Welcome to Tytonidae

[Axel Rosen]

((I have the consent of the other players there to write this as it happened))

Rather than feeding from a human this evening, Axel is moving lightly, going to one of the shops that sell contraband blood. After purchasing it and finding a place to feed from it, Axel slinks into a cafe. His eyes look over the thread that initiated his term on the Bridge. It’s several pages long at this point, and it seems like all the questions that could be asked have been asked. The other night had the great privilege of being a part of a group function with a handful of the faction’s members. As he goes through the memories of his time of being an initiate, he feels something. It’s a familiar pull that he has felt before, but usually it’s Meka. Only once before this has it been Velveteen. He kind of hopes that it’s Tameka so he can talk to her about the end of the mutual agreement they have been, until about a week ago, enjoying. As he feels the shift from one part of the world to another, sitting in a hallway, his eyes open to see who it is that summoned.

“Axel, I hope I didn’t disturb anything important. Put this on.” The woman hands him a headset. He looks it over a bit and then back to her. It doesn’t appear to be connected to anything but he could be wrong, it could always have an internal com-system in it of some kind.

“Alright.” This is the only word that Axel can get out before he places the two eared pieces over top of his head and then taps the side twice. Someone else comes in, in the distance, Axel can hear them and sort of smell the scent of them but not see them. They’re around a corner or something. It doesn’t really bug him, just makes him wonder what is going on. “No, nothing important just sitting at a cafe.” Finally the blue eyed vampire gets out the rest of the information that is at the tip of his tongue. It is at this point that he realizes that Doc is in the distance. The smell is about the same, several paces off and to the east. With him is Jesse and, Axel thinks he recognizes Micah. He cannot be sure. There are so many traces of tracks of people that walk in and out this building. It’s like trying to taste sugar under three layers of solid salt.

His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the voice of the woman before him, “Your thirty days on the Bridge are now over. To receive full membership into the faction you will have to navigate the maze of traps and monsters, collect and kill what you can on the way. There will be a couple of us waiting at the end to....welcome you. Do you accept this challenge?” The question makes him look at her for a second as it finally sets in what is going on here. This is a sort of gauntlet. A place where he has to move from one place to the other, not die, and get to the end to face the final trial. He nods his head.

“I accept.” The opportunity to prove himself is finally at hand. This is probably in lieu of a hunt because of the fact that there have been so few violators lately. He’s sure he’s only seen one or two on the crow and that wasn’t for very long. It seems that people have a fear instilled in them or they’re being more cautious in general. There is something honorable to having to shed blood to be apart of something that fights to protect it’s own. Her voice once again breaks his train of thought -

Velveteen dips her head and grins. "We will be listening in in case you have any major problems." She lightly taps her own headset. "Other than that...good luck. I will see you at the other end." She walks off and around a corner. This gives Axel the first hint of where to go, east. He has to be wary of traps on his journey toward the rest of them. He can tell that there are at least five of them in the distance, waiting for him.

Heading to his right, the direction in which Velveteen went and sort of disappeared, he gets a bit caught of guard. He jumps, almost prepared to be blown to bits. He’s heard that Meka had to crawl out of a hot tub almost after being hit by a trap, but lucky for him it was just a camera. He pokes it but walks off. He gets the feeling that he shouldn’t take down cameras and things that have to do with security, as they are not really traps just give an image of people as they pass by. He takes a few more steps, one two many and his eyes see it. His body reacts before the trap has a chance The clank of metal hitting one each other, the trap bites at air. He looks down at the bear trap.
Being that the leader of the faction and person that set this whole thing up has told him to gather up whatever he can, he leans down to try and pick the trap up. He can’t. He doesn’t even know where to begin with traps. As soon as he tries to mess with it he knows that he can’t disarm it. Shaking his head he takes another step crossing over a corner rather than going around it. It seems though that Velveteen is a far more cunning trap-setter than he maneuvers. By trying to dodge a trap that may be in the corner, he walks right into the trap at the corner. The poison trap sets off on him, causing him to cough a bit. It seeps down into his pores the stir there of the maggots starts to cease. The crawling beneath his skin, growing scarce.

He takes another step, coming up on another corner in the hallways. His eyes glance around it and the zombies there don’t see him. He almost wants to ask how the hell they got zombies into the Eyrie, but he doesn’t ask questions. No. It is his motivation at the moment to get to where he is going and where he wants to be. The end of this maze, that is. As he comes around the corner, the zombies reach out and try to attack him. They swish their hands around aimlessly and try to gnaw at the man that isn’t there. Axel moves just as they move their arms to grab him, but he swings his sword in a monstrous power. It’s while he still has it. Turning the zombies into piles of rotten flesh, the man moves to take another step.

His foot seems to place surely, but he looks at it and takes a breath. All things around him slow down as he realizes that his foot has just hit a bear trap. Not just a bear trap is attached to a proximity mine. They sort of daisy chain off one another. As the bear trap grabs his ankle and gashes into his leg, the other mechanism fires of a wave of heat, burning his entire body. He winces in pain and then takes a deep breath. His hands ball into tight fists, the one that holds the blade shakes the weapon slightly. Somehow, he shakes off the pain and takes another step. The next corner seems to be guarded by a singular Fadebeast. He’s never approached one before or really heard what they’re capable of.

Turning the corner he prepares himself for battle and charges forward. One placement of his foot and a shrapnel bomb goes off under his foot. This happens along with another poison trap. The two of them together seem to take not only Axel but the fadebeast off guard. The beast misses him but he misses it as well, he attributes this to the fact that he is flying forward through the air to where the group of them are standing. He can hear Velveteen readying the firing squad, "Ready guys?" In return the rest of them, with the exception of his sire say in succession:

Doc pulls his firearm and racks it. "Indeed"

Dulce Periculum cell sinks back in jacket pocket. "Always ready."

Micah replies back with a simple: “Ready”

Axel looks at Jesse just in time to see him nod and lift the blade up and ready himself for the attack that he is about to make on the vampire that he created. As his chidle, Axel feels that he should feel some sort of let down, but being that he accepted the terms of this without question, what is he to expect. Velveteen’s voice is heard, tearing Axel’s attention away from Jesse and to the rifle she’s holding,”Fire!” She is the first to fire. The several bullets she fires gives him shots to the gut. Many of the slugs hit him in the gut and he, having just tried to step forward, is stopped. He doubles over just in time to be shot in the leg by Micah.

The combination of the two shots, his forward momentum from being bent forward and the shot to his leg, Axel falls to his stomach. Almost at the same time that this is happening, there is a sound of a blade coming out though the sound of the blade hitting flesh, Axel feels no pain. He is curious as to why this is so he lifts his head up and looks at the gash in the head of his sire from the man to his side. Were he in a better position he might be a bit more peeved than he seems at the moment. He just waits for the next attack on him. The sound of a shot goes off, and he watches the bullet rip through the throat of his sire. He wonders what kind of conspiracy is this or if he and Jesse really look that alike. His blue eyes look up at the two of them expectantly.

He gets what he wants, the blade that just bit his sire, is now coming down. The young vampire watches it as if it were in slow motion. The force at which it comes down is incredible, severing the arm at the elbow and he lets out a bit of a groan, lifting his body up with the other arm only to let it fall again. His chest is flush with the ground beneath him now covered in his own blood. He feels almost relieved that he is weightless. He can still think, still feel the pain, that is until the next blade comes down. His sire’s blade, the one that had been held to the throat of his ex. It comes down and cuts a gash into his head. The thing skews his brain a bit. Now the things that he thought were in slow motion may actually, to his perception, be in just that.

As he tries to pick himself up off the ground again, he makes it about half way. His body is up on his knees when he hears a gunshot. It is in that moment when he blinks and finds himself on his back. Looking up at the ceiling and there is a hole in his chest. He feels that there is a void in the muscle where his heart used to be. He is breathing, he can’t help it, it’s a habit at times. The bullet has pierced through his heart and come out the other side. The exit wound is far larger, and though he doesn’t know it, some of his heart is on the ground behind him. His body crumbles and he is in and out of consciousness. His fangs elongate. The lot of them. Over a few seconds his eyes go from pupilless black to blue a few times before his eyes shut completely.

Past his perception, because while he hears it he doesn’t understand it at the moment. He can hear two people apologizing. They are apologizing to Jesse for hitting him. Axel wonders why he doesn’t hear Jesse, not because he expects him to speak but because at the moment he can’t remember why he doesn’t speak. Doc moves over to him on the ground and check him out, looking back to Jesse. There are a few shots fired. Several more attacks happen. He’s sure they’re happening to him, but at the moment he’s lying in the abyss of his current pain. A pool of his own blood and the floor. His fingers rake at the ground hearing the voice. Velveteen, walking up to him after speaking to the others. She comes over top of him, looking down, “You followed orders without question. You accepted a challenge knowing the odds were against you. You have given your blood for the faction and in return the faction will bleed for you should that day come. Welcome to Tytonidae, Axel.”

Several more moments pass of Axel being in and out of consciousness before he feels himself lifted off the ground. He blinks and looks over. It’s the face of Jesse. He grins a little bit and helps him as best he can. He puts what little weight he can on his legs. They’re wounded and they’re fresh. These are the first real wounds, other than the one gunshot from Jesse, that he has sustained. He hobbles off with Jesse up to his hut in the treehouse. Wherever Jesse puts him, he passes out. There, he wanders off in a doze and only wakes to send a few texts out to a special someone, then his childer.