because the lives of the wicked should be made brief

[somanyadjectives]

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[whumpawhumpa]

( Eliot stays in the lead, taking every stair pretty quickly, but keeping alert to anything that might be going on. )

Got a destination in mind?

[wereall_addicts]

[Vincent considers the options quietly. "If we can get to my car, we can head across the river to Marcel's. If not the car, Davina may be home, but if this is a witch war, I don't want to bring that to her door."

Marcel can handle it. He's Marcel and near-impossible to kill.

As they reach the bottom of the stairs, he points to where the sedan is sitting in the complex parking lot. But Eliot will pick up the sound of feet moving in from behind them as he does.]

[whumpawhumpa]

Your car, then. Keys.

( He catches them when they're thrown but then hears people moving in from behind and ) Here. ( he tosses them back, running past Vincent and ready to go toe-to-toe with whomever is following them, pole at the ready. )

[wereall_addicts]

[Vincent takes the keys back and runs for the car, seeing the commandos coming to try and cut him off. He raises his hands, murmuring a spell to fling them away from him (14 vs. 11), clearing the path to the car.

In the meantime, three commandos are going to come right for Eliot, raising their batons to take swings at him (16, 11, 15).]

[whumpawhumpa]

( Eliot takes the first two swings head on, but catches the third in his hand (nat 20), wresting it out of his hand, he uses both weapons, trying to catch commando 1's baton with his new one, to bring it down to the ground before kicking the de-batoned Commando 3. This is where he showcases himself! )

[wereall_addicts]

[He does! And another commando gets thrown his way from what Vincent is up to, but he's managed to make it to his car where he pulls open the door and dives into the backseat just before someone tries to grab hold of him and pull him back out.

The commandos will try to come at Eliot again, even without their weapons (3, 10, 14), but from somewhere above them, someone will shout "Vampires!" and a body with an obvious bite in the neck drops to the ground nearby.]

[whumpawhumpa]

( None of their blows land as he dodges, ducks, and limbos around their weaponless limbs. Before he attacks them right back (19, 5, 8) )

[wereall_addicts]

[The first one lands (2), but the other two miss (7, 15) as they start to dance away, give them a little distance. Another body drops from above, and shortly after Sophie follows, glancing between Vincent shut into his car and Eliot with his commandos.]

Need a hand?

[whumpawhumpa]

Be my guest, but I had it handled.

( He intimidates the three commandos closest to him jerking his body in their direction to spook them. (17) )

[wereall_addicts]

[They are suitably intimidated (9) and jerk back away from him, woozy from taking those vampire his.

Sophie holds up her hands, before nodding.]

Suit yourself. I'll go check on Vincent.

[She knows how much you need to have a good fight every so often - she won't get in your way.]

[whumpawhumpa]

( Swinging the baton and the pole in his hands, he approaches, and tries landing a blow on each of them: (16, 16, 17) )

[wereall_addicts]

[The first blow takes the legs out from under the guy, sending him down hard (1). The other two also take the hits before (10, 10), before coming back swinging again (2, nat 20).]

[whumpawhumpa]

( Eliot dodges the first and is pushed back into a car, hard, breaking the glass on the door before landing with a thud.

Shooting his head up, he tosses one of the batons hard back at number two (16) to land against his chest and jumps back up, trying to slam a kick into number three. (14) )

[wereall_addicts]

[Number 2 takes the blow to the chest with a groan, and possibly a snapped rib (11). He still tries to recover and take another swing at Eliot (14).

Number 3 takes the blow hard on the other hand (3), and stumbles back, cracking his head heavily on the curb.]

[whumpawhumpa]

( Eliot, the punching bag, takes the hit (4), before attempting the same hit, but harder. (nat 20) )

[wereall_addicts]

[Yeah, that's gonna be lights out for the last remaining goon. Sophie rolls down the window on the driver's side of Vincent's car before raising an eyebrow.]

Ready to go?

[whumpawhumpa]

( He takes an extra second to remove any fire power off of the two bodies, unloading the magazine and dropping the bullets on their bodies.

Then he climbs into the backseat. )

They interrupted my cassoulet.

[wereall_addicts]

I'll rebuy the ingredients for you. We'll make it again.

[And with that she pulls away from the curb and starts rocketing through the streets of New Orleans.]

So where are we going?

["Marcel's. He'll do a sweep, make sure there aren't any left picking off other witches."]

[whumpawhumpa]

You were the target.

( He holds out a small picture of Vincent, showing him in the front seat. )

They probably got it from your license photo.

( He sits back. )

That roux took hours.

[wereall_addicts]

[Vincent takes the photo from him and sighs. "Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. The Gauntlet was called a few weeks ago. There have been witch attacks all over the place."]

Alys mentioned something about that. I didn't expect for it to include military commandos.

[whumpawhumpa]

You don't think there are witches in the military?

( There's everything in the military. )

Besides. They were Romanians. Someone after you has deep ties. They're old world.

[wereall_addicts]

Of course there are. But they don't usually bring machine guns and batons to a witch fight.

["Lots of old world covens don't like what we do here," Vincent admits. "Wants to maintain the lines of delineation between the species instead of working together. Which is rich coming from the Colony considering their storied history of working with the Ivory Tower."

Sophie shakes her head.]

That's more Wallace and Corsair than anything else, and if the rumor mill is true, they've recently shuffled off this mortal coil themselves.

[whumpawhumpa]

Machine guns and batons get the job done.

( Or, normally they do. Not when Eliot is involved. )

This wasn't Wallace and Corsair. Or the Ivory Tower. These were witches. Well. Hired by witches. Pure dirty work. This wasn't personal. They wanted you off the map.

[wereall_addicts]

That's what the Gauntlet is. Reset the balances of power in the witch world. I remember the Inquisition. I was in Europe when it was happening. It wasn't about grudges or retribution. It was about claiming power.

[Sophie shakes her head as she continues to drive.]

Vincent and Davina have been doing something different here. When the dust settles and the blood dries, they don't want what they're doing to continue.

[whumpawhumpa]

Then we keep them safe until this is over. And, the only way the Gauntlet gets picked up is when the power vacuum is sealed. There are big moves being made in the witch world right now. People who threw the Gauntlet need to go down - or get what they're after. Either way, you need to get a hold of Davina. Take this serious.

( It's dangerous until it isn't. )