Jay-Jay
The carnage of the rooftop was made all the more compounded by the threat of lycanthropic explosives. It was one thing to be dealing with werewolves who explode: but another thing entirely to have werewolves that explode at the mere tickle of an open flame; especially when you happen to be a mage who specialises in fire and who hosts a demon that is on fire and you happen to like fire and…
…why did they have to be weak to fire?
So instead of being able to dispose of the werewolves in a dazzling display of pyrotechnics and immolating incantations: Jay-Jay was reduced to guns. It was a useful fall back plan, but in the veiled world, where vampires and demons and werewolves (oh my!) rule the night, why did the newly self-anointed patron saint of fiery bad-assery get reduced to gun play?
Not that the guns were failing, of course. Especially in the hands of the mystery mini-gun totting maestro that was Draveous. Jay-Jay had made her way in the hopes of linking with the dragonkin fella. He looked fun, to be honest: and he was an obvious ally in a storm of enemies.
Looking around the ramparts of the castle, she noticed that the coast seemed relatively clear. Draveous had moved over to the edge of the roof and was firing into the werewolves below: and Jay-Jay used it as her opportunity to advance. She looked over at the dragonkin, hoping she might think of something funny or interesting to say. Instead, she shrugged and began to pick out targets. Stragglers or sneaky sods who thought they might get a one way ticket to wherever the fuck they thought they’d get out of this assault. Honestly, did someone promise all these guys a bunch of werewolf virgins or some shit?
…That was the joke she could have made.
Jay-Jay sighed as her fingers flared into motion. She’d make small talk with the dragon-ee-badass later. For now, she was going to play at the whole ‘useful’ thing. A dozen fiery spears flickered into life, like the first embers of a struck match. The projectiles seemed to hover for as Jay-Jay waited for the first target. Spotting a werewolf far enough from the group, Jay-Jay let loose a missile and felled the werewolf in a very final explosion. Each projectile was replaced by another identical spear of fire. The smile on Jay-Jay’s face broadened a little as she started to pick targets faster now: Two spears flying out at a time and replacing themselves, then three and then four more, all taking a werewolf and snuffing out the fire of their life.
Jay-Jay wasn’t perfect, nor even that masterful. She hit a lot of the beasties, sure: but every so often an explosion managed to get closer to the castle. Any of the guardians with Draveous would know that the battle was a losing one; yet each fought on despite it all.
Jay-Jay caught one werewolf at the very base of the castle, and she swore loudly as she tried to aim a spear at the werewolf before it exploded. She might have got there in time, if she could push…
…Kata stopped her though. The demoness saw something important: Daisy. With a gentle mental tug from the demoness was all Jay-Jay needed in order to turn elsewhere. It wasn’t like there were a few thousand more targets, or anything.
The swarm was unflinching in its conviction, to be sure. There wouldn’t be any surrender from these werewolves, and even if Draveous had the bullets and Jay-Jay the magic to spare, they would only stem the tide that seemed as never-ending as the Thames.
Jay-Jay knew the end result. They’d all die if they stayed in the castle. Hell, even the dragonman probably had that figured out: but he heardly seemed the type to leave without orders. She couldn’t help trying though. “Hey, Dragondood. We can’t take them all down without wiping out a chunk of London. We need to split, now!”
Draveous spun about to look up at the demonspawn. Amidst the cacophony of battle, and the thunder of the seemingly endless explosions, the Dragonkin's ridged-eyes narrowed.
"I have nowhere to go," He said. "If this is where I am to die, then so be it. I shall not have my last act be the abandonment of my post."
He turned to impale an unexploded werewolf upon his giant sword. With a mighty kick, Draveous thrust the lifeless body from the blade before returning his attention to Jay-Jay.
"Be gone with you. Protect Lord Bain and Lord Hoyle, and tell them that as long as there is life in my veins, this castle will not fall."
Without another word, Draveous turned, and set about to fulfil his promise, not matter the outcome.
Jay-Jay stared at the dragon, a mix of confusion and respect and perhaps a little bit of sadness. The man’s conviction was incredible, to be sure. It just highlighted how scary the Bain and Hoyle pair were: to be inspire such zealous respect in an individual. There charisma was probably the thing that scared Jay-Jay the most, and when you consider the fact that both were paragons of lycanthropy and vampirism, that said a lot.
Every instinct said ‘don’t abandon him’ but she knew that she had to. Dying was all they would achieve here, and that wasn’t an option at all. She’d have to leave Draveous, or she’d have to try and take him with her by force: which was about as likely as killing all the werewolves without wrecking chunks of London.
Even now, after so much learning and so much growing, she was frustratingly powerless.
Words had failed her, magic couldn’t save her and she didn’t have enough bullets for the werewolves to choke on. She leaned closer to Draveous, demanding at least some of his attention as she blew a hole in a werewolf’s chest. “If I know Bain and Hoyle at all…” she didn’t “…They’d want to say something like this: Castles can be rebuilt, but friends and good people can’t.” She paused for a second, trying to think of whatever else might convince him to not play the martyr. She shrugged her shoulders and leaned up to kiss the Dragonkin’s cheek. “That was from me. Don’t die for some stones.” With nothing left to say, and nothing left to do, she left Draveous to whatever his duties were. She hoped he wouldn’t die, because interesting people were fun: but she didn’t really hold out much hope, either. Honourable people sucked like that: you always knew what they’d do.
Pushing forward, Jay-Jay pondered on how quiet Katago̱gí had been. She’d normally have been offering to take over by now: or maybe she’d offer advice, or perhaps she’d be telling Jay-Jay how pointless wasting time on the Dragonkin had been, or…
’I had nothing to say. You were doing fine without me.’
“Oh…”
It took a few minutes for the fire demon-host to slide back into the castle's main chamber, and it was a bit of a shock to see just how much had changed. What was once a pristine and immaculate room that the rubberdeck-servant had clearly poured a lot of work was now a shambles. Broken glass and blood and alcohol stained the floors, ruining carpet and surface alike. The denizens of the room had also changed. For one, half of them were missing: Veti and Thad or Max or whatever he was meant to be called now had vanished: as had the werewolf they'd been chatting to. Odds had at that the trio were not partaking of each other's company, so it was likely they were running somewhere.
"Whatever you have to do, Reginald cannot die. Not like this. Anything any of you can do, we can’t lose him.”
Atticus' desperation knocked the lemon-like Jay-Jay out of her own little world. She bolted into the room and took a look at the people inside. The wight and the new new guy who gave Kata the heebie jeebies seemed fine. Siya had apparently entered her murdering bad-ass mode that Jay-Jay recognised from the club, oh so long ago. Atticus had also turned into scary-sexy Incubus form, which Jay-Jay wasn't exactly going to complain about. Everyone looked at least as good as they had before, with the exception of Hoyle. To see the werewolf draped over Atticus' back like a fur-coat was painful. She'd grown fond of the fatherly werewolf. She suddenly remembered the morbidly fascinating charisma that drove people to martyr themselves for Bain and Hoyle...Scary.
Hoyle had taken a number of wounds, some of which weren't healing. That could only mean silver, and that presented tonnes of troubling possibilities for the elderly wolf. Least of all, bleeding out. "Atticus, I can seal the bossman's wounds, if ya want. It'll hurt, but he won't bleed out."
Not waiting for an answer, Jay-Jay jogged a few feet behind Atticus, between him and the two gun totting new-guys. She was hoping she could be useful here: either as support for Gabe and Semyon or for helping Bossman Hoyle.
I hope Daisy is okay.