COMPIÈGNE, FRANCE
8 NOVEMBER, 1918
"General." Major Von Brixdorf
"Well, Brixdorf, what's the latest?" General Friedrichs
"The French are increasing the pressure, early this morning, our reconnaissance intercepted orders summoning entire divisions to Latierre. A tank fleet is still reportedly still stuck at Fernancourt, must mean an attack is likely." Brixdorf
"The social democrats will be the end of mankind, Brixdorf." Friedrichs
"General?" Brixdorf
"I have just put a German delegation to the armistice negotiations on the train to Compiègne. These people, Brixdorf, are selling out our fatherland." suspires while saying Friedrichs
"My orders are war, and all the while that is the case, I shall fight for every meter. We have to hold on now and wait for fresh troops. In a few months, the incoming class of recruits will be here, the French are trying everything they can to force their completely unacceptable terms on us. I will not capitulate, we must strike without delay. With all our might." says firmly Friedrichs to Brixdorf while looking him into his eyes.
"General." Brixdorf just salutes him and goes away to carry orders.
Meanwhile in a fast moving train Erzberger's delegation is about to reach the Forest of Compiègne
"From our position, I have to be clear… We all have to be clear… For God's sake." Erzberger says to himself trying to muster courage for what its about to come, while trying to relieve.
----------
In the barracks near the front line trenches, a officer enters inside a building to wake up the soldiers in the middle of the night.
"Soldiers, pack your bags, roll up your bedding, and wash your mess kits. The whole regiment will advance to the front firing position, and I mean everyone who's able to stand on two legs is going. Line up, for God's sake, you think the Frenchies will wait for you to comb your pubes?"
"Here we go again." Henrik sighs a little annoyed being waked up.
"Get moving!" Officer
"Where to?" Franz
"Where to? Where to? Into battle." Kat answers to Franz
The regiment fast assambles in a open courtyard and get inside orderly of the trucks that will carry them to the front line.
After a couple of hours they start marching into the trenches having arrived in the battlefield, a desolate place barren in all directions kilometers away making a 'no man's land' between the trenches, the weather today is good and clear. We can see all the artillery left that we have piled up for the attack it seems our side will do a rolling barrage and then we will charge into death.
Getting inside the trenches all the man are ready in the trench wall for attack, just waiting the order for it, to make a massive suicide charge in all the front into the allied side (French with British, American, and Italian support), it seems this will be one of the last or maybe one of the last German offensive action in this war, today is 8 november 1918 there is little time left to this war to end
In the last eighteen months since my first taking of human live I have triggered my werewolf gene and since then I have shapeshift painfully on the night of every full moon, during the transformation, I could hear each bone of my body crack and be twisted in an unnatural manner as they reshape and shift to form a wolf's skeleton, the first couple of times the pain was such that my reason became cloudy, but the more I transformed the faster was the process and in doing so the faster the pain goes away and being more bearable.
But the problem was not only the pain, being a wolf at first I was driven by pure instinc attacking anything that moves being animal or humans, killing lots of innocent people from farms and villages around. There wasnt guilt on my mind because I was already numb to the killing and the reaping of human lives as nothing a everyday thing like if it was normal, that much has done to me this last eighteen months of war.
The problem was the control, being in control, that I couldnt allow it to happen, the lost of control to my own desires was easy but controlling it was almost impossible, but as the pain the more times I become a wolf the less clouded my toughts were, so I embraced my wolf side, welcoming the pain and his desires, until they could no longer control or bother me anymore but being something of joy being something else than a mere human.
Taking his pocket watch he calmly hears the tick tick of the passing time waiting for the order to attack. At his side all the comrades are on their nerves about this tense situation, some vomiting the food they just eat others trying to distract with anything, even Albert was looking entranced to the woman in the post he cut before. All of us waiting the order
"I'll come back for you." says Albert to the poster kissing it and putting it in front of him
"Envious, huh?" says Albert to Paul, who just looks him impassively with no emotions on his face not responding to him just looking to the front.
"Come on Paul, relax man" Henrik says to him for being like that
"Hey Albert, I will sing a song for your girl" Henrik starts singin for them a little before maybe our fated end
"In the grass there grows a tiny flower...
It is called...
Rebekah"
"Hundreds of thousands pretty bees.
buzz around her - Rebekah."
"Just because there's sweetness in her heart.
An enchanting scent comes from her flowered dress."
"In the grass grows a tiny flower...
It is called...
Rebekah"
Suddenly the artillery starts firing into the french trenches position, seeing that Henriks quiets and prepares for the charge to come, hoping that they get gassed to the ground making this death march with a little more survival chance.
"Was a nice song Henrik" Kat says to him from the side
-----------------
Meanwhile on the allied trench in front, is under heavy artillery fire of all kinds raining down on them, and in the trenches there are two soldiers talking while trying to survive
"You're a bit of a mystery, son." an older soldier to another more younger
"Just another soldier like you, brother." young man says dismissively to him
"Yeah? Not just like me. See, I've been watching you." says with conviction looking to him
Yeah.
"Yeah. I've seen you take bullets to the gut. Next minute, you're pulling guys back to the trench like nothing ever happened." while signaling the ground and looking into his eyes
"Yes, sir, a mystery, but with mysteries come theories, and I got two. One, you got guardian angels patching you up every time you get shot. Two, you're something else altogether."
"Move, move! listen up, men. Headquarters said there aren't enough gas masks for the whole unit." Officer yells to the group
"Without a mask, we're dead in hours." the older soldier yells to him while covering from the artillery fire
"Have you forgotten what they call us?, we're the brotherhood of the damned because we've been set up to fail. We're cannon fodder. We're meant to stall, not to stop the enemy." telling the whole unit about their situation and that they need to face the facts.
"Now, hold on, major, our line has held longer than any on the western front. They call us brotherhood of the damned because everyone here would rather be damned than let the enemy break this line. If you don't know that, then we need a leader who does." the young man yells spiritedly to the officer in command.
"You listen here, private." the major says to the soldier feeling enraged by that moving to him to only receive suddenly a shot in the head dropping into the mud.
"Major." says the young man looking the dead body of the officer
"Get down." yells the old man to the unit then pushing the young man into the wall
"Listen here. I don't care what you are or how you do what you do, but I believe you're
here for a reason, hey... To be that leader you just talked about. So what's it gonna be, Marcel?" looking him in the eyes.
After a while in the calm between the artillery fire
"You're needed back at headquarters, sit." A soldiers says to Marcel after getting a rank up to Corporal a non-commissioned officer by the headquarters on the field after the petition from the whole unit.
"All right." Says Marcel walking out the trenches into a tent back in the rear of the front line.
"Hate the war. Love the hats." says a man in pompous clothes with a smirk looking to him while playing with a pickelhaube.
"Klaus, what are you doing here?" Marcel looking to him from the entrance
"Well, you left before such a delicious meal, I thought I'd bring you dessert." presenting him two young beautiful women
"Oh, go on. You know you want to, have your fill..." Klaus signals him with his hand to enjoy
Marcel gets nears one of them ready to feed but Klaus speaks again
"And then come home to New Orleans."
"I have to get back to my men." Marcel says to him regaining his consciousness from his desire to feed after hearing him
"Your men?. Don't be so bloody ridiculous, Marcel." Klaus says to him a little angry
"Let the food fight amongst themselves if you must, but make no mistake. Your place is at home with your family." says to Marcel looking him a little over his shoulder to his eyes
"You once told me that family are the people who you fight for and those willing to fight for you. So you go home, Klaus. I am with family." Marcel angrily replies him back and goes out the tent.
------------------
Forest of Compiègne
"Monsieur le Maréchal is awaiting you." says a Frenchman after a couple of hours waiting to Erzberger's delegation
I stand before you in the hope that you will take our presence here today as an opportunity to take action to suspend all hostilities. In the name of humanity, I'm here asking you for an agreement to an immediate cease-fire for the entire duration of our negotiating time in order to spare our nation's unnecessary depletion. Matthias Erzberger, head of the German delegation.
"Weygand, what do these gentlemen want?" General Ferdinand Foch
"I don't know."
"Marshal Foch asks what brings you gentlemen to him." Hauptmann Von Helldorf translates to Erzberger
"We are here looking forward to hearing your proposal for an enduring cease-fire that will include all those on the water, on land, as well as in the sky." Erzberger
"I have no proposal of this kind to make." Foch
"What does he mean by that?" Erzberger
"I think he disliked the phrasing of what you said." Hauptmann Von Helldorf
"Yes. Good, then… Monsieur Le Maréchal, If you please, we would like to know the conditions--" Erzberger
"He wants you to ask for it, formally." Generalmajor Detlof Von Winterfeldt
"Monsieur le Maréchal, I am asking you for an armistice. We are asking for an armistice." Erzberger
"You have 72 hours to accept our conditions. They are non-negotiable." General Ferdinand Foch says to Erzberger passing him the decreed to firm while playing with his funny moustache.
"Seventy-two hours?" Erzberger not believing what he is hearing.
"The war will continue until you sign them." Foch
"Monsieur le Maréchal, in God's name, don't let 72 hours pass us by here, thousands of lives depend on it." Erzberger
"Sign then." Foch giving him a plume
------------------
German frontline
"Understood" says german high rank officer on the radio, before standing up resignedly and taking his helmet and exiting the trench room.
"Soldiers, we'll march." Lieutenant Hoppe to a soldier
"Sir." N.C.O then goes to issue the order over all the trench line
"Soldiers, march." "March, soldiers." walking past the back of all the soldiers in line
"Soldiers, march."
Off you go, get out of here.
Henrik takes a deep breath when its his turn to advance in a suicide charge across the land, getting up from the trenches and start advancing faster and faster while trying to numb his senses about the incoming bullet rain and the unfortunates ones to be in the receiving end of it.
While the orders for marching are being keept repeating in his back along the trench line.
March, soldiers. Off you go
March.
Soldiers, march.
March, soldiers. .
Running like a madman in the open field while crying orders was Hoppe, while the people all around was dropping like flies into the mud, it was a slaughter house, for each meter taken were hundreds of dead paying the price in blood for it.
Go, go, go!
Allez! Allez les gars!
Allez! Allez!
Suddenly a bullet gets Leutnant Hoppe killing him dropping like a sack of potatoes into the ground, a clean shot in the head. Paul goes and see his body.
"Keep going, Paul. Come on. Paul, dont stop running in this place, we dont have any cover, run in my back, follow me!" yells Henrik to him." yells pulling him from the ground
Advance!
Quick, quick, quick! Move it!
Dropping in a hole near a machine gun position in front, Henrik prepare the grandes to kill it.
"Granade!" yells around then sending it in front, before dropping another one and getting up fast with the mp18 in hand advances in the smoke and mud shower into it, shooting anything that is moving before descending in the trenches.
In there the fight is bloody shooting and killing anything that it moves around with a different uniform, there is no time to see if its ally or enemy, just the clothes on him.
Henrik advances along the narrow path of the trench shooting to the last bullet from the machine gun, before sending a grande into a room in the trench wall and entering in it with pistol in hand shooting four french inside while receiving a few non letal shoots that he dont care because of his healing factor and exiting fast, before repeating the process again and again and again until there was no more bullets to shoot sheathing the pistol, droping the submachingun while taking the G98 with the bayonet charging again in the trenches.
In the trenches he gets a sense of dangers from ones of the trench bunkers so he picks a Lewis automatic machine gun from one of the allied corpses and two hand granades and moves to it first sending the granades before getting inside fast shooting with the light machine gun, killing a group of people barricaded in there but from his back he receives a bayonet perforing his lung missing his heart by a breath thanks to moving fast a few centimeters to the side, getting angry his eyes change to bright yellow showing his fangs, not taking any more risk he uses his witch power causing pain in his attacker sending him to his knees and not killing him instantly because he isnt a human but a vampire, surprised a little and with no time to think about it he breaks his neck fast and goes out, to keep killing any enemy on his path.
Before long meets with Paul, Tjaden and Kat eating like wolves in what appears like a kitchen with free table when the fight ends in the trenches, but while seeing them his ears takes a loud engine sounds in the distance thanks to being a werewolve.
"Tanks" whispers Henrik
"TANKS. Get out!" yells to the three eating
"GET OUT"
They run to the walls of the trenches and there can be seen tanks in the distance getting near to their lines, tanks at this time are practically unbeatables if not disabled, a iron beast destroying anything in their path.
"There, there, look!" yells Tjaden
"What is it?" a soldier
"Down there." Tjaden
"What is it?" another soldier
Suddenly a scared shitless soldier loses it yelling.
"Open fire!"
"Open fire!"
All the troops starts firing but its all for nothing, these kind of weapons cant penetrate that armor. Seeing that the tanks stop and prepare to shoot their cannons to this direction he yells
"All down!
Get down!"
Then starts looking for granades around the dead bodies in the trenches picking four in the belt and one in hand, but he knew they were fucked, this battle was lost.
"Boys, think fast! Be smart! Get the hand grenades out! Throw them in the vehicle when they're on top of us." yells Kat
When a tank is passing by in their side Henrik fast disables his tracks with two granades in the same spot destroying the tracks but the tank gets stuck with his side machine gun right into their position, knowing that they will die right now if he does nothing because of the bad luck of where it stopped he uses his magic killing the soldiers in there fast and then drops a granade inside from one of the windows as a cover to it, to make it look that the granade killed them.
Then the rest of the tanks pass them in the top, it was crazy seeing a tank over your head passing crossing the trench but puts a granade in the track when its about to end crossing. stopping just there.
But he knew these tank are not alone, the infantry must be getting near them right now, so he yells to the group.
"Get out!, Get up!"
"Dont stop for anything , retreat without stopping, dont try to shoot to the enemies in the back, run , run !!!" Henrik yells getting out of the trenches pulling Albert with him who looked scared and while in the top sends a granade inside the tank killing the crew inside, while running for his live with Albert following his toes.
"Franz! Follow me. Come on, follow me!" yells Tjaden to him
"Franz!" yells Paul seeing Franz going in other way separating from the group, seeing him pushed by the retreating soldiers he leaves the trenches running for his live.
While retreating like crazy they get near a tank who crossed before, Henrik dont has more granades on him, but Kat has disabling the tank and Albert sending other inside.
"Paul! Paul. Paul!" alerts Albert looking in their back as flamethrowers starts a inferno in the trenches.
"Open fire!" yells Kat, but this is a waste of time, they are doomed already, but anyway we start shooting them.
"Retreat! Retreat!" when we start getting shooting and the enemy getting near Kat wants to retreat, but Albert falls into the mud so Henrik takes him from his neck getting him up and pushing him forcefully to run.
"RUN, RUN, SON A BITCH RUN!" yells to Albert
A few hundred meter in front Paul goes flying because a shell stopping near him being lucky to be not dismembered in the process just being stunned with Kat helping him.
"Come on, come on.
Come on!" yells them Kat when seeing them getting near.
Going inside they take a breath for a second when
"Where is Franz?. I've left Franz alone!" Pauls yells to Albert
"Katczinsky!. Take the machine gun and retreat." Says a officer to him barely holding his breath against the trench wall.
"We'll regroup in Eguisac, two kilometres northeast."
"I miss my comrades, sir. I miss them all!" says Paul to him
"I miss my mother, for God's sake. Grenades, ammunition! Come on!" yells to them before going in other direction.
Paul, come on!
Henrik and Albert takes a few boxes of ammo and granades from the stock pile, while Kat takes the machine gun and then Paul goes into taking a few ammo boxes and ammo belt on him.
Get out of here! Let's go!
All around the battlefield is on fire, shell holes filled with pools of blood and water rain all over the field and the land fertilized by the bodies from the troops of both sides.
----------------
"These aren't negotiations, this is a dictate." Generalmajor Von Winterfeldt
"Maybe we should return to Spa to consult with the general staff." Kapitän Ernst Von Vanselow
"And what expectations do you have for that?" Generalmajor Von Winterfeldt looking to him
"Even if we end up losing definitively after all, we won't be worse off than we are with this surrender." Generalmajor Von Winterfeldt
"Except for a few hundred thousand extra deaths." Matthias Erzberger
"Alsace-Lorraine, occupation of the Rhineland, cannons, locomotives, trains, and whatever else." Generalmajor Von Winterfeldt
"You are aware, this is a total capitulation." Generalmajor Von Winterfeldt says exasperatedly about the decreed
"250,000 Americans are landing each month in Europe. Marne, Cantigny, Cambrai.
All of those lost." Matthias Erzberger says to him trying to make him see their current situation
"All that's left separating us from an armistice is false pride, as I see it. Thanks to you and your commanders, we're here dealing with the mess left by them. I'm happy for you to depart here, it's down to you. We are remaining here." Matthias Erzberger
"It is winter. Without trains and provisions, Bolshevism will take over. On their way home, the men will die of hunger instead of dying with honour on the battlefield." Alfred Graf von Oberndorff
"Honour? My son was killed in the war. He doesn't feel any honour." Erzberger
"Von Helldorf. Please get a few copies of the conditions of their proposal and telegraph them to headquarters. You inform the government." Erzberger looking to Hauptmann Von Helldorf
"We have 72 hours left here, gentlemen, and during every minute we waste by talking about it, there dies another soldier. Let us gain mercy where we can, but for God's sake, let's make peace." Erzberger says to the rest present.
-------------------------------
Marcel wakes up from his momentary dead state and looks around the debris in the bunker where his companion bodies are splayed all around after they got attacked by that "man"
"Hey." Joe almost dead bleeding out from the bullets holes in his body says to Marcel seeing him wake up
"Joe, Joe, no." seeing Joe state Marcel despeirs a little
"You never did get those gas masks, so we could only hole up here dying" Joe
"No, no, it was that man, that man that did this" Marcel tries to defend himself
"It was over already even before he entered here, we were fucked up by the gas" Joe looks to him.
"I'm sorry. I failed you, brother." Marcel
"Not if you make us into vampires like you, let's make this fight more even. Turn us." says Joe looking to him almost pleading, not wanting to die
....
During the total retreat of the forces was a mess with everyone running for their lives like a headless chicken, anything but orderly, under artillery fire and biplane on the skies shooting upon us.
The light was barely on the skies by now and the night was descending fast, having separated from the group in the chaos Henrik used the woods on the side to hide from the massacre of the open field while withdrawing Northeast to Eguisac with others groups of troops doing the same as him.
"Lets keep going soldiers we are halfway" says one from the soldiers around him who is looking a compass to see if we are on track
Half hour ago on the advancing allied troops side there was a weird unit of americans soldiers, with a Corporal motivating his group.
"Hey. Hey!. I am sorry I let you down, ok, all of you, but the way that you are feeling right now... This despair, this hunger... I have been through it, and if you let me help you
survive it, I guarantee you, it will only make you stronger." Marcel says to the group seeing them in transition.
"It will be unlike anything you've ever known. It will eat you from the inside. But you are in control."
"It is your greatest weapon, and the Germans retreating over that field think they can come do what they please to us and then waltz over our corpses running to their side as if nothing happened, but that's not gonna happen because one thing stands in the enemy's way... us, and make no mistake. We are one unit, one army. We are family."
"Family is not determined by blood, but by who you fight for and who will fight for you. Tonight we will feed on the blood of our enemies, and if we die, we will be reborn, and we will feed again."
"We are the brotherhood of the damned, and we cannot be defeated!"
"Yeah!"
"Let's get them, show no mercy!" the vampires feeded in a bloody feast over the german soldiers over the field with the chaos as a cover to their activities but Marcel got sight of the man who maded him feel weak and humillated after being defeated by him so easily running into the woods with a group of soldiers.
...
Henrik suddenly felt a pang of danger like being hunted that made him alert, getting near and near so when he felt it inminent he yelled to the group while shooting the direction he felt the most danger.
"ENEMY ATTACK, FORM A SQUARE"
"WE ARE SORROUNDED"
"FORM A SQUARE, ENEMY ATTACK" The soldiers inmediately formed a square with weapon aiming to all sides
Shooting moostly to where Henrik was shooting in the dark woods, while they started receiving a rain of bullets too, with more and more deaths and some soldiers dissapearing like ghosts from their side.
Until only Henrik was standing and Marcel and his unit made presence who then knew he was the one who killed them all in the bunker.
"What a reception, a army of vampires looking for lil me" Henrik smiles widely while his eyes turn yellow with fangs showing up
"What kind of monster are you" Marcel says now being a little unsure about attacking this guy, because he thought it was just a witch but now he looks like a werewolve.
"Your nightmare, you shouldn't have comed for me, I let you live as a courtesy but you dont took it, instead you come'd to get revenge to me, bad idea, you think your numbers will help in balance the scales for your side?" Henrik says angry each passing moment
So instead of keep talking after being hunted when he is the only one that can be the hunter, he starts giving them multiple aneurysms not even looking the lowly just turned vampires, so is the power of a witch when powerful enough, but inflicting the most pain to Marcel.
So fastly he goes to puncture the heart of every just turned vampire making Marcel cry in pain while looking to his comrades die before his eyes, before seeing the face of Henrik making him disconcerted about how he looks and the similitudes he sees on him with Klaus
"Now friend, its your turn" while saying that Henrik breaks the wood stock making a stake to impale him.
But suddenly a shadow is cast on his back and he gets his heart taken from his body, after all he is just a witch/werewolve hybrid activated now, his werewolve power isnt fully active as he dont have a moon ring to make use of his powers while not being full moon, he is just a lot stronger than a human right now, he even couldnt killl all those vampire if not were for his witch powers.
Dropping to his knees he turns his head and seeing his assailant his eyes open wider, dropping a little tear.
"Now Marcellus, don't be so bloody ridiculous lets go home with your true family, stop being delusional, your new "family" is lying dead at your feet" Klaus says to him from the back of the man he just killed with heart in hand
"As I have already said let the food fight amongst themselves" Klaus going to the front to look the face of the one he just killed does a surprised and weird face looking someone with so many features similar to him feeling a connection to him.
"Who is he Marcel, tell me" Klaus asks yelling to Marcel for a answer
"Look, I dont know, he just attacked and killed my whole unit in the trench battle during the day, he uses witches powers and it seems to be a wolf too making him a hybrid and when I saw him during the enemy retreat while hunting with my unit I wanted revenge thinking it was just a simple witch" Marcel answers not knowing who is the little guy in front.
Klaus hearing that he was a witch/wolf hybrid, fast bites his hand trying to give Henrik his blood to heal him.