Crimson Claws & Fangs: Epilogue

Re-caps and Epilogues:

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And they all lived happily ever after…is that how the story ends? We who watch everything from our seats above know that a story never ends, especially not one about immortals. No at this point their lives diverged, only to seldom cross-over again, Rick, Samantha, Mike, and Peter, it is at this time that their adventures together essentially come to a close.

 

Rick:

    Rick, this man was once a devout hunter of evil for the Order of the Knights of the Golden Cross. He had for years suspected the order of stealing supernatural items for their own secret purposes and hunting anything none-human whether good or evil. Litmet the ancient goddess of destruction took advantage of this to turn him to her side with sweet words and sweeter actions. She convinced him to become a Litkin, a warrior that would serve her.

 

    He now has the strength and power to defeat almost any supernatural force native to the planet Earth. In exchange he has effectively made himself into the personal puppet and plaything of Litmet. Even as his mindset shifts to that of a dark power he still clings to his humanity. Under Litmet he is now the ruler of the Vampire Society’s California branch. His first decree, and perhaps his last with a shred of human thought was to banish all vampires from the state of California who either have to or are addicted to feeding on human blood.

 

    This mass migration of blood-thirsty monsters leaving the state has not gone un-noticed. Various secret organizations took notice of it, some even mistaking them for aliens, and Rish the son of Rhuen and Versa, now claiming a large chunk of Arizona and Nevada as his territory lashed out at these vampires, destroying all that crossed his path and hunting down all the others he could find, earning him the name Rish the Butcher.

 

     Rick is un-moved by the massacre, his own human convictions adding to the hardening of his now demonic heart. He is humanity’s friend no more, he is King Rick the Black Hearted, and his heart and loyalty belongs only to Litmet, his empress and lover.

 

Samantha:

    She graduated at the top of her class, a zoology major in San Diego. She was a specialist in large predatory mammals. Thanks to her degree and experience in the field she was called in to investigate a series of mysterious sightings of a large unknown predator in the mountains of California between the towns of Pine Ridge and Brooksville. In this incident she gained the attentions of Versa goddess of the wilderness. Unlike the others who went after Versa during her pregnancy Samantha wasn’t a hunter, had no intentions to harm her or her offspring, Samantha was simply curious. Versa saw this and took a liking to her, giving her a taste of her blood, transforming Samantha into a being known to most as a were-dire, or more properly a Raikin, although even to them they prefer the new name of were-dire.

 

    Samantha rejected this power at first, wandering around like an animal until this new world was opened up to her thanks to meeting first with the emissaries of Censa and Kitsu, a daughter and sister to Versa respectively. Samantha has since left behind her human life completely, she is no longer Samantha, she is Crimson Vixen. Along with Versa’s daughter Riska has been training under Versa to learn to control her powers. She spends her days now mostly accompanying Versa as her consort, especially as Riska has now gone under the task of controlling a territory from below Washington DC down through Florida.

 

Mike:

    Mike, always the devout hunter for the Order of the Knights of the Golden Cross, always did what he was told but lacked tact about it. He would rush in guns a-blazing to take out the wicked ones. He went after what he thought were werewolves only to find gods. His punishment was for his body to be destroyed and his soul transplanted into the body of a monster. This twisted form was used as an enforcer by the vampire Count Fontaine, tricked for purposes all her own by Litmet, and abandoned by those he thought were his friends. He now finds himself in a strange world where he can assume a form between that of his human shape and the demonic form.

 

    He will spend years in this place with the woman he met in the pond where he first found himself, Rah-Chell, a member of a species known as the Wa-lilly who are wondrous aquatic beings able to change the shape and density of their skin to a wide variety of shapes from fins to imitating clothing. He would come to love her and together they would venture out, even one day returning to Earth where at last he would discover the means to controlling his full demonic form, how cliché, it was the power of love and acceptance that not all supernatural forces are evil. Well that is how the lessons that gods teach mortals go after all.

 

 

 

 

Peter:

    Peter, poor Peter, He was born in a family connected to the Order of the Knights of the Golden Cross, he received the basic training of one of their youth, even though his father had rejected them. He followed his father’s path and left the group early on and became a cop, and even became the Sheriff in the town of Brooksville. Fate would play him a cruel hand as he was drawn into a conflict where the Order member Mike and his own grandfather Henry would confront a pair of gods they saw as monsters in their breeding season. He even fell for the woman the world of science sent to solve the problem, Samantha. Versa maimed his nephew and father; and she turned the woman he had fallen for into beastly form for her own. His father would then be killed by Samantha, his brother was crippled in the conflict between them and the monsters they sought to slay, and the man from the Order Mike was incinerated. Peter was left alive, the only one to escape the horror thanks to a mad dash to try and find help, betting on the idea that the monsters would flee rather than be exposed to the public at large.

 

     Peter would abandon his life, joining a splinter group from the Order to hunt monsters. He once again came a foul the same race that Versa and Rhuen belonged too, except this time they had an army. This secret group took him prisoner. He was freed by the vampires under orders by Litmet, and on top of that found Mike alive and well but turned into a monster serving them. Litmet had him freed only to test a far flung experiment, which failed,.

 

     Peter as a result has now been banished to another universe known as Other World, to one of its massive floating continents, a heavily wooded place known as the Dark Forest, a land filled with all manner of strange unearthly creatures from bat winged parrots to beasts that look like a cross between an alligator and a wolf, and all sorts of other odd monsters and plants. This man’s luck is unbelievable, as fate has it actually survives this place, finding the worm-hole gateway system that connects the various continent worlds to each other and explores Other World trying to find a way home.

 

The fate of Everything:

   This was not the first, nor will it be the last the world will hear of these beings, in fact they shall become more commonly known in the days to come. The Earth is about to experience a cataclysm, a new era, a new apocalypse. But that is a story for another day. Today we conclude the setting of the stage.