DARKSTALKERS: VAMPIRE HUNTER
Chapter Eight: Fire And Steel
Fanfiction by Louis the Rogue
(Based on original story by Capcom Inc.)
"Fool, show yourself!", Pyron demanded, His hulking form strolling across the barren landscape impatiently.
With no more warning than the split second it took the ground beneath him to split, as if a fault had ripped the land in two, a cascade of rising blades caught the mighty Pyron from underneath, juggling Him like a rag doll as they rumbled across the rift.
Before He had a chance to break away from the trap, Pyron's ears throbbed to a sudden, violent ruckus that resembled what these mortals called "music", except that the volume of its' decibels was cranked far beyond what any normal hearing could hope to tolerate without severe impairment.
"I hope this is worth the noise!", Lei-Lei thought as she crouched behind a large boulder and plugged her ears.
The terrible blade attack finally subsiding, Pyron stood, His head spinning with the painfully high rifts and obnoxiously low grinds filling the air. Hands tight over His ears, Pyron stumbled about, His nigh deific hearing a liability at this point. As He rounded a corner, He was able to peek between a tear in the mountainside at the source of the disturbance.
Two lone figures stood atop a cliffside, their already surreal forms made all the more so by the framing of the fire red sky behind them. One of them, tall and lanky, grinded what looked to Pyron like a mechanical axe with such ferocity that it made the heavens tremble with the shrieks it emitted. The other, a blob-like thing, pounded on a drumset with such force that it made the earth shake.
Gripping at either side of the fissure, Pyron tore the mountainside apart as He screamed from the pain, "Mad Dionysus, I demand that you cease your revelry!"
"I like this dude! He thinks I'm a God!", Zabel grinned widely to his companion as his fingers flew wildly across the fretboards. In response, Le Marta merely rolled his eye as he kept the driving beat.
"Enough of this!", Pyron roared, forming a flaming ball in each hand and launching it at the duo.
"Now he's all mine", Lei-Lei smirked as she watched the fiery-tempered tyrant loose his cool. Dashing out from behind the rock, she orchestrated her claw-weaponed hands in a deadly twirl, her body assuming a pale green aura as she named her chi spell, "SPIKES FROM HEAVEN!"
Piercing through the sky as if it were merely a barrier, flaming stone meteors rained at Pyron from above, pelting him into the ground with explosion after explosion.
With the reflexive accuracy of a true madman, Zabel danced around the ricocheting sparks from the attack, Le Marta clinging fast to his neck, "Think he'll live?"
"He better not!", Lei-Lei screamed across the lava-filled chasm between them where Pyron had been, "I don't think I could survive another one of your numbers!"
Zabel cocked another grin to that, accented by a nonchalant gesture, "Yer as cold as ice, baby…"
"What's this? Artemis on a hunt…?", a voice echoed from beneath the earth.
As the red-hot, roughly human shape of Pyron's body began to ascend from the lava pit, Zabel stumbled back, landing squarely on his backside, "The bastard's still kickin'! That ain't right!"
Sharply narrowing her eyes, Lei-Lei assumed a solid fighting stance, her claws raised to attack, "C'mon, you demon. I knew you wouldn't go down that easy…"
Standing atop the magma now, flames roiled over the surface of Pyron's body as He locked eyes with His opponent. The two fighters stared each other down, each ready to attack at any moment. Then, without a moment's notice, the tense standoff was interrupted as Zabel dashed by, threw Lei-Lei over his shoulder, and took off for the horizon at top speed. Pyron would have blinked, had he the eyelids, "What nonsense is this?"
"Put me down, you jerk!", Lei-Lei screamed, pounding on her abductor's bony back, "I have to kill this guy!"
"Eh, not if yer dead sweetheart!", Zabel shouted over his shoulder as he sprinted over the rocks, Le Marta clinging to one of his legs for dear life.
Zabel's thoughts wandered as a steady sweat broke over his undead body; a sweat he couldn't help wondering if the excitement of the moment or the steady increase of heat just behind him had caused.
From her undignified passenger position, Lei-Lei could see that Pyron's comet-haloed form had ascended through the mud brown peaks, looming just behind them like a dragon ready to pounce on and devour its' prey. Maybe it was the intensity of that aura getting to her, but the hunter had to admit that Zabel had a point. Could she win this fight?
The heat, weight, and sheer impossibility of the task weighing him down, the inevitable finally happened and Zabel's feet gave way underneath him. Propelling herself from him, Lei-Lei gripped her awkward companion by the forearm and leapt down a nearby crack in the land she hoped signaled a cave entrance. Fortunately, she was right.
Her body tumbling down the darkness and crashing on the rocks below, Lei-Lei wondered silently how long it would take the monster above to find them. For once, Zabel was thinking the same thing.
Pyron would not be coming, however. His eyes had fixed on a new opponent. Standing across the cliffside from Him was a tall, muscular man with a sword at his back. At the man's heels stood a small girl, her eyes solemn as a dirge.
There would be no standoff, and no attempts at banter between these two. The moment their gazes locked, a sword was drawn by one, and a charge made by the other. Fire and steel locked passionately, time and again, each collision a great explosion of light proceeded by utter darkness.
It was as if the world itself strained to contain the power struggle. The sky had fallen darker with the inexplicable gathering of stormclouds, and each flash of fire against the mighty hunter's blade was like a flash of lightning in the night.
His body vanishing in a flash of light, Pyron appeared at an upward angle, launching an enormous ball of fire at His opponent. Donovan skated to the side, hurling his deadly blade through the monster's chest as part of his movement. By the time Pyron regenerated the gaping hole and hurled Himself in for another clash, the Dhylec blade had already circled round, returning to its' master, who simply parried once more.
"Feel that? Somebody's going toe to toe with the demon!", Lei-Lei shrieked excitedly, momentarily forgetting her numerous broken bones.
"Not so loud, baby…", Zabel groaned. He'd had better hangovers.
"Oh, suck it up! Don't you know what this means?", the blue-haired beauty shouted across the darkness, "If this guy takes out the demon, things can finally go back to normal!"
"az the stupidest thing I've ever 'eard", Zabel scoffed, "If this guy kin do all that, methinks he could be just as much trouble fer us. 'sides, who says he can? Looks to me like they're dead even."
"Maybe", Lei-Lei muttered as she looked to the flashing lights high above.
As the lightshow continued all around her, Anita watched in horror. Her expression could have never captured that horror though; it was the same blank look she always had. "Donovan…", she muttered.
At the moment she had lost everything, he had been there to hold her world together with his own two hands. And now he was going to die. This thing he was fighting; she could feel that its' power was without limit. Not like Donovan. He was a god-like man, but he was still a man. He could still die.
"Donovan!", she screamed into the storm, "Donovan, don't die!"
As the words hit his ears, Donovan cringed. She had lost faith already. To see her smile would have been worth his wasted life, and now, to hear her doubt shot through him like venom, eating its' way outward from his broken heart.
His strength failing him, Donovan didn't even try to block the next attack, and the pummeling rush sent his body skipping across the cold ground like a stone.
As the once great warrior lay there, his faith shattered, Pyron stood above him, the deific demon's face contorting into a wicked grin, "Giving up already?"
It was then that something snapped in Donovan, and a new reality hit him like a bullet to the head. If he gave up now, Anita would give up too. He could never stop. Never die. Not if he was to show her the true meaning of life.
Slowly rising to his feet, Donovan hefted his sword and struck again. But this time, Pyron was quicker to study his movement, teleporting away and striking the mighty hunter in the back with a hard elbow.
Standing firm, Donovan swung again with his heavy blade, missing once again as the entity vanished and reappeared in a horned gore to his ribcage.
Blood spilling over his lips, Donovan raised his sword once more, blade down, and thrust the mighty weapon downward into the fiery matter that had solidified just long enough to spear him so effectively. Just long enough to allow a killing blow.
Each impaling the other now, both combatants could feel their strength steadily leaving their bodies. In a matter of moments, one or both of them would be dead.