The Hunters Volume Two: War

Chapter Eight: Challenge

  Veronica's voice snapped Mia back to reality. "Do you know any binding spells?"

  "What?"

  "I have a plan," the vampire said, her red eyes never once leaving the Hunter. "But it requires my target to remain motionless. Can you ensure that?"

  For some unknown reason, Mia's mind flashed with the memory of her first test back at the Arcane Circle. Specifically the moment the Elder was applying that seal on her. She didn't know how but Mia suddenly felt confident in her ability to not only replicate the seal, but alter it to suit her current needs.

  "Yeah," she said with a confident smile. "I've got something like that."

  To her surprise, the vampire princess smiled back at her. "Good. Time to end this."

  Lee's cocky smirk never left his face as he watched as the vampire released a short shout and expelled a crimson aura from her body. 

  'So she's finally ready to get serious, hmm?' Lee mused. 'I can actually feel her aura all the way here. Looks like the royal bloodline hasn't lost its touch...'

  'But still...'

  He lowered his upper body slightly and tensed his muscles as the vampire vanished in a burst of speed that far exceeded everything she had shown previously.

  '... that won't be enough.'

  His right hand flashed up to catch the extended clawed hand of Veronica who had reappeared beside him. Without wasting a second, she rotated her wrist and freed herself before bringing an ax kick down on Lee who blocked with his left forearm.

  A smug grin appeared on Veronica's face at the way Lee raised an eyebrow the moment the kick landed.

  "How do you like that you bastard?"

  Lee scoffed lightly. "Eh, I've seen better."

  "Oh I bet," she retorted and pushed herself over the Hunter. As Lee moved to track her movements, his senses blared in warning and he leapt back immediately as a massive spear of flames crashed into the spot he had stood on a second ago. The explosive force of the blast honestly surprised Lee, although he didn't have the time to admire that as he noticed several more spears headed his way. 

  The spears slammed into the ground with the force of an exploding grenade while Lee dodged each one with light well timed jumps backward. As he evaded the final one, his eyes widened and he forcefully rotated himself to avoid the blood magic-coated fist that sought to pop his head off his neck. Veronica landed on the ground and immediately went on an onslaught of punches, jabs and kicks against the Hunter. Quickly forced on the back foot, Lee bobbed and weaved around her strikes with only an inch or two of space separating him from her attacks much to the annoyance of the vampire.

  An overhead kick caused Lee to lean backwards and a follow up slide had him flowing into a backflip only to freeze as a near invisible force held him in place. Feeling her magic rapidly losing its hold over him, Mia swung her hand sharply to the left with a yell, sending the Hunter straight into a large tree. Or at least that was the intention. Halfway to the tree, Lee broke out of the telekinesis spell and positioned his body to land feet first on the tree. In a flash, he kicked off the tree's trunk and was in front of Mia faster than she could react. But not faster than a Blood Magic wielding vampire it would seem, as Veronica appeared, her body releasing faint wisps of red energy, right in time to redirect Lee's punch with a kick.

  The Hunter's fist cratered the ground and Lee quickly moved his body to the left as a burst of razor sharp winds ripped the earth apart around him. With the Hunter sufficiently occupied, Mia finally raised her other hand that had remained at her side since the second stage of the fight. A row of five magic circles sprang into existence along the length of her arm and as she waved it upwards, they separated and floated into the air. 

  "Super quinque columnas destructionis!" She shouted, a massive increase in pressure falling on the entire clearing at the utterance of the magic filled words. "Vocem meam audi et exaudi vocem meam. Astringite, et tenete, principes chaos!"

  The circles flashed brightly and reshaped themselves into long pink pillars of energy that slammed into the ground all around Lee. Numerous chains of ethereal energy burst out of the pillars to wrap around the Hunter tightly. Having not expected such a complex binding spell and thus being unable to dodge it, Lee immediately began forcing his arms outward to break free.

  Mia clenched her teeth as she felt her magic chains straining under the Hunter's shockingly great strength.

  "Whatever you're going to do, do it now!" She yelled at her 'partner'.

  Veronica who was standing a few meters away from the border of the binding spell grinned and flexed her claws before using them to slice open her wrists. The inevitable spray of blood that followed immediately paused its motion in the air, before coming to meld with Veronica's claws, greatly increasing their length and turning them red. The red aura around her intensified momentarily as she shifted one leg back in preparation.

  "Tehnica Sânge Interzis: Impaler Nemuritor!"

  Her already long blood claws elongated even further at incredible speed to pierce the ground. From the spot of entry, ten glowing lines of crimson energy zigzagged across the ground in the direction of the immobile Hunter. The moment the lines were within five feet of him, the ground around him exploded outwards into a massive blooming flower of blood spikes, throwing dust and smoke everywhere.

  The two girls stared at the large cloud of brown and red dust. Both were panting slightly, which was fair considering the magnitude of spells they had just used. The whole fight had taken less than ten minutes but to them it must have seemed like hours. Their opponent had not only been incredibly strong but impossibly fast with an insane reaction speed. Veronica exhaled in slight relief as well as annoyance though the latter emotion was quite unfounded and she knew it. It definitely irked her that she had to go as far as to use one of her family's most sacred techniques just to be able to land a straight hit. But another more logical part of her knew that it was wishful thinking that she had ever expected to push the Hunter at all without actually getting serious. After all, this was—

  It was nearly unnoticeable but with her sensory ability greatly enhanced by her Blood Magic, it was easy for Veronica to catch the sharp intake of breath and the sudden and rapidly elevating heart beat of the witch beside her. 

  "It's not over yet," Mia whispered in shock.

  "What?!" Veronica hissed more out of shock than anger. The more logical part of her brain must have thought everything through and deep down she knew something like this would never have been enough to stop a Hunter. But her emotions seemed to be clouding her thoughts at the moment hence why she found the scene in front of her impossible.

  The blood spikes numbered up to ten and had risen out of the ground in a disorderly fashion, an intentional effect of the spell considering it was originally designed to be unpredictable. But how could that attribute be tagged onto a spell that its target had managed to complete this kind of feat? The first two had gone straight through the right side of his jacket and had even torn through his shirt, only barely missing his skin by a centimeter. Three spikes had been avoided by a sharp duck of his white haired head and one had gone straight through his legs. Spikes numbers seven through ten struck out randomly and each of them had been avoided in the most unconventional way one could imagine. By moving parts of his body directly into the line of attack, Lee had been able to completely minimize the damage done to his person by dodging at the last possible second. The end result? Not a single scratch was on his body. His clothes however were littered with rips, tears, holes and even burn marks.

  Perhaps the most amazing fact had been the fact that he had not only been to predict and dodge an unpredictable attack like that, but that he had done so whilst still restrained by the ethereal chains of Mia's earlier spell. However due to his clever positioning, most of the blood spikes had shattered the chains around him.

  "Very good, the both of you," he commended from beneath his bangs of white hair that had fallen over his eyes. "However~"

  A heavy pressure far more than the previous one descended on the clearing and a loud boom scattered the dust cloud. With one surprisingly powerful round kick, Lee shattered every single blood spike around him. Veronica was barely able to make out a faint flicker as he blurred out of the binding spell. The next thing she knew, she was instinctively pushing Mia out of the way of a fatal thrust by the Asian Hunter who had appeared right in front of them. As a result, the broken spike of solidified blood ended up embedded into her forearm. His eyes, Veronica noted with no small amount of shock even as he planted his left foot in her abdomen, had turned a bright crimson color. With the vampire  out of the fight, Lee focused all his attention on the magic user who had already began to summon up magic circles for another spell. Lee grinned and proceeded to punch straight through the glowing constructs, shattering them into a million pieces of energy much to Mia's surprise. She recovered out of her stunned state admirably quickly and had already leaped back to put some distance between herself and the wildly grinning Hunter. More circles appeared around her hands as her mind called on more spells to—

  Mia froze mid-cast, allowing Lee to close the space between them near instantly but more importantly, allowing her to see the color of his transformed eyes.

  Wait a minute...

  Are his eyes red?! 

  "Lee?"

  All three of them snapped their heads towards the direction the voice had come from. Michael stepped through the ashen colored rift in space and took a look at the destroyed clearing and the sight of his pack mate with his hand aimed to pierce the neck of the girl he was supposed to be looking after. His next words reflected his exact thoughts.

  "What the hell happened?"