WAR: What Is it Good For 13 (Patreon)

The night is dark and full of terrors.

Ken didn’t know where he heard that, but whoever said it was fucking right. 

“Son of a bitch!” Sewer yellow nails swiped at his face, each one probably able to dice him up as easily as a switchblade. 

Dark fingers caught the wrist and snapped it backward with a satisfying crack, undead bone giving way against strength it hadn’t grown to reach yet. The vampire screamed, a high, thin sound, and Ken kicked the thing away; a hard drive into its knee that sent it hobbling into another one of its bloodsucking brethren. 

“I.” He scrambled back, cheap low-tops doing him just as many favors on the wet floor as his soles had traction. His hand scrambled on the grimy concrete, expression tightening up as all five fingers closed around something thick and strong. 

“Hate.” The two-foot-length of pitted steel caught air like a fastball as he swung it up, the pipe in his hands screaming as chakralit up the rust from the inside for a single heartbeat.

“Fucking!” Steel met bone; with all the bombast of a wet firework in a tin trash can.

“Vampires!” The vampire’s skull gave way, the whole thing folding in on itself like cheap drywall, then a wet melon. He felt the impact run up through his arms; the solid, satisfying shudder of iron, the deep crunch of bone giving up the ghost. It was cleaner than any punch he’d ever thrown, no give that wasn’t just skull surrendering. By the time the vampire’s knees remembered gravity, its eyes had gone glassy, and a split second later, the thing was dust.

Fuck.

“This was a bad idea!” Luigi screamed from somewhere across the cavernous, stinking room, the sound echoing off the high metal ceiling. He saw his best friend, a blur of motion in the dark, toss a feral, snarling newborn off him with a roar of his own.

They were in an abandoned seafood processing plant on the industrial waterfront, maybe twelve blocks away from his house in Melville. A coffin with plumbing. After Ken had decided on some more hunting with a ‘sure, why not?’, Luigi had tracked a group of vampires with some of his weird spooky ash-magic bullshit.

It didn’t take long to find a group of them stalking their way down the waterfront. Luigi figured they could just take out a half-dozen newborns and call it a night. Ken, high on his own new power, had once again figured, why the fuck not? 

Riding that high of adolescent superiority and stupidity like a line of fresh white girl, both of them followed the group of leeches to the waterfront, a place where the stink of rotting fish and low tide was thick enough to hide the smell of blood. The vampires had gone inside one building, the place looking more dilapidated than most.

Both he and Luigi had decided on giving it a good half-minute before following after, his friend already muttering his weird, angry Italian spells, while Ken channelled his chakra in preparation for the heat of a Flame Shot jutsu to let it fly.

It took all of five seconds to realize why that was a bad idea. 

A really, really bad idea.

Because, it wasn’t just a half-dozen vampires. It was a whole fucking meetup. 

A goddamn vampire potluck, and they were the main course.

“Fuck you m-mean?” The boy in dreads felt his voice crack like he was still fourteen, adrenaline and everything else forcing his heart to beat this fast making words harder to focus on. “This was your idea!”

“And it was!” Luigi howled, newly formed ash-claws tearing the arm off another newborn in a spray of dark red blood. “A BAD IDEA!”

Black windows and dead fluorescents hung like nooses over rusted conveyor lines, Ken’s immature Sharingan barely able to piece the night from the nocturnals as something hissed from his left.

He whipped around to catch sight of another shadow peeling itself off a stack of rotting fish crates. Newborn, this one making the third dozen they’d taken on since stumbling on this blood bash of a hideout. Its eyes were wrong, all hungry red marbles, the whites not yet darkened like the fledglings that had come for his blood twice now.

Always ways to tell, Ken was realizing, even down to its ugly fingernails. Newborns were half-feral when they tasted fresh blood, and when you gorged yourself at least once weekly with all the patience of a crackhead, it was probably hard to take care of yourself. No keeping up appearances.

The sewer-yellow nails showed that pretty well. 

With a roar, the thing went for his throat because that’s what they all did.

He met it with a shoulder and a little more than a dream as metal barked off bone.

Bone lost but the force of the hit still ran back up his arms anyway. It didn’t really matter though, not when the thing’s skull surrendered with that easy give he was already getting used to. He let the body rebound, brain bouncing around inside and off the floor, before Kenny drove the pipe down through its nose, cartilage turning to wet dust as it ashed mid-scream.

"Bitch, get off me!"

Ken didn’t get a chance to whip around at the sound of Luigi’s scream, a high and panicked sound of his own leaving his throat as a shape came in tight at his right hip, the rush of air enough warning to get him to scramble back. The teenager twisted, conserving his momentum as he leapt off the wood beneath him. A busted pallet shattered underneath cheap low-tops as he let the pipe roll over his palm into a backhand. “DIE!” Steel clipped undead jaw and Ken didn’t hesitate to swing back again, pipe rammed clean through its open mouth.

"Clavo mortis confixus, cor et nervos disiunge—Clavus Mortis."

Luigi's voice, flat and focused as a knife edge, cut through chaos as he did his wizard shit. A nail of solid ash, black as night and hard as iron, shot from his finger, cracking the dark like a mean little Deagle bullet. The sprinting vampire turned into a nuclear shadow mid-step, dust before it even knew it was dead.

Ken didn't look back, trusting the sound the way you trust a green light, no second-guessing.

Three more were already coming, floor thrumming under their feet as he shoved the pipe under one arm. Both hands immediately snapping into seals; Ram, Tiger, Bird.

Three of them for a simple D-Rank jutsu. Still slow as hell.

He was pretty sure he could throw a baseball faster. Beggars can’t be choosers, whatever. Heat bloomed in his grip, the bright hard bead swelling like a building sneeze as pressure and fire mixed together in his palm.

"Katon: Enshō!"

A bolt of fire ripped from his hand, a flaming arrow of dirty orange that smacked center-mass on the lead vampire. A split second later, it burst to life like a Molotov, the thing screaming, high and thin. Frantic and panicked, it pinwheeled backwards into the two behind it, flame going everywhere and turning all three of them into a cartoonish tangle of burning limbs. 

Unfortunately…

God, that stinks! Ken pulled a face as fire ate shirt, hair, skin and pride all together. Forcing his head back in the game, he took the angle they left opne, sliding low on wet slick concrete.

The sixteen-year-old wove between kicking legs, and used the pipe like a lever into a knee. Pop goes the femur! The next newborn scrambled back but Ken kipped up and burst through its guard with strength three times its own, crushing its larynx with the butt end of his trusty rusty little friend.

Another one got a diagonal across the face, ear to jaw, sparks jumping where rust met tooth. Another vampire lost the ability to bite, skull caving in with that wet crunch he was hearing in his sleep now.

"Exspire hostem in flamma rubra, cinis fiat—Ignis Cineris!"

Luigi's ember bloomed white-hot at arm's length, brighter and hotter than his Flame Shot ever got and the short cone burst across the face of a vampire trying to flank them, and blew half its snarling face to bad meat and gristle. The newborn staggered into a pillar, smoking like old jerky before ashing where it stood.

Ken stole a heartbeat for a breath he didn't deserve, jumped back, flipping into the air as a vampire leapt after him. Ram, Tiger, Bird again, as heat stung his palm like touching Ma's iron when she wasn't looking.

"Katon: Enshō!"

Fire and fury caught the leaper mid-air; the jutsu punching in right under its chest, and blooming right out through the back in a flower of fire a full second before black ash found itself mixing with old fish scales.

Before Kenny could even so much as cheer, more screaming hisses caught his attention. The dreadhead whipped his head around as a clusterfuckery more of vamps rushed their way, pouring out a side hallway like spilled ink. A dozen?

No.

More. Definitely more. Way more than a dozen, maybe two, three even? Fuck fuck fuck.

"How bout we call this whole thing off, huh?"

They didn't seem to care for his offer; eyes caught the light, teeth bared like knives, and the sound they made was like a blender full of pennies. What I get for trusting a fucking Italian. His stomach tried to drop but he stapled it back in place with pure uncut rage, Sharingan spinning faster and faster until the world went sharp and clear and too fucking bright.

"Spiculum umbrae, cor perfode et sanguinem stilla—Spiculum Umbrae!"

A spear of dark ash snapped into existence from said Italian and went flat and true, flying with all the speed of a trademark Victor Rios 100 mph fastball. Go, Bloodhounds. The spear drove through undead flesh, pinning a body to the corrugated metal wall right behind it. The monster flailed like bad laundry on a clothesline, arms windmilling as it tried to pull itself free.

His friend didn't bother to watch it dust, the redhead already moving in a dead sprint, cutting angles, goth-boy boots loud on wet concrete.

Ken didn’t get to watch it go poof either as something hit him from above, scrambling for his head with sharp hands and sharper nails. Ceiling crawler! Ceiling crawler!

Boy and bloodsucker went down together, Ken doing his best to roll with it as he fought on pure instinct. Inertia bought him one precious second, then he twisted and kicked off a pillar, slamming forward to jam the pipe into the monster's open jaw like a crowbar.

Leverage, leverage, leverage; and with one final yank, the thing’s skull popped free with a  loud crunch.

Ash coated the black of his clothes with all the force of a dead-winter snowdrift even as he was already up, lungs burning cold air and worse. "Fucking h-!"

"-ineris!" Luigi's voice cut through everything else for a split second; over a dozen angry vamps drowned out by a screaming angry hiss of one goth wizard boy. A split second later, the sound of ash spun up as said goth conjured a magical horizontal saw of dark ash that sang through the air. Holy… Ken’s eyes went wide even as he ran from his own mess, unable to help himself at the sight of a newborn's forearm peeling off like someone skinned a tree branch, blood misting black in the bad light as he gushed like an oil spill. The blade bit a second time as it dusted to nothing, and by the third, a runner chasing Kenny's back found himself sans legs.

Three wild swipes hit the metal right above him as Ken just barely let himself drop to slide underneath a steel table, impacts ringing like church bells. He shrugged the crossbow off his back and risked a wrist-flick to draw the bold back. One shot, make it count. He popped up, sighted down the rail as his Sharingan spun, held his breath tight and squeeze— 

Thunk.

Three heads raised up in confusion, the last look they ever wore one of their mouths open and not in hunger. 

The bolt tore through the first, lanced through the second, and punched a third eager face right right through the eye, stapling the last of them to a support beam. The body flopped, legs bicycling uselessly in the air before the undead flesh became very-dead dust. Kenny dumped the bow back over his shoulder, vaulting over the table to meet the next hungry hungry hemophile, hands already a blur. 

Ram → Tiger → Bird. Heat. 

“Katon: Enshō!” 

The newborn in his way became a cloud of vaguely blood-smelling incense as the bloodsucker next to it scrambled backward two steps on reflex alone. Ken rushed forward and filled the space with wild, superhuman swings. He didn’t bother to count hits; he counted the moment he had to cough back a mouthful of dirty dust.

Even through the Sharingan, dust was a problem.

It quickly became a bigger one.

“Fu-!”

A hand grabbed the back of his hoodie, the grip strong enough to tear him off his feet. He felt himself get yanked backward as something hit him full-speed from his blind spot, teeth almost burying themselves in his windbreaker as he was tackled into a side door. Fuuuuuckkkk! The Sharingan spun faster, red eyes going at full speed, as Ken burst himself out of his teeth and grabbed the neares thing he could.

The bloodsucker’s hair was greasy in his hands, but that didn’t stop him from yanking it back and hurling it with all the strength chakra gave him, sending the monster airborne. “Katon: Enshō!”

The first became little more than a giant cigarette butt, but that didn’t stop the corridor from narrowing as more bloodsuckers barrelled his way. “Katon: Enshō!” “Katon: Enshō!” The first torched a chest; the second bit an arm and wrapped the limb in hungry orange. 

The vampire beat at itself, a high, short scream tearing from its throat. 

Ken spun back and cracked its skull open while it was trying to learn about stop, drop, and roll.Taking a quick breath, Ken dove through double doors and back into the main warehouse area.

"Ferrum cineris, sagittas decem simul emittite—Decem Spicula!" Luigi’s shout came from the right of him. Ken turned in time to see his friend do the same, the goth Italian spinning in place like a lazy, murderous Beyblade as ten dark bolts of ash kicked off from his hands; a fan of force propelling what might as well have been steel.

Three newborns went down before Ken could blink. Two more flinched, and that gave him the space to breathe. Finally. 

It didn’t last.

They came out of the freezer hall in a wave. Thirty might have been generous. Maybe it was twenty-six. Could have been… fifteen? The number didn’t matter as the space in the warehouse shrank around it.

“We got runners!”

White fire punched into the crowd with a scream of "Ignis Cineris!"; the blaze turning a cluster of them into shrieking silhouettes. Ken roared his own way into the bright; pipe first as the teenager swung on syllables.

“I.” He broke teeth, a whole jaw unzipping sideways.

“Hate.” Another Flame Shot, another torso lighting up like a bad lantern.

“Fucking.” Swing through. Hip to shoulder. Something tore.

“Vampires.” He didn’t know if he said it out loud this time, but he felt it deep in his soul as the pipe sang.

A harmony of pain joined his song, a rake of claws across his ribs—nails, bone-deep—but the chakra made him as tough as he was strong. His song became a roar as he answered with elbows and the heel of his hand, with the wall, with a cruel shove that made a skull meet a jutting bolt of ash flying from Luigi’s direction.

“Spiculum Umbrae!” Luigi’s second bolt ripped past Kenny, the ash turned iron coring a vampire that had decided to pounce from above.

"Lamina Cineris!" The ash blade whirled out as the goth spun with it, a horizontal scythe of spinning death. Ankles parted with screams, and the space around them was suddenly populated with bleeding stumps.

Three more hand seals in barely two seconds flickered from Ken’s fingers, becoming six more Flame Shots as he extended the jutsu. 

Six legless vampires became bodiless ash. 

Seven. Eight. Nine. 

The count of the last one scraped the back of his teeth as the heat gathered even slower in his palm each time now; his chakra pool half-shallow and no time to rummage around for another juice box. 

Half… half isn’t good.

Half wasn’t bad, either.

Not empty, but definitely not safe.

He took his time with the tenth use of the jutsu —Ram, Tiger, Bird— as he focused the bead tight and fired it off, Ken’s aim true as he put the bolt of flame right through a mouth open mid-scream. 

For all of a second, the vampire made a perfect Ghost Rider impression before the bolt exploded out the back of the skull, painting the wall in a bad mural of blood and dust.

“F-fuck!” Pain made him stumble back, head rattling as he took a hit he didn’t see. A claw across the cheek; it was shallow, but that didn’t mean he liked the taste of his own blood. Kenny stepped into the next lunge from the half-feral newborn wearing a full suit like an accountant.

With a grunt, he caught the wrist with his own raw strength and snapped the thing backwards. 

He shoved, shoved harder, taking the thing off its feet as the vampire screamed; clearly not used to pain in a while. Kenny screamed back at it as his fest went down and spiked the bloodsucker into the concrete with body weight plus borrowed rage. 

He felt the concrete complain. He did not apologize as he brought the pipe down on another skull.

Luigi hit a knee, palm down, breathing like a runner on lap eight. His free hand flicked, dropping ash caltrops that ate the traction from a hungry little knot of newborns. "Clavus Mortis," he said low, his fingers shaky. 

An ugly fan of holes punched through the space in front of the ladder and cleared his landing as Luigi’s chest heaved, sweat pouring down a face just as pale as the last five of the unrelenting bloodsuckers they were fighting. 

Luigi darted to the right as Ken took his way left, neither of them needing to look back at each other. As expected, the vampires took the bait and split their attention. Kenny grinned back at one of the bloodsuckers. One cheap slice of attention. 

Luigi’s iron claws shaved a forearm off at the elbow.

Ken’s pipe cratered a skull and he burst through a wall of ash.

The rest stumbled back and the circle broke. 

By the time they had finished dusting, the very last one didn’t even bother fighting as she realized she was suddenly alone. Red eyes dimming slightly, she looked barely any different from a normal college girl in Bludhaven downtown this time of night on a Saturday. Unfortunately for the vampire in a miniskirt, Luigi’s breath came out rough with a barked spell one last time.

“Clavus Mortis.”

The nail took the runner in the chest, right where its heart should be. The thing pitched forward, and started to crawl on her hands for a single second, only to explode to ash as its body finally gave out.  

Ken listened to his own pulse try to break its cage, chakra pool settling down from way past what he considered safe. Too close. Way too fucking close.

Luigi slid down a pillar and slumped on his ass gracelessly, blood dripping from his forearm in a weeping cut that was already slowing down. 

"Bad idea.” His throat was rough and torn, all that screaming and hollering clearly having done a number on him. With a low groan that tasted like copper in his throat, Kenny let himself sink to the wet floor across from Luigi, pipe clattering at his feet. "You have bad ideas."

Luigi coughed a laugh that wasn't a laugh. "Yeah."

Ken closed his eyes, hands shaking as cold air climbed up his back where claws tore through his windbreaker. Ma's gonna kill me for that.

"Next time," Luigi said after a minute, "we scope the spot before we go huntin'."

Ken snorted out, the sound half a choked breath. "Next time," he said, keeping his eyes shut for a minute longer, "we don't follow vampires inside fuckin' buildings at all."

"...fair," Luigi coughed again, phlegmy and wet. "How you learn to fight like that, bro?"

"Nigga, this Bludhaven, where you think?"

"...fair."

They sat there in peaceful silence for a few more seconds, then…

"Ken..."

He didn't open his eyes. "What..."

"Why did a fuckin' book just appear with your initials on it?"

Ken didn't open his eyes, too tired to care. "Fuck if I know, bruh."

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Newborn Nestbreaker – 250 NP

Survive and clear an entire hidden vampire nest—50 + vampires.

ROLL: [Kei Conservation – Chrome Shelled Regios] – 100

You have learned how to make do with less. You require 25% less energy for all techniques, this is increased to 50% for techniques that require constant energy use.

T-T-Triple Kill – 100 NP

Kill three vampires in a single attack (crossbow bolt through three heads).

ROLL: [Fighting Fit – KoF Rugal Saga] – 0

It wouldn't do for someone to be in a fighting tournament who wouldn't even pass

the physical. So take this Perk. It provides you with the stamina, durability, and general strength to hold your own against your average opponent on the street even before any other training. Oddly, this Perk stacks with itself to enhance those categories again and again.

Bash Brothers – 100 NP

Combo kills with a partner.

ROLL: [Right of Conquest – Harry Potter Fanon] – 400

Whenever you kill a fellow magical (or local equivalent) you are now able to claim all their property and assets through the (totally legit and legal, wink wink nudge nudge) right of conquest.

Kill Streak – 100 NP

Ten confirmed finishes without reset or retreat.

ROLL: [Monster Dictionary – Rosario+Vampire] – 100

A book cataloguing the commonly known abilities, folklore, and appearance of every sentient monster species in this setting. Each species has a description around five to seven sentences long. In future worlds, this book will expand to have additional pages describing those worlds’ supernatural races in the same manner.

Nexus Points: 200