5441/Ghost Stories

Ghost Stories
Date of Scene:	26 September 2018
Location:	Manhattan Subway Station
Synopsis:	America has a lot of stories to tell. Also the Death Dealer rules.
Cast of Characters:	Hellboy, Deadpool, Ekaterina Vespucci, Selene (Underworld)

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Hellboy has posed:
    It was late night, and a normal person, maybe they'd be in bed by now. Of course, New York was anything but normal, this was where the freaks and the geeks and the millionaires all clashed, all fought for supremacy in the same way they always have. Even back when this city was still being built, it was where chaos came to catch its breath from the orderly progress of the world.

    Hellboy was down in the veins of this city, down in the subway tunnels. Though tired, he pressed on. He figured he'd always be a little tired, this line of work, meant any regular hours were a pipe dream. Ahead of him were what felt like miles of light bluish white forms, spectral bodies of haggard men who would always be more tired than him. Their helmets atop their heads with flashing otherworldly lights, their pickaxes slung over their shoulders. These men were still working and always would, even as the foreman talked his ear off, the way he always had. The way he always would, probably.

    Except tonight, Eddie was complaining about something new. Something that had Hellboy curious.

Deadpool has posed:
    Located partially on a bench with absolutely nobody near him for some reason, is the masked and leather-suited mercenary. One foot is raised on the bench, a bag near his heel. He's being given a wide moat for his castle: nobody's coming into the splash zone, and in fact, people are vacating as soon as they spot him. Being extremely armed is one reason. The other is his current activity. Or maybe it's the GHOST PARADE.

    Deadpool is currently humming the theme from M*A*S*H* while he wraps duct tape around one thigh with one hand, the other trying to pull the lower leg of his suit up to match the upper side of the thigh. The suit is soaked in blood, but isn't dripping at this point. He probably has a puddle of it in that boot, though. The duct tape makes a loud 'shhhhhhhk!' noise as he works with it.

    "Can you shine that light over here more? Left. More. Thank-a-you," Deadpool requests of passing spirits, adjusting position to allow more spiritual light to shine on his little project.

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
Ekaterina Vespucci comes onto the scene looking at her phone with a bag filled with cardboared cylinders that conmtain her students work from the Art History course she teaches at the local community college. The short little girl appears to be completely locked in her own world playing Pokemon Go. She has not noticed Deadpool or the ghosts. Until she sits down for a short break next to the aforementioned merc with a mouth. She looks up with her bright cornflower blue eyes and eeps. They grow to comedic anime size given they are already huge. "Whaaaat?" she says. Then she looks at Deadpool does a double take and jumps up from the bench next to him. "Oh err sorry didn't see you there."

Hellboy has posed:
    Beside Wade, A towering, lumbering beast of a ghost of a mountain of a man is slowly, methodically driving that pickaxe of his into what seemed to be empty space around the bench. Every impact caused dust and debris to fall and litter the Merc with a Mouth...except it seemed to go through him and Kat as well. Debris could be of the spectral ghost variety? It seemed like it could. as the man worked, he was grumbling and muttering under his breath.

    "I dunno, Frankie, I donts gots a good feelin' abouts this gig."

    Beside him, a much smaller spectral man was leaned against empty space, his own pickaxe over on the ground, as he drank from a flask of phantom hooch.

    "Ahh don't worry, we're gonna be coasting on easy street, just you -whaaaagh!"

    It seemed that whatever this big, goonish brute of a man was mining into, they weren't prepared for whatever managed to splat them into flat pancakes, a horrible mess of gore spreading across the ground...a horrible mess of spectral see-through gore that seemed to fade as the same two walked up to the same empty space, to have the same conversation and have the same accident. This seemed to be happening, on loop, for the past half hour at least.

    For his part, Hellboy was busy looking down a far away tunnel, his yellow eyes narrowing as he lit a cigarette in his mouth. It seemed he was waiting for something, although the sound of humming, and the sound of a girl's voice alerted him that he wasn't alone down here. Quickly the big red man sauntered up to the ledge, hopping up and swaying up to the assassin and lovely sweet peach of a girl in the process.

    "Whoah, hey, wait a minute guys. Listen, subway's closed for a bit, something is comin' down that tunnel, and whatever it is, ain't gonna be good. You sure you wanna hang around?"

    Of course, given the attire of the guy with swords, that might have been a silly question. But Hellboy, being the SHIELD agent here, had to at least pretend to be a responsible adult here.

Deadpool has posed:
    "Well, welcome to Ghostly Groundhog Day, over here." Deadpool welcomes Ekaterina. "You know, there's images when you start up Pokemon GO about watching where you're walking," Deadpool mentions, sucking in a breath against his mask over his mouth. "I ignore them too, I'm a grown a-dult, I can walk how I want. BUT, I liked the one with the giant Gyarados Loch Ness fish rearing up to eat the kid," the merc shares cheerfully, while pulling out another long streamer of duct tape and continuing to patch the big rip on the side of his thigh by wrapping it around the leather snugly. But since Ekat is there, it's done with some deliberately long sensual motions of palms on his leg to SMOOTH the duct tape, before he just dumps the extra duct tape into the bag by his foot. He saw her screen!

    "FUCK, there's a Pikachu here? Wait wait wait," Deadpool says quickly, patting down his pouches for his phone. A package of tic tacs, some earphones, some neon yellow post-its, two condoms, four skittles, a dented batarang, eight bullet casings later, and he has his phone, and is navigating to the Pokemon GO app. "I'm collecting them. They have fun hats."

    Hellboy's interruption gets a thumbs up from Deadpool. "All cool. Just catching our Pikachus," Deadpool calls back. A pause. "Pikachu? Chus? Is that singular? Do you know?" He queries to the blue-eyed girl.

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
From down one of the tunnels leading into this abandoned subway station comes the sight of single headlight... but these tunnels were supposed to be empty! What could that possibly be... Soon though, the headlight grows bright and brighter and the sudden presence of a high pitched motorcycle's engine can be heard as the bike races its way into the tunnel the veers off to the side as it hits an access ramp and launches itself up onto the platform!

The motorcycle's headlight swirls around, casting long shadows through the station, as its rider whips the bike around in a 180-degree turn, with the tire's squealing on the concrete she kills the engine... her head spins around to look back the way she'd come... she stares down the tunnel with bright sky-blue eyes and her dark black hair whipping around her face. She looks as though she'd just run from an army of people trying to attack her, but yet, nothing was behind her.

The woman in black just sits there, straddling the seat of her motorcycle... and she releases a slow exhale.

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
The one person who looks truly out of place in this party is Ekaterina. She resembles a college freshman with no weapons and wearing winter gear that makes it hard to get a bead on the curvy frame she hides underneath. She is staring at the ghosts when Hellboy talks to the all. She starts again seeing the big demon but doesn't reply to him yet. "How do I get myself into these places?" she asks herself. "Oh that's right Ekaterina you were playing Pokemon Go and not looking where you were going." She looks at Deadpool, "A pikachu? Well then the ghosts can wait..." she returns to her phone aiming where Deadpool was looking. Then Selene makes her grand entrance and Ekaterina disappears reappearing bout ten feet away and then falling over. Teleporting apparently. "Che cazzo!" she curses in Italian.

Hellboy has posed:
    He wasn't sure about Pallet Town over there in the hoodie, but the Gunslingin' Spider-Man he figured was able to make his own decisions regarding danger, and how much he wanted to expose to himself. For his part, the red man had his oversized revolver in his oversized right hand, open so that he could slowly, patiently load four specific bullets into each massive chamber. Most people might not be able to tell Hellboy's facial expressions apart, given that so many of them involve a grimset mouth with a serious case of underbite, and a pair of yellow glowing eyes. But Big Red was nervous, about whatever was coming through that tunnel. He saw a flashing light...and heard a noisy engine?

    That wasn't right.

    His eyes narrowed, the gun was locked back into place, and firmly in his left hand as every so often the little spectral form of 'Frankie' passed right through his lower half on his way to slack off and die again. The bike sped forward, both cycle and rider passing through scores of nonplussed long-dead New York workers, the overhead lights flickering(Why were the lights on in an abandoned subway tunnel? They should have been long, long dead a long, long time ago.), and the big man stood fast, ready and waiting.

    Then the rider does a skateboard trick. With a motorcycle. And lands right there on that platform with them, the slender black trenchcoat-wearing form facing away from them, her hair blowing in the breeze and Hellboy's usual slack-jawed expression was even more slack and even more jaw. His smoke fell from his lip, and the ghost foreman was just as impressed.

    "I uhh...I uhhh uhhh...Evening ma'm, my name is uhh...hi."

    He was talking to nobody, this was ridiculous. But down in the tunnel Selene was racing down, the sounds of howls and snarls were getting nearer. The Death Dealer had been chased by a gang of snarling, furred engines of destruction. So why was it that, just when the sounds of them were getting their loudest, and they were getting their closest...why did they sound like screaming, yelping, dying dogs helpless at the pound?

    And why was that tunnel suddenly pitch black, those lights finally exploding into nothingness? Followed by every light here in this larger station. One.

    By.

    One. Pitch darkness. With only the sounds of four people breathing.

Deadpool has posed:
    Deadpool pauses as Ekaterina selectively listens to him. And then nods. That's actually pretty normal. He was catching his Pikachu, when the new arrival makes her appearance. He stops what he's doing, carefully puts his phone into one of his belt pockets, the glittery rainbow unicorn on the back of the case flashing in the supernatural glow of the 'dying' ghosts, and then slow applauds for Selene. It isn't sarcastic, but heartfelt, with some genuine head shaking. Loud claps.

    Could this situation get much weirder? Maybe he has a head injury he's not aware of. He picks up the bag off the bench, pulling the strap over his shoulder comfortably. Ekaterina's sudden teleport gets a stare. Yeah, head injury seems probable. It happens.

    Then everything is nearly black. "I've seen this movie," Deadpool comments. "Somebody has to go turn the power on, alone and heroic in the darkness, maybe get semi-mauled to show how severe it all is. I guess that can be me today. Be riiiiight baaaack," Deadpool says in a haunting voice, before tapping on something at belt level and disappearing; his light goes out as he teleports.

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene's got her motorcycle aimed right back down the tunnel that she'd roared out of upon it. But she quickly spins her head around to look over her shoulder at the motley crew of people... and Hellboy, behind her. She stares at each one of them before lingering the gaze on the clapping Deadpool.

But its the sound of them, the wolves in the tunnel, that make her snap her eyes back in their direction. Her pale blues go forward again and the woman in black dismounts her bike, tossing her leg over the two wheeled rocket causing her jacket to flare out behind her as she reaches for a pair of guns that are strapped to her thighs.

"They're coming." Selene says to the group as she moves to stand behind a pillar for cover. "You should all consider leaving." Her voice is sultry and smokey, laced with a European flavored accent. She raises her twin guns up to her shoulders, pointing their barrels toward the sky, pressing her back to the pillar's hard surface. Then she pauses, and hears the wolven screeches... she peers around the pillar, somewhat surprised by that.

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
"Wha-" Kat says looking around from her prone position. "Um can I not be here?" she asks in her sweet little voice blue eyes going from Hellboy to Selene. She really was a fish out of water. No guns no swords. She fishes through her bag and finds a tiny can of mace. That will help her defend herself right?

Hellboy has posed:
    It was faint, at first, but the sounds of something...trickling, could be heard. From Selene's vantage behind the pillar, looking out over where the bright beam of her motorcyle light still shone, sudden rapid movement could be seen, something massive, and furry blurring suddenly. Then, a sound immediately near them...the sound of something crackling, or peeling? And a voice, high-pitched, belonging to something ancient, sounding like it came from a crone who was here before the first trees were seeds. It was laughing to itself, singing some old, dead tongue in a singsong voice.

    Ekaterina and Selene both had superior nocturnal vision, indicating that the DM should be better prepared if he wants to do horror next time. This meant that they'd be able to see the ancient, wizened female thing, sat a few feet from the group, with the facedown, ripped apart remains of a former proud Lycan at her feet. Her limbs were scrawny and almost stick thin, her fingers longer than branches in the wind. In her left hand was...a head? It was difficult to make out, but it appeared to be a spectral, see-through, phantom head...of one of the miners? It was screaming, soundlessly, as the old crone brought that head up to her mouth. Her ancient teeth tore through flesh that wasn't there, and somehow, the red mess and white bone in her mouth didn't match the see-through exterior. In her right were some guts, presumably what used to belond to the Lycan.

    Hellboy, for his part, was turning around to aim his gun at the shape of the ancient thing, but it was like he was underwater, and the thing was stood and whirring around before he could get a bead on her. Before she was singing, but now she was screaming, deafening threats in an old tongue, threats that echoed off the walls of the abandoned concrete all around them.

    "Yeah...kid, I was telling you to get outta here. But if you try and walk away now, that hag's gonna grab ya. I suggest you stay put."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene looks over in time to see the grusome sight of the lycans remains that the 'Hag' is devouring and tossing aside. She lets a quick and sharp suck of breath in between her lips and then slips back around behind her cover. "Curse this wretched city." The Vampire Death Dealer says then, her pale fingers re-clasping the handles of her guns.

At Hellboy, her pale blue eyes look now. "You." She says at him, noting his overall shape and size and combat readiness. "Is this something you've fought before?" She asks him, her eyes then darting to Kat, but she believes her to just be a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time, like she had been hundreds of years ago.

If it can interact and harm the Lycans, then it can be killed.. at least as far as the Vampire is concerned. So either way she's on the knife's edge of being about to spin around and unload her guns, unless otherwise told something to stop her.

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
Kat looks at the Hag and then at Hellboy, "Um what if I do this?" Kat doesn't really have to move. But she can teleport just as she did before challenging Selene's notion that she is just an ordinary girl. So Kat does the 'this' that she was talking about she is suddenly behind Hellboy such that he is between her and the Hag. When in doubt hide behind the strongest person available. She had learned this early as a small weak girl. She looks at Selene who was this person? And back to Hellboy what was this person? Some kind of demon. In 1200 years she'd seen some strange things but this was taking the cake.

Hellboy has posed:
    "Fight this thing? I didn't even know something like this was down here...must be new, musta wandered in from someplace else."

    All the while they were talking, the lights were flickering on and off again, while all around them the sound of...singing, was getting louder and louder. It sounded like some sort of lullaby, something to comfort a crying baby, if not for the violence and desperation to the voice, and the rising volume and intensity. Soon the song was being screamed at them, from a voice that did not seem to breathe, much at all. Hellboy, tired of being so reliant on flickering lights, had an idea. Soon a match was struck against the side of his stone right wrist, and the entire oversized right hand was now awash in bright yellow and orange flame, illuminating the area around them. The big man glared around, tail twitching nervously, waiting for the stringy-haired, horrible thing to strike.

    Except, it seemed they were looking at the wrong thing. As Hellboy got closer toward Selene, his cloven hoof nudged into the arm of a dead wolf. A dead wolf who suddenly, violently sprang up to his feet, and backhanded the big-red half-Demon into a nearby pillar, in fact the one Selene was toward. It cracked and part of it crumbled from the impact, Hellboy hitting it face first and being a little dazed. That Lycan was now up and swiping violently at both Ekaterina and Selene. This time, however, the thing was not attacking like a hunter, like a hated enemy of the Death Dealer. No, this time with its intestines falling out and blood oozing to the ground, it seemed it was fighting like a wild animal, trying to stay alive by any means necessary. there was fear in those wild, animalistic eyes, is snout reared back in a teeth-baring snarl as it screamed at them both. Claws slashing wildly.

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
The teleportation ability displayed by Kat made Selene definitely realize that she wasn't just a girl in the wrong place at the wrong, not exactly anyway, at least she was one who had some measure of powers. All the same, she wasn't necessarily an ally to the Death Dealer either.

Her eyes go to Hellboy as he lights his arm ablaze and she watches the monstrous demonic man. "Right." She replies about the Hag. "Then I suggest we--" and then Hellboy is sent FLYING, TOWARD HER no less. Quickly the nimble woman in black ducks beneath the sailing red-skinned Hellish-boy and narrowly dodges him as he slams into the pillar she'd been using as cover.

Now she comes up toward the disemboweled Lycan... her guns raise and she starts to fire, silver-nitrate laced bullets that splatter first into its chest, but the wound it holds... she aims higher now, but has to avoid its attacks first, so she's ducking and tumbling once more!

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
Kat is no fighter and when the Lycan starts swinging she is easily winged by one of it's claws. Blood spurts and she shrieks in pain teleporting away yet again to next to behind Selene. She has dropped her tiuny can of mace (not that it would have done her any good). Kat clutches her wounded arm and cowers behind the fighters. Reduced to the defensive.

Hellboy has posed:
    Hellboy was dazed, but he's been through this dance before. He pulled himself out of that mushed pillar, shaking his head as dust and speckls fly all around, spinning around and walking through the occasional spectre. His gun scattered and hitting a wall somewhere, meant that HB only had one weapon...and he used it. While Selene was opening fresh holes in the raging wolfman, Hellboy walked up and used the old fashioned approach: Grabbing copious amounts of chest fur with his smaller left hand, and throwing a series of hard, brutal overhand rights to the snout and head area of the beast. The fire added to the impact somewhat, but really, it was the sheer force of an ancient artifact that turned the Lycan into a non-moving chalk-mark on the ground once more.

    "Bad dog! Play dead! Down, get down!"

    The whole while the creepy singing was still prevalent all around them, and as Hellboy glared down at the wolfecorpse before kneeling down to check on the scared wounded girl, Selene with her sensitive ears might hear the leathery sound of...somthing beating against itself. Wings? Was that the sound? She might feel a horrific pair of fingers on her shoulders, uncut and ripped nails sharp as razorblades. She might feel the hot breath and the beginnings of a tongue before the Hag tried to bite down, exactly on the back of the vampire's neck, in a classic bit of irony. Should Selene turn around to deal with this, she'd have a clear shot of the tall, scrawny, pot-bellied creature, but she was moving FAST. And it appeared she was airborne, able to move much more quickly than one would think an old timer like her could.

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene's hands come up quickly as Hellboy moves in to physically dispose of the undead Lycan with the use of his pure brute strength... she was quite strong herself, but she didn't have the bulk that he possesses so she just lets him make his go... and she admires the power of it. Her eyes then dart over to Kat and she notes that the young girl was injured, it doesn't look life threatening then.

As Hellboy moves to assist the Teleporter, Selene starts to look around and listen to the singing music...

But the touches to her shoulder and then to her neck, it causes the pale skinned Vampire in black to spin around and raise her right gun up... her eyes focus down sight and she pulls back on the trigger two quick times. She's extraordinarily fast, for an undead herself.

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
She was injured a second or so ago but despite the deepth of the wound that either fighter might have seen on Kat and the spurt of blood she has regenerated or so it would seem. She is completely without injury. She looks up at Selene and the Hag. Suddenly she teleports jumping onto the Hags back to try and distract her if she keeps fighting the Vampire.

Hellboy has posed:
    For his part, Hellboy was nowhere near as fast, as either of the three women currently on the board. He was still rising to his feet and turning around when Selene was emptying her magazines at the darting, floating Hag who seemed to be singing even louder as a way of taunting the vampire, wriggling her fingers and pantomiming the breaking of bones and the sucking of marrow. In fact, that was a particular favorite of hers that she often seemed to come back to, 'marrow' and the obtaining of in increasingly gruesome ways.

    Her dodging ended, though, when in a display of all-out bravery Kat appeared on the Hag's back. This meant that she was between the woman's two shoulder-blades that had both opened up, with Kat being right there to see the slime and ooze pouring down from the gaping openings, the actual shoulderbones raising up so that a series of fleshy, mucus-covered wings could flap in place. Reminiscent of cockroaches, in fact.

    The Hag was screeching in immediate panic, and Kat might be able to see her arms lifted in the air...and the elbows 'popping' backwards as the hands were now upside down, and the fingers lunging for her eyes. Fortunately, that meant she was no longer getting out of the way of Selene, who was lighting the creature up with lead. She wasn't falling, but she was bleeding, and screeching, and hovering in place while getting lower and lower to the ground...

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene's gunfire paused when she saw Kat land on the creature's back, she didn't want to hit the girl because though she didn't know her... she believed her not to be an enemy. So instead, Selene backsteps a few paces before she looks quickly back toward Hellboy. "If it bleeds, we can kill it." She tells him, hinting that she's watched a movie or two in her day. Her left hand sdnaps up and she offers Hellboy a long silver spike that she pulled out of the thigh holster strapped around her leather clad thigh. "Here." She says to the big guy. "Its struggling, get in close and stab it in the eye with this!"

Then, the Vampire looks back to where the Hag is descending, she sees its grotesque shapeshifting... which is nothing new to the Vampire, she's seen plenty of visually horrific and similar things in her time... no she just draws her second handgun again and lines up for another shot to try to damage those wings to keep the Hag from going airborne!

On one hand, this is definitely not what she came out here for tonight, but on another, this Hag had done her favor with those Lycans--but this Hag was clearly no ally!

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
From its resting place on the ground a few feet away the small can of mace rockets right into Kat's outstretched hand. She does not bother to move away from the Hag's eye gouging hands for the moment but changes position enough to spray a nuge amount of mace in the Hags eyes before dropping to the ground and rolling away. Kat hurts her shoulder when she lands and then teleports back to the relative safety of being behind Hellboy and Selene. "What the hell is that thing?" the teleporting telekinetic girl asks.

Hellboy has posed:
    The pike was in his hand, and he looked at the vampire, giving a nod. He was used to being the ugliest one in the room(Hags and Eldritch horrors notwithstanding), but Selene took it to a level of it being almost awkward for the big man. Instead he just looked forward, and dashed forward on clacking cloven hooves upon the stone floor. The room illuminated by the glow of his burning stone hand, super-heating that pike even as he leapt through the air, and as Kat dropped off just in time? HB's downward stab jabbed right through the creature's nose, through her eye-socked and down into her neck. The thing suddenly stopped moving and was still, gasping in a quick intake of breath as as her arms and hands were splayed out, fingers grasping at nothing. For his part, HB just adjusted his trenchcoat, took aim...and launched an uppercut right into the creature's chin. She flew up like a bottlerocket on the 4th of july, soaring up until she smacked into the ceiling of this ancient, underground structure. She seemed to 'stick' there as the other end of the pike hit the stone and was driven further into the creature. Red looked up for a few long moments, and when it was clear she wasn't coming back down, the lights to this creepy placed flickered on again, and the ghosts resumed their endless work. The half-Demon looked around satisfied, clacking up to Selene and the kid as he looked between them.

    "Hey, kid, you alright? That was a brave thing you did. I want you to know you should be proud of yourself."

    He looked back toward Selene, and was silent for a few moments, before coughing, and nodding.

    "Yeah uhh...thanks, you know uhh I, well, I'm...have to find my gun. Bye."

    With that smooth introduction taken care of, Hellboy swooped his oversized pistol from where it clattered, and making his way back to SHIELD, for a plate-ful of pancakes and a long, long cold shower.

    Damn.

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
The silver spike was handed over, the sight of the large red skinned demonic man slaying the monster was witnessed, but by the time it was settled and he spun around to confer with them again, Selene was back on her motorcycle, leaning over it with a leg on either side. "That." She says toward Kat. "Was the creature lurking in the dark that we've all been warned about our entire lives." She glances around then, back to Hellboy. "Nicely done." She tells him before she starts her bike up with a whine of its engine, then revs said engine two quick times... her pale blue eyes stare at the two of them once more and she nods one time to them before she squeezes the throttle and launches off of the abandoned station's walkway. Her motorcycle darts back onto the track and goes back the direction it'd come, with the headlight growing dimmer down the tunnel's turn.

And somewhere out there in the dark, Deadpool finally got the lights in the terminal back on.

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
Kat watches the fight with her large eyes wide in wonder. When it is over she breathes a sigh of relief. She smiles sweetly and nods at Hellboy as he compliments her (for once) brave actions. When Selene speaks to her about the mystical nature of the creature she replies mischeviously, "Well it can't be anywhere near as bad as my own family then so I am relieved." As everyone exits Kat is still for a moment asking herself, "Okay what the hell just happened." Apparently not learning her lesson she goes back to playing Pokemon Go.