Let me begin by saying… my Fanfiction writing habbits are incomprehensible to myself, so I don't expect anyone else to get them. I write one fanfic for the series I'm like obsessed with (Rurouni Kenshin), and then I end up getting an idea for one for a game I've played all of 4 levels in (seriously… at the moment I have yet to purifyMuspell… though personally, I blame the sun for setting at like 4:30 around here now…). Now, as you may guess, this means I have very little grasp of Boktai's overall plot. I mean, I didn't even know that it's real name was Bokura no Taiyou or that Taiyou meant "sun," until about 2 days ago…So I'm going to say it up front, this story is going to be heavily AU, probably including many OCs, and will likely NOT fit very well with the true story, though I will make an effort to see more of that to get a better grasp on what some of the characters are supposed to be like. Sabata, for instance, I won't be able to do much with outside of his mysterious act in the beginning of the game until I know some more about him (this does not mean I want spoilers…), and then I'll need to decide if I want to take his character in that same direction or not.

So, to borrow a phrase from Shakespeare and use it completely out of context… "With patient ears attend." And constructive criticism is welcome, I wrote this whole thing because a friend, Kaya, (aka Kaya Kyra) wanted to know if I could write non-samurai-style fight scenes, so I decided to give Boktai a shot because she convinced me to pick it up again after not playing it in forever, and I found out it was actually a lot cooler than I remembered. Personally I don't think it's a bad place to start off, but…shrugs

Light's Shadow, Darkness' Light

Chapter 1: Firelight

"Ah… Solar Boy… Django, is it? I've been expecting you… do come in…" the voice rang out clearly, malice and authority dripping from every syllable, just underneath the cover of mock hospitality.

"Save your host act for someone who cares, Count. I'm here to kill you." The blonde boy replied, walking into the dark room, the door slamming shut behind him. The circular room had a sun roof in the center, covered now, of course, and was lined with pillars of white stone, with the door on a small, elevated platform extending about head height above the floor. Intricate patterns crossed each other towards the center, with designs of celestial bodies prevalent among them, and up from this surface, the count floated into the air, until he was level with the boy, his dark cloak billowing around him, his red eyes piercing the darkness.

"My, my, we are in a hurry," the Count answered, mock concern in his voice. His pale, grayish skin was barely visible, covered by the dark hair that fell over his forehead and partially obscured by his beard as well. His eyes never leaving the odd-looking gun in the boy's hand, which he had raised to follow the Count's motion, the Count continued, "Why such a rush? The night is still young…"

The boy's response was to pull the trigger on the strange weapon in his hand, and a beam of light shot from the odd lens atop the gun, striking a second lens placed at the opposite end of the silver device, where it was narrowed further, becoming a fast moving blast of golden yellow light, streaking through the air straight at the Count's head. With an effortless motion, the Count tilted his head slightly, and the beam passed by the tip of his right, pointed ear, ripping several hairs from his head in the process.

The count made a small clicking sound with his tongue, gazing back at the boy with his glowing red eyes. The boy did indeed look something like his father, that much the Count admitted. But whatever underhanded trick he had used against the former, defeating this inexperienced child should be no more difficult than crushing any other human beneath him. He noted with amusement that the boy wore his father's scarf, the ends of the tattered red fabric trailing almost to the ground. Still, that look in his eyes… it was far too similar to the one that the Count had been sure was his death staring him in the face.

"Very well, then. I see you've inherited your father's lack of manners as well. Well, like father like son, they say in this world, do they not?" the Count mocked, thrusting his cloak apart to reveal the dark suit he wore underneath. And in the next instant, he was gone.

The boy leapt to the left, jarring his shoulder against the stone floor as he hit it, and bringing his sideways leap into completion with a rolling landing that left him crouching, clutching his injured shoulder. An instant after his feet had left the ground, the Count's claws had swung down where he was swinging, a near miss from an attack that would have rent him in two, more than likely. An odd, grating sound filled the air as the Count's claws tore through the stone, leaving small grooves in the surface of the rock.

Whirling and leaping back to his feet at the same time, the Solar Boy fired off a burst of three shots at the Count's dark figure. The golden light streaked across the room at the Count, casting light on parts of the room as lightning casts light upon a landscape, bathing an area in light for the briefest of instants. But just as the shots were about to reach the count's body, he was suddenly two feet to the left of where he had just been, drifting lazily to one side as if the motion was no faster than taking a single, slow step, and the shots harmlessly struck the stone wall next to the door, leaving three circular patches of light behind, which quickly faded back to the gray color of the stone.

The Count charged the young boy, his body stretched out behind his head, claws poised for a strike. Django fired off another burst of shots, trying to move the gun to keep up with the Count's motion, but every time he pulled the trigger, it seemed the Count was suddenly just far enough away from his original position to make the shot miss. The Count closed the remaining distance between them in an instant, sweeping at Django with his claws. Django jumped, twisting left as he did to avoid a claw slash that would have torn his rib cage in two, taking it rather on the right shoulder. He collapsed to his knees in pain as the Count flew past, assuming a standing, nonchalant position once again as Django gasped in pain.

No blood dripped from the wound, it was instantly drained by the Count's claws, leaving a set of cuts that seemed like they had already begun to heal. Django knew enough from his father to know that this was just the appearance, wounds from an Immortal, or any undead were infused with some of the creature's dark energy, repellent of all life, and making the healing process longer and more complicated. Already, Django felt his shoulder begin to go numb with cold that seemed to radiate from the wound itself.

Grimacing, Django climbed back to his feet, facing the Count, who merely laughed, an unpleasant laugh of sadistic pleasure. Glancing at his fingers as if bored, the Count watched as the red liquid that still colored them faded, drawing itself directly into his flesh, feeling the thrill he always did from emptying warm blood into his long-dead body, even in this small quantity. He looked back up to see the Solar Boy pointing the gun at him once more, a grim, determined look in his eyes. The Count grinned to himself, then charged forward again.

Django rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding another strike of the Count's black claws, feeling the disturbance of the air at his passage. Brining himself around in a circle, he fired off another three rounds at the Count's exposed back. Swinging his legs up to face the other way, the Count brought himself into a mid-air summersault of sorts, charging back at the Solar Boy, who lazily avoided the shots that the Solar Boy fired off again and again.

The Count launched himself at Django again, bringing his right hand across in a slash aimed at the boy's face. Django raised the gun in his hand, firing off a quick burst of shots into the Count's arm at point blank just before it would have connected with his head. The sleeve of the Count's suit was torn to shreds in an instant; his grayed flesh was stripped from his arm, dissolving into wisps of darkness, leaving a patch where white bone was visible. Swinging his arm out, Django brought the gun to bear on the Count's face. He pulled the trigger, and in that brief instant as the beam of light traveled between the two lenses, the Count vanished, in his place appeared a swarm of bats, which scattered in all directions as the blast discharged harmlessly into open air.

Reaching instinctively for the switch on the side of the gun's smooth surface, Django was raising his gun to the nearest clump of bats even as the lens atop the barrel end of the gun reversed itself. As he pulled the trigger, golden light flooded from the second lens, dispersed along an arc instead of focused into a beam, neatly catching all of the bats in one shot, their dark forms distorting for an instant, then dissolving completely into wisps of black smoke.

Turning in a circle, Django brought the gun to bear on each clumping of bats as they tried to fly away, dissolving into black smoke as the golden light engulfed them, stripping their flesh away like fog fleeing a gust of wind. The black smoke vanished in the golden light, drifting slowly through the air, with such an eased pace that the Solar Boy missed its true direction.

The black smoke gathered around one bat that had escaped Django's scrutiny, currently, suspended in the air over his head and behind him. As the smoke gathered itself around the bat, and it seemed to be absorbed into the creature's dark flesh, the process becoming obscured as the smoke swirled around the small bat, whose form was beginning to grow larger as the smoke drained into it.

Slowly, the bat's shape began to alter, and a moment later, the count was hovering in the air where the bat had been, looking as uninjured as he had when Django first entered the room. Thinking that he had eliminated all the bats, Django was panting heavily, clutching at the wound on his shoulder, the icy coldness of it like daggers stabbing at his consciousness.

A feral cry escaped the Count's lips as he threw himself through the air straight at Django's back, and in an instant, the Solar Boy had whirled around to meet him. Django tried to raise his gun to fire at the Count, but the numbness was spreading throughout his arm, and his muscles were no longer free for him to command as he pleased. The Count cleared the distance between them before Django could even bring the gun to bear, and with one claw, knocked the arm holding it aside with such force that the pain registered all throughout the boy's arm, despite the numbing affect of his injury. The gun flew, spinning through the air then skidding along the ground until it met the square base of one of the columns, far beyond any reach.

The Count roughly seized Django's shoulders as the boy tried to roll to the side, his nails biting into the boy's shoulder blades, blood flowing freely from the wounds only to fade away into the Count's icy fingers. Django cried in pain, struggling to free himself, then losing his voice completely as his movements sent the Count's claws further into his skin, he could feel them etching lines into his bones as they rubbed against them, sending waves of pain and nausea throughout his body. The Count's mouth flew open in a snarl; his elongated fangs stained reddish yellow from the blood that had passed through them. Opening his mouth wide, the Count reached forward to bite into the unprotected flesh of the Solar Boy's neck.

Django was barely aware of anything except the pain that seemed to encompass his entire being, and the knowledge that he was about to die, just as his father had. He tried to steel himself for the fatal blow, praying it would be a quick, easy death, but in spite of everything he felt hot tears pricking at his eyes. He had accomplished nothing. He had succeeded in nothing. And now his death would end any chance of him doing so in the future. He couldn't imagine ever facing his father again… not after he had failed so miserably to avenge his death.

Through tear-distorted eyes, Django saw a bright flash of light, and in an instant, the Count's claws were torn from his back, tearing lines in flesh too cold to feel the pain, scattering blood across the boy's back and shoulders. As Django collapsed to his knees in pain, he heard a soft thudding noise as the Count's body was slammed to the ground. A large blade protruded from his head, caving in the man's face before it, splitting apart both flesh and bone. Dark, inhuman blood spilled from the wound in the meager quantities the Immortal possessed, and his mouth worked itself open and closed, trying to utter something, but finding no breath to do so.

The blade itself was a bizarre contraption, with the tip only buried in the Count's face. The rest of the blade was spread out behind it light links in a chain, joined together by crackling auras of golden lighting that leaped to and back away from small shining yellow crystals that were suspended about halfway between each section of the blade and the next. The blade itself was yellow in color, glowing with energy in the dark room, runes etched into its hard surface.

"Taiyou!" cried a voice from behind Django, and golden light flooded the room, as a current of energy seemed to travel down the blade, making it glow ever brighter. As the light reached the point where the blade entered the Count's face, the Count's mouth flew open in a silent scream, his body instantly scattering into clumps of black smoke that flew back in the direction the blade came from, as the blade itself retracted from where it had been.

Django turned his head to look at the blade's wielder, and even that small action seemed to drain what little remained of his strength. He saw a boy who looked to be his own age, messy blonde hair, bleached almost white by the sun, hanging over amber eyes that were fiercer than any hawk's could be, and a face set with a grim, determined stare that seemed etched in stone. A dark cloak covered the other boy's body, concealing most else except for his face, which now turned its stone cold glare on Django himself.

"This is the extolled Solar Boy Django? Our supposed savior from darkness, and the one destined to return the light of the sun to this accursed land? You… you who could not even defeat such a weak Immortal… how can you truly be the legendary vampire slayer who will save this world? You who were nearly killed by such a pathetic enemy… you have no right to call yourself a Solar Child… let alone lay claim to the title of savior." The other boy's voice was as much like a hawk as the rest of him, harsh, unforgiving, with the self-conviction of one who fights for his life every day, and was now set upon Django in anger. Django gazed back at the other boy, too stunned to try and act as the world collapsed in around him, and everything went dark.