Rider wasn't sure what the hell was going on. One minute she was playing with Kiyoshi in Rin's garden, the next they were in an alleyway in what appeared to be Tokyo, judging by the tower in the distance. She had a strong suspicion that it was not a co-incidence that this had happened just as the experiment Rin had been performing came to a climax.
"Are you OK, Kiyo?", she said to the little boy walking beside her, looking even more puzzled than she was.
Her moderately-stressful day had just got a whole lot worse. She had taken on the duty of babysitting Kiyoshi whilst Sakura and Shirou had a little weekend break, and since she couldn't cook she had taken him to Rin's for the weekend. She was, as always, happy to see her nephew, but when she attempted to get him interested in her experiments in the Second Magic, he had yawned exaggeratedly and told her he wasn't interested. After that, she had told Rider to care for him whilst she finished off her experiments.
Whilst Kiyoshi could be a pain sometimes, due to his tendancy to act without really thinking through the consequences, he was still a nice enough kid, and Rider did enjoy play-fighting with him. Plus, even if he was a little brat sometimes, he was Sakura's little brat, and thus someone she would protect with everything she had.
“I'm OK, Aunty Rider. Where are we?”, Kiyoshi replied.
Before Rider could reply, though, they heard a voice.
"I think I gave warnings about killing in my district before, so I won't give any more", the man said.
"Leave or die, your choice", he continued.
Someone's in trouble! thought Kiyoshi, breaking into a run.
“Kiyoshi, stay back!” Rider shouted, but he took no notice.
Kiyoshi rounded the corner to find several people stood surrounded by a large circle of enemies, many firing magic spells at them.
“Rider, these people need our help!” he shouted.
Then, summoning up his swords, he charged towards the nearest enemy, slicing through the surprised vampire from behind, practically chopping him in half.
Meanwhile, Kuro jumped out of his pocket. Kiyoshi diverted some of his prana to the little familiar, causing it to grow until it was about his size. He knew he couldn't maintain his swords and Kuro like this for too long, but hopefully the battle would be over before it became an issue.
Kiyoshi jumped backwards as the vampires nearest to him turned their attention from their original target to the newest threat. Meanwhile, several of the others charged up their magic and prepared to fire at him.
Oh, no, thought Kiyoshi.
He'd not thought out his plan here, and there was simply no way that he could take on this many vampires on his own. He backed up as three of the nearby vampires approached, far faster than he could move to avoid them. He slashed at one of them, managing to wound it and keep it from approaching closer, but the other two approached from the side, raising their hands in order to tear him to pieces.
But, before they could finish their attack, they found theirselves pierced with nails and then propelled into the nearest wall at high velocity, as Rider acted to rescue her master's son. Then, she jumped over Kiyoshi and knocked the third, injured vampire backwards with a flying kick.
Surprised at the intervention, several of the vampire mages turned and fired their magic at the intruder, but it fizzled uselessly against her body as her Magic Resistance took effect.
Damn it, Kiyo, you need to be more careful, thought Rider.
She could, of course, defeat all of these vampires on her own, but protecting Kiyoshi whilst she did so was another matter. Seeing the two vampires she had earlier thrown into the wall get back up, she moved in position to protect Kiyoshi from their attacks.
