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Angela Recently, a man by the name of Olivier acting on behalf of the Hana Association of The City, discussed with Lilian Rook the formation of a new City Association (name pending) in order to manage Elite responses from the Multiverse within The City. While Olivier is convinced, he cannot form an Association himself and asked Lilian Rook to take on an official job to 'prove' she can actually manage those Elites. The real purpose is clear, of course, before an Association can be approved those with the authority to approve an Association must be convinced it is in their best interests to do so.

There is an anomaly to hunt. The Hana Association shares that there has been an uptick of missing people in the Backstreets of District T in a foggy seaside village--normally an uptick of missing people in a backstreets village wouldn't attract attention from Hana at all but the village in question was an entry exam village--one that people traveled to in order to get educated and eventually earn the right to work for a Wing within a Nest or, in other words, essentially a college town that sends the educated underclass to the City's wealth centers.

The village in question WAS a peaceful place as far as how the Backstreets are concerned but its proximity to the waters of the Outskirts has given the Association some concern that it might have been Mermaids (entities Nonon compared to Rita at one point but as of yet unobserved by Elites). Recently, communications from that town have ceased--the job in question is simple: Determine what happened, eliminate any threats within the village, and rescue any civilians.

A Hana Association representative. has been sent to observe and advise. Elites have been informed about her and she is waiting by the main road leading into the village. Heavy fog has set in over the village but the white and platinum-trimmed uniform of the Hana Association pops and she has added a nametag to her coat lapel that names her as 'Hana South Section 3 Director Mirinae'. She is a woman who looks to be in her mid to late thirties with long light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She is carrying a long black spear and is adjusting her glasses as Elites arrive.
Angela "The Dame Commander Lilian Rook is leading this mission so I will not be interfering or assisting with the operation as my role here is to be an observer. I am authorized to answer questions about the mission with some limitations but to summarize briefly, ah... Basic questions about The City that you might not know but any Fixer Organization would be cognizant of, inquiries as to what satisfy the conditions of the job in question. Your job here is to discover what is going on here, put a stop to it, and rescue any survivors in that order but this is not a graded test--the only objective here is to prove that a Thirteenth Association would benefit the City and not prove to cause more trouble than one is worth. I am only an observer. You do not have to convince me. You have to convince the ones my report will be going to. I have taken this duty from Olivier but I have no interest in embarrassing him so I intend to handle his objectively."

She'll offer her hand to the Dame Commander first but will offer it to anyone who expresses interest. "Let us shake hands." Once that is done, she draws out a pad with a local map of the village with notable locations marked which she also offers to the Dame Commander.

* The Boardwalk - A waterfront facing strip of games, street merchants, and seafood. It wouldn't be able to operate on a day like this, however.

* The University/University Hospital - Arguably the center of the town around which everything else has sprung up.

* That Old Crickety Home At The Edge Of Town - A Seven Association scout has gone missing here while looking for a prior occupant - Lady Livingston - that seems to have ALSO gone missing.

The heavy fog beckons. You can still hear the occasional bird tweet but the backstreets village is terribly quiet. It could just be because of the fog being as thick as it is, but...If it was just fog, you wouldn't be here.
Alucard Why is Alucard here? How did he get here?

He walked and it was an accident.

The son of Dracula had decided to put the wine down and take a walk through the multiverse. As much of it as he could, anyway. With no map, no directions. Just his two feet, his sword on his hip and the worlds laid out before him. So it is completely by accident that he ends up with the small crowd, getting a mission rundown from some intermediary in the dense, rolling fog.

"I think I took a wrong turn," he mutters to himself. Still, once he gets the gist of the situation, that people are being preyed upon by monsters, he decides to do what he is good at and, possibly, help kill some monsters. He peers at the map, frowning in thought, golden eyes scrutinizing. Given his skills and appearance, the empty house is likely the best place for him to look.

"I will investigate the house. If there are no objections."
Lilian Rook     A seaside village is a lucky break. Lilian had been completely prepared to handle some filthy job in a grimy back alley clinic somewhere, surrounded by soot-stained skyscrapers as is her general opinion of the City at large. Learning that she is to go-- well, take people-- somewhere rural, quiet, and coastal, muddles up her grim resolve with the refreshing feeling of things looking up. Something as upbeat as 'a place where people go to better themselves' is nearly suspiciously good luck.

    Despite her looks, living quietly by the ocean is how Lilian grew up. Going to the big city after earning her place is a familiar story, too. Even the glancing reminder of Rita is a positive, so heavy fog doesn't dampen the irrepressible core of inappropriate optimism; have you ever been to England?

    The first thing to slow her roll is the reminder that practically everyone in the City knows who she is by now. Not in the safely controlled sense of glamourous stardom, nor in the passing and contractually negotiated way of her Paladins identity, but for having seen her at her most honest, doing what she is most proud of, and adoring her for it-- even if, incidentally, she was quarter-dressed by the end of it. So as little as the greeting from the Hana Association liaison, who should be recognizing her on sight as a matter of professionalism anyways, elicits a stroke of queasy excitement from some anxious place inside of her that has no business being on the job.

    "A pleasure. Thank you for seeing us, of course, and thank you for taking on Olivier's project fairly and seriously." Lilian takes Mirinae's hand with the sort of professionalism that neglects to squeeze as hard as you can to prove how strong you are; unsuitable for military or handicraft work. "So it seems my suspicions-- ah, apologies, my theory was correct." she says, with a minimum of it actually sounding even remotely accidental.

    "I'm afraid telling them that they only need put in an adequate effort might only encourage them to try harder than when they're being judged. Of course, they won't be causing any issues for yourself or the Association. Nor, I presume, for the daily functioning of the Wing's affairs." No anthropomorphization of 'the City'. No mention of the Head. No attribution of authority. Not even a promise to score an A+ anyways. Altogether an eerie opposite of a lack of common sense, from someone being compared to a Colour. "If you're at liberty to share with me the details of which Nests this town services, who is typically responsible for its upkeep and oversight as a Syndicate-unaligned burough, the subject matter covered here, and who sees compensation for the export of talent, I'd be much obliged."

    Everyone in the City has already seen her armour, so Lilian is here wearing the green/grey/black travelling cloak she'd been walking the trails of Lycia with, leaving her sword visibly sheathed over her back. It keeps the cold fog out, it looks vaguely anonymizing without really being so, it advertises that she's armed for a job, and it makes the skin-warmth of the metal gauntlet that takes Mirinae's hand even more unusual. Her boots click like high heels on marble, though they're of the leather variety. "Nice choice, by the way." she says, glancing at Mirinae's spear as she pulls away.
Lilian Rook     'I will investigate the house. If there are no objections.'

    "Take at least two Elites with you. At least one of you is to keep watch while the others investigate." Lilian says, to a man she's never met until today; you'd be hard-pressed to tell by sight. "Don't let all three people have their noses down at the same time. Don't split up, either. If you can manage four, then two teams of two is acceptable, but stay within thirty meters, further than ten, at all times. If a reasonably skilled Fixer has gone missing, there is a high probability of an enemy specializing in ambush and not unfamiliar with superior opponents, they'll be using this fog to their advantage."

    Lilian breathes deep, then rides the momentum into her Operational Tone on site. Gesturing at specific slices of the town, she continues, "Whoever feels they'll be unsuitable for combat at this time, canvassing the boardwalk with a bodyguard is acceptable, but form up with the nearest group should you get nothing by thirty minutes elapsed. The rest, I'd like to investigate the hospital. Radio check-ins every five minutes. Report anything you find directly to me. If you put your hand on your weapon, notify the private channel; silent message. Trust your instincts, and don't assume you'll get off with fighting alone without notifying anyone of danger."

    "No random gaggle of criminals would choose to attack this town in particular over any other, given its importance and purpose; the University and adjoined hospital are the draw; either in terms of a grudge, incentive, a motive behind organized crime or a private military maneuver, or the juiciest target for a monster."
Yuuki Kuran The L Corp, with Angela as its frontfacing supervisor, had many powerful allies. Not just able to secure for the administration of their outreach programs storied Elites like the Dame Commander, Angela could apparently (surprising to her, apparently!) count on the attention and care of the uppermost levels of Concord leadership.

Angela, specifically, had been told that she was the Concord Partner, and that the flow of aid to the Director's own world was not just noticed but appreciated.

So it was that steps towards better-world solutions to the City's problems were the minded priorities of those Concord leaders. That there was some personal gains and moves to be had and made was natural: that (a) Yuuki saw to them was just a follow-on effect of a particular, small thing...

It wasn't just Lilian Rook in attendance for Angela's world - it was 'blood fiends'! So, Yuuki Kuran once more dashes into Concord-associated missions with gusto. Approaching the Hana Association member directly, the Director emerges from the fog behind Alucard as he introduces himself as 'really lost', giving the long-haired young man a gentle smile. "Ah, I recognize your voice. The... Man from the radio, last night."

Dressed in a white collared shirt and black vest, with a golden cross necklace emerging from the open first button and an open red ribbon untied and loose-hanging to either side of her neck, a spiral of a rose-and-thorns hair ornament in silver and lilac wrapped around her right ear, and a black knee-length skirt and dusk-tint leggings ending in boots that add a few inchest to her five feet of height, the Director is mildly eager to shake hands and share greetings with Mirinae, muted for affecting being 'sudden help', ready to be led, curious and seeking--

And immediately interested in Lilian herself. "Dame Commander." Yuuki begins, in aside, shoulder to shoulder as she peers through the village-mist, feeling for presences, smelling for blood. She expects some near the Hospital, but... It's a bit of a cliche, isn't it?

A stream of orders - precise, direct, clear and delicate and precise - fall around Yuuki and she scrapes half of it by intent and barely any of it by content. Be careful and work together, she hears, having heard it countless times before. The red-brown eyed woman lifts her attention with a wax-sealed envelope, and gestures it towards Lilian.
Wonderlab Trio "I visited District 20 once as a kid, b-but this is...."
"... A little scary?"
"I-I know it shouldn't be, but...! Everything just feels so unpredictable, when the mist rolls in and stops me from seeing very far, and then my mind goes into overdrive imagining things...!"
"No, no, it's alright to be scared! I'm a little scared too. But we'll hold on, since we're here to help people."
"Th-that's right, we are."

    The trio of L-Corp agents-- including Catt, whose hair is frazzled from nerves from their first trip on the Warp Train to get here from District 15-- approach in a cluster with the short-statured Captain at the head. At first glance, they appear to be in casual clothes to comply with company policy of keeping EGO secretive in the City, but in actuality, they've just thrown clothes on top of it. After all, anyone keeping up with the news saw EGO gear in the video of HQ that got passed around; why risk their safety to keep a spilled secret safe?

    Orders from above agree. So concealing their psychic armaments, Taii wears an old hoodie, hair mussed and bundled at the back of their head, Rose wears a stylish turtleneck and gloves, and Catt wears an oversized grey jacket nabbed by Rose from a store near the train station when Catt revealed they hadn't brought anything.

    Among them, Catt is seemingly the most uneasily comfortable in the murky Backstreets, tilting their head back at the others and smirking. Despite their teasing, they don't give off the impression that they've taken any attention off their surroundings, hypervigilant in a way that they'd jump at the first sign of danger. "Catt wonders, what kind of monster is it that prowls around in the fog here, that snatches people away without anyone seeing its face?" The effect is somewhat undercut by the fact that their hands are fully obscured by the jacket sleeves that hang down past them, like a kid.

"Your job here is to discover what is going on here, put a stop to it, and rescue any survivors in that order but this is not a graded test--the only objective here is to prove that a Thirteenth Association would benefit the City and not prove to cause more trouble than one is worth."

    Catt isn't as wowed by the Hana Association offician as the other two are. In fact, they seem a little bored by her, half-lidded gaze aimed past them into the town. "... Catt is here to help the Outsiders, since it's Catt's job. But whether they succeed or not isn't what Catt's interested in."

"Don't you think a Fixer organization of Outsiders would be wonderful though, Captain?"
"Catt doesn't see why. There's already plenty of them around to do nothing."
"Awww, don't be like that...."

"The rest, I'd like to investigate the hospital."

    Brattily mean-spirited though they may be, Catt doesn't have any objections to taking orders from Lilian. With a glance to either side, comprised almost entirely of flicking their eyes rather than moving their head, to ascertain the attention of both of their subordinates, they nod and start walking forwards into the town.

    "Catt can look into the hospital. If Catt had to guess, there's little difference at all between enemies and monsters out here. If they're strong, Catt just has to beat them."
Zero Kiryu As is his tendency, Zero Kiryu is simply not there one moment and then materializes at Yuuki's flank. It corresponds roughly to her addressing Lilian, though the actual timing seems essentially arbitrary. He's a little dressed-down at the moment, having shed his jacket and overcoat for a distinctive waistcoast that matches the color of his eyes, a white button-down shirt, and black slacks. By his standards he's hardly dressed, so he either didn't feel like dealing with a certain gradient of clothing damage or he wasn't quite ready to be out and about at the moment that he felt like he really just had to be here.

He heard everything, of course. Yuuki is sharing in his power, so they're colocal at all times.

His attention drifts towards Alucard, whose appearance he had... specific expectations of, not due to the radio conversations from the previous night but as a consequence of a past interaction with a very similar but not identical individual. Specifically, his gaze flicks towards Alucard's left hand in particular, and then quickly slides away.

"I am told that you have made quite an impression on Angela," he asides to Lilian. "Apologies for Sarracenia. Her behavior is... counterproductive. We are attempting to prod her in more useful directions. We will see if that is even possible, I suppose." His tone suggests he's seen more difficult turnarounds, but doesn't have high expectations.
Hibiki Tachibana     Ostensibly the only one representing the Watch here, given Berislav's feelings on the subject, is the ever-nosy Tachibana Hibiki. She still has her fair share of leftover injuries after Quicknest; visible bandages here and there, including just barely beneath her tanktop and open jacket, with a pad of gauze strapped to her cheek. Despite that, and despite the way she walks being notably stiff compared to her usual, she's got a particularly attentive glint in her eye today.

    "Nice to meet you, Director." Not Yuuki mind you, even if she's still nice to see, but they've already met ages ago - she's plenty happy to give that firm shake to Mirinae, even if it leans more towards the casual than the professional. "If you're up for answering any questions... then that second thing you said? About 'what satisfies the conditions of the job'."

    Her hands go into her pockets. "I guess what I specifically wanna ask is... how would some of the existing Associations approach a problem like this? There'd probably be several who could, and they'd have different ways of doing it, yeah?"

    That aside, Lilian does her job as the leader of the operation, and Hibiki hears her out. There (hopefully) won't be any collaring necessary this time, as once she's done, she just gives a nod to show she's heard everything out. "Right. In that case..."

    Her head tilts towards Alucard; she doesn't recognize him, but his voice is definitely familiar from the other day. "...I'm up for tagging along to help fill out the group. If there are no objections." A beat passes, and she turns her head towards the foggy waters. "If a Fixer on the case went missing around there, I want to help look into it."
Angela Mirinae gives Alucard a look. She looks towards the Heirloom Sword first since it seems well made, then Alucard himself--a dubious one for him. She doesn't argue about his presence--nor does she point out his fangs or call him a Blood Fiend--actually, she only really gave Alucard a look when he said 'I think I took a wrong turn'--until that point, she assumed Lilian invited him.

Mirinae turns to Lilian rather than call attention to it. She says, "Why wouldn't I? He takes matters seriously and has a good head on his shoulders. He wouldn't fit in the Association otherwise. He is a man who errs on the side of caution. He wouldn't put forward a reckless plan. His reasoning is clear enough to me. The City can either change some now or change chaotically later. We may be better defended than Quicknest, but the multiverse is still an unexplored frontier--even more than the Outskirts or the Ruins--so presuming we can just continue exactly as we have been would be the height of arrogance. ... I watched your fight. Everyone is talking about your techniques, but I think the moments of stillness spoke more personally--" Her eyebrows raise slightly. "Oh, but talking shop like that--yes, thank you for saying so about the spear. It's...a clever contraption. Took me some time to get used to it, but I used spears before joining so it's most comfmortable for me this way."

''If you're at liberty to share with me the details of which Nests this town services...''

"This village primarily services the T And U Nests." Mirinae says, "T Corp is ostensibly responsible for its protection but in practice it leaves it to the Associations. A contingent of Zwei Association Fixers were stationed here but the Syndicates generally have an agreement to not mess with villages like these. But you can never really be sure how a Syndicate will act."

Lilian ACTS like Alucard belonged here but Alucard's own testimony, so to speak, suggests he sort of stumbled over. Nevertheless, if Lilian can get a total stranger with a cool sword to do what she wants within moments of properly meeting him--that's certainly relevan to the test at hand.

She keeps her own pad to take notes but quiets down. "Subject matter varies but primarily technical, architectual, engineering--Compensation goes back to the college itself, primarily, alongw with a stipend for family members."

Angela isn't present, of course, because she is illegal but Mirinae can't obscure a flicker of surprise upon seeing Yuuki Kuran being present. The Hana Association has done some of its own research, of course, and recognizes her as the Director of the Concord. Having not been informed of this visitor, she takes a moment to compose herself--that shock fading quickly as she says, "You will not mind following her orders today?" to the Director, shaking her hand "We're honord by your attendance, Director." Mirinae realizes that if the Director does get in trouble she probably WILL have to step in but she can only imagine what tools a multiversal WIng Leader (her imagining of the Concord) has at her disposal.
Angela Yuuki (and, let's face it, probably Alucard and Zero) can sense blood! Plenty of it. There's some on the Boardwalk, some in the Old House, and ... a great deal in the university hospital.

Mirinae glances to Catt. "Locals?" She asks. "..Alright, that's fine."

''I am told that you have made quite an impression on Angela.''

"Angela?" Mirinae asks now that Zero mentioned the name. "Is she one of the Concord Partners?"

She looks to Hibiki and smiles thinly. "Mirinae is fine. Having two Directors present might cause confusion." It is less an offer of friendship and more an acknowledgement that Yuuki is considerably higher up as far as multiversal power structures go.

''What satisfies the conditions of the job.''

"Elimination of any threats and knowledge of what actually occured here--enough to fill a report." Mirinae says. "But like I said, there's no grade curve--in the end you have to convince a bunch of rich Nest folk that an Association composed of you would be good for the City."
Alucard Alucard looks to Lilian as she begins to set out ground rules and marching orders. She is lucky that he is not Trevor, who would give her the finger and go off on his own. Instead, he merely inclines his head politely. "As you wish, madam." Straightening, he glances at Hibiki, giving her another gracious incline of his head. "If you wish to come with me, I will not protest. After all, she," gesturing at Lilian, "Is in charge and has ordered the ... buddy system."

He still doesn't wait, instead melding into the fog and heading towards the house. At least where he assumes it is based on the map.
Lilian Rook     'Dame Commander.'

    Lilian would jump out of her skin if she were just idly reading. The fact that she only glances behind her-- then down, at that voice, indicates that she's already mentally on the job. Or just that it's been a while. "--Director?" sounds exactly as surprised as it should be, but the half-syllable laugh that follows only matches up with the way Lilian absently pushes her hair behind her ear. "My, it's been quite a while. I think I was a bit shorter, last I saw you."

    About two inches and fifteen pounds is the correct answer. Back then, she didn't have a facial scar either. She spoke to everyone like either a professor or an underclassman, and seldom ever used her sword. And no one took her title seriously. The dissonance of seeing Yuuki again, exactly the same save for a new year's shoujo fashion, using those words and looking at her in the way, briefly disorients her with the forward nature of time.

    "Is that . . . ?" Lilian hardly need ask about the envelope. She's only hesitant to take it for having no reason to imagine that it could be a bad thing. "--something I should save for a more private occasion?"

    'I am told that you have made quite an impression on Angela,'

    Certainly, Lilian from four years ago would be screaming at the current one to not look so halfway-relaxed around Zero of all people. Hyrule would still have been fresh on her mind. The current woman is more interested in glancing from him to Yuuki, tapping her lower lip with the corner of the letter, looking back, and thinking over something half-remembered. "I've heard as much, Mister Kiryu. Of course, I'll take full credit, but if it's true that I have, then it's just as much because Angela was ready to let someone make that impression on her."

    Putting the letter away for now, Lilian says "Regretfully, I never did get very good at giving people what they want, in the end. These days it seems that I specialize in those who want what people will never give them."

    'Apologies for Sarracenia. Her behavior is... counterproductive.'

    Lilian pauses, and holds for the space of an autonomic blink. "Oh. Is that something you should really be saying?" The words are supposed to mean 'it isn't free to apologize for an organization member', but what they sound like is 'aren't they going to call you a brainwashed sympathizer?'. "Well. I wish you luck then." Lilian says, just before catching herself and reluctantly doubling back. "I do. She's a horrid piece of work, but the place she'll be in before too long is worse than the bad things I want to happen to her."
Angela THE OLD HOUSE

The Old House is a two story building with weather-beaten moss-covered walls and boarded up windows. The lights are off and the front door is shut but, of course, a quick examination will reveal that the front door isn't just locked but the door handle has been dismantled and tossed to the side into some nearby bushes in a hasty attempt to hide it.

The smell of blood is thicker and stronger--thick enough to come from several corpses--even Hibiki might catch a whiff of it.

The front yard hasn't been tended to in at least a month. There's a couple trees there that actually look rather pretty and anachronistic to the rest of its surroundings.

A mat by the front door says 'DID YOU BRING WINE?'
[ ] YES
[ ] LEAVE

A slew of local papers have piled up along the front lawn, the most recent paper seems to be from two weeks ago. Alucard hears some movement on the second floor. Like something being dragged. Numbers are hard to pick out simply by sensing blood. Is it many small things or one big thing? One way to find out.

Mirinae ends up heading with Lilian Rook since it's most important for her to see what SHE is up to.

THE UNIVERSITY

The University is a much smaller campus than many across the multiverse, it seems to be primarily two main buildings, a smaller administrative building near the university hospital which is attached to a fitness center. There is nobody out on the quad between the school buildings, at least nobody that can be readily spotted through the fog. Mirinae draws her spear.

"...I do not see anyone..." She says, as if that's notable. It seems likely, as Lilian suggested, that someone is hoping to ambush them. Blinds have been drawn across some of the windows but most of them are simply too fogged up to look through even so.

Taii's foot bumps up against something. A quick examination reveals it to be.....!

Someone's hand. Someone's hand, disembodied, and covered in black and red veins. And carrying a large cleaver.

It rolls over.

And it lunges for Taii's foot, intending to stick that cleaver into Taii's leg!

There might be more surprises hidden in the grass.
Hibiki Tachibana     Mirinae is fine. Having two Directors present might cause confusion.
    But like I said, there's no grade curve--in the end you have to convince a bunch of rich Nest folk that an Association composed of you would be good for the City.

    An offer of friendship it is not, but Hibiki still gives a brief smile. "Mirinae, then." It only lasts as long as it takes for the explanation to come, before going back to neutral. "Not more trouble than we're worth. ...Right. I hear you. Then I'll try to make sure you won't have anything bad to write about."

    She says, knowing full well that out of the stated list of priorities, she can't help but move 'rescue' towards the front.

    If you wish to come with me, I will not protest.

    "I'll watch your back if you watch mine," she intones back to Alucard, sounding awfully genuine about thinking so despite the look on her face not changing all that much. "And if you wandered all this way and ended up here, you must got some kind of sense of direction. Could do a lot worse than sticking with you."

    "Hibiki, by the way. ...Didn't actually say that much over the radio the other day, come to think of it."

    Through the fog, and towards the house - a house that looks very clearly abandoned, by anyone's metric. That isn't surprising. The reek of blood intense enough that even /she/ can pick up on it is. Are all her visits to Lobotomy Corporation giving her a knack for it? ...She hopes not. It makes her pause in the middle of idly checking one of the newspapers littering the lawn, furthering her investigation until...

    ...she digs into a bush out of morbid curiosity, just to find the tossed-away door handle. She grimaces, pulling it out to look over it and then glance back at the door.

    "...Whatever happened here had to have been intentional. And they didn't work that hard to cover their tracks... as if the smell wasn't enough; they did it in a rush." Unless anyone else has any other ideas, Hibiki moves to take the handle back to the door - although it's up in the air if it was disassembled well enough to stop it from being placed back, it's still worth a try. Given her own only other option for getting in is bashing the thing down.

    That'd be loud, to say the least, and that's not good when the whole place is so deathly quiet.
Yuuki Kuran > Lilian Rook says, "I hadn't meant to suggest that you should need an excuse, Director. It's only that today is about this 'Association' idea. It doesn't appear to have much to do with Angela."

Lingering on Lilian's light radio curiousity, the vested Director dreamily considers more than the single moment of their interaction, but many years going back.

'Why are *you* here?', as a challenge. Unwelcoming and reason-demanding. So usual, interrogative. Had she expected it?

So the first brush of interaction - a fusillade of soft interest led by a paper envelope sealed on fold with a dollop of cold red wax - goes far better than Yuuki expected. Between both the local Fixer, whom she had expected dimmer reception on, and Lilian, who had been much different all those years ago, the Director is pleasantly surprised at a reception that in other cases might have been broadly expected. "Shorter..." And then a Kukuruesque bloom of recognition, slow and amused. "And at Touta's party, you were as grown as you are now." Yuuki answers Lilian. "Have things changed since your graduation from school? They changed a lot for me, but that was quite a while ago." Or, in the yearspans of true immortals adrift on an ocean of endless time: ten whole years ago! Eternities, really.

Shifting to Hibiki, Yuuki laughs again, mostly a giggle, this time because she had remembered and someone else had forgotten. "I'm glad to see you too, Hibiki. We've met before! Don't you remember our adventures in Cairo?" The red-eyed girl asks her companion in diminuity, smiling far more brightly. "I remember you being instrumental in helping one of my favorite archaeologists - and I've got the Egyptian rugs to show for it. Lovely things."

In partial aside, not flustered at all but taking her time in a round, Yuuki clasps her hands and nods just a bit, capturing Mirinae in her solely directed gaze. "That was the objective, yes? I'm familiar with how Hunters handle their packs and can play a part - with Zero here, I don't expect any Blood Fiend problems at all. He's the leader of the Hunter's Association, so please think of our support as the... genuine aid of the Concord towards its Partners, and their places."

Even if Angela isn't known or understood here, Yuuki seems directly representative of the Concord's will to encourage and not frustrate or oppose positive efforts towards the City.

"--something I should save for a more private occasion?"

"It is a present meant for you, Lilian. Yours to do with as you see fit, or give it away if that pleases you more. It's..." A soft lift of laughter continues to linger, dazedly-slow as the two groups peel away to their respective areas. "... something you earned, and only fair that you get one if I'm offering them at all."

---

With her 'orders', and the willingness to follow them towards joining the mysterious-yet-deeply-familiar Alucard, Yuuki steps quietly through the mist, eyes glowing with dim crimson lambency as she scents the lingering notes of spilled blood and corpses. Ungrimacing, Yuuki steps to the stoop and checks the doorhandle before turning about to look for the missing object. She doesn't *need* it, but the haunted house adventuerer in her is stopped by the obvious puzzle lock.

"Several people are dead here, but... They still have blood in them. It's sloppy, don't you think? For 'blood fiends'." Yuuki asides, fishing about for the handle before Hibiki finds it, following the blonde back to the door and checking... the NOTE.

Yuuki really only has one idea there. "Ah... Alucard? Might you have brought a bottle from your wine stash as a travel drink? It would be very convenient." The Director of the Concord quietly asks, before wide-eyed lingering on the particular features of the otherworldly (anime) man.

". . . Alucard, may I ask you a personal question? Are you familiar with a hunter of vampires going by the name 'D'? You remind me of him so greatly, but... He wore this great hat, and you do not." And several other things besides.
Zero Kiryu //You will not mind following her orders today?//

Zero looks towards Mirinae, but doesn't actually say anything. He continues to look at her when she inquires as to whom they are speaking about. He replies, "A mutual friend, whose positive feedback prompted us to inquire after Lilian Rook presently." He's exactly familiar enough to off-handedly deflect what's being asked about. It is, at any rate, absolutely true that his and Yuuki's presence is both unplanned and has little to do with the operation at hand.

//I've heard as much, Mister Kiryu. Of course, I'll take full credit, but if it's true that I have, then it's just as much because Angela was ready to let someone make that impression on her.//

"How modest," he comments, dully. There's an undercurrent of 'I remember Mr. Joestar's world' or some similar, adjacent incident that they shared, but he doesn't go so far as to make it explicit.

//Oh. Is that something you should really be saying?//

"I'm not concerned with saying it," Zero answers, not so much as offering a shrug of indifference. The reactions that Sarracenia had at the time of these discussions were enough to paint a picture for him. The Concord doesn't have infinite tolerance for somebody screeching about everybody being brainwashed because they don't agree with the direction of the wind.

He trails after Yuuki...

On the subject of blood-fiends not passing beneath his notice, he says, "This place reeks of blood. I would expect this of ferals, but do not know the nature of the local vampires... for most, I would still expect the amount of blood that I smell ambiently to be wasteful."

His sixth sense swings across the house, scoping 'in' in search of the familiar, irritating sourness of other vampires -- Blood Fiends, he supposes -- while vines begin to extrude from his ankle and spread through the surroundings. A creeping branch of that self-same vine extrusion grows up the door and pushes towards the vacant space the knob once rested, not seeking to take its place but to simply slip through and 'look' about.

"His left hand is ordinary. Hair color is wrong. Style is right. Surface technological and sociological familiarity is wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if he was acquainted, but..." He fills Yuuki in methodically, before trailing off. Obviously, Zero doesn't think Alucard has much to do with D.
Alucard As they approach the house, Alucard can, of course, smell the blood from here. He wrinkles his nose a little in distaste. Clearly not a blood drinker, this one. Golden eyes flicker between Zero and Yuuki. His tone is not unkind, but it is still fairly flat and dry. "I am not aware of anyone by that name, no. The only vampire hunters I am closely acquainted with are Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades. My apologies."

As he steps onto the porch, and the welcome mat demands wine, he smirks a little. "I am not sure wine is the key, but I believe I can get inside regardless. One moment." His body begins to dissolve, expanding out into a cloud of grey mist that mingles with the fog. The cloud surges forwards towards the door, looking for a gap, or a seam that isn't airtight for him to press through.

Should he make it inside, he will change back and, hopefully, the door can be opened from the inside. If not, he's going to have to get creative.
Angela THE OLD HOUSE

Hibiki checks the newspapers. There's stuff there about exams--seems like it's been a tough year for students--but obviously the most relevant question is the matter of missing people. The numbers seem to increase daily, with a significant dip back down for a couple days before exponentially increasing after.

Alucard epicly turns into mist and slides underneath the doorframe, popping up on the otherside into a dimly lit hallway with moldy carpeting. He pops the door open from the other side when Hibiki tries to push the handle back in like solving a puzzle but as it turns out--the door wasn't locked or anything and nothing was really securing the door. It is simply easier to push from the inside than pull from the outside.

Zero extends his senses. There is one blood fiend (presumably, it is some manner of vampiric entity) on the second floor that Zero can sense. Strangely, they are not bloated on blood--if anything, they might be starving from a lack of it. Zero's vines can also pick up, immediately on the second floor, several dead bodies lurking in the dark. Their veins and skin have been ripped free butt there is a black and red mesh of blood and shadowstuff.

One, wearing the uniform of a Seven Association Fixer, starts stabbing down at the vines with his blade and a pair wearing the uniform of Zwei Association Fixers go for Alucard and Hibiki respectively, lashing out with their respective blades for Alucard and Hibiki's upper bodies.

Their movements are not zombielike at all. They nearly move as quickly and skillfully as they did while they were alive. They shouldn't be able to, there's no real nervous system to speak of. They just... are able to. Like the memory of who they were still lingered within them.

There is a defensive bent to their strikes and they stick by the stairs leading up to the second floor. Assigned to protect them, perhaps?
Wonderlab Trio     Taii rambles while walking with the group of five to the hospital, ostensibly to provide Lilian more context on the function of these types of university towns, but more likely just because the heavy silence of the damp and shrouded streets unnerves them. Rose listens along, raptly interested in a way that seems just adjacent to sincere, like they have to make it visibly clear that they're listening in particular.

    "I've never been before, but this is actually one of the sister universities to where I went to, back in District 21-- that's, um, the neighboring District, Dame Commander. Where I went was somewhat more focused on accounting and administrative training, for, uh, the more attainable jobs in wings, I guess, so it was always overflowing with students. I was lucky to get picked up by L-Corp after. I don't know about here, but back-- home, it was only part-time education, with work programs around the more touristy parts of town taking up the rest of the day, but, well, I-I don't know how pleasant of a vacation spot this town would be? Maybe it's not nice to judge it while it's m-messed up like this, ahaha... I bet the view of the Lake would be really pretty if it wasn't so grey and gloomy..."

"Locals?"

    Catt had presumed that 'locals' was something that could just be surmised by looking at them, and just silently nods with wide black eyes. "We were *specifically* requested by the Manager. For multiversal outreach." That's a particular point of pride for them for some reason.

    Something about actually entering the campus of the school sets all the agents on edge. Catt's paces on the ground become practically silent, hackles raised and scanning the grounds carefully while creeping along. Taii and Rose's attention is directed moreso towards the windows than the open area, checking for either inhabitants-- hopefully-- or eyes watching down for an ambush-- fearfully. Dew-covered grass soaks the hem of Taii's sweatpants as they trudge forwards, and they retract their hand into their hoodie to grip onto their concealed EGO weapon for security.

    "Everyone's in hiding... this must have been going on for so long that it's not even safe to come outside... or...?" The horrifying possibility that this is a ghost town pales Taii's face further, and eyes upturned to the buildings, they completely miss the severed hand before it lunges at them.

    With a sharp shriek that cracked the hush of the campus, Taii leaps back with Chignon brandished in their hand in an instant. The slash against their leg cut straight through cloth and into scraped EGO armor, with a faint sliver of pink visible beneath the grey of their outer layer. Rather than freezing up in fear, they slide their finger along the length of the golden rapier rod in a steadily practiced motion despite their rigidity, then swing it down at the hand on the ground to release a flood of brighter, soothing white mist around it, disappearing and reappearing behind it.

    Simultaneously, before Taii has a chance to follow up, Catt steps into the mist and swings their golden EGO spoon down like a club, bludgeoning the severed hand into a standstill. While Taii immediately sheathes their EGO again, looking guilty, Catt grips theirs in both hands, one hand just below the bowl in a ready position, rapidly saccading across the grass with dialated pupils.

    "... Moving corpses? Blood fiends. Lots of people at the school means lots of corpses and then more danger for the rest. The weaker prey die first and make it harder. If there's more corpses inside... there might not be anyone left at all." Which means that's where Catt's going, after a dutiful but obnoxiously inarticulate update in the radio.
Lilian Rook     '... Catt is here to help the Outsiders, since it's Catt's job. But whether they succeed or not isn't what Catt's interested in.'

    "So you are interested in something?" says Lilian, breezing right past the first part. "I suppose it's only natural that Fixers wouldn't matter much to you. Given that you're employed by a Wing and all."

    'Everything just feels so unpredictable, when the mist rolls in and stops me from seeing very far, and then my mind goes into overdrive imagining things...!'

    "The worst thing you can do in an ambiguous, high-tension situation, is to exhaust yourself by keeping your guard up." Lilian says. "You can only maintain a maximum level of vigilance for so long. No doubt the prior Fixer fell prey to that as well, operating on their own. You'll be much safer if you stop exhaustively scanning your environment for threats, and let yourself be warned by something else. Something out of place, or something suddenly changing."

    'If they're strong, Catt just has to beat them.'

    Lilian gives them a misgiving look.

    'Why wouldn't I?'

    "There are a million and one reasons that lesser people wouldn't, Association Director Mirinae, regardless of Olivier's virtues." says Lilian. "Many of those reasons would even be because of those virtues. That it seems so clear cut to you . . . Well, never mind that for now."

    'I watched your fight. Everyone is talking about your techniques, but I think the moments of stillness spoke more personally--'

    There's her second reminder. Lilian closes her eyes, opens her mouth, elects to stay silent, and keeps moving with only a little shake of her head. "I wonder whatever that could mean. That video has nothing to do with this test in the first place."

    The rest of the subject occupies her, for a while at least, as the group moves from the road into town. True to her own advice, Lilian doesn't carefully watch the fog as the short buildings rise up around them, but only scans a broadly forward area as she goes, and lets her footsteps synchronize with the collective rhythm of the group before it splits. She glances around each turn as it comes up, and examines each new strcuture coming into focus, but spends very little time actually looking for shapes or sorting out shadows, as if she expects an enemy will announce itself first.

    "So the government contracted out the maintenance and groundskeeping to freelancers. How painfully typically." she replies to Mirinae. "I suppose the people here shouldn't feel like they're too valuable, yes? Only that they're fortunate to have the opportunity to move up at all." The way she looks ahead at the sound of Syndicates seems like she wouldn't hope for something so convenient. "If you aren't certain, it's only because you don't know enough. Individual people are unpredictable, but organizations never are. A lack of enlightened self-interest isn't always the same thing as irrationality."

    'Elimination of any threats and knowledge of what actually occured here--enough to fill a report.'

    "You did say 'in order', but I can't help but notice that rescue doesn't even make the list."

    'As you wish, madam.'

    "And polite, too . . ." Lilian muses to herself, hot off the tail of praising him on the radio for what sounds an awful lot like 'leaving the house and deciding to get a job'. A soft snort of amusement comes out for 'the buddy system', but all she says is "I don't suppose you can see in three hundred and sixty degrees?"
Lilian Rook     Arriving at the University Hospital doesn't seem to change her demeanour much from when the group had split earlier. Quiter, perhaps, for having a smaller bunch, with more forward focus, given nothing ostensibly amiss outside the objective. She stops and scuffs the toe of her boot against the grass, deliberately letting her attention drift away so that she can regard the campus with fresh eyes; where she stands now delineated as the outside edge of the theatre. She draws the invisible perimeter with her gaze.

    '...I do not see anyone...'

    "As ridiculous as it is, I'm not surprised." Lilian says. She's looking at the windows. "Even a town of this size should have plenty of working phones. It's not typically possible to 'lose contact' in that way with anywhere more than two hundred people live." She risks a look at Miranae. "How long has it been since anyone has heard from here?"

    It's the sound of Taii's foot striking something-- or perhaps just Taii's hitch in gait-- that suddenly causes Lilian to switch gears, and not any sign of an actual, recognizable threat. She's right, of course; she knows that when Taii shrieks and backs away, thought she allows Catt to attack the enemy instead, given it was able to hide in the grass. The instant where her ready hand drops from reaching for her sword and instead lands on her sidearm isn't easy to catch.

    "Well then. They're not trying to hide their presence too seriously. That would have been a piss poor trap if so." Lilian says, as the crisis passes. Lowering herself down to look, Lilian eyes the cleaver, and says, "Armed impromptu, but not an improvised weapon. Self-defense. Someone had time to run to the kitchen, or hole up in their dorm, and arm themselves as best they could." She sighs. "So. This wasn't one lonely person picked off on the edge of town. They had no hope of running for help, and no one was watching. That tells us plenty." She stands more reluctantly than before. "That, and dismembering them doesn't seem to do much. If they'd do it to themselves, they'd still have the cleaver."

    "Mirinae, tell me everything you're permitted to about Blood Fiends. We--"

<J-IC-Scene> Alucard says, "We have hostiles."

    Lilian pauses with her finger to her earpiece, but talks over it. "Both sides of town. Even on the outskirts. What the hell has Zwei been doing? There's contacts lying around all over." Though it's usually her way of politeness, Lilian doesn't turn away to answer the radio, instead barging on ahead across the campus grass.

<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Confirmed on both ends. They're all over town. The other Association was absent or overwhelmed; if there are bodies lying in the grass, then there's no one to hide it from; or at least no one who can make a break for a phone."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Don't open any doors all by yourself. Stay out of arm's reach of one another, but don't split up between multiple rooms; go inside only when you have to. Use your ears and not your eyes; smell where you can, given we're dealing with corpses."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Have someone check each corner as you proceed. Don't take any intersections without someone looking in all directions."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Break any doors or windows you feel like."
Lilian Rook     "Agent. Line of sight." Lilian says to Catt, though she's going towards the campus building anyways. "Don't get so tense you start sneaking around; if fighting them all on the open grounds was more dangerous, they'd be chasing us down already." Lilian says to the others. She gestures at Taii to lag behind with her for a second, but all she does is close her eyes for a minute, focusing very hard on something only she can visualize.

    "Break the hinges you pass. Closing the doors behind us won't be to our advantage. But don't use heavy firepower indoors; if you encounter a large mass of weak targets, lure them back out through the corridors. At best, no one will appreciate the University going up in flames. At worst, the building could collapse on you. Remember that we have force superiority in the open. And--" Lilian makes her own way to what looks like the main entry portal-- following her own advice again, she kicks the alower hinge in so it can't close again as she does. "If you hear a call for help, radio it in first."

    "And keep a look out for anything about 'wine', too."
Zero Kiryu The vines that Zero extrudes... are not less durable than he is. Stabbing at them, even with super-strength, is like hacking at strangely pliable stone-- a weapon's liable to break if it isn't specially reinforced to begin with. On the other hand, there is a game he decides to play here-- the vine takes a few jabs and then stops moving. Outside, he runs a vine up along the exterior of the building and scales along it, producing a 'natural' scaffold along which he walks, drawing not-quite parallel with the presence inside on the second floor.

Over the radio, he adds:
    <J-IC-Scene> Zero Kiryu says, "Creating a disturbance and hazard in three. Tachibana, Alucard, Yuuki-- capitalize."

He draws a hand back and plunges it through the side of the house with a tremendous crash, boring a hole around the width of his arm through it. There are two purposes to this.

The first one is to attract attention away from the stairwell.

The second is that he begins to shed soporific pollen from his hand, so that anything that moves to address the noise and the breach is forced to move directly into a pacification zone-- a combination of psionic and biological agents hammering down on the willingess and ability to fight, like somebody was dosing them with a heavy painkiller.
Alucard The Son of Dracula is not a true vampire. He is only half. That said, he retains most of the strengths and none of the weaknesses of the true undead. Plus his father was literally the strongest vampire on his world. This counts for something. This means that when the creatures guarding the stairs come at him swinging blades, he reacts faster than they might expect. He pivots, rushing -towards- the Blood Fiend swinging a blade at him. He brings an arm up to block, the weapon actually hitting his flesh. The sound is like striking dense wood with a hatchet.

He grunts, whether from exertion or pain, and drives his other fist into the creature's chest with enough force to powder concrete. This is, after all, a mission. No need to hold back. Though, he's doing this bare-handed, so on some level he is holding back.

"These are not like the vampires back home."
Angela THE UNIVERSITY

"...Mm. Yes, now is not the best time." Mirinae agrees.

It isn't THAT difficult to beat down the hand into submission. It stops moving and then, not by its own power but like it's being pulled by a string it is tugged towards the university hospital. Other disembodied limbs. Hands. Feet. Some carrying weapons, some with weapons embedded into them--they'll throw themselves at Catt, Taii, and Lilian, striking and then attempting to retreat--they aren't going for necessarily deep cuts and if blood is shed, then they'll back off in a hurry. One stabs into Mirinae's leg but it doesn't seem to draw blood despite the fact that it SHOULD. So obliterates that appendage with her spear but doesn't intercede to help anyone else.

''Mirinae, tell me everything you're permitted to about Blood Fiends.''

"Seems our guess of Mermaids was off the mark. The last Blood Fiend attack we had was the Blood-Red Night, a Star of the City that was felled by The Black Silence." Mirinae explains. "Blood Fiends have existed in The City for a very long time. Normally Bloodfiend communities are self policing. It was actually a Blood Fiend Elder that hired the dispatching of the Blood-red Night but I cannot speak much to their internal politics otherwise. These abilities seem to be similar, if weaker and in smaller numbers, to the sort of behavior we saw from the victims of the Blood-red Night. They subsist off blood and wounds inflicted by them are more difficult to heal. They can draw blood even from shallow wounds. ... But those are specifically the abilities of the Blood-red Night, other Blood Fiends may be different even if this one seems to be an imitator."

The various appendages are not difficult to manage between Catt, Taii, Lilian but if Mirinae is correct, even minor wounds could become serious inconveniences when they reach the Blood Fiend.

Lilian's senses guide her to the hospital. She can hear some muffled talking--or perhaps monologuing behind the door. It's not like a multi story hospital, it's a very small clinic--probably two or three rooms at the most.

"--I'll show her... I'll show her I'll be the next one..." A university age student is pacing around the clinic between two medical beds with a pair of nurses on it. A well built university age student wearing a collge sweater stands closer to him though gender is indeterminate because all three have had their skin shorn free and are covered in similar red and black veins as the others, covering their whole body. The university age student looks just like ... a university student. He has dark pink hair and turns towards Lilian and Catt as they make their way in. Three more eyes bulge briefly out of the student's face before snapping back in, a flicker of red and black veins pulling back behind the skin to obscure themselves as if tampering down a sudden burst of excitement.

"The DAME Commander...! The Dame Commander came to see me...!" The student seems excited to see her. "Ahahah.... If I have your body I'll definitely become a Star of the City...! Not even the Associations could stop me... I'll be free... Free...!"

He gestures with his hand, sending the nurses towards Lilian, swinging oversizd syringes at her and attempting to drain her of blood! The college student lunges towards Catt and simply tries to break them neck by squeezing at it with both hands--if it can catch them!
Yuuki Kuran "Wasteful or worse - a feast, a purge might have happened." Yuuki observes, arms crossed before closed door. She waits for Hibiki to work, eyes three-quarters lidded, having a hard time sensing threats as clearly as Zero does. Instead, her senses are far keener for hunting prey than hunting 'monsters', and her awareness is assaulted by the sheer bloodspill in the area. The gross spilling of people's lives in literal splashes, and the state of the surrounds in sour sentiment.

But it doesn't help her open the door. Lilian orders people to open doors in teams, and Yuuki zones back in for Alucard to just ghost right through the door in a mist and open the front in a quick swish, no puzzle required!

Patting Hibiki on the arm and murmuring 'I thought it was right' as a fellow in puzzle-solving (foolhardy plucky-clicky adventure heroine ver.). "Be careful, Hibiki. Or, if you must, be brilliant." Yuuki urges the blonde, and then sweeps into the Old House with a few steps, shifting open crossed arms to hold closing fists at her side.

"Hello?" Yuuki calls out, pointedly, made aware through Zero's radar-sense of the second floor ambush but still attempting the shoujo compromise she hopes for in her heart. "We've been sent to help. If you're just defending yourself--"

While the party is attacked immediately by the blood fiends, Yuuki lifts her white-sleeved forearms up to block and isn't attacked particularly at all, glancing from behind a casual block to mostly see Hibiki and Alucard handling it while hanging back. "These might be... puppets!" Yuuki declares, as she circles about Alucard's flank with a blur of speed, spinning an elbow in to the fixer-attacker's upper body to bounce them into Alucard's thrust-punch straight.

--- "Then, for our anniversary, Hibiki - can you show me a reliable strength?"

Yuuki trusts the Symphogear-wielder with an anniversary to defend, and dashes up the stairs in a quick set of dashes to meet Zero's soporific spores from outside. On the second floor landing, Yuuki continues up, not particularly pacing herself as there's no conceiveable way for her to be really seperated from Zero, and makes her advance on the emaciated presence deeper within the fixers seem to be protecting.

"Stop!" Yuuki calls. "Please, call off your puppets. We're here to help!" She repeats.
Hibiki Tachibana     I'm glad to see you too, Hibiki. We've met before! Don't you remember our adventures in Cairo? I remember you being instrumental in helping one of my favorite archaeologists - and I've got the Egyptian rugs to show for it. Lovely things.

    "Yeah. I wouldn't ever forget that trip through Egypt. ...Feels like it was forever ago. Guess it kind of was." Three years, three months, three days exactly, as Zero reminds them, joined to Yuuki at the hip as ever. It's 'forever ago' by her standards; practically when she was a completely fresh-faced Elite. That expedition had... the first time she ever felt like she was able to connect with someone and save them from their own spiral down.

    It really has been a long time since then.

    ...

    "That's pretty handy," Hibiki remarks in the manner of a 'thank you' to Alucard, when they (mostly he) gets the door properly open, before glancing back to Yuuki with a dry chuckle. "Careful and brilliant aren't how most people describe me, y'know..." It's good that talking is a free action and hasn't lowered her guard, as if it wasn't up, she might've been cut through on the spot - but as the 'Fixers' come striking out, her eyes shift and she dives out of the way to avoid the blade.

    And get a good look at what exactly is attacking them. "What--" Skinless. Bloodless. Shadowy. Like monsters, but still clothed in their old uniforms, wielding their old weapons, and using their old abilities. She immediately understands... they're probably the thralls to the 'blood fiend'. If experienced Fixers turned out like this, then everyone else in the town...

    Then, for our anniversary, Hibiki - can you show me a reliable strength?

    If she still thought herself totally unreliable, she wouldn't have bothered coming to risk Lilian's mission in the first place.

    "You got it...! Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron...!" By the time the remains of the Zwei Fixer are coming back in again, their sword is intercepted by a fist wreathed in gold energy, uppercutting the weapon away and opening their guard - and as the rest of her Symphogear comes into existence, she leaps up into a spinning kick meant to send the creature tumbling to the other end of the room without its sword, into a mess of furniture.

    Not quite enough to (re)kill, but certainly enough to disable and take out of the fight. Maybe because they still fight like humans do. "...Different from any vampires /I've/ ever seen, too."

    As Yuuki rushes upstairs to try and engage diplomacy(!), Hibiki will help ensure nothing chases herto interrupt. With Zero and Yuuki up there, and her and Alucard on defense, there shouldn't be anywhere for the cornered Blood Fiend to run away...

    She just hopes that doesn't mean desperation instead.
Angela THE OLD HOME

The Zwei Fixer battling Alucard takes a hit directly into the chest after Alucard parries his strike but Zwei Fixer are bodyguards. Their augments trend towards the defensive and whatever blood magic is animated him is only going to make him tougher to deal with. Another skillful jab goes straight for Alucard's left shoulder. There's no saving these Fixers. They'll fight until all the animating blood is punched out of them one way or another.

Zero creates a disturbance that distracts the three monsterized Fixers. The Seven Association Fixer bolts for the door after Yuuki but doesn't seem to be going after her so much as attempting to run PAST her upstairs.

Hibiki is able to disarm the other Zwei Association Fixer without any trouble and kick the creature across the room where its body lies still after cratering the back wall.

Well most of it. The Zwei Fixer's arm pulled itself free from the rest of him and is now spinning through the air and stabbing rapidly at the Symphogear User! Alucard can see a thin red band of sinew holding that limb to the rest of the Fixer but it might be too thin for Hibiki to notice. Either way, all three are distracted by what's going on upstairs.

SPEAKING OF UPSTAIRS

Zero gets ambushed immediately by a dog in similar condition to the rest, aiming to knock him over and try biting at his throat. The poor thing. A woman in drab dress swings a chair at him, probably the former Lady LIvingston, but she doesn't seem to be as capable of a fighter as the Fixers downstairs.

The sophoric is ... of limited effect but the old lady's movements are in particular slowed down and the dog is getting there.

What is more relevant, of course, is the university student in a padlocked cage normally meant for that dog . She has bright pink hair and her breathing is weak. She blearily opens her eyes and stares at Zero for a moment before Yuuki gets upstairs. A glimmer of recognition in her eyes... And she speaks...

"...Help... Me.... Couldn't...stop him..." She manages. "Name...Is Magnolia. I'm so thirsty..." She crawls towards the bars, her eyes glowing red as she stares out at Yuuki. "Orchid...at university. Have to stop him. He'll kill everyone. Wants fame... Not survival... Puppets not mine... His. Here to 'protect' me."
Alucard Alucard takes another strike. Hitting him is like striking pliable stone. He certainly feels it, but it will take a lot to put him down. He shoves the puppet away with inhuman, unholy strength and reaches for his sword, but the quarters are too tight for him to truly do well and be safe for his allies. "Hmph. A touch early to use such power, but... So be it."

He is polite, if forceful. "Hold them both for a brief moment, miss! I may be able to end it in one stroke."

Dark power surges through the dhampir, seeming to burst from him in waves. He begins an incantation, low and under his breath. Like a beating heart, the magic thrums and ebbs, the pulse getting faster and faster as his hands weave in mystical gestures. The spellcasting reaches a peak, and Alucard lunges forward, lashing out to lay hands upon the Puppets. Two words leave his mouth.

"Soul Steal."

The magic is unleashed, lashing at the puppets and, hopefully, wrenching their animating power free and making them fall.

Hopefully it's not corruptive, because whatever power he steals goes right into him.
Zero Kiryu There is nowhere to actually 'ambush' Zero from because the only platform to exist on where he's standing -- arm, admittedly, through the wall -- is part of his vines and directly through his portal. This is, on the whole, a relatively cramped space that he has a lot of control over. Despite this he doesn't actually stop the attacks on him. He's not as fast as he is strong or tough, and although he is decidedly not bowled over by it the dog gets hold of his throat -- teeth finding themselves closed around something that resists like solid bricks -- and the old woman strike him with a chair. He is jostled, slightly, in place.

He himself begins to shed soporific more broadly in response to this but, all things considered, he mostly just lets it all happen.

The vines beneath his feet grow outwards, sliding beneath Lady Livingston, and the dog -- though the dog is probably dangling, unless it decides it doesn't want to deal with the physical disadvantage of just not being able to wrestle the man down by his neck -- and rising up between the bars of the cage.

"Magnolia... my name is Zero Kiryu. You have no idea how fortunate you are," Zero says, the vine splitting open and producing a tiny glass full of rich, red liquid. It is blood-- more than blood, but it's blood too. His blood. "We will enter a compact. You will be unable to use what I grant you to act against myself or Director Yuuki Kuran, and I will expect that if we require a favor that you may provide, you will do what you can to oblige us. If you want to be free, and to possess the power to have agency in this matter, drink."
Hibiki Tachibana     Hold them both for a brief moment, miss! I may be able to end it in one stroke.

    Hibiki, who was not expecting to get harassed by what's essentially a remote-controlled limb, is in the middle of defending herself with rapid sidehops when Alucard calls out for an assist. "If you got--" Duck. "--Some kind of plan--" Weave. "--Consider it done, Alucard!" Another shift to the side, and then she dives forward away from her assailant.

    To shoulder tackle the Fixer-turned-puppet that's been assaulting Alucard, physically interposing herself between it and the half-vampire with a series of strikes for the chest to stun it. Of course, this'll only last as long as it takes for the stabbing limb to catch up...

    ...but Hibiki is nothing if not a glutton for punishment. And she's had a lot worse than this. Getting knocked around a bit and retaliating with her own series of hand-to-hand blows while Alucard prepares is hardly a big deal compared to that.

    Especially when she can just barely hear a bit of what's going on upstairs.

    So when Alucard is finally readied, Hibiki takes the Zwei Fixer still openly assaulting them - and gives a full-force palm strike to blast them right into the same area as their 'companion'. Easy access for Alucard to get at both of them in one go. "Alright, all you now--!"

    She has only, just now as a passing thought, realized that her entire group consists of vampires. Once upon a time, she never thought she'd be really glad for that.
Lilian Rook     'It was actually a Blood Fiend Elder that hired the dispatching of the Blood-red Night but I cannot speak much to their internal politics otherwise.'

    "That tells me plenty about who they are, if nothing else." Lilian says. Her voice lowers a few decibels once the threshold is crossed over into the hospital interior. She isn't quiet enough to be sneaky, but just as much as her voice doesn't echo back into her own ears. "That they aren't too different than any other part of the City. As long as they have enough power to live what passes for a comfortable life, they'll gladly offer up the elements that endanger their stability. Sacrificing to the beast in that way; they're terribly human, aren't they?"

    A short creak, and a dull thump. Another door is pinned open by forty credits of blunt force. "But that doesn't tell me much more. Catt seems to know plenty about why we're seeing corpses like this." Lilian elects for the stairs over an elevator, for obvious reasons. She tries not be seen acting like an exception to her own advice, hence organizing the group so there are Elites to each flank. "If that's part of the test, then I understand and accept." She turns over her shoulder to the other three. "And one more rule. Show me any open wounds immediately."

    At first, it might seem like an unreasonable, even nanny-like demand for a skilled team, but Lilian's thinking is a little bit more advanced than just overdoing the act of trying to keep people safe. If given so much as a cut to look at, she actually leaves her Paladins mini-medkit alone, and 'treats' it with fingertip-localized black-gold magic, causing the surface to coagulate and scab (and feel cold and clammy) rather than trusting a bandaid or spray seal to discourage blood powers. "I should wonder if they're susceptible to the same."

    Progress is simple, for a while. Individual bodyparts aren't too threatening to Lilian, and not that much more to the Agents. Despite how infrequent a sight that firearms are around the City, she makes no particular ceremony about simply shooting whatever ambulatory amputations she comes across.

    Given that Winter Crow is visibly a custom job, and more importantly, that the byproduct of weaponizing chrysopoeia is solid gold casings being ejected from the mechanism, she anticipates it shouldn't run afoul of the Head's stances about bullets. Given that the enemies are all hacked off their host bodies in the first place, Lilian also anticipates that blowing them to pieces with magically-assisted fire-element slugs should work better than cutting them up.

    True, once more, to her baseless claim, Lilian slows up before reaching the clinic room, and hand signals the others to stop. Along the way, she's made small talk about how her world teaches this sort of thing-- the systems built around turning one percent risks into zero point ones, dealing with unknown threats that might end you at a touch, including the duty of responding to calls with no one left to find-- with the express goal of building confidence in all of the arbitrary measures she's unilaterally declaring along the way. She pulls Winter Crow to chest beneath her arm as she opens the door, peering into the room through through the same crack she aims through.
Yuuki Kuran It had been like this,

    forever,

trusting in her own immortality, her own bloody invincibility. Trusting in the do-no-wrong providence of a perfect prefect, chasing after desperate girls and dazed boys that didn't know better. Did she? Not often, and never reliably, but, breaking from the fight, she does as she always does:

Run towards people in need.

Entering a room upstairs, Yuuki sees an old woman and an awful canine, already finding Zero capably disabling the pair and moving the same way she does. Relief floods her big eyes, happy as usual that an 'extension of her self' has managed to get things sorted before she even got there. With Zero making his offer, Yuuki spins into an agile hop-kick to knock away the old woman and disable her into Zero's vines with a sorrowful grimace, turning to the dog to knock it away as well and finding it dangling dangerously from the disabling hanging vines. Mild sorrow turns to hot anger --

"Caged-!" The director mutters with horror, crouching besides Magnolia while Zero makes his cordial offer, trying to steady the ragged woman and contain her own slowly-rising anger. "Orchid at the university. We understand. You've done so much, and so please, drink and be less thirsty." She urges, yet applies no pressure.

"Why were you caged, but protected, Magnolia? Why were you left thirsty?" Yuuki asks, soft-voiced and hiding her seething at the prisoner's treatment.
Wonderlab Trio "Both sides of town. Even on the outskirts."

    Taii's face is positively ashen at this point. A small seaside university town being wiped out or near-to-it hits them particularly badly for obvious reasons, but far from spending them spiraling, the revelation settles into them as hardened resolve. Shaky shivering quelled by Lilian's advice and the reveal-- as gruesome as it is-- of the threat, Taii withdraws their EGO and holds it level by its ring hilt, faint trailing mist from the blunt blade ensuring none of the other dismembered bits manage to land a scratch on them.

"But those are specifically the abilities of the Blood-red Night, other Blood Fiends may be different even if this one seems to be an imitator."

    Taii's eyes slide to the side to look at Mirinae. "If this is an aspiring Star of the City like the Blood-red Night, and it's already done this much damage... that *is* the sort of thing that a new Association might crop up around solving, isn't it? As long as we manage it."

<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Catt. Rose. Taii. I have the location in the Hospital. Don't fan out to explore."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I assume Mirinae won't mind bringing up the rear guard, so sort yourself by flanks."
<J-IC-Scene> Catt says, "Location? Understood. Rose and Taii will stick together."

    It turns out 'Rose and Taii' will stick together means exactly what Catt said. They don't have any intention of sticking with the group or avoiding creeping around, and the instructions are interpreted as applying to just their subordinate agents. "Don't engage the Blood Fiend, little rats. You couldn't do anything to it. Stick to the corpses. And if you split up and die, you'll only make things harder, mm?"

    Instead, Catt circles around outside in the direction that Lilian indicates the room is, slinking into the gaps between the buildings on campus before they can be reprimanded otherwise. They stick to outside the hospital, at least, but they obviously expect that their advantages when ambushing outweigh whatever intentions the Blood Fiend might have.

"And keep a look out for anything about 'wine', too."

    Rose dutifully hangs back alongside Taii while Lilian makes her preparations to enter the campus building, red claws of their EGO suit torn through their gloves to keep any of the shambling limbs off of Lilian while she works. "I wonder why... maybe it has some fixation with wine as symbolism?" "I wouldn't know for sure, I haven't ever seen a Blood Fiend before. But... if I had to think about it like an Ab-- like work, feeding into something that probably represents 'elegance' to it probably wouldn't be a good idea."
Wonderlab Trio     Entering into the clinic behind Lilian, Rose and Taii tense up at the muffled speaking, and steel themselves before the doors open. Taii twitches at the flayed horrors acting as bodyguards, flinching just an instant behind Rose as they're attacked by the nurses, failing to get out of the way a second time and getting a shallow gash down her arm and through her EGO armor before catching the syringe on their blade and flicking their elbow to swat the unwieldy weapon aside. Rose follows up by pouncing behind the nurse that hit Taii with two claws dug into their back and ripped crossways, unphased by the unpleasant ripping of bare veins and tendons as they're carved through. "Taii! Help the Dame Commander out, and leave this to me!"

    Gritting their teeth and pressing their torn sweatshirt into the bleeding wound, Taii hesitates before nodding, slipping backwards into a bright white cloud and appearing out of another one besides Lilian. Stepping out of the cloud already mid-thrust, Taii's prod with Chignon doesn't need to do any physical damage to the Blood Field to cripple him, instead hitting him with an overwhelming tide of self-doubt, accompanied by Taii's own words.

    "The fact that you've drawn this much attention means you've *lost*, monster! You're getting cut out at the root, so put away your hopes of getting out of this--!"

    Catt makes their reappearance by intercepting the college student via bursting through the window behind them, landing surprisingly lightly in a crouch on the ground. Before he can wheel around to grab at their neck, Catt's swung Bitter Medicine across his own neck, long handle crossing his windpipe and then pulled back hard from both sides.
Angela THE OLD HOME

The old woman and dog are eventually subdued by the sophoric, it takes a lot more of the suff than it should for normal people, probably because they aren't exactly being guided by their brains so much as the power of the Blood Fiend controlling them. But eventually enough of the stuff just stops their bodies from being able to move, letting Yuuki take them down with little fuss.

Magnolia isn't really in a position to refuse what Zero is offering, but she seems to be looking towards Yuuki for assurance or approval. Once she gets it she grabs the glass and hurriedly downs it. She gets half of it down before she starts coughing, pushing her hand back up her chin to get the stray drops back into her mouth and she downs the rest in short orer. She still seems weak and drained--she'll probably need another one or two glasses before she's really stable.

"Director Kuran...? ... Wait, the Concord Director? ... I thought she was from the Village...No, you're right--I don't recall anybody that looks quite like her..." She exhales slowly. "Telling me it's to accept the compact or starve isn't exactly freedom, but I'm not in a position to refuse. Orchid's my brother--not ... biologically related, but by blood." She explains. "I followed him here and we hid amongst the populace to get a better education but a... month ago? I've lost track of time, let's say a month--he lost it. He was tired of hiding his power, who he was--and... oh poor Miss Livingston..." She wipes a bloody tear from an eye. "First I tried to convince him to stop, then I tried to physically stop him. But all the feeding he did made him stronger than me and he put me in the cage. At first he fed me daily but ... it's been several days since he last fed me. I don't know why. Maybe too busy hopped up on a frenzy to remember me. You have to stop him. If you're here..."

She realizes something and a dark expression crosses her face with dire acceptance. "...If you're here it's too late for me to save him, isn't it? Please don't out me--I'll leave and nobody here will have to hear from me again."

Hibiki and Alucard meanwhile have to deal with Three Fixers, one of whom isn't attacking them but will be going after Yuuki's back if she isn't stopped. With some clever posturing, Hibiki is able to SHOVE the Zwei Fixer into the Seventh Association Fixer, causing the latter to crash down the stairs--

SOUL STEAL!

The power might be corruptive but the owner of that power is distracted. Alucard is able to deftly rip free the blood binds connecting these Fixers to the Blood Fiend halfway across the village and they tumble down with little fanfare as well, rapidly dissolving into blood puddles.
Lilian Rook     'The DAME Commander...! The Dame Commander came to see me...!'

    "Oh? So it wasn't very long ago that you became like this."

    Once actually inside, Lilian taps the barrel of her gun to her thigh, but doesn't so much as put her finger inside the trigger guard. Almost as if holding a casual converation with the madly ranting student, her gaze wanders from one corner of the room to the other, to the bed, the bodies, and finally his face, only grimacing as the extra eyeballs are sucked back in. "None of you knew who I was until two weeks ago. I suppose that short length of time explains why you've been so sloppy."

    'Ahahah.... If I have your body I'll definitely become a Star of the City...!'

    "Disgusting. Lazy. Entitled. Pathetic besides. I'd feel embarrassed even calling you a monster." Lilian says, sharply. Her tone veers out of apathetically even to perfectly cutting in the blink of an eye. "Of all the places to come to try and take something you haven't earned, you chose a university? Are you a comedian?"

<J-IC-Scene> Zero Kiryu over some odd sounds, "Miss Rook."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Yes?"
<J-IC-Scene> Zero Kiryu says, "The ring leader of this situation placed a young woman here in a dog cage, starved her, and placed several familiars around her for 'protection', against her wishes. I doubt that you would be holding much back to begin with, but I suggest a particularly prejudiced response."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook coldly, "I see."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "While that has nothing to do with the content of the job, the exam, or the qualifying conditions, I'll take that 'under advisement'."

    Lilian gestures ahead for the Agents; once on the standing corpse, twice on the speaker. "Lethal force authorized. Avoid fire, acid, explosives. Do whatever else it takes."

    'Not even the Associations could stop me... I'll be free... Free...!'

    "Worry about what's right in front of you first."

    Lilian flicks Winter Crow up from her side in the same instant the student motions to attack. The room flashes with three stark lightning-strikes, muzzle flare spattering shadows up both walls as she fires crackling rounds straight into center mass. The nurses leap to attack her with her shooting arm extended, stance all wrong, forced to--

                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian carefully maneuvers her hand around the gleaming shell casing and holsters Winter Crow, leaving the alchemical circle still superimposed on thin air, mid-flash. Her hand comes up to the hilt of her sword, the other at the base of the scabbard. A rasp of steel and the sound of humming glass.
                -----[start]-----

    --slice straight through the steel tip of a giant syringe with a downwards-hewing draw cut; the tip pings from the floor and Lilian diverts the blade off to the left, rising back up clean through the midsection of the second syringe, and then darting back to cleave through the first as well. Her left arm lashes out to strike one nurse with her armoured vambrace, sending it crashing against the left wall. She lunges right past the second one, leaving swinging at empty air, and in a blink, she closes in on the rogue student, holding eye to eye at point blank range.
Lilian Rook     Shattered glass fragments clatter on the floor behind her. Lilian moves her arm to strike, but only throws her cloak over the space her sword should be; her left hand moves at the same time, and half a dozen shattered sample vials clutched between her fingers are slammed into the side of the student's face, breaking off in his flesh and spraying glass into his eyes in the followthrough. The sleight of hand covers Taii's approach; where Lilian vanishes from their approach, leaving Chignon in her place, already in striking range.

    Mirinae's perspective lets her see Lilian falling from behind him, cloak fanning out behind her, the surface of a cabinet thrumming from a forceful step against it, but not the moment she actually got there. Night Mist flashes out in the dark, catching light from the sliver from the window, and hacks down through the stranger's arm; it'll take only a single red instant for Lilian to chop through each arm and leg in sequence, sword jumping from knee to elbow like chain lightning and spattering whatever passes for gore up the storage cupboards. If he can't defend himself before then, there'll be no stopping her when she grips a fistful of his hair from behind and lifts him off the ground, wheeling around and smashing his face through a glass cabinet front after.
Yuuki Kuran Ignorant of the own danger racing towards her, and back to the door, Yuuki's thoughts and attention focuses down on the one that needs her particularly. Magnolia is given a supportive arm steadying her back while she reaches for, and drinks, at least a drop of what will help slake her thirst.

Yuuki understands that pills and cordials don't satisfy like gulping does, and lets the petty issues of her own back's defense be handled by others. Alucard, defeater of Dracula, and Hibiki, singer of victories, and Zero, her other half...

Yuuki extends her bare, pale wrist, palming up and unbuttoning the sleeve to offer the gently pulsing delta of her inner wrist to Magnolia.

"You're right. It wasn't much of an offer. But you had to be led through the door to taste the fountain safely. Here." She bobs her wrist.

"Drink."

If Magnolia does, and why shouldn't she, the richness that tantalizingly pulses in Yuuki flows out easily, fangs biting or teeth tearing or even tenderly kissing and peeling loose by feeling and memory alone. And like strawberries run through chocolate, the sweetness of memories lingers in the vital red, of impossible days of sunshine, and the welcoming cool of snow, and of the gentle warmth of sheets in bed, and the looming hint-notes of a dozen years of doing more than her bleeding best to drag people away from the brink.

Even a few gulps is like drinking syrup, but vampires are thirsty sorts.
Angela THE CLINIC

''That they aren't too different than any other part of the City''

"In the grand scheme of things, perhaps, but in practice Blood Fiends tend to form insular communities because their natures ostracize them from the other elements of the City though, I suppose, I wouldn't exactly be welcome to linger in one of their villages. But... it isn't too strange for them to act as any other humans--because as far as I know, many of them ''were'' human before they became blood fiends." She pauses. "My apologies, Dame Commander. We did not expect the situation to have been this far out of control--but it is as they say. This is the sort of situation that an Association would be well suited to handle. Clearly it was too much for Zwei to handle properly."

Mirinae nods at Lilian's understanding that there may be more she's not at liberty to discuss. One can easily imagine information like any medical research into the blood fiends they conducted to not be something she can just share around. Sealing wounds shut is a good idea and Mirinae can't help but smile at Lilian's caution.

There doesn't seem to be any wine symbolism about, unfortunately, it might just be that the welcome mat was just ... a goofy welcome mat that Lady Livingston thought was funny (if someone checks her fridge there's two wine bottles, still good!).

TIME TO BATTLE SOME SILENT HILL NURSES

The nurses aren't that much better fighters than Lady Livingston by nature though their equipment is certainly sharper than 'chair'. One of the limitations of the puppets seems to be the quality of 'material'. One nurse is disarmed by Taii before getting wounded a second time--and Rose is able to take advantage of the nurse's focus by dispatching that particular nurse with Lilian's help before engaging in a more straightforward battle with the remaining one (spoilers: Rose can handle this handedly). Catt too is able to take down the college student with a blow to the neck. It's not enoguh to finish him off in one blow but several more repeated thwacks oughta do it.

Taii vanishes in a puff of smoke and appears by Orchid, jabbing him with Chignon. A red and black flare erupts across half his face as he turns on them. He grabs at Taii's arm and they can feel the blood being pulled from their body and into him. "Not enough..." A pause. "Magnolia, I forgot about Magnolia... AHah, I've forgotten... I'll feed you to her as way of apology...!"

''Are you a comedian?''

"eHeh..." Orchid is losing himself in the blood haze again. "I'll have to remove the tongue, hardly need that..."

Lilian is suddenly not there anymore. "Eh? No wait, in the video--"

The arm drinking Taii is chopped free in a single move. The Blood Fiend retaliates with a black and red tidal surge of force and blood--Lilian cuts through that to sever his leg.

Moments after she shoves Orchid's face into the glass cabinet, glass embedding into his multiple eyes as he screams in pain and fury.

@emit "Hrrk...The Blood Red Night shall rise again..." Orchid struggles. "We won't...be shoved out of sight forever...! Living in the small cracks left for us. We'll be truly free. The City will be ours like it was always meant to be. You can hide Nosferatu away but he cannot die...I remember the stories..!"

"Nosferatu's been missing since shortly after the Smoke War. He'd have come back by now." Mirinae pokes at her pad a bit more. "A pity, you could have gotten what you wanted out of this town and left but you won't be free again."
Zero Kiryu It's not just food. The compact is accompanied by a rush of power-- vines, immortality, toughness. Zero is trusting to Magnolia's own regenerative abilities to get her back into comfortable working order, and for her strength to inform those of the vines, but the surge of power is noteworthy.

"If I wanted to compel you, I could have," says the Director's Adjutant, his soporific -- and Yuuki's efforts -- peeling his attackers off of him. He raises a hand to rub at his neck, where sharp red divots in his flesh have already begun to re-fill from where his throat was clamped down on.

"Your power should be expanded. If you wish immediate egress from this place, I can grant it," he explains, "But yes. I believe it is too late for the other."

Here, he pauses, answering on the radio-- out loud, so Magnolia can hear, << The survivor is in bad enough shape that I have reinforced her existence with my own. One resident, a few local combatants, and a dog all turned into familiars and dealt with. Second floor property damage; put my arm through a wall to make the breach from the stairs easier. >>

The vines extruded from his ankle disconnect, grow, and charge towards the side of Yuuki's assailant, taking on the form of a great silver dog all brimming with thorns, which really doesn't try to or need to bite to do damage; it is like being shoulder-checked by a cactus that is also made of metal.

"If it's an education you want," Zero says, gesturing towards Magnolia with his right hand while his vines fight for him, "we should have a chat once you're clear of this place. Do not be concerned for your freedom. We have no interest in micromanaging those we have offered favors to."
Alucard Alucard steps back as the two Blood Fiends crumple and begin to dissolve. He flicks his hands as if to clean them of gunk. "Ugh. The Morningstar would have been cleaner," he mutters to himself. What he feels from the stolen life essence, he makes no mention of, but his grimace is telling.

Heightened senses make him pivot, throwing his arms forwards, a pair of knives blooming from under his sleeves and racing at the Fiend coming for Yuuki up the stairs. He grinds his teeth audibly, these tight quarters not letting him fight to his full ability. Here, he's limited to tricks and knives and fists. It's frustrating, but he also chose to come here.

OH WELL.
Angela MAGNOLIA

The extra power feels strange but Magnolia isn't really concerned with buffs right now--even if she is now considerably stronger than she was a moment ago. She just was quite thirsty and didn't want to starve. The nature of the Contract is tomorrow Magnolia's problem, but she is listening and will probably remember at least some of what Zero is saying tommorow when she's more clearheaded.

Yuuki offers her own writs. She doesn't understand the metaphor exactly but imagines it's some element unique to Outsiders blood fiends.

"Thank you..." She manages, leaning forward to kiss Yuuki's wrist. She manages to stop herself after a few gulps but as noted--vampires are thirsty sorts. It took some effort, being as starved as she was. Now she's just going to need some time but she's decidedly stable.

"Don't think I've ever had blood that delicious." She manages with a weak little laugh, though her mood is decidedly shot. She's coming to grips with the fact that she won't be leaving here with her 'brother'.

"If I'm caught here, there's no way I won't be considered guilty like my brother is." She explains. "So...I'll go wherever you want to take me. ''Outside''. To the village. Whatever. But yeah... I have to go now before a Fixer sees me."

Mirinae doesn't know Magnolia is here yet so it should be possible to get her out secretly. And she is, actually, factually, about as innocent as a vampire can be.
Hibiki Tachibana     Yuuki will have all the time she needs; between every single one of them, and also because of Hibiki's body-crumpling fists.

    And in the end, thanks to Alucard sealing the deal, the trio of Fixers don't just collapse; deprived of the power that animates them, they're little more than blood smearing the ground. After getting her breath back in the silent few seconds after the fight is over, Hibiki spends a long moment staring at their remains. Their clothes and weapons, at least.

    "Nothing left to even save," she murmurs.

    After a deep inhale and then exhale, she shakes her head. "...But one is better than none. I can be glad for that." She glances Alucard's way. "Thanks for that. Pretty convenient of you to just happen to wander this way, huh?" She tilts her head. She may or may not be smiling, just a bit, under her scarf.

    After that, she doubles back towards Zero, Yuuki, and... Magnolia. For a second, she considers stepping in to say something... but then she realizes, she's content just knowing she's in good hands. Finally, she lets her shoulders go slack as she eases up for the first time since coming to this foggy village. The only thing she mentions their way is a simple,

    "...If there's anything I can do to help get her out without bein' seen, just say the word. Mirinae's on the whole other side of the village, so I don't think she'll be a problem."
Lilian Rook     'Eh? No wait, in the video--'

    "Still difficult to deal with, isn't it?" Lilian says to Orchid, with her fingers in his blood-soaked hair. "Even if you've seen it over and over again, it won't help unless you can tell what's going on." Looking back just to be sure Taii will live, and that Catt hasn't gone totally rogue, Lilian goes on like she's talking over lunch.

    "Have you ever heard the phrase 'the hands will never surpass the eyes'? It's a popular, and very old saying, in the country my partner is from. It means that no matter how skilled you are, no matter what you do, you can't create what you can't visualize." Lilian pulls Orchid out of the cabinet front one-handed, eyeing his stumps for signs of regeneration. She keeps droning on through his screaming as if she couldn't hear it. "That is to say, your perception places a hard limit on your improvement. No matter what you try, no matter how hard you train, you need to be able to perceive you own flaws to correct them. Isn't that obvious? If you can't tell the difference between art and rubbish, how will you know what improvement even looks like?"

    'Hrrk...The Blood Red Night shall rise again... We won't...be shoved out of sight forever...!

    Lilian hauls Orchid away from the wall, dragging him by the hair off towards the window. "Isn't that obvious? It's so easy to agree with, but it's difficult to conceive of on your own." she says, fully on her tangent. "Once you stop believing in talent, you start believing in practice, but if you never advance beyond that and start believing in vision instead, all you're doing is polishing dirt and hoping it'll eventually become a diamond."

    'Living in the small cracks left for us. We'll be truly free. The City will be ours like it was always meant to be. You can hide Nosferatu away but he cannot die...I remember the stories..!'

    "See, this is what I mean." says Lilian. Armour clicks quietly behind Orchid; and then the point of Night Mist is rammed through his back, sprouting out through his chest. It's a miss from his heart; collapsing one lung, probably. "All these dreams of being famous and 'free'; a Star of the City; a real monster; and you're only copying homework from a long-gone better of yours that you've never met. You don't have any idea what you're doing. You don't have a clue how someone, human or Blood Fiend, becomes strong. You can't know what freedom looks like, and you can't imagine how to obtain it. So you're just going through the motions of ambition, blindly--"

    She stops only to suddenly grind his face against the windowsill, pushing the glass deeper into his eye. "--pardon me, metaphorically speaking, blindly holding out your hands and waiting for the success you've summoned to fill them. It's not craft. It's ritual. You're blithering on about making better use of my body than me, without even knowing what's good and bad about it, and now look at you."

    Crouching down to his hear level, Lilian says, "In other words, your work is nothing but trash. Through and through. You never had any business trying to get stronger in the first place." She sighs, shaking her head. "And sacrificing human lives for no other reason than believing that you're owed it . . . I might've felt sympathy for you, if you weren't so staggeringly human."
Lilian Rook     A black spike of psychic energy, so intense that it renders a faintly visible shadow, stabs into Orchid's mind, and slices it open along the mid-line for Lilian to pull apart and dissect. Rifling through thoughts and associations, tearing out irrelevant memories and tossing them aside, as Lilian looks for everything she like to know about where he got this idea, if any backers supported him, who he might be working with, where they are, and why this town, she says "You'll be a mediocre soul in Hell, too."

    Once she's done, Lilian throws the young man onto the floor, and lets him slide towards Catt as far as doesn't put him in contact with fresh blood. "Agent." she says, barely making eye contact. "I assume you don't put things like this in prison here. I have what I need."
Yuuki Kuran Nurse-feeding blood until Magnolia pulls away from her slideshow of memories-in-the-vein, Yuuki pulls back her wrist and for several long seconds is paler and more drained than she's looked in several days of social activity, but in the Old House's captivity-room her paleness lingers in the mist-shadowed second story room.

"You're welcome. I thought something sweet would help you recover, for what is... still to come."

Looking back over her shoulder, Yuuki weakly smiles, fangs peeking over bottom lip. "There was one to save. You and Alucard did all the hard work -- all I had to do was throw one elbow and bleed again. Your golden armor is always so beautiful at night, Hibiki."

Nostalgia lifts her cheeky grin. "When you're the strongest light, you look so daring. And the scarf helps."

Turning back to Magnolia, still sat sidelegged besides the collapsed woman, Yuuki looks primarily up to Zero. "If Alucard will stay here with me, you-" Zero. "-and Hibiki can meet the Dame Commander downstairs, explain the situation, and send her up without the Fixer. If she can guarantee your safety in the City, Magnolia, then," Yuuki sits up slightly, clearing her throat to affect her less breathily asleep Director-voice. "The Concord will recognize her efforts. If she cannot, then we will collect you, and leave this place for somewhere safe. Zero can see to both," With his powers, and Yuuki's together.

"So if we play every angle, we'll win for everyone. Let's sit tight for now, okay?" Yuuki asks, brushing the bitten skin of her wrist smooth in the space of a few second's gentle rub.
Zero Kiryu "Yeah. Don't be alarmed," Zero warns Magnolia, gesturing in her direction. Both his plants and his contracted people constitute teleportation nodes for him... including for themselves. She is briefly subjected to the feeling of falling 'into' herself before she slides out of a potted plant in a guest room in the Grand Dorado's upper floors.

He continues to speak directly to her mind, We will more than likely have to discuss things with Miss Rook. But no one is going to be especially surprised that we evacuated a survivor. If you have any details surrounding your situation that are important to share, it is important that you begin to collect your thoughts before you are asked any questions.

"Vampires tend to attract vampire hunters, so I don't think it's all that coincidental... but maybe I'm just too cynical," he speculates to Hibiki, nodding at Alucard in turn. "But I can move people in and out alright. Thank you, though. If you would like to speak to her in the future, it can be arranged. I do not foresee her life being... uncomplicated, even with intervention on her behalf. At least, not for a little while."

In response to what Yuuki has to say, he replies, "For now, it's easier not to be tethered to this location... and for there to be no 'chances' of a slip-up. It will be a while before the compact lapses, so she won't be able to escape even if she's far away. I'd rather bring Lilian to the Grand Dorado or one of our other fallback points than risk things out here. It makes sense to have sent somebody away to more accommodating facilities, anyway."
Yuuki Kuran Considering 'bringing Lilian Rook to Grand Dorado' in lieu of allowing even the smallest chance of failure, Yuuki smiles thankfully up at Zero's refinement of her hopeful wish. "That's a much better plan overall, I think. One that we can easily and safely involve everyone that should be."

Buttoning up her sleeve again, Yuuki places her hands on her lap. "I'll specially make a conference level area available and pre-validate both of you," Alucard and Hibiki. "So you can meet Magnolia later on discretely."
Hibiki Tachibana     You and Alucard did all the hard work -- all I had to do was throw one elbow and bleed again.

    "You might see it like that," Hibiki replies to Yuuki while shaking her head. There's the impression she's once again smiling, just a little, beneath her oversized scarf.

    "But you saved her. So thanks to you, too. Both of you. I'm just happy I could pitch in."

    Your golden armor is always so beautiful at night, Hibiki. When you're the strongest light, you look so daring. And the scarf helps.

    That however catches Hibiki off-guard, all too obvious by the way she starts and then pauses, blinking. "I..." She stays silent for a moment, then de-tenses. "...'m just trying to keep on being that. Like the person it came from. So if that's what you see, I must be doing something right."

    Plans on how to handle Magnolia's situation get exchanged (along with the mention of vampire hunters, which makes sense to her), and Hibiki entirely believes Zero when he says he can manage on his own. She's just content knowing she's in the hands of people who'll care for her. What brings her a second of pause, again, is Yuuki's offer.

    "That... I think I'd like that a lot."
Wonderlab Trio     None of the agents look away at Lilian's brutal handling and overpowering lecture to Orchid. Not Taii, who's pressing down on the increased blood flow from the cut on their arm, grateful to dismiss their EGO once Lilian has the Blood Fiend skewered, or Rose, whose claws slide back into the red sleeves of their shirt once the nurse is ripped apart. The reason is, for both of them is that-- they've seen it before from their own captain.

"I assume you don't put things like this in prison here. I have what I need."

    The sharp tip of Bitter Medicine buries into Orchid's chest when Lilian slides him in front of Catt. They hook their foot over the back of the bowl and leverage their entire weight into scooping fully through his body, the endless purple fluid flowing out of the spoon corroding the area around the lethal wound into deepening black. Catt blinks at Lilian and draws their EGO roughly out of the long-since stilled body, corrupted slime splatter flinging to the side.

    "Every monster believes the City should be theirs. Blood fiends. Sweepers. Abnos." Catt's eyes flick to the side, narrowed unhappily for the first time since getting to the village. It certainly isn't out of regret or mourning for Orchid, whose body they don't give a second thought after stepping back off of it. "'Staggeringly human'. Maybe it is, to chase after a lost purpose held in a distant heart, praying that 'someone' intends for you to be free and have a better future. But they're just surviving, and then dying, after all."
Angela Magnolia doesn't know Hibiki, or even Alucard (or even Dracula!!). She is pulled into uh. Herself. She makes a noise halfway between a yelp and a retch before popping up into an altogether alien place.

As expected, this is still pretty nervewracking for her and she is going to spend the next while trying not to succumb to a panic attack though hearing Zero's voice in her mind is simultaneously helping and simultaneously very much not helping.

Rook...? Lilian Rook? My brother was obssessed with her ever since that video came out--she's here? There is a pause in thought as if collecting them. Yes... I'll get my thoughts in order. I don't know if I know much more than what I shared. It turns out that locking your sister in a cage and then forgetting about her isn't going to make said sister terribly loyal to you. She isn't happy about him paying for his crimes but she's understanding and not about to throw a fit. If he wasn't her brother she'd even be saying good riddance, but she's just kind of in a dour mood about it all and focusing on her immediate future so she doesn't get got. She can manage her emotions about her brother doing a mass murder later.

But she's going to behave. It's the only shot she's got.

MEANWHILE

Orchid IS trying to regenerate but it's not going to be fast enough to stop Lilian from hacking em off again if need be. It's not SLOW, but well.

This is Lilian.

"shugff yurrp bgtc..." Orchid ... well, 'says' is maybe a bit generous of an ideal at this point. It was probably nothing worth trying to translate.

Mirinae has certainly gotten a good look at the EGO Weapons here but it is true that the EGO Weapons were decidedly seen in the video but investigating strange weapons is not her job right now. She can worry about it after this one is done as befitting standards and practices for a City Association leader. She doesn't turn away either--as Lilian suspects, there's no way this guy can be allowed to live. Frankly, that'd be the attitude of many kinder places than even this City. As his body is abused, Lilian work draws secrets out of Orchid's mind.

Orchid's inspirations seem to be, as he said, someone called Nosferatu and the Blood Red Night. He actually was educated all his life to NOT be like these people, but he still learned about them from Fixer magazines, dime novels, and cautionary tales. He struggled in the university here, being decidedly average in his studies here, and he didn't make any friends--he made an attempt but he was an awkward boy who found meaning in violence so he could suffocate that side of him. Nothing so fancy as a backer, though Magnolia seems to have helped get him into the school--she can see the memories of him being found out by that very same Magnolia, and him overpowering her and throwing her into the cage when she tried to stop him. She didn't want him to do this. She just wanted him to get a real education--same as what she wanted. Some distant part of him still worries for her but it's smothered under layers and layers of self aggrandizement and fury and self-righteousness.

It's very human. Lilian can think of people like him off the top of her head without even trying.

He doesn't get any fancy last words and dies as ignoble a death as any other chump in the City. His body is rapidly corroded and decayed until even his inhuman endurance is overriden--and he dies pathetically on the floor.

"...Well done." Mirinae says. "We'll do a sweep for survivors and anyone else who might be involved here." She doesn't know about Magnolia. "Then I'll complile a report. I'll forward you a copy. Don't think there's anything I'll need to say that's classified."

There ARE other survivors but they've largely been hiding out in their homes rather than going to school. Some are malnourished, some are wounded, but there's enough remainining to serve as a seed for whatever new town springs up here. Hopefully.

There's some lingering issues, but that can be something dealt w