DARKSTALKERS: VAMPIRE SAVIOR
Chapter Ten: Unworthy
Fanfiction by Louis the Rogue
(Based on original story by Capcom Inc.)
Those few strong souls who yet occupied the Fetus of God looked up as a great, white blankness came whistling from the golden double doors to nowhere, burning and shredding at everything it touched.
"Chaos ends unto itself", Jedah smiled with the most benevolent of intentions, "And a new order begins."
Throwing her arms up in a defensive gesture over her face, Morrigan was in disbelief at what she saw stirring within the chamber. The eyes of the Shintai were opening!
"What have you done…?", she muttered breathily, eyes wide.
Tossing aside the burnt wire remnants that had been his opponent, Talbain barely had time to look up as the light came round, tearing the world to dust in an instant.
And yet he remained. His higher functions had somehow sustained themselves, and he felt no different than before. Only the world around was changed. All was white. All was still.
All was cold.
Rising to his feet from a defensive kneel, he noticed how icy the floor was on his bare feet. Looking to his hands, they were hands! In the absurdly glistening floor, he could make out the shadow of a man.
"Why am I human again…?", he pondered aloud.
"In this place, our appearance mirrors our intent", a deep, richly drawn out voice called from an elevated, cliff-like surface. Looking to the source, Talbain saw his father standing there, arms crossed like some great hero overseeing the world.
"What do you want now?", the estranged warrior returned bitterly.
"As before, I want you to be at peace with yourself", Kreutz explained with a heaviness in his eyes, motioning with his claws to a howling wind just beyond, "But there is more to the equation than just you now, isn't there? Can you smell her in the distance?"
His form immediately shifting to that of the werewolf as his muscles twitched into an alert stance, Talbain peered keenly into the snowy darkness, "Felicia…"
"Go to her!", Baraba barked, "Go now or she'll be forever lost."
Without a second thought, the younger wolf began to charge that way, but stopped, suddenly, and looked back, "Why do you care?"
"I lost my mate because I wasn't there for her", the elder wolf lamented as he turned away, his words almost a howl, "Don't let my mistake become yours."
Nodding slowly, a hint of sympathy in his golden eyes, Talbain ran howling into the night. His only goal now was to get to her. The woman that would make sense of this nightmare and bring him softly back to sanity, wherever that might be.
As he followed the scent into a cavern he might not have found with his eyes in the now unrelenting blizzard, he wondered if she had sought shelter from the cold, but suspected something much worse.
With his luck, he was right. Racing down the steep, rocky terrain to a pathetic mew, he found her. Clinging, just barely, to life as she hung suspended in a column of crimson mist was his Felicia. With a leap of faith, he clutched her body in his arms and landed on his back to break her fall.
Slowly opening her eyes, Felicia half-smiled, "What took you so long?"
"I had to ask for directions", the wolf man replied with a wry grin.
Even in their last moments, Lei-Lei and Zabel fought together against the seemingly indomitable Shadow. If they were going to die, they would go out fighting.
For her part, Lei-Lei had given up on trying to stop the ghoul from attacking every time she let her guard down. This was his battle, after all, and she had to respect his dedication to the ideal of being a free man.
Zabel had to admit he was impressed with the new abilities the old boss had gained since becoming this freak, but he would be damned if that stopped him from proving once and for all that he was his own master. Dodging to and fro as the monster followed suit, vanishing in puffs of smoke only to appear before him at the most difficult angles, the undead assassin was doing well to stay on his toes.
But Shadow wasn't entirely focused on his target either. That strange woman in whose company Lord Raptor had found himself somehow learned of his vulnerability to sound, and was ready to bang her infernal gong every time he left himself open, provoking a near-hit from Raptor in turn.
The former Emperor knew that the only chance he'd have to win this battle lay with dispatching her. Anticipating his apprentice as usual, he began to direct his jaunts to guide the ghoul back toward his ally, and then, at the moment when the battle would have slammed headlong into her, reached out his deadly claw to strike her down with a soul-numbing cold.
Unfortunately, Zabel had anticipated him as well. No sooner than he had seen the flash of that claw, the skeletal rogue dashed into place to deflect the attack, and found himself slashed through the chest. His animating tattoo torn in two, he fell from the Master's hand in a lifeless heap.
"Zabel!", Lei-Lei screamed as she scooped up the corpse in her arms, keeping it guarded from the specter just above, "Zabel, you didn't have to do that…"
"Join him in death", Shadow taunted, chuckling at the poor joke he had just made, and thrust his arm out to slash the girl in two. But, to his great surprise, the attack simply passed through, provoking no more than a heated glare from her. What was this?!
"He didn't have to do that", Lei-Lei repeated, laying the body of her fallen friend on the ground as she stood, "Because you can't hurt me. I have no life to take."
Placing a white-haloed hand on his shoulder, the darkhunter gripped tightly as Shadow began to scream in pain, "But you do. You've given yourself to the darkness, and it has consumed you. Now, be consumed by the light, and fade away forever!"
As Shadow reared back with a roaring cry, bursting into a flash of harmless light, Lin-Lin appeared behind her sister, placing an arm on her shoulder with a smile, "Mother would be proud."
Lei-Lei smiled back with a twinkle in her eye, "Yeah."
"What about this one?", Lin-Lin called as she motioned to Zabel's body, whose lack of animation looked more absurd than the ravages of the grave.
Striding over, Lei-Lei knelt down and leaned over the body, staring into those dead eyes for a long moment before leaning in to kiss where his lips might have been. As the two of them were enveloped in white, the ghoul's fingers began to twitch.
Lin-Lin nodded with a knowing smile to her sister as she stood, and the two of them walked into the light with peace, ready for whatever lay ahead.
His eyes opening, Zabel reached up, running a hand over his teeth. He could almost hear her voice in his mind, like a soothing chime,
"It's never over Zabel. This life is endless. Keep moving on."
Morrigan felt her heart race like never before as she locked eyes with the darkness and contemplated how to fight it. She couldn't imagine that Jedah, knowing all too well what horrors laid behind the forbidden gates, would ever conceive of opening them.
"Why?", she demanded as she clenched her fists at her sides, "Why are you doing this!?"
"Makai is dying", Jedah said flatly, "The world is drowning in blood. The only way to break this cycle is to remake it."
"And what about us?", Morrigan glowered accusingly, "What about the people who want to live? Why should we forfeit our existence to suit your plan?"
At this, the savior laughed, "All things die in time. The question is whether or not they will be reborn. Thanks to my efforts, Makai has been insured. Accept my mercy with gratitude!"
This laugh would be his last. As he felt a horrible pain in his chest, Jedah looked down with wide eyes to see a delicate little hand thrust out through his heart from behind. Blood beginning to pour over his lips and down his collar, the nobleman turned as he fell in a kneel.
Tossing the blood from her fingers, Q-Bee glowered down at him with her great, amethyst eyes.
"Why have you interfered with me?", Jedah gasped, trying in vain to hold in the souls spilling from the rift inside him.
Q-Bee's face was a cold mask, "I hear a voice saying generate and prosper."
As the strain of the rebelling souls began to tear him apart, the dying Lord of Dohma cursed his good servant through gritted teeth, "You are just an insect at heart! You could never understand me!"
"Not as well as I had hoped", Q-Bee retorted to the fading remnant. As the color returned to her little body, she felt a horrible emptiness well up inside. She had trusted him. Believed in him. And he was going to sacrifice her.
But her error would be reprised. Dashing toward the doors and gripping one in each hand, she looked back to Morrigan, "For the hive to grow, sacrifices must be made."
Thinking only of the billions of soul bees depending on her at this moment, the noble insect queen threw herself into oblivion, slamming the doors shut behind her.
Morrigan stared at the doors for a long moment as the world around her shifted into a series of gateways to many others. In each gate, she could see the released souls reforming. Achieving their individual destinies. All but the one who had to sacrifice her identity to fulfill her purpose.
"Your proud death will not have been in vain", the heiress vowed as she flew toward her gate, the gate to Castle Aensland, "I am ready to accept my destiny too. Makai must have its heart."