Wednesday: January 30, 2008
Who: Chris, Charlie, Hayate, and Adam
When: Afternoon
Where: Town Hall Dungeon
What: Flaring tempers have a tendency to burn innocent bystanders

Chris's days had been spent in the dungeons as of late. A cold, and dank place that smelled musty, and was not at all pleasant. It wasn't where the girl would have normally spent her time, but it was where Hayate was being held. Being held unfairly, if anyone asked Chris, which no one did but she gave her opinion to them anyway. She'd told anyone she encountered, and often gave nasty looks to the guards that were watching Hayate. In the beginning they had tried to stop her from getting too close to the "criminal", but she had thrown such a fit that they all eventually learned to let her pass. The girl was crazy, they would whisper, but Chris didn't care. She just wanted to be near Hayate.

He seemed lonely behind the bars, and Chris wished so hard that she could give him a hug, or something. The most she could manage was to interlace her fingers, her arms the only thing that spanned the distance between them.

"Are you hungry yet? I'm gonna go to the blood bank, kay? Bring you some 'A negative'? Or do you feel like something different today?" Chris smiled a little mischievously at the vampire. It was her attempt at a joke to try to cheer him up since she couldn't do anything else.


Her question brought a smile out of the vampire, and he shook his head at her. Even with him behind bars, she found a way to lighten the gloom of the heavy air. It felt so stifling down here. “Blood sounds good,” he said, knowing very well he could not just have hers at a time like this.

He watched as she left and returned to relaxing inside of his mind as the time passed by. Sometime during the last few moments, the guards left to take a break as usual. As Hayate waited for Chris’s return, he heard new steps down the cellblock and lifted himself to look. His eyes caught sight of a new person entering the dungeon floor. It was a tall man with dark hair and long coat that reached past his knees. The man moved with purpose in the same way as the woman from the other day, and Hayate had a feeling he was dealing with another friend of the victim. Honestly, it was getting annoying.

The man paused before Hayate’s bars, and Hayate gave him the same bored but curious look that he gave everyone else. “Yes?” he asked.

“Are you Hayate?”

“Yes, but who’s asking?”

The man’s face seemed to flinch. He appeared as though he was barely holding back his anger. It would be amusing if it did not beg questions to be answered for the vampire. Who was this man, and why was he asking for Hayate?

“You hurt Sanura Hart,” the stranger stated hotly. It was not even up for debate, it seemed. He believed it, and he did not come to the dungeon to talk it out.

Hayate stood up from his seat on the bed. He approached the bars, cocking his head to the side as he studied the other man’s face. He was not trying to purposefully antagonize the man, but he knew the possible outcomes of his next answer. He knew, and he said it anyway.

“ . . . Who?” Hayate inquired.

The man’s arm shot out and suddenly transformed into a large green vine that moved of its own accord. It wrapped around Hayate’s neck and started to squeeze, cutting off the airflow into his lungs. Hayate grasped for the arm, but it was too powerful and it happened too quickly. He could not move it, not without help . . .

Chris was in good spirits despite Hayate's incarceration. It could have been worse, she thought. She could have been denied seeing him at all, and that would have left her depressed. Thankfully, she was able to see him, and bring him things like blood or books to cheer him up. On her way back toward Town Hall Chris ran into her twin, and had talked him into coming with her to visit the vampire.

They made their way to the dungeons with Chris talking all the while, and Charlie listening to his sister rant and rave about one thing or another. The dungeons were quiet, and Chris thought it was weird that the guards weren't around. She shrugged it off, and continued down the cellblock with the warmed blood in tow. Hayate's cell wasn't that far, but Chris saw the horrific scene even before she reached it. Charlie saw it, too, and he was too shocked to do much of anything.

Chris, though, dashed forward at the man who was attacking Hayate. She dropped the blood she had brought for the vampire, and wrapped her small hands around the stranger's free arm. "LET HIM GO!" She yelled out loud as she tried to pull him away. "SOMEBODY! HELP!" She screamed, and her voice was enough to snap Charlie out of his daze.

"Chris," he cried out.

"Charlie! Go get help!" It was all Chris could think to do to save Hayate. Tears were welling up in her eyes already when she saw that a dark, green vine had wrapped itself around the vampire's neck. "Stop hurting him! Let him go!" Chris started kicking the man with the vine arm, something that would distract and not injure. Despite that, Chris was determined to help in any way she could. "Let him go, you big jerk!"

Adam released Hayate's neck with the vine and flung his plantlike arm into the interruption at his side. It sent the little girl's body flying against the wall, though it hadn't been Adam's intention. She was a small person, and Adam's rage had consumed him. He was too strong for someone like her, especially someone who was only a human, and he didn't stop to think about his actions. His only concern had been to hurt the vampire behind bars.

It was a bad move. Adam realized only seconds after what he had done, and he turned in horror to see the young lady unconscious and sprawled halfway between the floor and the wall. His head was running at top speed, trying to make sense of everything happening around him. Adam was having trouble keeping up with his own thoughts and feelings, though. They were running away from him and escaping his senses.

"You son-of-a-bitch!"

An arm grabbed for Adam's hair and yanked him back hard against the bars. The vampire's arm was now around his throat, tightening fast and cutting off his air. Adam did the only thing he knew how to do. He transformed into dirt, falling through the vampire's hands and collapsing to the floor in a pile. The dirt appeared to seep through the stone at their feet, vanishing into the ground until nothing was left. It was Adam's form of escape. After all, he could walk through walls and earth. He didn't have to come out the way he came to get out of the dungeon, but it didn't mean he was going to so easily escape the consequences of his actions.

Chris didn't even see the thick vine as it collided with her small body. She felt the impact, and the immediate pain it caused to her midsection. It was enough to knock the wind from her lungs as she went flying in the air. She didn't have time to realize that she was being tossed aside before her body hit one of the dungeon's stone walls. It might have hurt the girl if she were conscious enough to feel the pain. The sudden crash into the wall caused her to black out immediately; the blunt force too much for her to bear.

"CHRIS!" Charlie hadn't even made it out of the dungeon before the stranger attacked his sister. The therianthrope ran to his twin's side, scared to even move her from her spot. Sometimes it wasn't good to move people who had potential head injuries, or so he remembered from an EMT presentation at his school. That knowledge didn't change his feelings, and the young boy carefully took hold of his sister to straighten her body. "Chris..." His voice was shaking, but he was trying his best to not cry despite the catch in his throat. One hand was still cradling her head while the other held her hand gently. "You're going to be fine," he said quietly. "I'm gonna get some help."

He removed his hand from her behind her head, and there on his palm was a small amount of blood. He looked over his shoulder at Hayate in shock before he wiped his hand clean on his pants. He took off the jacket he was wearing, and laid it over Chris's body. Charlie didn't want her getting cold there on the floor. "Watch her... please..." he said to Hayate before he took off toward the exit. As much as Charlie hated leaving Chris he had to find somebody to help her, and once he was sure she was safe he was going to report the man who had hurt her.

Hayate heard the yell filling the air, but it did not register as his own voice. Chris was flung hard against the wall and knocked unconscious, and he could not do anything once the man slipped through his fingers like sand and disappeared. Hayate was trapped behind the bars, rendered physically incapable of helping the girl he had become attached to over these long months in the haven. The only person who could help her was her brother, the blond boy. Her twin.

The vampire locked eyes with the boy, breathing through clenched teeth. "Get help," he ordered in a raspy voice. He could not speak clearly with the pressure he had just experienced on his trachea; his hand rose to rub the sore skin as he opened his mouth.

The boy ran off, but Hayate kept his eyes on the girl. Until help came, he was not taking them off of her.