Title: Astaroth Makes His Deal
Premise: Rosario + Vampire, Catherine, and World of Warcraft. Astaroth makes a deal with Moka over Tskune's life. Parody of another one of my favorite scenes from Disney's Hercules.
Personal Notes: I've been wanting to do a scene like this with Astaroth for a long time now, mostly because his personality is based a lot on Hades. Now, if you didn't know, he's a major villain in my story, Every Man's Dream and Nightmare, which is a Naruto story. I thought of doing this scene with Naruto, and Astaroth uses one of the many girls he likes.
And then I started watching Rosario Vampire, and thought about doing this with Moka and Tskune. It seemed like a nice drabble, so I went with it. I might do another drabble at some point with Naruto. I don't know. Right now, I've got this one.
Moka lay down on a bench in the now deserted Yokai Academy weight room. Using her vampire strength, she had bench-pressed eighty pounds for about twenty-six reps. She was trying to hit thirty.
Twenty-seven... twenty-eight... twenty-nine... thirty!
After that last rep, she finally pushed the barbell up onto the stand again, and sat up. She wiped some sweat from her white hair and forehead, and rubbed her sore biceps.
"Nice job," A snarky voice suddenly said, catching her off-guard. She turned and faced a creepy-looking goblin-like creature wearing a grey cloak, lying on the set of uneven parallel bars. He had buff-looking arms, sharp teeth, orange-glowing eyes, and white hair. "You ask me, you ought to practice some with the shake weight, huh?"
Moka looked unamused by this creature's joke. He suddenly swung up around and lept all the way to beside the bench.
"Whattup?" He smirked. "Name's Astaroth, mixed fiend, spawn of Zedonius. Hi, how ya doing?" He held out one of his, massive grizzly-looking hands to her, as if she would touch such a thing. She just looked even more disgusted at him.
"What do you want?" she grunted bitterly, trying to show her annoyance. She stood up from the bench.
"Hey-hey," he continued to blabber. He suddenly jumped over and seemed to be floating in the air, lying down as though he were on a lawn chair. "No need to be hostile. I only need a few seconds, and I'm a fast talker." He seemed to ramble on when he spoke, never taking a break. He really was a fast talker. "So I got this deal going on... a-um-sale going on, if you will. And Moka, sweetheart," he gave her a pat on the head. "You just seem to be getting in the way. I know ya don't mean to but-"
"You got the wrong girl." Moka started to walk away.
"Hear me out you little-!" Astaroth hissed as he grabbed Moka by the collar, but he quickly corrected himself and straighted out her sweaty tank-top. "Come on, just... hear me out, 'kay?" He put his arm around her. She wanted to pound in his ugly face so badly for touching her. It took nearly every muscle in her body to resist doing so.
"So I would be eternally grateful if you would just... take a day off from this heroic vampire business. Jeez I mean come on! Fighting monsters, having to save people? Just slow down, take a break, ya know?"
Shaking off his arm, Moka continued to walk away toward the door. "You're out of your mind," She muttered.
"Not so fast," Astaroth continued, grabbing her shoulders again. "Ya see I do have a little leverage that you... might want to know about."
He snapped his fingers, and Tskune suddenly appeared behind him.
"Tskune!" Moka gasped.
"No! Moka don't list-" Before he could finish his sentance, some red-hot chains suddenly appeared and coiled up around him, covering his mouth and tripping him.
Moka ran towards him before she heard Astaroth snap again behind her. Just before she reached him, Tskune disappeared in a small burst of flames. She turned and glared again the the fiend, who continued to smile, this time more menacingly.
"So, now are you listening?" He asked tauntingly. His smile made her sick.
"Let him go!" Moka demanded as she charged at the creature and tried to tackle him. He was faster though, and side-stepped out of the way, making her tumble forward and roll along the floor.
"Alright, here's the tradeoff:" He continued as she got to her feet. "You give up your vampire abilities for about twenty-four hours- say the next twenty-four hours." He snapped again, and Tskune, still in his chains, appeared on one of the benches.
"You do that, and your little boyfriend over there is free as a bird, safe from harm, we have a drink, we dance, kiss, screw around, then we carry-on and go home happy. Whaddaya say? C'mon."
Moka thought about it for a moment. She did not want Tskune to get hurt, or be left alone with this creep. But if he wanted her to give up her vampire powers, it must not have been for good.
"People are going to die within that time-span, aren't they?" She asked.
"Nah!" Astaroth blurted out. "Well- ya know. There's a chance. I mean lots of accidents, there's a bunch of little wars going on..."
Moka continued to glare at him. She knew he was planning something, and she wanted to know what.
"But I mean come on, what do you care? What do ya owe these people?"
He slinked up beside Tskune and grabbed his cheeks. "Isn't Tskune- your little bloody honey bunny- isn't he more important than they are?
"Stop it!"
"Isn't he?"
Moka took a breath and flared her nostrils, trying to show that she was being serious.
"You have to swear to me that he'll be safe from any harm!" She said sternly.
"Yeah. Sure. Fine. I give ya that one," Astaroth answered, rolling his eyes and patting Tskune on the head. Then he started walking back towards her. "Tskune's safe. If anything happens to him, you'll get your powers right back, deal's off, lotta-yadda, that's it. We're done. So how about we shake on it?"
He held out his grey-reptilian hand to her again. She crossed her arms and glared at it for a second, still trying to make up her mind. What was going to happen without her around? What was his plan? Could she trust him to let Tskune go?
"Okay, look-like I really don't have- like- time to back this around," Astaroth spoke up again, urgency in his voice and eyes. "I'm kinda on a schedule here. Got big plans for today- I need an answer now! Going once..."
Moka looked back at Tskune. He shook his head, but she could see the fear in his eyes. She knew she would not be able to forgive herself if anything happened to him.
"Going twice..."
"Alright!" She announced, and held out her hand for him.
"YES! WE'RE IN BUSINESS!" Astaroth exclaimed with glee as he grasped Moka's hand in a firm grip. As soon as they touched, blue fire swirled around their hands.
Moka felt some kind of warmth travel up along her arm, and then spread all throughout her body. And then she suddenly felt weaker, lighter. She could feel her vampire blood being sucked out of her. She felt her fangs shrinking, along with her breast and bosom.
Her grip on Astaroth's hand loosened, but he still held her tight. She collapsed to her knees, unable to stand any longer. She felt as though she had just hiked up a tall mountain with no rest.
And suddenly, she felt something itching at her neck, just above her breast bone, but had no idea what it was.
Tskune watched in horror as his beloved's power was drained from her in the heat of the blue flame. Her hair was turning from white to pink, as he had seen in the 'other Moka' created by the Rosary.
At last, Astaroth released Moka's hand, and she fell back, panting heavily. She tried to push herself to her feet. She was dizzy, unbalanced, as though she had been spinning around aimlessly for ten minutes. Her vision was disoriented. The entire world seemed to wobble. It was quickly wearing away though.
"You might feel just a little queasy," Astaroth murmured. "It's kind of natural. Here why don't you... sit DOWN!"
About to turn in the direction of his voice, Moka suddenly saw the barbell she was pressing earlier come flying toward her. Trying to catch it, the handle rammed her in the stomach. She fell back and landed flat on her back.
She tried to push up against it, but it was too heavy all of a sudden. It was proof that her vampire strength was gone.
"Well, this is how it feels to be a whimpy little human," Astaroth mused as he walked over and leaned down over Moka. "Whaddaya think?"
Before Moka could open her mouth to answer, he spoke up again. "Oh, wait! Heh-he! You'll love this, one more thing."
He walked over to Tskune. "Hey, Tskune, buddy," He smiled. "A deal's a deal. You're off the hook!" He snapped, and the chains holding Tskune down disappeared.
"Moka!" Tskune exclaimed when his mouth was free. "Are you okay?"
Moka crawled out from under the barbell, and managed to get to her feet. Her dizziness had worn off mostly by now after that blow, but she was still adjusting to standing without any vampire blood.
Her breastbone was still itchy, so she reached up and felt it. Her fingers brushed something smooth and metal. A familiar feel. She finally recognized it: a Rosary! She tried to look at it, and noticed a fait orange glow, rather than a red one like her old one had.
Her fingers also brushed a leathery-feeling on the rim of the Rosary. She scratched at it, and her finger slipped and poked at her skin. They were threads! the Rosario was stitched into her skin!
"Hey, by the way, Mok," Astaroth spoke on, bringing her out of her thoughts. "Isn't Tskune here an awesome little actor?"
"Hey, let me go!" Tskune's voice grunted.
Moka faced them and saw that Astaroth had his arm wrapped around Tskune's shoulders.
Wait, 'Actor'?
"What do you mean, 'actor'?" Moka asked.
"I mean your 'man' here has been working for me, all the time. Duh!"
Moka felt her world shatter with those words. "Tskune? Working for you?" she repeated.
"Yep." Astaroth smiled. Tskune looked between him and her, eyes wide with horror.
"N-No! Tskune would never do that! You're lying!" Moka snapped.
Astaroth rolled his eyes. "Okay, yeah. I'm lying. You caught me."
Moka's mouth hit the floor. She swore she could of fainted. What the Hell was wrong with this guy?
And with that, Astaroth suddenly burst out laughing like a maniac. Tskune ran to Moka's side.
"Oh-yo-you-you actually believed me! WOHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Astaroth fell to the floor and started pounding it with his fist. "You-you sh-sh-should have seen your face!"
Moka and Tskune just washed in sheer confusion at the cackling fiend. This was the guy who tricked Moka out of her powers?
And then a new laugh suddenly entered the commotion. They both turned to see the source sitting in one of the lower-body training machines. It was a little grey imp, surrounded in green flames.
"Ha-ha!" The imp smirked. "You just got trolled! That's classic Astaroth for ya!"
"Hey buddy!" A high-pitched voice suddenly barked. The brown fact-bat, Ko, swooped into the room and hovered over the imp. He did not look happy. "I'm suppose to be the annoying, squeaky-voiced, shrimp-sized comedy relief narrator around here!"
"Eh, buzz off!" the imp snorted. He formed a fireball in his hand, and shot it at the bat.
"YEEOOWW!" The bat screamed. "That smarts!" He fluttered away toward the window before the imp could shoot him again. "Okay! The stage is yours! Just don't hit me again! I'm gonna be sore for a month!"
Tskune finally turned back to Moka and took her hands in his.
"Moka," he pleaded. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen."
Moka said nothing. She pulled her hands away. She could not even look him in the eye. She did not know what to say. Of course Tskune did not mean for this to happen. He never would have. And she hated seeing him like this, making him feel guilty.
But every corner of her vampire mind screamed that this was his fault. If he had not been a weak, pitiful human, he would not have gotten captured, and she would not have had to save him.
"Well," Astaroth spoke up again, finally calmed down from his hysterical fit, "gotta fly. There's a whole cosmos up there waiting for me... with hey, my name on it!"
He snapped, and a winged hellhoud suddenly appeared in a cloud of flames. It snarled and foamed formed from its jaws. Fire was in its mouth. A saddle was on its back, which Astaroth mounted.
"Come on, Quiztai!" Astaroth called over to the imp.
"Coming, sir." The imp hopped down from the equipment, and skipped on over to the hellhound, jumping up onto the back behind Astaroth.
As he did, the hound barked, and charged off toward the window. It crashed through, and soared off into the sunset.