Jolly Cooperation?
"Of all the behaviors in a vampire, the biggest red flag is when they are being polite to you. When a bloodsucking fiend is sucking up to you they want something. Every time a vampire was polite at me, it ended in a well-deserved pile driving. Except for that one time. I'll tell you about it later." - Ringo to Django
Something is wrong.
Using the name Lucian had in his old life was one-hundred percent asking for a beating. Why would the vampire boy call out to Sartana? It did not feel like a taunt to trap Lucian though. Had he really said Sartana? The change in Vanargand's aura changed, as it always did when Lucian was hunting. The negative emotions flowed both ways between the Vanargand and the Dark Swordsman; They fueled each other. But something was not in sync.
Something isn't right. Nero kept thinking. He'd been sidelined for most of the chase and battle. Other elements did more to weaken this vampire that frantically chugged tomato juice. Nero could not figure out what was bothering him. It wasn't just the vampire's behavior.
Lucian let Bea chase the armored vampire in through a balcony roof and moved to cut off his escape.
"Lucian, wait." These emotions, this sorrow, this bloodlust... It isn't like normal.
The vampire emerging from indoors distracted everyone. Nero's power was focused on the trance. When the vampire's panic overwhelmed it, Nero barely had a chance to warn Lucian. The vampire boy changed with a cry of fear and rage. The gunners did not dare shoot at the wolf-like Django for fear they would hit Lucian. The dark sword continued to awaken.
Lucian and Nero found out just how out of sync the Vanargand when Lucian's trance ended and he reached for the sword. He felt a delirious grin spread across his face. He laughed a little to himself. Django froze in shock.
...to fight you...
It took two hits. The sudden giddy feeling made Lucian's swing inaccurate. Django's fury had drained him dry of willpower. Django collapsed with a small cry. Lucian looked down at the teenager. The vampire looked a little younger than himself.
Lucian's mind was suddenly overwhelmed with regret. There was, for a moment, nothing else he could have felt but that. It was as if Aaron lay before him instead of this monster. Nero, connected as he was to Lucian, felt it too. Alexander had to catch the flying cat before crashed into the pavement like the vampire did.
Dumas and Perrault took that window of opportunity. They swooped in. Lucian was instantly back to his old self. Dumas grunted in pain when he got stabbed. Dumas yelled "Dark Teleport!" and vanished halfway through a volley of solar bullets.
Django woke outside of a coffin, which was a little surprising. He could barely move, and not because of the seatbelt. He groaned as the attempt to move reminded him about the severe sunburns. He snapped awake. He frantically sorted through what happened after not-Sabata turned into a vampire. He hoped no one else got hurt.
"You're awake! I thought it would take much longer for you to regain consciousness."
"That guy turned into a vampire and I..." What would Silver say?! Django bit someone! What if he'd contaminated the wound with vampire blood and- did it count if the guy turned into a vampire first?
"Lucian does that. He'd be an exceptional ally if he fully embraced darkness."
Django focused on the cat. "Are the other people okay?" Where had he heard about a flying cat? It had a little flight suit.
"Did you have friends back there?! If there's other vampires, we didn't get them, I'm sorry. Hold on, we'll see if we can-"
"I meant the people on the street."
There was a different voice answering him this time. "You are worried about them? The solar gunners hurt you a lot more than you hurt them! You took a while to wake up."
The cat said, "Welcome onto our ship, the Schrodinger! Let me tell you, that was close! Five more seconds and the humans would have had you en route to purification! Want to help save the world?"
"They have a Pile Driver?" Django idly wondered if the cat would be adverse to being scratched behind the ears. The cat wanted help saving the world? That aligned with Django's interests. He already had that on the to-do list. Django belatedly remembered where he'd heard about a flying cat. Silver had choice words about a stupid terrenial he had a falling out with at the beginning of the perpetual night.
"I have not seen you before. You must be new. Or newly returned from the grave. I'm sorry to say that the rest of our tribe were devoured by an Immortal from the stars. We were so close to a perfect world, a safe planet under the stewardship of vampires. It would have been a better world for the living too..."
Django did not like where this was going.
"Duke Dumas, at your service. What is your name?"
The ruler of the vampires. Django remained silent. He did not feel like talking to the infamous tyrant nor did he see an avenue of escape. It did not help that Django was too weak at the moment to run.
"Do you know who adopted you into our tribe?" Dumas had to hand it to whoever bit this kid; fighting the Dark Swordsman and four Solar Gunners in broad daylight was amazing. No casket armor even. Maybe it was one of the Poes. They liked having other vampires that looked younger. Dumas decided it was unlikely, the Poes did their paperwork.
More silence from Django.
"You were badly injured back there. It is a miracle that you lasted as long as you did without casket armor." Dumas waited for a while as Perrault piloted them to a safer location. When he was satisfied they were safe for the moment, Dumas pulled up a screen. "Is there anywhere you want to go?"
Django did want to get back to the Azure Sky Tower but did he want the Duke Dumas to know where he unlived? Their current location was completely unknown to him and he could hear rain. "Northeast of Istrakan. Foot of the mountain. I'll find my way from there."
"That place has been buried for a long time now. You have been undead for a long time then?"
Django clamped his mouth shut this time. He'd slipped up. Perrault set the coordinates and Dumas continued to politely talk to the vampire boy for a while.
Sensing questions about Django were not getting him anywhere, Dumas and Perrault decided it was time to share their great and glorious plan to save the world. Django was treated to the rare sight of a cat and vampire sharing a slideshow. "All right! So a lot of humans are being stubborn about it, but we all need to work together. They'll come to accept it. Now if you look at this screen here..."
Django realized he was trapped by social convention, powerpoint, and severe injury. Silver would not approve of Django fraternizing with the Duke Dumas, but there was little choice. When Dumas got to the slide about mutual benefit from cooperating with the mortals Django raised an eyebrow. He was looking at someone who might be more of an optimist than himself.
"It might be difficult to get people following your plans. Is there a single person on this planet you have not wronged somehow?"
Dumas was surprised by the sudden sass, "You. Plus, we rescued you."
Django decided not to use the boring powerpoint as an example of a wrong because the cat was so clearly proud of it. Besides, that was a fair point about the rescue. Duke Dumas and Perrault were being one-hundred percent sincere about wanting to save the world. Django would be on board with the plan if it were not for the fact Dumas built an oppressive empire with a total disregard for the lives of others. That boded ill for human/vampire relations.
Django suspected Dumas was to many people what the Count had been to his family. The difference between the Duke and the Count was the motivation behind their atrocities. The Count did stuff to make people suffer and the Duke made people suffer to get stuff done. An idealist committing terrible deeds was still committing terrible deeds.
Come to think of it, a lot of vampires liked fancy titles. Probably came from the arrogance and the memory loss when you gave in to darkness. Maybe he should pretend to let his guard down. (It was not like killing this guy would stick without a Pile Driver...)
"Er, sorry. You can call me Squire?" That sounded stupid when he said it out loud.
Aaron was shivering less that day. He had hoped one of the other gunslingers had convinced Lucian to bring them along. Soothing Guildswoman had come in with juice, a bowl of soup, and the news about a vampire. Perhaps Duke Dumas had turned someone. The now eleven-year-old felt a little guilty for briefly thinking that if Lucian didn't catch the glorified mosquito today, he'd be along to help with the battle and purification. At the very least he wanted to ride along in Laplace.
Both he and Toasty shuddered as a chill traveled through the air. (Aaron had already been shuddering from fever.) The chatter of Guild members downstairs had stopped, leaving an eerie calm in the building. An unmistakable killing intent radiating from nearby drained the light from the room.
Lucian opened the door. His hair had some scorching from solar shots. Claws had torn the sturdy blue fabric of Lucian's long coat and there were dark splotches staining it. Even the dark armor had scratches on it. Aaron relaxed enough to breathe again and coughed a bit as Lucian said, "Dumas got away, d_ it."
Nero said, "Dumas stole the vampire when we were putting it in a coffin."
Aaron, still a little out of it from illness said, "You saw Dumas?"
Ursula scowled as she floated into the room behind Nero and Lucian. "We almost had him. We were even fighting him outside! We had him down before Dumas showed his ugly mug!" She'd been hoping to have some revenge against vampire-kind and see some things burn. Vampires were a species that needed to be blessed by fire, if ever there was one. "He just showed up when we were calling Laplace, grabbed the mystery vampire, and ran for it. Teleported out"
"You ran into Dumas?"
Lucian snarled to Aaron, "The rookie gunners couldn't hit him while he was hauling his buddy away. It's pathetic when a kid has better aim than three adult gunners. At least Bea can aim." Witch had done at least some damage before Dumas got away. "Something was wrong with Vanargand. That vampire did something to it."
In stark contrast to the rest of the group, Tove seemed impervious to the prevailing bad mood in the room.
Aaron took the lament as a compliment. "Well, I'll just have to finish getting well so we can get them. What's so great about that box Tove?" By Aaron's side, Toasty's leaves had stopped drooping and he looked excited.
Tove had a box in his claws and the cheerful grin of messenger of good news. He was waving it in the air and flew past to show the bottle to Toasty. "The Solar Bank had this package for us! Look, look!"
Toasty said, "Tove found a Solar Tree seed! Why would the Solar Bank have it for us? They don't just give away things like this."
"It was addressed to the Messenger of the Sun or his companions. The clerk said she was keeping her client anonymous..." Tove messed with the ripped paper wrapping. "I'll get this planted right away!" Tove continued to mutter to himself. "I'm gonna need to pick an Earthly Maiden or Earthly Boy. Wonder if Lisbeth's interested? She doesn't know self defense. Maybe Jane? Lisbeth's got the whole guild on protective instincts but Jane can fight..."
Lucian didn't care about the seed sender. "We'll work on it if the Guild can't find any sign of Dumas. I'm going to the mansion to have them take a look at Vanargand." Vanargand was acting normal now but he was curious.
"There was definitely some connection with that vampire and the sword. Maybe they will find something in Sheridan's libraries."
Django had not spotted an escape route yet and his new traveling companions had caught on to 'Squire's' twitchiness. It went down by about two twitches per minute after he realized they were asking him to help save everyone in the world. Their new friend had relaxed almost imperceptibly after hearing Dumas launched the Lord of Destruction and Co. into the sun. Ratatosk was worth two twitches; the Count of Groundsoaking blood was worth about 2.3 twitch reductions worth of friendship. Telling him that there did not seem to be any dead Guild Gunners when they'd rescued Squire was worth four twitches. He had gone very still when Dumas talked about Vanargand. Once they stopped talking about Vanargand, he went right back to fidgeting. Squire was not entirely on top of current events.
Dumas simply was glad he wasn't the only vampire left. He could start biting people and injecting them with vampire blood, but that seemed like a bad way to get the Solar Gunners on board with his plan to save the world. It would definitely attract Lucian's attention. It would attract Lucian's fury, if it was possible Lucian could hate Dumas any more than he already did.
"Hey. Dumas?" Perrault said quietly to Dumas. "Is it just me, or does he behave more like a human than a vampire?"
"...You might be on to something. There is something off about his aura."
The two friends looked at the armored boy who was trying to pretend like he had not just been creeping towards the tree line when they were distracted. "Wonder why he doesn't trust us?"