Sitting on the roof of the building watching the sun rise, Kyle left his servants asleep in the apartment. He was wearing a black wig to hide his hair color from the passing helicopters. "It's finally morning, but I couldn't even get a wink of sleep last night." Kyle said before something in his pocket started vibrating. He dug in his pocket and pulled a phone out. "It's the same one Chris gave me yesterday…" He thought before he answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Hello, this is Gabriel. We'll fly you to Antarctica but we might not be able to take you directly to the entrance." Gabriel said over the phone.
"That's fine. The entrance is being guarded by an entire unit, it's best if it's Drey, Melissa and I." Kyle said as he saw 2 sets of hands latch on to the parapet.
"Around 7-8 we'll pick you up. Just get to a high rise, we'll meet you on a roof." Gabriel said.
"Alright, we'll be waiting then." Kyle said as he saw Drey and Melissa climbed over the edge and got on to the roof.
*Blip* The call ended.
"Good morning. I can't seem to remember going to sleep last night." Drey said as he stood on the parapet.
"Same, the last thing I can remember is drinking your blood." Melissa said as she sat down and leaned against the parapet. "Good morning." She said quickly after.
"Good morning to you guys too. And the both of you passed out after I completed the overwrite." Kyle said as he yawned.
"You've been up this whole time?" Melissa said she looked at the vague bags that started to form under his eyes.
"I had a little shut eye. Not much though…. I have enough energy to do what I need to do." Kyle said. "Are you two ready, they'll be here in about an hour or so to take us to Antarctica?" He asked.
"Antarctica?" Melissa asked in surprise.
"Yeah, that's where the entrance to the higher realms are." Kyle said as he laid back.
"The higher realms?" Drey said confusingly.
Kyle sat back up, loosely but attentively. "That's where Blutheim is" He said almost aggressively.
"Relax, you never elaborated. I thought we were going to some kind of island." Drey said as he looked at him. "How do you know so much?" Drey asked.
"I learned most of it from the Great King. Didn't he tell you?" Kyle asked as he crossed his legs and used his hand to support his head. "What did he tell you?" He asked intriguingly.
"Well I talked to him but I wasn't able to exchange any words with him. The Great King congratulated me and apologized, he gave me a reward for standing by your side which was converting the knowledge of medical studies into the equivalent of that for Vampires. I'm not entirely sure but he wasn't lying. I understand the anatomy and physiology of Vampires, even the knowledge about treating them." Melissa explained as they heard one of the apartment balcony doors open.
"That's awesome. You may even be able to continue studying so you could become a doctor." Kyle said in surprise. "What about you Drey,'you never told me what you and the great king talked about." He said.
"It was practically the same for me as well, I couldn't exchange any words with him either but he wanted to reward and congratulate me for sticking by your side. Although we didn't have a choice, he granted me the history of Blutheim well, only the equivalent of how much I know in human history." Drey explained.
"So you know of the war?" Kyle asked almost quickly.
"…Yes I do." Drey said as he looked away.
"What war?" Melissa asked as it seemed to have grabbed her attention the most.
"It was a war between Blutheim and the alliance of nations. Where Blutheim was the sole target, they had lost after taking out a great number of the enemy soldiers, even the best on all sides. They fought amazingly until the end. The winners of the war imprisoned the royal family.'' Kyle explained.
"If Blutheim is the kingdom of Vampires, what were the other kingdoms?" Melissa asked.
"There were three, The kingdom of elves- Alfheim, The Nation of giant's- Gíganheim, and The Kingdom of Dawrves- Dwergazheim." Kyle said as he saw their faces which were painted with shock.
"Are you serious?" Drey said in a restricted tone as he tried to not sound excited.
"About what?" Kyle said not yet realizing what he said.
"I mean it would make sense I guess, since there are vampires." Melissa said as she didn't know how to feel.
"Wait, what exactly are your plans? If vampires are their enemy then what does that mean for us?" Frey said almost as if his dreams were crushed.
"It doesn't change a thing. Our plan is to reach Blutheim, if anything was to get in our way our only choice is to deal with them." Kyle said as he heard the whirring sounds of a helicopter approaching them.
"They're here already?" Kyle said as he looked at the helicopter approaching them. "Yep, it's 7:30." Kyle said as he stood up and looked at the phone.
"Is this the HPA?" Drey said as he checked his hair to see if he was still wearing the wig. "They must've used the phone's tracker to find us.
"No, it's the ANM. Look at the logo on the tail." Melissa said as the helicopter had ANM6634.
The helicopter stationed itself above them, Michael opened one of the doors and pushed the ladder down to them. Kyle and his servants didn't waste any time and quickly scaled the ladder to enter the helicopter.
*Bang bang* Michael knocked on the door to the cockpit, signaling that they were ready to leave.
"Good morning." Michael said as he grabbed a briefcase from beneath his chair.
"Good morning." Kyle said followed by Drey and Melissa as neither of them elaborated on their night.
"You have to accept two conditions. The first is the mark of the captain. Since you'll be going to a different nation, it's your job to build the next branch and expand our territory." Michael said as he opened the briefcase and pulled out a tattoo machine.
"A mark? I don't think those will work." Kyle said as he looked at the needle.
"Don't worry, I got silver needles as well." Michael said as he replaced the tattoo machine 's needles with needles that shined brighter.
"Why are they so long?" Kyle said as he stared at the tattoo machine .
"Pull up, you shirt." Michael said as he pulled out a capillary cartridge with red ink Inside of it. "It goes on your chest above your heart. When I finish the tattoo, you must also recite a phrase." Michael said as he attached a large box to the tattoo machine after attaching the capillary cartridge.
"What?" Kyle said as he watched Michael turn the tattoo machine on and off to test if it works.
"Who's getting the Captain mark?" Michael asked as he looked at them.
Just as he said that, both Melissa and Drey stood up and stepped to the doors. "Well, he has the role of master so it makes sense that you would be getting it alone." Drey said with a small smirk.
"Agreed, since you're the master this is your part." Melissa said as she lightly scratched her nose while looking away.
"Ugh." Kyle let out with a scrunched face.
"Lay down." Michael said as he stood up.
As Michael got ready to tattoo the Captain's mark, Kyle laid on the chairs across from him with his shirt covering his face completely.
"Are you ready?" Michael said as he got on one knee to get to Kyle level.
"…Yeah I am…" Kyle said before he felt the cold needles touch his skin which made him jump a bit.
Michael started marking him quickly after. Kyle gripped his shirt tightly, even though he knew it wouldn't go deep enough to do any damage. The feeling of the needles on his skin made him tremble throughout the entire. He did well to hide his trembling as Michael was able to tattoo through it.
"There are a few HPA helicopters around us. One of them is getting closer to our right." The lieutenant said through Michael's aviation headset.
Melissa saw a helicopter approaching them from the window Drey was standing by. They couldn't hear as well as usual because of the helicopter rotors, so he hadn't noticed how close they were.
"What are they doing?" Melissa asked as she saw one of the HPA agents looking at them with goggles.
"What do you mean?" Drey said as he turned around. "Those are probably the goggles that can detect body heat… Kyle mentioned they developed something like that." He said as he turned back to her with his back against the window.
"Get away from the-" Before Melissa could warn him, the lieutenant spoke up.
"They're trying to hack into our comms." The lieutenant said in an urgent tone.
"Let them into a public channel." Michael said as he didn't look away from Kyle's mark.
"Alright." The lieutenant said before a click sound was heard.
"This is HPA Thirty-Three Eight. You are under suspicion that you have criminals on board if you do not land immediately. We will be forced to shoot you down." The HPA pilot said as they were right beside them. "Well give you 4 minutes to comply or else you would be shot down.
"How the hell do they know we're here." Drey said as he moved from the window.
"Vampires don't have high body temperatures. They must've discovered that when they had Kyle." Melissa said as she sat below the window.
"What do we do?" The lieutenant said.
"Send out the smoke flares and put on your parachutes. I'm done with the mark but we don't have time to sanitize it." Michael said as he put the tattoo machine back in the briefcase.
"….Finally." Kyle said as he sat up and pulled his shirt down.
"Here. There are more under the seats." Michael said as he pulled a parachute from under one of the chairs. "We don't have much ti-" *Boom* The helicopter started spinning out of control in mid air.
"WE WERE HIT. I CAN'T GET CONTROL, WE'RE GONNA HAVE TO JUMP." The lieutenant shouted into the aviation headset in a panic.
"HURRY UP AND JUMP." Michael shouted through the overwhelming sound of wind blowing everywhere while holding the door open.
Once they jumped, they emerged from the smoke ever so slowly almost as if they were in a different world. Opening their chutes, hoping they were out of the HPA's sight.
"OPEN YOUR PARACHUTE." Michael said as he looked at his lieutenant.
"I- I- I'M TRYING!" He said as he struggled to reach his back.