In another of The Ghost Zone's many oddities, Central Supply was one of two buildings that remained on a chunk of land that seemed to have been ripped out of New York City during the Roaring '20s. Standing alongside it was a grand old movie theatre. The buildings were conjoined like townhouses, and shared some space between them. This space held the controls for the central generator that powered both buildings, the corridor that led to the generator, and the generator itself – a seemingly bottomless pit filled with raw and unstable red ectoplasm. That pit, as well as all the power and light within both buildings, lay dormant for the night.
In the basement of Central Supply, Vlad calmly stood in the far-left corner of the room, adjusting the collar on his overcoat or shining his flashlight about as he oversaw the completion of the job at hand. The three ghost-vultures and the ecto-pusses were systematically going through filing cabinets, bookshelves, and binders, removing any files that had any connection to the fact that this antique shop was a front for the Order's business, while Skulker melted the lock off of a safe door, which held the most essential records.
Vlad felt no obligation to carry out this menial little task. He felt no obligation to the Family at all now, actually. The test with the Order had gone perfectly. His men and equipment were ready, and when given the proper motivation, they would fight without cowardice. The Family had the same plague as the Order – they never suspected him enough, and they had refused to advance technologically, leaving them at his mercy. He could overthrow them at any time.
But, as long as Luchesi was so naïve and there was a profit to be made, one last job couldn't hurt him.
"Are you about done there, Skulker?" he inquired casually.
"Almost…" was the reply, followed by a metallic thump. "I'm through." Skulker pulled the door open and looked inside.
The safe was empty.
"Uh…aren't there supposed to be papers in there?" quipped one of the vultures.
"What is the meaning of…" Vlad began, when the answer hit him like a ton of bricks.
Tony's suspicions, the noise made about his fun at the sanctuary, the timing of this job, the absent files…
Perhaps he should have given the Family more credit.
"We've been had," he snarled under his breath.
"You mean ve're sold out?" the vulture gulped.
"Oh, this is nice!" the vulture with the glasses moaned. "And I had tomorrow's game of Craps at the lodge in the bag, too!"
"Enough," Vlad hissed. "Skulker, I don't suppose you could find us a way out of here that won't involve walking out the front door?"
"The theatre has a rooftop exit," Skulker opened up a panel of his shoulder, projecting a ground plan of the two buildings on the wall. "If we reach the control room for the generator, we can open the doors to the long corridor. At the end of the corridor, just before the generator, there is a ladder that leads up to a catwalk. There are four catwalks, each leading up to a higher level. The last one ends at a ladder leading up to the rooftop exit of the theatre.
"Be ready," Skulker said, popping a laser up from his wrist. "My sensors indicate that we are not alone."
The entourage of seven silently crept upstairs. Vlad had doused his flashlight, and instead the ghosts had let their eyes glow, following the dim trails of light as they crept towards the catwalks. From the basement door they needed to cover but a few steps before they arrived in the control room. They seemed to be alone.
"Cross down the long corridor up to the catwalks, and we'll be in the clear," Vlad grinned.
"Spiacente, Masters," a voice crowed. "But Luchesi would like it very much if you would stay." Vlad whirled about. Out from the shadows came a pair of sickly glowing yellow eyes, followed by at least ten pairs of hot green ovals. Tony stood, shrouded in a black trench coat with the collar pulled high and a black bowler pulled down low over his face. His ten lackeys were dressed similarly, and each had a ghost-gun drawn. Tony's hands were shaky, but his eyes demonstrated courage rarely seen within him.
Vlad arched his eyebrow. So, Tony actually had some wits about him!
Some; but not enough.
Vlad heaved a dramatic sigh and began to raise his hands, as if to surrender. Then, in a flash, hot red poured from his eyes, and Tony was sent crashing down to the floor. Skulker leapt over to the control panel and had the lights on in an instant. The vultures and ecto-pusses both moved to catch the weapons that popped up from Skulker's armour, and he himself readied his laser and ten other firearms. Vlad drew his own ecto-laser from the inside of his coat. But before any exchange could begin, the sound of the doors leading to the corridor parting diverted all attention.
Before them was a cloaked figure, a hood pulled down over his face and his head bent low. Under his cloak he wore plain brown robes. Slowly he raised up his head, bringing his face into light. Vlad felt a heart skip a beat as he gazed at that familiar sad bearded face.
No…it couldn't be…
"You," Vlad snarled, his mouth curling like an angry cat's. Signalling his men to stay out of this, he raised his weapon and aimed for Katou's heart.
"Is this how you took down everyone else in the Order?" Katou asked dryly, making no move to defend himself. "At gunpoint? You couldn't really defeat them, could you?" his final words conveyed just a trace of anger.
Vlad froze up, a terrible grimace on his face. Though his mind justified the way he had removed himself of the Order by any means it could grasp, his heart was not so easily immune to the samurai's accusation. But both refused to believe that they could not defeat a member of the Order. Vlad had broken King Arthur! And how sweet it would be to silence that sermon-spewing mouth once and for all using Katou's own method of swordplay.
Vlad let his ecto-laser slip out of his hand. His sword materialised in his right hand's grasp. He raised the blade up and sent yellow-green flames running along the length of it.
Katou sighed, as if breathing out his last hope that Vlad might lose twelve years of hate. He then drew his own sword and set it aflame. The two moved out into an on-guard stance, locking their eye lines together.
Vlad swung the first blow, and Katou neatly parried it. The flames faded, but steel continued to clash.
The duel had begun.
Their moves were precise and calculated, and their tempo was slow. They went back and forth as if in a slow waltz, exchanging thrust for parry and cut for block. The rest of the room's inhabitants watched in awe and confusion as the half-ghost and the samurai fought, slowly pressing down towards the corridor. In several retreats and a counter-attack, they had arrived, and the doors slammed shut behind them.
Their dance relaxed for a moment as Vlad turned towards the shut entrance. The sounds of gunfire, lasers, and the squawking of his vultures penetrated through the heavy metal that composed the doors. Free of distraction, Vlad's minions and those of the Family had started their battle.
Vlad and Katou were left alone in a long hall of blackened steel, its frames arched up high as though in a sad attempt to mimic the grandeur of a Gothic cathedral's chapel.
And now that they were awarded more space and no audience, there was no need to hold back.
Vlad threw himself forward with all speed, flipping in the air and bringing his blade down with the strongest blow he could muster. Katou came up with an equally powerful parry, and their waltz resumed, adopting a much faster and far more deadly tempo. They pressed each other up and down the corridor, each having his own turn to lead on the offensive. Their fighting styles mirrored perfectly, and both combatants reached far down into their bag of tricks as they kept feeding the aggression of their private war.
---
In the control room, Tony's flunkies and Vlad's ghosts had retreated to opposite sides of the room. Both camps had upended tables and cabinets as fast as they could and had dived under desks and opened doors to use as shields, everyone trying to take cover from the attacks of the opposing sides. From behind the bookcase he used as protection, Skulker analysed the situation. Technologically, his side was superior. Lasers, traps, ecto-nets and electro-blasters were their armaments, all of them designed and built by himself, Technus, or Vlad. They should have had the edge. Yet Tony had safety and numbers – and his flunkies, being members of the Family, had real experience in shootouts. The mobster himself had gone under a desk, peeking his head up and firing random shots at the odd moment. One of his rounds clipped Skulker's shoulder pad.
"You fools think you can shoot down me?" he roared. "Skulker? Ghost-World's greatest predator?" a missile-launcher opened on his right shoulder, and he prepared to fire. Unfortunately, just as the missiles began to leave their holes, one blast from an ecto-gun knocked the launcher to the side, and the projectile struck one of the vultures, who had been hovering over the control panel and came crashing down upon it.
By a twist of fate, one of the buttons that was activated by the fall started up the red ectoplasmic generator at the end of the corridor.
---
Katou was in rare form that night. Cloak billowing dramatically about as he moved with the grace of a dancer, he yielded his sword with the precision of a marksman with his rifle, the flair of a conductor with his baton and the detail of a painter with his brush. He was the very definition of "samurai." As Vlad's master he knew where all of Vlad's strategies and tactics stemmed from, and had developed all the necessary defences. His tired old eyes were never more deceiving, as no lion nor tiger nor any other beast could have equalled his ferocity in this battle. Yet he maintained at all times his honour and the rules of fair play that he had made for his style of swordsmanship. Thousands of years' worth of training and combat could have been meant to prepare for this one moment in time, as he seemed to be drawing on every experience he had ever had. Now more than any other time in his life – or after-life – as a samurai, he was perfectly in tune with bushido and at home with his duty.
In his fine-tailored suit and 30s' hat and coat, Vlad appeared at first glance to be almost comically out of place yielding a sword and duelling in this manner. Yet his form was just as flawless of that of the old sage he warred against. Vlad had struggled with swordplay in his early teachings, but he had learned well since. Though Katou had a perfect defence, Vlad's offence was just as flawless, and whenever he lost the initiative he could muster up parries and blocks as well as the samurai. He could see that, finally, Katou was no longer holding back, and he relished the sensation that such knowledge brought and pumped it out into his fight. The half-ghost was also not holding back any. He obeyed neither rules of right of way nor any code of honour. Hate was his drive, and it governed nothing but the lust for victory. Once and for all, Vlad wanted to silence that infernal nuisance, that lecturing ninny, the one surviving of the Order who was more a threat to his plans than any of the others.
As with his fight with Guyart so many years ago, this was one battle he could not afford to lose.
The dance of death continued to intensify. The constant clang of ecto-steel blades kept the rhythm while the sage and the shadow performed the steps. Flames came and went from the swords as the two tried to break the others' weapon or catch them in a wave of fire. Martial arts and ghost powers came into the battle as well. Katou landed a sharp kick right in Vlad's jaw, sending his hat flying. Vlad blasted Katou, knocking the hood of his cloak down. Both suffered their close calls. Vlad made a vicious stab that barely avoided Katou's leg, instead piercing his cloak, while Vlad jumped back just in time for a cut to take its toll only on the belt of his coat. Each used his unique powers to their advantage, Vlad going human at the most opportune moments and Katou employing the few tricks of the samurai he hadn't passed on to Vlad. The last trace of their once peaceful relationship as master and apprentice gone, the two men had opened their full fighting capacity to each other for the first time.
There reached a point where the two made an unconscious agreement to pause for a moment. Coat and cloak both had disrupted their fighting. Vlad's coat, now opened without its belt, had been tripping him, and Katou's torn cloak had entangled his right leg. Vlad shed his coat, suit jacket, and tie, and rolled up the sleeves to his shirt. Katou tossed aside his heavy cloak and robes. Vlad had made a move to strike before Katou was ready, but the samurai, anticipating his foul play, raised an ecto-dome around himself until he was ready. Once he had shed his robes and recovered his sword, he lowered the shield, and let Vlad make the first strike.
Impossible as it may have seemed the duel continued to increase in speed and ferocity, now that the participants were freed from excess clothing. Flames now remained on the blades, and close calls now included singing of shirts and the ends of hair being caught in the fire. The poor hallway in which they fought suffered terribly, with its floor and walls becoming heavily scarred with ecto-blasts, sword scars, and burn marks. Vlad began blasting away at all lighting, hoping to blind the old warrior, but as both were ghosts, the dark hindered them little.
But the sparks from the destroyed lights and the flames left from the swords had mixed to begin spreading blaze throughout the corridor. The doors at both ends were flameproof, but the floor and walls within were not. Already the way back to the control panel had been cut off.
There was but one way to go – towards the catwalks and the generator.
---
Luchesi sat patiently at his desk, reading the story of Perseus as he waited for a phone call. It was a cold night, even indoors, so he had his coat and cape both draped over his shoulders as he read. Within moments, his old-fashioned rotary phone began ringing, and he calmly picked it up.
"Hello?" he said politely.
"DID YOU CALL WALKER YET OR NOT?" Tony's shrill voice screeched at the other end of the line. In the background Luchesi could hear the sounds of ecto-guns and lasers, the squawking of birds, and some isolated yells.
"Is Vlad held there?" Luchesi asked.
"Katou survived and he's trapped fighting him! CALL WALKER!"
"Very good. Keep them there," Luchesi set the phone down and picked it up again. He turned the phone to "66613 – " Walker's emergency hotline.
"GZPD," Walker himself had answered. "Speak to me."
"Yes," Luchesi said in a flawless American accent. "I'd like to leave an anonymous tip. Something's going on at Central Supply…"
---
Flames flew wildly over the corridor, grabbing onto anything and everything that could feed them and let them grow. From the ever-growing blaze heat poured over all the surrounding space, pumping the air with dry and searing currents. The fire and heat licked at Vlad and Katou, sending both into a raging sweat as their war led their minds into the depths of Hell.
The two had reached the height of violence. Vlad's hair had come loose from its ponytail, and his shirt had become blackened and shredded. Katou's tunic had been just as hurt by heat and blade, and a patch of green ecto-blood now stained his left shoulder from a cut. His former apprentice had increased his foul play. As Katou recovered from a failed strike, Vlad seized the back of the sage's head and thrust it into the ghost-fire around them.
The samurai could not help but moan as his face roasted.
He knocked Vlad back with a shock wave and moved to douse the flames with his powers. Still moaning, he slowly pulled his hand from his head. In the reflection of his steel sword he could see that his left eyebrow was gone and that the left side of his face was darkened. When he tried to open his left eye, he found that the ecto-skin of his eyelid had merged with that surrounding his eye. He cared little save for the pain, and in any case he had no time to worry about his features. With his one working eye, he saw the reflection also catch Vlad flying up from behind, sword ready.
Katou whirled about, and his blow stuck both his and Vlad's blades into the floor about them. With a kick he knocked the half-ghost against the wall and moved ahead, a punch ready. Vlad caught it and moved with a punch of his own, which was also blocked. The two were locked together for a moment, neither able to gain ground over the other.
"So, you've let an accident and a women come to this, have you?" Katou spat, unable to choke back his anger any longer. "And you think it's all been worthwhile, do you?" He could see the younger man's face's burning with hatred. Rearing his head back, Vlad slammed his skull into Katou's knocking the samurai to the ground. Vlad made a dash for his sword and pulled it out in a flash, ready to strike. Katou just rolled aside in time and drew his own blade.
And then…Katou let loose.
He forgot it all.
He tossed aside all that he knew about Vlad Masters. What he had gone through, where he had come from, what he had done in the past. He know longer knew the man that Vlad had once been.
He knew only what he had become.
He threw the hand that held his sword forward, and it met with Vlad's face. He repeatedly hit his old apprentice there, pushing him back down the corridor towards the generator doors. After fifteen hits he pulled black and fired off a blast with his eyes. It hit square in the chest, bending Vlad over so that his chin was in a perfect place to be kicked. As the half-ghost was knocked up from that blow, with his left hand Katou formed a powerful energy blast and thrust it out full-force. Vlad came skidding to a halt along the floor just a few feet from the doors to the generator.
Katou moved forward slowly at first, then began to run. He sent flames along his sword as he raised it over his head. Tears ran down the right side of his face as he began to remember who this monster used to be, but he did not deviate from his course. He was going to end this tonight. He jumped up, sword ready to meet with its target.
Hot red energy shot like daggers from Vlad's eyes and smacked the samurai into the bottom of the first catwalk, then crashing to the floor.
As Katou pulled himself up from his fall, he saw Vlad float back onto his feet, a horrible sneer riding his face. His eyes were glowing blood red and hot crimson fire had engulfed his sword.
The last ace had been pulled from the traitor's sleeve – and Katou had no tricks left to counter.
"Surprised?" Vlad shot out mockingly.
"Not at all," Katou coughed, and it was true. He picked up his sword and prepared to strike. Even with this trump card of Vlad's, he still had his skills. But before he could move to thrust, Vlad brought up a cut from down low, with flames still on his sword.
The samurai screamed as a thin, long cut ran up the right side of his face over his eye.
Not content to stop there, Vlad fired a pink blast right into his enemy's stomach, throwing him back. Katou barely recovered in time to jump over a sharp wave let off from the half-ghost's blade, and even then he was caught with a trick blow to the face. It took only two more exchanges to convince Katou that now was not the best time to press an attack.
His vision was restricted by green ecto-blood around his one good eye, and his retreat steps backward were limited by the flames. There was no way to move down the corridor.
But moving up was still accessible.
With a wave of his sword, Katou sent out the largest wave of energy his strength could permit. Vlad, forced to pull a red barrier over himself, let Katou out of his site – and the sage used that time to fly up to the highest catwalk and move into the darkest shadow he could find. He slumped down against the wall, holding his hand over his good eye as he contemplated his next step.
He would not retreat – it was shameful for a samurai.
He would recover, he would wait, and he would attack.
Unfortunately, he knew that Vlad understood that mindset only too well, and could count on it when he made his move.
---
Skulker grinned as he trapped one of Tony's lackeys in a ghost net. He was the fifth to be taken. Tony and his five remaining guards were now equal in number to their opponents. This assured Skulker victory, for as predicted, his technology was far superior to the mob's ancient pistols. True; the free ones were still armed, and he was still ducking behind a cabinet door as needed.
But at this point, the continued fighting was nothing but sport. Tony and one guard were cornered by the ecto-pusses, which were armed with lasers, and the other Mafia goons were on the floor behind anything they could find.
"Ha!" Skulker laughed. "My prey ceases to amuse me. Vultures!" he turned to the three birds, cowering under a table. "Take them!" he pointed towards Tony.
"Hey!" one of the birds quipped. "Since ven do you call the shots?"
"Since when has Vlad told me I couldn't broil you into my evening meal?" the predator retorted.
That did the trick.
"Get 'em, boys!" the vultures leapt from under the table, their talons ready to strike at the mobsters. But before they could strike, the sound of sirens pierced through the walls from outside. There were at least five sounds – all of them coming closer. The ecto-pusses flew back in terror, dropping their weapons and hiding behind Skulker, while the vultures returned to their table.
"What is this?" the hunter roared, looking about as if for an answer. He soon received it. Tony, encouraged by the sirens, made a mad dive for one of the discarded lasers and aimed it up at Skulker, shooting off the weapon and taking out the predator's right hand.
"Don't move," Tony hissed in a murderous voice that surprised even him.
---
Vlad took his sweet time in searching the catwalks, hovering above ground as he looked for Katou. He felt no need to be on his guard. The fool wouldn't dare attack him from behind or land a cheap surprise blow. That was for ninja, not samurai. Katou could jump out and shock Vlad, but he knew the old man would wait until Vlad saw him before he struck. Even in his anger before Vlad had pulled out his last ace, Katou had let him get at least some wind back.
The brainless man's own code of honour would be his undoing.
A twisted grin smeared across his face, Vlad used the bloody flames along his sword as a torch, as the fire below had not yet penetrated the upper levels of darkness in this place. He sniffed as though trying to pick up the samurai's scent. He searched and waited, making his way up to the fourth, highest catwalk.
A gleam of steel caught his eye. Katou stepped out into the light. He looked worse than Vlad had ever seen him. The cut across his good eye had ceased bleeding, but he was likely to have a scar there forever. If he had a forever, Vlad thought to himself. Katou's left eye would never again open, and his right eye was bloodshot, tired, and saddened. He could no longer stand fully upright. His tunic was soaked in sweat and ecto-blood, and all his clothes were badly torn. He had been reduced to a sad, pitiful mess, determined to fight on in spite of almost certain defeat.
It made Vlad smile even more.
Katou made a motion as if to raise his sword, but Vlad was prepared at once. With a blast of crimson to the face he sent the crippled samurai crashing downward onto the third catwalk below them. Like a huge jungle cat the half-ghost leapt down after him, wasting no time in kicking him down another level. Another blast to the face with eye beams and Katou was on the corridor floor, mere feet away from the continuing hellfire.
Vlad floated down right in front of the old man's face, bringing his boot under Katou's chin. He sent a red charge down to his toes. With a swing of his foot he had Katou flying right towards the doors to the generator. They parted, letting him fall well into the room. Vlad followed.
The generator was a large, circular chamber, with only one door – the one Vlad had just made Katou use. The floor they were on took up the left three-fourths of the room. A few pipes jutted up from the floors and went into the walls. The pit of the generator itself absorbed the remaining fourth of the space. Seemingly without end, it was filled to the brim with spinning, glowing, and highly unstable red ectoplasm. Only a four-foot railing divided the edge of the floor from the fall.
Vlad paid it no mind as he marched towards his prey. How much delight he had gained from breaking this sermon-uttering bushido twit he would never be able to describe. He couldn't suppress a chuckle as he watched his old enemy claw for the sword he had dropped just a few feet away. With a most intentional display of calm and cockiness, Vlad picked up the samurai blade and threw it hard into the wall left of them. He then brought his foot down quite hard on Katou's chest.
"Oh, come now, Katou," he sighed dramatically. "Must I crush you under my boot before you realise that you've lost? You really never had a chance! I know this must be hard for you to hear, but it is the truth. After all, you took me in, taught me almost everything you knew, introduced me to the Order, the Family, and the history of The Ghost-Zone, and sent me on the mission where I first met the Family. You gave me all the tools I needed to get started. Then I met up with my minions, got my technology going, began all my experiments…and you knew. You've known for five years! But you didn't tell the Order! You couldn't betray your old apprentice, could you? And look what's come of it! You're the last of the Order! The Family won't be around much longer either! All of you were and are still trapped in the past, vulnerable to the ways of the 20th century. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Fortunately for me, I acted first. And now I'm free to exact justice on Jack and pursue my other goals without interference, all thanks to you!"
Vlad paused to glare down into the old man's face. Every line and wrinkle seemed to etch into his soul. The samurai was shaking under Vlad's foot. His eye was glistening, his mouth was drawn up like a dog raising his hackles, and his expression was at once hurt and enraged. He had long since passed the point where he could contain his emotions within. He couldn't even make an effort to remain internal any longer. His loss of control had lost him his honour. There was only one way for a samurai to re-gain it.
Vlad was not about to let him have the chance.
"What, no response? No 'just and noble' preaching from the 'wise old master?' Tell me, Katou, how does it feel to know you caused all this?" Vlad paused, relishing Katou's increasingly poignant agitation.
"Ah, well," he chuckled, sending hot red flames along his sword. "Whatever that may feel like, at least you won't feel it for long."
He raised his katana well over his head, poised for the kill.
But just as the blade began its plunge, he felt a sweaty hand grab at his foot and send an ecto-shock through his body, causing him to drop his blade.
Katou shoved Vlad off and rose to his feet, forcing himself upright. His hand already had an ecto-blast charged up, and he thrust it out. Vlad just caught it, absorbed it, and fired it back, but Katou mirrored the action and introduced a second blast from his other hand. The two were soon locked, a blast caught in each hand, one trying to push the other back. The collision of spectral energy sent pulsating waves ricocheting across the room that shook both combatants, rocking them back and fourth and sliding them along the floor.
As Vlad tried to gain dominance, he could not help but notice a peculiarity in Katou's actions. He didn't seem to be trying to knock Vlad back. He seemed to be trying to turn their struggle at a ninety-degree angle. It made little sense to Vlad, but in any case he wasn't about to let Katou control this bout. He held fast. The blasts kept shaking and shooting off waves, nudging the two apart. When Vlad felt he had lost too much ground, he marched forward, pressing his hands in towards Katou's. He had brought the two of them together, both blasts at full size and power.
The shock waves from the energy became great enough then to send both combatants flying.
Katou was knocked against the wall near his sword. Vlad continued falling.
As he fell he lost sight of the old man and his vision became clouded by red.
Katou had been trying to turn them around. He had been trying to prevent the shock waves from knocking Vlad into the pit.
As the ghost whom he should have easily destroyed vanished behind the crimson cloud, Vlad could not express his rage any more than by an open mouth of shock and a curse on Jack's name.
Raw red energy poured into the half-ghost's body from every pore and every opening. It filled his veins, nerves, and cells. It filled his heart, mind, and lungs. It set fire to him inside and out. It seemed certain that at any moment he would be reduced to a blackened ash.
Vlad thought he heard himself scream. He couldn't tell; his ears had been filled with ectoplasm. He couldn't feel his mouth open or shut anymore. He couldn't see; his eyes were clamped shut in a vain effort to protect them. All he could feel was the burn as he descended down to meet Hades.
In his numbness to all but pain, he did not feel his canines grow long and pointed. He did not feel his ears change shape. He did not feel his muscles expanding. And he couldn't notice that his skin was changing colour.
---
Underneath his armour, Skulker had begun to sweat.
After his right arm had been taken, he was met with additional shots at the shoulders, chest, and his left arm from all the Family's forces. All his major weapon systems were soon disabled. Compounding on the problem, the nets he had used on Tony's men had been turned on him, and now trapped the vultures and the ecto-pusses. As soon as the mobsters had finished their handiwork, they had teleported away – an ability Skulker and his comrades lacked – and left their captives to the mercy of the GZPD, who had arrived in force of five cars and at least thirty men.
All thirty were now pounding on the door to Central Supply.
"This does not bode well," Skulker summarised the situation. He rushed for the control panel. There was still time to collect Vlad and get out through the roof. He soon got the door open – to find it closed off by a wall of fire.
"Open up in there!" From outside, the gruff voice of GZPD warden Walker could be heard over a loudspeaker.
The pounding on the door grew louder. Sparks began going off around the hinges as the police began making their way through.
"We're dead," a vulture sighed from within the net.
---
Katou groggily came to, his one eye slowly opening. He had landed hard against the wall near his sword. He tugged it free from the wall and began making his way towards the pit. Though too weak to run or even walk, he dragged himself along as fast as he could.
He had been desperate to turn his and Vlad's last clash around. He had known it was only a matter of time before they were pushed back. Vlad would have nowhere to fall but the pit. From that fall only two things could come.
The first option was a death so painful it was unfitting even for someone like Vlad.
The second Katou didn't wish to think about.
Grasping the railing with one hand, he peered down into the pit. Unbalanced power continued to swirl and foam, but there was no sign of after-life. No sound, no sight, no movement gave away the presence of anyone. Katou began to breathe again.
A huge jolt of crimson jumped out, clipping Katou and sending him sliding along the floor. The red continued up to the ceiling and came crashing down where the samurai had been standing. And as it settled, Katou beheld a horror he wished to never meet face-to-face.
Vlad had emerged, but he was not the same as he once been. His eyes were now completely red and glowing, and his skin had turned blue. His ears were now pointed and bat-like, and his canine teeth had become fangs. His muscles had expanded, tearing up his shirt even more. And his hair had been swept up to resemble devil horns.
Vlad had become the nosferatu ghost of Clockwork's prophecy.
The fall had evidently taken its toll on the half-ghost, as he was hunched over and twisted. With a sharp lurch of his back and a popping sound, he stood erect again. He rearranged his face into a hideous grin. And with a throw of his hands, he sent a hot red blast streaming into Katou's body, driving him into the left wall so hard he left an indentation. Before Katou could even realise what had happened, Vlad had flown forward, seized the samurai's neck, and driven him into the wall again. Along the way, he had recovered his sword and now had it poised to strike Katou's skull.
Katou made an effort to resist, but he had no more energy left to spare. He could barely move, and his mind was in no condition to keep working. He could see the intent in Vlad's eyes, and waited without fear as Vlad pulled the sword back and…
…Hesitated.
The sound of sirens had pierced through the thick walls of the generator room. They came from every direction, with shouts and a booming southern voice barking commands over a loudspeaker.
Katou deflated entirely as he saw Vlad's mind change and his grin twist even more.
With one hard blast of red, the samurai went plowing through the steel walls and spiralling down towards a GZPD car below. He hit it headfirst, crushing the vehicle on impact. He was dragged to his feet and locked in energy cuffs before the pain could even begin to settle.
"Well, well, well…" his eyesight blurred from pain and tears, Katou could barely make out the form of Walker. "Looks like one of the Order survived. Katou, you realise that you've been caught at a crime scene and have a history of interfering with me? That's against the rules."
"You want us to put him in with the others?" Walker's lieutenant, Bullet, asked.
"No. This one's got his own sentence. Get him his own car and take him below the prison."
Katou barely felt his being gruffly dragged along to another car. He didn't think about what Walker's strange order meant. He didn't try and resist when his sword was taken from him.
He was broken. He had been denied even the honourable death at the hands of an opponent in battle. The fatigue and shame welled, crowding out any other thought or emotion as Katou let himself be shoved into a police van like a common criminal. He sat in silence with his head bowed; tired, wounded, and knowing he had utterly failed.
---
Up above, watching unseen from the hole in the wall of Central Supply, was Vlad. He led out a deadly chuckle as he watched the last of the Order be taken away. He had no qualms in letting him live. It was more painful to the samurai this way. For only in death could a disgraced samurai regain his honour.
Vlad knew Walker. He was keener to convict his prisoners and lock them up than interrogate them and make deals. And Katou's stupid code of honour prevented him from ratting out old students. He was safe.
As the vans pulled away he heard the squawking of vultures and the yells of Skulker. All his minions had been taken away. They could potentially spill information in the vain hope of escaping a long sentence.
As Vlad pondered over that risk, his eyes caught his reflection in his sword. As he looked closer, he nearly dropped the blade. His ears were bat-like, he sported fangs, his hair looked like Satan's horns, his eyes were pure red, and his skin was a deep blue.
He began to curse Katou and Jack for his deformity…then began a low, dark laugh.
He had a new face that his ghosts hadn't seen. He had his own mask to hide behind. And so he felt no need to rescue his minions…yet.
He had some excess energy to burn off, injuries to treat, plans to make, and a new ghost-form to get used to.
With a swirl of red, he vanished into the night.