2018.11.03: The Poway Massacre

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The Poway Massacre
The Coven takes out some rival cultists.
IC Date Saturday, November 3rd, 2018
IC Time 10:00 pm PDT.
Players Raquel, Pax, Helen, Zora, Bobby Hume, Aubrey, Estrella
Location Outskirts of Poway, Arcane Location
Spheres Legio Umbris

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Act 1: The third floor of the Magic Box. Pax has asked everyone to meet here for the planning stage of this operation, having closed most of the doors in the apartment and set out some various finger-food types to feed everyone. Apparently. You know, like little cheese and crackers and stuff... There's various equipment laying on the kitchen bar, including a sword, two daggers, a kevlar vest, and a few duffle bags filled with rope and rags for muffling people. Next to this, a folder with various pictures of a large manor house can be found, set in a vast property out in the scrublands and surrounded by a cast iron fence.

Helen shakes while burning through her rage as she shifts out of crinos and back to homid. Her last batch of cooked explosives coming out better than the rest. Helen’s face dripping in nervous sweat as she wipes the back of her right hand against her forehead to try and get some of the grime off her face. She wore her black ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron draped around her body as she ties the back strings around her waist. “This shit is scary as fuck, Pax. I’m gonna die if I keep making more like this. No more...”, the amish teen says while looking at chemical cocktails. “Like... I need to cook these things to precise degrees or I’ll blow my fucking arm off. Even chilling it or de-thawing it too fast can set bomb’s like these off. These first two I can set a timer on and stick them in the freezer. But they are going off no matter what. This last one - I improved on from my others. I should be able to use a remote detonator on it.”, The young woman says while in the kitchen and sitting at a distant chair. To cool her nerves and make sure everything was safe. “Just don’t fuck - with - the button on the detonator. It will explode.”, Looking at the small push button switch with a safety clasp, before heading out to get changed and prep for the mission tonight. Helen then heads upstairs to go quickly shower and change before people arrived.

Pax is dressed in a flowing black robe, like last time. His hood is pulled back and his creepy smiling mask is sitting on the coffee table. There's a laptop sitting on the table itself, the man leaning forward and peering at a blurry Google maps image of the building in question. Looks like some frames skipped over it somehow when the sattelite was passing overhead. "Thanks for not blowing up my kitchen babe!" he calls out to Helen, grinning broadly at the woman as she goes to shower and change. "But yea, practice makes perfect and all that. Gotta do more of them to get better at it." he points out. There's a printed map in his lap, with routes drawn on it, for when the group makes the drive. Seems he heard about the 'unable to find the fucking building' debacle from the trip to Albany.

Aubrey raps, gently tapping at Pax's window waiting to be let in. She smokes as she waits on the fire escape amusing herselg by quickl shuffling her Ipod from Metal to Cash.

There is a rumbling sound of a heavy black humvee with a reinforced chassis and seeming illegally tinted windows pulling up just outside the Box, its four-wheel drive crunching over the gravel. It's driven by Major Zora Vankova, and she'll have an Etsy accompanying her in the passenger seat.Zora is wearing a long-sleeved, black commando shirt and a pair of dark, weathered denims, along with combat boots that lace up to her knees. Her dirty blonde mane of hair is swept up underneath a black beret pinned with a silver death's head. There's a gunbelt buckled about her hips, asymmetrically lopsided to the right side, where an ancient Colt 1911A is kept, and then further secured with a cord strapping the tac holster to her lower thigh. Her eyes are concealed by a pair of dark mirrorshades, which don't seem to affect her vision for all that it's night. She waits for Etsy to join her, and then the two of them will make their way into the Magic Box, together. Once inside, she sniffs at the air, and briefly passes her mirrored gaze over the various equipment that can be seen. Then she fixes her attention on Pax, "You ready?" She wonders in her dark, raspy voice.

Estrella waits in the van until Zora has neared the door, legs jittering in the well. She glances anxiously up at the night sky and then bolts out, backpack and parasol in tow. Once in the shade of the awning, she relaxes and smooths out her skirts before heading into the Box with the Major. She wears the her beloved black ensemble, same as she always does, with her bow slung over one shoulder.She surveys the room, lingering in the door frame at the top of the stairs, then takes a deep breath in to steady feet beneath her and make her way over to one of the couches, letting her backpack and other items slump to the floor. She nods with a muffled sound of acknowledgment to Pax and Helen and even Aubrey, but her eyes are tired and heavy and her expressions is mostly joyless.

In and out of the shower, Helen changes as quickly as possible - she didn’t even get her hair wet. Slipping on a black wife-beater and woodland cargo pants, likely stolen from the salvation army; the girl counts in her head - like a mental timer for the explosives she had made. Helen slips on some socks and then puts each foot in a combat boot; she uses blousing straps to tuck in her pant legs and tie her boot laces around the high-top of the boot. Combing back her hair into a ponytail; Helen adjusts a baseball cap. Nerves finally settled she gives a once over of herself before heading back into the kitchen and freaking out at Aubrey - snuffing her cigarette quickly in her hand. “You want to kill us all?”, she says curiously while handing the woman some bubble gum. “Chew this instead.”, Hel says with a sigh. “If you aren’t a fan of fire. I don’t think you will be a fan of blowing us all up to smithereens.”

The window Aubrey stands next to opens on its own, allowing the woman entry as Pax stands from the couch and grunts towards Zora and Estrella's arrival. "Mostly! How's it going, guys?" he declares as he walks over to one of the duffle bags and tugs out a number of headset, which he sets on the bar counter. "Everyone grab a headset, just in case we need to split up at any point.""I haven't been able to get any fucking information on this place, so we're going to have to figure some shit out first." he notes, the sandy haired blonde in the mechanic jumpsuit known as Shelly strolling up nervously from the stairwell behind Estrella and Zora. "Any ideas? Kidnapping? Recon? I mean, some of them have to leave the building at some point." Seems he's in whatever 'work mode' Pax might have.

Aubrey grabs a headset, "Oh nice....Another library that spontaenously combusts." She flops on the floor and leans her head on the sofa arm. "Fine, I won't blow you up this time. But I refuses to stop smoking, once your bomba are gone i'll light up and ride on the hood."

Zora looks at Pax for what might feel like a very long moment - though fortunately for him, the darkly tinted mirrorshades are a considerable improvement on the usual dead, gray stare. Eventually, she tells him, "If you know where they are, I suggest we just drive up and knock on the door." She gives the leanly powerful breadth of her shoulders a slow stretch of a shrugn, "Unless they already know /you/. You'd be surprised how often that works."She glances over to Estrella, considering the sulky Neo-Victorian with an unreadable expression, even as she concludes to Pax, "You don't care about the body count, right?"

With a heavy breath into her chest and an equally onerous sigh, Estrella picks herself up from her collapse against the couch and rifles through her backpack seeking out her rag and flask of ether. She proceeds to douse her rag and hold it to her face for a few quick, greedy little breathe, then looks up from her blank gazing at the floor to catch Zora considering her. She flashes a smile beneath the hand cupped to her face, then purses her lips and averts her eyes to Pax. "Headset? Yeah okay, but don't be surprized if things get glitchy when I try to use it. Otherwise? I dunno. I'm not a strategist. "She sniffs at the air and watches the exchange between Aubrey and Helen and reflexively recoils away from the explosives, scooting herself down the couch a few inches as though that might save her in the event of any explosion. "Good question, though. Things get easier if we can just kill what gets in our way, right?" She glances to Zora for confirmation, then steals her eyes away again as she takes another draw on her rag.

Aubrey checks the time and then pulls a desicated human hand from her napsack. "I came prepared if there are people asleep in where ever the fuck we are going.." she says softer, "Cause no one tells me anything..." She shakes her hand at Pax, "This will keep then asleep even through gunshots and the like."

Helen adjusts a headset over the top of her baseball cap; after wiping her hands clean and dropping the cigarette into the trash. A glance of her yellow wolf eyes to Zora and Ella, “-No, we want about six or so prisoners. But let’s try and make them fat ones if we can. Just keep any six - if they put up to much trouble kill them. Doesn’t matter who. It’s a sacrifice thing.”, Helen says with a small hand wobble to the Major. “Also, I like the idea of knocking on doors. It has worked for me each time so far.”, The woman chuckles before looking back to the explosives. “We can plant these near exits or toss the good one through a window for a good ambush. I’m ready to wait in the bushes and ambush the fleeing cultists. Let them come to us over what might be warded or whatever cultists might do.”, The teen says looking to the map and waving at Ella. “Oh don’t worry. I’ll deal with the explosives. So if I fuck up and die. It’s no one else's fault. But Shelly will be my driver. Just in case its extra bumpy getting there.”, Helen suggests while looking to Pax. “Whose the armor for?”

"Well the problem is the property is warded, and I have no fucking idea how heavy the wards are. Most of the ones I've seen are intent based. So if we go in the front door with an intent to harm, they'll go off and do whatever they're designed to do. When it comes to magic users, assume anything important is warded, even if it's not." Pax tells Zora with a shrug. "I mean, that being said, we can try it if you guys would prefer just walking up to the front door and going in that way." Stuffing one of the headsets into his ear, he nods at them. "Yes, I don't give a shit. I mean, it's actually preferable if they all die. Then I can peruse their shit without much of a rush. That being said, we need six hostages, with one being preferably fat. They don't have to be uninjured, just restrained and transported back." Glancing to the hand Aubrey pulls out, he flashes the woman a grin. "Really? That's pretty neat. Is it proximity based, or...?" At Helen's question, he looks back to her and shrugs. "Whoever. When Raquel meets us I won't really need it."

Aubrey says, “Once inside the house and lit it will cover the entire house/building from cellar to attic. Any mortals inside will be compelled to sleep. Those who are awake are not mortals there for need to die painful deaths involving claws or blades."”

Zora looks over at Pax at the mention of 'intent', "That settles it, then. If it's warded, it won't matter how sneaky we are. I doubt there's anyone here that doesn't intend them harm."It might have paid greater dividends to be especially subtle, if there was numbered among them something of a stealth specialist, or a goddamn pseudo-ghost - but at this rate, there's probably a higher risk of something going wrong, by trying to be too cute.She then walks over to where the folder with the pictures of the manor. She opens the folder, and somewhat messily scatters them onot the surface of the table, so that she can take them all in at once, "It's a big place. You would ordinarily need at least three teams: Two to cover the grounds, and one to force an entrance. They will run like rats."Then she glances towards Aubrey, "That could make a big difference. But either way, you'll need eyes in front and in back."

Aubrey raises a hand, "I'm a ghost...when I wanna be but if that place is warded against the restless dead Wesley wouldn't be much use. Pax you want me to send someone out to have a look see?"

Estrella wrinkles her nose as she removes her hat to fit on a headset. "That's all, huh? *Just* six captives?" She rises from her seat on the couch to move over and peer around Zora's shoulder at the plans and maps. "Sounds... messy. Not like I'd expect anything less from this group than pandemonium and bloodshed, though. I can watch take up the rear and watch everyone's back if someone is going to be watching mine."

“I know this won’t do me any good if these things accidentally go off. But I can pretend...”, Helen says while slipping on the kevlar vest over her torso and doing the straps to the armor. “Honestly, these cultists weren’t so tough. Most their ‘wardings’ in the past were to scare or spook off strangers. At least the New York division - here in California. I don’t know. However from what I have seen so far. I don’t think they specialize in combat. Sure... that one lady had a flaming sword and we fought those armored statutes. But I’m guessing it will be a massacre.”, Her yellow eyes squinting at Ella for a second. “I’m good at pandemonium and bloodshed. Thank you very much. We have tried being stealthy in the past... it hasn’t worked out so well. Have you gotten better at combat or other things?”, Hel asks while hugging Ella. “Because I have no problem hiding behind you tonight.”, She teases while tickling her sides briefly. “Just tell me what you guys want me to do. I’ll get it done.”

Pax grunts and shrugs his shoulders. "I mean yea, it'd be great if we could take three teams and lock the whole place down, but as you can see we have... Like five people." he mumbles as he motions around to everyone. "And only you, Aubrey, and Helen can actually fight. Shelly's just the driver, I'm here for infiltration, and Estrella is here for general magical utility." he indicates as he picks up one of the daggers and stuffs it in his robes, only to fit the sword to a belt beneath them. "Like I said, we can walk up to the front door with five people against wards we know nothing about if you guys want to, but if not we need to find another way inside the building. Maybe it'd bypass the wards." Or maybe they'd activate anyway.turning to Aubrey, he grins and nods at the woman. "Sure! If you don't mind. That'd at least give us an idea as to how far Umbrally the wards reach, and if not, give us an idea on how many people are in there." Humming, he fingers at the vest, then turns to the others. "Let's go ahead and hop in the van. We can talk it out on the way out there." he muses, picking up a few of the duffle bags and starting to head that way, Shelly grabbing a few herself.

Zora glances down at Estrella, when the little witch sidles up to her, to try and have a peek around her shoulder at the pictures. She'll very deliberately move the pictures away, so as to make it harder for Etsy to peer at them, unless she bounces up and down like a frustrated child to catch a glimpse. Then she informs her with a certain wry darkness, "I told Gray I'd keep you on apron strings." She emphasizes the 'strings' apart just enough to elicit a nose-crinkle from the Etsy-witch.It's only then that she looks to Pax, "The more you talk, the simpler this gets. We'll bust the door down, and then your friend can do the dead hand trick." Presumably, if it'll keep them asleep through gun-shots, it'll keep them asleep through broken wards and kicked in doors.The Major won't bother with one of the headsets, "Just tell me what frequency you're on. We'll take two separate vehicles. I have a couple tools in the humvee."

Aubrey picks up her dirty duffle bag and stands up. There is a moment of stretches and a couple nasty sounding pops. "Old age." She mutters and then falls in for the van line. Stopping by the window she whistles like she was calling a pet. For those who can see in to the umbral a female wraith shows up a few seconds later and falls in to step falling Aubrey towards the vehicles. For those who can hear the dead she is singing a snappy tune by Elvis as she meanders behind."

Estrella does try her best to bob and weave around Zora to catch a glimpse of the photos, but she just squeezes her lips into a vicious little pout in the middle of her face and narrows her eyes playfully at the Major. She goes from one frustratingly comfortable bout of being treated like a child to another. She wheezes with a smile as she's wrapped up in that hug and the air squeezes out of her, then bats away Helen's hands with a squeal of laughter as she's tickled. "Hey! Knock it off, Hel-- and no... no, I'm still basically harmless. I guess I can hide? I'm pretty okay at that." She lets her hand run over Helen's shoulder and then tucks back in behind Zora's shoulder. "Oh right!" She brings one hand to her neck, below the ear. "I'll... I'll stick with the headset, though."

With a smirk, Helen quits tickling Ella - the young woman quickly switching to prepping the bombs for transportation. She bites her bottom lip and concentrates to carefully open and line two small ice coolers with aluminum foil. Opening the freezer she moves two of the home-made explosives - one by one into the freezers and surrounds them very carefully with ice. Closing one box to do another and repeat the same process. The third bomb seemed to be made a lot more stable and didn’t have to go through the same rigorous process. The milky liquid in a mason jar was placed inside a box with with a small bit of bubble wrap to protect it from shock. Helen held her breath the entire time doing this as she carried the three bombs. “Shelly. You hit one pot hole, I swear to god. You’re driving with one of these beneath your seat. Don’t hit a pot hole.”, Helen says while slowly following the others. To not accidentally explode.

Pax hisses himself, most not likely to understand the language, however a large bat flies past him and through the lack of a wall umbrally to go wait near the van. The group is led downstairs to a van, Pax giving Zora the frequency and giving her a duffle bag filled with rope and muffles before they split up. Shelly opens up the unmarked gray van, everyone loads into their respective vans, and they're off! Towards the outskirts of Poway, specifically, which is about a 45 minute drive. -Alright guys- he says over the comms. -Let's try the direct approach first I guess, just pull up there and walk up to the front door. Estrella and I will take up the rear, everyone else can walk in the front. If this goes south, I'm not the one getting hit for it.- he muses, his mask sat in his lap while they drive along.

If it is supposed to be a 45 minute drive, then Zora will do her damnest best to make it in thirty - the heavy black First Team humvee (stripped of all identifying logos) with its blacked out windows, is capable of going surprisingly fast.She's not much of a conversationalist over the radio frequency, though she'll listen to everything that Pax has to say. She seems to anticipate the chance, after all of the bureaucracy that's been taking up her time lately, to rain down harm on some unsuspecting 'innocents'!She might try and run Pax's van off the road once or twice, but it's all in good fun.

If it is supposed to be a 45 minute drive, then Zora will do her damnest best to make it in thirty - the heavy black First Team humvee (stripped of all identifying logos) with its blacked out windows, is capable of going surprisingly fast.She's not much of a conversationalist over the radio frequency, though she'll listen to everything that Pax has to say. She seems to anticipate the chance, after all of the bureaucracy that's been taking up her time lately, to rain down harm on some unsuspecting 'innocents'!She might try and run Pax's van off the road once or twice, but it's all in good fun.

Estrella loads herself and her gear back into Zora's van and sets herself in the passenger seat. She does little in way of preparation save for fitting her respirator over her face and tucking a thoroughly soaked rag into it. She takes a few deep, slow breaths, meditating for about half the ride and letting her worries about her projects, personal and work-related, slip away so she can focus on the mission at hand. Her cheeks grow warm as the ether floods into her brain, but her limbs tense suddenly and her eyes flash with dreadful anticipation as the Major swerves around the other van. It's not even close to being a hit, but the witch collapses against her seat, panting through her mask as the momentum of the vehicle returns to a more even keel and she goes back to her increasingly blissful meditation.

Aubrey sits in the back quietly filing her nails while listening to what sounds like Johnny Cash on her IPod. She looks occasional at the cooler then at Helen who has forbidden her to smoke around the explosives. Which means Aubrey is one unhappy girl, she gives Pax dirty looks as it is of course his fault she can't smoke as he is team leader. She pulls a flask out of the duffle bag in her lap and takes a long drink of what is inside. "Couldn't you have just made a fertilizer truck bomb? Then it would have it's own van to ride in."

Bobby chuckles, "I think Pax likes to get up close and personal with his explosives... I too would prefer an OKC special compared to riding in the back with these." He puts his feet up on the seat across from him, grinning a

Behold! The reason Pax keeps Shelly on his payroll. The woman is a bit annoyed at Zora's aggressive driving, but you can barely even tell when she swerves, the movement of the van fairly natural and smooth as she makes some defensive driving maneuvers and settles into place behind the humvee. Pax doesn't even look up from his laptop in his lap as he browses through some information. "Stop whining. If they go off, you'd barely feel yourself dying." he mutters to the trio in the back. That may or may not be reassuring to them, but Pax doesn't seem to care about the literal explosive situation in the back of his van.

Helen on the other hand is a bit more pissed about trying to be collided with; rolling down her window to fire a shot at Zora’s vehicle to tell her to quick fucking around. “These aren’t normal bombs - you fucking idiots. You’ll kill the whole team in this van.”, Helen growls while settling behind Shelly and watching the explosives in the freezer. The young girl angry and ready to shoot again for real this time if her life was threatened again. "Don't believe me. I'll toss one at you, Major!", Helen says through the headset looking to Aubrey. "Fertilizer truck wouldn't do damage like these."

Zora's beret-clad head will whip around, when Helen pulls out a gun and shoots the side of her humvee as it roars past Pax's van with Shel at the wheel. Perhaps fortunately, owing to the darkly tinted windows, the Major's expression won't be visible! No doubt in her mind, she figured the only possibility of them all exploding, would be if Shel was a bad or an unlucky driver!In any case, there won't be any response over her sub-dermal radio for the moment. She has succeeded in whipping the military humvee into the lead, and she intends to put the pedal down and really punch it down the highway, to make it to the cultist estate in less time than Pax predicted.

It is a shame that Estrella has gotten so comfortable there in her seat with her rosy cheeks and her head full of ether. The rumble of the vehicle puts her nearly to sleep, but the passing of the landscape around her and other idle diversions of the trip keep her present and conscious. But then there's gunfire and the tinking of a round off the armor of the vehicle she's in and she startles back to an anxious fluttering, gasping sharply and balling herself up, limbs tucked in together as closely as possible. She gasps for air to steadies her suddenly racing heart, then outs with a long sigh that hisses through the voicebox on her mask as she relaxes back into her seat and continues her meditative spellweaving.

Aubrey closes her eyes and appears to be asleep, but she isn't she can't be. Instead the rest of the ride is done eyes closed listening to her ipod getting ready for possible combat. She puts on a western style gunbelt and checks the army colt in it.

Again, the random gunfire doesn't alarm Pax much, other than the word 'Hooligans' being muttered over the comms to the rest of the team. Shelly, of course, manages to give the explosive a smooth ride, no matter how fast Zora seems to want to get there. She's a damn good driver, for being a completely normal person in regards to virtually everything. Eventually, the small caravan reaches their destination, with Zora spotting the house before Shelly does. It's actually hard to do, despite the sparse surroundings, and she can feel a sense of dread that seems to push her and everyone else away from the area, like most of the other auras in the other buildings they'd approached in Albany.


Act 2: The mansion! Having arrived via van and humvee outside the mansion itself, the group would find a large green lawn surrounded by a twelve foot brick and cast iron wall of a fence. The front gate is locked up via a padlock from the inside, and various lights of the house in question are on. Trees dot the landscape of the front drive, the property obviously well-kept. There's a palpable sense of unease coming fromt eh direction of the mansion, and Shelly had almost passed the damn thing if Zora hadn't pulled over in front of her, causing her to stop with the other woman's vehicle. The sliver of the moon in the sky bathes the landscape in a dim moonlight, the moon approaching its new phase within the next night or two. Aside from the lights, there's no sign of humans in the lawn area, and the area of the outskirts this is located in seems to be mostly deserted at this time of night. There's a gas station a couple hundred yards down the road, but other than that, the road is fairly deserted.

Zora slews the heavy black humvee off to the side of the road with a grating flurry of pebbles and tiny rocks, as she kills the engine so it rolls to a stop, not too far from the gate. Her witchy companion will be able to feel the rumbled vibration of its mighty engine slowly cycle down and die in the sudden quiet that follows.She looks over at Estrella for a long moment, and then reiterates to her in a deceptively low, dark and raspy voice, "Apron strings."Then she opens the driver's side door and shuts it behind her, striding around to the back of the humvee, where she'll pop the back hatch, revealing several black arms lockers that have been stacked in the back. She click-clacks open one of the lockers, beginning to sort through her equipment while the scooby crew catches up.

Apparently they are not dead. Everyone else having -way- too much faith in Helen's first time bomb making skills and storing them in a ‘shock’ proof container. Or maybe they weren’t afraid of death and didn’t know how deadly these things might actually be. After all only Pax and Helen really knew what they were cooked with. Supernatural or not. As they neared the gas station and passed it - Helen asks for the vehicle to stop so she may safely carry the explosives away from careless and reckless people driving cars. The woman carrying the devices off the side of the road and towards the mansion slowly and carefully. To not explode.

Aubrey makes a gesture to the air and it only looked like she was giving someone the finger as she points to the gate and the house beyond. "Well fuck so much for the shadow, it's warded. Shall we try opening the gate?

Estrella has nearly fallen asleep again as the humvee comes to a grumbling, gravely stop. She blinks the sleep away from her glassy eyes and sits forward in her seat to peer out into the darkness beyond the windshield. She blinks at Zora, freezing in place as that phrase is repeated. She immediately fits her respirator back over her face as the blush in her cheeks rises a beat and a gout of phantom green flames course through her aura.As soon as the Major is out of her line of sight, she bends around the seat to grab her bow and a few other things she might find herself in need of before slipping out of the vehicle and opening her parasol to hide her from the awful argent sickle of the moon. She approaches the gate with caution, taking demure little steps to keep her limbs tucked away in that blessed shade, and then wrinkles her nose and considers her options as she follows the wires to and fro to there endpoints. With one heel raised, she spins around and then walks back towards the humvee and the van as Helen drives up. Despite the parasol spinning in her hands and the wreath of light that is her constant companion and mood-ring, the girl seems rather inconspicuous there on the side of the road."Cameras on the building. Just a couple. They've got some sort of magnetic tripwire on the gate, but I can't tell if its an alarm or just a doorbell. Either way it'll probably make noise we don't want. Anyone feel like they have a shot at shutting it down, or should I just head back over there and get to the burglary? No promises I won't just set it off, though."

Aubrey says, “Would you have a better shot from the otherside of the gate?" Aubrey asks as she looks the gate over. "I mean we would break the chain but it could set it off." (afk a sec sorry for the jump(”

Once Pax's van has arrived, the man in question slips out of the vehicle and slides that mask onto his face, concealing his features and leaving the laptop behind in the vehicle. He's got one of the duffle bags slung over his shoulders as he approaches. "Security shit?" he muses to Estrella, rolling his shoulders a little bit as he glances back over at the gate. While everyone else gets themselves ready, he slips over to the thing, his body disappearing in shadows and simply reappearing on the other side of the gate. Now on the correct side, he kneels down, tugging some pliers from his robes as he goes about fiddling with the devices on the base of the gate. It doesn't take long before he simply pulls them off and drops them on the pavement. No sounds emit from whatever alarm it may have been connected to.

On the other side of the gate, a figure steps out of thin air, out of the very shadows themselves. "I'm in." The other can hear the crackling over the headset as Raquel has managed somehow to get on the other side of the gate unoticed by the Scooby Doo gang. She's giving them a tiny wave, but doing nothing to touch the metal contraption itself. Her hair is all covered up in a bandana, face painted in muted colors to discourage easy recognition.

Major Zora Vankova spends perhaps a minute or so longer with the trio of gun lockers stacked in the back of the black military humvee. Her dead gray eyes are concealed behind darkly reflective mirrorshades, which even at night, don't seem to affect her vision. She eventually reaches into the biggest locker and pulls out a custom, belt-fed light machine gun, vaguely resembling a heavily modified M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. It seems to be built more like an assault rifle, with a collapsible stock, a dual laser sight, and the bipod having been removed to cut down on weight.She draws out a belt of ammunition from an ammo case, with perhaps a hundred and fifty FMJ rounds ready to feed into the machine gun. She loops this about her shoulder, and her arm, stating simply to Pax in a dark rasp, "If you're using bombs, then there's no point tryin to be quiet, right?"It would take a great deal of strength to heft the machine gun in its current configuration, but she seems to manage it effortlessly with one arm. She slams the rear hatch of the humvee shut.

Helen carries the explosives and sets them down right next to the Major and her humvee. "Uncool, Major. I don't trust these devices, Shelly or you...", the woman grumbles while checking on the containers briefly. "Two of these I can't stop from exploding. So we better figure out what to do with them quick.", Helen says with a wink to Zora. In agreement; at some point these things would explode and they would be on a different timer. They were playing hot potato already.

Aubrey pulls out a pair of sunglasses and puts them on before activating gleam. Another blood is spent and there is wet pop as claws grow out of her finger tips. A red bandana is pulled up over her lower face to the sunglass

"Yeah: looks like it, Mr. Wizard." Estrella nods at Pax, her voice crackling and full of static as it broadcasts through the speaker unit on her respirator. She watches him as he slips down to the gate, and then teleports to the otherwise with what is, perhaps, a twinkle of envy of the sorceror's powers in her eyes. Zora's appearance with that machine gun from behind the humvee steals away her attention, though, eyes flashing as the silver gauze of her aura ripples and frays. "Yeah..." She wrinkles her nose again and glances to the others, but she looks back at the Major only to see Helen rolling up beside with those bombs.The witch stiffens, eyes suddenly wide, and she takes a handful of trembling steps backwards. One of her heels slips on a particularly round piece of gravel and she stumbles only to catch herself and freeze in place as she steadies her breath. "Okay, okay." She closes her eyes and forces air into her chest over that etherized rag. "Okayokayokay...lots of firepower. Okay..." She swallows her stutter and sighs, side-stepping back towards Zora, as she watches the gate with glassy eyes.

Standing from his spot at the gate, Pax shrugs his shoulders and tugs some bolt cutters out of that duffle bag over his shoulder. He proceeds to simply cut the dead bolt. "Every experienced infiltrator always remembers to bring pliers and bolt cutters." he mutters over the comms. The gate swings open and he steps over to Raquel, hugging her from the side as he glances at the others and allows them to get their ducks in a row when it comes to approaching this thing. He's not going first, he's already mentioned that one! "Maybe go see if you can find an exit? Put one next to that?" he muses to Helen over the comms. His voice is muffled behind that mask, after all. "We'll stuff the other one in the basement before we leave, make sure the building comes down."

Aubrey wanders through the gate tipping her hat to Pax, "Thank you kind sir." Other then that she is quite as she looks up at the house. "You going to share copies of the books."

Zora glances down at Helen when the Amish wolf comes tottering up with the explosives. She doesn't seem to mind the proximity, given that it couldn't be that much more dangerous from charging into battle with a balefire flamethrower strapped to one's back. She subjects first the Dancer, and then the bombs to a measuring once over, "Pax is the one so concerned with books," She twists her lips as if it were a dirty word. She reaches down to pick one of the timer-activated bombs up with her free hand, and then she'll walk towards the gate with it.She makes a very deliberate point of passing near Pax and bumping his leg with the bomb, "They probably don't keep any books in the entryway, right?" She arches an eyebrow at him as she passes. She has every intent of making her way across the lawn, towards the manor entrance. It also might not make Strella terribly happy, when Zora reminds her, "Apron strings!" Given she's carrying one of Helen's super sketchy bombs. But SHE did promise Kurt to keep Estrella close!

Raquel is the one Pax has given the side-hug to, and her eyes narrow as Zora brushes his leg with the bomb. She can only protect him from most of the damaging effects. Guess she might have to evolve something against fire, as well. Their contact is brief, and she pulls away since this isn't a time to cuddle. "How are we collecting our prizes?" The Hispanic woman asks calmly.

Estrella perks up again as Zora leaves her side, watching her walk towards the gate with wide eyes. She shifts on her feet, then glances around to the others before bracing her jaw and following behind with furtive little steps, parasol twirling anxiously in her hands. She is rather less than eager to learn what she'll be exposed to if those proverbial strings get pulled too taught, and even with that bomb being carted around standing next to the Major in a potential fire-fight is probably safer than the alternative... isn't it?As she steps past the now open gate and passes through the wards, her eyelids flutter shut and she coos out a happy little noise, unaffected by it but still gracious to feel the wash of dread pour around her. Still, she does her best to be stealthy as she follows and watches the surrounding area for any signs of intrusion from the Umbra or by otherwise dematerialized spirits as her aura trembles in time with her breath.

Carefully using the shadows and her great night vision; Helen waddles as silently as possible like a stealthy trick or treater - carrying the explosive in the bulky kevlar. If finding a back entrance - Hel would set the container near the back door. Ready to blow off feet if knocked over in a rush. Breathing slowly - her fingers careful as Helen carefully opened the box so the ice-inside could melt faster. Back stepping as quickly as possible, the teen hides behind some bushes some -far- distance away. “Trick or treat. Goodie bag set.”, The girl whispers into the headset. Readying her rifle as she looked for open windows to shoot through.

Aubrey hunkers down in the shadows and waits for the light show as she looks at Pax. The bag on her shoulder is shifted from side to side.

There's a snort of amusement as Zora brushes Pax with that bomb, but he doesn't seem to care too much. He lifts the duffle bag over his shoulder towards Raquel. "Rope and rags." he informs her with a slow bob of his head. Reaching into his robes, he tugs out one of those daggers, twirling it in his hand as he turns and follows after Zora. Seems he's perfectly fine with this idea! Most wards can't really survive bombs, after all.

Helen doesn't run into anything, or anyone, on her way around to the back of the mansion. She's able to get the bomb placed right outside the back door, which appears to open outward, without any trouble at all. There's people inside, people's laughs occasionally beaing heard outside the windows. The dagger in Pax's hand leaves his grip, floating next to him as the group approaches the front door.

Bobby waits patiently, just watching to see what happens next. He looks at the house and stays back with the ones standing farthest away from the mansion.

Zora gradually picks up the pace to a light jog, once she's a little ways past the front gate - and then at some point, she begins to rock the arm carrying the homemade bomb back and forth - in what develops into a steadily oscillating motion that continually builds up momentum. She does not seem hindered by the fact that she's carrying the kind of machine gun with her other hand that ordinarily requires two. Then, when she is still about sixty feet out away from the manor, she'll go into a sudden, violent swooping spin - not unlike an Olympic athlete trying to set a world record with the discus throw - and then she'll release it in the general direction of the manor's entryway! Simultaneously, she'll lower the machine gun and begin to empty it in the direction of the windows, where the human silhouettes can be seen.

The battle begins! The bomb Zora throws soars through the air, slamming into the front door and going off almost immediately. The wall is blown open, a large hole being made in the wall filled with dust and debris as an explosion rocks the premesis. Two figures can be seen in the entryway through the dust, still standing somehow, and turning towards the newly created exit. Their features are unrecognizeable through the haze. Meanwhile, the woman empties her magazine into the two windows, screams suddenly sounding through the property as four figures drop dead on the other side, falling backwards in chairs and thumping to the floor. Suddenly, the whole house seems to come alive as lights flick on and more than a few movements can be seen through the windows. Most of them are humanish in shape, at least.

The night is lit up with the concussive force of a hurled bomb, followed by the repetative sounds of gunfire. Everyone else is armed with their own volleys, which leaves Raquel to play catch-up and potential tank. She's taking off in a flash, those tiny steps remembered from day-to-day life are gone as inhumanly long strides have her bee-lining her way to the front door to clash with the two titans in the falling ash and dust of house debris.

Estrella's eyes widen as Zora tosses that bomb towards the entry way, her back straightening up from her crouch. She shifts onto her back foot, then raises her hands to cup over her eyes as the machine gun starts spraying off and immediately drops to a crouch again as the hot, empty shells drop to the ground beside her. Her ears ring, but she can't bring herself to look away from the explosion. Wide, glassy eyes drink in the chaos, even as she shrugs her bow off one shoulder and readies an arrow just on the odd chance she might find herself with no where to run and have to defend herself. Her eyes narrow as they come upon the figures standing, unbent by the explosion, in the entryway. She nocks that arrow, draws her bow and then erupts with a cheer and a raised fist as her missile, against all odds, finds purchase.

So the battle begins! The explosion and following gunfire seems to have set the house into a flurry, with the sounds of yelling and movement carrying outside the home. As the dust begins to die down in the entryway, it's revealed that those aren't in fact people, but living suits of armor! Each draws a sword on the approaching intruders. As Bobbert works his magic, one of them bursts into flames! However, as they're not really flammable, the only thing that catches is the wall next to it, spreading the flames from the entryway wider as they begin to catch onto the house itself. The suits of armor are gunned down by the approaching Zora with her machine gun. They go down in heaps of scrap, from the combined efforts of the bomb, Estrella's arrow, and the machine gun fire. Pax simply teleports past the flames in the opening, and Raquel runs forward to assist in the taking of the house. -Don't forget to take six hostages, or this is pretty much a wasted trip- he says over the comms.

Major Zora Vankova never actually slows down from the moment she hurls the big Amish bomb into the entryway! She continues to unleash the hundred and fifty round belt of magazine - first at any shadows in the windows - and then about twenty rounds each into the giant suits of armor at point blank range. She snaps her head back at one time, when she notes an arrow having sprouted from one of them! She directs a /fierce/ grin in Estrella's general direction - and then she's charging into the manor proper. She is moving pretty quickly, which means that even after a few seconds of being out of sight, she might just be anywhere in there.

The inside of the mansion is in somewhat of a chaos at the moment, as Zora moves off into the right side of the house, presumably to clear out the entire side of it by herself. A large foyer makes up the entry room, debris scattered here and there. A double stairwell leads up to the second floor, a balcony looking out over the foyer with a sizeable chandelier above it. At the top of the stairs, two more suits of armor are drawing their weapons, and from a hallway on the side Zora doesn't disappear into two people are running towards the entrance with swords drawn, each one wreathed in flames. Helen's shot rings out, and the figure she was shooting at drops on the other side of that window, either down or dead. It's chaos, but due to Zora's efforts, they don't have to worry about half the mansion. Huzzah!

Aubrey is not going in to the burning house this time. Instead she sits on the humvee with a henry repeating rifle out to wing runners. Boms now gone she has a cigarette between her lips and looks as if she has stepped out of Red Dead. Using one hand pump she cranks a shell in to the chamber, "Now this is what that duck hunt game at the fair should be like."

Pax appears inside the foyer of the mansion, his mask hiding whatever features one might catch behind it. His dagger floats back next to him as he releases it from where he'd grabbed it before teleporting and begins to zoom towards those two approaching sword-wielding people running down the hallway. He doesn't seem all that worried about the fight itself, not directly, as he seems to be keeping his arms folded in front of him as he watches his dagger zoom away. -Avoid Zora's side of the house- he chirps over the comms, an amused tone to his voice.

Wow, all of this covert infiltration isn't very covert, but it's really exciting! Raquel has sped her way inside, and the opponents begin to make themselves known. It's a toss up between heavily armored with metal weaponry, and soft-squishy flesh and flaming swords. Yeah... The Bygone decides to charge up the stairs towards the two tin cans in her pursuit to neutralize the threats.

There will be no sign of Zora, once the next nearest 'teammate' has made it into the entryway. There will however, be the sounds of screams, the chattering roar of a machine gun...and then the bizarre echoes of one strange, almost anti-gravity like implosion after another amidst shrieking steel. Not unlike matter collapsing in on itself and then abruptly erupting.

Helen aims her rifle at the closest window and figure; popping a shot off as the glass shatters. The sounds of explosions and gunfire fill the front entrance as she watches from the back with a bite of her lip. She couldn't afford cool guns or fancy weapons as she waited to see if someone else would pass by the window to be shot or flee the rear/side entrance. A large pop from her black bubble gum as Helen blew a bubble and popped it. The Hooligan chilling and looking back to the two bombs still unused, one by the rear entrance. "No trick or treaters this way." Estrella pulls another arrow from her quiver and nocks it as Zora speeds past her into the entryway to destroy the animated suits of armor that guard the mansion. She lifts her eyes and catches that grin thrown over the valkyrie's shoulder. The blush in her cheeks rises a beat and she shrinks down into her shoulders as a grin of her own spreads self-consciously over her lips. The Major disappears inside, and the witch curses under her breath before rushing in after her. -And which side is that?- She asks curiously, but her question is answered by that symphony of horror and, despite the warning, she sneaks through the house towards those sounds.

Bobby walks toward the door, staying behind the heavy hitters. His face is still covered by the mask as he watches the entryway catch fire.

Another shot rings out from Helen's rifle, shattering another window and tinging off the side of a suit of armor. It seems to have done some damage, however! The harrying shots coming from the back of the house seem to confuse the inhabitants, causing a bit of a panic to run through the house. The floating dagger zooms over, slipping beneath the woman in the hallway's arm and stabbing into her back. She cries out, turning to swing her blade at her attacker, only to slice at the dagger itself in confusion. Next to her, the male of the duo has to roll out of the way as the space he'd previously been occupying seems to combust! He's back to his feet, however the distraction seems to have halted his advance for the moment. On the staircase, Raquel shreds one of those suits of armor down to the straps, but it's just barely hanging on still. Their swords both swing at the woman, cutting through clothing, but simply tinging off of the flesh beneath. On either side of the balcony, four gun-toting individuals emerge, each holding a shotgun as they take in the scene in the foyer. One may be preciously placed next to one of the upstairs windows, giving Helen another blind shot at the figure.

The melee continues, as Helen opens fire again, hitting one of the men at the top of the second floor walkway in the leg. He groans, but doesn't go down from the shot right away. Instead, two of the shotgun weilding cultists aim and fire at Pax, peppering his robes with holes, but apparently not affecting the man in the slightest. The other two aim and fire at Raquel, only for the same effect to take place, the balls of metal falling to the floor like small marbles. The armor isn't having much success either, the blades still tinking off the woman's flesh. Somehow. Helen might notice a few windows in the back being broken out, a couple of rifles being pushed out of them as some of the cultists seem to prepare to find whomever is shooting at them from the back of the house. In the hallway, the knife flies back behind the woman again, slicing on the back of her leg as she cries out in pain. The male rolls forward, into the foyer and away from the combusting air as he begins to head for Pax and Bobby's position.

Pax seems to be enjoying his apparent immunity to the numerous sprays of bullets heading his way, to the point that he begins laughing somewhat maniacally as he lifts a hand and follows the movements of that dagger with his fingers. With the other, he reaches into his robes, removing a jet black dagger and holding it to his side as the male begins to approach Bobbert and himself.

Considering the screeching of metal upon metal, the tears in Raquel's clothing reveal metallic skin underneath. Guess she didn't put the skin-paint over the portions under her clothing. Quickly do her claws rend the automatons, one finally going down before the other is shredded as badly as the first was. She's not paying attention, and she's grinning manically as she's just having so much fun!

As Estrella sneaks through the halls and comes upon the vestiges of horror, she'll slow down and start wandering, losing her focus on stealth, taken by a sudden headful of awe like a child seeing electric lights for the first time. At this point, her forehead mark, eyes, tongue and fingertips will light up reflexively, and she'll show more signs of intoxication, but she'll still be pawing around looking for Zora as efficiently as she can and supressing the impulse to sling her bow back over her shoulder and just bask in the carnage.

The back door finally opens as a few of the cultists go out to check the backyard. As the door flies open, it catches that bomb, causing another loud explosion to rock the foundations of the home as a man and a woman go flying back into a wall, each one severely wounded. Meanwhile, Pax teleports away to stand at the base of the stairwell, the knife floating around the woman cutting at her other leg and sending her writhing to the ground. The man with the flaming sword begins to approach as Raquelc ontinues her melee near the top of the stairs. Shotguns, yells, and the general sounds of combat fill the foyer as Bobby opens fire into the man with the flaming sword.

Raquel's footing stumbles as the building rocks under the explosion. Well, that wasn't supposed to happen... with her inside. Her facing has changed, and she finally noticed the flamed weaponry. She can ignore the buck-shot and hail-storm of bullets, but that thing looks like it's going to -hurt- .

Watching the flames begin to spread on the back entrance, Helen huffs and puffs with a mighty breath before bellowing out a soft whistle. The leaves start scattering away from the girl as a large gust of wind picks up. Blowing dirt and air back towards the house as a strong 20 mph wind hits the back entrance; smothering the flames as the girl continues to whistle and make her way finally towards the back entrance.

Raquel is feeling particularly peckish, and this idiot isn't doing her any favors. Her lower jaw seperates in half, three sets of teeth bared as she attempts to sink her teeth into him. The Mage parries, blade coming across platinum teeth and glancing off. Now, the Hispanic monster looks -pissed- ! Those deadly claws swing to dig into his flesh this time, and the blade falls from his hand as blood sprays the wall along the staircase in a brilliant display.

It is inevitable that Major Zora Vankova's bloody rampage, would eventually sweep her back in the direction of the foyer. She has since removed her black beret with the silver death's head, and has folded it in half, clutching it in her hand. Her dirty blonde mane of blood-streaked hair has tumbled freely, and her heavy machine is still cradled in her left arm, albeit the belt of ammunition is long since depleted. She is coated in a very fine patina of blood, from her boots to the top of her head. She arrives just in time to see eight or nine of the cultists fighting around the burning entry way. She considers the situation for a moment, and then she'll fling her beret into the center of a decent-sized knot of them...whereupon something like unholy tendrils of blackish bloody mist will disgorge from within the beret, as if pouring from the Atrocity Realm's own gore ocean. It is somewhat horrific and messy to gaze upon - yet the four columns of blood will do a very effective job at slamming into and wrapping up the nearest cultists. In the space of the next couple of seconds, she'll rip the throat out of a fifth - and then abruptly, there'll be a very strange sound like matter collapsing in on itself - and then the three cultists still standing will erupt as if someone had stuffed an M80 inside of a frog. It will spatter the entire foyer, and all within, in a very faint shower of reddish mist. Then Zora turns to narrow her eyes at Pax, "Find your fucking books yet?"

Estrella wanders the halls upstairs, hunting a quarry that she never finds. When she appears again at the landing above the foyer, her hands and the flouncy hems of her skirts are soaked in blood and bear clinging bits of human viscera. The mark on her forehead, her eyes and fingertips all shine with a green-gold glow as though lit from within, and she sways as though in a daze. As soon as she sees the gathered masses below her, though, she draws back her bow and readied arrow and lets it fly. Blinking in surprise and grinning proudly as she manages to strike one of those still standing, she immediately collapses back against the wall for a breath, then makes it down the stairs just in time to be misted with crimson vapors. She doesn't seem too displeased by it and sidles up next to Zora, slinging her bow over her shoulder as that proud smile still lingers on her lips.

Totally on fire-fighter duty, Helen keeps whistling as a freezing cold wind blows through the side entrance and down the hallways to extinguish flames. The wind trickling through the foyer as the girl wasn't the best whistler; but attempted 'Doo Wah Diddy Diddy' with her best effort. The wind hitting in bursts to the tune as she drowned flames with excess of air and snuff them out like a big bad wolf. But y'know. She wasn't.

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