"Damn that bull hit hard", Jason thought to himself as he stumbled for the van, making an effort to avoid the liberally scattered cow patties in the field. Just because he got the crap beat out of him by Diablo didnt mean he had to come home SMELLING like it. Christ, was his head still bleeding? He winced as his eyes stung from the moisture that got in them, and he reached up to wipe away the...

...blood. Crimson blurred his vision as his senses slowly returned to him. His back still ached from how hard he had hit the steel support column. "Wonderful," he thought, "I didn't think Damien was actually going to /use/ that grenade..." The sound of a low growl nearby paused his thoughts, interrupting him with the concept that maybe the blast hadn't quite run all the Sabbat off.

Brushing the blood out of his eyes with the back of his hand, Jason blinked to bring his vision back into focus. Looks like this room was pretty much a waste now - the pylon he had been knocked into was actually bent, and half of the walls and ceiling were scorched from both the grenade explosion as well as the Dragonsbreath shotgun rounds one of the Sabbat had been using. The growling, thankfully, was coming from the badly roughed-up Franz, who had just freed himself from a collapsed shelf rack. Jason quickly retrieved his dropped broadsword and muttered, "Franz...you intact?"

A pause, "Yah Herr...though I culd not be zure how." True - Jason had clearly seen Franz standing not more than a yard from where the impact grenade hit and exploded. Not implying Damien had been AIMING for Franz - getting hit with three simultaneous shotgun blasts tends to disrupt your throw. However, it seemed to have the desired effect anyway - the entire pack was gone. The remnants of Chicago's beseiged Camarilla had finally handed the Sabbat their first defeat.

Or had they? he thought to himself as he looked around. In exchange for one Bishop that was decomposing in the entryway, how many had been lost? Damien Storm...hell, this entire building was Damien's idea-not something you would have expected from a young, upstart Brujah...what was left of Damien after the shotguns finished with him was slumped in a far corner, cut to ribbons and far beyond saving. Vanessa, the young Ventrue he had grown so attatched to, was close by, rapidly assuming the form of ash. Then there was Marcus. Marcus brought a twinge of pain to Jason's mind to even think about him-being the closest target in any kind of gunfight was usually not a good thing, and shotguns at point blank range made it worse.

"Herr...", Franz hissed at him, snapping him out of his thoughts, "...I don't vant to interrupt, but unless you vish to join a /real/ Creation Rites, ve should leaf now." Jason followed Franz' guesture up to the ceiling, where it was painfully obvious the room was about to be filled with a LOT more debris. Damn. Being seven floors underground had its disadvantages. "Christ, run!" Jason snarled and leapt for the entryway, forcing himself to accellerate to an inhuman blur. Crashing through the stairwell doors, both vampires barely made it outside before the subtle groaning of the skyscraper and its abrupt power failure let them know their deceased friends were no longer in need of a burial.

Taking in an uneccessary breath, Jason sighed as he regarded what was /supposed/ to be a new Elysium. A new start. Hope that the Camarilla could finally be rebuilt in Chicago. Yeah, right. "Franz, lets get back to the house. I think we both need a few gallons, and I need to decide what the hell...erk?" His voice caught in his throat as a sharp pain ripped through his chest, and a feeling of terror washed over his mind when his limbs froze, the stake...waitaminit. He could move. He looked down at his chest, half expecting to see a nasty chunk of wood protruding...nothing. What was going on? It felt so real, just like it had actually...

He froze as the truth dawned on him, voicing into a scream of panic at the same time, "ORIA!!!" A few people across the street turned to see what the scream was about, but they were paid absolutely no attention. Jason tore the keys out of his pocket and bolted for the car, practically shoving Franz into the driver's seat before hopping in himself, "Home...ignore the speed limits and the street lights. If I drive Ill get us killed!" Muttering something about this not being much safer, Franz gunned the car up and tore off for the McClintoch house.

Jason closed his eyes and tried to focus only on his childe, "Almost there love...I'm coming...and those bastards are going to fry this time...", but it didn't seem to help him or her at all. "Hurry Franz...please God hurry." Franz eyed the speedometer that was flashing the insane speed of 60 mph, and swerved to avoid a parked taxi, "Herr, ve are in downtown..Caine himself could not go vaster, metinks."

Jason opened his mouth to reply, but only managed a strangled gurgle as unbelievable pain seared through his body, his voice contorting into a sharp scream that almost jolted the Gangrel's driving into a newspaper van. "Herr...?" Franz shot a glance at the convulsing Prince, "Herr McClintoch?" He had, a few moments ago, watched this Brujah take half a dozen deep hits from an Assamite's katana, plus the grenade, and had heard nothing like the wail of pain Jason had just let loose. As the car careened into the Lincoln Park area and passed Fuller and Halsted, he caught sigh of what was incapacitating his Prince. At the end of the block, set up in Jason's front yard for all to see in the midnight gloom, and eight foot cross had been set ablaze in stereotypical Ku Klux Klan fashion, with one small change.

It was painfully obvious there was a body on the cross, and with Jason's earlier scream, it didnt take a genius to figure out who it was.

Franz brought the car to a halt half on and half off the curb, and turned to check on Jason, who seemed to have finally passed out under the onslaught. "Vell vat now," he thought to himself, "ze varlocks are not going to be very...", and looked up and blinked at a scream from down the road, just in time to see the McClintoch house light up for the last time in a huge explosion, scattering the pre-Depression-era mansion over the surrounding block, and setting off hundreds of car and house alarms in the area. Franz said to to noone in particular, "Vell, zat settles it..", and gunned the car again, spinning the wheel around and heading off quickly...

...Jason rubbed his face as he settled into the passenger seat of the van, setting the USAS-12 on the dashboard. Like anyone was gonna see it, much less care out here in....wherever this BFE field was. He had heard of vampires keeping herds before, but as he looked out across the pasture dotted with sleeping cows and one mean bull, he thought to himself, "This is rediculous.."

/Only as rediculous as a Brujah who gave up on the people that died for him just cause he got his nose bloodied./ The thought rose unbidden to his mind like a second voice, and he sighed softly to himself, covering his face. Feeling Fursa's eyes on him, he muttered, "Just old ghosts rearing their heads. Sorry-I'm okay. Promise," and gave her arm a squeeze. It was obvious she wasnt convinced, but thankfully she wasn't pressing the issue. They drove the rest of the way home, leaving Jason alone with his thoughts. /Not again. Kill the bastards this time. Don't let them do this to you again./ He curled up in the seat and shut his eyes tightly, as if it might help shut out the invading voices, the last dying scream of his childe as she burned to death within sight of him, the look on Marcus' face as the Sabbat blew him apart.

Some ghosts are best handled alone, and this was a destiny he wasn't going to be able to escape.