One-man army Date: June 8, 2013 Time: 01:48 AM Location: Guillaume's building, Inner City Characters: John Irvine, Guillaume d'Anjou Description: John's recent revelations have left him ornery Status: Private, complete (one-shot)
"Look, I'm not saying I'll come out of this unscathed. But I can promise you, if you don't let me through, it'll be the worst fucking 20 minutes of your life," John shouted, aiming his invective at the door clerk, who looked on impassively.
"If you're not on the approved list, then you're not coming in, sir," he said, in the tired monotone of thousands of late-night workers, who just wanted to get through the third season of Breaking Bad on their iPad without too much stress, then catch a night bus home before collapsing into their bed and pretending everything was okay.
"Take me to the Queen!" he screamed, this time, and the lights flickered overhead. Magic surged through his veins along with adrenaline's fire, coursing through his blood and activating the mana within, rousing it from slumber and drawing the magic around him like armour. The clerk's eyes widened.
"I don't know who you're referring to, sir, but if you don't leave, I'll-"
He never got the chance to finish the sentence, as a wall of pure force, fuelled by John's rage and fury burst out from the witch, sweeping monitors from tables, shattering mirrors, blowing out lights and throwing the poor man back against the wall, where he grunted with the sudden impact and slid to the ground, raising his head.
John let the magic flow through him, feeding off it as surely as it fed off him, a cyclical loop that forced sheer power through his skin. Those who looked at him and were attuned to such things would have noticed a glow start to form around his hands, the electrostatic power of magic coruscating in thick, invisible bands around him as he gathered it in. He'd found out about what happened to Isabelle yesterday, and once he'd gotten past the shock, and the shame that he hadn't know before, a cold fury had settled deep within the pit of his stomach. He'd left Lux in the morning and gone in search of information, eventually managing to get it out of a hungover, conniving piece-of-crap shifter named Herb, who'd gladly told him where the Queen's nest was after he'd threatened to redecorate the man's place of business.
And now, it was time for justice, time for answers. The vampires had nearly killed Isabelle, a member of his Circle, one of his oldest friends, despite how rocky they had been for months, and he...
...he couldn't protect her. John knew what he was for the Circle. He was the raw ability, the power and the fire that fuelled the magic. He was never any good at what Belle and Lux could do, never had the tight control that Eva did, or the sheer talent that Harmony and Alvaro possessed. He was a hammer, a blunt instrument, a wellspring of sheer facility that the Circle used to fuel their magic. For him, it translated best into violence of the magical kind. He supposed it could never have been any other way, the Irvine temper being as notorious as it was, as ingrained in him as the ability to breathe. And to be honest, in a dark part of himself that had gotten noticeably larger recently, he quite enjoyed the exercise of that power.
Which was why, when he blew the doors leading to the stairwell off their hinges and smashed the wood into splinters, he didn't feel like he'd exerted effort. He felt alive.
He made his way up the stairs when the first vampire appeared, armed, with a handgun pointed directly at him. With a thought, he superheated the metal in its hand and the vampire dropped it with a yelp, before a lance of flame rushed him from John's outstretched palm. The creature leaped to the side, faster than a human ever could, and the flames splashed against the wall, scorching it but not setting the concrete alight. Instead, he turned his vision, which was now licked with red at the edges, onto the vampire, and with a thought and a flick of his fingers, lifted it bodily and smashed it against the same spot. It slumped to the floor and didn't move. John had never had a great deal of facility with kinetomancy, but in situations like this, he found it came as easily as the flames did. He ascended one level, two, three, four and nobody appeared. He made it to ten, not even a bead of sweat on his brow, his muscles supercharged with the enriched blood flowing through them, and paused outside the door. He heard movement behind it, the unmistakeable metal-on-metal sound of weapons readying, and so he took three steps to his left.
Then went through the wall in a shower of bricks and plaster.
The concussive wave of the magic scattered the vampires, debris and shrapnel striking some and sending them down for the count. John stepped through the haze of dust, an avenging angel, his fists wreathed in flame as he assessed the room. It was too late to turn back now, too late to do anything but keep fighting, to move forward. Dimly, the rational part of his brain screamed at him to flee, but he found that he didn't want to. His rage was all-consuming, his guilt at not being there for Isabelle like an open wound that didn't clot. His need for revenge, to burn the thing that did this to ash, was all he knew in that instant. His vision snapped forward as electricity mixed with the gobbets of flame that dripped from his hand and fell to the floor with a snap of discharged static. Lights continued to flicker overhead, wavering in the face of the magic that filled the air, that promised death and pain to any who stood in its way, and urged them to do so.
we burn so brightly so brightly so brightly make it stop carry on
A lone vampire stood in the hallway, its eyes meeting Johns. It held a sword - really, a sword - in its left hand, and an oversized pistol in the other. Both pointed down, but he knew that they could be snapped to readiness faster than John would be able to blink. It was a warrior, and it looked around the devastation, at the inert shapes of its compatriots before it spoke.
"A scion of the First Circle of the City comes to our nest and lays waste to our home," it said, its accent heavily threaded with anger, and with a European hint. "On any day it would be suicide. Is it madness that drives you?"
John stepped forward, and the blade came up instantly, glinting off the flickering lights and catching the glare of the fire that John left in his wake. It was a warning, and he came to a stop, marshalling the magic around him.
"Vampires break the Accords," he growled. "Attack my Circle, nearly kill a witch, and you expect me to let it be?" He flexed his hand, and fire burst into life, mirroring the thrills of rage that coursed through him.
"No vampire of this nest would dare," the man replied smoothly.
"As I understand, this nest is the nest," John snapped, his anger peaking again as fire flared once more. The cuffs of his jacket began to smoke, as the vampire lowered its sword in a more conciliatory gesture.
"It is, perhaps, more complicated than that," the vampire said. "Elements are in play that are hidden even to us, ones surely responsible for the attack on your Circle."
John screamed in frustration, and sent a spear of eldritch flame lashing out towards the vampire, who neatly sidestepped it. He looked once to see if anything had caught fire, then turned his full attention back to the witch.
"Not good enough!" He shouted. "You and your kind prowl our streets and we tolerate you, you haunt our nights and we let you, because we had a contract! You're responsible, it is your kind that nearly... nearly killed her..."
"Do we hold your Circle accountable for the actions of every witch?" Guillaume asked coolly, and had to duck as John advanced another step, throwing fire and electricity at him once more.
"We don't have kings and queens," he said in a low, dangerous voice. If the glow had been subtle before, it was evident now, suffusing his skin and filling his eyes with a hellish glare, one born from the potential of the source he was fully in tune with. Vaguely, John wondered how much he could hold at once, if ultimately it would tear him apart with his anger. "Give me the vampire, or I'll level this building, with your nest inside."
"A point conceded," the vampire said with a nod, and looked around once more. He seemed to make a decision, then, and clicked the hammer back from his weapon, lowering his sword to the ground in the process. "We wish no quarrel with the Circles of witches in this city, and we respect your right to retribution. As I said, things have been... awkward, of late. The Queen no longer commands the same respect she once did, and upstarts challenge her right to rule, if indirectly," he said the last word with distaste, as if their inability to confront the monarch directly was somehow worse than the betrayal itself. For good measure, he spat on the floor. John didn't lessen his loose grip on the magic, aware that his power was all that kept him from being killed.
"You are quite correct, mage, that the responsibility is ours however," he said, arms now folded behind his back. "If you know of the vampire who committed this crime, he will be found, I promise you. And we will let you walk from here alive as partial penance for the act committed under our nation."
John gave him the description that he'd eked out of Isabelle the night before, and the vampire nodded.
"It will be done," he said, turning his body before pausing, and squaring back to him. "Come here again, John Irvine, and I will not be so forgiving, regardless of your power, which I have seen now and do not fear."
With flames flickering aorund him, and magic screaming through his soul, John said nothing in reply at first, his boots crunching over rubble as he returned the way he came.