Beginning's End
By: Lazeralk
Standard disclaimers apply.
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." – Semisonic
Part 7
Seras fought the drag of sleep, her eyes feeling glued together as she tried to wake up. When she finally did manage to get her eyes open the sight that greeted her sent her screaming and scrambling. One of the manticors had grown curious about her and was sniffing her face when she'd decided to rejoin the waking world, terrifying the small blonde and sending her master into fits of laughter.
"Ranja!" scolded Galina, glaring sternly at the beast.
"Master!" cried Seras in dismay. He always seemed to be laughing at her.
Katrina was back in her master's lap, much more subdued than normal, just cured up with him. Isabella was gone and Galina was sitting between her two remaining manticors, her face mournful for the four whom she'd lost. Seras calmed down and sat up against a tree in the clearing they were currently occupying.
"Master? Now what do we do?" she asked.
Arucard opened his mouth to speak but was rather rudely cut off.
"You go back." Said a voice that send both Arucard and Seras' heads spinning.
"Miss Shadow!" cried Seras in delight. The shadow walker was leaning against a tree, her kohl black eyes and raven hair no different from when they'd last seen her all those years ago.
"Shadow?" asked Arucard.
The woman nodded.
"Prove it." Demanded the nosfaratu coldly.
"You." She said, hands on her hips.
"Are still sickeningly skinny."
Arucard laughed, he pushed Katrina gently off of him and then stood, cracking his back at he did.
"I don't know if I believe you. The only way I'll know for sure is if you fight me." He said, pulling the Jackals out of his coat and replacing the clips with the normal bullets he always kept on him for ghouls or vamps he wanted to torture for information.
"My pleasure." She said, her hands extending only slightly. Her stance didn't change however and she didn't look ready for a fight in the least.
Arucard grinned wickedly and charged, putting a bullet in her head and heart simultaneously. She moved just slightly and then vanished, only to reappear inside her opponents guard. She slammed a fist into his jaw from below sending his flying backwards. He grinned, flipped and landed gracefully on his feet.
She shifted her weight to one leg, throwing her hips out and mocking him with a bored expression. He lifted both guns and emptied the clips into her body, blowing away large chunks of her flesh. She mealted into shadows and reformed two feet in front of him a sword in her hands and executing the same move she'd pulled on him before, slicing him into twelve pieces.
"Now do you believe me?" She asked with a smile.
"Oh I don't know." He said before sliding to the ground looking like steaks that hadn't been packaged yet.
"Yeah right, you believed me all along, you just wanted to fight." She said.
The pieces of his body mealted into blood and bits of decaying flesh before he reformed and pulled new clips out for his guns.
"Well, there is that." He agreed, even as he opened fire. The bullets sunk home again and she sighed dramatically before she pulled another sword out of her stomach. With a smirk she tossed it to him and darted in to knock both guns from his hands. No sooner had the guns left; he grasped the sword's hilt.
The Jackals went spiraling into the woods where both Seras and Katrina jumped to retrieve them. Shadow looked down and saw a thin line of red beginning to form along her stomach. It seemed that Arucard had gotten in a strike while she'd been knocking the guns away. He'd gotten better.
She smiled and then slid into a complex stance, one foot hyper extended before her, the other crouched, ready to pounce. The blade was leveled at her shoulder, hiratzuki* style. She moved fluidly, her weight being transferred to her forward leg by her other which was extending giving her a pivot point as she increased her momentum. As she reached the climax of her shift, she thrust her arms forward, the sword shooting through the air at hyper speed.
Arucard blocked, turning the blade back at an awkward angle for her, she spun to compensate and the sword bit into the side of his chest, he stopped it from going further and then pushed it away, reaching into strike before she could recover. His blade hit her on the shoulder and would have cut her in half had she not moved downward with the movement of the sword and slid backwards off the blade.
The wound healed instantly. The score stood at Arucard: two, Shadow: one.
Shadow swept her blade up and it clashed with his, sending sparks into the air. They danced, the blades meeting and crashing. Seras, Katrina and Galina watching as the fight went back and forth, neither gaining hold over the other. Arucard eyes flashed and he lunged for an opening in her defenses, she shot forward with an attack of her own and they struck in the same instant sending blood everywhere.
Shadow pulled her blade free and leapt backwards off of his. She stuck the blade into her own stomach and the vampire paused to watch as she seemingly gut herself. The blade went half way in and she stood there for a moment before vanishing and reappearing behind him, his own gun to his temple and the rest of the sword, now a knife, in his back. She pulled the trigger and the new score was Arucard: three, Shadow: four.
"Um, guys? Shouldn't we be discussing what we're going to do when we go back to the castle?" asked Seras.
"Just a minute police-girl." Promised Arucard as he switched his grip on the sword and plunged in backwards into his opponent. Shadow moved the gun to his neck in retaliation and blew his newly reformed head off. The severed body part landed not three inches from Katrina's feet. She screamed long and loud, her face filled with terror as her master's disembodied head grinned up at her.
"Oh shut up Katrina. Its not that bad." He told her even though he didn't have any lungs at the time. There was just something about defying the laws of nature that really did it for him. Katrina stopped screaming but the look of horror seemed fixed to her face.
Shadow picked up the empty magazines and shadow morphed the swords back into bullets. She then led Arucard's decapitated body back to his head, where he leaned down and picked it, reattaching it with a sickening squish.
He loudly cracked his neck twice before sighing with satisfaction and giving his elder child his usual maniac grin. He turned to Shadow who handed him his gun and the two extra clips.
"You win this round, but I'll get you later." He promised as he took them and stored them back in his coat. The shadow walker just smiled pleasantly at him.
"Master? The assault on Bran?" asked Seras.
"That's right Arucard. Focus will you?" said Galina from her spot between the massive manticors.
Arucard childishly stuck his tongue out at her.
"We'll go in through the lower levels. There's a dungeon down there full of vampires bound with chains made from blessed crosses." Said Shadow, her voice low and steady.
"Wait a second, why are you here Shadow? The last time you were in this world it was only because you need my vampire expertise to find the one who'd trapped your people." Demanded Arucard watching her suspiciously.
"When my people returned, we used most of our power to seal the demons in their own world. We set warding on both sides of the dimensional gate. Some vampire, some ignorant child called Loki has broken the seals with the help of a fallen demi-god. Fenrir and Loki broke the seals and are inviting demons across the boundary on the condition that they serve them in exchange for the flesh of their fellow vampires."
Suddenly Galina gasped, one delicate hand to her lips.
"That's why! I've been sending letters to the castle, to our old allies and friends. I didn't think he'd be strong enough to cage them, but I didn't get any responses. All of our allies must be down in the dungeon." She said with fever.
"So that's why you wanted to go in through the dungeon. It still doesn't explain why you're here."
"I don't care about the other vampires dying, that's off world politics to me, but I hate that some one messed with all my hard work, and I hate demons in any circumstance. My primary mission is to decontaminate this world and replace the seals, but I'll kill them with any excuse." She said coldly, her fingers flexing as if around the hilts of her deadly shadow blades.
"Ah, bloodlust then, I can certainly understand that. So, we'll attack at dusk. Loki won't be feeding them and they'll probably all look like Hallow did. They won't be strong enough to move during the day." Said Arucard.
"I'll get us in through the wall. There are a few werewolf guards, maybe twenty for the entire complex." Said Shadow.
"Wait, shouldn't we wait for Isabella to get back before we plan all this?" asked Katrina.
"She's feeding her bats. All three thousand of them. Do you really want to wait that long?" returned her master.
"Oh." She said, looking sullen. Seras glanced at her before moving to stand at her master's side. She offered the Jackal she'd retrieved from the forest, her master smiled at her and pocketed the gun. Katrina saw her and checked her back pocket for the gun she'd gotten only to discover that it was missing. Shadow smiled at her.
"You little thief!" roared Katrina. Shadow scowled and stood up straight. She towered over the petite redhead by a good foot and a half. Katrina lost some of her anger and Shadow smirked smugly.
"Anyways." Said Arucard, effectively ending the conflict between the two women.
"If we can take out the werewolves before we free the others they can feed while we get Hallow. Then, when their finished, we'll leave them to take the rest of the wolves while we get Loki and this demi-god of yours."
"Loki won't be a problem unless he's siphoning energy from the demons. I couldn't get a clear reading, there's too much demonic power collected there. It's Fenrir you want to watch out for. He's a demi-god, and a fallen one at that. Demi-gods aren't actually gods; they're the inhabitants of another dimension that are six or seven steps higher on the evolutionary chain than humans. They use to visit this plane quite frequently which resulted in much chaos and myths. The Shadow Walkers had to seal them away too. Fallen demi-gods are cast out of their dimension and loose power as they age. Fenrir has been here for about six thousand years. He shouldn't be that's strong anymore, but he's still a force to be reckoned with."
"So, he can be killed?" asked Arucard.
Shadow smiled.
"Yes, he can be killed.
"Good, that's all you had to say."
Shadow scowled at him and he laughed.
"Ok, go hunt and be back here at dusk." He said turning to speak to the others.
"Yes master." Said Seras as she dusted off her new leather coat. She wandered off into the forest in search of prey, not really knowing what she was doing. Galina whispered in the ear of one of her manticors and the beast stood and followed the small blonde. Arucard went off to hunt on his own and Katrina followed. Galina took the last manticor and Shadow was left standing in the clearing.
She put her back to a tree and dissolved into shadow, sinking into the dark.
*
Seras had her gun out again, her posture combat ready. Shadow was moving them through the Shallows so that they wouldn't be detected by their enemies. They came upon a wall and a large black gate, looking much like slowly moving tar spread itself across the bricks at Shadow's command.
One by one, the small group moved through the gate and disappeared.
End part 7
Seras fought the drag of sleep, her eyes feeling glued together as she tried to wake up. When she finally did manage to get her eyes open the sight that greeted her sent her screaming and scrambling. One of the manticors had grown curious about her and was sniffing her face when she'd decided to rejoin the waking world, terrifying the small blonde and sending her master into fits of laughter.
"Ranja!" scolded Galina, glaring sternly at the beast.
"Master!" cried Seras in dismay. He always seemed to be laughing at her.
Katrina was back in her master's lap, much more subdued than normal, just cured up with him. Isabella was gone and Galina was sitting between her two remaining manticors, her face mournful for the four whom she'd lost. Seras calmed down and sat up against a tree in the clearing they were currently occupying.
"Master? Now what do we do?" she asked.
Arucard opened his mouth to speak but was rather rudely cut off.
"You go back." Said a voice that send both Arucard and Seras' heads spinning.
"Miss Shadow!" cried Seras in delight. The shadow walker was leaning against a tree, her kohl black eyes and raven hair no different from when they'd last seen her all those years ago.
"Shadow?" asked Arucard.
The woman nodded.
"Prove it." Demanded the nosfaratu coldly.
"You." She said, hands on her hips.
"Are still sickeningly skinny."
Arucard laughed, he pushed Katrina gently off of him and then stood, cracking his back at he did.
"I don't know if I believe you. The only way I'll know for sure is if you fight me." He said, pulling the Jackals out of his coat and replacing the clips with the normal bullets he always kept on him for ghouls or vamps he wanted to torture for information.
"My pleasure." She said, her hands extending only slightly. Her stance didn't change however and she didn't look ready for a fight in the least.
Arucard grinned wickedly and charged, putting a bullet in her head and heart simultaneously. She moved just slightly and then vanished, only to reappear inside her opponents guard. She slammed a fist into his jaw from below sending his flying backwards. He grinned, flipped and landed gracefully on his feet.
She shifted her weight to one leg, throwing her hips out and mocking him with a bored expression. He lifted both guns and emptied the clips into her body, blowing away large chunks of her flesh. She mealted into shadows and reformed two feet in front of him a sword in her hands and executing the same move she'd pulled on him before, slicing him into twelve pieces.
"Now do you believe me?" She asked with a smile.
"Oh I don't know." He said before sliding to the ground looking like steaks that hadn't been packaged yet.
"Yeah right, you believed me all along, you just wanted to fight." She said.
The pieces of his body mealted into blood and bits of decaying flesh before he reformed and pulled new clips out for his guns.
"Well, there is that." He agreed, even as he opened fire. The bullets sunk home again and she sighed dramatically before she pulled another sword out of her stomach. With a smirk she tossed it to him and darted in to knock both guns from his hands. No sooner had the guns left; he grasped the sword's hilt.
The Jackals went spiraling into the woods where both Seras and Katrina jumped to retrieve them. Shadow looked down and saw a thin line of red beginning to form along her stomach. It seemed that Arucard had gotten in a strike while she'd been knocking the guns away. He'd gotten better.
She smiled and then slid into a complex stance, one foot hyper extended before her, the other crouched, ready to pounce. The blade was leveled at her shoulder, hiratzuki* style. She moved fluidly, her weight being transferred to her forward leg by her other which was extending giving her a pivot point as she increased her momentum. As she reached the climax of her shift, she thrust her arms forward, the sword shooting through the air at hyper speed.
Arucard blocked, turning the blade back at an awkward angle for her, she spun to compensate and the sword bit into the side of his chest, he stopped it from going further and then pushed it away, reaching into strike before she could recover. His blade hit her on the shoulder and would have cut her in half had she not moved downward with the movement of the sword and slid backwards off the blade.
The wound healed instantly. The score stood at Arucard: two, Shadow: one.
Shadow swept her blade up and it clashed with his, sending sparks into the air. They danced, the blades meeting and crashing. Seras, Katrina and Galina watching as the fight went back and forth, neither gaining hold over the other. Arucard eyes flashed and he lunged for an opening in her defenses, she shot forward with an attack of her own and they struck in the same instant sending blood everywhere.
Shadow pulled her blade free and leapt backwards off of his. She stuck the blade into her own stomach and the vampire paused to watch as she seemingly gut herself. The blade went half way in and she stood there for a moment before vanishing and reappearing behind him, his own gun to his temple and the rest of the sword, now a knife, in his back. She pulled the trigger and the new score was Arucard: three, Shadow: four.
"Um, guys? Shouldn't we be discussing what we're going to do when we go back to the castle?" asked Seras.
"Just a minute police-girl." Promised Arucard as he switched his grip on the sword and plunged in backwards into his opponent. Shadow moved the gun to his neck in retaliation and blew his newly reformed head off. The severed body part landed not three inches from Katrina's feet. She screamed long and loud, her face filled with terror as her master's disembodied head grinned up at her.
"Oh shut up Katrina. Its not that bad." He told her even though he didn't have any lungs at the time. There was just something about defying the laws of nature that really did it for him. Katrina stopped screaming but the look of horror seemed fixed to her face.
Shadow picked up the empty magazines and shadow morphed the swords back into bullets. She then led Arucard's decapitated body back to his head, where he leaned down and picked it, reattaching it with a sickening squish.
He loudly cracked his neck twice before sighing with satisfaction and giving his elder child his usual maniac grin. He turned to Shadow who handed him his gun and the two extra clips.
"You win this round, but I'll get you later." He promised as he took them and stored them back in his coat. The shadow walker just smiled pleasantly at him.
"Master? The assault on Bran?" asked Seras.
"That's right Arucard. Focus will you?" said Galina from her spot between the massive manticors.
Arucard childishly stuck his tongue out at her.
"We'll go in through the lower levels. There's a dungeon down there full of vampires bound with chains made from blessed crosses." Said Shadow, her voice low and steady.
"Wait a second, why are you here Shadow? The last time you were in this world it was only because you need my vampire expertise to find the one who'd trapped your people." Demanded Arucard watching her suspiciously.
"When my people returned, we used most of our power to seal the demons in their own world. We set warding on both sides of the dimensional gate. Some vampire, some ignorant child called Loki has broken the seals with the help of a fallen demi-god. Fenrir and Loki broke the seals and are inviting demons across the boundary on the condition that they serve them in exchange for the flesh of their fellow vampires."
Suddenly Galina gasped, one delicate hand to her lips.
"That's why! I've been sending letters to the castle, to our old allies and friends. I didn't think he'd be strong enough to cage them, but I didn't get any responses. All of our allies must be down in the dungeon." She said with fever.
"So that's why you wanted to go in through the dungeon. It still doesn't explain why you're here."
"I don't care about the other vampires dying, that's off world politics to me, but I hate that some one messed with all my hard work, and I hate demons in any circumstance. My primary mission is to decontaminate this world and replace the seals, but I'll kill them with any excuse." She said coldly, her fingers flexing as if around the hilts of her deadly shadow blades.
"Ah, bloodlust then, I can certainly understand that. So, we'll attack at dusk. Loki won't be feeding them and they'll probably all look like Hallow did. They won't be strong enough to move during the day." Said Arucard.
"I'll get us in through the wall. There are a few werewolf guards, maybe twenty for the entire complex." Said Shadow.
"Wait, shouldn't we wait for Isabella to get back before we plan all this?" asked Katrina.
"She's feeding her bats. All three thousand of them. Do you really want to wait that long?" returned her master.
"Oh." She said, looking sullen. Seras glanced at her before moving to stand at her master's side. She offered the Jackal she'd retrieved from the forest, her master smiled at her and pocketed the gun. Katrina saw her and checked her back pocket for the gun she'd gotten only to discover that it was missing. Shadow smiled at her.
"You little thief!" roared Katrina. Shadow scowled and stood up straight. She towered over the petite redhead by a good foot and a half. Katrina lost some of her anger and Shadow smirked smugly.
"Anyways." Said Arucard, effectively ending the conflict between the two women.
"If we can take out the werewolves before we free the others they can feed while we get Hallow. Then, when their finished, we'll leave them to take the rest of the wolves while we get Loki and this demi-god of yours."
"Loki won't be a problem unless he's siphoning energy from the demons. I couldn't get a clear reading, there's too much demonic power collected there. It's Fenrir you want to watch out for. He's a demi-god, and a fallen one at that. Demi-gods aren't actually gods; they're the inhabitants of another dimension that are six or seven steps higher on the evolutionary chain than humans. They use to visit this plane quite frequently which resulted in much chaos and myths. The Shadow Walkers had to seal them away too. Fallen demi-gods are cast out of their dimension and loose power as they age. Fenrir has been here for about six thousand years. He shouldn't be that's strong anymore, but he's still a force to be reckoned with."
"So, he can be killed?" asked Arucard.
Shadow smiled.
"Yes, he can be killed.
"Good, that's all you had to say."
Shadow scowled at him and he laughed.
"Ok, go hunt and be back here at dusk." He said turning to speak to the others.
"Yes master." Said Seras as she dusted off her new leather coat. She wandered off into the forest in search of prey, not really knowing what she was doing. Galina whispered in the ear of one of her manticors and the beast stood and followed the small blonde. Arucard went off to hunt on his own and Katrina followed. Galina took the last manticor and Shadow was left standing in the clearing.
She put her back to a tree and dissolved into shadow, sinking into the dark.
*
Seras had her gun out again, her posture combat ready. Shadow was moving them through the Shallows so that they wouldn't be detected by their enemies. They came upon a wall and a large black gate, looking much like slowly moving tar spread itself across the bricks at Shadow's command.
One by one, the small group moved through the gate and disappeared.
End part 7