[Saturday Night of 20XX]
[Sometime in March]
[The Horrible Goose]
[Holdport] [Somerset]
[3rd Person]
Red Hen walked into the middle of the club, with Jaggedy Annie behind her. Into what was the middle of the warehouse-like room of what was, of course, a converted warehouse. With the upper gantry as a second level of the club looked down into the first level of the warehouse.
How various people in the Club had broken out the Smartphones to record what was going on, like the Lemmings they were. Not the Lemmings you could at least direct to build stuff so they do not go over the gaping void like the classic and original video game of Lemmings.
The Hero of Hen’s Ascent cracked her knuckles and rolled her neck around, to go, “To the Vampires in the Club,” and as said vampires stiffened, “As the Hero of Red Hen teamed up with my friend of Jaggedy Annie,” as Red Hen would say, the world required her to quote Captain America: The Winter Soldier. “Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?” And again no Gregorian Chanting played from her suit, as she deemed she didn’t need it.
There was a moment of silence. Followed by a Vampire, a woman in a mini skirt, morphed into her vamp form of red eyes and elongated fangs to lunge at Red Hen. The Shield Sword flew into Red Hen’s hand and snapped out in what was now the bright grass green glowing version of it. Instead of its previous sky blue glowing version, or its other version of a glowing white beam.
Luxphagy drew on the light around, the light bulbs dimmed a bit, only for said light to be channelled into the Shield Sword to make it glow a brighter green. One made not just into what was the holy light of the Sacred nature of the sword, the shield blade also had the nature of sunlight. Just green glowing sunlight.
The Vampire who charged at her, had said female vamp screech, as her skin turned into black ash and she burst into flame. Like a pillar of charcoal, for the vamp to break apart, leaving a pile of bones, singed clothes, stuff what was in the pockets, and the charred ash.
To a dozen more vampires it happened like it did to the one in the mini skirt, at the same time as a dozen more charged at the two. And as the said other dozen vampires came out of it smoking and a little on fire. Again, like Vader in the Star Wars SC 38 Reimagined video on YouTube and with the fire from it fading away as it happened. Their magic rings went and did the thing.
There were half a dozen vampires without said problem, who dropped down from the upper level and glowing red Exo-Steel metal blood blades snapped out. Red Hen raised an eyebrow behind her helmet, to comment, “Ah, Common Western European Vampires. Commoners! Rings of Gyges set to just block sunlight so you don’t get brought down to normal,” the eighteen vampires surrounded the two, as most of the civilians had run, while a few were hiding behind tables or behind the bar filming it on Smartphones.
Because, Lemmings.
Red Hen twirled her Shield Sword, to note, “Before you attack, I know the vampire you’re trying to free. I know you’re of The Blood Reavers, of the group of old Vampires. I don’t know who is the direct lieutenant you answer to,” there was a pause at a psychic question of the vampire’s gender. “Because I’d like to let her know I’m coming for her, and about to stop her. And I’d like to know her name if you could be so kind?”
Jaggedy Annie interjected a little nervously, “Red Hen?” There was a hand waved to her from said Red Hen.
And one of the Commoners of the C-Vamps spat out, “The Lady Despoina Sanguine shall make you suffer in exquisite agony, human,” for the twelve Hollies to each draw a revolver and there were barks of bullets which only went into the Bullet Shield of a Magical Intrinsic Field of Red Hen. Those vampires didn’t try to shoot Jaggedy Annie, knowing she was a Powered, the bullets did the usual stopping and falling to the floor at Red Hen’s bullet shield.
And said Commoner Spokesman, he added, “A Powered with Magic.”
Red corrected, “No, a Witch with a Magical replication of an Intrinsic Field,” then she shouted. “Annie, are you okay?” There was a glare from said Powered. “If you could please deal with The Hollies for me. Aim the staff to the heart, it’s properties should have it treat their rib cages like paper mache when dealing with it’s wooden property. I’ll handle the Commoners.”
The Commoner Spokesman complained with a grin, “Handle us? You’ll handle us? You know, your predecessors had much more respect.”
Red Hen nodded, as she easily concluded, “Okay, I’ll try to make your death quick. A mark of respect for a fellow The Matrix Reloaded Fan. But let’s dance.”
With a bit of her magicks as a Chancer, using Forsphagy she ripped the good luck out of the eighteen still un-living vampires. Plus the luck of the dead twelve of them while the remains of them still had their luck in the sad little piles they’d made.
The bad luck of those dead twelve vampires was poured into the twelve still unliving undead Hollies. To enhance their own bad luck. While the good luck of those thirty people were split into half, fifteen vamp’s good luck to Red Hen, and the other part of the Good Luck to Jaggedy Annie.
There was a pause, when the Regenerator of a Powered went, “Woah,” even as the vampires paused having felt something happen.
For the other hero to go and have to make another ref, “Yes, Neo. Please, free your mind. And deal with a few vamps too!”
And after said quip, Red Hen charged forward at the six Commoner Vampires, instead of at The Peasant Vampires as The Hollies. The vampires leapt at her as one. She parried a sword while ducking under another. For her to rip the heat out of all six blades, five blades became ultracool and the vampires dropped those Blood Blades. The Enchantments on those blades stopped them breaking as they fell to the floor like how a lesser Blood Blade would shatter into a million itty bitty pieces.
The sixth of the Spokesman, he kept going as his sword with his own personal blood enchantments on it didn’t become ultracool. There was the glow of red feathers over Red Hen, of her aura armour. Said nimbus of light?
Underneath the light image of red feathers came a glow of Silvery Plate like armour. Of what was the properties of Argyros in her clothes, over a fine layer of chainmail under it, coupled to a bodysuit of red Colanthian Spider Silk padding. Of what the bodysuit and chainmail was enchanted too. The armour of Argyros, it manifested from under her seemingly normal clothes.
At the same time out of her Pocket Space came a second Shield Sword for her left hand, and with a Hissing-Snap it came out in a glowing shield blade of a Shield Sword. The second Shield Sword of The Silver Spurs. Again of green energies. She twirled against the spokesman, blocking his Blood Blade with one Shield Sword, while using the other sword, cut the hands off the other five vampires as she worked. Leaving them unhanded without their modified Rings of Gyges to protect them from the sunlight effect.
As Common Western European Vampires, they didn’t burst into flame on contact with sunlight. They were brought down to what would be their natural human norms of the average Natural Human. And as there was a blur of two glowing green Shields turned into a monomolecular blade of an energy sword crashing against a Metal Blood Blade?
It allowed for those five C-Vamps to be decapitated in a blur of blades. Their bodies collapsed into piles of bones, dust, clothes, and the stuff they had in their pockets like how a Common Holly of a Peasant Vampire would.
While the sixth vampire, he focused and started to glow a blood red. Red Hen noted, “The Fell Blood form of Elan Vital of Devilish Practise of a Devil Practitioner,” before she ripped the remains of the five dead Commoner Vampires the Vi from said Vampiric remains. She converted it from blood magic to light, to purify it with a flick and focus of her magicks. She twirled into a basic ready position, with each of her two Shield Swords both called Silver Spur, or together the Silver Spurs.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
She breathed out, for her to declare, “In the ancient words of my people, come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!”
The vampire roared forward with his sword in a two handed grip, as it glowed a brighter red and his aura of blood red flowed over him. And they both moved into blurs as they fought each other, people catching the after images as they fought.
[The Horrible Goose]
[Holdport] [Somerset]
[3rd Person]
Jaggedy Annie kept half an eye on the bullshit level of a fight going on between the lead vampire and her new friend who was awfully familiar to her. If not for the fact for someone who had been running around dealing with muggers and some organised crime, including one gang that had attempted a bank robbery. A gang who had gotten a hold of AK-47s somehow ...
Well she’d been in over her head as her investigation into the missing people in the docks was supernatural and she had run into actual bleeding vampires. Pun not intended by her. And now Red Hen was pulling off a whole other level of magical fuckery of her actual magic against the sword wielding vampire.
For Annie there were ten vampires left of the twelve vampires she’d been fighting, while another two were down from the slams of her new quarterstaff. Of what the magical silver had crashed into elbows and knees, the staff cracked them down to immobilise them. Even as she felt like a D-Listers Comic Book Hero who’d stumbled into a crossover with one of the A-Lister Comic Book Heroes and was dealing with a whole new level of absurdity.
What was strictly not a D-List and A-List comparison, it was the one she was making in her head about it.
What felt more like a realistic version of X-23 of Laura Kinney getting involved in some high end Iron Fist stuff mixed with events of what could happen in Blade ... and possibly something else. She wasn’t certain about the Iron First part, it felt right, but she did feel a bit like X-23’s powerset in a bit of some kind of vampire fiction. Just with the claws replaced with what were her bone creation powers. Of a D-List version of X-23.
She danced through the vampires though, and she made spikes of bone fly into the vampires as she twirled her quarterstaff. The HEMA (Historical European martial arts) group she’d gotten into at the University as part of her studying at Holdport Uni in the Engineering Degree she was doing? Well the HEMA lessons more than helped in what she was doing in her combat abilities, with both her ability to make bone constructs and her Healing Factor.
Added to by the teachings of the Bartitsu society of The Baker Street Irregulars, the group descended from the Sherlock Holmes group in London. How prior to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had gotten too much into spiritualism and such, said man had taken John Watson’s diary entries and helped compile them into being readable. As, yes, on The Earth of Universe Sierra-Hotel-1? The Sherlock Holmes stories were based on fact, unlike the ones of other Earths like ours.
What she had learnt of those bits of combat in the university courtyard helped her there and then. She was able to feel the energy, the energy she didn’t know was luck flowing through her. The good luck hadn’t needed to kick in just yet, while the bad luck of her enemies was working against them.
Not the great gaping bits of luck, it wasn’t how Red Hen fought or would assist her allies by fighting so. The more subtle bits of Forsphagy of the taking a chance of The Chancer Arts of the Luck Magicks.
So she danced through the vampires of what were Hollies. From the weapon she held came her bone spikes flew off the staff where she projected them off it she held as she fought against her vampire enemies.
One with a weapon which would work against them, as shown when she punched her currently temporarily borrowed Argyros staff through a ribcage. To make another vampire collapse into a pile of bones, clothes, dust, and all those items you would have found in their pockets.
She kept fighting regardless, as she watched the blur of a Vampire Practitioner of a Devil Practitioner against a Knight Practitioner of a Witch and Chancer. If you were to put it more simply, a Blood Adept vs a Knight. Or to put it simpler still, an Adeptus vs a Knight. It was, however, not a Devil against a Knight.
Blades crashed and smashed against each other, as the glowing green Shield Swords flashed into glowing silver. Of glowing white light, the glow of said light enhanced the mystical property of both silver and being sacred.
With the silver being a weakness of Commoner Vamps too, and for all evil vampires? An artefact, object, or such? It being sacred or holy is always going to be a weakness for them. While the Sparkle Fey, of Fair Folk cosplaying as Vampires due to Twilight? Being holy or sacred would burn those abominations too if you didn’t have the Fire And Lots Of It to deal with them in the way prescribed by Doctor Hibbert from The Simpsons.
For the Shield Swords? They truly became swords of Argyros, of the alchemical metal made out of silver. If you take into the fact they were still energy shields at the same time. Those swords danced against the blood red energies of The Blood Blade, as the Knight Practitioner glowed of what was Aura Armour or Knightly Armour of Argyros Armour? It glowed brighter, became more defined.
There was no techniques in square brackets or such depictions like it on The Internet. There was just a glow of brighter power, of what the red light tried to oppose, of the feather patterns around the glowing silver armour itself sharpened more so and blazed with more power.
It seemed to be a standoff, equal and opposite forces not cancelling each other out but not being able to overcome each other. Before there was a wrench of Forsphagy, the bad luck of everyone excluding the vampires in the building, in the surroundings of all the people outside the Nightclub.
With also all the bad luck generally around in the general magical fields of The Background of The Ambient? It was ripped out and channelled into the vampire Katie McCabe was fighting, to make him stumble and fall backwards. He also dropped his sword.
His hands were cut off in a flourish, and without his magical rings, with the sunlight coming off the swords? He was mostly brought down to normal, even if The Fell Blood Magical Martial Art made him still somewhat above an ordinary baseline. The Fell Blood Practice was a part of The Dark Arts though.
Not a reverse engineered and purified version of The Dark Arts. It was of the Twisted and Fell Magicks, of Warped and Depraved Magicks. The Holy and Sacred Light came off the Shield Swords and the Armour of Red Hen, it blazed and burned, it weakened the Vampiric Practitioner Art. It opposed the Devil Practitioner Art of a specific Vampiric Art.
The spokesman of the vampire was able to cough out, “Damn,” for it to be followed by a twirl of the pair of The Shield Swords happened to him. One decapitated the vampire, while the other punched through at the same time to spear right through where his heart was. With the Rowan Wood property needed to be a stake to the heart and the vampire collapsed.
Red Hen, or Katie Ivy McCabe, she blurred into motion and action to slay the surviving vampires in a surge of power joined by the classical effect of dead vampires. At least for most types of vampires, if there are other types of reaction for less common vampires being slain.
Jaggedy Annie had to ask, “The ancient words of your people are really, ‘come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough,’ or are you blowing smoke out of your—?”
Red Hen with a laugh interrupted, “Yes, those are ancient words of our people. Sacred words of our people,” she did a little mental thought. “If you’ll allow me to steal and modify a bit of a line from The Tenth Doctor: It’s an old British saying, Jagged. A phrase of great power and wisdom, and consolation to the soul in times of need.”
There was a roll of the eyes in return, and from said other hero the simple statement of, “You’re nuts.”
There was a little bow, and in response, “Guilty as charged,” for Red Hen’s swords of Silver Spurs collapsed. One of those swords went back on her belt and one in her Pocket Space. She reached out and all the slain remains of the vampires ended up in Pocket Space. Red Hen then had to meld two Doctor Who quotes together, “Now come along, Pond. We have work to do,” there was another eye roll.
For Red Hen to say, “Follow me, I have a little base where we can talk and get on with what needs to be done.”
Tara Evans had to try and object, “But the police—”
And Katie McCabe spoke over her, “—They have the recordings of all this going down, as does The Home Guard,” she gestured around to all the people recording, and a wave at the CCTV cameras in the Night Club in the corners of it. “And really, by the time they get here? A Home Guard investigation is going to be going on and it’s not going to be in their jurisdiction,”
The Home Guard being what was now the organisation to deal with Powered, Heroes, Villains, and Powered Criminals now in the modern UK. Not just The Supernatural as it had done since the end of World War Two for the UK.
Katie had to tell Tara, “You need some food and drink to recover, what I gave you early for the blood loss is not the only medical treatment you need tonight,” and Jaggedy Annie’s cousin changed it to another reference. “So come with me, if you want chocolate cake.”
There was a burst of laughter and Jaggedy Annie gave the verbal jab right back of, “Lead on, Sarah Connor. And how do you know I like chocolate cake?”
Red Hen explained simply, “I would say everyone likes chocolate cake, I’d be lying if I did use such an excuse. It is more the fact I have my ways, Jaggedy Annie. I have my ways,” She began walking and gestured for the other hero to follow her. There was a momentary sigh from the slightly taller woman, and The Powered followed The Magical.
