Hunter quickly checked Katya's condition; his eyes of a soldier immediately identified the worst wounds and the consequences they had on the body, all while his ears were wide open and ready to spring at the slightest noise produced by a possible pursuer. Fortunately, almost all the wounds they saw were superficial and none of them seemed particularly serious: Katya's fainting was probably due to excessive physical exertion. However, that assumption was proven wrong when he touched her chest and felt a conformation that shouldn't have been there. "One of the ribs is broken and pointing towards the right lung. I'm willing to bet that it damaged it. How long ago did she lose consciousness?"
"Um... about five minutes... I was trying to take her to a doctor..." Skara tried to say.
Hunter touched the base of Katya's neck and pressed on the vein, controlling the blood flow. "The heartbeat is slowing down. There must be heavy internal bleeding". He placed his staff over Katya's chest, and immediately it glowed with red light; a blood-colored aura emerged from it and penetrated her chest, and suddenly her breathing became more regular.
"You healed her!" Luz exclaimed with relief.
"No, I didn't heal her. My staff has no such powers" Hunter responded with a growl. "I simply replaced her right lung's activity with my staff's energy to keep the oxygen exchange stable. But we still need to heal her before the lung atrophies too much". Yes, but how? He had no healing abilities, and he couldn't fly and carry Katya to someone competent with his staff while she was on the brink of death; what could he do...
Just then Flapjack, who he still held tightly in his hand, emitted a slight glow from his eyes, or rather from the one good eye and the small scar he had in place of the other. Hunter didn't understand: Flapjack had never done such a thing... but for some reason, he knew exactly what to do: he placed the Palisman above Katya's chest, and immediately a green and golden light emerged from him and struck the woman, and Hunter could feel her ribs adjusting under her skin; even after he removed his staff and stopped replacing her damaged lung, her breathing remained regular. "Uh… when did you learn to do that?" he murmured, looking at the Palisman he held in his hands.
Both Luz and Skara breathed a sigh of relief. "She is fine!" they exclaimed almost in unison.
But Hunter wasn't stupid enough to claim victory too soon; Katya's breathing had stabilized, but that didn't mean she was out of danger. He touched her neck again and this confirmed his suspicions: "As I imagined, the blood flow is still very weak. She needs a transfusion. We need to...". At that point he noticed a detail in Katya's mouth; with a quick movement he lifted her lips and clearly saw two long canines. "Is she a vampire?"
"Only half" Luz explained. "She drinks blood, but only animal blood, although sometimes when she is very hungry she drinks human blood too, but she cannot turn other humans into vampires"
Incredibly, those words brought a smile of relief to Hunter's face. "If this is the case, then the transfusion won't be a problem" he said, then he slapped the woman. "Hey, you, wake up! Make yourself useful if you want to survive!"
Katya let out a moan and then she opened her eyes wide, which were no longer aqua green, but red like blood; she let out a bat-like screech and opened her mouth wide trying to bite Hunter, but she was too weak to move quickly, and the boy had no problem pinning her to the ground by placing his arm around her neck and holding her hands still with the other. "Skara, come on! Feed her!"
Skara turned pale. "What… what do you mean I have to feed her?"
"What questions! Let her bite you! She's a half-vampire, she'll absorb your blood and be reinvigorated! You won't risk transforming yourself, so give her your arm and get bitten!" Hunter replied a little peevishly.
Skara was shaking from head to toe. "But... but... can't you do it, or Luz...?"
"Luz is a puppet, and I..." Hunter paused for a moment, as if thinking, and then continued, "... and I'm holding her down so she doesn't bite the jugular or a vital spot! You're the only one here who can feed her, so do it!"
Skara swallowed hard, but then she closed her eyes and stretched her trembling arm towards Katya's mouth; as soon as it was close enough, the half-vampire bit it and started sucking greedily. Skara stifled a cry of pain when she felt Katya's teeth penetrate her flesh, but fortunately that pain only lasted a few seconds: it seemed that in the half-vampire's canines there was some substance that inhibited pain receptors. When Katya finally had her meal, Hunter felt her stop squirming and let her go: the half-vampire didn't bat an eyelid and didn't even seem to notice that she wasn't constricted anymore, simply continuing to suck Skara's blood as if she were a newborn baby drinking milk. "She'll be fine now. She'll regain her sanity shortly, in the meantime, continue to give her blood" Hunter said, and then he started to walk away: "Whatever happens, don't move from here. I'll do a quick reconnaissance trying to figure out who our opponents are. Can you tell me something?" he asked looking at Skara.
The girl shook her head: "When I arrived, there were several hooded figures in the BATTs camp. Some of them seemed to have a strange skull on their faces. But I was far away, I didn't see much... I was about to run away, but I found Katya struggling to get away, so I grabbed her and tried to take her to the nearest doctor..."
"Okay, I get it" Hunter said; he walked away a few more meters, then he stopped and looked at the two girls: "I repeat again: whatever happens, don't move from here. If you are attacked, scream. Don't follow me and don't do stupid things in my absence". And having said this he disappeared into the bushes.
Luz and Skara were left alone, watching Katya continue to drink blood greedily. Fortunately, despite sucking vigorously, she didn't seem to be able to suck more than a few drops per second, or Skara would have already been bled out. "You were very brave" Luz told her. "Give your arm to a vampire, even if she can't transform you, is not something everyone would do"
Skara was still clearly uncomfortable with the situation, but she still cracked a smile. "Thanks. But I'm sure you would have done the same, and with much less fuss than me"
"Heh heh! I don't know, I don't like getting hurt" Luz said scratching her head as she let out a giggle. "Don't give me credit I don't have. It's you who is giving your blood to Katya now, not me"
Skara blushed a little. It was incredible: Luz managed to transform even that rather unpleasant situation into one of sweetness and laughter. "Why are you and Hunter here, by the way?" she asked.
The smile faded from Luz's face and she took on an expression of pure shame. "Well... I'm not proud of it but... we came to steal Darius' lamp" she confessed. "I wanted to ask that djinn to turn me into a real girl, even though everyone seemed to be against this idea. I may have acted rather impulsively. I was thinking of giving it up before... well, meeting you two. Hunter was about to take me back to home. He can be good with words when he wants... he made me understand that I had to stop for a moment before doing something wrong"
Skara felt a little bad for the puppet; Luz had told her a very fragmented story, but her expression suggested that she was very tired and worn out. "Well... if it's any consolation, I understand your desire to become a real girl. I don't blame you for wanting to fulfill it... and if you were really holding back from committing theft you have nothing to blame yourself from my point of view" she said, then she added: "So… Hunter is good with words? Really?"
Luz could understand her perplexity: until that moment Hunter had always seemed to her to be a person with poor communication skills; he certainly didn't seem like someone who was dishing out pearls of wisdom. Even she was surprised by how he had managed to find a way into her heart despite her selfish desire to have the lamp. But Luz knew that Hunter's words weren't just nice words and they weren't just to console her: he really believed in what he had told her. Which made her very worry a lot about the blond boy: if he really saw himself that way, then he must have really experienced things that she could only imagine. Luz had seen her entire family devoured by Belos, yet she had maintained the desire to live and the hope of being able to change and become a real girl; what must Hunter have experienced to completely annihilate even that, and convince him that there would never be anything for him but a life of death and killing? She was almost afraid to ask for further explanations.
She shook her head: that was not the time to think about such things. Whatever questions she had for Hunter, she would ask him when they were alone and especially after that situation was over. To distract herself she asked Skara: "And you? Why were you here?"
Skara turned red in the face. "Um... I was a little ashamed to admit it... but I had the same idea as you"
Luz raised an eyebrow. "Really? So you wanted to take the lamp? What wish did you want to make?"
She was sure it wasn't something small: Skara wasn't the kind of person who would steal something without a very good reason. Incredibly, Skara became even redder than before, so much so that she looked like a pomegranate. "It's… personal" she whispered.
Luz rolled her eyes. "Skara, we don't have time for secrets here. We don't know what's going to happen next, so you just tell me what..."
"Okay, okay!" Skara exclaimed, then she swallowed slightly: "I wanted to ask… courage"
Luz didn't understand. "Courage? Why? You're already brave enough. I mean, you're giving your blood to a vampire right now! You may not be as brave as a soldier or a hero in stories, but you have nothing to be ashamed of for a normal girl"
"Not that kind of courage" Skara replied. "I wanted to ask... the courage to confess to Boscha the secret I have to tell her. You know... what I wanted to reveal to her at the library when we faced Otabin..."
"Oh, that? I thought you'd decided to take that to your grave by now. Even Boscha got tired of asking you that a while ago" Luz said. "Why don't you just tell her?"
"It's not... it's not that easy to reveal certain things. Especially with a friend with whom you've spent a good part of your life, and who you're afraid might react badly to such a revelation and ruin that beautiful relationship we've had for all these years" Skara replied, then she let out a soft sob. "The secret... is that I don't want to be friends with Boscha anymore"
That revelation caught Luz totally unprepared. "What!? But... you look so good together! You're practically inseparable! Why do you want to cut ties with her?"
"I don't want to cut ties! What do you understand? It's precisely because I'm afraid that the relationship between me and her will deteriorate that I don't have the courage to tell her!" Skara exclaimed. "What I mean... is that I don't want to be just a friend to Boscha anymore"
"Huh? I can't..." Luz was already about to say, but then the pieces fell into place in her head. When she managed to put them together her eyes bulged. "Wait a minute! Do you... have a crush on Boscha?"
The color on Skara's face was now starting to turn from red to even darker shades. "I... I don't think it can be called a crush anymore. It was a crush at first, but now... it's even more"
"Wow... well, you sure know how to hide it well..." Luz murmured still amazed. "How long...?"
"For a year, more or less" Skara replied, clutching her chest with her free hand. "A year ago I realized that what I felt for Boscha was no longer simple friendship. Initially I thought she would get over it, so I pretended nothing happened, I tried to ignore her, I went out with other people... but that feeling has never left me. It's as if it had put down roots in my heart and every day it grows more and more, like a tree full of blooming flowers. Every time I'm next to Boscha I can't help but imagine how much I'd like to kiss those lips, or sink my hands into her hair, or touch that skin of hers... or even just spend time with her, but... not as friends. And the more time passes, the stronger these desires become... I don't know how much longer I can hold on"
Luz scratched her head, not sure what to say. She wasn't very experienced in that field... although strangely she felt that Skara's words were somehow familiar to her, especially when she described what she wanted to do with Boscha, but she wasn't clear on why. "Um, sorry to ask... but do you happen to feel your face heat up when Boscha protects you like a knight?"
"Huh?" Skara looked more confused than ever. "Um... it doesn't exactly happen often... we don't get into trouble if we can help it... although we've had some interesting adventures lately..."
"Yes, but I'm sure it happened at least sometimes. I mean, Boscha has a combative personality, it must have happened to you that someone annoyed you and she protected you. What did you feel at that moment?" Luz asked with some anxiety in her voice. Why was she asking those things? And why did the image of Amity standing between her and her mother to defend her keep coming back to her mind?
Skara was now tilting her head to the side in confusion, but still answered truthfully: "Well, yes, it actually happened... and at that moment I thought that she was really heroic, and brave, and my heart was threatening to jump out my chest..."
"...and you lost words, you couldn't think straight anymore, and maybe your cheeks were on fire?" Luz asked in an unusually fast voice, and a small blush was forming on her face again.
"Um… yeah… how do you know?" Skara asked her.
Luz ignored her question. "Um... have you ever heard Boscha call you 'hers'? And how did you feel then?"
"No, that's never happened to me" Skara said quickly, then she asked: "You are strangely very specific... perhaps you have a crush on someone too...?"
"It doesn't matter now!" Luz found herself screaming in a shrill voice. What was happening to her? Why had her voice suddenly gone up an octave? Why were her cheeks getting hot? And more importantly, why was her mind refusing to show her anything other than images of Amity, and her heart racing faster and faster with each passing second? And why did just thinking about Amity make her want to touch her skin and hear the sound of her voice again? "What matters... what matters now is you and Boscha! Yes, we have to think about you!" she said, quickly changing the topic of conversation, and she tried to regain her lucidity. "In any case, just tell her. At most she'll reject you..."
"Yes, and then? What will happen next?" Skara asked her. "After I confess and she refuses me, will she be able to look at me with the same eyes as before, knowing that I think of her in a romantic light? Or will I be able not to hold a grudge against her for breaking my heart? Will our relationship ever go back to that before? Or will I have to say goodbye to a friendship that lasted years?". She bit her lip hard. "This... scares me. Not knowing how it will end scares me. That's why I wanted to ask Darius to give me the courage to overcome that fear"
Luz couldn't deny that those doubts were legitimate; perhaps if she had found herself in the same situation she too would have been afraid. "But... life is always a 'not knowing how it will end'. Nobody tells us what will happen tomorrow, in an hour or even just in a second. Sometimes... we just have to throw ourselves in" she told her. "After all, good things always have a dose of risk. But if you never take that risk, you will never be able to have what you wanted and you will regret it forever. And... if your feelings for Boscha are really as strong as you described them to me... maybe this is a risk worth taking"
Skara looked at her with a strange expression: she seemed to be both convinced and unconvinced at the same time, as if a great conflict was taking place within her. Just then, however, Katya let out a moan and their attention was immediately focused on her. "Uh... what happened?" the half-vampire murmured, finally letting go of Skara's arm. It took her a few seconds to remember, and when she did she jumped up. "The others! We have to help them! We have to... URGH!". She let out a groan when she tried to get up.
"Hey, calm down! You're still weak!" Luz said holding her down on the ground.
Katya rubbed her head, which was spinning at the moment. Only then did she realize the marks of her teeth on Skara's arm. "Uh... did I bite you? I'm sorry, I shouldn't..."
"I-It's okay" Skara said trying to hide how unpleasant it was for her. "Rather, what happened to you?"
Katya made a sound of disgust. "It was the Titan Trappers"
Luz and Skara looked at each other in confusion. "But... aren't the Trappers magical creatures? The ones created by the Collector, right?" Luz asked.
"It's not them" Katya replied, shaking her head. "The Titan Trappers are an evil cult that venerates the Collector and his creations, and are convinced that by offering him the blood of their largest prey, a Titan, as a sacrifice, they can in turn be transformed into his Trappers and ascend to his realm. When we first met them once they lorded over an entire region, and sacrificed anything that vaguely resembled a Titan... but then we managed to turn the population against them and defeated them... but their leader, Elder Bill, escaped with some of his most trusted followers. Since then he has tried a couple of times to obtain Darius' lamp, so that he can ask him to find a real Titan, but he has always failed. But... this night he and his men returned and took control of the entire camp"
Luz broke out in a cold sweat. Well, it was natural that the BATTs had enemies given what they did, but knowing that there was someone so fanatical as to have pursued them for so long made her shudder. "How did they defeat you? You had Darius with you..."
Katya let out a growl. "Apparently Elder Bill has found two new recruits" she replied. "I doubt they are fanatics, I think they joined him just to grab some wealth. They took advantage of the fact that we didn't know them and introduced themselves as two street vendors, and offered Raine a strange herbal decoction passing it off as a drink special. In the space of just an hour... Raine has changed. They became... cold, absent, empty. It's as if they weren't thrmselves anymore. They waited for Darius to give them the lamp before going to sleep as usual, and then they handed it over to the two marauders. At that point Elder Bill and his men raided and captured everyone. I managed to escape... but they beat me pretty bad"
Luz broke out in a cold sweat. She was worried about Raine, since they had always been very good to her, and even though she knew them little she liked them... but she was also worried because now a fanatical cult possessed the power of a djinn. As long as Elder Bill or his henchmen had the lamp, Darius would be forced to obey them. Which meant that saving everyone would be a tough and uncertain task. Not to mention that now their enemies could express any wish they wanted, which made them even more dangerous.
Suddenly they heard a rustling sound; all three snapped to attention. Katya tried to get to her feet, but it was clear that she was too weak to fight; instinctively Skara stepped in front of her and Luz in turn stepped in front of Skara; after all, since she was made of wood she was the one who could fight better, since her punches would have a much better effect and she wouldn't risk breaking her knuckles. But luckily, the one who came out of the bushes was Hunter. "Mh. Good, you've recovered" he said, seeing Katya on her feet again. "Look, the situation is not good. There are at least twenty people wearing strange skulls, and they seem well armed, and I'm willing to bet that many more are out looking for the fugitive. I've seen several shadows moving around here, so it seems logical to assume that there are at least fifty enemies. Maybe even more"
"So what? You can tear them all to pieces by yourself! I've seen you fight, no one can stand up to you!" Skara exclaimed. She remembered well how Hunter alone had disintegrated over and over again a five-meter tall fisherman armed with magic nets; what hopes could a group of fanatics have?
But incredibly, for once Luz managed to figure out for herself why Hunter hadn't already taken down all the enemies. "If he were to go on a rampage like he did against Otabin, he would wipe out Raine, Amber and Derwin as well. Maybe not even Darius would be able to survive". She remained silent for a second, then she added: "And then... this would be murder. It's one thing to kill a fisherman generated by a magic book and which regenerates infinitely, it's another thing to kill people"
Luz knew that Hunter had no qualms about eliminating someone if they were too dangerous, regardless of whether they were people or not; she remembered well how he had easily considered killing the greater basilisk some time ago, and the conversation the two of them had had shortly before fully confirmed that Hunter was used to taking a life. But she didn't want to see him kill someone: even though she was sure that the blond boy had killed before, she wasn't sure she could bear to see him do that.
Hunter nodded at Luz's words, though he totally ignored the last part. "As long as they have hostages I cannot attack to my full potential, I would risk hitting some of them in the process. I will have to limit myself to melee and limit wide-ranging attacks, which will penalize me quite a lot in a fight against numerous opponents. Furthermore we don't know what abilities these adversaries have, and above all they have the lamp with them, which means that they could force Darius to fight me, and I could find myself forced to harm him. Or they could take one of the hostages and threaten to kill him if I don't I give up. There are too many variables and we have too little information at the moment; we must proceed with caution"
Luz understood her friend's calm and rational behavior, but on the contrary she was seething: not only did she want to go and help Raine and the others, but... if Elder Bill really aimed to use the lamp to find a Titan and sacrifice it... then it could be a problem, because she knew exactly where a Titan was at that moment... and she absolutely didn't want to see him in danger. "So, what's the plan?"
Hunter gave her a stern look. "The plan is that I stay here and try to come up with a strategy, while you go get help"
"What!?" Luz exclaimed. "But..."
"You are not warriors, you don't know how to fight, you don't know how to use weapons and you can't use magic. The only one among you who could be of any use to me is barely standing" Hunter said pointing to Katya. "In any fight you would only be in my way, so now you leave. Call Eda, Lilith and anyone else you can think of, even Odalia if necessary, and..."
He couldn't finish the sentence; his body tensed and jerked around, just in time to block an arrow that was about to lodge itself in his back. He managed to glimpse some shadows moving among the trees. "Damn it… they found us" he growled. "Stay behind me!"
The Titan Trappers were pretty much the only characters missing from the story now, so I decided to give them the role of villains in this story arc. I also dedicated some space to Skara both because she finally admitted to having a crush on Boscha (even though it was quite obvious since I had put it in the tags) and for this reason she also provided Luz with some information on how it feels like being in love... information that coincidentally reminds her a lot of a certain cotton candy hair goddess. Keep in mind that in this AU Luz never had the chance to learn what it feels like to have a crush since... well, she was born fourteen and never met anyone who interested her, so if already in the canon Luz needed more than an entire season to figure out that she liked Amity, imagine how long it would take her here if someone didn't give her some help figuring out her feelings.