Rise Of The Hunters

Things were going well, almost better than he had feared. They still had about an hour before they had to worry about it getting dark, and most everyone was out of the compound. They had loaded down every pack animal they had with supplies and every person, who wasn't carrying a baby, had a lot of supplies on their backs.

One of the Slaver wagons was going, hauling people who had put up a fight. When people saw they were serious about throwing people into the wagons, they started being much more cooperative. Xun hadn't realized how many animals there were until he watched as they started being hauled and led out.

There was so much going on, it was amazing that nothing bad had happened, yet.

Once all of the people were mostly out of the compound, and he was assured they would leave no room unchecked, he rode on a horse for the first time in his life, with Alex, to the lab entrance. People were filing in, unhappily, but calmly. Xun was sure he was going to be swamped by their complaints tomorrow.

"Xun, I am unhappy to see you," said Dr. Achak, as people stared at him in horror and terror.

"Dr. Achak, can we step into one of the rooms so that people don't pass out from fear?" he asked, getting down from the horse. Alex took it on, to the entrance of the city.

Once they were in the room, the doctor turned on him.

"First you ignore my hospitality by leaving without saying farewell, then you steal one of my most prized experiments, and now you bring an entire city worth of people tramping through my lab. I do hope you have a good explanation for all of this."

"Well, if you had been able to contain both of your assistants, I wouldn't have to take such drastic measures."

Xun moved over to some chairs and sat down. If the vampire had wanted to attack him, he would have already.

"Your arm seems to be healing well," commented the doctor as he sat opposite him.

"Thank you," said Xun, ignoring the implications and underlying question.

"You had wanted to work out a deal with me before. Is that still an option?"

Thinking about it quickly, Xun nodded, and followed him across the hall, to another room. It was the lab that had at one point, tons of different experiments running. It looked like something came through and destroyed most of it, and Dr. Achak hadn't bothered with cleaning it up. Taking a piece of paper, that had been spit out of a machine, he read the results, nodding. Then he handed it to Xun.

Xun knew how to read from his dad, and his ability to read improved when he was in the hospital, but this was full of all sorts of scientific words he didn't understand.

"I don't understand it," he finally said, after puzzling over the words for a few moments.

"It basically says that the subject, while horribly deformed and no longer human, has returned to a somewhat human state. My assistant can no longer survive on blood. He could probably even go out into the sun if he wanted. I don't have any food to feed him, so he will slowly starve to death if I don't get any from you."

"What?" asked Xun, he didn't understand. How could the two virus' have changed his assistant back into human?"

"Your three friends did not suffer any issues with the Lisa virus because they already had the same virus that was within Mary. I imagine that if I were to draw the blood of any of the people in your compound, I would find the same thing. It baffles me. I don't know if it was engineered, or if it occurred naturally in response to the virus' that have been released.

"Also, I'm not sure what it would do to me. The concept of returning to a human state has never been a possibility before."

Xun was blown away. Could he be the one that this virus originated from? He knew that he could turn werewolves back into their human form, but vampires too? This was too much.

Screams out in the hall, got their attentions. Xun didn't hesitate to run towards the door. Dr. Achak got there before him, leaving the door open so Xun didn't have to slow down on his way.

It stood on two legs, with a huge mass of boils running up one side. A shredded lab coat was all that remained of any clothing, but you couldn't tell a gender based on the body. One arm ended in a pincer claw and the other extended from the shoulder as a long tentacle, which was wrapped around the woman.

It actually had one head, but three mouths. They all opened at the same time, showing sharp teeth, as if the vampire fangs had multiplied to fill the whole mouth. As everyone watched in stunned horror, it pulled her forward to bite her, but Dr. Achak cut off the tentacle, saving the woman and setting her down gently.

It roared in pain, causing everyone to fall to their knees in pain, including the doctor. His ears were bleeding. Apparently, it was super affective against him.