Red Fang II

Chapter 38 (C-Arc): It's All Connected

We last read Chapter 37, in which Chef Cedric—the mastermind behind the spread of the Omega Vector X virus, or OVX virus, for short—is confronted for the final time within the back kitchen of the rebuilt Nuka Bistro by Mavis Ladair a.k.a. Red Fang.....and eventually by both her father Lord Balfort Ladair and her husband Garson as well. After restraining the chef and goading him into a confession regarding his part in the pandemic, as well as his ties to both the strange blood creature Virulis and its superior Prince Boripedes, one of Cedric's vampire-hunting squad mates briefly stops by the Nuka Bistro—having survived Balfort's earlier attack on him—and searches the building for Cedric, momentarily stopping outside the double doors leading to the kitchen. In a moment of quick thinking, Red Fang seals Cedric's nose and mouth and wrestles him to the ground to keep him quiet, while Balfort and Garson restrain Cedric's arms in the meantime. The vampire-hunting chef eventually leaves the vicinity of the kitchen and the Nuka Bistro entirely without discovering any of them, but Red Fang soon realizes that she has inadvertently killed Chef Cedric by suffocation in trying to make him stay silent. She suffers an immense crisis as a result of the act despite Balfort and Garson's attempts to comfort her, even going as far as to momentarily hallucinate Garson's face as a grotesque and zombified version of Cedric's; she's been a pacifist for her entire superheroine career and has never killed anyone for any reason, and now she has Cedric's life on her ledger. Completely losing it, she begs her father Balfort to punish her, but the most he gives her at the moment is a slap on the wrist before reinforcing that saving the other vampires from Prince Boripedes's revenge plot should be their first and foremost priority.

Just then, Lily Ladair, Theo Ladair, and their companion the Talking Skull also arrive at the Nuka Bistro after their unsuccessful attempt to make it through the labyrinths below Prince Boripedes's island and steal his treasure, intending to alert them about Boripedes's evil scheme.....only for Red Fang, Garson, and Balfort to annoyedly tell them that they already know.

This time, our heroes take stock of everything they have learned up until this point, and set out to attack Prince Boripedes and Virulis for the last time.....

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"Where have you two been the entire day?!" Mavis Ladair a.k.a. Red Fang asked very forcefully, noting that Lily Ladair and Theo Ladair had been absent from both the vampire sanctuary of the Vermillion Enclave and the unofficial Transylvanian capital of Cluj-Napoca for multiple hours at that point and had seemingly—in her eyes—contributed nothing to her search for the Bloodstone. "You had better have a good excuse."

"Oh, we had a great day, sis!" Theo cheered, completely oblivious to his sister's disdain. "We braved rising sand, laser-shooting animal heads made of stone, a gilded maze, two rock golems, and a freaking treasure construct!"

Red Fang, Garson, and Lord Balfort Ladair, who had all been completely unaware of Lily and Theo's side adventure, could only blink with great incredulity.

"What?" the Crown Princess replied. "And what, pray tell, is that skull hanging from Lily's hip?!"

Lord Balfort Ladair, however, shared a long look with the Talking Skull, who somehow seemed familiar to him. And, conveniently enough, the Talking Skull seemed to recognize Lord Balfort Ladair as well.