[Appleton, WI, USA. Late 1929 ce]
Natalia Del Rio was scared, very scared. For the past three years a man had been hunting her. Reginald Von Leonas, the bastard, was still after her. She briskly walked down the street to the auto-repair shop where her damaged vehicle sat unattended.
Appleton had been one of the few towns that the recent stockmarket crash had left virtually untouched. Unfortunatly it still felt like hicks-ville to Natalia. She was amazed, and happy, that she had encountered so few immortals in her flight from Reginald Von Leonas. She was still in no emotional state to fight. Everytime she closed her eyes she saw the demon that had taken Matt away from her. She was about to enter the auto repair shop when a buzzing began at the base of her skull. Natalia went stiff and looked around. Standing across the street was a man dressed in black. His long brown hair fell around his face and his eyes were covered by a pair of dark glasses. Part of her relaxed knowing it was not Von Leonas, but she was still wary. She headed towards him, wanting to get this over with. Then the man removed his glasses.
[Madrid, Spain. 1785 ce. A Cemetary]
She was trapped, buried alive. She began to scream.
Hours passed before she stopped. She began to hear a scraping on the wood that surrounded her.
"Hold tight, I'll get you out" yelled a mans voice from above her in an English accent. A few more minutes passed and then, finally, the lid to her coffin was opened. Standing over her was a tall man with long brown hair.
"How. . .How am I . st. still alive?" stuttered out Natalia.
"There are many things you should know, for one I am called Eric, Eric Traegorn."
"Natalia Del Rio, amazed you still have your head!" yelled a smiling Eric Traegorn in a faded English accent.
"Amazed you still have yours old man!" replied Natalia as she hugged him.
"So, Natalia, why are you in Appleton? Isn't this a little Red Neck for your high society standards?" laughed Eric.
"Which you created," replied a smiling Natalia.
"That still doesn't answer the question," replied Eric with a grin.
Natalia looked at him, with all the joy gone from her face. "Reginald Von Leones."
"Did you say Von Leones?" said a puzzled Eric.
"Yes, Why?"
Eric looked at her sternly. "He was one of my students."
PART 2 [Appleton, WI. 1929 ce]
"David's after you?" questioned Natalia's former mentor, Eric Traegorn.
"I said Reginald, not David. Who's David?" quickly asked Natalia Del Rio, taken a back.
Eric sighed. "Reginald Von Leonas's real name is David Crandon. He was a priest, and my first student. But when I left him he was still a man of God," said a visibly puzzled Eric.
"Well, he sure as all hell wasn't a man of God when he killed Matt," said Natalia as a tear fell from her eye.
"Matt?" asked Eric.
"Yes, someone. . .I was in love with," said Natalia as her head sunk.
What happened next Natalia did not expect. Eric grabbed her shoulders and looked in her eyes with an anger she had never seen.
"LOVE? In love?" screamed Eric. "What have I told you about love!"
"You said never. . ."
"Never fall in love with a mortal!" yelled Eric. "or do you forget. ." Eric grabbed her right arm and held it up to her, ". .this! You know what it got you last time!"
Natalia pushed away with tears in her eyes. She hand fumbled through her coat and pulled out her ivory hilted ninja sword.
"You may look like my friend, you may sound like my friend, hell, sometimes you may act like him too, but you are NOT the Eric Traegorn I knew those years ago in Spain." She leveled the blade towards Eric. "And you better get the hell away from me too. You wonder how years can change a good man like Reginald, you should look in the f***ing mirror!" Natalia put her sword away and ran towards the Auto shop. "And you better stay away from me in Appleton, or you'll find out how much better at a sword I've gotten!" yelled Natalia as she ran.
Eric looked towards Natalia. He only hoped she knew how much he'd helped her.
© 1997 autumn2storm@msn.com
[Appleton, 1929]
Natalia slowly smiled and resumed walking across the street, this time with joy, not fear.
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