After counting in her head for what seemed like a small eternity, Luna finally switches back on the lights. She timidly pulls herself out from her hiding position and looks out over the ballroom. Sakura sits very casually on a table, her leg propped up on her side and her arm draped over her knee. Her katana’s blade is a deep red, with the occasional drop of blood hitting the floor beneath her. Luna noted that unlike before, there was no aura around the weapon. All around her were the bodies of the men who had been in the room before, each one of them grasping a pistol. Sakura lazily swings her weapon up, licking the excess vitae from her blade.
“A little longer than two minutes but...eh. I got to have fun. I forgive ya. Let’s go get what we came for huh?” Sakura smirks, kicking herself off of the table and calmly stepping over the bodies.
Luna avoids the downed men entirely, sauntering onstage and leaping down into the ballroom proper. She joins up with Sakura as they start to head upstairs. The second floor had a few parlor games, most notably pool and darts. However, the boards were all empty, and the pool tables were devoid of their cues. Luna tilts a brow as she looks over the lifeless jazz club. Something felt wrong here.
“Wait...the lights were off for like, two minutes. Shouldn’t Scar have like, come out and investigated or something? This feels weird.”
Sakura frowns. “Probably. He can be very focused on his work, but the gunfire should’ve caught his attention.”
Sakura leads Luna to a series of small offices just out of sight of the pool tables. She quiets herself as she makes her way to the one marked ‘Head Office’ in golden letters. Luna follows suit, though she gives the assassin a few feet of space. Sakura kicks open the wooden door, raising her sword in preparation to use it, only to relax it a second later.
“He’s not here…?” The vampire says perplexingly.
Luna sticks her head in the door. The office is kept quite tidy, with a large desk sitting in the middle of the room. A few classy decorations are found sporadically throughout the room, including a small globe, an articulate hourglass, and lastly, a vase full of fresh roses. The papers on the desk are very neatly stacked to either side of a glass-panel computer. A picture of Scar sits on the corner, with him grinning slyly, with his hand hanging in the air as if he had it draped over someone, but nobody appeared to be there.
Luna gulps. “Then...where is he? Are we sure he was here tonight?”
Sakura scratches her head. “Uh...yeah. I mean, he spends a ton of time here as far as I could tell. If not here, then where the hell else would he be?”
Luna ponders internally. If he was supposed to be here but didn’t react to the gunfire, it likely meant he didn’t hear it. Either there was a basement with very thick walls, or he could have been on the roof. Just before the werewolf speaks, the sound of something heavy thumps down somewhere above them. She turns to look at Sakura, who seems to not heard the noise. Luna leans back out of the door quickly, grabbing Sakura by the shoulder and urging her out of the room.
“Upstairs.” Luna barks out quickly.
“What?”
Luna leans back in the door for a moment. “The reason why he didn’t hear you is because he was upstairs the whole time. Miguel’s been alone with him this entire time.”
Sakura stiffens up. “Well shit.”
Luna darts out of the room followed very closely behind by Sakura, who manages to pass her in getting to the stairs to the roof. The vampire kicks the door off of the hinges as she rockets up the stairs, leaping over several stairs at a time to reach the top. Luna’s did her best to hurry, but her unusual feet and the narrow stairs didn’t make for a speedy ascension.
Sakura flings open the door to the roof just in time to see Miguel strung up by Scar’s tentacles, the man hissing as he tries to hold himself together. Luna barges past Sakura to see the same sight, the werewolf’s ire raising immediately.
“Catch him.” Sakura whispers out of the side of her mouth, stepping forward and unsheathing her blade. She swings the Akai Blade in an upward motion, creating a nearly invisible wave of energy that slices the tentacles clean in two. Just as Scar turns to look at Sakura, she fires off a vicious blast of wind that sends Scar rocketing off his feet, rolling a few times over himself. The tentacles lose their grip on Miguel entirely, who starts to fall towards the ground. Luna sprints forward and leaps just in time to catch him in her outstretched arms, hitting the ground on her side and sliding on the frozen concrete a few feet.
The werewolf leans up to look over Miguel’s battered body, holding him close. Her eyes start to water as she looks over the various bruises on him, scarcely able to control her breathing. Miguel winces as he’s moved, moving his right arm over to grab at his mechanical one. His voice is sympathetic but still pained.
“Shh-shh-shh. I’ve taken lumps worse than these. I’ll be okay.”
“Mr. Morales I...I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was-”
“Don’t be sorry kid. Just get him. Make him…” Miguel bites his lip as he pushes himself into a sitting position. “...make him pay. For me.”
Luna nods, shaking the small tears forming in her eyes. She stands up and balls her fists, ready to fight. Luna starts to step away from Miguel, but Sakura calls out sharply.
“Stay there. Guard him. I’ll handle Scar.”
Luna halts her advance and growls at the friendly vampire. “What? Why? You need my help!”
Sakura shakes her head. “If he gets to Miguel again, he’ll take him hostage and kill him. Or worse. Just...just stay there.”
“Now, what makes you think I’m the bad guy? The way I see it, you guys stormed a perfectly reputable establishment and started pointing guns.” Scar calls out sarcastically, picking himself up from the ground. He faces Sakura, brushing off his clothing from any debris the sudden tumble may have given him.
“I have a job to do.” Scar says as-matter-of-factly. “Nothing more, nothing less. I run this wing of the family out here. And things were going fine. Just fine. Until some psychopath started blowing up shipments.”
Sakura spins her sword into a fighting position, with both hands grasping the hilt and holding the blade in front of herself. “And what part of that involves your gross-ass eating habits hmm? Or the people you mulch through to power you and your friends messed up little gang? The completely unnecessary murders you and your boys pull off every few months?”
Scar crosses his arms over his chest, with one of his tentacles waving accusingly over his head. “Do my ears deceive me? Is the assassin scolding me on the rights and wrongs of running a criminal organization? Your capacity for hypocrisy truly knows no bounds, Sakura Armada.”
Sakura’s eyes widen in surprise. “How’d you find out about-”
“When you are as long-lived as I am, you hear things, and so many of us just love to gossip.” Scar grins in response.
He continues a moment later. “Oh yes, dear Sakura, I did do my research. Once apart of the illustrious Armada business empire that took a tumble back around the turn of the last century. There was once nothing that the Armada didn’t have a finger in. But your father made a few poor bets and ended up owing too much to the wrong people. And where did that leave poor little Sakura when her father’s fortunes went up in flames?”
Sakura stands a little more resolutely in the face of the truth, simply staring disapprovingly at Scar.
“Parentless...and very soon after that...homeless. Then you disappeared without a trace. Only to reappear ten years later and doing assassin work for hire. From what I used to hear, you were rather good at it, weren’t you?”
Sakura shrugs towards him coldly. “It’s the best way to advertise.”
“It truly is, isn’t it?” Scar says. “But perhaps, not good enough. One double cross later left you face down in a ditch with a hole for a chest. Homeless and friendless yet again.”
Sakura rolls her eyes. “Is there a point to your history lesson here?”
“Yes.” Scar hisses. “It’s to help your...soon to be departed friends here to understand the kind of hypocritical scoundrel they should have left to die. Bleeding out in the snow, just as lost and hopeless as she’s ever been.”
Sakura snorts in his general direction. “I won’t pretend like I’m some goodie-two-shoes. But I don’t do what you do asshole. I did what I did to survive. You do it for fun, just like your crazy ass firebug.”
Scar snickers at that, holding a hand over his stomach. “Oh! Yes. I have to admit, ever since I collared the law, I've been getting bored. No need to get my hands dirty when hardly anybody is around to oppose you. But I do have you all to thank for reminding me how exhilarating it feels. Ms. White was quite right. I like this.”
Sakura passes a glance over towards the onlooking Luna and Miguel before looking back towards Scar, frowning. Her sword straightens as her grip tightens. “Let’s see how fun it is when I put a second scar on your face.”
Scar returns her taunt with a scowl, the man rolling his shoulders as he prepares to command his tentacles. He fires two of the slick black appendages at Sakura, threatening to run her through the middle. Sakura parries the both with her sword, easily knocking them aside. She takes a step forward, throwing out another strong tunnel of wind at Scar. He counters by collapsing three of his tentacles together and flaying them out to make a triangular block of ooze. The geometric nature of the shield splits the wind harmlessly, venting it off to the sides.
Sakura winces as she sees this and points her wind tunnel down, propelling herself into the air. Scar lowers his shield and looks around for a moment, unable to find his adversary. Using this misdirection to her advantage, Sakura throws another blast of air behind herself, shooting downward at an angle. Just as Scar spots her, she swings her Akai blade, firing off another wave of sharp energy. The male vampire leaps to the side as the projected energy hits the roof, cutting through it and cleanly slicing through the concrete.
Sakura gives chase, sprinting after Scar and catching up to him fairly quickly. The male vampire summons his tentacles to throw towards Sakura, one after another in a barrage shadowy limbs. Moving her blade faster than Luna had ever seen, Sakura cuts each oncoming appendage, leaving a trail of them in her wake. Before long, Scar’s shadow pool nearly disappeared underneath his feet, leaving him without his primary defense. Sensing an opportunity, Sakura redoubles her sprinting, raising her blade in preparation for the finishing blow. Just as she charges in, her sword mere centimeters from piercing Scar’s throat, Sakura stops mid-stride. It alarms her even, as she struggles to move just that extra inch forward. She looks behind herself to see what the holdup was and gasps in shock.
Each one of the tentacles she’d cut down on her way to him had reformed away from him, planting themselves to the ground like a tree. In just that quick motion, the tree’s branches had reached out to her, just barely grasping Sakura by the ankle and her elbows, holding her blade still. Scar smiles at her plight, Sakura struggling to break free of the hold.
“Such murderous intent in your eyes. It’s adorable really.”
With a small wave from Scar, the tentacles start to retract, pulling her back towards the rooted tree of shadow. Sakura’s boots drag along the ground hard enough to leave curls of leather behind as she tries to maintain her position. As Sakura draws closer, more tentacles reach forward to grip her, grabbing her by the torso and the neck, making it all the harder to stay on the ground. In a few seconds, Sakura is drug into the shadowy appendages, growling and thrashing the whole way in. Luna shudders profusely.
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The tree then falls on it’s side and stretches outward to meet Scar’s small shadow pool, connecting it’s reddish black mass back to it. The shadowy singular shadow appendage rearranges itself, forcing Sakura to the end of it while she writhes within it, fighting the process the whole way through. Her sword pokes out for a mere second before being consumed once more. Scar smirks as he raises the tentacle high into the air, carrying Sakura within it with ease. The appendage then begins to slam itself into the ground, hard enough to both damage the roof and elicit pained responses from Luna. Every other slam, the werewolf heard the telltale snaps of bones being broken.
On around the dozenth slam, the bulbous tip of the shadow arm begins to rupture. Sakura’s red blade forces its way out of the cocoon and glows with a black aura. She swings the blade at the tentacle holding her, a massive wave of black energy slamming into it, which then explodes messily. Sakura’s bodily sent flying as she knocked herself away, the brightness of the blast forcing Scar to cover his eyes. Sakura lands in a bloodied heap, her sword embedding itself in the roof. She’s on her hands and knees, convulsing as she steadies herself through the pain. The young vampire is covered in abrasions and bruises from head to toe, as well as a completely busted lip and nose. The Akai blade soon loses all of its color, reverting back to a dull silver and losing its powerful aura.
Scar cackles as soon as he sees the state of Sakura, drawing the blasted tentacle back into the pool at his feet. He turns towards Luna, who nearly jumps in surprise. The werewolf gulps as she maintains her position in front of Miguel. The vampire meticulously runs his fingers over one another.
“I was wrong about her. She was very entertaining indeed, but that leaves me with the most boring of the three now, doesn’t it?”
Luna growls at Scar, her ears arcing forward and her tail going stiff out behind her.
“Don’t underestimate me!”
“You’ll have to set the bar someplace other than the ground for that to happen.” Scar taunts, crossing his arms over one another. “If you were actually a fighter, you’d have just leaped on me, yet you hesitated. Why?”
Scar takes a few steps towards her, his tentacles hovering from the pool at his feet but never obstructing his view. Luna gulps as she reconsiders. She supposed she could have jumped in at some point during that fight but...Sakura was right. What if he sent a tentacle over here? He could have easily killed Miguel.
“Was she not your friend? Don’t you care about her? You could have saved her you know. This is your fault.” Scar says, barely able to contain the mockery in his voice.
“Of course I care about her!" Luna says, a throaty growl rising from her throat. "She’s my friend, and she’s trying to do the right thing asshole!”
Scar acts fauxly wounded, draping an arm over his head. “Oh, my feelings! You have wounded me so! Your words have forced me to see the error in my ways.”
Scar commands two tentacles outwards, one grabbing his fedora and the other slithering towards an out of the way corner. Once the first appendage returns, he places his fedora back on his head and uncurls glasses from his pocket and sliding them back on his face.
“As if. I don’t know why you are this far in the city, but I gave you a chance to run along as well. At this point, it’s self-defense really.”
Luna hesitates to move any closer towards Scar, her eyes occasionally dipping back to Miguel’s form. Since he had been down, the human had pulled himself a few inches to the edge of the wall to prop himself up better. Seeing all of this, he reaches out with one of his feet and prods the werewolf in the leg. Luna turns to face him.
“Don’t you worry about me kid. Like I said. You get him. And you make him pay.”
Luna nods slowly and turns back towards Scar, who merely waits with his hands in his pockets. Finding her courage, the werewolf charges Scar directly, her claws and fangs glistening in the moonlight. She slashes at his chest, her claws extended as far as they could go. The attack hit nothing, as Scar easily sidesteps it. His tentacles slink into the pool entirely. Luna swings at him several more times, but each one is met with a bored expression and a passionless evasion. After several more tries, Scar’s hand shoots out, grabbing Luna’s own and halting it from hitting him.
“You...actually don’t know how to fight, do you? I didn’t know that the guard dog Morales had gone and got himself was a mere puppy. That’s cute. Useless, but cute.”
Luna growls as she rips her hand back from Scar’s own, her strength overpowering his own. “Don’t toy with me!”
Scar cackles. “Oh-ho-ho..but that would mean you’d need to be fun first.”
Luna flexes her fingers back and forth checking them for any injuries. Finding none, she narrows her glare at Scar’s smug expression.
“Why?” Luna says, sheathing her claws back into her fingers. “Why are you doing this? All these terrible things you’ve done...doesn’t it bother you?”
Scar shrugs nonchalantly. “Because I’m the bad guy. Because I am always the bad guy. So screw it. I'll be the bad guy. Makes no difference to me. ”
Scar slinks a little closer and pushes a finger up into the bridge of his glasses, adjusting them. "What I did to Mr. Morales I’d do again, and as many times as I had to to get the results I wanted. And no speech from any self-righteous wolf is going to change my mind.”
Luna hisses as she leaps forward to grab him, clasping her hands around Scar’s middle. She slides around him to end up on his back and lifts him, threatening to suplex him. Luna leans back to let gravity to her work when suddenly, mid-body slam, her body halts with a sharp sensation in her back. She looks around oddly as she see’s Scar’s legs in the air above her. What was keeping her up? She tilts her head back and notes that Scar’s tentacles had reached up to stop her from tipping any further back, efficiently halting the move.
Just as soon as the werewolf processes this, the tentacles wrench forward, throwing her several dozen feet across the mostly clear roof. She tumbles a few times, bashing through some of the patio furniture in the process. She eventually finds her footing, her claws scratching the stone roof. She picks herself back up and charges for Scar again, leaping on top of one of the AC units and then catapulting off of it towards him. Scar holds his hand out towards Luna as she flies in, remaining calm.
Two tentacles twist together to form a crab’s claw and fire outward, catching Luna by the neck and gripping it tightly. Her hands fly to the shadowy mass and start trying to pry herself from it, her lower body flailing wildly. Scar merely muses as he starts reeling her in, keeping her above the ground but closer to himself. A scared, shrill whine escapes from the werewolf’s muzzle.
“Let’s see...I’ve smashed someone today..and then crushed them...how about strangulation?”
The vice grip around her neck tightens, prompting Luna to squirrel around much more frantically. Luna feels the pressure build on her neck as her eyes water with pain. A sudden, terrible sensation grips her heart as if it were made of barbed wire. The pain is great enough to even distract from the fact she was being choked. The internal lacerations grow in frequency as they travel up her throat, as if something was trying desperately to claw it's way out of her. It passes by her mouth and ascends to her mind, pulling at it with sharp points imbedded along it's edges. A familiar voice bellows between her ears.
~"FREE ME."~
Luna whines as this voice couldn’t have picked a worse time to show up. She shakes her head the little she was able, the werewolf forcing more strength into her arms to pull apart the shadow. She calls back to it.
~”No! I have this! Just be quiet!”~
The voice calls out again, more insistently. ~”WEAKNESS SPEAKS. FREE. ME. NOW!”~
~”Shut the hell up!”~
A familiar voice drags Luna out of her inner monologue, the pressure on her neck loosening.
“Oh ho...or maybe I’ve got a better idea.” Scar says.
The tentacle he’d let slither free earlier returns to him with Miguel’s magnum in hand. He takes it from the wayward snake and brings Luna down close enough to press the gun against her head.
“It’s been an eternity since I’ve shot someone. How’d you like to be the first?”
Luna freezes solid as she feels the gun placed upon her temple. She looks morbidly morose as the possibility of her death swims in her frigid, pained mind. She passes a glance over towards Miguel, the man wincing in empathy for her sake. Scar looks between the werewolf and the human, a smile cresting across his features.
“Or better yet...ooh...I like this idea. The irony!”
Scar turns the magnum to point at Miguel’s downed form, his finger easing over the trigger.
“The cold, cruel irony.” Scar says. Miguel’s expression shifts to one of stalwart acceptance.
The voice in Luna’s head speaks with the utmost clarity, her brain feeling like it might split with the pressure.
~"DO NOT DENY WHO YOU ARE. UNLEASH ME.”~
Luna couldn’t see anything else she could do from here. If she did nothing, Miguel would die followed likely by everyone else. She didn’t completely understand who or what this voice was, but if there was the hope that it could pull her out of this, she had to try.
~”Fine.”~ She answered back. ~”Whatever it takes.”~
The instant she mentally spoke the last sentence, a bolt of lightning flows through her spine. Her muscles begin convulsing and growing uncontrollably, her mouth pulled back into a snarl. Her hoodie stretches as her body becomes more muscle-bound, her claws in both her feet and her hands growing outwards. Her pupils disappear, leaving nothing but glowing purple sclera in their place.
Scar turns to see Luna mid-transformation and raises his brows in surprise. He summons all of the tentacles he could to engulf Luna, using the same technique he had on Sakura. It seems to work for a small period of time as the werewolf struggles against him, but a bubble soon forms around Luna, forcing the shadows off of her. The bubble pops shortly after, and the shadows are cast aside, the werewolf howling as she drops a few inches to the ground. Luna summons a wave of force that sends every single speck of snow from the rooftop away, leaving the whole area cold and exposed. Patio furniture flies, smacking into the guard rails around the edges of the roof. Scar’s glasses and fedora fly off of his face as he holds his ground.
Sakura and Miguel brace themselves against the ground, looking on towards a still transforming Luna. The werewolf’s arms and legs had become elongated and thicker, giving a gangly but strong appearance. Whatever feminine attributes she may have had were replaced with sheets of sinewy brawn. Her elongated fangs that jutted out of her mouth were monstrously large now and apart of a snarl so severe that saliva drips from her. Two stag antlers sprout from the crown of her head, sending trails of fluorescent whitish-green fluid pouring down her body. Each drop that hit the ground sizzles, burning a small hole in the roof before disappearing. A guttural growl vibrates from seemingly her whole body as a 7ft tall Luna glares at the bewildered Scar.
“...I stand corrected.” Scar says after a brief pause.
Luna growls at him in a feral manner before charging at the vampire. Somewhat panicked, Scar summons all eight of his tentacles and flings them all towards the charging beast. Rather than smack them aside, Luna grabs two of the ones closer to her and yanks them towards herself. The tethered tentacles have a little bit of leeway, but when the shadow pool at Scar’s feet gives out, he rockets forward from his position. Luna swings her mighty claws down, ripping through Scar’s chest and drawing thick streaks of blood. The vampire staggers back, holding his chest in agony. He leaps back to get some distance from the beast, unwilling to engage it in such close combat.
Luna charges after him again, her unsettling snarling drawing close. Rather than attack, Scar draws upon his tentacles once more, mashing them together to form a shadowblood hemisphere of a shield to protect himself. Luna slams into it like a freight train, sending the vampire skidding along the ground on his back. Still, the barrier holds. Just as Scar starts to recover, Luna barrels after him again, her howling cutting through the night sky. She vaults over on top of Scar’s prone body, pressing him and his shield into the roof.
Luna savagely starts dragging her claws through the shield Scar had over the top of him, trying her best to get to the meaty snack behind it. The werewolf pants as she starts to dig at him, trying harder and faster to get through the shield, but for each time she managed to pull the muck apart, it reforms, protecting its user from harm.
Miguel stares on in awe at the turn of events, the human urging himself to his feet. He stands warily now, his robotic legs spasming slightly from the damage. Just before he starts to walk forward, a white puff of smoke appears in the air in front of him. From that point, a man seemingly appears out of midair, the smoke dissipating.
The man is shorter than Miguel and was very lightly built, though his grey trench coat hides most of his form. His skin is pale, almost chalk white and his short hair follows suit. His fedora matches his trenchcoat and is tugged downwards to help conceal himself. The grey man turns back towards Miguel and speaks very dryly, his voice lacking any real emotion or tone to it.
“You guys have been making my life hell, you know that?”
Miguel blinks at him incredulously. “Who are you and..uh...how’d you get up here?”
“You can call me Ash. The other part is not important. At all. What is important is that we need to stop your friend.”
Miguel gulps as he watches the feral Luna try in vain to get through Scar’s shield.
“Uh...why?”
The grey man reaches inside of his trenchcoat and brings up a cigarette. He rests it in his mouth and snaps his finger, creating a whitish-grey flame that ignites it. He flicks the fire monotone cinder away after that.
“She’s damaging a key witness for starters. And for second…” The grey man takes a long, dry pull from his cigarette. “She’s making an awful damn racket.”
Luna grows increasingly frustrated at the reforming shield, the werewolf’s clawing motions slowing. She raises her fist and slams it directly into Scar’s shield which oddly enough, cracks the earth around her, forcing scar into the roof further. Seeing success, she starts slamming her fists into the inky barrier with all of her might, arching her back as far as she could for as much leverage as she could get. It stopped moving Scar after a while, who’s shield remained firm, despite the battering.
Getting the faintest wisp of an idea, she pulls up from Scar and instead leaps into the sky as many stories as she could reach. With gravity on her side, she comes crashing down on Scar with all of the crushing weight, sending the both of them through the roof entirely. Dust, metal, and wood go flying everywhere as the two crash into the ballroom, the impact being enough to send furniture within a small radius flying outward. Luna lands on top of Scar who hits the ground limply, the vampire’s eyes closed with unconsciousness. Scar’s tentacles wither away underneath his feet, the shadow pool disappearing.
Sakura uses her sword to push herself back to her feet, her body wracked with pain. She approaches Ash just as Luna goes through the roof, grimacing at the wreck her friend was creating.
“Not to make a scene but in my experience, that’s usually pretty bad, right? That’s not just a 'me' thing? Punching through the ceiling?” Sakura muses.
Ash turns a wary eye towards her, taking another drag on his cigarette and flicking it aside. He exhales his smoke in a thick cloud. “You got me into this mess, you two are going to get me out of it. Huddle close.”
Sakura takes a few steps forward towards Miguel as Ash drapes an arm around them both. With a brief feeling of disorientation, the group teleports down to the ballroom, a few feet from the savage Luna. Miguel nearly loses his balance outright, taking a few shaky steps back from the ashen man. Sakura turns just in time to see Luna start clawing at Scar, ripping his suit to shreds and coating her claws in blood.
“Distract her.” Ash quips tersely, the man drawing his hands into his trenchcoat and pulling out a syringe gun. He loads it with a cartridge of sickly blue liquid.
Sakura jogs over towards Luna and grabs one of her meaty paws on the backswing, digging her feet down. The vampire barely registers's to the werewolf, who rips Sakura off of her feet as if she wasn't there. Realizing something was on her, Luna stops swinging at Scar long enough to look at Sakura. The young vampire gives the werewolf a promising smile as she presses her petite weight against the limb. Uncaring about her, Luna wrenches her arm out of Sakura’s weak grasp and backhands the vampire across the room, sending Sakura over the top of one of the gambling tables and into the ground.
Miguel draws near, hobbling a little bit as he walked. He holds his drained prosthetic arm with his other and near her.
“Luna...you have to listen to me. Just...stop okay? We won. We did it. We took him down. Just...relax...it’ll be o-”
Luna felt something near her just after she batted the other vampire away. She reaches down to bite Scar, her jaws mere inches from his face when a voice starts speaking to her. She tries to refocus on her bested enemy, wanting nothing more than to mash him into nothingness, but the voice kept talking. It felt familiar but...what was it trying to say? She couldn’t make it out. In either way, it was annoying. Distracting. Unneeded. Out of brutal frustration, Luna mindlessly swings her hand outwards, slashing Miguel across the chest and pushing him back. As soon as she looked over to who she just hit, her motions stop, staring blankly at Miguel.
Miguel takes a few steps back, clutching his chest in pain. He falls onto his back with a muffled cry and curls up to self-consciously. Luna’s mindlessness snaps away are her pupils begin to fill in her purple eyes once again. Tears start to well in the corners of her eyes.
Seizing an opportunity, Ash teleports right next to Luna and jabs the syringe into her neck. The werewolf growls at the intruder for a brief second before her vision starts to fade. The weariness of the battle caught up to Luna in an instant, and she falls over on her side, sliding off of Scar. She weakly looks over at Miguel’s still cringing form and tries to reach over towards him, but she falters, unable to retain consciousness any longer.
Ash's finger curls around the trigger of the syringe gun as hard as he could, putting the entire dose of sedative into the werewolf before drawing himself back. As Luna falls, Ash stands, recapping the gun and tossing the spent cartridge in a nearby trash can with perfect accuracy. Ash looks over towards Miguel and offers a hand to help him up.
Miguel opens up an eye to look at him, sweat beading on either side of his temples. He looks down towards his chest wound and clutches it closed. The cuts weren't deep, but the pain from them is acute, unlike the general soreness of everywhere else. He grabs Ash’s hand with his still functional one and pulls himself back up, Miguel panting with exhaustion.
“Thanks man, I appreciate it.”
Ash pulls another cigarette out of his jacket. He offers it towards Miguel. “Sure. We humans have to stick together don’t we?”
Sakura rubs her head as she finally recovers from the hard smack, treading back towards the two men.
“God...even her backhands hurt. So uh..guy. Why are you here anyway?”
Ash smiles towards Miguel and Sakura flatly.
“Because by the order of the Duskguard, all four of you are under arrest.” He states plainly. Ash then gestures towards Miguel, creating that same white-ish black flame again on the tip of his thumb.
“Light?”