Just getting to work [night shift] (open)

[Dieter Helyanwe]

Dieter sat down in the lobby sipping on his thermas. Being a vampire meant you were a natural people watcher. It was early evening which meant there were a lot of people just leaving from work and leaving the office. This means that it was a prime people watching time.

Dieter always liked to leave a half early to work so he could enjoy a nice thermas full of blood and watch people leave. If anything were to happen he was obligated to do something. But it was just much more fun to make suppositions about people's lives and see if anyone came up for some casual conversation. His face wasn't too well advertised and he usually wouldn't show up in mirrors. But man did some morning virgin AB positive taste good.

Dieter specifically bought this thermas to keep whatever in there at the nice 97 degrees Fahrenheit. It worked like a miracle and kept his blood just right. He had no idea how it worked but he loved his first cup of blood. Since he sipped it slowly and didn't leave any to coagulate most people thought of him as a coffee drinker. He didn't want to wear a "hey I'm a vampire" sign. It usually made people purposely not look or avoid sitting next to him. He hated that. Today he chose to wear his classic Chinese silk. Simple clothes for male attire. Hid his rope dart pretty well. Since people of all nationalities poured in and out he didn't feel that he stuck out. He flicked a loose lock back behind his pointy ears and continued his people watching, sipping on last night's left overs.

Showing up to work early definitely has its benefits.

[Cylo]

"Dieter, hey man!"

The voice came not far from where Dieter was seated, toward the inside of the building. Cylo was just getting off from an entirely too uneventful shift. He had been sent to help a Veiled police force in Northern Europe take care of a pack of wolves attacking villages that were suspected to be rogue Lycans. But it had turned out they were just wolves, and Cylo had to deal with the the Veiled way so as not to blow his cover. Not fun at all, but he didn't let it get him down.

So it was that he held a broad smile on his features as he approached the vampire. He didn't know the man very well, but both being pretty important people they had met before, and Cylo was just friendly in general. And also pretty surprised that he had remembered the name.

"Enjoying a nice cuppa joe before work eh?" he asked offhandedly as he drew nearer. "I don't drink the stuff, but you gotta stay awake I guess." He grinned for no particular reason.

[Dieter Helyanwe]

Ah a hero hails, always fun to talk to their type. Back in the day a hero meant trouble, an invasion of whatever castle you were squatting, running to the top of the tower screaming when you were in the basement the whole time, why did they always assume it was the tower anyway? They'd break your stuff say you hurt their love when they'd met what, maybe three hours ago. They hated when you pointed that out. Say how you defiled this, sullied that, blame you for the cat smelling bad and try to beat the crap out of you.

This guy wasn't at all like that. He worked hard, was generally nice and friendly, as much as he'd heard that is. He did his job, he did it well, and he did it with a really open mind. You've gotta respect that. Today might be a bit more interesting than usual after all.

"Hey Cylo, nice to see ya, have a seat. I just drink this as a pick me up to start off the night. A night that starts off with a good warm drink is better than one that doesn't. I heard that lycan thing turned out to be a bust. You disappointed?"

[Cylo]

Cylo took the offered seat beside Dieter with a sigh of relief.

"Ah, yeah, more so than you might imagine..." he said, scratching his ear dejectedly. "I don't really like killing in general, but with a group of outlaw Lycans I could justify it. Killing the wolves..." He trailed off, and shrugged. "Well, it's just their nature to act the way they do. And it's humans' fault for impeding on their territory. So killing them felt kind of wrong."

He stared at the high ceiling of the lobby as he mulled things over, but he remembered he was talking to someone, and another guy at that, and abruptly continued.

"But, you know, whatever. It's no big deal. I'm over it," he said, trying to preserve at least a little manly honour. "And besides, I got the job done. That's all that matters in the end." He sounded cocky and sure of himself again, a good sign that he was back to normal.

"How about you? How are things with the Seraphs? I hear you have a man down, in the hospital," he inquired, half wanting to change the subject, half actually curious as to what had happened. He heard it was something to do with a basilisk, but anything more than that seemed to be just rumours. One person had even tried to convince everyone the whole squad had died, which, with Dieter right beside him, was evidently false.

[Dieter Helyanwe]

"Oh yeah, poor guy. Got a call to this one small island off of Haiti. Heard there'd been some demonic summonings. Since the report stated demons in plural our Dragoon boys figured they should get their hands dirty. Which of course brings us Seraphs. I figured a solid squad of angels and enforcers with two of my seraphs would cover it. Well vodoo necromancers got involved hell broke loose. The dragoon almost took a molitov of some sort of basilisk blood, has a distinct smell to it y'see, but Keiji jumped in front because he had no time to focus a barrier. Why didn't he just trip the dragoon? I guess it was panic. Not all the enforcers and angels made it. Why didn't we know about some necromancer who was going to use half the population of the town as zombies? I got the rest of them out though. The Dragoon dealt with the necromancer. Few demons got away. Happens."

Dieter took a nice sip of from his thermas. Cylo was all right, no tact, but demons weren't famous for it. Dieter could tell that he cared about people's lives and that bit of empathy can go a long way. Dieter wondered if he could get a wolf pet. He remembered playing with them ages (literaly) ago in the Black Forest.

"So, they keeping you busy Cylo?"

[Cylo]

Cylo gave a distasteful sort of frown at the details of the story. He never liked hearing about TI members dying, especially on the job. Especially due to misinformation. And especially when demons were involved. Hell hath no fury like the pure hatred Cylo held for demons who sided with the AIC. He thought they should know that bringing their King there was a terrible idea. Even just them being on this plane of existence was clearly unnatural; they burned out in a period of time even a tiny pixie could outlive. He gritted his teeth angrily at the thought.

"Busy?" he said, glad for the change in subject. "Hardly. The AIC has been pretty quiet in general. That thing in Haiti is probably the biggest job they've pulled in a long time; you got lucky. Or rather, unlucky." His foot began tapping rapidly of its own accord. "The Council barely meets and all my jobs turn out false alarms. It's good to have peace, but I sure get antsy," he said, motioning to his tapping foot. "Being of a naturally impatient race doesn't help my cause one bit either."

He shrugged it off. "How about you?"

[Dieter Helyanwe]

"Paranoia is what keeps protection agencies going. Seriously, there's always five people who think they need the seraphs to jump at every shadow that spooks them. Heck, this one time a couple years ago, one dragoon was so sure his maid was a AIC member spying on him he set up a secret room and demanded an interrogation team. It was all bullcrap. Poor girl. I had to hire on after one of my idiot subordinates actually went through with the interrogation. I made sure they both got hung out to dry for that. The subordinate I purposely left with only one working eye for a month. Seriously, you should be paranoid but that doesn't give you an excuse to take it out on the maid." He took another sip from his thermas. False alarms and crazy incidents. Dieter understood how annoying it was for heros to get no action for a while. The cult maybe quiet, but that didn't mean everything would stay that way.

"So, if you've got nothing better to do, wanna have some fun training some seraphs?" It was a genuinely fun offer. Dieter always loved surprising the Seraphs with new and interesting tests that'll rattle them somewhat. On duty Seraphs would never expect a hero to show up and start throwing them around. New and interesting training regiments always helped pass the lulls in business and helped to keep everyone sharp. God knows a hero usually enjoys a good tussle.

[Cylo]

Cylo gave a grin at the recounting of the story. Dieter was a little harsh with his subordinates, maybe, but he sure got results. He himself would have thought the one working eye thing to be a little extreme, but this was probably why he was not the one in charge of a bunch of people. He tended to go easy on people the few times he was put in charge.

Regardless of his position on this, he couldn't help but like the sound of Dieter's offer. It would surely keep him occupied for awhile. And while he'd still have to go easy on them to avoid killing someone, he would at least not be forced to conceal his status as a demon as he had been on his previous mission.

"I don't know Dieter, I've got to be home to the wife," he said, sounding genuinely disappointed for a moment, but then a grin broke onto his face "Just pulling you leg, I'd love to. What do you have in mind?"

[Dieter Helyanwe]

Dieter loved enthusiastic volunteers. He loved people with a lot of spirit. Cylo, although he won't last too long, well in this plane anyway, he sure had spirit. Plus Dieter had heard of some of Cylo's achievements. He'd present a challenge to any Seraph. Dieter paused and thought. What would possibly be a good idea.

"Well the obvious is to have them act as a bodyguard or defend a perimeter. Its routine and effective which of course means boring. I prefer to go for insane and grueling." After all, Dieter had only been trained and taught with cruel, insane, and grueling exercises of which how much was to train and how much was for entertainment, Dieter would never know. Then it came to him.

"You know, we have a good stretch of land to work with. Lets play a game of preditor and prey. You and me preditors, Seraphs get to be prey. As for a twist, they get stuck with the green recruites and their goal is to keep them from being tagged. Sounds like a good way for me to get out of doing paperwork this afternoon." Dieter smiled, he did hate paperwork. It wasn't that he did it poorly, so long as it involved a fountain pen and none of that pesky computer nonsense. Its just that Dieter loved combat much more. It was his predilection to get into the field and fight.

Dieter then added, "of course for this to be fair we'd have to find someone green to get stuck with too. I wonder....where should we find someone who's green and would enjoy this kind of game."

[Cylo]

"Well the obvious is to have them act as a bodyguard or defend a perimeter. Its routine and effective which of course means..."

"Boring," said Cylo in sync with Dieter, giving a nod as well. Definitely boring. With enough of a running start, he could probably run by them in a blur and be past their perimeter before they had time to notice something was wrong. Predator and Prey would be better for both groups; Cylo would get the thrill of the hunt, and a challenge, perhaps, and the Seraphs would be able to roam around and find a defensible position or hide, unlike when they had to guard a building or something of the sort.

"Sounds good to me. My questions: How am I 'tagging'? And what do you mean, we'd have to fine someone green to get stuck with too? You planning on helping me?" he asked with a grin. "We could probably find some greens around the training facilities here..."

He liked the prospect of doing the drill alongside Dieter. That would definitely be 'insane and grueling' for the other Seraphs. After all, Cylo was the most powerful demon known to exist, and Dieter was easily one of the most powerful vampires. He just hoped the newbies wouldn't hold them back too much.

[Dieter Helyanwe]

"Simple, by green we need to have someone very inexperienced to be on the predator's side. If the seraphs hit them with a spell, bullet, or weapon, we lose and they win. The seraphs themselves will be laden with some newbies and will have to keep them alive as well. I think we can agree being tagged by a weapon, bullet, or harmful spell means you're out. So if we can hit their newbie the team lose. If the seraph gets hit they're out. I can think of a few rewards that'd be proper incentive for the game. Better hours, less paperwork, day off, an excuse from one of my training sessions. Depending on the person we get we can offer something special. Two of three Seraphs to every newbie. This of course means blunted weapons and rubber bullets. So long as no one's going for a kill, everyone should be fine and easy to heal. Pull back on some of your spells though. Don't want to mess them up too bad."

Dieter loved this kind of work. Sure people got a little hurt but it trained first aid work too. If anything serious happened Dieter was pretty handy when it came to healing spells. Most seraphs had some very powerful healing tricks up their sleave. So long as they were working hard in their teams it wouldn't be too easy to take them down. Most of them would fail but the chance for success and exemption from particular tasks would make them fight for it. Maybe the groups would work a coordinated effort. Ooh that'd be fun.

"Hey, Cylo, I was wondering. You think we could get away from using one of the students in a work out room for this. If we leave tagging to a disabling curse, hit from a rubber or paint bullet, or solid hit from an attack, the student shouldn't be in too much danger. Its unconventional but they'd definitely be a better handicap than using a full fledged seraph or angel. What do you think?"

[Cylo]

At hearing 'rubber bullets' his hand went instinctively to the holster at his side. He considered the very thought of putting rubber in his poor gun offensive, but he supposed it was for the good of things.

"Aw, I can't have any fun at all," he whined, though a grin was on his face.

He pondered Dieter's next question for a moment before answering. "You mean a recruit here? Or a student from the school? I don't know about you, but I don't want to deal with a pissed off Kyana if we hurt one of her students. She's scary, man."

[Dieter Helyanwe]

Dieter wondered what that look toward Cylo's gun meant. It seemed a mix of disappointment and offense. Did he say something offensive. The thing is Dieter had heard of rubber rounds for suppressive force. They were mostly imperfect and he read somewhere about some sort of hemorrhaging or other. Dieter could heal hemorrhaging. Cylo was right about the student. He couldn't let his fun now translate into a massive headache and much paperwork later. A new recruit should be fine for the job.

Plus it wasn't every day you meet a council member randomly and get a chance to do some dama...er training with them . Its always something spectacular when a council member gets involved and it'd be good for the recruites. Dieter was kind of interested in what kind of strategies they'd develop. I mean Dieter knew a lot of them but he didn't know them all well enough to know what kind of plans a group was liable to come up with. The combat experience for the newer people would also prove to be useful training. Of course that wouldn't be useful with just "supressing bullets." Was there someway to ballance safety with effectiveness.

"Cylo, I guess you're right about the student going too far, and I must admit, I don't squat about guns except that you use them pretty darn well. Can you tell me how'd you'd have a minimal risk to death with realness ratio. I don't want to hospitalize TI employes on some training but I want the run to be effective. You got anything in mind?"

[Cylo]

Cylo was glad Dieter decided to ask his opinion.

"You bet I've got something in mind. Use Flag to tag people. Fling it like a real spell. Dull any weapons. And as for my gun..." he said, patting it lightly. "Magi-Tech. It basically shoots the equivalent of a spell in bullet form. Smaller, yes, but quicker too. So all I have to do is set the gun to use Flag as well."

He patted Dieter on the shoulder and stood.

"So, we ready to do this? Besides having to find some recruits, of course."

[Dieter Helyanwe]

Dieter looked left, then right. There didn't seem to be any available strangers to grab instantly for this bit of fun. So he just finished the last bit of blood left in his thermas. He got up out of his chair, looked around again, then said, "I guess we might be able to find a couple angels and enforcers. Or some trainees. Whatever's good. I like your ideas Cylo. This should make for a fun day."

Dieter thought reception might be a decent area to get the recruits but he may have to grab them from their training session as volunteers. Dieter had grabbed them in his exercise classes before. Seraphs helped teach angels and enforcers every once in a while and it was an asset to trainee classes to have a seraph ensuring no one go hurt. He figured he'd have to go find whoever was heading tainee sessions and ask if he could borrow some volunteers.

((OOC what do you mean by flag? I'm pretty sure Dieter would know it if it's common in exercises and training. If its really non standard technology he'd have no clue. If that's the case He'd have to ask Cylo what they are.))