Young Bloods(IC, Reboot Open)

[Scotatrova]

Diego Belcourt

After the little scuffle with that man, or vampire, as Diego soon came to learn once the man came to, the mere sight of his staff and his power was enough to make the man spill his guts. Almost quite literally. There was a new drug turning people into things like this man? For what? Who would even think of such a thing. After the likes of people like Ol' Jack and White Bear, Diego felt like he shouldn't be surprised, but this was something entirely different. Outside what he normally encountered. The dead that the Mattias family resurrected to use as their soldiers had no form of intellect at all. They were literally just walking corpses. Diego often described them as zombies, which really hit a nerve with the necromancer family, which he thoroughly enjoyed. But these, these vampires, they had all the same intellect that we possessed, just with the deep craving for blood instead of flesh. He kept trotting towards the docks, the apparent epicenter of this drug trade. He didn't know what to expect when he arrived, but what he did see was completely off. Kids, some as young as him, were fending off more of these vampires, and they were actually holding their own. He watched as they had tossed several of the vamps off the docks into the water, and Diego wondered if it had the same reaction as holy water does in the movies. It'd be funnier if it did. He considered going in to help, but it seemed like they had it under control. As he kept observing from behind the shadow of a large shipping crate, he heard a scuffle from behind him. Just as he turned, he was shoved down and there was a vampire thrashing on top of him.

"Great, just my luck, another blood sucker." He thought to himself as he used his staff to give himself as much room from the vampire's biting fangs. His eyes began to go white, as they normally do when he gets frustrated.

"Get. Off. Of. Me!"

With that last word, visible currents of energy began flowing around the staff and there was a bright flash of light as Diego blasted the creature all the way back to Hell. As he got up and brushed himself off, two more came rushing at him. He shrugged and bent his knees and held his staff forward. He ran directly to them and met their charge. With a swing of the staff low, he knocked one down to the ground. He recovered it with a high swing, to which the staff caught the other across the face. Diego then lifted the staff into the air and brought it down into the ground in front of him. There was another white flash of light and the two vampires went flying in opposite directions away from him. Now things were starting to get fun. Diego had forgot about the fight at large going on around him, as he was just unwillingly brought into it. But now wasn't the time to think things through, now was the time to fight.

Diego couldn't decide which was worse. Fighting undead minions with no sense of coordination with a craving for flesh, or fighting drugged out individuals with a high that wanted them to consume blood. Both were horrible, and right now wasn't the time for choosing which he preffered. It was happening. As he scanned the battlefield, an immense force slammed into his back and knocked him forward. His staff went sprawling several feet away, and as he made a grab for it, a hand grabbed his arm. Pale, and cold. Diego was then on his back staring into the same red eyes in the man he encountered earlier. He vampire laughed in his face.

"You think you're all that with your voodoo stick boy? Now I'll tear your throat out."

Diego could feel spit splash his face as the man spoke. Gross. The fact that this man thought Diego was powerless without his spear was amusing. With the same bright flash of his eyes, he smiled back at the vampire.

"Oh don't you have a lot to learn."

The expression changed in the face of the vampire from excitement to doubt. Power began flowing in white visible currents around his arms and soon around his entire body. He began to rise a couple feet above the ground. The vampire still held on to his arms, but now it wasn't to pin him down, it was to hold on. Diego looked down at the vampire as a burst of energy, blue in color, sent it flying into the water. He reached down for his spear and it flew up to him. He held it tightly in frustration and excitement as he looked down at the fight below.

"Now, how can I help even the odds here."

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

---

Before the vampires could advance or make any move on the two girls, however, a war hammer slammed into the ground in front of them, shattering the ground and giving them pause. The hammer, glowing with blue light and crackling as electricity arced through it, suddenly floated off the ground and returned to some point behind Park and Renata, drawing the eyes of the three vampires towards its wielder.

"I wouldn't be so sure about the suicidal part." Blackout spoke as he walked up to the two girls, seemingly allowing his hammer to dissolve. Seeing him from up close, Renata would likely be able to notice the blade scar running through his cheek, half-hidden by the mask that covered his lower face, and both she and Park might notice that his breathing was quite agitated, as well. However, he didn't seem to show any weakness or weariness, continuing to speak confidently. "In case you assholes haven't heard, I fought six of you, beat up three and came out alive. Who's to say this girl can't do the same?"

"You're lying." One of the vampires accused him, unwilling to believe that a mere human could do that to several members of a superior species such as them, and with ease too. In response, Icarus simply shrugged, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the three vampires.

"I'm not. You must've seen their unconscious bodies on your way here, after your terrified comrade went running to ask for help." He said, and the three glared daggers at him, fists clenched and fangs bared, but said nothing more. As much as they wanted to, they could not deny the facts.

"Regardless, it's an even fight now. He's right that if you have teammates with you, you shouldn't risk yourself like that, R- Stella." He said, almost using the girl's real name but catching himself before doing so. Mentally, he chastised himself for almost giving that away, just like she had before. Even if it was unlikely that the vampire would have the chance to use it against her, there was the fact that him knowing her name could give them leads to his identity, which was not something he wanted to deal with.

Hoping to divert attention from his little slip-up, he continued talking. "So, let's take them down together..." He said. Suddenly, he made a rising motion with his hand, and in the same instant, shackles made of solidified electricity emerged from the ground, pinning the vampires to their locations. Before they could react to this sudden handicap, Icarus charged forward with a burst of speed. "NOW!" He shouted at his two impromptu teammates, before slamming his fist into the vampire's gut. Due to the force used, Icarus grimaced, his unarmored hand now hurting like hell. To make matters worse, the vampire was not so damaged by the attack. Ignoring the pain in his hand, the vigilante took the vampire's head and rammed his knee into it repeatedly, aiming to knock out the vampire quickly. To finish him off, he placed his hand on the back of his foe's head and slammed it into the ground with all of his might, leaving the ground around the creature's head slightly cracked from the impact.

Breathing heavily after such a show of violence, Icarus waited a couple of moments, but the vampire did not move, which meant that he had managed to knock him out. Relieved, the boy looked around to see how his teammates were doing.

---

---

---

Kiris waited to see what effect her words would have on her friend. At first, he seemed rather apprehensive, voicing his own inner struggle between his wish to help and his wish to not fight any longer. But then he stood up, breathed in, and looked up at her, thanking her for helping him and promising not to escape again. In response, she simply smiled up at him, clearly failing to take into account that the sight of her smiling might be just a little bit unsettling if her mouth was covered in vampire blood. She didn't know what he meant by 'again', but she opted not to ask, as it seemed to be a painful memory for him. Instead, she simply listened to him as he told her he had an idea and ran off to act on it. It seemed her words had helped him regain his confidence, and she was happy for that. But now, it was time to rejoin the fray and continue fighting the vampires.

As she thought of what her next move would be, the alien girl suddenly noticed a bright glow coming from somewhere nearby, and quickly used her claws to climb up to the rooftop of a nearby building and use it as a vantage point to scout the area. Looking around, she couldn't quite detect the source of the white light, which had since faded, but she did manage to see a vampire trying to sneak around the corner of the next building over, no doubt trying to get the jump on one of her teammates. "No, no, no. Not if I have anythin' to say about it!" The girl thought, moving closer to the vampire as she planned out her next move.

Suddenly, the Hadrian practically pounced on the vampire, pushing him down to the ground. Lying on his back, he was face to face with Kiris as she used her powerful claws to pin his arms to the ground and wrapped her bone tail around his neck, squeezing just enough to give him a good scare. With her mouth covered in vampire blood, she bared her teeth, much sharper than a vampire's fangs, and then let out a bloodcurdling roar.

When she stopped, Kirisvala simply watched as the vampire went limp, having fainted at the sight of what he thought was a fearsome vampire-eating predator. Surprised at the effectiveness of her scare tactics, the alien released the vampire's neck and stood up, tilting her head. "Wow, that really worked?" She mumbled to herself. "And to think Wyatt was worried about being a coward. You'd give him a run for his money!" She told the unconscious vampire, before looking around. Despite the loudness of her roar, it seemed that she hadn't attracted the attention of any other vampires nearby, which she was grateful for.

Turning the corner of the building the vampire was sneaking around, Kirisvala expected to see one of her teammates, but instead what she saw was a boy with a spear, floating in the air. "Oh. Hi there. You're not teamin' up with the bad guys, are you?" She asked him.

[Scotatrova]

-

It was a complete mess. Vamps were going down left and right, off the docks into the water, some even being torn apart by the teens with gifts. It also was a sight that Diego couldn't take his eyes off of. It was magnificent and twisted in so many ways. Over the commotion, he heard a voice. "Oh. Hi there. You're not teamin' up with the bad guys, are you?" He then spotted the source of the voice coming from, what seemed like a girl, but then, wasn't. She had two horns on her head, scales, these strange claws...and a tail. Normally, he'd be surprised at this point, but he was now unphased. Between the undead and now these vampires, he was just wondering what else he had to learn about. He came back down to the ground and tightened his grip on his staff, by circumstance, but since this was new, he didn't know what to expect.

"Uh, yes, I mean, no? I'm not with these, things, I ran into one a while ago and just came where he told me the center of all this was. Seems he was right. This place is a hellhole. Aside from you good guys...You are a good guy, right?"

[Northwest Slobovia]

Sam Croft/Blizzard
Sam's Penthouse
Broadway
Downtown San Deigo

Sam turned back to his crime map, then clicked on-screen options to filter out everything but drug sales. Good, there's a hotspot in Logan Heights. Trolley will run for another hour, so I have plenty of time.

He spun his chair back around, then walked the short distance to his disguise studio, where he seated himself in front of the mirrors, looked over his choices, and eventually settled on a working class outfit -- old jeans and a rumpled shirt that might be a cheap uniform top -- and medium dark skin of uncertain ethnicity. Nobody would look twice at him.

Halfway through getting his latex "makeup" on, the police scanner started chattering. The messages were unusually cryptic, requesting units in the vicinity of a certain intersection to assist officers already there. Something was going on and he was in no condition to do anything about it. Finishing up or undoing his work, getting into costume, and getting there would take too--

With a groan, Sam figured out what the intersection was: the prison. Damn it! He could really help with that! Whatever the situation was, he had a solution. It's hard for perps to riot if the ground's too slippery to stand on, and hard for them to hold a guard hostage if they're frozen in place. Damn it, damn it, damn it!

Sam returned to his preparations, jaw clenched. When he finished, he checked himself in the trifold mirror: perfect! Nobody would recognize him. He took his private elevator down to the garage, looked through the back door peephole, and slipped into the alley behind the building. He walked a few blocks north, checking for tails, then zigzaged southeast to the trolley station.

Logan Heights

As Sam expected, nobody noticed him on the trolley or walking south on 32nd towards the really seedy area a few blocks down. He ignored an offer of heroin whispered from a reputed drug house, and another offer to get him laid. A block further south, he found his quarry: a trickle of cars pulling up to an dark alley mouth, hushed, hurried exchanges, and the cars pulling away.

Sam walked past it, then crossed the street at the corner and headed into a 7-11. The indoor lights kept him from seeing outside in the visible range, but his heat vision dimly picked up the Blood selling operation back up the block. It was hard to get a good count of how many people were in the alley without being noticed, but however many it was, it was too many for Sam to take on in disguise. He made a practiced show of looking like he couldn't decide what he wanted to eat, hesitating before picking things up, then darting back to previous choices.

[The Rebel Alliances]

Alexis Cain/Raven-San Diego Prison

Dispatching these steroid induced freaks was not so hard when you were willing to use lethal force. What was interesting, was that whatever was jacking up their strength seemed to be hindering their reasoning. Making them predictable, moving on instinct almost animal like. Fitting since they also died like animals. More to the point they seem to make little effort to arm themselves. Not once did I see a inmate go for the weapon of a guard to use it, and only one of the eight had armed himself with a baton. A melee weapon, something that could be swing wildly. So, they become strong enough to break a car and ignore their bones being snapped. But no matter how strong they get, the bullet does just fine.

Or in this case, rubber bullets.

I had loaded these so that I would not kill an officer in case we were found out. But the situation has changed. Now, there is the X factor in this prison riot. How many prisoners had the drug? How well were the guards faring? So many questions, I groaned as I thought about it. Looking around at the gory mess as I pulled out the magazine to the gun I had brought with me and checked the ammo. I had forgotten to count my shots earlier.

There was just a single rubber shot left. I was just about to discuss our new situation with Brianna when Red decided to open his stupid fucking mouth.

"This better not have been your plan, Raven. There's a lot of people fucking dying today, and it ain't just the inmates. Guards, medical staff, visitors, and a whole load of other innocents. I swear to God, if you're behind this I won't give a shit about favors, I'll lock you and your spear-wielding friend in that little cell of mine back there." My composure cracked just a bit when he said that. As I slowly turned around to face him. I had nearly forgotten he was there in the rush of the moment.

I positioned the gun directly in is face. At this range, and with a head shot it would not matter that the bullet was rubber. It would kill him. I wont lie, it was tempting. What he had just said, there were no words to describe how pissed I am. I breathed in and out deeply before at the last moment just barely adjusting my aim just barely to hit the camera behind him. Then tossing the gun aside as I spoke to him.

But this time was different than any other so far. When I have talked with Red in the past, it was either done in a playful sarcasm, flirtatious banter or grudging respect of someone with ability. But this time my voice was low, even and cold. Filled with venom as I spoke very deliberately. Showing a side that not even Brianna had not seen yet.

"You had better listen...and listen very fucking well Red. Let this sink in deep in that brain of yours. One, I have not...do not...or will ever take orders from you. Of course, I am an understanding person. So that is a slight I can overlook. But if you ever say anything like you just did again...imply that I would carelessly throw innocent lives away for anything. It will not matter how good of a team I think we make or what skills you have or anything else. I will kill you. And sleep like a baby, because no matter what you are now, your not unlike me are you? Far from an innocent soul." I then averted my gaze to the inmate that Red had left in a broken mess. But still alive. A distinction he had which separated him from the corpses of the other inmates scattered about. "Because one does not learn moves that can do that to a man as strong as him from a kiddy martial arts dojo. No, regardless if you admit it or not, abilities like that are learned by those who had killed. And your a lot fucking better at it than I am. Even if you refuse to cross that line now. And its somehow evil for me to kill a man, no...a monster who would have crushed our heads like a grape fruit but destroying them physically or mentally to a degree that they would be fucked for life? Well, that is A-O-Fucking-K." Finally I stepped away from him. And rolled the unconscious officer over and stole his service pistol, and then looted the ammunition from his dead partner who was killed by the inmate.

"Also, you should have payed closer attention dumbass, I had you pegged as a smart one. I was using rubber bullets. Why the hell would I do that if I had planned on releasing such a dangerous drug which could result in compromising getting you out of here or potentially get us killed? Fact is I had planned on never firing a shot. This was supposed to be easy. Forge uniforms and police identities and walk your ungrateful ass right out the front doors. So maybe you should refrain from judging the ones who are pulling your ass out of a fire because even if you hate me..." I finished loading the weapon and stood up. Speaking to him with my back turned so that he would be unable to see that his earlier remarks had really gotten to me.

"I...along with my team are all you have right now." I did not need to point out that the Yong Bloods were no where to be found in this, of course by the same token they could not have been either. Not without being just like me.

Several moments had passed. As Red had apologized and inquired as to what our plan was. I had finally gotten control over my facial expression as I looked over my shoulder at him.

"So, to clarify, no I had nothing to do with whatever the hell is happening here. As for our plan, its been shot to shit. But as long as the police do not realize we are not actually cops we still have a shot. As for my friend here, she is free to tell you here name if she thinks you are worth the time. Personally, I am not sure about that right now..." But there was a problem, this fucking riot changes everything. We could just make a break for the exit, and hope that the Police will be able to lock things down here. After all, given our original goal, that is the most logical course of action.

But if the Police fail, and the inmates escape, who knows how many people they will kill. But staying here will also increase our odds of being discovered by the police possibly after this is over. Also, I have no idea how Red will react when he finds out we had to strike a deal with the doll faced devil Marionette to break him out. Now that I think about it....

Was this her? It certainly seemed crazy enough.

Cannot think about it now, we need a new plan. "Look, we need to get Red out of here. But we cannot leave this situation unattended. I think that one of us should continue getting Red out of here while the other stays behind and handles shit here. Either that or the three of us stay here together and handle this as quickly as possible and escape while the Police are still confused immediately after the dist settles. I personally do not like the idea of anyone being left behind though. So its gonna be all or nothing... Finally making a choice I led us off, moving to a hall which led deeper into the compound and as the radio came to life on my belt, a device I had forgotten I even had.

"...All available Officers...be advised that cell blocks A, D and E have been overrun. Administration and medical staff are barricaded in the medical wing.....massive inmate force advancing to the vehicle depot...possibly making an escape attempt. The main entrance is completely sealed off by local officers and SWAT. Need immediate back up in the medical wing and depot..."

Finally, something to go on. Play time is fucking over.

"OK, Brianna, head to the medical wing and help the staff there. Me and Red will be moving for the depot. Once we clear both areas, me and Red will secure a vehicle for our escape. As soon as you are finished in the medical wing come and find us. We wont be able to wait forever. Is that understood?"

It was not much, but it was all that I had. And we are saving the day after all, so maybe that would make our hero happy.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

Kiris listened to the floating boy and nodded along as he answered her question, explaining that he'd had a run-in with a vampire earlier and had been pointed to the docks as the source of the Blood drug. When he asked her whether she was one of the good guys or not, she nodded energetically and smiled. "Yup! I'm Kiris, I'm here with my friends to put a stop to this whole Blood drug business. Um, ignore the blood on my face, I had to bite one of the vampires before he bit me." She replied, feeling a little awkward as she explained the last part. The alien girl then took a few steps forward and pointed at the various teens who were currently fighting against the vampiric forces.

"We're the Young Bloods! Well, and a couple random people who were also goin' after the bloodsuckers. But mostly us. Their drug factory's just around the corner, so we're fightin' to put these vampires down and get rid of it for good. I think we've got the upper hand here, but it would be pretty nice if you helped us. You must have some powers if you can float around like that!" She said to the boy, before looking around. Still no vampires too close to them, so talking was safe, but it probably wasn't a good idea to just keep talking for too long.

"Anyway, I gotta keep helpin' my friends win this fight but you're free to come along." She said, before striding off to look for an opponent. It was up to Diego to follow her, leave, or else try to get in touch with some of the other combatants if he so desired.

[New Finnish Republic]

Red

---

Red paused, doing his best to not scream and yell back at Raven during her tirade. He wasn't stupid enough to not see exactly what she was trying to say. Hell, to an extent he even believed in what she was saying. But on the same token, every word that came out of her mouth seemed to remind him more and more of himself before joining the Young Bloods, almost as if he was looking into a mirror into the past.

A mirror that every time he saw he wanted to crack.

"OK, Brianna, head to the medical wing and help the staff there. Me and Red will be moving for the depot. Once we clear both areas, me and Red will secure a vehicle for our escape. As soon as you are finished in the medical wing come and find us. We wont be able to wait forever. Is that understood?"

Red glanced at the girl, who's name he had just found out to be Brianna, who gave Raven a swift nod.

"I shall see you soon, and hopefully not in the halls of Valhöll."

And with that strange statement, Brianna bolted off into what must have been the direction of the Medical Wing. Red watched her disappear down the hallway for a few seconds before raising an eyebrow at Raven.

"Interesting company you keep. I can't imagine how fun your family gatherings are."

Glancing down, he looked at the pile of bodies below him. It was a gory mess, that was to say the least. Between what the crazed inmates had done to their fellow inmates and officers as well as Brianna and Raven's handiwork, there was enough blood here to fill a blood bank. Grimacing, he reached down towards the belt of one of the officers, retrieving a large baton from his dead body. It was solid wood, and he had had more than enough experiences with them to know how hard they could hit.

Nodding to Raven, the two began to make their way down to direction of the motor depot. Along the way, they were forced to stop and fight off crazed inmates. Sometimes they managed to save a lucky survivor or two, but more often than not they were much too late to the scene to do any good. Red couldn't help but wonder in horror what sort of thing could drive people to do such acts, and was even more horrified at the fact that someone out there had planned for this to happen. He knew that such thoughts were what got him into the current mess he was in, but he would be damned if he let whoever was responsible get away with this.

After what seemed like an eternity of this, the two managed to reach the door which lead out to the motor pool. The two panted, both of them visibly exhausted. Still, they had a lot of work to do, which meant resting was far from an option for them. Red reached a hand out to the door handle, resting it there for a brief moment as he looked over to Raven.

"Try not too leave too much of a mess out there."

She replied with a smug look on her face as she loaded a fresh magazine into her pistol.

"No promises."

Red rolled his eyes before opening the door.

What laid before them could be described as nothing less than hell on earth. A massive pack of crazed inmates seemed to be swarming from every direction, some of them even jumping from the nearby rooftops. A handful of prison guards and even a few regular inmates seemed to be doing their best to fend for their lives, but the sound of pained screams made it clear that their efforts were in vain. A handful of vehicles remained in the lot, most of them either burning or beat up so much that driving them was out of the question.

Red was about to tell Raven they needed a new plan, when he suddenly spotted an armored vehicle that seemed to have relatively survived the riot, albeit with a cracked windshield and numerous dents on the side of it. Unfortunately for them, a pack of over a dozen crazed inmates surrounded it, seemingly trying to figure out how to get inside of it. Whether or not they had the capability of actually operating it was up for debate, but what was clear was that Red and Raven needed to get to it before the inmates made it unusable.

Swirling the baton in his hand, Red continued to stare at their objective as he called out to Raven.

"You focus on taking out the crazy fucks and I get the vehicle in the meantime?"

---

Brianna

---

Brianna did her best to remember the layout of the prison on her way to the medical wing, but it was soon apparent that she was lost within the hallways of the sprawling building. On top of this, she was practically being swarmed with the deranged inmates left and right. She barely could manage to take a few steps before being forced to defend herself. Thankfully, Véurr worked wonderfully against the unarmored bodies of these men, and whenever her spear was unable to kill them Traust was more than capable of absorbing any blow that came her way. Still, it was strenuous work, both physically and mentally, and Brianna was beginning to think that the Gods had forsaken her to die in this miserable place.

"Take the next right, go down two intersections, and the entrance will be on your left."

Brianna momentarily paused in surprise, unsure of what she had just heard.

"Behind you!"

Finally realizing that it was Nick's voice coming in through her earpiece, Brianna headed his warning and spun on her heals, just in time to block the oncoming metal post an inmate had swung at her. With a yell that came out like a lion, she followed through with a quick jab to the man's abdomen, impaling him before she retracted her spear. The man looked at her for a few moments, and for a brief second she swore she saw his eyes shift from being feral to one more...human.

Breathing heavily, she looked up to see a camera staring right down at her. She could hear Nick let loose a sigh of relief.

"Try and keep your head on, you damn Viking."

Brianna gave the camera a brief smile before she began to make her way down the hallway, following Nick's earlier directions. Indeed, he seemed to lead her in the right direction, as a sign displaying "Medical Wing" hung from above a set of doors. Attempting to crash into said doors was a pack of feral inmates, whose attention quickly shifted to her as one turned around with a snarl.

Gripping onto her spear tightly, she took the advantage of the situation flinging it at its torso, impaling not only him but another inmate behind him with a single throw. Before the other inmates could react, she was already sprinting towards them, smashing in the skull of one of them with her shield before retrieving her spear from the dead bodies. In quick succession, she eliminated the remainder of the group of inmates, leaving her covered in blood and gore as she proceeded to knock on the door.

"You're safe now! They're dead! Open up, please!"

For a few seconds, all she could hear was the distant sounds of the surrounding riot. However, a few seconds later the door cracked open, revealing the face of what looked to be a scared nurse.

"Are you sure?"

Brianna pointed at the pile of bodies below her.

"I am positive, yes."

The nurse's eyes widened for a brief moment, before looking back to Brianna. It was clear that the sight of an armored girl wielding a spear and shield concerned her, but given the current situation, she didn't seem to want to voice any objections to it. Instead, she quickly pulled Brianna inside, where she was able to catch a glimpse of the results of the riot.

Wounded men and women were strewn about, most of them so badly beaten that it appeared that they wouldn't be able to walk. For those that could, they appeared to be on the brink of collapse. Most of the people seemed to be medical staff or maintenance personnel, with only two appearing to be security officers. Upon seeing her entry, the two officers eyed her warily, but seemed to not dwell on her appearance as the first officer spoke up to Brianna.

"We've got a lot of wounded her, and there's no way we can hold these...people off forever. The motor pool is just adjacent to our building here, but if you can't tell from the pounding there's a lot more of these infected inmates wanting to get in. Even with that last group taken care of, there's still no way we take them on."

His eyes narrowed as he stared at her blood-covered spear.

"I don't care if you're a hero, a vigilante, or even a god damn villain. If you've got any kind of humanity in you, you've got to help us get our wounded out of here."

Brianna nodded, taking her helmet off as she stared at the officer directly into his eyes.

"I promise, on my honor, I will see that you and these people make it out of here safely."

The officer nodded in response, looking over to the others in the room.

"Anyone that can stand, get ready to carry those that can't. Wounded are the first to go into the vehicles, followed by the women. Us officers and this-"

He stared back at Brianna, who had placed her helmet back onto her head.

"-hero will make sure everyone else is ready to go before we get in. Avoid contact with these people at all cost, and don't get separated no matter what you do."

A series of concerned murmurs, even a few cries, could be heard, but soon everyone began to oblige by the officer's orders. The most severe of the wounded were loaded onto gurneys, while the remainder did their best to arm themselves with whatever weapons they had available. This ranged from police batons to simple broomsticks. Brianna knew that not even in capable hands would these be viable to use against their current foes, which meant that her and the remaining officers would have to do the brunt of the fighting.

Walking up to the entrance that lead outside to the motor pool, Brianna and the two officers prepared for the worst. The two had their sidearms out while Brianna stood tall with her armor and weapons at her sides. The other officer, a female, looked at Brianna with a look of concern.

"You sure you're going to be out there?"

Brianna looked at her for a brief moment, before letting out a small chuckle.

"No, not at all."

Kicking the door open with massive strength, the horde of inmates on the other side flew backwards due to the force. Not wasting a single second, Brianna charged forward and began to slash open a path for those behind her to follow. The officers seemed to be proficient enough with their firearms, as any time an inmate tried to outflank Brianna he would quickly be shot down by the two. It was slightly comforting to know, but the seemingly unending waves of inmates stole any optimism left within herself.

Brianna did her best to keep the inmates away from the group, leaping several feet at a time to intercept the swarming inmates. However, not even this could save them all, as several were dragged away by the inmates, their screams indicating a gruesome death. Brianna cursed at her inability to save them, but even she knew that there was no way she could save them all. So instead, she did the best to keep their group moving as quickly as possible while continuing to leap back and forth from inmate to inmate.

They soon began to approach the motor pool, and appeared to have luck on their side as a massive transport bus stood relatively untouched by the riot. The wounded were quickly loaded up, followed by the women and then men. The female officer hopped into the driver's seat while the other one stood in the doorway, reaching out with a hand for Brianna.

"Come on, let's get out of here."

Much to his bewilderment, Brianna shook her head.

"No, I have work that still needs to be done here. Keep these people safe, officer. You have the courage to make even Týr envious, so I know you are capable of it."

The officer's jaw dropped, unable to think of something to reply with. It was clear that he didn't want to leave their savior behind to certain death, but his fellow officer seemed didn't have the patience to wait around any longer as she stepped on the accelerator, propelling the bus forward suddenly as the door remained open for the officer to continue to stare at Brianna incredulously.

"We're leaving, Frank! She'll make it through, I can tell!"

This "Frank" gave Brianna one last pleading glance to come onto the bus before he was forced to slam the door as the bus rocketed through the main gates, leaving the carnage that remained of the prison behind them. The Valkyrie stood there for a few moments, a small part of her already regretting not taking up the offer. But her spirit told her that abandoning the rest of her comrades was something no Valkyrie, disgraced or not, could ever do.

The sight of movement caught her eye, as Red and Alexis appeared from one of the buildings. Breathing out a sigh of relief, she began to make her way over to where they were, but the sight of another swarm of inmates made it clear that their battle was still raging on.

[Scotatrova]

-

Diego nodded and at that moment, he decided that it would be better to fight together and instead of alone. "I'll actually help, even though you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself." He smiled and spun his staff around in his hands. A vampire came running out of the fray, to his right, and once again he ran towards the creature. As he came close enough, he slid down under the vampire's legs and used the staff to blast it straight in the face. He quickly got up to his feet, and didn't wait to see the charred remains of the vampire collapse behind him. Diego then felt the sudden embrace of cold arms wrap around him, and he was lifted off his feet. There wasn't a moment quick enough for him to act before he hit the hard surface of the ground, slamming down on his back. He lay gasping for air as he felt the same arms wrap around his neck. Diego was staring into the same red eyes that he first encountered when he arrived at the docks. The left side of his face was covered in these nasty burns, a result of their earlier brawl.

"Yea, you like these burns? Your own handy work. Now, I want you to feel as I take your life. I'll make sure it'll be as painful as possible." Just as he said that, he revealed his mouth of fangs as he wore this wicked smile. Diego then felt as the vampire's nails digging into his chest. "You feel that? That's the beating of your frail, human heart. Now, I want to see the look on your face, as I take it from you." The vampire then began to worm his fingers deeper into Diego's chest, and groans of pain followed as a result. But all that pain further fueled his anger. That same old flash of white in his eyes came back, and he lifted his hand in front of the vampire's face.

"That beating heart you feel...It's not only human."

Soon the white of his eyes changed. His irises became an amber color, and the white of his eyes turned black. Then a blast of energy completely engulfed the vampire's face. Diego exhaled deeply as the grip around his neck loosened and the nails retracted from his chest. He pushed the charred body away from him. It was an amalgam of emotions he was feeling, shock, fear, but the one that was currently present, that was raging in his head, was anger. As he trudged again through the battlefield, he became surrounded, four vampires, each on one side of him. They smiled, and some snarled, snapping their teeth at him. They were taunting, and it would be the last thing they ever did. A red wave of energy emanated from him. This wasn't the same white energy that his powers were based on, this was something different. As it made contact with the vampires, they quickly began to dessicate. Their skin went from pale, to a dusty gray, and they soon collapsed into a pile of ashes.

Something was wrong. This isn't his magic. His family only harnessed white magic, but he was familiar with the dark arts and dark magic. The amulet he wore around his neck started shining, bright red, as another vampire came towards him. This time, he waited until the creature came close enough, and used his staff and stabbed it through the leg. It stopped in its tracks and howled in pain and fury. He then elbowed it in the back with such force that he swear he heard the crack of the spine. Diego grabbed the staff out from the creature's leg and slammed it across the vampire's face. As it swung around, he enveloped it in an orb of energy, and lifted it. He then tossed it into other vampires in the crowd. This was just going swimmingly.

[Charmera]

London, outside a house

"Got a light?"

Charlie looked at Dave, then shrugged, taking out a small box of matches and handing it to Dave. The bald, mustachioed man lit the cigarette in his mouth and then dropped the match and stomped on it. He then proceeded to inhale, then exhale out smoke while taking the cigarette out of his mouth.

"Why don't you have a lighter?" Dave asked.

There was a silence between them, which was interrupted by a brief scream. Their ears perked up, but once they realized it was behind the door the both of them were standing outside they shrugged it off.

"Seriously mate. Why do you not have a lighter? You smoke as often as I do."

"I do." Dave replied.

Charlie raised an eyebrow, but then Dave produced a beautiful metal lighter, engraved with doves and vines.

"Old Man gave it to me before he died." He remarked. "Said that a lighter like this should only be used for special occasions. Otherwise it becomes normal. Like a box of matches."

He paused, rubbing a thumb over it and staring at the dove.

"His last smoke was with this one. I've not used it since."

Charlie looked at it. Then nodded solemnly.

"They don't make any like him no more."

"You're right there." Dave remarked with a slight smile. Before a sound caught his ear.

The paperlike "whirp" sound was the last thing he heard before a sudden force wrapped around his mouth. Then his whole body. He was cocooned by paper before his hand went to his knife. He struggled, but it was too strong and too tight.

He heard a brief struggle with Charlie before his friend suddenly dropped too. Then the door they were guarding opened.

London, Living Room

Thomas Kench knew he was fucked as soon as he heard the doorbell. He saw them from the window. Five men. Two had visible weapons in the form of two by four wood. The other two had concealed knives, and maybe even a gun or two. The last one though was what really frightened him.

Old Jack Torrent. A red haired, wiry, black jacketed thug with a wicked grin and a cruel sense of humor. Worse than that, he was a metahuman. He could blast red energy from his hands and could make things out of that energy. He was called Red on the street, and was infamously someone you didn't cross unless you wanted an early funeral. Thomas had made the mistake of borrowing money from him that he gambled away.

His wife had also known. Or at least he had to explain to her now why they should take a permanent vacation. The argument had been interrupted by that fateful doorbell.

He opened the door. It wasn't like it would hold him. He hoped this would only be a beating. The kind they give you to encourage paying up, perhaps with some robbery and vandalism thrown in.

But really he knew he was opening the door to his death. His trembling hands betrayed that fact.

"Tom my boy! Hows the wife?"

"E-Elizabeth is fine. She's fine. She's..."

Jack cocked his head, looked to Elizabeth who was just behind the stuttering Tom.

"Ah I've heard so much about you Mrs Kench" He remarked. "Shame the kids ain't around. I was hoping I could get a look at them."

Elizabeth's face was half anger, half fear. The two men with wooden weapons came inside.

"I can-" Tom began.

Jack put his finger to his lips. Then grabbed him by the shoulders and violently shoved him into the living room. He stumbled and fell into the couch. Jack then followed up by kicking him in the gut.

"STOP! STOP! PLEASE" Elizabeth begged, but found Jack suddenly pointing a red glowing hand into her face. She went deathly silent in response.

"Scream again, and I will break that pretty face of yours." Jack explained. Then looked back to Thomas.

He knelt next to his face and smiled. He grabbed Thomas by the chin and forced him to look into his eyes. "It is a shame it came to this Tom. It really is. But I can't run a buisness if you don't pay for the product. It just doesn't work like that." He explained. Then slammed his face into the floor. His hand began to glow red, ready to unleash his power on Tom's head.

But he never got the chance.

A crack, a thump and a thwip interupted Jack. He turned around swiftly, and Thomas lifted his head to look at what his tormentor was looking at.

A black clad figure with a ravenlike helmet was standing in the doorway. One man was on the floor, bleeding from his legs and arms with feather like knives stabbed into one arm and one leg. He was groaning and weeping in pain. The other had a similar knife to his throat, whipering in fear.

The black clad figure, a woman, turned to the thug she was threatening.

"Walk out of here or die." She spoke. "My concern is with your boss. Not you."

The man obliged, walking out of the door. The big and burly man terrified of a woman who was a decent height shorter than him and much lither. Thomas would have been confused if he wasn't also terrified of her mystery and obvious ruthlessness.

She looked to Jack. "You have one chance to surrender." He voice was not threatening, but with a chilling neutrality. An indifference to method.

Jack laughed at her.

"You're that Nightraven bird ain't you?" He asked. "You put on a tough act. But I think you're just a scared little girl playing hero. You sound barely seventeen love."

He points his hand at Thomas once more, it glowing red. "You hero types don't like innocents getting hurt. Well if you don't surrender your lovely arse then this bloke is-"

A thwip and a knife embeds itself in Jack's hand. He screams, the red glowing energy exploding and scarring his hand with horrible burn marks. He screams in pain, but that scream is cut short by paper suddenly wrapping around his mouth. He is lifted up suddenly by his head.

He thinks fast, quickly manifesting a knife in his other hand and cutting into the paper. With some effort, he manages to free himself. He then lunges at the woman.

"You're dead! Fucking dead!"

A brutal and sudden kick sends the red knife out of his hand, spinning and disintegrating. He tries to summon another but only red sparks flicker on his hand.

"I've watched you. Your power is based on concentration." She remarked. "In the hands of someone as unimaginative and simple as you, that power is less reliable than a simple gun or knife."

Paper suddenly wraps around his torso. Thomas sees now that that paper is connected to the Woman from her back. Manifesting like tentacles.

"You are a fearful and naked child in a blizzard, who is wondering why it is so cold." She remarks as she watches him struggle. She manifests a knife in her hand, then her raven helmet disapates to reveal a young face, with fiery red hair and cold blue eyes. Those eyes were narrowed, hatred like a coiled snake inside those pupils. "Your a distraction. A waste of my time. And I do not like having my time wasted."

"So what? What do you want?"

"Your Boss. Where is he?"

Jack laughs nervously. He shakes his head. "I'm not telling you. Go ahead and torture me."

She holds his gaze.

"Torture is ineffective. Inefficient and distasteful." She remarks. "If you don't tell me the whole, complete truth of where your boss is. I will gut you, break your legs and arms and leave you in the trash. I will then move on to the next goon of your maggot of a leader until one of you scum gains a sense of pattern recognition and tells me what I want to know. If I find you are lying or engaged in criminal activity once more, I will murder you in a way that makes slow exsanguination in a dirty alleyway a kind end by comparison. Are we clear?"

Jack looks into her eyes. He finds no sign of deception and it terrifies him.

"He's- He's in America. He's in San-Francisco." Mewls Jack.

"America is a long way away. If I do not find him there the travel time will only increase my desire to-"

"It's true! He's on some weird mission as part of his weird club thing. I don't know anything else honest!"

Nightraven nods. Then finishes wrapping up Jack with the paper. She then turns to Thomas and Elizabeth.

"Call the police and an ambulance." She says simply. "Several of them are injured, but none fatally."

Then the woman vanishes.

[Finland SSR]

Park In-hyun

Icarus

Renata Martínez, the heroic Stella!

---

"So, how are we going to share this snac-" one of the vampires started a sentence, suddenly cut off by an intervention from Park and Blackout, the former firing a pistol at one of the vampires and the latter slamming his hammer into the ground before them. This all was so unexpected that even Renata raised an eyebrow at this change of pace. Looking around for the sources of these attacks, she saw Park exchanging a not so friendly conversation with one of the vampires, the tuxedo wearing one, who apparently knew the dhampir's name. Meanwhile, Blackout, who seemed to be quite wounded, sent a comment towards the vampires and then turned towards Renata directly, noting to not risk herself when she has teammates by her side.

What, did he believe she is a Young Blood or something? While many of them were her classmates, yes, they were nothing more than acquaintances fighting a common foe, so how could she hope to rely on their support in this fight? Despite this, Stella responded with a quick nod and spoke:

"I simply did not expect them to have such a good level of coordination."

Park was busy facing off against the tuxedo wearing vampire, so she and Blackout got to deal with the other two. Her... ally went for creating shackles built out of electricity, grabbing the monsters and anchoring them in place. Perfect, simply perfect. No kidding.

"I can work with this!" Renata exclaimed as she lunged forward, running across the abandoned warehouse to close the distance between her and one of the vampires immediately after Blackout's order to attack. As soon as she got close enough, the heroine raised her right hand and fired a salve of her sunlight laser at the opponent - however, despite being chained in place, the vampire had enough dexterity to dodge the incoming attack. Unable to run after Renata and retaliate, however, he opted to slam his ground into the floor, pull out a stone from the earth and toss it with superhuman strength behind it.

Renata reacted swiftly. Stopping and locking her eyes with the incoming stone, she moved her hands forward and fired a beam of infrared radiation, melting and then vaporizing the rock before it reached the target.

Though she was doing fairly well all for herself, Stella couldn't help but think that improvements could be made.

These vampires are weak to my light attacks, yeah, but they're also fast enough to dodge all my laser attacks... and infrared blasts don't burn enough to trigger that weakness of theirs... I'll need to think of an alternative use of my powers.

An idea popped up to her head. She wasn't sure if it would work, but... you miss all of the shots you don't take, as the Americans say. And for this particular shot, she went into a low start and then suddenly ran forward, closing in on the vampire as fast as she could.

"My god, you really are suicidal!" the vampire explained, grinning, and moved into a combat stance, ready to slap the girl away as soon as she threw her first punch. That never happened, however, as Renata suddenly went to a slide stop meters before her opponent and snapped her fingers in front of their face, unleashing a powerful burst of light in between them. When it faded, the vampire had the entire front of his body firmly burned from the light exposure, and fell to the ground. He was alive, but definitely knocked out, at least for now.

"I liked your Twilight counterparts more." Renata muttered to herself as she lowered her hand and took a deep breath. These fights keep getting more and more draining on her stamina... but she can't stop here. Turning to the side, she saw a battered Blackout in front of a knocked out vampire.

"So, I presume you won your fight, too." Renata spoke towards the masked superhero. "But where's Park?"

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

Having gone off to find more opponents and help defeat them after having talked to Diego, Kirisvala currently found herself realizing that she had inadvertently wandered into trouble. While before she had managed to defeat vampires one on one no problem, this time she had been flanked by two at once, each taking a position relative to her such that she would not be able to guard herself against both of them at once.

"You've done quite enough already, little girl. Alien or not, we're stopping you now." One of them spoke, with the other nodding at him.

"Maybe your friends will see it fit to stop struggling and surrender if we take you hostage. But given all the trouble you've been causing, we'll have to give you a good beating first." The second vampire said coldly, a confident smile on her face as he and his companion circled around Kiris.

The alien girl could only glare at them as she tried to keep track of both of their positions as they moved around her, like beasts about to pounce on their prey. "Well, you're goin' to be pretty disappointed!" She thought as a plan occurred to her for facing her new foes. Suddenly and without warning, she darted away, dashing past the two vampires and climbing up the side of a warehouse with her claws. Now on the rooftop, she waited patiently for the vampires to fly up and chase after her, adopting the same position as when she had terrified one of the bloodsuckers to the point of fainting. As soon as one of them showed up, she leaped towards him, fully intending to grab him and use his head to cushion her fall, thus knocking him out.

Unfortunately for her, the plan didn't work out as intended. The vampire was able to react just in time and fly slightly to the side in order to avoid being caught by her trick, and his companion, who was trailing just behind, grabbed her by the foot as she fell.

"Well, that was easy." One of them remarked. Distressed, the Hadrian thrashed around in an attempt to free herself, but it was to no avail. It seemed they would be able to use her as a hostage without her being able to put up any resistance whatsoever, but then, in a desperate effort, Kiris wrapped her tail around the vampire's wrist tightly enough to draw blood. Startled, he released her foot. The Hadrian's tail quickly uncoiled and she fell to the ground, using her claws to absorb the impact and quickly moving away, running into one of the many empty buildings that dotted the docks.

Once inside the building, Kirisvala quickly ran up to the wall that was further away from the entrance and placed her back against it, before singing the first few notes of one of the spellsongs she had memorized. Soon the vampires entered the building, and the alien knew that she did not have much time left, but she did her best to keep calm even as they approached her, paying no mind to her song.

This was a mistake. Suddenly, a sphere of bright white flame manifested before Kirisvala and smashed into the ground in front of the two vampires, the force of the ensuing explosion sending them flying in opposite directions and causing them to slam quite hard into the walls of the building, leaving them unconscious. Relieved, Kirisvala paused and then continued with a different song. Soon, a layer of shimmering crystal began encasing the vampires' bodies, ensuring that they would not be able to escape or cause more havoc if they woke up.

"That'll teach 'em not to go around messin' with girls." The Hadrian spoke as she walked out of the building and began looking around for Diego. She had lost track of him due to the commotion she had gotten caught up in, and wanted to see how he was doing. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, it didn't take her very long at all to find him. In fact, it was a very simple task once she stumbled across the trail he had left behind himself: charred, twisted and desiccated corpses. Frightened by these ominous sights, Kirisvala was very surprised to find that Diego was at the center of it all, glowing bright red and continuing to brutalize any foes that crossed his path. From where she stood, she could see two more vampires rushing at him, but she wasn't simply going to wait and see him do the same to them.

"Wait!" She shouted at both Diego and the bloodsuckers as she ran up to them. She jumped towards one of the two, who was floating in the air, and grabbed onto his leg, pulling him down while still in mid-air and then grabbing his head before sending it crashing down to the ground. Upon landing, she lifted the other one by the scalp and bit the air with her sharp teeth several times, showing the vampire what his expectations were if he decided to try and fight her. Seemingly getting the message, the creature of the night scurried away as soon as she released him.

With all nearby enemies taken care of for the time being, Kiris turned to Diego, a scowl on her face. "What do you think you're doin'?! Earlier you asked me if we were the good guys and agreed to help us. You think leavin' a trail of corpses is somethin' that good guys do?!" She shouted at him while making some very energetic gestures with her arms, her accent becoming all the more apparent as she spoke. "We've a very strict no-killin' policy you know! You can't just turn the docks into your own personal bloodsucker slaughterhouse!"

---

---

"It wasn't much of a fight." Blackout replied to the pink-haired Ecuadorian heroine as she relaxed after finishing her own battle. His words were spoken not with arrogance or pride, but rather as if he was stating a fact. And the truth was that the vampire hadn't managed to make a single move in retaliation to the vigilante's attacks, but that was because he specifically set up the situation to be as unfair as possible to his foe. No sense in playing fair when they would kill him at the first chance he gave them.

"Nice moves, by the way. You wouldn't happen to be able to control electricity too, would you?" He asked, having seen part of her fight after having taken care of his own and wondering if she could provide him with more power, if only so that it would alleviate his mounting exhaustion. He then looked around, attempting to spot Renata's teammate, as he too had noticed that she was missing. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to spot her either, and simply shrugged.

"I can't see her anywhere, but if she's really a heroine and a 'thorn on their side' as the vampires called her, she should be able to take care of herself." He stated, before starting to walk towards the building's exit, seeing no point in remaining there any longer. "I'll keep going. The sooner I finish off whatever vampires remain, the sooner I can finally rest." He said. Despite continuing to conceal his weariness with ferocity, the truth was that he had been fighting for a very long time that night, and would likely be unable to go on much longer, making the completion of his objective all the more important.

[Absolon-7]

Hunger gnashed its teeth at Casimir's empty stomach, exhaustion rudely loitered at his knees and joints, and most importantly sheer anger raged in Casimir's veins. It was a grueling run to the docks but from the sounds of combat in the distance he could guess his team had started the fight without him but there was trouble afoot. To the side of a building that faced the ongoing battle there were five pasty-ass motherfuckers, which he guessed where vampires, standing off observing the battle. Quietly, Casimir sneaked behind them to listen in on their murmuring.

"We should attack now!" hissed the frailest looking of the bunch "Look! They're all distracted in their own duels! If we gang up on one at a time to help our kin we can finish them off before they know it."

"Not yet," said the most imposing of the group, "I want to see which human is closest to falling first. As soon as one is finished we'll─"

"I'd be careful about what you say next cause I might just have to kick your ass!" roared Casimir who was suddenly right behind them.

"Another one!" roared the vampire "Kill him!" Before the rest could react to the order Casimir drove his fist into the vampire's open mouth disintegrating the undead's teeth and launching it four of its own body lengths away closer to where everyone else was. The other four leaped back to avoid any potential followups from Casimir. The one he had punched seemed to have recovered but his disaster of a mouth made anything he said sound like gurgling. It leaped at Casimir swiping its claws at him but his chest armor protected him. As the vampire claws left grooves in the plates, Casimir grabbed its arm and swung the vampire to the ground. Jumping up as soon as the vampire hit the ground, Casimir slammed his boots on the vampire's head as gravity was pulling him down. With their superior out for the count the other four cautiously watched Casimir.

"Forgive me if me if I insult you but as I currently have some important merchandise in my left hand," said Casimir lightly bouncing the bag filled with Blood Drug cartridges, "You guys will have to make due with getting your asses handed to you with only 3/4 of my limbs."

Three of the vampires rushed him but he bobbed and weaved to the side making them miss and collide with each other instead. With them temporarily out of the fight, Casimir ran to the remaining frail vampire and with his free hand he grabbed it by the throat. As one of his favorite techniques, Casimir resorted to placing an extraordinary amount of pressure on the vampire forcing it to its knees. To finish it off, Casimir slammed down his head to the vampire's forehead, his helmet acting as both his weapon and shield. Its slowly crumpled to floor unconscious and twitching. Two down three more of the vamps to go.

"Bug faced vermin!" shrieked one of the other three vampires. It swiped with its claws but Casimir sidestepped away in order to grab on to the vampire's wrist. He savagely twisted it up and brought up his knee to the elbow to break the arm. The sickening crack of made the vampire screech in surprise but a boot to the face put and end to it. It landed unconscious at the feet of of one of the last two but something was wrong. The other one was nowhere to be seen! Could it have escaped to attack one of his teammates?

"Wondering where I am filth?", a cold voice spoke behind Casimir accompanied with a hot blistering pain in his shoulder, "Sorry but I couldn't help but smell this delicious blood on you. At first I thought it was one of your comrades nearby but as you fought my kin I could tell you had raw wound oozing utterly luxurious blood out. Honestly i'm quite mad you made a waste of such high grade blood."

Casimir didn't give a damn about the vampire's really creepy words, he was just mad at himself for leaving such an obvious opening. He had to think of something quick since the last vampire was walking towards him licking its lips disgustingly. A plan had to form in his head right now or else these two weak-ass vampire would be gorging themselves on him. The vampire behind him had one hand busy stabbing his back while his other hand was holding on to his free hand. The one in front was now close enough to smell it's breath and it untied its scarf throwing it away. Casimir guessed it wanted to look at his neck before biting. As it came ever nearer to biting his neck, Casimir brought up his knee to the vampire's stomach.

Next, Casimir brought his boot down to the foot of the vampire restraining him, utterly breaking it. The vampire let go off him and almost fell but Casimir grabbed it by the shirt before it could. With the last of his rage, Casimir threw the vampire overhand at the one he had kneed. The two violently collided and crumpled together. Casimir staggered over to them and violently kicked them both launching them at least a meter away. One of them started to get up but Casimir put a stop to it by slamming his fist into the pasty face as it looked upwards in terror.

"Vermin scum! You must have taken the drug to be so reckless in your tactics," spat the last vampire.

"Nope. I'm clean as a trumpet." With the last word, Casimir stomped on the vampire's face knocking it out. With all vampires that he had initially fought finally unconscious Casimir could now see if any off his teammates needed help. And he would have helped them, had he not passed out right then and there. His knees buckled first and after wobbling for a few seconds the rest of his body collapsed on the floor. More importantly, the bag of Blood Drug cartridges was unscathed. "I just need a minute, guys. Just one." He whispered in exhaustion.

[Scotatrova]

-

The world went black, but Diego could hear a voice all too familiar in the darkness.

Diego, don't lose yourself.

Mom? Mom, is that you?

It is, my son. You must regain control, you can't let it win.

What are you talking about? What "it"? How are you even talking to me right now?

Diego, remember who yo-

Mom? Mom, where are you?

A voice spoke again, but this time, it wasn't familiar to him. It was still female, but it wasn't his mother.

Oh my darling Diego, do you see know how you must choose?

Who are you? Where's my mother!?

Oh, my boy, your mother is dead. Don't you see, you are a descendant of Alexander. His dark power is in your blood. Oh how long I've been waiting for the moment you caught a taste of the darkness within you. Now go, return back, I'll be waiting the next time the darkness claims you again.

It was all a blur. One moment, Diego had a vampire on top of him, literally taking his life, and the next, he was standing in the midst of what looked like to him, a boneyard. He could hear the yells, but he couldn't make out who it was. Then he traced it, and he turned behind him to face Kiris, his eyes still the mixture of amber and black. The color then left his eyes and his irises reverted back to their dark brown. He was aware of everything now. The docks, the battle...and what he did.

"Oh god, what happened. What did I just do?" His voice was now small, and breaking. He doesn't kill, at least not intentionally. His family was all about preserving life, and he didn't kill, unless it was absolutely necessary, which he always wished it wasn't. But looking around at the carnage he caused, the eviscerated, charred bodies of what were vampires, but were also once people too. He kneeled down, using his staff for some support. This isn't the time for this, this isn't the time for any of this. Diego would have to time to grieve, for himself, this moment wasn't it. As he examined the surrounding area and figured no imminent threat was present, he brought his attention back to Kiris. "Look, I didn't mean to do this. I- I don't do this. I don't kill...Something...happened to me. I couldn't control it, but I swear I didn't mean any of this." He was just about near to breaking into tears, but showing emotions wasn't something that comes naturally to him, so he held it in. "I know this looks bad, but I can promise you that I'm in control now. If I lose control again, I want you to get me out of here, before I cause anymore harm." He wasn't sure if she would buy his plea, but it was necessary to help make up for the mess he just caused. Or, more so aggravated it.

[New Neros]

Cannon | Black Luminous | Anchorage, Alaska
The Black Vortex

It was a comfortable day in the northern-most state, a tad bit humid but not at all unenjoyable, which begged the question as to why Cannon and Black Luminous were cooped up in a rotting warehouse waiting on some foreign operatives who will most likely show up late or not show up at all. "John," Cannon asked the heavily armored gravity manipulator, "Why does it seem like all of our dealings go on in abandoned warehouses? Where are so many and why are we able to get access to them so easily. Honestly, why don't we just rent a room at the Hilton? I've been thinking about this for a while, you know."

Luminous sighed and turned his head from Jason, knowing the hot-headed explosive supervillain was trying to make light of their situation a bit, but it came across as annoying more than anything. Turpin had received a different set of instructions than what Cannon had received in taking on this mission, putting him on edge whereas Cannon thought the whole thing was more or less a business deal that just so happened to involve two of the heaviest hitting Orion members in a far-off land away from San Diego. A metallic door screeching open alerted the duo to the arrival of their Russian counterparts, and Black Luminous swallowed hard, recalling his orders. "Secure allegiance or terminate them."

"Greetings, greetings," A blow-hard, barrel chested Russian man exclaimed as he made eye contact with the masked villains. "I am Dahl! Nice to meet, nice to meet, yes, you two are the men of Legion, no?" He said, approaching Black Luminous and Cannon directly, firmly grasping their hand, squeezing a bit harder than needed to establish some sense of masculinity. "Oh my, he sends his big, strong men! Haha! You two, strong, very strong, yes." Cannon shot a look at Black Luminous, who simply brushed off the brute with a nod, and spoke directly to the small, mouse-like man who followed behind the bodyguard unnoticed.

"Good afternoon, Tallinn." Black Luminous replied, extending an out-stretched hand to the barely over four foot man. Tallinn shook the villain's hand carefully, his small fingers and palm barely even half of John Turpin's. "I trust your trip across the Pacific was without issue. We have some business to discuss, and it is of the utmost importance that we keep things brief and to the point."

"Hmm," Tallinn squeaked, "We could have met somewhere more luxurious. Rent out a ball room or a venue for half a day at the most, why must we always meet in abandoned warehouses? Is America struggling that much?" Cannon stared hard at Black Luminous, who was entirely flustered at the comment and equally upset at Cannon for being right. Still, to save John's awkward excuses, Tallinn continued. "Still, we both represent major interests several thousand miles away, so, let us see if we can hammer out something appropriate for both of our organizations."

"Ah, yes." Black Luminous replied, "Brief and to the point, we are looking to expand chapters of our organization overseas. Local chapters are popping up and prospects across the continent are coming into contact with us, but we're looking to spearhead development in a far-off region as potential security measures, back-up, in other words. We have reason to believe that elements in North America may be heavily against us in the coming months and we want to have aces in our sleeves."

Nodding in agreement, Tallinn interjected, "So, you're looking for aid in expanding into Russia, and from there, export your ideals into the Far East, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe, correct? We can provide some limited exposure and assistance, so long as you do not interfere with our growing markets and interests. You see, Black Luminous, we do not care about the rights and wrongs of heroism or villainy. No, we're more interested in the value and economic ability of superhuman powers in, how do you say, less than ideal labor conditions. We are not noble, but we are wealthy. The two rarely go hand in hand." He said with a sly smirk, Black Luminous tightening his body.

"You have only half of my intentions correct," Black Luminous replied, Tallinn raising an eyebrow. "You see, we don't exactly require assistance in expanding overseas. We have deep pockets, lots of influence, and powerful members at our disposal. We did not agree to meet with you, hat in hand, in a charitable way and ask for your help, no, we're interested in letting your organization become the first international chapter of Orion, and I have been authorized to offer you substantial incentives to join."

Cackling with laughter, Tallinn spat, "There is so little that you can give us that we don't already have, you Americans sure are comedic. Dragging me here, around the world, just to pull a prank? Outrageous. You could have emailed us this so we all could laugh at you back in Vladivostok, this is rich. Dahl, come along, we have no business with these comedians." Before Tallinn could move, Black Luminous unleashed his gravity well, which he had been slowly churning for the past half hour in preparation for the deal falling through. Tallinn responded immediately, his eyes glowing purple and his wispy hair standing on end.

Behind both men, the wooden boxes of the warehouse exploded into millions of wood slivers and wrought iron nails, Tallinn revealing his power as a similar one to Black Luminous, in that he had a powerful telekinetic field and could manipulate it, while Black Luminous held sway over the titanic forces of gravity. Tallinn's associate, Dahl, went into action as well, channeling a deep, powerful, super-human yell that tore through the telekinetic and gravitational fields, aiming to unload it's sonic energy directly against Cannon. Late to the party, but keen on making an entrance regardless, Jason Terranova slammed his fist into the ground, exploding the concrete floor all around him and engulfing Dahl within it's blast radius.

It took mere moments for the entire warehouse to be destroyed, exploding like a bomb had gone off, sending bricks and material flying for blocks around as half of the street it had occupied got swept up into the explosion. Emerging from the rubble was a man with glowing red eyes, steam rising from his body as he was culprit that reduced the building to nothing. Clutched within his right hand was a bloody and bruised Russian, his neck charred and burnt from the grip Cannon had on it. Cannon himself had noticeable injuries and damage, but the explosive Orion operative succeeded in taking down his opponent, and all that remained was Black Luminous and his adversary.

Both Tallinn and John Turpin had raced away from the damage that Cannon and Dahl would likely produce, each of them climbing higher and higher into the atmosphere until it bordered on the very edge of space. Unlike the physical brawl that their subordinates engaged in, the battle that Tallinn and Black Luminous fought was purely mental, a mesh of invisible forces each vying for control and prodding the defenses of their opponent in an unseen chess match between two grand masters of the genre. "I have fought many telekinetics in my prime," Tallinn explained, "But you possess such a refined knowledge of, how do you say, a mimicry of true power, it's admirable. But, telekinesis at it's basis is the overcoming of gravity. You had one chance to defeat me before I activated my personal shield but you wasted it, and now, you will be made an example of."

Black Luminous remained stoic for a moment, countering each and every probe of telekinetic energy Tallinn hurled his way, but yet, he could not over come Tallinn's own telekinetic shield. It was absurdly strong, perfectly matched to his will power. Straining mentally, Black Luminous began to move forward, closing the distance between himself and Tallinn. "Ah, I see, reducing our distance so that you could have a stronger field to work with, a common tactic in telekinetic fights, but it appears that you haven't been in many yourself. Close to me, and the stronger I become, also." Turpin grit his teeth as Tallinn unloaded onto his gravitational field, growing angry at the Russian's confident smirk.

"Tell me, how much mass are you able to pull?" Black Luminous quizzed, standing upright and puffing out his chest, Tallinn growing more concerned and redder in the face. "And if you go past that, what kind of mental strain do you put on yourself? Sad to say, I've fought many telekinetics, probably more than you ever have. And now, ever will, because of one simple thing about me that you could not fathom." Black Luminous dropped all gravitational fields and focused purely on himself, ramping up his own personal gravity to several thousand, million of Gs at once, visibly affecting the weather beneath him as a trickle of blood sped down Tallinn's nose. Turpin clawed at his armored chest and peeled off the plate, revealing his bare chest beneath. Lodged in dead center of sternum was an apple-sized jet-black sphere, embedded into his body and held in place with pitch black veins and arteries. "All telekinetics have a limit to their strength, even at atomic levels of precision, we both know this, but you do not know that I possess the Black Vortex. An infinite mass with infinite gravity, kept stable through my own gravitational power."

"You son of a bitch," Tallin choked as blood began to pour from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. "You had a goddamn black hole in your chest?!" John Turpin didn't respond verbally, he simply ramped down his own gravity by an order of magnitude. In that split second, Tallinn's eyes glossed over, his own telekinetic power simply ceased, and he rolled his neck back limply. His dead body fell back to Earth from the edge of the atmosphere, Black Luminous slowly restarting his own gravity to counter-act the gravity well in his chest, replacing his chest armor as well. Slowly, he floated down to meet Cannon, who was also victorious in his battle.

"Well," Cannon said bluntly as the master of gravity touched back down on Earth, "This sure does beat the Hilton." Behind his mask, Black Luminous cracked a smile.

[Finland SSR]

Blackout

Renata Martínez, the heroic Stella!

---

"Not... exactly," Renata spoke in response to Blackout's question about whether her superpowers were based on electricity. "I can absorb and release electromagnetic radiation at will. I mean, my physics teacher would probably say our powers are the exact same, but still..."

After all, electromagnetic radiation are just waves created by the consistent induction of electric and magnetic fields, spreading across an area. But this isn't really the time to think about concepts of physics, even though that science was quite close to Renata's heart. Park wasn't anywhere near and Blackout didn't seem to care much abut her whereabouts, citing that if she's supposedly a hero and a thorn in the vampires' side, then she can take care of herself just fine. Not exactly the most heroic approach to the situation, but Renata couldn't argue with that logic.

After walking out of the building, Renata took a glance across the battlefield. The sun had set quite a while ago, though this is the first moment she noticed that in earnest, primarily because that was a problem - she had spent much of her energized atoms during the fight in the darkness of the building, so it would have been nice to recover at least some of that storage. But no, outside of a few artificial sources, she had to work with what she had left. The battle didn't seem to have changed much during the time they were absent, though there were a few new faces in the area. And a few old ones Renata hadn't gotten the chance to talk to.

"Have you got a clue how many of those vampires are still left over there?" Stella sent a question towards Blackout. "Some of our allies don't seem like they'll be able to stay in the fight for much longer."

[The Rebel Alliances]

Alexis Cain/Raven-San Diego Prison

The halls of the prison resonated with the sounds of the gunfire, the screams of victims and the frenzied cries of the infected convicts. I was largely responsible for most of the gunfire. Since I had entered the prison, I had secured two Glock 19s with multiple spare magazines of ammunition. The weapon uses the 9x19 rounds and carries fifteen bullets per filled clip. So, between the two of them I can get off 30 rounds before needing to reload. Which equals more than two dozen dead bodies. Besides that, it hardly matters what kind of juice these guys are doped up on, it won't help them when a bullet cracks their skull at around 2,500 feet per second. In my time as Raven, I had learned to appreciate the power and the value of a gun. Even in this age of superheroes, where men can fly, shoot lightning and tear through buildings. Only a minority of humanity possess such ability. For the rest of us, the gun provides the most efficient way to fight back. Allowing you to kill a maximum amount of people with the minimum effort. Combine this knowledge with the fact that with larger rifle rounds no armor is bullet proof at close ranges and there is little someone can do to stop you rather than shoot back. Not to mention that even with the fastest possible reaction time, someone would need at least five hundred feet of space between them and the shooter to even stand a chance at dodging the bullet with normal human reflexes.

No, even in this fucked up crazy world, a nineteen year old Californian girl with a handgun is still a deadly force.

In fact, even with super powered enemies it's just a matter of finding the right gun and ammunition for the job.

The two of us battled our way through the prison towards the motor pool. Despite Red's best efforts, I had largely turned the path into a war zone. Red however still manage to bring down a number of enemies, thereby saving them from my aim. When we made it to the final door leading out to the motor pool, both me and Red were pretty tired. His exhaustion likely the result having to physically battle the monsters he was trying to save and my own from what I assumed to just being in worse shape then him. Of course, even using guns I had several close calls that nearly resulted in a struggle.

Both of us flanking the door Red glanced over at me as we prepared to break through.

"Try not too leave too much of a mess out there." I rolled my eyes in response. At least he was asking nicely.

"No promises." Was all I would comment. Then breaking through the last barrier between us and freedom what we entered was a veritable battlefield.

"Fuck me..." I breathed as I saw the massive crowds of inmates rolling over the area like a tidal wave. There was next to no police opposition in the immediate area. Leaving the inmates to battle the barbed wire fences and empty vehicles for the most part as they tore at things without direction.

Some inmates were even jumping from rooftops trying to escape. There was some token resistance from some officers and even a few unaffected inmates, but most of them had moved beyond the motor pool and were set up in a sniper's position across the lot. Those who were on this side of the battle were quickly being overrun. Most of our possible escape vehicles were little more than burning husks. But both me and Red had found our eyes drawn to one in particular. It had some surface damage, but it would get us out of here.

Provided we can get to it before it is destroyed as well.

"You focus on taking out the crazy fucks and I get the vehicle in the meantime?" I locked eyes with him and nodded in agreement.

"No problem, but you will not like how I am going to do that." I did a quick mental count of what ammo I had. Having just reloaded both of my glocks. I had 30 bullets ready to fire. And only one more full clip in reserve. That gives me 45 shots.

Duel wielding both guns I let the bullets fly, shooting several of the inmates in the head that had surrounded the car.

"Come and get me you brain dead fucks!" I shouted making as much of a scene as possible. Instinctively, the crowd that was surrounding the car all fixated their animalistic gazes on me. Then, in one pack they sprinted after me, giving Red the opening he needed.

I fired off three more rounds as I ran further away to keep distance between myself and the horde as I called back to Red.

"Whatever you are doing do it NOW!" I advised him. In the following seconds, perhaps half a twenty seconds or so I had emptied both of my guns as I tossed one aside and hastily tried to reload the remaining one as I scrambled too quickly and ended up dropping the gun.

"Goddammit." I swore as I scraped it from the concrete and looked up just in time to see one of the inmates who had closed the distance on top of me. Taking no time to aim I shot off four rounds into his chest as the big bastard fell on top of me.

"Damn you needed a shower..." I breathed as I pushed him off to be greeted by the sight of a rapidly approaching Shield Maiden. My joy at seeing her alive was cut short as I yelled over at her that we are getting the hell out of here. At that moment a inmate came up from behind me and placed me into a neck hold that had me unable to breathe. pressed against his stomach and chest I tried to claw with one hand to escape his grip but it was no use.

Not willing to let him kill me I positioned the gun just beneath his chin and pulled the trigger, spurting blood all over my Police blues. Taking several deep breaths, I scanned the scene. There were more of them making their way towards me. Brianna seemed to have a few scurrying after her as well. I pointed in Red's direction signalling the getaway car and dashed off in that direction. Hopefully Red had the son of a bitch running and ready to go.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

Kirisvala simply continued glaring at Diego, waiting for him to answer for his actions. However, it seemed as if he hadn't heard her at all or was ignoring her, as he kept his back to her and said nothing at all. This irritated her, and she was about to shout even louder and more energetically at him when he finally turned around. Then, in an unexpected turn of events, he... began speaking with a broken voice, looking at the slaughter he himself had caused just moments ago and reacting with disgust and terror. Kiris' stare softened significantly as she watched this, her anger replaced with confusion. "What...?" She muttered as she tried to make sense of the situation and the boy's apparent inner conflict.

As Diego continued speaking, it became evident that he had somehow lost control of himself at the moment of slaughtering the vampires. Was it some sort of demonic possession, like in some of the human movies she had watched, or something else? She had no real analogue in her own culture, as usually when some sort of external power overrode a Hadrian's will, what happened was positive, and not a massacre like what had taken place at the docks.

Regardless, it had passed already. No sense in questioning what that was until they were well out of danger and she had made sure that it wouldn't happen again. "...I'll believe you that you didn't mean to do all of this, but after seein' what you did I can't just let you keep doin' your own thing and only react if you lose your marbles again. You're stayin' right here until my friends finish off the vampires, and I'm gonna keep an eye on you. No more fightin' for you tonight." She said as she crossed her arms in front of herself, clearly not open to negotiation on this matter.

---

---

Icarus strode out of the building where his latest battle had taken place, tightly gripping his war hammer, which he had reformed after confirming that the electric shackles were no longer necessary. He too scanned the battlefield around him, and from where he stood he could observe that there was still plenty of combat taking place, which caused a frown to creep onto his face. However, not everything was bad news. There were still some vampires out there fighting, yes, but there weren't nearly as many as there were before, and even if many of the heroes present appeared to be weary, such as himself, the vampires were in no better shape and it was clear that the group of powered teens had the upper hand in this fight, which was quite relieving.

"Our allies, huh..." The vigilante mumbled, repeating Stella's words. Being honest with himself, he had to admit, despite his pride, that if he had attempted to take on all of the vampires by himself, he might not have escaped with his life, let alone succeeded in his efforts. Ever the lone vigilante, he knew that he could not rely on others, but at the present moment there was no denying that the fight was being won only because others had arrived to join forces against the vampires. It hurt his pride, but it was the truth.

"There can't be many of them left. By my count, I've taken out seven, and your friends out there have taken several more, I'm sure. There can't be many more still on their feet; when I tried to attack the factory there were only six guards, so their numbers must be extremely thin now." He stated, recalling his earlier struggles and what little intel he had gathered throughout the night. How many vampires could there be to stand in their way? Twenty? Thirty? Whatever the number, surely there was only a small portion of them still in fighting shape.

"Yeah, the fight's nearly over... Maybe I can take a moment to rest a little. I'm sure the others can finish the fight..." He spoke, this time mostly to himself instead of Stella. Looking at his hammer, he allowed it to dissolve, fully intending to find a quiet little corner to sit down and recover a little strength before the fight was over, suspecting he would need it, as even though they were currently fighting a common foe, Nightshade did not seem very eager to let him leave once that was over.

This turned out to be a mistake.

Suddenly, without fully realizing what was going on, Icarus fell to his knees. As it turned out, upon allowing the hammer to fade away, he also severed his connection with the energy that constituted it, a connection which, in turn, empowered him. Without this energy, he was left only with his own spent stamina and all the exhaustion he had accumulated throughout a night of constant battle. Adding onto that the numerous blows he had taken during those battles and the injuries he had sustained, it was no wonder that he couldn't force himself to stand anymore.

Icarus' body collapsed there, but he had lost consciousness before he even hit the floor.

[Finland SSR]

Icarus

Renata Martínez, the heroic Stella!

---

Though Blackout didn't seem as keen as Stella at calling the Young Bloods their "allies", he nevertheless confirmed that the battle will probably be over pretty soon. After all, there couldn't be a hundred of these vampires out there, right? Twenty or thirty was a more realistic number, which would mean that there probably aren't many fresh vampires left to be thrown at them.

Yeah, that all makes sense. Maybe Renata can pull through with what's left of her energy reserves. After all, she's not alone in this battle, either. The Young Bloods are all still around, nobody seems to have died yet, Blackout was a fairly powerful hero, too. With all this in mind, Renata spoke:

"If there's not too many of them left, then we need to work harder than normal, to defeat the remnants as soon as possible and prevent any- Jesus!"

Blackout suddenly collapsed to his knees and, before Renata could run up to him in time, fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Are you okay!.. you..." the heroine exclaimed, only at that time remembering that during all this time, she never caught the mystery boy's name, or even their superhero title. Only making this situation even more awkward. As soon as Renata stopped in front of Blackout, however, she immediately noticed that this probably wasn't the work of a third party - the man had been severely battered, and looked fairly exhausted overall. Wounds and exhaustion probably caught up to him - after all, he did tell her that he defeated seven vampires in total... Renata got fairly tired after taking down three.

After a bit of pulling at Blackout's unconscious body to turn it around and place it on his back, Renata swiftly pulled off his right glove and pressed her index and middle fingers on the wrist. It was faint, but the pulse was still there - so Blackout was not dead, yet. Only unconscious.

What now?

Back during her time as a sidekick in the Andean Condors, Stella had to give CPR a few times, but never in a situation as dangerous as this. The battle was not yet over, and sitting here giving first aid to a person would just make her a target for vampires to pile up on them. Hell, her eyes caught the sight of a few wet vampires slowly crawling up on the docks - who could have thought that tossing a vampire to the sea will only make it come back more pissed?

There was no time to waste. The best Renata could do was to make sure Blackout isn't attacked by any of those bloodsuckers.

"Sorry, I'll try to pick you up after we're done. Try to not bleed out in the meantime, okay?" Stella said to the unconscious teenager as she carefully pulled him away by the shoulders, returning back to the warehouse they had fought the three vampires in and placing Blackout in the corner. Not exactly the most heroic thing to do, but it was the best Renata could at the moment. Maybe the Young Bloods had a healer, but even if they did, she had no idea which one of them filled that role.

And with all that out of the way, Stella stepped back in the open and ran towards the two vampires crawling out of the sea.

[Tomia]

Drug Raid
With the vampires thoroughly defeated, the remaining members of the drug gang ran from the crumpling factory. Roy had taken down a number of vampires, and was now doing his best to keep tabs on his team. They seemed to have done well but it wasn't without its difficulties. Wyatt had done huge damage to the floor and ran off running out of the building. Roy didn't know why and was about to follow him until something else caught his eye.

Wendy had just defeated a vampire and while she wasn't currently in danger, she looked worse for ware because of the fight. Roy paused, considering what had happened at the tower earlier he wasn't sure how to respond. Normally he would go see if she was okay, but he wasn't sure if she would even want that considering the circumstance. He couldn't just do nothing though, he felt that he owed Wendy more than that. He made his way towards her but unable to bring himself to talk. He ended up just standing nearby for a moment until it seemed the coast was clear and then headed off to check on everyone else. When it seemed like everyone was out of danger Roy spoke into his communicator. "Alright everyone, this facility is done for, good work. Get back to the jet, we're going home." He told them before suddenly stumbling upon Blackout's unconscious body.

"What the?..." He said to himself before sighing. He couldn't just leave the vigilante there, even if he didn't agree with his methods. With effort Roy picked up Blackout and carried him towards the jet. He placed him in a sitting position on one of the seats and waited for the others to arrive.

[Finland SSR]

Roy

Renata Martínez, the heroic Stella!

---

Surprisingly, the two-on-one fight Renata was running towards never took place, as the two vampires apparently crawled out of the sea not to attack someone, but to run as far away as possible. In fact, this seemed to be the trend across the entire battlefield - having been thoroughly beaten down by this group of teenage heroes, the vampires began a disorganized retreat, dragging away some of their more injured members and vanishing in the darkness. The two wet vampires Renata was originally gunning after were among the last to escape.

She probably could have caught up to them and beaten them to a pulp then and there - but, after a brief discussion with herself, Stella decided against it. Catching up to them would require a speed boost, which would drain her energy reserves even further, not a good thing if you're trying to attack two vampires at once. Plus, nobody else was seemingly trying to hunt down the fleeing enemies, so it's best to not stand out like a sore thumb in this situation.

Granted, Renata's goal as a superhero is quite literally "to stand out", but that's a different type of standing out, one which doesn't involve a potentially suicidal attack on supernatural beings. At least, not often.

One of the Young Bloods called down a jet and the rest began to assemble in it - right, so they believe the mission is over. Better to pack her own things too. Anything to pick up and take care of before she take a three hour walk back to her apartment?

Oh, right, the injured.

Almost forgot she had to bring Blackout to someone who can heal him up. Healing-powered hero or hospital, doesn't matter. With that in mind, Renata turned around, walking back towards the abandoned warehouse. Blackout's body should be in that corner...

...there is nothing in that corner.

"What?!" Renata exclaimed to herself.

Wait, am I misremembering something?

No, that can't be it. She clearly remembered witnessing Blackout collapse from exhaustion and then dragging his unconscious body to the warehouse, and placing him in this exact corner to make sure no vampire takes him away... Did a fleeing vampire take him away? That's unlikely, she didn't remember seeing any of those bloodsuckers leave the building while holding an unconscious body... Or did Blackout somehow wake up during the last minute and walk away like nothing happened? It's hard to tell which would be more shocking.

"Waaait! We lost a-" Renata ran out to the field and exclaimed, hoping to draw attention to Blackout missing, only to suddenly notice Roy placing the teenager's body in the jet. "-oh."

Damn it, Renata, think before you act!

Though, wait a minute. The jet standing in the field presented an opportunity. If you think about it... Renata and the Young Bloods are technically allies in this campaign against Blood, even if that might be a temporary venture, at least for now. It would make sense for her to travel with the Young Bloods here, for coordination in future missions, to make sure she is able to be the most helpful for the operation, so on and so forth... and especially because all the media is probably going to be buzzing around them, not her.

Not that Renata didn't have some goals of her own in this case - for example, finding out when the hell did her classmates think of creating a superhero team together. Obviously, she had heard of the name "Young Bloods" before - who hasn't? - but knowing that their members were her classmates was a different problem entirely.

And with that, the heroine ran towards the jet, waving towards Roy and exclaiming:

"Roy! Roy! Have a seat for an ally?"

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Drug Raid
Roy.

Park In-hyun

Clearly this time she took more than she could handle. She was exhausted by the time the three vampires were cornered as both Renata and the...those who she didn't quite knew came as reinforcements. Well, then, this could be worse and fortunately it didn't. The vampires retreated from the place, and she, no matter how exhausted she is, came by to Roy's as the jet came through. She looked to Roy, "I'll notify my father and asked him to cooperate with the law enforcement with the use of his...people as well, to make sure that whatever evidences that lies around will be given to us so that we can find the roots of this...fucking drug," as she lied herself to one of the seat. Definitely tired.

---

Akira Yasunaga / Jean-Paul

Akira didn't seem to mind much about the whole drug thing. Sure, it caused a lot of chaos and he didn't quite sure about his presence here now. But he couldn't keep his mind in here as Warwolf employed him for a reason. Meanwhile, Jean-Paul teleported himself to the scene of the vampires, but he kept his distance and he put himself far from the scene of the fight. "Seemed regularly well. Shouldn't be bothered about this but Phantom keeps insisting I keep an eye on the whole deal," he muttered, obviously annoyed. Vampire is supernatural, but hardly a threat for Earth.

[Indo-pasif archipelago]

Amir Zairi

"Oh, hi Amir. Now's not really a good time. I'm kinda facing a gank squad of Blood Drug users right now. Holy shit I still have the knife lodged in my back! Anyways, yeah you're gonna have more than enough once the team's back at base. Bye now."

Before I could properly reply Casimir he ended the line to, quite possibly, fighting the vampires. Maybe I should have asked someone else that could take a phone call and have a brawl at the same time. I hoped I did not accidentally kill Casimir. It would need a very awkward conversation to explain it to others. I didn't even dare to imagine Naja's reactions.

I was going to call someone else to make sure I would actually got the sample, but after some thoughts I decided sending another member of the team to the infirmary by mid-fight phone call would not paint me in a good light. Note for self: find and collect the personal phone numbers of all active criminals in San Diego. Now to spend time waiting for Casimir to (hopefully) deliver the package back here. I would need some sort of tracking spell to pull this up and so I proceeded to the workshop.

Browsing through my blueprints, I found one that could convert magical signals from the spell to electric signals. The design was a bit clunky, but I could trim it down to fit it to something handheld. A portable vampire detector. Basic spell would only be accurate to around a block, but with some modification and help from the Global Positioning System I could find the exact room where the vampire, or whatever creature whose bloods were used in the drug, sleeps. I would need some of Alexis' spare parts, but I am sure she would not mind at all. Hopefully. Is this how Carter's mind work all these time?

After sneaking my way to get some receivers and circuit board, I spent the next few hours engraving the metal plates and trying out different configurations of it to connect it to my phone. Connecting arcane circuit to an electric one is always a chore, and I went through eight different circuits without success. I almost succeeded on my ninth attempt, but that was when my phone buzzed and the incoming call fried the thaumic circuit down. To my delight, the call was from Casimir. Which means I could write awkward probationary talk with Naja off my to do list.

"Hey I got those samples. I'd say a dozen or so 5 milliliter injections. Would that be enough?"

"Good, good, that should be enough. Oh and how is your, er back? Sorry about that. You should keep the knife y'know, like for memento or something....."

---

Just one last solder and I was done. The device was finished. Yay! Cookies and kudos for me. Now time to test the device. I took the liberty as the only wizard in the team to buy some rat pets. I let one go but not before spilling some of its blood inside the rune circle. The drop sizzled and turned to vapor, while a little red dot blinked on my phone's application. Good. Know just to wait for the delivery boy and his bag of Blood.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Sam Croft/Blizzard
Logan Heights

Sam looked up from pretending to choose a sandwich and abruptly realized he'd missed something going on with the Blood dealers. The faint heat images seemed to be standing in a semi-circle a little ways into the alley, but he couldn't who or what they were looking at. He cursed his inattentiveness under his breath. "Shit! Guy they're talking to must be behind the near wall."

He grabbed a sub, beef of course, and a bottle of water, tossed enough cash on the counter to pay for them, and quick-stepped outside. He checked the alley mouth -- yup, they're still there -- then made a show of unwrapping his sandwich before crossing the street and walking north while eating; just a guy eating his dinner on the way home.

32nd Street was nearly empty now, probably because the trolley had stopped running for the night. Sam hoped to catch a bit of the conversation in the alley as he walked past. Instead, he heard the electronic beep of a message arriving on somebody's phone, followed by "Gotta go. OK, no more fuck-ups, or I start breaking arms and legs!" A broad-shouldered guy hustled out of the alley, and turned north. It would be a piece of cake to follow him. Wait... The guy's ...no warmer than anything esle. Must be another super, or somebody with some snazzy military stealth gear. Either way, he's no mere thug.

Sam let him get most of a block's lead before slowly picking up his own pace. He was still just a guy heading home eating, though now in a hurry. Sam's target wasn't paying attention, focused entirely on where he was going. After four blocks of a fast walking chase, the guy turned into an alley, a dark one. Sam's walk slowed as he approached the alley mouth: that would be a great spot for an ambush, and would explain why his target didn't take precautions. If somebody followed him in, his boys would jump them. Right! New plan: just walk past, maybe glance down the alley like I heard something.

As Sam started to cross the alley, a hand shot out of the darkness and pulled him into the alley. Another hand joined it with a grip on his other shoulder and an unseen attacker threw Sam half-way down the alley. Sam crashed into the alley wall, and slid down to the wet pavement, stunned. His attacker -- must be the cold guy, since Sam could only see a silhouette -- started to run down the alley, closing the distance and growled a demand. "Who the fuck are you?? Fucking smart guy thinks I can't hear him following me, huh? OK, smart guy, tell me your name and I might let you live."

Keen ears? Definitely a super. Shit! And me out of uniform! Sam let Cold Guy get most of the way to him, then risked the one power he used in disguise, covering the distance between the two with a sheen of ice. Cold Guy stepped onto the icy coating, stumbled, but kept his footing, continuing to close as a slow walking pace. Shit! Good senses, strong and graceful! Fuck me!

Sam's eyes darted around, seeking a weapon. They caught a glint of metal on the ground closer to the alley entrance, and Sam launched himself into a slide across the ice. Cold Guy tried to grab him as he zipped by, but Sam was used to moving on ice and Cold Guy wasn't. Cold Guy slipped and faceplanted. Sam grabbed the metal thing, a broken folding chair. Not much of a weapon, but better than nothing. There was just enough light for him to make out Cold Guy struggling to his knees, so Sam threw his weight into hitting him over the head with the chair. That barely slowed him down. Sam turned the chair and hit him again, catching the top of his head with the metal edge. That put him out.

For a moment, Sam tried to make out Cold Guy's features in the dim light, then remembered the guy had a phone. He yanked it out of the guy's back pocket, using it as a flashlight. Okay, fangs are not normal human features... strange eyes too. With the details of the guy's face remembered as good as he'd get, Sam checked the phone. Excellent! It hadn't auto-locked! The guy's text was still on screen: "Head back to el cajon. Important." Hot damn! El Cajon Boulevard isn't too far away. Sam memorized the number the text came from, then checked Cold Guy's other messages. Routine drug-pusher stuff, no names, and no way to copy down all the numbers.

Cold Guy groaned and started to come to. Sam shoved the phone back in Cold Guy's pocket, and sauntered back onto the street. Nothing to see here, just another day in a bad neighborhood.

Edit: fixed typos.

[New Finnish Republic]

Red

---

Doing his best to avoid getting caught up in the fight, Red sprinted towards the still usable truck that remained. Although most of the attention seemed to be focused on Raven, a handful of inmates remained behind, snapping their heads in his direction as he approached. Cursing at his luck, Red used his momentum to slide into the shins of the nearest inmate, causing the man to go tumbling backwards. Another inmate, seeing Red on the ground, tried to smash him with his foot, but Red was quick to grab ahold of the oncoming foot and with a hard twist managed to throw him into another inmate.

Jumping back onto his feet, Red used his police baton to batter away at any inmate who tried to charge at him. Their speed and strength was on ridiculous levels, and if they had any sort of rational thinking left behind he knew he would've been in a lot of trouble. However, given their lack of it, Red did his best to take advantage of their powerful yet simple attacks. As tough as they were, a solid swing with his baton to the head seemed to do enough to put them out for good, and their joints were just as vulnerable as any regular person's. Inmate after inmate, Red fought them off with the baton until he saw something glint out of the corner of his eye. Cursing, he tried to dodge but he was too late, aa s he felt his cheek get slashed with a broken shard of glass one of the inmates had picked up and was now using as an improvised knife.

The sensation of blood trickling down his cheek pumped even more adrenaline into his system, as he nimbly avoided the next series of slashes that the inmate threw at him until the opportunity presented itself for him to latch onto the weapon wileding wrist. Once he secured that, he proceeded to smash it against the side of the vehicle until the sickening sound of bones breaking was heard. The inmate, no longer able to hold it, dropped the improvised weapon. Not letting up for a minute, Red grabbed the back of his head and smashed it against the side of the vehicle, a large thud resonating off it as his body slumped down onto the ground below.

Breathing hard, Red looked back to see Raven was barely holding out against the horde of inmates. Thankfully, Brianna seemed to have reappeared as a bus rushed by her towards the exit. He assumed that this meant she had saved the people in the medical wing, something Red was grateful for. Now all they needed to do was get the hell out of this place.

Hopping into the truck, he turned the ignition, praying to whatever god was listening that it would start. The engine whined for a few seconds, causing Red to panic briely until a sudden roar from the engine signlaed it was ready to go. Red let out a whoop as he stepped on the accelerator, sending the vehicle right to where the two girls were at. Sliding to a stop, he popped open the other door before shouting at them.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!"

The two seemed more than willing to oblige, as they hopped into the truck. Not wasting a single second, Red stomped on the accelerator and sped through the motor pool towards the exit. The gate was smashed to bit, either at the hands of previous escaping survivors or inmates who were eager to spread their chaos elsewhere. Red bit his cheek, being well aware of what would happen if these inmates managed to get into the public. However, the sight of speeding police vehicles around the area gave him enough confidence that they could handle it for now. Seeing as he was now a technical escapee with two fake officers, he didn't see much logic in stopping for a chit chat with the officers. They didn't seem to even care, as the sounds of gunshots rung out as they dealt with the escaped inmates.

Hopping onto a nearby highway, Red finally allowed himself a breath of fresh air as they were finally safe from that hellhole. What was going to happen next was still a mystery, but he knew that there was someone who had the answers. Glancing over to Raven as he continued driving, he asked a question he really knew he wasn't going to like the answer to.

"Okay, so what's next in your master plan? I'm guessing stopping for McDonalds after all that fun isn't included."

[The Republic of Atria]

After destroying all the lab equipment he could find, Wyatt hid for the last few minutes of the fight. His hands were shaking from fear, adrenaline or most likely both. Things finally calmed down, and not a moment after did the same jet that took them to that training island not too long ago came to pick them up. He felt relief that he was going to be able to get out of this gory mess and hopefully not ever think about this night ever again. Wyatt silently climbed into the jet and sat down in the corner, but despite his best effort to think about other things, the very long shower he was going to take when he got home, a few rounds of Rat Swarm and maybe he'd be able to get some sleep tonight.

Nope, his brain kept replaying the scene where he slice the vampire's arm off, over and over occasionally in slow motion. Which only furthered his doubt about being a superhero, but he spent so much time practicing his magic and learning how to fight, and what would his friends think? That he was a coward? No, they wouldn't do that. At least he figured most of them probably wouldn't. Naja did say that this profession wasn't for everyone and he began to see why. His parents would be more than understanding if he chose to leave, Orro would probably understand as well.

Naligura. He'd completely forgotten about her. She was the one who pushed him into actually keeping his membership with the Young Bloods. On the other hand, it wasn't like she was around much. He only really saw her once or twice before she dropped off the face of the earth. So asking for her opinion on the matter was probably nil anyways.

While he was thinking about his future, he saw the rest of his team and several of the others that joined them in the fight with the vampires. Suddenly he was conflicted again when he saw some people looking tired but no worse for where, and some were just flat out unconscious. What possessed people that they would willingly fighting until exhaustion or subject themselves to getting beaten that severely? What was the dribing force behind that willingness to fighting and get hurt?