White House - Media Room

  Vespera was out of her depth. She stood in the same room as an angel, a being she feared more than anything else. It's mere presence was physically off-putting to her. She felt a strange burning just glancing in its direction. To her relief, the angel never regarded her directly, but even when its eyes moved over her she felt a stinging fire-like burn deep in her core; so antahema to her own existence it was.

  The revelations of the day had been many and extreme. For the first time, she doubted her own abilities and role. She resolved to work with the Vanguard to spurn her former master. The sequence of events that lead her to her current situation were outside of her control and rapidly snowballing. That scared her.

  The Vanguard commander and the angel departed the room, leaving only the reunified Kantai Element in place. They secured the space while Secret Service agents set up the camera equipment. The Vanguard had played its cards well. They had sympathizers in the Service and rescuing the President had ensured his cooperation.

  She did take some solace, as she had overheard that the now-rescued President and the Leader-Commander were to meet in to discuss how to proceed with a situation in Los Angeles and ensure Persephone's death. That was Vespera's small consolation prize; that the manipulative bitch would be dead soon, having evoked the wrath of the world's two largest militaries.

  She watched as one of the Rifles dragged the destroyed war robot into the room. His companion, the sarcastic and crass one, admonished him.

  "Leave it, Kurt." Milo said, sourly. "The damn thing was a traitor."

  The Rifle kept an eye out the window, watching the battle outside continue to rage.

  Kurt set Tetsu's sensor pod on the ground and dug around in his backpack for a tool set.

  "I refuse to believe that." He responded. He sounded hurt. "He died to save us."

  The Rifle pried the damaged backplate off of the head.

  "It's a tool. It did what tools do. It was never alive. Move on and cover your sector." Milo told him.

  Kurt finally got the plate off. He peered inside with a flashlight. He exhaled, having not realized that he was holding his breath.

  There was nothing inside. There was no jammer and transceiver antenna. Chennault was the one carrying the jammer. The robot that had come to be his friend had been loyal to the end.

  Vespera took notice and contemplated this.

  One of the agents called out. "Ready in five!"

  Vespera turned to Perelli. She held out her cuffs to him. "Lieutenant, you need to uncuff me. Congratulations on the spot promotion by the way."

  "No." He told her flat out.

  Frustrated, she took a breath. "I can't be seen like this. If I go up there in cuffs, they'll just see a slave and a prisoner being told what to do. They won't listen to me. If anything, they'll probably fight harder. I need to look respectable and in control."

  Perelli regarded her skeptically.

  She continued, "I know how to play power and mind games. You know that. You want my help? This is what I know works. I know vampires."

  "I also know vampires. You're going to disappear the moment I take those off." Perelli told her.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  She grit her teeth in frustration. "Normally, yes, but I just watched an angel turn one of my enemies into a pillar of salt. I am not playing games right now. I swear that I will not disappear once you uncuff me." She held her arms out again.

  Perelli's eyes narrowed. His thumb tapped against the safety of his HR-15.

  "Try anything and I WILL kill you this time." He warned her.

  He produced a simple silver key from his breast pocket. Vespera watched with growing anticipation as he unlocked the cuffs. The metal shackles that inhibited her power clanked onto the floor.

  She rubbed her wrists as she felt her power flow through her once again. Perelli watched with a hair trigger, waiting for her to attack him. She surprised him by asking a question.

  "Why do you fight?"

  Perelli opened his mouth to answer but them she clarified, "Don't give me some tagline about protecting humanities future or some bullshit. You all died in pointless wars, victims of human brutality. Now you fight again for people that at-best don't trust you." She looked at Milo, Kurt, Weber, and the other Rifles in the room. "And I've seen you fight for each other. Why?"

  He was caught off-guard by the deep nature of the question, Perelli was far from eloquent, but he answered as best he could formulate.

  “It was never about the wars. Not the politics, not the flags. Those come and go. What matters—the only thing that ever mattered—is the man or woman beside you. Making sure they live to see the dawn. That’s the oath we keep when everything else falls apart. We fight, not for orders written in some distant office, but for each other and a future that matters. That’s the reason. The only one that endures. Even for those not here, or who don't even know.”

  To his surprise, the vampire did not scoff at his words. She did not go off on a tangent about the haughtiness of vampires and the inferiority of mortals. Instead, she glanced downward in contemplation, then looked him in the eye.

  "I'm ready."

  Vespera walked up to the podium, straightened her clothes and nodded for them to begin transmitting.

  The broadcast system came to life, its reach stretching into every quarter of the United States across distant cell towers, TV stations and internet connections, her voice followed. Smooth, resonant, and unmistakably commanding. A renewed life and vigor within.

  “Soldiers of the insurgency, my brothers and sisters in blood—lay down your arms. This is not our war, nor our destiny. I have walked among you. I have seen the chaos you worship, the cruelty you mistake for freedom. That I have mistaken for freedom. But it is hollow. Nothing survives in the ruin you carve—no families, no brotherhood, no night worth wandering into.”

  Her voice sharpened, steel beneath silk.

  “There is a truth that even mortals grasp. It is not conquest, nor hunger, nor pride that binds warriors together. It is loyalty. The man beside you, the woman who shields you—that is the oath that endures. Break that, and you are nothing but carrion for the crows.”

  Static hissed briefly, then her tone grew almost luminous, as though she were weaving a promise and a snare all at once.

  “The fighting ends tonight. Lay down your arms. Disperse. I command it.”

  A long pause. Then her voice shifted, drawing deeper, her cadence regal, and increasingly imperial.

  Perelli was immediately put on edge.

  “But hear this as well. The old ways of our kind—the endless bloodlust, the ceaseless feeding, the tyranny of the Black Sun—are finished. A new order rises. A clan reborn, not as parasites but as sovereigns. We will master our hunger. We will rise above the shadows that chained us. Put to the torch the old system and create one voice by and for immortals; the Vox Sanguineous And to those who doubt, know this: the night will have its guardians as the day has its soldiers.”

  The transmission cut. Silence settled over the room like falling ash.

  Perelli’s jaw tightened. Milo muttered a curse under his breath, as him and Tora exchanged wary glances. Even Kurt, usually unshaken, shifted uneasily.

  Vespera stood very still, her expression unreadable. Yet there was a glint in her eyes that no one mistook for humility.

  She had stopped the fighting. But she had also planted a flag.

  And every man in the room felt the edge of it pressing against their throats.

  Perelli leveled his rifle and held out the cuffs. He eyed her carefully. "Alright, moment's over."

  Vespera did not stand down. She stared him in the eye with a deadly grin on her face. "Thank you, Lieutenant. For your wisdom. But I'm afraid I still have other ambitions."

  Black smoke began to curl around her.

  "No!" Perelli shouted and opened fire.

  His bullet passed through a cloud of smoke and imbedded itself into the wall behind the podium.

  When the smoke cleared, Vespera was gone.

  Perelli seethed, anger swelling to a deadly and razor sharp point. His teeth clenched so hard it hurt. But just as fast as it ascended, his anger waned. His weapon dropped to his side, hanging limply from its sling. Anger was immediately replaced by fatigue. He was tired. That was all he felt. His muscles ached and his eyelids suddenly felt heavy.

  Everyone looked to him for orders.

  The fire outside began to slack and an eerie calm fell about the battlefield. He took a deep breath.

  "Mind your sectors." He told them, his depleted energy obvious in his tone. "Standby for evac."