Blood For Power (John/Mary)

[John Black]

Nights in New York had become increasingly dangerous. More so than even local gangs could account for. People vanishing, people dying in gruesome ways that even the most violent thugs would have trouble recreating. The numbers were adding up, and the local authorities were in over their head, unable to contain or push back the growing sense of unease with the big city.

John had arrived in the city yesterday, sent to investigate an area where a demonic presence had been detected. As someone who wanted to ensure the mutual union of humans and demon-kind, he was inclined to oppose any demonic forces that might shed negative light onto demon-kind. Many demons were undeniably mindlessly violent, little more than puppets controlled by malicious and powerful demonic beings, or dangerous half-feral creatures that barely passed for sentient. But there were good ones, devils who wished to live a human life, who respected and admired humanity. These were the demons he wished to defend, who would join humanity and gradually make it stronger as a whole in time. Some even left their demonic power entirely behind to join the world of humans.

It was midnight, and the moon was full overhead, the night chilled. He stood across the street from a seemingly abandoned building several floors tall, windows broken and boarded up. The building had once been a mall though no longer. He'd been watching the place for a few hours, noting figures moving in and out of the place, sometimes alone, sometimes not.

So far he had not made a move, debating how he wanted to handle the situation. He'd probably been noticed, he hadn't exactly been hiding his presence, though he had yet to be approached. The big sword on his back was likely the reason, the weapon only slightly shorter than he was while he stood straight. Assuming it was as real as it looked, any normal person might be reluctant to approach the stern faced man with the big sword.

[scatterbrained]

The night had drawn over while Mary had made it in shortly after sunrise that morning, really giving her no time to unwind from a lengthy plane trip. From screaming babies, to elders who kindly wouldn't shut the hell up, Mary was a little bit crabbier than her usual.. crabbiness. Shifting her jacket on her shoulders a bit higher due to feeling the breeze brush her hair against her ears, the shorter woman approached the abandoned building that was described in her files.

She made sure to be precautious, seeing that there was obvious activity from those on the offense, to which she managed to slip into an opening off to the side of the building to make her way up to the floor John was on. There was a stale smell that wafted through the halls, making her let out a small sniff before she felt her eyebrow twitch in annoyance-- she was not a fan of this. Why couldn't whoever was leader of the opposers at hand find somewhere that was... cleaner?

"God, this place is filthy.." Was a soft gripe of the grey-haired sharp-shooter, her footsteps stalling in front of the door. Slipping into the area the man was in, she stood upright and brushed her clothes of any dust and grime that accumulated. "Sorry for being a little late, the taxi drove me to the wrong street and I had to find my way over." Mary stated while stepping forward, looking around while she pushed the door closed, sure that the door quietly latched so their cover wasn't blown.

[John Black]

John glanced at the woman as she entered the room. He was clearly relaxed, his hand hadn't even twitched towards the gun on his lower back hidden by his coat, or the sword hanging between his shoulders.

He was still pretty new at hunting demons, usually, his job was to simply help transport friendly immigrant demons wishing to make a life for themselves on Earth. But the people, the demons they were going after, were not the friendly type. Very much malicious. Humans that were just as bad as any of the bloodthirsty demons.

"It's not a problem." He dismissed the concern with a wave of his hand, before offering her a pair of binoculars. "If you look across the street you can see them coming and going. If the information is correct, there is a place below the abandoned mall that's likely amassing demonic power through human sacrifices. The mall was often used by many of the homeless, however, this cult has since cleared them out for their own purposes." Clearing them out by sacrificing them of course.

"I've been watching them for the past while. They are quite the busy bunch." He noted with feint disgust. "It's a shame we can't just blow the place to peaces. A well placed C4 charge to make sure they never abuse such a place again." But of course it wouldn't be good to have the building blow up like that and potentially cause innocent casualties. They were here to prevent innocent lives from being taken. Clearing out the cult so their own members could work to seal off the place should work well enough.

[scatterbrained]

Mary pocketed her hands in her trench coat while she walked over to the man, blinking at the binoculars being handed over to her. Gently taking them in her hands, she leant forward a little bit and peeked into the lenses, taking a look down yonder.

The woman had her fair share of encounters, admittedly, not a lot being very pleasant. She was typically sent off to clean up the mess of some rather shifty demons, who after finding out her status, went on the defense to tear her spine out of her damn throat. Usually ended with a blown head. There have been a few instances, however, that she was able to humanely resolve the issue at hand and help them change their ways-- which, felt nice for a change.

"Mmh. That's unfortunate." She mumbled aloud, now glancing over the bustling entrance with a small shake of her head as she stood back upright, pulling the binoculars downward and looking up to John. "But yes, as easy as that would be, it'd be achievable in a less-busy city. They knew what they were doing when those homeless individuals were slaughtered; they won't be able to be cleared out easily." The visible blue hue flicked back to the now-distant building, to which after returning his object, she leant forward and rested her hands against the window pane.

"Have you any ideas of what we can do for advancing? I generally don't have time to plan on my missions, so this is a new experience for me." She dryly stated, bringing a hand up to run through her hair followed by a soft huff from her lips. The only thing she could truly think of was somehow going under cover, finding the route of the source, then ka-boom-- maybe killing the kingpin would disband what cult had manifested.

[John Black]

"Considering the nature of these events, something like this would be less likely to take place in a smaller, less populated town." They were using human sacrifices, after all, the more they had, the better, as far as the cult was concerned anyway. And from what he understood of human sacrifices the more personal value there was, the stronger the connection, the greater the power that could be obtained. One could become much stronger very quickly if one was to sacrifice a sibling, parent, or child.

Sacrificing homeless bums on the street on the other hand likely had much less return value. Like getting pennies of the dollar you wanted. But pennied added up. It was likely a horrifically inefficient method of obtaining power. But hundreds of homeless people had been made use of in the past few days. And he was no expert, he had no idea what the return value in power would be. But he expected that at least a few of these cult members must be equivalent or greater than a half-blood like himself.

"Ideas..." He sighed at the word, not her use of it. "Yes, but nothing subtle. I have little patience with the events taking place here. My best suggestion is to kick down the front door and annihilate this cult as swiftly as we can till we reach whoever, or whatever is in charge of it and remove the head. Assuming the head can be cut off anyway. It's possible that aside from making these sacrifices to obtain the power they are opening a portal to summon forth some great master promising rewards. We don't know all the goals and motivations this cult has, just that there has been a steady increase in activity as the cult becomes bolder the stronger it gets." He explained.

"If we wait too long, they may become bold enough to go beyond snatching the homeless from the street and aim for more average targets." As it was, the homeless population was quickly dissolving. Many had been sacrificed, but even more were just running to try to get out of the city, at least right now. Those who vanished had been noticed, and word spread quickly among the homeless.

"How do you feel about that kind of plan? I'm not sure there is any way to ensure we catch every member of the cult without doing something big. But so long as we remove the majority of them the remaining rats can be chased down over time. And taking this place would mean they cannot continue to grow stronger, or threaten the city in any significant way any longer without finding a location of similar purpose."