When curiosity kills the cat

A small office, one of many in one of the many high rise buildings in one of the many human cities ruled under the World Government of Gaia. Within the confinements of that small room, there were four desks, all of which piled up with stacks after stacks of papers, three of which neatly but the last, not so much. 'Don't touch my stuff, I have them exactly where they needed to be'. Typical of a grown man in the working class. There were four chairs in the room to match the number of tables, but by arrangement itself it was evident that only two of those were occupied while the remaining were just paper space. Amongst the mountain of articles, there was a figure busy writing away, the movement of pen and sound of scribbling never seemed to cease, repetition of the same image running smoothly like clockwork. The change happened when the only door in the room opened and a man stepped inside. Appearance wise, he was more or less six foot tall, short black hair with little fringe grassing over his forehead, about a tenth of the tresses being gray. He wore a pair of dark chocolate brown suspender pants over a dull cream colored buttoned shirt with a big brown coat thrown over his shoulder, hooked in place by mere two fingers. The man stood at the doorway in silence, watching the purple haired woman scribble away with her head down and body arched like a hunchback and seemingly oblivious to her surroundings. Flipping his coat around the front to hang them by his forearm, the man walked forward in his cheap leather working shoes, reached out his free hand towards the woman in dark purple collared blouse and long black pants who still seemed not to have noticed him and, put his hand through the woman to grab the item on the table. After the man grabbed the palm sized dull colored rectangular device from its original position and pulled it towards himself, both the image and sound of the woman that was at the table vanished, ceasing to exist. "Story..." The man grumbled in a vexed tone, clearly upset that his previous-apprentice-present-partner had ran off again on her own.

The sun had only just set, but the rental warehouses in the docks were almost cleared of people less night patrol because it was already past office hours. Hiding in the shadows and sneaking from cover to cover to avoid being seen as she progressed was none other than Story, the ever so curious journalist who had received word that a vampire coven was suspected to be in one of the empty warehouses. Though she had been told by her mentor to stay out of monsters' territory time and time again, the purplette simply could not oblige due to her burning desire to know. In fact, Story was scheduled to work overtime due to a deadline for an article reaching soon, but all she could do was be apologetic to her mentor who would have to shoulder all that weight on his own back in the office. Actively avoiding moving under the artificial lights, Story managed to locate the designated warehouse without much trouble, and did a recon around the building before settling by the front door, pressing her ear against the iron plate and focused on listening.

It was only then it occurred to her that the perfume she wore might have given herself away, since she had read about vampires before and known about their heightened senses. How foolish of her! She might be able to silence her steps and cloak her image, but smell was something she could not conceal! The femina panicked, worrying if it might already be too late for her and that the vampires might already have her surrounded. Aside from her blouse, pants and shoe, Story had on her a side sling bag she would carry with her on most occasions which contains all her little gadgets she had made since she began learning alchemy. And well... though they were each useful in their own right for the appropriate situations, she hadn't really prepared for anything that would help her 'in the scenario where she's stuck in a harbour at night with no one around and vampires are possibly going to eat her'. Actually, come to think of it, she surprisingly did have something that may help... Digging into her bag as quietly as possible, Story took out a palm sized whistle looking contraption with a string and few gears attached to it. It was one of her masterpieces, an octave whistle - named so for obviousity. She had came up with the idea of such a device so that she could have a dog whistle and rape whistle both in one, but it had never occured to her until that point that she could adjust the frequency to have it irritate the keen vampire ears while being unaffected herself. With that stroke of genius falling into place, Story tinkered with her whistle to the desired settings and wore the string tied to the whistle like a necklace. And almost immediately, as if on cue, a hand was placed on her shoulder from behind, followed by a man's voice. "Hey". At that moment, it was an immediate reflex of the purplette in the moment of panic to bring the whistle to lips and blew with all her might, though the sound emitted through was uncaptured by her human ears. In the midst of her blowing, the strong hand still stable on her shoulder yanked her backwards, turned her around and slammed the poor girl against the warehouse door with an audible bang, causing the shocked femina to spit the whistle out and let it dangle by her neck while she was forced to stare into the menacing eyes of a bald headed man one head taller than herself. It was only natural for Story to be quivering in trepidation at that point whilst the taller man eyed her with an uncanny smile, both hands pressed against the iron wall behind her, preventing escape. After what seemed like forever to her, the man lifted one hand from the door and knocked in a specific rhythm, waited for less than a minute before the door unhinged and swung open with an irritating creak from being un-oiled for too long. "Who's she?" Asked the figure from inside, a pair of eyes scanning the proximity in suspicion. "I'm not sure, but I say we bring her in and we'll find out". That statement of course made Story's knees weak, but her observant nature and keen instincts from being a journalist nudged her to look in a certain spot. Behind the lips of the smiling man. No fangs.

The interior of the warehouse was dim, but still adequate for visibility. From Story's point of view, where she was tied up with her wrists bounded above her head and secured against a pillar, there were five men, one of which the one who found her outside the door. Her bag was taken from her, tossed aside on a table nearby with no one taking any remote interest in it or its contents. The woman had stopped shaking for now, utilizing proper breathing techniques to calm herself in hopes of using that brain to aid in her escape, if at all possible. "So," one of the men started, "What are we going to do with her?" It was as if a blatantly obvious, even idiotic question had been asked judging from the reaction of the rest, one of whom even began to pinch the bridge of his nose. "...I take it you haven't been with us for very long, bub. Let big brother show you what we do to bad little girls who stay out too late in places she don't belong" said the bald guy who moved forward, evidently intent on continuing what he had planned for the girl when they were outside. The closer he got, the louder Story could hear her own heart pounding and racing inside of her chest. Her expression must have been ugly, disgustingly frightened trembling lips despite her prior exercise and tears almost welling up in her eyes. When the man grabbed her arm, only a slight whimper escaped her voice box before she sealed her lips tight, teeth clenched tight but both eyes kept open, not wanting to miss any chance of escape or any new information that might lead to that. Perhaps it was because she hadn't screamed or do anything foolish while in captivity, that the thugs allowed her to be restrained without gag. But as the face of that filth came closer and closer, the urge to simply let it all out and screech became more and more enticing. It was that very moment, right before she decided to give up and shout when her assailant was only a breath away from her face, that the ordeal was interrupted with a series of banging noises outside the room. Story and the thugs all knew the secret rhythm to announce allied presence, but that noise was nothing of the sort. It sounded more like... an exterminator trying to lure a mouse out of its hole. At least, that was the image that ran through her head at that point.

None of the people present in the room said a word. Glances were exchanged, before a few head movements gestured for two of the men to make exit and check the outside, bearing weapons no less. After the significant creaking from the door, there was a short silence, followed by a ruckus only audible due to the deafening silence within the confined space, and then a very obvious gunshot. Alerted, all the remaining men armed themselves and headed for the exit while the restrained girl stayed behind for obvious reasons, only able to imagine what might be happening outside those doors. A few moments after the men left, more gunshots ensued before everything went silent.  

Having wrists bounded by untreated rope and hung over head could not be comfortable in any way, but rather than focusing on the malaise, Story was very much enthralled by the anticipation with not knowing who or what might be outside that door. The police? MIRA? A masked superhero? Thugs from a rival gang? The possibilities were endless when she allowed her imagination to run wild. At one point she even envisioned a giant rhinoceros looking eldritch abomination with tentacles, horns, spiked carapace and multiple limbs charging in with spears and sabers in each tendril before she forced herself to stop with the ridiculous notions and stay focused on the matter at hand. Story's attention was all on the main entrance, but she could not help but yelp when a figure darted through the half opened door. The figure - a man in his thirties, clean shaven, long blonde hair center parted with a pistol in hand lowered his gun when he saw the hostage, a somewhat surprised look upon his handsome features as he stepped aside for his partner - another man of similar age and little hair on his face, with short army cut blonde hair, slightly taller than the first man with a more aggressive look holding some sort of cleaver or machete in his right hand to enter. Both men were well built, each wearing a long sleeved denim jacket over their shirt and below waist were denim jeans, only difference were the colors and shirt design. "Hey, you okay?" Enquired the pistol wielding man as he tactically moved closer to the restrained Story, who internally sighed in relief knowing the duo were not hostile, or at least that was what they appeared to be at that moment. "Um... yeah, I'm fine, except for these binds". With just a simple reminder, the man holstered his gun, drew a dagger and cut the rope that had been so closely acquainted to Story's hands for a good quarter of an hour.

"Thank you". Words were probably not enough to express her gratitude to being saved from those people, but it was the least she could do. As she handled her wrist and wiggled fingers to make sure the numbness goes away, the taller of the two men had returned after sauntering one round around the interior. "Nope, no sign of Crowley" he spoke in a nonchalant tone. When Story rose her gaze to the speaker, she was assaulted by a spray of... water? It wasn't acid or anything painful, so she merely shut her eyes on reflex and wiped it off with her hands, hopefully not ruining her natural toned makeup in the process. Caught by surprise and confused, the girl said nothing in reaction to the random act, but the man beside her did. "Dean!" He spoke with an aggravated tone accompanied by an accusing glare, whilst the water sprayer shrugged and replied with "What, we had to make sure she's not a demon, Sammy". Demon? Big purple eyes stared at 'Sammy', curiosity piqued and expressed in her look. Either 'Sammy' was deliberately avoiding the subject in front of her, or he was oblivious to the inquisitiveness displayed upon the features of the silent woman. In any case, the man decided to just skip the topic and ushered the purplette towards the exit "Let, let's just get you out of here first, okay?" A forced smile was given to the girl before 'Sammy' turned his attention to 'Dean' with an annoyed look of disapproval, who in turn gave another exaggerated shrug and a cheesy smile. "Wait, let me get my bag first!"

"So um, we're going to get you a cab, and- " 'Sammy' could not finish his sentence before another figure darted out of the shadows, forcing the trained gunner and his ally to pull out their pistols in reciprocation to the other man who was doing the same. "Stay away from her you monsters!" Those were the only coherent words Story picked up before it became a series of yelling and swearing. "Stop! Stop!" The woman shouted, standing between the two parties. "Nial, I'm fine". Story assured the suspender pants wearing man who had came darting out and holding everyone at gunpoint prior. "These two men saved me, they're..." It only just occurred to Story that she didn't have any idea who these men are aside from what she assumed was their names. "Hunters" 'Sammy' continued. "We're head hunters, that's all" A reassuring wave was given before everyone started putting away their weapons. "Look, you came for her, right? Well now you have her, no more trouble, we're all gonna go home and have a drink and..." Gesticulation finished the sentence before 'Sammy' gave up on talking and just stood there while Dean came up beside his comrade with a charismatic toothy grin that would put most people at ease. "Right..." There wasn't much Nial had to say. Rather than staying for pep talk, he pulled Story by the arm and headed out, to his blue Acura TL that was parked by the docks just behind the only other car in the area, recognized by Story to be a black Chevy Impala.    


Sc: 103
WTSC: 103