket out, before going back to the couch, pulling it over her, undressing under it, and then quickly falling asleep.

The blanket was not needed for warmth, indeed, in what she considered a warm nation, Lujza had gotten out the thinnest one. However, an eccentricity of Callisdrunians was that most could hardly sleep well without some sort of covering, and so even when the weather made it completely unnecessary, they always slept under blankets. Lujza made soft murmours in her sleep, but was otherwise quite quiet and looked much more at peace than at any time recently.

(OOC: Sorry, haven't had much stamina lately.)

The battle was a bruising one, even for the war veterans filing into the apartment, thus it was a foregone conclusion as to what it did for a tender young thing like Aeris. Even though her part was less about fighting, and more about assisting those who did the fighting, it was still a physically, mentally, and emotionally draining experience for the erstwhile untried young Princess, although she had held herself remarkable well. Still, the Mana Rose magic that she had worked to replenish Skadi and Sigrun took a lot out of her, and as she slid silently into the apartment, everyone else ignored her, too tired themselves to say much to her. That was just fine with the young woman, and as she decided to go find a room for herself, she noticed one thing.

She was still in her skimpy clubbing outfit. And what's worse, it was now dirty from the toils of battle. With a sigh, she turned about and looked for a private bathroom instead. A hot shower would have been nice before sleep anyway........

_________________________________________________________________

At ground level, beneath Skadi's apartment

In the silent streets, 3 armored cars pulled up alongside the pavement, just beneath where Skadi's apartment was supposed to be. They were VP armored cars, and yet they did not disgorge VP officers immediately, mad and raging for vengeance against the sack of their headquarters. Instead, they remained immobile, with no movement apparent. Of course, that was because the occupants of the armored cars were not VP at all. The 3 cars formed a small part of the loot of the Great Heist that General Raphael Celadrin had just pulled off with his band of merry men. And the said General himself was inside, caressing the diamond-edged silver blade of Idun's katana with gloved hands, not deigning to move even though they had reached their destination.

"Sir, we are here?"
"........."
"Sir, this is the Lady Skadi's apartment. We have reached our destination."
"........."
"Sir?"
"......Hmm? Oh, yes. You know what to do after this?"
"Yes Sir."
"Good."

And with that, Zero stepped out of the armored car, the night breeze picking up his trenchcoat and playing with it awhile. With another sigh borne of the latent grief for those of the men he had lost, he hopped on his feet, and took flight into the air. It was only a matter of time before he had entered the apartment through an open window, his face set on what he was about to tell the Lady Skadi.

It wasn't going to be pretty.

Of course, he got sidetracked once again when Aeris stepped back out into the living room, clad in pyjamas he had never seen her wear before, as if ready for bed.

"Aeris? Where did you get that pyjamas?"
"Hmmm? Oh, I bought them during the shopping trip."
"I thought you were happy without them......."
"Oh, yes. But I couldn't resist picking this up. And am I glad I do, it's so comfy. By the way, it costs US$100."
"What?! What kind of pyjamas cost that freakin' much?!"
"100% high quality silk ones, of course, like the one I'm wearing now." At this, Aeris pouted at Zero. "I'm telling you that it's worth it. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to sleep now. Good day, Raph."

Yawning, she promptly ignored Zero, and disappeared into a room. Looking in her wake, Zero remained stunned for a moment, before slapping himself on the head and groaned. "I can't bear to think of what my bill will be like next month", he groaned to himself. "I really, really need to get that girl her own credit card."

However, there was nothing to it but to take it in the teeth, and besides, there was still the serious matters to attend to. Coughing to get himself ready, he turned to Skadi.

"Lady Skadi, I have something important to discuss with you", he said, moving towards her. "It's about Idun. He has betrayed our ceasefire."

Hondur caught the dagger as it flashed towards him, making sure to grip the handle instead of the painful silver blade. He took a moment to examine it, not really caring about the design. Perhaps he would use it to kill the VP captain, perhaps it would become another item in his vast armoury of weapons.

"Thanks."

At that point Aeris walked in and silently made her way into the bathroom, obviously exhausted like everyone else. The group was silent for several moments as they all pondered recent events, going over details of this and that. At this point Zero entered the apartment, bearing a blade all too familiar to Skadi's.

Skadi was about to say something when Aeris emerged, causing Zero to break into an inquiry that left even more distressed, knowing that his young lover held the human habit of wasting money. Finally he got to the point, giving slight reason as to why he held Idun's blade.

She didn't appear surprised. Skadi had lost all faith in Idun centuries ago and had almost been expecting this. In a calm tone she merely replied with a few emotionless words.

"What do you know?"

Well, that was a little surprising. Zero had half-expected to see Skadi get into a murderous rage once he had told her of Idun's betrayal, and yet she just sat there calmly, absorbing his words as if it didn't make any difference to her. Either she was just as tired as Zero, and apparently everyone else in the apartment, was feeling, or perhaps she had expected that he would tell her something like this already. No matter, she had asked a question, and all he had to do was to tell everything.

"I sensed Idun during the gathering of my forces, Lady Skadi, and I tailed him all the way to the mansion", he started explaining. "I overheard him say things that were damning. It was obvious from the start that he had planned this betrayal." At that, Zero scowled. "I confronted him, my Lady, and I duelled with him. He was a downright weakling, and it was almost too easy for me to claim this sword from him. He didn't deserve a good blade such as this", he finished. With a quick movement, he drew out Idun's katana from his back, but the sight of the well-made blade didn't help to lift his mood like he hoped it would. "The Elves rescued him before I could take him to you though. And I realize I don't have any actual proof......."

"Sir!"

It was the voice of Major Ambrose, who had slipped into the apartment of his own accord without anyone noticing, or more likely without anyone caring. Brashly, the younger Noble stepped up to his superior, holding out a piece of paper. "I found this note in Kolstov's office, Sir. I believe it is what you are looking for."

"Indeed?", Zero replied, taking the note from the Major and looking it through. As he did so, he sighed again, now knowing for certain what he had suspected all along. With that, he handed the note to Skadi. "As you can see, my Lady, my suspicions have been confirmed beyond all doubt. The Elves have betrayed us by revealing the location of the mansion to the VP, and they are just as responsible for our losses these two nights as the VP are. We cannot let them get away with this, my Lady."

With that, he presented Idun's blade to Skadi, holding it with both gloved hands to her. "I suppose you want this back?"

But just then, Ambrose cut in again. "Sir, there's also something else I found in Ivan's office", he said, taking out the set of liquid-filled syringes he had discovered. "I don't know what these are supposed to be, Sir, but I believe it's going to be important. My Lady, what do you think these are?"

Stephen was shattered to learn of Idun's betrayl. He had been hoping that Idun and the elves along with Hondur's vampires could form a loose alliance to destory Svartel. Then, maybe afterward or in the future it could turn into something more solid. Still, the ex-soldier was bugged by the devolpment. He had stated to Skadi that the elves were not properly equiped for modern combat nor a full scale long, drawn out war. Swords, breast plates, and bows and arrows worked when she was human; now assualt rifles, rocket launchers, and vehicles ruled the battlefield. He knew in Simatarian history when the first practical firearm was made, the soldier's weapons of old were cast out. The fact that the elves had not been exposed to modern technology until now made him question the elve's intent.

Still, Zero produced damming evidence that would make Stephen's appeal to the Assingtonian Ancients and the others next to impossible. Maybe...maybe Idun did betray in hopes of us all killing each other. When Ambrose spoke, Stephen stared at the syringes.

Ivan was good with fighting in his wolf form, Stephen's blood covered body and rags of clothes were proof of that. Still, Ivan had been easy to suprise and though he got a few good hits on Stephen, the vampire had an advantage. Stephen stood and walked over to Ambrose.

"Let me see one."

He took the one Ambrose handed him and studied it for several minutes. God, I wish Todd was still alive. Could help a bit with this. Stephen took the cap that protected the needle off and gently squeezed a single drop onto the end of pointer finger. He smelled it, it did not seem to give off any odor. He then reached out with his tounge and tasted a bit on the tip. Stephen's face scrunched up and he spat the tiny amount into a trash can.

He looked over at the Nobles. "First, I think you two should know that Ivan is a lycan...and by this a drug addict. But, addicted to what? Souped up heroine or something else? Steroids...some kind of chemical or something maybe. Whatever the hell it is, we should see the effects it has on Ivan within the next day or so."

Stephen thought. "Hondur, do any of your coven houses have any size science lab? Might ship a syringe or two to it."

Skadi listened intently as Zero recalled the events from earlier on in the night. It seemed her ancient companion couldn't resist returning to the scene of the crime and had been caught out. Whilst Zero didn't have any proof, Skadi was inclined to believe him. She didn't trust Idun in the slightest and knew it was inevitable.

Obviously Zero had no such reason to lie about this and his recount of fighting Idun seemed fair enough. Idun had never been a warrior. There was no doubt that his strength could defeat that of Zero's, yet he hardly knew how to use it and that's what mattered.

As she was about to speak, Ambrose spoke up as he entered the crowd, bringing some significant evidence into the light. A note in elven script found in the VP office. What further evidence was needed? Skadi was pissed, yet she didn't allow it to show. She realised the elves were indeed intelligent creatures and if she were to have vengence, it would have to be unexpected. Yet it would come.

Skadi nodded as Zero handed her Idun's blade.

"He will suffer for such things, there is no doubt. But for now, we don't concern ourselves with it. Svartel dies first, then the elves."

With all apparently said and done, Skadi prepared to move into her own room and get some rest, she was exhausted afterall. But it wasn't over yet. Ambrose produced several syringes full of an odd drug, more loot from the VP captain's office. Skadi had no idea what it could be, yet she doubted the man was a drug addict, from what she had heard he wasn't the kind of human to do such things.

Hondur pondered Stephen's question a moment, considering what resources he had at hand for examining such a substance. He was no scientist and didn't have any labs sitting about at his convenience, yet he knew people with the know how.

"I know some people that could take a look at it. Yet perhaps it's best left for another night, this one is nearly over."

Sigrun opened an eye and released a quiet growl. He pushed himself off the floor, looking around at the others. They could see the strain in his face, a result of the battle earlier.

"Get to sleep, all of you. This war is far from over still..."

Sigrun grumbled to himself, before entering the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Minutes later, the sound of water running could be heard, signifying a shower had been started. Twenty minutes later, the elf emerged, clean, yet still quite tired.

He noticed they were now talking about some syringes that were being passed around. He listened to their conversations on the matter, before he finally shook his head and entered Skadi's bedroom. He called out, "You all talk too damn much!"

He collapsed onto the bed, and fell into sleep again...

Stephen watched as Sigrun stormed around the apartment. It wasn't the first time he had seen the elf in a bad mood, at least he wasn't violent this go round. Stephen looked at himself and decided it was best to clean up. He grabbed his bag and went to the bathroom.

A half hour later he emerged perfectly clean and dressed in non-tattered clothes. In a garbage bag was his destoryed clothing and he tossed it out the window into an open dumpster in the alley. He sagged back into a chair and relaxed into the soft cushions.

"If there is nothing else I will be dropping off to sleep."

It looked like everyone else was exhausted to the point of snapping at each other, and since Skadi had taken his words at face value, there really wasn't anything else Zero could say. Heck, he was tired enough as it was, and it was taking all that was left of his remaining strength to remain civil and professional to make his report to the Lady. Now that that was done, he only needed to do one last thing before he turned in for the day.

"Ambrose, find a fridge or someplace cool to store these syringes. We don't know how long they last in the open. Then go get yourself some rest."
"Aye, Sir." And with that, Ambrose moved away.

Yawning, Zero ignored everyone else totally, and waited for Stephen to step out of the shower before having his turn. It was only a matter of moments before he stepped out of the shower, and crashed besides Aeris, literally out for the count.

Lujza woke up after a few minutes, to the sound of voices in discussion. She sat up, and suddenly realized how filthy she must be getting. She got off the couch, though she took long enough to make sure everyone knew she intended on returning, and wrapped the blanket around herself.

Not sure exactly what to say, she went up to Skadi, appearing somewhat meek. However, if one took the time to study her eyes, it would be obvious that meekness was not naturally a part of her personality. She still bore traces of scratches on her face from the chaotic battle. Speaking softly, she said, "May I please use your shower? I haven't had one in a few days now, and I feel rather disgusting." Callisdrunians, especially Callisdrunian Moroii vampires, could be said to be very attentive to their personal hygiene.

Skadi nodded as the last words were said. It seemed everything was in order for the moment and there was little else to be done. Sleep would be welcome as the strong tendrils of weariness wrapped themselves around her mind. Even vampires needed sleep.

Zero realised there was nothing left to discuss and quickly cleaned himself up before collapsing next to Aeris and plunging into a restful darkness himself. Skadi was about to move into her own room when the newcomer Luzja approached.

Skadi knew almost nothing about this foreign vampire, save that Hondur had accepted her into the coven and that she was of a different breed. Skadi didn't trust her and didn't consider the foreigner to be part of the group, yet she had done nothing to earn Skadi's hate. The fact that Luzja asked to use the shower was pleasing, it indicated she realised her position yet wasn't going to simply sit in the shadows.

"You may use the bathroom as you wish. Couches and chairs are also free for your slumber."

Skadi's tone was cold, yet not hostile. Luzja may indeed prove to be a valuable ally and Skadi considered that a great asset these days.

"Thank you," Lujza said, genuinely. Manners were linked to honor and taken very seriously at home. Very seriously indeed. Especially manners concerning hosts being polite to guests and guests being polite and showing gratitude to hosts. Knowing of Skadi's temper, Lujza moved away from the ancient Assingtonian, not wanting to seem bothersome, and toward the bathroom. She walked quite slowly, still limping, despite ingesting Hondur's blood. It was an indication of how serious a beating she had taken. Still in better shape than poor Stephen she thought.

Once at the bathroom door, she let the blanket fall. Callisdrunians were thought to have odd views on nudity. In fact, total nakedness was not seen as immodest at all, just foolish at any time of year other than the least cool part of summer. A rather large gash that marred several of Lujza's tattoos stood out on her pale skin, thought it was scabbed over. Without hesitation, she opened the door and stepped in. She took a shower that, while thorough, was not too long, though very hot. Lujza emerged looking much more relaxed, having dried herself in the bathroom, she wrapped the blanket around herself again, gave Skadi a quick smile of gratitude and went back to curl up on the couch.

As Luzja moved into the bathroom Skadi took an idle walk around her apartment, making sure everything was in order. Everyone had pretty much settled down for sleep now after exhausting all their energy on the attack upon their human enemies.

Whilst things had been fairly successful, Skadi couldn't shake the feeling that it was going to get much worse. She knew Svartel would not simply drop of the radar for no reason, he would be up to something and she didn't like the idea of not knowing in the slightest.

Resigned that she could do nothing about it now, Skadi gave Luzja a brief nod as the foreign vampire smiled at her before curling up on the couch. A quick extension of her mind caused the light switch to flick off and Skadi moved into her own bedroom, closing the door behind her and falling onto her bed besides Sigrun.

She was asleep before she hit the bed.

Ivan awoke with a start, instantly rolling off the couch that supported him and colliding hard with the wooden floor below. The thud was enough to brink the VP captain to full awareness as he sat up, still wearing his tattered clothes. The stench of antisceptic flowed all over the captain, indicating he had recieved some sort of medical attention. From what he could remember, he should have been taken to a hospital and yet here he was. Where was he?

Now upon his feet, Ivan took a few steps around the room that housed him and quickly noted several key objects such as a weapons cabinet, a VP logo painted across the wall and other related objects. He couldn't be in the HQ since he last recalled it being engulfed by flames at his own order, this must be one of the stations.

With a few more wits about him and more confidence in his situation, Ivan made his way out of the office and moved into the main hall of the VP station. It was of a similar layout to the VP HQ, just on a much smaller scale. It didn't take long for Ivan to grab attention as many of the officers gazed upon him in wonder. A few quiet moments passed as Ivan matched their gazes before speaking up.

"What the hell is going on? I want reports on last night."

One of his own station officers approached the VP captain, looking equally as shocked as the others yet able to answer questions.

"Sir, we're surprised to see you're alright. Medics last night said you had broken most of the bones in your body and internal bleeding would surely cause your death within the hour. There was nothing that could be done, so we took you to this station and let you struggle through your last breaths in peace. The fact that you're... alive is amazing."

Ivan was quite shocked himself. Not at knowing he was in a situation where most humans would have died yet realising that his secret was practically out. They would have to assume that he wasn't human now, especially after this.

"Well, that is fortunate that I am alive. We'll deal with that issue later, I believe we have a severe vampire problem in this city and I want it taken care of tonight. We are calling upon the police force of this city and the VP of all other cities around Assington. I will not allow these scum to openly attack the VP and lead to the destruction of our own HQ."

With that the VP captain stormed off back into the office, intent on making many phone calls in order to organise such a massive operation.
__________

Skadi's mind awoke yet her body remained asleep as an all too familiar presence entered her thoughts, one she had hoped would never return after all that time. Once she recognised the presence of her peer, a scene came into form within Skadi's mind, that pristine valley of untouched nature that was now a desolate wasteland.

The grass felt almost real as it brushed along her legs, whipping around in the wind as the female vampire moved forward to face the figure of much hatred. Whilst Svartel had never killed anyone particularly close to her, she knew he had a much more significant hand in it than the actual murderer himself. Narrowing her eyes, Skadi stopped a mere two paces before her grinning enemy and spoke.

"I suppose you're here to taunt me? Here to irritate me before you make your move?"

Svartel merely grinned as his own black hair whipped around in the wind, his ice blue eyes boring into Skadi like a silver blade.

"Enough with the niceties Skadi, I feel it's time for your death..."

At that point Idun's image appeared in the distance, his mind now obviously linked to this little reunion of ancients. Idun strode forward intently in his grey elven robes, not a single emotion upon his face as he finally halted before the two.

"I assume we are to finish this?"

Skadi nodded, as did the still grinning Svartel. Skadi didn't show anything despite her knowledge of Idun's plot. She would run him through when the time came. Idun merely nodded himself and gave a slight grin.

"Good. You cannot defeat both of us Svartel. Death shall take hold of your spirit and retain you in the Underworld, where you should have been millenia ago."

"Perhaps, perhaps not, yet I do recall you were never much of a warrior, despite your time spent with those loathesome creatures. I suggest you pray to whatever false god gives you comfort for my will dictates your death."

Idun remained silent as Svartel now addressed Skadi.

"Well, I know you won't waste your time talking to air. But you can also expect a death at my hand. There is no mage to save you this time..."

Skadi withdrew her blade, despite knowing it wasn't real.

"For many years I wondered just how and why Uller would design a blade of such an odd fashion. It wasn't until later that I realised it is very similar to that of the Japanese katana, yet he didn't know that. This blade was made to end your life... keep that in mind when I run it through your miserable walking corpse and separate your head from it."

Not wanting to say anymore, Skadi severed herself from the mental link and fully awoke, sitting up in reaction to returning to the physical world. Slightly shaken yet resolved to end things tonight, Skadi got out of bed and began speaking, assuming it would wake Sigrun.

"It is time to rise my love. Tonight we walk into a battle unlike those before it. He stands on equal ground, perhaps even slightly higher. This won't be about numbers, swordplay or plans. Whoever wants this will take it."
___________

Hondur was already in the shower as the sun sunk and had been for the past hour or so. Whilst he had felt some satisfaction in destroying the VP building and many of the men involved, it didn't bring Alyssandra back. Nothing would.

After a further fifteen minutes the ancient vampire got out and clothed himself before entering the main area of the apartment and sitting at one of the stools facing into the kitchen.

Sometimes he just didn't know how to go on with everything, it all seemed too much. He knew that many would die tonight, or soon enough and he couldn't stop it. Even the supposedly immortal vampire could die, even Skadi could die. He was sick of it, sick of watching everyone he ever knew die.

Hondur remained at the bench as he continued to brood, waiting for the others to rise.

Sigrun awoke instantly, and listened to Skadi's voice as she spoke of a new battle. He frowned, "I would think you would wait a day or two before confronting him."

Nevertheless, he rose from his spot and walked to Skadi's closet, where he kept several sets of human clothes. His elven clothing had become essentially trashed in last night's fighting and were beyond repair. He pulled out a pair of jeans, and a plain black tee shirt. He put them on, giving no complaint as they fit him as expected.

At last, he finished getting ready, pulling his sword up from the floor near the bed and attaching it to his person. Turning to Skadi as she too was finishing her preparations turned away from him, he spoke, "I'm ready."

As she finished up by pulling on a clean shirt, he studied her backside, admiring the milky whiteness of her skin, and the few scars that had been recieved as a result of silver weapons, or even had been there since her mortal years.

Stephen stirred as he heard the sound of water running. Night had come and the vampire felt much better this night than he did last. Grabbing his duffel, he went through the contents. The Simatarian placed a kevlar vest on and made sure it was secure and the front and back plating was in place. He knew the big battle would occur tonight. The VP, Hondur's coven, Svartel's rabble, and the elves would engage each other in a massive no-holds barn bloodbath.

Knowing it would be a close fight, Stephen did not bother grabbing an assault rifle. Instead, he reached into his bag and retrieved a Heckler and Koch MP5KA4 machine pistol and a South African Protecta automatic shotgun. Finally, he began fishing out every magizine he had for the H&K along with his two pistols and every shotgun shell he had. Besides his knife, as a weapon of last restort he picked out a Smith and Wesson Model 67 .357 Magnum revolver.

Believeing he was prepared for the slaughter to come, Stephen pulled small pad of paper from the side of his duffel and a pen. Knowing it could be his last battle, he began to write out a will.

Skadi stood stark naked in her bedroom as she layed out weapons before her, across the bed. The ancient vampire had never been big on carrying a large amount of weapons and normally stuck with her blade. This time she had the feeling her sword wouldn't be quite enough and she'd opened up her small cache of weapons behind her mirror and withdrawn a punch of pistols, small blades and even a few grenades.

With a quick glance as her shredded trench coat and other dark clothes Skadi realised they were beyond salvaging and quickly launched them into the corner of the room before turning to Sigrun.

"I'll be in the shower. Whilst I want you at my side for this, perhaps it would be wise to get an idea of what we can do with our forces. We will need the majority of the coven if this is to be decisive. There are too many factions to deal with to risk not having an overwhelming force."

Silently Skadi opened the door and strode across the main area of her apartment in silence, nodding to Hondur briefly as she entered the bathroom and closed the door behind her. The sound of running water followed.

Hondur took little notice of his sire's lack of clothing as it was of no real concern. He knew Skadi cared not for such matters of modesty and if she wasn't going to be bothered by it then he shouldn't either.

Turning around Hondur found himself facing Sigrun.

"So what kind of force are we talking? Zero can provide us with large numbers, all will be well armed. I'm reluctant to pull in everyone unless absolutely necessary. I don't want everyone dead."
_____________

Svartel sat comfortably within his own personal apartment within the abandoned block he had called home over the last few days. Whilst the outer appearance hadn't really changed, the inside was becoming more acceptable by the minute with vampire after vampire coming in with equipment, decorations and other desired objects to transform the interior of the building into one of affluence.

Of course none of it really mattered, it was just something for the future. Svartel was always thinking to the future and occassionally didn't focus enough on the present, yet all would fall into place. All would be well. At that point Svartel was disturbed from his thoughts by one of his many vampires.

"All the rogues from the city we could find have been gathered to our force. We have others still coming in from other cities. We're estimating almost ten thousand. I'm surprised you managed to get that many."

Svartel merely nodded, pondering his plans a little more before replying.

"It won't be enough. But we shall see..."
___________

The night was darker than usual, the stars and moon hidden behind a thick layer of black cloud. Whilst most would write it off as the potential for a thunder storm, Ashur and Idun saw it as much more. Despite not being an elf, so much time spent with elven kind had given Idun a reasonable sense of the world around him, allowing him to interpret such things.

As far as the elves were concerned, the sky was preparing to wash the ground of the blood that would be spilled this night. It was time for the final battle, the prophecy would either be fulfilled or become void.

Idun sighed as he looked over the few hundred warriors that were preparing for battle. They were not bringing their entire force as they realised such a ploy would be foolish. The elves would be outnumbered and destroyed in a direct battle. It was a matter of gureilla tactics tonight.

[OOC: "Turning around Hondur found himself facing Hondur." <<< ROFL ;) ]

Sigrun looked to Hondur and thought. "Well, how many capable fighters do you think we can gather by the time they're needed? We're going to need loyal fighters that can hold their own against a variety of opponents."

As Sigrun spoke, he also spoke to the vampire silently.

This battle is going to be very ugly, my friend...and I don't have a good feeling about our forces' outcome...

Lujza got up, kept herself wrapped in the blanket as if wearing a cloak, and looked around her. A few early risers, as they would be among vampires, were up and getting ready for the night. She spotted Stephen writing something a little ways away.

Walking up to him, she asked quietly "What are you doing?" in a curious voice. And then, barely giving Stephen time to answer, she asked another question. "Do you think Skadi would let me borrow some clothes? Mine aren't in great shape."

Hondur was silent for several moments as he ran over the numbers in his head. The coven was quite large since it had endured hundreds of years, carefully siring and accepting new vampires all the time.

"Perhaps eight thousand. That's not all of them but I'm not prepared to send an entire coven to their deaths. That should be more than enough combinued with the Noble forces to crush any opposition."

He fell into silence once again, the decisions weighing heavily upon his face. Looking back up, Hondur's eyes reflected his pain.

"Sigrun, I don't know if I can endure this much longer. I've already lost Alyssandra and seen many friends die over the years. I can't take much more of it. When you have eternity as a life, a companion is the most significant thing you can have..."

At that point the bathroom door opened, revealing the clean and wet form of Skadi now clothed in a white t-shirt, black jeans and her ever present black trench coat. It appeared as if she had an unlimited supply of them. The female vampire merely gave her lover and fledgling brief glances as she walked by into her room, obviously finalising her gear for the coming battle.

Stephen looked up from his writing to see Lujza looking at him. He stared at her and laughed at her second question. Skadi showing generosity and kindness was like finding water in the Sahara. The ancient still treated him like dirt, like everyone else spare for Hondur and Sigrun, and rarely showed kindness.

"What I am writing is none of your concern Lujza. As to your second question..." Stephen chuckled again and returned to his writing. "You can try...but I don't think she will even loan you a bra."

Viannor had her own writing, tapping into her mini computer that had, fortunately, survived her action so far. Her little essay, unlike her sire's, was planning for the best, rather than the worst. Names, places, organisations and above all, ideas.

She was the Lady-Quaestor, chief of the Starblaydi Inquisition, after all. In her unbridled role she was M, Edgar Hoover and now Dracula all rolled into one. The power she could now wield would be totally unparalleled in Starblaydi history. As much as she had been given a free reign before, now her sphere of influence could be so much greater. An immortal, supernatural creature of the night in control of a vast, well-funded, government intellligence and security agency of a powerful nation would be a thing to behold, if she managed to implement everything she now wanted.

The thought made her smile, though Stephen's suggestion of women sharing underwear provoked a small chuckle from her.

"I know it's none of my concern, I was just curious, that's all," she pulled the blanket tighter around herself. "And I wasn't going to ask for a bra. I need a shirt and pants, not a bra." She stood there a moment more, staring at nothing, apparently thinking. "The only thing I can think of that you could possibly be up writing at a time like this is a will," she said. "That's what it is, isn't it?" Her voice was not mean spirited or sarcastic in the slightest, but carried a tone of understanding. They had been fighting humans before mainly... a fight against other vampries might not go so well.

Stephen looked over at Lujza with arched eyebrows. Was this woman for real? Stephen stared at her for several minutes before sighing and speaking.

"Lujza, I know you probably don't need a bra. My point is Skadi doesn't care about anyone else spare for Hondur and Sigrun...my words were to imply that she would not lend you a bit of clothing; though you are more then welcome to ask."

Stephen had finished writing out his will, his most valuable effects would go to his cloest friend Sigrun along with other smaller effects. Everything else would go to Hondur, Lujza, Viannor, Zero, Arleni, and even Skadi was mentioned. Stephen carefully folded the paper and placed it inside an evelope and closed it. Stephen looked at the Callisdrun vampire.

"I'll be tearing that up when I get back."

Lujza smiled. "Sorry, I'm not that good at English so I don't get what people really mean sometimes."

At Stephen's comment about tearing his will up, she smiled again. "I'm glad to hear that," she said. "Well, would anyone besides Skadi have any spare clothing that would fit me?" She really did not want to go to battle in clothes that were too baggy, they would get in the way during hand to hand combat, and she knew that she had a small enough chance of surviving already, it would be very bad for her health to make that chance smaller.

"Sigrun, I don't know if I can endure this much longer. I've already lost Alyssandra and seen many friends die over the years. I can't take much more of it. When you have eternity as a life, a companion is the most significant thing you can have..."

Sigrun discreetly maneuvered Hondur aside so that their conversation remained between the two of them. He looked Hondur deeply in the eyes, looking past the hard outer layer that had been cultured into the man's features like second nature, and into the wizened, and aged soul that had seen many horrors, and few blessings. Sigrun lay a hand on his friend's shoulder and spoke quietly so that only Hondur heard.

"I know your pain. I have felt it countless times before. It burdens my heart too to see such events unfold and pass in my time. Yet, I know that this is how things happen, this is how the world turns. We are the watchers, the guardians, the warriors that protect certain ways of life, and we are the historians. We watch, and we record what we see. We do this, so others may know, so they may learn what we have learned at costly prices."

Sigrun turned to look upon the others in the room, yet he still remained speaking quietly to Hondur, "Look at them. What do you see?"

Silence passed for several moments, yet Hondur said nothing.

"I'll tell you what I see. I see individuals tasked by fate to struggle forever, for the right causes."

They watched as Stephen finished writing his will and spoke to Luzja, as if she didn't understand. Yet, they understood Stephen's internal thinking.

"We are never sure when our time will finally end, but when it does, we'll know."

Hondur looked to him, "How?"

Sigrun looked back, putting emphasis in his voice, "We'll know."

It wasn't long before Skadi emerged from her room once again, this time fully clothed and armed. The inside of her coat was filled with small blades, two pistols and several clips whilst her standard katana was across her back. Whilst there was nothing overly fearsome about Skadi's physical appearance there was a sense of pain that many seemed to gather upon looking into her eyes and reacting as most do, pain leads to fear.

Skadi noted Hondur and Sigrun walk towards the balcony in conversation and decided not to disturb them, instead opting to approaching Stephen and Luzja. They were not required to be involved this night yet he assumed they would, as was the norm in almost all these conflicts.

"Are you two ready? We'll be moving out soon."
___________

Hondur remained silent for the most as he listened to Sigrun's words, happy to recieve advice from the man about twenty-five years his junior. Whilst the elf did offer wise words he also lived by a different philosophy than Hondur and the ancient vampire could only partially agree with what the elf said.

"The right causes? This isn't a battle for good or evil, it never has been and never will be. Skadi doesn't fight for the people around her, she fights for her own personal reasons. Sigrun, we are vampires, we are hardly champions of the light or any of that crap. We are people and we are in one fucked up situation that we cannot avoid."

Hondur took a pause as he looked in again at the people filling Skadi's flat.

"If I'm destined to continue these petty wars and watch as my close friends continue to die despite their immortality then I don't want it anymore. I'd rather give it all away and find solace in knowing that one day it will end."

Stephen would have gladly offered Lujza clothing, but they were built differently and his clothing would impare her movement in battle. He was about to respond when Skadi appeared next to him. Stephen stood and scooped up his HK MP5k and with a slap of his palm against the charger handle, it slid forward and slammed shut.

"Ready to go kick ass."

Stephen looked over at Viannor as she tapped away at a small computer. He walked up to his fledgling.

"We're about to move out. You ready?"

Sigrun gave Hondur a slight chuckle as he considered the vampire's response.

"I would hardly think you're an advocate for all that is good. Rather, the causes I was thinking about were the fights to protect those whom you consider as your own, your family. Yet I will agree with one thing though. You and I, although alike in some respects, live different paths in life, and have a different situation. At the same time, I urge you to not forget that once upon a time, our paths were nearly identical."

Skadi emerged from her room, and chose to speak to Stephen and Luzja. Sigrun watched her, admiring the power that seemed to emanate from her, yet it was an unsolicted power. It was one of those things that just couldn't really be explained, yet all understood it.

"To find a solace, a place of serenity in this world and live out the rest of your time here, is but a small solution. It solves the problem for you, but the bigger problem, the endangerment of vampires here in Emerald, still exists. The wars will still go on. The deaths will still mount."

Turning to face the city with Hondur, Sigrun finished his speech, "We are the chosen grim reapers of this world, all myths and cloaks aside. The burden can be heavy at times, and there are prices we'd rather not pay, but we must. There is no other way, until Fate determines we have become obsolete."

Quickly tapping 'Save', Viannor slid the mini-computer into the padded wristband she wore on her left forearm.

"All set," she said, rising to her feet. She adjusted her clothes slightly, shifting the body armour to make it more comfortable around her torso. Don't need a bra under one of these things, she thought as she checked her equipment. Twin pistols at her back, their clips placed strategically inside her armoured vest, bootknife and a bag containing all manner of silver-edged and -tipped nasties. Looting the VP armoury did have its uses, after all.

"Where'd they get such wonderful toys?" she said with a smile, heaving the bag onto her shoulder. Nothing she knew of outside of a storybook was more-specialised in the killing of vampires than the VP, so taking their weapons had been, hopefully, a smart move. "Gotta defend the new family, after all."

Lujza watched as Skadi came up to her and Stephen. Her eyes followed Stephen for a split second as he went to talk to his fledgling. Then she noticed she was alone with Skadi, in a manner of speaking. It would be acceptable to make a request under such circumstances, at least according to the customs she had been brought up with. I might as well ask she thought. After all, one usually does fight in clothes.

Still clutching the blanket like a cloak around herself, she spoke in a quiet voice. "I'm not quite ready, but only for one reason. I need clothes, the clothes I had are in no state to be worn to a battle. Only the belt and boots are really functional. I apologize if I'm putting upon you by asking, but may I please borrow a shirt and maybe some pants for tonight?" Though her voice was quiet, so as to grant some measure of privacy, it was not quite meek, but simply pragmatic. Her accent still stood out quite a lot, though.

A scowl crossed Hondur's face at the mention of what Fate would choose for him. He had never believed in destiny, fate or any of that predestined stuff. He was about now and what he could do to influence the future. The idea that the future was already in order and he simply followed a set plan was unnerving and angering.

"I'll have nothing to do with fate. I will not be a pawn to anything and won't simply accept destiny, especially since it seems to involve everyone close to me dying. It's not right."

Taking a deep breath, Hondur continued.

"One day this will end. I will make sure of it."

With that said he moved back inside and into his designated room. Hondur still had to gather most of his gear and begin relaying orders to his coven commanders if this battle were to be coordinated efficiently.
____________

Skadi watched Stephen move off towards his fledgling. He'd yet to speak with the woman known as Viannor yet had shown Stephen just what she thought of his actions. Of course there was no use in worrying about it now, there were more important issues at hand.

At that point Luzja spoke up, voicing her problem regarding her lack of clothes due to last night's battle. It was a fair request considering her situation and Skadi took a brief moment to examine the foreign vampire's clothing, noting its poor state.

"You're about my size. Come on."

With that Skadi led Luzja into her room and promptly opened her cuboard to reveal shelves of blank shirts of varried colours, many pairs of jeans and leather pants and a number of other items, including a large amount of black leather trench coats. Evidently Skadi didn't shop much or care for fashion yet since she didn't grow as a vampire she could simply stock up on much of the same thing.

"Take your pick, there's plenty of everything."

Lujza followed Skadi and saw that all the clothes available were plain, which was fine with her, as she usually wore fairly plain clothes herself. She smiled and said "thank you very much," before quickly donning a faded black shirt and an even more faded pair of black jeans. She generally found that clothes were most comfortable after quite a lot of wear.

With another nod to Skadi, she exited the room, put on her belt, transferred the stuff from the pockets of her own ruined pants to the borrowed ones, and sat down on the couch to lace up her boots.

Stephen smiled back at his fledgling, Viannor definatly could relax before a battle. He did one last check over his gear, knowing he would be blazing through ammuntion faster than a bullet train he wanted to make sure he had all the ammuntion he could carry without losing effectivness. He heard Lujza and Skadi talking behind him, he turned his head slightly and his jaw dropped as Skadi agreed to lend Lujza some clothes.

Though this suprised him since she treated everyone spare for Sigrun and Hondur like dirt; he knew that she was smart enough to know a good fighter and do what needed to be done. He guess that she cared a sliver for him, strictly because he was a good fighter. Stephen figured she would not of helped him in the VP station if she hadn't.

With one last check Stephen was ready to help bring this to an end.

With Luzja taken care of, Skadi closed the door to her room as she exited and approached Hondur, intent on making the final preparations for the coming conflict. Whilst she had no real desire to involve the entire coven, Skadi realised they would need a force that could deal with whatever Svartel could throw at them whilst also managing the VP forces, or what was left of them.

"We're going to need the majority of our forces."

"I know..."

Hondur seemed a little distracted yet Skadi assumed the loss of his lady friend still weighed heavily upon his mind.

"We'll end this tonight, for good. Then we can rest for as long as we like."

Hondur produced a brief smile for his sire.

"Hopefully. I've contacted squad commanders and the sort. We're almost ready to move."

"Good."

Turning back to the others, Skadi spoke up.

"Alright everyone. Be ready within five minutes, we're heading out then. None of you are required to follow us but if you do, keep in mind it is likely you may die."

It was rare that Skadi gave such a warning and yet it seemed appropriate. Perhaps even she was getting sick of everyone dying.

Stephen looked over to Skadi's anncouncement. Her last sentence struck him as odd for the ancient. Never before had he heard the female vampire say this. Maybe all this continous war and fights were finally taking thier toll upon the ancient; chipping away little by little over the centuries at the ice hard exterior of her. Maybe after this fight, she will call it quits and live peacefully with Sigrun in Tarlachia. And I'm a Chinese jet pilot. Stephen thought. Though he believed that Skadi could be caring for the rest of them, it was probably only because she wanted as many people in the fight against Svartel.

Stephen walked to a window and looked out across the peaceful city. In a few short minutes they would move out. Then, the whole city would light up with the sounds of battle.

(OOC: Apologies to everyone... My internet access has been pretty ragged throughout the past month or so... I moved myself into college three weeks ago, so I'm pretty much adapting pretty well. You guys can grill me/kill me later... Anyways, enjoy this little twist...)

In the center of the city, Avto Crusade stood, huddled on the roof of a tall building, glancing down at and listening to silently the darkened streets of the capital of Assington. With a sigh of terrible sadness, he turned, unable to bear witness to the events that twirled around him. As his face moved into the light, any onlookers would note his face, although fair, was gaunt with a haunting of distress and knowledge of the many dreadful to come...

With a grunt of pain, he sat down, closing his eyes, pondering his desertion of the beings that had known his ancestor. In his mind's eye, none of them lived up to the legend that they had forged in thousands of years of endless turmoil and conflict. None of them were worthy of the name that they had created for themselves. This knowledge was traumatizing, for it created the possibility that the legend that was Lance Crusade was no legend at all.

As the first tear rolled slowly down his face, Avto shook his head, trying to clear his mind of thoughts that torn at the very fabric of his existence. With a cry of anguish, he leapt into the air, his two swords, the legendary Swords of Night and Day, leaping out of their sheathes and as if having a mind of their own, whirled around the crazed Avto.

As lightning crackled over his head, Avto wept as he cried in anguish. Like the roaring of a dreadful creature from the darkest hells of one's imagination and nightmares, Avto spun around like a whirling dervish, his swords forming a nearly impenetrable barrier around him. Lightning bolts smashed continuously into the barrier, as Avto mourned...

Suddenly, the whirling stopped and Avto remained motionlessly, his inaction quickly dispelling the lightning from the skies. Opening his eyes, revealing to the world the crackling golden light of a crazed and fallen swordmaster.

Cackling wickedly, he spoke, a thunderous voice that roared like a hurricane from his position in the sky. "With heaven and earth as my witnesses, I, Avto Crusade, hereby deny my legacy, shattering the bondage formed by my ancestors to the forces of light, to an over-simplistic ideal that destroys its slaves... From this day forward, I tread the paths of darkness, forever disowning the light of day. I hereby disown my heritage and my name. From now on, I am my own man... The man without a name, but always with an aura of tremendous power, magnificent hatred, and devilish anger. For I am no longer a Crusade..."

With a final roar, filled with great hatred and the need for unwanted aggression, the man known once as Avto descended from the sky and once more tread the earth... Only this time, his eyes cackled with the jet black ink of hatred and anger...

"Alright everyone. Be ready within five minutes, we're heading out then. None of you are required to follow us but if you do, keep in mind it is likely you may die."

We're already Undead, Viannor thought, shouldn't make too much difference if it does happ... She was cut-off in mid thought, something entered her mind of its own accord, interrupting her thoughts on forthcoming death. She looked at Stephen, a confused frown on her face. "A Chinese what?" Stephen was about to speak but Viannor had already half lost interest and half didn't care anyway. "Nevermind."

She tossed her hair back in a practised motion, throwing it back over her shoulders. A quick adjustment to her coat's collar later and she was good to go.

Lujza finished lacing up her boots, and stood up, grabbing her axe and AK. She was ready, all she needed was her bag. All the bullets it now contained were the VP's silver rounds.

She heard Skadi's warning, but it didn't alter her state of mind that much, though she bowed her head slightly in approval. During an ill-fated mission into Altar Rang when she was in the army, they had needed to attack a heavily guarded compound where several other soldiers had been captured. At the time, the tours of duty for all in Lujza's unit were over, having been delayed while in enemy territory. Their commander had given a similar speech, everyone could have just cut and run back to the border if they had chosen to. But no one did.

War truly is a horror Lujza thought to herself.

Sigrun, having fallen silent after Hondur had last spoken, finally approached Skadi and asked, "Where are we having this battle? In the streets here again? If so, I wonder about the wisdom of such a choice. The streets will be filled with citizens recovering from last night, and they will all be armed as the whole city is now undoubtedly under high alert."

Sigrun moved a few things around on a nearby table, until he had formed a rough map of the terrain showing the city and surrounding lands. He studied it, ascertaining the benefits of each location he saw in his mind.

"What do you think?" he asked her, as he looked up to her again.

Stephen looked at Viannor as she spoke before she blocked it from her thoughts. It was then the Simatarian realised that the bond that tied her to him was much stronger than he thought. He could always sense her over the others, even over Skadi and she held a prescene in the back of his mind. He would have to remember to block out some things from her. Feeling a bit hungry, Stephen fed off his bloodstone before looking at the backs of Sigrun and Skadi.

He wondered what the pair were talking about, but he deiced not to intrude on them. Looking out once again across Emerald City Stephen prayed quietly to himself for the safety of him, his friends, and the innocent civilians of the city.

Skadi was silent for several moments as she looked over the rough map and pondered the issue in her mind.The predicted numbers involved would be on scale unseen before in any of the other vampiric wars, it would be unlikely they could simply find the space to engage the enemy.

"We can't take our forces to one single location. There are simply too many involved for one up front battle. I'll be able to find Svartel easily enough yet we'll have to break up everyone else into groups. That way we can spread around the city and move everyone much easier."

At that point Hondur approached the pair, obviously armed and ready to get things over with. Skadi could tell he didn't like this yet he also accepted it was inevitable.

"So what's the plan?"

"We'll split our forces up into groups. I trust you can manage coordinating such things whilst we take care of Svartel?"

Hondur simply nodded, not bothering to reply vocally.

"Good."
___________

The Emerald City Domestic Airport was certainly a vast complex of structures, runways and all other necessary facilities for the accomodation of aircraft. Tonight a large portion of the complex had been sectioned off from the public to allow direct passage for the thousands of VP officers coming in from all over the nation.

Ivan watched as crate after crate was unloaded and men poured off the planes, all wearing their combat gear in preparation for the coming battle. A few phone calls the the mayor of the city and collaboration with other VP captains around Assington and Ivan was fortunate enough to have masses of men and equipment being shipped to his city in order to exterminate the vampiric threat once and for all.

All was coming together nicely, Ivan would have his vengence upon every vampire in the city, especially the one that had defeated him outside the VP HQ. The streets would run red once again yet this time the blood would be vampiric.

Sigrun nodded in understanding, and waited until Hondur and Skadi had finished speaking. Then, he reached out and clasped Hondur's shoulder firmly, "Take care of yourself."

Sigrun gave him a wizened, weathered smile.

Turning to Skaid, he spoke, "I'm staying with you this time. I'm not about to let that bastard take you alone in combat. And don't even try convincing me to not do so. My mind is set."

Skadi looked straight into Sigrun's eyes as he stated his course of action. Whilst this was a matter between her and the other ancients she realised Sigrun didn't want to risk her dying, which was quite possible. Evidently there was no debate about the issue as far as Sigrun was concerned and Skadi could see Hondur agreed fully.

"Fine."

There was no point arguing about it and perhaps it would work out for the best, one never knows.

"Let's get going then, we'll have to find Svartel."

Hondur nodded and went to the apartment balcony, concentrating on distributing the mental message to all relevant commanders of the coven.
__________

Svartel stood quietly within the vast expanses of a dockside factory. The security guard didn't even provide any challenge as he simply began running at the sight of many vampires before he was drained dry and deposited in the nearby harbour.

The building around him was dark, smelled of salt and the ocean and was filled with rusty, sharp implements he would enjoy running through the ancient corpse that is Skadi. He knew very well the true battle would be between him and her whilst Idun simply sat on the side, occassionally providing anoyance.

If all things went according to plan he would walk out the only original ancient vampire in Assington. He would own Emerald and eventually the entire nation.

When the order was given, Stephen was ready to move. He had done plenty of weapons checks, but he preformed one last one to make himself prepared. He then sent a message to Viannor.

"Stay close to me, during this fight."

Stephen then approached Skadi.

"Is there any speical place you want me during this fight?"

Sigrun stepped closer to Stephen and gave a slight chuckle, "I would venture to say anywhere but in between her, and those she faces in battle, especially Svartel."

He gave Stephen a pat on the back, and said, "Do me a favor, keep an eye on Aeris. Arleni will be with you too, so watch her as well...if it's not too much trouble..."

Arleni spoke up from her seated position on the couch across the room. "I can take care of myself just fine."

Sigrun turned to her, a hard look in his eye, "That may be so, but I'll have a much more focused mind if yours, and Aeris's backs are watched."

Arleni looked to Stephen and sighed, "Very well then." Sigrun nodded and turned to Stephen, "Will you do that for me?"

Stephen looked at Sigrun and gave a nod. He still considered himself deep in Sigrun's debt after allowing him to live in Tarlachia shortly after the coup there nearly thriteen hundred years ago; also for helping him in his first year as a vampire, if it had not been for him and Skadi he knew he probably would not of lasted that long.

"Of course Sigrun." He also added mentally. "You don't have to worry about me getting between Svartel and Skadi...I would like to avoid direct combat with him personally as long as possible."

It was then Arleni spoke, Stephen knew she didn't care much for vampires so he knew it was only natural for her, as it would be for anyone, to decline protection from a vampire. In the end, he wasn't suprised by Sigrun winning out. He looked at Arleni and gave her a smile.

"You can still go hacking away through lines of vampires, I'm just there to make sure one doesn't stand up to knife you in the back. Think of me as your own personal security camera equiped with a machine-pistol."

"Aww, that's so sweet," Viannor said, rubbing Stephen's shoulder in a friendly manner, "you've now got three women to protect tonight. They always said Chivalry was dead, and now we know better: it's merely Undead."

She traced her fingers down his arm and patted his hand gently.

"We can watch each other's backs," her mind spoke to him alone, "you can't protect three people with only two eyes, after all."

Stephen looked at Viannor as he felt her soft touch on his shoulder. He smiled at her comment about Chivalry; he had always tried to be a gentleman even under the most strange of cirumstances. He gave her hand a light squeeze.

"I know I can count on you to help; I'll be watching your back along with Sigrun's family. I know if Arleni or Areis get seriously injured or killed, Sigrun will not hesistate to ram me through with his sword and put me in a Tarlachian dungeon for the next few centuries. Little note, watch out for your old friend Ivan, you see him...try to blast him from a range. He is a werewolf. Next, if you think you see a vampire who might be Svartel, alert Skadi or Hondur...and run like hell."

Skadi remained silent as Sigrun filled Stephen in on his role. They needed more experienced vampires to lead some of the younger coven members and she figured with his military training, Stephen could do a pretty reasonable job, hopefully.

"Stephen, if you could lead a small group of vampires it would make things run a little smoother."

At that point Hondur returned from the balcony, his calm expression present once again.

"We're all ready."

"Good, let's go then."

With that Skadi spun around and moved through balcony door and took a single leap off the balcony and onto the rooftop across the street. She didn't bother to look back and see if anyone was following as she proceded across the city rooftops. Skadi didn't really have a good idea of where she was going yet she'd be able to find Svartel easily enough.

Hondur merely gave everyone else a glance before turning around and following his sire. For the fourth time he was following her into a battle where the chances of survival were unfavourable. They'd been lucky the other times and there was no telling just how far that luck would actually go.

With a practiced crouch and push Hondur was in the air and on the roof across the street in one fluid motion. Several lifetimes of existence had given him a certain eloquence that was necessary to pull off some of the complex manouvers that many vampires attempted.

All over the city vampires would be leaving the coven houses, armed and ready to unleash hell upon Emerald City once again.

Viannor watched with her ever-observant eyes as the two ancients leapt off the balcony and into the night. The only pertinent thing to do was to follow them, so Viannor duly did.

Stepping onto the balcony, she wondered if she could make the initial leap in one go. The ancients were ancients, after all, and made such a jump without thinking. For the barely-a-week-old fledgling Viannor, this jump might take some effort and practise. Viannor, however, was nothing if not resourceful. Taking a quick glance over her right shoulder at the building she was in, she hopped onto the balcony rail and backflipped onto the roof above, landing in a squat position with a palm flat on the floor for extra balance.

If only that Fam'dai master could see me now, she thought, technique isn't too bad, skills are quite exceptional. The whole 'dæmon of the night' thing might bother him, though. With a chuckle Viannor leapt into the night and landed on the opposite roof with a good yard or two to spare. Would have made it after all, she said to herself, as she broke out into a light run to catch up with the others. Jumping over rooves was the easy part.

Stephen jumped out of the window shortly after Skadi, Hondur, and Viannor. He quickly caught up to his vampiric daughter and kept up with her, admiring her quickness in learning. He had been a little slower, it had taken several nights for Skadi and Sigrun how to hunt and use his powers. As he moved across the rooftops, he sensed battatlions from Hondur's coven moving. He stopped when he saw a group of some forty to fifty vampires sitting down in an alley. Stephen knew they were of Hondur's coven.

"Hold on Viannor."

Stephen dropped down into the alley. One of the vampires turned and looked at him. Stephen remembered him from the third Assington War, the man had saved his life at the battle for the Hyraphore.

"What is up Uwe?"

The six hundred year old vampire shook Stephen's hand and shrugged. "This ex-VP officer dick thinks he knows what is going on. Says we should hit them at the airfield while they are stocking up...fifty of us against like a thousand men plus? You're ex-special forces...why don't you lead us?"

"I was and have never had a field command since."

"At least you will be better then him."

"Hey! Who is this?" The vampire strode over to Stephen. He was about four hundred or so years old Stephen guessed. "Oh, you are the foreigner. Get out of here and let Assingtonians fight for Assingtonian vampires."

During this, Uwe had sent messages to everyone else. Some knew Stephen from the third war or from simply hearing about the sireless vampire who the Ancient Skadi took under her wing. Stephen looked at the vampire looking at him. The older vampire got what Stephen was going to say from the look in his eyes. The vampire snarled and tried to pull his gun on Stephen.

A crack sounded in the alley as a Glaser safety slug tore into him. He tumbled back and fired, the bullet missing Stephen. A silver wadcutter bullet from Stephen's Para finished the job, blowing a hole in the back of the vampire's skull.

He looked up at the group. "I am Stephen Malone, I am an ex-paratrooper and Ranger. Some of you have heard about me since I am sireless and Skadi was my teacher, others I have fought with. Now, who wants to go kick some ass?"

There were nods and Stephen knew they were under his command.

One last field command for one last battle.

"I do" said Lujza, loudly, in response to Stephen. She did not sound cheerful, though. The other vampires had probably not noticed her before now.

She had been silent when she had come down to join the small formation of vampires marching to battle, simply falling in behind them.

Viannor stood watching from the ledge of the building, high above the little piece of action below. That Sire of mine's not too shabby on the draw, she thought.

Good old Lujza, Viannor said to herself, always polite.

"Let's get moving, then," she said, from up on high, drawing the attention of those below.

Viannor's voice drew Lujza's attention to the ledge where the new vampire was standing. She sighed noticably, partly in envy. Even the newest fledgling of the other vampires had abilities she would never have.

When she got closer, almost right below the ledge, she called up, loudly enough for Viannor to hear, but no one else, not that it was anything that needed to be kept secret, but she didn't like people listening to her conversations. "How are you?"

"I'm just fine, thankyou," Viannor said, crouching on the ledge, "what's up with - hold on."

Viannor frowned at their distance and dropped daintily to the floor with a billowing coat beneath her and dark hair flowing above her, her chosen landing spot close to Lujza but far enough away to make sure she wouldn't feel the need to get out of the way. Viannor stood and readjusted her clothing, it wasn't quite designed with twenty-foot drops in mind.

"I don't need to be a new-found telepath to realise that something's bothering you, what is it?"

Lujza whispered, which unfortunately made the hiss in her voice stand out more. She hoped Viannor didn't take it as a sign of anger. "I'm probably going to die in the battle ahead. Seeing you leaping about made me realize how unbelievably weak I am, in comparison with the others."

She paused before continuing. "The only advantages that I have, to offset my weakness, are tolerance of sunlight and that I need less blood. And neither of those is likely to help me much. That's what bothers me. I can handle just about any VP officer, but Svartel no doubt has many fledglings, almost all of whom will be stronger and faster than me."

"Well, around us now we have a few score Vampires of varying ages - Stephen is a special case but he's a few-hundred years old in Vampire standards. If you want anyone to be around to help you out, it's this lot." Viannor gestured in their general direction and smiled. "Besides, Lujza, if anyone tries to hurt you I'll kill 'em myself. And If Stephen or I don't kill them, there's always fifty other of us 'regular' Vampires under Stephen's to watch those borrowed clothes on your back. You'll be fine."

Viannor put her hand quite firmly on Lujza's shoulder in a gesture of support and looked across to Stephen and his new-found unit.

"If we're ready," she said to her Sire, "then let's knife."

Laughing, Lujza noticably lightened and loosened up a bit. "Thanks," she said. She was deeply glad that she could count on some among the other vampires. Perhaps she would survive after all. And of course, it wasn't as if she was unarmed either. And then, she thought of another thing to be glad for. Silver would harm her no more than lead would.

Stephen turned to find his fledgling pausing the talk to Lujza. He did not eaves drop on thier conversation, though it would have been quite simple to. While the women talked, he confeered with Uwe and several other more experiance vampires. Stephen knew it was his responsiblity to look after Arleni and Aeris along with his own fledgling; adding now Lujza and a platoon of vampires, he knew his hands would be full.

Once the women were ready to move out, Stephen wrapped his arm around Lujza's waist.

"Just so you can keep up."

Holding onto Lujza, Stephen leapt up to the roof of the building and with his command following quickly, headed to link up with Skadi and the others.

(OOC: Guys, I am so sorry. My muse took a vacation, and her replacement hasn't exactly been doing her job.))

Once again, Raphael Celadrin, along with his immortal love Aeris and his sidekick Major Ambrose, had stuck from the group by way of their absence. Once agian, it had seemed like the Ancient Noble had foresaken his allies, taking his love to goodness knows where, and yet, while the Lady Skadi were making her plans, and moving out her troops onto the final battle that was about to await them, the immortal Atrosian hero was yet doing his part in the battle, despite his seeming absence. Despite the fact that he was nowhere to be found at this time, his absence was actually about to play a very important role in the coming battle ahead, the battle to end all battles........

As the Lady Skadi prepared to move to wherever the scene of the battle would be, Zero's voice suddenly sounded in her mind, the signs of a mental linking his thoughts to hers.

"My Lady Skadi, I apologize for my absence. Right now I, along with my love Aeris, are at the outskirts of Emerald City, and with me are the Blood Elite ghoul commandos that I have promised to your cause. They have travelled by means of a stealth submarine carrier to come this far, and right now, I have taken most of the loot from last night's battle to equip my troops. My Lady, the Nobles and the Blood Elites are ready at your command, and once you give your word, we will be entering the city from all around its borders. We will be coming from all directions, and all I await is your order."

(OOC: I know, short, I know.)

"Oof" Lujza muttered as Stephen pulled her up into the sky with him. At first, she was afraid to look down, but her fear subsided quickly, Stephen had a very strong, firm grip, though Lujza was by no means uncomfortable.

In fact, she felt quite secure after a couple minutes, her light frame sandwiched between Viannor and Stephen. "Do either of you know where we're going?" Lujza asked.

Taking some of Lujza's weight from Stephen as they leapt across the rooftops was only a minor help to her sire, but it still increased their speed and decreased their level of effort as they bounded over the streets below.

"Don't ask me," Viannor chuckled, "I've only been in this crazy country for a fortnight. He's the one with the local knowledge."

Stephen looked at Lujza and grinned.

"We'll be going to find Svartel. He is most likely in the industrial sector of town where there are a lot of junkyards and warehouses. I am communicating with the rest of Hondur's command, aparently we are a little ahead of everyone else...so we will be doing a recon and hopefully can establish Svartel's numbers."

Stephen, with help from Viannor, carried Lujza. He knew it was probably a new experiance for Lujza and knew it would be one she would never forget. Taking from his experiances before in the city, the group ended up on top of a building facing a sprawling sea of warehouses, factories, trucks, and continuing on towards the main docks.

Stephen scanned the buildings. No movement what so ever, he could not sense any other vampires then those around him.

"Okay, move in behind me. Viannor, take half the men."

With that, Stephen and the command dropped down, Stephen and his half and Viannor and hers moving parraell in tatical formations, ready if there was any battle as they entered the zone.

"Skadi, I have entered the industrial zone with a platoon and begining a sweep for Svartel's forces. I will keep you updated."

Shadow and light plagued the factory before him. The place was rundown and appeared as if it was losing a very long battle against gravity. In its day the building probably served its purpose well and provided the necessary infrastructure to allow many humans and machines to complete many tasks. Unfortunately today the structure could no longer perform such tasks and was scheduled to be destroyed before it caused serious injury of financial loss.

Everything has an ending.

Svartel was thinking those exact words as he stood within the corner of this old factory. It wasn't a particularly big building yet it sat right on the dockside. It used to a place for the manufacturing and sale of commercial fishing equipment such as hooks, harpoons and their guns, nets, anchors and other various bits and pieces. The factory had been closed for several weeks now yet much of the equipment still remained. Humans always seemed so slow in doing everything, it was quite strange to Svartel considering their life period was quite brief.

This location would work fine. There was plenty of open space and the area was secluded enough from public view that he should be able to kill Skadi without worrying over human interruptions. Everything was in place within the building and all his men were positioned around the city, most being close to the industrial dockside of Emerald City. Whilst Svartel had no intention of being within the thick of the major battle himself, he wanted his forces nearby in case they were necessary to fend off whoever else was lurking about.

Closing his eyes, Svartel opened a mental connection with several vampires across the city. Such an act wasn't easily accomplished and took all his concentration to maintain, yet it was necessary to relay significant orders. Many of Svartel's forces were hidden within human settlements, taking charge of apartments, houses or simply waiting upon high rise rooftops for the order to descend upon the city and attack the enemy. Svartel knew he was outnumbered yet that didn't matter, none of those vampires out there mattered. So long as he had the time to kill Skadi, everything would be fine.

Finally enemy forces had been spotted. Thousands of enemy vampires were moving around the city and there were reports of mass human forces preparing for some sort of operation as well.

"You all have free reign to engage..."

With that said Svartel broke of his connection and relay one last mental call to his ancient brethren, Skadi and Idun.

"The battleground has changed yet the battle is still the same. This time there are no mages to protect you..."

Brief images of the factory and the area surrounding it were relayed to both vampires, giving them a fair idea of where to find the vampiric antagonist. It would end tonight.
__________________

Skadi, Hondur and Sigrun had taken a different path to the others as they had different intentions. Hondur was to meet up with a large portion of the coven forces and would lead them towards the dockside area, where Skadi had pinpointed Svartel to being.

Thr trio stood upon one of the many scattered skyscrapers within the city, contemplating how they would go about things. Skadi idly held her blade as she looked down at the city below, noting minor details like police activity and the movements within the shadows of rooftops.

"They're everywhere. We can't just kill Svartel, we need to kill all of them. If we're ever going to escape this crap we need to destroy every last vampire that has loyalty to his cause, our downfall."

Hondur nodded. Despite his current mood he realised what she said was right. How else would they be able to rest in peace? The enemy needed to be crushed with an iron fist, their blood needed to paint the streets and Hondur was the man to do it.

"Right. I'll see to it."

With that Hondur stepped off the edge of the building and descended towards the streets of Assington, using his ancient abilities to guide and soften his landing upon the streets below. Although he'd been near to silent so far, the coven leader was simply coordinating thousands of vampires around the city. There would be no single battle site but several around the city. Although the biggest would most likely be closest to Svartel's location.

At that point the familiar presence of Zero rang through Skadi's head. She'd been wondering where exactly her foreign ally had run off to yet it had fallen to the back of her mind. All questions were answered now.

"Alright Zero. Sigrun and I shall be engaging Svartel, the others are scattered around the city about to engage the enemy. Inform your men that they will be battling other vampires ranging between young and elder, heavily armed and pissed off humans and possibly elves. I've yet to see any yet but keep an eye out. You're free to lead your attack when you wish."

Turning to Sigrun, Skadi nodded. For a moment she didn't say anything as the pair gazed into eachother's eyes, yet that silence didn't last long.

"I know where he is. I don't want you playing hero either, he's far more resourceful than he appears."

Now levitating in the air, Skadi put a hand out towards her elven companion.

"Coming?"
____________________

The streets of Emerald City were far different to what any elf could recall from two thousand years ago. Back then the people used to live in relative ease with the environment and there simple walkways to get around the city. There used to be horses, carts and wooden buildings, everything was cleaner.

Unfortunately those days were long gone and the shock for many elves was almost too much to bear. They may be dark elves these days yet the corruption and destruction associated with man was always a shock, it forever seemed to get worse.

And so the elven forces quietly stalked the streets of Assington, not drawing attention to themselves as they stuck to the shadows. Safely within the darkness of an alley, Idun and Ashur stopped the group. Idun spoke first.

"We are entering a battlefield we are ill equipped and out numbered in. The humans and vampires possess weapons beyond our simple blades and bows and so we must approach this fight in a different manner. Walk the streets as ghosts, don't be seen. Kill what you can and get out before you are noticed. That is the only way we can get through this and survive. Death from the darkness. You are all competent warriors and I have faith in your abilities."

Ashur nodded, adding a few comments of his own.

"It is likely that many of us will die this night. Remember the prophecy and do what you can to fulfill it. We must rid this place of vampires if the balance is ever to be restored. There may also be humans that will attack you, they will be unfortunate casualties in this war. Now go..."

With that the elven forces disappeared. Many took to the rooftops, others went underground whilst the remainder simply moved through the shadows of the streets. It would be unlikely that anyone would see these warriors, yet when the tally was counted, their presence would be felt.

With only a few men remaining behind them, Ashur and Idun made a path towards Svartel and his dockside factory.
_____________

Ivan stood at the head of perhaps the biggest law enforcement operation in the history of Assington. What remained of the Emerald City VP had been merged with forces from every other city in the nation and the vast police force of Emerald. There were literally thousands of men and women armed and ready to blow the hell out of any vampire that came near them. Tonight Emerald would undergo a purge it had been long awaiting.

Everything was now being coordinated from several key VP stations around the city and reports were coming in of strange movements, people running about on rooftops and others falling from buildings. Ivan knew something was going on and that was all he needed to know. Forces would be distributed around the city in order to crush these vampires and the chaos that followed their paths. Ivan wouldn't allow it.

With reports now coming in from all over the city, Ivan knew the time to strike was now. Gathering every last man and weapon he could find, the VP captain shoved every vehicle full of armed and angry officers before riding off into the night, ready to spill more blood than this city has ever seen.

Skadi levitated into the air, but not before giving Sigrun a word of warning. He gave her a knowing nod, grimly stating in reply, "As resourceful as we can be? That remains to be seen."

Taking her proffered hand, he allowed her to levitate them through the air, moving discreetly, carefully. Sigrun initiated an invisible shield around them, one that would keep them from being sensed from casual glances. Even a passive search for hostile forces wouldn't reveal them.

As they wove through the city, passing by both friendlies and hostiles undetected, they could see the forces gathering around the city as if it were a magnet for all kinds of unsavory creatures of the world.

It was war, and the ravens were moving in for the kill of a lifetime...

At last, the two of them arrived at the warehouse, hidden safely in the shadows. Up ahead somewhere, they knew Svartel waited. It was his field of battle, but it was smack in the middle of Skadi's turf for thousands of years.

War was hell, some said. For the ancients about to clash, war was necessary...

Eyes watched from the shadows as Stephen led several other vampires into the industrial zone on the north east of Emerald City. Svartel had warned that enemy vampires would most likely approach and he'd given the order of free reign seconds before this group had appeared.

As the enemy group split and began searching for any signs of attack, two dozen vampires emerged from buildings beneath the group, all bearing weapons of some description ranging from guns to simple metal pipes. Within that single moment it seemed as if an eternity passed as both groups caught sight of eachother, recognition registering within their minds as they considered how to react.

Bullets erupted all around Stephen whilst two large axe wielding vampires dropped down beside Viannor. They were certainly surrounded, it was simply a question of who could win this battle.

In almost a split second after their appearence, Svartel's vampires were being ripped into by heavy 7.62 silver stolen VP bullets. Lujza was a very fast draw, even with an AK-103. She grimaced, a look of bloodlust on her face, and then cried out a shriek of battle, a harsh piercing sound, quite painful sounding. One of the vampires near Viannor went down, his head shattered by an AK round, his brains now a grotesque painting on the wall of a nearby building.

Stephen paused and looked across the street to Viannor's squad. Both groups hugged the walls and every window had a rifle poked into it at some point or another. He poked his head around a corner at an intersection. The road gently slopped downhill, leading to more buildings and streets. Stephen put a machinegunner at the corner and sprinted halfway across the intersection. With silent waves of his hand and mental communication, his platoon started to move.

His eye caught movement as two dozen vampires moved into sight. Dispite centuries of professionalism, his own vampires also paused. A full second in battle can seem like centuries; it ended as one of the vampire lifted a rifle and pulled the trigger.

Within seconds, the quiet night was broken by the sound of automatic weapons. Two of Stephen's vampires went down, one dead and one wounded. The rest dropped to prone position and opened fire into the mass below.

Stephen turned to see Viannor jumped by two hulking vampires. Lifting, his MP, one vampire's head exploded from Lujza's bullet and he fired a burst at the other. His rounds struck the head of the axe, knocking him off balance and buying his fledgling time.

Stephen turned back to the small skirmish. Svartel's vampires were now fighting behind the corpses of thier dead. It was then gunfire erupted from other points as more of Svartel's vampires heard the battle and came running.

Knowing he could not beat the hundreds, if not thousands of enemy vampires, in the open, Stephen spotted a thick walled concrete building and quickly ordered his troops inside. They would be on the defensive until they could link up with Hondur.

Smashing open the door, Stephen quickly signaled his men and started to shout.

"Inside now!" He then sent a message to Viannor. "Take your men to the upper level to prevent them from getting above us. There are a lot of them coming. We are gonna be very busy."

Stephen then sent a message to Hondur. "Hondur, we have made contact. They are not armed very well, many just have clubs, knifes, and axes."

It was just like being an Intelligence Officer again, Viannor noted to herself, except with sharp fangs and a bloodlust. There had been many twists on her path from Intelligence Agent through Inquisitor, Quaestor and now Lady-Quaestor, head of the Starblaydi Inquisition - the Intelligence and Security Agency for a nation of three billion people.

She pondered this as events turned chaotic around her, creeping along a wall with her gun in hand as she was. Two very large axe-weilding Vampires dropped down beside her.

'Axe' was the first thing that went through her mind, followed shortly by 'Brains' as Lujza's AK silver-tipped bullet tore through the the skull of one of them. Viannor was still only able to stare at the other Vampire as it prepared to strike. 'Ping' was the next word that came to mind as the spark of bullets ricocheting off the axe-blad. The Vampire's body opened up as it tried to regain its balance but now Viannor had come to her senses.

Raising her weapon in two hands - the HK Expert USP was designed for match shooting, after all - she fired at the Vampire's head, his face crumpling as two bullets tore straight into it, a third taking off the side of his head. The vampire fell and Viannor was left looking at a blood-stained wall and the red dot of her laser sight, quivering slightly on the wall. She looked across at Luzja and nodded her thanks.

"Take your men to the upper level to prevent them from getting above us." Stephen's voice was clear in her head, clearer even than her own thoughts. "There are a lot of them coming. We are gonna be very busy."

Viannor immediately swung her head around to look at the building she would need to take her men - and woman - onto. A brief thought flashed through her mind that she should mentally communicate with her team, but she'd never sent a message to anyone other than Stephen before, so she decided to do it the old-fashioned way.

"Get in the top floor of that building!" Her scream didn't quite match Lujza's banshee wail, but her group knew exactly what to do.

Her men raced across the open ground between their position and Stephen's defensive point, their automatic weapons erupting to provide their own covering fire. Some obviously thought the best way to get to the upper level quickly would be to leap up there and go through the windows, not wasitng any time. That route quickly became the best idea since sliced bread and Viannor realised she would have to do it as well.

As she and Luzja ran across the open ground, Viannor shouted something at her companion - soemthing along the lines of 'hold on tight'. Viannor grabbed Luzja around the waist and leapt with all her supernatural strength, heaving the girl along with her. They flashed through the window, broken previously by the impact of one of her men, and landed in a rolling heap on the floor.

Viannor sat up and fished around in her rucksack, pulling out an assault rifle. "You okay?" she said to Luzja.

"Never better," Lujza said, wiping dirt and dust off herself as she got up. "Thanks for the lift," she added, giving Viannor a pat on the back. Giving the fledgling vampiress a warm smile, she walked over to the window, where she proceeded to tear apart the lines of Svartel's vampires, who still appeared to be using the bodies of their fallen comrades as cover. Such a barricade, however, did no good against a stream of bullets from above.

"No matter which side wins," Lujza said quietly. "Ithtyr will weep, or feast, or both, tonight." In the Callisdrunian Pantheon, Ithtyr was the goddess of many things, among them the Earth, lust, revenge, passion of both the peaceful and the violent variety, and vampires. Thousands of years ago, tribute to her sometimes involved human sacrifice, and there were still many sayings in Callisdrunian that reflected that, even though it had been more than a millenium and a half since the practice of human sacrifice was ended.

The pair touched down within the darkness quietly, both quickly gazing around the area in search of potential threats. The industrial dockside was deserted, as are many parts of Emerald at night. The growing vampiric presence has made it quite dangerous to be out and about at night unless one is heavily armed. Only night clubs tend to attract people and happen to be very well defended in order to stay in business.

Skadi and Sigrun took several silent steps forward, approaching the side entrance of a large warehouse. The building itself was surrounded by piles of shipping containers and a tall wire fence, blocking most of it from public viewing. The ancient vampire noted every small detail as she passed, it was necessary when dealing with Svartel. Skadi's white hand reached forward to open the door before her yet it stopped inches in front of the handle. Not bothering to turn her head, Skadi merely shifted her eyes towards a shipping crate towards their right.

"Are you going to hide in there all night?"

With their presence known, the crate door swung open to reveal two figures robed in grey. Skadi recognised them immediately for the cloaks of Emerald elves and assumed her vampiric brother and his elven companion hid behind the fabric. Skadi wasn't impressed and would have killed them both on the spot save that she figured more numbers against Svartel would be ideal.

"Of course not. We have a vampire to kill..."

With that said the two vampires and two elves entered the warehouse, unaware of just what lay in wait for them.
______________

With Stephen, Luzja and Viannor now inside an abandoned building on the edge of the industrial zone of Assington, a large portion of Svartel's forces were able to gather around the building and begin to lay siege.

Whilst many of the vampires were ill equipped for the situation and tended to get gunned down on their attempted charges of the building, a few others arrived bearing automatic weapons and some tactical sense.

After some careful instructions, the vampires armed with guns concentrated the fire upon the windows, causing the coven vampires to take cover whilst the enemy charged the building from the ground with several of the melee bearing vampires. To make things worse, several of the older vampires had also landed themselves upon the roof of the building and were storming from the top. The coven members were now sandwhiched.

Well this is rather non-life-threatening! Viannor thought as she gunned down a few more Vampires. Well, there is the usual excitement of shooting large guns and killing things that are attempting to get you, but this isn't particularly...

She was interrupted in her little inner monologue by a few bursts of fire from below that required her to step away from the window and duck down behind the wall.

"Well that figures." She said to herself, catching her breath and checking the ammo remaining in her rifle's magazine. There was another couple of short bursts left in it, but after that she's just have to throw the thing at the rampaging Vamps outside. They'd thrown back a couple of charges, but now their opponents seemed to be learning. Those with guns were making the defenders keep their heads down, allowing some to rush into hand-to-hand with Stephen's force on the floor below. Viannor was just about to contact him when something large and evil, a blade gleaming in its fist.

Instinctively Viannor pulled the trigger on her rifle and riddled the Vampire's spine with silver-tipped bullets from hip to skull. He fell dead on the floor. The sword he carried, which looked no more than a metal stick in his hand, was actually a well-made and finely-balanced sword, though obviously neglected by years of mistreatment and abuse. In some places it looked like it had been used to cut meat, wood or even metal. Viannor made the mistake of running her finger along the blade, and instantly drew it back with a little yelp. Silver-edged.

"Now," she said, half to Lujza and half to no-one in particular, "this gets a whole lot more interesting."

Stephen smiled as he watched another wave of Svartel's brood be hacked to bits. Already the streets were lined with corpses or twitching bodies of the wounded. Several suicidal attacks had been repulsed, giving Svartel's command a very bloody nose. Stephen looked across the bodies and guessed as least a hundred dead or wounded.

When the first bullets began to pepper the windows, the coven got down. Stephen cursed, they were finally learning.

As the blade armed vampires entered the bottom floor, they were in for a nasty suprise. As soon as the door burst open, automatic fire tore into the group and grenades were pelleted out the windows, killing and mauling more in the back. Once Stephen had finished his magizine for his MP5k, he dropped it in favor of his Protecta automatic shotgun. A 12 gauge slug tore off the face of a charging female fledgling.

Using thier mental powers, the coven vampires quickly closed the window shudders, preventing accurate gunfire from coming through. Weilding shotgun in one hand and Wolfe knife in the other, Stephen and his tiny forces blasted and tore away at the surge of fledglings.

Soon, the floor became a large pool of blood and gore.

"It sure fucking does," Lujza said as a bullet grazed her arm. She had to fall back from the window, though she still sometimes fired out of it, though she couldn't see the attacking fledglings. She could hear them, and that was enough for semi-accurate indirect fire.

"Some explosives would be really useful right now," she said, searching her bag, dismayed to find that she had none. She made sure her axe was loose on her belt, this would probably come down to hand to hand combat fairly soon.

Hondur found himself within a mass of vampires within the city streets of Emerald. He hadn't been expecting to encounter such a large enemy force yet they'd simply poured out of the buildings by the hundred. He could only assume the rightful occupants of the buildings were no longer alive, yet that was the least of his concerns.

Whilst the enemy was large in numbers they were ill equipped, most of them bearing melee weapons over projectile weapons. This of course was a big help as Hondur immediately had his men with guns positioned upon the rooftops in order to cut down the enemy in a foul barrage of silver bullets. Whilst that was underway, Hondur was several streets away within a particularly thick portion of hand to hand combat.

Blood, metal and screams all melded together to create one big blur of violence as Hondur weaved this way and that, his custom made Tarlachian 'claws' ripping through the flesh of vampire after vampire. He was evidently the oldest vampire on the battlefield, as was shown by his superior speed and strength. The ancient vampire had created an perimeter of bodies around himself and appeared to be drawing significant attention from the enemy. Both sides were possessed such massive numbers that the streets were literally filled with brawling vampires, scattered everywhere.

Slash, cut, dive, stab, lunge, jump, dodge, smack, Hondur had fallen into a routine within his seemingly reactive and random movements as he put down each enemy vampire to approach him, his claws completely covered in blood and gore. The twang of a bow string caused Hondur to turn around just in time to slash an arrow apart before it collided with his eye. Others weren't so lucky and fell to the ground with a thud. The elves were here yet Hondur couldn't spot a single one. Nothing in the shadows, no movement. They were gone as quickly as they came. Cursing to himself, Hondur returned to the pressing issue of two vampires falling towards him from a three storey building to his right.
_____________

Ivan swore quite loudly as his vehicle was upturned and launched into the side of a building, causing bricks metal and glass to fly everywhere. The driver was dead or dying in an unconscious heap yet Ivan's superhuman endurance saved him from any internal injuries. Covered in blood and grime, Ivan scrambled out of the vehicle and looked around. The click of a semi automatic pistol filled his ears as the barrel was palced against his temple.

"Well Mr. VP officer, it seems you're out of luck tonight."

Ivan's eyes moved to his left, enabling to view a smug looking brat of a vampire holding a glock to his head. He was relatively young and hadn't been the direct cause of the car crash, yet he'd set it up.

"That's captain... boy."

"Boy, I'm most likely older than you... officer."

Ivan wasn't about to take such an insult lightly. Without warning the VP captain took a lightning quick step back as his left hand grabbed the gun and launched it over the building behind him. The vampire was stunned at such speed.

"You've made your last mistake scum."

With that Ivan unleashed a massive right hook, taking the vampire in the jaw, resulting in several bones shattering and snapping. The vampire fell to the ground choking on his own blood and writhing in pain whilst Ivan simply removed a blade from his belt and quickly plunged it through the vampire's eye socket, ending his pain.

With one down, Ivan cleaned his blade and gathered his firearms from the car. The sound of fighting wasn't far off and so he followed his ears, ready to kill anything that wasn't human.

Stephen blew a hole through the head of a very young fledgling with his pistol. With his mind, he brought an axe to him and with a swing, smashed into the skull of another; the skull breaking open like a melon. The ex-soldier was not stupid, he kept in contact with some of Hondur's coven commanders and quickly learned his group was bascially cut off from the rest of the coven. Most of it was battleing throughout Emerald with many of Svartel's vampires; many apparently had come in from other cities. Also, the VP were finally in the battle.

The battle raged fiercly before Svartel's forces drew back. There were several more minutes of sparadic gunfire before silence. Stephen counted his losses, out of twenty-five of the men under his command, eleven lay dead and the wounded quickly began to drain the wounded from Svartel's forces to heal thier wounds. The Simatarian had to smile, the enemies loses were far greater than his, but he knew they could not stay here forever; they had to leave and link up with Hondur.

Moving his remaining troops up a flight of stairs towards the upper floor, Stephen ignored the river of blood that ran down the staircase and looked at a similar scene of limbes, blood, and bodies as there was on the bottom.

Stephen let out a sigh in relief as he saw Viannor and Lujza.

"Viannor, Lujza...we only have a minute or two, gather you troops...all weapons and ammo from the dead. We are going to try and link up with Hondur."

When Stephen came, Lujza was hunched over one of Svartel's fledgelings, who had simply been badly wounded when the Moroii found him. He was dead now, his throat ripped rather messily open. Lujza looked up at Stephen with a snarl on her face that quickly slid into a grin that would actually have been quite cute except for the massive amount of the fallen enemy's blood around her mouth. Perhaps to vampires, it still was cute.

"Sure thing," she said in response to Stephen's statement. Lujza got to her feet and collected any 7.62 cal. ammo she could find. She also gat a silver bladed dagger from one of the fallen, which she stowed on her belt. One never knew when a backup might be needed. After loading the ammo she found (she had to look fairly hard) into her bag, she went back to where Stephen was standing, and leaned against the wall, ready. She had not cleaned any of her meal's blood off her face and front (she had spilled quite a lot down from her mouth to the upper part of her chest). It would be useless, I'm probably just going to get more on me anyway she thought.

Viannor's final act as Stephen appeared on the first floor was to shift her grip on the nicked silver-edged sword and drive it down, tip first, into the skull of a dazed opponent lying prone beneath her. Putting her boot on the man's forehead she retracted the sword, bloody, flesh and brain coated it. She wiped it on the chest of the now very-dead Vampire and held it up to the light.

"Good as... hmm. Not very good at all," she said, having nowhere obvious to keep her newfound weapon other than in her hand, she sheathed it in the torso of a dead Vampire - she didn't know if it was on of 'hers' or not - and fished around in the gore-stained bag she had brought with her. "Dammit, out of magazines."

Her assault rifle was now useless to her, save for an impromptu club. It had already been used for that, of course, in the the fracas. Viannor used her sleeve to wipe the blood from her lips where she'd torn out the throat of a vampire with her teeth, but soon realised that the blood and dust on her sleeve had made her face worse

"A girl just can't win," she shrugged.

Quickly taking out her HK twin 'Expert' USPs, she dropped out the empty clips in them and reloaded them with fresh ones from inside her flak jacket, which had taken a few bullets and knife slashes already. To its credit, the VP did make rather sturdy personal armour.

"Where's Hondur, then?"

Hearing Viannor's resigned "a girl just can't win," Lujza laughed and smiled at Stephen's fledgling. "Nope. That's why didn't bother trying." The fact that her shirt was short-sleeved would not have helped much either, as her arms already had blood on them.

"Are we ready to go then?"

The shadows seemed to throb with an eerie pulse, and it seemed to even unsettle the two Ancients, experts on all of the mortal world's darkness. Sigrun and Ashur, being the elves they were, stole to the shadows with a stealth rivaled by few others and began their search. It had been agreed that they would seek out their common foe and circle around him. Skadi and Idun would call the attention of Svartel to themselves as they maneuvered into position.

'Cut off the head of the snake and the rest of the body dies' was the agreed terminology between them all. The only problem was that they had to figure out a way to get past the fangs and superior strength of this snake's immense body.

At last, Sigrun peered around a corner with care and spied him. He leaned back to Ashur and nodded with his head, speaking nothing, telepathing nothing. Absolute silence until the moment of combat had been agreed upon as one of their advantages if used properly.

He knelt down silently, as did Ashur whom had moved to another location for yet another angle on the hostile ancient. There, they would wait until fate threw them into the cauldron of blood, flesh and steel.

Svartel was aware the second a door had been opened and four figures entered the factory. The building itself was filled with old machinery yet to be removed and smaller wooden crates of gear that had been packed and prepared for shipping. Chains and hooks still hung from the roof, providing potential weapons for the soon to be combatants within the building.

A slight grin crossed Svartel's face as he noted the two elves crouching not far from his position, he was aware of everything. The stench of the elves filled his nose, he could hear their hearts beat from great distances and sensing his own vampiric siblings was no trouble at all, they were family of couse. Remaining silent, Svartel willed a seemingly innocent metal pipe into his hand, grabbing it by the centre and twisting slightly. Within seconds two small blades had sprung out of each end and were soon released in a swirl of metal and force. One blade flew directly for Ashur whilst the other had a path trained on Sigrun.

Not bothering to see how the bladed attacks would end, Svartel launched himself into the air and spiralled through the darkness before landing hard upon the wooden floor in the centre of the factory, mere metres from Skadi and Idun. Rising from a crouch and turning his head, Svartel produced an unnerving grin for the pair.

"I'm going to enjoy placing your heads on the end of this metal stick..."

With that said, Skadi and Idun both drew their identical silver edged katanas, intent on running through the man they half feared, half loathed.
_____________

As Stephen, Viannor and Luzja regathered themselves and decided upon their next course of action, the building was rocked with a thundering force that filled their ears and knocked them off their feet. Within seconds of the explosion the building began to tilt to the right and partly collapse before stopping, evidently not all the supports had been destroyed.

Outside the building, more vampires had gathered and one happened to be armed with a rather large and nasty looking rocket launcher. A portion of the building was now collapsing and quickly catching on fire thanks to one rocket and there were still more to come, once they could be loaded.

It was only a matter of time now until all those within the building would either die in the collapse and fire or be gunned down by the armed vampires outside if an escape attempt was made.

Stephen and the gorup were just about to go to the rooftop when the explosion rocked them. The Simatarian was knocked over and after several seconds, covered in bits of concrete and plaster dust, stood and looked at the damage. He cursed angerily as the building was going to give way and that there was a fire starting downstairs.

Grabbing a M72 LAW from one of the vampires, Stephen moved towards the half collasped side and managed to locate a large enough hole for the rocket to fire through. Stephen observed the street was filled with vampires, ready for the kill and some of them prepared to reload the rocket launcher.

A thin contrail of smoke and a hiss was the report of Stephen's rocket; the 66mm rocket slammed into the ground near the launcher. Screams erupted as several large chunks of pavement took off hands, heads, and split open stomachs. The rocket launcher was knocked over and several of thier rockets began to explode along with his, causing further damage to them.

Dropping the now useless tube, Stephen stood and as he headed back to his command, sent a message to Hondur.

"Hondur, I do not know if I can link up with you. Is it possible for you to detach a force to open a causeway for me to evac my unit? Heavily outnumbered...possibly could be dealing with a full third of Svartel's force. I moving my command to hopefully a better position."

Once he reached his unit, Stephen led them to the rooftop. A small window of seconds was all he had to move them. The best he could do was move them to a neighboring building. With quick jumps across an alleyway onto another several story building, they landed smack dab into a small unit. Stephen grabbed the rifle of one and quickly impaled the young female with her own rifle.

"Kill the bastards and hold this position!"

As she landed, a sweep of her sword lopped the head off the nearest Vampire unlucky enough to have been near her chosen spot of ground.

In the gym she had, of course, practiced against multiple 'opponents', but these had either been target dummies or simply other trainees with sticks ready to tap her on the body if she was clumsy. She had never taken her Fam'dai training into the full-on martial art version, but a working knowledge of how to swing a sword, fire a gun and dance around to not get killed was part of her basic skills make-up.

On a cold night in Assington, with a rusty, nicked, silver-edged sword in her hand and a pistol in the other, she darted and thrust and leapt and danced a deadly path of death around her numerous enemies.

I don't have enough eyes, she thought, firing two shots into the face of one Vampire before hacking at the legs of another beside her and opening up again, I need two eyes to protect myself, an eye on Stephen, one on Lujza and a few others besides.

Unbidden, a picture of Stephen entered her mind. He was only a handful of yards behind her, but all of a sudden there he was in her mind, a picture of him weilding a rifle and cutting down enemies, but there was someone behind him he hadn't noticed...

Viannor whirled and saw the Vampire as she had in her mind. A wicked-looking iron bar in his hand as he rushed towards Stephen, holding it high above his head. Viannor acted quickly, but her pistol was empty. Without thinking, the sword leapt from her hand and buried itself into the chest of the Vampire. But that only slowed it down. Still acting on pure instinct she sprinted towards the Vampire behind Stephen and grabbed the hilt of her sword, giving the creature a boot to the torso with her sword now extracted, and admist a fountain of blood, Viannor jumped onto and dispatched the evil thing by ripping out the side of his neck and snacking on the warm blood from within.

A simple gulp was all she could spare, however, before she had to rise and pull out the second of her twin USPs. This little battle was going rather well, if somewhat bloodier than she'd expected.

Hondur fell backwards as the two vampires completed their descent and collided with his outstretched arms, forcing the ancient vampire to the ground. Both vampires screamed and writhed in agony as Hondur's silver claws slashed through their insides, burning and hacking away at their deceased organs. Soon enough Hondur brought the blades out of the ravaged vampires and finished the job with two quick swipes, removing their heads.

Promptly getting to his feet, Hondur looked around for the nearest enemy when Stephen's familiar voice entered his head, describing the vampire's current situation. His plight didn't sound good and so Hondur reacted immediately by sending a large squad of men armed with assault rifles to rescue his friend.

"I've sent a squad on their way Stephen, just hold out for a few more minutes and you'll be fine. If you've found a third of his forces then I've run into what seems to be the rest. I wasn't expecting anywhere near this kind of resistance..."

With that done, Hondur spun around to take the full force of a sledge hammer to the side of the head, the blow knocking him to the ground once again. Dazed yet still conscious, Hondur rolled to the side almost immediately as he expected that the hammer would be back.
________________

As a more exact direction of the fighting had become evident Ivan had decided to travel by rooftop in order to gain a better vantage of the battles. Being of a lychan nature he was easily able to clear the distances between buildings, even without transforming.

The gunfire was now much louder and Ivan could see several muzzle flashes not too far away, most of which happened to be shooting down at the streets below. Soon enough the only thing within Ivan's ears were the various noises related to guns, mostly gunfire.

Fortunately this provided Ivan with the cover necessary to creep up behind a large vampire bearing some sort of automatic sniper rifle. Not wishing to attract anymore attention, Ivan skipped the last few paces by silently leaping into the air and landined with two thuds. That of his feet upon the roof and that of his blade plunging into the vampire's brain.

Now he had a sniper rifle...

Elves had a natural ability to see the slightest of movements, and see them at a faster rate than most other species. This skill saved both of the elves their lives as they saw Svartel's muscles in his arms twitch slightly as he manipulated the steel bar into twin blades. As the one flew toward Ashur, Sigrun focused on his own coming at him. He shifted to the left slightly and spun about, his hand reaching out and snatching the blade safely out of the air. Pocketing it, he glanced toward Svartel, but the ancient had relocated himself.

Glancing up in the warehouse, it was then that Sigrun recognized the place. He gulped slightly as he cursed silently. Meat packing plant. Figures a sadistic one as him would choose a place like this.

He was about to move forward and close in on the vampire when he froze and looked before his feet again. His eyebrow rose up as he spied the horizontial thin wire barely visible in the dim lighting. His eyes followed the line, and ended high above him. Standard spike pit, in an area that restricted movements away from the spot.

Playing dirty are we? he thought as he cleared the trap and went after Svartel again. He knew how the vampire was tracking him, and there was little he could do about that. However, there was something else he could do...

Suddenly, from several points of the warehouse, sounds that were so faint, yet heard by the vampires came forth.

Thumpthump-thumpthump-thumpthump

Heartbeats, identical to both elves, and mirroring real life increases and decreases in the elves' heart rates.

Sigrun licked his lips silently in satisfaction. It took one to know one, and in his case, he had once been a vampire. He knew all the tricks well.

The playing field had been leveled some more...

Stephen stared as his fledgling hurled her sword at him. It went behind him and he heard the blade connect to the vampire behind him. He spun to catch his fledgling having a quick sip from the vampire. She can definatly use those fangs of hers. Stephen emptied the remainder of his magizine into two charging vampires and sent them on the ground spasaming from the silver in thier bodies.

With the message from Hondur, Stephen's heart did not sink nor rise. A mere squad was coming to help. In many armies a squad was usually ten to fifteen men; that amount would just fill up his ranks and not do anything spare for allow them to hold on for an hour or two. Stephen could not keep fighting here, he had to link up with Hondur.

It was then Stephen noted that they were slowly being sealed by the growing fire in the building near them and by Svartel's forces. A corridor of rooftops heading back to the city where the coven battled with Svartel's troops was nearly blocked off by a force of some sixty vampires before they were cut down in a hail of silver.

Hondur had sent around fifty vampires to open a corridor for them to escape. From a quick mental conversation with thier commander, it was a clear road to the main force. Grabbing Viannor and Lujza, Stephen moved his group to Hondur's forces and the group moved back to the coven forces.

"Thanks for your help Hondur. We should be there in a few."

"Oof" grunted Lujza as Stephen grabbed her and lifted her up into the sky. She had still not cleaned up, if anything had gotten even messier than before in the brutal hand to hand combat that had just taken place. Despite their superior strength, Svartel's fledglings had a crude, untrained fighting style and fell quickly to Lujza's well honed speed and agility.

They also apparently didn't know how to evade bullets, or make themselves harder targets, as Lujza had not had a very hard time popping them right between the eyes with rounds stolen from the VP.

Lujza was beginning to like flying, though she was a passenger. She trusted Stephen not to drop her, his arm was strong, and she was light. In fact, it was really quite comfortable, and comforting, though she certainly did not have romantic feelings for the Simatarian vampire.

Skadi and Idun moved forward and immediately began circling Svartel. Skadi noted that her ancient companion still hadn't learned how to truly use his weapon, his stance was all wrong and his grip ill placed. This fight would mainly be between Skadi and Svartel with the others aiding where they could.

Svartel seemed to realised such as he remained focused upon Skadi, leaving his back exposed to Idun. The usually passive vampire took advantage of the oppurtunity and lunged forward, aiming for Svartel's upper back. Unfortunately for Idun, Svartel seemed well aware of the attack and fended him off with a slight dodge of the blade and a thundering boot to Idun's face, sending him sprawling into a crate. As the boot made contact with Idun, Svartel raised his weapon to black a downward slice from Skadi's blade, causing a metallic chime to ring throughout the warehouse.

A twist of a mechanical switch resulted in a curved scythe blade emerging from one end of Svartel's pole, which was promptly forced into an arc for Skadi's neck. The female ancient simply fell to her knees and unleashed a lightning quick elbow into Svartel's thigh, causing him fall as well. As Skadi reared back for another attack she found a white kunckled fist inches before her face and moving far too fast for her to do anything about it. A monsterous thud resounded as Skadi was launched into the air, through the mass of chains and colliding against the corner of a large crate.

After dodging Svatel's blade, Ashur had quickly found his way to the others and watched as Svartel released several blows, knocking both ancient vampires away as if they were flies. Afraid and angered at the same time, Ashur drew his bow from under his cloak and quickly strung an arrow specially runed for this battle. The elf knew very well that Svartel could catch an arrow, he was counting on it.

The twang of a bowstring being released caught Svatel's attention, causing him to cease focusing on the recent arrival of several new heartbeats and spin around to catch an arrow inches before it passed through his head. Within seconds of wrapping his hands around the shaft, the elven projectile burst into flames. Fear burst onto Svartel's face as he dropped the arrow and immediately began waving his hand around.

Every vampire was afraid of fire, no matter how old they were. With vampiric blood being so flammable, touching fire was almost lethal in most cases. Due to his quick action his hand was singed but still there. With that concern out of the way, Svartel turned to Ashur and growled angrily as he placed a hand forward, unleashing his anger mentally.

Ashur was too shocked and disappointed by his attempt to react quick enough to prevent Svartel's mental blast from striking him. The elf took the blast full on and was smashed into the wall behind him at a velocity he would have trouble running at. Dazed yet not unconscious, Ashur slipped to the floor in a heap.
________________

A short blonde haired vampire watched as the men under his command began unleashing silver doom upon the rogue vampires in the surrounding area. They may not be great warriors but there sure were a lot of them and they'd evidently caused more than a bit of trouble for Stephen Malone's squad.

With the enemy now retreating, the small vampire launched himself through the air and halted himself as he moved passed the man he recognised to be Stephen.

"Good to see you're still alive. We'll be your escorts back to Hondur... if you think this is bad then wait till you see the shit we've been dealing with."

Stephen smiled as he was greeted by his escort commander.

"Good to see you. Well, the more the merrier. This bunch probably won't follow us for a while...gave them one hell of a bloody nose."

Stephen looked at the growing fire from thier old fort. Surges of fire started to come more fequently as dead vampires were set afire. That was a fate Stephen would never want, being burned alive or dead. He turned back to the smaller vampire.

"Okay, lead the way. If you men have them, lay a few land mines to slow Svartel's forces down. And..have you had any word on where Skadi is?"

The short vampire by the name of Derek ducked as a brick flew over his head, colliding into an air vent several meters away. Spinning around, the vampire withdrew his personally customised Browner pistol and unleashed two bullets into the face of the brick thrower. The recoil knocked Derek back a few inches through the air despite his efforts to remain still.

"No idea where Skadi is, yet I imagine she wants it that way. No land mines on us, just plenty of fire power. Come on, let's get the hell out of here."

Derek moved back to the bulk of his squad and planted himself upon the rooftop, preffering to move about via foot than flight. With the command given, forces began moving back towards Hondur's location, several blocks away.

Not knowing where Skadi was concerened the Simatarian slightly, though the ancient was probably off fighting Svartel. Though at the moment he didn't have time to think about that, getting back to safety was his number one objective. Following Derek, Stephen kept holding onto Lujza and as they traveled towards Hondur; the stench of death grew greater.

They skirted the no-holds-barn brawl before going in. Running along a rooftop, Stephen saw Hondur on the street. Stephen put Lujza down.

"Time to have some fun."

Yanking out one of his pistols, he fired several bullets into a fledgling rushing Hondur from the rear. Dropping down to the street, he finished the job with a single round to the head. Stephen smiled at Hondur.

"Having a good time?"

Viannor had kept up with Stephen and his 'passenger' along the rooftops, but he had rather rudely left Luzja on top of the building, with no obvious means of descending to the ground. She watched Stephen for a moment as he leapt into action.

"Typical," she said, attempting to pick off a few Vampires at long-range with her pistol, "they drop everything when there's some fun to be had. You want to stay up here or get down into the action?"

"I'm good for now," Lujza said. She set down her bag and assumed a laying position for sniping. "Men," she laughed, in reference to Stephen's apparently short attention span. Conversing with Viannor did not seem to affect the accuracy of her frequent bursts of fire, each one obliterating either the head or chest of one of Svartel's fledglings.

"I want to stay relatively out of reach for now. Svartel's guys are poorly armed, and so as long as I have them at range, I have the advantage." Several more vampires fell to her barrage below. "In close combat, despite the fact that I am better trained and a bit more agile then most of them, I would be at a disadvantage just because of their strength and their numbers." One vampire seemed to notice where the the bullets were coming from and came towards them. The next instant, the top of his head was gone, and blood and gore splattered everywhere. Lujza licked up the drops and bits that had fallen on her. "I'll have to join in hand to hand combat eventually," she said between shots and licks. "Because my ammo won't last forever."

Hondur spun around at the sound of a very close gunshot to find Stephen unleashing a killing round into an enemy vampire. The younger vampire greeted him with a smile yet Hondur only produced a nod. Before the ancient vampire could reply, Hondur had to duck as an arrow shot over his head, missing by less than an inch. Immediately he returned fire in the direction of the arrow yet the bullets simply hit brick and shadow. There was no elf there. Cursing under his breath, Hondur looked back to Stephen.

"Not the words I would use to describe this situation..."

As if his words had signalled another turn of events, many vampires were drawn to the sight of two massive bursts of fire surging into the air at the end of the blood bathed street. Turning into the street were masses of VP officers, many on the front line armed with flamethrowers and other such anti-vampiric weapons. Hondur could only swear again.

"Not good at all..."
_________________

Ivan couldn't help but laugh to himself as the two jets of flame grabbed his attention. The forces he's called upon had finally arrived to destroy the massive amount of filthy vampiric scum. He wasn't sure just how many had responded to his call yet it was certainly a large number of well equipped men, more than able to unleash devastation upon the vampires.

Dropping his now empty sniper rifle, Ivan was about to join his forces when an overhwelming pain dropped him to his knees, ravaging his nerves with overwhelming agony. Rolling onto his back, Ivan gazed at the sky and cursed. The full moon was out. The one thing that really annoyed him about Assington was the prevailing presence of a full moon for much longer than three nights of the month. Forcing himself upright once again, Ivan resisted. He couldn't change now, he had important things to do.

Getting to his feet once again, Ivan began to hobble towards his men across the rooftops.

Flamers, Viannor thought, that's a little scary.

"Lemme guess," she said, pointing to the flamethrower-armed VP, "that ain't good?" Luzja's reaction upon see the jets of flame confirmed Viannor's impresson. "Think you can take them out with your rifle? Hit the tanks, maybe."

Stephen turned as the tongues of fire lashed out against the vampires. The neonate felt his blood begin to bubble and looked at his hand as his skin appeared to vibrate as the intense heat drew closer. Stephen remembered one of the first things Skadi had taught him was that vampire blood was combustible. With that in mind, Stephen focused his attention on a corpse of the vampire he had just killed.

Grabbing the body, he pulled out his knife and cut long gashes on the corpse. As the blood began to ooze out, Stephen hurled the body at the VP. A jet of fire from a flamethrower struck the body and the blood ignited along with the body. The VP moved out of the way as the burning corpse landed in thier midst; before going back on thier mission.

Stephen looked at Hondur.

"We are the best arsonists around. Why not use our flammable blood for something good?"

Lujza turned from taking potshots at Svartel's minions and took careful aim at the flamethrower wielding VP. She was a very good shot. She placed her shots seemingly at random, but a careful observer would notice that she shot the ones who would cause the most damage as they fell, since often their fingers remained on the trigger of their flamethrowers, igniting those around them. The effect made her smile as one flamethrower ignited the combustible tanks of several others, causing them to explode marvelously. "I suppose it would be a cliche to mention fireworks," Lujza said to Viannor.

"I would think it would, indeed be a cliche." Viannor stepped onto the edge of the roof, the intense light from the flames highlighting her sharply against the night sky and the full moon. "But, every firework display needs some 'oohs' and 'aahs', so I'm going to see if I can make some."

With that, Viannor stepped into thin air and off the roof, disappearing out of Lujza's sight. It wasn't long before gunfire and screams echoed up from the ground below.

Viannor communicated with Stephen. "I just couldn't let you and Hondur have all the fun down here."

Hondur watched as the corpse of a fallen vampire was quickly turned into a lethal weapon by Stephen. He give the younger vampire credit for his innovation as it could certainly become useful.

"Fair point Stephen, just don't get yourself blown up."

Leaping into the air, Hondur dodged a halo of bullets as he guided himself backwards into the building behind, sticking to the wall easily. Several VP officers had positioned themselves upon a rooftop across the street and were unleasing with their automatic rifles. As the ancient vampire launched himself forward he felt a large mass crash into his side, knocking him into a street pole before crashing against the hard cement sidewalk.

Momentarily stunned, Hondur took a few seconds to regain his wits and open his eyes. The first thing he saw was a large boot crashing down towards his face. Blood erupted from the ancient vampire's nose as pain surged through his face, adding further to his disorientation and confusion. Essentially Hondur knew he wast being attacked by someone big and possessing the strength of a vampire, yet at the moment he was helpless.

Another explosion rocked the street and Hondur felt the burning touch of silver enter his abdomen.
_______________

As Viannor landed upon the chaotic street, several arrows pounded the building to her right, an explosion having knocked them off course. Of course the source of the arrows had disappeared yet it certainly put the young vampire on edge, knowing the elves were out there yet never really seeing them.

Unfortunately the young vampire had little time to ponder the elven presence as a small yet agile vampire landed before her, bearing two rather long daggers and an evil little grin. He wasn't an imposing character yet the look upon his face was a little unnerving and he proved his speed with two lightning quick slashes across Viannor's torso.

The little vampire merely grinned as the taller yet younger vampire jumped back in shock.
_______________

Ivan cursed loudly as he watched several of his flamethrower wielding men explode thanks to carefully place shots from the mass of varried vampires before them. He noted they were actually fighting eachother as well yet didn't particularly care about why this was so, only that they all needed to die.

His acute super-human vision allowed him to note a particular vampire sitting upon the edge of a builing unleashing several rounds towards her men, leading to chaos in the front lines as the flamethrowers were destroyed. It seemed this lone vampire was causing much of the damage.

Not wishing to watch his men slaughtered by some vampire bitch, Ivan promptly ordered two men bearing rocket launchers to target the upper portion of the building Luzja was upon. With a single nod, two rockets roared towards Luzja.

Laughing as she decimated the flamethrower lines, Lujza was getting faster and faster at finding good targets. By now, much of the VP units around the flamethrowers were in disarray, and a very significant portion of the flamethrowers had been eliminated.

Unfortunately, people eventually noticed snipers, and were usually quite angry by the time they did. " Oh fuck!" Lujza saw the rockets launched, and knew that her luck had run out. Her eyes were very keen, and she sent a quick volley of ammunition towards not only the men with the rocket-launchers, but large officer who seemed to have pointed her out to them. Even strafing, as she did, her aim was extremely good. It was a pity that she had to waste silver bullets on humans, but they'd work just as well as lead when they hit, which they would.

This all happened in less than a second, and Lujza jumped desperately from the building just before the rockets hit. She screamed as she suffered burns on her back and bum as she fell, careening towards the ground. She braced herself for the impact, though she knew it would probably do little good.

Ivan grinned triumphantly as the two rockets were launched towards the vampiric sniper, seconds away from blowing her to pieces. Unfortunately the vampire seemed to notice the twin rockets heading towards her and reacted as most would. She jumped out of the way. On her brief journey off the building she happened to release a halo of bullets directly towards the attack VP officers, including Ivan.

One officer took a bullet straight through the head and fell to the ground, his empty rocket launcher thumping against the ground next to him. The other officer managed get through the attack without being hit yet Ivan suffered a single bullet through his left hand. Grunting in pain, Ivan cursed loudly as his hand began smoking from the traces of silver upon his flesh, reacting adversely to his Lycan body.

The uninjured officer simply stared at his commander, watching the silver reaction in the hand. Stunned beyond anything, the officer made an unsure move for his pistol. Before he could even remove it from his holster, Ivan had surged forward and unleashed a quick swipe with his dagger, slicing the officer's throat open and dropping him to the ground. Sure that no other officers had witnessed the action, Ivan moved off into the shadows. He needed to get right in the thick of the battle to do any damage and there was only one we he could do that.

He had to change...
______________

Svartel stood dead still in the silence. He wasn't even using his eyes but simply listening for coming attacks. He noted the two new heartbeats kept an ear out for them. It wouldn't do to have some pitiful elf come up behind him and stab him in the back. Twirling his modernised scythe around, Svartel waited patiently, ready to strike like lightning with lethal efficiency.

Finally it came, two elven heartbeats rushed towards him at expected speeds, most likely bearing blades. Keeping his eyes closed, Svartel flicked another switch and caused a second scythe blade to emerge from the other end of his weapon. Now bearing a doubled edge weapon, Svartel opened his eyes, ducked downwards and moved into a rapid arc upon his heel, hoping to slash both elves across the abdomen.

The ancient vampire was momentarily plunged into confusion when his blade met no flesh and his eyes confirmed no presence of any elves near his person. At that point a third heartbeat seemed to rush out of nowhere, falling from above. Svartel rolled to his back and placed the double scythe bladed weapon before his face just in time to block the elven black of Sigrun. Sigrun's force was enough to dig his sword into Svartel's weapon, locking the two together.

Now more angered than surprised that he'd been fooled by an elf, Svartel yanked the weapon towards himself before suddenly thrusting forward, sending Sigrun back several steps as the ancient vampire's superior strength became evident. Quickly back to his feet, Svartel rushed forward and grabbed his weapon once again, now locked in a battle of force against the elf.

At that point Skadi returned by delivering a thundering kick to Svartel's face, sending the vampire sprawling onto the ground. Skadi turned to her elven companion, producing a smile from underneath her bloodied face.

"Good to see you're still lurking about."

Sigrun returned with a mock smile of his own.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world..."

Unfortunately the pair didn't have time to engage in a conversation of dry humour and sarcasm as Svartel returned to his feet.

Stephen heard the eruption above him and saw Lujza moving away from the cloud of smoke and dust. Following the almost disappated contrails, he spotted Ivan standing on the building. Before he could react, Stephen grunted as he felt a sword slam into his body and appear just above his waist. He stared at it before moving his right arm so his wrist gun pointed behind him and fired.

There was a scream from behind him and with some manuevering and some mental power; Stephen was able to un-skewer himself. Gasping and nearly falling to his knees, he turned on his attacker. He had to admit, she was drop dead grogeous. Blonde hair, light blue eyes, and a fit, slim body. She was screaming at the moment, trying to get the silver dart out of her gut.

"Sorry about this."

She looked up just in time to see Stephen level his pistol at her and put a slug in her skull. With no time to rest as a platoon of VP supported by some armored cars moved down the street, he quickly dropped the sword and got into an alley.

Down the alley in the next street, Stephen saw the familiar form of Hondur on the ground with a much larger figure standing above.

Clutching his gut, Stephen moved down the alley firing at the assaliant with one of his pistols.

There was an audible smacking sound as Lujza hit the asphalt of the street below. If one had been listening, they would also have heard the crack of bones. She had tried to break her fall by rolling, and likely prevented much greater damage, but several ribs were broken, at least one arm bone was broken, and she was sure that there was now hairline fracture on her cheek, and probably on her hip as well. In addition, she was bleeding in several places.

Lujza gasped swear words as she tried painfully to get up. It was rather difficult, and so she crawled over to a wall to lean on. Though wounded, she was not defenseless, and one thing applied to all animals, including humans. An animal was most dangerous when wounded and cornered. She looked around, her black eyes smoldering with rage, as she searched for where the rockets had come from. She found the place, both rocket launching men were dead. She waited a couple minutes, to recover herself.

Darting back, Viannor risked a glance down to see the two slashes cut across the body armour she wore. Though the thought didn't quite enter her mind at the time, she didn't know if the vest was stab-proof or not - only that it was bullet-proof. Raising the pistol in her right hand, Viannor breifly conjured up an Indiana Jones image, of a pistol-armed hero cutting down a scary-looking sword-weilding maniac. That, however, was not to be the case.

Just as she pulled the trigger, one of the smaller vampire's daggers flashed out and knocked it from her hand, sending the gun flying and the bullet harmlesly into a wall. Already her assailant was following up with the other dagger, aming a vicious thrust at her neck. Viannor barely got her nicked silver-edged sword up in time and the metals clanged together as Viannor took a few steps back to recover.

The vampire was still pressing her, thrust and swipe of long daggers forcing her back. Though the reach of her sword was longer she just couldnt get the time to use it for anything other than a hurried defence of parry and block, pushing her back to the wall with every step. In her preripheral vision, Viannor saw the wall of the building she was about to be hindered by.

Taking a risk, Viannor leapt backwards, trusting herself to land on the wall safely. Her take off, however, was not perfect. A thin dagger balde snaked out and slashed against her calf, slashed across her shin. Crouching against the side of the wall she had a moment to hold her wounded leg and take a breath.

A middle aged man bearing an H&K MP5 spotted Luzja leaning against a wall, obviously injured. He was only new to this whole vampire thing but he loved it. His entire life had been a waste of time, he took crap from everybody at work, his wife didn't love him and his kids didn't respect him. That was all different now. He had power now, he followed the mighty Svartel.

Taking aim with the weapon, the young vampire prepared to fire as a pain like not other surged through his spine, roaring upwards until it reached his brain and dropped him to his knees. He'd never felt anything like it before, the sheer agony was astounding in it's simplicity and intensity. This man had just felt his first taste of silver.

Standing over the young vampire was Derek, the short commander of Hondur's coven that had led Stephen, Luzja and Viannor to the current battle scene. Withdrawing his blade from the man's spine, Derek finished the job by plunging it hard into the back of his head, hitting the brain with silver and killing it instantly.

With the immediate threat gone, Derek approached Luzja and crouched down beside her.

"Hey there, it appears you may need a few bandaids."
____________

The small vampire merely grinned as Viannor recovered from his latest attack. Of course she would heal yet it would slow her momentarily. Now was the time to take advantage of his deeds.

Breaking into a mad sprint, he ran straight for Viannor with daggers poised to run straight through her form and carve her to pieces. Unfortunately he'd run out of ammunition for his pistol a long time ago so the daggers would have to do and he certainly had the speed to use them effectively.

Within seconds he was upon Viannor, merely inches away from thrust one dagger into her gut, the other into her throat.
____________

Hondur endured the continuing punishment, waiting for the right moment. Hopefully it would come soon as he didn't particularly enjoy having a ten inch silver blade carve through his insides. He had to keep his wits about him or it was all over.

Thankfully the oppurtunity came in the form of Stephen unleashing several slugs towards Hondur's attacker. At least one of the rounds had hit the large vampire judging on the grunts of pain and stumbling of the large vampire, yet he still wasn't down.

Now rather irritated, the brute stormed towards Stephen yet was stopped in mid-stride as an overwhelming force smashed him into a wall, pinning him there. Hondur was now on his feet, staggering towards his opponent as he held both hands over his bleeding gut.

"Thanks Stephen..."

"No problem Hondur."

Stephen looked at his own wound, it was still bleeding, but the flow was slowing down. He closed his eyes for a few seoncds, letting his mind rest. His brain didn't get to rest for more than a few seconds before he picked up someone trying to sneak up on the Simatarian and Assingtonian Ancient.

The business end of Stephen's pistol ended up barely an inch from the face of a very young VP officer; probably only joined a few days or a week or two before. The neonate watched as the irisis quickly bloated to the size of aircraft carriers and more sweat began to pour from his wet face.

A harsh, acidic smell reached Stephen's nose and he looked down to see the young man wetting himself. Stephen looked back at the man's face and growled. His eyes hardened as he heard the distintive thumping of the man's heart going faster.

It was so tempting and it would be so easy to make the boy into a quick snack. As Stephen battling the urge to kill the man, his humanity was able to give one last punch. His fist connected with the boy's jaw and sent him airborne and falling down into a filled dumpster.

Stephen took a deep breath, trying to get his head straight.

"That was damn close."

Coughing painfully, Erzsebet muttered a soft, but sincere "thank-you" to Derek, and nodded with a slight smile at his understatement about her needing band-aids. "I've felt better in my life..." she said, leaning against the wall.

Derek flashed her a quick grin before placing an arm under Luzja's shoulders, supporting her as they moved away from the wall. Despite her discomfort they were still in a heated battlezone and hanging around any longer will be a mistake.

"I'll get you somewhere where you can rest."

Within seconds the pair were floating through the air, soaring above the buildings as Derek looked down for a safe refuge. He was only relatively knew to flying yet he'd mastered it enough to be able to get here and there relatively easily.

Drifting away from the battle, the Derek set down upon a building two streets away from the main fighting. There were still warriors in these streets but the fighting was less dense and no one had noticed them.

Setting Luzja down, Derek's face became confused as he noticed Luzja wasn't beginning to heal.

"What's wrong?"
_______________

The disgruntled grunts of the vampire still pinned against a bloody brick wall didn't even cause Hondur to turn his head as he withdrew a pistol an unleashed a round into the vampiric brute's skull. He was still quite sore from the recent attack yet his wits were still about him.

Hondur watched as Stephen encountered a young VP officer, watched as he struggled with what he thought the right to do was. He would have expected Stephen wouldn't have even hesitated but it seemed for once the younger vampire had actually considered killing in cold blood.

"Indeed it was. Come one, I get the feeling we can't endure this battle for long unless we do something about the VP."
_________________

Svartel had returned to his feet and was moving towards the ancient couple with dire intent in his eyes. Evidently he was angry but he wasn't letting it get the best of him. Svartel realised if he were to win this fight he couldn't simply allow his anger to take over, he had to fashion it into a weapon that would spill her blood.

Now within a meter of his two opponents, Svartel raised his elongated weapon once again, flicking a switch as he did so. One of the scythe blades retracted and was soon replaced by a barbed spear head launching out of the metallic shaft on a course straight for Sigrun's head.

Skadi knew very well Sigrun would take care of himself as she exploded off the floor and into the air, swinging down at Svartel with wild arc. Unfortunately for Skadi, Svartel could move at speeds faster than gravity would allow her to descend. Svartel dodged to the side easily and waited until Skadi was about to land before swinging his pipe around, collecting Skadi clean in the torso and sending her up into the chains and hooks hanging from the ceiling.

The smirking ancient didn't have time to see where his opponent ended up as the sting of silver slicing across his back caught his attention. Spinning around on his heels, Svartel blocked Idun's second blow easily and shifted the other end of his weapon, the one still bearing the curved blade, to slash across the abdomen of his enemy.

Kicking Idun to his back, Svartel brought his weapon around for a final swing. He would eliminate this pathetic excuse for a vampire before moving onto the true challenge.

Lujza winced as Derek carried her (though she took steps, he was really supporting most of her weight, and all of it when they flew), but did not complain, nodding when the other vampire spoke. The sensation of flying, though Derek was the one doing the flying of course, she was merely along for the ride, was less strange to her than it had been. Also, she really couldn't focus her mind well enough to think about how high up they were.

She grunted as Derek set her down. Her breath still came in ragged gasps, because of her broken ribs. The human body isn't an especially good design she thought to herself. Then, upon hearing the other vampire's question, she raised an eyebrow. "Well, besides that my left arm is all fucked up, along with a few other things, and that my chest only hurts when I breath, not much really." Lujza's speech was slurred, more than usual, because of her cracked cheekbone. However, Callisdrunians, even in situations like these, retained a sarcastic sense of humor.

She suddenly realized that she might be coming off as ungrateful. "I'm sorry, I really do appreciate you saving my skin and all. 'What's wrong' just seems an odd question to ask right now."

Derek realised immediately that Luzja had misinterpretted him, taking his words to be in regard specifically to her injuries. It was slightly surprising to see Luzja still had a scorning sense of humour despite her dire injures. Derek would have enjoyed the moment far longer if the oppurtunity presented itself.

Turning around to briefly assure himself that nothing was behind him, Derek moved closer and sat next to Luzja.

"I didn't mean it like that. I noticed your're taking your time in healing. Are you very young or is there something wrong like a silver wound?"

Several metres away the fighting continued, bullets, blades and even explosions roared through the night air as the battle for dominion over the streets of Emerald continued.

Stephen took a breath, everything was coming back into focus. He did not like this one bit. It was the second time that he had the urge to kill in cold blood in less than twenty-four hours. This time his humanity had defeated the vampire inside of him. Stephen turned and looked at Hondur.

"What do you think we should do about the VP?"

Lujza watched as Derek came and sat next to her. Her eyes did not remain in one place for long, like the eyes of a wolf scanning for possible threats.

"A wound with a silver weapon doesn't affect me any more than a wound from any other weapon," Lujza said, fidgeting, trying to find the most comfortable position possible. Though on average they were more intelligent than humans, Moroii seemed to be more in touch with their primitive instincts. Even wounded as she was, Lujza moved with animalistic fluidity when she finally found the least painful way to sit.

"Broken bones take a rather long time to heal," she added. Moroii didn't take as long to heal as humans, but they still took a lot longer than the seemingly instantaneous healing of vampires from other countries. When describing her injuries, she hadn't even mentioned the profuse bleeding, as Moroii could sustain incredible amounts of blood loss.

"I was having wonderful success until that bastard lycan VP commander noticed me and pointed me out to his cronies with rocket launchers." From her tone, it was obvious she thought the VP were much like some sort of Mafia.

Crouching on the side of the wall, Viannor had given herself just a fraction of the time she needed for a full assessment of how to beat this wily and agile opponent. Instinct had taken over and as the vampire and his two daggers came whirling towards her, Viannor pushed off the wall with the strength in her good leg. As she vaulted through the air over her attacker's head their blades rang together twice in a deadly dance.

As she landed roughly on the floor behind her opponent, Viannor came sharply to her feet and came out on the offensive. Up until now her silver-edged sword had only been used for defence: block and parry. Now it was swung and thrusted with a deadly intent, forcing the two daggers to defend their wielder.

Her reach was longer, her weapon stretched further, the silver blade itself seemingly wishing to reach out and kiss the man with its burning touch. Getting more weight behind her assault than her opponent could manage, Viannor forced him back.

Slowly their dance's pace began to slacken. The daggers didn't quite rise as high as before, they parried their intended targets a little later. Viannor's own swings and thrusts became more laboured, until she found the opening. A backhand slash of hers had been parried, but with her sword in the air and her opponent off-balance he was there for the taking. Quickly she brought her sword down towards his head, but somehow he managed a block to save himself from being cut in two. That didn't stop, however, Viannor's heeled boot. The vampire contorted in an effort to get away from the kick but his knee was Viannor's target.

With a cry of anguish the Vampire went down, but he rolled away before she could finish him off. He scrambled along the floor, trying to get to his feet on a severely-injured knee. With Viannor chasing him on one good leg and one cut one, they made for a comical procession. The Keystone Cops never managed to do what came next, however, as Viannor caught up with the wounded, desperate Vampire and swung her sword in a vicious two-handed cut. Though the grounded man attempted to block it, he was too late and too weak to counter it. His right arm was severed at the wrist and thick dark vampiric blood fountained across the ground and onto her boots. Now he was hers.

Kicking the dagger out of his good hand, it was then a simple matter of dispatching him, hearing the burning of the silver as it parted skull and brain alike. The vampire was dead. Leaning on her sword like a walking stick, something that would have earned her a crack across the knuckles back in training, Viannor caught her breath and sought out Stephen. It didnt not take long to sense which direction he was in and, checking around to make sure she was safe, Viannor went off to find her sire.

Hondur pondered the issue a moment as he went over logistics in his head, attemping to conceive a strategy that would save his coven members from the technologically superior enemy. Whilst they had greater numbers Hondur was wise enough to realise that wouldn't win him the battle, he had to be smart about it.

"I'm not too sure Stephen but we'll need to figure something out pretty fast, before long this will turn into a slaughter."

Footsteps immediately caught Hondur's attention, causing the ancient vampire to spin around bearing his loaded pistol. The barrel halted directly before the pale face of Viannor, primed to unleash silver death. Upon recognising who stood before him, Hondur dropped his arm and gave the young vampire a brief nod.

"Good to see some of us are still alive..."
_________

After the relatively quick defeat of the flamers, the VP realised that attempting to engage the vampires in any kind of close combat was foolish and essentially suicide. Therefore the officers had decided to setup several barricades using the masses of armoured vehicles within their possession.

Small, heavily armed forces of men roamed the surrounding streets in an attempt to pick off the smaller numbers of vampires whilst the streets containing the main fighting were sealed off as vehicle mounted weapons were put into position.

It seemed Ivan had done a little negotiating with the military and managed to obtain several large calibre gatling guns for the fight against vampires. Before long the intense buzzing of these guns discharging filled the air, cutting down coven and rogue vampire alike with massive silver slugs.

Lujza grimaced in pain as she used the moment of silence, well, quiet really, to get out her AK-103. Even in her current state, she loaded another magazine with great speed.

She then cradled the weapon in her good arm. Lujza knew there would be no quarter for the wounded in this battle. "I try to hide it as much as possible, but I guess you know I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt," she said idly to Derek.

As if it already wasn't. Stephen thought. The every battle he had been in during the two Assington wars he had been apart of were all slaughters; from the first encounter with lycans to now. Stephen sensed Viannor approach and before he could warn Hondur, his fledgling appeared. Thankfully the ancient did not fire the instant a head entered his sights.

"Good to see you're alive Viannor."

It was then he heard the buzzing and sighed. Vulcan guns. Stephen moved to the corner of the alley and poked his head out. He saw one of the deadly guns, admist a small barricade of vehicles, sweeping the street and the Simatarian quickly took cover.

"Hondur, pull your men out of the streets. Get them on the roofs. Have the men armed with sniper rifles shooting the gunners and others. Have men armed with grenade launcher start shelling them. Since we don't have mortars...best we can do."

Derek nodded as he thought over recent events. He knew there were a few foreign vampires lurking about in the coven yet he'd never met one so different to his own kind. That aside, it was obvious Luzja would need some help if she were to get through this night alive.

"It's not quite a band-aid but it should do the job..."

The Assingtonian vampire promptly raised his left wrist up to bared fangs and sliced across the veins with the razor sharp bone. Slowly blood began to flow out of the veins, ready for Luzja to induce.

With that done, Derek offered his wrist to Luzja.

Lujza gratefully accepted Derek's wrist, and drank, occasionally needing to lap up some drips with her tongue. Her breed of Moroii could be somewhat messy, compared to other vampires, when they drank blood directly from a wound. She did not consume very much, but still felt full. "Thank you," she sighed as she leaned back.

Almost immediately, Derek's blood took effect, and Lujza's eyes opened wider as she felt the unusual sensation of her bones starting to fuse where they had broken. She wiped the blood around her mouth (of which there was a lot) from her face with her hand, which she then licked it off of. "Mmmm.."

OOC: Sorry for the delay, lots of homework to catch up on, and lack of internet at home for a time...

IC:
There is no noise in the world like the noise of a new weapon being drawn or extracted for deadly use against the owner's foes. As the barbed spear rocketed toward Sigrun, he was barely able to dodge the spear with a backflip. In the midst of his aerial turn, he reached out and clasped the spear upon its hilt and landed back on his feet. He groaned as he felt his hand sending pain signals to his brain. He opened the hand to reveal the spear had lodged a few of the barbed ends into his flesh, drawing sweet blood to the surface.

Looking up, he watched as Svartel fought to survive against Skadi's attacks. He had watched in concern as Skadi had flown haphazardly toward the chains and hooks above them, and hoped she would be aware enough of them to keep herself from becoming impaled.

Glancing around himself, Sigrun noted the various tools of the meat packaging warehouse and laid his eyes upon the freezer. Bingo. he thought as he looked down at the spear in his hand.

Making sure to coat the spear with his blood, he suddenly cast it in a rapid spin toward Svartel as he simultaneously turned and headed into the freezer, making sure to lead a trail of blood in his wake.

Fresh, warm blood, getting colder by the minute... he thought darkly to himself.

Stephen moved to the edge of the alley and peered at a small VP outpost several blocks away. Vampires were being torn to shreds as they attempted to run for cover or to another street, only to run into another stronghold and be massacred there. Blood began to seep into the cracks in the pavement and pool into small puddles and grow in some areas.

A group of VP officers toting incinterators, assault rifles, and rocket launchers. He ducked behind a trashcan and signaled Hondur and Viannor to seek cover. A young officer, probably in his mid-twenties was behind the group and on his back was a RPG. Once he got close enough, Stephen rocketed out, grabbed him, and hurled him into the wall before he could shout an alarm.

The man's head gave a dull thump as he was knocked unconsious by the hit. Stephen quickly relieved him of his weapons and tossed him into a nearby dumpster. Hefting the RPG Stephen moved to the end of the alley and pointed it down at the barricade.

"Time for fireworks."

He then fired.

OOC: Sorry for the lack of posting... the school has made several attempts on my life of recent and it's becoming increasingly difficult to survive them.

IC: Derek grinned as Luzja licked up the last few drops of his blood, adding to the increased rate of healing she would momentarily experience. He'd never encountered a vampire of her kind before and it certainly dawned upon him now just how lucky his breed really was.

Unfortunately for Derek he never managed to say anything in reply as the only sound upon his mouth opening was that of a single bullet leaving the barrel of a pistol. The coven commander's head exploded in a storm of blood, goo and bone as the bullet exited and allowed him to crumble to the ground, dead silence following the thump of Derek's headless body.

Standing upon the edge of the building was a the outline of a man yet the flashes from explosions below revealed a face covered in fur with a large snouth forming. Ivan hadn't quite changed yet, allowing him to use a gun in order to do away with Derek. Now he just had the wounded vampire to deal with.

Looking up into the sky, Ivan howled in anticipation and pain as he continued to morph into his full lychan form.
_______________

At Stephen's instructions, Hondur launched himself into the air and clung to the high brick wall within the shadows, suspended far above the nearing VP officers. The ancient vampire merely watched as Stephen disposed of a straggler and allowed the others to pass by with little notice.

Dropping back down again, Hondur reached out to what remained of his forces.

"Get onto the buildings, attempt to bombard the heavy weapons from above with whatever you have. We need to take down those guns..."

With no explosives on hand, Hondur had to make do with a semi auto pistol as he attempted to hit some higher ranking officers. Unfortunately his eye had a better range than the battered gun.

"Stephen, any idea where we can get some heavy weapons?"
_____________

One of the many VP barricades rocked from the force of Stephen's RPG as the explosion disabled one of the vulcan cannons and put a sizable hole within the makeshift structure.

With one cannon down, the attention of many officers was now focused upon the source of the RPG, Stephen. Other cannons whined into life as they unleashed a barrage of metallic doom towards Stephen's location whilst other officers were sent to surround the alley to ensure those involved were destroyed.

Horrified by the demise of Derek, who had just shown her a great kindness, Lujza leapt to her feet, despite the pain. As she did so, she fired off a full auto, but accurate burst from her AK at the... thing that could only be Ivan, the VP commander. The sharp aim of the VP's own silver bullets leaving her gun might make the lycan suspect that here before him was the sniper who had been so troublesome, as the bullets impacted his torso from his stomach to his chest.

"Fuck you, crotch-licking asshole!" Though English was clearly her second language by her accent, Lujza could be quite inventive with her swearing, her Moroii's hissing voice making the words even more aggressive, and lending her a bit of creepiness, though that wouldn't help against a lycan.

Stephen smiled as he watched the effect of the RPG. He turned to shout at Hondur when the familiar buzzing reached his ears. Stephen turned back to see vulcans warming and a rocket heading for him.

"Shit."

As Hondur watched, the area around Stephen seemed to explode as the heavy rounds plastered the buildings and pavement. The young vampire's form was swallowed up in less than two seconds. Nothing but a cloud of swirling dust was visible. The guns ceased fire, waiting for the dust to settle to see if they were on target. The dust settled, reavlign nothing but a shreded trenchcoat and blood. It seemed Stephen had been vaporized.

As the squads moved to seal off the alley, one of the fireescapes on Hondur's building began to shake. As the ancient turned his gun, ready to blow the head off of the first person that appeared. Instead of a human, it was a vamipre, Stephen. His pale face was dirty and as a gust of wind blew towards Hondur, he also reeked.

Stephen climbed on the roof, his left arm hanging a little limp, several wounds were obviously healing. The neonate gave the ancient a bloody smile, though it wasn't his blood. He had visited the two unconious VP officers had had dealt with ealier for a few pints.

"I hate the sewer. But...it was either get in there via a manhole or get blasted. One second." Stephen moved to an AC unit and smashed his left shoulder against the unit, popping the shoulder back into place. "Hondur, have your men strip the dead and wounded VP of RPGs, greandes, anything. We have gotta take out a few of those outposts or when Skadi and Sigrun get back they will only find a pile of corpses."

Stephen paused for a second and quickly sent a message to Viannor. "Get up here now. The VP are moving towards the alley."

Making sure to coat the spear with his blood, he suddenly cast it in a rapid spin toward Svartel as he simultaneously turned and headed into the freezer, making sure to lead a trail of blood in his wake.

Before Svartel could do the deed and be rid of Idun, an intensity like no other and yet all too familiar erupted through his shoulder as a silver edged spear head penetrated his clothing and fixed itself firmly into his flesh. Dropping his weapon, Svartel immediately grabbed the sharp object and ripped it out, grunting loudly at the excrutiating pain now flowing through his burned hand and shoulder.

Spinning around, the ancient vampire only caught a glimpse of Sigrun as he disappeared into the freezer, a trail of blood marking his path. Noting that the other elf was still stunned, Svartel began a march towards the freezer, his weapon gliding into a bloodied hand with ease. Sigrun had certainly got the vampire's attention and now he was intent on finishing the elf for good.
____________

Skadi hung up in the chains, a meat hook through her lower calf as she gazed down upon the scene below. Fortunately the hook didn't have any silver components yet that didn't make the pain non-existent, simply less intense. One thing a vampire learned over the years was a high tolerance for pain, even that of silver at times.

The hook was firmly stuck within her leg and it seemed that moving around did nothing save increasing the pain. Looking back down at the floor below, Skadi noted Sigrun and Svartel were out of sight whilst Idun was just regaining his feet. There was no doubt that he was an incompetent warrior, despite what training his elven comrades had attempted to teach him.

"Idun... your assistance would be appreciated."

Looking high above, Idun barely made out the shape of Skadi hanging by her calf. Simply nodding in response, the ancient vampire applied a little mental force, ripping the chain from it's base on the ceiling and allowing Skadi to descend.

Neither knew what was happening within the freezer yet Skadi didn't like the idea of Svartel alone with her companion.

In the crisp cold air of the freezer, the blood on the ground seemed to emit a more scintillating scent to the vampire that stalked after Sigrun. It seemed to tell him of the elf's plight, and futile attempt to slip away to safety.

Thud! the freezer door slammed shut, casting the entire walkin freezer into darkness as the lights were simultaneously extinguished with a shattering of lightbulbs above Svartel and sparks flying everywhere. A hissing noise indicated the vacumn caused by the change of air pressure, and further indicated that even without the arcane assistance on the door, it would be quite difficult to escape.

Complete and absolute darkness swamped the freezer to the point that even Svartel, being of vampiric nature, would not be able to see his own hand in front of his face. Nevertheless, a vampire had more than just eyesight to employ at their discretion.

So did the elf.

Silence filled the freezer as Svartel cautiously probed further in, seeking his prey. Sniffing, he could only smell the blood lying on the ground at the entrance. Oddly, the blood had stopped there.

Deep into the freezer, Sigrun lay in wait, his entire body covered by slabs of frozen meat. He had initiated a spell that allowed him to mask his heartbeat to virtually unheard, although if Svartel was good at hunting, he'd find Sigrun after some trouble. Sigrun, however, had a plan...

Stephen felt some small degree of satisfaction as the VP were soon coming under fire from vampires hiding in alleys armed with grenade launchers. He climbed atop an AC unit and watched as several VP barricades slackened their fire a little as the officers took cover inside the APCs and behind obstacles. It was then he was reminded of Svartel's vampiric forces when a young boy came bursting through the rooftop door, followed by a half-rabid vampire drenched in blood.

The Simatarian knew well enough that Hondur would mostly likely never stand for preying upon children; Svartel though would encourage and participate. The boy pressed himself against the AC, as though praying the metal would suck him up and protect him. Instead, he recieved help from a place he would never expect.

Stephen's boot connected with the face of the vampire, sending the younger immortal crashing into a forest of TV antennas and satillete dishes. Stephen looked at the boy. "Grab all the silver you have in your apartment and lock yourself in your bedroom till dawn. Be sure to barricade your door."

The boy stood and shivered as he stared at the vampire in front of him. He wasn't sure if the vampire was fighting over who would get to kill him. The boy only started to run as the other vampire emereged from the forest of arrays and smashed into Stephen.

Stephen's superior strength allowed him to maintain the upper hand once the shock had worn off. His right hand kept the fang bearing mouth from ripping his throat out while his left promptly wrapped around the vampire's right arm and crushed the bone. The vampire howled and Stephen then did something he had never done before.

Grasping the sides of the head, he gave a violent twist and jerk, blood instantly splattered over his body as a volcano of crimson came from the neck as he ripped the head off the body. Stephen blinked several times, stunned at what had just happened. Putting the head on the ground, he stood and shook himself off.

As he stared at the head, the eyes moved slightly. Stephen promplty punted it off the roof and across town; it landed several seconds later between a pair of horny teenagers in a convertable with the roof down.

Pulling out both of his pistols, the neonate looked at Hondur.

"How much longer do you think we can hold the VP and Svartel's forces off?"

Climbing onto the rooftop, Viannor was just in time to see Stephen's kick. She followed the ballistic path of the severed head with her eyes, then turned to Stephen and the headless torso.

"I may not know the strategies behind a three-way battle," she said, "but there's one thing I can tell you. Don't take up football. Or rubgy, or anything that involves kicking things."

Satisfied with her light-relief interruption and the look on Stephen's face, Viannor turned to Hondur for his answer.

Svartel cursed within his own mind as the door slammed shut behind him and all sources of light expired. There was no denying the crafty nature of elves, he'd certainly encountered some in his time and they had fallen before him, just like this one would. Levitating himself a mere inch above the ground, the ancient vampire continued to probe through the freezer. He wouldn't be giving away his position that easily.

The foul stench of elven blood filled the cold air, hiding the vague musk that Sigrun would be producing through his sweat. Of course that didn't matter, Svartel would simply have to find him the old fashioned way. Swinging his scythe around silently, the ancient vampire came to a shelf full of beef portions in their packaging. It appeared as though the building wasn't as abandoned as he'd assumed.

Floating silently for several minutes, Svartel finally made his decision. Bringing his scythe upright, the ancient vampire swung towards the shelf as he moved backwards and completed a spin, now aiming for a large stockpile of meat piled up against the wall, sitting directly next to a bunch of meat slabs lying across the floor.

The faint heartbeat was nearby, ready to feel Svartel's blade.
_____________

Landing gently on the floor, Skadi didn't pay much attention to Idun as he tended to Ashur. She was far more concerned with removing this rusty meat hook from her calf. Upon closer inspection it became obvious the piece of metal had gone through her bone and was not going to come out easily.

Resigned that this was going to hurt tremendously, Skadi screamed in agony as she literally pushed the hook fully through her bone and out the other side of her calf. There was no point pulling back the other way unless she wanted to rip her leg into pieces and that didn't seem desirable at the time.

With the other portion now evident, Skadi grunted heavily as she took hold of the metal and snapped it with a force unseen from a mere mortal body. The worst of it now over, Skadi removed the metal and fell back against a crate. It hurt like hell and she needed to heal. Hopefully Sigrun could wait.
____________

Ivan certainly hadn't been expecting the wounded vampire to unleash a blast of AK fire into his chest as he transformed and only barely managed to stay upon the building as he fell to the ground. Fortunately the bullets had all passed through him, only leaving a faint ghost of what longer exposure to silver really felt like.

Getting to his knees, Ivan finished with a howl as he completed his transformation, canine eyes now gazing upon Luzja with a bloodlust unseen in humans. Without hesitation, the VP captain charged towards the foreign vampire with massive teeth on display and ready to tear open weak flesh.

If Luzja took the time to look, she would have noted several items had sprawled out of Derek's jacket as he'd fallen to the ground. One being a silver bladed dagger, another being an injection gun full of silver nitrate and other items not fully visible due to the vampiric corpse.
___________

With the VP barricades now under severe attack by all explosive weilding vampires, Hondur took a moment to assess his injuries. Several bullet wounds existed within his upper shoulders and a few within his abdomen. They would heal but not for the moment as silver tended to leave a lasting scar, at least in the sense of not healing almost instantaneously.

At that point the unnervingly familiar snap of a spin flowed through the air as Stephen beheaded an enemy vampire. This was something he'd never seen before. Stephen kill unnecessarily and a man having his head ripped off by another. Both were startling to say the least.

Before he could open his mouth, Viannor appeared and attempted to lighten the mood. Hondur couldn't even force a chuckle.

"We need to gather all the forces we can and finish off the VP here. I know there are more of us around the city, they'll have to come in. If we can knock out Svartel's lot and this major VP force, we can get the hell out of here."

At that point the building rocked as the thundering noise of multiple explosions reached their vampiric ears. Someone had placed charges at the base of the building...

Firing another several bursts as the monster that was Ivan charged towards her, Lujza whipped out her axe with her free hand, and jumped towards Derek's corpse. Ivan would probably think she was merely getting out of the way of his charge, which, of course, was a secondery objective. She did not want to let him get close, because then the lycan would have an even greater advantage.

She bared her fangs, which were much longer than those of most Assingtonians. Partly to taunt Ivan, and partly to throw him slightly off balance, she let out a battle cry of her native land, a long, grating banshee like shriek, that was more like a high growl than a scream. The constant hissing of her voice gave it an eerie sound, as if there were many voices coming from her vocal cords. Those who heard it would surely remember it. It was so loud that it could be clearly heard even above the sound of the gun she continued to fire, albeit with slightly less accuracy since she had been on the move.

Having had the advantage of being in position and waiting for his prey, Sigrun had the better advantage to keep his ears peeled for any movements from his foe. Yet, so far, silence greeted him, save for the noise of the freezer's fans circulating cold air throughout the room.

The sound of clinking noises was heard as Svartel bumped into a few beef slabs hanging from chains attached to the ceiling. Instantly, Sigrun saw his moment to strike.

Erupting quickly from his ambush point, he threw one of the large carcasses toward the vampire, and followed closely with his blade to plunge into the vampire's flesh. Unfortunately, his aim was limited to his sense of hearing and best judgement as visual guidance was impossible.

As the blade traveled viciously in pursuit of beef and vampire, it would be a matter of lady luck's help in his accuracy.

The question was...

Did she care?

Svartel had been ready for it as his assumption had been correct. If Sigrun hadn't attacked he'd have a few more hundred kilos lying upon him, making his death all the more likely. Whilst the elf didn't get crushed, Svartel now had a better idea of where he was.

The rushing movement of Sigrun bursting from his hiding place caused Svartel to turn and raise his blade just as a large piece of beef flew past his head. Bringing his blade forward, Svartel expected to have his blade meet Sigrun's and yet it simply sliced through another piece of beef.

Timed quite well, Sigrun's blade emerged from the darkness to slice across Svartel's upper arm as it was fully exposed. Hissing with pain, Svartel now had good enough idea of Sigrun to charge forward and unleash a thundering punch into the elf. He didn't know what part of the elf he'd struck but it was hard and by the sounds of things something broke, whether it be bone or muscle.

With Sigrun forced backwards, Svartel brought his blade around once again and charged forward, floating through the air at tremendous speeds as he brought a razor sharp, curved blade into a downward arc, aimed at the approximate location of Sigrun's head.
__________

Now in full lychan form, Ivan was much more agile and able to leap over the path of Luzja's bullets as he continued to charge towards her. There was no mistaking the look in his eyes, Ivan wanted her blood plastered all over the building and he was more than willing to do it.

Ivan wasn't put off my Luzja's battle cry in the slightest and simply snarled back as she dodged out of his path. Skidding to a stop, the lychan launched himself into the air with the intention of landing atop the young vampire and ripping her to pieces.

Since Ivan appeared to be able to dodge bullets when fully in lycan form, Lujza dropped the AK and readied her axe. She knew she was probably about to die. Well, hopefully this fucker will be hurting bad if that happens she thought.

When the behemoth was in range she delievered a full-bodied blow to his shoulder. Though she could hear bones crack, the power given to Ivan's leap by his weight caused Lujza to stumble and she fell backward onto Derek's corpse, dropping her axe in the process. Frantically, in the split second before Ivan landed on her, she groped franticallyf for any weapon. What's this? she asked in her mind as she grasped the handle of something.

Stephen looked at his fledgling and laughed slightly. He had never been good at soccer or rugby; baseball and swimming though he had excelled in. He himself was still shocked at the fact he had been able to remove a head in such a brutal way. Stephen looked at Hondur, it didn't take mind reading to tell the ancient was a bit suprised by his actions.

Stephen nodded to what Hondur said, before he could start sending information to the vampires he knew the building rumbled beneath his feet. Aw fuck not again. The Simatarian's mind flashed for a second, the boy he had just saved. A quick mental scan located him, but no one else in the building. Probably everyone else had evacuated earlier but the boys parents had thought to wait it out.

"You guys get out, something I need to do."

Before Hondur or Viannor could stop him, Stephen went down through the roof door to look for the boy. It would be difficult for him to live knowing he saved someone just to have them die. He found the apartment. Two torn up bodies lay in the middle of a blood dreached living room.

He headed to the boy's room and broke open the door just as he felt the building give another rumble from the stress on the weakened foundation. A flurry of silver flew towards him as fancy silverware and jewlery sailed to him. A quick dodge and mental blast helped him take only a scratch on the back of his neck.

The kid tried to run, still obviously in shock. Stephen grabbed him around his waist and smashed open the window and left that way. He put the boy on the ground and gave him a nudge towards some VP officers coming to check out that side of the building. He jumped to another building across the street and watched from cover the boy being found and quickly being evacuated out of the hot zone.

Now that was over, Stephen began to look for his friends.

"Hondur, Viannor...where are you?"

Keeping her feet as the building shook, Viannor hurried to the edge of the rooftop. Despite the ease in which she'd ascended the building, a one-way trip straight down didn't apeal to her much. She did, however, spot a landing site softer than the tarmac below. Propelling herself over the edge she plummeted the few storeys to land in a sitting position on the top of a car below. The roof crumpled under her impact, windows shattering in wide arcs of glass.

The alarm shrieked at her, the horn blaring, hazard lights flashing and a high-pitched electronic scream that hurt her ears, never mind the force of the impact that produced more than a dull ache in her backside. She climbed gingerly off the car and looked around for any danger.

"Hondur, Viannor..." Stephen was in her head. "Where are you?"

"Just coming," she replied, reaching out with her mind to find where her sire was. Finding him quickly, he was only a block or so away, after all. Figuring the best way would be across the rooftops, Viannor used a series of windowledges and balconies to climb the nearest building, before leaping across the empty streets to join Stephen.

"Is there anything in this bloody city that isn't going to explode?" She asked him.

Stephen laughed at Viannor's comment. She had a good point though. Emerald City residents and business probably had high insurance rates because of all the wars that had raged through there. He turned and waved his hand across a portion of the city.

"My dear fledgling, you are forgetting that there have been three previous wars in this city alone. I am not suprised if many of these older buildings have not been nearly leveled at one point or another. The last war here, the one everyone thought ended them all...I personally leveled a shopping mall."

He turned and smiled at Viannor. "Brand new too. I kept up with the news on the internet...people were pissed all to hell. Some of the stores were already stocking their shelfs with electronics and stuff. A few million down the drain as I remember."

Stephen took a handkerchief from his pocket and began to wipe the blood that coated his face and made his hair a wet mop.

"Emerald is a nice place, as long as you are not caught in battle."

With a sickening and incredibly painful snapping of bones, Sigrun's body absorbed the impact of Svartel's punch and he flew backwards, colliding through several hanging slabs of meat. If it hadn't been for those meats, Svartel's following strike with his blade would have severed Sigrun's head. Wincing in pain, Sigrun scrambled away on his hands and knees, struggling to get to his feet. His ribs crunched inside his body, sending jolts of pain throughout him.

He knew he couldn't best Svartel by force alone, and so his mind struggled to think of what to do next. His sword was gone, lying somewhere in the freezer. He was not unarmed though, for elves are rather resourceful creatures. With one hand held to his side, he muttered under his breath a spell to begin to bonding of bones to reheal, at least to the point where his eyes didn't fill with redness everytime he tried to move.

His hand clenched down on a number of hooks and metal rods lying nearby, and he paused. Moving quickly, and still unsure of where Svartel was, he gathered the metal up and muttered another spell under his breath. Instantly, they began to move strategically around him. Should one of them encounter vampiric flesh, the rest would, as if by magnetic force, surge at once toward the vampire and bury itself. All twenty-three hooks and rods, as Sigrun had quickly mentally counted while preparing his spell.

He lay there on the ground, with the hooks and rods above him, and a heavy duty sheet pan in his hands as a makeshift shield. As he lay there, he knew he had to get out, and hopefully trap the vampire in the freezer. He unlocked the freezer door with another nearly silent spell uttered from his cold lips...

Ivan howled in fury and agony as the silver bladed axe bit deeply into his flesh, searing the tissue and hair that composed his body. To make matters worse the blow had actually shattered several bones within his shoulder as well, leaving a constant ache that would be with him for some time, until he finally healed. Unfortunately lycans didn't heal as quickly as vampires and it would be at least a few days before his shoulder fulled healed up.

Despite the thundering blow, Ivan's momentum continued to carry him forward as Luzja fell back, landing next to the recently deceased Derek. Seconds after Luzja hit the roof, Ivan landed atop her, his massive weight keeping the lower part of her body pinned to the ground.

With his prey not going anywhere, Ivan snarled as he began to tear away at Luzja's shoulder, enjoying the sweet taste of blood and human flesh.
_______________

Hondur steadied himself slightly as the building shook once again. Before he could even say a word Stephen had disappeared down a flight of stairs, off to compensate his sense of morallity after what he'd just done no doubt. Whilst Hondur couldn't say he would do such a thing, he had nothing against Stephen saving humans if he wished.

For a moment the ancient vampire remembered the days when he was so idealistic. When he thought he could save everyone and even be a vampiric hero, someone that humans would appreciate. Of course those dreams had been crushed quickly thanks to the combination of Skadi's ruthless attitude and the harsh truth that is reality. These days he'd be just as likely to be shot by a human in need than thanked.

Levitating into the air, Hondur turned his attention back to the issue at hand. Whilst the VP barricades were being held off, there weren't enough numbers to completely get rid of them and it appeared much of the other coven forces were occupied with smaller VP forces and other vampires. He didn't have anything else up his sleeve, no plan B or secret weapon to take care of the few remaining forces.

As Stephen called out to Hondur and Viannor, Hondur dropped from the sky to land a few meters behind his younger friend, seconds after Viannor had arrived.

"I don't know what we can do to finish them off. Even with the vulcan guns down, we don't have the forces or weapons to convincingly obliterate the other vampires or the VP. Any ideas?"
_______________

Fortunately for the elf he'd managed to escape the initial wrath of Svartel's blade yet it would not be the last attempt upon his life. Kicking the slabs of beef out of his path, Svartel followed the scraping sound of Sigrun scrambling away on all fours.

Slowing floating through the freezer, Svartel strained his senses in order to pick up the slightest noise under the roaring of the freezer fans. For a while there was simply silence until the slight clang of metal against metal drew his attention. Reacting with superhuman speed, Svartel swung his weapon around so that the blunt end was facing towards where he though Sigrun lay waiting.

A quick twist combination resulted in the blunt end opening to reveal several tiny blades as they rocketed out of the pipe and towards Sigrun's approximate position. The spray was quite similar to that of a shotgun yet not possessing the same amount of force.
___________

Skadi, Idun and Ashur were now all on their feet and attempting to gain entry into the freezer. After several attempts it soon became evident that Sigrun had done something arcane to prevent the door from being opened, despite the strength of two ancient vampires and an elf combined.

Frustrated and still sore from her recent injury, Skadi gave the door one last heave and to her surprise the door was almost ripped off its tracks as the ancient vampire opened the path into the freezer.

Drawing her sword once again, Skadi began to enter and search for her lover and enemy.

Lujza screamed in anguish as the enormous lycan simultaneously crushed her and bit off chunks of her shoulder. Her voice escaped in both pure shrieks and in streams of curse words, mostly in Callisdrunian, but one could make out "You fucking piss-drinking bitch" and similar phrases.

Thinking she was about to die, and desperate to do any damage at all to Ivan, Lujza finally managed to get the object she was grasping the handle of out of the late Derek's jacket. She found it was a dagger. One with a very pretty looking blade, definitely silver. She stopped her screaming abruptly, and her face assumed an expression that while somewhat resembling a grimace of pain, was much more a maniacal grin. Ivan had not seen her withdraw the dagger, so intent was he on the carnage he was creating, but he surely saw her face. Someone in Lujza's situation grinning would strike anyone as odd, and most as unnerving.

With a sadistic cackle, Lujza drove the dagger upward, into Ivan, with every ounce of strength that remained in her. It made a sickening sound as it suddenly entered the VP commander's, the lycan's flesh. Lujza's black eyes twinkled with tears of agony but also with delight in being able to inflict one last act of violence on the brute. A random thought crossed her mind. I wonder if he recognizes me, this close up?

Once Hondur arrived, Stephen could breath easier. He had his map of Emerald in his hand and he was marking off where the VP barricades were. The neonate also kept tabs with Hondur's commanders as they pulled in the reserves and every last vampire they could recruit or pull from coven security. Right now the VP had armored cars moving through the streets, many with infantry and some without.

Hondur popped the question. The Simatarian looked at Hondur, his soft eyes turned bright, Artic cold blue. Stephen's response is something the ancient could not have expected.

"Why aren't you captain of the fucking obvious? We got pratically every VP officer in Assington, nearly every street vamp punk...who knows when the fucking military is gonna show up with howitzers and mortars. Hondur...I fucking said...I fucking said that we could never complete a war in this size without help. Help from the elves, form a tempoary alliance with them and work our shit out later.

"But no, your sire had to be the ever in control bitch that she is and throw away the most sensible idea. Instead of having the elves on our side and able to coordinate attacks with them hitting the command centers of the VP while we hit the main forces...what do we got? Nothing, our guys can't get ouf of this shit fest.

"Hondur, I always imagined you one with sense. God dammit, did you even this about telling Skadi she might be wrong when she showed Idun out through the window? Or were you just the mindless fledgling? Now, our guys are spread out so much the VP can isolate us and crush us one by one."

Stephen paused, his blue eyes turned from the bright, coldness, back to the softer blue. He looked at his map and regained his bearings.

"I have seen RPGs in your armories, everyone to the roofs. The one place a tank or an APC can never fire is straight up. The Russians learned that in Chechneya when they sent unescorted tanks into the Chechen capital. We hit them from the top...knock out the vechiles first and last in line...preventing the others from escapeing and then empty your guns on the VP below."

Ivan's body stiffened as the agony of silver surged through his nervous system. Releasing Luzja's shoulder, the lychan simply stared at the vampire for some time, as if to ask what the hell had just happened. The pain was beginning to subside and yet the dagger still lay within his chest, burried to the hilt.

Unfortunately for Ivan the silver dagger had entered his heart. Whilst lychans had the ability to heal rapidly, they were living beings and did need their organs to live. Thus Ivan had encountered a critial problem in his crusdade against the vampiric kind of Emerald City. He was dying.

As life continued to fade away, Ivan began to revert back to his human form, his mind losing the rabid bloodlust of his lychan side as humanity took the reigns once again. At this point Ivan's eyes went wide as he felt like he'd just been slapped in the face. He recognised the girl before him.

She was one of the two girls that had visited the VP HQ, before it had been destroyed by the vampires. He couldn't believe it, there had been a vampire standing right before him and he didn't even notice, not a single clue that the enemy was in his base of operations, setting the conditions for an attack.

"You..."

Ivan manged one word as his strength crumbled and his life extinguished, dying with the knowledge he'd been duped.
___________

Hondur recieved Stephen's rant with an expressionless face. Whilst the younger vampire may be the one with military history and understanding of tactics, he only knew the tip of the iceberg when it came to Skadi's history and the relations between her and certain factions.

Fixing Stephen with a stern glare, Hondur sighed as he responded to the heated words of his younger friend.

"There is a very good reason why we are not allied with the elves. You may have your ideas of what elves are like from meeting Sigrun's ilk or whatever else you've encountered in this world but let me tell you now, none of that applies to these beings.

"They cannot be trusted at all. Haven't you noticed them at all? They're out and about killing us! Not just them but everyone and last time I checked we're still supposed to be at a truce. Skadi knew this much better than anyone else and she'd much rather have us expecting it than having our allies stab us in the back. There is much more going on here than mere logistical sense.

"Besides that vitally important fact, the elves don't even have the numbers to make a significant difference. Whatever you may think of Skadi, know she is no fool. She does everything for a reason and does not simply act and react on whims."

Hondur paused to turn around and grab the shaft of an elven arrow between both palms. Fortunately the sound of a bowstring travelled faster than the arrow itself and so the ancient vampire had enough warning to prevent the silver arrow head lodging itself into his back. Facing Stephen once again, Hondur waved the arrow in front of his face.

"Would you prefer one of these in your gut or in your back? As for the VP. They're not likely to bring in the military unless they think they'll lose. What we need to do is strike all at once, hit them so hard they'll have no chance to respond before they're dead. If we simply attack their vehicles, they'll call for backup."

Dropping the arrow, Hondur turned to Viannor.

"I know this isn't your home but on the off chance, did you bring any big toys along with you? Anything that would help us get rid of many men very quickly?"

Sigrun let out a cry as the metal smashed into the sheet pan and forced them down upon his body with hammering force. A few punctured the metal and buried themselves into his flesh, bringing fresh blood to the surface. He remained still however, as he waited for Svartel to come within range of his trap.

Just then, the freezer door disappeared from its mounts and bright light from outside the freezer bathed the entire interior of the cold room. Startled, Sigrun turned his head to gaze upon the newcomers. Their silhouettes kept their identities unknown, but the glint of a familiar blade made him glad for a moment.

"Skadi..." he whispered, feeling the stiffening effect of the cold air in the freezer taking hold of his muscles.

Managing only a sigh as Ivan resumed human form, Lujza stared into the man's eyes as he died. Her fangs were still bared, but her face lost its tension, assuming a relaxed expression, though her black eyes remained rooted on Ivan's pupils. It was an intense stare.

It probably also probably had helped the VP commander recognize her. When Ivan's eyes suddenly widened, Lujza knew that the lycan realized that he'd seen her before.

When Ivan spoke his final word, Lujza smiled, fully exposing her fangs. The dying VP's fiinal sight in this world was the face of the Moroii.

Lujza let Ivan's body collapse onto her. He was heavy, but she did not have the energy to get out from under the corpse, and simply through her head back and panted. She did not want to look at the ruins of her shoulder, she knew it was bad. She felt a wet sensation on her chest and stomach, and realized that the dead VP commander's blood was spilling all over her. Instinctively, she brought her mouth up to the cadaver's neck and tore open his throat. Ivan's blood was still warm, and after all, since he was dead, he could make no further use of it, so Lujza fed desperately, trying to take in all she could hold.

Stephen greeted Hondur's gaze coldy and at 'She does everything for a reason and does not simply act and react on whims', the young vampire's eyes turned and obvious brighter and colder shade of blue before going back to thier normal color. Skadi beating him with a milimeter of his life several nights was a reaction on her own authority. He clearly remembered during the Third Assington War, he kept his place behind her, looked up to her, and obeyed without question. He now wondered why.

Stephen stared at the arrow Hondur waved in front of him. He did not say a word and kept quiet. As Hondur questioned Viannor, Stephen began to think of ways to take out the most about of VP with the least amount of damage done to the civilians hiding in thier basements.

So far all of his ideas would turn up dozens, if not hundreds of humans dead. Far too many for his liking, though he knew probably to Hondur they might be acceptable. Stephen looked at his fledgling, wondering if she had anything up her sleeve.

As the artificial light from a few working bulbs breached the darkness of Sigrun's location, Skadi turned her gaze upon her elven companion, his whisper drawing her full attention. Immediately she could see he was injured, nothing vital yet injured nonetheless and that was far more than Skadi ever wished to see.

Moving forward with caution, Skadi's blade remained ready to cut through Svartel the second he appeared. The limp in Skadi's own leg only fuelled her desire to finally destroy Svartel and be rid of all connections with her past.

Upon noticing light enter the freezer, Svartel gained a brief glance of Sigrun's position. With a target in sight, Svartel rotated another switch, causing a thin silver blade to emerge from the barrel end of his pole. Now with a double sided weapon for slashing and stabbing, Svartel would be sure to do a thourough job on the elven bastard.

Without hesitating, Svartel charged forward with the thin blade aimed towards the chest of Sigrun, hoping to tear his heart out.

"Up my sleeve, indeed, Stephen," Viannor smiled as she pulled back her left sleeve on her long coat, "I didn't think we were connected that well."

Up her sleeve, quite literally, was her mini-computer, attached to a strong band around her forearm. She extended a small thin ariel and tapped a couple of small buttons.

"Viannor to Luxor, come in please."

<Receiving you, my Lady.>

"Put me through to the CO on deck, if you would be so kind."

<Immediately.>

Viannor's politeness had kicked in all of a sudden. Subconciously her 'telephone voice' had kicked in. Polite, pleasant and patient, it was everything her current dusty, maimed, blood-spattered appearance was not.

<Commander Scacchi here, my Lady, what can I do for you?>

"What sort of hardware does the Luxor have at my disposal?" The Luxor was a Starblaydi Naval Frigate anchored off the coast of Assington, comandeered by Lady Viannor as her personal transport to Assington. "Specifically, what can be deployed here in Emerald City ASAP?"

<Ignoring the possible diplomatic issues for a...>

"Yes, ignore them. Completely." Her irritation was starting to show, and the Commander could obviously feel it, so he progressed quickly.

<One helicopter with a full tank of gas and a pilot is about all we have for you. We can add a couple of machine-gunners to it, but that's it for hardware. If you wanted more than that we should have brought along a Battlecruiser.> On the ship, he knew he'd just gone a little too far.

"Thankyou, Commander." Viannor used the rank as an insult. "Add in some Navy-issue heavy infantry weapons with lots of ammunition and have the whole lot sent immediately. Use your most trusted men. You have me on GPS. Out."

<Affirmative.>

With Viannor's instructions being carried out as fast as was humanly possible in the waters off Emerald City, she turned to Hondur and Stephen.

"You want to attack things from above and be highly mobile with lots of things to kill men... humans with? Well that's just what I'm providing. AK-105s, I believe we use."

Stephen looked at Viannor's wrist computer with amazment. Jeez, could have used one of those in the military. He chuckled and wondered if she got wireless internet on it. As he listened carefully, he was shocked to learn of how she got to Assington and was even more shocked at what she was suggesting. Though he could not deny they needed heavy firepower, he did not want to provoke a war between Assington and Starblaydia.

"Viannor, tell the commander before the chopper lifts off to get rid of any Starblaydia insignia on the men and on the chopper. I don't think we should start a country on country war. At any rate, great thinking. This will definatly turn the battle in our favor."

Stephen turned and scanned the city, fires were breaking out where buildings and vehciles burned, the sound of gunfire drowned out most other noises, as well as the screaming of the dying. The Simatarian lifted his pistol and seemed to level it at Hondur and pulled the trigger. A silver slug traveled past the ancient's head and across the street to another roof.

The bullet smashed into the forehead of a young vampire trying to draw a bead on Hondur with a rifle. The fledgling crumpled over the edge of the roof and onto the concrete below.

"Old age must be getting to you. Watch your back old timer."

"I can feel how green you're going with envy over this little toy of mine from here," she said, directly to Stephen's mind, "but I don't know how I missed that detail. I've been running black operations for as long as I can remember. Besides, our naval pilots are pretty damn good."

Viannor smiled and turned away, communicating with her Frigate again. She was the Lady-Quaestor, Chief of Starblaydia's Intelligence and Security Service - the Inquisition - so more than a few perks came with her title. Extravagant equipment that was not so much 'cutting-edge' as 'chop-your-arms-of-from-50-yards-away-edge' was just one of them.

Hondur produced a small grin for the first time in many hours as Viannor listed off what she could provide in order to finalise the current situation. The chopper would provide the extra mobile firepower necessary to finish off those remaining vampires and VP officers in the area.

"Good. I'll have all our forces move onto rooftops or attempt to strike the VP from behind, whilst you have the chopper focus on killing all the enemy vampires on the street. By the time that's done there should be very little left and we'll simply have to pick off a few stragglers."

At that point Stephen promptly took care of an armed vampire attempting to seperate Hondur's head into many pieces from atop a roof across the street. Nodding in thanks to his vampiric companion, Hondur replied by moving behind Stephen in the blink of an eye.

"In my old age I can move faster than most can blink..."

Looking around the battle scene, Hondur noted a few dead elves and several other small skirmishes now spread across the streets and yet his eyes didn't find the specific image of his intended target.

"Anyone seen Luzja lately?"

Death loomed closer with its double edged scythe and prepared to srike the elf with a fatal blow when the unexpected happened. A single hook in a slow patrol over the body of Sigrun was interrupted in its movements. As if given new life, the hook suddenly buried itself into the rib cage of the vampire and entangled itself there.

Yet, that was only the beginning...

A series of reflecting light shimmered on the glinting metal of the other hooks and rods that hung over Sigrun, his only direct shield against the menacing vampire. The metal objects suddenly swirled rapidly over Sigrun's body and hammered into the ancient vampire with such vicious force that he couldn't help but scream out in pain and agony. What's worse, due to the spell, the metal buried themselves into the vampire's body, some even completely entering his flesh and striking organs inside, and moving about like living metallic maggots, tearing apart at the vampiric flesh with vicious bite.

During this attack, Sigrun crawled closer to Skadi as he struggled to extract himself from the deadly scenario behind him...

Svartel had no idea of what lay in wait as he charged towards the injured elf. He was hoping for an easy kill yet was evidently quite open to the fact that the crafty creature probably had something ready in order to defend himself. The hooks were completely unexpected though.

The ancient vampire gasped as the first hook dug itself into his ribs before settling itself firmly within his left lung. Whilst that was bad enough, it seemed the other hooks were drawn towards this first one and so Svartel was bombarded with sharp, rusty agony as the hooks tore at his flesh and ripped his insides apart. It wouldn't kill the vampire unless his head was taken off yet there was no escaping the tremendous amount of pain it was causing him.

Skadi took this oppurtunity to grab Sigrun by the shoulders and drag him out of the freezer, away from the possible harm that Svartel still may inflict. Leaning her elven companion against one of the many crates within the warehouse, Skadi quickly examined him. Several wounds covered the elf's body yet none of them appeared to be too serious. Whilst Sigrun seemed in a fair amount of pain, he wouldn't be at risk of death.

In the few seconds that others turned their attention to Sigrun, Svartel gathered his strength and began removing hooks one by one with a combination of his hands and mind. There was no avoiding the pain that preceded each clang of a hook clattering against the ground. Unfortunately before he could finish the task, Svartel had to leap backwards as Idun's and Ashur's blades lunged for him.

Enduring the hooks for a while longer, Svartel ducked under Ashur's swing as the elf approached and replied with a thundering blow to the gut before removing a hook from his left arm and promptly wedging into Ashur's knee, causing a pained scream to escape his lips. With the elf momentarily out of the game again, Svartel merely kicked him across the ground, sending him back into the main warehouse area.

Pained and angered beyond reason, Svartel merely screamed as he charged Idun and takled his vampiric brother, the pair smashing through a wooden crate to land in the middle of the warehouse once again.

As Stephen ejected the spent magazine from the pistol, he did not notice Hondur moving behind him. Once the ancient spoke, Stephen's instincts kicked in and he spun and pulled the trigger. The Para gave a click and there was an odd moment of silence between them as thier eyes turned to the pistol. The slide was slid back and locked in place and the chamber was clear.

Stephen sighed in relief and slid a magazine into the butt and chambered the round. "It is a bad idea to sneek up on people in battle Hondur, you should know that."

Once Hondur had made the mention of Lujza, Stephen looked around for her. The last time he remembered seeing her was just when thier platoon had been rescued and linked up with Hondur.

"I'll be right back."

Stephen jumped over several rooftops, wondering where she could be. A mental scan proved a bit difficult, but it narrowed down his search area. Within another two minutes, he found Lujza feeding upon Ivan's corpse. Stephen felt a spring of joy in his chest as he found the dead Russian and his killer.

Stephen kicked Ivan off Lujza and promptly put his hands up, allowing the other vampire some time to see he was friendly. Picking her up, Stephen jumped to the nearest roof and set her down. Pulling back his trenchcoat sleeve, he offered her his wrist.

"Need any more?"

He then sent a message to Hondur and Viannor. "I found Lujza, I'll be back with her in a few minutes."

Lujza flinched slightly as Ivan's body slid off her to the side, her fangs ripping the corpse's throat even further. "Oof" she said as Stephen picked her up. She felt pretty sore, but better than she had during the fight, due to the huge amount of blood she had already consumed. Much of her front was soaked in blood, her shirt, well, actually Skadi's shirt, clung to her and was sticky with the stuff. She licked some of the dead VP commander's blood from her lips.

"I could use a little more," she said when Stephen offered his wrist. She knew that the blood of these vampires had healing qualities, and didn't know if Ivan's lycan blood had provided anything but nourishment, and so bit Stephen lightly on his lower arm, just below his elbow, generating a trickle of blood that she then lapped up. "I need to retrieve my weapons," she said to Stephen. Her face suddenly turned quite sad, as she remembered that her weapons were near where Derek, without whose help she would undoubtably be dead now, lay.

Through his mental powers, Stephen was able to keep the wound open until Lujza had her fill. Letting the wound heal and the moroii get the last bits on his arm, Stephen peered over the rooftop to where her weapons lay. Leaving her with a pistol, in case any vampires or humans came looking, he dropped down from the building and ran over to the corpse of Derek. Poor bastard.

Stephen grabbed Lujza's AK, battle axe, and from Ivan's chest took the silver dagger. He took a few seconds to examine it. It suprised him that in this modern world of firearms and smart weapons, people were still using out dated gear like this. He remembered during his first year as a vampire owning a sword, he had sold it at the end of the third Assington War back in the Golden Simatar for a few hundred. With her gear in hand Stephen jumped back on the roof.

Slinging Lujza's rifle and axe around his shoulder, Stephen picked up Lujza and made the trip back to Viannor and Hondur. Gently putting the moroii on her feet, he helped her regain her balance and returned her rifle and axe.

"Here, you might find this handy later on." Stephen then handed her the silver dagger she used to dispose of the lycan.

Not needing much blood, as she couldn't hold much more, Lujza had fed quickly, lapping up the last drops after Stephen's wound closed. "Thanks."

Stephen didn't take long to get her weapons, and she clung tightly to him as the flew to where some of the others were. She slung her AK across her back by its black leather strap when Stephen handed it back to her and hooked her axe onto her belt, finally taking the dagger that she had ended up killing Ivan with. "Thank you. This was actually Derek's. I think he'd be pleased to know that the bastard lycan died by it."

She then turned to Viannor and Hondur. "Ivan will no longer be troubling us," she said in a solemn voice. By Lujza's face, she was still clearly angry at the man. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she started fidgeting her feet. She looked quite uncomfortable.

Stephen was glad that the lycan was gone now, the VP of course would be in an uproar over it and could possibly go on a rampage. In his opinion, captain of the VP in Emerald City was probably the most hazardous job in the world, from what he had learned from Skadi, Hondur, and Sigrun that the VP had a tendency to lose high ranking officers.

The Simatarian had no time to react to the object flying towards him. The sounds of battle masked the whistle of the arrow. Stephen did not notice it until it had buried itself deep in his back. The young vampire cried out as the silver point came to rest inside his right kidney. As he turned with pistol in hand, he saw another flicker as the shooter attempted to get off the killing shot.

Stephen fired several rounds into the dark area of the building across the street before he tripped and the arrow hit his left shoulder instead of his head. This arrow he easily tore out, thankfully the point was not still in him. The one burried in his back would prove more of a problem. Combining mental powers to open the wound inside of him more, Stephen was able to slid the arrow a little easier out.

When it was out, Stephen dropped it and leaned against an AC unit, gasping for air. He also quickly fed from his bloodstone to help heal the burned organs. It was then he stared at Hondur.

No words were spoke and by the look in Stephen's eyes the ancient could see the neonate had partically given into that there would be no elf-vampire alliance.

Hondur gave Luzja an appreciative nod as she arrived, informing the group of her deed. It was quite remarkable that a foreign vampire such as her managed to touch it out in this battle of stronger vampires and even kill off a formidable lycan such as Ivan. Unfortunately the death of Derek also reminded Hondur of the very reason he wished to avoid this entire thing. Another good friend was gone.

"Your deeds will be remembered Luzja... as will Derek's."

The ancient vampire noticed Luzja's uneasy state yet before he could question her about such Stephen cried out in pain as a silver headed arrow wedged itself into the vampire's back, unleashing agony through his nerves.

Hondur simply allowed Stephen to fix himself up whilst keeping an eye out for any other would be assassins as there were still plenty of them lurking about. There wasn't any point in saying anything, Stephen seemed to already realise that he was wrong.

As the battle continued, coven forces from all over the city began to converge upon the location of the main confrontation, gathering upon rooftops or hiding within the shadows. When the time came they would strike the barricades and obliterate the blockades whilst Viannors attack chopper took care of the enemy vampires scattered around the streets. Upon recieving confirmation, Hondur returned his attention to Viannor.

"We're good to go."

"Derek was real good guy," she said, in response to Hondur's comment, her voice making her gratitude to the fallen vampire very clear. Suddenly, they were under fire, and Stephen was hit by an arrow, and then another as he fired back. Lujza hurried to help Stephen get up, asking him if he was ok. "That's rather bad luck," she said, helping him to cover. She didn't know much about elves, but from what she did know, they and vampires didn't like each other.

She then went up to Hondur, who was talking to Viannor. Lujza heard him say "We're good to go," right when she got up to the pair.

"Um... I'm not good to go..." she said somewhat sheepishly. "I have to pee." She had consumed quite a lot of blood that night, and by now, quite a bit of it had been digested. "Should I just break into one of these buildings and go there?"

An arrow flew by them as they were talking, grazing Lujza's arm. "Fucking bitch," she muttered as she unleashed a burst from her gun in the direction of the sniper, which resulted in a distant scream. It appeared as if there had been a pair of elvish snipers.

Hondur silently looked down at Luzja for a moment. It was almost amusing save for the fact that their lives were still very much at risk of being obliterated with relative ease.

"Uh... yeah, just find somewhere that's still in good enough condition to have a bathroom."

It seemed Hondur kept forgetting that Luzja was quite a different vampire and many of her bodily functions still actually operated, including her digestion and associated organs.

Almost all vampires were in position, the majority holding back so as to avoid a VP reaction of calling in more forces. Hondur wanted this to be a surprise, one foul swoop that would hit them hard and allow no quarter for survival or reaction. They would all die, it was the only way.
___________

As the pair skidded to a halt, Svartel sprung to his knees and prepared to bring his fist crashing into Idun's face. Unfortunately before he could manage such several arrows pierced his back, unleashing the familiar agony of silver through Svartel's body, causing him to collapse to the ground.

Seeing this as his chance, Idun got to his own feet and quickly retrieved his sword, preparing for a lethal blow. As the blade descended towards Svartel's head, the tip was urged to the side by a force unknown to Idun, causing the blade to plunge into Svartel's gut instead of his head. Screaming in pain, Svartel unleashed a raw, unfocused surge of mental power, launching Idun through the air and into his elven companion.

Dragging Sigrun to his feet, Skadi gave him a quick slap across the face to bring him back to the world around him.

"Sigrun, this is our chance. He's wounded and his mind isn't clear."

Grabbing her blade once again, Skadi kept an eye on Svartel as she prepared to make her move.

Quickly running across the alley, Lujza used her axe to break down the door to one of the buildings, swiftly entering. A scream, followed by Lujza's voice swearing angrily, could be heard from inside. In about two minutes she was back outside.

"Morons..." she said. "One would think nobody had ever wanted to use their bathroom before." Lujza quickly rejoined the group, being amazed that the people in the building hadn't fled yet, but had been hiding in the bathroom.

In the middle of attempting to do some quick field medical healing, Skadi yanked Sigrun upward to his feet and delivered a decently painful slap across the face. She spoke quickly, informing him of Svartel's current weakness.

Nodding in agreement, he gripped his sword in hand, which had still managed to stay near his person for the last few minutes and looked toward Svartel. Sigrun moved to the side of the room with a stealth capable by few species and ascended to the rafters by a series of perches and mounts. He quickly stole across one of the beams and then halted as he came overhead of the ancient nemesis.

With a cry befitting him, he dropped down quickly, preparing to use his feet as the hammering force, and the blade to sink in a downward arch into Svartel's backside, hopefully to strike his very heart...

Whilst Svartel was occupied with the task of attempting to remove arrows from his back, he didn't notice Sigrun ascending into the rafters until he found a point almost directly above the ancient vampire.

Skadi approached slowly with her blade out, keep a portion of Svartel's attention which resulted in the vampire being completely unaware as Sigrun rocketed downwards with his legs slamming into Svartel and his blade plunging into the vampire's lower back, adding to the multitude of wounds accumulating in that region.

With Svartel now overwhelmed for the moment, Skadi made her moved and dived foward, delivering blow after blow with her silver blade, digging into his flesh and searing organs. Blood sprayed everywhere as Skadi carved through her enemy with vicious intent, each blow causing Svartel to scream in agony.

Whilst still in a significant amount of pain, Svartel unleashed his mental strength once again, sending both vampire and elf through the air and away from his person. Skadi merely stopped herself with her own metal prowess as she was not about to let this oppurunity slide.

She would kill Svartel this night. Stumbling to his feet, Svartel collapsed once again. It appeared as though the vampire's mind was the only thing willing him along as his body seemed to be too crippled to do much.

"I'll see your head on my blade for that bitch..."

The force of the psionic surge threw Sigrun into an oversized plastic garbage can, causing it to crack and break under his instant weight. Recovering just fine from it, he got up and checked his own wounds briefly before advancing on Svartel again.

Skadi was advancing as well, her animalistic rage clearly displayed on her face.

"I'll see your head on my blade for that bitch..." Svartel spat out to her as he stood somewhat awkwardly with his mental prowress.

"That's my bitch you're talking about, bitch!" Sigrun declared as he sent forth another series of slashes toward the vampire combined with a piece of metal in hand being thrown toward Svartel's throat.

Svartel didn't wish to bother with petty elven intervention whilst he diposed of Skadi and so he decided that Sigrun would have to simply watch the game as Svartel felt it would be best for the elf to see his vampiric lover die before him.

Deflecting the piece of metal with mental ease, Svartel focused upon Sigrun, surrounding his form in a cage of telekinetic strength. Now with a firm grip upon Sigrun, Svartel launched the elf high into the air before allowing gravity to take control for a moment and finally he accelerated the elf into the floor, hard.

Upon heard the massive thud move throughout the warehouse, Skadi made her move as her blade sliced through Svartel's left hand, taking off the top half. Unfortunately Svartel seemed to be in a state where his body was numb to pain, thus the attack only resulted in Skadi taking a sharp right hit to the face.

Skadi spun as she fell to the ground, her back now facing Svartel after such a vicious blow to the face. The ancient vampire knew many bones in her face were now broken and unfortunately she didn't have the time or the oppurtunity to allow them to heal in her current predicament.

With Skadi's back exposed, Svartel grabbed his weapon and moved to finally finish off his opponent, taking out the most challenging of his enemies.

Ashur and Idun both lay against the wall, feigning injury as they watched what would soon be the end of Skadi. They would strike just as Svartel made the kill, disposing of two enemies simultaneously.

As Svartel prepared to end the life of his ancient blood-sister, the entire warehouse suddenly groaned and shuddered as a powerful blast exploded outward from a central point. Whatever was metal inside the warehouse, suddenly was electrified, and transmitted the static electricity upward into anyone touching them. Svartel's sword was among the stronger surges of electricity. A growl could be heard escaping his lips as he turned his head to find the source of this current problem that had struck him.

Standing exactly in the same place that he had taken the fall from Svartel, Sigrun stood, his clothing torn, and blood flowing down his features. His armor had been cast aside to free himself of the electric problems. A angry glare covered his face, and the gentle eyes that had defined him, were gone. His face even seemed to have made an impossible change.

For those that might have known Sigrun as long as he had truly lived, they would have seen a ghost of an era bygone, and would have recognized the rage that filled his eyes with frightening power.

Stepping forth a single step, his voice even sounded different. It held a bitter cold accent to it, a heavy Tarlachian tongue uttering from his mouth in quiet rushes. When he switched to a common tongue, Skadi heard that voice that had won her over long ago.

"I-" he began slowly, "-refuse to die!" Sigrun growled with such a fearsome tone that even hardened warriors of countless conflicts, battles, and wars would feel a tinge of fear in the back of their minds.

Svartel almost yelped as an electric current surged up his weapon and into his arm, causing the pole to clatter against the cement floor. Knowing that such a shock wasn't simply some static buildup, Svartel turned his attention to the elves. The closest being Sigrun and obviously the aggressor as the elf stepped foward and proclaimed his reluctance to die.

Evidently this irritated Svartel to no end where he considered leaving Skadi and directling his full attention towards ridding the world of the foreign elven scum that had latched onto Skadi at some point in the past. He would certainly enjoy drinking from the rich veins of Sigrun and causing him as much pain as possible before finalling snuffing his life force.

Unfortunately for Svartel, this was his crucial mistake. He had the oppurtunity to end it in one swipe and yet he didn't take it, he allowed Skadi to recover her bearings and wits. The single biggest mistake of his life.

Knowing that to turn around would gain Svartel's attention, Skadi had to make her move and do it quick whilst she still had the chance and Svartel was still distracted. And so after micro-seconds of contemplation, Skadi made her move.

Employing the use of her telekinetic abilities, Skadi kept her feet on the ground as the upper part of her body was lifted back into the upright position. As this happened, Skadi flipped her blade around to face the point towards her. Now standing upright, Skadi plunged her own blade straight through her abdomen, ignoring the intense agony as it dived through her flesh and organs to explode out her back and continue onwards, plunging into Svartel.

Both vampires gasped in pain and yet Skadi continued to push until the hilt finally came up to her stomach. Fortunately for her, the blade had struck true and gone directly through Svartel's gut and into his lower spinal cord, paralysing him from there down. As Svartel fell to the ground, Skadi levitated herself into the air so she was positioned directly above Svartel. With her positioning fine, Skadi gripped the blade tightly so as to keep it steady within her own body and slowly began moving forwards so the blade would cut up through Svartel's spine, heading towards the base of his skull.

Screams and grunts emerged from both vampires as the silver burned both creatures and the blade continued to cut. Despite Skadi's steady grip the blade wast still moving about within her, adding to her massive amount of pain and Svartel merely screamed in overwhelming agony. The pain of silver being in his spine meant that every inch of his body was overwhelmed with such agony that he couldn't move, he couldn't do anything as Skadi continued to sever his spine in two.

Now with the majority of his body paralysed, Svartel attempted to fight back with what mental resources he could call upon. Unfortunately they were quite lacking as the pain overwhelmed his ability to focus and was no match for Skadi's force.

In one final attempt Svartel unleashed raw mental force, shaking Skadi violently but still keeping the blade on track. Despite being cut up badly inside, Skadi unleashed a scream akin to a roar as she gave it one final push, yanking the sword through the upper part of the spine and finally through Svartel's head, leaving the dead vampire in two pieces from his gut to his brain.

With all her strength spent and the pain far too overwhelming, Skadi lost hold on consciousness and plunged into a black abyss as she collapsed atop Svartel her blood pooling with his upon the floor.

Stephen was getting nervous, it would not be long before the VP began to plow through the city and destory every building that had vampires on top of it. The sounds of gunfire still controled the night and it seemed as though Svartel's force was for the most part chased off or being cornered and eradicated. Stephen wondered what was happening with Skadi and Sigrun, he had not been paying much attention to them as he was busy himself. He could only hope that they were alright.

Sigrun kept his distance as Skadi delivered the final strike that eventually ended the long life of Svartel. Yet, her chosen method of attack alarmed Sigrun, as she too suffered from her self-inflicted wound.

As soon as both bodies collapsed to the earth, Sigrun rushed forward and picked up Skadi's head. He noted the blood with a passive glance, and more importantly, the looks he saw on Ashur's and Idun's faces. They were shocked; as he was; to witness Skadi's attack, and yet there was something else.

A smug look was in their eyes. It was a look that he often saw in the eyes of predators.

Glancing down to Skadi once more, Sigrun made sure she was still alive by opening her eyes to check for dilations. She would survive for a bit longer, but her recovery would require some assitance later. Once completed, he set her down and stood, turning to the other two.

"You are here for more than what we agreed upon, are you not?" he questioned them, his eyes boring into theirs.

With Svartel dead and Skadi passed out, Ashur and Idun moved forward out of the shadows and sheathed their weapons. Whilst they may have had intentions of destroying Skadi in the oppurtune moment, that oppurtunity was now gone considering Sigrun was now wary of them and especially protective of his lady.

Both men remained silent for the moment until Ashur decided to step forward and speak to his fellow elf.

"It is true that we still have issues to discuss with Skadi and yourself but that is for another time, when she is in a better condition."

At that point Skadi moaned as she regained some sort of awareness. The silver sword still being within her gut meant that she couldn't heal and so continued to lose blood, adding to the possibility of death.

"I would suggest you remove her blade and apply your healing magiks before she gets any worse."

Idun merely remained silent as he gazed upon his vampiric sister.

Not moving immediately, Sigrun studied the two of them, looking for hidden movements in body language, anything that would warrant him to be forced into a battle. Yet, there was none.

Stepping backwards while keeping his eyes on them, he stepped over the two bodies and knelt down. His hand gripped the hilt of Skadi's sword, his other hand planting itself on her abdomen to hold her in place. With a strong heave, the katana extracted itself, blood running freely down the blade. She moaned loudly in pain as her eyes flickered open and her hand clenched his arm tightly. He pulled Skadi away from Svartel's body and lay her gently down.

"Get rid of his body. Cut his head off to make sure he's dead. Get me someone for her to feed from." he instructed the other two as he focused his attention on Skadi. Her wound bled freely, although her natural healing properties were doing their work already. Plunging his hands into her wound, he muttered a few words and watched as a glow illuminated her body from within. Having closed his eyes, he could see his work inside her torso, his fingers pulling muscles, bones, and nerves together and sealing them together. It was difficult work, piecing the many bits of flesh together, reversing the damage dealt. Much of the flesh had been burned away due to the silver, only making his work that much more difficult.

And so he worked for some time, healing her wounds until at last, her epidermal skin sealed itself shut. Wiping his bloodied hands on his clothes, he leant over Skadi and spoke softly, "Awaken." Sweat could be seen running down his face from the exhaustion of the healing, yet he was glad to have finished his work.

It was not just the sound of gunfire that controlled the night, there was another sound. Deeper and heavier, a rhythmic cutting through the air, accompanied by a pressure wave that told those below that a helicopter was above them. Straight from the Starblaydi Frigate Luxor, the craft was inbound on Viannor's location. With as few lights on as possible, and Starblaydi Naval insignia painted and masked over with the same dark-grey, near black, paint colour used on the outer skin of the military's vechicles.

The GPS systems co-ordinated the chopper towards Viannor's location, but in the dead of night, above the street lighting, with a dark-haired, blood-stained woman in dark clothes on top of a building, it wasn't the most visible of landing locations. Viannor looked around for some sort of light source and found a discarded VP rifle on the floor. Snatching it up, she swithced on the attached torch and waved it in the general direction of the chopper.

Soon they were within visual range as she waved the bird in towards thier position. Suddenly a bullet whistled past her ear. Whirling around, she saw a group of Vampires, from Svartel's coven, bounding across the rooftops towards them. She quickly flashed a glance at the pilot and pointed at the group with one hand. The other she brought across her throat in a violent slashing motion.

A look of hesitance played across the pilot's face, but that was quickly removed as Viannor pulled her own pistol and aimed a shot across the rooftops. As quick as anything the 'copter put itself between the two groups of vampires and the side-mounted heavy machine gunner tore into the creatures, sending blood and flesh into the night. As the chopper hovered a foot or so over the top of the building, not wanting to land on an unsafe spot, Viannor leapt aboard. A quick glance behind her said Are you coming? to her sire.

"Holy shit!" The gunner yelled, pointing to the Vampires as they tried to get back to their feet. "How the hell are they still moving?"

"They are vampires"

The gunner looked back to see a man in the chopper along with Viannor. Stephen looked at Viannor. "Looks like your lads need a quick lesson."

Stephen took aim at one of the mangled fledglings with his pistol and fired once. The silver slug took away most of the back of the head and the vampire lay still. Stephen fired several more .45 slugs into the group, slowing them down. Removing the magizine, Stephen pulled out the top round and showed it to the gunner. Stephen placed the silver to his finger and clenched his teeth as the silver burned.

Opening his mouth, he gently slid his fangs into place and showed the gunner the dark spot on his finger. "These vampires are hurt by silver. Since you obviously have none on board, shoot for the head or legs to slow them down. Don't have a heart attack son, vampires bleed too and they can be killed."

As Sigrun tended to Skadi, Idun and Ashur picked up Svartel's body and carried him several metres away before allowing him to smack into the cement floor. There was no need to cut of his head as the vampire's brain was already split in half thanks to Skadi's blade yet they still had a corpse to deal with.

The pair thought over their problem for a moment before Ashur nodded and Idun stepped back. The best way to get rid of a vampire was with fire of course. With Idun well away, Ashur began reciting a soft chant under his breath as he drew a sigil within the air, inches above Svartel's corpse. Upon completion of the incantation, the sigil flared into a firery red life as it descended upon Svartel.

Upon contact with the sigil, Svartel's body burst into flames as the initial heat set the rest of his blood on fire, resulting in the flames consuming him entirely. The fire burned fiercely as Ashur stood back, watching the flames consume their fallen enemy.

Skadi gasped as Sigrun's hands did their work, mending the many torn tissues, muscles and organs that had been damaged by the sustained presence of her silver blade. Sigrun's healing certainly wasn't the most pleasant experience but it was much more effective than what her own body could do. She'd lost a fair amount of blood and healing by herself would have taken some time.

Eyes open and senses returned, Skadi sat up slowly and gazed upon her elven companion, her eyes full of gratitude and thanks beyond words. She knew very well that she could have died in order to kill Svartel and she was willing to do that. Fortunately Sigrun was not willing for that to happen and his will kept her within the ranks of the undead.

Using the support of a nearby crate, Skadi rose to her feet and offered an arm to Sigrun, pulling him up and into her tight embrace. The pair remained interlocked for several minutes until they felt ready to release eachother. Still holding onto Sigrun's arm, the pair moved towards Idun and Ashur as they watched Svartel's corpse burn.

Skadi had nothing to say.
___________

Taking a moment to check out the chopper, Hondur grinned as Viannor and Stephen jumped on. It would do fine in eliminating what was left of the enemy in unison with Hondur's own forces unleashing upon the VP blockades, taking out the biggest threats to the chopper.

Turning to Luzja, Hondur indicated the chopper.

"Perhaps it would be best if you went with those two. I'll be up in the air watching over my forces."

With a nod to the other vampires, Hondur began to ascend as he communicated silently with Viannor.

"I'll have my men attack the blockades now, if you could use the manouverability of the chopper to take down stragglers around the buildings and streets then we can get this done relatively quickly."

With that said the vampire rocketed upwards, out of range from any vampires on the buildings. Looking down upon the scene, Hondur watched and ordered his men over the various city blocks, finally giving the word for an outright assault upon the remaining VP blockades in the area.

And so the confident VP under the belief they were winning suddenly had the tables turned on them when thousands of coven members emerged from hiding places within, behind or on top of buildings. Almost simultaneously the coven forces unleashed a halo of bullets, RPGs, bladed projectiles and anything else that could do damage to the enemy.

Perhaps victory was theirs afterall.

At Hondur's suggestion, Lujza nodded and jumped on board the chopper after Stephen and Viannor. "Come here often?" she asked, jokingly, to the pair.

She had often wished she could fly since coming to this land. It was an ability the Assingtonians had that she greatly envied. Oh well. At least I can enjoy a sunny day at the beach Lujza thought. To be sure, she'd need a lot of sunblock for such an activity, but it was still possible.

Lujza dismissed these idle shots as she resumed what had been her main role throughout the battle: sniper.

The embrace they shared conveyed a mutual affection for each other that had spawned thousands of years. Yet, like all things, it had its time to pass. Breaking apart from their embrace, they neared Svartel's burning body and stood there silently watching.

When the last of the body burned itself to dust, Sigrun cleared his throat and spoke, "This battle may be over, but the rest of this war still rages outside."

Nodding at Sigrun's words, Skadi placed one hand within her jacket pocket, wrapping her fingers around a cold object of death.

"We're not entirely done in here..."

With that said, Skadi spun around, her coat flying through the air as she stopped to face Idun with a fully loaded beretta pointed at his head. She had no tolerance for him or his elven brethren and knew Sigrun would have her covered as far as Ashur.

Not hesitating in the slightest, Skadi unleashed a single round from the weapon, forcing the silver bullet through Idun's skull and killing the ancient instantly. Skadi had been waiting quite some time to rid herself of the uncertain ally Idun represented as she was sure he would be plotting a similar fate for her.

Idun simply hit the cold floor with a dull thud. He hadn't even had time to react before Skadi had unleashed her lethal attack, ending his extended life for good.
________________

With the efforts of Hondur's forces and Viannor's attack helicopter, the battle ground soon became quite one sided, despite the resistance to such an overwhelming force. The VP had completely underestimated the numbers they could potentially face and so they soon found themselves being completely overrun and slaughtered.

The barricades had been dispatched within reasonable time, leaving only vehicles and enemies on foot for the chopper and coven vampires to destroy. Hondur merely hovered above the battle, watching and relaying any positions or vital pieces of information for his forces to worry about. Whilst they would win in the end, the coven would have certainly lost many members.

Stephen watched the slaughter from the helicopter. He couldn't help but feel sorry for the VP officers. He watched as many threw away thier weapons in an attempt to lighten themselves and run for a few meters before being pounced on by vampires or shot. He did not see many of Svartel's forces, they had apparently been scattered into the wind.

Stephen relaxed as the Starblaydian gunners tore into the VP. It would not be long now. With the enemy on the run, the battle would be over soon. Hopefully, it would be the last war that would tear through the streets of Emerald City. Stephen was quiet, as he stared across the ravaged city he could only wonder if this would happen to his own country when the other side of existance was found.

When that day came, Stephen knew it could be very calm or it could be an all out war that would only stop with every last vampire or human in the Golden Simatar dead.

I pray to God the latter doesn't happen.

Noting the tone in Skadi's voice, Sigrun knew what she was about to do, and simultaneously moved into action himself. The report from the Beretta conincided with the audible sound of bones snapping violently. Sigrun released his grip on Ashur's head and dropped the body to the ground alongside Idun's.

Glancing down at the two corpses, he looked to both faces of their victims. Idun held a stunned look, while Ashur's face; his head having been turned completely the opposite direction; held a look of calmness. So swift was the kill that even pain had failed to register before the elf's death.

Kneeling down to the two bodies slumped against each other, he lightly touched the fabrics of both of their clothing and 'sneezed'. Instantly, the two of them became engulfed in flames, illuminating the silent departure of the victors.

Skadi gave Sigrun a meaningful look with a slight grin on her face, "Sneezing?"

Sigrun returned her grin with a laugh, "What?! Something wrong with a little flair?"

"You amuse me, you know that?"

Skadi watched both bodies as they burned away, any evidence of who or what they once were was quickly being destroyed. Such actions were necessary in this modern day when the technology of humans could tell them much, even regarding the supernatural beings of this world such as vampires and elves.

"Come on, let's get out of here..."

With that said, Skadi hooked her arm around Sigrun as she sheathed her blade and holstered her gun. This war was essentially over now, assuming that Hondur was successful in his tasks. The pair exited the old warehouse and moved through the shadows with the practiced silence they had become so good at, not making a single noise to draw the attention of whomever may be nearby.

Now outside of the warehouse grounds, Skadi gripped Sigrun tighter and ascended into the fading night sky. The sun would be up soon enough and so the vampires would have to seek shelter or perish in the sunlight.

"Hondur, how goes the battle?"

Overseeing the eradication of the remaining VP officers as they fled, Hondur was rather startled to her Skadi's voice within his head. The battle was almost over thankfully as the sun would be up soon. What Hondur hoped to be the majority of VP forces were destroyed and he hadn't seen an enemy coven member for a while now.

"We're pretty much done here. You heading back to your place?"

"Indeed."

Turning her attention to Sigrun, Skadi flashed him a relieved smile.

"The battle goes well, we'll see everyone soon."

Thanks to the efforts of Hondur's coordinated attacks upon the VP and the firepower of Viannor's naval attack helicopter, the battle had swung in their favour and it appeared that the majority of it was over. There was now no organised resistance to Hondur's forces and it was simply a matter of hunting down the few remaining foes and doing away with them.

Upon realising such, Hondur decided it was time to recall some of the main figures involved with the battle and allow some of the lower coven commanders handle the remaining enemies.

"Stephen, Viannor, Luzja, it's time to head back to Skadi's apartment. I imagine Skadi and Sigrun are already there and I'm on my way. See you there."

With that said, Hondur began the relatively quick flight back to Skdai's apartment as he knew the location off by heart. The dull thud of the chopper following was in the background, the others weren't far behind.

Landing softly on the balcony, Hondur removed his wrist claws and sighed as he gazed upon the metallic weapons coated in blood. It was ironic to think that a vampire would be sick of the sight of blood and yet Hondur felt this way. Entering the apartment, he collapsed on an armchair and waited.

Stephen watched the flight of the VP as the helicopter made another strafing run. As the VP and the vampires scattered, Stephen got Hondur's message. It was over, the whole damn bloody affair was completed. It was the longest and largest battle he had ever participated in and prayed it would never happen again. Next time, he might not be so lucky.

Stephen looked at Viannor. "Will you be coming back with me or going home now?"

Lujza exhausted her second to last magazine, sniping from the helicopter, and then crawled back to slump against the wall, as she was beyond exhausted herself. She was starting to doze off and so didn't get Hondur's message, but she had assumed from what she saw earlier that the battle was almost over.

She let out a sigh as she put her gun down.

In the humble apartment that was Skadi's, Sigrun had collapsed onto one of the armchairs in the living room, not even bothering to remove his outer layers of clothing. Taking a deep breath, he sighed in relief as the silence that filled the room filled his ears. It was so nice to hear nothing but silence. The sounds of warfare could get tiring, even to one such as he.

"Skadi," he called out to her as she continued to clean herself in the shower behind the partially closed door.

"Yes?"

"I just have to say..."

She appeared at the door, using a towel to dry herself of the water, though by no means using any effort to maintain modesty. "Yes?" she prompted as she smiled at Sigrun, who had momentarily dozed off. He woke up and blinked a few times.

"I was going to say that I'm glad that son of a bitch is dead."

"Me too." she replied as she walked over and straddled Sigrun. She gave him a kiss, "Me too.." She then stood up and turned as Hondur stood in the doorway of the spare bedroom with an amused grin on his face, his arms crossed in front of him.

"I think we all are glad he's dead." he stated with a chuckle. He gestured to the two of them, "Perhaps you two should take that elsewhere?"

Skadi glared at him, "You seem to be forgetting that this is my apartment."

Hondur merely raised his arms in self defense, a grin on his face.

____________________________________

"Aeris, there you are."

The girl turned and faced her mother approaching, a relieved smile upon her face. "Mother, I'm glad to see you're still alive."

The two embraced, then parted as Arleni checked a wound on her leg. One of the VP officers had managed to shoot her, but had failed to obtain his own safety afterwards. An arrow into his agape mouth had finished him off.

With an arm around Aeris's shoulder, the two made their way down the street away from the scenes of battle. They were heading back to Skadi's apartment to meet up with Sigrun.

Whilst Skadi's irritation was evident, Hondur couldn't help but display an amused grin as his sire wrapped the towel around herself. It had been too long since he'd simply been able to enjoy a moment like this, even if it was at Skadi's expense.

Collapsed on one of the many armchairs, Hondur waited as Skadi moved off into her room in search for some clothes. Both Hondur and Sigrun were covered in blood and the grime of the city, Emerald City wasn't exactly a clean place. At that point Sigrun spoke up, raising an issue that many would have pondered over the recent battle.

"Where is Zero?"

Hondur was stumped for a moment as he recalled all the details he knew regarding Zero, finally piecing it together in his brain.

"Ah... yeh. Urgent news arrived from Atros, Zero and all his forces had to return home for something. I didn't get a chance to find out what."

"Right."

"Pity, his forces really would have made a difference tonight."

At that point Skadi emerged, clothed in a loose white t-shirt and blue jeans. Funnily enough, black wasn't the only colour in her closet.

"How did we fare?"

"If we ever get the mansion back together, there is going to be a lot of empty rooms..."

"I see."

With the sun rising soon, Stephen and the others would either arrive or find a place to take shelter from the lethal rays. Either way, it was over.

Stephen looked across at the horizon as the sky became a dark shade of blue. He knew that Viannor would be heading home and he needed to get to Skadi's apartment. Stephen looked at his fledgling.

"You best get to your ship before the sun rises. I must go and see to Skadi and the others. I will be sure to come and see how you are doing in a few years...if you need me before...just give a call."

Stephen kissed her lightly on the lips before jumping from the hovering helicopter. He dropped down to the street and landed with grace and balance. He gave a wave to the chopper before setting off across the city. Stephen's quick scan located Lujza, it was obvious the young vampire was tired and Stephen carefully lifted her up into his arms.

Several minutes later, he arrived in Skadi's aparment and set Lujza down on the couch before closing the window's blinds. Stephen looked at Sigrun and Hondur, both were not in much better shape than he was. To his suprise, Skadi did not wear her usual black and seemed to be in a slightly better mood.

"How did everything go with Id..." Stephen stopped when he got the glare that told all from Skadi. It was sad that she had killed him, then again Idun was with the elves who probably would have happily killed them if they got a chance.

Stephen leaned against the wall and gently removed his armpit holsters and tossed them on top of his duffel bag.

"Christ, I thought I had seen it all when I first met you in Tarlachia Sigrun and Skadi. Thought that would be the last time I saw battle after being in the army...obviously I was wrong. This...seemed more like a massacre than a battle. Pray to God it never happens here or any place else."

Sigrun let out an exhausted sigh as he agreed with Stephen. "True, it has only gotten worse. The introduction of new weapons, new foes and all only adds to the brutality of the inevitable truth."

"What truth is that?" a new voice called out. They all turned to see Arleni standing in the room with Aeris at her side.

"Christ, you're good at stealth." Sigrun complimented her.

"Well, of course. I'm sidhe after all."

Aeris gave a weighted laugh, then excused herself to get cleaned up.

"Anyway, that truth is that humans are an embittered, parasitic, warring, and destructive race. Vampires are only an enhanced version of that."

Arleni gave a nod, while Sigrun gave a look over to Skadi. She too seemed to agree.

"Honestly, I'm tired of it all."

"We all are." Arleni finished as she settled into a seated position against the wall and leaned her head back, closing her eyes.

Viannor was completely unprepared for the display of affection from her sire, and just sat there in the helicopter as he leapt to the ground below.

I'm barely a week old, she said to him, linking her mind to his as the chopper turned away, if I can survive this, I can survive a few years in Starblaydia.

Her comment illicited a wave from Stephen and her pilot headed for the coast, and the Frigate Iceni. She grabbed a headset and spoke into the mic.

"Are we going to arrive on the ship before sunrise, Lieutenant?"

<Unlikely, m'lady.>

"Then black out these windows," she said, directing her comments to the Gunner, who had killed more than his fair share of vampires and VP officers tonight, "I need some rest."

What she really needed was fresh blood. Fighting all night long had drained Viannor of most of her energy. She couldn't kill the pilot, of course, as she didn't yet know how to fly a helicopter. If I last a millenium, I won't need a helicopter, she thought, thinking back to seeing the ancients fly. The only option, therefore, was the gunner. A pity, as he'd proved himself useful with the heavy machine gun mounted on the side of the aircraft.

Soon, the only lights illuminating Viannor's features were the ones from buttons, screens and LEDs in the now-shielded part of the craft. The Sun had still not risen, but Viannor knew she would never see another. And neither would this gunner.

With two swift motions the man was dead and Viannor could taste the hot fluid in her mouth. Barely a sound had been made, certainly nothing audible over the engine. Viannor risked a glance through the thick black curtain, seeing that darkness had not given way to light. She quickly removed any items of identification from the gunner's body and opened the side door, heaving him easily out to fall into the sea below.

<What the hell was that?>

"Nothing you should pay heed to, Lieutenant." Viannor snarled. "I'm not leaving this craft until we get it under cover in that garage-type affair this bird sits in. Is that clear?"

<Crystal, my Lady.>

Viannor retrieved her mini-computer from around her left arm and began tapping buttons. She had a lot of plans that could now be put into motion. How far could her position of power be boosted with the aid of these new, supernatural, powers? She would have to be careful, of course, but Viannor had only one goal in mind. Starblaydia itself.

"Oof" Lujza murmured as Stephen put her on the couch. She gave him a small, and somewhat bloody, peck on the cheek as thanks for carrying her. It was not uncommon where she was from to do such, even if, as was her case, there wasn't any romantic intent to it.

She groaned quietly as she put her gun on the floor. Lujza was more tired than she could remember being ever before. She was completely soaked in blood, so covered with it that some would not even recognize her. It was slightly sticky, too, which was not the most comfortable, but she was too weary to care, beyond wiping some blood from her face with her hands, which she then licked, attempting to dry them on the shirt she had borrowed from Skadi, which only made them more bloody. Giving up with a sigh, Lujza curled up and relaxed.

After yet another struggle and fight for Emerald City, Skadi and the others had emerged victorious, although many suffering severe injuries it was the coven once again that felt the full force of such a conflict. It seemed it was destined to never get too large as a war always came along to curb the numbers,

Skadi was the only clean face within the entire group as she'd jumped into the shower whilst the others were content to rest in the filth of battle or simply too tired to care. One could always hope this would never happen again yet that seemed to be asking far too much of the world and Skadi had learned long ago to never ask for anything and always expect the worst.

"I don't know about the rest of you but I'm going to sleep for the next few days. You're all free to come and go as you please. We shouldn't have to worry about any elves, vampires or VP officers for a while at least."

With that said, Skadi gave everyone a farewell and slipped into her room, leaving the door slightly ajar in case Sigrun wished to join her.

With his sire gone, Hondur thought he'd put a sense of closure over the situation.

"Luzja, we're very grateful for your assistance of course and you'll always be welcome in any house of mine. If there's anything you need I'm sure we can arrange it."

Removing several clips of ammo from his robes, Hondur sighed. It seemed he could never escape the implements of death.

"Despite Skadi's actions, you remain a friend to this coven Stephen and I'll always be happy to help out a friend, just as you have done for us over these years Pass on my thanks to Viannor if you ever see her again as well, that chopper came in quite useful."

The sun had broken the horizon, causing Hondur to pause momentarily.

"Perhaps it's time we all had some sleep."

"Thank you, Hondur," Lujza said, smiling warmly. She unlaced her boots, which were as covered in blood and gore as the rest of her, and then yawned. Finally, she got herself into a comfortable position on the couch and went to sleep.

With the sun up and everyone weary from battle, Hondur decided he would join Skadi in sleeping for some time. There would be a lot on his shoulders when he woke up and had to piece together his coven once again but that could wait for now.

Bidding everyone else good morning, Hondur moved into his own room and collapsed upon the bed, his body spasming from exhaustion and injury. The ancient vampire have to feed but again that could wait with everything else.

Whilst the vampires of Emerald City had survived yet another war, another fight and struggle against a varried range of enemies, there was no telling what would come in the future or just how much more they could take. It was obvious that Hondur had seen enough of such events and had lost enough friends over his long life. Skadi also had similar feelings, she merely hid them much better than her fledgling.
_____________

Deep within Emerald Forest, the remaining elves gathered around their recently established town centre. The forest was silent with the sombre note of the elves within, heads bowed around two small shrubs.

Normally the elven funeral ceremony was much more comlicated but unfortunately they didn't evne possess the bodies of their fallen comrades that had bravely entered into battle with the fierce forces of Skadi and Svartel. Robbed of an old friend and leader, the elves would mourn but this didn't mean defeat. They would establish their lives in Assington once again as this was their birthland.

A single simultaneous chant erupted from the elves and the plants burst into a smokeless fire. Ashur and Idun had passed on into the world of the dead but their efforts and deeds would not be forgotten amongst the elves of Emerald Forest.
______________

Once the sun had emerged and silence plagued the city of Emerald momentarily, humans began to emerge from their homes and buildings. What they found was on a scale never seen before in any of the vampiric wars.

Whilst the last war had resulted in the complete demolition of a new shopping centre, this war had been much more widespread with battle grounds patching all over the city, buildings collapsing and explosions being unleashed all over the city.

Months would pass before the city is fully repaired and the damage done to local and inter-city VP departments won't heal for years to come. There is only such much the Assingtonian government can take before drastic reactions occur.

Until then, Emerald City, Assington, continues to be a dangerous place for humans and vampires alike.
__________________

OOC:

Well that's it. That was my last post for this RP and was also the final Assington Vampire RP.

Thanks to everyone that has participated over the various RPs throughout the years to make this a successful series. Vampires will still be lurking about in Assington, I just think that it would be best to finish the AV series on a strong note than rather allow it to gradually die out.

Thanks again everyone.

OOC: Aye, this has been an incredible series that has managed to withstand the changes of the forums databases, the constant coming and going of many characters, and even the seemingly common unsavory ending of other threads.

A standing ovation to you Assington for pulling off all of this!

*Nominates Assington for the Bloody Globe Awards*

OOC: This thread has been awesome, as all the Assington Vampires threads have been, and I'm glad to have been a participant on this one instead of an occasional reader. AV4 was a good finale to the series.

Great work, Assington. This was such a fun RP.

[seconds the nomination]

OOC: Truly an epic and definatly ranks as one of my favorite Rps. This defintaly ended the whole of the AV series on a strong and in some ways sad note.

I agree with Tarl that the AV series had done quiet well and instead of collasping held strong with intriguing characters and wonderful Rpers. Had a great time with this one.

*thirds nomination*

OOC: *Generally nods head at previous statements*

W00t w00t, not a bad story either :D