V M The Red Demon

[Remilia Scarlet]

Another dark moon dawned over the crumbling den where the desperate cowered in their hovels. As gentle moonlight filtered through the hole ridden rooftop of one of these decaying hovels, the newest resident to the broken sector emerged from her hiding place. Remilia pushed aside the rubble she had been using as cover to look up into the night sky, the hateful sun no longer imprisoning her under it’s baleful light. Each movement for her was a wracking pain as she glanced over herself, seeing where a few sunrays burned her skin in her sleep. The cool night breeze brought faint relief, but the eternally young vampire gained little comfort as she mulled over her current peril.

It was almost a week since she had fled the heart of Arcadia, away from the orphanage and into the bowels of an abandoned selection of the old capital. Left with only a stolen umbrella and the soggy remains of her bag, the vampire had fallen to the lowest pits of despair; her old life was dead and buried, her current fate a shadow of its former self (meager as it was before). Part of her knew that her best chance of returning to some semblance of that time would be to turn herself in, hope to be spared the hangman’s stake, then perhaps be released from her cell in a thousand year’s good behavior. She shivered at the thought. To what end would it come to? Mad from blood starvation, once again in the hand of a velvet gauntlet but now without faith to be trusted. Remilia looked to the trickster moon as she brushed whatever garbage stuck to her dress, sure of the truth:

Her only escape would be to look toward the future, bleak as it was.

The vampire flew up to the rafters, her wings breaking the night silence, and peaked through the holes in the roof to the streets of her new home. Blackened from an age old fire, the ruins around her stretched out for miles around like a horrid wound. Her mind stretched back to when it had happened, the great fire of the Alembic Quarters.

Three hundred years ago, this had been the center of a vast alchemical industry that supplied the city with magical reagents, the finest leathers on the planet, mundane spirits and chemicals of all sorts, and some had said in the depths of it’s vast network of minds the fabled Philosopher's Stone and Elixir of Life had been brought to reality. It was the beating heart of the magical community, if the great academies were it’s mind.

Tragic then when in a single night it had all become a raging fire storm. To an extent, the Alembic Quarters were always a fire hazard. Dust explosions and flammable fumes was just a fact of life even before the great fire. The tragedy was great, both from the people who lived and work within its confines and those who died to fight it. The remains were of little to save, many cutting their losses and abandoning the place. Others still stay with some fleeting hope to salvage what was left, but in three hundreds years nothing seemed to have come of it.

Remilia had been told many times to never come here. Told that ‘only the desperate and the insane go there’. Brow furling, she sighed and sat down on the rafters. "Guess they were right." She said, groaning slightly as she tried to get comfortable.

A sudden hunger pang hit her, like a growl of some hungry beast deep within her stomach. A grimace split the vampire's face as she placed her hand over her the offending organ, as if that would help. It had been rather pitiful how a week ago she had first supplied from the neck of her first prey, and this place had taken even that. The stock here was poor, to put it cruelly. The people were poisoned, the ruins still caked with the chemicals once used to make its magnificent goods. Often radiated by some magical waste, and of course the usual maladies that afflict those that lived in such conditions. More than a few hobos had been spared by her vampiric kiss when she found their blood infested with parasites and heavy metals, the taste revolting and rotten. What was left either was guard in the tight knit communities that sheltered themselves in the few safe zones, or were part of the many roving bands of mercenaries seeking to plunder the remaining treasure that survived the fire or the strange materia that grew in the dark corners.

Still, hunger had no master to follow, and Remilia got back up to her feet.

Squirreling through the hidey hole she had been using to enter this building, she looked across the streets for any stalkers. No bounty hunters had come after her yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time before she would have to face a drawn sword. Her mind wandered, images of close quarters, hands breaking upon steel plate before being run through in some back alley. Remilia felt her hands shake, and as she held them steady it took her a moment that she had stopped breathing. Of course, it frightened her. That near miss back at the orphanage still haunted her nights; when the high left her a very real realization came to her that she could have died. Remilia knew she couldn't defend herself like this, even as her body seemed to grow stronger after her first true drink of blood. She had much to work towards, and very little freedom to do so.

It seemed so long ago that the things she worried about was how to pass the time.

Flying down to the street, The eternal child moved through the shadows towards her destination. A market, the remnants of that older time. Something there had to be of use to her, and in the back of her mind there was a lingering feeling something good will happen soon. She hoped so, it could only be up from this point.

 

[Remilia Scarlet]

Remilia slipped through the shadows of the night market, hiding her scarlet dress away from the sullen eyes of the patrons here. The stalls were bathed in a faint biolencent glow, the lanterns that hung across the street were not lit with fire but filled with glowing mushrooms and lightning bugs. The fear of another great blaze had demanded more innovative solutions, leaving the populated areas in this ghostly glimmer. A boon for the vampire, her eyes were perfect for the Moon shrouded night. Perfect for her intentions, watching for small items to whisk away with her small hands.

It was pitiful, Remilia chided herself in shame. To have to pilfer trinkets as a lowly street urchin. The discontent welled up inside her, another stab to her ego and reminder of her meteoric fall. The strange items in this hidden market weren’t even of much value to her, her blood hunger demanded her priority far more than glimmering wotsits and recycled adventurer’s gear. But left with nothing to do until another hapless victim revealed themselves, the vampire had no intentions of staying in hiding to mope in ruin.

Yet her determination wandered ever so slightly as her eyes traced across the various stalls, gems and shimmering materia laid bare to shine in the pale market light. How could she not want these beauties? Surely they were of some use, she pushed, and what matter was it if they weren’t? She was no longer constrained by the moral consensus of her previous peers, her freedom paid by cruel fate. Indignation and desperation poisoned her thought, and despite her resolve her hand snaked from the shadow as the vendor turned away. A silver necklace dangle precariously at the edge of the stall, almost begging to be snatched. Her tiny digits wrapped around the prize, her breath held for an eternal moment as she moved closer into the light, and as itch across her spine reached a peak she snatched it away and in a blink the shadows enveloped her again.

It was minutes before she breathed again, as she scurried deep into the backway. She held the trinket so tightly she felt the silver edge digging into her palm, so tightly she had to pry her hand open a finger at a time. No cry of thief nor scuffle of an enraged shopkeep followed her, and as the prickers across Remilia’s body start to waver she allowed herself a smile and she drew her eyes over her ill gotten gains. Finally, a small victory.

Her mind dreamed of rows of shelves of such treasures, strange artifacts left placed to dazzle and delight onlookers. Storied armors and weapons lined to tantalize high minded socialites and impress busybodies. A grand hall draped in red, her throne at the head and with her relaxed in its opulent comfort. The dining table stacked with cookies and a dark red drink, delicate plates stacked with bones, flesh, blood, her hands wrapped around a neck as she moved in to feast, drain them dry-

Remilia shook her head to and fro as she pulled herself back from the fantasy, slapping her childish hands to her face. Another hunger pang shot out in protest, the starvation worming into the recesses of her mind. She drew her breath in, focusing on the chilled air and the hushed whispers of clients haggling and perusing over the market’s goods. She needed to keep her mind straight, the beast within was going to get her staked if she lost it now. Seeing her will waning, she made one last scan of the stalls for any chance she had.

A procession of men marched through an entrance to this side of the market, scabbards and sabatons clanking as the crowd parted for them. These did not seem to be the standard adventuring fair, yet not the bastions of steel of the mercenaries bands. Upstarts or bounty hunters as far as the scarlet vampire could tell, neither a welcome sight to the hunted vampire.

Yet something told her to stay, an inkling of an idea. Almost a whisper of there being something more than mere sight. She inched closer, taking cover behind a stained copper cauldron, and watched with interest. A pudgy man led the troop, his swagger and ostentatious jewelry stood out as far too brave than some merchant and his guard. He strode to the center of the open market, and with a clap of his hand one of the warriors placed a stool down so that the man could stand above the rest.

“Hear ye, men and women seeking fortune and glory” he spoke with bombast, his arms raised up as he orated to the crowd. “I am the proprietor of the Cauldron, where those of mettle may earn coin in the arena of their peers.” he motioned to the men beside him, who stood unyielding to the watching eyes of the crowd. The eternally young vampire was far less impressed by their physique, but their arrival was a sign of fortune: Healthy men and women, a meal worth eating.

Slipping her new belonging over her neck, she stalked the portly man and his advertisement as she waited patiently. Following them to this Arena. Today was looking to be change in tides for the vampire.

 

[Remilia Scarlet]

The crowds were thick at the Cauldron, a mass of bodies pressed in a shared desire of bloodlust and the opportunity of coin. Remilia would perhaps be more appreciative of the parallel had she not had to elbow herself through the throng of tramps and gamblers shuffling through the bronzed door frame. A great sign hung from the front, impossible to miss, copper hewed read “Cauldron” in big letter with “the crucible of fire” underneath. Though her sight was blocked by the wall of disheveled spectators, as she crossed though the threshold, she would see the door frame had only been cleaned from the front. Chipped and worn with time, the old door hinges still left unpinned and poorly hidden, and in the ceiling above pipes still crisscrossed like a spaghetti mess, hidden in darkness seen thanks to Remilia’s sharpened senses. The eternal young vampire scoffed to spot such a farce: Despite the grandeur of the front, it was still a reclaimed ruin.

This was no more evident as Remila reached the “rings”. Sunk deep into the middle of the floor were large open vats, the lip just high enough to keep the onlookers from tumbling inside like idiots. Already two combatants were locked in melee in the one in front of her, weaving back between each other’s fists as they danced around the battered metal floor. The vampire couldn’t help but wonder what caustic residue was left in those ancient pots at the floor of the arena, yet neither the fighters nor those that cheered and yelled for blood above cared. Better for Remilia, she decided, and was very grateful for her shoes as she moved on.

As she shoved through more of the crowd as those around her pressed around the rail to watch the bloodsport, Remilia felt more of the strain going on her body. She raised her hand up to her face as she watched the wrap that covered the wound at her hand, staring at it in the vain hope that she could will the pain to go away. All it did is remind her of the blade of the silvered sword that nearly took her head, and the wound at her neck. She hoped another feast of blood would finally remove these ugly wounds. It has only been the unappealing choices, and Remilia’s pickiness, that has forced her to remain like this. There was now hope: The fighters here had to be a step up from what was on the street, and any of them could be beaten too senselessly to fight back where she could not be seen.

It was fiendish, unsporting, and even a little cruel. Something those in her previous life would have sternly disapproved of. And Remilia saw that as merely gravy.

The door to the backrooms was surprisingly unsupervised. Fighters, bettors, and far more insidious malfeasants passed through with little attention given to the small child waltzing in as if the small child vampire in a blood-stained dress belonged there. Aside from a brief look of shock on a clerk as he gripped at his nose, there had not been notice of the small vampire as she slipped through yet another door. One where the smell of blood grew strongest, almost overwhelming to child as she was so close to satiating her hunger.

This back room seemed to have been once a large storeroom, shelving for large vats of alchemical regent turned to hold the battered and lacerated fighters. They left her alone, her appearance seemingly either too mundane or absurd to keep attention from either them or their disheveled tenders. The comparison to shopping at a supermarket was not lost on Remilia, yet she could not spring on some horrified victim to descend on their neck in a blood feast. Too many eyes, too many sharp swords.

Yet a tingling sense crept up her spine while another sat horribly in her stomach. Had this been the first time in five hundred she had seen so many people hurt, squirming in pain and broken as outcasts attempt to tend their wounds? Never in person. She had been sheltered within the orphanage, keenly aware of the outside but this was truly new to her. Remilia was left shaking on the spot, chiding herself: Why does she still care, after everything else?

She moved further in, finding herself unable to look at the people here.

A grimace formed on Remilia’s face as she found it so easy to slide past these vagrants. Disappearing before other’s eyes, either ignored or unable to stand out even as she bared her fangs and wings proudly, had been a constant source of consternation for the eternally young vampire. She supposed she should be grateful in the moment, but to her it just seemed like another blow to her ego. No matter, they’ll know who she is soon enough.

Further back into this makeshift infirmary, a door left open yet unattended into a dark room. Ducking into this seemingly abandoned room, the pitch darkness of the night hid little to her sharpened sight. Crumbling and decayed crates lay strewn about on the old, worn-down concrete floor, a few beams of moonlight filtered through ratholes the only light. It seemed devoid of life beyond the vermin scurrying away from her prying scarlet eyes, yet in the corner Remilia could see a tuft of bright red hair poking out above the rubble like a pheasant’s tail feathers.

A woman, young and athletic, and completely passed out. Her style of dress seemed far too nice for a place like this, a flowing dress open at the legs with a white, stuffy blouse wrapped tight in a green vest. She seemed so peaceful, flowing red hair with braids traveling down her bangs. Her eye-catching beauty only marred by the bloodied hand wraps showing her occupation as a fighter. Though Remilia would also want to critique the big, green, floppy hat on her head or how very unladylike the droll dripping down from her big dumb smile. No matter. She was alone, clearly out like a light, and healthy. Remilia inched her way forward, not letting a single sound disturb her victim, and her hands reached out while her mouth opened with fangs ready to sink into tender neck.

And in a sudden moment, a great pain exploded in Remilia’s checks, the vampire left in confusion where it had come from or while she was suddenly airborne without her wings, sailing to the other side of the room until she crashed horribly into a stack of cardboard boxes. She was left there completely stunned, flabbergasted, as she looked at her would-be victim, still sound asleep, now with her fist outstretched. It had been faster than Remilia had even noticed and strong enough to leave the eternally young child floored long enough for the red head to stir.

Remilia’s eyes widened, feeling her mouth dry as she realized she was about to be spotted by this clear unparalleled warrior, thoughts racing through her head of the woman stomping her into the ground once she saw the vampire who had almost drunk deep from her neck as those brilliant blue eyes looked at her.

“Oh no, not again!” That hazy daze turned to concern as the fight ran over to Remilia, fretting and concern written all over her face as she looked over Remilia like a dropped vase. “Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine,” Remilia finally managed to answer, “this is just normal at this point.”