Through Darkest Knight

[Gredar]

Atrio was taken aback by the sudden display of force by the human, but wasn't unduly worried. He leveled his hand at Mirado, sending the submerged zombie towards him at incredible speed. Like a shark, it was launched from the earth and onto him teeth bared and fists grasping. Hopefully a spell of that power would leave the human greatly weakened.

Ahead of him, Erik began directing his zombies against Constance's puppets. One of the corpses lept up towards the strings and began to chew it's way through them, while others grappled with the arms and legs, attempting to snap them. Erik watched Constance closely, waiting for his chance to capture her and win Atrio's approval.


Marten released his first spell against one of the zombies, a beam of light which shot into it's chest. Maggots swarmed from inside, devouring the dead flesh in a frenzy. The beast staggered, then fell as the maggots spread throughout it's body and consumed it's muscles.  

[demonofwhite]

Constance shook the puppets strings. "Get off, you brute!" She hissed, then dropped the puppet. She picked up the one from her foot and used those two to expel the two zombies, then she jumped a few trees over and peered into the trees, still manipulating the puppets. She was pretty sure this was a vampires doing. She could smell the vampires power and it reeked of desire. Whatever the pair wanted was here, but what could it possibly be? They had nothing of value to a vampire.  

[Masamune 5.0]

The zombie siezed Mirado's limp right arm, digging into it with its decaying teeth. Mirado's left hand lit ablaze and he punched the corspe off of him. He clutched his wound and blood seeped over his hand. "Damn it... who's controlling these?! Hey, Alpheus and Marten! Can either one of you sense the guy, or atleast his general direction?"  

[Demonix13]

"Well, I can't sense him, per se, but considering the fact that the zombies came from there," he gestured in the general direction of the zombie attack, "Then I'd assume he's somewhere over there. I'll take care of it."
Pah. Zombies. Pathetic worms. I'll show them what real terror is.

Alpheus looked up at the moon. He closed his eyes and allowed it's power to seep through him. Then he felt the transformation take place. His normally featureless face was torn asunder, revealing a hideous face. The face had no skin, with the muscle being clearly visible, and had a sickening and evil grin permanently afixed to its visage.

The eyes were sunk far back into the skull, and were bloody and red. Then, Alpheus' entire body was ripped open, revealing one of the monstrous forms Etzale may take when the moon is high. His arms were replace with vile tentacles, roughly twice as long as his normal arms and also roughly twice as strong. Alpheus' legs were wrenched backwards, and became digitigrade, and covered in rotting flesh and scales. He opened his eyes and gazed at the direction from whence the zombies were coming and screamed a scream that was not of this earth, then charged.  

[demonofwhite]

Constance giggled. "So your true form is revealed...I see no difference..." She teased. "Hey, Mirado! Need something for that wound?" She pulled a vile wrapped with a bandage out of her pocket with her foot and tossed it over to him. "Splash that on it and wrap it in the bandage. It wont cure it, but it will stop the bleeding!" She continued to fight with her puppets and tried to ignore the rich scent of fresh blood. "And hurry it up! I don't want to kill you because of my blood lust!"  

[Masamune 5.0]

"Thanks!" Mirado caught the vial with his left hand and quickly spilled it's contents on his wound. It burned, but was bearable. Then using his left arm and his teeth, Mirado hastily wrapped the wound with the bandage. It would do for now.

"Now... where was I? Right..." Mirado spun around and sweeped his leg across the ground, taking out one zombie. But attacking these undead pawns was meaningless. They had to find the leader. Alpheus was in the process of doing so, but...

Mirado's body began to glow. And then with a thunderclap he sped off, almost disappearing entirely due to his speed. He appeared next to Constance with a flash, knocking a zombie away in the process. "Are you able to sense anything at all? I want to be sure. For all we know the leader may have sent the zombies from a different direction to trick us. If I know the general direction I still have my left arm to use."  

[Demonix13]

Alpheus screeched, then picked up a zombie in his tentacles and tore it in two. He turned and hurled the two halves as hard as he could, taking out an additional pair of zombies that had been attempting to sneak up on him. The transformed Etzale then ripped the great sword from his back, wound his tentacles around the hilt, and gave in completely to the berserker rage the moon gave him. He swung with all of his considerable might, sending decaying limbs and black blood spewing every direction.

((Also, just FYI, this isn't his true form, this is just a transformed state. The way he was before is his true form.))  

[Gredar]

Erik slipped silently out of the trees behind Alpheus, summoning a blinding physical light into his hands. He hurled it hard at the Etazle's back, throwing along with it enough blood-energy to sustain it for several minutes. According to Atrio, that would force the shadow being to shapeshift back and use it's energy for survival. He then slipped once more into the trees, his small form almost invisible amongst the shadowy brush.

Atrio watched the human and vampiress consult atop the trees. He could take one of them out with no problem, he was sure, but in a group they would be formidable indeed. Time to separate. Silently he slipped around, taking another half dozen undead with him. "Tear the tree from it's roots," he ordered, sending the first three at the pair. The other three began to stalk towards the beagle, a thick layer of mucus rapidly secreting itself along the decayed flesh.


"Take that, you carcass puppet!" Marten directed the swarm with precision, as thousands of acid-shooting, boring termites quickly ate their way through zombie and tree alike in search of the mastermind. He trotted forward, tail strait up in excitement as his magic sustained and reinforced his own private micro-army. "I'd move those trees, Constance. Termites are termites, regardless of where they came from or why they're here."  

[Masamune 5.0]

Mirado quickly spun around at the blinding light. A zombie couldn't have possibly created that. He leapt from his spot on the tree before even giving Constance a chance to answer his question. He couldn't see anyone, but they couldn't have gone far. He was close enough that he might be able to sense him even with all the zombies around. Mirado slipped off his ring ever so slightly.

Pain enveloped him. It tore through him, knawing away at his body and mind. It drove him near the brink of insanity. But even in this state he could tell which direction most of the pain was coming from. Mirado slipped the ring back on. He breathed heavily and sped off into the woods after the one who had caused that great light. He knew where he was now.  

[Demonix13]

Alpheus dove to the side to avoid the light, but he wasn't quite fast enough. The light grazed his tentacle, and he instantly felt horrible pain tear through that arm. He watched in anger as the tentacle slowly morphed back into his normal arm, and then let the tranformation dissipate altogether.
"Oh I'll get you you ********!" Alpheus screamed in anger. He retrated to a relatively secure position, and slowly began to enchant and transmogrify the darkness around him. In no time, Alpheus had five exact copies of himself standing by and ready to go. Silently, they all departed at top speed towards Mirado and, presumably, the attacker.  

[demonofwhite]

Constance dropped her puppets and jumped over the trees. She had been to caught up in the attack to answer Mirado's question. "Vampires!" She told him as she followed him.  

[Gredar]

From his vantage point, enveloped in shadows below, Atrio watched with amusement as the human sped off towards his apprentice. "Do me proud, Erik," he muttered as he prepared. As soon as Mirado was far enough away that he wouldn't notice, Atrio lept upwards at Constance. He caught her mid-jump, clamping hard on her mouth to silence her while summoning powerful magic in his other hand. With some luck, they wouldn't realize she was missing until he was long enough gone.

Erik sank his fist into a nearby tree, pumping more of his blood-energy into it. The tree withered visibly, becoming corpse like as it's bark darkened and flaked off. With the trap laid, Erik slipped further back into the night away from the shadow figures and Mirado.


Marten directed the swarm further out, searching through the trees now instead of destroying them as they consumed the last of the zombies. Upwards of 50 corpses had been raised, he estimated, too many to be the work of any necromancer except one. "Atrio. He found a way." Marten dashed off into the woods towards where he had last seen Constance, leaving the swarm behind. He began to shift back, not caring about the consequences. He would need cat's eyes to find Atrio in this darkness, and stacking transformations could have lethal side effects. Gripping his head as the first wave of migraines hit, he summoned more magic to shift back. Massive black paws grew in place of hands, as a long midnight tail sprang from his back. His wings shrunk back into his spine as heavy fur grew again along his flesh. A large panther stood in his place, hidden among the dark shadows of the forest. He lept up into the trees, searching for a good vantage point from which to find the vampires.  

[Masamune 5.0]

Mirado sped through the dark forest, dodging around trees and foliage. Then all of a sudden a sickly-looking tree began to move. And what's more is that it lunged at him. Mirado quickly jumped backwards and avoided the attack from the warped tree. At least he knew he was on the right trail. "Damn it! I can't have this thing slowing me down!"

There was little time to think. His target couldn't be far in front of him and he knew the general direction. He raised his left arm and thrust forward. "Mirado FISTS!!!"

All the trees in front of him, including the magicked one, were blown away by the force. Both his arms now hung limply at his side. He scanned the devastation before him. That should have atleast hit the target if not killed it.  

[demonofwhite]

Constance grabbed at the hand that was now clasped around her mouth. The blood moon was to close and she couldn't risk biting it. From the smell of it, she could tell that this person was a vampire, but what would one of her own want with her. She was to confused to think about it and she didn't feel like fighting this person anymore at the moment. The time would come and she felt confident that her powers where superior to this ones. Her hands dropped from his hand.  

[Gredar]

Erik felt the forest ripped away as Mirado's spell blasted it's way towards him. He summoned a shield, throwing much of his remaining blood-energy into it and cowering in the shelter of some rocks. The ground shuddered, the rocks disintegrated, and with a sudden blast his shield was torn asunder. He flew through the air, and collapsed painfully in a pile of wreckage.

Atrio felt the energy around his hand coalesce into pure magic, and he drove it hard into Constance's spine. The nerves shuddered, then fell into a deep sleep leaving her paralyzed from the neck down. It was temporary, but it would last far longer than she would. He continued to hold her mouth, but shifted his grip on her body for a better carrying position. Sliding to the ground, he broke into a full run away from the group.


Marten reached the top of the tree and scanned down. To his left there was nothing but wreckage, the force of Mirado's spell was incredible. "Dammit, I'd kill for a companion with a little subtlety," he thought. Already his termites were returning to dust without his strength to maintain them. To the right, though, the smell of blood hung heavily on the air. He dropped to the ground and broke into a long loping stride much faster than any humanoid, magical or not, could match. Atrio would soon understand the folly of his choice.