Chapter Eighteen: The Rise and Fall

Though hes had to travel harder than hes ever had the trouble before, Gabriel has finally made it to the mountain that leads up to the castle of vampires. There is no towns that surround this mountain whatsoever. There only exists the castle though the castle is absolutely massive. It could house at least a million vampires and still have extra Room.

In order to get the answers that he needs, he is going to have to scale this mountain one way or another. He places one hand on the nearest rock to him and begins climbing. This goes on for hours and he is barely made any progress whatsoever. It feels as though it's going to take forever for him to finally reach the top. But he is determined, he can't give up especially with how far he has come now.

He continues climbing for another 5 hours and isn't even a quarter of the way up the mountain. His arms are tired and his body is exhausted but he continues to climb. As he does so, he thinks about his people. He thinks about how innocent they are in all of this. How they've been basically nothing but casualties of war and how much they have suffered at the hands of these creatures that he is heading in the lair of.

If he could kill them all he would but he knows this is an impossible task. He may be strong and he may be one of the best Lycan Warrior's besides Victoria. His Victoria. He is only one wolf in a sea of endless Vampires who are hard enough to kill when just dealing with one on its own.

And of course he thinks about how he is going to be able to defend himself once he is in the castle. Again he didn't really seem to have that much of a plan going into this. And relying on his Wolf form. while it could aid him, it's more than likely only going to exhaust him quicker. He has already expended so much energy as is. He has to find a way to fight off the Vampires in case he gets attacked.

He does look up occasionally, noticing the giant swarm that he had seen before. And of course, it confirmed his fear. It was indeed a gathering of vampires. They were in feasting mode. He had seen it enough times to know exactly what it looked and sounded like.

Victoria continues rushing trying her best to catch up to Gabriel. As she runs, she can hear what sounds like things flying over her head. Large things, things that are definitely not any type of bird that exists within the Underworld. " Its Vampires " She says to herself. She looks up to the sky above her though she cannot see them. They travel way too fast for her to be able to do so. She either has to wait for them to come down and attack her or she has to try to find cover. Which she's not exactly keen on doing considering that it would be wasting time which she has already done so much of by fighting Shawn and Kara. And so, she will have to risk being attacked.

What didn't Exactly makes sense to her as to why they didn't attack her already. It's almost as though they were stalking her, are they trying to keep track of her whereabouts. Almost as though they knew she was coming there. But there's no way for them to have known that. There is no way for them to have possibly known that she would be coming. She wonders if they had found Gabriel as well.

Meanwhile, Kara and Queen Aurora continue staring on as they can't believe their eyes. An actual vampire is standing in the castle of witches for the 1st time and hundreds of years. This is a vampire neither one of them completely recognised either. But something definitely seems special about him, he doesn't exactly seem as animalistic or as savage as the other vampires do. Something is definitely off about him.

" Please pardon my intrusion but I have come to seek you out Kara" He explains as he takes a bow in her direction. Queen Aurora stands backup, and takes a place standing in front of Kara. " And what could you possibly want with my daughter? " Queen Aurora asked, ready to fight if necessary. The Vampire smiles and raises his hands up to show that he no intention of a confrontation. " Perhaps I should introduce myself first. My name is Pierce. Prince Pierce" this shocked Queen Aurora the most. If he was a Princess then that would mean he is Royalty to Vampires. " I thought that all the royalty when it came to vampires did not leave the castle. You must be here for a pretty important reason if that was the case" Queen Aurora keeps her yes locked onto Pierce who nods and laughs. " Yes actually it is. I've come to talk business and to offer a proposal. My people, and by that, I mean mainly my family, are interested in making a treaty with you. We do not wish to seek anymore war. And we have found another food source that is going to suit us just fine. So we have no intentions of going back to Earth"

Queen Aurora finds this almost too good to be true " And what is the catch..?" She askes, hesitating to get her hopes up. " No real catch. Though, we would like to bring our Kingdoms together. Peace needs to be made. There has been too much fighting for too long. And we wish to make amends. We aren't saying that we are sorry for everything we have done..just more so that we have changed our thinking and would like to make things right. But in order to bring the Kingdoms together..two of the kingdom would have to Wed " Pierce looks at Kara who makes complete eye contact with him. " Oh hell no! " Queen Aurota objects. " And how the hell do I even know this came from your family... how do I know you haven't stuck out on your own? "

This is when Pierce reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a letter with a red wax stamp on it. It bears the mark of the Vampire Royal Bloodline. Two skeletons , facing the opposite direction with coffin shaped box between them. This definitely belonged to the Royal family. Queen Aurora had seen the sill a few times before when the act of war was declared between the kingdoms. As Queen Aurora looked over the seal, Kara came up from behind her and walked past, straight to Pierce. " So you wanna marry me, huh.." Kara asks to which Queen Aurora again, tries to Object.

Pierce ignores and nods and " Then I say yes "

Gabriel continues climbing. He is admitted about a quarter of the way up the mountain. His hands are cut up from the sharp edges of the rocks and he still continues foward. He is growing more and more tired by the minute. And his worst fear at this moment is the possibility that hes going to pass out and fall back down. Hes not scared of death, only scared of the progress he is going to lose.

" Of course they would have to live on top of a fucking mountain" He argues. " And of course they have to be extremely hard to kill, and had to poison or curse my entire fucking people. And of course very little is known about them. So that it's almost next to impossible to stop them. Because why couldn't this be any more fucking easier?" He knows it's the exhaustion talking but at least talking to himself is keeping him awake for the time being.

" I swear if I never have to look at another mountain for the rest of my life after this I will be one happy Wolf. I fucking hate mountains" he continues. His hands are trembling and his knees are buckling. He has to stop. He has to rest. Even if just for a few minutes. His eyes slowly start to close. He can feel himself fading. He can feel that his body is starting to lose grip. And suddenly, he is free. He feels the cool air brushing against the back of neck. His limbs flying upwards as he drifts off into a deep sleep. He has fallen.

Victoria is becoming more and more paranoid about the vampires. She is trying to focus on the road ahead but now the flyovers have become more frequent. She is going to have to do something about this before it gets any worse. As soon as the next vampire flies over she jumps as high as she can into the sky and manages to grab one by its foot, slamming it down into the ground with an extreme amount of force. As soon as it hits the ground, a dozen of them fly in and proceed to attack her by mimicking dive bombers of sorts. All of their weight, crashing into her sides and spin, knocking her down every time she tries to get back up.

They move with extreme agility that is almost completely unmatched by any other creature in the Underworld. Victoria's gonna have a hard time keeping up with them. She has to time out her strikes Perfectly if she has any hope of surviving this.

The next view the down at her, She manages to grab the feet of and repeat the same action that she did with the first 1. Slamming them down one by one. This goes on for hours and it feels as though their attacks are endless. The moment she knocks some down even more appear. For every single one vampire that she is fighting and knocks out, 5 more appear. She is completely out numbered the attack is relentless. Bruising and breaking her bones with each heavy hit. But she is alone. She has no friends or Lycans here to help her. She is alone but she courageous nonetheless. If she dies here today, she will do so, fighting.

A flock of Vampires dart themselves towards Victoria who knows that this could very well be the final blow. However, though she hears the sound of loud crashes..she doesn't feel any new impacts. She looks up and sees Shawn with his scythe, smacking away any and all Vampires who attempt to get close to her. " WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? " Victoria screams. Shawn calls back to her " I'm helping you...I thought that was obvious? "

Victoria rolls her eyes and rares her teeth again as they work together to take down the swarm.

Queen Aurora is in shock at this. She could not believe what Kara had just agreed too. " what..what are you talking about Kara? " Queen Aurora could not understand how Kara could possibly want to marry someone like Pierce. It didn't even make any sense. They didn't know each other at all, this was their first time meeting. " I mean why the fuck not right? Gabriel can go off and marry whoever the fuck he wants. Any random bitch that comes his way so why can't I? " Kara reasons.

" I'm going to try my best to not take offense to that" Pierce smiled and took Kara's hand. Karen had to admit , that whilst Pierce was not her typical kind of guy that she was into..he was still very attractive. He dressed nice, and at this point carrot didn't exactly care who he was. She just felt as though this could fill the void in her life that was the absence of Gabriel.

" Have you lost..your fucking mind.." Queen Aurora croaks out. " Don't worry Mom, I'm gonna be fine. Besides, I'm sure that Pierce here knows that if he was to double cross us " Kara leans foward as close as she can to his ear and Whispers " I'll fucking chop his dick off"

Queen Aurora watches on, her eyes twitching and not even being sure what to say at this point. This, was somehow to much for her. Kara didn't even seem like the same person.

" And we should have the wedding as soon as possible" Kara adds. " How about tomorrow?" Kara smirks as she clenches the hand of Pierce. " I...guess...that is..fine...I just..what.." Queen Laura was at a complete loss for words. Kara over and kisses Pierce on the cheek. Aurora had never seen her daughter act this way. Mind you, she had not been around her daughter all that long but this felt completely off. Aurora thought he may be using his vampiric charm on here but she couldn't sense any spell or magic at play here. " What the hell is going on " She thinks to herself.

Pierce and Kara end up talking Queen Aurora into letting Pierce stay the evening. Whilst Kara was walking around the castle with Pierce, Queen Aurora was doing her best to figure out a way to get a hold of Gabriel. Him or Shawn at this point. Either one would good at this point.

Eventually Queen Aura gets a message from within her own head from Shawn. He apparently is using some version of telepathy. " You rang?" He asked to which Queen Aurora replied. " How goes finding Gabriel..." Queen Aurora hears the sound of whishing and wooshing and people screaming. " Are you in a fight right now? " She asks and after a moment or two, Shawn replies " I'm working on it"

" Well Kara is apparently getting married..." Even saying those words were extremely difficult for Queen Aurora. It didn't feel right at all. " Oh that's nice! To who? And is there going to be cake? " Queen Aurora rolls her eyes. " Listen you fucking idiot. She is going to marry a vampire. She just met...as in literally just met. I think he is usually some kind of Charm or spell on her but I can't detect anything. " She explains.

" Dang Kids always rushing into love, am I right? " he answers as more wooshing noises can be heard. " Why. Why the hell..of all people..did it have to be you that I managed to get in contact with.."

" I don't know..you called me! " Shawn shrieks and then nothing but silence Remained in the Queen's head. She cannot believe how immature he is. But hopefully he does manage to find Gabriel in time. She's not even entirely sure what Gabriel would be able to do about any of this but maybe he could snap her out of it.. Until then Queen Aurora can only do her best to stall things