EAGLE EYE

Who: @ashcrgcines​ Where: Police station

Rowan didn’t believe that she would ever step foot willing in a police station, she always thought they would get her in cuffs. Her crimes were small, small time drug dealer in the big new York city empire, she wasn’t noticeable on anyone’s radar until the day she ended up shot and bleeding out on the same dirty streets before she was saved and judged worthy of becoming a phoenix. She was robbed of the drugs she was carrying and she didn’t believe it to be a random incident but she still walked and lived and breathed so it’s not as if she could report her own dead body. The killer still lurked out there but many killers walked Corinth’s streets, there was Scylla’s murderer, the murderous cult of Persephone who had snuffed out Maven’s life and the chief of police had experience his own vast suffering, although she was in the dark about the one. Her heart would go out for him if she knew, she had heard of him though and been told to make his acquaintance. Rowan volunteered as a cook at the firehall and more recently with search and rescue services paired with emergency response, she was becoming more and more comfortable with the more authoritative services and honestly thought that she might needed a shifter in her corner after all the supernatural war waged on. She had Elias but she believed the shifters to be a close ally to her own supernatural race so she went down to the station to introduce herself. A courtesy not normally done as the police chief had so much important business, it was with surprising luck that she had arrived directly at his door, although it might have been her phoenix luck that took her there, a lifted fist to knock on his door and its with a sharp rap that she did.

Though he didn’t recognize the woman now standing at his office door, he knew the light she carried with her. One he knew in Petrichor and Lucas. Another phoenix. Asher hadn’t been certain of how many of them resided within Corinth Bay but it was becoming increasingly obvious that Pete hadn’t thought it necessary for him to know just yet. “Did Pete send you here?” It wasn’t exactly how he would have usually thought to introduce himself, but after his conversation with Ptolema, Asher wasn’t exactly sure what a phoenix turning up at his door might have meant. “Apologies, Asher Gaines. The receptionist didn’t catch your name...” 

“For me? No, no, you misunderstand. I’m offering you the opportunity to keep your city safe from a plague that you can’t see. Think of it as a chance to do something besides chasing your own tail.” The jest was entirely at his expense, even if Ana hadn’t been able to discern which animal he shifted into quite yet. “Mm, I suppose that does shift the balance out of my favor, but I’m feeling a little risky. If you can go through with destroying it, of course.” Far too often those with vigilante justice in their hearts were incapable of striking the final blow. “Give me your word and I’ll give you the name.”

“But I want to.” Atlas corrected, “His crimes called to me just as loudly as that of a vampire or werewolf.” The fury was supernatural in nature, but the crimes of men could be just as, if not more atrocious than the crimes that permeated the supernatural community. “But there are two that I can’t shake, or do anything about. Cubi.” Atlas had learned their identities while he was still a witch, but now there was no way that he could shake them from his mind. The bar where Xander worked was owned by a monster who had attacked his best friend, and someone else he was close with was engaged to another of these creatures. There were nights when he went out walking, only to find himself stood outside of Styx or Acheron. Alecto would not allow him to ignore these crimes any longer, and his conscience could not permit him to be idle either. “Kasandra, she owns Styx, she’s a succubus, and Kaan, he owns the funeral parlour, Acheron. He’s another.” The fury knew that only a shifter could put them down for good, but he was willing to help however he could. “They’ve both hurt my friends, and the city would be better off without them.”

That, he understood, perhaps more than a great many people within the city. Humans could undoubtedly be just as cruel, callous and destructive as those gifted with abilities to truly wreck havoc. It was what led him down the path he was on now. The need for justice didn’t press Asher towards the supernatural specifically, it was merely his bloodline that did that. Had he been little more than human, he didn’t believe he’d be anywhere differently - just perhaps, less equipped. “You’re not the first to tell me about them.” The vampire that had first made him aware of their existence had done so under far different circumstance, but nevertheless, it opened his eyes a little more to the things he couldn’t see. His teeth drew together tightly, the muscle in his jaw ticking over at the mention of Kasandra. It was certainly something he hadn’t seen coming, but that not one, but two people would think to tie her name to that of the species in question left him with little room to doubt. “I know both of them.” Where Kasandra had found a gentle place beneath his skin to live, Kaan had done quite the opposite. “What do you need me to do?” He’d already given Ana his word that he would take out one of them if he could. “This can’t blow back on me at all, but whatever needs to be done.”

His footing was unsteady, but Asher seemed to be on board with what Ptolema was saying. She was grateful for it. Even so, three millennia had taught her not to throw every egg into one basket. Asher had proven himself a man of his word from what she’d known of him, but the Nemean Lion had been betrayed before. Until she was certain of his loyalty, she would keep Fenrir’s jawbone blade to herself. A secret weapon. She smiles slowly. “Keep in mind, Asher. They are not gods. They are only demigods, far easier to kill. And we fight them with more of their own. We won’t even have to fight them if we can simply restore the Veil.” She sighs, pulling her braids up on top of her head, twisting them into a bun. “How do we do that?” She shrugged. “I have no idea. I need to speak with some people.”

“And how exactly do you kill a demigod?” The disbelief in his voice was unmistakable not because he couldn’t believe it but because he’d always been led to believe that they were just as immortal as the Gods themselves. Though, he supposed that the same was meant to be true of Ptolema and her siblings. “The weapon that killed Selene?” He hadn’t heard of it’s whereabouts in sometime, the last he’d known of it, it’d fallen into the hands of a genasi. “How many of these.. demigods are there? And more to the point, how many of them are trying to take down the veil? I can’t imagine there’s a whole lot we can do if there are far more of them than us.” It seemed knowing what needed to be done wasn’t quite enough to lead them to the how, but if Ptolema was trying to figure it out, he didn’t imagine it would be too long before they understood where to go next. “Keeping the greater good safe shouldn’t mean sacrificing those that never had a choice. Speak with whoever you need to, when you know more, I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

@ashcrgcines​

Humming to herself as she bites into her peanut butter and honey sandwich, Marceline awaits Asher’s arrival. They’d known one another for four years now but meeting once a week for a quick lunch was something she’s only recently started forcing him to do. He’d yet to complain though, so either he didn’t mind or he was simply too nice to tell her no. Either is fine with her.

 When he comes into view, she raises a hand and signals him. “Asher!” She calls, despite being the only two around. “Asher, I’m right here! Asher, here!” Her humor typically only entertains one person and that is herself. She doesn’t mind. Dramatically, she begins to point at herself. “Ash! Ash, it’s me! Marceline!” When he finally sits beside her, she allows herself to sag in relief against the back of the bench. “Thought you didn’t see me there for a second,” she teases, taking another bite of her sandwich.

He’s yet to question it, Marceline’s new idea about forcing him into meeting her for lunch once a week. The idea of her forcing anything is amusing, but if anyone were ever to question it, he had the non-stop, nagging text messages to prove that it was entirely through her own coercion that he was here. That, and he never had to answer any questions about his brother’s death whenever they caught up. Her display is amusing, attention grabbing and he’s the only one of all those who have turned to look towards her that doesn’t seem entirely surprised by the outburst. “You’re a little hard to miss,” he laughs gently as he leans back into the bench they’ve taken up. “What’ve you got this week?” Asked in the same moment that he’s grabbed the other half of her sandwich and taking a bite of it, regretting it the second he did. “What is that? Peanut butter and pure sugar?”

If only he had the answer that Asher wanted, unfortunately, the human had not told him, and Emre had arrived only as the human’s soul had been made ready for the other side. The vampire who had killed him already gone. “Just that it was a vampire, but I suspect you already know that.” The reaper said, though the condolences that Asher expressed were unexpected, they were not altogether unwelcome. He had heard them from Safiye just the same, and while there was nothing that could change his fate, Emre would always lament the man he had wished to become. His eyes lingered on Asher for a long moment, uncertain of what to say at the expression, but there was only one thing that came to mind. “Me as well.”

It certainly wasn’t news to him. Despite what the majority of the public were led to believe, the way in which his brother had died was far from the cause of a natural disaster. The autopsy he’d demanded had come back with far more conclusive results, but with the cults wreckage left behind within the storm, Asher had already suspected a vampire had been behind it. Now all he had to do was figure out which - not an easy feat, to say the least. “Yeah..” A rough hand lifts to rub at the edge of his jaw, “Yeah, we figured that already. You can’t..-- you can’t speak to him again, can you?” It wasn’t hopeful, he assumed that once someone had passed through to Elysium that it was perhaps out of the reapers realm, but maybe he was wrong. “Thank you for coming to me. If it’s not something you usually do, I imagine my brother was his usual persuasive self and for that, I owe you. If you need anything at all..” The chief trailed off a little, nodding as he stepped back towards the busy street in silent retreat.

He has a point, even Ptolema isn’t stubborn enough to say otherwise. “I’m not saying you’re wrong by any means, but who are we to put limitations on what the gods are capable of?” Her arms come down to wrap around her chest as she sighs. “Who is to say that they will simply allow it to fall? All other gods aside, Persephone is a woman scorned and it has been holding onto that rage for longer than even I am capable of imagining. Not to mention she’s smart. Her not being able to find away around the Veil isn’t something I’m willing to bet on.” She leans back against the nearest wall. “I’m not saying what we’ve been doing is easy. But it has worked for all these years. We have stopped more death and destruction than we know.”

Between a rock and a hard place, a precarious balance with more than simply mortals at risk one way or another. It wasn’t something that any of them could have seen coming, that there were those that would seek to destroy that which kept them here. Unwittingly, he might have understood the scorn and vengeance that settled into the hearts of those wronged by the Gods - if retribution came with their own demise in tearing their creations from them, then there was little anyone could do to stop them. But there were those, that were granted far more than anger and hatred in what they’d been given, people that still deserved some mediocrum of choice in whether they remained that way. “I don’t think what we’re doing now is going to continue to work if this is what we’re going to find ourselves faced with. No doubt, they have a plan.” Asher very much doubted that anyone would so readily seek to destroy the veil without a way to do it. “So, how do we protect it against gods... because that’s not my territory.”

“I have things that held me back from giving in to the worst of myself,” Atlas offered, though he looked at Asher more closely now. It was painfully obvious that this was tied to August, the fury had been so preoccupied in his own brand of misery that he hadn’t checked in as often as he should. He knew that loss was difficult, but he had trusted too much in the unshakeable monument of the man’s resolve. Asher had called for murder, had the Chief really fallen so far? “you were among them, once. This man deserves death, and he’ll find it, not today, but eventually the halls of Tartarus will undoubtedly be his home. Until then, he can suffer.” Atlas knew how cruel Fate could be, and death would find this mortal eventually, he had given the man’s life over to Asher, and the Chief had refused it. But no man, be they mortal or otherwise commanded a fury. “I was, he tried to put up a fight, just say he was jumped, it’s not like he’ll remember.”

Immediately, he thinks of August. Of the innocence his brother held that gave Asher reason to rise to the occasion each and every time he was faced with the opportunity to fall from grace and somehow, standing here now, a piece of that reflects back at him in Atlas. It’s enough to force him to look away, to feel the first bite of shame that had found him in recent months. It’s not new to him - murder is a choice he’s made willingly before, yet never without the scales of justice in his favor. Never without the peace of those tormented by the lives he took in mind. “I haven’t yet given into the worst of me,” he speaks slowly, an admission that there is far more that burns beneath - he’s sure Atlas knows the heat of it. “But perhaps the lowest.” It’s difficult to remember the shape of justice when all he can feel is numb. Stepping forward, he pulled the man to his feet, the heavy weight of a man little more than a shell not quite a struggle for the shifter. “You don’t need to do this, you know.” Asher noted, “There are bigger problems in this city than people like this. You were always meant for greater things than the chaos of men, Atlas.”

A smile reached Kaan’s lips at Asher’s words. The shifter had made it very known that he was not fond of the cubi and Kaan could not blame him. After all, his intentions were certainly not pure. If he could have, he would have drained the other man of every bit of his shifter abilities as soon as he possibly could to leave him a shell of a man. He would hold off on that for now though. That was something he was waiting to do until he absolutely needed to. And he was going to enjoy it as much as he possibly could. “Oh, Asher, you break my heart.” Or maybe he could start now. His mind could be instantly changed by a pretty man. “I think you should reconsider my countless offers. Your desk is still looking awfully cozy.”

She sighs out her nose, ceasing her pacing around him. “If the city was forsaken, would you still be here?” She asks him, tilting her head. “Would I?” Ptolema steps towards him, hoping to gain Asher’s understanding. Another player on her side could possibly change her brother’s mind. “You didn’t take up the facade of police chief to help you better fit in with the humans, you did it because you want to protect them as I do.” She takes up her pacing again, sharp nails digging into the biceps they’re wrapped around. “Supernaturals are not the only threat humans face, Asher. We protect them from everything; supernatural and otherwise.” Her feet come to a halt again and she frowns at him, wanting his true opinion. “Do you think if we took down the creatures created by the gods themselves, that the gods would simply…allow it? Would Persephone not just find a way to make more? Apep? Would the gods not take that as an insult?”

He wasn’t really one for hypotheticals, he’d always lived within the reality he could know and understand, what ifs were certainly to be prepared for, but neither was he interested in determining his place among them just yet. “I’m not against you. I don't do what I do just to protect humans, but without the veil is there not a given amount of complication in Persephone or any of the other Gods creating creatures that exist because of magic?” Asher knew enough, but not a lot about what the war raging within the streets of Corinth and above would entail. “If there’s one way to rid ourselves of creatures that pose a threat, even if it is temporary, isn’t that a better option than allowing them to exist without even trying to eradicate them completely? What else can we do to stop them? Do you have something else in mind?”

gift for @ashcrgcines​

“I’ve decided to release you from your half of our first agreement.” The entire endeavor had become far more complicated than what Ana preferred and involved too many parties, which meant a heavy amount of loose ends she loathed keeping untied. “No Petrichor, no secret meetings. In fact, I’m feeling so charitable that I’d like to tell you the name of this cubi if you promise to remove them. Permanently.” Lucas had spent a great deal of time cleaning up the mess surrounding Styx that perhaps his presence would be less required if she simply began picking off the root causes one by one. Save for Kaan, of course.

“I don’t kill humans.” Atlas denied, he wouldn’t take a human life, but, there were fates worse than death. He stepped forward and passed Asher, for years the Chief had been something of a checks and balance system who kept him from teetering over the edge. The coven, Xander, Rae, Ajax, they had all helped stabilize the witch whose moral compassed had been completely fucked with. Then Ajax had died, and Atlas had all these impulses inside of him - rage like he had never known. His lip curled at the sight of the bound and beaten man, eyes reached for mercy, pleaded from behind his gag - and yet - Asher would not take him into custody. The fury felt his hands clench at his sides, balled fists before a hand snapped forward and grabbed the criminal by his hair to wrench their eyes on Atlas’s. The fury’s gaze bore into him as their pupils flared and Atlas ripped every memory from his mind, every lesson, every first, every thought, every memory was viciously shredded before Atlas lobbed him to the ground. A drooling mess of an incapacitated person that was little more than a husk. “There.” Atlas said with finality before he looked to Asher. “It’s done.”

Was it not yet enough? The premise of justice had been one that Asher had served to a fault for the entirety of his life, one in the same that he had sought to steer Atlas towards despite the penchant held by the witch. A warped mind that didn’t always see the grey areas of a world that didn’t exist as perfectly balanced as one might have thought to believe. It should have been more than enough, that the already mottled bruising and the torn state of the human direct Asher into stepping in as he had so many times before, but the world was far too heavy, and he was worn thin. Death for the man, might have been an easy way out, but it would forgive Asher for not grasping the scales of justice once again. “Now you have a moral compass?” The jest in his voice is not nearly noticeable enough, and perhaps it’s said without it, the shifter can’t really tell as he watches the man before them curl in on himself in far more ways than physically. “I’ll call it in,” undoubtedly, he was now far better suited to the care of medical personnel, “Are you the one that beat him too? Imagine my dragging his ass into the station looking like that.”

“Perhaps that’s why he said it, a reminder to keep looking.” Emre offered, he had no insight into the inner workings of August’s thoughts, he had merely been the shepherd who had taken him from this world and into the next. He knew pain, though, and he knew regret, also. Emre did not expect Asher to suddenly come to terms with the fact that his brother was brutally murdered, that was a burden that someone carried for the rest of their life. “I don’t,” Emre said, “but the manner in which he died -” the reaper thought for a moment, “and how he pleaded… I had to say something. It was the right thing to do.”

It sounded like something that might have motivated his brother even in death, an attempt, however obscured, to press him into looking for something beyond his work and the crippling, consuming grief. “Did he tell you who did it?” It was enough, a smitten possibility that pulled him out just enough to question it, regardless of whether knowing would somehow change anything for him at all. Asher had no doubt that there would still be a spiralling black hole buried somewhere in the pit of his chest, drawing everything else around him in. He swallowed thickly, uncertainty rooting itself in a knot in the back of his neck, one in the same that he reached for now, “In that case, thank you.” Maybe it would help - maybe it was one more reason to dwell. “---A reaper, all of you come from unjust death, whatever happened to you, I’m sorry for it.”

It was not a person that Atlas could introduce easily, and the introduction was likely not what Asher would expect. The fury had watched the Chief break, had done what he could to console him, but it wasn’t enough. They had been bonded previously through a mutual desire to see justice upheld, Asher, for some time, was Atlas’s system for checks and balances. Familiarity bred the fury to bring mortal crimes to the man’s attention, they had both lost people they loved to vampires, bonded further, it seemed. “C’mon,” Atlas tilted his head, “he’s back here.” The fury offered as he led the man away from the city, the crimes of the man in question pulled distantly at him, still, the human was where the fury had left him. “He’s a criminal, but human, I thought your prison system was a better tool for justice than what I have at my disposal.”

It’s a moral high ground that he’s always stood on and it’s precarious at best. A little too far to one side and Asher knows he’s bound to tumble, for there's really only so much of the bleakest, deepest horrors of the world that one man can truly hold within his hands in some home that fingers might shroud such evil from the view of others - cage it away never to be seen again. Yet, the human that doesn’t sway from his place despite being left alone by the fury forces the weight to shift enough to buckle everything. It curled something within the iron cage of his knuckles and without even thinking, he stepped forward. The mans face was unmistakable, plastered across news headlines throughout the city, pinned on every notice board within the station and undoubtedly, justice would be easier served within the system Atlas spoke of - and somehow, all he could think about beyond that, was the message the reaper had given him. “Justice isn’t for the dead, it’s for the living and everyone that has to deal with what gets left behind,” it’s muttered, almost too quietly before he’s turned back to the fury. “Just kill him.” It’s flippant, and off center for the shifter, but all he can taste is the metallic bitterness he’d been left with.

closed starter for @ashcrgcines​

Kaan could not remember the last time he had seen Asher. To be honest, he was surprised at himself for not just stopping by the police station for random visits. After all, the other man was certainly a sight to behold. He was never going to pass up that opportunity. Apparently he had though. Better late than never though. Not that it was the best of ideas to go around visiting a shapeshifter that wasn’t Elias. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were avoiding me.”