Not Going Out Like This... [Narrative]

There are times when what should have happened, what was perceived as deserved, does not happen. In a world such as this, not every hero has their day, and villains all too often win the eternal struggle between good and evil, light and darkness. How does one define and regulate such things, anyways. Murderers and assassins, killers and thieves, are anathema to the weal. And that justifies the slaughter performed by "legitimate" parties? What is just, when the state itself can sanction murder and atrocity to suit their own ends? Is every opposing party a different side of the same coin, forever spinning in a universe of chaos? Or is there truly one, right way...

That is what faith is all about. And people are what the times demand. He always did consider that his sins of nights past, committed underneath the necessities of the times would return in a shadow of inexplicable horror to haunt him. Now, it had happened, and he knew it.

As Cypress Dreadslay awakes this evening, in his as of yet unknown haven located deep within the heart of Venway, his pale eyelids slowly sifting open, revealing his eternally cold, methodical saphire blue eyes to the world about him, he takes in an unneeded sigh of collected stress. He had been here, all too many times before, waking up, kissing the more beautiful aspects of life goodbye, and preparing for a battle of life and death against an encroaching enemy which had threatened to devour all he protected within its phantasmal mouth of the twin evils of civilization - greed and hatred. Like the times of his younger days as a vampire, Cypress Dreadslay has everything to prove. At the climax of his power in these lands, his influence was vast, and his dominance had seemed all but assured. But the Warlock Order had changed all of that. Eastlock, the Black Plague, and Westlock. The traitor and Cypress' own mentor and, finally, he who would subjugate all of reality before his own twisted whims. They were household names, now, of infamy. And every masque of evil which the hollow servants of what ever hungry serpent the Warlock Order might be, haunted Cypress in his dreams, in his waking thoughts, in every ticking second of his timeless existance. He had to win. Going out like this had shown him this. He could not live with himself any other way. He was a crusader, he was a mastermind. He was a leader. He was Cypress Dreadslay.

Cypress leans over the bed, as he finishes dressing himself in his traditional outfit, a conservative, plain black khaki suit, a black leather trenchcoat, combat boots, and black gloves. He presses his cold, ebony lips to those of his sleeping soulmate, his wife; Fire Shadow, his elven bride. Moving away from the kiss, Cypress lowers his eyes thoughtfully across her sleeping figure once more, then turns and walks from the room, passing with out a trace from the apartment.

As the dim, fizzling electric light of the boxcar is extinguished, Cypress steps into the dirty, rundown cargo train's bowels. His Auspexic senses render him immune to the effects of the darkness on the inside, as his eyes cut through obstacles to see the detail in everything about him. His slender, swiftly dextrous fingers, swarthed tightly in the black leather of his gloves, sieze the grip of a MAC-10 .45 ACP submachine gun off a rack towards the rear of the boxcar. Emotionlessly and cooly, the movements as natural to him as breathing is to a human being, Cypress chambers the submachine gun quietly, after ejecting a clip into it quickly. He repeats this action three more times. A mini-Uzi, a Glock-18, and an AK-47. He straps on holsters for all except the assault rifle, underneath the cloaking concealment of his black leather trench, and straps the armed AK-47 silently across his back. After taking the necessary extra ammunitions, magazines, and clip pouches, Cypress walks from the boxcar, as if he had never been there at all, his passing having been but a phantasm of the nightly hours.

Cypress' black BMW smoothly glides down the rainy streets of Venway City, careful to avoid crossing the paths of the motley force of U.N. peacekeepers still on the island and any less desireable agents of the opposition. It did not truly matter, on the part of the later, however. Cypress would see to them all in good time. He pulls up to an unlit and timeless, Victorian manner which lay somewhere in the oldest district of Venway's upper East side. The door of his BMW swings open, and Cypress steps out of the vehicle, unhindered by the downpour of the rainswept cobblestone about him. He siezes the AK from underneath the seat, keeping the machine rifle lowered casually, with the strap about his shoulder, and makes his way unto the front door of his house. Cypress' eyes peer through the dimensions of the manor, searching for enemies, for intruders. He trusts nobody and nothing in this city of darkness. An instant later, he reappears upon the opposite side of the front door, as if he had sliced through the values of dimension themselves. He walks on, his mind calmly drifting back to thoughts of his lost son. Kieran. Slain by the Sabbat only nights before. Cypress coldly smiles, an only faintly traceable expression, as he ascends a long stairwell. The Sabbat would feel his wrath, and be scorched to ashes by his anger, like the rest of the enemies gathered at the threshold of his sanity. Cypress Dreadslay is the destroyer of nights long past, the graceful and utterly deadly killing machine, who's psyche was hellbent upon one goal and one goal alone - the annihilation of those who stood against him. He allows the AK-47 to rest against his side loosely, as Cypress reaches upwards with both hands, taking a sheathed longsword from the wall. He smiles with a darkly fluid grace as he prepares for his journey. He would not go out like that. He was Cypress Dreadslay.