―Kristin Hannah

A long metallic hallway filled John's mind, his vision hazy and thoughts slipping in and out of focus. What happened? Where was he? Whose hands were wrapped around his arms, dragging him along as if he were nothing more than a ragdoll?

"He's waking up; you're not giving him enough!"

"I'm not giving him enough?! I'm giving him enough to kill any of us! If I give him any more-"

"I'm gonna… I'm gonna fucking kill… all of you," John managed to groan as the last of his memories came back. How many had there been? How had Etriyya and Tricia fared against them? These were questions he couldn’t answer, because, the moment the Cabal came through the door, they'd hit him. They targeted him specifically, even preparing something to disable him; there was no doubt that he'd been the target of the trap laid with those ludicrously foolish runes and magical items. Had they truly started an entire war for his sake? John had lost his blade, but he still had the Dwarven axe. He pulled it into his hand, unable to fully lift it for a strike, body still unresponsive. The blade of the axe fell against his other palm, slicing it open and leaving a seeping wound. John grasped the blade for as long as he could before it finally fell from his unresponsive hands.

"Yeah, sure you will. Especially when you're busy bowing that droopy ass head down to Piirin."

"Quiet, just up the dose!"

"Gonna… watch you… bleed," John mumbled, lids drooping despite his frantic mental pleas. In another few moments, whispering things only he could hear, John was out again.

---

Five minutes earlier; first floor of Unforgivable Pawn

Seras Victoria was not, as some might have thought, a fool. Clumsy? Yes. Naïve? Certainly, especially about this strange world she barely recognized. But a fool? Certainly not. Though it messed with her mind and muddied her senses a bit until she could focus on nothing else, she was not ignorant of the effects that blood had on her ever since her transformation. She hadn't expected dried blood to have such similarly powerful influence over her, but she couldn't say that she was surprised either.

What she was somewhat ignorant of was why John seemed so dead set against her indulging the strange desires that tingled places in her mind that normally only her most private of body parts were capable of feeling. The scent alone set off fires in her mind that drove her to indulge, and only two things kept her from doing so. First, the fact that John seemed to have a problem with the idea of her losing her humanity. She wasn't entirely sure that there was anything left to lose, but there was a faint glimmer of something inside of her that screamed in protest. She attributed that to her strong moral sense and the fact that, no matter how enticing it was made to seem, feasting on someone's life essence was morally questionable (to put it as lightly as her appetite would allow).

The second was how delicious John smelled. As tempting as any given person Seras had spent the last few days tearing into was, or how alluring a once-disgusting pool of blood could be, John was human succulence itself. Seras couldn't ever fully shake the thought off her mind of sinking her teeth into John… non-fatally, of course. It wasn't as if Seras were lying to him - she couldn't dream of living without her master, but the thought of all that delicious essence, that human wine sitting just on the other side of his succulent skin…

"You, uh… you alright, ma'am? Your teeth are… sharpening."

Seras blushed furiously and covered her mouth, turning toward the Order guard who already had his sword halfway out of its sheath. She giggled as disarmingly as she could, trying to cover for her mental slip.

"Sorry, not really used to all this stuff yet, bit hard to control. Ever used the muscles in your teeth?"

"I… can't say that I have," the Knight said, glancing over her for several more seconds before finally - reluctantly - letting his hand fall free of his weapon.

She had volunteered to help keep guard, but frankly there wasn't much to watch. None of them ventured outside for fear of drawing too much attention, and only Seras had the eyesight to properly see down the streets through the frosted windows, so for the most part they simply stood around while waiting for the investigation below to end. Seras didn't mind a little discomfort as long as it served a good purpose. Keeping her mind clear and keeping John from worrying were both very good purposes. She had seen the toll that this war had taken on him - the toll that everyone seemed to notice, but none to acknowledge. They weren't true friends - they saw him as a tool. But Seras loved the honesty and innocence of her master far too much to drive a wedge between them - all she could do was protect him with everything that she was, everything she had become.

That instinct was part of the reason her non-beating heart almost started again in shock when an explosion rocked the ground under their feet, sending one of the Knights tumbling off his feet and onto his posterior. For an instant silence overcame them, all of those present glancing in shock at the sudden motion. Bits of the unkept building shook and fractured off, from tiles on the walls to actual pieces of the ceiling, one actually smashing into the ground a few feet from where Seras stood.

"Are they mad?!"

Before anyone could answer, someone else shouted. Even through the thick floor, they all heard the noise.

"It's a trap!"

"The stairwell's blocked," one of the Knights shouted. He'd reacted just a little faster than the rest of them and was already throwing the door in the back open. Unfortunately his words were true - several large pieces of what had once been the concrete walls and roof to the stairwell had collapsed and collected near the bottom, rendering it inaccessible. The weight and number of the pieces would've made even Seras' impressive strength extraordinarily slow in forging a path through.

"Break the floor," Seras roared, glancing down. The floors were thick, maybe concrete like the back, but she stood a better chance of getting through it than she did with the clogged stairwell.

Seras' fist collided with the floor three times, cracks appearing in the thick floor and her knuckles bleeding already, two of them nearly shattered. She grit her teeth through the pain, eyes on her own blood. She could feel a heat flowing through her body, a ruby glisten through her eyes - it was like adrenaline mixed with cocaine and the strongest painkillers she'd ever been injected with all flooding her veins at the same time. Seras raised her fist again, muscles bulging in preparation.

The floor collapsed under her before her arm even began to descend. Fire and smoke filled the air as yet another explosion rocked the building, this one nearly decimating its structure as Seras and the two Knights nearest her fell straight through. Cries of pain echoed through the building, not all their own, as they fell into the last remnants of a battle.

"Gaia's fucking tits, but you're late to the show," Etriyya called out, sending her hand flying forward. Two blue streaks of light separated and then re-converged on the head of a Cabal soldier pointing his rifle at her, collapsing his skull from both ends and sending his body to the ground in a slump. There were two others that were eviscerated under a hail of gunfire from drones, some barely functional as their missing and punctured pieces sprayed sparks and oil across the rubble surrounding them.

Every other Cabal agent remaining was dead or dying and in no state to continue fighting. That gave Seras the opportunity to truly assess the damage - literally and figuratively - done to their group and to the building as a whole. Whatever explosive devices had been used left a distinctive aroma in the air, one Seras was unfamiliar with - it was professional, high-grade stuff, not the cheap homemade fertilizer bombs and cheap gunpowder explosives she'd come into contact with as an officer of the peace. Most of the first floor was collapsed now, along with some of the walls above - she hoped that none of them were supporting walls, but by the sag of the roof above and the way bits and pieces continued to come down on occasion, she suspected that was nothing more than wishful thinking.

A tunnel was at the other end of the room, near where they had been performing their search - one that definitely had not been there before. The wall around it was shattered, revealing a long metal tunnel. Where it led, Seras couldn't say - not too far down the tunnel took an immediate hard right and she lost sight of its end. The Knights that had fallen with Seras were in terrible condition; one was half-buried under rubble and couldn't struggle his way free, while the other was **** entirely from what looked to be a bullet wound through his abdomen. Non-fatal, but only if he got assistance soon. Only the Knight that had avoided the collapse was conscious and moving, and he was struggling to find a place to safely clamber down into the basement. The two women John had been with were the worst of it, though. Amidst the smell of explosive residue and dust came a wave of desire as Seras' senses were overcome with the scent of fresh blood.

Etriyya was free, but only from the waist-up; her left ankle and most of her right leg were trapped under what looked like a large chunk of the stairwell's wall. She was wincing in pain and a pool of --(delicious, mouthwatering)-- crimson blood was slowly ebbing out, indicating that even her armor had not saved her from the full weight of the pile of rubble pinning her legs to the ground.

Tricia was safe, but in the worst way possible. Her sobs were the loudest noise in the now silent room, trapped in a corner with rubble surrounding her but held well at bay by the massive shield hanging around her. She had been bleeding at one point or another, but her suit appeared to have staunched it - what the wound was or how severe, Seras couldn't tell thanks to the thick latex that had covered the injury again.

"They tried to take all of us, but we put up a fight - they’ve kidnapped John, though. We have to give chase! Seras, I'm pinned under here. How strong are you, can you lift this?!" Etriyya called, already attempting to do so herself but struggling against the chunk that refused to break, but there were too many smaller piles atop it for even the woman's impressive strength to budge.

"I- I can try," Seras half-shouted in panic as she realized the full severity of the situation, running forward and joining in the effort. She managed to pull the piece a few inches up but the moment it came off the ground, something in the pile shattered, and most of it fell back down. Etriyya screamed in agony, the pool of blood flowing just slightly faster as Seras recoiled backward.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"

"Not your fault…" Etriyya moaned through gritted teeth. "This whole damn thing is pinned under too much. Can't move it without excavating from the top or I might lose a leg - or both. Armor's the only thing keeping me together as it is…"

"Wh-what about 'er?" Seras whispered, glancing over toward Tricia. The vampiress approached the shield.

"No, don't, Seras-"

"Go away, get away from me!" Tricia screamed as soon as she looked up. Her arms, what had been exposed by the suit, were covered in a set of red and blue eyes. The blue ones glimmered, and Seras found herself being pushed back. The entire pile of rubble and debris shifted as Tricia's shield forcefully expanded, pushing everything back. Seras had to duck and weave as bits and pieces of the floor above that had been on top of her shield were moved to fall down on top of others. Some fell dangerously close to Etriyya, earning further grunts of pain from the pinned Knight.

"Enough! They went down that tunnel, and none of us are in any shape to chase after them. Seras, there's no telling what they have planned for him; they could **** him, dissect him, wipe his memories… even sell him to a more powerful faction. If we lose him now, he might be gone forever."

"B-but I can't-"

"Seras, I've got one leg that's hanging on by a thread, three disabled Knights, and one who is too fucking chicken shit to just jump, by Gaia I will slit your throat, Wallace!"

The Knight above made a frightened gasp and leaped from the floor above, bracing himself and landing barely on his feet in a relatively clear part of the basement.

"Go, now! Both of you!" Etriyya shouted hoarsely, still fidgeting under the rubble. Seras glanced at the Knight. His armor would slow him, but together they stood a better chance. The scent of blood mixed with her fear, a powerful desire to stay where she was overwhelming her.

Seras blinked once and was off, sprinting down the hall as fast as her legs would carry her.

"By Gaia, she's fast," Etriyya murmured, watching the vampiress disappear around the distant corner in just a scant few seconds. If she had a half-dozen Knights who could move like that, this war would've already been over… but no sense in wasting time on what-ifs.

"Knight Wallace, you are to follow that woman into Hell itself if it so pleases her! And if your sword comes back not entirely drenched in Cabal blood, I swear you will be the next impaled upon it!"

"Yes, milady! Yes, Knight Etriyya," the tall but thicker man said, helmet clanking as he nodded all the way down the hall, one hand locked to the hilt of his blade.

"Gaia save them all… I'm going to call-"

Etriyya thought better of mentioning Moira's name to the sobbing woman holding literally hundreds of pounds of rubble from the pile, grimacing as she reached toward her phone, hoping that its magical protections had kept it functional enough for at least one call.

---

"Gonna… kill everyone… I see…"

John awoke with that running through his mind but had no immediate recollection of why. He felt more like he was waking from a coma than a dream, mind hazy and his surroundings uncertain. So hazy, in fact, it took him almost thirty seconds to focus his thoughts enough to recognize the screams that he could hear.

"What the devil is going on out there?!"

That was distinctly not John's voice, but it was familiar. Familiar enough to set his blood boiling, for reasons his mind did not immediately recall. John turned to the side and saw a man wearing a black t-shirt with a leather jacket over it, his ragged and torn jeans revealing several patches of heavily scarred and tattooed skin. In spite of his choice of attire, he had a well-trimmed beard and mustache, which John could only see the corner of due to him facing the doorway.

The room itself was barren. Plain black tiled floors, cinderblock walls, and the only real furniture or outstanding features in the room were the shackles holding him to the wall and the single door. The restraints were tight, so tight against his skin that his fingers and toes were tingling with numbness as he was literally pinned to the wall several inches from it. All his weight was being held by the shackles, sending shooting pain through his limbs every time he moved and restored feeling to his overworked nerves. Still, even the pain came through dulled - whatever they had used on John was clearly still coursing through his veins.

The door to the room shot open so quickly it slammed noisily into the concrete wall, like a gunshot in the small room. Or perhaps that was one of the actual gunshots, of which there were many in quick bursts, followed often by even louder screaming. John couldn't guess what was going on out there, but it sounded as if an entire army were just around the corner. There came a man, his black hair with frosted white tips coated in blood, as was most of his outfit and the shotgun he carried in his arms.

"Jackson, what the fuck is-"

"Some fuckin' bitch that doesn't fucking die is tearing her way down here! Looks like this little shithead has some powerful friends besides the Order; she's glowing like a goddamn furnace with some serious magic! We gotta-"

The man who had just entered looked over to John as he spoke ill of the young man, their eyes meeting for just a minute.

"Holy fucksticks, dude, he's awake! Why the fuck is he awake?!"

"Excuse me for losing concentration for a moment while the rest of you can't keep out even a single intruder! He's still heavily sedated by the medicine, but he should be half-dead from the dose we had to give him; I'll put him back under with just-"

The door shot open again, even louder this time as it haphazardly collided with the wall and bounced off again to nearly shut itself. Not before a form came through - a shadow almost, so blurred and fast did it move as it came for the man nearer to the door. His arms were half-raised in defense when they fell again to his sides, jagged and uneven with bone protruding from various places. As it paused to strike, the figure solidified, even John's dazed mind able to finally see something more than a blur.

A patch of blonde hair, a glimmering yellow coat, and a set of brown shorts appeared as if lifted straight from a page. She was covered in blood, her teeth bared, and she looked absolutely livid. The image was all the more fitting as Seras wrenched the gun from the man's shattered arms and shoved the barrel of it into his mouth, open in a cry of pain, and immediately pulled the trigger.

"Jesus-fuck-holy shit," the remaining man swore as bits and pieces of his friend rained down upon them. John simply winced, his mind reeling as the sound echoed in the tiny room like an explosion, sending spikes of pain through his skull and ringing in his ears. Seras didn't hesitate, shoving the gun through the man's open neck and firing at his Cabal friend, opening a hole in the man's chest. Seras kicked the door the rest of the way shut and then jammed the shotgun against the door, grabbing the barrel and wrapping it around the handle. Jamming her foot into the tiled floor with the sound of a cannon, Seras made a hole to brace the butt of the gun against and set it to hold the door shut. It was a crude way to jam a door, but with her superhuman strength it was easy and effective.

"Seras? Thank Gaia you're here, where are we?"

"Dunno… kinda lost track," she grumbled, leaning up against the wall. "They 'ad a tunnel into the ware'ouse, I got your scent off the blood in the hall, followed it for a couple blocks and then chased a van all the way 'ere. Don' really know the town, sorry."

"That's fine, at least you came. What about Etriyya, Trish…"

John trailed off as he noticed the way Seras was standing, now that she had effectively stalled her pursuers and was no longer in combat. She was wincing, and it was becoming abundantly clear that it was not due to the sound of the gun she had been firing. The blood soaking her uniform was not entirely her own, and some of it was still flowing. Her arms were scraped and scratched, several spots in her uniform were bleeding and various holes in the fabric occasionally revealed a patch of bloodied flesh where a bullet or a blade had found its mark. Her face had a long slash from her ear down to her jawline near the corner of her mouth, so deep John was worried it might tear open.

The worst were her legs. Uncovered by fabric John could see where every bullet, every pellet, every blade had struck home. The fact that she was still walking was a miracle. Hesitatingly, John focused his eyes and brain enough to summon his menu and check his party status.

Seras Victoria
Level 9 True Vampire
<John's Creation>
1 / 210 HP
Relationship: 135
Alignment: +45
Status Effects: N/A

His heart pounded in his chest at that readout. If she were anyone else - if there had been a single person who actually knew what to do - she'd be dead. It was only her pure determination and vampire body that had kept her alive, not a single thing else.

"Seras, what- you're hurt so badly! I can't heal your wounds; what were you thinking?!"

John noted that once again he had started to lecture her when he should've been thanking her, but he couldn't focus on anything but her damaged flesh and the pain in her eyes now that he had seen them. Even the crimson in those deep pools had started to fade, overwhelmed by damage and blood loss.

"I… I was gonna wait, figure out a way to tell 'em where you were, find a payphone or somethin', but they were talkin' about some guy comin' to pick you up soon, I couldn't just leave you. I tore my way in here, thought I’d rescue you myself, but there were too many of ‘em. Found this room when they got a good shot through one of my legs, couldn’t run far but I could smell the blood on you… nice move, by the way, dunno what you did, but you spilled enough’a it on your clothes to track."

"Seras, you’re insane! I wanted to help you find me, but if you died, I'd never forgive myself!"

"And if you died, I'd be alone forever!"

The two of them stared at each other. The silence dragged on until a loud banging came at the door, and the handle jiggled firmly, fighting against the steel alloy of the gun barrel and the firm hold it had on the floor. Pounding noises started, repeated and loud, as the Cabal outside started to try forcing their way in.

"Too late for regrets now, Master… got any bright ideas in that thick skull of yours?"

John had one, but he couldn't summon it up. His body wasn't responding, and he couldn't even make his mind work at full function. Last time he'd seen Seras wounded even half this badly, the Shard of Bishamonten had given him strength like he'd never imagined, but now he could barely knit his brows in anger, much less summon that kind of fury. He couldn’t even manage his full strength against the restraints, not that he thought he had the strength required to snap metal.

"They gave me something powerful, in addition to whatever magic he was working. Fentanyl, maybe a tranquilizer mixed in, something insanely powerful. I can barely feel my body, much less move it; I can't even get angry. I can use some abilities, but I'm a sitting target."

Seras searched the body of the man who had been guarding John, then stepped over to his location and inspected the restraints. "No key… and these things are tough." Drawing her hand back carefully, Seras threw a powerful hook to the binding on John's right arm. He barely felt anything but the wind, and though he heard a metal creaking, far louder was the sound of one of Seras' bones snapping and her cry of pain, though she tried to silence the latter. Blood from one of her wounds spattered across John.

"I can't even Shadowform through these things - probably because I'm already touching them, stupid fucking qualifiers," John grumbled, fighting the urge to bang his head against the wall in an attempt to wake himself up faster.

"Then… only one thing left to do."

"Pray the Order gets here before they find something stronger than that door?"

Seras met John's eyes. The crimson that he still saw in there flared for a moment, halting its slow fade as the blood ebbed from her wounds.

"No, Master. Please, you've taken care of me for so long. When I came here, I was so scared, so afraid of where I was, what I was… but you helped me through that. I'm not afraid anymore. Let me take care of you."

"Seras, what are you-" John froze as he realized what she intended. This wasn't what he wanted, not **** and with no other option, certainly not with their backs against the wall. He'd taken so many choices away from her, he couldn't take this one.

"Seras, you can still heal without doing that, I order you to-"

Seras jumped forward, pressing her lips against his. John's addled brain melted into the kiss for a moment, and with very little room to move his head away, John could do little but seek pleasure from the touch. The kind of joy and pleasure that just touching Seras always seemed to bring him but that kissing her multiplied a hundred-fold. When Seras finally pulled away, her face was flushed, in spite of the blood loss, and the smile that John always loved to see was back.

"Master… this is my choice. My decision. I don’t have to do this, I don’t have to do anything. I could… I could die happy by your side, an' that'd be okay.” Seras nuzzled her cheek against his, and John felt the warmth inside it and the wetness as her blood stained his skin. She pulled away and met his gaze, more focused than ever. “But this is what I want. I want to help you, I want to be strong. I'm not afraid… I want this. I want you."

Seras smiled one last time at John. He could see it in her eyes then, the woman she truly was. Not the awkward, bumbling Police Girl. Not the bashful and naive girl. A proud warrior, coming into her own right and fully aware of what she was doing, what risks she was accepting. No hesitation, no fear, no uncertainty lurked in those irises washing between an innocent azure and a lusting crimson. She knew what she had to do, what she wanted to do. John wasn't making her decision for her - all this time all he’d done was try to prevent her from making her own.

“I want you too, Seras. More than anything.”

Tears formed at the corner of Seras’ eyes, a brief moment of happiness and weakness. Seras’ smile widened, then grew some more, unnaturally so. Her mouth opened only a fraction and revealed the pointed peaks of her growing teeth. Then Seras dove forward, and John tried to stifle a scream of agony as thirty-two razor-sharp fangs sank into his throat.