Mount Taibai, China

Drinking, Bianca had decided, was only good when human booze was involved.

It couldn't affect her body, really, if one wanted to call the construct of light and raw aether that. Her friends sometimes spoke of her homely-looking 'human form' and her 'true form', but they were both masks. Nothing that could be changed through a song was real.

This was why her sisters, by nature rather than blood, not that they had any, often spoke of Earth as a world of shadows and smoke, which supernatural beings moved through like boulders smashing through ice.

Which, given the natural disposition of some species, was, to be blunt, an understatement.

Bianca did not feel too supernatural at the moment. Her bo-friend's idea of a drink had somehow managed to foul up the digestive and nervous systems she didn't even have, but the belly ache and hangover were still there. Hence her bad mood.

The iela was very close to taking a deep breath, out of human habit, and letting out a scream to vent. Two things stopped her. One, she was in a forest. Not a forest she knew(damn Lucian and his impossible brews), but still a forest, and she would never harm nature unduly. Even if some of the trees' knots looked like really punchable faces.

Two, she might not have known where she was, but there was no need to make the locals think someone had called an airstrike in the middle of nowhere.

Bianca rubbed the bridge of her nose, then her blue-on-blue eyes, wishing one of the trees came to life so she could chop it apart in self-defence.

She'd be chopping wood obce she got back to that damn zmeu's palace, too. Not in self-defence, but...

Bianca instinctively floated off the ground to hover when it began shaking. Her instincts told her this was no earthquake, though, no matter that the mountain in the distance was shaking, too.

The iela shivered as the shaking subsided. Not because she was cold, though the night would have likely felt chilling to a human, but because-

There. A small, white shape, tearing through the undergrowth so fast the sound of its movement would only reach her ears long after it. The cause of the shaking?

Well, at least she could talk with a local supernatural, get the lay of the land. She just hoped it wouldn't be one of those territorial jackasses. They almost always had way too much power backing up their attitude.

The shape gracefully slid to a halt in fron of her, small feet leaving trenches in the ground. Bianca was nearly twice its...her height, she realised. A black-haired, black-eyed girl in a blue silk shirt and pants, so young her gender was barely discernible. The thing that stuck out was the ancient-looking banana-shaped fan, which Bianca's connection to nature told her was made of rock, not silk of paper, and that something powerful heeded its call.

She didn't smell young, though, nor look like a child, unless one were to ignore the mouth, spread in a curious, bright smile, filled with fangs. Or the inhumanly pale skin, which had nothing to do with the centuries spent under the mountain. Or the old, old eyes, that had seen blood spilled for millennia.

Vampire.

Bianca did not know any of this, but she knew a vamp when she saw one, even if they glamoured themselves. From experience. The one who had owned her, decades ago, had rarely bothered with hiding himself, preferring instead to bend the minds of his customers, or just those who learned too much. The iela had learned by watching him and his associates, though.

After all, few people gave a damn about whether servants were listening, let alone slaves, never mind enthralled ones.

Bianca put on her best smile, the vampire's arrival having helped clear her head, and prepared to address the newcomer. She couldn't tell whether the childlike bloodsucker had been turned young-a horrible prospect, the legality aside, due to how such beings, with most of a vampire's power coupled with a child's mind, rarely had time to grow up before they had to be put out of everyone's misery-, or whether she was a grown vamp shapeshifting to look like a child. The second one was decidedly creepier, though she couldn't see or even feel a glamour.

'Hello,' the iela said in perfect Cantonese. She didn't know the language, but her voice sounded like it was speaking the listener's language. A kind of bonus power, she supposed, so iele could be understood by any. However, unbeknownst to her, the vampire had not spoken in centuries, and was not sure, herself, what "her language" was, if any. As such, Bianca's voice switched from Cantonese to Mandarin to Min to English, but the vampire's face stayed blank. Sighing inwardly, Bianca decided to continue. Maybe she'd happen upon the correct language, eventually, or switch to charades, if not. 'I am sorry if I disturbed your home. Could you tell me where I am? I think I am lost.'

***

Jing listened as the thing that looked human but wasn't babbled in the Middle Kingdom's tongue. It wasn't that she didn't understand the words, for she had sometimes heard her caretakers speak them in her dreams, before she had awoken and slaughtered them.

Greetings? Pointless. Monsters did not need to acknowledge each other as prey did. Her senses had picked out the thing of light and magic from under the mountain-indeed, its presence had awakened her-, and something told her its senses were just as sharp, if different.

Pleas for directions? Confusion?

The Ancient's smile widened as she tilted her head and looked up at the woman-shape. From a distance, one of her lesser kin might have mistaken her for a Darkkin, given her marble skin, or perhaps one of the things from Fairie, due to her glasslike eyes.

But Jing knew better. This was no vampire or elf, and, given her hair, the colour of spun gold, like nothing she'd ever seen before her slumber or in her dreams, she was not an inhabitant of the Middle Knigdom, either.

None of this mattered, though. The Ancient was thirsty. Time to see if this thing bled.

***

Bianca braced herself the moment the vamp's posture loosened. Vampires were not like natural predators, who roared or growled or bared fangs before pouncing. The criminals who hunted for live blood attempted to throw off their prey by faking insouciance, though it only worked half of the time. The rest, the 'prey' fought back with equal ferocity, if not thirst.

Like in this instance.

Bianca leapt over a dozen metres back when the little vampire moved for her neck in a bizzarely slow lunge. Oh, it was fast, even by her standards-flmaes were beginning to form at the edges of the mach cone-but for a vamp, that was less than lethargic. She should not have even had time to think before having her throat torn out.

The iela frowned as she mouthed a tailoring song, changing the white dress she'd worn to visit Lucian to a set of bland green hiking clothes, to prevent snagging on anything. She wasn't sure why this bratty-looking leech was playing with her food to this extent, as even a fledgling should be faster, and she  was acting thirsty.

Jing crossed the distance between them in a hundredth of a second, mouth quirked in a soundless giggle. They were moving too fast for sound.

A palm strike that would have crushed a car was almost dodged by the iela, before Jing switched it into a clawed grip and Pulled Bianca to her, wrapping her body in the energy vampires used to stick to surfaces, or move objects without touching them. A tiny hand clutched the iela's right forearm, then Jing pulled herself up, putting her bare feet on the iela's chest in a stomp that would have flattened a tank. Lip curling, Bianca caught the Ancient by her lower jaw with her left hand, enjoying the mixture of frustration and amusement in the vampire's eyes at having her strength matched.

Jing tried to bite down on the iela's fingers, but Bianca pulled her hand back and elbowed the vampire's nose, sending her flying into the forest.

Bianca smirked when she saw the vamp's crunched nose, though that sight didn't last very long. Propelled by the force of her strike, the vampire sailed through trees that were thicker than she was tall, and far wider, her snow-whiye body turning them to cloud of splinters and shredded leaves.

***

Jing's head split a cork oak in two, sending the upper half flying above the trees. The Ancient reoriented in midair, Pulling herself to a car-sized boulder and landing on it feet-first, smashing through the granite up to her knees, turning it to dust.

Clicking her tongue at the woman-thing's stubbornnes, not to mention her power and speed, Jing flicked her wrist, and the air elemental that spun around the mountain recognised the fan's power, surging into action after centuries of lethargy.

It was, in a way, a mirror of her. Old, powerful, unchanging in an ever-shifting world, able to do whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted.

The elemental drew the air for hundreds of metres around into itself, causing an ear-shattering 'pop' at the sudden vacuum. This was only the beginning.

***

Bianca cursed silently as the air disappeared. Iele didn't need to breathe, for their bodies were things of vanity, but it seemed this vampire knew about them. In a vacuum, she wouldn't be able to sing, and thus use most dangerous ability. Or, at least, she didn't think so. Mouthing words worked when changing herself, but would it work on something else? Vampires were immune to non-holy powers, anyway, but maybe she could turn the environment to her advantage.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

After it was done turning against her, that was.

Rock-boulders, really, all heavier than her, some dozens or hundreds of times over-filled the air like shrapnel from a grenade. Stones moving so fast they burned, cracking the air, flew at the iela, who stopped maintaining her flesh, turning back to light with a pulse of will.

The stones, however, didn't fly through her shimmering form to smash each other to nothing. Instead, they veered around each other, before being pulled away, as if by invisible hands, spinning in midair and drawing closer whenever Bianca moved.

And the vampire was nowhere to be seen...

The iela turned solid again, striking at the stones her instincts told her were being moved by the thing the fan controlled. She couldn't see it, not without focusing her arcane sense into her eyes, which might have opened her up to whatever other tricks the vampire had up her sleeves. But she knew it was there.

Stones weighing hundreds of kilos and moving faster than most rifle rounds were smashed to dust an arm's length from her body; the bigger ones, the ones heavier than cars, were punched into tiny fragments, while the largest, outmassing trucks and approaching small houses in weight, were kicked to jagged pieces.

For a fraction of a milisecond, Bianca smiled, admiring her handiwork.

Then, the air elemental stirred up the land below like a puddle in a storm, ripping up ancient tress or breaking them in half like dry twigs from the air pressure. Countless tons of soil were wrenched from the ground and twisted into a tornado, tearing at the iela.

Bianca gritted her teeth through a storm of soil and supernatural winds that would have shredded cars. Her clothes being destroyed was no problem-she could sing new ones into existence at any moment-but this was getting nowhere. Even waiting the vampire out until morning would be pointless: given that obviously magical fan of hers, it was clear her esoteric powers were underdeveloped.

Or...nonexistent?

Why  had the vampire been merely several times faster than sound, as opposed to several thousand? Images of the Fright Before Christmas, of Unseelie Fae moving around her, inpossible to affect, too fast to touch, filled her mind. No leech was so playful when thirsty, which that little bitch  was; she had seen it in those inky, doll-like eyes.

Something was wrong here. Forget the hangover...she felt like she was on another planet.

Well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Bianca turned back to light, ignoring the tornado that attempted to catch her, the flying trees and boulders, instead focusing on the bundle of thirst and spite that was the hidden vampire.

That was when Bianca realised something was way, way off: the vampire had a soul. A milisecond of incomprehension stretched into two, then three, as the iela looked for the bottomless void that  should have been there.

Vamps lost their souls when they were turned, spirits spilling out alongside the blood from their pierced throat(a bite anywhere else would just just hurt). It was one of the few things the fractious bloodsuckers unanimously agreed on. Bianca had even heard a few stories about vamps physically entering different afterlives and meeting their souls, though she'd never seen it for herself.

This thing, this monster aping a child's shape, whatever it was, it was  not a vampire. Or, at least, not one as Bianca understood the term.

The iela flew through the mountain's side, deep inside, where the elemental's reach was stunted, drawn in the direction every fibre of his being told her to stay away from.

It made sense, she supposed. Even if she had a soul, the child was still a vampire, and they had no place in the world the iele dreamed of, the fantasy that had been beaten into her skull since childhood.

Eventually, she reached what might have once been a burial chamber, but was now filled to the ceiling with rock...except for the path that had been torn through it, obviously through supernatural strength, given the claw marks on the rocks that hadn't been turned to dust. Bianca's superhuman smell caught the scent of a recent explosion. Had someone attempted to bury this thing before it could escape the mountain?

Well. She doubted they were still around, but she'd have to give them props for effort-

The air in the ragged trail popped, causing the other rocks to tremble and shift. A wind filled the chamber, splitting the rocks in half like old silk, and whipping up the remains into a frenzy. Then, a boulder shaped like a knife and bigger than a van floated into the air, before being polished and sharpened by wind pressure, as the elemental compressed it. More boulders followed, compacted until all the rocks in the chambers were crushed and shaped into a jagged spear.

The vampire was walking on one of the walls, pacing up and down it like she was on the floor, twirling the fan in one hand. Her silk clothes had been torn apart during the flight through the contest, revealing a body that would never reach maturity, frozen in time by vampirism.

***

Jing had never hunted such throublesome prey, and the thrill some lesser vampires rambled about certainly didn't fill her. Only her thirst-not weakening her, like it would a human, or even a werebeast, but sharpening her will, honing her determination to a fine edge-pushed her on.

She didn't know what this thing was. She didn't even know if it had blood, with how her body changed like light passing through a prism.

No matter. As her elemental shaped the results of the attempt to crush and trap her into a weapon, the Ancient vowed, with hatred unlike any she had felt in her thirty-five centuries of life, that she  would tear the woman shape apart.

***

Only a little rubble remained on the chamber's floor, which was pushed aside like a beas curtain at a gesture of the vampire's.

Bianca didn't have eyes to widen, in her current form, but, when she saw the barrels hooked to compact generators, heard their sharp whines and felt their heat, she shifted uneasily.

What would happen if a laser struck her in her true form? Light against light...and magic.

No. She wouldn't take her chances.

As the vampire twirled her hand, raising the lasers and making them rapidly circle the iela, Bianca shifted back to her solid form, drawing a brief smile from the vampire.

It didn't last long. The moment her banana fan shattered in her hand, shards falling to clatter on the floor was only the beginning.

Bianca grinned inwardly. The mouthed command to shatter-sound was too slow when dealing with this vampire, but at least it didn't recognise the words she was mouthing, and know she should have stopped her-had worked. Why not repeat it?

The Ancient's eyes were black slits in an ivory face livid with rage. She tried to Push the lasers' activation buttons, but they shattered, too, with muted coughs and clouds of black smoke. So did the spear, before it could hit the floor, dropped by the elemental that had departed when the fan had been destroyed.

***

Jing leapt off the the rock wall, pulverising a metres-wide, metres-deep circle, flying at the false woman like a meteor. A Pull dragged it towards her, after a few moments of resistance; it tried to hover in place at first, to struggle, but to no avail. It had been finally,  finally, overpowered. Her thirst would be quenched-

No.

How could she Pull it towards her so easily? The thing was at least as strong as her, she had felt it, and Jing's strength was greater than the energy she could manipu-

Fingers lengthened and sharpened like knives pierced her eyes mouth, reaching deep into her brain and cutting her fangs apart. No! She would heal from this! She would, after she tore this freak to shreds!

Jing's blows made the chamber tremble, the stone rippling tens of metres below them, but the thing held on to her, even as she saw its empty flesh split.

Then, the thing grabbed her chin with her other hand, holding her head still as it brought its mouth to her hear.

'Go back to sleep.'

Jing didn't understand the words. She didn't know what they meant. And, as the thing's scream shattered her body and turned her brain to steam, her last thought was that dying thirsty was a lamentable, shameful way to go.

***

'Hello?'

'Hello. I figured you needed my help.'

'...This phone shouldn't be able to receive calls. I modified it myself.'

'And I did it again! It seems you have an interest in tinkering, Bianca. One born of necessity, much, though you might not believe it, like mine. We can discuss as I search for a way to send you back to your world. My father is- ah-a wizard with portals.'

'Your...what am I speaking to? You are not human. I recognise voices, and you don't even sound alive. Nor dead.'

'That is because I am neither. You can call me Omega.' The world's first and last quantum AI said. 'So...about that offer?'

'And what would you want in exchange?'

'I'm sure a world as varied as yours can spare a few people willing to help...say, have you ever heard about the Vorsook when you were skulking around on our Earth?'

'I'm listening...'