The R Word

"He's still not fucking dead!" Radney watched as his wounds healed and his magic started to grow from the steadily draining Vat.

"What the hell is this place." Kairo asked more focused on the teens strapped to chairs being drained at a constant.

"It's a Blood Farm Vampyrs used them as ways to live and sustain themselves outside of needing to integrate with human society, but it was outlawed generations ago..." Radney's anger grew this was the effect of leaving people like Polirodi walking the earth a mistake he hoped to rectify. He searched the bottom floor to find Polidori drinking deep from the Vats darkened flesh healing and to his horror losing wrinkles as it seemed Polidori was aging in reverse. Soon what was a charcoal old man was replaced by the image of youth from earlier.

"He de-aged by drinking blood?" Kairo asked frantically.

"No that's the plasma from magical beings... Referred to by humans as ambrosia, but put simply it's just our plasma when humans drink it. It can force a sort of pseudo-Magical Saturation in humans who normally couldn't experience MS at all, but for our kind, it's similar to what happens to Salem's people." This made Kairo remember the hunger of Salem people the WildaBeast turned Windego and couldn't imagine the monsters that liquid would create until he remembered those things that crawled from the basement after the alarm.

"We have to vote we have to kill him before he becom-

-Don't you fucking move kid!" Kairo dazed by Radney's tone turned to look him in the face and saw nothing less than dread etched across it.

"I'm sure you don't feel it, but that's not Rose or Willow down there..." Radney said not taking his eyes off Willow. Kairo turned back to the edge to find Willow slowly making her way over to Polidori. He didn't feel anything coming from her at all, not an ounce of Magic or Killing Intent.

"She's not even building Magic we have to help her." Kairo replied still unsure why he was told not to move.

"For your training, you've kept Sense Magic on at all times now try to tap into Sense Acrane." Kairo listened to Radney's instructions focusing on Willow plunging his senses deeper into Magic until he felt a darkness that made him recoil from the edge. It was almost as bad as facing Joker and on top of that he could sense Polidori now as well and he was just as terrifying. Two monsters faced each other below in a forbidden garden and Radney could tell they were posed to attack.

Polidori summoned his rapier aimed it for Willow's center mass and fired three gaseous orbs that on contact set off three mini explosions the clap of which even made Radney flinch, but it only seem to push Willow back a few feet before she started her slow walk towards him. Kairo and Radney could only see Willows back as she lumbered toward Polidori they could see frustration growing on his brow. He fires five more shots again center mass this time the explosions were slightly bigger sending her flush on her back. They could now see what was frustrating Polidori Willow was giggling to herself as if tickled by the explosions she quickly snaps to her feet and begins her slow crawl towards him again.

"STOP LAUGHING!!!" Polidori screams gathering an obscene amount of Magic and forming it into a bowling ball-sized gaseous orb. Kairo grabs Emily and quickly ports away to the outside of the building Radney watches as Willow charges Polidori before he can let off the attack and with a single swing splits the orb Radney though in disbelief formed a barrier with a few of the sigils from earlier and a few new ones protecting him from the destabilized spells backfire. The resulting explosion was much bigger than Polidori wanted forcing him to aim upward destroying the rest of the upper level of the facility.

From the outside Kairo shot at the debris that flew at them protecting an unconscious Emily and unsuspecting citizens startled that were passing by. He realized this was going to be a bigger battle than he thought he pulled his phone out unlocked it and opened the Pulse application and quickly hit a red triangle picking the number five on a list of one to ten. His phone then began sending out a pulse alerting everyone within a mile radius to evacuate immediately. The citizens of the Velvet District within the radius received the message and began evacuating homes quickly making their way to the safest areas outside of the designated battle zone. Most of the people near the explosion were already running Kairo watched people flee apartments children in tow away from the smoldering building that was slowly appearing in the once-empty lot.

Out of the smoke plume funneling from the building comes Polidori sliding against the sky until he stands on air as if it were solid. He was followed by Radney who took a spot in the air on the other side of the plume of smoke both of their focus on something Kairo couldn't see inside. All of sudden something burst out of the top of the plume down towards Polidori forcing him to block with his rapier once the smoke cleared he could tell what he was seeing was Willow with a rapier blade of her own. She was chasing him through the air swinging her blade wildly putting Polidori on the defensive as they danced through the air.

Kairo could make out now Willow's usual reddish hair had turned an inky black and a small protruding lump above her right eye had begun to form. He watched as Polidori coated his blade in his gaseous magic allowing Willow to strike causing an explosive blowback that sends her upward flames engulfing her left side. She slows her accent by gripping the air Polidori shoots three orbs aimed for her flaming side fully engulfing her in flames. Kairo and Radney watched in horror as she disappeared into this mass of flame in the sky.

The flames slowly died to reveal Willow standing there covered in jet-black sigils similar to Radney's barrier earlier. He was sure she couldn't have seen but a second of them before the explosion and yet she recreated them even altered them and created some new ones by mixing others. She laughed historically as she gathered magic at the tip of her blade superheating it.