Into the Grave... [Open]

[Bastion Courbon]

A Letter to the Editor,

Why is no one covering this whole gang warfare explosion in recent weeks. You guys are slackers! People are dying out in the streets, shootings all over the place, I’ve heard entire gangs were wiped out. Now I know that gangsters aren’t everyone’s favorite people but this should still be seen by people for what it is. A street war in smallville Canada. Wholesale slaughter in our streets! Does that make sense to anyone? Probably not. Maybe your publication should dig for the truth and expose what’s really going on in Harper Rock.

Sincerely,
A pissed off citizen

Bastion dropped the letter in the mailbox on the public street. It had been carefully edited and then typed out, handled with rubber gloves only, much as the envelope had been. The paper was the same seen at any number of office supply depots and the envelope matched it. Bastion was a conspiracy nut and that made the young Necromancer overly paranoid perhaps. Well, that and being badly affected by his own stint in the Shadow Realm.

He had a love/hate relationship with the world of the dead. He loved drawing his powers to control thing belonging there and he hated being there himself.

Glancing around, the necromancer walks away from the drop point. He’d been sending letters to newspapers just like that one for years now. He and his friends had once spearheaded an investigation into the disappearance of a young girl that had actually helped the police to find her. Of course, Bastion and his group had thought she had been abducted by aliens and it was almost on accident they stumbled across the warehouse where the would-be serial killer would had slain her but it counted.

The serial killer might had been being controlled by aliens after all.

It was late and the streets are nearly empty, the necromancer moving through the night toward Cherrydale. He was heading to one of his favorite places… the Catacombs.

[Marjani (DELETED 5749)]

Mari wasn't a fighter by any means, she never proclaimed to be, even if she wondered if the person she was now, would be enough for her wife later on. The two were completely opposite people, which the saying opposites attract seemed to ring true, but what if her wife got tired of saving this damsel in distress when she was old enough? No longer a fledgling? Mari wouldn't and couldn't blame her, so this was why the woman spent more time down in the catacombs than ever before. So her wife wouldn't always have to come to her rescue on things she -should- be able to kill and take care of herself. As to not bother her wife. What if she was doing something for her faction and came running in to save her wife from a mooncalf? How embarrassing for the both of them.

Marjani had no idea about weapons, let alone how many rounds of bullets was enough for a quick walk into the catacombs for some shooting practice, so she only brought with her forty or so rounds. That seemed like a lot to her at the time when she purchased them. However, the woman failed to realize that forty might be a good number for a person that was an excellent shooter, something the woman was not. It would take her at least five shots to kill the monsters bigger than her, so forty didn't go very far in her case.

"Well, darn it all!" Mari said as the clip got smaller and smaller with each successful [read: barely successful] kill made by the woman. She shook her head, sighed and then turned on the balls of her feet, in an awkward and out of place, graceful nature, as anyone who took a fair few ballet classes would do, and was met face to face with...

What the hell was that? Mari stumbled backwards from something that looked like a cross between a mooncalf and an ancient, decrepit looking thing. The woman pulled the gun up to either defend herself or just simply kill it, depending on how it approached her or reacted and pushed out a couple bullets from her gun, that landed on the wall behind the large beast of a creature.

With her back against the wall, Mari took two more shots, one that grazed the shoulder of the unidentifiable creature, and then with one more shot in its direction, the gun didn't do anything. She tried again and got the same results. Mari didn't even attempt to shoot at anything again, because if it happened twice, chances were positive that the third time would produce the same results with her not hitting the damn thing.

It slashed at her with large hands, causing Mari to move out of the way, but not quick enough. A large gash was drawn across her back from one of its oversize claws, making the woman trip over her own feet and scrape her knee against the solid surface of the floor that once held her feet upright, pre getting an *** whipping.

Her gun, the gun Nishaa got her was to the far left, near a corner, the very corner the beast was protecting, or at least hovering in. "Aww, come on ya dumb *** *****." Mari moaned as the woman rubbed at her scrapped knee that burned under her khaki pants she picked up-because everyone loved some khaki's, especially her wife. Well, she liked taking them off Mari-that counted, right?

Mari grabbed a piece of stone that had fallen from a wall at one time or another and chucked it up over the head of the monster and let it bounce across the grey stone floors a couple times, which captured the beasts attention for a couple seconds, which was all the woman really needed. She snaked around the mooncalf looking thing's body, reached for the gun, had it in her grasp and the thing roared down at her with such fury before it made a second attack, this time, the beast had shoved her out of the way, using its arm to connect with her chest. Mari went up, up and then suddenly down, hard, on the ground landing on her open back. The woman cried out in pain before she curled into a ball, snatched the come out of her back pocket of those khaki's she had momentarily thought of and began to read from it. Only to have it destroyed before she made it anywhere to the end of the scripture, the woman resting her head on the cool, damp floor as she submitted to defeat.

[Bastion Courbon]

Wiping his boots on the stone floor of the Catacombs to get as much of the nasty off of them picked up throughout his trek in the sewers to get there, Bastion starts as he hears gunshots ringing out nearby. One would think he would be used to it by now, hearing gunfire in Harper Rock, particularly in the sewers and catacombs that were usually packed full of the walking dead. He starts off down the corridor toward the sound at a jog, maybe it’s another Fforde vampire he can hang with. The last party hadn’t gone to well and Bastion didn’t get to spend much time with them. It was as if some force beyond his ken kept him away, grinding in the sewers, the catacombs and the castle determined to keep him too busy for social events.

That was silly though. Of course that wasn’t the case. Arriving at the end of the hallway he turned to the left and headed that way quickly. The sight that greeted him was horrifying. A mooncalf looming over a man on the ground who looked to have given up.

Bastion to the rescue!

He waved his hands before him and bones along the floor rattled their way together, forming three zombies who rose up called forth by their creators unholy fury! He rushes forward toward the mooncalf, drawing out his sword and let out a warcry to grab it's attention as his skeletons...

Then they stood there. Doing nothing. Bastion stopped midway to the brute that was now staring at him. “Come on zombies!” Nothing. “Um… zombies… attack!” The stupid creatures stood there doing nothing. “Go, go, gadget zombies?” Nothing.

What the flying ****?

~BAM~

Distracted by the ineffectiveness of his minions he was socked across the face and send cartwheeling through the air, landing amongst his minions who promptly set upon him awkwardly trying to hit, claw and bite at him.

Are you ******* for real right now? My own dudes are ******* me up?!?! Who the hell came up with this gem of a power?!?!

On the plus point, the mooncalf snarled at the new arrival and started toward the vampire currently trying to fend off a nasty ground and pound three on one from his friends, leaving the man it had been about to kill or eat, or… whatever mooncalfs do alone.

"Mother ****! The mooncalf, not me!!! Help!!! Hero down! Someone help!"

[Mona McGee]

Mona McGee wasn't in the best of moods . She flopped down on the sofa and propped her timberlands up on the coffee table. The bottle of Jack sat on the end table she took a moment to pour herself a glass before she picked up the first piece of mail. She got all sorts of kooks mailing her and some more sincere and interesting individuals with real stories mixed in the bunch . She read the first few lines of one letter telling that his wife was a alien. she tossed it in the trash bin and so the next three followed in quick succession. Then she paused as she read the rant about why had no one covered the gang wars ... Mona paused .

She had been well aware of the gangs warring . She had not considered it to be Sun news ... The More serious news papers would have usually been all over a gang war. Maybe this would be a good story to tie into the Mayors office The mayor had been quite mysterious lately and none of his policies had been working. You couldn't get a quote from that man about anything. Mona took another sip of her whiskey and flipped on the local Tv news ... no mention of gangs this week there either . Lighting a cigarette a trail of smoke hung in the air about her head . She reread the letter .... Guess Harper Rock is going to get a gangland story In the next issue of the Sun . She scanned the envelope for a return address and found none guess this one was a freebie she wouldn't be writing any checks for story ideas to this dude .

She stubbed out her cigarette and picked up another letter after placing the one in her to do box . It was going to be a long night .judging by the size of the stack ... she was game to see which would last longest the bottle of Jack or the stack of letters .

[Marjani (DELETED 5749)]

She heard the staggering of the feet of the beast as it came looming on down on the woman, who looked anything but a woman at this point and time. Mari's eyes closed and then recalled her phone! Yes! Her phone! A hand fidgeted around in her pocket after being shoved down in it and pulled the phone out of the pocket of her slacks and started scrolling through the list of names; the very short list of names as she curled up into a ball, back to the beastly creature, a whimper escaping Marjani as she felt the flesh that had been torn by the large creature pull.

"Almost there!" Mari practically croaked out as her fingers swyped up over the screen to the letter 'N' section where she pushed Nishaa's name and just had to press the call button, but suddenly there was a new presence on the scene....and then a few more. Zombies-his zombies. He seemed to be trying to control them and they didn't want to do whatever it was he was telling them to do. Which was hopefully helping her, not kill her like the other creatures.

And then a whole slew of fuckery happened and all Mari could do was just stare. Not only where they ineffective, but it seemed they had it out for the guy and while it might have been funny in any other situation, it was far from funny, because what if they turned against her after they were done with him? Mari's finger pressed on the green phone icon and heard the phone start to ring, as the creature from behind swung out at the woman again, taking not only the phone but her arm too! Marjani watched as what used to be her hand slowly crumble to dust right in front of her eyes as she cried out in pain, then shot a leg out at an attempt to kick the thing away from her, which was a stupid idea because not only did she not hit the creature, but Marjani felt her back pull that much more and the pain that was just at around her back area, not shot through every fibre of her being and she spasmed on the ground right then and there. Great. Not only was she good for nothing, but so was this other unidentified guy and she was probably going to end up watching him die before she finally kicked the bucket.

[Bastion Courbon]

Scooting away from the zombies, who seemed too stupid to follow (how were these things useful at all?), Bastion heard Marjani's scream of pain. Looking over to her arm as it turns to ash he can understand why. Bastion struggled to his feet, standing up finally. He glances back to the skeletons, the stupid things were staring at him from only feet away doing nothing.

He drew his weapon and gave a battle cry, raising it up over his head, summoning a shadowstrike in behind the beast. Of course as he yelled, he turned, and the shadowstrike completely missed the target. Another awesome ability brought to you by Bastion! The mooncalf,while Bastion is still realizing with dismay from the botched effort lashed out, its teeth sinking into his neck. Bastion immediately summons a Sidhe which appears and... actually does it's job! The mooncalf crashes to the floor of the catacombs with a roar. If he didn't have a gaping wound in his throat and the guy on the floor was still able to clap Bastion would have given a bow at that moment.

Realizing now it not the time for a victory dance the necromancer presses the only advantage he's had so far and swings his sword right at the monster's chest. The blade glances off the beast, throwing foul cior into his eyes and blinding him. "Not fair!" Bastion yelled in frustration as the mooncalf lunged at him. His complaint is cut off by his own scream as the teeth of the monster catch his leg deep, to the bone.

He slashes out wildly at the beast as the bones in his leg snap within it's jaws. Finally an errant strike hit's the creature in the skull solidly.

And the guy missing an arm and another one whose leg is hanging on by a thread, slowly turning to ash in front of them.

The pain was less than what you would imagine. The horror of watching his own limb dissolve in the air in front of him though... his hands beat at the decreasing limb as if trying to put out a stick of dynamite before the fuse burns away, that is worse than the pain. Once the leg is gone and the rest of him remains he crawls over to the man in front of him to Blood Heal him. He would have to find some spirits to devour for their energies later, but how? Hop-a-long Courbon wasn't exactly going to fit in out on the streets.

"Are you alright?" Yes, the greatest and most pointless question in the human world. A question asked when you already new the answer because the fact **** was ~not~ okay was the reason you asked. "Oh that really looks sore..."

Meanwhile, unmoving, staying right where they'd been summoned, the skeletons stand seemingly oblivious to the scene unfurled before them.

[Marjani (DELETED 5749)]

Mari just laid there and waited. Waited for the end to come and waited to see the other guy's final minutes too. Maybe this time she would come back in a woman's body, or hell, even a black man's body. Either one would be fine with her, but hopefully not anything like Theodore or worse. She could come back as some ninety year old dude on his death bed...Nishaa could never love something like that. Not that Mari could blame her-she doubted she could either. What do people even do at ninety? Lay in bed, play cribbage and...not have sex. Worse life ever in Mari's mind.

And as she thought these things, suddenly the tides turned in the other guy's favor and he actually pulled **** together and killed the thing that was bothering her and had taken her phone off her. And he came out alive! Severely damaged and missing some parts, but all around...he survived and saved the day. Or her and himself. Either way, they were both alive and would be healed in a couple days. Maybe a week? Had they been human, well, their story probably would have ended differently.

"Well, minus the searing pain in my back..." Mari wished she could crane her neck around to see just how badly it really was, but knew that was an impossible feat. "You don't really look much better yourself." She looked at the other guy, who seemed to have something slightly off about him. Just the way he talked to the zombies and seemed to be an overall...well putz was what her mom would say with someone like him. Not that she would ever say something like that about anyone.

"But thanks for the help. I probably wouldn't be anything but ash had you not shown up." Mari searched around for her phone and then the tome and decided to go for the tome instead. Which was behind her. Mari started to turn her body towards the object but with each turn she felt the pulling and tearing of even more flesh, so she just flopped her head down on the ground again. "There's a piece of paper somewhere..." Mari said with a sigh as her head rolled to the other guy. "Can ya help me one more time by getting it?"