Vampires of the Masquerade

Final stop on his little mission. The best part of his mission actually. Zakariah Moriarty had waited a long time for this. His chance to take on the U.K's most powerful villain group. The Midnight Messiah's. It was unfortunate that he had to take them on, not for justice but for a chance to ally forces with them. Oh how that made his blood run cold, reduced to ally forces with this filthy vampire lord angered Masquerade greatly. Had it not been for his pathokinetic capabilities he very well would have flown off the handle. He had to calm himself though. He had enlisted help from that pure spirit woman with the badass energy stuff. Apparently she wasn't too keen on The Agency either, which was just fine by him. He also sent out a rallying urgency to other individuals. One of them knowing a guy that had to do with wolves or something like that. With any luck it was Slayerbane, that BAMF knew how to get it done!

"Okay so is everyone here?" Masquerade asked looking at the turn out. Okay, nothing overly impressive but he could work with it. He cracked his neck and sighed. Nervous energy had the best of him. It was unusual. People who've met him before would know he's generally a friendly and laid back kind of guy. This one was all nervous energy and racing heart. "Okay guys, I know this is sudden but you gotta understand this is almost a full blow war between us metahumans and the Agency. I'm not gonna waste time, but I'm gonna tell you that I've helped get people all over the world trying to bind us together. United, right? Well we're here to take care of one metahuman who...doesn't care about the Agency or it's goal. He's still killing metahumans and humans regardless, he's actually being a huge pain in the ass for us, pardon the language." Masquerade said his thick accent carrying through. With a clap of the hands he looked to his allies. Pure Spirit, Shadowolf, Jasper, Keith and Peter Pan all standin- wait Peter Pan? Masquerade had to shake his head at that one. Seriously, who recommended that some child-locked hero come on this mission?

"There's a good chance that he's expecting us...and where we're going there is no room for error. Everyone ready for this?" he asked, giving his companions a fair warning. This may not have been the most important mission, but it was one of the most dangerous. Jasper sighed and took a step back. Masquerade nodded at him, disappointed but ultimately okay with the loss of a member. "Anyone else leaving? Any questions, comments, moans, groans, or complaints before we get this party started?"

The last couple of weeks have been full of near constant travelling for Sarah Milosi. Well, more travelling than usual. Also for once she had sort of a destination to actually head towards rather than her usual routine of wandering around aimlessly or going wherever she was guided by the voices that occasionally ventured into her mind. It all started with that little run-in with the suspiciously dressed man that offered her a place as an ally of an organization trying to protect the world from dangerous metahumans. That goal was good and all, but she found herself unable to even consider trusting them. She had good reason to not trust them, all things considering. Mainly because a group like that had killed her a few years back.

She had been asked to go to Chicago, so she did, though with every intent of foiling their plans if she could. Once there, she first ran into another weirdly dressed man and a skeleton. Those were her intended allies. Stange choices those were. Their mission involved hunting down an enemy of this agency known as Masquerade. She would up becoming allies with that person and subsequently betraying her supposed allies and the agency. Sarah could accept that outcome. Now she was in London, England because she had gone there with Masquerade. Hopefully she hadn't ventured forth straight into a trap. If she had, this was a really elaborate and entirely unnecessarily overcomplicated one. They had also been joined by some others that were also apparently opposing the agency. She didn't recognize any of them, but had informed that they were allies of theirs. Allies were always good to have. Especially when the odds were against you.

Masquerade was giving a speech about why they were here. He was showing obvious signs of nervousness and fear. Worried that they may fail and what consequences may come of said failure. Once he was done he of course asked if they had anything to say. Sarah was one that preferred to know as much as possible, so she went ahead and asked for more information. "Yeah. Can you tell us more about this metahuman we're trying to find? What's he like? What can he do with his powers? Anything you can provide could help." She stated and hoped that her questions would be answered. Sarah was ready for whatever was about to happen. She just wanted to know what to expect. Besides of course getting attacked by those agency people and having a hard time dealing with the person that Masquerade wanted to meet.

Jayce watched from the back of the room, not ready to say anything quite yet. He had seen a lot these past few weeks; he had watched from the shadows as the agents ran about, doing their work for who knows who for who knows what reason. Arinth had as much knowledge as he did about these people, and while they hadn't gone after him yet,  he had a niggling feeling that, given time, they might come knocking at his door.  So, when the opportunity to do something about them came up,  he had figuratively already packed his bags to go, with Arinth staying behind in the secrecy of the lair that was so well hidden not even the most determined army could find it.  Now, sitting here in the corner of this room, he silently observed the other members of the group, listening to Masquerade as he explained what was going to happen.

Once Masquerade had finished explaining everything, Jayce slowly stood and walked over,  standing behind everyone else. "Just to clarify... We're trying to find this rather unscrupulous metahuman so that we can either stop him or recruit him to our side? Also... what would his name be?"

For a while Feardorcha had simply traveled. He was mostly left alone until a few days ago he helped a young girl with a few men. After that he had started paying attention to the human media and learning of this group of humans targeting anything with powers. Fear stayed quiet until he was found by this meta human group and he at first decided whether to leave the humans to their own devices but had decided to help out.

Now sitting in a room and listening to the men give their speech. To them he was just shadowolf and to him they were humans fighting amongst themselves for stupid reasons but alas had brought himself to their struggles. When asked for questions he stayed quiet and silently agreed with the human who spoke of the meta's name and if to recruit or eliminate him. Different people with different powers. This could turn out to be fun or a drag for the very old demon.

Lucifer hadn't been "shackled" very long to be honest. He met Officer Martin and then there was this mechanical pod, and then he woke up in a white room with an itch in his neck. The guys in the suits were cold and to the point, but not overly mean to him and they seemed to have a pretty decent agenda. Of course he made his case quite clear as well. He didn't mind helping the people try and convince metahumans they weren't evil if he didn't ever have to kill anyone. Of course it wasn't known to Silus, but he wasn't in the position to be making any clauses or footnotes to the arrangement.

  Lucifer proved to be more than reliable and efficient, as well as what one might consider generally trustworthy. Or as trustworthy as a metahuman could be to The Agency anyways. He was cleared to have his shackle turned off, but not removed. If he were to ever become a problem or was needed to do a specific task the shackle could be turned on and he could be commanded to do so. For the most part, however, he was simply given an assignment and he carried it out as quickly and efficiently as he possibly could with as little violence or bloodshed as possible.

  But he was slightly shocked when Agent Grandpa (Agent Masters) popped up on his doorstep and handed him one of those large packed envelopes. Like the envelopes that he normally got when his brothers ordered a video game. Zell actually knew Agent Grandpa, and while Agent Grandpa was smug and offered only a smirk his daddy seemed to get really mad. Lucifer just ignored the angry Zell, like always, and proceeded to open the envelope.


   After the novelty of feeling like a secret agent wore off (as most as it could for him) he was excited to get to join up with a bunch of other Heroes to bring down the elusive villain from the scary shadow place. Paraphrased of course, but it was still the gist of what was in the packet... which he didn't read. The only thing he needed was the location, and here he was. He chose to take the name the Fae gave him, Peter Pan, and if he had to he'd continue to pretend to be Fae. With his glamour he knew there wasn't a thing anywhere that would know the difference.

   Lucifer was interested when he heard about there being a war between Agency and metahumans, but when he went to speak up he suddenly felt that they might get the wrong impression if he outright said that he was with the Agent's and they sent him here to help them. The absolute last thing he needed right now was to be beat up or picked on for being on what normal metahumans said was "the bad side". He was renewed with excitement when he heard Masquerade state that they had little room for error. Silus was still slightly convinced that this guy was bad enough for both Agency and Renegades to team up.... which wasn't exactly the case. He just shook his head and shrugged before watching everyone else ask their questions.

"We're trying to find this rather unscrupulous metahuman so that we can either stop him or recruit him to our side? Also... what would his name be?"

Can you tell us more about this metahuman we're trying to find? What's he like? What can he do with his powers? Anything you can provide could help.


  Both very valid questions. Or rather a valid series of questions followed by a question.

"Right, ahead of myself a wee bit. Sorry" Masquerade apologized. He began to think to himself how to best say who exactly their enemy was without giving off the vibe he knew too much. Then it donned on him that if he wasn't honest with them then it would likely mean the loss of another life, or another person enslaved to the metahuman crime lord. "His name is James. He's got tons of names honestly but the most common one is "Moonscryer". He's a high profile crime lord. Underground slave trade, drugs and narcotics, extortion. It's basically like dealing with an Irish mafia. He's a very, very powerful metahuman with the ability to manipulate darkness and shadow. His metagene has made him a vampiric like person. He has the minor ability to manipulate blood, even puppeting people around in some cases. Our objective is totry and stop him and potentially recruit him... though personally I'd rather just hire Buffy and be done with this. Oh, another teeny bit, He also hides operates from the shadow realm." Masquerade said before turning and drawing a symbol in the dirt. The symbol appeared to be a door of sorts with two lines on either side.

   "You see, there's place of the living, where we are now. Then there's the spirit world, over here." His diagram was a door between two lines. The area beyond each line was symbolic of the "worlds" he described. "This door is a small space in between. It's a space of utter darkness, we think. No it really doesn't have anything to do with why we have shadows, but the only way to access this world is THROUGH shadows. More specifically shadows cast by a full moon. We're about to go outside and you'll see this very door, just in a makeshift way. When the door's shadow appears we charge it with any form of spirit energy and it will solidify into a real door." Masquerade finished his informational piece. He sighed and looked around, the even semi-intelligent members of the group most likely understood the severity now. They were fighting a vampiric Umbrakinetic and the Irish Mafia inside a realm of darkness. Fun times, right?

      "That answer everything for ye?" He asked. The explanation was more talking than he had done in a long time. He hated it.

Questions were asked because they needed to be asked. So many questions, so many questions. Okay so there weren't that many, but still possibly more than what the person being asked them could answer. Sarah watched Masquerade as he thought about what to say in response to the pertinent questions that had been asked of him. Would his replies be honest? Or would they be full of lies? Sarah believed that the answers he would give would consist of partial truths. Answers that only provided the accurate information he wished to give away, and nothing more.

Masquerade would go on to tell those that he had asked to be here that the person they were in London to meet was a fellow by the name of 'Moonscryer'. This Moonscryer was unfortunately a dangerous criminal in these parts. Learning this made her wonder why he was someone that Masquerade wanted to meet. Her suspicions rose. Surely there were plenty of better options than a mobster that acts like a vampire. Wait, were there no better options left to them? Just how bad could things be? There's no way things could be as bad as she was thinking. Sarah was just being a bit paranoid.

Trying not to worry about the possibility that the agency may have convinced a good number of the world's superheroes to join their cause, or had already eliminated them, had somewhat distracted her from what was being said. Something about other worlds. Did he really need to go on about what crimes this guy has committed? Seriously, we get it, he's bad. Wait, other worlds? Perhaps Mrs. Milosi should be paying closer attention. She almost missed his little tutorial of this realm of darkness and shadows that Moonscryer lived in and how they were going to get there. They would go through a door that needed some kind of spirit energy given to it for it to work. Sarah went off to go check this out as soon as he was done talking.

Away from the others she went, towards the door that would be opened to the outside to find a shadow that resembled a door. Sarah walked up to this shadow of a door and walked around it a couple of times. She examined it. Every inch of it. It was a shadow that was connected to nothing else. One that resembled a door just like the one she had just walked through.

"Well. Let's see if this works." Sarah said as she placed her hand on the door. Her hand lit up and some kind of clear, thick, gaseous substance formed around it and slowly seeped into the shadow. The gaseous substance enveloped the shadow and made it solid. An actual door had manifested before her. Sarah turned around to see if the others had come out yet. If they had, maybe stepping through this thing would be the next step.

Jayce listened carefully as Masquerade explained what he knew about Moonscryer, and thought it over as Masquerade explained how they were going to reach the Shadow Realm. He had a little knowledge of the occult, so he understood that the place they had to venture into was no Central Park. However, knowing that Umbrakinesis can take on multiple forms, he did have to wonder: Exactly what sort of Umbrakinesis were they going up against? Could he see with the shadows as well? Sense what was in them?

Jayce stepped forward, looking over at Masquerade. "Just a few more questions... For one, how much control does he have over darkness and shadows? Is he just able to use them in a brute force sort of way that is limited to his line of sight, or is he able to use the shadows almost like a sixth sense and a weapon? Secondly, if he IS semi-vampiric, does that mean that weapons commonly used against vampires could be used to weaken him?"

Fear stood there as the metahuman just asked question after question. He may have agreed with him before but now Fear was getting quite bored and decided to inspect the others in this team. The man that kept asking questions, he was tall but Fear was taller. The woman was smaller and had moved towards a door of some sort and if things were quite plain he would follow. Finally there was this peter pan and the name of all things made the old demon wearie of this child. Such a name that did not suit the lifestyle of many in this world. That or the insultment to be defeated by a child called Peter Pan. Then the final one, the one that had brought them together, four strangers that were in a war and doing their part.

Feardorcha was done with the inspection and decided to follow the woman to the door. This door of shadows would lead them to another realm. He stood there and looked back towards the kid and the talker and motioned them over with his head. He didn't feel like calling out, been quiet the entire time almost like a mute he decided to stay that way for a bit. Just quiet.

Honestly Lucifer had nothing to add to this discussion, nor did he really have any questions he wanted to ask, save for a question regarding the natural magical spectrum of such a realm. If it were a magically deprived place he would need to use his glamour sparingly. There was a balance to these things. He thought anyway, he didn't really pay it too much mind. The universe had a strange way of balancing itself, keeping equilibrium in some way or another. "If he's an Umbrakinetic, and we're going to a place made of all shadows how are we gonna stop the guy from flat out killin' us?" He then piped up. He of course already knew how he wouldn't die, but that didn't change the fact that he was interested in the plan how to not die.

  He noted Sarah's wandering out, and he followed her, both hands behind his head as he strolled out lazily. He watched as Sarah inspected it, but Silus gave it a glance over. It was a shadow. Just a shadow, how much could one honestly expect for there to be to investigate? She then did what the strange Irish guy with the accent said and soon it illuminated and brought itself to life. "WWWOOOOAH! Cool!" He said as he beamed a large, excited smile, his indigo eyes slightly glowing. The door itself had a black frame, it arched like an old medieval structure, the door itself was red, but the frame and decorative markings on it were an uncanny black. Silus looked to Sarah and nodded. "Can you do that normally?" He asked her, genuinely intrigued if construction had been part of her power set as well.

"Well a stake to the heart would kill anyone really, so there's that. He has the ability to sense when something is in the shadows of his immediate vicinity, though he is oblivious to what it is until it's within his vision. I'm not right sure what you're asking about "what kind" of Umbrakinesis. It's the manipulation of darkness and shadows." Masquerade said, genuinely confused as to the one man's question. He did have a form of "shadow sense" though it didn't give details like one would likely want it to. That having been done he found himself answered a question for the little Peter Pan child as they all made their exit to watch Sarah.

  "Great question lad. The answer is simple actually. You stick close to me. Once I empower the shadow door-" Masquerade stated before turning and seeing Sarah effortlessly bring the door to reality. Masquerade clapped his hands and looked at them all, quickly amending the previous statement. "After SHE empowers the shadow door I'll open it up and hop in. Give it a couple seconds and then you'll see a blinding light. Don't look directly at it, your face will literally melt off. I'll step back behind the door so you can all drop down and not have to look at me. I'll be able to illuminate the path and keep the shadow off of us. Won't be subtle, and we can expect opposition, but that's the best thing I can think of. Unless anyone else has an idea?" He asked before looking around. If someone had a better idea he'd take it into serious consideration. If not, then he'd open the door and jump down into the Abyss. It took a couple seconds but the area was illuminated and he stepped back behind the door.

  "Okay, Let's go!" He called out above, hoping the others would begin to pile in. If they were to look about they would note that they were suspended in air, or seemingly so, as the gate zone was the only area illuminated in light, save for a tower off in the distance. Endless darkness in every direction floating stones being the only thing before them.  "Who wants to go first?" He asked before looking to his compatriots, quickly adding "Don't look back."

Oh hey, that worked. Now there was a door here. Imagine that. Sarah shrugged once she was done making this door into something they could use as a partial acceptance that this just happened. She couldn't discern whether this counted as extraordinary or seemingly mundane. At the very least, this supposed passageway to that so called realm of shadows they needed to go to was available for use. Would this thing actually work though? They would probably find out when somebody tried to use it. Just imagine the possibility that it did work, but it sent them somewhere that would quickly lead to their inevitable doom. Sarah could imagine that possibility quite easily. Perhaps a bit too easily.

Sarah turned around and saw that the very silent man and the kid were looming behind her. Had they just been standing there quietly for the last part of her making this door into an actual thing? What, did they not have more questions to ask the mask guy? Speaking of which, he too had noticed what she had done as was applauding her. Apparently turning a shadow into a door was quite the accomplishment. The kid seemed very impressed by what she had done. Why was there a kid here anyways? Isn't he too young for this even if he does have powers? Were they just taking whomever they can get? Kind of seems like it with this crowd. Not that she was that much of a solid choice anyways.

"You said that adding spirit energy to this thing would make it a door. So I tried to do just that and whoa and behold, a door." She said to everybody there, but Masquerade in general. Sarah felt that nobody actually heard her though. Everybody seemed too preoccupied with preparing to step through the door. Oh well, not like it matters. Time to get going then. Sarah also stepped through the door to enter this shadow realm. The place certainly lived up to its namesake. There wasn't much that was visible here aside of a tower. That was probably their destination. She decided to ask if it was before going anywhere though. "Is that tower where we need to go?" she called over to Masquerade and tried to find out where the others were without looking in the wrong direction.

Jayce sighed and checked his weapons, a few of his questions still unanswered. Hopefully, the things he had brought would be enough in this realm, though he truly hoped that no one had to be killed. Life was a precious thing, and a terrible thing to waste; if he could, he would try to ensure that no one died during this mission. Hopefully, Moonscryer wasn't the sort of umbrakinetic who could outright kill people with shadows, or their mortality rate would be pretty high.

Sensing movement out of the corner of his eye, Jayce looked up just in time to see Sarah entering the portal. "I believe time for discussion is over," he said, following her in after saying that loud enough for everyone to hear. Blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light, he reached out, trying to find the other person who had entered. His hand brushed her shoulder lightly, and he turned toward her. "Is that you, miss?" he asked, fairly sure that it was.


(Sorry that it took so long, school's been busy.)