ONS: Vic Norton's Revenge
8/28/2007
07:53 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.
Currently the moon is in the waning Full Moon phase (96% full).
It is currently 19:48 Pacific Time on Tue Aug 28 2007.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is clear outside. The temperature is 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the north at 6 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.03 and falling, and the relative humidity is 29 percent. The dewpoint is 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius.)
[Out on the mean streets of downtown St. Claire.]
Contents:
Rina
Cole
Obvious exits:
Out
Cole continues to match her pace for pace, and his words go on. "So it makes me wonder, what sort of dope do you need put into you, what words do you need to hear, before you can live for yourself, for Angela and Jenny, for Grey?"
Rina shakes her head quickly, her jaw tight. "I'm over," she says softly. "For them, yeah. But no."
Cole's normally amiable nature is stretched by the conversation. "Coward," he finally offers, in an almost conversational tone. "'s great that you're able to be around for them. But what are they getting if you can't care about yourself?"
Rina stops for a moment, her head bowed. "Could you just leave it the fuck alone? Please?"
Cole grits his jaws together tightly enough that it wouldn't be surprising to hear a groan of teeth and bone. "Fine, whatever. Guess we can just walk."
Rina takes a careful breath, and lets it out. "I'm sorry," she says, softer. "Do whatever helps."
Cole shuts his eyes as he walks. One hand goes out to touch the walls of the alley, to help guide by feel. "Nothing really helps. That's the problem, aingheal. When I'm like this, it's like it's boiling beneath the surface. And it gets out. If not one way, then another. And right now, anger's probably safest."
Wrapping both arms around herself, Rina ducks her head into the shelter of her collar. "Say whatever you needta say."
Cole opens his eyes. For a moment, a terse grunt serves as his only communication. When he finally finds his words, they're in a slightly less abrasive tone. "Heh. You should know better than to tell -me- that, of all the goddamned people."
Rina leans against the wall of the alley, where it joins the street; she crosses her arms and looks over at him. "No, serious," she answers. "You need to, go ahead." Her chin lifts a fraction.
Cole looks over, stopping almost midstride. He watches the kinfolk for a moment, as if gauging her sincerity. "Seems like every time I see you recently, you're either high, crying your eyes out or some goddamn lowlife's plaything. It's not the Rina I met not-so-way-back-when." The Fianna reaches up absently to finger the charm at his throat, likely unconscious of the fact.
The alleyway is dark right in the middle between Regan and Elson street, winding through the brick tenements that have grown up in this area. Along with it, the violence that accompanies it has as well. As the Garou and Kin pass by a dumpster, a tomcat hisses and leaps from its perch to quickly run off back the way the pair had come. The sounds of footsteps not of their own can be heard just as a car from night traffic passes by, coming up the path they'd taken. Then a rough voice calls out. "Yo!"
Rina straightens from her lean against the wall. "There *is* no Rina," she says vaguely. She glances out to the street, just in case that shout is intended for them.
"There's only Zuul," comes the deadpan from Cole, fired off without hesitation. He opens his mouth to say more, but the hissing of the cat and the rough shout gets his attention quite easily. He follows Rina's gaze, looking for the source.
Moments after the call, three men, relatively young adults all in varying urban styles of clothing step out from the shadows. One carries a baseball bat, another a length of chain. The frontman carries nothing. "Angel," growls the leader. "My hearing might be goin' a little these days, but I heard a buzz that one o' my boys got /shot/ the other night..."
Rina straightens abruptly, her posture jerking into something that speaks of confidenc e, dominance. "Really," she says flatly. "That asshole worked for you?"
Cole turns to glance at Rina as she more or less acknowledges a shooting she's responsible for. He takes a step away from the alley wall, getting his feet under him. The Fianna doesn't look concerned, or at least not overly so; rather, a perceptive eye might notice the upward twitch of his mouth for a moment.
"You ownin' up to it then?" questions the leader with a narrowing set of dark eyes. It might be noted from the far end of the alley, the way the Garou and kin were headed, is soon blocked with another trio walking in, but it's too far off to tell what they might have in mind.
Rina cocks her head. "Maybe you oughta teach your staff better manners, Norton, 's all I'm sayin'." Her tone, her posture remain calm and nonconfrontational. "Nobody tells me to fuck off. Not in this town."
Cole rolls his eyes as the reason for the shooting is seemingly revealed. He remains silent for now, though (a rare feat all on its own!), instead taking in the toughs before them. Maybe it's luck, maybe it's the proclivities of being Wyvern's child that causes him to check the alley behind them. The second trio spotted, he grunts. "Six people? Wow, Rina, you really know how to piss someone off, don't'cha?"
Norton grunts with the calm tone, looking past Rina a moment as the second group moves to converge. Then he looks back. "Maybe I got you wrong then," the leader notes as he reaches into his jacket. He pulls out a cigarette pack, pulls one out and lights up before slipping things back.
"Didn't know he was yours, Vic," she says quietly. "New guy in town, I figured he was freelance. And the way he talked t'me..." She lifts one shoulder, in a helpless shrug.
Cole turns so his back is more or less to the wall behind him. The better to keep an eye on both groups. The majority of his attention, though, is on Norton. Attempting not to say anything to make the situation worse, he settles for a glare.
Exhaling a puff of smoke, Vic draws his hand out of his jacket after putting away the cigarette with his hand on a gun. In the moment following, Vic growls out, "Well now we're gonna be square. Boy for boy. But you got it wrong, Angel. This is /my/ piece of town. So fuck off." The safety's already off, and he brings it to bear on Cole before shooting - blatantly - at the Fianna. The bullet strikes the galliard in the chest at a shallow angle with a hot burning fire, licking at the Rage that already boils near the surface.
Rina's eyes widen, and she reaches into her coat for her own weapon, the 9 whipping into her hand to return the favor.
Cole, for all his attention, is caught off guard. The bullet plows in, thankfully not doing all the damage it might. But the pain is more than enough to get a reaction. More precisely, it's enough to get a bellow of anger. He jerks forward several steps, looking as if he wants to take a piece out of Norton's hide. But then, he stops. He's still glaring at his assailant, but when he speaks, it's too Rina. In a very ragged voice. "Don't do it. Fucking six on two. I'll live."
Cigarette lit gets spit out with barely a puff drawn, as things get heavy /real/ fast. The time it takes for Rina to draw her own piece, Vic is already pulling the trigger at her next. The man's methodical movement is completely in cold-blood, and the Walker kin is soon shot somewhere on the rightside upper ribs. Six on two are hardly even numbers, but that's how things are. The two guys behind Vic converge on Cole, one of them swinging his bat right into the galliard's pretty face, pretty unforgivingly. The chain-wielder hangs back, waiting until the Fianna falls before aiming a nasty kick with hard leather boots. The three coming from the other side hasten their pace at Vic's signal. They're coming towards Rina.
Rina crumples, knocked down by the impact of the round. She ends up on her knees and one hand, trying desperately to breathe as precious seconds slip by.
The thin veneer of control the Fianna kept in the wake of the admittedly unwarranted attack is erased when he sees Rina get hit. By the time the bat has connected, and the boot following it, subtlety is a fairly moot point. In fact, the Galliard spurs himself to greater heights of anger. Cloth shreds and falls aside as he rises into Crinos. The axe that appears in his hand is a nasty bit of work, and put to deadly use the second it's in his grip. Two hefty swings follow, one aimed for the man who hit him with a bat. The other is destined for the person with the rather weak legs.
Apparently, gun sounds attract Gnawers. Kaz limps into the alley. The situation makes her stop, stare, swear copiously, pop into glabro, produce her own chains from somewhere in her coat, and barrel towards some of the guys after Rina.
It's quickly four on one as Rina is beset upon, and Just before Cole's shift and axe swinging tears open the Veil, she's knocked aside by a kick hard enough that /something/ broke inside, and someone (though it's hard to see in the dark) shanks her. The rest, well, is taken care of when the Fianna bursts into crinos. The axe swings like an executioner, severing the baseball bat wielder nearly in two before he can even gasp a surprise, and the followup not actually chopping the chain-wielder's leg off, but ramming hard enough into him that whatever breaks in /him/, elicits a bloodcurdling cry of pain. The rest of the goons suddenly hightail it for their mutual ends of the alley, but Vic stumbles back out of the way. With a swear, he raises his gun and shoots blindly at Monster!Cole until the bullets run out. Three bullets make it into the Fianna, but the first two are peanuts. The third however, buries itself into the Fianna's face and tears its way through soft, sensitive tissues of his muzzle. That elicits the galliard's rage Even Further.
There are certain noises you're not supposed to hear in the middle of the city, and the ones coming from this fight would count among them. A scowling, narrow eyed man steps into the alley at one end, looking for the source. And oh hey, finding it. Lovely. Abraxas sighs.
A scream of sheer agony joins the noise of the melee, and Rina curls on her side, gasping and making quiet, choked sounds that don't bode well.
Dragon's-Fire howls in pain as the bullet digs into his face. The axe clangs as it's dropped from his grasp. It's in a blur of blood, fur and saliva that the Fianna barrels at the man who precipitated the entire fracas. Eschewing the reach of his claws, he moves to try to rend Vic with his jaws. Nearly mindless, he tries to savage the man.
Kaz mutters, "Oh, ain't that just ducky," and ducks around Cole to go after the en-chained one. Get rid of evidence. Yes.
Abraxas charges forward at the scream. Homid still, yes, but that might change. The three running toward him are his immediate targets, if only because they're in his way. He aims a punch at the nearest, and flings an elbow toward the one following.
Seeing as the others are fleeing blindly under the Delirium, when Abraxas comes out of nowhere to double-strike towards the two of three in retreat, he knocks the first down with a punch and elbows the other guy hard in the ribs. That, though, just doesn't stop them. The first staggers back towards his feet, while the other spins, hits a wall, and keeps running. Dragon's-Fire needs no prelude as his towering crinos form overtakes Vic and knocks him clean down. In moments, it's over for Mr. Norton when the Fianna's rage boils over towards frenzy. Kaz finds her own target especially easy to dispatch, as crinos claws manifest from her Glabro'd hands and tear the man's throat out - perhaps a mercy.
And mercy was the intent, even if a peculiar form of it. Kaz allows her claws to disappear again, and then, even in the middle of Cole's frothing and Rina's cries of pain, starts looking around for a manhole or sewer grate to dump the dead people into.
Abraxas takes this lovely opportunity to give the man trying to get up a vicious kick toward the face. And if that connects or not, he doesn't even bother to notice. His target is Rina, and he sprints toward the injured kin, rather heedless of glabro and raging crinos.
It's the sight of potential prey getting away that does it. Dragon's-Fire, anger hovering close to the boiling point, completely forgets the reason he started. The bat, the remnant of the hapless goon is picked up in an oversized paw. And then it's thrown to spiral end over end after the man who took Abraxas' blow but didn't fall.
Rina is in fact making quiet, choked sounds. She is on her left side, eyes wide and dilated. Blood is visible, a flat slick of it just beginning to spread from beneath her. Her right hand moves, trying to reach back, but she lacks the coordination to find the blade.
The kick to the face knocks the first fleeing man down again. As Abraxas sprints towards the kin in need, however, Cole's aim of the bat doesn't account for Friendly Fire. The bat meant for the second fleeing man comes spinning end over end at Abraxas and smashes into the metis' face, breaking a delicate nose and knocking him silly for the briefest of moments. Brief, because it is the Shadow Lord ahroun's hair-trigger Rage that flares beneath the surface with the strike. Kaz, the patient one, is rewarded with a sewer manhole a bit further down towards the northern end of the alleyway, meant for the Elson intersection.
Kaz, still in glabro, hauls the manhole off and, ignoring Rina for the moment (and the incipient Garou-on-Garou crime) starts hauling dead people toward the manhole.
"AGH!" Abraxas is distracted, rather thoroughly, by the bat-to-the-face. Blood gushes from his broken nose, though there ARE benefits to being a metis. After the initial shock and face clutching, he barrels toward Rina again, snarling barely comprehensible insults and swear words at Cole. It's more hissing than anything else, but a few things can be made out. "....SSssss...fucking...s.s....Bassstard...."
Dragon's-Fire, stymied by the pair of escapees, maintains enough presence of mind to not run after them, out of the alley. And then he hears the insults. His ears swivel to their sources, and he stares at the Shadow Lord for just a moment. What was probably destined to be something more violent is cut short when he spots who Abraxas is heading towards. And suddenly Abraxas isn't the only one racing towards Rina.
The bat clatters to the ground somewhere behind Abraxas after it 'glanced' off his face. Kaz has a grisly job of dumping bodies, especially in the impromptu manner of things. Half of Bats (the lower) goes in fine, but the other half takes some stuffing. Chains, luckily, is skinnier but whole. And Vic... Vic is gored up with a sizable chunk torn out of his face and upper torso. There's no concealing the animal attack nature of death there. Somewhere on the ground in the dark lies the Fianna's axe, as well, along with Chains' weapon. In Rina, there's still the knife stuck in her side. Thankfully, she's not bleeding from any bullet wounds. Less than thankfully, she's in some extreme pain that not even the rush of adrenaline is able to counter quickly enough.
Kaz studies Vic, glances down at the sewer, stuffs him into it, and then lights him on fire. Fwoosh!
Rina's face is taut with pain, and her breathing is unsteady, faint sounds coming from her throat. Her lips move, as if she might be trying to speak, but nothing intelligible can be heard beyond the whimpers of pain. Her hand is still trying to reach behind her, somewhere. The dark pool beneath her inches outward, at a snail's pace.
Abraxas drops to a crouch as he reaches Rina, quite heedless now of the blood neatly coating the lower half of his face--thankfully it's already starting to slow, but he wouldn't notice if it didn't. He reaches out--with surprisingly careful motions--to try and ascertain where the blood is coming from without making things worse. He's still cursing under his breath in a low, continuous hiss.
Dragon's-Fire drops into his birthform with something like a whimper. He's not entirely healed from the various beatings, but he's a damn sight better off than the kinfolk lying in the alley. Heedless of how cold he suddenly feels, if he even understands the reason, he drops to his knees next to Abraxas. "Rina! Fuck, leave whatever it is in!"
"Knife," Abraxas says--around the rest of his hissing curses--as he finds what it is. He reaches out toward Rina's searching hand, moving to grasp it around the wrist and prevent any delirious knife pulling on her part.
The inside of the manhole alights with spontaneous fire, and though Vic's hair and clothes of synthetic fibers catches, the rest of him doesn't really. It'll definitely be a while, if there's any progress on that.
Rina's hand keeps trying to move, and somehow she manages a few breathless words: "Tell John-- Jenny, take care of-- of them--" She closes her eyes tightly, whimpering in pain again.
Kaz looks unhappily down at the open manhole, and then shrugs, hauls the cover back in (*thunk*), and, picking up her coat carefully, makes a beeline for Rina. Producing a (fairly small) first aid kid from her coat, she asks Abraxas, "You any good with compression?" She mutters, "Not dyin' yet," and sighs. "Cole, I think you gotta get her to a hospital."
Cole pales out at something. Perhaps the wound, the blood, Rina's babbling, or maybe Kaz's instructions. "Yeah. Fuck. Yeah. Shit. I can't. Not like this." He looks down at himself, sans clothing. "Those fucking things weren't dedicated." He looks back to Rina. "Gotta stop getting fucking shot at by every moron in this town, we do, aingheal."
Abraxas keeps his grip on Rina's hand, holding it in place. To Kaz, he answers--through a veritable mask of blood--"If you mean holding bandages against bleeding wounds, yes. Tell me what to do." He gives Cole a look, and decides, wisely, that this is not the time to get on his case about that bat to his nose.
Kaz skinnies out of her overshirt, shoves it and the first aid kit at Abraxas, and says, "Pack the wound." She gives a few other useful first aid instructions, and leaves the younger metis to it. She narrows her eyes slightly at Cole, rubs her hands on her shirt (thus getting most of the blood out), and digs a very light pair of sweats and a very flimsy t-shirt, both extremely well folded, out of her coat. "You can have them. Just get her the fuck to safety, once you're in 'em. Because me droppin' her at a hospital, they ain't gonna listen to me. You, they'll listen to more."
Cole nods dazedly to Kaz. He doesn't say another word, grabbing the clothing. He's them in a few seconds, and though they're ill-fitting as well as flimsy, he doesn't complain. Kneeling down by Rina, he starts to try to lever his arms under her to lift. "Axe. Mine. Grab it, so they can't get anything off of it."
Abraxas sets about following Kaz's instructions. He's done this before, that's clear, if only a few times. He continues until Cole starts trying to lift Rina, and his eyebrows lower. "I can carry her too," he suggests. Yes, nevermind the face of blood.
A sound is wrenched from her when Cole first moves the Kin--and, probably mercifully, she loses consciousness.
Kaz in fact grabs it, and cleans it several times on her shirt, making sure not to get her own fingerprints on it. "God," she tells the two other Garou, "Don't /fight/ over it. Let Cole do it, Brax, he's the most human lookin'." It's debateable whether this is a compliment, just now.
Cole winces visibly as Rina falls unconscious. "Don't you fucking dare!" A look of desperation comes over his face, and he gives a shocked little nod to Kaz. "Yeah. Hospital. I'll...call or something." And with that, he (As gently as possible) lifts Rina fully, and attempts to get his bearings.
Kaz points. "/That/ way. I'll call an' tell 'em a good cross street to send an ambulance to, maybe. Or at least call and tell 'em to expect you."
While Abraxas is fully healed now of his injuries, it should be noted Cole is not exactly in the tip top most of shape himself. But he can still function.
Abraxas lets him, though he's clearly dubious about it. He reaches up to push his nose back into place as the cartilage reforms. The metis doesn't look happy at all. Not at all. In fact, he looks as though he's contemplating the odds of finding one of the escaped goons to take out his frustration on.
"Ambulance," comes the harried response. "I can fast talk them with some bullshit if I need to." Cole starts to move down the alleyway without any further ado. He's not exactly moving like a speeding bullet, given the beating he's taken, but he's not staggering, either.
Kaz explains to Abraxas, once Cole is gone, "Him bein' damn good at bullshit and the radiating Rugged Good Looks that was the part that makes me think /he/ oughta be takin' her." She waits a minute or two before whipping out her cell phone and calling 911.
911 dispatch answers Kaz in a muchly calm and feminine tone. It's like a customer service call, but one that saves lives.
Abraxas scowls at the ground and reaches up to rub at the mostly dried blood covering the bottom half of his face. When he speaks, though, it isn't about Cole. "Does she /ever/ have a night when she's not trying to kill herself? The hell happened?" He's still a bit hissy in the voice. When Kaz dials, however, he shuts up.
Kaz explains that she just saw a /terribly/ wounded young woman, it's just /horrible/ what happens these days, it's all the fault of these people breaking God's /laws/, she doesn't know /what/ the world's coming to... (In amongst all this dithering, she does give the name of a cross street that's between Cole and Rina and the hospital, and then spells it for the 911 lady, slowly and carefully. And then she goes back to dithering.)
Abraxas stares at Kaz, listening in something akin to morbid fascination.
The dispatch, in efforts to try and make Kaz keep things as /brief/ as possible. Is the victim conscious? Is anyone with her? These Important things come before the announcement that an ambulance is on its way and should arrive in five.
Cole holds Rina, doing quite the job of looking the shell-shocked friend as he stands at the cross road pointed out to him by Kaz. He keeps up a steady dream of useless, largely unintelligible banter, trying to ignore the discomfort of various debris beneath his bare feet.
Kaz dithers some more, though she does say that she thought she saw a Nice Young Man with the victim. And that the victim ("When I saw the poor dear, at least") was not conscious. Then she gives her (false) name with the conviction of the Righteously Saved, and then hangs up. Slowly, she puts the cell away, and then shakes her head faintly. In her normal tones and in her normal accent, she says, "Shit, I hate doin' that Polly Pureheart crap." Then she blinks at Abraxas. "What? Oh, no, she's gen'rally in the soup as much as possible. I dunno why, I think she's just got a death wish or five."
Abraxas mutters, "You could say that again." He glances in the direction that Cole and Rina disappeared, and scowls. "I was debating whether to call Salem and ask him to discreetly have her sniffed."
To St. Claire's credit? The ambulance arrives in /three/ minutes, record time, likely due to the time of night as well as the proximity to the nearest hospitals. The EMTs that come out of the ambulance take one look at Cole and don't bother asking questions yet, instead getting out the med kits and such. Must be all the blood. In the meantime, there are other sirens - police sirens, coming closer in answer most likely to the sounds of gunfire.
Kaz blinks thoughtfully. "I dunno, she's been like this as long as I've known her, and she ain't never had Wyrm problems that I know of. But I'll sniff her for you, next time I see her, just in case." She looks around, sighs, and sends a gout of high pressure water at one of the larger clumps of blood. Then she stuffs the axe down the back of her pants, so that the blade is to her back, and then puts her coat back on. This manages to hide most of the blood. "C'mon, let's get the fuck outta here. You might have to go on the Flip for a little, you look like shit."
Cole has the presence of mind to gather himself in those few minutes of sanity before the ambulance arrives. He practices his story, some story of a random mugging and attack by a (significantly smaller) group of thugs. Is he hurt? Well, yes, maybe, but it's not so bad! He answers the questions asked of him dutifully and otherwise trys to make things All Better(tm).
Abraxas pulls the collar of his jacket up as he stands. "If we can find a fountain, I'll be fine. It's just my nose. Stupid fucking..." Harumph. "Say I got into a bar fight. That seems to be a popular pasttime around here."
Kaz mutters, "Fountain, right," and books it out of the general area.
Abraxas follows Kaz, post haste.
It's not long before Rina's condition is determined far worse than expected, and any questions for Cole are reserved for later - and whether or not he wants to ride in the ambulance as well to answer the rest. But all things said and done, by the time the police arrive, the others have scattered and only the gore is left to be investigated.
Cole, in the end, elects to go in the ambulance to the hospital. The Galliard settles into the back, and gets ready for a long, sleepless night.
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