TOP. 

That's what they called him.

He forgot his name, the one his mother had given him. And it wasn't like he could ask any of the siblings he'd had, considering they were dead. Nor did his parents survive. His father, a born vampire, had been staked in the sun, shrivelling away shortly after his mother had gotten pregnant. His mother had retreated to her mountainside grotto, regretful for the other's death, but not particularly moved. He was a fling - a moment of passion - not family or anyone she had ever intended to love. 

All he remembered of her and the place he'd been raised in was that it was the home of a renowned White Mage - a child of the sun and the moon, back before they retreated from the earth. He knew that humans had been very new then, at least new to their present form. Even then, though, they had been fearful. Some of the Ethereal Races they took as gods, like the succubi Aphrodite and Venus, or the undead necromancer Osiris, who haunted the west bank of the Nile near what would come to be the Nile Delta. Others, less powerful, they took as demons and savagely slaughtered them. 

Over time, those prized few were caged too thoroughly and starved, but he had not. 

His siblings, pure White Mages, had disliked him from the start, though his mother did not show any special affection for him more than the others. She had, however, told him of what he was and why his siblings disliked him; he was an Elder Vampire, a special breed that almost never happened. It only came from a vampire and a White Mage. Usually, the power of a White Mage would kill the unborn child or cancel out the vampire genes. In him, however, both had survived. 

He was not undead, as he'd learned, because his heart beat with a pulse and his blood was far from sluggish and black when he was cut. He'd been staked, too, left in the sun to die, but it was just terribly uncomfortable. He'd broke the bonds when the sunlight had hit him, highlighting the sun runes on his arms, and heaved himself down off the crude cross. He'd ground up a matte grey rock, vaguely the same colour vampire dust would be, and laid it out at the bottom of the cross and smeared it across the wood. He'd waited in the distance, eyes acute thanks to the sun's power, watched as the weaklings rejoiced his demise. He had only turned and left, his teeth aching in his gums. 

His mother, golden being that she was, when he approached her about it, had his hair. 

"Those fangs of yours are so different from normal." She said, examining his four fangs unbiasedly. "They're akin to those of a snake, over a vampire. Thin and long, wicked in their sharpness. They have come down, though, so they will go back up. Think on it, my dear, and control it like you do the light that eminates from your skin, the glow that overtakes your eyes and bleaches your hair out."

The whole of the Earth changed in the years he'd existed. 

Old lakes had become seas, then spilled into oceans. Whole islands and sections of land had vanished under the approaching water. Mountain ranges rose overnight and every time he left his home the whole of the air was warmer. The space between him and the sun became thicker, heat and water filling the air. Malcontented liquid fire bubbled its resentment into power and exploded, shattering the rock around it, sending debris millions of miles in all directions. And over and over, the dryads, nymphs and nereids taking to fostering life in the wastelands of the craters left behind. Forests, plains, deserts, tundra, jungle, prairie, ,glacier, grassland - he'd seen each section of the world change and rearrange itself, felt the movement of the worldly plates under him. He watched a frightened sub-species grow into an even more fearful, dominate ultraspecies - those with an inborn fear/god complex which seemed to tell them they had the right to decide who lives and who dies. Their success was dependant on the skill of their prey. He'd never been below them on the food chain, and he never would be. 

His mother gave up on her life when her grotto fell dark, ascending to the stars. His siblings had gone to their own corners of the earth and fallen victim to witch hunts and mysticism. He alone still walked, still lived. His footsteps, clad in all manner of things through the millenia, were now in proper dress shoes, laced smartly as they traced their pathways through the streets of Incheon, the Yellow Sea breeze ruffling his neatly kept hair. The sun was setting, the brilliant oranges fading to purple. 

So sleepless, all the time, twenty millenia worth of sunrises and sunsets in his mind - days, weeks, months, years, centuries bearing to marker on his mind. Nineteen millenia roaming the world alone, avoiding pyres and dodging kinship at every turn, an idle observer in the scope of the world. A perfect immortal walking the surfaces of the contients as they drifted and looking down into depths that used to be homes and were now shores. He didn't need anything other than to occasional reach out to the sun or the moon and they would reward their grandchild with vitality, caressing and soothing his soul in a way no others had quite managed to do. 

He lived in the modern state of Korea now, his appearance fitting in best here and the other Asian nations, though the human races were spread far enough now that he could theoretically be anywhere without raising any eyebrows. But he was here now, just because he could be. A few short centuries ago, he'd been in Rome, before that, watched Troy burn, attended Japanese warcouncils. He'd been there when the pyramids in Egypt and Peru had been built, occasionally stopped by Machu Pichu to commemorate dead friends, both human and otherwise. 

He used to take joy in being a terror - was ruthlessly violent and inspired hundreds, thousands of terrifying legends. He'd been diefied in hundreds of religions, knew where the temples to him were and walked the courses of his history so many times they had little meaning. So many ages, so many different names, he'd forgotten them all. 

TOP. 

That's what they called him now, these Hunters. Fancied themselves superior, they did. But what for? When stakes and sunlight won't kill him, what use were bullets, no matter how fast they're fired? No piercing round could take enough of him to kill him, there was no missle he could not shield himself from, no assassin he could not outrun. He was TOP, the king of the monsters. 

Not that they knew what he looked like to catch him. 

He was a fable in their minds. A legend, a myth, whispered in the deeper parts of the world. No one knew who he was to look at him. He didn't need more than a sun or moonlit walk every year or so to keep him alive and honestly, what more did he have to do with all of this time? No creature recognized him for more than he was; always fully covering any possible rune that developed over the years. He didn't need to glow in mid-day, thank you, if he wanted to keep this long-established anonimity cloaking him. There were few creatures old enough to know his face well enough to recognize him, to know his true power. And even they had hidden now, great powers like Poseidon the Earth-Shaker, Thetis, Scylla, Charybdis, Aruna hiding in the depths of the oceans the humans would never be able to reach. 

A Hunter walked past him as he watched the waves on the boardwalk.

"Have you noticed anything unusual, sir?" The young woman asked, face serious and clan tags sewn into the inside of her jacket. 

"Nothing more than usual." His voice rumbled, rich and warm despite not having spoken in close to two years. He's gone much longer than that, aimless in vast forests and dark cave systems, but he didn't like loneliness when he wasn't able to look at the passing faces of generations. 

"Are you sure? There's been rumour of a flying beast that's just moved into the area."

"Nothing more odd has appeared today than me." He replied, calm and clean. There was no need to get aggravated - no weapon she could possibly be carrying could kill him. Sometimes he wondered why he was so set on staying alive even though he had nothing worth living for. 

"Well, let us know if you do see something."

"No thank you." He rumbled back.

She bauked. "You must. This is a government imperative."

He smiled at her, hands in the pockets of his black slacks. "Your hunt is not my issue. Your chase does not affect me. Government or not, you cannot force me into anything."

"What's your name?"

"I don't remember."

"Don't play coy."

"I hear they call me TOP now. Make of that what you will." His legs carried him unhurriedly down the rest of the pier. She huffed, taking his words for a jest, and moved on. He vaguely wondered how many of the Hunters he'd had amicable conversation with over the course of the last millenia. Then again, he could not know - dates and places blurred together, only coming to him when he would look to a documentary and think of a person who had been there, someone he'd liked, and call out everything wrong in his mind. That was the price of never needing or thinking to sleep, he supposed. 

He only knew it was evening because his body told him of the shift of light, his hair loosing its golden sheen and turning blue. His runes would not light up at night, but he'd gained such a habit over these last thousand years. He was always covered, only his hands and face, sometimes a bit of his throat, exposed so the shimmering white-gold scriptures on his body could not be seen. No more obvious way to reveal himself, save perhaps letting his hair turn white, as it was wont to do when he used his power. 

There was a splash below him, and he leant over the edge. 

Faint surprise bloomed in his chest, watching a Siren pull a dryad onto the shore, his tail flickering anxiously. Vague curiosity at such an unlikely partnership stirred him to help the creatures. 

The Siren was visibly startled when he appeared next to him, gently lifting the dryad's hand in his own, his nails faintly blue in sheen. An invisible spark of his acquired sunlight didn't rouse the being, so he put his hand on the younger being's chest and lit his palm, the White magic jumpstarting the dryad's soul once more, closing and sealing the hole left there. 

Pity stirred in him for the creature, clearly a product of the deforestation taking place. He didn't know anymore the pains of loss, but just the physical pain caused by it would be callous to say the least. He had long since outlived being maleficent, lost the sensation of pleasure in all its forms tens of thousands of years ago. 

The dryad choked to life on the sand and the Siren stared at him with wide eyes. "Seunghyun."

His mother's voice, thought long abandoned, played in his mind. "My child, Seunghyun the Dark."

"Where did you learn that?" He asked, helping the dryad sit up to vomit up the semi-suffocating seawater. 

"The deepest creatures of the ocean don't forget anything. Thetis does not forget the names of the men who seen her son fall, least of all an Elder Vampire."

He met the Siren's eyes. "You have me at a disadvantage."

"Oh! I'm Daesung and this is my friend, Seungri."

"You're both so young."

Daesung gathered Seungri in his arms, protective but not from him. The smile he offered was blindingly brilliant, as warm on his being as the sun, his voice catching on his vocal prowess as he got more excited. "Perhaps, but we're cute."

Seungri looked up at Daesung like he was crazy, but TOP felt a laugh bubble up his throat, mirth filling his being as he reached over, petting Daesung softly, then Seungri. They were both so warm, like they, too, were children of the sun. His heart reached out to them in companionship, a streak of protectiveness he couldn't explain resurging in his soul. "Yes you are."

"Dae, who is this?" Seungri tried to whisper.

"Seunghyun the Dark. I hear his mother was somewhat of a comedian in her time." Daesung smiled again and he didn't even have to think about smiling back. 

"Seunghyun the Dark? Never heard of him."

"TOP."

Seungri's eyes blew wide and he turned to stare at the Elder in unfiltered reverence. "And you just . . . saved my life?"

TOP shrugged. "Kickstarted your system. Nothing much."

"Wow." Seungri breathed. 

"Come, up. You can't be seen here so soon." He pulled them to their feet, faintly surprised when Daesung was suddenly standing over swimming. 

"I thought he was a myth!" Seungri whispered excitedly as TOP lead them away from the shore to his modest home a few blocks away.