The four members of the underground group Forgiven Blaze were getting ready for their weekly concert in the parking lot of this random bar located at the border of the city. They were in their private room that the owner of the bar gave them. The owner didn't particularly liked them, but they brought so many costumers that he didn't really had the choice but to give them a little something for them to stay. Stitch was practicing their new song on his electric guitar while Raven was quietly humming along, making sure he was playing it right. Red was reading, like she always does to calm herself before a show. She wa ssitting on one of the many bean bags of the room, her bass carefully resting on it's small stand. Trevor was laying flat on the couch, tapping on his legs with his drum sticks. Red's watch started to beep and told everyone that it was time to go. Raven made sure nobody forgot anything and they all went out on stage.

The crowd was really big tonight. They played their songs and did a few covers like they always did at the end of their shows. The crowd wanted more, but the police came to tell them to keep it down. It was not exactly an official concert. But they could do their thing as long as they don't break anything and when the police would tell them to stop, they actually stopped for the night and leftT onight wasn't an exception, most of the people left, but a few along with the group went in the bar to drink and dance for a bit. At the end of the night, the whole group were back in their room to get their stuffs when they heard a small knock at the door. They all looked at each other and Stitch went to slightly open the door ''What?'' he asked rudely. There was a really handsome man on the other side of the door ''Can I come in?'' the stranger asked in such a pleasing way that the guitarist opened the door and let him in without even realising what he was doing. The man talked about how much of a fan he was of the band, the music, how perfect it was. He was talking and talking, almost hypnotizing the members of the group. They all listened to his compliments, accepting without a second guess the drinks he was giving them ''A cheer, for your future amazing career!'' he exclaimed. They all cheered and drank. It was the special drink of the bar, the one they all enjoyed so they drank happily.

But after a few sips, Raven started to feel a bit dizzy, too many shots she guessed ''Maybe... we should... go now. The bar is about to...close...'' Red looked at a her watch and agreed that they should be on their way. She greatly thanked the stranger and they all headed for the door. Raven walking a bit behind the group, she was havings ome trouble walking. The gentleman held her from behind, helping her to walk, but instead of following her friends, he dragged her away from them. Raven tried to set herself free from his arms, but he was too strong... Way to strong, Raven thought. Her feet wasn't touching the ground and he was walking like she wasn't even there. Almost like they were flying ''Let... me... go!'' she mumbled ''Oh, you just wait a bit darling, you will really enjoy what is going to happen next!'' She tried to push him away, without success ''It's not what you think it is, I'm a not an abuser. I saw your fake fangs and the way you dress. I swear, honey, you are going to really enjoy what I am about to do to you!'' This guy is crazy, Raven thought. She only had time to see that he was dragging her in the wood near the city before passing out.

She woke up with a terrible headache and a really weird feeling in her stomach... Hunger. God was she hungry. And she was craving something really badly. She just couldn't figure out what it was. She groaned and sat up. She was on the floor, a wooden floor in the middle of a small cottage. She heard footsteps coming her way. She stood up and put herself in a defensive stance. ''Oh, you are finally awake! Perfect!'' the stranger said ''What did you do to me, you freak!?'' Raven screamed out. He put his hands up in a calming way. It could have helped if it wasn't for the metal chains he was holding. He told her that she could either sit down and listen to him or figure everything out the hard way. He said the last part really slowly while shaking the chains in his hands as a warning ''Like hell I am going to listen to you, you-'' but she couldn't finish her sentence, in a split second he was right in front of her, hand on her throat. How did he managed to be that fast? Raven's self-defense training kicked in and she attacked him and tackled him to the ground. While doing so, she scratched him with one of her many rings and some blood was slowly falling down his arm. When she smelled the blood, she completly lost control of herself. She tied the man down with his own chain and she started to... drink his blood? She wasn't fully aware of what she was doing, but she knew she couldn't stop. All the screaming from the man couldn't stop her. He was trying to warn her about something, but she didn't care. She was hungry. So hungry. And drinking from him made her feel a bit less hungry. She couldn't tell how much time passed but when she came back to her senses, she was covered in blood and her kidnapper was laying down, lifeless on the ground. She ran to the bathroom and saw her reflection in the glass. She had fangs. She tried to pull them up. But they wouldn't come out.... Fangs, drinking blood... No... This can't be real, she thought. She washed herself the best she could and ran away from this cottage. She ran and ran as fast as she could until she finally reached the border of the city. The sun rising sun was hurting her eyes but she didn't care. She needed to come back home. So she ran all the way to the appartment she shared with her friends. She didn't notice how people were looking at her. She was running really fast after all.

When she finally reached her home, she slammed the door open and went to lock herself in the bathroom. She saw the police car in front of the building and she didn't want to talk to them. Not now. Red slowly walked to the bathroom door and knocked ''Raven? Are you okay?'' ''...yes... they can leave now, I'm fine!'' Red sighed loudly and went to tell the police officers that everything was fine. She was home and safe so they could leave. One of the officer handed her a small card so they could call them if they needed. Red thanked them again and as soon as the police car left she rushed to her friend again ''they are gone now, please let us in!'' Stitch and Trevor was right behind her, waiting for the door to open. It didn't open, butt heir heard a small click, letting them know that the door was unlocked. They walked in. Raven was sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her legs. Her friends sat around her, Stitch on the bathtub, Trevor the closed toilet and Red on the counter. They all knew that when she was like that she needed some space, but still didn't want to be alone. They all waited in silence until Raven was ready to talk. She explained the best she could what happened ''I... I think I'm a vampire. I have fangs and... I want....blood.'' The three friends all looked at each other. Red handed her a glass of water ''let's not jump to any conclusion right now. Let me see those fangs so I can check if I can remove them.'' She pulled looked at the teeth and tried everything to make them fall out but nothing worked. Red look her friend from head to toe. She looked a bit more pale than usual and bit more chill too, but she still looked... alive. But when Raven drank the water, they all knew something was up because she couldn't hold it at all. And for her to get sick that easily.... That meant something was going on. Trevor shrugged his shoulder and said ''Well, just try and drink my blood and see what happen, I guess.'' ''NO! I am not taking the chance to turn you too! You might think it's some cool supernatural shit, but it's not!'' Trevor raised his hands in front of him ''Only trying to help here....''

Stitch then stood up and went to his bedroom. He was studying to become a nurse, so he came back with all he stuffs he had to practice for blood test. He had everything he needed to get some blood from his friends. He took some from Trevor and gave Raven the seringue and she drank the whole thing and she felt a lot better ''thanks.'' They all looked at each other. Stitch said that he will need a lot of stuffs for the blood from now on. They all wondered what they should do about all this vampire stuff. After a small brainstorm they came to the conclusion that since she could blend in really well with the band, they wouldn't tell anybody. And also, it's now like they could tell anybody about this. It would be their little secret and they would have lots of time to figure this out later... They decided to keep on with their lives like nothing happened. The only difference is that now Stitch would practice a lot more often for his blood stuffs with them.

---

Meanwhile, in one of the most expensive house of the town, some people where talking about a really urgent problem ''someone broke the Masquerade. People are talking about a young lady that was running at an incredible speed.'' Elena, the Prince of the town was explaining. She asked Maxwell, a trustworthy vampire, to discover who did this. She suspect that this vampire is a new recruit of Darius. He had been turning humans into vampires quite often this past years and it's getting out of control. Maxwell knows Darius personnally and Elena thought that he could make him see reason. Maxwell wasn't thrilled about the idea, Darius was a stubborn one, but when the Prince 'kindly ask' for your help, you do as you are been told. He walked all the way to this small cottage in the middle of nowhere and what he saw horrified him. Darius, or what was remaining of him, was laying on the ground, all tied up. Dead. Really dead, not only vampire dead. He looked closer and saw the really distinctive vampire's bite on his neck. Did someone really... No it was impossible. Darius was a dick, but not enough to deserve... that! He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. It was useless to go back to Elena now, he needed more informations about what actually happened here. He went back to the city and walked around and listened to people talking. Trying to find something.

It was now the middle of the night and he was in the far back of town. He didn't managed to gather a lot. Only this band where the member of the groups were prosthetic fangs. He decided to go and take a look. As he approached the bar, we heard the music. Great, he thougt, they are playing tonight. He looked at the band and couldn't help but laught a bit. He always found this really funny, how humans wanted to look like them. How wrong they were. Well not completly wrong, some myths were true, but still. The musics wasn't so bad, he found himself staring at the singer. He was trying to figure out why. Something about the way she was standing. The way she looked. Something bothered him. He decided it was best to take a better look. He waited until the show was done and made his way to the group all the way back in their roon. He may or may not have used a bit of his persuasivess to get all the way there, but oh well, he was intrigued. Something he hadn't feel in a long time. He knocked and let himself in without waiting for an answer. What he saw confirmed his doubts. They would most likely help him get answers about what happened in the past few days. The singer was sitting on a bean bag, sipping blood out of a seringue while a guy was getting blood from another one. Red ran to the door and closed it. Stitch was already at Maxwell throat ''What the hell are you doing in here!? Who let you in!?'' Maxwell raised an eyebrow ''I would be more careful with who you are picking a fight with, young man.'' And he lightly pushed him away, but with his vampire strenght, the poor Stitch went flying almost all the way to the back of the room. Raven jumped in to protect her friend. In an instant, she was grabbing the older vampire shirt with her hands, growling and baring her teeth.

Maxwell only laugh slowly ''Your mentor didn't tell you to never show your vampire traits to anyone? That's a really bad thing to do, you know?'' Raven let go of him and backed away a few steps. She looked at her friends before looking back at Maxwell ''My...mentor?'' ''Yeah, the one that turned you... What did they tell you exactly?'' Awkward silence from the young lady in front of him. He crossed his arms on his chest ''What did you do?'' ''I DON'T KNOW! I was drinking and having fun with my friends, this dude came and took me away to this weird cottage, told me some weird shit and I lost it and I ran away! THAT'S ALL I KNOW!!'' She then collapsed on her bean bag, her three friends aroung her in a protective way. He looked at her, how scared and confused she was and he couldn't help but feel compassion for her. He understood her really well after all. His mentor also disappeared really early in his vampire life. He was lucky enough to have other vampires around him to help. He let out a long and loud sigh ''Let me help you. But for that I have to bring you to the Prince of the city. She is the one in charge here. She is going to help figure this whole thing out.'' Stitch stood tall in front of him ''And why should we trust you exactly?'' Maxwell tilted his head to the side ''I don't know, maybe the fact that I didn't freak out seeing your friend drinking blood out of a seringue. Maybe the fact that I know something is up with her.'' Trevor raised his hand ''What if your just another weirdo like the other one?'' ''I am NOT like him!'' Maxwell shouted. He always hated being compared to Darius. ''Okay, dude, chill out!'' Trevor answered. The old vampire looked at him with this confused look. Slang words, from all the things that was changing in the world, expressions and slang words from the youngest generations was something he could never understand. Red raised her hand in a calming way ''I guess we can't come with her?'' Maxwell shook his head. Top secret vampire stuffs and all. Red turned to look at Raven and whispered in her ear ''If you don't call us in thirty minutes, I call the cops and we will find you and get you out of whereever he is bringing you, okay?'' Raven gave her a small nod and followed Maxwell outside. They walked for a while, making lots of turns going to random places. Maxwell knew her friends was trying to follow them so he made sure that they got rid of them before going to the Prince's house.

Once they came in, they weren't greeted the way he expected. One of the vampire in the lobby screamed upon seeing Raven and attacked her ''DIABLERIST!'' she screamed. Maxwell didn't have time to do anything that Raven already managed to set herself free from the other vampire and climbed all the way to the top of the ceiling, climbing to the large pillars and running on the large woodem beams on the ceiling. He gave the old lady an angry look and commanded her leave right now! He wasn't a really high rank vampire, but he was convincing when needed to and she left without another words. Elena walked in a few moments later ''Who did you bring here exactly? Helen just told me a... diablerist, was with you?'' ''I have no idea what she is talking about.'' He pointed all the way up, where Raven was hiding ''But she is a newly turned vampire by Darius.... Something happened to him so she doesn't know anything about our world.'' Elena looked at the ceiling and sighed. Another lost vampire. Why did they always ended up in her city? She really gracefully climbed to the top of the pillars and slowly walked to the scared vampire. She could see her aura, all the black veins that was curling around it. dear child, she thought, what did you do? She kneeled a few feet away from her ''Max here told me that you have no idea what is happening to you, right?'' ''Why is everyone attacking me? I didn't ask for this. what is going on?'' Elena smiled at her ''Do you want to see a cool trick? I'm pretty sure you can do it too since you were able to climb all the way here.'' Raven look at her with her head tilted to the side like a little puppy. Elena laughed and let herseld fall all the way to the ground. She landed really gracefully without hurting herself and turned around to tell Raven ''trust your new abilities and your body and you won't hurt yourself. You look like a smart girl, I'm sure you can do it.'' Raven stared at the ground for a while, it was really high. But the trick seemed really cool, so without a second thought, she jumped down. When she touched the ground, she made a small pirouette to dissipate the impact and stood back up right away, a big smile on her face ''Woooooww! That was so cool! What else can I do?'' Maxwell rolled his eyes, trying to hide his smile. New vampires, always so.... innocent. Elena reached out her hand for Raven to grab ''One thing at the time. For now you have to tell us exactly what happened. You might have done something bad without knowing it... I want to make sure you didn't do it on purpose, you understand?'' Raven nodded shyly, but still followed the Prince around, Maxwell following a few feet away.

Before they started to interrogate her, Raven said that she needed to make a phone call to her friends to tell them she was fine. They gave her some privacy to let her make her call. They told her friends that she was fine. She told them that she thought they would help her... Well they would either help or kill her so, if they don't see her again, they will know what happened. They tried to convince her to run away, but she said that she didn't want to run. They knew who she was and where to find her. She didn't want to have vampires searching for her forever. She did something in the cottage and she had to face the consequences now. She told them that she loved them and hung up before they made her change her mind. Maxwell and Elena interrogated her for quite a while. Until the sun set actually, where they all needed to go to sleep. She noticed how hard it was for her to stay awake during the day. They told her that it was indeed a vampire thing. They were noctural creatures and needed to sleep during the day. The next night they woke her up to tell her what they had decided to do with her''Maxwell will be your new mentor. He quite insisted that we should give you a chance to redeem yourself. You made mistakes, but you had no idea what you were doing.'' She gave him a long and knowing look before adding ''But you will have to go to this other city to meet another Prince. His name is Oliver and he knows much more than me about.... What you did and how to deal with it. Maxwell knows him really well too so it shouldn't be an issue. You both will come back when everything is sorted out.'' Raven looked up at her ''But... What about my shows?'' The two older vampires looked at her with quirked brows. They had more important things to care about then human music. She will have to cancel them or something. It was better for her own safety to not come back here before everything was back to normal. She sighed and didn't have much choice but to agree with them.

She climbed in Maxwell's car and showed him the way to her apartment. She got some clothes and other of her belongings. Told her goodbyes to her friends and took the time to explain everything to them. Red told her to not worry about the band. They will find a way to explain to their fans why they will have to stop for a while. Family issues or something. They will understand for sure. She hugged them and went back in the car. They drove a few hours to this big city. Maxwell parked his car in the parking lot of a luxurious hotel. When she exited the car, Raven heard music. Another band was playing in the back of the parking. It wasn't as crowded as her shows but she thought she recognized the singer. She ignored Maxwell protests and walked to the small stage. When the song stopped the singer looked at Raven and shouted ''Hey, look who decided to pay us a little visit! Raven from the Forgiven Blaze!!'' Big screams and claps from the audience. Lucas, one of her childhood friend and singer of the group, gestured her to come on the stage ''Why don't you sing us a little song?'' Loud and clear shouts of agreements in the crowd ''I don't know... I don't really sing popular music!''She said in a false disgusted way. Lucas pushed her around a bit ''Okay, okay... I know this one song that I like...'' She turned to the musican and ask if they knew Monsters by Katie Sky. They all rolled their eyes, of course they knew it! She sang the song. She couldn't help but see how it was a bit ironic for her to sing this song, but she went along with it. The crowd really enjoyed the song and sang along with her.

While she was on the stage, Maxwell couldn't get his eyes out of her. Almost hypnotized by the song. The lyrics resonated into him. Oliver walked to him and stood beside him ''She is the new one?'' Maxwell jumped out of surprise and stared at his old friend. Oliver opened his mouth wide in an overly dramatic shocking expression ''Does your heart started beating again after all this years my dear old friend?'' ''I have no idea what you are talking about...'' Maxwell pouted. Oliver smiled widely ''New vampires, they bring back so many memories, am I right?'' Maxwell nodded a little and pointed to Lucas ''He is your new one?'' ''Yup! He is so sweet and innocent! He is just like my son...'' Maxwell gave his friend a conforting tap on the shoulder ''You know why we are here,right?'' ''I do, but for now, let's enjoy the show!'' Maxwell tried to talk back but Oliver wasn't listening to him. Max rolled his eyes and looked back at the stage. Why did he have to be the one to be in charge of Raven, he wondered. But to his surprise, he didn't feel mad or irritated about this whole situation. He never was the one that enjoyed to teach the new ones, but this time... It seemed different. He couldn't figure out why. He looked at his friend again since he felt his gaze on his. He was looking at him with this cheesy smile ''What!?'' Maxwell blurted out ''Oh dear Maximus, after all these years and you still can't figure out your own emotions!'' Maxwell shook his head and crossed his arms ''that's not my name...'' This was ridiculous. He couldn't wait for this stupid show to be over so they could get down to business so he could go back home...