My Little Ventrue Pt. 02 Ch. 02

"I said no harm would come to you if you surrendered, and I was not lying. But I cannot fault you for your caution. The flock will detain your friend, and you will come with me. Understand?"

"You... you can't expect me to-"

"Tell your friend to stand down."

"No. We -- aaar!" This time, Damien removed the sword and stabbed her clean through the stomach and into the wall. All thoughts of reaching for her sword to counter attack were washed away by the splitting pain of a blade skewering her insides.

"One more time. Please, ask your friend to stand down."

"... Jessy... can—"

A blur cut straight down from Damien's side. A massive blur that moved the air as it past, before slamming into the ground hard enough to make the walls ring.

"Aaaaaarg!"

The noise didn't come from Damien. Damien was gone. Natasha had to close her eyes from the spray of blood, and it wasn't warm kine blood either. There was Kindred blood in the air, and it splattered over her face before soon fading to ash. Whatever that blur was, it had forced Damien away with all the subtlety of a truck.

The sword had been pulled from her gut, but to the side and harsh enough to cut her guts open, forcing her to hold onto her belly while she collapsed. Damien had held onto the sword, when Jessy had pounced him.

Jessy. Damien. She looked to the group of Kindred, but they were a pile of bodies and groans struggling to get their senses back. When she looked to the other side, it was a frenzy of movement and madness. All she could do was drag herself along the floor away from them, with a trail of Kindred blood and ash behind her.

Damien had his sword, and he was blocking and slashing with the speed of a Mehket, but Jessy continued to push forward toward him with wild insanity. She'd let her Gangrel side out, and it was enough to have Natasha back away from them both. Jessy's claws had grown to immense lengths, and had become serrated like something from a horror movie. Her skin had darkened, and her posture was hunched to the point she was leaping and pouncing around like some sort of beast. When Damien managed to land his sword upon her, it did wound the Gangrel, but didn't slow her down. It was like poking a crazed, bloodthirsty animal with a stick, and all it did was make Jessy scream with rage.

Jessy's massive claws had already cut Damien's chest open — it must have been the attack that had dislodged Damien from Natasha — and it was not a clean wound. Those claws ripped and tore and shredded.

"Jessy, be careful!"

But Jessy was barely there. "I'll kill you! You don't touch her, ever!" Jessy roared, screamed, gave voice to that inner-beast they all kept hidden, and let out her Gangrel side. "Never touch her!" When those massive claws on Jessy's hands found metal, they sliced through it with heavy, monstrous swings. Each time, Damien had to dodge, and if it weren't for his Mehket speed, the crazed woman would have rendered him a splattered mess in a single hit.

For a moment, she thought of the Nosferatu Beatrice, and her claws. These were ten fold that size.

"Ah!" Natasha fell down, and turned over to find a couple of the Kindred had jumped her. One of them was missing an eye now, a fresh wound, but the neonates were determined. Like brave soldiers, or crazed zealots.

"Pin her down! We have to get her back and into one of the cells. Lucas will be happy," the neonate said.

Lucas? She didn't know the name. Damn it, they were too heavy for her, and she'd dropped her gun. Her sword was still on her, but she couldn't get it, they were grabbing her hands and pinning her down, punching and kicking all the while.

"Jessy! Help!"

"Quickly children, get her to the cells!" Damien lunged forward, and sank his sword into Jessy's neck.

Jessy screamed rage, fury, loud enough that it shook the walls.

"Jessy!"

Damien pushed the sword forward. "Don't make me kill you, Invictus. I—"

Natasha twisted her head to see as best she could; Jessy had turned her neck into the blade so badly that Kindred blood was actually dripping down her body, but she'd bit down onto the Bishop's sword, hard. It was enough to get the shocked Damien to hold still for that split moment, and that was all Jessy needed take one large swing with her hands and land those monstrous claws on him.

He let go. He jumped back with that same, insane speed he'd used to get behind them, but it wasn't enough, not completely. Jessy's claws managed to sink their way into his chest, and he spun backward into a heap on the floor with four new, massive gashes along his skin.

"Lucas is here! Hold them!" Another Kindred said as he rounded the corner. He had no idea. No idea at all.

The random Kindred probably didn't even register it when Jessy leaped at him. Her claws crashed down onto the unsuspecting man, and in that single slash, she cut him from head to his waist so he fell apart into three chunks of shredded meat. He was too young to turn to ash upon second death, and instead rotted away to decayed flesh before their very eyes until he was bone.

"What? What's going—"

Jessy wasted no time. Her boxer reflexes knew what to do, Natasha was sure; you followed up a hit with another, and Jessy's other hand swiped out horizontally against the two Kindred holding Natasha down. It was a blood bath. Natasha closed her eyes as fast as she could, just so she wouldn't see the two young Kindred nearly explode from the impact of the serrated claws.

For just a split moment, Natasha thought Jessy might attack her next. Those eyes were crazed, frenzied, as if she had given into her inner-beast completely and just let the madness consume her. But she scooped Natasha up, held her to her friend's bigger body, and hooked her arms around her neck and shoulders before tossing her onto her back.

Before she knew it, Jessy was running on all fours, back out the way they came. The light faded quickly, but Natasha could only wish Jessy ran faster. Once blackness covered them, Natasha did her best to guide her partner, but it was like trying to guide a rampaging bull. Jessy even crashed against the tunnel walls with enough force to crack stone, but her body was heavier now, her skin thicker, her bones harder, and she just kept running.

"You killed some of them." Natasha said. She coughed with the pain of her damaged throat.

"What the fuck was I supposed to do? We don't know who the fuck this Damien is, or Lucas, or Archbishop or Bishop and fucking shit. They wouldn't let us go."

"I know, I know. You made the right call, but...." She looked behind her at the disappearing light. If this Lucas person came running after them, they were thoroughly fucked. But with time, no one came, and Natasha finally took a minute to start healing her stomach wound.

She had no idea what to tell Julias, or Maria or Michael. What about Vivienne? She'd betrayed Natasha, and now the Invictus had killed a few of their new group.

Shit could not have gone worse.