The Lycanthrope and The Mad Lass

“Your Highness?” called a meek voice from the corner of the long hall in which stood a tower of a man dressed in a World War One Russian military uniform, high gray hair hanging loosely at the edges of his face.

“Your Highness, I’m sorry we had to call you but…” a wave of the hand of the larger man who turned his attention to the source of the speech, smiling halted the meek voice.

“I’m sorry… I’m not used to…” the smaller man spoke, with an apparent embarrassment in his voice.

“It’s alright, Timofey; I am no longer a prince, nor a grand prince. I am just Vseslav Bryachislavich for you.” The larger man spoke with elegance in his speech. “When you are as old as I am, my friend, fewer things seem to spark your interest. To be honest, these kinds of things seem to be the only ones that make me experience some joy nowadays,” He continued.

“My apologies, sir, it takes time to digest everything, I‘m sure you are aware of that, I‘m still not quite used to you being a.. uhh… werewolf…” the smaller man answered sheepishly.

"I am not! I am a seer, a shaman, if you will, one of the few who still truly practice the art. We all have extraordinary skills. You‘ll get used to the many odd things in this world if you make it long enough." Vseslav remarked with a clear parental tone to his voice.

He was talking to an adult, but at his ripe age of nearly a millennium, everyone seemed to be a child.

“I hope, I do, sir,” Timofey answered.

“Onto business, why was I summoned?” The former Prince of Polotsk inquired.

“Yes,” Timofey, who wore a neat butler uniform responded, “follow me, sir.” He gestured that the two of them should walk towards a room near the edge of the hall.

“Sir, we’ve come across a being that poses a threat to our society and does not seem human.” The butler said as they began making their way towards the room.

“Is that so?” the former prince questioned.

“Appears so, unless someone acquired technology akin to ours, it’s impossible for a human to burn out the insides of another human being." The butler retorted.

“I see… I assume you’ve sent a contingent of Omega level operatives to deal with said target.” The former prince answered.

“Omega, Gamma, Beta, and even Alpha level operatives; all of them never returned alive.”

“I see… Shameful…"

“Truly, sad, sir, the loss of human life is never the pleasant kind of news.”

“Indeed, but that’s why we‘re here, my friend, that’s why this organization exists. We do what we do to prevent the needless death of humans as a result of abnormal threats."

The two men had reached the entrance of their designated room, and a feminine voice had risen out of the room, “I wouldn’t call your involvement in two world wars and a myriad of other local conflicts between humans a part of that cause, Vseslav.”

Vseslav chuckled at the remark before retorting, “As a former prince of these lands, I must protect them all kinds of evils, Miss O’Reilly.“

The feminine figure walked up to the two men and handed Vseslav a folder which contained the information about the aforementioned contact between the organization and the suspected creature which resulted in the deaths of many organization members. The file included the detailed autopsies of the deceased organization members and the grotesque photographs of their charred and disfigured corpses.

“It appears it is the work of an…” The woman spoke before being cut off by Vseslav.

“Yes. Seems like it.“ He responded to her mid-sentence. His mind ran wild with what appeared to be fond memories of some event from the distant past. “It’s been a while since I came across one of these.” Vseslav reminisced to himself quietly.

“I want to come with you,” the woman‘s voice broke Vseslav out of his nostalgia induced trance. “This desk job is driving me crazy, Prince of Polotsk.“ She continued.

“Ah, Ruby, I could never stop you from doing anything, I‘m not going to even try. Make sure you don’t die, however.“ Vseslav had said in response to the woman‘s demand to tag along.

“Timofey, please fetch me my sword,” Ruby requested of the butler.

“Immediately, miss.”

“Thank you…”

And with that the butler disappeared back into the darkness of the hall. Ruby’s green eyes had shinned with excitement at the prospect of being able to work in the field once more. She began chuckling to herself as she went to grab her long black trench coat.

“Save that mood for later, my lady,” Vseslav said as he watched his colleague walk around, gleaming with joy.

“Aye, aye, your majesty!” she remarked as she moved past him towards the doorway.

Vseslav followed behind and once they stood in the hallway, a robotic voice called out through the intercom system; “Agents Lycan and Banshee, please approach portal chamber SC173.”

“After you, my lady,” Vseslav gestured to Ruby to walk first towards their destination.

As they walked, neither of them had let out a sound. They were both people of few words, even fewer with each other. Throughout their years working, they‘ve developed a bond strong enough to formulate a sort of telepathic link between the two of them. They did not need to speak to understand one another and co-operate in perfect sync.

Ruby threw her trench coat around her shoulders, and they walked towards the portal chamber. Once there, Timofey approached Ruby and handed her the weapon she had requested earlier; a customized nodachi.

“Your weapon, miss”

“Why thank you, Timofey.” Ruby thanked the butler as she took the nodachi from his hands and held it over her shoulder.

She looked at Vseslav who was looking at her, filled with pride that his pet project has become one of the most successful agents in the organization and called out to him, “Shall we?“

“After you, my dear,” the mountainous humanoid gestured once more.

Ruby approached the portal that would lead them to their target and as she looked at the swirling blue lights emanated from the device she looked back at the staff, asking, “is there anything we should know about this location?“

“Yes… there are many civilians there at the moment, seems like a party of some sort.“ One of the operatives answered.

Ruby, in turned, just chuckled before stepping into the portal and Vseslav followed behind her without saying a word.

Once Ruby had stepped out of the other side of the portal, she found herself standing on a stage at a rave. The whole area was illuminated by colorful lights that swirled as far as her eyes could see. Electronic music blared out all over the are and crowds of people were completely mesmerized by their trance-inducing environment.

Vseslav stared at the naked man that had been dancing before Ruby and the crowds. The tattoos on the man‘s body made Vseslav smile like a little kid at a candy store. “He’s the angel.” He had remarked.

Ruby unsheathed her nodachi and remarked, gleefully, “such a waste of a good body.“

Slowly, patiently, quietly she made her way towards the naked angel until he was within a touch‘s reach and then she leaned close to him from behind and whispered in his ear, “Game over, pretty boy!“

The crowd in front of them didn’t seem to notice her. They were too enchanted by the music and the lights.

Before the angel could react to Ruby, she stabbed his heart through his back. The angel coughed as her blade slowly cut through his insides. His tattoos began glowing with a purple glint to them. It was too late, however, with a swift and powerful motion of her arms, Ruby ran the sword upwards slicing her target in half.

A fountain of dark blood sprinkled all over, covering the stage, the assassin and first row of people in front of the stage.

The people still hadn’t broken out of their entranced state and just continued dancing and singing as the naked man fell to his knees. His flesh was pulsating and slowly reforming. He was an angel. Killing an angel is not as simple as bisecting him. Hence Ruby dropped her sword like a guillotine onto the man‘s heart before she twisted and turned it. With that, she had released the small organic blood pump from its vascular confines inside her target’s chest captivity. She then yanked it out with her sword and proceeded to bite into it. For good measure before tossing it to the ground.

“No healing for you… my love,” she mockingly remarked at the mans dismembered form as it caught blue fire.

Vseslav watched the whole ordeal without interfering. He came to enjoy his protégé’s sadistic methods. After all, he knew what she was, and that’s exactly why he brought her into the organization. Her mindset, her neuro-psychological inner workings were perfect for that kind of job. He didn’t want her to end up in some ditch or behind bars. So, he took her under his wing.

He had turned her into an angel of death.

“Good j…” He was about to say as a bright flash of light threw him off guard, blinding him and Ruby who screeched in pain as the light burned her eyes. She covered herself up and the light began subsiding.

A loud booming voice that sounded like ten people spoke through one mouth came out calling at the duo; “You will pay for this! You will burn in hell for killing my brother!“

As the lights died down Ruby opened her eyes to see the crowd in front of her no longer focused on dancing, no, instead they were all staring at her; trying to stare through her soul with light shining through their eyes. Purple tinted light.

The crowds had been possessed.

The music and projector lights slowly died down around them as Ruby’s mind drifted towards a single train of thought; kill.

Her pained expression had turned into one of joy. Her grin grew so wide it became almost painful to smile for her.

”Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!“, she began calling out as the possessed hordes slowly made their way towards her, crawling to her like a mass of mindless zombies.

“I am going to kill you all!” She screeched before throwing herself, blade first into the mass of mind-controlled humans. With each swing, she had claimed a life. She was precise and lethal. One blow per one life. With each strike of her blade, she had soiled the soil beneath her the blood of mortal men.

Soon enough the green-eyed assassin stood in the middle of a river of blood as mind-numbing ecstasy filled her senses. She let out a burst of maddening laughter before pouncing on top of her remaining targets and with each strike her killing blows became more and more brutal and crude. She was out to make the act of dying painful for them, increasing the dose of pain for each victim with each passing strike.

She didn’t slow down until she was the only living person standing, all the while her crazed laughter filled the night‘s air with the mortifying call of a death goddess.

At the same time, Vseslav pounced on the second angel in the form of a wolf, biting his head clean off. Vseslav landed on the ground just the second angel‘s body crashed, headless and bleeding profusely from the neck.

Vseslav roared like a pissed beast and then his gut began burning from the inside; as he panted like a dog his belly exploded sending gallons of blood and viscera all over. A booming voice came out of the beheaded corpse’s neck, “foolish, foolish dog thinks that he can stop me… Ha!“

A head reconstructed itself on the corpse and it rose back up, the angel was still alive. He walked up to Vseslav‘s broken canine form and kicked at it sending it flying a few yards, showering the ground below him with guts and rib-powder.

The second angel spread out his massive wings made up of light and flew up to Vseslav‘s seemingly lifeless body. He then picked it up the wolf and raised it into the air. “I am going to kill you by tearing your pelt off and then I will do unspeakable things to that girl… do you understand me, silly dog?“

The angel was about to land another blow on Vseslav but when his fist connected with the canine skull, the whole wolf disintegrated into dust that fell around the angel who stared at the space in front of him, confused.

“Show yourself, coward!”

Nothing.

“I know you ain’t dead… I haven’t pulverized you just yet!“

Nothing.

The whole situation felt awfully wrong to the angel; he could feel it in his core; something was wrong. Vseslav wasn’t a werewolf. He knew something about him was different. Doubt had begun creeping up on him. Puzzled, confused and scared…

Feelings the angel had yet known were beginning to take over his physical form and clouded his judgment.

The angel started looking around frantically, shouting profanities at Vseslav, and even threatening his partner. But the Seer did not seem to be anywhere in sight. Ruby was too preoccupied with the hordes of the possessed people to even bother looking at the second angelic being. She just twisted her head in disappointment at the supernatural creature when she had realized he became completely overcome by fear.

Just as the creature was about to make his way to Ruby, he felt a sharp pain at the back of his neck. One that ran down his spinal cord, and spread to his limbs after which everything below the point from which the pain had come felt numb, gradually all feeling was lost. The creature could barely turn his head before he noticed a large furry humanoid creature grabbing him by the neck.

Vseslav began landing blow after blow upon the angel‘s body.

Each blow produced a sickening crunching sound that indicated the breaking of bones and tearing of soft tissue. The angel was overcome with pain. He couldn’t even heal his broken physical body because with each attempt to heal a wound; Vseslav opened up three new ones.

The seer had used his immense strength to punch a hole through the angel’s stomach before he pulled out his large intestine and hung it around the angel’s neck like a noose, he then proceeded to toss the angels in every imaginable direction, using the formers innards as rope. Each time the angel‘s body made contact with the ground below him a little bit more of his digestive system was exposed to the elements. That made every moment of the experience excruciatingly agonizing. The angel could no longer even think straight. All he could do was be a prisoner in his own mind as a monstrous wolf-man turned his body into a pile of shit and puss.

Angels are powerful creatures; however, they have their limits, and they are certainly capable of dying. Vseslav dealt with angels in the past and thus he knew how to overload their capabilities.

Once the seer had enough fun, he dragged the barely lucid angel towards the mount of corpses atop of which sat his partner. She sat there, covered in blood and viscera, adoring her own macabre handy work with a maddened smile smeared all over her face. Vseslav tossed the angel towards her and gestured with his head upwards. Ruby stepped down towards the angel and grabbed him by the head.

At this point his body had begun regenerating itself, however, his regeneration wasn’t quick enough as when Ruby yanked his head backward, Vseslav slammed his fist into the angel‘s jaw sending it flying along with a lightning bolt of ungodly pain straight to the angel‘s brain.

Ruby recoiled her arm, shaking it as if she had been struck herself, “Ah fuck, I forgot just how powerful you can be, prince!“

Vseslav smirked and tilted his head sideways, as to gesture that he is sorry, before reverting back to his human form.

“It’s fine…” Ruby responded as her hand traveled down the angel‘s face.

The angel was paralyzed with pain and the thought of what this sadistic duo might do to him, his lack of a lower jaw made it impossible for him to speak.

Suddenly, he felt a hand reach down into his mangled insides. He began making gurgling sounds and Ruby told him to shut up as she was actively trying to find something.

His heart.

The angel‘s insides were so messed up one could reach from the esophagus to the lungs and vice versa.

She touched it, her heart‘s desire, the angelic heart.

“Found it!” she yelled out gleefully.

As the assassin touched the angel‘s heart his whole body spasmed in an agonizing stream of neurological torment and then the acidic contents of his stomach swam up and burned Ruby’s arm making her recoil and curse at the creature for not controlling himself.

The angel threw up his stomach acid all over himself causing him to spasm, even more, making Ruby shove his carcass downward. Vseslav wasted no time and landed a devastating spinning kick to the angel at the same moment the latter hit the ground. The blow was so devastating the creature‘s whole chest cavity was blown apart exposing the heart and lungs which were covered in shards of bone and yellowish mucus.

Ruby got up to her feet adoring the damage caused by her partner and proceeded to stab his heart with her nodachi before she pulled it out with a single stroke of her arm and presented it to Vseslav as a mock sacrifice at which he burst out laughing.

“That was fun…” Ruby exclaimed.

“Yes, yes it was! Good job, kid.“ The seer exclaimed before activating a device which had opened a rift in the air causing a bluish light to explode through it. “After you, my lady“ he gestured to Ruby who stepped into the bluish light. The seer followed closely behind, and as he did the rift closed behind him.

Once they passed through the rift, a familiar voice greeted them, “Your majesty, Miss O’Reilly…“

“Don’t call me that, butler!” Vseslav barked.

“My apologize, sir!”

“The mission was a success, Timofey, now, I shall have a bath and some tea please,” Ruby said as she stared affectionately at the butler, “Oh and that…” She pulled off her sleeve displaying the chemical burns on her arm.

“Immediately, miss. What about you, sir? Are you going to return to your slumber?“ the butler asked Vseslav.

“No. I think I‘m going to stay awake for a while longer, it seems you guys are slowing down, there were two of them. Two angels, you detected one.“

“Oh my…” the butler expressed his surprise at the fact.

“I definitely think I should stick around for a little longer,” Vseslav continued sternly.

“So be it, sir. I hope you enjoy your stay above ground,” the butler replied, “I‘ll attend to everything in the meantime…” he continued as he began making his way out of the portal room.

“I know I will, with all these things roaming about lately,” the seer remarked under his breath before he blended in with the shadows.

“I know I will…”