Flesh and Blood (Incendiary <3 Bomb)

[Anonymous]

"Eztli, You son of a..." A flash of a knife and a long thing finger that were too similar both covered in blood. Both in his face. Most likely his own blood. The finger was scolding him and pressed to his lips for a brief moment, black eyes looking into his brown ones. Cold, no emotion in them, it was the smiling mouth that gave it all away. Even that had blood on it.

"Now, now Jericho. I'm obviously a daughter of a bitch if anything. If you would have behaved you'd know first hand." He gritted his teeth against her finger which moved and a swishing noise as a knife came down hard across his arm. He grunted but held back. Eztli was all about reaction, she wanted his fear, his blood, his life, probably even his soul. HE couldn't give in he had to fight against her, as long as he could.

She kept fading in and out of his vision streaks of her blond hair cutting against the dark of stone. Her white dress that was covered in a red pattern that was anything but natural. Blood hand prints and splashes. He wasn't the only one who had been on her menu tonight. Her face in front of his, her lips moving but he couldn't quite hear her, but he knew what she was saying. He had replayed it over and over again before in his mind. He mouthed along with her.

"Tonight you'll become what you have hunted. You'll know what you have hated. You will learn what it is like to love the dark and embrace it..."

A candle in the room exploded into a flash of white light interrupting her monologue. He was briefly between worlds. The old and what must have been the present, she was there fleeting her parts collapsing into a smoke trail then gone. His vision was hazy, like maybe he was under water...was there water to be under anymore? Jericho tried to lift his head but it was too heavy and the room started to spin. It was that kind of spin Frazier's drugs sometimes caused. Except, no giddy feeling just tired, heavy. His head weighed too much for his neck and shoulders. He thought it might fall off and roll away.

He pulled at his hand feeling a discomfort at the wrist. No use, he couldn't feel anything holding him back as a physical thing, just some force around his wrist. Not painful. He had the feeling that it should have been though. Pulling his other wrist. Same infernal feeling. His vision was clearing up around the middle the edges still hazy. He blinked a couple times the light in the room seeming to get brighter and bright.

He finally looked at his clothes, they had little burn marks all over them. For a moment he thought he was with Eztli again. Then he realize he was in his red jacket...or what was left of it. He remembered a suit he had grabbed a nice suit from...the Tams? Benfield. He remembered the taste of her blood. The memories. And that damn suit. He held a moment of silence for the suit in his head, it had been so nice.

As he started to feel less heavy he lifted his head to look around the room. White. All white. No windows. Correction, one window on what might have been a door. Obviously no knob on this side of it. He knew a prison when he saw one...or was in one. Where was he? Then as if he answered himself memories came rushing forward. Delilah, that was out of nowhere...Frazier. A red haired male...Pilot. A green haired female...Pilot....S abela was her name.

Oh she had bled so pretty...her collarbone breaking...so much light on the outside so pretty. But breakable just like a doll...and there was so much dark on the inside. The blood had held so many sort of thoughts...

Then later, lots of Pilots...or soldiers associated with them. Guns that didn't hold bullets and he had gone down. He growled into the room. He was caught, he'd been hidden for so long and now...he was just plain caught.

[Anonymous]

People were loud, when they were strung out.

Even a good distance from the containment cell, Llewellyn could pick up on the tenuous strands of drugged memories leaking through the cranial walls of the recently-captured psychic.

His mother, a negative connotation—so many people seem to hate their mothers nowadays. Or, not mother exactly. A figure. In any case, the one he thought of as having borne him. A fight. Blood. Fear. The beginning of transformation.

Then, actual consciousness, and recent events... something about a very nice suit. Yes, he'd been informed what this one had done to Sabela. A broken collarbone wouldn't deter him, though. For a long time he'd waited to see a Candidate no one else was crazy or masochistic enough to take by choice, and apparently this was one of them. That brought a grin to Llyn's crooked face.

He stood outside the containment cell for a few moments, evaluating. He seemed to associate blood with a lot of things; maybe he was hemokinetic, like Nika. It seemed unlikely, though. His thoughts were, together. Very well-put-together, mature... and his memories were distant. He was probably older than Llewellyn himself.

Even over all that, Llewellyn could sense something inhuman about the person behind the door. A blessing, in a way. Dealing with a human who had seen as many years as this one apparently had would not have been pleasant for someone like Llewellyn Intram.

At length, he authenticated his presence at the door, and it clicked and depressurized and whirred and clicked a few more times and slid open, and he slid in, and it slid shut. In the same motion he replaced the constraints on the prisoner with ones of his own making. Only then did he get a good look at him.

"You look like a lovely gentleman indeed," the Pilot said softly, leaning back against the door. "I can't imagine why they'd employ such desperate tactics as assigning you to me. But, since they have, you must be a very interesting person... Candidate Godsey."

[Anonymous]

The door came open, he wasn't sure whether to be happy about it happening, or terrified. He thought he had eliminated that little word from his vocabulary a long time ago. Something about being caged in though, it brought out the fear in him, like it would almost anyone. His eyes trailed up to see the person who was walking in. He arched a brow at the man, suddenly feeling a little less terrified.

This person looked weak, very weak. The man looked like he hadn't eaten a meal in a very long time. Jericho found himself face to face with a stereotypical version of a vampire. He almost chuckled out loud the drugs still affecting him. Oh the amount of boys he had seduced into being his meals that looked like that. All pale skin and black hair, hiding from who they really were, hoping to be rescued from mortality. It never quite worked out well for them. It wasn't his fault though, they shouldn't make themselves so damn easy to prey on.

Then they spoke, they were giving off an aura of...something. He couldn't place it. Almost like a vampire but something...else. He squinted his eyes at the man the drugs still blurring his vision slightly. The way the man spoke, he sounded...old. Not old like decrepit old white hair I better check on my will old. But Jericho old...he had a different way of speaking. Something...foreign, but not at the same time. For Jericho it made him feel more comfortable.

He was happy to hear that he was actually striking some fear into hearts still. It made him feel more at home, more in his element. He knew where he was then. As long as he still had some fear, then he could work this out. Though this...Pilot, he assumed, wasn't very afraid of him. He seemed more interested than afraid, like it was every day for a vampire to be in the same room with him. It made Jericho twitch a little and worry just slightly.

"I like to think so." He found his voice wrapped under layers of drugs, his words still slightly slurring as he spoke.

[Anonymous]

It was very, very hard to keep his grin from turning into an actual laugh, as he monitored the psychic's evaluation of him. He would be the first to admit his appearance was less than intimidating, taken at face value, but to assume he was some run-of-the-mill disaffected young adult was not only stupid, but also dangerous.

However, something interesting came through in it. The repeated allusions to vampirism, and apparent reminiscences of preying on such people... now he was getting somewhere. He resolved to assume this one was a vampire (it made a lot of sense, actually) until he was either corrected or validated. He noted that his voice seemed to calm the other, and engender more respect.

"You'll have to forgive us," he continued. "From what I heard, you put up quite a fight, and I know from experience that people, when properly medicated, are very easy to deal with." His grin was slightly ironic. "However, I think you'll find cooperation to be an infinitely better option for yourself. It's worked fine for me.

"Now, are you aware of the program into which you have been entered?" He examined the man, finding that it hadn't seemed to have sunk in that he was now a Pilot Candidate. "If so, I'll go right to the process itself; if not, I'll have a bit more to explain, and I don't think either of us want to waste time restating things we already know."

[Anonymous]

Jericho sat and listened to Llyn as he spoke. Somewhat interested but disconnected. He hoped it was the drugs that were draining from his system the longer he was awake. Though he had a feeling it was because it hadn't really sunk in that he had been caught. Him, the uncatchable, unhuntable. He sighed to himself for a moment feeling the weight of that hit him. The dizzyness and slight euphoria was gone with the drugs leaving his system. He longed for them to come back for a moment. He was going to be trapped here for a long time. If he wanted to live he'd have to take Llyn's advice and cooperate.

His attention turned back to Llyn instead of himself measuring his body language and how he stood. There was something about this human, or perhaps he only appeared to be? After all Jericho looked rather human himself. He was also obviously more than a little goth boy, there was a lot more to him. Obviously or else he never would have made it through the program. Jericho blinked at Llyn for a moment and nodded.

The vampire's priorities had changed greatly since he had been really alive. When he was human, well mostly human, his life had been consumed by one thing. Hunting. He was a Hunter with a capital H. It was all he could think about, learning, being trained, and then killing the evil that resided in the world. Now? He was the evil he used to hunt, full on no apologies. His years had taught him that what he was could never be excused or changed so he embodied what he hated. Somehow he found enjoyment out of it still. This complete turn around.

His primary goal now? To survive and to thrive doing it.

"I'm somewhat aware, but probably all the things I've heard are rumors." He glanced down at himself again at his feet and hands. "Some explaining might help." He was feeling that old habit of his, he was always the trainee. Never the master. It was a place he knew well. He had fought against it his whole time as a vampire but now, it felt real again.

[Anonymous]

Listening to this one was interesting; he kept revealing little pieces of himself through his thoughts. His spine straightened a little at the change in opinion (thank you, yes, I did get through all this, so I must be slightly less of a deluded failure-at-life than you initially thought I was), but another thing struck him as more interesting yet. A vampire who had once been a vampire hunter?

Llewellyn nodded. "Then I will explain." He leaned lightly against the wall and sighed. "You, by fault or virtue of your psychic abilities, have been entered automatically into the Pilot candidacy program... I assume you know what we do already. Good job staying hidden this long, if that was your aim; a skill such as that will aid you in your work... if you even get that far. As a Candidate, you will be mentored by a Pilot—" he gestured to himself "—for a length of time, anywhere from three years to... well, whenever you get it right. You will be given six months' grace period... meaning you are essentially free to show us why we should even waste our time with you." Llewellyn didn't mean it that way, and showed it with a grin. "That also means, any time after that six-month period, that we may deem you a hazard to our government and hand you over to TRIM... I trust you know what they do as well. Or you may wind up stepping out into the sunlight and burning up before your training is completed... but that is unlikely. You've probably seen the sky for the last time in a while."

He paused momentarily, watching Jericho. "However... I do not want you to fail. That would be a mark against my capability as a mentor, and besides, having you as a Candidate could potentially make both our lives quite a bit more pleasant..." he gave another pause, trying to string words together correctly, "...in ways that will become clear as I see fit for you to know them. Do you need anything else explained?"

[Anonymous]

Jericho was getting the distinct feeling that Llyn liked to hear himself talk.
Maybe...that Llyn just liked himself...a lot.

Jericho assumed that most Pilots did however, a large percentage seemed to have a little bit of arrogance about them. He couldn't really blame them of course. Being the highest up sometimes gave you a sort of complex. Llyn was pretty thorough in his explanation, obviously Jericho did not need to know everything now. He still found himself curious however, interested in what Llyn had to say, or at least he was not entirely irritated by him yet. Which was a good sign.

However the part that caught Jericho's ear was when Llyn got vague. He referenced something about them making each others lives easier. His eyes narrowed looking at Llyn, he wanted to know what the Pilot meant. He had a feeling there was no use in pursuing it from the way he had spoken about it.

"I think I have a good grasp on things." He let out a deep breath out of habit. "Is there anyone like me here?" He suddenly asked. He wanted to know how out of place he would feel.

How he really should have worded it was 'will I think anyone is not entirely inferior to me?'

[Anonymous]

Llewellyn, not being the type to have much regard for courtesy, monitored Jericho's thoughts constantly. Yes, I am a narcissist, but only because I happen to actually be better than most of these sheep. Not that our dear vampire knows that yet... and no, he ought not to be irritated by me yet, considering I will only get more irritating as his training progresses. Humans seem to value that trait in a person.

"Like you..." Llyn paused at that, grasping that he meant what Llyn meant when he said "like me", but choosing to ignore that at first. "There is a large nonhuman contingent, most of which are not subhumans, so I'm sure you'll find someone to talk to. If not, there's me... I'm called inhuman probably once every two days. Not just by trainees, either," he said with a sharp grin.

"In any case, if you would like, I will let you out of here and show you to your room. I would tell you not to do anything terribly stupid while I do this, but you don't strike me as the stupid type." He opened the door to the containment chamber behind him, and stood in the doorway. "Please follow me."

[Anonymous]

Jericho watched Llyn as he spoke. He was interesting though Jericho had a feeling that interesting would fall very short in describing him as the conversation went on, his mentor. The words felt odd even in his mind, Jericho...with a mentor? No one had taught him anything in sometime. At least in that capacity. He spent some of his time learning for himself. The whole idea of him learning from some one else sounded appealing, comforting. The fact they had hadn't stuck him with a complete idiot helped that feeling. It made all of this much easier to stomach.

The way Llyn answered his question had Jericho wondering. He wished he could crawl inside this Pilot's head. Of course, it would most likely be blank to him, it was wishful thinking to hope for anything else. His answer made Llyn a mystery and something Jericho could deal with, something he wanted to learn, now to lock people out of his head like that. Plus maybe he could carry on a conversation with Llyn.

"I'll keep that in mind." Jericho actually felt a sort of laughter bubble up, though it didn't escape when Llyn said stupid type. He certainly was not. He'd be a good little vampire at least for now, it was in his best interests. Jericho stood up as Llyn was framed by the door and he walked towards the Pilot slowly. In a way it still felt like giving up but did he have other options?