Lara looked around the small coffee shop, lazily fluttering her eyes at everyone she could see. The place was filled to the brim with tasty-looking morsels, but she wasn't here to feed.
As the day passed, she made sure to see, and be seen. Sometimes, she thought she'd spotted one of them, a human that didn't quite respond to her powers. Not through the power of true love, but something vaguely similar nonetheless.
That meant that her theory had been right, and that this wasn't a family member breaking the masquerade for personal profit.
All she had to do now was wait as she sipped her drink. Coffee, black. She disliked these new establishment, given that they generally did not serve alcohol, keeping her dry. Then again, it added some difficulty to the chase. Hunting down prey that was unable to properly resist was simple, but unsatisfying.
A man entered the room. Tall and thin, yet muscular all the same. Long flowing black hair was joined by a horrendous goatee, but from the way the barista's eyes focussed on the man, this wasn't a person that needed good looks to make an impression.
She caught his eyes, flaring her power while fluttering her eyelashes. It hadn't been necessary. Her presence alone had been what brought him here.
The man walked towards her, a veneer of civility and charm hiding his true face as he leaned against the wall next to her.
"This seat taken?" he asked, a charming smile on his lips.
"Depends," she replied. "I could use a refill."
"Consider it done," Heartbreaker said, snapping his fingers at the girl behind the bar, who started pouring new coffee with near-religious fervor.
"Oh, a man with influence," she smiled, leaning forwards as he sat down.
"You like what you see?" he asked, stroking that horrible, yet strangely charming, goatee of his. "Because I sure do."
"And direct as well," she blushed, holding out her hand for him. "Shall we?"
***Of Monsters and Masquerades***
"I… I love you," Nikos said.
"And I love you, little mortal," she replied, her finger tracing circles on his chest.
"I… I need you, I shouldn't… How?" he sounded worried, amazed, satisfied, all at the same time.
"I told you my dear, I'm a vampire. You are mine, and I am yours. I want you, and my power makes you want me, which makes you use your power on me to make me want you. Worst part is, there is nothing either of us can do about it."
"Worst part, or best part?" he asked.
"Both?" she offered, dropping back to the bed. This… this was going to be a problem. She loved Nikos. Sure, most of it was artificial, but he was intelligent, crafty, and powerful. At his side, she could…
No, those were fake feelings, she knew they were fake, just as fake as the ones she could create. Problem was, that didn't make them any less real.
***Of Monsters and Masquerades***
The slice of a kukri, a perfectly aimed bullet, a kick to the groin and the metal husk of a gun thrown to the face.
All four of them dropped as one, and Lara smiled. It felt good to be able to stretch her muscles again, to fight without constantly worrying for her son's safety. Add to that her completing Nikos's mission, and the day couldn't become more perfect.
Stomping down on the throat of the recently emasculated man, she made her way outside, putting on her long white coat as she walked towards her motorcycle. An hour of driving and she would be back home, ready for another round of intense love-making with her beloved. Perhaps they could partake in his new redhead today?
She sat down, the sleek curves of her vehicle perfectly fitting to equally perfect body, and turned it on, twisting the throttle.
Nothing.
She tried again, waiting for the telltale hum of the engine, the vibrations against her body, but it wasn't working.
Frustrated, she leapt off of the bike, inspecting the engine.
A cable had been cut, and the fuel hose had been sabotaged. But who had…
"Sister?" a voice called out, and she looked up.
Her little brother, Thomas, stood at the edge of the clearing, knives in hand. Strange, why would he come alone?
She looked around further, finding another half-dozen family members entering the clearing with the small cottage from all sides.
"We're here to bring you back," Thomas said. "Father claims to be able to free you from Heartbreaker's clutches."
"You were always an idiot Thomas," she replied, sneering at him. "I love Nikos, and he loves me. I don't need to be rescued."
"Your mission obviously failed, but I'm guessing you're not even able to see that…" Thomas sighed, his skin flaring silver-white. "Guess we'll have to bring you in the hard way."
"You wish," Lara said, holding up her own blades. Just seven of them, then she would be able to go back home, to be with Nikos again. The thought sustained her, gave her the willpower she'd need to get through this.
***Of Monsters and Masquerades***
Lara's skin flared as the creature attacked her with its massive arm, and although it was large and fast, she was faster. She ducked, then placed her hands on the ground and pushed herself backwards.
It would've worked, had it not been for the after-image, the water striking at her arm, tearing the flesh open and bruising the bone beneath.
Blood slightly too pale for a human slowly seeped down the limb as it started regenerating, and Lara retreated from the frontlines. Her kukris had drawn blood, but only superficially so, and her firearms wouldn't work either. It didn't matter, she wasn't here to kill the beast, she had a different intention today.
She'd needed an excuse to be on the streets if she was going to complete her mission, therefore she had to have been seen fighting the Endbringer. Acting here without assisting in defense of the city would only call attention to their activities, which was very much not the point of their endeavor.
Her alibi provided, she looked through her elegant mask for her half-brother, Thomas Raith. She hated him for what he'd done in tearing her away from her love, but she knew it had been necessary. Just as their current mission was necessary.
The oblivion war was a strange thing. At its core, it was a war about a lack of knowledge There were creatures, dark gods and other such things, that drew their power from people's awareness of them. Without that awareness, they would be unable to act, too weak to do anything but slowly die off.
At least, that was the idea. Consign knowledge of these beings to oblivion, and they would be defeated. Problem was, they had absolutely no way to know for sure whether they had actually won even once. After all, any success would be marked by the inability of absolutely anyone to remember either their opponents or their victories.
The war had been raging for millennia, fought behind the shadows, and these days, it was looking a bit silly. Yes, these ancient, dark gods were dangerous, rivals feasting on the same prey the White Court did, and overal quite horrible creatures. But so were the Endbringers, as well as monstrosities like the Sleeper, and those could not be defeated by literally ignoring them to death..
The White Court, or rather, the Raiths, had been relatively unharmed by this new phenomenon. Sure, their prey could sometimes get abilities, even in the middle of feeding, but the Raiths fed on lust, pleasure, sex. Their supernatural abilities allowed them to charm someone into fucking themselves senseless willingly. Not exactly the type of situation that would lead to a trigger. The worst thing to happen to them so far had been Heartbreaker, who had, in many ways, mostly just broken her heart. The other families of the White Court, as well as the reds and the blacks, had had a worse time of it. Sometimes it seemed like not a month would go by without some poor idiot from Malvora terrifying their victim into melting heads off.
Eventually, Thomas found her, surprising her by jumping up the side of the roof with an attractive young lady in skintight spandex in his arms. She was unconscious, several of her limbs broken during the fight.
"You actually went in directly? Are you insane?" her little brother asked, acknowledging the wound the afterimage had given her.
"I made sure not to leave the house on an empty stomach," she responded."It will heal."
"So what was the plan? Stab the city-killer with a knife?" Thomas asked. "You're not Alexandria, this thing could kill you in a single good hit."
Just as he did, Lara could hear a loud thud in the background. Alexandria, or someone like it, crashing into Leviathan and actually managing to hurt it. Lara looked at her kukri, the knife's edge dulled from the beast's tough skin. She prided herself on her skill with the weapon, even though direct attacks were generally not how vampires of the White Court operated.
"Spread misinformation, make sure people saw me. There is little reason to join the fight if we do not use the reputation it gives us. After all, there is very little we can do here," she replied.
"I have to disagree," Thomas said, placing the colourful teenager he was holding on the roof, and pressing the button on the cape's armband before sending a message through the microphone. "Got a disabled cape here, needs a mover to help out, she's on the roof."
"That should be enough, we should move," Lara said, smashing her armband against a piece of stone sticking out of the roof before taking off further into the city, not waiting to see whether or not her brother would follow.
She dashed over rooftops eventually dropping down to the half-sunken streets once the rooftops stopped being level with each other. Once there, she jumped from car to car, trying to keep the water on the ground from slowing her down. After about five minutes, she was well removed from the fight, almost entirely alone in the area, followed only by her brother, who arrived several seconds after her.
"So, can you finally tell me what the mission is?" he asked.
"This," she said, motioning at the large office building standing before them. "Medhall. It is a medical company, but in addition to that, it is also a front for a local gang called the Empire Eighty-Eight, a white supremacist group. Skin colour, not court, before you make another one of those abominations you call jokes."
Her brother took in the sight, shaking his head once he saw Medhall's logo. The humans had, predictably, confused the rod of Asclepius with a Caduceus, putting one snake too many on their pictogram.
"One of their number, a man called Hookwolf, has a reputation for fighting anything and anyone he comes across, including, at least once, the Stygian Sisterhood. He is in possession of one of their tomes. Quite recently, the majority of the people in their organisation was unmasked, and the mortal authorities searched this building. They found a hidden subcellar, protected by what seems to be a tinkertech vault, and they were planning on how to break into it when our good friend Leviathan arrived," she explained.
"So, while everyone else is busy fighting that thing, we're breaking in and destroying the tome." Thomas said.
"And we either hope that Hookwolf has the manners to die in the fight, or someone gets rid of him afterwards, making sure that no-one even knew the book existed."
"So all we have to do is break into a highly secure vault filled with Nazi treasure? Sounds fun!"
The two of them made their way inside, and quickly realized one of the problems with their plan.
Their target was in a sub-basement, and half the city was underwater right now.
Luckily, they weren't kine, and did not need to gather diving equipment first. Instead, they simply used the abilities their hunger gave them to hold their breaths for extended amounts of time..
The vault itself was secure, but not as secure as it needed to be. The thing was made out of steel, with some sort of electrical defensive shield that had shorted out because of the flood, allowing them easy acces after they used their enhanced strength to tear their way through the locks, and found that the top half of the water-tight facility was still filled with air, allowing them to breathe once again, at least momentarily.
Inside, they found what must have been a Nazi trophy room. Genuine SS uniforms were joined by an assortment of mystical and mundane artefacts, most of them once associated with the Thule society, and there were more modern items taken from what must have been defeated capes.
"So, dear sister, I never asked, but all those rumours you hear about the germans being into the occult?"
"True, all of it," Lara replied.
"Then what didn't go to Brazil must have ended up here somehow. I mean, I recognize some of these things."
"Then grab what takes your fancy. We don't anyone to know we were only interested in the book," Lara replied, setting her sights on the tome, and putting it in a small backpack. They would destroy it later, after confirming it was what they had been looking for.
Thomas walked around the room like a kid in a candy store, grabbing a knife, what looked to be a tinkertech gun, and old revolver, some old medals, and the hat from the uniform, depositing them in an Nazi backpack of some sort.
Just as he was about to finish, Lara felt the earth shake around them, followed by movement in the water moving around them, another tidal wave.
"Let's leave before this place sinks even further," she stated, taking a mouthful of air and descending into the water again, leaving the underwater vault and the building.
As she reached the surface outside, she saw that the water had risen noticeably. Or perhaps the city itself was sinking. Most of the cars were completely submerged now, their roofs visible just below the surface. It was still pouring rain, and she could feel something powerful and twisted in the air.
As her brother and fellow Venator rose from the depths, she motioned towards a nearby roof where they could observe the situation and create an exit strategy.
What she saw once she had climbed her way to the top of the building shocked her. She had seen many things in her centuries long life, but this was a relatively rare sight, and to have it happen so publically was pretty much new to the parahuman age.
A floating green figure, the Eidolon, was creating a massive sphere of black thunder, holding it out before him as it radiated energy and might.
For an attack, the word massive did not do it justice. The orb had a radius roughly equal to a city block, crackling and sucking out the light from its surroundings. Had someone trapped the Leviathan? Was this their newest attempt at taking it down once and for all?
Slowly, the attack started moving downwards, sinking, ever closer to the ground.
The moment of impact, obscured by buildings and distance, was marked by a shockwave, and a strange trick of the light, turning everything into a negative for a short moment, as well as stilling all sound, and blowing away the rain for just a second..
When the chaos was over, the area beneath Eidolon was simply gone, removed from the earth, a great gaping hole quickly filling itself with seawater..
In the distance, the battle raged on, Leviathan still lived, and her little brother dashed forwards, towards the site of impact.
"Idiot!" she yelled, chasing after him.
Luckily, Thomas hadn't gone for the obvious target. Instead, he was at a building that had collapsed in the chaos, trying to rescue a young woman from the wreckage. She was masked, wearing some sort of stone-based armor all over her body, but it hadn't been enough to protect her, she was bleeding everywhere. She'd run out of blood within minutes, and given the general mayhem caused by the blast, she wasn't going to make it, even with the parahuman healers around.
"She's already gone brother," she said, looking for other survivors in the rubble.
As her eyes spotted another cape, a young man with dark hair, her heart skipped a beat.
The boy was bleeding. One of his ribs was visible, sticking through his torn, reinforced blouse,and there was a bleeding stump where his right arm used to be. His Venetian-style mask, a passable replica, had been ripped away from his face, and was lying on his chest, barely attached with a piece of string. Dark curly hair, that same lanky look, but with her creamy skin...
"Empty night," she cursed.
"What is it?" Thomas asked, but Lara ignored it, walking towards the boy, touching him, smelling him. It was him, had to be.
"Thomas… this is..." she stroked the boys hair, fingers moving tenderly over a small cut on his forehead. These wounds were lethal, just as lethal as the woman's had been, at least for a human.
But… why wasn't he regenerating? Hadn't he awakened yet? Had he found true love, growing up with Heartbreaker of all people, or was there some sort of interference?
"Lara, step back. This is probably some sort of Stranger effect," Thomas said, but she ignored it. This was her son, she knew it. It had to be.
Inquisitively, she brought forth her hunger, poking with it at her child.
She felt something, inside of him. Small, weak, hidden beneath the weight of his parahuman ability, but still there. She roused it, knowing full well that this went against their customs, their habit of keeping their children ignorant, letting them choose for themselves.
"Damn…" her son said, his eyes open and looking at her, the Hunger inside him almost palpable now. "Are you the goddess of tits?"
"Not now, my son," she replied, taking hold of him and pulling him towards the near-dead cape. "Just… do what comes naturally."
***Of Monsters and Masquerades***
"So why'd I have to be the tin can again?" Alec asked, looking around the party. There was one thing he had to admit, reds knew how to build a mood, what with all the sacrifice victims again.
"Because I'm the tall one," his uncle replied, almost completely naked but for some underwear and the golden bodypaint.
"Everyone'll think you're Scion anyway," he said. "Couldn't you wear like, an actual costume?"
"But then everyone would miss out on my rugged good looks!" Thomas replied. "Plus, you should shut up, R2 only communicates in beeps."
"Beep beeeeb, beep beep beep, beep beep beep," he replied.
"When'd you learn morse anyway, ya lil dweep?" Thomas asked.
"Father insisted, after I got my powers," Alec replied.
"Right. Well, let's see. If you were an evil bloodsucking vampire, where would you keep your teenage girl sacrifices captive?" Thomas said, mostly asking himself.
"Secret basement?" he suggested?
"Sounds about right," Thomas replied. "You see any hidden entrances?"
Alec looked around. Roman centurion, skeleton bride, vampire queen, refreshment table, big bowl of spiked punch, but nothing quite like a secret entrance to the basement they could sneak through. Looking back to the entrance though, he spotted the newest visitors to the party, a tall man dressed like the count from sesame street, joined by an Asian lady in an old-fashioned black ball gown, a handkerchief with fake blood tied around her neck, and an overly large handbag.
"Heh, looks like my little brother arrived," Thomas said. "You think that's his girlfriend?"
"Nahh," Alec said. "Pretty sure he brought his boss."