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.

Insanity Chapter Twenty-Seven

Insanity

Chapter Twenty-Seven

~Code Red 4-296~

Day Twenty-Three

A brown delivery truck drove up to the tower walk way. One of the guards in a business suit walked up to the van. The driver rolled down the passenger window.

“Hey, were do I put these things? There are quite a few of them,” the man’s hair was blond and his eyes were blue.

His uniform was brown like the truck; a brown hat, brown shirt and pants, even his shoes were brown. He smiled at the guard as he waited for his answer. The guard took in his appearance.

“I haven’t seen you here before,” the guard said.

“New on the job!” the man said.

“We didn’t hear about any changes in your department,” the guard looked at the others that looked like him.

They started walking over but their approach didn’t faze the young man.

“Oh yeah, I was supposed to come next week but Jim, the usual, got sick and no one else in the department could fill in so here I am,” he smiled again.

By now three other guards stood at the window. The one asking the questions looked at the others around him. He nodded and they went to the back of the van.

“If you don’t mind, we’d like to take a look,” the guard said.

“Oh, no problem! Let me get out and help,” the young man said.

The guard raised his hand to stop the man, “That won’t be necessary.”

One of the other guards opened the back. There were stacks of boxes. They were normal in size and shape. The guards stepped in and had a closer look around. When they weren’t watching the young driver rolled his eyes in annoyance. He put on that carefree smile again and looked out the window.

“There isn’t a problem is there?” he said.

The guards had one more look over before they started to exit the van. One of the guards kicked a box as he exited. A muffled ‘ow’ escaped the box. None of his other colleagues heard it but he stooped to get a closer look at the talking box.

The driver saw what had happened through his rear view mirror that looked into the back of his truck.

“Those talking dolls. They scare the crap out of me, you know,” he said playfully.

“Yeah,” the guard said, “They do.”

“Come on,” said another guard, “We have better things to do.”

The guard nodded and forgot about the talking box. The guards closed the doors and told the young smiling driver where to go.

“Suckers,” he said as he drove off.

He drove to the side of the building where it descended to an underground parking lot where the electricians and the like park. The young driver parked and stopped the car. He had made sure to park in a darkened area near the stairs. The parking lot was empty as he got out of the driver seat and walked to the back. He opened the door and kicked the talking box.

“Owwww!” it said.

“Oh, good grief! Fang do you realize how close we all were to having the Tower’s wrath on our backs!” the driver said.

There was a ripping sound from another one of the boxes. A knife poked up from the inside and cut down the center line. When it was cut, Fang stood up and stretched. He looked at the talking box and sighed.

“She can blow through a boat but a kick makes her almost cry,” he muttered.

“I almost let my guard down!” the driver said.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t, Shifter,” Fang stepped out of the box, “Where are the cameras?”

“Not to worry,” Penelope popped out of a box with her laptop, “Their having technical difficulties.”

“All right,” Fang nodded, “Everybody out!”

One by one, the Wolves stepped out of their cramped spaces and out of the van. They walked toward the stairs. Fang was about to join them.

“Hey, what about my seven-thousand?” Shifter asked.

Fang paused, “I’ll give it to you when we get back.”

“But you promised!”

“The banks can’t withdraw that much money in such short a notice,” Fang looked back, “That and consider it pay back. I don’t take kindly to people who think their smarter than me.”

He turned and walked away into the building. Shifter sighed, looked like Fang got the last laugh on this one. Defeated, he closed the truck and drove away.

In the stairwell, Penelope passed out fake ID’s. They reached the ground floor but the door was locked. Penelope pulled out a contraption and connected it. Numbers scrolled across it until it found the code and opened the door.

They casually walked into the lobby. Penelope held her laptop underneath her arm and glanced at it so often.

“Don’t we need to get back underground?” Alister asked.

“Yeah, but the only way we can do that is by going in to the center of the building then down,” Penelope muttered.

The inside of the Tower was amazing. Clear glass elevators brought you to your destination, the floors looked like they were waxed daily, each step of the stairs had the Tower logo on it and the floors reached as far up as the eye could see.

I’d hate to fall from up there.

“Yeah,” Arisa whispered.

“And to think, that isn’t even the top floor,” Penelope pushed her glasses up her nose, “Come on, I think we go this way. Try to look like we know where were going.”

They followed the girl up a flight of stairs and down a hallway. They passed rooms upon rooms almost the size of their house. The rooms were either filled with scientists bending over their microscopes or with engineers testing the newest weaponry they had just invented.

Fang was well aware of the envious comments of the others as they looked at the different technologies, uniforms and gadgets but he chose to completely ignore them. They had stopped in a hallway while Penelope tried to interpret the map she found. Apparently, there was supposed to be a door where there was actually a wall. He looked around and caught eye of a man talking with a few scientists. The man shook his head slightly as he interpreted what the scientists were saying.

“We could always just ask for directions,” Raven said, “I mean there are a billion people here and I doubt that every single one knows where they are going. We could say we’re new and don’t have a clue where we’re going.”

“And that’s why we need to find a janitor closet?” Alister shook his head, “That makes no sense. We can find it, it’s gotta be ‘round ‘ere somewhere.”

“We’re on a limited time frame,” Penelope said, “the cameras will start working any minute from now.”

“What are with men and asking for directions?” Arisa sighed.

I ask for directions.

“I know, Blue,” Arisa amended, “I mean every guy except you.”

“What about me?” Shadow asked.

“What about you?” Raven said.

Fang walked down the hallway over to the man. The man had short white blond hair. His blue eyes shined like azurites. He wore casual clothes; a white t-shirt, black jeans and open toes shoes. Around his neck was a silver necklace that held a star like pendant attached. The man looked young but Fang could tell that he was even older than Undertaker (however old he was). He smiled as the scientists as they left. His azure eyes caught sight of Fang and he turned and smiled at him.

“I haven’t seen you yet,” the man smiled, “What’s your name?”

Fang said nothing at first, “It isn’t that important, you’ll forget it later anyway. Do you know if there is a cleaning room around here?”

The man looked confused. He was slightly taller than Fang but not tall enough for one to seemingly overpower the other.

“There was a spill in one of the rooms here, a big sticky mess,” Fang lied, “That’s why we don’t bring sodas in here, right?”

The man looked like he didn’t at all believe Fang’s story. His eyes looked past Fang and to the others behind him. He looked at Fang again and smiled.

“Let’s start again,” the man said, “I’m Sage Tariq. What’s your name?”

Fang paused a little too long, “Oliver Fai.”

“Well, we’ll just have to assume that that isn’t your real name but alright I’ll play along,” the man’s eyes danced, “So what do you need, Oliver Fai?”

“Directions to the cleaning supplies,” Fang said.

Sage looked past Fang again, “Why do you need to go to the cleaning room?” he asked them.

They looked confused and Fang had to fight the urge to yell at them. The man nodded and looked at Fang again.

“So now I know that’s a lie too,” he said with a smile, “I’ll give you directions.”

“You will?” Fang asked.

“Yes, then after five minutes I’ll notify the every agent in this building to deal with you. Left, down the hallway, third door on your right. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a ray gun to inspect.”

Sage walked past Fang and the others. The others stared after him as Fang walked up.

“Come on! What are you guys waiting for? An engraved invitation?” Fang said, “Let’s go!”

He led them down the hallway toward the supply room. Penelope went in and found the wires she was looking for. Alister looked at Raven.

“This is why we men don’t ask for directions!” he yelled.

I ask for directions!

“We know Blue,” Shadow said, “We know.”

Suddenly the hallways were bathed in a red color and a woman's voice sounded over the intercom.

“Attention, we are going into lock down. Please remain where you are. Agents requested at section 45. This is code red 4-296. Thank you.”

“Penelope what did you do?!” Arisa shouted.

“I didn’t do anything!” she defended herself.

“What do you need to get done?!” Fang said.

“I needed to kill the camera’s again!”

“Then kill them and let’s get out of here!”

“But I also need to find the way to the hangers!”

“We’ll find our own way!”

With that they ran down hallway after hallway. Eventually, they reached a glass walkway that hung above several floors of the Tower. Fang looked down. This wasn’t where they were supposed to be.

“There they are!” three people stood on the walkway in front of them

“We got ‘em,” another three people said from behind them.

Fang thought. They needed to go down right? Fang brought out his gun and shot at the walkway. Their part fell through sending them falling from several stories. On the ground floor, Fang landed on his feet. Everyone else stumbled.

“You sure you’re a wolf Fang? I could swear you have some cat or panther in you somewhere,” Shadow commented.

“Shut up!” Fang said and started running deeper into the building.

Shadow looked behind him; they were starting to become surrounded with Agents.

I told you I’d hate to fall from that high.

“We know Blue,” Arisa patted his head as he carried her on his back, “We know.”

They ran after Fang. He had no idea where he was going and how to get there. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he felt his mind begin to wander.