Divine Empress of Blood

Well, that was quite the way to get my attention. For the past half an hour I’ve been following droplets of blood. Faith’s blood. She apparently figured out that I especially like her blood, so she has been leaving a trail of blood for me to follow to this abandoned dock. I guess I have to be careful about calling her fox in this form, It’s almost become a habit.

Let’s see. Another thing I noticed after eating Ifrit is that I can tell the general location of people based on their blood and life force, and changed has a lot more life force than regular humans. So they’re planning to surround me. Faith is standing there out in the open, and there’s five heroes hiding, uh. Hm, I guess they’re using some sort of camouflage, because they’re supposed to be at regular intervals creating a circle around Faith, but I don’t see them.

Oh, that smell should be Mystica. Guess they’re going to try locking me in place again. Guess I’ll go say hi to her first?

I make my way over to where Mystica is hiding, running along the shadows to hide myself and silence any kind of noise I would produce from running. Arriving above her Location, around 500 meters from the rest of the group. Is this her range limit? I have to test that sometime.

Silently I hop down as I manifest my blood around her head to obscure her vision and stop the flow of air, a second later I’m standing behind her. Hitting the side of her head to send a pulse of blood to her brain, knocking her unconscious. Contemplating whether I want to take a sip, I figure it’s probably better to don’t mess with her, as I don’t know if her scrying ability will work If I sink my fangs into her.

Leaving the “sleeping” Mystica behind, I leisurely stroll towards where Faith is standing.

“Hi there. You couldn’t just give me a call? Oh right, you probably don’t have my number. So, did you lure me out here for a date?”

Faith doesn’t give me a response. I can see she’s tense, but she’s doing a good job of not giving away that there are other people here. As I move closer to her, letting my blood seep through my pores, sending it off at a rapid speed to form shackles around the “heroes” lying in wait.

“Sorry, I don’t like being interrupted.”

Yeah, I guess she would be alarmed when I essentially locked up all the camouflaged backup, and I’m assuming she’s noticed Mystica isn’t really doing anything.

“What did you do to Mystica?”

“Oh, she speaks. Don’t worry, I simply put her to sleep, the temporary kind, not the permanent. Now then, where did your little trap go wrong, hmm?”

Faith looks at me with a confused expression, or at least what I’m assuming is confusion. Her mask covers half her face so it’s a bit hard to tell. I have to say her mask is quite fitting, a white wolf mask with blue details covering the upper half of her face.

“No response? Okay then, let me give you a little lesson. See, unless you’re trying to insult my intelligence, I assume you accounted for me figuring out you’re leading me to a trap. Oh by the way, bravo on figuring out that you’re particularly tasty.”

I lick my lips and show her my fangs, not for any particular reason, I just feel more playful in my vampiric form. Like I’m hunting for sport. I guess I am at this point? Now the reason she doesn’t recognize me, well, apart from the fact that I’m smaller and more curvy, I’m intentionally lowering my voice an octave, or as close to it as I can get. Don’t want her figuring things out because of a silly mistake after all.

“You’re a quiet one. Aren’t you supposed to, I don’t know? Shout the regular lines of me being evil, and you’re here in the name of justice to bring me down for my crimes against humanity, or something like that? You know, I don’t mind having a little spar, I do need to destress and blow off some steam, it’s been a rough week.”

Out of nowhere a dozen spears of ice shoot towards me from all directions. This is going to be fun. I somewhat know what my abilities can do, but how do they hold up against elemental manifestations. I have a little trick I want to try out.

Conjuring my own spears of blood, I send them off at intercepting paths, creating small fireworks of pulverized ice and frozen blood as the spears collide. So the blood can freeze and shatter, that’s good to know. I have to figure out a way around that, as I’m assuming they can also boil until the point where they dissipate into gas.

Launching myself forwards, I extend my claws and conjure a few blood bullets, shooting them at the ground right in front of Faith, I don’t really want to hurt her, just a sip of blood and testing out what I’m capable of, not that it looks like it’s going to be much of a fight. Maybe I can give her some lessons in fighting a stronger opponent?

Her confusion grows as the bullets completely miss her. Why wouldn’t she? She just saw me intercept a dozen spears in different directions with pinpoint accuracy. Covering her arms in a layer of frost, she readies herself to deflect my claws. I don’t think that’s a good idea, as my claws are a lot sharper than what she assumes, unless I’m underestimating the hardness of her ice.

I was half right. She did something I didn’t expect. Either she figured out that I didn’t really want to hurt her, or she was ready to sacrifice her arms to end up in the current position. I’m currently “captured” in vines of ice. The second my claws came into contact with her ice-covered arms, ice vines sprouted from her hands, circling around my arms and legs to hold me in place. I don’t know what she’s trying to do, as this didn’t go that well for her last time.

Out of nowhere my shoulder joints and calves are penetrated by ice spears, going through my body and burrowing themselves into the ground. Woops. Immortality and knowing I’m stronger made me careless. I didn’t even notice the danger until it was already there. Well, “danger”. I honestly don’t know.

Now how to get out of this? I mean I could just brute force it, but I want to try something to combat elemental affinities. I’m no expert in physics or chemistry, but I know the general theory about thermodynamics and friction. I don’t know if my blood follows these laws, or if they’re just, magic, but I think they should apply, seeing as my blood got frozen earlier. Letting my blood seep out where I’m covered and impaled in ice, I imagine the molecules in my blood vibrating faster and faster, until I can feel the ice melting and my wounds regenerating.

Faith hasn’t been idle while I played around with my little science project, she’s holding a giant scythe of ice. It’s kind of comedic, as the scythe is almost as tall as she is, I guess she is fairly strong, or is the ice just light despite being so durable? Another thing to figure out later. 

I parry her scythe with the claws on my right hand, while I’m swiping at her torso with my left, causing her to drop her scythe and jump back, evading my claws. The scythe shattering upon contact with the ground, dissipating into the air and forming a layer of mist around me.

Okay, enough fun. I find her location through her scent, and conjure up my patented blood shackles, shooting them off from the cover of the mist. I can hear a yelp of surprise as the shackles lock around her arms and legs, rendering her immobile.

Walking out of the mist I walk up to her with the same leisurely gait that I used when I arrived. Walking up to Faith, eyes preying on her like she’s a cornered little rabbit. I didn’t mean to frighten her this much, but this should probably give her a lesson.

“You really should investigate the strength and abilities of your opponent more before laying a trap for them. What would you have done if I killed everyone you enlisted to help you, just to see you despair?”

I can see her eyes widening at my statement. Good. Maybe she can realize the gravity of the situation. Now I’m not going to do that, these are just people who don’t really have anything to do with me, and they aren’t specifically hostile towards me. Again, I don’t really care much for morals anymore, probably due to that fucking traitor from the military, but I see no reason to kill people who have nothing to do with me, that would make me as bad as the gods and their avatars.

“Well then, thanks for the meal.”

I extend my fangs to their full length, using my hand to tilt Faith’s head to the side. Just a few millimeters away from her beautiful skin, I stop. Beautiful? Why did I stop? The feeling I’ve had the past few times I’ve met faith since we had our little talk at my apartment starts growing again. Fuck. Damn.

Consent. My body screams for Faith’s consent to drink her blood. I haven’t had this problem before, and this wasn’t the reason I didn’t sink my fangs into Mystica, that was logical reasoning due to the potential consequences and the unknown. This is something different. This is what I’ve been trying to lock away. Faith laid her feelings bare. She essentially told me she’s falling in love with me, but something from her past keeps haunting her. I don’t know what it is, but what she said made me on some subconscious level keep pondering what our future would be. I didn’t have any interest in her besides an intimate friend and her blood, but I guess that’s no longer the truth. I have feelings for her. I haven’t felt this for anyone before, but I know it’s true. I like faith.

Faith POV

What the fuck just happened? Why did she stop? She didn’t do that last time. I laid a trap for her before she was ready, and she fucking gave me a lesson? Treating me like a plaything? But why the hell did she stop, less than an inch from my neck. As she stated she could easily have killed everyone here due to my careless mistake, but she didn’t. She didn’t even have any interest in anyone but me. She even pointed out where I went wrong, and as she said herself, she gave me a spar. She didn’t even fight me seriously, like she wanted to train me.

This is one hell of a confusing vampire, but I’m not giving up. She might not be a danger yet, but I know full well how dangerous they were in the past. She can’t go free.