The Tale of the Twins

Author: Lysandra

Oringal Link 1 and 2

Chapter 1

I remember the day we decided to start the clan like it was yesterday. It was cold in the cave, the kind of cold that chills the bone and freezes the blood. Luckily, my twin brother and I could not feel the icy air. We hardly needed to breathe, only needing the rich blood of humans to survive. We had been wandering aimlessly for quite some time, attacking whoever we came across, when we felt the need to. No one had retaliated, the prospect of facing two vampires deterring most.

The sun had begun to rise, so we took shelter. Lestat sat across from me, guns at his sides, his black armour and blacker hair blending into the darkness of the cave, leaving the impression that only a floating face occupied the darkness. His blue eyes glowed in the opaque darkness, brighter than any time in our human years.

Our human years…three thousand years had passed since we could call ourselves mortal. But, it seemed sometimes that no time had passed at all. I remember the day that set everything in motion as if it was yesterday. We were six years old. I had just awoken at a friends’ house to find out that our parents were dead. Lestat had been at another friends’ house, giving our parents a night free from us. And what did they do? They got themselves killed. It hadn’t been their fault; really, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That memory led me onto the years that followed. It seemed no one wanted to adopt us, even our own extended family made excuses. For four years we went from orphanage to orphanage until finally, we were taken in. But, fate has a way of turning a positive thing rotten, like a worm in a juicy red apple.

Our new parents berated us, not physically, but mentally and emotionally. They used our ages to get pity from other family members and the government to get money. They used us when we became old enough to work, to get money. They took our wages and spent our hard earned money on their booze and their expenses. We moved two months before our eighteenth birthday. I’ve learned that fate has a way of kicking you when you finally get back up.

The war started shortly after and again, we were left homeless, this time because of fighting. We ran; that’s all we could have done. We did not stand and fight; we would have been killed either way and we did not want to die. We left the city taking with us not much more then the clothes on our backs, our distinctive skills and some money. Finally, fate smiled on us.

We had been travelling for months, exhausted from running and working with no permanent place to stay. One evening, bandits came upon us, threatening to kill us for what little we owned. We managed to fight them off for awhile, but soon they overwhelmed us. Suddenly, a blur of motion began tearing through their ranks. I had been struck in the head; Lestat was run through with a sword. We knew nothing; we thought we would never know again.

We woke to find ourselves alive and significantly more powerful than before. Our naturally alabaster skin was paler, our naturally bright blue eyes, unnaturally brighter and our untameable raven locks, manageable. We could see farther than ever before. We could smell the autumn air, and noticed it was filled with death. It dawned on us then what happened. We had become vampires.

The years passed swiftly. We busied ourselves with studying alchemy and magic. We learned how to use many different weapons, everything from the ancient bows and arrows to modern guns. Lestat developed a great weakness for these new weapons and began collecting every one he could find. He gathered a great collection and even now is biding his time before he brings out his ‘secret’ weapon. We watched in awe as the world grew from one of farming and tilling to one of technology. Just as swiftly as it arose, it was destroyed by the third world war.

“Lysandra?” Lestat asked. I woke from my thoughts, staring into a vaguely worried expression.

“Sorry Lestat. I was just thinking.” I replied. He nodded, knowing too well of my occasional ways of leaving the real world for one of memory and fantasy. He looks out of the cave and into the skies, barely visible from so far in the cave. A smile grew on his face and he laughed lightly.

“We’re really gonna do it, eh? We’re gonna get our family?” He asked, staring away from me. I laughed.

“Yes. A family of darkness.” I told him, sensing that the sun was long dead. The cave had been brighter when we first entered it. Now it was so dark, Lestat was reduced to a pair of blue eyes, hovering in front of me. He laughed again and stood. I followed suite and we left, two lone hunters on a new mission. A mission to gain the family we never had.

We brought forth our clan, the Family of Darkness. Our third, DeathJam, joined swiftly and others followed. We learned from them, they learned from us. We protected them when we could and they did the same. It seems now that after 3000 years, we have our family and I know; we will never let fate take that away from us again.

Chapter 2

The night was cool, the air bearing the hints of winter as the year came to an end. The sky was dark there was no moon, no stars to light the way. But it was starting to lighten slowly; soon the sun would rise and warm the earth. In the distance a city stood on the brink of victory over the evil that had been dwelling there. The traveller assumed this, he did not know for sure if the battle he had run from had been decided yet.

Orange coloured hair shifted as a breath of cool night air passed over this lone traveller. He walked briskly away from the city, over the cracked asphalt road with its faded yellow line. The trees to either side of him were in a state of half-decay, rendered as such by the final world war. No car had travelled over this lonely road, only a multitude of feet many months ago.

The lone traveller, formerly known as La Puce, formerly known as Patris, wandered along the center line with a smirk on his angular face. An hour ago he had passed the old decrepit city limits sign, in a mere few moments he would be in the city proper. Once there he could kill again, once there, he could spy. Once he entered this city, all hell would break loose.

The lone traveller, now known as Aries, stepped into the city proper amazed at the slight transition of trees to homes and buildings. Three dozen steps later and he was on a main road of the city looking around himself with interest. Humans were out, crawling from their hovels and hiding places to begin their days, such as their days were. Aries paid them no heed. Instead he walked into a building and hid in the shadows, the night was soon to be over and he did not want to be caught out in the sun.

As the sun rose outside, Aries sighed. He wanted to begin the plans of mayhem as quickly as possible but with the night over, he was stuck with thinking and only thinking. He shrugged to himself and did just that: thinking. He knew of three spies that were in the city, friends of the weakling La Puce. They would not know him but that was a mote point. If needed, he could force the information he needed out of them, that information was detrimental to the rest of his plans.

Once he located BoS, the Brotherhood of Steel, he could start the mayhem. It would be easy enough for him to pose as a joining member and pass their battery of test to actually become trusted. After that, he would suggest to Mortis that this city was horrid and he should think of moving before all his people abandoned him. A few nights of pester would be enough to cause the all ready planning Mortis to leave this city and take the next.

Aries grinned and laughed lightly to himself. Once BoS made the preparations to move out, he would slip from their ranks and return to his former home. He figured he would be back there in a matter of five or six days. If all went well he could cause a ruckus there while BoS moved in. Then he could easily flow into anonymousity while the battle for the city raged. The war wouldn’t take place for quite some time though, BoS would move in first than try to gain the city slowly instead of just taking it all at once.

Furthermore, Aries figured it would take a few weeks for the leaders to set themselves up for a second war. A war much larger than the first war, a war to make the one with Azrael seem like it was mere child’s play. A war that would make the city streets run red with ancient blood, a war that would bring hell to earth. Aries laughed out right, his insane roar flowing out of the broken windows and making the few humans shiver in fright. If only those humans knew what was in store for the coming weeks.