X. The Crumbling Dirt
"How!?" Louise all but shouted, her voice raspy with both anger and frustration. "How did we not win?"
Rip chose to remain silent, looking somewhat grim as she followed her diminutive master. Her right hand held her parasol overhead, thus keeping herself within the shade provided by the pink canvas. The other hand held her musket, its barrel resting comfortably across a shoulder. The vampire's eyes remained firmly staring into the distance, not really seeing anything as she was deep in though. Although the sniper hated to admit it, Rip actually did want to win the contest. Despite trying not to, she had found playing to a live and appreciative audience fun. She had enjoyed seeing their awe at her abilities, and though she was still a bit uncomfortable with their praise, she had been happy at the joy the adulation it managed to bring to Louise. She'd never seen her young summoner so happy before.
It was just too bad that it hadn't lasted.
The two of them were currently walking away from the stage where the Familiar Evaluation Fair was being held; they didn't really have any destination in mind, but had just started walking to ease their frustrations. Just a few moments ago, the winner of the event was announced. Although Professor Colbert said that it had been a tough decision, ultimately it was Tabitha and her dragon who had won the prize. Louise, to put it mildly, had been incredibly disappointed. Upon hearing the announcement, all the joy and happiness the girl had been showing earlier vanished completely, and Rip was afraid that the her master would collapse into a dead faint. Thankfully that didn't happen. When Tabitha ascended the stage to accept her prize, Louise quietly left. Rip followed her without a word.
"I was so sure you were going to win!" Louise continued as she stomped across the courtyard's pristine lawn. "You should have won! We had the audience eating out of our hands! This is so unfair!"
The vampire silently agreed. She felt robbed.
The two, still fuming at their loss, began to cross under one of the stanchions separating one courtyard from another. As they crossed into the adjoining lawn, both of them stopped upon seeing a most unusual sight. Before them, taking up most of the quad, was a gigantic construction of earth and stone. Rising up more than a hundred feet into the sky, the monster was almost as tall as the Academy's central tower itself. Its general shape was human, though quite a bit more stocky, with short, stumpy legs and no head. Instead, at the center of its chest were crude approximations of eyes made from separate, carved out stones. The wrists of both of its thick, gorilla-like arms had vicious looking spikes jutting from the rock.
"G-Golem!" Louise spat out in shock.
Rip stared up at the massive construct, her eyes wide and mouth dropping open. "Golem? You mean like ze vones Guiche made?"
"No, this one's way bigger!" Louise began to back up from the gigantic monstrosity.
"Vay to state the obvious, master," Rip remarked dryly.
Suddenly, the vampire caught movement atop the golem. Focusing her eyes, Rip saw that standing on the construct's left shoulder was a mysterious figure garbed in a full black cloak. Its hood was up over its face, and for some reason her sharp vampiric vision could not penetrate the shadows beneath it. What was more worrying was the fact that Rip could not sense the figure at all. True, she couldn't sense the gigantic golem either, but that was easy to explain since the thing wasn't alive. But she should have been able to feel the figure standing on top of golem, since it was a living, breathing, thinking being. Hell, Rip's sixth sense was so keen that she could even sense other vampires most of the time.
Yet here she was completely unable to feel the man, or woman, riding atop the golem. It was like he didn't exist, a shadow that she couldn't touch with her mind. Could he be using a spell of some sort to block her ability? Did they even have a spell that could do that? Rip cursed, and she now very much regretted sleeping through Louise's magic classes.
"Well, hell." The voice drifted down to the two of them coming from the golem's rider. It sounded strange to Rip's ears. It sounded... off. Not exactly disguised like a mechanical device from her world would do, but for whatever reason she could not fathom anything about it. As she heard his speech, it sounded like a normal, regular voice; yet when she tried to focus on it, to figure out how it sounded like, what it's tone was, or even whether it belonged to a man or woman, she found herself failing.
"I had hoped that with the fair in full swing, all you little brats would have been distracted," the figure continued. "And, of course, with my luck, the one who accidentally walks in on me is the brat with the Gandalfr!"
The what? Rip asked herself.
"No matter," the figure waved his wand, and soon the golem began moving. It lifted its massive arm, which was the size of one of the Parthenon's gigantic stone columns, high overhead. (Rip knew this because the Major kept one of said columns on display back in Millennium, H.Q.) "Consider both of yourselves even more unfortunate, because I can't allow any witnesses to survive!" With that, the giant's arm fell.
Rip acted quickly, dropping her parasol and snatching up Louise. She then launched herself backwards, feeling the runes in her left hand flare to life. Due to her enhanced vampiric speed, the two of them managed to make it to a safe distance twenty meters back even before the golem's heavy fist slammed into the ground. A cloud of dust and upturned dirt exploded into the air upon impact, showering both of them with clods of earth.
"I sink it is time for us to make a quick vithdrawal, little master," the vampire said, extremely ill at ease. Not only was there a hundred foot tall rock monster attacking her, but the person controlling it did not register at all with her sixth sense. She was way out of her element here, and that was something she did not like. At all.
"Leave?" Louise asked her, completely shocked that her familiar would even suggest such a thing. "We can't leave! That thing is attacking the Academy!"
"Louise..." Rip wanted to protest, but the determined look on the other girl's face shut her up.
"It is my duty, as a noble of House Valliere, to stand up against all enemies who seek to harm my home and country. Well, right now, the Academy is my home and I will protect it!" She then angrily jabbed a finger at Rip's direction. "And as my familiar, it is your duty to help me! Didn't you swear to me that you would do so?" She asked, an accusing tone in her manner.
"Bah, all right! All right! Ve'll fight ze damn thing," Rip said, her face frowning in distaste. She reached up and pulled the ramming rod our of her musket. As she began digging into her pockets for ammunition, she spoke. "First I need to reload, so go and distract it for me, vould you?" Unfortunately, because of the earlier trickshot at the evaluation, her musket was empty. She silently cursed her sloppiness as she began the long and lengthy reloading process.
"D-distract it?" Louise gulped. "Me?"
"Ov course!" Rip said, irritated, as she bit open one of the paper cartridges containing ball and powder. "You're a mage, blast it vith a spell or somesing."
"I, uh, right!" Louise perked up, drawing her wand and rushing forwards to face the giant golem.
The construct was currently standing still as its creator, still atop its shoulder, glanced around in worry. He was obviously afraid that the noise of the golem's hand smashing into the ground would have alerted the guards, but so far no one had shown up yet.
Louise bristled at the fact that the mage obviously didn't think too much about both their capabilities, since he was confident enough to all but turn his back on them while he surveyed the area. The pink haired girl growled and made a vow to make him regret doing so. She quickly aimed her wand and began the incantation. With the words and motions finished, she let lose her power and shouted, "Fireball!"
The enemy mage cringed upon hearing the shout, whipping up his wand to prepare some sort of defense. But to his amusement, there was no fireball, only a slight puff of smoke that splattered against his golem's shoulder. "Oh my. That didn't look like a fireball to me, little girl," the mage laughed.
Suddenly, there was an gigantic explosion behind him, the force of the concussive blast so powerful that he almost fell to his knees. Looking back, the mage gasped and saw that the once pristine stone wall of the Academy tower, the one that not even the full might of his golem could hammer through, had been ruptured. Numerous cracks and fissures marred its once clean surface, and he could sense that the powerful protections spells around the vault were gone as well. "So," he whispered in amazement, "this is the power of a void mage..."
Rip's ear twitched upon hearing that, and she filed away the information for later. Right now though, she had a golem to destroy. Finally finishing with reloading, the vampire raised her musket and aimed it towards the gigantic stone monstrosity. Before she could pull the trigger though, the golem slammed its right fist into the tower, directly where Louise's mis-aimed blast had hit. The weakened structure shattered under the blow, and soon she saw the mage leap onto the golem's arm before using it as a bridge to enter the hole.
The vampire snarled and fired, her bullet searing through the air towards its target. It slammed into the golem's torso, rupturing the rock before exiting the other side. It zipped about the gigantic construct, piercing its stone shell numerous times. The golem, possessing limited intelligence, realized that it was being attacked and backed away from the hole its creator had escaped into. It turned around and attempted to swat at the immensely fast projectile that was continuing to assault it. Unfortunately for the golem, Rip's bullet proved too fast, as it penetrated into the stone beast over and over, the impacts causing cracks and ruptures to appear all over its body.
"Yes!" Louise cried as she leapt up and down with joy. "You're doing it! You're beating it!"
Rip, however, was very concerned. Despite the fact that she had perforated the golem repeatedly, perhaps scoring several dozen direct hits, the thing still would not go down. To her surprise and immediate distress, her ultimate attack, which had taken down tanks and planes and entire batallions of enemy infantry in the past, was all but useless against the golem. Tanks, jets, and other vehicles had internal components and mechanisms that could be damaged to disable and destroy them; soldiers had internal organs to rupture. The golem, on the other hand, had no viscerous structure whatsoever. It was just a big piece of animated dirt and rock; attacking it with her bullet was like shooting at the ground hoping to sink an island. Couple this with the construct's massive size, and she was doing just that. No matter how many times she hit the damn thing, it would not go down.
This was also the moment that Rip found a major drawback to the familiar rune's augmentation. While the runes had increased her ability to manipulate the bullet, allowing it to strike harder and move faster, the increased force of each impact also corroded her projectiles much more quickly. She could already feel the small lead ball breaking apart after each successful piercing of the golem's thick hide. It was whittling away much faster now than it had before, when the power and speed of each impact had been half of what it currently was.
Rip cursed when her musket ball finally splintered into nothing. The golem, though marked with what looked to be hundreds of tiny holes and craters, still remained standing.
"H-hey, Rip," Louise said when she noticed that despite her familiar's devastating attack, the golem was still in one piece. "Um, are you gonna kill this thing any time soon?"
"I'm trying..." Before the vampire could finish her sentence, she spotted the mage exiting from the tower's hole and leaping back atop the golem.
"Thank you so much for your assistance!" Their mysterious enemy taunted. He held up an ornate looking wooden box that Rip guessed was taken from inside the tower. "I could not have stolen the Staff of Destruction without you!"
"What?" Louise glared at the figure. "We didn't help you willingly, damn it!"
"Doesn't matter to me whether you did or not, I still win." The mage waved his wand, and the golem attacked once more. This time it focused its attention fully on Rip as she seemed the more dangerous foe. It reared its right arm back high above itself before lashing down with an underarm swat.
The runes on the vampire's left hand flared brightly as she attempted to leap back, but her motion was cut short when she felt two strong grips catch her legs. She was swiftly pulled back to the ground and upon looking down, she saw that two stone hands had erupted from the earth. Each held her leg in a vice-like grip, and no matter how hard she pulled they refused to yield. She flicked her eyes back up to the mage and saw his wand pointed at the earth; what she had thought was a simple order to the golem to attack had actually been a spell being cast.
The impact of the golem's fist hurt. It hurt like hell. Rip thought she might have heard Louise crying out her name in alarm, but she wasn't quite sure. Her ears were ringing from the impact, and her vision blackened for a few distressing seconds. She also felt several bones cracking, mostly along the left arm she had held up to shield herself. The blow had been so powerful that the force had been enough to tear her away from the grip of the stone hands grasping her feet, and she felt herself fly high into the air before slamming back down onto the grassy soil. Hitting the ground caused her to let go of her musket, which flew out of her fingers to clatter to the earth about ten feet away. She felt the runes cease their glow and her body became wracked with tremendous pain.
"Rip!" Louise called out again, eyes wide with fear and concern. To her amazement though, the dark haired woman sat up, looking absolutely furious and obviously in a lot of pain. She was holding her upper body aloft with a shaky right arm while she her left was tucked in close to her body. A thin stream of blood leaked out of small cut on the woman's forehead, which dripped down off a thin eyebrow to stain the fabric of her dark jacket. The ever-present spectacles that her familiar always wore were nowhere to be seen; Louise was startled to notice that her familiar looked much less intimidating without them. All in all it could have been much worse, and she was glad that Rip's familiar runes were active to protect her body.
"Louise," her familiar gasped, still trying to get up. "... r-run!"
The golem had begun to move forwards, walking in slow plodding steps towards the vampire. It was obvious that the mage intended to finish the injured woman off.
"Leave her alone!" Louise shouted. She stepped forwards, holding her wand out and began chanting. Once the appropriate runic words were called, she lashed out with her focus and shouted, "Fireball!"
A small puff of smoke and sound rapped against the golem's side, but it hardly made a dent. Louise chanted again, this time more desperately, and once more another small explosion hit the golem. None of it had done any damage though.
"What's the matter, little girl?" The mage taunted. "Where's the big explosion that you did before? Don't tell me you're tired already?"
"Fireball!" Louise shouted in panic as the golem neared Rip's prone position, and again another small blast appeared that did absolutely nothing to the giant construct.
The golem stomped up to the vampire, who had managed to pull herself up onto her knees. The dark haired woman examined the giant as it loomed over her, giving it a fierce, cold glower. The golem did not seem affected as it raised its left leg, intending on squishing her like a bug.
"No! Stop! Don't!" Louise shouted out desperately. She looked up at the enemy mage and sent him a pleading look. "Please! Please stop! Don't... don't kill my friend! Please!" She tossed her wand down onto the ground as tears fell from her eyes. She felt horribly useless, and now her familiar might die. She truly was a Zero.
I'm so pathetic! She mentally cursed and berated at herself. Please, God. Don't let Rip die because of me!
The golem remained still, its massive foot held over the vampire's still form. The mage appeared to be genuinely mulling over Louise's entreaty, as he stood silently atop his creation looking down at the weeping girl. Finally, after a few seconds of deliberation, he shook his head. "Sorry," was his simple answer before the golem suddenly began to step down.
Its forward movement was stopped when from the air a loud roar was heard, quickly followed by a gust of ice that hit the golem in its chest. The construct was blown back by the force of the cold blast, its left leg, the one that was only a few moments ago about to crush Rip into a pancake, slammed down behind it in order to keep its balance and not topple over. The mage ducked for cover when a large blue dragon dove from overhead, its blue-haired rider releasing another ice spell which covered the golem's right arm in frost.
"Tabitha!" Louise cried out in surprise when she saw the dragon fly in to their rescue.
Tabitha, riding upon Sylphid's back, turned the dragon in a graceful arc and readied herself for another attack. Upon her head was a small brass crown, one that was presented to her by the Princess after she had triumphed at the Evaluation Fair. All had been going well during the event when proceedings were interrupted by a sudden and loud explosion coming from the other side of the Academy. The guards sprung to action, surrounding the Princess in a cocoon of armored forms while the instructors tried to calm the students and guests. It was complete pandemonium as more explosions were heard, and Tabitha took to the air to see if she could help. Thankfully, she had arrived just in time, as she had managed to distract the golem and the mage controlling it before they could do any more harm to Louise and her strange familiar. Unfortunately, she was at a loss as to how to stop the golem itself. She had never seen such a large construct, and had no plan on how to defeat it.
As the dragon swooped and dove at the golem overhead, Rip watched. The mage was completely distracted by the quiet girl and now was the time to act. She saw her musket, lying out of reach. It would take too long to go for the weapon and then reload; she couldn't risk the mage seeing her. No, she had to attack now and she would have to do so without a weapon.
Rip smiled, her teeth growing sharp. Thankfully, even bare-handed, she was still quite dangerous.
The vampire waited until Tabitha had completed another dive, spraying the back of the golem with ice. The giant stomped about, swinging at the pesky dragon with its long arms, but failed to hit the flying lizard. When its left arm dropped down during one of its swings, Rip acted. She exploded into motion, launching herself forward towards the golem, then leaping up onto its arm. Louise almost shrieked in alarm when she saw her familiar suddenly move so fast, since a moment ago the dark haired woman looked half dead.
Rip, with a speed that was inhuman, scrambled up the golem's rocky arm. Even without the power of the familiar runes, she still moved faster than any regular human being could. The mage, who had been busy trying to dodge Tabitha's attacks, saw something moving at the corner of his eye. He whirled to face the shadow and saw that somehow the injured woman from before had managed to clamber up onto the golem's shoulder. With a snarl and flash of razor sharp teeth, the woman leapt towards him.
The vampire saw its prey, and she went for him. Whatever spell he was using to hide from her sixth sense seemed to work on her other senses as well, since she could not smell him nor could she hear his heart beating. Regardless, the vampire was most definitely sure that his heart was beating pretty damn fast as she leapt forwards, arms held open and jaw wide, filled with jagged teeth ready to snap. She was so close she could almost taste his blood, so close she could almost see his eyes widened in fear.
In a final, desperate move, the mage waved his wand and screamed a quick incantation. There was a sudden explosion of dirt as a large sharp shard of rock erupted from the golem's stone skin. It flew forwards and pierced into Rip's flesh, impaling her right in the side of the neck. The vampire's surprised eyes widened as blood spurted from the wound. This time she did hear Louise's cry. The force of the impact pushed her off the golem, and Rip's body fell over a hundred feet before coming to an abrupt stop upon the hard earth. A cloud of dust exploded up from where she landed, covering her form before finally dissipating to reveal her still, unmoving body.
"No!" Louise had shrieked, calling out in horror when she watched her familiar fall. "No!" She had cried out again when she saw and heard the loud thud when the dark haired woman crashed into the earth. "No!" She yelled once more when she saw a large pool of blood begin to flow around her still body. "NO!"
The pink haired girl stood stock still, completely in shock at seeing her seemingly invincible familiar murdered before her eyes. As the blood collecting around Rip's body grew larger, Louise heard laughter coming from above. She turned her now furious eyes to the mage standing atop the golem, the one who had just killed her friend and then had the gall to start laughing about it! If she were of a clearer mind, she would have realized that the mage was not laughing out of spite or amusement, but out of relief. It was the relief of meeting death face to face and suddenly escaping it.
But now it didn't matter to her. Her friend... her familiar, had just been killed. Killed! Murdered in cold blood!
"You bastard!" Louise cried out. The mage stopped his laughter and glanced down. Louise was determined not to give the piece of filth a chance to defend himself. He didn't deserve it. She quickly ducked down and grabbed her wand, then pointed it up accusingly at the mage. "I swear to God and Brimir Himself! You will die!" She then began chanting, going over each word swiftly but efficiently. Afterwards, she pushed every ounce of willpower she had into the spell and lashed out with her wand, focusing all the anger and grief and pain she was feeling and sending it out through her fingertips and up at the vile, evil, cruel bastard who had murdered Rip.
"FIREBALL!" She shouted.
And then everything exploded.
0
Rip's eyes flickered open, flinching slightly at both the bright sun and the thick dust floating about in the air. She coughed loudly, expelling bits of stone and blood out of her mouth. She gingerly lifted her battered torso off the ground and somehow managed to ease herself onto her hands and knees. Her entire body felt sore, and there was an especially vicious pain in her neck. She reached up and found that there was still a piece of rock imbedded in the flesh. Gritting her teeth she pulled, whimpering in pain when the sharp shard of stone was eventually pulled free. The vampire gasped in both agony and relief, as she could now breath with the obstruction to her windpipe gone. She hacked and coughed for a few more moments, expelling the dry and clotted blood that was in her throat onto the grass below her. She felt the wound in her neck begin to stitch closed, though it wouldn't be fully healed for at least a few more hours.
The vampire looked around, but the entire courtyard seemed to be filled with smoke. She waved her hand in front of her to try to move the heavy soot, but it was no use. It hung in the air like a white curtain, preventing her from seeing anything.
"Scheisse," she muttered. Damn, her body hurt. She attempted to stand, but then her sides convulsed in pure agony and she fell back to her knees. "Z-zat hurt..."
Rip grumbled and began crawling forwards. She could already hear several voices approaching, most likely the teaching staff as they came to investigate. Where the hell had they been? One would think that during an emergency, the teachers would have been first on the scene. Incompetent idiots. She was about to call out for help when her fingers fell upon the familiar sensation of warm wood and polished brass. In her blind scrabble, it seemed that she had made her way to her jezail. Upon grasping the weapon, she felt the runes imbedded in her left hand flare up, and suddenly all her aches and pains vanished.
Rip Van Winkle stood up, amazed once more at the power of the runes. Although she felt a slight ache in her joints, she could feel none of the debilitating pain that had struck her just mere seconds ago. She reached up to her neck, hoping that the gaping wound caused by the rock shard had healed, but sadly her gloved fingers still felt the torn flesh. Unfortunately, it seemed that despite augmenting her other vampiric powers, the runes did nothing to increase her healing factor. That still looked to be the same as it always was.
She was brought out of her thoughts by the sound of wings overhead. She lowered her head and lifted a hand to protect her eyes when Sylphid swooped down and began to blow away the smoke and soot with her wings. Eventually, the area was free of the dust, and Rip looked around to survey the devastation.
And what devastation it was. The golem, the thing that had given her so much trouble, was now nothing but a thirty foot mound of dirt and rock that covered the center of the courtyard. All along the once pristine lawn were chunks of cracked stone and clumps of earth, more remnants of the once mighty golem. Numerous parts of the Academy's walls were also stained with dirt, and it looked like all the windows on this side of the school had been blown in. Broken glass was everywhere.
Sylphid eventually landed next to the giant pile of once-golem, and from her back leaped the tiny form of Tabitha. She landed in a soft crouch, then began walking towards Rip. The young girl's eyes scanned the Vampire's form swiftly before they stopped at the bloody mar at her neck. "Hurt," she said simply.
The vampire gave her a shrug. "I've had vorse." Rip was looking around the courtyard, trying to find any sign of Louise. Eventually, her sharp eyes focused on a small tuft of pink that was buried under a large mound of dirt.
"Dead," Tabitha said, the eyes behind her glasses accusatory.
Rip almost let out a sob of grief as her heart thumped heavy. Louise, dead? But after perceiving the still form with vampiric senses she was able to discern that the girl still had a heartbeat. She quickly realized that Tabitha had meant her. As in, Rip should have been dead. Any human, mage or commoner, should have died after suffering such grievous wounds. Yet here she was, alive and well.
The vampire's eyes snapped towards the blue haired girl's, the blue orbs cold and almost glowing with menace. Tabitha's own remained unmoved, meeting Rip's icy glare with one of her own. Both women continued to scowl at each other, one silently accusing while the other silently threatened. Eventually, it was Rip who broke her gaze first, as she focused her attention on Louise. She brushed past the small girl and headed towards her summoner. She would take care of Tabitha later.
Right now she had to make sure that Louise was alright.
Rip dropped to her knees next to the pink haired girl's unconscious form. The vampire was incredibly relieved to see that the teenager was no worse for wear. So much so that she let a relieved laugh erupt from her throat. This, of course, caused her to cringe slightly due to her recent injury. "Ouch."
She began brushing off the small pile of dirt that had fallen on her master, and was happy to see that aside from a dirty uniform Louise appeared uninjured. She stroked some pink hair away from the girl's face and gave her a tender smile. "I don't know vhat you did, little master, but you truly did a number on zat monster. Good job." Rip looked up from the girl and began to scan the area, both with her mind as well as her eyes. Unsurprisingly, she could not sense the enemy mage anywhere. Either he had escaped, or he was dead, though she was pretty sure she would have smelled his blood by now if he were. It didn't really matter though, her first concern was Louise.
Various members of the Academy staff had chosen that moment to come trundling in. They were composed of instructors as well as some water mages from the infirmary. Rip quickly waved one of the healers over to her, and the slightly portly woman in white robes rushed up.
"Oh my, you're hurt!" The healer gasped upon seeing the large wound in her neck. "Please, let me-"
Before the mage could cast anything, Rip waved her off. "Look, I'm fine. Help my master!" She shoved the woman towards the prone form of Louise.
"But..."
"Now," the vampire told her, voice tight and brokering no argument.
The woman flinched, but nodded and began checking on the second year student. Rip hovered over her, trying not to worry. All the while the teachers began to putter about, trying to investigate and figure out just what exactly happened. As all this chaos was occurring in the background, Rip felt Tabitha's eyes continue to bore into her. It was unnerving, and slightly annoying. Despite wanting to turn around and bite the small girl's face off, the vampire showed remarkable restraint and ignored her.
"She'll be fine," the water mage pronounced after examining Louise. Rip let out a relieved sigh. "She's just burned out from using too much willpower. She should wake up in a few hours."
"Good," Rip said. She suddenly sensed Professor Colbert and the Headmaster approaching, and thought that it would be wise to not be there in her current state. "Take care of her, vill you? Make sure she's safe," the vampire told the healer before standing up.
"Wait!" the woman called out. "What about you?"
Rip ignored the healer as she hustled herself away. She was quickly moving in the direction opposite of where she sensed Colbert and Osmond were approaching from. The two would probably wish to know what had exactly happened and frankly she wasn't in the mood to answer questions right now. She also could not let them examine her, as doing so would reveal the various changes the Doktor had inflicted upon her body, the ones that made her less (or more) than human. She also needed to get indoors and away from the sun, since the bright light was inhibiting her healing. After a few hours of absolute darkness, she would be completely healed. The process would go faster if she fed as well, but she couldn't risk it. Tabitha, that annoyingly competent girl, already suspected something. She couldn't afford to make a mistake at this point.
She quickly found an entrance into the Academy building that was free of people, and promptly fled inside. Rip made her way through the deserted halls, down into the sub basement, heading towards her makeshift room. As the comforting shadows engulfed her injured body, she let out a frustrated sigh.
"Stupid," she spat, utterly disgusted with herself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID!"
She had been stupid, and careless. She had foolishly let the peace and quiet of this school lull her into a false sense of security. She had allowed herself to let down her guard, and it had almost cost her her life. And Louise's life.
Foolish. Stupid. Unforgivable. The Major would have been so disappointed.
Well, her foolishness ends now. Rip frowned, then flicked back her long hair. "I am First Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle. Obersturmfuhrer of ze Vaffen SS. Officer of Millennium. Member of ze Verewolf Division." She reached up and gripped the silver swastika pendent hanging around her neck. "I vill not forget that again. Zis I swear."
She scowled as she continued to walk into the darkness. She swore again to never be caught unprepared. Ever. She swore to gain vengeance upon the enemy that had attacked her today. She swore to wipe out any fool who dared stand in her way.
The vampire suddenly grinned, her fangs shining brightly in the shadows.
"I vill survive zis, then make it back home to fight ze British dogs and all who stand against us." Yes, that sounded like a damn good plan.
But first, she needed one of her pills. It had been one hell of a day.