Yeah! A really long chapter for all your support and for waiting!!! I've just finished my second exam and the next one will be on the coming Monday. Taking the time to update cuz I can't bear to deprive all u greatness.
Enjoy and review!
~ Rei
Disclaimer: VA and the characters belong to Richelle Mead. But Kira belongs to me.
Chapter 9: We Fight Back
RPOV:
"There had been another attack!" Mason's voice rang through the room.
"WHAT?!" I shouted.
"The strigois! They got the Contas last night. Alberta told everyone to gather at the function hall pronto!"
"Damn! Those strigoi are fast! I'll be right there." I told Mason before I hang up.
I washed up quickly and broke into a run towards the function hall. When I reached the function hall, people (both students and resorts' guests) were already starting to gather. I found the gang sitting near the back and joined them.
After a while, we heard Kirova the head mistress of our academy spoke.
"I believe everyone in this room know why are gathered here. We've received another report that there was an attack last night at the Conta's mansion near this resort. From the evidence that the guardians on site had gathered, it is highly possible that strigois are working in a large organized group with humans."
The crowd burst out in a large commotion.
"Everyone! Please, let me continue. We know now that humans are working with the strigoi, the wards can no longer be as safe as we thought. Humans, who are able to touch the stakes are using it to break the wards so that strigoi can attack. Three days ago it was the Drozdov and now the Conta. We believe that their next target would be the resort as it wasn't too far from the Conta's. I would not stop you from leaving, but reinforcement is on their way to the resort and it will be the most protected area within these mountains. Once you were out, you are opening yourselves to attacks by the roaming strigois."
Then someone from the crowd shouted. "Then what are we supposed to do if we can't leave this wretched place? Are you saying that we should stay here and be their next meal?"
"No. We stay and fight." Tasha rose from the crowd and went to stand beside Kirova. "Over the years, we had gotten all comfy with the guardians covering our asses and forgotten why we were gifted with our magic. A long time ago, Moroi used to fight alongside with Dhampirs, which I believe is a known fact. But over the last century, all we have done is hide beside dhampirs, putting them harms' way as long as we survive. However, I do not believe this crap. I believe that we should make good use of the magic that we were blessed with and fight the strigois. It is due to ours selfishness that their numbers are growing so ever rapidly. I am willing to fight in the front lines with the dhampirs, I believed that with our help, we can beat the oncoming attack. Who's with me?"
The commotion grew louder as she finished her speech. There were a small group of moroi who were with her but the majority disapproves of her idea.
"Look what the strigoi-wannabe is saying? She just wanted to make us her first meal so that she can join their ranks!" somebody shot out from the crowd.
Christian stood up on his seat and shouted, "I'm with her!"
"She's your aunt! Of course you would side with her." Then someone else from our group stood up as well. Lissa and Mia whom I'd least expected.
"I believe that she is right!" Lissa shouted, still maintaining her composure. "I am the last Dragomir and I am not afraid of fighting with them, risking the lost of my bloodline. As most of you in school should know, I have not specialized but I am willing to do my part to fight OUR battle."
"I agree with Miss Dragomir over here. We should be doing what we can do to fight this battle and not be so passive, letting the dhampirs do our dirty job. It's our turn to fight back." This time it was Adrian's voice coming from the entrance.
"Wow, I hadn't think he had this chivalrous side to him." I thought to myself.
Tasha took this chance and shouted again. "Who's with me?"
The opposition became seemingly smaller but the argument was still present. After what seems like forever, they seemed to have come to a compromise.
"Then when will they attack?" somebody asked.
"We estimated that it will be… Tonight." Kirova spoke.
Kirova came up with a plan with some of the guardians. The opposing crowd was dismissed after she had assigned their "hiding place" and she continued with the rest. She took out a really big map of the resort and started to describe our roles and battle plans. We'll be working with an "onion" layout, experienced and trained guardians with fire-using moroi (Tasha included) and some of the academy's teacher like Miss Carmack on the outer most layer, covering the grounds 500metres from the resort's perimeter. The second layer consisted of a mix of about 10 trained guardians, novices from the academy with fire and air using moroi, covering the 200metres perimeter from the resort. The third layer is a blend of around 10 trained guardians, half of what's left of the novices with moroi of all kinds of element. Fire to burn, air to suffocate, earth to sink and water… to distract. They will be right outside the resort's perimeter, digging trench, burning or doing whatever they can to the strigoi if they break the second line of defense. The last layer will be 10 trained guardians with the rest of the novices and what's left of the fighting moroi inside the resort. They will be the last line of defense for all the moroi in the hiding spot.
She went through the plan with us once more before handing the novices with our stakes. We were dismissed and were supposed to report to our station 1 hour before nightfall, which meant that we had about 1 hour to spare.
I looked over to my group which was mainly the academy's students with some moroi whom guardians were in the front line. I knew that we wouldn't keep still for the next 1 hour. Our blood was pumping. Christian and I had persuaded Lissa to stay in the infirmary to help with the injured as it is what she does best -- healing. Then we gathered everyone from our station (we were in the 2nd layer) to discuss pairing and our own battle strategies. After everyone was gathered, we needed a place to train and warm up. I knew there was no one else except Adrian (did I remember to mention that he proposed to be in our group) so I went over to him to see if we had a place for us to do some last minute training.
"Hey. Do you think you can find us a place big enough to do some last minute training and if I could borrow Kira to share some battle pointers with us…"
"I thought you'll never ask. Come with me." He started to leave, beckoning us to follow.
APOV:
I led them into another function hall and called out to the ceiling. "Kira! Show yourself this instance! I need you to conduct a battle training lesson!"
The group looked at me with a "has he gone mad" look on their faces, but I didn't care. Kira's immediate appearance shocked everyone out of their pants. I broke us up into 3 groups for training; Fire, Air and Dhampirs. Rose looked shocked when I joined the Dhampir group.
"Have you joined the wrong group?" she asked.
"Nope. I hadn't specialized." I replied.
"Then why are you-"
I know where this was going so that cut her to it. "I said I hadn't specialized but that doesn't mean I can't fight. I've been training with Kira since he was assigned to me. I knew it would come in handy someday since I'm pretty bad with magic."
"Okay…"
The door swung open suddenly and in walked Eddie and Mason. I was intrigued by a really nimble Mason who didn't have a cast anymore.
"Sorry we're late." Mason said. "Lissa said you guys could use an extra leg so here I am."
"Lissa wasn't joking when she said she could heal" I thought but nevertheless, we could really use an "extra leg" as Mason had said, then I saw Rose walking to him and said, "Glad to have you back Mase."
In less than 45 minutes, we tried pick up all we could take in from Kira and I was glad to train with my little dhampir. She's really good for someone her size. She got me pretty hard on my ass a couple times but we kept our strength to the minimal, we didn't want to waste it on each other when we could use it to kick some major strigoi asses.
The last 10 minutes, I tried to pair one moroi to one dhampir. I let them choose their partner coz I know friends worked better together. There were some moroi and novices left, so I paired them up nonetheless. The idea is to have one moroi and one dhampir to back each other up. I'm really glad for Mason's addition coz now we have an even number with him pairing with Eddie. Rose was paired with Christian and I'm with Kira since he's my guardian. There were around 15 groups and I told each group to stay close to a trained guardian as reinforcement or backup whatever you call it. This way, they could help the guardians and the guardians could protect them as well. But we've got only 12 guardians so that's left us three with no attached guardian. Hence, we decided to position ourselves in between the first and second layer, near the place which we had anticipate the strigoi to break in when we discussed the battle strategies earlier.
I saw my little dhampir looking at me in awe as I organized the group and gave out commands to the group. I was pretty amazed at my leadership skills too; maybe it was in the Ivashkov's blood to boss people around.
We are ready to fight.
We went down to our battle station and I could sense the adrenaline pumping in our blood. I gripped the sliver stake really tight in my right hand and I could feel my palms sweating. I looked over at Rose and I could see she was as nervous as me.
The atmosphere was tense and all of us were nervous about the upcoming battle. The sun sets in the horizon and the sky went dark. Every minute past by in a whirl of sweat and anticipation. After what seems like forever, people were beginning to wonder if we were wrong about the time of the attack. Just as some moroi behind us was thinking about heading back, Rose shouted, "STRIGOI!" and we saw flashes of light igniting the front line.
Without any cues, the 6 of us ran forward to the front lines. With Kira's exceptional speed, he got the strigoi in front of me and cleared the way. I was about 50metres from the front line when I met with my very first battle. I saw his blood red iris and it disgusted the hell out of me. We circled each other and he pounced on me. I kicked him in his guts and his grips on my shoulders loosen up a bit, I took this chance to slash his chest with the stake and he howled in pain. This was all the distraction I need to stake him in his heart. However, strange things happened when I shoved the stake into his heart. His color began to fade and the red eyes were replaced with blue. He must be a human before he turned and I heard him breathe out a "thank you" before his body slum into me. My very first strigoi kill. I thought when strigoi die they change back to their original form so I pushed him off and went on to my next targets.
We fought hard and we killed mercilessly. I was staking my "n" number of strigoi when someone grabbed me on my shirt and threw me against a tree. I groaned and took a look at my attacker. This guy was huge! So far I've only been taking out human strigoi but from his built and reflexes I knew he was a dhampir before he was turned.
He grabbed by my neck and lifted me off the grounds. "Look what we've got here. An Ivashkov huh?"
I spat in his face and he slammed me against the tree still holding onto my neck. I tried to kick him I didn't have the strength to cause any damage. I could feel my life slipping away but I had to hold on. I opened my eyes and used whatever strength I could gather to give him my fiercest stare. I would not give up without a fight.
"Ooo… Fiesty… I didn't know that the Ivashkov had such a fighter in them. Why are you fighting with a stake? Haven't specialized have you?" he was so close to my face that I could feel his disgusting hot breath.
I looked in his eyes and yelled through gritted teeth. "Quit you crap! If you are not going to kill me, let me go!"
That was when miracle happened. I saw his expression soften and his eyes went into a dreamy state. He released his grasp on me and stood looking at the tree. I gasped at the suddenly influx of air into my lungs and staked him.
"Have I just used compulsion on a strigoi?" I asked myself. I slumped at the spot for few more seconds before rejoining the battle. During my struggle with the dhampir strigoi, I saw Rose running back to chase some strigoi who had gone past the first defense. I ran back to help as it was partly my fault for letting them slip past me. I got back just in time to see Rose and Christian being circled by a group of 5 strigoi. I took my element of surprise and staked one through the back. Christian then lit up the others and Rose and I took them all out in less than 5 seconds.
"Good job Ivashkov" she gave me a smile after I took down the last of the five.
"You too little dhampir" I said and we ran back to help the others at the front.
The night was dark and ignited only by flashes of fire cast by the fire-users. The silence of the night broken by the howls of strigoi and the cries of those of us who had went down in battle. I stayed with Rose and Christian for the rest of our fights and we took down groups after groups. The strigoi just kept coming to point I was wondering how many of them were there in these mountains. It was a really long battle and we ran past bodies after bodies, friends and foes alike.
The exhaustion and injuries were wearing us out as the fight dragged on. My left arm was badly scratched and was bleeding profusely. Some strigoi I've fought earlier had dug her nails into my flesh. Rose was limping and I could see blood dripping from Christian's forehead. A group of strigoi had struck us from behind and thrown him against a rock wall. He must have hit his head then but thankfully he wasn't badly injured as he managed to light up the remaining strigoi that Rose and I were struggling with.
RPOV:
A strigoi had bitten my leg during one of my fights and it hurts the hell out of me. Thankfully, Adrian staked him before he could do any further damage. I torn a strip of cloth off my shirt and did some emergency treatment to stop myself from bleeding to death. The three of us fought brilliantly and we worked really well as a team. Christian helped by setting the strigoi on fire while Adrian and I take them down. We were deadly. Adrian was pretty good in fighting for a moroi and I was really impressed.
Just when I thought that this battle was never-ending, the first ray of dawn broke the darkness of the night. The strigoi began to howl and retreat but we continued to slay whoever we can lay our hands on. We wanted to pursue further but my mum stopped me. Yes, the great Janine Hathaway came with the reinforcement to assist us in the battle. I was taken aback when I saw her fighting at the front line as it was really rare for her to leave her charge and come here.
As the sun was rising, our priorities were to tend to the injured and get the moroi into the building. Moroi and sunlight doesn't work that well together. I scanned around for Eddie and Mason as I had lost tracked of them when all hells break lose. I pushed through man after man till I saw Mason carrying Mia in his arms and Eddie holding on to Mason for support. Adrian was carrying a badly injured Stan on his back and I was helping another injured guardian with Christian. Noticing our victory, people from the third and fourth line started to come forward to help us. Compared to those of us in the first 2 lines of defense, they looked cleaner and better. As I neared the resort, I saw the darker color of newly dug earth. They must have used the earth-users to dig a really deep and wide trench to trap the strigoi who had got past the first 2 defense.
Lissa burst through the doors and I could see that she was crying when she had to stay inside while we fight. She healed Christian's head instantly and turned to my leg but I stopped her. "Liss, I'm ok. Mine is nothing compared to the others who are badly injured. Save your energy for them."
"I'll just close the wounds for you, ok?" I nodded and she untied my bandage and closed up the flesh.
She helped Christian and I us with the guardian to the make shift infirmary. They had adjusted the furniture in the lobby to accommodate those that couldn't fit into the resort's infirmary. We laid him on the couch and Lissa started to do her thing. I tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Liss, please don't over exert yourself. Just heal enough to close the wounds or stop the bleeding. Our battle had end, it is yours now."
She gave me a knowing smile and started to close up the more severe injuries on the guardian.
Adrian laid Stan on the couch next to us and he slumped onto the floor. I saw his injured arm and wanted to bring Lissa to her.
He must have noticed my intention coz he shook his head and directed my gaze to Stan. I grabbed the disinfectant and bandages from the table and went over to him.
He bit into a roll of cloth as I disinfected his wounds, I could tell that it hurts a lot so I tried to do it as gently as I could. While I was bandaging his wounds, he said, "It's a good thing that I'm injured."
I looked at him puzzled.
"coz it got me attention from my little dham-- YEOW!!" he yelled as I tied the end of the bandage with added force.
"This shall teach you a lesson Ivashkov" I chuckled and said softly against his ears, "and thanks for saving my ass back there."
"It's my pleasure to save a damsel in distress."
I smiled and threw a roll of bandage at him. "Now that you are attended to, time to attend to the rest."
We then went to and fro carrying all the injured indoors and got Lissa to attend to the really bad wounds. After we've got the last of the injured indoors, I went out with Alberta to help with the casualties report. The dead were laid according to moroi, dhampirs, strigoi and humans? It really puzzled us when we found human corpse amongst the bodies. We tried to identify every dead body to the best we can with the resort's guest list, the list of reinforcements and the academy's namelist.
After going through the checklist about 3 times, tallying the numbers and everyone dead or alive accounted for, we had 14 dead, 8 missing and 39 unidentified bodies; 27 humans, 4 dhampirs and 8 moroi. The guardians were really lost at the extra bodies we had found especially the humans. According to the resort's management, there was no human living or working in the resort.
I was going through the list again when Adrian stopped by and recognized a couple of bodies as his kills.
"You killed them? You should be killing strigoi not them!" I shouted at him.
"I was positive they were strigoi. Look at that dhampir over there" he pointed to a really big sized dhampir and continued, "He was the one who had me against the tree when I saw u ran by. I compulsed him and staked him in the heart."
"You compulsed a strigoi? It's impossible; no one said they could be… No… that's all wrong! Look at them! Do they look like strigoi to you?" I was still shouting.
"You got me wrong. They were strigoi. Aren't they supposed to change back to their original form after you have staked them?" he asked, clearly looking very puzzled at my accusation.
"You say those were your kills and they were strigoi who had changed back to their form after you have staked them??" I said really slowly, trying to process the information.
"They aren't supposed to change?" he asked.
I pointed to the pile of strigoi bodies and shook my head. "NO! HOW DO YOU SUPPOSE WE GOT THAT PILE OF STRIGOI BODIES?!" He looked at the pile and was shocked at my sudden outburst.
"Rose I'm telling you the truth. Every time I staked one, they just changed. I didn't know what happened."
"I'LL TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED YOU F**KING MURDERER! YOU KILLED THEM! YOU KILLED THOSE INNOCENT PEOPLE!!!"
APOV:
She then pounces onto me and started punching me like she was trying to get revenge for what I did. The guardians nearby saw her and pried her off me. Lissa and Christian who had heard the commotion came rushing out. Rose was shouting "murderer" and thrashing around to break free from her restraints. Her aura was really dark, even darker then her usual grey. When Lissa came out, I saw splots of black seeping out of her aura and they hopped over to Rose's.
Rose had once told me about being shadow-kissed to Lissa and the whole Anna gone mad thing when they did their research about spirits. It all makes sense now; my headaches and Rose's sudden outburst.
"Lissa! She's absorbing the darkness from you when you are using spirits! You had to help her!" I yelled out.
"How?" Lissa looked at me desperately.
"I don't know! Try to recall the research you did on Anna and St. Vladmir! There must be something!"
"I can't think!!"
"Try to focus! You must help her!"
She thought for a moment and shouted, "Healing! Somewhere in St Vladimir's journal he mentioned something about healing the darkness!!" she then took Rose's hand and tried to heal her but her aura's got even darker.
"Stop Lissa! You're making it worse! Her aura's darkening!"
She let go out her hand and cried, "What am I supposed to do if I can't heal her"
"I'll do it!" and I grabbed Rose's hands.
"I thought you said you can't heal!"
"I must try!!! Teach me! There's no time!!"
"Umm… Clear your mind! Focus on healing like closing a wound or taking out her darkness! Adrian please! You must succeed! I can't lose her again…" Lissa panicked as Rose looked like she was losing it any moment.
"I'll do whatever I can to save Rose! I can't lose her!" I then held on tightly on her hands while she wiggled violently against the guardians restraining her. I focused all my energy and cleared my mind of all thoughts but one – to take the darkness from her.
Then I felt it; the darkness inside Rose slipping into me, causing my head to throb even harder. Her struggles went weak and I knew I had to go on despite my own pains until everything faded to black.
Hehehe… I didn't kill Mason, I figure he could be of some use later on. But someone got to die, so who will it be?? Tell me in ur reviews!
