Helvetica watched the beast stare intensely at Alonzo, who stood at her back like an animal trapped in a corner. The beast's eyes, she noticed, were intelligent and it held its form with purpose more deliberate than instinct. Calculating. Knowing. She could see the man inside the monster hide, pressing a finger to his lips. He'd attacked everyone around her, making Alonzo lucky to be in such close proximity.
But the question still remained: Who the hell was this guy?
Alonzo's grip on her arm tightened and the beast looked into her eyes as he said, "You've got yourself a deal, Mr. Devil." Then, he let go of Helvetica, but pressed the gun harder into her ribs to punctuate the unspoken command that she not move. So, she tightened her jaw and watched him reach around her to offer his hand to the beast like a proper businessman.
The strenuous circumstances, however, showed what caliber of businessman the younger Velazquez was. After shadowing his brother for years, he learned how the business was handled, what things were done to keep the machine running smoothly. So, when Julio went down, Alonzo easily and comfortably took his place.
Upon taking leadership, Alonzo felt that the slight from the US judicial system couldn't go unchecked. Emboldened by the weight of his new position, he decided to flex his power and make an example of Associate Justice Storm by showing him who made the demands and who held all the power.
He didn't consider the fact that Helvetica Storm took self-defense classes religiously and was every bit stone and steel as her father.
He didn't consider the likelihood of a supernatural attack from the inside of the compound, least of all that it would be Reizvolles. He didn't even see it coming.
And he didn't consider the tenacity of Chief Nelson and his team at the LAPD.
"ALONZO VELAZQUEZ! WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED!"
RBPD had the perimeter of the entire warehouse flooded with red and blue light. Standing behind an open cruiser door was Chief Nelson, speaker hovering over his angry, red mustache, grip tight and determined.
In the moment that it dawned on Alonzo that it was checkmate, Helvetica swept his feet from under him, moving her body through the loop of his arm. For a moment, the world was a gray blur for Alonzo, then it was knocked back into startling stillness and clarity when his back hit the floor and he was looking down the barrel of his gun.
Helvetica looked at him down the silver back of the weapon now attached to the straight line of her arm. The incredulity on her face was subtle, as if she could barely muster up a fuck to present it at all.
"I'm not a pawn to be bartered," she told him like she would a child first learning the permanence of abstract concepts like 'no'. "You can brush up on women's rights with your brother in a federal prison cell."
Alonzo glared at her and felt as if his eyes would burn away into lasers. He felt that the immensity of his loathing for the little bitch in that moment would make her spontaneously combust. But there she stood, and all he could think was who was she to be so high and mighty?
So, he snatched the hidden gun from his waist and fired. There were two shots. One flung the girl back onto the floor. The other felt like fire when it burrowed into his chest. Everything felt like fire as he realized he couldn't--
Helvetica gasped and lifted her hand from the puncture in her side at her lower rib. "Three hundred dollar...dress..." She continued to gasp and found that she couldn't breathe. It felt like her chest was being crushed and every attempt to pull air into her lungs was futile.
Just feet away from where she lay, Alonzo lay staring blankly at the dark, yawning ceiling of the warehouse up above.
Twenty-Two to Life (Re-Opened)
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Helvetica
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2018 5:27 pm
- IGN: Helvetica
- Lineage: No Affiliations
- Graphic Artist: Me
Reizvolles could feel her eyes on him, intense and focused like she was seeing right through the beast that was dauntingly looming in front of her. She was acutely aware that he was much more deliberate than any mere animal, but the question of who he was and why he cared so much was still clearly evident on her face. It was all understandable, and she would know soon enough.
The hybrid’s eyes narrowed, even as he squeezed a large clawed hand around AV’s in the firm business handshake. His senses were particularly heightened and everything in the room had a faint glow to it, which he still had trouble handling from time to time. When in stressful situations - and this was a stressful situation - he struggled the most.
The echo and reverberation of Chief Nelson’s voice was almost debilitating for the creature. It wasn’t until now that Reiz realized how sensitive his ears became in this form. The rotating lights that flared through the windows of the building, in addition to the now continual ringing in his ears kept him from focusing on what would happen next.
Before he could do anything about it, two shots rang out. His eyes were thin slits as he worked through the painful ringing to figure out just what took place. Alonzo was fading quickly, but Helvetica was still standing. She seemed confident and pissed at first, but it didn’t take long for her injury to begin wreaking havoc on her insides.
The stress level doubled when he realized where the bullet lodged itself. He knew he needed to act, and act soon. There was no time to shift back. He needed to not only beat the police force before they swarmed the room, but he also needed to move her somewhere that he could look at the damage uninterrupted. Niko approached her in time to keep her from falling, and swooped her up into his arms.
The look in his eyes told her not to fight him, even though he could see the struggle she was having breathing. He ran out of the room and was able to find an exit that hadn’t been blocked. The LAPD did a decent job, but they hadn’t surveyed the entire building as thoroughly as the possibly could have. He took advantage of their shortcomings.
His feet carried them a few miles from the compound, and he only stopped once he knew for sure they had found an abandoned area of the outskirts of the city where they could not be discovered. He carefully placed her down on the ground and ducked behind one of the trees nearby. From his position, he could still see her and could tell that she was still lucid. For now.
Niko’s frame twisted and contorted until the businessman she first saw returned. His lack of thinking left him bare, but that wasn’t even a thought in his mind currently with her predicament plaguing his focus. If he attempted to dig the bullet out himself, he could potentially do more irreparable damage. The last thing he wanted to do was cause more harm.
He walked back over to her and lifted her upper body to rest along his legs. Momentarily, he considered the discomfort that she might be feeling by being touched by a naked, supernatural stranger. The consideration was fleeting, however, as those same piercing blue eyes fell to her face.
“This will only pinch for a moment…”
It was all he could think of to keep the girl from dying. He hoisted her up a bit higher against his body, chin inclining for his mouth to find her pulse point. It was faint, with majority of her blood flooding to fill her lungs. Without missing another beat, Nikolai opened his maw and punctured skin. The coppery taste hit his tongue in an instant, and he lapped it up with earnest.
He was a traditionalist, though, and only took the minimal amount to make his actions count. While he would have normally used a blade, he was lacking in this moment, and so he bit onto his own wrist to create a wound site for Helvetica to leech from. She looked even weaker when he first pressed his arm against her mouth, but he knew that if she followed through with her half, that would change. He just hoped the shock didn’t prevent her.
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The hybrid’s eyes narrowed, even as he squeezed a large clawed hand around AV’s in the firm business handshake. His senses were particularly heightened and everything in the room had a faint glow to it, which he still had trouble handling from time to time. When in stressful situations - and this was a stressful situation - he struggled the most.
The echo and reverberation of Chief Nelson’s voice was almost debilitating for the creature. It wasn’t until now that Reiz realized how sensitive his ears became in this form. The rotating lights that flared through the windows of the building, in addition to the now continual ringing in his ears kept him from focusing on what would happen next.
Before he could do anything about it, two shots rang out. His eyes were thin slits as he worked through the painful ringing to figure out just what took place. Alonzo was fading quickly, but Helvetica was still standing. She seemed confident and pissed at first, but it didn’t take long for her injury to begin wreaking havoc on her insides.
The stress level doubled when he realized where the bullet lodged itself. He knew he needed to act, and act soon. There was no time to shift back. He needed to not only beat the police force before they swarmed the room, but he also needed to move her somewhere that he could look at the damage uninterrupted. Niko approached her in time to keep her from falling, and swooped her up into his arms.
The look in his eyes told her not to fight him, even though he could see the struggle she was having breathing. He ran out of the room and was able to find an exit that hadn’t been blocked. The LAPD did a decent job, but they hadn’t surveyed the entire building as thoroughly as the possibly could have. He took advantage of their shortcomings.
His feet carried them a few miles from the compound, and he only stopped once he knew for sure they had found an abandoned area of the outskirts of the city where they could not be discovered. He carefully placed her down on the ground and ducked behind one of the trees nearby. From his position, he could still see her and could tell that she was still lucid. For now.
Niko’s frame twisted and contorted until the businessman she first saw returned. His lack of thinking left him bare, but that wasn’t even a thought in his mind currently with her predicament plaguing his focus. If he attempted to dig the bullet out himself, he could potentially do more irreparable damage. The last thing he wanted to do was cause more harm.
He walked back over to her and lifted her upper body to rest along his legs. Momentarily, he considered the discomfort that she might be feeling by being touched by a naked, supernatural stranger. The consideration was fleeting, however, as those same piercing blue eyes fell to her face.
“This will only pinch for a moment…”
It was all he could think of to keep the girl from dying. He hoisted her up a bit higher against his body, chin inclining for his mouth to find her pulse point. It was faint, with majority of her blood flooding to fill her lungs. Without missing another beat, Nikolai opened his maw and punctured skin. The coppery taste hit his tongue in an instant, and he lapped it up with earnest.
He was a traditionalist, though, and only took the minimal amount to make his actions count. While he would have normally used a blade, he was lacking in this moment, and so he bit onto his own wrist to create a wound site for Helvetica to leech from. She looked even weaker when he first pressed his arm against her mouth, but he knew that if she followed through with her half, that would change. He just hoped the shock didn’t prevent her.
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Helvetica
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2018 5:27 pm
- IGN: Helvetica
- Lineage: No Affiliations
- Graphic Artist: Me
She couldn't breathe. It wasn't just a statement of fact, but a shout from her entire body, every limb momentarily seized by it. Every breath was a willful struggle against the very thing she needed.
Air. Blood from the tear of the wound spilled in veins around it, slithering around pockets that slowly crushed her lung with every breath.
"Fu--" she began, but lost the rest somewhere between lips and air.
And along came a large, hulking shadow at the corner of her eye, and she turned her head to see the beast upon her, having eaten up the space between them with colossal steps. The floor was hot and hairy beneath her and a part of her mind echoed 'not the floor, check again'.
The world became a jostled view from within a snowglobe. The blur bled away into darkness and Helvetica realized she wasn't going to survive the night.
She was stuffed through the ears with cotton and wondered if she would be eaten. She gasped for air, trying to find it in the darkness.
Her eyes snapped open when a shock of cold hit her back and she wheezed, tears in her eyes from the strain, the pain, the knowing that this was it. She would rather it had been quick.
She rolled her head and saw the beast's clawed feet retreat behind a tree. She could feel the vibrations of every step through the concrete. When the feet returned, they were the feet of a man, not of a beast. The man reached out to grab her and she groaned at the ache in her chest. Her eyes were pale in the low light when they looked up at him.
The man inside the beast hide.
He said something she couldn't hear through the cotton in her ears, her skull. His grip made her skin tingle like a palm pressed into sand. Her head tipped, then a sudden crunch vibrated through her ear and her skull and lava was released through her nerves. Her body screamed to her that she was under attack. Something was biting her! The man? The beast?
She panted for breath and reached up to push the head with its mauling mouth away from her, but her hand fell limply across her lap, echoing her former thought: this was it. This was how she died.
When the teeth were taken out, she could barely feel their pull through her raw flesh. A tear skittered across her turned cheek like a stone over a river and she fucking wished this was quicker. She imagined she would be eaten, torn to pieces, still conscious for a bit of it until shock finally took her.
What the fuck did she do to deserve this?
Something slick slipped across her lips, seeped into the seams. Bitter. Salt. She scowled and rolled her eyes up at the man who wore her blood on his mouth.
"The fuck..." she thought she heard herself say, but the words were just shallow, panting breath through a quivering scowl. Blood painted her teeth, her tongue, and she thought, This is how I die? What the fuck? Just kill me now.
Air. Blood from the tear of the wound spilled in veins around it, slithering around pockets that slowly crushed her lung with every breath.
"Fu--" she began, but lost the rest somewhere between lips and air.
And along came a large, hulking shadow at the corner of her eye, and she turned her head to see the beast upon her, having eaten up the space between them with colossal steps. The floor was hot and hairy beneath her and a part of her mind echoed 'not the floor, check again'.
The world became a jostled view from within a snowglobe. The blur bled away into darkness and Helvetica realized she wasn't going to survive the night.
She was stuffed through the ears with cotton and wondered if she would be eaten. She gasped for air, trying to find it in the darkness.
Her eyes snapped open when a shock of cold hit her back and she wheezed, tears in her eyes from the strain, the pain, the knowing that this was it. She would rather it had been quick.
She rolled her head and saw the beast's clawed feet retreat behind a tree. She could feel the vibrations of every step through the concrete. When the feet returned, they were the feet of a man, not of a beast. The man reached out to grab her and she groaned at the ache in her chest. Her eyes were pale in the low light when they looked up at him.
The man inside the beast hide.
He said something she couldn't hear through the cotton in her ears, her skull. His grip made her skin tingle like a palm pressed into sand. Her head tipped, then a sudden crunch vibrated through her ear and her skull and lava was released through her nerves. Her body screamed to her that she was under attack. Something was biting her! The man? The beast?
She panted for breath and reached up to push the head with its mauling mouth away from her, but her hand fell limply across her lap, echoing her former thought: this was it. This was how she died.
When the teeth were taken out, she could barely feel their pull through her raw flesh. A tear skittered across her turned cheek like a stone over a river and she fucking wished this was quicker. She imagined she would be eaten, torn to pieces, still conscious for a bit of it until shock finally took her.
What the fuck did she do to deserve this?
Something slick slipped across her lips, seeped into the seams. Bitter. Salt. She scowled and rolled her eyes up at the man who wore her blood on his mouth.
"The fuck..." she thought she heard herself say, but the words were just shallow, panting breath through a quivering scowl. Blood painted her teeth, her tongue, and she thought, This is how I die? What the fuck? Just kill me now.
H E L V E T I C A • S T O R M
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Attorney at Law | Storm Law | Atlas ALSP
"What is law to a lawless city?" "Business, Miss Storm. Appeal to your audience."
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Attorney at Law | Storm Law | Atlas ALSP
"What is law to a lawless city?" "Business, Miss Storm. Appeal to your audience."
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Helvetica
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2018 5:27 pm
- IGN: Helvetica
- Lineage: No Affiliations
- Graphic Artist: Me
With what little energy she had left, Helvetica fought back against his efforts. She tried, at least. Reiz shook his head down at her and cradled her closer against his form. Unless it was business, he was never good with words. His face pinched at the stress of the situation before he explained plainly, "If you want to live, then you need to drink."
It was a foreign concept for a human, he assumed. The humans with which he frequently interacted thought of supernatural creatures as myths or things from television. The few that knew better had to be proven otherwise the first time. He figured, despite the intelligence she appeared to have, she would have to be shown differently, just like them.
In the meantime, he pressed his flesh against her mouth more firmly and forced the second half of the process on her. It was the only way he knew she would survive. The ambulance would have never made it in time, and even if it had, he couldn't allow her to go free with what she had seen. Even if most wouldn't believe her, there could be that one. All it took was one. He couldn't risk a beast hunt.
As he withdrew his wrist, she fell limp again and her eyes drooped shut. Niko laid her across the ground and gave her space. He would keep watch until she regained any bit of strength, and then... then he would take her somewhere to fully recover. To him, it seemed that it would be less jarring to wake up in the woods where she last remembered versus a new surrounding all together. Here was to hoping.
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It was a foreign concept for a human, he assumed. The humans with which he frequently interacted thought of supernatural creatures as myths or things from television. The few that knew better had to be proven otherwise the first time. He figured, despite the intelligence she appeared to have, she would have to be shown differently, just like them.
In the meantime, he pressed his flesh against her mouth more firmly and forced the second half of the process on her. It was the only way he knew she would survive. The ambulance would have never made it in time, and even if it had, he couldn't allow her to go free with what she had seen. Even if most wouldn't believe her, there could be that one. All it took was one. He couldn't risk a beast hunt.
As he withdrew his wrist, she fell limp again and her eyes drooped shut. Niko laid her across the ground and gave her space. He would keep watch until she regained any bit of strength, and then... then he would take her somewhere to fully recover. To him, it seemed that it would be less jarring to wake up in the woods where she last remembered versus a new surrounding all together. Here was to hoping.
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