Another chapter of the vampire AU, and the last one I have planned.

Honestly, I never intended to make a full 400,000 word epic like the original Star of Ceartais, just wanted to set up the situation.

Robyn's feet slammed into the pavement, the momentary pain of impact fading in seconds. She checked the white-furred hybrid clinging to her back, who seemed none the worse for wear, in fact Hannah seemed more… exhilarated than anything as she stepped down to the ground. Hannah licked her orange girlfriend on the cheek, saying, "wow, that was what? 20 feet?"

Robyn looked back up to her bedroom window, judging the distance. "Just twelve I think. Seems we're loose now, what do you want to do next?"

Hannah gave it some thought, it was tempting to go to all the places they'd imagined visiting on dates before she lost her sight. The airship docks of the rainforest district, the Tundratown ice rivers, Sahara Square… But no, she still couldn't see anything that wasn't alive, she knew she was in a packed neighborhood but all she could see were the faint outlines of various mammals and even more faded plants in the black void. Maybe they could find some clue to their conditions in Sahara Square though. "I think we need to go back to where we were attacked."

Her girlfriend nodded in agreement, and led her off in the direction of the Square.

Olivia Dawson's disembodied consciousness soared over the cityscape, searching for a pair of life forces she knew second-hand. She thought she had a bead on them, but another flare-up of essence caught her attention and she found herself drifting away to another vaguely familiar aura. A werelion, rampaging through the back streets of Sahara Square. Fortunately there weren't many mammals nearby, and they seemed to flee before him. Wait, him? Yes, this was a male werelion, not the werelioness she'd fought last week. Was there a whole pride of them in the city? And there was another odd thing, he didn't show the usual bloodlust she'd seen in the auras of most changed werebeasts, it looked more like… confusion?

Olivia made a mental note of it to inform the Loxleys once she returned to her body, and tried to return her attention to their grand-daughter and her girlfriend. She found them on the move, traveling from their Meadowlands homes to Sahara Square, and stinking of vampirism. Robyn had the stronger taint, very young and late generation, but a full-fledged bloodsucker now. Hannah, oddly, appeared to still live, but she carried some tainted blood, had Robyn already learned how to create a ghoul?

The mouse mage shook her astral head in dismay. She didn't want to break it to the Hood and the Maid that their youngest grandchild was one of the undead. There was one other thing that could stall that awkward conversation on this projection, those two hotshot Hunters had mentioned a couple survivors of that museum massacre. Gazelle's kids, Kodi and Sasha, she had to make sure they hadn't been turned.

Olivia found the adopted siblings together, shock, horror, and astonishment in their auras. They were reading something on a laptop, but she couldn't read it with her astral sight. And, there was something else, a spark hidden in the wolf's aura. Intrigued, she pried actively into his essence to confirm her suspicions. Mana, faint, undeveloped, but with potential. She'd found a latent mage. If only she had time to guide him into his power now, but no, there was a werelion loose in Sahara Square and a vampire and her ghoul headed straight for him.

Kodi abruptly stood up, heading for the exit. "I think I need to go to Sahara," he said. "Take a sniff around where Robbie and Stripes were attacked. Keep looking around that laptop."

With alarm Olivia realized she was still embedded in the wolf's aura. She withdrew abruptly and soared back towards the lab before she could accidentally influence him further. With no time to rejoin her body she diverted her astral form to her latest Spitfire construct, she'd inform the rest of the team over the radio on the way.

"Are we there yet?" Hannah asked, her ears and spectral sight taking in the sounds and auras around her. It sounded vaguely familiar to the hybrid vixen, but it was difficult to verify if they were really nearing their destination.

Robyn looked up from the map on her phone for a moment and looked around the area before answering her girlfriend. "I think it's a few more blocks. Doesn't look too different."

Hannah abruptly perked an ear up at the sound of a sickeningly familiar voice coming up the alley. "I should thank them for getting me the position." The striped hybrid tapped her girlfriend on the shoulder and pointed over to a nearby alley. Robyn cocked her own ear in the same direction, and froze as she recognized the voice as well. "Not that there's anything here anymore. If not for the police tape I'd think they made it all up."

Robyn slunk up to the wall beside the alley, instinctively seeking out the shadows. She inched up to the alleyway to cautiously peek around the corner and confirm her suspicions. Robyn let out a gasp without breath when the bullying teenage musk deer came into view. Patricia was on Muzzletime panning the camera of her phone around the crime scene outlined by yellow tape. "Now that stupid freak can't dance, coach is sure to make me captain."

Robyn's blood boiled at that comment. Who did this cervine bitch think she was? Even blinded Hannah could outperform her easily. Before she could stop herself Robyn flung herself out of the shadows at the musk deer and slapped the phone out of her hand with enough force to crash it into a brick wall.

Patricia's surprise turned to anger and derision as soon as she recognized the orange hybrid. "Oh, so you're still alive are you? Why aren't you at school then? Afraid to show your face without that stripey girlfriend of yours backing you up?"

"I just had a reaction to a blood transfusion." Robyn snarled. "And you're not getting Hannah's position even if she's blind now."

The deer picked up her broken phone. "You owe me a new phone, freak. And neither of you are remotely in my league. You're just a mismatch of bunny and fox."

Robyn's fists clenched in barely suppressed fury. "Are you asking for another bruising?"

"Oh please, I would have beaten you bloody if those teacher hadn't interfered, freak." Patricia flexed her cloven hooves and pawed the ground impatiently.

Robyn glared at the musk doe. How dare this little mortal think she was better than them? Did she not know her place in this foodchain? She channeled her disdain into her glare and took a grim satisfaction as her prey's self-assurance slowly melted away. As the dominance struggle wore on Patricia started to regain some vestige of self-control, blinking in confusion. Before she lost the opportunity Robyn pounced! Her teeth sank into the short doe's neck as she fell backwards to the pavement, her skull cracking sickeningly. The young vampire greedily slurped up her first true meal as Patricia's breathing slowed and the light faded from her eyes.

Hannah, slowly feeling her way over to the pair of shapes she knew were her girlfriend and nemesis, watched in horror as the dim red aura she'd associated with Robyn brightened and Patricia's vibrant yellow aura faded to a dim grey, and then vanished from Robyn's grasp. "Robbie, no! What are you doing?"

But it was too late, the musk deer who'd once tormented them in school was now a lifeless chunk of meat.

The rage drained from Robyn's mind along with the life from her bully turned food. She realized what she had done too late to save the now bloodless musk deer. The hybrid vampire stood, her fangs sunk into a cooling neck, and abruptly pulled back. Patricia's glazed eyes were left half open, no sign of breath. Robyn grabbed the deer's left hand in her right and attempted to feel for a pulse with her own left, as she let go the body dangled like a marionette with half the strings cut. Gasping in horror Robyn let the carcass crumple to the concrete. "What have I done?"

"Is she… dead?" Hannah asked, continuing to creep towards her undead girlfriend. "I can't see her anymore."

"I'm just like that badger." Robyn's knees buckled and she collapsed to the ground clutching her stomach. "Sucked out her blood and…" A terrible thought struck her. "On scat, she's not going to become a vampire too is she?"

Hannah stopped, the badger had gouged her eyes out after she watched him drain Robyn. Many stories she'd read about vampires had anyone killed by them becoming a bloodsucker themselves, but then there were those that required something more. And she had gained some sort of power from drinking both the badger's and Robyn's blood. "I don't know, but I'm pretty sure we don't want Patricia with vampire powers. Is there something nearby we could use as a stake?"

Robyn started looking around frantically, maybe she was strong enough to break off the handle on one of those dumpsters or something. She grabbed a bar twice the length of her own body and yanked, it bent but did not break off. Her small body didn't have the mass to simply pull it loose. Still she kept tugging at it to no avail.

The ground rumbled with the sound of a monstrous roar. In shock Robyn lifted her feet to press against the side of the dumpster for better leverage but it was still not enough to wrench it off before the source of the noise arrived.

A berserk lion crashed down the street, fangs like shortswords bared and claws tearing into the pavement. Hannah recoiled in horror until her retreat was abruptly halted by a small gap in the pavement. Watching her girlfriend tumble Robyn abandoned the bent rod and instead leapt for the largest object she could throw in the vicinity, Patricia's corpse.

The ragdoll-like deer hit the monstrous lion with a sickening wet crunch. He reached up and lifted the carcass off of his mane with one meaty paw that wrapped around its waist completely and flung it aside. Patricia's remains skidded across the rough pavement, leaving a dark red trail in its wake.

Desperate now, Robyn sprang up into the air and slammed an orange rabbit-foot into the lion's side. It felt like kicking a cement wall. She just barely managed to spring out of reach before it grabbed her. The hybrid's back slammed into a brick wall, leaving her spine a broken mess as powdered brick fell to the ground below. Robyn's back started to knit back together almost immediately but she knew that she'd be torn to pieces as soon as she hit the ground, and was pleasantly surprised when her scrambling found purchase on the gapless wall. Her palms stuck fast to the bricks like a spider's legs, she could hang up there until she was done healing. Except that Hannah was still on the ground with the beast! "Hannah!" She exclaimed, "get out of here!"

On hearing the striped hybrid's name the immense lion paused, confused. Something about that name was familiar, he couldn't place it in his enraged state though, all he could remember was that it was somewhat important. His contemplations were interrupted by a small white square bouncing harmlessly off the back of his head and a more masculine voice calling out "hey you, pick on someone your own size!"

The lion reeled around to see a teenage wolf standing behind him, a fan of playing cards in one hand. He had a cocky expression that faded away rapidly as he realized just how massive the mammal he'd taunted was. "I… guess that's not me." He whimpered as his ears drooped. The lion lunged before he could escape and Kodi did the one thing he could think of, throwing his other cards at the beast. As he swung to toss them the cards started glowing orange, and much to everyone's surprise, upon impact with the lion they detonated in a flash of flame and a cloud of smoke.

Robyn's spine was still cracking back into place when the immense lion roared in pain. She couldn't wait to get back into peak condition, this beast was threatening her mammals. Hannah and Kodi were not this interloper's prey. She shoved herself off the wall and dove onto the raging lion, sinking her claws into his back.

As the feline bucked and roared to throw off the hybrid vampire she scanned the rapidly dissipating smoke cloud for any sign of the wolf. "Kodi, where the heck are you?"

Hannah watched as Kodi's brilliant aura slipped out from under the lion's claws and slunk away towards her. She responded instantly to her love's question and pointed him out, "he's over there." How could Robyn not see that? She thought.

The orange hybrid's head spun around to look in the direction her lover indicated. At first it looked like a bare patch of pavement, but then the faint outline of a wolf appeared above it, slowly consolidating into the form of their friend. "Stripes?" He asked. "Did you sniff me out or something?"

"No." She shouted back. "Scent isn't that precise, I… wait." Now that she thought about it Hannah took note of the scents surrounding her. She could distinctly recognize the scent of her girlfriend, now mixed with the must of a preserved corpse and the coppery smell of fresh blood, the far riper scent of Patricia's soiled and ragged carcass, Kodi's musk tinged with an odd bit of ozone, and beneath a bit of charred flesh the scent of… "Kion?" She asked. "Is Kion here?"

"Kion?" The giant lion paused his thrashing as the new, even more familiar name jogged his memory. Kion, that was him, he was a high school senior, Kodi was one of his classmates, along with Robyn, Hannah… but why were they fighting him now? "What? What's happening?"

Robyn had barely enough time to jump off the were-lion's back before a massive steel fist slammed down on his head, knocking him unconscious. Robyn sized up the golem that had just dropped from the roof above, it looked like the robot the news had spotted fighting crime across the city, and seemed to be gauging her now. "Spitfire?" She asked the silent construct. "What's going on?"

"Hey," Kodi interrupted, pointing to the unconscious naked lion rapidly shrinking back down to a normal size. "That's Kion, what happened to him?" The wolf took notice of the lion's state of undress and quickly turned away. "And he's naked. You're lucky you're blind Hannah."

"It would take too long to explain here." Spitfire's voice had this odd high but massively amplified pitch. "You're coming with us."

"Coming with you?" Kodi replied. "Are you with Wesley and Ruffy?"

"Those reckless amateurs? I'd prefer not but we don't have many other options. Now come on, don't make this difficult." A long straight spike extended from Spitfire's forearm.

The lights of an approaching van shone off in the distance as Robyn, now fully healed, stood defiantly. "We're not going anywhere until we get an explanation."

The coming van screeched to a half and Luna Wilde stuck her head out the driver's side window. "Robbie, don't." Robyn looked from the menacing construct extending what looked like a stake to her sister's grief-stricken face. "We want to help you."

The lingering traces of mortality in the orange hybrid recognized Luna's concern for her baby sister, while the night-creature in her saw that the vixen knew what she was. But it also realized that it knew very little about itself and recognized an exploitable weakness in this potential source of information. Robyn held her hands up cautiously. "Okay Lu, no trouble, just promise me you'll tell us what's going on."