Scarlet

I clear my throat before turning to the kid and asking, “Anyways, why are you here?”

He points at himself, and I can’t help but add, “Yes, you.” So he answers, “I was here because of my dad.”

That has me raising a brow.

This makes two Demonic Assaults in a row that he was caught in a Fracture during.

“You have bad luck,” I state with a firm nod of my head, convinced of my words before turning around to face Belle again while saying, “Belle, your parents are both currently dealing with a Class IV Fracture, and the rest of the Association’s Guardians are all busy at the moment. So we’ll have to deal with this on our own-” I pause with a glance towards the kid “-and with the help of any other Guardians who got caught up in here.” I turn around to look at Michael as I ask, “None of them were reported to be above Class I though, right?”

He nods, making me frown.

“Looks like we’re gonna have to protect the people from the demons until backup can arrive,” Michael adds before taking the lead, “let’s first bring these three to one of the bunkers. Then we can use Scarlet’s hearing to find any people who aren’t already in a bunker.” He pauses for a second before nodding his head towards me and adding, “And you can kill as many as you want along the way, of course.”

My frown turns into a grin despite our situation.

Damned instincts.

“No use fighting your instincts,” Tar says into my mind, both him and his brother having vanished at some point during my squabble with Arthur. “Especially since they’re only going to grow stronger the closer you get to being a full blooded blood lycan.”

My mouth parts slightly at that, but I close it again without making a response.

That’s true. But I do need to fight them in some situations at least.

Anyways, we all begin to make a plan for dealing with this Fracture. And by ‘we all’, I mean my team, leaving the others out. Since a Fracture with zombie spawn in it is not a good Fracture to start out with as a new Guardian. And especially not a good place for the civilians

Oh, right. That reminds me.

I turn to the kid right when we’re about to head out of the train car before asking, “By the way, what was your name again? I kind of forgot.”

His face turns red from anger.

Hey, not my fault I don’t remember the name of the rich kid I saved. I never expected to see you again.

The others seem curious as well, seeing as no one ever actually introduced the kid’s name to them.

He eventually takes a deep breath and answers, “Julian Arc.”

His name seems to affect Denise as she tenses up slightly, which makes me curious. And when she sees the look I’m sending her, she relaxes again and whispers, “He’s the son of the CEO of Magic Arc. The company that creates and maintains these trains and their stations in every single city.”

Oh. So he’s a rich kid amongst the rich kids then?

I glance at him for a few seconds, seriously pondering over if my treatment of him may or may not have been something I might wanna fix knowing his identity. But then I just shrug, since he really doesn’t seem like the type to hold a grudge.

He blushes too much for that.

Not to mention that I can tell he seems to feel something towards me – gratitude if I had to guess, or admiration – likely due to my saving his life. So things are fine.

Right as we begin walking over to the same door that we passed through to get in here though, I feel something just barely graze my ears, sending a wave of goosebumps down my spine and making me physically jump nearly three meters forwards while spinning around and spreading the claws of my shifted hand out to prepare to attack whatever just touched me, only to find Belle grinning while waving her hand at me. Then my eyes narrow.

“No touching the ears,” I practically growl at her before ignoring the looks the others are sending my way and hurrying out of the car, then out of the train entirely while passing by the first group of civilians we ran into and waving at them to follow.

Why the fucking hell are my ears so sensitive?!

“I already told you-” Tar begins, but I cut him off right away with a short, ‘Zip it.’

Just because I have incredible hearing doesn’t mean that a single light touch to my ears should send shivers down my spine like that. It’s just way too much.

I can practically feel the amusement in the tanuki’s next words as he says, “If you say so.”

The moment I step out of the train and find a bunch of lower leveled zombies lumbering around, I can’t help but follow my instinct to hunt them all out of irritation, just ripping them all to shreds with my claws – both my shifted and blood ones. During this process though, I am snapped out of my bloodlust by the realization that blood boil doesn’t do anything to these zombies.

Then there’s also the fact that blood thirst doesn’t seem to activate when killing zombies that were turned.

So I pause and focus on the others, who had left the train as well and are dealing with zombies as well, with Belle actually helping out a little with her barriers. Not that they are doing much. But it’s probably netting her a lot of EXP nonetheless, so whatever.

I also notice that Emily is frowning, so I move back to meet up with them again, surprising them for a moment as I ask, “Emily, are they immune to your skills?”

Her frown grows wider at that, and she nods her head, saying, “Viral Inducement isn’t doing anything to them, and they’re just plain shrugging off the necrotic needles.”

“Yeah, thought so,” I mutter before adding my bit, “they seem to be immune to blood boil too. And they don’t have any life energy to drain.”

Michael steps back, his treants sending a zombie flying as he says, “Looks like this’ll be tougher than we thought then.” He then glances at me and adds, “And you might actually need to stay closer in case I need to heal you.”

I begrudgingly nod my head at that, only to frown when I notice the pleased expression on his face. One that actually seems to be shared by both Denise – who is straight up torching the zombies in a rather putrid smelling battle several meters away despite having likely heard us – and Emily.

“What has you so happy?” I ask while narrowing my eyes.

“Oh, nothing,” Michael says, trying and failing to smother his grin as his eyes glow green, signifying that he’s sharing his vision with his hawk, “just that this means you’ll finally truly be working as a team with us instead of going on a rampage when there aren’t any stronger demons around.”

I hear snickering coming from the three people we’re guiding to the bunker.

Deciding that silence is the best choice here, I don’t respond and instead begin joining Denise in killing the demons close to the group. But while being a bit more careful in regards to taking wounds this time, since I can’t just life drain them to heal anymore. Even if the blood moon is out and shining through the skylight straight on us.