The World of Darkness (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

Earth-V-AB+

Inside a cell deep inside the ruins of Freedom Hall, the Serena Vervain of Earth-Prime shakily worked her fingers free from the rusty iron chains that held her in place. Ignoring the soft noises from the other cells where her teammates were still struggling, or worse, not struggling at all anymore, she drew upon her innate reserves of magic to cast a spell as powerful as it was subtle. The wards in this room were powerful, fueled by the blood of hundreds of mages, maybe even her own twisted reflection in this terrible place, but the vampires who'd built the place hadn't blocked every exit. In particular, they'd left open one door for their own use that Serena herself was now taking advantage of. Across the Cosmic Coil, her words seeped into the minds of two people: Hellion, her fellow Claremont alum and powerful mystic, and of course, Phantom, the chosen of Heshem and guardian of dimensions.

My name is Serena Vervain. Some of you may know me as Seven, practioner of the mystic arts of the Old Faith. A few nights ago, my friends and I from the Next-Gen recieved a distress signal from our counterparts on Earth V-AB+, claiming to be survivors of a mystic holocaust that destroyed life in this world's Freedom City. In a moment of foolish pride, we followed those calls without contacting the Chosen of Heshem or warning our fellow Claremont students. Little did we know that a trap awaited us, a trap most terrible...

She heard a whisper in the halls, and realized that she hadn't quite been subtle enough: her counterpart was there, and no doubt reading the mystic warpings of the Cosmic Coil Serena herself was using.

Do not follow us! Do not send a rescue party, lest the doom that struck this world follow us back to Prime! For they have this city and all the power there, and THEY ARE HUNGRY-

A moment later she heard the counterspell outside, and then her cell door swung open. The 'other' Serena smiled a terrible smile as she floated into the room, cape billowing behind her, the blood of Ray Gardener Jr. on her lips, and said, "Now it's my turn to play."

[alderwitch]

Taylor Chun, the alter ego of Phantom, was in the process of cleaning out yet another unused room in the mansion when the cry for help came through. There was a collossal crash as the couch she'd been levitating out of the way dropped the four feet back to the ground, splintering the old floorboards in the process as the mystic's attention was diverted by the message thundering in her ears. Her costume exploded out of the amulet without any mental prompting. Heshem was less than subtle when she felt her Champion had things to do.

"Jack!"

[Avenger Assembled]

Though denied his full speed in daytime, Jack was still at his wife's side with remarkable speed, the sleeping baby well-guarded by ghostly sentinels in his own room. "What is it?" he shouted, diving into the room with a cleaver from the kitchen in his hand, a look of murder in his eyes. "What's going on?" He shot her a look, knowing how fast her magic could spill forth in a crisis. "Is it the dimensions again? Because I'm really getting sick of them breaking during our me-time."

[alderwitch]

"It's a cry for help," Taylor's voice responded from under Phantom's cowl, still shaking off the girl's fear, "From children who have gotten drastically in over their heads, I'm afraid. Jack, we'll probably need the whole team for this. Will you gather them while I see what I can scry out from the library? There isn't much time."

Her gloved fingertips brushed his cheek in mute apology before she turned intangible and floated up through the ceiling, heading for the mystical heart of the home.

[Cyroa]

James was tapping furiously away on the controls, assembling information from reports he'd been working on. He'd faced all sorts of threats without blinking. But this paperwork and planning thing was SCARY.

When the message entered his mind, he wasted no time at all. He grabbed his stuff and ported right to the transporter pad. In a flash of light, he beamed down to Taylor's sanctum without bothering being polite and knocking first. "Taylor?! Did you get that one?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Avenger was soon on the phone to Dead Head, the Revoltin' Revenant having gotten a cellphone by the simple expedient of Jack buying one for him and slipping it onto his person. "Dead Head, it's Avenger. We need your help at the mansion right away. There's an emergency between dimensions, and we need our best rotting man on the case." He wasn't sure if Atlas would pick up the phone, but he left a message there anyway, trying to get everyone on board with what promised to be an exceptionally dangerous mission.

[alderwitch]

"Of course, come in and have a seat," Taylor said from where she stood in the center of her library, books and scrolls whizzing back and forth through the air as if carried by invisible hands. She was dressed for work, with the dark cloak pooling out around her feet and writhing in palpable tension. She waited for Jack to come in and snatched a scroll from the lot, heading back over to her desk with it. Somehow, despite not being the most graceful, Taylor never tripped over the cloak that writhed around her legs, either from practice or magic. The jewel at her throat pulsed with a dark light that gave the already eerie library, a truly arcane cast. "It's not good. I know of this place and at least we are the best suited to go. At least... one of us is."

She flipped the scroll out along the desk running her fingertips before she gave Jack an unreadable look. "Its a world... of vampires."

[Cyroa]

James nodded. "I've heard of it. Never gone obviously. This is going to be a fun one," he said sarcastically. "Obviously they were stupid and got caught. Question becomes how to we get them out of there. Without attracting an entire planet of hungry vamps of course. And these vamps might be a little tougher than the regular ones here." He frowned a little, pondering what he knew. "Any word from the others?"

[Dr Archeville]

A few blocks over, Dead Head was shambling back to Lantern Hill, having just finished assisting a spirit move on by making sure its final wishes were carried out. He ducked between alley when possible, and crawled through underground access tunnels when necessary. Just as he prepared to shimmy down a storm drain, he started vibrating.

"The heck is... izzat... izzat my heart? Is my heart beatin' again! Am I- oh..." His voice was tinged with just a bit too much hope to be entirely a joke. But then he found the cell phone.

"Hey 'Venger... what? Yeah, I'll be right over!"

The Revoltin's Revenant turned and ran towards the haunted mansion, as fast as his tireless legs could carry him. He burst into the library just as Hellion finished talking.

"... what'd I miss?!"

[Geez3r]

Atlas didn't pick up the phone, though he was standing right next to it. He hadn't talked to the Midnighters since the Invasion, and truth be told, even before that. But for them to call them out of the blue like this, this must have been major. He had a chance to do real good again, he wasn't going to pass that up.

Within a few minutes Atlas slinked through one of the secret entrances to Jack and Taylor's abode. He reached out and felt the minds of his friends up in the library. Quickly ascending the steps he entered the room just a moment behind Dead Head. "Hello everyone." he knew he shouldn't have felt this happy as it was likely a doomsday scenario that brought them together, but he did love the company.

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack rejoined the others, a chastened look on his face, growing paler as Taylor repeated what she'd seen about the other world. "I've heard of places like that," he said, his face almost, but not quite, expressionless. "Places where there was an upsurge of necromancy, or a successful takeover. Nevermore, the mystic who used to, uh, work for Melinda, he said he always wanted to retire there someday." Till I staked him and locked him in the basement of my office for all those nuns he used to eat. Oops, better not say that out loud. "I'm, uh, really glad to see you all here today," he said quickly. "Especially you, my friend," he added, clapping Samael on the back.

[Geez3r]

"It is good to be back." replied Atlas. "Kid keeping's you up at all hours of the day?" he joked. He wanted to keep the mood light for just a couple more seconds. Once they got down to business, it was going to be pretty. But not being a comedian, he quickly ran out of material, so grimdark it was. "So, who or what do have to shake down, knock out or blow up? Or is it just a free or all slug fest?"

[alderwitch]

"I've stopped sleeping. No, really, I noticed it around the third day or so. I still haven't figured out exactly why." Taylor said with a wry twist to her lips. Jack had been privy to that panicked conversation when Taylor'd stopped to do the math. Nothing bothered her like realizing she'd lost another basic human need without noticing. She still could sleep, thankfully, she just didn't need to. It had its ups and downs but one of the pluses was it did give her more chances to have time with Jack. She sobered after greeting her teammates. Really, more family than team, strange as they all were. Then it was down to business.

"Hellion and I received a distress message from one of the members of Next Gen, Seven. She and her teammates are trapped in another realm, one right up our ally and no one else's. I'm sure as you all know, when I say that, it means that its going to be unpleasant." Taylor smiled grimly below the shadow of her mask, "But its our kind of job. They're on a near Earth. In this one, however, Freedom City was overrun with vampires. Which means that our best bet is to track down Jack's alternate and... replace him for a little while with our own model so we don't waste time take on legions of vampires with unknown powers and abilities."

[Dr Archeville]

"Vampires, hunh? An'... we're bringin' Big, Red an' Juicy with us?" He jerked a thumb towards Atlas, then turned just enough to face him, "no offense, but yer gprobably gonna stick out like a fat tick on a dog's ear."

"An' I don't wanna think about what'll happen if they got a sip'a James here," he continued, jerking his head towards Hellion. "I saw some vamps feed on a lil' imp once, and, hoo-eee! They got real nasty, real fast. Guess there's no chance ya can just bring yer big ol' spaceship across, you an' Atlas hol' up there while the ones the vamps either can't or won't bite" he pointed to Phantom, then to himself, "scout out ahead?"

[Geez3r]

Samael closed his eyes and you could hear his bones shifting. His ears elongated, his skin paled, his hands grew claws and when he opened his eyes they were red and feral. He looked like a vampire. "Grue, remember?" replied Atlas. "I don't have much of a handle on the mental powers yet, but the shapeshifting works fine. I've started to come to terms with it, so I've been practicing."

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack shifted, looking a little uncomfortable at this line of talk. "Well, I mean, we don't know for sure there's a parallel of me there. I'm not even from Freedom City, so I'm sure there are plenty of worlds where I just don't live here..." Taylor looked skeptical at that, and rightly so, given the close parallels she'd observed between that world and this one. "In any event..well, I guess we don't know more till we actually look there, either with your spells or Hellion's super-science." He thought for a minute, listening to the others, then admitted, "I've seen Grue who've been turned into vampires. I think he was a leftover from the invasion back in '04," he said out loud. "As for demons...I don't know. I have seen undead demons before. We'll have to be careful."

[Cyroa]

Jame shrugged. "I'm not eager to be bitten myself. But I know a couple tricks too. If we'd like to do some long range recon before popping in, I suggest the ship. It's got great sensors and the thing doesn't make dimensional ripples. But I think I'm sending it back once we leave it. Phantom and I can handle transport after that. Last thing we need is a planet full of vamps to get a hold of dimension jumping capability."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I suggest we have Phantom scry the area first," Avenger said, trying to get himself back on track with the discussion. "The last thing we need is to discover there's some kind of vampire space navy or something." It was easier to talk about that other world that way, as if it was some crazy science-fiction or magical dimension rather than a place so very close. "The other advantage of grabbing and switching out my alternate is that we can interrogate him, then drop me in his place."

[alderwitch]

"I can scry from here," Phantom offered before turning her head away from the group and her eyes took on that soft pulsing glow that the rest of the Midnighters had learned was her 'busy' signal. She floated there utterly motionless, not breathing or twitching as her eyes moved back and forth scanning the area in the Freedom City beyond the veil. Eventually her nose wrinkled in distaste under the thick leather of her mask. "Found it. Now let me see if I can find Avenger's doppelganger. Honey?"

She didn't glance over at Avenger but the invitation for suggestions on where to start looking was clear.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Try the apartment where I lived before the last one," Jack suggested, "you remember, the one Melinda burned down." He'd shared that particular story about his rise to power, though maybe not the fine details of getting staked in the back and hurled off the Pyramid Plaza. "And, uh, that apartment complex in the Theatre District, and that place in the West End..." He wasn't terribly thrilled about sharing the vampire strongholds in town, even with his teammates, but fortunately the places where Melinda had lived and worked weren't his favorites nowadays. "And the usual places, like Freedom Hall, I guess."

[alderwitch]

"Mhm..." Phantom agreed and there was a few seconds of silence before she blinked and added, "Hrmmm."

She turned to frown at Avenger in the usual 'considering blasting him' sort of way before gesturing up to the mirror, "Found him. Have a look."

[Avenger Assembled]

The view showed what looked like a luxurious suite of rooms: the honeymoon suite at the Plaza, maybe, or something similarly lush and expensive at one of the many finer hotels in Freedom City. But a closer look revealed things subtly wrong: the mirrors were missing, with still visible marks on the walls where they'd once hung, as were several other items of furniture. The carpet was just this side of threadbare and the huge rumpled bed's sheets were thin, as if from frequent use and lack of replacement. The room looked as if it had been a long, long time since anyone had replaced anything there. There was noise just 'off-camera', and suddenly two figures stepped into view.

Both were instantly recognizable to the people watching: one was Jack Faretti, dressed in a skin-tight black leather outfit, his shirt open to expose the chiseled abs beneath, his hair mussed artfully; the other was Moira Morley glad in a white, diaphonous gown that left little to the imagination. Both were energetically kissing; and both had fangs. When they pulled apart, the other Jack said, "You know you're my favorite, baby. Taylor's busy with her ritual and Anya's busy with the pigs, so you've got me all to yourself tonight. C'mon, let's crack open the stock..." The stock turned out to be a champagne bottle full of blood, something Jack and Moira took big swigs off before resuming their makeouts, which on closer inspection was something more like watching sharks mate.

"Oh, my God," the real Jack breathed, trying not to look.

[Geez3r]

"Could be vorse, all zings considered." said after a moment's contemplation. Realizing he was going to need to explain himself he reiterated "He is distracted and vithout much back up, it vill be easier to take him down and replace him zis vay. As opposed to if he vas in a room vith Taylor and zis Anya person as vell. Do you know who zis Anya is by chance? I know everyone else already."

[Dr Archeville]

While the Nosfera-Grue's reply was fairly deadpan, the zombie reacted quite differently.

"You an' her... I mean, not you-you, but he-you, but... ain't she..." He looked back and forth between everyone, "ain't she a bona-fide goddess? They already got a goddess on their side?!"

"An' what's she... oh, man, that is gross! It's bad enough when the livin' do it, but tha Dead oughtn't... eugh!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Anya is a friend of mine; she's the other vampire active in our business. As for...what they're doing, it's practiced as a way of maintaining humanity," said Jack, looking deeply uncomfortable as the mating progressed. At least his doppleganger and the undead Moira Morley had moved out of the 'camera''s view. "Or as a means of reinforcing nest dominance, as they seem to be. God, look at something else," he suddenly interjected, looking away as excited hisses and growls came from just off-screen. "Find the other Taylor!"

A moment's work, and Phantom's spell had found her doppleganger in the other dimension. The other Taylor Chun was inside a room Phantom recognized immediately from her experience with other sorcerers on Prime: it was the private sanctum of Adrian Eldritch, though there was no sign of that worthy in the other dimension. The room looked battered and decayed, as if a tornado had passed through years earlier and it had never been cleaned. Rather, Taylor Chun was hard at work pacing the lines of a mystic ritual drawn on the floor, the ritual markings made in a dried brown substance that was obviously some species of blood. Taylor and James, the two experts in dimensional magic in the room, both recognized the spell the other Taylor was trying to cast: it was a dimensional portal!

But whatever she was trying evidently didn't work. She muttered a foul curse in an infernal language and sat down in the middle of the circle, looking annoyed. Her eyes red, she chewed absent-mindedly on the back of her hand with thick fangs. "Dammit, Eldritch," she muttered out loud. "Knew I should have saved some of you..."