Ruining Plans

'Things are moving along just fine.' Carmilla thinks while watching the reanimated bishop standing knee deep in the water of the river, on whose other side her forces are hidden, waiting for the right time to spring the trap.

Glancing at the young man with wavy, shoulder long grey hair standing next to her, she can't help but smirk.

'Oh~ how easy it was to convince this pathetic man child to betray its master. Not surprising, after all the supposed king of vampires was nothing more than a depressed, confused old man.' Feeling annoyed at the nature of things always ending with those old men standing in power wherever she goes, the queen of Styria takes solace in the knowledge that things are about to change.

'With this ambush, I will take the castle and get rid of Dracula, maybe even become the new queen of vampires while I'm at it. From there it will be easy to expand my territory and subjugate those useless vampire covens running around like headless chickens.' While thinking to herself, the reanimated bishop had finished his work and crumbled to ashes as he burns with holy flames from standing in the now blessed water.

It's then that she noticed the shadow, followed by the sound of deranged laughter and shout.

Snapping her gaze into the sky, she narrows her grey eyes at the thing rapidly closing in on them from above.

"The fuck is that?!" She asks out loud before cursing under her breath and spin-kicking Hector in the stomach, sending him into the blessed water while jumping back herself.

*BAM!*

The thing that Carmilla had barely recognized as the silhouette of some monstrous creature, crashes into the ground where Hector stood just a second ago had she not pushed him aside.

Dust covers the place of impact, but only for a moment as it gets dissipated by a strong gust of wind caused by the figure waving both of its left arms.

Clothed in a strange outfit of mainly green and grey colour, the female four-armed creature standing at 2 meters, lowers the hands used to get rid of the dust cloud and stares at the white-haired vampire lady with a disturbing grin on its face.

"Ah~ Carmilla, queen of Styria, traitor of Dracula's war council and soon to be member of my pretty little collection of souls. What a pleasure to meet you." Juniper greets with an eager voice, still a bit affected by her earlier experience but slowly getting a grip on herself again, as shown by her grin shrinking to a more normal level.

Taking a combat ready stance upon hearing the moth's not so friendly plans for her, Carmilla sizes up the unfamiliar being before her.

"And who the fuck are you?" She asks with a scowl.

Having calmed down, the demonic moth smirks before straightening her back and placing her additional hands on her hips while crossing the others in front of her chest.

Just as Juniper is about to introduce herself, the sound of splashing water comes from behind and interrupts her.

Wadding out of the river, drenched, Hector glares at Carmilla.

"Thanks for the save, you could have been gentler about it though, but hey, I'm still alive." Then he turns to look at the moth.

"As for you- huh? What is a demon doing here?" He asks with some shock as his eyes fall upon the two black curved horns on her forehead while the smell of sulphur enters his nose.

"Oh? Keen observation there little human. But I shouldn't be surprised, after all, as a Forgemaster you should know a thing or two about hell and the like." Taking the interruption in strides, she chuckles at how Carmilla's expression turns a lot more serious upon learning that the thing that so suddenly interrupted her plans is a bonafide hell spawn, unlike those lowly night-creatures created by Forgemaster's.

"To answer both of your questions, I am Juniper Actias, demon extraordinaire, and as for what I'm doing here, heh, isn't that obvious?' The moth pulls out her spear, startling the two with its sudden appearance and after a fancy spin points it at the vampire lady.

"I'm going to kill some walking corpses, kidnap a puppy and harvest a whole lot of souls tonight." She declares while smiling at Carmilla and keeping a side-eye on Hector.

"A demon huh, so that old man sent you. I knew that he is involved with hell, but to release actual demons into the world, tsk, he really wants to burn everything to the ground." The queen of Styria growls while her nails grow into long and sharp claws.

Raising an eyebrow, Juniper shrugs.

"Nah, I'm not working for that old monster. Been actually brought into this world by some men of God with the mission to fight against him, fucking hilarious, isn't it?" The moth corrects Carmilla's assumption while chuckling.

Relaxing her poster a bit, the queen of Styria eyes Juniper questioningly before speaking up.

"If you're not with him, and only interested in collection souls and that man child over there, then how about joining me?" She asks slowly, eyes flashing with cunning glint.

"A battle is about to take place in which a lot of people will perish. You are free to collect the souls of them if you wish. As for Hector here, he will be coming with me, so if you decide to join my side, you won't have to worry about him running anywhere." Carmilla offers with a calculative tone, hoping to avoid a confrontation and maybe even recruit this new variable.

Tilting her head in confusion, the moth looks at the white haired, pale skinned vampire with an incredulous expression before shaking it.

"Well, true, but I don't fucking like you. Especially because you intend to take that castle for yourself. Can't have that, so you need to die." Shifting her stance into a light crouch, wings flaring out behind her, she lets a ferocious grin stretch across her face.

"So ready up your highness, here I come!" Leaping into action without giving her time to say anything else, the demon moth leaves a clawed footprint on the ground as she crosses the distance between herself and Carmilla.

Reacting with supernatural speed, the vampire slashes at her opponent with her claws.

'Fuck! I don't have my sword, or any weapon whatsoever, escape is also not an option, she can fly. Then there is Hector, he's but a normal human, it would be a waste if he died here or is left behind after all the effort I put into bringing him over to my side.' Grinding her teeth as her claws collide with Juniper's spear, the queen kicks out with her heeled foot, which gets blocked by a chitin covered forearm that is then used as a foothold for a backflip that allowed the vampire to make some distance.

'My chances to win are not good.' Hastily spinning to the side to avoid the thrown spear, she lashes out at the tall demoness that followed closely behind the weapon.

Letting the sharp claws drag across her armoured arms, the demonic moth delivers a straight one to Carmilla's face, sending her flying back with a broken nose and bleeding lip.

'Hehehe punching people into the face sure is exhilarating.' Enjoying the current exchange a lot, Juniper's mandibles clack together as she merely waves a hand in the direction of the human Forgemaster that has decided that escape is his only option.

Reasonable decision but hard to execute.

Pumping magic power out of her demonic heart, a rush of frost explodes from her hand and freezes the ground where it passes until reaching Hector who started to panic at the sight.

"Ugh!" Ice explodes from the ground under his feet and encases his legs, trapping him.

With her subject of interest secured in place, the moth side-steps a powerful heel kick from Carmilla who glares angrily at her with blood dripping from her nose and lips.

Punching with both her right fists, aiming at both chest and stomach, the vampire is forced to retreat, which opened her up to a spin kick.

Barely bringing her arms up in time to dampen the blow, she skids backward from the force.

"You're holding up good, but I am somewhat short on time, so I will end this rather quickly." Juniper says while stretching out a hand in the direction of her spear.

"Come and fucking try it then!" The queen of Styria hisses defiantly despite clearly realizing that she is outmatched.

She found herself outclassed in strength and matched in speed in this confrontation, and with only her claws it seemed impossible to get past her opponent's defence.

"Sure." The moth answers the taunt amused as the spear lodged in the ground some distance away gets ripped out by an invisible force, before flying back spinning into her waiting palm.

Grinning widely, she suddenly accelerates forward with immense speed.

Eyes widening in shock at the sudden increase of speed that surpassed even her own, Carmilla leaps to the side.

Just in time too, as the bladed tip of Juniper's spear narrowly passes by the side of her neck, cutting off some of her white hair in the process.

Not letting up, the demoness presses on with her psychokinetic enhanced speed and swings her spear at the panicking vampire.

Spear and claws clash repeatedly, but it was clear that the moth held the advantage.

Multiple deep cuts began to appear on her foe till they came to a standstill with spear and claws locked in a contest of strength.

Meeting the glaring grey eyes of her opponent, a smirk appears on the demon's lips.

"You are tenacious, how about warming up a bit?" Unhinging her jaw as far as possible, she enjoys the look of confusion on the face of Styria's queen and the following horror as she notices the orange glow building up inside.

*BOOOM*

An explosive blast of fire shoots from Juniper's open mouth and scorches everything in its path.

Carmilla's skin blisters and burns as she tries to shield her face from the flames while her body is flung back.

'Kekeke that worked pretty well. Looks like I now have breath attacks.' The moth crackles happily in the coffins of her mind before snapping her mouth shut, cutting the stream of flames off as black smoke continues to escape from the corners for a few seconds.

Body badly burnt from the sudden fire breath, the vampire pushes herself up from the ground and looks at her foe.

Meeting the seething glare with amusement, the demoness once again appears right in front of Styria's queen with her immense speed achieved through the application of psychokinesis to grab hold of her own body and assist it in its movements.

Leg winded up and ready, she releases the kick right into the vampire's chest, shattering her ribcage and sending her crashing through a tree dozens of meters away.

Watching the tree collapse before slowly walking over, Juniper arrives next to the struggling form of Carmilla.

Bones broken and flesh burnt, the once high and mighty creature of the night now looked defeated and beaten.

Using her foot to flip her over so that she lies on her back, the moth looks down.

Glaring up at the demoness with burning fury and hateful loathing, the queen of Styria grinds her teeth silently.

Placing a clawed foot on the vampire's head, she meets those terrifying eyes with her own green ones, which reflect an amused mockery.

"Well, this was fun while it lasted, any last words before I send you off your highness?" She asks her opponent with a mischievous smile.

"Yea- *COUGH!* yeah, go fuck yourself." Carmilla spites out.

"Eh, maybe at a later date when I got nothing better to do. Ta~ ta~ ta~ then blood sucker." Putting her weight onto the skull underneath her foot, a sickening crunching sound is heard when it gave in and turned into a gory mess, ending the vampire's life.