A New Day (Open)

[bulletproof]

The storm of zombies had finally lifted over the city of Gotham and in the end of city came out more like Night of the Living Dead rather than Dawn of the Dead. There were casualties, of course, a couple of wrecked buildings here and there, but largely the city and its people came out largely intact. After all, this was what? The third disaster to strike Gotham in the past decade? The people of Gotham have never been your average populace. They were cynical, resourceful and very much armed. Stephen Croenberg had always admired that about the citizens of Gotham. He had come out of the whole zombie apocalypse completely unscathed, not to anyone's surprise. His superiors had placed him on the front line to the whole fiasco. His duty became to search for any survivors and protect them at any means; he was granted to do this through brute force-- all paper work waived. Stephen was uncomfortable with the idea but he did his job, punching off zombie heads one swing at a time.

Now, in what Stephen believed to be an abuse of police resources, he was left in Old Gotham assisting the clean up crews. Fires had erupted during the incident causing several of the older buildings to collapse. Stephen was among the volunteers cleaning up the debris of a fallen brick apartment building, clad in jeans and a surgical mask. There were men standing guard on top of the rooftops, rifles in hand, watching for any signs of the walking dead. Some of them were cops, some of them were volunteers, and some of them were gang members protecting their own turf from the undead menace. It was a beautiful thing, Stephen thought, seeing the city come together like this. He spent the day lifting wheelbarrows of bricks into the back of dump trucks and trying his hardest not to snap any of the shovels while unearthing all the excess debris.

Stephen never even broke a sweat yet still when noontime came and the crew spread out for lunch, he brushed a gloved hand through his brown hair as if pushing back beads of sweat and heedlessly spreading dirt throughout. Stephen heaved a sigh and stuck his shovel in the dirt, watching the backs of the people he'd been working with side-by-side. Stephen didn't pay much to the abandonment. Everyone was here for separate reasons and he wasn't exactly there to make friends. Stephen pocketed his yellow work gloves and shoved them into the back pocket of his jeans before taking a walk down the street. People were beginning to crawl back out of their hobbles to try to go back to business as usual. A couple of cars even passed Stephen as he went down the sidewalk. He glanced up at the passing rooftops, looking for a spot where the local militia didn't reside. All he wanted was a nice quiet spot to admire the temporary peace the former chaos had granted them and to breathe in the Gothic architecture that the small part of the city kept alive.

And there it was. Nothing special, just some nondescript twelve story building.

Stephen duck away down the alley and to the back of the building just to line himself up with the fire escape. The ladder wasn't down but that was exactly what he wanted. "Alright," Stephen said to himself, "You can do this." The gap was what? Fifteen feet? "It's easy." Stephen closed his eyes and jumped straight into the air. It was almost like flying as Stephen ascended lightly into the air like if gravity had simply let go of him. He opened his eyes just as his body began to move back toward the ground and shot out an arm to grab onto the metal railing. It crumpled slightly in his grip like a crushed can but no major damage. Stephen pulled himself up without the littlest effort and climbed over the railing and went up the steps to the rooftop.

He was beginning to enjoy his powers and the zombie attack was the first time he had ever allowed himself to let loose with them. Now they seemed more natural despite the regulations he pushed on his body during the day. Stephen strolled to the edge of the building that faced the street and plopped over it, letting his legs hang down and kick in the breeze. The world was quiet and from up above, Stephen took the moment to enjoy the view of his home city.

[Anya]

As the recent zombie apocalypse slowly began to fade into a not-so-fond memory, New York City's citizens had gradually began to return home. Which meant a number of things: more business...more money...and more human interaction. And Anya was beginning to remember why she, as a rule, did not mix with big city life. New York's zombie-reduced population was one thing, but New York's full-swing, bustling crowds of residents plus tourists? She wasn't quite sure she was ready to handle it all just yet. And so, doing the unthinkable and actually taking leave from work for a couple of days(!), Anya had decided to set aside some time for a bit of rest and relaxation. Even though it meant leaving behind so many money-making opportunities. She was trying not to think about that.

But the thing about R&R when Anya was involved was that it oftentimes led to a third 'R': restlessness. And copious amounts of boredom that no amount of time spent trying to find peace in Central Park would cure. The problem was, when the vengeance demon became bored and unfocused on the world around her, it made her all the more likely to focus on those nasty little vengeance vibes that radiated so prominently from the numerous vindictive inhabitants of the world. Because when she stopped to notice, damn were there a lot of people out there who wished for some form of revenge. Not that she was thinking of answering any of these vindictive cries. And...it wasn't like her recent encounters with two major forces of evil, which had come very close to reawakening a long-buried darker side of her, had anything to do with her suddenly becoming much more aware of her demonic nature than before. And she absolutely, most definitely had not come to Gotham because she actually felt drawn to the heartbreak and fury of a woman whose husband had up and left her in Gotham as soon as it seemed the zombies were clearing out...

...Okay, so she HAD come her because of them, but that had only been to observe! Anya hadn't even spoken to the woman, however much she might have felt obliged to. She had to admit, though, that it was difficult sometimes. Difficult to deny everything that felt natural in pursuit of a 'normal human life' that felt so alien to her. Sometimes she had to wonder whether the First had been right. Maybe she really didn't have a place in this world.

Well, she certainly didn't have a place in Gotham. The neatly dressed, brightly smiling blonde woman looked oddly out of place as she wandered among the Gotham's wary, somber citizens who currently worked so diligently to piece the city back together. Anya's warm brown gaze openly betrayed her curiosity as she looked upon the workers, the volunteers, the law enforcement...most of them were armed, and all of them looked like they meant business. It made the Anya slightly nervous; some of them were already eying her with suspicion...what if they questioned her? She really, really sucked at lying, and most police offers didn't take kindly to anyone or anything that disturbed the peace. In most people's books, a 'demon' would fall under that category.

She was just beginning to wonder whether or not it would just be better to teleport back home now when a flash of movement caught her eye. Turning sharply, she was just in time to spot a man dart quickly into an alley a little way ahead. Her eyes widened slightly. Suspicious behavior! Of course, there was every chance the man was just heading back there for a quick smoke, but...wasn't Gotham supposed to be full of nefarious criminals? What if he was one of them? What if she had just witnessed some evil mastermind whisking back into his not-so-subtly hidden lair? Though the thought of hostile human interaction kind of made her want to run home, Anya narrowed her eyes and impulsively scurried forward, sharply rounding the corner after the man...and was only just in time to witness him jump fifeteen feet into the air.

Anya skidded to a stop, staring in stunned silence as the man successfully made his way up to the fire escape and began to ascend the fire escape. Well of all the...who would've thought! She'd stumbled across one of Gotham's infamous super-humans! Or...maybe he was some kind of demon. Or warlock. Or...well, there were so many possibilities, and each one only increased her curiosity. Perhaps it would have been better to just let him be, but at this point Anya was entirely too caught up in her curiosity for her own good...

And then, just like that, she disappeared from the alley entrance and reappeared with a faint pop up on the rooftop she assumed the man had climbed up to. Under normal circumstances, even Anya would have known better than to teleport so openly and thus risk her human cover...but these weren't exactly normal circumstances. What she had just witnessed changed everything; this man wasn't normal, and knowing this she could safely abandon most of her earlier apprehension in favor of a much more prominent sense of inquisitiveness.

A quick look around the roof, and she'd pinpointed the man's location. He was sitting near the edge, looking down on the city, simply watching...and...Anya immediately freaked out.

"Hey!" the vengeance demon gasped, with little thought to the fact that it just might be a bad idea to startle someone seated so close to the edge of a building. Well, with any luck, perhaps the soft 'pop' of her teleporting had alerted him to her presence earlier...but then again, maybe not. Taking a nervous couple of steps forward, Anya stared at him with wide, anxious eyes. "You're not thinking about jumping, are you?! Having freakish superpowers doesn't give you an excuse to be any more suicidally inclined than the rest of the human population...unless...you can fly. " She tilted her head thoughtfully, and took another step closer. "Can you fly?"


OOC:// Decided to go with Anya; I doubt you want Glory pokin' around trying to start fights. xD

[bulletproof]

It had always been the little things in life that Stephen had come to enjoy. The scenic views, sunsets, Romantic-era paintings, peace and quiet, the subtle things that modern ways had done away with to make room for reality television. So while watching the Gotham skyline during his quickly fleeting break, the last thing he wanted was to be interrupted. Being a cop has a tendency to put you on edge. Every hooded figure becomes someone about to rob a convenient store; everyone with a long coat is a drug dealer or a pervert; kids are always on their way to a carjacking. Everyone's always hiding something, someone will most likely open fire on you at any minute. Admittedly, Gotham had this effect on most of its residents. But that popping sound was something Stephen didn't expect. Through his ears it was like someone opening a can or a bad sound effect from an old television show. He gripped the edge and looked over his shoulder.

It was a woman. She was pretty enough, sure, but that only made her all the more suspicious. He felt as if he was getting caught up in one of those old detective noir movies. The femme fatale walks in and suddenly the lowly outsider finds himself in a world of hurt. So what was that sound? From her? Was she another one of the metahumans? Her words sliced through him like he was wet paper. She saw him. Suddenly he felt that everything he'd done to get up on the roof was so...overly decadent. This mysterious woman was right. These super powers were freakish and now he just believed he was cheating the universe. Stephen gripped the edge just a little too hard, causing bits to crumble away into dust.

Still, Stephen's actions didn't change how this woman got up here. The ladder was up so she certainly didn't climb. Maybe she was one of the buildings residents and glanced out the window to seem him leap in the air? He knew that didn't add up. He would have heard footsteps climbing up the fire escape after him. And that popping sound came from somewhere. So what was her deal? This woman didn't talk like any "hero" he'd ever heard and he doubted that a criminal would try to stop someone from committing suicide. Stephen wasn't about to ask any questions, not yet. He knew better than to show his cards right off the bat.

"I can't fly," Stephen said in a cold and distant voice as he pulled his mind away from the scenery and stood up on the edge, "but a fall from up here won't hurt me one bit." Stephen let a small smirk slip out, hoping that he wasn't tempting fate. His focused on her, ready to observe her next move. He now had a mystery to occupy his mind with for at least a little while.

[Anya]

For a brief moment, the demon stood utterly still as she observed the man at the edge of the building. If he'd been going to jump, she guessed he would have probably done so by now upon realizing there was someone trying to stop him. And anyway, Anya thought as her gaze fell briefly to the crumbling roof, he was gripping the edge pretty tightly for someone who intended to spring off at any moment. Still, some doubt lingered, and she watched uncertainly as he stood up and turned to speak to her. His words, if they were true, confirmed her sneaking suspicion that her guess about him being "suicidally inclined" was incorrect. She blinked once, and then gave a relieved sigh. Now that she'd decided that this guy wasn't some suicidal maniac, she could afford to calm down a little.

"Oh." was the first word to leave her mouth as she glanced from the man to the building's edge, starting to regain some of the curiosity that had drawn her up here in the first place. "Well...good. I guess. I thought you might be crazy." Anya explained frankly, returning her gaze to the man once again. "And if you were crazy, and you jumped, there'd be a big mess.. a-and lots of screaming, and...all those people down there working so hard to clean everything up would probably be really pissed..." She was babbling now, just speaking her thoughts aloud as they popped into her head, but didn't seem either didn't seem to notice or care about the fact that she was most likely making a strange first impression on the not-so-suicidal man.

And then, quite abruptly, she stopped talking. The man's words had only now really sunk in, and once again she realized that she had absolutely no idea who she was dealing with here. In retrospect, following a supernaturally inclined complete stranger up onto some vacant rooftop was a really stupid idea...but then, so were most of Anya's impulsively made decisions. But this man could be anyone...or anything. From what she'd heard, Gotham was home to some pretty shady characters. And judging from this man's rather chilly demeanor, he wasn't exactly one of those 'friendly' types...but...the vengeance demon was really too curious for her own good.

Fidgeting apprehensively, she managed to maintain her silence for a moment longer before giving in to the millions of questions running through her head. "So! What are you?" Anya asked abruptly, to-the-point and disconcertingly direct as always. It was a question that most people wouldn't have just up and asked, but the blonde had little talent for subtlety. Narrowing her eyes curiously at the stranger, she continued, "..You...don't feel like a demon..." The statement was made a bit hesitantly; she couldn't be certain of this, of course, but...she wasn't picking up any sort of dark energy vibes from the man thus far. "Are you one of those Gotham superhumans I keep hearing about? Like that...bat...guy..."

[keyari]

Alucard smiled to himself he was enjoying the quiet night it was nice it was cold and it was beautiful. He enjoyed the big cities, like London, and Gotham. it was a pity however he rarely got to see such cities due to the need for Hellsing to remain the secret defense force of the English crown.

Alucard walked along the rooftops his hands at his sides relaxed and at ease as he stepped lightly along the cobbled concrete and stone roof tops. He was rather bored with his assignment from his master Sir Integra.

Supposedly he was to investigate humans with special abilities and assess if they could possibly be useful to the organization or if these American superheros were a threat. So far his assessment was that the American "heroes" were no more of interest to hellsing nor were they a true threat yet.

His main reasons being that they were scattered, and individualistic very little organization and cooperation between groups. He had however seen truly interesting individuals, the metal powered cop with ton fa and the iron giantess in incredible armor wielding weapons that were primitive but effective. He was sure Walter could improve such devices in such amazing ways she could possibly stand up to a vampire if needed.

He sighed looking up at the moon admiring another wonderful night in the big city. if only he could indulge himself in a bite to drink, that would end the night perfectly. He shrugged and as an after thought began thinking of an attack from Iscariot and father Anderson, both would be a wonderful distraction to his current boring task of investigating and not interfering with the Americans.

As he walked along he wasn't paying much attention to where his feet were taking him and meandered along more rooftops. As he did so he became slowly aware of a dark pressance, not necessarily evil. It peeked his interest to say the least. He followed the pressance to a building not to far from him. He concentrated on the pressance and felt that wonderful leaving sensation that he always felt when focusing on something to get a closer look without being there his "third eye" as he liked to call it. With it he saw a young blonde woman talking to what appeared to be a police officer.

Intrigued he slowly meandered along the rooftops occasionally disappearing through objects to appear on the next building if it was too far for him to jump at his slow lazy pace. He stopped at the building next too theirs and waited watching as his coat billowed in the air in front of him flapping occassionally as the wind dragged it through the air.

I see he thought out loud to himself as he watched the pair aware painfully that the woman was not an ordinary human. He tilted his head she might be some kind of demon or other such paranormal monster.

He kept his hands in his pockets and watched them silently with his bright orange glasses. He was to their right and just barely visible to their peripheral vision. He just stood there watching though he took the time to let his mind go blank as he stared once again at the wonderful moon.

[bulletproof]

There were plenty of things about this situation Stephen had found himself in that didn't make much sense to him. He half-listened to this still un-introduced woman ramble and briefly pondered jumping off the building to make a dash for the hill; it was unlike him to use his powers like that and the idea of an eye-witness just made his skin crawl. His powers were never a secret purely because the simple idea of separating a life with powers and one without equated himself to being like one of those costumed vigilantes that populated the world. Even if his powers made him an anomaly, a target of scorn from his fellow officers, Stephen would always take responsibility for them. This woman's concern over his seemingly suicidal move only made the usage of his powers even more embarrassing, and, as if to bring the woman's assumptions to a close, Stephen took a single step off the ledge and onto the rooftop.

Stephen took a moment to stop berating himself and examined the girl. He may not have been a detective but that didn't mean he couldn't try to read people. She was from out of town, obviously; Stephen knew well enough that the survival instinct of the people of Gotham wasn't to chase super-jumping people up fire escapes. So who was this mystery woman? Was she really up there to just stop him from jumping or was it something worse? Stephen never dropped his suspicions for a moment even despite the woman's outgoing personality. He braced himself for her barrage of questions and clung tight to one peculiar phrase she let slip. "You don't feel like a demon." Alright, Stephen thought, who--no, what is this girl?

Now he was the curious one and if it meant he had to let her go first in this game of Twenty Questions to get his turn, well, so be it. Stephen pretended to shrug off her fleeting statement and answered the core question. "I'm a meta-human, yeah, sure," Stephen said relunctantly as if he was recovering alcoholic, "but I'm also a cop." The last statement slipped out with earnestness and he gave a light, genuine smile, making sure it was known that he was one of the good guys. He remained calm, kept his composure, letting his shoulders go slack as a way to show that he meant no harm. Stephen had drank with enough detectives to know that body language was all very animalistic in description but necessary in manipulating a suspect. The thought never seemed to occur to him that he was currently off the clock.

Stephen took an initiative. "More importantly, who are you and why did you even think it'd be a good idea to chase strange men up buildings?" Stephen tried to give off a lightness in his voice. He reminded himself that the possibility that this woman was actually some super villain or monster-of-the-week about to reek havoc was probably likely. That one phrase, he tried to tell himself, was just a slip of the tongue. The most likely scenario is that he was just dealing with some tourist who was far too caught up in the superhuman happenings of the world. Something completely, absolutely normal, at least for the questionings sake.

[Anya]

A meta-human. Okay, Anya could deal with that. She'd never actually met one before, but this only increased her curiosity. From the demon's perspective, it was an ideal balance: to be human, more or less...but at the same time, to be different. Unique. She gazed at the man with new-found interest, beginning to relax a bit more fully. That was, until he mentioned being a cop as well. It wasn't as if she had any particular reason to hold a grudge against the human system of law enforcement, but their presence never failed to put her on edge nonetheless. Anya had heard far too many stories about paranormal investigations and relentless demon hunts to find it easy to trust a cop, as was evidenced in the momentary tensing of her shoulders, and the way she now seemed to be regarding him a bit more warily than before.

Still...he didn't seem hostile. In fact as of now, he seemed considerably more relaxed than he had been a moment ago. Granted, he didn't know she was a vengeance demon, but all the same...maybe if she could keep this interaction friendly, she wouldn't have to worry about him investigating her later. Good first impressions. Right. She could do those. All she needed to do was manage to present herself as relatively normal during the course of this conversa- oh, he'd asked her a question!

"Hmm? Oh, sorry!" Anya blinked, smiling again as she tried to refocus. "I'm Anya. I'm just here visiting, from New York..." She glanced out over the rooftop, down to where various amounts of construction were taking place. "...Guess I kinda picked a bad time, though. Anyway, I saw you jump up here, and I figured someone had to make sure you weren't crazy, or dangerous, or..." Wait. That probably sounded just a little bit stupid when she took into account that to him, she appeared to be no more than an average, powerless civilian. "...Um, well see, in New York we have this...uh, crime watch thing, so I guess I'm just used to..." No, it was probably better that she didn't start lying. Because Anya happened to be really bad at lying.

She fidgeted a bit, looking sheepish for a moment as she pondered how best to change the subject. Given that this man was a police officer, she probably wasn't going to be able to get away with much, but...

And once again, her thoughts were cut off as she suddenly became aware of a slight movement out of the corner of her eye. Abruptly distracted, the vengeance demon frowned slightly and turned to stare at the newcomer who had situated himself on the building next to them. Well, it looked like she wasn't going to have to think up a distraction after all; one had already presented itself. Narrowing her eyes inquisitively, she carefully peered at the figure in an attempt to make out some of his features. There was something about his presence here that nagged at her senses, as if she should have immediately known what he was. But she couldn't make out much of his face; couldn't even look into his eyes thanks to the gleam of the glasses he wore.

"Someone's watching us." Anya mentioned casually. She glanced back at the cop, and tilted her head slightly in the direction of the stranger. As of now, the demon couldn't find reason to be particularly alarmed...she was picking up very strange vibes from this person, but she wasn't yet sure whether or not to interpret them as threatening. For now, she'd simply remain cautious and curious. With those words, the blonde turned and took a few steps towards the side of the roof closest to the stranger's building. It was better, she told herself, to resist the urge to teleport over there and get a better look...a display like that probably wouldn't make an excellent impression on her new cop pal. So, she'd settle for this! Her stance was clearly guarded, but not unfriendly, and she offered a hesitant smile as she gazed expectantly at the stranger.

"You know, the view of all the zombie-damage is even better from over here!" she called out in a half-humorous attempt to address the figure..

[keyari]

Alucard sighed to himself as his coat billowed a few times behind him watching the moon lihgt it sometimes had a hypnotic effect on the old vampire. He sighed before turning his full attiontion onto the pair when he heard them address him. He looked at them and gave them a grin before jumping to the next roof as easily as a simple hop.

he kept his hands at his sides and tilted his head at them. So the cop is another one of those humans with unique abilities he thought privately before letting out a slightly amused if arrogant "hmmmm..." of understanding.

Up close he appeared for all intents and purposes a normal person though his skin was paler, and his teeth were slightly sharp though not dangerously so yet. He took his eyes off the cop and demon for a second to look at the moon which had passed underneath a cloud. He sighed a moment saying absolutely nothing to either one.

His red coat continued to billow behind him his white gloves rested in his pockets though part of the pentagram could be easily seen sticking out of the pocket.

(((best i could come up with, sorrry it so short)))

[bulletproof]

New York? Stephen hadn't heard much about the city since the outbreak in Gotham but he could assume the same happened to them there. It'd make sense for someone to want to get out as fast as possible but to Gotham? That was just a weird choice; unless, of course, she had a budding interest in psychopaths. Still, this cleared up a few of the details. The woman now had a name but that alone didn't excuse some of the other details. The mystery of how Anya managed to chase him up here was still left unsolved as was the fleeting demon comment. Maybe Stephen was just a little too on-edge, getting just a little to close to paranoid, however past experience had always dictated that being paranoid only meant he was in possession of all the facts. The facts so far, as far as Stephen understood, was that Anya was from out of town, saw him use his powers to get onto the building, and some how without him knowing managed to follow him to the roof faster than a normal person could.

Stephen was a little unnerved but he knew better than to show it. For all he knew this girl could have ripped him half or she could have actually been genuine about trying to save someone she thought was in trouble. Stephen didn't mind the idea of model citizens just as long as those citizens didn't use their freak powers to take the law into their own hands. At worst this girl could have been charged for trespassing but then again so could he. Stephen maintained his calm appearance and let out a quiet chuckle to Anya's rambling. "Yeah, well, I'm Stephen," he introduced himself on a light breath. Finally he reached some common ground with her and with formalities aside it opened up the opportunity for him to figure out just who Anya really was.

Until that moment was shattered. Stephen was quick to drop his pleasant attitude at the very mention someone else's presence. Damn, he thought, I should have noticed. How could I have slipped up like that? His eyes darted from building to building trying catch the slightest of a figure until they finally latched on to the man in red. Stephen's shoulders tensed up and he had to hold back to keep his eyes from going into a scowl as he tried to maintain a positive appearance and give the new mystery man a chance to explain himself. The grin, the glasses, the long coat; this guy was a couple theatrical steps away from looking like a full blown costumed-villain. Stephen repeated to himself inside his head not to act on instinct, nothing was determined yet and even then there was a law keeping Stephen waiting for them to strike first.

Stephen took a glance over to Anya then back to the man in red. She was defensive and maybe that meant she knew more than he did. He really hated being at a disadvantage like this; so many unanswered questions while he left waiting for someone to make everything. "Hey, buddy," Stephen called out, his voice retaining a portion of its coldness from earlier, "nice time for a stroll, isn't it?" His words rolled out like slight jabs, tinged in insolence. Surprises were never really Stephen's thing.

[Anya]

When the stranger made an easy, almost instantaneous leap over to their building, Anya instinctively took a step back toward the man who'd just introduced himself as Stephen. The sudden, smooth movement had taken her by surprise; a moment ago she'd merely been intrigued by his presence, but up close she found him a bit...unnerving. His less-than-subtle appearance seemed to have put Stephen on edge, but Anya was more concerned with the odd feeling that kept nagging at her. Trying to at least appear unfazed, she maintained an uneasy smile and glanced back at the cop as he spoke. Given his profession, Stephen was probably a lot better at profiling than she was, and it was probably better just to remain silent while he addressed this new-comer.

Yet she still couldn't shake those vibes. The vengeance demon was hardly one to sit back and quietly observe, but it looked like this situation demanded it. And something was telling her that she was missing something important here. Focusing her full attention on the stranger in the long red coat, she decided that one thing was certain: he wasn't human. On top of that, his mysterious demeanor reminded her all too well of some of the more villainous types she'd been running into lately, and...she really wished she could just see his eyes. If she could get a solid answer on whether or not he had a soul, that would at least be something...but the bright orange glasses he wore betrayed nothing. Still, that pale skin, those unusually sharp teeth, the way he seemed almost transfixed by the moon...these were all signs that were disturbingly familiar to Anya.

'Vampire.' was the first clear thought that occurred to her, and she immediately tensed at the idea. If there was one creature in the world that the demon trusted she'd be able to recognize without fail, it was a vampire. But somehow, this stranger felt different than the type she was accustomed to encountering. It was almost as if 'vampire' was only one piece of this stranger's puzzle...

Even so, if her intuition was correct, it was only more reason to be wary - especially given that Stephen was here. If there was one thing that Anya had learned in Sunnydale, it was that your average vampire very rarely lurked close to human company unless they were interested in a bite to eat. She glanced nervously at the cop in an attempt to make eye contact, to silently communicate something along the lines of 'We need to be careful'. But Stephen's attention seemed to be firmly focused on the stranger, and his borderline-taunting words were doing nothing to improve Anya's fleeting ability to remain calm.

Her gaze cautiously returned to the man who had yet to introduce himself. "Who are you?" Anya inquired quietly, her tone unusually serious.

[keyari]

"hrrhm.... Indeed it is a beautiful night for a stroll." Alucard answered as he looked up at the sky his glasses glared obscuring his bright orange red eyes well hidden underneath his glasses.

The man seemed to ignore both people right in front of him as if they were slightly below his interest. Which was partially the truth, though he was interested in what capabilities this human was capable of and he was curious about the demon near him.

"They call me Alucard." he said in a soft whisper his coat still billowing behind him as he kept his attention else where. How he wanted to have a drink but he did have those pouches in his coat which would be nice, but the blood from living beings was so much better.

Still the idea of discretion told him that taking a drink now would be a bad idea. He also didn't want to throw both of them on their guard and ruin his master's possibilities of recruitment. Though he still agreed whole heartedly humans made poor monster hunters. they were fragile, corruptible, where he was not. He had his orders and he would preform them without question or conscious.

[bulletproof]

Stephen was fairly disappointed as he watched the man shrug off his comments like they were gnats. Stephen couldn't tell if it was either the guy's inability or condescending, regardless it wasn't something he was going to get worked up about. Stephen just examined this Alucard-person, watching for the slightest hint of a threat but he wasn't finding anything. Aside from the stalking and the hop, the man appeared completely harmless if only because of his disinterest. Stephen clenched his jaw for a second in reaction to being shaken off so easily. Cops were normally used to be treated like crap so indifference wasn't exactly anything new. Still, Stephen felt that something was off. Maybe it was the theatrical dress but his instinct screamed in his head not to let his guard down.

Stephen glanced over at Anya and saw that she was just as unnerved as he was. But why? She followed someone who jumped fifteen feet in the air up a building and the entire time she seemed fine. A bit nervous, or at least talkative, but not defensive. She knew something he didn't and the way she looked said it all. Stephen gave a slight nod of reassurance back to her in an attempt to tell her that everything would fine. Stephen began to run scenarios through his mind: if this man did do anything to endanger the two, Stephen would be forced to remove the civilian from the scene (as difficult as that probably would be) and attempt to arrest the man (also difficult) or the man could just idly stare up into the sky and be completely harmless. Gotham taught him to expect the former. There was still no reason to do anything brash, Stephen kept telling himself.

Stephen went back to watching the man introduced as Alucard. It was a strange name and something in the back of his head was telling him it was the type of name a person should run away from. Stephen was arrogant about these types of things though, being essentially bulletproof tended to build up one's confidence when it came to dealing with strangers. "Alucard," Stephen repeated aloud to get a taste of the name in his mouth, it was bitter. "Hm. Weird name. Where's that from?" Stephen asked in the same insolent tone he used before. The best he could do for now was get as many answers out of Alucard as he could and try to at least elicit a reaction from the guy. Treading lightly was never something he was good at.

If Stephen was going to provoke the guy, the least he could do was draw Alucard's attention to him. Stephen tried to kid himself that everything he was doing wasn't specifically trying to pick a fight.

[Anya]

A part of Anya nervously reasoned that there was really no need to be alarmed—thus far, Alucard's behavior hadn't provided reason to be. He was calm, soft-spoken, collected...and he didn't even seem to be particularly interested in the conversation at hand, instead seeming to find the luminescent sky much more intriguing. And yet, if her intuition was correct and he was indeed a vampire, his temperate behavior didn't make him any more trustworthy. In over a thousand years, Anya had only ever met one vampire she considered to be half-way decent, and that was Spike. Her experience with the rest of Sunnydale's vicious breed of the blood-suckers had left her with some pretty strong biases toward the rest of them.

Still, if Alucard was a vampire as his aura would suggest, he had so far presented himself differently than most. And Anya wasn't sure if that made her trust him more, or less. Her interest was piqued, but it was currently battling against her instinctive wariness. Why hadn't he even attempted to attack Stephen yet? What reason would a vampire have for keeping a human cop alive? As far as Anya was concerned, they were currently treading dangerous waters—and she winced visibly when Stephen addressed Alucard once again, his tone contemptuous as ever. Glancing between the two of them, the vengeance demon took another step back. Alucard had so far remained unwaveringly calm, but there was no telling whether or not Stephen's attempts to provoke him would work.

She glanced again at the cop; he seemed to be reasonably confident that he could deal with this new-comer, and perhaps he could given that he was a meta-human...but Anya didn't know enough about either of them to safely say this. That was if Alucard did actually decide to attack them; at the moment he seemed quite unconcerned of their presence. Well, still didn't change the fact that everything she knew about vampires told her that they were overall a pretty hostile bunch. ...Not that she could talk, of course. Vengeance demons weren't known to be particularly pleasant either...

For now, she'd allow Stephen to handle this, and carefully gauge Alucard's reaction to his words. But of course, on the chance that things did get ugly, she realized that she couldn't just let the cop go into this blind...even if it meant blowing her own cover as well.

"You're a vampire." Anya stated bluntly, cautious but careful not to sound too hostile until she could better determine whether or not the man in the red coat intended to threaten them. It wasn't often that the vengeance demon kept this quiet; currently she seemed to be getting by on very few words. But something about this whole situation left her rather disconcerted, and she seemed to have lost her talkative tendencies as a result...at least until she could make more sense of this whole thing.

[keyari]

Indeed i am a Vampire.. Alucard said his orange glasses glowing under an almost black shadow that almost covered everything except those bright orange glasses. He lifted his hands up and gave a naunculant shrug.

"And you young lady are a Demon are you not?" he said more as a statement than an actual question. He gave another grinning smile of amusement. "As for where i came from...." He said addressing the officer as if he were nothing special or at least below the vampires notice.

His voice was still calm and quiet as he turned his back on them, he was growing quiet bored with this affair of investigation. He hoped fervently that his master would give him something else to occupy his time. "I don't see how that is any business of yours." he replied finally after at least a minute of uncomfortable silence. His voice was accented and proper it had long lost his original accent and become very English over the last 100 years.

He stood there in the cold night, he obviously didn't have any interest in harming them, even though anya was a demon he could feel that she was not like many of her kind she had no intention of hurting anybody. As for the cop he was starting to irritate alucard, like a insect bitting a very large animal.

Alucard could sense his admission of being a vampire would cause problems for both him and possibly the demon. He didn't care even if the cop wanted he could do very little in terms of harming him. Was it confidence, arrogance? whatever it was he gave off the sense that any sort of hostile action would be a bad idea.

Alucard just sighed and sighed as he considered returning to his Penthouse considering the annoyance daylight would cause for him. Just by his aura and the feeling of power about him he was obviously more than a normal vampire much more. "If your done interrogating me i have other places to go. You both bore me.." he stated to both of them, as the coat billowed as he paused before them.

[kharn]

A Sorcerer could do many things. For instance, one could project his voice across entire solar systems, even halfway across the galaxy if he wished. Another might choose to dive deep into the corridors of a being's mind whilst remaining continents away, searching deeply through the entire thesis of a man they knew not for little to no reason. Even still, a particularly skilled master of magic could open rifts in the warp and travel through them, skipping casually between realms of existence and winding up nations away from where he started. Yet, the might of a Sorcerer was not limitless, a fact that Sindri Myr reluctantly acknowledged, and while each of these feats were easily within the scope of his own, it took a great deal from him to do all of those thing simultaneously...

'Such is the weakness of mortality...'

Ah yes, Sindri knew much of the frailties of his human body. Before he had been murdered by Gabriel Angelos and his oh-so cumbersome Blood Ravens, Myr had a chance to embrace daemon princedom for a moment. For that split second, the gods smiled upon him and had accepted him into their mighty frey, and had only one more task for him to complete as so he could cement his...initiation. Of course, things did...not go as planned. Angelos had obliterated his daemon form and let loose the true puppetmaster on Tatarus...the Maldictum. As he dematerialized, Sindri remember on that day how it felt to be schooled at the feet of the masters as the daemon's true plan become released...

But that was neither here nor there, merely passing notions that filled Sindri with several colorful emotions, most noticeable among them anger and anxiety-- afterall, it wouldn't be long now for Sindri to have another chance at daemonhood, and the feelings and thoughts from so long ago were so vivid in his mind even years after the fact.

"MY LORD!"

Suddenly, the high-pitched voice of a weakling echoed through Sindri's century old head, another damper to his idealic escapism. He sighed and rubbed his head, turning to the short cultist that stood in front of him.

"...Yes, child of the gods...what do you require?"

Sindri's words were those of an apostle, but spoken in such a tone that didn't even attempt to disguise the annoyance in his smooth voice.

"The man with half life! He walks with the one of false salvation!"
"You do know that not all words uttered by followers of the ruinous powers must be poetic? I assume you are referring to the so called 'vampire' meeting with the semi-daemonic phenomena?"
"YES!"
"...quite. Continue chanting, dear cultist, I shan't be long."

And with that, the bald minion of Chaos scurried off, worshiping madly at a large shrine to the god of sorcery, Tzeentch. As blue energies flowed all abound in the Brazilian castle Sindri resided in and the slaves of heresy worshiped upon, Myr stood from his comfortable 'chair' (which was really more of a throne move to his quarters) and grasped his Bedlam Staff. The daemonic weapon hissed and then laughed in the sorcerer's ear, in a mix of both pleasure and disdain-- the staff was decidedly lazy, so Sindri thought.

As he treked to the worshiping cultists, he saw the eye in the warp they had created over the vampire: his outer-most thoughts radiated, though they were but whispers in the wind, unreadable from all the drone of the cultist's chanting. However, the eye still showed the ventures of the 'Alucard', and his meeting with what appeared to be an 'American' (t'was the name of the country they resided, as Sindri had heard) police officer. Next to him, was a phenomenon that Sindri had noticed months earlier-- sort of like a faux-daemon, a rough parody of a greater one.

'It seems this world holds many secrets...

The group were building height, far above the ground, which mad for quite an odd scene...but then again, he'd known little of activities " The Holy Order of Protestant Knights" aka Hellsing was involved with. Perhaps this was standard procedure? Perhaps there was an explanation? Intrigued, Sindri snapped his fingers, gesturing for one of the puny cultists to garner him a chair as to best watch the rift with.