Chapter 11 – Love Will Find a Way

Lexi stepped out of the dark portal and emerged in the middle of a jungle.  There were gigantic trees all around her and the resulting canopy created by the leafy branches blocked off most of the dimming sunlight.  Azazel had opened the portal for her so she had absolutely no idea where she was.

It didn’t matter though.  There was a flutter in her heart and she had the unshakable feeling that Shoryu was close by.  She examined her surroundings and noticed several large human shaped footprints indented into the ground.  She had a pretty good idea who had made those footprints!

She checked her katana.  It was hanging from a European style sword harness on her left side.  She had opted for the side harness rather than her usual back harness because her cloak would have restricted a fast draw from a back harness.

While keeping her senses alert for any traps, Lexi began to follow the footprints.  Even without the footprints, it would have been easy to follow Afrael’s path.  He had stalked through the jungle without a care for anything in his way.  His path was littered with broken trees and dead animals.

The sun was almost completely set when Lexi came across a large cave entrance on the side of a small mountain.  It was almost completely pitch black inside of the cave, but Lexi’s vampiric vision could make out some details.

The sides of the cave was rocky and uneven, but about one hundred feet in, the walls and the floor suddenly became even and smooth, as if someone had carved the inside of the cave.  As Lexi progressed deeper, she kept listening for heartbeats.  She was unsure about her new ability, and she was unsure if her enemies even had heartbeats, but it was all that she had to rely on.

After what seemed like hours, Lexi arrived at her destination.  There was no way it could have been anything else.  Twin massive metal doors blocked the path.  She could not think of anyone else who could have put those doors there.  Her enhanced vision picked up strange symbols that had been drawn into the metal.  She had a funny feeling that something bad would happen if she tried to open the doors.

So, she didn’t.  She dematerialized and walked through the doors.  On the other side, she was presented with a vast circular chasm.  The only way down was a path of stairs that followed the circumference of the chasm.  Again, she had a feeling that taking the stairs would be a bad idea, so she jumped off the edge instead.

Before her most recent evolution, she and other vampires like her had the innate ability to float gently down from high places.  She had only known of one vampire who could actually fly.  Since her evolution though, she became much more than a vampire.  She still was not sure exactly what she was, and what she was capable of, but at least flying was no longer an obstacle.

As she flew down, she sensed strange heartbeats.  She pulled her cloak tight around her and hoped that it was enough to camouflage her from the Lilin guards.

It was.  She spotted several guard outposts dotting the path of the stairs.  In the guard posts, she could see at least three Lilin.  She remembered the three Lilin that had attacked her and Shoryu and figured that the number three must have some significance for the Lilin.

Lexi decided to learn a little more about her enemy.  She hovered outside a guard post and studied the Lilin inside.  As she had noticed earlier, this particular guard post had three Lilin.  She listened for the heartbeats and after several minutes, could distinguish between the three individuals.  Then she matched the heartbeats up to the voices that she could hear.  As with the group that she had fought with before, the group inside of the guard post consisted of one Lilu and two Lili – one male and two females.  The Lilin spoke in a language that Lexi didn’t understand but she understood the bawdy nature of the laughter that reverberated from the guard post.  Like humans, it appeared that the Lilin also appreciated a dirty joke!

Lexi continued her descent.  So far, there had been no sudden increase of heartbeat pulses around her so that she was relatively certain that her invasion was still undetected.

Eventually, she touched ground and she took several moments to scan her situation.  She was at the bottom of the chasm and there were several Lilin heartbeats all around her.  None of the heartbeats were close to her, but several of the heartbeats were just beyond the set of metal doors that she could see in front of her.  The faint thread of Shoryu’s essence was also coming from beyond that door.

How should she handle this?  Burst through the door with katana drawn?  She had no doubt of her ability to kill many of the Lilin, but could she kill enough to allow her to reach Shoryu?  If she could, would she be in any condition to fight Lilith?

The cloak that Rachel had given her had served her well during her descent.  Perhaps it would do so once more.  Lexi pulled the cloak around her and willed herself to dematerialize.  She floated several feet off the ground and approached the double doors.  She took a deep breath and then floated through the doors.

On the other side, she was surrounded by hundreds of Lilin – none of whom were in the least bit interested in her.  In fact, none of the Lilin even seemed to know that she was there.  They all went about their business, totally unaware of the strange being that had invaded their home.

As for their business, Lexi was shocked at what she was seeing.  Some part of her had assumed that being monsters, the Lilin would be engaged in monstrous activities.  That was not the case.

She found herself in the middle of what looked like a medieval market square.  The Lilin traveled in groups of three and they wandered from one vendor stand to another.  Even the vendor stands had at least three Lilin selling wares.  If it weren’t for the fact that all the denizens of this realm all looked like savage winged monsters, and the fact that there was no sunlight, Lexi would have thought that she was in a village of the middle ages.

Lexi floated through the market square.  In the distance, she could make out a large structure that resembled an ancient castle.  She started heading in that direction.  As she moved deeper and deeper into the village, she noticed that the wares that some of the vendors were selling became more and more out of place.  One vendor was selling human watches, while another vendor was selling live rabbits.  One vendor was selling puppies and another was selling kittens.  Nothing that Lexi had seen thus far seemed monstrous in the least.

Before she knew it, Lexi was past the village setting.  She floated up the long winding path and passed through the castle gates.  Once more, she was greeted by a market square environment, but this time, the wares that the vendors were selling were more in line with Lexi’s preconceived notions.  The main items on sale here were humans.

Humans of every size and shape were kept in pins all over the market.  Lilin trios wandered around the market, examining the humans as if they were fresh produce.  One vendor even offered prospective buyers a free taste test where a human male had been stripped naked and was bound to a large X shaped frame.  The proprietor of the shop would make a cut along the man’s arms and prospective buyers lined up to taste his blood.  Lexi looked at the man’s face closely and could see no sense of awareness in the man’s face.  He was staring stupidly in front of him, completely ignoring the activities around him.  He would wince in pain every time the proprietor cut his arm, but would make no other sound.

Lexi started to pay more attention to the other humans in the market.  All of them had the same blank expression.  She felt a cold chill run through her body as she realized that these humans were probably born and raised like cattle for the purpose of consumption by the Lilin.

Rage flared through her.  How dared they?  In her dimension, there had been strict rules and codes of conduct for the vampires that prevented this type of thing from happening.  The Coven had been more interested in learning to coexist with the humans and fighting the war with the lycans.  Occasionally, a vampire would break the rules and prey on the humans.  These vampires were always quickly captured and brought to justice.  Most of the vampires had subsisted on cloned human blood, and some like Lexi, had preferred it due to the lack of blood memories in cloned blood.

But this!  This was beyond barbaric!  If there was a God like the one Faye had described, how could He allow such an abomination to exist?

Lexi shelved her anger and continued into the castle.  She passed several pathways and rooms, but kept her course locked in on Shoryu’s presence.  She came to a set of magnificent doors and paused.  Shoryu’s presence was just beyond the doors.  She could also sense several Lilin heartbeats, a single giant heartbeat that thundered in her mind, as well as one other unidentifiable heartbeat.  That last one, she decided, had to be Lilith.

Lexi steeled her nerve and floated past the doors.  Inside, was a great hall with a huge, long dining table.  Seated along this table were dozens of Lilin.  On the far end, was Afrael, the giant.  He was standing behind a large throne-like chair, and seated on this chair was a beautiful woman.  Standing on the right of the woman was Shoryu.

Lexi felt her heart skip a beat.  She had found him!  With luck, maybe she would snatch him and be out of this nightmarish realm without anyone knowing that she was even there.

As she drew closer though, the woman on the throne looked directly at her and said, “Welcome child.  I have been expecting you.”

Lexi sighed and pulled the cloak away from her body.  She let it hang off her shoulders and willed herself to materialize as she pulled the hood off her head.  All the activity in the great hall stopped as all eyes stared at her.  Lexi saw anger, contempt and outright hatred in many of the Lilin faces.

One of the Lilin stood up and barked out commands.  In seconds, the doors behind Lexi burst open and hundreds of Lilin rushed into the great hall and surrounded her.

“Now, now children,” said Lilith in a placating tone.  That is not the way to treat our guest.

“You knew I would come?” asked Lexi.

Lilith tilted her head towards Shoryu and said, “His dreams are filled with images of you.  Other than his past, he doesn’t dream of much else.”  Lilith suddenly laughed and said, “Of course, now that he has met me, he doesn’t dream much of you anymore!”

“Release him!” shouted Lexi.

“Release him?  Whatever for?”  Lexi touched Shoryu’s shoulder and slid her hand down his body.  “Do you want to be released boy?”

Shoryu stared straight ahead and said in a monotone voice, “No, mistress.”

“And who do you love?”

“You, mistress.”

Lexi spat onto the ground and said, “What have you done to him, you bitch?”

The crowd of Lilin around Lexi muttered angrily and surged towards her.  Lilith’s authoritative voice rang out: “Stop!”  The crowd of Lilin backed away.

Lexi used her left hand and lifted her saya into a horizontal position.  Her right hand hovered over the tsuka.  “How many of your children are you willing to lose?”

“Bold words from a mongrel!” said a Lilu that pushed his way out of the crowd.  He was flanked by two Lili.

The Lilu made a gripping motion with his hands and Lexi suddenly felt invisible chains bind her body.  The two Lili sauntered over with evil smiles on their faces.

“Children, stop!” shouted Lilith from her throne.

“This mongrel had the gall to invade our home, Mother.  I am going to taste her blood!” said the Lilu.

The Lilu who had cast the binding spell was about twenty feet away from Lexi.  Lexi struggled against her bonds but unlike the last time she was bound like this, this time, she actually managed to move ever so slightly.  She could move!  She was stronger now.  Maybe even stronger than the Lilu!

She imagined herself breaking free and applied the full force of her will.  She felt the bonds break and had time to see the shock register on the Lilu’s face just before she drew her katana.  The Lili on her right died in the same stroke that she used to draw her katana.  Lexi let her body follow the swing of the blade, spun around in a full circle and cut the second Lili in half.  As she spun back to face the Lilu who had tried to bind her, Lexi swung a vertical slash and focused her will on the edge of her blade.  Twenty feet away, the Lilu suddenly split into two pieces as if he were cut right down the middle.  The pieces fell away from each other and turned into ashes.

Lexi returned to a guard position as she surveyed the Lilin crowd around her.  There were shocked and angry mutterings, but no one else attacked her.

“ENOUGH!” cried Lilith.

The Lilin around Lexi parted like a wave and a path opened up.  Lilith was standing up and anger was written all over her face.  “I really do not like it when my children are killed, even if it is one of my descendents who is doing the killing.”

Lexi smirked and said, “So what?  Are you going to kill me now?”

Lilith waved dismissively and said, “No, but Shoryu here will.”  She patted Shoryu’s back and Shoryu stepped forward several steps.

“Guyver!”  The Omega Guyver armor encased Shoryu and the black suited figure extended two sword-like blade from above his wrists.

Lexi looked desperately at Omega Guyver and shouted, “Shoryu wait!”

Omega Guyver ignored her.  Suddenly, something Lilith had said registered on Lexi.  She looked at Lilith and shouted, “What do you mean descendent?”

Lilith smiled enigmatically and Lexi was suddenly forced to defend herself as Omega Guyver charged.  She blocked one of the hypersonic blades with her katana and hand to dance out of range as Omega Guyver swung the other blade at her.  She had seen what those blades were capable of, and knew that she couldn’t let herself be cut by them.  A single glancing blow would be enough to dismember her.

A faint glow on Omega Guyver’s head was all the warning she got.  She dematerialized just as a brilliant laser beam flared out towards her.  She heard a painful scream and knew that whoever was behind her was not so lucky.

They were stalemated.  Omega Guyver could not hit her while she was dematerialized and she could not hurt him in return.

Unfortunately, Lexi was not the only one who realized this.  Lilith raised her arms and chanted in an unfamiliar language.  Purplish light flared from her palms and suddenly, Lexi was no longer insubstantial.

Lexi ducked and rolled as Omega Guyver’s hypersonic blades hit the ground where she had been.  She blocked another blow and silently thanked Azazel for transforming her katana.  She knew that if Azazel hadn’t, her beloved katana would now be in pieces thanks to repeated blows from those hypersonic blades.

Lexi also knew that she could not stay defensive forever.  Eventually, Omega Guyver would get a lucky break and she would wind up dead.  The problem was, she was not sure of how much damage Omega Guyver could take.  She loved Shoryu and didn’t want to hurt him if she could prevent it.

She feinted with a low blow and then dashed in with high lunge.  Maybe she could incapacitate him!  Just before her blade point reached Omega Guyver though, she felt more than saw vibrating waves emanating from Omega Guyver’s mouthpiece.  Her thrust was stopped by these waves and the vibrations transferred through her sword, into her body and repelled her back.  Damn it!  She had not known that he could do that!

Omega Guyver pushed his advantage and charged forward.  Lexi was off balance and couldn’t bring her katana up to block in time.  She did the best she could.  She rotated slightly and hoped that she survived the next microsecond.

Her cloak followed her body’s movement and interposed itself between her and Omega Guyver’s attack.  Omega Guyver’s hypersonic blade hit the edge of the cloak and bounced away.  That had been unexpected by both combatants!

Lexi immediately saw that she had a slim chance.  She danced out of reach once more, pulled the cloak around herself and willed it to open a dark portal.  The cloak closed in around her and she vanished from sight.

An instant later, Lexi opened the cloak and reappeared behind Omega Guyver.  He was still staring blankly at the place where she had disappeared moments before.  Lexi flung her cloak around Omega Guyver.  At first she thought that it wouldn’t be big enough to cover both of them, but the cloak magically extended to accommodate the extra person.  Lexi willed the cloak to become a dark portal once more and the two lovers vanished.

---

Shoryu was dreaming.  He was making love to the most beautiful woman in the world.  He was lying on a ground that was lush with rich thick grass.  Connected to him at his hips was the mysterious woman.  She was straining against his body, making his body ring with ecstasy.  He had lost complete track of time, and he had no idea how many orgasms he had already experienced.  Each orgasm that ripped through his body was better than the last.  The only thing that Shoryu knew for sure was that he never wanted to stop making love to this woman.

“Shoryu!”

Shoryu frowned at the voice but kept his attention on the beautiful bouncing woman above him.

“Shoryu!”

The woman rippled, as if she was an image in a pond.  Shoryu frowned even deeper and reached up with his hands to grasp the waist of the woman.  Her rhythm was faltering and he tried in vain to help her keep her movements steady.

“SHORYU!”

Shoryu was really angry now.  There was a thundering pulse in his blood that was distracting him from his lovemaking.  The pulse was getting louder and louder.  In response, the movements of the woman above him were getting more and more frantic.  Shoryu was close to another orgasm and he knew that this one was going to be mind blowing.  He shut his eyes, hoping that he could shut out the voice of the intruder.

“I LOVE YOU!  SHORYU!  MY LOVE!”

Shoryu opened his eyes.  “Lexi?”  He looked around.  The woman was gone.  The lush landscape was gone.  Instead, he was hovering in complete darkness.  He felt strong arms holding him from behind, and though he could not see, he knew right away that it was Lexi.  “Lexi?  What…what’s going on?”

“Oh Shoryu!” exclaimed Lexi.  She placed a kiss on the back of the Omega Guyver armor.

Shoryu felt a thrill run through his body from that simple kiss.  “What happened Lexi?”

“You were captured by Lilith, my love.”

“Lilith?”

“Yes, what do you remember?”

Shoryu tried to think back, but already, the details of his dream was fading.  “I think I remember a woman.  She…”  An image of a woman riding him like a rodeo horse flashed through his mind.  “Ah..ahem…nevermind…”

Lexi leaned over the high collar on the back of Shoryu’s neck and playfully nipped his neck.  Her teeth couldn’t penetrate the armor of course but her message was clear.  “You are such an idiot for falling for such an old trick!”

“I’m sorry Lexi!  I…I have no excuse…”

Lexi grinned in the darkness.  “What?  No witty comeback this time?”

Shoryu shook his head morosely.  “I can’t believe I did that!  I’m so sorry Lexi!”

Lexi kissed him on his armored cheek.  “Do not worry about it my love.  Lilith is a master succubus.  I would have been worried if you had not reacted!”

Shoryu laughed in spite of himself.  “Maybe I just need a real woman to keep me in line!”  He turned himself around so that he was facing Lexi.  His armored arms hugged her tight.  “I love you Lexi.”

“I love you too Shoryu.”

“What do we do now?” asked Shoryu.

Lexi thought about it and said, “I can take us back to Azazel’s house now.”

“If we did that, Lilith might come after me again in my dreams.”

“True, but I think I can stop her now,” said Lexi.

“By keeping me exhausted and satisfied?” quipped Shoryu.

Lexi blushed in the darkness.  “That is one way.  However, have you not felt a growing bond between us?  I knew right away when you were captured.  I think now that I know what to look for; I can tell if you are ever threatened again.”

Shoryu reflected on the pounding pulse that had not quite subsided.  He realized that the pulse was the beat of Lexi’s heart.  “You are right.  But that wouldn’t stop her from coming after you, and we cannot hide in Azazel’s house forever.”

“You think we should go back.”  It was not a question.

“I do.  We need to take care of this threat.  Either we convince Lilith to leave us alone, or we kill her.”

“Does it have to be in that order? complained Lexi.  “If we just kill her, we save the effort of trying to convince her.”

Shoryu chuckled.  Before he could respond though, he suddenly had the sensation of spinning around and then of being pulled down.  In the next instant, he found himself inside a vaguely familiar underground room.  There was ambient light coming from thousands of candles all around the great hall.

“Nice trick child, but you should not have stayed on the dark path for so long.  You gave me a chance to track you.”  Lilith was facing them with an imperious expression on her face.

“What took you so long?” asked Lexi with a derisive tone.

“Do not trifle with me child!” said Lilith angrily.  “Azazel is not the only one to have escaped the Abyss, and your dark powers are nothing compared to mine!”  Lilith gestured to Shoryu and commanded, “Boy, kill the mongrel!”

Shoryu shook his head.  “I’m not under your thumb anymore.  I’ve got myself a real woman!”

Lilith shrieked and looked over at the giant Afrael who until now had remained still and silent.  “Afrael, kill them both!”

Afrael lumbered forward, blazing beams of light flashed from his hands.  Shoryu dove under the barrage and shouted at Lexi, “I’ve got the giant.  You take care of Lilith!”

He had just enough time to hear Lexi say, “With pleasure!”

Shoryu couldn’t spare any more attention on Lexi.  Afrael slammed a huge hand down at him and Shoryu barely managed to dodge.  His evasive maneuver took him directly into the path of another  blast of light.

He gritted his teeth against the pain of the assault but his armor protected him.  He fired back with his head laser but Afrael shrugged it aside as if it were a bee sting.  Shoryu danced back to give himself more room.  Unlike the lycans he had battled on the night he had met Lexi, Afrael had powers that were easily beyond those of common zoanoids.  In fact, Afrael’s power may even have surpassed most of the zoalords.

Shoryu dashed in and extended his hypersonic blades.  Afrael ignited a sword of light in his hands and swung it.  Shoryu slipped into his combat trance and saw the attack in slow motion.  He flipped his body so that he slipped over the sword of light and lashed out with his right blade.  It bit bounced away as it hit an invisible shield.  Afrael’s left hand swung down, and even though Shoryu saw it in slow motion, he could not evade the blow.

The titanic hand slammed Shoryu back and across the great hall.  He got his bearings quickly.  He switched his optic sensors to different frequencies, trying to find a weakness in Afrael’s defenses.  He finally found a frequency that showed an aura around Afrael.  Shoryu quickly realized that this aura was Afrael’s mystic defenses.  It was strong enough to deflect his head laser, and while his pressure cannon had limited success in his previous engagement, Shoryu knew that this time, Afrael’s shield was strong enough to repel even that.  No, Shoryu only had one weapon left that could defeat the giant.  He looked around the great hall to make sure that Lexi wasn’t in the line of fire.  In this enclosed space, his megasmasher would cause tremendous damage.  He would have to grab Lexi quickly after he fired so that they could make their escape.

Shoryu let the anger and rage he felt for being controlled so easily by Lilith fuel his megasmasher.  The rage burned like a volcanic fire as he reached up to his chest plates and ripped them open, exposing the rounded convex lenses of his megasmasher.  He zoomed his vision in on Afrael’s face and was surprised to see a broad smile.  Then, something incredible happened.  Because Shoryu’s vision was tuned to the right frequency, he saw it, but couldn’t quite believe it.  The spectral aura that was Afrael’s shield disappeared.

Shoryu’s megasmasher finished charging and whined with barely restrained power.  He looked Afrael directly in his eyes and said, “Die!”