This is fan created fiction about a character in a Vampire: The Masquerade live action role playing game run by Mind's Eye Society. If you are a fellow player, please remember that anything you read here is considered out of character knowledge. If you are a lawyer, please don't sue me; I'm not making any money off of this and it's just for fun.
by Simon W.
July 2120
The blue flaming sword went cleanly through the neck of the Ba'ali that she'd cornered. As his head left his shoulders, he briefly erupted into green flames. Marianne hissed in pain but she held herself in readiness to have to fight again. This time she didn't need to, the flames had been his last defiant gasp.
There was nothing left of him now but ashes. The cultists, on the other hand... She turned and looked at the mess that was the room. Thirteen dead humans; some by self-inflicted wounds but most of them died to the sword in her hands, which was now starting to lose its blue glow. Marianne shook her head and then proceeded to do the painstaking, dirty, and slow work of dismantling the ritual and stacking bodies and body parts in a pile.
After the last of the ritual components has been rendered inert, she briefly left the wreck of a building long enough to get the gas cans from her vehicle. Then she came back and doused everything and everyone liberally. Once all that was finished she lit a torch and threw it into the center of the room. Then she walked out.
She watched the building catch fire from across the street. Her Beast didn't like the flames but she refused to not stay. That would be showing fear. After the building was well and truly blazing, she made a phone call.
"It's done," she said to the person on the other end of the line. "Keep emergency services away for at least another hour to make sure it's all destroyed by the time they can get here." Her face darkened at whatever they said. "No, there were no survivors. You didn't ask me to save anyone; you asked me to solve your problem and I have... effectively."
She hung up the phone, got into her vehicle, and drove away. She had a temporary place to stay for the day and then she'd head back home tomorrow. When she arrived at the temporary haven there was a red rose placed at the entrance. Marianne narrowed her eyes and looked around. But she saw nothing, even as she focused so that her senses were all as acute as possible.
That day she slept holding the rose clutched in her hand like a security blanket.
How had she gotten here?
That was the thought on her mind as she made her way to her more permanent home the following night. She'd left California in the summer of 2020 chasing after Vanessa who was, in every possible way, the one that had gotten away. She'd thrown her lot in with the Sabbat for long enough to gather the favors she'd needed to bust Taggart out of his box in Mexico City. By the time she'd done that, he was more sane than she was and he'd been the one who'd been imprisoned in a box.
July 2120
The blue flaming sword went cleanly through the neck of the Ba'ali that she'd cornered. As his head left his shoulders, he briefly erupted into green flames. Marianne hissed in pain but she held herself in readiness to have to fight again. This time she didn't need to, the flames had been his last defiant gasp.
There was nothing left of him now but ashes. The cultists, on the other hand... She turned and looked at the mess that was the room. Thirteen dead humans; some by self-inflicted wounds but most of them died to the sword in her hands, which was now starting to lose its blue glow. Marianne shook her head and then proceeded to do the painstaking, dirty, and slow work of dismantling the ritual and stacking bodies and body parts in a pile.
After the last of the ritual components has been rendered inert, she briefly left the wreck of a building long enough to get the gas cans from her vehicle. Then she came back and doused everything and everyone liberally. Once all that was finished she lit a torch and threw it into the center of the room. Then she walked out.
She watched the building catch fire from across the street. Her Beast didn't like the flames but she refused to not stay. That would be showing fear. After the building was well and truly blazing, she made a phone call.
"It's done," she said to the person on the other end of the line. "Keep emergency services away for at least another hour to make sure it's all destroyed by the time they can get here." Her face darkened at whatever they said. "No, there were no survivors. You didn't ask me to save anyone; you asked me to solve your problem and I have... effectively."
She hung up the phone, got into her vehicle, and drove away. She had a temporary place to stay for the day and then she'd head back home tomorrow. When she arrived at the temporary haven there was a red rose placed at the entrance. Marianne narrowed her eyes and looked around. But she saw nothing, even as she focused so that her senses were all as acute as possible.
That day she slept holding the rose clutched in her hand like a security blanket.
How had she gotten here?
That was the thought on her mind as she made her way to her more permanent home the following night. She'd left California in the summer of 2020 chasing after Vanessa who was, in every possible way, the one that had gotten away. She'd thrown her lot in with the Sabbat for long enough to gather the favors she'd needed to bust Taggart out of his box in Mexico City. By the time she'd done that, he was more sane than she was and he'd been the one who'd been imprisoned in a box.
It was a strange pairing, her and Taggart. They'd set off to hunt infernalists and Ba'ali the world over. The demons had been banished back to their realm but their influence never completely disappeared. And there was always someone willing to sell their soul for power. Marianne burned with the desire to kill all who had made such a bargain and Taggart never disabused her of the idea. If anything he encouraged it any time she started to doubt her cause.
The one constant in the last century had been that periodically she'd get intelligence about a particularly nasty set of cultists or a true Ba'ali wrecking havoc. Every time, she would find a rose, Vanessa's calling card. They had been dancing around one another now for a century. Vanessa ran. Marianne chased her. Marianne never caught her. At most she might get a brief glimpse of a woman in red off in the distance. She had no reason to believe they wouldn't do this dance for all of eternity, locked forever in this strange, unhealthy relationship.
Marianne sighed. There were always going to be more Ba'ali to kill. And maybe someday, she'd see Vanessa properly again... but it was entirely likely that was the day they both finally killed one another.
The one constant in the last century had been that periodically she'd get intelligence about a particularly nasty set of cultists or a true Ba'ali wrecking havoc. Every time, she would find a rose, Vanessa's calling card. They had been dancing around one another now for a century. Vanessa ran. Marianne chased her. Marianne never caught her. At most she might get a brief glimpse of a woman in red off in the distance. She had no reason to believe they wouldn't do this dance for all of eternity, locked forever in this strange, unhealthy relationship.
Marianne sighed. There were always going to be more Ba'ali to kill. And maybe someday, she'd see Vanessa properly again... but it was entirely likely that was the day they both finally killed one another.
