My Little Ventrue Pt. 09 Ch. 18

"You're both so full of yourselves," Jack said. "Like Viktor. Just like fucking Viktor. So fucking sure of yourselves, of what you're doing, of what's led you here, that you think it's okay. It's not okay, you stupid fucks. Christ, how many fucking Kindred have died because of you two. Not Maria, not Viktor, just you two, poisoning every interaction so Carthians and Invictus couldn't help but hate each other? All because you're both so fucking full of yourselves you can't accept you're both pissed at each other when you should be reconciling! You should be learning how to coexist so shit like Roland doesn't happen again, but instead, you blame each other, as if there's no fucking way you had a part in it."

He was tempted to bring up Amanda, but it'd have to wait. If Garry knew Amanda was alive, it might put him into politicking mode. He needed him emotional and stupid, not conniving like a typical Kindred.

"So you know what? Fuck the both of you. I'm going to beat some fucking sense into you. You don't get to do this. You don't get to be in charge, and be assholes, getting people killed because you're both too fucking stupid to see you're both nothing more than angry, idiotic, worthless morons. If you'd just talked to each other, come to some sort of understanding about Roland, how many people would still be alive?" Jack took a step toward Michael as the giant climbed back to his feet, and knuckles. "So yeah, I got you both here, tricked you, because you both need to be taught a lesson you're too stupid to learn on your own. You're both so pathetic, I could put you in a Shakespeare play and you'd fit right in with all the characters and their tragic bullshit. Get me? You're both children, pretending to be adults, and neither of you should be in charge of anything!"

Well, that did it. Garry didn't even look at Michael anymore. The huge gargoyle creature let out an ear-piercing shriek, and ran for Jack, leaning forward with wings snug to his back, tails flapping around in the air behind him. No more thought, no more reasoning, no more words, Jack had insulted Garry enough the man went into full animal psycho mode. If Garry had his own curse, it'd have taken over.

Problem. Jack wanted the two of them to fight him, and each other. A big free-for-all mess where emotions would come out flying. But they weren't looking at each other. They were both looking at him, and even with their alien faces and strange expressions, he could tell they were both pissed. Royally, totally, didn't give a shit about the Prince anymore pissed.

But they both stopped when they heard the chittering, and the claws.

Jack stood his ground in front of the two beasts, and snarled as he glared between the two of them. They thought they were scary. They thought they were strong. It was a struggle to not laugh as he brought his vitae up to the surface of his skin, and pulsed the invisible force out into the world as he summoned his legion. The curse laughed in his head, coming right up to the surface with the Beast Jack needed.

He was in control. He was in control. He was in control.

Garry and Michael weren't as smart as they thought they were. Or more likely, they just refused to think a kid like Jack could actually be pretty smart. They refused to think Jack put this plan together; half true. And they refused to think Jack might have actually gotten ready for this fight they probably thought was a surprise.

It didn't even dawn on them he'd already prepared, had already left trails of his blood outside the building hidden in shadows, had already summoned legions of rats, and was ready for them. Veronica, and several kine besides, would sleep for a week, he'd drained them so deeply, but he knew he'd need it. And he did.

Garry and Michael both turned to the stairway, and took several steps back as the legion poured in. The streetlights were, conveniently, out. There were plenty of dark alleys. There was a manhole directly in front of the building. The rats had no trouble flowing up onto the street, and down into the building's storage basement, like a flood of living, breathing brown water.

Garry responded a little faster. Maybe it was because of his lither transformation compared to Michael, or maybe because he'd seen Jack summon the legion before and was ready for it. But when the flowing tide of rats scurried over each other until they rose, like a brown ocean with thousands of dark, beady eyes, he took a couple more steps back. It was far more rats than last time. It was the same amount of rats the Ripper used to defeat the hunters.

He was in control.

Jack pointed both palms at the two fucking dogs, and squeezed them shut. The rats launched themselves at the two monstrosities, swarming over them and around them with all the gentleness of a tsunami. Both titans fell, huge bodies crashing into the floor as thousands upon thousands of tiny bodies jumped them, and bit into them. Rat claws were irritants. Rat teeth were deadly weapons, capable of breaking through anything. Maybe not deeply or quickly, but not even a Gangrel's Resilience couldn't keep thousands of rats from puncturing skin, and flesh, not for long.

The moment the two juggernauts went down, they thrashed around as they roared, and limbs cut through the swathes of rats like butter. Jack didn't like seeing rats die, but he had no choice. Small comfort. The two Gangrels ripped through them with their alien limbs, enormous claws, and ridiculous mass. Blood and fur went everywhere. The squeaks of dying rats echoed through the huge basement. Hundreds of tiny, beady black eyes went out.

Jack jumped into the mess. Garry first. He'd hit Michael once, now it was time to hit the other bastard. Garry was on his back, twisting and turning and trying to throw off the myriad of rodents burying him. He'd found his footing though, and rolled onto a palm and knee, only to find Jack running at him.

Football kick, straight to the fucker's face.

Garry flew up and back, nearly hit the ceiling, and landed on his ass again, only for the rats to swarm over his new position. As Jack ran after him, the rats spread around Jack, avoiding his path. Moses, parting the Red Sea. And they parted just as smoothly when Jack jumped onto Garry's right arm, and punched down at his chest.

Crack. Jack felt it when his knuckles collided with the bastard's sternum, felt the bones bend and snap. The punch was hard enough to send Jack back in the air, and he stumbled back as he struggled to keep from falling over.

You suck at this. You don't know how to use your strength with your small body.

I'll manage.

You'll get us both killed.

Jack snarled as he shook his head. Shut up shut up.

Garry rolled over again, and spread his wings with a harsh snap. Rats went flying, squeaking and shrieking. Jack ignored the sad noises as best he could, and charged at Garry again.

Mistake. The sound of crushed rats and heavy impact announced Michael's charge, and Jack spun to face the giant. Something that big shouldn't have been able to move that fast, but Michael came at him like a freight train breaking through a snowbank, with little bodies scattering in every direction as he bowled through.

His body slammed into Jack's, and Jack went flying. The world turned into a streaming haze of colors as Jack spun, body turning into a frisbee from the angle of the collision. He was just too damn light. Michael hitting him may as well have been like a truck hitting him, and Jack choked out a groan as he rolled, rolled, and smashed into the back wall. For the third time.

Michael fell over, his huge mutated body hard to balance, but he recovered quickly, as if stumbling onto his colossal shoulder was a perfectly expected thing. A clumsy oaf of pure strength. Blood coated him, rat blood, and in places Jack didn't expect.

A mouth opened up on Michael's chest, big demon teeth and a big jaw, and bit down on one of the rats. The creature died instantly, and the mouth disappeared a moment later, only to reappear on a different part of the man's alien body to do it again. Holy shit, it really was like watching The Thing. What the ever living fuck. Gangrels could do some crazy shit with Protean, but not this.

You have no idea what an elder Gangrel can do. Garry is barely old enough to be considered an elder, but Michael is nearly twice his age.

I can handle it.

You mean I can handle it.

Jack got back up, and yanked on his arm. Pop, back in the socket. The split skin on his head and knees healed over fast. Torn AC reattached.

Two Gangrels and a Ventrue. This was going to be a long, bloody fight.

But Jack had prepared well, and more and more rats poured into the room, his army of devoted servants. And they poured over the back of Garry and Michael again in a new wave they did not expect.

"You two fucking assholes," Jack said, "you probably think I'm here to kill you, or to take your positions. You probably think I'm in this for me, that I'm here, putting my ass on the line dealing with you two, because there's some way for me to spin this so I'll come out on top. Christ Garry! I spared Tilly's life for no fucking reason other than I'm trying to save as many lives as I can!"

He raised his hands, and the rats flowed off the snarling, clawing Gangrels, giving them a moment of peace. They were covered head to toe in bite marks, some of them deep enough to draw vampire blood. But just like Jack, their wounds healed over quickly as the writhing veins of Kindrd blood pulled skin over skin, flesh over flesh, in the most disgusting way to heal imaginable.

More rats poured in, more and more, joining the original swarm that now sat back and waited for their master's next order, and both Garry and Michael peeked over their shoulders at the growing flood. The three of them were spread out now, each a good fifty feet from each other, but that didn't mean much to a vampire. Ballsy of them to actually look away. Either they were intimidated by the ever increasing, scurrying flood of rats, numbering in the tens of thousands, or they didn't think Jack would stab them in the back. They were right.

Garry spoke first. "I think--"

"I think," Michael said, voice bubbling up through his titanic chest as a booming gargle, "that you're a naive fool, child, and you deserve to die for disrespecting me. You need to die because of your curse, before it breaks the Masquerade and dooms us all. You will die painfully because of your manipulations."

"My manipulations? You're the one with Amanda hidden in a box somewhere, staked! The fuck did she say to you, Michael? The fuck did you say to her? The fuck happened?"

Garry froze and slowly turned to face the other beast. "Amanda's alive?"

Ah fuck, Jack you idiot.

Michael snorted, and slammed one of his huge arms against the ground, the bigger arm. The whole body was pretty lopsided.

"It doesn't matter. You know that. This war had to happen."

Garry slammed his tails against the floor, hard enough the concrete splintered. "Except the Prince thinks I started this war! You motherfucker! People are dead because of you!"

"You're the one who brought fire to this war!"

"You fucking deserved it, you lying fuck! Roland's dead because of you!" Bit of a segue, but Garry was spitting venom at this point. Jack knew the feeling. No coherent thought, just pure anger driving the brain and turning every word into a mess. "You've ruined everything, again!"

"It does not matter! We should deal with the boy first. Then--"

Garry opened his crazy mouth, and bit into his wrist. Oh shit.

The elder splattered his blood against the floor. Jack quickly pulsed out his vitae and told the army to attack, but it was too late. The tide poured over itself, raised into giant mounds five feet high, and rushed toward the two elders. But as the rats reached Garry, the mound collapsed. Thousands of rats rushed over Michael and again poured over the titan to renew their assault, but the rats near Garry fell upon each other. Chittering turned into shrieking as the rats killed each other, biting into furry necks and clawing at faces.

Stupid. Stupid fucking idiot! He gave them a break, a pause in the fight, and the moment he fucking did everything went to shit. It'd worked on Maria. A couple good hits in and she was able to at least talk to him. But the look on Garry's face, including all the extra eyes, was the same look Angela gave Jack when she tried to kill him in the hospital. Pure, utter hatred.

Garry loved Roland, more than Jack had figured.

Garry rushed Michael. So much for politicking. His massive talons ripped through the floor as the Gangrel summoned a new rage. Learning that Jack had tricked him using very personal history, with plans to beat sense into him? That pissed him off. Knowing Michael faked Amanda's death? That pushed him past the point of no return. Garry roared, more of that shrieking alien sound Jack attributed to H. R. Giger creations more than anything, and the younger Gangrel pounced the older.

Garry's form was big, but Michael's was bigger, thicker and taller and a shit load grosser. More importantly, heavier, and even though his legs were kinda small for his body, his titan arms rarely left the ground. He was too damn big to knock over. Garry crashed into him, climbed onto him, and tore into him like a lion mounting a water buffalo. And unlike the rats' teeth, Garry's claws were very, very long.

Micheal roared as the elder sank his claws deep into his hulking flesh, and tore into him. But the titan was too big, too much mass, and Garry's stab was like trying to kill a boar with a sewing needle. Sure, he punctured flesh, a lot, but all he did was make the creature angry. Michael spun around, sending rats flying and forcing Garry to hold on tight.

A fresh arm grew out of Michael's back, shooting out of his spine with zero subtlety. It cracked and broke on the way out, bones snapping and reforming as it added on length until it was the size of a normal arm, but covered in fleshy lumps that looked like knuckles buried under skin. It grabbed Garry's ankle, yanked him down hard, and slammed into the floor hard enough Jack felt the impact. And before Garry could get back up, Michael slammed both of his much larger arms and hands down against the alien gargoyle.

The rats swarmed over Garry and up Michael's arm. Many rats still fought amongst themselves, torn between Jack and Garry's control, but thousands, lost in the mess of orders from both Gangrels, worked together on Michael. Maybe Michael wasn't very good at Animalism compared to Garry and Jack, Jack didn't know, but maybe he didn't need to be considering he was a Protean expert. Either way, he made no effort to control the swarm, but Garry did, and in the chaos of the two of them trying to claim ownership, plenty of the rats knew to attack Michael with kamikaze intent.

They bit into him, his arms and legs, his back, his extra arms, his neck, his face, but Michael ignored them as he smashed Garry into the floor again, and again, and again. Garry tried to get up, but Michael went full ape mode, and slammed down both hands like an angry gorilla, hammering them down on the other Gangrel over and over. Bits of concrete broke, splinters turning into churned chunks as Michael crushed Garry.

The aggression came at a cost. The rats kept eating Michael alive, but the man just didn't care. For all his proper, controlled attitude, this Michael was a snarling, roaring freak of nature, hollering and yelling as he crushed his rival underneath him. It wouldn't have surprised Jack at all if he thumped his chest in a quick beat, like a gorilla.

"Michael! Stop!" Jack walked toward them, waving his arms in the air. "Stop it! Stop fighting! I'm trying to get you to see how fucking stupid this fighting is! You morons let your hate over Roland's death poison every fucking thing you've done to each other for a century! Enough!"

The fuck are you doing? You wanted them to fight.

Fight, yes. Not rip each other to ribbons! They're going to kill each other.

Yeah, and? Look at them tearing into each other. Wait until they weaken each other, kill whoever lives, and take over. It's a perfect plan.

That wasn't the plan!

Sure it was. You knew they'd fight each other if you forced it. And you knew there was a good chance they might kill each other. Win-win scenario. A very vampire plan.

Shut up. Shut up shut up!

The worst part was, he knew the Ripper had a point. Jack wasn't stupid. He put this plan together knowing this might happen, that shit would get so crazy the two elders might actually flat out try and kill each other. Elders were paranoid by nature, and avoided risking their own necks, but not always, not Gangrels, not if you pushed the right buttons.

Roland was apparently a bigger red button than Jack anticipated. Or maybe he had, and a part of him hoped Garry and Michael killed each other. Maybe.

Jack ran up to Michael, and threw himself at the giant's back. The extra arms were still there, two of them, and they swung out to grab at Jack as he scaled the titan's bulging spine. But Jack was small, and ducked around the gross limbs as they brushed against bits of Jack's suit.

Climbing monsters was a lot harder in real life than video games. Holy shit, just trying to get a grip on something was basically impossible, especially since Michael's suit was gone, and all he was now was a towering behemoth of warped flesh. But Jack managed, getting his shoes hooked into blubbery flesh mounds as he scaled the titan, got one arm around his giant throat, and with a proper anchor, punched Michael in the back of the head, hard.

The giant teetered forward, and stopped punching Garry as he used his arms to keep from falling over. His arms reached out and caught the ground around Garry instead, and he roared as he spun around all the more. But Jack was a much smaller target than the huge gargoyle, and the extra limbs struggled to get a grip on him.

Jack punched him again, hard enough the blubbery layers of fat and skin split against Jack's knuckles. And he hit him again, and again, each time causing Michael to stumble forward. A human -- or anything alive -- would either be dead or unconscious from their brain bouncing around in their skull. Even an ancilla vampire would probably get knocked into torpor. Not an elder, and especially not Michael. But that just meant Jack had to keep punching him, slowly building a crater in the back of his damn head.

"Michael! Enough! You're going to listen to me, you fucking asshole, even if I have to--"

Something grabbed his ankle. Jack jerked his head down, and gulped. That wasn't an arm, that was a tail, that freaky long tail that looked more like a centipede made of arms and hands. It yanked on Jack hard, and lifted him into the air.

Michael whipped Jack into the concrete, and didn't let go. Jack grunted as the impact knocked the wind out of him; he didn't need the air, except to make noise, and his noises came to a sudden stop as his diaphragm stopped working.

Michael swung him again, onto his back this time, and Jack's skull cracked against the floor. Only his vitae and Resilience kept his head intact. But Michael wasn't done. He whipped Jack up into the ceiling, bending his body against the pillars above and tearing his suit into bits, before slamming him into the floor again. The Gangrel ignored the hundreds of rats biting into him, focused entirely on Jack, and slammed him down again, whipping him around between each slam.

Bones broke. Knees dislocated. Shoulders dislocated. Femurs snapped. Forearms snapped. Neck broke. All mixed into a maelstrom of sensation that was too big and overwhelming to register as pain. He could tell when each body part stopped working, but couldn't really feel the pain of bones grinding and tendons tearing. White noise. The colors of movement as Michael whipped him around were pretty lights, blurring together, and Jack stared on as he went limp.