Villainous Villa (Bastian)

[Augustine]

A dozen or so kilometers away from the bounds of the thriving town of Cassino was a Villa, a fairly large property owned by the middlingly wealthy Casagrande family.  It wasn't anything special, a fine two story house, with a few other buildings sprawled across a large property, a garage, a greenhouse, two small cottages.  There was a space clearly meant for a good sized garden in the back, and in front of the house was a large well maintained yard, all enclosed in a short brick wall about three meters tall.  It clearly spoke of a good living, but the family were not particularly notable.  One of the many wealthy families whose wealth came from less well known or cared about positions.  However, it was now the subject of particular misfortune. 

For the past few nights, several young adults of the Casagrande family, all in college, had been living there with several friends, enjoying time off of class and presumably partying up a storm.  Last night, a call was made from the villa to the police, the message was garbled but the screams were clear.  Unsure if it was a prank or not, two officers were dispatched to investigate the property.  It is not entirely clear what happened on arrival.  The cop that returned though reported that no one came to open the gate, and as they went around to try and find a way in or a clue as to what was going on something grabbed the other officer and attacked the surviving officer. 

He fled to his vehicle and back to the station.  Shortly after the Prottetori's agents picked up on the radio traffic and reports and quickly stepped in to keep further panic from spreading.  A quick and short investigation of the villa by more experienced hands than normal police confirmed that there were indeed demonic entities at the Casagrande estate, and the call was put out to have someone step in to properly cleanse the property and if possible, uncover how the demons had come to the villa to begin with. 

This task had fallen to Bastian Hoffnung, fully briefed and flown to Cassino.  It was his job to enter the villa, annihilate the demonic threat and investigate the potential cause.  A few of the Cavalieri had been stationed around the villa, to watch in case any demons attempted to leave.  The actual exploration of the property itself though would be left to his capable hands.

[Aeternus]

It was never a surprise that the Templars were most present and active in their home nation of Italy. The infrastructure and connections were all here for them to be able to respond both quickly and discreetly to incidents that had the hallmarks of demonic activity, and get them under control when they turned out to be exactly that. Tonight was one such night, with a remote villa playing host to the evening's horrors. Containment had been established; now the Order had need of an experienced Cavaliere to handle the incursion and cleanup.

As luck would have it, Bastian was in-country for meetings in Florence and itching for some real work.

From an SUV left behind at the containment team's perimeter, he marched to the front gates of the villa's boundary wall with a bespectacled member of the advance team scurrying along beside him. The gravel of the driveway crunched underfoot, and clean brick walls rose overhead as if to hide whatever had transpired inside from the world.

"You said there hasn't been any activity outside, Lieutenant?" Bastian asked his companion.

"Not since the attack on the police officers who called it in," answered the blonde Cavaliere - Lieutenant Fiera, she had introduced herself - once more glancing furtively over the tablet in her hands. "The target seems to want isolated prey - withdrew when it wasn't able to snatch them both."

"Or because they could fight back," Bastian sneered. "They were just kinder in there, couldn't be any older than you or me."

Fiera pursed her lips distastefully and nodded in agreement. "Once more, your orders are to sanitise the AO and determine the enemy's point of origin," she continued. "Exercise caution - numbers and disposition are unknown, and they've had plenty of time to learn the lay of the land." They came to a stop together before the front gates, where two Cavaliere guards carrying assault rifles on bandoliers stood sentinel. On the approach of Bastian, tonight's chosen sweeper, they set gloved hands on the iron gates and pushed them open. The hinges whined ominously.

"Maintain radio contact," Fiera advised. "Report findings as you go. I have a floor plan for the complex if you need directions once you're inside."

"Noted," Bastian answered curtly. There was a cold focus about him now which Fiera recognised. She stopped just before the threshold as the gates were pulled shut.

"You have your orders, Lieutenant. Buona fortuna."

"Danke." The gates clanked shut, and Bastian continued down the driveway. He studied the property as he drew closer, and stopped only to make sure his radio earpiece was secure and working. "Fiera, Hoffnung."

"Receiving," Fiera answered. "Proceed as planned."

"No signs of forced entry or struggle on the exterior as far as I can see," Bastian observed as he approached the main house. "Poor fuckers inside must have been taken by surprise. Proceeding to enter the main building." He fell silent as he approached the front door, gravel giving way to a brickwork porch. Balmung hung at the ready in his left hand. He reached out to turn the handle; the heavy door clunked dully and refused to yield. Bastian tutted, stepped back - CRUNCH! - and the door gave way under a stiff kick.

Squinting into the gloom, he stepped over the threshold and cast about for light switches, finding one just next to the door. He flipped two of them, quietly gave thanks that the lights for the hallway he found himself in and an adjacent room turned on in answer, and gave the space a closer look.

[Augustine]

The grounds of the Casagrande Villa were of a good size. Between the well kept bushes and the myriad stone paths leading around them and the sections of green, vibrant lawn it wasn't easy to tell at a glance where there had or hadn't been struggle. There was no sign of the abducted policeman...but whatever devil or devils were responsible, they were clearly willing to at least go to the walls of the property. Still there was good reason to head straight to the main house rather than spend time meticulously examining the yard for signs of conflict.

One of the things that had been obtained swiftly were the blueprints of the house. Of note was a panic room in the basement, through the wine cellar. There were multiple cameras across the property, inside and outside, and all of them fed to that panic room. If there were survivors, they were there, but if nothing else, the best chance of finding out what had happened meant going there.

The door was kicked open with a fierce kick, revealing a cozy, comfortable interior. There were two doorways to the left and right, one led to some kind of den, the other towards the kitchen. Ahead of him was a slightly curving staircase heading up to the second floor and a hallway deeper into the property. It looked quite nice, warm, comfortable colors, a few pictures up on the walls, unfortunately those pictures were spattered with blood. No sign of a body though. The quickest way to the cellar would be through the kitchen or down the hall just ahead of him. The hall looked empty but...he could hear a thumping coming from the kitchen, rhythmic and steady, like something hitting a wall repeatedly.

[Aeternus]

If it weren't for the blood spatters he could see, this would have been quite a lovely house to walk into. The decor was a little dated, in that multi-generational family sense; wooden handrails, varnished floors, photos of children hanging on the walls. There was the clear impression that the family who called this villa home had had roots here for many years. Alas, now a spectre of death hung over it all, and it fell to Bastian to dispel it.

The first thing he noticed was not even the rhythmic dull thudding coming from the kitchen ahead, but the fact that apart from that eerie noise, there was silence. His crashing entry couldn't have gone unnoticed, so the fact that there was no reaction coming from the kitchen was curious. Narrowing his eyes and sharpening his focus, Bastian turned toward the noise and quietly stepped through the doorway into the kitchen. His right hand closed around Balmung's hilt and tensed, ready to draw.

[Augustine]

The kitchen was fairly big, a long rectangular room. Probably dominated this entire side of the first floor, although it was hard to say for sure just by eyeballing it, but it was definitely the largest room on this side. It even had more than one oven. There were clear signs of struggle in this room, pots and pants scattered across the floor, and an entire cabinet of dry goods tipped over and crashed onto the floor. The thumping though was coming from further down, past the solitary counter with its stovetops, past the ovens.

Bastian could see a police officer, repeatedly banging his head against the wall, steady, slow, repeatedly. There were dark lines running down his light blue shirt, blood that had dripped down his uniform. He was technically facing towards where Bastian was coming from, slamming his head to his right. His eyes would fix on Bastian, and his mouth open. All that came out was a hissing gurgle though, as a hand came up, holding his pistol and without any warning, he'd just open fire!

[Aeternus]

Bastian stopped just past the doorway when he realised the thudding sound was coming from directly ahead of him, at the far end of the expansive kitchen. Illuminated by the hallway light behind him was the figure of a man in a police uniform, staring in the direction of the front door and bashing his head sideways against the wall. This must be the missing police officer, taken away but not killed!

Just as Bastian opened his mouth to hail the man and begin asking what had happened, though, the officer uttered a throaty death-rattle hiss - and lifted his gun.

"Sheisse!" Immediately Bastian threw himself across the kitchen at an awkward diagonal, diving into cover behind the island counter that dominated the middle of the room. He scrambled to hug its wall as the pistol followed him and the ear-splitting report of its shots rang out, sending fragments of the stone worktop spraying across the floor. Whatever had happened to the officer, his mind clearly wasn't his own any more; certainly neither were his wits, because he kept dully squeezing the trigger and pouring shots into the counter in Bastian's direction until the pistol clicked empty.

Bastian seized the chance. His presence had been well and truly announced, if he wasn't already being watched, and there was little time to waste. He unsheathed Balmung, turned his grip on the saya so he could hold it outwards, then leapt up from his hiding place and sprang over the counter, swinging his legs up to mantle and sit on it. As he went, he swung first with the saya to bash the outstretched pistol out of the way, then shunted himself forward to cross the counter to the other side of the room and thrust his blade at the officer's chest. The poor man was a casualty now, no longer himself.

[Augustine]

The cop seemed as mindless as one could be and still able to aim and fire. Fortunately his aim was particularly bad, perhaps as a result of whatever the hell had happened to him. The pistol clicked empty and Bastian made his move. It went as flawlessly as one could hope. His sheathe slammed the now empty pistol out of the cop's hands, and his sword thrust forward, sliding between the ribs to impale the cop, as smooth and flawless as if done on a training dummy.

In response the cop lurched forwards.

His eyes rolled, it seemed like he might even be feeling the pain on some level, but his body gave absolutely no reaction but to lurch towards him, arms out to try and grab his shoulders. The katana impaled in his chest was only a distraction, or worse, a way that made it more difficult for Bastian's position to easily disengage! The cop's mouth opened wide, but he wasn't going to bite the devil hunter. His jaw unhinged unnaturally, one could hear bone breaking...and a slick, chitinous...something flashed out, like a scorpion's tail. The stinger was no curved barb at the end though, but a long narrow needle lancing towards Bastian's throat as the cop's hands tried to grab his shoulders and hang on with all the strength they had!

[Aeternus]

It was about the moment his blade sank home in the officer's chest that Bastian realised he might have underestimated the threat, and in true zombie fashion, the injury didn't slow the man at all. Instead he lurched forward, driving the blade even deeper, to take Bastian by the shoulders. As his jaw wrenched itself unnaturally open to make way for something inside, Bastian sensed the threat, and he threw his weight to the right to get his head out of the way as the wicked stinger lunged out of the cop's mouth.

Balmung was little use in the moment. Both hands lashed upwards; the left took the cop by the throat, and the right closed around the needle at its base and heaved, ripping it off its appendage with a mighty sideways pull. As soon as it was free, Bastian turned his wrist, and with a shout of exertion, drove the needle into the side of the cop's head. That's where one normally targets a zombie, right?

[Augustine]

Bastian proved his ability, he reacted quickly and made none of the common mistakes a less capable or experienced warrior might have made. He abandoned his blade temporarily to shift to the right, the stinger lashing out at empty air, flicking before attempting to withdraw, only to be seized!

Seizing the cop's throat, it didn't feel like there was anything in it, which raised the question of where this appendage was coming from as he gripped the needle and...chitin cracked and tore, a disgusting yellow ichor oozing out as something let out a high pinched, rattling cry. It was...almost like a distressed cricket. Blood flew from the officer's neck as writhing, insect like limbs suddenly pulled away from it. The needle through the officer's head didn't seem to do much, but a strange small shape suddenly jumping off the back of his skull caused his body to immediately go slack as it went chirping off through the kitchen to try and escape!

[Aeternus]

Bastian could hardly fail to notice how unnaturally easily the cop's throat gave under his grasping hold. The cogs were already turning in his mind in search of explanations as he drove the needle home - and some multi-legged thing extricated itself from the back of the cop's head and jumped away! Bastian followed it with his eyes, an angrily chirping little creature that looked a bit like an oversized scorpion, leaking yellow ichor from a wound where its stinger should be.

He knew exactly what he needed to do. Keeping his grip on the stinger and yanking it free of the dead policeman's head, he let the corpse fall aside, reeled back his arm, and flung the bloody stinger at the retreating creature like a throwing dart to skewer it and send the chitinous body skidding along the tiled floor.

"Oh, fuck me," he lamented to the empty air. He tapped his earpiece and spoke up as he stooped to retrieve Balmung, blade and saya both. "Hoffnung here. First contact with the enemy. I found the missing police officer dead, with his body taken over by an insectoid parasite. Wasn't an Infestant, too small for that." He pursed his lips as a grim thought occurred to him. "Suddenly I'm a lot less hopeful for survivors. Even if some made it into the panic room, the door may not be the only way in for these creatures."

"Solid copy, Hoffnung," answered Fiera. "We have the exterior under observation. No signs of movement from out here. Continue your sweep - secure at least the main building before you try the panic room, just in case someone did make it in there. I'll have an extraction team on standby to help you bring out any survivors."

"Jawohl," acknowledged Bastian. "Out." He tapped the line shut, stepped past the insectoid corpse - giving it a stiff poke with Balmung's blade for good measure - and proceeded to leave the kitchen the way he came and push open the other door leading from the hallway. He kept his blade firmly at the ready. Better to be prepared for more of those insects, in case they didn't need their hosts to be dead before taking up residence in their skulls.

[Augustine]

It was of a good size, it'd barely fit on a dinner plate, but that still wasn't too large, the thing rushing off as he gave a report to those outside. What happened to the others? If nothing else they didn't seem too dangerous, he just had to be careful about how he fought them. If all of them inhabited the neck area then dealing with them shouldn't be too difficult, right?

Not wanting to tangle with small insectoid beings that hijacked someone's body, he left the kitchen and back to the entryway, taking that hallway down towards the cellar. There was something moving though. Not down the hallway, but above. The stairs that swept up to the second floor led to a small little railing and open area, and he could hear footsteps. He could hear footsteps moving at a decent clip, and he'd see a woman rushing forwards...or what was left of one. Her jaw was unhinged, and the top of her head perched atop an insectlike head, black chitin having completely grown around her throat and neck and spreading down her shoulders. She'd hurtle towards the railing and tip over it, an attempt to fall directly down on top of him, a stinger lashing out, from behind and over the top of the victim's skull!

At least the eyes on this one were completely dead. It was very clearly just this strange insect piloting a body, larger than the other one, and able to move the body more efficiently too! Although still not all that great.

[Aeternus]

Scheisse, he missed. Pursuing in a hurry would have been foolish; now that he had an inkling what he was up against, these close quarters were even more perilous, and caution would serve him better. Content to let the little wounded parasite skitter away for now, he kept to his course in the hallway.

As he approached the other doorway, a sudden hurry of footsteps clicking loudly on the floorboards overhead captured his attention. He looked up the stairs to the landing at the top in time to see another mutilated host tumble over the railing right on top of him!

This one was definitely faster than the first, but the element of surprise no longer belonged to the demons. Bastian bent at the waist as he stepped out of the way, pivoting on his trailing foot in order to rotate and face the creature. A foolish approach it had taken - one has no control while falling. As it came, he lashed out with Balmung in a steeply diagonal uppercut slash, confident there was nowhere the demon could go to avoid the blade biting through its chitinous body at the base of the dead host's neck. Not quite Bautha Zotreth, this move, Bastian thought, and Father would chide him for calling it so, but it carried the same deadly intent.

[Augustine]

In the heat of the moment it was hard to tell the actual meaning of differing details quickly. This parasite was bigger, was it just naturally so or had it grown? Was it a different but related kind altogether like worker and soldier ants? Either way his blade lashed out easily, the katana slicing outwards and into the neck...but not cleanly through. He did slice the insectoid demon deeply, about halfway through, and its legs spasmed, jerking and tearing through the flesh of its victim. His blade was not bound either, he could draw it free and shortly after doing so, the legs would twitch and then curl up...very much like a spider's as the body went still on the floor.

They didn't have full information on just who was at the villa. It wasn't like the university these students came from kept detailed records of where every student was going on a break. Conservative estimates were about six, but it was possible to be as many as a dozen. He'd hear more footsteps moving from upstairs...two, maybe three more? One set was a lot slower and more stilted than the others. If he stayed to wait he'd see two more with similarly sized parasites to this one, big enough to have completely torn the skull in half and emerge their chitinous heads from the mouth.

These ones wouldn't go over the railing though but rush down the stairs, one of them brandishing an axe of all things, probably for chopping firewood, now put to a grisly new purpose straight out of a horror movie. Of course he could always just keep going down the hallway towards the cellar, and indeed the hallway might be a good vantage to force these oncoming zombies to have to come at him from all one direction.

[Aeternus]

As Bastian yanked his blade free on the follow-through with a spray of off-yellow ichor, the tumbling body of the parasite fell still and lifeless. In the moment before he registered more footsteps approaching, he was able to study the body of this more mature demon. It appeared not to have grown from within the host body, but latched on from around the back of the neck and burrowed partially inside. He spared only a brief grimacing thought to what a hideous way to die that must have been for these unfortunates, before turning his full attention to the two barrelling down the stairs. At least now he knew how to kill them.

The beast in front was swinging an axe of all things, a woodsman's tool by the look of it. Bastian tucked his blade down by his left side, as though sheathed, and withdrew two steps down the hallway, just far enough away from the stairs that he couldn't be reached by one trying to swipe at him over the handrail; they could only approach from the front. As the axe lashed wildly out, Bastian took another retreating step and leaned back, keeping himself well out of the blade's path and waiting for its heft to carry it out of the way. As soon as it passed, he leaned forward and lashed out with an upward slash, striking at the host's elbow to lop off the arm that held the axe. Turning his blade, he brought it down in a heavy diagonal thrust to pierce the host's head - and the parasite's behind and around it. Twisting and pulling out to the side to free his weapon, he stepped boldly forward to meet the second, slower creature with a thrust at an upward angle, aiming to drive his blade through the host's head from the base of the jaw.

[Augustine]

These things were horrific, and a normal human probably would have been overwhelmed. That chitin was tough, that axe might be able to kill one with a hard, direct and forceful strike, but that wasn't as easy as people tended to think it was. For an experienced and trained hunter like himself though, these things were a tragedy and abomination, insect like devils puppeting the bodies of their victims.

The axe wielding one shambled forwards, and a neat cut cleanly severed flesh and bone, the axe toppling to the floor with a heavy clatter. As if realizing what had happened though, the thing shambled backwards, but not slowly enough. The body was more responsive but not responsive enough to avoid the blade cleanly piercing the insect's head. Legs thrashed and twitched, distorting flesh, but much more briefly, before it collapsed backwards, and Bastian stepped forwards, and the second was laid low just as easily. As horrific as they were they weren't too dangerous, at least not in these numbers.

What would an entire outbreak of these things be like though? A terrible thought, but he could hear no steps from above. Either the others were not moving or that was all of them...or they weren't upstairs. The wine cellar was behind him, down the hall. The door was partially open, the door knob having been smashed off, no way to close it now. Destroyed to pursue someone down, or get out from below?

[Aeternus]

An unsettling silence fell over the house as the second body thudded to the floor. Bastian firmly pulled his blade free and strained to listen... Nothing. No further movement just yet. This was the sort of quiet he hated the most, laden with the tension of knowing that something was out there and knowing not where or when it would strike. All he could do was press on and continue to be cautious.

He turned and studied the broken door at the end of the hall. From his memory of casting his eyes over the floor plan before he entered, the stairs beyond this door led to the cellar.

"Hoffnung to Fiera," he asked over his radio.

"Send traffic, Hoffnung," Fiera answered.

"Stairway door down to the wine cellar has been broken open," he reported. "Likely means that survivors making for the panic room were pursued. Did we ever get a count on the number of civs inside?"

"Between present family members and the friends they invited, we believe there were twelve in total."

"I just neutralised two in the main hallway." There was a sorrowful lining to the matter-of-fact tone of Bastian's voice. He crept to the cellar door and gently pushed it shut; even though the handle was broken, if anything came or went through it while he was elsewhere, he'd be able to tell when he returned. "Proceeding to secure the rest of the main house as planned. Heading upstairs." He turned back, stepped over the bodies he'd left in the hall, and started up to the second floor. His steps were quick and steady; there'd be creaking old floorboards beneath the carpet underfoot on this staircase, so little chance of climbing in silence.

With Balmung's flat point leading the way, he ascended to the landing and counted the doors. The one at the far end, he knew, led to the master bedroom and its large en-suite bathroom. The next two were secondary bedrooms. The one nearest him would take him down a corridor wrapping around the back corner of the building towards a study and a games room. Decisions, decisions. He pushed open the nearest door to start in that direction, the better to close off a more difficult angle of attack first while all was still quiet.

[Augustine]

If there were survivors in the panic room, it'd be important to make sure the house was clear before potentially exposing them to danger. Leaving the cellar for now was the smart move, especially without a direct indication there was anything down there. The door was pulled as shut as it could be, and hey whatever had broken the handle had tilted the door enough that it could be wedged into placed, so it wasn't likely to swing open from just a draft or shake, handy.

Back past the corpses of those he'd already laid low, and up to the stairs. There were more signs of conflict up here. There was blood splattered at places, a trail of it going one way, there was a hole in the wall that looked like it had come from a gunshot. If there were firearms on this property it wouldn't be many, probably just a hunting rifle for display maybe, but a gun would still have been a gun. Further down a larger gash in the wall, maybe made by that axe one of the victims had been carrying? Over there, a picture had fallen to the floor the glass protecting it shattered.

Listening carefully he'd be able to hear it, something moving behind a door in the hallway he found himself staring down. A light clicking, a faint shifting. Something was moving in one of the rooms. When he approached, from the gash in the wall, one of those small insect like devils would quietly emerge and crawl up to the ceiling, working very hard to be quiet.

Past the door was well it had been a guest room. It had been trashed, the furniture torn apart, there were fragments of wood all around, all the cloth and fabric available had been ripped apart and wound together into a large mass dominating one corner of the room. Strands of some kind of silk were woven to give it all some shape, and there were...wet splotches along much of the fabric. Not as if something had been splashed over it, but as if something were seeping through it.

Meanwhile that small solitary insect would slowly creep along, attempting to silently get into position to try and drop onto the back of Bastian's neck.