Fearless Vampire Hunter (Open)

The ruins of calamity make room for all kinds of evil to fill the vacuum after the collapse of society.  Deep within the cracks of the city rested the inner workings of the side of the city the light kept at bay. A dark being stirred and canvassed. Once the actions performed draped the streets in horror, they now faded into the terror residing in the broken boroughs and shattered order.  

Elaine spun her pistol back into the holster resting upon her hip.  A loose strand of hair blew across her face as wind moaned through the decaying city.  "Why does everywhere we go either suck or have to be on fire?"

"Well, the cities that suck are usually on fire somewhere around your departure."  Taking his regular spot beside his counterpart, the small spectral corgi remained unseen to all but Elaine, his gift and his curse.

"Because they suck."

"You just need to replace one word..."

For too long local crime became the de facto governing of the streets.  Seeing the need for a new voice of reason, Elaine stepped in to become the self appointed Sheriff of New York.  Preliminary elections mattered to her almost as much as the due process she campaigned on when she dispatched a local street gang with a bullet to the leg.  "Words are for communist; I'm just going to shoot evil until the city is back in order or on fire.  Which ever comes first."

"I don't see why you establish those things as mutually exclusive."

Institutions of the dark crept in the absence of justice.  Egalitarianism found itself mocked with sadism under the kangaroo courts street level thugs implemented to keep their control of power.  But, the power from their mockery came from outside of themselves, outside of their violence and their control over drug flow through the streets.  It came from deeper in the shadows, from a creature who himself was an institution.

The sewers long since spilled over into the streets.  The shadows of the alleyways cast over the streets like wardens peering down upon their inmates.  Proper tribute needed to fall just in place, and the tribute the creature of the night demanded strolled in as the new voice of order in a decrepit world.  For all of the disorder she called into place and all of the realm she stole from the creature's domain, the child of the night knew the passing of the sun always played a roll in the serenity of shadow.  During the darkest nights, the shadows merely rested in dormant complacency of their surroundings.  Standing out among the dark was trivial.  Only when the sun drove the light onto the heels of the abyss did the shadows finally grasp their chance to stand against the light in contrast.  Biding their beauty in the harmonious discourse they sowed as the painted their image upon the ground.  

A chattering of teeth sounded against the throbbing music blaring through the club.  From this private lounge overlooking the a side dance floor, a patient finger tapped against the side of a wine glass.  The patient tap turned to a more stern order.  With more trepidation than resolve, the wine splashed from the mouth of the cup.  The young man, barely twenty one and with dirty blond hair falling behind his ears no where near the brightly colored neon club apparel he wore, holding the pitcher turned as pale as the sleeve of the coat now brushed with the red of wine.  Trembling so he could feel anything in this moment of fear, the woman of influence smiled a toothless smirk and waved him away.  Confiscating the wine, a grotesque man with tusks and a hand stretching into hooves where his fingered appendages should be took the distressed man by the arm and removed him from the lounge.

Wine swirled red as blood along the edges of the chalice.  

Blood swirled red as wine along the concrete outside of the club.  Blow after blow from the hooves of the mutant brought more interior tissue to the front of the man's face.  Sparing him the tragedy of seeing his beaten face reflected in the pool of his own blood, he lost vision in his left eye some time ago and could only feel the warm caress of blood in his right.  In between frantic gasps for air and reprieve, he barely felt the splash of blood upon the back of his head, nor did he hear the sound of the bullet over the ringing of his ears.  

With more elegance than chagrin, Elaine kept her gun fixated on the beastman.  He sputtered back, but he looked physically ready for an altercation.  And, so did the five men stepping from the shadows with an assortment of bludgeons and poorly placed conflict management skills.  

"I'm here for some exit numbers."

Below the Club

Shauna awoke with a splitting headache, to the dull bass of the club music above. She found herself with blood rushing to her head, realizing she was upside down- worse, she could feel her face damp with cold sticky blood and sweat, the coppery smell unmistakable.She was tied to a ceiling attached array of hooks, legs wound together so tight with rope that she couldn’t feel any circulation in her feet. It was also dark, and it took a few moments before her enhanced senses kicked in.

She looked back. The past few days had gone from bad to worse, from skirmishing with plant monsters, to wandering the rubble and ruins of New York, and now to being captured. Shauna thought she would have died by now, but it seems she was worth something to someone.

And it wasn’t just her. She looked around and saw there were other people in this large... cold store room, like pieces of meat hung on the hook. “Must be refugees...” she guessed, looking around for a way out. Shauna looked at the hook where she hung from. They weren’t keen on keeping them in good condition, as these people were likely going to be unconscious for awhile.

Then she heard the gunshots. Outside the meat locker door, a large, lumbering... thing... walked past, and Shauna was hurried along. She looked at the ropes... but her powers weren’t coming out as she intended. The ropes started to smoke, but there were no lasers coming out of her eyes. Of all the times she needed her power most...

...She settles for an alternative, and curls up to reach the ropes- an immense strain on her back and abdomen considering her condition- but slowly untied feet, falling clumsily and wearily onto the tile floor below. She crawled to the door, listening, waiting, as she quickly massaged her legs to get the feeling back in them.

Five limp bodies scattered the edges of the alley, low moaning of poor decision making. The lumbering mound of flesh with the pig's snout looked down with condescension as he slung a holster with two pistols over his shoulder. Reaching down, he lifted Elaine into the air by her ankle, blowing a forceful line of phlegm into her face. The pressure of his grip began to cause her calf to throb with the constant barrage of constrained blood unable to find its way to the relay point it sought to circulate through. Giving the mucus around her face a good departure, Elaine looked and sized up her upside down foe. "You smell like bacon."

"It's good." He retorted casually.

"Right." Feeling herself begin to free fall towards the curb, Elaine felt herself move back through her shadowy passage of space and come out behind the pig man. Wise to her clever little ruse, a hoved foot shot back and landed square between Elaine's shoulder blades. Falling face first into the hard brick against a brick wall, Elaine needed to rethink her contingency plan if she wanted to come out of this with her goals still intact. Maybe she just needed to rethink her campaign strategies with how they related to the denizens of the newly minted Midnight district of New York City.

Elaine found a way to traverse superposition by having her face literally against the wall while keeping her back figuratively against the wall. The wide brim of her hat now rested firmly against the scruff of her neck, keeping her sideways glare concealed from the encroaching beast of a man beast. "I don't figure I can settle this with trip to a diner?"

"We'll see if the boss is up for a trip." His crass tone echoed under the sound of cellophane unwrapping.

Shauna stood up once her legs were up for it, though she walked with a slight limp. She looked about the room now with a clearer head, and she shifted her super-vision to see the room's features. The walls and floors lit up a chalky white, while inanimate objects stood out in multi-hued colors based on their material. It went without saying that Laser Ladette's ability to perceive spectra and radiation outside even human detection- even human science- was one of her underrated but far more useful powers.

Steel showed up a bright blue, and Shauna found only scarce amounts of sharp objects in the meat gallery. A meat hook, a couple of cleavers, one scalpel, and a pick axe; all of them stained with blood. Shauna glimpsed at the bodies hanging in the gallery once more; her hand went to their necks and wrists, and breathed a sigh of relief that they were breathing, albeit barely. This complicated things- she should get out and get help, but she could not leave them here either. She scolded herself mentally, telling herself she was no hero... but it seemed in her nature to help those in desperate straights.

Then again, she couldn't wake them up- even with a pat on the cheek or a little water. They were in a deep sleep indeed.

With patrols passing by outside, and Shauna not yet certain of the threat, she quietly climbed up into the cooling system, shivering slightly but pressing on. She moved as quietly as she could, feeling a faint light shine in her face as she peered down into the next room- guards with assault rifles to the wall, playing cards and drinking, heavy metal music playing in the background. She kept moving to the end of the cooling system, above the restroom, then the fan to the central cooling chamber. She drops down into the restroom, and hid in a stall as two men came in to relieve themselves at the urinal.

"... The masters are unhappy with the slim pickings. We killed too many in that last raid. Not enough living." One started, unzipping and beginning his business.

"Well, we did get a few kids... and a few pretty girls. They won't mind if we had some fun aye..? hehe.Aawwwhh... had a bad burrito..." The other guard's stomach growled loudly. He stumbled towards the half open stall where Shauna was. He didn't have time to react when Shauna took the scalpel to his throat, spilling blood all over the stall's tiles, and loudly banging against the stall.

"...What, did ya see a ...MMPH!" Swiftly, Shauna walked up to and drove the meat hook into the base of the man's skull. His eyes rolled up into his skull, as he finished urinating on his pants, his body falling into a kneeling heap. Two down. She took the Kalashnakov and went into the guard's room, opening fire and killing the remaining three at the table, as they staggered to arm themselves and fight back against the trained fighter.

Shauna looked around and armed herself properly, taking as much ammunition as she could carry. She looked at the men and wondered who they were, who they worked for. Slavers? Human trafficking in New York? likely. It wasn't the first time Shauna faced such lowlifes, but the meat gallery... was new.

Now armed, Shauna went out into the hallway, and began exploring the rest of the club, her superb vision her greatest asset, allowing her to avoid patrols and proceed relatively undetected... so far. It would be only a matter of time though, before the deaths she caused would be discovered.

"Looks like someone is else is causing trouble."  Lingering through the club with an aroma of havoc, the pig snorted at the hint of carnage striking his arousal.  "We'll put this off for later."  

With nothing more than a displaced sense of desperation keeping her fighting against a premature demise, Elaine rolled over and reached for her pistol.  The twisted barrel of the firearm would erupt under any pressure.  A fresh hint of blood rolled down from her nose and pooled up around the cusps of her lips.  It didn't matter as much as the ache resting solely in her left thigh; the beast drove his cloven foot far enough into her superficial flesh to bludgeon a gash flanked by oceans of bruised skin.  

Yeah, she could move alright.  She could hop; she could even leap through shadows, but she wasn't putting herself up for any time trials as she set her weight on her right leg.  It felt like a bag of weights just dropped upon her knee with only the bottleneck of the joint keeping them from ripping away the tendons and diving into her calve.  What a way to change the pace of reality.

"Speaking of which..."  Her companion chimed in now that the excruciatingly awful sight of carnage moved down the hall.  "I don't normally tell you to follow monsters into dark places..."

"You're just afraid of hard work."

"'Work' is what he did to your leg and it looks like he put as much 'hard' into it as possible."  He had something more pertinent to say however. "I don't normally invoke your wanderlust, however, you may want to follow and try to fix whatever this is."

"What is it?"

"I don't know."  The corgi answered with an annoyed tone.

"Then how do I fix it?"

"Enlightenment."

"But I only have one gun."

"When has that ever stopped you?"

"Time travel werewolf."

"That altercation is really causing reaction to our way of operating."  It really had.

But alas, Elaine gained resolution.  "Time to make that pig kosher."

"I don't know if that makes sense or is racist, but you make that pig kosher with enlightenment."

"I plan to."  Elaine hobbled up and holstered her pistol.  "I'm the sheriff."

Dragging a metal pole across the concrete slabs making up the floor of the backrooms of the club, the pig monster followed the scent of carnage to find his prize. First he stumbled upon the restroom, then he began to head back into the hallway. Patrols may not get the heads up on the invader, but once the trespasser dispatched them, his sense for mayhem would lead him right to his target.

Shauna looked around the underground club, the flimsy floors and walls barely a hindrance to her potent vision. She was looking for a way out but forced to circle around a few times to avoid heavily armed patrols, mostly because she was not at her full strength.

Her thoughts were of course, unfocused, messy. During these times of stress, her mind races, her old hero training coming up- people were in dire need of rescuing, and that clashed with her experience in just how difficult it is to save everyone. She was a villain like few others- someone raised good, raised to be a hero, an exemplar of morality, and yet she discarded it all, taking up the life of crime and adventurism that she once fought against.

She scanned the complex some more, and her eyes fell on the abhuman swine that paced the complex with purpose, following her tracks. He could smell her, probably, with that animal nose, but he couldn’t see her. He was also chasing after another woman... a woman with a hat, one more who would rather be hunter than hunted She was headed.

Shauna was running out of energy, and so decided to double back and head towards a room with concrete walls, where the three’s path would cross. She set an improvised trip-wire device tied to a grenade, a very crude anti-personnel weapon at best, and ducked into the room. It was only wishful thinking that the trap would be enough, but no, it was going to make the Pig stop, even for a second- andoOnce the hat lady or the swine would pass by, she would open fire with this beautiful man made weapon, its large bullets capable of ripping right through the walls, long before the Swine could see his opponent.
Shauna took a deep breath, finger right outside the trigger hole until the last moment.

“Rin! Rin!” Mike and his brother called out while still trying to be quiet. The two ran across the parking lot to the parked van where Rin and the rest of her gang, The Demons, were standing. When the two reached their destination they were both panting, covered with sweat, and appeared quite afraid. “Rin,” they continued to repeat as the rest of the gang gathered around to hear what they had to say.

“What? What happened?” Rin asked as she took a few quick glances behind them, looking to see if they were being followed. “You guys alright?”

At once they both began talking. “There was a...big monster guy and some chick and he was beating him up and some guys showed up and there was blood everywhere!” They both flung there hands around in the air as they spoke, trying to illustrate their words. Needless to say, the others had no idea what they were talking about.

“What?” Rin repeated, with an absolutely lost look on her face. “Were you two camping out the club like I said?”

Mike took a deep breath. “Yes, we were outside the club. We were outside, hiding out, scoping the place out when this pig guy showed up…” Mike told the others everything they had seen in that alley. As Mike finished he paused for a moment to let everything he had said sink in. He finally added, “We seriously just need to get out of here.”

As Mike had told the story everyone’s eyes grew wide and it became easily visible on each of their faces that they believed they were in over their heads. Rin, however, simply crossed her arms and nodded while staring off into the space just above Mike’s head. It wasn’t until Mike’s final comment that she snapped her attention towards him. “Get out of here?” she repeated with sudden anger. Everyone looked to Rin, knowing Mike had made a mistake in saying that. “Are you kidding me?” she didn’t sound angry as much as stern; like a parent explaining to a child why they had done something wrong. “These are probably the guys who tried to kidnap two of our people and you just want to leave?” She pointed a finger over at two of her people, both of which quickly shot their eyes to the ground and said nothing. They were both clearly still disturbed at the memory of what had happened. “If I hadn’t been there to stop that truck those guys might have killed them or worse. These might even be the guys that took your friend, Mike. So no, we’re not just going to go. You don’t screw with The Demons and get away.” Her little speech had clearly turned the minds of most the gang but Mike and his brother were still not convinced.

“You don’t understand, they have a huge monster guarding the place,” he pleaded.

“O.K.” Rin said in the same manner, “and I can see how that might be a problem if we didn’t have our own van full of monsters.” The van was actually only full of caged animals but once Rin wanted to she could corrupt a few of them. Mike and his brother actually seemed to have forgotten about that. The sudden reminder gave them both a hefty moral boost, even if only temporary. “Now,” Rin continued, “did you see a way in? Cause I’m pretty sure most of us won’t pass as twenty-one.”

“Well actually,” Mike’s little brother spoke up, “We totally might be able to just walk in. I think the guy watching the front door got his ass kicked and I’m pretty sure the woman that we saw in the alley just walked right in.”

“Good,” Rin sounded pleasantly surprised. “Then we’ll send in a reconnaissance team first.” She actually didn’t know what the word “reconnaissance” meant, but she had heard it used in similar situations. “You two will lead the way since you have seen the stuff first hand.” Mike clearly wasn’t excited about this but he didn’t argue. “Take two more with you, I don’t care who. And the gun.” She made a motion with her hand and someone sitting in the front seat of the van tossed out a pistol to Mike. The Demons actually only had one gun between them all. This was partially due to it being so hard for kids so young to safely acquire guns but mostly because Rin detested them. Still, the rest of the gang was hardly defenseless. They had plenty of knives, bludgeoning objects, and iron knuckles; a weapon they had collectively become quite fond of. Rin continued. “Now when you get in there stay low and inconspicuous. Just be on the lookout for anything suspicious or anything we can use. Call us here if anything goes wrong.” The team of four nodded and began to head off to the club. Just before they got out of the parking lot Rin called to them, “Hey! Keep an eye out for that woman you were telling us about! I’ll bet you she has answers we need!” Just as the team got out of sight Rin and the others went to the van to begin preparations for their demonic reinforcements.

In a few moments the team had reached the club and just as they had hoped were able to slip right in. They began to make their way around the club, trying to blend in. Fortunately the club was large, loud, and crowded in this main room so they weren't in much danger of being called out. They crept around looking for something, anything, to give them a clue as to what was going on here. Because the truth was they had no idea what they were looking for.

Calamity painted the walls in a suitable shade for the back halls of the converted club. The warehouse use to share a common wall with the complex of the club, but since the fall, the new inhabitants took it the adjacent buildings for their own. Splintering out from the central nexus of corruption in the center of the club, three separate venues all featured a different live performance.  A noise metal band rattled against the shared wall with a synth punk band who made a name for themselves playing in the collapsed ruins of a bar once frequented before the fall of New York.  

The watchful eyes of the nexus fell upon a DJ performing in the last room. The energy of his show began to flow through the crowd.  Whenever he changed a record, a little hint of red splashed from the face. Unknown to the club goers, this man possessed a relic long forgotten. Despair from the locker room prison and carnage from the fights and skirmishes channeled through the speakers from a tiny stone situated ontop of his turntable needle.  

The feeling of the room began to change from feelings of joy to rage. It remained contained, but fluctuated with an extreme passion.  After the peak of violence from Elaine's misadventures and Shuana's bathroom escapades, the intoxicating trance of violence began to overcome the crowd.  Hidden behind a screen of bullet resistant glass and flanked by monstrous guards with implants in their ear feeding them the noise from the relic, the vibrantly dressed man danced along to the blasting beats, his plastic sunglass lenses reflecting the atrocity of the crowd above his wide smile.

"Well that's all fine and dandy, but I'm going to find that pig guy and then..." Elaine stumbled across a trip wire along the ground. She cut time by shadow jumping through the walls to arrive before the man she hoped to ambush. "Someone left a hand grenade on the ground." Pulling the grenade up for inspection dislodged the pin from the wall. "Someone took the pin out."

"That was you."

"I think I'd remember that."

"You're holding a grenade!"

"Yeah." She snarled.

"It doesn't have a pin in it!"

"I told you that."

"Throw it!"

"This is a terrible time to play catch, but whatever." The grenade flew down the hall as the pig stepped into the line of sight. As the explosive erupted, Elaine could feel the rush of shrapnel and heated exchange make its way down the hall and knew her time in the hall needed to end. She shadow stepped through the wall and landed in the same room as Shuana's carefully laid ambush.
Before Elaine could muster any response to the could be ally, a metal pipe burst through the wall.  The pig man slowly peeled back the metal of the wall and began to press his bloodied body through the opening.  Cuts from the explosive he took tore up some layers of skin, but the driving sound of the implant in his brain kept his adrenaline at an almost invincible level.

Shauna let loose on the swine humanoid with defeaning automatic fire, causing ears in the room to ring as the closed space echoed the distinctive sound of an assault rifle. Shauna used up half the clip, but didn't bother for the smoke to clear, her advanced vision letting her see bullets ripping into flesh but delivering no death, only pain. She got to a move on, seeing the pig man's captive had come across her trap and was now in the room. She did not want to be trapped in a room against a physically superior foe.

Out of a simple courtesy, Shauna grabs Elaine by her armpits and dragged her along, toting her rifle one handed and continuing shooting the pig man as she began her hit-and-run battle.