Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, DBZ, or W.I.T.C.H.


Bryan awoke in darkness and sat up in his couch. He heard thunder and saw the streaks of lightning through the window.

His eyelids felt glued together yet he knew he wouldn't sleep for a while. This damn couch was made of stone. He had insisted Cornelia take the bed. He was a gentleman after all, but it would have been nice to sleep on something soft. Especially with her beside me, he thought.

He stood and walked into the kitchen. He flicked the light switch. It didn't work. He didn't know the power could go out here. It almost made him feel that he was home.

There was still water in the water pump. He guzzled a glass of it down and returned to his couch. His eyes wandered.

A flash of lightning swept through the room. Bryan thought he saw a man's silhouette and jumped to his feet. The effulgence left and so did it, but he should still be able to see in this moonlight.

Another flash of lightning, and he saw a batman's jagged smile. "Howdy. My name's Bob. Imma kill ya."

Bryan yelled, tossed himself over the couch, and managed to make a balanced landing.

The batman tugged a leaf-bladed dagger out of the couch. It chuckled and stabbed at him.

Bryan sidestepped the batman's thrust and grabbed hold of its arm and head. It felt cold and slimy like seaweed. He pushed it against the wall.

"Fuck." The batman hissed and lashed out with its free arm. It connected with Bryan's nose and sent him crashing backwards onto the floor.

"Bryan!" Cornelia rushed out of the bedroom. Moonlight framed her small figure. It made her look surreal, as if she belonged in a painting. The batman lunged at her and suddenly it became a horror movie.

"Look out!"

She didn't see it fast enough, and Bryan didn't move fast enough. The batman cachinnated as she crumpled to the floor.

Bryan slammed his leg into the batman's neck. It crashed into the wall. He stomped on its head, and stomped again until it stopped moving. The batman was like a cockroach beneath his heel.

"Cornelia?"

She murmured.

Bryan touched her neck. Her heart pulsed slowly. Ba bump. Ba bump. Ba bump. He placed his hand on her stomach. It was hot, wet, and sticky. Blood.

His heart drummed fast. Babump, babump, babump. He lifted her up, pressed his hand against her wound as hard as he dared, and stumbled through the darkness toward the door. It was locked just the way it had been when night fell and they were ordered to sleep. Nothing should have gotten in.

Outside stank like soggy cow manure. The streetlights were dead and a dense humidity made the air thick and hard to inhale. He flew toward Liliana's dwelling, isolated and on the forest's edge, and hugged Cornelia closer to himself. His hand didn't budge from where she bled.

Bryan heard thunder explode and roar, and the air seemed to resound with it. And then he realized it wasn't thunder. It was a voice, some kind of howl. The night burst with screams, roars, laughter, and flashing lights.

There were more batmen than the one Bryan killed, and they were probably attacking his friends now, an army of them. He slowed down and landed. The ground seized his feet and wouldn't release him. Where to go? What to do?

"What is going on out here?" Liliana's voice cracked and strained. She held a bright lantern above her head.

"Liliana!" Bryan rushed to her, feeling Cornelia limp in his arms. Then I'll help fight off these bastards, or maybe Liliana will stop this. "Some batman hurt Cornelia. You need to—"

"THERE SHE IS."

Liliana and her light disappeared before Bryan reached her. He heard her crying out before the batmen's laughter drowned her. What's going on? Why are they attacking her?

"Blood in a cup."

The batmen wailed like a pack of frightened coyotes then went silent. The lantern's light flickered, sputtered, and came alive. A red gash zigzagged down Liliana's face, crossed her twisted frown, and blood dripped onto her soiled pajamas. Gored and broken batmen surrounded her.

Bryan stopped in front of her and held out Cornelia. Liliana could revive the dead, even those mutilated by Edgar and Francis. Cornelia would be fine with just the push of a button and then maybe Liliana would put an end to all this. They could sleep again.

"I can't, darling." Liliana didn't even look. Her brows crinkled and she listened to the night's chaos, the whooping and the yelling, the sound of Bryan's friends fighting savages.

"What the hell do you mean?"

"My technology doesn't work," Liliana said. "The two Lords have been angry with us, and now they're here. We're under attack…"

"Look, I don't want to play your god damned games." Bryan pulled Cornelia back against him. She felt cold, and she was limp, and that pissed him off. "What's wrong with you? Just help her, okay?"

"I said I can't," Liliana snapped, and she raised the lantern so it leveled with his head. "And now I have to go. Your siblings are fighting to survive, and if you want Cornelia to live, you have to escape now."

Bryan gritted his teeth. He heard thunder again, and again he realized that it wasn't thunder. Now it sounded louder and closer.

"Well?" Liliana spoke quickly. "Go while you can, into the forest. I'll find you if I can, darling, but now my other babies need me." She left before he could say anything.

Bryan fled into the forest. His hand cramped from applying pressure to her wound, but it was glued to her and couldn't move if he tried. She can't lose any more blood, he thought, and he didn't want to think about it any longer.

That thunderous voice echoed throughout the sky and through Bryan's mind, but both were growing distant. Liliana might have lied and might be using batmen to play a game with him, and he didn't care. The fear and the thumping of his heart told him it was real, and he wouldn't argue.

He flew for half an hour and heard nothing. His adrenaline abandoned him, and his body was tired, and his eyes wanted to rest. He landed and sat with his back against some fat tree.

Bryan took his stiff hand away from Cornelia's wound. He needed water to clean it, but this was a forest too close to batmen, and he was sure he wouldn't find any. He'd heard piss was just as good for this situation, but…

His hands trembled as he removed her long nightshirt. He didn't want to hurt her, and he didn't want to see her like this, covered in blood, the injury a batman inflicted on her, and yet he needed to. The bloodied cloth came off. The night was dark, but the moon gave him enough light to see and wipe away the blood. He tore off his shirt sleeve and laid it on the cut.

Bryan took the rest of his shirt off and slid it over her, each arm through the proper hole, and the head too. It took a while since she was unconscious. The drying blood made her nightshirt feel kind of crispy, like sand paper. He wrapped it around her stomach and tightened it, just in case her injury reopened. That was all he could do.

Cold wind bullied him. He gathered Cornelia up in his arms, lied down in soft grass, and waited.

It only got colder, and sleep evaded him hour after hour. He shivered, and Cornelia shivered, and he hated that. Maybe I should go back, he thought. Maybe these Lords left and everything's back to the way it was. Not that anyone was happy the way it was.

Bryan didn't go back, though. Cornelia shivered atop him with her long golden hair everywhere, and he held her and tried to warm her with his bare arms.

When morning came he felt sore, no different than if he'd slept on the couch. Cornelia was on him. He felt her breathe and tremble, and thought he heard her whimper.

"Cornelia?" he said, slowly rising. She made no reply. Her forehead glistened with sweat, and her eyes were closed. Her lips parted to inhale. She'd grown hot overnight.

She's got a fever, an infection. Of course she did. A batman cut her with some sort of sword, and the wound went untreated. I'm a goddam dumbass.

Bryan stood. He'd find Liliana. She said she would search for him if she could, so maybe she was in the forest too. And maybe she's laughing about this with Lionel and her batmen.

Careful not to move much, he hugged Cornelia to his body and slowly flew in the direction he'd come from, or at least he thought. The night had vanished as quickly as it came, and his memories of it were faint.

He took it so slow it was painful. Everything looked similar and unfamiliar. Green trees, green grass, and green bushes. He found it hard to believe this much life thrived so close to batmen.

"Don't move."

Bryan stopped in midair.

"Don't you fucking move, bitch. It's not worth it."

"Francis? Is that you?" It was sad that he'd learned to differentiate between batmen voices.

"It's not worth it, you fucker, you little bitch." The batman's words drifted down from the treetops. "No man or beast or little girl may scorn me and live. Do not think that you can get away with what you have done. You have stuck your head in the crocodile's mouth, and now you shall lose it. You have leapt off a cliff believing that you can fly, and you cannot. You have—"

"Francis." Bryan scanned the shrubbery and floated closer.

"—opened a pack of cookies, and you could not eat all of them. Do you understand what I'm saying, you water-sucking apple? You messed with the wrong person. You messed up. Ooh, yes, you fucked up. Now you fucked up. Now you fucked up. Now you fucked up. You have fucked up now."

"Francis."

"I'm going to kill you, you understand, bitch? It's not worth it, to run or hide or beg. I will find you. You mess with the bull—"

"Hey! Francis."

"—you get the horns." Francis's head popped out from a dense bundle of leaves. He stared at Bryan for a moment. "Yo. What is it?"

Yeah, what is it? What do I expect from him? "Cornelia's hurt and I'm looking for Liliana."

The batman stared for another moment. His eyes were so wide and close together that he looked like a one eyed owl. "Show me her wound."

"No," Bryan said.

Francis stared for yet another moment. A smile appeared on his round, orange face.

Cornelia was torn from his grasp and he plummeted to the forest ground. He gasped in pain and his breath left him. A stick or something broke underneath his back, or maybe his back broke.

Francis stood over him. His massive arm crushed Bryan into the earth while he tugged at Cornelia's shirt with his mouth.

"What are you doing?" Bryan struggled beneath him but it was helpless. He was a mouse caught by a cat. A fat fucking cat.

Cornelia's makeshift bandage landed beside Bryan's head.

"Looks nice and juicy." Francis opened his mouth like a yawning horse and pressed his face onto Cornelia's stomach.

Bryan pushed as hard as he could and then he was free.

"That was yummy." Francis dropped Cornelia upon Bryan. "Let's meet up with Edgar. He and I have a city to reclaim."

How did he…? A sheet of Francis's saliva replaced Cornelia's wound. It was gone, just gone. Bryan couldn't imagine a batman was capable of this.

"Well?" Francis said. "Come with me, Alfred, my sexy shirtless manservant. We have shit to do."