The Crimson Tale of Conquest

Despite claiming to be a third party, Cristina and her brother seem to be the ones leading the meeting. The moment she walked in she acted like she was in charge of the entire operation and everyone else seemingly went along with it. Everyone looked towards the Vampiric siblings with silent respect and waited for Cristina to continue talking like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Lucilla was sitting directly next to Cristina. The woman dressed as a butler, whose name was Mora Hart, pulled out the chair she was standing in front of and had offered it to Lucilla. She now stood behind both her and the blond Vampire in silence. Morella sat to her left, Yuki was next to her, then it was Judieth, and lastly Maisy. The table was round so no one was directly sitting across from each other. In total there were 14 people within the room.

"Now then, I guess I should introduce ya to each other." Cristina said addressing everyone. "You already know about her, but this is Lucilla Crimson, the monster girl the Church of Light wants so badly. Then there is Morella, she's a water Nymph, Yuki the Demon, J-

Cutting her off Judieth introduced herself, "I'm Sable Hook, a Human Necromancer." With the mask and Sable outfit covering her it was hard to tell what gender she was. The mask distorted her voice slightly making it appear both feminine and masculine at the same time, while the outfit was layered enough to hide her body proportions. The one thing it didn't hide was her height. The rest of her head was covered by a hood to hide her red hair.

"... Right." Cristina paused for a second surprised by the name that Judieth used to introduce herself with. Sable after all wasn't an unknown figure, especially for those in power. "Anyway, last but not least is Maisy, she's a slime like you Mako." She said looking at the blue slime sitting between the gloomy looking man and the male Demon.

"Now for the rest of you." Cristina said introducing the rest of the room to Lucilla and the others, starting with the other two Vampires in the room.

She introduced Mora Hart, who was standing behind them and mentioned she has been with her and Adrain since they were young. "Honestly besides us, you won't find many other people that area as old as this one...." Cristina joked, but one look from the older woman and she fell silent.

The gloomy looking young man, sitting next to Adrian, was named Seth Duralon. "He's a Vampire but he's one of the new generations. Before ya ask, he does not have sum tragic backstory he's just like that." Cristina spoke rolling her eyes. Seth for his part just glared at her, his deep Crimson eyes partially hidden behind his long bangs.

"Next is Viola, Shes a Dryad." The Vampire said, directing their attention to the woman next to Maisy. Viola, hands still clap together in front of her as if in prayer, nodded her head slightly in their direction. Her eyes also looked closed, but looking more closely Lucilla realized her eyes were squinted in such a way they just came across as being closed.

"Nice to meet all of you. It's also a relief to see that you have survived, older sister." Spoke Viola in a soft voice as she directed her attention to Morella.

"Older sister? I'm afraid we haven't met before; I do apologize if the case is that I have simply forgotten." Morella responded.

"Yes, you are correct we have not met directly." Viola confirmed. "I'm but a newborn, only thirty years old. I have seen you around and the last time I saw you, I had witnessed some strange men kidnapping you." The Wood Nymph then smiled sadly. "You risked yourself to protect others and I was unable to do anything but run. By the time I managed to get help you were gone."

"Thanks for trying anyway." The water Nymph smiled sweetly.

"I don't deserve thanks." She said her shoulders were drooping a little. "I've spent the past few years training myself to become stronger, I'm honored to be working with you."

Morella once told Lucilla Nature Nymphs never really trained, they naturally get stronger the older they get. That also meant a lot of the younger Nymphs were quite weak, which is why they would spend most of their time hiding within their respective Nature anchors only coming out every so often. For example, a Dryad would be able to merge with the tree or even forest - depending on their age - becoming part of the environment to a degree. The fact this Dryad has trained for such a short amount of time but is being trusted enough to assigned to, what Lucilla is guessing, is an important assignment meant her combat prowess or some other ability must be impressive.

Lucilla also appreciated the fact that Dryad had attempted to help Morella. Even if it ended in failure. In her eyes anyone that was willing to help Morella was a great person that deserved her respect. 'I'll make sure you don't die an early death.' Lucilla thought idly.

"Alright if ya'll are done talking next is Timur the Demon Devil." Cristina said, trying to keep the meeting on track. "Say Hello big guy." She said looking at him. Timur, dressed in his suit and tie, had his arms crossed, and stood there silently. His Orange colored eyes scanned Lucilla and the others.

"Well, I wasn't expect'n anythin from ya anyway." The Vampire woman said with a smile. Timur uncrossed his arms and signed something at her with an annoyed look in response. Cristina just laughed.

"A'ight moving on then. Sitting pretty atop her perch, behind our resident Devil is Ialiana the Harpy." The Vampire gestured in the Harpy's direction.

"Nice meeting you all." The Harpy greeted them, with a slightly scratchy voice. She used the tip of her wing to push up her glasses.

"Then there's Mako, the Water slime who's bonded with our Devil here." After being introduced by Cristina Maka simply waved at them. Wearing an identical suit to Timur, the only difference being it was a dark grey instead of black.

"Last but not least we have the Cat Woman Aliaa Nazari."

"Hello~!" Aliaa said striking a cutesy pose by curling both of her paw-like hands in front of her face and lifting one foot up behind her. Despite dressing like an assassin her personality was anything but.

"Now that we're all acquainted let's get to the meat of the issue." Cristina started before giving a signal to Aliaa with her eyes. The cat woman quickly ducked into a side room before emerging shortly after with a large bag. "Now what we want ya'll to do, or more specifically what we want your Necromancer to do is take a look at one of the bodies."

Just as she finished talking Aliaa got the large bag on the table and revealed the contents inside. What Lucilla saw was the shriveled-up husk of a young boy, either 13 or 14 of age. The husk was very reminiscent of that time she saw Cristina feed on that girl a while back. Which just reminded her of Sara causing her to frown to deepen more than it already was.

"Oh wow, you don't really see someone get completely drained of their Mana like this often." Judieth said behind her mask, which allowed her to see stuff that normally can't be seen with the naked eye. "It kind of reminds me of a Mana draining plant...." She visibly shivered as she recalled the memory.

"Oh really?" Cristina looked at the Doctor with interest.

"Yeah, back in my youth I did some reckless stuff, how long ago was that I think it was...." She trailed off realizing she was saying too much as she reminisced about the past. "Anyway, point being this is a really nasty way to go." She started to take more of the body out to examine it more closely. Ialiana the Harby had also come closer, pointing out some of the weird holes located throughout the body.

"These are really messy to. Looks like whatever pierced them was serrated because these hole look like they tore through the flesh coming out." The Harpy said to Judieth.

"Poor kid." Judieth muttered. "He's Human so the chances of this being a hate crime is low." Her took on a dark undertone. "This also means that whoever did this had some reason behind their actions other than cruelty."

Timur signed something to them. Mako realized that the newcomers probably wouldn't know sign language spoke for him. "He said it could also just be a really twisted person who enjoys this stuff."

"True." Judieth agreed.

"Very interesting, but is there anything here we can use to find the culprit?" Cristina cut in.

"I can smell some foreign Mana on the body." Lucilla offered. "Not entirely sure if that helps or not, I don't know what it is after all."

While the boys Mana had been drained from its body there were still lingering traces of it lingering all over the body, despite how little there was. But there were also even weaker traces of some other Mana found within the puncture wounds. Lucilla wasn't sure what that mention but she figured it couldn't hurt to mention it.

"Can you track the smell?" Cristina asked.

"No. Not unless the source is nearby or something." She answered. "I can recognize the mana if I come across it at the very least."

"Well, it's better than nothin." Cristina said.

"Oh? There seems to be metal flakes on the wounds here." Judieth suddenly said. Looking back at her Lucilla saw that the doctor pulled out something that looked like goggles. She was wearing them over the mask like it was a completely normal thing to do. "Must have come from whatever made these holes."

Ialiana flew to the very edge of the room and took of her glasses, squinting at the dead body. "Oh, I can see something glinting. I'm still too close to really see." She spoke. Harpies have incredible eyesight and can see an ant thousands of feet in the air. A major drawback though is that the closer they get to something the harder it gets for them to see. To put simply they are far sighted.

"Hold on let me just...." With tools in hand, that probably came from the many, many pockets located all over her clothing, Judieth collected the flecks of metal from the body. "I could try and run some test to try and identify what these are, but I'm afraid that isn't really my expertise."

"Thats fine, we have our own people." Cristina said. "If ya don't mind, can you hand that over to us?"

"Sure." Judieth agreed handing her the glass vail containing the metal flakes. "We're just her to help after all."

After receiving the vail, the Vampire handed it to Mora before speaking again. "Honestly wasn't expectin much when I asked ya to look at the body."

"We also learned something interesting about you Lucilla." Adrain added. "Being able to smell mana like that isn't something seen every day."

"Don't Vampires have the same ability?" Lucilla asked remembering how Cristina sniffed out Sara, literally.

"Similar I guess, but not exactly." Adrain answered shaking his head. "We smell blood, but it's not very useful in this situation. You on the other hand can smell mana and can even pick up lingering traces of it so that means you can find the source with some effort."

"I told you I can't find it unless I'm close by or it left a trail behind." Lucilla said.

"That won't be a problem, Lulu." Cristina said with a wink. "We already have our suspect, the only problem is we don't exactly have any evidence, but if we can find the source of the cause we'll be able to take care of them. So, to speak."

"If we're in the same building of whatever did this," Lucilla gestured at the dead boy, "I think I'll be able to find its location."

"Wait, if you already had a suspect why do this thing with the body?" Yuki questioned.

"Excellent question!" Cristina exclaimed. "We just want to see what ya thought and what ya'll would do. Remember this is still a test."

"Well, it's done now, can we move on?" Seth asked looking annoyed.

"I guess we should." Adrain said taking out a rolled-up paper. "Alright this here is a map of the suspects Home in the Nobels district. Well, it's called that but it's for anyone with money and influence not just Nobels." He said pointing to the third district of the city. "We also have his business main branch and his R&D building."

"This looks annoying. Are we supposed to break in and investigate every building?" Lucilla said annoyed.

"Well, if we have too. But I would like you to try and pick up the scent of that foreign Mana, so we don't have to do that." The Vampire said, straightening his glasses. "Anyway, here's the plan-"

Lucilla and the others spent the rest of the day going over then plan, making revisions to accommodate Her and her party. In a few days they would start investigating. Lucilla wasn't sure why, but she had an odd feeling, and she didn't enjoy how uneasy it made her feel.