destinystrings | The Best Intentions

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The Best Intentions

Who: Maugris, open
Where: Sagittarius District (the industrial district), nighttime
What: Vampires have very unique ways to screw up helping someone. Like, say, sudden berserker rages when attempting to stop a mugging.
Warnings: TRIHARDO infection, violence (though I try not to get too graphic).

Sagittarius District, like a lot of industrial districts, offered a lot of warehouses and seldom-watched stockyards and suchlike that offered a wonderful habitat for punks and gangs and suchlike. Muggings were not unknown as a hazard, especially if someone was so foolish as to wander in isolated areas at night. If you happen to be in or near the district tonight in particular, you might come across someone who seems to have just escaped such an incident. But even for someone who's just been mugged, he seems awfully panicked. It takes him a moment to calm down enough to relate what happened.

As it turns out, a handful of thugs had jumped him on his way home from work, and suddenly another guy - some Visitor, probably American - had turned up with a Persona that looked like a knight and declared his intention to stop the mugging right there. The thugs decided they could take a crazy Visitor swinging a sword around, Persona or not, but soon after the fight had started something seemed to snap in the man's head. He'd dropped the sword and lunged at one of the thugs barehanded, punching his arm hard enough to send him spinning halfway across the street, and then he'd turned on his own Persona! That had been about the point where the worker had turned and run for it; he thought he'd heard the thugs doing the same.

Anybody who teases out the location of the incident and thought to follow it - or, alternatively, has the misfortune to wander into the area by accident - will find Maugris and his Persona Malagi in the middle of a heated fight. Malagi's shield is dented in a way that really shouldn't be possible using it against someone fighting with his bare hands, and Maugris's clothes are ripped. In a couple of places he's actually got some nasty cuts, but they aren't bleeding.

It turns out that Maugris, with his slightly off-kilter sense of justice and a sudden burning desire to be helpful, had been patrolling the area with the express intent of stopping any muggings. Unfortunately, a quirk of vampiric nature that Maugris usually keeps well under control decided to force its way to the top, and now the Beast is in control. Malagi probably notices you long before Maugris does and shakes his head frantically, trying to warn you away.

((OOC: So, yeah. Maugris's kind of vampire is subject to something called frenzy, which is essentially an animalistic rage that can trigger when they're angry that forces them to attack the closest target, with preference for living ones. If you try to deal with Maugris, you've got two options - beat him into unconsciousness, or try and talk him down. The latter requires pretty good social skills to pull off; the former can be accomplished the hard way (i.e. bludgeoning him), with something that causes sleep, or with a stake through the heart. Either way, he'll be back in control when he wakes up. He'll calm down after a long enough time, but that will require evading him or standing up to a beating from a superstrong vampire for that long.

... I guess you could use something that cures Berserk, too.))

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"...I've never heard of that kind. And how do you get someone to teach you super strength? What is it, do you take some sort of stimulant and rub it on your muscles?"

Phantom Girl's compensation for saving Maugris's hide is to be as difficult as she possibly can.

"You know... You could probably see if you can't get anything a little more convenient. They're supposed to try and accommodate us here, right; you can't be the first person who's had special dietary needs." Although he might be the only person with dietary needs that would make people scream and run in horror.

"It's... hard to explain to anyone who isn't a vampire. It's kind of a willpower thing and kind of that vampires are two or three different kinds of magic." Maugris literally doesn't actually have words for how it works. He suspects the language there were words for it in was wiped out with the flood.

He rubs the back of his neck. "I don't know, maybe. It's just that the normal people around here - like, say, the ones who run hospitals and things - probably won't react as well to vampires as Visitors. I'm honestly just grateful I haven't met any vampire hunters. I really don't need someone going Van Helsing on me."

She will leave the topic of magic vampires for the moment for the slightly more pressing subject of Maugris's feeding habits. Not that magic vampires weren't fascinating, either. "I can't see why there would be vampire hunters in a world without vampires, but." A slight pause now as she ponders what he just said.

"What bout blood bags? Like the stuff they use in donations."

"That's why I mentioned hospitals. If you worked in a hospital or somewhere and somebody came up and said they want to drink the stuff you're keeping for people who need it, what would you say?" He sighs and leans back against his desk. "Besides, it's not like they can send out to another hospital if they run low."

One vampire getting a blood bag every so often probably isn't really going to have too much effect on the hospital's reserves, really - especially since as far as Maugris knows there are only two vampires in the city and one has another food source - but the worry's crossed his mind, and just at the moment it seems like a much bigger one. Besides, that's probably an excuse that would come up at the hospital to stop him getting one.

"Well. We wouldn't necessarily have to tell them, at first." A slight pause. "And in a sense, you need them, too. You're right, though; it would be pretty terrible if I took one that was going to be used in an operation later."

In hindsight, she isn't sure what life decisions led her to this point, talking about stealing blood from a hospital for a vampire, but they probably weren't very good ones.

"I don't think it could hurt to keep one around just in case, though. Won't horrible things happen if you run low?"

"Well, yeah, but they're going to want to know what it's for - oh." Maugris bites his lip - she may notice his fangs are gone again. In general terms he's more comfortable with stealing than he is with something like killing, but his conscience still pokes him a little about it.

"I think just taking them would probably cause more problems than it solves even if they don't need it for an operation. Hospitals are pretty good at keeping track of inventory, they'd notice it going missing. And horrible things only happen if I'm running low and then get confronted with blood, and I've usually got enough self-control to stop that." Well, that and him going into torpor if he does run all the way out, but he doesn't want to worry her about that.

"If you're really sure you can get by with just the animals..." Phantom Girl gives a small shrug. "You know better than I do. I'm just saying, you should have a contingency plan if the source you rely on turns up empty one day. ...A contingency plan that isn't me or anyone else, by the way. I don't know if I like you <>that much."

Despite her flippant attitude, her expression is somewhat troubled.

"As long as we're talking about horrible things, though, do you want to explain exactly what just happened?"

"Fair enough. I'll think about it - and don't worry, I wasn't planning on it being anybody who hasn't agreed to it first."

He rolls his eyes, drumming his fingers on the desk again. "I... don't really know. Normally I have to be really angry for that to happen, and I'm usually good at holding it back. Angry, or hungry and smelling blood, and I wasn't that hungry."

"I thought we just said nothing horrible happened when you were low on blood." She remarks wryly before continuing on. "Did you recognize the victim somehow? Was it a friend of yours? Or maybe you just suddenly realized all the injustices in the world that needed fixing?"

"That's only when I'm low on blood and someone's bleeding. It doesn't happen when all the blood is inside people. And I can usually still control myself."

He frowns, shaking his head. "No, I didn't know the guy at all. But... that last one, maybe? Something like that." That is uncannily close to the thought process that led to him going on patrol in the first place.

"There's been enough weird stuff happening in the city that I'm willing to attribute it to something besides just general strangeness. ...I know we blew up the latest monster a few days ago, but maybe it wasn't the right monster. Or there was another one somewhere, stronger."

A few moments before she speaks again. "Why, exactly, do you have some kind of overdrive mode, though? In case of danger?"

Maugris shrugs. "I don't know. I'm not a vampire biologist... Some people say it's a curse. The first vampire got ticked off at his descendants and cursed them with weaknesses - can't be in the sun, the stake-in-the-heart thing, and the Beast. It's not really an overdrive mode, anyway. I don't think I actually know of anybody who could fight somebody off in frenzy that they couldn't when their brain was in gear, and if you've got any powers that aren't purely physical you can't even use them. I can't use my thaumaturgy, and you'll never see a vampire in frenzy turn invisible or control somebody's mind."

He's aware he's revealing a lot of weaknesses, but frankly he's pretty sure there are worse people than an actual superhero to have know how to take him down. If she's using it against him, he's probably given her a reason.

"...So, basically, you have like an instant suck mode." Phantom Girl looks unamused. "It sucks for you 'cause you might as well just leave your brain switched off until you're done, and it sucks for the rest of us because we have to deal with you. ...Call me crazy, but I don't think your ancestor really thought this one through."

His weaknesses are duly noted although Phantom Girl is already planning to stock up on UV lamps just in case.

"I'm starting to think being an undead creature of the night isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"Well, it's a curse. It isn't supposed to be good for us, and it's not like it would be the first time a curse was a pain to other people, too."

He sighs and rolls his eyes. "But yeah. Being a vampire has perks, but it's got some drawbacks, too. Not to mention normal people being taught their whole life that you're either a scary monster or a sex god."

"...Don't you like, not have any blood flow, though?"

Phantom Girl will puzzle over this one for a few moments before arriving to the conclusion that it was suitable now to make a face.

"Thanks for the imagery. Anyway, I'm thinking you should probably just stay here the rest of the night in case anything else weird happens. Maybe you'll feel better in the morning. ...Or, I mean. Tomorrow night."

"Yeah, well, tell that to what's-her-face who writes all those books where the heroine basically does nothing but screw vampires."

He sighs as he glances out the window. "Seriously? It's not even midnight yet. I really don't want to waste a whole night. Especially not when I could be helping people."

"...If your idea of help is going berserk, I don't think we want you helping anyone at the moment. Try to be as unhelpful as you can, actually. ...Without looping right back around into what you think is helpfulness. ...If that doesn't make sense, just sit on your bed and stare at the wall until it does."

"You say that like I did it on purpose. I'm not sure I can frenzy on purpose, come to think of it..."

There's her chance to escape while he's distracted. If she really wants him to keep from trying to "help", she might consider not bringing his glasses and sword back right away.

"Oh, I know! Why don't you work on solving that, then? See if you can figure out how it happens and learn to control it. Just sort of concentrate hard."

Given everything she has heard, this is an impossible task.

"I'll be right back."

And out she goes through the wall.

It takes Maugris just a moment too long to a) figure out that even if it's possible, trying to learn to control his frenzy in a crowded apartment building is a bad idea, and b) register her tone of voice, before she's gone.

It might actually have happened again if he didn't manage to suppress it, because quite frankly that was rather insulting. As it is he just sticks his tongue out at the wall she departed through rather childishly for someone the age he looks, much less how old he actually is.

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The Best Intentions

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