A low fog rolled over the countryside, obscuring a lone mountain and the small forest that surrounded it. A flock of sheep grazed in the grassy area at the outer limits of the forest, their shepherd lay against an old log and gazed at the stars. He liked to amuse himself by tracing pictures among the astral bodies. He supposed that star-pictures were a lot like finding shapes in clouds, that the pictures that the mind traced were different from person-to-person. At least stars were permanent, though.

He looked lazily to his flock, expecting to see them grazing sleepily. Instead, he saw the shapes of the sheep covered by the thickest fog he had ever seen. He half-rose on one elbow to get a better viewing angle, he was at the perfect position to see the vague shapes of the sheep fall to the ground one after another. Fifteen sheep, fifteen low thudding sounds as they hit the damp grass.

The fog turned red.

The shepherd got clumsily to his feet, he was sweating profusely now and the panic rising in his chest made his breath come in ragged, shallow gasps. He could feel eyes on him from within the fog. Not human eyes or the eyes of an animal, these were the eyes of a real monster. The fog thickened even more. Still red, it shrunk slowly, gathering together to where the shepherd felt the eyes coming from. The red colour began to drain from the fog, flowing to the top of the shape that was beginning to become evident in the swirling vapour. It was a man's shape, the red colour had migrated to where the eyes would be on a human. The fog swirled one last time before coalescing so that it was not only the vague outline of a man, it was a man. A man clad only in pants, boots and scars.

His eyes were the colour of fresh blood.

The scarred man simply stood looking at the shepherd, his unnatural eyes pinning the poor stargazer to the spot, emptying his mind of rational thought and replacing it with formless terror. The shepherd watched, helpless, as the scarred man stepped over the dessicated corpses of the sheep and walked casually toward the shepherd, mouth open slightly to reveal gleaming fangs. The distance between them had closed to a few meters when a golden glow interrupted the scarred man's gaze. He turned his head to the right, toward the glow.

"The Whisper of the Cross!" the words were uttered with such force that they echoed off the mountain as the scarred man was blown away by a crackling stream of golden energy. The origin of which was the palm of a man in teal armor with long lavender hair.

The golden power had slammed the man into a tree, and the energy pounded mercilessly into his chest as he writhed like a pinned bug. Two of the scars on the man's chest began to glow with the same light as the stream of power crushing him against the tree, the scars were two perpendicular lines: a cross. A network of scars beginning at the cross scar lit with the same light, lighting his torso with noonday brilliance.

The man in the teal armor spat a curse and cut off the golden power.

"A battery? So this is MANTIS..." he walked toward the man he had attempted to kill, strolling with the same casualness as the scarred man had used on the shepherd.

The vampire had slid down from the tree and was now in a fighting stance facing the man in teal armor, the scars had ceased their radiance for the moment but the scarred man still shuddered with the power he had just absorbed. He lunged suddenly, fist aimed toward his assailant's face. The teal-armored man simply batted it aside and clamped the vampire's throat in a gauntleted fist, lifting him up and slamming him against the tree again.

"Who are you? What is your name?" he barked in his victim's face.

"My name...?" the vampire seemed confused.

"You don't know, do you?"

The vampire lowered his eyes, as if in response.

"What is the purpose of MANTIS? Just what in the nine Hells is Crusade planning?"

The suspended man's eyes regained clarity at the mention of that name, his teeth bared themselves and his fangs extended. "Crusade!" he spat out the word like a curse.

The teal-armored man sighed, "I see that the experiment broke a part of you, specifically your memory." he released the vampire and backed away a few paces as the scarred man slid down the tree.

"You've become an abomination, a creature of the Dark with Light energy inside you. Like a praying mantis, predatory yet pious. Perhaps that's the origins of the project name, MANTIS."

The vampire was gasping and clutching his throat as he gained his feet. "MANTIS..." the word came out as barely a whisper.

"Yes," the lavender-haired man continued, "You are a MANTIS, the only MANTIS." he drew twin silver pistols from his waist armor and leveled the massive killing instruments at the MANTIS. "And now there will be none."

A low moan interrupted the armored man, he looked behind him to see that the stargazing shepherd had finally broken free from the vampire's spell, and then dismissed him just as quickly.

The MANTIS gazed up at his would-be executioner as he was distracted, his undead eyes instinctively came to rest on the man's unarmored throat.

The armored gunslinger turned back toward the vampire in time to see gleaming fangs coming towards his exposed jugular.