Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Hunter D or the Frontier or any items therein; he's the sole creation of two people, Hideyuki Kikuchi and that Amano guy, really cool guys who I'd like to meet.. someday.

Author's Note: Be brutal; be kind; be whatever you wish. Read and review, or just read.

Introduction: These are dark times for the Frontier. A series of violent thunderstorms have swept across the north eastern temperate reaches of the land, setting long acres of forests ablaze, turning the sky tar black and flooding others. In a time of desperation, a lone huntress, Miranda Delaclaire, must face an enemy, but after years of tracking him down, can she finally confront him alone? At this time, D was summoned to her side, rekindling the sordid curiosity that afflicted her so many years ago...

So D rode forth into the storm, toward the center of the whirlwind - to the eye, where an apparently peaceful Valley lay under the scorching heat of a red sun...

Vampire Hunter D: The Storm

By Soul of Ashes

In the Coel Valley, beneath the scorching heat ofa sun flanked by tall, bulbous clouds - which looked like a wall of faces with huge, beseeching eyes- a lone horse rode forward along the road, having entered through the only narrow, stone-choked pass that made the valley accessible to travelers. To the north grew a forest of trees so tall and so thick together, it seemed just a dark blotch on the horizon, nearly invisible against the stones of the mountains just beyond the leafed hem.

It was late afternoon and the bright orange flowers that carpeted the hills to the left glittered and swayed with dew from a rainstorm that had passed by briefly just a few moments before. The rider, however, did not look up; instead shekept eyes to the road ahead, senses alert.

Miranda Delaclaire thought to herself what a reasonably refreshing change this place was to the last town she'd been to. Not a drop of water to be had, every single man an unforgivable rapist or murderer. Yet they could not but help to employ my sword for their cause. If it hadn't been for the goddamn money...

But it was always the money she needed. Twenty-thousand dollars. That wasn't a whole hell of a lot to buy what she needed for repairs. There wasn't a pharmacist for miles or even a rudimentary medicine man. It all came down to one thing - if there wasn't anyone in this town ahead, it would take her four or five days to leave the valley the way she came and by then, her functions might be far too near unsatisfactory for her survival.

So far, it looked promising. On her way in, there was a tractor trailer pulling a wagon load of grain. There were well-maintained fields and people wearing decent enough clothes. They looked well-fed with healthy tans bronzing their skin. There was even a dark-skinned man the color of the fertile soil who looked up and stared as she drew near and her horse trotted past. They were mildly distrustful of her - a woman dressed in black and grays, her eyes unnaturally green, gleaming as though filled with the fires of old hells and torments. Hair as black as the depths of Satan's soul adorned her head, tied back in a thickly knotted plait with a few loose strands blowing back and forth in the taunting wind. Her visage was enough to set people's teeth chattering.

Miranda knew that it was not she that could not be trusted.

She had followed the signs for miles since that miserable town full of murders and con-men. That dark day was well behind her by sixteen years, and was blurred around the edges like a faded photograph. Each day she spent away from that awful place where it had changed - ruined, even - her life was a moment of bliss. Miranda was doing a job she hated and loved, though she could not put her ambiguity into words. All she needed to understand was the destruction of all monsters: vampires, werewolves, anything that needed to be dealt a swift death.

Although any time spent away from her son was a torment. That was the memory that haunted her to the most.

The last time she saw her beautiful boy, he was at least four years old and clinging to the arms of Miranda's step-mother Georgina. She remembered that memory so clearly that at night she wept oily tears of regret and anger and sorrow. Chase had been crying, clawing to get away from the "monster" that was his mother, the creature half-metal that was borne of an attack. His eyes had been red, cheeks puffy like cottage cheese and the tip of his nose rosy and flushed. There were no words to make the boy understand; Miranda had tried, oh gods, had she ever tried to talk to him, to assure him it was still her.

But the damage had been done. Chase would never look at Miranda as a human being. He had left home to spend time with other family and came home to find his father dead, and this ungainly, metal wretch in his mother's place.

It doesn't matter, Miranda told herself angrily. It doesn't do me any good to linger on those thoughts. He's past twenty now, and I can only hope that at least he's found a good girl to care for. I don't have to bargain with him for my love after he's grown.

She was never quite the same woman after that. She never spoke to what remained of her family again. Her parents lived far out on the Frontier in a little town of about twenty people. Judging from what the monster who tore her apart had said, they were slaughtered as well, leaving that part of her life as nothing more than a dusty, black-and-white memory. She never failed to notice the resentment from her dead husband's relatives, either. So, with the rest of her money that remained to her, she paid for cybernetic enhancements that gave her strength, agility, stamina and began to train herself more ruthlessly than before to defend not only herself, but others.

Sixteen years of hunting had brought her this far. But nowhere nearer to the monster that destroyed her life. Yet this was as far as her travels had taken her. Miranda had never been able to track the monster with only days separating their progress.

She arrived at the town around sunset, which was just as well because there was a huge wall guarding off beasts of the night. She encountered guardsmen as they were closing the gate. As she approached, they looked up. They were two tall, strong-armed men in over-alls and long jackets and were equipped with power rifles; good signs that this town was healthy.

Find the pharmacist. Kill the monster. That's all I want, God, please.

She shifted slightly in her saddle. The cyborg steed beneath her gave a slight shake of its head before it was still. She held up her hands, noticing that the men's eyes were drawn to the sword on her back, not her shapely form, which was hidden beneath her cloak.

"I'm a monster-Vampire Hunter, Miranda. I come calling for provisions--"

"You come for that monster, haven't you?" interrupted one of the men, giving an anxious glance over his dirt-smudged jacketed shoulder.

I must be in luck. "Yes. Tell me more." Anxiety made her lean forward slightly in her saddle, her human hand clenching the reins with dark, eager hunger.

Somewhere from the deepening shadows behind her, there came a low rustle in the grass, followed by a hissing like that of air through a tire. The men trembled and waved her to proceed.

"You'd better come inside first. Don't worry, we know your kind. You're sorely needed, stranger. We'll introduce you to the mayor; he'll tell you all about it."

The town was well-organized, the community tightly-knit. There were about sixteen houses, all in neat, loosely-packed rows. The main house ahead was connected to two side structures in the shape of a sideways letter-I. It had huge, wing-like doors with a bell-tower on the eastern sector that started to ring up there in the dark as the lights turned on throughout the block. Crosses were on the doors that hadn't seen a vampire in decades but were too valuable to take down.

The mayor, a man named Venson (a name she smirked at, thinking it a fitting name), welcomed her joyfully into his home which happened to be a section of the large house at the end of town. Her horse safe in the stables, she sat across from him in a large library room that was modest and devoid of unnecessary glam. He was a kind, generous mayor who did not adorn his huge house with many things but rather let most of the towns folk also live in the mansion, which doubled as a hospital on the opposite wing.

Before jumping to any conclusions, Miranda listened to the mayor's story. I hope it is good news. I can't stand another minute without my meds. My skin is already itching.

"So this monster of yours--"

The willowy man with graying hair wandered to the bar. He offered her a drink, which she declined, before he sat down, downing his glass in one big, desperate gulp for courage. "Alright, Miss Miranda--"

"Just Miranda." When people struggled to be gentlemanly when it wasn't required, it made her terribly irate. "Just tell me."

"Miranda, then. This monster had been troubling us for only about a day. One of our farmers has gone missing. His corpse was found yesterday, devoured... as if..."

Miranda nodded slowly; she suddenly felt a stinging in her legs. Her expression, somehow, didn't change at all even if she knew any other time alone and she would have cried out. The memory of the pain was hardest to erase.

"...you get the idea."

"Has anyone seen it yet?"

"All I know is that in any sort of light, it's absolutely black. Like a shadow of some kind. And it doesn't speak, so it's not presumed to be some kinda human or mutie."

"Not many monsters do, Mayor Venson." Miranda took a deep breath, giving herself a moment. Yes, she remembered that night - why must it always be night? - when the creature had taken her life away, along with her legs and her left arm, its mechanical replacement hidden at her side underneath her cloak, sheathed in a leathery glove.

"Because this is a vendetta of my own, you needn't pay me if you don't want to. But I do require... medical assistance before I can be of any use. It won't be difficult."

Venson's eyes squinted slightly, as if he could hardly believe a strong woman such as Miranda needed anything at all. "What is it Miss-- ah, Miranda?"

"A pharmacy. I need antibiotics and a certain kind of medicine. I must speak with the pharmacist to discuss it with him."

"Of course. I will give you directions."

Without a word, she took the directions and stood stiffly, her joints strangely aching where they shouldn't be. She walked out, shutting the door with a snap-click behind her.

She rested her pains away in her bedroom that night, eyes wide open, sleepless, restless, and full of memories. Miranda tossed her head to one side, a single lock of black hair splashing across the white, flower-printed sheets. In the dark, she could hear her heart beating against the soft ambience of the old mansion. The noises did nothing to disturb her. It was just--

Everything seemed to be catching up with her. She was thirty-nine years old. She had finally, finally caught up with an enormous piece of her past.

So you're hoping to put that chapter of your life away for good. What then? the cynical, dark side of her asked. What will you do with the rest of your pathetically lonely existence as a single woman, minus one child who hates you? Will you hunt until you finally drop dead of some physical ailment or will you grow into a creepy old cyborg enhanced granny--

"Ridiculous!" she spat, walking away from the pharmacist after taking the thirty milliliters of antibiotic and some other things, a concoction purely intended to keep her body from dying outright. Long years of toil and bloodshed and plenty of tears - that was her legacy. And she had no one to give it to, no way to exonerate herself from it except by talking to herself in her head and enduring that stupid part of herself she wished she could hack off, like an unwanted remaining limb.

The taste of the medicine was still sour on her tongue when she stopped. Senses, enhanced many times more than a regular human's, fired warning signals from all ends. But it was absolutely silent. She looked around slowly. The mayor had insisted the walls kept out anything and that the killing had been made in the farm fields.

Miranda continued on. It was broad daylight, and anyone who had things to do were out in the fields to bring in harvest. The clouds overhead churned dangerously as if the storm over the countryside threatened to drop its burdensome load on the unsuspecting townsfolk.

There, at the end of an alley between two particularly close buildings was the dark creature whom Venson had described. It was hunched over, slowly devouring what looked like a large doll. But it was no doll at all; blood pooled, half-coagulated, under the monsters feet and although it was pure daytime, it seemed mildly unaffected by the beams of light spilling in to illuminate it.

And when it raised its misshapen, black head, her sword was already half-way from its sheath. Fear was not something she felt lately. Death was an uninvited, annoying culprit to her spirit and should he come steal her away, she'd only fight clawing and biting to reclaim her right to avenge her black little soul. Her sword flew, flashing as fast enhanced muscles could imbue it--

And missed.

And perhaps I should be afraid was the thought that crossed her mind as the creature nimbly danced out from beneath the glare of that sword and seized hold with both of its arms, capturing the blade in an ugly grip. It nearly twisted the blade off but she managed to hold on, lifted clear off the ground by the sheer strength of her demon.

Miranda had no choice but to let go of the blade. Tumbling to the ground, she rolled back gracefully to her feet in cat-like form, her leg snapping out to catch the monster's feet right out from under it. The creature fell, sword clattering to the ground, alarmed at her speed and maybe more alarmed that she was almost on top of it, a dagger blade at its heart, a blade made of blessed silver. In the next instant she was immediately struck in the back with something hard, her bones creaking in their wretchedly old age as soon as she fell to her face, knocked flat against the hard, blood-stained ground. There was a gunshot, and the sheriff ran up to her.

The embarrassing position was an affront to her pride, although she stood up again, unruffled, retrieving her sword and sheathing it. It was not an unnecessarily ridiculous thing when the sheriff walked up to her and asked her if she was alright.

She nodded, pointing to the half-devoured girl. Her cheeks flushed angrily. "I was too late. I was just coming back to do an investigation near the farm where the man was killed... and this is what I came across."

"I saw. It wasn't alone, either."

Damn. Of all the rotten luck -- the piss-ant had to make friends, didn't it? Clenching her hands, teeth grit with barely repressed frustration, she glared at the two men from under the fringe of hair that nearly fell across her vision.

"Well, if there's two of them... do you think you can take them on by yourself, princess?"

"I would have--" she found herself snarling, but then gave it up as a bad job. It wasn't as if her words would make it come true - in fact, she often found the very opposite to be a hard-learned lesson.

So she quietly, calmly accepted the truth. It stung in her mouth as the words tumbled haphazardly free. "Then we need to hire another hunter to help me, and I know just the one."

Later on, after the message had been sent out by the fastest means possible, Miranda lay awake in the dark, trying to recover her senses and tame her wildly rampaging emotions into some sort of calm, she felt a strangely familiar wetness stain her cheeks. She wiped at her eyes, drawing a shaky breath, and thought of the dark, quiet man who had also changed her life, by saving it.

"D."