The wind roared in Vamprina’s ears as she flew through the air at unimaginable speeds. She stole a precious second to look over her shoulder. For its duration, a scaly bat-winged creature surged into view, its dark blue body accented with bright lightning patterns. The Stick female curled her wings around her, dropping rapidly for a few seconds to avoid a collision, and then she spread her wings out once more, barrel-rolling to the left to avoid a stream of electricity-laced flame. Dragons. Of all creatures in the universe besides Rani, she hated dragons the most.
She was being trailed by a Lightning dragon, which had found her wandering way beyond SP city borders. She had been surprised at first to see it there, but now that she was being chased around, she decided that anything could be found this far out anyway. How could such a beast have such a high hunger for destruction? She’d seen creatures that destroyed things a lot, particularly on Stickworld, but never to the degree dragons had set.
Evading another lighting burst that caused her hair to spark with electric charge, she waited for the dragon to get really close to her body, then at the last moment she flipped upside down, allowing the enemy to shoot over her as she swung her talons up into its soft underbelly. The black flesh gave way beneath her claws like water, pouring hot red blood all over the ground below. The Lightning dragon screamed, dropping a little lower in the sky.
Vamprina circled above the faltering beast, grinning. A wild burst of flame blasted by her ear. Pitiful creature. It couldn’t aim because of the pain. “I’ll make it a little easier for you.” The Dark one hissed.
The dragon focused its very weak healing energies, but at that moment it was struck in the right eye by its foe, which was a lot smaller and more annoying than any prey it had ever encountered. As its vital vision organ ripped free in a messy explosion of blood, it rolled rapidly with the speed its type had been gifted with, striking the black creature with the end of its tail and sending it smashing into the ground.
Vamprina got to her feet, hissing angrily. Her ears slicked back on her head, and her body broke into a cloud of sandy particles. The dragon landed, feeling uncomfortable in the air with its new disability. It surveyed the landscape with its good eye, searching for its target, and suddenly a flaming pain surged through its neck. The dragon reared up, swiping its forelegs at the area where Vamprina clung with all her claws and fangs. She sought the jugular vein, and nothing was going to stop her from finding it. Her tongue slid through the creature’s foul blood, intent on reaching its goal as the dragon desperately threw itself to the ground and tried to rub the Dark female against a sharp rock. Vamprina closed her eyes, and her bite strength increased as she bore the pain of her back and wings slowly being cut open by the stone. Suddenly her eyes opened, and its red light glared bright with triumph. Her tongue emerged from the ugly cut with its prize, and Vamprina’s jaws closed with the force of something similar to a steel trap, but stronger.
Vamprina launched herself off, and let the dying beast bleed to death in its own body fluids. She watched the corpse disintegrate into ashen sludge, and then she turned and began to walk back to SP city, intent on finding a dark alleyway to reside in. She was nearly to the border, when all of a sudden she sensed a change in the air. Whipping around, Vamprina spotted a black pincer-tail sporting a bright neon blue glowing fin along its back in diminishing size to its end.
For a few seconds, Vamprina’s ears flattened and her body tensed up, since she thought it was another Lightning dragon. Recognition suddenly exploded within her when she remembered who it belonged to, and hope began to flicker in her heart. Maybe it wasn’t so difficult to escape here after all. The tail belonged to none other than V-arX…the mysterious lightning bending being that served no one and went where he pleased.
“Hey you!” Vamprina snarled. “I saw your tail. Come out where we can talk!”
V-arX walked out into the red glow of the sunset. He said nothing, and merely stood before Vamprina as she crouched just beyond the border of SP city. The Dark female cocked her head and her eyes narrowed to slits.
“Well.” she spat. “Aren’t you going to start the conversation?”
Silence reigned for a while. Then V-arX stepped forward, causing Vamprina to back away suspiciously, and then his tail raised high and swept sideways into the ground, sending out a pulsing wave of electric light along the dark earth. His tail reached the point of its swipe, and settled behind him again. An orb of white energy began to rise from the area he had struck, and without a word, he vanished. Vamprina stared at the orb with inquiry swimming in her eyes. What kind of key to escape was this? Also, what sort of conversation was that?
“It’s not a conversation.” Vamprina said to no one in particular. “It was more like a brief encounter.”
Vamprina had never been this close to V-arX before, and no one in Stickworld knew anything about him at all, except what he had as an element: lightning. He also hadn’t told anybody his name, but if you just look at him, you would know, and the name would fit, and you couldn’t think of him as anything else if you tried.
Vamprina finally shook her head and turned to leave. This orb wasn’t doing anything; it was just about as useless as that moderator sphere. She had destroyed it though. In so doing she got banned from return to the city, but that was over now. Since that incident, she tried to avoid all contact with anyone within the city. Being a newcomer to this place, she was unsure of what was allowed here. But the sphere followed her, like a familiar waiting for orders. Vamprina turned around, wondering what to do. Had V-arX just made her pains worse by giving her a follower that would most likely annoy her more by just being there rather than making any sort of sound? She stood looking at the sphere for a long time, and then it began to shift shape.
When the transformation was complete, a young Stick figure knelt before her. He was short in his immaturity, and both eyes held jagged marks that poured light into the night air. The eyes themselves were intensely white, unable to hide the electric power the youth held within him. He raised his hand, and a few sparks burst from it, causing Vamprina to shield her eyes defensively with her wing. But when she recovered, she began to smile. The creature got up and stood just to her chest, looking up into her face like an eager child. His entire body was as blue as the sky of the Earth-world the humans lived on, and his right arm bore jagged lightning patterns. The more she looked at him, the more obvious his name seemed to be. He was Volt, and Vamprina’s permanent ally.
“He just thought I needed some help.” Vamprina said to herself with a grin. “Isn’t that nice?”
Even though Volt looked young, Vamprina could sense that he was surprisingly skilled in handling his element, undoubtedly during combat as well. Vamprina continued towards SP city, and Volt trailed faithfully behind. Having an ally didn’t feel too bad. It may even give her an advantage in future wRHG battles. But she was sure he knew that if she was ever defeated beyond comeback, Volt would succeed her. It didn’t sound good to her, but maybe it was for the best.
Soon, the moon was high in the sky. It used to shine down on a lonely female in the small patch of darkness close to the outer border of SP city, but now it shone on an extra figure. Volt. He and Vamprina curled very close to each other, each releasing their own dream cloud into the air where they played together far into the night.
