F-Rank Frank Chapter 32 Side Character Views I (Patreon)

Chapter 32

Side Character Views I

(Holsy)

“Yes, I already told you, he’s cool and he agreed to come.” Holsy responded to a particularly attractive female that stared back at him with almost eerily similar facial features.

“Really?” The girl exclaimed back excitedly, “finally you did something worthwhile. Now you have to tell me, are those dance moves real?”

“Look, I didn’t dance with the kid, but is he clearly muscular and able to move gracefully, sure. But the bigger question is, did you come through on your side?”

“You mean did I get my squad leader to join me and therefore you? Yes. Though know that she is mainly there to see if that Fotos kid can dance. In addition to all of the other things you said.” The female version of Holsy replied with a bit of a mocking tone to her words.

It was clear that the two had a sense of ease when talking to each other.

“Well, just so we are clear, regardless of what happens, he is going to be on my team.” Holsy replied.

“Hah, you think you can compete against the Captain?” The woman who was clearly Holsy’s sister or direct relative replied.

“Yeah, I’ve been with him since day one. Besides we have the bro code.” Holsy noted.

“The Bro code? What if it is the only way the Captain will go out with you?”

At that, there was a slight pause, before Holsy replied. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to say I tried my best and move on.”

“Really? He is that important to you?”

“Look, all joking aside, this kid is doing things here, Classified things here that will change the world. So yes, I want him right by my side.”

With that the female Holsy just paused and finally replied with a one word response. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“So you are done?” Holsy pressed.

“Done with asking, yes. Now with taking, that is an entirely different subject.” Holsy’s sister responded.

“Well, I’d wish you good luck, but we know that would be a lie.”

“Haha, see you later today?”

“See you there, sis.”

Then like that the call disconnected, as Holsy mentally decided to go with a slightly cheaper corsage for his sister from Frank.

“Something that says, I care about tradition, but I don’t want to be stolen away from my best bro,” Holsy said to himself, before finding the perfect one to downgrade and exchange for. Then like that, he felt vindicated from his conversation with his sister, and his possible date.

***

(Constance Evans)

To be a vampire, a monster of darkness requires a few key components. First, one thing to note is that the only way to have darkness is to also have the light. In fact, darkness is only created by the existence of light. This is the core principle of being a monster, of one who was turned from the light and corrupted into a creature of the eternal night.

Echoes of memories.

For years, Constance had nightmares after being turned.

However, the nightmares of a beast are far different than the nightmares of the living. Nightmares of the living involve being eaten and devoured by the creatures of the night.

For the creatures of the night that survive the evolutions, those that cling to their core functions to fight on, to survive at all costs. That cost is the changing of your whole psyche, how you are slowly willing to make minor changes. How accepting your fate of surviving for an extra day is acceptable, so long as you give up just a piece of yourself. A part of you that made you human.

You would always keep the animal instincts, those that told you to survive at all costs. Also cunning was another set of traits that you were often allowed to keep. No, the whispers from lady death herself wanted your morality, they wanted to pull back the hesitation, to make it so that you could survive as a perfected being.

At the time of the exchange, Constance thought that the exchange was permanent, that those memories were forever destroyed in a one for one exchange for power. Of course, this only happened to be her thought process until he came.

It started off simply enough, the one determined Pain Witch arrived, teaching a new Pain Bringer about how dangerous her kind were. Constance even remembered sneering at the way the new Pain Bringer was told to cut her.

Then the remarkable thing happened, as he was actually able to cut her diamond like skin. Something that a welp like the Pain Bringer shouldn't have been able to muster. The Pain Witch herself was only barely capable of carving into her flesh, and that was with much higher levels of power, precision, and pain.

After that things became tenuous, as Constance began to remember memories of her past. Memories that had long ago been traded for power. These were the deep memories that she had wished would remain missing.

From the direct contact it was clear that he had done something to her, that he had taken away the blockers of her memories. That these blockers while providing power also meant that she would be unable to react in any meaningful way.

As there were always voices of command telling her, guiding her, forcing her to be patient.

At least two distinct voices seemed to echo within Constance’s mind. The first of her sire, of Christie her aunt, and the person who caused this whole chain of events to occur. In the darkness, she could only remember the memories of the past that got her to this point. The first memory was of her being recruited by Christie to join her team.

When the idea had first been posed, it made sense in a way, as Constance was new and would need someone she could trust with her life. However, things turned dark quickly when Christie was one of the first team members to fall.

Then feeling guilty Constance herself went looking, trying to help and lure her aunt back to be cleansed.

By some twist of fate, she was able to do what she wanted, in that she managed to lure her aunt back to safety and be captured. Of course, during that time she was the bait meant to lure out her aunt.

At the time it was deemed a success, as they lured Christie back, but it was only a ruse. For Christie’s whole purpose for coming back was solely to turn Constance.

Apparently, beings much higher up in the food chain realized the importance of both Christie and Constance both and their direct familial connection to the Pain Bringer.

She was the ultimate target, the Pain Bringer. Someone who is so powerful that corrupting her and converting her towards their side was worth sacrificing two newly turned elder vampires.

Constance knew this, for she could now see both sides clearly. She could see the familial connection she shared with the Pain Bringer. Constance could also see how the Pain Bringer would be foolish when it came to treating her.

Everything was going fine, they had inflicted contained wounds on almost everyone. At one point even Dr. Evans had tiny shards of dark corroded blood splatter on her face. Blood that had sunken deep within her skin and was ready for the command to activate.

Then one day it was gone.

For a long time orders came to her in her dreams. Orders demanding that she find out how the Pain Bringer managed to purge the corruption that had plagued her.

Finally, an answer came in the form of that boy.

Panting.

Even thinking about him and his power made Constance breathe deeply as animalistic urges rose within her mind. Urges that told her to both rip the mortal apart, and to bow down at his feet in supplication and wait for commands from the great queen to be uttered by his lips.

So infuriating was he, that she ended up divulging her one and only link to his mind, as a warning. A warning not to see Christie, a fact that she now regretted immensely as there was almost nothing she could do to fix this.

Now she found herself locked in the darkness and for the first time she felt truly alone. Before the darkness had been sort of comforting, similar to the way a thick warm blanket would feel.

However, that feeling of comfort dissipated the moment he removed the darker compulsions on her mind and forced her to realize just how alone she truly was.

Then as if calling from the deep recesses of her very soul, she felt a deep commanding voice call out to her from her blood and send out an order.

Chills.

CHATTER!

At the exact same time that Constance felt her own chills running down her neck from the command she received, all of the other creatures of darkness that had also been captured to be tested upon began calling out.

Even with gags in their mouths, all the creatures managed to clatter their sharp teeth against the metal spheres causing a deep echoing chimes to be heard throughout the underground facility.

Hearing that sound, it was clear that Constance was not the only one who had heard the message, but that everyone heard the message. A message that every tainted monster called out in acknowledgement.

The message from the dark queen was simple and to the point. “Get Ready.”

***

(Major Demoniker)

Vertigo.

The times between bouts of sanity were becoming harder and harder to measure. He awoke realizing that time had passed, likely hours.

Fortunately for Major Demoniker it was well known that he had to meditate often to keep his powers under control. What others didn’t know, what no one knew was that he didn’t control his powers, not really.

He was getting close to the point where he would self-exile himself, if it didn’t mean that he would turn completely to the darkness once he was exposed once more to a highly concentrated burst. That while he had initially gained control over the darker powers, he felt stagnant, like the powers were now rotting from within him.

Originally, he had wanted to give Cadet Fotos more training on things to avoid. But he was never alone, even during his time with Cadet Fotos the annoying Doctor was there. The Doctor that would all but force him to either be tied down and experimented on if found out, or force him to leave.

There was still so much that he could do, that he could offer in the form of gained wisdom. Yet, it seemed that the boy had learned more tricks on his own. It was also clear that Cadet Fotos was able to cultivate differently than Demoniker could with the same exact powers.

Panting.

Demoniker arose, only to find that his left sleeve was sticking to his left arm. A quick scan showed that blood was pouring out, dark blood that looked repugnant, even to Demoniker’s eyes.

With the puncture wounds, it was clear that the source of the wounds were from himself. To be more accurate it was a direct result of his right hand squeezing his left arm so tightly that finally after a point blood was drawn.

At first Demoniker did this as a way to try to force himself to wake up from these deep dreams. Dreams that if he remembered them would cause nightmares.

Looking at his fingers it was clear that more than just the tips were used to do more than try to awaken him from his death energy induced slumber. Instead, this time something or someone used his body to send a message. One that couldn’t be avoided, even after awakening.

There on the floor, right in the open spot created by an upturned rug. That is where Demoniker saw the bloody scribbles of a madman. Worse, even though the message was jumbled, and not written in his native language, the words written came to him.

There on the bloody floor was the message that as soon as he read it, he heard the dark queen’s seductive whisper in his ear. The same seductive whisper that was used to force the creation of this message.

A message that noted that soon Demoniker would not be able to hide his true nature from others.

Seeing the message, Demoniker once again wondered what he should do? Then he wondered a deeper question, could he actually do anything to stop what was going to happen? Could he stop himself from following the orders of the Dark Queen?

With this thought, Demoniker thought about leaving, about not following the orders that were seemingly forced upon him.

Burning Sulfur.

Just the thought of opposing the will of the Dark Queen caused an intense burning sensation to come to his nose.

Drip, drip, drip.

At the same time a warm hot liquid began rolling over his lips. The liquid smelled of copper and sulfur. Realizing that this was a safety measure put into the commands to keep him from doing anything other than the commands, Demoniker paused, realizing that he had waited too long. That he had the time to turn back long ago, but he foolishly held hope that he could continue to fight off the cancerous materials inside him.

Panting.

Finally, realizing that he couldn’t do anything against the commands, the pressure on his mind relaxed enough to let him relax and think rationally.

With the message and its purpose fully ingrained in his mind, Demoniker realized that he might not be able to act directly against the message. But that didn’t mean he was completely powerless to stop the compulsions.

Reaching for his communicator, Demoniker contacted his first emergency contact.

Brrrinng.

The archaic sounds of bells chimed, as a connection was attempted. Oddly the sound of the bells caused Demoniker to relax slightly.

“Hello, Major, is everything okay?” Dr. Evans asked, seeing Demoniker’s hologram silhouette and realizing that he still had a faint trail of blood on his face.

“Could you perhaps come for a courtesy call?” Major Demoniker asked.

“I, I can’t.” Dr. Evans replied, embarrassment filling her voice as she seemed to look down, out of the range of vision provided by the hologram.

“Okay, no problem.” Demoniker said, his voice calm on the outside, even though internally he felt one last chance at hope slipping away.

“What happened? Are you bleeding?”

“Yes, I apparently passed out while meditating.” Demoniker replied, all answers truthful, but the passing out while meditating had nothing to do with the bleeding nose. Unless, you went back further and realized that the mind compulsion that was fully latched onto his brain right now happened as a direct result of his passing out while meditating.

“Is that all?” Dr. Evans pressed.

“No,” Demoniker answered, not knowing how much else he could say. Inviting Dr. Evans a fellow colleague over to help was no big deal, but apparently stating that he passed out and had dark compulsions anchored to his mind were not allowed.

“Want to talk about it?”

Silence.

Demoniker sat still as his mind fought to break through the commands ordering him to be silent. Finally he found something that he could say that on the surface seemed innocuous, but would hopefully serve as the warning he desperately needed.

“No, just know I think I am going to go on that walk we spoke about.”

“Okay?”

More blood.

At that, the compulsion seemed to realize what he had attempted to do and was now destroying part of his mind.

“What? What is happening?” Dr. Evans all but screamed seeing the blood flowing.

“I need to go.”  Demoniker said, as he covered his nose and applied pressure, while simultaneously ending the connection.

There it was, the most Demoniker could do to prevent this, or so he thought.

Then another thought hit him, realizing this was the only way, Demoniker turned on his recorder and began recording a message.

“This is Major Demoniker, I have found that my thoughts are not my….” Was as far as Maj Demoniker got, before more bands began constricting on parts of his mind, tearing away parts of his psyche as he continued to fight to at least let this message get heard. “I’m sorry, hopefully you can get to Cadet Frank Fotos before….”

Blinding Pains.

With that Major Demoniker had to stop, as a torrent of blood began rushing down his nose. Idly, he tried to scoot back some, so that his message to himself was not covered by his violently bleeding nose right now.