Another day, another coin, and all was wasted as a hooded man in old leathers and casual loungewear sit propped against one of the many market buildings awaiting for his future business partner to open shop and allow him inside. The disreputable soul reached into his jacket's inner pocket only to produce a single bent cigarette which he quickly lit with gesture of the arcane and skill alone.

"Yea, yea, I know. Lucky for us there is only a little more time to show off the wares."

A waxy image began to rustle out from the man's outer pocket only to appear to look up to its owner with a bit of interest. It's wick would suddenly come alive as a blue flame danced above it's head and bounce with every step the small creature took only as it came to a rest upon a knee and taking the appearance of a melting candle stick. The two would seem to rest for a time as the man took another drag and continued to wait.

Adanat Walked cautiously through this shady market Looking for the familiar face of the man who she had made a shop together with "where are you Titus?" She muttered having forgotten yet again exactly where the shop was . Her dragon companion let out a hiss that sounded extremely alike an exasperated sigh at her friends horrible sense of direction before pointing her towards the place she was looking for with several nudges and silent comments. Idly wondering how in the world Ada had ever managed to find Reldrin's workshop in the first place as the woman in question spotted Titus and hurried over there with two identical keys.

"Hi Titus! Sorry to keep you waiting it took me longer then I thought it would to make a copy of the key for this place and I got lost on the way here again!" Ada said in a slightly frustrated tone as she offered one of them to Titus

At the best of times Titus simply had to groan as he looked up and spotted Adanat before she could have seen him. Instead he simply took one last drag from his cigarette and tossed it to the side while slowly getting up and taking his copy of the key. It was only when she began to explain her being late that he simply waved the notion off.

"You know being this ditsy is almost a pain to deal with. What do you think would have happened if I had not even showed up for this?"

Titus grimaced slightly as he took the key and unlocked the shop. The Hidden Undermarket was filled with all kinds from your simple gangs to the criminally insane at times. Regardless the tiny waxen beast followed it's master and found a place to lounge about leaving Adanat to close the door behind her.

"You've got to be more aware of your surroundings and be sure you can handle whatever asshole throws your way. This line of work can be dangerous you know?"

"I know exactly what would have happened, Pagherra would have gotten tired of my wandering and led me here" Ada said defensively as the aforementioned, small black dragon left her shoulder to rest on her in Ada's workspace right next to her inscribing table. Closing the door behind her Ada turned to check her runework. Adding a few extra bits to reinforce what was already there as she listened to Titus continue to talk, responding to his question with crossed arms as she turned to face him.

"Which Is exactly why I learned how to shoot and use a blade. Just because I get lost easily doesn't mean I'm helpless in a fight you know! And runes can be used to do more then augment equipment you know!" Having said her part Adanat walked back to her area with a huff and got set up.

Slapping a hand on the table and causing purple symbols to light up on the floor and wall around her erecting a faintly visible barrier for a second that pulsed inward and washed away any ambient energies from that small space as she prepped everything over there, slotting a mana crystal into the infusion altar fueling it's own anti interference barrier to keep things from going kablooee. " Sigh So do you think we'll get enough customers to live off of this or should I be thinking about a side job?"

Titus frowned as she mentioned what she had learned. Sure a knife in or gun could be useful when dealing with your usual mugger, but here in the Undermarket, things could get dicey. Hell even though she had access to magic not everything could go by the books. Instead of pressing the point further Titus allowed Adanat to pass by so she could continue to do her thing.

Waxy and Titus simply made their way behind the counter only to set up shop and take inventory of what magical reagents had been bought previously. It was only when Adanat spoke again did Titus wonder if she was talking to him. Instead he simply glanced towards the door and shook his head.

"It all depends on how much criminal intent is going around. Before you I would walk the narrows selling odds and ends from Deepweed to the occasional potion or mystical 'artifact'. Again it will depend."

The alchemist reached into his jacket and produced yet another strange cigarette which he quickly popped between his lips and lit with the utterance of a few arcane words. After a few drags of the esoteric death stick Titus exhaled a bit of smoke which smelled sweetly familiar and took on the appearance of cabalistic entities and shapes.

Ada Sighed and raised a hand with 4 pointing fingers and sent bolts of energy across the shop weakly stamping some runes in a square shape on the ceiling above Titus that sucked the smoke into itself before disappearing and leaving no marks behind on the ceiling with a baleful stare at the smoke producing object. Shaking her head she turned to her work.

Taking her short sword from it's scabbard and setting it on her inscription table. Looking over the various tiny runes scrawled across it's surface in a seemingly haphazard arrangement that only she could decipher. It was busy work, nothing more. "Well I hope we get Someone soon... I don't handle boredom well. I've done many stupid things out of boredom that ended in a mess" Adanat admitted with a grimace.

Titus glanced up at the runework which quickly dealt with his smoke and frowned. It was as if she was determined to remove every aspect of the alchemist touch to the shop let alone allow him the decency of lighting up and enjoying himself while he waited for a customer to arrive.

"Give it time Adanat. Not everyone will see this shop as a bastion of opportunity."

The Alchemist simply began to lean back and continued to wait for a sign of life from the market. After all he had nothing better to achieve at the moment. Hell if he had the time he would eventually test out his elixirs.

A girl without scars or the visibly blackened soul common to those in this place walked down the street copper-colored cybernetic eyes gleaming. Eyes that would be similarly green with envy threw wary glances as this dark, sullen, and often sinful place was not anywhere to be rash. There were often bad dogs afoot and anyone this far in knew who wasn't an easy mark. This girl in particular from one hand with telltale stretching partly split hands where sharp dripping spines lay at the fingertips. One arm of the dark blue hoodie up to the elbow a darker color leaking drops of crimson periodically. Not all the thugs here were quite so wise.

A young girl with a face out of place but proportionately large looked at shop names then periodically mumbling to herself in different pitches. A long container in one unsoiled hand a small backpack slung over the same shoulder. This girl of two minds in a compromising position to her reckoning made traversing this den of unruly humankind an unfortunate necessity. Becca, hesitating voice the first, far more worried in spikes of trauma streaking across her face. The other, a Ductu of Myrkul, had the smooth pace and firm tongue of the mission-oriented soldier. It was the latter who'd just ripped out a mugger's liver patched the loose vessels inside then shoved the loose organ down his throat.

"Did you have to do that, Ducky? I thought you guys didn't harm humankind? The guy was just high off his tits. They said the new address was around here somewhere we don't have far to go," said the smaller voice as implanted eyes flicked from building to building.

A sandpaper voice that replied came by a writhing black cotton in her mouth as the girl kept looking around, "He was threatening you with a gun Becca. He might still live if he gets medical treatment very soon. We need to find the pair needed for this before we start running out of time."

Becca turned then looked into Titus's shop window, "It's this one! We're right on the mark!"

Pagherra left her perch to land on Ada's shoulder as both of them looked to the window spotting a person outside. "It looks like we might have a customer Titus." She said, setting her short sword down and waving merrily to the person staring in the window at them "I hope they have something interesting for me to do!" Ada said with excitement.

The Alchemist simply groaned as he finished off his cigarette and snuffed it out on the counter he was sitting by. It was almost as if Titus perked up a little at the thought of making a few credits on the side for his pilfered goods and illicit wares.

"I can see that."

Titus rose slowly from his seat now only to pop his neck while Waxy scampered away off into a backroom. This would be the day for something interesting to happen and after all nothing was so easily determined than a customer lookin for some backroom goodies that they couldn't get fresh from someone more reputable.

Hood still up Becca's pale skin had some pattern seen lurking under it as she entered the building and looked around. She didn't look different than the average street urchin, other than the bloodied arm, until Becca's head turned to look left. For a moment a black flat-shaded woman's face did not follow while seeping out of her pale skin like so much sand. Ductu got Becca's attention to look at the woman sitting at the desk. Ductu wasn't one to take her eyes off of the unknown. The relic held at the clean side of haggard jeans dragged faint runic patterns through the dust to those with keen eyes as embossed shadows of some tightly contained energy within. Heaviness when swayed the long grey stone cylinder the diameter of her own leg seemed unlikely for such a waif of a girl to carry so easily much less effortlessly stand in place.

The voice that spoke first to the woman at the front desk was young and somewhat unsure, "Hello, Are you Titus? We're looking for particular conversion skills and beating thaumatological resources we need."

Ada gave this peculiar an individual a friendly smile before Pointing in the direction of their desired person. "That is Titus over there. I'm just his business partner." As she said this Pagherra hopped onto the counter in front of Ada aiming to get a closer look at this peculiar girl. "Careful Pagherra, Not everyone likes having a young dragon in their face" The small dragon snorted with what could only be derision before taking to the air and getting in close to smell this girl. "Your curiosity and arrogance are going to be your undoing you know." She said, crossing her arms before looking back at the girl "I'm terribly sorry, Pagherra is a bit on the curious side, a bit too much for her own good" Ada apologized shooting a glare at the small black dragon.

The Alchemist took a moment to look at the young girl wondering what on earth she had gotten into. It wasn't first apparent but now that he was getting a better look at the current company and the strange trinket they carried this was indeed something Titus could deal with. Honestly though things seemed to be going up besides a customer who appeared to have seen better days.

"Sure I can take a look. Hell I might even have what you need in order to take care of that little problem you've got there. It'll need to be examined though before we can do anything."

Titus moved out from behind the counter only to grab a small latched case and produced yet another strange cigarette from his jacket pocket while he walked over to the young street urchin only to shoot a glance over to Adanat and her familiar. They would not need to close up shop but to maybe be ready incase something happens to come their way.

Becca nodded but the sandpaper voiced Ductu is the woman who responded with Becca's mouthful of black strands, "Good. We have brought compensation and resources for payment."

The cylinder was the first to be put down and the flow of the ley likely quivered as a sealed reservoir descended into its watershed. A small crackle emerged for a moment as brushed grey metal ferroplasm finally made contact. A bell against which power could ring but each stay on its own side the small cognizance vault resonated quietly from then on.

Her backpack was less energetic but rattled a bit as she dropped it at his feet. There were several tied-together credit chits that were empty and one loose where Becca had amassed the funds they contained to pay Titus. Becca had broken into them of course but nobody really cared about the equipment pile at the Wing City 'meat locker' the Jinhai creatures brought corpses to. Rather inspiring to the hacker as Becca really didn't want to end up really dead this time and used for repair parts like some old computer.

Most of the other volume in the pack was of a very old book bound in human leather. Power creeps from it like a fungus leaking from the cover of the pack. The title was in Loross a long-dead language of plane-wandering mages that in the end suffered the same fate. If one skimmed it would be obvious to a practitioner even without the language that it contained ritual for creation of a specific experimental piece of a larger construct not deeply mentioned. Rather than the pattern of rambling paragraphs of some dry theoretical treatise teaching this or that. If one could read the book the name of the artifact in question became apparent in the repeated mention of one 'Nephalem Locus' involving a positive aligned heart and a strong negatively aligned one.

Becca's eyes widened as Ductu removed the hoodie and her shirt in the process with a youthful yelp, "What? Hey, Ducky!"

Her face then turned a pragmatic blasé as the sandpaper voice replied, "Titus needs to see the injury. Your modesty will survive this."

Over the girl's heart was flesh that seemed to squirm sweating some white fluid in the process. Patterns along the skin to the runic eye as if a soul fighting against corruption only the patterns emerging from its pull to 'self' were something clearly alien to a pale waif of a hacker. The wound pattern having the distinct split crater common to a close-range shotgun blast.

The sandpaper voice explained, "Becca is undergoing aetheric rejection of the replacement heart we built. I appear to have spent too long triaging the damage and her soul now claims me as its own. I am not authorized to kill humankind so I cannot leave her. I have acquired a solution from the Necropolis library but we can neither create nor easily acquire the components without undue complications. We have provided a vault for manifestation resources. Becca has sourced local currency from waste objects."

Becca pouted and looked at the ground shifting and apparently unhappy about standing there with just a bra on just moused, "I, uh... the vault has an equivalent of 400 kilomoles of carbon in it. I think particle mass is conserved if you make something heavier? That's, um, about half a metric ton of carbon. I have about 23k in credits on the live chit for costs."

The face turned stony and the sandpaper voice returns, "The book returns with me upon completion. Celestials must not see or hear of that book. Will you take the job at the given compensation?"

Ada, after noting Titus glancing at the door, stamped a few temporary runes on the wall and door creating a sort of one way lock and barrier to keep anyone from entering for the time being. She also blacked the windows out with a one way darkness barrier after reasoning that the shady folks outside would likely have no qualms with gathering for a free show once they spotted the currently topless girl in the shop. Seeing no further tasks to perform for the current situation, and having an idea. She went into her area "If ye two need me for anything I'll be In the back." Pulling out some empty pouches she got to work turning them into bags of holding.

Setting the strange case down and igniting his cigarette Titus seemed almost entranced as he looked upon the handiwork of whatever it was that stood before him it was something other than the norm.

"So you offer me a bit of Eden only to try to avert my gaze with credits and what seems to be a near limitless supply of material?

Titus smirked as he brought a hand up to the wound only to take a drag off from his cigarette. Time was indeed of the essence and it didn't help that Adanat took the time to step away to work on whatever projects she needed to catch up on. Instead the alchemist popped the strange case open revealing several syringes of blue and gold mysterious liquid that seemed to pulse like that of a heartbeat. Without even considering to warn the girl or her companion Titus took up one of the syringes with the mysterious golden content only to jam the needle right into his charges heart. Within seconds Titus injected the strange content into the heart which sent the paralytic agent coursing throughout the young girls body which he took hold of and lowered gently upon the floor.
Within seconds of getting her on the floor Titus removed one syringe and injected yet another but this time of the strange blue liquid which would force the young girl to astral project above her own body.

"Adanat, I know your busy but I need your help, could you come over here and create a ward around this form of hers! Also in the back there is a container that is marked with curse seals."

Ada jumped up and looked to her dragon who gave a nod and took to the air flying towards the back to locate said container for her while she took brisk steps over there. She did a quick stretch with her hands and cracked her knuckles before splaying her fingers out and sending arcs of energy upwards and down. stamping both the ceiling and floor with numerous golden and green runes at a rapid pace before stopping and waving her hands through the air leaving floating blue symbols of power there and a translucent blue dome.

"Ward done, getting your container."She said, quickly turning on her heel and striding hurriedly towards the back. Returning seconds later with the container that was requested and Pagherra resting on her shoulder with a level of inquisitiveness in her eyes not normally seen outside of a cat. "Here ya go Titus. I hope it has whatever ye need." Ada said, setting the container down and stepping over to maintain the ward.

There was a short tip of sharp fingers that spread the fingertips of one hand even as the girl slipped into paralysis. Facial muscles contorted and seized as Ductu forced a critical squint at the man. It wasn't an organic creature but the astral tether tugged at Ductu's mind now as well. When the next vial came to flush the spirit into view the girl's diaphanous astral form rose out of her body wriggling and listless at first. As a fainter shadow pushed her 'upright' the soul could be seen where a shotgun had blown out her torso. Therein the soul now instead was a mire of threading and a very slowly thumping black heart. Two ragged holes for eyes but for green irises looked around only her mind's eyes present. Though both sides of the astral form clung firmly to each other to keep her alive Becca's soul suffered for it.

A set of oval gold eyes opened behind the girl with hands that clung tightly. It looked at the girl and squeezed eliciting a squeal with a thump of the black heart waking the weightless form, "Agh! hey! A little warning would be nice!"

Becca's astral form lurched and gagged, "What, I'm floating? This makes me really nauseous but I can't puke."

"I gave you a heart of my body so you would not die, humankind. You can now feel why your soul cannot keep it," replied mouthless eyes in a silken older tone from behind her.

The faint oval eyes spoke from their clung position behind the astral form the silver tether passing through the black mass, "The vault is not without limit but taken is deemed due compensation for the task. We are confident that if celestials know of you they dislike you. So we offer you a piece of the fallen emperor because instead if they find either of you with it they even Abyssalkind will mark you for death. They will not bargain and now it is yours until you give it back. Finish our task and fix the Humankind Becca and Myrkul will return with more duties it wishes tended and recharge the vault as tasks suit. Our kind in this city have only interest in our own betrayals not of you humankind to each other."

Becca hadn't spent much time on the streets rather than behind a rig didn't understand the implication so sick, "Hrg... what betrayal?"

"Ssshhhh, little humankind. Let the contractor decide.", came the quiet reply.

What Titus was about to do with the excess materials he was presented and that crafty little book they had decided to show off was something he had only done once. Swiftly the alchemist reached over to the box and revealed a dark and withered heart which he took up and replaced with the faulty thing that was presented within the young girls chest.

"This is the heart of a long dead sorcerer, a necromancer if I recall correctly....."

Titus smirked as he looked up at the astral projection of the girl only to then dive back down into his work. He quickly placed the eldritch organ in place and called upon his own skills to materialize the excess material within the vault they provided to create diamonds and sapphires which he quickly crushed using time and energy at his disposal. The transmutation he willed upon the materials turned to dust which he sprinkled onto the heart while his hands deftly worked on crafting the arcane signatures needed to force the heart to beat once more.

"Khepa khepa Ra Asperuk...."

His words seemed to slightly take upon a unearthly tone as his hands weaved the spellwork forcing the heart to take root and allowing the blood to flow. Titus smirked as the arcane weave forced the heart to pump rapidly and watched the open cavity slowly began to close. He would reach up to the astral form above him and call the girl down to rejoin her body.

"Forta Forta ushul I'venkar Torshal...."

The eldritch words continued to echo within the safety of the barrier that Adanat had placed for him and soon the newfound heart would fully rest within the young girl acting on its own accord and allowing life to flow properly.

Ada Just kept feeding her energy into the barrier, Silently observing the proceedings in front of her. Pagherra flitting around the room looking to find Waxy for a closer look at the strange creature.

Weak pillars of material existence crumble away from a human soul rejecting the human heart therein makes replacement quite easy for Titus. The young girl's chest leaking white ectoplasm moved away like clay as the energy gathering in Titus' fist made a fleshy wake. Within the black motes that were still of Ductu quietly reorganized blood vessels that the fleshy clay would not suffer too much from the process. Coherence at scalar action replumbing the girl with throbbing rivulets of black matte tears of fluid like cotton cords. Those that jerked hard and taut as the new black heart replaced one whose soul strings slowly unravel. The action of his speWeak pillars of material existence crumble away from a human soul. Each string rejecting a pretender heart therein makes replacement quite easy for Titus. White ectoplasm from the young girl's chest leak away like clay from his pressing fingers. Energy gathering in Titus' fist made a fleshy bloodless wake. Within the body black motes that were still of Ductu reorganized blood vessels. Fleshy clay would not suffer too much from the process. Coherence at scalar action to replumb the girl. Those throbbing rivulets of black matte tears flow like eager cotton cords. Those quick lines of psionic life along a red marionette jerked hard and taut at a new entrant. A new black heart replaced one whose soul strings otherwise unravel itself. Every pulsing rivulet in that instant chose a new rome to travel toward.

The vault ever dutiful supplies force demanded of it in small well-written wellspring. The flow from it not diminished at all by the drain of its contained power unlike natural ley wells. A designed vessel of etheric infrastructure it suffused stability. Injection of arcane energy into spells wherever and whenever a void made contact. Particular note went to creation of structural voids designed by the transmutation. Each vent opening in the vault heated a pale green. Though crystal easier for the mechanisms of metacreative entities. The vault made bare struggle to bear the load of gems. Manufacture of high order by the vault near to forced them out his wrist to get into existence. An eager deposition of power went into such patterns.

Though filling those voids also called forth a certain negative energy. The black storm a left an eagerness toward the agent of this black heart. Toward which end power to a chant to liven a necromancer's heart filled Titus's lungs with ease. Aligned power eager to assert within them and alter reality with that call. In his breath faint thunder and howl of a very old planar wrath. One that deities sought but in time failed to hew out of reality evermore.

Those words propel a hurricane of blackness to tear away dying flesh. Even false bone fell away from the broken foundation. Instead the eye of that willed storm built a new foundation upon which the black heart could beat once more. Thus the words spoken with intent. A foundation for unlife laid. A chorus joined to his words like a throng of adherents and acolytes. All named a common cause to the life beneath their new church.

Flesh manifested as the Titus demanded of the throng by words of power. The blood organized as the body required to support its life. The soul rewove to conduct through it a throng of worshippers chanting along to aid the larger cause. The heart a seat for the soul and now so too capable its worshippers that neither would consume the other. That echoes remain a moment too long was easy told from an ear to her heart. A concordance of worshippers still chanted those words.

The ductu herself now free to leave poured out of Becca. That new church started left a gigantic hole in her torso where adherents once were. Her concordance could survive the larger goal as a creature of pure black mass and will of the many. The silhouette of a woman had that hole for only a moment until she shrank a few inches to close the gap. Inside that hole a seen a struggling cruor heart and bits of flesh eroding into black dust.

Titus finished up the incantation as the final words flowed from his lips and reverberated upon the air within the shop. He worked deftly to even close up his own work as he nodded over to Adanat to lower the ward while the girl would descend back into her flesh with the now beating heart of a long dead necromancer fueling her like a battery.

"There will be some disorientation for a few days..."

The Alchemist sighed slightly as he reached over for the Vault and hefted it upon his right shoulder. It was indeed a payment worthy of his skills and would make a fine addition to the creation and process of valuable gems and metals. However what the man reached for next was something of even more value. Titus casually reached for the leather bound book nonchalantly as if it was a discarded item he was bound to claim as his own. After all a grimoire such as that would have been rare and filled with a variety of esoteric knowledge that could easily be transferred over to another medium, and even fetch a decent price if sold to the right buyer.

"Hell I imagine you might even forgo a meal or two........It will pass though..... Tell you what though sense we did a bang up job be sure and tell everyone you meet that this place is open to take orders and do some discreet business if needed. Trinkets, enchantments, and even potion work are all easily found within this little shop."

Becca's soul lit from inside as the heart took root an interdiction of energies insulating two antagonistic parts from each other. An armistice thus declared the adherents of one took up the goals of the other. The heart gave motes, what were once part of Ductu, a final resolution to the double-binding Becca's soul foist upon them. A peaceful resolution of loyalties that went their separate ways as the eyes behind Becca's soul closed by the separation. As the strangely copper-colored astral cord finally hauled its soul back home Becca took the strongest breath she'd taken since a shotgun blast removed her heart and most of her lungs. A thick sandy black dune slowly leaks out of Becca as the Ductu leaves her for the first time in quite a while.

As Becca lay on the floor recovering the pile coalesced across her as the dusty motes reorganize themselves into a female shape with long sharp fingers. A ragged hole where a chest should be. Tatters squirmed then simply poured closed as the concordance that was Ductu adjusted its own multitude of hymns by shrinking to fill the volume. Red irises eyes open to look to Titus then down astride Becca.

She eyed the book but a hollow sandy voice said little of it, "Keep the book at the cost of your funeral, Humankind. I see no reason not to permit it. You have done the task asked of you. Seek the place known as Genesis if you wish to trade to charge the cognizance vault when it is emptied."

Becca piped up gathering red-eyed attention while coughing a black dust that simply poured back inside her, "Ductu, is that you? I... why do I see dark? I can see a pulsing dark red place. And there's something inside my head."

The girl bent up to rub one hand at the ragged hole in hoodie torn by gunpowder. Now that Ductu did not replace it only black satin flesh now resided there. Flesh slightly churned and mists blew across it like dunes across a desert. Patina-eyes helping a finger trace one mist drifting across her stomach and it was clear she could see.

"That's your altar now, Becca, the foundation of your concordance. It is your beating heart. You can feel Myrkul's Vein curating your adherents." Said the lithe Ductu's mouthless whisper with a flourish of sharp claw.

"The first Mada created by humankind in many years," She eyed Titus and the book, "Crude, but serviceable, but not likely the last. Celestialkind will not be pleased."

Ductu eyed Adanat's little dragon flitting the room able to see it herself now, "Dragonkind have changed little since we created the Zhou. A small one yet, this, and curious too."

Another pair of eyes leaned in to look into the bar behind Alyssa a set of glowing patina irises drawn by curiosity for the nearly starving woman lumbering about. Clad in tattered blue hoodie if not for a well-tended red cloth woven into the end of both sleeves and on both sides of the torso. Then the other hand came into view and absently fed herself a donut. Since getting back upright for good curiosity was burning at her as much as her stomach.

Ducky knew where there was food and for some reason her and the robed guys had small paid up tabs in like half the stores of the city. Something to do with them repairing things constantly. Becca looked sidelong at the Ducky's lithe matte black form with long pointed fingers moving into view.

Though her sandy face had few features the silty voice still came as she sat Becca down near Alyssa, "Sit. I will get you food. No alcohol."

Becca put her box of donuts on the table and moped while gesturing midair at an interface, "Aw, Fine."

Becca nodded at Alyssa though the young girl was breathing a little heavy, "Hi. Ducky's not big on personal space, sorry."

The silty woman physically inverted with a thin shuff and placed a small white ceramic tablet on the bartop, "Cooked meat and fruit for Becca."

John plopped down on the seat next to Ben Wheatley. "Good morning, my dear fellow!" he boomed brightly. "Would you at all know where I could find someone to hire me for a job here?"

Ductu's silty voice replied monotone to the beastkind as a waitress delivered a bowl of mixed fruit from the kitchen, "An anomalous arctic area has evinced itself on Genesis in an area our overbeing cannot yet extend to directly. Food, housing, ammunition, and weaponry is provided for purposes of subordinates. Compensation is 200kilomoles of carbon bonded psimass. Completion is satisfied by extermination of any hostiles or aetherkind or satisfactory reconnaissance returned by a provided observer to areas reachable by our overbeing. You can get to Genesis from northern wing street."

At the table Becca's patina cybernetic eyes looked up some market references to figure out how much that was from the AR interface. Myrkul's Vein took to the idea of contractors well after Becca's own completed sooner than it expected. The thing crawling around in her head hadn't a good grasp on pricing however. Much less in credits as Becca's eyebrow raised at the notion after checking the market to see Myrkul was paying a bit under a gold bar worth of psimass a contractor. Around 600k credits if they made gold from it but a heck of a lot more if they found an alchemist like Titus to sell the vaults to. Or it didn't like a non-grassy area just outside its reach. Becca rubbed her temples as she felt an AR interface open across the neural chip somewhere she couldn't define or see. The things were starting to connect to the cybernetics chips. The worm must be trying to figure her visual cortical implants out from inside.

Becca winced while commenting to Ductu returning with fruit as the weird feeling went away, "Big daddy worm must not like someone freezing the endless lawn. I can feel it keep looking away while monkeying around with my implants."

One hand went to the arriving bowl to bite clean through an apple. Alarmed at the ease she instinctively gagged for a moment but nothing came out. Something stole the fruit out of her damn mouth and carried it down her throat. Ductu simply nodded and watched impassively being satisfied that Becca was still breathing.

A few cooked steaks arrived sizzling loudly and eyes widened at the giant steaks, plural, that Ducky ordered. How much did Ducky think humans ate! Between the bowl of fruit and two steaks that probably weighed as much most of her arm and the donuts if she ate all this she was going to get sick.

She pushed the half-eaten box of donuts over to Alyssa then looked at the impassive matte woman standing nearby, "Uh, have some fruit and donuts or something. You look tweaked. Ducky, how much do you think I eat?"

"Your concordance is still developing and it is likely in a feral hunger state," Came the yellow-eyed woman's mouthless reply.

With a huff Becca cut off a piece of steak and moved it closer to her mouth with care and some amount of hesitation. When it passed her teeth the same crammed her full of apple gripped the steak and fork pulling it inward. With alarm she tried to get the fork back before it went down her throat. After a moment of pulling the handle of the fork emerged.

Becca clutched at her throat but didn't feel anything hard going down, "Agh! Whatthehell! Ducky!"

Two long sharp digits just clacked with the Ductu's response, "I suggest using your fingers for now."

Becca sighed then used the fork handle to keep her steak in place while she cut it. She wasn't curious enough to see what happened if she tried to put the whole steak near her mouth.

Shimizu Takayama said nothing as the Stripper seemed to keep digging her own grave. Shimizu kept his composure even if his sister could not.

His eyes went briefly to one of the Umibozu sergeants in the bar, the one whom Aeka had given the order to execute the redheaded stripper. Shimizu knew the risks, to have someone shot here, in cold blood, on a planet beyond the Taiyou's control, it would hurt diplomatic relations, and do much more damage than a stripper's insults.

The Sergeant looked to Shimizu for guidance, before he began to slide off his barstool, and cradle his rifle.

"Sergeant, I believe my sister gave you an order." Shimizu said coldly.

The Sergeant frowned, and then started to approach, swinging his weapon around, and chambering a bullet with an audible 'clack-clack'

Shimizu was going to take this right to the brink, at least until the authorities arrived to intervene.

The sound of the bullet going into the chamber - or whatever, she didn't know anything about guns - had her going stark white. She swallowed, audibly, her fingers pushing through her crazy hair. She was shifting from foot to foot, unconsciously going backwards until she ran into a t able and almost fell onto it.

"You can't just -- this is -- it's-- I mean.."

Words, phrases, fell from her lips.

Despite this,though, she dind't beg. Not yet.

Yoko Kayabuki finally came through the door after hearing all the commotion, she had to be the sensible one of the group, always it seemed lately. Yoko missed the days when Nobuo called the shots.

"Tennoheika! What are you doing! Stop this madness!" She called out, throwing the door open.

Becca looked around at the commotion with a strip of steak vanishing post-haste into her mouth. Small discolorations appeared on her skin that cleaned even residue left behind. While not in the line of fire for now Becca did not want to repeat the experience that got her here. Ducky seemed to have the same opinion in a strangely literal sense as if she wasn't the only one using the idea.

The silty lithe woman walked around the table and stood still in the line of fire between the sergeant and Becca. Humankind was allowed to kill humankind and the flat yellow eyes didn't even engage with the red-haired woman to consider her.

St. John Bovinesque Jr. rushed between the red-haired woman and the angry sergeant. "Everyone, stop!" He bellowed. "I'm not going to have any sort of fighting in this here bar! If you want to fight each other, do it out in the alleyway!"
Technically, John wasn't a bouncer yet, but he'd be damned before he wouldn't play the part. Besides, this might count as work experience, which might lead to him getting hired. At least, he hoped so.
Okay, John, that's enough about that. Focus on the crazy Taiyou chick and her soldiers, he thought to himself.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," muttered Ben from behind the brim of a pint. He could only hold his tongue so long with all the downright shenaniganry evolving around him. "Ya'll don't have much in the way of a sense of hunor, so ya?" His comment was directed to the "Taiyou" rabble as a hole - them being the only reason he'd sat back down after evading the bull guy who was turning out to be pretty alright.

Alyssa


The addict shrank back into her chair even more, her face turning an interesting color between off-white and ash-gray. There were too many people and very little chance of her getting the drugs that she wanted---no, needed.

Another shudder made it's way down the woman's body, and she clenched onto the table for a moment, teeth gritted against the pain as need tore through her. She turned back to the male, making a move to grab his arm, her voice hardly a whisper.

"Hey, do you still got that number because I---I think we should leave."

Her dark eyes danced back and forth between the scene in the middle (was it enough to hide what they had just been talking about) and the -creatures?!- that had made the table their spot.

As sudden as she grabbed his arm she would drop it and, instead, reach for a doughnut that had been placed on the table. She bit into it, spilling crumbs of sugar onto her shirt as she hastily crammed it between her lips. Sugar would help until she could get some of what she really needed...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"Princess" Loli

Thankfully her impeding death was interrupted by someone else flinging the door open. She could hardly get that sound out of her head - the sound of a bullet being loaded just for her, all because she couldn't keep her stupid mouth shut -- though she had just been about to say even more damning words. If she was to die at least she would do her best to insult the one about to send her to her grave...

But she hadn't wanted to die and she was so, so thankful for the woman and man who demanded it to stop. Would one of them be her saviors?

The small woman looked like a child, tears having started to flow down her face, clad in that ludicrous onsie, pressed against a table as if it could save her from the angered Emperor. One of these two would surly.. Would help, right?

Irritation filled every inch of her lithe frame as she strode out of the backroom to see what the commotion was all about. She had come to the bar to see if her younger sibling was there and while she could tell that Gabby had been there earlier, the fact that she had disappeared was not a good thing. The only thing the barkeep told her was that she left with another woman, but wasn’t under distress, so left on her on. Shutting the door behind her and locking it, Renee pocketed the key in her black pants and slid her fingers through her long black strands, pushing them out of her face. Piercing red eyes took in the scene and she swept the red duster she was wearing out of her way in order to get to one of her weapons, if necessary. Sure, she had been gone for a while, but she didn’t expect things to get like this again. Then again, that was how Gambit’s had always been. Still, she didn’t want to have to clean up blood and a dead body.

“HEY! If you’re going to kill anyone, go outside! The floor was JUST redone, yenno!” Her voice was loud enough to be heard over the ruckus and if anyone took a look, they would see that bits and pieces of her looked just like Gambit, though she rarely spoke with the accent he had. “I mean it, get out or I will have you thrown out.” She added for good measure.

Oh crap, John thought. This must be one of the owners of the bar.
He quickly backed down and walked over to her. "Those guys over there are having some sort of feud," he said, nodding towards the Taiyou folks and Loli. "One of them wants to shoot the girl with the redhead. Oh, and does it count as job experience if I tried to act like a bouncer and kick them out?"

Ben bristled a bit when the woman touched him; compared to his skin she was artic, like most humanoids thanks to the overdriven metabolism he sported. It served as a constant reminder of just how "human" he wasn't.

"Huh, sure, yeah.." Ben only half registered her question as what he presumed to be an owner of some sort strode out. Her attitude and readiness to flash a piece set him on edge immediately.

"Oh boy," he grumbled, downing his pint in one long chug. "Thrown out for sittin', you heard the lady folks!" Ben knew that anyone - rightful owner or not - trying to out authority this "Emperor" guy was a bad idea.

He got up from his stool slowly, carefully reaching out for Aylssa's hand so as not to crush it. "Closin' time for us customers."

The Sergeant had closed the distance, slinging his weapon and preparing to carry out the order, with trepidation of course, but as the heat slowly began to ramp up, Shimizu raised his right hand.

"Yameru." He said cooly, and the Umibozu Sergeant stopped, slinging his weapon back across his back, while the Emperor turned his attention briefly to the redhead; he said nothing. "My sincere apologies, how unprofessional of me." He said, glancing briefly back to Kayabuki, and Aeka.

He inclined his head briefly towards Renee, and the other patrons inside the bar.

His eyes first moved towards St. John, he offered the man a wry smile, before he pulled Kurata close to him. "Sergeant..." He whispered in Taiyou.

"That man, I want his family killed, be discreet, I'll send the orders through Umibozu channels when we return to Niihama." He said, patting the sergeant on the back, as the man offered an affirmative nod.

"This strip club..." He whispered. "Find it, torch it." He ordered quietly, grasping the Umibozu by his shoulder firmly. The Sergeant nodded. "Ryōkai." He replied in the affirmative.

Shimizu then offered Renee a nod, and an assuring smile. "Again, my apologies... we were just leaving." He said, inclining his head once more, turning back to Aeka and Kayabuki.

"Let's go."

Flat yellow eyes of the faceless Ductu looked over at the red eyed woman for a moment then returned to the focused mission of occupying the weapons fire lane toward Becca. The female humankind implied that she was the owner of some stripe however and the Almanac was duly updated.

Two Jinhai in the locality noticed whom both immediately turn away from repairing the city to dispatch to genesis. An empty psistone vault could be provided to ease manifestation and resource transfer. Two robed humanoid creatures pour from a sewer drain making their way across the city to Genesis.

Becca, whom was busy trying to avoid the rest of her utensil being eaten with the steak, just side-eyed the commotion going on and hunkered over her plate. The hunger just started to hit her and she was starting to jones for more like the junkie lady at the table. Though maybe her and the big guy had the right idea. Hastily stuffing a third of the remainder of one she realized she was totally carrying the other steak with her if she left. The stuff inside her really was starving.

She looked at Ben and nodded, "They seem to be going. I kind of want to eat the other steak though. So hungry."

Ductu turned around to ask the three bluntly, "What social organization do those humankind represent?"

Her gaze briefly towards someone nearing her location, though she quickly returned her eyes to the potential shooting that was about to happen. However, she did listen and exhaled softly, not sure why anyone wanted to shoot the girl that was with the redhead, but it wasn’t really her business. She wasn’t a counselor or anything after all. Musing a moment, she shifted her attention again towards the male speaking to her and just blinked at him, noticing he was a Minotaur. Granted, they got a lot of different species in the bar, so she wasn’t really taken aback by his appearance. No, it was his words that caught her off-guard. Job experience. Just holding up a finger to indicate she would talk with him in a second, Renee slowly glanced around at the customers, especially the one that said they were being thrown out for sitting.

“Err… I didn’t mean everyone had to leave. Just the ones about to shoot.” Squeezing the bridge of her nose, Renee seriously wanted to clear things up before they lost customers. “Everyone is welcome to stay as long as things go back to being mostly peaceful. I just didn’t want blood on the floor and walls and a dead body lying about.” She hoped that cleared things up, but if it didn’t… there would be other customers soon to replace those that left. That was how Gambit’s was it seemed.

Returning her gaze back to the brewing situation at hand, she was glad when the fuse seemed to be blown out, at least for now. She was briefly reminded of something familiar, but couldn’t quite place it and just nodded back when she was apologized to, though something told her it was just being done to temporarily appease her.

“Apology accepted.” Renee smiled a little before finally returning her attention back to the Minotaur. “Alright, back to you. What did you mean job experience? Did my sister Gabrielle hire you or something?” It was likely since the two hadn’t seen each other in quite a long time.

"No, I've been looking around for the boss of this place. I want to be hired as a bouncer here. You seemed to have a bit of an... air of command around you, so I thought you were the owner. Are you?" asked the minotaur.

"I mean, I guess you could say I am the owner. The name is Renee LeBeau. Gambit, the person who the bar is named after is my father. As he's currently away on business, my younger sister, Gabrielle and I are the current owners of the place until he returns." Renee did a quick introduction, not really wanting to spill too much, but also making sure he understood that she was definitely the one in charge. Even when Gabby was with her, Renee tended to take charge of things, but that was because she was older and had more experience with rough patrons.

"Other than what you did earlier, do you have any bouncer experience? We certainly could use one for the times the other security people are busy. How much could you work? Any job experience at all?" She fired off a few questions before motioning him over towards a table that was away from people, but where she could still see the entire bar.

He went to the table with Renee. "Um, I don't really have much job experience," John admitted, "though I do take boxing lessons. Not really sure if that counts. But I could work pretty much any time. I don't really have a lot going on in my life."

Renee listened carefully to the potential employee, not quite sure what to think. While she was glad that Gabrielle hadn't gone all willy-nilly in hiring, she knew that the two would have to do separate interviews since they weren't currently around at the same time. Exhaling deeply when he said he didn't have a lot of job experience, she found herself chewing a little on the inside of her lip. Well, at least he was taking boxing lessons.

"Tell you what..." She started, trying to put her words together in her mind before speaking them, not wanting to blubber or anything. "I will hire you on a probationary status. We'll see how it goes and if you do well, you will have a chance to become a full-time employee. How's that sound?" Renee smiled and put her hand out in order to have him shake if he was in agreement of her terms.

"Sounds good to me! I'll do my best!" he laughed heartily and shook Renee's hand. "When can I start?"

"Your best is all I ask. Don't be afraid to kick out those that need it, no matter who they are." Renee cautioned softly, knowing that they tended to get some hoity-toity people occasionally, but everyone needed to follow the rules of the bar. Sliding her fingers through her hair to shove the strands out of her eyes, she finally leaned back, relaxing just a little.

"You can start immediately."

John stood up, nodding his head to Renee, and stood solemnly at the door, arms folded. He took out some sunglasses from his pocket and put them on.

"Excellent. You don't always have to stand at the door. You can relax and act when it's needed." Renee called out to John before waving and moving back to the bar counter. Grabbing a fresh Mountain Dew from the barkeep, she headed to the back room. As she moved, she couldn't help but realize that everyone in the family except Tayrn drank Dew's, but her mother was always an odd duck. Exhaling, she closed and locked the door behind her and did what paperwork needed before moving back out of the backroom, the drink empty. Nodding a goodbye towards the 'tender and the new employee, she headed out of the bar and into the street, deciding to go back home for the time until Gabby showed back up,

Gabrielle had smelt her sister, the knowledge of which immediately sobering Akshasha, and her left eye began twitching wildly. The newest scent trail could have indeed led up to the bar, however where it led afterwards, was really anyone's guess, and she wasn't willing to go on a snipe hunt if she didn't need to.

"T-t-the valley, leads out to a couple different places, it ends in a small orchard. It could, however, lead you to the ruins of an ancient monastery, it's sort of kind of haunted, and a popular hangout for certain Kindred; which may be a promising lead. Or it could lead to a cavernous maw, opening into the core of Terra. However..." The Drow walked in a circle around Gabrielle, breathing in the scent of her deeply, leaning slightly too close as she did.

With a slight sigh, and closed eyes, the words flowed quietly out of her mouth, "Sanguis et Sanguis, Sancti Vitae, ties that bind, open my eyes." Finishing the chant, her eyes shot open suddenly, grabbing Gabby's wrist as she began to bolt into the Gambit Building, running into the bar; armor and weaponry rasping against each other as she did.

She called back over her shoulder, only slightly dragging Gabby along, "I think I smelt her too! Someone had to have seen her, it's time to twist some arms." The scent trail led her to a table, mingled with the pungent odor of another. The odor was strong enough, fresh enough, to immediately lead to its owner. A large Minotaur, wearing sunglasses and a shirt with cut-off sleeves.

"Quaint... You, bull-man," Akshasha addressed the stranger curtly; locking eyes with his sunglasses. "You sat at this table." The hand that had been locked around Gabby's wrist gestured towards a table that overlooked the rest of bar, "There was a girl who sat with you, her name was LeBeau, was it not? Where did she go? What are you doing here?"

"Oh her?" the minotaur said. "Yeah, she's the boss of this place, I guess. She went out to go do something. I don't know what. Me, I'm just the new bouncer." He smiled in a friendly way at her and stuck out his hand. "St. John Bovinesque, at your service."

Pausing in mid-step as it was explained where the small valley led, Gabrielle couldn’t fathom why her sister would go down that path. Maybe she was wanting to spend time at the orchard to get her thoughts together? But… wait, it could go several places? Why would Renee go to an ancient monastery? Nothing made sense anymore and the mutant growled in slight irritation. Was this even worth it anymore? Of course, it was, and she knew it, but it was still extremely asinine that her sister was not keeping in touch with her.

“Err… you’re umm…” Her words trailed off, though it was obvious she wasn’t comfortable with how close Akshasha was to her current position. The reasoning behind her words suddenly stopping was the chant that was currently being uttered by the Drow. Squeaking as she was grabbed, Gabrielle barely managed to keep up as they suddenly rushed into the bar.

“Wait, why didn’t you tell me you smelled her?!” Grumbling, she was a little irked that no one on the staff told her that her sibling had been there, but if Akshasha could find out answers, then she was willing to be yanked around. Peering over towards the large Minotaur, Gabby realized that her wrist had been released. Using that hand to run a few fingers through her hair, she remained silent, hoping to finally get somewhere other than circles.

“Pah, boss. She wishes she was the boss.” Unable to help her snarky remark, the teen attempted to hide how pissed she was that her lovely older sibling had hired someone without her input. He at least appeared to fit the part, but still. “She didn’t say where she was going, Mr. Bovinesque?” Of course, she didn’t. That would make it too damn simple.

“The owner of this bar is Gambit… or Remy LeBeau. He is the father to my sister, Renee and myself. We’re the managers or err… current owners in his absence. I’m Gabrielle LeBeau, the buttface’s younger sibling who is searching for the moron who doesn’t know how to answer the phone.” Was she livid? Yep.

"Why, I hadn't told you I smelled her because I wasn't sure. I dont know what she smells like. You had to confirm my suspicions before I gave you false hope." It appeared the 'new hire' seemed to be a touchy subject and Akshasha was unsure what to say as Gabrielle went off on a bit of a tirade about her older sister, raising a great point. Why wasn't Renee answering her phone...? The thought flummoxed the Drow, and it certainly didn't make her job easier.

Then all Hell broke loose, as the pocket-dimension that held Gambit's Bar was assaulted from multiple directions. Nearly a hundred Vampires poured into the Bar from almost every access point, all the while laughing in an almost deafening cacophony. A single representative stepped forward and with a raised hand, silenced the thronging horde. "I am Paladin Leeroy, leader of these assembled Sabbat. We've come to claim the LeBeau girl, child of Gambit, for our own purposes." Leeroy was ugly, barely human looking, with pointed ears, a bald head, and sharp pointed teeth.

Many of the amassed Sabbat were more human-looking in nature, however some practiced flesh-warping, and looked like horrid approximations of humanity, with eyes sewn shut and palms that opened into mouths. The assembled throng had all their senses locked onto Gabby, ready to die, so long as they secured her for the Sabbat. They were armed with various forms of weaponry, from claws to bats to swords to guns.

Akshasha stepped forward, placing herself between Gabrielle and Paladin Leeroy. "Caine be damned, you rats followed us in here? Hummm..." She contemplated drawing her sword, but instead simply grew claws and with inhuman speed, sunk them into Leeroy's neck, snapping it with a simple shrug of her shoulders.

Leeroy managed to croak out a few final words, "Attack! My family, bring the girl to the Regent." Paladin Leeroy than crumbled into ash, experiencing True Death, never to return. The assembled Sabbat assumed ready position, screaming out "FOOORR CAAIINE!" The ones with guns unloading into Akshasha, the others slowly moving forward with their weapons brandished. Most bullets bounced harmlessly into the Drow's armor, however in the massive spray of lead, some managed to hit her exposed flesh, creating scarlet blooms of blood.

"Whoa!" Thinking quickly, John dove and tackled down the drow and Gabrielle. He then picked then up, hauled them over his shoulder, and dove behind a countertop with them. Any bullets that came near John would not seem to damage him, and one of the two might have hear a slight metallic klang as one bullet bounced off of him. "Are you okay?!" he asked Akshasha, who looked like she had been shot a lot.
Meanwhile, the policemen who still happened to be in the room dove for cover, then raised their numerous weapons. "Freeze!!!" shouted Christopher J. Richardson. "Drop the weapons and put your hands in the air, or we will open fire!"

Gabby glanced over towards Akshasha and nodded, understanding now why it hadn’t been mentioned that the Drow had smelled Renee. She ran her fingers through her hair yet again, trying to relax and not scare off the new hire. It wasn’t like she was going to fire John or anything, she just wished her sister had consulted her before hiring him. Before she could say anything further, a plethora of vampires flooded the bar and the mutant just stared at them, unable to believe that someone wanted to claim her yet again. What the hell was even going on anymore?

“The fuck?” She muttered as Akshasha stepped in front of her, easily dispatching Leeroy. Seconds later, or at least it felt like seconds later, the throng of creatures attacked and the bar erupted in the sound of screams and gun shots. Squealing in surprise, Gabrielle found herself tackled and then thrown over John’s shoulder as he dove behind the bar with her and the Drow. Unfortunately, between the time she was tackled and then grabbed, a few bullets had found their way into her lithe frame, but she wasn’t focused on the pain. No, she was pissed that yet again, the bar was the scene of a battle.

“Damn it. Fuck off, you scum!” Without even hesitating, even as the police men told the vampires to drop their weapons, Gabrielle was digging into her pants for her playing cards. She snatched a few and spread them out, charging them while her free hand dug around beneath the bar counter for the guns that were stashed there. Throwing the now charged cards at the vampires, she immediately charged more while grabbing one of the shotguns. She wasn’t about to go without a fight. Blood was pouring from where she had been shot, but Gabby knew she couldn’t focus on that, not if she wanted to keep from being snatched. She just hoped no bullet hit something vital.

The Vitae that flowed through Akshasha's vein was slightly more syrupy than normal blood, slightly darker red, and in addition to the metallic smell of blood, it also held the scent almost of a sweet dessert wine. As the Vitae flowed, the Drow's wounds healed quickly, closing up as quickly as they had opened. The minotaur grabbed her, taking her and Gabby behind a counter. A curious scent filled the Dark Elf's nose, Gabby's blood.

The minotaur appeared to be worried about her well-being, which made her start giggling manically. "It'll take more than that to put me into torpor. One of your employers, however, is bleeding out." Miss LeBeau hadn't sustained any single lethal shot, but there were enough of them, to be lethal if left untreated.

A nameless Sabbat stepped forward, long dreadlocks framed his vicious smile, a smile punctuated by two sharp fangs. His voice was low and gravelly as he spoke, with a hint of an accent. "O' course mon. We gone drop our weap-CHARGE! WE SHALL AWL DIE BEFORE WE SURRENDER TO KINE." The man's skin hardened, taking on a stone-like appearance, and he began walking towards Christopher, unloading with his shotgun and working the pump in a fluid motion, before firing again, and again.

As the horde charged forward, several cards exploded into them, taking some of the assembled Sabbat with them; however some cards were plucked out of the air, exploding in the hands of the Vampires, who kept moving forward as if ignorant of their newly missing limb. The Sabbat split their attack, half of which occupying the police and the other half heading straight for the scent of Gabrielle. A pack of seven undead blurred forward, their musculature suddenly expanding as they expended Vitae to grow temporarily stronger, throwing themselves at the Minotaur in a flurry of punches.

To her credit, the mutant girl was completely ignoring her rapid blood loss. It would have been admirable, Were it not about to cost her life, Akshasha giggled to herself. The mania of the battlefield was clouding her mind, and the Beast within was growing restless. "This reminds me of when I was young..."

The huntress placed a hand on the square of Gabby's back and growled out "Curare Carnes!" The mutant's wounds began to close up, curative magics running through her body; just in time for a creature, looking much like the deceased Bertam Tung, to appear only a foot away from her face and open its fangs in a hiss. "Ai 'eard ye killt me brother!? Ready ta pay tha price?!"

On her fourth steak Becca felt Ductu's hackles rise where Becca could almost see concordance inheriting concern. The parts of her mind that were less concerned with food now expanding away from what she thought was the limits of her mind. Then the lumps in space became horrible monsters instinctively retreating beneath the table kicking it up for cover. Hails of gunfire rock Ductu's standing frame as the monsters opened bullets from everywhere. Under the craters of dust juddering her body Ducky just turned about pale yellow eyes showing no vestige of pain. As Ducky poured over the heavy table taking pounding in her place a black face and yellow eyes reformed her right side up. Patina-colored cybernetic eyes looked at Ducky as something in her head interacted with new hollows to count destruction among the millions. Motes?

The discordance connected to Becca whom hesitated talking from the shared pain, "What the hell! How are we getting out of this, ducky!"

The Ductu eyed Becca absently stuffing her face with the remnants of her steak with both hands, "I am going to cohabitate with your Concordance since you are still very fragile. I will focus on defensive matters. Cross the gap to the Beastkind bouncer. Try not to eat the tainted along the way."

No time for questions Ductu poured sideways into Becca's body weighting everything as Becca grew slightly larger. Though stronger her insides felt so hungry... so hungry so hungry sohungry. When a Vampire crossed in view of the heavy table the patina eyes flared with a scarified pattern expanding psychokinetic armor. Despite the Ductu's hopes Becca wasn't nearly strong enough to hold back a starving concordance. Neither was the Vampire a tendril flailing hole for a mouth ground trough his chest and tore out a thumping cursed heart. Hard into the bar back glass flew everywhere. Becca collapsed down to the floor as the combined being decompiled a portion of the vampire's raw existence. Patina eyes blink in and out as her humanity recovered just staring at the others there.

Christopher ducked just in time. The cops dove for cover as well, overturning tables. Then they peeked the top of their guns over their barricades.
It was their turn for some fired shots.
The police let loose a barrage of pistol, rifle, shotgun and assault rifle bullets at the Sabbat. Christopher's Heckler & Koch Model 417 tore through the ranks of the vampires, but they didn't seem harmed. Instead, they just cackled and shot at them more.
St. John Bovinesque cursed. "You can't fight them with guns, you guys!" he shouted to the police officers. "You've got to get holy water, or crosses, or stakes, or... or..."
John looked towards the ceiling. He remembered how the other boss person - Gabrielle, right? - had infused some playing cards with an explosive energy and thrown them at the vampires.
"Hey, uh, boss person?" John asked. "I have an idea on how to defeat these creeps. It involves your powers and a teensy bit of property destruction..."

][OOC: I probably won’t be able to post again for a couple of days. I give Sepokku permission to mod my char as needed. >:]][

“Then die…” Gabrielle muttered as she took aim with the shotgun, making sure not to charge the damned thing. She fired off a few shots and realized that the horde was splitting with part of them going towards the cops. Well, this was just ducky. Swearing beneath her breath, she took aim once again, hitting head after head, though she wasn’t sure if it was actually doing any good or not.

“What a shitty end to my day…” Grunting a little as the pain was working its way through her system, beyond her adrenaline, the mutant was vaguely aware of the danger she was currently in but opted to keep firing. However, it was the chant spoken by Akshasha that caught her attention and she felt the magic rushing through her body, healing the more dangerous wounds that she had sustained.

“Your brother was a disgusting thing, just like you.” Gabby snapped at the creature, her hand already dropping down to a trio of cards, beginning to charge them while also snatching a silver blade dagger from behind the bar. She made a mental note to thank Akshasha later once they survived this skirmish, but at the moment, her attention was on Mr. Ugly. Her eye twitched a little as she heard glass behind them breaking, but she knew it was inevitable. Maybe the female now lying behind the bar would be nice enough to pay for it considering she broke it. Shaking her head, the Mutant made a second mental note to address that later and while her body remained poised for an attack from Buttface’s brother or whatever, she mused on the bouncer’s words.

“What idea is that?” She questioned, her eyes still on the creature that wanted revenge for someone that didn’t even deserve the notion.

Vincent's eyes narrowed when the fight broke out in the bar. "Shit." He muttered to himself, flinging over his table to create a temporary makeshift barricade. His drink shattered on the floor, but the noise was lost in the cacophony of snarls and gunshots that echoed around the bar. He fumbled around in his coat pocket for his Krieghoff Luger, and hastily clicked off the safety. He didn't necessarily want to shoot anyone, but everyone on the other side of his table seemed rather upset with everyone else, and he didn't want any part in it.
Peeking around the corner he caught just a flicker of what appeared to be...'cards?' being thrown into the small inhuman mass of vampires. He frowned in confusion for a millisecond before a sudden squall of explosions rocked the room, spattering blood and body matter all over the floor and walls. Spitting out some blood that didn't belong to him and running a pale hand through his wild hair, Vincent looked for a way out. Normally Gambit's Bar was dimly lit, an atmosphere that barely made up for the frequent fights and general shenanigans that occurred, but through the sporadic multicolored light of gunfire, lasers, and explosions, Vincent could see an Employees Only door, one that he believed led into the Basement of Gambit's.
Peeking over his table again (which now featured blood, smoking laser burns, and a twitching finger wedged halfway under it), he fired a few shots at some of the more boisterous vampires, causing their heads to jerk violently from the force of the bullet, but other than that, it didn't seem to do much. One of the vampires glared at him, baring its teeth. "Right. Ok. I need to go." Vincent mumbled to himself, not breaking eye contact with the vampire. He began to slowly back up, one hand holding the Luger, the other stretched out behind him to avoid stumbling over any obstacles. Or people.

"Alright, this is a bit desperate, but it's probably the only way we can beat them." He leaned close to whisper to her so the vampires wouldn't hear. "So, my idea is to throw those cards at the ceiling. When the ceiling explodes, there will be sunlight, which will hurt the vampires, or so I've been told. It will destroy the ceiling, but it's probably the only way to defeat these freaks. You up for it?"

While an individual bullet may not worry most Vampires, weapons such as shotguns that could remove the head entirely with a well-placed blast, or automatic large caliber weapons that can remove limbs with a stream of lead, were rightfully feared. The youngest Sabbat were dropping like flies due to the police onslaught, while the older ones were forced to rely on their Vampiric powers and durability.

Several of the Sabbat turned into large black wolves, some wreathed themselves in shadowy armor, growing black tentacles, others still, more horribly, began to assume their war-forms. Their flesh quickly warped, making them taller, broader, covered in chitin and bone-spurs, with long knife-like claws, as well as some other things unique to themselves. Akshasha frowned, "Oh Dear... They probably need to die before they finish shifting."

Certainly Gambit's Bar was a gathering spot for many different creatures, however an all-out bar-fight between police, Vampires, Mutants, Minotaurs, Drow and Hairworms simply HAD to be a record. Tung's brother leaped towards Gabby, claws outstretched, and screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Noo survivahs," The dread-locked man spat out, watching a man heading for the employee's only door into the basement. He raised a hand, directing two burly Vampires wielding fire-axes to him, before continuing his onslaught on the assembled police. The two hulked menacingly forward to the scientist, while the dread-locked man with a shotgun kept unloading at the police, screaming out "You'll make some tast-E treats, pathetic Kine!"

The new hire had a plan, "That is truly Bull-headed, Mr. Minotaur. The bar has ten levels of a hotel above it. You're going to kill us in the collapse, and everyone above us minding their own business!" Akshasha stated, ignoring the fact that she was peculiarly photo-sensitive, there was no need to mention why.

The Drow addressed the peculiar smelling girl with patina eyes, "You there, a spot of help? The Sabbat will retreat if we display enough dominance." Something about the girl just screamed duality. Akshasha shrugged, throwing a handful of fire at the Vampires assuming war-form. The small handful exploded upon impact, immolating more than a few Sabbat. "Kill the big ones, the rest will flee in terror"

Patina eyes stabilized as Becca's face reformed correctly sans the black heart since crammed into it. Mind stabilizing with the concordance taking up her optical implants and chips. While the chips were things of the mind the motes found them alien but adapted to a concordance forming around necromancer's heart to cyberware and cortical chips. Ductu for her part lent enough isolated mental acuity it needed to stabilize. That came as Becca fixated on the dark-faced woman the glazed expression replaced with conscious understanding.

A hand of moving scars reaches over to a dripping bar back toward a shattered whiskey bottle neck. Shards and liquid shift then rejoin as she pulls an intact sloshing whiskey bottle from the wreckage. An aftertaste of Myrkul's cloying wellspring on the air from someone shaping with brute unconscious force. Likely far harder to do on purpose.

Patina eyes looked at it once then put it down before responding in her youthful voice, "Ah, no, maybe later. Yeah, ok, Ducky knows how to fight so I do now. Myrkul's Vein is like an internet... I can tell I'm the first one that thinks the vamps taste like anise."

Edge of the bar gets grey-laced fingers to stand up as pieces of shattered bottle fling free from her back to rejoin, " I like licorice and I'm still hungry."

The concordance was not prone to outbursts of emotion like much of the human mind and Becca rather enjoyed the placid feeling hurling herself over the counter at the two burly creatures chasing the man in the back. Ducky didn't make noise or threaten, she advanced. Becca remembered being trapped in Ducky as she fought in bloody silence. In her head the hunger quelled her human urge to scream at them. Wells of mixed psychokinetic repulsion and her own blood flaring as bullets struck her midair a warm rain of pain explosions flairing throughout her body. A necromancer's squirming heart taking a good liking to its new home an army of small adherents working toward its needs.

Flesh took a beating but she Landed on one hands full of black thorny protrusions set to tearing at whatever purchase she could find. Small chainsaws of limbs tear from the vampire handful by handful to stuff the flesh into her mouth. A suprised improvised axe flung over his head but the shoulder soon destroyed and consumed landed it sideways and patina eyes stared crossly. A response of tearing a jaw free, then moving on to rib and bone with loud cracking noises. In between mouthfuls the too-toothy matte black maw bit chunks out of a skull until the withering vampiric M&M lost its taste. Dregs of quintessence no further interest to the burning hunger in her chest once the remainder started to fall apart.

She looked toward the second as bullets ricochet off her skull leaving a small bruised geyser to burn off and staring cockeyed at him. It left a fracture and Becca could feel the hurt but after living in Ducky for so long... the feeling was infectious and she wanted to ram her hands into the other licorice flavored beefcake then eat him.

Her body boiled in gunfire hits, an insatiable heart of death, and her own flesh re-knitting to burn off the energy. The hungry stare silent but for a faint tinkle of bottlecaps escaping from under her hoodie. Excess tass boiling off as she'd become very much well over her ability to retain what she'd eaten. Ductu, for her part, handled the bullets but worried about the rate of damage Becca was taking. The armor still kept the bullets out of important areas and the strange heart in her edge case humankind mada put her back together. A thumping heart didn't make it entirely clear to the Ductu how much it could reknit though transient energy abounded.

Vincent had just taken aim at one of the lumbering monsters heading towards him with their primitive-looking flaming axes when a sudden black and grey blur flashed overhead and latched on the vampire he had been aiming at, causing it to roar in angry pain. Thinking quickly, before he had time to even register what the blur was, he flicked the sights of his pistol towards the other vampire, who was too busy staring in horror at what was happening to his comrade to notice his own impending doom. Vincent fired, and the vampire's head jolted backwards, black blood spraying up out of a torn and gaping eye socket. The creature dropped his axe and landed on his back, cradling his face with both hands, a low muffled growl emitting from behind his palms. The vampire began to crawl away, slowly and surely. Vincent quickly turned back to the other vampire, but was startled to see that there was no vampire left. None to speak of, anyway.
Instead he found himself staring into the glowing green eyes of...something. He had no idea what she was, and he found himself intrigued, but terrified.
"What...?" Was all he could manage to say in a hoarse whisper. He noticed the dark red blood dripping from her black needle-like claws and fangs. Her entire body seemed to shift and simmer in place. What unnerved him the most, however, was the ravenous look in the eyes that glowed from underneath the hoodie she was wearing. She seemed eternally hungry. And there was something else. He couldn't explain it, but he felt that he was looking into the eyes of more than one being. It immediately put him on edge, and he instinctively stepped back. He also realized at the same time that this...creature had also possibly just saved his life. He opened his mouth and began to stutter. "Uh, thanks for your assistance, miss...uh. Thank you."

"Hey! No need for racial slurs!" he cried to Akshasha. "But I do get your point. There's got to be some way to beat these guys." He thought a bit more. "How about fire?" he asked, amid the screams and gunshots. "I could probably whip up a Molotov cocktail. Would that work?"

Meanwhile the police put all their grit into fighting the Sabbat. They fortunately had a lot of help, as one young woman rushed up and began... consuming the vampires. Christopher was thankful for this backup.

“Yeah… while that might work if this were a normal bar… it won’t work with a hotel on top of us. Fire is a big no too. I’m not letting this place burn down.” Gabrielle shook her head, refusing to let down her father and in her head, letting the place burn would be doing that very thing. Granted, it was reinforced by Trantor Industries' best technologies, fire still wasn’t a good idea. Musing a moment, she wondered if she could trick the Sabbat into following her into one of the pocket dimensions and then blowing up that doorway or something.

“Is there a dimension that’s quite cheerful?” Gabby hoped that they understood that she meant, extremely sunny. Her attention was still on the bastard wanting revenge and as he leapt towards her, she swung the shotgun around and fired off as many rounds as the thing had left before quickly charging it.

“You’re going to die just like your pathetic brother.” The mutant spat out as she shoved the now charged shotgun into Tung’s chest, attempting to penetrate the flesh to make him go boom.

"Where the crap did all these other people come from!?" The dread-locked man, who apparently took over as leader after Paladin Leeroy's death seemed visibly upset. He was out of shotgun shells, so he snapped the gun in two and grew claws, muscles bulging with a rush of Vitae.

Some kind of thorny black-mawed hybrid was tearing through the strike-team, if this ended poorly the Regent would have them all eradicated. Kamikaze seemed the way to go then. The stone-skinned, hulking, dread-locked Vampire threw himself at the hybrid monster, tearing at it with his preternatural claws.

The war-formed Vampires began to frenzy wildly, turning on friend and foe alike, and causing general mayhem. One threw a table at the assembled police and charged them. Another simply picked up one of it's comrades and threw it in Gabby's general direction, missing entirely and turning the creature into a splat on the wall.

Tung's brother took a full spray to the chest, his stomach oozing syrupy Vitae which fell with a splat. He placed a hand on the shotgun, trying to pry it from his chest and hissed, foul-smelling breath that reeked of decay. Then he exploded into a spray of viscera. Gabrielle had a plan, she wanted to go somewhere cheery.

Oh... Oh no. Caine be damned, no. Akshasha couldn't go out in sunlight, not without some very unfortunate side-effects. It definitely would get the Sabbat out of here though. "I'm sort of a night-owl, I have no clue which dimensions would lead there. Bovinesque, any ideas? Surely you've seen someone come in from an extremely sunny dimension?"

Gabrielle would be safe from the Sabbat in that dimension, but what if something there hurt her? Akshasha would be next to powerless to protect her, she'd be relying entirely on the minotaur to get her back safely. She grit her teeth, and swallowed hard, she hated these kind of catch-22s

Becca looked at Vincent when he spoke to her showing a mouth full of moving thick spines of teeth erratically racing about the whole of her throat. Then some lung for teeth inhaled them through her flesh leaving behind those of normal white enamel. Even one adult tooth near the front a shade whiter than the rest of her mouth wiggled through her gums to fill a gap. Other molars a flotilla rearranging to align properly. Her bruised face and fractured did much the same as purple slowly drained out of the former hacker's pale freckled face. Relics from bullet impacts even under a thin shimmering psychokinetic veneer over disc shapes of squirming subdermal projection loci.

Blood soaked through her flesh then ashed off her hoodie as Becca blinked at Vincent, "Uh, Hi guy. No problem. Watch my back, oka--"

"FLANK!" Said Ducky's strained voice in her head.

Becca turned with an upraised hand the teeth exploding out of her mouth and to race around her hands. The closest forearm deflected one arm and claw met her flesh he hit not a stony one as his own but an acrimonious bag of heavy sand eating acridly at the tainted surface. Blood spilled from the gash in her forearm leached a black dust racing back to her arm. Raking an offender of hostile stony flesh with a flotilla of tiny furrows. The other claw of dread-locked man hit true burying the claws in her shoulder as a shimmer of psychokinetic fields reestablished to throw it back out again. In a Race from the hole the claw left a four-beaked worm poured from fleshy surfaces to bite off the tip of claw then retreat back inside.

Becca screamed in pain but could feel Ducky holding her mind up enough to strain out through the rasp of teeth, "AArrrGH! Gonna eat you, Jerk Chicken!"

"Uhm… Sorry, no," John said to Akshasha. "I just... I only ever came here once, to get this job." He stopped a moment. "No wait, that's not right..." His face scrunched up. "That's odd. My memory about coming here other times is kind of fuzzy."
Meanwhile, the police dove for cover as a vampire threw a table at them. One of the officers started to pull out a grenade.
"Are you crazy?!" Christopher shouted to the man over the sound of his gun and the screams. "You'll blow up the whole place with that!"

It was becoming chaotic and Gabrielle hated chaos when it centered around her, which this definitely did. Gritting her jaw tightly, she snarled and knew that if she didn’t act quickly, innocent people were going to lose their lives. Cursing just as the war-formed Sabbat started to turn on friends and foe alike, the mutant knew only she could get them out of the bar no matter the cost.

“Rrr, fuck this.” Gabby muttered and snatched part of a table to cover herself and anyone else nearby just as her foe exploded, just like she hoped would happen. It was messy and what parts of him were left stunk to high hell, but at least the bastard was dealt well.

“There’s no time to discuss this any longer. I’m going to do something and hope it works out. We LeBeau’s always were a bit reckless anyways.” Grinning a bit, the teen slid to her feet and jumped on top of the bar.

“You fuckers want me?! Then come and get me. I dare you.” Smirking, she jumped down and rushed out one of the side doors, it a doorway into a different dimension. She just hoped it was full of sunlight and not like snow or something.

The new head of the raiding party continued his fight with the hybrid. Ripping, tearing, and clawing, soon the defenses of the hybrid drove him into a frenzy. The Worm-Girl was slowly eating away at his flesh, worms chewing at his claws, but it was glory or death and the beast within him took over. No longer capable of speech, slobbering and growling, its senses left the beast and it became pure fury. With a throaty howl, it's jaws snapped forward, trying to sink fangs into the girl's face, claws tearing at whatever it could gain purchase on, rapidly expending Vitae to keep itself in as ferocious state as possible. The poor beast didn't even notice a majority of its pack following the mutant girl out of the Bar.

John was no help to Gabby's question, and the police were getting desperate. Something must have snapped in the girl, or so Akshasha thought, as the mutant did something decidedly reckless. Goading the Sabbat, she sprinted into one of the Ways that led out of the Bar. The part of the Sabbat with their senses still about them followed quickly after her, only a few stragglers too far gone to care or notice.

Akshasha didn't like the girl's chances, too much had been going wrong in regards to her. It was like she was her own jinx. "Newly hired bodyguard, guard your employer's body." Vitae and Arcana rushed through Akshasha, her eyes taking on a harsh glow as the beast within her and her suddenly reappearing fangs ruined her disguise. With a swift motion, the Drow Vampire that had been protecting Gabrielle and caused the Sabbat to target her, picked up Bovinesque and threw him out the same door Gabby had ran out of.

The first few Sabbat following Gabrielle ignited instantly, turning to dust and scattering to the wind, partially blowing back into the Bar. At the sight some faltered and retreated out the Way they came, others blindly strode forward to True Death, and a few in heavy black clothing simply drew the shadows around them into a set of Black Plate Armor and continued their pursuit. Akshasha let out a hiss, "Tenebrous Armor... Of course."

Akshasha moved fervently, the howl of the beast within her threatening to tear loose at the excitement. With a leap and a plunge, the last Vampire in Tenebrous Armor had a sword in it's clavicle, and was pulled back into the bar to have its head torn off by the Drow. However three Sabbat clad in Black Plate Armor were already in the sunlight of the other Way, outside her reach, and painfully in reach of Gabby.

"Bovinesque, if a scratch befalls her I will hunt you to the ends of this existence."

“V-Vincent.” Staring at the shapeshifting creature, Vincent felt extremely lucky that he seemed to be on her side in this fight. There were definitely two of them in…there, whatever it was. He had no idea which one was controlling which, but he hoped that it was the pretty freckled face that had spoken to him just seconds earlier, and not the irregular, erratic creature that was now fighting off an extremely loud and obnoxious vampire.
Vincent aimed his Luger at the it, trying to regain his focus so as to not hit the fluctuating monster. He fired, causing a spray of black blood to fling in a bloody arc out of the creature’s head. It howled and stumbled backwards, falling and clutched at its cheek. He noticed that behind the vampire there was a young girl charging into an open door in the bar that did not look in any way like it was part of the building. Had she opened a portal of some kind? Wherever it was, he was sure that it was safer than Gambit’s at the current moment.
As he watched, three black-clad vampires began to stride towards her and simultaneously heard someone yell something about throwing a grenade. He cursed the chaos of the whole situation and began to strafe towards the doorway that the girl had opened, uselessly gesturing at the shifting entity to follow him. “We need to leave!” He yelled over the gunfire and cries. “Follow her! The girl! Different dimension!” In that moment, he almost felt like laughing at the absurdity of his words and situation, but he suppressed his chuckle until after he and the others were safe.

John grunted in surprise as Akshasha picked him up and tossed him towards the other boss person, who was charging towards a door, three of those vampires in black plate armor nipping at her heels. With sudden precision, he turned and twisted himself in mid-air to perform a perfectly executed clothesline on the two vamps on the left and right, and doing a dropkick to the one in the middle. He landed in a roll on the ground in front of Gabrielle, following her through the door, looking back at the toppled vampires before shutting the door behind them, and grabbing some large rock or something to bar the door with.
He then looked around, trying to get a bearing of wherever he was.

The creature slashed and cut across Becky's hoodie the blue turning dark from all the rabid strikes pounding into her body. Ductu managed her pain levels as the beating heart hurt in her chest working hard to hold her together. Given the gashes holes forming in her body even with the amount of energy she'd consumed it struggled to cope. Ulna and radius fractured then hurriedly reknit in deflecting the beast's stony sinew even the parts of her that once were Ductu fired and dodged.

Concordance had adapted her cortical implants as well however. Once visual processors the internet she could now here had long since been chattering in her own voice. The heart didn't have the same sense of knowledge she could access but somewhere in the dark it was thinking and moving her thoughts around like some benign trojan. The former hacker had a good head for keeping up with options as well as when other hackers set up tools. Down the rabbit hole the concordance marched. Parts of her were reading manuals or at least what little the Jinhai recorded for such things. The blackened part the concordance sang around left particular page in front of them to read. Psychoportation? Limitations.

The Ductu was similarly curious at Becky's strategy a creature as lacking inventiveness as they were, 'This is a big fellow. You don't have enough understanding of my skills or the raw resiliency yet to keep this up long. What's your endgame? I see a lot of yourselves reading parts of the Almanac. We can't psychoport with an unwilling cognizance you have to get rid of him first.'

Becca smiled at the man for a moment before his claw fist dislocated and fractured her jaw replied with a pained thought to Ducky, 'N-No there's a play to get out of this. I don't think you're the only one in there, Ducky. There's not enough will left of big boy anymore. Just an empty beast. The manifold will hold. We'll have to deal this hungry heart later before it gets me killed though. If there's a later.'

Though rage blind she eyed the dreadlocked vampire for a moment to make sure there wasn't anything there. Sure wasn't after a bullet raced through its body and just howled in pain. This was the city where the core gate lie so Myrkul could most certainly reach a few blocks and move objects around. Especially if they gave up cognizant thought.

She reached to Myrkul through Ducky and passed along three shift quaternion shouting, "Myrkul! Emergency Psychoport. Connected object to open space. Two targets short-shift across aperture."

Once it had let go three small firefly raced in from outside a piece of Myrkul's thought executing the commands. Targeting the beastly mind to shift it half a kilometer upward into Wing City sky. The other two hunting down herself and Vincent to squeeze the space in between and put her on the other side of the walled-up door. Becca didn't want to be in proximity when that psychoport went off if it got enough brains to fight back. A connected scalar will not seeing this side so well would likely turn the shift into a blender of gravimetric shear if a tainted mind tried to push it away.

Becca stumbled a bit from her fractured bones with a shout as she phased several meters past into the lighted place and a foot too high. Vincent likely the same once the firefly of psychoportation locus made contact.

"Best keep running, Vincent!", She added with a pained grind of teeth, "These things are still coming! Hope the dreadlocked guy can fly, Haha!"

Vincent nodded and took off, running as fast as he could towards the door, not caring what lay beyond. As he ran, he fired wildly over his shoulder into what sounded like the general direction of the remaining vampires. The gun felt hot in his hand, and he suddenly realized he hadn’t been counting his shots since the beginning of this…situation. He turned to look back and saw bright flashes of light flickering around the undulating creature. Gunfire? He wondered, and looked back just in time to see a snarling vampire lunge at him. He did a sloppy duck-and-roll, haphazardly firing into the stomach of the beast as it flew over him. It howled and black blood sprayed onto Vincent’s face and hair. Gritting his teeth in disgust while using his forward momentum to quickly recover from his slide, he sprinted the rest of the way and into the blinding light of the portal.

Immediately finding herself on a beach, Gabrielle turned around and watched as the first wave of the Sabbat burst into dust. Smirking, she knew this was the perfect plan, though her expression faltered when some of them were suddenly wearing black plate armor of some kind. Well, that certainly wasn’t part of the plan. Biting on her bottom lip, the mutant just shrugged and geared up for war. It could be worse after all… this place could be dark and snowy. At least one thing was going right in her plan. However, when the bodyguard shut the door to the dimension, which ironically was in a cavern near the beach, she grunted and pulled out a card as he rolled a huge rock to block the door.

“Damn it, no. The entire reasoning for me to rush out here was for them ALL to follow me to protect the patrons in the bar.” Charging the card, she threw it at the rock, causing it to explode. Stepping to the door, she yanked it open and stared at those left. “You all were ordered to bring me back, right? Stop being pussies and come on then!” Moving back, she grabbed more cards and hoped that they would get past the armor that several were wearing.

“You guys weren’t supposed to follow me.” Gabby added, shaking her head as she started throwing charged cards at the Sabbat before reaching down to her pants and pulling out a hidden pure silver bladed dagger. She could multitask like the best of them and planned on throwing charged cards and stabbing if necessary.

"Sorry, Boss Lady," John said apologetically, "but the one drow person said that if you got hurt she'd... do bad things to me." He shivered. "Sorry, but I'm here to make sure you won't get hurt, and I'll do it right and make sure you don't die!"

Water lapped on the shores, three undead monsters staring down a minotaur and a mutant. The Sabbat faced their enemies, standing in a triangle, the Vampire that was closest to the two spoke.

"Well, girl. You're pretty canny, how unfortunate for you. Caine isn't going to be happy about all this. Listen up, if you know whats good for you, lie down and let's get this over with."

"Stop being pussies and come on then!” The mutant girls's words would rouse the ire of the three before her, but the Sabbat left in the bar were either in full retreat, or entirely lost to the Beast Within. Slowly, they were all being cut down by the Scourge or the motley militia of gunfire and hairworm.

"I'm afraid we're the only ones needed to corral you and bring you back." The triangle of Sabbat laughed to each other, a quiet inside joke.

The rear two Sabbat sprinted forward, each one grabbing the front Vampire's hands, and getting tossed over Bovinesque. The lead Vampire then sprinted at St. John, crashing into him full force, aiming for his center of gravity. The other two soared beautifully and terribly through the air, landing in unison at either side of Gabby, one aiming for her head with a swipe and the other trying to kick her feet out from under her.

"Becca, Becca, You have to get up. There are still hostiles," called Ducky through the white clouds of pain rolling Becca's eyes back into her head.

She'd landed a few meters up and shattered her legs then promptly rammed the shoulder with holes in it into the ground. After forcing herself to find which way was up Becca stood up through stabbing pain and clutched the knitting shoulder. The cracked bones reknit in her legs soon enough but replacing flesh in her shoulder took longer. After the Almanac reconnected she realized she was way the fuck off target explaining the sudden drop. Psychoports translating across rogue gates apparently were not advised. Somewhere in a different section of the planet Jinhai hadn't wandered to yet by the confused looks around she felt Ducky making. That meant no quick port off of this side like in Wing City. No point of reference for dadworm in the Almanac. There was an odd sense of vertigo not just from her nausea but being in an isolated subset of the Almanac.

Ducky saw her putting her wits back together the soft voice a calming camaraderie to her nerves, "I think they're over the next rise behind us. There's noise. It fits for the psychoport being straight out and over too far across the hill."

Becca looked at the ground full of dead grass underneath her but there was that strange feeling of someone staring at her. A hollow of eyes set not with disapproval but frustration at a lack of training options. Creep-sensei was really starting make her worried at what her new heart brought with it. It had to wait so she pushed the thought away to check on why she wanted to be here in the first place.

Jinhai were following the lady's sister across town as best they could. Servitors trying to deliver a vault. Not exactly hunters it was really easy to stay out of their reach but a bit harder to stay out of their notice given how many there were in Wing city. Dozens of them clustered somewhere underground in the almanac looking to find something again as four slowly toted a Vault in the general direction. Sounded like this lady's sister. With Ducky in her head they both wondered if it was on purpose or not with the vampires around. They'd meet a twenty-four many three stories tall if she stayed in one place under threat long enough for all of them to catch up.

That settled her offbeat steps pounded specks of withered grass blades as she started up the rise. Someone talking on the other side. Though it hurt to lean into a jog the giant bull man's horns were kinda conspicuous once at the top. It did stall her for a moment as she wondered if it was wise for those two guys to be leaping at someone with pikes on his head. One step further down the hill she picked up the pace running at the rear guard a warm throb in one leg at the strain of every impact. Blades of grass wither to brown which left a rustle of leaves and footsteps. Two quiet if eagerly grinding hands and glowing patina eyes rush forward intent to ram her palm into his black armor.

Vincent burst out of the door and was immediately confronted by the strong scent of sea water. He heard a girl yelling, but he was too dazed by the sudden dimensional change to notice what was going on. He stumbled off to the side and shut his eyes, knowing that the effect would fade soon. He heard some snarling laughter, and then the sound of running feet crunching on the damp sand.
He blinked away the strange pressure he felt on the back of his eyes every time he switched to a different dimension and stood unsteadily. Narrowing his eyes to focus them, he saw three vampires fighting a strange girl and a minotaur in a manner that was completely contrary to the other vampires back in the bar. These vampires were clad in a black armor, made of a material Vincent had never seen before, and they fought gracefully, with purpose and precision.
He made a split decision to assist the two strange fighters, and sprinted towards the battle. As he ran, he heard a unsettling growling noise approaching quickly from behind him, and was surprised to be quickly passed by the shape-shifting creature back in the bar. He laughed and let out a short cheer as she rushed by him towards the elite vampires, watching as she rammed into one of the vampires, knocking him off balance.

“Hnn…” Gabby just shook her head towards John, not sure what to think about his words. She wasn’t a fighter… that was her mother and Renee, but she was tired of people hurting her and trying to kidnap her. However, she didn’t want to be the cause of anyone else dying if she could help it. “Don’t die on my behalf.” The mutant managed just as one of the black clad Vampire’s spoke to her. Smirking, she just rolled her eyes at the notion of lying down and getting it over with.

“I’m a LeBeau. We don’t just lay down and roll over for anyone.” Despite not being a fighter, the blood of Gambit ran through her veins and she wasn’t about to be taken again. Her eyes rolled a second time at their overly confident words and her fingers twitched a moment around the handle of her dagger while she started to charge a card. She knew that if things got too hairy, she could utilize the other abilities she was born with, but didn’t want to unless it was utterly vital.

“I’ll be sure to send pieces of you back to Caine.” Gabby snapped out her words just as two of the three were tossed over the bodyguard’s head while the third was intent on smashing into the minotaur. No longer able to focus on him, she instead tried to remember what little training she had gotten in close combat and squeaked as she attempted to dodge both the body parts coming towards her frame. While she managed to block the swipe to the head, she didn’t get above the sweep to her feet. Landing on her back, the teen cursed loudly, but instead of just lying there, flipped herself around and back to her feet all the while throwing cards at the two Sabbat that were attacking her. She also sliced towards one of them with the dagger, though she wasn’t’ sure whether or not it would pierce the armor.

The vampire charged towards John full on, and John barely managed to set his feet and put up his arms when the vampire crashed into him.
There was the sounds of crashing metal, and the vampire bounced off of John, landing on the ground. John looked just as surprised as the rest of them, looking down at himself and saying, "Huh. Didn't know I could do that."

The bar has mostly cleared out in a hurry, various parties fleeing the bar through certain Ways. Mindless Sabbat, lost in the beast, or some that simply were too stubborn to give up lingered about the bar. Their comrades would return, surely, some of them figured. Only one needed to come back, with the mutant girl captive.

Gabrielle was gone, and Akshasha was thoroughly upset. The Sabbat wouldn't dare to attack a direct member of the Camarilla's cabinet. They targeted Gabby to get at her, or something to that effect. It was in poor taste, really. Gabby had nothing to do with their blood-war.

The bar was relatively clear of incidentals, certainly free of people who might report back to Gabby... hopefully. With a casual toss the Drow threw her greatsword like a javelin, spearing one of the Sabbat in War Form. It looked shocked for a moment, before charging Akshasha. She caught the beast with a free hand, speaking to its beast within the Vampire in a manner unique to her heritage.

It gurgled at her, turning back to destroy its comrades in a confused fury. "I am the Scourge, it is literally my job to deal with uppity little prats like you. This Bar is under the protection of the WCPD, the Camarilla, and several various powerful private companies. You're literally on a suicide mission. They want to make martyrs out of you idiots. Do you get that?"

With a snap of her fingers, the enchanted sword embedded in the War Formed Vampire released its pent-up kinetic energy, exploding into two more Sabbat while putting the former out of its misery. The brilliant gore was something of a beautiful sight for the Drow, and she relished in the moment. Bloodshed. The Beast inside her growled, a sickly glow coming from her eyes as a result.

Akshasha clenched her fist , and a fourth Sabbat's head exploded, telekinesis squishing it like a grape. "Those who run now, and report to your command about what happened here will be spared. All others will experience execution. Am I clear?" The few Sabbat left hesitated, none wanted to die a martyr, but their brethren seemed so confident when jumping through that portal.

It is said by the Archbishops that govern most Sabbat that the final days are near, and soon the predecessors would rise from their sleep and devour all the lesser Cainites. The thought made the Sabbat desperate, and desperation makes you do crazy things, such as three Vampire having a showdown in broad daylight on the beach shore against a Mutant, a Minotaur, and a Hairworm. Even should they succeed, there was no guarantee their armor would hold until they got out of the sunlight, or that they could return to the bar safely.

As such, the Sabbat fought with desperate fervor. The first Cainite slammed into the Minotaur, getting thrown back by his bestial strength; thrown right into the eagerly grinding claws of the Hairworm hybrid. It writhed, struggling to right itself and make eye contact with the hybrid. Eyes of patina stared back at the Vampire, as it attempted to delve into the girl's mind and control her from the inside. That was where it saw something horrible and alien. Something so ancient as to create a terror that sent the Undead's heart metaphorically racing, and to cause it to lose focus on the shadowy armor keeping it alive. All at once the armor simply evaporated, and the Vampire burst into flames with an agonized yelp before turning to dust and being lost in the sand.

The two Cainites that had been launched at Gabby were fairing better, managing to catch most of the cards with their extremities where their Vitae could quickly restore wounds. However at the death scream of their fallen brethren, one hesitated for just a moment and had a silver dagger plunged into its leg. Where the silver hit and immediately surrounding the wound, the armor dissipated and the Vampire's leg began to burn in the sunlight.

With a howl, that Cainite dropped to one knee, eyes wild and leg all but ash halfway down the thigh. Its right arm grossly distended with muscle, Vitae pumping strength into an already inhumanly strong monster. With a resounding thud, it brought its fist down directly on the sand in front of it, creating a shockwave that sent sand flying into the air and creating an impromptu sandstorm.

Their shadows were stronger when not in direct sunlight, and the shade created by the sandstorm elicited a throaty chuckle from the still standing Sabbat. "Blessed is he who kills the sun. Ehehehe, you and that Cammy bitch, Akshasha been real chummy lately, huh? We'll be sure to send her your hands when we're done with ya." His armor took on a spiked, thorny appearance as it had more shadows to work with, and he pulled a leg back to plant it directly into Gabby's side.

Gabby heard John’s words and although she didn’t witness what had happened, the sounds indicated that he had been thrown backwards away from the Minotaur. What happened to it afterwards wasn’t pleasant to anyone watching, but thankfully she was busy with her own battle to see anything. The stench was enough to make her figure something had happen and that meant there was two left and four of them. Those were good odds in her mind. As her dagger found purchase in one of the Sabbat’s leg, she smirked and watched as part of the leg had turned to ash. Yes! They were making headway! Her excitement dissipated the moment the Cainite slammed his fist into the ground, sending sand up into the air to cover the sun.

Shit. There goes my plan B. Her eyes narrowed as she realized that she could no longer use the abilities that her mother gave her. Shifting her attention towards the still standing sandstorm, Gabrielle narrowed her eyes at his words.

“Yeah, that shit ain’t happening!” Gabby snarled and twirled the dagger around her fingers and started to formulate another attack just as the Sabbat’s armor took on a thorny appearance. That caught her off-guard and before she knew it, the leg planted hard against her side. Gasping, she stumbled backwards as agony surged through her body. She struggled forward and attempted to plant the now charged dagger somewhere in the bastard’s body, wanting to make it and him explode, though she was less sure of it working than she had been earlier.

As pained footfalls of a hungry girl in the blue hoodie neared a Sabbat to strike him the one that leaped at a minotaur lost a battle of might. Thrown backward at speed Becca turned a wide eye planting hurried steps to slow momentum as they clashed in a loud whump throwing her to her back on the ground the creature facing away atop her. Wrestling with the black plated creature he turned with a piercing gaze looking deeply into her. A part of her felt elated, pleased by the contact, but more one rising in sympathy to another. Then his face slacked in horror darting up and to the distance a grinding hand of moving sharp teeth reaching upward to swipe at him.

~~~

What the Sabbat saw in that moment a panic of going one's reach gone a step too far down into bottomless patina eyes. What ought to form the floor of her Lie ripped away and replaced with something else, not darker, but deeply empty. Past the plans of gunmetal gears, the broken husks of places of abominations that once were, and over the bulwark created by the Angel Ophaniel crossed only by the journey of 2500 years. A point of no return created to contain the tides of a place where light failed to contain a deep loyalty to Mankind where they'd created a deep hunger for the end of the Aether. In that drawing hunger the Sabbat's point of control fell faster still than even a corrupted astral tether could pull against among riotous storms beyond the bulwark. Waterspouts of inky fluid and trundling gears sent an eternal tide at weakening Ophaniel backwashed through the link into the Sabbat mind.

All sides buoying a drowning soul into a false image of its last frozen moment within an inner reality twisted by a cancer of willpower in gear and void. Ground and light in that place now gone nothing but withered grass sparse among dunes of grey ash alit from all directions suppressing all shadow. Sun gone or blotted out by twitching clouds in this place the light no elemental force but a controlled awareness devoid of light or shadow in hostile ticking from all corners. Becca's own face held into a moment of anger and though his hand around her throat pressed her into some metal relief inside a ash drift. A delicate clockwork heresy writ in red brass and stained glass depicted the death of Aetherkind in careful metal curves that cradled her body.

A clinking of gears in the distance over once grassy hills lurked as the astral tether frayed. Whirlwinds of moving funnels of wrath spinning long gunmetal chains ending in long barbed spears. Like some twisted circus ride as tall as a sky they screamed among screeching chains spinning along with the funnel's wrath. Until one stopped for a moment, just for him, a single spear headlong to the Sabbat the brass screeching among crying souls floating in midair.

Screaming came from each skewered soul a machination of howling along flashes of a Necropolis ringed in tall watchtowers deep within the Black Storm, "Etiam Deum, ut moriatur."

~~~

Becca saw him sit bolt upright and the black armor collapse inward with the Sabbat's chest then outward from his back. A sickening crunch and jerk as his body went slack the broken husk leaking cobalt ichor from holes for eyes. Though with the failure of his black armor his chest exploded from sunlight turned the vampire to ash. At least she figured that's what it was. Though there was that sense she'd missed something. A distant noise in a single instant she couldn't grip, as Ducky was curiously silent looking backward through her hair, and the Vampire had looked at something too just behind her. The ash left by the vampire made some weird angular pattern among the sand in grey and blue as she looked around.

There wasn't time to consider it as jeans swung around to get up. A leg with growing fragility shot a painful reality up her knees and hips pushing the thought further away. Then she stumbled out of the imprint as the other created a mini earthquake to make a small dust storm. At her left the imprint seemed almost indolent and sat unmoved by impulsing shadow but there was more than enough free sand on this beach to make it really damn dark. As Ducky's thoughts crossed with her own it helped hold back the pain though it left her with a strange notion.

The mixed female voice rung with a resonant quality, "Said by one who does know as much as they think what Aetherkind used the sun to contain."

A small hud appeared in Becca's view as the concordance slowly understood how to communicate with the foreign cortical hardware attached to her eyes and requisite implants. Red lines complained to an image of herself of vast minor and severe fractures attended with various uncomfortably long timers attached though some of it in unrecognizable language. Okay so she'd pushed her body even with Ducky in a smidge too far. Apparently some of it she didn't even understand yet was damaged, probably. She worried a bit about Ducky with the exhaustion she felt in her head but the things had to go.

Becca shot forward in seeing the ashen leg of one Sabbat intent on reaching into the draining wound. Good leg forward for stability, and to cover the fractured one, bent low with an eye upward to defend with a forearm as hands reached to grasp the bone. Hoping she could by widen the hole with her tearing hands fairly sure Ductu was still strong enough to hew some of it out of his tasty meat by force.

The Sabbat's plan was to take Gabby and Akshasha by surprise, overwhelming them with numbers and spiriting the mutant away when she was least defended. They hadn't counted on Gambit's being such a hot-spot, and the opposition they met there had taken its toll. The last two Cainites were no longer certain that they had any chance out of this. The last two spoke in unison, "Glory or Death, stay away from the Hairworm."

Gabby plunged the silver dagger charged with energy into the barely wounded Vampire and with the mutant girl's shout of defiance the dagger exploded, taking the creature's leg with it in a flash of light. The creature faltered, buckling slightly under the duress of losing a leg but it soon regained footing. A limb made of quasi-real shadow stuff grew from the severed limb, extending out of the black armor and spiraling across the ground

The Hairworm Hybrid grabbed the still open wound of the other Cainite, it turned to hiss at her, wild with rage and fearing dying like his pack member. "The Sabbat will remember this, our brethren will never forget this slight. You made a horrible mistake in coming here." The dark syrupy blood of Cainites, a dark sweet smelling liquid, his blood, began to stream from the creature's eyes, as it lashed out with the foot that wasn't being torn apart and eaten. The beast within wasn't even willing to frenzy, the sudden brutality of its comrade's death instilled fear even into the kamikaze soldier. It's efforts to fight the Hybrid off were getting more and more labored, it's growls becoming less bestial and slowly becoming the pathetic mewling of a dying animal.

The Vampire standing over Gabby looked around with a look of annoyance, dark eyes flickering with impotent rage. "Even if we all die here, The Sabbat WILL keep coming with you, Camarilla sympathizer, your business is as good as ruined!" He burned through Vitae, allowing the darkness in his hand to form a short spear, one that he stabbed down into Gabby's shoulder. With an increasingly unhinged look in his pitch black eyes, a longer spear formed out of shadow in the other hand and an inhuman snarl signaled its launch as javelin at the Hybrid, soaring with improbable force.

The sand had started to settle, the last Sabbat going to die with the sun when it did, the thought driving a wild chortle into the Undead maniac. He was determined to make them pay every inch for the fight, even though much of the assault force had been newly turned shock-troopers, they had still lost some important members in this raid. He leaned forward, preparing himself to fight to the death, standing in a low crouch and ready to pounce on the first person who opened themselves up.

“You’re the ones that made the mistake by coming to Gambits. Don’t fuck with my family’s bar or with me or my friends, patrons, and staff!” Gabrielle snapped out, glad that her plan was at least working despite the agony she was in from the spike to the side. The mutant was vaguely aware of blood seeping from the wound but didn’t have the chance to fix it with everything going on at once. Her attention and energy were on the two remaining Sabbat and despite wounding them both, the sun was still covered and the shadowy crap coming from them was not something she had been counting on.

Plan C? She mused, knowing she still had another trick up her sleeve, but also knowing what it would do to her if she were to use it. Before she had a chance to decide either way, the teenager was suddenly aware of something sharp being plunged into her shoulder. Screaming out in pain and surprise, Gabrielle was lost for a moment as to what to do.

“Fucker!” Gabby shouted and once the sand started to settle and the sun once again shone bright, the mutant snatched out a trio of cards and charged them. Throwing them at the Sabbat even with pain shooting through her side and shoulder, she focused and as they exploded. Without giving it a second thought, she called upon the namesake of her mother, Sunstar, and started to glow with the power of the sun. Every inch of her body grew brighter and she lunged at the vampire, intending on burning him to death.

The lashed out foot of the Sabbat connected with her raised forearm and cracked her ulna raising a chainsaw scream from Becca a forceful noise pushed through the carpet of dusty spikes racing about the inside of her mouth. The other hand tightly gripped to bone tore free a tibia from tendon and cartilage. Vampyric bone emerged from shadow armor pivoting by tear through flesh with a wet sucking noise. Her grip slid to the bulbous tendon end though in her hands the bone stood stark and bloody persisting in spite of the warm sun and the glowing Gabby. Marrow leaking out the splintered end some necromantic source feeding a mockery of vitae.

"Mistake?!", Becca stared at the creature her broken arm shifting to her chest, "AAgh! My arm, damn you. I am a walking mistake! A personal ruin today's special just for your ass! The better half of me doesn't regret hating every vein of your tainted existence and nowadays your destruction is my new home."

The patina eyes stared him down as she fought through the pain much like when her body started rejecting her replacement heart, "So we're going to stab you to death with the only part of you that will ever feel the warmth of the sun."

She rushed forward again to the one that threatened her using his shadowy outline to shield her from the glare of Gabby's flashbulb body. Though she took slashes across her shoulder and stomach with the other hand unable to deflect the sharp end of bone rammed toward the Sabbat's armor with all her waning strength. Successful strikes conducting vitae away into the raw consumption dancing on the back of her hands as she drove him toward Gabby's strike to his compatriot. Though likely taking more damage than she healed from the direct consumptive assault the intent was to push him backward at least if the creature still survived.

"No! What are you doing?!" John cried out as Gabrielle lunged towards the vampire. " You'll be killed!"
He would then shield his eyes from the great blast of light that was soon to come.

As Gabby began to glow, the last Cainite's armor and spears began to flicker and fade away into nothingness, giving the Hairworm sudden leniency in her assault. His skin started to peel slightly, taking on slightly paler and paler hues of color the longer he stood in the light. The hairworm hybrid had left his last companion in torpor, and he was also beginning to immolate in the sudden sun-like glow.

Sand began to settle again, the sun gleaming in the sky, smiling down at a expansive beach overlooking the Solinus Sea. The Vampire spoke with a plain Eastern accent, perhaps trying to garner up poise in the last moments of its life, addressing Gabby as she lunged forward. "Typical Humans, you're all dust, you just refuse to acknowledge to dust ye'll be returned. It shan't end with us. Your home will be plagued by both the Sabbat and Camarilla now." In spite of falling apart in the mixed assault of natural and mutant-produced sunlight and a maddened hairworm, the Undead continued to drone on almost religiously, as he fell apart.

"Same with Myrkul and all Her followers. The Bar wasn't protected under thy rules, this' be a declaration of war." The thing's body crumbled into ash, partially buried in the falling sand and partially sent sailing into the Sea. It's voice seemed to echo even after it had been reduced to dust.

"The LeBeaus started this fight anyhow."

Waves of cerulean water lapped against the shore, blissfully unaware of the carnage that had just transpired. Flecks of blood dyed little red spots into the beach, spots that would be washed out by the incoming tide. The skirmish had ended as quickly as it had begun. In the distance, a gull cried out excitedly at having caught its next meal.

Despite being focused on the shit-talking Sabbat, Gabrielle was also aware of where the others that had come with her happened to be at and what they were doing. For some reason, she was pretty good at multitasking, but terrible at making good choices. Figuring that it would all even out eventually, the teen didn’t worry too much about it, though lately it seemed that her choices were not just bad, they were dangerously close to being deadly. What was it about people or things wanting to get her and hurt her? Shaking off those thoughts as one of those that came with her shouted about her arm, Gabby briefly glanced over towards the Hairworm, noting that the other vampire was being pushed closer to her, which was fine and dandy as far as she was concerned. She heard John’s words and briefly worried if this was going to kill her, but she was already moving, and it wouldn’t matter now. It wasn’t like she could stop herself after all.

“I’ll be fine, John!” She shouted despite not believing her words at all. At least if she did die, she would go down with a fight and not like a little wimp like in the past.

As the Sabbat that she was frying started to threaten her, Gabrielle narrowed her eyes, watching as he started to fall apart. If the rest of the Sabbat and whoever the Camarilla wanted a fight, they would get it. She kept those thoughts to herself and held up her hand, the middle finger raised up in the air proudly. It was a typical teenage thing to do and she embodied that persona perfectly.

“Go.Fuck.Yourself. We LeBeaus always get blamed for shit, but I guarantee you, we didn’t start it. Your kind will all fall if they fuck with my family anymore.” She spat out her words, still flipping him off even as he crumbled to ash. Gabby didn’t care if he heard or not of if the Sabbat had a way to watch what had happened and they heard. She was incredibly tired of the bar being attacked and her family being attacked and she would go to war if necessary to keep Gambit’s a safe haven. Once it was over, she dropped down to her knees, her side and shoulder bleeding profusely. She was exhausted and had expended a lot more energy than she realized. The brightness around her body disappeared and she was left panting, hands pressed into the sand.

She didn't have the energy to respond as the last Vampire started to fall apart with his kin. The battle done her knees made a crater in the rough sand as Ductu abandoned efforts of strength instead focusing on setting the broken arm. Ductu was spread thin and knew where all the bits went as shards of bone moved through Becca's flesh to rejoin.

Becca screamed while resisting the urge to touch an arm lurching back straight on its own, "AAAAAAGH! Fuck that hurts!"

Her legs refused to go down as she stumbled and landed facing the sky opposite Gabrielle straining out, "Hi, I'm... Becca. You gonna be okay? Ducky is busy holding me together right now but I'll be okay. Been on the street long enough to fight off gangbangers when I have to. Ducky's a lot better at it..."

A thought occurred to her and it was a lot easier to talk lying down side-eying nearby to look for the minotaur, "Do they think Myrkul's me? Aren't they going to get an awful shock if they step up to a clossuss wellhead! HA ha H-AGH FUCK! Ribs too. Right. Think I cracked a boob support. I think we need a carry, hornmuscles."

She tried not to move while looking up the Almanac again talking to keep away the pain, "Other bar lady is your sister, right? There's like 20 Jinhai following her around now. Hard to focus to find where. Meant to tell you. There's a lot of free servitors running around. Delivery's priority over idle tasks."

With Ducky holding her still now she couldn't move if she wanted to. All her muscles burned and ached from the punishment they'd taken. Her chest was busy being quietly cauterized given the scent of her own meat rising under seared vampire. It was odd but there was a strange ticking noise making some of the burn go away though a heck of a lot slower than she'd like.

"Need help with that?" A voice accompanied by a boy with bright green hair, a navy blue cape and mage's robe, and darting orange eyes stepped forward. "I'm a mage." He said nervously.

John rushed over to where Gabrielle lay in the sand. "Gabrielle?! You going to be okay?!" He shouted. He was very worried. John liked her, he didn't want her to die, and he especially didn't want to be torn limb from limb by the one dark elf person.
Suddenly, a small voice piped up; "Need help with that?" John turned and saw a young teenage boy in robes standing there. "I'm a mage," he added nervously.
"U-uhmm, sure!" John said. "What kind of mage?"

Gabrielle blinked as Becca landed on her back beside her in the sand. Finally introduced to the female, she smiled a little and couldn’t help but wonder who Ducky was, but figured it wasn’t really her business. Exhaling deeply, the teen ignored how heavy her body was and flashed a slightly brighter smile.

“It’s nice to meet you, Becca. I’ll be alright… just exhausted. Thanks for jumping in and helping out, especially since this wasn’t your fight.” She was about to say more, but was sidetracked by the sudden comment that Becca had cracked her boob support. Having never heard that before, she giggled a little before groaning, a hand sliding up to her bloody side. “Naw, I think Myrkul is Akshasha, but I’m not completely sure. Hell, I am really not sure of anything anymore… except it’s not over for me.” She hated that they were going to come after her again and just steadied herself a bit more. Eyes immediately widened at the mention of her sister and the 20 Jinhai following her. What in the hell was going on?!

“What the hell are Jinhai and yeah, the other female that runs the bar is my older sister, Renee. I’ve been looking for that idiot for a while now.” Her fingers clenched in the sand, annoyed that bad things couldn’t leave the family alone. About to swear, she was sidetracked by a voice she didn’t recognize. Snapping her gaze towards the kid with bright green hair, she immediately regretted it as the world spun a moment.

“I don’t… but umm, more importantly. How did you come to get here?” She asked before realizing that was a stupid question. “Never mind… dumb question.” Her brain was growing sloshy, but she didn’t really want to be healed by a complete stranger, though she did like Akshasha heal her arm earlier. Was it her arm? Hell, she couldn’t even remember that anymore. She shifted her gaze towards John as he rushed over to where she was currently at. He was worried, but she wondered if he truly cared of it he was more concerned because the Drow threatened him.

“I’m fine. But, we better head back soonish. Need to makes sure my bar isn’t shot to hell.” Sure, she wasn’t fine, but LeBeau’s didn’t show their weakness in front of others. Or some crap like that.

When Gabrielle mentioned having to go back to the bar Becca could feel Ducky moving her efforts around. As she tried to bend up a lead weight in her chest became a stabbing dagger as breathing became too haggard to scream in anything more than a frothy gurgle. Ducky and the chanting she could feel in that dark place in her mind's eye rose sharply. Hordes of minute creatures grab a shattered rib an unseen effort retracting it from a cut in her hoodie to move it back into place. Motes wreathed to re-assemble bits of calcium and bone. Her shallow breath abated as the punctured lung that just collapsed re-inflated with a noisy gust of air from a hole just under Becca's ribs.

Becca pushed down with one arm to flip to all fours, "Agh, Fuck! That hurt. No worries, uh, Gabrielle was it? I'm not tied down... hngh.... and don't like gang bangers. Tho the taste like black licorice is new. Wait... did I eat someone?"

Adrenaline not pumping the memory of chewing a vampire apart from the top down made becca's pale face paler. Like some morning after she'd eaten four tubs of ice cream from things that just made a laughable comparison to her last few months of life. Her hoodie was torn, and several visible meaty gashes in her chest, torso, and arms, stopped bleeding but didn't look the least bit good. Her forearm in a tangled dangle of ruined flesh had too stopped bleeding but the multiple compound fracture proved a complex problem for whatever kept her alive to solve.

Becca's Patina eyes look at the new young man, "I uh, Hi? My everything hurts and my arm is fucked up. Ducky's holding the pain reservoir shut because it'd otherwise there'd be thunderhell in my brain. You got anything for a busted arm?"

The raspy panting hobbled to Becca's side, "Jinhai's a servitor of Ducky's overbeing. That's Myrkul. The Almanac said they've been dolled like EMTs dropping off revived folks at Gambits. Bartender told them to stop putting advance payment on the bartop so from that point they've been stacking it somewhere else whenever they drop someone off for a room. I'd guess the stock got dangerous though so I guess Myrkul had them put a proper vault together. They're trying to deliver it."

She leaned in to whisper to keep it out of earshot of the others, "Tallied up some of it. You've got at least 40 million creds in cognizance crystals in a open wooden barrel behind a locked door somewhere in gambit's basement. They didn't stop dropping folks off."

"Um... okay? I guess we've got this all wrapped up now," John said. "Are we going back to the bar, or will we just stay here in... where the hell are we anyways? What is this place? Nevermind.

“Mmm… yeah, it’s Gabrielle, but you can call me Gabby and erm… Yes, I believe you ate someone or perhaps lots of somebodies… not really sure. They were baddies though, if that helps?” Gabrielle’s brow just arched a little as she shrugged, not exactly sure how it would effect someone eating a bad guy or hell, anyone in general. Her head was swimming and the only thing she wanted at that time was to be back in the bar where it was familiar. Becca looked horrible and Gabby wondered just what exactly she was composed of since it appeared her wounds were fixing themselves albeit slowly. “You umm… you don’t look so great.” She managed, her stomach lurching just a little as the adrenaline finally wore off.

“Okay… so why are twenty of them following Renee?” Gabby questioned, taking note of the amount of creds down in the basement. That was something she would go hunting for once they were back in the bar and she could move without having the world spin violently around her. “Thanks for the knowledge though… I’ll look into it.” She was a little irked that things like this was going on without her knowledge, but she supposed that was what happened when one was kidnapped for quite some time.

“Urg…” Turning away from Becca, Gabrielle leaned over, throwing up before managing to push herself away from the pile in time to hear John’s comment.

“Yep, going back to the bar. This is a pretty beach of some kind… not really sure where all the different portals go.” Struggling to get to her feet, she swayed a moment before looking around to find the doorway again. Once spotting it, she shrugged and started towards it, opening it back up before looking towards Becca and John. “Lessgo.” She stepped through it, knowing it led back to Gambit’s.

][OOC: Next posts can be back in the bar.][

Adrenaline gone with no more of the creatures left but a vampiric rib held in her hand like a wrapper she didn't want to throw away yet. The reality of what Gabby said rang true so while dumbfounded and staring idly until Gabby getting sick got her attention. Memories reconnected with her of digging through someone and tearing parts off. The things were trying to kill someone, true, but... she'd hoped it'd bother her more than it did.

As they approached the door she said in soft tone, "I guess... I did eat a few vampires. It's just that it's like I rolled up on a birthday party to snarf down some cancer kid's cake then drank half the soda while Hngh fighting off bears. Ducky says I won't bleed to death. Even if the licorice beefcakes were the tastiest full bodied things I ever put in my mouth I still ate the bald kid's birthday cake."

Echoes of her voice showed fewer warbles as she hobbled down the cave toward the gate, "Anyhow... The Jinhai are servants not hunting dogs but they really don't feel anything. Your sister keeps evading so they keep adding more Jinhai to cover more ground. Once they track her down and deliver the thing they'll all fuck off at the same time. So iunno? She could be doing it on purpose. They'll shoot at the leeches if they try to mess with her during delivery it's not like they weren't enemies to start with just... not a priority."

When they arrived in gambits Becca stepped around Gabby to have a look at the straggler Sabbat staring at Akshasha. Becca tried to move her arm slightly but winced feeling the bones were still not reassembled quite yet. Though she almost put the damn rib in her pocket trying to put it down Becca instead dropped the vampiric rib onto the bar with a clatter. One rib end had teeth marks where Becca didn't realize she'd absently gnawed on with her actual pearly whites.

She wasn't in any condition to fight off the rest of these bastards so she bluffed hard at the thugs her voice holding back growing pain, "I'm awful annoyed right now so if the rest of you leeches don't get your Sabutts out of here I will find the steak sauce and I'll fucking eat you legs first."

There was a crash of glass, and the vampire started screaming. His skin smoked and burned. Soon he was nothing but a burned husk.
Christopher J. Richardson stepped out from behind his cover, along with the rest of his troop of Terran police officers. One carried a bundle of holy water flasks. "Thank God Jimmy was able to get 'em in time," one officer murmured to his friend, referring to the errand boy on the force.
Christopher walked up to the group on worn and weary warriors - a very mixed group of minotaurs, drow, mutants, humans and hairworms. He flashed them his badge. "Christopher J. Richardson, 1rst Lieutenant of the Terran Police Force. I'd like to question the proprietor of this establishment, and any who were involved in this attack."

What Sabbat weren't slaughtered, fled, leaving only a few too weak to escape or that had been put into torpor. Akshasha's inhuman nature was on full display by now, the Beast burning in her gaze and fangs on full display. She didn't care, it had been a long night and she was both hungry and annoyed.

Gabby returned, more than a little injured and for some reason that Akshasha didn't quite understand, she found herself irate. The minotaur hadn't done his job as a bouncer, even after she had explicitly told him to.

Three of the Sabbat were impaled through the heart with a piece of rebar that she'd torn out of the ground, putting them in torpor. A police officer tried to pour holy water on them, which prompted the Drow to rush over and block it with her hand which bubbled and burned upon contact. "These are MINE!" She hissed angrily, "Im taking them back to the Camarilla for questioning." Satisfied that the police wouldn't try to intervene again, the huntress darted over to Gabby.

"You're reckless.... I like it. Curare." An emerald light enveloped Akshasha's hands as she went about magically tending to Gabrielle's wounds. One Christopher J. Richardson approached, demanding to question Gabrielle. The Vampire just turned and hissed at him, fire in her eyes.

"That's the trouble with you KINE!" She spat the last word out, like it was a swear, "Always showing up last second, pretending you saved the day and demanding recompense. Back down, or I'll introduce your gullet to my darling sword. Better yet... Make a move, I'm terribly thirsty..."

Becca hobbled over to one of the stools at the bar nearest the lieutenant then sat down. Muscled both cheered and complained shuddering her eyes trying to get settled and balanced just right. As soon as she finally got her leaden feet to rungs her face stiffened Ducky thinking she was sitting in the chairs they'd come from. Blessed respite from her fractured bones interrupted by a reallocation of interest in maintaining Becca's strength. She let Gabby say hello to the police it was better that way anyhow.

Slammed open eyes arc backward slowly falling away from upright as Becca's numb voice made the effort to alert Ducky, "Ducky! ducky! Falling over! Ah!"

Ducky reprioritized quickly enough Becca could catch the bar and reseat though with a periodic look up to the left, "Ah, Hi, Officer. Not real sure what started it but the... tainted humankind? Really what you call them, Ducky? Anyway, the vampires started attacking the whole bar while I was sitting her eating with Ducky. She cohabitated I think she called it? You can't really talk to her right now she's keeping me from bleeding to death. We started ah disarming the fuckers then followed Gabby out to some lake in bumfuck nowhere. Uh, disposed a little of the others and some blew up with the sunrise. The other I stabbed to death with his own rib cage. The thing's on the counter probably the only bit that's ever seen sun. One just kinda stroked out in horror then fuggin exploded. Kinda hilariuRRrhhhhhG!"

Her cradled arm made a correction as Ducky pulled the shattered radius and ulna back into mostly one piece. The bone now knitting together with the efforts of her forsaken heart. Becca just whimpered softly as her whole body ached and mind turned pain white for a moment gathering her wits while the angry vampire lady yelled at the police officer. A still mostly-broken hand twitched in muscular spasm a tear running down her cheek from pain prioritized back to her mind as something less important than recovery.

One patina eye looked up to Akshasha the salty-mouthed hacker had a few choice words, "Ngh. H-Hey! They're good folks keeping your clientele coming in safe in spite of that creepy fucker fuze or whatever his name blowing up half the department with a blood bomb. He's still out there looking for Ducky and me. They gotta take care of what ain't in here unless you want to."

She eyed the man looking over the remaining cops, "Any casualties with heads still attached? I can probably get a Jinhai to come glue-em back together again."