The Hunters Volume Two: War

Stranger Danger

  His eyes narrowed at the figure only a few meters away from him. Within two seconds, his highly observant mind had committed another facet of the figure's appearance to memory. Below, his hand maintained a light yet firm grip on the brush as it swiped across the palette on his other hand before transferring the memorized details onto the canvas before him. 

  With each stroke of his brush, Dean Hanson brought into existence his innermost thoughts that swam within his heart day after day, using the figure sitting a few feet away from him as a focus point to center his painting. Perched on a high seat with her legs crossed, Lisa Brown looked exceptionally radiant in her form fitting cream turtleneck and jeans combo. Her brown hair was hung over one shoulder as she remained near motionless staring out the east side window. The rest of the studio was empty and thus void of any distracting sounds. 

  As Dean worked through his painting, he found himself lingering a bit longer than usual on Brown's face. Maybe it was because he had asked her to temporarily discard her ever present glasses for the modeling, but he felt that the calm, serene look she had on at the moment suited her far more than the usual slight skittishness she always had. The next he looked up at her though, he noticed her right hand discreetly stroking her left forearm  despite the sun rays still touching her skin. 

  Sighing quietly, Dean hurried through the rest of the painting as best as he could without completely butchering his work. As soon as he finished, he signaled Lisa to drop the pose and moved to hang the canvas on the drying rack. Lisa joined him soon after, this time her glasses were back on her face, to Dean's slight but unspoken disappointment. 

  Behind the frames, her chocolate brown eyes widened in pleasant surprise as she stared wondrously at the finished product. "Wow..."

  Dean felt a tinge of pride in his heart at having the work of his hand instigate such a response. He gazed at the portrait that depicted the girl standing beside him, sitting alone atop a wall overlooking a small village and its inhabitants backdropped by a beautiful night sky. Behind the wall was a series of headstones, meaning that the wall was serving as a fence for a graveyard.

  "Careful," Dean said when Lisa's small hand rose towards the painting. "It's still wet."

  She gave him a small smile. "I know. It's just... I never thought a anyone could make a cemetery look so beautiful."

  Dean's thought that the cemetery was not the only thing beautiful in the painting went unsaid. Instead he turned to thank the girl for her assistance. 

  "It want really a problem. After all, I don't really get asked to do this kind of thing often. Or ever even," she added with a soft giggle. "What's it for again?"

  "Michael's friend, Antonio invited us to his daughter's birthday tonight," Dean  answered. "I wanted to paint something for her."

  Lisa's eyes lit up in recall. "Oh, I remember her. She's the little girl Michael saved last month, right?" Her expression suddenly changed slightly and she gave Dean a strange look. "Wait a minute. Isn't she like, nine?"

  A very faint smile ghosted Dean's lips in reply. "Yeah, I didn't really think it would be a good idea to give a nine year old a graveyard painting either. But I couldn't really find any inspiration to paint anything else."

  A rush of panic overtook Lisa as she rushed to apologize, thinking that she had disrespected the Hunter. "No, no that's not what I meant. It's a great painting and I'm pretty sure she's gonna love it."

  "I would hope so. At least we wouldn't have wasted the past hour and a half for nothing."

  "Yeah," Lisa grinned and turned to continue admiring the picture. Her palm came up to stroke her forearm again and her breath came out a bit shakily. She swerved her head around the room searchingly. "Hey, do you have any idea where the thermostat is? It's freezing in here."

  Dean's brows creased in a frown and he stepped away subtly to put some space between himself and the young witch. "It's not the thermostat," he muttered quietly.

  She turned to him, having only barely heard what he had said. "What was that?"

  Dean straightened up and all trace of emotion vanished from his face. "Nothing. Thanks for your help, Lisa. I really appreciate it. But you should leave now."

  Taken aback by the sudden turnabout in the Hunter's behavior, Lisa almost stumbled in surprise. "W-what are you—"

  "Please," he stressed further. "For your own sake, just go. I can't—"

  Had he not been so focused on restraining his near uuncontrollable magic, he would have completely missed it. There was a faint scent in the air of something arcane and ancient. It was very weak, as if restrained just like his own powers were. But somehow he could tell, that it was just a cover. That beneath whatever barrier was holding back this foreign energy, there was a vast ocean of potent energy waiting to be unleashed. Even more concerning, that faint wisp of energy that had leaked out was currently wrapping around his soul, diminishing the presence of his Variant magic.

  It had to be noted that Dean's abilities did not merely allow him to summon the power of death. Rather, the true core of his being, his very soul itself is a twisted vessel, bent to become the impartial, all consuming concept that marks the end of all things. In other words, Dean becomes the nearest thing you can imagine to a walking personification of death. And for something to be able to tame such a powerful concept, it was surely worth looking into.

   Dean's dark eyes flashed in the direction of the studio's entrance and he caught a glimpse of dark red hair as it disappeared behind the door hurriedly. Without wasting another second, Dean bounded over the benches that stood between him and the door and dashed out of the studio in pursuit. Left behind in the studio, Lisa could only blink at the empty spot the dark haired young man had been standing in seconds earlier. She had no idea what could have provoked such a response from the Hunter who had seemed to be having quite a bit of fun while he had painting. Heck, even she had felt that her usual awkwardness had reared its annoying head far less in the last two hours than it had in the last two days. With no other explanation in mind for the Hunter's actions, Lisa hurriedly grabbed the keys to the studio and went after the man himself.

  Dean dashed through the hallways after the strange figure he had seen spying on them. It was evening and the sun outside had already begun to set, which meant that there were no other students in the building at the moment thankfully. Without having to fear for prying eyes, he was able to go after her at a speed much to high for a normal human being. His eyes turned a clear golden yellow color and his fingernails elongated to claws. The next step he took had him rocketing down the passage. It was empty, the figure having gotten surprisingly further than he had expected. In fact, Dean was quite certain that had he been as adept at sensing energies as he was, he would have lost track of them long ago. Whoever this person was, they were definitely not a mundane human. And that alone was enough to trigger his interest. 

  Having tracked the stranger's magical signature to where it had gone around a corner, Dean leapt up at the last stretch of the hallway. His left hand lashed out to grip the wall, claws sinking into the concrete like butter and holding fast like a grapple, giving him the right angle and leverage to launch himself forcefully into the adjoining hallway and more importantly, in front of the fleeing stranger. 

  For all Dean had been ready to deal with any immediate movements from the stranger, he had no idea how to have possibly reacted when the he found himself suspended in the air, held up by nothing but pure arcane energy. The stranger's hand was raised towards him, and for the first time Dean caught sight of their face. It was a female, dressed inconspicuously in the academy's blue cardigan with her straight auburn colored hair falling down around her face and shoulders. She was looking at him wide-eyed as if in shock. Her face was oval and admittedly quite pretty, although Dean didn't put much thought on that fact considering that he has something far more important to worry about. Like the fact that her eyes were glowing a brilliant purple and had the most peculiar diagram inscribed on her irises. 

  It took only a second for Dean to ascertain that it was those strange eyes of hers that gave off the potent energy he had and was still feeling restricting him. Unfortunately for him, he did not have another second, as the girl moved with blinding speed and slammed her palm into his chest just as soon he began to draw upon his magic to break free. In that instant, Dean's eyes widened uncharacteristically as something happened that he had never felt before. His own Variant magic, the power to remove life that made up his very soul, was suddenly completely sealed off!

  Instinct and experience gained from centuries of battle took over immediately. The yellow glow of his eyes that had been receding suddenly flared up as Dean seamlessly switched over to his werewolf nature to break free of the invisible bindings with his massively enhanced strength. A look of shock flashed across the girl's face, and that momentary distraction nearly cost her head as Dean's claws tore through the air straight for her neck. As it would seem, the girl had more surprises up her sleeve as she leaned out of the attack despite the speed at which it came, whilst simultaneously striking out with her booted foot. The kick landed on Dean's forearm, pushing the Hunter back a few feet and leaving him stunned at the strength behind it despite the girl's deceptively slim frame. 

  Ultimately his own lack of knowledge about his opponent's strange and unpredictable abilities proved to be his undoing. From his earlier experience, Dean had assumed that her unique eyes must have granted the girl with increased reaction speed and strength as well as the ability to apparently seal off her opponent's magic. That led him to make his next and final mistake: raising his head to make direct eye contact with the girl. Just like before, her eyes gleamed slightly and Dean felt a light shock run through his veins.

 The last thing Dean noticed before his vision faded into darkness was his claws and sharpened canines shrinking back to their normal state. Before he could even realize what had happened, his mind was forcefully shut down and he slumped down on the ground motionless. 

                                ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The night arrived soon enough with its usual entourage of numerous twinkling glimmers of light that lit up the inky blanket that covered the sky. The light from the stars reflected on the clear ocean water that existed just as few kilometers from the heart of the city itself. That was how Starlight Bay had gotten its name; from the dazzling phantasmagoria that played out on the water surface after the sun had set. 

  Starlight Bay was a city that never really slept. Even at the later hours of the night, the streets were brightened up the streetlights and neon signs from the nighttime and round-the-clock businesses that operated throughout the city. Traffic was lighter than it was during the day, but that did not been there wasn't an abundance of individuals plying the roads and streets. 

  Over at the northwest corner of the city just a few minutes away from the Academy, a small private event was being hosted at the penthouse of one of the tallest buildings in the entire city. The building, like a few others around it was owned by the same organization, Marino Maritime Corporation. The shipping and trade company was headed by a man named Antonio Marino, who had recently become acquainted with the world that existed in the shadows of modern society, albeit in a not-so-pleasant way. During the events of the last month, his daughter Anna Marino had been abducted by supernatural beings known as skinwalkers and had nearly been used to complete a malicious summoning spell to call forth a demon's body. 

  After that plan had been stopped in its tracks by the combined efforts of the Academy students, Antonio had continued to pursue a sort of unofficial alliance with the leader of the Hunters, Michael Castillo after the latter's role in saving his daughter. And tonight, the multimillion dollar penthouse that normally served as the headquarters of the company had been converted into a small party house in celebration of the young Marino heiress's thirteenth birthday. 

  The inside of the luxury suite had been completely redecorated, with party streamers and balloons hung up at practically every corner of the main and thankfully extremely spacious living room. The room itself had undergone a makeover as well. Considering the true nature of the MMC, there had been a need to make sure none of the less than child-friendly items had been left around for the multiple kids that were currently terrorizing the suite to find.

  Most of the invited children were friends of Anna's from school, with only a few coming from the families of her father's business associates. The birthday girl herself had been sequestered by a group of her friends around a crane game that had been imported specifically for the event. Antonio and his business friends had retired to a private room to discuss matters that were most definitely not meant for any normal ears to hear. Unfortunately that left Lucio Romano and his partner Vito as unwilling shepherds to a flock of noisy uncontrollable children.