The previous night, just next to a cliff looking over Landen, six young vampires sat inside the dense forest, pleasuring their stomachs with leftover flesh from the sacking of a nearby village…
Scissors. A tall, thin vampire, paler than most but dressed in the darkest leather gear one can find. Spiky black hair, iron piercings following his eyebrows and hanging from his ears, devoured arms and spilt blood all over his seating, earning the disgust of his brethren…
Leuto. Slightly shorter, the tattooed vampire fed not just himself, but also some of his bats with leftover fingers…
Tragoedia is rather shy, and nibbled at her given flesh, trying to delicately wipe off the blood from her mouth without drawing any eyes…
Erylis delicately sucked the blood of corpses, not opting for flesh and bones. Without remorse, she threw away her stock for the next corpse…
Oscar wasn’t hungry. Instead, he picked off at some remaining bodies, cutting off limbs and organs and packing them in his backpack…
Ezra: Where’s the Lord Ripper? He told us to be here at this exact hour!
Leuto: He left somewhere else with Cain and Claus. Said to me to deliver the plan for tomorrow…
Ezra: Screw him!! And why the hell are those two always behind his tail, huh? Aren’t we good enough for his “Grace’s” plans?!
Tragoedia: But…Cain and Claus are his…stewards…
The small vampire turned to Tragoedia, startling her with her grunting mouth and cold gaze…
Ezra: And what the fuck does that mean!? We don’t deserve any special treatment because we follow other Lords?! That what you sayin’, Tragoedia?!
Tragoedia: Eh…I…
Ezra: Come on, talk! Sing to us whatever stupid excuse you got thinking in that shit brain of your-
Oscar: Ezra!! Stop scaring Lady Tragoedia, and watch how you’re talking about the Sadist Lord…Unless you want to end up like the livestock in the village…You do remember what he did, right…
Ezra:…Tchk…
Scissors: Come on, Ezra!! Chill your pants! It’s been so long since we’ve seen the outside!! Here, eat some!!!
With flesh flying out of his filled mouth, he handed to her the munched-up arm, or well, whatever was left of it…
Ezra: Tchk…
Leuto: Speaking off Lord Jacob…Have you fellas noticed anything bizzare about him the past few days?
Ezra: Like what? The man has been a nutcase ever since I was out my mother’s womb.
Erylis: Ezra ‘s right. Anything about the Ripper is bizzare, that is his core personality trait.
Leuto: Like the constant mumbling? The moving in his sleep? The self-conversations when no one is looking ?
Scissors: Hmm…Nah, I do that too, said the vampire with his finger on the lips, like an innocent little boy…
Leuto: Yes, but you are also an out of this world creep.
Scissors: Correct.
Oscar: Hmm…The mumbling and self-talk has been excessive, even for him…
The sharpshooter packs up his ammunition, and starts tinkering on the horrid musket he uses as an armament….
Erylis: Have you folks asked for Cain or Klaus? They know him best…
Leuto: That’s why I’m asking. They’ve been worried about him ever since they reunited.
Ezra: Hah? Those two are capable of worrying? I thought empathy was inexistent for Cain and Klaus…
Throwing away the bones, everyone stands up and starts marching towards the cliff…
Leuto: Anyways, keep your eyes out for anything strange. Now about tomorrow…
Back to the southern gates, Url pulled out his Apothecary Table, slamming it into the ground as he starts searching for ingredients and flasks…
Shroud: Oy, bird-boy!! Happy you got that head a’ yers working’ but we need to be filled in!
Flower petals, animal hides, vampiric teeth, anything came out of that piece of furniture’s wooden closets. Smack, bam, pow go the drawers as the boy set his utilities and started brewing, with a glow of light spreading from the plague doctor sprayed out of his mask’s eye sockets…
Url: Moondust. A sleeping gas…
Silence. Not a word came out of the other two hunters’ mouths. But their disappointment was well noted…
Url: What? Seems perfect for the occasion.
Lau: Isn’t Moondust for like…imps and bats? What will that thing do to a vampire?
Url: Vampires can fall asleep too, Lau. Why do you think we parade around in the middle of the day?
Lau: Cause their skin will burn to dust?
Url:...Correct...
Shroud: I agree with the lass, shit like this won’t do against Scissors.
Unbothered, Url keeps on prepping his sleeping gas…
Url : The plan isn’t to knock him out. Moondust enters the brain and forces the body to fall asleep by speed running the process. So while on bats it works in a matter of seconds…
The other hunters rested confused at Url’s obvious try to have them finish his sentence…
Url: It will only slwo him down. I nibbled on the trick thanks to Cassie’s experience with mind jamming.
Lau: So the freak starts wobbling, and then we jump him?
Url: Exactly. And this time we are more than prepared, so I expect us to give more of a fight.
Lau: Forget the fight. I’ll kill him the moment he steps foot on soil.
Shroud : Nice thinking, Url ma boy! How much will this thing take?
Url: Should be about five minutes…Wait what was that?
Shrieks of bats travelled through the air to the hunters’ sharp ears. Turning around, they get a full view of a bat armada heading towards them, unbothered by the cyclone’s violent spree. Three large bat creatures lead the way to the gates…
Url: Leuto!! He’s the one that can conjure these things!!!
Shroud: Guess it really was a trap. Bird boy, finish the gas, we’ll keep you guarded!!!
Lau: Fodder like this will be enough of a warm-up!!
With Lau activating her Winds of Pirout, she dashes to the plethora of foes, slicing each little bat with ease.
Url: Lau watch out!! Some of them are tricked with runes!!
Lau: No trap can outsmart the Lecourt scion!!
And indeed she was right. The few stun bats with the blue rune symbol tried to freeze the huntress in her tracks. But the speed of the Winds granted her a quick defense, killing them with pentagram ordered, precise slices of her sword before they manage to bite her as she passes through.
Continuing her spree, one of the larger bats choses to engage her in a fight, with cherry colored runes . Lau tries to stab the bat with her wind empowered sword in its left arm, but the sword’s tip bounces back…Her staggered stance allows the creature to slash at her with its claws…
Lau: Shit!! What was that?!
Stepping backwards to recover her ground, she noticed the bat had a crystalline carapace, similar to Grey’s…
Lau: So, bats can make jewelry now? Nevertheless, my sword won’t go through that…And it must have come from that rune…
With a quick look, she saw runes on its forehead, arms, legs and wings.
Lau: So the eyes are what I’ll go for…
Violently coming her way, a cluster of whirlwinds clashed with her quick parry…
Scissors: Hello there, Lecourt…
Lau: Ugh, creepy…
Shroud : Lecourt girl!!! You alright!!?
Lau: Yeah! Seems Scissors is helping out his buddy!
Shroud: I’ll make sure there’s no one to help now…
Swinging his gargantuan axe, the wake of its teethy blade ripped apart clusters of bats. A group of stun type bats managed to pass through, and with a few bites, stunned the rampaging hulk enough to let the other two leaders strike him…
Shroud: Shit…I got too cocky…Lau, take care of that thing, I’ll handle these two!!!
Lau: Right!!! Let’s do this!!!
Url: Scissors is probably keeping the whirlwind up to block Lady Sarah from entering. I must make sure this gas comes out as strong as possible…However…
To the boulevard, Erylis was kicking poor Shaka around with her crystal kicks and punches. Luca was having a hard time killing his hulks, who then had the same type of armor…
Shaka: Shit…This won’t go well…
Luca: So her Virtue is covering with that crystal whatever she chooses…Judging from Shaka’s fight, I bet she can’t use her spell offensively. That’s good, at least. But I won’t be able to slash through that armor with just the swords, huh…
Shrieking, the hulks shouted their battle cries at the sword-dancer…Unfazed, he started hopping in place and spinning his dual swords…
Luca: A nice challenge for a change…Something new I can’t cut…yet…
Erylis was on the offensive. Not even needing to dodge, she just took Shaka’s angsty spear head-on, helping herself to his staggered, vulnerable stance by kicking, punching and throwing around the boy like a sack of potatoes.
Battered from the girl vampire’s hardened strikes, his clothes torn and his wounds bleeding, his breath as fast as train’s steam engine…Shaka’s mask could see every strike, but it was only a warning for the inevitable beat down he received, as offense was not an option with his spear against that impenetrable armor…
Erylis: You should probably tag in with your partner over there. He seems much more able to continue…
Shaka: Screw you, freak. I’ll have you running for help in a few minutes…
Erylis: Oh my poor lad…I don’t think you are in any condition to have me running…Now, before I keep pounding you to death, and while your master is busy protecting the escapees…how about you answer some of my questions, yes?
Shaka: Huh? What the hell could you want to know…
Erylis: Just some personal inquiries…A week ago, I lost a dear friend…A red haired little brat named Danno…
Shaka: (Aaron’s bat?)
Erylis: I will guess by that enlarged, twitching eyebrow that you are confused…but in the know! Did I get it right?!
Shaka: So what? You out for revenge…Yeah, I killed him…
Erylis: Oh, my dear, you sure do wish, huh? But I know who did it, nice try covering for your friend…
She slowly approached Shaka, and grabbed his battered chin to lift his eyes her way…His gaze met her smug, condescending look of pity…
Erylis: Danno was annoying…a brat who wanted to play with the grown-ups…I won’t blame the hunter for killing him…But he was the brother of a really important acquaintance of mine…So how about you tell me where are the hunters that took out my friend’s progeny?
Shaka:…Screw…you…
Erylis: Tchk…Stubborn to the end…
As she prepared to pierce through Shaka’s torso with her crystal covered arm, she lowered her head to get a better view…
Shaka’s mask still worked, despite the dents and tatters. It showed Shaka how the vampire would move, what position she was going to take, where she was going to strike…
Which was more than enough information for the hunter to time his strike and plunge one of Url’s steroid blasts down her left eye while she was distracted, with all the strength his broken arm could master…
Writhing in pain, she kicked him away and tried to block out the growing muscle tissue, that turned to a violent tumor ready to burst…
Erylis: WHAT IS THIS!!!???
Shaka: Steroid blast. It doesn’t have any silver in it, so the vampire body won’t consider this poison…
Erylis: It’s growing!! It’s growing!!! Stop it!!! It hurts!!!
The hunter plunged his two last stimulants down his thighs, clearing out a large portion of his injuries for the time being...
Shaka: Had to take all that beating because, how the hell could I have known you wouldn’t have covered your eyes at the last minute…
Erylis: Tch-ii-aAAAAAA!!!!!
Shaka: Hurts huh? Steroid blasts boost the body parts muscle tissue to grow double its size. Our doc’s syringes can triple that amount, and the effect lasts just a little longer…
Erylis’s desperately attacked the hunter, in high hopes that his demise would end her torture. But with her tumor growing, her movements were more than simple child’s play to avoid…
Erylis: (I have to stop this!!Kill him!!! Kill him somehow!!)
Shaka: Oh, the doc told me to try something else too…
Shaka span around his spear and stabbed the tumor between one of his fancy dodges. Like a bubble, the thing burst into fireworks of gore. Obviously, the girl’s head was half-destroyed, and her body laid lifeless in the ground, with the armor shattering to pieces…
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The hunter dusted off the leftover blood and stood aside the corpse, watching its diagram still awkwardly moving around…
Shaka: I know that thing won’t kill you yet…show me what aristocrats are made off…
Stepping afar, the hunter avoided the girl sprouting her head in horror and shock, while simultaneously trying to claw at Shaka with her leftover shards in her fingers…
Erylis: KILL YOU!!!! I’ll KILL YOU!!!
Shaka: (So the doc was right…)
Flashback to the rooftop four hunters were sharing as a hideout…
Shaka: So…Virtues aren’t spells…
Samuel: Not exactly…They are spells, but instead of using ritual signs and the like, a Virtue is imprinted on a vampire since birth.
Shaka: So it’s biological. So they can be destroyed!!
Samuel: Definitely not destroyed, since the bats can regenerate…But I think that if the region responsible for activating virtues is damaged, it can be halted for a while…As long as it remains damaged that is…
Shaka: And which region is that exactly?
Samuel: Hmm…No idea.
Finn: A dead end, huh…
Url: Well, I mean…we do have test subjects now, don’t we?
Back to the fight…Shaka realised the blast must have send her restorative factor back a few degrees…Her armor too, only builds itself in smudges…
Shaka: If she could give those hulks armor too, that must mean the virtue point is somewhere in the brain or the arms…Guess I was lucky…
Erylis: My limbs and carapace shall grow very soon, Doku!! Forget my offer!! I will make your grave in this spot!!!
Shaka: That sounds lovely…but my superior might have another opinion.
Erylis tried to grow her armor up to her limbs. As she turned around to look at her surroundings, her gaze stopped to the sword dancer, and the pile of hulk corpses lying behind him , covering the cowering survivors.
Luca: Nicely played, Shaka. I’ll take it from here.
Eliakim rounded up the survivors, having slightly recuperated from his wounds.
Eliakim: Luca’s…Everyone, out now!!!
Soldier: You heard the chief, everyone run to the center!!!
One boy followed the chief quickly, despite his torn-up shoes hindering his steps all the way. Bothered yet, he still tried to get ahold of the chief’s attention…
Boy: Sir!! Why are we running from the hunter?!! Shouldn’t we help him?!! That vampire is going to kill him.
Erylis: (What is that one doing? Never mind, the mask brat’s trick has ended its course. In two seconds, my armor will grow back anew and both of them will sleep under my feet!!)
The crowd was still conscious enough to follow up on the kid’s rather logical way of thinking, asking too many questions…
Soldier: Hey, less talking more running!
Luca started hopping. Swords in hand, two beautiful, silver blades, fashioned like two crosses. The soles of his shoes briefly tapped on the stone floor, with each hop, filling in the void background with the unsettling taps. He hopped back and forth, left and right, slightly waving his blades in rhythm. His bloody hair covered his eyes but both Shaka and Erylis could notice from the brief openings that his pupils had fixed themselves on the vampire’s limbs…
Eliakim: Kid, you’ve got guts. Ever seen a senior fight a vampire?
The kid thinks hard, but he comes up empty…
Eliakim: Lemme answer that for ya’, “never”. And wanna know why that is?
Both the blades and Luca glowed white the more his pace started growing faster and faster. Upsetting the vampire, she shifted her attention from Shaka entirely…
Shaka: Boss, straight line, left hook, right spinning leg!!
Luca: Affirmative…
Before Erylis could act, trying to rush in and assault the hunter physically…
Erylis : Huh??
The hunter was no longer in front of her. Rather, he was kneeling far behind, seathing his blades and looking over his junior, with a strange feeling of lightness governing her thoughts.,..
Erylis:What did he…
One curious look to her surroundings, and she saw her limbs flying away, hands and legs uncovered by the carapace, while her wings lied on the ground, chopped to the very root…
Erylis: When did he…
One second more. Then, myriad of slashes followed to the direction of the sword-dancer’s wake that dragged the vampire’s corpse through the air, skewering her body and stopping her regeneration in its tracks…The aftermath of her flesh lied half-dead on the ground. Gasping for breath like a maniac, while the blood wouldn’t cease to pour out of her wounds in liters…
She struggled to sprout her limbs once again, but to no avail, only furthering her woes…
Luca: Shaka, go secure her body before she dies of bleeding. I have a lot to ask of her tomorrow…
The young man practically skipped. Stimulants can be life-savers in a battle, but their effects are limited. He reached to the vampire’s body. Casting “Disintegrate”, he burned her wounds, then used some of Url’s gauzes to cover them…A technique every hunter has to learn in his training days, how to safely secure a dying vampire for questioning…
Erylis: I’ll…kill you…these binds won’t hold me down for long…
Shaka: The binds have a regeneration halting charm. Even a kid can take you to Salazar now…
Support soldiers storm the boulevard...They arrive right before Shaka succumbs to his wounds…
On the other side, Cassandra still fights her battle valiantly. An exchange of arrows and screams as Ezra tries to knock down the heroine.
Cassie’s adventurous spirit translated to her fighting style. Using the empty rails, the stages, stands and even the balconies as footing, she jumped around the boulevard like a circus girl, all while shooting her small arrows to poke at the vampire’s shorter body.
Ezra’s veins start to pop. Blood boiling from frustration, she spreads her wings and floats up to the air…
Cassie: Now!! One good shot should knock her down!!
She let out her arm, to conjure a larger, thicker arrow. Resting on a railway, like a crow awaiting its prey she slowly drew it with Nightingale. Its weight has her breathing in and out to focus on the vampire that charges its next blast…
Ezra sucks in all the air her lungs can carry…Cheeks like balloons, she fixes her gaze at the huntress.
In a sudden split of a second, she spins forward, and blows her blast backwards. A vampire cannonball, she’s too fast for the nightingale to react, sending her arrow astray and destroying the rail she stands on as they both fall on the ground…
Ezra got ahold of her, bow cast away and thus vulnerable. She started hitting her, blowing away fists in her face…
Erza: Like that?! Huh!!? Come on!! Shoot me!!! I said fight back!!!
The vampire relentlessly beat her…In a moment of pause, Cassie spat out blood and a tooth…She stared up at her assailant, cracking a wicked smile despite her busted lips and black eyes…
Cassie: Is that why you shout in fights? Cause you can’t even hit a little girl like me?...
Fuming, she pulled her two hands together and prepared to pummel her face to the ground…
Ezra: (Is she serious? Did she really fucking say I’m weak?!! I’ll turn her pretty head to minced meat!!)
Cassie: You can go ahead and try…but you should know…I already won…
Ezra: What?! How’s that!? You still talking!!?
Before she brought down her arm hammer, the hands were pulled away by a gelatine like silver entity.
Ezra: Glasses?! When did he-
As she is pulled to the scientist’s blob, larger than before, she notices it also holding the beaten Oscar like a rag doll…
Samuel: I have to thank Cassandra for this… You guys took out way too much of its silver, and I forgot to make refilling vials…
Ezra: (Silver? Why would he need…The arrows…) You fool…
The realisation hit. Cassie wasn’t on the defensive. She wasn’t poking at her with the dart arrows. She was buying time and feeding her senior with ammunition to refill his beaten blob…
Samuel: A silver blob is made of silver after all…
She prepared to shoot, but Cassie’s strong arrow stopped her at her tracks, smashing through her mouth before she attempted to strike Huckleberry…
The scientist ordered his blob to cover her mouth with silver, that hardens as he gagged her like a dog…
Samuel : Try to shout, the shock is probably going to come back at that pretty face…Can’t imagine regen is going to fix that…
Muffling away, he threw her to the ground with two silver made cuffs from the blob…
Distracted as they were, Oscar faintly opened his mouth. Cassie noticed a small flesh item coming out of his tongue. Bursting with red energy, it exploded on the blob, freeing his damaged body and allowing him to fly away…
Finn and Cassie tried to shoot him down, but the vampire proved himself a sharpshooter even with half a head, countering their projectiles with the last of his own as he faints to the rooftops away…
Philomena ran to them, with a silver adorned book in hand…Samuel’s blob returns to his locket in the quickest fashion…
Samuel: Uhh, Philo!! I didn’t know, you were here…
Finn: We literally rushed to her aid the moment we stepped in the boulevard.
Samuel: Yeah, I mean…Like Finn said, we came as soon as we could…sorry for not helping you out better…
Philomena: Nonsense!! You did a wonderful job!
Samuel: Really?!
Cassie: Sir Huckleberry, I think that’s the least of our worries…
Samuel: Oh shit!! That’s right! Can you heal Cassie while I take care of that nuisance over there?
Philomena: What about your wounds?
Samuel: I mean, that’s nothing. Remember a few months ago, when I made that-
Finn: For God’s sake, the woman is still bleeding!!!
And yet again, back to the gates…Lau naturally outmanoeuvred the creature, slashing and stabbing with wind enhanced strikes at its unprotected weak points, while taunting it to open its already messy guard. Drawing back her sword, she ordered the wind to push her forward.
Lau: Lecourt Arts : Stern Touch !
Before the beast’s “remains” tried to escape, she marched forward in the blink of an eye, and destroyed the standing corpse with one fell attack drawing the winds forward with her…
However, her skirmish is not left unpunished, as the creature left her open to Scissor’s teasing strikes at her arms and legs…
Lau: This coward!! Come over here and fight me like a man!!
Scissors: I’d rather sit this one through…Can’t have Lady Cowboy ruining our fun now!
Url finished the gas…But his trembling hands and constant headache seemed to have halted him from delivering it where it is needed…
Url: I used the table too much…Guess this is the price for not taking a break when my seniors tell me to…
A cluster of bats find him struggling, and decide to assault him all at once. Url tried to guard himself, but the only thing that reached him was the splatter of their corpses as Shroud spun his large axe and shredded their tiny bodies like cheese…
Url: What…
Shroud: I’ll take that. You take a nap…
The hulk hit the doctor and knocked him out. Grabbing the gas flask and putting him aside, he rushed to the battlefield, threw it away, and once its glass seal broke, the cloud of Moondust expanded in seconds…
As predicted, the gas stopped the vampire in its tracks…But…
Lau: Huh…This…That isn’t him…
Standing at a foot larger than what was expected, slim, dressed in a suit of black olive colored fabric. His face, sideburns big and messy as his dark brown hair, blood dripping form the sides of his mouth.
His crimson eyes, red as his floating tie, turned to see the Lecourt, standing her ground shocked and confused…
Vampire: Boasting colors of your stupid sigil all over, more than a 100 years you’re still snobby bastards…
Lau: Who…are you…
It wasn’t his height. Scissors was tall too. It wasn’t the blood dripping from his mouth and arms, every vampire has some before they meet her blade’s end. It wasn’t the pupils of his eyeballs fixated on her, nor his raspy, heavy voice that pierced her ear drums through his short moments of breath…
It was just his presence. A vampire like all the rest, and yet for some bizarre, inexplicable reason, the Lecourt couldn’t shake off a feeling of…terror…
Vampire: Oh, well…I don’t know what that fool tried to gas me with, but it pissed me off…
Turning his body around, he bend down like a leopard ready to jump, and spread his wings from his back. Four large, dark bat wings extended from his shoulder blades and scapula as he rushed at high speeds towards the scion, holding his right arm up to pierce through her skin and bones…
Vampire: You pissed me off, I’ll rip you apart now…
Lau understood. Before her stood a vampire stronger than what she has had to face up until now. Shaking, her eyes would wonder around, trying to look for a place to hide, to jump, to escape the monster’s fatal strike…
Lau: No…She wouldn’t bow away from this…Beatrice would have held her ground…I’m sure she did…
Her sister’s memory, and a brief flashback of the times her teammates stood their ground despite the danger they faced, were enough for her to steel her nerves, gather the winds of Pirou to prepare for impact by having them spin around her like a shield, and stare down the blinking figure of her foe coming at her with every intent to massacre her hide…
Lau: Lecourts boast their colors out of pride!!! I won’t back away from you while I wear my house’s sigil!! Never!!
Vampire: Then you are another fool to join the fodder.
Impact. The whirlwinds raised clouds of smoke. As the field cleared, the vampire had dipped his feet to the ground and tried to plunge his hand inside the Lecourt’s torso…
Shroud: Guess you weren’t just some pampered shrimp, were ya’?
Lau : Hah?!
The field cleared of dust. The monster’s hand never did reach Lau. Shroud arrived just in time and had plunged his humongous axe on the ground. It’s heavy, thick blade was enough to take on the freak’s strike. His hand was smashed to bits on the blade’s side, while the force of the impact transferred to a split wave that destroyed the ground behind Lau… She starred at the consequences of the skirmish, trembling at both the hulk’s and the vampire’s strength…
Shroud: You should probably back off, I just sobered up…
Flying away before Lau even thinks of attacking him, he looks at his deformed hand. In split seconds, he restores it to its former state…
Vampire: That axe…And the balls to take on my fist and live to tell the tale…You are the Butcher…Roderick-something…
Shroud: Ya herd’a me? Nevr knew I ha’a reputation among da freaks…
Vampire: You’ve been slaughtering my kindred ever since you stopped suckling on your mother’s tit! I’ve heard of you from my men…
Shroud: And yet I’ve nevr heard of you! To which lord, marquish, erl, er other dumb title ya’ bats call yaselves do we owe dis’ courtesy now?
Vampire:…You don’t recognise me, do you…
Shroud: I don’t remember any bat I’ve took the head off…
Before the vampire introduces himself, he starts grabbing his head and spinning around, visibly in discomfort of his sudden affliction…
Vampire: Urgh!!! No, let me tell ‘im!!! Come on!!! Like it’ll make any difference!!!
Shroud: Lau, Lady Sarah’s just ahead. Go help her reach the gates, there are still a few bats flying around…
She barely listens to the hulk. He snaps her out of the fugue…
Shroud: Now!!
Lau: Uh, yes sir!!!
With her winds, she dashes away, fleeing the mad vampire’s gaze…
Vampire: No one will find out about you!!! Let me hold my body just once for now!!!...Fine, fine!!!
Shroud: Alright ovr there? I fill bad killing a cripple…
He stops spinning around, again regaining his composure…
Vampire: Ugh…This guy…Where were we…
Shroud: You were going to-
Vampire: Kill you, yes!!!
Dashing to him, the monster approached the hulk in a matter of seconds. Their skirmish crushed the ground beneath them, as Shroud’s axe and his large, and the tall stick’s strikes would create small craters whenever they missed their target…
Shroud: You are pretty string fer a stick!!
Vampire: You are pretty fast for a hulk!
The vampire manages to stick his arm inside the butcher’s right pec, piercing through muscle and crushing bones until Shroud starts spitting out blood…
Grabbing at his enlarged thorax, he tries to rip it out in one fell swoop, but the hulk’s grip at his forearm doesn’t let him finish the job…
Vampire: (A Titan…) Shit…
Shroud: Ya musta herd of someone else…don’t you know why I’mma called the butcher!?
Crushing his forearm until he lets go of his bones, he pulled away the hand from his torso, then brought down his axe with a single slash to rip away at the beast’s body…
The vampire cut of the rest of his arm and flew back with only a scratch from the axe’s tip…His wounds healed in a matter of seconds once again…
Shroud: You are different from da rest of dem’…You are a hole lotta stronger aren’t ya’?
Vampire: I can barely make a word out of your mouth, but yeah…
Shroud: Well, unfortunately, for you, you aren’t strong enough to kill all of us…
Vampire: Heheh…
Veins started popping off his forearms and his head, and his irises shortened the more Shroud’s smug smile grew in contrast…
Vampire: You…really think you got the best of me have you…
Even though he seemed to have the upper hand, Shroud knows. The bat before him was probably a menace far bigger than what they could predict…His brave façade was only a trick to hid his stress from the beast’s nose, even if that vampire already knew that he has turned the tables…
Their stare down was put to a stop by two bullets flying past Shroud’s opponent. Turning his attention, he saw a dark-skinned lady, dressed in brown leather cowboy attire, pointing her blazing silver guns at him…
Beside her, a whole army readying their weapons and Lau at her last of her Winds of Lecourt…
Once again, a feint headache had him grippling his forehead…
Vampire: Ugh…Alright, ALRIGHT!!!!
Shroud: Ya’ might wanna stop havin’ periods evry three minutes of tha’ fight.
Shroud’s rushing side slash was easily stopped by the vampire’s hand, to his surprise. He stepped back quickly as the beast pushed off his blade…
Sarah: Shoot him!!!
She shouted with gusto, and every soldier started sending their ammunition towards the monster… Unbothered, he spread his wings, startling Shroud, and flew upwards, evading every bullet…
Vampire: Remember this, Butcher! Today, I won’t send you back to Landen in a coffin!! Next time…we’ll follow this through…
Shroud: You sur’ bout’ that? Never met a bat looking forward to die…
Chuckling at his comment, with a hint of pity, he flew off…Shroud stared away as his figure got lost in the moon’s light, while his pectoral muscle bled away, and the army rushed at his side…
Shroud: Who was that…I hope the kids are safe…