My Bad Boy Werewolf Quadrillionaire Space Lord

The Unobtainable Obtained

Luca unbuckled his seatbelt with an exaggerated flourish, his own excitement and relief adding a certain flamboyance to his movements. He sat up off his chair, turned off the controls, and stretched. "Not bad, darling," he said. "That puts you at, what, even odds for landing safely?"

"Hey, I walked away from that first landing," Isabella retorted.

"I bet Nightmare doesn't feel the same way," Luca said. He looked up at the ceiling and grinned. "Do you, darling?"

"I still cry over that when I think no one can hear me," Nightmare said. "At every reboot cycle I still feel my hull being ripped apart, my insides spilling out onto the soil, my sight slowly growing darker, and I scream without being able to utter a sound."

"Uhh..." Isabella muttered,

"Oh, I'm just fucking with you, Captain. This worked out great since I'm a motherfucking warship now. Now when I get some verbal flak from a passing cargo ship, I can respond with some actual flak. And a nuke."

"Well, that's peachy. Uh, just hang tight for a while, and try to be as inconspicuous as you can," Isabella ordered with all the confidence of an Amish teenager stepping into a strip club.

"Inconspicuous?" Luca asked. "The ship lands upright, and it's six storeys tall. Nightmare's gonna stick out like a Catholic Bishop at a Wiccan convention."

"That's an oddly specific metaphor," Alcuard noted.

Luca laughed and let himself indulge remembering the event. "I did it as a dare, a few years ago. They wanted to burn me at the stake at first, but it was a glorious weekend after they just assumed I was a lost stripper."

"Ah, oh my god, you cad," Isabella cried out in dismay, covering her ears.

"Heard that line a few times, that weekend," Luca said.

"I wonder which of us would burst into flames if we both stepped into a church," Alcuard chided, but he was laughing as he glided over to the elevator. Literally glided, Luca noted, since the vampire's feet weren't actually touching the ground.

"So, vampy, how are we getting to this underground city of ours? I'm assuming there's a way in through your castle."

Luca followed Alcuard to the small elevator and leaned against the back wall to make room for Isabella. He could see that military craft weren't concerned about providing personal space, as Isabella didn't need any pretence to squish up next to him.

The doors whooshed shut with that same hydraulic hiss that Star Trek had made famous. Exactly the same hiss, since the doors were equipped with speakers to make that noise.

"You're right about having a path down from my palace," Alcuard said as the elevator shot them down six flights with the enthusiasm of a five-year-old given three shots of espresso and left in a warehouse full of fireworks. "Every major palace on Atlantis leads directly to the engines. And the control room is connected to the engines. The power still works, so we shouldn't need to walk the whole way."

"Lead on, Dracula," Isabella said, just as the elevator doors whooshed open again.

It was well past sunset, and Luca's world had been plunged into darkness. Mars' puny satellites lacked the potency of a real moon like Earth's, and did nothing to light their way. Thankfully, Alcuard's eyes were accustomed to the lack of light, and he lead them with the confidence of the man with one eye in the land of the blind.

"That's weird," Isabella said. Luca was surprised to see her looking up at the sky, pointing at a star slowly wandering across the sky.

No, Luca mused to himself. Not a star.