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alchemistakeWELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, VARIAN. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 018.07.154.55 *** CHARACTER NAME/ALIAS has joined 018.07.154.55 <thealchemist>This thing is SO COOL okay- hey, hi, Varian here! If you're seeing this then you've reached my channel for messages. Leave me one if you need something! | ||||
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Date: 2020-09-24 04:54 pm (UTC)The men back at the garage will hear a faint rattle before a raccoon suddenly darts out from under a table, scrabbling against the ground as he rushes past their legs and fled into the night, hissing and snapping if anyone attempts to grab him. He won’t be able to keep up with Varian and Javert, so instead he does the only thing he knows to. He flees elsewhere, not to save his own hide, but to maybe find help before it’s too late...
It won’t matter either way what Ruddiger does. Varian takes advantage of the dips and cracks in the walls as he escapes his garage and bolts into Bavan proper, mainly trying to put distance between himself and the Vampire. He’s unaware Javert has any leverage against him beyond being likely bigger and stronger, and at this point he’s prepared to fight if he’s left with no other alternative. The darkness is his enemy as much as it is his lifeline.
Barely ten minutes pass before Varian can stand it no longer. He never even makes it to the arcade, too frantic in his escape to really find anywhere suitable to go. He hasn’t looked back, yet somehow knows Javert must still be giving chase. In the end, he ducks into a pitch-black alley, tucking himself well out of view of any potential light as he tumbles back into physical form. He presses himself flatly against the wall, heaving while struggling to keep his breath muted so it can’t be heard. He’s trembling from the exertion as it is, but if he can just shake this guy long enough to catch his breath, he can find somewhere to hide. Then he’ll make his case known on the network. He’ll deal with whatever consequences come after that in a more civilized manner.
That was the plan, anyway.]
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Date: 2020-09-24 05:26 pm (UTC)The scent of blood fades quickly in the brisk night air, and Javert must shift his strategy after he pours his intangible self through the window-cracks after the boy. Instead, it is the quickened, adrenaline-fueled thrum of thee heart he picks out of a sea of human pulses. He desperately grasps that thread (metaphorically, of course, since mist can only drift, not grab) and follows it.
Javert stretches himself thin, no more than a wisp in the air. He needs to cast a wide net, his attention swelling and ebbing with every twitch in the darkness.
Eleven minutes pass until he catches wind of his prize. There, in an alley dark as pitch. The stink of goblin is fresher again.
Varian's fatal mistake is thinking he can disguise the heaving beat of his heart as well as his panting breaths. A vampire's keen ear and eye does not miss a heartbeat, particularly one as loud and desperate as his. Where there is a beating heart, there are arteries, and there is coursing blood. Javert feels the telltale tingling excitement of his prey close at hand.
For Varian, his warning comes only as a chill.
The fog creeps in a swirl up Varian's calves. It crawls and rolls, thickening to a dense cloud, up the front of his shirt until at last a hand darts and coalesces out of the dark tendrils and throttles him unforgivingly against the alley wall.
Javert's glittering, glowing eyes emerge last, vicious, triumphant, and fierce. He raises his free hand, the one with the Poacher drug syringe, skyward.]
Too much, my good man, [he remarks in a rapid slur, icy tone dampened by an odd, chiding disappointment.] I had my hopes you would listen, and there you go, proving nothing but the worst. Didn't I tell you walking would be healthier?
[And he makes to plunge the drug deeply into the side of Varian's neck.]
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Date: 2020-09-24 05:53 pm (UTC)A very sickeningly familiar syringe held tight in Javert’s fist, and for the first time since he was approach, true terror flashes in his expression.]
No!!
[His left hand reaches up, and in a last ditch attempt to back Javert off, he lets loose a burst of flame from his fingertips that lights up the alley between them. Elsa, bless her, had taken the time to help him hone his magic and it’s paying off here. What once was a power he could barely control is now nearly entirely his to command.
But he’s a second too late. He feels the needle plunge into his neck, and try as he might he can’t fight back the scream that rips from his throat. His knees buckle as the drug takes effect near immediately, prevented from falling as Javert keeps him held up. His last attempt to fight back fizzles into the darkness as the magic is sapped away from him as quickly as his strength. Soon, he will hardly be able to keep his head up. The sensation is awful, traumatic, and far too familiar.]
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Date: 2020-09-24 07:20 pm (UTC)Madame Fog. His nostrils flare with a heaving sigh, and he bends his neck down to the goblin heaped on the ground. Fangs glitter through the last furls of smoke. He crouches beside Varian and lifts his head to stare him down in the eye.]
Stay awake, [he barks coldly, disguising the pain in his face with a toothy sneer.] You worked on your poisons before Mirage. Tell me something. Is Elias mixed up in your project?
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Date: 2020-09-24 07:34 pm (UTC)Varian lets the corner of his mouth twitch into a pained smirk, his claws scraping the concrete as he mentally berates his own body for not being able to get up, just get up.]
U...unlike some people, my li-life doesn’t revolve around gods, man made or otherwise. He do-doesn’t even know about it.
[Which is the truth. Varian has kept the two separate this whole time. Still, marks of the Fourth aren’t easily hidden...like the faint arcs of energy that jump around in a few hollowed out spikes covering his heart in time with its rapid beating, barely visible now that the drug is in full effect.]
CW: imminent execution
Date: 2020-09-24 08:06 pm (UTC)A twitching, ugly smile spreads his lips, forced and shallow. This is his chance to make a statement against insurgency, disorder, indecent chaos against the Fog's sovereignty. This is his chance to deliver upon his threat that he has always been working, always been arranging his game-pieces behind the scenes, always been lying in wait to demonstrate his role as enforcer of Natural Order.
In the name of the Fog. For the Good of their kind, for the smooth functioning of the Fog's plan for them to live their wicked ways and keep men underfoot.
The dry smile falls. There is nothing but somber, grave death in the deep, dark pools of his pupils, eating what was left of his heart alive. His face is hard enough to be carved from stone.]
People don't lie to me. I see your marks, Traitor. No respect for your betters!
[Roughly and with little regard for personal comfort, Javert hauls up Varian by the collar and slings him over his shoulder. He mops up some ooze from the burn-wound at his jaw, lips grimacing in disgust. And he begins to lope and drag along, with purpose, back toward the looming shadow of La Forteresse prison.
His guts roil.
This is just. This is right. No mercy for False God insurgents, no forgiveness for anarchists and men who insult Her reign. Javert's mind is abuzz with his self-assurance and his whispering, dimming doubts, his prayers arcing high from his bowed head. He considers with a sententious solemnity the sentence he will deliver upon the boy, understanding quite well the gravity of his role.
And he makes his choice, his voice low and hoarse and tickling the hairs of Varian's ear.]
You have the night in the jug. Come morning, you will be shot to the death in Madame Fog's name.
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Date: 2020-09-24 10:01 pm (UTC)What will happen now is left up to Javert, he thinks as they go. He has no doubts that his garage is currently being torn apart as they speak, but at least the stuff left behind there is replaceable. He never expected to be able to get the same materials given to him by Mirage again, so he'll just remake things on his own terms. His arm is definitely priceless though, so he'll just have to hope it was left behind and forgotten due to not being involved in the case. As for Solsikke...he's confident that Cassandra, Elsa, and Anna aren't just going to let someone barge in on them without due reason. And even if there's a reason...
Well. It's out of his hands at this point.
Of course, what he isn't expecting is what Javert tells him next. Words that turn his blood to ice. He's certain his already frantically hammering heart actually stopped for a moment.
Despite being pushed to the brink multiple times, he never died at the hands of the Poachers. He's never experienced the way Ryslig handles death. Frankly, he never wanted to. Nobody wants to die, right? Not even if it isn't permanent...too bad he lacks the strength to struggle as the words ring hollow in his mind.]
Y...you're going to kill me.
[Why tell him this now, instead of waiting until before it's slated to happen? So he can sit in the suffering of knowing that in the morning he'd die?]
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Date: 2020-09-24 10:24 pm (UTC)[They are bold words concerning death, of course, from one who is absolutely revolted by harm done against fellow Monsters. Bold words, indeed, from one who has suffered five deaths of his own.
Perhaps he is numbed to it, now. Perhaps his mind has melted fractionally from all the horrors he, himself, endured.
It speaks to the significance of Varian's case that he is choosing to condemn in such a way. One lousy death shall never return to Monsters the week they lost to madness; one lousy death will not make up for his treasonous intent.
Javert's body aches from his injury, but he presses onward, his square jaw tucked stubbornly into the collar of his coat. Soon, they will make it. Vampires move quickly, even when they are battered, burnt, and bruised.]
Don't cross Her will again. Were it Her plan to knock us down to our damned, wicked selves, She would do it Herself.