World Tree MUSH

Serrah's initial plan after getting her undeath certificate and temporary driver's license was to get completely smashed. However, a telepathic conversation with Vincent changed her mind.

She comes out of her apartment building, wearing a black T-shirt that says "NOBODY KNOWS I'M A LESBIAN" and a midnight-blue skort which is relatively subdued compared to her usual rainbow-colored skirt. She's talking on her phone. "... no, Mavis, I am saying I literally actually got turned into a vampire by the Duke, who supposedly wants me to become a countess, and I need some time off to deal with this shit," she says. "... Yeah. Okay, right, thanks. Yeah, thank you."

She sighs as she puts her phone away, and glances up in the direction of the morning sun. "Running out of cusses to use," she mutters under her breath.

Eddie was taking a walk, because to be blunt? He felt very out of sorts. "Look intellectually I know we both did everything we could have." He paused to let a fairly... burly... he wasn't sure what, pass. "And by the way I"m glad you aught on to vampire hunter lady's thing about mind control and just rolled with it."

<You're babbling Eddie.> Venom chided.

"Yea well, guy had a very 'rich idiot cousin of a powerful family and is a selfish hedonist embarassment' vibe. Seeing that being a multiversal constant and having him get one over us is...."

<Rage inducing,> Venom vinished, <Agreed.>

He had been walking since the incident and reached into his jacket pocket to pull out ah andfull of almonds and peanuts. "Do have to say as a positive knowing what we can eat leaves me feeling better but..." His head shook, "Raw eggs? Whey protine? Peanuts, Almonds. Am I gonna end up having to turn into a bodybuilder?"

Not that Sonia's heard that part--you know, about running out of curses to use. She actually could supply a few. She might know more latin than she lets on. Probably. Definitely. 

Either way, fun fact for the unseen audience that watches everyone's plights: Sonia has no idea what the word 'lesbian' means. Hasn't come up. Everything's been totally, pretty much completly innocuous and the like. And speaking of Serrah, Sonia /did/ at the very least leave her to her devices mostly since well, it'd be too much to offer to kill her /and/ stay with her. 

Still, she wasn't too far away. In fact, her hooded sihoulette approached from one side, carefully weaving around pedestrians--at least, the ones that aren't vampires who are staying on the opposite side of the road. Hmm. Hopefully Serrah doesn't feel the same way. 

Not that Sonia cares in any way about a vampire. Can't do that, y'know. 

Serrah sees Eddie approaching, and calls out, "Hey, Brock!" She half turns to start walking towards him when she feels an aura of menace, and turns around to face the approaching hooded figure. She does not hurry away; apart from anything else, this is her own territory as it were, and, well, she knows that Sonia's intentions are ... good enough, even if she's still feeling a teeny bit skeeved at the offer to kill her.

Nevertheless, she waits a moment for either or both of them to get closer before trying to strike up a conversation.

"... how're you both holding up?" Sonia asks. For the moment, she's doing her *genuine best* to actually restrain that sense of killing intent, that part of her that inescapably makes others of dark intent not have a good time around her. Since Serrah at least isn't on the evil koolaid train, it'll... get better.

Her expression flits from Eddie to Serrah, since well. Eddie got a whammy besides. She's actually morbidly curious about some of the things she's read--the bueracracy is both stunning and almost admirable in efficiency. 

Serrah shrugs at Sonia's greeting. "Holdin' it together," she says. "Best I can say, really. My boss at the coffee shop almost didn't recognize my voice on the phone." She clearly isn't happy. "On the bright side, I can do ... this." She rises off the ground, defying gravity.

She hesitates. "... The Duke talked at me with telepathy," she says. "Two points of ... intelligence, I guess. First, uh, he forgot about the whole 'size' thing, he 'actually' came after me last night because his maid saw me on the news from when I helped foil a bank robbery by an offworlder a couple weeks ago." She shrugs. "And second, the Imperial Guard arrested him or something over all this."

Sonia seems to simply stare for the moment, as though she were cataloguing details. Learning about the world's vampiric population through Serrah isn't the worst course of action she could take. "Well, upon recollection given what you told me... 'investment' versus secrecy and all of that... I'm sorry I didn't consider that myself." But, then again she's only been here for... not very long at all, here OR the Tree as a whole. 

"So, not something he was supposed to do, but being any kind of 'nobility' means he either has to buy his way out or can't flex political muscle as much. Do I have about the right of it?" she wonders aloud. 

Eddie noticed Serrah. Then he noticed the shirt she was wearing and shook his head in amusement before jogging over t othe newly undead. He heard her going on about telepathy and winced.

<Don't you dare compare what that parasite does to us Eddie.> 

"Well... About that." Eddie looked from Sonia to Serrah, "Just... like far as you know is it like he's always got his fingers in your head, or is it like just whenever he can be bothered?" He then reached into a pockt to offer Serrah a foil wrapped chocolate, "And like. I have lots of questions, but biggest one is other than being turned into a blood sucker by the closest thing to Paris Hilton I can think of in this universe.... how're you?"

Serrah self-consciously lands back on the ground, and shoots Sonia a smirk. "Way worse than that," she says. "The laws are designed specifically so that for a rich noble the punishment is a slap on the wrist, or a fine that's pennies to the dollar."

She accepts the chocolate, and shrugs. "It's just ... telepathic communication, and each of us knows exactly where the other is, it's not mind-reading or whatever," she says. "But it's only when he can be bothered." She smirks faintly. "The impression I've gotten from him so far is he can't be bothered about a lot of things. If I had to guess, his maid and his clothes-changing magic are the only reasons he isn't a total slob."

And then she glances down at herself. In a swirl of shadows, the skort becomes rainbow-colored like she had last night.

The 'Paris Hilton' comment gets an actual snicker. "She actually exists in this world, just so you know," she says. "And like I told Belmont ..." She shrugs. "I'm holdin' it together, and that's the best I can say."

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> Paris Hilton is a multiversal constant.

"Paris Hilton?" Sonia asks quizzically, following the conversation as best as she can. Electing not to dwell further on the depressing elements of nobility, money and escaping proper justice, "That reminds me, what's a lesbian?" she asks, gesturing at the shirt. 

"Was going to ask you about it but, with everything else..."

Eddie winced at Serrah's explaination at the laws benefitting the ritch, "...yeeeaa sounding uncomfortably a lot like home. Just with the blood suckers being more literal."

Then a glance to SOnia, "Think the grandchild of Duke whoever that was well liked for starting a series of building programs, but grandbaby Paris just throws parties and makes news for doing a lot of stupid things... but unlike Vinny she's mostly harmless.... Also" He smirked, "I think she's cut out of her grandad's will due to allthe stupid she got up to."

THen the question. He smiled at Serrah before looking to Sonia, "Lesbian. Pretty much if she had to pick between you or me as a dance partner, she'd pick you." There was a pause, "Well not you specifically I dunno what her type is or." A glance over at Serrah, "Any special girl in your life?" In spite of everything he actually hoped she had someone, that would help with the everything falling to pieces part. "Bit of a relegious debate on the matter and like... teechnically the catholic church counts it as a sin, but." He took a deep breath, "Personally it's between you and God who you want to spend your life with so long as there's love and faithfulness in the relationship."

Serrah considers this, and nods to Eddie. "Yeah, that's basically better than the explanation I was gonna come up with," she says. "I ... confess I don't actually know that much about her."

At the question ... she reveals that vampires are capable of blushing, and she puts a hand on Eddie's shoulder. "Slow down there, party dude, that kind of question is kind of my ball field," she says. "It ... means I'm a woman who's only attracted to women ... romantically." She manages not to roll her eyes at the religious topic. "Also even without the whole vampire trouble with holy symbols, I wasn't even particularly attracted to religion in the first place?" She shrugs. "It was the problem of evil."

She's not about to come out of the other closet yet, either ...

"Ah." It's a short response, but Sonia purses her lips together. "To be fair, you're not wrong there, about love and faithfulness being between one and God. The Church was rather... violently against such things. It wasn't called as such, but many held to certain beliefs. But..." She shrugs her shoulders slightly. "There were worse evils. Questions of religion being used to fuel conflict." 

It's an enigmatic look from Sonia as she remarks on this. "Still, I believe I understand, in both ways. Buffoons." Then, by way of trying to create some levity in such a serious situation, Sonia reaches, lifting a hand to help her long, golden ponytail fall along her front, she flutters her eyes and looks at Serrah, "So you would say I'm pretty?" The attempt might be marred by a slight deadpan of that Romanian accent of hers.

>> SUMMARY[Sonia Belmont] >> Rolling for that long shot joke.

"Yea well." Eddie coughed, "I try to take a live and let live with people since stones, glass houses, and all that." He'd look over to Sonia and shrug helplessly. 

Eddie stretched, in the process briefly exposing black veins along his body that then faded into his skin. "You remind me of my ex honestly." THere was a beat, "Like, that's a good thing. Very active, very willing to get into the thick of things." A smile as he considered Anne, "I gotta ask. Why a whip?"

Serrah's blush deepens slightly. "Uhhhhh ... w-well, I mean, you're a vampire slayer, and ... that kind of ..."

And then she stops. "... shit, I just realized I'm a lesbian vampire." She groans. "That's this whole ... stereotype, sort of. Uh." She frowns. "... okay that's another thing I need to look into. Like ... wow, I don't even know how vampires think about that in general ..." Her voice trails off. "Eh, I'll, I'll just figure something out that works for me. I'm good at figuring stuff out that works for me." She still sounds slightly worried, though.

She looks back at Sonia when Eddie inquires about the whip. "... that's ... I can't fully remember your answer from when I asked that."

"Oh! That would be those books, those..." Sonia snaps her fingers, "The clerk at one of them called them... bodice rippers?" She shakes her head. "Not that there were that many bodices. People of the future write very oddly." Alas, poor, poor Serrah. "Come to think, I saw one book that claimed a story of a vampire hunter being seduced by a vampire." Another shake of her head.

To Eddie, she gives a ghost of a smile, a brief look lingering on those veins. "You know, I get that question more now than I did back then." A wry look then given to Serrah as she adds her voice to the question. "Then again, the things that might ask about why a whip usually weren't alive long enough to question it." Heaving a she tugs at her cloak a little so it can be open enough--open enough to remind Serrah of that leotard-style armor and boots, before showing the whip itself. It's... well-made. Worn, perhaps, but something feels... /good/, at least for Eddie just to see it. On the other hand, Serrah might not feel as good. Mild unease at least. "Several reasons. This is not the only one, but this whip was blessed and imbued to destroy divine and demonic in equal measure. The old stories say that our ancestors had to fight a fallen." Death, who had decided to aid Dracul.

"Beyond that, it does permit distance, the ability to strike quickly and efficiently." She then looks to a nearby street light, and with a quick flourish of a movement, the whip snakes out to--coiling perfectly enough to allow her to take a running leap and swing herself up and around until she lands on top of the street light. Well, also kicking off of the pole about a quarter of the way up, but it was obvious as she crouched up there with an odd sense of ease. 

"Most don't tend to expect it. Plus, you saw what it did to Wilhelmina's arm." 

Venom facepalmed at the term 'bodice ripper. "Yeeaa... I'd apologize, but they're aimed at eithr teenage boys, or bored hosuewives." Then a look between Sonia and Serrah and shrugged. 

"I'm asking because I get to cheat with my... uh." He very pointedly glanced at Serrah, "Other." He still felt uncomfortable with details, "can cheat the problem of aim and momentum. You're having to deal with a fairly difficult thing used for animal herding as a weapon. "Can agree about being able to put distance between me and an opponent is good, and being able toswing around is... well..." He chuckled soft.

Then Venom flashed him memories of earlyattempts at swinging about often ending up with his face smashing into masonry, "Alsotricky to get used to, but fun when you get the hang of it."

Serrah actually manages not to be particularly affected by the comments about bodice-rippers! "Yeah, that's the kind of thing where the stereotype comes from," she says. "I mean, I'm not gonna be ripping your bodice, after seeing you in action." She hesitates. "... That ... y'know what, I'm actually not sure if that came out wrong or not."

She looks Eddie over curiously. "Yeah, I've been meaning to ask," she says. "What is your 'other', anyway? Like I feel like I only have half of, of what's going on there."

"Aim, momentum, all of these things we get taught on how to compensate for." Sonia remarks before leaping down off of the street lamp, though with the whip itself actually still attached so as she can swing down safely. A flick of the whip, and it loosens from the lamp's neck to let her draw it back into a coil. 

"Technically it did. I don't wear a bodice. They're itchy." she vaguely notes, tugging the clasp of her cloak so she can show what she's actually wearing--that armor from the other night, and keeping it open about long enough before closing it again. 

"I was wondering of that as well. I feel both him--as much as I can discern it as 'him', along with you." she remarks towards Eddie.

Eddie looked to Serrah and frowned, his eyes looking the young woman over as he considered his options, "Considering how things could have gone last night and unless Vinny gets that pretty plaything stick that probably is tied to his bloodline taken away from him As much as I would love to explain it, I'm genuinely afraid you could be made to tell the guy that can yank your chain about and what you saw was like.... trying to be subtle." He smiled, this time showing pointed inhuman teeth. Then he smiled again showing human normal teeth.

Then a look to Sonia and a shrug when Sonia spilled the biggest 'feature' of Venom. "Short version? Things from another world shows up. One of them hitches a ride in my body, misadventures happen. It decides using my world as a dinner table was kinda overrated. We're trying to figure out how to cohabitate." He chuckled softly at Sonia before a black tendril lached out, pulling him to a light post before disappearing into his body. It wasn't graceful or eligant, but it got the general notion across. "I was kinda banking on being the thing distracting Vinny on the idea I get taken out my friend could take over." Then he shuddered, tipping forward, rolling in the process to land on his feet with a bow and only a slight wobble. "If that stick managed to get both of us it would've been.... Bad."

When Sonia lands, Serrah floats up to sit on another lamppost instead. "I mean it was just a dumb joke, and yeah," she says. "... shit, I just realized I dunno how I'm gonna get a regular blood supply." She laughs helplessly. "So many things I have to learn!"

She frowns when Eddie brings up his desire to keep mum about his 'friend'. "That's a very good point," she says. "I dunno how much control he has over ... what I can tell him, but ... hmm." She shrugs. "You were still able to talk normally, right? So ... dunno. The stick's apparently called the Blackheart Scepter, by the way ... I think."

"For what it's worth, I would've done something... else. I do not care to detail it fully here, but I am confident I could've done it." Sonia remarks. "Rather not test it, all the same. Suffice it to say, you would've been absolved and the curse dispelled from Eddie as it was from Serrah here." What's that old saying about not putting all your cards out there? 

A brief nod from the Belmont. "It was. I was trying to destroy it, but he was guarding it pretty well. Even if it could be made again, destroying it could have hampered his future endeavours, at the very least. Well done, both of you." she adds in regard to the two's ascent to the lamp and then down again. So many questioning looks from random passersby.

"I'm mostly just trying to figure out how to make the best of things." Eddie admitted as he paced between lamp posts. "Buddy's more 'do whatever we want' and frankly what I want is now that I'm ableto Do things... try helping people." It was a natural extension of what he did as a reporter after all.

Then he looked to Serrah, "Yeeaa food supply issues are a problem. I got lucky. Chocolate, almonds, Eggs.... I just have t oeat like I'm loading up for a bodybuilder competition on top of a lot of calories. Any idea on if it has to be human blood? Or if it has to be like..." Eddie gestured about, "Fresh from the tap? Kinda important since dil I figured out my dietary problems i kinda made friends at a slaughterhouse since the other big payday was Brains and.... yea no please no zombie jokes guys."

Serrah nods from one to the other. "All I know is the shit he's babbled out in my presence," she says. "But I do feel like getting rid of this --" She points to the heart on her forehead. "-- is gonna take more than just your own tricks." She grimaces. "... especially if they're holy-based. You might risk dispelling me instead."

She hmms, as Eddie talks about his activities. "I literally don't know what I'll do, if and when we manage to get me out from under Vincent's thumb," she says. "I mean I ... guess ... I could try helping people, too?" She doesn't sound remotely like that's her kind of thing to do, though. She shrugs grandiosely. "But I guess I could whoa!" She loses her balance, and falls off the lamppost, and then ...

To Eddie and Venom both, it looks like she's suddenly standing on the ground. There's no transition, no special effects or anything -- one proverbial frame of animation, she's falling, and the next, she's on the ground.

To Sonia, it looks like a ripple of light emanated from Serrah and the world turned grayish purple, and everyone and everything, including Sonia herself, became frozen in place. This startles even Serrah, and she uses her flight-power to land gracefully ... before the world returns to normal and time resumes.

She looks around in confusion. "... whoa, what?"

A mild shrug from Sonia. "Offer's still there." Not that she was serious about it right then and there. That said, when Serrah begins to fall, Sonia begins to move to catch her--but. Wait. No, no--that's. That's not good. 

For the first time, Sonia actually looked at Serrah in a much different way than she did, even from last night. Even more than the way she'd looked at Vincent or Wilhelmina. "... did you know you could do that because if you didn't know that is... amazingly reckless of whomever is in charge of this world." Sonia breathes out very simply, very slowly. She knew what happened. She knew exactly what happened, if anything. "That you can stop time?" 

<Wait... WHAT?!>

"Beats me buddy," Eddie muttered seeing the 'frame skip' and his mindchewing throughthat information.

Then Sonia mentioned it being time stopping, "Excuse me what? Like.... flat out 'the flow of time has stopped' knives, then 'time shall now resume' kinda jazz?"

<Yare Yare Daze.>

Venom's quoting made Eddie chuckle in spite of the situation, "Or did you just straight up teleport? No offence but like that is both impressive nad kinda... offputting." Mostly because 'what if Vincent sicced her on people?' Then a smile, "But hey any landing you can recover from eh?"

Serrah's head jerks around to Sonia. "No, I didn't know I could stop ti--" And then she sees how Sonia is looking at her. "... uh ..." She starts to tense up, and backs slightly away from her past the lamppost. It's kind of an obvious fight-or-flight reaction.

Her eyes flit briefly to Eddie, but mostly she keeps completely focused on Sonia. "... I get that the details I can see from here are important, since Vincent using them against people is a 'when', not an 'if'," she says, mostly directed at the vampire slayer. "But what happens if I tell 'em to you right now?"

"No, she used--she somehow used it. I can tell that kind of thing..." Sonia begins, and falls quiet at the 'how can she tell' thing, before simply finishing. "... very good at telling what types of magic are going on." Lame excuse, if anyone actually thought about it. 

Shaking her head, and clearing her mind of what she felt, clearing her throat lightly as she clips her whip back where it belongs. "That would probably be a good idea, yes." 

"I'm out of my depth," Eddie scratched his chin as he considered the ping pong between vampire and vampire huntress. "Anyway, let's set count can't-give-a-damned to one side." He looked Serrah over and quirked an eyebrow. Something didn't click. Sure on the slab her body details were different, but he didn't know her from before, so he had no referene points. "How many people are in the splash zone of all this?"

Serrah, fortunately, is a bit too rattled by suddenly having a vampire slayer pointed at her to figure out even an obvious excuse like that. But she settles down when Sonia does. "Okay. Okay, okay. I, uh ..." She runs a hand through her hair, and looks around at the small crowd around them. "Y'know what, how about we not just blurt it out in public right here, since ... I don't want word to get to Vinny either."

She gets out her keys, and leads them into the apartment building right next to them, where there's a small lobby. "So," she says. "First, there's a cooldown, a really brief period where I can't use it again. Second, the amount of ... uh ... 'time' I have in there depends on how much I act. Sitting still it's longer, and moving fast is shorter ..." She frowns at Eddie. "I'm not sure 'splash zone' actually makes sense," she says. "It's like ... it's something affecting 'me', not the world around me. Hmm ..."

She reaches over and puts a hand on Eddie's shoulder, then stops time again.

Not only can Eddie and Venom both see the ripple of light and the world turn grayish purple, they retain their color and are still able to move.

Serrah looks up at him. "... okay, physical contact means y--" And then abruptly, the world is back to normal and her hand is in the process of lowering. "--et to see it and move, and it's a ... drain, I guess, on how much time I have."

She whistles. "This is not how I was expecting this morning to go."

For now, the Belmont is... well, as content as possible at least, to observe, to follow along at least. She still /feels it/ when the actual temporal anomaly happens. A sense of what's going on too, feeling it, seeing it. The little things. 

But once they seem to stop all of that? 

Sonia slowly brings a hand up to her face, and drags it down. "Vincent is an irresponsible, feckless bastard." That's her best and proper conclusion. And then that's when she mumbles a few more curses in latin. Fluent latin, by all sounds of it, before drawing in a breath. 

"No, but then again was anyone? Keep a... mental eye, I guess, on if and when you might feel him near. I wouldn't practice with that unless you were absolutely certain you were somewhere that people couldn't see you. Even then, assume they can." Sonia says, under the presumption that someone will find out, inevitably. Serrah isn't allowed to have any kind of good luck. 

Least that's her observation. 

Eddie blinked, tensing at hte contact. Venom strained to try sensing something from the physical contact with Serrah but otherwise remained passive. She was being friendly after all. WHen Time resumed. Eddie frowned, "Maybe it's like a muscle, you get better the more you use it?" Something felt off about all this to him. He ended up muttering, "way out of my depth here."

Serrah looks over at Sonia at that remark. "I mean, we knew that already," she says dryly. "But I guess turning me and/or putting that mark on me ... somehow hit the trigger for me getting a special ability," she says dryly. She snorts. "The best ability, for whoever has control over it." She nods. "I am gonna be hella careful with this, yeah. It's gonna be kind of hard, but ..." She shakes her head and grins weakly. "Yeah."

She shrugs at Eddie. "It depends on the ability, but I'm ... gonna be careful about trying to improve it, too, for the same reason!"

She sighs, and grins weakly. "A special ability. Wow." Her situation is getting way more complicated than she even realized ...