Dark Dance Manga Story

[RyuuChan]

This is just the written form of the manga I'm trying to start up. :3 I can't help it that I write it in paragraph format, but I think it may be a little easier to follow along with and remember how things play out when I review the story and then make the outline for the panels and pages. ^^

[RyuuChan]

Prologue

"Virginia," a stern feminine voice called in through the small headset nestled between hair and the soft skin of a young woman.

Standing amongst a gravesite, the woman stood with scrutinizing eyes as she peered through the darkness. Less than half of a moon glimmered in the sky, shedding a faint silver light against the dark ruined ground she stood on.

"There's nothing here," she started, scanning through the trees that surrounded the unkempt graveyard. "Not that my eyes can see anyway."

"And Christian?" the static voice persisted.

Looking back behind her, several grave stone markers away, Christian stood, staring off in one direction toward the thick black forest.

"Don't let your guard down," he answered from afar, eyes narrowed and unwavering. "There's a lot of them."

"Headmaster Viddim! Virginia!! I got a reading!!" another voice abruptly called through Virginia's head piece. No one could mistake the sheer panic in the tone. "Retreat now!! There's too many of them!!!"

"Virginia!" Headmaster Viddim resounded through her mic. "Fall back now!"

She wasted no time in her sprint back through the graveyard as the Headmaster kept a firm hand on the hilt of her sword. "Return to the troops before they trap you!"

Before Virginia even had the chance to reply, Christian was by her side glaring into the woods. "It's too late."

His eyes narrowed as he moved swiftly ahead of Virginia, standing in front of her protectively. "They're already here."

"They're right on top of you!" the voice cried out through the headpieces.

Just before Virginia could get a single word pass her parted lips, Christian had lunged forward to strike just as a deranged zombie had jumped out of the words and toward them with gnashing teeth.

"Pay attention," he spoke bluntly after the sharp claws had morphed over his fingertips and slashed the preternatural being to shreds.

"What the hell!" Virginia snapped. "I can bloody take care of myself, ya overgrown furball!"

"Then start showing it," he countered apathetically as he darted forward, facing the growing number of mortified living beings before them.

"Stop babying me already! I know what I'm doing!" Wasting no time, Virginia withdrew and readied several bolts in her left hand, slapping one into the crossbow tied around her right arm. "Now stay out of my way, unless you want to get shot!"

[RyuuChan]

Chapter 01

The battle seemed to drag on no matter how many bodies the two were piling up among the disheveled graves. Christian, dashing through the enraged hungry beings, had already grown long claws and his eyes glowed a dangerous hue of yellow with pointed silver ears poking through his long hair, tied into a high knot. A long tall swished swiftly behind him as he tore each zombie to pieces, leaving no room for any of them to sneak up on him.

“Watch your back, Virginia!” he snapped, mercilessly shredding two more monsters before him.

“Focus on your own bloody battle!!” she snapped right back as she fired another silver bolt through the head of a zombie lunging directly to her. She immediately darted away from her perch as it seemed that more disfigured humans were coming for her and jumped out of the way as one made a mad leap, smashing headfirst into a gravestone, cracking it’s skull.

In a sudden panic, Virginia had moved to retrieve more bolts from the quiver attached to her right thigh only to discover that all of her bolts had been fired in battle. Snapping back to the monsters before her, she felt her voice caught in her throat as one had already jumped into the air, flying at her with his blood-covered mouth wide open ready to tear her flesh apart.

BANG!! BANG!!

Just as Virginia had moved to duck away from the monster, knowing her fate had reached its end, a bullet had fired straight through the zombie’s skull and torso, forcing its body away from Virginia.

Christian’s gaze shifted back toward where he had heard the bullet fire just as Virginia had snapped her head in the direction of the gunman only to find their Headmaster standing before them, sword withdrawn that dripped with blood and a pistol cocked and erect in hand.

“I told you before, you need more than one weapon to rely on,” she stated cooly.

Virginia bit her lower lip, forcing to hold back a scowl. Before she even had a chance to open her mouth, several bright headlights flared from behind Headmaster Viddim, nearly blinding some of the remaining zombies and forcing them to falter in their movements, making them easy targets.

Not even a seconds hesitation and the air was soon filled with gunfire echoing through the air, taking out the remaining monsters. Headmaster Viddim stood with narrowed cold eyes before the headlights as she watched the monsters fall, making sure that there were none left to get back on their feet.

Looking back behind her, after Virginia had dropped to the ground by a gravestone, she scanned the area to see the hideous scenery before her beneath the silver lighting of the moon. She scoffed under her breath, fists tightening by her sides against the ground in silent frustration.

“Even with Christian as your partner, you still manage to nearly get yourself killed,” the headmaster had captured Virginia’s attention once more as she turned her head back up to the woman now standing before her.

“Ha! Even if you hadn’t come to my rescue, I would have had that punk’s brains blown out before he could even touch me!” she cackled, a smirk pulling back over her lips.

“Any closer and you would have risked his blood tainting yours and becoming one of them,” Headmaster Viddim countered, without even so much as a change in her face, before she stepped forward and extended her hand to her to help her back up. “Try to keep in mind that I have no intention of having to shoot you down. But if you catch their pathogen then don’t think I will hesitate to put you down.”

“Gee, don’t I feel loved,” she said sarcastically, reaching up to snatch her hand and pull herself back up to her feet. “Screw the training, I know what I’m doing.”

“Yet you continue to fall prey to what you’re hunting,” Viddim countered.

“Look! If it wasn’t for that bloody wolf distracting me, then maybe I would be able to make it out okay!”

“Blaming Christian is not going to compensate for your lack of training,” Viddim continued apathetically. “You’ve mastered the use of your crossbow, but as you’ve learned, your bolts are limited. Starting tomorrow, you’re going back to the equipment room to begin training with other weapons.”

“I already told you, I don’t—“

“THAT’S AN ORDER!” Headmaster Viddim finally snapped, nearly scaring Virginia back a few steps and hushing her protest. As Viddim was sure that Virginia would not so much as utter another word against her, she turned on her heel and started back toward the jeeps the other soldiers stood by. “Be ready tomorrow morning. Christian will be supervising you.”

“FFFFFFFFFFFFFF!” Virginia fumed, clamping her mouth shut as she glared after the headmaster and her fists clenched at her sides. One could almost see the smoke emitting from her ears.

“You know she’s right,” Christian’s voice chimed from the side, his body already having morphed back into its human state. “You’re a skilled warrior as it is, but if you want to make it in this era alive, then you need to know how to fight and defend yourself with whatever you can carry.”

“Humph,” she looked away from him, a pout coming over her face. “Well aren’t you being very talkative tonight.”

“I only speak when necessary,” he commented bleakly. “Headmaster Viddim is only trying to look out for you and make sure you can handle standing up against these plagued creatures.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, I know,” she shrugged it off, waving her hand lazily at him. “Now how much longer are you going to stand there, wolf boy? Stay there any longer and they’re going to drive off without us.”

She moved forward, leaving Christian standing behind, watching her walk forward. He didn’t say anything more as she started toward the vehicles and soon followed.

As the two hopped back into one of the jeeps and the other soldiers had readied to move back to headquarters, the headmaster had paused as she looked over to one of the corpses she had fired down herself. Had it not been for the bright headlights of the jeeps around them, she would have missed it… but as she took a step closer to the fallen being, she had noticed scar tissue left behind from what looked like surgical stitches. But what was so odd about it was that the scar had wrapped around the neck and shoulder, trailing down over the torso almost as if the being had been sewn together after being sawed in half.

Her brow knitted together in confusion as she stared down at the clearly dead corpse… The wind whistled around her and this eerie silent graveyard.

..-..Sanctuary Headquarters..-..

A vast building stood amid high cement walls that encased the entire property. Behind it, several other, much smaller, buildings resided. A few lights were lit and it seemed to be bustling with life even beneath the dark sky. Guards stood watch among the posts that were built into the walls that surrounded the organization, keeping a sharp eye out for any unmentionable being, alive… or dead.

Standing before a large window in her office in the top floor of Sanctuary Headquarters, young Headmaster Viddim stood looking over the small buildings where life was able to go on… and then to the ruined city that covered the distant horizon that would never be the same again.

It’s getting harder to find survivors anymore… But then again, after thirteen years of this chaos, what more could we expect? She thought idly to herself before she shifted her gaze up to the hazy sky, looking upon the small piece of the moon that shimmered through the clouds. For a brief moment… she could nearly picture the mocking face and the sharp fangs shimmering in the darkness that had torn her old family to shreds so many years ago. So many monsters that were deemed to be nothing but folklore to scare children spring out of nowhere and take over humanity. First a virus that plagues many humans into becoming irrational cannibals that want nothing more than to attack anything the breathes… and then they are used to the advantage of even more powerful creatures to take their stand in dominance of this world. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the clouds pull away from the moon above. But I promise you, father… I won’t give up until I see that all those who stand against humanity are destroyed.

Before her thoughts could carry on any further, a soft knock echoed from beyond the dark carved wooden door of her office had broken her train of thought.

“Viddim…?” A soft voice called. “May I come in?”

Recognizing the voice, the headmaster released a sigh and pulled away from her window, stepping back over to her desk, placing a gloved him over the red wood surface. “Come on in, Lorraine. The door’s open.”

The door opened with a creak as delicate fingers wrapped around the edge to push it further open and the head of a young woman poked through. Evening cut vermilion locks fell around her face as she looked on through bright emerald eyes.

“Ah, forgive me if I’m disturbing you, Viddim,” she started softly, a small smile curling over her soft lips as she took a step out from behind the door. “But I was told you wanted to see me?”

“Yes,” Viddim started before she moved around her desk to face her directly. Leaning back against the cushioned wood furniture, she crossed her arms over her chest and continued. “From this last mission, we’ve learned that there are still many infected beings running out beyond these walls. One would think after years of getting rid of them, despite the lot being taken as slaves by them there’s still as many out there as when we first began this infiltration nearly six years ago.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that as well,” Lorraine started after she had moved further into the room and the door had closed behind her. “What could that mean? Those that are free only take out any soul that hasn’t been claimed by this disease. They don’t nurture themselves properly so those running loose should eventually die off from lack of food or water. Why would there still be so many to encounter on these missions?”

Lifting one finger, Viddim spoke with a serious tone in her voice, “The first logical reason anyone would come to is that they are still spreading the virus to many other people that have remained untouched. But taking into account those that have harnessed these diseased people, any person that has not been affected is more than likely to have been terrified, chased, captured and forced to serve them however they please, thusly and immensely shrinking the free uncontaminated population. So that would clearly strike out the first logical reason to these large attacks on our missions.”

She lifted up her second finger. “Second, these monsters have known of our position for a while and have kept even more of these sick people under their control and send them out to do their business in hopes of tiring and wiping us out. But this reason can be proven false as well.”

As she pulled away from her desk, she started to walk back around to take a stand by her chair. “Do you know why that is, Lorraine?”

“There can’t be that many people…,” she started as she watched Lorraine move. “Even with a city that had a large population before, the humans that were infected became pets for those monsters to use at their disposal. Even though they outweigh those fortunate enough not to catch the pathogen, these monsters can’t afford many other humans to become just like them. They try to keep those that are infected away from any normal human so they can feed upon them freely themselves. And after we have spent years destroying all those that tried to break through the gate and barge into our missions, one would think that there would be some kind of dent in the infected population, whether free or under their control.

“Correct,” Viddim started as she reached over to what looked like a couple of photos lying over her desk and spread them over the wood surface. “Then there is this.” Gesturing Lorraine forward with her finger, she pointed out a particular picture that was taken from their last mission. “See anything that catches your attention…?”

Stepping closer, Lorraine looked over the photograph that the headmaster had pointed out. At first, it took her a while to understand what she was looking at… It was a corpse of one of those that were clearly infected by the disease that had plagued all the nations of the world as it was. But after scrutinizing the details of the picture further, something clicked and her eyes widened. “This corpse has a rather peculiar scar around its neck and torso…!”

“Exactly,” Viddim started. “Which brings me to my own theory.”

Bringing her gaze back up, Lorraine looked back to the headmaster with her eyes wide and her attention undivided as she waited for her to continue on.

“These monsters have figured out a way to reanimate the corpses either we kill or die off naturally.”

Eyes widening all the more, Lorraine straightened her posture as she looked Viddim directly in the eye. “Reanimation…? But, Viddim, is that even possible?! How could they possibly figure out how to bring life to what is clearly dead?!”

“This is just a theory so we have no evidence to prove that this is what they are doing. However, there is no evidence against it either. If these creatures were thought to be nothing but monsters used to terrify people in stories and movies before, then who is to say that this is not possible either?”

Lorraine hesitated. She still couldn’t even fathom such a theory! She prayed that this wasn’t something that those monsters had discovered… because then they would really be in trouble. “Then… how—“

“Make no conclusions just yet,” Viddim cut off. “We need evidence first.”

“Then how will we acquire this kind of evidence?”

A smirk slithered over Viddim’s lips. “It’s time we took on another infiltration mission.”

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