If Kano was truly honest, he could have given two shits if this world fell apart around his ears. The Dragonshade was just sadistic enough, that the promise of death was enticing to him - that was how he had met Cassia after all, it was how they had begun their somewhat… insane, love affair. He had been on her rack, she had been torturing him, and he had let her for quite some time, before finally escaping his shackles… so that she could have a taste of her own medicine. Their relationship was based upon their love of hurting one another, it wasn't healthy, it wasn't secure, but they enjoyed it and for Kano that was what really mattered. Whether you would call it 'love' was anyone's guess, but it was theirs and in it's way that was all that had mattered. 

This, disaster, threatened to remove that, and Kano wasn't quite done with this world yet. He and Cassia had more fun to be had with one another yet… and he had Kiba's life to ruin. Oh how sweet a thought that was. Meeting Ethan had been enlightening, he could not wait to meet with Kiba's cousin again, it appeared that even the other hybrid was not exactly Kiba's greatest fan… which of course might be useful later on when Kano wished to start sticking needles into Kiba's fleshy bits to get a reaction, if he had the inside track he could do so much more damage. 

But first, this needed to be dealt with didn't it. This, whatever this was. 

The creatures spilling across the battlefield towards him did not frighten him, he'd never really experienced fear before. Anger, abandonment, loathing - these were all fairly normal emotions for the Shade, but not fear. Fear was foreign. So when he watched these horrors running towards him, he merely smiled, threw back his head, and laughed at them - for what could be more joyful than running headlong into danger against an unknown enemy such as this? What greater thrill could there be in this world! He was ready. As the Chompers threw themselves at him he laughed, transforming into shadow and slipping out of the creatures way before it could get a hold on him. 

Oh he would lead these things on a merry old dance! And then maybe he would lead some towards his dearest, darling, younger half-brother… see if he couldn't get them to take a bite or two out of Kiba's hybrid hyde. 

Veah’s body count had reached the double digits by the time she had finally grown bored of picking off the population of a small agricultural town. The vampire had not made herself known to the townsfolk so as far as they were concerned, people had inexplicably gone missing. It pleased her greatly to see the confusion from the shadows. However, the vixen was starting to get lonely and missing the finer things in life like expensive wine and strong men. She mused about starting experiments on victims with the venom she had collected from the insects during the violet moons. But, that required restraint - something she was in short supply of recently.

She woke in a now abandoned house, considering she killed the inhabitants, around dusk. Lazily, she prowled the armoire and found a pair of leather pants and a loose cream blouse. After getting dressed, she slipped on her necklace and put on her own boots. Her head tilted while looking at them, quickly realizing they would need to be thoroughly polished. Neveah shrugged. Once she had combed her hair a bit, she decided to say goodbye to this little village that had brought her so much joy. The redhead paused once outside the building. The first night of havoc had ended with flames. It seemed right to end the last night with fire as well. Slowly she pivoted around and brought forth fire upon her palms. She rotated her palms up and willed the flames to grow higher then pushed forth the energy forward. The home quickly caught fire. A wicked grin formed upon her lips as the chaos danced in her emerald eyes. She brought her left hand to her lips, kissing her fingers, before waving at the building.

The vixen began her journey back towards Kuyako, lost in her own thoughts. Suddenly she heard the wings of several large creatures. Her gaze went to the sky and saw three huge dragons. A perplexed expression distorted her features. As she continued her journey, she found herself approaching some sort of encampment or battlefield. “What the hell,” she murmured to herself. A rip in the horizon caught her attention. The crack widened and out came what seemed to be another human being. It also tilted its head with confusion, mimicking her. It cried out and then seemingly split it’s form to expose a huge mouth with several rows of teeth. Instinctively, fire was summoned forth again. The vampire’s eyes dilated, nails seemingly sharpened, and her fangs ached slightly. Her right slowly went down to the whip fastened at her hip. The creature then burst forward towards her. She pivoted to the side and snapped the whip, sending fire down the tail of it. Sparks danced off the tip. Apparently the creature didn’t care for the flames and went off in a different direction.

“I’m not done,” she growled, racing after it. Her feet skid to a stop, eyes wide. Several of these Chompers were fixated upon another being. Her nostrils flared quickly. The vampire did not recognize his scent but something about him felt vaguely familiar. Possibly a patron she quickly thought, dismissing those thoughts. His trick caused the corner of her mouth to twitch with a semblance of a smile. She slid the hilt of her whip back into place. Instead her fingers twitched and her gaze darkened completely. The vixen channeled her dark magic, calling upon Nemesis for any boost possible. Shadows emerged from the ground like smoke, waving side to side. Slender fiends began to form. “Feed,” she purred. The took off towards the direction of the frenzy of chompers. Not surprisingly, this caused their attention to shift back to her.

“Ah, shit.[/ib]

For the moment, Kano was more interested in toying with his newfound playmates, the man had never been one for giving an enemy a quick death - where was the fun in that? The world was a ruthless place, he knew that better than anyone, there were no short cuts in life, nothing was easy and no one did anything for free… so why should these horrible beasts get a quick death when they had come to take away his fun? And his life, he supposed, not that he really took that into account. He wouldn't die, not until he had seen his half-brother's life in tatters at his feet. 
Flickering between his shadowy and solid state he laughed sadistically at the frustrated cries of his opponents - every time the foul things swung for him he would flicker through their hands, a black mist they could not grasp, floating irritatingly around them only to become physical once more, slightly out of their reach. 

Kano was growing bored of tormenting the Chompers that had gathered around him, their number had grown since the game began, and at first that had made it more thrilling - after all more opponents meant he had to have even sharper wits about him to keep them at bay, and yet even with their number increasing, they did not pose quite enough of a threat for him to need to worry… which meant he grew exasperated with the game they had been playing. Though, as he shifted out of their way, something drew their attention elsewhere. 
Becoming physical once more the Dragonshade turned his head to follow the Chompers as they scurried away from him… towards the rather beautiful woman stood not too far away… ahhh so that was their game was it? No, he could not have that!

Flickering out of form, Kano shot across the battlefield to where the woman was, beating the Chompers to their destination. Forming in front of her, his eyes narrowed, dark and dangerous as he grinned maliciously at the creature. "No. Bad monster," he chided as though it were a dog, summoning all of his strength and feeding it further as his hands shot out to grasp it's head, hands trembling with the pressure, teeth gritted together as he ripped it's head clean off. "We don't eat pretty ladies." 
He turned to the woman, grasping her by the waist and pulling her close. "Well, shall we dance?" 

Veah did not care for helping with wars unless was to defend from an unknown assailant like these seemingly other-worldly creatures. She wasn’t the hero type. It was strictly for self survival. Otherwise, she felt too often mortals were asked to fight in the name of their god. As far as she was concerned, the deities could sort of their disagreements themselves and leave the rest out of it. There had only been one war that she felt passionately about and it was led by the God of Life, an elf, resulting in the largest genocide of vampires, werewolves, and other nocturnal creatures in history. The pair had been friends before her Turn, when she was half fae and half elf, so he looked the other way during the crusade. He used her experience of being changed against her will as a prime example of why vampires needed to be wiped out. However, Veah found no comfort in his generosity. It simply proved to her that the just hypocrites. Needless to say, their relationship would never recover.

Staying out of the loop of the world’s affairs meant she had no context for what she had stumbled upon. All she knew as fire did not discriminate. Her emerald gaze flickered, noticing that the man disappeared again. This didn’t matter to her, never one to be a damsel in distress, waiting on a man. As the frenzied creatures came towards her, she summoned forth more flames. The redhead’s hands hung at her side but with her palms out. Suddenly, she sent forth a large flame strike forward. She pivoted slowly so the flames went in a sweeping motion. The Chompers did not seem to care much about the fire this time and continued forward but in a more manic fashion. She was going to begin weaving the fire into a circle to try to trap them in place but her attention shifted. The tall man from before was standing between Neveah and the creatures.

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” she grinned as the man ripped apart one of the creatures that made it a bit too close for comfort. Neveah let out of a sound of surprise as the man took her into his arms. He had to be at least a foot taller than her and there was no hiding the strong physique. Veah was not going to protest. “Absolutely, my friends can keep them busy for a moment,” the vampire responded with a grin. She draped one hand upon the nape of his neck and allowed him to take the other. Meanwhile, more shadow fiends rose from the ground to make up for the ones that had retreated back to the shadow plane. When she happened to notice a couple newcomers looking to play, her eyes briefly shifted to violet as she sent forth Necrotic Whispers to occupy them. Then her gaze shifted back to green as she looked back up at her dance partner. “Come here often?” It was a ludicrous line but given the circumstances, it wasn’t the most ridiculous aspect of that moment.

If Kano had been even remotely telepathic, he might have realised that he had found a kindred spirit in the Vixen before him. There was little reason for him to join this fight, he didn't particularly worry about his own death, but if he was dead then all of the fun would stop… and that would just have been truly tragic, would it not? No, for now he would join in for the fun of it, to rescue pretty damsels in distress and purely out of boredom… if things got too dire he could vanish into the shadows and ride it out, not that Kano had ever run from a fight before, nor intended to do so now…

As she spoke to him, Kano turned his head to smile at her, offering her a cheeky, and somewhat mischievous, smile. "Anything to impress," he purred at her, before he slid his hand around her waist and pulled her close. She was a pretty thing, and fairly intriguing. He had always been attracted to powerful women; he could not abide meek creatures - they were only worth playing with, to make scream before you ate their hearts and ended their pathetic little lives. No. He liked women like this one, women like Cassia, that could bite back and give him something of a challenge. "Good, I hoped you wouldn't say no," he grinned. 
He began to lead their merry dance, highly aware of how utterly insane they must have looked; but was that not a part of living, that thrill? If worst came to worst he would break off from his new partner and deal with any threats, though he had a feeling that the woman was more than capable of dealing with anything that might come their way. 

"Oh only when there are pretty ladies dancing with death," he chuckled. "Kano Balatro at your service my lady, and what name might I have the honour of calling you?" He asked, his tone deep, sultry and somewhat carefree given their situation, that was until he spotted one monster getting past her defences. Winking he span her with his left hand, his right balled into a fist as he hit one of the Chompers dead on in the chest, his hand going straight through it. "Honestly, some people just have no manners."

Evidently she needed to venture away from Kurayo more often. Through this trip she had reunited with an old colleague and now stumbled into a bit of adventure. Typically she spent her time with other vampires or wolven races. There was an understanding between them, unspoken rules and etiquette. This man was neither but she was not complaining. The redhead could not deny she was both amused and attracted to the tall stranger. He smelled familiar but she was certain she did not know him. She’d remember that grin. Unless he was somehow tied to something ugly in her past, which she seriously doubted, there was no explaining it.

“No is a dirty word,” she chuckled as he brought her close. “There’s freedom and pleasure in yes. People ought to be more agreeable for their own good.” The vixen allowed him to lead, her body leaning into his to follow his movements. She kept her gaze to the side, watching their surroundings, given their height difference. The idea of laying her head upon his chest crossed her mind but that was not going to happen. It was too intimate and, frankly, foolish given the abundance of creatures around them. Her final death would not be at the hands of some random monsters.

Her emerald gaze met him as he introduced himself. Balatro. There was the missing piece of the puzzle. He had to be related to Kiba somehow. “I do have a knack for getting into trouble,” she replied with a mischievous tone and small shrug. “Neveah Shira. It’s lovely to meet you,” Veah added. The topic of her last name was a bit tricky. She felt Sandston no longer suited her; that woman had died eons ago. Blackbird was another name she adopted for a while. However, that time in her life had ended long ago. Shira referred to another old, vampire Family. Neveah never met Tiger, the man that created so many of them, but she did credit the woman she was now to Nemesis. The Apex of Terror found a new name in these lands but the vixen did not share it. Through her, it would live on.

Their dance was momentarily paused. She leaned away slightly to watch the impact. She tilted her head with an impressed expression. Hot. The redhead shook her head. “How rude,” she added. “Hold that thought,” the vampire added, pivoting so her back was to him but their bodies were still close. She placed her elbows at her waist with her arms out and palms faced up. Suddenly, she pushed forward a strike of fire. The flames did not go out after leaving her form. Instead, she waved her right hand lazily. The flames began to stitch together while simultaneously expanding. The redhead crafted a fall of fire, blazing nearly 10 feet high. “Where were we?” Veah turned back to face him and placed her hands back where they were with a satisfied smile. “You did say, Balatro, didn’t you? You wouldn’t happen to be related to Kiba Balatro, would you? I’ve known him for longer than I care to admit” she added.