Chapter 54

Wild Hunt 12

-:-

Miss Samantha’s Combat Emotion Manipulation For Dummies

‘If the target is less than 20 years old, Rage born from love is the easiest emotion to draw out. And nothing is more careless than a hormone driven monkey’

As condescending as Miss Samantha’s words were, the wisdom was brutally true.

Theo could only chuckle in amusement as this lesson was personified in Vander Cullet

Once again, Vander threw a full power punch.

Once again, Theo dodged it with ease.

Once again, a wall blew apart as Vander’s punch landed into it.

Once again, Theo made Vander pay with single shot of silver bullet into his gut.

And once again, Vander endures the pain and continued to fight on

This process has repeated quite a few times now.

Naturally, this destructive behavior was unacceptable to the bodyguards.

One bodyguard went to Theo’s right while the other tried to restrain Vander.

Theo took out another of his silver frag grenades and prepared to throw it at the incoming vampire.

Suddenly, the wolf shapeshifter rushed at Theo and bit his left arm along with the grenade.

“Hahaha! You stupid dog!” Theo laughed his heart out.

The grenade exploded inside the wolf’s mouth, sending silver shrapnel into its brain.

No matter how powerful a mana based regeneration, it would stop working if the person’s brain was badly damaged.

The shapeshifter’s foolish move costed him his life.

As for the bodyguard approaching to Theo’s right, his punch crushed Theo’s P-90 along with his right arm, his ribs and sent him through a wall.

Theo screamed in agony, not from his injuries, but from the omnigel the Ankh injected into him the millisecond his bones broke.

He drew one of his Beretta 92s and ran towards the door with the bodyguard right behind him

“Hmm…. I think I’ve stalled them long enough” thought Theo as ran towards the opposite direction of the elevator.

He dodge rolled to the side as small refrigerator unit flew passed him, before ducking under Vander’s right hook.

Theo fired one round into Vander’s foot while landing an uppercut straight into the exposed chin.

He quickly retreated when the bodyguards were able to catch up.

A very short chase ensued before a hit pitch scream stopped the Cullet Group

“Vander! HELP ME!” screamed Michele as a group of 5 raiders surrounded her.

One of the raiders had a blade near her throat.

“Stand down or the young lass gets it. Consider this your last warning” said the raider as he gently pressed the blade into Michele’s throat.

The girl was clearly rattled because her legs shook uncontrollably.

Theo’s plan on the raid on Sanctuary revolved on 2 decoy strategies.

The first decoy was tying up most of the bulk of the defenders with nearly all of their raiders.

The second decoy was Theo himself.

His role was to track down the targets and reduce the number of their bodyguards.

With this, the third wave in the form of a small retrieval force would be able to easily secure Michele and rush her out the battlefield.

This strategy made use of the Volsung raiders’ small numbers to maximum effect.

With the Cullet group exhausted and Michele secured, Theo could easily force them to do what he wanted.

“STOP! Don’t hurt her! I beg of you! I’ll do whatever you want!” pleaded Vander.

“You heard him Boss. What are we going to do with these blokes?” asked the Raider to Theo.

“Hmm… More hostages mean more money… Take them all with us” replied Theo.

“Even the bodyguards?” asked the raider in worry.

“Yeah. Them too. If they do anything stupid, our friend Vander here will get a piece of his lover.” Said Theo, much to Vander’s horror. “We only need Michele alive. Based on how well you behave, her condition could range from ‘alive and well’ to ‘barely alive’.”

Naturally, all of Theo’s words were bullshit.

He had absolutely no intention of harming Michele at the moment.

Of course, the Cullet group didn’t need to know that.

“Well then. I suggest you start walking Mr. Vander Cullet before I decided that Ms. Michele Sway doesn’t need her legs anymore” said Theo with a gun pointed at Vander.

Checkmate.

-:-

A few hours later

Volsung City, Norsca Islands

The travel back to Norsca was quick and uneventful.

The vampires were shoved into the sun-proof container Theo made.

Michele Sway was tied to a mast so that everyone could keep an eye on her.

All in all, it was a peaceful ride back.

Upon docking, the Cullet group was transported to Nosferatu’s Boeing 777 while Theo went back to his hut.

There he tinkered with the Terminator Armor.

Compared to the fast paced combat a few hours earlier, working on the Terminator Armor was extremely relaxing.

Unfortunately, Theo’s downtime lasted only 30 minutes before Nosferatu called for him.

Theo went to the plane in full power armor and met Nosferatu outside a room that they were using as an interrogation room.

“*sigh*…. Young Lorne, it seemed that your intimidation techniques were too effective. Normally, the Cullets would hurl insults at me the moment they see me, but these people didn’t even utter a single word. Worse yet, they didn’t listen to a word I said. They simply glared at me….. *sigh*” said Nosferatu.

“I don’t understand why you’re trying to get his consent to remove the Mad Progenitor Curse. Just do the procedure on Michele and get it over with” replied Theo.

“While that is an option, the Nosferatu has too many enemies as it is. If we can get one openly hostile enemy to at least not attack us on sight, that would be a welcome change.”

“I see….” Said Theo as he mused on how to solve this dilemma

A few seconds later, a yureka moment occurred.

“I might be able to do something about convincing them, but I need to hurt Michele. Is that fine with you?” asked Theo

“Oh? What did you have in mind?”

Theo gave Nosferatu a summary of his plan.

“I see…. Such a brutish method is not to my liking, but I guess it cant be helped. But are you fine with taking the Cullet’s hate for this one?”

“I killed a few of their bodyguards during the Sanctuary incident. I doubt they’ll forgive me at this point”

“True…. I understand. Very well. You have free reign on this one.”

-:-

Noon the following day.

Everyone of note in Volsung City was gathered in the entrance of Nosferatu’s hangar.

The Cullet Group were bound by chains to thick metal chairs of Theo’s making.

They were positioned just before the midday sun’s rays could hit them.

In front of them was a large glass box the size of a normal man with a mailbox sized hole on the front.

The glass was extremely thick and was almost as tough as a wall made out of steel.

The people of Volsung looked curiously as to what Theo was planning this time.

On the other hand, Vander Cullet was staring daggers at Theo.

FYI: Theo was in his power armor as per usual.

After making sure that everyone was in attendance, Nosferatu signaled Theo to start.

“Mr. Vander Cullet. It seems that you refused to even listen to my employer. That is not allowed.” Said Theo in a menacing manner.

In response, Vander stared at him with full defiance.

“Hmm… the way you look at me is annoying… Time to play a game” said Theo as he drew his HF Blade.

“Here is what’s going to happen. I will be chopping off Miss Michele’s hand. You will turn her hand into a vampire or I’ll let her bleed to death. Understand?” said Theo

“What?! Why the hell-?!” roared Vander but was cut off with Michele’s high pitch scream.

Since Michele was right handed, Theo cut off her left hand in order to mitigate the inconvenience he will be causing on her.

Theo also planned on giving her a cybernetic arm of the highest quality as an apology.

Theo presented Michele’s left arm to Vander

“I chopped her hand by the wrist. That’s an artery for your info. She’ll bleed out in less than a minute if you don’t comply.” Said Theo as he shoved the hand into Vander’s face.

Full of rage and futility, Vander bit Michele’s severed hand.

Nosferatu’s presence made sure that Vander do exactly as he was told.

The moment Theo felt the hand began to twitch, he injected Michele with an elixir provided by Nosferatu and quickly threw the hand into the glass box.

“Michele! Are you alright?! Michele!” screamed Vander.

“Calm down you fool. The elixir will do its work.” Said Theo.

As expected of an authentic Elixir, any sign of pain left Michele’s face in an instant.

Sadly, regrowing a severed hand would require more than an elixir.

“You bastard!” roared Vander.

“Why are you doing this?!” asked the exhausted Michele.

Theo silently pointed at the glass box.

It was an abomination beyond comprehension.

The hand grew a mouth on its palm. The severed part sprouted additional hands, eyes, mouths, tentacles, claws and any other craziness.

30 seconds later, it started talking incomprehensible words.

Theo might look calm and collected due to his full body armor, but his face was that of a man that was about to hurl.

The ‘thing’ was beyond what could be described as messed up.

For now Theo, forced all of his vomit back down his throat.

He still had a job to do.

“This is what Nosferatu was trying to warn you people about. If Vander here turned Michele into a vampire, the Mad Progenitor Curse will turn her into an uncontrollable abomination that will feed on just about anyone and turn them into weaker yet equally insane versions of herself.” Said Theo

He then signaled the warriors to push the glass box into the sunlight.

However, nothing happened to the abomination.

“As you can see. It and all of its spawn are immune to sunlight.” Said Theo “The only way to kill the carrier of the Mad Progenitor Curse is through this.”

Nosferatu threw the massive 2 meter tall Kin Slayer at the glass box.

The blade smashed through the glass box and impaled the abomination on the ground.

Its innumerable mouths screamed in agony.

It struggled for a few seconds before it stopped twitching.

Just to be sure, Theo unleashed the full might of his flamethrowers on it until not even ashes were left.

“T-that thing is inside my body?” asked Michele in horror.

“That is not exactly correct dear. As long as you avoid getting form of vampiric DNA in your blood, the Mad Progenitor Curse will not become active” replied Nosferatu.

“Is there a way to removed it?” asked Vander who was much more compliant after seeing the abomination.

“There is a solution, but it doesn’t remove the Mad Progenitor Curse. What it does is to increase Miss Michele’s immune system to the point that any form of poison will not affect her. This includes the poison used in turning a mortal into a vampire. This means that Miss Michele here will never become a vampire. The procedure will take 5 years at minimum. Naturally, we are more than willing to provide Miss Michele this treatment for free.” Said Nosferatu.

“I see….. If you had such a problem, why didn’t you ask for help from the other Vampire Houses?” asked Vander

With a wryly smile, Nosferatu answered…

“We did. Multiple times as a matter of fact. But just like how you reacted earlier, no one believed us. And as you have experienced in the Sanctuary incident, we are forced to take extremely drastic measure to avoid the worst case scenario…. If only you people would listen… *sigh*”

With a spear of guilt impaled through Vander’s heart, he and Michele agreed to Nosferatu’s treatment.

Mission Accomplished