Hunters and Hunters

Alistar and Shayla and flew across rooftops like a pair of happy bunny/birds. If they called upon their transformation powers for only a second, they wouldn't be taken over by the bloodthirsty madness, or at least not immediately, so they could use it to silently traverse The Slums from above. They didn't even have to most of the time as they had gained enough strength in their legs to jump multiples of meters, but the wings did help them land more silently than they were capable of before.

This power was intoxicating, and so, the "normal self" inside of them that still remained got over its fear of the "cannibal self" and started to ring the alarm about constantly using this dangerous power. The mostly naked pair were having too much fun, though, and they still had to reach home quickly to take a bath, so there wasn't much they could do but use it.

And as they neared Alistar's little community, the young man noticed something was off. It was still in the middle of the night, but there were too many lights on. Something was happening.

They heard before they saw, the muffled shouts of masked Enforcers "interrogating" someone.

"'Fess up any crimes, you animale! We know what's been going on around here!" the Enforcer shouted, using an old tactic of "we know what you've done, so confess already" even though they knew nothing.

"If you already know, then why are you asking me to confess anything?" the victim replied smugly, but Alistar's enhanced hearing clearly recognized that as being Francis' voice.

"RAAH!" the Enforcer roared as he juiced himself up and then started to beat the poor dogman.

Alistar perched himself on a rooftop to get a good view, and blood rushed to his head as he saw his old friend suffering in the hands of the Enforcers, but that hadn't been the first time he had seen such scene. He even began transforming without thinking, and it was only when Shayla pulled him away from the edge that he noticed what had been happening to himself.

"We have to save him!" he exclaimed quietly to his partner, attempting to control his transformation.

And his beloved partner turned into the voice of reason. "Should we? How would even we do that? Wouldn't that make the situation worse?"

"I-I… I just want them to stop beating him!" the desperate young man hissed and while almost tearing his own hair out in frustration.

It was still a more dull reaction than transforming and pouncing, so Shayla considered that to be progress. "That's better, now how would we do that? They're searching for something, so the right distraction would be enough, I believe," she attempted to activate his logical pathways to get him to focus. She wasn't going to suggest they do nothing.

And Alistar became still as the cautious man wrestled control over his body from the beast. "Are they searching for us?"

But Shayla shrugged. The Enforcers were notoriously secretive about their goals.

So Alistar sighed and grumbled as he closed his eyes, "Just… just keep an eye on Francis while I control myself."

They had time, the Enforcers delighted in taking time with their victims, so Shayla walked to the edged of the (sturdy) rooftop and stared from a distance.

Enforcers had a fetish for tight-fitting gambesons to stop blades reaching their enhancer-drug-riddled muscles and replaceable ceramic plates on the chest to minimize the damage from the rare bullet. For their hollow skulls, they had heavy metal helmets, gas masks, and sealed goggles to keep the enhancing chemicals in the inside separate from the crowd-controlling chemicals in the outside. The wielded complicated Hextech contraptions to debilitate their victims, but these weapons also had a bullet-releasing function for when they wished for something with finality.

The most vulnerable spot was below the knee as their heavy leather boots for stomping Dwellers didn't fully protect the calves while the gambeson's extra padding only fully covered the thighs. And Shayla decided that this would be her target. As a woman concerned with her safety, she learned that identifying weak spots were the only way someone with a disadvantage of muscle mass could hope to debilitate her opponent, and muscle mass was a thing that Enforcers had in excess.

"I'm going to create a distraction, Master," she whispered back to her recovering beloved, and she waited before his nod of acknowledgment before she fully transformed into a Creature of the Night.

There were six Enforcers, and neither Shayla nor Alistar were certain they'd be able to resist if so many Hextech weapons were aimed at them, so she'd be quick. She spread her large, leathery wings then jumped down and glided towards the nearest Enforcer with his back to her.

"Huh?!" one of the soldiers on lookout spotted her dark figure fast approaching, but by the time he raised his gun full of odd Hextech trinkets, she was already past him.

"ARGH!" the one beating Francis screamed and fell as she sliced at his calf.

"EVIL CREATURE!" another Enforcer shouted.

The squad turned around in panic as Shayla was too fast for all of them to follow, which prevented them from focusing her down with their Hextech guns. She flapped her wings and rose back up then perched herself atop a rooftop. The use of the power to attack instead of feed seemed to wake up a new feeling within her, and she didn't have the willpower to hold back from unleashing it upon the world.

It came out as a shrill shriek, like vibrating nails on a chalkboard, and even she didn't believe she was capable of making such sound. The Enforcers dropped their guns and tried to futilely cover their ears, but the helmets were in the way. Meanwhile, Francis ran away on all fours while whimpering and with his tail between his legs. It was a this moment that he discovered his talent for running, and perhaps at one point he'd even be glad to have suffered through Shayla's shriek if he ever learns how to put that talent to use.

But this distraction created the perfect opportunity, and Alistar's thief senses tingled. Hextech guns, multiple, all on the floor while the wielders likely had their eyes closed, barely capable of standing up in pain. The shriek affected the young man too, and gave him a desperate anxiety, so he couldn't think properly and acted on instinct, which was to steal.

He swooped in like Shayla did and nabbed the two closest rifles, then disappeared behind a house just as his beloved finished her release of emotions. It was such a perfect theft that he couldn't help but chuckle as he stared at the pair of odd weapons. Gangs would pay fortunes for guns like these, but rarely did someone crazy enough to attempt appear, yet here he was, with not one but two of the infamous weapons.

"Master?" Shayla questioned curiously as she landed beside him. She felt relieved after releasing the shriek, almost like one does after a difficult adventure in the toilet, but she'd never admit to that, not even if coerced by her master.

The young man reflexively handed her one of the rifles, and she lighted up as she took it. It looked like an average compact rifle but full of little sharp edges and angles that made it look like an Evil instrument of torture. It had to look menacing or else the effectiveness of Hex magic was dampened.

But most of its parts still had a practical purpose. There were multiple little tubes all over it, full liquids that glowed when activated, there were a couple of feather charms and inscribings that supposedly gave the wielder some sort of protection, though it clearly wasn't enough to stop theft, and at the top, there was a glass circle to help aim.

Alistar had no idea how to use it aside from pulling the trigger, but they'd have time to learn later.

"That was the creature!" they heard an Enforcer shout.

"We have to chase after it!" another followed.

"Sheissun! It stole my gun!" a third swore.

"Mine too!" a fourth cried.

Then a red flare shot towards the sky. "We have to chase after it, but don't engage until reinforcements arrive," the supposed leader stated, his composure still suffering from the shriek attack.

"Yes, sir!" they all replied in unison.

"Hope you like chasing shadows," Alistar whispered mockingly, then the pair took off and waited for the Enforcers to vacate the area before returning to their home and taking a bath.

Still, something stuck with them.

The creature, not a creature. They were hunting for something, specifically, and it seemed like the pair fit the description. They didn't know why the Enforcers were chasing after them, but they felt it was right to assume that Countessa was involved. Not only did she have an Evil item with her, she even went to the Enforcers, which was considered a heinous act by the Dwellers. But perhaps it was more telling that the Purifiers weren't involved yet.

--

Just as Alistar let his tired body fall onto the bed, Shayla suddenly had a revelation.

"Wait, if the Countessa sent the Enforcers, won't she come after us now that we've alerted them?" she questioned with worry in her pretty gaze.

And Alistar remembered that the Detector they took from Frederik had quite the range. "Oh… we have to leave," he replied, instantly coming to a decision.

The handsome young man young man rushed to the window, then extended his hand to his beautiful follower, and once her beloved master had her firmly in his grasp, they leapt out like a pair of cats (which they were, partially), then touched the ground running and left like a pair burglars (which they were, totally).

Enforcers were starting to arrive from all over the place, so they left with perfect timing for they still had the pair of extremely illegal Hextech iron that was quite hard to hide. But nothing was perfect in this decaying, dark world, for a shadow started to spread from everywhere to everywhere, coloring the world black and white, and everything went silent.

They instinctively knew that Evil had arrived.

Alistar desperately dragged Shayla by hand into an alley and then gently held a hand over her mouth as his instincts told him that he should make as little noise as possible. They couldn't hear what the Enforcers were doing, and it was too risky to jump on a rooftop, so in hiding they remained.

Whatever Evil curse had affected their surroundings sparked a visceral, primal fear within them, so much that their minds couldn't even think about why had everything lost color. But a brave spark of hope remained within Alistar's heart, and so he raised his gun to the end of the alley, waiting to shoot at whatever might be coming their way. Seeing him prepare to fight, seeing his wild eyes narrow down in focus, Shayla began to overcome her own paralysis too, and she followed her master like the loyal servant she was becoming.

The sound of a delicate boot's heel hitting the stone street came so loud and so sudden into their minds that they almost fired the guns on reflex. When the world is absolutely silent, one single sound can feel like its busting one's ears, and it being from a magical source didn't help it behave more like normal sound should. And then the step repeated, again and again.

When Alistar noticed that the sounds were getting even louder, a red figure appeared at the end of the hallway and stopped. A noble lady in a red riding suit and lacy hat, the vibrancy of her color like boiling blood, and eyes with such strong gaze they were visible from miles, but the worst was that they had a chilling familiarity to Alistar, who had the unfortunate luck of being glared by the Countessa a second time.

She lifted a white gloved hand at them, and then they heard a dismaying familiar "ping."

"SHOOT!" Alistar howled then flipped the switches on his gun and squeezed the trigger. Lucky for him, the previous owner had already turned the safety off as the burglar knew nothing about guns.

The Countessa blurred, her red form turning into a darkened mist that grew like a shadow of a person close to a flame, but then it winced back as the liquids of both Hextech weapons began to glow and mysterious, floating sigils appeared all over the barrels.

"AAAAAAH!" she howled like a woman who had been stabbed, and her red shadow shrunk as it retreated, taking with it the black and white world, also returning sound.

In a location nearby, Iron Mask had arrived with a squad of elite Hunters, and he heard the pained screech.

"Weapons up," he ordered and raised his large Holy Piercer, a blessed stake launcher.

"What we shooting?" one of the men grimly questioned.

"Anything that looks Evil," he grumbled back. The mask hid the severity of his expression, but his tone and gaze were as steeled as the metal covering his face.

The Countessa hadn't been defeated with just the debilitating effects of the Hextech rifle, though. Alistar remembered to pull the trigger multiple times so that the bullets would keep flying, yet that also wasn't enough to defeat the frightening creature before them. And her red figure started to grow in size again as she attempted to overcome the effects assaulting her body.

She grew larger and larger, her body becoming a hulking monster of black shadow covered in a red mist. She wouldn't run away, she'd show these two whelps what true power felt like, so she even grew past the rooftops of the shacks. A mistake.

"Shoot!" Iron Mask ordered, and Countessa Narcisa realized her mistake.

Her back was peppered by searing hot rods of blessed steel, and she howled like a monster of pure Chaos, making the fabric of reality warp so much it cried in pain alongside her. But she wasn't stupid enough to remain in place as she was attacked by her worst enemy, so she fled.

"No, you won't flee," Iron Mask stated and pulled the trigger of his blessed gun. The huge stake glowed a pure white color, then launched after the biggest source of Evil it could find. The Countessa was much faster than the stake, but the true power of this weapon was that it never missed. "Let's give the Countessa a visit…" he stated, feeling triumphant as both the dark figure and the stake disappeared into the night.

"We need to chase after her," Alistar stated, feeling bloodthirsty as he saw his hateful enemy flee like a wounded animal.

--

--

Hall of Fame of Patrons

The patrons who support the Realms shall have their names sung by the bards for they deserve the glory and honor. Their names are:

Prince PreownedFIN.

Prince UncontrolledEngie.

Lord Andrew Meyers.

Lord Maurice.

Lord Paul Daval.

Lord d3235.

Lord Leadpoison.

Lord Vitalica.

Lord Black Unicorn.

Lord School Work.

Leave a rating or a review to help me rise to the top or fix my shameful understanding of prose.

Take a look over my blog. It's currently only for the Rupegia novel, but I'll eventually add Heretical Magus to it. It's at: https://manasongwriting.wordpress.com/

Join the Discord and discuss, or rant, or meme, or try and fight me so your waifu gets more screentime: discord.com/invite/3GqMxQc

Become a Patron and read Heretical Magus chapters in advance. For readers of Rupegia, you can read the side-stories, or leave your mark on the story, or help choose the next artwork or the next side-story. See it at: patreon.com/manasong

Come watch my Streams to hang out with me as I play cool and/or old games at: twitch.tv/manasongwriting

Take a look over at my Twitter as I post about a variety of things at: https://twitter.com/ManasongWriting