POV Rio
"Can you defeat them?" Selene asks.
"Whoa whoa whoa! No offence, but why would I risk fighting them? I can't even be certain whose in the right," I respond.
"You're not a human either, and I can pay you," Selene offers.
"What do you mean, I'm not human? And why can't you kill them?" I ask.
"Your blood. It doesn't smell human. It's far too... Pure and admittedly delicious-smelling," Selene says.
I take a step away from her and prepare to teleport away if she goes crazy.
"Don't worry, I can control myself. And this coven hardly feeds on living people anymore. We use artificial blood. And I can't kill them because I just finished an awakening ritual. I'm weaker than even a human child," Selene explains with a shake of her head.
"Why trust me?" I ask.
"Do I have a choice? I can't stop you if you attack me, nor can I stop you from leaving. But you protected me while I was vulnerable and even offered to take me away from here. You didn't have to offer that, and I have a feeling you made the offer genuinely," Selene says while staring at me.
I pause and think about it. The more I thought about it, the more I felt it wasn't a bad deal. The Corvinus Coven was rich, and if anything, she might be able to buy my stuff if Lara falls through. And making a friend with her might be a good move.
"Fine, but I can't promise anything. If they are too numerous or I can't defeat them without dying, then I will retreat," I reply.
"Good enough," Selene says with a firm nod.
"Now what about you?" I ask.
"Can you take me a few corridors from here? There is a secret panic room that I should be safe in," Selene asks.
"Sure, just get under my cloak and... walk in front of me not just to lead but just in case," I say.
She nods, and I put the cloak over us, and she starts walking. We reach a wall where she presses a brick, and the wall opens to reveal a keypad with a biometric scanner. She types a code and then looks around before removing part of the cloak to reveal her eye, which was scanned, and an electronic beep followed by a green light indicates she was accepted. The door slid back and then to the left, revealing a decent-sized room with some weapons and refrigerated blood bags.
"Okay, I'll wait here and watch your progress on the cameras. Or what remains of them," Selene says before entering the room and heading to a desk with several monitors showing various parts of the manor.
"Got it, if I can't beat them, I'll teleport back to this room, that work for you?" I ask.
"Sure, do you want to take any weapons?" Selene asks.
"I'm good, I never leave home unprepared," I commented while pulling a gun from behind my back.
She looked at the pistol with a silencer on the end and nodded, then she pressed the button to close the door. Once the door closed, I reentered the cloak and started sneaking my way through the manor.
'Okay, let's try and avoid detection for as long as possible.'
I knew fully well that there was no way to kill all the vampire hunters without being detected. But I could hopefully thin their numbers before I had to resort to a frontal assault. Case in point, I see my first targets.
There were three guys all following each other, with the rear-most man looking behind them to ensure nobody attacked them from behind. But they were still decently lax, and I spotted a perfect opening. The man in the rear was the first to go. He wasn't wearing heavy armour, but the more modern tactical gear. I got next to him and covered him with the cloak while tightening a garrote around his neck. The man struggled to try to shake me off, but he was unable to stop the wire from cutting into his neck, and he died soon afterwards. I stored his body and moved to the left of the two remaining men.
Pfft x 2
With two shots from a silenced pistol, both of their bodies drop, and I catch them just before they fall. I store the bodies and continue to the next group. But I was a bit disappointed that I could only kill another 13 men before they caught on and regrouped to a more defensible position.
"Sh*t! We've lost at least 16 guys! There must still be a bloodsucker remaining," says what I believe is the leader, who I would call Ch'Ding, as he carried a sword.
"Tom, Dick, and Harry disappeared after taking some of the bodies to be burned," says a man with an eyepatch, whom I would call Patchy.
"Hmm, I don't know if this can be done by a Vampire, their bodies haven't been found, and some of them were wearing sanctified armour, any vampire that got near them would be burned at the very least," Ch'Ding says.
"Gus and John went to find the cars, but they never came back either," says Patchy.
That catches my attention, as I had only killed the three guys who left the manor.
'Hmm, there might be others present. Or they fled, but in either case, I need to finish this now.'
Since I was on a bit of a time crunch and I couldn't easily defeat enemies from stealth anymore, I chose the next best thing.
I pulled four M39 grenades from my inventory and stealthfully placed them around the place, and then, after I got out of range, I used magic to pull all the grenade pins.
Clink x 4
"Huh? What was that sound?" asks Patchy.
"Must have been the wi..." one guy says, but is cut off.
BOOM
The manor shakes a bit, and I have covered myself with my bulletproof suit to avoid any stray shrapnel that manages to reach me, but thankfully, it wasn't much. The vampire hunters are not nearly as fortunate. Of the 31 that were in the centrally located area, only 4 managed to survive the blast with non-lethal injuries. But 2 of them were unconscious, and the other 2 were clearly disoriented. Thus, I used this chance to shoot the two survivors in the head, killing them, and then I started searching the remains for anything of value.
I got maybe 75% of the way through when I heard movement. It was subtle, but I could hear footsteps and quite a lot of them from the sounds of it. Then came the distant sounds of a helicopter. I didn't hesitate and instantly apparated away.
Upon arriving at the safe room, I noticed that Selene was on edge.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
"The cameras all went down just before the explosion. I couldn't be certain who was responsible for it," Selene said.
"Yeah, well, I got rid of the vampire hunters, but I heard the sounds of lots of footsteps running through the manor as well as the sounds of approaching helicopters. Which I don't suppose you know who that might be," I ask.
Selene looks confused, and she closes her eyes as if trying to recall something.
"No, we shouldn't have anyone who could come as reinforcements. Maybe the government came to rescue us, but I highly doubt that. Our relationship isn't like that. If anything, they would be here to claim our wealth," Selene replies.
"Here, let me see the computer," I request.
She gets up, and I start attempting to restore the security feeds. It takes about two minutes, but I get it running again, and what I see makes me more worried. And Selene seems to agree.
"Those are government forces. At least not public ones," Selene says with a frown.
The soldiers spread throughout the manor were covered head-to-toe in black body tactical gear and wore fully enclosed helmets.
[Image Here]
"Recognise them?" I ask.
"No, you?" Selene asks.
"Not really. They are clearly professionals, though. Maybe Shield?" I reply.
"Shield? Oh, you mean the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. No, they have different gear, and they are in a situation with the UK Government that prevents them from assisting in this situation. If they were caught here, they would lose that ability to operate in the UK and possibly more of Europe. It isn't worth the risk of the maybe couple million they would gain from the manor," Selene responds.
"Well, are you staying?" I ask.
Selene looks at the camera feed, and after another minute of thinking, she replies.
"Yeah, I have a hunch they aren't enemies. They seem focused on cleaning up the battle. They haven't even touched the vault, despite having passed by it," Selene points out.
I think about what to do, but choose to stay as well for now, but I was ready to leave as soon as they started attacking. But I had a feeling this could be Alexander Corvinus's doing. He was responsible for cleaning up after his bloodline, and perhaps in this universe, his troops are more militant. In either case, it doesn't hurt to watch and wait.
"So, I've been meaning to ask, are there other covens out there?" I ask.
"There was. Last I heard, many were wiped out by the invasion of those vampire hunters," Selene answers.
"Wait, what?" I ask.
"Oh, you didn't know? Yeah, the humans sort of banded together with a bunch of different groups to wipe out all vampires," Selene answered as it wasn't a big deal.
"How many factions are we talking here?" I ask.
"Hmm, let me think... There was Shield. The High Table. The various Vampire Hunter clans. Maybe some mages. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Illuminati. And worst of all, the many Werewolf clans. But that last group was the real fools. They trusted the humans and were rightfully betrayed and are also on the verge of extinction," Selene explains.
"Wow, you guys sure made a lot of enemies, but why did the Lycans and your clan go to war while that was happening?" I ask.
"We didn't have a choice. The Lycans were supported by some third party, giving them great resources and technology. Then they somehow found William Corvinus' prison and released him. We barely managed to defeat the Lycans," Selene says with a heavy sigh.
"Any idea who the third party was? Did they seem like these fellows?" I ask.
"We... We're not fully sure who the third party was. But one of the vampires that drank the blood of one of those agents spoke the phrase, Cut off one head, and two shall take its place before dying of some sort of anti-vampire venom in the agent's blood," Selene says.
"Oh, that's bad," I comment.
"Why? Do you know what it means?" Selene asks.
"Yeah, that's the slogan of Hydra," I reply.
"Oh... Yeah, that could be problematic. But these men don't look like the agent we captured nor the pictures of the others, so maybe they're not related," Selene comments.
We continue to watch them do their work for another two hours before they start finishing. They had done a pretty good job of cleaning up the mess. While the manor still had some signs of battle, such as where I set off the grenades, the rest of the manor looked fairly normal. All the blood, bodies, and ash were removed, and the areas were disinfected. In fact, it seemed they were especially strong on the removal of all blood. Right as the majority of them had left, several started walking right towards us. They stopped right at the door to the safe room.
"Miss Selene and your ally, our master, wishes to speak with you. Would you please come with us?" says a man in a suit instead of tactical gear, which I will call the G-Man.