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 Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:00 pm
"Different doesn't have to be bad, Nines, and what I want you to do is mostly for your own benefit as is.
I'm not stupid enough to tell you I want you to do things just cos I care about you that much and it's the right thing to do, but I WILL tell you I don't think you deserved the fate you've been given any more than I did my own, and that I believe I can make sure your next century is less horrible than my own first 100 years was.
As for what I get out of it? Partly, I don't get s**t on by guys I'm not strong enough to kick in the arse yet, but mostly, it gives me a solid line back to my humanity, and to the anger that keeps me going. I'm furious someone was stupid enough to do this to you, and that you haven't had your revenge yet. I'm irate that you've become my problem as a result, and that I can't even blame you for it, let alone find a clan to despise royally for being such ******** ups.
I don't want you to have it as bad as I did, and I want to stay angry, deep inside, for the times when that fury is needed and achieves my goals for me."
Finally turning back from the window, she returned to her seat, placid, calm, dispassionate, and finished her vitae. she;d offer him his glass, and if he refused it, she'd start sipping it herself.
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Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:09 pm
I...don't even know where to go with that without being patently offensive without meaning to be.
He had a few things on his mind he wanted to voice, but he didn't know how to speak them without bringing about the usual bad end to the conversation. So he bought himself some time; he took the glass offered and began slowly drinking from it.
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Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:17 pm
"Ungrateful as always... or at least tactless. That's the only problem with statements like the one you just made... it lets me know while you haven't SAID anything offensive, it's what you're thinking.
It's as bad as people who say 'no offence, but...'.
Take it or leave it, Nines. If you really think it will help you to not believe I may just have an altruistic aspect to trying to help you, that's your own problem. I'm undead, I hardly think I'm going to blessed with the Undead Brady Bunch as a family.
You've been warned what could happen if you run, but I dont keep you prisoner. Do some thinking, make some choices. Then stick to them. If you really want to make the whole world your enemy, be my guest. Just dont complain when you get properly strong armed into things. Otherwise... accept help where you find it, and do so fully."
No real anger in her voice, just a slight trace of exasperation. She finished her vitae, and stood up, debating about her next move. Probably, food.
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Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:36 pm
That actually wasn't what I was thinking. If anything, accepting that you've got good intentions is the easiest thing I can do right now. I don't doubt that you're wanting to help, and to do so to the best of your abilities. Everything you've done up to this point pretty much cements that idea.
He paused long enough to finish his glass, then set it aside.
I'm not your prisoner. Never thought I was. I *am* a prisoner though, just to someone higher on the food chain. More to the point, everybody seems to want me to do the exact opposite of what I'm after in life. Okay, from your perspective, you want the best outcome. That I can accept, and I don't like how your best efforts for my benefit are met with frustration because we have such different outlooks. What I'm continuously running afoul of when we talk is you're telling me you want me to be less a human and more a kindred. Find something to hold on to and fight for it. Go with the flow until a difference can be made. All noble ideas, considering, but for the one fatal flaw that I can't find anything worth fighting for down that road. I already *have* something, but it leads down a different road. Casting aside that would be hard normally, but with nothing to turn to in the place of family, where would I go from there? I understand that you can't just give me something just like that. But I understand so incredibly little about why you're doing what you do after so long that I can't even begin to conceive of something I would want to stay angry for for the next hundred years, much less the centuries past that. If I can't find something so overwhelmingly worthwhile that it can override all the baggage that screams at me to throw up the finger and leave, then staying here is just an exercise in futility and would be me insulting your kindness...something I'm loathe to do, because I honestly do feel a sense of gratitude for everything you're doing for me. I would like to have your help, but at the same time asking for your help in what I'm after in life would risk throwing you under the bus, even if it didn't run cross your own purposes.
He finally ground to a halt, having spoken far more than he had intended. His honest plea must have sounded rather pathetic to her, he realized. The mewlings of an ungrateful child. That did little to improve his outlook, when he considered that every time he had broached this subject in the past she had only grown frustrated and angry with him. Bracing for the tongue lashing to come, he slowly nodded.
Go ahead. Call me a fool and berate me for insulting you again.
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Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:44 pm
"A rose is still a rose, Nines, even with another name."
No tongue lashing, just the Lady cracking her neck as she glanced down at him.
"I told you I want you to start thinking like Kindred, and learning how to act it. I never said to the exclusion of your human side, or that you should forget the one in favour of the other. At present, you only HAVE a human side, while in a Kindred oriented world.
You need experience and context. Words are important in our world, kid, you will soon come to know this. A wolf in sheep's clothing might fit in with the herd, but who's the farmer gonna shoot when he works out his flock is one over number? Even if you don't kill a single person, ever, you're still a predator among them. I applaud retaining humanity, its what all of us strive for, but you are ALSO Kindred, and ignoring that fact perpetually.
Humanity isn't pure and innocent, Nines, and you need every edge you can get if you want free of some of the s**t that's bugging you. Start thinking Kindred. It will help."
She nodded to him elegantly, then headed towards the door. As was often the case, she felt the need to leave, and let the man think on is own for a while. Thus far, he had made tiny steps after each exasperating conversation, but she was hoping some time soon, one of the ways she kept trying to put it would make sense to him. Certainly, it was frustrating for her not to be able to make him understand her meaning, despite several attempts now to find other ways of putting it. He wasn't the only one who went away having to think about things after each meeting, after all.
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:49 pm
Alright kid... You've had your time to rest, and i've mine for fun. Despite popular belief time waits for NO Vampire, Kindred or Cainite. Pick yourself up boy, there's work to be done.
And with that, a voice that came from nothing, was as easily forgotten in the wake of Corbin's eye slamming open.
A violent, rusted bloody hue washed over his eye, vitae rushing from beneath his skin about the wrists with frightening speed to collect around his fingers and harden into razor talons. The rest of his vitae fired into combat mode, rushing through his body into his musculature and ligaments to bring hulkish tension to his body. His figure suddenly a finely cut machine built for overwhelming power over speed. That said, his mind was in no state upon awakening to limit himself. Thus, the lightning fast lurch forward, momentum brought from his arms and upper body easily broke through the chains that bound him, though in doing so did him considerable internal harm.
Harm that wouldn't last long though. Instead though, rather than focusing on repairing the damage, he simply fell onto his palms, claws digging into the floor as a beastial roar testament to his chiseled physique. Raw power that shook the air as Corbin frenzied. Unlike the last time, with the fuel to carry him. Something however had tweeked his mind from torpor just right to produce this temporary madness.
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Corbin DeSeer Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:56 pm
Wandering back towards her rooms after seeing Nines, Roan was lost in thought...
...until those long ears did their job and picked up an unearthly sound from below the house.
Starting, she barely paused before she was in full running stride for the sealed door, long legs falling into an easy lope to cover more ground while she performed other tasks at the same time - namely hollering for Jan, and issuing instructions to other staff to ensure Nines and Dagoth did not attempt to follow her as she and her aide headed into the underground complex.
In all, it took her a mere three minutes to reach the cell in question, gesturing Jan to stay well back as she drew her gun, and flattened on autopilot against the door to look around it and take in the situation.
"Awake, for the second time tonight... an improvement, but not lucid I fear..."
"It cannot be due t hunger, surely?"
"Always, Lady Roan."
"Good. Stay back unless needed."
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:10 pm
The chains holding the rest of his body had been discarded by this point, and the crazed fledgling was on the prowl within his cell, almost calmly assessing the room in which he was confined. Though calm was a very relative term. As much made undeniable as he started bursting out with an excess of speed, again his limiters removed which would result in self harm as he smashed into the walls.
He however never hit the same point twice. In fact he never attacked the same angle.
Three hard hits later, his frantic eye caught sight of the only door in the room. The door that Roan currently came to stand outside, speaking to Jan.
A faint twitch in the upper point of his long ears as she did, and the fledgling's lips curled, stretching his cheeks to the point they almost split it seemed. Truely he was operating on zero tolerance for short comings in his own body, ignorant of his limitations.
Tail flicking ferociously behind him to produce a thunderous crack enough to give any man a skip in their chest, his shoulder was against the door, hitting it with full force. It'd take quite the door to stay on its hinges, let alone shut, though Roan no doubt had such a door fitted in case of such a thing being kept locked up in there.
"STOOOOOP! LEAVE ME ALONE!!! Out of my, HEEEAAD!!!"
Clawing at the top of his own skull madly for a moment, he'd then unleash a psychotic, though no less powerful barrage of punches on the door.
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Corbin DeSeer Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:18 pm
A low whistle, followed by an arced brow.
"Looks like I embraced the atomic hulk... bloody hell, kid..."
Pure calm in her voice. Combat was something she was familiar with, and made no allowances in general for age, gender or anything else. Watching him careen off the walls like a Kindred pinball, she winced as he hit the door, but it did indeed hold - it had been designed to handle full-form Garou Crinos, and for now, it was working.
"Does the young master mean you, milady?"
"Dunno. Maybe. Probably not though. I came down to feed him a few hours ago, and figured I wouldn't be doing anything more till tomorrow night. I haven't been reaching out."
"...shall I acquire sustenance?"
"Can't hurt. Grab two, I'm going in."
"Be careful."
"He's just a stroppy kid. And he's got ME for his new mother. Let no one accuse me of not disciplining my kid."
Frenzy was just that, and there was no reasoning with it. Thus, as she opened the door as Corbin backed up for another attack on the portal, she came in all guns blazing - two shots fired off in quick succession for his knees, while a violent crack of lightning sparked off of her, designed to send anything within a five meter radius into serious spasm and shock.
"DOWN boy."
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:34 pm
Someone had entered. The door was open! All that stood between him and freedom now was this squishy humanoid form. A target, FOOD! No, it wasn't food, something told his primitive mind it wasn't, instead something more important, though still... Squishy.
Tightening up his form made and focused into strength, rather than speed, yet power, though not extended performance, the fledgling fell into a readied pose for unleashing another powerhouse blow, until weapons were raised.
Instinct kicked in instantly and the first shot capped his right knee dramatically though the following round only grazed his left knee as he was on the move.
Rolling to the left his right knee crunched horrifically as bone and cartilage was forced about in mangled form, before the lashing voltage sent him hurtling back into the opposite wall, and he hit the floor, ignorant of the pain that came from his varied injuries.
"Rrr....Oooo..."
A moment of hesitation. Recognition even at a stretch as he glared at the woman before him, vitae pooling around his knees on the floor, claws again digging into the floor.
That blood however did not pool naturally but instead reached a diameter of four inches around the wounds, then began welling, and rippling rather than expanding. Vaporizing next, gathering in the air around his claws as he snarled at the woman.
"Where...."
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Corbin DeSeer Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:40 pm
"Home. Though not the most illustrious part of it, I'll admit.
Move, and I will tear you a new one. You're powerful, but I'm better. Stay where you are. Jan is fetching you a midnight snack."
She holstered the Browning, preferring to rely on more... unusual... means of handling the kid if he continued his assault.
So long as he didn't move, she would light a smoke, and toss the pack towards him.
"This has been temporary lodgings. You've been torpid for a week or so, and hardly in a fit state to be around my staff upstairs. We're in the outskirts of Durem, incidentally. Get used to it. Once I'm satisfied you are fit to act appropriately, you will be shown to your new rooms. So I suggest you show me you can behave yourself."
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:54 pm
Desperately, for lack of better term his eye would dart about, glaring at different focal points in his surroundings, a more conscious mind gradually, slowly building behind his hulkish, though more red, overheat than green tank of a body. Strength, had been his strength since day one and Roan knew it. Well strength, and a keen knowledge of how his body could move to optimize that power. A brute's no, a warrior's understanding of physics and kinetic energy.
Even as he scanned the room purposefully he wasn't actively planning to flee, or try and attack, though that primitive force of instinct was still radiating behind his eyes and in his mind.
Recognizing Roan fully now, as a person he respected, and knew to be his better, he acknowledged finally his current misbehavior. He still had too much built up energy however, and so he'd suddenly raise his right arm, and until the pain of his injuries started to register, hammer his fist into the floor, shaking the ground around him at first until the power started to fade, much like the atomised vitae, the claws of blood, and the rusted garnet in his eye.
He literally beat his frenzy out of the floor.
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Corbin DeSeer Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:59 pm
Exhaling a breath of smoke tarnished air from atrophied lungs, she watched him idly for a few moments, before firmly introducing her boot to his midriff, with full intent to send him sprawling against the wall once more.
"Enough of that. Don't remember giving you permission to injure yourself. Here. Eat."
And sure enough, Jan was entering behind her, dragging two swearing and protesting men with him. Despite his meagre build and old bones, the butler had no trouble with managing the two, both of whom were firmly shoved in Corbins direction, the cell door closed with Jan outside, at Roan's instruction.
She meanwhile took another drag form her smoke, tail slapping down the first of the two men when he made a lunge at her.
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:09 pm
Shaking the cotton wool from his head, Corbin groaned with the sting and ache of his musculature, tendons, ligaments, bone and cartilage slowly starting to mend, sewing back together even as he snapped back into a predatory mode for the instant it took to snatch up his prey by the throat, as it fell away from Roan and her tail.
"Sorry, boss."
Wincing at his own body, he then bit into, and hastily began draining his first victim, tail whipping out to snatch up the next by the ankle and whip him again the wall behind him.
First victim drained, he'd then move on to the stunned second.
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Corbin DeSeer Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:21 pm
"24 units."
"Impressive, isn't it? Considering especially that he's been consuming 16 nightly for a week, and burning up one to two a night only."
Jan watched from without, while Roan finished her cigarette within, then ground out the butt under a heel.
She sighed softly, then shook her head. Corbin, Dagoth, Nines. Three completely different men with completely different outlooks. Corbin had been the quietest one to deal with over the last week, but....
....a brief flash of a grin, on an older face, framed by jet black hair, and a dark chuckle at her expense....
"...Only sharks and their ilk thrash themselves to death in sheer anger and blood lust..."
Her expression was unreadable for a moment, then it cleared and she opened the cell door.
"Jan will show you to your rooms. Rest tonight, recover. You will find all you need to wash up and clothe yourself present already.
Time is short, and there is much to be achieved. Tomorrow, your induction will be completed. It will hurt like hell itself, and I fully expect you to both capitulate, and endure at the same time.
Think on this, prepare yourself. You made a choice you will now live with, Corbin Blazeheart. Enjoy your last night under that name. From tomorrow, in all ways... you are mine."
Turning on her heel, she left, leaving Jan to follow her instructions.
"Excuse her Ladyship's bluntness. It has been a trying few days, young master. Allow me to escort you to more comfortable surroundings....
... and perhaps sir will tell me if he dreamt while he slept?"
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