When they entered the cellar, the first thing they perceived was the metallic smell of blood that permeated the small cellar and suffused every part of it.
CLANG. CLANG.
The metallic restraints used to hold Malia fell off as Tristan sliced through them and caught her body before she could fall.
"It's wolfsbane. Get rid of it." Tristan ordered harshly after taking the bullet out.
The way he said it, as if a command, angered the Argent matriarch and patriarch very much, and it showed on their faces.
Feeling the waves of anger behind him, Tristan turned to face them with shining red eyes and spoke in a dry tone.
"Allison did this to Malia, and I'm still… 'calm'. Don't tempt me."
Without wasting any more time, he started taking Malia's pain but the more he took, the angrier he became. Finally after a while, he stopped after taking in most of Malia's pain while stabilizing her breath.
"Now cure the wolfsbane poisoning."
Chris and Victoria examined the wound but soon sported bitter frowns on their faces.
"What is it?" Tristan asked impatiently.
"Well," Chris coughed, "It's not exactly a normal wolfsbane poisoning, but we've already identified it so mixing up a cure when we get home is no problem. We can't exactly burn it out since it's circulated widely through her bloodstreams."
"You realize Boyd is still out there somewhere, right?" Tristan reminds them, causing the two Hunters to nod bleakly.
Chris turned to Tristan and gave a suggestion he knew, that without a doubt, Tristan wouldn't comply with. Still, it was their most viable course of action at this point.
"We'll take care of Malia and make sure that no harm comes to her if you go look for your friend, I promise you that."
"Eh?"
"Trust m—"
"Trusting you is the last thing I'll do at this point. And what will you do if your daughter comes for her, hmm?" Tristan asked.
The frustrating insinuation that his daughter was being possessed and hurting people made Chris lose his cool for a moment and yelled back at Tristan.
"She's your friend, isn't she?! Have some fucking compassion and understanding, you ungrateful bastard!"
Tristan lost it at that moment and the hold he had on his anger slipped out through a small crack. An anger too heavy that it almost had a metaphysical weight that made Chris and Victoria feel as if their blood suddenly became denser.
"Compassion? Understanding? What would you do if I did this to Allison, huh? And not just that, but it also made me choose between Malia and Boyd, knowing fully well what my choice will be. And it did all this while possessing the body of my friend. And you think I'm not understanding enough!?"
When Tristan finally came to, he saw that his tails were tightly wrapped around the necks of the two Argents.
He looked at Malia, contemplating his choices, but it was hard. Malia at least was saved, though not entirely sure if it was safe to leave her with the Argents, but Boyd's situation was completely unknown. He could be dead for all Tristan knew.
"If so much as a cut enters her skin—"
"I know. You'll kill me, right?"
Tristan shook his head. "You'll find that sometimes death is the greatest kindness you can give someone. I'm not that kind, Argent."
His mind was still in a haze but he could still pull on the sensation he had felt when looking for Malia.
"Come."
Chris and his wife heard the call of birds and the increasing volume of flapping wings moments before the cellar was filled with crows, some of which perched on Tristan's body.
"Find Boyd." His eyes glowed as he ordered them. He had no idea how they knew Malia or how they traced her presence, and he happily chose to remain blissfully ignorant for now. However they did it didn't matter, as long as they were competent.
...
[Brief moments back…]
While Tristan and Chris were moving towards the old Hale House, as well as Victoria, Allison, who was all healed up, was walking leisurely in the woods towards a cave with an expectant smile on her face.
And the smile widened when she saw what was in the cave.
"Well, hello there, little fox." She caressed the blood cocoon that sealed the sleeping Kira.
"You'll help me greatly against a very unruly leech."
...
Tristan didn't blindly go after Boyd and instead went to where he had stashed Kira's sarcophagus, which was a place very few to no people know of – in other words a very safe place – except that he was met with an empty cave when he arrived.
Tristan had to grudgingly acknowledge that the Nogitsune was unparalleled when it came to pissing people off.
He was no fool, a teenager yes, but not the average emotional/hormonal-driven teenager.
It was taking everything he had not to just flip out and start skewering people left and right when he got the message of Malia's abduction.
The part that cooled off most of his fiery rage was when he found her and saw that she was very much fine apart from the one bullet shot. No signs of torture or any physical abuse, which meant she was just severely weakened and pained from the poison and nothing else.
With a clearer and more relaxed mind, Tristan remembered that the Nogitsune was one for dark humor and riddles. The fact that it kept Malia under the burnt Hale House was definitely a jab and had a riddle in there somewhere that Tristan currently wasn't in the mood to figure out.
As for Boyd, the only thing that served as a clue was that it mentioned he was dangling off a rope in some closed room. If it was meant as his only clue, meaning he had some familiarity with the place, the only thing Tristan could think of was the abandoned bank where the Alpha Pack held Cora and where Jennifer almost sacrificed Deaton.
Caw. Caw. Caw.
For some reason he smiled when he saw the approaching crows. It seems as if his intuition was right.
It took some time for him to arrive at the bank and he immediately made a beeline for the vault where he knew Boyd was being held.
However when he stepped into the vault, his worst fears were realized. The Nogitsune had let Malia go easy and had focused its attention more on Boyd, probably because he was human and had low tolerance for pain.
His fingers and toes were broken, all of them, along with most of the bones in every part of his body.
As if to drive a bile further down Tristan's throat, it left a message for Tristan with Boyd's blood on the wall.
WRONG CHOICE, TRISTAN~
Looking at Boyd's battered up expression, Tristan was seriously confused and wondering if there were other appropriate emotions he should be feeling other than anger.
At this point, Tristan's anger was no longer simmering as most of it cooled down. This was a constant reminder that while he was a supernatural force to be reckoned with, not everybody around him was.
None of them, not his family, not Malia, and neither his friends were ancient Bloodborn Primearchs like he was.
He consoled himself with that thought as he absorbed all of Boyd's pain into his body before infusing a good amount of his blood into his system.
"You'll be better now, buddy. I've got you."
He tried calling Kira's parent to let them know what had happened but cursed when he remembered that he had squeezed his phone into plastic waste.
…..
Kira's eyes slowly fluttered open to capture a foreign environment she couldn't remember ever waking up to.
She tried moving but soon found that she couldn't as she was strapped to a metal contraption. And that quickly jolted her to clarity.
"What? Where am I? Hello!" She screamed while trying to force herself out of her metallic binds all to no success.
Her former memories before she lost consciousness started coming back which against all odds, calmed her down a good bit.
"Tristan?" She called out hesitantly and this time, unlike the usual, a raucous laughter replied to her call.
"Oh, just how precious, little foxy." The source of the laughter said with apparent amusement.
"Allison?" Kira called out excitedly when she saw who it was, but that excitement quickly died out and morphed into horror when she saw the unnerving smile on Allison's face. "It's y-you. The Nogitsune…"
"Tut tut, the big reveal is still yet to arrive." Allison waved her finger in a disapproving manner in front of Kira.
"A-are y-you going to k-kill me?" Kira stuttered in fright.
Allison came so close to Kira that their body almost touched, and took a long deep inhale of Kira's scent. "Oh that fear, so intoxicating. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make foxes afraid? Hahaha!"
"As for whether I'll kill you, or course! I mean, who do you think I am? Though first I need something from you, and I think you know what I'm talking about."
Let the chaos games begin.
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