Chapter Six: Maka
After Soul heads off to bed, she and the others sit in the relative silence of early morning, dozing where they sit, the fire low as Jackie steadily starts to nod off. Maka sits slumped against Harvar's side, the both of them having slipped off the log and onto the ground once the felling of Jackie's cold-ass feet against her thigh became too much. Maka wants to let herself fall asleep, sinks further into Harvar's inviting warmth, but something just...doesn't feel right. She sits up, pushing away the warm unconsciousness tugging at her mind as she rolls to her feet, knees and hips popping loudly from sitting for so long. Harvar places his hand against her thigh, right above her knee, almost in support. She doesn't know if he feels the same...offness she does, but she appreciates it all the same. Sid lifts his head, hackles raising and his lips drawing back from his teeth. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end, every sense she possesses on high-alert and the woods around them fall silent as the grave, the frogs and birds quieting. Jackie wordlessly holds out a hand to the fire and smothers the fire, the crackling of the wood stopping on a dime as her magic washes over it. Blake and Kilik both set their guitars on the grass behind them, rolling to the balls of their feet. It's not that there's anything to hear, only the absence of sound, the distinct lack of anything.
These woods are never quiet.
They all stay frozen like that, almost long enough for Maka to begin to second guess that intrinsic gut-feeling, but the second she entertains the thought, they burst from the treeline. A hoard of vampires-all fairly new, if the scent of fresh death is anything to go by-fall down upon the yard like a wave, their skin blistering in the birthing rays of sunlight, snarling like feral animals. A matching wave breaks through on the opposite side, slightly smaller in numbers though no less savage. Maka's instincts kick into overdrive, and luckily for her, she doesn't need to speak for the others to leap into action. The air fills with the sound of tearing clothes as her pack shifts, one by one, turning to wolves to capitalize on their strength, their power. They were going to need it to survive this. She can't decide if she's glad Soul is inside or not. Unimportant. Intead, she grabs the twins by their shoulders and forces them to look at her, away from their family as they burst forth to meet the rushing tide.
Their eyes are wide and dilated in fear.
"Guys, I need you to listen to me and listen good." The words are rushed, maybe a little jumbled. "I need you two to stay together, no matter what, and-listen to me!" She shakes their shoulders, forces them to look away from the ensuing battle. It's taking everything she has to block out the sound of snapping teeth and bone, the yelps of pain as her pack is hurt. Her skin feels too tight, her bones small, her teeth too flat. The twins need to come first.
Then she can tear the motherfuckers that dare hurt her family limb from limb.
"Get off the property, and go to town."
"But-!" They both try to interject, but Maka shoots them down by tightening her grip on their shoulders, feeling a twinge of remorse as her claws dig into their skin but quickly burying it under the sheer need to keep them alive.
"No fucking buts! I need you two to get the fuck out of here and get somewhere safe. Go to Kim's. If, for whatever reason, you can't…" She takes those precious seconds to consider. Not to Kid's, this could be his doing. Not to any of the lesser, local packs, they could be targets, too. "Go to the embassy." A small, hidden office in the town hall. It's technically unofficial and hidden under the guise of being a filing room, but it's a safe bet. Maybe the only one they have.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously! Now go! Stay together and do not stop, no matter what." She pushes them behind her, almost takes the time to put a literal boot in their ass to make them go, until two vampires break off and launch at her. She catches the both of them by their throats, heaves with all her might to reverse their momentum and slam them into the ground. They snap and snarl, bare their teeth, the whites of their eyes black as disease, as death. There's something familiar about them niggling at the back of her mind. She doesn't have time to wonder at it, their hands clawing at her arms, scoring bleeding lines into her flesh. She snarls, pins one of the clawing arms down with her knee as she bows her head, a brief moment of what would look to be prayer in the battle, for the lost souls tearing her life apart, before she sinks her teeth into a throat, ripping through muscle and vein and sinew.
Blood. Black as ink, viscous and slick like oil sprays across her face. She spits the viscera in the face of the other, gagging at the blood that she'd swallowed. It burns like fire, lines of acid settling in her gut. The former makes an awful gurgling cry, though it doesn't try to get away, only tries to wriggle out of her grasp, still trying to attack her; though it's movements are a little sluggish. The other, with the same black eyes and unmistakable stench of death, screams and draws a knife, plunging it into her thigh. Maka screams through clenched teeth and, unthinkingly, whips the blade from her thigh and buries it to the hilt in the vampire's chest. It shrieks, it's thin, skeletal hands clawing at it's chest before it gives away, crumbling in on itself into a slick mess of penetralia and black goo. She does the same to the other, watches it die before springing to her feet.
The moment she gets to her feet, her right leg barks in pain, but the wound doesn't bleed freely, only oozes slowly. Now that she has a second, she feels the burn of her skin. She reaches down, tears the cut in her jeans wider to get a better look at the wound, and finds the skin surrounding it covered in burns, blisters. Her mind scrambles to comprehend, to understand how...when it hits her. "Wolfsbane." Fuck. Her head snaps up, eyes frantically searching for her pack, judges that some of them-Stein, Marie, Kilik, Jackie-have taken the fight to the woods, others-Blake, Nygus, Harvar-are busy luring their prey to the edge of the pond, tossing them to the roiling waters to let the mermaids have their fun. The rest are scattered around the open yard, locked in battles of their own. "They have wolfsbane!" She hollers, voice echoing, and she knows by the way that some of them turn more defensive in their fighting that they heard her, and that some of them had figured it out, judging by the way some of their limbs hang awkwardly, gone numb with the poison.
She's about to take off, go help the others, when Soul appears at her side. Somehow, night has fully fallen again, she notices belatedly. The barrier. They must've done something to the barrier, to make it safe for these ferals, and to put her pack at a disadvantage. "What's going on?" He sounds breathless, funnily enough, but she can see the panic and fear in the way he holds himself, since he no longer shows the natural, human responses.
"Let me know once you figure it out," she says with a humorless laugh. He doesn't laugh, though. Just stares at her and waits for her instruction, every bit a member of her pack by now. He was family, and she decides, in that moment, that he needs to get far away from here. She doesn't know how she knows, but whatever sent these...things, has something to do with Soul's Maker. "I need you to go find the twins and make sure they get out safe." He opens his mouth, undoubtedly to protest, but he quickly decides against it at the sound of scream that comes from the woods. Maka feels her heart clench painfully; it was Marie. Soul casts her one last lingering look before disappearing into the woods, following the twins' scent trail.
Once he's gone, she's free to do as she sees fit, so she pushes through the tingly, numbing pain in her leg and takes off at a wobbly sprint, stooping low enough to dig her shoulder into one of the feral vampire's gut, using her momentum to throw them forward and into the lake. Of course, it doesn't go down without clawing open the skin of her shoulder, the hot blood rolling down her back and soaking into the band of her pants, but she pays it little mind as it quickly begins to close up. They didn't think to coat their hands in wolfsbane, and she's grateful for their oversight. With Blake's help, Nygus chucks the a dismembered vampire into the water and the mermaids rise greedily to the surface. They hiss their thanks before disappearing with their prize, the water turning a sickly black in their wake. They share a quick look, questions on the tip of their tongues, but fire blooms out of the woods to the west, rising in a bright cloud against the night sky, reflecting off the water. Jackie. To the east, clouds roll in and thunder booms, lighting crackling in clear arcs through the otherwise clear sky. The twins.
"Blake, with me." Nygus and Harvar take off, running to the burning trees. They don't need her to tell them what to do from there. She and Blake turn and sprint into the incoming storm, a light drizzle at the treeline turning to pelting downpour the further in they get. The rain wipes away their trail, makes it hard to hear, and because of it, she doesn't see the feral that comes barreling out of the dark, tackling her into the mud. Blake cusses somewhere above her as the vampire bares its teeth in her face, and she struggles to get enough leverage against it to throw it off. Blake sloshes through the muck, and just as his hands clamp down on the vamp's shoulders, lighting lights up the sky, and through the rain falling in her eyes, Maka can make out the distinct outline of the dumbest hairstyle she's ever seen, before Blake promptly rips the vampire away and tosses him against a nearby tree trunk. She scrambles to her feet, launching herself onto the vamp's chest, pinning his shoulders down with her knees, she frames his face with her hands, pushes his skull into the dirt, ignores how he snaps at her flesh and allows herself to get a good look at him. "Ox? Ox, is that you?" The vampire freezes, only for a moment, long enough to stare at her in deep-rooted confusion, before Blake materializes above his head and promptly plunges a broken branch into his chest.
Maka scrambles back as Ox falls away into nothingness, his remains mixing into the mud. Blake just stares at her in confusion, pushes waterlogged blue hair out of his eyes. "You knew him?"
"Yeah...he's a Hunter." The word drops like a stone between them, heavy and solid, a very specific kind of weight that settles in his gaze. It's then that she realizes why they seemed so familiar. Their clothes are different, but undoubtedly the signature fighting leathers. Is this why they've gone radio silent? "Blake, they're all Hunters."
A dangerous combo. Presumably newborn feral vampires with the knowledge of Hunters? Nevermind how they got past the barrier, they had a whole other problem to deal with first. Maka and Blake take off at a run, the tingling numbness in her leg gone in favor of needle-sharp pains in the very marrow of her bones. Still, she powers though it, and they quickly break into the eye of the storm, where they find Soul in the process of fighting off three ferals on his own, the twins nowhere in sight. Maka and Blake work in tandem to relieve him of two of his attackers, tearing into them with claws and teeth, eyes glowing viciously in the dim light, their hair and clothes soaked and plastered to their skin. Once their prey is adequately dispatched, they turn to find the final feral with Soul pinned to the ground, a dagger with a blade of pure silver piercing each shoulder to keep him down. Soul gags something awful as his attacher forces something down his throat. Blake takes the leg he'd just taken from one of the feral's friends, winds up, and cracks it in the face like a baseball on a tee, it's head snapping back with a crack of it's bone. It slumps back with a strange, gurgled kind of yelp, neck bent at an odd angle. Obviously not permanently dead, but at least subdued enough to not be their problem for a little bit. Maka flops the feral off Soul, and quickly pulls the knives from his shoulders, noting with the horrible burning in her palms that the handles were silver too.
Hunters' knives.
She drops them in the mud, kicks them way with the toe of her boot, and then plunges her hands into the mud to soothe the burn. She jerks her chin at Soul, lying motionless on the ground. "What'd they do to him?"
Blake kneels, works open Soul's jaw to see what damage they might have caused, pulls aside the collar of his shirt to see the wounds on each shoulder. "Liquid silver." He said simply, voice carefully devoid of emotion. Maka can't tell if it's because that's just how he gets in a crisis, or if it's because it's Soul. He and Blake had gotten really close over the past week, and she knows it can't be easy to see him in such a state. "What do we do?"
Maka rises from the mud and the muck, wipes her hands on her jeans. A crack of thunder reminds her-almost impatiently-that she still hasn't found the twins yet. "Can you carry him?" In answer, he stoops and slings him over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. Maka nods. "Good. Take him back to the house, see if the others need help. Go from there." They start off at a jog in different directions, and she calls over her shoulder, "You're in charge until I'm back!"
She doesn't mention that she has the distinct feeling she might not make it back.
Maka's almost to the barrier when she hears her name echo amongst the trees. She stops in her tracks, pine needles slipping beneath her boots. She whips her head around, searching for the source.
"Maka! Help!"
She takes off like a bullet from a gun, thorns tearing at her clothes and skin, sapling branches splitting the skin on her cheeks. A scream rings out, high and clear as a bell. The boom of thunder, the woods whiting out as Thunder brings down an arc of lightning. The smell of burning wood, streaks of black burned into the landscape of the forest from Fire's own fighting. Her throat feels tight, like a hand clamped down, crushing her windpipe. They weren't supposed to have to fight at all.
Maka breaks through the trees into a small clearing, finds her kids surrounded on all sides. Her nervous system whites out, her vision tunneling. She shifts without thinking, comes crashing down on the back of a vampire, sinks her teeth into hit's neck. She tears through one, two, three ferals before something pierces into her flank, and she crashes to the ground with a cry of pain, writhing in the dirt as it forces her out of her shift. An arrow, the head coated in more wolfsbane , sunk deep into her left thigh. Fire blasts a ball of flame at the marksman, but it disappears on the wind, turning to black mist before the projectile could reach it. She hisses a string of expletives through clenched teeth, reaching for the arrow. Her fingers pass through the shaft, and it's strange enough to draw her out of her pain for a moment, just long enough to try again. The same result, turning to the same black mist at her touch, re-solidifying once her hand moves away. Fantastic.
She groans something deep as she rises, caring little for the fact that she was butt-naked and more about the fact that there were still three more vampires and their disappearing friend with the bow. She hobbles into her closest approximation of a run, scooping up one of the ferals' dropped swords, the pommel searing into the palm of her hand, but she doesn't pay it any mind as she slashes it across the back of a vamp hellbent on chasing Thunder; catching it's attention long enough to shove it through it's chest. It squeals and squabbles, pushing itself further down on the blade in it's blind attempt to kill her instead. It falls to viscera at her feet, the blde dripping with it. Maka can't help but wonder what was done to them to make them so wholly disregard their own lives in favor of trying to kill her and her pack.
The thought is quickly cut short, however, as Fire yelps in pain, falling to the forest floor with his arm cradled to his chest. A vampire stands over him, licks the blood from it's blade without flinching at the silver's burn across it's tongue. Before Maka can react, Thunder launches herself onto the vamp's back pressing her palms to the sides of its neck and channeling pure lightning into its body, her body a willing conduit.
When the first arrow enters her body, she doesn't seem to notice.
When the second follows quickly after, she looks up, wide brown eyes meeting Maka's, forcing her to watch the as the pain registers on her face.
Fire and Maka both scream as Thunder releases her hold, falling to the ground with a heavy thump. Fire thrusts both his hands out, roasting the already smoking vampire to nothing but bone, the remaining skeleton falling to the ground with a clatter. Maka falls to her knees ad scrambles through the dirt to Thunder, a sob caught in her throat as she gathers the girl in her arms. Fire approaches slowly, fear in every line of his boy and god they both look so small. She senses something coming, but doesn't make a move to stop it, to consumed in her grief, her fear. Fire, though. Fire blasts it away with nary a look, dropping to his knees before the two of them, hesitantly grabbing his sister's hand, wipes away the blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth as she takes wheezy, gasping breaths. The straight lines of the arrowheads protrude, sharp and true, through her torso, the shafts turned to mist when they come into contact with Maka's thighs beneath her body.
She doesn't realize she's crying until Thunder places a weak, shaky hand on her cheek, wiping away the tears. "Ma," She whispers so, so softly. "It hurts."
Maka pets her hair, wipes the mud from her cheeks, uses the neck of her shirt to clean the blood spatter from her neck. "I know, baby, I know. But you're gonna be okay, 'kay? You'll be fine, don't worry, we've got you." She knows she rambling now, knows that Thunder isn't dumb. Fire doesn't believe her either, she can tell by the look he keeps casting her way, but he doesn't say anything, just holds her hand that much tighter. Maka's racking her brain, desperately trying to find a way to get her back to the house, a way to fix this, to save her, but every breath comes slower and slower and she won't stop coughing up blood and she doesn't know what to do and-the archer.
The thought hits her just as it reappears dead ahead, aim set at the back of Fire's head and she can't lose them both, the idea consumes her so fully that whatever wavering strength she might have left floods her system, and she somehow manages to flip their positions, finds herself still crouched in the dirt, yes, but now bowed over Thunder and Fire both, pulling them to her chest as the archer releases his arrow, fires shot after shot into Maka's back.
Her ears ring, and she commends herself for not screaming. At least, she doesn't think she does, but there's so much going on she's overloaded, only able to focus on protecting her kids, in whatever capacity she can manage.
Somehow, she finds the strength to raise her head, meet Fire's wide, horrified gaze. Watches as flames, no, a roaring inferno, bigger than anything he's ever conjured before, blazes to life around them, reflecting in his eyes. It burns and roars and eats away the foliage around them, and she doesn't look, doesn't watch, but she assumes that he's turned the archer to ash when he finally lets the fire die.
"Is he…?" Thunder whispers, soft as cotton. So, so quiet.
Fire grips her hand, leans down so they're almost nose-to-nose. "He's dead. They're all dead. You're safe, you're safe, you're safe." She smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners, sears the memory of her smile into their minds. Fire smooths flyaway hairs out of her eyes, smooths her eyebrows, strokes his thumb across her forehead. She's Maka's baby, as close to a daughter as she ever could've wanted, but she was Fire's sister. His better half, the morning to his evening, the one person he'd been with his entire life and now she was...she was…
The storm in the distance disappears, fading out without a trace.
Maka awakes from an endless black lying on her stomach, every inch of her skin alive in agony.
The pain of her body doesn't compare with the memory of Thunder, weak and pale and cold, lying in her arms as the life left her eyes.
Maka weeps. Weeps for her almost-daughter. Weeps for Fire. Weeps for herself, in the darkness and the privacy of her own room. She deserves that much. She deserves to acknowledge her pain.
Eventually, someone comes into her room, sits on the edge of her bed. Pets her hair, checks her wounds.
They leave, whoever they were, once it becomes clear she wasn't going to be okay any time soon.
None of them were going to be okay any time soon.