For He So Loved The Rose: Nero/V

Chapter 1

He smiled in satisfaction, even as two more fausts decided it was a good time to join the battle their fallen comrade had just lost, now but a pitiful clump on the concrete.

They hissed threateningly as they floated around the two, twirling in a circle in perfect unison and attempting to disorient their prey by swirling their shadowy forms to block the light from their vision. Shadow growled as she tried to keep focus on both creatures spinning around her, reaching out to claw them once or twice but only achieving in dizzying herself. They closed in further, thick as smoke and darker than night. Their tactic almost worked. Though their slightly slowing movements and the sound of their lance-like appendages readying for a swift strike was a dead giveaway. What they oh so unfortunately forgot was that they were outnumbered by one more.

"Griffon. Anytime you'd like to step in."

He lifted a thin hand, almost surprised at the sudden pressure of being lifted even though it had been exactly as he expected. Cold scaly talons gripped around his forearm as his body was effortlessly pulled upward. He made a motion as if he was tipping his invisible hat at the two surprised demons when he passed their eye level. His feet touching back onto the ground a safe distance away a moment later as his feathered ally successfully rescued him from certain impalement.

Shadow warped beside him in a puff of smoke, already focused on her enemies again as she toughened her stance for the continued battle.

"These guys fight dirty don't they?" Griffon stated, flying in front of them and lifting his shiny blue wings into position as he charged for an electric blow.

"No less than we do, I'd say." V replied, anxious to see the creatures writhe in agony.

"HaHaHa!" The avian familiar laughed as he extended his wings, encircling the approaching fausts in a globe of violet electric bolts. Their screeching death was almost too much to bare as their shrill cries surely carried for miles before being fried into a permanent silence. They dropped to the ground, naked crustacean-like bodies twitching with electricity as they faded in color.

V rushed forward, stabbing one of them deeply with the sharp end of his beloved metal cane, pulling it out roughly in a way that gripped the flesh and ripped it into a dozen glimmering pieces. Swiftly doing the same to the faust laying next to it that had met the same shocking fate.

"That was a nice one V! Those buggy bastards didn't stand a chance!" Griffon shouted with glee, taking a perch on a discarded crate left behind in the lot. Also taking this chance to straighten out his feathers now that they had been displaced by the exertion of the fight.

"You didn't leave my side, even though you could have." V said softly to his feline familiar, kneeling in front of her and gently petting her behind her dark fuzzy ear.
"Thank you, my friend."

Shadow purred, leaning into his touch as she could feel the honesty in his words. She had been willing to get possibly fatally injured, as long as she did so protecting her master.

"Hey what about me! I think we can all agree I was the true hero of this one!"

V rolled his eyes at griffon's insolence. "Yes, the imbecile that wasn't paying attention and almost got us killed."

"I..I was just waiting for the right moment that's all." The bird replied hastily

"Oh? Would that be when they trapped us or were you waiting for the moment they lanced us?"

"Wait, theres still one left. V, look out!"

He barely dodged the strike aimed at his head, the creature narrowly missing him and instead stabbing its weapon into the earth where he had been standing. If it hadn't been for his friends warning..