Bunny Girl Evolution [A Monster Evolution LitRPG]

92 – VVIP Booth

“A deal?” asked the vampire.

“A deal,” Elise confirmed. “I’ll free you, and you’ll help us.”

It was a bit of a gamble, since Elise didn’t actually know exactly how vampires worked, but she vaguely recalled something about vampiric subordination from something she had read on Earth, and the way that the vampire was acting lent credence to that assumption. If that was how it worked, the guards were ignorant though, as they all looked confused. And even if it did work, Elise wasn’t sure she could actually do it. If she could though, {Fey Bargaining} was the way to do it, so she kept the skill active, waiting for the vampire to agree.

“What do you mean ‘free’ me?” asked the vampire.

Her tone was incredulous, but her eyes told a different story.

“If you agree to help us, you will be freed,” said Elise.

“Lady Lily, what-?” started one of the guards.

“Silence!” said the vampire. “Hold your positions.”

“Elise, what are you trying to do?” asked Hans.

“Just trust me,” said Elise, looking at both Hans and the vampire–Lily– in turn. “I am currently wielding the power of a goddess. No matter who your master is, I can break the bond.”

I hope.

Elise used {Charm} to hopefully make {Fey Bargaining} be more effective. The moment the skill was used, Lily’s eyes widened in surprise. She could sense the skill. Or perhaps she could sense the aether. That was actually better for Elise, since it was probably rather impressive.

“I-” said Lily before cutting off. “I- I accept!”

Immediately, she doubled over, vomiting a mouthful of blood, and Elise felt the familiar cold sensation. At the same time, the human guards gasped, and one who identified as the same [Indomitable Syndicate Guard Captain] glared at Elise.

“Attack!” he shouted.

Immediately, the rest of the guards took a step forward, but then Lily raised her hand.

“Stop!” she gasped.

The guards hesitated.

“Stop,” she repeated, more firmly this time as she wiped blood from her mouth. “Let the prisoners go.”

“But Lady Lily,” said the guard.

“Do it!”

This time, there seemed to be some kind of power in her words, and while the captain wasn’t affected, her men were, and they immediately began unlocking the cages.

“What-?” started the captain.

“Come here,” said Lily with a smile. “I will explain.”

He hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward. She leaned into him, putting her mouth up to his ear as if to whisper something. Instead, with a motion too fast for Elise’s eyes to follow, she clamped her jaws down on an exposed part of his neck. He froze in shock for a second, then tried to struggle, but the strength drained from his body, and a few seconds later, he fell to the ground, barely breathing.

“If any of the rest of you even think of defying my orders, you will end up the same way,” announced Lily. “We are helping to free the prisoners, and that’s final.”

“The Blood Syndicate will fall today,” added Hans. “I cannot promise any kind of immunity, but any actions taken today to assist us will not be forgotten when the aftermath is handled.”

Not all the guards looked quite convinced, but they also looked too terrified of Lily to be willing to voice their doubt. Instead, many of them started working harder, imbuing their weapons with mana to break the locks on the cells. Elise watched just long enough to make sure that her job there was done, then turned back to Lily.

“Where is Rose?” she asked.

“Rose?” asked Lily. “Our Rose.”

“Kaia,” said Maia, stepping forward and pulling down her hood. “My sister.”

Lily’s eyes widened with understanding. “She’s in the VVIP booth, acting as a decoy.”

“A decoy?” asked Elise. “What do you mean?”

“We caught wind of the attack last night. We knew they would be targeting…” she trailed off. “We heard that their target was…” She trailed off again. “Why can’t I remember?”

“It’s not important right now,” said Elise. “Is the VVIP booth just above?”

“Yes, but you can’t get to it from the arena,” said Lily, still looking frustrated at the hole in her memory. “You have to go in through the main door. Even with the attack, the protection spells are probably too strong to be breached. I can show you the way.”

“Our job is to free the prisoners,” said Hans. “Kaia is important, but-”

“I don’t have much time,” said Elise. “If I don’t do this now, I won’t be able to do it for another few weeks.”

“We need to do it now,” agreed Maia. “Isn’t the VVIP booth another target of the operation? Isn’t my sister in danger?”

Hans hesitated. “The other teams have the VVIP booth handled.”

“If my sister is controlled the same way that she was,” Maia gestured toward Lily, “Then they’ll be treating her as an enemy, not a prisoner. We need to go save her.”

“We can handle things here,” said Jag. “Elise, you took care of the guards outside, right?”

“I did,” Elise confirmed. “They won’t be waking up any time soon.”

“And the rest of the guards are here to help us with the prisoners,” continued Jag. “Perhaps I’m too soft, but I don’t see a good reason to stop them. Elise at least has already completed her job down here.”

Hans hesitated a moment longer, then sighed. “Alright, Elise, go.”

“I’m going too,” said Maia.

“Then go,” said Hans. “Don’t waste any more time down here.”

“There is another vampire assigned to the underground tunnels,” said Lily. “Daisy. Don’t bother trying to reason with her. She joined the…” She trailed off in frustration.

“I remember her,” said Hans, his expression grim. “You don’t need to say any more. Go.”

Lily nodded, then turned to Elise. “Follow me.”

As she flew to follow the vampire, Elise made eye contact with Penelope for a brief moment, and the knight nodded. Nick was still in the arena, and Bianca had yet to be found. She had her own mission. It would certainly be useful to have Elise then, but Elise had no idea how much time she had left on {Rune of Fate}. Now that she knew she could free the vampires, she couldn’t afford to spend time doing anything else until after Maia’s sister was freed.

See you on the other side, thought Elise as she turned a corner and the others disappeared from her sight.

10 minutes earlier.

After giving the signal, Henry made eye contact with a couple of his fellow infiltrators and nodded. There were seven of them in total. Four changelings disguised as bodyguards and three succubi disguised as add-ons. Henry and one other changeling slowly stepped back from the viewing window, unnoticed by the humanoids in the room. Well, most of them.

As they drew nearer to the one they called the Lady, she turned her head, making direct eye contact with Henry.

"Shit! She knows! Attack!"

Without hesitation, he and the other changeling dashed forward, swords drawn, but she had already turned into a mist of blood, causing their swords to pass through where she had been standing. She reappeared a few steps further back, and immediately shouted.

“Intruders!”

Immediately, there was chaos in the booth. The more well-trained bodyguards drew their swords, but most had been so distracted by the knight fighting the drake below that they did not understand what was happening. They were the first to die. The succubi drained their partners, then moved on to the others that they had previously marked, while the other two changelings beheaded their nearest guards with quick slashes.

Henry cursed as the first blood was spilled. That was exactly what they had hoped to avoid by attacking the Lady first. As far as they could tell, she wasn’t actually that strong in direct combat. Not if they had fought her somewhere isolated, at least. In a room filled with blood though? That was much more difficult.

Knowing this situation was a possibility, Ostra had tried their best to find out where she stayed so that they could ambush her alone before she reached the booth, but unfortunately, they could not find it, and the Lady had used a teleportation scroll to reach the arena, so there was no way to stop her before she made it to her destination. That made their job much more difficult, but Henry believed they were up to the task.

Two of the changelings working the mission were 8th tier, with one even having gotten a Mythic evolution, and one of the succubi was also a Mythic 8th tier. The Mythic 8th tier changeling was the one who had joined Henry in attacking the Lady, and when the main battle ensued, it had become their duty to keep her busy while the others took care of the rest.

Despite being one of the lowest-leveled in this squad, Henry had arguably the highest combat power due to his unique evolutionary path. He had been a direct combatant all his life, even before he became a changeling, making his stats tailor-made to melee battles like this one.

As soon as the Lady reappeared, he dove at her, his sword humming with mana, as he slashed toward her. To his surprise, she chose to block him directly this time, summoning a dagger from somewhere to meet his strike. She was pushed back by the force of the blow, sliding across the carpet and breaking the heels off her shoes, but her arm held, and she was still in position to duck under the follow-up swing from the other changeling.

A sword appeared in her other hand to block Henry’s next strike, and a fierce melee ensued. Between the two attackers, the Lady never got a chance to strike back, but she never took any damage either. Every strike towards her was blocked or deflected expertly, and though she expended a lot of mana, she had no trouble gaining it all back by simply maneuvering around the room toward pools of blood and absorbing it to regenerate resources.

Whenever Henry or the other changeling used a skill to send a more powerful attack, she would simply repeat her blood mist trick, reappearing unharmed a few feet away. Henry knew that this had to consume a massive amount of resources, and the speed at which the blood on the ground was vanishing was a testament to this, but it didn’t seem to matter. More people were being injured and dying with every second that passed, essentially giving her an unlimited supply of blood.

The first of the infiltrators to die was a succubus. Against men without mental defense skills, they were practically unbeatable, but in larger groups like this one, they could only do so much. Charming ten could only do so much when there were five more unaffected. She still performed valiantly, having taken out four executives and two bodyguards before she fell.

With her death though, the morale of the humanoids was bolstered. The shock and brutality of the initial attack had kept most of them on the back foot, but seeing one of the traitors fall made them realize that they were not dealing with an unbeatable force. A half dozen bodyguards formed a small squad and charged a changeling that couldn’t get out of the way soon enough, and the second fell.

Henry saw this death and gritted his teeth as he redoubled his efforts. He swung his sword in a wide arc, sending out a blade of mana. While the Lady was able to jump over it, the blade did not stop, killing an executive behind her, and forcing two of the bodyguards to use shielding skills to block the strike. Another changeling took advantage of this to kill one of the bodyguards when their shielding skill ended, but then the Lady used Henry’s momentary distraction to fire an attack.

He hastily activated his own shielding skill as her sword hit him, but he did not anchor himself properly. While he didn’t take any damage, he had been briefly removed from their fight. He tried to get back, but was intercepted by one of the 8th tier bodyguards who had just finished off another succubus.

With the sudden reprieve from Henry’s attacks, the Lady took the opportunity to finally go on the offensive against the other changeling. Each of her strikes carried enough force to make the other changeling’s arms tremble as she was forced to retreat. However, she was not a Mythic species for nothing. While she was lacking in physical stats, she more than made up for it with her tricks.

One of the Lady’s blows knocked the changeling’s sword away, but when the vampire went in for the followup blow, she suddenly froze. The changeling had transformed, and it was a transformation that made even Henry do a double take. Suddenly, where there had been one Lady, there were now two, staring at each other with identical emerald-green eyes, and for the first time, the vampire’s face showed a hint of emotion. Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened as if to say something, then she snapped her jaw shut. The moment of hesitation was enough though.

The changeling summoned her sword back using {Telekinesis} and swung it at the vampire. Distracted by the sudden transformation, the Lady failed to block in time, and the sword struck her side, cutting almost all the way to her spine before she turned to mist and retreated backward.

When she reappeared, blood flowed from the ground up into the wound like a reverse waterfall, rapidly healing it.

“Kaia!” said the changeling as she charged again.

The Lady faltered yet again, and the sword struck again, this time nearly severing her leg.

Henry watched this out of the corner of his eye as he battled his own opponent. He was struggling mightily as he fought against the true 8th tier. He had a few fey tricks to help him out as he fought, but the advantages they gave him were offset by the difference in stats, and he was stuck at an impasse. He was glad that the other changeling had finally managed to get her skills working on the vampire, but he feared it was too little too late.

While most of the rest of the bodyguards and executives had died, so had Henry’s teammates. Their surprise attack had given them a distinct advantage, but the humanoids still had an advantage of numbers. By this time, there were still five bodyguards fighting the 8th tier succubus and the final changeling, and two of the executives were trying to leave the booth. One of the succubi had attached a sealing talisman to the door as they entered, and activated it once the mission started, so they couldn’t get out yet, but it wouldn’t last forever.

Henry was starting to worry that their mission would fail. The Mythic changeling had the Lady shaken, and had done serious damage, but the damage was being healed almost instantly due to the copious amount of blood in the room. Henry was holding his own, but he wasn’t confident in his ability to outlast his opponent after having spent so much of his mana fighting the Lady. He hoped for reinforcements, but the fact that they hadn’t arrived yet meant they were still occupied with the other vampires and syndicate forces.

“Kaia, please!” said the changeling, trying to strike the vampire again.

This time, the vampire was unfazed, and blocked the strike with her dagger while stabbing forward with her sword. The changeling dodged back, but a small blade of mana shot out from the sword, cutting across her cheek and bisecting her ear.

“Think of Otto!” she pleaded.

It was a weak and obvious appeal, but somehow it worked, and the Lady faltered again, this time allowing a stab directly at her heart. She stumbled backward, blood flowing into her faster than ever before. The heart was a weakness of all creatures, but it was especially so for vampires. A damaged vampire heart was difficult to heal, and though there was plenty of blood in the room to allow for it, it would reduce her nigh unlimited supply to a much more limited one.

She retreated from the changeling’s blows, her movements sluggish as her wounds struggled to repair themselves. She was able to keep herself from getting hurt any further, but that was it. Even if she wanted to strike back, Henry could tell she had no desire to. The changeling now had tears streaming down her face, and it was visibly affecting the vampire.

Henry didn’t understand what was happening. He knew that the other changeling had the ability to skim the memories of her targets and use them to make her imitations more convincing, but he didn’t know why the vampire was so affected by fighting herself. Was she that much of a narcissist?

He didn’t have time to contemplate it further though as the bodyguard he fought tried to take advantage of his distraction, unleashing a powerful downward strike. Henry barely managed to deflect it, but the force of the blow still damaged his shoulder, and made his legs buckle.

At this point, the remaining other bodyguards had been reduced to just two, and the only other Ostra member left was the Mythic 8th tier succubus and she was in bad shape. Her left arm had been severed at the elbow. She was on her knees, crying and pleading, and while her mental skills were working well enough to stay the hands of her opponents, it wouldn’t last much longer.

At that moment, the Lady suddenly looked downward toward the floor. Henry had no idea what she noticed, but suddenly, despite still being quite injured, she suddenly went on the offensive. Surprised by the sudden change in pace, the changeling took a stab to the gut before she could react properly.

Seeing how rushed she was, Henry smiled. He wasn’t sure how she noticed them, but he could only assume that meant that Ostra reinforcements were coming. She was trying to finish off the battle quickly so she could escape before they arrived. Henry used {Whisper} to contact his remaining two squadmates.

Stall for time.

Unfortunately, that was much easier said than done. All of them were exhausted, and with every second, the Lady’s wounds recovered more.

The succubus was the first to fall. It had looked like she might have had a chance to recover, but with the other changeling injured, the Lady was able to spare a moment to throw her dagger into the demoness’ back. Whatever skill had been entrancing the other two guards was broken, and she was beheaded.

The Mythic 8th tier changeling went next. The wound in her stomach was deep, and with the other two bodyguards freed up, she was at a disadvantage in numbers too. The Lady did not perform the finishing blow herself, instead choosing to look away as the copy of herself perished.

Henry was the last one up, and he knew his time was going to end soon. He had no desire to fail their mission though. Ostra had trusted him with this mission, and he wasn’t going to let them down. Not when they had done so much for him.

He went on the defensive, taking minor cuts from his main opponent as he gathered all his remaining mana within himself. The Lady and the other two bodyguards approached him, and he fell back, doing his best to appear like he was on his last legs. It wasn’t difficult, as it was mostly true.

His plan almost went awry though, as the Lady stayed back, choosing to let the bodyguards handle him. He almost gave up and attacked the bodyguards instead, hoping to finish them off, but then, an opening appeared. One of the guards lunged just a bit too far, creating a slight gap between the three, giving Henry a straight shot at the Lady. He didn’t hesitate.

The guards reacted quickly, striking him in the torso as he dove between them, but he continued forward, shifting his mana to his sword as he aimed for the vampire’s heart. At the last second, right before he was about to hit. One of the guards hit him in the side, sending him slightly off course. His sword sunk into the surprised vampire’s chest, but missed her heart.

“No!” he shouted.

He fell, and as soon as he hit the ground, three swords stabbed through his torso. At that moment, the door finally opened, and his despair turned into relief. Reinforcements had arrived. Not even a second later, his relief once more turned into despair as he saw who had arrived. It was one of the other vampires that he had learned about in the briefing. He was filled with dread for a split second, but then the emotional rollercoaster continued, bringing him to confusion when a second person arrived behind the vampire.

She was a carbon copy of the Lady, but with black hair from which he could detect a faint hint of mana. He was familiar with disguise techniques and instantly recognized it as dye. Comprehension dawned on him as he finally understood the other changeling’s transformation. The Lady had a twin. In that case though, what was she doing there?

That confusion was forced to the back of his mind though as a third person arrived. He found himself drawn to her eyes as though compelled by his very nature. He did not recognize this woman at all, but her glowing golden eyes resonated deeply within him. As his vision faded, he felt a strong sense of something he was not expecting: peace. The last thing that went through his mind was a single name.

Titania…