2013-11-22 - SDR: On Hunting Vampires, A Video Lesson

SHIELD safe house. Old Victorian style home, south Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2:00pm local.

Four open pizza boxes lay revealing their steaming contents on the dining room table, along with several full and mostly full two-liters of soda and a stack of paper plates. The painting--some impressionist piece of flowers and trees-- that had been hanging on the dining room wall has been pulled down and tucked to the side, the now-bare wall functioning as a large tactical computer and video screen.

The curtains are drawn tightly-- the fabric looks normal, but functions as not only a light-blocker, but a sound-blocker to the outside. The china cabinet's bottom cupboards are open, revealing ammunition and gear.

The sound of running water from the adjacent kitchen cuts off, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing, and the clinking sound of ice being put into glasses. After a few moments, Agent Grant Ward reappears into the dining room/operations center, carrying four glasses with ice in them. Looks like someone drew the short straw.

A video camera, taken from the vampire's lair, lays on the table in front of Clint Barton, next to a few other pieces of evidence. The blood-tainted evidence is sealed in plastic bags, already having been DNA tested earlier; the Deputy Director's wallet lay beside the pile of other things gathered from the lair.

Clint picks up the camera and fiddles with the buttons. As he does he looks up at Ward "Gotta say Ward, you've really embraced your role as Fury's least favourite person. As the previous holder of that position, I'm impressed," he jokes before plugging some cables into the camera so that the feed will come up on the monitors. "Okay going to press play on this thing if this is vampire porn, Cap, I apologize in advance." Phil sits at the table looking over a map of the theme park. the edge of the bandage on his neck visible. Back in a suit and tie, He looks up at Ward as the younger agent enteres the room, but says nothing and Phil is soon looking back at the map, using a pencil to mark and circle various parts of it, scribbling some notes here and there. Clint's remarks cause a brow to be raised.

Agent Ward sets the glasses on an empty patch of nearby table, keeping his usual stony face intact at Clint's joke. He does grab one of the bottles of soda and pour himself a glass, setting the bottle aside and plucking up the glass to take a sip as he turns his attention to the video screen.

"Heh," Clint says. "Tough room," he says and presses the play button on the video camera.

The video takes a moment to play, and from the beginning, too, it seems. A man's voice, speaking Vampiric, can be heard-- probably the camera operator. The film comes into focus on the blonde from the Dungeon-- Chastity. Only, she is pale, frightened, with dark sunken eyes--and very human. Her throat and arms are bruised, and she is tied to a chair.

"Please... just let me go," she pleads. "Just let me go, I won't tell anyone, I swear."

Another male voice responds to the first, as if ignoring the girl's pleading, though in French. It takes the computer a moment, but subtitles appear on the bottom of the screen, a half-heartbeat delayed. ""

There is some more fiddling with the camera, and the shot bounces some, as if the camera holder is trying to set it up somewhere. " the first voice responds back in French. ""

Editor's note: #### are unintelligable words in Vampiric.

Then, a young man, dark haired but not overly tall, comes into view. He speaks, revealing himself to be the second voice. "" Chuck says. ""

The first voice chuckles darkly, and the girl in front of the camera begins sobbing. "Ah, family videos," says the first voice in English. "Don't cry, pet. You are about to be born." He moves now, revealing himself to be a tall, handsome young man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes-- Derek, who Agent Ward would recognize. "" he says to Chuck.

The girl weeps more, as Chuck runs a hand through her hair, then grins at the camera, fangs extending.

Phil watches the video and frowns, "Whatever that word, it seems that making it is restricted to the this 'Father'." The agent is not made squeamish by the video, "But perhaps there is something more to this."

Steve frowns as though he's listening to the video and not watching it. He's paying attention to the subtitles, "I want to see it again." He shrugs, "I'm not sure, it's not any language I know. Maybe Slavic in nature? But it translate true enough."

Ward's cool facade does crack a little as he watches the video. The faint flicker of a scowl flits across his face, and there's a tension in his jaw that the sharp-eyed would likely notice as the clenching of teeth. When Clint asks his question, Ward shakes his head, "Don't know, but it wasn't French...didn't sound like anything I've heard before. Even the French they -were- using wasn't normal. More archaic than modern French." He considers a moment, "Anyone know if Vampires have their own language?" Too bad Blade decided to keep his hunting personal, though no doubt he's taking care of business. Guy didn't seem like he wasn't focused, that's for sure.

"Really, again?" Clint asks and "Yeah I guess that the vampires having their own language makes sense," he says as he rewinds the tape then when he hits play he stands and ducks out of the way of the screen. "Ward you're on video detail, I need to take a leak," he says as an excuse to leave the room.

"Let's see what we can get." Phil says, pouring the contents of one of the two liters into his cup, "Last thing we need is to miss something important." When it replays, he says, "Wait, could ######### be vampire? That lady looks familiar, so maybe that this 'Father' guy wants to control who becomes a vampire."

"Or it could be "Children."" Ward opines, "The context of the conversation might point in that direction, but we don't really know their culture well enough to make a definitive judgment." He hits "pause" again once the scene ends again, then looks to Cap before continuing the video.

Steve Rogers nods, "Trying to look at from an Analyst eye. Trust me this is not something I ever want to watch for fun." He sits through the video. "Is there anything we can recognize from locations we've been too?" He hmms, "Yeah it is Archaic French."

Play is hit again.

Chuck bends down, tilting Chastity's head to the side. She struggles futilely to pull away, but his teeth sink in, and she freezes, her eyes wide, paralyzed. He drinks. And drinks. The girl begins to swoon, her eyes fluttering closed.

Derek leans against a nearby table and brings a hand to his mouth, yawning. ""

Chuck pulls his mouth back from the now unconcious Chastity. "" He grins, his fangs blood-flecked, his cheeks flushed and rosy.

"" Derek replies in a bored tone. ""

Chuck casually brings his wrist to his mouth, gashing it open with his teeth. "" Derek seems to perk up, and he moves over, sinking his teeth into her neck o the other side and drawing a last couple of mouthfuls before letting her go. Chuck nods at Derek, then brings his bleeding wrist to her lips, letting the red liquid splash against her mouth.

"" A stern, measured voice comes from off-camera.

Both the boys stop and immediately drop to their knees. "" they say as one. An older man, perhaps in his early to mid forties, comes into view, eyeing the dying girl. There is a moment of silence, then he gashes his wrist, forcing it to her lips, and gesturing to Chuck to do the same, his wrist sliding over to allow room. Chuck does so obediently. For a few moments, the blood simply runs down the girl's face and neck and drips onto her lap. But then, her jaw ripples in movement. A swallow. And another, and it is obvious that she /is/ feeding. After a few minutes, they both pull their wrists away.

The older man looks at them both. "Name her Chastity," he says quietly, giving them both the same look and tone a father might give his sons if they had been caught borrowing the car without permission. "And give her to Charity to care for. And if I ever catch you adding to the family without permission again, I will put you in the cells. Are we clear, my sons?"

They both look down at their feet, looking more like misbehaved teenage boys-- except for the splashes of blood on their clothing, they might be. "Yes, Father," they say simultaneously. Behind them, the girl twitches, moaning in pain.

"" the man says with no small amount of irritation. "" He turns and walks out.

Phil nods at Ward, as it seems whatever it means, they were right in that this Father figure was in charge. It also seems that we came across one of the more rebellious groups in this family. But, this guy has to be mean and tough, got our work cut out for us."

"The bored one is the one that took Natasha." Ward notes, "Derek." He considers a few moments, still looking a bit discomfited by the video, "This is..." He shakes his head, "Like the vampire version of videotaping a birth." He pauses a moment, "This "father" of theirs seems somewhat hesitant to create more. So the question is: Did Derek do this on his own, or was it at their father's instruction this time?" He shrugs a shoulder, "Not that it matters overly much at this point."

Ward adds, "But there's some possibility that the vampires don't even really know who they have."

Steve Rogers shrugs, "Yea.. Well they might have a clue. I mean they were baiting us after all at the last site. They had Clint set up." Which he holds up a hand, "Which could have just as easily been Coulson or me."

"Well, more specifically they may not have known at first." Ward shrugs, "Though it's just as likely they did."

Clint comes back in and seeing the video still going he frowns. "I hope they know who she is, that means they took her for a purpose, not just food or a new friend," he nods to the screen.

There is a bit of blank tape, and then the next section opens with a snarl of rage. "Let me go, you !" Natasha's voice is heard off-camera. The frame is focused on the wall of the room they had found the camera in for a few moments before being moved and refocused on the red-headed SHIELD agent. Derek is beside her, checking the straps that bind her very firmly to the metal table. Her arms are strapped to her sides, each hand secured firmly with ducttape, immobilizing her fingers and thumbs. She has been stripped to just her underwear and bra-- her garments lay in tatters on a nearby chair, two guns, four knives, and her wallet laying on top of the Bruises are visible clearly on her neck, shoulders, and arms. She snarls again, bucking against the straps, the metal table moving and knocking the chair, her wallet dislodging and falling to the floor.

Derek laughs, looking at the camera. "" he asks the operator. "<Do we /have/ to give her to that dirty commie asshole? I think I want her for myself.>"

Chuck's voice comes from off screen. "<I'm not crossing father on this one. His decision. He should be here any moment, and if he wants to make her family, then I'm for it-- but if he gifts her to the fucking Russian, that's his choice.>"

Phil listens to the next one and shakes his head, "Shoot. I will need to send this bit of info on to the director. If there is a third party involved, he will need to know as soon as possible. It won't change our mission, but we will need more info." He sips at the soda in his cup. "But this does complicate things."

Steve Rogers frowns, "Well that would explain why they took her. A peace offering or gift to another." He frowns, "Russian Vampire or simply somebody the Vampires are in league with."

"Cross reference it with Incident Report November Oscar 10364 Agent Coulson." Agent Ward comments towards Phil, "That would be an attempted kidnapping I stopped the day before Natasha was taken." He leans forward, looking intently at the screen, "I had thought that Sawyer Mason was the more likely target on that attempt, but mentioned the possibility that it may have been Natasha in the report. Could be this Russian has more than one pack of dogs sniffing around."

Clint leans against the wall, arms crossed. "So, the Frat-pires, there are working for someone else, this Russian guy?" he asks with a frown and a shake of his head. "Nat, what have you got us into," he wonders aloud.

A whisper of wind, and the stern voice intones, "Sons. I see you retrieved the package for me." He smiles. "Hello, my dear. I am Jean-Phillipe... your host for now." His voice is genial, and he smiles... though there is more than a hint of predator in his bearing. "Can I get you anything? Water, food?"

Natasha glowers at him. "You can set yourself on fire, you demon-spawned bastard, and die slowly."

The older man shakes his head. "Ah, Ms. Romanova. You put me in a quandry-- you see, I think you would be an excellent daughter, yes? But I have another problem that turning you over to a Mr. Renzhkov will solve." He steeples his fingers, looking at her sadly. "What to do?"

"Renzhkov is /dead/," Natasha snaps. "I put the bullets in his head myself."

Derek leans down, biting into her neck and feeding for a few moments. Natasha's eyes widen, but she does not move. Derek leans back, licking his lips, then replies, "Bullets do not do much damage to our kind. Painful, annoying, but ultimately survivable."

Jean-Phillipe gives Derek a pointed look. "Yes, well, my son is right. I am afraid you did very little to him but annoy him-- and he wishes to return the favor. So I am at an impasse. Do I keep you, and have to deal with that... ... in my city, feeding on /my/ cattle... or turn you over to him and let him feed from you, turn you, kill you-- whatever it is he wants with you." He rubs his chin.

Natasha does not move, her eyes flitting between the three vampires in the room. "Let me go, then," she says. "I will kill the bastard again and be done with it."

The vampires all laugh. "Do you really think I do not know you will simply come back and kill me, then? Or try to... and likely hurt my children in the process. No. You will be one of my children, or one of his, or dead. I am simply trying to determine whether you are more dangerous under his control or mine." Jean-Phillipe smiles. "Do not worry, dear. My sons will take good care of you, yes?" He gestures to Derek, who grins, and then leaves.

"<Keep shooting, Charles,>" Derek says. "<Father /will/ keep her. And we will want to be able to remember this.>" And his head dips down into Natasha's neck again.

Phil grabs his tablet and is in the process of looking over the case file when the video rolls again, this time in English. "This is bad. But it means that they are not going to turn her over until they have a decision. That or the theme park is where they will do the turnover." He scowls and reviews the case file.

Clint's stomach turns as he watches the video, though this time he doesn't turn away he just lets the faces of the vampries burn into his memory. "I say we let Blade do the hunting, see if he can find these assholes first. Meanwhile we put eyes on that park to watch for the exchange." Steve Rogers frowns, "Jean-Phillipe? I know that's a common French name but I wonder what that would turn up among the movers and shakers among this city both legit and criminal. Hmmm.... Renzhkov? That's a name to run too."

Ward pulls up his communit, plugging in Renzhkov's name and commenting, "Renzhkov was a Soviet Politician from the Ukraine that Deputy Director Romanov is noted as having assassinated several years before her defection." Ward reports, "Looks like we'll need to update that file. There isn't really any detail, but that's not unusual in and of itself. The Berlin Wall may have fallen but there are still a lot of skeletons the Soviet regime left stuffed in closets that we don't know about."

"And it seems like one of those skeletons is a vampire," Clint remarks as he pushes off the wall. "I am going to go check out this amusement park, but I'll be on comms and if we get an idea where Renzhkov is or where this Jean-Luc, or Jean-Phillipe or whatever his name is, give me a call." Then Clint is heading out the door.

Phil nods, "Well, the fact he is now a vampire is a problem. While I doubt we can get any direct aid from SHIELD in time, Director Fury will need to see if there is anything that can be done, perhaps actions taken elsewhere." He sips at the soda, "But we are dealing with some dangerous things then, especially if this Jean-Phillipe views him as lesser."

Steve Rogers listens, "Well objective is to locate Natasha and retrieve her. We can eleminate the vampires later. Does SHIELD have any more operatives that is more suited for this operation?"

"Well, the superiority complex could be more in terms of culture or faction than actual power levels." Agent Ward notes, "Not that these things aren't plenty dangerous regardless, and with this third party involved we may be facing more opposition than we anticipated." Ward looks to Captain America and considers, "I'm not sure we do, really. Occult and Supernatural affairs are the kind of thing that we usually have to look for outside help on. Hard to convince the bureaucrats that it's a legitimate threat sometimes, and the types of people that specialize in it often...aren't the type to join government agencies."

"Considering our anti-vampire kit was removed, that seems to be the prevailing opinion at SHIELD," Phil scowls, "We have what we have, but Blade will prove to be /very/ useful in any fight. It is why we brought him on." He taps the table. "But we can augment what we have for resources."

Steve Rogers nods, "So it sounds like Clint doing recon sounds good. We get Natasha back. We capture or kill the bad guys. We might look at armplated neck covers?" He smirks but only half way.

"I'll get to work on more of those silver-garlic bullets." Ward notes, "Last thing we want is to run out of ammo before we run out of vampires." He looks over to Cap and notes, "Capturing might be more difficult than it's worth. I wouldn't normally advocate killing as the first course of action, but...I'm beginning to understand Blade's attitude about these things."

Phil taps on the able, "Yes, we will need more ammo, also in larger sizes, shotguns might actually be in our favor, but we definitely need to consider our options." He finishes his soda, but does not move to refill, or appear to want one, "Killing is apparently our only option, not sure we really can take them captive." Cap receives a chuckle and an absentminded rub to the neck, "Those would certainly not be unwelcome."

Steve Rogers nods, "Vibranium and Admantium also seems to disagree with them. She what we have in that regards." He thinks for a moment, "Gas grenades packed with mixture of Holy water, silver, and garlic?"

Shotgun slugs and shells, got it." Ward notes, "Depending on how much time we have, I could probably make garlic powder grenades for area dispersal and denial, yes. I was given the impression that Holy Water would likely be ineffective. Our silver supply will probably need to go towards bullets." He looks to Captain America and without even the hint of sarcasm notes, "Adamantium and Vibranium are a little too valuable to be left lying around a standard safehouse, I'm afraid."

"Figure that a load of silver birdshot would lead to a bad day for any vampire," Phil nods, "But we can't really say we are an unknown factor to Jean-Phillipe or Renzhkov, they likely know we are coming, but hopefully we can still find /some/ way to get a drop on them."

Steve Rogers nods, "That works. Well didn't know if there were other versions of Silver we could use. Just don't want anything too harmful to us."

"We'll see what our silver supply looks like. If I think we've got enough in the way of ammo, I'll see about a few fragmentation grenades." Ward notes, "Either way, I'd better get to work. I'll be down on the basement workshop if you need anything." And with that, Ward starts to head downstairs to get to work.

Phil sighs, "Yeah, we seem to be rather limited, but we can work with it." Ward's departure gets a nod, "Very well, we had best start preparing, the sooner we strike, the more likely we are to get Natasha before the transfer."

Captain America nods. "I agree. I'll be helping with making sure we got transportation and back up if possible. I have some non Avenger's contacts." Phil nods, "I'll need their names and get approval from Fury, but if you vouch for them, I bet he won't object too much."

Steve Rogers nods, "Yeah Fury isn't going to be happy. But there's the Falcon, Nomad, and U.S.Agent. If we need them, I can look at calling them in. I'll have to check where Jack and John are at? I know Sam's in New York." "I'll run those names by him, and see what he thinks. I'll mention you suggested them," Phil nods, "Worst that can happen is that he says no."