Chapter 4: Mother

Dressed in a long white leather jacket with a bronze metal Star of David, with a Christian cross in the middle on each shoulder, blue jeans, and a white collared shirt, much looking like a lab assistant crossed with a hippie, Natalie Hathaway didn't look like all that impressive in the dressing department. However her extreme height (being taller then Lucian himself), and long flowing blonde hair had an imposing aura of its own. She was holding out a very large sword, that was almost as tall as she was. A silver handle, and golden hilt (with an embedded ruby cross in dead center) formed the handle, and the sword which was thick and tall had a very reflective white finish on it.

Natalie looked at her son Lucian with a warm smile that is impossible to all but a mother to a son, "Good to see you too Lucian." She then turned her head to Alercia and Malus, "Don't make me repeat myself. Get lost." She said bluntly with a tone of threat in her voice.

Alercia looked furiously at Natalie, and growled in an unnatural tone. "Like hell I'm letting you all escape!" She shrieked and made a lunge that was impossible to see at Natalie, making her look like a blur in motion.

Unfortunately for Alercia, Natalie swung her huge sword at an instant, making contact in mid-air with Alercia with speed that visibly appeared as a flash of light. There was a loud CLANG on the impact, and but moments later Alercia dropped like an infant on the ground shrieking like a mental patient.

Natalie's sword visibly pulsated in random patterns with a blue electrical current over it. She looked down at Alercia, "I can keep this up all day. Can you or your boy toy over there boast the same thing?" she grinned.

"I will not allow this!" Malus screamed as he made way to attack Natalie jumping high into the air like a hawk from the air.

"Go AWAY!" Lucian screamed as he snapped into a blocking position, like a line backer he blocked the attempt with his own sword, knocking Malus down to the ground with such an extreme swing that the blades of grass below them rustled from the force of the swing.

The two were locked in blades which constantly ate at one another in a back and forth, neither making more then an inch in either direction. Outside of the fact the blades did not in fact interlock, it could be compared to a Chinese finger trap.

Cyr'al groaned in annoyance, "These battles seem all personal and interesting and everything, but what am I supposed to do? Sit on my ass?" He frowned pulling out a blade of his own and rushed over to the still howling in pain Alercia. "It seems to me like this problem would just go away if you did." He said raising his sword to decapitate her.

The downward cut was fast. So fast it generated a loudly howling gust of wind as it forced its way through air. Then, there was a splashing sound as blood poured from the new ventilation system in Alercia's neck.

Alercia's disembodied head frowned, "You will put my head back on right now!" She commanded with an angry scowl, but then quickly grinned, "Besides, you should know decapitation could not possibly kill me." She chuckled darkly, as her eyes began to glow red.

Lucian looked away from his sword lock with Malus a moment, "Stab her in the heart! Quickly!" He said in a near hysteric tone.

Malus screamed unintelligibly at Lucian, and then punched Lucian in the gut quickly and unexpectedly, knocking the wind out of him. He then proceeded to rush to Alercia's side immediately. He quickly sliced towards Cyr'al in a manner forcing the proud Vampire Knight to step back enough to allow Malus to place Alercia's decapitated head back upon the neck of her body.

The next thing the group saw was flesh from both Alercia's neck and head twisting in such a way to appear like rope, and they began connecting to one another, making a twisting sound much like a tightening rope and nails on a chalkboard combined sounds. All the while the evil woman was cackling.

Natalie shook her head, "Are you all daft, get moving while she's busy reconstituting herself!"

Travis nodded, grabbing Audric and Elana's hands, and began to run quickly into the still open elevator, Lucian and Cyr'al weren't far behind, and Natalie closed the door behind her, leaving Malus who was not paying attention to anything but Alercia, and the reconstituting Alercia behind.

Alercia cursed to herself rather loudly, "We lost the girl again!" Quickly, she changed her tone to a more soothing voice, "Malus Dear, you want to deliver her to me, don't you?"

Malus nodded and stood away from Alercia, and began banging on the now covered by a wooden exterior elevator door.

"High Breed" Vampires were strange creatures, unless you stabbed them through the heart they could recover from almost any wound, even the loss of limbs, or the head, which would re attach in strands of flesh rejoining one another. In the case of decapitation, the body creates a quick slowdown process after clotting at the neck to keep from losing blood. This allows the blood to circulate unregulated by the brain for a while. If a head and body of a vampire are separated for too long however, the body will die, forcing the disembodied vampire head to consume blood more often, until it either dies, or finds a replacement body. The amount of time for this varies from vampire to vampire, but one thing is certain, the reconstitution process is long and painful, leaving the one who uses it unable to move. Thankfully, this was not true of lower level Vampires, as evidenced when Audric had beheaded a lower level vampire by beheading it forehead upwards.

Natalie and the others heard this banging on the door as they travelled down the shaft, and grinned, "Oh if he wants it to open that badly, it's a compromised entrance anyway, we'll give it to him!" She said as she pushed a button in the elevator.

As the elevator continued to climb down, metal doors began shutting over their heads. It was a good thing this elevator worked on tracks on the side of the walls, rather then the traditional wire elevators, or they would have fallen much faster then anyone would have liked.

Moments later a large explosion could be heard, and the elevator shook slightly, and lights rapidly turned on and off for a brief time. It was clear now, this secret base was short one entrance now, however it was now perfectly secret in where the exact entrances were. This left time, but the enemy knew the general area now. This knowledge was clearly running through all but Cyr'al's faces. The Vampire Knight however had a serious and contemplative face of his own.

"We'll have to abandon the base." Lucian said matter of factly, he turned to Travis "I assume we're still too many people for you to move in White Space?"

Travis nodded, "I can generally only take two people with me, three in a pickle. I hadn't counted on your mother, or Cyr'al joining us on the rescue mission."

Lucian nodded, and turned to Natalie, "Is the tram still active mom?"

Natalie smiled, as the elevator hit its final stop, "Yeah, but I don't know if you should bring a Vampire to Star Cross HQ in the middle of a war son."

Lucian shrugged, "I'll vouch for Cyr'al. If you're alright with that?" He asked Cyr'al.

Cyr'al nodded, "Where the pact child goes, I will go. Until the D'rachnos are removed from power."

The group quickly moved through the building not able to take time to take in the aesthetical marvel the base truly was, with silvers, and greens, forming into intricate spiral designs on the walls and ceiling, rushing to the underground tram system. As they finally reached the tram station, Natalie put her hand onto a screen nearby, and a computerized voice came to life.

"Recognize agent: Natalie Hathaway. Insert command." It spoke robotically.

Natalie spoke firmly, much less soft then when she had spoken to Lucian, "Activate sequence R-13."

"Acknowledged, evacuation and self destruct sequence engaged. The tram will leave in thirty seconds." The computerized voice responded.

Natalie jumped onto the Tram that everyone else had already boarded, and saluted into the base, "I was the only one left here, but still." She sighed. "I had hoped to stay close to you after you evacuated to your father all those years ago, so this has been home."

She wiped a tear from her eye and then turned back to the group as the tram took off at amazing speeds, like the elevator previously had done, several metal doors closed behind the tram, and after a few moments, explosions could be heard.

"Does this tram have a com with the main base?" Travis asked Natalie.

Natalie nodded, "It does, but the frequency is rather old, it might take you a while to get in."

Travis nodded and then bowed, "If you'll all excuse me then, I am supposed to report in once we'd rescued Lucian and Elana." He said, and walked off.

Elana nodded and leaned on the trams outer railing, sighing to herself, "I was completely useless, except to keep Lucian awake during an opera." She said depressingly.

Lucian shook his head and placed a brotherly pat on her shoulder, "You did quite well. And trust me, keeping me awake during an opera is nothing to frown about." He chuckled lightly, "But beyond that you provided key moments of attack, and you helped me get into the fray sooner. You weren't prepared for these high stakes. But neither was I."

Audric nodded in agreement, "The point of the assessment isn't if you can handle the Vampire King and his mistress. This all went quite awry, though I'm not sure why they took you two. If it was just to expose the outpost, they would have done other things."

Lucian nodded, "Which reminds me, we have an Italian to have words with when we get back."

Elana nodded, "But I recall he said something about his wife being kidnapped, we may have to help him."

Lucian made a scary looking grin, "He'll need to give me more then marinara to make me want to help him after that." He said baring some fangs. He was only half joking.

Natalie sighed but also laughed lightly, "Lucian honey, that's not funny."

Lucian sighed, "I know. But I don't take well to being backstabbed."

Cyr'al raised an eyebrow, "Marinara?"

Elana grimaced, "You haven't heard of Marinara?"

Cyr'al shook his head, "Should I have?"

Audric also chuckled, "It's only God's gift to the Italian people! It's not as nice as some good old southern cooking, but what is?"

"So Marinara is a food? Is it a plant or is it meat?" Cyr'al stated with an innocent curiosity across his face.

Lucian sighed, slapping himself on the head, "Well…its sort of both it…" He began to say, but was quickly cut off the second he said both by Cyr'al.

"Oh so it's a fruit!" He said excitedly.

Even Natalie chuckled at this point, "They really are two different worlds, you only ingest blood so foods different to you."

"Well Marinara…" Elana tried to explain, "Is a red sauce you put on some Italian noodles, it's main ingredients are tomatoes and beef."

Cyr'al's ears immediately perked up, "Beef, you say, on noodles? Oh to be human again for Marinara!" He said with a pining sound in his voice.

"You must be some old Vampire if you used to be human, but don't remember Marinara." Natalie said raising an eyebrow.

Cyr'al grinned darkly, his turn to have a secret, "You might say that." He said with a wink.

Travis walked back from the cockpit of the tram at this point, "HQ is awaiting us. Now we just sit, and wait."