Heroes Fan Fiction ❯ Prize Fighting ❯ Oneshot ( Chapter 1 )

AN: Sequel to “Spark”.

 

Prize Fighting

 

The air was charged, and he could feel her coming several meters away. When she arrived, he opened his mouth to talk, but she held up her finger, and one flash in her eyes had silenced him. She marched in a direct line past him, and she smirked maliciously as she kept her target in sight.

Josef grinned. Damn, just what was this woman doing to him? And she wasn't a normal woman either - or for that matter, a normal human.

She stopped in front of the quivering captive, and she crossed her arms, looking down at him as if he were a bug. Her right hand fell delicately to her side, and Josef watched in fascination as charges of contained lightning crackled at her finger tips. She drew in the electricity from the wiring in the apartment complex, and then pursed her lips as her power only increased. Vigorously, the victim desperately tried to talk to her and sway her from using her powers against him.

But she just wasn't listening to him. 'Amazing,' he thought and cracked another smirk.

A small stream of electricity hit the captive square in the chest, sending him backward and lulling him unconscious. Elle sighed and said whimsically, "Well, that'll shut him up." Josef cocked his head, and he could still hear a faint heartbeat on the man she zapped. He watched her dig into her large black coat, pulling out a reel of duck tape. She tore a piece off with a grunt, and slapped it around the unconscious man's mouth. "There. Can never be too safe with him."

The air filled with a pregnant pause, and Elle turned her heel and met Josef's eyes. Josef cocked his head and saw her pull ear plugs out of her ears. Ah, so that was why she couldn't hear him.

"So what are you doing here?" She glanced to the slumbering victim. "Did you suddenly go Crime Fighter Vamp on me?"

Josef looked away, his dark eyes brimming with mischief. "Hardly," he answered. "I should have known you'd show up. I didn't realize he was one of your kind."

"Yeah, unfortunately," Elle said with a shrug. She scrunched her face in confusion. "What I can't understand is why you're even interested in him at all?"

"Don't be coy," Josef said, sashaying to his left, circling her like an exotic cat. "He was a copycat, trying to pretend to be a vampire and luring women into his ... lair." The last word almost hurt say, and Elle caught his eye roll. Her smile widened, and he added, "He was killing those women for pleasure and using our name. It's completely unacceptable."

She crossed her arms. "Makes sense. Cameron was always a weird one." She tapped her chin with a finger. "What I can't figure out was how you were immune to his power."

"His power?" Josef scoffed. "Do you mean that weak manipulated tone he uses on normal humans?" He gave her a dangerous look. "Please." Elle blinked, and suddenly Josef was closer to her. "If you knew me better, you'd know that such a thing would never affect us."

Elle smiled, intrigued by his flirtatiousness. She still didn't forget that she vowed to fry him the next time she saw him. Maybe this was as good of time as any. Energy flared at her fingers, and Josef stepped back. She said in a low voice, "I don't know you, which is probably a good thing... for you."

"You still believe you're going to kill me someday?"

"Kill is such an overused word, I was thinking of electrocuting your ass," Elle shot back, though her returning smile was a sweet and pretty as a peach.

Josef's mood only rose in amusement. He put a hand on her arm, which she did not yet shake away. "You could try, but you'd only be encouraging me."

Elle lifted her head and smiled. "Oh, I get it. Vampires have this sick fascination with pain and torture. It all makes sense now." Her voice was full of mockery. "You think that when a girl says she's going to kill you, she wants to sleep with you."

Josef couldn't stop his laughter from escaping. He eyed her hungrily and said softly against the shell of her ear, "It all gets to that point eventually. Although, for you, the results might not be so satisfying." He paused. "You may have powers, but you can't deny you're still human. You're still much different than I am."

"Well, give the guy a prize for not being obvious," she droned sarcastically, craning her neck to the victim, who was starting to wake up. She pursed her lips in impatience as Josef continued to hover in her personal space, trying to lure her with his charms. She had to admit, it was sort of working.

"Look, we'll have to take a rain-check on the torture session," she said finally, pulling her arm away from his grasp, "but I really have to take him back to the Company. It's bad enough we lost an operative with the same powers, so we need to hold on to this loser for as long as we can."

Suddenly, Josef's seductive nature turned dangerous, and he was no longer smiling at her. "He is mine. You're not taking him anywhere." Josef shot the drowsy man a murderous look. "I'm going to kill him. No one gets away with impersonating our kind, not human and not evolved-human or whatever you people are." Elle glared at him, and Josef walked over to the man, ready to drag him away. "Now, I would have sent someone else to take care of this, but I have a feeling he'd just spare his life. So it's up to me to dispose of him." Josef turned to him. "Aww, don't look so sad. We'll meet again, Sparky." He let out a wry grin, and Elle's face reddened with fury.

As Josef was about to bring the victim to his feet, he barely had time to dodge an incoming blast of light. Slowly, he turned to Elle, who was just pulsating with energy.

"You don't know who you're dealing with," Elle growled at him. "You're not going anywhere. He is my assignment, and I'm not giving him up." The muscles in her face tensed with rage. She had already been taken off one failure of an assignment, so she wasn't going to mess this up. After all, this guy was peanuts compared to Peter Petrelli, and if she could convince Daddy that she was capable of bringing Cameron in, perhaps he'd let her go back to scouting out Petrelli.

Another shot of lightning grazed Josef's shoulder, and he stepped back, letting go of their captive and facing her with fury. He let out a hiss, and he confronted Elle with his true face.

"Ooh, so scary!" she mocked. He did not seem amused by that, and he cocked his head at her, pacing around her like she was his prey again.

"You know it's amazing, one moment you want to get into my pants and the next you want to eat me," she joked, throwing her hands in the air and rolling her eyes. "Vampires!"

"Keep talking, lightning bug, because you're going to get to know me really fast," Josef seethed with a promise.

Elle stood her ground, meeting his dangerous eyes with a stubbornness of her own. Power flared again at her fingertips, bluer and angrier than before. She gave him a sardonic smile. "Try me."

Tight, white fire surged, bursting into a shower and raining against walls and doors. Elle cried out, missing her target and feeling a quick, blinding force throw her backward against the adjacent wall. She pounded her charged hands, futilely trying to push an encompassing weight off her small form. She heard a growl as her shocks met flesh, and she looked up, seeing Josef pinning her back and struggling to fight off the effects of her power.

Fear enveloped her and adrenaline kicked in. 'He could really kill me,' Elle thought with shock. Suddenly the games got deadly. At first it was just innocent cat against mouse, but her undead acquaintance was very adamant of claiming her assignment for his own.

Teeth bore, and he gnashed at her, obviously trying to scare her into backing down before he tried biting her. Well, it was working, and she really wondered if he wasn't above biting her and draining her dry if it meant getting his way. And then what would happen? Would the company think Cameron did her in and then just covered up her death? Would she fade out of existence once she was dead and no longer useful to them? She whimpered as she could feel Josef's lengthening nails pierce her flesh, pinning her against the wall.

Would Daddy miss her if she was gone - if she was gone because she had failed?

She took a deep breath and pushed a hand to his chest. Electricity flared from her fingers into his heart, and she saw him step back, choked and paralyzed with shock. He teetered back, stumbling to rest against the other wall. He sputtered, and his true face had reverted back to his human form. He was paler, probably in need of rejuvenating energy - specifically, blood.

"You...you..." he spat out, clutching his chest and starting to struggle on his feet. He glared at her, and she raged at him. She could feel the tears trailing down her face, and her lip quivered from fear, still ebbing on the tips of her nerves. She pushed him back, her hand over his heart again, and for the first time, she saw a glint of fear in his mesmerizing eyes.

"I told you not to mess with me." She glared at him, and the suddenly became locked in a silent stare-down. The captive against the wall witnessed the whole battle, and he shook in fear as both of his dueling captors was surely capable of destroying him.

"You... can't let him remember us. We ... need to be secret."

Elle drew her hand back, cocking her head curiously at him as he struggled to regain his composure. 'So that's what he's worried about. His people and his secret.' Strange enough, she oddly felt an affinity to his plight. Being special with powers had always made her different and easy for manipulation and alienation. She was treated special, yes, but she often encountered the outright prejudice non-special people had toward her kind. She scoffed. It was what made her love her powers even more.

"You don't have to worry. He won't remember." She caught his attention. "We have a serum, and he's going to be mostly sedated. He's already a flight risk, so we're going to have to manipulate him anyway so he can be on our side again." She looked away from Josef, who suddenly became entranced with her sudden change of heart. "The company is not concerned with vampires. We only care about meta-humans and the threat or usefulness of their powers."

Josef closed his eyes, and Elle took the moment to step away, going back after her captive.

"Wait," Josef said. Elle turned around. "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

She smiled at him. "You're not going to see Cameron ever again. As far as he's concerned, you never existed, and he will never see the light of day again." She turned to Cameron who was white as sheet, shocked she'd even look him. She smashed his cheeks together. "Isn't that right, my little lab mouse?" Cameron sobbed in fear.

"See, he's all ready to go home." She patted his head. "Good boy." Josef eyed her incredulously. One minute, she had acted like a raging sociopath, and in the next, she cooed at her prisoner like a child with a puppy.

Josef watched Elle leave, and he was unable to say another word to her. He inwardly vowed he'd see her again, and out of curiosity, he followed her when she met up with her contacts. Soon, a black van took Cameron away after injecting him with tranquilizers, and as Elle talked on her phone, she smiled and said goodbye to her "Daddy" and proceeded to go back to her car.

Within minutes, Josef swooped down, hiding in the shadows under the parking garage.

"Pretty lady, are you free for dinner and a torture session?" Elle spun around, catching Josef lurking in the shadows. He stepped out, made a face toward the sun and walked closer to her.

"Well, let me see, Mr. Stalker, sir, if I really have time for your idea of dinner."

"Easy, you order and I watch, but we do make with some pleasant conversation in between," he quipped.

Elle raised an eyebrow. She took a step toward him, and suddenly felt him pull her arm. She crashed against his chest, sighing as he wrapped his arms around her and filled her mouth with his eager kiss. She moaned as he pulled her closer, and she snaked her arms around him, feeling dizzy to his touch.

Her power simmered in her blood, and she felt like he was stealing part of her soul. His tongue was fierce against hers, and memories of the first time he touched her came back to the forefront, broken away as he cupped her cheeks, drawing his tongue out of her mouth and over her lips and tracing her jaw line gently before settling his mouth in the nape of her neck. She sighed as he nipped at her, shivering in sync with the beat of her pulse.

"Ugh... what the," Elle moaned, and she felt her eyes haze over, trapped within his spell. He growled as he pulled away, resisting the urge to bite and take her completely. Instead, his fierce tongue returned to her mouth, and his hands rested against the base of her skull, pushing her closer. Swiftly, he abandoned her mouth, and he bent his head down and pulled up her arm. Lightly, he kissed her pulse, trailing his tongue up to the bend of her elbow, to her bicep, and carefully, he nibbled on the bone of her shoulder. Skin broke, and Elle gasped, feeling her feet come out from under her. He caught her weight against his, and lightly suckled at the small puncture.

He shuddered. She tasted wonderfully charged, more so than the first time they met. She was dangerous yet tantalizing. He didn't want to fall for her; he wasn't like Mick who had this sensitive side for humans. But Elle intrigued him. She lived in another world wholly different from his own, yet dangerous and exciting just the same.

Josef made a noise of pleasure as Elle was the one to return to his mouth, and quickly he picked her up as her legs wrapped around him. He pinned her against the wall of the parking garage, and she bucked against him. He groaned, and she broke the kiss.

"Wow, you bit me." She licked her lips.

"It's what I do," he whispered.

Elle grinned at his joke with wanton look on her face. Josef froze; it was a look that usually led to beautiful things - but mostly, in her case, death.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and there was a seductive hum in her voice. "So, Count Foreplay, are you going to do me or what?"

Josef kissed her, drew back, and kissed her again, groaning. He moved backward and set her down. She looked as though he just threw ice water all over her.

"I can't," he said, giving her a weak smile. Her face raged from the rejection. He explained, "Not unless you want me to one, drain you dry, or two, sire you, and neither of us really could stand the guilt from the last one."

He turned away, pacing and trying to wash away the intense energy that stirred up between them.

"You can't even... control yourself?" Elle pouted.

Josef looked at her hungrily, and then he shook his head with an exasperated sigh. "With you, no..." He stole another glance at her and wiped his mouth. "Hell no."

Elle lifted her head, bathing in the compliment. "I see." She paused. "What if I shock your heart before you could try anything?"

Josef stopped, suddenly considering it. It was true, Elle was a special case. No normal human could ever have the power to resist the burning vampire hunger and strength that accompanied sex. And her idea certainly had some thought behind it.

Elle crossed her arms. "Look, why don't you think about it. You seem flustered enough, and now really isn't a good time."

Josef watched her curiously.

"I have an assignment in Costa Verda that I can't pass up."

Costa Verda? That wasn't too far away. Josef nodded, coming closer to her. "So does this mean you want to meet again?"

Elle grinned. "We haven't fulfilled our rain-check anyway."

"Ah, but that was about you killing me, not sleeping with me."

Elle harrumphed. "Well, according to you, it's the same thing." She lifted a hand and rested it on his chest. She looked into his eyes, and within seconds, his mouth was on hers again. The fires stirred between them, and it pained Josef to break the kiss and draw away.

She walked to her car, opening the door as Josef leaned over it. She turned to him with a puzzling expression and said, "This is probably not going to be a safe acquaintance, is it?"

Josef looked down at her, his dark eyes burning into her spirit again. He smirked. "Well, you've got to admit; we're not very safe people"

Elle paused, putting on her shades. "Nope. No we're not." The door on her car slammed, and Josef watched her drive away. He chuckled to himself, remembering her words. For the way he was feeling about her, Elle was right about how dangerous these encounters could get.

"Nope, not safe at all," he murmured, and then he turned his heel and sank back into the lonely darkness.

END