Haha, I just realized I haven't updated in November. I'm so sorry… XD But I'm getting a bit side-tracked from this story with other things I want to write for the ending (I'm already thinking in the end of the story without resolving the war first, yay, go me!!), and other stuff since I'm working with my mum in some business that keeps my mind in other things but the story. ; ; Chapter 35 will be come late if this keeps it up…
Anyway, thanks to Valecha and Zohaku for their reviews, you guys made me remember I didn't upload anything in the last month! So here you have chapter 34 without anymore delays.
34
Kay dragged Ernest to a safer spot, behind another crumbled building. He ripped his own yellow uniform and tied it around the tanned man's right arm. It was a bad idea to come out of the blue like that. The energy from their weapons was out a few seconds after they left Dumas to talk with Perrault. Upon the realization, Ernest and Kay looked at each other before fighting with their fists. It was also a bad idea. Several bullets reached them, burning their skin with third degree burns, but none of them really felt them due to the high levels of adrenalin rushing in their bodies.
They weren't the only ones that were running out of energy too. The north gunslingers were out of it, most of them, so it was actually two against twenty with only bare hands. Kay found it lightly fun since he hadn't fought that way in years, but Ernest was an amateur and got damaged very easily. If it wasn't for his Dragoon, he would be dead by now for how much blood he lost from his wounds. Lucky to them, Dumas returned after two minutes and managed to kill the gunslingers that were treating them. Then, he left the fight in search for his partner and to see how actually everything was going.
Kay didn't have to guess to know how things were. He knew that they were this close to give up and throw the towel, and that thinking made him extremely angry. He turned to Ernest when he moaned in pain, and shushed him with soft words as he petted his shoulder. Kay had to admit that, after that moment of weakness Ernest had, he found new strength to carry on. The memory of him, Ernest, Sartana and Trinity running like crazy kamikazes towards the enemy made Kay give everything of him, to protect his home and the people he cared about. The years he lived in the streets told him so many things... When he still was in his canid family, he had all what he wished when he was a brat and, when his father forbids him to enter his home again, Kay saw what poor people looked alike, what they had to do to survive. It was a cruel world, even crueler than his, and he had to adapt to it if he wanted to live for the next day.
He wanted to win so, even the poor, had somewhere to live, even if it was in the streets. Because after all, streets weren't that bad like most people thinks.
"What's that...?", asked Ernest in a horsed voice. He had a nice, black right eye and several other cuts and bruises in his body.
"What's what?", said Kay.
"That noise..."
Kay grunted but shut up and perked his ears upwards, moving them around, hearing a faint screeching noise coming to Acuna. But that was not all...
"No fucking way...", he whispered, his eyes wide open.
Neschume grinned as he, with the needle in his hand, watched how Lucian was slowly giving up his body to Vanargandr, the Beast of Destruction. Just by watching Neschume knew Lucian was in lot of pain; the muscles were twitching constantly, his wide eyes were watering already, his teeth were clenched so hard the noble thought he would either bit his tongue off or break a few of his teeth. The casket armor started to melt away from Lucian's body, leaving his pale skin shining under the starry sky. But as the armor melted away, his bones underneath started to move, piercing the skin but not making it bleed.
Lucian screamed in pain when his clavicles ripped the skin and appeared above it, clean and white, not sign of blood at all. The vampire panted hard, but Vanargandr didn't leave him time to recover as his arms started to ache like hell. He bit his bottom lip, as he watched how his fingers started to lose their skin. Lucian screamed again when the only thing he saw was his bones, his white bones morphing into deadly, long and sharp claws. His skin and muscle disappeared some centimeters below his elbows. He wasn't bleeding at all, and that was Vanargandr's doing. The power of the beast was transforming Lucian's vampire body into something more fitting to the beast. The next thing he knew was that his legs were undergoing the same process as his arms. His feet, once the bone exposed, they turned into claws too. Said claws dug into the floor beneath as his ribs started to pierce the skin from his torso.
"It hurts so much...", whispered Lucian to no one in particular as he cried rivers of tears.
Neschume laughed when he heard him whine like that.
"Oh please, are you going to tell me you aren't at least enjoying it?", he asked as he played with the needle in his fingers. "You wouldn't call yourself a truly masochist if you weren't feeling pleasure with this."
But Lucian only moaned in pain again.
From his lower back the long and bony tail shot forwards, this time longer, with a blade shaped like a scythe, big and deadly. Some of his hip bones ripped the skin there too, but only lightly. Two bony wings shot from his back, but they weren't like normal wings, they actually were Vanargandr's hands with membranes between the skull fingers. The casket armor melted completely now except for a crotch armor that covered him down there, completely made of bone too.
A single, red eye appeared in his forehead, excitedly looking around. Lucian screamed again when some weird and black runes appeared on his skin as his eyes started to close against his will.
"Please....", Neschume heard Lucian whisper. "Don't hurt him....", pleaded Lucian. Neschume heard a low growl coming from the vampire's throat in response. "I'm begging you! I beg you not to harm him....Ugh!", cried in pain as his eyes were almost closed. A second growl was heard, but this time it was softer, almost like a purr. Lucian smiled, sighing, closing his eyes. "Thank you."
Neschume wasn't sure what happened in reality, since he didn't know if those growls were from Lucian or Vanargandr answering to Lucian's pleads.
He only knew several things from that exact moment the beast got control of his host's body.
One, that the bony tail almost killed him if he hadn't move from his spot; two, he got attacked from behind by the enemy and the sudden surprise made him drop the needle which Nero, in his beast form, took in his mouth as he flew away at high speed and three, he saw from the tip of his eye a group of Lizardmen being ridded by canid like creatures. All of this happened at almost the same time, and Neschume in between had a few seconds to escape from the first blow from the new enemy.
He ignored them as he caught a glimpse of Nero's Dark Matter and followed him, leaving Lucian behind as he chased the Dark Terrennial to gather the needle back. He actually needed if he wanted to easily control Vanargandr, yet he didn't really care what the young vampire did with Acuna or the planet. If with his rampage killed every single human and other life form, Neschume would be more than happy. But right now he had to stay alive or he wouldn't be able to see that fantastic future.
Vanargandr turned around, feeling the resistance of Lucian's will when he did so thanks to the collar, but with a few shocks to that will he gained control over the body again. With a bit of struggle, he managed to take the collar off and drop it aside. He grinned, watching how the group of Lizardmen was now surrounding him. He moved the wings a little, receiving a nervous answer from the monsters, which agitated their tails and growled under their breath. Their riders were the same race as Kay; all of them had canid features but with a human shaped body. There was one with a scar over his left eye, which was missing, and Vanargandr immediately knew it was the leader. He turned around to see him and dedicated him a grin as his tail played dangerously in the air.
The leader of that group was very tall and his fur was a dark brown color with husky and Sheppard traits. He had a lighter belly fur and his ears were straight up, also scarred and bitten. His sharp eye was a dark brown color too and, in closer looks, the vampire noticed more scars marking his body, meaning he had been a warrior for quiet a long time. He had simple clothing but an armor that seemed to be rough and strong. He also had belts on his chest, but Vanargandr couldn't tell what type of weapons the canid had.
The hands of the leader grasped tight the leashes of the beast and tugged them softly. The Lizardman growled again, whipping its tail violently. The rest did the same, and Vanargandr already felt them prepare to attack. His wings twitched, crackling the knuckles before roaring and dodging the first tackle of a Lizardman at his right. He received more attacks from the spiked balls they used and one of them hit him on his left wing, which reacted instinctively with a hard hit when the Lizardman got too close to him. Vanargandr swung his tail and trapped with it the chains attached to the spike balls of several Lizarmen, pulling and making them fall along with their riders.
Vanargandr roared and launched to them, killing the beasts while he received the solar bullets and daggers from their riders that managed to jump away before the attack. The Beast growled and moved swiftly, following those who managed to escape, with his claws high in the air, Vanargandr grabbed the nearest one and sank his fangs on the thick neck, pouring rivers of blood that soaked his almost naked form and formed crimson pools beneath him. He opened his mouth and let the body fall on the floor as he launched towards the group in front of him, while the other half came from behind, swinging their spiked balls to him.
The hit of those heavy balls was very painful, and Vanargandr groaned in pain when two of them hit his back, scratching the skin and making it bleed. Though it wasn't a severe wound, it ached and that annoyed the Beast. He spun around and hit the floor with his bony hands, creating a massive shake that obliged the Lizarmen to stop all their actions, while their riders became lightly dizzy because of the shock waves.
In the space of time that Vanargandr had before the beasts and their riders recovered, he managed to slaughter most of them with his bone tail, moving it like a whip and snapping in halves the canids that were fighting against him, barely moving from where he was standing. The only ones that were 'lucky' to get unhurt were the ones out of the tail's reach. Vanargandr felt a certain energy running under the floor of Acuna and that got him more interested that his current enemies, the ones he abandoned when he flew away from the fight.
The leader, who was still a bit off from the shock waves, gave a deep sigh and perked his ears. The beast sighed with him.
"Did you find them?", asked as he turned around when another member of his group just dashed in with her beast. She was rather short, human, around the age of eighteen, with white skin and a funny dark pink hair and lighter pink eyes. She was wearing a simple pair of pants with rough boots and an orange hooded jacket with a black pattern in the shape of a question mark. On her right arm, even so, there was a strange artifact with glowing runes that seemed to be a metal gauntlet with some sort of magic.
"I'm having a bad time with connections lately, Gunda.", explained. "I can't seem to see them in the map, nor sense their presence."
"Do you think we arrived late?", asked Gunda.
"No, we have time, but it seem that some issues had happened that I weren't able to see.", a bipping interrupted her and she lifted a small device with the current map with several blinking dots on it. "Oh, hey! It's working! It's picking up the presence of one of out targets, according to Alice.", then, she frowned. "And it belongs to Lucian… Did he come here by any chance?"
Gunda perked his ears again and hummed.
"Not really, but we did fight against a strange creature with dark powers, but I doubt it was him."
"Augh, damn, sometimes I hate grandma's strange inventions."
"Hoshii, go with your group and find Kay as fast as you can.", told the canid to the girl as he pulled the leash on his beast. "I will go with the ones that I still have all over Acuna and find the gunslingers."
"Alrighty~!!", answered in a cheerful tone Hoshii as she put away the map device. "Where should we meet later?"
"Send me a message when you found Kay and the others. I will try to get to you as fast as I can.", ordered before walking away with the few that survived to Vanargandr's play.
Said Beast was now near the frontier with the immense desert just a few kilometers away from Acuna. He had picked up a lot of energies coming from underground, and that intrigued him. That part of Acuna was still intact, as no gunslinger or vampire had come over there yet to fight, so Vanargandr had plenty of space and possibly time to work there. Chuckling under his breath, he crouched down and petted the stoned floor with his bony hands. There were souls beneath, all of them agitated and scared. And they all belonged to humans. Vanargandr hummed, his tail swinging softly in the air, thinking. Those humans were probably the ones that helped Oyan in taking over Acuna, and something inside Vanargandr twitched in anger. That was probably Lucian cursing them…
The Beast smiled and put his hands over the floor, growling in pain when his wings ripped apart from his body, growing bigger and transforming back again to bony claws, the very ones that belongs to Vanargandr. The injuries on the back stopped bleeding in seconds, as he stood up and moved his fingers, seeing how the now floating hands did the same. Snapping his knuckles, Vanargandr walked back a few steps before moving his arms and hands on the air, preparing to attack with the floating ones. He crouched down again and, with his left hand, he moved the left hand and smashed it on the stoned floor, opening a huge hole, revealing an underground path. The floating hand shot upwards and returned to its place next to Vanargandr as he moved closer. He could feel Lucian's expectation within his mind, like if he really wanted to kill the humans that made everything more difficult to them.
"Well…", he whispered as he stood on the edge of the hole. "Such a loot, eh?"
The sight before him was promising; he had numerous humans hiding from the war, like his group did back in the Vambery, using the old tunnels under Acuna, the ones that were used once for escaping from the war eleven years ago. Vanargandr's hands shivered in anticipation. He couldn't kill them all in a single hit, so he would need a bit of help.
He crouched once more and put his hands on the edge of the hole, ignoring the terrified looks he was getting from the humans that were panicking and already trying to see a way out. Most of them had fled upon his sight, but it wouldn't matter at all, since Vanargandr would most likely find them. He opened his mouth and a strange purple mist came from it, growing in seconds and covering the entire surface of the hole before disappearing.
The walls started to melt, having a liquid feeling when the humans noticed it after the mist disappeared from sight. In matter of instants, strings from them came out and morphed into strange skull demons with long tongues, completely purple and with crazy, spiral eyes. They were the most frightening thing the humans ever saw, and they were coming out from the walls and the floor equally, covering the whole place.
Most humans tried to fight them back, but since they were made of mist they couldn't harm them, yet the most scary thing was that the oozes weren't killing them like they had thought they would; no, those oozes didn't bite their head off or snap them in half with their mouths, nor they pierced their bodies with their drooling tongues. What they did with those same tongues was something more frightening; they were stealing their souls to feed from the spiritual energy, energy that went directly to Vanargandr to increase his power the more souls his oozes ate. The humans didn't suffer at all, they would lose their senses slowly and in an instant, they would be dead. And there were enough oozes to bring all the humans down and increase his power pretty much.
"One problem down…", mumbled Vanargandr to himself as his single eye roamed around. He felt Lucian's eyelids move and try to open, but the Beast lashed out his energy and kept him under control. "Now… where would be the gunslingers?", he said to himself as a new pair of bony wings shot from his back. He opened them and took flight, followed by his floating hands very closely. The humans weren't done, but his oozes would take care of that.
Over the skies, he was able to easily find his target, yet he got interested into what Aaron was doing in the war when he was strictly told to stay in the Vambery. He felt Lucian twitch once more inside his mind and Vanargandr grinned. Maybe he could pay a visit to his master's master.
Aaron was unaware that Lucian lost his body to the Beast of Destruction. No one really knew about it as they were too busy fighting with Neschume's vampires and trying to stay alive from their vicious fights. Toasty was at the boy's side always and that annoyed Aaron a bit, since he couldn't really work at his full potential. Lobreta and Hër were doing a good job at fighting against five vampires at the same time while Erza had disappeared after a group of vampires that were being leaded by Neschume's brother, Frayn. Edgar and Virginia were having their own fun, but Aaron hadn't gotten news about Dyango, Nidhoggr and Ernest, and he was starting to worry about them. But that wasn't really what concerned Aaron. A while ago he started to feel a small oppression in his chest, but he ignored it as it wasn't that annoying. Now, it was growing bit by bit, and he didn't know if he could keep on with that sudden growing pain in his chest.
He hadn't seen Oyan anywhere, and the werewolves already left that section of Acuna and didn't know where they were. Nish and Dumas were nowhere to be seen either, so he didn't know if they were ok too. There were several fights going at the same time but all of them were incommunicated since the only one that had access to Alice was Lucian and his pink phone, but Lucian wasn't there to know and tell the rest what was going on, so Aaron had to work like a blind would cross the street.
"Fuck!!", he cursed when the Witch run out of energy to fire the missiles. So instead, he hit the head of the vampire that was chasing him with the weapon and broke his skull with the intense impact of the metal. He took out the Bomber and shot a grenade towards Lobreta, who jumped away just in time as the bomb exploded and burnt the skin and flesh of the vampires fighting with her. The vampire girl smiled at the boy as she returned to the battle.
There weren't many vampires now, but those few were very strong and hard to kill. And Aaron couldn't take anymore pain from his chest now. It ached greatly, and none of the opened injuries he had were that painful. He moaned in pain and let the enemy hit him on his stomach before falling on the ground, unable to breathe at all.
He felt a hard kick on his ribs, and a soft crack. At last two or three of his ribs were broken by the hit, and he hoped that his lungs were alright. He knew that the broken ribs could pierce his lungs and make it even harder to breathe. Aaron tightened his hands on the Bomber and put the barrel on the vampire's stomach before firing. The grenade exploded and threw the boy a few feet away from the now dead vampire, but his body refused to stand up. His legs hurt now and his arms couldn't lift both guns anymore.
He panted hard, noticing strange lines running all over his arms, until he noticed with surprise that it was nothing else but his own veins getting darker and bluish. He gripped his teeth at the sudden pain in them and moaned.
"What's with your arms?", asked Hër when he noticed that Aaron wasn't moving.
"You tell me… uhg…", he moaned again, grasping both of his arms with his hands and pressing on them. "They fucking hurt…"
Hër took his left arm and examined it carefully.
"Are you releasing your Dark Matter?", asked.
"No, why?", answered the boy, clueless.
"What you are seeing is the Dark Matter running in your veins, which is strange. Normally, being you a vampire's mate, shouldn't have this, unless something happened to your mate."
The last sentence make Aaron's stomach shrink.
"If something happened to Lucian, then he is unable to control the Dark Matter in your body, preventing it from taking over you. In other words, if we can't control it soon, then there is a chance for you to become either a vampire or a ghoul.", continued Hër, dropping the boy's arm after examining it.
"Then I am the one who does things without thinking!!", screamed the boy, getting up violently even when his body protested. "I swear when I find him I will fucking kill him!!"
Hër smiled and laughed under his breath as he helped the boy out. Toasty returned to Aaron's side and recharged the Witch with his solar energy before getting into the fight again. Stoker's Casket Armour was severely damaged but still running and fighting. One of the pincers was nearly to fall over but, surprisingly, could still move. Edgar's and Virginia's armours were in same shape as Stoker's, but their limbs were alright. Lobreta had started fighting besides Alexander and both of them were doing a great job at it. But Frayn and his vampires were still on their feet, still fighting and being a pain. Being nobles and high ranked creatures, their strength and powers were superior to normal vampires like Edgard, Virginia, Lobreta and Hër, who barely could keep up with them working in teams. Even Toasty, having a high advantage to them, had troubles when fighting.
"What the fuck is that?!", the group heard someone scream.
Frayn, who was a bit shorter than his brother Neschume and with longer, black hair, turned around to lock his eyes in a transparent figure that came from the floor. Three of his vampires split from the main group and went to investigate, but Frayn recognized the misty figures that rose from the floor. So did Toasty when he stopped fighting when Frayn and his group did.
With a sigh of relief Edgar and Virginia stopped too, hearing Ezra stop his actions too when more of those strange and transparently creatures rose from the floor and stared at the vampire group, moving their long and drooling tongues around their fangs.
"They're oozes…", whispered Toasty, putting a hand on Aaron's shoulder and tightening it.
"Shit, not so hard…", complained the boy. "And what are oozes?", asked when he saw Toasty pale.
"Run.", was the single order Toasty gave them before he obliged Aaron to turn around and drag him away from the fight. "Fuck, run!!", screamed as he grabbed Alexander's hair and dragged him too.
"FUCK TOASTY!!", yelled the Wind Terrennial before he slapped the man's hand off his hair. Lobreta and Hër followed them, hearing the mechanical steps of the Casket Armors behind them. "What's the matter?!"
"Those things are going to kill us if we don't run!", yelled the Light Terrennial, turning around to see the group of vampires chasing them when they noticed their runaway.
"Can we just use Aaron's solar weapons to defeat them?", said Virginia. "After all, they are made of Dark Matter."
"No, they aren't.", answered Toasty. "And those aren't normal… creatures."
They were stopped when three of the oozes came from the floor just in front of them, wiggling their tongues out and doing weird noises with their mouth. Toasty cursed outloud and put himself before the boy, and Alexander and Ezra got the back where the vampire group was standing, equally surrounded by oozes like them.
"But they are created somehow, aren't they? Then if we just find out who's the vampire doing this, we can stop them.", said Alexander.
"It's not that easy…", said Toasty noticing how one of the oozes was getting closer to them. "This is not the work of a vampire, at all.", he answered. "The oozes, especially these ones, are made only by Vanargandr."
"Wait, what? The Beast?", exclaimed Ezra from inside the Casket Armor. "But isn't the Beast fused with Lucian?"
Then Hër was right with what he said about something happening to Lucian, thought Aaron. The boy rubbed his arms as they started to ache again, though he was more concerned by the ooze that was now millimetres away from Toasty. Behind them, the vampires were using their Dark Matter and elemental powers and weapons but nothing seem to hurt those misty figures, and they couldn't do much when they opened their mouths and launched at them.
The screams of the vampires made Aaron body shiver in fear, and the ooze in front of Toasty growled as his tongue pushed the Terrennial away with such force that wasn't logical for a ghostly creature like it. The same tongue ghosted over Aaron's face, which paled in fear, before launching to the others behind him.
Alexander gripped his teeth as he stopped the ooze's attack with his katana, filled with the Wind's power. But soon the weapon didn't do anything to the ghostly figure and had to dodge it to not end up like soulless bodies like the vampires behind them. The rest of the oozes followed the first one into the fight.
Toasty returned to Aaron's side and noticed the trembling he had, but it didn't surprise him at all. After all, the oozes feed up first on the human's emotion before feeding from the soul. He hugged the boy tightly, trying to easy his fear, but it didn't do much as Aaron jumped away from Toasty. The Terrennial sighed and was about to reach out again when two bony hands interposed between him and the boy. The oozes shivered and turned around before disappearing into the floor as the hands cracked and surrounded Aaron. Toasty stepped forward with the intention to retrieve Aaron but one of them left the boy's side to hit him and send him flying away.
"Always getting in the way…", Aaron's ears stood up upon the deep voice and, for the first time, noticed the freaking looking bony hands.
Frayn swallowed hard when he saw the bony appearance of Lucian, still with his younger body, appear in the skies and land next to the boy, swinging his tail around him carefully. It seemed that his older brother was having some troubles keeping the Beast under control and was wondering where and what Neschume was doing now. Frayn didn't know really what to do, seeing that his brother told him that he would do the entire job with Lucian and that he should fight the local gunslingers. He noticed that, finally, Stoker's Casket Armor fell into pieces after having a hard way with the oozes before they left.
"Where's the other kid?", asked as he roamed around with his single eye, not finding Dyango like he would expect. After all, the blonde man should have sensed him come. Vanargandr moved his hands and encircled the boy with them. "Where's my master's sibling?"
"Somewhere… fighting…", shyly answered Aaron, still hugging himself.
"Get away from him, Vanargandr!!", shouted Toasty afterwards, once he recovered from the hit, launching to him several glowing talismans from his hands.
The oozes blocked the Terrennial's way again, and the Beast laughed softly, eyeing how Alexander was looking at him with anger in his eyes. Interestingly, Frayn had stopped the attack to the others, and Vanargandr knew it was because he was lightly scared of him, though Vanargandr's sole interest was Aaron at that moment. He always loved mocking Lucian since the day Ratatosk offered his blood and body to him, and made fun of the boy when they were still under his command. He could feel Lucian tugging inside his mind, screaming curses against the Beast, trying to desperately gain control once more.
"Don't you recognize this form?", asked Vannargandr to Toasty. The Beast stood near his hands, giving him a good sight. "Can't you remember to whom this body once belonged?"
"Why are you here?", asked Aaron instead, when Toasty was in deep thought when the Beast asked those question. "Who are you?", his arms ached again when he saw the hands slowly move away so Vannargandr could move inside.
The Beast grinned.
"How could you know, after all?", said in a whisper as he lifted the boy's head softly. "I mean, you don't know how my master looked alike when he was a child…"
"Your master?", whispered back the boy as his arms were now hold by Vannargandr's bony hands, that were caressing the soft skin of his. Aaron was feeling light headed, and he felt the huge hands around him lift him up. "…who's your master?"
The Beast laughed softly. He couldn't but love the boy like his master did, because it was all what Lucian lacked. He nuzzled Aaron's neck and smiled with a fanged smile.
"You are very aware of the Beast sealed inside your mate's body, are you?", Aaron nodded and his eyes suddenly widened.
"…but how did you shrink his body…?", Aaron whined when the Beast took him into his arms and hugged the boy, opening his wings and, summoning his oozes again, he took him away.
"FUCK!!", yelled Toasty.
"What are we going to do now?", asked Alexander.
"I have no idea, at last I don't know what to do with them.", answered the Light Terrennial. "First of all, we have to find the others. It's a must that we are all reunited to think about something. The enemy might still hunt us down, but if the main reason for the vampires to join Oyan was to awake Vannargandr, then they will be probably going to hunt Lucian down. That gives us some time to think."
Alexander jumped on Edgar's machine and the two of them drove off to find Nish, Dumas, the gunslingers and Dyango and his servant. Nidhoggr would be a pain, since they didn't know if he was still alive.
Though he was, and was now running behind Dainn who had Nero hanging from his left shoulder. The three of them were behind Neschume's trait of energy after the vampire, which had stolen the needle from them. Nidhoggr covered the object with a thin layer of Dark Matter to simulate Lucian's body and give them more time before it faded away. Though they had to rush it up since the first sunrays were peeking above the mountains, and neither Dainn nor Nidhoggr had casket armors or an especial clothing to protect them from the Sun.
"What important thing are we part of?", asked Nidhoggr to the shape shifter while running.
"You know that he has a plan, right?", the vampire boy nodded. "It has to do with this. Since he can't personally retrieve the needle, we are doing it for him."
"Does that includes risking our lives for it?", Dainn laughed, but Nidhoggr groaned. "Honestly! I don't really want to end my life right here and in a situation like this one!"
"We are going to be fine.", the albino said. "As long as we got our hands on that needle."
Nero snorted.
"So much for being optimistic."
"I'm being realistic, which isn't the same."
Nero jumped in front of the albino and morphed into his truly human form. He was taller than the two vampire boys (probably even taller than Nish), with a lean, thin but slender body with an extremely pale skin. He had the same, red and big eyes from his beast form and the same red wings coming from his back. The same X shaped, white scar was very visible on his forehead, even when some bangs of pitch black hair fell down on his face. That hair, very long, fell near his ankles, where the tip turned white, resembling the white tip he has in his tail when he is in a cat form. Nero wears a simple, tight and deep purple legging underneath a long, sleeved robe of a crimson color. Both pieces of clothing are simple; no pattern or complicated coloring drawings. The only piece of jewel Nero had was a small, silver ring with a black oval shaped stone that was placed near the tip of his hair.
The Terrennial opened his wings and, with a strong leap, he jumped forwards and managed to tackle Neschume right when he materialized in the intersection of the street Dainn and the other were running and the main street of Acuna.
The noble vampire cursed outloud when he saw who the one above him was and, summoning his powers, he lashed out his whip to oblige Nero to step back, as Neschume holds with extremely care the needle in his left hand.
"Shit, are you crazy?!", screamed the noble as he stepped back when Nero got into his fours, hissing and growling. "Or don't you remember this little thing is quiet fragile?", said as he played with the needle between his fingers with a fair grin on his face. "You wouldn't like to see this thing shatter in pieces…"
"Neither you, because is the only way you have to control Vannargandr.", said Dainn when he and Nidhoggr arrived.
"I would care less for the needle. I have enough metal from the original Crosses to control the Beast as I please.", replied Neschume as he pressed the needle between his fingers, yet not hard enough to break it.
Nidhoggr thought how the vampire could have access to Mahoroba, since it was a sacred place that only could be accessed from the Dark Castle satellite. Or how could he even get into the Dark Castle in the first time. The seal that once Django used was probably buried or even broken, the cannon the boy used to get there was destroyed by Ratatosk himself when he got the power. From where this noble vampire got everything to get to Mahoroba? Where vampires even allowed there? Nidhoggr never knew about anyone like that before, and Ratatosk could only access into Vanargandr's chamber when Sabata was already there.
It didn't make sense to Nidhoggr. All members from the Lunar Tribe were extinct. Lucian could pass as one if he can purify the Dark Matter that ate away his natural energy, but other than him, he knew no one.
Who was helping this vampire out? Who has the same objective as this vampire?
There were a lot of people like him out there, but why come to the East Lands to start? Why Oyan also came in the first place? The East Lands would soon fade away in some years due to the latest wars that took place in. Most people in Acuna were already leaving, not to mention the ones that were trapped in New Culiacan. Why would they come but to gather the lands for themselves?
And Nidhoggr just realized it.
This wasn't a war between vampires and humans, or against believes. This wasn't a fight against right or wrong, or who's better. This was a fight between power and the juicy prize was a hell load of fertile and virgin lands to do whatever one pleased.