A Dance of Destiny IC

[MrEdwardNigma]

OOC

Destiny... It's a strange thing. Some people, most people, say it's rubbish. They say calling a series of coincidences destiny or luck is ridiculous. On the other hand, what if this was what destiny was made up of? A long, long series of coincidences coming out in just that special way to finally shape fate. You'd think that knowing what your destiny will be would enable you to change it, but this is absolutely wrong. Being told what your destiny will be is usually one of those many factors that makes you end up in the place fate wants to take you. Usually a very important factor, in fact. No, the real treasure lay in knowing more or less what your destiny was. Enough knowledge to shape the future, but not enough to know you can't change it.
This is what people came up the black mountain for, an otherwise very unpleasant place, filled with jagged rocks and pits of bubbling oil. The biggest of these pits lay in the middle of a stone plateau, a plateau with circular walls built around it which they called a temple, for lack of a better word. From the walls thick leather ropes were spun, hung by cast iron rings, and these ropes held up the skinny, wrinkled figure of a woman.
The woman wore no clothes but was covered by a huge snake that slowly slithered around her body. She hung above the pit and with long, deep breaths took in the fumes from below. Not only was this pit the biggest on the mountain, it was also the deepest. Some thought this pit was the gateway to the underworld, but not the man who stood in front of the pit now. He believed the pit was just a pit and the oil was just oil. He was the kind of man who believed he knew things, not that he believed them. Such men are often dangerous, and he was no exception.
"I have come to see you" he spoke, as he stroked his big, black beard.
"I know" the old woman answered, as she truly was the kind of person who knew things, and not the kind of person who believed them. They called her the Pytha, and she predicted the future. Or at least bits of it. She knew everything, but she never predicted more than bits.
"Will it work?" the man asked, but his question did not please her. It was too straightforward.
"Perhaps"
"What could possibly stop me?"
"There are certain...individuals. Things might turn out differently than you expect"
The man with the black beard laughed.
"If I expect the unexpected, the expected will happen"
"Unless off course you know that to be true..."
The man with the black beard looked worried now and started stroking his beard more feverishly.
"Very well, these individuals will be taken care of. I need to be absolutely certain of my success, after all"
After carefully noting down the names and locations of those that could possibly oppose him, the man with the black beard left, still stroking his beard.
The Pytha almost laughed.
"He won't see it coming. No-one will"

Some ground rules (please read):

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-I would like you to keep track of your inventory in the OOC by adding a spoiler under your character sheet. This shouldn't be too hard to keep up with as this game only updates once a week.

-One post a week is required. Not two a week. Not one post in two weeks.
One post a week. At all times. Should you for some reason be absent for a whole week, please notify me (and include when you'll be back). It would make me very sad if you didn't.

-I'm human, I make mistakes too. Please feel free to point them out to me, I love to learn something new. It's unlikely I will change much though.

-As my posts can be pretty long already, I do not always describe everything in detail. This doesn't mean you have to lose weeks of time by using IC posts to ask about details. Generally any questions can be asked in the OOC, that's what it's for. I will provide all additional information there when asked.

-Sometimes you'll be in a situation where you can only do a single action and then have to wait for the GM's call. An example would be when you're fighting someone and you want to know if your punch hit him. The proper way to handle this is to simply make assumptions. Weak untrained people from the 21st century will be easy to handle for a samurai, while a wildwest gunslinger could probably handle a whole bunch of samurai as long as he has loaded guns. When you make an assumption, you can still fail, as I can overrule it. Generally I won't do this, unless your character is having ridiculously much luck. Make sure not everything your character does automatically succeeds, he (or she) is only human after all.

-Sometimes you may feel your current situation is rather restrictive. This will be a rather rare occassion as I try to give you situations with plenty of options. They may still occur though, but don't worry about this. Just write your post as best as you can and do some character developement, cause that's what it's all about after all.

[MrEdwardNigma]

459 B.C. : Ειρηνη Νικηφορος (Eirene Nikephoros)
The two guards “escorted” her to the courthouse. They’d been waiting at her door that morning and had tried to drag her first, but Eirene had told them she could very well walk herself. Pretty much the whole city was waiting for her at the courthouse. She couldn’t believe everyone knew about this. She and the guards waded through the crowd and she recognised familiar faces everywhere. Family, friends, neighbours, enemies even. Some looked angry, others compassionate. The general emotion seemed to be contempt though.

They finally reached the steps of the courthouse. Here Polemon and Thetima were waiting for her, both long time friends. They waved at her and told her they’d watch the trail from afar. They’d testify if Eirene wanted them to, but they didn’t really know anything they could tell the court. Before she knew it Eirene was at the top of the stairs and her two friends had gone. Inside waited a large crowd of angry Spartans. She didn’t even know what they were so ready to condemn her for.

The guards guided her to her seat and the trail started. The judge was a huge man with a thick white beard and a stern look. He opened with these words: “You stand here before us today, Eirene Nikephoros, after you were charged by the citizens of our state. You have been accused of corrupting the women of Sparta and of blasphemy to our gods! We have several witnesses here today, all respectable Spartan citizens, who believe you are guilty. I remember you as a little girl, Eirene. I never thought of you as the rebellious kind, but I shall place my personal opinions aside. You will be judged fairly, based upon the testimonies and the opinion of the Spartans, that and nothing else. The trail may begin”

The first witness was Korragos Philotus, as was to be suspected. Likely he was the one who had started this whole travesty. Eirene couldn’t believe Sparta was going along with this. He gave a long speech about her wanting to take up arms in the war and how this was inappropriate for a woman as they had to stay home and defend the house. Apparently she was being charged with giving the wrong example for other women, upsetting the society and standing up to the gods as they had clearly intended for women to stay at home. There were some yells from the audience during his speech, but none were really in Eirene’s defence. The man stepped down and returned to his seat. Next to him sat a man Eirene had never seen before. She was sure of that as she would have surely remembered his scarred face and body. His few strands of hair were a very light brown, almost the tone of his bronzed skin, the corner of his mouth was always open slightly, showing his teeth. There was something glittering in one of his teeth, as if he had a piece of stone stuck in there. The man said something to Korragos and then noticed Eirene stare. He stared back, and gave her a slight nod.

The next witness was Cynna Berekinus. She told the judge she had known Eirene for a very long time and they had been friends for a long time. She said Eirene had always been sort of a boyish girl, she stressed that specifically, and she then explained that Eirene had taken to rather blasphemous claims and often stated women would be much better warriors then men and men had better stay home instead. This was greeted with a lot of noise and shouts from the audience. While some simply seemed sceptical, others bought it and were booing Eirene. Cynna smiled as she knew her job was done and returned to her seat. She was sitting next to her father, Laomedon Berekinus, ironically one of Eirene’s allies. To her surprise he rose and walked up to the judge. It seemed like he was going to give a testimony to help her and end this silly trail.

He did give a testimony, but not in her defence. Eirene couldn’t believe her ears as Laomedon told the court that she had been trouble ever since the day he took her in. She had tried to corrupt his daughter and had often refused to honour the gods. His testimony had much greater effects among the Spartans than the two previous ones as he was a much respected member of the society. When his testimony ended someone whispered something into the ear of the judge.

“It has come to my attention Eirene has not had the time to prepare for this trail properly. I know many of you will feel there is no longer need for a defence, but such is the law and Eirene shall have her chance to prepare a proper defence”

As the trail had ended for the day, Eirene walked home in a daze. People gave her filthy looks in the street. Polemon was waiting for her at her house. He looked very worried.
“We need to leave Sparta, Eirene. Tonight. There’s no way you’re winning this trail”
Eirene knew what awaited her if she lost: she’d be forced to drink the poison cup. On the other hand, where would she go to if she left? Athens? Athens was a completely different place than Sparta, where she felt so at home. She thought for a couple of minutes and then took her decision. A decision that would determine her fate.

857: Bólnautr Skoftason
The whole tribe had been summoned to the village square. The village elder stood at the centre of the square on a stone slab held up by two huge Viking warriors. One of those in the audience was Bólnautr Skoftason. While any warrior would have respected the call of the elder in all circumstances, Bólnautr had a personal reason for showing up. Next to him stood Arngier Rigson, who owed Bólnautr his life. They had become friends since and Arngier went wherever his saviour went.

“Friends, peasants, proud warriors!” the elder called out, instantly silencing all the murmur, “For many years we have lived here in Lutrogk in peace, but last night that peace was disrupted!”.
There was a wail in the audience and an old woman fainted.
“We have started to doubt our old beliefs to much and some of us considered the epic tales of our ancestors mere legends!”
“For shame!” somebody yelled.
“Tonight, the gods have punished us for our insult to our own forefathers!”
“Punished!” the old woman wailed after she’d crawled up again.
“A dragon descended from the heavens and sweeped up our women and children, and then dragged them off to the island Coldrock!”
“I saw two of the beasts!” a man yelled.
“The thing killed old man Gregorson! It cut him right in half with it’s talons, it did!” another explained.
“This would never have happened if our men had been home!” a fattish Viking woman called out.

The leader nodded. “Yes, this is true. We should never have left for a raid all together. Some of us should have stayed behind. We will not make that mistake again. If the dragon returns, we will be prepared”
“You’re just going to hide in the village ‘n let that beast eat our wives and children?” one of the Vikings holding the rock boomed.
“No, we shall slay this beast like our forefathers did in the old days, but most of us will stay behind and mend the village. We shall make sure the dragon can not do this to us twice”
“But who then shall go after the beast?”
“I will select a group of six warriors, my greatest and best men. They will set out at dawn for Coldrock, the legendary dragon’s nest”
“I’ve already been on Coldrock, and there’s no dragon’s there!” one of the Vikings yelled.
“We’ve seen it fly there last night, ya goof! You must have missed it’s nest because you were pissed. In fact, you’re always pissed, Olafson” the fattish woman replied.
“You come and say that to my face, ya hag! If you dare, that is!”
“Now, now, we’re not here for petty squabbles, we’re here to assemble the group that will be headed to Coldrock tomorrow morn!” the village elder said, “Who wants to go?”.

Bólnautr raised his hand and Arngier followed his example. Last night, Valdis, Bólnautr’s wife, had been taken away by the dragon. It had ripped their stone house apart and dragged her along with it. If only he hadn’t been away for the raid, none of this would have happened, he was sure.

Twelve other Vikings had raised their hands, among which Alfarin Snorrason, who held a grudge against Bólnautr because he wanted to be with Valdis.
“Fourteen men then? Well, Olafson and Grokson can’t leave since one holds the inn and serves us beer and the other is our only smith. That leaves twelve men, and we only need six…”
Everyone knew what this meant. The crowd started chanting it.
“Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”
“We will have six one-on-one battles. The winners will take the boat to the island tomorrow, the losers will stay and rebuild the village”
The leader knew that entertainment was needed in dark times like these. It took people’s minds off of things.

A circle was drawn in the earth out of which neither contestant could exit until the fight was finished. The fight was finished when one of them gave up or when one of them could keep the other pinned to the ground with both shoulders for ten seconds. Most Viking fights tended to end with one fighter knocking out the other, as no self-respecting Viking would quit or consciously lose.

Bólnautr was unfortunately pitted against Morrickson, a huge man that who was used to swinging an axe in both hands. Axes weren’t allowed in in-clan fights, but Morrickson was known to pack a mean right punch and he also had a record of head butting people. Morrickson was an unstoppable machine, but at least he was slow as an ox.

1187: Isma'il Jal al-Hakam
It was morning, and Isma’il was up early. He was always up early, off course, due to the call of the forge. The heat it spread was more bearable in the early hours than in the middle of the day. Isma’il spent most of his evenings and mornings working, while the rest of the day was a time of relaxation. Even during the day the heat was quite bearable, as the winds from the sea blew in fresh humid air. He was quite happy here in Al Jarah, though he did miss his good friend Salah al-Din. They sent letters to each other weekly, but they mostly concerned tactics. He’d been stationed here after the execution of Raynald de Chatillon as the worst danger had passed for the Muslims. That was a year ago now.

While Isma’il had been able to perfect his swordsmithing and alchemical skills and was now undoubtedly the best swordsmith and alchemist in all of the Muslim lands, he still felt he had missed something. It was hard to find peace when the killer of your family was still out there somewhere.

After reading Salah al-Din’s latest letter, which concerned the worrying approach of the Christians, Isma’il left for morning prayer. It was only a brief walk to the mosque and a pleasant one at that. Isma’il crossed the market place and felt the fresh ocean breeze caressing his face. He remembered his ship, and how it had been in the harbour for almost two months now. When he first arrived he frequently took a tip, sometimes even visiting Salah al-Din when he was somewhere near the water, but he had sort of become stuck in a rut. A pleasant rut.

After prayer time Isma’il returned home. He was surprised to find a strange man in his house, in the middle of his laboratory. The man was looking through the various flasks and salves happily when Isma’il politely knocked on the door to draw his attention. The man turned around and looked at him. He was wearing very simple black robes and a black turban. His face was wrinkled and worn and Isma’il could see that his fingers were extremely thin and bony. The man smiled at him, showing his only three teeth.

“Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?”
“…”
The old man beckoned Isma’il and shuffled closer. He then whispered in Isma’il’s ear.
“I’m a customer. I want to buy”
“Ah, I see. What do you want to buy?”
“I’d like you to make a smokebomb for me”
“A smokebomb?”. Isma’il could only wonder what the old man would want with that.
“Yes, I need you to make me one. One that, and this is very important, spreads a spray of icecold water particles. All over the room”
“Water?”. Stranger and stranger. Couldn’t this old man get his refreshments somewhere else? Well, at least building the thing would prove a challenge.
“I promise you a great reward”
“Why do you need to whisper?”
“It’s my lungs. Something dreadful happened to them. You’ll understand when you’re older”. The old man shuffled off, turning around at the door to give Isma’il one more friendly nod. Isma’il had never seen the man around the village, but it was possible they simply never happened to run into each other, and possibly the old man had heard of Isma’il from some of the other villagers.
What was really inexplicable to Isma’il was his request, but he decided there was only one way to find out and built the device. It wasn’t even that hard: he had it done by the afternoon, just by prayer time. Isma’il was too late to make it to the mosque so he simply took out his prayer mat and started praying in the laboratory. As he was praying the door handle suddenly moved and the door slowly creaked open. Who could it be? The old man? And why did they need to come during prayer time? Isma’il wouldn’t be able to get up and greet them!

1279: Taira Itagaki
It was raining. Today was supposed to be a happy day as Taira’s huspand was to come home. He was wounded, but at least he’d be home. Taira didn’t like this development. Her huspand having to retreat from the battle was a disgrace, and him being home didn’t suit her either. She might not be able to run the household like she did before anymore. Sure, certain tasks would always be for the wife to carry out, but perhaps her huspand would not approve of her spending so much time honing her skills with the naginata, the kaiken and the playing of Go. Perhaps he would not approve of her sending away of Kisuke Isshin, a long time servant of the house who was under protection of one of the more hardworking servants. Perhaps he would expect an heir from her now?

She was not pleased he was returning, but she had to act as if she was for the community. She finally got to show her grief when an even darker cloud rose over this day. Her mother had died. It had been a natural death, a fever. She’d only suffered for two days, and she hadn’t known what was going on for most of them. Still, it was a sad day as Taira stood here, in front of her mother’s grave. Her father was there too, but he wasn’t standing next to her. She wondered if it was a conscious choice. Was he embarrassed to be seen here with her today, would acknowledging her being there draw too much attention to her mother’s failure to produce a male heir? Did he simply have grief enough already without being confronted with his daughter who he had wanted to be a son? Perhaps he was simply too sad to even think about these things.

She looked around the graveyard, it was better than looking at the grave. It was a rather large plain of green with monuments stretched about it. Family graves, all of them. At the edges of the field were trees, and Taira knew that somewhere among the trees their carriages were waiting for them. Kaname Rukia was waiting in her carriage to comfort her. Rukia was Taira’s servant, but also her friend. Accompanying her to the funeral hadn’t seemed appropriate to Rukia though, so she had chosen to wait. Taira looked at the other guests. There were plenty of people there her mother hadn’t even known. People she doubted her father even knew. They were simply families who lived in their area or had some dealings with her father and thought it wise to show up. Amongst them were quite a few wounded soldiers, grieving more over the fact that they had to retreat from the war than over Taira’s dead mother. Most of them were staring at a fixed point in front of them, none of them at the grave. The grave… Taira looked at it. A single tear drifted down her cheek, and for a moment the air shivered behind the grave. Then there was suddenly a man there.

The man was dressed strangely. He wore a grey kind of uniform, as if ready for war, but he had no armour on. He wasn’t armed either, but he did have a strangely shaped piece of metal on a strap around his shoulder. Around his arm there was a thick leather bracelet, with a huge egg-shaped stone in it. The stone was transparent and greenish and somehow seemed to attract Taira immensely. The man screamed something in an incomprehensible tongue. It sounded harsh and cruel, torture to the ears when compared to Japanese.

The strangest thing about the man though, even stranger than his dresscode or his words, was his face. He didn’t look anything at all like the other men here. Taira had heard of the Mongol invasion and their peculiar facial features, but when it had been described to her she had imagined something entirely different. Still, no matter how alien his face, she could make out a look of surprise on it.

Some of the warriors drew their swords and yelled at him to lie down, surrender, but he did not respond. Instead, he waved the metal object in their direction and they were struck down, as if with invisible arrows, blood staining Taira’s mother’s grave. She could see fear on the man’s face now, as Saburo ran up to him and he too was shot, falling down and hitting the earth with a loud thud. The crowd scattered, and only Taira, the man and a whole bunch of corpses seemed to be there. Her father whimpered. Wherever this man had come from, he was clearly a powerful wizard, a demon. Taira wondered if she’d be able to get out of there alive.

1890: Jonathan Morris
It was noon. The noon sun could kill on a day like this, but that was Jonathan’s last concern.
“One to seven…doesn’t seem fair” he mumbled.
The middle one grinned, showing a mouth full of metal teeth.
“One too many to shoot, bwana” he said.
“I’ve got two guns. I’ll be fine”
The huge black man laughed, again showing his metal teeth, glittering brightly in the hot noon sun. You’d think he was the leader of the pack, but Jonathan could see he wasn’t. These weren’t the sort of guys you led, they were the sort of guys you sent in the right direction and then hoped it wouldn’t blow up in your face. On the black man’s right side stood a bald man with a beer belly and a thick black beard. He was known as The Butcher. It wasn’t because he knew how to make sausages… Further to the right stood two oriental fellows, one of them bald, the other with a long pony tail, both armed with a blade and a gun. The Kaizo brothers, goons for the Si Fan. Morris had faced them before, but failed to kill them. They were too fast and impossible to find once hidden.

To the black man’s left stood a man dressed in black leather. His real name was Jake Gable but he adopted the name Avenger when Jonathan ended up killing his older brother. He hadn’t had a choice, as Jeremy Gable had been trying to kill him at the time, but Jake couldn’t care less. He’d made it his mission to kill Jonathan Morris. It would have been sad if he wasn’t such a good shot. The next man was Johnny Irish, whose name wasn’t really Johnny, but who was Irish. He used to be a barber up until the day he realised he could make more money robbing banks. Jonathan had only recently arrested him, but he was already out. The last man Jonathan didn’t know. He was dressed in a long leather trench coat and a very broad rimmed leather hat. There was a cigar in the corner of his mouth and scars all over his face. If you took into account the alien looking gun on his back he must have been some sort of bounty hunter, they always had novelties with them.

The seven men stood in a nice row in front of Jonathan, who was still by his horse, about seven meters away from first of them, the huge black man. Another seven meters behind them stood a single house. Well, it was more of a shack than a house.

Jonathan had received a telegram that morning that he thought was from his good friend Charlie Redknife. Charlie had asked him to come down here as quick as he could. He’d written they had to meet urgently. Clearly, it was a trap. Jonathan wondered if Charlie was actually there.

“I was told Charlie would be here”
“Oh, he is, he is, bwana”
The black man laughed again, loudly. It was the only sound for miles.
“We’ve got him tied up inside, bwana” he said, suddenly more serious.
“Who do you work for?”
The black man shrugged.
“We work for no one man, bwana. It is complicated”
“You’re one of Mayombe’s men, aren’t you?”
The black man nodded.
“Yes, but he’s not running this show. Mayombe’s running the cash flow, but that’s it. Y’see, bwana? You’ve made one too many enemies!”
“Yamada? Anil?”
“Look bwana, the time for questions is over. Now it is time to die”
“Maybe not” a familiar voice said, in the window of the house. It was Redknife. His head seemed to be gashed and bleeding, but he was holding a rifle and aiming it at the black man’s head. Half of the group turned round to face Redknife as the other half drew their weapons at Jonathan. The Avenger, the bounty hunter and The Butcher had their guns pointed at Jonathan, while the four others were aiming at Charlie. The Butcher and the black man were the only ones holding shotguns.
“Glad to see you’re alive, Charlie!” Jonathan yelled, “Perhaps you should have shot one of them and then said hi?”
“Glad to see you too, Morris. Would have done that, but you’d likely have been a sieve by now if I did. Look, Jonathan, you need to get out of here and go home. You hear that, scum, Jonathan’s going home!”
“What about you, Charlie?”
“Don’t worry about me. I don’t think I could make it all the way to the next town with this head wound anyways. Look, just… just head home and take care of things there. There’ll be trouble there, I promise you that. When you’re done with that, you’ll need to look into the Crowley cult. They’ve popped up in the Americas and… Look, these guys are getting impatient, Jonathan”

Charlie was right. Most of them, especially The Avenger, didn’t half like the idea of Jonathan getting away. Now was the time for action.

[MrEdwardNigma]

1928: Robert Lester Salinger (AKA Doc)
Somewhere in a house in Pennsylvania a phone rang. Robert Lester Salinger picked up.
“Hello? Who’s this, it’s two o’ clock at night!”
“It’s Ernie. I got a good lead, and I thought I’d call you first”
“What kind of lead?”
“An anonymous call. The guy said he wanted to meet you at the church by the park. He sounded as if some of his teeth were missing. He might just be a loon, but he promised he had dirt on the mayor”
“Hmm, all right”

Robert dressed, loaded his gun, put on his coat and hat and left. It wasn’t too much of a walk to the church, so he went by foot. It was a nice night, warm even at this hour. He walked past the butcher’s store where he noticed the butcher dragging in a dead dog in the back alley. He wondered if it was interesting enough to write a story about.

The church was even eerier at night. It had been jammed in between two big houses and therefore mostly stretched up into the air. It had a small front yard which was mostly ornamental and was now covered in trash and building material but used to be pretty much empty. The only reason they seemed to have even built the front yard was to be able to incorporate the stone angel with one hand reaching up and the other holding a sword they had place upon the bough you entered through. Robert had to admit the angel was impressive, especially now that the streetlights made its shadow cover the entire front of the church, the hand nearly reaching the top of the building.

Robert walked into the front yard and pushed aside some garbage bags to be able to open the door. He wondered how his informant had been able to enter. Just his luck, the door was blocked, even with the bags gone. The church had been closed down several years before during renovations when they ran out of money and the city declared the building dangerous. They’d locked it down, but Robert had suspected that the lock would have been removed by now. How else could anyone expect to meet him there? He wasn’t going to let it stop him though and he climbed the scaffolding set up against the building. He soon found a hole in the wall covered by plastic and climbed through.

His contact was waiting for him at the altar, he could see him from where he was standing, the place where the organ used to be. The door to the sacristy seemed to be open so Robert supposed the man had entered through there. His contact was wearing a long, broad trench coat, covering him entirely, and a hood. It seemed like he preferred anonymity. Robert climbed down the spiralling stone staircase and walked into the rest of the church, the area where the benches used to be. He could hear his contact chuckle. He did sound like some of his teeth were missing. Some of the pillars of the church had collapsed, and Robert had to make his way around them. The man was still laughing when he arrived at the altar.

The only light in the church came from holes in the ceiling and glass-in-lead windows, and that was just faint moonlight, so Robert has a hard time making out the man’s facial features even from this close. He seemed to be malformed though.

Robert looked up at another stone angel behind the altar. It stood between two cast-iron candle holders, but since the candles were missing it wasn’t lighted the way it was supposed to. Strange shadows covered his face as red and yellow light shone in from the back, through a glass-in-lead window. It seemed demonic almost, a bigger and meaner version of the one outside. Robert shivered.

“So, what information have you got for me?”
The figure laughed again and Robert took a step back. It ceased laughing and slowly took off the hook, revealing a face that was blackish in the light with scales on it, and no ears or nose. The worst thing about it was the smile though, stretching across half his face and bearing huge sharp teeth. The trench coat slowly opened as Robert stood frozen, gaping at the creature’s face. He pulled out two nasty looking jagged swords, thick and warped, stained with dark red blood.

Several guns cocked and Robert snapped back to reality. Well, the creature was still there, but he felt he’d be able to move again and perhaps get out of there before those blades cut him in half, if that was the beast’s intention. Up where the organ had used to be were three goons, all with guns. Robert realised they wouldn’t be able to see the creature’s face clearly from where they were.

“We’ve been tailing you, Salinger” one of them said, the middle one.
“You know too much” the right one added.
“You’re a pain in the mayor’s ass” the third said. They opened fire on both men below.

1944: Lt. General Mikhail Ratkunin
Mikhail Ratkunin woke up with a terrible headache. His hand moved from beneath the sheets and tried to find the bottle of vodka he kept on the nightstand, but could find neither. He slowly opened his eyes and stared into the face of Corporal Yuri Kurpotkin, his driver. The rest of the room slowly became recognisable as well. It was an office of some sort, with a big window with blinds, a desk cluttered with battle plans, some metal coffers stacked with weapons and a couple of rickety chairs. Not much else, as the place had been abandoned for some time. Ratkunin’s uniform was draped across one of the chairs and Yuri was so kind as to give it to him and leave the room.

Ratkunin remembered now, as he put back on his uniform. They’d been driven back by the Germans, into Russian territory. They’d had to move from their old encampments to this abandoned factory. Ratkunin peered between the blinds to the factory floor below. His soldiers were down there, amongst the rusty old machines, preparing for another battle. His men, most of them wounded, all about to die. Tomorrow new recruits were going to arrive, but then again new recruits arrived pretty much every week. Most died in that first week. The frontline was no place for rookies. Ratkunin slid open the drawer of the desk and pulled out a bottle of vodka.

Breakfast.

The Corporal entered again and gently took the bottle away from the General, but it didn’t matter as he’d already had more than a quarter of it.
“We need you sharp, sir”
“I don’t remember giving you permission to enter the room again”
“I know how long you take to dress, sir”
This was true, Yuri had been Ratkunin’s driver for long enough to know just about everything about him.
“I aim better when I’m drunk” the General tried.
“Your battle plans are better when you’re not”
The General nodded. He wanted to keep the men alive. He also wanted to drink, but a man had to choose his priorities. Hans Gruber on the other side of the battle was staying very sharp indeed and his men were gaining ground.

The General sat down, thought for a while and scribbled something on a battle plan. He handed it to Yuri, patted him on the shoulder and followed him out of the office. As soon as Ratkunin appeared on the factory stairs, the whole place went silent. The men respected him, that was obvious. It was hard not to respect a man who rode into battle at the head of an army and shot Germans while hanging out of a tank while he had the choice to just sit in an office and drink tea.

“Men!” the General bellowed, and then he was quiet for a while. It was hard to think of words when you’d lost so many men just three days before. The men were silent with him. Ratkunin was sure that if someone had dropped a needle on the other side of the factory he’d have heard it.
“There’s no denying it. The Germans are closing in on old mother Russia”
The men were still silent, they were clinging to his lips.
“But we are the children of old mother Russia, and we shall not let her be pushed around like this. Sure, we lost some men, but this is war! We’ve lost ground before and gained it back tenfold! It’s only more reason to bring down the hammer on them. We’ve lost our comrades and now we will take theirs!”
The men cheered. Loudly. So loud it almost drowned out the shots, but not quite. They were coming from the outside and his men were packed together close. They’d streamed in to hear the speech, no matter how brief they knew it would be. Some of them were taking shelter behind the machines, but most were just standing in the hallways, getting slaughtered. This was no way to wage war, a lot of the men weren’t even armed, or in uniform.

The General drew his gun, but Yuri pushed him back into the office.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing, Corporal?”
“There’s no way we can win this, sir! Just look at them down there! They’re like lambs to the slaughter! The Germans have got both gates covered with machine guns and the hole in the back wall too. The only way out now is that hole in the ceiling. I’m sure we could make it if we cross the beams without anyone noticing. You know, live to fight another day, sir”
“The men’ll know. As they die down there, covered in the blood of their comrades and their own, they’ll know. They’ll know I fled, Yuri”
There was a loud blast and a whole lot of screams below. One of the jeeps parked inside the factory had been blown up. There were soldiers running around down there on fire. The place was total chaos, and the only ways out were guarded with heavy artillery, but whatever Ratkunin was going to do, he was going to have to do it now.

1948: Jarvis McArthur
He fell out of his car and rolled across the street as the bullets made a sieve out of his vehicle. No problem, he’d just crashed it anyways. He’d been on the bottle but the street wasn’t swaying back and forth so Jarvis guessed he’d be all right. He had to help his friend, didn’t he? He pulled out his gun and got up, as he’d been counting the shots and the Mafiosi wouldn’t be able to clip him as they both had to reload. He took a second to stabilize his gun but still no other shots were fired. Darrell seemed to have been hit in the leg and was lying on the porch bleeding. Jarvis had a hard time concentrating on the task at hand. He couldn’t quite focus and think, so he just let his instinct do the work. He unloaded, right where the villains were. Had been. Somehow he’d missed the sound of the screeching tiers and his vision had taken too long to be able to tell his fingers to stop in time. He’d sprayed Darrel’s house instead of the Mafiosi’s car. Someone was crying inside. Howling in pain.
“Oh ****”

A pair of fingers snapped in front of him.
“Jarvis! Jarvis, stay sharp!”
Bloody flashbacks. Getting off the booze had made Jarvis a bit too sober. He’d started thinking about stuff. It wasn’t good when people like Jarvis started thinking about things. They were the kind of people that did things.

Jarvis looked at the man in front of him. Jonathan, a rookie cop. He was holding his gun the wrong way, but Jarvis wasn’t about to tell him. He still felt the best way to find out was almost getting killed. If you survived you’d never do it again. Then again, if you didn’t you wouldn’t either. Jonathan wasn’t going with him today though, so for all Jarvis cared he might have held his gun at the wrong end. The rookie was here to show him Antonio “Jelly” Smadrone’s hideout. Jonathan had heard about it from some crooked cops and had decided this was the sort of thing Jarvis might take an interest in, and he’d been right. Jelly and Jarvis were mortal enemies and either would kill the other without a second thought.

The small wooden door inside the larger metal door of the abandoned warehouse opened and a Mafioso stepped out to have a smoke. You could tell he was a Mafioso because he was holding a Tommy gun and he was being obvious about it. No regular crook would dare to do that. Not with people like Jarvis around town.

“Look, Jarvis, I’m outta here, okay?”. Jonathan was shaking. Jarvis gave him a nod and Jonathan snuck out of there, from behind the crates they were sitting behind.

Jarvis surveyed the warehouse. Even though it was night and the surroundings were very poorly lit he could see an old drainpipe running up to the roof of the warehouse, but it was pretty close to the smoking Mafioso. Jarvis knew that the waterside lay behind the warehouse, but he didn’t know what the back (or sides for that matter) of the warehouse would look like. For either though, again, he’d have to step into the line of sight of the Mafioso. Going back to the car again and leaving didn’t seem to be an option though. Jarvis thought it over. He needed a plan, and then he needed to kill Jelly.

1989: Jonathan Wesmouth (AKA Greycap)
Somewhere in a basement in Brooklyn three computers were buzzing, shining a ghostly light on the room. It was three ‘o clock in the morning, but the machines still beeped frequently. The conversation on the screen reflected on the lone geek’s glasses.

darkBayn: that was close
greycap: too close
darkBayn: you could have pulled the plug on it
greycap: no. I was too close. I couldn’t just leave. I needed some proof
darkBayn: you actually got something??
greycap: only just. I pulled in some files. haven’t read them yet
darkBayn: well read em man. their government secrets, i bet!
greycap: yeah, yeah, I will.
-New User added to conversation-
darkBayn: is that you messing with something grey??
greycap: no, no it’s not.
acr0pha: nO, HE’s RigHT, ItS ME
greycap: acr0pha? how did you get in here? this is a private channel!
acr0pha: I’M a HAcKer, GREYCAP
acr0pha: i Saw WHat YOU diD TOdaY
darkBayn: cant you talk like a normal person??
acr0pha: NO
greycap: came over here to tell us you’re impressed?
acr0pha: NOt EXaCtlY
acr0pha: IVe gOne IN AfteR YOU
darkBayn: what?? why??
acr0pha: THoSe Poor bOYs WAnTed an ADreSS
acr0pha: IM sENDing THe FEDS oN yoU
darkBayn: your bluffing!
-acr0pha has left the conversation-
darkBayn: he is bluffing, right?
greycap: off course

Suddenly there was a clang somewhere in “Greycap’s” house. The young hacker got up and adjusted his glasses. The frame was putting too much pressure on the sides of his nose, but they hadn’t the money to pay one of a better quality. He took a sip of the huge mug of coffee he had placed beside his keyboard. It had gone cold. The last time he touched it had been at about eleven o’ clock, when he’d started his grandest hacking attempt ever. It had worked too. He had gotten into the Bureau of Federal Investigations. It had been a rather strange site, but he hadn’t had the time to look around much so he had just downloaded a random document, a small one. He needed proof to post on Usenet.

The computer bleeped some more, but Jonathan, that was Greycap’s real name, ignored it. It was the other noise that worried him, the clang. Normally his computers would be the only things making noise at this time of night. His mom tended to turn in at ten, but perhaps she got up for a glass of water? It was unlikely; she never got up at night.

Jonathan looked around the basement. He used to live upstairs, but he’d needed room for his computers and other equipment and had moved into the basement. There were old computer screens, boxes and other equipment stacked all over two of the walls, while canned goods were stacked on racks on the other two walls. Near the centre of the room stood Jonathan’s bed and next to it a closet, the only pieces of furniture besides the desk the computers were on. There was a door to the rest of the cellar, which was absolutely stuffed because everything that used to be in the rest of the cellar was moved there too, and some stairs leading up. Jonathan opened up one of the drawers of his closet and took out a baseball bat, which one of his aunts had given it to him several years before in the faint hope he’d get some exercise. Maybe acr0pha had been telling the truth. Or maybe there were burglars in the house.

Jonathan walked up the stairs and noticed his mom’s bedroom door was open.

I guess she really did get up to have a glass of water…

“Mom?”

There was no reply, but Jonathan noticed the lights were on in the kitchen. The kitchen tap seemed to be running too, he could hear it. He entered the room, bat first, and found what could only be described as a nightmare. He stood there, in that ever widening puddle of blood, and looked upon the corpse of his mother. Her throat had been slit and her stomach was a bloody mess as well. Her nightrobe was soaking in the blood and Jonathan could see through it, could see the guts poking out of her belly. She was holding a huge steak knife, which was covered in blood, but then again, so was pretty much everything in the room. A fountain of blood had rained on the ceiling, the sink, the cupboards; everywhere. Anyways, it was unlikely she managed to inflict both wounds upon herself, and why would she? She had an okay life. She wasn’t very poor and had a job at the local supermarket, she loved her son despite worrying incessantly about his flaws and constantly nagging him to get a job. Jonathan had heard her talk of a guy at work she liked. Nothing serious, but they’d go out for dinner sometimes. Jonathan would tease her about her boyfriend and she would reply that at least she went out there and looked for someone. Alfred, Jonathan thought his name was. He’d seen him once or twice.

Oh, god, how can I be thinking about stuff like that! She’s dead!

He took a step back, out of the blood, but it kept advancing on him. Something had to have killed her. Someone. There was another clang, even more silent this time. It had come from the living room, which was adjacent to the kitchen. It also held the only two doors out of the house: the front door and the wide glass door to the backyard. All the living room contained to hide behind were some couches and a television, but it didn’t really matter as Jonathan’s eyes couldn’t penetrate the dark anyways and the light switches to the living room were at the front door.

1995: Richard Dillen (AKA Leviathan)

“Faster than a laser bullet
Louder than an atom bomb
Chromium plated boiling metal
Brighter than a thousand suns

Flying high on rapture
Stronger free and brave
Nevermore encaptured
They've been brought back from the grave

With mankind resurrected
Forever to survive
Returns from Armageddon to the skies

He is the Painkiller
This is the Painkiller
Wings of steel Painkiller
Deadly wheels Painkiller”

“All right that was Painkiller by Judas Priest here on Metal Masters, all metal, all the time! Yeah!”

Judas Priest was okay, but Richard knew his band was better, or more to his own liking at least. He should have just shoved some of the tapes he held in the glove compartment in the radio. Richard still had a tape recorder. It was the nostalgia, he supposed. He turned down the radio. Something was bothering him. Suddenly, he realised what it was.

“****, not again…” he mumbled as he pulled the car over on a muddy car park. The car park was pretty much empty except for an abandoned trailer and some public toilets you could smell a mile off. Richard slammed open the door, got out and dragged the shovel out of the back of the car. It was a full moon tonight and the spooky light shone down on the highway. Even the highway seemed to be empty. Richard had passed some trucks ten minutes ago but nothing since then. It was good there was no-one around.

Richard popped the trunk and looked at the scantily clad lady inside. She was wearing a jeans miniskirt and a very revealing torn shirt. Her hair had been dyed black but you could see she’d been a blonde. There were some piercings on her face and one in her bellybutton. She wasn’t wearing any shoes and her nails had been dyed black as well. She’d lost her shoes back at the gig. She was a groupie and had been willing to do quite a lot for Richard. This was what little she hadn’t been willing to do. Richard had dragged her out of the backstage and into his car. He’d stopped somewhere, bound and gagged her and stuffed her into his trunk. She’d been banging her head into the trunk to open it. It had been an annoying sound, dreadful as Richard drove the car, turning the radio higher and higher to drown it out. It hadn’t been the sound itself that had been so annoying, Richard had driven a wreck of a car before he was famous that made more noise all the time, but it was knowing where it came from that bothered Richard.

Her head was bleeding from the incessant banging and she looked up at Richard with puppy dog eyes. He turned away and stared at the moon a bit. The two trucks raced by in the background.

“You know,” he said, “it’s not clever to go backstage all alone. These guys might be in a band, but that doesn’t mean you know who they are or that you can trust them! It’s really just not… clever”

“Look, it’s not as if I do this all the time! Once every three months, that’s it, and I hardly ever have to get the sacrifices myself. It was just my turn, that’s all. You were just… in the wrong place at the wrong time, okay? It’s just, not clever, that’s all…”

He turned and swung the shovel hardly without looking at her. One muffled whomp and she was unconscious. Richard closed the trunk again and was tucking away the bloody shovel when he heard wheels plowing through the mud. He looked up and saw a cop car.

Just what I needed…

The car parked and the cop got out. He was alone. The cop held his flashlight next to his head and pointed it at Richard’s car.

“Sir, what are you doing here at this time of night? I saw you doing something in your trunk and stuffing away an axe or a shovel?”

Richard didn’t have the time for this, he needed to get the sacrifice to the boathouse where the rest of the cultists were waiting for him in an hour, and that meant he had to leave about now.

2009: Luca Molino (AKA Luke)
Luke sat down in the couch he had just lugged up five flights of stairs. He was covered in sweat, but that wasn’t really much of a surprise after a day of work plus helping the new neighbour move in. Arthur Campbell, as that was his new neighbour’s name, was apparently a man who liked technology. Most of the boxes Luke had dragged up the stairs contained various computer equipment and other things of that nature Luke didn’t quite understand. The man owned surprisingly little “normal” furniture such as, say, a nightstand or a closet and surprisingly much monitors, wiring, tubing, antennae and all kinds of technological innovations.

“You’re not going to do anything illegal or dangerous with this stuff, are you?”
“Oh, no,” said the silver haired Mr. Campbell, “I don’t hope so. Would you like a drink? I’m sure you’re thirsty, after such Herculean efforts”
“Sure”

Mr. Campbell took a can of coca-cola out of the welcoming packet the other inhabitants of the apartment had given him and handed it to Luke.

“My equipment should not give you any problems or noise hinder, Mr. Molino, you shouldn’t worry about that”
“I wasn’t exactly talking about noise hinder. Some of that stuff looked outright dangerous”
“I’m sure it is, Mr. Molino, in less capable hands. Or in more capable hands perhaps. It all depends on your point of perspective, I suppose”
Luke took another big gulp of the can of cola as Don wandered in. Don was Luke’s elderly upper neighbour and a painter. His real name was Donald Richardson, but everyone in the building knew him as Don.

“Ah, hello sir, can I help you?” Mr. Campbell asked, slightly startled at the sight of Don in his slippers and white coat with paint stains.
“Huh? Oh, no, I just came over to greet the new tenant. That is you, isn’t it?”
“Why yes, my name is Arthur. Arthur Campbell. Pleased to meet you”
Arthur extended a hand to Don, but the painter took some time to realise it was there. He finally grabbed it and shook it enthusiastically.
“Donald. Donald Richardson, but you can call me Don. Welcome, Arthur!”
Arthur withdrew his hand and smiled slightly.
“I’m going to begin installing my computers now, but feel free to stick around”
Mr. Campbell started rummaging through the boxes and soon dug up a monitor and a big metal box that vaguely resembled a computer. As he plugged it in, all sorts of lights lit up, even on some material still in the boxes.

Don slowly made his way to Luke and sat down next to him on the couch. He fumbled in his pockets for a while but eventually pulled out a newspaper.
“Have you read this, Luke?” he said, indicating a specific article and passing it to Luke.

Russian Circus Sirkowski in Town!
For the first time in fourteen years circus Sirkowski is in town again! The last performance Sirkowski gave in San Francisco, or anywhere in the states for that matter, had the audience absolutely in awe, but was cancelled after only a few shows despite being sold out for more than a month. Sirkowski decided not to return to America until now, the reasons for which are unknown. Many of us who can remember Sirkowski’s last visit are absolutely thrilled they are returning and it is suspected tickets will be sold out as soon as Sunday.
Sirkowski stated that they have prepared a completely new show which will stun and amaze even more than their last performance. When senior citizen Harold Block was asked about their visit in 1995 he had this to say: “Sirkowski’s was the biggest event of the year for anyone in San Francisco, people even came all the way from New York to see it! After watching the first show I immediately bought tickets for the next week, but I never got to see it twice off course. As I recall that show had everything. Trained bears, vicious lions, death-defying acrobats, a man who could bend a steel beam, fire breathers, magicians, jugglers and the funniest clowns you’ve ever seen! And yes, sir, I definitely am buying tickets for this year’s show, but I really hope they’ll give me one for free because I still have the old one somewhere!”

“You’re going to go to the circus?” Luke asked, somewhat surprised.
“No, no, I made a painting about it, but I ran out of red… Couldn’t find enough red. Dreadful”
“Oh”
“Want to see the painting?”
“Sure. Mr. Campbell, I’ll be seeing you around, okay?”
There were some vague noises from under a bunch of computer equipment and wires, and Luke assumed Mr. Campbell was okay with him leaving. He followed Don.

As they walked up the stairs Luke could see splashes of red paint on the stairwell.
“Did you spill paint?”
“No, no, that’s part of the painting”
Luke was surprised, but he still followed Richardson. Don’s floor was worse: he had splashed red paint on other people’s doors and put red hand and foot marks on the walls and ceiling. His room was the pinnacle though, as the whole room had been painted red, even the windows and the furniture.
“I got the idea when reading the article, Luke, I just couldn’t help myself…”
At the centre of the floor there was a large splash of dark red paint, which had been sued as the background of a thin red silhouette. Only the face seemed to be distinguishable, as the rest of the man was sort of a blob. It seemed to be a weathered face, an old face with stern eyes. His hands, Luke supposed they were hands, were dripping and one of them seemed to be holding something that resembled a gun, while the other held a piece of string, or chain, with… a clock attached to it? In the middle of the silhouette, where his heart should be, there was the vague drawing of a key. Don noticed Luke staring at the painting.
“It was the paint that did that, Luke, I swear I didn’t mean it to turn out that way… I ran out of paint, Luke, I’ve never run out of paint…”
The old man started crying.

[Niasen]

Jarvis knew that even though he was sober and might be able to climb that drainpipe, he wasn't very sure that it'd be able to support his sorry self up there, especially while having to worry about being silent for the other mafioso's...though unless Jelly got tipped off somehow, it'd take a foot through the roof or a curse to probably get them to believe its anything other than a flying rat or somethin. But since there's always that one nervous new guy with an itchy finger just waitin to pop his cherry with good old tommy boy, it'd be better to be silent as a nun.
Damnit, what he'd give to have his partner back, he couldn't trust Jonathan not on this but Darrel knew how to do these stints as if they were simply conning the mafioso's for loose change...Jarvis shook his head and stopped that line of thinking. Darrel hadn't forgiven him for crashing into his car, much less the other incident...probably never would. God he could use a dri..-wait a second.
"Hello hello...?" Jarvis goes back to his car and finds some left over food which had begun to stink from an old stakeout...for once his bad habit of forgetting to clean after a bounty stake-out would save his ass. He began to rub it over his clothing, making himself stink a bit and look grouty, he then practiced his hobble. A groveling sort of limp that only wino's or ex-wino's truly could do. He then mussed up his hair a bit...as much as the gel would allow anyway. Blooody gel, might mess the whole thing up...better look for some gutter water He thinks. He takes a soda pop, the stuff he's been drinkin since he went clean, and quickly bags it in one of the bags from his left over food, hopin that in the darkness the mafioso won't notice the chinese label on it.
He then proceeds to make himself invisible by making himself a drunk wino, or at least impersonating a quiet one, taking a swig once in a while from the empty bottle to add effect. Its not a hard impersonation, not so long ago he WAS one, and not a very happy one to boot. He knew that the mafioso wouldn't shoot on account of a wino, probably wouldn't even look twice. Worst he would do would come up and mess him up with his fists or a blackjack...which is something Jarvis almost hoped he would do.
Short of the guy coming up to him, he slowly starts crossing the line of sight of the mafioso, impersonating the wino but a bit of a ways and in the dark if he can manage it, hoping to get around.

[The Necroswanso]

SON OF A ***%^$!!! I cannot deal with this right now..
"Good evening officer."
Though on the outside Richard was trying to be as calm as possible, on the inside he might as well have been covered in flaming ticks. Interesting thought that... if he got out of this he might have to write a song along those lines.
"Just a little last minute work for my mother. She moved to her new house today and she needed me to bring some ond blankets and a grand deal of laundry. Gardening gear and the like. Some had moved loose of it's packaging and I had to get it back into order, makig nosie and all."
Your mother's BMW made more nosie! Why didn't you just keep driving!
Thank god I didn't drink tonight.
A low clincking noise signified Richard wiping some sweat from his forhead.
He's alone, hopefully he's flying solo tonight, if I'm lucky, he'll turn around, if not, I can hope atleast another car doesn't show up.
A boathouse of all places, that's new atleast.

[Voshkod]

Lt. General Mikhail Ratkunin

Ratkunin looked at the scene and shook his head sadly. After coming so far . . . . He chambered a round in his pistol and turned to his driver. "Yuri, my friend, it's already too late. If I run now, the chekists will kill me. If I stand my ground, the Germans will. I suppose I could save them all the trouble by putting one in my own head, but I owe them more then that."

He went to the door. The Germans had the place locked down. Gruber was good. Better then I am, that's for sure, he thought sadly. Well, time to give the devil his due.

He stepped out where his soldiers could see him, where everyone could see him. "What are you waiting for, you sons of bitches, for the German to cut you down like pigs in the pen?," he bellowed in a voice that carried across battlefields. "Follow me, follow me, follow me for Russia, for Stalin, for your families, follow me!" He leapt down, firing his Makarov at the nearest German, and led a concerted rush toward the enemy machine guns. "For Lena!," he cried, charging the blazing German guns, charging for daylight and open ground, charging for that final redemption he craved, never looking back to see if anyone was following.

[ForzaFiori]

Bólnautr Skoftason

Bólnautr stepped into the circle drawn in the dirt, sizing up his opponent. Morrickson was an ox of a man, one of the strongest in the clan. Thankfully, he was slow, the muscle weighing him down. Bólnautr decided that he would take the defensive, allowing Morrickson to tire himself out trying to hit him. He was confident in his ability to avoid most blows, and to be able to take the few that would hit. If there was an opening, he'd take it though. How he wished he had his spear and shield though. He would make mincemeat out of the man in a few quick minutes. But hopes are something that people cannot have in combat. He stayed back as the fight commenced, raising his hands into a ready position, staying low. As Morrickson swung, he ducked low, feinting to his right, as would be expected, then moving quickly to the left to land a heavy blow to Morrickson's unprotected side, aiming for his kidneys. He continued this way, dodging, looking for opening and landing punches where he could. As Morrickson tired he went on the offensive, landing quick blows. He hoped he could soon be done with this fight.

[Lonna]

Taira Itagaki

In seconds, the sacred ground where Itagaki's mother had been laid to rest became a battleground- no, not a battleground but a place of slaughter. This demon, with its mesmerizing jewel and its strange weapon, had defiled her mother's grave. Fear and anger surged within Itagaki as her father rushed at the beast, pushing aside the grief that had consumed her moments ago and leaving less evidence on her face. Yet though she stood a handful of paces from the being responsible, it had already proven it could kill at a distance, and even her father was struck down.

Standing there, wondering if she dared reach for the kaiken concealed at her waist, two things happened. First her mind, busy replaying the last few seconds, presented an oddity: The demon, so human in appearance (quite unlike the legends which described them as monstrous animals in whole or in part), had seemed first surprised, then afraid. Had it been summoned against its will? If so, she could use that.

The second thing that happened was that Itagaki heard her father whimper in pain. Shame that he dishonored himself by crying out in pain fought relief that he yet lived. "Be still, Father," she said quietly, a hint of pleading in her voice. "The demon may yet leave us."

Meeting the being's eyes through the rain for the first time, Itagaki was surprised to find that like the rest of the demon, they seemed remarkably human. This, together with the fact that she knew her father could hear her, bolstered her resolve. "Demon-san, I do not know why you have come, but if you must kill us then do so quickly so that we may die honorably. If you do not intend to kill us, however, I, Taira Itagaki, will tend to my father's wounds."

She wasn't sure whether the demon could understand her, but it didn't really matter. Either it would kill her or it wouldn't. Regardless, she had a duty to tend to her father, and though she burned to follow bushido and take vengeance on the demon that had slain so many and defiled sacred ground, there was nothing she could reasonably do at the moment. This too was part of bushido, Kenpachi-sensei had taught her, for what good is a blow that does not strike its target? Better to die with honor while doing one's duties than with shame for failing an impossible task.

[HardboiledJJ]

The hot sun wrenched sweat from his brow as Jonathan envisioned the coming seconds. Dueling is a dance of death: an intricate choreography of a dozen moves within a heartbeat. Three facing him, four not. Most without weapons drawn yet. Same old dance, and nothing all too difficult. Nothing too difficult, except for the gnawing pit in his heart that wanted to keep Avenger alive.

No. Not Avenger, dammit! Jake. His name was Jake. And he deserved better than this.

He could take The Butcher and the bounty hunter with his cross draw. But Avenger. . .Jake. . .was too fast, too good-not to be accounted for. Even as the solution presented itself, it only fed the sickening gnawing within. Rage. It had driven him to be the threat he was, but it would make him careless.

"Well now, wouldn't Jeremy be so proud of baby brother. Letting a whole posse of mongrels handle your fight for you? I expected better, but I guess cowardice must just run down the Gable family tree."

Pangs of guilt struck when he saw how deeply those words hit. While the young man wasted all of half a second gnashing his teeth, Jonathan had already put lead in the other two targets, then turned his stance to the side, narrowing himself as a target. He held his breath to aim the next shot, and felt his mouth go dry as Avenger's bullet struck deep in his left shoulder.

This is stupid. . .should just kill him. . .

Releasing his breath, Jonathan shot the gun out of Jake's hand. The boy howled. No permanent damage, but at least he was out of this fight.

Charlie's rifle barked with trained ease, and the old scout knew how to make the most of his cover in the shack. Jonathan had ample chance to jump on his horse and ride, but there was no way he could leave his friend to die. He opened a deadly crossfire into Charlie's targets.

As soon as the killing was done he planned to offer Jake what apologies he could, but really only expected to get spit on in return. He could at least try to get Charlie to town though. Meanwhile his head raced with the deeper implications of what might be behind this.

[Hairb]

Salinger made a dash for the nearest pile of rubble, drawing his pistol and firing a shot at the closest of the three gunmen as he ran. He didn't bother looking back to see who he'd hit, or if he'd missed entirely. He'd worry about that once he had something solid between him and the hired goons.
That'll give 'em something to think about, he thought. It was the first shot he had fired at a man in 10 years and it felt...strange. Strange to be struggling for his life without shells bursting around him, strange to think that the "Man's life in the US Marines" that he'd signed up for in 1917 wasn't over by a long shot.
Salinger took stock of his situation. He was crouched behind a few slabs of masonry piled perhaps 5 feet high and not quite twice as long. 5 rounds left in the 1911, and he doubted anyone working for the mayor would have the good manners to let him reload. And of course, that hooded thing.
"You think I got time to worry about McDowell's haemorroids? I'm too busy dealing with the cut-rate help he keeps hiring!"
As Salinger spoke, he carefully unbuckled his belt, making sure the clasp didn't make a sound. Removing the belt, he folded the leather strap in half and then half again. If that isn't stiff enough, I'm out of luck. Gingerly balancing his hat at the end of belt, he then cocked his pistol and got into a crouch where he was more ready to move.
The old helmet-on-a-stick trick, he thought, and grinned to himself in the gloom. Dummies shoot the hat, I shoot the dummies. He poked the hat up over the left side of the rubble heap and made ready to spring to the right and open fire.

[Tricycle_Knight]

Isma'il

Isma'il pauses his prayers for just a moment, seeing if maybe he can catch a quick glance at the person or persons at his door through his window. It proves futile, and he resumes his prayers.

"Just a moment, please. I need to finish my prayers. If you could come back in a few minutes, I would be more than happy to let you inside."

He finishes his final words of praise to Allah, and slowly rises from his mat and rolls it up, careful to upset his weak knee. He throws a clean robe over his stained clothes and walks over to the door, making sure his saber is at his side. He opens the door and welcomes in his guests.

"My apologies. Please come in, friend."

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Spoiler

Show

Wow. That walked Eirene into a nasty situation, and one that her personality makes worse for her. Cool. I hope you have a back-up plan here...

Ειρηνη

Eirene turns away from Polemon, her face set. When she speaks, her voice is firm and confident, yet the elderly man detects a slight hint of sadness to her tone.

"You are indeed correct, honorable one. I cannot win this. Yet if my people choose to unite against me, let them, for I will not do Sparta the disservice of fleeing from her after all she has done for me. Live or die, I am dishonored by my people, but fleeing the hemlock will only stir hatred within my own breast."

She swings open the door, and a faint whisper carries out on the wind.

"But thank you for trying, Polemon."

[lilomar]

Johnathan Wesmouth

Johnathan fumbles with a drawer looking for a flashlight.

"There is no way I'm going in there without a light." he thinks to himself. When he doesn't find one, he curses under his breath.

"Great, just what I need, who knows where Mom put the..."
That's when it hit him again.

"Mom's dead. Mom's dead. Mom's dead." the mantra running through his head is unsettling, to say the least. So he slips into a light trance, clearing his mind and forcing himself to focus on the task at hand.

"Who did this? Possibilities. Feds? No, they couldn't have gotten here this quickly, and why would they murder his mother? Acr0pha? Unlikely, he wouldn't have the nerve to do something this heinous in real space. And he was just online." Johnathan mentally changes the "unlikely" to "no" and moves on. "A burglar? More likely, as a matter of fact, much more likely than anyone after either Johnathan or his mother, she probably just got up to get a drink after all."
"Mom is.."

"Shut up. Ok, Johnathan, what are we going to do now?"

"Downstairs. Telephone. Call the cops. Lock the basement door."

Having formulated a plan of action, Johnathan begins slowly moving towards the stairs to act on it.

[MrEdwardNigma]

459 B.C. : Ειρηνη Νικηφορος (Eirene Nikephoros)
Eirene refused to come. She would not suffer the embarassement of having to flee from her beloved Sparta.

Polemon grabbed her arm, but not too tightly.
"Eirene, please, they will condemn you to the cup. Can't you see this isn't a fair trail? We need to flee Sparta, if only for now. While we are gone Thetima will be able to look into it. She will gather evidence to absolve you. They've only given you a day, you will never be able to prepare your case enough in that time"
He let her go.

"Please, go inside and pack. Only take the bare necessities"

857: Bólnautr Skoftason
Bólnautr let Morrickson chase him around the ring, tiring him. The crowd was yelling angrily, eager for a fight. The crowd would get what it wanted: Bólnautr had seen an opening. He dived in and landed several bunches in the huge Morrickson's side. The giant grunted.

Bólnautr soon saw another chance, and dived in again. Three more punches, another grunt but this time an actual reaction. Bólnautr hadn't seen it coming. The punch hit him like an anvil. Bólnautr fell on his stomach, in the sand of the circle. One punch, and he was down...
This he couldn't allow. He could see the giant's shadow on the sand, looming over him. The crowd was booing him.

1187: Isma'il Jal al-Hakam
"Just a moment, please. I need to finish my prayers. If you could come back in a few minutes, I would be more than happy to let you inside" Isma'il said, in the faint hope the stranger would wait. It was too late already though, as the man stepped into the house.

The first thing Isma'il noted about this strange apparison was the coat. It was rugged, it was leather and it reached down all the way to his dirty booted feet. The coat looked like it had seen a lot of action and had stains and scratches all over, as did the man, who was covered in scars. Most of his face was obscured by the broadrimmed leather hat he was wearing, but his mouth was visible, a cigar in it's corner. The coat swung aside as he grabbed a long, oddly shaped metal shaft and pointed the end at Isma'il, all this without speaking a word.

1279: Taira Itagaki
Itagaki knelt and helped her bleeding father. His wounds were bad and he had passed out, but he would live to see another day. Most of the other injured most likely would not though.

The demon looked surprised at Itagaki's actions. His mumbled something ununderstandable and ran off, away from Itagaki and in the opposite direction of where the others had run. Itagaki knew he was running towards Jushiro Mayuri's lands.

1890: Jonathan Morris
One second they had all just been standing there, the next was total chaos. Charlie gunned down Johnny Irish as the Kaizo brothers ran into the house. Jonathan's guns barked and only a moment later the Avenger hit him in the shoulder. The taunts had made him mad. Seriously mad. Jonathan saw the huge black man move toward the house too. The cover fire from Charlie had ceased.

Jonathan winged the Avenger, both guns at once. A terribly hard shot, but still possible for him.

Three foes, taken out. On to the other three. Wait, what's that?

The bountyhunter got up again. Jonathan had been sure he'd hit him. Before he could even react the bountyhunter had drawn that huge, strange gun. It went off with a poof. In a rush of adrenalin Jonathan jumped down and he felt the projectile swoosh past his back. He landed in the dust. Heavily.

His horse had been skewered, quite literally. There was a huge shaft of metal sticking out of the beast. The blast seemed to have blown the beast away for several yards.

The Avenger laughed, despite his hands hurting like hell. The bountyhunter didn't show the slightest bit of emotion. He just dropped the gun and pulled out his two colts again.

1928: Robert Lester Salinger (AKA Doc)
As Salinger ducked behind the rubble and shot one of the three men, the cloaked creature didn't move. It just stood there, as bullets rained down on it, ricoched off, only tearing his robes. Salinger held up his hat and leaped out as it was blown away. He took out another one of the three men.

The beast roared and ran towards the last of the men who was still standing. He ran straight for him, ignoring the fact that the man was up much higher. He leapt and bowed down over the man. Salinger couldn't quite see what was happening, but there were screams. As the beast stood again the man had been reduced to a torn corpse. His huge, jagged swords were now covered in fresh blood. He turned to face Salinger, but had some trouble finding him.

Good thing I'm behind all this rubble...

1944: Lt. General Mikhail Ratkunin
"What are you waiting for, you sons of bitches, for the German to cut you down like pigs in the pen? Follow me, follow me, follow me for Russia, for Stalin, for your families, follow me!" Ratkunin screamed as he and those of his men that could still walk ran out into the thunder of the machine guns.

"For Lena!"

His comrades were swat down like flies, and only he and three others made it up to the machine guns, where he shot the German operating it and turned it on the rest of them. A short burst of machinegunfire, Germans falling in a bloody mess, two thuds and then... blackness.

Ratkunin woke up with a terrible headache what could have been moments later, but maybe longer. He was tied to a chair in a bunker. A bunker that had been his before the Germans drove him back. The walls were covered in strange items. Warped skulls, dreamcatchers, carved wooden statues, shrunken heads and a single shining samurai blade, which had been placed on Ratkunin's old desk. There were shlagers playing softly on a recordplayer.

"Good morning, Herr General"

Morning? Had he been out that long?

"You are probably wondering why I have let you live" said Gruber. He adjusted his spectacles. They made him look like a huge fly.
"You are probably wondering why I had my men drag you out of that huge pile of corpses and then personally saw to it you got the best medical care available, better even then my own men. Then again, you might not be. Maybe, Herr General, you already know why you still live. Not for me to gloat over my victory, that's for sure. I am not a petty man"

Gruber paused and adjusted his glasses again. He seemed rather nervous.

"Very well, no need to stall then, I suppose"

He nodded towards one of the two armed guards Ratkunin could see. There might have been more behind him, but he couldn't turn around due to the chair. The guard stepped up to a curtain that had been thrown across a large object near the wall. It wasn't anything that had been there before, Ratkunin knew that much.

The soldier pulled down the curtain and stepped aside. Underneath it was the most grotesque body the General had ever seen. It had a gaping hole in it's trunk and several scorch marks, but that wasn't the bad part. The bad part were the greenish scales. The bad part were the huge claws on the thing. Then again, everything about the creature was huge. The most horrible part though was the face. That too was covered in scales. It had no nose or ears, and the eyes were like small black coals. It's mouth ran across half his face and bore huge teeth. It was frozen in a perpetual smile. On it's arm was a leather bracelet with a huge, egg shaped and amber coloured stone in it which had a strange appeal to Ratkunin.

"We found these among your soldiers, General, as you will probably know. Our bullets had no effect on them and we had to use... heavier artillery to kill them. One of them even survived that. We have him in holding now, but he refuses to talk to us. They were dressed in Russian uniforms, General. Some sort of supersoldier project perhaps?"

((The Germans have taken everything you had from you, aside from your uniform and boots. Two bullets have been extracted from your body and your chest is covered in bandages. Breathing is still a problem))

1948: Jarvis McArthur
For a while the mafioso didn't seem to notice Jarvis. Eventually he saw him though. Jarvis looked absolutely horrible in this guise, but he knew that. It was the effect he was going for, a mixture of disgust and pity. The precise two things that both kept someone at a distance and stopped them from shooting you.

"Hey, you. Yeah, I'm talking to you" the gangster yelled, waving his Tommy gun is Jarvis' direction.
"You need to get outta here, right now. It's gonna be dangerous here tonight, okay? If you know what's best for you, you'd better turn around and leave. It's for your own good, man"

Jarvis hesitated. He was still too far away to jump the guy, but he couldn't just leave either, could he? Jelly was in there, that bastard. Now that he ahd the chance, Jarvis has to bring him down.

1989: Jonathan Wesmouth (AKA Greycap)
Jonathan slowly went down the stairs after locking the door and started going down the stairs. In the basement he took the telephone and tried to call the police. Unfortunately, almost simultaneously as he picked up the horn, it went dead. He quickly turned to his computer.

greycap: I need you to call the cops
darkBayn: are you kidding??
greycap: no. someone's in my house. my mom is dead. the phoneline is dead
darkBayn: oh, c'mon, the fbi wouldn't do that! you can't fool me that easily, greycap
greycap: I don't think it's the FBI. please call the cops. please
darkBayn: all right, but it's gonna be an anonymous call. for all i know you're acropha hacking into greycaps account to trick me
greycap: I have better security than that, darkBayn
darkBayn: i thought so, yeah, but this sounds a lot like a joke. i'll go call in a telephone cell. bye
-darkBayn has left the conversation-

Jonathan sat down clenching the bat tightly and waited.
He checked his clock every few minutes.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the upstairs door.

"Hello? Are you down there? This is agent Kowalski, please open up the door"

1995: Richard Dillen (AKA Leviathan)
"Good evening officer"
Richard looked nervous. The cop raised an eyebrow.
"Just a little last minute work for my mother. She moved to her new house today and she needed me to bring some ond blankets and a grand deal of laundry. Gardening gear and the like. Some had moved loose of it's packaging and I had to get it back into order, makig noise and all"

"Could you please open up your trunk, sir?"

A lonely car drove by on the highway and it's headlights briefly illuminated the scene. The cop's hand was on his gunholster, Richard now saw. The car was gone, darkness again, except for that flashlight shining into Richard's eyes.

"Sir, your trunk? Please open it"

[Niasen]

Gotta keep this hired goon comin towards me before I can nail the bastard...hmm what would a drunk, oh hell who am I kidding, what would I have done seeing a gun toting mafioso? Scratch that...I woulda been suicidal and tried to take him on. How about thi-WHOA!!
While thinking for a bit in the guise of a drunken gauze, Jarvis actually manages to trip and fall on his own two feet, which is fine since he's pretending to be a drunk, but embarrasing none the less. Getting up he suddenly thinks of an idea...stupid, idiotic, and probably would get either him killed or inside...both reasonable options.

Looking up directly at the Mafioso with a friendly smile on his face and speaking in his best drunkenese from the ground, Jarvis starts formulating options "Shway buddy...You sheem a fine deshh...deshh..good sort of guy...I csan't seem to fshind my feet. For a neeip of the ssstufff wyould ya help me fyind my way *hic* back to...back to...somewhere I won'ts get yelleds at?"

All a while Jarvis keeps thinking Thats right you son of a bitch, look at the funny old drunk who can't hurt ya. You got a tommygun so why don't you go help or ruff up the stupid coot, couldn't hurt right? No need to do anything drastic or even tell anybody else. Don't want to look stupid in front of your friends or have that nutjob come and ruin your cover by actually SHOOTING the guy...come on, I'm patient, take your time with your decision.

[The Necroswanso]

&*%^$#! Should have made up a better lie. Oh well. A man's gotta do, what a man's gotta do.
"Ofcourse officer."
Nervously Richard opened the trunk. He lifted the lid slowly. He kept an eye on the police officer, waiting to get behind him if he stepped closer to the trunk.

[ForzaFiori]

Bólnautr Skoftason

Bólnautr laid on the ground, seeing the large man's shadow above him. He waits for the attack he knows is coming, and rolls to the side to avoid it, kicking out at the man's legs as the attack comes, hoping to take him off balance. If punches wont work, then he'll land him in the dirt and kick him Bólnautr thought. He HAD to go on this mission, to rescue Vladis. A new fire goes on in Bólnautr's eyes, adrenaline flooding his body, his movements becoming quicker, more precise. He rises, kicking out at legs. As punches are thrown, he sidesteps, then moves in against the back legs, pulling the out stretched arm, and giving quick jabs to the kidneys and swift kicks to the back and side of the knee. Bólnautr quickly lets go of his civilized self, falling into animal-like instincts, doing whatever needed to get Morrickson on the ground, then kicking into ribs and the head and face when he falls.

[HardboiledJJ]

Jonathan ate dirt as he threw himself onto the barren ground. The scorched earth greedily devoured the blood trickling from his shoulder.

Oh. . .holy. . .crap. . .

Amidst Avenger's macabre laughter, a hundred thoughts at once rushed through Jonathan's mind.

What the hell caliber is that? ****, does shootin' a bigass rail of steel even qualify for a caliber? And body armor too! Gotta be. . .

Shaking his head, he pulled his wits together. He quickly rolled to get the bounty hunter back in his line of sight. His shoulder rewarded him with sharp stabs of pain as he regained his footing.

Don't have time for this. . .Gotta go help Charlie. . .

Jonathan scanned his Winchester behind him in the mess that had once been his horse. Just as far ahead of him, the Butcher's shotgun lay amidst the fat man's grisley remains.

Wish I had a bigger caliber of my own. . .but the hell if I'll just give ol' Scar pot shots. . .and the hell if I'll leave Redknife on his own. . .

A lonely breeze whistled across the killing grounds. Jonathan's long coat fluttered as he began strafing towards the shack. And likewise, towards the Butcher. His wound would not forgive him another attempt to disarm, so instead he fired away-the rounds firing in a staccato rythm until the hammers fell on empty chambers. He placed them high, hoping they might stagger his quarry-or maybe one might catch the unarmored area of the bountyhunter's head.

Heh, wish in one hand. . . But I knocked you down once you bastard, and the next time I do-I'm gonna play dentist with some buckshot!

[Voshkod]

Lt. General Mikhail Ratkunin

Ratkunin took a deep breath, trying to ignore the thing for a moment. He listened for the rattle that might tell him something, that a lung had been nicked, that he would die. Nothing. Damn. Clean shots. I'm going to live, but I'm a dead man. The full realization of his status made the rest of it easy.

He took a good look at the thing and uttered a mortal curse in Russian. Oh, Comrade Stalin, what have you been doing? Is that what is left of those sent to Kolyma?

He coughed, spat out some blood on the floor, and kept his silence.

[Hairb]

Oh God. That thing's unstoppable!

Robert put the revolver back in his shoulder holster and felt around for the largest rock or piece of rubble that he could hold in his hand. Without leaving his crouch, he spun it along the floor over towards the church's doors, hoping to distract the creature long enough to make it into the sacristy unseen.

[Lonna]

Taira Itagaki

Itagaki watched the demon flee for a moment, puzzled. Was it really a demon? It looked like no demon she had heard of, though it was not impossible for a demon to appear human. It behaved like no demon she had heard of, aside from it's sudden appearance and effortless killing spree. But even the way it killed didn't fit any demon she knew, for they all killed with teeth, claws or poison, not a metal tool, and almost never from a distance. And it had clearly been afraid when the warriors attacked, but why would a demon be afraid of simple warriors, many of them already wounded? Yet it fled toward lands belonging to the Jushiro clan. Was it simply running from the carnage? Or was it returning to its master?

It didn't matter, Itagaki decided. Her duty was clear. The first order of business: Getting her father to safety. She didn't dare drag him, for fear of worsening his injuries, but lying there unconscious, he looked oddly small and frail - small enough that she thought she might be able to carry him. I've carried rice bags for years, this should be no different, Itagaki told herself as she carefully slid her arms under her father's crumpled form.

{{I'm assuming nothing/no-one either hinders or helps her.}}

It was nothing like carrying a bag of rice. No one cares if a bag of rice twists or jolts around. With each staggering step, her father's head jerked sharply or his torso twisted to expose his open wounds, and with each breath he seemed to get heavier and harder to grip. Yet somehow she carried him across the field, stopping only once to shift her grip. As she pushed through the trees, trying not bump her father, she called to Rukia, knowing she was with the carriage somewhere ahead.

"Rukia! Come quickly, Father is hurt!"

"Itagaki-sama?"

Itagaki looked up to see where Rukia's voice was coming from.

[MrEdwardNigma]

857: Bólnautr Skoftason
Bólnautr rose quickly and started an offence with new strength, kicking and jabbing at the huge Morrickson who was too slow to follow. Bruises showed up all over his skin, but still the giant kept trying to follow Bólnautr. He knew he only needed one punch, but he didn't get it. Two more jabs from behind to his legs and the giant sunk to his knees. Knowing Morrickson had been defeated, Bólnautr placed his foot on the giant's head and pushed it down into the sand. The village elder counted to ten, but all could see Morrickson was not about to get up again. The people cheered, as they were happy Bólnautr had won. Not because they liked him better than Morrickson, but because the giant would be of more use in rebuilding the village.

Sweaty and tired Bólnautr exited the ring and his friend Arngier entered the ring, tapping Bólnautr's shoulder as he passed.
"Do not worry, I will win this battle and travel with you, friend"

Bólnautr sat down next to Arngier's weapons, taking his own weapons up again. The villagers cheered as the two fresh fighters entered the ring and greeted each other vaguely. Arngier dived at the man, both landing in the sand in a cloud of dust. Bólnautr smiled. It looked like this would be an easy win for his friend. His smile soon faded, as the dust faded and he stared right into the eyes of Alfarin Snorrason on the other side of the ring. The two gave each other some hateful looks, and soon Bólnautr realised the fight was over, as Arngier sat down next to him.
"Did you win?"
Arngier smiled.
"Yes, yes I did"
"Good, good"

Bólnautr and Arngier went to Bólnautr's home to look upon the ruins once more. They had seen enough fighting that day. The earth was scorched and covered is rocks that used to make up the walls of Bólnautr's and Valdis' house. There were splashes of blood on one of the rocks.

Bólnautr sat down and stared at the remains for a bit. After a while he felt Arngier's hand on his shoulder.
"Let us return to the others, they must be done by now. I can hear the cheering in the distance"

Indeed, four others were waiting for Arngier and Bólnautr. The first was Gerhald, the blacksmith's apprentice. He was a young lad, but he could handle himself with a sword and he knew his weaponery. He would probably be able to make some basic repairs too, if necessary, so he was a welcome member of the group. His hair was red and his face covered in freckles. While he was skinny, he was still quite muscular.

The next was Snorri, an older man and a skilled hunter. His shield and spear were adorned with the feathers of a mighty falcon he once shot. Some said Snorri had lost his clear sight, but he could still hit the target from far away. Snorri's face was dominated by a huge grey moustache and his hair was bound back in a long, knotted ponytail, so as not to interfere with his bow.

The third was Morrickson. Well, not the Morrickson Bólnautr had fought earlier, but his younger brother, Skalf Morrickson. Skalf was smaller and faster than his brother, but still very strong. His arms bulged with muscle and his legs were like two trunks, rooted in the ground. On his arm he bore a shield which was tainted with boar's blood, on his back he wore a huge axe and on his belt he carried a heavy hammer. Skalf's eyes always looked like they were squinted and he kept his hair cut short. Due to his largish ears and his thick face he faintly resembled a pig.

The last, unfortunately, was Alfarin Snorrason. Alfarin bore an axe and a shield, and Bólnautr knew he could handle those well. Alfarin wore a leather cap and leather armour, which was stained in beer, but almost undamaged otherwise. He also wore a necklace Bólnautr had never seen him wear before, on which a small leather bag hung dangling. Alfarin smiled, showing his sharp white teeth. The Snorrasons were known for their excellent teeth. Bólnautr faintly smiled back.

Together they'd be travelling to Coldrock. Coldrock, the prison island. Coldrock, that huge chunk of stone out in the sea where they had imprisoned their enemies for generations, but where the prison stood almost empty now. Coldrock, which was rumoured to harbour dragons, but was still decent enough a place for some folk to live.

The six warriors set off in a single, small drakkar, across the whale-road, to the dragonnest.

"All right, men" Alfarin spoke, "It's best we discuss our plan before we get there. We'll be arriving in the harbour of the only village on the island, which is built near the prison. There's not much out there, but they have some fishermen, a tavern and a druid. It's been a while since they've seen anyone from the main land, so they might be a bit startled by us. I say we head out to the empty prison and make that our main camp. We can spend the night there and then head for the mountains in the morn, hopefully finding the dragons within a few days"

1279: Taira Itagaki
Itagaki dragged her father with all the might she could muster into the forest. Rukia was waiting for her there, and so were some of the other guests at the funeral. All of their carriages had been put there, among the trees in the shade. Her father was helped into the carriage.

"What was going on, Itagaki-sama? There were screams, and everyone's shook up!"

Some of the older men who had run were now putting on old battle armour and sharpening their blades. They were going after that demon, wether it would cost their lives or not.

1890: Jonathan Morris
Jonathan rolled and crawled up, running to the Buther's remains, all the while unloading his guns on the bountyhunter, who had proven more dangerous than he had originally thought. This time the bounty hunter stayed upright, bullets raining down on him in masses, but with little precision. His own two guns were raised and returned fire. Jonathan crosses by the Avenger, who was still unarmed. A look of surprise briefly appeared on the Avenger's face as he was caught in the crossfire between the two men. He took several slugs to the chest and went down screaming. The bountyhunter didn't seem to mind.

Jonathan collapsed behind the Butcher's corpse and grabbed the shotgun that was lying there, covered in muddy blood. The Butcher coughed and blood ran out of his mouth and onto the sand. Seemed the bastard was still alive, sort of.

The bountyhunter's guns made a dry click.
He smiled as the guns were amazingly rapidly tucked away and replaced with a coil of rope. He spun the rope round in circles. Jonathan was unsure what he was planning. It seemed he was mad, taking a rope to a gunfight. There were more important things to worry about though, as upstairs the lone rifle reappeared in the window. Jonathan couldn't see who was holding it from his low position, but he knew that three of the bad guys were somewhere in that house, and only one of his friends. It was a three to one chance that the gunner upstairs was out to kill him, not help him.

All this happened to the background of the Avenger's screams.

"You're gonna pay for this, Morris! You're gonna pay for this, just like you're gonna pay for what you did to my brother. Expect pain, Morris. Nothing will stop the Avenger! Hahaha- cough- cough"

1928: Robert Lester Salinger (AKA Doc)
Robert grabbed the nearest piece of rock and tossed it towards the church doors, where it made a soft bang. The creature grabbed onto the stone balcony and swung down, into the door. Wood creaked and the beast screamed as he discovered there was no-one there. Robert ran for the sacristy.

As soon as he reached the sacristy, he felt like running out again. The whole place was covered in blood and guts, draped from the chandelier and splashed onto the walls. The upper part of a hobo corpse lay in a corner of the room, next to a coathanger with some old and bloody priest robes. There's also a vat of holy water, a shelf with some old wine bottles and a table. There are some brownish candles on the table and, oh, yeah, hobo guts. Beneath it is an open sewer grating. The grating itself has been placed next to the wall and is also covered in blood and gore. Strangely, some of the floor seems to have cracked near the hole in the floor.

1944: Lt. General Mikhail Ratkunin
"Not talking, are you? Good, all the more reason to suppose you know somthign worth telling"

Gruber snapped his fingers and one of the guards walked over to Ratkunin. He'd left his gun by the dead monstrosity and was wrapping a piece of cloth around his fist. These guards were elite soldiers, Ratkunin could see that much. They were tall, muscled, blonde and blue-eyed, and most importantly: not wounded. Men who weren't wounded were rare in this war. Not being wounded meant one of two things: you were new, or you were good. These men were of the second variety.

The guard's fist bashed into Ratkunin's jaw. There was a slight crack, even at the first punch. It hurt like hell, but Ratkunin wouldn't talk. The man kept pounding him, harder and harder, until he was bleeding from his nose and was bruised all over. One of his teeth had been knocked out too.

"Don't be foolish, Herr General! We are dissecting one of these creatures as we speak, you would be better off to talk before we find what we need to know by ourselves. I have an outstanding team of scientists working for me, Herr General, they are better than those the Kremlin employs"

Ratkunin heard the door creak, even as another punch landed in his stomach. Good thing he hadn't eaten in a long while, Ratkunin thought, as he tasted bile.

Gruber stared at the door a bit and nodded.

"Yes, I will be there soon"

The door closed and Gruber turned to the general, smiling. He adjusted his glasses.
"It seems our scientist have made a discovery already. We may be able to dispose of you soon enough. You really should have talked, Herr General, it would have been wiser"

Gruber laughed as he and his guards exited the room. Ratkunin was left alone, tied to a chair, in his old office. Well, maybe there were more guards, but they'd be behind him, where he couldn't see, and they were being very quiet. Hitler's finest. They don't speak unless spoken to. They obeyed orders, that's all they did. Ratkunin spat some blood on the floor. At least Gruber's office would be slightly less clean when they killed him.

1948: Jarvis McArthur
The mafioso sighed.
"Bloody drunks"

He walked over and tried to help the drunk up, only to be kicked in the face. Another two whacks, coming down heavy on the man's neck. A snap. The tommy gun went off, firing up through it's owner's chest. Jarvis jumped back to avoid the spray of blood. Some crows flew off, startled by the shot, but no-one else seemed to have noticed.

Jarvis pulled the corpse aside and dumped it in the shadows. Not exactly procedure, but it would do. Now, how to get into the warehouse? There was that drainpipe, but Jarvis could try going round back too, off course. Or he could walk in through the front door...

As he stood there by the warehouse, he could hear laughter inside. There were several men in there, that was for sure. They weren't too far away from the front door either, it seemed. Jarvis couldn't help but wonder what Jelly was doing out here in the first place.

2009: Luca Molino (AKA Luke)
Luke consoled the old man. he didn't know what was going on with him, but it seemed like he had lost it.
"C'mon, Don, it'll be all right. We'll find some folks who can help you. They'll make it go away, don't you worry. Don't you worry 'bout a thing, Don"

Suddenly there was a loud bang downstairs. Followed by screams. Followed by more bangs, louder and less loud ones. Luke let go of the old man.
"What's going on? Are those fireworks? Gunshots?"

The noise seemed to be nearing. It could only be a couple of floors below now. There was single, loud pitched scream now.

"That was my downstairs neighbour! Oh, god, what's going on?"
Luke snapped off a broomstick and took it with him as a weapon. It had been painted red, but Luke didn't mind.
"Luke, Luke! Don't go! It's them, Luke, it's them!"
Luke didn't listen to the crazy old man and stepped out into the hallway. He crept down the stairs and stopped as he spotted what was going on on the floors below. The place was total chaos. There were bodies all over the place and smoking craters. His downstairs neighbour had been gutted. Among the chaos, there were a bunch of carnival folks. A bunch of clowns with bombs and knives and machine guns were running about the place, killing everybody who got in their way. There was a magician, who was strangling a woman with a bunch of colourful tied-together handkerchiefs. There were some lions even, ripping people to shreds. Luke couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Calmly striding up, despite the mayhem and murder going on around them, was a fat woman with a beard and a small, muscled midget wearing a leopard skin. The fat woman was carrying a small bundle in her arms and cradling it. From the cloth she cradled a beard portruded.

"Hey, you!"
Luke turned and looked at the clown that was talking to him. He had several large canisters hanging from his colourful outfit with skulls drawn on them. Attached to those canisters with tubes was a metal pipe, which he was holding and pointing at Luke.
"Huh? What?"
"Boo"

The clown flipped a switch and flames came pouring out fo the pipe, and all over Luke. Luke could feel the fire scorching his flesh and wildly swung about the broomstick. He ran like a madman, unsure where he was going, and stumbled over the railing of the stairs. As he plummetted down amongst the chaos, past the floors of his appartment building, the fire slowly extinguished, and he sighed in relief. And then he hit the floor.

[Lonna]

Taira Itagaki

Itagaki watched with mixed feelings as the men prepare for battle. These men had dishonored themselves by fleeing, but at least they sought to regain their honor by tracking down the demon. Much as she wanted to confront it herself, her honor demanded that she give these men the information they lacked.

"I'll explain on the way home, Rukia-san," she answered her friend, a bit more formally than usual.

Another second of hesitation, then she approached the nearest warrior, who was in the process of donning his armor. She waited for him to recognize her, taking in the blood-covered hands and stained kimono that proved she had stayed behind when others fled the demon.

"Warrior-san," she said quietly, "the demon ran toward the lands of the Jushiro clan. Tell the others." Turning her back to the older man, Itagaki walked serenely away.

"Let's get my father home."

She and Rukia climbed into the carriage where Itagaki's father lay, unconscious still. Fortunately, the home Itagaki shared with her husband was not far from the burial grounds, but it was still far enough that Itagaki had time to describe for Rukia what had happened, and to confess her confusion at the demon's behavior and her doubts about whether it was a demon after all.

"I don't know what to do," she concluded. "Honor demands that I avenge my father, but if this demon, or whatever it is, is merely a puppet for something or someone else, then I must find the puppet master. To take vengeance on an unwitting tool would be both useless and dishonorable, but I must do something."

[Niasen]

Jarvis McArthur

Jarvis looked at the front door with a bit of interest Hmm, i could take the tommy, douse the front, and probably get the whole lot...but damnit what ARE they doing here? I gotta find out. Shooting wildly is something I learned the hard way is a bad thing to do. For all I know they could be having an interrogation with some poor innocent prick as the main attraction. Don't know whats behind there, could be walking into something nasty...#%$, I'm going to have to leave the tommy gun behind and just do the drain pipe..

Leaving the coke bottle and the tommy gun with the dead man, he makes his way to the drainpipe. Hopefully the laughter and such will drown out any sounds I make, or they'll just attribute it to crows...otherwise they can make me into swiss. He starts climbing and makes it rather quietly, though there's one small muffled clank as he slipped at one point and his pistol hit through his coat onto the side of the warehouse. At the top he looks for a way to spy on whats going on before going in if he can...and most importantly find Jelly.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Ειρηνη Νικηφορος

Eirene turns around and fixes the older man with a steely glare, and then emotionally collapses, her stubborn attitude vanishing before his pleading expression.

"Alright. Alright, Polemon. Just...just give me some time."

With that, she turns again and enters the house, letting the door swing gently shut behind her.

*****

Several minutes later Eirene returns, clad in traveling clothes and carrying a small pack, a spear, a shield, and, once again, her hard-bitten personality.

"I'm heading for Pylos, Polemon. The trip may take several weeks, but that's where you'll find me when this is settled. But leave it longer than a year and you have my solemn word that I will return, hemlock or no. You have one year."

[Voshkod]

Lt. General Mikhail Ratkunin

The pain felt good. Anything was better then the waiting. He took the blows to his face with a fierce smile and spat a shattered tooth on the floor. The blow to the stomach was nothing at that point. And then the silence. The silence brought back the pain, the humiliation, and the dark coming of death. To stifle a sob, Mikhail began to sing, croaking Prokofiev's score of Alexandr Nevsky through his ruined teeth.

Arise, ye Russian people,
to glorious battle, to a battle to the death:
arise, ye free people,
to defend our beloved country!
All honour to the warriors who live,
and eternal glory to those slain!
For our native home, our Russian land,
arise, ye Russian people!

[ForzaFiori]

Bólnautr Skoftason

I agree with you, Alfarin, though before we leave the town, let us speak to the druid of the town, so as to have the gods' blessings upon our quest. Once that is done, we head towards the prison, and then out into the island to slay the dragon and, more importantly, recover those who were taken from us. Turning to Arngier beside him, Bólnautr whispers quietly I do not trust Alfarin. He takes charge as if he is the senior fighter, when that is Snorri. He should be back here with us, not at the helm commanding. However, I fear we will have to put up with him until such a time as we can be sure that we may both rescue our people and be rid of him. When that time comes, I want you, my friend, to be beside me. Stick close through the coming days so that we may gain glory together, or rise with the Valkaries to Valhalla together.

[Hairb]

Quickly now. No time to lose.
Salinger pulled the door shut as quietly as possible, then flipped the table on its edge and wedged it against the handle.
Not much trouble for those blades. Better hurry.
Salinger stuffed a couple of candles into his pockets, and lit one of them. Holding the candle in his teeth, he began to climb down into the sewer. Before he vanished down the hole completely, he snatched the revolver from its holster and put a bullet into the side of the vat.
I wonder if that holy water will do the trick?
He didn't stay around to find out. Reaching the bottom of the hole, he tried to orient himself underground and figure out in what directions the tunnels ran.

[HardboiledJJ]

Jake Gable. Another face to haunt Jonathan's dreams now.

Why couldn't you just stay down kid?

The bounty-hunter's smile made Jonathan's stomach churn with acid. Nonetheless he forced himself to gauge the length of the rope and take note of the rifle in the window. A rope in a gun fight seemed crazy, but as obvious as it was Jonathan wanted to get to the house the bastard could simply be planning to trip him up. Which was as good as death. . .

Dead.

Jake's dead. Be honest with yourself Jonathan. . . Charlie is likely dead. If the trouble back home is anything like this, Carlotta may be dead or near to it. And here you'll be, feeding the buzzards.

His breath was heavy as an anvil, but as he released it the world slowed to a zen-like crawl. With a morbid chuckle he muttered the mantra that had carried him through certain death before.

"Fifty-fifty."

Either the bounty-hunter would rope him, or he wouldn't. Either he'd be shot down from above, or he wouldn't. Maybe he'd take the bastard down. Maybe he wouldn't.

Maybe Jonathan would die.

But the gunslinger knew Fate was a fickle bitch. She'd do what she wanted, so there was no reason to fear what came next. And hell, she often favored the bold.

Jonathan feigned as if he were going to continue towards the house-not an entirely difficult sell. Knowing how to lasso himself, he waited until the bounty-hunter's hand was ready to loose the throw, then unexpectedly charged straight for him to let the rope overshoot its mark.

With shotgun, with knife, with rope, with bare hands around that scarred throat-Jonathan closed in with a mind to finish this.

50/50

[MrEdwardNigma]

459 B.C. : Ειρηνη Νικηφορος (Eirene Nikephoros)
"Pylos, that's a good idea. I can't let you travel alone though, it's dangerous for a woman out there. There's a war on, for Zeus' sake! I'm coming with you. Thetima will arange things here. My stuff is packed, I'll go home and get it"

Polemon walked off in a hurry. He almost ran past a soldier who was sitting next to a statue and looked away as Eirene caught his gaze.

857: Bólnautr Skoftason
Alfarin agreed. As he went back to helping the others man the boat, Bólnautr whispered something to his friend Arngier and he nodded.
"Off course, you know I will stand with you, friend"

The men sailed on in silence for a while. There was a good strong wind, blowing them to the island, but then again, according to legend any ship lost at sea would be driven towards Coldrock. They called it the home of the lost sometimes. Putting a prison there seemed appropriate.

Suddenly a looming black form appeared out of the mists in the distance. It soared slowly above the water, flapping two huge black wings. Even from this distance the creature seemed huge and the men could see the water parting from the sheer impact of the air it's wings propelled downward.

"That's one of them! One of the dragons of Coldrock!" Alfarin yelled.
"Pick up your arms, men. If we don't fight back, that beast will sink us right here, in the freezing cold waters of the whale-road"

Bólnautr remained at his post a bit longer before he took action, gazing at the beast. There seemed to be a little man on it, riding the abomination. It was still pretty far, but it approached swifly and every second it became clearer there was a man on top of the thing.

1187: Isma'il Jal al-Hakam
Isma'il raised an eyebrow, unsure what the strange object was. The "strange object" went off, piercing Isma'il's chest and tossing him into the wall. He was dead within a single second. The stranger smiled and took a puff of his cigar. Then the air shimmered briefly and he was gone.

A couple of houses further, in the same village, an old man smiled as he gazed at the last trickles of sand running through an hourglass.

"It is done. And thus, it begins" he whispered.

Suddenly his smile faded, as he looked down at his chest. Blood was spreading over his clothes.

"No...No, that's not right"

He stumbled back, into a rack with strange objects he had gathered during his travels. Some of them fell down and shattered upon impact. The rack wiggled dangerously.

"That's not right at all..."

The rack toppled, crushing the old man.


1279: Taira Itagaki
The warrior nodded as Itagaki told him where the strange man had gone.

Rukia had little to say in response to the vents today, but soon they arrived at the house, which was a good thing as Itagaki's father was looking worse and worse every minute.

Taira Ishida was waiting at the doorstep. Itagaki could only tell it was him because of his armour though, as his face was mauled and blood encrusted. He was leaning on a stick and made an all together very sad impression.

1890: Jonathan Morris
Jonathan turned toward the house, but immediately turned towards the bounty hunter again and stormed at him, bullets raining down from the window behind his feet. That smile just wouldn't dissappear of the guy's face.

Suddenly, before Jonathan could prevent it, the rope lashed out, spun around the shotgun, and pulled it out of Jonathan's hands. Jonathan was stunned, the bountyhunter had made moves he didn't know were even possible to make.

Only then did Jonathan realise what was happening: he was moving towards a man with a shotgun pointed at him so fast he wouldn't be able to turn back and even if he would he'd run right into the cover fire from above. No wonder the man couldn't stop smiling.

Jonathan tried to jump aside, but it was too late. The gun went off and blew him away, into "The Avenger"s corpse.

Jonathan looked down. His stomach was a bloody mess.

Rock salt.

That was The Butcher's MO alright. He liked to let his victims live as long as possible, and suffer as hard as possible. Looks like he was getting his last wish too.

1928: Robert Lester Salinger (AKA Doc)
Robert jumped down into the sewersystem. The place smelled dreadful, but it was a welcome change from being anywhere near the beast upstairs. He'd have to hurry up though, he could hear the wood of the door creaking, it wasn't going to hold long.

Robert obviously wasn't the first person visiting these sewers, as there was code language on several spots on the walls, and rickety wooden bridges had been made across the sewer water here and there. There seemed to be some sort of waterfall near, as Robert could heard the sound of water rushing fast. Judging from the way the water was flowing, the waterfall was in the direction across the water from where Robert was now.

One odd thing about the sewers Robert noticed was that the walls had been scratched. There seemed to be a trail running from the grate Robert had descended from to, well, somewhere around that corner there. If Robert's sense of direction didn't fail him though that ladder over in the other direction would lead back to the street.

1944: Lt. General Mikhail Ratkunin
Despite Mikhail's loud singing, there was no reaction. If there were any guards, they were pretty good at being silent.

Mikhail gazed upon the amber coloured gem on the creature's hand once more. Strangely he felt drawn to it, he wanted to possess it.

1948: Jarvis McArthur
Jarvis made it up to the roof and crawled up to a skylight. Through it he could see most of the warehouse, or at least the bits that were lit.

There were five armed men by the entrance, talking and laughing, but always keeping their eyes on the door, as if they were waiting for someone. The area around them and the entrance had been separated from the rest of the warehouse by huge stacks of crates. The only way out of there was through a bottleneck that led to the centre of the warehouse.

There were three more armed goons at the centre, accompanied by Jelly and a huge stranger. The stranger was clearly no mere goon as he wasn't obviously armed like the rest of them and he acted like he owned the place. What was more, Jelly actually seemed afraid of him.

Jelly had taken up a position among a couple of crates and was manning a huge machine gun. He was wearing a smart suit too, as if he had some reason to dress up.

The stranger was sitting on some crates near the lantern that was lighting the centre of the warehouse. Besides the fact that he was very large and he was wearing pretty scruffy clothes, Jarvis couldn't make out much about him, as his blue fedora blocked out his face if seen from above. The goons were avoiding him though, and that was never good news.

1989: Jonathan Wesmouth (AKA Greycap)
Agent Kowalski slowed down as he rode onto the gravel parking area. It was night, but he was still on duty. A little while ago his phone had rang and he'd been ordered to head down here, to a shomewhat shabby suburban house. Someone had hacked into some of the most protected files in the FBI database. It had been time to take action. Kowalski was to head down there, get back the files, make sure the hacker hadn't spread them, and take him out.

Agent Kowalski had certain moral issues with some of his jobs, but as soon as he had entered the house all his doubts about killing this guy had gone away. He'd entered through a huge hole in the window and found a dead woman lying in the kitchen, gruesomely cut up. Whoever had hacked those files had snapped. Agent Kowalski had looked around the house for a bit and then found the cellar door, which was locked. downstairs he could hear breathing, so Kowalski had pouned on the door.
"Hello? Are you down there? This is agent Kowalski, please open up the door"

He would have to kill the bastard, but he preferred finding out where he'd sent the files first.

There was no answer downstairs. Agent Kowalski braced himself and shot the lock on the door. As he entered the basement the boy flew at him, swinging a baseball bat.
"You killed my mother, you monster!"
Agent Kowalski unloaded into the raving madman. Greycap dropped in a puddle of his own blood.
"...Mom?"

As Agent Kowalski searched the basement and in the distance police sirens disturbed the silent night, toothed lips smiled in the dark. The air shimmered and the creature was gone.

"Mission Accomplished."

1995: Richard Dillen (AKA Leviathan)
As Richard popped open the trunk, the cop gestured that he had to step aside. He then walked up to the trunk and shone the flashlight inside.

"Oh my god"

His hand went for his gun.