Morgrym jumps up and takes a shower and cleans off the blood and then gets a fresh set of clothing out the duffel bag and puts on the vest and the reinforced gloves and then the machete on the back holster and the .45 ACP as well as the .40 Sig Sauer, and finally at the back right the flare gun and he ensures the safety is on that but the rest are in rock forward holsters and the only safety is his mind and the trigger. Morgrym nods and says I dreamed about the darkness and being one with it.. Morgrym snaps and breaks his phone and takes out a burner and says let's go. and puts on the leather jacket out of the bag as well as the reinforced jump boots and putting those on. Everything in its place.
time to be the darkness
"You dreamed about the Darkness? Huh." Azerrad arches a brow "That's an interesting sign. I'm supposed to be training you in our various powers. You seem instead to be hyper focusing. Curious that." She says "Oh, your fence dropped off something. I had it put in the trunk of the car."
SHe motions you to follow her to the vehicle, and she opens the trunk. A crate. Not everything you wanted, but some. There's a single Bokken (Wooden Sword), an Iron Sword, and a Steel sword. There are two flare guns. And two vests but they're not reinforced much and no neck guard. A note says "Best I can do on an over nighter right now. Had to raid a forged in fire set. I'm not even gonna ask-" Kip
Morgrym hands Azerrad a vest and keeps the other for his sister and then sharpens the Bokken sword and says to Azerrad you need a sword? I am giving the other vest to my sister. Shall we?
Dylan nods, "Well, I guess if I hadn't received your offer I'd have been dead anyway. Let's meet these others".
Dylan gets into the car not used to having doors opened for him he gives a head nod of thanks to the Professor.
"It w-was like D-denise was loo-king r-right at me. Acc-using. H-had a d-dream about her. A r-red light w-washed over the c-city, t-the people it touched ch-changed, like us. The l-light fell toward her. I d-didn't stop it." Lawrence looks at Mei, reshapes his scowl into a smirk and comments, "N-nice hair."
Morgrym hands Azerrad a vest and keeps the other for his sister and then sharpens the Bokken sword and says to Azerrad you need a sword? I am giving the other vest to my sister. Shall we?
"I wouldn't say no." She takes the spare sword. Soon the two of you are on your way to a manor house you're not familiar with. You pull up and park. Music can be heard coming from inside.
Dylan nods, "Well, I guess if I hadn't received your offer I'd have been dead anyway. Let's meet these others".
Dylan gets into the car not used to having doors opened for him he gives a head nod of thanks to the Professor.
They drive towards a manor house "I can tell you that the anarchs are mostly of two coteries. The Crimson Dream has a more political bent, idealistic. The Pagan Heels are less idealistic but still want to rebel and are chipping in. "
The manor house is realy nice and you see another car parking, "Others are arrving as well"
He parks "Out we go. This place used to be long to a camarilla member before they deserted the city."
"It w-was like D-denise was loo-king r-right at me. Acc-using. H-had a d-dream about her. A r-red light w-washed over the c-city, t-the people it touched ch-changed, like us. The l-light fell toward her. I d-didn't stop it." Lawrence looks at Mei, reshapes his scowl into a smirk and comments, "N-nice hair."
"Denise is a creature of ignorance, not knowledge but.. weird dream" then at mention of her hair she blushes and touches it "Not too animae I hope?"
The vehicle is driving along, the others pretty quiet. You get a bit nervous. IS this an ambush? Are things going red wedding now that the honeymoon has been consumated?
You see a manor house, and there are others parking there.
Morgrym stands up out of the car and straps on the bokken sword making sure it doesn't get in the way and then looks around at the area with his eyes and says anybody bother to do a perimeter check here?. He places the other sword around his hip adjusting the belt on top of his regular equipment and picks up the other two flare guns for his sister and the vest and then looks to the other vehicles arriving. do those we are fighting know the location here because then this is a dumb spot to be with all of us and I am not going in.
"Uh..." Michael is caught a bit off-guard by the girl in the hall.
"...yeah, I guess we are." He looks over at Natalie.
Natalie looks at the woman's clothes, "Is that a cheerleader outfit with a leather jacket on top?"
Beth would blush normally but forgets to spend the blood, "Look, this ... B#tch put the bite on my brother also put some kind of mind whammy on me. Made me gung ho GI joe to get embraced... but not by her, I wasn't good enough. Almost got turned into a nosferatu, which..." She shudders "Cerridyn or however you say your name is nice but she took pity on me and sent me to a Caitiff. Trevor's not so bad but this was the only thing I had to wear and he thought it looked pretty hot. Turns out Caitiff are mutts of the vampire world so even though the Anarchs are supposed to be better, I think I got insulted being sent to him. So yeah, Cheerleader outfit, leather jacket, and a happy vampire sugar daddy it feels. I'm still gonna have to get shot at... only now that mind whammy has worn off and I'm a bit scared."
Natalie shrugs "We're performers, we've been threatened on stage. At least now we can shoot back on this. You know how to use a gun?"
"yeah, self defense course too, not anything great. My brother.. he's .. kind of an action hero. I know you're going to think I'm nuts, he saved me from the mob." A look down the hall , "Oh right, you're ready. Sorry, I got chatty. I'm nervous." She moves down the hallway leading you on.
Hey, you hear your music playing up ahead.
Michael follows Beth, the mention of mind-whammy bullshit causing his hackles to raise a little.
Morgrym stands up out of the car and straps on the bokken sword making sure it doesn't get in the way and then looks around at the area with his eyes and says anybody bother to do a perimeter check here?. He places the other sword around his hip adjusting the belt on top of his regular equipment and picks up the other two flare guns for his sister and the vest and then looks to the other vehicles arriving. do those we are fighting know the location here because then this is a dumb spot to be with all of us and I am not going in.
"Skye's on patrol, and we have back up doing permititer checks, ghouls mostly. I'll tell you about those later.," Your Sire tells you. "Far as we know, this place is safe... for now. It won't be in the nights to come."
Michael follows Beth, the mention of mind-whammy b&~+#@*+ causing his hackles to raise a little.
Natalie frowns as well, the term 'mutts' surprised her.
You come into what must be the meeting area, and a bit surprised to see among all the splender there are some guns and ammo laying about.
D-Man greets you, then grins at your outfit, "I bet you hate that wardrobe men. How are you feeling?"
Michael looks around at all the guns and ammo.
"...feeling like I just walked into a job interview for the NRA. What's all this about?"
"It's K-kawai-i De-su ne!" Lawrence forces a fake ha-ha laugh then starts coughing as his stutter interferes with the laugh.
Lawrence observes the manor and feels a shiver run down his spine.
A manor. And plenty of guests. It could go Clue in minutes. I'll have to be on guard the whole time. Maximum levels of watching the scaly f!@~s.
"Th-this p-place is too rich for my B-blood. Even c-cold blooded-ed as w-we are."
Morgrym walks with Azerrad and enters the mansion looking scanning the room as he enters nodding to Azerrad about the cover around the location but knowing this other gang is already in the city made him itchy. is there anyone you want me to meet first?
Dylan exits the car and looks around, "So we are independent then? We're not part of these... coteries right?"
Other than that comment, Dylan stays quiet and just observes. He's interested to see what these other Vampires look like, after all, those Vampires in the Diner looked pretty wacked out.
Michael looks around at all the guns and ammo.
"...feeling like I just walked into a job interview for the NRA. What's all this about?"
"Damn," Natalie looks over the same weapons, "I'm getting a bad 'hey, is this waco' vibe?"
"I'll fill you in when the others get in," D-Man answers."Short version? We're going to war to protect our turf, and I mean OUR turf."
"It's K-kawai-i De-su ne!" Lawrence forces a fake ha-ha laugh then starts coughing as his stutter interferes with the laugh.
Lawrence observes the manor and feels a shiver run down his spine.
A manor. And plenty of guests. It could go Clue in minutes. I'll have to be on guard the whole time. Maximum levels of watching the scaly f$~$s.
"Th-this p-place is too rich for my B-blood. Even c-cold blooded-ed as w-we are."
Sam says "I had to sleep in dirt. And apparently that's a thing for me now. I feel due SOME luxury."
"Don't whine," Behemoth her sire says, "Is rich in nutrients."
You are guided in as you see others.
Morgrym walks with Azerrad and enters the mansion looking scanning the room as he enters nodding to Azerrad about the cover around the location but knowing this other gang is already in the city made him itchy. is there anyone you want me to meet first?
Azerrad smirks, "Oh I want to introduce you to all of my Coterie, but we might as well throw you into the schoolyard with the kids in masse. My advice? focus on your fellow recruits. They're the ones who will need your support most." She looks at the others filtering into the mansion "Besides, it's already starting. Knowing D-Man , the Brujah and leader of the Crimson Dream , he'll give a speech. Brujah do love the sounds of their own voices."
And into the mansion you go.
Dylan exits the car and looks around, "So we are independent then? We're not part of these... coteries right?"
Other than that comment, Dylan stays quiet and just observes. He's interested to see what these other Vampires look like, after all, those Vampires in the Diner looked pretty wacked out.
"I am ally to both, but member of neither. You? Well, that's largely up to you. It's possible a third one will be formed tonight of the new fledges. My advice is you join in on that, strength in numbers. Now your sister will belong with the Pagan Heels if the coteries stay as two... but, well," a smile at something, "Assuming we all survive this, I do have hopes for an advantageous position in the new society."
And he leads you into the mansion
Whether you are waiting inside already, or coming from the outside, you soon all join in the main meeting area in the mansion, the room is opulent, possibly it was used as a ball room, though it's somewhat enclosed with few windows but the various guns and ammo placed about . You can see the room seems to have two crowds.
To one side of the room, you can see a latino man with a mohawk in punker fashion. Near him is a platinum blonde beauty dressed in street fashion that is pretty expensive. And a fellow who looks like the leather jacket can't save him from that shaggy out dated hair style.
and a redheaded woman who seems to blur from girl next door with glasses, to a darker haired goth look, to some kind of yacht candy bimbo walks that way. With her, another woman, with a feral kind of look and no attempt at fashion at all, strides along as well.
The one thing all of them have is a touch of red in their outfits.
The other side has a scrawny figure wearing a motorcycle helmet and biker gear. The logo of a bare foot landing on the heel and breaking 'something' is on the back. She has a lap top nearby. State of the art. Near her, his handsome face free, is a man who prefers black and white denim.
An attractive woman who just entered seems to trail shadows as she joins them and takes the lead position out of that group. A hulking brute of a biker goes with her.
There's an man with a shaved head, a dark goatee, and piercing eyes. His suit isn't that expensive but he is wearing one and he positions himself somewhat like the point of a triangle from the two groups
And somehow, crowded in the middle of this triangle that's formed as if by magic, there's each of you, and the other newbies. Dylan sees his sister has a new jacket too and is wearing torn denim jeans. She looks tempted to ask him how he's doing. She's wearing gloves, odd. She was never a fan of them.
Another attractive woman of color seems to have taken some high fashion and repurposed it, and some may feel they've seen her before especially if they're into punk music.. Natalie was always attractive, now even more so as she hangs near Bones.
Morgrym sees Beth wearing her cheerleader outfit with a leather jacket as well. She looks pale and glares at Azerrad as she walks by before turning to see him and actually gives a finger waggle wave.
Of course, Lawrence is right beside his sister, Samantha and his friend co-worker Mei.
A man wearing combat boots and carrying a bullet proof vest as well as a wooden sword and steel sword along with an assortment of hidden items under his coat and wearing a hat with his hair which is gray white bunched under his hat walks over to the cheer leader and says take off the leather jacket and get some pants and put on this vest, and then pick up a belt and a couple of those firearms and move with a purpose. Things are gonna go south quick. Thr rival gang is already taking on recruits.
Lawrence stands uneasily amidst the crowd, glancing from person to person. He shifts his weight from right leg to left, the crease in his black pants following suit. Fidgeting with his rifle, his black leather jacket crinkles with the movement and parts slightly to show the dull green button up he wears underneath. He brushes his left hand through his thick black hair, under his grey beanie. The expression across Lawrence's pale-brown face is of stoic resilience. They cannot break me.
Lawrence weighs the scales of his newfound allies. "Too many scales." he concludes aloud.
Dylan has a dark complexion, certainly some hispanic heritage in his blood perhaps mixed with middle eastern ancestry? He is fairly tall, 6'3" and his body is clearly muscular even covered up by a large ASU hoodie. His jeans are a bit faded, some sort of smudge that just won't wash out in a few spots along the legs where his hands would brush by. His hair is dark with a tight haircut.
He nods at his sister and is about to speak with her when the man wearing combat boots with enough weapons to put an action move star to shame speaks up so Dylan responds, "Yeah, they almost got me too.
I had to break out the front window of the Dip Ship just to get away. There were six of em, leather jackets with a symbol of one circle under three interconnected dots.
Shit went sideways. Fast".
Morgrym turns a bit and says to Dylan something called a Harbinger of Skulls and it's friends were on their way to some competitors of mine to do some recruitment. Things went sideways for the recruitees before their friends arrived. I am Morgrym Black and this is my sister Beth.
"Dylan Gantz, this is my sister, Kelly.
I don't know what a Harbinger of Skulls is, I'm going to assume our new friends here do.
Looking at you is making me feel underqualified to be here pal".
let's say that I have a great deal of combat experience. What you are good at got you here. I teach you now and you teach me later, eh?
Michael feels even more out of place than before when the other vampires arrive.
Michael was always pale in life, but his skin once had a pinkish tinge to it--now, as a vampire, his entire body might as well have been bled of colour. His skin is bone-white, matching his hair, and his eyes are now an ethereally bright blue instead of the very pale blue they were before.
He's visibly uncomfortable, especially at the sight of so many guns on display. Sure, he did some time at a rifle range or two, but he never had to shoot at another person before. His forte was street fighting, not gunplay... yet.
"I'm an all-american wrestler and I'm a pretty big dude. Though with what I saw, I don't think size matters here.
But sure I'm game, I'd be a fool not to trade something now for something later".
"Thanks, Morgrym" Beth takes the offered gear, a look to Trevor.
Trevor shrugs.
Other speak as well.
"I'm Dr. Samantha Skarney, this is my brother Lawrence. And he says too many scales, where as I'm wondering if we have enough. How out numbered ARE we?" One woman asks.
Behemoth says "Three to one and growing, but we've got a plan for that."
Bones and Natalie actually have an admirer here, "Hey, Kelly Gantz. I saw your show. It was amazing. Real pleasure dying with you." She glances over at her sire, "I'm a Ravnos now, which apparently means I STEAL CARS NOW."
Magpie grins "Every Ravnos has their own urges. Yours appear to be grand theft auto."
Kelly looks over at Dylan, "Don't you laugh." She is an excellent driver herself and he taught her how to unlock some vehicles.
Mei says "Not all of us are gun bunnies. I mean I have some self defense but..."
"Get good" Márohu suggests "D-Man, can we get this started?"
D-Man says "Give them a few minutes to get to know each other. THen we'll talk about the plan."
Morgrym has always done things his way and alone but he can see something more is needed.
hey listen up and then he summons up command drill sgt tone new recruits listen up! and he waits for a second.
please get to the table and take a firearm that feels like it fits your hand grip and dont play with it or point it at anyone including yourself or your foot or other nice things you don't want to remove. Grab ammo that is next to it. If you don't know what you are doing report back to my position for a quick hands on training on the safety and the sights and how to rock and draw. Anyone who has courage I have two extra flare guns which will finish one of us off but you better be able to handle it. Get moving and get your gear before the tactical debrief which is going to be in a few. Don't make the boss wait because he's in charge and dont make me wait because I can shoot better then you right now. Chop chop!
Dylan's used to being barked at by his Dad, by Coaches, hell by Jerry, so when Morgrym snaps out, Dylan straightens up.
He doesn't know a damned thing about firearms except that shotguns are easier to handle than rifles or handguns, so that's what he goes for and comes back next to Morgrym, "This ones easy no? I bet we've got little time for target practice before the main event".
Morgrym looks the shotgun up and down and makes sure it has the right slugs and slides them in and then loads the under cartridge rack and says this has two in the breech at a time with slugs. They grabbed low hanging fruit off the Sportsman's Warehouse. It's a point, fire two at once, reload and repeat. This flat wider side is to the back and it will sound like this when it loads.. CLACK CLACk.
there that got everyone's attention. It's a real basic go getter. You want a side arm with you in case you can't reload fast enough. Something with an extended 15 round clip, ok Dylan?
Dylan nods and grimaces, "I doubt that I'll be of much use with a handgun but I'll carry it just in case.
Like I said, I'm a better hand to hand guy. Thanks".
The military barking needles Lawrence's issues with authority. So he ops to not directly engage. He takes a pistol and some ammo, loading it and getting a feel for the weight. He takes a second pistol and hands it to Mei. "B-better to have o-one. Ev-en if y-you're a bad sh-shot. C-can't punch some-one t-twenty feet a-way."
Indeed, the reactions to Morgrym's directions are mixed. Just as many were recruited for rebellious natures as sense after all.
Samantha knows guns already but she urges Mei to follow "Refresher can't hurt."
Mei takes a breath, remembers she doesn't need to, and does so listening to Morgrym intently.
Beth, of course , has changed and joins her brother.
"This guy think he's in charge of us or something?" Natalie inquires of Bones.
Kelly looks defiant but then when her brother goes up, does the same but she says "Yo Bro brings it up close and personal, but like the man there said" A nod at Lawrence, "Range sounds good."
"Just remember, our organs aren't crucial anymore," Trevor reminds, "Internal bleeding not as bad, that kind of thing, so Bullets have to hit us a lot more to really take us out."
D-Man nods "Don't burn all the ammo, we're going to need it on tonight's raid."
I am not in charge of anything and there are more experienced souls here then myself, however, few previous special forces mobsters sitting here now willing to show you some basics and be on your six in this upcoming raid
Lawrence appraises the rag-tag group of lizards with guns they don't know how to use, considers offering pointers, but he's not a teacher. The biggest hurdle for him has always been getting people to understand him, still the better they performed the better chance they'd all live.
He clears his throat and gestures around his torso with his [scaly] hand.
"If y-you're new to g-guns. J-just aim cen-ter mass."
After his brief attempt to improve the chances of the boomstick-challenged he turns his attention toward Writhe and the other sires.
"Kn-knowing the b-battle-f-field will be help-ful to plan. Eh-where are w-we fight-ting?
"You should listen to my brother, he knows his stuff" Beth says.
"Kn-knowing the b-battle-f-field will be help-ful to plan. Eh-where are w-we fight-ting?"
"Suburbia... We're going to war in suburbia," the woman with the lap top says "Which is a pain in the ass for me"
"You got this, Ceiridwen, Azerrad says calmly to her, then explains "Ceirdiwen is our hacker, the one who is going to arrange a power outage and wi fi down when we attack. We can't have every damned cellphone revealing vampires are real."
"The-there's some-thing to be said f-for the w-will-full ig-nor-ance of the p-public. I-if they d-don't want to be-lieve t-they won't. A-and they'll s-say it's fake if you prov-vide proof. P-probably think it's s-some big LARP th-thing."
Morgrym looks at the hacker for a long minute and then walks over to his sister and says stay with me and we will move as a team and I will show you what you need to know.. Morgrym turns to D-Man and says find a kill zone and put me in it, use the rest to do what they can as a flank distraction. No one thinks of small unit tactics and these new folks won't have that. Only the leaders will. So we are gonna have to keep the idiots busy while you take the more experienced vampires, right?
Dylan observes the commentary from the varied "Vampires" gathered at this position. He is interested to see how this all plays out. This is absolutely going to a be a meat grinder even worse than he envisioned. Probably the only chance they stand is that they should be facing, if the Professor is correct, "Vampires" as young as themselves.
He remains silent.
"The-there's some-thing to be said f-for the w-will-full ig-nor-ance of the p-public. I-if they d-don't want to be-lieve t-they won't. A-and they'll s-say it's fake if you prov-vide proof. P-probably think it's s-some big LARP th-thing."
Mei nods "I might be able to drop a mislead or cover story" A sigh "I can't believe i'm going to actually WILLINGLY spread misinformation for once. I mean, sure, the station did it, but I kept my hands off that side of things until now."
her sire snorts "Survival trumps all. Do it ... if you don't get dusted."
Morgrym looks at the hacker for a long minute and then walks over to his sister and says stay with me and we will move as a team and I will show you what you need to know.. Morgrym turns to D-Man and says find a kill zone and put me in it, use the rest to do what they can as a flank distraction. No one thinks of small unit tactics and these new folks won't have that. Only the leaders will. So we are gonna have to keep the idiots busy while you take the more experienced vampires, right?
D-man nods, "That's the plan but we can't promise they haven't mixed it up a bit."
Trevor says "The good news is, I suspect you guys are quality to their quantity."
Dylan observes the commentary from the varied "Vampires" gathered at this position. He is interested to see how this all plays out. This is absolutely going to a be a meat grinder even worse than he envisioned. Probably the only chance they stand is that they should be facing, if the Professor is correct, "Vampires" as young as themselves.
He remains silent.
"Aren't you glad I invited yoU?" The Professor says to Dylan dryly.
Dylan cracks a grin, "Truth be told, if you didn't, I would likely be in the ranks of those we're about to fight against, either way I was dead.
Better the dead guy you know and respect than some jerk who just tore my throat out and forced me back to my feet to fight.
At least that's what I'm telling myself".
"C-cei-rdwin. DDoS on m-mobile networks? S-sounds fun. H-have a data center i-in mind? Any idea w-which n-neighborhood tra-transformers should w-we disrupt?"
The Professor smiles, "Why thank you, Dylan. It's nice to know my students respect me, doubly so my childe."
Ceiridwen looks over at Lawrence, "I thought you were just an editor?"
"My little brother's a damned genius" Samantha says
"It's true. I've abused his help for Tech support more than once," Mei admits.
Ceiridwen motions Lawrence, "Here, take a look at what I'm doing."
"I-i started edi-ting for f-funds s-since g-grey-hatting d-doesn't pay."
Lawrence takes a gander at Ceiridwen's screen. A twitch travels from his right eye to his hand as he takes in her work.
Ceiridwen is very good, and has he needs to find which transformers should be targeted. And yes there's the data center. Lawrence can get her entire plan of attack in mere minutes and even suggest a few things to double down.
Meanwhile, D-Man speaks up, "One other things you guys need to watch out. You may be tempted to drink from a fellow vampire. Don't. It can lead to a blood bound 3 times and you're another vampire's best buddy even if you don't mean to be. And, while it might be tempting, don't slurp down any of the sabbat, at least not all the way. Some try to suck a soul dry along with the last drop of a lick. It does not, nine times out of ten, go well. Stains your soul soo, we'd know if you did it."
Dylan shrugs as he doesn't quite track the explanation but if the advice is to not eat other Vampires then he simply won't. Pretty straightforward there.
Morgrym cares about pre plan and knew it was important to keep the innocents out of the field and says so this should keep the non combatants low
Azerrad nods "That's the plan. We do a black out, lure their recruits. Destroy them all. The more experienced of us tackle the big guys, while you kids go against the poor shovelheads. Survivors get to run the city in the Anarch way, whatever that is" Amused.
"The imm-mortal liz-zards, Axo-lo-tls, re-gularly eat each oth-ers limbs, with th-their regen-nera-tion, it makes it f-fairly in-con-sequen-tial. N-not sure o-our 'souls' c-could be any m-more stained."
All this talk about eating other 'vampires' reminds Lawrence of a youtube video about axolotls, he paraphrases it as he helps set up a program to make thousands of service requests per second to the data centers and cell towers. That should keep them busy for a while at least.
The neighborhood transformers that need to be shut down or overloaded should be relatively easy to get to, but it's unlikely they'll be able to shut them down from a distance.
"Is there an ideal place for this ambush that you have planned out?
This might be a ridiculous question but what's the best way to kill us. Chopping off our heads? Stake in the heart? Fire? If we're outnumbered we're going to want to be as efficient as possible in this ambush, I would think anyway".
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Throughout the briefing, Michael is uncharacteristically dead silent.
I'm NOT killing Kevin. I'm going to get him out of there.
Morgrym looks at Michael and says lost a man. You want to save him in the middle of a massive firefight? You're gonna need help. I'll do it bud because leaving a brother behind is worse then dying for good. Get me a picture and I will help you.