[IC] There Are No Heroes

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

"What I intend? What I expect? What I plan?" Carver's grim sternness carried itself from the woman to the man and back as he spoke, "Nothing, if I had the chance not to."

"But if I do need to do something, it won't be pleasant. It won't be brief... and it won't be nice. I would rather it just not be alone."

His fingers removed themselves from the twisted photograph, leaving it alone again at last. Methodically, Carver took those same digits and removed his sunglasses, setting their black frame upside down upon the steel table of the evidence room. There was a glint to his eyes where hollowness should've been, as though the only driving spark in him was the underlying motivation behind this all. They otherwise were amber and tired, leaning somewhere between the darkness of honey and wooden bark, but that did nothing to hide the fact he had a more serious stare than even his earlier demeanor suggested he might.

"Let's assume for a moment, pretend, that these deaths end up as we're all fairly confident they will - attributed to 'wildlife'. Let's also make the assumption that is, for all intents and purposes, entirely wrong. Let's also go out on the limb that the person or persons responsible are still out there."

The intensity in him, as he played out the story before them as hypotheticals, only became increasingly more unsettling. He did not need to say it, but he went about it all the same in building ambiguous yet orchestrated detail. Either way, it did not bode well with the already eerie ambiance of the quieted sheriff's office and its small, mostly devoid secure area.

"And let's make the final assumption that they can be found, perhaps even lured out." Carver continued, turning the glasses over as he leaned into the table, looking into the reflection that was within the depths of their lenses, "Now from here I find myself, in our example, faced with my two choices... one where I am alone, one where I am not. In either case, let's just take the easier of the two routes and go with the idea that both are equally successful, just to varying degrees in execution."

He paused, to nod slightly maybe only to himself, going on nothing more about the implications of what he suggested. Playing with the frames, he turned them over and placed them upon his face once more and rose up from his elbows to standing by the table. As strangely as he fixated upon unseen details none of them could see but surely felt, they were gone again; the sensation of being drawn into an exceedingly deeper plot that ran through his mind. Carver was the sort of man who was to have played this entire instance out, at least some number of times before - it was only scraping by as "subtle enough" for all its vagueness.

"There are a lot of bad people in this world. A lot more than we really need and not many people know that, let alone have the drive to do something about it if they did, so you could say my plan is to curb that a bit. If the most help you can provide is information, a skill, a location, I will take it... but what I really would like is someone watching my back."

"Because we are about to make a lot of enemies, even if you were to walk out now and tell the whole world."

A long sigh drew in from Carver as he searched the other two, adding one last remark; "But my 'plan' and what I 'expect' all might change when Cutter gets here. After all, I could just be as crazy as the two of you sound."

@Kidd@RedXCross

[Kidd]

Piper remained still as she listened, watching him play with his sunglasses. It seemed like he was going to deal with...this whether or not he had help. But there was no doubt that help would be preferred. She crossed her arms again, watching him replace the glasses on his nose but not before getting a glimpse of his heavy gaze. She wanted to reaffirm that, yes, she was in. She was ready to help--she wanted to do something. But her eyebrows furrowed together as she stopped herself. What could she even do? She wasn't big or scary like Chris. She didn't have a gun or the experience Carver seemed to--whatever kind of experience that might be. So she remained silent.

On top of that, there was a sense of ambiguity. Carver wasn't telling them everything, but he wanted both of them here, otherwise he wouldn't have sought Chris out and would have left Piper at the garage. "We sound crazy? You're the one who came to us," she grumbled, but she couldn't really deny it. Talk of vampires had already been thrown around, and now she was willing to jump in on Carver's plot to "curb" the amount of bad people in the world. So she sighed, bringing a hand up to rub at her neck. The day had went from zero to sixty real fast.

[RedXCross]

“So be it. I don’t care about making ‘enemies’. Whatever needs to be done needs to be done.” Chris snapped.

His glasses were placed on the table, leaving his flat eyes to stare at the two people in the room with him. Whatever the plan was decided would have to be the one the approached because he was fed up with all the time they were wasting. Many people lived with enemies that they had every other day. Doesn’t make either side right. Regardless of whatever did this to people, it was clearly evil that needed to be snuffed out. He cracked his knuckles under his own grip, and if you watched very closely, potentially you could see the flame of bloodlust flicker in his pupils for a brief moment.

He could deal with being seen as crazy. This world had taught him that you could get away with most things if your intentions were good enough. He’d heard enough of his co-workers label him as “crazy” or “neurotic” in his workplace. He still remembered one woman who referred to him as having an “animal-like” presence. All of these were just labels from the masses. Everything weas stained with darkness and insecurity.

Chris had no time for insecurity.

He glanced over at Piper for a brief moment. The table still standing between them as the pictures remained face-up on the table. Blood and flesh on grand display without precaution. He stepped towards Carver with his stiff, stone-like presence and locked eyes with the ambiguous man for one moment.

“Where is Cutter, then?” he asked, “Once we get that information we can try and handle the threat, correct?”

@Kidd @The Harbinger of Ferocity

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

"We sound crazy? You're the one who came to us." Piper's voice grumbled, a slight personal note tainting the words.

One could not blame her as she wasn't inherently wrong, just that the whole matter was just that - crazy. They were talking about vampires as if it was some form of serious business, that all the media and lore about them had some bizarre root of truth, maybe even more than just a shred of it. That was crazy. The worst part of it all was that everyone present to some extent seemed to have some reason to believe it. Memories were one thing but... actual evidence? An expert on veterinary medicine? A police cover up attempt? The alarms could not be going off any more loudly, yet calmly - barring Chris - the conversation kept moving. In fact, Carver did nothing to even acknowledge Piper's comment; the man seemed to be barely listening to the other company, the obviously quick to anger sort of company no less.

Carver let the fires of the other man's underlying rage cool some, accepting of the answer with his now characteristic nod; there was not a thing he could have done to settle Chris' spirit, short of sate the urge of violence. It all made for an unstable cocktail of emotions, especially as they awaited Cutter's arrival.

"However long it takes a drunkard to drive himself to a police station." Carver answered idly, his attention assumingly placed on Chris who took a methodical step forward.

"Try, yes. That's the best part about this entire thing - we are going to try and do something. There's other ways of trying, but personally I am not too fond of those." The man stated, placing his hand to his hip and withdrawing the metal profile of a handgun; his finger rested calmly against the side of its slide, far from its trigger.

The weapon was worn-in with its matte finish displaying a number of imperfections, even a few portions now reduced again to steel and blackened plastic.

Releasing the magazine from its base, Carver quietly and methodically rotated the weapon over atop the table and ejected the round that had remained in its chamber; it clattered to the metal and rolled slowly, stopping against one of the photographs before he took it up and seated it once more in the magazine it had been drawn up from. They weren't large bullets, certainly not what one would think you "hunt" vampires with, but the outsider continued talking as he set the firearm down.

"This won't help us much. I am not even sure how many of these it takes to solve that issue. I never bothered, but this..." He pocketed the magazine before reaching into his battered olive overcoat, drawing out a silvered cross after upon a small string necklace, "Will do well."

"It doesn't matter what faith it is - any symbol of faith works." Carver looked to them both, not searching for a reaction but only their attention, "Cutter doesn't know it yet, but the bastard is right sometimes. I just need to know more."

@RedXCross@Kidd