A Grave Parting

[Ruby Rose]

Continued from Grave's death in the Secondary Saga

Alice tore through the chilly night air, her large, leathery wings beating against gravity as her own fatigue threatened to pull her down like a riptide... no, like the Swamp of Sorrow had taken José from her. The vampire shook the thought from her head and she bared her fangs at the darkened world around her in a fruitless attempt to frighten her fears... That's stupid, she scolded herself, eliciting a whimper at both her own imbecility and the nipping wind her stocky, furry body speared through. The motion wasn't as graceful as Alice could have hoped, though; both her swarming emotions and the pain of beating her already exhausted wings frequently threw her balance off, several times dropping her more than a couple of feet through the air, but she only pushed on, fueled by willpower and willpower alone.

José... You were right there... Right within my reach... You finally remembered me... A-and then... And then... Alice struggled to force the words into her mind. This world... This cruel, unrelenting place... Ripped you from me again... A trigger, the final thought was. In the middle of the sky, far from the proverbial headstone of her husband, her muscles lost all life, releasing all force at once, and the young vampire plummeted through the night sky, crashing like a meteor towards the canopy of trees...

I will get you back, José, I swear on my grave.

NO!

Alice's body kicked back into action and her immense limbs forced the wind to Earth, sweeping the jungle floor of loose foliage and whipping it into the air, as if spun into a tornado. A new glint filled her black, beady eyes; sheer determination. A new spark had ignited within her, and fueled every muscle, bone and organ in her bat body, feeding her like coal to a furnace. She was going to make it out. She was going to get José back. She was going to find who threw them into such a cruel world in the first place.

Omni had started the entire mess. If she couldn't finish what José had started... She was at least going to provide the stepping stones for José to continued where he left off. She was going to find answers... She would explore every verse, every single nook and cranny until she could bring José back from the grave, and she would not rest until she did. That night...

Alice found her purpose within the Omniverse

[Ruby Rose]

The night creature continued her flight under the dark shroud of the night sky, the ivory moonlight bathing her and glinting off of her black, beady eyes, like two fiery alabaster lights in the pitch blackness. Flickering sparks that demonstrated the burning desire Alice held to return José back to her. Each beat of her wide, leathery wings was one beat closer to finding someone who could bring José back... but no matter how determined she was, not even the inferno raging within her could keep her soaring through the skies forever.

With a small, squeaking yawn, Alice tilted her body into a gentle nosedive towards the viridian canopy below her. Her round figure burst through the foliage, and red sparks illuminated the immediate earlier as she flourish her wings into a slim, black blouse and skirt, donned by a short, slender, blond beauty. However, it was then that the pain finally overcame her; she hadn't drank blood since the camp, where José allowed her a small dose of his blood daily.

"Gaaah!" She cried as she clutched her abdomen, her stomach painfully cramping. The vampire dropped to a knee, and saliva began to dribble from her revealed fangs, her eyes glowing crimson with bloodlust. "I need... to find something..." She growled, tenderly picking herself up and stumbling forwards, dragging her feet along, each movement producing a grunt of pain.

To Alice, the blood of a Nephilim was like coffee; it gives you a giant burst of energy for a short time, but as soon as it wears off, collateral damage begins to take place in one way or another. In Alice's case it was her stomach's desire for more, and beginning to eat her from the inside out.

The vampire trundled through the dark, dank jungle, the light melody of night birds combined with the repetitive calls of various insects washing over her with every slack step she took. She needed to kill something... needed to drink it's blood...

The blond girl's head snapped upwards at the hoot of an owl, and a scarlet tongue ran across her lips and fangs. For a moment... just a single moment, she would need to resist the hunger chomping on her insides. She crouched down, before leaping at her soon-to-be prey... but her body was knocked aside by a thick, furry mass. She felt a set of claws dig trenches in her stomach, and she screamed out in pain.

The scarlet-hued hunter let her hands drop below her and she dug her elongated nails into the vines matting the earth. Her sharp heels punctured flesh, and she used the momentum to swing around on her claws, sending the animal attacker rocketing off towards a pair of trees in a 'V' shape. The sound shattering bones echoed throughout the eerie jungle as the animal's shoulders crashed through the gap.

Thinking quickly, Alice tightly grabbed hold of the vine her claws had found purchase on and tore it from the earth, flipping over and bolting for the split trees. Her slim figure leaped through the minuscule opening, and she slung the vine around one tree, causing her body to snap back towards the thick trunk. The verdant rope swung her gracefully around the tree, over to the adjacent plant and around once more.

The vampire swiftly but clumsily tied a knot in the vine, before turning her attention to her assailant, whom was already charged towards her - on two feet, while its gangly forelimbs swung limply at its side, shoulders shattered. Alice's crimson eyes widened in terror, but she knew she wouldn't be dealing with the creature for much longer. She took a long stance, her left foot forward and her right tensed behind her.

The outraged beast closed the gap quickly, tearing up the foliage below its clawed feet. Alice relaxed all but her right leg, until the animal approached her comfort zone. She swung her leg in a wide arc in front of her, her sharp heel impaling the attacker and eliciting a loud squeal of pain from the snapping maw. The vampire brought her weight around and threw the creature off of her foot and towards the garrote she had crafted.

A resounding snap rumbled the foliage around the vampire as the beast's neck caught on the taut vines, and the mass of muscle and fur hung on the green rope for a moment, before crashing to the earth, sending a shockwave through the green surroundings, the force of the quake bringing Alice to a knee once more. The blond girl crawled forwards towards the corpse of her prey, and without a second thought, she sank her fangs into the branded throat of the deceased creature.

---

Alice sighed and rubbed her stomach, her blood-stained lips forming a grin of pleasure. "Gehhh... who knew the blood of the animals around here could taste so good?" She shot a furtive look at the constant stream of crimson flowing from her dinner's throat. "And so filling! I didn't even drink the thing dry... and I don't wanna leave the blood to waste..." Alice scratched her pointed chin for a moment, before striding to a tree with low-hanging leaves.

She snatched a bundle of large, green sheets, some swinging vines and grouped together some twigs from the jungle floor. Sitting down against a weeping tree, she began to fiddle with the materials she had collected. How one was supposed to make a decent bag out of such primitive tools was a mystery to the girl, but she at least put together something that could contain enough blood.

She took her creation over to her prone meal and scooped it underneath the muscly neck, where blood was waterfalling from the dual puncture wounds. Crimson liquid began to fill the green container, until it was almost full to the brim, yet the sweet hemoglobin poured out still. Alice swung the foliage gourd over her shoulders and proceeded to make her way from the site of the murder.

[Ruby Rose]

Alice continued to trudge on, daintily stepping over snaring vines that threatened to take her to the ground, and ducking under branches that felt the need to attempt impaling her. Nonetheless, the night hunter simply brushed off the obstacles she faced on the perilous, pitch-black jungle path, albeit requiring to remove her heels. "Gah, never even liked these pieces of junk anyway." She stated nonchalantly under her breath as she removed her footwear. The blond chucked the black heels over her shoulders, causing them to shatter into a brilliant flash of spectral colours, dispersing into Omnillium upon contact with the roped earth.

The vampire dug her diminutive toes in between the verdant ropes, letting the bare flesh of her pale feet absorb the texture of the thick, bound plant. She took a deep breath in, before releasing it belatedly. "Ahh... haven't gone adventuring like this for months!" She exclaimed, throwing both her bony arms into the sky above. A new, sudden energy surging through her veins, Alice felt the need to move... to be fast...

"I need to run!" The vampire growled excitedly, crouching low against the thick vines at her feet. The supernatural girl pushed off, sending her flying across three meters of plant matter. She stuck the landing and immediately pushed off of her other foot, breaking into a run that covered meters of ground in mere seconds. "Woohoo!" The young vampire yelled, the rush of adrenaline filling her every instinct, her every move. But she wanted more! Alice pushed her legs harder and harder, rotating them at a ludicrous velocity. A trail of dust and broken flora was left in her wake as she powered on through the tangled green.

She hadn't felt so alive in so long, never mind the fact she was technically undead. She could feel her natural, human blood circulating her transformed body, and for a fleeting moment, she allowed the cool, oncoming wind to nip at her skin. She felt human, and she only wanted to experience that rush every day. Those damn bloodsuckers stole that from her the moment she was dropped into this hellhole of a playground... run by that sick fuck, Omni. Now, she had to survive just as those bloodsuckers did. She could no longer feel the warm, tingly rays of the sun glowing upon her skin. Now, it just burned, igniting her on occasion, filling her sinuses with the thick, wafting scent of smoke and ash...

Hold up a sec... Alice halted her mad dash. Crimson pools wandered to the vampire's heel, and widened in terror as the golden rays of the rising sun enveloped the flesh of her foot. A steady plume of smoke and ash drifted skywards from the burning skin, and Alice squealed in pain, finally realizing the gravity of her situation. The blazing orb in the sky was rapidly rising, sending its golden shower across the canopy and shining beams of light through the openings between foliage. "Damnit!" Alice cursed. "If I stay here too long, the sun's gonna shine through all those gaps..." The vampire's blood-red irises flew skyward, and an awry frown crossed her lips.

A new purpose to escape the jungle instilled in her muscles, Alice took off once more, following the path of shadow crafted by the thick blanket above her flaxen hair. Her gleeful grin had warped into a hard-set line of determination. Ruby orbs flicked left and right, constantly assessing the perilous surroundings for an ideal path... but the wide blaze was gaining on her; she could feel the heat nipping at her bare ankles.

"Gah, damn this!" Alice cursed, before darting off to her right, into the burning globe's deadly gaze. The vampire screamed out in pain as her skin blistered, hissing and popping disgustingly. Ash spiraled off in a large mass behind her, but there was method to the blond's madness; her watering garnets were set, unwavering, on a slope that led into a subtle, shadows alcove.

But whether she would survive long enough was the deciding factor.

The crimson-hued female could feel her arms begin to shed flesh in clumps of ash, and her legs were excruciatingly dying with every passing second. With the speed she was travelling at, she wouldn't make it before her entire being was left in a pile of grey soot, and her short-lived adventure would be all for naught.

As much as the pain would near on kill her by itself, Alice only had one other choice. Roaring as her nerves stung as if fried over the flames of Hell, Alice swung the blood bag from her shoulders and launched it across the foliage, landing it neatly into the ditch. She proceeded to agonizingly shift, scarlet sparks out-shining the light that bathed her burning body, and within seconds, an ebony bat was soaring through the jungle, smoke exploding from its wings.

Alice's speed had increased to a point where she may just make it, but for one massive price; she was beginning to black out from the agony screaming in every muscle, every cell that made up her supernatural body. Nonetheless, shadows finally closed its tendrils around her and tugged her to safety...

But not before her right wing erupted in a cloud of ash as it collided with a tree. The animal twirled mid-air, flourishing into a woman once more, and she landed heavily on her rear. She swallowed; she had escaped death. A dainty, pale hand clutched at her right shoulder to find nothing but a crumbling stump of ash.

"Irrumabo..." She cursed in Latin, before grinning goofily. "At least I survived. I'll have to rest for a while... it ain't gonna heal me, but by then I might be well enough to go find a Prime..." She planned with herself, releasing the powdery clump at her side. She fumbled around for the makeshift bag, and eventually her digits brushed a leaf. She wrapped her hand around the container and yanked it to her, placing the opening to her mouth and taking a swig of the crimson liquid.

Translation: 'Irrumabo' = 'Fuck'