CHPT 515: Wrong Step

"Correct and incorrect how?" Claude asked Rupont as they all gathered in the bar area, standing idly over the glass floor.

Rupont pulled his jacket off the chair closest to him and shrugged it on. A two tone black and red interior blazer with dagger sheaths sewn into the back. Killer casual. He held up a hand to Claude as he looked around the room as if he'd lost something—

FWSH!

Two objects flew through the air towards him, Claude snatched them both out of the air on impulse.

Rupont chuckled as he studied Claude, carrying his top hat and umbrella. "It's so funny that you Lupines do that.."

"You plan on exposing anymore Lupine weaknesses?" Claude growled, just barely frustrated due to all the undead eyes on him as they stood at the center of the room. He could clear distance fast. Fast enough that the WereWolves hands hovered over their weapons.

Rupont smiled as Claude handed him his things. "Ah. It's only a weakness to those that can take your assault head on. Circumstantial, at best. I don't see this being a weakness when facing cute little innocent rabbits."

"Is he…. Buttering me up?" Claude thought as he handed him the umbrella. He could hear the rattle of a blade inside the soft fabrics.

"[Oh we've been proper buttered ever since he gave you that suit.]" Arne commented.

"Now, where were we?" Rupont flipped the umbrella before resting it on his shoulder.

"Vampires, WereWolves and SkinWalkers hybridizing into bloodlusted homogenized gray paste after we change your girl into a Red Queen." Sloane was in fact, just hearing of such things.

Rupont acted as if he'd just remembered, "Oh yes! Claude, you're sharper than I gave you credit for. Maybe not actually. I said your unveilings were both correct and incorrect. What I meant was, yes, Maris can't become a Red Queen if she's bitten by a Vampire. Red Queens weren't Vampires as much as they were a thing of both— as common ancestors are. She already has Vampire in her—"

"How can you tell?" Ursula cut in from the other end of the room.

"We can feel her hunger from a mile away. It gets worse every day. She also has a hold on blood that even the strongest Water Element experts fail to achieve. She can change its properties….. that very thing is how I knew she was a Red Queen."

"Change its…. What?" Claude was in new territory with that statement.

Rupont didn't seem interested in divulging any further as he tapped his umbrella on the glass. "That's a few chapters further than we're ready for haha! Aren't we supposed to be testing the red waters of Vampire society anyway? You waste our time, Claude! Let's go see the compulsed Slaves and bones and children used as hallway decoration in musty mansions!!!"

Claude stared.

Rupont's smile dimmed, "I joke, cool face."

Maris and Ursula eyed eachother.

"Where is my HexBlade!" Rupont yelled and slammed his umbrella again, making Claude nervous considering the fact that they stood on glass.

Sloane snarled, "I respond to no man as a dog."

Rupont turned halfway to eye the WereWolf Alpha, "Oh yea…. You're the HexBlade. I forgot. You Alphas and your social conditions. Please, assist us, your wolfiness." Rupont waved her over in a rush.

Sloane stepped to the front of the, when she addressed Claude she looked past him— like a blind person who looks in your general direction when speaking to you.

"Excuse me. I need the floor."

"Sure." Claude backed away, copying her style of not turning his back.

"She respects your strength so far. Or else she would've challenged you again and again until you bit the dust. That's a good sign." Cassidy spoke into his mind.

Claude felt comforted in that regard. But maybe not so comfortable after all.

She was a WereWolf Alpha….. and a HexBlade. That's a terrifying combination. And the first he'd ever seen.

Hell, she was the first HexBlade he'd ever seen.

She took the floor, glaring down the Vampires to give her space as her Betas stood on either side of her, both facing one of the two factions in the room.

As he watched her he couldn't help but notice the physical similarities with Det. Cyrene. Both tall and strikingly blonde with pale skin. That was about as far as it went. Det. Cyrene's traumatic effect on him allowed him to see her face in a sand hill if he looked hard enough.

Everywhere else, Sloane was different. New. She was impossibly….. plain. She didn't exude the inherently violent and sexual intensity of Cyrene. Or the trauma behind her eyes. She was stiff. Composed. But not cold like Maris. She was by the book it seemed. What exactly her book was, was still a mystery. She was new, but skilled. He'd see just how skilled in time.

She brought her hands together as she stood still. As if she was praying she shut her eyes. Claude's skin warmed, starting at his feet and rising up to his head where his hair began to stand on end as if lightning was about to strike right through him.

Streams of magic flowed from her golden hair like glowing silk. Like impossibly thin cut strands of a rainbow. Every color at full brightness, flowing from each strand of her hair. She growled angrily and the light show calmed.

"She's new. Give her a second." Rupont explained to them.

"Shut up." Sloane whispered.

Claude didn't know when it happened but the ends of her fingers were tipped by thick claws that pushed out of her skin until it bled.

She pulled apart her hands.

SHHHZZZKkkkKkkk!!

The rainbow silk strands stemmed from her palms like syrup. Sticky and dripping in electrical steaming bits on the glass. Almost like ink. …

She mumbled to herself as she began using her fingers to twist and bind the loose stringy strands of magical brilliance into a shape. As if she was knitting.

After a few seconds he could see a clear two dimensional sign being interwoven into existence from between her palms. A Rune. A Hex. Whatever it was it was complete when she slapped her palms back together. In an oddly smooth and confusing movement, her left hand danced over to the backside of her right, where she tugged on the two remaining magical strands from her pinky and thumb like a slingshot.

She aimed her Rune-Written palm at the floor and let the rainbow strands go. The Rune fired.

PLOOM!

It expanded in a massive burst of light and slammed into the glass. Burning embers steamed around the Rune in the glass.

He didn't even notice there were two Runes. There had to be because a portal began to glow beneath the shark infested waters below the glass.

Sloane sighed and stepped away.

Rupont poked his Umbrella into the runed glass and it moved like water.

"Perfect. Who's jumping first? Nose goes!"

Maris lunged past everyone and dove through the glass. As soon as she hit the waters she was off like a torpedo and through the portal. Ursula and Cassidy chased after her. A handful of Vampires flew in at Ruponts command.

"No umbrellas for the sun?" Claude asked in refference to them.

Rupont looked confused, "Who in the bloody hell uses umbrellas for the sun? You think I'm a wuss?"

One of Sloane's Wolves laughed.

Rupont winked and hopped in with his sisters.

"It closes once I go." Sloane said as they stood in the silence.

Claude jumped. The glass felt like gelatinous slime on his feet. Tougher than water but all too weak to stop him from sinking through and splashing into the ice cold deep.

Immediately he transformed. His skin went rubbery and tough. The cartilage in his body spread like fatty venom, transforming other expendable parts. Gils ripped open in his neck and ribs. A shark fin shifted the armor of his chest plate as it pushed its way out of his back.

The sharks surrounded him, sensing their kin suddenly as they looked into his black and green eyes.

He swam, pushing past the currents and pressure of the depth to reach the glowing portal burned into the sand. He could hear something in the distance. Further beyond the dark waters. He could feel it's presence through the water. Like a stone in a pond. The ripples spread beyond the point of origin. He could feel the ripples. Like a tingle on the left half of his body.

Before he could question what the worlds heroes jammed into the pseudo ocean, he dove through the portal.

***

VWOOMP!

He fell. Transferring from Ocean to Air with no ground to stand on felt like you were suddenly given a boost of impossible— and uncontrollable, speed while swimming. All while being yanked down to the floor.

Gravity was a bi—

He flipped as his equilibrium forced his body to feel the ground before he hit it. His webbed feet slapped against cold earth. The smell of pungent death filled his nose in waves. His shark sense couldn't feel the hundreds of presences he smelled.

They were dead.

Ursula and Cassidy's backs closed in on his own as Maris occupied the center of their domain of protection.

Claude studied the room as he dropped seeds into the ground.

They were in a cave. He could smell the moisture on the stalactites overhead.

Rupont and the other Vampires looked around at the hundreds of undead. Some wore clothes from the Old World and held guns from the same time as they slowly meandered around, feeding on old bones.

Sloane and the others fell in.

Rupont slapped his hands on his thighs as if he'd been waiting for years.

"Well bloody hell, Sloane. Wonderful work here! You transported us into a bloody Vampiric trash pit."

The Undead reacted to Ruponts voice. They seemed to see them for the first time. And that was all it took.

"Kill them and apologize later!" Rupont unsheathed the sword from his umbrella in a flash.