Darkness Rising

[Dust&Ashes]

{Setting for story will be Urban Fantasy, the intent of the story is about a Squad of Adepts who must trek through the woods during a blizzard to an isolated ghost town inhabited by Vampyres.}

{My character will be Travis, Order of Creators, a young man and native to the countryside who specializes in Biology, he's not quite a Veteran yet but he's been with the squad for several years now}.

The wind outside was whipping and howling at the car's windows, frozen mist washing back and forth with every swipe of the wipers. Travis could see nothing in the dimly lit snow ahead of him, straining his eyes as he might.

"Is this it?" one of his Squadmates asked, checking a map with dog-ears to see if he could locate their position.

"I have no idea," Travis tried rolling down the window a bit, causing gusts of freezing wind and snow to escape into the automobile. "Well, that's not going to work?"

"Did you guys just see that?" someone asked from the back.

"What?" Travis said, flicking the high-beams on, for what little good that did. It just made the dazzling array of snowflakes outside shine all the brighter.

"I swore I just saw something moving?"

Travis looked across the seat column at his other Squadmate, "What do you think? Should we get out and take a look?"

 

[DeistKnight]

Brian was in the Order of Travellers and across the column from Travis.

"I might have seen something, but I'm not sure."

"Go check it out," Travis said. He didn't slow down.

With barely a pop, Brian was no longer in the car, but standing outside in the freezing air and snow. "Nothing out here," he said looking around.

Brian teleported back into the car, right into his exact seat, "nothing that I saw."

"Okay," Travis said, "how ahead real quick and scout out the territory."

Brian leaped ahead half a mile and jumped back and forth, teleporting and not staying still so no one would attack him. He thought he might have seen something hunched over moving through the brush but when he jumped to the location there was nothing. Snowfall filled in tracks too quickly.

"I think I saw something," Brian said back in the car, "but I didn't get a good look at it."

 

[Dust&Ashes]

Travis stared for a moment outside at the swirling eddies of snow. Windshield wipers flashed back and forth a few times as everyone sat in the car, waiting.

Finally, after an exasperated moment of contemplation, Travis unholstered his sidearm and popped the driver's side door open. "We go ahead on foot from here, so stay together."

"Wouldn't it be safer in the car?"

"It's better if we're out here where we can see our surroundings. Let me be clear - I fully expect to get ambushed here tonight. If you guys want to head back that's fine, but we need to make up our minds right now and stick to it."

They debated a short while, it didn't take long for the Squad's sense of commitment to override all else.

Hulking out into the snow, the Adepts slowly but surely made their trek through the wintery countryside, heading towards town.

"Somethings following us, up the hill in the trees."

"I know," Travis replied, trying to pinpoint the stalker with his gun. Occasionally he could make out a flash of shadow, a darker mass against the blackness of the night, but the whipping snow guffs kept throwing his aim off or obscured the target for too long.

 

[DeistKnight]

Brian teleported to a small crest on the hill above from where Travis and the others stood with the car running. His fears were confirmed when several dark, bent figure turned to hiss at him with red glowing eyes and yellowed fangs.

One of the figures, the closest, leaped toward Brian, bounding through the deep snow with ease.

Brian popped back to the car in an instant. "We got company!" he called out.

Another member of the Squad called out as several black figures came rushing through the swirling gusts of snow and wind toward the parked car.

Travis gave an affirmative grunt as he took lead.

 

[Dust&Ashes]

Travis saw the first figure, a skeletal mass of tattered rags and leathery skin, come flying through the Gail towards the car. Reaching under his armpits, inside his coat, Travis pulled out a pair of guns and took aim - dead eyeing the creatures head.

With a terrible roar of a blast, the gun's muzzle spit fire and the creature's head snapped back impossibly far. But before Travis could smile, the head snapped back up again and the creature continued its pursuit.

"Oh my," Travis heard Brian say nearby as he popped out of spatial existence for a moment.

The other members of the group drew their weapons and once the creatures, now visible as vampyres with yellow fangs and glowing, red eyes, closed distance the fighting began in earnest.

Travis wielded his guns with expertise, snapping off shot after shot, firing into the torso, legs, and neck of any attackers. The original vampyre, the one he first shot, threw itself at him with its arms splayed, claws out, it's horrendous mouth roaring a savage howl.

Travis' years of training in guns had taught his body lightning fast reflexes, on tonight's occasion those reflexes came in handy. With a quick snap of his elbow and wrist in quick succession, Travis fired almost point blank into the creature's exposed maw. Blood and brain flew out the back, the creature tumbled to the ground, but it did not go down.

So Travis blasted it again, several times in the head. This time, the creature went down and stayed down.

Suddenly, a distinct 'pop' sound could be heard and Travis turned in time to see two more of the creatures crushed completely as a giant Oak tree cam crashing down upon them. The base of the tree appeared freshly cut.

"Where on the earth did you get that? Did you cut it yourself?" Travis asked incredulously.

"No," Brian said, "got it from California. Tree cutting service in the hills."

Brian zipped away again, probably to grab something else to throw at his opponents. Travis couldn't believe what a Travellers were capable of, but his attentions were jerked back to the present when a leathery monster of a vamp leaped on him from behind and drove its fangs into his neck.

Travis felt a distinct pleasurable sensation run throughout his body and remembered that some races of Vampyre possessed narcotic abilities. Their bite felt pleasurable, even addictive.

"Oh crap," Travis whispered aloud as the creature wrapped it's skeletal arms around him and tried to bite deeper.

 

[Trickster454]

"Hey Hag!" Andrew shouted as he shoved a burning torch into the face of the Vampire clinging to Travis. The Vampiress shrieked hideously as the flames quickly took hold, lighting up the dead, dried skin of the face, scalp and shoulders.

As the monster ran away burning into the wind, Travis stared at the torch in Andrew's hand. Right before his eyes the torch vanished, seemingly dematerialize in front of his eyes.

"Illusions," Andrew said, tipping an imaginary hat.

The Trickster walked off to continue the fight, leaving a dazed and confused Creator behind in the snow.

 

[Dust&Ashes]

The fight in the snow was more a pitched battle than anything coordinated. Haggard Undead leaped in the snow, trying to use their speed to outflank or surprise the Adepts from behind.

However, upon his recovery from the old Hag, Travis fought off any aggressors with his pistols, walking backwards in the snow until he reached the car. Holstering one pistol so as to free his hand, Travis popped the trunk's lid and reached in for a pair of magnesium flares.

"Let there be light," Travis mumbled softly as he bit the caps off and lit the ends, igniting the dead of night in brilliant luminescence. These were no ordinary flares, the area around Travis practically blew up with light. Vampyres on all sides worked feverishly to hide their eyes from the burning light, some running away or throwing themselves into the snow banks.

The Adepts wasted no time pushing their advantage, firing off into the night at their monstrous opponents, dispatching several more with blades and improvised stakes (usually a stick snapped form an overhead tree branch).

 

[DeistKnight]

Brian zapped to the top of a nearby tree. The wind rustled his clothing and left him feeling exposed and frozen, but from this vantage point he had a clear line of sight with the ground below.

The vampires were running away, right now that mattered most. Three of their number lay on the ground, not moving. Two more were wounded, dragging themselves through the snow to get away.

Travis has been bit in the neck and was woozy, but a team mate was bandaging him tight already. Brian himself had been slashed across the thigh and blood trickled down his leg. He looked down at the red running on his jeans and wiped at it absently.

Zap.

Brian was back amid the Squad, appearing from nowhere, stuck in the snow like everyone else.

Andrew was nearby, he nodded to his team mate.

 

[Trickster454]

Andrew always hated it when Brian appeared out of nowhere like that in the group. It always made him jump a little. The Squad was discussing whether to get back in the car or go ahead on foot. Travis said they should do both, so the rest of the team piled back into the car and started off at a slow crawl while Brian, Andrew and Travis kept along, eyes alert.

The town soon appeared around a final bend in the road. The snow was beginning to calm down and the figures of an abandoned shantytown welcomed them all. The buildings dated back a few decades, windows busted, doors hanging off hinges. Except for the wind, there was absolute silence.

A lonely gas station drifted by them as they moved slowly deeper into the village.

"Welcome to smallville, usa, population zero," Andrew said.

Travis whistled and pointed to a nearby building, then signaled to Brian. Brian understood and blinked away, returning a moment later.

"Figures moving in the shadows of the alleys and the forest line," he said, "human sized all of them."

 

[Dust&Ashes]

Travis fired the flare gun high into the wintery sky, the thousands and thousands of snow flakes falling to earth now cascaded as frozen droplets of blood. Or at least that's what they looked like.

In the back of the car, Travis had affixed a mounted rail gun with belt feeder and a convenient ammo crate had been welded into the side of the trunk compartment. One of the younger Adepts of the Squad was no standing in the truck, hands on the mounted gun, tracking the shadows and hunting for targets.

Travis stood vigilantly near the car, not too far that he was exposed, but not too near so that he gave the impression of timidity.

After a few moments, shapes appeared in the snow. Moving, lulling, grouping and sloughing off together. They were being studies, Travis knew that, as the red dints of inhuman eyes appeared, disappeared and then reappeared here and there. Vampyres were circling around them, trying to get the best track of them.

Let them, Travis has Brian stationed on a nearby building with something special they had cooked up just for the undead twits. If they tried anything, they'd bring the light of day to the middle of the night.

Ahead, coalescing more than appearing, a tall and gaunt figure with fingers far too long to be human walked slowly from the shadows. Judging by his emmaciated features and near pearlescent skin, this was one of the Elders who ruled the Vampyre Court here.

"What do you want?" the figure spoke in perfect and fluent English, with the sound of a healthy man in his prime. Travis was surprised at how different the Undead monstrosity sounded from how it looked.

 

[Dust&Ashes]

Travis gave Brian the order to fire, lighting up the night sky with the artificial, alchemical sunlight. The Vampyres writhed in horror as the skin burned from their undead flesh.

 

[Dust&Ashes]

[Okay, I think I made a mistake with this post, since the story is too usual and is all off. But hey - this is my first shot with the Adepts. So guys, let's try this again but with a proper story line for the Orders. I'll contact you guys later.]