DARKSTALKERS: THE NIGHT WARRIORS
Chapter 4: The Dead Walk
Fanfiction by Louis the Rogue
(Based on original story by Capcom Inc.)
The year is 2630 B.C., and the place is Egypt. The reign of Anakaris, 12th Emperor of a great and powerful dynasty, had come to an abrupt end. The heroic pharaoh, said to be a gleaming bronze man of statuesque build standing over eight feet tall, had finally been defeated in battle. Ever faithful, his servants had muted his death within their abilities and smuggled his body home to be subjected to the proper rites.
Though Anakaris was mummified, the invaders that had taken his life continued their raid across the empire. That raid had lasted for three turbulent years, and without an heir, it seemed the empire was doomed to crumble under the might of its' enemies.
Deep inside the enormous stone pyramid created for him, Anakaris lay in his sapphire studded sarcophagus of gold, streams of crystal clear water lit only by the strategic rows of torches placed above them as they trickled down on either side of the standing coffin.
A bald-headed man in the white robes of the clergy knelt down, the several hundred priests behind him following suit, "Oh Great Anakaris, Emperor of the Twelfth Dynasty, hear your people cry. Rise up against your enemies who beckon you to battle!"
The world around began to tremble as the deep etchings in the sarcophagus, hieroglyphs meant to guide the young pharaoh on his journey, began to glow a brilliant white. The priest closed his eyes tightly, clenching his fist around the ankh he held, "Rise up, and save us! We pledge ourselves to thee, now and forever, our sacred guardian! RISE!"
The light began to shine out in beams from the coffin lid now, as the coffin itself began to dissipate with the force of what was escaping from within. The sarcophagus lost all shape as the blinding light filled the entire room, blocking out all details except for the unmistakable outlines of a being standing still as a statue.
His size alone revealed him, but now his bronze skin would show no more, forever wrapped beneath heavy layers of white linen strips from the neck down. The body was clothed only with a golden kilt inlaid with a sapphire design, a cobra head crown of gold with blue stripes that left the face open, and gold bands with blue stripes over the forearms and shins. The head, which sported a golden goatee accessory, was a burnt brown but perfectly preserved in the form of his noble face save for the eyes, which glowed an intimidating red.
The eyes radiated with power as the first words to form in his head resonated in the minds of every sentient being for one hundred miles around the point at which he stood, "I am risen; the absolute and only God. Kneel before me and be protected with the love of God. Oppose me, and be burned with the flames of Hell."
Outside, a horrible battle between the golden armored warriors of the pharaoh and the black-clad invaders from the north had reached a peak when the voice was heard. The warriors of the pharaoh stopped and kneeled, but the invaders merely raised their axes to attack again. Before the blades could be lowered, they too ceased to fight – or to move at all.
The red sun above grew large as it began to set by the will of the pharaoh. The screams of a thousand and ten men echoed into the night as the invaders burned alive in their smoldering armor, their axes dropping uselessly into the golden sand.
Inside the pyramid, Anakaris lowered his head, "It is done." No sooner had he said this than he looked up, with a start, at something only he could see.
The elder priest at the front slowly looked up, "What is it, My Lord?"
Anakaris began to emulate the blinding white light again as his form began to waver within it, "Fear not. A voice calls me, from the future. I must go there now and prepare a place in time for my empire. Thy God shall not forsake thee now or ever."
Four thousand, four hundred and sixty years hence, within the confines of an abandoned laboratory in the mountains of Germany, another being of incredible power would receive the spark of life.
The laboratory was a strange arrangement. Upon a black and white checkered marble floor stood bizarre machinery of all kinds hooked to a single, gargantuan conductor unit resembling a metal shaft reaching up through the circular hole in the roof. One of the many devices plugged into the thing was a large metal slab, upon which an equally large figure wrapped in a white sheet lay.
Stranger still was the man leaning over the figure; a hunchbacked old man with bushy white hair with a tiny nose and thick goggles that covered most of his face in a white labcoat was busily attaching and reattaching wires to the thing under the sheet.
Professor Schloss Von Gerdenheim, as he was called, was a man of science. His theories on dead cell revival were revolutionary, but they had fallen on the deaf ears of a corrupt system, and his numerous experiments had been debunked as unethical and inhumane. Though society had forgotten him, he had not forgotten his dreams, and now, with a massive storm moving overhead, he would finally achieve his goal.
In an instant, a single man would create life out of death.
"Emily", the professor shouted excitedly as he hurriedly attached the last of the wires, "Is everything in place?"
A pale little girl in a pink dress with brown hair in pigtails and large blue eyes hovered above the lab, showering a spark or two from her body now and then as she checked over the machinery, "Yes Papa, the connections are in place!"
Professor Gerdenheim's face twisted into a euphoric smile as he looked at his pocket watch, still hunched over the figure in the sheet, "It is almost time. The lightning, it is about to strike any time now!"
Emily looked up at the ceiling with wide eyes, "Papa, I see it! I see it!"
The professor could barely contain himself as he saw the sparks begin at the top of the shaft and work their way down. Thinking only that he wished to be closer to his creation, he gripped the sides of the metal slab and screamed as the lightning came down, electrocuting him. His body gyrated as he spoke his final words, "Victor! Live, my son! Live!"
The blinding flash lasted only for a moment, leaving the laboratory in darkness for several minutes after it left. After that, the emergency power generator switched on and revealed the doctor lying against the slab, no more than a charred skeleton inside a burnt but still virtually intact labcoat.
Emily had ducked and covered as the lightning hit, but now, as light returned to the room, she stood up and covered her mouth in terror at what she saw. Rushing to the doctor's side, she held him in her arms, and would have cried if she were capable of such an endeavor.
She had no time to mourn; her attention was immediately directed upward to the thing on the slab; the sheet was moving up and down. Whatever was underneath, it was clearly breathing.
Standing abruptly, she tore the sheet away to look at him. He was a giant of a man with skin that had an icy blue pallor and wavy blonde hair. His large, muscular frame, clothed in red pants, large brown boots, navy blue fingerless gloves, and a one-sleeved green military jacket, was rudely stitched together. The creature had bolts sticking out the side of its' head which constantly sparked with electricity, his face was square and brutish, and his wide-open eyes were a filmy white.
Emily took the creature's hand and smiled her sweet little smile, "Hello, little brother. I am Emily; welcome home."
The creature sat up, leaning over and staring at her for a long, tense moment before he responded, "The doctor, Emily; he will see me now?"
Emily had to look away, "Not now, Victor; the doctor is resting."
Victor was puzzled, but stood up, thumping his chest and roaring, "The doctor made me to be strong! I will show the world how strong I really am!"
Emily sighed; as the doctor had intended, he was a born fighter. However, he was reckless, and educating him would be more difficult than she thought.
The tiny village of Tomadou never had a chance that night. Laid within the snowy mountains of Japan, the wooden huts looked like igloos under layers of snow that rounded them off at the top. The dwellings were each lit with a single lamp from within.
The people, who wore their usual grayed kimonos and straw hats, were running in a frenzy as they tried desperately to escape a death that struck from the shadows.
It had come without warning, and without pity. Indiscriminately the villagers fell; men, women, and children, slashed across the heart by the blade of a razor sharp katana.
The thing, when it struck, appeared in the form of a ghostly and disfigured man wearing a suit of blood red samurai armor with gold trim. The breastplate of the armor was a twisted thing resembling a demonic face with burning red eyes and jagged teeth. It was this part of the armor, not the demented face in the helmet, that spoke to itself as the figure continued its' assault, "This earth is rich with the blood of fools…"
The legend of the swordsman Oboro is a tale of greed and woe. His destiny is forever linked with that of Hannya, the armor of hate, and Kien, the bloodthirsty sword. Each of them is a third of Bishamon, the Cursed Samurai.
The story began in the year 1673. It was a time when traditions were unquestioned and the power of Japan belonged to the nobility. The lesser noble warriors known as samurai still followed the code of Bushidou then, as did their lords above them.
The samurai Oboro was a shining example of the code. So firm had been his resolve that even the snowstorms in the mountains could not deter him from a battle, and so great had been his loyalty to his lord that he was looked on as a son and given deeds to an amount of land exceeded in size only by the one he served. Even his wife, Orin, was a blessing to him: an exceedingly virtuous maiden notable for her loyalty to her husband.
One day, as he was exploring an old friend's antique shop, he noticed a new item for sale that he had never seen before. It was a suit of armor with a grotesque face for the breastplate, the plates purposely painted a pale crimson color resembling rust, but the golden trim was so finely polished as to swear to its' upkeep. "Tell me about this one", Oboro insisted.
"It is very old", the man began, "The armor was last worn by the warrior Oda Nobunaga, and with it he became one of the greatest scourges of the east. It is called Hannya, and they say that the armor chooses its' wearer; not the other way around."
"Hannya", Oboro repeated to himself, enjoying the sound of it.
The man motioned to a sword beside the armor, a beautiful katana with a golden handguard, "And this is Kien, once known as Onikiri. Unlike most swords, which are dulled as they cut through flesh, this magnificent blade only grows sharper."
Oboro nodded, lightly stroking the armor, "I must see the sword…"
It was then that Oboro awoke, alone in his house, to find that Hannya and Kien were by his side. He cried out in surprise and Orin wandered in, "Oboro?"
Oboro looked up at her, "Where did these come from?"
Orin could not look at him, but as he held her in his arms, tilting her face to his own, she spoke with a waver, "Your friend, the merchant; you forced him to give you the armor and sword. He is very afraid and will not see you."
In disbelief, Oboro found his vision transfixed on the armor as he sat down before it. Was it really possible? Could Hannya have a will of its' own? Had it chosen him?
For days he sat there, meditating on this. He did not eat or sleep. One day, he made his decision and grasped the armor as he stood. Orin had been by his side the entire time, and now she wept, "My love, this is wrong! This thing, it is evil! Take it not upon yourself, or the demon will consume your soul! I beg of you!"
"Do not say such stupid things, woman", Oboro growled as he lifted the large, ugly breastplate onto himself. Without warning, the remainder of the armor sprung to life and clung to his body, which began to take on a smoky blue glow. His eyes wide with terror, he looked to his beloved wife and screamed his final words as his body began to distort and burn, "Orin! Run!"
Orin stood fast, unwilling to leave his side. The foolish man hunched over, screaming in agony, but what rose was not Oboro; it was Bishamon now, and it looked to her with a hateful red light in its' eyes as it dashed forward, sword in hand, "Die for me!"
The demonic warrior cut down another helpless victim with a single strike of its' blade as it continued to remember, "Since then, I have cut a path of destruction and death across this land without wars. The journey has no destination save for the means; I must be satisfied with offerings. Offerings of your blood, gyahahaha!"
It stopped, as it severed the head from the last of the lot, and looked up toward the distance. A twisted smile came over the face in the helmet, "Yes, I sense you. A kindred spirit of death and destruction summons me to do battle. The blood of the dark is freely offered; my joy knows no bounds!"
With a bounce in its' step, the monster skipped down the mountain, floating here and there, its' evil mind preoccupied with the wonderful battles that surely lay ahead.
Gallows Hill was a forbidding place. The sleepy little town had been named after the graveyard on the hill. It seemed that a cloud of despair always hung over the cemetery, the decadent tombstones casting long shadows over earth long too barren to remember what life growing in it should feel like. The corpses interred here were not of the commonfolk, nor was it a family plot; buried beneath this unhallowed ground were some of the most dangerous criminals in Australia's history.
Tonight, a full moon would preside over two figures before a large needlestone, inches away from the grave it marked. One of them was extremely tall, easily eight to ten feet high, with incredibly broad shoulders over which a hunter green cloak hung, concealing the remainder of his body from the neck down; above the neck was the visible face of a bleached skull with long blonde hair trailing from its' back.
Beside him was a shorter thing resembling a woman carved of wood with auburn hair that was short in back but hung in a large bang in front; she had the most empty black eyes and a lonely expression as she stood there in what appeared to be a maple-colored dress meant for a large doll.
The joints in her neck barely moved as she looked up to her imposing companion, "Yes, Master; this is the place. What are your orders?"
A dim red light flashed in the eyes of the empty skull, "Prepare the grave, Marionette." As the doll woman began to pour a red, ichorous liquid over the grave in a design resembling two crescent moons placed back to back, the demonic creature standing over her began to concentrate, his eyes producing a horrible green fire that trailed over the sides of his bony face.
No sooner had Marionette finished than the flames enshrouded him. Fear at the sight alone sent her scrambling back to watch from behind a stone as the monster stretched forward his hands and fired what looked like emerald-colored lightning into the gravedirt, the ground rumbling with the force of the raw power being infused with it.
Marionette dared to speak as she looked on in terror, "Master Ozomu, what is this horrible power I am sensing? Is it you, or the one you spoke of? Your servant was buried here, the murderous bard called Zabel Zarock. He was dangerous, to himself and others, and now, twenty years hence his death you seek to return him to your side. I question not your judgment, my Master, but what do we really have to gain here?"
Emperor Ozomu had barely ceased fire on the grave when he turned and cast fort the horrible attack from his fingertips at the doll, knocking her onto her back and forcing her to writhe for a long moment before he ceased, his eye sockets narrowing, "You are not fit to speak so lowly of my apprentice; bite your tongue!"
Without warning, the ground began to tremble again, this time of its' own accord, as the earth over the grave began to glow in a bright green rectangle before the tombstone, the light emitting a metallic chime as it began to rise up in a column as if to touch the moon above. Ozomu turned on his heel and flashed a horrible smile, "Excellent; the summons has been answered! Return to me, Zabel!"
No sooner had he spoken than the grave burst upward, the disturbed dirt melting into the light as it intensified to a blinding brightness that blocked out all else. The chiming began a crescendo, which climaxed in a waver, and the light dissipated in but a second, narrowing into nothing and leaving a gaping, rectangular hole in the ground where it had been.
Marionette crawled forward slowly to the edge of the grave and looked down for a moment, then looked back to her master, "I see nothing; there is nothing here!"
"What?", Ozomu shrieked and batted her aside as he looked down into the hole, "Impossible! Could someone have beaten me? No! I refuse to believe it!"
Just then, the wailing chorus of a distorted guitar echoed through the sky, sounding a lament of doom to the world below. Both master and puppet looked up to see a personage high above descending at a dramatically slow pace.
As it came into view, details could be made out. It was without a doubt a corpse, the facial features long since lost to decay and now resembling the skull-like face of Ozomu, atop which hair rose up in sharp spikes of the deepest lavender hue down the back of the head, tapering off in a thick spike at the back of the neck. The body was shirtless, with hardened, bleached-looking skin stretched tightly over visible bones, the rot-yellow claw-like hands covered with elbow-length black fingerless gloves, and naught but the barely fleshed over backbone to connect the creature's ribs to its' waist. From the waist down, it wore tight black jeans with a Union Jack emblazoned on one leg, below which hung a spiked steel leg cuff, the legs below that almost all bones that the torn leggings of the jeans struggled to conceal. In the eye sockets burned a wild red light like a vicious predator stalking its' prey as it perched atop the tombstone of its' own grave.
Ozomu cackled, "Welcome, Zabel – I trust you enjoyed your rest?"
A long, red, leathery tongue snaked from the creatures' mouth as its' jaw lowered and twisted into a demented, drooling smile, "Die!" Within a moment, it had bounded at Ozomu like a hungry tiger and been swatted aside, smashing through a tombstone as green electricity sparked briefly off its' body.
As the thing lay panting for air it did not need, Ozomu stared forward calmly, "Temporary insanity is the price of rebirth. Have you regained yourself?"
The creature, Zabel, rose onto one knee and looked up with a nod.
Ozomu's eyes flashed with that dim red spark again, "It has been a long time since you've killed someone, hasn't it Zabel?"
Zabel twisted his neck around, his eyes filled with malice, "I waz detained."
Ozomu made his best attempt at a winning smile as his eyes met Zabel's, "Yes, I know; death is such a bother, but it seems you have been spared that fate."
Zabel sneered back up at him, "Does, dunnit?"
Ozomu's face became more solemn now, "You will kill again for me; like you did at the Southern Cross Hall."
Zabel's face contorted with a thoughtful sadism, "A hundred souls sucked dry; how do I top a number like that, boss?"
Ozomu's smile returned now, more triumphant than before, "There is a tournament in Romania, and do you know who will be competing?"
Zabel scratched his head, "Yer mother?"
Ozomu rose up angrily, his person flaring with the green fire once more, "No, you fool! Two nobles of Makai! The exiled Demitri Maximoff and Lady Morrigan Aensland herself!"
Zabel's posture relaxed even more, his expression an ornery one, "So, it's a two for one – what's innit fer me?"
Ozomu let out a deep chuckle to that and reached down with lightning speed, taking Zabel's face firmly in his horrid hands and giving the assassin his sweetest tone through his large, gritted teeth, "Why, the power to rule the world, my boy!"
Their gazes locked, the two were silent for a long moment before they burst into a mutual laugh; both parties had consented and a deal was forged.
As she witnessed the bizarre innuendo, Marionette clung to the stone beside her for more than support. Zabel was a killer, there was no doubt about that, but what could possibly be going on in that rotten skull? Who, indeed, did he plan to kill?