Blood Bond

Chapter 1 – Into the Light

She ran.  To a casual observer, she looked almost like an average woman running headlong in a mad chaotic fearful run through a thick dark forest in the middle of the night.  She wasn’t.  Her seemingly panicky run was interspersed by frequent prodigious leaps and bounds from one tree trunk to another.  She would stay near a tree for several precious seconds before leaping away to another with a mighty jump that would have put any Olympic class athlete to shame.  Her long heavy overcoat, capable of deflecting knives, claws and even bullets became a liability in her flight.  After being caught more than once on an errant branch, she shrugged the overcoat off and threw it with all her might in another direction.  She hoped that it would throw off pursuit for a few more minutes.  She tightened her weapons harness again and touched her sole remaining weapon with an intimate caress.  Her sword, which had been with her for so long, which seen her through so many battles, was about to see her through one last battle.

It wouldn’t be long now.  Already, she could hear the howling as her pursuers found her scent once more.  Where had it all gone wrong?  As she ran, she gave the question serious thought.  It had all started when she and her Elder Amelia had come to this accursed country.  It was time for the coven to reunite once more and she had gone ahead of her Elder, at Amelia’s request to scout out the situation from the shadows.    The vampires in this country had become decadent without the direct leadership of their Elder Viktor.  She snorted at the thought.  How anyone could willingly put their destinies in the hands of that scheming pervert was beyond her.  Still, at least he was better than the sniveling Kraven.  Her full lips arched upward in a smile of contempt.  At least they both got what they had deserved.  Her investigation into her Elder Amelia’s murder had led her into the heart of the lycan nest.  She had watched from the shadows as Viktor’s Death Dealers were massacred by the savage lycans.  Served them right!  Who in their right mind attacked a lycan nest during a full moon?  Her investigation had pointed her right to Kraven.  She had followed him into the warren and had barely managed to escape with her life.  She did manage to witness Viktor’s death at the hands of his precious Selene.  She had not been close enough to hear what was said between them, but she was sure it hadn’t been pleasant.  She had tracked Kraven back to Viktor’s mansion and again, had watched from the shadows as he and his team tried to murder Marcus but was in turn killed by the first true vampire.  Being stupid was a trait that Kraven had taken to the grave.  Marcus had left the mansion after that.  She was not sure where or on what errand, and she certainly didn’t want to find out.  With her Elder dead, she really had no where else to go.  A few days later, she had felt a severe headache that had threatened to tear her head apart.  That was when she knew that Marcus was dead too.  She didn’t know how and she didn’t really care.  Unfortunately, the lycans seemed to have known that something was up, hence her current mad dash through this evil forest with dozens of blood thirsty lycans on her trail.

So why was she running?  Wouldn’t it be better to turn around and face her enemies in one final glorious battle?  She was outrageously outnumbered, that was true, but she was used to overwhelming odds.  She touched the sword on her back lovingly.  She thought about her sensei, dead these last couple of hundred years.  He had not wanted to teach her at first but she had been most persuasive.  Perhaps it was time to unleash everything he had taught her.  Perhaps it was time for these vile savage lycans to feel the full wrath of her sword techniques.  Her master’s techniques had not been seen in hundreds of years - techniques that were reinforced by the might of her immortal body and vampire strength.  Yes…Perhaps it was time.

An abnormality up ahead almost made her pause in her flight.  It was a man…no, a boy.  He was standing in the middle of the forest, looking around as if he were in wonderland.  He was dressed in faded jeans and a torn t-shirt.  Her eyes met his briefly before she dashed pass him.

Damn it!  Who was he?  What the hell was he doing here?  She glanced back to see him take a fighting stance, right in front of a charging lycan.  Shit!

Before she could think twice, she zipped back down her flight path, grabbed the boy and hauled him after her.  She jumped once, twice and then decided to take a short break when the boy she had just rescued tried to break free.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

She didn’t have time for this!  The pack was closing in!  “Come with me if you want to live.”

The boy gave her a firm nod.  She decided that she would have to increase the estimate of his age.  He was showing a lot of maturity for someone caught in the middle of a waking nightmare.

Her enhanced vampiric hearing caught the sound of a running lycan.  “Too late,” she said quietly.  The young man followed her gaze until he too saw the lycan.  Instead of cowering in fear though, the young man stood firm.  What an idiot!  She pushed the young man roughly to the ground behind her and charged the lycan.

Her sword flashed in her hand as she leapt.  It flashed again as she swooped out of a picture perfect somersault.  The lycan’s head flew off its shoulders in a spray of thick viscous blood.  Her sensei would have been proud of her Ryukansen-Arashi technique.

The young man approached and asked, “What the hell is that?”

She replied in a grave voice, “That is a lycan.”

“A what?”

“A lycan.  Short for lycanthrope.”  The young man looked confused so she looked him straight in the eyes while trying to ignore how pretty they looked.  “A werewolf.”  She saw the dawn of comprehension and gave him a grin that purposely showed off her extended canines.

“Oh shit,” said the young man in a soft voice that showed his understanding.  The young man’s soft brown eyes were slightly upturned at the ends, giving him a look that was undeniably Asian.  In fact, the young man very much reminded her of –

A long howl punctuated the darkness.  She grabbed the young man’s hand and pulled him after her.  She kept a fast and furious pace and the young man was hard pressed to keep up with her.

The duo came upon some very large trees and the vampire saw an opportunity to try to throw off the pursuit.  She grabbed the young man from behind and jumped up to the nearest branch that was about twenty feet off the ground.  She tightened her grip on the young man and leapt to a higher branch on a neighboring tree.

She leapt again and again until she decided to settle on a large branch, some eighty feet off the ground.

As soon as the young man had gathered his wits, he asked the question that must have been paramount in his mind.  “What the hell is going on?”

She didn’t answer right away.  Instead she stared at him for several seconds, trying to decide how much to tell the young man.  She hated getting innocents involved in the war, but she had to accept that the young man was involved the second she had crossed paths with him.  She looked away, and then looked back; her mind was made up.  “There is a world, underneath the regular day to day mundane drag, and this…Underworld, is at war.”

“War?”

She nodded gravely.  “For centuries, the lycans and the vampires have been at each other’s throats.  Literally.”

The young man mulled that over and then asked, “So, that thing back there…that was a lycan…a werewolf?”  The woman in black nodded again and he forged ahead.  “And…you’re a vampire?”

She flashed her fangs at him again.  To another vampire, the flashing of fangs during a smile was usually an early sign of flirting.  Was she flirting with this young man?  Certainly she was impressed with his bravery, but that didn’t mean she was attracted to him, did it?  “What was your first clue?”

The young man barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes.  A normal human probably would have missed it, but she was anything but a normal human.  Her attempt at humor had been understood.  Good.

“My name is Alexandra,” she said.  “My friends call me Lexi, but if you say it’s because I look sexy, I’ll suck you dry!” she finished with a close-mouthed grin.

The young man returned the impish grin and said, ““My name is Shoryu.”  He held out his right hand and she shook it firmly.  “Thank you for saving me back there.”

“You’re welcome.”  His hand left a warm imprint on hers it almost made her miss his next question.

“Um, I don’t want to seem ungrateful or anything, but why did you?  Save me, that is.”

She said the first thing that came to her mind.  “Well, I am a vampire after all.  Perhaps I wanted to snack on the run!”  Damn it, she thought, she was flirting!

They shared a laugh that probably had more to do with sudden nervousness on her part than actual humor.

“Seriously, I think you had a pretty fair lead on that lycan back there.  If you hadn’t stopped to pick me up, you could have outrun him and his friends.”  Shoryu was looking at Lexi with a rather intense gaze.

She looked around in a vain attempt to pierce through the thick branches.  Not even her vampiric vision was up to the task though.  “Perhaps,” she said with a shrug.  “But, most of the Death Dealers are dead along with the Elders.  The coven is destroyed.  The lycans appear to have finally won the centuries old feud.  Perhaps I’m only running to see how many of the bastards I can take with me before my turn to die comes.”

Shoryu looked confused but tried to rally.  “Death Dealers?  Is that what you are?”

Lexi shook her head and held her head up proudly.  “Not just a mere Death Dealer.  I am a Kill Master!  My Elder, Amelia, named me herself.”  Her expression turned dark once more.  “She was treacherously struck down by the lycans and their traitorous vampire co-conspirators.”

She saw the confused look on his face and decided to explain further. “The Death Dealers are the militant arm of the vampire clan.  No, not just the militant arm.  They specialize in the hunting and killing of lycans.  Their skills and strength are well beyond those of the average vampires – most of whom are weak and decadent.  A Kill Master is one whose skills and strength are beyond even those of the Death Dealers and whose lycan kills number in the thousands.”

A faraway howl silenced the pair.  They listened for several moments but when they didn’t hear anymore howls, they relaxed a bit.  “The war has raged for over eight hundred years.  I have been fighting it for a very long time and I’m tired.  I’m tired of the constant fighting, tired of losing my comrades one by one to those disgusting animals, and most of all, I’m tired of seeing innocent parties be dragged in against their will.  If that lycan had bitten you, you would have turned into one as well, and I would have had to kill you.”

Shoryu didn’t say anything.  Instead, he kept looking at Lexi with the same intense look, almost as if he understood exactly what Lexi was trying to say.  She flushed under the intensity of Shoryu’s gaze and looked away to hide her flush.  When she got her temperature under control, she looked back and when she next spoke, her voice conveyed her curiosity and wonderment.  “You weren’t scared.  A fully changed lycan was charging at you full bore and you weren’t scared.  By the time I turned around to grab you, you looked as if you were prepared to fight the lycan bare handed.  Not a very smart move, but incredibly brave.”

As a warrior, Lexi could understand and respect the spirit of a fellow warrior.  She could still remember how Shoryu had looked as he adopted a fighting stance and prepared to meet the lycan head on.  Not many seasoned Death Dealers would attempt fight a lycan barehanded.  That was one of the problems with this war.  With the advent of new weapons capable of bringing down both vampires and lycans, like the UV rounds and the silver nitrate bullets, both sides were losing much of their combat prowess.  Battles shouldn’t be fought from a distance with tiny bullets capable of killing a vampire with one shot.  It should be fought up close and personal, steel against claws.

“So, that sword of yours, is it made of silver?”

Lexi was a little surprised at the naiveté of the question.  Then she remembered who she was talking to.  She chuckled softly and then said, “Silver?  Where did you get that silly conception?  Never mind.  I know.  Many of the stories concerning the weaknesses of lycans were told by the lycans themselves.  Call it a campaign of disinformation.  Silver will slow down a lycan, whose speed by the way, is incredibly fast, but will not ultimately kill it.  However, I have always found that a lycan without its head has a hard time staying alive.”  In fact, her sword was an almost priceless artifact from an almost forgotten age.  It had been presented to her by her sensei when she had completed his rigorous training.  Thinking of her sword made her think of her long dead sensei, and suddenly she realized why she was so attracted to the young man in front of her.  He reminded her very much of her sensei.  She knew the dangers of prejudging based upon appearance, but not only was Shoryu of the same race as her sensei, his face held the same battle-hardened maturity combined with a youthful zeal.  What was with her attraction to Japanese men anyway?

Oblivious to her inner musings, Shoryu nodded his understanding and asked, “How about vampire weaknesses?  Are they all false too?”

Her face turned grim, as she said quietly, “Not all of them.”

There was an awkward silence as both Lexi and Shoryu searched for a topic that was less sensitive.  The sound of a branch cracking was all the warning they hand.  In a flash, she jumped to her feet just as a snarling snapping lycan leapt onto the branch.  As it lunged for her, she planted one foot solidly on its head and then somersaulted into a vertical back flip.  As she came back around to face the lycan, her sword flashed straight and true and bisected the lycan’s head down the middle.  As it fell, Lexi allowed her back flip to carry her off the branch and down and down towards the ground.  As she glided down, she fervently hoped that the young man she had saved would have the good sense to stay on the branch.  The lycans wanted her, and may decide to leave him alone in favor of the more attractive prize.

She saw several dark shapes below her, milling around at the base of the tree where she and Shoryu had been sheltering.  She was in a perfect position for a Ryutsuisen strike.  She landed briefly on a small branch, picked her target and then dived off.

A large dark bundle of snarling savage fury hit her from the side and knocked her off course and away from her intended victim.  It was all she could do to keep the lycan’s snapping jaws away from her unprotected face and neck.  One bite of those fangs would mean instant death for her.

The reverse, of course, was also true.  She pulled the lycan close and blocked one taloned arm with the hand holding her sword.  With her other hand, she gripped the lycan’s lower jaw and pushed up, exposing the lycan’s throat.  She ignored the lycan’s other arm and let it thrash uselessly behind her.  She bared her fangs and bit the lycan’s vulnerable throat.  It thrashed around in agony as her fangs transmitted the vampiric virus.  She knew of only one being who had ever survived having both the lycan virus and the vampire virus in its system.  Unfortunately for this lycan, it was not related to Alexander Corvinus.  Lexi used the momentum from the lycan’s death throes to rotate their falling bodies so that the lycan was beneath her as they hit the ground.

She bounced instantly away.  She transferred her sword to her left arm and held the sword reversed, with the blade pointing upwards.  In the dark, and in their currently changed and enraged state, the lycans wouldn’t see the sword as a threat until it was too late.

A man emerged from behind the ranks of the massed lycans.  “Kill Master Alexandra,” said the man.  “We meet at last!”

Lexi spit on the ground and grated, “Dog!  How did you become leader of the pack?”  Similar to the way her Elder Amelia had used Lexi as an inconspicuous shadow to scout out potentially dangerous situations, Lucien had often used Dog to sniff out vital information.  Far from being the strongest lycan after Lucien’s death though, Dog was intelligent and cunning in both of his forms.

Dog threw back his head and laughed.  “With Lucien dead, I of course, emerged as the strongest.”

Lexi spat again.  “Lucien was 10 times the lycan that you will ever be.  He, at least, was worthy of my blade!”

“Ah, but he’s dead - killed by his own treacherous vampire co-conspirators.  I, on the other hand, have no intention of placing my trust in vampires!”  Dog gave a wordless signal and the horde of lycans moved in.

A lycan charged her from the side.  The sword blade dropped to her side, and her right hand grasped the tsuka just under the fuchi.  The blade of the sword rested on her left forearm, simulating the saya that was on her weapons harness.  Her right foot was forward, and with her sword against her side, the lycan didn’t see it as a threat.

As a lycan came up, Lexi hunched her shoulders and swung her sword out in a deadly arch and pushed off with her feet in a forward jumping lunge.  The lycan’s blow went over Lexi’s head at the same time that Lexi’s sword swept through the lycan’s stomach.

“Ryushosen,” hissed Lexi under her breath as the lycan fell to the ground in two separate pieces.

Rather than halting her lunge and contemplating her handiwork, Lexi used her momentum to start a spinning motion that allowed her to avoid another lycan’s attack.  As her body completed a full rotation, her sword swept around and cleanly beheaded her adversary.

She landed with the gracefulness of a cat, her sword was held in a ready position in front of her.  No more lycans attacked her.  They were obviously intimidated at the ease with which she dispatched her foes.  Her sensei had taught her the Ryukansen-Tsumuji technique, but only someone with superhuman strength and speed could have strung two of her sensei’s sword techniques together.

The bulk of the horde formed a large circle around her.  She was effectively trapped.  Now, it was just a question of how many of the disgusting creatures she could kill before they pulled her down.

A strident authoritative voice called out, “Hold!”

As one, the lycans held their ground.  Lexi stayed in her fighting stance, awaiting the next lycan attack with her sword at the ready.

“Kill Master Alexandra, I’m sure we can pull you down eventually,” said Dog in a haughty tone.  “But, allow me to entertain you with one last game before your death!”

Lexi followed Dog’s gaze and looked back.  Her eyes widened as she took in the scene.  Her new friend Shoryu was in the arms of a huge lycan.  The lycan’s virus tipped fangs were inches from Shoryu’s unprotected throat.  “No!  Leave him alone!” cried Lexi.  “He’s not part of this!”

“Ah, but he is my dear,” crooned Dog.  “He became a part of this the minute we saw him.  We can always use more cannon fodder for our ranks.”

The lycan’s jaws snapped shut in an unspoken threat.  Lexi understood the implications immediately.  Drop her sword, or the boy would get bitten or eaten.  Lexi scanned the group.  She could still get away.  She was much faster than her adversaries and much more agile too.  She could get away, but then what?  The chase would continue, only this time, the young man who so reminded her of her sensei would be one of the disgusting animals baying for her blood.

She saw the expression on Shoryu’s face.  He wanted her to run.  Lexi straightened out of her stance and dropped her sword.

“Please,” she said softly, “let him go.”

The surrounding lycans all howled their laughter at the full moon.  Dog grinned evilly as he gestured to someone behind Lexi.  Two brutish lycans sauntered up and each grabbed one of Lexi’s arms.  When she was safely immobilized, Dog wandered up, picked up Lexi’s discarded sword and stood in front of her.

“You surprise me, Kill Master.  I didn’t realize vampires had hearts.  You make this all too easy!”  As if to punctuate his last word, Dog drove Lexi’s sword into her right shoulder.  If possible, her pale ivory face turned even paler.  She clenched her teeth, but refused to cry out in pain.  She would not give them the satisfaction!  Dog arched an eyebrow and said, “Impressive, Kill Master.  The night is young though.  I wonder if we can make you scream before the sun comes up!”

At the mention of the sun, the first signs of fear crossed Lexi’s face.  She had seen only a few vampires die from sunlight.  It was not as quick a process as popular fiction often portrayed.  It was a slow burning that leaves the victim screaming right up to the moment when the poor unfortunate’s throat was burned out.

Dog held up his right hand in front of Lexi’s face.  It changed into a large fur covered hand with long razor sharp talons.  Slowly and with agonizing precision, he drew the talon of his index finger down the front of Lexi’s outfit.  She bared her teeth again, and again refused to cry out.  Her dark blood flowed down the line of the cut and was barely visible against the background of her black outfit.  Dog grabbed the cut ends of the outfit and pulled them to the sides, exposing Lexi’s pale breasts to the moonlight.  The lycans howled their anticipation to the moon.

“It zips from the back, you moron!” said Lexi through grated teeth.

“I know it does,” responded Dog with an evil grin.  “But, this is much more fun!”

With his left hand, he fondled Lexi’s exposed breasts with a tauntingly gentle caress.  “You know,” he said conversationally, “rumor has it that vampires are great lays.  In fact, I hear they rutted on Amelia like animals before they ripped her throat out!”

Lexi hissed in anger at the mention of her dead Elder’s name.  Dog threw his head back and laughed.  How dared he?!  Lexi knew it was a lie.  Amelia’s beautiful and perfect body was marred only by the raw bloody wound that was once her throat.  It had been done intentionally since death by blood loss was second only to death by sunlight.

“Dog!”  Every eye turned to look at Shoryu.  “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

Lexi saw the resolute expression on Shoryu’s face and she instantly knew what he was planning.  No!  She couldn’t let him sacrifice himself.  She strained against her captor’s embrace and almost missed what happened next.

“GUYVER!!”

A brilliant sphere of light engulfed Shoryu.  There was a brief splash of blood as the lycan who was holding onto Shoryu became separated from his arms.  Strange tentacle like things sprang from Shoryu’s back and encapsulated him.  They wrapped themselves around his head, his chest and arms, as well as his legs and feet.  An instant later, the tentacles flattened and merged with each other, leaving Shoryu completely covered in some kind of armor.  Twin vents of compressed air streamed out of two rectangular-like holes on the helmet, where a mouth should have been.  The armor was completely black.  The eye pieces were blue and bug like.  There was a tall fin cresting the helmet and a high collar protecting the back of the neck.

The figure that used to be Shoryu took one step forward and Dog drew back, fear was etched all across his face as he beheld something that was totally beyond his simple understanding.  “K-kill it!” he cried.  Terror infused his quivering voice.

The mysterious figure flexed his arms and two long sword-like weapons extended from the forearms, just above the wrists.  Lexi had never heard the word Guyver before, but strongly suspected that whatever it was, she was looking at one right now.

A lycan lunged at the Guyver’s back and clamped its jaws on the armored collar.  Lexi winced as she saw several fangs snap off.  The Guyver dove forward, rolled and then leapt into the air.  The left sword swept through the lycan and cut off its head.  Another lycan attacked and the Guyver ducked under the talons and cut the lycan in half with his right hand sword.  A third lycan managed to hit the Guyver from the rear, but the Guyver recovered quickly and retaliated.

Lexi used the commotion to her advantage.  As soon as she was sure that all eyes were on the unfolding action, she broke free and wrenched her sword out of her right shoulder with her left hand.  With the same motion, she parted Dog’s head from his shoulders.

Just as the lycans who had been holding her began to react, she somersaulted backwards and lashed out with her sword.  The lycan on the left fell and its head rolled away.  Lexi landed in a crouch as the other lycan charged her.  Its swung a mighty blow that went over her head.  Lexi straightened from her crouch and slashed upward with her sword.  The lycan fell back with a spray of blood that came from a vertical wound that began from its groin and reached to its throat.

Everything became chaotic after that.  Lexi’s sword left a trail of blood and death as it wove through the ranks of the lycans.  Gone was conscious thought.  Gone was the self acknowledgement that she had allowed herself before for her earlier kills.  All the techniques she had learned from her sensei, techniques that were designed to confront multiple opponents while protecting the weak, blurred together until they became an endless stream of movement that left no prisoners.

Her new friend needed no protection though.  His odd swords clove through the lycans as if they were immaterial shadows.  His movements were somewhat clumsy though, and he was hit several times.  However, none of the hits managed to make even the smallest dent in his armor.  What the Guyver lacked in skill, he more than made up for it with his ability to leave as many dead lycans littering the forest floor as Lexi.

Perhaps it was from a silent signal.  Perhaps the lycans all lost heart at exactly the same moment.  Whatever it was, the result was the same.  As one, the surviving lycans broke from the fight and fled into the night.

In the sudden absence of battle, the silence of the forest was stunning.  Lexi and the Guyver were left staring at each other.  Neither was completely unscathed, but neither had suffered any major wounds.  The various cuts and scratches that had managed to penetrate her tough outfit were already healing.  Even the wound in her shoulder from the sword thrust was almost healed.

Lexi walked up to the Guyver and gave him an appraising look.  His appearance was utterly alien to her, but the warrior in her could respect the power and agility that the Guyver had.  She reached up with her right hand and touched the Guyver’s chest.  “So soft,” she said softly, almost as if to herself.  Her left hand brought up her sword and tapped his chest with it.  The sword and the armored chest made a high-pitched metal on metal chink sound.  “Yet hard,” her eyes widened in astonishment.

Their eyes met, and Lexi could feel nothing but admiration and respect for her friend.  There was also a certain amount of attraction but she made sure to guard those feelings.  “I like the look.  Your sword work on the other hand, is positively atrocious.  We need to work on that!”

“I like your look too,” the Guyver said in a bantering tone.  His voice, however, came out metallic sounding.  “You look just as sexy as your name implies!”

Lexi blushed and then remembered her earlier words.  She flashed her fangs while a little voice in the back of her head accused her once more of flirting.  She didn’t care.  She caressed her canines along the Guyver’s cheek and then planted a warm kiss on the same cheek.  This had gone beyond flirting now.  It was almost in the courtship stage!  It had been a long time since Lexi had even bothered with vampire courtship.  However, her emotions were riding high right now, and it felt right to ride the crest of the wave.

She pulled back and looked for signs of mutual attraction in the Guyver’s bug like eyes.  They were unreadable, but she thought that she could see at least some interest in the way the Guyver’s head was tilted to the side ever so slightly.

Suddenly, a mad chorus a howls interrupted the almost intimate moment.  Both the Guyver and Lexi stared down the path where the howls were coming from.  She didn’t know how good the Guyver’s eyesight was but she counted well over fifty lycans.

She tightened her grip on her sword and held it in a ready position.  Her face froze in an expression of barely contained fury and determination.  This was it!  She was going to die now.  There was no way, not even with the Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu techniques that she possessed, could she hope to live through the mad titdal wave that was surging towards her right now.  However, she vowed that she would not go down easily, nor would she die alone.

Lexi was surprised when a surprisingly gentle hand grasped her shoulder and pushed her back.  The Guyver’s hands reached up to his chest plates and Lexi heard a strange sound that made her think of wet rags being shredded.

A strange unnatural light came from the Guyver’s chest while a low barely audible hum vibrated in the night air.  The hum rapidly grew in volume and intensity.  At the same time, the light coming from the Guyver’s chest grew brighter and brighter.  Lexi didn’t know if she should cover her ears or close her eyes.

Before she could decide, the choice was taken from her.  A vast tidal wave of light burst from the Guyver’s chest and smashed into the horde of lycans.  Just before she was forced to close her eyes and cover her face with her hands though, she saw the lead lycans simply disintegrate under the destructive beam.

Even with her eyes closed and her hands covering her face though, the light was too intense to be completely blanketed out.

A few seconds later, the light disappeared, and Lexi hesitantly uncovered her face and opened her eyes.  The silence in the forest was deafening, but it was nothing to what her eyes saw when they adjusted to the darkness of the night.  There was nothing left of the lycan horde.  It fact, there was nothing left of the forest directly in front of her.  It was as if God had laid down His mighty hand and negligently backhanded the lycan horde away.  There were several charred and smoking lumps though, and Lexi wasn’t sure if they were the remains of trees or lycans.

What on earth was the Guyver?  What kind of power did this being possess?  Lexi touched a hand to the Guyver’s shoulder and turned him around.  She stared directly into his eyes and she could feel the wonderment and amazement spilling from her own.

All of a sudden, the Guyver’s armor split and lifted up and off.  The tentacles regained their individuality and pulled back into the back of Shoryu’s neck.  The young man who had identified himself as Shoryu stood revealed once more.

Lexi gazed into his face.  The similarities to her sensei were still there.  Of course, Shoryu lacked her sensei’s blazing red hair.  His beautiful face also lacked the X shaped scar that had adorned her sensei’s face for most of his life.  There was a haunted look around his eyes though.  It was the look of a person who was used to wandering.  A vagabond.  She was sure, without asking, that Shoryu had spent much of his life running.

She touched Shoryu’s face lightly for a moment before reaching around to the back of his head and pulled him close.  She kissed him, full on his lips, and the electric thrill of the contact spread through her entire body.  She felt his arms encircle her in response and she nearly melted into them.  As her body leaned in though, she felt a different kind of response from the young man.

She pulled away slightly, glanced downward and then back up to his furiously blushing face.  “Is that a roll of quarters in your pocket or are you glad to see me?” she asked tartly.

His hands stroked down her back and came to rest piously at her waist.  “Definitely glad to see you…alive that is.”  His hands stroked up her arms and onto her shoulders.  He gently pushed her back a bit so that he had a clearer view.  “And I’m definitely glad to see so much of you!”

She was sure her own flush matched his as she suddenly remembered that she never did have a chance to pull her outfit back over her exposed breasts!

Shoryu gently grabbed the cut edges of her outfit and pulled them together to cover her breasts.  Now her outfit looked as if it had a cleavage all the way down to her waist.  She flashed him a brilliant smile and leaned into his neck.  Her fangs caressed his skin before she moved her mouth up to his and gave him another full-blooded kiss.  This was definitely in the courtship stage!

The kiss ended slowly as both of them came to realize that the night was no longer as dark as it once seemed.  As they broke the kiss, they both turned as one to look at the light that had appeared as if by magic about twenty feet away.  He took her hand and led her towards the light.

Lexi was entranced by the light.  She knew, instinctively, that the light was a doorway of some kind.  Was this how she had come to meet Shoryu tonight?  She had lived for over eight hundred years and had never heard of anything that remotely resembled the Guyver.  Was he from a different world?  Or a different dimension?

About two steps away from the light, they paused.  Here, the feeling that the light was actually a doorway was even stronger.  But a doorway to what?  There was only one way to find out and an almost overpowering sense of curiosity gripped Lexi.

Shoryu took a step forward and Lexi followed.  He took another step, but Lexi resisted.  He looked at her and she looked back with an anxious expression on her face.  She glanced around at the forest, and even though she wasn’t thinking about the forest, her meaning was quite clear.  If they took that next step, Lexi would be leaving the world that she knew, possibly forever.  They had no idea of what lay on the other side of the door of light, but only knew that to step through was to step into the unknown.

Shoryu gave her a small smile and a lopsided shrug.  It was a comical gesture that said, ‘where’s your sense of adventure?’  However, his eyes said something else entirely.

Lexi didn’t know much about her new friend, but she did know a few things.  He was obviously a warrior, used to a life of war and loss.  In her mind’s eye, she could once again see anguish on his face as he silently urged her to run and the defiant look on his face just before he changed into the Guyver.  How many times had Lexi felt the same surging emotions?  Too many times.  This world held nothing for her now, other than bad memories of endless centuries of death and war.  She had no ties to anyone, except to the strange warrior holding her hand.  She may not trust the door or what lay beyond, but she knew that she could trust Shoryu.