[IC] MONSTORY

[Dead Cruiser]

"Well," Riley began, smoothing down his frizzy hair, "Maybe you just ought to explain the situation to him. He seemed like a smart one, I don't think you'll be able to pull a fast one on him. Or if you still want to push him away, you can just try harder. He is a boy, after all; you can't be too direct." He pulled out his cigarette again, and stuck it in his mouth. Yet again, he didn't bother lighting it. "Is he a classmate of yours?"

[Riven Wight]

Izzy blinked at Riley in surprise at his suggestion to explain things to Trevor.
Izzy shook her head once at Riley’s question. “No, but we go to school together.” Her words slowed as she finished, unsure how much about her human life she should disclose, even if it was something as simple as that. And that there was only one high school in town. She looked askance at him when it dawned on her that he had said “still want to.” Had he seen her with Trevor at the bookstore as well?
She glanced to the unlit cigarette Riley seemed so fond of. “Trying to quit smoking?”

[Dead Cruiser]

"Hmm?" Izzy had asked something in reference to his unlit cigarette. "Well, no, not really. I just won't smoke in front of an impressionable kid like yourself." He grinned his usual sleazy grin. "I'd hate to be a bad influence on you." He glanced back in the classroom, seemed to grimace, and then looked back to Izzy. "Speaking of kids, Damocles is taking his sweet time with that arm. We might be out here for a while."

[Riven Wight]

“Uh-huh.” Izzy raised an eyebrow and made a show to take a slight step away from him at the grin he gave her. When he looked back, Izzy almost mimicked him, but was glad she did not when she saw his expression.
“Fantastic,” she muttered. “Can’t say I blame him, though. There’s no freaking way I’d be able to... well.” She looked at her own arm, the one that Theurge had obliterated in a single punch. Her brows furrowed. She had lost an arm and hands in her fight, but they had regrown within seconds. “Riley,” she looked back to the man. “you saw what happened on the field. But I turned out fine. Why didn’t Cerasus’ limbs just grow back?”

[Dead Cruiser]

Riley sighed, not in an exasperated or disappointed manner, but obviously one of deep contemplation. Izzy seemed to have opened up a can of worms with that question, and Riley was clearly trying to work out how to explain it to her so that she would be able to understand. This took a minute, but eventually he spoke up to answer her.

"Damocles had lost most of his immortal force by the time you met him, right? And you remember how your lost limbs would disappear before they would regenerate?" He played with his cigarette as he continued to ponder his answer. "Damocles is a rare breed. Those guys want his body intact, so they can use it for their own ends. Intact, but piece by piece. It wasn't his limbs that they took from him as much as his existence. That's why his severed limbs neither regenerate nor disappear." Now Riley sighed in exasperation. "It's an extremely bothersome thing they're doing, though it seems like the best way to handle the Aberration Slayer." He looked down at Izzy with serious eyes. "You'd best be careful, too, young miss. Dramatic Theurge wanted you to join him, but you're Damocles' thrall. Who's to say they won't steal your body and make a specimen out of you?"

[Riven Wight]

For a moment, Izzy thought she would not receive an answer to her question, but then, at short length, she did.
Izzy nodded both in answer and encouragement to go on when Riley paused and toyed with his cigarette. She inhaled when he finished, her eyes widening at the thought of the hunters doing the same to her. She had expected them to try to kill her, yes, but that?
She resisted the urge to glance back at Cerasus, closing her eyes as she turned her head, then looked down the hall instead and wrapped her arms around her midsection.
“How?” she asked quietly. “How do they take someone’s existence like that, instead of... of the pieces disappearing? And what can they even do with something like that? Why would they want to?”

[Dead Cruiser]

"Haha, I was only messing with you a bit." Riley smiled cheekily at her. "Odds are, it's a unique technique that can't be used frequently. It probably took all three of them to accomplish in the first place. With Dramatic Theurge defeated, you're already safe from it." He scratched at the stubble on his chin as he continued to answer Izzy's questions. "If I had to guess, I'd say that they want the power of the Aberration Slayer. To make it part of themselves. It's a pretty enviable trait for someone that slays aberrations for a living." He continued to smile, looking at Izzy with a curious gleam in his eye. "You on the other hand, got all the power at none of the cost. Lucky break, huh?"

[Riven Wight]

“What?” Izzy looked to Riley at his first statement, her confused hurt turning to a murderous glare. Her gaze darkened as she watched him scratch his chin. “You’re a jerk. You know that?” she spat. She gave a growled sigh. But on the plus side, he was actually giving her straight answers.
She snorted at his question. “If you call being pulled into this twisted world of yours a ‘lucky break,’ then absolutely.” She enunciated each syllable of the last word as she swung an arm in front of her in mock enthusiasm. She sighed. “What kind of power is it that I’ve... inherited, exactly? I know he,” she gestured to the classroom with a sideways nod, “has a reputation of killing other aberrations, but that’s about it. And, of course, what I’ve found out on my own.”

[Dead Cruiser]

Riley only snickered at Izzy's outrage and feigned enthusiasm. When asked about her actual power, he gave a sort of ponderous answer, "Well, do you know about how vampires can drain the existence of other vampires?" Izzy confirmed this, and he continued, "I believe the Aberration Slayer can do the same thing, but with any aberration. Humans as well of course, haha, but that's something even other humans can do." To make his point he made a "gun" gesture with his thumb and forefinger, pointing it at Izzy with a "bang bang" motion. "Other than that, it's just all rumor and hearsay."

[Riven Wight]

“As of a couple hours before I met Theurge, yep,” Izzy offered, then gave a simple, “Huh,” at what Cerasus could do.
She glared at Riley's show of shooting her with his finger. “Very funny,” she said darkly, then shook her head. “I’d rather the worst thing I had to worry about be getting shot, then being de-limbed and used in some freakish experiment to extract power.” She sighed, then looked ahead of her again. She only had two more hunters to defeat before she could potentially return to gun violence being the worst of her worries. If Cerasus was telling the truth.
He might know. Izzy returned her attention to Riley. “Is there really a way for me to become human again?”

[Dead Cruiser]

Riley quirked an eyebrow at Izzy's sudden change in the subject. "Damocles tell you something like that? In exchange for getting all of his arms and legs back, I'd imagine." He pondered it for a moment, before continuing, "I don't see why not. If he said he would, I should think there's a way."

[Riven Wight]

Izzy’s expression did not change when Riley guessed from whom and why she had head such a thing. That, as an initial response, was certainly far from reassuring. When he gave his answer, she sighed.
“But you don’t know for sure.” It would seem, then, that there was only one way for her to truly find out. “I’m going to go find someplace quiet. I have some studying to do.” She tugged at the plastic bag she had since hung around her wrist and started down the hall. “Unless you’d be up for teaching a girl about hand-to-hand combat. Or know where I can find a weapon that can withstand being used by a vampire.”

[Dead Cruiser]

"Hey," Riley followed Izzy a couple of steps down the hall. When she turned around, he flicked her forehead. Nothing like an actual attack, which Izzy probably would have sensed and avoided. Just something an annoying elder sibling would do. "I understand you don't like Damocles much, but you ought to trust that poor boy. I didn't say anything about it before, but I think you could be more grateful toward someone that saved your life."

[Riven Wight]

“What’s--” Izzy began as she turned back around to face Riley, but he flicked her in the forehead and she instead finished with, “Hey!” She rubbed the spot his finger had hit, scowling. “What was that for?”
She exhaled and looked to the warped tiles of the floor as he stopped speaking. “From the way things look,” she muttered after a moment, “he didn’t have much of a choice, did he? If he hadn’t, he would’ve had to somehow get his limbs back himself without losing the rest of him in the process. He needed someone to be his arms and legs,” she quoted Dramatic Theurge from that night that seemed so long ago when she had first met the trio of hunters. “Because I couldn’t watch someone die, I turned into a convenience.”

[Dead Cruiser]

"Hmm, is that how you see it?" Riley mused, his strange sort of joviality not dying despite the grim topic they were discussing. "You put your throat in Damocles' mouth, didn't you? Now, I think it was very noble of you and all, but you must have understood what you were allowing to happen. You were basically giving him your life. I don't know what your life is like that you would do such a thing, but that's how I see it. If he had killed you then and there, he would be in much better shape than he is now. The blood in your body would have been more than enough to restore him to fighting shape." Riley popped the cigarette back in his mouth and crossed his arms. "But he didn't kill you. He even chose to make you his thrall. Something I would have never expected the proud Aberration Slayer to do."

[Riven Wight]

Izzy looked up at Riley’s tone, wondering how he could remain so constantly convivial. She looked away again as he continued, her gaze on the dirt-caked crease where wall met floor a few feet ahead in the hall. She had indeed known what offering her throat to Cerasus meant, that, more likely than not, one would still have died that night. She could easily have walked away when he asked for it, and none would be the wiser save for her, but she had chosen not to.
She looked back to Riley as he replaced his cigarette. She vaguely recalled Cerasus saying something about that, but she had not realized it would have been enough to recover him to that extent. Then, again, there was the surprise she had heard from the hunters, only in a lesser form coming from Riley about Cerasus' actions.
“You say that like it’s a good thing,” she said darkly. “Being a thrall. Why’s it so surprising he’d do something like that, anyway?”

[Dead Cruiser]

"Well, the thing is," Riley began, speaking low, as though Cerasus would not be able to hear him, "Vampires in general, not just Damocles, don't like to create thralls. It creates... competition for them. As far as I know, a vampire would rather die than create a thrall, even if it would save their life." He looked over his shoulder in the general direction of the classroom. "Like I said before, he's a different breed. He'd even created a thrall before, so I heard. Just one, though." He looked back at Izzy with his usual cocky grin. "I don't know any more than that, so don't ask. I don't think it was self-preservation guiding him. I just think it was the only way he could stay alive and not kill you. He probably couldn't bring himself to do it."

[Riven Wight]

Izzy’s brows furrowed. “Competition?” she interrupted, her voice instinctively as quiet as Riley’s. She followed his gaze toward the classroom, glad Cerasus was out of sight from her angle. She glanced back to Riley at the mention of Cerasus having created another thrall, but before she could ask what had become of that, he dashed her hopes of finding out.
“You think he couldn’t...” she let the soft words trail off as she looked back toward the classroom. “Why?” she asked, more to herself than Riley. She looked back to the corner, then to the bag in her hand as if suddenly remembering where she had been heading. "I have studying to do." She glared at Riley as if daring him to flick her again, then turned once more to head down the hall.

[Dead Cruiser]

Riley merely stood idly by as Izzy stormed off, his hands in his pockets. However, after she had walked off a few steps, he called after her, "When you woke up, Damocles was there by your side, wasn't he? Probably clutching your arm for dear life. Nursing you around the clock. Funny thing, that." He continued to stand by after saying his piece, rolling the cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other.

[Riven Wight]

Izzy stopped and turned back around to face Riley, her thoughts already filled with what he had told her. She looked at him with her brows furrowed and expression asking how he knew that before she voiced it, her words slow.
“How do you... what do you mean, ‘nursing me?’” She cast another glance back toward the classroom, expecting Cerasus to appear in the hall at any moment and bring their conversation to an end. She looked back to Riley. “What happened to me after he...” Instead of finishing, she reached up and lightly placed her free hand on the bite mark at the base of her neck.