And that was it. They were dead. Readjust your timeline, folks. Outmatched and overpowered, the Ranger and Lenna died then and there. Everything that happened after was merely fantasy. A nice story. Pure fiction of an obsessed mind.


…. Not!!

As Lenna dive out of the way of her attacker, the Ranger shouted their warning. Vampires, with their hands…

Wryly, Lenna muttered “is that a m^%##^ing Jojo reference. Because I have seen it.”

It was funny, because she had. Agree actually had. A mansion resident had made her watch at least the first few episodes, in an attempt to woo. A thinly disguised date. She had seen through it, but the show… she had allowed him to show it to her because it was too bizarre and interesting to walk away. Also, He was nice. So

Lenna almost told him to control his breathing to channel the power of the sun but that was too much and this was no cartoon. It was real. They were in real danger.

She mentally threw something at her foe, d as mike threw his own attack. The chair tumbled and clattered against the woman she faced. Mikes woman was onto her back, stunned for the moment. Her foe was tangled, arm through the open back of the steel chair.

She had tried to punch the item, missed, gotten stuck. It slowed her. She strained, then paused… and extracted herself from it gently. The smart retort. Until it spun on its axis, to break her jaw. Lenna smiled.

Telekinesis.

“Run!” Lenna said

Her mind swung its power to redirect an aimed punch from mikes target away from him, into the floor. Where it snagged.

They could fight. Maybe these people did not heal. But discretion is the bestest part of valor.

Lenna started running down the hall the two had come from. There was a door. She opened it, and hoped Mike was on her heels. Beyond, and room. Large crates to block the door, if someone was setting enough to move them. Not her. Behind them, another hall, another door. Stairway to the boss. Lenna drew her sidearm and made sure it was loaded.

How much time had passed. It had to be nearing dawn. It had been late when she had met him in the alley. Travel time had passed, entry. Fights. With the time of year, sunrise… was still distant. Stupidthought.

The roar from where they had been cooked her. Briefly followed by very human cursing. Aimed at them . Their mothers. Dogs. Anatomy. Filth.

“Do you have a lighter?” She asked.

”What does a dancer have t’ do with vampires?” Ranger replied to Lenna as he kip-upped back onto his feet after breaking away from the hand-vampire with his kick to her chest.

Lenna threw a chair at the other hand-vampire before suggesting they run. Managing to get her hand stuck temporarily somewhere in the middle. Ranger, deciding that discretion was the better part of staying alive, used the opportunity Lenna provided by diverting a punch aimed at him to duck back out the way they had come in.

Ranger was only a couple steps behind Lenna as she advanced in a different direction. The pair made their way back the way they had come to a door, through a room, through another hall, to a stairway.

When they finally stopped, Lenna checked her sidearm. Ranger took the moment to press check his own and then check the mag. Then Lenna asked for a lighter. Ranger brought his hand up to where he kept one on his tactical vest. A vest he wasn’t wearing.

”Not a smoker.” Ranger said, ”Need fire ‘r a spark good enough?” Ranger could get her a spark, and if he had a spare thirty seconds he could even get her a flame from it with some gunpowder from a cartridge.

”No.” she second-guessed herself. ”We do not really need to set the building on fire. Besides, we are up high. How would we get our people down low? Bad idea.”

She had really just wanted to end this entire thing. These vampire-like people. But they were mutants, not magical. Not mystics. Could not possibly be mystical. It was highly unlikely they actually had all the strengths and weaknesses of real-life vampires.

Real-life vampires. Had she really thought that thought? It was a bad joke.

”We will keep that as a solid backup plan. Let us see what is in the next room.”

They went to the next location. Up the stairs. She looked to him, pressed a finger over her lips as if to say “be quiet.” Even though all of the building was likely aware they were coming. Then, she pressed forward, through the doorway, and immediately went into a diving roll.

It was an office, a plush one. Lot of browns and wood furniture. Drawers and a bookshelf against one wall, windows against the other. They looked out over the interior of the wardrobe. It was far too nice to simply be an office in an abandoned warehouse. Far too nice.

The stone face man was behind a desk. He had a bunch of woman off to one side, tied up by the bookshelves. Six or five. He had that creepy ass mask on his face. The stone mask. A hand was just moving away, as if he had just withdrawn it after having pressed the mask to his face. Then, he fell to the floor like a boneless corpse.

Lenna ran to the girls, dropping her gun to mentally holster it against her side. She started untying them, but looked over her shoulder at the Ranger as she did.

”Watch him. He will probably stand up shortly, like some sort of creep. Hello, Rachel.”

The girl said hello, she was groggy. It came out like a mumble, more than a greeting.

Sure enough, the chair behind the desk rattled. The Ranger should brace himself.

Ranger nodded as Lenna seemed to change her mind. No fire, no need to set the building ablaze. It was not the backup plan. Instead they advanced up the stairs where Lenna signaled for them to be quiet before moving through a doorway where she threw herself into a diving roll. Ranger followed, standing with weapon raised. He was able to shrug off some small arms fire so he elected for more ability to unleash hate.

The room looked like an office and had several woman tied up. At the desk was a man with a stone mask on his face, his hand was moving away as if he had just put the mask on. Ranger aimed at the man before he slumped over.

Lenna moved to help the women and Ranger moved toward the man with the mask at Lenna’s instruction. Lenna also suggested he might stand up again. Goodie.

As Ranger approached the man, his head suddenly spun around. Ranger went to fire his pistol but a shadow form stepped out of the corner of his vision and shoved the gun aside. Not from the corner of the room, but as if it melted into existence in the corner of Ranger’s vision. Ranger tried to pull the gun back but his arm moving like it was through water. Like when you try to run in a dream.

The man moved, his joints moving in ways they shouldn't, his head rotating upside down. Ranger threw a punch at the man but when the fist met stone it fractured into a million spiders that began crawling down Ranger’s arm.

Then the form that had taken Ranger’s gun arm manifested into the man in the stone mask. He removed the mask and incredibly long fangs as his eyes blinked, being replaced by orbs of red.

Oh joy. There was the big boss, as one of her friends might have said. The big bad evil guy, himself.

Lenna finished untying all the women as Mike fought, and sent them all on their way… out of the way. Way, way, out of the way. They moved like they were waking up, but they moved. Meanwhile, Mike was fighting… so she figured she needed to assist him.

To her, things would appear differently. To her, there was no strange shadow or spiders. To her, the man was— well, what was he not? He attacked Mike, like a man in a rabbit suit with a hatchet, swinging at Mike’s arm. Holding it in place with one hand so he could swing the hatchet down.

He probably could not see a hatchet. She had no idea what he actually saw. She had no idea what she actually saw, only that— and this was odd, her orange glow could not actually suffuse itself around the hatchet or any of the imagery. Which meant it might not actually be there, just what she was seeing, thought she saw, did, only… Lenna did not immediately make the connection. She went on instinct.

Lenna thrust down her telekinesis to a single area, the elbow of the arm that hand snagged Mike in its grip. Her mind began to squeeze and haul the arm back. With a free hand, she picked up a stapler off the desk and threw it at what she thought was the man’s dumb bunny face.

Flicker.

To Ranger, it would appear a red swing line stapler had flown at red eyes.

Flicker. Anime dodge.

Something stabbed into his side. Was it shadow claws?! And who were the creepy corpse brides with bride of Frankenstein hair meandering towards the exit in a conga line?!

Also what was the light mist in air? Not apparent when first they had entered, it smelled like burning… everything. Bagel? Muffin.

What

Then things got weird.