He stalked neared his prey, silent and hungry and eager to pounce!
…Well, it was less 'pounce' and more 'Grip her by the throat and tear her body open to get to that warm gooey center', but the thought counted.
Not really much of a stalk either, more a 'I am walking towards her from the side' kind of deal.
Whatever, semantics were in the past DINNER WAS NOW!
His clawed fist reached for her throat!
""GOT YA!""
…Just as her's gripped his jacket.
Uh.
The two vampires stared at each other in confusion… And growing frustration. "Again!?" "Hey bud, this is on YOU! I've been waiting to be jumped by some asshole for days now and haven't gotten a bite!" "Shit, that was you yesterday too!?" "Yeah?" "But you look nothing like…" "I change clothes and stuff dipshit, dressing up as a rape target doesn't work well if people recognize me as bait."
Damn it! "Well, what's the range of your territory then?"
She grumbled as she reruffled her clothing to look more 'lost innocent waif' and less 'vampiress about to eat you'. "I hang out around downtown normally, but almost all night traffic has died off this month."
He grunted. "Yeah, no shit. Haven't had a good meal in days now, had to go pay for the Mayor's 'emergency room donated blood bank' option a while back just to keep on my feet."
Her twisted face grimaced. "Yeah, me too. Haven't seen a blood bag on the streets anywhere CLOSE to nightfall for days!"
Fuck, today was going to totally be a bust. "What's up with that, anyway? I've never accidentally jumped so many other vamps like this before!"
She huffed as she leaned back against the building. "Some new territory opened up on the bad side of town and like half the population is hanging out there now. I got desperate enough to go check it out, and it's like this whole underground paradise of wholesome family fun, with a layer of depravity hidden below it."
Huh. "Then why not hunt there? Why hang around this terf?"
She shivered. "Because the moment I tried to hunt someone the army of metal sex statues picked me up by my skull and gently threw me out."
….I'm sorry? "What was that?"
His no-longer-evening-dinner grimaced. "Yeah, the entire area is flooded with what I THOUGHT were metal statues… But it turned out to be an iron army. Treated me like I was an infant, if my continued existence wasn't at risk the entire time I was being kicked out I would have felt humiliated!"
Shit. "Then what are we supposed to do?"
Her slump was telling. "Half those I hunted with have already moved out. Something about this town calls us, yeah, but a food source is more important… Not to mention the price hikes at the hospital for blood bags. I heard from those in the know that eventually you either work for the Mayor directly or you have to arrange your own supply chain for sustenance at the rate expenses are going up."
This just didn't make sense. "I… It can't be that bad! I've seen MORE people out in the day this month than ever before!"
She folders her arms under her chest. "And for some reason, after going to Doe Park for a while… They stop wandering around at night. People hang out in succeed locations,, they 'accidently' avoid our territories… The people hanging out at Willy's Place has dropped significantly too, since half of those guys moved to the park too."
Well, fuck.
Wait, hang on! "I thought most of THEM couldn't pass as humans?"
She shrugged. "Don't matter at Doe Park. I TOLD you I went to visit myself… Even in my vampiric form, no one bothered to complain or even comment on it until I attempted to grab a quick snack and got evicted."
Well shit. "I don't want to leave! I died in this town, it's home!"
And she hesitated… Before looking both ways. "There IS another option, if you can keep your bloodlust in check. An option that doesn't require letting the Mayor get his claws into you."
He blinked at the unexpected information. "What?"
And her purse was opened. "I can let you have one, JUST ONE, alright? I can't go back for more until my 'timeout' wears off in a week, so I got to ration these. And you will OWE me for this, you got me? Owe me big time!"
…Why was her purse full of pulsing red cookies?
~~~Pocket System~~~
Willow Rosenberg screamed into her pillow "WHY!?"
And she flushed more as she remembered cuddling with Xander's arm and being carried around and declaring 'Dibs' over her best friend to the entire world…
The entire time her mind and Soul was being DOUSED with raw magical power. Better than the best massage, more pure than a mountain stream in some land untouched by humanity, raw energy that could triumph over a billion mugs of coffee, and it was all swirled around her as her everything soaked it up like a desert.
Pure power like that had side effects.
Case in point: She had spawned this pillow. The one she was screaming into as she hid in her bedroom.
Even now she could feel her core magic convincing reality itself that it was soft and fluffy and totally a real pillow, trust me I've seen a lot of pillows and this? This was totally not a magical construct, no sir! Pillow all the way, 3000%, no lie, honest injun, etc. and so forth.
After awakening from that half fantasy half dream of a magical orgy, constructing 'illusions' that one could touch or scream into was trivial. Even now, it only required a twist of desire and Belief and this fluffy pink magical lie would shift directly into something R̢̘̜e̢͎̭͍a̡̲̳̗̪l̨̳͖ instantly.
And the cost?
The bill for this purchase of unlimited, unrestricted, easily controlled power?
The most embarrassing memory EVER!
She screamed again. "WHY!? Oh god, the things I said!" Wait. "The things I WHISPERED!" Right into his EAR!
Help, denial! You are my only hope!
It hadn't happened. She hadn't drooled all over her best friend and declared him 'Mount Xanderous, the mountainous spire of kingdom Twinky' who was destined to be climbed and claimed by her along with any potential sherpas depending on how hot they were and if they were both INTO threesomes and …
The pillow dissolved into pure Magic that she instinctively cleansed and reclaimed, even as a LARGER soft cushion caught her face as she SLAMMED it into her bed. "It. Didn't. Happen."
It was all so embarrassing that the rating scale got thrown out the window until it eventually flipped all the way back into apathy… At least, until she saw him again the next day at school.
Away from the endless fields of magic.
As just herself.
Her eyes glowed as the colors of the room shifted… Alright, fair enough: As an all powerful magical variant of herself, but still! None of the magic high was there to protect her from the memories at the time!
Xander, being the best guy ever, hadn't messed with her about it… But he had this dopey and adorable grin and she couldn't stop blushing and when the others tried to tease her about it he stood up for her and she almost vanished his shirt RIGHT THERE and…
Her arm shoved reality away, and her room tripled in size as she subconsciously adjusted the warping of space to ensure nothing broke.
Right: suppression, repression, and denial: It didn't happen.
And NEXT time she wanted to invite him out to a meal/date/but only if you want to date/oh my god he said YES to the date/outing, she'd do it in Doe Park while enjoying the rush of purified power like a sugar high.
The girl continued to freak out, squee in happiness, melt into horror/joy, and so on and so forth (To various degrees of literalness) as she ignored her room reorder itself, begin sorting and cleaning her clothing, adjusting it all to perfectly fit her body even as it self adjusted to bring her closer to the apex of health for her age and genetics, and so forth.
There were no concerns about the incoming energy from outside her Domain during this process, since (after a talk with the others) had already set up some magical filters over everyone's homes to keep out the taint that seemed to soak into this town, simplifying the entire procedure…
But even so, her Magic automatically scrubbed and filtered and purified all the power as it soaked into her range and mingled with the endless energy she generated from within.
At this point, it was a habit…
But that ALSO meant it wasn't helping to distract her!
Heck, Magic was SO easy now that only by mentally assigning herself some general 'rules' and such could reality stay stable enough for her to pretend nothing was different when wandering about outside…
Or stop from teasing her best friend/BOY FRIEND/Mmm, muscles/best bud using abilities beyond understanding and empowered by poorly understood power.
Thankfully, keeping herself in control wasn't difficult or anything… Theoretically.
All she had to do was just mentally set some magical restrictions. Should be easy, yes? 'No adjusting self when around others', 'Prevent teleportation/levitation/pyromation/etc when witnesses are around', etc. and so on and so forth.
As she was the one setting the limits they would easily disable themselves if something dangerous or important came up, but her new setup at least stopped the subconscious changes on others like slowly tightening Xander's shirt to better show off his…
EEEP! "Nope!"
And THAT was the biggest issue here: Not one with magical control or the changes in her body and (Apparently) Soul, no!
The problem was emotional!
HE SAID YES!
And all those reasons she had before to not try, to not reach out, to not bother… That feeling of worthlessness, of having no value, of being a burden, of not connecting? All that had all been swept away during her emotional roller coaster and she said a bit too much from her heart and about what she liked and loved and…
And he said yes, and they were going to go try out one of the new restaurants down in Doe Park and she had nearly fled out of joy/embarrassment/lust/MORE embarrassment/WHY WAS SHE A TEENAGER!?
Fix this, Magic!
Her powers flexed and reality subtly shifted… And then she got the distinct impression that her subconscious power giggled and started poking her while refusing to mess with the situation.
Fuck YOU, Magic!
~~~Pocket System~~~
John frowned as he tapped his pen against the letter. "...Honestly, despite her name? It is far more difficult to deny Grace than it was for me to refuse Temptation."
Because in the end, Temptation was a sassy sexy metallic demoness who enjoyed teasing and flirting and stuff, and she took refusal as a fun challenge and couldn't care less.
Grace wanted to cuddle. And hold hands. And she had these big innocent eyes and… Well the idea of saying no? Of seeing her heart break? "Truly, it is the meek that are MOST dangerous to my purity. Jane, I repeat: Puberty sucks. If you are already suffering from this, I now (Partially) understand some variant of your pain."
…Except apparently being a guy going through puberty just meant a bunch of awkward erections, or 'boners', while being a girl going through this shit meant constant pain, bleeding, fear, and…
Yeah, no good.
John scrapped the twelfth attempt and tossed it to the side, a new letter forming in front of him. "Dear Jane Banks (Friend, Daughter of Banker, etc); Tis me, John Doe!"
Classic! Always best to do this from a solid base of cool. "As I mentioned in my last letter, I am still in a world empowered and restricted by Belief and have set up a bakery! And a park and…"
Having done this several times now, it was easy enough to continue reporting the confusing and busy days that Doe Park had recently gone through.
Now for the hard part… Keep it simple? Yeah, let's give that a shot. "Slight side note: My new body is FIRMLY within the realm of puberty and it has been messing with my emotions and body pretty hard. Sis has been supportive, and even helped talk down my security harem from attempting to pull me into a massive underground orgy."
There we go! Simple, straight forward, and no awkward comments implying that he now understood the tribulations and trials of a young woman undergoing puberty in the 1900s!
Oh. "Except for George, the rock man/muscle demon/metallic statue I told you about earlier, the guy who flexes all the time. I'm not entirely sure he is even AWARE that he is in my security detail in the first place, but he's a cool guy and really knows how to work a lace skirt when posing on a runway."
Yeah, this letter is going WAY better than the others! "I'm pretty sure only two of the girls plan to continue 'pursuing' me in a romantic sense…"
Long term relationships, anyway.
He had gotten 'offers' from a number of attractive golems when they assumed his physical age was representative of his emotional preparedness for 'one night stands', and in MANY cultures 16 was considered 'old enough'.
No, focus. "...But for now, we are going to keep things pretty basic." Some cuddles, a bit of hand holding or back massages (Temptation really tries to push it sometimes), but more like friends hanging out and less 'Dear Playboy, I never thought it would happen to me…'
Ah, best add that too. "Speaking of which, a warning! When you reach puberty, and know certain things, a LARGE amount of stuff you didn't understand or care about in the past will suddenly become blatantly, humiliatingly clear and horrific in retrospect."
Jane herself was lucky: The internet didn't exist for her yet.
John on the other hand had DATABASES of memories that were now WAY too 'Adult' for someone of his emotional maturity levels.
Also: His sister was a very busy woman.
Nope, this was getting off topic again! The letter, John. Focus on the letter. "Anyway, next Realm I am going to drop down below the age of sexual maturity with my new Body. Maybe for several next steps, actually…"
Unless Grace asked him not to, and then Temptation would suggest something and Grace would look at him with those warm eyes full of hope and innocent joy and… Shit. "Probably. I will PROBABLY go for a 'before puberty' Body."
Sigh. "If I do otherwise, I'll let you and the others know… Be safe, and write back soon!"
Finally.
John slumped for a moment… And pulled the next letter forward. "Dear Phineas and Ferb (Friends, inventors, etc); This is John Doe! From that one time!"
This was going to be rough. "Unfortunately I have some rough news about your near future: Regarding puberty and the likely effects that you two will ALSO suffer under, as I have."
Hopefully he wouldn't have to write one of these for Steve, because STEVE'S body shouldn't have hormones at all.
Lucky jerk.