randomplaces | girlSam's Reality, outside Grand Forks, North Dakota

Done in chat log with

random_xtras and her gang..

She peered into the darkness, seeing farther and further than most human beings could. They had all just entered the abandoned asylum and were preparing to split up into pairs and attend to their posts.

The revants were there, milling about and doing what she could only assume to be their normal type of activity, swarming around as though looking for people. Looking for people to leach bad feelings out of, Leeroy had said.

Vanya found it all very strange.

"I count at least twenty," she muttered to the people beside her. "Is anyone seeing any different?"

Rob started and sidestepped, his shotgun coming up, as a swish and a slight flash heralded the apperance of a huge black man with bright blue eyes.

"Sounds right." The newcomer set a massive gun back against his shoulder.

Leeroy turned as well and looked at the man. "Who're you?" Despite the adrenaline rush of the recce, Leeroy could still recall clearly, and he most certainly did not recall seeing this man in the Cafe.

"Charlie Summers." Those slightly glowing eyes regarded the ruin in front of them. "Guardian."

"Summers?" Rob blinked. "Like Scott and Jean Summers?"

"My great grandparents." The big man smirked slightly.

Leeroy simply shrugged and offered his hand. "Leeroy Oboa," he grunted. "You know anythin' about shootin' at these things?"

"I know all about them." He gave the hand a strong clasp, then turned his gaze upward, one eye narrowing slightly. "I've been where they come from."

Rob quirked an eyebrow. "So you're some kind of superhero?"

"I'm a man." He looked at the boy, who was just shy of as tall as him.

"Fair 'nuff," Leeroy said. "This's Rob, Ellen, Zack, an' Vanya. Listen t' that girl, she's got expertise."

Bob's dog whined quietly, and Leeroy rolled his eyes. "And Neon."

"She's part of this," said the stocky man quietly, his humerous exterior having fallen away the moment they got here.

Charlie nodded to them all, a smile showing in his eyes as he looked at Rob. "I know. I've come across her before, though you probably didn't see me at the time." His eyes swing to Vanya.

Vanya nodded briefly in acknowledgement, but her attention clearly was not focused on banal things like introductions.

Her blood boiled. She itched for a fight.

"They know we're here," said Rob. "'N they don't like it."

Ellen looked at him curiously. "You sound like Sammy."

"Of course they know," Vanya breathed, staring as though transfixed at the whole lot of them. "Don't they feed off of human beings?"

"Pain, fear, hate." Charlie's eyes narrowed slightly. "Like Leeroy said, they don't usually go hunting like these have."

Rob frowned, but shook his head. He couldn't sense anything else.

Ellen glanced at Zack, who was hovering protectively behind them, his cat eyes focused on the filthy hallway in front of them.

"And you're surprised that a bunch of emotional humans have engaged their... ahem... natural curiosity?" Vanya smirked, looking just a little bit menacing with her red eyes softly glowing.

"Very little surprises me," said Charlie dryly. "There's something else here controling them."

"The thing that got Grandma?" asked Rob.

Ellen blinked.

"I doubt it," Leeroy said. "'S prob'ly somethin' else." He looked over at Ellen. "What's yer scope showin'?"

"These aren't connected to Sam," Vanya said quietly, hunkering down beside Ellen herself to get a good view of the scope the other woman held. "But they're connected to something else. A flashpoint... I can't make out very much else apart from the fact that whatever it was it was violent."

"It just shows they're there," said the grey-haired woman, frowning. "And that the loudest signiture is that way." She pointed.

"Neon's nervous," noted Bob. "So there's something big here."

Rob nodded. "Yeah. It's...." He broke off and put the back of his hand to his mouth.

Leeroy looked over at Rob in alarm. "Relax, b'y," he said in as comforting a voice as he could manage given the circumstances. "Jus' keep yer head on."

The boy glanced down at him, dark eyes haunted. -It's not a vision. I can feel that thing.-

Charlie shifted his weight to both feet and drop cocked the big gun with one hand. "Let's rumble."

Leeroy looked at Charlie ruefully. "We did have a plan in place," he began, but Vanya's look cut him off.

"We've engaged them," she said, pointing with her right hand. The titanium rosary she kept wrapped around that wrist dangled from side to side slowly. She raised the Jackal to her lips and cocked it with her teeth. "I'm with Charlie; let's get going."

And then Zack's gun roared as something flashed out of the wall toward them. Neon bayed and strained at her lead, trying to lead her master toward the spooks as she was trained. And Charlie vanished with another flash and swish.

Vanya simply vaulted herself out of the doorway and stood in the middle of the hallway, gun pointed in what appeared to be a completely foolish 'hey-attack-me-here' gesture.

"Come on then," she snarled.

There was a silence, during which the things that were present stared angrily at the intruders, or just wandered around dumbly.

Then something appeared with a yelp and fell into the thick of them.

"Granma!" yelled Rob, forgetting Leeroy's admontion to stay close and heading toward the pile of attacking spooks at a dead run, his shotgun roaring.

Vanya looked up.

Sam.

And then she seemed to disappear and reappear right beside the girl, letting loose her bullets and shooting revants who came too close, while shielding Sam with her coat.

"Don't worry," she said, wondering how the girl had gotten there in the first place. "Stay close and they won't get you."

One of them came up on Vanya's right side while her gun was otherwise occupied, snarling, and Vanya simply reached out and grabbed it. It twitched and exploded in a shower of black gunk.

"Oh goody," Vanya muttered, taking aim with the Jackal again. "Might be nice to have some help!" she exclaimed, wondering where everyone was.

They were coming. Rob was there in only a few more minutes, his shotgun butt smashing into the head of a creature that dared get between himself and Sam. Sam herself had her nine mils out and was firing even as she prayed aloud in a language that Vanya had never heard before, the words heralding a flare up of invisable light around the tall young woman.

Vanya smirked. "What do you know," she muttered, tearing apart another creature with her hand and sending another round through two more. "It would seem we're all fighting in the name of God."

Although it may have sounded mocking, Vanya's statement was accurate, at least where she was concerned. It had been Hellsing's mandate and it was still hers now.

Three more. The disgusting black goop was all over her and becoming just a little bit unbearable.

"How're we doing?" she asked Sam almost conversationally.

Sam replied in the prayer language, then shook her head and switched to English. "Son of a #$@%^&!"

Rob ducked a flying lump of masonary, his eyes widening. "It's the poltergeist!"

"Oh @#$%&," said Bob calmly as Neon howled.

Leeroy was still hanging back, using his own gun to shoot those revants who had gotten separated from the main melee. When Rob cried out, he looked around, wide-eyed, wondering where it could be.

Sam threw up her hand and deflected a lump of concrete or stone that was on a collision course with Rob's head, then grunted and toppled as another hit her in the back with deadly force.

Rob's eyes were wide, but he was praying, the Light alive around him even before he started. The revants, confused by his fear washing out past the sheild, went berserk. Neon's baying stilled abruptly. Ellen cried out in rage. Somewhere down a hallway Charlie seemed to be arguing with someone angrily even as his big gun shot liquid silver.

Vanya felt a chunk of concrete scrape painfully against her face, but she paid it no mind. "Where is it?" she snarled, whirling about. "It won't stay still."

A growl from Zack showed the big catman's anger as he rained distructon on the spooks around him, seeming nearly unfazed by the debris that swirled around him and occasionally richocheted off his head.

"Right above ye!" Leeroy called out, pointing for a split second toward the far corner of the ceiling before he trained his gun on another revant, splattering it across the wall.

Vanya looked up, and then down at Sam, who was oddly quiet. "Get up," she muttered, nudging the girl with her toe.

Rob whirled in the direction his grandpa had pointed, gun snapping up and roaring. The sound seemed to voice the angry pain in the teen's heart; an anger that was attracting revants like a magnet and interfering with the Light.

And then there was a sharpened stake flying right toward Vanya's chest.

Vanya just smirked.

And let it strike.

It did so, and she lurched forward, frozen, her mouth hanging open in a silent visage of pain.

"@#$%&!" yelled Rob, once more firing into the storm as it picked up in fury, the sounds of its winds echoed by the cries of the hunters as they tried to shelter themselves from the onslaught.

"Don't!" Sam pushed herself up and put up a hand to her head, only to grunt and go flat again as something else hit her.

Vanya hit the floor roughly, still utterly still and silent. The Jackal fell from her hand and skittered along the dirty floor.

"What the @#$% just happened?!" Leeroy exclaimed over the still-present din. "Why's she down?"

Rob flinched, stumbled, and crumpled as something hit him in the temple, his tall form falling over those of Sam and Vanya. Ellen glanced toward them from where she crouched over Bob and Neon, then resumed trying to ward off flying junk and protect her friend.

A low moan came from the middle of the pile of humans, and Vanya managed to work her way out from under Rob, the poltergeist's stake still through her. She got to her feet slowly and held out her hand. The Jackal flew into it with a resounding crack and she cocked the gun. She could see the damn thing now and she pointed her gun vertically, wrenching the spike out of her chest with a grimace. It clattered along the floor and Vanya grinned maniacally.

"Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum," she breathed, touching her lips to the cross of her rosary. Her finger tightened on the trigger and suddenly it seemed like she was completely invincible. Light flared. Nothing touched her.

Her eyes glowed. "Amen."

She fired.

Silence fell but for the moans of the last revant and the clatter of things hitting the ground.

Then Zack walked over deliberatly and knelt beside Sam and Rob, one of his own eyes glowing slightly red as he frowned around. "They're gone."

Leeroy stepped out from behind his postion, stepping on pile of black goop where a revant head used to be. He then ran towards where Sam and Rob were, turning to Zack and pointing at them. "How are they, though?" He gently straightened Sam out so that she was laying on her back, trusting Zack to do the same for Rob.

Vanya, meanwhile, was still staring transfixed at the ceiling. Her coat hung half-off her shoulder and the huge wound to her chest was slowly closing up.

"That's all of 'em?" Leeroy asked nobody in particular.

"That's all of them," rumbled Charlie, his voice harsh with anger as he walked into the room and over to where Ellen was closing Bob's eyes.

"Knocked out." Zack gently slapped Rob's cheek, his eyes watchful.

Leeroy frowned down at Sam and checked her pulse. Zack was right; she was simply unconscious and otherwise appeared to be fine.

Not totally unconcious. She groaned and stirred at his touch. -'Roy?-

"Don't worry," rumbled Charlie softly to Ellen as she fought against breaking down. "He's not dead."

"What?" The grey-haired huntress frowned at him, then started as Bob convulsed and curled onto his side.

"He's not dead. Neither is Neon." The big man gave her a gentle smile that looked out of place with his brusque nature, then got up and pointed toward the last revant, which vanished in a shower of black.

Sighing, he shouldered his gun and disappeared.

Leeroy smiled. "Where'd ye come from, eh? Thought Sam wasn't gonna let ye."

She squinted and blinked, then groaned again. "Crap. I was just walking into the Cafe."

"Shhh," rumbled Zack as Rob started to cry. "Everyone's alright."

Leeroy nodded and then looked over at Rob. "Yes, b'y, we're fine. Ye did well."

"He got mad." Sam frowned slightly, then looked down toward her feet and gently booted Vanya in the ankle.

Vanya jumped visibly, cocking the Jackal and training it on Sam before seeming to realize that the fight was over. "...What happened?" She looked from face to face.

"I have no idea," said Sam, putting a hand on Zack as he growled at the gun. "I busy getting to know the rug. 'Roy?"

Vanya lifted the Jackal up and away, taking the magazine out of it and hurriedly pocketing the entire thing.

"Ye shot it," Leeroy said to her. "It drove a stake through yer heart but ye got up n' shot it."

"Stake through her heart?" Sam rolled to her feet with the help of her TK and went to look.

Vanya looked down at herself. There was now nothing at all to indicate that anything had ever happened, save the small rip in her shirt. "Oh..."

"What happened?" asked Sam.

"We should get the bones." Bob pushed himself shakily to his feet.

Vanya looked at Sam. "I don't remember."

Sam frowned, but then shook her head slightly and looked around. "Bob's right."

Vanya nodded. "Y..yes of course. Do we know where they are?"

"Probably in the graveyard behind the building. If there are any others Neon can sniff them out." Sam turned and looked at her husband, thinking of the vision that had made them both so sick that morning.

Leeroy just looked back with a knowing expression on his face. "Are you wonderin' why I'se surprised yer here?"

"I'm surprised." She made a face. "I promised I wouldn't be."

"I knows," he said, grinning.

Vanya, meanwhile, had poked her head out of a blown-out window. "Yes. There's the graveyard. Shall we?"

Even as she spoke there was a faint rumble. Then battered crosses flew as the graves erupted into wells of white-hot flame.

Sam yelped and threw a hand up in front of her eyes, stepping back and running into Leeroy.

Leeroy caught Sam around the shoulders. "Guess that takes care o' that."

Vanya snickered. "Indeed."

"Let's get outta here," says Ellen warily, scowling absently at Bob as he puts an arm around her.

Leeroy nodded. "Yes, b'y."

"Need a ride?" Charlie was back, his eyes alight with the joy of mayhem.

"That'd be nice," he said with a shrug.

The big man nodded, then watched as everyone disapeared with a swish and a slight flash.