As Vorden's arm was flying through the air, Peter managed to overpower Quinn and push him off. Peter leapt into the air like a dog trying to catch the arm, it would have looked funny, if it wasn't so gruesome. It was as if he was playing catch, but instead of a stick, he was catching an arm, his jaws extended much further than would be possible for a normal human, when he caught the arm in his mouth he immediately bit down on it and started eating.
Vorden looked down at the meat cleaver, it was covered in blood and so was the kitchen counter where he had cut his arm off, strangely there wasn't any blood on the hand holding the cleaver.
"Vorden, are you okay?" Quinn asked, with a worried expression on his face.
"Don't worry, I'll be fine." Vorden replied with a little smile. "Guess we needed plan B more than we thought."
When Quinn looked at Vorden he had expected to see blood gushing from the wound where he had cut off his own arm, instead he saw that the wound had closed itself and was already starting to heal bit by bit.
At the same time, Peter was still gnawing away on Vorden's arm, entirely focused on devouring it skin and bone. Vorden felt a bit strange, seeing Peter eating his arm right in front of him. Instinctively he grabbed at his arm, he felt the part below his elbow was already starting to grow back, this made him sigh in relief, luckily the healing ability he acquired was already starting to work.
"I hope this is going to be enough for him, because I don't feel like going through this again... today." Vorden said.
"It should be, when he's finished eating he will calm down a bit," Quinn replied. He was just repeating the words of the system right now, because he wasn't sure of anything anymore. When Peter finally finished eating the arm, Quinn felt strange energy surging through his body, it felt the same as the first time Peter ate human flesh.
It was a strange situation for Peter, because he was aware of everything that was happening, but he didn't have control over his body, because he was fully consumed by his hunger.
Looking at Vorden, Peter noticed his arm was missing. With fear in his voice he stammered, "Vorden... your arm.... I don't know..." Peter felt appalled with himself.
"This thing?" Vorden said as he lifted his stump. "Don't worry about it, in a few hours it will have grown back. This was our backup plan in case you lost control before we had found a permanent solution for you. I just didn't want you thinking of me like a chicken nugget you can eat whenever you get hungry." Vorden said trying to lighten the mood. "Before coming back to our room, I went down to the canteen and copied the ability of a student who has regenerative power. We didn't expect you to be hungry so soon, after you fed on Earl only yesterday."
All three of them were silent for a while, they were thinking about the crazy situation that they were in right now. After some time Peter broke the silence, "Thank you, the both of you. You have always been nice to me, and treated me right, even after I betrayed you, you still saved my life, and even now you went to such lengths to help me."
As they looked around the room they realized how much of a mess they had made. There was a big hole in the window were Peter had smashed through it, and shards of broken glass could be seen underneath it. Blood was all over the place: on the kitchen counter, on the floor where Peter had devoured the arm, even on the ceiling from when the arm had flown through the air.
"Well, I guess we better get started with cleaning this place before anyone finds out what happened here," Quinn said.
Each of them took it in turn cleaning up the place but there wasn't much they could do about some area, they couldn't magically restore a window, and the scratches made on the wooden floor could only be fixed so much.
When Vorden was cleaning the kitchen counter he said, "Hey Quinn, you fancy a drink?" At the same time, he was squeezing some blood from a towel.
Quinn was amazed at how Vorden could still crack a joke in a situation like this, but then again nothing ever seemed to faze the guy. Since turning into a vampire, Quinn wasn't affected much by the sight of blood anymore, even Peter eating Vorden's arm didn't bother him much. What surprised him was how well Vorden was handling it.
While they were busy cleaning up, Quinn had the chance to ask the system some questions, because right now he had a lot of them. "Do you know how long Peter will be required to eat human flesh?" Quinn asked.
"Well for once I have some good news for you, Peter is the type of ghoul that needs to be fed daily." The system responded.
"If that is good news you have some sick sense of humour." Quinn thought.
"Just wait young one, the ones that require food more often, quickly get stronger, if you carry on feeding Peter for a week then by the end of it he should evolve?"
In the middle of their conversation a notification screen popped up.
[New quest received!]
[Make your family stronger]
[2/7 feed your ghoul (Peter) seven different types of human flesh]
[Reward: Family member evolution]
"Well, will you look at that, it looks like my hunch was right." The system said.
Quinn found the words of the system strange, was he not in charge of everything? Until this point, he thought that the AI and the systems were one and the same thing, but that didn't seem to be the case.
"I thought you made the quests?" Quinn asked.
"Me?" the system replied. "I see why you would think so, I was designed after the original owner, the person who's the idea it was to create the system. My thoughts, my actions everything is based around him. However, the system itself was created by someone else, and before you ask, the man often changed names throughout time so even if I told you his name, you wouldn't know who he is."
Since there wasn't much Quinn could do about the system for now and it wasn't really a problem he decided to focus on the other matter. Looking at the quest he noticed something that would cause them even more problems. The quest stated that they would need seven different types of human flesh. Just like Quinn with his blood, he would only get stronger when consuming a new person's blood, the same could be said for Peter, who would have to consume different types of flesh.
"If, and I mean a big IF." Quinn said. "If we carry on using Vorden, will it still suppress his hunger?"
"Yes, although he won't be able to evolve as quickly."
Looking at Vorden's stump it had now grown back to the point where it was just starting to form the wrist. He hated the fact that he had to rely on Vorden and using him would only be delaying the inevitable, right now he needed to find a solution as fast as possible.
While these thoughts ran through his mind, he remembered the fight he had with Fex. Just before they left he said: "If he needed any help to seek him out". Quinn had no idea if he could trust him or not, and if the two of them got into a fight again he knew in his current state he would definitely lose.
Although Quinn didn't get hurt during the fight he also wasn't able to land a single blow, and it looked like the amount of skills Fex had surpassed his own. The only thing Quinn had that could give him an advantage was his shadow ability. However, at the same time, he still hadn't seen what Fex's ability was or if he even had one.
But with no plans of his own and no guidance from the system, who else could he go to, to ask for help. He wouldn't be able to attack him while they were in the school. Vampires were a secret to the world and he was sure Fex would want to keep it that way as well. It was a risk but he would have to confront Fex and ask for his help.
*****
Want another mass release? then remember to vote. Stone goals in the Author's note below!