Fast Track to Making Money | NDE - R | Joint Training

[Deleted]

Luke was starting to understand how a puppy felt when it got the owner glaring at it for something they didn't understand they did wrong. It felt like Taka was ten times bigger than she actually was, and staring down on Luke with a spotlight designed to give him third degree burns. Both he and the Doll within him were quiet as they were subjected to Takas stare. A sigh escaped the dinosaur's mouth before she chose to lead Luke somewhere. He blinked as she began to talk, deciding instead to give Luke a firsthand encounter at whatever the hell it was instead of explaining it to him. What did she mean by that? Luke furrowed his brow, getting to his feet and following after the dinosaur woman.

He was led to someplace that he had the sinking suspicion was off fucking limits. Lead through something like a crawlspace and descending down some stairs, Lukes imagination began to run a bit wild about what he might find waiting for him at the bottom. Some kind of cannibalistic, orgy filled, cult? A group of world leading individuals? An electronic archive containing Hillary Clintons emails? Instead he was led into something that looked like a fucking dungeon. He blinked, looking to his left and right and trying to understand just what sort of place this was. Taka spoke again, stating how she chose this location for her club because of how deep this dungeon was. Just what was its purpose? "Oh my god! Imagine her turning on you, capturing and imprisoning you down here!" Jäger don't.. "Nobody would know you're down here but her! She'd take her time doing whatever lewd and depraved acts that came to her mind that day. Oh my it's getting rather toasty in here.." Luke only responded with a mental groan.

Jägers little outburst did help to calm Lukes rapid thinking mind down and help him focus on what was going on though. Just where was it that Taka was taking him? Well, lucky for Luke that his gracious host decided to give him a bit of a vague explanation. She explained to him how she wasn't a killer, that she was a jailer. She would punish people for breaking the rules but wouldn't ever ruin your life. But there was one person down here. Only one. The deeper into the dungeon they went, the more anxious Luke was beginning to become. "One...guy?" He questioned, not sure what to take from that. The torches that gave them light were beginning to dim, not giving them as much light as Luke was hoping.

Taka apologized for that and explained how bright lights bothered him. How if you left him in the sunlight he'd end up dying. "Hey now hold on.."... Taka stopped them in front of a single cell. A single cell that, as Luke peered inside through the bars, contained a single man whose blood-red eyes seemed locked on Luke specifically. As Luke looked into that darkness he felt a tight tug on his chest. You know that saying? When you look into the abyss it looks back at you? Luke was living that fucking saying right now. As he looked into that darkness he was experiencing a sensation he had never truly felt before. Fear was mixed in there, but it was a response to what he was experiencing when looking at that man. Evil. Luke was feeling evil.

It was like both a freezing wind pushing into him and a hot tongue dragging itself across his skin, leaving behind a series of uncomfortable hair standing goose bumps. Not just that however, but he felt a longing for the man inside. In the name of whatever god existed it was not something Luke was ever going to fucking heed, but he felt something calling to him. It was like when you stood on the ledge of something incredibly high and you kept hearing something whispering "jump" into the back of your head, but you know neither consciously or unconsciously you were going to do it. But this was much stronger. But Luke had no desire to heed it. "What....the hell is.." Luke had begun to question out loud before Taka interrupted him and began to explain.

"He can still fuck with your head. We have to change guards often. But the cell keeps him from actually wooing you. Originally he was one of my best racers. Real popular with the lady racers. He raced any race that had a pretty girl in it. When those pretty girls started showing up missing well....I'm sure he'd love to tell you about them."

Was he shaking? Luke suddenly felt his hands shaking. It wasn't excitement he was feeling, but it was instead the ever growing sensation of fear. Fear for this thing in its cage. What the hell was Taka telling him? What was she trying to say? What Luke was really focusing on, however, was the fact that the guy never once broke eye contact with Luke. Hell, he didn't even seem to fucking blink. "...I don't like this." Jäger commented, but ultimately fell on deaf ears. Suddenly an explosion within the cage. Not like a bomb going off, but a sudden released of reiatsu and...bats? Did the guy just turn into fucking bats? Luke jumped, taking a step back instinctively as those flying rats slammed themselves into the invisible barrier within the cage, before reforming into the now grinning prisoner. The fuck was wrong with his teeth??

"BROTHER! AT LAST!" What? Luke's face was a mixture of confusion and shock as he simply watched the man seem to nut in his pants over Luke. "Ohh you are so very young. So.... nfffff." Both Luke and his Doll officially reached the creeped the fuck out tier. But then they both noticed the other thing that was occupying the cell with him. Something in the corner. Something that was hiding deeper in the dark than the man himself. Luke looked with confusion, but Jäger felt something...different. The entity that wanted to live life like it was a joke, troll his master into irritation for his own amusement but deep down cared more about him than he let on, was silent. Strangely silent.

Through Lukes eyes and awareness, Jäger looked at the thing that was hiding in the darkness. What both saw were eyes. Dozens and dozens of eyes looking at them. Luke didn't get it. Jäger, however, could tell that they were looking right at him. " How lovely. A little bird." Jäger suddenly fucking jumped. Luke suddenly felt Jägers spike in emotion. It wasn't excitement or joy that he felt from Jäger, but was instead something more like what he was feeling towards the man in the cell. Jäger could feel the pull to the voluptuous, horrifyingly monsterous, woman just as Luke felt a pull towards the man. Both were able to resist, however, but both did not take to the pulling well. Luke had his eyes focused on the man, while Jägers was on the woman...and he felt disgusted. He felt filthy for looking at her, for wanting her.

"He sucked fifteen dry. Fifteen women, and murdered a couple of my gang. If I had a body that could be permanently killed I would be on the list , but thankfully he didn't know I was a pill so he never searched the corpse for it.....It was the only time a body I was borrowing was ever killed...."

"Fif...fifteen?" Luke stammered out, his jaw dropping a tad as all of that was dropped onto him. Fifteen women? And she wasn't counting the others in her gang he had killed? And he...even killed the body that Taka had been inhabiting? Lukes head turned to face Taka, and she could see it written on his face. From the widened, shivering, eyes to the clenched jaws but slightly parted lips down to the shaking in his hands. The fear, confusion, shock...all of it was plain as day on him. Just what was she telling him? Why did she feel the need to show him this? What did this have to do with him? He could tell by her voice just how much she hated the man. Then she dropped it on him.

"This, is what most Bount I've ever met have been like. You hear a lot of legends about them. But the most common name would probably be."

First and foremost, figuring out what you are, as you clearly don't know. From there, I can get a better feel of how to handle ya."

"- you should have told me you were a fucking BOUNT!"

"Taka...what the hell's a Bount?"

"VAAMMMMMPIIIIIRE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!"

You coulda heard a pin drop with how silent shit got. Luke stood there, eyes wide and staring at some corner of the floor as all of that hit him at once. A Bount? Luke was...a Bount? And Taka...and this guy....where telling him that Bount were...that they were..."Horseshit.." Luke suddenly hissed, covering his mouth with his hand and in a quick turn stomped away from Taka and the laughing prisoner. There was no fucking way it was true. No god damn fucking way. No fucking god damn way! A Bount? A...a....god he didn't even want to think the fucking word. They weren't real. There was no fucking way they fucking existed. There was no fucking way he was that! He began to think back to that night at his store. Tyrone and Alister. Those two fucks. He thought back to them. He thought back to the words they said. He remembered what they said very carefully.

”Aye Alestar, we cain’t mess him up too much, remember? We ain’t go through all that trouble trynna find 'em fo you ta kill’em…”

”We were told he didn’t have a doll! Shit!”

They knew. They fucking knew what he was. Somebody had sent them to find him because they knew what Luke was. This was it? This was the secret? This was the big fucking secret that he went all the way to god damn Karakura Town, Japan to figure out!? "FUUUUUUUCK!!" Luke screamed, grabbing at his hair in rage as he let it out. This was bullshit! This was complete and absolute bullshit! He spun, pointing a finger at Taka as he approached her, "No! You're lying! I am....nothing...like that fuck! I don't fucking drink people-" He spat with disgust "-I don't fucking burn up in the fucking sun! I'm not allergic to god damn garlic or silver!" Luke didn't understand that the weaknesses that stories and media portrayed about vampires didn't exactly apply to Bount, save for the sunlight bit.

"What the fuck was this? You couldn't just say it? You had to take me down here and tell it to me like this!? The fuck...do you fucking think I'm like him...that I'm gonna turn out like him!?" Luke accused, pointing over around the corner where the guy's cell was as he paced back and forth freaking out. Even Jäger was stunned into silence, and honestly didn't feel like adding more fuel to fire right now. Luke suddenly felt sick, like he was going to vomit all over the floor, letting out a deep cough as he put his hands on his knees. He spent a few moment breathing, closing his eyes tightly as he shook his head and stood up straight. "This was it...this was the big secret...?" He laughed for a moment, shaking his head and turning his back to Taka.

"Mom fucking knew...I bet this was why she fucking left. Couldn't ask Dad because he goes and gets himself fucking killed..." Luke commented under his breath, resting a hand over his eyes. Was this what his mom had wanted to tell him? "Merry Christmas Luke you're a vampire!" Luke was quiet, aside from his attempting to calm himself with some deep breaths.

["Taka" Sar]

Zaluu stared calmly at the monster before them, watching as it so very immediately seemed to fixate on Luke. So it was confirmation, luke WAS a Bount. Sure, Zaluu had TOLd him that. But that didn't mean she 100% believed it. His power seemed to suggest. But well... she'd heard tales of beings whose powers were.... abnormal for their race. These days one simply could not be sure. And well.. this was as close as she was going to get to confirmation. And honestly it was strange. She felt...nothing from the man. Normally he always enjoyed taunting her. Telling her about all the things he should have done to her body the last time he'd killed her.

But his focus was entirely on Luke for the moment. It was kindof nice not being the man's center of attention. But that just meant that Luke would be bearing all of it. And of course Luke did seem to misunderstand. How could he not? When you looked into such a black and dirty hole, no matter the secrets within, one can't help but reel back. He missed her point, but she understood why he did. His world was likely beginning to crack. It was hardly crumbling, even if it might feel like it was, but Luke, despite his.... emotional frailties, she could FEEL a strength inside of him. In her dinosaur body, she paused, eyeing him before, with a sudden sweep of her tail, she SLAMMED her spiritual power into him, knocking him away from the cell, and then stapped away as well.

The very INSTANT they were five meters away from the bars, the sensation would be gone. Luke would be free of the bount's influence, and Jager would be free from that doll. Both of them were. They were at the safe distance, and all that could be heard was a sort of... muffled shouting from the prisoner. As if that five meter mark there was some sort of permeable bubble that locked away spiritual energy and almost completely dampened sound. She stared down at him and sighed, taking a deep breath.

"Every bount, has been more or less like him. With the very strong exception of you Luke. Which is what I'm trying to say. If I had simply told you what you were, for one you might not have believed me, and secondly you might have thought that something was wrong with you. You might have thought that you had some evil transformation to undergo. But you don't. what I have shown you, is the darkest, most Evil Bount I've ever met. I told you that I'd met more than one, I told you he was 'like the others'. But do you see any more down here? Any other bounts?" She gestured around with her tail before looking back to him.

"They are like him, but not AS like him as you think. They have.....tendencies. But they can resist them. At least enough to be trusted out on their own. I keep tabs on them, as best I can. They are twisted inside but they understand that such actions are not necessary or advisable. From what I understand, vaguely, Bounts only drain when they need more life. Apparently they can just live and die like humans. But when death nears, they may give in and begin draining life from humans. The man you saw in that cage had been dying."

She turned, and she felt... a pang in her chest. The same pang that she had felt when they had come down here. And Luke would suddenly sense it from her. IT wasn't fear. It wasn't disgust. It was shame. "He was....originally...my friend. Well....maybe a little more than that. I was protecting him. He was the one who....took me in. His family. My first body was not as.... cool. My....general use body. Is a doll. A stuffed animal. And I was his stuffed animal." she murmured, looking over her shoulder at Luke.

"He is the entire reason my gang exists. Why I took responsibility of the races. He... was not so popular. So he got into racing. The races were going to be shut down so I got involved. MAde the races what they are today. But... well...." she paused, taking a moment to collect herself. She thought back to those days... thinking back to her... assumptions. Why had she been so stupid....

"When his powers manifested... I thought he was just a fullbringer. When his doll first manifested, I didn't care. He was still the boy I'd more or less raised. Sweet as ever. He even gained popularity with the ladies.." She chuckled softly, remembering such a bygone time. Until the joy left her snout, and she looked back to the cage. "But he got sick. Ill... Something. Something just... took the wind out from under him. At first it was nothing, he was just tired a little more often. He maybe was a little winded after a race. But as time went on.... he just... never got any better. He got worse.... he wasn't able to race anymore... wasn't able to walk..." She closed her eyes, taking in a slow, deep breath.

"I tried looking for another bount. I thought it had to do with is doll. I thought they'd have a way to fix him.... and....unfortunately....they did." That sudden, hard, sorrowful tone took over. "I found him.....standing over his girlfriend. Tiffany. they had been dating since he was... well.. since he'd started racing. I'd never seen anyone really dead before. At first I thought she was just.....something. I don't know. I wanted to think she was alive... but those eyes.... I knew it. He told me it was an accident. told me that he'd lost control of his powers. Because of his illness. Any... any normal racer... and that would have been the end. He'd be banished with thread of a world of hurt if he ever came back..." She turned to Luke.

"But I'd raised him. I couldn't just... I just didn't believe he could have dne it. And that was that for a while. Nothing else happened. In fact he seemed to bounce back. Suddenly he seemed to be teeming with energy. Almost like he'd never been sick. I .. I didn't think there had been any correlation. But.....when girls started going missing. And he got better and better... one day it just clicked. I found the bodies he'd been hiding... and... then I was one of them. I had to burrow my way out of my gigai's corpse. And....eventually....he wound up down here.." she looked to the cage.

"Whatever it was... it killed them, and gave him their vitality. But because of it, he became deathly vulnerable to light. He becam just....darker... sicker.... My Zan...." She sighed softly. And eventually, she settled down, sitting, or as close to sitting as she could get, along the floor, her head lifted as she looked to the cage with a deep, deep regret. "The point...... Luke.... is that so far... I've only ever found a bount who was forced to drain another human. The sensitivity... the evil...the powers it gives them. It makes them a lot easier to find out. And you're the only one I've caught before that point." She noted, and slowly turned in Luke's direction.

"So now... I have this question in my mind. What am I going to do with you? I've been thinking about it for a while now. I have other less evil bounts I have with just some eyes planted on them. they aren't gone, but they still lost some of their humanity because of what happened. But you.... you're all shiny and new, not a mark on that soul of yours." She paused, clearly thinking very hard. "At first... I was going to kidnapp you. I thought about leading you here... and then shoving you in one of the cells. That maybe if I learned more about the differences... I could change him back...." she looked off to the side.

"But..... as much as I want him back.... I.... I just don't think I can do that. But that doesn't mean I don't want to make sure you stay on the path you are now Luke. If you don't mind.... I'd like you to live here. Not...wel..." she suddenly laughed, shaking her head and making wooting, hissing calls from that raptor throat, suddenly shaking her head as humor broke all of that tension. And produced a very sad....sad laugh. "Not down HERE of course... but in the area. In the club, that sort of thing. So that my gang can keep you safe... but I know that probably that's out of the question too.... so I don't know. I really just don't know. So I'm just going to leave it to you. You know everything I do about your race. Wat would you like to do now?"

[Deleted]

It was all a lot for the young man to take in. Gaining some distance from the imprisoned individual dissipated whatever pull he was having on Luke, and it even seemed that he was muted to a degree behind some kind of secondary barrier that Luke couldn't see. Jäger was relieved, actually, to have gotten some distance from the other thing that shared the cell with the man. If the Doll had a physical form and human anatomy, he would have goosebumps...and not in the good way. Luke had managed to calm himself down a little. He certainly wasn't on the verge of another emotional explosion like he had a few moments ago, but his world was cracking. How could it not? Luke was now having to come to terms with a few things in these few moments.

The first was that his life had been a lie. Not a "Santa is actually real" sort of lie, but instead so many things had been kept from him. He'd been kept in the dark all his life. His mother had always dodged the question about why Luke could see ghosts. Hell, the earliest memories he still had he could remember that he saw ghosts. He was never told why. He was only told he was special. Why the hell didn't his mother, or father, tell him anything? Why was he kept ignorant? Why wasn't he told anything? Luke didn't know what was true and what wasn't. Was it a car accident that killed his father? Did his mother abandon him because of this? Luke wasn't sure of anything!

But he was sure of something...that he wasn't actually human. Well, he might have been something akin to a human...okay it was weird as fuck trying to wrap his head around it. Bount...Vampire...whatever the hell it was, Luke wasn't sure how that made him any different from a human. He ate, breathed, slept and shit like a human. Was he like a different species of human? Like breeds of dog? He was starting to hurt his head, actually, with all these questions. But vampire? Seriously? He was a fucking vampire thing?

He lived in a world of samurai ghosts, invisible monsters, body invading pills, and super humans...and out of everything in the god damn bat shit crazy world Luke lived in....he was a vampire. He honest to god couldn't believe it. He honest to whatever god existed couldn't believe how fucking retarded it was. It was too unbelievable. "Calm down bucko." Jäger suddenly said, causing that hurricane of thoughts to pause before he swung it at Jäger. No, fuck you. All this shit started because of you! Luke accused, mentally, at his Doll. Jäger, though, responded rather calmly, "No, no, not really. Pull the rod out of your ass and think back to those two shitheads who were after you. They knew about you before I woke up in your head. My appearing had nothing to do with you being...well...what you are."

Luke was quiet. Jäger...was right for once. Even if Luke hadn't summoned Jäger that night Tyrone and Alestar would have still gone after him. ... "Apology accepted. Also stop calling yourself a vampire, cus...really...unless you start sucking blood you're really not a bat bitch." Jäger chimed, which got a vocal sigh from Luke. But the conversation he was having with Jäger was cut short by Taka, who then not only explained to Luke why she had shown him this room but...so much more.

The young man found himself sitting on one of the steps of the stairwell that lead out of the dungeon. His eyes never left Taka as he listened to what she said. His feelings for her shifting nearly sentence. At first he was apprehensive towards her, but then shifted to a strange gratitude for what she did for him, before shifting back to confusion and so forth. What Luke learned, though, was that he was different from every Bount that Taka had met. Each and every other one had helped themselves to a neck served dinner, but for reasons that surprised Luke slightly. They didn't need to actually feed? He blinked when hearing this, only causing him to generate new questions. They could resist the need? Why did he never feel the need to drink someone? When he was getting his ass kicked by that Hollow he never once felt the need to bite someone even when his life was in danger. Did it only kick in if they were about to die? Luke was relieved to hear, however, that he apparently didn't need to feed on people.

Suddenly "getting the hunger" was something you always saw teenagers getting in the movies. Luke was in his early twenties and never got a strange "hunger" except one time when he saw a hamburger with bacon, sunny side egg and...this isn't important. What was though was what Taka was telling him. She dumped onto him the relationship she had with the man in the cage. Luke watched as the dinosaur got sadder and sadder as she talked, only chuckling once as she remembered something that must have been a good time. His facial expressions would shift as more details came out and he learned more about her and the prisoner. Now the guy wasn't just a crazed serial killer, Luke now understood his life some and what it did to Taka to see him plummet like he did.

" And you're the only one I've caught before that point." Luke blinked, his gaze shifting from where the prison was kept and back over to Taka who was looking at him. Luke had been the only one she'd found that had never fed off another human? It...really wasn't filling the young man with confidence or pride in "his people". She explained how she didn't know quite what to do with him. He was shiny and new, and while the other Bount she knew of weren't as far gone as Zan was...a part of them was gone when they fed off another. Compared to them, Luke was like a virgin in a whore house. " "At first... I was going to kidnapp you." She'd see the young man sit up a little bit when she said that, a look of surprise on his face. But she soon put those fears to rest when she explained a little more.

She then dropped that bomb on him. She didn't want him going off course. She didn't want to see him turning into Zan. She wanted Luke to remain, in a sense, human. He didn't quite know how to feel about that. He simply gazed at her, listening and drinking in her words. She wanted him to live here. At first Luke was about scream "Hell no" but then he realized she didn't actually mean down here in the prison. She wanted him to live in her club. He let out a slight, weak, chuckle along with her, shaking his head a little before that frown came back, as he could tell that the laugh she was letting out held no humor to it. It held only sadness. She wanted him to live with her in her club. She wanted to keep Luke both safe and under watchful eyes. She left the choice to him, and to only him, as she didn't know what to do and wouldn't decide for him. Young as he may be to her, Luke was still an adult.

He was quiet. He was quiet for a long time. He found himself leaning on his knees, head lowered and eyes staring between his feet at the floor. Moments, seconds, minutes passed with Luke being quiet aside from slight grunts and sighs. He ran a hand down his face as he raised his head, looking off to his right at nothing as he thought about everything she said. He sighed, sucking in his lips a little and shaking his head. "I can't...even begin to understand how you must have felt, feel, about that guy. For what it's worth...you've got my sympathy..." Luke said with a sad sigh and shake of his head before leaning back on the stairs and rubbing his face with both hands. "Out of everything in this crazy, retarded, world...I turn out to be some sorta fuckin' vampire thing." He said with a frown. He was quiet for a moment before Taka suddenly heard him mutter, " Ziege Dich."

Unlike in the museum there was no explosion of reiatsu or release of pressure. Instead it was rather quiet, like the release had failed. But Taka would suddenly see something emerging from the shadows around Lukes feet. An entity that was roughly humanoid in appearance, save for length of its arms that ended in long, blade like, fingers and the shape of its head. The creature was comprised completely of shadow, and Taka would feel no presence from it when she looked at it. Luke, though, sat right up and stared at it right in the face with a frown. "Did you know?" Luke asked it directly. Taka would watch Jäger suddenly shrug its shoulders and shake its head. "I had to watch you act like a emo retard for a week after I popped up because you realized you weren't normal. If I knew you were a vampire versus any other normal super powered weirdo I woulda told you and gotten a kick out of how you'd react." Jäger explained, with a cross of the arms as he glided along the shadows of the prisons floor a few feet from Luke.

The shadowy creature turned towards Taka and waved, "Hi there. I'm the...Doll? Doll that this moron doesn't shit himself over when summoned. I gotta say though that you should let him borrow that fine piece of a-" "Get!" Luke snapped at Jäger like he would a dog, the Doll suddenly vanishing and leaving Luke sighing and rubbing his face. "Sorry. I...just wanted to ask him in person rather than mentally." Luke explained, resting his arms back on his legs. "Well that was about as short lived as your sex life." At least Jäger was joking again. Oh god damn it Luke actually wanted to hear Jägers jokes...just how fucked was he right now?

But Luke had been presented with a proposition that he actually needed to answer. He was quiet again before looking at the dinosaur. "The rent would probably be cheaper.." He joked, chuckling lightly to himself. He let out a sigh again before asking, "I'm not going to be a prisoner, right? I can still...you know...carry on with my shit show of a life?" Luke asked. Honestly, her proposition had its benefits. He decided to tell Taka something he'd been keeping quiet from others, since she'd been so truthful to him. "A few weeks ago two men attacked me when I was at work. They knew who I was...and what I was. I didn't understand it at the time, but this was also the night that Jäger, that loudmouth, popped up in my head. One of them, though, I know for a fact was a Bount like...him. I watched him drink my coworker dry." Luke said, a growing anger could be heard in his voice as he remembered.

"I didn't know what the fuck was going on. But...somebody knew who, and what, I was before my...Doll, you called them, showed up. They were looking for me and wanting to kidnap me." Luke sucked his lips in for a moment. "I've moved apartments twice now cus I was afraid they'd find me again. I haven't told anyone except you...couldn't go to the police because, well, how the fuck are they going to deal with this?" Luke sighed. "So...maybe taking you up on your offer wouldn't be such a bad idea. I could learn a thing or two from you and your crew, hang out and have some more "fun" with you, maybe learn how to be a mechanic or racer. Anythings better than a fuckin' grocery store managers bitch." He said with a light laugh. "And...hopefully learn some more about what the hell being a Bounts like. And how many more Dolls I've got inside me.." Luke grumbled, remembering the monster that appeared in the museum.

"...You've not really given me any reason to not trust you. You've been as honest with me as I have been with you. So...alright."

[Johnwaluigi]

207 paragraphs

+ 1035 TTP to Luke Clyburn

+ 975 CTP to Zaluu Sar: Moddo Toge Nensho Ha Class 7 Mastered: AAP learned: +5 TTP: +20 SP