The glow in the tattoo stopped when a mysterious voice echoed, "Rise, Rise, my child! Show you strength!"
Strings from the ceiling came down, linking to Ariadna's body like a marionette. Her skin turned into wood after connecting to her body, and her eyes became soulless. She was no longer human.
Standing up, she grabbed her head and connected it with the rest of her wooden body, and after doing that, she threw a punch at Bell Old City.
However, Bell stopped the fist by her sword and slashed Ariadna's head, falling to the floor, but she moved, picked up her head, and restored it.
"It will be default. But I have to try."
Bell was using Hell's Unholy Sword to slash the marionette's head; nothing happened, so she tried using the blade that she cut Ariadna with when she was human.
"Zombi strengthened the marionettes, so Heavon's sword can't easily destroy it like it used to."
'Whatever! Let's try punching it.'
Bell punched the marionette's body, but nothing happened, only making it angry and attacking her back. The punch smashed into her stomach, and Bell threw up from the impact.
Another attack flew, but Bell blocked it with her swords and jumped backward to stop the pain. Light from the blade emerged from the blade when Bell stabbed herself in the gut, healing the pain she felt without causing new wounds to form.
'I need to figure out how to stop it until it arrives.'
Bell was thinking of possibilities for defeating the puppet forever, and she knew the thing would take a long time to get to her. Every step Ariadna took vibrated the ground.
One thing Old City didn't expect from the wooden puppet was running toward her, taking its arm, and throwing it at Bell.
She blocked the arm from hurting her, but Ariadna threw a punch from her other hand, speeding up until it broke the sound barrier.
The sword Bell holds warns her by telling her where the attack is coming from. Ariadna's punch hit the steel of the blade. It glued its hand back together.
Bell cuts her arm that was glued back together again. Still, Ariadna, without a care in the world, punched her again. Alucard's right hand grabbed Hell's blade and threw it away from her, tossing Bell.
"Zombi has even improved their intelligence, not just strength."
Ariadna swung the Hell's Unholy Sword with her other arm; flames from the weapon went toward its enemy.
'But I was wrong about intelligence. It didn't learn from the past.'
She slashes the flames, vanishing them, and zooms toward the puppet, swinging her sword at Ariadna's heart.
She blocks the attack with her weapon and throws its sword in the air, taking its head and throwing it at Bell.
Bell dodged the head and zoomed toward Hell Blade, grabbing it before Ariadna attacked her again. Then, she slashed her swords into the puppet's wooden skin.
Flames and light came from the blades after entering Ariadna's skin, weakening the marionette. However, it wasn't dying.
"Why don't you just die!" Bell tried her hardest to make the enemy die, but it wasn't attacking her, wasn't moving or trying to attack. Was it because the blades were pierced into her skin, which made it freeze?
'Shit, why can't I take out my swords?' Despite her tries, Heaven and Hell Blades were stuck in the marionette's skin, and Bell couldn't remove them.
'What should I do? I don't want to leave my swords in her body when I finally hold them again, and also, how do I defeat this puppet without my swords? Punch it?'
'Bell, think what weakness these puppets have that Zombi changed.'
Bell thought so much that she didn't notice that Ariadna started moving again, and it threw a punch at her.
Bang!
Shells from a shotgun from a distance made a big hole in the wooden puppet's head, killing it and saving Bell from losing her head completely.
"Bell, your hero is here to save you!"
The one who used the shotgun was her husband, Mike, who was wearing sunglasses and a black jacket with an oak tree shirt.
Before Bell could thank her husband, the same mysterious voices that turned Ariadna into a wooden puppet spoke. Their voice was echoing.
"Mike! Mike! Mike! Why do you always interfere with my fun?! I was going to kill your traitor's wife and make her my slave to kill you, backstabber!"
"Well, stop hiding behind your marionettes and face me. Or are you too scared, Zombi, to meet me because you remember I beat your ass last time."
Mike heard no response from Zombi and said, "Well, it seems you are still a coward."
He approached her wife and said, "Bell, are you okay?"
"Do I look good to you?"
"No, you don't."
"Then why on Armora did you ask me that useless question?" Without saying a word, Mike lifts his wife's body with his arm and carries her.
Bell wasn't happy that Mike was carrying her without asking her, so she yelled at him, "Mike, what are you doing? I am not a little kid."
Mike puts Bell to the ground, and they look for James Ross, Hein Eduard, and the other cops. He helps her to keep her balance by grabbing her shoulder.
***
Meanwhile, Alucard was using telepathy to talk to Zombi while walking back and forth in a big room full of pillars and windows, and he was biting his nails from hearing what Zombi had said.
"You are saying Ariadna died, and you controlled her and still lost? Stupid green skin, why are you even a Dragon Rider?"
"Alucard, you are the one who isn't talking. If it weren't for your dad, you'd never be a Dragon in the first place, and please train your useless Hatchlings better if you don't want them to be my slave."
"Don't talk about my dad without knowing he didn't help me my entire life of being born. I work for this position, Zombi. If you want to talk about being unfair, then let's talk about you. Getting promoted while doing nothing, letting your puppets do your work. So I don't need your help to kill those intruders."
"If you don't want my help, then die."
Zombi was about to stop telepathy with Alucard, but he remembered what he wanted to say to the Blood Dragon.
"Oh, forgot to mention, Healer, arriving at your skyscraper. You better clean up when she gets there."
Zombi left the conversation after delivering his message to the dragon.
"Ugh, today is turning out to be bad. First, it was that those goddamn cops infiltrated my den. Then Ariadna got killed by an old woman and an old man and turned into a mindless slave to that fucker green skin. And now that annoying bitch is coming here. Can this day get any worse?"
Hein Eduard was approaching slowly toward the Blood Dragon, but he was somewhere that Alucard couldn't see him. Only the blue gentleman could see the enemy.
He talked to a walkie-talkie in his hand, "Alpha one and two, this Hein Eduard. I see the Blood Dragon Alucard on the skyscraper's top floor. I will wait until few show up to fight Alucard together, over."
"Hahahaha, you would not hear from those cops, Mr. investigator!"
"Who are you, and what did you do to my men?"
"I didn't do anything to your men. Tell that to the Blood Dragon, and it's none of your business who I am."
It was a woman's voice coming from the walkie-talkie, and Hein was speaking to her, but she dropped the walkie-talkie, breaking it with her feet.
Hein Eduard's voice was still coming from it before it got destroyed. After destroying the walkie-talkie, she looked up toward the skyscraper. Her name was Healer.
Many orbs with different shapes and sizes circled the Healer's head, and she chose four orbs with her pink star-shaped fingernail and said, "My babies go and find Vicious One."
The four spheres circling her head flew into the skyscraper; when she saw the orbs enter the place, she also went toward the building.
Hein Eduard noticed no response from the woman, so he thought, "I guess she left me hanging, but who was that? Anyway, I hope what she said was a lie about my men."
"But if my men were alive, she wouldn't answer my call, and they would."
"I have to fight Alucard alone, but how do I cut him off guard?"
Hein Eduard figured something out when he entered the room where Blood Dragon Alucard was in. It didn't take the enemy long to see the blue gentleman.
"You thought you could do a sneak attack?"
Alucard launched into Hein Eduard, trying to stab him. However, the blue gentleman dodged the attack by slowing down time when he closed his eyes and kicked the enemy's high hip.
Alucard got flung far from Hein, but this did not stop the Blood Dragon from getting up with his two feet and zooming at his enemy again.
To Be Continued.