Chapter 2: Countess Valentine

"With all due respect, my Lord, I don't know why you're so surprised. It's a prototype weapon. We told you it had never been tested before, but you insisted on bringing it into battle, thinking it can somehow avert the inevitable defeat. Now that the weapon had failed and the battle is lost, as expected, what do you have to blame us for?" - Chief Researcher Adams to Lord Wells.

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Alex felt something salty in his mouth. It took him a surprising amount of time before he realized it was blood. His blood.

The fifteen-year-old boy could still distinctly sense the recoil from the Arbiter handgun around his wrist. He did all he could back in that bunker. He even killed a man. His first kill. Yet ultimately, much like the sacrifice of the five Wolf Guards whose bodies now litter the bunker, his last stand was futile. Alex did his best to continue the fight after losing his weapon, but one of the attackers punched him in the face and handled that with ease. Without a weapon, a young boy like him was no match for a grown man trained in the art of killing.

At the end of the day, both he and Amelia were captured alive. The attackers, the same ones who took his father's honor guards by surprise and slaughtered the entire household, were now dragging the heirs of the Obsidian System through their own mansion.

Even as he was pushed forward, Alex did his best to remain calm. He could see Amelia steps away, escorted by another pair of armed men. His sister had tears in her eyes, but she did her best to keep them back. She did her best to stay strong, or rather as strong as a girl her age could under the circumstances. She tried to reach out to his brother for support, only to be mercilessly held back.

Taking in a deep breath, Alex gave another glance to the attackers. This was perhaps the first time he had a chance to take a careful glance at them. What he saw only made his heart feel heavier. These men wore armors that were mostly Imperial red, but mixed in with the red were silver markings that designated their special identities the same way the grey markings on the Wolf Guards did.

Between the silver stripes on their shoulders was a silver serpent. The sigil was so vivid that Alex could distinctly see traces of red on the serpent's teeth.

Silver Serpent. That was the sigil of Countless Amelia Valentine, Imperial Countess of System S88 or, as she was better known, the Lady of Deception. System S88 shared a border with System A21, and Battlefleet Silver Serpent and Battlefleet Obsidian have fought and died side by side countless times. In fact, there was even a popular rumor among the Imperial Nobilities that the Count and the Countess had quite the history in the past.

"Why are you doing this?" Alex did his best to try a last ditch effort to reason with his captors, although all the corpses across the halls he came across made it quite clear that this wasn't something he could talk his way out of. "There...there has to be some sort of misunderstanding!"

The honor guards exchanged a glance, but none of them said anything to the young boy.

The group kept on moving. From time to time, Alex could still hear bursts of gunshots, but these bursts were always quickly silenced. As far as the young boy knew, his father's honor guards in the house were wiped out, and his home had been taken over by intruders.

This thought filled Alex's heart with fury, and the sight of the carnage he came across definitely didn't help. He knew many of the bodies. They were servants and guards of his family. He could even call out the names of many of them. Yet, here they lay, nothing more than still corpses in the background.

Finally, the group reached the dining hall.

Making their way past dozens of dead Wolf Guards, all of them in Power Armors, the Serpent Sentinels marched into the luxurious dining hall. Alex couldn't help but bite his lips as he walked into the familiar room.

Once upon a time, the dining hall was a place of luxury and comfort. It was big enough for hundreds of guests to feast in comfortably, but the halls that were once filled with laughing guests were now stacked with armed men and dead bodies. The tables upon which delicious food were once served were now stained in red, freshly spilled blood. Most of the chairs were knocked over.

But what truly caught Alex's eyes was the three people in the middle of the room.

"Mom, dad!" Beside Alex, Amelia called out in a mix of fear and excitement.

In the middle of the room, sitting on a leather sofa and aimed at by a dozen Assaulter Rifles, were the Lord and Lady of Solar System Obsidian. Alex's father, Gerard Wolf, was a middle-aged man. Unlike many of his fellow Imperial Nobles, Gerard was born into a poor family. He had been on the battlefield for nearly twenty years before he gained the rank of Imperial Count and became the ruler of an entire solar system and the hundreds of billions of people in it. It took him half his life to become an Imperial Count, and when he did, per Imperial traditions, he chose a new last name for his now noble family. He chose the name of Wolf.

Aside from making him a living legend known for his ferociousness in combat, decades of war have made the man tough and determined, but even that wasn't enough to help him avoid this slaughter.

Beside the Count was Lady Jessie Wolf, the wife of the Count and Countess of Solar System Obsidian. She sat beside her husband with a cold look on her face. What just happened in the past twenty minutes was horrifying, but the Countess made her husband proud by being as tough as he was.

But when her own daughter called out to her, the woman could no longer sit there in silence. She stood up and opened her arms to greet Amelia, only to be pushed back into her seat by a Serpent Sentinel right behind her.

Gerard was clearly made distraught by the scene as well. Instead of standing up, the Wolf Lord turned to the third person in the middle of the hall. A woman in a silver dress, sitting alone on a leather sofa across from the pair.

"What do you want, Amelia?" Gerard demanded, his voice cold and stoic. Deep down, behind his steel expression, he felt his heart sink. He had hoped his children were kept safe from this betrayal. Evidently, they weren't. "Explain yourself!"

On the other side, Countess Amelia Valentine sat there in silence. She was a gorgeous woman. Then again, in an age where technology was so advanced that money could buy anything, including beauty, that didn't mean much.

After the initial betrayal where the Serpent Sentinels gunned down the Wolf Guards mercilessly, the woman had been sitting there in silence. No matter how much the Wolfs demanded an answer from her, she remained still and voiceless. There was no snarky comment or arrogant monologue from the woman who betrayed. No proud confessions of evil deeds. Just silence.

Until now.

Countess Valentine pointed at the sofa, and the Serpent Sentinels seated Alex and Amelia down on the leather sofa with their parents. The mother immediately held onto her daughter like a lioness would to a cub. Alex, on the other hand, stood beside his father, his eyes fiercely staring at the vile woman who brought death and destruction into his household. It was as if he wanted to carve her expressionless image deep into his brain. So deep that neither blades nor flames could remove them.

When the family was united, Countess Valentine finally stood up from her seat. The first thing she did was let out a deep sigh.

"Trust me when I say I feel no joy in this."

That single sentence was enough to make Gerard's eyes widen with anger. "No joy? You march into my house as a guest and then proceed to massacre my entire household and you talk about no joy? As if that's supposed to somehow make this any better? Do you think me a fool?"

"Yes. A fool is the only term I can call a Lord who is defeated and held captive in his own home on his capital planet in his own solar system, but that is irrelevant." The Countess's words were as cold as ice, and she went straight to the point. "I am doing this because Duke Wells ordered your death."

"What? Duke Wells?" Before Gerard could even say anything, Alex couldn't help but find himself beyond disbelief. So beyond disbelief that he raised his voice in objection even before his father did. "That's impossible! My father is the Duke's most trusted ally! He saved the Duke from the Republic four times! The Duke admires my father!"

Countess Valentine turned and glanced at Alex. The boy swore he saw a sense of surprise in the woman's eyes. Nonetheless, the woman turned back to Gerard.

"Your son is as naive as you are, Gerard. Remember what I told you? What have I been telling you for years?"

The Countess scanned across the expressions of the Wolfs before continuing.

"Do you know how the world sees you, Gerard? You are the Lord of Obsidian. The Wolf who Wins. You are the best military leader the Empire has seen for decades. You started off as a nobody and worked your way up to lead a system in twenty short years. When the Zaki Incursion occurred and consumed a dozen worlds, you and Battlefleet Obsidian were the ones to move to put the xenomorphs down. You and your precious Battlefleet were seen as invincible across the Empire. No one could stand against you on the field of battle and win. If there is a goddess of war, then she must admire you."

"And you are more than just a good commander, Gerard. You are also a kind leader. You can make everyone under your rule slaves as no one would raise a word of objection, yet you go against the traditions and make them citizens with rights instead. Your people are willing to die for you. Most of your officers and soldiers will go to hell and back for you. People see you as the ideal leader to have."

Despite her betrayal, the admiration in the Countess's voice was cleared. As the rest of the Wolf family remained silent and let the woman's words sink in, the Countess went on.

"And who is the Duke? Duke Patrick Wells...born a Duke, and likely to die a Duke. He is average at best and the whole Empire knows it. He is cruel, which is fine, but he is also weak, and cruelty and weakness make a terrible combination when it comes to leaders."

The Countess gestured at Alex.

"Your son is right. You saved his life four times. For four times, the Dorn Republic marched right into his systems, the Duke's personal territories, and the only thing the Duke's fleets could do was get crushed. And every time, the only thing that seemingly kept the Duke's head on his shoulder was your intervention."

"Four times...tell me, Gerard, how many more times do you have to step in before the people decide that perhaps, well, they can use another, stronger Duke. Of course, we all know the people's opinions are irrelevant in this day and age, but how about the officers? The admirals and the generals? How long before they demand a stronger and kinder Duke to lead them into greatness?"

"So you see, my friend...you are a threat to the Duke and the power he holds so dear, and he has demanded your removal."