Seras little snippet thread

"I am so glad I don't have to breathe anymore." I muttered, because sewers were gross.

"Why are the sewers even this large? I thought that was a movie thing?" Alice questioned as we looked through the massive stone arches that were somehow under LA.

"Kindred. Anytime something like this is so weird and confusing, blame the Kindred. More than likely when they first started building up the city a Kindred wanted some underground paths. Could be the Nosferatu in particular."

"I see." Alice muttered as she continued holding her shotgun ready. I had warned her about what was going to be down here after all.

Looking around myself I knew that I should really prepare.

Isaac had been kind enough to offer us his own herd to feed on so we would be ready when I mentioned we would need to eat first.

Isaac's young and pretty assistants had been happy enough to let us get some blood.

I of course ended up still quite low on the tank so to speak.

Which is why I really needed to do something to make sure I wouldn't burn a lot of blood down here.

Looking at my seven xp points, I had gotten another two after returning the quest to Isaac and walking out the door.

I had some options…

Oh who was I kidding. I dumped five points into Craft.

The world tilted and I nearly fell sideways if not for Alice quickly grabbing me and steadying me, I might have fallen right over.

"Vicky?"

"I'm… Okay. I'm okay." I shook myself. The download had been insane.

"What happened?"

"Sorry I just…" I thought about what to say before coming up with the perfect lie. "I basically just stretched an old skill and it caught me off guard. You ever stretch really good and then get all loose after?" I asked, happy at how truthful the words sounded.

"Yeah?"

"It's like that, but with old skills and knowledge. Don't worry about it. You'll forget things after a few centuries too." I explained and then I stretched, arms wide and made a nice groan at the feeling.

Then I clapped my hands, and burned a bit of blood, "It'll be nice to be properly armed again. I'd almost forgot how to do this." I added and then in a moment, my Bloodstained shadow flowed over me, Alice leaping back in response to the sudden motion.

Fuck it. If this was my first true Magical girl transformation, I should make it right! I twirled around as the armor formed over me. At Craft 10, there was no issue remembering every single piece of the armor. Exactly as it should be.

I was fully in the level of Plot Device now. I could craft as well as the gods!

So of course when it was done. I opened my eyes and looked to Alice, and saw her take a very hesitant step back.

There were no more bulges, or badly designed plates anymore.

It was perfect. It fit my form like a glove, the armor giving me a bit more heft that turned my teenage body into one of a warrior. A set of plate armor dark as midnight, that seemed to flow with shadows as you stared at it, despite it being metal, and almost glowing red blood pulsing around it, as if the blood had corrupted the dark plate.

My gauntlets ended in claws, my boots looked like the clawed feet of a beast. The armor followed all the way up my neck, protecting me against any dummy that wanted to tear into me, and it flowed into fangs, or spikes that kissed my cheeks. Only my hair and face were visible, every other square inch of me was covered. It even had a cute skirt!

Of course I had stolen most of the design from Saber Alter, but no one would know that but God, Caine, and I!

"That's better." I said and then because it was required I struck a pose for Alice. Two fingers open over my right eye, which was the only eye still visible with my eye patch cloth. "How does it look?"

"W-what is it?'

"Armor! Really you modern day people forget how useful a good bit of armor can be!"

"No I mean… What is it?"

"Oh, it's a Discipline called Regalia." I explained casually. "It's not a Discipline the Camarilla could teach you." I added with a smirk, but the girl just kinda nodded, and I remembered.

Revenge of the Sith hadn't even come out yet, that reference was completely nonsense!

"Anyway, It's a method of turning Blood and your own shadow into armor and weapons."

"Sounds useful."

"It is! It's so cool! It's like my favorite Discipline! Which makes sense since I made it!" I said hands on my hips and looked proud.

"You made a discipline? How does that work?"

"I wanted it really really hard, and then it became a thing." I said and then smiled at her, to show I was teasing.

She didn't quite pout at my answer, but she was totally pouting.

Deciding the best way to move forward was to ignore it. I pointed down the sewers! "Let's go!"

I stomped off marching happily before Alice called out to me.

"I think that's the wrong way?"

Spinning on my toes, earning a slight shrieking noise of metal on concrete I turned and stomped happily in the correct direction!

—--

"You got it! It's all in the hips!" I called out as I watched Alice blast another meatball into ground beef.

"Was that a Happy Gilmore reference?" She demanded and I decided it was funnier to adopt a confused look.

"What's Happy Gilmore? Alice, you have to remember I'm super old. If it doesn't have to do with anime I probably never heard about whatever pop culture thing you are talking about."

"That makes no sense! Why do you like anime so much anyways!?" She screamed but mostly because another Meatball had popped out of a small hole and she fired three times until it stopped moving.

"Anime is the greatest form of media since… Ever!" I called back. Sure I was here to make sure Alice made it through the sewers in case something I had done changed things, but this was still for her.

She needed this to grow. So I was mostly just trailing behind her, and letting her be the tip of the spear.

Alice was pretty thorough though. I hadn't even had to draw a blade yet.

"This is so stupid!" She screeched and spun her shotgun around to smack a meatball out of the air. She had run out of ammo.

Drawing a .38 special she fired all six rounds into it before it could get up, but it was still rising as she walked over and with a fanged snarl started bashing the Meatball into mulch.

I walked up closer to cover her back as she started quickly reloading her shotgun, and then since I was there, her .38 as well.

"You could help you know!"
"I could, but this is your task. Don't worry. I'm your backup, but you got this."

"I don't feel like I got this!"

"Why? Look at what you've done so far? You're doing great!"

"Whatever." She grumbled, reloaded, and stomped off, shotgun leading the way. A few moments after turning a corner up ahead, she came back around it scrambling at full speed and swearing.

Then around the corner came the first of the bigger Tzimisce creatures Alice had come across. Szlachta if I remember the term correctly. Basically they were upgraded Ghouls.

If the Vohzd was a dozen Ghouls put together into a War Ghoul siege weapon. These were just the normal guards.

Still scary as fuck though with a massive claw for an arm and some goofy discipline magic.

"Better fire!" I called out, and Alice shrieked at me, as she reached me and spun around, firing the shotgun wildly.

"FUCK OFF! I didn't sign up for this!" She shrieked, but I noticed with interest, while she was reloading she flung a Blood Strike. The blood missile slammed into the creature, damaging it, and returning with vitae, as she finished reloading and fired at it again as it charged.

She unloaded into the Ghoul a second time as it charged, and it was only on her last few shots that it fell sliding on the ground, its momentum carrying it closer before it slid to a stop.

"Fuck!" Alice yelled and kicked at its deformed fleshy head. "Just fucking die!"

"They are pretty tough." I agreed and she looked at me with a glare.

"Help next time!"

I held up my hands as an apology as she seemed to take a breath and then start reloading.

She was running low on ammo.

I followed along as she took the corner and looked around, only to realize the direction was a dead end anyways.

"I fucking hate this place."

"Sewer level is the worst." I agreed with her, but my kernel of wisdom wasn't well received.

—--

We had made it far into the sewers, and more and more of the Meatballs and Szlachta had started appearing.

In the game there had been a lot of monsters to fight sure, but it was mostly in like ones or twos.

We started finding teams of Meatballs ten or more thick, and I had no choice but to help.

"There's one behind you!" I called out from far behind and Alice screamed as she turned and beat it out of the air.

She had run out of shotgun shells a while back and had resorted to blood buffing and using her Shotgun as a club.

If I didn't know better I would think she had gone into Frenzy with how she was screaming…

No wait I think that actually was Frenzy… No she was cursing still, not a frenzy.

Eh, she's got this.

The last Meatball died and she was left there panting despite not needing air, as she looked around for more foes.

"You okay?"

"NO!" She screamed. "I've been fighting these fucking things for hours! Stuck in a sewer for hours! And I smell like I took a dip in sewer water! OH WAIT!" She shrieked and I nodded.

"Yeah, the smell is pretty rough." I admitted. I had agreed to this, so when we came to the segments we had to jump in, I had done so.

Much to my own regret.

"The least you could do is help!"

"I'm helping Alice. Honest." I was. Even if most of what I was doing was just shouting encouragement, I hadn't been entirely idle. A few Meatballs had been destroyed with my own Blood Strikes.

I had actually gained some blood down here despite spending some on my armor.

The fact was, I was going to need it.

"Do you hear that?" I asked. And Alice stopped gasping, going silent so she could hear.

There was a scream from ahead of us.

"Yeah." She muttered and hurried off.

I chased after her, and watched as she opened a door that was ahead of us.

There inside a large room was a… Cop.

Ah, I knew this room.

"Hey you okay?" Alice called, and before I could even move, it was already too late. A hand reached down and swiped the cop into the vent above him.

And then the Vohzd landed on the ground holding chunks of dead cop and screamed at us.

"Oh fuck." Alice whispered and I nodded.

Fuck indeed.

I started forming my blade knowing I would need to help here, when it reacted the War Ghoul threw the half a corpse at us full speed.

Celerity helped, and I stepped to the side dodging it, as Alice was forced to leap to dodge it.

And then very quickly the Vohzd charged.

Alice had burned through most of her ammo by now, yet she snarled and reacted. Grabbing a knife from her hip she went in.

Snarling, Blood Strikes flying Alice went to work, weaving around as best she could to avoid the monster's massive wide sweeping attacks.

She was acting like I wasn't even here, which did hurt my feelings a little. I hadn't wanted to think she couldn't rely on me at all…

I moved, blurring past Alice, with a bit of Blood Buff to push my Dexterity higher, and then as the Vohzd swung, my blade was there, cutting through its reinforced flesh like it wasn't even there.

Because what rested in my hands was a Masterwork.

Blood and Shadow forged by the greatest smith in the entire world.

I was going to be a bit arrogant about this too!

Rank 10 crafting was a level beyond the norm. Even if I forged with just steel and leather, my projects would be beyond human. Magical for their purity of their creation.

What rested in my hand was a magical blade, blood and shadow forged into something never before seen.

Two more swings and a flourish, two steps past the creature and it simply slumped, its body split entirely in twain twice over, it quickly burned to ash as it realized it was dead.

"What?" Alice gasped as I took a few more steps and then turned to look behind me at her.

"Don't worry, I said I would have your back. I meant it." I said gently, and flicked my blade, the blood sliding from it splashed away with just such a simple movement.

"How do I get one?" She demanded before I could say anything else, pointing at my blade, and I laughed.

"It's part of my Discipline childe but, huh." I considered it. Nothing about my Discipline said I had to use it myself.

I reached into my shadow and a moment later pulled free something else.

A greataxe. Sinister and begging for blood. It practically dripped menace as it came free.

Yet the Bloodstained Shadow stuff it was made of was perfect. Gleaming and straight.

A blade I would be proud to use myself.

"Here." I threw it and she grabbed it out of the air with only a bit of fumbling.

"There's going to be more of those ahead."

"Good." She decided after a moment of looking over the blade.

Hehe!

—--

"Raaa!" She roared as she slammed the axe into another Vohzd, nearly cutting it from head to… Well crotch wasn't the right word.

But the Axe ripped out from the flesh without effort, and she swung again, cutting it entirely in twain.

While I stepped forward and cut the Meatball that had leapt at her back in half.

"How! How many of these things are there!" She roared as she swung down at another Szlachta, the Ghoul having charged with it's spike claw onto be struck like an obstinate tree and felled with just as much aggression.

"An armies worth." I called out. The Sabbat were pretty known for hitting a city with overwhelming force.

Between these creatures in the sewer already pinning the Nosferatu down, and the Sabbat mass embracing, and just their targets not working well together… Anarch and Camarilla weren't quite at war, but weren't close either.

If Alice hadn't been here, I had a feeling LA would have been Sabbat territory.

I shrugged it off. Caine obviously had some plan here.

But with just how much Tzimisce meat constructs we had torn through, I now understood just how the Nosferatu had been pinned away in their little cave.

Then, almost anticlimactically, we turned a corner into a large room that I recognized.

"This is the entrance to the Nosferatu warrens." I told Alice and she perked up.

"Wait… Does that mean we're done?"

"Seems so." A raspy voice called out right behind us. Alice flinched, axe raised, but I had swung as my swordswoman instincts demanded.

"Fuck!" The voice cried out as it hit the floor and I turned to see a Nosferatu woman prone with her arms up. "Don't kill me! I'm on your side!" She begged and I took a breath and exhaled.

"Sneaking up on someone, foolish." I told her, but I didn't point the blade at her anymore.

"Tell me about it. Sometimes forget…" She grumbles and rises up to her feet slowly brushing herself off. "Thanks for taking care of the crawlies. Been hitting them from the shadows for nights now."

"Who are you?" Alice demanded then, glaring fiercely. Although the horrifying black axe in her hands might have been a good part of that.

"Mary." The Nosferatu introduced herself. "And you're LaCroix's puppet. The brand new Fledgling… So what did they feed you exactly, Werewolf blood? Cause you're a fucking meatgrinder. Shouldn't be that strong. Did you used to be a Ghoul? Some merc or something?"

"I studied Ballet for a few years." She answers instead, and Mary goes silent before laughing a rasping discomforting sound.

"That's hilarious. Alright, Scary Fledgling and Scarier Elder. Thanks for the help… You're here to talk to Gary?"

"We are." Alice says and the Nosferatu shrugs. "Let's open the door then. Not like there is much out here we need to worry about now. Carved through half a state worth of fucking monsters between the two of you." She grumbles but we both follow.

The massive door on the ground opens as she enters something into the computer, and presses a button.

"Watch your step." She calls and leaps into the hole.

"So… We just jump?"

"Wouldn't be the first time tonight. C'mon." I grunted as I took a step and let myself fall into darkness.

A few moments later I hit water and sank like a stone. Crashing into dirty stone at the bottom in seconds. With a flash of Auspex in the near pitch black light I could see and started stomping forward. Even as I saw Alice splash above me and move forward.

By the time I crawled out Alice was already wringing out her clothes.

"Gary is down that way. You shouldn't keep him waiting." Mary offered, and I trudged a few steps before sighing, as water continued to flow out of my armor.

It disappeared into my shadow in a moment, leaving a bunch of water to splash across the floor.

And I stepped back to let Alice lead.

She marched down the way towards Golden Gary's room.

Inside was a table with three corpses, and… An array of dead rats on plates. Gary certainly liked setting up his introduction.

"By the Clack-smack cracking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." A rough voice called out from everyone and nowhere, Alice jumped, Axe held out like she was going to start swinging, and I wasn't about to deal with this either.

"Gary. I need a shower, and I'm in no mood to listen to your trolling." I demanded at the air.

"Why Boss! Leaving so soon? We were just getting to the good part. Or, maybe I'm just a whoa hey!"

Gary wasn't listening so I walked over and levered my sword over my head aiming to smash it down on his table.

"Now now! No need for that boss!" He appeared arms up to ward me off.

"Gary. I like you, never saw your movies, but I like movies. Now please. Open the back way so I can get out of here. Now, I smell like a sewer," I demanded, and the nosferatu sniffed a bit and flinched.

"That you do Boss, very well. I'll open the way… Although if you already knew about it, why come in through the sewers? And how did you learn about it at all?"

"The Tzimisce crud needed to be cleared out anyways." I answered back truthfully, and then Alice spoke up.

"Wait… You knew about a back way?"

"I did. And to answer your other question? A birdie told me about it." I teased the Nosferatu. "Now. I'm leaving." And I did just that, walking through Gary's room to the rear door.

I stopped just before entering though.

"Alice. I'll see you later, call me if you need help." Then I disappeared. Ignoring the faint conversation behind me.

Alice would get her info, and head to Chinatown. But me? I needed to go somewhere with a shower and enough soap to drown myself in.

The sewers really were the worst level.