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Zero Kiryu     The Village of Stilton

    Located between the primary warpgate of Yuuki and Zero's world and the city surrounding Cross Academy, it's a stone's throw away from everything important locally while still being quite removed from actual importance in and of itself. A recent and very short-lived mission posting to the Syndicate Network stated a need for assistance in dealing with some kind of outbreak by the local Vampire Hunter's Association. It's a job that pays well but has a number of stipulations and disclaimers attached to it that are fairly alarming to the average individual.

    Disclaimer number one is that some kind of biohazard is being dealt with. The warpgate has a quarantine checkpoint set up around it, with heavily armed men keeping an eye out. Oddly, they are very non-standardized in their makeup and manner of dress. Disclaimer number two is that one would do well to wear very thick clothing or armor. Standard zombie plague business. The major stipulation however, and the reason that the locals are having a hard time dealing with it personally, is that they need non-lethal apprehension of their biohazard so they can figure out how to deal with it.

    That seems to be a problem for them, for some reason.

    Across the road from the warpgate checkpoint is what can only be described as an on-site laboratory, or medical facility. Like the operating theater of a MASH combined with circus cages to hold in animals.

    The cages are surrounded by a ring of UV lamps which are presently off. They seem to form a barrier.

    Zero Kiryu is here near the warpgate checkpoint, staring at a clipboard. He's waiting for his outside volunteers, and looks indistinctly cranky about it. That is, he is exactly as cranky as he normally is, but from a regular person's perspective that is mightily cranky indeed.

    Stilton is visible down the road. A few of the gas lamps that line the streets are lit, but not many. And it's far too quiet.
Shin Tokuyama     "IT'S OKAY! I'M A DOCTOR," Shin shouts, holding up a medical degree from the Zimbabwean Medical Institute of Legitimate Scientific Study and Non-Shell Agency for the Advancement of Psychological Sciences. It looks REALLY fake, but does seem to be printed on some pretty real paper, "And I'm here to help people!"

    The truth of the matter was that at one of the warp gate nexuses, Shin had begin spinning and closing his eyes to pick his next location, and repetitions of this sequence had brought him here today. At least he's wearing thick... ish clothing. There's a wool peacoat, a clear buy from a bargain bin, over his leisure suit and he's wearing a scarf that always seems to flow thanks to Catserker.

    "I can provide counseling to the traumatized. I'm a Therafist."
Wuyin Tsai A job in a strangely-contaminated area? Sounds both suspicious /and/ lucrative. Wuyin is on the case.

The Perfectly Normal Human who comes out of the warpgate is dressed way too casually for someone about to head into a zombie(?)-infested area. The hoodie and jeans at least cover him, even if they don't /look/ especially thick, though he's added gloves of some kind of dark grey material to cover his hands. His 3D glasses serve no discernable purpose other than to make him look strange, though.

On his belt is a straight sword, the scabbard done up in two-toned lacquer, half blue and half red, the colors running down the length of the perfectly polished wood and matching the grip. Scowling oni faces adorn the guard, twin horns sticking to either side to form the short cross. Opposite the jian, an effigy of a man made of tightly-wrapped copper wire hangs on his belt, looking a bit like a doll with its strings cut. One is definitely a weapon; the other is... just as strange as the glasses, really.

"I'm sure you are." Wuyin walks right past Shin, patting him on the shoulder and approaching the irritated-looking Zero Kiryu. Super senses will pick out that he smells sweetly, like honey. "I saw the Syndicate notice," he tells him. "Something about a biological hazard and some sort of infestation?"
Yuuki Kuran     Hanging out near the Aura of Death and the Gravitic Field of Hypergump known as Zero Kiryu is another person, who usually seems to be within the Vampire Hunter's aura - or he, hers. Yuuki Kuran bustles about here and there, with her usual 'thick heavy snowcoat' with frilly floofy lining, snowboots, and feminine snowpants (they exist in shojo manga). She lives in a cold place! It pays to look the part, and not be in wispy slips of thin white dresses which are more appropriate for bishounen older brothers to carry you around in and for the imagery of purity and...

    She gives Wuyin (and his glasses) a bright smile, even as she yawns lightly. "Hey, thanks for coming. Is..." She glances at SHIN TOKUYAMA, HERO HOBO HERO, DOCTOR, THERAFIST... And leans towards the somehow less weird Wuyin, thumbing at Shin. "Is he with you? Zero did you invite... Therapists?"
Zero Kiryu     "You're going to be performing exploratories on live subjects who don't die from being cut open like that. Therapists probably won't be necessary." Zero hammers back at Shin, taking him at complete face value to punish him for his shenanigans. He doesn't see the name on his clipboard notices, but apparently he doesn't actually care that much. If some lunatic hobo wants to wander in and get himself killed, what does he care? ... Well, actually, he does care. But he figures anyone that bold probably has /some/thing to back it up, and he can sense Shin a little bit in the back of his mind. A ping on his radar, however faint. Probably isn't normal, even if he is some kind of lunatic.

    The smell of honey catches his attention afterwards. Zero glances over in the direction of the warp gate, and the approach of Wuyin. He glances towards the sword, the talisman. Voodoo of some kind? If so, it would be useful in this situation. Being able to immobilize people at a distance without actually harming them would be very good. He nods curtly to Wuyin, tucking the clipboard under an arm. "Extraversal vampires have been roaming around Stilton, down that way."

    "They can't or won't move during the day, but if they're disturbed they wake right up and attack. Killing them isn't a problem in itself, but we need some live subjects to examine because every single victim that isn't killed becomes a vampire." Zero turns to face Stilton. "Most of us in the association aren't effective at restraining ourselves in a fight, and we've already had to put one hunter down who adjusted her force too low and got bitten for her trouble."

    He looks between Shin and Wuyin, contemplatively. Then he adds, "If you want some biohazard gear, there's some in the checkpoint. Otherwise your objectives are simply to go in there, bring a live one back, and to keep yourselves from being contaminated."

    "Useless here," He jerks a thumb at Yuuki, "is immune, so she should be able to help. She's still a novice fighter, but she can take some risks nobody else can."

    This may be the most Yuuki has ever heard Zero speak at once. He's pretty okay at delivering briefings...
Yuuki Kuran     Yuuki has starry eyes the whole briefing, listening to Zero speak more than about two grunted syllables or the word 'useless', which in retrospect can be grunted through with two syllables.

    She gives a little two-finger wave to the pair that have arrived, beaming her brilliant-if-sleepy smile now to Shin in addition to Wuyin.

    "Well, I guess that's that. I tried going in earlier to just ask them to come peacefully, but that... didn't go so well." She admits, glumly.

    Yuuki Kuran: Someone who would expect that to actually work.

    "This is a big problem, really, because... Vampires from our world don't work like this, not usually, so, the threat of a wide-scale vampire outbreak is really pressing, and the Association is probably seriously considering burning this town to the ground and calling it a lost cause. I'd... Really prefer that hasn't happened. And I may have told them that. Really... forcefully?" She continues beaming that just-woken-up smile at everyone, turning it towards Zero.

    "But thankfully, they're still concerned with keeping everything hush-hush and dealing with it. If just /random/ vampires can roll in and turn people, it's much worse than a few ferals..."
Shin Tokuyama     "OH! Dude, I can totally do that. Hold on," Shin bounces up and down, happy he doesn't have to be whatever sort of Doctor he actually is. Instead, he grabs a loose branch from a tree and snaps off any protruding limbs to make it a single unit, "I'mma bust its kneecap. Heroically." He makes a baseball swinging motion with his stick.

    "Pretty simple. And don't worry about me getting infected. I'm pretty sure I can avoid that. It never happens to the protagonist anyway, unless I wanna throw an extra template all up on this biznasty," Shin jargons and unintelligibly speaks at Zero as he grips the stick he made.

    "Hey useless. Nice to meet you. Crazy name. Shin Tokuyama, Combat Vagrant," He introduces before starting to actually walk in the general direction Zero indicated to go. He doesn't have a whole lot of inquiries about this operation.
Wuyin Tsai Wuyin smiles a little back at Yuuki, his hands in his pockets. He shoots a glance to Shin, and shrugs his shoulders. "No, he isn't. I think he's just volunteered for our little excursion into danger, though." You hear that, Shin? /Volunteered/. "It sounded like he was trying to make a pun, but I can't really be sure with the way translation sometimes happens, and how bad it was."

He returns Zero's nod, and listens attentively. If he glances towards the town, he doesn't show it; his 3D glasses neatly cover his eyes and make his expression difficult to read and where he's actually looking tough to tell. "I see. Simple enough on paper, but dangerous all the same." He rocks on his heels for a moment, thinking.

"I'll be fine. I'm fairly certain I'm immune to whatever they have, and if I'm not, you can feel free to execute me to prevent the spread." He sounds pretty at ease about the idea. Wuyin looks to Yuuki and shakes his head slightly. Whether it's about her attempts at diplomacy or the possible town-burning is impossible to say.

"What kills them? Fire, decapitation?" Wu will catch up to Shin in just a second.
Zero Kiryu     "You shouldn't have bothered." Zero asides to Yuuki, folding his arms over his chest and letting out a great sigh. He'd prefer not to have to purge this village, and it's already gotten pretty bad. The only way it could be worse is if they were producing /actual/ ferals along with the relatively intelligent ones. The problem is, the line's blurry. They all seem to have retained their selves, but they're still very much animalistic. With regards to what /kills/ them, he answers, "Sufficient bodily damage but hitting major organs is the big one. They're not entirely supernatural. That is to say, their capacity to recover is far lower than that of many vampires here. The problem is..."

    He raises a hand to tap at his head and says, "They don't stop acting when their brain is damaged. They seem to have a sort of emergency self-defense mode, but they lose their intelligence and don't come back from it when they're brain damaged. So their healing can't stop them from experiencing 'death of the self', but it will still keep them alive even with minimal original brain function. Sunlight will do it, too."

    Zero makes a slightly-more-irritable-than-normal face at Shin calling Yuuki useless, and his intent to just slap the vampires out there in the knees.

    The road into Stilton is clear enough, but the smell of it is revolting. It smells like quite a few people burned out there, and at a glance there do appear to be quite a few skeletons littering the streets on closer inspection. There's not a lot of /blood/, though. It doesn't seem like anybody has been feeding for long, or at least, it doesn't seem like anyone was /messy/ about their cleaning.

    Most of the buildings are simply vacant. Their front windows smashed out, their doors pushed in. And here there are more charred corpses. Out in the village square one of the skeletons appears to have been shot through the base of the skull, one of the only set of remains out in the open that bears marks. There is little ash, and no sign of fire outside of the scorched bodies themselves.

    A few buildings, though, have been boarded up tightly. Their windows covered with old debris or tables nailed to the wall, their doors still intact, perhaps barred. Vague shuffling can be heard within some homes, but nothing else. No sounds of maiming, or screaming. Perhaps vague, miserable groaning on occasion.

    There are cats roaming about. They seem to be circling the boarded up buildings.
Shin Tokuyama     "Blech. It smells like death, hopelessness and human filth," Shin comments, hoisting the stick up over his shoulder. Whether he notices Zero scowling at him, or realizes that Yuuki's name isn't Useless, is a true mystery. For now, he just continues his train of thought, "We're a Hatsune Miku dakimakura away from Comiket at this point."

    The bravado and aloof joking at least helps him cope with the stomach churning smell that permeates the street and would probably make him puke if his meals weren't infrequent and quickly digested, leaving him nothing to actually hork up. He signs a bit and surveys the damage to the city, quickly ruling it an almost total lost cause in his book.

    "We should probably wrap this up before it gets full dark and we have to deal with a mob," He frowns some more, poking at one of the boarded up doors with his stick, "Cats might know something."
Wuyin Tsai "Strange," Wuyin muses. "Alright. Then we'll just have to be quick and efficient about it." He nods again, and starts off down the road, quickening his pace to catch up with Shin before he gets too far.

"These are vampires, not zombies," he asides to Shin, helping his aloofness by playing off it. Or ruining the joke. Really, he's okay with either result.

The smell is... actually slightly better and slightly worse than the shithole he's used to. On the one hand, he isn't /also/ smelling rotten fish and things that reek of it. On the other, there isn't any sea breeze to potentially help keep the miasma from settling. You take the little victories with the small defeats, he supposes.

Wuyin frowns a little, reaching down and taking hold of his sword. He draws it from the scabbard smoothly, revealing a blade of bright, mirror-polished steel. There's an intricate etching of nine bees following the gentle zig-zag of a thorny branch done up the blade in gold. It's a gorgeous piece of work -- and razor sharp, which is the important part when walking the streets of a vampire-infested place like this.

"Or they might be sentries," he says, speaking a touch more quietly. He starts for the nearest of the tightly-boarded buildings, creeping up to it and trying the front door. No sense knocking. They'll either know they're here, or they'll find out in a second.
Yuuki Kuran     Yuuki doesn't really blanch at the 'Useless' comment, though she does correct. "I'm Yuuki, not 'useless'. Zero just calls me that because he's super grumpy." She explains, following the pair into the town with a wave to Zero. He was expected to handle the perimiter and the cordon tents. A big job! Leaving her to do... Well, to do retarded things.

    As they approach the burned corpses and the fantastic smell, she holds a hand to her nose, gagging lightly. She can deal with blood, but... This is much different. She looks to Shin like he grew a new head. "What does that even mean... Daki-what?" She asks, before spotting the cats. Kitties!

    Why are there so many cats?

    "They're inside. I can... Uh, hear them. There's probably a whole bunch. Are you two going to be alright?"
Zero Kiryu     Even with the impending night, the gas lamps -- those that are lit -- cast a fair amount of light about. Notwithstanding that the vampires can move around more freely after complete sunset, it's probably not going to be too difficult to deal with total darkness. Especially since there's a sedentary feel to this place. Contrary to the appearance of being sentries, the cats are roaming about the borders of the boarded up houses and hissing violently at it. They really don't like what's inside, which might have something to do with the vampirism matter around here. Maybe they can tell. They /aren't/ hostile or alert of the approaching three however, and don't seem off-put by Yuuki either.

    Their aggravation is very specific.

    One claws at the door as Wuyin attempts to open it.

    The doorknob rattles in place, but the door won't open. It's an older lock, the kind you find in hundred year old or more houses in places like Kingsmouth. Not really very secure, but passable for a bedroom or study door. In its time, acceptable. In modern days, not of much use. It won't be hard to force the door, but the shuffling inside intensifies. The mail slot rattles open for a split second, then falls shut again.

    Whoever is inside doesn't say anything. Poking the door with a stick produces a satisfying thump of wood against wood, but no actual results.

    The cat at the door with Wuyin screeches and slaps at the mail slot furiously.

    At this specific building at least, Yuuki can ascertain only one /active/ vampire inside. If there are others, they're very very dormant. Not moving around at all. There's one at the door, wringing its hands furiously and pacing. Doesn't "feel" hostile, although it doesn't have a strong presence like local vampires do. A tiny radar ping, something that could be mistaken for nothing at all.

    If not for the sound of it, anyway.
Shin Tokuyama     "Oh, sorry. I just thought, considering we have people whose name is literally 'Two', that it might be your actual name. My bad, nice to meetcha Yuuki," Technically it's his second time meeting her in person, but that's minor details and she had a mask that covered a third of her face on at the time, so he wouldn't ever be able to recognize her.

    "They're inside, huh?" He says to Yuuki, then looking over towards Wuyin, "I'm ready when you are, guy." Shin notes before flicking the stick in his hand and abruptly looking a dozen times more competant than he did a second ago as he switches to gripping it like a traditional martial arts shortstaff and glaring at the door.

    "Want me to kick it down, or you wanna do the honors?" He asks to Wuyin, watching him sideways and then commenting to Yuuki, "Hey stay behind me if this goes bad. I'll watch your back."
Yuuki Kuran     "I think anyone named 'Useless' wouldn't advertise that..." Yuuki says, looking thoughtful. That sort of thing was... sad, wasn't it? To have a name like that? To be judged on your name? It gave her some perspective on her own name, and her own blessings and--

    And they're in the middle of a biohazard area. She shakes her head sharply, causing her heaps of hair to tumble across her shoulders and down her back, snapping out of her daze. "I'll be fine. Trust me!"

    She draws a slim baton from her coat, and with an electric crackle, it elongates suddenly into a weird, metallo-organic scythe. "I have Artemis. I'll leave it to you two to try and restrain one, ok? And... Do you have any ideas about the cats?"

    She glances to Wuyin. He seems like a Cat Person.
Wuyin Tsai "We should be fine," Wuyin assures Yuuki. He tests the knob, and glances at the slot. He smiles at it a little. The bespectacledish man glances at Shin, still smiling. "Mm... neither, I think. Be ready." He steps back from the door. Yuuki gets another look when she breaks out the scythe. "Huh. I hope you know how to use that." A beat. "And if I had to guess, I would say they're hungry."

Wuyin starts around the house, checking out the windows and other entrances. He expects a back door, and a lot of boarded-up windows. He's humming to himself a little. He /could/ force one of those, and storm the place, but that's really kind of a suboptimal strategy. They'd have to hack and slash their way through some kind of nest of them, and while he's confident in his abilities, he'd rather make them come to him. Shin seems confident, and Yuuki has that weapon, so if they can take them as they come... well, they'll either all die, or they'll get this done even faster.

Once he's taken stock of the building, Wuyin goes back to the rear. He lowers his sword, transferring it to his left hand and raising his right. He takes a slow breath of fetid air, the pure power of Gaian Anima filling him. There's a faint orange glow around the fingers of his outstretched hand. A flicker follows, a jump like a spark from the effigy on his belt to his open palm. The spark catches, a little red-orange flame licking across his digits.

Wuyin exhales, and makes a throwing motion. A ball of fire erupts from his hand with a growing roar, expanding into a sphere like a beach ball and splashing against the back of the house with a roar. He draws back and does it again, aiming at the windows, the foundation, and the door as he builds the inferno and spreads it from the other exit. No going out this way, vamps!

Let's be honest; it was probably going to be condemned anyway.
Zero Kiryu     The plan works, but it doesn't work quite as expected. As the fire is spread, the front door knob rattles and opens, but it isn't /hostiles/ that come out. A glance just inside the door would reveal that the building is littered with dessicated not-quite-dead bodies. They are, by all appearances, simply... hibernating. It's not unknown for /local/ vampires to do this, although these don't look like their condition is quite so bad as those. They're dessicated and mummified, but very fresh and still breathing at a glance. The one that comes out the door with her hands raised is a middle-aged woman, long light brown hair drawn back in a shabby ponytail.

    "Stop, stop! I'm not going to fight, and they're not fit to." To put it simply though, she looks /wrong/. The cat on the doorstep immediately latches onto her leg and bites in hard, prompting her to kick it off -- feebly, but enough to deal with one cat. The others are approaching now, screeching, obviously intent on attacking shortly. On closer inspection, the woman herself isn't far from dessicated.

    She's very thin, and starved-looking, with hair that is dried out and straw-like. Bits of it are turning grey, though that may just be how she looks. The thing that most stands out though, are the bite marks along her own arms. No, not from the others. They're uniform, the exact same bite, over and over and over again. The woman has been biting /herself/, which is obviously quite counterproductive.

    The cats surge forward, but most of them go around the vampire in the doorway. Quite contradicting natural behavior considering the fact that the building is very much on fire, they begin attacking the dessicated vampires inside. It's not pretty. One cat is hardly a threat, but twenty on an immobile being. Well...

    It looks like these vampires need to feed /very/ regularly. There's no other explanation for how many of them are just husks.

    Therein lies the danger.

    "You should leave. You should leave now, and, and no more fire. You'll make us all /leave/. You'll make us move on. And then... then we'll die, or we'll slip away, and it starts all over again." The woman rambles, but she sounds barely coherent. Half-asleep, and certainly starved. Before long, she starts fixating on Yuuki strangely, who most unfortunately is in fact a mobile chinese buffet who walked into a weight watcher's convention.

    The sounds of activity can be heard from other nearby buildings. Boards slide up slightly, like blinds being parted. Formerly sedentary vampires begin to move, their shuffling turning into rapid and decisive steps within adjacent buildings. If their abodes are just going to be burned /anyway/...

    Doors begin to open. Out behind one building, quite out of sight now, the sound of wings can be heard.
Shin Tokuyama     "I can wield the stick, yeah," Shin assures Wuyin before looking to Yuuki, "If you're sure you don't need the cover. If you change your mind, just tell me," He advises her, getting ready to fight. Only it... doesn't seem to be a fight that is brewing. It's more of a plea to be left alone.

    Shin seems much less confident about fighting these creatures while they can talk and be coherent. Zero had mentioned 'personality death', but Shin wasn't really listening. Or he might have wandered off by that point. Either way, it leaves the martial artist scratching the back of his head.

    "Uh. They want one of you to study. I dunno if they're working on a cure or... what. But yeah, any chance one of you wants to come along willingly?"
Wuyin Tsai Wuyin's plan seems to be working perfectly. He's a little confused when, of all the things to come out of the building, it sounds like it's someone who needs help rather than who needs a good slaying.

Why can't vampires ever be /straightforward/?

He stops hurling fire. It doesn't really stop what's already there, but he assumes that they'll want that anyway. With a sigh, Wuyin turns his hand palm-up, and makes an upwards-sweeping gesture. Ice crawls up the side of the building and a cloud of cold rolls off of it, quenching the growing inferno. It's not like it takes him terribly much effort to do it again.

So for right now, he listens, and, perhaps more importantly, he waits to see what the others that are coming out are going to do. If he gets jumped by an overzealous half-deadite, that's fine; he just doesn't want to be surprised.

Besides, the kids up front are probably better at resolving this peacibly, anyway.
Yuuki Kuran     Yuuki has gotten that look before. She's gotten that look, in fact, at every social function in "society" she tends to get that look by everyone at all times.

    Vampires are brutal, ugly creatures.

    She absorbs the situation slowly, looking inside, and at the dessicated woman, and frowns. "I want to help you. If I help you, will you promise you'll do everything you can to come peacefully?" She asks pointedly, her bright voice tinged with the daggers of weariness. "I mean, I... I want to help you, but if you attack people, then we can't. Help you. So..." She lets Artemis retract, putting it away and rolling up a sleeve, presenting it. "Just a bit, ok? I'll be fine." She offers.

    She gives a pointed look to Shin, and his much more serious stance. There's a worry in her eyes, a meaningful sadness. If this were some anime, her look would give him every part of her thought on the matter.

    That she'd love for this to go cleanly, but if he has to, to use that staff of his.
Zero Kiryu     Some vampires are more straightforward than others. While at least one has most likely fled, most of them seem to be milling around trying to decide what, exactly, to do. There are a few, however, that exemplify why this place is dangerous. A scraping noise heralds the arrival of a much more filthy and hostile set of vampires than the middle-aged woman trying not to get fried. From an open gutter they climb and scurry, their forms distorted and flattened. They walk on fours, like very large cats, and seem quite low to the ground. It's not the speaking ones that you have to worry about.

    There's one to each of them, springing at Wuyin, Yuuki, and Shinn in great bounding leaps that will doubtless cross the distance to their prey quite rapidly if something isn't done. As if sensing strength in numbers, the vampires that /had/ been on the fence along the fringes of the situation move in to act, and it's near impossible to tell exactly /how/ they'll act until they actually get there. They're being cautious, though. Using the mad, distorted vampires like hunting dogs.

    As for the middle-aged woman, she jerks back away from Yuuki. Reluctantly, with difficulty. She knows that numbers will overwhelm people like this most often. The notion of being studied, of potentially receiving a cure... well, it gets her to hesitate. But she doesn't /help/. That would be too risky, and after all, the whole reason she's still here is that she's afraid of dying. She just hides, and waits to see how things fall out. The woman falls back behind the door, holding it just cracked open, but clearly intent on snapping it shut if she has to.

    The cats haven't forgotten her, though. Their screeches as she backs into them are terribly loud, and her cry of surprise as they turn away from her 'sleeping' fellows and start to pile onto her is piercing enough to rise above all the noise of the cats, and ferals.

    Might be they have their candidate, though, if the cats or the battle don't get her.
Shin Tokuyama     "Ugh. There's always violent ones," Shin complains, trying to avoid Yuuki giving him the puppy dog anime eyes. When the vampires start attacking, though, Shin decides to go for a full-force show of strength.

    He swings his staff upwards, trying to catch the vampire coming at him in the chin. And then he steps in forward in a quick dash, "Tetsuzankou!" He cries, trying to slam his shoulder into his assailant immmediately afterwards and drive them backwards into a wall with a ki-infused shoulder-check move that is incredibly crushing if it pins anyone between Shin and a solid object.

    He's only attacking the one that attacked him, though. Not the others that are circling cautiously. He's hoping to send a message to dissuade further violence.
Yuuki Kuran     As Shin goes for his shoulder-check, Yuuki's bared arm is refused in mute horror. This isn't the usual response she gets! She in fact gets the exact opposite response, like, every time!

    She takes a few steps forward, trying to follow the poor lady before she sees her get covered in pu-... Cats. Angry cats. She needs to help, and instead gets tackled by a feral vampire. For a moment, she looks like she's about to go down before she 'throws' off the feral with a blast of force, which radiates out from her like an air cannon, potentially blowing some cats off the poor victim lady too.

    The vampire on her probably got biteyl though, through her thick coat, and if she is bleeding... That may cause a frenzy all on its own.

    "Try to keep them back!" She calls to Shin, moving to support him, but...

    He looks like he's got it.
Wuyin Tsai There's always violent ones, Shin complains, just as the actual violent ones show up. It's about time, Wuyin thinks.

One leaps for him. Wuyin's free hand moves to the hilt of his sword, and it's up in an instant. Anima flows into the blade, the golden etchings standing out starkly on the blade. He steps forward, towards the vampire, and marvels at the ease at which he channels through his weapon. A grin stands out on his face, the completely wrong expression for prey to have in this situation.

Wuyin goes forward and the sword goes up. There's a quiet hum that turns to an angry buzz when the mirror-bright jian sweeps through the air and closes with the vampire, the unearthly speed of the Dragon's sword-arm bringing his blade to his assailant before it can properly touch the ground again. There's an actinic flash when it connects, lightning surging off the sword's razor edge and into the creature's body.

He powers through. He's strong enough to cut through the exoskeleton of enormous insects, or the rock and metal bodies of golems. Taking the bottom half off the bestial vampire is hardly a challenge -- but unless that lightning surge cooked its insides, it might not actually stop it.

Honestly, Wuyin looks forward to finding out.
Zero Kiryu     Hostile though they may be, these feral vampires are definitely like the other. Apart from the bizarre shapeshifting, they roughly obey the rules of the body they currently inhabit. The feral after Shin is hurled into a wall with crushing force and... well. Crushed. A great deal of crunching follows, and it slides down the wall, motionless. Based on descriptions this one was already mindless, but destroying the heart is probably the only way to /keep/ it down. It's probably reasonable to leave it for mop-up efforts by the local hunters, though. They didn't specify /all/ the local vampires had to be captured.

    This causes the circling vampires to pause, and keep their distance.

    The vampire that Yuuki attacks with her mind simply explodes. It might have drawn blood trying to feed, it might not have. But the telekinetic force she applies is far more than is necessary to kill a being with approximately human endurance, and it is painted across the landscape just fine. Its blood seems both normal, and also, repellant to the vampires nearby. The circle begins to retreat altogether.

    As previously observed, the endurance of these creatures is /human/, although their anatomy may not be entirely so. When Wuyin steps in with his jian, he cuts through and electrocutes his prey in equal measure. Electricity that would fry a living human will fry these, and even if it didn't the heart is very important to them. Apart from being bisected mid-air, the feral is cooked and left twitching violently. It's probably /hypothetically/ capable of recovering in ideal circumstances, assuming the heart can regain any sort of functionality.

    It will most likely never get the chance.

    The three of them, having demonstrated they are /not/ in fact prey, are backed away from.

    There is a distant CRACK of rifle fire, and a much more distant thudding noise, as if something fell from a great height.

    The middle-aged woman crawls out from the partially burned house, a veritable ARMOR of murderous cats covering her. "Get 'em off me!" She protests.

    This is your great challenge to make a successful extraction, heroes: Wrangle cats.
Shin Tokuyama     "Shit, uh..." Shin looks around frantically for something to help him get the cats off that strange woman. He seems genuinely baffled, and slightly out of breath from the fight he just had, as he shuffles back and forth. Eventually, he comes up with a genius strategy.

    Running over to her, he starts swinging the stick pretty handily. As someone who has literally lived on the streets for long stretches of time, he's pretty uncaring for the plight of stray cats and their woes. Careful to avoid hitting the woman, he's pretty handily just WHACKING cats with every swing of his wooden stick.
Wuyin Tsai Wuyin stands with his jian extended, his assailant tumbling into two pieces behind him. He takes another breath, lowering his weapon and adopting a more neutral stance. He can see the other vampires, hesitating and looking on the edge of hostile. As a perhaps final nail in the proverbial coffin, he turns his jian over in his hand and presses the point through the twitching upper half of the vampire's chest, piercing the heart with casual ease.

/Then/ he goes around to the front of the house. He wears an air of disaffection for the sake of appearances. It says, 'you are beneath me; do not presume to gain my attention.'

When he finally gets there, he sees the cat-armored woman and just kind of stares at her. Seeing Shin go to work with such zeal, he raises one hand and fires tiny shocks, zapping the cats to encourage them to run off. It's very weak, but it shouldn't take more than a jolt for them to get the hint.

He knows a police officer who would be devastated if he heard he fried the bunch of them.
Zero Kiryu     Fortunately for everyone, a cat-hating maniac with a stick and an immortal sorcerer were around to help deal with the cats coating the woman. At first they're quite resistant to being pried off of her, but after a few whacks and zaps the cats let go of the wounded and unhealthy-looking vampire and scatter. They have easier prey all around them, and they know who the superior predators are here. They retreat to a safe distance, glaring menacingly and angrily towards Wuyin and Shinn. Their vaguely aggravated growling can be heard in the distant darkness, eyes distant points of light in the backdrop of the night.

    Not coincidentally, the vampires that had come out retreat back into their hovels. Are they afraid of the /cats/...? Well, maybe a combination of the cats and the gruesome murder of their less intelligent cousins.

    The rest of the mission is largely uneventful, punctuated by the distant noises made by the angry cats. The woman, free of her blanket of hostile felines, is able to turn herself in without further fuss. Containment ensues shortly afterwards, as the cage-trailer is hitched to a series of horses and taken under Hunter guard back towards their headquarters. Or perhaps to Cross Academy, if some joint effort is to be made. Another set of assistants follow after in a truck with the large UV lamps.

    Payment is issued at the warpgate checkpoint, including a significant cash reward and a small sack full of vampire fangs because, 'Anybody who takes a job like this can probably find some sort of mystic use for them or sell them.' It's probably best not to think too hard about the fact that they're giving these out as a component of their reward.

    The receipt provided by the hunters manning the exit indicates that follow-up jobs will be available soon, and qualified surgeons (or morticians) are needed. A small fact sheet on these extraversal vampires is included. Apart from cats actively trying to murder them, it seems like a dead man's blood is deeply poisonous to them.

    As for Zero Kiryu, he's nowhere to be found. All of this 'trying to take them alive' must have gotten to him.
Shin Tokuyama     It's not a mouth! A mouth would have teeth! If this were a living creature, that is. Regardless, the inactive machinery that encases that large, hanging mass seems to be old, but still holding strong, as if designed to last an indefinite period. The cavity in the cave system where you have all arrived has the majority of its machinery on one side, much of it being tubing that leads into that lifted mass and then away into walls to elsewhere in the cave system.

    Audrey has a pretty decent idea in trying to interface with it. It seems to have literally the minimal amount of functionality and power left in it for the machinery to keep from stopping entirely. It's almost as if it's in an incredibly prolonged sort of low-energy mode. But... her magitech cannot interface with it completely. Not because it's too old, but because it's too advanced, despite its incredible age. Trying to ping it results in her screens and displays coming up with a message:

    P^&*EC) UL@#!-

    CODENAME: A&%A W{+[*N

    ANTI-^&*(# DEF@!^$ SYSTEM