Spurned forward, his feet slowly rose in the air, gravity no longer held sway. His action scared the shadow, and it retreated. The silhouette faded quickly. He soared into the sky, not wanting his guest to leave without an introduction. With his bird's-eye view, he could see his quarry, a tiny figure zipping across rooftops.
Al propelled himself like a tactical missile with his foe in sight. The wind rushed past with a tremendous gale. For a split second, he pondered his death mid-flight, the sight of his tattered and destroyed body sticking out of some building.
The image flashed across his mind, begging to become a reality. He didn't let it take root, instead; he focused on the tremendous speed.
The split-second ended, and he hovered above the shadow. Stopped in its tracks, trembling in fear. He saw the roof shake under the figure's weight, despite his small stature.
Before realising, the figure leapt into the air with inhuman speed. It sank in its grip, taking him in a bear hug. The arms felt like a vice grip. Al looked down at his attacker, immediately recognising the face.
It was the young teenage boy, the same one he encountered during the whole vigilante thing. Though his face was different, his eyes were bloodshot, a predatory crimson hue. Sharp canines jutted from his mouth, unveiled for all to see.
The teen opened his maw, intent on taking a chuck out of Al's throat. Quickly, he activated a sigil at the centre of his chest. It glowed brightly through his clothes. The sigil had a shape like a circle, with two lines through the centre and several runic glyphs etched above and below.
With it glowing brightly, a force of energy erupted from his core. Gravity, harnessed as a weapon, burst forth and sent everything around him flying. The rapid influx of energy rebounded from his core, sending a wave of repulsive devastation.
Someone sent him flying across the alleyway, causing him to crash into the neighbouring roof. Freed of the crazed teen, Al descended, his feet barely reaching the roof as the force continued to grow larger. Bending and tearing the world, his surroundings rippled with gravitational force.
Grunting in pain from the influx of mana and clenching his fists, he felt the sensation radiate from his chest down his limbs. His body vibrated and the gravitational field widened. Hardening his resolve, he reached for his chest, deactivating the sigil. The field vanished with a swift hiss of power, fizzling to nothing.
With the oppressive force gone, he sucked in a deep breath, stabilising himself. Feeling comfortable, he ascended to the sky. Stepping mid-flight, as if the air was a smooth floor and he was on a peaceful stroll.
Reaching the enemy that tried to take a bite out of him, he lowered his gaze. His glare softened as he peered down at the pained creature, contemplating the idea that his enemy was nothing more than a child.
This lasted for only a moment. This child flashed fangs, ready to strike. Yet, despite the fury, he stayed his hand. Al could see that the boy was struggling to keep himself in check. He knew too well that expression. He had seen it before, hunger.
"You look hungry. Have you eaten?" He asked the boy.
The vampiric teen looked up, brandishing his fangs and hissed like an animal. He was panting, and the sight of a fresh wound on his left side caught Al's eye. He had a wound; The oddest thing about it was that he was not healing.
Al had met vampires before and they were tough bastards to kill. Yet this one seemed to be as fragile as a human. He tilted his head in confusion before the light of understanding dawned on him.
Ignoring the fact that the child had not replied. He withdrew a glass vial and a short dagger from his soul storage. Uncorking the vial, he placed it beneath his wrist. He made a quick slice of his hand and the blood poured into the vial, funnelled directly and without a single drop spilled.
This was all in defiance of gravity. He manipulated the flow with his left hand, guiding the blood telekinetically. The vampire hissed and growled, his eyes leered hungrily. Al gave him a quick look, cold and detached as the blood flowed.
The vial quickly filled to the brim and Al flinched in pain, a sigil lit up on his left rib. Slowly, the wound started to knit back together, good as new in seconds. Putting away the dagger, he offered the vial a sincere offer. The boy shivered with indecision.
"This should do for now until we can set up something better," Al explained, pressing him to take the vial.
The boy lunged forward, quickly taking the glass container out of his hand. Retreating to the edge of the roof, he angrily uncorked it. Wrapping his shivering fingers around it. Once the vial was free from its restriction, he downed the contents. Guzzling it like a man in the desert, he slumped down, his legs dangling off the roof, and let out a satisfied sigh.
Al decided it was safe to approach and did so. Still walking in mid-air, he realised and descended. Reaching the boy, he could hear sobbing from the slumped-over child. Upon reaching his side, he sat down next to him.
A pang of sympathy welled up in his chest. Adjusting his neck as if the sensation had a physical reaction. "It's alright my boy, every vampire goes through that every once in a while." Trying to reassure him, he put his hand on the boy's shoulder. The image of the young man biting his hand flashed across his mind. Quickly he retracted the attempt, worried about losing a limb.
The child raised to meet him, tears fell. Glaring with a mixture of fury and sorrow, he spoke timidly. "What is a vampire?" Asking through all the sobbing, Al tilted his head in confusion.
Confused, before a term came to mind. "Oh, I made a mistake before a term came to mind." Expecting the boy's eyes to lighten up, he was instead confused.
Wiping away his tears, he tried to reclaim his composure and a little dignity. "What is an upire?" He asked, as confused as a child could ever be.
Al frowned, not expecting that response. "Well, according to the Wizard's library, that's what your species is called. At least you fit the description."
The boy mouthed the word a few times, trying to get used to it. His face changed to anger as if a thought came to the forefront of his mind. Turning his gaze to Al, he pointed accusingly. "It's your fault, you ruined everything!" He accused.
"How so?"
He examined his brief history, trying to locate the affront. All he could find was the whole vigilante rescuing thing, nothing else. The boy was still angry, and Al's lack of reaction infuriated him.
After a few moments of absolute silence, the tirade began. "Because of you beating up those guys, we no longer had any protection, and then the hunters came. They took my sister. I only got away because she told me to run." The boy sank back into sobbing, his face once more in his hands.
The situation became clear; he pondered and came up with a scenario. "So, those thugs, who were pressuring you and your sister for protection money, were keeping these hunters off your back?” The upire nodded.
Al realised he had inadvertently caused this situation with the whole vigilante thing. In a sense, he was partially or perhaps wholly responsible. The only question was, what should he do about this?
He didn't care. Saving people was just a hobby. They weren't his people. This wasn't his world. Matesh wasn't my world either, and I cared about people there. He recalled the faces of several people he would love to see again. But here, in this world, everyone was a stranger.
He wondered if he should help those poor, naïve heroes. But what could he get out of that? Maybe a few allies, but he didn't want to be any more on the radar than he was. He would consider helping them if time permitted. Not now, though. He had far greater concerns. Looking out at the night sky, he thought for a moment. Once he concluded, he decided.
"I have a day to spare. What’s your name?" He asked.
The boy, with his face in his hands, whispered a name. "Felix."
It was barely audible, but Al heard it. Nodding a few times, he asked another question. "What's your sister's name?" This time, the question brought the child out of his tear-soaked hands.
Felix looked back with quivering lips, barely getting the name out. "Joan." He sniffled.
Al nodded. A plan was taking shape. He turned back to the city's skyline and cast a gaze across the bustling city dotted with stone and wooden buildings. It showcased a clear distinction between the poor and the wealthy, one glowing in light, the other steeped in darkness.
He lingered for a time, a frown forcing its way down his face. "Tell me about these hunters?" Al questioned, still gazing across the imperial city, eyes gleaming with curiosity.
Felix returned, eyes wide with an expression of hope mixed with suspicion. Dropping his eyes, he appeared to weigh his options.
"If I tell you, will you help me get my sister back?" The boy asked, pleading and at the end of his rope.
Al turned to the boy and shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. That all depends on what you know about these hunters."
Felix understood and explained everything he knew. His explanation was relatively short, he had little information. But what he could explain painted a gory picture. Essentially, these hunters were a chapter of the imperial knights. Vampire hunters or monster hunters, to be more accurate. They called themselves the Holy Order of Pyrus. The fire elemental is a patron of theirs.
They are to eradicate threats to the empire, specifically demons, vampires and mutants. Felix here being an upire, made the cut and needed purging. Al pondered, deciding on his next course of action.
“You wouldn't know where these holy hunters are located?"
Felix nodded meekly, pointing to his nose. Initially, Al was confused, but slowly he understood the meaning. With both of them on the same page, they left to find this supposed holy order.
The two had been walking in the night's dead for some time. Passing dimly lit buildings with sparse foot traffic. Felix was sniffing the air and directing them towards the unknown destination. He had explained to Al briefly that he could discern the specific scents of specific people.
It made tracking him down an easy endeavour. Alhad expected as much. After about half an hour, he informed Al that they were getting close. Pointing at a nondescript wooden building.
Approaching it, Al noticed the complete lack of pedestrians. "This looks like another facet of the slums." He mumbled, prompting Felix to tilt his head, trying to listen.
Al smiled and let out a soft chuckle. They walked, and he sounded out a musical beat that quickly morphed into a guitar riff. With every step, it raised in volume.
It was a song from his younger days. A rock ballad sung by a band he was obsessed with in high school. Right In My Heart! By the aptly named band. The adventures.
"I knew I was done! The moment you walked right in!" Excitement propelled him forward, the rock ballad adding a little emphasis to every step. "Girl you are fine, a hell of a dime, another drop of sin!" Reaching the door, the drumbeat in his soul steadily grew. Al smiled, finishing the lyric. "Bring me to life. Out of this strife. The edge of a knife. For the rest of my life!" He kicked in the door with augmented strength.
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The force reduced it to splinters, revealing a small, dimly lit room. A few candles spaced out on wooden tables illuminated four figures. A person had tied a figure to a chair.
Two of the figures were all dressed like cutthroats, while one was standing to the side, dressed in white priestly robes. The cut-throat wearing the dark overcoat stopped his brutalisation of the girl and turned to the invading pair.
Both Al and Felix had different reactions. Felix was shocked and then angry, his fangs descending and his eyes bloodshot. Al grinned, raising his left palm and faced the cut-throat.
The sigil on his palm lit up before anyone could react. He completed the song. "Right in my heart!" Lightning crackled, released in one long arc, right into the cut-throats face. He dropped to his knees, twitching like an epileptic. Al turned to the guy dressed like a priest.
The priest withdrew a mace from his side. The weapon gleamed with a bright light. Thrusting the weapon with lethal intent, he screamed a self-righteous threat. "Begone demon of foul blood, may the spirit of Pyrus purify you!" He spoke as if the words were some a spell or ritual.
The light grew, engulfing Al. It was so bright; that he could only see faint shapes. He heard a scream to his left and the rapid shuffling of unsteady feet. The light faded without a scratch on him, leaving the vampire hunter confused. He looked at his mace and inspected it before slamming the smooth part into his palm. He acted as if the weapon had malfunctioned, and he was fixing it with every meagre blow.
Al had enough of this and immediately electrocuted the man with a quick activation of his rune. Oddly enough, the strike hit him with no effect at all. It seemed he had some resistance to electrical attacks. The apparent lightning-proof man raised his mace, ready to clobber Al over the head.
His strike descended swiftly; a short steel rod spiked at the end, moved ever closer. Before it could splatter Al's brain with a rough swing. The protection rune activated on its own, detecting the strike. Al whispered a few obscenities before the repulsive field activated.
The air seemed to ripple with energy, distorting as the gravity fields repulsed everything around him. It sent the entire contents of the shabby room in every direction. The energy made the vampire hunter priest fling back into a wall, lodging his own mace into his brain.
He was dead on impact with a squelch of blood and slid down the wall. The rest of the occupants didn't fare any better. The impact flung Felix and his sister back into the wall. Both slammed into hard surfaces, with Joan being released from her bonds.
The final vampire hunter also received the same treatment and met the wooden floorboards. Once the carnage had died down, Al stood there, dumbfounded at the destruction he had wrought.
The protection spell had activated per its design. When the automatic defensive spells detected the hostile magic, they responded. The enchanted mace triggered this defensive measure that had slipped his mind. Slapping his forehead, he chastised himself for being so stupid.
Turning to his accomplice, the vampiric boy, he showed an apologetic expression. People did not respond well to it. He ascended with a scowl, wincing in pain. The surviving vampire hunter attempted to get up, prompting Al to give him a little zap to keep him down.
He attempted to offer the act as an additional apology. He wasn't even looking and bounced to his sister's aid, helping her get untangled from the demolished chair and twisted ropes.
Trying to overlook the damage, with a thought, he quickly deactivated the sigil, placing it in a dormant state. Letting out a sigh of relief, he was no longer a ticking time bomb. He turned to greet his fellow travellers of life.
When they noticed Felix helping his sister to her feet, they verbally bombarded him. "What in Durudin was that?!" Jo pointed an accusatory finger directly at him.
Despite the ferocity, her finger was shaking unsteadily. He tried very hard not to respond sarcastically, it felt unnatural to do so. Instead, he kept his calm and glared back at her. "We rescued you if that wasn't supremely obvious." He tried hard, and even calming himself didn't hold back his desire to be a snarky asshole.
He felt a slight tinge of regret and thought to say something else, but he pondered something. What is Durudin? The term was put in place of the word hell, at least by Earth's standards. Quickly, he shook away these thoughts and instead turned his attention to the situation at hand.
Jo was frowning, making way for a wide smile. "Whatever, that was some crazy magic!" She erupted in laughter. It was short-lived before she started to cough and keel over. "Everything went all over the place, with boom and woah." She painfully mimed the events, waving her hands around the room.
Al couldn't help it and let slip a smile. It was clear she was covering her nerves with humour. The tremor in her hands made it clear this was all pure adrenaline. Rising to her feet, she stepped forward, her brother behind her, concerned as a little brother could be.
Reaching Al, she quickly met him face to face, her smile sinking into a thin line. "No matter how epic that was, don't you dare do that again?" She spoke in a sharp monotone voice, with no anger or excitement.
Al could see she was concealing her injuries, trying to act tough. He could only sigh, not concerned about that eventuality. Her smile instantly returned, and she waddled over to the groaning vampire hunter.
It was the one still twitching from the lightning strike. The one that had beaten her. Standing over him, she kicked him in the groin repeatedly, each strike harder than the next. Both Felix and Al felt a slight constricting sensation in their lower regions and instinctually covered them.
Jo hurled obscenities with each strike to his nether regions. Mentions of removing his little lower friend with a rusty kitchen knife and another about his pathetic skills in interrogation.
Once she had her fill with gratuitous violence, she sighed and tried to straighten her messy hair. She heaved a heavy breath, trying to maintain her balance. In the end, she regained a respectable, semi-neat state. Passing by Al, Felix revealed an apologetic expression and nodded thankfully. Al responded in kind.
"You two don't go far. I'll be out shortly." Jo shrugged off his words with a simple wave. Felix nodded meekly.
Once he shut the door, he went to work inspecting the bodies. He identified that the two of them were still alive, although barely. The priest-looking guy was dead, the mace embedded in his face said so. One of them seemed to have died from electrocution.
"Huh, I wonder how he died. It is a mystery." He mused to himself, completely neglecting his role in said murder.
The other two were alive but unconscious. One passed out from the electrical attack. The other passed out from the pain of multiple kicks to his groin. Sighing, Al inspected the two corpses.
One of them had some gold, and a dagger not even worth looting. It was clear the three of them were just hired muscle. The priest-looking guy seemed like the only shining warrior among them. He discarded looting those pathetic saps.
Moving to the decked-out vampire hunter, he discovered a pouch of gold and silver. The pouch of gold and silver contained coins stamped with a crown on one side and three stars on the other. Taking the wealth that amounted to thirty silver and ten gold, he inspected the rest.
He had a few artefacts, such as a glowing crystal that radiated heat, a pendant with a glowing stone embedded, and finally, the mace. An unfamiliar enchantment adorned the mace, resembling a fire-imbuing spell. The magic was odd. The fire within didn't seem to burn Al and behaved differently from regular fire. His other possessions were average and not worth the effort of being stolen.
"It's likely he is just some flunky or perhaps this order of Pyrus is running low on soldiers, but high on funds to hire idiots in bulk." He chuckled and turned away from the corpse.
Walking over to the last two survivors, he placed a hand on his chin, contemplative. His eyes glanced to the ceiling and the spark of an idea formed. Reaching into his soul storage, he withdrew several items.
One was a small blue cooler, a lid on the top, held in place by a white handle. On the cooler, there was a picture of an iceberg with the words Cool Box written in large, bold letters. The others were six empty blood bags, the words St Gerald Hospital written on both. The next item was a long tube with a needle attached, used for blood collection.
Sighing heavily, he looked over his instruments and mused to himself. "I had intended these for collecting samples from various species, but I suppose I can lend a few for a different cause." With his tools in hand, he went over to the passed-out fellows.
Pulling up the man's sleeve, Al placed two fingers on his arm, feeling for a vein. Once he found it, quickly he slid the needle into the skin and attached the bag. It filled slowly with blood, all the way until full.
He repeated the process on both men, draining blood and placing them in the cooler. In the end, he had six blood bags stacked neatly inside. Smiling in satisfaction, he set the cooler aside and stood to observe the now gaunt figures. Nodding a few times.
"I truly apologise chaps; it was most unfortunate for you to meet me. But alas, it happened, and we have reached the end of our acquaintance." Raising his palm, he activated the lightning rune and killed both of them with a quick zap to their brain stems.
Their deaths were quick and clean, with no pain. Most couldn't ask for more. With that settled, he left the shabby building, meeting both Felix and Jo outside.
Jo was inspecting her brother like a fussing mother, checking for injuries. Still withholding her own pains like they were less important. She was even licking her finger and wiping away dirt from his face.
Al recoiled at the sight; it made him remember his horrible mother who did the same thing. Turning to greet him, Jo eyed him suspiciously. Felix started sniffing the air.
The entire street was empty, with barely any light beyond a few torches in the distance. Jo was about to speak, but Al cut her off.
"We shouldn't talk here; it would be best if we discussed our next move elsewhere." Directing the pair to follow him down the street. Jo narrowed her eyes but relented, acknowledging his supreme logic.
The three left down the road, heading away from the slums to the inner city. After about an hour, they reached the inn. The same barkeep from before, who smiled at his appearance, greeted Al.
"Welcome back and I see you have guests." The gruff barkeep stated with a friendly tone, gesturing to the pair.
Al nodded a few times. "Yes, my good man, would it be too much trouble for a table with one ale, two waters and three soups?" He requested, scanning the room for an available table.
Finding a few that had no patrons and were relatively out of the way. He pointed towards the table in the corner and the friendly barkeep nodded in affirmation. They seated themselves quickly and waited for their refreshments.