Quite the opposite of her current life and demeanor, Genevieve Alleron had a vibrant and supportive childhood, the perks of being an only child and the first of her family to be born an American citizen. Aside from learning three languages from an early age, her school years were quite unremarkable. Neither parent had ever pushed her to hit excellent marks, her father having been driven to do so by his parents and only retaining bad memories from it, while her mother was simply proud of her for whatever achievements she came home with. Nor was she ever pressured to set ambitions, leaving it to her to decide what she wanted to be when she grew up. In the end her free spirited youth drove her to find a passion in dancing, at first just the spritely numbers all children do when they've got too much energy to burn, but steadily growing into a love for the art. It was a love that became a driving force for her, inspiring her to push herself in school more than she ever had, and eventually earning a scholarship with Columbus State University's Liberal Arts program.
With dreams of her future and the support of her loving parents, she set off for first time out of her home state of Montana and to the city of Columbus. There she found everything she had been looking forward to, a bright and lively city full of artistic and driven people, a group she wanted to be part of since taking up her passion. So it was that she had started her first day of college with bells on her shoes, almost literally, eager to learn and further herself with the help of experienced tutors. What she got was a whole lot of disappointment.
All her childhood she had been told to simply let the music move her, to feel it out and find a rhythm. That works well enough for someone just having a bit of fun, dancing around their house as a hobby or to burn off some extra energy. It did not work for the professionals who were faced with everyone from the spirited enthusiasts to people simply packing their portfolio with "easy" degrees. Her and the ever dwindling class she attended were drilled with each particular form, taught the core moves by rote and made to repeat them over and over again until they could execute it flawlessly by the book. It was weeks of the same classical dance forms, weeks of books on how they came to be developed, weeks of pioneers in the field, weeks of stale repetition. Finally, halfway through the course, she had enough. College had dulled her passion, made what she loved into sterilized and stiff routine. It had slowly made her cynical of not just the professors, but of the entire arts and the way creativity had been killed in order to shadow past innovators. With that sentiment on her lips on the way out of the class, she called them on the irony of it all and dropped out entirely.
Of course, being 19 and no longer in school made things quite complicated for her in terms of securing a place to live in the city. She had the option to pack everything up and head back to Helena to shack up with her parents once more, but after everything she had worked for so far, it felt like giving up to do so. Few options remained, and of them staying in the dorms wasn't one of them, so she did what she could to make some cash while she sorted out everything. A job painting here, a little bit of lawncare there, and she slowly made her way towards the northern outskirts of the city into a more permanent apartment and a job bartending. Not being of the age to drink made things a little difficult, but she devoted herself to doing the best she could off what she knew and about eight hours of "mixology".
Yet even with a modicum of stability to her life, things never quite took off the way she intended. Her nights alternated between the slow week days where she barely made tip to pay her basic utilities and eat on, and the busy weekends that were only given to her when the bar needed another pretty face. She didn't so much mind the attention, and found quickly that a charming smile and offer of another drink tended to earn her more and distract the less eager. For those who couldn't be persuaded otherwise, she had befriended their regular bouncer by the name of "Theodore" and with just a look in his direction someone would find themselves on the pavement in short order.
For a time it was enough to have the job and a place to live, even if she was living quite modestly and more than once missed a payment on the utilities. To Genevieve, it just meant that she needed to work harder. She picked up extra shifts when she could, even taking up a second job with a convenience store during the days. Sleep started to become harder to come by, even as she had been catching up on her bills. At least she had a home to call her own, an apartment though it was, and she could say she was providing for herself.
Everything changed for her once again in the winter of 2000 however, as the snows began to set in on the city. It had been just another night of bartending, a particularly good one since she had gotten a few more tips than usual and the regulars took to congratulating her for sticking with it for six months. With keeping the lights on and a roof over her head it had been hard enough for her, and even more so without a vehicle to drive between the apartment and the bar. She had gotten to know the route home pretty well in her time in Columbus, and relied on the quite unreliable bus system when she could, but on that night it had been late again and she decided to just walk the rest of the way. It was quite rare for her to ever run across any trouble, advantages of living on the north end of the city where crime was low. So it was doubly unnerving when she felt someone shadowing her down the main road, looking back to see a man purposefully striding directly for her. In the snow neither could hide from the other, nor mask their intentions, and she could see there was a strangeness in the way he was looking at her.
It was not the same glance she received from someone a little too deep in their drink, or ambitious in their courting attempts, no this was a feral hunger that she felt. The eyes on her felt like those of a predator smelling fresh blood, and the moment she stopped to try and figure out why, he was on the move right for her. With a man running straight for her with what she swore was the intent to run her down, she did the first thing that came into her mind. Genevieve screamed and ran the opposite direction as fast as she could. Her running shoes kicked up snow with every step, but above her pounding heart she could hear heavier footfalls quickly gaining on her.
When she was knocked to the ground she had at first thought it was about to be the worst night of her life, until she rolled over to try and defend herself and saw her predator. Standing over her was not a man, or at least not any normal human. Its eyes pierced hers and pinned her to the ground through fear alone as moonlight glinted off snarling teeth and canine-like claws bared and ready to shred flesh. Even paralyzed as she was, she instinctively raised her arms to fend off the first swipe, crying out as bones broke and she was tossed across the snow-covered pavement like a ragdoll. Despite the pain of the attack, she struggled to find a way to escape, managing to get to her feet and start running before claws opened up her back and she went down face-first back to the ground. The rest of that night was a haze of her own cries for help, mixed with the feral snarls of the man-beast attacking her, but one thing she remembered clearly before slipping into unconsciousness was someone coming to fight it off, and another man's voice telling her to hang on.
Two months later she awoke at Saint Ann's Hospital dazed from a steady morphine drip and looking up at an incredulous nurse. It had taken a few attempts since she kept slipping in and out of sleep, but eventually she found a doctor talking slowly to her, explaining what had happened. A volunteer EMT had been walking down that same road when he had seen a couple stray dogs go after her, doing what he could to run them off and keep her stable until an ambulance arrived to bring her to the hospital and tend her wounds. Her jaw struggled to work, her confusion quite apparent at that version of the story, but all she got was an increase to the drip and a swift trip back to dreamland.
It troubled her because she knew what she had seen, and it was rather hard to explain both arms and multiple ribs broken as well as severe lacerations across the torso. Yet that was what everyone told her had happened for a week as she steadily regained movement and started walking around. That was, until she happened across an EMT on break. She decided asking about that night directly was pointless at the time, so went about another route. With just a couple pointers, she managed to track down the man who had rescued her, someone who was immediately familiar to her and didn't seem as happy to see her as she was to see him. Despite being somewhat friends at work, she had never known much about Theodore, and as she started talking answers out of him, she found out why.
The quiet and attentive bouncer was what he called a "Hunter", a person dedicated to tracking down and killing the supernatural. Things like the werewolf that very nearly had her for a snack two months prior. Before that, she would have likely laughed at the idea of hunting down vampires, witches and werewolves, having relegated them to myth like most normal people. It was kind of hard to deny the existence of something when it tries to take your face off, however. Genevieve tried to get more from him on what happened, but the more she asked of him, the less he wanted to answer until finally he had enough and told her to just go home. It hit her pretty hard, more so than she initially thought as she accepted and backed away, discharging herself a day later to head back to her apartment.
As if things weren't bad enough, an eviction notice hung on her door and her utilities had been cut off while she was hospitalized, apparently they hadn't gotten the memo or simply didn't care. Bills lay stacked on the floor in front of her door, and her bag hung heavily on her shoulders as she collapsed onto the couch and let it all out in the darkness of her home. For hours she laid there and cried as she went over everything that had happened since she left to pursue her dream up until that moment. The more she thought about it all, the more she felt it all coming down around her and eventually passed out from the exertion of going through it all over again.
For a week she locked herself within the apartment, finding on the first day that the bar had fired her after she didn't show up the second day, and that the gas station had done the same the day after. Both bosses said they were terribly sorry about what happened, and offered to rehire her as soon as they had an opening, but it would be at least a month. The electric company was less empathetic, just offering condolences and standing firm on their policy that she needed to pay the past due and shut-off charges. Shut-off charges that were more than what she had, and a bill that was three months of past-due payments. At least she found solace in having running water, though only for a week unless she found a way to pay them as well.
All told, she had thought before that things had been pretty rough and it had been slowly chipping away at her normally cheerful and bright self. Now she no longer had anything to her name that said she was at least doing okay, other than a dull throb of sore ribs in her chest that let her know she was still alive. It was over, her attempt at living on her own without relying on her parents had come to a disastrous close and she was one step away from making the call and finally giving in when she noticed a letter standing out in the pile of old mail.
Months ago she had been approached by a recruiter for the military, telling the usual story of how they could help her earn her way through college with service to the nation. She politely declined at the time, though allowed them to send her information largely to just get them off her back. Now a directory of recruitment offices and enlistment requirements sat on the table before her with a way out. She had been broken down already, worn away by the grind of shit jobs, a wasted dream and some freak taking a literal bite out of her. There was little else for the military to do to her other than build her back up, and so she decided that she wasn't done fighting for herself yet.
The Army was her first stop, talking nearly all day with a rather charming man who tried to talk her into going into a support role until she had made it clear that she wanted a combat-role. Regardless of there not being a conflict to deploy into, they were hesitant to put a woman on the frontlines, but told her if she changed her mind to come back and they could get her into basic within the week. She had briefly considered the Air Force, but didn't quite relish the idea of staying put on a base and watching planes take off while she gave directions. At least, that was until she spoke with the Marine recruiter, and then she only considered giving directions to the same place she directed him. In the end she had only the Navy left, or to relent and head back to the Army offices.
While the idea of a Navy recruitment office in Ohio seemed odd to her at first, she supposed it didn't matter in the end where someone came from as long as they wanted to serve, the sentiment that was expressed to her when she sat down with a master sergeant on the verge of retirement. He took his time explaining the process to her, going over what roles she could expect to serve and which ones weren't open to women. At first she was less than amused, but the idea of being on a submarine was even less amusing, a reaction that the recruiter shared with her. Eventually she found what she was looking for, though told she would have to work hard to earn her place for it, and a day later she managed to acquire a ride off to basic where she would begin her new life.
Early March saw the beginning of what was both a far rougher, yet altogether easier road for Genevieve. Basic training was just as rigorous as her recruiter had promised, weeks of intense physical training in order to get her and the other recruits up to peak physical shape and ensure their skills were up to snuff. She pushed herself hard every day, harder than the instructors and shut out the jeering of the men assigned to the same barrack. At first the coed training had her rolling her eyes over the comments she received, but as they slowed in trying to break her down and everyone suffered equally under the DI, she found her edge and used it to push herself to be better than she was. It wasn't enough to meet the bar, to be merely acceptable to the Navy, she had to exceed it. First she just packed a little extra weight in her pack for the endurance runs, then she set her own speed goals for the obstacle courses, and adjusted her physical training in the gym to be more demanding.
All the while her instructors observed, at first finding it amusing that a college girl was taking it so seriously, and then using her as an excuse to verbally flog the others for not following her example. That brought down more discontent on her from her fellow recruits, but the other women in her barrack silently approved even if they made a show otherwise. For Genevieve all it did was inspire her further. Before she had joined into the Navy, she had simply accepted what life deigned to serve her, but now she could dish it back and be better. She had the chance to correct the shitty hand she had been dealt, and she wasn't going to let anything bring her down or tell her she wasn't good enough anymore.
So it was that in mid-June when their group survived to the end of basic training, they all did so with pride and Genevieve was among those eagerly looking forward to consignment. To her pleasant surprise, she had found herself assigned to the nuclear carrier USS John C. Stennis as part of their combat detachment. For her commanding officer, it was less of a pleasant surprise, but to his credit he accepted her as part of the team and gave her the same ground rules as everyone else. Two months passed by relatively quietly, her life aboard the ship going well as she worked rotating drills with the rest of the team and did what she could to assist aboard the ship. Then came that one fateful day in September, and what had before merely been training for a "just in case" was now daily combat drills and an ever present eye on radar.
Her orders came along with everyone else's. A new conflict had erupted in the middle east, and her ship as well as the escort group assigned to it were to remain in the Persian Gulf to provide support for the army and marines deploying under Operation Enduring Freedom. Tension was high and it felt like at any moment she would hear the call for general quarters and it would be the time to act. Yet, it never happened. Jets took off on a daily basis to provide air support, and occasionally she would see the trails of TLAMs flying off to strike a land target, but her ship was safe and it seemed that she wouldn't see combat. That was until hostile forces took hold of a coastal port and command needed a strike team to go in and remove them. As the closest ship with a reasonable detachment, her SO got the order from the captain to take the rib out and get it done.
Alongside a dozen other operators Genevieve was about to taste combat for the first time, to set foot on foreign soil with hostile intentions. She wasn't sure of what to expect, even with all of the training beforehand, her heart pounded in her chest and she followed it by rote as her and her team swept the small dockyard building by building. Sporadic fire was exchanged over the course of an hour, and before she had even realized it she had killed three and they had taken the port. It was not all smoke and blood as she had heard from countless others, not some traumatizing experience, and it did not take an extreme force of will to stare down the irons and put two bullets in the heart of a man who wanted her and her people dead. For her that was the part that shook her the most, that it had been easy for her to do it. She had thought countless times that it was going to take an effort to take that first life, but when the time came, she did so with a clinical efficiency that chilled her. Three people had died at the other end of her gun, and it came effortlessly to her.
Later that night the ship's chaplain had come to speak with her, as he did for the others who had experienced combat for the first time, and his words confirmed for her what she had been thinking in the hours since. He had attempted to tell her that it was okay to be apprehensive and even troubled by the first kill, but by his own admission, it was simply easier for some more so than others. There were no doubts, she had been drawn to the military not because it was a way to find purpose after losing everything, but because it had been her purpose all along.
The rest of that year and the next passed quickly, a few minor engagements like the first kept her sharp and earned a promotion to Warrant Officer by the time she had reached the end of her tour of duty. It wasn't quite enough for her though, and already she was looking at the next opportunity. She could have easily re-enlisted for another tour and shipped back out to serve on either the Stennis or perhaps another warship, but she had a need to challenge herself and strive for better. Word had reached her of the Navy SEALs getting ready to collect the first batch of recruits for the year, but almost as soon as she poked her head into the conversation, she was dismissed because they didn't recruit women. Again, she had felt blocked by the military simply because she was female, and again she felt the stares that almost said she wouldn't have made it anyways. Once again, she set out to prove them all wrong.
She stayed on the reserve, but was on base every day training harder than before. Just a few hours of research and information gathering had given her everything she needed to know about their requirements, the training before and after making SEAL and the final test itself. Even if they wouldn't give her the chance to prove it officially, she would make damn sure they knew she could make the cut. For every week of training the new recruits went through down at Little Creek, she matched their regime with her own at the base in San Diego. Though she didn't quite know it at the time, her efforts were not unnoticed. At first it was just the local drill instructor admiring her dedication, then it extended to the commodore who though he approved, thought it was a waste of effort. Word spread up the chain and laterally as well as the weeks drove on, until one day late in 2004.
It had been the last exercise she had planned, one of the dive tests required for all SEALs in order to become part of the force, and she came up with perfect marks to see a man that was not overtly military observing. Genevieve wondered about him for a moment, thinking perhaps it was another official there to speak with the commodore, but a light wave and gesture to come over to speak had said otherwise. She was curious, but cautious, as she knew that with the increased military presence overseas there was a focus on acquiring experienced personnel for the private sector. The man led her back inside the base and into the commodore's office where he sat behind the desk with a look she had only seen once when someone had stolen the bottle of whiskey he kept in the filing cabinet.
As she found out quite quickly, the man who had been observing her had been doing so for the last three weeks and would only reveal himself as "Prometheus" and that he worked for the Special Activities Division of the CIA. Normally him and his comrades in the bureau would take this time of the year to acquire operatives for their own internal paramilitary teams, selecting those they felt would prove useful in certain activities both foreign and domestic. The commodore explained that command would greatly prefer that he keep a few SEALs this year instead of handing them over to SOG, and so that was where she came in. It was a bit ironic she felt, that when she had been openly dismissed as a potential SEAL, she had an opportunity before her that would not otherwise have been available. Of course, she didn't miss that she was being offered up as a way to keep people directly with the Navy, but for once she didn't she thanked the military's dogged bias as something other than a reason to push herself harder.
Being selected for the CIA's paramilitary branch did not mean that she was done proving herself however, as almost as soon as she accepted the offer she was off on a bus across the country with everything she could put in a bag. It wouldn't do for her to just pick up a rifle and be told to be quiet out there, they knew she was a little rough around the edges but had the beginnings of what they needed out of an operative. Once more she was put through courses and tested on her abilities and knowledge of various subjects that slowly deviated from typical operations. There was an increasing focus on unarmed combat training, as often enough their operatives would be sent into areas where carrying a firearm was not feasible. She took to it well enough, her years of dance study lending well to the motions of the Krav Maga course taught at the Academy.
Perhaps the one thing that surprised and disappointed her the most was that while she spent her days down at Foggy Bottom, she would be spending her nights in text books earning her degree. She had thought her college days were behind her, but it was a hard requirement within Special Activities Division, and that was one of the few things they would not bend on. Business was the shortest term available, and after her first attempt she was loathe to try another arts degree, so after just a year of study she was not only a full-fledged member of the Agency, but also finally had a degree to her name. Almost immediately after being badged as a full operative she was sent back to Prometheus, where five others waited in the office with a stack of papers.
Names were exchanged between the newly minted squad, the others pulled from actual special forces divisions and bearing the haughty attitude of people who knew they were better than her. She took it in stride though, gave them a smile and shook their hands in turn. Introductions were short as their handler had a mission lined up already, and within moments of entering the office they had their codenames and were directed to the armory to collect their equipment and be off.
[[TOP SECRET//Central Intelligence Agency//ORCON/50X6]]
On July first, 2006, six operatives were tasked with infiltrating Brazil at the request of their government in order to remove rogue elements loyal to foreign terror cells. Codenamed "Operation Still Waters", they were to first reconnoiter the areas of the Amazon in which the targets were suspected to operate in. Once there, operatives "Thanatos", "Hyperion", "Charon" and "Cytherea" would infiltrate and eliminate all hostile entities within while operatives "Erebus" and "Kronos" would provide overwatch.
Genevieve("Cytherea") Alleron and her team deployed as planned via stealth helicopters on the night of July first, quietly inserting deep into the Amazon rainforest near one of many small settlements in the region. Once on the ground they advanced through the brush for thirty miles until reaching the town, where Diego("Hyperion") Ramirez and Ivan("Kronos") Valinova acquired information from the locals in the internationally recognized fashion. While she didn't quite approve of getting drunk while on mission, the results were as they hoped. Since the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, things had been getting heated among the more nationalistic elements of the Brazilian government, and a coup had been attempted several months prior. It had failed spectacularly, but as many of the rebels had escaped the President covered it up so as not to jeopardize their spot for the summer olympics of 2016. After repeated failures from his own people, he had called on the US to quietly solve his problem under the auspices that it would ensure a democratic country in the Americas remained loyal and stable. With information on the rebel hideout gathered, the team withdrew back into the forest before dawn and set up camp a mile from the river.
Resting during the day allowed them to keep watch on their surroundings, and once the sun set again they could approach without being seen. It took them only a few hours to reach the old military garrison by foot, surveilling it from afar via infrared and night-vision scopes. From their first recon of the camp, they knew already that they couldn't take it on directly, as they were far outnumbered and significantly outgunned since the rebels had stolen military hardware. Still, they had a mission and they had the ingenuity to complete with the information and tools they had available to them. Genevieve took first watch that night as they headed back to the village to gather more intel and some long-term supplies, the team fabricating a story that they were anthropologists with an American university doing field work.
It had taken well enough, as Diego's portuguese was enough to pass when the locals didn't understand his english, but it was only temporary and they all knew it. A week passed as they simply laid low and tracked the movements of the rebels, seeing which towns they had control over and where their supplies went in the forest. Their first sign of trouble was when Gregori"Charon" Slattery and Raymond"Thanatos" Desrosiers ran into difficulty with a local shop owner, and they attempted to withdraw. Right as the rest of the team arrived to pull them out, rebel trucks entered the town firing on them and gunning down any civilians who got in the way. Genevieve took up shelter in the bar with Diego and provided fire support while Ivan and Geoffrey"Erebus" Irving assisted a wounded Gregori across the street to their position.
A rough fifteen minute exchange ended with the team back across the river and assessing their situation, as the rebels collected the bodies of their fallen men and quickly set the blame on the Americans for the dead civilians. That had made their mission a trite more difficult from that point, forcing them to keep their distance from towns they were unsure of, and raiding supply convoys between garrisons. For six weeks they lived in the rain forest of the Amazon, harassing the rebels at every opportunity and silently removing any head of leadership that dared poke out from their forts. When they had finally whittled them down enough to seize a fort, the rebels had thrown down their guns without a shot fired. After the third colonel died of "mysterious circumstances", the general who led the coup had taken responsibility for the entire affair and surrendered to the Brazilian military.
Genevieve and the team had returned to the US once the job was done, a well deserved rest in order, but not in line with what their handler had waiting for them. While commended for their efforts, Prometheus had them right back on the ranges and sharpening their skills. Of course, they did just complete a mission and did manage to squeeze in a celebration. As she was a lightweight compared to the rest of them, Genevieve had only a few drinks, watching Ivan drink them all under the table and make a show of lifting the other patrons of the bar in pairs. It was different than what she had expected of this life, but it was good. She felt something she hadn't in a long time, and could actually feel the smile on her face as Diego tried to show off for her in pool, but only managed to lose a lot of money and earn the mockery of the team. Times were good, and in between training down at base she began to join them more and more at the bar, enjoying the personal time and bonding with her team-mates.
A cold night in November of 2007 had seen her more alive than she had ever been, accepted fully as a skilled operator by the others months ago, and even friends with all of them. She still couldn't hold her drink like Ivan, but she raised the glass with them every week without reservation. It was this night that she first felt something different about one in particular though. He had never quite given up on trying to win her over, making it a game as to if he could convince a smile over his antics as he inevitably lost one bet or another. She found it endearing, Raymond thought it was sexual harassment, and Gregori was just jealous that he always found a way with that charming smile. Once more the team had gathered in the pub near base, Diego regaling them with a tale his mother had supposedly told him of his great-grandfather and the Napoleonic wars.
Snow had been falling at a constant, and his Spanish pride had seen him in one of his usual hawaiian shirts, refusing to show just how cold he was. She had always made a show of disapproving of his bravado, making a fool out of him more than once in the bar, but something about him that night had shifted her thinking just a little bit. There was a certain charm to him that she couldn't deny, and she knew he was just playing at being a rogue when he hit on her and the other women in the bar. For not the first time, when he turned to wink at her as he usually did at the end of one of his ballads, she smiled and raised a glass with the rest of them. It was the first time she lingered in the bar however, waiting until the others had left and Diego was getting ready to head back as well. In that moment, she finally relented and walked back to base with him, letting him know he had his chance to win her over.
That night in November had also been the night when new orders were received. The ongoing war efforts overseas had need of a recon team to infiltrate and survey the Khyber Pass for potential assault teams and to determine if enemy command elements were within. Her and the rest of the team geared up before they had even slept off the alcohol, and a glance between herself and Diego was all that was needed to communicate that they would pick back up when they returned home. Afghanistan was a short C-130 ride away, where in the dead of a moonless night they parachuted in a dozen miles from the range and with instructions to check back in once they were in mission area.
It was a long hike over rough terrain, and unlike Brazil there wasn't a possibility of friendly locals this time. To everyone in the region they were the enemy, and it wouldn't be safe for any of them to attempt contact. Instead they had to rely on agents already within coming to predesignated spots, and the occasional overnight air-drop. The team stuck with it though, quietly scouting out the pass and surrounding villages in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, marking the occasional target for drone strikes and eating MREs by the light of their NVGs. One year passed, slowly progress being made in the theater and the new President taking office with promises to start winding down the war efforts. Ivan cussed at the radio, but Diego seemed optimistic about the whole thing so she couldn't help but find herself looking towards withdrawal and being back home. The second year passed and even though they promised to wait until back in Virginia, neither could truly resist going back on it. None of the team could resist the occasional break, surrounded as they were by sand and rocks, dependent on air-drops and the occasional local working with the US government.
While on mission, though she omitted such in the official reports, Genevieve encountered the supernatural once more. She had known since that first brutal introduction, that creatures hid in plain sight, and preyed upon the weak. What she hadn't realized was just how widespread they were, and almost lost it when she had gone to meet their contact and discovered he was a vampire. Of course, he hadn't said as much at first, it was her keen eye that noticed the strange look in his eye and more so the way he didn't reflect off the mirror she kept attached to her sleeve. At first, she was going to gun him down and get the team to relocate before others would find them, but once more the man surprised her. He explained quickly that the small coven he was part of lived peacefully with the people of the Khyber Pass, and that agreements had been made between them long ago. There were no prey and no predators, just mutual coexistence.
Yet, as they made the exchange of supplies for her team and information for the local troops, she found that not all agreed to the compacts. Some had gone rogue and were drawing undue attention because of it. She felt conflicted over the matter, as on one had the rogue vampires were a danger to not only the local villages, but also her team. On the other hand, they had a mission and could not afford to interfere. Genevieve had a choice, but it was not one she would make on her own.
Later that night she told the others of what she discovered, leaving out the part about vampires, and even though they did have the mission to worry about the others agreed that something had to be done. Diego needed a little more convincing, but it wasn't because he didn't believe it was the right thing to do. He had a feeling when she talked about the village that she was leaving something out, and confronted her in private about it, where she quietly told him about the vampires. To her surprise he believed her, calmly agreeing with the plan and getting the team together draw up routes of attack.
On the morning of March 10th 2010, the team infiltrated the village with the rising sun at their backs and began to sweep through each building. As they progressed the feeling of something wrong increasingly began to gnaw at Genevieve, and it was only when the body of their contact had been found chained to a wall with the word "traitor" carved into his chest, that they knew they had walked into a trap. Shots rang out before they could exit the ramshackle town hall, pinning them in a poor position to return fire. They knew the longer they stayed there, that the greater the chances enemy forces from nearby towns and mountain hideouts would come to surround them even further. Diego made the plan, having himself and Raymond stay in the building to put down suppressing fire while the rest of them would make a quick exit and find better ground.
Enemy fire came from every direction as the team fought desperately in the center of the village, running slowly out of time and ammunition the longer they tried to work their way out. Finally it came down to desperation as Raymond took a bullet in the leg and went down in the street. Before anyone could get to him he was shot repeatedly in the back, managing to pull the trigger of his rifle long enough to force the enemy's heads down and allow his team a chance to escape. Already reinforcements were arriving from the western and southern approaches, mortars hitting the surrounding buildings and very clearly forcing their retreat along a specific corridor. They were down to picking up discarded and weapons to fire back at their attackers now, Genevieve and Ivan both taking hits and having to duck into an alley as Diego covered for them.
That was when it happened. In one single moment all she could hear was him telling her to keep going, not to look back, and then he went down. Her screams echoed through the town, barely drowned out by mortars and automatic weapons fire, Ivan physically hauling her away despite his own injury and Geoffrey covering them as best they could while Gregori navigated a path out of the killbox.
An hour later the four of them were back at camp, the sat-radio chattering with incoming from command and Ivan shouting at them over all the noise. Genevieve just sat through it all, tears drying on her face as she slowly numbed to the reality of it all, and what had just been taken from her. Once more she felt cold and bitter, and this time there wasn't a smile and a laugh at her side to draw her out of it. All she could feel was a hole where her heart should be, and the chilling need to make things right. Something that couldn't be done by just the four of them, and not when they were being given orders to withdraw.
[[End of Classified Information]]
In January of 2014, she finally returned to base and was put on leave. The events of the last few years had begun to wear on her, and command was skeptical on sending her on yet another mission without rest. She said goodbye to her friends, both still alive and lost, and quietly left Virginia for something different. Again the thought of going to see her parents entertained her for just a brief moment, but she dismissed it as she had always done in order to follow a lead on affairs she still needed to settle.
While overseas she had encountered a man who claimed to be a hunter of the supernatural, talking of a meeting of his people in Salem. She had the feeling he wasn't telling the entire truth, as he was a bit twitchy around her, but it was something to follow up on anyways. Enough of her life had been spent walking away from what hid in the shadows, and she was pissed at being left to do nothing for so long. At least, she was once she pulled herself out of the bottle enough to sort out a trip up north.
When she arrived she wasn't quite sure what she was hoping to find, though the thought of a bunch of people in trenchcoats with crossbows had briefly crossed her mind. It was quiet the first couple, and she took that time to sort out a place to live as well as employment in the area. With her background it was easy to get something with flexible hours and taking up asset-protection also allowed her to observe the locals a little bit. Genevieve's first encounter with the hunters of the area was when she found herself on the wrong end of a gun one night, staring down the barrel at an old man with smoker's cough. He had babbled on something about witches, and started in on trying to "purge" her when she grabbed the pistol and broke his nose with the grip in a single move. There were few things she didn't have the patience for, and crazy old men with a witch fetish were up there near the top.
She cleared up the confusion after a short conversation about how a kneecap is supposed to bend, and got a name to speak to. As she had been told, there were several hunters active in Salem, each doing their best to hunt down the supernatural and put an end to them in their own way. The name she acquired was one of the elder members of their order, one who generally kept to themselves but occasionally took on a young face to keep the profession alive.
Her interaction with the old man had gone about the way as the first encounter had gone, a short conflict that turned into her holding the gun and asking the questions. Patience was running thin, and she told him as bluntly as she could that she wasn't an enemy. She wanted to put an end to people being hunted openly in the street as prey for these creatures. All she needed was the knowledge to take the fight to them. It helped a little more when she handed back the old man's gun, though she cautioned against trying anything stupid anymore. To her relief the hunter relented and gave her some books to read from himself and a few others. It was one of the oldest professions in the world, he had explained, and it was his duty to pass it on even if he didn't personally approve of some of those taking on the mantle. She parted ways afterwards, asking for her name to be placed among their order partly so they would stop drawing on her, and because she wanted it clear she was doing this for the right reasons.
A few years have passed since then, Genevieve making a name for herself in her own way, taking down a couple vampires who strayed a little too far from their covens, and occasionally a werewolf who got caught gnawing on a person. Trust was hard to gain with the hunters, always something between her and them making it difficult to work together with any of them, and so she was forced to go her own way as best she could. She found an uneasy partnership with some of the more low key vampires and witches of Salem, unwittingly acting to keep the truce together while trying to make something of this new life. Every now and then she gets a call from her old squad mates, and even took a break a month ago to take on a mission with them to Chechnya. It wasn't the same though, and they all knew it never would be. For her, all that was left was Salem and trying to keep people safe from the horrors that lurked in the darkness.
Lunamaria Hawke,
Quest Abandoner,
op2024,
Sir Lurksalot,
Vampire Stepdad,
ScreenAcne,
Apollosarcher,
Sharmat,
avril,
Bugman
