Nathan Andrews's Story

"I have friends in the WCPD." Nathan said, "They have people who deal with shit exploding, and they have people who deal with wankers punching people in the face and slash or making their lives a misery. You'd be surprised, I think, at how little they compromise 'smaller' laws in dealing with their handling of the big stuff."

"I'm pretty sure they've abandoned that place as a lost cause... I know I would." Nathan smirked, but it faded when the phone rang. "Let's hope, huh?" he said, as Cassie's face darkened.

"What a pleasant surprise. It actually was his mum." Nathan laughed, "And the look on your face, too. I'm surprised you didn't bore a hole in the bloody receiver."

Cassie coughed, "Well, I made it clear to them that they weren't to call again ..." she mumbled.

"I gathered."

"... hear what?" Nathan coughed. Mums were just like that. It was an acknowledged fact amongst young men mature enough to realise that, well, it happened to everyone -- you didn't go there.

Cassie on the other hand, was bound by no such code of conduct. "She's asking you if you changed your underwear?" the blonde woman snickered.

Nathan arrived in the shopping centre only about five minutes later than intended. The crossing over to Wing City had gone smoothly - flashing a Sanctuary ID did wonders for getting anyone with you past customs, as most of the people who were at customs had no idea what it meant, and had just been trained to do whatever the people with it said. Ignorance was bliss, and all.

The blonde man that walked with Nathan as the he crossed the wide indoor 'street' towards the shop where Darren had said he'd be waiting was said person, and had seemed rather bemused by the whole affair. Normally Nathan wouldn't consider taking a civilian over here like this, but Liam had actually managed to stumble his way here before apparently, through one of the many random portals that popped up in derelict buildings and public bathrooms, just to make Sanctuary's life difficult.

"And you're sure this isn't going to be awkward?" Liam was asking, raising his eyebrow.

"What? Of course." Nathan replied dismissively, "I can't see why it would be. No more awkward than when you met Cassie, anyway, and I doubt Darren's going to squeal over you quite as annoyingly."

Liam snorted, "I suppose that's true."

"Hey Darren," Nathan said, smiling. "Cassie's alright - caught up on a story at the moment though, she said to say sorry that she couldn't make it. Let me introduce you to my friend -- Darren, this is Liam. I met him through an investigation a couple of weeks ago."

Liam smiled a smile that just oozed natural charm, and stuck out a hand, "A pleasure to meet you." he said, nodding to the other man. "Darren's mentioned you a few times, says that you're music-friends. I have to say, I was too easily distracted when I was young to learn an instrument, but I do love a man with a guitar."

Nathan laughed at that, "You should've worn the hat if you were planning on being debonair. It loses some of the effect without the hat. It's a very nice hat."

"You've mentioned."

A second police cruiser, sirens muted, rolled past James as he was halfway down the street. The sirens that he had heard were some way off in the distance, involved in a car chase. The vehicle drew to a halt outside the apartment building and both doors swung open. Nathan stepped out of the driver's side of the car, lifting his communicator to his mouth. "This is unit 198, we've arrived on scene responding to Officer Dubicki's 10-78. Entering the premises now on high alert, over."

The officer pulled from his hip not only a pistol, but also a thin length of ornately carved wood - a wand, which he held alongside the gun in the same manner as if it were a flashlight. He glanced across to Hale, "Here's hoping they come quietly, eh?"

Hale had remained silent during the ride to the apartments, as was his usual behavior when he was en route for a response. He stepped out of the passenger seat when the cruiser came to a stop and made sure to grab his trademark fedora before rounding the back of the car.
"I'd be surprised if they did." he replied to his partner with a grin, grabbing his pistol from its holster as they made their way to toward the apartment entrance. They almost never came quietly, especially in this city. With all the super-powered baddies running around, solving things without a gun-fight was a rarity.

Nathan nodded his head sadly, before starting forwards into the building and making straight for the stairs. He started up, taking one step at a time, climbing towards the floor that Saiga had reported the suspects were on. As they drew closer to the sixth floor, they heard voices from the landing. Nathan held up his hand to indicate to stay quiet, before a quick word and a flick of his wand projected an area of silence around their feet to mute their footsteps entirely. and trying to get sight of the confrontation before the suspects could see them.

The first thing he saw was Saiga with her hands up, facing one of the doors. He assumed that one or both of the suspects were inside that hallway with a weapon pointed at her. Pausing, Nathan readied his wand again and directed it at the other officer, murmuring under his breath. A moment later, an almost indiscernible ripple of magic washed over her, a reflective spell to protect her from harm should things go south.

A wave of his hand to indicate to Hale that they should move on, and he was on the move again, this time taking the stairs quickly, still silent thanks to his magic. It was only when they were on the landing that he spoke. "Drop the weapon and place your hands where we can see them." he instructed sharply, stepping into view of the door.

Hale kept his eyes straight ahead and the end of his pistol aimed at the obsidian haired woman, his finger rested gently on the trigger if he needed to fire. The woman didn't appear to be anything but human, but looks were often deceiving, him being a prime example of this. He took note of his partner pointing his wand in Saiga's direction, likely to cast some spell that would protect her from the conflict that was likely to ensue.

Hale puckered his lips, using a steady flow of hair to produce a low-pitched whistle. As the low frequency soundwaves spread throughout the hallway and panged against gun-toting assailant's eardrum, she would find a desire to sleep begin to wash over her, growing stronger and stronger the longer he maintained the whistle. If a victim of weak will, she would quickly succumb to the drowsiness if she maintained contact with the stream of soundwaves, much to his content.

"Alright, alright. There were several murders in the last few hours. I need to know where you've been." Saiga's lids dropped, narrowed dangerously at Miray. Like the sharpshooter she was, Saiga reached for her revolver, lightning quick, though as soon as she had made the movement, it seemed her colleagues had come to the roof to aid her.

The female officer had her gun pointed at Miray, still, and only took a brief second to turn around to see who was behind her. "One of them's downstairs!" Saiga stated. "The way these guys are acting so suspicious, I think it's them. I'm gonna go after the guy, unless you two have someone after him already. He had a dog?"

Miray never blinked, even though she had lowered her weapon she kept a careful eye on the woman in front of her. She heard footsteps downstairs before they went quiet. But it was nothing to worry over. Ignoring the words to drop her weapon she instead turned turned her pistol to the newly arrived Hale saying "Do me a favor, and shut up. You are not helping my migraine with your damned whistling." Whistling, she had gone against such before, even had to burn out a guy that tried to whistle his way out of trouble.

When the woman with the pistol on her turned her gaze for that brief second, that was all Miray needed, flicking out her wrist faster then anything any of those present had seen before she had another weapon out. It looked akin to a whip. But it was in that brief second, that percentage of time alone that was all she needed. The whipsword was out, and already curling against.... something.

Damned spellweavers!

She had a few spells she could use on her own. but instead, seeing that there was a spellweaver, and a damned whistler trying to gain the upper hand, Miray spoke. "I'm a hunter. I was set upon, so I defended myself and my friend. Simple as that. But I know I've been tracked." After all, Memory was the key. She flicked her whip back onto her arm, reaching into a pocket she withdrew something and tossed it out.

It was a paper, credentials apparently. Stating who she was. It said.

Miray Whitewire, Age: Unknown
Gender: Female
Blood Relations: Biological father; Supernatural huntsman; Hunter Killer

Once the credentials were read, Miray spoke, "Happy now ?" Her father was both a famous and infamous killer of the supernatural, all things magical were targets apparently. And that was no easy feat to overpower such a person either. They were either gifted humans, or not even humans at all. which meant that Miray, though she looked human, was everything but a human, she was a Pretahuman. The daughter of a famous hunter, known as Hunter Killer. Gifted with natural resistances and ablities unlike any other supernatural hunter.

"Do me a small favor" Miray then said to break up the silence, and hopefully halt Saiga in her tracks. "The man who just left us, with his dog, has done nothing but help me and give me a place to stay. Trust me, he is a nice guy until you make him mad. Now, unless you want a white bullet through your brain, I told you everything I could. Now, answer me one question, and we'll call it even. Do you work for the Count ?"

As soon as Miray went in for an attack, Nathan pulled the trigger on his gun three times, loosing three bullets straight towards her chest. By the time the whip weapon impacted the shield, the bullets would already have landed. When the life of an officer was at stake, there was no messing around. The worst possible thing you could do in a situation with guns pointed at you by the police was make it look like you were going to try and kill them.

It had to be assumed that the bullet-fire would cut short any further exchange of pleasantries from that point onwards. Even if they didn't kill you, gunshots had a nasty habit of interrupting your flow of speech.

Seeing that his acoustikinetic abilities were having no affect, Hale ceased his attempts to lull the suspect to sleep. The sound of his whistle was quickly replaced by the cackle of gunfire provoked by Miray's hasty maneuver to unleash her weapon upon them. It wasn't the smartest of decisions, making such sudden moves when their guns were already pointed at her. Perhaps she was confident that the officers wouldn't fire so suddenly. He wasn't sure. Hale kept his gun fixed on the woman just in case the copper-coated rounds weren't enough to bring down the assailant.

James turned around and followed the officers after a few seconds of mentally arguing with himself over the subject. The whistling annoyed him to a degree, but he knew what it was for, as he shook off the urge to sleep. Snow, however, could not fight off that urge and fell asleep down on the third floor.

After a minute of making sure the dog would be fine without him, James continued up the stairs rather quickly. Just as he reached the sixth floor, and therefore everyone else, the gunshots would have been fired at Miray. Whether they met their target was irrelevant to James at this point as he let out a very low, dark, and angry growl that sounded like that of a cornered, hungry wolf.

Saiga's eyes widened as the whip came at her. She would have let off several shots, herself, had she not first noticed that the whip wasn't hurting her.

Huh.

There wasn't too much time to dwell on the fact, however, as several shots flew to Miray's chest, and her friend, who Saiga had seen earlier, had come up the stairs. She aimed her gun at him, instead, cautious.

God, what a mess.

When the gun was moving fired Miray was moving. Backing up quickly towards the stairs behind her. At the last second she propelled herself backwards into a revese sumersault as the gun fired. She felt the heat of two bullets miss her bairely. But it was the third that caught and sent her into a swift sideroll into a ironrailing, she regained her balance quickly. A hand went to the burn mark on her armor. A feral sound escsaped the pretahumans lips as she spoke softly "Call your shots next time will you ?!"

Great, again, and she just got it cleaned too! As a result, her already sour mood got worse. She brought up her pistol, the massive weapon looked too big for her hand, yet she used it with practised skill, and aimed at Nathan, the man that shot her. "You better have cash or rocks on you Spellweaver, I just got this armor cleaned and you burn it with a bullet!" Yes, a mess for sure indeed.

Miray was not happy either. Three shots, all when she was asking her question. So she repeated herself, now clearly angered with a minor element of control. "Start talking. Do you work for the Count ?" She all but thundered the question as a round was racked in her pistol with a clearly audible CLACK. the 12.7mm round could tear into anything short of duracrete. She did not look too good, nearly sent over the side of the railing and through a window behind her, but for one thing, next shots fired she could easily hit the deck.

"I'm not sure you understand the concept of law." Nathan remarked, "I don't know who you're talking about, but what I do know is that you are officially under arrest for the murder of Officer Howard Jefferson, and assaulting a police officer. Drop your weapon now and surrender yourself or I will be forced to shoot again. Do not make this any worse for yourself by resisting arrest. You might think yourself some sort of hero bigshot, but I guarantee when the SRU comes after you, you will feel like the smallest fish in the deepest ocean you can imagine."

The officer didn't flinch in the face of the powerful pistol, nor did he turn towards the growling wolfman. He trusted his partner to keep his back covered.

Hale whirled around upon hearing a bestial growl which he expected to come from some sort of canine, leading to his surprise when he saw it was only James standing there. He wasn't sure if this guy was an accomplice of Miray's, but based on the hostile vibes he was giving off, it wouldn't be wise to let his guard down around him either.

"Stay where you are, and don't think about making any sudden moves." If the fedora sporting officer's demanding tone weren't enough for to get James to comply, the pistol pointed in his direction surely would be.

James' bestial eyes immediately focused on Hale as he turned and aimed he gun at him. As soon as he saw the gun's barrel, his body started to grow taller and his teeth became sharper. He bared his teeth and growled even louder. By then he noticed that Saiga had turned around as well, pointing her gun at him as well.

This sight made James' body seem to shrink a little, as if he were either intimidated, or was rethinking his initial strategy. The large man's teeth remained sharper than usual, but he returned to his initial height of 6'3. He glared at the two officers in front of him, his teeth gritted tightly.

He let out a loud sigh and his lips met in a scowl, no longer baring his teeth. His dark green eyes flashed yellow for a second and he looked Hale dead in the eye. "The same goes to you..." he sniffed the air, and noticed that Hale wasn't entirely human, and he growled again.

He then glared at Saiga again, noticing how cautious she was by her body language. Normally, he'd take that as a sign to attack immediately, however, there was still Hale to deal with as well. Of course, he could always run and abandon Miray....but that would also include abandoning Snow.

Shit....

In an effort to intimidate at least one of the cops before him, he growled again.

Saiga didn't say anything, or correct Nathan on the matter. She hadn't been one hundred percent sure it was them, but she was, ah, about eighty, maybe ninety percent certain. She couldn't call it out now, especially when she had been attacked.

"Drop your weapons and put your hands behind your head," said Saiga, her gun out and ready to shoot. She kept her eye on James. He unnerved her. They both did. Despite this, she kept her calm. She'd faced a lot of nasty things on the road. This wasn't going to get her so quickly. "You too. No sudden moves."

"I don't give a rats ass who the SRU is or what it is. I am after one thing and one thing only. I was attacked, we both were, back at Sparrow Mere. Hunters and weres both. We defended ourselves. When the fight was over I looked over bodies. I found he was a cop. So we fled. For all any of us know, one of the Weres did it. And whichever were that it was, is dead." The truth of the matter was, Miray had absolutely no stinkin' idea who killed what or what killed who. And since she was now being blamed for the death when all she was doing was defending herself.

"So now that I have explained myself, answer my question. Or do I have to repeat myself once more ?" She could tell the spellweaver was a man wanting to be in charge of a situation. Her gaze snapped for a heartbeat towards James, she never heard Snow. She spoke up. "So the whistler did his job and put the wrong person to sleep, nice going." Somehow; the idea of Snow being helpless made her mood go just a bit more sour.

For those that thought that the city was a safe place from the chaos of the world around them then they found themselves to be suddenly wrong in all manner of thoughts and opinion. A sudden bout of thunder and rain befell the play that was before the gods and the cries of citizens from all sides could suddenly be heard over any uproar that was present. The Damned walked Terra now and the source was from an old abandoned base long forgotten by the war between Terra and Aschen forces, The Council would have its final bitter laugh as one of its biological agents worked its wonders on the infected citizens who forced their way towards the living in this area like a mass of starving souls in search of warmth and food.

The infected did not run or walk alone as those who lived but found themselves tainted with their attackers blood began to rip at their flesh and scream and wail as their pain wracked their souls to the core of their being. "Help me!" One man shouted as he fell to his knees while his infected brother stumbled pass him only to gaze hungrily at the officers before him. "Help me for the love of God, please, help me!" The man shouted again as his twin rushed the cops in an attempt to bite or scratch them and generally do harm while the other infected ones rushed in for their own kills. It was not long before more of them showed up to gaze upon two who seemed to have cover from the police.

"Dear Lord. It hurts!" A woman shouted somewhere in the back as she tore at her loose skin revealing a dark oozing wound underneath her dislocated flesh. The dead and the partially living could not claim to be alone for another force was at work here as they forced their ways into the minds of the infected who could still draw breath allowing their thoughts to shift and change to their own. One man began to twitch and convulse in pain as he began to loose his mind and free will to the beings who invaded his thoughts and once it was done he began to chatter and twitch just as they deemed it.

"The Masters. Do you hear them! They call for our flesh and for the untainted beings that need to be converted....I can hear them scratching at the backdoor." One man began to rave as he rushed a woman on the street who was fleeing from the infected just to rip into her side with his teeth and screamed right alongside her pained yowl as he severed the flesh from her body. "Spread it like fire."