Yuanfen

by 7th Librarian

Five years after The Thousand-Year Door tournament, Lyrius Stormcloud must return to Arcadia to combat the evils that rush to fill the void left by the defeat of his wife, the Shadow Queen. Aided by the ruler of all vampires, a worn-down retired Eliminator and the same Unicorn Maiden who defeated his Queen, he must fit together broken pieces of his life into a crown once more.

1. Prologue

Yuanfen
By 7th Librarian and Mei1105

A/N: Hello, all! And welcome to our first joint project! This story is a direct sequel to story 'Kintsugi' on 7th Librarian's page and an indirect sequel to 'The Thousand Year Door Redux' on Cyber Commander's page! Neither story is necessary to enjoy this one, but prior knowledge will only enrich your experience.

That's all for now, we'll update anything if we need to! We hope you enjoy the story!

Prologue:

In his dreams and thoughts, Andy Markova had always put evil into two categories: The wretched, brutal and petty criminals that slummed in the gutters and the oozy, smarmy, ruthless and ego-driven high class evil that hid in palaces and towers built out of money.

He had combated both five years ago in Arcadia, the Shadow Queen having enacted a centuries-old plan to rid herself of a curse imprisoning her in a mountain palace. From scum-sucking, narrow-minded duelists like Jackson and Poison to the demons and dragons of the Queen herself, he and his friends had seen the entire spectrum of evil. And survived it. Beaten it.

Now after all these years, the only thing Andy had ever expected out of evil anymore was just the new depths to which it could sink.

Except he wasn't sure how to react when the evil woman holding him prisoner was telling him to do something good. "What?"

"I want you to cut down the tree so I can remove its heart." She said with more care than she had a second go, clearly trying to make sure he heard her. "That is the reason I need Oblivion. And you are the only one who can wield it."

Andy glanced down at the sword in his hand. Weightless, the black blade seemed to reject the light surrounding it instead of absorbing or reflecting it. It felt like he was holding a piece of absolute dark and yet, it was comforting in his hand. "Yeah, but...why?"

She lifted an eyebrow and gestured to the expanse of dead and dying forest around them. "The Reaping Tree is draining this forest dry of its magic and life. Killing it will allow this place to heal. Surely that's enough of a reason for you, Dragon Master?"

"Except you kidnapped me. And are the daughter of the Shadow Queen, who holds the title of 'Most Evil Bitch' ever. You must want that heart for something." Andy said, jaw tightening. "I'm not going to do it if it helps you further your own evil plan!"

"Ah, so you will nobly sacrifice this forest and all of the creatures in it to stop my 'evil'." Her black eyes glimmered in amusement. "Truly a heroic act."

Andy glared at her. "Don't try and pin this on me, Lyrissa! You're the kidnapper and the evil one here. I can't be held responsible for what you make me do."

"I am not making you. I have only asked you to do it." Lyrissa shrugged, turning and setting herself on a fallen log with purpose. "And, as a hero, I would think you would consider yourself responsible for your own inactions. Yes?"

Andy didn't have any response that would have not given her satisfaction and settled for turning his back on her to look at the Reaping Tree. It was tall, composed of some kind of glass-like crystal that flowed and shifted like water when the tree expanded its branches; like something was inflating it.

Leafless and barren, it might have been a sculpture except for the fact he could see a handful of oblong fruits budding at the tips of the needle branches. And there were a few soft lights circling in and out of the branches like dancers to a soundless song that he had been told were souls.

He might have left it there just to ensure she didn't get its heart or whatever, but there was no denying it was killing the surrounding forest. The soil at his feet was littered with rotten plant matter, the grass and small plants already shriveled and wiped away. The real trees were cracked and split, going from lush greens to grey death and they'd lost most of their leaves despite it being late spring. Even the air felt stale and thin, deprived of moisture and life.

"What is this?" He asked her after a few more moments of contemplation. "You called it a Reaping Tree and easy enough to guess why it's called that. But who would want this thing? It's not even pretty to look at."

"Really? I find it rather alluring." She sounded genuinely surprised at his reaction.

"It's dead, pointy and causing more death." Andy said flatly. "There's nothing alluring about it."

"There's beauty in death, Dragon Master."

"Just answer the question and spare me your life viewpoint." Andy snorted. "It's just another diatribe on how you justify your actions to yourself."

"Rude." She scoffed, but complied. "A Reaping Tree is an energy collector. Everything in this world carries magic, of its own sort. A blade of grass may not be able to cast fireballs, but it still has life. These trees drain that to feed themselves. And when something with a soul nearby dies, it collects that soul for further nourishment."

Andy frowned at that. "So not only is it a parasite, it keeps people from going to the afterlife." He shot her a look over his shoulder. "You sure you want me to cut it down? This sounds like it would be right up your street."

She ignored him. "Reaping Trees collect their power in their fruit. Eating it gives you a power boost, but when you die, the Tree collects your soul. And we are lucky. This one has not had enough nourishment to start spawning creatures to hunt for it."

"It grows its own army, too?" Andy's gaze snapped back to the tree. The fruits glistened like someone had sneezed over them, and the trees were hard and unyielding. No monsters there, so you'd see. "To do what?"

"Protection and to seek out new, better sources of life and magic." She paused, then continued. "Like that village we passed through on the way here."

Andy remembered - it had been a small typically rural American community - not too dissimilar to the sort of place Fran had grown up, now that he thought about it. If this were Fran's home, I'd be doing everything I could to save it from being overrun by monsters…

He paused, turning a scowl on her. "So you want me to destroy it to help those people? What are they to you? You can't make them your slaves or sacrifice them to a demon?"

Groaning, Lyrissa gripped both sides of her head. "Do you just talk to hear your own voice or is it a strategy to bore your enemies to death? You are exhausting to be around! No wonder your girlfriend dumped you."

It was a small stab, but it penetrated deep into Andy's chest - sadness, regret, and a large dash of embarrassment. "She didn't dump me! She was just...angry, and in pain! She didn't know what she was saying!"

"You were hurt and angry as well and you seemed to know what you were saying. I was eavesdropping before I sprung my trap." Lyrissa said, leaning forwards to prop her chin in her hand. "So if you were speaking the truth, why not her as well?"

"I was fine! I hadn't just lost an eye!" Andy retorted. "If she hadn't, she never would have said those things! She'd never have let Lyrius touch her like that!"

The image of that man standing over her, while she was laying there helpless to resist, was one that was going to stay burned in his memory forever. I'm going to kill that bastard when I next see him…

"Your thoughts betray you, Dragon Master. My father is far above you." Lyrissa smiled as Andy's gaze snapped to her, grip tightening on Oblivion. "No, I cannot read your mind. But your thoughts are still simple. And simple is easy to predict. You cannot even accept he was saving her life because it is simpler for you to hate him."

"Shut it!" Andy could feel colour rushing to his face, and he turned his back on her.

"I am not here to coddle you. Nor to be tender about your feelings and ego." Lyrissa's voice grew into command. "I am your queen. You are my knight. Now cut down the Reaping Tree."

Andy felt it now - the tightness in her voice drew chains around his heart and mind and soul taut. The Penalty Game she'd inflicted on him scant days ago, forcing him to swear loyalty to her like a knight of old. He'd always liked those stories, of chivalry and duty and destiny given to the good in the world.

He hated how she had taken that from him, too. Alongside his freedom. And from Fran. It was this that let him heft the sword and put strength into his muscles as he swung it. Oblivion ate through the crystal of the tree like it was a lightsaber minus the hissing and cracking sounds. But even as he pulled it free, the crystal was liquifying to melt back together and heal the wound he just made.

Behind him, he could feel Lyrissa's smile. "My father could have done it one swing. If you can't kill that tree, how could you ever kill him?"

Andy's response was to slash again and again and again. The sword was whispering to him, coaxing him, guiding his cuts so instead of hewing at the tree, they began to slice away hunks of the trunk. They crashed to the ground, bleeding shadows as they melted into water that faded into nothing. When he'd reached the pulsing fruit-like hearstem of the tree, he drove Oblivion up into it, felt the sword tug at him and he let it. Shadows rippled along the blade's edge, then became black fire and a push of his will made them erupt.

The flames followed the paths of the heartstem like a highway, flooding the entire clear crystal with warped back that caused it to crack and split as it was cooked from the inside. As Andy wrenched the sword out, the Reaping Tree splintered into hundreds of pieces of glass that became thousands of glimmering snowflakes as it crashed to the ground.

"What have you done!?" Lyrissa' anger carried something Andy found refreshing. Panic. "I said to cut the tree down! Not destroy it!"

Andy blinked at her. "What's the difference?"

His kidnapper gaped, advancing on him in a storm of black dress and lightning eyes. "You have destroyed the heart! The power it collected is now useless to anyone! I needed the heart, you blasted fool!"

"And I said I wasn't going to do anything that helped you with whatever evil plan you have," Andy said with a shrug, unable to stop his smile. "And I wanted to help the forest. Two birds, one stone."

"Since when is my freedom evil?" Her hands latched into his shirt, yanking him close and Andy felt her make good use of that height difference as she picked him up off the ground like he was nothing. "Do you have any idea what you've done!? He is already chasing us and you've wasted our lead time! You have ruined the only chance I had to be free!"

Andy let Oblivion drop to grab her wrists and try and work them loose; he already knew her Penalty Game kept him from taking any kind of action against her. But the reverse was not true and her grip on his shirt was strangling. "What are you talking about?"

"You don't need to know! You just needed to do!" Her eyes were narrow as her grip tightened. "But you had to be 'clever', didn't you? And now-"

"And now, what, Lyrissa?"

Her eyes went wide at that new voice, then she dropped Andy and pushed him away. "And now nothing. It's done. Another Reaping Tree is dead, Jemorille. Just like you asked."

"So it is. Though not through the method I expected." Jemorille brandished his cane in Andy's direction. "Five years is a long time, Andy. I'm glad to see you, but why are you here?"

Andy could have started singing in joy at the sight of the familiar figure. "She kidnapped me!" He said, jabbing an accusing finger at Lyrissa.

Jemorille paused, frowning and then twisted his gaze towards Lyrissa. She just returned his look evenly, jaw set. And then he sighed. "That was a mistake, Lyrissa. You just spend my goodwill like it's burning a hole in your pocket."

"There isn't much of it to spend, you monster!" Lyrissa snapped. "Andy, kill him right now!"

"Look out -" It was all Andy could get out as his body moved against his will, a lunging in-step that brought Jemorille in slicing range, Oblivion a black blur to cut right through the man's body.

Except it didn't. Jemorille faded out into a ghost-like state, the blow passing through him like a mirage. He came back to solidity, and rapped his cane on Andy's chest. He felt his body freeze in mid-swing, a living statue. Jemorille turned to Lyrissa, but she was lashing out with a bolt of power from her hand. He swatted aside with his cane. With a frustrated look, he stepped forwards and swept out his hand. She went flying backwards as an invisible force stuck her and then he was standing next to her prone form, tip of his cane planted on her chest. "Order him to stop."

"Release me!" She bit back. "I am done being your prisoner!"

"No, you are not. You haven't repented for your crimes at all and you certainly won't by magically binding an innocent man to you." Jemorille warned politely. "Tell him to stop."

"He is not an innocent man! He sent my mother to the Abyss! His ancestor destroyed my home!"

"I am not warning you again." Jemorille's polite tone frosted over. "Tell him to stop. Or I will make you."

Her gray eyes glared hard at him, but her lips opened. "Andy, I order you to stop attacking Jemorille."

Andy felt the chains around his heart loosen and Jemorille waved his hand, the force holding his body fell away and he stumbled as the unspent force of his swing caught up to him. "You crazy bitch! What the hell was that?!"

"Just the same pussiance as her mother, Andy. She'll do anything for her own freedom." Jemorille flicked his gaze over to him. "Do you know how she's controlling you?"

"A Penalty Game." Andy said with a glare. "She beat me in Las Vegas…"

"I suppose that's where her father's sword came from...but you couldn't use it yourself, could you?" Jemorille scoffed at Lyrissa. "So you kidnapped a man who could."

She just glared up at him.

"I cannot break a Penalty Game, but I maybe can help some. Come here, Andy." Jemorille held out his hand and Andy took it. The eyes of his cane glowed and Andy grunted in exertion as something inside him slithered around, like he was a tube of toothpaste someone was squeezing the last few drops out of it. As the sensation increased, he felt the chains on his heart loosen and then fall away completely. There was a frustrated growl from Lyrissa and he knew exactly where they went.

The sensations vanished and Jemorille stepped back, his face looking a bit paler and he mopped his brow of a sheen of sweat, his suit damp as though he'd run a mile in it. "There. It is done. I trust this arrangement is much better."

"You cur - how many more leashes must you fit around my neck until you are satisfied!?" Lyrissa got to her feet, clenched fists at her side. "You took me from my family, you kept me a prisoner? Now you bind me further just because you can-"

"Lyrissa, shut up!" Andy found a great deal of satisfaction as her mouth clamped shut in mid-word and she glared at him. "Jemorille, what's going on? What's she talking about? How did you do that?"

"Talent for magic, my own long experiences and a bit of luck. I just changed who held the leash, which is a good thing. She's just as dangerous as her parents." Jemorille said, looking a bit satisfied with himself. "You know this, but I'll elaborate a bit. She is Lyrissa Stormcloud, the original Shadow Spawn and child of the Shadow Queen and her King."

"But Lyrius was a ghost for so long, that would mean…." Andy looked at her with new eyes. "She's a thousand years old!"

"A little less, but yes. You see, Mister Markova, she was chosen as a priestess for a goddess of good. But Lyrissa seemed to think she could have the best of both worlds and kept her allegiance to her parents' Empire. Still Heir to the Empire and...well…" He paused, as if considering something. "As a rilmani, I have the ability to see various potential futures and outcomes of choices. Letting her remain where she was would have resulted in a world where the Empire of Shadow was a dominant power, ruled by a group of eternal and cruel royalty. So I took action to prevent it."

Andy would have found the story far-fetched, but his experiences five years ago on Arcadia had come with the same kind of extreme of a thousand-year-old evil queen. And there was still a lot he didn't know about the original conflict and Jemorille had been personally involved.

And Lyrissa's baleful glare was more than enough confirmation. So he just nodded. "She was running around, acting like her mother. And dealing with these….Reaping Tree things." He pointed with his sword at the remains of the he'd destroyed. "What was with that?"

"This wasn't the only Reaping Tree around the world, Andy. They've been infesting magical sites all over the globe. But they can be destroyed, by dark magic like Lyrissa and her family wields. I was putting her on probation, having her help me destroy them. But she used one to empower herself and escaped me - I imagine her act like her mother was to try and intimidate any of the Shadow Queen's old contacts and allies into helping her." Jemorille gave her a side-long look as she folded her arms in a huff. "But I didn't expect her to kidnap you like she did. I apologize for that."

Shame washed over Andy and he knew his face was colouring. She wouldn't have been able to kidnap me if I hadn't lost...he felt pathetic. Weak. Just like he had when he'd lost to Iris. What sort of hero lets the bad guy win like that? "Can you help me get back to Vegas? Lyrius still has Fran, and I need to rescue her-"

The expression on Jemorille's face made his feelings sink even further. "I'm sorry, Andy, but I just came from Las Vegas. Lyrius and his group are gone, with Fran, and I do not know where."

"But - you have powerful magic and his daughter, surely you can-"

"He's with Dracula, Andy and she's had centuries to perfect staying hidden. I am already trying to find them, but I do not have high hopes." Jemorille must have read his face like a book, because his next words were gentle. "Fran is injured and not in any state to escape. And any attempt to do so would erupt in a fight - one I don't think you can win right now."

Andy hated how true those words were. He'd lost a fight to Weevil Underwood - Weevil Underwood - and Lyius had become a kind of black magic monster, taking on a Helmed Horror. The Queen's Shadow had ripped apart metal with his bare hands. Even with Oblivion, he knew he couldn't match up to that. But all he could see was Fran sprawled out on that table, crying about how she couldn't see and a bleeding, gaping mess where her eye had been.

"There's still hope, Andy." Jemorille's reassuring words interrupted his thoughts. "I can teach you, train on how to use that sword. Help you get stronger. And we may not have to go looking for Lyrius and Fran - they'll come to us."

Hope surged in his chest and Andy lifted his head. "How? Where?!"

"Arcadia. The Shadow Queen's defeat removed her tyranny from the people, but other malices are rushing in to fill the gap. Drugs, black magic, things foul and dark trying to steal the Queen's relics, pirates. The Shadow Spawn are doing what they can, but still labor on under their mother's shadow." Jemorille explained. "They need a hero, Andy, a Champion."

Hope fluttered away in Andy's chest at those words. That was all he'd ever wanted to be. Five years of Shadowchaser training and bounty hunting, and all that time he'd never felt as though he was achieving anything - like he was just playing at being a hero.

"Lyrius will be drawn back there, as his Iris-replacement has been kidnapped and they will be taking her there. She needs your help, too. And where he goes, he will certainly bring Fran." Jemorille continued. Andy nodded at the mention of Fran, before another possibility occurred.

"If Arcadia needs its heroes like you say, what about Stan? He'll want to help too."

He was surprised when Jemorille shook his head. "Bringing the three heroes back to Arcadia like that will only spook the island's criminals. More than that, though, your own celebrity status on the island could cause more problems if all three of you were together. It's hard to keep people safe if they're mobbing you as their savior."

"And bad guys notice crowds, yeah." Andy said in agreement. It was just like bounty hunting - stealth was the name of the game. He glanced over at Lyrissa, who had been watching their conversation with a perfect display of regal disdain. "What about her? And these Reaping Trees?"

"The Trees are coming out of Arcadia, I know that much. How and why and who found them, I don't know. That's another reason to send you there." Jemorille gestured to the devastating, desiccated landscape around them. "This isn't the worst of what these Trees can do, Andy. Some of them had taken dozens of people, magical creatures and more. We need to destroy every one that we find."

He nodded at Lyrissa. "With the Penalty Game switched, you can order her to keep herself contained while you are on the island. She is too dangerous to let roam free among the public, but she has knowledge of the island that may be useful."

Andy remembered how many people the Shadow Queen was rumoured to have kidnapped, tortured or murdered for the pettiest of things. I doubt anyone in the world kept count of the actual numbers. He nodded almost to himself. "I'll make sure she can't hurt anybody."

Lyrissa let out what might have been a scream of frustration or a groan of exasperation, but Andy's command prevented her from putting words to it, so she had to settle for a despairing look on her face while she ground her teeth together.

"Good. Then, we should get going and start your training immediately." Jemorille said, waving his hand towards the forest's path. "It's not going to be an easy road, but it will be worth it." He smiled. "Are you ready to be the Dragon Master in more than name?"

Andy nodded, feeling lighter with his first step. Everything that had happened to him in the last few days slid off his shoulders and it was like the world made sense again. Oblivion's weight was in his hand and just like it had when had attacked the Tree, it seemed to whisper in his mind.

I am the blade of a hero.

And Andy knew, by the time all this was done, and evil was ready to strike, he'd have proven himself a hero.

TTTTTTTT

Evil was nowhere near ready to strike.

In fact, it was doing a very good job of trying to kill itself.

"Hey! Hey! HEY!" The voice warbled like an old gramophone trying to play a scratched record. "Quit shaking me!"

"I'll shake you all I want, you talking piece-of-shithead!" Rage in his voice clear as a bell, Weevil Underwood rattled the cyborg head as hard as he could, stag beetle glasses magnifying the fury in his eyes. "Then when whatever passes for your brain falls out, I'll put you on a railroad track and squash you like a bad penny!"

"Not my fault you couldn't handle a few puppies!"

"They were wolves! With short spines!" Weevil snarled when the cyborg blatted out a raspberry and settled for kicking it as hard as he could. The head went sailing up into the darkness, lodging in a tree somewhere. "And don't come down until you can actually do something useful!"

"Oh Weevil, really?" The sigh rattling every bone it had, the skeleton seated across the fire from him just gave him a flat look. When Weevil simply sulked further and dug into his plate of refried beans, the skeleton sighed again. He seized his left wrist and wriggled it, popping the hand off. Setting it down, the hand jumped to life and scuttled like a five-legged spider as he used his other hand to twist some string around it. "Go and fetch my pet please?"

"I'll pet your face, in a minute!"

The hand saluted rather rudely, but prompted the skeleton to give it a pat anyway and it scuttled off across the forest floor.

"This was supposed to be an easy job!" Weevil snapped to no one in particular as he dug savagely into his food. "Find this tree, pick some freaking fruit and make back the money we missed out on in Vegas!"

"This Reaping Tree was far more advanced than the one we found in Satellite, Weevil. No one expected it to be mutating creatures that ate the fruit." The skeleton said in a patient tone. "And we did complete the mission. So we will get paid."

"Yeah! Less than half!" Weevil reached behind his seat and yanked up a limp-looking grain sack. "This is supposed to be bursting at the seams! We got three fruits! Three, Fushioh!"

"We couldn't have gotten anymore - you can't count any higher, Weevil." The new voice said as they entered the campsite. The firelight played over handsome features, but reflected in unsettling waves in the teal colored eye. And didn't reflect at all over the charred, exposed bones of the rest of his face.

"Castiel." Fushioh greeted with fashionable politeness, presumably to make up for Weevil's greeting being the bird. "I take it that hunting was successful, then."

"Just some rabbits. Everything else is too small and the Reaping Tree infected anything else around here." Castiel sat down on a third log, producing a couple of rabbits from the interior of his cloak. They kicked and struggled, but did nothing but ruffle his clothing.

"Why are they still alive?" Weevil asked, huffing and gestured between the two of them with his fork. "You're the vampire, you drain the blood and kill them and then I get to eat something that isn't from a can. You know how this works!"

"These aren't for me." Castiel said, holding the rabbits out of his reach. His good eye fell to the mound of disturbed earth that sat just outside the ring of firelight.

Fushioh followed his gaze, nodding. "Ah yes. It has been three days, hasn't it? She will have completed her transformation soon."

"Or died." Weevil muttered, yelping as Castiel swatted him on the back of his head with a free hand. "What? You told me this way of doing things has a risk of not working! And you're too weak to do it the normal way, vamp!"

"She's not dead, Weevil." Castiel said sternly, his gaze fell back to the gravesite and his tone softened. "She's not dead."

"Well, she did take the brunt of those animals the Tree sent at us. And she was just a human. An old human, too. And I didn't like the shape of those metal limbs of hers. They were like piranhas. I wonder why the Tree focused on her. It eats magic, maybe it had something to do with her necklace…" Fushioh trailed off as Castiel glared at him. "Very well, shutting up now."

"Good." Castiel went back to staring at the grave. He'd dug it himself, bare-handed and driven by panic and fear. The tree trunk they'd hollowed out to be an impromptu coffin had barely fit and folding his little sister inside the coffin had made him wince with every sound of grinding metal, broken gears and grating bone. She'd been so battered...so broken...so weak when they'd put her into the ground. He couldn't even hear her shallow breathing, even with his vampire hearing.

But she won't be weak anymore. I made her better. Made her strong. She will be a vampire like me. The words had been the mantra he'd had over for the last three days. She'll leave humanity behind and be like she always should have. Something better.

He believed them. And in time, he knew, so would she. He'd make her believe, if he had to.

The silence stretched on, broken by Weevil's grumbling and the crackling of the fire. Then he felt it. It was a subtle thing, so nascent that Castiel almost felt it like he'd imagined it. Yet it came into focus when he reached for it with his mind. A string, connecting him...and her.

He smiled, baring his fangs. "She's awake."

Fushioh lifted his head from whatever he was pondering in the firelight. Or maybe he was sleeping. Being a skeleton meant that the lich was rather hard to read.

"Bout time…" Weevil huffed.

The grave soil lurched, shifted and then began to cave in on itself. A figure became half-visible in the soggy soil, graying steaks of red hair like embers of a flame. Castiel almost snapped the rabbits necks as he squeezed, watching the figure's hands - one normal and other mangled metal - punch through the surface.

He jerked when everything vanished into the soil again, muffling the sound of splintering wood; the impromptu coffin caving in on itself and the dirt rushed back to fill the hole. "No!"

He hadn't even taken one step when the soil erupted skywards in an explosion of power. Weevil scampered down to the end of his log as the earth came back down like rain, the nearby trees shaking from the released power.

A figure shot out of the hole and Castiel had to blink to clear his vision and realize what it was.

Serenity Wheeler hung from two great wings of pure black. Not scale or feathers or even flesh, but oily blackness that was raw shadow magic. Her metal left arm and leg sparked uselessly, clogged with dirt and grime and her ruined street clothes hung like a funeral shroud.

But she was alive, her wounds smoothed over with pure untouched skin and the dulled hair of her eighty years so fresh it might have been blood from a wound. Honey eyes sharp and deep with power.

She landed in a single flap of her wings, the shadow stuff slowing down over her ruined leg and molding itself into a brace so that it could support her weight.

"You survived." Castiel's relief showed itself through smug satisfaction. "I knew you could. My little sister is not so weak that-"

"Your step-sister is dead."

The words, so cold and certain, cut off his rising feeling of success like a needle in a balloon. "What?"

"You kidnapped Serenity Wheeler. You tried to kill her friends. You commanded her to give you blood. And you bit her, shoved her into a coffin. She died in there. All that was left was a corpse that became a vampire." Serenity's eyes darkened, the brown soaked up by the sponge of dark power she was commanding. "I am that vampire. Your vampire."

She knelt, head bowed. "What is that you want of me, Master Castiel?"

Castiel stared at her, horror crawling up his spine like a python to strangle his head. "...no! N-no! You are my sister! Serenity!"

"If that is the name you wish me to have-"

"No! It IS your name! You-are-Serenity! My step-sister! Stand up! Stand up, don't kneel!" Castiel seized her shoulders before she could rise, yanking her up. His eye scanned her face, desperately hunting for something. "Don't you understand? I didn't kill you, I made you stronger! Better! Just like we always talked about! We're all that's left of our family, Serenity."

"Family?" She repeated the word cautiously. "You want me to treat you like family?"

"Yes!" Castiel felt his body sag in relief. "Yes, Serenity!"

"Very well." Her metal hand rose and then there was a pneumatic 'wumpf!' of air. Castiel felt pain erupt in his groin and then he went sailing backwards over the campfire and into the darkness beyond like she'd shot him from a cannon. Furious, beautiful life surged back into her voice. "I'm going to destroy you, you sick bastard!"

Weevil's shrill hysterics rang through the clearing at the sight of the vampire shakily pulling himself out of the foliage. "She had you! She played you like a Game Boy, you loser!" Clutching his stomach, he leaned back so far that he fell off his log, still doubled over and weeping with laughter.

Sparks were flying, and metal was grinding in a way it wasn't supposed, but still Serenity pulled her empty rocket-less fist back as she advanced on the hunched figure of Castiel, murder in her eyes. "Oh I am done playing!"

"Stop!" It was like reaching out to touch her, only without physical contact, as Castiel felt along the link that connected him to her, and shoved hard. "Stop Serenity. I order you not to hurt me. I order you not to try to escape. I order you not to communicate with anyone about me or the fact you're my spawn. I order you to fight back if someone tries to separate us. I order you to trust me." He broke off, as if his words had only just now registered. "I order...that...that's enough orders for now."

Serenity's body, forcibly, gratingly, relaxed into a standing position and her honey eyes - now muddied with the bloody red of a vampire - glared daggers at him. They hurt almost like real daggers, but he shrugged it off. "I'm sorry, Serenity. This is just how things are when you're a vampire. Someone to have the power, someone to obey it. But it won't be forever. You'll learn, alright?"

She just continued to glare and he suddenly found a surge of frustration welling up in him. The same ages-old frustration that had driven their sibling bickering so many years ago. "Stop looking at me like that! You need to understand - I saved your life! I stopped you from dying! And you aren't a human anymore! All that bullshit the therapists fed us and how they told you our sadism is wrong? Doesn't matter anymore!"

Castiel stormed over to their packs and rummaged around in them. He pulled out her deck and saw her start out of the corner of his eye, hand reaching for him. "You stay there!"

"What are you doing with my deck?!" Her determined anger had dissolved into blind fear. Somehow it struck deeper. She's not supposed to be afraid of me! Can't she see I'm doing this for her own good?

"I'm eliminating everything that is holding you back, like I should have done years ago! You aren't a human, you don't need to be a human and this deck is a gimmick! A little girl playing around!" He began to thumb through the cards, pulling out every one of her monsters. Virus Ringmaster. Virus Mutate Chemist. Virus Strong Crusher. The fusions and the Spellplague spells. He held them up in a fan facing her. "These? Are pathetic - you nearly lost to me and you would have it hadn't been for your magic! You almost lost to Joka and he's an idiot! A moron! You thought you could just follow your boytoy around and be okay with this bullshit?"

"Shut your mouth and give my cards back!" By her side, the inky black shadow of her familiar materialised and snarled at him in an almost feral manner.

She loves these cards and what they represent more than me…

That was all he needed to know. Squeezing the cardstock in his fist, he tossed them into the glowing embers of the fire, the edges curling slowly into blackness before flames popped up and swallowed them whole.

Serenity's face dropped into a horrified expression, mouth opening soundless as her familiar just stomped her foot and screamed silently at him. Then her jaw snapped shut, eyes hardening as the familiar vanished. Castiel matched her glare.

He broke first, twisting on his heel and stomping back into the darkness outside the firelight. "I'm going to get that idiot robot head. Serenity, eat the rabbits. You were just turned, you're starving and need nourishment."

The order was easier now with the command in place - more of a gentle nudge - and he was pleased to hear Serenity stalking to the fire, picking up the rabbits as she went. He heard the rattle of Fushioh's bones as he shuffled up to allow her to sit next to him. "Undeath requires adjusting, Doctor. But you will get used to it. But while you do I have many questions I wish to ask you, if you wouldn't mind-"

Serenity's response was to sink her fangs into the rabbit's body. Wet gushed between her teeth and she was unable to stop a moan of relief at the sudden gnawing hunger fading.

"Christ, Wheeler, that sounds really bad coming from your mouth." Weevil's disgust was remarkably tempered, and his eyes kept glancing to the fire where only the ashes of Serenity's cards remained, a shadow of fear lurking there. "Like, is that always how you do it or is it because there's blood this time?"

The rabbit slapped into his face and he went toppling backwards with a scream of terror, clawing at it. "Get it off! Get it off! Get if off!"

Serenity just grabbed the second rabbit and sank her fangs in.

A stomping noise heralded Castiel's return. His face was flat and collected. "Very funny, Serenity."

"Notice I'm not laughing, Castiel." She spat back. "You didn't order me to."

Castiel didn't like seeing the realization in her eyes as he finished, the little tidbit of knowledge that was suffusing her whole being; that he could give commands and she would obey. That there was no argument or debate or question, just obedience. Two plus two was always four. Unless he said it was five. And once he said it, Serenity would believe it was five until...until she…

No, that was not important right now. She was here, in the now. And he had made her strong, made her safe. All that was left was to keep it that way. And the venom in her eyes would fade, in time. He had hated his sire's commands, too, when he had been turned fifty years ago. But like him, she would understand the necessity of that obedience. That he was going to take care of her.

That they were family again.

He held out his hand to his little sister. "Here's your fist back."

It wasn't his little sister who took it back and it wasn't Doctor Wheeler who didn't look up from her rabbit and it wasn't even his spawn who slurped the last of the blood and wiped her lips.

If his heart could have beat, he'd have felt it skip several when he realized that he didn't know who she was right now.

"This is such BS! Will somebody get me a body!?"

Castiel pulled out the metal head Weevil had launched into the tree, Fushioh's hand still dangling from the string like a decoration. "Fushioh. Here's your hand and Joka back. A hawk was trying to get away with them."

"Oh, I wondered why I felt some ghost tingling. I thought it was just arthritis again." Fushioh accepted both items, his hand scuttling back over to his wrist and reattaching it with an irritated feeling to its motions. "Joka. How are you doing?"

"How am I doing - I'm a head!"

"Well, better to quit while you are." Fushioh said with some cheer and shoved him into a backpack.

"How long are we going to stay in this mess?" Weevil demanded, sullenly returning to his beans.

"We're flat broke and after how badly we screwed up in Vegas, the Shadowchasers are going to be after us for months." Castiel pointed out. "Not to mention Lyrius and Dracula. Doing scut-jobs is the best way to solve both problems - stay low and earn some money."

"This is grunt work! We have a goddamn lich, a vampire with Orichalcos, another one with evil magic and I'm a professional duelist!" Weevil snapped, waving his fork around like a baton and he was trying to rouse them into a response. "We should be...should be...well, anything but this!"

"Spoken like a man who wants to move up in the world and isn't afraid to step on a few heads to do it. I can appreciate that, Weevil." The suave voice carried an equally sauve speaker who sauntered out of the darkness like they weren't in a dense forest miles from nowhere. "And I so happen to have a new plan that's going to require all of your very specific talents."

"Funny. That's what you said when you sent us out here to get the Reaping Tree, Chance." Castiel shot back, eye narrowing.

"Actually…" Fushioh drummed his fingertips together when they all looked at him. "I heard he wanted some fruit, knew where a Tree was..and volunteered us?"

Serenity's second rabbit slapped him so hard in the face he went sprawling.

"I deserved that, I agree!"

"Oh, you lot are hilarious. I can tell hiring you was the best move I've made." Chance pulled down his aviators to peer at Serenity over the tops. "My word, look at you, look at you! I'd sell you to the highest bidder, just to keep you and his money both."

"Chance." Castiel warned. "There may be only a few of us vampires left, but I won't hesitate to take you off the roster if you look at my sister like that again."

"Sheesh, having birthing pains, Castiel?" Chance clucked his tongue as Castiel scowled. "Alright, I'll move on to business. First, let me introduce a new...acquisition."

He snapped his fingers and a new man stumbled into view as he fought with his own cape. Dressed in purple and black to nauseating, headache inducing levels, the only other spot of relief was the bright red beard he was sporting. Seeing them all staring, he brushed himself off and cleared his throat. "I am Lord Crump-"

"-who is being paid extra as of right now to keep his mouth shut." Chance put a hand on his chest. "Thank you. Now, Crump here is a third-rate magician with a fourth-rate book of spells, but he does have one very unique thing going for him. He's a conduit."

"...is that a type of bird?" Weevil snarked after a moment. "This guy looks like a Thanksgiving turkey hiding on Halloween!"

"And you look like something I scrape off my windshield!" Crump took what was supposed to be a threatening step forwards, but he was so rotund, Serenity felt his gut was scaring Weevil more than his glare. "I am Lord Crump for a reason and I demand respect when I walk into a room!"

"Right. A belly this big would have it's own title." Weevil sniggered. "So what's your name, boyo?"

"You-"

"Crump, Crump, remember the money, please?" Chance yanked the man back by his cape and clasped his hands. "For those you not in the magic know how, a conduit is a rare type of being. They can enable a summoning ritual to be performed without actually knowing the rites to do it. You'd only need the catalysts."

"How very novel! I haven't seen a conduit in years!" Fushioh re-entered the conversation by trying to lean forwards to examine Crump. Seeing that he was on the wrong side of the fire for that, he plucked off his skull and held it out in one long, bony hand. Crump recoiled, drawing his cape around him like a shield. "Just what is he a conduit for?"

"Have you ever heard of the Company of Malice?" Chance grinned as Fushioh gasped in delight, skull jumping up and down on his palm. "Ah, you have!"

"They're an elite group of demon mercenaries! They have a near perfect success rate and are said to be willing to assault the gates of Heaven itself if the pay is good enough!" Fushioh rattled off. "I've always wanted to meet one! And dissect it!"

Crump backed up a bit as Fushioh just stared at him in wonderment and found himself next to Weevil again. "Is he...is he okay?"

"If you have to ask, tubby, you don't want to know the answer."

"So you've got a potential army. How nice." Castiel was not as impressed as Fushioh. "What are you going to do with it? Wage war on Stormbringer and his minions? For the record, I have dibs on Voltaire."

"What would that gain me? Just the enmity of the magical world. And that's just not profitable. No, we're going to use our army for its intended purpose. It'll take two months of preparation and time, but it'll be worth it." Chance grinned, his eyes sharp with purpose. "How would you boys like to loot a kingdom?"

Serenity felt her non-beating heart skip a beat anyway at that mention and it was an ugly feeling as she realized exactly where they were going to go.

Chance seemed to notice the look and his smile spread. "Have you ever heard of a place called Arcadia?"

TTTTTTTT

A/N: We're baaaack bitches!

And we are happy to be so. Sorry it took so long. Turns out a pandemic is a real bugger on your creativity, not to mention the adjustments of working from home for me, and 7th Librarian being a key worker during times of plague. But having a year to polish and evolve this story before releasing it on the world was probably a blessing in a way. 7th Librarian could rewrite the entire plot as many times as he wanted, and I could fight tooth and nail for all the character development that I desired.

This year is an exercise in trying to be kind to ourselves. For that reason updates for this story will be staggered to once every two weeks to keep the pressure off (this authors note is the first 7th Librarian will have heard of this timeline - I wonder how long it'll take before he reads this?). We love and appreciate all your reviews so please feel free to shower us with words.

Until next time, stay safe you sweet strange chickens.

Mei