|
Vasha had the plan, everyone was foolish enough to agree to it, and so they set to work. Vasha explains that with the awareness that Jackie was out tracking the seer down, this gave them an opportunity to find the seer without actually having to target the Seer with any scrying, temporal, or fate based effects. Jackie is more than talented enough to actually track the seer down on her lonesome, so all they need to do is analyze Jackie's timeline and find where and when she finally catches up with the bastard and then get there first to set up the ambush.
Why go this route, rather than the more direct route? Because Walsingham shared that the Major Arcana know the Seer has escaped and haven't bothered notifying the powers that be. The council, save Walsingham, were unaware it had been done. And since the Major Arcana constitute the entirety of the city's Sentinels, assuming they are turncoats, until that can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, there's no official channels they can take that won't tip the Major Arcana off. By going this particular route, the Seer is unaware she's being tracked, the Major Arcana are unaware Walsingham tipped their hand, Vasha can disguise this proactive hit as another redaction of the Seer's attempt on Jackie's life, and all of their information sources remain safe and secure. The Major Arcana may become aware their seer was taken out, but they won't have reason to suspect their cover was blown. Necessarily.
It's a risk. But it's a risk that leaves the crime scene of import-- Major Arcana --in tact and undisturbed. Still in place and in power, sure. But that's precisely where we want them until we don't.
Plan all laid out, Vasha and the others make some decisions about who will be responsible for what. Mei will handle dispellation and magical containment of the subject. Liesel will provide overwatch with her long arms with clearance to take whatever shot she can take whenever the hell she can take it. Fox will be making sure nobody dies and potentially just putting the motherfucker to sleep so we can end her expediently. Vasha, because it was his plan? He's the bait and the bird dog. She'll be expecting him, after all. At least, she should be if she's worth the effort of tracking down in the first place.
He'd expect her if their roles were reversed.
Which leads Vasha to checking the last of his loadout, adjusting his tactical radio and giving it a mic check, and then piling into the panel van for the ride out to near where things are likely to get interesting. He checks his watch, as though he needed to do that ever, and makes sure they're all synched up time wise. For what that's worth. And then they're off, heading north up 309 and out of the city, towards Evansburg State Park. Vasha is playing his 'I am about to extrajudicially murder someone' playlist. It's pretty dope, but mostly in Ukrainian. So.
They're invisible to cameras and to people, so they just... go... up... the highway. Fox checks her firearm with the skill of someone who actually knows how to use a firearm, and the inherent understanding that Orphans of Proteus have for all the Tools of Man. She rides shotgun, and once her firearm is all set, and she has made friends with it, activating her Attainment, Fox rolls her window down and sticks her head out the window.
Mei just sits with her eyes closed, head leaned back against the headrest, eyes closed. She's not sleeping, but she's breathing with a slow, steady rhythm. A very slow steady rhythm, because body control does slow down your breathing. She might be meditating. It doesn't seem like it causes her any problems that they're listening to weird stuff in Ukrainian.
"By the way," she says. "If you happen to see some kind of weird creature with too many wings and countenances, be not afraid."
Leta, as a rural Texan, always had a healthy respect for firearms... but the love and care with which she attends her shotgun is nothing short of pornographic. Well okay it's not pornographic -- do not fuck the gun, please -- but she knows how to treat a lady right. If you know what I mean. If the lady was a gun.
Satisfied at last, she goes through her pre-extra-judicial murder checklist one last time, and settles in for the rest of the ride. Occasionally scrawling something in her notebook between bouts of accompanying the spotify playlist with her airy, nasally singing.
It's a funny thing, the sniper bring what is... well, what looks an awful lot like a conventional compact submachine gun to do long work and overwatch. But Liezel is not just a sniper, she is a- well, a fourth degree Master and appearance can and will be deceiving when the quiet woman does her work. Today, she's calm, dressed for woodland operations in appropriate camo, all of it reinforced- as is everything the group carries- with the resilience of hardened steel, should it be needed as armor.
"Be not afraid. Okay. I'm not concerned about seeing something with too many countenances. I'm waiting to see something with too many heads on its shoulder so I can fix it." She waits a beat. "The ideal number is zero, you see.
Cuz it's the target?
That's why it's funny."
Rosalyn was out riding. Tracking. Stalking. The Autumn's very own Disney Princess had her entourage accompanying her. A pack of stray dogs ran in her wake and Agate led a flock of crows that all thought it was great fun to be allowed to chase after the enormous griffon/eagle. Elio was trotting and fully kitted out in his own golden armor. In his own mask, the gold accents on the white motorcycle had been shined to gleaming. She had a Plan, a nice quiet solution to the problem was a quick arrow in the back before the wizard even realized she was there.(edited)
They park well clear of the site, but they've got more than enough time to hump it to the actual site of the encounter; a warehouse off Township Line Road, on the outskirts of the forest park. Vasha suggests approaching from the southwest, through the forest and along the woods covering the northern stretch of Township Line Road for about a half mile outside of the park's official boundaries. They can get damn near the warehouses that way, without ever venturing too near people or domesticated animals. Or cameras, for that matter, not that their invisibility really makes that a factor.
As yet unaware that there's unknown parties on the game board, Vasha leads the column to the edge of the forest, holds up a fist, and crouches down in cover, monitoring the warehouse from this moderately safe distance. He lifts his field glasses to survey the warehouse through Prime vision. "Liezel. Do you think you can find a good blind from this position, or will you need to relocate? I can't spot for you, so you're on your own in that regard."
There's a smear of Awakened Magic across Vasha's vision, either centered in the warehouse or in its basement. Foggy and dissolute, with shapes within it.
Fox, on the other hand, trails along with everyone; her thermalvision (which all the mages have) picks up the many forms of Rosalyn and her Disney Princess Entourage, and the vibrations of paws on earth and wings in air ripple through her body, subtle but present, as the rumble of the "motorcycle" rolls through her belly. "... what... is... that?" she asks, her eyes widening, and as she turns her head slowly, the warm forms of crows and dogs and "... that's a lady." Beat. "Oooh, that's fairy magic."
Vasha passes the field glasses to Mei and leans against her side to point over her shoulder right where he wants her to look, at that smear of magic in the lower levels of the warehouse. "See it?"
"This is fine," Liezel confirms. "I've got a burst of potentia-wrecking ammo front-loaded. If I can put the bullets in the building, it'll delete as much potentia as I can hold off everything not basically plastered against the walls. Getting into a proper blind int the trees will be easy with Fox's trick active." She pauses as Fox speaks, glancing her way. "Fairy magic?
"I have a suspicion we'll find that doors are boobytrapped, and so on. I can't imagine holing up in a place like this without putting some precautions in place," Mei suggests. "What do we want to do about methods of entry?"
Leta blinks in disbelief. "Faerie Magic? Oh, fascinating."
"We could just- blast the place with Supernal Dispellation, as an option," Liezel points out. "Or make our own entry into the building.
Rosalyn was currently scouting for a good tree to set up in, and stringing a longbow of all things. Her hair was an elegant tumble of glorious golden hair that looked more like she was ready for a photoshoot than that she'd just gotten off a 'motorcycle.' The motorcycle in question rumbled a complaint, and spun out in the dirt as Elio turned to face the mages with a snort of warning. Ros turned at his warning, an arrow drawn and pointed in a heartbeat.
"Ahh, yes. The 80's X-Factor option-" Leta raises a hand in surrender at the sight of the longbow. She looks very silly doing this while wearing body armor, and carrying a shotgun, but... "We don't mean you any harm. I don't know if the name is familiar to you, but I have a friend in your community. Mearcstapa ring any bells to you?"(edited)
When they look closer through the binoculars, what with that thermovision that Fox gave them, there are 4 humanoid warm spots. Three of them recumbent, one of them upright. The upright one moves quickly. Slim-built, and focused.
"We have the drop on her. We're all spelling up, juiced with magic, heavily armed and armored, and are moving in force. I see no reason not to just suppress the entire building while we're charging the entrances and exits. Like Liezel suggests." Vasha, on that note, sets up his sniper rifle here as a fall back position, at ground level, building up a bit of a blind for it so that it will escape casual notice. That thing cost several tens of thousands of dollars to smuggle in and kit out, and it would be a shame if it were to grow legs and walk off. Assault rifle at the ready, he flicks off the safety, switches her to fully automatic, and bounces in his crouch, preparing to literally just run for it.
Let's face it. He definitely received a Soviet military education.
He's about to solicit additional input from others, but there's now a woman pointing a longbow at his friends. So he points his rifle back at her, but makes no demands and offers no threats. His absolute dispassion about it all is probably more worrisome than if he were bellowing instructions, frankly. He's not the speakwords person.
Fox gestures urgently toward Rosalyn, like, 'come here, jeez.' She chuffs a greeting to the dogs, ending on a crrrrrrk for the crows. It's all just 'hello, I'm non-threatening,' in a handful of multi-species gestures. "Yeah, yeah, we know all your friends. Jackie and uhh Mearcstapa and Lux and Jack and uhhh everybody and shit. C'mere before she sees you. I see your magic, it's fairy stuff, come on."
"There are going to be at least two entrances to the shop floor," Mei says after studying the building for a few moments. "Since there's a legal requirement for that." She turns away from the building and nods her head. "I think I can blanket the whole building with spell suppression, but it's going to be one hell of a sign that we're coming. We should probably make sure that I time that with everyone going in, so that there's not a time delay between spells dropping and our entrance."
Ros relaxed her hold on the bow, pointing the arrow down and giving them party of mages a curt not. "Elio, stand down," she murmured. She didn't look up and around for Agate, keeping the griffon hidden as a card in her back pocket if they hadn't seen her. The crows were enthusiastic enough to be a good distraction and camouflage. "You're going in directly after the assassin?" she asked, looking directly at Vasha with his riffle at the ready.
"Some of us." Liezel states simply, starting to hike herself up into a tree with the proper vantage point of the warehouse, ensuring she has a shot that will encompass the humanoid figures in the potentia-obliterating aetheric winds to come.
"Yes," Vasha says, lowering his weapon, though he offers no further explanations or justifications for wanton conspiracy to commit murder.
Liezel is, paradoxically, despite moving towards a sniper's position, carrying... well, it looks like an uzi. That... should not be used for precision wetwork. It's like someone bringing a hand crossbow to do a longbow's job.
Fox bobs her head quietly. "Yeah. I mean I'm staying back I think so that people don't die." She flashes a small smile, her vulpine teeth briefly bared.
"Can't say I'm impressed at how long you held her the first time around," Ros said. She had a distinctly old-fashioned transatlantic accent when she spoke. "I trust you're not going to be keeping her alive this time around?"
Mei just shrugs to answer the question. "I'd rather nobody needed to die, but I'm not sure if we'll get that option."
"I can only cover one entrance," Vasha points out, "Liezel, you can cover the one on this end of the building, I imagine. Perhaps she'll help cover an entrance?" Vasha ticks his chin towards Rosalyn and her Disney horde of voracious creatures. "But, yes. That's what I'd like to do. Start charging the doors while Mei works on suppression, and hit the entrances in force.
Vasha then sloooowly swivels his focus to squint at Rosalyn, "If I do, it will be to extract what information she knows from her mind by force prior to summary execution and disintegration of her body. Are you intending to assist us? Because presently the reason why we are not trying to kill her is because we are talking to you about how we ought to be killing her."
"Given the name of the playlist we listened to on our way out here, I think you can trust in the plan." Leta offers with her sardonic drawl. "... and I can cover the other entrance. Just point me where you need me."(edited)
"Then let's get to it," she said crisply. "I'm can cover a door, or both. Better than patiently waiting her out, which is what I was expecting to do."
Vasha pulls the orthodox crucifix from inside his shirt, gives it a kiss, crosses himself briefly, and tucks it back into his collar before readying his rifle, sucking in three deep breaths, and holding the last for a span of moments before he rises up out of his crouch and begins hauling ass for the warehouse.
And holy shit does that motherfucker run. The speed he attains is technically impossible for the human body, and ought to cause his ligaments and muscles to tear apart at the seams, leaving limbs flying in every direction. But that doesn't happen, somehow.
Ros swung back up on Elio's back, but kept her hands on her bow. The unicorn was perfectly capable of navigating the trees and fight on his own, and could move utterly silently when so inclined. The hounds followed in their wake, and the crows took to the sky to keep watch and alert her at any sign of trouble. Agate circled overhead as well, the griffon just waiting to pounce, if their target came out into the open.
... and Leta set out moving towards the opposite end of the warehouse from Vasha. She's a little more subtle about it, only breaking into a full-on, top-speed sprint once she's woven into cover of trees, but she's just as terrifyingly, body-explodingly fast once she picks up.
Mei, zoomy and invisible and silent as she is, dashes across the space between their hiding places and the building, while working her magic. When she reaches the building she lays a hand on it and releases the spell, and in a moment all the magic inside the building is shut down. It's only an instant, but long enough to erase all the spells; not enough to stop new ones from coming into effect.
There's no real outward sign that it happened, though. It's not like the magic blows up. Probably.
Vasha's not headed for a door, he's heading straight for a window. Once he's near enough, he leaps up, tucks up his legs, draws in his arms to hug his weapon to himself, and smashes through the window in profile. Glass shatters and goes flying across the floor as Vasha explodes out of his protective ball and slides along the concrete floor, amid a spray of rocketing glass shards. He raises his weapon, checks his for targets, and prepares to engage. No words of warning or greeting, no instructions to drop weapons and comply. That part of the game is over now.
The back of the warehouse has a garage door, open, and a panel van has been backed into it. The heat vision that all of the Mages have been granted by Fox picks up the shape of the Seer herself, wearing dark blue coveralls and moving quickly -- though not as quickly as she had been before, to be sure. She was in the process of hefting a large wooden crate into the back of the panel van, and drops it as her enhanced strength disappears.
The warm humanoid shapes inside the crates begin to struggle wildly, erratically. Desperately. The warmth already begins to draw in to the center and fade.
From the front entrance, Leta slides up alongside the warehouse's exterior. Keeping the muzzle of her firearm down on approach, she swings around the side of the building in search of a side entrance -- and if none is to be found, she continues around to the back to place herself into position.
It's... anticlimactic. Death usually is. There's a rattle of gunfire outside of the building- that little compact submachine gun Liezel was packing. And then bullets just- carve into the Seer. No explosions. No Perfected fire. Just... gunfire, and death, and silence.
Liezel climbs down out of the tree and starts towards the warehouse, calling out to Fox. "There were restrained forms in the basement. They looked like they started thrashing when the magic was removed. I'm going down to see what's going on- do you want to come in case they need help?"
Elio had his own plans for an approach. As badass as Vasha looked going in through the window, he couldn't stand to be outdone. As Ros knocked an arrow in preparation, Elio charged straight for one of the regular doors and reared up to solidly kick down the door and charge straight through with an enormous crash. Stealth had gone out the window when the mages arrived in any case. With the mask, Ros somehow accomplished this with a motorcycle, which only looked even more badass- even if they were apparently late to the party and the Seer was already down.
Mei drops the spell that made her invisible and inaudible, since it does tend to get in the way with interactions. She comes zooming across the field to meet Liezel and Fox on their way in, since she's so fast that it might as well be a handful of steps instead. "There are forms in some crates, and when all the magic went down their warmth started fading. I think we need to get them out as quickly as possible. I'm not so good with Matter, so maybe one of you two can help with getting them out?"
Leta comes sprinting around the building towards the source of the noise, hoping that gunfire signaled the end of the mission, and not something far worse. She skids to a halt, breathing a sigh of relief when she sees her fellows sporting all the parts they came in with.
"How are you with crowbars?" Vasha inquires of Mei once the body falls to the floor. He shoulders his rifle and tugs out one of his knives, offering it to Mei to use to pry open the boxes. He draws another and moves on another box, likewise, circling around the body to make certain it's parted from any weapons it might still be carrying. "We don't know what's in there. So no loose lips, please." For all they know, those are sleepers in the crates. Which is why, when Vasha gets near his crate, he announces quite loudly, "This is Detective Androvich, Philadelphia Police. Identify yourself, please!" He's not going to start prying just yet, not until they identify themselves. Assuming the contents are even human.
Elio didn't mind that it was over so quickly, not really. Dead or alive, he liked the feeling of an enemy being squished beneath his hooves. While Ros swiveled her bow to look for any other enemies in the place while the others went to inspect the crates. In the meantime, Elio headed straight for the seer's corpse and pranced right through it- or drove back and forth over it a few times for good measure. Rosalyn could only sigh. The pack of hounds crashed in behind her, giving the area of a good sniff- though Elio snorted a warning at the pack to keep them away from 'his' bloody prey. Outside, Agate landed on the hood of the van, cocking her head to peer inside and see what was going on. The crows screamed out in a cacophony that meant something like 'blood? win? we win? WE WIN!'
"The crates? Yes, one moment." She pulls an absolutely brilliantly gleaming golden dagger from under her belt and reaches out, cutting away the reality of the crates themselves. It's expertly done, elegant, graceful, and the crates fade, as if they were only ever illusion. She's prepared to cut the spell if need be, but it'll let the group see inside the crates- and let the things trapped inside breathe, if that's what was bothering them.
The hounds catch the scent before Liezel's magic unfurls, a scratch of Peripheral Mage Sight along everyone's senses. Rosalyn's pack start their baying once more, circling around the dead body and tracking blood every which way, but then centering in on the crates.
The crates become insubstantial. Within them, three bodies, struggling as if deprived of air. Desperate. Fearful. Adult humanoid shapes, at least as far as anyone can see. Wrapped in what look like thick bandages, old and worn, entirely encased from head to toe.
Mei shrugs and tells Vasha, "not so bad. But..." she trails off when the spell happens, and they can suddenly see what's inside of the crates. She pauses and opens her mouth, then closes it again, then opens it to say, "are those mummies?"
"Assume they're out of the loop and proceed accordingly," Vasha once more suggests with a sidelong glance to the others. Now that he's reasonably certain they aren't an immediate danger to him, he slides his boot knife away and drags the writhing body out of the area of the crate. "Get the others. Then drop it, Liezel."
Vasha gives Rosalyn another Look, "The same reason changelings steal babies off to Arcadia and sell them for favors from the Fae." The good ones don't. "And everyone, please stop the reality defying things. You're just making my job harder, if these people aren't awake. Yes, that includes you. No you aren't an exception, whoever is about to ask."
Once he's dropped the body to the ground, he crouches down and covers his mouth with a hand, "Cyka blyat. Grigori. Fuck. FUCK."(edited)
One of them is on the ground, the other two in the back of the van, as the Seer was loading the third one in when the magic was suppressed.(edited)
"Why in damnation would you mages have people bandaged up like that and locked in boxes?" Ros scowled, and dismounted Elio to go over and help pull the bandages free of the victim's heads so they could breathe properly.
"No, they are -living,-" Liezel responds to Mei, moving to reach through the insubstantial walls of the crates with that impossibly shiny knife and uncover the mouth of the one furthest into the truck. "And I don't know, Miss Fairy. I cannot think of any reason to have live bodies in old mummufication wraps off the top of my head. There's a third- someone help the other one!"
Someone probably being Vasha, since he was trying to open one when she made the crates cease existing.
"Most mummies were living once," Mei answers Liezel, with a wry grin. Then she gives Vasha a serious expression and asks, "what the fuck is a grigori?" This isn't an area she has any expertise in, so she's waiting for Vasha's guidance at this point.
As Vasha gets closer to the body, he can hear the Grigori's whispering, muted by the bandages:
"The man bends over me. He speaks in a foreign language. He speaks our name. He curses. The woman with the horse asks a question... " The voice is high and desperate, as if the speaker's running out of air, but still, it speaks.
Liezel's uncovering of the mouth reveals another mouth, this one a soft, small mouth with purple lipstick smudged. "She cuts the shroud," it gasps.
"Grigori are Seer Artifacts. I've only encountered them when dealing with Panopticon Agents, which confirms my suspicions. They're... people. Sleepwalkers in there. Their souls are about in Twilight, acting as spies. That's probably what I saw when they first attacked the Changelings at McMillins." Vasha looks up to Mei, "You need to drop the suppression effect--" Before he can stop her Rosalyn is already at the bandages, and he promptly barks an order at her, "STOP. STOP RIGHT NOW." Back to Mei, "You have to drop the effect, or these people die. If you cut them out, they die. If you destroy the wrappings, they die. I don't know a scenario in which they do not die, in truth. But I would like the opportunity to find one."
Rosalyn stilled, and sat back on her heels with a deep frown. "What, precisely, kills them?" she asked. "Perhaps our sort of magic can circumvent the curse they're under?"
Liezel goes pale as Vasha speaks, nodding towards Rosalyn. "I would like that answer as well. I can help their souls back into their bodies if that is the problem- do we know why they die?"
"Hmm. Bad. Don't like that." Leta's eyes go wide as she activates her Mage Sight. What do her special eyes see?
"There's no ongoing suppression, I just instantly ended all the magic that's in here. It can be re-cast," Mei explains. "I have no idea what the effect was, though, that would need to be re-cast. How do we recreate it to keep them from dying?"
Leta's special eyes see:
In Twilight, above each set of wrappings, a humanoid figure in similar wrappings drifts like a tethered balloon, gently borne aloft on six wings of smoke. Eighteen wings, six on each of the three mummified bodies. They drift gently, slowly. Horrifyingly.
"Hmm. Bad. Don't like that," Leta repeats in the same deadpan.
"No?" Vasha asks of Mei, "then there has to be an on-switch. Fuck." Vasha looks back to the Grigori and continues to explain, "I have never recovered a Grigori from a Grigori Farm. I have never seen a Grigori farm. Yet alone recovered three of them." Vasha spends a few more moments just looking his over. "I'm going to try something." And then, amid a flood of potentia-- possibly his last --Vasha ferrets out the means of controlling the artifact. And, after a bit of hesitation, he passes his hand over the Grigori's face and the writhing ceases. "Got it. Though only for this one. Try a fate trigger. Or force it with Prime. But... I'm out. And if I try another spell under all of this paradox, I may literally explode."
Vasha then looks to Rosalyn, considering her suggestion, "To be honest, I have no idea. They're ridiculously powerful artifacts. Gifts from the Exarchs themselves, so it's said. They're... our. Kindly ones, I suppose. Nearest analog. We need to study them. And put them somewhere safe. Away from official infrastructure or occupied sancta. Just. Need some time to think. To work." Vasha rests his hand on the Grigori's shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze. Then he rises up to his feet and gestures at the form on the ground, "This is why we fight. What person can do this to another human being? It's beyond me."
Rosalyn shuddered. "Depravity. There are those of my people who specialize in healing the mind, and and much can be done with Oneiromancy- though against such a spell as this I wouldn't like to walk their dreams alone. And, ah, do your people require the... erm... body?" She nodded towards the body, which was mostly jelly at this point, and looked rather pained at the mess Elio had made of himself with the gore.
Vasha is decidedly not looking when he asks, "Is your horse eating her corpse?" How he can ask that with such exquisite calm is anyone's guess.
"Oh, that is fascinating." Leta murmurs, looking at Elio and the once-seer. "I have so many questions for you once we're finished here."
Elio stamped a hoof/knocked his kickstand against the floor at being called a horse. "He's a unicorn, actually," Rosalyn said. "They're carnivorous though not usually carrion feeders. Mostly he's just stomping on it to make sure it's really really dead, though it appears he's gone for the... more nutritious organs. Sorry."
"Unicorns are carnivorous?" Leta mutters this in a quiet voice. "I need to update my tindr profile..."(edited)
"I can take care of it," Mei says, as she listens to what Vasha is saying. "I suppose Liezel can too," she says, as Liezel does just that. Then her attention is drawn to the horse and she makes a face. "That's. Something. I'm going to start looking around for anything that might lead us to anyone else." She steps away to start searching for things like the Seer's phone, the license plate number on the van, any paperwork in the shop that tells her whose it is, and otherwise starting a thorough search.
"I- I-" Liezel's expression strains, turning increasingly frustrated, chewing on her lips until she widens her eyes, realizing what needs done about the same time Vasha says it out loud. Things click, she no longer feels like she's railing against the impossible, relaxing immediately once Things Make Sense again, and she turns the Supernal keys for the two remaining... Artifacts. "They will need fueled, too, to keep them going. Potentia, of course."
"We do not desecrate corpses," Vasha states manner of factly, "so that needs to stop immediately, please." There are weird arbitrary lines of morality in mage world, and this appears to be one of them for Vasha. "My fight with her is over. She's just another casualty in the Shadow War. It was never personal." Vasha hasn't looked back to the body yet. He's waiting to see if he's going to have to, perhaps. Or expecting Rosalyn to intercede before he does so. "We can steal her van. Finish loading them in and transport them. We can't let the Sentinels or the Council writ large know we have them, either. Yet. I'll let Walsingham know we did the deed in a plausibly deniable manner. Not sure where to take them, however." He gives Mei an approving nod. "Good thinking."
"If you don't trust your own people with them... given them to our care. Do what you need to do magically to keep them alive but we are uniquely suited to caring for those who're suffering so, and we aren't on the side of the ones who did it to them." Rosalyn clucked at Elio. "Go on outside," she ordered him softly. "I'll send a sprite to clean you off- and don't argue. We'll hunt after this."
Mei comes back around after searching about for a bit and reports what she's been finding. "She's pretty clean, as you'd probably expect. Obviously fake license, the whole nine yards. The best that I can tell these three were probably 'loaners'," she makes air quotes with her fingers, "and that she was coming here specifically to pick them up to return them to whoever loaned them to her, from wherever they keep their stockpile. That implies, of course, that she's not operating alone. That someone with the sway to have a stock of these things was backing her."
"Panopticon Pylons are the only ones you'll see with a Grigori Farm. Whether or not she was a member of the Pylon in question or simply a field agent calling upon available resources remains to be seen. But, yes. They will be missing these Grigori, and they will come looking for them, accordingly." Which brings his attention back to Rosalyn, "My concern is that your people should never have been involved in this in the first place. It was a breach of the laws governing our kind to lash out at your kind. You've exposed your necks enough unwillingly, that doing so now seems an affront to diplomacy. If you house them, they will come for them where you keep them. You will make targets of yourselves. Targets for people who make these by the dozens." Vasha motions at his feet, to the mumbling Grigori. "That's a lot to ask of you when all of this was intended to repay you for having suffered an attack in the first place."
Ros pulled a little pen knife out of her pocket and cut her hand, letting it fall into the puddle of blood the Seer had turned into. "Come to me," she murmured to it, and up out of the gore rose a human-sized sprite that looked like it was popping up out of a swimming pool, its hair flowing out in red strands around it. "Collect the blood here that is outside of a living creature, dig into the earth deeper than you are tall, and bury it," she ordered.
The little servant made of blood burbles off happily, content to have a Little Job For Itself. The blood starts rolling back into the little servitor, slipping up into its body, and it... hums? A little song?
"The problem is they need fed. Which requires one of us, being present." Liezel explains, letting her potentia roil up and start to flow- first to satiate the rising paradox, then a trickle to each of the poor Artifacts Sleepwalkers, filling their proverbial tanks while she sits, quietly relieved that her personal disgust is clouded behind all this mental reinforcement.
"Do you do any magic that isn't subtly disturbing and vaguely offputting?" Vasha asks this of Rosalyn as a point of curiosity. "Okay. I'm going to work the rest of the scene now and see what comes up. Please don't do anything morally reprehensible while I've my back turned." And with that, he does indeed turn his back and begin to ... walk the room. Just. Literally. Pacing the room in slow, haphazard circles, nudging things with his boot and peeling things up with his knife to look under them and so on. How this can end up resulting in anything useful is hard to fathom, but he's... really getting into it, weirdly.
She turned back to Vasha and put her hands on her hips. "We are already involved. We are already targets. We are theoretically already allies too. Just because you have dangerous enemies, doesn't mean we're afraid. My people are angry, and the fact that you didn't invite any of us along on this little field trip isn't going to win you any diplomatic favors. I can already hear the screams of outrage from the Summer Court from here. We are going to be stronger together-" she tilted her head to consider the question Vasha posed her. "As a rule, I try not to? Though I do specialize in Oneiromancy and can spin up very pretty things when I get in the mood for arts and crafts."
"Someone I personally handed over to our authorities was back on the streets, and they're holding it against me that I kept this operation close to my chest?" Vasha shrugs his shoulders, pretty clearly unbothered by this. "Let them be angry, then. If they can't appreciate OpSec, they're walking liabilities in this and should be actively encouraged not to participate. Thank you for the heads up, in truth. Weight off my shoulders." He nudges the dislodged shoe of the woman on a second, lazy walk around the room and pauses after he does so. He backs up a step, Slav squats down over the shoe, and reaches into his belt pouch for an evidence bag and a pair of tweezers. The latter lifts a slip of paper from inside of her shoe and deposits it into the former, which he seals with a neat swipe of his fingers. Then he turns the paper over and whistles low, "She had a list. Doll Wood. Peter Wood. Hot Doug. Luci Firth. Shiri Touati. We know the first two, and I've heard of the last. She's a vampire, isn't she? The other two names I do not recognize."
"Hot... Doug?" Mei asks with a soft laugh. "One of these names is not like the others," but the hit-list isn't really that funny now, is it? She doesn't laugh more than the brief moment of amusement. She turns to Rosalyn and says, "we also didn't really have time to gather the troops for this. When the opportunity came we set out immediately, and we only just got here in time. If we'd taken the time to go through diplomatic channels and bring more people in and everything, she'd have been gone."
"Yes yes, I'm sure you've no problem justifying your supremacist mindset no matter what any of my people do or say." Rosalyn rolled her eyes at his attitude. "Or she'd have had an arrow through her heart," she countered Mei.
"If you like, I can rewind time to right before this attack when you came here alone and wait for all of your friends and backup that you had-- because of course your crown knows where you are at the moment and why you're here, naturally, since you would never take a unilateral action in the heat of the moment because needs must. And then I'm sure all the other Mages that you told you were coming will be rushing in, likewise, to provide you with cooperative backup, too. Strange they've not yet materialized to help back your play, here. So. Shall I? Rewind time? Watch her drive out the garage door while we make a phone call to see if any of your heavy hitters would like to come join in on the fun? And while we're waiting we can see how well your arrow does?" Vasha takes a step and a half closer to Rosalyn and tilts his head, "So? Shall I? And before I do, would you care to make a wager as to how that all plays out?" Vasha fixes Rosalyn with a stare. Because this is now A Thing.
Fox comes tromping quietly in from the outside, looking down at her phone. "Jackie says hi to Elio," she offers, as if she has no idea that Vasha has raised his voice. She knows. "She said she lost her fix on her target. You were right, Mei, she ran off from the coffee shop after her, I guess. What else needs cleaning up?"(edited)
"The Woods and Miss Firth are Lost. The ones you saved. The rest are Kindred." Liezel explains, smiling slightly when Fox comes in.(edited)
Mei answers Rosalyn's statement with a shrug and says, "maybe with an arrow through her heart, but it's kind of hypocritical to tell us that we should have brought in others and then claim that you'd have killed her yourself if we hadn't showed up." She looks around. "Anyway, we should get on cleaning this place up and getting out of here, I think?"
Rosalyn gave Vasha a look, like a queen who found his tantrum petty and small. Then she straightened, and something flickered in her eyes. A decision made. She inclined her head regally to Fox. "Please extend all of Elio's affection and love to Jackie in return." Her lips twitched with amusement. "I was scouting, just like Jackie," she told Mei simply. "But should an opportunity arise, there wouldn't have been anything wrong with taking it. You don't look a gift horse in the mouth. As it stands, I'm not the one running around with a fully equipped and prepared hit squad."
"This is just our cadre," Fox offers mildly, continuing to tap at her phone. "We are the fully-equipped and prepared hit squad. Don't tell me your people don't have one of those, too. But yeah, what's left to clean up?"
She seems totally unfazed by the Grigori. Probably Fox is doing that thing that Fox does where she maintains One Mind Two Thoughts so she can scream inside her heart.
A second later, she adds, "Uh, Jackie said to read this to you," and tips her head toward Rosalyn:
"There is a Huntsman in town. The Viscount of Victims and Villainy. He can't harm you until Spring ends but it is best you be aware."
"So the crown was unaware either of you were just scouting, and you didn't bother notifying our powers that be that you were just scouting, but had the opportunity presented itself, you would have done what we just did?" Vasha raises his eyebrow slightly, just to make sure he got that particular (as he reckons it) hypocrisy entirely accurate. Then he just nods his head, screws up an 'I thought so' frown, and turns his back to get back to his work. Which in this case involves stuffing his evidence bag away into another pouch, hefting his rifle back up, and resuming his casual amble around the room in search of Clues. "As Fox says. I am a member of a faction of mages dedicated to fighting these sorts. It's my calling. So I keep an arsenal of light to mid-level weapons." He flips over a loose board on the ground with his boot and adds, "If any of your people need a flame thrower or a TOW missile, I know a guy."
"Do I classify as a light or mid-level weapon, Androvich?" Liezel asks deadpan, using the name shouted earlier for Vasha.
She's... still working on that humor stuff. Forgive her.
"If I need a missle, I'll make one myself," Rosalyn said flatly. "But thank you for your kind offer." She whistled, and Elio rolled back in, white and gleaming gold accented motorcycle that he was... with an absolutely enormous golden eagle riding on the handle bars. She shifted Agate to sit pillion and she mounted the unicorn/bike.
"Be sure to ask for permission first," Vasha chirps on the tail of her rejoinder, not looking her way, his attention on his work. Mostly.
Mei looks down at herself and then back up at Rosalyn. "And I'm not armed at all," she points out. "At least, not in any traditional sense." Then she pauses. "Wait." She starts patting her pockets, and then reaches into one. As she pulls her hand back out, a .50 M2 browning machine gun forms in her hands, only easily lifted because she has super-strength right now. The belt of ammo leads back into her pocket. "I forgot about that one..." she says.
"Oh my G-d Mei you can't just magic a machine gun into being for a fucking punchline," laughs Fox, snickering at her phone.
"Yes, very amusing," she told Mei with a faint smile. "Good evening. Should you require the aid of my people in the future, I'm sure the diplomatic channels will remain open to you. Come on Elio, let's go get some dinner." Agate preened her beak through Rosalyn's hair. "I want a squirrel!" she chirped.
"Bye Rosalyn!" Fox calls. Did Rosalyn tell people her name? Still, Fox knows it somehow. Probably that phone.
|