Chapter Text
[In area of Schwardswald, Upperwest Germany, 2027]
The battalion takes refuge in an old church building in the town of Wolfach. After a battle which lasted for sixteen hours, they all needed a good sleep. That is all they prayed for to the Goddess, an hour of a good sleep. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The battle, though expected and carefully prepared, took lives of a number of them, witches, and locals alike. When the battalion reached the town, their convoy was ambushed by the Camarilla. Ever since the Ancient Enemy found a way how to make blind both the Necros and the Knowers’ powers of gaining knowledge, all of the battalion of the EuropeanLiberation Army, walked blind into every area, every action, every encounter. Entering of the Schwardswald area was no difference, the battalion marched into the city area without any intel on anything really.
When first wind-strikes hit the cars in front, they were caught off guard.
For last couple of weeks, they had not encountered the Camarilla, or not even their loyalists. Most of that time, they had spent in safe locations which were liberated by their army. And only three weeks ago, the Atabey as the lieutenant-colonel name the battalion, with a permit from the soldiers under her, went onto a mission to secure the Schwardswald area for the rest of advancing army.
They had enjoyed the weeks spent in the Palace Rohan in Strasbourg, they were there, enjoying the festive times of Beltane, first time in six years since the beginning of the Great War, as they began to call the Witch-Camarilla conflict. And the time spent in Strasbourg, was one of the most beautifully spent times in their lives, the first one being without a doubt the moment when members of the Witch Liberation Army together with their French counterparts and witch-loyalhumans placed a Witch Flag onto all fours sides of the Arc de Triomphe. That was unforgettable moment, a sign that France was liberated, and the rest of Europe awaited.
But they were not in Paris anymore, nor in Strasbourg. No. They were not in an old church builing. Hidden, tending to their wounded, and the dead. The battle for such a small town such as Wulfach costed them lives of ten out of five hundreds.
“Those who are in the best shape will stand the first guard. We have the local Heer (Army) stationed around, as well as the witches from local coven but we vigilant nevertheless,” lieutenant-colonel announced with as much authoritative voice as she could master. Nods and “Yes Ma’am” sounded though the structure of the old church. With that done, the woman in charge goes to the back of the building. She goes down to the church’s crypts, where normally would be only the dead. But this is not a normal church, this was a well maintained Camarilla hideout.
Of course that the Ancient Enemy would find themselves active members or at least passive supporters among the human clergy. How ironic it is that the witches themselves are now sleeping in a very building of the Church. A great irony it is. But a necessary one.
Minding not to step onto a body of a Camarilla warrior, whom she herself had killed only an hour ago as he was desperately trying to destroy present important materials, she continued walking deeper to the crypt. There she stops when a woman appears in front of her, standing in front of a table, reading something. She walks to the woman behind the tables as silently as possible, and when she is only couple of inches behind, she hugs her tightly.
“I knew about you the moment you walked down those stairs,” the hugged woman says, amused. “You are not as quiet as you think. When it comes to anything really.” She laughs
“Someone is in a very good mood now, after sixteen hour long battle. Then again, you are in a crypt, surrounded by the dead, your necro-shit must be making every hormone in your body being absolutely rampant right now.”
“Shut up,” the Necro laughs her lover off. “You are not wrong though. Pity it is not Samhain, you would see things, especially if we were here the whole time.” The Necro smiles to herself, as the very though of it turn her on slightly.
“Disturbing. Creepy. Weird,” she says. “How about we change subject? What are you reading, down here in the darkness.” She says.
The Necro, who is taller and slightly older then the other woman turns herself to face her lover. She looks to her, their eyes meet and both women are lost in the moment. The Necro has an unbearable urge to kiss her lover but she knows this would be a very bad place, and under very bad circumstances as she feels that really, the scent and power of death are driving her hormones crazy. “Yes, you are right,” she laughs it off, to make herself sure that she is in control of her predatory instincts. She points at the table and begins to explain what she has been doing here for almost an hour ever since the last Camarilla was killed. “Look at all of this. There are articles, book pieces, letters and descriptions of us, witches. There is all this information which they have been collecting…. ever since the middle ages. These fuckersmanaged to establish and secure information for centuries, and we had not a slightest idea of any of this, until the Tarim Incident. Fucking Alder, she fucked it all up, she caused it all. It is all her fault” Necro breathed out desperately as she quickly remembered all the things that have happened in the past six years.
“Hey, calm down. You are alright, everything is alright. Listen to my voice!” the lieutenant-colonel says to her companion, hugging her tightly. The Necro is holding strongly onto the other woman, her hands are shaking and her breath is fast and sporadic. The woman continues with her commands to the Necro. “Now, close your eyes. Imagine the two of us, walking on a beach. Do you see the house? Where medals are hanging on the door?” The Necro complies and does as she is told, she relaxes a bit, the other woman feels how Necro’s body becomes as light as a feather.
For a moment, they just stand there, in complete silence. Until the Necro regains full control over herself and her emotions. “I am okay, babe. I am okay now.” She assures her lover, raising her head to her, giving her a passionate kiss. “You really have gotten good at managing these attacks of mine.” Necro says.
“Yeah, after more then six years of being together, and at war, I think we both have learned a lot of useful things, especially about each other.” The lieutenant-colonel says, smiling at her lover. “Now, will you tell me what you were reading or will you keep it only between yourself and this Camarilla warrior?” She looks at the dead man laying couple feet from them. Man’s body is scarred by the scourge, he fought bravely, they all did, that must be said but witches won at the end.
“Well,” Scylla starts, “The things this bastard tried to burn down, they were, are, newspaper articles, pages from books,hand-written notes, and couple of entire books of Theirs. This one,” pointing at the dead man, “was previously stationed in Belgium, as much as I was able to translate from his notebook, he was one of the handlers of the group that destroyed the Hague. From what I understand, during or after the attack, they went though the archives there and collected a lot of information onto prominent Witches all around the world.” She pauses for a second, taking one of the pages which are laying on the table, and shows them to Raelle. There is a picture of two witches in now-ancient military uniforms. “And it appears that, there were Ramshorn-Collars before the two of us. The blondes name is Valkyrie Collar and the Ramshorn’s name is Esmee.”
“What? That is unbelievable. When was it?”
“A century ago. During the first Great War. I have never heard about anyone from my family living in France,” Scylla says as Raelle is scanning the paper with her eyes. “The branch which went to America during the Colonisation Era is the biggest and the only one in existence, or at least that is what I have always been told. I could not believe it when I read that there is another branch of my family living. In Europe of all places. From what I remember from stories, my family left Europe because of the Camarilla and the Church, Do you know about anyone of a name of Valkyrie Collar?”
“No, never heard that name before. She must have been from a side branch of the family, or else I don’t know, no one in the family ever talked of anyone of that name. Wait, how did her name end up in the Hague archives?”
“I have no idea. I am trying to translate these rewritten messages. But it is not going well, Bastards. They are using an old dialect of Latin, and something what appears to be latinised Arabian. They got really creative with the cyphers over the years, that I must give to them.” Scylla sighs in desperation as she knows that there is a lot of work ahead of her is she wants to translate at least a half of the materials around her.
“What did you managed to translate about the two women? I am very interested in that.”
Scylla talks about the small part of info, of which she was pretty sure were well translated by her. She speaks of what she was reading there for the last hour or so, that are orders for the local Camarilla cell, the orders came from two places, Berlin and Prague, most likely so the witches or witch-supportive forces did not know where the actual territorial command was located. Luckily, Raelle’s battalion intercepted the town before the cell was able to carry out their objectives. When finished with this information, Scylla moved to the other part.
The information how Valkyrie Collar, Bria Craven and Amya Bellweather went together to Basic, and then to the frontlines of the Great War.
The first weeks were rich in detail, information on next months not so much.
The one very well detailed transcript, however, spoke of a special elite force which was created on command of American and French Witch Army Generals. This force was to, in at most secrecy, either before battle or after it, infiltrate lines of the enemy and look for any kind of evidence that the German Imperial Forces used Camarilla agents to equal their strength against the Entente forces who possessed Witch Armies. There were two names of the leaders of joined elite force – that being Esmee Ramshorn for the French, and Valkyrie Collar for the Americans. The papers show that the unit trained from the first day of its establishment for two weeks, after which the offensive took place. During the two weeks,they trained as much as they could to become as much effective in what they were supposed to do as possible.
“What happened after the two weeks, during the offensive?” Raelle asked as Scylla stopped talking. Raelle was very anxious about hearing what happened next to her kind. She needed to find out.
“I am sorry. That is all I managed to translate so far. These are written in such a fucking hard language and combination of languages, it will take some time. But I will get though it.”
“I have no doubt about that, Scylla.” Raelle says, pulling her partner to a passionate kiss. “Goddess, get rid of this dead bastard, how can you be in here with this smell?” She says, immediate pulling away from the other woman, as the oder of death reaches her nostrils ones more.
“I can’t get rid of him yet, I need him to perform a ritual. We need to get some information out of him.” Scylla explains. “Go on. Get out of here. Let me work,” she urges Raelle, “but once you are there, get group of my Necros here. I will need their help.”
“Your Necros?” Raelle questions. “I wonder how I should take this.”
Scylla rolls her eyes at the stupid comment. “You know very well how. You got promotion from mothers, I got these girlsunder my wing, and I plan on taking good care of them, as a good mother should.”
“Yes of course. But just for the record, After the Lyon offensive, you were offered promotion too, instead, you told mothers that you want to care of these Necro girls.” Raelle says with a smile. Scylla is smiling too, she really takes the young, eighteen years old Necros as her daughters, because despite not saying it out loud, she dreams of having a childwith Raelle, one day, if it ever will be possible. And if they live that long.