509 CHPT 509: Blood Hurricane

Claude didn't spend much time running to get to Ursula and Maris. The other students had entered and got into combative motion. He could feel the minerals in the air, the stone surface of rocks he passed being magically ground and transformed to sand. He could hear the cloud of it flying through the air, chasing after the vampires that were chasing after him.

He was the target. And he had to keep moving. Not only for Warren and the other student riding on Diamondback. But so fewer people would connect the bloody dots.

He and Rupont would have a word after.

But now….

THUD!

He hit the grounds on the sandy beach edge. His skull ran from the men and women working the artillery cannons. His skin tingled from the steaming Runes running along the barrels that looked like sanded tree trunks painted black. They were massive. And useless. He could smell the cultivated gunpowder mixing with the sand beneath his feet. Hopefully the seeds would germinate all the same.

He wanted to plug them but he couldn't. The vision runes on the trees.

"Hey, scales! Get these fucking Vampires man PLEASE— GET US OUTTA HERE!"

Claude continued his run, past the screaming soldiers... wait.

Chains.

They rattled against the soldiers. Strapped to their cannons. Reeking of fear… anger… panic.

"You better kill these fuckers I ain't dying over a jail sentence that isn't an execution! THIS IS FUCKED!" One of the men roared in front of him as he faced the vortexing Storm ocean.

Claude hadn't taken off his blindfold but he could see the life magic within the man's toned frame fluctuate like fire in wind. His frame broadened if only a little before shrinking back to normal with a leonine hiss.

"Shifter…. Prisoner."

"[Live bait. They've all committed crimes of varying degrees that got them here. Crimes your friends haven't committed…. ERHM ERHM.]"

He took off, wooden barriers of flowers and roots surrounded them at their weapons as he passed.

Claude ran across the beach front until a toppled in building showed itself, deep in the sand, under a torrent of heavy winds and shredded ice flakes as Vampires fluttered overhead like demonized hummingbirds.

"Stay."

Diamondback halted with Warren and the wounded—dying, student on his back.

Loba handed Claude his short spears as he closed in.

The first— the second… the fifth. It didn't matter. It was too hard to tell. There was a literal swarm of Vampires trying to rend a ball of sharp waters and ice. Where they landed didn't matter. As long as teeth and claw did what they did best.

Rip and tear.

"AUUUUGHASGGGGSHAAAA!!" The Vampires yelled and split in a symphony of horror as Loba and Frosty landed on their targets, jaws locking and bodies growing impossibly large.

Claude jammed his spears through the heads of two. Their wings smacked him around— they were large men in their human lives. Before he could fly any higher, roots burst from the floor and held them to the earth. Suddenly ice crawled up the wooden base and froze the creatures solid.

"Give us the Red Queen— SHE IS A FALSE FLA—"

SHLCK!

[+300 EXP]

BST!

Claude ripped out his spears and they shattered.

"RAGHG!" Ursula burst from the ice ball with Isaac tied to her back— skin almost red, and steaming in the dark as she ran her axes through the ones she could reach.

"Your actions have consequences! You are nob—"

SHLCK

Maris jumped out of the decrepit hole swinging with everyone else.

By the end of it the last three Vampires hovered out of reach. Every lightning blast sent to the skies— or flame wall rippling across the sands illuminated their gaunt forms. They flinched everytime one of the artillery cannons fired another shell into their swarm of brethren further up.

"You made a mistake." The BloodStarved Vampire said in an all too human voice from a motionless mouth. "Correct it while you still can."

Maris watched the Vampires, "What are they referring to….. BloodStarved Vampires can't speak unless they are under the control of a Necromancer. Why are Necromancers after you?"

Claude could feel the Vampires tensed. Even more than him.

He sniffed….

Because they could smell her blood. Like a notably strong smell— one you've known since you were born, one that fades from importance to your olfactory nerve. He didn't notice it fast enough.

And speed was a Vampires bread and butter.

FWOOSH!

The three divebombed like falcons on the hunt. Claude sent an uppercut in their direction, sending roots flying up through the sands. Two of the Vampires caught the bladed wood. The other wrapped itself in its wings, twisting through the wooden blades form to reach Maris. The Red Q—

CRACK!

Ursula's fist smashed into the Vampires forehead, interrupting its b-line for Maris.

Maris stood where she was. Never moved an inch.

That was wrong. She was fast— even if she wasn't, she wasn't one to give in.

Claude felt his stomach twist.

The the cannon blasts grew nearer as the slaves on the beach tried to follow the swarm of Vampires in the sky. Closer and closer.

Even in Claude's world of green he could see the dark. The death wave.

Hundreds of eyes in a cloud of blood purple and red mist.

He could see the Necromancers magic like hands on their festering brains. Like strings on a puppet. Twisting and altering the vampiric magic.

"You underestimate my persistence….." the Swarm of BloodStarved Vampires hovered over them, splitting the clouds everytime they flapped their wings.

"[Thats one powerful Necromancer…]"

Claude clutched his spears, kicking back at Diamondback and the others.

"Start runn—"

"HSAAAA!!!!" The Swarm dove.

Claude jumped for the clouds, wood-weaving mid-air to try and rip up as many Vampires as he could. There was no use. There was no reasonable combative approach. He couldn't see. His ears rang. He was blind. Cuts opened seemingly at random. Teeth sunk into his legs. His hands. Wherever skin showed, slowly tiring and bleeding him dry.

Ursula's cold winds surrounded him. She was inside the swarm with him. He tried to see through her, but it was all the same. Flapping wing. Fangs. Blood. Lightning. Hurricane winds.

He never even felt himself land back into the sands but he knew he did because they punched him against it. Hard.

THUD!

CRACK!

[HP 78…..73…..68%]

He eventually slammed his hands together, covering himself in a coffin of roots. The Vampires clawed and banged against the surface. He snarled and snapped at them from within as his blood died the sands. The only reason he didn't fully transform from the overstimulation is because he didn't have enough room to suddenly become eight feet tall and double in weight.

But he needed to do s—

The winds picked up. Debris and small rocks crashed against the wooden surface of his coffin as if the hurricane left the waters. Maybe it too had a bone to pick with him.

Luckily not. The winds calmed and footsteps approached. Claude ripped out of his coffin. Ursula punched out of hers. He didn't remember making her one.

"Claude Grey..." Tufani said as he flew down the ground on his cloud of sand. GodForm fully awakened.

Armor crafted from the sun. Steaming. A helm in the shape of a dogs head. If Claude didn't pay attention he could see it.

Set.

To hell with Set.

"Why are Vamp—"

"Where is Maris?" Ursula panicked.

Claude growled and looked up at the sky to the fleeing swarm of Vampires. Few were left. It made it easy to see Maris riding the back of one as if she tamed it.

"FUCK!"

"What's wrong?….. oh, damn." Tufani got the answer to his own question as he turned to see what they watched.

"Give me the sand!" Claude pressed.

"What?"

"Fly me god dammit! Fly me after them, what do you want gold?"

"No. I want to not be blown away by Rune-Written Artillery Shells." Tufani motioned to the prisoners strapped to their guns at the beach edge.

No time to talk. Claude made his way across the beach, ripping the shackles off the prisoners and throwing them away from the guns as fast as he could.

Halfway through Ursula shoulder checked him out of the way.

"Go! I got it!" Isaac slumped against her back in agreement.

"You know the water better than we do…"

Claude was already in the water when she spoke, shedding his scales and adapting to the gils forming in his neck. He could see Maris in the distance.

She was speaking to them. Speaking to the Necromancer under Sgt Bertrand's command.