Evelyn XVIWhat did those visions mean? What message had Alice hidden in them? She wanted to channel me. A battle of the minds? To see if I could uncover the clues she laid out for me before she completed her little game. Did she have no faith that I'd be able to?Or did Alice just not care? Was this just a game to her? A way for some age-old progenitor to relieve her boredom? Either way, innocent likes were at stake. Whatever she was doing, innocent people weren't going to be spared. That wasn't how she operated. Game or not, she'd play hard."I'm leaving this message for you hunter, a challenge if you will. You see, I think people only have true value when acting on their own individual impulses and desires." No fucking shit. "I've asked a lot of people about their suppressed free will and I've come to facilitate them. In return, the ones I've freed are willing to help me. This message comes to you from a young titan girl who was born laboring in the chains of certain criminals. By
Evelyn XVIIThe scene was something out of a horror movie. Bodies scattered across the floor of the abandoned building like rag dolls. Before anything, I counted the number of victims in my head. Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, thirteen. There were thirteen bodies, not a single one absent of wounds.All the wounds were on their necks. Bite marks. I didn't need a lab to tell me what the marks were from. I'd bet every last credit in my account that those wounds matched fang markings.Hawkendale and Norima stared at the scene with the disconnected passion that only experience brings. No, they were raised in a lab. They didn't have the right morals instilled in them. This must affect them. Depending on how vicious the scientists were when they were raised, this kind of scene might not be anything out of the ordinary for these two.Hawkendale whistled. "Wow. What happened here?""A party got out of hand, obviously. Don't be such a fool." Norima flicked her hair over her shoulder.She s
Evelyn XVIIIWally's Jewelry turned out to be a jewelry shop. Smackdown in the middle of Toyhara Shopping Center, one of the largest malls in Pluto. It wasn't a chain store, but privately owned. Despite that, it was one of the most successful jewelry stores in the city.Toyhara was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but Wally's Jewelry closed at seven. By the time we arrived, the store had long since closed. Bars covered the windows, with a Linker scan required to enter."As you can see, the store is closed. The last employees left last night at nine, after transferring credits and cleaning up the store," the security guard said. He knocked on the glass, his reflection grime. "I'm sorry, but no one has come in or out since that final employee. All stores are monitored at all times. If anyone tried to get inside, we would have been alerted.""Thank you, officer."The security guard grunted. "What I'm saying, ma'am, is you don't need to be here. None of you do."His eyes f
Well today was supposed to be a very important chapter regarding Miyuki, Kobayashi, and Evelyn, but since the program I used to write it decided NOT TO SAVE IT, I have no chapter. I'm going to have to rewrite it, after I write the next three Alaric chapters. I have a twelve hour shift today and I'm going to be leaving in twenty minutes, I can't exactly rewrite it. So I'm going to post this from the original draft of Wandering Wolves instead. It's not canon to the current story.When I get home, maybe I'll invest in Microsoft Word or something. Then I'll work on that rewrite.Chapter IV: FightWe spent the next few days working on mana control. This was a process Buer said and it was going to take time to learn the right control. It was more than turning a valve on and off like that first day. On would be a full blast of water, so to speak, while off was nothing.Buer taught us how to adjust the pressure. How to turn on the valve and get a stream of mana, or a river, or even an ocean.
Interlude: The WatcherThe Watcher had served Alice for decades since the Progenitor saved the Watcher's life. The Watcher was a titan with a power that allowed her to record everything she witnessed. Others could view her recordings in the form of dreams.That was why Alice gave her the title of Watcher.The Watcher hid in the ceiling, staring down at the scene unfolding in the jewelry store. Alice's need for needless cruelty had always eluded her, but it was not The Watcher's place to question her master. Alice had given her everything. She saved her life, so what if recording these little cruelties made The Watcher uncomfortable?The Watcher made sure to capture Evelyn as the strix removed his hat. That was the moment Alice wanted to capture. The moment when her actions would destroy someone else.Alice was a progenitor and she had the power to inflict pain and suffering physically, but she went out of her way to avoid torture. She admitted that such torment had its place, but she
Alaric XIX"Delaney is an alias she used before," Mireille said, staring out the window at the trees. "She's a progenitor who has used so many names. Right now we've confirmed that she's using the name, Alice. Though we're not sure if she's blending in with the humans or not. She'd have taken a family name if she was."So Delaney or Alice, whatever she called herself, was like me. She was a progenitor with knights and her own court. Damien went through a lot of pain to make sure he was hidden. Or I was hidden. We. To make sure we were hidden.And Delaney or Alice had found us. Not only did she find us, but she also declared open war on my court.Mireille, Kaya, Yayoi, and Nanase were in the room with me. Because Alice declared war on me, each of them was in danger. I had a whole court of strix and the other strains working for me, apparently, and now all of them were in just as much danger.Kaya sighed. "Should we start looking into everyone with the name Alice in Neptune?"Mireille s
Alaric XXThe streets of Neptune were bustling with people. From the small, cozy street where little cars drove, to the crowded sidewalks. Neptune was unique when it was planned, in the vein that cars weren't given a huge amount of thought. The rest of Aquroya was far more accommodating, so I've heard. It wasn't like I had seen the rest of the country. Maybe Damien had.The sidewalks were filled with people laughing. They tried to give each other as much space as they could, but in a crowd, that was impossible. It was a little claustrophobic, but I blended in with the crowd well.This was done in a vain attempt to hide from my watchers. It was a Sunday, so I didn't have any school, but Mireille met me before I left. Nanase and Kaya were going to watch me. Mireille and Yayoi had something important to do, so I was stuck with the former.Kaya and Nanase were less serious than Mireille or Yayoi, so it wasn't bad. No, it was bad, but they weren't the ones who made it bad. Mireille was the
Alaric XXIThe mall was huge, five stories tall, and it took up a huge lot of space in the center of the city. It was one of the few places with an above-ground parking lot, so it could add even more space. Of course, every parking space on the above-ground lot was filled, but we weren't driving today.The neon sign emblazoned on the top of the building was dull in the day, but at night it was supposed to be something to look at. There was a thick crowd of people coming in and out of the building, talking so loudly that you had to raise your voice if you wanted to be heard.If you had human hearing. My senses were a razor's edge and I could pick out Kaya's normal voice just fine.We were going on the mall crawl, according to Kaya. Something straight out of every teen movie and TV show you could think of. Kaya just wanted to shop. I guess girls will be girls, even if they are alien-influenced vampires.The crowd of people was so thick we had to push our way through in a few places. I w
In the fullness of time, we would come to find that the bandits were the foolish ones. No one in their right mind would call that place home.There was something worse than bandits in those mountains and we were front and center to see it.We had just gotten near the bottom of the mountains after a week of walking. All around the mountain was what looked like an African savanna. There was one long dirt road that ran straight through the tall grass and scattered trees. I imagined a lion laying in wait for us in that tall grass. Yep, we would be taking the dirt path.Euphy was groaning about lunch, and Gwen was all smiles."How about we make camp here? We can cook those rabbits."I'm glad we had Gwen with us. She wasn't just a top-class magician, she could create magic traps. Traps designed for catching something to eat.I looked at the sky. The sun was still high. "I think we should keep moving. We want to find civilization, don't we.""We already have," Euphy reminded me."Civilization
The Girl with Auburn HairIn the early morning light, the valley was beautiful. As the sun got higher in the sky, mist rose from the trees and covered the mountains. It wasn't the color-changing fog of Attea's creation, but a common, white mist. As the sun climber further into the sky, the mist burned away. The lake shimmered in the sunlight as a breeze gently rocked through the valley.There was something ethereal about this place. It felt out of an anime or fantasy book, untouched by human hands. I lived my whole life in San Francisco. When I was younger, my parents took me to see the Redwoods, but that was the only time I left the city. It was a very long time ago. To me, the world had become a concrete jungle.Wind Port was a lot better to look at, but it was still a city. Where ever we were, there wasn't a single sign of civilization. And it was beautiful. This place looked like it was out of a dream.I couldn't get the boar out of my head. Through the night, it haunted me. A dum
When the wolves began to surround her, the Knight expected attack. Instead the wolves turned tail and sprinted up the stairs.In the direction of one of the evacuations. The Knight had started to regard the wolves as young. Gifted, talented, but young. Head strong. Not the kind of beasts that she would have to worry about being clever. At least, not yet. The Knight didn't have any intention of letting them live that long.She underestimated them. She she flew up the stairs after them, desperate to make sure the evacuation wasn't interrupted.The wolve nearest her, the male, turned on her like a dime. He jumped off the wall and tackled her, it's mouth ripping into her shoulder.He tour a chunk out of her skin.
The Knight was starting to feel a little bad about it. It was like taking candy fro. a baby. These wolves were the babies and she was the mean and she was the frightening old hag in this children's story. It wasn't that the wolves were bad. In fact, for being so young (and they were young, if their scents told her anything), they fought extremely well. They had trained to fight as a pack anf there was nothing to critique.It was just a shame they ran into her, a monster so old. One who had feed on so much blood it might as well fill an ocean.Still, she wouldn't underestimate them. As the three wolves positioned themselves around her, she prepared to end their lives.
Her office was in ruins and now she was pissed. She shouldn't be. She would have to abandon the office regardless, because the wolves decided to come.It all looped back again to the wolves. The Knight was going to have to destroy her office before Sword got here, so she was going to take her agression out on the mutts that caused all of this.The two wolves divided, coming at her from different sides. The Knight kept her eyes on the female, listening intently to the male behind her.When he moved, she heard it and he jumped over the charging beast.The Knight raked her claws across its back, drawing blood.
The office was a clean and polished white. It looked even more professional than than the government offices she used to work in. From the office, you had a great view of the arra called the quad. There was a creepy bronze statue of Nathaniel Gilbert, the founder of the city. The Gilbert family were apparently rich as all hell and still contributed so much to the school. And now her office was in pieces. Granted, she was the one who propelled the wolf through, but she wasn't about to admit that.At least she heard a resounding CRACK!The other two hesitated. "Well? Come at me, mutts."
When she saw the woman on the stairs, Bianca growled. The scene of the dead radiated off of her. Not the blood of her victims, no. The deep, decaying scent of death that a rotting body produces.There were only two thinga that made that scent: the aforementioned rotting bodies and the strix.Not a strigo ot a striges, but a true creature of the night. Either a knight or a progenitor. The woman smirked as her fingernails extended into claws. She leaped down the stairs and attacked them head on, despite being out numbered.Bianca barked, the sign to scatter, but it was too late. The strix jump tackled her.
"Where are the wolves?" she asked."They have entered the tunnels, commander," one of her officers replied."When will they breach the lower levels?""Less than five minutes.""Very well. It's been a long time since I've skinned a mutt. Maybe I'll make a pelt. Continue the evacuation. I want everything out by lunch time.""You think the mutts will make it down here?""I'm not worried about the animals, but Sword is coming. For us and the mutts. This facility is compromised. We're leaving.""Understood, commander.""Alert security. I don't want any of them up there with us. Have them on guard while we evacuate."
It came to an end when The Guard was cornered by one of the wolf mutts. In that moment, he thought his life was over.He had chased the female to one of the old board rooms the humans used. The room was small and he was sure it would restrict her movements. With his strength and the pistol, he'd be able to overpower her.That was his original plan. And it semed to work, for a second. He ran straight in after the female bitch in the leg.The only problem was how close to the door she was. She rammed him through the room. She sank her teeth in his skin and ripped off his arm. She would have taken his head off if he hadn't fallen through a window.