"So, remind me again why these two came along?" Mordred asked, pointing her thumb at the twins, Manon & Maxime, who were busy filling themselves with expensive desserts.
Kurt, Nightcrawler, laughed nervously as he rubbed the back of his head. "Well, they just happened to be nearby when Lancelot called, and they wanted to tag along… that's not a problem, is it?"
"So it's the Adulterer's fault, no surprise there." Mordred snorted, but didn't say more on the matter.
"You should be kinder to Sir Lancelot," Manon said, but quickly stopped talking after her brother gave her a look.
"Yeah right, like I'm ever gonna play nice with that loser, the day I do that, is the day I become king of France." Mordred joked, completely missing the look Maxime was giving her.
The poor kid had a massive crush on Mordred, and he had no idea what to do.
I couldn't blame him; he was a mutant, someone who was hated by most non-mutants, and someone who was able to manipulate emotions, so he could deal with others' emotions, but his own?
He was just a kid when it came to those, a young boy facing his first crush, and he was clueless about what he should do.
Thankfully, Mordred too was as dense as my younger self, and therefore completely oblivious to the crush, or she would no doubt have exploded and unleashed a Clarent Blood Arthur.
"Well, we heard you guys were planning something big, and last time Kurt helped you out, you killed vampires, and we all missed out, so we wanted to stick along for the fun." Maxime said, coming up with a somewhat believable excuse.
I think only Manon and I were able to see through it. Manon was, after all, his twin; the two knew one another the best, and I had my Fae eyes, letting me see when he lied or left something unsaid, making it easy for me to put things together.
Yeah, we knew, but neither of us was about to say anything.
Manon because she was no doubt rooting for her brother, and me… because I knew Mordred would flip if she found out about it.
All I did was silently pray for the poor guy, because, winning over Mordred? Yeah, that was pretty much impossible.
"It was really just me who killed those blood sucking scum, they were pretty weak." Mordred was quick to boast, even if what she said was the truth.
"I have never seen a vampire before. Could you tell me about them?" Maxime took the chance to strike up a conversation with Mordred, and Mordred, totally unaware, was all too happy to regale him with the story of her actions.
With nothing else to do, I leaned back and just watched the two of them, and soon we were all watching, with Manon and Kurt asking a few questions, Kurt because he was curious about Vampires, and Manon to help her brother.
Poor Lancelot even tried to offer a few words of his own, mostly to correct Mordred when she started to embellish her tales, only to get a bunch of angry stares in return.
Mordred might embellish a little, but it did genuinely make for an entertaining story. She made an easy slaughter and stroll down a few hallways into a real adventure, and the others were completely invested in it.
With Maxime trying his best to flirt, as clumsy as it was, he kept praising Mordred, and she loved the attention. I was almost surprised at how good he was.
There was a fine line about praising someone endlessly, and just being an asskiss, and Mordred would quickly get annoyed by the latter, she was hopelessly addicted to the former.
As someone who always wanted more recognition, among my knights, she had not stood out that much back then, often overshadowed by the others.
With legendary knights like Gawain and Lancelot around, a lot of the other knights struggled to reach that level of fame.
Mordred wasn't entirely unknown, but frankly, with her wearing her helm and armor at all times, she didn't have the best reputation; she was relatively unknown to the people of the realm, yet upon learning that she was my child and heir, she desired more.
She wanted to be as known and beloved as I was, and even now, she still wants that.
And Maxime was playing right into that.
He didn't even realize it, of course. To him, it was just being impressed—genuinely impressed—with the sheer absurdity of Mordred's feats. But to her? Every wide-eyed compliment, every "You're amazing," every "No way you did that!" landed like a hit of the best drug in the world.
It made her stand straighter. Louder. Bolder.
"I punched a guy so hard his skull shattered like glass!" Mordred declared, chest puffed out with pride, hands gesturing wildly. "And he regenerated, so I did it again just to make a point."
"That's… incredible," Maxime said, with the kind of enthusiasm only teenagers in love or golden retrievers could muster.
Mordred beamed. "I know, right?!"
While the story was a little bit on the gory side, none really cared that much. These kids had seen the worst the world had to offer, so what harm was there in hearing about it?
"And then I pulled his spine out through his chest, and stabbed him in the eye with it, and shot him in the other one, he didn't get up after that one!" She continued, even if I didn't remember that particular execution.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it was something she had seen in one of those fighting games she liked to play, and just got too excited and mixed reality and fiction up.
Nightcrawler chuckled nervously again. "You know, this is somehow more terrifying than when we were actually fighting demons."
"She's always like this," I muttered under my breath. "This is the calm version."
Still, for all her bombast, there was something about the way Mordred looked just a little softer when Maxime laughed at her jokes. Maybe it was because someone outside the Round Table saw her not as a knight, not as my heir, but just as… cool.
Mordred lived for cool.
And despite the awkward flirting, the misfires, the obviousness of it all, it was kind of cute.
Shaking my head, I looked over at Lancelot, who still looked like he wanted to point out the inconsistencies with the truth, but wasn't sure how to do so after his last attempt.
"Sir Lancelot, nothing new from the resistance? I understand if these kids can't take their focus from Mordred's exciting tale, but surely you are still paying attention right?" I asked, giving him an excuse to excuse himself from the awkward situation he was in.
Lancelot looked visibly relieved at the out. He gave the faintest bow, seized the opportunity like a drowning man reaching shore, and stepped away from the ongoing performance with the elegance only a seasoned knight could maintain.
"Of course, Your Majesty," he said, already pulling out his phone. "I will check in with my contact to see if any of the teams monitoring the church's efforts have noticed anything at all."
Mordred, who'd just launched into an animated retelling of the moment she supposedly piledrived a vampire through the ceiling and the floor simultaneously, barely glanced his way. "Tell them I said they owe me snacks for every vampire I killed."
"That would likely be the Church that owed you a Favor for that, not the resistance," I muttered.
"Whoever it is, they better make a statue of me, in pure gold!" Mordred demanded, before quickly getting asked another question, and beginning to tell more tales of hers.
Honestly, I was pretty sure she was stretching the limits of the charm placed on her; it wouldn't be long before it would snap, making her small audience realize just who she really is, not someone cosplaying as Mordred, not Mordred's number 1 fan, but Mordred herself.
Part of me wanted to stop it, while another, more chaotic part, wanted to see the reaction of those three kids once they realized who they were chatting with, particularly the twins, when they discovered just who Maxime was crushing on.
Whether fortunate or unfortunate, I wouldn't get an answer to that question just yet, because it didn't take much longer before Lancelot quickly reported a change in the situation. "Your Majesty, the Church has encountered a powerful being; it's highly likely to be our target."
The room instantly grew quiet as tension filled the air. Mordred quickly adopted an eager grin on her face, while the others grew far more solemn. After all, they had just been hearing all about the horrors of Vampires, and now we would face something far worse.
I slowly stood up and looked at young Kurt. "Very well, young man, it's time for you to act. Remember, lives are at stake here." I said, before looking at Lancelot. "Where is he taking us?"
"The Château d'Aigrefoin," he replied. "Outside Angoulême." He said, handing his phone over to Nightcrawler. Whose hands were slightly shaking as he looked at the live footage taken of the location.
"Alright, I got it. Please, everyone, hold on." He said after gathering himself.
Everyone quickly gathered around him, and I noticed that Maxime made sure to position himself next to Mordred. Many things can be said about the guy, but someone passing up an opportunity he wasn't.
There was a rush of sulfur and heat as Kurt moved through the hellish dimension and reappeared with us all once more, this time, behind a few trees, barely hidden from the sight of a large old French castle.
The place looked spotless, with nothing out of the ordinary. If it wasn't because I could feel evil magic from within it, I wouldn't expect anything to be wrong at all.
"Ah, you came quickly. I'm not sure if you are too late, it took a while to detect something was wrong." Came the relieved voice of the Resistance scout.
I nodded once. "Report."
The scout pointed to the château's main gate. "There were quite a few guards watching the place, but they all followed the Church inside… after that, everything… felt strange, and a dark red light flashed through the windows up there." He pointed to the upper floor of the eastern wing.
"Then silence," he added, his voice dropping. "No more movement. Not even birds. It's like the whole building just… stopped."
I followed his gaze to the high windows he indicated. They were dark now, not broken, not glowing — just still. But I could feel it. Selene's magic, woven into the walls like thread through cloth, pulsing with malicious awareness.
"Your Majesty," Lancelot said, stepping to my side. "This reeks of ritual preparation. If they are still alive, we may not have much time."
"I know," I said quietly.
Mordred cracked her neck, all previous playfulness gone. Her jacket shifted slightly as she checked Clarent II's settings with one hand and flexed her fingers with the other. "I say we go in loud. Kick the door in, shoot the problem, stab whatever's left."
"I like that idea," Maxime said under his breath, just a little too eagerly.
"Lancelot, you are with the kids. Mordred, go wild, and be fast. We need to stop her from running." I said as I took off, moving at speeds impossible for a normal human.
Flashing across the grounds and to the doors.
Yet, just as I was about to open them, Mordred arrived by my side, kicked them open. "Come on Father, let's break some shit!"
Well, it wasn't my home… so sure, "Let's break some shit!"
(End of chapter)