"For you, my friend, they are the angels of death."
-Man against monster. Monster against self. The story is as old as time. Living above us, below us, and among us, they assimilate themselves into our culture, and us into theirs. To the common man, they are simply known as night terrors, but to the initiated, they are the Darkstalkers-
EPISODE THREE: THE RESSURECTION OF ANAKARIS-RA / PT. I
Talbain and Felicia were taking a stroll down the busy streets of the city, side by side, window-shopping in the town square. After Jon had decided to move to the city, Felicia had insisted on buying him some new clothes to bring out his bad boy persona. Of course, Talbain's only comprehension of how clothes marked a person's standing was through uniforms, and he displayed his high-ranking fighter belt with pride.
They had been shopping all day, and the werewolf martial artist was quickly realizing how Felicia got those legs in shape: she was ALWAYS on the go! So far Talbain was dressed up in faded blue jeans, a black muscle shirt, and a sleeveless blue denim vest. He had insisted on keeping the leather boots he had made himself, and Felicia agreed they made him look more rugged.
As for Felicia, she was no slouch in the fashion department. She had managed to put together an outfit that, while country enough to help her friend feel welcome, was city enough to introduce him to 'flashy girls'. It was a hot pink vest with the button pockets over the chest and a zipper down the low-cut middle. It only came down to her mid-drift. She was also dressed in a pair of cut off blue jean shorts that fringed at the bottoms. While she purposely wore nothing on her hands and feet as per usual, she had her hair up in a once-back, high-parted bun with two strands of hair coming over her shoulders. Talbain had to admit she did look flashy.
The two of them felt a sudden shaking in the ground as they turned a corner. Then the sound and vibrations of deep rumbling from far beneath. Felicia's eyes darted around cautiously as she prepared to spring out of the way of any possible obstacle. Jon, on the other hand, was in a traditional stance for his school, ready for anything.
As the people on the street began to run and scream at the sudden deep cracks forming in the pavement, Jon's looked to Felicia, "Earthquakes common here?"
Felicia shook her head, "No way! There isn't even a fault here!"
Now Talbain knew something was up. His fears were realized when, in the middle of the city, a huge structure could be seen rising above the tall buildings. Haloed in an aura of dust from whatever countless buildings it had just destroyed, a massive golden pyramid shone brightly in the sun: a new landmark for the city.
Felicia would have fallen as a crack in the ground went under her, but her tail caught the ground and balanced her out. She looked up at the pyramid, eyes widened with mingled horror and curiosity, "Is that what I think it is???"
Talbain nodded gravely, "That's exactly what it is, and I don't like the energy that it's giving off. Somebody's gotta do something." And with his bold words declared, Talbain jumped onto all fours and ran at two- thirds the speed of a wolf towards the pyramid, only slowed by his inferior human form.
Felicia shook where she stood and shouted after him, "Jon, wait! I'm not going to let you go it alone!" She took off after him, senses alert.
~
The run through the city was chaotic. Vehicles were literally being crushed in the faults and lost in the cracks. Buildings fell. And oh the casualties were unheard of for a natural disaster in that city! It was a catastrophe of epic proportions.
Finally, the two of them stood at the base of the pyramid. To say that it was monumentally tall and imposing would be to say that a snail is monumentally small and frail. A bright shimmering similar to a completely golden version of the aurora borealis extended from the top and throughout the skies above. This was the abode of a God.
Talbain's silence-breaking words defined his character, "So: which way in?"
Felicia looked at him as if he were nuts as he placed his nose to a golden block of the pyramid and began to smell for something.
After an hour search that was both exhausting for Talbain and boring for Felicia, the werewolf leaned against the pyramid, ready to give up. Randomly, his ears twitched and he let out a yelp as he fell into the structure as if it were a curtain, the golden wall of the base rippling behind him with a shimmer and then becoming still.
Felicia tilted her head and walked forward. She reached out a paw to touch the strange wall, and a human hand reached back and pulled her in as she screamed.
~
The inside of the pyramid was as breathtaking as the outside. Golden walls lined with jewel-shone hieroglyphics lead off into various archways and tunnels. In the center of the room where they found themselves was a single green-tinted flame for light.
Talbain wasted no time fooling around with artistic admiration: his immediate focus was on getting to the bottom of this and he trudged forward through the first hallway he came to, Felicia following haplessly behind him with a sigh.
~
Through a security camera hidden in the walls, a figure watched the two of them enter from a room far deeper in the pyramid. Like unto his home, he was large and imposing. He stood at least eight foot tall but was sitting down at his desk in a comfortable chair at this point, wearing a magenta dress suit and golden tie as well as large black dress shoes. In addition to this, he wore honey-tinted sunglasses.
The only hint of what he truly was would have to be that the large body under the clothes was swathed in wrapping from the bald head to the large toes. All except for the eyes, which remained well hidden behind the sunglasses, and the hands, which revealed themselves to be sickly dried out and brown colored with the decay of ages as he drummed them impatiently upon the marble desk.
The figure slowly reached over and pressed down a red button built into the desk. "Secretary of Defense", he addressed in his clearly Middle- Eastern accent, "We have two walk-ins. Make them an appointment with Anubis."
"It shall be done, Oh Mighty One", a smaller voice with a familiar accent to the figure's replied over the small speaker beside the button.
~
Felicia was getting very spooked at the various images she was seeing on the walls. Wars, bloody wars, were exquisitely painted in proper hieroglyphic pictorials. Statues of various animals lay upon sacrificial altars, but they looked a little too real in this light. Most disturbing of all, in the room they had just entered, a pair of twin sarcophagi lined the doorway to the next room, as if eerie sentinels.
Talbain's nose caught a whiff of something and he lowered himself into a readied mid-stance, "Felicia, get ready: I smell herbs."
Felicia looked up at him, "What's the problem there? You've never been allergic to spices when I cooked for you, so why now?"
Talbain shot her a glare, "Preservation herbs, Felicia."
Felicia's face went blue, "You don't mean m-m-mummies??"
He didn't say anything: he simply looked towards the sarcophagi as they began to slowly creak open. Felicia let out a piercing scream and leapt behind Jon. She wasn't normally afraid of other Darkstalkers, but mummies were just creepy!
When the lids to the sarcophagi first fell to the ground with an echoing thud, stirring up the dust around them in small clouds, only empty blackness could be seen within. Then, at a slow gait, lumbered forth two twin mummies wearing shades and gray tuxedos. They stopped in front of the catwoman and werewolf, each making an identical gesture by crossing an arm over their chest ceremonially.
"Defilers will be destroyed. So sayeth Anakaris-Ra. The Only. The Absolute. Bow before Lord Anakaris or burn with the flames of the Twelve Hours Of Night", the pair chanted in unison, their voices sickly lifeless.
"When I bow", Talbain snarled, "It means I'm about to kick something!" Without another word, he dashed at the two mummies with what could be called superhuman speed were he not still in the form of a man. He raised a foot, executing a climb razor kick to the abdomen of one of the huge guards.
The guard lost his balance for a second, but regained it. It appeared otherwise unfazed. The two 'gentlemen' bluntly snatched Talbain into the air, one by his arms and the other by his legs, and tossed him smack into the nearest object: a golden statue.
As Talbain slowly rose to his feet, his blurry eyes caught sight of the guards standing before him, and he began to feel the sharp kicks of steel toed boots worn by massive feet all over his body. He writhed in pain, yelping over and over, but there was little he could do: they had caught him off guard.
Felicia darted around from statue to statue, taking advantage of the fact that she was well hidden to plan a sneak attack and help her friend, but she needed a blunt object with which to teach these guys a lesson. She found it in the golden statue of a cat with emerald eyes and a protective look about it.
As she snuck up from behind to give one of the guards a good flog upside the head so that they would chase her, the faster, instead of Jon, one of the guards turned around, glaring at her. Oh no! He had sensed her!
As the guard reached out to grab her as well, something strange happened. The cat's emerald eyes lit up and it fired twin beams of light into the guard's forehead. It collapsed onto the ground in a heap of linen strips, dust escaping from underneath.
Felicia looked at the statue in disbelief, completely unaware that it had been an avatar of Bastet, protector of cats and cat people. She tilted her head, "Hmm. I wonder if this thing is some kind of weapon. Let's find out."
She aimed it at the other guard and tried to yell an activation phrase, "Go Kitty Thing Go!" No effect. Her ears drooped. The guard was still harassing Jon with blunt kicks to his skull and there was no way she could take him on herself.
Finally, out of options, she walked up to the guard and tapped him on his large shoulder, "Excuse me ugly: how does this thing work?"
The guard turned around to strike her and was blasted by the statue. Felicia shrugged and grinned, "Well at least it worked. Oh no! Jon!"
She rushed over, helping him to a sitting position. He had been roughed up pretty bad and his new clothes were ripped, revealing that he had been wearing his old purple training slacks and red martial arts belt all along underneath.
Talbain slowly rose to his feet, groaning with the bruises that covered him now, and shred off the remains of his outer suit, "This guy's going down."
~
Deep within the pyramid, Anakaris-Ra was still watching the events over the hidden camera within every room of the pyramid. He would have frowned had he enough facial muscle left to execute such a maneuver.
He opened a desk drawer and took out something he hoped he would not have to use this soon. It appeared to be an onyx carving of a flame. He threw the miniature statue over the desk and onto the floor, where it shattered.
From the dust, a black smoke began to rise, and with it, an intense, high flame. The flame took a humanoid shape and knelt in a bow before its creator. "What is thy wish my Master", it's voice crackled as it spoke.
Anakaris was all business, "Dispose of the intruders and bring me their souls."
The flame golem stood, placing one arm over its chest in a ceremonial pattern known to all of the Pharaoh's servants, and dashed out of the room with the speed of a roaring forest fire, leaving a trail of smoke behind it.
~
Talbain and Felicia had been battling their way down level after endless level of the pyramid, destroying everything that stood against them. Along the way they had battled mummy priests, mummy soldiers, mummy archers, brain-eating scarabs, and even a strange cross between a jackal and a ghoul.
Nothing could have prepared them for what waited at the bottom-most level just before the room in which Anakaris-Ra himself watched them.
Talbain was the first to enter, and he immediately stanced. Felicia traversed in afterwards, assuming the same posture, which she had picked up from her friend.
The flame golem crossed its burning arm-like appendages and grinned, cackling maniacally like the hiss of a fire, "Your luck just ran out defilers!"
Talbain wiped the sweat from his brow, "This is gonna be another close one. Looks like it's time for me to turn it up a notch."
Felicia stepped back, not sure what he was up to, but she was about to find out. Talbain lifted his head skywards and let out a piercing howl, his body beginning to contort and spasm with the force of the change coming over it. The formerly humanoid shape became that of a hybrid between a man and a wolf. More commonly known as a wolf man, Talbain's true power is that of a werewolf or lycanthrope.
Two yellow and black lupine eyes focused on the flame golem as Talbain's muzzle turned upward in a snarling growl. He lunged forward, a bizarre blue flame encasing his body as his primal howl sounded through the walls of the pyramid. He hit the creature dead on, knocking it back with his signature Beast Cannon.
The flame golem, now slammed against a wall, rose to its 'feet' and shrugged off the damage. It simply grinned, encased itself in a similar red aura, and hurled itself at Talbain using an exact duplicate of his signature move.
"Jon!" Felicia screamed as he spun round from the attack and hit the floor hard. She knew she had to do something and fast. She lifted the Bastet statue and crossed her fingers, "Please, please work." Nothing. Her eyes widened.
Then it occurred to her. Magical items, though powerful, have a limited number of charges. They had probably expended all the power in the statue fighting off this guy's countless minions. This was bad, she thought to herself.
Jon, the wolf, jumped to his feet, giving the creature a warning snarl. The flame golem seemed oblivious and kept walking towards its quarry, a flame ball forming in one hand. That hand outstretched. Talbain stanced. The hand fired.
As the ball soared through the air towards its' target, it was intercepted and dispersed by an even stranger phenomenon: a floating ball of water. All eyes turned towards the source of the ball. There stood a green and gold-scaled mercreature with eyes the color of a stormy sea. He didn't look like he wanted to play around.
"This bonfire's got to go", the merman said in the voice of a young, Brazilian man. That said, he flung himself forward in a twisting spin lunge at the flame golem, his pores inexplicably excreting saltwater that became a massive bubble shield as he slammed headfirst into the enemy.
The flame golem's last action was an attempt to block. The attempt was excruciatingly unsuccessful and as the water dowsed the flames, the salt caused the charred remains to explode in a bizarre chemical reaction. It was a brilliant finish to a brilliant foe, or so it appeared as the merman landed in a kneel, unscathed.
Talbain and Felicia were stunned, but the merman looked to them, his eyes as intense as lightning, "What are you two waiting for! We still have to handle the mastermind behind this disaster!"
Talbain slowly stood, "First thing's first. Who are you?"
The merman stood, turning his back to them, "It's really not important, but my name is Aulbath and I'm here to protect my forest from this monster. Let's go."
At first Talbain was reluctant to follow Aulbath as he strode towards the door leading into Anakaris-Ra's main chambers, but Felicia put a hand on his shoulder and he slowly nodded, eyes focused. All three of them approached the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TO BE CONTINUED~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DARKSTALKERS: THE SERIES WRITTEN BY REGIS A WELCH DARKSTALKERS © 2004 CAPCOM
-Man against monster. Monster against self. The story is as old as time. Living above us, below us, and among us, they assimilate themselves into our culture, and us into theirs. To the common man, they are simply known as night terrors, but to the initiated, they are the Darkstalkers-
EPISODE THREE: THE RESSURECTION OF ANAKARIS-RA / PT. I
Talbain and Felicia were taking a stroll down the busy streets of the city, side by side, window-shopping in the town square. After Jon had decided to move to the city, Felicia had insisted on buying him some new clothes to bring out his bad boy persona. Of course, Talbain's only comprehension of how clothes marked a person's standing was through uniforms, and he displayed his high-ranking fighter belt with pride.
They had been shopping all day, and the werewolf martial artist was quickly realizing how Felicia got those legs in shape: she was ALWAYS on the go! So far Talbain was dressed up in faded blue jeans, a black muscle shirt, and a sleeveless blue denim vest. He had insisted on keeping the leather boots he had made himself, and Felicia agreed they made him look more rugged.
As for Felicia, she was no slouch in the fashion department. She had managed to put together an outfit that, while country enough to help her friend feel welcome, was city enough to introduce him to 'flashy girls'. It was a hot pink vest with the button pockets over the chest and a zipper down the low-cut middle. It only came down to her mid-drift. She was also dressed in a pair of cut off blue jean shorts that fringed at the bottoms. While she purposely wore nothing on her hands and feet as per usual, she had her hair up in a once-back, high-parted bun with two strands of hair coming over her shoulders. Talbain had to admit she did look flashy.
The two of them felt a sudden shaking in the ground as they turned a corner. Then the sound and vibrations of deep rumbling from far beneath. Felicia's eyes darted around cautiously as she prepared to spring out of the way of any possible obstacle. Jon, on the other hand, was in a traditional stance for his school, ready for anything.
As the people on the street began to run and scream at the sudden deep cracks forming in the pavement, Jon's looked to Felicia, "Earthquakes common here?"
Felicia shook her head, "No way! There isn't even a fault here!"
Now Talbain knew something was up. His fears were realized when, in the middle of the city, a huge structure could be seen rising above the tall buildings. Haloed in an aura of dust from whatever countless buildings it had just destroyed, a massive golden pyramid shone brightly in the sun: a new landmark for the city.
Felicia would have fallen as a crack in the ground went under her, but her tail caught the ground and balanced her out. She looked up at the pyramid, eyes widened with mingled horror and curiosity, "Is that what I think it is???"
Talbain nodded gravely, "That's exactly what it is, and I don't like the energy that it's giving off. Somebody's gotta do something." And with his bold words declared, Talbain jumped onto all fours and ran at two- thirds the speed of a wolf towards the pyramid, only slowed by his inferior human form.
Felicia shook where she stood and shouted after him, "Jon, wait! I'm not going to let you go it alone!" She took off after him, senses alert.
~
The run through the city was chaotic. Vehicles were literally being crushed in the faults and lost in the cracks. Buildings fell. And oh the casualties were unheard of for a natural disaster in that city! It was a catastrophe of epic proportions.
Finally, the two of them stood at the base of the pyramid. To say that it was monumentally tall and imposing would be to say that a snail is monumentally small and frail. A bright shimmering similar to a completely golden version of the aurora borealis extended from the top and throughout the skies above. This was the abode of a God.
Talbain's silence-breaking words defined his character, "So: which way in?"
Felicia looked at him as if he were nuts as he placed his nose to a golden block of the pyramid and began to smell for something.
After an hour search that was both exhausting for Talbain and boring for Felicia, the werewolf leaned against the pyramid, ready to give up. Randomly, his ears twitched and he let out a yelp as he fell into the structure as if it were a curtain, the golden wall of the base rippling behind him with a shimmer and then becoming still.
Felicia tilted her head and walked forward. She reached out a paw to touch the strange wall, and a human hand reached back and pulled her in as she screamed.
~
The inside of the pyramid was as breathtaking as the outside. Golden walls lined with jewel-shone hieroglyphics lead off into various archways and tunnels. In the center of the room where they found themselves was a single green-tinted flame for light.
Talbain wasted no time fooling around with artistic admiration: his immediate focus was on getting to the bottom of this and he trudged forward through the first hallway he came to, Felicia following haplessly behind him with a sigh.
~
Through a security camera hidden in the walls, a figure watched the two of them enter from a room far deeper in the pyramid. Like unto his home, he was large and imposing. He stood at least eight foot tall but was sitting down at his desk in a comfortable chair at this point, wearing a magenta dress suit and golden tie as well as large black dress shoes. In addition to this, he wore honey-tinted sunglasses.
The only hint of what he truly was would have to be that the large body under the clothes was swathed in wrapping from the bald head to the large toes. All except for the eyes, which remained well hidden behind the sunglasses, and the hands, which revealed themselves to be sickly dried out and brown colored with the decay of ages as he drummed them impatiently upon the marble desk.
The figure slowly reached over and pressed down a red button built into the desk. "Secretary of Defense", he addressed in his clearly Middle- Eastern accent, "We have two walk-ins. Make them an appointment with Anubis."
"It shall be done, Oh Mighty One", a smaller voice with a familiar accent to the figure's replied over the small speaker beside the button.
~
Felicia was getting very spooked at the various images she was seeing on the walls. Wars, bloody wars, were exquisitely painted in proper hieroglyphic pictorials. Statues of various animals lay upon sacrificial altars, but they looked a little too real in this light. Most disturbing of all, in the room they had just entered, a pair of twin sarcophagi lined the doorway to the next room, as if eerie sentinels.
Talbain's nose caught a whiff of something and he lowered himself into a readied mid-stance, "Felicia, get ready: I smell herbs."
Felicia looked up at him, "What's the problem there? You've never been allergic to spices when I cooked for you, so why now?"
Talbain shot her a glare, "Preservation herbs, Felicia."
Felicia's face went blue, "You don't mean m-m-mummies??"
He didn't say anything: he simply looked towards the sarcophagi as they began to slowly creak open. Felicia let out a piercing scream and leapt behind Jon. She wasn't normally afraid of other Darkstalkers, but mummies were just creepy!
When the lids to the sarcophagi first fell to the ground with an echoing thud, stirring up the dust around them in small clouds, only empty blackness could be seen within. Then, at a slow gait, lumbered forth two twin mummies wearing shades and gray tuxedos. They stopped in front of the catwoman and werewolf, each making an identical gesture by crossing an arm over their chest ceremonially.
"Defilers will be destroyed. So sayeth Anakaris-Ra. The Only. The Absolute. Bow before Lord Anakaris or burn with the flames of the Twelve Hours Of Night", the pair chanted in unison, their voices sickly lifeless.
"When I bow", Talbain snarled, "It means I'm about to kick something!" Without another word, he dashed at the two mummies with what could be called superhuman speed were he not still in the form of a man. He raised a foot, executing a climb razor kick to the abdomen of one of the huge guards.
The guard lost his balance for a second, but regained it. It appeared otherwise unfazed. The two 'gentlemen' bluntly snatched Talbain into the air, one by his arms and the other by his legs, and tossed him smack into the nearest object: a golden statue.
As Talbain slowly rose to his feet, his blurry eyes caught sight of the guards standing before him, and he began to feel the sharp kicks of steel toed boots worn by massive feet all over his body. He writhed in pain, yelping over and over, but there was little he could do: they had caught him off guard.
Felicia darted around from statue to statue, taking advantage of the fact that she was well hidden to plan a sneak attack and help her friend, but she needed a blunt object with which to teach these guys a lesson. She found it in the golden statue of a cat with emerald eyes and a protective look about it.
As she snuck up from behind to give one of the guards a good flog upside the head so that they would chase her, the faster, instead of Jon, one of the guards turned around, glaring at her. Oh no! He had sensed her!
As the guard reached out to grab her as well, something strange happened. The cat's emerald eyes lit up and it fired twin beams of light into the guard's forehead. It collapsed onto the ground in a heap of linen strips, dust escaping from underneath.
Felicia looked at the statue in disbelief, completely unaware that it had been an avatar of Bastet, protector of cats and cat people. She tilted her head, "Hmm. I wonder if this thing is some kind of weapon. Let's find out."
She aimed it at the other guard and tried to yell an activation phrase, "Go Kitty Thing Go!" No effect. Her ears drooped. The guard was still harassing Jon with blunt kicks to his skull and there was no way she could take him on herself.
Finally, out of options, she walked up to the guard and tapped him on his large shoulder, "Excuse me ugly: how does this thing work?"
The guard turned around to strike her and was blasted by the statue. Felicia shrugged and grinned, "Well at least it worked. Oh no! Jon!"
She rushed over, helping him to a sitting position. He had been roughed up pretty bad and his new clothes were ripped, revealing that he had been wearing his old purple training slacks and red martial arts belt all along underneath.
Talbain slowly rose to his feet, groaning with the bruises that covered him now, and shred off the remains of his outer suit, "This guy's going down."
~
Deep within the pyramid, Anakaris-Ra was still watching the events over the hidden camera within every room of the pyramid. He would have frowned had he enough facial muscle left to execute such a maneuver.
He opened a desk drawer and took out something he hoped he would not have to use this soon. It appeared to be an onyx carving of a flame. He threw the miniature statue over the desk and onto the floor, where it shattered.
From the dust, a black smoke began to rise, and with it, an intense, high flame. The flame took a humanoid shape and knelt in a bow before its creator. "What is thy wish my Master", it's voice crackled as it spoke.
Anakaris was all business, "Dispose of the intruders and bring me their souls."
The flame golem stood, placing one arm over its chest in a ceremonial pattern known to all of the Pharaoh's servants, and dashed out of the room with the speed of a roaring forest fire, leaving a trail of smoke behind it.
~
Talbain and Felicia had been battling their way down level after endless level of the pyramid, destroying everything that stood against them. Along the way they had battled mummy priests, mummy soldiers, mummy archers, brain-eating scarabs, and even a strange cross between a jackal and a ghoul.
Nothing could have prepared them for what waited at the bottom-most level just before the room in which Anakaris-Ra himself watched them.
Talbain was the first to enter, and he immediately stanced. Felicia traversed in afterwards, assuming the same posture, which she had picked up from her friend.
The flame golem crossed its burning arm-like appendages and grinned, cackling maniacally like the hiss of a fire, "Your luck just ran out defilers!"
Talbain wiped the sweat from his brow, "This is gonna be another close one. Looks like it's time for me to turn it up a notch."
Felicia stepped back, not sure what he was up to, but she was about to find out. Talbain lifted his head skywards and let out a piercing howl, his body beginning to contort and spasm with the force of the change coming over it. The formerly humanoid shape became that of a hybrid between a man and a wolf. More commonly known as a wolf man, Talbain's true power is that of a werewolf or lycanthrope.
Two yellow and black lupine eyes focused on the flame golem as Talbain's muzzle turned upward in a snarling growl. He lunged forward, a bizarre blue flame encasing his body as his primal howl sounded through the walls of the pyramid. He hit the creature dead on, knocking it back with his signature Beast Cannon.
The flame golem, now slammed against a wall, rose to its 'feet' and shrugged off the damage. It simply grinned, encased itself in a similar red aura, and hurled itself at Talbain using an exact duplicate of his signature move.
"Jon!" Felicia screamed as he spun round from the attack and hit the floor hard. She knew she had to do something and fast. She lifted the Bastet statue and crossed her fingers, "Please, please work." Nothing. Her eyes widened.
Then it occurred to her. Magical items, though powerful, have a limited number of charges. They had probably expended all the power in the statue fighting off this guy's countless minions. This was bad, she thought to herself.
Jon, the wolf, jumped to his feet, giving the creature a warning snarl. The flame golem seemed oblivious and kept walking towards its quarry, a flame ball forming in one hand. That hand outstretched. Talbain stanced. The hand fired.
As the ball soared through the air towards its' target, it was intercepted and dispersed by an even stranger phenomenon: a floating ball of water. All eyes turned towards the source of the ball. There stood a green and gold-scaled mercreature with eyes the color of a stormy sea. He didn't look like he wanted to play around.
"This bonfire's got to go", the merman said in the voice of a young, Brazilian man. That said, he flung himself forward in a twisting spin lunge at the flame golem, his pores inexplicably excreting saltwater that became a massive bubble shield as he slammed headfirst into the enemy.
The flame golem's last action was an attempt to block. The attempt was excruciatingly unsuccessful and as the water dowsed the flames, the salt caused the charred remains to explode in a bizarre chemical reaction. It was a brilliant finish to a brilliant foe, or so it appeared as the merman landed in a kneel, unscathed.
Talbain and Felicia were stunned, but the merman looked to them, his eyes as intense as lightning, "What are you two waiting for! We still have to handle the mastermind behind this disaster!"
Talbain slowly stood, "First thing's first. Who are you?"
The merman stood, turning his back to them, "It's really not important, but my name is Aulbath and I'm here to protect my forest from this monster. Let's go."
At first Talbain was reluctant to follow Aulbath as he strode towards the door leading into Anakaris-Ra's main chambers, but Felicia put a hand on his shoulder and he slowly nodded, eyes focused. All three of them approached the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TO BE CONTINUED~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DARKSTALKERS: THE SERIES WRITTEN BY REGIS A WELCH DARKSTALKERS © 2004 CAPCOM