The First Age

Rune barely heard Hood's warning chasing after her. She was focused on one thing and one thing only: catching up to the beast sprinting into the shadows.

Her boots pounded the floor while she rounded corners and flew through rooms. At one point she lost track of Hood all together, but kept on sprinting. The bloodbag bounding away was quick as a fox and he clearly knew where he was going. Rune was never able to get him in a good line of sight to shoot, and she wasn't about to stop long enough to try unless she had a sure shot. If she lost him in this maze, she'd never catch him again.

But loaded down as she was she couldn't keep up the pace and soon enough she was led to a collapsed wall on the opposite side of the bath house. A collapsed in flight of stairs led upward over to the left, probably to the level below the surface or the basement of whatever building was overhead. Ahead the collapsed wall made a sort of round portal that flickered with far distant light and sound. This was probably the main way in and out of here as opposed to the giant drain pipe the three of them had crawled up to get in. Had the beast run out?

She turned to the right, scenting the air as she did, and catching a far gone scent. But the humidity to the air muddled her senses, and she cautiously explored this direction just as that womanly sixth sense told her that he was probably hiding and hoping that she'd barrel out the hole on the assumption he'd gone that way and lose him altogether.

She was led to what she thought was a shower room. It reminded her of locker rooms in truck stops. There were communal showerheads stuck out of the walls. Lots of broken tile fell in bits of shattered ceramic on the floor. Metal lockers were covered in rust and grime. A deep freeze, what was once white, was situated in one corner and plugged into a generator-sourced energy outlet. She did not want to look at what was in there. Having made the mistake to look in times past when cleaning out rougarou fox-holes. To be fair, Uncle Seth had warned her.

She wished she'd taken more time to learn the functions of the glasses, because there was probably some setting she could use to scan for heartbeats, body heat, movement, or whatever to give away the creature's position. However, she held the SMG at full-ready to pop whatever jumped out, and couldn't afford to fiddle with the glasses settings and lower her defenses.

She took a hand away briefly to shove aside the half-fallen down plastic lining that dangled from the ceiling. The rusty wheels scraped loudly in the old tracks overhead. Rune cringed.

She rounded a corner, silent but for the cracking of tile underfoot and the occasional rustle of plastic sheets. Rune heard a faint purring sound then. A low-frequency vibration that she thought was due to some malfunction in that ancient freezer in the far corner of the locker room. But as she froze, listening, she could have sworn a heard of bees were buzzing around. Or maybe it was a cat? She frowned and cautiously continued the search.

Just as she rounded an aisle of lockers, she felt a rustle on the side of her neck, like the barber blowing the clippings from her recently shaved scalp delicately from her skin. Chills shot down her spine and she rounded the corner in a hurry.

And screamed.

The beast she was chasing was strung up from tracks in the ceiling. At least, what was left of him. His skin had been peeled from his bones from the top downward. A tuft of hair remained on top, followed by a dripping, pink mass of muscle and tendon, and the peel of his inside-out skin was puddled on the floor around his still in-tact shoes. His eyes were bulged huge and white.

Rune spun to run away and she encountered the most malicious, wrathful spirit she'd ever seen in a lifetime of seeing spirits.

It had an amorphous shape, but was black as unspent charcoal with skin that split around all the joints revealing a glowing red core. As though magma itself was floating in front of her in the shape of a person. There were rumors of bathhouse spirits, but... but! Rune had never heard of a hunter actually meeting one before! Or of one flaying people alive!!

Close as it was, she could feel the heat radiating from its center of mass, and Rune backed up instinctively afraid. She didn't realize how far she'd stepped until she backed straight into the swinging shape of the dead rougarou. She screamed defiantly and started shooting.

Edited by Rune Marx, Aug 16 2013, 07:40 PM.

Hood's expression wasn't one that bode well for something like Jaxen's attitude. He could have saved himself plenty of grief in the long run, he was sure, if he had just peppered Jaxen with a few rounds to the chest and be done with the fool, but as cold blooded as Hood could be, he didn't just go around killing folks.

Well, he did, of course, but usually he had a reason for it. And being a gob-nobbling douche bag wasn't a good enough one. Yet. After all, he had earned a pretty tidy paycheck off of setting up the observation team and security inspection that had come as a result of the fool's insistence not to heed Hood's warning at the gala.

But he really did want his lighter back.

As Jaxen made to just calmly stroll out the door as if Hood was at Jaxen's beck and call, Hood's grip on his SMG shifted and he half-stepped across Jaxen's path. The butt of the rifle snapped out to catch Jaxen with a sharp but shallow crack across the jaw, laying Jaxen on the floor. "A two-for-one deal seems more tempting by the minute."


He slung the weapon on his back and knelt next to Jaxen, giving the man a quick pat down till the lighter was found and retrieved from the bastard's pocket. He held it up to confirm it was his, and frowned in annoyance at how badly scuffed it was from just a few days in the arrogant bastard's pocket.

There was a scraping noise, and Hood was up and away from Jaxen in a flash. The fallen Rougarou had found it's third wind, so to speak, and came at him fast. But, still dazed from two solid blows from Jaxen already, it wasn't quite fast enough. Hood didn't bother going for his gun. He needed something to really work his frustrations out, and the monster at hand had volunteered itself. Besides, they were supposed to be quick healers, so he didn't have to pull his punches too much.

The two collided, and while Hood was certainly the larger of the two, Sicko had more momentum. Momentum that meant little to someone like Hood. He twisted and braced a foot against the cracked floor tiles, twisting at the hips while getting a good grip on the rougarou's waist band. A quick jerk of the torso and Hood sent Sicko cracking face first into the wall beside the door.

Hood followed through by grabbing the thing by the hair and cracking it's skull off the wall a second time, then jerked it out into the hallway. Much like how he had thrown Rune earlier that evening, Hood grabbed the belt and a fist full of hair and threw it into an adjacent room, not too different from the one Jaxen had been living in recently.

Hood followed it into the room. Sicko crawled across the floor and was already pulling himself to his feet when Hood casually hung his SMG from an old hook on the wall. He was going to enjoy...

There was the distant sound of a woman's scream. Not of pain, but of fear, if he wasn't too far off the mark. Seconds later, a more...frustrated? angry? scream, and the faint bark of weapons fire. Subsonic rounds, with a suppressor. He glanced along the walls until his Land Warriors were able to pick up her IFF signal; still green. Alive and kicking. Sadly, no vitals display, but it could still tell him she was still kicking.

Sicko had apparently recovered and was looking at Hood with all the arrogance and pleasure one would expect; it had little doubt in it's ability to win in a fight between it and Hood. Human or monster, everyone had an over-inflated sense of self importance and ability. Aria's IFF still seemed to be back the way they had come, and also still alive. Why hadn't she moved yet?

He sighed quietly and in one smooth motion drew his pistol and put a round through Sicko's head. A couple steps across the room, and two more into the head followed suit, and a fourth in the heart just for good measure. Then he grabbed his gun and stepped back into the hallway to eye Jaxen.

The man was alive and well and already sitting up. Hood pulled a knife from his belt and tossed it at the man's feet. "Check on your room mate before you go."
Of course he didn't mean that Jaxen should kill the person; he had just given over the knife so Jaxen would have something to defend himself with. Then he was off at a run, SMG back in his hands and heading to back to the intersection where he had stopped following Rune.

He dallied long enough to send a map update to Aria, and yelled down the hall way in her direction, "Knives. One badger cold. Moving to Candy's position."
Then he was off at a run towards the source of the weapons fire, trying to zero in on Rune's position.

A scream echoed through the cooridors and Aria knew she couldn't wait here any longer waiting on this channeler to answer her question. She had a team and the team was in trouble.

Mr. White yelled in her direction. "Seriously, Knives???" Aria shook her head and quickly stood up. Aria took a moment to mark the position on the map on the Land Warriors. "Downed Rougarou." Hopefully it would still be here when they got done with whatever trouble the others had gotten into.

Aria would have asked her friend to pin him again, but then she may never get the monster out in the first place. Aria kicked the sack of skin and bones on to his face and took out her sword. She held it high above her head and with all the force her tiny body could muster she drove the blade through the monster and into the floor below. Hopefully her sword would still be here when she got done.

"You can't stay here. Whatever reason you're here you need to leave. I have to go."

And without hesitation Aria drew her gun and the other sword and ran in the direction of her team. She relied on the map but she could smell the determination of Mr. White and of Rune before him. It was a mirror image in her mind. She passed the room where the survivors were and skid to a stop. She took a look back and the way she had come and sighed. Aria ran back the other way until she could see the man, "If you have time. There are two people here who need help getting out of this horrid place."

She didn't wait for a reply and ran back to the room and walked in the door to see a girl nearly dead to rights and a man who clearly shouldn't be here.

(ooc: Don't know how to be a threat so Jax channel's so feel free to improvise Aria being a threat if need be. I know that's why Michale is on the way. Just don't kill her )

<small>((Hood's work was done with permission. My moding of Aria and Michael also done with permission.</small>


The next thing Jax knew he was cold clocked and checking the floor. Wasn't like things weren't rough enough, but his head swam alarmingly. Sounds of fighting lifted his gaze as he shoved himself upright. Jax was rubbing his jaw and testing out the motion of a back tooth while White kicked the shit out of Sicko in the room across the hall.

Mall cop wasn't the only one to hear the distant yell, and the popping of four point-blank shots into Sicko was enough to remind Jaxen to get out of this hell-hole. White paused in the door and chucked the knife toward an unamused Jaxen. It skid to a stop short of his knees. He stared at White flatly. "Took you long enough to take down one skinny hippy,"
he yelled as White ran out of sight.

Jaxen grabbed the knife and tested out his footing. Balance and coordination was kind of head honcho in Jaxen's bag of tricks. "Little cocksucker,"
he rubbed his jaw again, "could have at least bought me a drink first."
Finally, his thoughts circled back around to White's initial demand. Hell, Jaxen had been so happy to see the son of a bitch, he'd nearly forgotten about the lighter. He slapped a palm to his hip and pat the flattened pocket, more pissed he'd lost the thing again than having been coldclocked to get it back.

Pissed, and holding a knife, Jaxen glanced at the lump in the corner. She'd not cried out in a while -- he was pretty sure -- Jaxen was pretty good at ignoring her bitching by the time all this went down. Which meant he wasn't about to waste time galloping to her rescue. Jaxen was no hero; not even with the motivation to put her out of her misery. Had he been holding a pistol? Maybe. Because who doesn't enjoy shooting a pistol?

Before he made it another step, a chick came dashing in. Wielding a gun in one hand and a sword in another, Jaxen was torn between sticking her in the throat with White's knife or hitting on her. She was kind of hot. In a seriously fucked up chick with daddy issues kind of way. Which were always the best ones, so long as the right precautions are made -- you know, fake alias, no last names, never take her back to your real place, actually best to never take her anywhere and just bang her in the bathroom and get it over with, and absolutely no mailing, texting or calling.

Unfortunately for her, Jaxen was rather occupied with getting the fuck out of here. So he scrubbed a hand through his hair, appropriately tossling it, and stride forward. "Excuse me sweetheart. Got places to be, and they aren't here."
She looked at him flatly, then seemed to acknowledge something Jax neither saw nor heard, and left.

Jaxen shrugged and made toward the exit, but the sight of a second lever caught his eye on the way. He glanced upward, following the line of chains toward Earless' corner. "Sorry chick. But believe me, you don't want to be rescued,"
he told her, if she was still alive, or if she could still hear.

Not a few steps from freedom, Jaxen's escape was blocked a third time by a brute in a big black coat. Unlike White and Daddy Issues, this guy was not armed to the teeth. Though Jaxen was far from ignorant. Coats that size were only worn for one thing: concealment.

Pissed, jaw throbbing, arms sore, and tired of all the delays, Jaxen charged the stranger without hesitation. Hopefully before pretty boy had a chance to draw a weapon.

Edited by Jaxen Marveet, Aug 17 2013, 06:21 AM.

"If you have time. There are two people here who need help getting out of this horrid place."

Michael didn't have a chance to speak, everything happened so fast, and the tiny woman was off chasing after something else. But she knew. She knew what he had done. She didn't try to kill him, that was good. He could only hope she didn't do anything rash with the knowledge. He did not want to have to kill more people for the sake of some mysterious power.

He took one glance at the monster pinned to the floor. Well, that was one way of doing it.

Then he recalled her final words. There were others. Katalina.

Michael moved down hall - he could hear footsteps echoing all around, he could not make any sense of it. He hoped nobody tried sneaking up on him.

As he approached the door, he was faced with a man. He looked worse for wear, covered with bruises and his hands chafed with the distinct mark of chains.

Before he could speak, the man charged at him, a knife in hand.

Michael wrapped him up with tendrils of Air just before the knife struck. Not that it would have done much damage. It was small enough that his coat and under-layers would probably have blocked it, but he didn't want to test that theory out.

Just in case, he swatted the knife from the man's hands. He did not look best pleased, and Michael did not want to deal with a pissed off prisoner with sharp tools.

He left the man hanging in mid-air as he entered the room and saw the second prisoner. The man in mid-air made some kind of protest, but Michael ignored him for now. If he was strong enough to try and kill someone, he wasn't likely to die any time soon.

Katalina

It was hard to make out much of anything - her body had been...eaten...

Bending down, Michael checked for a pulse, and was not surprised to find nothing.

He hesitated a split second before weaving Air and Fire. The body went up in flames and was burned to ash before his eyes. He would not let Tony see his last relative in that condition.


Edited by Michael Vellas, Aug 17 2013, 07:13 AM.

Jaxen was no street thug making the rounds through gang fights. Knives were for slicing your way in and out of things, not for jamming other idiots in the throat. If anything, they were for paying other guys to jam idiots in the throat. Or for betting on which blockhead appeared the least useless when it came to opening up carotids. Yet Jaxen wasn't without theory. He charged the brute in the door, fully intending to sack him and run. If the knife found a mark, all the better, but the object was to see daylight not add to the bodycount.

Not two long strides later, he found himself wrenched from the floor. Literally. But rather than flung to the wall like White's strong-arming Sicko for a dance, Jaxen simply stayed midair.

The brute clamped an ape-like grip upon Jaxen's exceedingly tender wrist, still red and bruised from the trick played on Sicko, and exquisite bolts of pain shot up his arm. He dropped the knife and grunted through clamped teeth. A ferocious gaze dared Michael to let him go. "Goddamn it, you all have hardon's for me,"
he uttered, assuming this new guy to be one of Sicko's little cult members.

Jaxen struggled against something. He flexed and reared every muscle in his body to get out of it. He was one of the greatest fucking thieves in the whole goddamn world but here he was still stuck in this shithole strung up even worse than earlier!

The guy knelt over Earless, and Jaxen prepared to tune out the moaning and slicing and chewing sure to come from that shadowy corner, but a spark of flame suddenly drew his attention that way. In an instant, a blaze reared up. The sheer intensity of it caused him to wince. There was no malodorous smell of lighter fluid clouding the air, but the future was not boding well for Jaxen's health.

He turned his attention back to himself. To staring overhead. To fighting whatever held him up. He stretched for the floor. Every vein in his arms, neck and scalp pushed themselves to the surface of his skin in the struggle. Against whatever invisible rope held him there. If he could just bust out of it.

Being eaten, burned alive, shot in the head or beaten to death was not in the fucking stars today. The determination brightened the world suddenly; painfully bright. More so than the horrid scent of roasted flesh and sickening pops of fireplace crackle accompanying Earless' cremation. Whatever it was, it spiked a magnificent torture inside his bones, and Jaxen forced it into submission.

Something gave. Whatever it was, Jaxen felt a snap hit him like a flicked rubber band. He fell from midair, but caught himself in a loud thud, landing nimbly on his feet on the floor. He was probably as shocked as Michael to actually break free. But he wasn't about to question his luck.

As Michael watched the last of the fires burn down, he felt something...strange.

His eyes widened in shock as the man filled with the power and sliced through his bonds. As soon as he hit the floor - he was quick, landing on his feet like a cat; he must have been unlucky to be caught by those monsters - the power disappeared, and Michael understood. Stress usually brought it out, and now that he had the chance to think, being tied in the air and watching a body burst into flame would be stress enough for anyone, not to mention whatever he endured at the hands - or teeth, he supposed - of those cannibals.

He thought the man was about to run. A bad idea. That knife would hardly stop one of those monsters eating him. Besides, Michael was curious and he felt a duty to those the same as he. It could mean the difference between being hunted and slaughtered and learning to control the power.

"Stop!"
he said. "I am not one of those monsters. I came to save the girl."


He had the man's attention.

"Those bastards might still be out there. If you come with me, you will be safe."
Michael gestured to the pile of ash for emphasis.
Edited by Michael Vellas, Aug 17 2013, 11:42 AM.

Jaxen turned. Came to save the girl?

"Good for you."
He nodded. Every instinct in his body told him to run, and Jaxen was probably going to regret this later, but he heard the man out long enough to not bolt.

He winced to himself and turned back. The fire had already burnt itself out, and nothing remained of earless but a pile of ash. It was a freakishly astonishing feat. Whatever the man did to erase another human body, well, maybe he did have a few tricks up his exceedingly ugly sleeves.

Jax curtly tugged on his expensive designer coat, setting it straight about his shoulders, and glanced out the door, snapping his gaze up and down the hallway. Empty. For the moment.
Aussie or not, Jax was going to listen to this blowhard. "Alright, skippy. So unless you want to scatter the ashes,"
he nodded at the campfire and gestured around them, "hurry it up."
Jax wasn't in the mood to wait around while Prince Charming shed a few tears.

Michael and Jaxen continued in: A New Day

Rune side stepped around the swinging skinned body. Thanking God that the boots kept her footing on the slick floor pooled around him. She barely registered stepping on something soft and squishy, but knew better than to look down to see what it was, fearing it to be the corner of a hand-shaped mound of skin or something awful like that. Even for a rougarou, that was pretty sick. And she definitely didn't want to end up in the same shape.

She flicked the gun off single fire and sprayed the Bannik with everything she had. Unlike the Jann, the bullets hit solid substance, but they seemed to splash into the magma sending sparks ricocheting off its body, then stick like a dart for a second or two before melting all together. Rune quickly realized the futility of shooting, ceased fire, slung the gun around her shoulder and drew a knife. It advanced on her, and she let it back her around the dead rougarou, down the aisle and around the opposite end of the lockers.

The glasses were beeping at her, but she ignored them, too focused on trying to think of a way to kill the thing! With it leading her backward, she finally held her ground and stepped into its reach, slashing as she went. It seemed to groan a furnace of heat from a hole where its mouth should have been, and a surge of heat burned Rune's skin. The knife did no good. The blade stuck in its 'body' too firmly for Rune to rip it back out again. There was hissing and bubbling, and a sound of vibration rose once more. She began to retreat once more.

Bullets did nothing. Knives melted against it. Rune was so angry with it she'd rip its head off if she thought she'd manage to get a good enough grip on its neck. And assuming it stayed in solid form long enough to do so. She jerked her eyes around the room and saw the old time freezer in the corner.

About then, she saw Hood run in. He had a good view of the Bannik descending quickly on her.

"Cuddles!" She called to him forcefully, continually backing up step by step, using the SMG only now and then to force the Bannik to keep from grabbing her hair. She had a feeling that if it got ahold, it'd scalp her faster than Tanto on a cowboy. "The Freon. In that! It's the only shot we have!" This thing was like a glowing pit of coals, and while Rune didn't have any marshmellows handy, she had a feeling coolant might do something to it. "Hurry!" She started spraying it with bullets once more. They stuck in its chest like studs on a jacket, but at least they seemed to keep it from advancing.