Garrett glanced at his phone.



"Looks like you're right. Not about being a bitch though; you're just so sweet and subdued." He made a kissy face at Melba.

Then, Garrett donned the Nitescope. "I don't see the great Drac-Gabrielle with them. Wonder if that means Buffy got her..."

If only he could be so lucky as to have the chief proprietor of his nightmares vanquished forever from Savannah. But even if she was actually gone, her claws may sink in deeper in his dreams. It would be just like her to not know when to give up and die.

Melba turned the vehicle around and headed home.  "Well if she has, it's almost a shame.  I kinda respected her, you know?.  Either way it's home time.  Andiamo!"

When Buffy and Chan clambered out of the sewers, a hand reached out to help.  "Hey, let me help," Hunter offered helpfully.  "Are the others with you?!  Are you two okay?!"

Some days keep getting worse, and this one seemed to have kept surprising her. Getting washed out of a sewer was about the only thing that could have topped her already terror filled evening. For a while she'd been pretty certain that she was going to drowned in the fetid water, until a strong arm had appeared in the murk and dragged her to blessed safety. She lay on the ground soaked in sewage with her sides heaving for air, and utterly exhausted.

"I can't think of anything that could ever actually explain something like this. I'm going to be grounded for the next month..." She muttered without really trying to move.

"Not to be a smartass, but is sewer-diving a vampire-hunting activity?"  When Hunter saw the joke fall flat, he swallowed with a sheepish smile.  "Sorry.  Do you want me to call an ambulance?  It's raining out here, we could say...


...I really don't know what we'd say, just as long as it's not the truth..."

The next day, Melba sent a round of texts, voicemails, and obscure Facebook posts to the group.  She sounded the call to assemble at the food court in Oglethorpe Mall with the promise of news about their "friend", Gabrielle...

Melba frowned at her timeline and scowled.  She didn't have a hangover nor any of the signs of a comedown from crystal meth (she'd read about them, not experienced them).  She checked her phones, laptops, tablets and even her ancient desktop and she really had sent those messages.  She knew that wasn't bright and, before setting out, she cleaned her timeline so that only people awake in the daytime would know.

She picked up Garrett and they drove first to Bell and Booke to thank the proprietors for Lauren's help and to ask about the possibilities of huge quantities of Holy Water.  Of course, she also asked whether moats had ever been sanctified.  (After all, a gilr has to learn).

After that, she drove them to the Oglethorpe Mall and, pausing only to peruse the wares of Radio Shack, made her way to the food court.

Earlier

When the kids dropped by, Lauren greeted them with a laid-back friendliness.  "Hey, guys.  Have a seat over here."  She indicated a table near the cashier's stand.  Bell & Book appeared relatively abandoned for the day.  Only a lone woman of mature years lingered near a display of local song books beside the door.

"How did it go?  Did the spell work?"  When Melba confirmed their success, Lauren nodded with a lop-sided smile.  "Family trade ritual.  Keeps those intruders who a little long in the tooth at bay!"  She moved back toward the counter in a soft swish of silken wrap and skirts.

When Lauren came back, she handed Garrett a neatly folded sheet of fancy stationery.  The paper was soft to the touch, and Garrett saw something written in elegant penmanship when he opened it.  "This might help if you two really plan on hunting vampires.  Don't use it until you've studied it carefully, though.  You might hurt your friends if you don't know what you're doing..._{or destroy property}..."


OOC:

Carry on with the Mall talk!

"But Meeeeeeeeel, we always go in Radio Shack. Why can't we go in Hot Topic? Just for like a minute. I have this feeling chain wallets and plaid lumber jack shirts are coming back this year." Garrett said, eyeing the Wetzel's stand. "Say, why don't we get a pretzel and some questionable nacho cheese sauce while we wait eh?"

Melba grinned.  "Pretzels and toxic waste sounds a fine idea.  Let's do it."

The food court teemed with busy shoppers, mall employees on their breaks, and teenagers with an excess of time.  It occurred to Buffy's friends that those kids were awfully lucky!  Unburdened with the grim truth of monsters and the supernatural under-current which ran deep through Savannah.  Perhaps Buffy, Chan, Melba, and Garrett wished that their greatest worries were mid-terms, dating, or getting the latest smartphone or game?

Unfortunately, denial was no longer an option for them.  The kids met in the food court to discuss last night's near-miss with Gabrielle.  Pleasant aromas of cinnamon buns, pizza, and Chinese food wafted over them.  A small train choo- chooed with cars full of delighted children around the court.  There was too much background noise for the chattering mall-goers to overhear talk of vampires...

"One question", asked Melba, dropping the bubbly facade for a moment, "Are we at war?"

OOC:  Director edit, since we've already jumped  forward...

Last night

BJ kept quite quiet as she followed the others out of the sewer tunnels, keeping as low a profile as she could. The students wouldn't notice her if she could help it. The gun was back in her wrist sheath and the stake and blade were tucked away under her jacket. There were many things she didn't want 'her kids' asking her. Tales of her life before the school was a subject that she didn't want to discuss.

She looked at Luthien  and Clive but waited for them to approach her, she didn't want to discuss things around the students if she could help it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:26, Tue 26 Nov 2013.

Things had been more than a little odd for Chan ever since the 'event' of the night before. She had contemplated many different things to call it, but each seemed to give the terror of the sewers a little more power. She hadn't really dealt with her brush with mortality as of yet, and was trying very hard not to. With any luck she could get through this without freaking out and turning into a puddley mess.

As was often the case Chan had simply had too much, she'd retreated to the comfort of baggy comfortable clothes, and a stuffed bear hidden in her backpack. About all that could be said for hygiene was that she was clean, but the dark circles under her eyes spoke of a mostly sleepless night. "I wouldn't so much call it a war so much as a feud. Gabrielle is not at all what she appears to be, and we'd be wise to remember it. She's really old and might have some sort of otherly juice."

Melba nodded.  "She is very old.  Her accent is Caribbean, maybe Jamaican, I dunno, but her manners are pure gens du couleur libre.  Either way, she's almost certainly old enough to have been a slave.  I respect her.  In other circumstances I could even like her.  I don't think she forgives easily, Buffy as slayer, came into what she thinks of has her domain, we've all interfered with her plans, some of you have killed her minions, and I've injured some.  She's not going to be happy and there's going to be a two hundred year hate headed in our direction.  I think we may be at war, and I for one plan to start mainlining holy water."

Buffy sat quietly as the others spoke. She had purchased an Icee, but made the mistake of getting cherry. The red did nothing for Buffy's mood, so she simply pushed it around the cup with the oversized red straws that always came with. The blonde looked sharply over at Melba. "Like her? Respect her? She tried to kill us. She won't hesitate to 'finish the job' the second she gets a chance."

Buffy didn't view this as a war. She viewed it as another horrifying incident in a fairly traumatic string of them that littered her past. It was more like an infection. A disease of some kind. Buffy lapsed into silence for a bit, trying to put her thoughts together. She swirled the slush drink around the cup for a minute or so before speaking. "This isn't a war. It's more like a gang dispute. People are interfering with her plans, her 'domain'. You saw how they were last night. They're a pack, not a unit. You're not wrong about the hate though. We gave her all sorts of reasons to hate every single one of us last night." Buffy sighed. She'd fought vampires before, but this was different. It felt different. And, for the first time, she had had help. But, for the first time, someone else's life had been in direct danger.

Plus, there was this whole "Watcher" lurking in the background thing. Training. Buffy chaffed at the mere thought.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:10, Mon 02 Dec 2013.

When Luthien appears, he catches the end of the conversation that just started.

"Do not be deceived. There isn't a soul in there to like or respect. While not all of our opponents are clean of humanity, they truly don't have enough to be worth respecting, except in terms of battle prowess. Never underestimate an opponent."

He couched his words in vague terms, in case they were overheard. It's a fairly public arena. He smiled at Buffy, though. "How'd the clothes burning go?"

Melba oozed her charmingest smile and drawled. "Hey, doesn't mean I wouldn't kill her given half a chance....  So.  Does anybody know how much holy water you'd have to mainline to kill any vamp that tried to bite ya?  Surely somebody's tried it in the centuries of their existence?"

Garrett listened to Buffy give her piece. They were all looking to Buffy, in an odd misfit sort of way. She was the one with the mojo; she was the one the vamps seemed to have it in for. The others, us others, seemed to be icing on the proverbial cake. Who could guess if the cake was going to turn out to be a lie? Their friendships had formed out of necessity, and Garrett for one necessarily needed the Buffy buffering factor from the forces of evil.

"So what happened to you all last night? I get that she escaped, but, I mean, did you all at least find her lair or something?"

Garrett gingerly tore off a piece of his pretzel and dunked it in the questionable cheese sauce before him. By some sort of magic the youth had not a drop of cheese anywhere near his lips, or anywhere else for that matter.

Luthien nodded. "We did. Most of her people...ashes to ashes, dust to dust. To dust they have returned. Many brave outfits died that night. Mostly because her escape strategy...stunk, shall we say."

By brave outfits dying, he's referring to being drenched in sewer water, which was admittedly a clever trick, but...well, it was a scent only a skunk could love.

"I believe that you're still underestimating her. I know that she's per-revolutionary war vampire, and that's she's originally from some Caribbean island. My first guess would be Cuba, but I don't have any actual proof." She raised one finger to show that she wasn't finished and took a sip of her smoothie. "Also your just plain dumb if you think she didn't have everything planned out ahead of time. While she might have been hoping to just win outright she obviously had a backup plan from the beginning, and one would suspect that she still does." She shrugged and turned away to look into the food court.

"She might have been the 'mean girl' but I think we'll find that was just her being lazy. What we've done is give her something of a challenge, and she will rise to the occasion." She stressed the word will as she spoke, still looking away from the group.

Buffy had her mouth open to speak when Chan spoke up. Buffy listened to her friend and found herself gritting her teeth instead of speaking. The "Slayer" had, in some ways, gotten so used to this cycle of trauma. Of fear and terror and things that hide underneath the bed. Chan's words spoke volumes. And the fact that she didn't look at the group as she verbalized her thoughts spoke even louder as to how she was feeling.

They'd given Gabrielle a reason to hate them, and they'd given her a motivation to be deadly about it.

Awesome.

Buffy looked around at the assembled group. "Listen, I've..." Buffy sighed, she barely knew the people around her, and she wasn't about to go spilling her guts. On the flipside, they'd all been through the past few days, same as her. "I've seen some of the things that go bump in the night before. I've fought some of them. This was new. This was different." Buffy looked around, struggling to find appropriate wording. She settled for metaphors. "We shot Mongo. We made Mongo mad. And unfortunately, Mongo has the ability lay some serious hurt on all of us. Well, except for maybe tall, dark, and uber secretive over there." She glanced at Luthien, then to the rest of the group. "We need to be more careful now. As lame as it sounds, we should be in touch, we shouldn't go out by ourselves if we can help it. And everyone should start carrying a stake."

Luthien chuckled a little at Buffy's description of him. "Tall and secretive, I'll buy that. But where you do get dark?" Luthien gestured ironically at his trademark white outfit...white slacks, white shirt, white coat, even white shoes. Then he was blonde haired, blue eyed. Dark? Him? Not so much.

More to the point, "Fortunately, I've got Mongo's favorite sharp toy. I should be able to use that to draw her attention away, unless...Buffy, do you want the sharp toy? You'll probably draw her to yourself if you've got it."

By sharp toy, he means he's got Gabby's sword, and should theoretically be her prime target because of it.

Melba sighed and when she started she DID look at the group, making eye contact, taking each and everyone in.  "A stake? I'm an overweight, none to fit teenaged girl.  If I have to take on a vamp armed only with a stake, I'm blood pudding.  A supersquirter full of Holy Water maybe, a crossbow perhaps, maybe even a cross tattooed on my face if it weren't for the fact I'm Jewish, but I honestly don't think carrying a stake is gonna help me much.  Hence the questions, what else works, fire? UV light? garlic? Religious icons? Napalm? I know holy water works, which is REAL scary because it messes with my mundane paradigm, but what else works for somebody like me?  You may not know, Buffy, but somebody does and it feels like it's been a secret for centuries, and I resent that AND take it personally, because this secrecy could have gotten me killed."

She blushed and came to a halt.  "Sorry", she said, "Rant over."

Elsewhere.

Coach Cordova ran the stone over the edge of the blade again, moving in a smooth practiced motion as she silently counted the number of runs she had done on the blade as she set it aside to lay by it's sister on the table in front of her. The table was covered by a massive oiled cloth covered in pockets and weapons. There were at least six stakes on the cloth, as well as a pair of spring loaded sheaths. Two pistols like the one she used lay beside the blades, each having been cleaned and reloaded by her. Next to them was a revolver with two speed loaders with silver bullets and a more modern looking semiautomatic pistol with a trio of clips marked by different colored tapes as well as a trio of grenades. As she moved to pick up the next blade, she reached past an open rifle case containing a high powered rifle with a scope and laser sight.

When the phone rang, she got up and walked over to her den and sat down on her couch. In front of her was a lap with a web cam tied to her big screen tv. It was a different laptop from her school issued macbook. A ruggedized notebook with a eagle and trident symbol on it. She picked up the phone and listened to the words that were clearly mechanically generated.

"Hotel Echo Lima Lima Oscar Starlight Twilight Oliver Trident"

"Walter Trident Vampire Vampire Elias Seven. Code me in: Lieutenant Commander Bonita Jean Cordova. SEAL Team 13. Connect me on secure server. A new voice comes over her headset.

"Stand by for Walsh."

BJ sighed as she sat back and cued up her laptop's powerpoint presenation. The TV screen cued up several photos, of particular note were Buffy Summers, Luthien and Cliver's photos. She stood up as she picked up her remote and nodded towards the TV as the webcam came online.

"Doctor Walsh, first off let me apologize to you for detailing me to this remote sight. I thought this was a boondogoggle but Initiative Intel was right. There is a HST cluster in the city. We ran into several vampires and some untyped varieties." She clicked the remote and several of the vampires they had encountered showed up on the screen. "However in the course of investigating the HSTs I encountered a new issue. Intel's call on 'The Slayer' was wrong. There is indeed a Slayer. Several of the stories appear to be true." She clicked the remote and Buffy's face appeared on the screen.

"This is one of my students. Buffy Anne Summers. She was born and raised in California..." She started to discuss the encounter with the Slayer and what she had seen.

"We have other issues as well." She clicked the remote and Clive's picture came up. "this is Clive Whitlock, he claims to have connections to an extraterritorial unit called 'The Watchers' who claim custody of The Slayer. There is more than a bit of tension between Summers and him. I'd say that her impulse to rebellious teenage outbursts could be utilized here. My take in this? I dislike a bunch of tweed wearing upper class British gentlemen in their elite club telling an American citizen what to do because of some supposed supernatural status. But that could be the SEAL in me." She clicked up another photo.

"All I have on him right now is a name. Luthien." She said as Luthien's image from her phone came up. "Attached are my field notes on the three of them as well as the students who were involved. The few bodies left behind were tagged by my gun, so Recovery can collect them for Analytics to look them over. I'm recommending that we maintain my cover and hold off on collection for the moment. I want more intel on The Watchers. I think I can work up an angle on recruiting The Slayer as well. Coach Cordova is a skilled fighter and has some chops from her 'life' in LA. I've enclosed the particulars on my past. Feel free to have Research backstop the legend for possible Watcher investigation. I AM requesting more assets and hardware though. I will need some specialists to assist me in setting up better intel gathering assets. We've got at least one very savvy techinical mind involved in this already, anything less than the best will have Miss Ellenberger's substantial talents looking for us. I'd suggest that if we can..come graduation that we cultivate a scholarship or two for her. I think she'd do very well in area of designing gear for your people. I have enclosed the school records of all the students involved as well as data that I've collected in my association with them."

"Everyone involved has the drive, focus and ability to work at our level, with training. Not all of them would be suited for Initiative 'standard' action groups though. I filed a report on past 'action group' compositions dating back to my grandfather's time with the Initiative during the Second World War. Civilian action groups would also free up manpower for the more.. vigorous actions we need to do elsewhere. It would also put some of the gentlemen on Capital Hill at ease knowing we're reducing our military actions within the country. I have encrypted my report and uploaded it to the servers. If there is nothing else, I'm due to get the gym up for tomorrow's activities." BJ said as she received a nod from the shadowy figures on the screen who disconnected without a word.

Sighing, BJ collected most of her weapons and returned to the hidden closet behind the TV and set them in place before walking back to close the well concealed closet. She stopped at the door where her dress whites and 'bragging wall' photos showed a young BJ with a quartet of bigger men standing over what was clearly a very dead werewolf on a hillside somewhere. Most telling was a flag bearing the SEAL Trident and tagged with the title and legend: 'Team 13, killing the boogie man and reclaiming the dark'.