A wolf's shattered jawbone splattered across the floor before the following uppercut splashed it's owner's head across the ceiling. As the werewolves hesitated, another died, its eyesocket giving way before the vampire's fist. One finally mustered the courage to rush her head on.
Remilia had neither the luxury nor the inclination to fight fairly or with restraint. Her hand spitted the offender like a spear, a disrupting wave of magic travelling down her arm and into him. He died instantly, his blood bursting from his eyes, ears and mouth. Remilia discarded the exsanguinated trophy with a flick of her arm as its fellows rushed to overwhelm her.
There was no trace of the childish glee Remilia normally felt when she fought her enemies. She carried a cold determination with her as she darted and danced through the claws and shanks of her opponents, her face only coming alive when she found a window in their defence, every victim catching a glimpse of an enraged demon before they received their deathblow.
Few died cleanly. She tore through flesh and punched through bone. She decapitated, dislocated and amputated. She cleaved whole bodies in two, using their spilt blood to summon up chains and darts and bolts of scarlet that pulverised and punctured more of the beasts into unrecognisable ruin.
The city fattened werewolves of London began to yelp and howl as they withdrew. They went corridor by corridor, unable to marshal a defence, every sally put to rout by the devil in their midst. It was all they could do to withdraw in good order, rallying only to be put to flight again and again by the undead princess, until there was nowhere left to run to.
The incision had missed every artery.
Meiling clutched her bleeding arm as pain throbbed through it, her senses straining to catch up. It couldn't be the smiling man in front of her that had cut her. He was bounds away from her. Perhaps it had been - no, it hadn't been his henchmen, who were held back by the cordon of scarlet knights.
Her gaze lingered on the knife in his hand, the black blade dripping with blood - Her blood, she was sure - before it flitted to his other hand and how it held the stained pocketwatch on its silver chain. He held it like he had in the square; as though it was an icon, a gun, a weapon that could rule the world.
Edwin Barnes' mouth did not move as self-satisfied laughter filtered out through the dagger-filled grill. "That's better. That look suits you, my sweet."
She saw the dark glass where his eyes should be. She saw the cold glint there. It had been him. What's more, he hadn't missed her arteries, he'd avoided them.
He sought to play with her before the end.
"Let's have your eyes next." He announced.
She was still working out her next move as he ran towards her, chambering the next knife thrust.
With a clank of joints, a fist shot out. There was a crunch of metal as the vorpal blade punched through an armoured vambrace. The intercepting suit of armour twisted its perforated arm to jam the blade as its own sword slipped from its grip, its other hand clasping Edwin's wrist, keeping him close, keeping him immobile.
Edwin caught the glint of reflected moonlight above him. Icicles the size of cars plummeted down from the stars towards him.
He disappeared in an eyeblink. The deserted suit of armour - gripping nothing but a ripped scrap of coat - was crushed by the hailstorm, the shards of ice slicing through enforcers caught too close to the sound of crashing glass. Meiling staggered back but felt no cuts, the other armours having stepped up to shelter her before they in turn were sliced into metallic ribbons. Edwin stepped over them, stamping after Meiling as a field of water droplets flicked across his advance, folding over the knife point even as he stabbed for her throat.
The knife sank into the jellyfish's bulbous cap, the elemental construct sucking at his arm with its maimed innards as pressure built behind its head. Again, Edwin disappeared into thin air as the jellyfish exploded, the water roaring across the battlefield with a force and breadth that bowled over enforcers. Roiling waves and watery tendrils followed Edwin's presence on the street-turned-lake, seeking to swallow him beneath the surface. He was hounded back to the row of houses across the street, the water snapping at his shoes. There was a frown from him, a flicker of movement, and the water shuddered and parted, suddenly showing deference to him.
"This all you have, hey? Water magic?" He asked harshly. The knights had broken into open order, lazily sheathing their blades into drowning henchmen and thrashing foot soldiers as enchanted library books fluttered overhead and belched spells of every colour and field of magic. In the heart of their formation stood Meiling, still cradling her slit-open arm. To her side stood a girl in a ruffled nightcap and purple dress. Behind her, a great red rock floated to the surface, turning and bobbing along with its golden rack until a suit of armour's plated fist reached out and held it still.
"Shall we find out together?" Patchouli Knowledge asked, a bead of sweat running down her brow. She had the Philosopher's Stone with her to maximise her powers, the knights all around her, her books of suppression magic loitering overhead. She had barriers of every element already primed. She had the library and the mansion at her back, all of its resources.
And yet, she was afraid. The enemy in front of her had moved through Meiling's range of detection, past her defenses and gifted her that deep and precise cut.
His power was dangerous, and he was cruel with it.
Edwin seemed to read her thoughts as he raised his left hand from his pocket. The glass of the blood stained pocketwatch glinted in his hand along with its smiling silver chain. "You fancy a dance with the devil? Is that what I'm hearing?"
Patchouli swallowed. "We're already moving to her beat."
Edwin's smile broadened into that familiar rictus grin as his thumb rested over the plunger. "Oh, that particular devil has already been dealt with. Now, I would normally allow the lady to go first, but-"
He paused as he heard a pop. A fizz. His smile softened as he turned.
He saw the flare drifting through the sky, its red aura touching his city.
His smile was gone.
"Continue the assault. Kill them all." He said thinly, as though waking from a dream.
He disappeared. Patchouli's eyes searched for him, only allowing herself to deflate when she was sure he was gone. The battle with Alhajin had sapped her vitality and her will, whatever her advantages on home turf. As she thought of home, her gaze lifted to follow the red light that drifted back down behind the roofs.
"We've got to get after him," Meiling said weakly, "He might run into Remilia, or Flan... gotta warn 'em..."
"No." Patchouli managed, her attention returning to the battlefield. The guns of the fairies were starting up again, the knights stirred into robotic action as the thugs pressed the attack once more. "We are both exhausted, you and I. We hold what we have. Prepare the mansion's escape. Remilia will want us to be ready."
"I saw him!" Meiling snapped, the words stirring Patchouli from her exhaustion.
"What?" She asked.
"The second time he attacked, I saw him! The first, he struck me from afar, even though he was still. He cannot... attack perfectly at will, he-" Meiling caught the frail confusion on Patchouli's face. The gatekeeper shook her head. "I've got to tell them." She insisted.
Patchouli bit her bottom lip, weakly shaking her head as she watched one of the few armours stooping where Edwin had stood, collecting a ragged piece of cloth. She didn't have the strength to argue.
"Let me heal your wounds, first."
The sound of tearing parchment resounded through the sanctum as the servant answered the call.
"No!" Prosechtikos screamed. The knife point had driven through desiccated flesh, withered muscle and dug into age-weakened bone until the servant girl's arm juddered with the effort of killing Dreadshanks.
In a moment, she was gone, his steel chain snapping through the space her head had occupied. Beneath it, the convulsing Dreadshanks silently moaned. Prosechtikos hurriedly turned to get eyes on his opponent as the chain snapped back into his hands.
Just in time, he caught the next driving knife point between the links of the taut chain, his eyes meeting Sakuya's affected gaze across their scraping weapons.
"Heartless bitch!" He barked, diverting the knife by way of the chain before lashing out.
In a flash of movement, Sakuya leant away before swaying back in, perfectly balanced, her knife free and aimed for his pectorals. The blow never came as Sakuya flickered out of existence, the place where she'd been standing exploding into shattered planks and rent carpet beneath Dreadshank's mallet of a fist.
"Why?! Why'd you hurt my boy?!" Prosechtikos wailed, looking this way and that for the maid.
"Because he is a threat to my lady." Sakuya explained, the voice behind them turning the livid Prosechtikos along with the hissing Dreadshanks that curled around him.
She stood between them and the doors that led to the banqueting hall. Her intention was clear.
Prosechtikos' leading hand shook before he lifted his chain, swinging it in a lazy arc, the chain chopping the air like the blade of a windmill. "She's only been here a week or two and you'd pick her over my-"
"You are a threat yourself." Sakuya added, her voice laden with a malice Prosechtikos had never heard from her before. His mouth opened to retort, his words catching in his throat when he saw that the silver pupils in Sakuya's eyes were now flooded red.
"It's always nice to be appreciated." He mustered a response at last, hoping that the maid would stand exactly still, like a good little lamb as his chain went round and round...
There it was. The chain limb had enough momentum now. His hand snapped tight on the next revolution, the links flicking out with enough transport energy to break bone, moving fast to catch and crush a servant girl weighed down by fear and doubt.
Sakuya ducked beneath the deadly arc, her teeth bared as she rushed to close the gap.
"Open this door!" A werewolf wailed as he struck at the wooden panels.
"SILENCE!" Valens shouted him down, his eyes searching the impenetrable darkness behind them wildly. He had swamp creatures, scions of titans and giants and gargoyles in his command - his original pack, he had gotten seperated from, though he entertained no illusions of their survival. He had heard their last frenzied yelps, and knew their bodies belonged now to the rising tide of blood and shadow that had flooded the dungeon basement. They could not escape it, not whilst his mother kept the door shut. He clung to the possibility that the prisoner had sustained wounds, or had stupidly consumed their blood.
The hope disappeared when the shadows parted to reveal the pale countess.
In an eye blink, she was amongst the rearguard.
"God, no!" The cowering werewolf's pleading whine was the last clear sound heard as the screaming started up again. She moved from foe to foe, bludgeoning and bisecting as she maintained her furious pace. There were no boasts made, no timewasting, no displays of exuberance or vainglory. It was a vengeful and pragmatic intelligence that saw her slip their claws and teeth and their slivers of silver before gifting them with calamitous wounds that crippled and maimed if they did not kill outright.
"Take her! Now!" Valens bellowed, seeing death or glory as he rushed towards the carnage to meet her, his silver sword flashing out.
Remilia levered the demi-giant she'd been killing into his thrust by way of the creature's broken arm. Valens drew back, letting the body fall between them as Remilia hurriedly grasped a blade crossing a heater shield on the wall.
The whole ornament fell from the wall, dragging her arm down by the sword that was bonded to the shield. Despite his fear, Valens grinned.
Remilia did not smile back, the air parting with a whoosh as she swung the ornament - five kilograms of metal with a vampire's strength behind it - hard and fast for Valens' chin. He narrowly leant away, hesitating when Remilia's momentum sent the makeshift mace on through a fen-beast's head in a splatter of moss and swamp-matter. This was it. His chance to stick her. He stepped in, angling the blade for her sternum-
She cried out. The brackish blood of the dying fen-beast obeyed her barked command, a cluster of black-red chains leaping from the trench-wound in the swamp-thing's head, wrapping around Valen's face before seizing tight around his coarse snout and throat. Valens rasped out a curse as his sword was pulled off course, the point piercing nothing but air as Remilia's revolution continued, came back, and landed in the side of his head. The world jarred sideways for Valens as he was bludgeoned down to a knee.
He was too stunned to see or sense the follow-up blow that finished him.
It was such a bittersweet sensation.
Even without her input, the humans within the hall had cottoned on to their approaching doom. Prosechtikos had not returned with their weapon, the doors that led to the entrance hall - transformed into iron and bolstered by the butler's barrier magic - now screamed like tortured metal beneath an intruder's assault whilst the doors that led deeper into the chateau banged beneath the fists of one of her terrified kin. Loeis, perhaps, or Martin, she didn't know. It didn't matter. The panic in the juvenile werewolf told her that Lupo and Valens were dead, that the escapee was coming. That her prophecy was coming true. Whatever the fate of the chateau and her Jack, Jill Barnes would not live to see the dawn break, she was quite sure.
So she sat back at the head of her table as the withered and loathsome humans rushed to build a barricade at the dungeon facing doors, clamouring for safety, security, escape, their squeals like panicking swine to her ears. Some fought with the magically locked windows, others argued as to who was in charge, what they should do, and a handful came to her, seeking guidance.
She had idly raised the flaregun's muzzle to their faces and pulled the trigger.
There had been nothing but a metallic clack - the flares were long gone - but that honeyed, heated hit that their shock and outrage gave her was a welcome addition to the heavy, heady atmosphere she was gorging on. There was the smooth spice of barely contained anger as the lords and ladies of the mortal clans bickered and recriminated, high-and-mighty hatred contesting with the cloying mint of despair as some patrons wondered what this was all for and finding the answers too lacking to justify their soul-darkening debauchery. Of course there were hints of other flavours from the sycophants that provided some variation - the regret, a small, sharp bite away from the taste of stomach acid, the self-pity a bitter and numbing ale - but the overwhelming flavour of the night - stronger now than any other night - was the sweetness of fear. A fear that jumped with every raised voice, with every pounding of the door, with every scream, the emotions running higher and higher... The fear, the terror... if the dinner parties, the hunting trips and all the other charades were mere sustenance for her swollen appetite, this night was a wondrous, intoxicating feast.
And yet, she ate this last meal alone, bereft of her love. Enlivening though it was, there was no deadening that truth. She had made him, and yet she was without him.
A prickly static assaulted her taste buds, her nose wrinkling as her eyes sought out the source. Her gaze lasted on the sacrifice, the human who lay on the table in her white dress, her glassy blue eyes staring back at the werewolf in a way she did not like.
Jill was reminded of the lateness of the hour as her scion beyond the doors let out one last fearful scream that was never finished.
The abrupt cut-off muffled the chatter of the humans, the assembled nobles muttering assurances and shushing one another, their ears straining, their eyes locked on the double doors from which no sound escaped.
The doors boomed, the tables jumping from the impact.
Another colossal bang dislodged the pitiful barricade. A few patrons rushed to brace as the majority began to shout for their footmen, for security, for almighty God to do something, anything-
The doors opened with a crash that caused Jill to flinch in her chair. A woman screamed before the sound drained away. The gathered lambs were transfixed, their mouths opening, their eyes widening, feeble cries escaping them as they recognised the invader that stepped into the dying lamplight of the banquet hall. The same girl that was paraded through this room in a wheelbarrow, her body broken, her visage half-dead.
Her body was whole now, as white as snow, her pink dress bereft of blood stains, her dark wings blending with the darkness that followed her like a cloak. She walked slowly and deliberately through the parting crowd, her fists balled, her red-eyed gaze cowing the masked faces that dared to meet it.
Then she saw who she was looking for, her expression thawing.
"Olivia?" She called quietly. She closed with the human girl, her brow knitting in disbelief as she got close enough to see her. She saw the knives and fire-heated implements laid around her. She saw the grill sitting alongside her. She saw the missing digits, the marred hand, the flesh seared closed.
"Olivia, it's me, Remilia. Will you not say something?" Remilia whispered, for a self-absorbed second expecting to be hurt by a show of revulsion, judgement, fear.
Olivia seemed to see her then, blinking sadly through her drug-addled state as she opened her mouth. Remilia's nose was assaulted with the scent of burnt, ruined blood and caught a glimpse of cruel damage before she averted her gaze. She saw every saucer placed at the tables were spotted red, as was the cutlery. She could feel her fangs lengthen, the impulse of her race contesting with that boiling feeling in her borrowed blood.
"It appears to me," She said quietly, "that in your haste to play as a host to my friend here, you misplaced her tongue."
The only sound that could be heard then was the shrieking of the doors at the front of the mansion. No-one dared speak or move, collectively holding their breath as the pale-faced child stared them down.
"I will grant clemency," She addressed the sea of masks in a strained voice, "To the one who tells me where Olivia de Vere's tongue is."
A pregnant silence settled over the room.
Then, there was movement. A short man with the width of a barrel shifted through the crowd, his bulk held together by a toga reminiscent of Roman times, his gold mask wavering on a stick clutched in his pudgy fingers.
"W-we were misled," mister Pembrooke began, "W-we never knew..."
"Answer my question." Remilia grated, her voice laced with volcanic fury.
"They led us to it, assured us that it was the path to long life, to prosperity," His other hand came up to wipe sweat behind the mask, his mouth agape, "a-and in our misguided haste, we partook."
"You 'partook'?" Remilia asked heavily.
Mister Pembrooke stammered something low and half-whispered.
"Louder, so we can all hear! You all partook, you ate Olivia de Vere's flesh! SAY IT!" Remilia roared.
Her words struck him one after the other, hammering the cringing little man lower. "W-we would never have touched her, had we known she was of the de Vere line-"
"What of her blood?! Who cares of her station?! She's a human, like you! How could you do this to another of your own kind?!" Remilia shouted him down.
"My d-duty is to the city, to the masses before any one girl!" Pembrooke protested, backing from her, the hand clutching the mask stick shaking hard.
"The well-being of the city is dependent on this?" Remilia shouted as she followed Pembrooke into the crowd. "These ritualised executions? Cannibalism? This is what the best of humanity does to their own?! Have you not heard of noblesse oblige?!"
Pembrooke had always been a nervous man, staying on the right side of the law out of fear of getting caught rather than any petty morality. In between the parties that the Barnes' held - these anonymous events that robbed him of his pious zeal and installed this exhausting, haunting vitality in its place - he had imagined the process of being implicated. Arrested. Tried. He had replayed the worries in his head until he imagined himself weaving together just the right words, sentiments and precedents to see himself understood, perhaps even exonerated, at the very least justified in his own mind.
All those clever cases to be made, all that legalese, every benefit and every friend his position as a minister of the crown afforded him he struggled to recall as this creature of darkness stalked towards him, and he grasped clumsily for anything such a beast might accept.
"Y-you cannot argue that to be governed by those of long life, of supernatural stock, that would be in the empire's interest, to the city's benefit? Is that not a noble thing? I-is that not a thing worth working towards, to use gifts like yours for, the cost being only a handful of the menials?! I, I have every sympathy that Olivia was mistaken f-for one of the labouring poor, but who are we to let her sacrifice go to waste? Do not fear, miss, you will not be implicated! I'll see to it! No-one will miss her, it m-might even be considered a mercy-"
He realised his misstep when Remilia's hand disappeared in a white blur of movement, her nails passing through his wrist as though it hadn't been there.
His hand - mask stick still tightly gripped - slid free from his arm in a spray of blood. The pain bit the stump and raced up him. He began to scream, trying to stop the bleeding. "My arm! Liar! You monster!"
"I may be a monster," Remilia's bellowed, Pembrooke's protest guttering out as she raged on, "But what kind of wretch eats their own kind and calls it mercy?!"
"My, use your words, miss Scarlet." Jill slurred, still languishing on her throne.
Remilia glared her way. She hadn't expected the reprimand, and she could feel the talons of uncertainty claw at her core as she was called out in front of this audience.
But they did not acquire purchase. She straightened her back, waving her hand dismissively at the assembled nobility.
"I fear any further discourse with you and yours is a waste. You contemptibles who would trade away your high-and-mighty blood, your very humanity, for all that I am. What I ought to be." She said bitterly over Pembrooke's wailing, turning on her heel as she retraced her steps.
"W-what are you going to do with us?" An earl in the crowd asked, his unmasked lips and jowls bleached with fear.
"That is a good question." Remilia replied quietly, her head shaking as she repeated the words of mister Osbourne in her head, trying to reconcile, struggling, sinking.
The sound of her own grinding teeth brought her back to the moment, her eyes lingering on Olivia. She took the drugged girl into her arms, carrying her towards the doors that led out of the mansion. She set the girl down on a table near the wall, leaning in. "Tell me, Olivia," Remilia's voice drifted into a whisper as her cold hand cradled Olivia's numbed out cheek, "Tell me what ought to befall your alleged betters."
Despite the screaming from Pembrooke, despite the shrill shriek of a magical barrier being drilled in the other room, every duchess, viscount, marquis, every entitled man and woman there realised what had been said, knowing there could be only one response. Dawning apprehension gave way to terror. Some threw themselves to their knees before the dead princess and her wounded companion and pleaded their innocence or begged their forgiveness. Some rushed for the exits. The doors leading east did not open, nor did the northbound doors that groaned as the barrier weakened. Some fled blindly into the west wing that Remilia had emerged from, into the blood-red dark and were simply never seen again. In bouts of sheer madness, some of the party-goers turned on each other, bludgeoning and sawing and stabbing and gouging with chairs and cutlery.
Pembrooke staggered up to Jill, waving his severed limb, pale with blood loss. "Save us," He blubbered hoarsely, "Save me."
She uncrossed her legs, her slender arms opening to greet him. Delirious now, he went to her, his eyes wetting when she closed on him like a spider, feeling warmth all around him, feeling her breath spill down his neck, feeling teeth-
His last scream broke down into a gurgle, his limbs flailing as he failed to fight back in his final moments.
As the banquet hall went mad, Olivia stared pleadingly up at Remilia, her eyelids fighting through the flicker of fatigue and the drowsing backwash of the drugs. She opened her mouth as she tried to speak. She tried again as Remilia closed her eyes and turned her head, giving her an ear.
Olivia de Vere gave her no words. Just a sound. It started as a bleating cry, made by lambs and children waking to the world. When she found her voice and discovered her limits, it steadied. It deepened. A raspy, growled demand, her eyes alive and brimming with rage.
Suddenly, she began to wane as the nightlong adrenaline dump, the drugs, the sheer exhaustion all bore down on her. Her eyes struggled to stay open, searching Remilia's, daring her to challenge her wishes.
Remilia did not. Her mouth became a thin line, nodding sombrely.
"It shall be done," She said, the words alone cutting the thread that kept Olivia's neck tensed, the back of her head falling into Remilia's palm as the countess went on, "Rest now. You need not see this."
Remilia slowly laid Olivia's head down, deliberately grabbing an upturned table by one supporting beam and bringing it over to serve as both a shield and screen for her once-rival. The vampire brandished the sword she'd taken from the werewolves outside and without fanfare took its silver edge to the humans closest to her, opening them up.
The rest were consumed by the umbral tide that rushed in to follow Remilia. Constituting monstrous blood, organic matter and murderous intent, it could never be consumed by her, but it could be used to smother and drown and spit and slay the humans as they fled. Within minutes, it was over, Remilia's borrowed blade drinking deeply of noble blood as the red tide of death began to sink into the carpet. She languidly lifted the blade, inspecting it, feeling her heart lift at the sight of the blood that ran the length of the blade, that coated every inch. She started to salivate. Her lips began to part.
She gritted her teeth as she swung the sword down and away, the blood slashing free and sending rippling droplets across the red pool that now stood ankle high.
She heard the flesh-muffled growl and the thud-grind of twitching legs pestling into wooden chair limbs.
Jill clung to Pembrooke fervently, every slap of his twitching body against her sending a burst of sweetness through her tongue as it drank deeply of the man's blood. She clung to this moment, the flailing, failing corpse beginning to slacken, to become deadweight, the bouquet of emotions drifting away, their hosts dead and dying beneath the escaping dream.
She watched the cloud of colour go, up and up and away.
Pink shoes touched down in front of her, a beat of leathery wings sending an unwelcome gust across Jill's blood soaked gums.
"Refuelling?" Remilia asked, her red eyes studying her.
She could see that Jill's maw engulfed the fat man's shoulder, blood staining his toga as her limbs locked him in. Slowly, she unfolded, shoving the meal unceremoniously off of her, the body slapping the blood-wet carpet as she leant back against her throne.
"You should have done the same." Jill purred, red strands of muscle hanging down her dainty chin.
Remilia wrinkled her nose as her eyes surveyed the human bodies she had broken, bisected and in some cases obliterated into mulch.
"Their mettle is not worth inheriting," She murmured, her gaze returning to Jill. "I did try to use my words, if you recall."
Jill shuddered against her chair as she swallowed down what was left on her lips. "No, you wanted this. This desolation. Wanted to ruin everything all along."
Remilia let the point of her borrowed blade rest on the sodden carpet. "Nay. It was peace I sought - and I was not the only one, was I, miss Jill?"
Jill rocked in her chair as she stared her down.
Remilia lifted her chin, her red-eyes peeking out from under her hat. "You tried your hand at manipulating me, but your intent was always to keep swords sheathed. So I will grant you mercy."
Jill smiled drunkenly. "The same mercy you afforded Pembrooke?"
Remilia shook her head. "Walk away. Cut yourself from Edwin. My prophecy needn't come to pass."
"Follow your own advice," Jill snapped, "You don't need the maid. You didn't need to do this! To do any of this to us!"
"I don't do this to you," Remilia calmly pointed out, "I do this for her."
Jill scoffed at that. "She's a human! An incidental speck! A mote in both our lifetimes! What did she do that deserves destroying our work?! All that we have?!"
Remilia froze for a moment before she gripped the sword handle tightly. "She was kind to me."
Jill barked out a laugh. "Kind! You truly are a child! A naive, selfish, vicious little child!"
"I can be vicious," Remilia admitted coolly, "Though I can be generous. It's two minutes to midnight, miss Jill. Abdicate and remove yourself from my quarrel with mister Barnes, or we will fight. And I will win."
Jill started to slur as she pushed off from the throne, swaying on her feet, ungainly from the consumption of emotion - and something else troubled her balance, as though suddenly overloaded. "You ruined our feast... for some human whimsy."
Remilia opened her mouth to reply, freezing when she saw how large Jill's mouth had gotten. How sharp her teeth had become. How shapes bumped and moved beneath her human skin. The sound of fabric ripping filled the room.
"Jill, step down! You do not need to do this."
Jill smiled, the gesture alone creating a sound. It was the wet, packed crunch of a body cracking as it was filled beyond breaking point and pushed open like a spent cocoon. Even now, Remilia could see the red seams in Jill's cheeks where the flesh was being pushed apart by glistening bone and fast-growing muscle.
"You ruined... everything..." Jill croaked in a voice that was deeper, darker, beyond that of any human as she began to fill the room. Her clothes were gone, her clear skin peeling away to reveal her true, primordial form that - in mere seconds - bristled with hair. Her shoes burst apart and manicured nails were shoved from bleeding fingers by claws the size of swords. "Would've... shared this bounty with him..."
Remilia stepped back, lifting her blade between them. Her undead heart raced as she saw the shock of grey that lined the fur of the thing that had once been Jill.
"Eighth generation?" Remilia hazarded a guess.
"Old enough... to kill you." The matriarch promised in gravelly, broken English, one of her paws going low to grasp the back of a chair before whipping it forward. Remilia's eyes widened, her sword deflecting the chair past her as the bellowing wall of fur and muscle charged her. She leapt back onto the table behind her, her sword describing a figure of eight that shrieked off of one cluster of claws before taking a finger off at the knuckle.
The beast came on anyway. Remilia bared her teeth as she backed, her heel leaving the table edge as Jill upturned it with a fist. Her wings rescued her, landing nimbly on the back of a chair as she swung her sword in a warding strike. Jill's hand clutched around the thin blade and snapped it off.
"Shit!" Remilia ground out as the matriarch's hind leg kicked the table into her chair, sending her tumbling. Already Jill was crossing it, the table creaking under her weight.
Remilia felt a fierce emotion pierce through the fog as she arose. It came from Sakuya, though it was too fragile for thought-sending, too crude for the issuing of commands, but there was something there that replaced her own primal fear. It was a cold, brittle thing, choked and stifled in a burning, muddying fist. It was potent, but unrefined and hazardous to draw on in a fight.
If only she could just reach her, if she could just tell her-
She ducked Jill's wild swipe, the beast following it with another. Remilia swished the shorn sword upwards as though it were a wand. The sea of blood that had been shed from the party goers answered her, rising up like a living thing and skewering the matriarch in a dozen places. As the elder werewolf dragged herself free, Remilia darted in, with both hands plunging the broken blade into the matriarch's flank. She was rewarded with an enlivened scream as she ducked out from under the flurry of swings Jill flung at her. As she gauged the space between them, Remilia shouted loud and shouted hard.
"We leave together or not at all, Sakuya! The world watches us! Do not give into anger, strive against it! Show me! Everything I'm not!" She called out, hoping the content if not the words reached the maid.
As she hoped, she watched the matriarch remove the silver shard from her flank, discarding it as she bounded forward for Remilia.
Sakuya staggered from the whip's sting, the pain tensing her body. In that moment, she was tempted to grasp the hated weapon, next chance she got. She knew that was stupid, that she might be taken off balance, that Dreadshanks would race in and drive her into the carpet.
Prosechtikos smiled fiendishly, sweeping his hand this way and that, creating a storm of chain links that moved at skin-breaking speed. "Come then, dog! Defy the keeper of Prometheus!"
She gave him a feral glare, almost obliging him, giving pause when she felt a rush from within, a surge, a glow that instilled a calm and impressed a sentiment that Sakuya had rarely known before.
Her eyes glittered red, her face relaxing. Prosechtikos was more technically skilled. Dreadshanks was larger. What did she have?
Dreadshanks folded up behind Prosechtikos as the butler tutted at her apparent hesitance. "Well, if the corpse won't come to the butcher!" He sighed as he sent the chain rip-roaring for Sakuya's face.
Sakuya sidestepped the blow-
And almost bumped into the sanctum's dark, cavernous wall, moving meters further than was necessary.
Than was possible for any average human.
Prosechtikos' eyes widened as his chain pounded nothing but the bedrock of real space, Sakuya's expression as surprised as his. He swept his weapon after her.
Again, she overcompensated. She left a site almost a moment too late, knocking one of the round table's chairs to the floor in her bid to get away. But she was getting faster. They were losing sight of her more often, his chains striking wood, stone, carpet, but struggling to catch her.
A knife point thudded into Prosechtikos' shoulder, the pain turning him towards Sakuya who stood across the chamber, her outstretched arm having flicked and placed the throw.
"God in hell- Dreadshanks, get her!" Prosechtikos cried, his chain chasing Sakuya. Dreadshanks shivered, screaming as he obediently scuttled onto the round table before leaping for her, the butler's chain leaping to cover him.
But neither could hurt her. Neither could hit her. They struggled to keep track of her, let alone touch her.
"Stand still, you coward!" Prosechtikos bayed, letting loose another arc that hit nothing.
Dreadshanks screamed, grabbing Prosechtikos' attention. The maid had hamstrung his pet. The butler's mouth opened, aghast at the wounds done to his pet.
"Why? Why are you doing this?!" Prosechtikos wailed in frustration, striking wildly at flickering mirages and afterimages.
Remilia and Sakuya were still rooms apart and the tether hadn't yet grown to maturity, but it reminded one that the other was alive. There was no chance of developed telepathy, not after the trauma it had suffered, but something was passing between them, bouncing back and forth, waxing strong with each surge.
Sakuya felt the weight in her spirit still, but her despair and rage, her demons, all of that was shouted over by a ferocious, foreign and yet familiarly petulant will that didn't cheer, it hollered for her to press on. To fight. To win.
From Sakuya's side came an electrifying tang that leapt to Remilia, a diluted, stomach-lightening feeling that was under tight control, locked down with bonds that Remilia hadn't the time to identify.
Whatever it was, it helped her.
"Gungnir!" Remilia crowed, the bolt of scarlet lightning flashing into her hand. She lunged after Jill then, diving from on high before striking from below. Jill dodged and swung back, knowing any wound she marked the vampire with would put her out of the fight.
But Remilia didn't allow herself to be wounded, skipping out of range before closing fast, so damn fast-
Jill managed to catch the spear head in her hand, realising she was the only one holding Gungnir as Remilia shot in and hooked her tiny fist into the side of the werewolf's knee.
It blew straight through in a burst of bone and blood. With a pained grunt, Jill's other knee struck the floor.
"Together, Sakuya!" Remilia bellowed, her following uppercut sending that lupine jaw skyward.
Jill's arms rushed in, claws raking at the vampire's body, satisfaction turning to chagrin as her target the girl dissolved into a cloud of chittering bats. They clamoured for the matriarch's attention, biting, scratching, obstructing as they surrounded her. The Gungnir tumbled from her grip as she swatted the bats with her claws, a pale arm emerged to catch the spear.
"I remember the veteran's hall, miss Jill," Remilia growled from all about, regathering herself as she circled her foe, zeroing in on her as she surfed the cyclone of shrieking bats, "along with the old adage; one good turn..."
"...Deserves another." Sakuya's words blew across Prosechtikos' neck, the butler turning far too slowly to check the blade from below.