Alucard's little sister: See first chapter. The armband will be described in this chapter a little more. The armband is actually loosely based on a Zombie armband in an online comic called Zombie Hunter (the two armbands have an ! on them). Also, I don't own Hello Kitty. I don't own Zero Punctuation.
Editor Cain: Hey, this chapter has the same name as the story.
Alucard's little sister: Yes I know but there's a reason for that. Here's a heads up, words in are 'translated' Darkseeker speech. After all I'm sure they would have some way to talk to each other after a while...
Bullets and Butterflies
Five minutes after Paul and John left for the Mega-Mart, there was a knock on the door. Leona put Ichigo's litter box down and walked over to the door. "Did they forget something," she muttered.
By the front door was a woman in her late twenties with strawberry pink hair, a Hello Kitty nerd love shirt, jeans and Hello Kitty converse shoes. "Hey, Leo," she said.
"Hi, Betty, what's up," asked Leona.
Betty handed Leona three folded pieces of paper. "Here are the guesses for Ironic Hour yesterday," she said. "Are there any winners?"
Leona walked outside and closed the door behind her. She took the papers. "Let's see." She opened the first one. "Nope off by three." She opened the second one and shook her head. "Not even close." She looked at the last one. "Is this one yours?"
Betty nodded. "It is," she cried happily. "Did I win?"
"No," said Leona. "But you were close. Only one song off. If no one else comes over with their guess in the next seven days, then you'll win by default."
"Sweet," said Betty. "Oh, I heard you have a new member to your group. Can I see him?"
"No, sorry, he went with my Dad to the Mega-Mart to get detergent."
Betty flinched. "No! They didn't go there!"
"Why?"
"Well, I came from over that way and I saw, through the store windows that Bullet was up and walking around." Betty nodded after noticing Leona's shocked expression. "Yeah, it's strange that's Bullet up and about, but I think it had something to do with Cigarette getting caught in a bear trap last night. The sad thing was, it was able to get out of that trap."
"I wonder who set the trap." Leona took a deep breath. "Well, I really hope they can get out of there without getting too horribly mauled."
Betty laughed. "Oh, feel the love. Well, I've got to go, bye." She ran off.
Leona sighed. "I really hope those two will be ok," she muttered as she opened the door and went back inside.
The next day John was woken by a large crack thunder. He could hear the rain pouring down on the roof. He walked into the bathroom and checked the scratch on his forehead. It no longer needed a band aid. He reached through his hair on his left side to the large bump. "Ow," he muttered. Another clap of thunder shook the house. John looked into Leona's room to see her looking under her bed.
"It's ok, Ichigo," she said. "It's just thunder, it won't hurt you."
John could hear Ichigo let out a whine as he walked down the stairs. There was no one in the living room or kitchen so he headed to Paul's room. When he got there, the door was open. When John saw Paul, he held his breath to stop from gasping.
Paul's back was to the open door. He wasn't wearing a shirt which revealed deep scars that looked like deep scratches running down his back. A few inches from his shoulder blade, there was a scar that looked like someone had shot him. Paul picked up a shirt off the floor and put it on.
There was another loud clap of thunder and it made John yelp.
Paul turned around. "Hell of a wake up, eh" he said.
"Yeah, it is," said John. He looked at the metal sheets. "Must be really bad out."
Paul sighed. "It is. There's no point in opening those shutters. I had to bring the generators outside just in case the power goes out. I had to get a new shirt."
"So, you want to explain something important to me," said John nervously, trying to change the subject.
"Right," said Paul. "I almost forgot about that. Meet me in the living room. I'll get Leon." He walked by John to the foot of the stairs. "Leon! Leave the dumb dog alone to cower and come down stairs!"
"Ok, ok, sorry," called Leona.
John was sitting on the couch when Leona ran down the stairs with a large, rolled up, piece of paper in her hands. She set it on the table and unrolled it, revealing it to be a map of London. The map was old and coloured with a blue marker, red marker and one gold dot.
Paul grabbed a pointer from his pocket. He pointed at the map. "As you can see, this is London. Marks on this map are territories," said Paul. "Yes, you heard me right. Over the years the Darkseekers 'organized' into two groups. 29% of the city in red belongs to the Butterflies led by a woman called Madam Butterfly. The reason we call her that is because she wears dresses that look like monarch wings and a large monarch butterfly tattoo on her head."
"We think she was one of the people that was injected with the 'virus' to cure some sort of cancer," added Leona.
"Yes, we do, anyway," said Paul. "70% belongs to the Bullets and their leader called Bullet. In fact, that thing that attacked you was Bullet."
"Wait," said John. "Let me guess, you call him Bullet because he dresses head to toe in military gear and he has a tattoo of a bullet somewhere on him right."
Paul and Leona looked at each other then back at John. "You got the military part right, but," said Paul.
"We call him Bullet because he can catch bullets...with his mouth," said Leona. "It's the only spot on him not covered with high power bullet-proof clothing."
Paul cleared his throat. "Bullet is the most ruthless Darkseeker in the city. I've seen videos from security cameras of him ripping people apart. You were lucky to get away with just a scratch and bump on the head."
John flinched. "Oh, I see," he muttered. "Wait, what about us, where do we fit in here?"
Paul pointed to a gold dot between a blue and red line. "That's us. We're in the middle of their fight over all of London."
"And another thing, how can you tell the difference between a Butterfly and a Bullet Darkseeker?"
"Butterflies don't wear this," said Leona. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a black armband with a gold circle in the middle. In the circle was a skull and crossbones with a bold, hollow, explanation mark. "The Darkseekers that are with Bullet don't seem to care about wearing them. While most butterflies take them off. I found this one at the pub, in case you were wondering."
"The reason we're looking for people is to help them stay out of this turf war between Darkseekers," said Paul. "Now, any other question?"
"Just one," said John as Leona rolled up the map. "What are we called? I mean what's our team name?"
Once again, Paul and Leona looked at each other then back at John. "Actually," said Leona. "We don't have one. It was just the two of us. Not really big enough to call ourselves a group."
"Well, I think we should have one just in case more people show up," said John. "I do have a good one."
"Ok," said Paul. "Let's hear it."
"We could be called, Daredevils," said John. "Because we play that game who can escape the most dramatically."
Leona tried not to laugh. "That is amazingly brilliant," she cried. "I love it. Let's call ourselves the Daredevils."
It took a moment for Paul to recover. "Yeah, sure, we can do that. Anyway, we have only 1% of the city. I figure the two groups can just kill each other and we will have the city."
"Sounds like the storm's subsiding," noted Leona as a small rumble of thunder rolled through.
Meanwhile, deep in the heart of Bullet territory three Darkseekers watched a small ranch house.
The house was plain, with one boarded up window and the others with cracks in them. There were three pikes each with a Darkseeker's head impaled on them. On the pikes was a sign that read: Do not disturb. Surrounding the house were several rusty bear traps.
Why won't Leader come and kill Grim Hissed one of the Darkseekers. Or even let us do it?
Another Darkseeker hit that one in the back of the head. Arno, your head not on right it adjusted a baseball cap on its head. Grimm kill everything. Rongo barely got away!
Babies hissed the third. Me do it. It walked over to the house.
The other two shook their heads. Leader said watch Grimm not kill One hissed.
He dead Arno muttered.
The Darkseeker was able to walk past five bear traps before one sank into its leg. Help It cried.
That's when a medium size bell began to ring. The deadbolt on the front door clicked and the door opened.
The Darkseekers began to panic as a man walked calmly out the door. He was wearing tall black combat boots, jeans, a long black trench coat, and a red shirt that said: I'm an Assassin (shhhhhh!). He had wild blue hair, yellow eyes and two piercings on his right eyebrow. In his hand was a two-handed sharpened pick axe.
It Grimm! Me gone Arno ran off.
Wait for me! The other Darkseeker ran off.
The one in the bear trap kept trying to pull its leg out. No! Don't leave the Grimm...
"Shut up, freak," said the man. "I can't stand that growling sound." He leaned on his axe and pulled out a picture as the Darkseeker continued to try to escape. He looked from the picture to the Darkseeker and sighed. "Nope, I was hoping you'd be the one that got away from me." He shrugged. "Oh, well, I'll get that one, one day. Until then." He took the axe with both hands and decapitated the Darkseeker with one swing. He threw the head out into the street, took the body out of the trap and dragged it into the street. He reset the bear trap before heading back in. He walked to the kitchen sink and washed the blood of his hands and axe. He picked up a marker and added another mark to a whiteboard. "That makes twenty freaks that I've killed. Stupid things." He grabbed the axe and walked into the living room. He opened a large round hatch door and walked down a ladder and closed and locked the door.
A small radio ended a song and started playing Leona's 'not going to the pub' message.
He sighed. "I wonder what Leo the Lion was like," he muttered. He took off his boots, walked over to a large flat screen TV and started playing video games.