by S. K. Benton
All seemed lost, with everything going by in agonizingly slow motion. As he fought harder and harder while keeping his back pressed up against Jennie and making sure she was pinned back into the corner, he started to lose consciousness. The edges of his vision started to fade to black -his existence was ending right there. With Jennie behind him and in a final moment of desperation he executed a gravecantus, pushing back nearly all of the attacking soldiers - only to see them bound back up and attack again.
Turning around he wrapped his arms around her, using his massive back as a shield against the marauding troops and said, “I’m sorry, Jennie. Please, I’m so sorry…”
He felt a knife penetrate the meat of his shoulder as clubs beat him over the head, but he was feeling peace. He had resigned himself to death. His only regret was that he never got the chance to hold her – to tell her how he felt.
He was near an unconscious state when out of his almost nonexistent peripheral vision he saw a brilliant flash – a blinding white, followed by screams. The pressure on his back was gone. He had no idea what had happened, but he would die with Jennie in his arms. Was it Heaven? Was it some sort of afterlife? He had heard stories of people seeing bright white lights when they died and were later revived.
Then, without further warning, everything went black.
Chapter 26 – Regeneration
Max awoke with a start, sitting up quickly, but was held down by Draagh, who had arrived moments before the young man was to meet his end. However, the first thought in his head was not for his own well being, but for that of Jennie.
“Hey Pops, where…is she?” he asked with a painful-sounding groan.
“Oh my son, please wait. She rests here on the table. We are safe, yes, quite safe, as I have cordoned off this room while I heal the both of you. Now, rest for a moment. I had to remove a spear from your torso, and the healing is not yet finished. I must say, my dear boy, that if there was not a substantial part of me in you… then you would most certainly not be alive right now.”
Max’s grandfather pointed to at least half a dozen blood-covered, platinum-covered blades laid out on the ground – all of which he had pulled out of his grandson’s body.
“I need to see her. Please,” he said weakly. He looked at his hands and noted his normal nails. He was so depleted he had converted back to his day form, which left him weak in comparison to the mid and upper-caste vampire warriors.
“Draagh, where are they? All of those vamps?”
Draagh put his hand to Max’s shoulder, instigating another massive flood of salubots to assist in healing his stab wounds, as well as multiple other cuts and gouges on his body.
“I merely dispatched them – to the moat. Well, the ones that remained after Krynos and Donus had attacked. I find it much easier when they group together – it is more efficient. Yes, much more efficient.”
He wiggled his eyebrows at Max and then tapped on his temple, giving a visual indication that he was smart… and he was – very, very smart.
Standing up with some difficulty, Max looked over to a blood-covered Jennie, who was lying motionless on the table next to their position. He stumbled over and nearly fell on top of her. Draagh quickly moved over and steadied him, noting that the young man's eyes had welled up with tears.
“I’m sorry, Jennie. I’m so sorry, I should have been more careful. We should have fought them out in the open. I was arrogant… it’s all my fault.”
Max closed his eyes and dropped his head, tears falling onto Jennie’s bloody arm, when he felt her hand brush up against his cheek, with the woman speaking to him in a low whisper.
“It’s ok, hun. Draagh came, but we still need to go back out there. We can’t let them win. Move back and let him do what he does best.”
Max looked down at Jennie’s slightly bruised face. Her eyes – those amazing eyes – they seemed to reflect hope, and he used that hope as his strength. He reached down and brushed her bangs out of her face, and to his surprise she appeared to welcome his touch, slightly moving her cheek toward his hand, while gaining a soft, but weak smile.
“Max, you’re in the way. Move your ass,” she insisted, this time with a bit more force to her voice.
Backing up, Max turned around and looked at his grandfather. He was really feeling the effects of the salubots flowing through his system, as they regenerated missing tissues and healed wounds. Then, looking at his levels he noticed that they were all peaked, which was unusual, as he hadn’t consumed anything of nutritional value. Looking at his grandfather he asked how that could be.
“Draagh, my levels… they’re peaked. How?”
“My boy, I have certain… abilities, yes I have. I am only glad I arrived in time, as I was rampaging throughout the castle, racing Krynos and Donus and having quite a good time hunting the invaders – but I heard you – I heard your cries, I felt your anguish and hopelessness. Now stand back, and let me heal this wonderful young woman who had her sword over your back, guarding your spine while you used your body as a voluntary lycan carving post in order to protect her.”
Max gazed at Jennie with utter astonishment – he thought that she was out of commission and helpless, but she had used the very last of her energies to help protect him. She had prolonged their lives - and their mortal embrace.
It was a matter of about twenty minutes more before the two were up and on their feet. Draagh quickly conjured a nutritional drink much like what Alea had given him during his phase 2 training (sans the force-feeding tube), which they both consumed. They both actually felt better than normal – they felt supercharged, like they were amped after drinking a super-powerful yerba mate. (*20*)
Completely rejuvenated and ready to fight some more, they made for the main door while Draagh bid them good luck, the ancient one taking off to yet again assist Krynos and Donus in their castle cleanup. Knowing they were about to enter into a battle zone, they entered the courtyard - but cautiously, making sure they would not be cornered off, and giving themselves ample room for flight in the case they were again overwhelmed. Seeing numerous vampires on the walls, Max started to use low-energy unspoken cantuses to knock vampires down off, working in conjunction with the remaining normals who were using palladium-tipped arrows to valiantly pick off the scattered vampire troops, where they were instantly turned into little piles of ash.
Standing in the middle of the courtyard was a group of approximately twenty high-caste, shielded vampire soldiers, surrounding and protecting an aged and mildly decomposing man in their center – Vladros. The vampire king had arrogantly believed that his troops had taken the castle, and he certainly hadn’t counted on the two alien lycans arriving at his location.
As soon as the rotting liege saw Max and Jennie he cried out, “Kill them! The ones who took Ladros from us!”
At once, half of Vladros’ protective forces charged out at the two youngsters, who had again gone to phase 2, instantly doubling their strength. Jennie and Max split up, forcing the attacking vampires to do the same, which they unwittingly did in equal numbers. The lycans were going to spread the enemy out – not make the same mistake they had made inside the hall. Experience can be a cruel, yet effective teacher, and they had learned, nearly at the cost of their own lives.
Approaching an open area, Jennie performed a series of back flips, landing on her booted feet and crouching low. She feigned a jump, but instead shot forward, sliding on her knees over the rough stones of the courtyard floor, and leaning back used her katana to amputate the legs from four of her five attackers. As they fell to the ground screaming in blood-squirting agony, she popped up and gave them the not-so sympathetic gift of instant death via decapitation.
Her remaining opponent charged at her, his mouth open in a silent scream as he slashed and hacked away at the young woman, who, although in her battle form, was still amazingly attractive, even though she was sporting a bit of hair on her jaws and chest, and the majority of her upper torso was covered in dried blood.
&
nbsp; Her attacker hissed and screeched, “Lycan bitch! I shall rend you limb from limb,” and surged forward with his sword pointed at her, which she quickly sidestepped, allowing her to comically slap him on his hindquarters with her sword as he passed by.
“Hey Max! I did the butt thing! I did it! Woohoo!”
The grotesque, rotting soldier then spun around with a confused look on his face, not understanding how the woman could have taken joy in such an ineffective counter-attack.
Again he surged forward, with Jennie performing a forward jumping flip over her attacker, severing one of his arms while flying through the air and upside-down. Landing softly, she turned and smiled.
“There! I’ve disarmed you!” paraphrasing a silly line from an Old-Earth movie.
The vampire wailed and attacked, his remaining arm waving his sword around wildly as blood gushed out from where his severed arm used to be. Then, waiting until the very last second, Jennie did a backflip and landed low, swinging her katana out 180 degrees at her face-level, which happened to be about mid-thigh for the attacking ghoul, making him into nothing more than a one-armed living corpse, writhing and bleeding out all over the stones of the courtyard ground.
A few meters away, Max took on his attackers in a completely different fashion, 3d slipping behind them and cutting off one head, then slipping to the other side and cutting off another, while Vladros screamed in rage, his face nearly turning a very light shade of purple.
“He’s a mage, you idiots!”
Suddenly, the three remaining vampires looked around, back to back, not seeing him anywhere.
“Above you! He’s above you!” roared the vampire king.
The three simultaneously looked up, only to see Max standing above their heads, as if on an invisible platform. Looking down, he gave them a cocky grin and waved, as he silently executed the same cantus that Jennie had used days before to give Ryder Johnson a most unwelcome sunburn.
Undaincantatio ultravita.
The powerful ultraviolet blast caused the three attackers to immediately fall and start screaming while ripping at their faces, with their leader looking on in horror. Max then gingerly dropped to the ground, lopped off each of their heads (along with their hands that were clenching their faces), and casually walked toward Vladros, massive sprays of blood jettisoning into the air out of their severed carotid arteries, and creating a beautiful red fountain of liquid death as his own personal backdrop. Max was developing his own style in the art of war, and it was pretty - unless one was on the dying end of his blade.
“Do NOT approach me, murderer!” screamed the obviously alarmed and cowardly vampire king, as his remaining troops backed up with him. “Before the sun rises I shall see your corpse lying in the dirt.”
“Oh, shut up, you asshole. I mean - why do you have to be such a dick? And what’s with this Ooo, we’re going to defeat the lycans and rule the universe thing anyway?”
Focusing in on his meter, he saw that his yellow line was half depleted, giving him enough juice for one really good skill, so he quickly used a powerful gravity push cantus to lift up and violently slam Vladros and the remaining enemy forces to the ground. The vampire protectors immediately scrambled up to their feet and made for the main gate, running out into the open plains and leaving their liege at the mercy of the young, but powerful lycan mage.
As Jennie had defeated her remaining opponent in a most gruesome, yet stylish fashion, she cautiously circled around the courtyard, but not approaching, as she knew Max wanted to handle Vladros on his own.
The young lycan male rushed forward in a blur, and grasping Vladros’ leather jacket, pulled him up to face level.
“Dude, you really are a sick puke. You are mean, you have hurt my family and you smell really bad.”
“You murdered my son,” he hissed, his rancid breath nearly causing Max’s eyes to water up.
“I didn’t murder your son. He attacked us when we were minding our own business, relaxing under the waxing moon, and I’m pretty sure you sent him to do it - but what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, eh?”
“You… you mounted his head on a stake! You challenged my kingdom with that perversion,” he said, still maintaining a defiant look on his rotting, malformed face.
“Well, I can explain that. You see, there’s this hottie who I was trying to impress, and, well you understand how it is with girls. They just love that kind of stuff.”
“You challenged me! You killed my son! I am the Alpha and the Omega!”
“Uh, no - that title belongs to someone else, but I’ll give you an Omega… let’s take a walk, bro.”
Max moved to drag the vampire king away, but was surprised when Vladros desperately thrust a clawed glove up into the young lycan’s face - the glove having a rhodium coating on the palms and metal fingernails.
“Die, lycan scum! Die!” screamed the terrified vampire.
Max stopped and just stood where he was, blood dripping down from where the claws had dug in. Rhodium contacting his bloodstream should have debilitated or even killed the strongest of lycans while in battle form, as was Max, but Vladros was left speechless when nothing happened – at all, and instead, in a muffled voice the young man calmly said, “Um… really?”
Pulling Vladros’ gloved hand off his lightly bleeding face, and then continuing to drag the confused vampire toward the massive gate that led to the courtyard, Max brought the rotting leader up to speed on the differences between himself and typical lycans.
“That little trick doesn’t work on me, oh-terrifying lord of the underworld. You see, I may be lycan, but my grandfather is a Primulus - kinda like God’s right-hand, and that makes me immune to a lot of stuff. You, however, are shark bait.”
Having been abandoned by his personal protection forces, Vladros looked around in vain for someone to save him, and suddenly spied Ryder Johnson - who had up to that point had evaded any form of conflict – perched on a balcony overlooking the courtyard.
“My son!” he yelled, desperately thrusting his arm out toward Johnson, supplicating to the alien he had despised just moments earlier, “Come save your king! I shall give you a place at my side!”
Johnson stood where he was, wearing a sinister smirk on his face, as he displayed his middle finger to Vladros.
Exiting through the massive main gate, Max picked the struggling, screaming and defeated vampire king up over his head, and loudly called out to Krynos’ aquatic pets.
“Hey Jaws! Dinnertime!”
Throwing the invading leader up high over the shark-filled moat, two massive great whites breached and shared his body in what appeared to be a quick, mid-air kiss, and then ripped the vampire king in two, resulting in Vladros’ purple, disentangled guts gruesomely hanging in mid-air for what seemed like seconds. A thunderous crash sounded through the air as the two beasts disappeared into the murky depths below.
Running back into the courtyard, Max saw Jennie looking up at where Johnson was on his balcony, her sword at the ready. The former Azul Military lieutenant had a wicked grin on his face, and shouted so loudly that practically everyone in the castle could hear his voice.
“Hey bitch! I got a new friend!” pulling Liliana up by the hair for them to see.
The little lycan girl had a look of utter panic on her tear-stained face, as Johnson dangled her over the balcony’s edge. He had tracked her scent, and waited until she was in a nearby access tunnel from which he snatched her.
“Come and get her!” he yelled and then ran into the blackness of a door well, taking Liliana with him.
“He wants us to follow him, Jennie.”
“Duh. He’s toast,” she responded.
The two lycans sprinted to the entrance of the main hall and bounded up stairs to the mezzanine level, where they tracked Johnson’s and Liliana’s scents, finding them in a corner, a stairwell to his back, with his oversized, dull sword up to the girl’s throat.
“Drop your weapons! Surrender and come with me, Esc
alante. Do that and I’ll let the girl free.”
“You aren’t gonna do that, Johnson. It’s not your style,” Jennie responded.
Max stared the lieutenant down and calmly said, “Johnson, let the girl go and let’s work this out. I’m tired of fighting tonight. You’ve got some issues - a serious need for a dermatological appointment being one, but we have bigger things to deal with. There’s an alien fleet heading toward—”
“Oh Ho! And you think I didn’t know that?” Johnson laughed maniacally with his head tilted back slightly, as he maintained his sword at poor Liliana’s throat. “My father has been in contact with them for years! They get Azul, we get Earth, and you all die. Pretty simple, really… now drop your weapons!”
Reluctantly, Max and Jennie cautiously set their katanas on the mezzanine floor.
“Now kick them away, and lose that glove thing too!”
Jennie pulled the gauntlet off and tossed it over in Johnson’s direction, as they both kicked their swords off to the side.
“Johnson, you fool,” said Max, “Vrol don’t share. They kill, consume and move on. Do you really think that they’ll leave Earth alone? You’re an idiot.”
“An idiot? I think not. So here is what we’re going to do - you are going to fetch that old fool, Draagh whatshisname, and have him undo whatever it is he did to bring us to this shit hole. Then, we’re taking a trip back to Azul in your ship, where I’ll give it to my father and we’ll retrofit some old Exodus barges with SSCC hook drives. We’ve already amassed quite an impressive list of emigrants who are willing to return to Earth to start over again – this time with true leadership. I’ll tell you something else – if this insane place actually is the future, I’m gonna make sure it never happens. All of your wonderful friends will never be born.”
“That’s not going to happen, Johnson,” Max said calmly.
“Ok then, the girl dies. Was nice knowing ya. Well, no - not really.”
