Vincent Sequester's Story

Vincent pushed open the doors to the bar and, without looking at any of the patrons, strode over to the furthest table from the entrance as possible, and sat down, placing his head in his hands, trying to alleviate his splitting headache. He remained like that for a couple seconds, before straightening and glowering around at his surroundings. The place was largely empty, a few clients here and there, and a couple of teens standing by the bar, talking. One guy split off from the other two and started talking animatedly on his phone.
He coughed and snapped his fingers, one by one, as he mentally argued with himself over whether an alcoholic drink would numb his headache or make it worse...he couldn't decide.
As he watched, one of the guys at the bar began to walk towards the jukebox, doubtlessly to play some loud, raucous song.
Vincent rolled his eyes. This is going to work wonders on my headache.

As Dredd zipped up the evidence bag with the note, he recieved a call from his Judge Radio. He answered it.

Dredd here. What's the situation?

Dredd asked.

We've a 10-65 at the Old Slumwalks Theater. I repeat, we've an Armed Robbery/Hostage Situation at the Old Slumwalks Theater. Suspects are armed with Assault Rifles & are holding ten builders with a ransom of 10,000,000 Credits. Several unit's are on-site, with a SWAT team standing by to storm the building.

The Radio Operator replied.

Don't have the SWAT team storm the Theater. They'll get the hostages killed. Stall them for 10 minutes, as I'm on-route. Dredd out.

Dredd said on radio, before placing it into his pouch. He rushed outside, leaped onto his motorbike, and sped off towards the Old Slumwalks Theater.

Vincent watched as a large, colorfully-armored man ran out of the bar, and wrinkled his nose in disdain as the loud growling noise of a motorcycle engine split the air. There was a screeching of wheels, and then the noise was gone. The quiet chatter of the bar resumed as Vincent suddenly felt a buzzing in his left pocket. He rolled his eyes and reached into the over-sized pocket, retrieving an ancient Nokia phone, which he flipped open. A single line of pixelated text stared back at him:

"New grl in twn. snding her ur way. be nice."

Vincent scowled at the name of the sender. Dexter. That idiot happy-go-lucky nephew of his was always sending him people who were new to the Multiverse. He had no idea how Dexter managed to find them, but he found them nonetheless.
He thought about texting a negative reply back to Dexter, but he knew that it was probably already too late. The moron was going to give the girl one of his one-use, push-button teleporters with Vincent's exact coordinates, and zap her straight to him. At this point, there was no escape.
He signed resignedly and leaned back in his chair, waiting for the girl to appear. The idiot hadn't even thought to give him her name.

Molten stared at Meg in silence, picking up the glass of Ambrosia and swirling it around in the cup, looking at the sweet emerald green liquid and the small cubes of ice that bobbed around in the beverage.

"I never told you this, but everything I did to you, while cruel was intended to make you stronger, prepare you to take care of yourself and run the Empire in the event my political influence became threatened, a good emperor needed a strong, but firm right hand; I felt you had betrayed me, and when Kianna came along she pushed the right buttons, and I sent the state after you." Mollem said calmly, before turning to a waiter and asking the channel on the TV be changed.

The television was changed to an Aschen media channel, and the timing couldn't be more right, as the colorful Judge walked into the bar asking information, the Aschen News anchor was seated next to a portrait of Mollem.

"... The Ministry of Law is offering a two hundred and fifty thousand cubit reward, for information leading to the arrest of Arch-Traitor Mollem McGregor... And now Jimma with sports..."

Mollem grimaced and turned to ignore the television set, watching some kind of new Authority figure. The Aschen Empire never recognized any laws beyond its own, and that often lead to tense international relations and even outright conflict.

"Someone is eventually going to come for me, I won't expect you to do anything to stop them, I'm glad you're doing moderately well; Elise." He said, after some odd sense of clarity.


He looked at the Judge one more time with disdain, and then turned back to Meg. "Since when did cops here start looking like freaks."
---

Raphael merely shrugged, before he ordered himself a Leonis Estates aged whiskey, another popular Aschen drink.

"Here, huh? Anywhere in the Galaxy and you want to watch the sunset here." He said, rubbing his chin.

"I can do that."

He always had a way with women, whether it was flashing cash, or offering to give them a ride in his ship, he always seemed to be able to land them, except the one he truly loved.

Meg sipped her drink and realized that she should probably slow down with the alcohol. It gave her something to do with her hands, something to keep them from shaking or balling into fists or fidgeting, but the alcohol was starting to go to her head. That was the last thing she wanted. In this situation, with this man sitting in front of her, Meg needed a clear head. His presence alone was making it hard enough for her.

She eyed the TV, watching with interest as the anchor announced the reward for information leading to Mollem’s arrest. “They must not want you too badly,” she quipped, dryly. “It’s only a quarter million.”

At his comment about the Judge, Meg glanced over. “Haven’t they always?” she asked. “And when did people in Gambits actually stop fighting at the request of security? Especially being a teenage girl?” She shook her head. “I haven’t been here in years. It doesn’t feel like the same place. I remember the first time I walked into this bar…” Meg trailed off, lost in the memories of another person, another time. “It was so dirty.”

Flagging down a passing waitress, Meg requested a glass of ice water. As she went to fetch the requested beverage, Meg studied Mollem intently. “You’re something, you know?” she chuckled, shaking her head. “You’re justifying your cruelty. You intended to make me stronger? You were grooming me to be your right hand? And then what? You threw me away. Sent the state after me. Sent that woman after me. You tried to have me killed. Wanted me executed. All because I fell in love with someone else.” The waitress returned with the water and Meg threw back the remainder of the whiskey before handing off her other glass and shaking her head at the offer of another. She needed to be clearheaded. When the waitress left again, Meg turned to Mollem. “If you weren’t in the position you’re in right now, you’d have me hauled away, tortured and executed, wouldn’t you? If you still had your power, your home, your money, your job, you’d have me erased. Wouldn’t you?”

Meg lowered her eyes to the water, wrapping one hand around the glass and toying with the straw with her other hand. “The only thing stopping you is the fact that you’re wanted, isn’t it? That nobody would follow your orders? That you’ve lost your credibility and your power?” She jutted her chin up to the television which was now playing a recap of the latest Pyramid game. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t turn you in? One reason I shouldn’t just kill you right here and end it all?” Despite the threat in her words, it was clear that this was not meant to be a threat. Meg was genuinely curious. She flattened her palms on the table. “Are you still too good to apologize?”

While his landlord screamed in his ear about something or other, Graeme stood off to the side of all the action and mini-conversations taking place within the bar. He scanned the groups of people – Cassandra and Raphael, the crazy raptor voodoo chick and the psychotic man that had threatened him earlier, the weird Judge guy and the teenager who seemed to run the place, the lone man sitting by himself.

He glanced at the television briefly as his eyes roamed the room. He was already looking at something else when what he had seen on the television registered with him. He looked back, reading the subtitles as he stared at the image of the man on the screen. And then his eyes flicked down to the man who had flipped out earlier – the man who had pulled a weapon on him earlier – and then back up to the television. Two hundred fifty thousand?

“Uhhh,” he uttered, the noise cutting his landlord off mid-sentence. “Jenkins, I gotta call ya’ back. Business ‘portunity just knocked.”

Without waiting to see what, if anything, Mr. Jenkins had to say, Graeme hung up. He remained where he was - across the bar from the pair - sipping his drink, watching the pair and imagining (and rejecting) various scenarios in which he would be able to capitalize on this fortuitous coincidence.

As Vincent waited for the girl to show up, he called over a waiter and ordered a Snakebite. As the waiter moved away to process the order, Vincent noticed one of the men, the one on his phone, staring transfixed at a nearby TV.
Probably some stupid sports match...why give it the time? Is it because everyone here is 'so' uninteresting that they feel compelled to stare at someone elses?
As he thought bitterly to himself, Vincent let his gaze wander over to the screen, hoping to justify himself.
His eyes narrowed immediately, and all thoughts fled his mind. The wanted criminal featured was worth two hundred fifty thousand Aschen cubits. He had never heard of the currency, but it sounded like a lot.
In any case, this was very interesting, indeed, because the face of the criminal looked extraordinarily familiar, and it also looked like the man who had first led him to the discovery had also recognized the wanted felon. Vincent's eyes slid over to join the man's source of attention.
The criminal was sitting less than one hundred away from him. Vincent casually looked away and wondered if he had loaded his Rendgun before leaving his sleazy motel room.

Mollem idly watched the Pyramid match that the sports anchor was discussing on the television channel, but the mention of the reward, and the reaction of some of the patrons started to get him on edge. He figured it was time to get out of the bar, and find a new hideout.

Mollem sighed, looking up at Meg from his drink, he didn't know what to say, and he wasn't exactly the type to simply apologize.

He ran his hands on the wood grain of the table, considering his next words. "Kroger Haggai was a terrorist, an an enemy of the state; I could not bear to see you fall for him, so I did everything I could to stop it." Mollem admitted. "I could not simply have Kroger killed, so I did what I knew how."

Mollem listened to Meg's next words, and shook his head in response. "Would I? That's a loaded question. If I were still in power, I'd still be on Langara and we'd never cross paths. But let's consider the hypothetical." Mollem said.

His eyes were first on Graeme, and then Vincent, there was something unsettling by the way they looked at that television set, like they were going to try something, to try and cash in on the bounty the Empire took out.

Slowly leaning forward, Mollem answered Meg's last question.

"Because you neither have the strength, nor the will." Mollem replied. "And going back to the Empire to turn me in, would expose you as a deserter, and we both know what happens to deserters." Mollem said. "A short trial and a very public execution."

Mollem glanced around, sliding his hands into his pocket.

"Which is exactly why I'm not going back."

There was a whine, Mollem was powering his weapon again.

Cassandra honestly had no idea what was going on, she was so innocent, being homeschooled in a small town, "So, I'm really embarrassed for asking this, but is this what people call a first date?" she asked, feeling herself turn just about, if not redder than her hair.

~~~~

Just as Juniper got to the door to the bar, her phone buzzed from her pocket before 'Folsom Prison Blues' began playing, pulling her phone out of her pocket, she rolled her eyes as she answered in her sweetest, most professional voice.
"Mr.Brown, I was wondering if you got my email about having everything on your desk, but since you're calling, I am assuming you did" she said sweetly as she opened the doors, after a few 'mum's' and 'I sees' her boss had finally finished up his normal rants about how everything everyone else does is insufficient she finally finished her end, "Yes sir, I will see you first thing in the afternoon, now I just got home, and have to check on the horses, I really must go now" hung up, turned her phone on silent and made her way to the bar.

"I'll have a mango margarita" she ordered as she sat beside a rather handsome man, once she received her drink, she set it down before telling the bar tender she'd be opening a tab.

Oh gods, now there are women right next to him. Vincent thought angrily to himself. That was going to make his target considerably harder to neutralize. His eyes flicked back to...Sir Mollem McGregor...and he watched as McGregor's hand slipped into his pocket, and Vincent heard a low whine over the staccato talk of the bar. He was charging up a weapon, no doubt. Did he feel threatened? Had he seen the way the man on the phone had been looking at him? He suddenly felt cold inside. Had McGregor seen him?
He quickly unsheathed his Rendgun and laid it on his lap, under the table. His left leg began to bounce up and down as he scanned the bar patrons. Was there anyone else aside from the man who had seen the TV? Did McGregor have any bodyguards? Who was that woman he was talking to? An accomplice, maybe? Would this obscure empire pay him more if he brought in the both of them instead of just one? There was only one way to find out.

Once finished with the can of Mountain Dew, Gabrielle tossed it into the green container meant for recycling. Her shoulders ached and she realized it was probably time to start working out again. It was a shame her sister had once again disappeared, but something told the teen that the elusive female would show up out of the blue again. Grumbling, Gabby leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the chatter coming from the television, though she did pick up on the blip about Mollem. Once upon a time she might have cared, but not after what happened to her when she was kidnapped. Sliding open her eyes, she glanced around once more, feeling the tension mounting again.

"Guess Gambit's isn't Gambit's without a damn fight or a murder or three." She muttered, reaching down to move one of the weapons closer to her just in case.

Meg tilted her head from side to side, deliberately cracking her neck. Her eyes narrowed at the mention of Kroger. “You say Kroger was a terrorist, and an enemy of the state,” she started, her eyes shifting over toward the man with the phone, aware of his sudden interest in Mollem. “But let me ask you one thing, Mollem: Isn’t that what your people consider you now?” Her eyes shifted over to the other man, noticing his interest as well. She took a deep breath and turned her attention back to Mollem. “I loved Kroger Haggai,” she said, her voice taking on a deep tone of regret. “I absolutely loved him. And you just couldn’t stand that. You thought I belonged to you. I became a possession. That’s it. You did everything not because you loved me, but because you wanted to hurt him. So yes, your actions have indeed made me a stronger person. But they’ve also made me hard and bitter.” She lifted her glass of water to her lips. “And lonely.”

Her eyes shifted to Graeme again, and then again t Vincent. She heard the click and the whine from within Mollem’s pocket. “I’m not going back either, though perhaps the government would stay an execution order for me if I were to turn in their most wanted. I could gamble on the fact that they shouldn’t recognize me. I shouldn’t turn up in any of their systems. Everything that could identify me has been altered except for my DNA. They’d have no reason to even suspect I was anyone other than Meg Sanderson. As far as anyone is concerned, Elise Bradshaw disappeared completely.” She glanced to the television. “I highly doubt it though. They’ll still figure me out… see me as a deserter, and only a deserter. I’d hand you in, expecting lenience only to be made an example of. I’m not going to turn you in.” She flicked her eyes between the two once more, trying to calculate which posed more of a threat. Man, she wished she was armed. She lowered her voice and leaned across the table. “I don’t think that is going to help you right now,” she offered. “Perhaps it might be best to nonchalantly leave before a phone call can be made.” Her brows furrowed. “For both of us to leave.”

Vincent’s eyes flicked over to the mysterious hooded figure, and he felt a low aura of power emanating from him with such an intensity that it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. His lips twisted into a grimace as he looked away, fixing his narrowed eyes on McMollem and sliding his fingers around the weathered leather grip of his Rendgun, testing the sensitive trigger with his finger. He didn't know what the deal was with the mysterious hooded guy, but he didn't like him...he looked too unpredictable.
With another quick glance around the room, he quickly looked down and switched a small dial on his weapon, turning the dial away from an small embossed image of a skull, and twisting it to the left, until the point of the dial rested on an image of a metal lightning bolt. I need him alive…and I need to do this quickly. He thought to himself, a small smile tugging at his lips in anticipation of the thrill.
Looking around once more, he abruptly stood, knocking the chair back, withdrawing his weapon from under the table and aiming it directly at McMollem, pulling the trigger and sending a bolt of blue electricity arcing straight for him, accompanied by a loud electric cracking noise.

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.

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