The Red Moon Always Shines

Chapter 53: What you are

He was running, he didn't know where, but he was. Running for his life, running to get away, running to live. Alastor had thought he'd been saved, spared of death and saved and healed to live another day, yet here he was, running to escape death. "Leave me alone!" He cried, feet pounding on ground he couldn't see, but he couldn't bring himself to take note of that. "Please just let me live!"

"Live? After what you've done?" A echoed voice growled, the sound bouncings both around Alastor, and inside his head, "I'm afraid that's not possible."

By now the blonde could see the shadows advancing on him, the slitted blue and purple eyes cooly glaring holes into his back. He tried to run faster, tried to get away, but it was all for nothing as he soon felt deadly familiar claws digging into his back. Alastor cried out, his mask being knocked off to reveal his wide, terrified, ceris eyes (if I've mentioned his eye color before forget it, this is canon now). He tried to turn around, but the claws embedded in his back made it hard to move without his back crawling with pain. "Please!" He cried, his breathing speeding up, "Please just let me go! I'll do whatever you want, just please let me live!"

"Anything?" Purred his captor. Now visible dark, shimmering, purple scales shifting as the clawed paw dug deeper into his back. Alastor nodded frantically, just wanting the feeling of blood slowly trickling out of his back to be gone. His heart sank when an echoey laugh echoed through the room, it sounded almost like two different voices mixed together in an overlay, "Silly thing, you have nothing to give to me except your demise! So I'm afraid I don't want anything from you, Wolf."

"Fallacy." Alastor breathed, eyes now even more wider than before. "Ho-how?! I thought-I thought it was just Rook here!"

"But there is only me. My master just wanted to come watch." Rook laughed, pressing down harder on the blondes back, rumbling in satisfaction when he heard a snap.

Alastor cried out in pain, but tried to stifle every sound he could as to not give them the satisfaction of his pain. He suddenly got an idea, but quickly shook it off, no way in hell would he be able to do it. Maybe one of the Hermits or evolutionists would be able to, but never him. But as he felt the pressure on his back increase again he started second guessing, because what other option did he really have? So, he tried, "Grian you have to stop! This isn't you, even I can see that!" Above him Rook froze, though he didn't let off the pressure on his back. Good! Progress, that was good, "We can help you get away from them, get back to your family! We have the four horsemen, we can get what we need to kill Fallacy, you'll be saved! So please, don't do this!"

Rook leaned down, not putting pressure on Alastros back at all. And he thought he'd done it, thought he was safe! But then it came, the white hot pain and pure agony, as the dragon above him put all his weight into the limb pushing down on Alastor's back, "Grian is dead, Wolf, so I'm afraid you're not saving anyone. Not you, not him, nor anyone else!"

Alstor tried to say something, but he just gurgled up blood which then dribbled down his chin. His vision started blurring as he felt the pressure on his back leave, and through the haze that was falling over him he saw a blood covered dragon paw step next to his face, as if to taunt him with his own murder weapon. And he didn't want to see that, so he closed his eyes and let the darkness take him away.

...

Iagos was brought out his talk with Antlia when a bang sounded from the second floor, he excused himself and walked towards the stairs, grabbing some water and food from the kitchen on his way. Once on the second floor he makes his way down to the left side of the rooms, going all the way to the end before reaching the door he was looking for. The croc placed down the food before knocking on the door, "Alastor? Can I come in?" All that answered him was labored breathing, so making a decision he opened the door and walked in, leaving the food outside for now, "I'm coming in."

Laying on the bed in the middle of the room was Alastor, chest tightly wrapped up with bandages, legs tangled in with the sheets of the bed. His blonde hair was tousled and clinging to his sweat covered skin, and his eyes were wide as he sat up with the help of his arms. The wolf hybrid's eyes snapped to Iagos as he walked in, and he immediately tried to school his expression, "What do you want?"

"I heard a thud and came to check. Though I would have expected for you to have fallen." Commented Iagos calmly, reptilian eyes scanning the room to see what had fallen.

"I knocked over the statue of the owl that was on my bedside table." Alastor admitted, motioning towards the metal statue that lay half hidden under the bed.

Iagos bent down to pick it up, the metal heavy in his scaled hands. It was about 8 inches (around 20 cm) tall, which was quite a bit bigger than he had expected it to be, "When did you get this? I don't remember this being in the room when we first brought you in."

Alstor scoffed as he took the object from the croc, holding it like it didn't weigh more than a feather, "Probably that crazy bird in the cells, Variety." He looked into the agate eyes of the statue with burning eyes, "No one but them would do this for me."

The cuban crocodile frowned, but didn't argue his statement.

Alastor placed the statue back on the nightstand before glancing over towards the crocodile, "What am I?" Iagos looks at him in confusion, and the wolf talks on unaware of the look he's getting, "I betrayed the Vex, and nearly killed Scar in the process, joined Fallacy, pretended to be Grian's boyfriend, if only for a short time, and the I almost killed Cub. I did all of that, and look at me now! I left Fallacy and nearly died in doing so, only to be saved by the very same people I've been trying to kill, and now they are the ones healing me." He glared up at Iagos with bared teeth, "So what the hell am I? A prisoner? Someone you can use to get information? Am I just kept alive for you all to get revenge for what I've done? So the hell am I?"

"You are someone who's hurt and in need of healing." Is the answer he receives from Iagos, which doesn't explain much to him. So he promptly mutters a confused, "What?"

The croc sighs, "You are neither prisoner nor guest." He answers, pushing Alastor back down into the bed before going out to retrieve the food before walking in and placing it down next to the statue, "Your place will be decided later. For now, all you shall do is heal." And with that he left the room, leaving Alastor alone.

Iagos walked back down, Antlia looking at him curiously but he just shook his head, he did not feel like discussing this at the moment. He instead walked up to Cub and Scar, the two Vex's turning to him in confusion. "Iagos was it? Do you need anything?" Cub asked.

"No, I need nothing." Iagos answered, head dipped towards the two, "I just came to commend you."

"For what?" Wondered Scar, putting down the book he'd been reading.

"For deciding to save Alastor."

Cub frowned, "We wouldn't have been allowed to leave otherwise, it was a necessity."

"But was it really? Did you really need to save him?" Asked Iagos, eyes narrowed at the bearded man, "Admit it, you knew you would have escaped without saving him."

The lab coat wearing man was silent for a while, eyes looking anywhere but the croc in front of him, "I couldn't bring myself to let him die, okay? It just felt...wrong."

"And that's why I'm commending you, not many would have done what you did." And with that Iagos was walking away and out the door, making sure to tell Liz that he was going to the pond behind the cabin. He closed his eyes once he was on the cool water, letting it soak into his skin. 'I certainly didn't

<Not really a lot of Hermit action, but I wanted to have us check in on Alastor! So yeah, wolf boy be having nightmares. Also, Cubby be a good person and not letting Ala die, good job Cub! And I also decided to give the least spoken character, Iagos, some text time, by giving him an entire chapter! Also Iagos looks kinda like Leatherhead from TMNT 2012? But just in the basics and such. And yeah, I thinks that's it?

So stay safe and have a wonderful time everyone!>