The Hunters: Chapter One

Hunters
~01~

Green Eyes, Red Blood

If you are squirmy about blood I have a few suggestions for you:

1.      Don’t read this.

2.      Imagine anime blood. (I did this)

3.      Whenever you see the word “blood” insert the word “Kool-aid” or “Ketchup”.

I don’t think there is a lot of blood but I might me wrong. If people have problems with it I can always edit.

Not a bad sketch if I do say so myself.

The moon was bright and full as it sailed silently through the sky. A figure sat on the peak of a ruined building. The surrounding city was destroyed and damaged. He was crouched with his eyes closed and his long silver hair blowing in the wind. A flicker of purple shimmered from three purple beads tied to a braid in his hair. They were stacked on top of each other smallest to biggest. He wore an old grey cloak and hat. A dark purple thread was wrapped around the base of the hat with the remainder blowing in the wind. A large silver watch was tied to the other end of the string.

Images danced through the man’s head:

“Come on, brother!” a boy with gold eyes called out to him.

The scenery looked to be in a forest. There were trees and green everywhere. The boy’s silver hair was similar to the man’s.

 A young voice responded, “I’m coming!”

“Mother is going to be so mad!” the boy couldn’t help but smile.

“Not as mad as Father is going to be!”

The boy ran off into the woods, “Come on, we can go to our hiding place until Father calms down!”

The three beads shook and spun violently. The man slowly opened his eyes. His vivid green eyes scanned the scenery. He didn’t move. He simply sat and watched the cold wind blow through the abandoned city. The man’s eyes looked old, as if he had seen a lot in life that not one person has to see.

He turned his head slowly to his left. Something moved in one of the abandoned buildings. The man narrowed his eyes and waited a moment. He turned away ignoring whatever was there. The man slowly stood up. He groaned as he straightened and cracked his back.

The first and smallest bead began to glow. The man looked at it a moment.

“Level 7?” the man muttered, “He brought friends with him. Wonderful.”

He turned his head so that he could look behind. There was a creature there. It looked like it had not seen the sun ever in its life. It had large eyes and pale skin. Its skin looked rubbery. The creature growled at the man.

The man reached into his grey cloak and took out a gold pocket watch attached to a chain. He opened casually.

“No sign of target. Engaging lower level ghouls in an attempt to locate target,” he stated.

He closed the watch and placed it back in its place. The ghoul growled again and charged at the man. The man stepped to one side easily as the ghoul tried to claw at him. He continued dodging in a circle as if toying with the creature. His eyes never left the ghouls clumsy movements. Eventually he stopped.

“It’s amazing how stupid these creatures are,” he rolled his eyes.

The man gripped his hat and flicked his wrist. The hat turned into an enormous scythe. A piece of cloth draped down from the heel down the snath. The large silver watch hung at the other end of the purple cloth. Not only did the man’s hat change but so did his eyes. The irises in both his eyes were long and narrow. His green eyes seemed to glow in an unsettling way. His silver hair appeared wild without the constraint of his hat.

The creature charged forward and the man stepped to one side and positioned the blade of the scythe in a way that the creature ran right into it. It was cut in half from the ridge of its nose to its back. The creature was killed easily and dissolved into a white dust.

The man looked at the pile of dust being blown away by the harsh wind, “Only a ghoul would run into their death like that.”

There was more growling behind him. Ghouls started to crawl out from every shadow. They were the residence of a once busy city. The stranger’s eyes scanned the view briefly. He stepped back and fell through a hole in the roof. A group of ghouls lay in wait below.  They lunged at him but were quickly dispersed by a sweep of the man’s scythe. Several ghouls turned to dust. The ones that didn’t charged at him again. The man ran forward to a whole in the wall.

He landed on his feet in the middle of a street. Ghouls poured out on to the street on his left and right. Above him, more ghouls crawled to the edges of buildings and looked down at him. They ran at him.

The man took his scythe and spun in circle. The blade glittered in the moonlight as he hacked away at the coming hordes. He sliced downward and a shard of silver light traveled down the road. The man tuned and brought the scythe blade up sending another silver light down the other end of the road. He looked up and crouched down. He leaped up and slashed at the buildings where the ghouls were sat waiting to leap.

The buildings crumbled and fell. The man landed on his feet in a pile of white dust. Dust fell from the sky like snow. Rocks from the buildings fell around him. He heard a whimper and turned toward the sound. A girl stood in the center of the road. Her clothes were no more than rags and her short black hair was a matted mess. She stood, her hands gripping her own mouth as if to stop herself from screaming.

The second and third beads in the man’s hair started to glow while the first one went dark. He ran at the girl. She started to turn to run away but he was already upon her. He grabbed her with one arm and with his other hand he held his scythe. The man raised his scythe and spun in creating a kind of shield. Pointed daggers struck the shield and fell to the ground. When the attack stopped, he threw the girl behind a large piece of rock for temporary shelter.

“Don’t move,” he told her.

The man propped his scythe on his shoulder. He looked in the direction of where the attack came from. Another man stood dressed in red his black hair waving slightly in the wind. Red eyes peered from underneath his long black bangs, his iris were the same as the strangers. He smiled revealing long fangs.

“So they sent you here to kill me, is that it?” asked the man in red.

The man in grey smiled slightly, “It’s about time you showed up. I thought I was going to die of boredom before you decided to reveal yourself.”

He brought out his gold watch and looked at it, “For documenting’s sake, please confirm your identity as level 2 vampire Akaban X also known as the Blood Rise Vampire.”

The vampire threw his arm forward sending daggers at the grey stranger. The man ducked down not taking his eyes off the watch. The daggers sailed over the man. With a sigh, he closed the watch and looked up.

“I’ll take that as confirmation,” the man stated.

He reached for the stop watch at the end of his scythe. Opening it, it was obvious that it wasn’t a normal stop watch. There were two slots that showed numbers. The letters LV were written in cursive to the left of those slots. Currently the slots read LV: 07. He turned one of the two knobs and the number changed.

The vampire attacked again. Hundreds of daggers were hurled in the man’s direction. He didn’t seem concerned. The man pressed another knob and closed the watch. The daggers never reached him. It was as if they struck a kind of invisible force field around the man. None of the daggers even got near the man. The girl looked on with wide eyed amazement.

The stranger stood up and untied the watch before tossing it to the girl, “Keep an eye on that for me.”

She caught it and looked at it with awe. Tentatively she opened it and saw in interior. The slots now read LV: 05.

“Increasing power output to level 5,” the stranger smiled, “That should be enough to finish you.”

He dashed forward at a speed the girl had only seen vampires run before. In a blink of an eye the man was a mere few feet from the vampire. He gripped his scythe and leaped into the air. His scythe dug into the vampire and with his upward momentum cut the vampire in half. He landed on his feet facing away from the vampire. Blood rained down. He looked back at what was now a pool of blood. There was no body supposedly torn to shreds.

“Perhaps that was too high a level,” the man looked disappointed, “I was hoping for more of a fight.”

He reached into his inner pocket for the gold watch. The pool of blood rippled and bubbled. The man stopped with watch in hand and smiled. A figure rose from the pool of blood. Red eyes opened and glared at the man with a sadistic smile. The vampire licked his lips tasting the blood on them. The girl’s eyes grew wide with fear and horror. The man turned his head to look.

The vampire ran forward, three daggers appeared in his closed fist. The man dropped the gold watch and his scythe in the widening pool of blood. He fell limp into the vampire behind him. The vampire’s hand, daggers and all were clean through the man’s body. The man rested his head on the vampires shoulder. He coughed up blood and winced in pain. The vampire grabbed the man’s neck and turned his head closer to his. He licked the blood trickling from the corner of the man’s mouth

“It really would be a waste to turn you into a ghoul,” the vampire whispered in the man’s ear, “A man with your skill and talent walking around as a mindless pawn isn’t that the perfect way for me to extract my revenge on you.”

The man smiled exposing long fangs, “Thank you, but I think I’ll pass. I’ve died once already,” his green eyes looked over at the girl, “Little girl, would you be a doll and set the dial to level 4 for me.”

The girl looked down at the watch. She turned the knob until the number changed with a click. Her shaking hands found the other knob and pressed it. She closed her eyes and brought the device close to her.

The man grabbed the vampires arm. His nails had grown into black claws. He severed the vampire’s arm then grabbed at the creatures face. The man turned and slammed the vampire’s head onto the ground. There was a sickening crack and the man jumped away.

Amazingly, the vampire moved. He got to his feet and glared at the man with hateful red eyes. Daggers pierced through his skin and he threw them at the man. The man jumped back from the flying knives. The vampire ran at him driven by anger and hatred. The man extended his arm. He whistled and twitched his middle and pointer finger the same way one would be summoning a dog. The vampire looked over his shoulder in time and stepped to one side. He wasn’t fast enough as the scythe spun end over end toward its master. His left shoulder was severely cut.

When the scythe returned to his hand the man ran forward. He grabbed the vampire’s neck and threw him into a wall. The scythe caught the light of the moon as the man ran at him again. The man brought the blade up to the vampire’s neck.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” the man warned.

The vampire looked into the man’s green eyes, “What are you?”

“Me?” the man laughed, “I’ve been trying to figure that out for longer than you have been alive! I guess you could call me a blood vampire. You, you’re a pure vampire, am I right? Of course, I am. Now listen to me, vampire, I’m in quite a good mood. That can change in seconds if you start acting up, understand?”

The vampire nodded.

The man smiled, “Now, it would be a shame killing off a skilled fighter like yourself wouldn’t you agree? Of course, you do. I’ll give you a choice; you can die here or join the Hunters and live. Sure you would be killing your own kind but I think we can both agree that most vampires are useless and pathetic. Amuse me and say you don’t agree.”

The scythe blade pressed against the vampires throat, “I-I agree.”

“I though you would,” the man chuckled, “Now tell me, what is your choice?”

The vampire looked into the man’s eyes again trying to determine whether or not he could trust the man.

“Hurry now, I haven’t got all night,” the man smiled.

“Yes,” the vampire tried to speak with the blade to his throat.

The man lessened the pressure slightly, “‘Yes’, what?”

“I’ll join you,” the vampire stated.

The man flicked his wrist and the scythe turned back into a hat. The irises of his eyes returned to their normal form. He turned and walked away. The vampire looked at him. The man stopped across from where the girl hid. The man seemed different somehow than he was just moments before. He hunched over a little and his voice changed to an older gravelly voice instead of the smooth confident one he just spoke in.

“Come on,” the man motioned to her, “you too, come on.”

The girl looked at the vampire for a moment.

“Oh don’t mind the big and scary vampire,” the man smiled, “He’s harmless now. At least he will be if he wants to live.”

The latter his voice changed again. The vampire looked up saw the man’s green eyes staring at him from beneath his bangs and hat. The man turned to the girl again, his eyes disappearing in shadow. The girl ran to the man for protection. Together they started to walk through the destroyed abandoned city. The vampire followed a ways behind.

“What’s your name?” the vampire asked when they reached the city’s edge.

“You can call me Undertaker,” the man smiled as he continued walking.