Mansions, Alec decided, all looked the same. Not literally, no, mansion owners made sure that their unique brand of opulence was explicitly theirs. There was just something to them, a stench that reminded him of home.
Long hallways, lined with red carpet so you wouldn't see all the bloodstains, decorated with the best modern art to offer, fit for a museum collection where they could all perish in a single fire.
And then, a single corridor became three of them, none of them obviously leading down. Annoying, but not too much of an obstacle right now. He drew on the hunger, one of three monsters that made up the man known as Alec, and sniffed the air. Blood, sweat and alcohol wafted through the air, but there were hints in between. The paint of his costume, the sizzling fires outside, and one relatively familiar scent. What a dork…still using the same shampoo after all this time. Well, it did make the next step easier.
He stalked down the halls, evading the few guards hanging out indoors, and soon found the door to the cellar, a myriad of scents wafting from a gap between door and floor. He tried it, found it locked, then looked around.
No keys, but no vampires either. This would be easy, he'd played door-kicking simulator for hours on end. A quick kick, and the wood cracked. Then, he took a step back, and threw all of his measly weight against the wood with a jumping shoulder-bash, trusting his vampire reflexes to catch him as both boy and door crashed onto the stairs.
Time slowed. Or rather, his reflexes sped up, and as the ground beneath him disappeared with stone steps that had long been worn smooth, his hand caught the railing, and he almost flawlessly transitioned from fall to cartwheeling slide, and landing feet-first on the cold dark stone hidden a dozen meters down.
"Now that's more like it," he mumbled as he looked around Bianca's torture dungeon. Flickering torchlight, bare stone, iron bars with a cloaked figure huddled behind them, and a collection of tools, chains and other bindings that looked like they were for something really kinky, torture, or knowing reds, both. He could make out a variety of bugs in the room, sitting on the floor and the walls, flying aimlessly.
More worrying was that something was watching them, hiding just out of sight, in the place that disappeared when you paid attention to it. Like something hidden on the inside of your eyelid, invisible but eminently there.
"Hey Dork, that you?" he asked, putting the strange watcher out of his mind.
The figure looked up, and he noticed that what he'd taken for the hood of a cloak was actually just a burlap sack. More striking, however, were the spiked manacles binding her arms and legs behind her back, wrought from what looked to be heavy vines of some sort.
"Hold on, lemme get you out," he said, stepping forwards and checking cell's door. Locked again, which was getting annoyingly repetitive. "Any idea where the key is?"
"Mumble mumble" Taylor replied, shifting over the ground, trying to roll towards him.
"Yeah yeah, I'll get to it," he said,crouching down and putting his hands through the bars. Her chains seemed competently made, with thorns cutting into the flesh of Taylor's arms. Lara, his mother, had told him about these. They sealed the wearer's magic, but… well, they just sealed the magic. Unless something had changed, Taylor should have been able to escape quite easily without that. Girl was far from incompetent.
He looked at his costume, grabbed a piece of his iron droid-bod, and tore it off, wielding it somewhat like a hammer as he pulled Taylor around, trying to get a piece of stone beneath the chains as she protested with muffled shouts.
Iron shiv in hand, Alec slammed it down on the chain, and shouted "I like my father!"
Iron met… whatever faerie material the chain was made out of, and chipped at it.
"I have lots of deep emotional bonds!" he continued, smashing down again, calling upon his hunger to grant him strength, the metal chipping further.
It wasn't that he cared about Taylor all that much. Sure, the dork had been on his team, but it wasn't like they'd been friends or anything. It was just… something you did. Something that, maybe, Taylor would have done for him.
"I hate lootboxes in Video Games!" he said, smashing again, the chains further flattening out. Almost there, then Skitter would be set free again, ready to ruin everyone's day by putting cockroaches in perfectly drinkable cocktails of human blood.
"I give a shit about the old team!" he continued, the chains still as flat as they'd been before, almost cracking.
"Panacea is the hottest New Wave girl!" 'Twangh!' 'Crack!'
"I'm attracted to you!" 'Twong!' 'Crash!'
"I'm a well-adjusted person!" he shouted a final time, and for once, his iron shiv managed to do more than just damage, and bit straight through the chain. Using his enhanced strength, he pulled the chain away from Taylor's limbs, until she took over the job once on of her hands was released.
Within seconds, a soft buzzing filled the room as Taylor removed the bag over her head, and then the gag in her mouth.
"The fuck Regent?" she asked as she rubbed her arms for a few seconds, blood pouring out of painfully deep cuts now that the sharp stuff had been removed.
"That's what I get? Not even a 'oh thank you give me your babies'? Not even a 'how the fuck are you alive'?"
"How about a 'Why the fuck didn't you start with the hood?'" she replied, wobbling into two legs as bugs scouted the room, and presumably, the rest of the building. Why hadn't she done that before?
"Honestly can't say I thought about it," he quipped back. "Anyway, try not to announce your presence too much, there's a giant vampire party going on upstairs."
"Is that why you're dressed as… sexy R2D2?" she asked as she took a proper look at him. Was she… blushing? Or was he imagining it? Either way, dinner was not the point of this outing, though he was getting kind of hungry… No, not the dork, hooking up with her after rescuing her from an evil queen's dungeon was the type of thing uncle Thomas would do.
"Long story, too much of a bother to explain," he said.
"And why were you… saying that stuff?"
"Thorn Manacles, probably made in the Winter forges," he explained, holding up the barbed chains. "You can destroy them by using something the creator can't stand. Iron and lies in this case."
"Lies?"
"I'm like, at least eighty percent certain that's how faeries work."
"I'm… Look, last thing I remember, I was fighting Skidmark and he-"
"Pfwhahahaha," Alec laughed out, falling over—which took some effort with his new sense of balance—and rolling on the floor as his old teammate looked on in shame.
"He was a vampire! There were like fifty of them!"
"Still though… Skidmark? The guy so pathetic even Kaiser wouldn't be properly racist against him?"
"Just… open up the cage or something? I think someone's coming this way," Taylor replied, once again showing her utter lack of humor. Had she even cracked a single joke in the time they'd known each other?
Alec looked around, scanning once more for both the keys, and that thing he couldn't quite seem to see. Sadly, he found nothing but stuff even his father wasn't kinky enough for. "Can't your bugs find anything?"
Taylor replied by cocking her head to the side for a second, then putting a finger in front of her lips.
"What, black cat got your tongue?"
As a reply, the cockroaches on the floor in between them moved, spelling out a single sentence. Cloaked, on stairs.
"So anyway, is Myrddin as magical in bed as he is in battle?"
Anger flashed across her face, but she kept herself to whatever plan she'd made up. If he gave a shit, he would have been impressed.
"So, how far along are the two of you?" he continued, pointing a finger to the cockroach-based word stairs as he did so.
Taylor's reaction was, at the same time, both difficult and easy to describe. There was disgust, loathing, self-hate, realization, and many more things, all merging into a single priceless package.
"Third base," she whispered, straining against her own sense of decency. Alec smiled, and in one smooth motion, jumped up, grabbed his shiv in one hand, and swept the other along the stairs, three-quarters of the way down, applying the abilities of the other inhuman parasite that made its home in his brain.
At first, nothing. Then, contact, a twitching of leg muscles. But nothing showed, and no-one cried out in pain from falling down the stairs.
The bugs though, went crazy, swarming across the floor, the walls and the ceiling towards the bottom of the stairs, where absolutely nothing was to be seen. Or to be more specific, where absolutely nothing was being covered in a layer of swarming insects.
Alec threw the shiv anyway, the attack accompanied by a "Fulmina" from Taylor, which created chains of lightning bouncing between the bugs centered around their invisible target, showing a dark silhouette, now starting to get covered in cockroaches, lying on the ground.
The shiv, he noticed, hadn't drawn blood, even though it'd sunk a few centimetres into the woman's shoulder. Which was either really bad or really good. Sure, this was probably some sort of ancient unseen horror a thousand times more dangerous than a red vampire ever could be, but on the other hand, that just meant it could be a potential ally! You know, if they hadn't just attacked it preemptively.
Trusting his less optimistic side, he leapt to the side of the room, grabbing a pair of… Scissors? Tongues? What where they even called? A pair of connected pinchy things that looked sturdy. He twisted, pulling the torture and/or sexy-time implement apart into two relatively straight pieces of steel. Like relatively dull swords, or sturdy police batons. Taylor had ducked towards the back of her cell, putting solid steel bars between her and an only semi-downed enemy that was now doing an undead Grue impression.
Their enemy, whatever it was, was wearing a black, now semi-scorched, outfit with a veil. Behind it, the skin was pallid and dried, the eyes deep, sunken and filled with cataracts. She, and he was only halfway sure this was a she, looked like an undead cocaine addict. She was slowly standing up as she wove her arms together, creating a black mist that seemed to utterly destroy any of Taylor's bugs that touched it. Like if Grue and Night overcame their differences and had a dead baby together.
"Bad mistake boy, abusing your host like this," she said, spreading the darkness around herself to protect from Taylor's insect armada.
"I was just checking out the larder, you're the one that snuck up on me," he replied, striking out with his power, interrupting the precise moves of the woman's hands as he ran at her.
"Fuego!" Taylor yelled, cockroaches and flies spontaneously turning into fire, too weak to handle the heat, but they burned strong enough that, together with Alec's interruptions, the woman stopped creating darkness and started patting herself out.
Alec leaped over the cloud of darkness, makeshift blades in front of him as he tried to smash them into the woman's decrepit face-area.
She grasped his weapons out of the air, using his lack of leverage in mid-air to throw him across the room, his back smashing into a rack filled with sharp things that punctured his skin.
Could vampires even get tetanus?
"Be careful Alec, it's a black!" Taylor shouted, most of her bugs skittering away from their opponent for some reason, onto walls and ceilings, spreading across the floor.
Going against his natural laziness, Alex stood up again, bolstered by his increased fortitude. Then, he took his impromptu fighting sticks into one hand, and used the other one to check his back for sharp stabby implements. "Don't be a racist dork, the correct term is African-American-Undead!"
"I mean Black Court you idiot!" she replied, and he could see the cockroaches on the walls shifting, forming a variety of religious symbols. Crosses, pentacles, a star of David and whatever the Islamic moon-thing on the Turkish flag was called. Ying and Yang, and some other Asian symbols he didn't recognize. Problem was, all of that shit required faith to work, and from what he knew of her...
"You happen to have a pin-up poster with you?" Alec asked, finding a long knife-like thing lodged in his back, then throwing it at the vampire.
"What? Ventas Servitas!" she replied, wind smashing the clouds of darkness away as Alec Got ready to attack once more, knowing that it couldn't be this easy.
The vampire was looking around, observing the disgusting symbols of faith, but whatever it feared didn't seem to be happening. He wielded his twin sticks, crossed them with a threatening glare just before reaching his enemy, and as she got ready to recoil, dropped one of them, threw his power at her left arm, then smashed the stick into her other hand, hopefully breaking the bones of her fingers.
"Damn you child! You will suffer for this!" it replied, smashing forwards in counterattack. Alec tried to shift, twist her legs from out under her, but she was too fast, and he was too close. A broken palm smashed into his jaw, the other elbow crushed his ribs, then threw him to the ground in a flash of pain.
"Alec!" Taylor yelled, still observing from a distance, like she'd done back at the bank. Very dramatic, almost like she cared about him. Sadly, wouldn't help put his now broken body back together.
"Hush girl, your time will come," the vampire said, dashing closer to him, just barely visible. But this time, he'd been expecting it. The moment she started her superpowered dash towards him, he kicked out with his legs, connecting with what nerves remained in those of the vampire. She stumbled, and Alec dodged out of the way as she fell over, feeling watched again. Just what was it, that looked at him from beyond if a thousand eyes or more?
"Haghwarppp" he stammered, a hand moving towards what remained of his jaw. Fuck, this bitch was dangerous. Hunger and adrenaline kept away most of the hurt for now, but he'd have to eat something eventually to recover his strength, and the only local produce was very much not for feasting.
This wasn't going to work. Not against whoever their enemy was. They'd manage to properly hit her only once, taking her by surprise at the start of the fight, and apart from some cosmetic damage, the vampire witch didn't look worse for wear. And there was the other thing, the disgusting entity watching him, so close he could almost touch it.
He drew on his hunger, his newfound predatory instincts, and then reached for his power again. Would this even work on something that was dead? He gave it a solid maybe.
He quested, not for arms or legs, but some deeper part of the nervous system. His grandfather, he'd been told, was known to be able to kill with a single kiss. The connection he made was—in it's own way—far more intimate than that. A direct link between neural systems, two bodies controlled as if they were one.
He felt the nerves, preserved and dried, still firing electrical impulses, though it was magic controlling them rather than the brain. Additionally, the dessicated remains of the muscles were largely decorative, with most of the strength coming from her innate magical nature. But there was something else…
This woman had been toying with them, even more than he'd thought. Her attention wasn't even on their fight, but on something beyond, something gnawing at the edges of their consciousness. More dangerous to her than to them, but… there was a flavor to it...
"Fulminare!" Taylor shouted again, bugs zapping with electrical energy that was then transferred to her target, lighting up the muscles inside. It was probably not as useful as Taylor hoped it would be. The Black Court vampire didn't really use her body for much of what she did, and deep-frying the nerves would do very little actual damage. It did, however, neatly outline the target for him.
"Kwhakhpable" he shouted, blood spurting out of his mouth as the vampire stood up again, her outfit torn from her slide across the floor. Would she be stupid enough to use that speed of hers again? Probably too much to hope for.
Alec looked around frantically, looking at the failed symbols on the wall, the different torture implements now scattered around the room, the floor where spiders were circling around…
He smiled, then winced from the pain, then smiled again. It wouldn't be enough though, not against whatever they were fighting, unless… He turned to Taylor, pointed at his forehead, then placed the bugs between himself and the raving vampire.
"You, are a very annoying little child," she proclaimed, walking towards him with death in her eyes. For a moment, she started to fade behind some sort of illusion magic, but the multitude of bugs in the room clearly showed her position.
"Pfwhergl," he replied, throwing his remaining fighting stick at the woman. She caught it in mid-air, then stepped forward, dropping all pretense of stealth as she twisted it in her fingers, licking her half-rotten lips. Did vampires eat vampires? Did she want his hot White bod?
"Aparturum," Taylor whispered, tearing a thousand tiny holes between worlds, holes through which eyes watched him, and from which fleshy tentacles appeared, ready to feast on power and essence. He felt it inside of him, clawing at the demons in his mind, but they obviously targeted their enemy first and foremost, the least physical being the best meal.
She didn't go easily though, her mouth sputtering ancient words, hands held in something that resembled a dance as her black mist touched Taylor's portals, shredding the thing on the other side as she closed the tear between realms, fighting off whatever ghost thing had rampaged through the city. It stood no chance, with the Arcane might of an Ancient Black Court Vampire brought against it's invading tendrils.
Black bolts of energy collided with fleshy tendrils, which seemed impervious to the first strike, then folded under the second. Flesh blackening and spraying blood, which turned into a mist of ectoplasm.
The fight allowed him time to nurse his wounds. The broken ribs, his shattered jaw… this was going to hurt once the adrenalin ran out, even to his mind.
Well, nothing to do about that but figure out a way to charm Panacea into helping out.
The vampire continued her chanting, lashing out with a dozen spells at once, completely ignoring the teenage parahuman threat as she contained the contagion, which suited him just fine. It gave him the time he needed to watch, to wait, to aim, and to kick out.
The vampire stumbled as she was about to achieve victory, mummified muscle launching her backwards into a silken semi-circle that was quickly filled completed, a cord brought in by a dozen cockroaches, then the whole thing strengthened with another layer as Taylor send bugs into the weakened portals, closing them off again with a few quick words as the now tired vampire stood silently, observing the situation.
"Glawhrble," Regent said, ignoring the pain as he quested out with his powers.
"My power's working properly again," Taylor said, standing at the front of her cage. "She must've chased it off."
The vampire chuckled, then looked at her. "Do you think our battle went unnoticed, little cockroach? There are a dozen guards coming in as back-up right now."
"We'll figure something out," Taylor said, as Regent reminded himself of who they'd told so far. He'd already figured something out, and his target was perfectly contained.