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In the back of his mind, Kyanos whined like a sore, persistent ache. He was charged, he had devoured what he could, but he wanted more. The corners of Isaac's eyes tightened as he tried to ignore the low-pitched demands of his weapon.

The whip coiled up like nine hungry mouths, each end bobbing with multiple tongues, as Isaac slowly reeled the length of the hard, dark leather around his palm. There were grooves in his fingers where he'd whipped himself on accident; and Kyanos felt most comfortable to him resting there, curled and waiting for action. He could feel the buzz of FEAR against his skin like static, and it numbed his fingers where they touched.

Cliff sauntered from twenty feet away like an overgrown rooster. He glanced sidelong, as he watched his friend's pensive face, watched it flicker as squeals of beaten shadow creatures and hissing weapons resounded unnaturally around them.
"Yeah?" Isaac's voice was quiet; even when Cliff pressed against his chest and threatened him with a stare, it still remained quiet. "I'm not going to promise you."

Not because he wouldn't, but because he couldn't. Cliff may have been the elder, but Isaac /felt/ older inside; he'd been a hunter for too long, it always felt, used up and passed his expiration date. He /should/ be the one on the front lines. "I don't know what mood you're in, but you know I'm going to be up there protecting you. And Zoey. And Adam. I've got natural protection."

Isaac hefted his coiled whip for emphasis. "And you don't. Remember that you're not invincible for once in your damn life and let me do my job."

Lucas was shaken out of mentally cursing the Fear Hunters for making him hold the creature down for so damn long by one of the women from the table. Lee...something...

"Its a good thing we've got it cross-tied at the rate they're attacking. Doesn't bode well for them to take this long," he added with a grumble. This was not how he wanted to waste his energy, but if he had to he had to.

Status: Holding Cage 2s' monster

Oh my god... Dom drawled. And he thought the cafeteria was bad enough. The sun hunter stood at the fringes of the crowd while the division leaders issued their instructions, then waited for some of the crowd to clear before he went in to charge up his weapon. He would really prefer not to squeeze in with everyone...



The sun hunter quickly covered the yawn that was escaping and fumbled with his hair. Dom sincerely hoped Liam saw none of that sloppiness coming from him just a while ago. It would suck to be yelled at like some stupid trainee all over again.


Well, I'm not.


Dom obliged, clutching the pair of Kataras and flashing their serrated blades at the target. The shark monster within them was probably gnashing its teeth with a burning, bloody hunger. Without so much as a bat of the eye, the sun hunter tore at the victim.

Total damage done:: 10
Target: Which cage they are targeting: 5
Total charges accumulated: 1
Total HP of that monster targeted so far: 145

Cliff turned his head to stare side-long at the other man as he told him he wasn't going to promise anything, muscles in his shoulders tightening. He watched as Isaac hefted the whip, flicking his eyes down to it for a second before he lifted them again to stare at him darkly, turning fully to face him. But it was the last sentence that really hit home. Striding back towards him, he lifted his hand to tear the cigarette from his lips, gesturing widely with his arms."This isn't about me, I'm ain't gonna be the one out there fight'n 'm. I ain't gonna be the one with only fifty guardin' my back instead of a hundred 'n fifty," he replied, accent suddenly thicker as he hissed a response. It always did that, when he was tense, "'N I ain't the one who decides every goddamn mission I'm gonna be a martyr."

Straightening a little further, as if to try to stand taller than Isaac, he gave him a disgruntled look. Even with the four inches his hat gave him, it only put him two inches taller than the brunette -- Isaac was taller, and they both knew it. "Me 'n Zoey ain't gonna be there, not this time. And you'd better not <********>' die," he continued, putting heavy emphasis on the curse. That was something in itself -- Cliff hardly ever cursed, at least seriously. Sure, hell was a regular word in his vocabulary. Goddamn sometimes made it's way into his speech. But it was so rarely serious. And it wasn't ever the word ******** the cigarette back between his lips, the blonde lifted the lighter again to the end of the paper, his thumb fumbling a bit over the flint. This time, sparks flew, but not even a tiny flame appeared to be blown away, the hand cupping around it useless. He tried only a few more times, growing increasingly frustrated before the runic hunter growled, dropping his arm.

"s**t."

Cursing again, Cliff threw the cheap plastic lighter away, lifting his fingers a little more slowly to withdraw the cigarette for a second time, flicking it halfheartedly across the dimly lit street.

Em blinked as Cael was not walking, but pulled away, by that other girl - oh, what was her name, this was going to drive her insane if she couldn't remember it.. and she stood to watch him dragged off, giving him a little wave despite the fact that he wasn't looking at her anymore. "Well, stay warm at least!" She called out, and in a quieter voice murmured, "If you're going to pull him off like that, you'd better be the one keeping him warm."

Em was not giving up hope on Caelius. She really liked him - platonically, of course. Sex was platonic..

.. right?

She shook her head and headed back over to Marsh and Lowe, immediately climbing up on top of Marsh's back and holding on tight. "There, warm.. mmm. You are really nice and warm, baby." Her weapon whined faintly in the back of her mind, something about the effect of holding in Fear for too long starts to cause a faint blueish tint to form in certain areas, but as usual, she tuned him out completely.

How did she handle Cliff and Isaac, Adam? Good question. She only gave her little smile and shrugged, for how could one explain the innate sense of just being able to swallow whatever her big brothers did, what cousins like Lucas did to play their jokes? It was just a family thing. Why deny them their light moments when it was against the holiday spirit to do so?

In truth, Zoey lived vicariously through the older Death hunters: Cliff, the rustic silver tongue who could probably smile at the reaper himself and sweet talk some extra years on his life; Isaac, the rare breed of Hunter that already elevated himself in her eyes, who could actually bend the will of a Halloween horror and use it for good; Adam, who proved even the "younglings" could keep up with his own FEAR weapon, who was rather acclimated in the Life division and had been overwhelmingly helpful in putting the intel they gathered together, who surprisingly reminded her of Ni -

- she bit her tongue, shuddering in pain and keeping it as subtle as possible so as not to break up the mood. A little blood was nothing now.

And even now, simply seeing new faces like Amy's, the other woman's, and Lucas's (and yes, even "Mia's"), knowing that they were older and still there, comforted her. Told her that she could make it into the new millennia, which for a while had been a goal she had been afraid would not be accomplished.

And thus Zoey beamed as she watched them and Isaac banter, beamed at Amy's amicable joking with Mr. Southern Gentleman, and beamed at Adam's well-chosen entrance, because for a little moment it gave her the satisfaction of her dreams as of late: the surreal sense that no matter what, things could still be normal. Still be all right. If they were happy, even if she did not know everyone at the table well, then the young Hunter was happy as well, because it was just human to be so.

She had been about to offer Adam some of her salad since it was the least she could do for the laughs he earned when the mass text arrived. 6 hours until the dream had to end. Or until the nightmare began.

The phone went snap closed, and the smile was no more. Her salad was finished in silence.

~ ~ ~

New York. The Big Apple. Capital city and state. Coooooooold.

Zoey most definitely put her hood back up for the weather and tightened her scarf just in case, because God forbid she got a cold while on the job. Her body was in the middle of chastising her for not eating anything more than "rabbit nibbles" and forgoing a quick nap to listen to more of the traveling Cliff and Isaac Wonder Bro Show. But it really was healthy and good for her to have sat down next to them, just as it was good and healthy to socialize with the others at the table. Back in her two years of college she had read case studies of what happened to humans - adults, children, babies - when they were isolated for lengthy periods of time.

In short, not good. And it very much was a hazard of the Hunter job, along with death, physical and emotional scarring, death, broken and skewed mentalities, death . . . Oh, and loss of limb.

Zoey'd once heard a rumor that a Sun hunter had lost an arm during a raid, and that he mysteriously died after the reports had been turned in by his own (and only) hand. Even if a falsehood, it reminded one of the grimness of their situation, their technological and medical standpoint . . . As if Hunters needed that reminder.

Not long after her arrival, she heard the soft voice of her division leader over the intercom, and she pressed it closer to her earbud to make sure she caught every word correctly. And oh, did she wince when Liam gingerly skimmed over their losses to retrieve the Horsemen information back. She felt for the older man . . . She had no courage to approach him physically, but her heart went out to the Death headhunter. What pressure he must deal with every day!

Resolutely, Zoey decided she would get this man a Christmas gift as soon as this mission was over. She needed to find some anyway for the boys, and for the Hunters she had chatted with at lunch; she did need to branch out after all, and they had seemed nice.

What was not nice was the familiar sight of the cages, the creatures, the guns. While certainly not a fan of Halloween by any stretch of the imagination, Zoey was not easily violent these days. She didn't know how Isaac could do it, with a second voice in his head possibly whispering things without any of them able to know. Did the creature-weapon feel anything for its kin as the cat-o-nine-tails slammed wickedly against the shadowy horror?

Once. Twice. Satisfaction. Over and over by the other FEAR Hunters, like a dissonant drum. She was not sorry to have missed helping trap the specimens.

First she passed by the second cage, where Amy and Lucas had managed with some help to pin the creature down. Zoey nodded to them in greeting, looking grim as the woman yelled at some of the milling about Hunters to speed up the charging line. "Need help?" she asked them both, a trapping gun in hand despite her reservations about the whole thing.

Not far away, she heard Cliff's gruff voice in an uncharacteristic hiss. A glance told her that he and Isaac were having a Serious Moment, especially since she saw Cliff had lit up - something she hadn't seen in ages. Liam's instructions said that the different Hunters would be separate . . . Her heart skipped a beat despite having heard this sort of schematic before. It meant she might not see Isaac for a while . . . Or Adam, she realized. The young Hunter grew a little colder.

She would need to talk to both of them, all of them, but first: look useful before someone noticed she had arrived late.

She also realized, belatedly, that she still did not know this woman's name. Damn it, she needed to pay more attention!







(( Long post is long, I apologize x~x ))

The woman had the right idea, yell at the other to move their asses. It was a good plan, but he had long since lost the gumption to do such things. But when someone actually came along to offer assistance...

"Hey girly, we could," he said with a slight smile at Zoey. "You can find us some Fear Hunter who's twiddlin' their thumbs and dilly-dallying around to get over here and charge their weapon already. Or," he said was an afterthought, "Lee might need you to spell her for a bit, or one of the others. I've got my end covered."

Status: Holding Cage 2s' monster






((Time to get quote happy to drag people into interacting ;D ))

[[ DAVE IS TARGETING CAGE 2, make sure that monster has been snagged by 4/4 Runic Hunters ]]

Dave had listened to the briefing with a solemn expression, particularly when the great losses for the information were discussed. He'd lost too many friends, too many good people in recent years, at least now there seemed to be a reason for it. They had died preventing the end of the world. It should have justified things a little more in his mind but.. it didn't. He still missed them, and would continue to feel the gap in his life left behind by their loss.

Still, he couldn't dwell on it, and as soon as preparations were underway, he joined the throng of fear hunters getting their weapons charged, waiting on the runics to do their thing before they could. He moved to the fore as he heard one of them call out for a fear hunter to come forward, stepping up he wasted no time summoning Argyll and taking hold of her in his single good hand, swinging her hard at the shadowy monster contained within the cage. The blow connected with a satisfying thunk and he could already feel the replenishing effect of the pilfered fear.

((OOC: Total damage done::2
Target: Which cage they are targeting: 2
Total charges accumulated: 1/2
Total HP of that monster targeted so far: 48 ))