Although Blade was best known and technically based in New York, Andrew didn't spend noticeable more time there than anywhere else. Normally, when he did show up, it was for the same reason as anywhere else. He'd gotten rumours of vampires. He'd spent the day napping in a crummy motel room, and then half an hour at dusk preparing, and then he'd driven into the city. He knew what he was looking for and where he had to go, so he came across the gang by following the trail of bodies they left. When he rounded the corner into the alley, two of them were holding a man by his arms while another had buried his fangs in his throat. There were six of them in total. Four men, two women. As Andrew approached, the vampire drinking had apparently had enough and pulled back, and the man slumped to the ground.

Andrew could have just shot one of them there and then to start the fight, but he liked vampires to learn the error of their ways before they died, so he instead cleared his throat. The vampires turned to look at him, and he finally got his first proper look at them. The eldest-looking one could pass for forty, possibly. There were another three of them who looked around their late twenties or early thirties, and then two of them who couldn't be older than seventeen. Andrew pitied them, but they were monsters as well as victims, and he couldn't spare them. Not to mention that physical age didn't really mean much with vampires. He was pretty sure that these were young, however. Maybe a few months old. They were clumsy and sloppy and they carried themselves with an uncertain swagger.

"Back off, man," One of them, a late twenties one, said, "You wouldn't want to piss us off." Andrew could have probably engaged them in conversation, slipped in hints and jokes about who he was. Instead, he just said.

"Let's cut this short. The name's Blade."

The reaction was instant. The teenagers drew knives, the forty year old drew a stake, and everybody backed away. Sometimes Andrew appreciated his notoriety amongst vampires.

"We don't want any trouble," One of the teenagers said, "We didn't hurt anyone."
Andrew pointed to the man who was slumped on the floor, and the teenager got a guilty expression on his face.

"Look, don't-" One of them began, but he was shoved aside by the forty year old, who was twirling his weapon. A leader, perhaps?

"He's not gonna listen, man, there's only one way for it." Another of the late twenties men grabbed a piece of piping from the side of the alley. Andrew could see the fear written on all of their faces, however. He doubted they were trained and he doubted they had practice. He drew his silver dagger and pulled one of his knives into his offhand for throwing.

"So be it," The vampire said.

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Lilith was curious. Ever since, what she called, her enslavement, Lilith had actually become curious about what the big draw was to this whole ‘hero’ thing. She’d convinced her agent to buy her a second penthouse in New York City. So much heroing seemed to go on there, that she was bound to find something interesting. A rasher, maybe two, of strange deaths had caught, not only the papers’ attention, but the young succubus’ as well. She was pretty sure she couldn’t take down whomever, or whatever was doing it, but maybe she could report it to her, new, fellow Commandos or something. They were a team right? And teams shared stuff like information on killers, right?

Lilith followed the raon of bodies, for it was almost literally a trail, vaguely wondering if she’d ever been that messy and careless. Probably in her early days. Good news though, basically all of her ‘early days’ took place in Hell, so keeping on the, DL, was old hat for her by the time she got topside. Poor blighters, destined to be caught. At least, that’s what she thought when she finally saw the pack drag some random mortal into an alley.

She was just catching up when she paused. What if some actual hero came and lumped her in with that group in the alley. What if they didn’t have a ‘no kill’ policy. What if their policy was ‘kill first, ask questions later’? By the time she was done with her list of freakout questions, someone else had arrived. She backed into the shadows, not wanting to be known just yet, or maybe ever. Curiosity got the better of her, just like all those poor dead cats in the world. Lilith crept forward and peeked around the corner.

”We didn’t hurt anyone,” one of them said, before quilty looks were thrown at the very dead body.

”He’s not gonna listen,” the old guy said. The late arrival drew weapons as the gang did as well, preparing for a fight. More glances were exchanged. Glances of guilt, regret, lost opportunities, and...No.It couldn’t be. Desire and lust? Oh yes, there is was, all mixed in there. It hit her in the gut like hot chocolate on a yummy, gooey sundae. She just had to nail down the source, or sources now. For that she needed, horrifyingly, to be closer to the action, so she stepped out and into the alley. Also, now she was better able to help. That was one thing heroes did right? Help each other? One of the, fangs? Vampires? Looked up at her, there was the desire.

”So I just one a question to ask before you get to mutilating each others rather gorgeous bodies.” Lilith paused here, waiting for the focus to be on her. She did so love to be the center of attention. With the attention on her, she also got a better idea of where all this desire and lust was coming from, and oh boy was it interesting. She looked between the two girls and one of the younger men.

”Does she know?” She asked the man, pointing at the first girl with blue tipped blonde hair. ”No? Oh this is just delicious.” She didn’t need words to read the expressions. Even vampires were still human enough to have expressions and all those human feelings. The blonde looked at the brunette and back to Lilith, confusion growing in her eyes, but also anger. ”Oh this is magically delicious.”

”You tell me right now bitch, what the hell are you talking about. Or even Blade won’t be able to stop me from ripping you limb from limb,” the blonde demanded of Lilith. This of course only made the demon smirk. Oh she loved this, the power. Sure it wasn’t real power like when she fed off someone's lust, but it was power nonetheless.

”Your girlfriend is bonking your mate.” The words sprang across the alley like a whip. The sting was reflected in the blonde’s eyes as rage built in her. Lilith inhaled deeply, a satisfied smile spreading over her face as her eyes closed as though in ecstasy. ”Yess. I can feel that desire too.” She spread her arms out, the smile still there. ”Do it,” she hissed, looking right at the girl. ”Give in to your blood lust.”

The girl didn’t need much pushing as she suddenly launched herself at the man, her ‘friend’, sinking her teeth in and tearing. Of course the young man put up no defense, caught completely unawares, and was at least bleeding badly in seconds. Lilith was far too occupied with feeding off this...primage lust for revenge brought on by anger, that she herself was completely blindsided by a flying tackle from the other girl vamp. Her enhanced durability helped with the rough landing, and her enhanced strength helped keeping the clawing chopping vampire at bay. Of course, Lilith had forgotten she even had these attributes so she proceeded to let out a nice long panicked scream as well.

Lyrics from Turning Tables by Adele. Picture by Aurora. Table by (( Aurora !! of Caution 2.0.

Andrew was just waiting for one of the vampires to make a move that would start the fight when suddenly a girl broke out from an alley between him and the vampire. Had there not been anyone watching, he'd have sworn violently, but there were other people there, so he kept his lips tightly sealed. But he switched his focus from killing the vampires to protecting this stupid girl who thought this was a good situation to get into.

"Back off," He urged the girl, "You don't want to see this." He stowed his throwing knife away with one hand, and pulled the already-loaded crossbow from his back in case he had to shoot something to protect the girl. But then she decided an announcement was the right course of action here and he sighed.

"Is this really the time for it?" He asked as she spread some gossip, but apparently it was armour-piercing gossip, as instantly three vampires were out of the fight, at least temporarily.

The three vampire springing into action apparently motivated the others into action, but Andrew had already fired his crossbow at the female vampire who had jumped into the gossiping girl. And then it hit him just who the girl was. He hadn't recognised her at first, but she was his teammate, the demon. Lilith. He recognised her from the files he'd been given. Well, he'd have time to ponder that after he'd dealt with these scum. The vampire attacking Lilith had crumbled to dust, and then the others were on Andrew before he could draw a throwing knife. Well, that wasn't much of a problem for him. He slammed the back of his fist into one's face, and had him stabbed through the chest before he could react. That left two of them, and Andrew ducked and weaved away from their blows.

The two who were apparently sleeping with the same girl were still fighting and scrapping on the ground were making this far too easy for Andrew. He took two steps forwards, ducked a vampire's fist, brought his dagger up to block a knife swing. He was up against a stake and a knife now, and he still felt more than comfortable. His free hand grabbed the wrist that held the stake, pulled the vampire close and rammed a knee into his chest. The leader vampire staggered backwards from the blow, and Andrew blocked another knife swipe. He punched forwards, but the vampire dodged to one side and kicked him in the leg. Andrew stepped back, feinted to the left and stuck the knife-wielding vampire in the chest. The leader was the only vampire left, and he tackled Andrew suddenly, knocking them over and landing on top, his stake held above Andrew's heart.

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Lilith stopped screaming as soon as dust started falling on her. She instantly started choking and cough. "Oh, gosh. Oh that is disgusting. I just ate....uugh." She rolled onto her side, trying to cough out the dead person that had fallen in her mouth. She stuck her tongue out and  batted at it to try and get the dust out. The other lady had finally finished tear her former friend to shreds and turned her attention toward Lilith. This time, the succubus was actually paying attention. With a small squeal, she dodged out of the way.


"Can't you people just have screaming matches like normal people?" The question was answered with a guttural growl and another charge. Lilith punched out with her palm, closing her eyes just when her hand impacted the vampire. When she wasn't further attacked, she opened her eyes justin time to see the girl turn to dust from being impaled on some broken, wooden pallets outside some back door of a business.


She turned towards Andrew to get validation for that awesome move she just pulled. When her eyes found her teammate though, he was flat on his back, some vamp guy trying to turn the table and stake him.


"HEY! That's my teammate. If anyone gets to kill him, it's me. Or ya know, Celeste." She reached out and grabbed the vampire, pulling hard and throwing him towards the same broken wood that that she'd killed the other one on. This one was sharper though, he managed stop himself with his feet before being impaled. The guy landed on his feet and glared at them both. "SHOOT HIM!!" She really wasn't the violent type, so she didn't want to get into another punching match or whatever again.

Lyrics from Turning Tables by Adele. Picture by Aurora. Table by (( Aurora !! of Caution 2.0.

Andrew didn't really see much of Lilith's escapades with the dust and the wooden pallets, as he was too busy locking his hands around the wrists of the vampire above him and holding them in place. Sure, he had the stab-proof vest on, and that would probably absorb the blow, but it wasn't the sort of thing he wanted to test if he could avoid it. He was tempted to call out to Lilith, but he didn't want to distract her if she was fighting. The vampire seemed to realise that he wasn't stronger than Andrew and wasn't going to stake him, so instead tried to smash his forehead into Andrew's face. Andrew only had time to tilt his head forward so their foreheads collided, and while he didn't feel pain, his vision blurred for a few seconds.
"Really?" He asked the vampire, who seemed to be in an even worse state before responding in kind. He timed it right, and his head crunched into the vampire's nose, breaking it.

Before Andrew had time to throw his attacker off, however, the vampire was lifted into the air and thrown some distance. Andrew kicked out with his legs and jumped to his feet, still slightly dizzy from the headbutts. He didn't reach for a knife or crossbow, however. He took two steps forward and punched the vampire clean in the face just as he caught his feet again. The leech stumbled backwards from the blow, and Andrew followed up with a strike to the gut. They didn't hurt the vampire, of course, but the impacts still knocked it back. Plus it was satisfying to do. He kneed the vampire in the face and finally hooked a foot behind and threw the vamp to the floor. The vampire tried one last kick from his position, but Andrew caught the foot and twisted. The bone broke.

Before the vampire had time to react, Andrew dropped to his haunches and put a knife through his heart. The ground instantly became more dusty. He got back to his feet and put his knives away.
"Thanks for the help," He told Lilith quietly, not making eye contact.