Night Light (Exalted vs World of Darkness)
- Thread starter Kinotics
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy Modern
It's definitely something that neither Elio or Ashley has really run into. Their ever increasing confidence in their powers surely won't hit a wall as the element of surprise slips away and they encounter more devious and tactical antagonists who arent just gonna be caught off guard and detonated. I think they've only ever needed to burn like a third of their motes in any given scenario. Heck, I think Elio has only flared like once at the start of all this (thanks Night caste)
Scene 28 - A Gathering Storm
It's not a long drive to Harry's Kitchen. Streetlights flash by the SUV's windows, momentarily glinting in Megan's eyes as she watches the world move by. Her hands were still bound with a severed seat belt and next to her in the drivers seat is Elio. Looking him up and down, he isn't much to look at. Tired eyes, slightly long face, wiry build. Even when he isn't looking at her, Megan can feel the weight of his attention on her; every twitch and movement somehow observed and carefully weighed for its potential harm to him or to aid in her escape. Another streetlight flickers by in the night. "You know, this isn't exactly what I had in mind when I met Victor." Megan says, turning to face the window.
Humoring her, Elio shrugs. "And what, pray tell, did you have in mind then?"
"Oh you know, the usual stuff. The world. Power. Immortality. He failed to mention the politicking." She says conversationally.
"Aren't you in politics? Mayors assistant and all that." Elio keeps his face forward, but glances at Megan out of the corner of his eye.
Megan attempts to fold her arms, best as she can with her wrists bound. "Do you know how many times asshole vampires have tried to get me to talk about what Victor's up to these days?" She waits for a moment, expecting a response from Elio. When she gets none, she scowls. "It's like an annual thing. Just another part of the politics apparently. This is the first time non-vampires have grabbed me though."
"There's a first time for everything." Elio says simply.
"Sure, okay, so, what are you getting out of this deal? You clearly aren't the one interrogating me, otherwise you'd just turn that beast Ashley on me." Megan rolls her head to the side. "You haven't asked me about your father dearest… maybe someone has claimed to be able to clear your name?" She fishes for answers. The SUV bucks a bit as it turns into the back lot behind Harry's Kitchen. Megan's eyes widen as she sees its nicely decorated exterior. "No fucking way. You're working for Peter?!"
Throwing the SUV into park, Elio exits without a word. Near the back door is a man and a woman dressed in gray hoodies. Looking at Elio and at the SUV where Megan can be seen through the windshield now desperately trying to free herself from her bonds, the woman moves to Elio while the man moves to the passenger side of the car. "Didn't expect you to be here so soon." She says. Something about this woman makes Elio hesitate in his stride. Her eyes glimmer slightly and her svelte figure almost forces one's eyes to take her in even in unflattering attire. She quickly slides towards him, extending her hand. "It's nice to see you face to face." Wait. Elio squints. This is the same hostess that welcomed him into the restaurant yesterday.
Cautiously, Elio shakes the woman's hand. Her skin is rougher than expected, with what feel like well healed scars on the palm of her hand. "I want to talk to Phoebe."
She chuckles. "Of course. My associate and I will take care of Megan. The door's open." Pointing behind her, the door into the kitchen is slightly propped open. Frowning to himself, he walks past the odd woman and towards the entryway. Behind him, he can hear Megan attempt to scream, but her mouth goes silent once the woman gets close enough to her.
Pulling open the door, Elio emerges into the well kept and quiet kitchen. Phoebe is on the far side, near the door to her office just down the hall. With a smile, she nods towards the door and saunters into her office. Elio follows silently, finding himself seated in the chair in Phoebe's office in front of her desk once more. "I got you your ghoul. Now what do you have for me?"
"Wow." She slowly claps. "What a go-getter." Leaning onto her desk with a chuckle, Phoebe grabs her office phone. "If only half of the cleaners and thugs I had on retainer were as punctual as you. Hint." She dials a number, moments later a woman's voice is on the other side, sounding panicked. Phoebe's smile becomes strained.
From the other side of the phone, Elio catches the conversation. "It's all gone to shit Phoebe!"
Phoebe leans back into her chair, folding her arms under her. "What's going on?" She demands.
"I was following the guy like you wanted me to, but he went into Naperville, you know, in Chicago? Well it's a shit show out here! Cops are just pepper spraying people, there's like a weird cult or some fucking thing…" The voice continues before a clear gunshot can be heard.
"Hahahah!" Phoebe fake-laughs loudly before her eyes dart to Elio and she hisses into the phone, "Can I call you back?" She then hangs up. "Well, it sounds like your brother is in Naperville!" Phoebe says back to Elio, a smile coming back to her face, though her eyes betray some worry.
"And what is going on in Naperville?" Elio asks. "Some sort of riot?"
"It's… ah…" She frowns. "Have you not been watching the news?"
Elio sighs. "Give me the sparknotes."
"Since it's your brother going in there… fine." She turns her computer monitor to face him and quickly searches for local news. Stories pop up and Elio scans the headlines. 'Armed militia group claims Chicago suburb.', 'Latest casualties in hostile neighborhood takeover.', 'Mayor of Chicago demands military assistance in quelling suspected gang war.', 'Victim of death cult gives testimony.' Once Elio looks like he's about to ask a question, Phoebe continues. "Reporters aren't exactly eager to get in there. The last news crew that got within speaking distance of these guys got dragged in and hasn't been seen since. Not sure what the local Kindred have thought about it, but it can't be good for business." Her eyes glance towards the shut door before she continues. Standing at the threshold of the door is the woman from outside, staring unblinkingly at Phoebe.
"Don't say anything you may live to regret, Phoebe." Her voice is ice cold. Turning her gaze to Elio, she smirks. "He may be useful, but we still have a certain mystique to uphold."
Phoebe swallows while trying valiantly to hold onto her smile. "Of course, I'll be less careless in the future." The woman pulls away from the door and into the darkness of the hallway.
Jutting his thumb at the now empty doorway, Elio smirks. "So that the ol' ball and chain?"
She leans suddenly across the desk, getting into what she would consider whispering distance to Elio. "Watch your tone."
"Lady, I've killed four vampires now. I've not broken a sweat." Elio says flatly. "Five if you count putting Victor into a fucking coma. I'm not afraid of your little 'master'." He turns towards the door again and loudly says, "If she has something to say she should just get in here." Waiting a moment, no one comes to the door. "Come on, I can hear you just lurking around the corner. Your knee just popped. And you're breathing." He pauses. Breathing? "For some reason."
The lady slides back into view of the door with a deep scowl. "Our deal is complete. You know where to find your brother and we will force the sheriff to undo the legal damage they've managed to heap onto you. So be on your way."
"Tell me what you know about Naperville first." Elio rises from his spot on the chair, hands in his pocket. "Like what your friendly local vamps are doing about it."
"Why don't you just go and see for yourself." She starts to shrink away. "The world is changing. You'll be left behind with the rest of the dust."
Elio smiles. "Lovely." He turns back to Phoebe. "Is there something else you want from me? Or can I go?"
"Well," Phoebe seems to have largely recovered from her master's sudden appearance, "you could…" Elio stands up midway through her sentence.
"Yeah. I can go." He stalks out the hallway without even a glance at Phoebe. Moving back out towards the kitchen area, Megan can be seen strapped to a chair as the odd woman returns to loom over her. Her eyes bore into Megan's and she whispers incoherent trances into Megan's ears. Elio leans against one of the counters with his arms folded, trying to listen but not learning anything from the gibberish excepting for how distressed Megan looks. "So what is it with Victor and his mines? What is buried out there." He says from behind the ongoing interrogation.
The woman's head snaps to Elio, her eyes locking with his. Pointing to the door, she snarls. "Get out." A wave of dominating force washes over Elio, but he blinks as it washes over him without finding purchase.
"Sorry, your mind tricks don't work on me." He clears his throat. "How about it? You tell me what I need to know and I don't need to hit you with these frying pans over here." Elio taps one of the hanging fry pans near his head, which clatters next to its fellows.
Dragging her hand down her face, the woman groans, turning to her fellow interrogator still in his hoodie from outside. "Finish this interrogation and contact me with what you've learned. I grow weary of our visitor." He nods and the woman's stance, proud and haughty, droops as she blinks. The attractive, almost glowing aura vanishes and her defiant look falls, leaving only a tired looking hostess.
Sniffing and blinking, she leans on the counter as her senses return to her. "God, you don't get used to that, do you?" She says to the other man, who is now returning his attention to Megan. Looking over to Elio she freezes. "Uh, hey, there's just some dude here… Will, you seeing this?" She hisses to the guy.
"Yeah, he's been here." Will says flatly. "You've just been busy." He starts to talk towards Elio, "You might as well go, you aren't getting info outta Pete if he doesn't want to give it to you."
Befuddled, Elio points to the woman. "What the hell was that?"
"Our boss doesn't talk to anyone personally. Says its a 'liability'. More like a pain in my ass." She grumbles.
"Wait, so that was your boss? How'd he…"
Will snaps, "Man, I don't know. How does he do any of the shit he does?"
"Fair enough." Elio holds up his hands disarmingly. He glances at Megan, strapped to a chair. His glance turns into a long stare as he shuffles through his mind. Eventually though, he turns to leave. She's just a ghoul, after all.
Returning to the SUV, Elio pulls the scrap of paper from his pocket with Nigel's number on it. If he won't get information from the Kindred, he'll need alternate news sources. Simultaneous to dialing the number, he starts to tune the radio to a Chicago station to see if any of the news stations are covering Naperville.
The phone rings through to voicemail, it was late at night, after all. "Nigel, it's Elio. I need some information. Call me back at this number anytime."
A few minutes later of listening to late night talk show radio stations, Nigel calls back. "Late night?" He starts with.
"Seems like there's more and more of those." Elio says with a grumble. When was the last time he got a proper night's sleep without vampire's being on the mind? "Anyway, I need some information on Naperville. I know that no news crews have been getting in there, but I want to know what the vampires have to do with it."
"Well, don't we all?" Nigel says. "We have a couple agents in the field over there that would know more. Plus they've seen some unfriendly faces out there too."
"Vampires?"
"Worse. Corporate hunters."
Elio scratches at his chin. "Corporate hunters? I kinda figured you all would at least be seeing eye to eye. Common enemy and all that."
"Some of us do this to protect people. Others do this to protect the people that pay them." Nigel sighs. "There's an infamous six person squad with colors as their aliases operating in Naperville right now. Don't know what they are doing there, but they aren't helping our investigators get things stable."
"Can I meet up with your agents? Me and a couple others." Elio asks, pulling out a pen and paper in case he needs to record locations or other details.
"You and that Lupine friend of yours? Cause if she is going to be there, I'd feel a lot better at least prepping them with that info."
"Yeah, her. Ashley."
"Okay." Nigel stops to think for a moment. "I can't get you the info over the phone. I'll contact them tomorrow and get you the location in person. Where are you holing up these days?"
Elio cringes inwardly. "Green Dot. Room five."
A shrill, short whistle comes through the phone. "Damn. Hard times, eh? That place is a shithole." Nigel chuckles. "I'll get your address there, eight sharp."
"See you then." Elio closes the call, starting the SUV up, he leaves the alley behind Harry's Kitchen behind and returns to the Green Dot.
Room five of the Green Dot has been silent except for the prattle of the same Law and Order episode, now for the sixth time. Ashley has been silently staring out the window while holding her head in her hand on the arm of a worn down blue armchair. Briana stares at the static filled image on the television, slowly learning the words to the entire episode. Suddenly, Ashley slaps her thighs and stands, "Welp. I'm going to go kill Dale."
Stirred from her reverie, Briana turns to Ashley. "What? I thought that was, like, you know, a joke?"
Ashley shakes her head. "Nope. I said I would and I'm getting bored."
"So you're going to go kill a guy because you're bored." Briana swivels on the bed to better face Ashley. "Can't you see that's a little fucked up?"
"Come on," Ashley shrugs, "he's the worst. No one is going to miss him exactly."
Raising her eyebrows and blinking at Ashley, Briana presses on. "Wow. Uh. I didn't think I'd have to give anyone this reality check, but, uh, killing people is bad, Ashley."
"Let me give you a reality check, little girl. I don't kill people." What Ashley says is enough to cause Briana's face to screw up in confusion. "I kill monsters."
"Dale isn't a monster, old lady." Briana folds her arms. "He's just some creepy guy."
Ashley snorts. "I don't know if you've noticed, but there isn't much that can stop me."
Fortunately, Elio in the SUV pulls back into the lot, the headlights illuminating the back wall of the room for a moment before turning off. "Hey look, the thing that can stop you. You wanna try running that idea past Elio?"
"Elio is a pushover." Ashley says as the door opens and Elio stands at the threshold for a moment.
"You know I can hear you both, right? Least the last couple remarks. Pushovers who hear they are pushovers don't tend to be very flexible." He plops down into the crappy blue armchair Ashley recently vacated. "Tomorrow at eight, Nigel is coming by with a location for us. We're headed to Naperville. Apparently shit is hitting the fan over there and Ezio fucking waltzed into the middle of it."
The room creaks a bit as Briana gets off the bed in front of the TV and starts to mess with the dial until its display shows one of the local news networks with a twenty four hour news cycle. Glancing back to Elio, "So we are staying in this crappy room again?"
"'Fraid so." Looking at one of the beds, Elio sighs, already seeing the tough mattress and barely covered springs below it. "There's only two beds though." He looks at Ashley.
She holds his gaze for a moment. "What? Just because I can turn into an animal I always end up sleeping on the floor or whatever?"
"It's either that or one of us needs to share a bed with a, what," he looks at Briana for a moment, "fifteen or sixteen year old girl? That's not a good look. Just being in this shitty motel with her is a bad look."
"Why did you immediately assume that one of you would be sharing a bed with me?" Briana asks, eyes narrowed. "Why wouldn't you two just sleep over there?"
Ashley smirks, putting her hands in her pockets. "Yeah, you really skipped over us sharing a bed. What was that about bad looks?"
"Whatever." Elio moves to the bed, yawns, and takes off his shoes. Laying down, he closes his eyes. "I'm going to sleep. I'll let you two figure out the rest."
The two women exchange looks. Briana moves towards the other bed. "Well, guess it's really up to you. Floor or bed with Elio?" She flops onto the bed.
Skin twisting and fur appearing from nowhere, Ashley begins to shrink down. "I'll take the third option." Her voice disfigures itself, becoming more like a growl or a bark, "I'm on first watch." Compacted into the shape of a coyote, she trots to the door and rears up to grab the handle between her paws, opening it and leaving out into the night.
From across the room, Briana hears Elio mutter. "She dodged it just as much as I did."
"Yeah, but at least she didn't try to make us just not notice an option." Briana retorts. Elio cracks an eye open to peer at her as he reaches out to turn off the lamp.
"What?" Briana says. "You don't have a monopoly on hearing stuff." The light clicks off. A few minutes pass. "So… what is the deal between you two?"
The sound of Elio turning over in the bed fills the room. "I'm not doing relationship drama with a teenager. This isn't one of your sleep overs."
"Oh come on. She's kinda hot, in a 'might kill you and leave your body in the woods' sorta way. Also maybe a hulking monster, uh, skinwalker sorta thing. You're a, uh, well your rizz ain't exactly off the charts but you have some sort of charm. I'm sure. Somewhere."
"Sounds like you're reaching. Go to bed."
Briana huffs, but stops talking, instead pulling out her phone and pulling up her friendly spider to get ready for tomorrow, arming herself with knowledge. After about four questions though, she's too tired to continue.
Morning comes and Elio rolls over, putting his hand on something furry. Recoiling, he quickly gets to his feet. In his bed is a rabbit, gently snoring. Rubbing his eyes, he yawns and looks again to find that silver bolt of hair up near the ears, standing out against the brown fur. He checks his watch, finding it almost time for Nigel to be here. The other two can sleep a while longer.
Silently, he emerges from room five and sits on the bench outside to wait. The world outside is abuzz, with neighbors at the Green Dot stirring to begin doing their morning rituals. Some of these rituals seem to involve some amount of recreational drug use, according to the various scents that play through Elio's nose where he sits. Eventually, Nigel rolls up in a red sedan. Stepping out, he glances around the area, noting the various people loitering around before moving towards Elio and room five. It's only when Elio stands and walks towards him that Nigel seems to finally notice him.
"You really seem to come out of nowhere." Nigel says, doing a good job of masking his surprise.
"Call it luck." Elio says. "Now where are we headed and who are we meeting?"
"There is a concert hall owned by the college in town there. Luis and Jess have set up shop in its maintenance section. Police and whoever else is getting involved have been using the collage as their base to organize and observe what's happening in Naperville. It was kinda a mess last time I checked in, but those two are in the best spot to know what's going on if you plan on walking in there."
Elio quickly commits the description to memory. "Do you have a code phrase or something for these two? I don't want to just walk in there to have them shoot at us."
"They know your general descriptions and know you're coming. Just don't sneak up on them, okay?" Nigel checks his phone. "Now I gotta get going. That cult you guys left back in Prosper is still a problem, if you guys feel like playing janitor with me and the boys."
"Maybe another time, Nigel." Elio turns and heads back to the room as Nigel shrugs and returns to his car. Pushing open the door, Elio allows it to creak loud enough to wake both Ashley and Briana. "We're headed out. Wake up and get ready."
The road to Naperville is an hour of nondescript highway driving through the fields of northern Illinois. In the background of the hum of the SUV is the radio describing weather patterns, upcoming elections, and the usual fear mongering. No mention of Naperville is made despite the stations being local to the greater Chicago area as the trio heads further East. The usual drive only changes once they get to the exits that would normally lead off to Naperville's downtown, now blocked by police barricades. Detouring around them takes time, but eventually a back road up to the North of the city that isn't covered by blockades can be found and traversed.
Naperville is in a bad state. Windows are broken, businesses and homes abandoned or worse, and people in robes and armor are holing up in reinforced windows and buildings with good lines of sight to the streets below. "What the hell is happening here?" Ashley says, looking up at the people staring at the car with suspicion in their eyes.
"Don't know. I'm more concerned where these guys are getting their weapons and armor from. Who provides arms for a group to take over a city?" Elio adds, slowly picking the path down a street littered with detritus. "Not to mention," His eyes flicker across every face in sight of him, counting, "how many of them are there? Groups like this don't just pop up overnight."
Briana stares out at the graffiti adorning the walls of buildings, doing her best to ignore the armed men and women outside. More than once, something called 'the night prince' is mentioned, always with a towering set of black filled eyes looming behind the words. Grabbing her phone, she types 'who is the night prince?' for her spider buddy. Soon the voice gently whispers into her ear. "The Night Prince is an urban legend among the thin-blooded kindred. Someone who will be born to nothing yet will inherit everything. Whoever is currently wearing this title is yet unknown."
From the backseat, Briana clears her throat. "Well, if that graffiti is anything to go off of, apparently the Night Prince is in town. Some story that loser Kindred talk about."
Ashley frowns. "I don't think you ever heard the word Kindred from us."
"I told you, I know things." Briana says with a shrug.
The car stutters as it pushes a trash bin out of the way and pulls into the parking lot of the concert hall. "We're here." Elio parks it and quickly starts moving. "Don't leave anything important in the car. And move quick." He steps out, watching the direction they came from as several members of the local militia-cult watch them. On the other side of the car, Ashley steps out and opens the trunk, grabbing a backpack that the weapons they've collected have been carefully packed into. The spear doesn't really fit though, and Ashley tosses it to Briana as she comes around the side of the car.
She unintentionally juggles the heavy length of steel and silver, trying to grasp it without letting it clatter to the floor. A moment later, it sits in her hands, a solid foot taller than she is when its butt is on the ground. "Thanks." Briana mutters. Ashley tousles Briana's hair as she walks past, following Elio towards the hall.
"No problem, kiddo." Ashley chuckles. Grumbling, Briana tries to fix her hair again, having been half of the reason they left the Green Dot later than they had expected to.
While the concert hall has seen better days, its proximity to the where the police have set up their command center just across a wide street at the college proper seems to have spared it the worst of the ongoing conflict. The front door has been barricaded, however, and the trio finds themselves at the backdoor with Elio popping open a service door with a moment's concentration, a bobby pin, and a knife. Inside the maintenance tunnels, Elio pauses. The moment that they opened that door, he started to hear a soft alarm going off deeper within the tunnels. "Don't make sudden movements. I think they heard us coming."
Slowly pushing forward through a concrete passageway intended for moving and storing large instruments and cleaning tools, they come upon a door into what is labeled a storage room. A slat that seems to have been cut into the solid metal door slides open with a metal-on-metal complaint. The barrel of a pistol can be seen poking out from inside. A woman's voice echoes out. "You the guys that Nigel called about?"
Nodding, Elio speaks up. "There's three of us. I'm Elio and yeah, Nigel knows me." The slat closes and the door opens. Beyond is what looks like a listening station. Drums and tubas still in their cases have been stacked along one side of the large room contrasting with the blinking audio and video equipment set up in large semi-circle on the other half of the room. A couple cots and a camp stove complete the rest of the image.
"I'm Jess." The dark skinned woman wearing a loose fitting green t-shirt and sweatpants over combat boots introduces herself, pistol still in her hand but finger off the trigger and barrel pointed up. She jerks her head towards the tan man with headphones still on and notepad in the other, jotting down something. "That's Luis. We're the intel guys in this little operation."
Ashley and Briana step into the room, curiously taking in the area without sparing another glance for Jess. Elio stops in front of Jess. "That's Ashley, the older one, and Briana, the younger one. You'll have to forgive their manners, I think they were raised in barns."
"Bite me." Ashley says, moving towards the listening equipment.
"Well, what can we do for you, Elio?" Jess says, shutting the door and moving to sit in a folding chair at one of the pieces of equipment. "Nigel said something about looking for someone in the area?"
Elio nods. "Someone I care about went charging head first here a little while ago. So I'm here to find out why. Plus looks like there's a bit of a problem here, so may as well help out a bit if you need it."
With an eager smile, Jess leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "Let's get you three up to speed then." Briana at least makes an effort to come over and listen, but Ashley continues to pace around. "We've been set up here for a week or two now to keep an eye on things. We're hooked into both the cults radios, phone apps, and also the police's communication apparatus. For the most part, we're leaving the cultists for the police to deal with, but we're keeping an eye out for whenever the vampires behind this fucking nightmare show their pretty faces."
"The Night Prince you mean?" Briana asks.
"Right you are." Jess grabs one of the notebooks, filled with notes. "Lots of mentions of this guy, the Night Prince, in the cultist's chatter. Seems to be the central figure of their weird religion. The thin-blooded vamps that use their apps talk about him as though he's the next coming of Christ. Apparently he's been helping them to eat other vampires, make ghouls, raise an army."
Elio folds his arms. "I'm assuming they haven't just talked about where this Prince rests during the day?"
"Unfortunately, no. Though we did get mention of… what was that guy's name again, Luis?" She half shouts the latter half of her sentence, directing her words at her partner who pulls an ear of his headset off.
"You talking about Victor? That one vamp they were roasting on that Signal chat?" Luis says.
"Yeah, that's the one. Our best guess is that Victor, you know, the one out in Galena, had a safe house here we didn't know about and it's been overrun by this Night Prince character." Jess shrugs. "This could just be a massive turf war that finally spilled over what they could keep in the shadows. Hard to say. We're also trying to figure out which of the blood suckers has the most pull in the local PD."
The sound of Ashley's footsteps stop finally. "Victor was in the area and had his safe house overrun by this new vampire?" She gives a slightly worried glance at Elio. "So there's a good chance that Ezio was…"
"And you have no idea where this safe house is?" Elio interrupts Ashley's thought.
"We have a couple leads, but no solid idea yet. Victor kept this one close to his chest and it looks like the Night Prince has way tighter op-sec than I would've expected. They don't even mention the safe house or base in their communications, we just have to assume that there is one." Luis says before putting his headphones back on.
Elio moves suddenly, trading places with Ashley as he begins to pace. "We'll get you your leads." Is all he has to say.
Humoring her, Elio shrugs. "And what, pray tell, did you have in mind then?"
"Oh you know, the usual stuff. The world. Power. Immortality. He failed to mention the politicking." She says conversationally.
"Aren't you in politics? Mayors assistant and all that." Elio keeps his face forward, but glances at Megan out of the corner of his eye.
Megan attempts to fold her arms, best as she can with her wrists bound. "Do you know how many times asshole vampires have tried to get me to talk about what Victor's up to these days?" She waits for a moment, expecting a response from Elio. When she gets none, she scowls. "It's like an annual thing. Just another part of the politics apparently. This is the first time non-vampires have grabbed me though."
"There's a first time for everything." Elio says simply.
"Sure, okay, so, what are you getting out of this deal? You clearly aren't the one interrogating me, otherwise you'd just turn that beast Ashley on me." Megan rolls her head to the side. "You haven't asked me about your father dearest… maybe someone has claimed to be able to clear your name?" She fishes for answers. The SUV bucks a bit as it turns into the back lot behind Harry's Kitchen. Megan's eyes widen as she sees its nicely decorated exterior. "No fucking way. You're working for Peter?!"
Throwing the SUV into park, Elio exits without a word. Near the back door is a man and a woman dressed in gray hoodies. Looking at Elio and at the SUV where Megan can be seen through the windshield now desperately trying to free herself from her bonds, the woman moves to Elio while the man moves to the passenger side of the car. "Didn't expect you to be here so soon." She says. Something about this woman makes Elio hesitate in his stride. Her eyes glimmer slightly and her svelte figure almost forces one's eyes to take her in even in unflattering attire. She quickly slides towards him, extending her hand. "It's nice to see you face to face." Wait. Elio squints. This is the same hostess that welcomed him into the restaurant yesterday.
Cautiously, Elio shakes the woman's hand. Her skin is rougher than expected, with what feel like well healed scars on the palm of her hand. "I want to talk to Phoebe."
She chuckles. "Of course. My associate and I will take care of Megan. The door's open." Pointing behind her, the door into the kitchen is slightly propped open. Frowning to himself, he walks past the odd woman and towards the entryway. Behind him, he can hear Megan attempt to scream, but her mouth goes silent once the woman gets close enough to her.
Pulling open the door, Elio emerges into the well kept and quiet kitchen. Phoebe is on the far side, near the door to her office just down the hall. With a smile, she nods towards the door and saunters into her office. Elio follows silently, finding himself seated in the chair in Phoebe's office in front of her desk once more. "I got you your ghoul. Now what do you have for me?"
"Wow." She slowly claps. "What a go-getter." Leaning onto her desk with a chuckle, Phoebe grabs her office phone. "If only half of the cleaners and thugs I had on retainer were as punctual as you. Hint." She dials a number, moments later a woman's voice is on the other side, sounding panicked. Phoebe's smile becomes strained.
From the other side of the phone, Elio catches the conversation. "It's all gone to shit Phoebe!"
Phoebe leans back into her chair, folding her arms under her. "What's going on?" She demands.
"I was following the guy like you wanted me to, but he went into Naperville, you know, in Chicago? Well it's a shit show out here! Cops are just pepper spraying people, there's like a weird cult or some fucking thing…" The voice continues before a clear gunshot can be heard.
"Hahahah!" Phoebe fake-laughs loudly before her eyes dart to Elio and she hisses into the phone, "Can I call you back?" She then hangs up. "Well, it sounds like your brother is in Naperville!" Phoebe says back to Elio, a smile coming back to her face, though her eyes betray some worry.
"And what is going on in Naperville?" Elio asks. "Some sort of riot?"
"It's… ah…" She frowns. "Have you not been watching the news?"
Elio sighs. "Give me the sparknotes."
"Since it's your brother going in there… fine." She turns her computer monitor to face him and quickly searches for local news. Stories pop up and Elio scans the headlines. 'Armed militia group claims Chicago suburb.', 'Latest casualties in hostile neighborhood takeover.', 'Mayor of Chicago demands military assistance in quelling suspected gang war.', 'Victim of death cult gives testimony.' Once Elio looks like he's about to ask a question, Phoebe continues. "Reporters aren't exactly eager to get in there. The last news crew that got within speaking distance of these guys got dragged in and hasn't been seen since. Not sure what the local Kindred have thought about it, but it can't be good for business." Her eyes glance towards the shut door before she continues. Standing at the threshold of the door is the woman from outside, staring unblinkingly at Phoebe.
"Don't say anything you may live to regret, Phoebe." Her voice is ice cold. Turning her gaze to Elio, she smirks. "He may be useful, but we still have a certain mystique to uphold."
Phoebe swallows while trying valiantly to hold onto her smile. "Of course, I'll be less careless in the future." The woman pulls away from the door and into the darkness of the hallway.
Jutting his thumb at the now empty doorway, Elio smirks. "So that the ol' ball and chain?"
She leans suddenly across the desk, getting into what she would consider whispering distance to Elio. "Watch your tone."
"Lady, I've killed four vampires now. I've not broken a sweat." Elio says flatly. "Five if you count putting Victor into a fucking coma. I'm not afraid of your little 'master'." He turns towards the door again and loudly says, "If she has something to say she should just get in here." Waiting a moment, no one comes to the door. "Come on, I can hear you just lurking around the corner. Your knee just popped. And you're breathing." He pauses. Breathing? "For some reason."
The lady slides back into view of the door with a deep scowl. "Our deal is complete. You know where to find your brother and we will force the sheriff to undo the legal damage they've managed to heap onto you. So be on your way."
"Tell me what you know about Naperville first." Elio rises from his spot on the chair, hands in his pocket. "Like what your friendly local vamps are doing about it."
"Why don't you just go and see for yourself." She starts to shrink away. "The world is changing. You'll be left behind with the rest of the dust."
Elio smiles. "Lovely." He turns back to Phoebe. "Is there something else you want from me? Or can I go?"
"Well," Phoebe seems to have largely recovered from her master's sudden appearance, "you could…" Elio stands up midway through her sentence.
"Yeah. I can go." He stalks out the hallway without even a glance at Phoebe. Moving back out towards the kitchen area, Megan can be seen strapped to a chair as the odd woman returns to loom over her. Her eyes bore into Megan's and she whispers incoherent trances into Megan's ears. Elio leans against one of the counters with his arms folded, trying to listen but not learning anything from the gibberish excepting for how distressed Megan looks. "So what is it with Victor and his mines? What is buried out there." He says from behind the ongoing interrogation.
The woman's head snaps to Elio, her eyes locking with his. Pointing to the door, she snarls. "Get out." A wave of dominating force washes over Elio, but he blinks as it washes over him without finding purchase.
"Sorry, your mind tricks don't work on me." He clears his throat. "How about it? You tell me what I need to know and I don't need to hit you with these frying pans over here." Elio taps one of the hanging fry pans near his head, which clatters next to its fellows.
Dragging her hand down her face, the woman groans, turning to her fellow interrogator still in his hoodie from outside. "Finish this interrogation and contact me with what you've learned. I grow weary of our visitor." He nods and the woman's stance, proud and haughty, droops as she blinks. The attractive, almost glowing aura vanishes and her defiant look falls, leaving only a tired looking hostess.
Sniffing and blinking, she leans on the counter as her senses return to her. "God, you don't get used to that, do you?" She says to the other man, who is now returning his attention to Megan. Looking over to Elio she freezes. "Uh, hey, there's just some dude here… Will, you seeing this?" She hisses to the guy.
"Yeah, he's been here." Will says flatly. "You've just been busy." He starts to talk towards Elio, "You might as well go, you aren't getting info outta Pete if he doesn't want to give it to you."
Befuddled, Elio points to the woman. "What the hell was that?"
"Our boss doesn't talk to anyone personally. Says its a 'liability'. More like a pain in my ass." She grumbles.
"Wait, so that was your boss? How'd he…"
Will snaps, "Man, I don't know. How does he do any of the shit he does?"
"Fair enough." Elio holds up his hands disarmingly. He glances at Megan, strapped to a chair. His glance turns into a long stare as he shuffles through his mind. Eventually though, he turns to leave. She's just a ghoul, after all.
Returning to the SUV, Elio pulls the scrap of paper from his pocket with Nigel's number on it. If he won't get information from the Kindred, he'll need alternate news sources. Simultaneous to dialing the number, he starts to tune the radio to a Chicago station to see if any of the news stations are covering Naperville.
The phone rings through to voicemail, it was late at night, after all. "Nigel, it's Elio. I need some information. Call me back at this number anytime."
A few minutes later of listening to late night talk show radio stations, Nigel calls back. "Late night?" He starts with.
"Seems like there's more and more of those." Elio says with a grumble. When was the last time he got a proper night's sleep without vampire's being on the mind? "Anyway, I need some information on Naperville. I know that no news crews have been getting in there, but I want to know what the vampires have to do with it."
"Well, don't we all?" Nigel says. "We have a couple agents in the field over there that would know more. Plus they've seen some unfriendly faces out there too."
"Vampires?"
"Worse. Corporate hunters."
Elio scratches at his chin. "Corporate hunters? I kinda figured you all would at least be seeing eye to eye. Common enemy and all that."
"Some of us do this to protect people. Others do this to protect the people that pay them." Nigel sighs. "There's an infamous six person squad with colors as their aliases operating in Naperville right now. Don't know what they are doing there, but they aren't helping our investigators get things stable."
"Can I meet up with your agents? Me and a couple others." Elio asks, pulling out a pen and paper in case he needs to record locations or other details.
"You and that Lupine friend of yours? Cause if she is going to be there, I'd feel a lot better at least prepping them with that info."
"Yeah, her. Ashley."
"Okay." Nigel stops to think for a moment. "I can't get you the info over the phone. I'll contact them tomorrow and get you the location in person. Where are you holing up these days?"
Elio cringes inwardly. "Green Dot. Room five."
A shrill, short whistle comes through the phone. "Damn. Hard times, eh? That place is a shithole." Nigel chuckles. "I'll get your address there, eight sharp."
"See you then." Elio closes the call, starting the SUV up, he leaves the alley behind Harry's Kitchen behind and returns to the Green Dot.
Room five of the Green Dot has been silent except for the prattle of the same Law and Order episode, now for the sixth time. Ashley has been silently staring out the window while holding her head in her hand on the arm of a worn down blue armchair. Briana stares at the static filled image on the television, slowly learning the words to the entire episode. Suddenly, Ashley slaps her thighs and stands, "Welp. I'm going to go kill Dale."
Stirred from her reverie, Briana turns to Ashley. "What? I thought that was, like, you know, a joke?"
Ashley shakes her head. "Nope. I said I would and I'm getting bored."
"So you're going to go kill a guy because you're bored." Briana swivels on the bed to better face Ashley. "Can't you see that's a little fucked up?"
"Come on," Ashley shrugs, "he's the worst. No one is going to miss him exactly."
Raising her eyebrows and blinking at Ashley, Briana presses on. "Wow. Uh. I didn't think I'd have to give anyone this reality check, but, uh, killing people is bad, Ashley."
"Let me give you a reality check, little girl. I don't kill people." What Ashley says is enough to cause Briana's face to screw up in confusion. "I kill monsters."
"Dale isn't a monster, old lady." Briana folds her arms. "He's just some creepy guy."
Ashley snorts. "I don't know if you've noticed, but there isn't much that can stop me."
Fortunately, Elio in the SUV pulls back into the lot, the headlights illuminating the back wall of the room for a moment before turning off. "Hey look, the thing that can stop you. You wanna try running that idea past Elio?"
"Elio is a pushover." Ashley says as the door opens and Elio stands at the threshold for a moment.
"You know I can hear you both, right? Least the last couple remarks. Pushovers who hear they are pushovers don't tend to be very flexible." He plops down into the crappy blue armchair Ashley recently vacated. "Tomorrow at eight, Nigel is coming by with a location for us. We're headed to Naperville. Apparently shit is hitting the fan over there and Ezio fucking waltzed into the middle of it."
The room creaks a bit as Briana gets off the bed in front of the TV and starts to mess with the dial until its display shows one of the local news networks with a twenty four hour news cycle. Glancing back to Elio, "So we are staying in this crappy room again?"
"'Fraid so." Looking at one of the beds, Elio sighs, already seeing the tough mattress and barely covered springs below it. "There's only two beds though." He looks at Ashley.
She holds his gaze for a moment. "What? Just because I can turn into an animal I always end up sleeping on the floor or whatever?"
"It's either that or one of us needs to share a bed with a, what," he looks at Briana for a moment, "fifteen or sixteen year old girl? That's not a good look. Just being in this shitty motel with her is a bad look."
"Why did you immediately assume that one of you would be sharing a bed with me?" Briana asks, eyes narrowed. "Why wouldn't you two just sleep over there?"
Ashley smirks, putting her hands in her pockets. "Yeah, you really skipped over us sharing a bed. What was that about bad looks?"
"Whatever." Elio moves to the bed, yawns, and takes off his shoes. Laying down, he closes his eyes. "I'm going to sleep. I'll let you two figure out the rest."
The two women exchange looks. Briana moves towards the other bed. "Well, guess it's really up to you. Floor or bed with Elio?" She flops onto the bed.
Skin twisting and fur appearing from nowhere, Ashley begins to shrink down. "I'll take the third option." Her voice disfigures itself, becoming more like a growl or a bark, "I'm on first watch." Compacted into the shape of a coyote, she trots to the door and rears up to grab the handle between her paws, opening it and leaving out into the night.
From across the room, Briana hears Elio mutter. "She dodged it just as much as I did."
"Yeah, but at least she didn't try to make us just not notice an option." Briana retorts. Elio cracks an eye open to peer at her as he reaches out to turn off the lamp.
"What?" Briana says. "You don't have a monopoly on hearing stuff." The light clicks off. A few minutes pass. "So… what is the deal between you two?"
The sound of Elio turning over in the bed fills the room. "I'm not doing relationship drama with a teenager. This isn't one of your sleep overs."
"Oh come on. She's kinda hot, in a 'might kill you and leave your body in the woods' sorta way. Also maybe a hulking monster, uh, skinwalker sorta thing. You're a, uh, well your rizz ain't exactly off the charts but you have some sort of charm. I'm sure. Somewhere."
"Sounds like you're reaching. Go to bed."
Briana huffs, but stops talking, instead pulling out her phone and pulling up her friendly spider to get ready for tomorrow, arming herself with knowledge. After about four questions though, she's too tired to continue.
Morning comes and Elio rolls over, putting his hand on something furry. Recoiling, he quickly gets to his feet. In his bed is a rabbit, gently snoring. Rubbing his eyes, he yawns and looks again to find that silver bolt of hair up near the ears, standing out against the brown fur. He checks his watch, finding it almost time for Nigel to be here. The other two can sleep a while longer.
Silently, he emerges from room five and sits on the bench outside to wait. The world outside is abuzz, with neighbors at the Green Dot stirring to begin doing their morning rituals. Some of these rituals seem to involve some amount of recreational drug use, according to the various scents that play through Elio's nose where he sits. Eventually, Nigel rolls up in a red sedan. Stepping out, he glances around the area, noting the various people loitering around before moving towards Elio and room five. It's only when Elio stands and walks towards him that Nigel seems to finally notice him.
"You really seem to come out of nowhere." Nigel says, doing a good job of masking his surprise.
"Call it luck." Elio says. "Now where are we headed and who are we meeting?"
"There is a concert hall owned by the college in town there. Luis and Jess have set up shop in its maintenance section. Police and whoever else is getting involved have been using the collage as their base to organize and observe what's happening in Naperville. It was kinda a mess last time I checked in, but those two are in the best spot to know what's going on if you plan on walking in there."
Elio quickly commits the description to memory. "Do you have a code phrase or something for these two? I don't want to just walk in there to have them shoot at us."
"They know your general descriptions and know you're coming. Just don't sneak up on them, okay?" Nigel checks his phone. "Now I gotta get going. That cult you guys left back in Prosper is still a problem, if you guys feel like playing janitor with me and the boys."
"Maybe another time, Nigel." Elio turns and heads back to the room as Nigel shrugs and returns to his car. Pushing open the door, Elio allows it to creak loud enough to wake both Ashley and Briana. "We're headed out. Wake up and get ready."
The road to Naperville is an hour of nondescript highway driving through the fields of northern Illinois. In the background of the hum of the SUV is the radio describing weather patterns, upcoming elections, and the usual fear mongering. No mention of Naperville is made despite the stations being local to the greater Chicago area as the trio heads further East. The usual drive only changes once they get to the exits that would normally lead off to Naperville's downtown, now blocked by police barricades. Detouring around them takes time, but eventually a back road up to the North of the city that isn't covered by blockades can be found and traversed.
Naperville is in a bad state. Windows are broken, businesses and homes abandoned or worse, and people in robes and armor are holing up in reinforced windows and buildings with good lines of sight to the streets below. "What the hell is happening here?" Ashley says, looking up at the people staring at the car with suspicion in their eyes.
"Don't know. I'm more concerned where these guys are getting their weapons and armor from. Who provides arms for a group to take over a city?" Elio adds, slowly picking the path down a street littered with detritus. "Not to mention," His eyes flicker across every face in sight of him, counting, "how many of them are there? Groups like this don't just pop up overnight."
Briana stares out at the graffiti adorning the walls of buildings, doing her best to ignore the armed men and women outside. More than once, something called 'the night prince' is mentioned, always with a towering set of black filled eyes looming behind the words. Grabbing her phone, she types 'who is the night prince?' for her spider buddy. Soon the voice gently whispers into her ear. "The Night Prince is an urban legend among the thin-blooded kindred. Someone who will be born to nothing yet will inherit everything. Whoever is currently wearing this title is yet unknown."
From the backseat, Briana clears her throat. "Well, if that graffiti is anything to go off of, apparently the Night Prince is in town. Some story that loser Kindred talk about."
Ashley frowns. "I don't think you ever heard the word Kindred from us."
"I told you, I know things." Briana says with a shrug.
The car stutters as it pushes a trash bin out of the way and pulls into the parking lot of the concert hall. "We're here." Elio parks it and quickly starts moving. "Don't leave anything important in the car. And move quick." He steps out, watching the direction they came from as several members of the local militia-cult watch them. On the other side of the car, Ashley steps out and opens the trunk, grabbing a backpack that the weapons they've collected have been carefully packed into. The spear doesn't really fit though, and Ashley tosses it to Briana as she comes around the side of the car.
She unintentionally juggles the heavy length of steel and silver, trying to grasp it without letting it clatter to the floor. A moment later, it sits in her hands, a solid foot taller than she is when its butt is on the ground. "Thanks." Briana mutters. Ashley tousles Briana's hair as she walks past, following Elio towards the hall.
"No problem, kiddo." Ashley chuckles. Grumbling, Briana tries to fix her hair again, having been half of the reason they left the Green Dot later than they had expected to.
While the concert hall has seen better days, its proximity to the where the police have set up their command center just across a wide street at the college proper seems to have spared it the worst of the ongoing conflict. The front door has been barricaded, however, and the trio finds themselves at the backdoor with Elio popping open a service door with a moment's concentration, a bobby pin, and a knife. Inside the maintenance tunnels, Elio pauses. The moment that they opened that door, he started to hear a soft alarm going off deeper within the tunnels. "Don't make sudden movements. I think they heard us coming."
Slowly pushing forward through a concrete passageway intended for moving and storing large instruments and cleaning tools, they come upon a door into what is labeled a storage room. A slat that seems to have been cut into the solid metal door slides open with a metal-on-metal complaint. The barrel of a pistol can be seen poking out from inside. A woman's voice echoes out. "You the guys that Nigel called about?"
Nodding, Elio speaks up. "There's three of us. I'm Elio and yeah, Nigel knows me." The slat closes and the door opens. Beyond is what looks like a listening station. Drums and tubas still in their cases have been stacked along one side of the large room contrasting with the blinking audio and video equipment set up in large semi-circle on the other half of the room. A couple cots and a camp stove complete the rest of the image.
"I'm Jess." The dark skinned woman wearing a loose fitting green t-shirt and sweatpants over combat boots introduces herself, pistol still in her hand but finger off the trigger and barrel pointed up. She jerks her head towards the tan man with headphones still on and notepad in the other, jotting down something. "That's Luis. We're the intel guys in this little operation."
Ashley and Briana step into the room, curiously taking in the area without sparing another glance for Jess. Elio stops in front of Jess. "That's Ashley, the older one, and Briana, the younger one. You'll have to forgive their manners, I think they were raised in barns."
"Bite me." Ashley says, moving towards the listening equipment.
"Well, what can we do for you, Elio?" Jess says, shutting the door and moving to sit in a folding chair at one of the pieces of equipment. "Nigel said something about looking for someone in the area?"
Elio nods. "Someone I care about went charging head first here a little while ago. So I'm here to find out why. Plus looks like there's a bit of a problem here, so may as well help out a bit if you need it."
With an eager smile, Jess leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "Let's get you three up to speed then." Briana at least makes an effort to come over and listen, but Ashley continues to pace around. "We've been set up here for a week or two now to keep an eye on things. We're hooked into both the cults radios, phone apps, and also the police's communication apparatus. For the most part, we're leaving the cultists for the police to deal with, but we're keeping an eye out for whenever the vampires behind this fucking nightmare show their pretty faces."
"The Night Prince you mean?" Briana asks.
"Right you are." Jess grabs one of the notebooks, filled with notes. "Lots of mentions of this guy, the Night Prince, in the cultist's chatter. Seems to be the central figure of their weird religion. The thin-blooded vamps that use their apps talk about him as though he's the next coming of Christ. Apparently he's been helping them to eat other vampires, make ghouls, raise an army."
Elio folds his arms. "I'm assuming they haven't just talked about where this Prince rests during the day?"
"Unfortunately, no. Though we did get mention of… what was that guy's name again, Luis?" She half shouts the latter half of her sentence, directing her words at her partner who pulls an ear of his headset off.
"You talking about Victor? That one vamp they were roasting on that Signal chat?" Luis says.
"Yeah, that's the one. Our best guess is that Victor, you know, the one out in Galena, had a safe house here we didn't know about and it's been overrun by this Night Prince character." Jess shrugs. "This could just be a massive turf war that finally spilled over what they could keep in the shadows. Hard to say. We're also trying to figure out which of the blood suckers has the most pull in the local PD."
The sound of Ashley's footsteps stop finally. "Victor was in the area and had his safe house overrun by this new vampire?" She gives a slightly worried glance at Elio. "So there's a good chance that Ezio was…"
"And you have no idea where this safe house is?" Elio interrupts Ashley's thought.
"We have a couple leads, but no solid idea yet. Victor kept this one close to his chest and it looks like the Night Prince has way tighter op-sec than I would've expected. They don't even mention the safe house or base in their communications, we just have to assume that there is one." Luis says before putting his headphones back on.
Elio moves suddenly, trading places with Ashley as he begins to pace. "We'll get you your leads." Is all he has to say.
Scene 29 - Potency
A stronghold of the Tremere, Briar place chantry is hidden behind subtle magics to obscure it from those who have no reason to visit it. Hundreds drive and walk past it every day without even realizing that the small alleyway that leads to its front doors even exists. This three story structure decorated with grimacing gargoyle statues and walls adorned with runes inked in blood is home to none other than to the blood witch known only as Red.
In her laboratory, she puzzles over the two bullets given to her by Prince Kevin. Cauldrons of simmering chemicals fill the room with a dense red haze that doesn't seem to bother the vampire as she works. A humanoid golem of screwdrivers, flasks, and nails trots too and fro as it organizes the space around its master with easy efficiency. Through her ruby hair a white ribbon curls down to a stopwatch, ever ticking away. The subtle jazz that had been playing in the background is lost when a phone rings. Red rolls her eyes and flicks a finger towards the rotary phone's receiver which leaps into her hand. "What?" Whatever mental image of her target has fled her mind's eye with the interruption. Another hour of meditation…
"Mistress, there's a group approaching the chantry." A young man's voice comes through to Red.
She narrows her eyes. "Is this Alan? Alan, I swear to God. This is the second time tonight you've interrupted me…"
"They're wearing cloaks." He interrupts his mistress. "I'm sorry I had to cut you off, miss. But I think it's the vampires and ghouls from Naperville."
Red finds herself chuckling. It had been some time since someone had the balls to test her fortress's defenses. "I'll handle it. Get yourself and the others ready. Prepare the nails I gave to you, just in case." Standing, she doesn't wait for a response before flicking the phone back to its base. The bullets can wait for now.
Ezio awakens in the passenger seat of a truck. A woman wearing a mask over the lower half of her face and a bulky armored vest drives while the Night Prince sits in the back seats, arms across both the head rests beside him. "You're awake. Finally." He leans forward with a smile. "How does it feel now that you're back in control?"
Good. No. Not good. Way not good. He can't feel his pulse, yet the blood still sluggishly moves in his veins. Every breath he takes is ragged and forced, as though his body is just going through the motions. "What happened to me?" All he can remember after Victor bit him is the hunger.
"I had Victor embrace you." Taking a moment to glance out the window of the car, Ezio sees the city of Chicago by night as well as the caravan of cars that appear to be moving together with this one at their center. "If his boasts were true, he was of the mighty ninth generation. Since you ate him that'd make you also of that generation."
Suddenly a flash of remembrance forces itself into Ezio's mind. Of the heady taste of kindred blood on his tongue. The indignity of what he was put through is too much to bear in that moment and boiling anger that Ezio has never felt before burns through his body. "Why did you do that?" He growls towards the shaded back seat.
"You know nothing of the Kindred society, right?" The Night Prince says, not moving even as the truck rumbles forward. "The blood. The vitae. Whatever you want to call it. It weakens with every new generation sired. Those with the thinnest blood are shunned. Hunted."
Ezio's muscles burn as they expand and even rupture. Lunging towards the backseat, he grabs the Night Prince's throat in his hands. Squeezing hard enough that he shouldn't be able to breath. The driver flips to her right, a previously unseen knife pulled into her hand. Despite the hand on his throat squeezing tighter and tighter, the Night Prince holds up his hand and the driver returns to driving slowly. "That doesn't mean shit to me! Why did you turn me into a monster?!" Ezio screams into the Night Prince's face.
Clearing his throat, the Night Prince motions to the hand grasping him. Ezio experimentally squeezes harder, a small smile appearing at the edges of his mouth before he can clench his jaw to force it away. This wasn't meant to be enjoyable. "Because you're going to help me help the thin-blooded." The ever-increasing squeeze on his throat does not impede the Night Prince's voice, not even seeming choked. Forcing more blood into his arms, Ezio squeezes as hard as he can but finds himself weaker than the neck muscles of this being he holds. Slowly, he feels his grip be overwhelmed, feeling more like he's gripping a steel pipe than flesh and bone. "I need you to help me make ghouls. To make new generations of vampires of stronger potency." Reaching up, the Night Prince grabs one of Ezio's hands, pulling it free of his neck. "The elders of the old world still grip the world in their iron talons. We're going to fix that. Give what the thin-blooded were promised when they were embraced. Power."
"We'll eat the old." The woman driving mutters under her breath with a small chuckle.
"That's right." With a satisfied smile, the Night Prince sits back. "A new generation of vampires for a more modern night."
Ezio continues to look back, leaning over the middle console. "And what are you? Some sort of vampire?"
He laughs loudly. "Of course. I'm the Night Prince. Old story that you haven't heard. The short version is that one day a thin blood will be born that will challenge the elders and bring those who are hunted for their existence to their proper, promised place." The Night Prince points a thumb to himself with a wide smile. "That's me."
"And what if I don't want to help you?" Ezio says slowly.
The smile runs away from the Night Prince's face. "You would put yourself above the plight of the less fortunate? I didn't think you were that sort of person, Ezio. You've been given a gift, potent blood. Don't you want to use that gift to help others?"
"Don't talk to me like my friend." Ezio folds his arms and turns away, but can feel the Night Prince's eyes on the back of his head, boring into his brain.
"I know you well enough to know that if you had a chance to help people, really help them..." The Night Prince's voice is a melodious purr. Despite making wild assumptions, Ezio can't help but listen. "…That you'd do it. You helped your brother out, even when he was wanted. That one even landed you here, but you still never cursed his name, not even in your dreams." He rustles as he sits forward in the seat. "I believe that destiny has brought us together for a reason, Ezio. That you will see and understand my plight. These people's plight." He gestures to the driver.
Ezio folds a leg atop the other. He can't help but notice himself sneaking a glance at the driver as the Night Prince speaks. "These people aren't 'people'. They're vampires." It's a weak argument, he knows that, but it's all he can think of at the moment as he feels the Night Prince's focus.
"I'd be careful not calling them people. You're one of them. Aren't you human? Still caring about your wife? Your business? Your family? They still think about these things too." The Night Prince carries on. He never stutters, never takes a moment to breath or think. Every thought from him is a battering barrage.
"Can…" Ezio stops and thinks. "I think about it?"
Sitting back, the Night Prince smiles once again and the feeling of weight from his gaze fades from Ezio's mind. "Of course. But you may find your time shorter than you'd hope. We're one block from our stop and your next meal."
From the upper window of the Tremere stronghold, Red glowers at the entrance to her home below her. Several trucks with armed men and women in their seats block the entrance to the alley way leading to her front door, appearing with the rise of the moon this evening. "I have to imagine that the Prince will not look kindly upon this Masquerade violation." She mutters before closing the blinds. The tricks and traps of the lower floor will likely not be broken through, but still best to take precautions. Grabbing her phone, she begins dialing before realizing she wasn't hearing a dial tone. Hissing she tosses the phone aside. The words of her childe echo through her head, insisting she pick up one of the infernal cellular devices. Perhaps after this, Red will consider that.
Whistling, her small golem rushes to her side, a long sword gripped between tong-hands. Grabbing it roughly, Red mutters an incantation under her breath before slicing the sword along her palm. Where the blood touches the metal, sickly green flames splutter to life along its edge. "Run along, machine. Ensure the first floor wards are intact and awaken the ghouls." With a snappy salute the small being scurries off down a well worn path in the floor towards the stairs to the first floor.
While it would be a pity to waste the blood, it tends to be best to play these things safe. Removing herself from her spacious workplace, Red moves into a long wooden hallway. Doors line all sides, more than there could ever possibly be room for spaces behind them all. She pauses at the one across the hall from the workshop and taps on its panels with a talon. The lock clunks loudly and she opens the door to reveal a long, darkened chamber who's shadows are purged with a snap of Red's fingers as a row of yellow lights turn on. They reveal rows of people hanging from the ceiling, restrained with chains bearing smoking sigils of power on them. From a nearby ornate cabinet, Red grabs a slender wooden splinter and marches into a large wooden circle in the center of the chamber. Flicking her hand, a rotating device moves the people above her with a soft clanking sound as she picks her victim. Satisfied with a young woman, Red reaches up and touches the woman's head softly. Blood begins to flow from her eyes and ears unbidden, floating through the air and into Red's open mouth. With a smile, she sits in her circle and sets her dimly glowing sword next to her as she feels the vitae in her veins strengthen, flowing into her muscles, giving her normally lean frame a heavyset look of a body builder. It would take at least an hour for them to overcome the wards. If they could.
Pulling up before the alley, the Night Prince steps out into the dingy street, his hood blowing off his head in the winds. Looking back, he beckons to Ezio. Stepping out as well, Ezio falls in behind the Night Prince. On either side of him are his loyal followers, taking up position on either side of the entrance. Where those under him shelter behind brick and mortar, he walks confidently forward into the mouth of the alley. One of the woman approaches and bows her head. "Sir, we cannot approach. It's been warded, I believe."
"That's alright. That's what I'm here for." He says, rolling up his sleeves. Glancing back, he makes eye contact with Ezio. "Wait the rest of the them. Help them kill anything that walks out that isn't me." High above, the red star twinkles with hidden menace. Under it's red glare, the Night Prince walks past the bricks etched with wards against ghouls and vampires. Slowly the alley opens up to reveal a courtyard hidden among the pathways. He walks with confidence, pulling from his pocket a trusty pistol and checks to make sure it's fully loaded. "I can see you all." The Night Prince shouts to the balconies and alcoves around the sides of the courtyard. Hidden behind the carved marble and metal, many sets of eyes gleam. Ghouls. Nervously they finger the triggers of their rifles loaded with flame imbued bullets bearing the unmistakable marks of Tremere thaumaturgy.
Popping out from behind their cover, the dozen or so men and women unload a barrage of bullets into the now outstretched arms of the Night Prince who howls with laughter as each one reaches his flesh and deflects, rebounds, or smashes into what may as well be iron. Dozens of small burn marks sear his clothes as the flame charges ignite, causing him to glow with embers as the gun smoke clears. "Shouldn't have come here alone, idiot." One of them scoffs. Another one peers through the smoke to confirm the kill.
The first head hits the floor with a dull thud. His fellow next to him has time to look over only to see what can only be a monster hidden in the smoke. Fingers like long, serrated needles, eyes covering its head, adorned with carefully carved obsidian steel plate. The next only has time to fire twice at the creature before the needles plant deep into his chest, pulling out viscera which is drank up by the armor of this thing.
Turning quickly in the center of the courtyard, the Night Prince fires twice into the balconies, ending two lives as two tunnels in the smoke are created. "A Prince is never without his guardians." At his side is another one of these beings, covered in fractal scars on all possible sections of its flesh. Half of the bullets appear to have been ground to a halt in this new creature.
As well trained and equipped as the ghouls are, it doesn't take long for their fortified positions to be broken and overran. With a needle fingered monster running behind them and even a millimeter of flesh appearing in sight being enough for the Night Prince to land a killing blow with his seemingly endless magazine of death. Eventually it goes quiet. The two figures slip away, back into the darkness where they vanish from sight. Approaching the ornate metal door leading into the house proper, the Night Prince kicks it hard enough to dent. Frowning, he kicks it again, furthering the dent. The hinge whines and complains as more force warps its purpose. By the third kick, the door tumbles down to reveal the first floor before him.
Stopping for a moment, he takes in the grandeur of the foyer. Rich, thick carpets. Flame contained within floating glass baubles. Lifeless servants carry goods and sweep floors, pausing as they detect his presence. With a smirk, he flares his anima, his very soul projected around him as a black void. Pure absence of light flows forth from him, swallowing the flames and throwing the room into the dark. The dark is no hindrance to him, of course. Above him from the second floor, there is a flapping sound as a winged human of stone and strength attempts to crush him under its weight. Dancing further into the foyer, he takes several shots at the man-sized creature. "I don't think I've seen something like you before."
"And you never will again." The bullets have stopped at its flesh, falling to the ground. Charging forward, it throws a titanic haymaker, cutting through the stair's guard rail by clipping it, it explodes into splinters. The shield being weaves itself into reality from the shadows and catches the blow on its scarred arms. A snapping sound is heard as the defender's arm shatters from the attack, but its enough for the Night Prince to dart forward under the punch and plant his pistol under the gargoyles head. For a moment, the light returns with a bullet whose detonation sounds like an unearthly scream. A stream of anti-light explodes out the top of the gargoyle's head and he crumbles. Blowing the smoke from the barrel, he looks up once more as Red stares wide eyed down at him from the third floor.
"You've come to my house, killed my guardians, and made a fool of house Tremere. How dare you." Her claws dig into the banister. As the Night Prince shrugs nonchalantly, his killer strides from the shadows near Red.
"You got what's coming to you." His smile fades slightly as she was seemingly prepared for this. Holding out her palm, the water bursts from pipes in the walls beside her, wrapping the needle-fingered being up within its grip until its suspended helplessly in the prison.
Returning her focus to the Night Prince, she smirks. "I must say, I didn't expect a necromancer to siege my chantry house tonight. Come to steal my secrets of thaumaturgy for your sick plans, no doubt. Unfortunately for you, I am well versed in dealing with your kind."
"Of course you are." The Night Prince says. Beside Red, the needle-handed specter struggles fruitlessly against the water. "Red, the witch hunter. Though I heard your witch hunting days were behind you." Dashing backwards, Red opens the door behind her. From behind the Night Prince, he hears a door click open as Red emerges, sprinting, with green glimmering sword in hand. His defender is prepared for the sword, but as the sword is caught in its palm, she shoulders it back. Continuing her movement, she touches the Night Prince before he can react. Instantly, he feels his blood begin to heat and boil. "Ah, the famed blood boiling that you love to threaten people with." Though the blood continues to heat, the flesh does not sear, the nerves do not turn to slag. "And since you needed to touch me, you won't mind if I…"
Raising his hand, he quickly snags a wooden stake hidden in the back of his defender within the scars. It rips free with a grunt from the defender, still holding onto Red's sword. Shoving the stake roughly forward, it slams into Red's heart.
Or at least it would have. The stake turns into dust in the Night Prince's hand as one of the witch's rites bears fruit. Wrenching her sword free, she quickly stabs at the Night Prince, aiming for his heart to repay the favor. While he doesn't move aside, the sword does not slide into his flesh, instead glancing to the side as he moves his torso. The smear of green flame around the sword sputters out after the attack.
She attempts to retreat and regroup. But before she can, the defender grabs her by the hair, pulling her roughly back towards the Night Prince. "You really are quite tricky. I'm glad I chose you first. You could've been a lot of trouble if you just had more time to get to know me. Though I knew I should've packed more than a single stake." Leaping forward, the Night Prince bats the sword aside as Red tries to impale him during his jump and sinks his own fangs into her. Pulling the blood from the witch will make this much easier.
A terrible lassitude forces itself into Red's mind. This was not the kiss she was familiar with. While she kicks and screams as much as she can, the growing cold of the vitae leaving her system was becoming too much to bear. A few moments later, he releases her and the warmth returns to her mind. Feeling her supply of vitae within her, he left Red with only a few drops to work with. "Come along easy." The force of personality of the Night Prince roughly pushes her want to resist down. Not quiet enough to force compliance, but enough to cloud her mind.
"What do you want?" Red has just enough blood for one more try, it just needs the right opening. The defender lifts her up onto its shoulder as it begins to follow the Night Prince out. The water prison holding needle-finger breaks.
The Night Prince smiles and walks close to her. "Your very soul. I have an important project that I need it for." He looks up to needle-finger, gazing over the railing wordlessly at its master. "Needles, raid the laboratory for anything useful and bring it with you. You can kill anything you find there."
Suddenly reaching out Red focuses the last of the blood she has into a final gambit. Grabbing both sides of the Night Prince's head, in one hand she wills the blood in his veins to evaporate. Even if he survives this attempt, it should at least leave him vulnerable and stunned. That characteristic smirk returns as he feels his fingers and head begin to painfully dry, however the smile fades as he reaches for his own stock of essence to defend himself and finds it empty. Pain radiates from his head to his toes as his blood simply leaves him. Smacking her hands back, he coughs roughly as even his mouth grows dry.
Flexing against the wounded arm of the defender, Red kicks off his back and releases herself from its grip as she quickly runs towards the stairs. The Night Prince recovers quickly however, rage and humiliation in his eyes. He instantly takes aim at one of her legs and breathes out. A black crack of lightening arcs out from the barrel, following the bullet. Her attempt to leap out of the way was somehow foreseen and the bullet slams into her knee, shattering it and harming her enough to fully even sever the leg below. The Night Prince coughs as Red tumbles down the stairs in a heap. "I really thought it was gonna be better to leave you with enough so you wouldn't frenzy. Shows me what I know. No more tricks." Stepping forward, he grabs one of the railing spokes and plants his foot onto Red's head. "Don't move." The command reverberates through her mind, this one finally finding Red's will depleted enough to work. He slams the makeshift stake into her chest and she goes limp.
Grabbing her other leg, he begins to drag her out. He'd expended himself a bit too much, it'd seem. The defender stands at his side until they leave the courtyard where it fades from sight. Straightening his back, he moves into sight of his followers who erupt in cheers as they see what he drags behind him. "The Tremere primogen is slain." Reaching out, he wets his fingers in the blood from Red's leg and swipes it on the wards on the brick walls which fade away. "Within there are likely several younger kindred. Good hunting, my followers. Leave not a drop behind." They rush past him, thinblooded, ghoul, and human alike. Only Ezio remains at the mouth of the alley, along with the driver of the truck that brought them here.
He throws Red still body to Ezio, clattering among the trash at the side of the alley. "What are you waiting for?" The Night Prince says. "Drink."
"I…" Ezio hesitates.
"Do not make me repeat myself, Ezio." There is a threat in his voice, supernatural essence leaking out all around him in his aura. "This is a gift. A second gift. We'll change the world and this is the way."
It has been several days since his last meal. Ezio isn't quite sure how he knows that so intimately, but he had no hankering for the normal food one would crave. The taste of blood, of vitae specifically, was making his mouth water. The first time he was told to drink may have needed further coercion, but this one does not. His fangs certainly make the drinking part easy. His beast within takes hold and he drinks deep of the arcane blood of clan Tremere.
The rush in his mind is like nothing he's felt before. Standing and wiping his mouth, he experimentally forces blood to his skin. With the blood, the skin tightens and even hardens. Flicking his forearm, it makes more a sound expected from hard leather or even a soft metal than skin. "What is this?" He says to the Night Prince, who moves to the car and motions for Ezio to sit in the front passenger seat.
"Diablre. Vampires who devour their betters will find their gifts their own. I have an associate of mine digging up whatever it can find in the chantry house. Whatever little secrets this blood witch had tucked away will help us now." With a tired smile he looks to Ezio. "And with some practice you'll be able to help me next time. It only gets harder from here now they know what we're doing."
In her laboratory, she puzzles over the two bullets given to her by Prince Kevin. Cauldrons of simmering chemicals fill the room with a dense red haze that doesn't seem to bother the vampire as she works. A humanoid golem of screwdrivers, flasks, and nails trots too and fro as it organizes the space around its master with easy efficiency. Through her ruby hair a white ribbon curls down to a stopwatch, ever ticking away. The subtle jazz that had been playing in the background is lost when a phone rings. Red rolls her eyes and flicks a finger towards the rotary phone's receiver which leaps into her hand. "What?" Whatever mental image of her target has fled her mind's eye with the interruption. Another hour of meditation…
"Mistress, there's a group approaching the chantry." A young man's voice comes through to Red.
She narrows her eyes. "Is this Alan? Alan, I swear to God. This is the second time tonight you've interrupted me…"
"They're wearing cloaks." He interrupts his mistress. "I'm sorry I had to cut you off, miss. But I think it's the vampires and ghouls from Naperville."
Red finds herself chuckling. It had been some time since someone had the balls to test her fortress's defenses. "I'll handle it. Get yourself and the others ready. Prepare the nails I gave to you, just in case." Standing, she doesn't wait for a response before flicking the phone back to its base. The bullets can wait for now.
Ezio awakens in the passenger seat of a truck. A woman wearing a mask over the lower half of her face and a bulky armored vest drives while the Night Prince sits in the back seats, arms across both the head rests beside him. "You're awake. Finally." He leans forward with a smile. "How does it feel now that you're back in control?"
Good. No. Not good. Way not good. He can't feel his pulse, yet the blood still sluggishly moves in his veins. Every breath he takes is ragged and forced, as though his body is just going through the motions. "What happened to me?" All he can remember after Victor bit him is the hunger.
"I had Victor embrace you." Taking a moment to glance out the window of the car, Ezio sees the city of Chicago by night as well as the caravan of cars that appear to be moving together with this one at their center. "If his boasts were true, he was of the mighty ninth generation. Since you ate him that'd make you also of that generation."
Suddenly a flash of remembrance forces itself into Ezio's mind. Of the heady taste of kindred blood on his tongue. The indignity of what he was put through is too much to bear in that moment and boiling anger that Ezio has never felt before burns through his body. "Why did you do that?" He growls towards the shaded back seat.
"You know nothing of the Kindred society, right?" The Night Prince says, not moving even as the truck rumbles forward. "The blood. The vitae. Whatever you want to call it. It weakens with every new generation sired. Those with the thinnest blood are shunned. Hunted."
Ezio's muscles burn as they expand and even rupture. Lunging towards the backseat, he grabs the Night Prince's throat in his hands. Squeezing hard enough that he shouldn't be able to breath. The driver flips to her right, a previously unseen knife pulled into her hand. Despite the hand on his throat squeezing tighter and tighter, the Night Prince holds up his hand and the driver returns to driving slowly. "That doesn't mean shit to me! Why did you turn me into a monster?!" Ezio screams into the Night Prince's face.
Clearing his throat, the Night Prince motions to the hand grasping him. Ezio experimentally squeezes harder, a small smile appearing at the edges of his mouth before he can clench his jaw to force it away. This wasn't meant to be enjoyable. "Because you're going to help me help the thin-blooded." The ever-increasing squeeze on his throat does not impede the Night Prince's voice, not even seeming choked. Forcing more blood into his arms, Ezio squeezes as hard as he can but finds himself weaker than the neck muscles of this being he holds. Slowly, he feels his grip be overwhelmed, feeling more like he's gripping a steel pipe than flesh and bone. "I need you to help me make ghouls. To make new generations of vampires of stronger potency." Reaching up, the Night Prince grabs one of Ezio's hands, pulling it free of his neck. "The elders of the old world still grip the world in their iron talons. We're going to fix that. Give what the thin-blooded were promised when they were embraced. Power."
"We'll eat the old." The woman driving mutters under her breath with a small chuckle.
"That's right." With a satisfied smile, the Night Prince sits back. "A new generation of vampires for a more modern night."
Ezio continues to look back, leaning over the middle console. "And what are you? Some sort of vampire?"
He laughs loudly. "Of course. I'm the Night Prince. Old story that you haven't heard. The short version is that one day a thin blood will be born that will challenge the elders and bring those who are hunted for their existence to their proper, promised place." The Night Prince points a thumb to himself with a wide smile. "That's me."
"And what if I don't want to help you?" Ezio says slowly.
The smile runs away from the Night Prince's face. "You would put yourself above the plight of the less fortunate? I didn't think you were that sort of person, Ezio. You've been given a gift, potent blood. Don't you want to use that gift to help others?"
"Don't talk to me like my friend." Ezio folds his arms and turns away, but can feel the Night Prince's eyes on the back of his head, boring into his brain.
"I know you well enough to know that if you had a chance to help people, really help them..." The Night Prince's voice is a melodious purr. Despite making wild assumptions, Ezio can't help but listen. "…That you'd do it. You helped your brother out, even when he was wanted. That one even landed you here, but you still never cursed his name, not even in your dreams." He rustles as he sits forward in the seat. "I believe that destiny has brought us together for a reason, Ezio. That you will see and understand my plight. These people's plight." He gestures to the driver.
Ezio folds a leg atop the other. He can't help but notice himself sneaking a glance at the driver as the Night Prince speaks. "These people aren't 'people'. They're vampires." It's a weak argument, he knows that, but it's all he can think of at the moment as he feels the Night Prince's focus.
"I'd be careful not calling them people. You're one of them. Aren't you human? Still caring about your wife? Your business? Your family? They still think about these things too." The Night Prince carries on. He never stutters, never takes a moment to breath or think. Every thought from him is a battering barrage.
"Can…" Ezio stops and thinks. "I think about it?"
Sitting back, the Night Prince smiles once again and the feeling of weight from his gaze fades from Ezio's mind. "Of course. But you may find your time shorter than you'd hope. We're one block from our stop and your next meal."
From the upper window of the Tremere stronghold, Red glowers at the entrance to her home below her. Several trucks with armed men and women in their seats block the entrance to the alley way leading to her front door, appearing with the rise of the moon this evening. "I have to imagine that the Prince will not look kindly upon this Masquerade violation." She mutters before closing the blinds. The tricks and traps of the lower floor will likely not be broken through, but still best to take precautions. Grabbing her phone, she begins dialing before realizing she wasn't hearing a dial tone. Hissing she tosses the phone aside. The words of her childe echo through her head, insisting she pick up one of the infernal cellular devices. Perhaps after this, Red will consider that.
Whistling, her small golem rushes to her side, a long sword gripped between tong-hands. Grabbing it roughly, Red mutters an incantation under her breath before slicing the sword along her palm. Where the blood touches the metal, sickly green flames splutter to life along its edge. "Run along, machine. Ensure the first floor wards are intact and awaken the ghouls." With a snappy salute the small being scurries off down a well worn path in the floor towards the stairs to the first floor.
While it would be a pity to waste the blood, it tends to be best to play these things safe. Removing herself from her spacious workplace, Red moves into a long wooden hallway. Doors line all sides, more than there could ever possibly be room for spaces behind them all. She pauses at the one across the hall from the workshop and taps on its panels with a talon. The lock clunks loudly and she opens the door to reveal a long, darkened chamber who's shadows are purged with a snap of Red's fingers as a row of yellow lights turn on. They reveal rows of people hanging from the ceiling, restrained with chains bearing smoking sigils of power on them. From a nearby ornate cabinet, Red grabs a slender wooden splinter and marches into a large wooden circle in the center of the chamber. Flicking her hand, a rotating device moves the people above her with a soft clanking sound as she picks her victim. Satisfied with a young woman, Red reaches up and touches the woman's head softly. Blood begins to flow from her eyes and ears unbidden, floating through the air and into Red's open mouth. With a smile, she sits in her circle and sets her dimly glowing sword next to her as she feels the vitae in her veins strengthen, flowing into her muscles, giving her normally lean frame a heavyset look of a body builder. It would take at least an hour for them to overcome the wards. If they could.
Pulling up before the alley, the Night Prince steps out into the dingy street, his hood blowing off his head in the winds. Looking back, he beckons to Ezio. Stepping out as well, Ezio falls in behind the Night Prince. On either side of him are his loyal followers, taking up position on either side of the entrance. Where those under him shelter behind brick and mortar, he walks confidently forward into the mouth of the alley. One of the woman approaches and bows her head. "Sir, we cannot approach. It's been warded, I believe."
"That's alright. That's what I'm here for." He says, rolling up his sleeves. Glancing back, he makes eye contact with Ezio. "Wait the rest of the them. Help them kill anything that walks out that isn't me." High above, the red star twinkles with hidden menace. Under it's red glare, the Night Prince walks past the bricks etched with wards against ghouls and vampires. Slowly the alley opens up to reveal a courtyard hidden among the pathways. He walks with confidence, pulling from his pocket a trusty pistol and checks to make sure it's fully loaded. "I can see you all." The Night Prince shouts to the balconies and alcoves around the sides of the courtyard. Hidden behind the carved marble and metal, many sets of eyes gleam. Ghouls. Nervously they finger the triggers of their rifles loaded with flame imbued bullets bearing the unmistakable marks of Tremere thaumaturgy.
Popping out from behind their cover, the dozen or so men and women unload a barrage of bullets into the now outstretched arms of the Night Prince who howls with laughter as each one reaches his flesh and deflects, rebounds, or smashes into what may as well be iron. Dozens of small burn marks sear his clothes as the flame charges ignite, causing him to glow with embers as the gun smoke clears. "Shouldn't have come here alone, idiot." One of them scoffs. Another one peers through the smoke to confirm the kill.
The first head hits the floor with a dull thud. His fellow next to him has time to look over only to see what can only be a monster hidden in the smoke. Fingers like long, serrated needles, eyes covering its head, adorned with carefully carved obsidian steel plate. The next only has time to fire twice at the creature before the needles plant deep into his chest, pulling out viscera which is drank up by the armor of this thing.
Turning quickly in the center of the courtyard, the Night Prince fires twice into the balconies, ending two lives as two tunnels in the smoke are created. "A Prince is never without his guardians." At his side is another one of these beings, covered in fractal scars on all possible sections of its flesh. Half of the bullets appear to have been ground to a halt in this new creature.
As well trained and equipped as the ghouls are, it doesn't take long for their fortified positions to be broken and overran. With a needle fingered monster running behind them and even a millimeter of flesh appearing in sight being enough for the Night Prince to land a killing blow with his seemingly endless magazine of death. Eventually it goes quiet. The two figures slip away, back into the darkness where they vanish from sight. Approaching the ornate metal door leading into the house proper, the Night Prince kicks it hard enough to dent. Frowning, he kicks it again, furthering the dent. The hinge whines and complains as more force warps its purpose. By the third kick, the door tumbles down to reveal the first floor before him.
Stopping for a moment, he takes in the grandeur of the foyer. Rich, thick carpets. Flame contained within floating glass baubles. Lifeless servants carry goods and sweep floors, pausing as they detect his presence. With a smirk, he flares his anima, his very soul projected around him as a black void. Pure absence of light flows forth from him, swallowing the flames and throwing the room into the dark. The dark is no hindrance to him, of course. Above him from the second floor, there is a flapping sound as a winged human of stone and strength attempts to crush him under its weight. Dancing further into the foyer, he takes several shots at the man-sized creature. "I don't think I've seen something like you before."
"And you never will again." The bullets have stopped at its flesh, falling to the ground. Charging forward, it throws a titanic haymaker, cutting through the stair's guard rail by clipping it, it explodes into splinters. The shield being weaves itself into reality from the shadows and catches the blow on its scarred arms. A snapping sound is heard as the defender's arm shatters from the attack, but its enough for the Night Prince to dart forward under the punch and plant his pistol under the gargoyles head. For a moment, the light returns with a bullet whose detonation sounds like an unearthly scream. A stream of anti-light explodes out the top of the gargoyle's head and he crumbles. Blowing the smoke from the barrel, he looks up once more as Red stares wide eyed down at him from the third floor.
"You've come to my house, killed my guardians, and made a fool of house Tremere. How dare you." Her claws dig into the banister. As the Night Prince shrugs nonchalantly, his killer strides from the shadows near Red.
"You got what's coming to you." His smile fades slightly as she was seemingly prepared for this. Holding out her palm, the water bursts from pipes in the walls beside her, wrapping the needle-fingered being up within its grip until its suspended helplessly in the prison.
Returning her focus to the Night Prince, she smirks. "I must say, I didn't expect a necromancer to siege my chantry house tonight. Come to steal my secrets of thaumaturgy for your sick plans, no doubt. Unfortunately for you, I am well versed in dealing with your kind."
"Of course you are." The Night Prince says. Beside Red, the needle-handed specter struggles fruitlessly against the water. "Red, the witch hunter. Though I heard your witch hunting days were behind you." Dashing backwards, Red opens the door behind her. From behind the Night Prince, he hears a door click open as Red emerges, sprinting, with green glimmering sword in hand. His defender is prepared for the sword, but as the sword is caught in its palm, she shoulders it back. Continuing her movement, she touches the Night Prince before he can react. Instantly, he feels his blood begin to heat and boil. "Ah, the famed blood boiling that you love to threaten people with." Though the blood continues to heat, the flesh does not sear, the nerves do not turn to slag. "And since you needed to touch me, you won't mind if I…"
Raising his hand, he quickly snags a wooden stake hidden in the back of his defender within the scars. It rips free with a grunt from the defender, still holding onto Red's sword. Shoving the stake roughly forward, it slams into Red's heart.
Or at least it would have. The stake turns into dust in the Night Prince's hand as one of the witch's rites bears fruit. Wrenching her sword free, she quickly stabs at the Night Prince, aiming for his heart to repay the favor. While he doesn't move aside, the sword does not slide into his flesh, instead glancing to the side as he moves his torso. The smear of green flame around the sword sputters out after the attack.
She attempts to retreat and regroup. But before she can, the defender grabs her by the hair, pulling her roughly back towards the Night Prince. "You really are quite tricky. I'm glad I chose you first. You could've been a lot of trouble if you just had more time to get to know me. Though I knew I should've packed more than a single stake." Leaping forward, the Night Prince bats the sword aside as Red tries to impale him during his jump and sinks his own fangs into her. Pulling the blood from the witch will make this much easier.
A terrible lassitude forces itself into Red's mind. This was not the kiss she was familiar with. While she kicks and screams as much as she can, the growing cold of the vitae leaving her system was becoming too much to bear. A few moments later, he releases her and the warmth returns to her mind. Feeling her supply of vitae within her, he left Red with only a few drops to work with. "Come along easy." The force of personality of the Night Prince roughly pushes her want to resist down. Not quiet enough to force compliance, but enough to cloud her mind.
"What do you want?" Red has just enough blood for one more try, it just needs the right opening. The defender lifts her up onto its shoulder as it begins to follow the Night Prince out. The water prison holding needle-finger breaks.
The Night Prince smiles and walks close to her. "Your very soul. I have an important project that I need it for." He looks up to needle-finger, gazing over the railing wordlessly at its master. "Needles, raid the laboratory for anything useful and bring it with you. You can kill anything you find there."
Suddenly reaching out Red focuses the last of the blood she has into a final gambit. Grabbing both sides of the Night Prince's head, in one hand she wills the blood in his veins to evaporate. Even if he survives this attempt, it should at least leave him vulnerable and stunned. That characteristic smirk returns as he feels his fingers and head begin to painfully dry, however the smile fades as he reaches for his own stock of essence to defend himself and finds it empty. Pain radiates from his head to his toes as his blood simply leaves him. Smacking her hands back, he coughs roughly as even his mouth grows dry.
Flexing against the wounded arm of the defender, Red kicks off his back and releases herself from its grip as she quickly runs towards the stairs. The Night Prince recovers quickly however, rage and humiliation in his eyes. He instantly takes aim at one of her legs and breathes out. A black crack of lightening arcs out from the barrel, following the bullet. Her attempt to leap out of the way was somehow foreseen and the bullet slams into her knee, shattering it and harming her enough to fully even sever the leg below. The Night Prince coughs as Red tumbles down the stairs in a heap. "I really thought it was gonna be better to leave you with enough so you wouldn't frenzy. Shows me what I know. No more tricks." Stepping forward, he grabs one of the railing spokes and plants his foot onto Red's head. "Don't move." The command reverberates through her mind, this one finally finding Red's will depleted enough to work. He slams the makeshift stake into her chest and she goes limp.
Grabbing her other leg, he begins to drag her out. He'd expended himself a bit too much, it'd seem. The defender stands at his side until they leave the courtyard where it fades from sight. Straightening his back, he moves into sight of his followers who erupt in cheers as they see what he drags behind him. "The Tremere primogen is slain." Reaching out, he wets his fingers in the blood from Red's leg and swipes it on the wards on the brick walls which fade away. "Within there are likely several younger kindred. Good hunting, my followers. Leave not a drop behind." They rush past him, thinblooded, ghoul, and human alike. Only Ezio remains at the mouth of the alley, along with the driver of the truck that brought them here.
He throws Red still body to Ezio, clattering among the trash at the side of the alley. "What are you waiting for?" The Night Prince says. "Drink."
"I…" Ezio hesitates.
"Do not make me repeat myself, Ezio." There is a threat in his voice, supernatural essence leaking out all around him in his aura. "This is a gift. A second gift. We'll change the world and this is the way."
It has been several days since his last meal. Ezio isn't quite sure how he knows that so intimately, but he had no hankering for the normal food one would crave. The taste of blood, of vitae specifically, was making his mouth water. The first time he was told to drink may have needed further coercion, but this one does not. His fangs certainly make the drinking part easy. His beast within takes hold and he drinks deep of the arcane blood of clan Tremere.
The rush in his mind is like nothing he's felt before. Standing and wiping his mouth, he experimentally forces blood to his skin. With the blood, the skin tightens and even hardens. Flicking his forearm, it makes more a sound expected from hard leather or even a soft metal than skin. "What is this?" He says to the Night Prince, who moves to the car and motions for Ezio to sit in the front passenger seat.
"Diablre. Vampires who devour their betters will find their gifts their own. I have an associate of mine digging up whatever it can find in the chantry house. Whatever little secrets this blood witch had tucked away will help us now." With a tired smile he looks to Ezio. "And with some practice you'll be able to help me next time. It only gets harder from here now they know what we're doing."
- Pronouns
- Mr
Very nice story, I love it!
Can't wait to see what kind of mess the Abyssal meeting the others will result in.
Can't wait to see what kind of mess the Abyssal meeting the others will result in.
Scene 30 - Fate Rhymes
"So we're staking out another police station." Briana says from the passenger seat of the car. Beside her is Elio, holding a bag of jerky with the seat reclined far back.
He nods. "Yes, we are."
She sighs and folds her arms. "When you said we were getting leads, why was this what you had in mind? At least Ashley is out there giving it to those cult weirdos."
"She and I have very different styles. I'm more suited to the art of subtlety whereas Ashley, well, she does well in the more direct sort of investigations. Plus-" he points at a police cruiser behind the razor wire fence gate the prevents entry into the universities administration office's parking lot with a 'Galena Police Department' decal on it. "-that is the same cruiser that Sheriff Hunter was driving when he went screaming out of Galena. Didn't think that this is where he'd end up."
Briana frowns, watching the lot carefully. Hearing fate had been difficult with Grim, but now the more time she spends with Ashley and Elio, the more obvious fate seems to make itself. Coincidence plagues them like fleas on a rat. She blinks and looks again at the hastily erected headquarters in what was once a place of learning. It certainly was the right place to be, but there were dozens of places she needed to be. The sound of wind chimes, softly in the distance, reaches Briana's senses. Turning her head towards the main entrance, barely in sight from their poor vantage point, Briana catches her mother's head in profile as she walks out from the fortified building. She's speaking into her phone as she moves back out of sight. "Wait wait wait," She reaches over and pushes Elio's shoulder. "that's my mom!"
Elio's chewing stops as he turns to look, catching the last possible moment to see Mary's dark brown hair, the same tone as Briana's, move out of sight. "So it is." He says around the jerky in his mouth. "What do you want to do?"
"I..." Briana's mind races. "I wanna talk to her." She resolves after a moment's hesitation.
"Do you want me to come along?" Elio asks, carefully keeping his tone neutral.
In response, Briana opens the door to the car and steps out onto the messy streets of Naperville. "No, I think I got this." She says back before closing the door.
"Alright." Elio settles back into his seat, watching Briana swiftly move down the street before losing track of her behind a car. Moments later a very young police officer steps out from the other side. She adjusts her badge, apparently having decided tin foil is an appropriate material for badges at some point, and smirks at Elio. He frowns. How'd she know he was here?
Naperville is a bit chilly at the moment, an unusual cold breeze piercing through summer's dominance. Briana pulls her thin 'borrowed' hoodie closer around her and makes sure that her 'badge' doesn't come loose. Crude, unmarked aluminum foil that she found on the street hastily fashioned into what could loosely be considered a badge. Her mother is only a block ahead of her, but the sound of wind chimes continues to emanate from Mary, which it seems only Briana can hear judging by the several people who walk past Mary with nary a second glance.
Stepping up onto the curb to follow behind her, Briana jolts as she hears the twang of one of fates many threats snapping taut nearby her. A truck is pulling out from one of the nearby alley ways and is about to block her progress towards her mother. Frowning, Briana swipes her hand, fingers in a strange hand sign that feels just right, and the thread snaps as Briana's eyes glitter green for a moment. The truck stalls in the alley way, allowing her to continue her brisk walk after her mother.
Mary pauses as an alert appears on her phone. Turning around, she sees Officer Briana approaching. Mary's eyes narrow and her off hand reaches into her pocket. "What is it officer? Did I forget something?" She asks towards Briana.
Focus. Ignore that fluttering, sinking feeling, Briana. "Yes, ma'am." Briana pitches her voice down, trying desperately to sound older and hoping it masks her nerves. "I actually had a few more questions about your, uh, statement." That sounds right.
"First I have a question." Mary fully turns to face Briana, pulling her hand out from her pocket as an expandable baton snaps to its full length in her left hand. "How did you catch up to me?"
Briana looks confused. "I walked? I don't-"
"And why'd they send the rookie cop in the room to ask the follow up questions? I know they talked you up like some prodigy in there, but this seems a little disrespectful." Mary's mind quickly adds details and flavor to Briana's fate, filling in the pieces Briana has left behind.
She puffs out her chest and smiles. "They want to make sure the best of the best is on the case." Briana lets a smile run away for a moment. "And I drew the short straw."
"That still doesn't explain how you managed to catch up to me." Mary frowns, mostly mumbling to herself for a moment. "Faulty junk." She flicks her watch, an analog piece without hands for some reason. "What is it?" Mary sighs.
"What are you doing out here?" Briana's voice rises to its usual pitch and a little bit of the hurt shows through, "Don't you, you know, have something else to be doing? Someone to be looking for?"
Mary's brows knit together as she thinks, folding her arms and collapsing the baton again in a single movement. "Like I said in there, me and my team represent a third party interested in maintaining the peace here. I left the contact information back with Captain Sheila. And what do you mean? My personal business is none of yours officer…" She frowns, that particular piece of setting not coming to mind.
"Greenwich." Briana says before being able to stop herself.
Slowly blinking, Mary twists her head to the side and purses her lips. "Right. Greenwich." The silence hangs in the air for far too long, seemingly eclipsing the distant sounds of gunfire and unrest. "Tell me something. What is on the other side of the sun?" She waits, seemingly for a response. That same feeling that Mary has been hiding something from her returns with a roar in Briana's head. This time though, Briana knows how to get what she wants from it. Feeling that rush of Essence through her mind, she demands that fate reveal this secret to her. The words she needs find her way to her mouth.
"Autocthonia." Briana answer. Mary's demeanor changes, straightening her back and putting her feet in line with her shoulders. A more serious look appears on her face.
"I didn't realize that someone was going to be coming to check on us." Mary nods. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you know it's rude to disrupt someone's anonymity field like you did. If you want a full update on the situation, we can talk back out at our station."
A smirk fills Briana's face which she quickly hides as a smile. "Yes, why don't we. I would love to hear all about your situation."
Back at the car, the driver's seat is empty. Somewhere inside the administration offices turned operation headquarters is Elio, prowling unseen among the bustling support staff and resting peace keepers. He listens as he passes by status meetings, learning piece-meal how the efforts to reclaim Naperville is going. Apparently poorly. A tall woman, Captain Sheila, reads reports on her computer about fanatics refusing to be taken alive, evacuation orders that are being defied or even used as ambush points by cultists, and about pressure from Chicago to get the issue resolved as quietly as humanly possible. Not a situation that Elio would want to be in charge of. Before he can take his leave from Captain Sheila's office (really more of an archive room with office furniture hastily thrown into it), there is a knock at the door. Pressing himself into a corner, Elio waits for his opportunity to leave.
Sheila sighs. "Come in." She says. With a creak, the door opens to reveal Sheriff Hunter. Without introduction, he closes the door behind him and sits on a folding metal chair in front of Sheila's desk. He looks haggard, uniform wrinkled from over use and heavy bags under his eyes.
"I think something happened to Victor." He says, causing Sheila to jolt slightly as she looks up from her computer screen.
"Jesus, Richard. Keep your voice down, these walls have ears." Sheila hisses, leaning over her desk. "And yes, duh." She gestures to the piles of papers and to her computer. "If his safe house is in Naperville like you said, something certainly has happened to him."
Leaning forward, Richard puts a hand on his thigh. "This isn't just some random attack. I can't get in contact with any of his other ghouls. This is a coup!" He snarls. "And don't make me remind you that this should be my operation. It involves my master."
A deep sigh sounds from Sheila as she runs a hand through her hair. "You wouldn't want it. I have the scourge and his friends breathing down my neck to get this under control. Not to mention the prince himself is watching closely. We are inches from this becoming a really big fucking deal. The sort of deal where we all get scrubbed." She coughs for a moment, reaching out to grab a cup of coffee of her desk and taking a deep drink while she collects her thoughts. "I just need you to do your job and help me spin this as a home grown end-of-the-world cult that got a little out of control for the rest of the units and the media when they inevitably find someone sane enough to do an interview."
"Bah, leave the spinning for Peter and his help." Richard says dismissively.
Sheila gives Richard an even look. "The Prince already reached out to Peter from what I heard. I haven't heard anything else or seen any of his agents, so you're the best I have until later. I have more than enough fucking vitae juiced meatheads on the force to deal with. What we need is someone who will actually help me sell this, Richard."
"Yeah, yeah. Work on the reports. Got it." Richard deflates a little bit. "Got a guy in the cult set up with some explosives and a detonator. That will probably draw some attention to the terrorist side of the story."
"A bomb?! What the hell are you thinking! What was it about inches to being snuffed out makes you think a bomb is the appropriate response?" Sheila stands putting her hands on the desk.
Richard looks away. "I dunno. The bomb is still in the armory, should be ready to go by tomorrow. Put it in the bank, blow it up, have someone with a turban make a statement…"
Sitting back down, Sheila puts her face in her hands. "I hate that that would probably work."
From near the door, Elio allows his focus on invisibility to falter. Immediately, Sheila has her hand to her holster, attempting to draw her pistol, only to find it missing. Elio gently twirls the service weapon in his hand. "Hey." He says. Richard closes his eyes as he recognizes the voice.
"If it isn't one thing, it's another." Richard mutters. He holds up his hand as Sheila clearly is about to stand and shout. "Don't. It won't matter." He says. Slowly, Sheila sits back down. "Sheila, you remember that report about Elio Aiello I sent along to the Chicago PD? Well," Richard points a finger behind him. "That's him. The bastard who put Victor into this shitty situation and evaded all attempts to actually talk to him."
Suspicion is clear on Sheila's face. "What do you want? And how did you get in here?" Sheila asks.
"Nothing unusual. Looking for my brother who went running off here a couple days ago. Probably towards," he puts a hand on Richard's shoulder. "this guy's master's hideout. So why don't you guys make this simple and just tell me where that is?"
"Like I'd just tell you that." Richard grumbles, brushing Elio's hand off his shoulder. "For all I know, you're what happened that caused all this."
From behind her desk, Sheila recovers her composure more fully. "Why are we listening to this guy? Hey, newsflash bud, you're in the middle of our base here." Richard starts looking like he wants to interrupt but is ignored. "I am going to get a couple of my guys in here and we're throwing you in a cell for questioning."
"Do you know how long I've been in your office?" Elio asks, not budging from his spot at the door. "I could've just left without saying anything and you'd have been none the wiser. Or even," he chuckles, "killed both of you. At best I can reason they'd find you in… thirty minutes? But no, I decided to talk to you both. I think we can both benefit here. I want to find my brother, you want this situation taken care of. You tell me where I can find Victor's safe house and I'll take care of your Night Prince problem."
"Sorry, no, I don't deal with unstable outside variables. I have enough of those." Sheila says. "Hey! I need a couple guys in here right now!" She shouts. Footsteps approach the door immediately.
With a smile, Elio begins to fade away. "You'll wish you had taken the easy way." When the door opens, only Richard and Sheila are in the room. Stepping around the man who barrels into the room, Elio steps out and into the hallway, making his way towards what look like some holding cells.
"Lock the station down." Sheila storms out of the office. "There is someone here and we aren't letting him get away. Richard, give these men a description."
Briana is led towards an apartment complex decorated in barbed wire and private security guards surrounding it. Their uniforms are decorated with a sliver of silver marking them as Sterling Security. They allow Mary and Briana to pass without more than a slight nod of recognition. Taking the elevator up to the top floor, Mary stops at a device that looks like a metal detector that has been erected in the middle of the pathway. "Just protocol. Any devices to declare?" Mary asks.
"You mean, like, my cell phone?" Briana frowns.
"I…" Mary seems to search for words. "You know, high technology? Weird technology?" She scoffs. "Honestly, what are they teaching you in classes these days?"
"Oh. Uh. No."
For a moment Mary seems completely caught flat footed. "You're kidding, right? They sent an agent without any devices?"
"We're keeping it as quiet as we can." Briana's mind races. "Our enemies are closing in; we can't afford to be caught. Why mess with the tech when I can just, you know, walk? And talk?"
"You're braver than I would've given you credit for." Mary walks through the detector which blinks red as she does. Briana follows suit and it blinks green. Her breath catches in her throat. Prior to stepping into this device, she was a multitude of fates that branched, withered, and grew unrestrained. After, all lines except the one she currently held tightly were cut free. "You really weren't kidding. No devices at all, huh?"
Briana blinks, recovers, and smirks. The lines of fate before her begin to grow and branch, but behind her she can see the bottleneck where of all previous lines of her fate now meet. "When you're as good as me, you'll find that you don't need the devices to get your assignments done."
"Right." Mary chuckles before leading on. One of the rooms is open and inside is Grey, the oldest appearing of the hunters, sitting at his laptop and scrolling what looks like surveillance footage.
He frowns and looks down at his watch. "Violet, you're early. You might need to adjust the parameters of your…" Turning he blinks as he looks at 'officer' Briana. Nervously, he reaches down into his pocket, where inexplicably there is the handle of a whole cross bow in. "Who is that?"
"This is someone from the academy. Looks like they want a status report." Mary says.
Standing, he approaches the pair. Putting on a glove with electrodes on its palm, he rushes forward, attempting to grab Briana's arm. In her mind, Briana sees the threads, both literal and fate-wise, of the carpet and intertwines them with Grey's destiny. A ruffle, previously unseen, catches his toe as he walks, causing him to stumble and fall onto his face. "What in the hell…" he mutters, standing back up and holding his nose. "Violet, we don't give status reports in person. Hey, girl, what division do you represent?"
Fuck. "Uh… high technology?" She offers, she can feel the threads of fate holding her police officer guise in place begin to fray as she strays further and further from the truth she is imposing. "It's a new protocol in the last couple days."
Behind her, she can feel Mary stiffen up. "But I thought we've always done…" whatever magic Briana wove on her mother is swiftly falling apart when put under strict scrutiny.
"Dammit, I should've known." Grey pulls out his crossbow from his pocket, pointing it at Briana. "You reality deviants certainly have a way of creeping in, huh? Didn't work this time." He fires the cross bow. Reaching out to fate once more, Briana finds the attempt to change the course of the bolt or snap his draw string much harder than just before, more like reaching through a thick slime to complete her whims instead of the effortless flicks before. The bolt flies true, but instead of reaching its target, Briana allows fate to branch further.
In this one, you are not shot. The slightly feminine voice of fate reaches Briana's ears, like wind chimes in a storm. An image of her mother stepping in front of the bolt appears in her mind. Even through fate's haze, she remembers well enough to protect you. While unharmed, you will almost certainly not get another chance to escape.
In another… Something interferes with her sight into the other lines of fate that went unused. Well in another the furthest we can go back is to that device in the hallway. It appears to have forced your fate up to that point to collapse into a single line. Escaping from that point is up to you.
Frozen in thought, staring at the lines of fate before, her Briana looks at the first for a while too long before grasping the latter line and pulling herself from the situation. A scream echoes down the hallway followed by a loud "FUCK!" as Mary is struck by Grey's bolt. Briana takes only a moment to realize that she is within the metal detector device in the hallway, now glittering green in its lights. She dashes away the way she came, back towards the elevators. Far down the hall, Grey emerges from the room, speaking into a radio. In front of Briana, the elevators do not come when she pushes the buttons.
Sucking in a breath, Briana sprints towards the stairs nearby. Taking the concrete steps three to four at a time, far below her she can hear another door open. With swirling green anima around her, fate becomes more obvious than ever to her senses and she ducks onto one of the other floors just in time to hear several heavy sets of footsteps continue up past her. Quietly opening the door, she continues down. She can see down below at the ground floor however, that several security guards have remained at the first-floor landing to catch her.
A distraction. Glancing through the fates available to her, Briana grasps onto a particularly gnarled strand of fate leading… well she doesn't really know where, she doesn't have time to look into it too far. But she gives it a solid yank. Yeah. That ought to provide a distraction.
In one of the alley ways of Naperville, conveniently close to Briana's current location, Ashley is digging through the pockets of a cult member she killed and dragged into this dim place. The twang of fate here is almost loud enough that even those attuned to its ebb and flow could hear it. Ashley pauses her pawing through the dead man's belongings. Shrugging, she continues. Until she curiously finds an electric detonator among the cultist's belongings. Now. Normally, Ashley would consider pressing an unknown red button on an unknown device found on her enemy's body a bad idea. Fate has other plans now. Which is why, when she sneezes loudly enough to echo down both sides of the alley, the faulty foam grip on the detonator gives out under her hand and it tumbles to ground. "Oops."
Back in the police station, the hunt for the invisible man halts as an explosion rocks the building. One of the windows near Elio shatters inwards as a bomb detonates somewhere within the parking lot, sending police cars scattering, mortar and brick shards hailing over anyone unlucky enough to be outside, and most of the people looking for him suddenly with their attention split. "Lucky me." Elio mutters, leaping out the now broken window and moving back to his car.
The stairway that Briana finds herself in rattles and shakes as the explosion goes off within two blocks of her location. At the base of the stairs, the guards quickly leave to see what happened outside. Following behind them, Briana squeezes through the metal door to the foyer before it has a chance to close. Ducking through the warmly lit lobby, she makes a quick escape out the back doors and starts to jog towards the car, doing her best to stay out of sight with her glimmering green aura. "Hope that wasn't me."
Briana arrives at the car just as Elio steps into the driver's seat and starts the car. She hops up to the passenger seat and breathes out, slumping down. Elio gives her a look, gesturing to the light around her. "Something got you all worked up? Really only see that sorta thing happen when we've been busy." He starts the car and begins to drive off towards the music center.
"Kinda." Briana says evasively. "Did… the bomb hurt you?"
"No, but I was closer than I would've liked. I think their bomb techs may need to take another couple courses if that was them." He chuckles darkly.
"Haha, yeah." She goes quiet for the rest of the ride, unable to help but think about those bomb technicians. Eventually, about half way to the destination, her green twinkling aura fades back into the background.
Parking, Ashley jogs up to the car. "Guys." She looks a little worried, sweat on her brow from her run over. "I think I set off a bomb." She says as Elio and Briana step out from the vehicle.
"No shit?" Elio asks. "I was just at the site of an explosion." He starts walking towards the maintenance entrance.
"Oh." Ashley says. "Uh. You good?"
He pats his chest. "Right as rain. Wasn't that close. You figure anything out? I got some vague stuff, just that Victor's hideout is here somewhere really. That and this whole thing is definitely a huge effort to hide vampire activity."
Ashley pulls out a piece of notebook paper, specked with some blood, with a variety of addresses on it. "I checked out a bunch of the places those two nerds inside gave me. Mostly duds, but one of them, one of the hardware stores in town, looks like it's being used as a meeting place. It was empty when I went there, but had a bunch of benches in the middle of the store and all the shelves pushed away. Looked like it's been used a lot recently, could be worth checking out."
"Better than anything I got." Elio says, pulling open the door with a click. "You get anything out of Mary, Briana?"
She shakes her head. "Just more questions. They have a lot of weird, I dunno, technology, I guess. It was messing with my fate stuff. They figured me out before I could get any more."
Walking inside, the trio encounter Louis and Jess busily watching the comms. Jess glances up as they enter and begin to relax onto cots and chairs, pulling her headphones off and quickly walks up to them. "What the hell is going on out there? We keep hearing about a bomb or explosion or something at the police base?"
Ashley nods. "Yeah, a bomb went off there."
Elio sighs. "A bomb that they were planning on using to paint this as, I dunno, a terrorist attack or something. Unfortunately, something must of happened and it went off early before it could even leave the armory."
"Well, it doesn't matter what or who or why now. Because there's calls to get the military involved to solve this problem now." Jess frowns and folds her arms. "Who knows how long that will take, but it's on the table now."
The cot creaks as Elio lays down onto it. "Well Ashley, guess we'll be following up on your lead tonight. Better get some rest. It's going to be a long night."
He nods. "Yes, we are."
She sighs and folds her arms. "When you said we were getting leads, why was this what you had in mind? At least Ashley is out there giving it to those cult weirdos."
"She and I have very different styles. I'm more suited to the art of subtlety whereas Ashley, well, she does well in the more direct sort of investigations. Plus-" he points at a police cruiser behind the razor wire fence gate the prevents entry into the universities administration office's parking lot with a 'Galena Police Department' decal on it. "-that is the same cruiser that Sheriff Hunter was driving when he went screaming out of Galena. Didn't think that this is where he'd end up."
Briana frowns, watching the lot carefully. Hearing fate had been difficult with Grim, but now the more time she spends with Ashley and Elio, the more obvious fate seems to make itself. Coincidence plagues them like fleas on a rat. She blinks and looks again at the hastily erected headquarters in what was once a place of learning. It certainly was the right place to be, but there were dozens of places she needed to be. The sound of wind chimes, softly in the distance, reaches Briana's senses. Turning her head towards the main entrance, barely in sight from their poor vantage point, Briana catches her mother's head in profile as she walks out from the fortified building. She's speaking into her phone as she moves back out of sight. "Wait wait wait," She reaches over and pushes Elio's shoulder. "that's my mom!"
Elio's chewing stops as he turns to look, catching the last possible moment to see Mary's dark brown hair, the same tone as Briana's, move out of sight. "So it is." He says around the jerky in his mouth. "What do you want to do?"
"I..." Briana's mind races. "I wanna talk to her." She resolves after a moment's hesitation.
"Do you want me to come along?" Elio asks, carefully keeping his tone neutral.
In response, Briana opens the door to the car and steps out onto the messy streets of Naperville. "No, I think I got this." She says back before closing the door.
"Alright." Elio settles back into his seat, watching Briana swiftly move down the street before losing track of her behind a car. Moments later a very young police officer steps out from the other side. She adjusts her badge, apparently having decided tin foil is an appropriate material for badges at some point, and smirks at Elio. He frowns. How'd she know he was here?
Naperville is a bit chilly at the moment, an unusual cold breeze piercing through summer's dominance. Briana pulls her thin 'borrowed' hoodie closer around her and makes sure that her 'badge' doesn't come loose. Crude, unmarked aluminum foil that she found on the street hastily fashioned into what could loosely be considered a badge. Her mother is only a block ahead of her, but the sound of wind chimes continues to emanate from Mary, which it seems only Briana can hear judging by the several people who walk past Mary with nary a second glance.
Stepping up onto the curb to follow behind her, Briana jolts as she hears the twang of one of fates many threats snapping taut nearby her. A truck is pulling out from one of the nearby alley ways and is about to block her progress towards her mother. Frowning, Briana swipes her hand, fingers in a strange hand sign that feels just right, and the thread snaps as Briana's eyes glitter green for a moment. The truck stalls in the alley way, allowing her to continue her brisk walk after her mother.
Mary pauses as an alert appears on her phone. Turning around, she sees Officer Briana approaching. Mary's eyes narrow and her off hand reaches into her pocket. "What is it officer? Did I forget something?" She asks towards Briana.
Focus. Ignore that fluttering, sinking feeling, Briana. "Yes, ma'am." Briana pitches her voice down, trying desperately to sound older and hoping it masks her nerves. "I actually had a few more questions about your, uh, statement." That sounds right.
"First I have a question." Mary fully turns to face Briana, pulling her hand out from her pocket as an expandable baton snaps to its full length in her left hand. "How did you catch up to me?"
Briana looks confused. "I walked? I don't-"
"And why'd they send the rookie cop in the room to ask the follow up questions? I know they talked you up like some prodigy in there, but this seems a little disrespectful." Mary's mind quickly adds details and flavor to Briana's fate, filling in the pieces Briana has left behind.
She puffs out her chest and smiles. "They want to make sure the best of the best is on the case." Briana lets a smile run away for a moment. "And I drew the short straw."
"That still doesn't explain how you managed to catch up to me." Mary frowns, mostly mumbling to herself for a moment. "Faulty junk." She flicks her watch, an analog piece without hands for some reason. "What is it?" Mary sighs.
"What are you doing out here?" Briana's voice rises to its usual pitch and a little bit of the hurt shows through, "Don't you, you know, have something else to be doing? Someone to be looking for?"
Mary's brows knit together as she thinks, folding her arms and collapsing the baton again in a single movement. "Like I said in there, me and my team represent a third party interested in maintaining the peace here. I left the contact information back with Captain Sheila. And what do you mean? My personal business is none of yours officer…" She frowns, that particular piece of setting not coming to mind.
"Greenwich." Briana says before being able to stop herself.
Slowly blinking, Mary twists her head to the side and purses her lips. "Right. Greenwich." The silence hangs in the air for far too long, seemingly eclipsing the distant sounds of gunfire and unrest. "Tell me something. What is on the other side of the sun?" She waits, seemingly for a response. That same feeling that Mary has been hiding something from her returns with a roar in Briana's head. This time though, Briana knows how to get what she wants from it. Feeling that rush of Essence through her mind, she demands that fate reveal this secret to her. The words she needs find her way to her mouth.
"Autocthonia." Briana answer. Mary's demeanor changes, straightening her back and putting her feet in line with her shoulders. A more serious look appears on her face.
"I didn't realize that someone was going to be coming to check on us." Mary nods. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you know it's rude to disrupt someone's anonymity field like you did. If you want a full update on the situation, we can talk back out at our station."
A smirk fills Briana's face which she quickly hides as a smile. "Yes, why don't we. I would love to hear all about your situation."
Back at the car, the driver's seat is empty. Somewhere inside the administration offices turned operation headquarters is Elio, prowling unseen among the bustling support staff and resting peace keepers. He listens as he passes by status meetings, learning piece-meal how the efforts to reclaim Naperville is going. Apparently poorly. A tall woman, Captain Sheila, reads reports on her computer about fanatics refusing to be taken alive, evacuation orders that are being defied or even used as ambush points by cultists, and about pressure from Chicago to get the issue resolved as quietly as humanly possible. Not a situation that Elio would want to be in charge of. Before he can take his leave from Captain Sheila's office (really more of an archive room with office furniture hastily thrown into it), there is a knock at the door. Pressing himself into a corner, Elio waits for his opportunity to leave.
Sheila sighs. "Come in." She says. With a creak, the door opens to reveal Sheriff Hunter. Without introduction, he closes the door behind him and sits on a folding metal chair in front of Sheila's desk. He looks haggard, uniform wrinkled from over use and heavy bags under his eyes.
"I think something happened to Victor." He says, causing Sheila to jolt slightly as she looks up from her computer screen.
"Jesus, Richard. Keep your voice down, these walls have ears." Sheila hisses, leaning over her desk. "And yes, duh." She gestures to the piles of papers and to her computer. "If his safe house is in Naperville like you said, something certainly has happened to him."
Leaning forward, Richard puts a hand on his thigh. "This isn't just some random attack. I can't get in contact with any of his other ghouls. This is a coup!" He snarls. "And don't make me remind you that this should be my operation. It involves my master."
A deep sigh sounds from Sheila as she runs a hand through her hair. "You wouldn't want it. I have the scourge and his friends breathing down my neck to get this under control. Not to mention the prince himself is watching closely. We are inches from this becoming a really big fucking deal. The sort of deal where we all get scrubbed." She coughs for a moment, reaching out to grab a cup of coffee of her desk and taking a deep drink while she collects her thoughts. "I just need you to do your job and help me spin this as a home grown end-of-the-world cult that got a little out of control for the rest of the units and the media when they inevitably find someone sane enough to do an interview."
"Bah, leave the spinning for Peter and his help." Richard says dismissively.
Sheila gives Richard an even look. "The Prince already reached out to Peter from what I heard. I haven't heard anything else or seen any of his agents, so you're the best I have until later. I have more than enough fucking vitae juiced meatheads on the force to deal with. What we need is someone who will actually help me sell this, Richard."
"Yeah, yeah. Work on the reports. Got it." Richard deflates a little bit. "Got a guy in the cult set up with some explosives and a detonator. That will probably draw some attention to the terrorist side of the story."
"A bomb?! What the hell are you thinking! What was it about inches to being snuffed out makes you think a bomb is the appropriate response?" Sheila stands putting her hands on the desk.
Richard looks away. "I dunno. The bomb is still in the armory, should be ready to go by tomorrow. Put it in the bank, blow it up, have someone with a turban make a statement…"
Sitting back down, Sheila puts her face in her hands. "I hate that that would probably work."
From near the door, Elio allows his focus on invisibility to falter. Immediately, Sheila has her hand to her holster, attempting to draw her pistol, only to find it missing. Elio gently twirls the service weapon in his hand. "Hey." He says. Richard closes his eyes as he recognizes the voice.
"If it isn't one thing, it's another." Richard mutters. He holds up his hand as Sheila clearly is about to stand and shout. "Don't. It won't matter." He says. Slowly, Sheila sits back down. "Sheila, you remember that report about Elio Aiello I sent along to the Chicago PD? Well," Richard points a finger behind him. "That's him. The bastard who put Victor into this shitty situation and evaded all attempts to actually talk to him."
Suspicion is clear on Sheila's face. "What do you want? And how did you get in here?" Sheila asks.
"Nothing unusual. Looking for my brother who went running off here a couple days ago. Probably towards," he puts a hand on Richard's shoulder. "this guy's master's hideout. So why don't you guys make this simple and just tell me where that is?"
"Like I'd just tell you that." Richard grumbles, brushing Elio's hand off his shoulder. "For all I know, you're what happened that caused all this."
From behind her desk, Sheila recovers her composure more fully. "Why are we listening to this guy? Hey, newsflash bud, you're in the middle of our base here." Richard starts looking like he wants to interrupt but is ignored. "I am going to get a couple of my guys in here and we're throwing you in a cell for questioning."
"Do you know how long I've been in your office?" Elio asks, not budging from his spot at the door. "I could've just left without saying anything and you'd have been none the wiser. Or even," he chuckles, "killed both of you. At best I can reason they'd find you in… thirty minutes? But no, I decided to talk to you both. I think we can both benefit here. I want to find my brother, you want this situation taken care of. You tell me where I can find Victor's safe house and I'll take care of your Night Prince problem."
"Sorry, no, I don't deal with unstable outside variables. I have enough of those." Sheila says. "Hey! I need a couple guys in here right now!" She shouts. Footsteps approach the door immediately.
With a smile, Elio begins to fade away. "You'll wish you had taken the easy way." When the door opens, only Richard and Sheila are in the room. Stepping around the man who barrels into the room, Elio steps out and into the hallway, making his way towards what look like some holding cells.
"Lock the station down." Sheila storms out of the office. "There is someone here and we aren't letting him get away. Richard, give these men a description."
Briana is led towards an apartment complex decorated in barbed wire and private security guards surrounding it. Their uniforms are decorated with a sliver of silver marking them as Sterling Security. They allow Mary and Briana to pass without more than a slight nod of recognition. Taking the elevator up to the top floor, Mary stops at a device that looks like a metal detector that has been erected in the middle of the pathway. "Just protocol. Any devices to declare?" Mary asks.
"You mean, like, my cell phone?" Briana frowns.
"I…" Mary seems to search for words. "You know, high technology? Weird technology?" She scoffs. "Honestly, what are they teaching you in classes these days?"
"Oh. Uh. No."
For a moment Mary seems completely caught flat footed. "You're kidding, right? They sent an agent without any devices?"
"We're keeping it as quiet as we can." Briana's mind races. "Our enemies are closing in; we can't afford to be caught. Why mess with the tech when I can just, you know, walk? And talk?"
"You're braver than I would've given you credit for." Mary walks through the detector which blinks red as she does. Briana follows suit and it blinks green. Her breath catches in her throat. Prior to stepping into this device, she was a multitude of fates that branched, withered, and grew unrestrained. After, all lines except the one she currently held tightly were cut free. "You really weren't kidding. No devices at all, huh?"
Briana blinks, recovers, and smirks. The lines of fate before her begin to grow and branch, but behind her she can see the bottleneck where of all previous lines of her fate now meet. "When you're as good as me, you'll find that you don't need the devices to get your assignments done."
"Right." Mary chuckles before leading on. One of the rooms is open and inside is Grey, the oldest appearing of the hunters, sitting at his laptop and scrolling what looks like surveillance footage.
He frowns and looks down at his watch. "Violet, you're early. You might need to adjust the parameters of your…" Turning he blinks as he looks at 'officer' Briana. Nervously, he reaches down into his pocket, where inexplicably there is the handle of a whole cross bow in. "Who is that?"
"This is someone from the academy. Looks like they want a status report." Mary says.
Standing, he approaches the pair. Putting on a glove with electrodes on its palm, he rushes forward, attempting to grab Briana's arm. In her mind, Briana sees the threads, both literal and fate-wise, of the carpet and intertwines them with Grey's destiny. A ruffle, previously unseen, catches his toe as he walks, causing him to stumble and fall onto his face. "What in the hell…" he mutters, standing back up and holding his nose. "Violet, we don't give status reports in person. Hey, girl, what division do you represent?"
Fuck. "Uh… high technology?" She offers, she can feel the threads of fate holding her police officer guise in place begin to fray as she strays further and further from the truth she is imposing. "It's a new protocol in the last couple days."
Behind her, she can feel Mary stiffen up. "But I thought we've always done…" whatever magic Briana wove on her mother is swiftly falling apart when put under strict scrutiny.
"Dammit, I should've known." Grey pulls out his crossbow from his pocket, pointing it at Briana. "You reality deviants certainly have a way of creeping in, huh? Didn't work this time." He fires the cross bow. Reaching out to fate once more, Briana finds the attempt to change the course of the bolt or snap his draw string much harder than just before, more like reaching through a thick slime to complete her whims instead of the effortless flicks before. The bolt flies true, but instead of reaching its target, Briana allows fate to branch further.
In this one, you are not shot. The slightly feminine voice of fate reaches Briana's ears, like wind chimes in a storm. An image of her mother stepping in front of the bolt appears in her mind. Even through fate's haze, she remembers well enough to protect you. While unharmed, you will almost certainly not get another chance to escape.
In another… Something interferes with her sight into the other lines of fate that went unused. Well in another the furthest we can go back is to that device in the hallway. It appears to have forced your fate up to that point to collapse into a single line. Escaping from that point is up to you.
Frozen in thought, staring at the lines of fate before, her Briana looks at the first for a while too long before grasping the latter line and pulling herself from the situation. A scream echoes down the hallway followed by a loud "FUCK!" as Mary is struck by Grey's bolt. Briana takes only a moment to realize that she is within the metal detector device in the hallway, now glittering green in its lights. She dashes away the way she came, back towards the elevators. Far down the hall, Grey emerges from the room, speaking into a radio. In front of Briana, the elevators do not come when she pushes the buttons.
Sucking in a breath, Briana sprints towards the stairs nearby. Taking the concrete steps three to four at a time, far below her she can hear another door open. With swirling green anima around her, fate becomes more obvious than ever to her senses and she ducks onto one of the other floors just in time to hear several heavy sets of footsteps continue up past her. Quietly opening the door, she continues down. She can see down below at the ground floor however, that several security guards have remained at the first-floor landing to catch her.
A distraction. Glancing through the fates available to her, Briana grasps onto a particularly gnarled strand of fate leading… well she doesn't really know where, she doesn't have time to look into it too far. But she gives it a solid yank. Yeah. That ought to provide a distraction.
In one of the alley ways of Naperville, conveniently close to Briana's current location, Ashley is digging through the pockets of a cult member she killed and dragged into this dim place. The twang of fate here is almost loud enough that even those attuned to its ebb and flow could hear it. Ashley pauses her pawing through the dead man's belongings. Shrugging, she continues. Until she curiously finds an electric detonator among the cultist's belongings. Now. Normally, Ashley would consider pressing an unknown red button on an unknown device found on her enemy's body a bad idea. Fate has other plans now. Which is why, when she sneezes loudly enough to echo down both sides of the alley, the faulty foam grip on the detonator gives out under her hand and it tumbles to ground. "Oops."
Back in the police station, the hunt for the invisible man halts as an explosion rocks the building. One of the windows near Elio shatters inwards as a bomb detonates somewhere within the parking lot, sending police cars scattering, mortar and brick shards hailing over anyone unlucky enough to be outside, and most of the people looking for him suddenly with their attention split. "Lucky me." Elio mutters, leaping out the now broken window and moving back to his car.
The stairway that Briana finds herself in rattles and shakes as the explosion goes off within two blocks of her location. At the base of the stairs, the guards quickly leave to see what happened outside. Following behind them, Briana squeezes through the metal door to the foyer before it has a chance to close. Ducking through the warmly lit lobby, she makes a quick escape out the back doors and starts to jog towards the car, doing her best to stay out of sight with her glimmering green aura. "Hope that wasn't me."
Briana arrives at the car just as Elio steps into the driver's seat and starts the car. She hops up to the passenger seat and breathes out, slumping down. Elio gives her a look, gesturing to the light around her. "Something got you all worked up? Really only see that sorta thing happen when we've been busy." He starts the car and begins to drive off towards the music center.
"Kinda." Briana says evasively. "Did… the bomb hurt you?"
"No, but I was closer than I would've liked. I think their bomb techs may need to take another couple courses if that was them." He chuckles darkly.
"Haha, yeah." She goes quiet for the rest of the ride, unable to help but think about those bomb technicians. Eventually, about half way to the destination, her green twinkling aura fades back into the background.
Parking, Ashley jogs up to the car. "Guys." She looks a little worried, sweat on her brow from her run over. "I think I set off a bomb." She says as Elio and Briana step out from the vehicle.
"No shit?" Elio asks. "I was just at the site of an explosion." He starts walking towards the maintenance entrance.
"Oh." Ashley says. "Uh. You good?"
He pats his chest. "Right as rain. Wasn't that close. You figure anything out? I got some vague stuff, just that Victor's hideout is here somewhere really. That and this whole thing is definitely a huge effort to hide vampire activity."
Ashley pulls out a piece of notebook paper, specked with some blood, with a variety of addresses on it. "I checked out a bunch of the places those two nerds inside gave me. Mostly duds, but one of them, one of the hardware stores in town, looks like it's being used as a meeting place. It was empty when I went there, but had a bunch of benches in the middle of the store and all the shelves pushed away. Looked like it's been used a lot recently, could be worth checking out."
"Better than anything I got." Elio says, pulling open the door with a click. "You get anything out of Mary, Briana?"
She shakes her head. "Just more questions. They have a lot of weird, I dunno, technology, I guess. It was messing with my fate stuff. They figured me out before I could get any more."
Walking inside, the trio encounter Louis and Jess busily watching the comms. Jess glances up as they enter and begin to relax onto cots and chairs, pulling her headphones off and quickly walks up to them. "What the hell is going on out there? We keep hearing about a bomb or explosion or something at the police base?"
Ashley nods. "Yeah, a bomb went off there."
Elio sighs. "A bomb that they were planning on using to paint this as, I dunno, a terrorist attack or something. Unfortunately, something must of happened and it went off early before it could even leave the armory."
"Well, it doesn't matter what or who or why now. Because there's calls to get the military involved to solve this problem now." Jess frowns and folds her arms. "Who knows how long that will take, but it's on the table now."
The cot creaks as Elio lays down onto it. "Well Ashley, guess we'll be following up on your lead tonight. Better get some rest. It's going to be a long night."
Grey Rook
Genuine Nerd
- Location
- The Quantum Foam
Okay, so the Hunters are definitely associated with the Technocracy. I don't think that the Night Prince is a Technocrat, but hell, stranger things have happened. That the Technos have access to gadgets that can jam the fatebending powers of a Sidereal and know about Autocthonia implies that they have at least some experience with Exalted, if perhaps not specifically Solars and Lunars. Hmm.
One thing I'm not sure I understand is... why the bomb? Isn't the militia taking power over a district of the city by armed force reason enough to call in the military? Or the terrorism would just be a ruse to distract the Sleepers from what's really going on.
One thing I'm not sure I understand is... why the bomb? Isn't the militia taking power over a district of the city by armed force reason enough to call in the military? Or the terrorism would just be a ruse to distract the Sleepers from what's really going on.
Unless I'm remembering wrong (mage is the weakest of my knowledges of WoD), autocthonia is where a particular sect of the technocracy stashed their best stuff and most powerful computers. Probably not common technocrat knowledge, but to that subsection the name probably is known. While it is without doubt some now ancient and/or distorted version of autochthon, it's doubtful that any significant information on the Exalted survived even there. Mages, especially ones with time, love to set up counter measures. Fate being specifically one of the realms they have power over, sidereals are kinda in a unique spot to mess with and be messed with by mages. Even if the mages just think siddies are weirdo fate mages.
And yes. The bomb is an ill thought out idea by a ghoul trying to prove he has good ideas. My thoughts are very much that the military has not been involved because the local kindred are doing everything they can to suppress knowledge that what they think is a rogue vampire of some potence just blatantly breaking the masquerade as his cult spills out onto the streets. They were just barely keeping it under wraps until the bomb goes off. Now Kindred elsewhere and their minions are looking at it and realizing what's happening, thus the military being brought in to squash it and probably burn every shred of evidence. Chaos ensues as both Elio's group and the Kindred get a hard(ish) clock to get what they want done and get out before a military brigade and probably more than a few pissed off Camarilla cleaners get involved.
I'm glad it comes across that way! I wanted to try and continue that feeling of actual game play even though me rolling for absolutely everything has gone down a fair bit. Got lots of Storyteller experience in me, so just need to channel my chaotic player's energy to make it feel right haha.
Glad to hear you're liking it! Stay tuned, we'll definitely be seeing more of the Night Prince in the future as this story arc approaches its rise and inevitable zenith.
- Pronouns
- Mr
It does read a lot more like a game than other stories I read, but it's still not chaotic enough hahaha!
Players be crazy man.
The other thing I'm also looking forward to is the realisation that a Secrets Sidereal can fuck with vampires to an unreal degree.
I had one in the game I ran and the party was basically always immune to half of the vampiric disciplines all the time lol.
Last edited:
Scene 31 - Meaningful Resistance
A crow croaks out. Briana looks to her left, suddenly aware of where she was. At the edge of lake Michigan. It's nighttime, and the red star hangs high above her. A deadly spear hanging above Creation. Her mind races: A poison. But of what kind? Quick and painless? Or agonizing and drawn out? The crow in the boughs of a dead snag to her left takes flight in a painfully loud flutter and dances through the wind out over the lake. There are people out there, on a structure suspended on the water's surface, anchored far below on the lakebed. Briana looks instead at the crow as it lands, now tiny on the horizon, on one of the edges of this platform. It looks back at her. The people behind it are little more than smoke in the shape of men. Far below, from under the water, light. Sigils in a language she does not know but who's very presence seems to warp and shift the world around them. "Why are you showing me this?" Briana asks the crow.
In its crowing cries, she finds meaning. Words meant for her. "Fate seer, see the true shape of the world. See beyond the machinations of man and beast, of gods and the dead. He returns."
"Who returns?" Briana demands, voice echoing across the water.
Ashley kicks the corner of the cot where Briana is sleeping. "Wake up." Shooting up on the cot, Briana looks around. She's back in the communication room. Rubbing her eyes, the cot grows still after the forceful kick.
"What time is it?" She asks groggily.
From the chair to the right of her cot, she finally realizes Elio is there as he speaks. "It's eight. Sun's about to go down and we're going to that hardware store."
Pausing for a moment, Briana swings her legs over the side of the cot and sits for a moment as Ashley and Elio move about, starting to get ready. "Did you guys, I dunno, have any weird dreams?" Briana asks.
Ashley shrugs, leaning down to tighten her hiking boots. "No. Not really." She glances at Elio.
"What? No." Elio says shaking his head. "Why?"
Standing up and stretching, Briana looks away from them both. "Nothing. Forget it."
As the trio is about ready to step out and into Naperville, Jess leans back in her chair to look at them all. "Well, today might be your lucky day. Caught some chatter on some of the cultist's devices that Ashley brought us yesterday. Looks like there's supposed to be some meeting going on. Some discussion of tactics or something."
"Well, guess we'll try and get to the bottom of that." Elio says and they depart. Going without the car, after a brief discussion of how to lay low, the trio moves through the darkened streets. While some of the armed men and woman still hold checkpoints here and there, they pose little chance of finding a living shadow, aren't looking for a rabbit ducking through the streets, and their eyes seem to fall off of Briana as she walks as though even the world is slowly forgetting to remember her.
The hardware store is little to write home about. A painted baby blue facade, empty shelves able to be seen through the cracks of the planks of wood hammered over the shattered window frames. Standing in front of the doors, however, is a group of five robed figures holding guns preventing entry.
"So what's the play?" Ashley says to Elio, as the trio stands down the street from the building in the dark between streetlamps.
Taking in the building with a single discerning glance, Elio nods to himself. "I'll get up on top of the building. All I need is a small gap and I should be able to hear everything happening in there without them knowing I'm there."
"Great." Briana says with a nod. "And what do we do?"
"Just keep low and if things get loud, well, come help me." Elio says before stepping towards the building, fading into the dark.
Briana waits a minute until she is reasonably sure Elio is out of hearing range. Though she isn't really sure the best way to tell that. "Why did he even bring us along if he's just gonna fuck off like that?" She mutters just loud enough for Ashley to hear.
Snorting, Ashley slinks to a nearby bench at what was once a bus stop, now tagged with the Night Prince's eyes covering the bus map. "Less work for us. It's not like anyone there is going to get him." While she appears relaxed, her eyes survey the dark around them, seeking prey.
The bench shakes slightly as Briana plops down next to Ashley with a sigh. A warm evening summer breeze blows past them, ruffling their clothes. "Do you ever… feel things? From, like, yourself?"
Ashley nods. "It's like an itch. Constantly just digging away at me when I'm not doing something." She taps her foot on the concrete. "Sometimes I see visions, little just, I dunno, moments from somewhere else. It's how I know I'm a Lunar and Elio had something similar that told him he's a Solar. Whatever that means." Something moves in Ashley's peripheral vision and she whips her head to the side, her eyes shifting to more closely resemble a coyote's eyes as the gloom fades away to her eyes. A raccoon darts away into an alley and Ashley relaxes. She thinks: I could use a raccoon form. Why is that always my first thought now?
Pulling out her phone, Briana types a question to her spider. What are Solars and Lunars? A moment later, fate's voice whispers in her ear. "Solar and Lunar mean relating to the sun and moon, respectively." Real helpful, fate. Briana rolls her eyes. The voice is quiet again, but starts again without preamble, catching Briana off-guard. "Old shards for a new age." It's quiet, strained almost as it's voice barely seems to reach Briana. "The wheel turns."
Frowning, Briana pockets her phone and folds her arms. "Well, other than some very obvious info and some extremely vague stuff, my little spider doesn't know what those are." Ashley does not respond as they both settle in to wait for Elio to return.
Up on the roof of the hardware store, a shadow leaps up from down below. He's barely visible against the dark of the night as Elio creeps across the flat of the roof. The door that leads down below is cracked open and putting his head next to the opening, Elio attunes his hearing to the barest movement of dust particles and the minute vibrations that voices make in the metal and wood that make up the store. A man is speaking in the depths below.
"Since the Tremere are falling apart, we need to remain vigilant." He rails, voice echoing and warping by the time it reaches Elio. "They are bewitchers and mind-controllers, so you must pay close attention to your fellows. Do not make any eye contact with strangers. Anyone who acts oddly should be reported to your leaders so we can get to the bottom of any possible moles before they become a problem." Suspicious muttering erupts from the rest of the people Elio can feel breathing inside. "New weapons and ammo are being brought in, so report to the stockpile to receive your new armaments to fight the good fight for equality." The man clears his throat. "Some of you have been expressing concern that the police are moving from riot suppression tools and non-lethal weapons to traditional firearms and lethal weapons. Fear not, the powers granted to us by the vitae and the Night Prince will protect us. To demonstrate…" The crowd is silent before a gunshot goes off and the crowd erupts into applause. "Small arms simply have little effect on those of strong enough to uphold our beliefs, as you can see." Speeches give way to idle chatter for a while before the speaker regains control of the room again. "Now I must be going. There are other meeting places and others fighting for equality that I am needed in. Remember, the Night Prince watches over us all."
Elio shifts away from the door, stepping across the roof to the back of the store, where a few minutes later a gaunt looking man flanked by a half dozen guards wearing identical windbreakers, motorcycle helmets, and sub machine guns emerges. Looking him over, Elio smiles. If anyone will know where to find this Night Prince, it'll be one of his leaders.
Taking a step back, Elio waits for the Leader's guards to be looking elsewhere before he takes a running leap off the roof. Drifting over the air, seemingly finding traction on the space itself somehow, Elio descends with knife in hand. His arm arcs down with his own trajectory before slamming into the skull of one of the guards, punching through the motorcycle helmet and dropping them immediately. With a wet squelch, Elio reclaims his knife. While the Leader appears surprised by the sudden appearance of an assailant, his guards don't even seem to flinch, instead pulling their weapons around to face Elio.
One of the guards in the back pulls out a flare gun from inside their jacket and holds it up, ready to fire off a signal, no doubt to more backup. The rest form up between that one and Elio, several of them holding what appear to be modified sub machine guns with wider barrels than normal. Bracing the top of the guns with their off arms, they fire several well-controlled bursts towards Elio, who is already in motion. Ducking and weaving between the bullets, Elio squints as he sees one fly by, noting odd red runes on its surface that have somehow survived intact despite the heat and pressure of being fired from the gun. He glances one off the edge of his knife and it detonates. The ones behind him slam into the brickwork of the store and explode into fire and sparks, sending shards of brick flying all around the back alley they find themselves in.
The bullet Elio caught on the knife leaves the weapon blackened and scarred, a permanent mar of slightly slagged metal on its otherwise pristine surface. Leaping onto the shoulders of the guards, Elio vaults past them, trying to get to the one with the flare gun. Their finger squeezes the trigger just moments before Elio rushes past, his knife severing the tendons at the wrist holding the gun. While the gunman's wrist may have gone permanently limp, they don't scream out or even flinch as the powerful red glow of the flare soars skyward. Without hesitation, they lash out with a knife of their own. While not fast enough to catch Elio, the damage of the flare is already done. Elio can hear many footsteps rushing over both concrete and rooftop towards his position. Hopefully Ashley and Briana saw the flare too.
From behind him, three more gun men take shots at Elio with the same modified guns as before. The Leader quickly starts to jog with the remaining two guards towards the street, where an armored truck is pulling up. As the guns light into Elio again, he drops to the ground in a crouch as the bullets scream over head. Lunging forward, he plants the knife into the chest of the gunman he had wounded, or he would if he didn't meet resistance. His knife pushes forward, only drawing a small dot of blood through a dark knife vest hidden under the guard's windbreaker. Well equipped… Elio bats away another stab of his foe's knife, only staying just ahead of the aims of the guards behind him with his weaving and ever wavering stance. And well trained.
A dumpster appears on top of two of the guards shooting at him as Ashley charges into the back alley in her war form. The snapping of bone and a few groans can be heard as she kicks the dumpster into the third, causing them and the dumpster to slam into the alley wall with a slam. "Good timing." Elio slips up and under the guard of the flare-gun guard and slices his throat. With a gasp and sputter, he falls to the ground. The footsteps are louder now. "You think you got this? I gotta get that guy." He points to the leader, who is now stepping into the armored truck. Ashley nods her furry head and cracks her neck as the running steps grow louder.
The door to the truck slams shut, but the engine dies. Down the street, at the end of the block, is Briana. With a smirk, she watches the fate of the armored car be switched with that of the burned-out car just down the street. It's engine refuses to turn over, now simply sitting still and stalling as the driver grows increasingly desperate to get moving.
Back in the alley, the door to the hardware store is thrown open as the people inside come to investigate the gunshots from here. While they no longer can find Elio, they are greeted by Ashley in war form, who issues an earsplitting roar. Half of the people in the store flee on sight of such a ferocious beast, but the rest steel their resolve and step out into the concrete arena. Even with half their number decreased, they still are able to make a semi-circle around Ashley who puts her back to the wall of the alley. From up above, several sets of eyes can be seen looking down at her, fangs out. Two of them have what look like assault rifles slung over their shoulders. "What's a fuckin' mutt doing here in the city?" One of them asks as Ashley begins to tear away at the people below. The other, a middle-aged looking woman shrugs.
"I dunno. But I guess it's our problem now." She steps off the roof and lands just as the body of one of the cultists lands in front of her. Bending down, she quickly laps up the blood before its wasted. Before her cannon fodder can run dry, she forces blood into her legs, surging forward as her claws aim upwards at Ashley's eyes.
Even surrounded as she is, Ashley's wits have never been sharper. Throwing an arm to her right, still carrying a robed woman in her hand, she throws the vampires aim far off with a painful slam into her arm. Fire erupts along her shoulder though as the two vampires up on the roof unsling their rifles and begin to open fire on Ashley. Ashley's fur begins to smolder and burn, threatening to sear her flesh before she shoulders the vampire in reach, smothering the flames with her flesh. The vampire screams as her skin begins to burn and sear even from the small embers in Ashley's fur. Two more cultists jump onto Ashley's back with knives in their hands, digging at her and trying to draw blood. Silver moon light overpowers the red of the flare over head as Ashley begins to glow from the exertion of combat.
Elio races forward, beginning to tangle with a pair of guards again who take up stance to try and slow his approach to the stalling vehicle. He fires his pistol a few times at the truck, only to see the bullets bounce off sloped plating, collide into bullet proof glass, and cause only small wounds in the tires that seem to seal themselves within moments. If he's going to hurt this car, he's gonna need some more hurt than what his pistol can bring. Fire-bullets arc towards him, two of the guards switching to a fully automatic spray that fills up almost all the air in the alley between themselves and Elio. Elio's form almost seems vaporous, dividing into as many neat small subsections are needed to avoid harm from the hail of bullets. The moment that he passes through the wall of supersonic metal though, the third guard takes their shot, having waited for a moment for the right moment to strike. A burning, searing pain races up from Elio's leg as the bullet embeds itself into his flesh and begins to burn everything it touches.
Pulling in a hissing breath, Elio does not hesitate as he leaps forward. Their necks aren't heavily armored enough to resist Elio's stabs and slices, and two fall in as many moments once he gets close. The final remaining one takes another shot, but this time goes wide, now backing up towards the still stalling car. From his back pocket Elio pulls out the heavy revolver, replacing it in its holster with the smaller 9mm pistol he normally favors. Taking an instant to aim, a bullet hole appears in the guard's motorcycle helmet where their forehead should be.
Briana jogs down the street towards Elio. She glances at his leg and cringes. "Damn, that doesn't look good." Elio just continues to focus on his breathing and doing his best to ignore the extremely unpleasant burning pain and smell that is coming from his leg. "Well, what do we do with this?" She points to the truck. "I don't think we can get into that, but I can stall it as long as we need."
"We're gonna need Ashley for this part." He says after tapping the armor and finding it to be exactly as solid as he imagined.
Blood runs down Ashley arms as more than a few stab wounds have been created on her back and along her arms from the cultists that surround her. She's taken down a good dozen of them by this point, their broken bodies sent scattering all around her. The vampire is in her hands and with one more pulse of essence to her limbs, she crushes the vampires head between her hands. Her fur is smoking and charred from where the vampires above continue to rain down burning bullets onto her and her anima is larger and brighter than ever before, making her almost blinding to look at. Looking at the cultists still surrounding her, Ashley sucks in a breath and begins to contort her form. Fur, claw, and muscle compacts and shifts into feathers, a beak, and sharp eyes as a pigeon flutters out of what was once a primal engine of destruction. The group of cultists look on in confusion as the bird gets to the roof and transforms back into the war form a moment later, now in mid air.
A rage filled scream fills the night as she descends on the two vampires on the roof. One of them is fast enough to dart out of the way. The other is not so lucky. A crunching of bones and sinew echoes out as Ashley's fists crush his skull into his torso, his torso into his knees, and his knees into his feet. Before she can turn to face the last one, another man, he's taken off across the roof tops, taking gigantic leaps to cross the alley. As Ashley attempts to shift back into a bird to give chase she finds that she can't. No matter how she focuses, all she can see herself becoming is some form of her true self, either human, rabbit, or war form. Grinding her teeth, she instead turns her attention to the cultists below and to Elio who is approaching with a limp. When did he get on the roof? "Ashley, I need you to get the door off that armored truck down there. Couple guards inside, we're trying to get the older looking dude for interrogation." A rock bounces off Ashley's arm as the crowd still in the alley begins to hail the duo with stones, bottles, bricks, whatever they can get their hands on really. "Go. I'll deal with these assholes." Elio mutters. Ashley snorts loudly and moves towards the street side of the roof and jumps down. The sound of cracking concrete echoes down the street as she lands. Elio leans over the alley side of the roof, grabbing a broken bottle mid arc towards his face.
"Hey assholes, why are you doing this?" He shouts down to them.
"Because you're killing us!" One of them shouts back, a woman. The rest loudly agree with this.
"We just want that guy who was talking to you." Elio folds his arms as he focuses on his words, adding emphasis to the right places. "We work for the Night Prince and that man is a traitor." His brow begins to glow as he speaks.
Collectively the crowd begins to try and mull over this new information. "And who are you supposed to be?" The woman asks again. "We've never seen you before. Why are you working with a monster?"
"I'm the guy that the Night Prince calls when he needs to get shit done quietly. Unfortunately, your leader needed to go as quickly as possible." Elio frowns and folds his arms. "For your losses I'll make sure that the armaments that you get from the stockpile will be of the highest quality."
One of the men shouts up to Elio, "Your fucking monster killed my brother! You think that some guns and ammo is gonna make up for that?!" Several other begin to pipe up. "Yeah, you killed us! Who do we report you to?!"
Clenching his jaw, Elio quickly pushes past the pain that his actions caused these people, refusing to linger on the thought. For now. His anima grows around him, covering and obscuring him until he appears like a golden-black smear on the world, little more than a pair of golden eyes on a completely unrecognizable humanoid form. "I am the Night Prince's executioner. Those that were killed by my accomplice were also traitors. To question my motives is to question the Night Prince himself." While he does not shout, the sudden display of supernatural prowess combined with a threatening tone in his voice is enough to quiet those below him. He turns from the edge, his voice garbling when filtered through his Essence. "Take all complaints to him."
Over at the car, Ashley grabs onto one of the armor plate near the gas intake and rips it free with a screech of complaining metal. One of the doors open as she does this, apparently concerned with the new vulnerability of the fuel tank, and a man in an olive green flak suit steps out from the other side of the car. In his hands is a shotgun fed by an ammo drum. Stepping around the back of the truck, he levels the weapon with Ashley only being given enough time to hold the removed metal plate from the truck in her hands between her and the thunderous roar of multiple shotgun shells being fired in short succession. Briana, lucky as always so it would seem, was just enough out of sight of this man to avoid being fired at. With a scream she dives back towards the alley, landing in a pile of refuse.
Buckshot rattles off the armor plate, sending lead in all directions as it deflects into the night around the pair. Willing her flesh to withstand the punishment as some of the buckshot finds flesh in her legs, many of the pellets bounce painfully off of Ashley's supernaturally tough skin, leaving bruises and welts where piercing holes should be found. The shot-gunner struggles to control the recoil of his weapon before he pauses, unable to see through the smoke and rubble in front of him through the limited slit in his armored helmet.
Which is why he does not see the metal plate until its a glimmer several feet long being hurled at his neck. The padding takes the worst of the blow, but the sheer force behind it knocks him onto his back and his shotgun skitters out of his hand with a small green flash of power from Briana in her pile of garbage to tilt the scales in Ashley's favor. Stepping forward, Ashley begins to rip and tear at the Kevlar and ceramic plates that protect the man until she finds blood as he starts to scream.
Behind her, Elio, still covered in his glow that obscures his features, approaches the car. He raps a knuckle on the window. "I know you can hear us. You open up and give us the leader and we don't blow up your car." He steps towards the gas intake and unscrews the lid. "You have ten seconds." Waiting a moment, Elio folds his arms and listens in through the thick windows to some sort of argument or discussion is on going.
"You knew the risks Wesley. The Night Prince was quite clear that you cannot be captured." A woman's voice whispers.
Elio looks over to Ashley, slowly standing and rubbing her legs and paws for a moment, now covered in someone else's blood. "They're gonna kill our lead. Pull the front passenger door."
She glares at Elio before standing and trying to pull the door. Deep within her, that seemingly endless vault of power sputters for a moment where the torrent of essence used to be, now just a whisper. Straining and pulling, the door slowly begins to give, enough of a gap made that Elio can squeeze through. Leaping forward, he stabs his knife into the surprised eye of the woman about to put a bullet through the leader's temple. Elio breathes out, catching his breath as he crouches on the cramped section of the car at the console. Turning to the Leader, Wesley, he pulls out his gun. Reaching across the corpse next to him, Elio opens the door and pushes her still warm body onto the sidewalk. "Come on, get in." He clicks the button to unlock the posterior doors and Ashley, after shrinking down to her human guise, and Briana hop into the back. "Get the car going." Briana snaps her fingers, releasing the tightened fate that kept the car still with its original. The engine healthily roars to life as Elio turns the key again and begins to drive.
Ashley stares out the window, flexing her fingers as her glow bathes the interior of the car a yellow gold when mixed with Elio's own anima from the front seat. "Alright, Wesley." Elio says, still having his gun trained on the man, "We have a few questions for you about this Night Prince."
In its crowing cries, she finds meaning. Words meant for her. "Fate seer, see the true shape of the world. See beyond the machinations of man and beast, of gods and the dead. He returns."
"Who returns?" Briana demands, voice echoing across the water.
Ashley kicks the corner of the cot where Briana is sleeping. "Wake up." Shooting up on the cot, Briana looks around. She's back in the communication room. Rubbing her eyes, the cot grows still after the forceful kick.
"What time is it?" She asks groggily.
From the chair to the right of her cot, she finally realizes Elio is there as he speaks. "It's eight. Sun's about to go down and we're going to that hardware store."
Pausing for a moment, Briana swings her legs over the side of the cot and sits for a moment as Ashley and Elio move about, starting to get ready. "Did you guys, I dunno, have any weird dreams?" Briana asks.
Ashley shrugs, leaning down to tighten her hiking boots. "No. Not really." She glances at Elio.
"What? No." Elio says shaking his head. "Why?"
Standing up and stretching, Briana looks away from them both. "Nothing. Forget it."
As the trio is about ready to step out and into Naperville, Jess leans back in her chair to look at them all. "Well, today might be your lucky day. Caught some chatter on some of the cultist's devices that Ashley brought us yesterday. Looks like there's supposed to be some meeting going on. Some discussion of tactics or something."
"Well, guess we'll try and get to the bottom of that." Elio says and they depart. Going without the car, after a brief discussion of how to lay low, the trio moves through the darkened streets. While some of the armed men and woman still hold checkpoints here and there, they pose little chance of finding a living shadow, aren't looking for a rabbit ducking through the streets, and their eyes seem to fall off of Briana as she walks as though even the world is slowly forgetting to remember her.
The hardware store is little to write home about. A painted baby blue facade, empty shelves able to be seen through the cracks of the planks of wood hammered over the shattered window frames. Standing in front of the doors, however, is a group of five robed figures holding guns preventing entry.
"So what's the play?" Ashley says to Elio, as the trio stands down the street from the building in the dark between streetlamps.
Taking in the building with a single discerning glance, Elio nods to himself. "I'll get up on top of the building. All I need is a small gap and I should be able to hear everything happening in there without them knowing I'm there."
"Great." Briana says with a nod. "And what do we do?"
"Just keep low and if things get loud, well, come help me." Elio says before stepping towards the building, fading into the dark.
Briana waits a minute until she is reasonably sure Elio is out of hearing range. Though she isn't really sure the best way to tell that. "Why did he even bring us along if he's just gonna fuck off like that?" She mutters just loud enough for Ashley to hear.
Snorting, Ashley slinks to a nearby bench at what was once a bus stop, now tagged with the Night Prince's eyes covering the bus map. "Less work for us. It's not like anyone there is going to get him." While she appears relaxed, her eyes survey the dark around them, seeking prey.
The bench shakes slightly as Briana plops down next to Ashley with a sigh. A warm evening summer breeze blows past them, ruffling their clothes. "Do you ever… feel things? From, like, yourself?"
Ashley nods. "It's like an itch. Constantly just digging away at me when I'm not doing something." She taps her foot on the concrete. "Sometimes I see visions, little just, I dunno, moments from somewhere else. It's how I know I'm a Lunar and Elio had something similar that told him he's a Solar. Whatever that means." Something moves in Ashley's peripheral vision and she whips her head to the side, her eyes shifting to more closely resemble a coyote's eyes as the gloom fades away to her eyes. A raccoon darts away into an alley and Ashley relaxes. She thinks: I could use a raccoon form. Why is that always my first thought now?
Pulling out her phone, Briana types a question to her spider. What are Solars and Lunars? A moment later, fate's voice whispers in her ear. "Solar and Lunar mean relating to the sun and moon, respectively." Real helpful, fate. Briana rolls her eyes. The voice is quiet again, but starts again without preamble, catching Briana off-guard. "Old shards for a new age." It's quiet, strained almost as it's voice barely seems to reach Briana. "The wheel turns."
Frowning, Briana pockets her phone and folds her arms. "Well, other than some very obvious info and some extremely vague stuff, my little spider doesn't know what those are." Ashley does not respond as they both settle in to wait for Elio to return.
Up on the roof of the hardware store, a shadow leaps up from down below. He's barely visible against the dark of the night as Elio creeps across the flat of the roof. The door that leads down below is cracked open and putting his head next to the opening, Elio attunes his hearing to the barest movement of dust particles and the minute vibrations that voices make in the metal and wood that make up the store. A man is speaking in the depths below.
"Since the Tremere are falling apart, we need to remain vigilant." He rails, voice echoing and warping by the time it reaches Elio. "They are bewitchers and mind-controllers, so you must pay close attention to your fellows. Do not make any eye contact with strangers. Anyone who acts oddly should be reported to your leaders so we can get to the bottom of any possible moles before they become a problem." Suspicious muttering erupts from the rest of the people Elio can feel breathing inside. "New weapons and ammo are being brought in, so report to the stockpile to receive your new armaments to fight the good fight for equality." The man clears his throat. "Some of you have been expressing concern that the police are moving from riot suppression tools and non-lethal weapons to traditional firearms and lethal weapons. Fear not, the powers granted to us by the vitae and the Night Prince will protect us. To demonstrate…" The crowd is silent before a gunshot goes off and the crowd erupts into applause. "Small arms simply have little effect on those of strong enough to uphold our beliefs, as you can see." Speeches give way to idle chatter for a while before the speaker regains control of the room again. "Now I must be going. There are other meeting places and others fighting for equality that I am needed in. Remember, the Night Prince watches over us all."
Elio shifts away from the door, stepping across the roof to the back of the store, where a few minutes later a gaunt looking man flanked by a half dozen guards wearing identical windbreakers, motorcycle helmets, and sub machine guns emerges. Looking him over, Elio smiles. If anyone will know where to find this Night Prince, it'll be one of his leaders.
Taking a step back, Elio waits for the Leader's guards to be looking elsewhere before he takes a running leap off the roof. Drifting over the air, seemingly finding traction on the space itself somehow, Elio descends with knife in hand. His arm arcs down with his own trajectory before slamming into the skull of one of the guards, punching through the motorcycle helmet and dropping them immediately. With a wet squelch, Elio reclaims his knife. While the Leader appears surprised by the sudden appearance of an assailant, his guards don't even seem to flinch, instead pulling their weapons around to face Elio.
One of the guards in the back pulls out a flare gun from inside their jacket and holds it up, ready to fire off a signal, no doubt to more backup. The rest form up between that one and Elio, several of them holding what appear to be modified sub machine guns with wider barrels than normal. Bracing the top of the guns with their off arms, they fire several well-controlled bursts towards Elio, who is already in motion. Ducking and weaving between the bullets, Elio squints as he sees one fly by, noting odd red runes on its surface that have somehow survived intact despite the heat and pressure of being fired from the gun. He glances one off the edge of his knife and it detonates. The ones behind him slam into the brickwork of the store and explode into fire and sparks, sending shards of brick flying all around the back alley they find themselves in.
The bullet Elio caught on the knife leaves the weapon blackened and scarred, a permanent mar of slightly slagged metal on its otherwise pristine surface. Leaping onto the shoulders of the guards, Elio vaults past them, trying to get to the one with the flare gun. Their finger squeezes the trigger just moments before Elio rushes past, his knife severing the tendons at the wrist holding the gun. While the gunman's wrist may have gone permanently limp, they don't scream out or even flinch as the powerful red glow of the flare soars skyward. Without hesitation, they lash out with a knife of their own. While not fast enough to catch Elio, the damage of the flare is already done. Elio can hear many footsteps rushing over both concrete and rooftop towards his position. Hopefully Ashley and Briana saw the flare too.
From behind him, three more gun men take shots at Elio with the same modified guns as before. The Leader quickly starts to jog with the remaining two guards towards the street, where an armored truck is pulling up. As the guns light into Elio again, he drops to the ground in a crouch as the bullets scream over head. Lunging forward, he plants the knife into the chest of the gunman he had wounded, or he would if he didn't meet resistance. His knife pushes forward, only drawing a small dot of blood through a dark knife vest hidden under the guard's windbreaker. Well equipped… Elio bats away another stab of his foe's knife, only staying just ahead of the aims of the guards behind him with his weaving and ever wavering stance. And well trained.
A dumpster appears on top of two of the guards shooting at him as Ashley charges into the back alley in her war form. The snapping of bone and a few groans can be heard as she kicks the dumpster into the third, causing them and the dumpster to slam into the alley wall with a slam. "Good timing." Elio slips up and under the guard of the flare-gun guard and slices his throat. With a gasp and sputter, he falls to the ground. The footsteps are louder now. "You think you got this? I gotta get that guy." He points to the leader, who is now stepping into the armored truck. Ashley nods her furry head and cracks her neck as the running steps grow louder.
The door to the truck slams shut, but the engine dies. Down the street, at the end of the block, is Briana. With a smirk, she watches the fate of the armored car be switched with that of the burned-out car just down the street. It's engine refuses to turn over, now simply sitting still and stalling as the driver grows increasingly desperate to get moving.
Back in the alley, the door to the hardware store is thrown open as the people inside come to investigate the gunshots from here. While they no longer can find Elio, they are greeted by Ashley in war form, who issues an earsplitting roar. Half of the people in the store flee on sight of such a ferocious beast, but the rest steel their resolve and step out into the concrete arena. Even with half their number decreased, they still are able to make a semi-circle around Ashley who puts her back to the wall of the alley. From up above, several sets of eyes can be seen looking down at her, fangs out. Two of them have what look like assault rifles slung over their shoulders. "What's a fuckin' mutt doing here in the city?" One of them asks as Ashley begins to tear away at the people below. The other, a middle-aged looking woman shrugs.
"I dunno. But I guess it's our problem now." She steps off the roof and lands just as the body of one of the cultists lands in front of her. Bending down, she quickly laps up the blood before its wasted. Before her cannon fodder can run dry, she forces blood into her legs, surging forward as her claws aim upwards at Ashley's eyes.
Even surrounded as she is, Ashley's wits have never been sharper. Throwing an arm to her right, still carrying a robed woman in her hand, she throws the vampires aim far off with a painful slam into her arm. Fire erupts along her shoulder though as the two vampires up on the roof unsling their rifles and begin to open fire on Ashley. Ashley's fur begins to smolder and burn, threatening to sear her flesh before she shoulders the vampire in reach, smothering the flames with her flesh. The vampire screams as her skin begins to burn and sear even from the small embers in Ashley's fur. Two more cultists jump onto Ashley's back with knives in their hands, digging at her and trying to draw blood. Silver moon light overpowers the red of the flare over head as Ashley begins to glow from the exertion of combat.
Elio races forward, beginning to tangle with a pair of guards again who take up stance to try and slow his approach to the stalling vehicle. He fires his pistol a few times at the truck, only to see the bullets bounce off sloped plating, collide into bullet proof glass, and cause only small wounds in the tires that seem to seal themselves within moments. If he's going to hurt this car, he's gonna need some more hurt than what his pistol can bring. Fire-bullets arc towards him, two of the guards switching to a fully automatic spray that fills up almost all the air in the alley between themselves and Elio. Elio's form almost seems vaporous, dividing into as many neat small subsections are needed to avoid harm from the hail of bullets. The moment that he passes through the wall of supersonic metal though, the third guard takes their shot, having waited for a moment for the right moment to strike. A burning, searing pain races up from Elio's leg as the bullet embeds itself into his flesh and begins to burn everything it touches.
Pulling in a hissing breath, Elio does not hesitate as he leaps forward. Their necks aren't heavily armored enough to resist Elio's stabs and slices, and two fall in as many moments once he gets close. The final remaining one takes another shot, but this time goes wide, now backing up towards the still stalling car. From his back pocket Elio pulls out the heavy revolver, replacing it in its holster with the smaller 9mm pistol he normally favors. Taking an instant to aim, a bullet hole appears in the guard's motorcycle helmet where their forehead should be.
Briana jogs down the street towards Elio. She glances at his leg and cringes. "Damn, that doesn't look good." Elio just continues to focus on his breathing and doing his best to ignore the extremely unpleasant burning pain and smell that is coming from his leg. "Well, what do we do with this?" She points to the truck. "I don't think we can get into that, but I can stall it as long as we need."
"We're gonna need Ashley for this part." He says after tapping the armor and finding it to be exactly as solid as he imagined.
Blood runs down Ashley arms as more than a few stab wounds have been created on her back and along her arms from the cultists that surround her. She's taken down a good dozen of them by this point, their broken bodies sent scattering all around her. The vampire is in her hands and with one more pulse of essence to her limbs, she crushes the vampires head between her hands. Her fur is smoking and charred from where the vampires above continue to rain down burning bullets onto her and her anima is larger and brighter than ever before, making her almost blinding to look at. Looking at the cultists still surrounding her, Ashley sucks in a breath and begins to contort her form. Fur, claw, and muscle compacts and shifts into feathers, a beak, and sharp eyes as a pigeon flutters out of what was once a primal engine of destruction. The group of cultists look on in confusion as the bird gets to the roof and transforms back into the war form a moment later, now in mid air.
A rage filled scream fills the night as she descends on the two vampires on the roof. One of them is fast enough to dart out of the way. The other is not so lucky. A crunching of bones and sinew echoes out as Ashley's fists crush his skull into his torso, his torso into his knees, and his knees into his feet. Before she can turn to face the last one, another man, he's taken off across the roof tops, taking gigantic leaps to cross the alley. As Ashley attempts to shift back into a bird to give chase she finds that she can't. No matter how she focuses, all she can see herself becoming is some form of her true self, either human, rabbit, or war form. Grinding her teeth, she instead turns her attention to the cultists below and to Elio who is approaching with a limp. When did he get on the roof? "Ashley, I need you to get the door off that armored truck down there. Couple guards inside, we're trying to get the older looking dude for interrogation." A rock bounces off Ashley's arm as the crowd still in the alley begins to hail the duo with stones, bottles, bricks, whatever they can get their hands on really. "Go. I'll deal with these assholes." Elio mutters. Ashley snorts loudly and moves towards the street side of the roof and jumps down. The sound of cracking concrete echoes down the street as she lands. Elio leans over the alley side of the roof, grabbing a broken bottle mid arc towards his face.
"Hey assholes, why are you doing this?" He shouts down to them.
"Because you're killing us!" One of them shouts back, a woman. The rest loudly agree with this.
"We just want that guy who was talking to you." Elio folds his arms as he focuses on his words, adding emphasis to the right places. "We work for the Night Prince and that man is a traitor." His brow begins to glow as he speaks.
Collectively the crowd begins to try and mull over this new information. "And who are you supposed to be?" The woman asks again. "We've never seen you before. Why are you working with a monster?"
"I'm the guy that the Night Prince calls when he needs to get shit done quietly. Unfortunately, your leader needed to go as quickly as possible." Elio frowns and folds his arms. "For your losses I'll make sure that the armaments that you get from the stockpile will be of the highest quality."
One of the men shouts up to Elio, "Your fucking monster killed my brother! You think that some guns and ammo is gonna make up for that?!" Several other begin to pipe up. "Yeah, you killed us! Who do we report you to?!"
Clenching his jaw, Elio quickly pushes past the pain that his actions caused these people, refusing to linger on the thought. For now. His anima grows around him, covering and obscuring him until he appears like a golden-black smear on the world, little more than a pair of golden eyes on a completely unrecognizable humanoid form. "I am the Night Prince's executioner. Those that were killed by my accomplice were also traitors. To question my motives is to question the Night Prince himself." While he does not shout, the sudden display of supernatural prowess combined with a threatening tone in his voice is enough to quiet those below him. He turns from the edge, his voice garbling when filtered through his Essence. "Take all complaints to him."
Over at the car, Ashley grabs onto one of the armor plate near the gas intake and rips it free with a screech of complaining metal. One of the doors open as she does this, apparently concerned with the new vulnerability of the fuel tank, and a man in an olive green flak suit steps out from the other side of the car. In his hands is a shotgun fed by an ammo drum. Stepping around the back of the truck, he levels the weapon with Ashley only being given enough time to hold the removed metal plate from the truck in her hands between her and the thunderous roar of multiple shotgun shells being fired in short succession. Briana, lucky as always so it would seem, was just enough out of sight of this man to avoid being fired at. With a scream she dives back towards the alley, landing in a pile of refuse.
Buckshot rattles off the armor plate, sending lead in all directions as it deflects into the night around the pair. Willing her flesh to withstand the punishment as some of the buckshot finds flesh in her legs, many of the pellets bounce painfully off of Ashley's supernaturally tough skin, leaving bruises and welts where piercing holes should be found. The shot-gunner struggles to control the recoil of his weapon before he pauses, unable to see through the smoke and rubble in front of him through the limited slit in his armored helmet.
Which is why he does not see the metal plate until its a glimmer several feet long being hurled at his neck. The padding takes the worst of the blow, but the sheer force behind it knocks him onto his back and his shotgun skitters out of his hand with a small green flash of power from Briana in her pile of garbage to tilt the scales in Ashley's favor. Stepping forward, Ashley begins to rip and tear at the Kevlar and ceramic plates that protect the man until she finds blood as he starts to scream.
Behind her, Elio, still covered in his glow that obscures his features, approaches the car. He raps a knuckle on the window. "I know you can hear us. You open up and give us the leader and we don't blow up your car." He steps towards the gas intake and unscrews the lid. "You have ten seconds." Waiting a moment, Elio folds his arms and listens in through the thick windows to some sort of argument or discussion is on going.
"You knew the risks Wesley. The Night Prince was quite clear that you cannot be captured." A woman's voice whispers.
Elio looks over to Ashley, slowly standing and rubbing her legs and paws for a moment, now covered in someone else's blood. "They're gonna kill our lead. Pull the front passenger door."
She glares at Elio before standing and trying to pull the door. Deep within her, that seemingly endless vault of power sputters for a moment where the torrent of essence used to be, now just a whisper. Straining and pulling, the door slowly begins to give, enough of a gap made that Elio can squeeze through. Leaping forward, he stabs his knife into the surprised eye of the woman about to put a bullet through the leader's temple. Elio breathes out, catching his breath as he crouches on the cramped section of the car at the console. Turning to the Leader, Wesley, he pulls out his gun. Reaching across the corpse next to him, Elio opens the door and pushes her still warm body onto the sidewalk. "Come on, get in." He clicks the button to unlock the posterior doors and Ashley, after shrinking down to her human guise, and Briana hop into the back. "Get the car going." Briana snaps her fingers, releasing the tightened fate that kept the car still with its original. The engine healthily roars to life as Elio turns the key again and begins to drive.
Ashley stares out the window, flexing her fingers as her glow bathes the interior of the car a yellow gold when mixed with Elio's own anima from the front seat. "Alright, Wesley." Elio says, still having his gun trained on the man, "We have a few questions for you about this Night Prince."
Fun bit of world of darkness trivia, Autocthonia was written as a technocracy secret before they wrote Exalted. When Exalted was first released, they re-used several names from existing WoD things as a call-forward to the existing game lines.
Subsequent plot points regarding Autocthon in Exalted products do make the mysterious planet sized mass of machinery the Technocracy found in space, apparently dead and abandoned, a bit more concerning.
Scene 32 - Limit
The door into the communication room slams shut, Wesley left in the capable hands of Luis and Jess behind closed doors. In the maintenance tunnel leading to the once storage chamber, Elio and Ashley stand still, looking at the door. Nearby, Briana pokes through shelves filled with cleaning supplies out of boredom.
"Are we gonna talk about what happened out there?" Ashley eventually says to Elio, her voice a harsh whisper. Briana's ears prickle as she listens in from a little ways away.
"What's there to talk about, Ash?" Elio says, unconsciously reaching down and rubbing the hasty bandage cover the bloody burn marks in his upper thigh. He already wasn't limping from the injury. "We got the lead."
Ashley roughly punches Elio's arm, shoving him back a step. "You acted like an idiot without giving us any warning. Picked a fight that we didn't need to."
Stepping back, Elio quickly recovers his stance and glares at Ashley. "Look, it worked out, didn't it? I wasn't about to waste time and let this guy get away."
"It almost didn't." She gestures to her legs, where small red dots of blood have bled through to the surface. "I got fuckin' jumped out there and, well, I think I almost ran out of whatever makes us, you know, tick. If there was one more pack of those asshole vampires that showed up…" Her sentence trails off, getting lost somewhere in the tunnels around them.
Briana rubs an eye and sighs before turning to them both. "Ashley, we both know this is about Ezio." She steps over towards Elio. "You gotta get your head together, Elio." Poking his leg, Elio winces. "That burn and hole might fix itself up fast, but how much time are we gonna waste while you both get better?"
"I'm not going to waste any time." Elio says while stepping away from the women, back towards the back exit. "Wounded or not, Ezio can't wait for me to rest up. I'm heading back out there."
Ashley and Briana exchange looks. Stepping forward, Ashley grabs Elio's shoulder. "You really shouldn't do…"
She doesn't even see Elio as his arm flickers forward through the shadows, slamming into her sternum and forcing her back several steps. Her breath suddenly comes in ragged gasps and it takes a moment for her to compose herself. Elio's body is half vanished into the shadow of the hallway, only his eyes glinting in the dark gives form to his face. "Don't. He's my brother and I'll be damned if I let you stop me from helping him."
Coughing, Ashley quickly stands and grits her teeth as Briana rushes forward to put a hand on Ashley's back. "God, are you so stupid that you can't see that you're just gonna get hurt if you don't rest up?" Ashley says between gasps.
"I don't care, Ashley." That hard glint in his eyes remains as he focuses on Ashley. "Just because you abandoned your family a long time ago doesn't mean you can force me to abandon mine."
Briana blinks. "What the fuck are you talking about Elio?"
"You choose your next words carefully." Ashley says, recovered from coughing. Her voice is calm, but she can feel her nails biting into her palm as she balls up her fists.
"Come on." Why is she trying to stop me? "It's obvious." I just need to get her to back off. Hurt her a little bit. "You chose Elizabeth's blood over your family. Up and just left your schooling, your friends, your whole life behind when Elizabeth came calling. They must not have mattered that much to you. Have you even tried to see if they are still alive since you..."
Briana falls to the ground as she is roughly shoved out of the way by Ashley. Heavy footfalls echo down the concrete tunnel as Ashley lunges for Elio's throat with both hands, a blur of blonde hair and fury. He's already vanished by the time she reaches where he was standing. Finding her hands closed around nothing but empty air, Ashley settles for an echoing scream and slamming her fists into the floor, sending web-like cracks across the concrete's surface. "Get back out here! You can't just say that shit and then fucking leave like it's nothing!" Ashley's eyes dart, looking for any motion, anything that might betray Elio's presence nearby, but finds nothing but shelves of cleaning supplies, brooms, and motes of dust dancing in the white lights. Briana starts to step forward before Ashley screams again, "Hypocrite! Come say that shit to my face like you aren't afraid of me!" Her accusations go unanswered.
The feeling of a small hand on her back causes Ashley's head to bob up and look towards Briana. "Uh, I think I know the answer to this, but, you good?" Briana asks.
"No." Ashley says, turning away from Briana again. "No, I'm not fucking good. Did you not hear what he just said?!" Her voice raises.
"Yup, I was definitely there for that very awkward and painful argument, yeah." Briana starts to rub her fingers against each other. "What was he talking about though?"
"He…" No. Don't think about it. "Nothing." Why did he do that? "I just need to go for a walk." Ashley slowly stands and begins to shuffle towards the exit. "Clear my head." She mumbles. It was Elizabeth's fault.
Briana watches Ashley leave, the door slamming shut behind her. She looks around, finding the empty hallway a bit too unnerving to handle. She begins to walk down the hallway, towards better lit rooms further within that might be more comfortable, or at least have a chair to sit and wait in. Pausing at the threshold between the hallway and one of these rooms, she speaks to what looks like empty space. "Elio, if you're still here that was really, really shitty." She closes the door behind her, unsure if her words even reached their target.
"A Lupine?" On his throne of steel and bone, the Night Prince sits forward, placing his elbows onto his knees as he does. "In the city?"
Below him is the vampire that got away, illuminated in a large light on the ceiling that reveals a mouthful of large fangs and what look like scales along his flesh that glitter in the light proper. He nods. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. It killed Roy and Leslie, and I barely escaped."
Across the room, Ezio fiddles with some arcane looking supplies that seem to have been lifted from Red's chantry. Flasks now empty of their fluids and books whose meanings have yet to be fully determined. In his hands is a small etching stylus and bullets with the book in front of him opened to the only ritual that he's managed to parse so far. He shakes his head occasionally, shaking away the whisper of Red's voice that he swears he can hear sometimes while he works. A pile of these modified bullets with red tattoos sits on the table to his right, ready to be loaded into magazines. "Ezio." Ezio's head turns to the right, giving the Night Prince a half glance.
"What?" Ezio grumbles, continuing his work. "This isn't exactly easy, I'd appreciate not being distracted."
"While I appreciate the dedication to the Tremere blood magics, there is a new task that would be good for you to experience." Stepping down from the throne, the Night Prince approaches Ezio and puts a light hand on his cold shoulder. "We've got a mutt problem. I want you to go with Chase here to find Pablo. He's got a good nose for following blood trails." He looks to Chase. "You did wound the beast, right?" Chase nods.
There's a click as Ezio sets down another bullet into the completed pile while grabbing another from nearby yet to be modified. Biting his tongue, he lets a single crimson droplet tumble down to the bullet tip before starting to etch. "Why don't you go take care of it, Night Prince?"
He scoffs. "What is the point of being a Prince if you can't delegate? I have troop morale to keep up, logistics to oversee, and contractors to speak with; all to keep this machine running smoothly. I can't simply leave my home for every tiny issue."
Ezio sighs. "Fine." He hesitates near the Night Prince for a moment after standing. "This… is helping right?"
A smile spreads across the Night Prince's maw. "Ezio, the ammunition you have provided us is pushing us closer and closer to that world we can both see ahead of us. Before you know it this will all be nothing but fond memories."
The smile does not spread to Ezio. "Right. Could I have my phone back?"
The Night Prince's expression does not waver. "What could you want with that?"
"I want to call Sarah, let her know that I'm, well, maybe alright isn't the right word anymore, but at least still alive?"
He's already started to shake his head halfway through Ezio's words. "No. Besides, aren't you afraid you'll hurt her?"
"What?" Ezio looks taken aback. "Why would I ever hurt Sarah?"
"Well, you know," The Night Prince chuckles, seemingly nervously. "in your new stage of life it can be easy to lose control sometimes. Maybe its better that she, and frankly everyone you knew, thinks that you just died in Naperville."
Ezio shakes his head. "No, that's not what would happen." He thinks back to when he first was embraced. The ravenous, unslakable thirst for blood he felt, and can still feel if he lets his guard down. Could he really hurt Sarah? "I won't lose control."
"It's inevitable you will." The Night Prince says, sympathy dripping from his voice. "And when you do, do you really want it to be with someone you love? If she knows you're out there, she'll come looking, and you know who else will come looking too."
"Elio." He says his brother's name slowly. "If Sarah couldn't find me she'd probably go to Elio next."
"And how do you think he'd react to your new status as a vampire?" The Night Prince begins to walk away, back towards his throne. "After all, I'm sure he's done some terrible things to ones before. What if he just sees you as another monster?" He sits on the throne and crosses his legs, one foot falling onto the opposite knee. "Can't you see I have your best interests in mind? It's better if you go quietly into the night and embrace what lays before you instead of taking those you love down with you."
He's right. Or is he right? Ezio's head swims as he tries to cut through his feelings and the words being told to him. Truth, even that of his own feelings, begins to slip away from him. I could just leave. But if I do, then what? I'm still a monster. "Okay." Ezio breaks eye contact with the Night Prince, turning to Chase. "Let's get out of here."
Nodding, Chase begins to leave with Ezio in tow. "Chase." The Night Prince's voice returns to its commanding tone, easily crossing the long length of his chamber. "Visit the armory before you go. I had the arms dealer bring in a few silvered bullets. Collect them and make sure you use them wisely." Once they have left the room, the Night Prince speaks into the dark shadows at his side. "Scar." At his word the fractal patterns adorning a barely human looking figure appear. "Follow Ezio. Ensure that he returns without too much trouble. And watch him closely. He's not fully bought in yet." It nods with a hiss from between sewn together pale lips before sinking back into the dark.
The night is cold while Ashley travels the streets, lost in her mind. She doesn't wear the trappings of her human form, instead choosing to move largely unnoticed as a rabbit. Her wounds still ache from earlier, even if the bleeding has long ceased red, angry cuts line her back, hidden by her fur. Every hop reminds her of the bruises and cuts that the shot gun left behind there. Ashley stops outside of a diner, still operating in the active war zone it has found itself in. Only the tops of people's heads can be seen from Ashley's low vantage point. Her stomach grumbles as she thinks about the last time she ate and she remembers that she has a bit of petty cash in her pockets.
Hopping into an alley, Ashley returns to her human form and enters the diner, sitting down at a booth. Cooking meat can be heard and smelt from the kitchen and the waitress comes to take her order. Before the waitress can leave to get coffee and a hamburger order put in, Ashley stops her. "Why are you still open? Don't you know what's happening out there?"
With a shrug, the waitress puts on a tired smile. "Yeah, but what else are we going to do? I don't exactly have anywhere else to go."
Ashley doesn't respond, settling for looking out the diner window into the night. Eventually her coffee arrives, bitter and black as diner coffee should be. "Nowhere else to go, huh?" She says to herself as she begins to drink.
Ezio and his two companions, Pablo and Chase, move through the streets. Having arrived at the alley where the fight took place, Ezio's eyes go wide. A number of bodies still litter the ground here and the stench of death is thick here, miasma like. He can tell at a glance that most of them are dead and crouching down next to the closest, who is still wearing the remnants of a thick flak jacket, he appears to have been torn apart by a large animal. Rib cage pulled open, skin flayed by claws… blood everywhere. Ezio's eyes linger a little too long on the stale blood on the ground, pushing down the hunger. "What was the word that the Night Prince used? Lupines?" He asks to Chase after finally wrenching his eyes from the corpse.
"Yeah, lupine. A fucking werewolf. They normally stay out in the hills, but this one has different ideas, eh?" He replies, picking up an SMG from one of the helmeted guards. Frowning, he looks at the helmet. "This don't look like claw wounds though. Someone slit this guys throat." Chase rubs his chin. "Hey Pablo, ain't this one of the guys that the arms dealer gave us? I remember him upselling us on their services. Best of the best my ass."
Pablo, a stocky vampire with wide eyes, stoops down next to another body. "Yeah, this is 'em." His eyes scan across the bodies sprawled down the length of the alley. "Couple guns missing. Locals probably nabbed 'em." Pablo points at a couple of bodies slumped up against the walls. "Though we got some live ones still."
Chase smirks. "Good, I could use a bit of a snack." He stands and starts moving towards a body that is still shallowly breathing.
"Hey." Ezio says, catching up. "What if she knows something." The scent of blood is overpowering as he gets closer. "Shouldn't we see what she knows?"
"Buddy." He snaps his fingers in front of Ezio's face. "I'm over here. You're staring at the blood bag." Blinking, Ezio realizes he was staring at her. Frowning, Chase folds his arms. "When was the last time you fed?"
Red was a few days ago now. He kept having to give up blood to make the bullets and from when he was experimenting with his own prowess he kept feeling that reserve fall away. Not to mention the insidious small drain of blood that sustains his existence. "It's been a few days, but I've been busy, I guess." He mumbles.
"What is this?" Pablo says, tapping his foot. "The Night Prince gave us a fledgling who was already half empty before going to hunt a fucking lupine? No, this won't do." He points to the woman, who is struggling to open her eyes at the sound of voices nearby her. "I already fed tonight and Chase is a fucking over-feeder who doesn't need to glut himself at every opportunity."
"What the hell man? Where's this coming from?" Chase squares up with Pablo.
Pablo taps a finger into the middle of Chase's chest. "Don't tell me you weren't the one sneaking into my neighborhood. I got you on goddamn camera chewing on one of my cousins."
While the pair bicker, their argument falls into the background. Ezio stares down at the wounded woman. "Help… me…" She croaks. Ezio assess her injuries. Massive laceration in the abdomen, her left leg is twisted at an unnatural angle, and the wall is cracked behind her from the speed of impact when she was thrown. While he doesn't frequently treat still living people, Ezio can quickly tell it wouldn't be long until she would have appeared in his funeral home.
Still… she was still alive. Ezio puts his hand up to his mouth and lightly bites it while he thinks. What could he even do for her at this point? Even with a full ER and medical team she likely wouldn't make it unless she suddenly was transported there. Maybe it's for the best then? Her blood wouldn't go to waste. Again, he catches himself staring at the steady bleed from her stomach. He realizes that the argument behind him has stopped as the two other vampires stare at him, waiting to see what he does. "Does blood that's from a dead person taste as good as from living people?" He asks to the pair behind him without turning to them.
"No." The answer in unison. Pablo points to the blood on the ground. "You're free to try it if you want."
Despite himself, Ezio puts his fingers to the ground, into a puddle of blood, street muck, and water. It dribbles down his hand as he holds it back up. He gives it a quick lick, then quickly spits it back out. Cold, dirty, utterly unappealing. His stomach churns at the thought of ingesting more than a single lick of that foul mixture. At the edges of his mind, he can hear Victor: Foul blood. You dare sully my taste buds with such unrefined slop? You are a failure to the name Ventrue. He was right, in some way. There was something missing.
He steps over to one of the body, leaning down and ripping its shirt off. Returning to the woman, he ties it quickly around her gaping wound, causing her to scream as he moves her. Pablo and Chase exchange looks. "What are you doing, bud?" Chase asks Ezio. "Even I can see she ain't gonna make it. Get it over with."
"It'll be better this way. It just… I dunno. Feels right to do it this way." Ezio replies.
Pablo sighs. "You got some Ventrue blood in you or something? I've only ever seen those pricks be this particular about their food."
The bandage tightens enough to staunch the bleed. Ezio's hunger, having now spent far too long in the presence of blood and weakened prey to be denied, draws him to the woman's neck. He drinks deeply as her skin becomes pale and pallid. Her blood lacks the punch of the vitae he had become used to, but it is filling. A fast food burger compared to the top sirloin he had now become used to, it hardly compares. By the time he realizes he was comparing the qualities of one blood to another, the woman's life has slipped away in his hands; her final expression is a peaceful smile and gently closed eyes. "Let's keep moving." Pablo and Chase turn away, ready to follow the scent of blood from here, which keeps the pair from seeing that Ezio holds one hand with the other to prevent them from shaking.
Empty booths now occupy the diner. Ashley is on her third cup of coffee and an empty plate where her burger was is till on the table. An hour has passed and it is deep night. The waitresses clears her throat, causing Ashley to look away from the window to see her tap the bill on the table. "Sorry miss, but we're closing soon. Pay up and get going."
Ashley clicks her tongue, pulls out a fifty from her wallet and puts it on the table before walking out. "I don't need change." She says as she exits out into the chill of midnight. About a block away from the diner, pain explodes in her arm as a bullet passes through her shoulder. Silver light glints off of it as it slams into a light post in front of her with a spark. Hissing, she puts a hand up to her shoulder and whips around to face her attacker.
The click of a bolt action rings out as Chase chambers the next bullet. "Looks like you're right Pablo. That would've put down any normal person. She looks like she's ready for more."
"Last fucking mistake, leeches." Ashley says, forcing what little Essence she has left to expand herself into her warform. Her injuries appear more readily here, wounds not yet healed pulling open as blood runs down her arms in stinging rivers.
Ezio steps around the corner just as Ashley's transformation is complete. Her beastly throat gurgles in surprise as she sees him, but Ezio doesn't recognize her in her new shape.
Surging forward, Pablo begins a deadly dance with Ashley, swinging at her with a fire ax. Her movements are sloppy, each dash causing fresh pain in her legs and back and Pablo is more than fast enough to keep up with her and a moment later, the ax finds its head embedded into Ashley's right leg. With a roar, she topples down to the ground, careening into a dumpster.
Ezio folds his arms and watches this unfold. "That's it?" He says to Chase. "You guys talked her up like she was a crazed monster."
From the ground, Ashley howls into the night, the silver mark on her forehead appearing as her anima ignites, pulling the last of her reserves to protect her life. Rage and indignity seems to only feed her prowess as she channels essence directly to her wounds. Grabbing the ax from her leg, embedded down to the bone, she wrenches it free with a gout of blood and bone chips. The skin closes over the area as soon as the weapon is removed. Chase blinks. "That… is that a Lupine, Pablo?! Why is it glowing?!"
Pablo quickly pulls knives out of his pockets. "I don't know, but it's healing like one. Come on, keep shooting!" He runs forward, trying to stab at Ashley but finds that difficult given Ashley's superior reach with both her arms and now the ax in her hands. Another bullet lances forward, embedding into Ashley's other arm with a sick crunch. The wounds on her legs have begun to disappear as the flesh seems to shape itself back into its uninjured form. Kicking forward, Ashley catches Pablo between her foot and the wall of the building next to her. With a tremendous crack, the wall gives way and Pablo is flung somewhere inside.
Replacing him though is Ezio. The principles of martial arts might break down a bit when fighting a ten foot tall monster as a normal sized man, but the playing field is more equal than Ashley expects. Blood surges into Ezio's muscles, bulking his arms and legs to the size of a champion weight lifter. The heel of his palm slams into the bottom of Ashley's chin, rattling her head as he grabs an arm and tosses her over his shoulder and down onto the ground. Laughing, Ezio begins to twist Ashley's arm, causing the tendons in her shoulder to pop and strain.
A gambit, then. Ashley drops out of her warform, returning to her normal human guise in a flurry of flesh reshaping and shrinking. "Ezio, it's Ashley!" She says, the surprise change in shape allowing her to escape Ezio's grasp. Punching forward, she manages to clip Ezio on the chin in his surprise while his guard is down. He steps back, eyes wide.
"No. That means that he's here too." Looking around, now nervous that he had missed something, Ezio sprints off and away from Ashley at the speed of a cruising car.
"Hey! Get back here!" Chase shouts, clicking his tongue as he sees Ezio speed away in a terribly uncoordinated, panicked sprint. "Fuck me." He shifts his aim low and a bullet slams into Ashley's knee, shattering the joint and causing her to tumble to the ground. "Pablo! Get the fuck out of there! We need to regroup! We'll meet in your neighborhood!" With that said, Chase takes advantage of Ashley's temporarily crippled state to make his own escape.
Rolling on the ground in pain, Ashley takes a moment to focus on controlling her breathing with her eyes held tight shut against the agony. A minute later, the pain passes and she gets to her feet. She still glows, but her injuries are but memories except for the blood on her outfit. Not even scars remain. A headache grows in her mind and she stumbles as she tries to walk. It has been a while since she felt, well, just human.
"Are we gonna talk about what happened out there?" Ashley eventually says to Elio, her voice a harsh whisper. Briana's ears prickle as she listens in from a little ways away.
"What's there to talk about, Ash?" Elio says, unconsciously reaching down and rubbing the hasty bandage cover the bloody burn marks in his upper thigh. He already wasn't limping from the injury. "We got the lead."
Ashley roughly punches Elio's arm, shoving him back a step. "You acted like an idiot without giving us any warning. Picked a fight that we didn't need to."
Stepping back, Elio quickly recovers his stance and glares at Ashley. "Look, it worked out, didn't it? I wasn't about to waste time and let this guy get away."
"It almost didn't." She gestures to her legs, where small red dots of blood have bled through to the surface. "I got fuckin' jumped out there and, well, I think I almost ran out of whatever makes us, you know, tick. If there was one more pack of those asshole vampires that showed up…" Her sentence trails off, getting lost somewhere in the tunnels around them.
Briana rubs an eye and sighs before turning to them both. "Ashley, we both know this is about Ezio." She steps over towards Elio. "You gotta get your head together, Elio." Poking his leg, Elio winces. "That burn and hole might fix itself up fast, but how much time are we gonna waste while you both get better?"
"I'm not going to waste any time." Elio says while stepping away from the women, back towards the back exit. "Wounded or not, Ezio can't wait for me to rest up. I'm heading back out there."
Ashley and Briana exchange looks. Stepping forward, Ashley grabs Elio's shoulder. "You really shouldn't do…"
She doesn't even see Elio as his arm flickers forward through the shadows, slamming into her sternum and forcing her back several steps. Her breath suddenly comes in ragged gasps and it takes a moment for her to compose herself. Elio's body is half vanished into the shadow of the hallway, only his eyes glinting in the dark gives form to his face. "Don't. He's my brother and I'll be damned if I let you stop me from helping him."
Coughing, Ashley quickly stands and grits her teeth as Briana rushes forward to put a hand on Ashley's back. "God, are you so stupid that you can't see that you're just gonna get hurt if you don't rest up?" Ashley says between gasps.
"I don't care, Ashley." That hard glint in his eyes remains as he focuses on Ashley. "Just because you abandoned your family a long time ago doesn't mean you can force me to abandon mine."
Briana blinks. "What the fuck are you talking about Elio?"
"You choose your next words carefully." Ashley says, recovered from coughing. Her voice is calm, but she can feel her nails biting into her palm as she balls up her fists.
"Come on." Why is she trying to stop me? "It's obvious." I just need to get her to back off. Hurt her a little bit. "You chose Elizabeth's blood over your family. Up and just left your schooling, your friends, your whole life behind when Elizabeth came calling. They must not have mattered that much to you. Have you even tried to see if they are still alive since you..."
Briana falls to the ground as she is roughly shoved out of the way by Ashley. Heavy footfalls echo down the concrete tunnel as Ashley lunges for Elio's throat with both hands, a blur of blonde hair and fury. He's already vanished by the time she reaches where he was standing. Finding her hands closed around nothing but empty air, Ashley settles for an echoing scream and slamming her fists into the floor, sending web-like cracks across the concrete's surface. "Get back out here! You can't just say that shit and then fucking leave like it's nothing!" Ashley's eyes dart, looking for any motion, anything that might betray Elio's presence nearby, but finds nothing but shelves of cleaning supplies, brooms, and motes of dust dancing in the white lights. Briana starts to step forward before Ashley screams again, "Hypocrite! Come say that shit to my face like you aren't afraid of me!" Her accusations go unanswered.
The feeling of a small hand on her back causes Ashley's head to bob up and look towards Briana. "Uh, I think I know the answer to this, but, you good?" Briana asks.
"No." Ashley says, turning away from Briana again. "No, I'm not fucking good. Did you not hear what he just said?!" Her voice raises.
"Yup, I was definitely there for that very awkward and painful argument, yeah." Briana starts to rub her fingers against each other. "What was he talking about though?"
"He…" No. Don't think about it. "Nothing." Why did he do that? "I just need to go for a walk." Ashley slowly stands and begins to shuffle towards the exit. "Clear my head." She mumbles. It was Elizabeth's fault.
Briana watches Ashley leave, the door slamming shut behind her. She looks around, finding the empty hallway a bit too unnerving to handle. She begins to walk down the hallway, towards better lit rooms further within that might be more comfortable, or at least have a chair to sit and wait in. Pausing at the threshold between the hallway and one of these rooms, she speaks to what looks like empty space. "Elio, if you're still here that was really, really shitty." She closes the door behind her, unsure if her words even reached their target.
"A Lupine?" On his throne of steel and bone, the Night Prince sits forward, placing his elbows onto his knees as he does. "In the city?"
Below him is the vampire that got away, illuminated in a large light on the ceiling that reveals a mouthful of large fangs and what look like scales along his flesh that glitter in the light proper. He nods. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. It killed Roy and Leslie, and I barely escaped."
Across the room, Ezio fiddles with some arcane looking supplies that seem to have been lifted from Red's chantry. Flasks now empty of their fluids and books whose meanings have yet to be fully determined. In his hands is a small etching stylus and bullets with the book in front of him opened to the only ritual that he's managed to parse so far. He shakes his head occasionally, shaking away the whisper of Red's voice that he swears he can hear sometimes while he works. A pile of these modified bullets with red tattoos sits on the table to his right, ready to be loaded into magazines. "Ezio." Ezio's head turns to the right, giving the Night Prince a half glance.
"What?" Ezio grumbles, continuing his work. "This isn't exactly easy, I'd appreciate not being distracted."
"While I appreciate the dedication to the Tremere blood magics, there is a new task that would be good for you to experience." Stepping down from the throne, the Night Prince approaches Ezio and puts a light hand on his cold shoulder. "We've got a mutt problem. I want you to go with Chase here to find Pablo. He's got a good nose for following blood trails." He looks to Chase. "You did wound the beast, right?" Chase nods.
There's a click as Ezio sets down another bullet into the completed pile while grabbing another from nearby yet to be modified. Biting his tongue, he lets a single crimson droplet tumble down to the bullet tip before starting to etch. "Why don't you go take care of it, Night Prince?"
He scoffs. "What is the point of being a Prince if you can't delegate? I have troop morale to keep up, logistics to oversee, and contractors to speak with; all to keep this machine running smoothly. I can't simply leave my home for every tiny issue."
Ezio sighs. "Fine." He hesitates near the Night Prince for a moment after standing. "This… is helping right?"
A smile spreads across the Night Prince's maw. "Ezio, the ammunition you have provided us is pushing us closer and closer to that world we can both see ahead of us. Before you know it this will all be nothing but fond memories."
The smile does not spread to Ezio. "Right. Could I have my phone back?"
The Night Prince's expression does not waver. "What could you want with that?"
"I want to call Sarah, let her know that I'm, well, maybe alright isn't the right word anymore, but at least still alive?"
He's already started to shake his head halfway through Ezio's words. "No. Besides, aren't you afraid you'll hurt her?"
"What?" Ezio looks taken aback. "Why would I ever hurt Sarah?"
"Well, you know," The Night Prince chuckles, seemingly nervously. "in your new stage of life it can be easy to lose control sometimes. Maybe its better that she, and frankly everyone you knew, thinks that you just died in Naperville."
Ezio shakes his head. "No, that's not what would happen." He thinks back to when he first was embraced. The ravenous, unslakable thirst for blood he felt, and can still feel if he lets his guard down. Could he really hurt Sarah? "I won't lose control."
"It's inevitable you will." The Night Prince says, sympathy dripping from his voice. "And when you do, do you really want it to be with someone you love? If she knows you're out there, she'll come looking, and you know who else will come looking too."
"Elio." He says his brother's name slowly. "If Sarah couldn't find me she'd probably go to Elio next."
"And how do you think he'd react to your new status as a vampire?" The Night Prince begins to walk away, back towards his throne. "After all, I'm sure he's done some terrible things to ones before. What if he just sees you as another monster?" He sits on the throne and crosses his legs, one foot falling onto the opposite knee. "Can't you see I have your best interests in mind? It's better if you go quietly into the night and embrace what lays before you instead of taking those you love down with you."
He's right. Or is he right? Ezio's head swims as he tries to cut through his feelings and the words being told to him. Truth, even that of his own feelings, begins to slip away from him. I could just leave. But if I do, then what? I'm still a monster. "Okay." Ezio breaks eye contact with the Night Prince, turning to Chase. "Let's get out of here."
Nodding, Chase begins to leave with Ezio in tow. "Chase." The Night Prince's voice returns to its commanding tone, easily crossing the long length of his chamber. "Visit the armory before you go. I had the arms dealer bring in a few silvered bullets. Collect them and make sure you use them wisely." Once they have left the room, the Night Prince speaks into the dark shadows at his side. "Scar." At his word the fractal patterns adorning a barely human looking figure appear. "Follow Ezio. Ensure that he returns without too much trouble. And watch him closely. He's not fully bought in yet." It nods with a hiss from between sewn together pale lips before sinking back into the dark.
The night is cold while Ashley travels the streets, lost in her mind. She doesn't wear the trappings of her human form, instead choosing to move largely unnoticed as a rabbit. Her wounds still ache from earlier, even if the bleeding has long ceased red, angry cuts line her back, hidden by her fur. Every hop reminds her of the bruises and cuts that the shot gun left behind there. Ashley stops outside of a diner, still operating in the active war zone it has found itself in. Only the tops of people's heads can be seen from Ashley's low vantage point. Her stomach grumbles as she thinks about the last time she ate and she remembers that she has a bit of petty cash in her pockets.
Hopping into an alley, Ashley returns to her human form and enters the diner, sitting down at a booth. Cooking meat can be heard and smelt from the kitchen and the waitress comes to take her order. Before the waitress can leave to get coffee and a hamburger order put in, Ashley stops her. "Why are you still open? Don't you know what's happening out there?"
With a shrug, the waitress puts on a tired smile. "Yeah, but what else are we going to do? I don't exactly have anywhere else to go."
Ashley doesn't respond, settling for looking out the diner window into the night. Eventually her coffee arrives, bitter and black as diner coffee should be. "Nowhere else to go, huh?" She says to herself as she begins to drink.
Ezio and his two companions, Pablo and Chase, move through the streets. Having arrived at the alley where the fight took place, Ezio's eyes go wide. A number of bodies still litter the ground here and the stench of death is thick here, miasma like. He can tell at a glance that most of them are dead and crouching down next to the closest, who is still wearing the remnants of a thick flak jacket, he appears to have been torn apart by a large animal. Rib cage pulled open, skin flayed by claws… blood everywhere. Ezio's eyes linger a little too long on the stale blood on the ground, pushing down the hunger. "What was the word that the Night Prince used? Lupines?" He asks to Chase after finally wrenching his eyes from the corpse.
"Yeah, lupine. A fucking werewolf. They normally stay out in the hills, but this one has different ideas, eh?" He replies, picking up an SMG from one of the helmeted guards. Frowning, he looks at the helmet. "This don't look like claw wounds though. Someone slit this guys throat." Chase rubs his chin. "Hey Pablo, ain't this one of the guys that the arms dealer gave us? I remember him upselling us on their services. Best of the best my ass."
Pablo, a stocky vampire with wide eyes, stoops down next to another body. "Yeah, this is 'em." His eyes scan across the bodies sprawled down the length of the alley. "Couple guns missing. Locals probably nabbed 'em." Pablo points at a couple of bodies slumped up against the walls. "Though we got some live ones still."
Chase smirks. "Good, I could use a bit of a snack." He stands and starts moving towards a body that is still shallowly breathing.
"Hey." Ezio says, catching up. "What if she knows something." The scent of blood is overpowering as he gets closer. "Shouldn't we see what she knows?"
"Buddy." He snaps his fingers in front of Ezio's face. "I'm over here. You're staring at the blood bag." Blinking, Ezio realizes he was staring at her. Frowning, Chase folds his arms. "When was the last time you fed?"
Red was a few days ago now. He kept having to give up blood to make the bullets and from when he was experimenting with his own prowess he kept feeling that reserve fall away. Not to mention the insidious small drain of blood that sustains his existence. "It's been a few days, but I've been busy, I guess." He mumbles.
"What is this?" Pablo says, tapping his foot. "The Night Prince gave us a fledgling who was already half empty before going to hunt a fucking lupine? No, this won't do." He points to the woman, who is struggling to open her eyes at the sound of voices nearby her. "I already fed tonight and Chase is a fucking over-feeder who doesn't need to glut himself at every opportunity."
"What the hell man? Where's this coming from?" Chase squares up with Pablo.
Pablo taps a finger into the middle of Chase's chest. "Don't tell me you weren't the one sneaking into my neighborhood. I got you on goddamn camera chewing on one of my cousins."
While the pair bicker, their argument falls into the background. Ezio stares down at the wounded woman. "Help… me…" She croaks. Ezio assess her injuries. Massive laceration in the abdomen, her left leg is twisted at an unnatural angle, and the wall is cracked behind her from the speed of impact when she was thrown. While he doesn't frequently treat still living people, Ezio can quickly tell it wouldn't be long until she would have appeared in his funeral home.
Still… she was still alive. Ezio puts his hand up to his mouth and lightly bites it while he thinks. What could he even do for her at this point? Even with a full ER and medical team she likely wouldn't make it unless she suddenly was transported there. Maybe it's for the best then? Her blood wouldn't go to waste. Again, he catches himself staring at the steady bleed from her stomach. He realizes that the argument behind him has stopped as the two other vampires stare at him, waiting to see what he does. "Does blood that's from a dead person taste as good as from living people?" He asks to the pair behind him without turning to them.
"No." The answer in unison. Pablo points to the blood on the ground. "You're free to try it if you want."
Despite himself, Ezio puts his fingers to the ground, into a puddle of blood, street muck, and water. It dribbles down his hand as he holds it back up. He gives it a quick lick, then quickly spits it back out. Cold, dirty, utterly unappealing. His stomach churns at the thought of ingesting more than a single lick of that foul mixture. At the edges of his mind, he can hear Victor: Foul blood. You dare sully my taste buds with such unrefined slop? You are a failure to the name Ventrue. He was right, in some way. There was something missing.
He steps over to one of the body, leaning down and ripping its shirt off. Returning to the woman, he ties it quickly around her gaping wound, causing her to scream as he moves her. Pablo and Chase exchange looks. "What are you doing, bud?" Chase asks Ezio. "Even I can see she ain't gonna make it. Get it over with."
"It'll be better this way. It just… I dunno. Feels right to do it this way." Ezio replies.
Pablo sighs. "You got some Ventrue blood in you or something? I've only ever seen those pricks be this particular about their food."
The bandage tightens enough to staunch the bleed. Ezio's hunger, having now spent far too long in the presence of blood and weakened prey to be denied, draws him to the woman's neck. He drinks deeply as her skin becomes pale and pallid. Her blood lacks the punch of the vitae he had become used to, but it is filling. A fast food burger compared to the top sirloin he had now become used to, it hardly compares. By the time he realizes he was comparing the qualities of one blood to another, the woman's life has slipped away in his hands; her final expression is a peaceful smile and gently closed eyes. "Let's keep moving." Pablo and Chase turn away, ready to follow the scent of blood from here, which keeps the pair from seeing that Ezio holds one hand with the other to prevent them from shaking.
Empty booths now occupy the diner. Ashley is on her third cup of coffee and an empty plate where her burger was is till on the table. An hour has passed and it is deep night. The waitresses clears her throat, causing Ashley to look away from the window to see her tap the bill on the table. "Sorry miss, but we're closing soon. Pay up and get going."
Ashley clicks her tongue, pulls out a fifty from her wallet and puts it on the table before walking out. "I don't need change." She says as she exits out into the chill of midnight. About a block away from the diner, pain explodes in her arm as a bullet passes through her shoulder. Silver light glints off of it as it slams into a light post in front of her with a spark. Hissing, she puts a hand up to her shoulder and whips around to face her attacker.
The click of a bolt action rings out as Chase chambers the next bullet. "Looks like you're right Pablo. That would've put down any normal person. She looks like she's ready for more."
"Last fucking mistake, leeches." Ashley says, forcing what little Essence she has left to expand herself into her warform. Her injuries appear more readily here, wounds not yet healed pulling open as blood runs down her arms in stinging rivers.
Ezio steps around the corner just as Ashley's transformation is complete. Her beastly throat gurgles in surprise as she sees him, but Ezio doesn't recognize her in her new shape.
Surging forward, Pablo begins a deadly dance with Ashley, swinging at her with a fire ax. Her movements are sloppy, each dash causing fresh pain in her legs and back and Pablo is more than fast enough to keep up with her and a moment later, the ax finds its head embedded into Ashley's right leg. With a roar, she topples down to the ground, careening into a dumpster.
Ezio folds his arms and watches this unfold. "That's it?" He says to Chase. "You guys talked her up like she was a crazed monster."
From the ground, Ashley howls into the night, the silver mark on her forehead appearing as her anima ignites, pulling the last of her reserves to protect her life. Rage and indignity seems to only feed her prowess as she channels essence directly to her wounds. Grabbing the ax from her leg, embedded down to the bone, she wrenches it free with a gout of blood and bone chips. The skin closes over the area as soon as the weapon is removed. Chase blinks. "That… is that a Lupine, Pablo?! Why is it glowing?!"
Pablo quickly pulls knives out of his pockets. "I don't know, but it's healing like one. Come on, keep shooting!" He runs forward, trying to stab at Ashley but finds that difficult given Ashley's superior reach with both her arms and now the ax in her hands. Another bullet lances forward, embedding into Ashley's other arm with a sick crunch. The wounds on her legs have begun to disappear as the flesh seems to shape itself back into its uninjured form. Kicking forward, Ashley catches Pablo between her foot and the wall of the building next to her. With a tremendous crack, the wall gives way and Pablo is flung somewhere inside.
Replacing him though is Ezio. The principles of martial arts might break down a bit when fighting a ten foot tall monster as a normal sized man, but the playing field is more equal than Ashley expects. Blood surges into Ezio's muscles, bulking his arms and legs to the size of a champion weight lifter. The heel of his palm slams into the bottom of Ashley's chin, rattling her head as he grabs an arm and tosses her over his shoulder and down onto the ground. Laughing, Ezio begins to twist Ashley's arm, causing the tendons in her shoulder to pop and strain.
A gambit, then. Ashley drops out of her warform, returning to her normal human guise in a flurry of flesh reshaping and shrinking. "Ezio, it's Ashley!" She says, the surprise change in shape allowing her to escape Ezio's grasp. Punching forward, she manages to clip Ezio on the chin in his surprise while his guard is down. He steps back, eyes wide.
"No. That means that he's here too." Looking around, now nervous that he had missed something, Ezio sprints off and away from Ashley at the speed of a cruising car.
"Hey! Get back here!" Chase shouts, clicking his tongue as he sees Ezio speed away in a terribly uncoordinated, panicked sprint. "Fuck me." He shifts his aim low and a bullet slams into Ashley's knee, shattering the joint and causing her to tumble to the ground. "Pablo! Get the fuck out of there! We need to regroup! We'll meet in your neighborhood!" With that said, Chase takes advantage of Ashley's temporarily crippled state to make his own escape.
Rolling on the ground in pain, Ashley takes a moment to focus on controlling her breathing with her eyes held tight shut against the agony. A minute later, the pain passes and she gets to her feet. She still glows, but her injuries are but memories except for the blood on her outfit. Not even scars remain. A headache grows in her mind and she stumbles as she tries to walk. It has been a while since she felt, well, just human.
Scene 33 - A Glimmer, Part 3
Smacking his lips together, the Night Prince can still feel the infernal dryness that Red had inflicted on him during their struggle. A persistent headache spreads through the front of his head and he closes his eyes and slouches ever so slightly on his throne, his blood spattered robes catching on some of the rougher spots of bone that could use some sanding. Around him, he can still hear the movement of his followers. Most of them wouldn't even dare to look upon him, afraid of his seeming mastery of Dominance. Certainly they wouldn't notice a small moment of rest, would they? He stifles a yawn to maintain his perfect foreboding image. Even a champion of Cain must rest from time to time.
Under his feet, he can feel the sandy loam of where he came from, in a small cell, awaiting the start of the trial. The air is thick with the smoke of two pyres that burn beyond the metal gate that keeps him contained. Other than the crackle of burning vegetation and of bubbling and boiling fat from these fires, it's quiet. He's dressed in a simple robe tied around his waist, revealing a scrawny upper body with a number of scars lining his arms and torso. His master had left him quite a few presents to remember her by. From outside, he can hear the crowd begin to stir. The Trial of Cain must be beginning.
"Tonight," Even in dreaming, the voice of his once master feels smooth and pleasing to the ear. "we welcome a new blade to the Sword of Cain. Either Samuel or his brother Jonathan will join us on our crusade."
His once name rings hollow in his ears. The spot inside him where who he once was is empty, eaten by something he doesn't understand.
The arena beyond his holding cage remains quiet. No cheers, no howls, just the quiet of a room full of predators holding their breath in anticipation. He remembers the panic in his throat, the not understanding. Both he and his brother had served loyally for so long, promised to one day be embraced. Both of them. No one was allowed to discuss the Trial of Cain and what it entailed. He had assumed incorrectly that it was a symbolic rite. Unfortunately, it proved to be far more literal.
With a crack and a creak, the gate in front of him falls to the sandy floor. Two pyres burning what remains of a sheep and the other a pile of charred plant matter. The thick plume of smoke that fills the enclosed space of a long forgotten warehouse catches in his throat and he sputters and spits. Across the room, he can see his brother. Same face and build, more fair skinned and a bit broader than him. For a moment, they lock eyes through the smog before both glance at the center of the arena where a chunk of blood stained granite lays half buried in the sand and gravel.
And they both hesitate, looking up into the stand of faceless thin-bloods and the sires that had worked to cultivate the multitudes of thin-blooded Kindred for their crusade. He and his brother were just the next in the line of this war they knew little of. Their eyes fall upon their master, up on her throne of rust and bone in the office space of the warehouse where she smiles down on both of them. "What are you waiting for?" Her voice carries to both of them, piercing the utter silence. "Only one of you may possess the blood of Cain. Choose with your blood, sweat, and tears who that will be. Only one of you will walk out of this chapter house."
Both of them are little more than slaves to the blood bond. Once, they shared their meals, had escaped torment from their family until they found a new one among this cult. They run forward and he grabs the rock, sand scattering forward. His brother throws the first punch, crossing across his body and into his jaw. He can still taste the blood on his tongue, feel the screams from the rock in his hand that echo out from the dozens, if not hundreds, of lives it must have taken.
Thankfully, the murder is short. He clubs his brother across the temple with the rock and he tumbles to the ground, landing at the foot of the pyre that still burns with the sweet smoke of fruit. In a struggle, hold nothing back. His master had taught him that it was one of the groups philosophies and he would use it well. Straddling the waist of his brother, the newly blooded rock glints in the firelight as he holds it over head. Slowly, the kindred that surround him begin to chant. Each new blow to the head brings a new verse. Some excerpt from the Book of Nod, no doubt. He couldn't remember it, his entire focus is on his brother and of the feeling of blood splattering onto his skin. After four blows to the head with the heavy rock, his brother goes still.
There is a thud behind him. The Night Prince feels the burning in his arms, the burning in his soul, in his mind of the tremendous loss he had inflicted on himself through his actions. Even when not dreaming, it still burns him. His master tosses another Kindred near him. An older looking Kindred who hisses and rushes to their feet, but makes the mistake of making eye contact with his master. "Embrace him." She says. In a contest of wills, none had ever overcome her ability. The man shakes, but slowly moves forward, towards him.
He grasps the throat of the Night Prince and the Kindred whispers in his ear, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Kine." and he bites, the pleasant feeling of the kiss flowing over him. But once the light fades from the Night Prince's eyes, he awakens elsewhere.
Looking around, he finds himself in the tub of a lavish bathhouse. Ornate tiles of ivory and onyx are fitted to the floor and the interior of the tub is sticky with an amber residue clinging to whatever it touches. The proportions are wrong for someone like him, though. Steps far larger than he could reasonably make even at a jump lead to each of these basins. Light trickles in from the edges of his vision, ringing his sight in darkness. It feels as though if he moved too fast the light would struggle to keep up with his view. There are no shadows cast against the dusty floor when he raises his hand against the uncomfortable brightness. Massive soaking tubs, like the one he finds himself in, dusty and empty, are tinted amber along their interiors and are built into the walls of this place.
As his eyes flit around the room, an entity uncomfortably close draws his attention. From within his own tub, splayed across the other side, rests a presence. Too large to fit at the other end of the tub, the creature lies hunched and curled, limbs bent at impossible angles. It looks as though someone whispered a description of a human across the room to a sculptor, who then made a massive wax and clay statue from those words. Neck far too long, eyes glazed over and unblinking, the flesh of its soft tissues has the appearance of dull gray wax left before the fire, skin dripping down its sides, yet evoking a strength enough to bend steel. It pools around his feet, melting silently down the drain between his legs. Splayed against the back of the tub, it is impossibly difficult to tell if it is sleeping, watching you, or dead.
The silence grows around him like questing feelers, the heavy weight of another conscience enveloping him as if pulled beneath the surface of a vast ocean. The thing's head snaps towards him, its neck cracking and snapping like a thousand machines grinding to life after an impossible rest. It moves like a wind-up toy whose spring is about to lose tension, randomly both jilting and smooth, every movement producing noises comparable to its initial awakening. When its jaw drops, he briefly sees something move further in and out of sight. A low droning begins and he feels something ethereal rattle within, the sensation beyond his mortal senses, resonating with his primal instincts, evoking childhood memories of being scared of the dark, the deep black sea, and the thing hungry beneath your bed. Its mouth does not move as the droning sensation changes in quality, eventually becoming words, each syllable still hauntingly eerie in cadence and emphasis. He isn't even sure if these are words, or just the closest his mind can approximate.
you are falling away. about to be nothing. there is much to be yet done.
The voice is familiar, for it is his voice. Every stress fracture and quiver in its tone a perfect mirror of his voice in his most terrified moments. Each intonation and quirk of speech perfectly replicated.
He finally finds his voice, though it sounds distant and almost fake, somehow. Even in dreaming and remembrance, this place has a feeling to it, different from the normal feeling of dreaming, as though he was here once more. "Are you Cain?"
yes. this is everything, given time. all will join this in annihilation. an end to the dream.
"Then you will grant me power?" The Night Prince asks.
enough power to drive the world over and into the waiting maw of nothing. nothing without price. you will allow this to consume who you once were. your name and story will be reduced to ash. abide your name no more and embrace extinction.
Around him, darkness gathers. The waxy substance around his feet starts to climb his legs. "My name is yours. My past…" He thinks of his brother, the catalyst to his new heights, "is yours." On his brow, an abyssal circle appears, beginning to bleed. Blood runs down his forehead and into his eyes as the wax covers his torso. Some weight is slowly being stripped away from him as his soul is shaved down to accommodate the Void seeping in.
return to the waking world. allies will find you. tame those who hold an ounce of your strength and put out the eyes of creation.
The waxy flesh of this creature covers his mouth, nose, and then eyes and The Night Prince returns to where he was in the arena. Dead in the arms of the Kindred as the black flames of the void envelop the body in his hands.
As the lights flicker near him, the Kindred drops him in surprise as he steps back from the aura. The Night Prince, rises to his feet, dusting the sand from his arms and legs. His master stands nearby, but the blood bond that had kept him tethered has been shattered. She smiles and points to the Kindred, now being held by several other vampires and forced to his knees. "Now drink him." There is uncertainty in her eyes though and he can read her like a book. This hasn't gone as she expected. Glancing around him, he sees the same uncertainty in the rest of the flock as well. An unexpected event has occurred.
Stepping forward, he pushes several of the Kindred out of the way with such ease that it catches The Night Prince off guard as well. Grabbing the Kindred by the throat as he had just done to the Night Prince moments before, he bites out the vampire's throat. The blood runs down his chin and chest, some going into his mouth. Tasting it, he frowns. While it certainly was filling, he could feel some unruly power surging into not his muscles but something deep within him, it wasn't the euphoria that he had heard the other speak about when they fed on Kindred vitae.
"Welcome to the fold, brother." His once master steps forward, offering him a towel as the Night Prince pushes over the now still body of the Kindred who tried to embrace him. "Now kneel and partake in Vinculum." A vessel containing the blood of who knows how many vampires is passed towards him.
Once it's passed to him by one of 'brothers' he slams the bottom of the dish, sending the blood spiraling down to the sand below. The dish lands near his brother's dead body. "I am the Night Prince." He declares, to the gathered surprised gasps and chuckles of the surrounding Kindred.
She laughs loudly. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves." There was that uncertainty again. "Maybe a few days in torpor would help get your head on straight." She doesn't get another sentence. The Night Prince may not be the most adept at close combat, but the unholy might that burns in his soul more than evens that playing field. His fist flies through the side of her head, detonating it like a watermelon. In his sleep he smiles, he still remembers the feeling of bone giving way under his hand, the stares of those around him. Turning, his anima reaches out with two large hands in the darkness to extinguish the pyres. Scar and Needles having found their way through the underworld to his side at the behest of what is dead far below, they step through the Veil as the fires go out. With a wide smile, he bellows, "Kneel and rejoice, thin-blooded! For our crusade begins now! The true champion of Cain has arrived and the Sword of Cain falls where it pleases."
Once the crowd had left, The Night Prince is alone once more with the body of his brother. Not able to bring himself to look at the damaged remains of his head, the Night Prince turns the body over. "I'll make sure to live twice as much. For both of us." He says quietly before picking up his brother's body to bury it.
Breathing in suddenly, the Night Prince awakens on his throne. Glancing at his watch, he had managed to sleep a few hours. Better than usual for him. He clears his throat and rubs his eyes. For all his power, he still had difficulties escaping that dream of the past.
"Night Prince?" A woman's soft voice speaks up somewhere to his left. "The Arms Dealer is here. I tried to delay him a while while you were…" she tries to find a polite word and the Night Prince waves her off.
"I was napping, Dahlia. You don't have to pretend I wasn't." He says with a mirthless chuckle. Standing, he straightens his robes, the bottoms the same from his dream and still stained with blood not his own. "Any word from Chase or Ezio?" The Night Prince asks as he steps down the stairs to his seat.
Dahlia fidgets with her glasses. "Chase called. Said Ezio took off after they ran into the dog. He's trying to track him down."
Frowning, the Night Prince folds his arms. "Not what I wanted to hear. But that should be fine. Let them be for now. If they haven't checked in within two more hours, send out a thin-blood squad to start searching. Can't have them burning in the light." Dahlia nods.
The Night Prince stalks down a hallway, his headache returning as he considers the next steps. Emerging a minute later into a neatly put together conference room, a man in a brown leather duster and sunglasses reclines in an office chair at the far end of a long oval desk. His boots are on the desk and he holds the back of his head in his hands. As the Night Prince enters in, the Arms Dealer peeks over his glasses, revealing dark hazel eyes. "Ey, look who decided to grace me with their presence. Not like I have a dozen other clients to keep up with, you know?"
Sweeping over to the chair at the opposite end of the table, the Night Prince coldly regards the man. Even watching carefully this was one of the few people that he could just not get a good read on. "Why do you even need other clients? You work for just us and we'd keep you afloat for a century."
"Tempting, tempting." The Arms Dealer weighs the words, pretending to consider them. "But there's a lot of weirdos like you out there that need semi-regular shipments of military hardware. Why leave money on the table for one of my competitors?"
"If it's money that is what you're after, we just got some new resources that will be of some value to the right people. Once we have established Chicago as the safe haven of thin blooded everywhere, we'd be able to hire you full time. All stock bought all the time, long as your suppliers hold on." The Night Prince's probes, looking for something to lever.
The Arms Dealer licks his teeth and sniffs. "Look man. You could pay my rent for a century and I'd keep up my hustles. You think you're big time, and don't get me wrong, you are. But there's a lot of big timers out there working towards a, uh, bigger goal together, you feel me?"
He scoffs. "What are you talking about? I'm not working together with anyone else." The Night Prince leans onto the table. "I'm out here killing Camarilla elders and striking fear into those fucking old guard that have held back the…"
"The thin blooded from the full vampire experience. Yeah, yeah, heard it a dozen times." The Arms Dealer interrupts. "You got a good thing going here. And I'm not working with your enemies, scout's honor. But you ain't getting me to work just for you, okay? Just take the rifles and body armor I'm getting to you, pay what you owe me, and we're good." He scoffs, looking over his glasses and sitting up while pointing to a piece of paper on the desk, some sort of ledger or work order form. "Also, a tank? You fuckin' kidding me man? I can't get you a tank on a schedule like weeks. Give me a half a year and maybe we can talk."
Folding his arms, The Night Prince pouts. "And here I thought you were the best in the business."
"And here I was thinking I was working with someone who's understanding of arms dealing didn't start and end with Grand Theft Auto. You're lucky I was able to get you a couple of live RPGs and that was already a nightmare." He cackles. "And now you want me to get a vehicle the size of a small house into Chicago without someone noticing. A couple of rifles and shells can fall off the humvee for the right price, but tanks don't just go missing without a lot of work. What are you even gonna do with that thing if you got it?"
"Best to have back up plans. Apparently the military is being scrambled to head out here, after all. Shouldn't get caught with my pants down, after all we're going to have to fight them back." The Night Prince smiles.
"And that's another thing." The Arms Dealer slaps the table. "You've done pretty good for someone without proper war-training, but do you think you're gonna stand up to the generals of the US and their vampire masters who have probably fought more campaigns than both of our years put together?"
"I'm not paying you for opinions on my tactics." The Night Price waves and rolls his eyes. "Please keep your judgments to yourself."
With a thud, the Arms Dealer stands up, grabbing the paper. "My payment will be in the usual account, right?" The Night Prince nods. Stepping towards the door, the Arms Dealer pauses at the threshold. "Not to pry, but what did you see when you, well, you know, died?" From on his brow, a half filled circle, ringed in black and blood, appears.
"Something in the dark." The Night Prince says while a full circle of black rears its head on his brow. "It was cold, and I can still feel it looking at me even now." He sighs. "I choose to believe it was Cain himself. But I can't tell for sure."
"Yeah." The Arms Dealer nods. "Neither could I." He clears his throat. "I'll be back next month with the usual and I'll see what I can do about your tank. You might need it." He slaps the Night Prince on the shoulder and finds his body to be like granite, unshakable.
The Night Prince waits until he can hear The Arms Dealer's footsteps fade away. "Dahlia?" He says, loudly enough for his voice to carry down the hall to his assistant, who scurries down the hall and to his side. "I need an update on the research from Red's lab. Any progress?"
She nods quickly, digging through a folder of papers. "Yes, right. Uh, looks like something about a prophesy and maybe a lead on one of the Tremere methuselahs. Red and her kids were digging into the history of Lake Michigan and found some sort of magic seal, their words, that was locking up an ancient chantry house that's been lost for a long time. Old readings of a 5th or 4th generation Tremere who was the first to cross the Atlantic to America. Something about needing a key that was buried over in what is now Galena."
"Buried in Galena?" The Night Prince quirks an eyebrow as he looks around the bunker he's been occupying. Victor said something about digging in Galena when I interrogated him. He stands quickly. "I'll be going back over the personal areas here in the bunker. Look into finding out where Victor was set up in Galena." He directs Dahlia, who nods and quickly moves away. Looks like our friend Victor was just another pawn in another scheme. I'll need to question Ezio further about this.
Scourge Yasir sits silently in the backrooms of the police hideout, attended to by Captain Sheila. In front of him is a number of reports that he is peering over from behind his gas mask. Eventually he nods. "So. This massacre that took place behind the hardware store. Any idea who did that? It wasn't any of my children or ghouls nor the police to my knowledge."
Sheila nods. "We believe that there may be a lupine somewhere in the area, based on a couple of the injuries. They don't all line up, but it makes the most sense."
"Likely wasn't any of the Prince's goons." Yasir contemplates for a moment. "The Sheriff is still out of commission, so unlikely them. Could have possibly been one of Red's allies, revenge and all that. Camera footage?" Sheila is already shaking her head.
"For some reason the footage that we tried to recover from the servers in the store are all fried. No signs of foul play, but it is unusual."
"So Lupine is the most likely. They famously hate technology and have odd powers that can cause them to malfunction." He stands up, back cracking loudly as he does. "Put out a notice to the police that a wild animal has been sighted. Call it a bear or something like that. Any sightings of predatory animals need to be reported." Sheila nods. "Also, you're getting some backup. Now that Red has met her fate, the rest of the Primogen are quite… upset. Half of them have decided to reinforce their own holdings but the other half have called in a few favors to get their clan mates here. Expect your night patrols to be more effective in about a few days' time." He sighs. "And the Prince is doing whatever he can to delay the military arriving. But there is only so much he can do with the rest of the Camarilla starting to notice. Expect them within the month."
Standing wordlessly for a moment, Sheila appears to be choosing her words. "Master, if I can ask a question, what's the end game here? Why don't we just let the military mop this up? Let someone else waste their time fighting this guerrilla bullshit. We aren't trained or equipped well enough to fight something like this."
"This is likely Sabbat activity." He says simply. "It's the responsibility of all clans to ensure the Masquerade is upheld. If we don't try and stop it, it's likely we'll all be replaced, permanently, with those deemed more capable by the higher ups." Stepping towards the door, Yasir quickly begins to fade into the shadows of the still bustling station as his Obfuscate takes effect. "I have my own responsibilities to attend to. Ensure my will is done, Sheila."
Once out on the streets, he opens the ports of the gas mask and breathes in the night air, tasting the traces of blood on the wind. On his back is a crossbow and at his hip a saber. The thin-blooded won't thin themselves, after all.
Under his feet, he can feel the sandy loam of where he came from, in a small cell, awaiting the start of the trial. The air is thick with the smoke of two pyres that burn beyond the metal gate that keeps him contained. Other than the crackle of burning vegetation and of bubbling and boiling fat from these fires, it's quiet. He's dressed in a simple robe tied around his waist, revealing a scrawny upper body with a number of scars lining his arms and torso. His master had left him quite a few presents to remember her by. From outside, he can hear the crowd begin to stir. The Trial of Cain must be beginning.
"Tonight," Even in dreaming, the voice of his once master feels smooth and pleasing to the ear. "we welcome a new blade to the Sword of Cain. Either Samuel or his brother Jonathan will join us on our crusade."
His once name rings hollow in his ears. The spot inside him where who he once was is empty, eaten by something he doesn't understand.
The arena beyond his holding cage remains quiet. No cheers, no howls, just the quiet of a room full of predators holding their breath in anticipation. He remembers the panic in his throat, the not understanding. Both he and his brother had served loyally for so long, promised to one day be embraced. Both of them. No one was allowed to discuss the Trial of Cain and what it entailed. He had assumed incorrectly that it was a symbolic rite. Unfortunately, it proved to be far more literal.
With a crack and a creak, the gate in front of him falls to the sandy floor. Two pyres burning what remains of a sheep and the other a pile of charred plant matter. The thick plume of smoke that fills the enclosed space of a long forgotten warehouse catches in his throat and he sputters and spits. Across the room, he can see his brother. Same face and build, more fair skinned and a bit broader than him. For a moment, they lock eyes through the smog before both glance at the center of the arena where a chunk of blood stained granite lays half buried in the sand and gravel.
And they both hesitate, looking up into the stand of faceless thin-bloods and the sires that had worked to cultivate the multitudes of thin-blooded Kindred for their crusade. He and his brother were just the next in the line of this war they knew little of. Their eyes fall upon their master, up on her throne of rust and bone in the office space of the warehouse where she smiles down on both of them. "What are you waiting for?" Her voice carries to both of them, piercing the utter silence. "Only one of you may possess the blood of Cain. Choose with your blood, sweat, and tears who that will be. Only one of you will walk out of this chapter house."
Both of them are little more than slaves to the blood bond. Once, they shared their meals, had escaped torment from their family until they found a new one among this cult. They run forward and he grabs the rock, sand scattering forward. His brother throws the first punch, crossing across his body and into his jaw. He can still taste the blood on his tongue, feel the screams from the rock in his hand that echo out from the dozens, if not hundreds, of lives it must have taken.
Thankfully, the murder is short. He clubs his brother across the temple with the rock and he tumbles to the ground, landing at the foot of the pyre that still burns with the sweet smoke of fruit. In a struggle, hold nothing back. His master had taught him that it was one of the groups philosophies and he would use it well. Straddling the waist of his brother, the newly blooded rock glints in the firelight as he holds it over head. Slowly, the kindred that surround him begin to chant. Each new blow to the head brings a new verse. Some excerpt from the Book of Nod, no doubt. He couldn't remember it, his entire focus is on his brother and of the feeling of blood splattering onto his skin. After four blows to the head with the heavy rock, his brother goes still.
There is a thud behind him. The Night Prince feels the burning in his arms, the burning in his soul, in his mind of the tremendous loss he had inflicted on himself through his actions. Even when not dreaming, it still burns him. His master tosses another Kindred near him. An older looking Kindred who hisses and rushes to their feet, but makes the mistake of making eye contact with his master. "Embrace him." She says. In a contest of wills, none had ever overcome her ability. The man shakes, but slowly moves forward, towards him.
He grasps the throat of the Night Prince and the Kindred whispers in his ear, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Kine." and he bites, the pleasant feeling of the kiss flowing over him. But once the light fades from the Night Prince's eyes, he awakens elsewhere.
Looking around, he finds himself in the tub of a lavish bathhouse. Ornate tiles of ivory and onyx are fitted to the floor and the interior of the tub is sticky with an amber residue clinging to whatever it touches. The proportions are wrong for someone like him, though. Steps far larger than he could reasonably make even at a jump lead to each of these basins. Light trickles in from the edges of his vision, ringing his sight in darkness. It feels as though if he moved too fast the light would struggle to keep up with his view. There are no shadows cast against the dusty floor when he raises his hand against the uncomfortable brightness. Massive soaking tubs, like the one he finds himself in, dusty and empty, are tinted amber along their interiors and are built into the walls of this place.
As his eyes flit around the room, an entity uncomfortably close draws his attention. From within his own tub, splayed across the other side, rests a presence. Too large to fit at the other end of the tub, the creature lies hunched and curled, limbs bent at impossible angles. It looks as though someone whispered a description of a human across the room to a sculptor, who then made a massive wax and clay statue from those words. Neck far too long, eyes glazed over and unblinking, the flesh of its soft tissues has the appearance of dull gray wax left before the fire, skin dripping down its sides, yet evoking a strength enough to bend steel. It pools around his feet, melting silently down the drain between his legs. Splayed against the back of the tub, it is impossibly difficult to tell if it is sleeping, watching you, or dead.
The silence grows around him like questing feelers, the heavy weight of another conscience enveloping him as if pulled beneath the surface of a vast ocean. The thing's head snaps towards him, its neck cracking and snapping like a thousand machines grinding to life after an impossible rest. It moves like a wind-up toy whose spring is about to lose tension, randomly both jilting and smooth, every movement producing noises comparable to its initial awakening. When its jaw drops, he briefly sees something move further in and out of sight. A low droning begins and he feels something ethereal rattle within, the sensation beyond his mortal senses, resonating with his primal instincts, evoking childhood memories of being scared of the dark, the deep black sea, and the thing hungry beneath your bed. Its mouth does not move as the droning sensation changes in quality, eventually becoming words, each syllable still hauntingly eerie in cadence and emphasis. He isn't even sure if these are words, or just the closest his mind can approximate.
you are falling away. about to be nothing. there is much to be yet done.
The voice is familiar, for it is his voice. Every stress fracture and quiver in its tone a perfect mirror of his voice in his most terrified moments. Each intonation and quirk of speech perfectly replicated.
He finally finds his voice, though it sounds distant and almost fake, somehow. Even in dreaming and remembrance, this place has a feeling to it, different from the normal feeling of dreaming, as though he was here once more. "Are you Cain?"
yes. this is everything, given time. all will join this in annihilation. an end to the dream.
"Then you will grant me power?" The Night Prince asks.
enough power to drive the world over and into the waiting maw of nothing. nothing without price. you will allow this to consume who you once were. your name and story will be reduced to ash. abide your name no more and embrace extinction.
Around him, darkness gathers. The waxy substance around his feet starts to climb his legs. "My name is yours. My past…" He thinks of his brother, the catalyst to his new heights, "is yours." On his brow, an abyssal circle appears, beginning to bleed. Blood runs down his forehead and into his eyes as the wax covers his torso. Some weight is slowly being stripped away from him as his soul is shaved down to accommodate the Void seeping in.
return to the waking world. allies will find you. tame those who hold an ounce of your strength and put out the eyes of creation.
The waxy flesh of this creature covers his mouth, nose, and then eyes and The Night Prince returns to where he was in the arena. Dead in the arms of the Kindred as the black flames of the void envelop the body in his hands.
As the lights flicker near him, the Kindred drops him in surprise as he steps back from the aura. The Night Prince, rises to his feet, dusting the sand from his arms and legs. His master stands nearby, but the blood bond that had kept him tethered has been shattered. She smiles and points to the Kindred, now being held by several other vampires and forced to his knees. "Now drink him." There is uncertainty in her eyes though and he can read her like a book. This hasn't gone as she expected. Glancing around him, he sees the same uncertainty in the rest of the flock as well. An unexpected event has occurred.
Stepping forward, he pushes several of the Kindred out of the way with such ease that it catches The Night Prince off guard as well. Grabbing the Kindred by the throat as he had just done to the Night Prince moments before, he bites out the vampire's throat. The blood runs down his chin and chest, some going into his mouth. Tasting it, he frowns. While it certainly was filling, he could feel some unruly power surging into not his muscles but something deep within him, it wasn't the euphoria that he had heard the other speak about when they fed on Kindred vitae.
"Welcome to the fold, brother." His once master steps forward, offering him a towel as the Night Prince pushes over the now still body of the Kindred who tried to embrace him. "Now kneel and partake in Vinculum." A vessel containing the blood of who knows how many vampires is passed towards him.
Once it's passed to him by one of 'brothers' he slams the bottom of the dish, sending the blood spiraling down to the sand below. The dish lands near his brother's dead body. "I am the Night Prince." He declares, to the gathered surprised gasps and chuckles of the surrounding Kindred.
She laughs loudly. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves." There was that uncertainty again. "Maybe a few days in torpor would help get your head on straight." She doesn't get another sentence. The Night Prince may not be the most adept at close combat, but the unholy might that burns in his soul more than evens that playing field. His fist flies through the side of her head, detonating it like a watermelon. In his sleep he smiles, he still remembers the feeling of bone giving way under his hand, the stares of those around him. Turning, his anima reaches out with two large hands in the darkness to extinguish the pyres. Scar and Needles having found their way through the underworld to his side at the behest of what is dead far below, they step through the Veil as the fires go out. With a wide smile, he bellows, "Kneel and rejoice, thin-blooded! For our crusade begins now! The true champion of Cain has arrived and the Sword of Cain falls where it pleases."
Once the crowd had left, The Night Prince is alone once more with the body of his brother. Not able to bring himself to look at the damaged remains of his head, the Night Prince turns the body over. "I'll make sure to live twice as much. For both of us." He says quietly before picking up his brother's body to bury it.
Breathing in suddenly, the Night Prince awakens on his throne. Glancing at his watch, he had managed to sleep a few hours. Better than usual for him. He clears his throat and rubs his eyes. For all his power, he still had difficulties escaping that dream of the past.
"Night Prince?" A woman's soft voice speaks up somewhere to his left. "The Arms Dealer is here. I tried to delay him a while while you were…" she tries to find a polite word and the Night Prince waves her off.
"I was napping, Dahlia. You don't have to pretend I wasn't." He says with a mirthless chuckle. Standing, he straightens his robes, the bottoms the same from his dream and still stained with blood not his own. "Any word from Chase or Ezio?" The Night Prince asks as he steps down the stairs to his seat.
Dahlia fidgets with her glasses. "Chase called. Said Ezio took off after they ran into the dog. He's trying to track him down."
Frowning, the Night Prince folds his arms. "Not what I wanted to hear. But that should be fine. Let them be for now. If they haven't checked in within two more hours, send out a thin-blood squad to start searching. Can't have them burning in the light." Dahlia nods.
The Night Prince stalks down a hallway, his headache returning as he considers the next steps. Emerging a minute later into a neatly put together conference room, a man in a brown leather duster and sunglasses reclines in an office chair at the far end of a long oval desk. His boots are on the desk and he holds the back of his head in his hands. As the Night Prince enters in, the Arms Dealer peeks over his glasses, revealing dark hazel eyes. "Ey, look who decided to grace me with their presence. Not like I have a dozen other clients to keep up with, you know?"
Sweeping over to the chair at the opposite end of the table, the Night Prince coldly regards the man. Even watching carefully this was one of the few people that he could just not get a good read on. "Why do you even need other clients? You work for just us and we'd keep you afloat for a century."
"Tempting, tempting." The Arms Dealer weighs the words, pretending to consider them. "But there's a lot of weirdos like you out there that need semi-regular shipments of military hardware. Why leave money on the table for one of my competitors?"
"If it's money that is what you're after, we just got some new resources that will be of some value to the right people. Once we have established Chicago as the safe haven of thin blooded everywhere, we'd be able to hire you full time. All stock bought all the time, long as your suppliers hold on." The Night Prince's probes, looking for something to lever.
The Arms Dealer licks his teeth and sniffs. "Look man. You could pay my rent for a century and I'd keep up my hustles. You think you're big time, and don't get me wrong, you are. But there's a lot of big timers out there working towards a, uh, bigger goal together, you feel me?"
He scoffs. "What are you talking about? I'm not working together with anyone else." The Night Prince leans onto the table. "I'm out here killing Camarilla elders and striking fear into those fucking old guard that have held back the…"
"The thin blooded from the full vampire experience. Yeah, yeah, heard it a dozen times." The Arms Dealer interrupts. "You got a good thing going here. And I'm not working with your enemies, scout's honor. But you ain't getting me to work just for you, okay? Just take the rifles and body armor I'm getting to you, pay what you owe me, and we're good." He scoffs, looking over his glasses and sitting up while pointing to a piece of paper on the desk, some sort of ledger or work order form. "Also, a tank? You fuckin' kidding me man? I can't get you a tank on a schedule like weeks. Give me a half a year and maybe we can talk."
Folding his arms, The Night Prince pouts. "And here I thought you were the best in the business."
"And here I was thinking I was working with someone who's understanding of arms dealing didn't start and end with Grand Theft Auto. You're lucky I was able to get you a couple of live RPGs and that was already a nightmare." He cackles. "And now you want me to get a vehicle the size of a small house into Chicago without someone noticing. A couple of rifles and shells can fall off the humvee for the right price, but tanks don't just go missing without a lot of work. What are you even gonna do with that thing if you got it?"
"Best to have back up plans. Apparently the military is being scrambled to head out here, after all. Shouldn't get caught with my pants down, after all we're going to have to fight them back." The Night Prince smiles.
"And that's another thing." The Arms Dealer slaps the table. "You've done pretty good for someone without proper war-training, but do you think you're gonna stand up to the generals of the US and their vampire masters who have probably fought more campaigns than both of our years put together?"
"I'm not paying you for opinions on my tactics." The Night Price waves and rolls his eyes. "Please keep your judgments to yourself."
With a thud, the Arms Dealer stands up, grabbing the paper. "My payment will be in the usual account, right?" The Night Prince nods. Stepping towards the door, the Arms Dealer pauses at the threshold. "Not to pry, but what did you see when you, well, you know, died?" From on his brow, a half filled circle, ringed in black and blood, appears.
"Something in the dark." The Night Prince says while a full circle of black rears its head on his brow. "It was cold, and I can still feel it looking at me even now." He sighs. "I choose to believe it was Cain himself. But I can't tell for sure."
"Yeah." The Arms Dealer nods. "Neither could I." He clears his throat. "I'll be back next month with the usual and I'll see what I can do about your tank. You might need it." He slaps the Night Prince on the shoulder and finds his body to be like granite, unshakable.
The Night Prince waits until he can hear The Arms Dealer's footsteps fade away. "Dahlia?" He says, loudly enough for his voice to carry down the hall to his assistant, who scurries down the hall and to his side. "I need an update on the research from Red's lab. Any progress?"
She nods quickly, digging through a folder of papers. "Yes, right. Uh, looks like something about a prophesy and maybe a lead on one of the Tremere methuselahs. Red and her kids were digging into the history of Lake Michigan and found some sort of magic seal, their words, that was locking up an ancient chantry house that's been lost for a long time. Old readings of a 5th or 4th generation Tremere who was the first to cross the Atlantic to America. Something about needing a key that was buried over in what is now Galena."
"Buried in Galena?" The Night Prince quirks an eyebrow as he looks around the bunker he's been occupying. Victor said something about digging in Galena when I interrogated him. He stands quickly. "I'll be going back over the personal areas here in the bunker. Look into finding out where Victor was set up in Galena." He directs Dahlia, who nods and quickly moves away. Looks like our friend Victor was just another pawn in another scheme. I'll need to question Ezio further about this.
Scourge Yasir sits silently in the backrooms of the police hideout, attended to by Captain Sheila. In front of him is a number of reports that he is peering over from behind his gas mask. Eventually he nods. "So. This massacre that took place behind the hardware store. Any idea who did that? It wasn't any of my children or ghouls nor the police to my knowledge."
Sheila nods. "We believe that there may be a lupine somewhere in the area, based on a couple of the injuries. They don't all line up, but it makes the most sense."
"Likely wasn't any of the Prince's goons." Yasir contemplates for a moment. "The Sheriff is still out of commission, so unlikely them. Could have possibly been one of Red's allies, revenge and all that. Camera footage?" Sheila is already shaking her head.
"For some reason the footage that we tried to recover from the servers in the store are all fried. No signs of foul play, but it is unusual."
"So Lupine is the most likely. They famously hate technology and have odd powers that can cause them to malfunction." He stands up, back cracking loudly as he does. "Put out a notice to the police that a wild animal has been sighted. Call it a bear or something like that. Any sightings of predatory animals need to be reported." Sheila nods. "Also, you're getting some backup. Now that Red has met her fate, the rest of the Primogen are quite… upset. Half of them have decided to reinforce their own holdings but the other half have called in a few favors to get their clan mates here. Expect your night patrols to be more effective in about a few days' time." He sighs. "And the Prince is doing whatever he can to delay the military arriving. But there is only so much he can do with the rest of the Camarilla starting to notice. Expect them within the month."
Standing wordlessly for a moment, Sheila appears to be choosing her words. "Master, if I can ask a question, what's the end game here? Why don't we just let the military mop this up? Let someone else waste their time fighting this guerrilla bullshit. We aren't trained or equipped well enough to fight something like this."
"This is likely Sabbat activity." He says simply. "It's the responsibility of all clans to ensure the Masquerade is upheld. If we don't try and stop it, it's likely we'll all be replaced, permanently, with those deemed more capable by the higher ups." Stepping towards the door, Yasir quickly begins to fade into the shadows of the still bustling station as his Obfuscate takes effect. "I have my own responsibilities to attend to. Ensure my will is done, Sheila."
Once out on the streets, he opens the ports of the gas mask and breathes in the night air, tasting the traces of blood on the wind. On his back is a crossbow and at his hip a saber. The thin-blooded won't thin themselves, after all.
Grey Rook
Genuine Nerd
- Location
- The Quantum Foam
So, as I suspected, the Night Prince is an Abyssal. I thought as much, but it's nice to have confirmation.
So we have a Solar, a Lunar, and a Sidereal on one side, none of whom have any real degree of training or any real idea what they're capable of, an Abyssal who is likewise ignorant of his true power leading a clan of vampires, the entrenched vampire rulers of society who want both of the above to go away, miscellaneous mortals caught in the middle, the Technocracy keeping a watch on events as they develop... this is looking to turn into a real clusterfuck, even more so once the army rolls in to drive the Prince out.
Can the army defeat the Prince? Probably, but it'll cost them, the city, and the vampires both. Should be interesting to see how things turn out.
So we have a Solar, a Lunar, and a Sidereal on one side, none of whom have any real degree of training or any real idea what they're capable of, an Abyssal who is likewise ignorant of his true power leading a clan of vampires, the entrenched vampire rulers of society who want both of the above to go away, miscellaneous mortals caught in the middle, the Technocracy keeping a watch on events as they develop... this is looking to turn into a real clusterfuck, even more so once the army rolls in to drive the Prince out.
Can the army defeat the Prince? Probably, but it'll cost them, the city, and the vampires both. Should be interesting to see how things turn out.
It's one of the things I like about oWoD. There's so many fingers in so many pies, and using Exalted vs WoD gives one permission to go a bit buck wild with it cuz Exalts can handle the fuckery better than most the WoD splats without needing a few centuries of buildup.
Initial ideas also included the Garou getting involved, specifically a local Glass Walker pack and a couple Red Talons getting in on the madness but ended up just kinda muddying the waters of the plot too much, especially when I started to consider Pentex and their whole thing.
Grey Rook
Genuine Nerd
- Location
- The Quantum Foam
Probably a good call. There's such a thing as too much of a good thing, after all.
Ellio is going to break when he finds out his brother is a monster.
It certainly will not be the loving family reunion Elio is hoping for, no no.
Scene 34 - Estranged
The night swirls around Ezio as he runs. Pavement underfoot is blurred as he blindly charges away. Away from Naperville, away from the Night Prince, away from Elio. Cars screech and weave away from the oncoming man-sized missile as he jumps, crossing busy intersections in a single bound and over the highway in a titanic leap. Lit briefly by street lights as he crosses over the seemingly endless linear pavement of I-290, he lands on the other side with a crash and falls into a dumpster filled with the refuse of society. Emerging unscathed, he jerks his head to the left as a woman covered with grime, a thick padded jacket and a blue plastic tarp covering her small home in the alley to the side of the interstate looks at him with wide eyes.
Ezio freezes. Looking her up and down, he narrows his eyes. Slowly she turns over, not looking at him, muttering, "I didn't see anything..."
Inside his gut, the temptation of the beast rears its head. There was no one else around, after all. When would he get access to such an easy meal again? Slapping his cheeks loudly, Ezio chases the unbidden thoughts away. Resuming his run, he continues East, through Chicago proper. While he does not draw breath, his legs have begun to burn as the muscles rip and sunder with his exertion; but as each fiber rips free the blood binds it back down, seemingly stronger than before.
Eventually, the city-scape gives way to lake-side property. He stops as he reaches the vast expanse of Lake Michigan on a beach. Surprisingly, he recognizes where he is, as he glances up and down the sandy beach. Twelfth Street Beach, it had to be. To his left is an observatory, and behind him are a series of picnic benches. Leaning down, he rubs the sand between his fingers. He and Elio used to come here with their parents on short vacations. Blinking away the momentary reverie, he stalks towards the benches where some teenagers are out too late.
They stop talking as he gets closer, one of the guys nervously reaches into a pocket. He can hear them slowly whisper about him as he approaches and can almost feel the blood suffusing their skin. Once he gets a little closer, one of the braver ones, a girl with brown hair and a yellow graphic t-shirt speaks up. "Hey, what do you want? We don't have any money for you."
Folding his arms, which causes his jacket to rip at the shoulders as it is ill-fitted for this form which still includes swollen muscles he isn't used to, he makes eye contact with the girl. "Leave." His demand is simple and his eyes glitter with the predatory bark he barely recognizes. Needing little more motivation they depart, except for the one he had made eye contact with. Why does she look familiar?
A crow croaks out from one of the nearby trees. The girl looks away from him to look for the crow. She frowns and opens her mouth a couple times, chewing on her words before she says them. "Did you not hear me?" Ezio shouts while she sits and thinks. "I told you to get out of here!"
"Ezio-" She starts and Ezio takes a step back. Some veneer seems to fall off of her, while she looks the same, a haggard posture and tired brown eyes become easily visible. Had he just ignored those before?
"How do you know my name?" He says.
She hops off the seat of the picnic bench. "Because I know your brother. Does the name Briana ring any bells?" Briana says.
"How... Who? Why are you here?" Ezio demands.
She shrugs, walking towards the beach while carefully keeping her distance from Ezio. "I came out here cuz this is where I thought my dream was. Why are you out here? And, well, what happened to you? Started working out?" She gestures to his bulky yet somehow lithe form. "Actually, don't answer that." From this close up, the bells of alarm in the back of her head are going off, tinkling in a way that describes running blood, fangs, and shadowy power.
"I don't know." He admits, walking towards the surf. "I just started to run and this is where I ended up." Looking down at the sand, he blinks. "Life is funny that way, I guess."
A wind picks up some sand and blows it down the length of the beach. "Been here before?"
Ezio nods. "A long time ago. We used to come out here once every couple months to play in the sand and relax."
"You and Elio?" Ezio nods again.
"And our parents, of course. We were younger then."
With a plop, Brianna sits onto the sandy ground, the water just barely a foot away from her shoes. "Is this gonna be a 'life was simpler then' speech? Because I'm not here for that."
He chuckles and sits down as well, folding his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. "Well, it was. Kids like you should try and enjoy that part while it lasts." Briana rolls her eyes. "But it's more than that." He pulls his knees closer to himself, making himself small on the shore of the Great Lake. "I don't know what's happening to me."
"Well, I don't know what's happening to me either." Briana admits. "Ever since this whole thing started, people don't remember me." There is a sad smile as she looks at Ezio. "And I know you're being polite. You don't remember me either."
There is a deep sigh from Ezio as he absentmindedly twirls a finger in front of him with his right hand, causing the foam from the surf to dance and twirl. In his head, he can hear Red's voice mumble some verses from a book. "Yeah. Sorry, I don't remember you."
"If you don't remember me, why are you even talking to me?" She presses. "I mean, come on, I'm a stranger, a kid."
"I don't exactly have anyone else to talk to, you know?" Ezio says. "I don't even know what I'd say to Elio or Sarah about all this. You're in the right place at the right time, I guess."
"Life is funny that way." Briana says, pieces clicking into place. The buses that lined up perfectly to be here, always finding someone willing to pay her fare despite the hour or finding the exact change needed on the ground all the way here. The dream even. Was it all just her dancing to fate's whim? But for what reason? Was this it? "So, what now then? You've run away from wherever you came from. You just gonna leave them all behind?"
Grasping his hand into a fist, Ezio mumbles some Latin, repeating the words that Red speaks softly in his mind as the water in front of him, wrapping around a small mitten crab that had strayed too close to shore and containing it in a small sphere of water. "No. I have people that need my help back in Naperville."
Warily watching the magic woven in front of her, Briana presses on. "But you won't just talk to Elio? He's really getting himself worked up over you being missing. He could hurt himself trying to find you."
He shakes his head. "I can't. I barely have a hold of this thing that's in my head." Beckoning to the sphere of water with the crustacean in it, it floats towards him. Red's words speak louder and louder in his head. Pulling his hand together into a tight fist with all his might, the water crushes the creature. Blinking, he looks away as he releases the spell, water and slightly blue blood falling onto the sand. "I might try to hurt him. Hell, I can't promise I won't try to hurt you."
"So you are a, uh, well, a vampire then?" Briana asks. "I kinda can feel it in you, but I was, you know, hoping not."
For a time, the only sound is the tinkling of bells in Briana's ears and the sound of waves and wind. Occasionally the crow croaks from behind them. "Yeah." Ezio eventually answers. "I guess I am. But I'm just trying to help out the thin-bloods!" He quickly follows up. "They are these vampires that got the short end of the stick, almost no power, and they are hunted down by the more powerful vampires."
"What about just normal people? Why can't you help them? They're being hunted by vampires, right?"
"Once the thin bloods get rid of the old vampires, we're gonna change the world." Ezio answers resolutely. "People aren't going to have to be afraid of vampires because we'll be working together." Internally, he frowns. Had he ever heard the Night Prince say anything like that or was this an assumption?
Briana stands and dusts the sand off her jeans. "You're sure about that?"
"Yeah. Of course."
She nods. There was a new tone to the chimes in her head. Something was nearby, chimes that somehow evoke the cold feeling of the grave, of fresh scars, and resignation. Looking around, she can't see anything out of the ordinary in the dark of the shore though. "I need to get going, Ezio. Just... give it some thought, okay? Elio is going off the deep end I think and really could use his head put back on straight, and neither me or Ashley can do it." She starts to walk away, leaving Ezio sitting on the ground. Before she leaves normal speaking distance, she stops near the picnic benches where she had been blending in with the teenagers. "You still have a choice, at least. Don't forget your family."
Far above, the stars twinkle in the heavens, glittering in Briana's eyes as she turns and leaves the beach. As she walks away, she leans down and picks up a dollar bill from the ground, brushing the dirt off its face. Not too far away, a bus is about to make its way around a corner on its last ride of the night.
Back at the beach, Ezio's ears prick as something approaches with long, slow steps. The scarred being emerges from the gloom off to his right with a small ripping sound. As Ezio gazes at it, its mouth struggles against the cord that holds it closed. Fresh dots of yellow-green ichor oozes from the suture wounds as its toothless maw creaks out in a voice more injury than human. "It's time to return."
Slowly coming to his feet. Ezio nods. Scar is perfectly still as it watches Ezio cross the beach and begin his trek back to Naperville.
Pablo's haven is a simple, if highly dilapidated, two story abandoned house in the suburbs of Naperville. The paint has long since peeled and become dust at the foot of the structures walls, only acting as a small reminder that the house was once a slightly off sky blue hue. The windows are boarded and the lawn is out of control. While he knows the neighbors complain constantly about it, they also know that their complaints to the city office to do something about the unowned eyesore have gone unanswered.
Sitting on the back lawn is a slightly bruised Pablo in a plastic lawn chair. There is a significant tear in his sweatshirt where Ashley had pushed him through a wall in their fight, but the injury it caused appears to have vanished at this time. Impatiently tapping his foot on the packed earth of his favored lounging spot, he waits for Chase to finally find his way out to the location.
Walking down the street with his hands in his pockets while avoiding the spotlights of the streetlights is Chase. Rifle strapped to his back, he keeps his eyes peeled for the house which thankfully sticks out like a sore thumb among the mostly evacuated houses that surround it. Police sirens blare in the distance, but Chase ignores them as he steps forward and looks to his left where Pablo's lair stands. Snorting to himself, he steps onto the lawn and approaches the front door. The porch steps creek dangerously under his feet, and he watches his step as he hops over a few rotted out planks that are held together by sheer willpower alone. Rapping his fist on the door, he waits.
A few moments pass before Pablo steps around the side of the house. "Backyard." He grunts before retreating back once more. Chase hops what remains of the railing which shatters even at the slight weight he puts on it.
"Man, this place is a piece of shit." Chase says loudly as he steps around the corner. He blinks as he doesn't see a seat for himself in the backyard shaded by overgrown trees and hedges. "And what? No chair for the guest?"
Pablo growls. "Shut up. No one has time or money to keep up appearances these days. And no. I don't have random assholes over." He leans back in his chair, putting his arm behind it as he looks over at Chase who still appears to be looking for somewhere to sit. "What was all that about? You didn't tell me the fledgling was gonna freak on us."
"He came recommended by the big guy." Chase says, finally sitting with resignation onto the step of the back porch, a slight dampness immediately settling into the seat of his pants from the wood below despite the summer months. Clicking his tongue he looks at the porch. "Seriously. I got a ghoul who can help you out with some new wood and finish for these porches."
"And have more people know where I rest my head?" Pablo scoffs. "No."
Chase rolls his eyes. "Fine. Well, we still got a lupine hanging around. What now? Based on the thrashing she gave you, plus that weird silver glow she had going on... I'd want at least one more guy with us."
"Should we track down that guy?" Pablo sniffs for a moment, tasting the wind. "He did go running off like a bat outta hell. Can't be good for keeping a low profile."
Shaking his head, Chase replies "I already told the Night Prince he took off. If he wants to go chasing his pet, let him. I'm not going back there without a werewolf head to show him."
There is a shift in the night. Some implacable pressure subtly shifts around the pair on this pleasant summer evening. Both of them go quiet as they feel something looming nearby, a specter of unseen death. Above them both, they can't help but feel the weight of the red star they've both been desperately ignoring in the past evenings. "Can we go inside?" Chase says, voice suddenly very quiet.
Pablo looks into the dense vegetation of his backyard, piercing the darkness, feeling the eyes of something looking at him but unable to find its source. "Yeah." He tries to stand from his chair but falls to the ground. Confused, he rolls over from his belly to his back to look at his legs, finding one of them detached from his body, still near the chair.
Before he can utter a warning, before Chase can turn to see his fellow has fallen now bloody to the ground, Elio appears from the shadows beside the porch, his warped and burned knife in his hand now dyed with vampire blood. "You ought to be careful where you talk. Some of us have good hearing." Stepping forward, he still has a slight limp from earlier that evening, but the wound behind the tear in his pants has closed.
The moment Elio reveals himself, Chase slings the rifle from his back into his hand with an almost imperceptible quickness and pulls the trigger in the same breath. Blinking, Elio is no longer where he was aiming, already ducking low and surging forward towards Chase. Knife glinting in the light of the red star, it bites and cuts up along Chase's right arm, severing several key tendons as the arm goes limp, his rifle falling before being caught by the strap. Before Chase can duck away, Elio grabs him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him close. "Tell me where Ezio is. And if you can't, tell me who can." Golden light appears on his brow as his anima wraps around his form, replacing his visage with an almost blinding mask of shadow and gold.
"He fucking ran off." Chase says, trying to wriggle and escape while burning blood to try and overpower Elio but finding his foe's grip like iron. "You'd need to talk to the Night Prince." Chase's mouth moves without his permission, answering Elio's questions before he can try and stop.
"Where?"
From the ground, Pablo grabs a stone and hurls it with impressive might towards Elio. Without even turning to face the projectile, Elio's arm whips out, knife edge sparking against the rock as another dent appears on its face and the rock impacts the soggy wood of the porch with a wet thud. Chase continues to answer, struggling internally to not answer but ultimately failing. "He's in an old power substation west of the-" With a small yelp, he bites his tongue, severing it with his fangs. Blood seeps from his mouth as he loses his ability to talk and the tongue falls to the ground with a slap.
Flesh begins to bubble and shape as bone and sinew grows at the severed stump of Pablo's leg. "Who the hell are you?!" He shouts up to Elio. "How did you find us?!"
"Been following you since you ran into that werewolf." Elio's gaze shifts towards Pablo. "It doesn't surprise me that you didn't notice me. Ezio ran off. Where?" His anima grows and shifts with an unseen wind, burning ever brighter as his essence floods into his words. With the knife in his hand, he flicks it towards Chase, plunging it into his temple. Blood splatters through Elio's anima and onto his jacket, glowing gold as it passes through the threshold of his aura.
"I don't know!" Pablo starts getting to his one good foot as he tries to start hobbling away. Behind him, Chase's body has gone limp, falling through the rotted wood of the porch as the planks give away under the dead weight.
With a quick swipe in the air, the blood is thrown off of the knife's edge. With a determined gait, Elio walks towards Pablo.
Looking behind him at the glowing sun-specter, Pablo bears his fangs and turns to face Elio, raising his fists to defend himself. "Back off, man! I don't know anything!"
"Then you're just a useless vampire. Better off dead." Elio retorts. "What happened to Ezio? He ran faster than I could keep up with."
Pablo narrows his eyes. "What do you mean? He's a vampire, of course he-"
Fury burns through Elio's features, the gold for a moment replaced with a violent red matching the star above for just a moment before returning to the yellow hue. "No! You don't get to lie to me! What did you do to him?!"
"What the hell do you want me to say! I'm not lying!" Pablo falls to the ground as Elio leaps at him, pushing him to the ground. Straddling his waist, he holds the knife in one hand and begins to stab at the vampire's head and torso. Pablo puts his arms up in a defensive pose, but looks like a flailing child trying to hold off a bear attack as Elio's knife never is deflected, never misses its mark, dipping and diving under all attempts of resistance.
Several seconds pass as Elio breathes heavily. The mangled form of Pablo underneath him, glistening in his sunlight aura. Standing shakily, he wipes his face of the splattered blood and takes a moment to look at his knife. It's been burned, dented, and chipped. Taking a moment to wipe it on his pants, it leaves a red streak on the denim. "No." He shakes his head, dismissing what Pablo had said. Turning away, he begins to walk out from the backyard and onto the street. "Substation. West of something notable." Elio mutters as he begins his walk back towards the music center a few miles away.
Far above and removed from Creation, the Red Star looks on. Satisfied as it continues on its approach to the distant world below.
Ezio freezes. Looking her up and down, he narrows his eyes. Slowly she turns over, not looking at him, muttering, "I didn't see anything..."
Inside his gut, the temptation of the beast rears its head. There was no one else around, after all. When would he get access to such an easy meal again? Slapping his cheeks loudly, Ezio chases the unbidden thoughts away. Resuming his run, he continues East, through Chicago proper. While he does not draw breath, his legs have begun to burn as the muscles rip and sunder with his exertion; but as each fiber rips free the blood binds it back down, seemingly stronger than before.
Eventually, the city-scape gives way to lake-side property. He stops as he reaches the vast expanse of Lake Michigan on a beach. Surprisingly, he recognizes where he is, as he glances up and down the sandy beach. Twelfth Street Beach, it had to be. To his left is an observatory, and behind him are a series of picnic benches. Leaning down, he rubs the sand between his fingers. He and Elio used to come here with their parents on short vacations. Blinking away the momentary reverie, he stalks towards the benches where some teenagers are out too late.
They stop talking as he gets closer, one of the guys nervously reaches into a pocket. He can hear them slowly whisper about him as he approaches and can almost feel the blood suffusing their skin. Once he gets a little closer, one of the braver ones, a girl with brown hair and a yellow graphic t-shirt speaks up. "Hey, what do you want? We don't have any money for you."
Folding his arms, which causes his jacket to rip at the shoulders as it is ill-fitted for this form which still includes swollen muscles he isn't used to, he makes eye contact with the girl. "Leave." His demand is simple and his eyes glitter with the predatory bark he barely recognizes. Needing little more motivation they depart, except for the one he had made eye contact with. Why does she look familiar?
A crow croaks out from one of the nearby trees. The girl looks away from him to look for the crow. She frowns and opens her mouth a couple times, chewing on her words before she says them. "Did you not hear me?" Ezio shouts while she sits and thinks. "I told you to get out of here!"
"Ezio-" She starts and Ezio takes a step back. Some veneer seems to fall off of her, while she looks the same, a haggard posture and tired brown eyes become easily visible. Had he just ignored those before?
"How do you know my name?" He says.
She hops off the seat of the picnic bench. "Because I know your brother. Does the name Briana ring any bells?" Briana says.
"How... Who? Why are you here?" Ezio demands.
She shrugs, walking towards the beach while carefully keeping her distance from Ezio. "I came out here cuz this is where I thought my dream was. Why are you out here? And, well, what happened to you? Started working out?" She gestures to his bulky yet somehow lithe form. "Actually, don't answer that." From this close up, the bells of alarm in the back of her head are going off, tinkling in a way that describes running blood, fangs, and shadowy power.
"I don't know." He admits, walking towards the surf. "I just started to run and this is where I ended up." Looking down at the sand, he blinks. "Life is funny that way, I guess."
A wind picks up some sand and blows it down the length of the beach. "Been here before?"
Ezio nods. "A long time ago. We used to come out here once every couple months to play in the sand and relax."
"You and Elio?" Ezio nods again.
"And our parents, of course. We were younger then."
With a plop, Brianna sits onto the sandy ground, the water just barely a foot away from her shoes. "Is this gonna be a 'life was simpler then' speech? Because I'm not here for that."
He chuckles and sits down as well, folding his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. "Well, it was. Kids like you should try and enjoy that part while it lasts." Briana rolls her eyes. "But it's more than that." He pulls his knees closer to himself, making himself small on the shore of the Great Lake. "I don't know what's happening to me."
"Well, I don't know what's happening to me either." Briana admits. "Ever since this whole thing started, people don't remember me." There is a sad smile as she looks at Ezio. "And I know you're being polite. You don't remember me either."
There is a deep sigh from Ezio as he absentmindedly twirls a finger in front of him with his right hand, causing the foam from the surf to dance and twirl. In his head, he can hear Red's voice mumble some verses from a book. "Yeah. Sorry, I don't remember you."
"If you don't remember me, why are you even talking to me?" She presses. "I mean, come on, I'm a stranger, a kid."
"I don't exactly have anyone else to talk to, you know?" Ezio says. "I don't even know what I'd say to Elio or Sarah about all this. You're in the right place at the right time, I guess."
"Life is funny that way." Briana says, pieces clicking into place. The buses that lined up perfectly to be here, always finding someone willing to pay her fare despite the hour or finding the exact change needed on the ground all the way here. The dream even. Was it all just her dancing to fate's whim? But for what reason? Was this it? "So, what now then? You've run away from wherever you came from. You just gonna leave them all behind?"
Grasping his hand into a fist, Ezio mumbles some Latin, repeating the words that Red speaks softly in his mind as the water in front of him, wrapping around a small mitten crab that had strayed too close to shore and containing it in a small sphere of water. "No. I have people that need my help back in Naperville."
Warily watching the magic woven in front of her, Briana presses on. "But you won't just talk to Elio? He's really getting himself worked up over you being missing. He could hurt himself trying to find you."
He shakes his head. "I can't. I barely have a hold of this thing that's in my head." Beckoning to the sphere of water with the crustacean in it, it floats towards him. Red's words speak louder and louder in his head. Pulling his hand together into a tight fist with all his might, the water crushes the creature. Blinking, he looks away as he releases the spell, water and slightly blue blood falling onto the sand. "I might try to hurt him. Hell, I can't promise I won't try to hurt you."
"So you are a, uh, well, a vampire then?" Briana asks. "I kinda can feel it in you, but I was, you know, hoping not."
For a time, the only sound is the tinkling of bells in Briana's ears and the sound of waves and wind. Occasionally the crow croaks from behind them. "Yeah." Ezio eventually answers. "I guess I am. But I'm just trying to help out the thin-bloods!" He quickly follows up. "They are these vampires that got the short end of the stick, almost no power, and they are hunted down by the more powerful vampires."
"What about just normal people? Why can't you help them? They're being hunted by vampires, right?"
"Once the thin bloods get rid of the old vampires, we're gonna change the world." Ezio answers resolutely. "People aren't going to have to be afraid of vampires because we'll be working together." Internally, he frowns. Had he ever heard the Night Prince say anything like that or was this an assumption?
Briana stands and dusts the sand off her jeans. "You're sure about that?"
"Yeah. Of course."
She nods. There was a new tone to the chimes in her head. Something was nearby, chimes that somehow evoke the cold feeling of the grave, of fresh scars, and resignation. Looking around, she can't see anything out of the ordinary in the dark of the shore though. "I need to get going, Ezio. Just... give it some thought, okay? Elio is going off the deep end I think and really could use his head put back on straight, and neither me or Ashley can do it." She starts to walk away, leaving Ezio sitting on the ground. Before she leaves normal speaking distance, she stops near the picnic benches where she had been blending in with the teenagers. "You still have a choice, at least. Don't forget your family."
Far above, the stars twinkle in the heavens, glittering in Briana's eyes as she turns and leaves the beach. As she walks away, she leans down and picks up a dollar bill from the ground, brushing the dirt off its face. Not too far away, a bus is about to make its way around a corner on its last ride of the night.
Back at the beach, Ezio's ears prick as something approaches with long, slow steps. The scarred being emerges from the gloom off to his right with a small ripping sound. As Ezio gazes at it, its mouth struggles against the cord that holds it closed. Fresh dots of yellow-green ichor oozes from the suture wounds as its toothless maw creaks out in a voice more injury than human. "It's time to return."
Slowly coming to his feet. Ezio nods. Scar is perfectly still as it watches Ezio cross the beach and begin his trek back to Naperville.
Pablo's haven is a simple, if highly dilapidated, two story abandoned house in the suburbs of Naperville. The paint has long since peeled and become dust at the foot of the structures walls, only acting as a small reminder that the house was once a slightly off sky blue hue. The windows are boarded and the lawn is out of control. While he knows the neighbors complain constantly about it, they also know that their complaints to the city office to do something about the unowned eyesore have gone unanswered.
Sitting on the back lawn is a slightly bruised Pablo in a plastic lawn chair. There is a significant tear in his sweatshirt where Ashley had pushed him through a wall in their fight, but the injury it caused appears to have vanished at this time. Impatiently tapping his foot on the packed earth of his favored lounging spot, he waits for Chase to finally find his way out to the location.
Walking down the street with his hands in his pockets while avoiding the spotlights of the streetlights is Chase. Rifle strapped to his back, he keeps his eyes peeled for the house which thankfully sticks out like a sore thumb among the mostly evacuated houses that surround it. Police sirens blare in the distance, but Chase ignores them as he steps forward and looks to his left where Pablo's lair stands. Snorting to himself, he steps onto the lawn and approaches the front door. The porch steps creek dangerously under his feet, and he watches his step as he hops over a few rotted out planks that are held together by sheer willpower alone. Rapping his fist on the door, he waits.
A few moments pass before Pablo steps around the side of the house. "Backyard." He grunts before retreating back once more. Chase hops what remains of the railing which shatters even at the slight weight he puts on it.
"Man, this place is a piece of shit." Chase says loudly as he steps around the corner. He blinks as he doesn't see a seat for himself in the backyard shaded by overgrown trees and hedges. "And what? No chair for the guest?"
Pablo growls. "Shut up. No one has time or money to keep up appearances these days. And no. I don't have random assholes over." He leans back in his chair, putting his arm behind it as he looks over at Chase who still appears to be looking for somewhere to sit. "What was all that about? You didn't tell me the fledgling was gonna freak on us."
"He came recommended by the big guy." Chase says, finally sitting with resignation onto the step of the back porch, a slight dampness immediately settling into the seat of his pants from the wood below despite the summer months. Clicking his tongue he looks at the porch. "Seriously. I got a ghoul who can help you out with some new wood and finish for these porches."
"And have more people know where I rest my head?" Pablo scoffs. "No."
Chase rolls his eyes. "Fine. Well, we still got a lupine hanging around. What now? Based on the thrashing she gave you, plus that weird silver glow she had going on... I'd want at least one more guy with us."
"Should we track down that guy?" Pablo sniffs for a moment, tasting the wind. "He did go running off like a bat outta hell. Can't be good for keeping a low profile."
Shaking his head, Chase replies "I already told the Night Prince he took off. If he wants to go chasing his pet, let him. I'm not going back there without a werewolf head to show him."
There is a shift in the night. Some implacable pressure subtly shifts around the pair on this pleasant summer evening. Both of them go quiet as they feel something looming nearby, a specter of unseen death. Above them both, they can't help but feel the weight of the red star they've both been desperately ignoring in the past evenings. "Can we go inside?" Chase says, voice suddenly very quiet.
Pablo looks into the dense vegetation of his backyard, piercing the darkness, feeling the eyes of something looking at him but unable to find its source. "Yeah." He tries to stand from his chair but falls to the ground. Confused, he rolls over from his belly to his back to look at his legs, finding one of them detached from his body, still near the chair.
Before he can utter a warning, before Chase can turn to see his fellow has fallen now bloody to the ground, Elio appears from the shadows beside the porch, his warped and burned knife in his hand now dyed with vampire blood. "You ought to be careful where you talk. Some of us have good hearing." Stepping forward, he still has a slight limp from earlier that evening, but the wound behind the tear in his pants has closed.
The moment Elio reveals himself, Chase slings the rifle from his back into his hand with an almost imperceptible quickness and pulls the trigger in the same breath. Blinking, Elio is no longer where he was aiming, already ducking low and surging forward towards Chase. Knife glinting in the light of the red star, it bites and cuts up along Chase's right arm, severing several key tendons as the arm goes limp, his rifle falling before being caught by the strap. Before Chase can duck away, Elio grabs him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him close. "Tell me where Ezio is. And if you can't, tell me who can." Golden light appears on his brow as his anima wraps around his form, replacing his visage with an almost blinding mask of shadow and gold.
"He fucking ran off." Chase says, trying to wriggle and escape while burning blood to try and overpower Elio but finding his foe's grip like iron. "You'd need to talk to the Night Prince." Chase's mouth moves without his permission, answering Elio's questions before he can try and stop.
"Where?"
From the ground, Pablo grabs a stone and hurls it with impressive might towards Elio. Without even turning to face the projectile, Elio's arm whips out, knife edge sparking against the rock as another dent appears on its face and the rock impacts the soggy wood of the porch with a wet thud. Chase continues to answer, struggling internally to not answer but ultimately failing. "He's in an old power substation west of the-" With a small yelp, he bites his tongue, severing it with his fangs. Blood seeps from his mouth as he loses his ability to talk and the tongue falls to the ground with a slap.
Flesh begins to bubble and shape as bone and sinew grows at the severed stump of Pablo's leg. "Who the hell are you?!" He shouts up to Elio. "How did you find us?!"
"Been following you since you ran into that werewolf." Elio's gaze shifts towards Pablo. "It doesn't surprise me that you didn't notice me. Ezio ran off. Where?" His anima grows and shifts with an unseen wind, burning ever brighter as his essence floods into his words. With the knife in his hand, he flicks it towards Chase, plunging it into his temple. Blood splatters through Elio's anima and onto his jacket, glowing gold as it passes through the threshold of his aura.
"I don't know!" Pablo starts getting to his one good foot as he tries to start hobbling away. Behind him, Chase's body has gone limp, falling through the rotted wood of the porch as the planks give away under the dead weight.
With a quick swipe in the air, the blood is thrown off of the knife's edge. With a determined gait, Elio walks towards Pablo.
Looking behind him at the glowing sun-specter, Pablo bears his fangs and turns to face Elio, raising his fists to defend himself. "Back off, man! I don't know anything!"
"Then you're just a useless vampire. Better off dead." Elio retorts. "What happened to Ezio? He ran faster than I could keep up with."
Pablo narrows his eyes. "What do you mean? He's a vampire, of course he-"
Fury burns through Elio's features, the gold for a moment replaced with a violent red matching the star above for just a moment before returning to the yellow hue. "No! You don't get to lie to me! What did you do to him?!"
"What the hell do you want me to say! I'm not lying!" Pablo falls to the ground as Elio leaps at him, pushing him to the ground. Straddling his waist, he holds the knife in one hand and begins to stab at the vampire's head and torso. Pablo puts his arms up in a defensive pose, but looks like a flailing child trying to hold off a bear attack as Elio's knife never is deflected, never misses its mark, dipping and diving under all attempts of resistance.
Several seconds pass as Elio breathes heavily. The mangled form of Pablo underneath him, glistening in his sunlight aura. Standing shakily, he wipes his face of the splattered blood and takes a moment to look at his knife. It's been burned, dented, and chipped. Taking a moment to wipe it on his pants, it leaves a red streak on the denim. "No." He shakes his head, dismissing what Pablo had said. Turning away, he begins to walk out from the backyard and onto the street. "Substation. West of something notable." Elio mutters as he begins his walk back towards the music center a few miles away.
Far above and removed from Creation, the Red Star looks on. Satisfied as it continues on its approach to the distant world below.