Raveled

Back in the day, Revenant had a fun little romp called Bloody Mess, where she encountered Rene due Sans and a child vampire who whiled away the hours haunting a slaughterhouse. Fun times. At the end of the thread, Rev and Rene called in Nick Cimitere's expertise to de-vampify the little girl, and were successful in turning her into a child who merely has years of therapy in front of her. Now, all this means that there is a vampire cure in the Freedom Verse; however difficult and convoluted it may be, vampirism can be cured. The question I will now give to you all is: knowing that, how would one explain a person becoming and staying a vampire? Assuming they don't simply want MORE POWER!! Is there a logical method that someone could be stuck as a bloodsucking undead horror?

For dice rolling as it pertains to

Tona's eyebrows went up when Suibto mentioned the girl being from Atlantis -- and then she confirmed it. "That's amazing'" she said, a note of awe entering her voice. Intellectually she knew that a former member of the Freedom League and even a fee Claremonters were from exotic locales such as Dakana or Ultima Thule, but meeting someone from there was another thing entirely. She looks so normal, Tona thought. No gills or anything. "So why have you come to Freedom City," she asked. "It can't be more exciting than Atlantis."

"For a vacation," Tona suggested, tucking the metal scrap into a handy pocket. "It's really very peaceful and lovely out here. But even if someone is here peacefully, they they shouldn't be poaching animals from your village." She raised and eyebrow and risked a smile. "That's just not neighborly." They set out again, Tona's sharp eyes catching disturbed rocks, trampled bushes, and some place where a heavy, fallen branch had been moved aside. It seemed like the intruders were building a propose path between their camp and the village. "So how did you find this place, Fleur?" Tona asked. "Were you born on Sanctuary?"

"Hurt?" Jessica turned back to look at Baxter. "He didn't hurt me! I mean, I was worried when I... when I heard what had happened. I thought I knew you, and then he started doing all those horrible things..." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "It was hard. I wasn't sure what was happening, but when I learned that it wasn't really you I was relieved... And kind of scared." Jessica dug her key ring out of a pocket and clicked it; up ahead a metallic green convertible chirped in response and she led Baxter towards it. "I really liked you... Him... Whoever, whatever. We had fun together." She felt her heart starting to hammer in her chest. "And, well. I know you're not him -- and I'm glad that you're not, believe me -- but I'd kind of like to see if we could have fun."

Tona didn't ask what Fleur meant by close-to-humans, and she had already encountered Queen Bee on campus so she knew what the giant bees were like. "I wasn't really thinking that they took it," she said. "I was just... I grew up in a, a very small town." She shrugged. "Living in Freedom City is a really weird experience. This place feels... more like home. It's relaxing." She spied something across the river and splashed over, making sure to hold her strung bow up over the water. She bent over and picked up a scrap of something shiny off the ground. It looked to be some kind of metal covering, like the energy bars Tona took on patrol were wrapped in. "That's a clue," she said to Fleur. "I don't think anyone from your village stole those animals."

"Right. Um, I've got my car just around the other side." She started leading Baxter back towards the opposite side of the school building, where she had parked her vehicle. "So, you know that the fake Bee-Keeper didn't just do hero stuff, right? I mean, he wasn't always in the armor and flying around. He did other sorts of stuff." She swallowed and continued. "We kind of met. Outside the armor and everything. And we kind of got to dating," she said finally, the words all in a rush. "Hey, there's my car!" Jessica sped up suddenly, pulling away from Baxter as a crimson blush spread up from her collar line.

Tona made a noncommittal noise. She didn't think it was such a good thing that there were other people on this planet willing to sneak around and steal from those humans trying to live quietly, but apparently Fleur had a more optimistic outlook. "They came from deeper in the forest," she said, "if they have anything like sense." And so the archer set off again, leading them deeper under the canopy. She was quiet as she worked, occasionally pointing out a snapped branch or a patch of disturbed undergrowth, assuring Fleur that they were on the right path. After a little more than a hour of walking they came to a wide, rushing stream. Tona sighted up and down it, trying to ascertain if their quarry had crossed here, or upstream, or downstream. "Let me ask something," she said. "Just how many people are on this planet?"

Jessica bit her lip. How in the world to explain to Baxter that she was kinda-sorta-not-but-was dating a robot meant to look like him? And that even though the robot went crazy and killed people, she still really enjoyed it when it was trying to be Baxter Bowles, and she wanted to try dating the real thing? At the very least, it probably wasn't a good idea to discuss his murderous duplicate in front of the entire student body. "Do... do you remember when the Bee-Keeper wasn't around for a month or so? Well I've got to talk to you about some of the things he did when he was gone."

Jessica started when the bell rang and people began spilling out. It was kind of stunning to see so many people her age suddenly appear; she was more used to college and its more sedate, more personalized pace, but here everyone moved together, like a herd or a flock. And there, in the middle, was Baxter. Her heart sped up slightly when she saw him, and she felt a pain in her stomach when he passed by without even glancing at her. But that was why she was here, right? She stepped away from the tree and into Baxter's path. "Bax!" She paused and took a step back from him. "I mean, Baxter Bowles. I'm Jessica. Jessica Parker. Um. Could we talk for a minute?"

Tona watched Sam talk to the blonde woman, and thought about her words. She had never understood why some people cared if some women liked other women or some men liked other men, or if some folks liked both equally. Back home some people talked a lot about how men had to sleep with as many women as possible to make sure there was another generation, but those were also the sort of people who got angry when Tona wanted to go on raids so she didn't pay any attention to them. Tona's train of thought was derailed when Sam revealed that the Changeling a few seats ahead of them was not, in fact, Changeling at all but just another blonde woman with Changeling's bags. Tona ground her teeth and berated herself inwardly. Of course Changeling would try something like this to throw them off the scent. It was a simple ploy, and Tona probably wouldn't have been caught by it if she hadn't been distracted by Sam. Not that she really minded, but still... While Tona was busy being angry at herself for not being perfect, Sam was getting a better look at their mark. Up close, it was obvious that this wasn't Changeling. This woman was more disheveled and her clothes looked a few sizes too big for her. When Sam started talking to her the woman clutched the jewelry tight in her fist, and placed the bag on her side opposite Sam, keeping the bag's handles firmly in her grip. "I don't know anything," she replied, almost before Sam stopped talking. "I didn't see any other blonde lady in the bathroom. Why don't you go away and stop bothering me, huhn?" It was a lie, and one badly delivered, but could Sam really risk creating a scene on the bus?

Tona clenched her teeth at the question. "Of course not," she said, which was a baldfaced lie and utterly truthful at the same time. Nothing had happened between Cerys and Tona -- the fight had been between Cerys and a robotic duplicate of Tona. Which didn't mean that there wasn't anything to talk about, but Tona wasn't about to go into the details with a stranger. She was happy to her her hand back intact, and stuck it behind her back so she could surreptitiously massage it. "So, Thaelia. That's an unusual name. Are you from the city?"

Tona ignored both girls paying unusual attention to Crowe's tree, and assumed that if he got stuck in it that he'd make enough noise that she wouldn't be caught off guard. She was surprised to find how strong Thaelia was -- it almost felt like Mali's grip! Tona squeezed back though, her stubborn pride leading her to give as good as she got. "Cerys is pretty good at climbing trees," she said, trying to keep her tone even while her knuckles went white. "I think it's more fun to climb the walls, but the teachers think that's too dangerous."

Tona Baudin walked out of the administration building in her fleece-lined Claremont jacket, quiver and bow resting on her back. Saturday was a day to slack off and play for most students, so she had been hoping to find the Doom Room unoccupied. Unfortunately Next-Gen had apparently booked it for a full three hours for some underwater simulation. That left Tona at loose ends. Hypothetically she could go into town, either alone or with her friends, but she still wasn't entirely comfortable around them, given what her Curator double had done. Perhaps she could start in on her homework... Crossing the campus, Tona noticed Cerys talking to a taller, pale, well-built girl. Her first instinct was to steer well clear of the Welsh ninja, but it was impossible to avoid someone for long on Claremont's campus. So Tona marched straight up ton the new girl and stuck out her hand. "Bonjour," she said, doing her best not to eye Cerys. "I am Tona Baud in. I don't think I've seen you around here before."

"I suppose it is your planet," Tona said. "As long as you don't walk too close behind me or in front of me, you shouldn't disturb any tracks before I find them." Without another word she set out towards the treeline, her pace steady and her eyes always on the move. Her bow hung loose in her grip, but she seemed constantly poised and on edge, ready to react in a heartbeat. As they reached the first of the towering old growth hardwoods, Tona paused and rooted in the undergrowth with the toe of her boot. She looked up the trunk of one of the trees, folded away her bow, and began climbing. It was difficult to find a grip on the massive trunk, but she persevered and was soon thirty feet off the ground. There she found what she was looking for -- parts where the bark had been stripped off by something, leaving the paler wood underneath exposed. There was no sign of insect activity or broken-off branches, and none of the trees nearby were damaged so it likely wasn't storm damage. It looked like something had hung here, something that didn't climb with tools or even their bare hands like Tona, but simply by brute muscle strength. She had a sudden vision of a huge snake crawling up the tree like an epiphyte vine, crushing the bark with its sheer muscle mass. Tona looked out towards the village to see what kind of a vantage point this tree was, and hand a sudden and powerful moment of deja vu. Her father had taught her how to climb on trees not too unlike this one, and many times she had climbed them to get a better view of the land. So much natural, virtually untouched green space reminded her powerfully of her home for a moment; if the sky had been red and the settlement full of toiling slaves, it would have been almost spot on for some of the Steel General's logging camps. As it was Tona had to clutch the tree and look down at the green-haired woman waiting for her on the ground, to get her bearings back. She climbed back down and nodded to Fleur. "Someone climbed this tree," she said' "probably after dark, to watch the settlement. Someone with very good night vision, I'm guessing."

"A wheel would go straight," Tona pointed out. "And there's no bootprints behind it." She turned to follow the tracks further into the barn, but they quickly disappeared in the more heavily-trafficked area. Instead she followed them out again, and watched them disappear over the grass and into the distance. She sat on her heels for a minute, watching the horizon almost like she was waiting for the snake to poke its head up and announce itself. Did she really want to do this? Track some thieving snake-monster all across an alien planet? It could take a day or more. On the other hand, she had no real desire to return to Freedom City anytime soon. And she had the entire weekend... It could almost be like a vacation, which she could sorely use after the Day of Wrath. Tona shrugged her pack off and went to work; in moments the more incidental items were transferred to another bag and slung at her hip, while the backpack was tightened and filled with carbon-fiber arrows. She took her bow in hand and jerked it in just the proper way to release the locks, letting the compound bow unfold to its entire length. She settled the quiver on her back, and then the archer turned back to look at Fleur. "I don't know if you want to follow," she said. "I don't know how far away this thing is, but if it's still on the planet, I'll find it."

Tona felt her attention divided. She knew she had to keep an eye on Changeling without looking like she was keeping an eye on Changeling, but she really, really wanted to talk to Sam. Or rather, do things that didn't involved talking at all, but that wasn't exactly something to do in public. Still, talking was a thing they could do, so Tona talked. "I like you, too." She took Sam's hand in hers and held it, interlacing fingers and squeezing. "I've... done stuff with other people before, but nothing's ever quite... like this." Partly because it was always a little more hurried, being on the run and always fearing detection, and partly because before she'd never been more than a few hundred feet away from someone she had known all her life. It was exhilarating to do what she felt like. Further forward, Changeling didn't even seem to be watching out for them at all. She was rummaging through the bag, pulling out packages and odds and ends like she had never seen them before. She pulled out the jewelry she had just bought and held it to the light, running her hands over it and inspecting it closely.

Tona frowned and began walking around the room, staring at the floor. She didn't know much about animals and how they acted, so she was willing to take the men's word that the animal wasn't just straying from home. If Fleur was right, then there were no other people around to take it, but what did that leave? Someone who could've flown in, taken the beast, and flown back out again? Why would someone like that limit themselves to stealing foodstuffs and animals? If they wanted something, surely they would be able to take it without having to sneak around. It didn't make any sense to take something by stealth when you could take it by force, so why hadn't anyone seen anything? Her thoughts were sidetracked when he eyes caught sight of something. It was hard to see on the ground with all the overlapping tracks, but there was one path through the dirt that didn't look like normal footprints or shoeprints, and it wasn't the straight, furrowed path of a wheel, either. It swayed back and forth, a sinuous curve that never lifted itself off the ground. Tona had seen such things before, but never that big. "Fleur," she called out. "How big do snakes get around here?"

This is obviously a secret ref code. Now if only I could crack it...

Jay followed the red lights into the depths of the vessel, until the stopped at one of a number of identical doors. It opened for her and she found herself in a sparse but functional bedroom, not much smaller that the space she had to herself at Claremont. She closed the door behind herself and opened up what she assumed would be a closet, but what turned out to be a shower. She blinked in surprise and her brain tried to grind into action to decide whether or not to take the effort, but in the end she decided against it. She dropped her bag at the end of the bed and tugged off her boots, leaving them where they fell. She crawled into the bed, still wearing her jacket and her grime, and pulled the top sheet over herself. She curled into a ball and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come. All she could see was images of Cerys, of Mali, of Sam, feathered with her arrows and laying bloody and broken on the ground. She began to cry silently, curled up around her own private pain; and some time later, when she was all cried out, she drifted into a deep and unbroken sleep.

January 23rd, 2013 FDR High School, Freedom City Late Afternoon FDR High was an unassuming building made mostly of brown brick, sitting in the middle of one of Freedom City's largest suburbs. It was bigger than most of the colonial and ranch houses around it, and the entire thing was enclosed by a chainlink fence. Jessica Parker had already walked around the entire thing twice, trying to figure out where students would come out (in just about ten minutes, now) and had found at least three, all spilling out in different directions. Which would make finding Baxter Bowles a challenge, to say the least. Jessica stopped underneath a bare tree and sighed, looking at her feet and snuggling a bit deeper into her fuzzy peacoat. The Day of Wrath had been a trying time for all of Freedom's heroes: she had engaged Victoria Atom in a rooftop duel to defend an apartment full of T-Babies, and even after subduing the heroine the body had burst into flames while Ironclad was flying her to Blackstone. Now the tangled wreckage was sitting at the bottom of the South River. Nothing could have prepared her for the news that the Bee-Keeper III, also known to her as Baxter Bowles and maybe-kinda-sort-of her boyfriend, had snapped and tried to incinerate a biker gang and a bunch of bystanders. It had hit her like a punch in the gut to think that someone she knew could be a cold-blooded killer. Now the truth was out and she and the rest of the world knew that the Bee-Keeper that had done such horrid things had been an imposter. But if what Jessica had heard was true, then it was possible that she had never known the real Baxter. Which made the possibility of talking to the real thing more than a little frightening to her. She had liked the Baxter Bowles she had talked to, but who knew if that had any relation to the real thing or if it had all been a lie? Nevertheless, she knew that if she didn't at least try she would always wonder, so here she was. Waiting for a guy who maybe didn't even know that she existed.

Tona reviewed the last few seconds in her head and realized she'd been babbling in her mother tongue. "Deso-- Sorry. I was not -- I mean I want to do more." She squeezed Sam's hands and smiled at her. "Really, I do. A lot more of that and... maybe some other things. I just didn't want you to think that I was trying to rush you into something." She glanced to the side, and then did a double-take. Among the crowd was a blonde woman hurrying away from the two of them -- a blonde woman clutching a big red bag. She wasn't wearing her jewelry, but it could only be Changeling. "Merde. Come on." She began to walk down the street, somehow keeping a grip on Sam's hand even as she tried to blend in with the crowd. Before long they turned a corner and were at a bus stop. Changeling had barely arrived before a bus pulled up and she jumped on. There wasn't any other choice; Tona ran for it and managed to jump on-board just as the doors began to close.

Tona followed a step or two behind Fleur, casting her eys around the little settlement. "Ma pere was an archer," she said. "He taught me how to shoot, and my mother's family taught me how to hunt." She stopped outside the building and ran her hand along the stone wall. It certainly wasn't broken, and the ground around the base of the sctructure seemed solid. It didn't seem like anything had tunneled into the building; she understood that wolves and foxes could do that, dig right a fence or wall and make off with anything they found inside, but that didn't seem to be the case here. She followed Fleur in, peering into the other stalls and looking at the animals with honest curiosity. "Could the animals have gotten out on their own and wandered off? Or could another village have stolen them?"

The crowd, the city, the whole world stopped for a moment as Sam's lips met Tona's, and she leaned into the kiss ever-so-slightly. There could have been a parade marching down the street, the building might be exploding, or maybe the sky tore open and was disgorging alien invaders; for handful of seconds, she would not have noticed. And then she broke it, and the world rushed back in, and she was aware of how hard her heart was beating. She stared into Sam's eyes without saying anything, then she took a step back and broke the gaze, looking down the street. "Qu'a fait j'ai juste? Sam, je ne voulais pas vous faire... Tout ce que vous ne voulez pas le faire!" She looked down, and realized that she was still holding the other girl's hands. "Mais c'était très, très gentil. Et je tiens à le refaire. Un certain temps."

Tona rolled her eyes at Subito's dramatic storytelling. "Very entertaining," she said dryly. "Um. I don't have any stories of my own, but..." She sat up suddenly, staring into the fire. "Okay. This is a story that ma mere told me, through ma oncle. It's about the beginning and end of the world. "In the beginning, the Great Earth Mother had two sons. Gloskap was wise, brave, and true. He lived with the world and in it, and he knew the names and purposes of all the animals and plants. He was a leader, and a hunter, and while he sometimes killed it was always to help more life. Malsum was evil, a liar and a thief. He uprooted mountains to take their bounty, leveled entire forests to make a single chair, and he hunted for the pleasure of killing. "The whole of the world knew Gloskap and Malsum, and they clashed many times. Gloskap always won though, and even death could not keep him bound. In time Malsum was cast out of the sun, to wander in darkness. There he cried out to the darkness, calling for a way to overcome his brother. And the darkness answered him, speaking in red and bone-white words. It led Malsum to the secret heart of the world, where a great tree grew -- a tree of silvery metal and dark wood." Tona touched one pierced earlobe when she spoke about the tree, stroking the wood-and-metal stud there. "Malsum formed an army of dead things from the heart-tree, and went out into the world. "Gloskap heard of his brother's return and confronted him with an army made up of all the warriors of the world. The two brothers fought while their armies clashed. For seven days and seven nights they fought, and as the sun set on midnight of the seventh day Malsum drew a knife given to him by the darkness and stabbed his brother in the heart. It was a mortal wound, and Gloskap fell down, dead. "That's not a problem, because Gloskap had died before. Always, when the sun touched his dead face he was filled with life and bounded to his feet again. But this time, he... He --" Tona stopped abruptly, her voice choking on the story. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a moment before continuing. "This time, Malsum dragged Gloskap's body into the darkness, where the sun couldn't reach him. And he reshaped and twisted his brother's form, until Gloskap was a wolf with red eyes and bone-white fur. Then Malsum sent Gloskap-the-wolf back into the world, and Gloskap found the armies -- still fighting -- and gobbled up the souls of his own warriors." She bowed her head for a minute, and it seemed like the story was over. Then she spoke up again, her voice louder and firmer, but she didn't raise her head to look at the rest of the group. "So Malsum finally won, or thought he had, but when he called Gloskap-the-wolf back his dead brother didn't heed him. And then the darkness came out and covered the sun, and said to Malsum, 'Gloskap is our wolf now. You shall be our prince, and this world is ours.' And so the people who did not want their souls eaten by Gloskap fled into the forests, where it was never quite bright enough for the wolf to find them and never quite dark enough for Malsum's darkness to find them." Tona leaned against Sam, resting her head on the other girl's shoulder. So it was only Sam that felt her tears falling.