Go To The Mall

Charles and Nana left their luxurious mansion home, clothed in casual clothes this time, and when they went to go into one of their cars parked outside they heard a familiar voice. “Where are you two off to?” Mrs. Smith asked as she approached us in casual clothes that barely hid her well-aged body. “Heading to the city?”

Nana nodded his head before answering, “Yeah we are.” Her voice was slightly strained Charles recognized that she was expecting or thought Mrs. Smith was silently judging her. “We just exchanging pleasantries or are you actually here for something?”

Mrs. Smith gasped in shock. “Can’t a neighbor just ask what her neighbors are doing? Are you not happy in my presence?” She asked in a highly dramatic voice before her face and voice grew more serious. “I know our history hasn’t been the… greatest. So, me and the rest of the housewives, want to start over. Would you two like that?”

Nana seemed surprised and deep in thought over it so Charles decided to answer before she could. “I, personally, would like that. How about you my dear? Would you mind starting over with them?” Charles asked her trying to act as casually as he could. Slowly Nana nodded and said, “I would love that.”

Mrs. Smith smiled at that as she raised her hand to wave goodbye as we entered our car. “Great! Then starting tomorrow we will become the greatest of neighbors!” She then moved out of the wave as our car started driving away and her wave grew quicker. After ten minutes of driving and small talk, they entered the city and began heading toward where they intended to spend their day.

“That was strange…” Nana finally began talking about the encounter with Mrs. Smith when we arrived. “Did you hypnotize her?” She asked as we began walking to the mall where we planned to spend our evening.

“Along with the other gossiping housewives, yes,” Charles answered quickly. “After you told me what happened I thought they needed to learn a manner or two. So I hypnotized them while you were off working.” Charles explained his thought process. Honestly, compared to most of what he did the past two days that hypnotization was the most altruistic thing he did Charles thought.

“T-that… that isn’t right.” Nana began before shaking her head as the two went through the sliding doors of their local shopping mall. “I know this is partially my fault for starting this but I think we should stop using your power for now. Especially on other people.”

Charles stopped in place as Nana walked in front of him and turned to him before stopping. He sighed, in truth he thought the same thing too. Sure so far he hasn’t seen anything overtly negative happen due to it but he knows this is a slippery slope, which is the whole reason her tried to use it as little as possible before yesterday. “You’re right.” He began before he heard a loud bang.

The couple looked over to a corner of the mall which was formerly a small bank and was now being consumed by fire as a figure stepped out of the smoke. It was Dr. Vlad Acula also known as the Vampire Monarch, the villain Carmilla took inspiration from.

He wasn’t usually doing such small crimes as bank robbery, especially in such open daylight, unlike most people he transformed was not **** to sunlight, so his being here confused Charles. Immediately the shopping mall began going mad as most civilians tried to run away from him and escape the mall before they become another of his feared thralls and ghouls.

Meanwhile, Nana changed into her All Muscles persona as she began to take flight toward him. The two locked in a sort of wrestling match as they tried to muscle the other onto the ground meanwhile Charles notes his signature ghouls and thralls weren’t anywhere to be found, of course, because they were weak to sunlight, but instead there seemed to be masked female mercenaries who were rounding up any civilians they could find. At that second Charles felt a chill down his spine as a gun was cocked behind him, “Raise your hands and get on your knees.” The voice was all business and Charles knew that if he even turned he would get shot behind the eyes so he complied.

After he did so his wrists were roughly grabbed and put behind his back as the mercenary behind put his hands into some zip ties to restrain him. “Surrender and I will spare these hostages!” Charles raised his head to see Vlad shouting loudly as Nana had him pinned against the shopping mall’s columns. “Do not and their delicious blood is on your hands!” I made eye contact with All Muscles and I could tell her eyes briefly turned to Nana’s before her grip loosened on Vlad.

“Wise choice,” Vlad said as a handful of mercenaries dragged her against one of the walls and used all their body weight to try and pin her down. “I know you would easily get out of this if you tried but just to ease my mind I will have these men try to hold you in place.” As that was going on me and the other hostages were dragged to the middle of the mall where we sat in a circle surrounded by all the other mercenaries who had their guns aimed at us.

There was a total of eight, if Charles used his power he could hypnotize about half of them. Or at least that was my former limit now he isn’t so sure. He turned to the two men near him, one was a slightly rotund security guard whose weapons were taken from him and the other was a well-built man who seemed unnervingly calm. “Do you two think you can take these mercs by surprise? Even with your hands tied behind you?” He asked them.

“Hmm? I am a reserve Army soldier so I think I could do it against one, but all eight… that’s just ludicrous.” The well-built man answered first.

“Same here. Why do you have a plan?” The security officer asked.

“I can divert their attention to me and stun at least half of them with my power.” Charles began as the two men nodded in understanding. “Maybe, even more, go when I start ordering the soldiers around.”

Before the plan could be enacted however a young boy began crying loudly. “Can someone shut that kid up!?” One of the mercenaries shouted as another grabbed the kid roughly. Seeing the chance Charles locked eyes with as many mercenaries as he could as he prepared to use his power. “Hey! What are you doing!? Sit back down!”

“Masked mercenaries, put your weapons down and stand still!” Charles shouted and began repeating. He saw that all of the mercenaries he could see with his own eyes followed his orders, which was already five of the eight mercenaries, as he turned to see the two men he talked to look in awe as it seemed that all of the mercenaries followed my orders.

‘It looked like all the mercenaries followed my orders even the ones holding Nana.’ Charles thought to himself as he saw that even the soldiers near Nana stand still with their weapons in front of them. Nana began stalking Vlad as he looked in awe and fury at me. ‘So I suppose my limit if I had one, is much higher than before and I don’t need direct eye contact.’

“You will pay for this!” Vlad roared as he devised too long jumped towards me and make me pay. “I will make you a ghoul and-!” He was stopped as Nana used her power to power to punch her fist through his chest. His breath hitched in his throat as he choked on the words he meant to scream.

“You deserve much worse than what I am about to give you so consider it a small blessing I am only doing this much!” Nana growled as the body of Vlad began shifting around her fist. His entire body turned extremely feminine as it changed into a weaker female one before Nana finally unplugged her fist and allowed the hole in now her’s torso to refill. Finally, the former Vampire Monarch collapsed from it all.

Meanwhile, Charles and the other two men began untieing the other hostages as the mercenaries stayed completely still. ‘We better hurry before this wears off, the police should be soon.’ Charles thought as he did so. As soon as he thought that the police barged in with riot gear same time the former Vampire Monarch dropped onto the floor. The rest proceeded simply as Charles left it to the police to handle the rest.

“Sorry Charles but I must stay with the police. Because of the whole, ‘the first hero on the scene must stay behind for the investigation’ stuff. Sorry our day off had to be interrupted by the whole Vampire Monarch business.” Nana pulled Charles aside as they talked.

“No apology necessary Nana, the blame should be put squarely on the former Vlad and his mercenaries. In fact, I am a bit grateful that I got to test my improved power. Although the fact that our day off was impeded by this does make me angry a bit.” Charles said as he hugged Nana tightly prior to smooching Nana before she left to join the police. “A shame I couldn’t enact my own vengeance on that newly woman vampire.”