V:tM - BECOMING

[ThE_DeAd]

Vincent paused a moment, but shook his head, Alice's reluctance wasn't irrational, but the longer they stayed in this place the more chance there was they wouldn't leave here it all.

"I disagree, Best we make a hasty exit before we all wind up like our late friend The Baron," he said.

"We've already demonstrated that we can handle ourselves in a fight." He said gesturing to himself, to the brujah and Deadward. "I think its safe to say that there are many more to come this night. Were there any other option, I'd avoid a confrontation. But seeing as we're caught between a sharpshooter upstairs and whatever's behind door number two, I don't see us as having any choice but to push forward."

"And you," directed at Eric, "need to stop coddling your girlfriend, how do expect her to grow into her talons if she's robbed of the opportunity to use them?" His words had an edge to them, which spoke to the Giovanni's mood. This was the second time in as many minute he'd seen the Laso grab hold of his 'friend' at the first sign of danger. "While you may not trust any of the rest of us, our verbal contract to work together is all the assurance you're going to get. If something comes up we will deal with it, but we need everyone functional."

He then turned his attention back to Alice, his tone was softer, but his words still rife with conviction. "Fear, while healthy to avoid danger becomes a liability when you're already in it. So accept it and move forward, whatever lies on the other side of that door, bare your fangs and remember what you are, a predator. Not some helpless chattle."

 

[CosmicWeinerDog]

"Rip Van McCreeper has a point." the nosferatu spat making his way back from observing the overlook leading over the ledge, "On multiple accounts. We're already in this mess, fretting about it's only going to get someone killed.... again. To be honest I don't right think the shooter's apt to stick around after making a shot like that in the middle of a gun-free city. All the same, i'm with you on not sticking around. No reason to tempt fate any more than bar stools and broken martini glasses will allow."

As Deadward made his way back to the doorway the lot had crossed minutes before, he looped his hand beneath another stool and brought it to rest against his shoulder. The steel frame released a grinding crunch as it scratched across the floorboards briefly. It wasn't the wrenchbar the ugly sack of puss had taken a liking to for intimate face to fist encounters, but it'd do the trick. At this point being picky wasn't a luxury that anyone could cling to. The corpse leaned against the archway and gave it a quick once over, observing for any semblance of trap hooked up since their passing. It hadn't been long but something basic might have been set up during the dance with Tweedle Dee and the Comedian. The nosferatu's eyes kept to the seems of the door, but there's only so much one can really do looking into a dark room through a millimeter of space. The fun fact every grunt becomes sickly familiar with is that no amount of training will catch every trip wire. Officers say otherwise, but it's a bit different circumnavigating a combat zone from behind a desk. Prep only goes so far before one is forced to rely on grit, adaptability and in cases like this quite a bit of luck.

"All the same, Count Chocula's starting to stink. If that's not a cue to bounce out of this hole I don't know what is." Deadward straightened his back took a step back from the doorframe, leveling himself for forceful entry. "Party's downstairs waiting for us. Stack on me. I'll take point."

 

[Hecatoncheires]

Sevens nods and moves into the wall behind Edward without a word, blade gripped tightly in his hand. In the sound-sealed stairwell silence hangs like the blade of a guillotine above a condemned man's head, and eyes dart frantically from the blood pooling at the doorframe to the pair of vampires about to go bursting through it. One by one, the rest of the Kindred fall in behind the Nosferatu and the Brujah.

"Three..." Sevens breathes, readying his weapon into a reversed grip.

"...two..." Edward clenches the door-handle. The silence is straining against the guillotine cord.

"...one..." Eric squeezes Alice's hand as the silence bites at the bit like a rabid dog.

"...GO."

The Nosferatu's shoulder slams against the door and smashes it open as he and Sevens pile into the private second floor of Elysian Fields, followed closely by the rest of the survivors from the roof.

The stench of death greets them like a wave, blood and terror interweaving into an intoxicating mix.

The group is late to the party, it seems. The bodies of Harry Rothstein's blood dolls litter the room, splayed across the furniture with vicious slash wounds or else torn apart with brutal finesse, their carcasses scattered hither and fro like some deranged abattoir. The faces of the girls that have not been rendered into so much bloody pulp are contorted into twisted expressions, eyes wide and mouths agape in silent, hollow screams that will not cease. The ash and dust scattered about amidst it all tells of the fate of some of the Kindred party-goers as well.

Harry Rothstein's quiet little get-together has been transformed into a massacre. And the survivors from the roof are the only ones here to bear witness to it.

"Jesus Christ..." Sevens mutters, stepping into the room and over corpses as his eyes take the full sight in. He has never been a squeamish man; you grow up in the company of thugs and you either get tough or you get killed. But even by his rather lofty standards, this is a whole new level of fucked. Whoever tore through this room did so with a demented, practised fury. They took their time with their victims, each one a unique demonstration of another variety of brutal murder. Decapitation. Evisceration. Hamstringing, eye-gouging, you name it and it's in this room, alongside new and even more twisted fates that don't have names yet.

The silence hangs again.

He stands in the middle of the room and takes it all in; the bodies, the gore spattered across the walls like some demented child's finger painting, the congealing gore on the floor.

"We need to leave. I dunno 'bout you lot, but I'm not hankerin' to meet the twisted facks responsible for this mess."

As Jeremia finds himself locked in a blood-fuelled ecstasy, the group he spotted at the doors continue their advance. Another group appears next to the emergency exit, a pair of wide-eyed, grinning things in dark leather hovering next to the doorways. All of them continue to lurk, watching the oblivious crowds with a look a fellow creature of the night would recognise quickly.

These aren't the sort of vampires who are just here for sustenance.

These guys have the look of monsters who enjoy playing with their food.

And as the next song begins the drop, so do they.

The wave of sound drowns out the cries at first, and the number of people packed into the glowing, vibrantly lit nightclub make it hard to spot what is occurring right away. Unaware of the danger they are about to be put in, the crowd continues to gyrate as the strange vampires begin their advance. Security are already pushing through the crowd towards them; the costumes are one thing, but the weapons are grounds for immediate shit-listing. The first of the bouncers stops in front of the lead vampire, a hulking, shaven-headed brute in a dark suit. If Jeremia were watching, he'd be able to see the bouncer begin to gesture towards the doors, to clap a hand on the shoulder leather-clad figure in front of him.

And then he'd be able to watch as the lead vampire tugs a knife from his belt and jam it into the bouncer's stomach.

It's a practised, unconcerned motion, more muscle-memory than thought; the vampire is moving past the bouncer even as the man falls to his knees, reaching up to his head to pull a pair of goggles down in front of his eyes. The grin doesn't leave his face, not once. Not as he marches onto the dance floor, flanked by two of his cohorts. Not as he draws free a pair of heavy-set, black metal blades. Not as he howls and swings the weapons into the first person unfortunate enough to get in his path.

Now the club-goers take note. The first cries of panic go up, but they are once again drowned out by the music. The other leather-clad monsters are beginning to leave their own trails of dead bodies, wielding all manner of fucked-up instruments of murder. The panicked attendees closest to the killers make a surge for the doors, rampaging through and across each other, into the people who have not yet spotted the massacre taking place. The screaming is getting louder now, almost loud enough to be heard over the din of the club, as people are knocked to the ground in the mad rush to the doors.

Those closest to the exits slam into them, desperately seeking escape.

They are denied it.

Even as they throw themselves against them, the doors refuse to budge. Something holds them in place, unflinching in the face of terror and death. And the vampires left near the doors to guard them launch their own attacks now, hacking into those who would try to escape their fates.

Jeremia can hear the cries of the dying now, even amidst the rest of the noise. Pounding dubstep interjected with staccato screams.

The ecstasy is over now, the blood no longer holding him in place. Animal instinct, the drive for self-preservation, has snapped his mind back to the situation at hand. And as the screams of the doomed attendees of the Elysian Fields fill his ears his eyes fall upon the one remaining doorway that has not been rushed for yet, leading into the backrooms of the nightclub...

 

[ThE_DeAd]

As the party made their way into the room one by one Vincent drifted away from the rest; an inscrutable, placid expression fixed upon his face. The potent scent of blood thick in the air would have been enough to drive any kindred to distraction. But Vincent, his thirst well quenched just hours ago was captivated by something far less tangible. That all too familiar feeling had come again, rolling in like a thick fog; overwhelming his senses.

Every clan had its places where they were at home. And it was here among the departed where the Giovanni were most comfortable. They could feel the presence of their secondary prey weeping over their lost lives, ripe for the reaping. It was in their blood. However Vincent's movement wasn't akin to the way a Ventrue might stroll through Windsor Castle. There was a caution to his stride, more akin to the way a Gangrel might move through isolated back country.

The death of one mortal had the ability to whittle away at the boundaries between worlds. But in a place such as this where so many lives had been taken at once the Shadowlands were practically seeping through the walls. His ears filled with a deep droning hum, and his eyes turned upward a moment, as if he were waiting for the roof to buckle under some immense weight. Vincent began to tap his fingers individually against his thumb in a repetitious pattern as he walked amidst the bodies. 1..2..3..4..

It was an exercise his sire had taught him as a fledgeling to keep the mind from ranting. Undisciplined thought in places such as these could sometimes attract…Unwanted attention.

The murder of these kine had served no purpose but to satisfy the twisted fantasies of a few lawless psychopaths. And he was certain there was more than one. He could tell by the way the bodies were scattered throughout the room. In his mind he could see the frantic dance of the helpless masses as they attempted to flee their attackers. He lingered a moment over a woman who had been flayed where she sat.

Vincent lingered a moment over a woman at the coat check who had been flayed where she sat. Such a waste. Had he known the proper incantations and time to prepare, the souls of these women could have been bound and put to use in the family vault. Now they would wander in the darkness beyond, forever without purpose. He broke his meditation to turn and address the group.

"The shooter upstairs conducted his work with calculated finesse. The sign of a professional, perhaps a contractor. But whatever savages did this blew through here with the intent of causing as much collateral damage as possible." He paused briefly to to push against the doors, they would not budge. Through a side window he could see large chains wrapped around the handles. "For them, this wasn't business. This was opportunistic pleasure. I believe we may be dealing with two separate entities here, and judging by their differing modus operandi, quite possibly at odds with one another..."

 

[Cerulean]

"Oh my..."

Explosions are probably the only thing missing from this display. To add it in would make it look like it was masterfully crafted by the director Micheal Bay. It smelled almost as good as a room could smell. That bothered him. It was only satisfactory become a creature decided he was the target once. Jeremia would have no involvement with this spectacle of slaughter. Then again, who is to say they were after him specifically. Of course, by association he could be next. They didn't look to stop when the screaming humans pushed for the doors.

Nevertheless, to stay around these gimp threaded cock warts may not be the best course of action. "Time to go Maggie." Before she could react, her hand was borderline yanked in the way The Night Busker rushed for an exit. Thankfully, there was one way that wasn't rushed by the panicking patrons. Without another thought, he tried to force the door open. He was unknowing if it was locked or not but it would be revealed soon enough.

 

[CosmicWeinerDog]

​

Stepping through the door was like being stricken by a truck. A truck carting bowling balls. Bowling balls filled with lead. The mind numbing smell lurched into the very senses, permeating down to each and every deadened pore. The air was thick with death. Trapped between walls insulated with the design of retaining sound, the whole building had been turned into a giant meat locker. A meat locker stocked with food. To a human, this would be walking into the very thing of nightmares. To a vampire, it was being offered up a steak made from your childhood dog after fasting for 30 days in the mountains of Tibet. The prospect offends your very core, but when you're hungry...​

​

Hunger...​

​

Martini glasses filled with second hand red was a pale comparison to the venison in this room. The sharp ping of the senses made that fact very clear and all too soon was Ed reminded of kindred yearning. There were those among the damned who could step into a setting such as this and not bat an eye. He was not of that cloth, that much was apparent. The nosferatu's hands trembled and his eyes wandered. A man eviscerated on a chandelier, two jawless women nailed by their tongues to the wall, a undefinable mass of muscle and bone skinned in a half hazard format... It's the kind of thing that makes one forget their humanity. It's the kind of thing that whets an appetite.​

​

Looking at the bodies, Deadward did the one thing one never should do in a breaching operation. He hesitated for a moment. His experiences of chaos in the past painted a rough picture of the macabre art before him. How it might have happened. What the screams might have been like. What it would have been to hold the kni...​

​

"No..." The nosferatu snarled, more to himself than anything. His words vocalizing the inherent need to part himself from his beast. He couldn't lose himself in this place. Not now, he'd need his wits about him if he hoped to leave this horror flick undead. In his composure he almost didn't realize the word sounded clashed with the statement made prior by the Giovani. It took him locking eyes with Vincent to realize words had already been placed before the forum. Shaking the images from his mind, Ed took a moment to recall the words. Was almost like having a conversation under water. "Lets not get carried away. Shooter took a pot shot in the middle of a anti-gun city. If I needed a get away scapegoat, that'd serve damn decent. Just because these fucksticks don't have the eye to make a shot like on the roof doesn't mean a thing. Don't get distracted, we'll deal with the who's who later."​

​

Now? Anyone with a weapon and a cross look goes in the fucking ground."​

​

He was straining to keep his beast in check. You could hear it in his words, in his mannerisms. In order to keep it from screaming in his ears, he'd need to kill something soon.​

 

[Vay]

A dead hand closed around Alice, waste as Eric moved to be as next to her as he could in the confined space before the group moved into the room. No mater what these rabble rousers and sewer dwellers said the girl was his, his to protect, his to welcome to the night, his to own. They were all monsters, but is was the iron sift in the velvet glove that could hold the world. None of these mudclanners could understand, so set in their ways and unable to realize the power they had been given. Alice might, with the right tutelage...

As they emerged into the room and his eyes took in the carnage they had escaped there were two emotions quivering in his gut. Relief. Sweet, sweet, relief. They had been bypassed with only two mindless drones sent their way, and fear, whoever had done this had had more than two blood starved attack dogs...

Dogs... the thought made Eric glance at the Brujah among them a grin making a fleeting appearance on his lips. It wasn't long before his eyes were drawn back to the carnage and a new feeling arise. Power, with a spine chilling sense of familiarity.

Suddenly Eric was not in the private bar, but was a richly furnished room with a pale, beautiful, long-haired man in the chair opposite. The mewlings of the rat who had no sense of how to use his gift all but lost to him.

"Let me tell you of the Sabbat..."

His sire's words rank in his ears.

"He might have a point you know…" he said leaving Alice's side to examine the body of a man who needed to have been literally torn apart like they used to with horses in the Spanish inquisition.

"One shot, none of the rest of us were targets. That sounds like a political move, assassination. This seems more religious." His Sire has once worn the symbols of the Sabbat and Eric had heard many stories of that some of them could do.

 

[CosmicWeinerDog]

Ed took a moment to stop in place before drawing in a slow breath, closing his eyes. He was distracted and as such his temper ran short enough as it was. Taking the moment to glance ahead through the chaotic melody that raged through the atmosphere, he responded without averting his gaze. The nosferatu's tone was deadpan with a touch of annoyance. Justified considering they were knee deep in corpses and the remainder of the party felt it was an appropriate setting to hold a conversation.

"Thank you peanut gallery." the corpse spat back, the concept of having to repeat himself grating on nerves already worn, "I think we can safely assume that whether Annie Oakley and the macabre twins are aligned or not, they're both not terribly keen on the lot of us. So then, seeing as either party isn't here to serve us up tea and cakes; lets leave sorting out who's butt buddies with who until we've slimmed out our chances of ending up like pincushion over there." Ed gestured briefly to a nearby corpse littered with the handles of all manners of steak knives.

"Again, don't get distracted, the monsters here bite."

Ed ended his bullet point with a sneer and crept down slowly to the edge of the balcony where he and the Brujah had conversed not more than an hour or so before. Funny, it seemed like so much longer from this side of the timeline. The corpse's thoughts drifted back to the prospect of pitching his martini glass of blood over the edge and how it wouldn't likely be taken well by the patrons of the lower level. Maybe it was a sick sense of humor, but there was a touch of irony in the thought that someone managed to pull off something quite similar. Props for originality, less so for execution. Pun not intended.

As Deadward placed his shoulder against the overlook, he slowly attempted to lean an eye over the edge to get a glimpse of the carnage bellow.

 

[CosmicWeinerDog]

The opening in the centre of the room that looks down onto the dance floor below was designed with voyeurism in mind; from your position you have an excellent chance to take in the aftermath of the chaos that has unfurled below. Bleeding corpses strewn across the room, the ambient lighting spattered with yet more blood, the perpetrators mopping up those unfortunate enough to not have been outright killed in the initial flurry of slaughter.

They'll take their time with these ones. You can see the grins on their faces as they go to work.

But not all of the attackers are focusing on the survivors. Two happen to be standing to one side, hefting large cans of liquid that they are pouring across the nightclub. One is concentrating on the bar front, drowning the shattered glasses and abandoned bottles with the contents of the canister. The other is not far from him, cascading the liquid down upon the many bodies that litter the floor.

Efficient maniacs, it seems. They're already working on clean-up.

Turning his attention back to the floor he stand upon, Ed looked around for some form of alcohol strong enough for his needs. Most of Rothstein's guests had been chugging the free blood, but there were a few humans in attendance and their host had provided. Surveying the chaos, your eyes chance upon a hefty bottle of black liquid. You can see the label on it's side, slightly spattered but still legible. Blavod. Eighty-proof. The real good shit. Harry Rothstein was clearly not one to skimp on catering for his guests.

Being familiar enough with alcohol from his past life, it was easy to tell that there's well over half the bottle left.

There was a time when wasting alcohol was a cardinal sin. When even setting it aside to be used in cooking touched a pang of guilt reserved for unsociable fuckers with jacked up priorities. When finding yourself in the company of mass murdering shit bags was reserved for horror flicks and catching a bullet to the brow was relatively unlikely. Days when burning your 50 cent frankennoodle insta-soup and missing your favorite weekday TV show listed a small scale catastrophes.

Seems like so long ago now...

Deadward's touch of nostalgia lingered a moment before the blood painted scene brought him back to reality. Hypocrisy really, He was the one spouting about staying focused and yet here he was thinking back to better days. The nosferatu shook his head as he reached for the collar of a dead man who'd had his entrails pulled from his lower abdomen and tired ornately in little bows. It'd be funny if in slightly less grotesque context. The boil riddled vampire took hold of the whitish collar from between his jagged nails and tore it from the man's throat. The fabric took a moment to give, but it didn't hold up to the deadman's strength. Hammond straightened the piece of white before uncapping the bottle of Blavod. Before he died, he'd have killed for a batch of this. Fucking shame it was no good to him now. Weaving the fabric into the bottle he fished around the dead man's coat in hopes the man happened to be a smoker.

Thankfully, humans these days tend to be more focused on applying to an image than they are to the development of cancer. It was a cheap bic lighter, ironic considering the setting, but it'd do the trick. The nosferatu gripped the device in his palm and glanced back to the crew behind him. "Listen up chucklefucks." He rasped, keeping his voice as low as possible beneath the grisly panic downstairs. "This place is about to go up like Christmas and we don't have a lot of time. There's a secret passage downstairs that runs underground, same door they let me into. Soon as this pops, the fuzz'll jump on this like a fat kid on cake. Front door's gonna be out of commission so I need everyone to stack on me and stay close. Things are about to get hot."

Without pomp or circumstance, the Nosferatu lit the fuse.

FIRE

His beast screamed at him as the ping of flame recoiled his subconscious. His hands trembled beneath the visage but the ash riddled monster held his composure. Reaching for the railing, the nosferatu pulled himself to his feet and honed in on the figures dousing the building in some manner of liquid. With some luck, they were dumping petrol on dance floor and the place wouldn't burn to the ground before an escape was managed. If not, Eh... Guess there's worse ways to meet the sunrise.

Tightening his grip on the bottle and taking aim, he hurled the flaming munition at the armored creeps. "Table fifteen! Order up!" The dead man called out from his perch.

There was a gap when the bottle left the corpse's fingers. Time chilled almost to a standstill and passed along like a snail on a mirror. The lunatics bellow gazed up and their eyes grew like saucers watching their swiftly approaching boon. The expressions on their faces turned first apprehensive to the sound of a potential hostiles, then confusion at the light, and then realization to one cold, absolute fact...

Fire does not play favorites.

The sound of shattered glass rang out as the bottle struck the floor between the canister sporting pair. An inferno rolled over in a wave and bathed the dance floor in pulsing red-orange light. Bone curdling screams resonated against the soundproofed walls as the bodies below, alive and otherwise, were drown beneath the crushing heat of flame. Whatever happened to be within the containers the attackers dawned seemed combustive enough.

Deadward's beast continued to recoil at the image, but it took second stage to a very different emotion. As the fire churned and the bodies roasted, the smell of sulfur and death rose slowly with the blackened smoke that filled the room. He watched the floor below him seer like a chef would a pan of eggs. A pan of eggs that screamed murder as you fried them to ash. While the nosferatu didn't notice, a eerie smile crept along his face. As he observed, the light from the flames danced against his vile, yellowed teeth.

In the end, he couldn't much blame the crew for their reason or their rhyme. After all, We're all monster's here...

As the moment passed he turned back to his party, the lingering bend of his smile still sitting firm against his face. "Time to move." He barked above the screams harkening back to his days in the service, "Everyone on me and stay close. There might still be some stragglers down there..."

 

[Ochalla]

Alice was glad, glad the death was there and not currently being committed. It might have spoke of the efficiency of those that carried out the crime, and later that might be troubling, but now it was a good thing. They were not a target for the moment. In her former life the scene before her would have made her sick to her stomach. Now though it only made her frown. She would not think about the suffering painted on the blood dolls faces. Nor the smell.

Walking with Eric she tried to see what had happened, her hand going into her pocket to play with the object inside. She didn't know who was right in their discussion. One group or two, it mattered later. It was all still the same attack, that she could be sure, even if they were not strictly working together.

Beyond the private room there was carnage still. They were not out of the fire yet. Or rather fire was shortly in their future. Had she noticed what the Nos had been up to Alice wasn't sure what her reaction would be. When he spoke up he already had his "cocktail" ready. And after his speech he severed it up down below.

Fire! A thing that stirred in her something primal. She wanted to escape and she wanted escape NOW. Clutching the item in her pocket once again she was all but on the sewer rat's heels. She looked back at Eric, the bastard had better keep up!