"I'm going to circle around and make sure I don't have stragglers," Greta said as she left. As a twig snapped, Alucard began to slow his pace and set Skylar on her feet.
"Keep walking," Alucard said, looking ahead. Skylar didn't move. She looked upwards, into the tree branches high overhead. There was a night creature up there. She knew it was why Alucard stopped. With a stomp of her foot, Skylar was sent upward with a burst of sunlight. The light faded as Skylar reached the high branches. She landed with the tap of her foot on a branch.
"Let's see," Skylar said quietly, holding her sword tightly in her hand. She looked around the trees, watching each shadow for anything odd. There were giant webs. Too big for any ordinary spider Skyler knew of in this area. What was worse, over her head, high in the trees opening, was a web with human body parts torn apart, then strung up, and their mouths wrapped up, like a gag to silence them before their death. "Where are you, bastard?"
"Skylar," Alucard said from behind her. Skylar turned her head to look at him. Still listening for the night creature nearby. "I told you to keep walking."
"I needed to see for myself what was up here," Skylar said as she looked around, hearing rough panting between the trees.
"You are too brave," Alucard said, "or stupid. More likely brave, though."
"Says you," Skylar said. Then she caught sight of something in the shadow of a nearby tree. A creature, a grotesque spiderlike monster in the shadows. "There!"
Skylar leaped through the trees, quickly heading towards the night creature. Alucard let out a sharp gasp, then rushed in the same direction. He and Skylar switched the motion of their swords mid-slicing through the webs it created in the trees, as the creature opened its mouth, letting out a growl. Once close enough, Alucard slashed the creature's throat to silence it, and Skylar slashed its back, damaging the mounds on its back, keeping whatever their purpose was from being functional. The creature tried and failed to slash at Skylar or Alucard as they moved through the air, and landed on a branch a short distance away.
"That's right," Alucard said, watching as the creature could only growl weakly. "No calls for help from you."
The creature turned, and the welts in its back swelled and leaked, spilling green substance down the opening Skylar cut through the welts' skin. It managed to send some of the substance flying at Skylar and Alucard. The pair leaped from the branch and moved out of the way as the creatures' attack hit the tree, burning through it. Acid. The branch fell as Skylar and Alucard leapt through the trees. Then, they lost sight of the creature for a moment until Alucard spotted the creature ahead of them, firing more acid in their direction, but not aimed well enough to hit accurately. Alucard pulled Skylar behind him and the shield to avoid getting hit by the acid. Skylar leaped from ALucard's back towards the creature, striking her sword into its back, and shoving the blade down its spine, cutting through flesh and bone to delay the acd attack.
"Let's see how well this works," Skylar said as she leaped off the creature's back, yanking her sword out as she moved. ALucard landed beside her. The creature moved, sluggish from the wounds, but kept trying to attack both Alucard and Skylar. Alucard managed to cut away one of its front legs or arms, leaving one to defend itself while the other fell from the trees.
Stay close, Skylar," Alucard said as he blocked the creature's strikes with his shield, giving Skylar an opening to attack.
"Got it," Skylar kept up, their attacks pushing the night creature back step by step, attack by attack. Skylar, every so often, looked at Saint Gemain; others she was close with were watching him as well, the day creatures too. She could tell Dracule and Elizabeth were both beginning to do the same. Skylar had to focus on the night creature for now, but she knew she would have to deal with Saint Gemain sooner or later.
The travel continued, Skylar and Alucard dealt with the spiderlike creature, and now, more night creatures have come for the group of villagers. The day creatures carrying children and young covered the children and elderly with their bodies, creating an orb around them, and solidified into a strong megal to keep them safe while the other day creatures roared, slashed, and bit into night creatures that attacked. Alucard blocked a strike from a big creature. Greta rushed before Skylar could do anything. She used a sword and hammer, striking the night creature in the face, then stabbed it in the jaw, and hammered it in, and then yanked it out. Skylar saw Alucard smirk, seeing Greta fight like that. Skylar felt her heart tighten in her chest. It was an unfamiliar feeling. SKylar watched as Alucard rushed forward and stabbed his sword into the night creature's heart.
"Look at them die!" Greta told the villagers. "I know you're all tired and scared, but they're just bloody animals! Kill the bastards!"
Skylar had kept her fighting stance, but she wasn't fully into the conversations around her. Alucard noticed, and he was worried. But he didn't know how to ask her. She is his partner now, but they haven't had any disagreements or talked on her end, with being in her head.
"Alucard?" Greta's voice snapped him out of it.
"Hm?" Alucard didn't look away from Skylar.
"You've been staring at her. What's going on?" Greta asked.
"Skylar," Alucard said, his eyes never met Greta's. "She's been acting strange. Since we began travelling with you, oddly enough."
"Huh," Greta said. "Have you thought... maybe she is jealous?"
"What?" Alucard looked at Greta. "No, no, she isn't a jealous type."
"Have you been around a woman she doesn't know well since you started this relationship?" Greta asked.
"..." ALucard couldn't say anything. Because it was true. Since Skylar and ALucard started their relationship, he hadn't been around a woman whom neither of them knew well.