Blood, Bath, and Beyond
Warning: Blood and Excessive Violence
Isabella Quentin is walking down a sidewalk spinning her cane while being followed by Love Hart, Violet Newton, and Ori Sawano.
Little Miss IQ is leading the way in the front, Ori is in the back still shooting the occasional glare at love, and Love and Violet are talking to each other and are in deep conversation.
“So…” Violet tries to bring this up in a way in which Love knows what she is talking about while not letting anybody else in the group catch on to it. “Are you feeling okay? You have been through so much recently so I just want to be sure.”
Love blushes, but quickly looks away from Violet to try and hide her face.
Isabella suddenly stops and the group does the same behind her. She lets out a big, disappointed sounding sigh seemingly out of nowhere.
“This day has been really boring!” Isabella blurts out. “I want something exciting to happen!”
At that moment Isabella starts to sense something. After all, one of her many psychic abilities is reading people's emotional wavelengths. The more heightened and unconventional they are the easier they are for her to sense. Even though it is very faint she can absolutely tell someone who is quite powerful is close to her current location.
“Interesting. Quite interesting indeed.” She says under her breath.
As they walked, Love and Violet continued their conversation.
“...You know…despite some of the things that have been happening to me recently…I would still say that these last couple of months were some of the best in my entire life so far.” Love stated genuinely.
“That’s good to hear.” Violet gives Love a small smile. “I am genuinely happy for you.”
Love suddenly started blushing even harder than she was before.
‘What is this feeling?’ She thinks to herself.
The group continues to follow Isabella.
She eventually stops in front of a random alleyway.
“Alright! Come out with your hands up! I know where you are!” Isabella yells confidently into a dark alley.
A glowing pair of eyes appear in the darkness slowly followed by a huge grin.
Isabella points her cane at the shadowy figure standing in the alleyway.
“Show yourself!”
The figure proceeds to step into the light.
What stands before Isabella and the others is a tall, lanky man. He has long, greasy black hair with bangs that are covering his right eye. He was wearing a black and white striped prison jumpsuit, a leather jacket, and knee length black boots. He has many scars and stitches across his face and gray skin.
He licks his lips in anticipation for what was about to happen.
“State your name and business.” Isabella keeps her cane pointed at the mysterious man.
“Oh…I don’t have a name…Not anymore at least...but some people call me Noir.”
The gears in Isabella’s brain start to turn. Just where had she heard this name before?
“As for my business, well…” Noir starts giggling to himself while looking at Isabella with his cold, unblinking eyes.
Suddenly, Isabella is lifted off the ground by an unknown force.
He puts the sharp fingernails of his right hand onto her chin.
“...Is to put an end to each and every last one of you so-called heroes once and for all!” He yells enthusiastically as he pulls a knife from the pocket of his leather jacket and quickly tries to stab Isabella right in the heart.
Before he is able to do anything else, Isabella uses her psychic powers to stop him. She freezes him in place, lifts him off the ground, and throws him directly into a brick wall.
“Such big words. I do wonder if you have the strength to back them up.” Isabella quips back at the criminal.
Despite this, Noir's grin remains. He takes his knife and slashes himself across the chest. He begins to profusely bleed from this wound.
He puts his hand at his chest and his blood starts to follow his command as it starts to change shape. Seemingly out of nowhere there are now about fifty small needles in front of Noir that are made entirely out of his own blood.
With one flick of the wrist the needles fly towards Isabella and the others.
Isabella spins her cane to dispel every spike that was sent her way. Violet does the same with her mace.
Ori slams her fists together, turns into her oni form, jumps up to the roof of one of the buildings making up the alleyway and is now kicking her feet watching the fight like it was some sort of sick and twisted entertainment to her.
Love runs behind Violet, but unfortunately is hit in the right shoulder by about a handful of the spikes.
“Love!” Violet yells out right after this happens.
Violet quickly drops her mace and puts her arm around Love’s shoulders.
“...Don’t…Don’t worry about me Vi…I can handle this…”
Violet looks at Love’s shoulder.
“Love! You are bleeding!”
She looks over at her shoulder and takes a good look at it.
That…sure was a lot of blood.
Love proceeds to temporarily pass out in Violet’s arms.
That is until something else wakes up in her place. Whatever happened to Love during her sparring match against Ori was happening again.
She was suddenly standing up with the same red glowing eyes from before.
Noir and Isabella stopped fighting for a moment and both glanced towards Love.
“...How interesting…” Noir says while he licks his lips and walks towards the students.
“...Nothing interesting happening here. I can assure you that…” Violet says while standing in front of Love.
“...You’re lying to me…Aren’t you…”
“...How…How did you know that?” Violet responds as the worry inside of her begins to grow.
Noir walks up to Violet and pokes her in the middle of the breastplate of her armor.
“...From the way your heart is beating…For some reason your heartbeat increased…and I want to…” Noir licks his lips. “...Find out why…”
He shoves Violet out of the way and walks toward Love.
“...You’re protecting this one…Let’s see why that is…”
Love instantly shoots an arrow at Noir.
It flies right through his chest, but his body instantly reforms itself.
“...You're brave…I’ll give you that…but let me show you what happens to people who play hero…”
Noir uses his powers to turn his right arm into a bloody sickle.
He lunges towards the two girls, but he is blocked by Isabella’s cane.
“...How cute…” Noir says right before he stabs Isabella in through the heart.
“...You…won’t get away…with this…” Isabella says before she passes out from blood loss.
Noir absorbs quite a lot of Isabella’s blood into his arm.
“...One down…Two more to go…” Noir says as he slowly walks towards the girls. His sickle arm creates sparks against the floor as he does so.
When he gets in range he attempts to slash Love across the face, but he is suddenly blocked by Violet.
“...So…you want to die first…” Noir says with a psychotic grin.
Violet manages to shove Noir away with her mace and swings it back over her head while Noir stumbles backwards. She then follows through and hits Noir over the head.
When she lifts her mace she sees that Noir is just a puddle of blood on the pavement.
After a moment, he uses his powers to get his body looking like it did before.
“...So much power…Too bad…it won’t do you any good…How are you going to defeat an opponent…” Noir uses his blood to create bigger arms for himself. “...That you can’t even touch.”
Noir suddenly grabs Violet and lifts her into the air.
Love suddenly yawns, sits up, and begins to rub the back of her neck.
“...Where…am I?” She questions before looking upwards.
As soon as she sees Noir holding Violet without hesitation she conjures her bow with a red arrow already knocked.
“...Let go…of her…” Love says while trembling with fear.
“...Why should I?” Noir says while turning his attention towards Love.
“...Because…if you don’t…I’ll make you regret it…”
“...Oh…I see…” Noir turns back towards Violet. “...This one is your friend…Is that right?”
Love, still scared out of her mind, gives him a small nod in response.
“...How convenient…” Noir says as he begins to squeeze Violet.
Love takes a deep breath and fires the arrow at Noir.
It passes through his arm just like the previous one.
Noir just turns towards Love, the same psychotic grin on his face as before. As he stares he continues to squeeze Violet.
“...Let…Let her go!” Love’s eyes are suddenly the same color as the sun. As she knocks another arrow Noir notices that it also changed color to match her eyes.
“...What is this… some sort of party trick…”
Love shoots another arrow at Noir, but this time it actually hits him.
Noir suddenly drops Violet and grabs his arm.
“Shit! That actually hurt!” Noir instantly becomes furious and quickly turns his attention towards Love.
“...You bitch!”
He raises one of his giant, bloody hands straight into the air and quickly swings his palm down towards where Love is standing.
As he raises his hand he notices that Love isn’t anywhere to be seen.
“...Eyes up here, blood bath!” Love says from about fifteen feet in the air.
She shoots another arrow towards Noir.
“Ahhh! That…burns!” Noir says as he tries to extend his arm up to where Love is.
Love quickly falls back onto the ground with a heroic pose, does a backflip off the building behind her, and flings herself right back into the air.
“...That’s it! I am going to kill you, fucking bitch!” Noir says while he transforms his arms into cannons and he shoots a barrage of bloody spheres towards Love.
At the same time Love was preparing another attack. After charging up the power of the attack for about twenty seconds she sends a volley of arrows down at Noir that easily pierce through and burn up all of his projectiles and pelt him as well.
Love lands again and slowly walks towards Noir who is now half formed and is mostly just a steaming puddle of blood on the alley floor.
“...There is…no way…that a kid just beat me…How are you so strong?”
“This is what you get for hurting my friend!” Love yells out as she launches another arrow towards the Noir.
This burns up most (but not all) of the blood that formerly made up Noir’s body.
After the fight was over Love's eyes turned back to normal. She then turns around to go see if Violet was okay.
She sighs in relief as she notices that Violet is already back on her feet. She was currently standing over Isabella.
Love jogs over to see how she was holding up.
“...This…looks bad…” Love is instantly spiraling again.
“...Now that is exactly what your patient wants to hear...” Isabella says sarcastically while she grabs her chest after she feels a sharp pain.
“...Sorry…” Love responds.
“...Hey…It’s okay…Don’t worry about me…I have been in much worse scrapes before…” Isabella’s eyes are starting to close as she says this.
“...Miss Quentin…” Love starts to feel a sense of dread at the pit of her stomach.
“...Hey kid…can I ask you something?”
Love just nods while tears start forming at the corners of her eyes.
“...Just…tell my dad…that he has a good group of kids this year…” Isabella says as her eyes fully close.
“...Miss Quentin…” Love starts to hyperventilate “...ISABELLA!” Love suddenly screams out.
Violet puts a hand on Love’s shoulder.
“...No…no…this isn’t happening…” Love is sobbing now.
Right before Love was about to accept the finality of this situation her eyes suddenly started glowing a bright green.
“...No!” Love says as she stands up and conjures her bow again. “You aren’t going to die! I refuse to accept it!”
Violet quickly stands up and walks a safe distance away from Love.
Love knocks a green arrow and shoots it directly into Isabella’s heart.
Afterwards, Love’s eyes stop glowing and she falls onto her hands and knees.
After about a minute a green aura starts to cover Isabella’s body.
As the energy passes through Isabella’s heart she suddenly bolts upright with a deep breath.
“...What…where am I?” Isabella says before looking down at her chest.
Love and Violet suddenly rush over towards Isabella.
“...Why…am I not dead…” She says while looking for injuries on herself. “...That blow should have been fatal…”
She turns towards the girls.
“...Surprise…” Love said while shrugging her shoulders. “...I…guess…this is something that I am able to do now…”
Isabella spent some time processing what just happened.
“...Hey kid…Thanks for…you know…saving my life…”
“...You’re welcome…”
“Wait a second!” Isabella suddenly stands up. “Where is that blood guy!”
“...Oh…Don’t worry about him…I took care of that too…” Love said while rubbing the back of her neck.
Isabella lets out a sigh of relief.
“Okay. Let’s head back to base. That is enough excitement for one day.”
After the three others left the alleyway Ori jumped down and walked towards what remains of Noir.
The few drops of blood that were still on the ground started to slide towards one another.
Ori goes to grab the knife that he left on the ground earlier and cuts across her palm.
She goes back over to where Noir was as the blood from her hand starts to drip downwards.
After a few minutes the pile of blood starts to take form again.
“...I…need…blood…” Noir cries out.
Ori suddenly walks towards the edge of the alley and pulls a middle aged business man into the darkness with her.
“Hey, what are you doing!” The man screams before Ori instantly plunges a knife into his chest.
“Nothing personal. You just have something that I need right now.”
After some more dirty work Ori dust off her blood covered hands standing next to a fully reformed Noir.
“...And here I thought you were one of those boy scouts…” Noir says with a sinister grin.
“...Nah…That place was a drag, but I think I know something that would be more…up my alley…” Ori says while flashing a toothy grin.
“What was your name?” Noir asked.
“Ori.”
Ori holds out her hand. Noir gives her a firm handshake.
“...Welcome to the organization, Ori…” Noir says as he lets out an evil laugh.