Vampire Rule N°32: The meat might be dead, but it shall rise again.
… … … … … …
Pain wasn't new to John Harker.
He'd felt it in ways most men never could, or at least not without moving onto their next big adventure.
Everything from torn ligaments that knit back together just slow enough for him to truly register every detail, a throat crushed under boot heel and healed before the next breath, a rib driven into a lung and pushed back out by sheer will and vampiric shitfuckery.
He was a vampire, some amount of torture was always part of the deal.
But this? A sniper round through the chest?
This was new.
It would also be the second time he'd stand and allow himself to be shot at because a pesky little bird–or a nosy kitten in this case, apparently lacked a sense of self-preservation.
Perhaps she could consider stealing one?
Now, John knew about Thorne's latest gambit, not that his men hid it very well, doing their business in broad daylight right in Brideshead, in front of his people.
It took less than a day for him to get a call about Catwoman being on the prowl, and hours later, Gotham's most sacred law of Snitches-Get-Stiches was broken through a mix of goodwill, money and common sense.
He knew she was approached, knew the guys who did the approaching, how many years they spent in jail, what they did, and their favourite haunts.
Five minutes of Alucard's time were enough to track them down, and use the Dumbledore style of investigative greater goodness to get his answers.
'After that, it was just a matter of watching her watching me watching over the East End, and lure her into the fake safehouse.' He felt like gloating, but that was known to make things go horribly wrong.
Like, getting his chest blasted by a sniper, wrong.
So John compromised, and just teased her a bit while she was at his mercy, instead of subduing her instantly and deciding whether he should turn her into an asset, a bloodbank or just let her go after some theatrics so she could ultimately leak his identity to Batman.
He felt at ease when she literally leaped like a startled cat, before summersaulting over him and promptly trying to get the hell out of there, which was honestly the right move.
Bonus points for not trying to strike him on her way out, that would've gone poorly.
What he didn't account for was the whip-like crack he heard nearly three kilometers east of the safehouse, which he would have dismissed if not for the loud bang of a high calibre rifle that came precisely 1.5 seconds after.
Which meant that the first sound was a sonic boom.
It also happened to be coming right at him, and would collide with the target in exactly 3.2 second, the walls were fragile enough to be broken by a good punch, so there would be little to no resistance on that front unfortunately.
He could, however, avoid it quite easily.
If not for a tiny little detail.
The impossible shot just happened to be passing right through the silly catgirl's abdomen as she was (once again) shocked into stopping by the gunshot, her heart skipping a beat and the hair on her neck rising as her whole body screamed that something was wrong.
'She won't duck in time,' He thought, and he knew the shot would easily destroy her body.
The scattered fleshy bits and blood would also ruin his drip, which was just criminal.
So for the second time in months, he evaluated the situation and tried to decide whether or not it was worth the hassle.
On the plus side saving her life would go a long way to securing her as a somewhat useful asset, and his human resources department was in dire need of skilled workers who could operate in the cape scene, even if limited to street level threats and infiltration.
It would also give him an in with the local villains, Batman, a whole network of white collar criminals to complement the rougher pieces he already scoped.
On the minus side, unlike Copperhead who actively wanted some structure and security, and honestly couldn't make it without someone's support, or Bubbles whose loyalty was enough to justify his ongoing war on drugs, Catwoman didn't play nice in groups.
She was allergic to commitment, and John was all about long term commitments.
He wasn't exactly willing to keep her drunk on presence and use dominate to reinforce it until she broke.
Nor would he grant his blood to an unwilling, unreliable asset.
Doing so was just asking to be kidnapped by greater forces, and turned into a blood bank to grant them youth and vitality, empower their mooks and be part of their grand plan for evil world domination.
All in all, not a great idea.
*sigh*
'I really should stop doing this,' He thought, burning a bit of blood to force his body to move even faster than usual, and then harness all possible resistance before the impact.
It had the unintended effect of setting his already inhuman senses into a state of hyper-awareness, time seemingly slowing down just enough to truly feel the consequences of his action as a bullet larger than some people's handguns pierced through wood with ease before heading straight into his chest.
It tore through reinforced flesh like a hot knife through butter, broke bones and layers of solidified blood, shattering his body before losing momentum.
"Ouch." He said, only to regret since it made him spit out some precious blood.
Blood he could use to fix the mangled mess that was once his torso.
John collapsed onto the floor, content to let his body slowly knit itself back together, regretting his life choices even as a Catman drenched in his blood broke out of her stupor and rushed to help him, swearing eternal fealty for his selfless act of heroic self-harm.
…Just kidding, she ran away without looking back.
A very reasonable decision, but still a major dick move.
He laid still for five seconds after Selina vanished, her boots fading into silence. That was all he needed. Five seconds for his organs to stop twitching. Five seconds for the meat of his heart to stitch itself together, beat by struggling beat.
The first breath back was shallow.
The second, cleaner.
The third? Fire.
His eyes flared red. The old kind. Not the glow he wore as a costume to scare the crooks and keep them guessing, but something deeper, something hungry.
His carelessness and masochistic decisions were on him, but someone else was involved in this mess.
Someone had pulled the trigger.
Someone tried to end him, again.
He rolled onto his hands, coughed once, then stood. The hole in his chest steamed faintly as the crushed bullet was expelled, before finally closing.
Another breath, and the surrounding blood was firmly under his control, returning to him and seeping through his skin, whether it was to quench the rousing hunger, or just to make the shooter's day a little bit worse, even John didn't know.
The self-styled Alucard exhaled once, forcing his body into calm, and only then realizing he had become a literal crimson fucker.
'Neat,' He allowed himself a huff, then started thinking.
The shot hadn't come from the next building. It had come from farther. Much farther.
High-powered, insanely precise and based on the kind of technological fuckery that made his own earth's top militaries look like kids playing with firecrackers.
It was a nightmare in the hands of rank and file soldiers, but when it's a professional? You get results like a well-fed vampire's body turning into modern art.
A shot like this was rather insane, though he would appreciate it more if he wasn't the target.
'It also means that the poor bastard knows he shot true, and thus knows that I am dead,' John smirked, cracking his neck in anticipation, 'He's packing up right now, ready to leave the area and receive his payment.'
He crouched, then jumped through what was left of the wall, landing on a lamppost and using it to get onto a rooftop.
After months of using his ever growing strength, speed and inhuman physiology to run around his little piece of Gotham breaking bones and taking names, moving across the rooftops at neck-breaking speeds became almost mundane.
In only a few seconds, he reached an acceptable vantage point to take a look at his would-be predator, soon-to-be prey.
A man clad head to toe in cutting-edge tactical armor, carrying enough firearms to start a small war, it was quite a sight.
But what truly caught John's attention, enough to make him stop picturing how he would slowly dismember that utter prick, was the two strange gauntlets with barrels.
Utterly impractical weapons only usable by someone well versed in Bullshit Marksmanship, and even then, his helmet had some advanced aiming tech built-in.
Deadshot.
An individual known in the streets as 'a day of the jackall kind of f*cker.'
Also one of the best, and most expensive hitmen you could hire without tapping into some truly obscure circles.
It was truly a pity, John had some half-formed plans about employing him later on when his influence grew beyond a single city, but meeting so soon, and in such circumstances…
A shame, really, having to turn a talented family man into a statement.
But such was life.
Pain wasn't new to John Harker.
He knew it in ways humans could hardly fathom, but tonight, he was happy to try and teach them all about it.
Who knows? He might even try something new.
. . .
Yo! It's Hamtaro!
Darn, I really was gone for a long time, though this hiatus wasn't unproductive. While editing this chapter, I am currently sitting on 12 chapters, of which I'll post to others to atone for my crimes against people's sanity.
Jokes aside, I'm glad to be back, despite absolutely hating the current fanfic environment, in its bloated AI-filled state. I feel like pretty much everything is either a translation, an AI generated slop fic, or something outright stolen from another website with only the slighest title change.
What the heck? Not to mention how people are just eating it up for the most part.
I miss the good old days, man.
At least, the economy is doing good, and the world is entering an unprecendeted age of peace and prosperity.
Anyway, thanks for not killing me, amma post the other two chaps right about now.