Blood watched Emile's back disappear up the stairs and then returned his attention to the room full of foxes. Stepping over the pile of flesh, Blood smiled eagerly at his remaining prey.
As he approached the nearest fox, Blood reminisced in the skin curdling stare the respective fox gave him. The fox's jaw was clenched shut in rage and yet his body shivered in uncontrollable fear.
Blood stopped moving as he was already upon the little fox. With a wide smile, Blood slowly raised his crystal hand above the fox's head.
"P — please —" Blood crushed his skull.
His eyes erupted from their sockets and slammed into Blood's chest, bouncing off of him like a ping pong ball. Blood raised his eyes and found the next fox, intentionally staring into his eyes without breaking contact.
"Aren't you gonna run?" Blood asked mockingly, "Or do something?" He covered his mouth, hiding a subtle giggle that he couldn't control.
"Please let me —" a fox erupted from his place around the coals and began to beg for his life, but before he could finish a crimson blade flew across the room, unnoticeable, and slid across the poor fox's neck.
The foxes looked at their companion, confusion rising to the surface of their emotions, until a thin line of blood started to soak into the fox's white fur.
Immediately, the remaining foxes went still.
When did he attack?
How did their friend die?
What happened?
Unknowingly, fear found an even better grip around their soft and malleable hearts. While toying with them, Blood replayed Spright's interaction with Michaelangelo just prior.
Michaelangelo was so confident, so forward, so arrogant. And yet now?
Blood chuckled to himself as his crystal fingers tightened around a fox's neck. He brought the gray fox up to his face and used his other hand to pull open the fox's eye lids:
"Do you feel it?" Blood asked, his wet breath devouring the fox's vision, "That little something tickling your chest? It feels like it's burning, right?"
Blood tightened his grip and the fox's eyes bulged a little more.
"Your whole life — right between my fingers. All I need to do is let go —" Blood smiled viciously, he loosened his grip ever so slightly and a rush of oxygen flooded the fox's lungs.
But less than a second later, Blood squeezed as hard as he could. He heard a snap and the fox's eyes dulled, then his neck drooped over Blood's hand as his soul left his body.
Blood let go of the fox and let his limp corpse collapse below him, "Already?"
He wiped his hand on his shirt, nothing had dirtied it, but the thought of the fox's aura contaminating his hand bothered Blood.
He looked at the remaining foxes, only a handful were left now and most of them seemed to already accept their fate. Blood sighed then raised his hand, just when all the foxes in the room were watching, he snapped.
And the lights went out.
When the lights flickered on, the foxes were on the floor. If Blood didn't know better, he would think they were asleep, but moments later their wounds acted up and blood began to profusely poor from their orifices.
***
"So what should we do?" Willow asked while tapping her nails against the table.
Emile sunk his teeth back into the ring fruit. While chewing, he thought about Willow's question.
'What should we do?'
Obviously, some sort of emergency was underway, an idiot could figure that part out, the problem arose from their newfound relationship with the fox kin.
From what Emile could tell, none of the other foxes had a problem with Emile and his friends, in fact, they seemed more than happy they were here in the first place.
But then that thought invites an even more difficult question, why did Michaelangelo have a problem with them? Or him?
'Mercy's aura' Emile reminded himself.
'Since Michaelangelo was the quote on quote leader, he might have known Mercy and it's likely he's one of few who actually knew their benefactor, meaning the remaining foxes bare no ill will towards the group'
But none of that helped him determine what they should do. The foxes were clearly under attack and Emile was under no obligation to help them and since he had a falling out with Michaelangelo….
But does his fight with Michaelangelo expand to the entirety of their species?
Was his fight with Michaelangelo enough of a reason to abandon the rest?
On paper, Emile believed it was. The leader of a faction essentially declared war against him, they were enemies.
Emile furrowed his brows.
'But nobody else knows!'
If he just started slaughtering the foxes he would be the villain in their eyes. As far as they're aware, they've done nothing to provoke the humans.
If Emile decided to just attack, they would think he was killing them just for fun, just because he can.
And that was a look Emile didn't quite want to wear.
Emile squeezed the bridge of his nose, why did politics have to be so complicated?
"Okay —" Emile swallowed the last bite of the ring fruit, "we'll help the foxes."
"You want to help the foxes?" Willow repeated, "You just killed their entire governing system!"
"Ah ah ah —" Emile shook his head like he was correcting an infant, "Blood killed their entire governing system, I just happened to be there."
"You told Blood to kill them," Roy added, speaking for the first time since Emile's arrival.
'What is with this guy?' Emile stared at Roy, but refused to object.
"Either way, we can't abandon this underground setup. They have too many valuables for us to simply abandon and I'm sure Alexander would be happy with this place," Emile argued.
"If you say so," Willow stood up from their table, as did Roy, "so what should we do right now?"
Emile raised his shoulders in response, "Let's go get Blood and figure out what's going on with this alarm."