Dave Was Here  

Anarchs and Alastors

AFTERMATH

This is a follow-up blog to this entry a few months ago.

After four months of play, the results are all in for the Anarchs and Alastors Storyline for Vampire: the Eternal Struggle. In the end, the reckless Anarchs won the most number of Tournaments and was declared the winning faction. Key vampires include the Nosferatu Toby, and the Ventrue Justicar and Alastor Lucinde. However it was the Sabbat Black Hand Seraph Yazid Tamari, through his Machiavellian undertakings, who was cited as the most critical minion by the most number of players.

Click here for the individual results and complete standings of the tournament.

Read along for an excerpt of the Anarchs and Alastors Aftermath Story. Full version here.

Dave

Yvette had never fit in anywhere in her life, and even in unlife, her sire called her "hopeless." She often wondered why she'd been Embraced. Her hair was wiry, her body scraggly, she wasn't filled with the ethereal beauty that graced most of the clan. She was feeling very sorry for herself, banging about in the trunk of a car as the anarch gang drove their way to Montreal.

They brought her out just before the border. A young girl with a blue mohawk, a ripped mesh shirt and black leather gloves dragged her up by the throat.

"She's a liability."

Yvette looked into the young girl's eyes over the tops of her mirrored glasses and froze. They were old eyes, very old, filled with power.

"No, Lucy." it was Germaine's voice.

Count Germaine took Yvette by the hair, turning her head to face him. "This one lives...for now." He really was very pretty when he wasn't twisting broken bones. Yvette felt herself drawn to him, almost like she was drawn to beauty, only this was more compelling, like when her sire...

Yvette's stomach twisted in anger. He was using the same power her sire had used to make her like him. Despite this knowledge, it was still working.

He brought her ear to his lips. "You're Lucy's new girlfriend. You're coming with us to go see a band play in Montreal. You forgot your passport at home  but you asked your mom to fax it in to the border guards and she did. Got it?"

Yvette nodded.

"Come on... girlfriend." The way she said it made Yvette shudder. Germaine was the asshole that broke her arm, but Lucy filled her with stark terror.

None of them had passports or ID, but all ID magically appeared electronically when they crossed the border. They didn't even have to Dominate the guards, although Yvette suspected Germaine's extremely likable personality didn't hurt. Five carloads of Kindred slid from one country to the other without so much as a confused flunky left behind. Yvette was impressed. They were obviously organized.

About half an hour after they crossed the border, a semi-trailer cut them off, dragging its "Danger - Flammable" load behind it across the highway. Germaine slammed on the breaks and the car skid sideways. The car behind them clipped their rear fender and careened into the tanker. The explosion rocked them as their car rolled into the ditch.

Germaine was out in a moment, grappling with someone. Lucy punched Yvette and opened the glove compartment, pulling out a wooden stake. She disappeared and the passenger door opened. Stunned, Yvette lay for a moment in the overturned car before scrambling through the shattered windshield. 

Germaine was crouched in the middle of four vampires. One took a swing at him and Germaine moved away, the claws of his aggressor ripping the back of his t-shirt. Another jumped while Germaine caught hold of a third, pulling the vampire in front of him and then twirling, leaving the two of them to collide. The fourth swung what looked like a shovel. Germaine stepped into the swing and twisted, his body blurring as he pulled his opponent in toward him. Germaine's elbow smashed into the Kindred's face as he tore the improvised weapon from his fingers and spun yet again to swing it like a baseball bat at the first vampire.

With a metallic twang the edge of the shovel took off the first vampire's head. The thick rippling ribbon of blood flowing out of the stump looked black in the fire and moonlight. The dull thunk of first the body, then the head hitting the ground was an eerie counterpoint to the fire and the yelling. Yvette stood, open mouthed as a Gangrel-like individual sent furry claws at the charismatic man. He took a step back and sucked in his gut. The claws caught and ripped off the rest of his shirt. Germaine punched through the open mouth of the snarling beast and his fist kept going through the back of its skull. The vampire turned to ash before her eyes. 

A couple of his downed opponents began to run away. Germaine turned, arms outstretched, shovel in one hand, blood coating the other.

"Is that all you've got?" he shouted, laughing.

His body shuddered with multiple quick impacts. Red holes appeared in the muscles of his back, dripping blood to obscure his swirling tattoos. He sunk to his knees.

"No." Yvette whispered. It was like watching a god die. Then her eyes widened as the holes sealed themselves. 

Germaine ran past Yvette so fast she could barely see him, but then a dark shadow stepped in front of him in the moonlight and she saw Germaine fall. Two of the other gang members ran after him but were riddled with bullets. Yvette ducked and rolled as more bullets shattered what was left of the glass on the upside down car. Not knowing why, she made her way to where she had seen the leader go down.

She found him under some bushes, a stake through his heart. She stopped a moment. He was powerful and she could kill him. She could drink and be more than what she was. Yvette stared at the patterns on his skin in the moonlight and whimpered. He was so beautiful. Watching him fight had been a rush like none she'd ever felt. He'd kept her alive when Lucy wanted to kill her. Maybe he saw some worth in her, something her sire no longer saw.

Yvette reached forward and pulled out the stake.

She heard a scream of rage and felt a bullet knock her down.

Yvette fell facing the clearing. Too weak to move, she saw two more enemy vampires run toward her in the light of the fire from the tanker. The closest stopped and started screaming. His blood began pouring out of him, through his eyes, his ears, his mouth. He began clawing at his own flesh. Yvette saw something under his skin bubbling as though his blood were boiling. He fell and began to flop about like a dead fish, blood seeping through his skin. 

A dark shadow shimmered between of her and the other Kindred. Yvette saw the flickering of steel and the vampire jerking about before the blur moved on and pieces of the Kindred fell with sickening plops on to the ground as the diced body fell apart before turning into little lumps of ash. Behind the body Yvette could see Lucy pointing a gun at the shadow, then she passed out.

She woke once again in the trunk of a car. Blood flowed down her throat. She sucked greedily at the wrist in her mouth and sobbed when it was taken away.

"That's all you get for now little snipe." Germaine said, rubbing his wrist and healing it.

He extended his hand to pull her out of the trunk and ruffled her hair when she stood. "Now we're even." he mumbled into her ear and gave her a gentle push toward the others. 

They were in a field. Several members of the gang were clustered around a large lump in the dark grass. One of them looked up at her, his mouth bloody.

"Moo." He wriggled his eyebrows at her and went back to drinking.

Yvette moved quickly to the spare place on the cow and sunk in her teeth.

Lucy was nowhere to be found.

"You're stuck with us now, snipe." a second one commented. "That was Sabbat that attacked us, but the stake, that's a cammi style thing, the sort of thing used when someone wants to claim a bounty, like the one on bossman's head."

Yvette looked up, shocked.

"Yep. Looks like you just got your ass excommunicated."

Her chest clenched.

"Welcome to the cult, little girl." 

Jan Pieterzoon forced himself not to fidget in front of Lucinde. Traces of blue hair dye remained but she looked almost like her usual suit-clad self, not at all like the mesh covered punk he'd seen when he'd originally found her the night before.

"So you thought it was a good idea to deliberately leak information to the Sabbat about the whereabouts of an anathema."

"Yes, it seemed a prudent use of resources at the time. Two birds with one stone, so to speak."

"Under whose authority?"

"It was a special request from Horatio Ballard. The cult was growing overly strong and we wanted to quash it without having it directly traced back to the Camarilla. After having taken such a large force from the Quebec Chantry to Montreal to deal with Helena-"

"Something you failed to do."

"Yes, due to unforeseen circumstances which are in my report."

Lucinde's face was youthful, almost child like, but her eyes... Jan remembered once being told that if faced by an angry gorilla, one should take care not to look it in the eye, lest it feel challenged and take off your head. That was how he felt now, avoiding the eyes of his Justicar.

"You will find a great deal of information about the cult and its workings in *my* report, Jan, including its connection with Helena. This matter is now your top priority."

Jan nodded.

"You will put all of your available resources to cleaning up after your mistake. I want heads on a platter. If I do not get them, I'll settle for yours."