"Did you really think that one of your meager kind would be able to defeat me?" he drawled, looking down with amusement upon the sprawled form of the male vampire beneath his feet.
However, the sound of his clever, determined pet's voice – seeming to come from the shattered remains of the helmet that he'd taken from the male vampire on the ground – drew his attention down to the dusty ground.
"Dio, please respond."
Crouching down, he picked up the cracked remains of some kind of smooth-sided device, just about the perfect size to fit into the innermost space within his ear. Chuckling softly as his lovely, clever pet's voice came through once more, this time less of a plea and more a command. This was what came to mind, every time he would think of his clever pet's voice. It was only natural, considering that she was a vampire and the others he'd seen were all lowly humans, that she would have been in command.
Picking up the other piece of the male vampire's helmet, specifically the one that had been shaped to cover the lower half of his face – from his cheeks to his chin – Kars studied the workings of what seemed to be nearly the same kind of device that was made to fit inside the ear of whoever wore the helmet he had destroyed. It bore a distinct enough resemblance to the other device, that working out the function of the device currently in his hands was all the more simple. Particularly for one of his advanced intellect, of course.
"Dio, I know you're there; I can hear you procrastinating."
He chuckled, deep in his throat. "Pet, while I confess that I could happily listen to your lovely voice for the rest of this night, I don't think that's going to be possible under the circumstances," he said, looking down at the sprawled form of her male counterpart.
Truly, lying at his feet was the only proper place for one of his lowly kind.
=BT=
Narrowing her eyes in annoyed realization as she heard Kars' annoying voice coming through over the radio she'd originally given to Dio, Alice switched off her connection to her brother's microphone.
"Caesar, give me a SITREP," she ordered, knowing that she wouldn't be getting anything more from Dio unless he managed to get his radio away from Kars; something that was only marginally more likely than the pair of them taking up sunbathing.
"I lost sight of Dio," he said, sounding about as annoyed as she felt, right at that moment. "He just went charging into that dust cloud that Wham kicked up, the idiot!"
"I expect I know where he is," she said, narrowing her eyes just that much more as she considered what she'd just learned. "Anyway, have you managed to reacquire visual contact?"
"No," Caesar growled. "I expect they've managed to get beyond the camera's range."
"I wouldn't put it past them," she muttered, flicking her tongue across her upper-right fang in frustration. "All right; we're going to need to convene again, and soon."
"Agreed, Boss," Caesar said, and her radio gave a chirp as he shut it down.
Inhaling deeply so that she could sigh in annoyance, Alice turned her attention out to Stroheim and Tarkus. The Nazi cyborg and his squad of robotic dinosaurs were the first things that caught her eye, and she waved him over so that the pair of them could talk.
"We have a problem," she said, once Stroheim had gotten close enough to hear what she was going to say. "It seems that Dio managed to get himself captured, and without a way of getting out, this time," she informed the man, as in the background Tarkus proceeded to round up their remaining dinosaur cavalry.
"Kars was able to capture your brother?"
"I think we'll find that Dio had just as much of a hand in his current situation as Kars," she said, having known her brother for well over half a century. "He might've been one of the most powerful assets we had, but he's not invulnerable to psychological warfare."
Now that was something of an understatement; Dio was one of the most volatile people she'd ever had the dubious pleasure of working with in her long life, and certainly one of the few she'd voluntarily associate herself with, considering their familial bonds. Still, there was really no avoiding the fact that her brother would, more often than not, delegate the task of keeping a lid on his temper to her. She'd long since known that that kind of thing would bite him in the ass sooner or later, but she really had to confess that she'd been hoping that – when that time came – she would have at least been close enough to cuff him upside the head for it.
However, it looked like that kind of thing was going to have to wait awhile.
=BT=
Biting back a scream as that bastard of a Pillar Man devoured his left arm up to the shoulder he, Dio, glared in defiance.
"I must admit, I'm almost impressed with your fortitude, vampire," that bastard said, grinning down at him in the most infuriatingly arrogant way that he'd ever seen.
Even that man hadn't infuriated him nearly as much as the Pillar Man that stood so brazenly before him, in this abandoned place where he and the brute had gone to ground when his sweet sister's forces had routed them from the sad remains of her former chalet. Even firing his Space Ripper Stingy Eyes directly at the arrogant Pillar Man's head didn't give him any satisfaction, because that miserable bastard dodged it with barely a move of his head!
Biting down on another scream, as the arrogant bastard devoured his right arm, leaving him with no more flesh or bone below that shoulder than what remained below his left, he, Dio, snarled as the arrogant Pillar Man laughed at him.
"Well, it seems as though you do have a few things in common with my pet, vampire," the arrogant Pillar Man said, leering down at him in a way that seemed calculated to be as infuriating as it was possible for any creature to be; Dio snarled, baring his fangs at the Pillar Man.
"My sister is not your pet."
=BT=
Alice was a whirlwind of concentrated purpose, but only those who truly knew her would be able to see it, Jonathan knew. To anyone else, his and Dio's sister would appear to be a perfectly calm island of tranquility in the sea of barely-leashed chaos that the conference room they had all gathered in was swiftly becoming.
"All right," Alice said, clapping her hands to further draw the attention of everyone who currently stood within the conference room. "Given what we know about Kars, I think we can make at least some educated guesses as to where he and Wham are currently staying."
As he watched the meeting continue, Jonathan found himself hoping that those gathered here would be able to affect the rescue of Dio before those horrid Pillar Men could harm him in any permanent ways; he knew there was little chance that his and Alice's brother would not be harmed at all.
=BT=
Finding himself confined to a bare room whose stark darkness was clearly meant to be oppressive he, Dio, growled as he heard the approach of another of those damnable Pillar Men.
"What the hell are you doing in here?" he demanded of the brute named Wham, who had been staring at him for some time before he, Dio, had deigned to notice the Pillar Man.
"Why do you continue to resist?" the brute asked, a curious expression upon his blunt face. "You must know that Lord Kars is inevitably going to defeat any allies that you and yours can gather, so why do you persist in challenging him? I'm certain he would be merciful to the both of you, if you would only submit."
Hissing his fury at the Pillar Man who dared to mock both him and his sweet sister's efforts he, Dio, narrowed his eyes and turned up his nose. "I would hardly call our efforts futile, you oaf," he grinned widely, showing all his fangs. "Or, have you forgotten that two of your own are dead, Pillar Man?!"
"What do you mean?"
"The first of them I wasn't present for," he said, knowing that with both of his arms and his legs below the knees having been devoured by that bastard of a Pillar Man Kars he, Dio, wouldn't be able to escape on his own without the aid of either circumstances or, much more likely, his sweet sister, but he would at least be able to scourge this brute to his heart's content. "I was only able to observe it through the monitor cameras of the base, but watching the first of your worthless compatriots die was more than worth it!"
=BT=
"You witnessed Santana's last moments, did you?" he asked, narrowing his eyes as he made his way inside.
"Lord Kars," Wham greeted, bowing respectfully as he stepped aside.
Glancing briefly at his old friend, meeting Wham's eyes for a moment, Kars turned his attention to his clever pet's male counterpart.
"What? Nothing more to say?" he mocked, moving to stand over the pathetic form of the limbless vampire before him, Kars smirked. "You seemed so talkative when you were merely facing Wham, vampire. Could it be that you're afraid of me?"
"I watched two of your fellows die, you miserable bastard!" the male vampire threw at him, snarling impotently in a way that could only truly be amusing.
"Are you referring to Santana?" he asked, smirking down at the pitiful, limbless form of the vampire before him. "He was nothing more than a child; a well-trained guard dog. He could never compare to us."
"Oh, and what about that other compatriot of yours?" the male vampire asked, seizing on the only thing he could have possibly noticed.
"Yes, I suspect that ACDC also met his end, is that right?" he asked, grinning calmly.
"My sister slaughtered that imbecile!" the male vampire snarled, grinning like a mad dog, baring the fangs that the Stone Mask had granted him. "There was nothing more than dust by the time she was finished!"
"Master ACDC was defeated by a vampire?!" Wham demanded, clearly infuriated by the very idea of such a thing.
"He paid the price for his lack of vision," the male vampire spat, grinning in that same, feral manner of his; however, something in the vampire's demeanor suggested that he was repeating something he'd heard somewhere before.
"My pet said that, didn't she?" he needled, grinning down at the pitiful form of the male vampire so far beneath him.
The amusement on the male vampire's face vanished, faster than mists in a high wind. "My sister is not your pet!"
"She will be, soon enough," he said, smiling calmly down at the pathetic vampire so far beneath him. "Still, even if I were to take what you say as truth, that only proves her all the more worthy of me."
He could see the pitiful, impotent fury in the male vampire's eyes, and dodged the blast of the creature's Space Ripper Stingy Eyes at the last moment, simply to demonstrate his clear superiority over it. Turning slightly as Wham exited the room, he turned his back to the pathetic, limbless vampire seated in the chair behind him without another word.
"Lord Kars, do you really think it possible that your vampire was able to defeat Master ACDC?"
"Given what I've learned of her, I suspect she did," he grinned, remembering the defiance in his clever pet's eyes. "And Santana, as well."
Wham's eyes narrowed, as though he were looking into the past; remembering ACDC, and the times that he and Santana had met. Still, it was not the past that occupied Kars' mind, but the future. The future, where he'd caged that clever hawk of his, and was free to shape her as he liked. She would be the treasure of his collection, and he would craft her into the magnificent Pillar Woman she should have been born as from the beginning.
"I would have never thought that a woman, even a vampire, would have been capable of such a thing," Wham said, gathering himself once more from his musings. "She truly is your equal, Lord Kars."
"Not yet," he said, grinning as he thought of the Stone Mask that he had created for his clever hawk, the one that would began her proper transformation. "But, in time, yes."
=BT=
Watching as the Boss laid out a case of grenades on the table, Caesar found himself wondering just what it was that she intended to do with them. The Boss had to know that the small explosion from any kind of grenade would hardly be enough to even damage a vampire like her, much less one of the two remaining Pillar Men.
"Boss, how do you think any of this is going to work? You would be able to resist an explosion from a bomb this size," he said, looking from the case full of grenades to the black-suited form of the Boss; she was wearing that suit she had designed, the one that was designed for pure stealth and infiltration; matte black, and apparently capable of sloughing off any scent that it picked up from the surrounding environment. "So, what do you think these little things are going to do?"
"Both vampires and Pillar Men have greatly enhanced senses of hearing, and hence balance," the Boss said, grinning slightly as she picked up one of the things he was beginning to suspect weren't exactly grenades. "Both of which the Noisy Cricket here can play merry hell with."
"Ah, I see," Stroheim said, picking up one of the small, hand-held sonic grenades. "Yes, these Noisy Crickets of yours should do just fine."
"All right, since we know where Kars and Wham are currently staying, all that remains is to deploy our forces," the Boss said, narrowing her eyes as she looked down at the map they had all gathered around. "We're going to need all of them, to keep Kars and Wham distracted while I fetch Dio."
"Yeah," Jojo muttered, picking up one of the Boss' Noisy Crickets and staring down at it. "Uncle Dio can't be too happy, cooped up in there with them."
Narrowing his eyes as he considered what was going to happen next, Caesar flicked them over to the Boss, as she made contact with Straizo. Knowing that her retainer also functioned as a test-pilot for her various experimental aircraft, he'd a certain suspicion about what she wanted from him. So, he knew that her brother Dio was going to be in good hands, at least once they'd managed to extract him, anyway.
=BT=
Once they'd all gotten underway, with Alice herself sitting in a nearby tree to await the fireworks that would serve to cover her entrance, she found herself wondering for a moment just what condition she was ultimately going to find Dio in. While it was clear that not one of the two remaining Pillar Men had much of a taste for taking prisoners, Kars was probably canny enough to know that keeping one of captive was a good way to draw the attention of the other. Still, it remained to be seen just how deeply Kars was prepared to look.
After first missile had slammed into the façade of the mansion, shaking the ground and resounding like thunder through the air, Alice moved. All but flying over the leaf-littered ground, keeping low enough that she could remain stable even at the kind of speed she was moving, Alice paused for a moment as a breathless silence fell over the night. Pressing her hands flush against the wall of the mansion, Alice mapped it with her tremor-sense, and then skittered up the wall just as another sudden explosion shattered the night.
Pulling away a ventilation grate, Alice latched onto it with her elastic veins, pulling the thing closed behind her as she dove into the attic.
When the next explosion rattled the walls all around her, Alice dug her fingers into the wooden planks of the floor, pulled them up, and slipped between the two layers of flooring. Stretching and compressing her body so that she could fit through narrow spaces, in a way that almost reminded her of Santana's escape from the Nazis not quite so long ago, Alice paused for a moment to take in the layout of the house once again.
Seems I'm headed for the basement, she mused, supposing it fit. If there was at least one lesson that those troublesome Pillar Men might very well have learned from their last clash with her forces, seemed to be that going higher wasn't always the best choice. And, while she wasn't exactly pleased to be dealing with the kind of opponents who actually learned from their mistakes, Alice knew that she couldn't really count on finding herself set up against either myopic or just plain stupid opponents all the time.
Particularly when the opponents in question had lived for longer than some of the countries she'd been working with existed.
Pausing for a moment during another lull in combat, Alice mapped out the basement room now almost directly beneath her with her tremor senses. She could almost hear her brother's frustrated cursing though the walls, and it gave her a much better idea of the layout of the room she was going to be entering, if only long enough to pull Dio out of whatever tight spot her troublesome twin had gotten himself wedged into this time.
Zeroing in on the chair in the rough center of the underground room, Alice dug her fingers into the planks once again, pulling them up in time with another, thundering explosion from outside the walls of the mansion she was making her way through. Tossing the shattered remains of the ceiling aside, Alice dove into the room, kicking off of the edges of the hole so that she would be able to land on her feet once again. Landing with her knees slightly bent from the impact, she dashed forward before even the first of the wood-shrapnel could hit the floor.
Narrowing her eyes as she picked up the basically limbless form of her twin, Alice leaped back up to the ceiling once again, punching through the floor and diving up into what seemed to be the main room of the mansion the two remaining Pillar Men had been sheltering in. Lunging forward as a cluster-bomb hammered the façade of the mansion once more, Alice kicked open the far wall, curling her fingers inward to tap the hidden radio-transceiver on her right wrist even as she did so.
Pinging Straizo, where he waited with the X-15.
The harsh scream of jet-engines, unmistakable to anyone who'd heard them before, shattered the night over even the sound of the ordinance being poured down on the remains of the mansion she was quickly leaving behind. Dropping into a crouch, Alice unfolded her legs in a leap calculated to carry her over the form of the X-15 as it screamed through the air. Grabbing onto the edge of the cockpit as Straizo tipped the opened canopy towards them, Alice hoisted herself and Dio into the back seat of the X-15 as it roared away.
The canopy slammed shut, locking itself and sealing out the screaming roar of the engines as Straizo guided them back to her main holdings in Venice. A sonic-boom rumbled through the body of the jet, as the hangar of her Venice Tower came into view and Straizo brought them fully into the hangar and the tail hook on the jet caught firmly. Sighing reflexively as she climbed up and out of the X-15, she called a brief thanks to Straizo as she made her way out of the jet and back through the hangar itself.
Looking down at Dio as her twin nuzzled her left shoulder, she saw him smirk in response, then turn and deliberately kiss the right side of her neck.
Shaking her head in fond exasperation, even as she continued down to the elevator that would take them up and out of the hangar, Alice made for the medical laboratory that rested a few floors below where they were currently standing. Shifting Dio just enough so that she could get to the buttons, Alice hit the one that would take her down to the floor she needed, and then leaned back against the wall to wait for them to arrive.
=BT=
Once his sweet sister had returned them to her holdings within the grand city of Venice he, Dio, had been furnished with two pairs of temporary prosthetic limbs, and put up in the generous suite that had been set aside for those who were in need of long-term treatment for a particularly involved operation. The scent of a familiar person, over and above the container of sheep's blood that he was drinking, brought a cheerful smile to his face once again.
"Dio!"
"Hello again, Jojo," he said, grinning up at his and Alice's adorable puppy of a brother as he came into the recovery room.
"Look at you," Jojo said, their adorable puppy said, strong voice quavering as he looked down. "Damn that Kars!"
Before he, Dio, could finish off the container of blood he'd been drinking from, Jojo hurried over to pick it up. He could feel a smile starting to emerge on his face, as Jojo swiftly arranged the pair of them on the bed together. Laughing softly as Jojo pulled him into his lap he, Dio, let himself fall back naturally as Jojo curled up next to him.
The sharp tang of human blood drew his attention as he finished off the last of the sheep's blood that his sweet sister had given to him drew his attention back to his and Alice's dear, sweet little puppy.
"Jojo?"
"Here," Jojo said, smiling softly as he pulled Dio into his lap, gently laying his opened hand over Dio's own mouth. "Rest, Dio, and take as much as you need."
=BT=
As he felt the dull plastic of the artificial hands that Alice had built for Dio to use while she completed her work reaching up to gently support his own as he allowed Dio to feed from him, Jonathan closed his eyes. He'd never expected to have to face an enemy such as the Pillar Men had shown themselves to be, but after seeing what Kars had done to Dio… He couldn't forgive such a thing. And, while he knew that Caesar Zeppeli had already laid a claim on the Pillar Man's life for what had been done to his father Mario, he couldn't help but think that such a thing wasn't truly to be.
On a land born of fire, he mused, closing his eyes as he tried not to weep at what had been done to his and Alice's brother. Dio would be able to smell his tears, and would inevitably wonder just what it was that had drawn such a reaction from him. He'd no more wish to speak of Master Tonpetty's last prophesy to Dio any more than he'd spoken of it to Alice, but not exactly for the same reason.
Dio, well… he would be furious, and his and Alice's brother was the kind to fight the very world if he thought it would get him what he wanted; but this was hardly the kind of thing that could be fought, not with any hope of winning. He knew that better than anyone, particularly after what he'd asked Master Tonpetty when he'd arrived at the temple in Tibet.