Good god, it's been what, 9 months? More? Huge apologies for the lack of updates. I can type up all the petty excuses I have for not updating, but in the end it's really just my own laziness and lack of inspiration. So now that I have hereby gotten up off my lazy ass, I present to you:
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Chapter 4: Hunt Denied
The thrill of the hunt, the joy of tearing ones prey apart with eager claws, the feel of flesh between yellowed teeth.
The prey was close now, not much longer, and those reveries would become reality.
He ran on all fours, surpassing both wolf and man in speed and strength.
Almost tasting sweet vampire flesh, he reaches the edge of the woods, his prey in plain sight now.
Fear, he reeked of it. The pathetic vampire ran with all the speed he possessed.
Not enough to escape the jaws of a hungry lycan, no..
Yes! Exerting one final burst of unearthly speed, he leapt to his victim, gaping jaws lined with razor-sharp teeth, watching with excitement as his prey turned to face him.
"No! Not now! I don't want to die!" Squealed the prey like a stuck pig, reduced to hysterics.
His arms were trembling, shielding his terrified face, but the fatal blow didn't come.
Slowly lowering his outstretched arms, he glanced up at his attacker, expecting to meet maddened eyes, and an ugly bestial snout. Instead the form standing before him was but a man, deceptively human.
The lycan in him screamed its disapproval, but he knew this narcissistic cur was off limits.
A coward, but one of authority no less.
"Lucian." The regent spat with malice, his craven air dissolved, replaced by haughty disdain.
"Kraven." Oh how he longed to tear the bastard apart.
"I see you have little regard for your own rules." He spoke malevolently, the words slithering of his tongue like slime.
"And what makes you think that?" The lycan leader's words were stone cold, as he forced a smile.
"Ha, you keep your men from changing at will and hunting freely, but you yourself indulge in the simple pleasures." He scoffed, hate dripping from his words. "Does this remind you of someone?"
With a feral snarl, Lucian's partially transformed hand was at Kraven's throat before he had time to register being slammed up against the rough bark of a large chestnut.
Lucian was hissing threats in his ear.
"Don't you ever, EVER even think about suggesting that again, or I swear upon her grave that you will die!"
With that, the lycan released his hold upon the trembling vampire, turning on his heels and disappearing into the night.
Raising a hand to finger the clawed indentations in his neck, Kraven's featured contorted in disgust at the realization that the slobbering cur had touched him.
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Michael twitched awake, his mind still reeling in the 19th century, Lucian's past still swirling around in his head.
He was about to tell Selene about what he had just seen, but decided against it, certain that she wouldn't be particularly sympathetic.
With a small sigh, he shifted back into a quiet slumber, hoping that his rest would not again be disturbed.
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"Not.. Again." Muttered a seemingly young lycan, as the memory faded, and the cement walls of the lycan underworld materialized around him.
It was the third time Adrik had been bombarded with memories not his own.
A few months after his turning in 1806, the memories were far less frequent, and in a year, they were gone altogether.
But recently, visions of his sire were clouding his thoughts, grisly images or battle and carnage, as well as tender moments with Sonja, and of course, the day this wretched war began.
After the battle in the Underworld took place, and the anomaly of Michael was discovered, the first thing the surviving lycans did was scour the tunnels for survivors, for the dead.
The body count was mind-numbing.
68 lycans in one night; twice as many as the vampire scum.
After the initial shock, the wounded were taken to the infirmary, the dead rounded up and put to rest in the traditional lycan manner. Their bodies, man or lycan, were taken out of the sewers, to a large forest near one of the exits, and buried under the light of the full moon.
The terminal shared a similar fate; they were cleaned up and fed, then left to die in peace and tranquility, as every lycan should.
Lucian's and Raze's corpses were prepared with special care, their graves marked with the planting of a small sapling, and a funeral of the most sincere care and preparation.
Tears were shed, companions lost, but the lycans endured, as they always had.
But the great battle had been fought, and both sides suffered great losses.
Their alpha was dead, as was the only other one of them capable of leading them. They were in no position to plot any form of comeback.
Then a younger lycan, unproven in the field of battle, but present at the death of Viktor, made a suggestion no one could dismiss.
Michael.
He had fought Viktor – days after his turning, inexperienced in the art of war, and yet, he had fought equally, almost won.
If Michael allied with them, victory was almost certain.
But then, pointed out another, there was the little complication of Selene.
None of the pack could come to a conclusion about her motives.
Selene, one of the most feared Death Dealers ever sired, had hunter their kind with such ferocity; few didn't fear her wrath. To see her risk her life, defy the laws of her entire species, and above all, kill her sire, for a lycan, was mind boggling.
If they tried to take Michael, not a single one of them doubted she'd pose a problem.
Many opted to kill her on the spot, relieve themselves of the confusion, but some noted that in doing so, they could vanquish whatever chances they had of getting Michael willingly.
The vampire had been seen biting him, a desperate attempt to rescue him from silver nitrate poisoning.
They had walked out together, but none had followed them thereafter, and so their path was uncertain from there on.
After much argument, they came to a decision.
They would seek out Michael and the vampire, follow them, track their movements, and make the decision from there.
Adrik deployed a group of trackers after much debate, armed to the teeth in case trouble ensued.
He prayed that Michael would co-operate. They had no other options.
None were in a position to lead, and Adrik was temporarily in charge merely because he had been sired by Lucian himself; instantly awarding him a rather high standing in the pack, as Lucian had turned few since his supposed death.
The relatively young lycan wondered what his great sire would have done if their positions were reversed.
But no, Lucian was dead and buried, so he was in charge, for the time being.
Adrik didn't think much about how they'd convince the hybrid to side with them, as his main focus was catching up to the pair before their trail vanished beyond recognition.
He himself saw Michael as a means to the end of a war that had raged for centuries, his people in constant fear of extinction, condemned to seek shelter in this god-forsaken sewer, the constant rattle of opposing gunfire to remind them of their places.
All of this swirled around in the lycan's skull, adding to the headache obtained from the disorienting memories that once more clouded his vision.
Leaning against the cold cement that lined his sleeping chambers, resting his head against the cylindrical curve of the pipe-like sewer wall, he sighed deeply at thought of the bombardment of questions that would most likely assail his ears today.
A hollow metallic clank awoke Adrik from his thoughts, signaling the beginning of the onslaught of mindless questionings and interrogations.
But to his surprise, instead of the usual inquisitive pup, it was - Rikard, an old friend of Adrik's.
Rikard was rather tall and well-built, standing at about 6' 4'', his dark brown hair cropped in military-fashion. He smiled sheepishly at his superior, shutting the steel door quietly, sensing his master's increasing weariness.
Nodding for him to come in, Adrik exhaled in relief – at last – someone he could confide to.
"So, tell me Rikard, what news of the hybrid have our trackers uncovered today?" Adrik smiled with no small hint of sarcasm – the trackers had yet to catch the smallest trace of the hybrid and his Death Dealer.
"Sir, the day's hunt was unsuccessful – but a pup, Dai – had apparently caught a whiff of the pair while heading westward in the North Tunnel."
"Send trackers immediately – Rikard, this might be it, I want no pebble unturned, no inch of that tunnel unexplored!" Adrik's reaction was an unexpected one, but welcomed from his previous apathy.
"Right away, sir, but the pup wishes to speak with you." The lycan shifted his gaze to his feet, and he could hear Adrik slump back against the concrete.
"Very well then, bring him in…" He replied, and Rikard left the room as quietly as he came.
Without delay, the door slid open once more, revealing a gangly young boy no older than 14 who seemed grossly out of place, his soft Asian looks contrasting against the sharp Slavic features of the others.
He hesitated slightly before speaking, his eyes cast downwards in submission to his newly-appointed master. "A strange scent down the west wing, sir." Dai was a scrawny young Japan-born pup, but his appearance did not account for his tremendous knowledge in computers and tracking skills acquired before his turning. The young lycan had only seen three moons, but he had adjusted well and had quickly proved his worth to Lucian.
The pup spoke with a slightly stilted Asian accent, but his information deeply interested Adrik. He'd found a smear of blood – vampire, belonging to the Death Dealer called Selene, followed by a faint – but unmistakable whiff of hybrid; a neutral scent opposed to the lycans' alkaline fragrance and the vampire's acidic stench.
The blood snaked its way through the sewer system, taking turns left and right until it seemed apparent that the pair had found an entrance but decided to try and throw off any weary lycans that might be passing by.
"Rikard, deploy the trackers, get at least four teams on that tunnel, the pup will lead the way, quickly now." answered Adrik after a moment of silence. "We'll get them before dawn if they're anywhere in the city… Unlikely, though, that vampire bitch is no fool; she's probably high-tailed it long ago."
Rikard nodded solemnly and gave note to ready the trackers and assign Dai his weaponry.
Adrik let out a heavy sigh; during the conversation a new problem had arisen; the vampires were crippled, leaderless, but nowhere near beaten. They could launch an attack at any moment, and they had to be on their feet when the inevitable happened, but they could not abandon the search either. The events that had set this chain of events into motion were only the beginning of the end. The final battle had yet to be fought, and both sides had suffered great losses. This time there would be no mercy, if there ever was such a thing between the warring clans.
More sighing. He wondered how Lucian handled it; the pressure. The ever-pressing thought that this could be their last day; but the hope that they could withstand another. The weighing of decisions, the knowledge that you might be the cause of your comrades' doom. It was a delicate balance between responsibility and insanity. If not you, then who?
A sharp knock on the door awoke him from his thoughts.
"Sir," It was Rikard. "We've found them."
Replies to Reviews
Dreaan, Magot321, Lonely Shadow: Many thanks for taking the time to comment!
Fig-aruna: Yeah, I suppose, but I myself find it slightly bothersome when a good fic that I happen to be reading remains un-updated for months on end, but then again, you're right, it's better to have a well-thought out final product rather than a completely rushed fic that's written simply for the reviews.. And thanks, again. :)
Asia Cwiakala: Ah well, I tried to put a little humor in there, for the sake of it really.. :)
Nobody's Princess: Thanks, yeah, well, I tried to make it seem as if he's reduced to a fumbling klutz around Selene, whereas in any other situation he'd probably be the brooding, angsty Michael we all know from the hospital scenes.
It's not the writing when I'm busy, or the people asking me to update that bothers me, but more the fact that the stupid things I'm busy with don't allow me to do the things that I enjoy doing. School's a pain in the ass, they give us completely stupid things to write about that crush all forms of creativity and leave me wallowing with semi-permanent writer's block. ('How Rudolph saved Christmas' is an excellent example of a topic for English class that completely blows me away with its sheer stupidity and tastelessness.)
I'll definitely be finishing it, it's just a matter of time, I suppose you could say. This chapter really had me scratching my head once in a while, and it still doesn't flow the way I want it to..
And thanks for commenting, all reviews are much appreciated!
Ithilwenn: Thanks! Well, if you think about it, in the movie, neither of the leads spoke all that much, to each other or to anyone else. Everything was happening too fast for any form of idle conversation, and so I'm trying to mimic that a bit..
:) Thanks again, yeah, I myself love subtlety, and those fics where Selene immediately assumes a housewife-like attitude just doesn't do justice to the film. It's just plain unnatural for a character like Selene, one who'd been keeping their emotions locked away for over a century, to all-of-a-sudden act like she'd been loving all along..
:D Yes, I agree, I'll have to think of something on those lines. He may have been a necessary part of the Underworld plot, but god, that in no way means that we can't hate him with a passion. :)
Oh no, I really don't mind long reviews at all, and yeah, they tend to be a little more helpful than the usual, one-line, 'Update soon!' reviews you get most of the time. I don't really mind those at all, but bigger reviews are really appreciated.
Thanks for the suggestion, yeah, that would work nicely into the plotline I had planned… Prove to Michael that she can be just as vulnerable as him. Poor guy's really had the girlfriend's role in both the film (excluding, of course, his little brawl with Viktor) and this fic, so it would be good to give him and his medical skills a chance. :)
And thanks again, although I really do apologize for the massive delay, my teachers are giving me hell and it's really hard to find time to breathe in the midst of writer's block.