The Flaming Tsar and the Magicborn

Ascension

It is internationally known that vampires, werewolves, and other creatures of the night exist. In that case, they exist to cause trouble for the mortal world.

There were events in world history that, if nothing else, were attributed to the supernatural. The Czars of Russia knew that; with the knowledge that the supernatural world was at their doorstep, most Czars were content with ignoring the supernatural and paying attention to the mundane problems plaguing their country.

But not Nicholas.

He was a man who believed there was more to life than the problems of the country. As you can see, Nicholas was fairly new to the throne; his father, Czar Alexander III, died a few days earlier. In that death, he knew the burden of ruling Russia would soon fall to him. Nicholas was 26 years old and recently married; his wife, Alexandra, was a German-born princess whose grandmother was known as Queen Victoria of England. She had recently moved to Russia and was with her husband when his father died.

Many people who heard the news of the czar's passing wept, yet many more remembered his father, Czar Alexander II, often known as the Czar Liberator. He had ended the feudal system known as serfdom the moment the U.S. Civil War happened. At that time, most humans believed that the civil war was fought mainly to free the slaves, especially the slaves who were of African descent, but it was primarily seen as the Northern part of the United States interfering in a private Southern affair.

Little did anyone know that the issue was far from that.

Vampires were the main cause of that war; they raided many southern plantations, eating the slaves who lived and worked on those plantations, and hiding their bodies in the woods, making many people think the slaves escaped to freedom. But the truth most people were unwilling to face was that vampires raided the plantations at night, killing and eating the slaves, as most of them were too weak from the backbreaking labor and abuses their owners inflicted on them to fight off their attackers.

But what happened in the States also happened in Russia as well. Czar Alexander III recruited many vampires and werewolves to hunt down and kill anyone working for the revolution as an ironic tribute to those who killed his reformist father in 1881. Alexander II was riding in his carriage when a bomb struck it. He was killed in the attack, leaving behind his sons, daughters, and many grandchildren, including a 12-year-old grandson named Nicholas. Alexander III swore to make those who killed his father pay for inciting terrorism and assassinating the Czar, so he had the conspirators hung and tormented by vampires and werewolves until their deaths.

Many people killed by the vampires and werewolves for attempting to overthrow Alexander III protested as they died. In fact, one man called for the Czar to die and a better man to take his place as he was slain. Alexander was determined that Nicholas would never rule Russia as its czar; in fact, he spent the past ten years grooming an orphaned boy named Alexander Smirnov to become the new czar. But the church objected to that plan, claiming that the czar must be the son of the ruling czar and czarina. Nicholas was everyone's first choice to rule Russia; he would rule the country with a firm but gentle hand.

But on his first day of ruling the country, Nicholas decided his father was to be buried before he took the crown. A public marriage ceremony would follow the coronation a few weeks.

It was a poignant moment when the people crowded into the Church of the Resurrection and paid their respects to the dead czar and spoke to the new ruler and his wife. Nicholas benefited from meeting the people who he now ruled over and Alexandra was gracious towards the people.

Yet in that moment, two events would change their lives forever.

One event was the arrival of the Snoweagle clan, the vampire clan that served Czar Alexander III from his ascension until his death. They weren't pleased with the news of the czar's passing and that his son Nicholas, not the boy Alexander, was the new czar. Aramaeus Zempanga, leader of the clan, demanded that the Snoweagles be allowed to continue eating the revolutionaries that still plagued Russia.