Weakness

The two of them had gathered in the park, not just for a casual chat and peaceful evening but there was a goal in mind. And although Quinn usually found Layla obsessive, it seemed like her crazy strange self would come in handy.

The whole purpose of today was to find out if there was any way to either, reduce the effect that the sun had on the system, or even temporarily stop it altogether and there was no one better than Layla for the job. She knew everything about vampires having grown up reading about them.

She ordered whatever she thought might have been effective.

Quinn looked at all the items that she had brought over, he then noticed that noticed a few more things on the ground with her. There was a metal shaped cross, a clove of garlic and even a piece of silver jewellery.

"Oh those are for later," Layla said embarrassed noticing Quinn staring at her stuff. "We should also try to find out if you have any other weaknesses of normal vampires as well."

"Alright, why don't we just try the umbrella first," Quinn said as he knelt down to pick it up.

He then stood still and popped open the umbrella, it was solid black in colour to make sure that most of the light didn't penetrate or get through it. Quinn then adjusted the umbrella a few times to make sure his body was completely covered in the shadow, then to his surprise.

< Stats have returned to normal >

While Quinn was fully covered under the shade, his stats had returned, then he lifted his hand and placed it outside the shade zone ever so slightly and as soon as the tiniest part of his finger was outside the same usual status screen had appeared.

< You are being affected by Direct sunlight >

< All stats will be halved >

"Well?" Layla asked.

"It works, but even if a little bit of my body is in the sun then I start to feel weak."

This wouldn't do. Holding the umbrella although would return his stats, it would be difficult to use in a fight. One hand would be occupied holding the umbrella while the other would be free. Also, it was a big weak target that the enemy could easily destroy.

But at least he found out that if he just carried an umbrella with him, he would no longer feel weak. It was a good idea to keep one on him for now.

"That's a special umbrella." Layla said, "It's one used to block out the UV from the sun, although at most it can block out about ninety percent it's not perfect. To be honest, I'm surprised it worked."

"Is the UV rays why I feel weak then?"

"Not necessarily, I mean Vampire lore is all over the place but these myths had to grounded somewhere right?" Layla then looked at the ground and picked up the sun cream. "If the umbrella really worked because of the UV then the sun cream should have some effect."

Layla then walked up to Quinn squirting some of the cream onto her hand. "You ready?"

Quinn then went a little red thinking about Layla applying the cream onto his body. Looking at Layla now out of her school uniform, he realised she was kind of cute. So what she was a little strange and knew too much about Vampires. Everyone had there geeky thing they knew about and was obsessed with.

Then Quinn felt something cold on his leg. She had taken Quinn's silence as a yes and started to slather the cream all over his body. After making sure everywhere she could see covered in cream, to finish it off she placed sunglasses over Quinn's eyes.

"Although we can stop the UV on your eyelids, we can't on your eyeballs." Layla said, "Well anything?"

This time, there was no such result, when opening up his status the UV cream hadn't even made a little bit of impact. Quinn still felt incredibly weak and his stats were still halved.

"So it looks like it's not to do with the UV then, although the umbrella worked it can only block so much of the UV and same with the cream, so I was hoping it would have some effect but this means its most likely some other property in the sun that we don't know about."

To be honest, Quinn was thankful that the sun cream didn't work. The idea of waking up every day and doing it as a daily routine, at some point the cream would ware off too.

He also couldn't imagine in the middle of the fight asking his opponent to wait to lather and cream himself all over. He had pictures in his head of asking Vorden to cover for him, while he brought out a bottle of sun cream.

Finally, it was time for the last test, this one Quinn was dreading the most, the clothes test. He was already sweating and feeling hot as it was and couldn't imagine putting on a load of black clothing. But he thought it was best to get it over and done with as soon as possible.

First Quinn placed a sweater over the top of his body, then a pair of black thick trousers, on his feet, instead of trainers he changed to black boots than on his hand a pair of leather black gloves. Finally, on his head, he had a large back top hat.

Looking at him, Layla could barely hold in her laughter he looked absolutely ridiculous.

"Breathe, breathe Layla." She mumbled, "Well anything?"

"No, not yet anyway"

"Well, we might as well try the rest."

Layla then continued to place clothes onto Quinn, this time she had covered his face with a balaclava, and even where his eyes were, she had put a sleeping mask on. More hats were placed on and now every inch of his skin was covered.

"Anything?"

"No!" Quinn shouted, but it sounded muffled through the clothes.

However, Layla didn't give up yet, she felt like if the umbrella had worked then this had to work as well. She continued to place all the remaining clothes she had brought with and then finally while Layla was piling on the clothes, Quinn managed to shout something.

"Wait it's working!" Quinn said.

Although the clothes had worked, Quinn was around three inches thick in black clothing. Layla quickly helped Quinn take of all the clothing as it seemed like he was a bit wobbly on his legs and was going to pass out any second now.

Once the two of them were finished, Quinn opened up the umbrella and the energy started to restore back into his body again. The two of them sat down on the clean-cut grass and were discussing the results of the test.

"Well, you can't go out like that." Layla said, "You couldn't move in the thing,"

"Agreed but at least we know that the most important thing is to stop the sun hitting me."

Quinn started to feel the umbrella wondering if perhaps he could get clothes made out of the same material. Then the problem would be the material would be too weak. Most likely the reason the clothes didn't work so well was because they didn't block out the sun enough. He needed more solid but flexible material.

There was some stuff out there that might have worked, like a black latex suit or something but these weren't strong enough for fighting, it could easily be torn or ripped and then he would be back to being normal weak Quinn again.

Suddenly a thought had entered Quinn's mind. He started to remember the fight he had inside The VR game. When he had gone against Sam, he had used a cape that was able to block his blood swipe. The material was not only flexible but strong as well.

The cape was most likely made from some type of beast, from one of the portals, if Quinn could get enough of this material, maybe he could make a suit of some kind that could not only protect him from the sun but also be strong enough to be used in combat.

A smile started to appear on his face, he now couldn't wait to be transported to hunt some beasts.

*****

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