FIVE REVIEWS! AWESOME! Well they say that if you hit at least five, then you know you have a decent series. Thanks to these reviews, this series will continue. I'll post some thanks and answers at the end of this chapter. Anyway you'll not find any heroes in this chap, as the title points out, we're looking at the darker side of human nature here. Enjoy.
WITCH HUNTER ROBIN: Flames of Darkness
The shadow moved across the empty pew, spying the two individuals, its eyes was hoping to find. The twin crimson orbs narrowed and a smile spread across the shadow's lips. The individual moved quickly, like a cat prowling through the dark corners of an alley, hunting a mouse. Within seconds the shadow was sitting next to the other two, and leaned back against the chair, flexing its tight muscles. Its crimson eyes turned down toward the pit and watched as many men and women vied for the admiration of the crowd high above them.
The pit was twice as long as an American football field, and six times as deep. Surrounding the pit were long walls, and above those were the stands for the normal people, and above those, were the V.I.P. stands, where most of the most wealth and deviant could watch and bet on who would win.
The combatants fought in thirty-two different arenas, all of them surrounded by steel cages, either covered with electric wires, or barbed wire. Sweat, blood and mud caked their bodies, and over the disembodied body parts lying on the ground.
"How very barbaric," the shadow hissed with black ice. It waved its hand back and forth in front of its nose, to block out the smell of the arena, and for a brief second closed its eyes.
"You never did have a taste for this, if I remember," one of the other individuals, a tall thin man in his late forties said, momentarily eyeing the new comer. "And you're late, that's never changed either."
"Unlike you, I have important things to do, other than spend my time, gawking at scantily clad women wrestle in a mud pit," the shadow said, its eyes narrowing to fine sliced slits.
The man fidgeted in his chair and looked away from the shadow, his breathing becoming labored and his body temperature rising. "Whatever, I'm doing this for the cause."
"Whatever helps you sleep," the shadow said drolly. It turned to the other individual, a pretty slender woman in her early thirties. "And what about you?"
"It wasn't that long ago that they found me and my talents down there," she said with a playful smile. "True I wasn't rolling in mud, but don't under estimate these people with how they fight, they might prove useful in the future."
As if to prove her point, a bikini clad vixen that had been pushed against a steel cage to electrocute her on the open wires surrounding the cage, sent a huge wave of wind against the other girl, flinging her into the air like a rag doll. The brunette screamed for help, desperately clawing at the tornado around her, to get down to the floor. Her opponent scowled, and made a fist with her left hand, slamming her right fist into it. The wind began slamming the brunette back and forth, bashing her skull in with the force of a jackhammer. Blood began to ooze from the brunettes nose, and finally, when she could scream no more, her opponent, raised her arms like a sadistic maestro leading a monstrous orchestra of pain, and whipped her arms into opposite directions. The strong winds gripped the brunette by her limbs and tore her apart into four directions, blood and gore raining down on the short red headed woman. She smiled under the ooze and bowed to the inhuman pleasure of the roaring crowd.
"Damn," the forty-something year old man said, and lowered his head, his eyes growing wet. He licked his lips again and looked at the odd bits and pieces lying in the mud and blood covered pit that had once been the determined young brunette. "Damn it again," he sobbed.
"How much did you lose, on your wager this time, Councilman?" the shadow said with a smile.
"I could have sworn that the brunette would have won, I lost over twenty thousand yen on her," he said, through salty tears which ran down his streak.
"A normal human, against a witch?" the woman asked. "Maybe if the girl hadn't forgone her sword and her skills as a swordswoman, she might have had a chance." She looked at the shadow and her smile grew wider. "And she's just one of many people who have such talents in these arenas."
"Motokita's little house of sin does provide with excellent operatives, and the money he raises for these events only helps to make Project Phoenix that much closer to a reality," it said with a very inaudible chuckle.
"Then the Council of Ganesha is pleased with our efforts?" the man said. The shadow nodded and the elderly man forgot his woes and smiled, if only for a second.
"But what of the girl, the 'Devil's Child'? Won't she pose a problem?" He looked at the individual and seemed to shrink from his glare.
"Is she even still alive?" the woman asked.
"Oh, I know for a fact that she lives, though unfortunately I don't know where she is at the moment." The shadow chuckled again and crossed its arms. "Even if the election of her dear grandfather as pope doesn't drag her out into the open, which eventually I'm sure it will, we have other methods of making her show herself."
"The hunter in America," the man said, staring straight at the shadow. The other individual nodded. "But can we really trust her? I mean without the source?"
"That is true," said the woman, "it was the source who found her, and now that we no longer have him in our circle, she might be liability."
"We will deal with that bridge, if we come to it," the shadow snapped. The individual stood up and shook its head again as its eyes focused back down at the arena. Two more scantily women were now in the arena, which had seen so much bloodshed at the powers of the wind witch. They rolled and tumbled in blood and mud, yanking each other's hair, clawing at exposed flesh, and bite one another.
"Barbaric," the shadow again. The individual turned and began to walk away. "Don't bet too much money, Councilman -- not all of it is yours to bet," the shadow began, "and report any progress right away to the Council." The individual turned and walked out of the building.
Now all that was left was to see if its bait had finally been taken. The shadow entered its black corvette, and drove from the parking lot. Robin Sena would be dead within the month, if the Fates smiled at the cause. And the Fates always smiled at the shadow's cause.
The hunter watched the little blonde hair girl walk into the classroom and frowned. How typical for a witch to live in such an arid, dry town as Barstow, California. Her angel had told her that a new, more powerful demon had arrived in Japan, and would soon be threatening the poor, defenseless people, and needed her help. But as she drove to Las Vegas, she had spotted the little monster in this god forsaken town, commanding legions of insects into a jar that she probably was going to use for show and tell.
Barstow was a town that burned to the ground two or three times already, its major source of income at one point being the Harvey House and the railroad. It was because of the trains that the fire started, and the idiots kept building their buildings and shops near the tracks. Now its main source of in come was also its enslaver, a Wal-Mart which had put many of the smaller shops out of business.
The sun was hot and brutal, and the woman frowned and covered her face with a hood. The flames and heat reminded her of Hell, where her own flames she considered cool, and comforting to those who remained in a state of grace, and hotter still to those who loved sin.
A snake had crawled on its belly towards her, and stuck her tongue out, investigating this new intruder that had taken over her home. The hunter ignored the animal for a moment, standing near a bush and focused her attention at the school with her high powered binoculars. Feeling brave the snake tried crawling up the woman's leg, and hissed as the hunter flashed a tongue of fire at it. The reptile turned tail and rushed back into the safety of her hole, and huddled there as she could feel the vibration of the woman's growl.
"Mount St. Joseph," she read at the name of the school. It was a Catholic school, which made a little sense, as the witch was half-Hispanic. She removed the binoculars and scowled her raven eyes grew darker in the heat of the day. There didn't seem to be very many nuns in the classrooms that she could see, and as she brought back the binoculars to her eyes and switched them to a stronger setting, she could see that to be honest, there were absolutely no nuns there at all.
That didn't matter; the fact was that there was a witch within the halls. Not every child in a Catholic school were little 'idol' worshipers, and it was possible that not all the teachers were either. But again, the little witch was in there, and there was a possibility that there was more than one witch. That could not be allowed. Her hand flickered over her Bible, and she said a quick prayer for the souls of the innocents. Then she stood up and began to slowly approach the school.
"Excuse me," a gentle and high voice said as she walked up to the gates at the back of the school. "Can I help you?"
The hunter turned to the other woman and tried her best to smile. "Yes, I was looking for a certain student, that attends this school," she said soothingly. This was perfect, if she could just get the witch, and leave, she wouldn't have to shed innocent blood. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the picture of the witch. "Her mother told me that she wanted me to pick her up."
The young woman took the picture, smilingly and looked at it. She seemed nice enough, her hair was long and blonde, her eyes were crystal blue, and she wore a decent gray dress that flowed down to her knees. She was small, barely five feet, and she smelled of flowers. She looked at the picture, and her smile slowly dropped, as did the hunter's heart. Slowly she began to scowl and looked up at the hunter in disgust and anger. "What are you trying to pull," she hissed crossly. "This is my daughter." She crossed her arms and tried to stare the hunter down. "I think you should go before I call the police."
Anger burned in the heart of the hunter, how she had prayed for something opposite of this. There was more than one witch at this school, and if a teacher was a witch, then she was obviously teaching the children witchcraft. There was no peaceful solution to this.
"Did you hear what I said," the woman snapped, pulling out her cell phone, "I'm calling the cops." She began to dial the phone, and then screeched in pain as the hunter grasped her wrist with tremendous force, a great white shark couldn't produce the same kind of force when it bit into its prey. "What the hell are you doing!" the woman cried, hot tears running down her cheeks. She turned and screeched for help.
"There are forces out there that are superior in authority to any police force," she began, her voice calm and icy cold, "witch." Already there was a scene, and the hunter cursed herself for taking this long to do what she knew she had to. A priest with gray white hair and a short beard and mustache, came rushing out of his office, looking over at the hunter and the witch.
"You there, what are you doing?" he yelled.
"Burn," she said to the woman, and using her God given powers, set the witch on fire. She screamed and began twitching and swirling as the flames licked her cloths and flesh. The hunter turned attention to the screaming children and sighed, God would forgive her for the deaths of the innocents, if there were indeed any here. With a thought the children were engulfed in a circle of flames and then so was the school.
"Mother of God," the priest hollered, and rushed forward, with other workers, to put out the flames that were burning the children.
"God has no mother, heathen, and this will teach you to allow such demons to instruct the most innocent with the devil's brood." The hunter turned her attention to the priest, and narrowed her eyes. He might have be engulfed in flames too, had it not been for one of the teachers, who created water from the air, and put out the flames, and then sprayed the children too.
He was balding on top, but what hair he had was red. His face was the shape of an oval, and he wore tiny glasses, that made him look like a Nazi commander in an Indiana Jones flick. And it looked like his right ear was formed in a point, almost elf like. He tried to help the woman too, but it looked as though there was not much he could do for her.
"What are you people?" the priest wailed.
"People who were blessed with gifts from God," the man said, "but unfortunately some of us would rather use them for destruction."
"Shut up, Heathen witch!" the hunter screeched. She sent two more balls of fire at them, one of which the witch snuffed out with a blast of water, the other, landing on and burning a large hall, next to the school. NOONAN'S HALL, it read.
They battled for a few more minutes, until the little witch that she had tried to kill in the first place gathered enough anger and courage to avenge her mother, and mentally ordered the insects to attack. They weren't much of a menace, but they were annoying, and distracted her from her battle with the adult, water witch.
The hunter had never battled two witches before, though she had no doubt that in the end, she would win. However, she could hear the wails of police cars, and fire trucks. She could fight one witch, even two witches, but there was no way she could fight two witches, and a town's whole law enforcement.
Angered beyond reason; the hunter flung the palms of her hands to the ground and sent a blast of fire racing toward the witch, which knocked him off of his feet. His head bounced off the ground with a sickening thud, and he lay lifeless. Good, she had killed him, and on the off chance that she hadn't – well, that couldn't be helped right now.
On second glance she frowned and looked as his chest rose and fell. No, she hadn't killed him, but at least she managed to send one demon back into the flames of hell. Once she was done with the witch in Japan, she was determined to come back to this foul city, and finish the job. The hunter raced back to her motorcycle and speed of for Vegas which would take her to Japan. She had been told that the demon there was stronger than strong, and from what she could figure, if this water witch had tested her to the limits, the Japanese witch would be much more of a challenge. She grinned; good perhaps it was time for her ego to drop for a while. An inflated ego could make her blind, as the previous battle had just shown her. She narrowed her eyes, and hunched forward, for this chance at showing God how sorry she was for this arrogant tie, she hungered.
"Robin," she said with a dark coo, "I'm coming."
AN: Okay, I know I said there would be no heroes in this story, but I couldn't help but bring the hunter down a peg, I figured it would make her that much more fanatical to "prove" herself when she began to hunt Robin. And the hero briefly seen here, the water witch, is based on myself. Yep, that was me. I don't plan on adding Kris Anderson to the story, unless of course my reviewers want to see more of him. Let me know what you think.
I also want to add that even though you read about the Project Phoenix, and the Council of Ganesha, don't get to excited to see too much about either of them. This is just a little glimpse into a bigger frame of my Witch Hunter Robin Universe. If I get enough requests for a sequel after this, then maybe you'll find out more. Once you guys see the end of this story in its entirety I'm sure I'll be getting demands for a sequel.
Okay, now to answer some questions, and give out some thanks to you kind, kind people .
Somerandomdude: Thanks for the compliment, and hopefully you like the rest of the story as much as the first chap. I agree that I didn't need to describe Robin and Amon so early but it was my first fic (for and didn't know how many pages I needed. And by the way, I didn't mean that Robin was going around lifting up her shirt and showing people her navel, but that she was in a small shirt, which did not cover up her midriff. She wore a similar outfit in Episode 10, Separate Lives, when she works undercover at Harry's.
Sakaki's Girl: Again thank you for reading and enjoying the story thus far, and a major big thank you with a cyber cookie of your choice for giving me, Mika Hanamura's name. Now all I need is for the male assistants name, or is there two? If someone has that answer too, feel free to post it. Thanks again Sakaki's Girl.
Sparky 16: Well, it looks right now that you are the biggest fan of this story! Thank you so, very, very much! I don't think that you missed the update for Chapter 2 so much as you missed Chapter 3, 'cause I posted both of them together. As to what my evil little mind is plotting, you ain't seen nuthin' yet (once again wait to you get to the end). What I have in store is going to blow away a lot of minds (not literary of course, ). I hope to update Chapters 4, and 5 and maybe even Chapter 6 by as early as possibly September (if I'm lucky I might get a chance to update even sooner than that, but we will see). I have to use my sister's computer as I don't have Internet options at my own home. I'll even consider turning on my anonymous option.
Thanks again for everyone who has read, both reviewers and non-reviewers (although I could use more reviews ). I hope you enjoy the next couple of chapters coming your way.