A child was conceived under the influence of herion.
Her unknown birth parents were as high as a bird.
Ironic, isn't it?
What other choice did they have?
They had no money for a child,
much less wanted one in the first place?
Those two looked into every possibility to make some quick cash off of this "miracle" they have created, finding it worth something at the least.
At last, they found their answer in the form of a door to door salesman. For a company called: ITEX.
He was let in with the promise of making the two a fortune off of the misfortunate situation they were in at that moment.
He explained that in exchange for the unborn child, he would grant the parents an easy ten thousand dollars for their troubles.
Of course, they accepted, not really caring what happened to the baby after its birth in a few months.
November 24, 199x
2:42 AM
Hours of meaningless and loveless labor for this child. In the company's hospital bed, ready to steal it away when it emerged.
A beautiful baby girl.
As promised, the couple were given their ten thousand dollars for their time and were sent free after the woman finished her part.
Little is known what happened to these two. Some say, they left NYC, and fled to Alantic City where they overdosed a month or two after the exchange.
As for the child....
So began her life of nothing but torment.
The program she was handed over to was called the By-Half Plan. In short, Doctors and Scientists wanted to play God with a human, and turn them into an immortal being.
The plan was to create the world's first and only manmade Angel, able to travel between realms and speak with the Deities themselves about the upcoming Apocolypse, as forseen by the Biblical texts. Humankind aimed to save their own skin, at the loss of one of their own.
Selfish
The first done to this baby was place her in this cage, like a feral dog. It was almost an ordinary dog crate, except with very hefty locks on the outside, to prevent her from escaping.
At a week old, the experiments began. Very small ones. Simple pricks of needles, injecting chemicals into her fresh, untouched veins, attempting for her to grow a tolerance to them for the future. They wanted her to adapt.
Week two, ITEX had their first flatline for Subject 00. Brought back after twenty minutes of desperation to not have to start over, since they only had a certain amount of time and budget.
When her brunette hair started to grow out a month in, ITEX employees realized something. They got to shape an Angel. Whatever they wanted her to look like, it was their choice.
A poll.
One needle to the skull, her locks would change in color permanently.
Black.
Another change. Her eyes. One needle to each eye, sinking right into the soft tissues, injecting the most stunning blue pigment they could get their hands on.
As she increased in age, so did the experiments.
At the ripe old age of six, a major procedure needed to be done.
Ripped away from the cage she grew up in, Subject 00 screamed bloody murder. It took minutes to strap her to a cold metal table, leather digging into her pale flesh, constricting any movement. A strange, large machine was brought over the child. Of course, she never knew what was happening at the time.
With her arms extended and strapped down, veins were perfectly bulging from the skin, easy to detect.
Two thick medical IVs were stuck into her veins, causing the child to continue to scream. Attached to the strange machine, the Subject was ready.
Moving to the sides of the table, one Doctor flipped a few switches, causing this pinkish liquid to slowly trail through the plastic tubing and into the little girl.
IT WAS LIKE FIRE.
The girl cried, begged, squealed, screeched, shrieked.
Until there wasn't anything coming from her lungs anymore.
She laid there, motionless, but concious.
The pain ran throughout her body.
-/-
It finished after an hour.
What the child did not realize was she had small percentages of animal DNA flowing through her bloodstream, shaping the cells she already had.
Speed:
Cheetah
0.5%
Strength:
Elephant
0.5%
Flight:
Raven
2.0%
After this major procedure, it was nothing but training her mind, her body, and her loyalty.
Like before, she was barely fed, only given supplements to keep her alive. She was starved more often to test her, if she would bite the hand that fed her.
She would be forced to run on treadmills for days at a time, stamina and speed checks; to lift up to sixty tons at a time, strength and endurance checks; to injest the knowledge of every language and be able to speak it, however never taught to read or write.
It would only be a few weeks until those black wings would tear, rip and burst through the skin on her back, meaning she would have to learn to fly, like a baby bird forced from its nest.
She was fifteen.
At the age of sixteen, she had her chance.
The scientists had put her kennel on wheels and pulled her along towards another laboratory. It was loose, the bars.
Subject 00 had only seconds for this plan to work.
C R E A K !
The young lady was able to bend the metal bars far enough for her naked, thin, and yet thick frame to fit through. Using the speed that the Doctors and Scientists gave her, she bolted as fast as she could to the nearest window.
C R A A A S H !
She was finally free.
For the first time in her life, she smelled the fresh air, saw the nature growing and roaming around her, felt the grass on her bare feet. She was...entranced, yet strangely terrified.
That quickly changed with the danger behind her.
Spreading that twenty foot wing-span, she's off.
-/-
Subject 00 glided into the city that night.
NYC, the city that never sleeps.
She was cold, naked, hungry.
Desperate.
Taking the first chance to land, she slid into an alleyway behind a fast food chain.
The smell from behind the dumpster nearby was so off-putting but incredibly enticing since she was hungry.
Ignoring any morals (as if she had any) she dove in the trash and fished out enough stale bread and fries to fill her for the night.
At least, before she vomitted most of it up later from the conditioning her stomach had been put through.
Subject 00 quickly adapted to eating after the second time throwing everything up.
Sitting there, the lady gazed around at her surroundings.
Everything seemed so lively for it being this dark outside. She didn't understand anything around her.
Seeing a billboard above her head, the lady took herself up to stand at the ledge, looking at the letters in front of her.
She couldn't read it, however.
It was for a Gentleman's Club.
But...she stared at the name of the man who ran it.
Ryan.
The name seemed to stick...
And in that moment, it was hers.
-/-
Moving forward a few years of struggling for shelter, spending nights in strange men's beds for cash, fishing through dumpsters for scraps of food or clothing...
Ryan has learned what it is like on the outside.
Well, not entirely.
Some things still aren't branded in her memory.
Ryan managed to find a job without any background check! One where she wouldn't need to learn to read or write.
She became a stripper at a local joint called The Devil's Angels.
As far as the owner is concerned, she is another broken woman from a shitty alcoholic father who couldn't keep his hands to himself.
With her thick, voluptuous frame, long ebony curls, shining oceanic colored eyes, pale fair skin, he couldn't have asked for a more beautiful woman to work for him.
You would think they would question the giant wings on her back, right?
No.
Everyone who comes in sees the wings as a prop from how drunk or high they are. No one questions if they are real.
Perfect for Ryan.
Not everything is all rainbows and sunshine however....
The nightmares of her growing environment still plague her mind every night when she closes her artificial eyes.
The stabbing,
pokes,
jabs,
cuts,
blood,
smells,
everything.
Moving on from this is going to be a very difficult task for the Little Bird.
With ITEX still searching for their lost subject, to the struggle to feed and clothe herself every day and night.
But in the end...
She's ready as she's ever going to be.
-/-
Subject 00's Official Doctorial Checksheet:
Physical abilities:
- Training has allowed Subject 00 the ability to lift up to 60 tons with enough rage.
- Speed is a key factor for the Subject. Last clock in: 102 MPH.
- Can be increased with enough outer stimuli.
- Flight is critical for Subject.
- Height is not a factor, only air quality and pressure.
- Atmosphere flight: still not possible.
- Healing factor is still a progress.
- Subject 00 can heal others, but not itself.
- Takes on others injuries on its body.
Mental Abilities:
- Subject is able to analyze minds of anyone it has come across, even the most reluctant to let it.
- Excellent memory tests
- Able to recall every previous lesson at the snap of fingers.
- Language tests are successful.
- Every language can be translated by sense of hearing, including creature.
Spiritual Abilities:
- Black, smoke-like wisps work as intended. Choke whatever living being they touch if inhaled. Can also take the shape of any animal it chooses.
- Subject seems to have an attraction towards animals, and they seem to attract back.
- "Mother Nature" aspect.
Others "aspects" noteable for Subject 00:
- Likes to collect shiny items, such as paper clips.
- Could be a factor of the Raven DNA
- Able to use anything to its well being.
- Turned metal fragment into knife by strength
- Seems to like the colors blue, black and white.
- Ironic.
- Does not like meat.
- Will eat if starved beyond recognition
- Prefers plants and plant by-products
- Animal by-products such as milk seem to rest well with it
- Terrified of thunderstorms
- Due to fact of living conditions throughout life
- Alone in labortories
- Due to fact of living conditions throughout life
Overall, Subject 00 still in need of work. Some failed tests can be redone next session.
ITEX Head Researcher
By-Half Experiment
-/-
Friends? What are those?
Jason Kei Hale...is an interesting person that Ryan has associated with in her earlier years. With some romantic tension between them somewhat gone after a difficult split and two years of distance, they meet again in Vegas by chance. Now, they are again grouped together with a mission they never finished: take down the organization that created Ryan. Both equiped with different skills and abilities, they set out to stop the organization from creating new threats to destroy humankind.
Current status: "Answer the fucking phone, Jason..."
Rules of RP:
- FC: Lily Collins
- At least a paragraph for a response.
- 18+ activity is here. Writer is 23. No one under the age of 18, please.
- I love to Roleplay a ton of different ways. Please, don't be afraid to ask for another setting if the current doesn't tickle your fancy.
- Have fun! That's what we are here for, right?
Comments
Things had a way of catching up to him, somehow. Even with a past record wiped clean, he'd paid for his sins ever since through lack of sleep. Even with his good deeds in the present, he'd still pay for the atrocities he'd seen and done no matter if he had saved the day for someone, or not. That was the nature of not waking up in a picket-fence society with a normal life, and if anything, what he got from the late night episodes was frustration. And so, he looked at her plainly after he said it, and took a swig of his coffee. It was old demons, everyone had their fair share, didn’t they?
"...That's fair," Jason responded after a moment of her answering, looking down into his cup. He chewed on his words for long enough to let her respond again before he tipped his chin back toward her. "I'll do what I can. But you have to promise that if your mind changes, I'll hear about it." A promise for a promise, in a way. If she bolted what did that leave him at? Stuck in the desert or following a dead end he didn't know enough about. That didn’t mean that the situation had proven to either of them that there was something worth hunting out there.
-/-
The silence afterward was filled with coffee and fighting his tiredness until the caffeine might kick in. Speaking of which, when his cup was taken off the counter space he nodded in thanks. Footsteps were greeted in the room when Jason heard them, peering up the stairway to where Rosalie had appeared. There wasn’t an ounce of tiredness in the woman’s eyes with the morning person she was, approaching the counter space leisurely to set the laptop down.
“Last night you told me your side, it’s only right I share what we have with you,” Rosa chimed, her words ushering the two closer in a way while she opened the screen and put her attention to it. “Something progressive, that is, a place to start our work. We have been waiting for the certainty to act... with the sighting you both had made this past evening, it may be time.”
What did that mean? The woman didn’t leave them in suspense. A screen was already loaded when she unlocked the device, and one that made Jason rise from his seat. He strode over to the sofa in the room to shrug the blanket off and drape it over the back. When he returned, as Ryan might see first, the screen was lit up with color in one portion. It was… a map? The longitude and latitudes depicted on the edges of the screen of the topographic satellite still image. Over top of it was a thermal map of sorts- an overlay similar to a weather map. There was a node marking the city’s location which was lit up with activity. Its center glowed a reddish color and tapered back out to none once the desert resumed.
“So what are we looking at, here?” Jason prompted after a few long seconds of staring at it, having taken a spot over one of Rosa’s shoulders. Was it a temperature? The whole damn place was consistently 100 degrees. What else?
“What we are looking at is an image of the city and the surrounding desert. The colors are mapping radiation in the city based on a number of things. Energy output. Emissions. Seismic vibrations…” Rosalie explained, causing the man’s brow to raise high. “Now, do you see anything out of the ordinary?”
She invited them to take a second look, even leaning back from the screen that she was invested in ever-so-slightly… and there it was. The map changed colors for what was a speck off to the Northern edge of the photo. A slightly orangish marker wouldn’t hold a candle to Vegas but was there nonetheless. Rosa’s arms crossed firmly. “There shouldn’t be anything large enough to be tracked within a fifty mile radius of the city. What’s more..?”
The screen changed as she flicked to another image. This time the open desert landscape was shown, but something stuck out among it. Rosa flicked to the next image, then to the next. She was watching the others’ expressions for whether they were following along or not once the rusted slab of a door presented itself in the middle of the screen.
“-You’re shitting me,” Jason muttered under his breath.
Sometime later, he heard the shuffling of footsteps, the running of water. It was hard to say whether it was coming from the upper or lower level and so he kept on as he was, eyeing the dark pool in his cup. His eyes went over his shoulder at the sound of activity, slumped over on his stool with his elbows propped on the counter’s edge comfortably like he’d lived in the suite all along. A five o’clock shadow wasn’t going to be dealt with that morning, nor probably the next, not that it mattered. Ah well. A half-lidded stare made its way to one of the doorways when she made an appearance and he pulled the brim of the cup up for a drink. He had gone from night person—to night, morning, afternoon, whatever. Whenever the phone rang. From drinker to caffeine addict, that much was for sure. A good bed to sleep on was warranted from it all, in the least, the Society understood that.
To his surprise and confusion, he felt the weight of the blanket drop on his shoulders on her way, walking on by. A brow arched and the coffee cup paused in his hand for a moment, assessing it before he lowered it back down to the table with both of his hands. He wouldn’t seem to refute it, not even a wisecrack when, by the looks of it, the morning had been early enough for either.
When prompted, his brow knitted together for a moment and then smoothed over as he thought. “...It’s the same old thing, just different triggers. It still sneaks up on me sometimes is all,” Jason let his shoulders shrug loosely like that was all it was. He took another drink to the fact that it wasn’t, while she poured her first for the day. The silence only stuck around a few moments afterward. “Are you feeling any better about things? Are you gonna be alright with all of this...?” Whatever this was. They didn’t know any more than they did the night prior and they wouldn’t until the third party was up and moving to tell them if there was a plan or not. Part of him was still surprised she had stayed.
-/-
Given another twenty minutes or so of chatter, coffee drinking, or plain silence, the clicking of heels was heard on the level above as Rosalie had stirred to life. A door was shut with a click—the main door at that. She had been up prior, maybe even absent for some time, or so it seemed. Jason’s eyes shifted to the staircase instinctively and soon enough the blonde-haired woman was making her way down. The attire was different from the nigh earlier. Heels had been switched out with a pair of boots and jeans to go along with them. A bluish-gray sweater was worn loose enough to fight the heat of Nevada while still silhouetting a thin but sturdy frame underneath. The sleeves were pulled up to her elbows. Around her shoulder was a messenger bag, and a laptop clutched within her arms.
“Mornin',” Jason murmured with another sip of coffee that was left at the bottom of his cup, gaining a nod from Rosalie as she reached the bottom of the steps.
“Good morning,” That accent of hers rang true in an almost sing-song fashion as she greeted them both, letting her pale blues sweep over the two. “I didn’t expect to see both of you up as early. I have something to share with you so long as you are ready.” Rosalie wouldn't waste time, setting the laptop on the counter's edge not far from either while she waited for a response, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. The morning was early and the night would be young. Extravagant hotel room or not, there was work to be done.
The prompt seemed to cause Jason's brow to raise, setting his empty cup down with a glance toward Ryan, and then back to Rosa. "You mean you have something already?"
"Yes. Well- maybe, that is," Rosa answered, pursing her lips as if to buy time for the laptop to wake up once the screen was flipped open. "I have what could be our next step forward."
The tension in the room had felt different than it had in the hotel, or even the restaurant that early morning prior. Maybe it was a third party in the room keeping them behaved and on task, or maybe it was the task itself that he never thought he would circle back to. Not like this, not here of all places. No amount of bewilderment would change the fact that he couldn’t get on with some other job and leave the city just yet. Just as he could feel it wasn’t his conversation to have, Jason kept his peace following his interruption and seemed to settle back into observation.
In full truth? He was watching and waiting for what miss Rosalie Walker would say. He knew only a little more than Ryan did of her, after all. He trusted in the organization over the last few years of work, but it didn’t mean he knew all the secrets. He would still trust their judgement when they had pulled him out of places and supplied him a new lease on life. In the end, Rosa’s eyes wouldn’t lose their intensity that those soft blues of hers. They were directed on Ryan just as her attention was to the requests that the woman put in place. With both hands settled calmly in her lap she listened. Then? She spoke her peace in return to which Jason could hope and expect was the truth… still. He had worked with Hunters, Witches, and tech experts throughout the HS. A forensics department was a first.
Their meeting was over not long after it had started, or so it felt. The city skyline growing dark said otherwise. Were they any closer to answers? Maybe not, but it was something. Following their final words, Jason watched the woman make her way back up the stairs, leaving them be in the expanse of a suite. He felt the tension he had carried lowered a little, but after one sweeping glance, he wondered what now? Soon enough he was standing and tossing the single question toward Ryan. She looked rattled throughout, and he wouldn’t blame her for it. This wasn’t a basic protocol to her, let alone the fact that what could come of it conflicted with old demons—and not just him.
“This might be as good of a place as any,” He responded nonchalantly. It beat old Vegas in security, and it sure as hell beat hiding on the streets. He watched her posture change throughout, from the point they had sat down that evening to where she stood now. “You haven’t had much help, either,” Jason suggested lightly. “At least, not like this.” His lips pursed while she paused, uncertain of what he could tell her. It was too late for it now as she slipped past and started toward one of the rooms.
“Night,” Jason responded, speaking half his mind as he watched her disappear behind the door. He went in the other direction in the meanwhile and settled into the other bedroom suite.
The door was shut and his bag was left in a corner of the room. Jason dropped back onto the bed’s surface, feeling his back decompress enough to make him wonder what he was doing staying in lower budget hotels anyway. Although it wasn’t possible, he felt like he’d aged another year since ending up in Sin City and for all the wrong reasons one might visit. That made it all the easier to sleep when the time would come.
There was something about comfort, though. Should he fall too heavy onto his pillow it always had a price. He’d sworn he felt his own heart stop by the time he lurched himself out of bed, drawing in a sharp gasp of air and clutching the sheets without any direction of where he was in the dark. A hand quickly went to his chest without a second’s thought, fingers semi-curled but they would touch nothing but skin and scars in the process. He sat frozen for the moment afterward.
The glow of an alarm clock on the nightstand was enough to ground him while silhouettes of the room started to feel familiar. ...Fuck. A hand swept across his face gingerly where he swore he could feel the aching of his wrists or the sensation of cold stone under his hands. Just a dream, or old demons, as they were relabeled.
-/-
Jason was up before the sunrise, having stumbled out to find a coffee maker and pick through the selection to make a pot. A pair of jeans were worn, black socks, and a gray shirt that had been folded in the bag at one time or another, having the creases to show. He was slumped over at the bar-style counter near the stairway, a cup in front of him still steaming. His eyes were on the cupboards across from himself groggily as the light started to stream in from the horizon over his shoulders. Following their words at the end of the night, part of him wondered if she had stayed. He hadn’t heard a word of Rosalie either, but then again, most of the city was sleeping at that hour aside from one stupid cat that couldn’t seem to fall back asleep.
"Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory."
Original by @_gabrielpicolo
When Jason’s voice rang out he wouldn’t so much a look over. They’d had enough go on in the last 24 hours, hadn’t they? He didn’t need it sidetracked, or at least, it seemed he’d be holding it off so long as the cat had a say in it and could be focusing on something else. That didn’t stop Rosa’s speculative eyes from shifting between the two when she could sense a tension under the surface she wouldn’t go forgetting after their evening. It was quite a lot to take in between the two. First, the Society hands her a demon to work with, and now the woman?
“All creatures have their beginning stories… they deserve their peace in one way or another, I truly believe that.” Rosa stated. Protect and serve, or so the motto went. It was the job of Hunters alike to tell victim from monster whether their species aligned or not, and to act accordingly.
“-You don’t think you could change what we’d just seen, do you?” Jason prompted skeptically, still holding the folder in hand with the once-vampire’s photos inside.
Rosa met his challenge with a raise of a brow and gave a slow shake of her head. “Physically, no… but they deserve due justice for their struggle.”
That peace and justice is a bullet, Jason thought. He kept it off his expression all the while, nonreactive to the woman’s optimism.
Both party’s eyes cast to Ryan once she shifted in her seat. Jason’s intrigue wouldn’t last as long as Rosa who was casting a tentative glance toward the process as it completed. Feathers were no more, and just like that. It was likely all the better with the windows facing outward. Whether they let the view out or not, it did no harm to be wary. Finally, when Ryan spoke up, the Huntress seemed to sober her expression for the sake of listening.
The scientist in her was dismayed. It was an opportunity lost in some ways, an avenue of what-if’s she wouldn’t answer so readily. Then again, those were not opportunities to be gained here, nor under the circumstances. She was, above all, human first. What good was research without the preservation of life in mind? The human in her was raising entirely different questions of vows, and promises, and what lengths could bring a person or a corporation to this place. “I understand… and I will hold myself as well as the Hunter Society to it. Our duty first and foremost is putting a halt to their operations as we proceed. I couldn’t ask for any more of your assistance than what has been granted.” Although quiet, Jason knew he was held to it just as well. It was under the promises he had made to the organization and more closely, the promises that he’d made to her before they had met up that evening.
The room seemed to fall still as they looked amongst one another until Rosa spoke up. She cleared her throat gently and sat up straighter in her seat. “It has been quite a long evening for either of you, I can imagine… The rooms on this floor are open to choosing if you would like to get settled. If you need me for any reason then my room is upstairs and to the left.”
Smoothing out the front of her dress as she stood, the woman reached for the folder. Jason held it out without standing quite yet. “What’s the plan now, then? We wait?”
“Not quite, we can talk about it come morning. For now, make yourselves at home. Starting tomorrow, we have work to do.” The blonde-haired woman made her way toward the staircase. Upon reaching the top she cast a glance toward the two before disappearing down the hall.
Jason watched it happen before seeming to draw in a relaxed breath following it all. He stood up the moment afterward and reached for his bag nearby. He then looked to her. “Are you going to be alright here?”
When a glance was cast his way, Jason showed no signs of uncertainty. The truth was to come out in some way or another on why he had brought her with him, that evening. The man took a back seat in the discussion to watch how it would all transpire. His attention shifted between the other two as he waited to see what Rosa would make of it all.
The Australian woman’s bright blues hadn’t left Ryan in the meanwhile when she could sense the build-up to whatever might be told. One flicker of a glance went to Jason when Ryan would, but no words were exchanged in her patience. Curiosity welled up within her whether she knew it could lead to a dark place or not. From her line of work it very often did. This time she feared it would take a similar turn. Her entire life? Rosa’s lips pursed, her brow knitting together in thought like she was trying to reach the answer of that before it would be given to her. No luck. She patiently waited for the answer with a forward pose, her knuckles resting under her chin thoughtfully.
The harshness of her words broadened the scope of the organization for Rosa as she explained. She showed it in her eyes, and with the way her expression grew slack within a matter of seconds. Jason’s own gaze was on the floor while he listened. From the past, he knew much of it, down to the detail of where they found their subjects. It seemed like they had broadened their scope on that aspect of it as well if their numbers were increasing at the rate she had seen.
“These subjects… experiments, you have been on the inside?” The woman’s voice had a way of finding tenderness where she needed it. This was no simple matter to speak of lightly, after all. Ryan would answer that for herself soon enough causing Rosa’s lips to close once more.
When those wings of hers unfurled, Jason seemed to shift in his seat like he knew they would take up space soon enough. He watched as Rosa’s face fell entirely little by little as she recognized what was occurring. There was a spark in the woman’s eye; Jason recognized it strangely enough. Shock, utter surprise, and an underlying fascination to the display in front of her. So it all made sense now, or so she thought. The woman’s thoughts were reeling, and for a few seconds, she left them in silence.
“Remarkable…” Rosa whispered while her thoughts were getting ahead of her. She had never seen reproduction quite like it, not from flesh that hadn’t been changed or supernatural from birth. That was the scientist in her. The human herself was tracing along with the details of the feathers and noting their color as the light of the window reflected off. A flicker of a glance went to the folder in Jason’s lap when she thought of the photos of the distorted vampire inside. Could a company in charge of creating something so vile also bring something like the avian woman to light..? She feared for the downhill turn they were taking in their experiments. It left so many questions to be asked that he could easily overwhelm the poor avian girl.
Instead, Rosa cleared her throat and started with one. “How is it then, that you two became acquainted?”
“-We met in New York… and we took down a facility years ago… I wasn’t affiliated with the HS at the time,” Jason redirected them rather pointedly. He would spare the messy truth of that answer for another time when he could be away with a drink, and the two could chat it out for themselves. Or so he hoped. “We met out here the other night by accident, or so I thought… turns out it wasn’t. Now here we are. I never thought something like this would be on the Society’s radar. I didn’t realize the scale of it back then, but now I’m starting to.”
It might have not fooled Rosalie, with the skeptical look she gave him to his answer. She let it pass when Ryan held the majority of her curiosity for now. There it was, her missing lead. The puzzle piece that would bring sense to it all.. “We- I have been following these occurrences for six years now. It appears they have gone on far longer,” Her voice lowered as her eyes met Ryan’s once more. “My condolences… truly, I couldn’t fathom your struggle any more than I would be strong enough to face it, but…” Her hand lowered from under her chin, clasping together with the other one. “My dear you might make all the difference in putting an end to this.”
“It ain’t always. Sometimes it’s a stakeout… or somebody’s couch. An abandoned building or two. A graveyard,” Jason murmured amusingly to follow as she snickered. As nice as the hotels were (he could admit), a hunt of some sort always followed after checking in. By the time he’d get back to his room he was either in shambles or ready to leave the damned place. Often both. “Never anywhere like this.”
His tone hushed by the time Rosa came around, and they were off to the central seating area to make themselves comfortable. He dropped his bag and seemed to make himself at home for what it was worth. If he was going to be chasing more of those things around high Hell? Well, at least the suite had a decent bed and an open bar or two. While the papers were exchanged with Jason, he flipped through to find what was useful to him, knowing the woman across the seat from them would have answers to it soon enough.
That woman? Well, Rosa’s attention wasn’t on the Hunter anymore than it was on the papers. Her light blues were upon Ryan as her expression changed in an odd way given one glance of the evidence. Her lips pursed ever so slightly as she waited for what might come from their skim at the paperwork she had prepared. Still. Her gaze was poised to return to the raven-haired woman with a frown gracing the corners of her lips as the woman’s eyes closed. Rosa studied the signs of stress on Ryan’s face and was left to wonder again just what the woman was doing there at all. She cleared her throat in order to answer Jason’s questions and lead him to the conclusion she was getting at, even if it took coaxing.
Genetically modified vampires! As if their work had become too predictable. It was equal parts worry and excitement over the findings that had drawn Rosa to handle the case in the first place. The human in her feared for what would come if she didn’t and the scientist in her sought after the puzzle.
Meanwhile, Jason was wishing that’s all it was. A simple hunt. A few rouge mutt vampires and a problem that might sort back to something near ‘impossible’–a fluke even. It wasn’t. Before the man could break that news to Rosa, he noticed Ryan’s head shaking from the corner of his eye. Both stares went to her by the time she spoke up. The demon had fallen still, Rosa herself hanging onto Ryan’s words as they were mustered up as her thoughts allowed her to. The few words she spoke lead to loaded questions. Oh-so-many loaded questions, where Rosa pursed her lips tighter so not to speak.
As far as she was concerned, the mystery woman had the floor.
“My dear- take a moment, breathe,” Rosa requested in a strangely soothing tone. It suited the accent that carried it, a ghost of a smile upon her face but it was laced with its own worries. Jason was silent all the while; he had chosen to be a fixture in the room when this wasn’t his place to interject. Rosa certainly didn’t mind. “By all means, take your time. Ryan, was it..? If you don’t mind my asking, what do you know of all of this? Have you witnessed these specimens before?”
They were heading down another long hallway now, the noise levels lower indicating little from behind the doors that were present. It was quiet. Even the staff seemed absent from cleaning the rooms that undoubtedly had their bookings few and far between, but cost an arm and a leg whenever they would be penciled in… now a lost bird and a stray cat were making their way down. Rosa could feel suspense from the two behind her, not bothering to look back nor answer questions when the man behind her wasn’t persistent enough to ask again. She walked her way to the doorway that was down its own private hall and slid the key card through the slot. The light flicked green and they were on their way in.
“Well I’ll be damned.”
When she said the top, she meant it. When the doors opened, it wasn’t the shallow hotel room he had taken up earlier in the evening. Even while top-notch for the Golden Nugget, it wouldn’t match the space they had entered, in which, he couldn’t call a hotel room at all. Jason found himself pausing before he’d even reached the stairway, walking through the first portion of the top floor in order to get to it. The windows showed the skyline and the lights below where the casinos were in full swing for the evening and the taxi cabs bustled through traffic on the highway.
A glance was cast to Ryan, but his expression looked just as blank as when she had walked in for herself. Jason dropped his bag by the edge of the railing and leaned his forearms against it, looking down for the moment. While she bolted down the stairs, he had to stop and process just what he was looking at… just what kind of operation warranted something like this? Surely they had other places they could have hulled up in within the city, or why not the Headquarters itself? The fact made the sight equal parts spectacular as well as unnerving.
“Rosa, what the hell is all of this?” Jason questioned a little more adamantly, feeling the woman’s presence over his shoulder when she locked the door and followed in after.
“The presidential suite,” She answered with her arms crossed, a warmer smile gracing the young woman’s lips as she watched the darker haired woman make her way down with glee. “Go on, take a look. I have a call to make quickly and I will join you both in the living room down below where we can talk… and Jason? Breathe. You can trust me as you do the HS itself.” With that food for thought, he watched her disappear into the hallway leading to the bedrooms on the top floor. Skeptically he paused for a moment before lifting his bags and heading down the stairway. His eyes were on the windows as well as the interior when he passed. The bag was dropped by where she said they would be meeting in order to look around genuinely, his mouth parted a fraction the further he went into the expansive suite.
“..?” He gave a flinch when Ryan tugged on his shoulder, having been spacing off in his own world. A brow raised high as he watched her, on her own cloud nine as if the building’s elevator hadn’t taken them close enough. He wouldn’t exactly grin, but it was enough to put some ease on that stern face of his, taking one more glance around. “No… nothing quite like this,” Jason admitted. “And I’ve been in a lot of places. Never something like this, especially for a job in the States. I wonder what gives.”
After a thorough glance around, Rosa had made her way down the stairs with a set of files in her hand. Her arms were still crossed in front of her properly, walking like a feline that had prowess over the situation. “-You afford it by having enough money that it doesn’t matter at all, or perhaps… you know the right people. In your case, you know something about what might be a more prolific pending case in the Western half of the Hunter Society’s reach.” Rosa’s head tilted, crystalline blues shifting from Jason to Ryan curiously, guarding the manilla folders grasped in her palm with a smile gracing the corner of her lips. “The Mandalay’s Vice has granted our organization approval to book this space, due to some work done in the past on their grounds. Now- shall we?”
What in the Hell..? He was supposed to be in the desert for a simple rogue level hunt, what was all of this? How did they know anything about what had gone down? Nonetheless, he glanced toward Ryan and gestured with a tilt of his head toward the sofas adorning the main space of the bottom floor. “Let’s hear it then, you’re saying that ain’t the first time you’ve come across something like that out here? What do you know about it?”
Rosa took a seat on the end facing the staircase, crossing a leg. She waited until both had settled in their seats before she cleared her throat and spoke.
“...Firstly, my name is Rosalie Walker. I specialize in forensics for the Hunter Society’s division here in Nevada. I make site visits and make collections on the anomalies that our Hunters encounter at the scene of their hunts… such as the entity that you encountered at the signage museum a night or two ago.” With that, one of the folders was handed over to Jason, stocked with a handful of papers. He opened it up for the two of them to take a look.
The first page featured a series of photos including the site the incident had occurred, the vampire’s body where it lay, as well as what it was dragging with it. The scene was grotesque, lit up from flash photography done in the dead of that morning. He flicked through it briefly, catching pages and pages of mostly text, spare a few diagrams of charts and a DNA strand with a certain sequence filled in, notes written in pen along the side. In the end, Ryan probably couldn’t read it, and Jason wouldn’t make sense of it all after one look anyway.
“What was so special about this one, then..?” Jason had an idea; both of them did. It didn’t mean he’d fess up outright without seeing what Rosa had to offer them.
The woman leaned forward in her seat ever so slightly. “Mr. Hale, what do you know about vampires?”
“Everything. And it’s Jason.”
“Forgive me, Jason- then you know as well as I do, there isn’t any sickness in existence that they are susceptible to. They don’t have the red blood cell count to even think about contracting anything, and their bodies don't outright change after their immortality. Yet here we are with a specimen that has somehow been genetically modified. By human terms, it should be impossible, and it isn’t the first case that has been reported in the last few months.”
It hadn’t been the first upscale hotel the man had found himself in over the last couple of years. It likely wouldn’t be the last, but the city had a way of inviting its visitors in with a theatrical appeal. Mandalay wasn’t Fremont street, however. It kept all the elegance of a top tier hotel no matter if the sound of slot machines clanking carried on for all hours of the night. Although calmer to his core, Jason looked about the entrance just as aimlessly as she had. If they had to seek out the woman themselves he wouldn’t have known what hall to head down.
They didn’t have to. Out came the woman clad in heels and walking confidently toward them both. Light blues held a spark to them no matter how subtle it was. Pink lips posed with a smile toward them both, studying first and foremost the man that she had data on… the anomaly of a woman next to him and what her story was to all of this would come later.
There was a pecking order to be had between the Hunters, whether Jason knew it was coming or not. He found himself biting his tongue before he could get started, the woman snatching the floor away from him in one or two fell swoops. It was a sensitive matter, after all, she couldn’t have the man blubbering in the lobby.
“A pleasure I am sure, now let’s be on with it shall we?” With that, Rosa gestured down a neighboring hall and started walking just a half-pace ahead of them. It took a moment’s pause before Jason started to follow, studying the blonde, then Ryan before he shifted the bag over his shoulder and started walking.
The hallway grew quieter the longer they walked, her eyes out for the elevator signs up ahead. As a result, they veered right into a smaller corridor where an illuminated button was pressed to go up. As soon as the doors opened a couple would walk out, leaving the elevator empty. Rosa lead and took a space near the buttons after tapping a floor, crossing her arms.
-/-
Jason took a stance in one of the corners and wouldn’t speak this time around. Not when the doors would open and close to a new passenger on occasion, his mind losing track after a short while. The higher they went, the fewer occupants would enter until the elevator was no longer slowing down.
“...I had heard about Egypt, my condolences,” Rosa chimed, shaking Jason from his daze.
“I’m not talkin’ about it,” He answered dryly.
“Dear I won’t ask you to,” the woman replied. “-but Alice, how is she?”
“She's fine... taking a break,” He replied rather shortly, eyes glued on the elevator doors… wait a second. Had his ears just popped? How long had they been on the damned thing? “...Where the hell are we going, anyway?” He questioned.
Rosa looked to them both with a glint in her eyes and a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “The top, Mr. Hale, and we can all speak when we get there.”
And the top it was. By the time the doors finally opened to their stop, the woman stepped away from where she was standing. They were on floor fifty-eight, the 42nd story of the building in reality with all strange numbering systems set aside. As they exited the corridor, the walls of the hallway held few doors if any until they reached one in particular. With the click of a keycard, the door opened and led down a more private hall… and at the end of it?
Rosa pulled the door open first after sliding a key, holding it open for the two. "Make yourselves at home."
The call was cut off and the phone returned to Jason’s pocket in no time. It seemed they knew something themselves, whether or not it was the truth, half-truth, or useful at all would be determined by the end of the night, or so he hoped. A nod came when she questioned the timing of the meeting. They worked quickly, and that was an understatement from what he had seen out of the organization since his interest in it.
“Tonight it is… eight o’clock.” Jason confirmed. In the least, now they had something to look for. It beat skimming the streets another night following calls that could be just about anything. Also, it was something to dwell on other than the silence in the room and any other shreds of the past that were left to be discussed. “That’s where she said, Mandalay… I don’t know whether I should be surprised or expect it by now,” He murmured. In the end, he just knew better than to question. For the kind of shit work the organization handled, there were few limits on what they would do.
“I’d never thought about it… whether they would’ve known anything about it or not. Now I just wonder how much they do know.” Not that he didn’t have his fair amount of events to keep the corporation out of mind. It’ll be fine, he thought. It opened up the possibilities now on just what could be done. When she spoke up again his eyes rose from the blankets and returned to her. There was a slow nod from the man, whether it was for time to prepare, or the night’s activities wearing down on that expression of his. “Let’s plan for just before eight, the main entrance closest to the Luxor. Dress comfortable, but be ready for whatever might happen.”
-/-
...And that was that. After she had left to carry out her own planning, the rest of the day went without trouble on Jason’s part. He stuck to the hotel room that had yet to cause him trouble. By the time six o’clock rolled around he was done packing his bag and had gotten some rest in while he could. The HS had shaken him of that nocturnal streak, but it didn’t mean it was replaced by anything consistent in return.
Down he went to the lobby, checking out of his room early and stopping to have one last drink on Freemont before he headed back onto the streets to find a cab. He could’ve lived in Vegas, but if only his demeanor had never been what it was. The sin city would have chewed the man up and spat him out if he had grown up here instead of the boroughs. After all, New York was a city built on business. Las Vegas was a city of recreation, and around every street corner, he was reminded of it.
7:50PM | Mandalay Bay Hotel | Valet Parking Entry
Jason had gotten there first, whether it was by design or just restlessness. He took a stance not far from the ground entrance of the hotel, watching the valet parking employees do their jobs just as cab drivers dropped off and picked up their passengers. His bag was guarded by his feet, dressed in street attire: dark jeans, a white t-shirt that was more tolerable in the dry heat. A denim jacket was draped over the top of the bag as he waited. Blue hues a sweep now and then, checking his phone on occasion.
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