9414/Dracul Rising: Blood in the Water
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| Dracul Rising: Blood in the Water | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 31 December 2021 |
| Location: | The Midnight Mission |
| Synopsis: | Jonathan Sims is attacked at the Midnight Mission by a group of vampires. He fights back but is ultimately defeated and is taken prisoner for some plan, but is this at all related to the attack by Raul Bushman recently, or is this fight a piece of a larger puzzle? |
| Cast of Characters: | Jonathan Sims, Marc Spector
|
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
It's late by the time Jon gets back from the ball drop in Times Square, somewhere between one and two in the morning. The crowds were thick and the subways crowded, and Jon's used to getting up early, so he's exhausted by the time he gets back. He grabs himself a coffee from a 24-hour convenience store and has it entirely drunk by the time he gets to the brownstone block in Queens that houses the Midnight Mission. He's going to stay up all night, and the next day, and keep the Mission open in case anyone comes by.
In short order, he has candles lit and incense burning, and is debating whether to grab some more coffee. He hasn't been hit with a second wave of tiredness yet, though, so he twists his bracer and lets the Archivist transformation take over. Then he goes to stand before the statue of Thoth, looks up at it for a long moment. He takes a breath, preparing to pray.
- Marc Spector has posed:
Silence reigns over the Midnight Mission. There is no sound. Not the whisper of wind around the hall. Not the soft ambience that often plays when no one is in attendance. Not even the hiss of the incense burning.
There. Is. No. Sound.
The attack comes from all sides. Four creatures wearing black clothing emerge from the darker corners of the Mission. They lunge for The Archivist with unnatural speed, claws and fangs bared. Their eyes are pitch black all throughout as the inner Beast consumes them in the thrill of the hunt for what they feel is easy prey.
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
It's the lack of sound that alerts him, really. It's brief, but it presses on mystic senses in a way it does not on normal ones. It's a good thing for the Archivist that he's paying attention to those senses; it gives him the brief warning he needs to pull out his staff and pull up a shield around himself, a shimmering watery bubble. It should be enough, with most of his focus going into it, to make the vampires bounce off.
Then he raises his staff in the air and shouts, "Sekhmet, Lady of Slaughter, grant me your fire!" He pulls the idea of /sunlight/ from the Astral Plane, brilliant and blinding in a burst around him, and while it may not be /true/ sunlight that will kill the vampires it might be enough to frighten and hurt them.
- Marc Spector has posed:
All four rebound off the shield with tremdous force, the impact sending ripples across the field of water around The Archivist. The creatures right themselves with preturnatural grace well enough to not end up broken heaps but they start a slow circle of their prey hissing and spitting in an animalistic manner.
That is until the sunlight blossoms from their prey. Boils and burns erupt over their faces sending them into fits of screeching agony and pain as they tear at their faces and cower in pain, giving the figure a greater than necessary berth from the light.
"Good. Good" comes a silken voice from the darkness as a figure approaches. "I had hoped you would not disappoint, given that the Deserters have tried unsuccessfully to destroy you on multiple occasions now and failed at every attempt."
The man is tall, of a height with the Archivist, and has similarly toned skin. Though there is a glowing aspect to his that makes it seem more metallic and less pliant than those of a human. His black hair hair is plaited and he wears a dark red robe-like garment not unlike those of the ancient Egyptian priesthood. Some sort of field warps about him, a rippling dark energy that seems to project shadow.
"Now that we know that brute force will not harm you... let us see what your true capabilities are." He claps his hands and three other figures, two female and one other male, materialize from portals of darkness. They all wear similar priestly garb and all three have wolf-like masks on their faces. As a unit they begin speaking in ancient Egyptian tongue.
"~Great lord of the Dead, bring this usurper into your kindgom!~" As the words spill from them, a wave of unnatural cold washes out from the four figures, frost forms in the waves wake and it crashes against the shield of mystic water crystaline gractures appearing over it as the mystic energies war for surpremacy.
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
The Archivist stares at the tall vampire--he's presuming that's a vampire--in amazement. "...Ice is just frozen water, you /idiot/." He looks at the ice coming at him and says in the same tongue the vampire used, ~Flow.~ Encouraging the water to flow, to warm and run fast enough to keep from freezing. Water is his element, after all. Water is life, in the desert, and does /not/ belong to these creatures. They're going to have to try harder than that.
"Usurper? That's a funny concept. I don't remember becoming a vampire or anything. Did a prior Archivist shake you down for loose magical power or something? Don't like giving statements? Anyway, you can't kill me yet, I've got an appointment with saving the universe in a few weeks. Archangels can be such a /bother/ when you don't show up for your pre-scheduled sacrifice."
He's backing up as he speaks, toward the statue of Bast. When he's right next to it, he raises his staff and switches back to ancient Egyptian. ~Great Bubastis, we may worship you as Eye of the Moon in this place, but as child of Ra and protector of the Pharoah, I call on you, shine the light of the sun and banish these undead!~
- Marc Spector has posed:
The unnatural cold does what it does when met with a warm force. It turns to steam, to mist, and vision is obscured. Perhaps it's because the aspect in the temple is her Moon Aspect but Bast does not answer the Archivist's call for aid.
"You came into power through means not of your own..." the unmasked priest says, his voice coming from no discernable direction in the mist. "And so you are not truly a master of it. As for killing you? We wish no such things. We simply wish to speak with you and utilize you for purposes that you will likely learn far too late."
A flutter of robes near by is all that alerts the Archivist as a bolt of some sort of dark red energy flies from the mist. It strikes the shield and sends angry ripples through it, leaving a dark stain on the water. The voice continues. "However, we were permitted to have some fun with you before bringing you where we want you. And so we will have that fun now."
Another lance of red energy strikes the shield, darkening it further. There is a leeching, weakening quality to whatever the bolts of red are made of and the shield is suffering from it at the moment. The mist hangs in the air unnaturally instead of dispersing as it should.
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
"/Shit/," the Archivist mutters. Steam was /not/ what he was going for--and Bast isn't responding. He swallows, and calls into the mist, "You called the lord of the dead to bring me to his realm, usually that implies /killing/ someone. Make up your damn mind."
He's backed up against a statue that's inert and cold, boxing him in rather than protecting him. Surrounded by mist, and his shield's being leeched. But the sunlight worked last time, so he does it again, pulls the pure idea of sunlight from the Astral Plane and shines it off the ankh on his staff.
"Lady Bast, /please/," he whispers. "Give me /something/."
A pause. A swallow. "Lord Khonshu... don't let these night-walkers take me in your home." He's never really prayed to Khonshu before. It's always seemed impertinent, somehow. "Please. /Please/. Call your Fist, if nothing else."
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
The Archivist--at least /this/ Archivist--is not a fighter. He's a healer, a scholar, better at shields and mending than anything destructive. But he can't just let them take him that easily.
The shield's going to fall anyway. The Archivist infuses it with the power of life, of healing, praying that it might do what he's hoping. Praying it might /hurt/ them.
Then he floods the shield with power, beefing it up against the attacks--and then overpowering it so that it explodes outward in a shower of life-giving water, anathema to vampires, falling on them like searing rain.
Then he slumps back against the statue, energy all but spent. That took the last of what he had. If it didn't kill them all... he's done for.
- Marc Spector has posed:
The explosion does as intended... to a point. The two conjurers near Jon are all but eradicated as the mystically infused water washes over them. They hiss and scream as it eats through their flesh like acid. The four that originally attacked are no better off. They too are destroyed by the explosive shower. The leader and one other are all that are left, protected it would seem by whatever sort of dampening field surrounds them both.
They stride forward through the carnage, examining their fallen comrades. "Impressive but ultimately unecessary" the leader says sadly. He swipes at the air and a rush of invisible energy pours over Jon. It's wave of fatigue and more than powerful than anything the Archivist has ever truly felt. "Sleep" he says. "When you wake, we can get to work on the true reason for our introduction."
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
The Archivist fights against the fatigue, but he was already tired. So, so tired, for so many reasons. He loses his hold on his staff, and it clatters to the floor. The transformation drops away, cape and beads and pleated trousers fading into green cardigan and khakis and russet button-down. He can't just give up, though. He /can't/. He has too many people depending on him.
He reaches into his jacket, trying to reach for his phone. There are so many people he could alert--Red Robin and the Outsiders, SHIELD and his husband, the Justice League Dark. But the second vampire reaches down to stop him, pulls out the phone and tosses it aside. Jon struggles with the vampire, but is no matches for its strength.
"You can't... can't... I can't... die... here..."
Unless he can, of course. Unless this is the moment, somehow. And then... what, maybe he's a vampire? Is that the answer to the question he's been wrestling with? Lydia's been telling him how it seemed fated that she became one... is that what's meant for him?
He shakes his head, trying to deny the thought. Slumps further down the base of the statue, and finally falls beneath the weight of the spell of fatigue, eyes closing.
- Marc Spector has posed:
The vampire wearing the wolf mask smiles in response to the man's state and leans down. "Just a sip won't ruin anything... after all I've been so helpful... I could simply take a little bit..." He jerks suddenly and is pulled away.
The leader of the group has him by the hair. "Bite him here and I will see that you suffer the agony of the sun..." he says darkly before flinging the man into a sectional nearby with explosive velocity. He moves forward and bends down to lift the unconscious man under his arm. "There will be plenty of time for that back at the lair. Come... there is still much to do before he is ready..." He waves a hand and a portal of darkness opens before him and he steps through, his remaning lacky following closely at his heels.
