Chance Encounter ((Closed))

[Cylo]

Demonic speed combined with a good deal of ridiculous-looking flailing managed to catch a good deal of the poor vampire's paperwork, if mainly by luck. The rest were quickly gathered from the floor before Cylo took a good look down at the victim of this paper tornado.

"Hi!" he said brightly, contrasting the upset nature of the recipient of his greeting. "This is quite the impressive pile of paper you've got going!"

He was doing his best to be as cheerful as possible, because this person looked like he might cry, and Cylo really didn't like crying. It was so... awkward.

[Cylo]

Cylo was a little surprised that this person knew his name. Well, not surprised per se, because most people knew his name, but he definitely was caught off guard. Was he supposed to know his name as well?

"Hey..." Name name name! "...there..." he finished lamely, though he was quick to recover. "Five hours? What did you do, kill his dog?"

He actually sounded quite serious about this enquiry. For a person who disliked paperwork as much as Cylo, five hours of it was like torture. Literal torture. In fact, he would probably rather be tortured, if offered the choice.

"Sure I'll help you carry it. Carrying is fine. Don't ask me to help actually do it though."

He knew where Dieter's office was, and he was headed slowly off in that direction, waiting for Ashen to follow. A thought occurred to him then, that had probably already gone through Ashen's mind many a time.

"If they go to his office, and he has to sign them anyway, why doesn't he just do them himself?"

[Dieter Helyanwe]

Dieter knew by the sound of the footsteps Ashen was comping. That meant he'd have to disable his new mini-ballista trained on the door. There was also the Song dynasty style rocket cart he'd built for an escort which may or may not go off when you took a step in. Ashen was more than strong enough to deal with such small booby traps. However Dieter heard a second pair of footsteps further off. Which meant he could lose some face by launching a missile barrage. Dieter unhinged the tripwire after disabling the rockets and ballista.

Dieter didn't mean to dump all that paperwork on Ashen. There were a couple calls that had to be taken care of, first his reports to the Elders and his votes on several things. Then came Seraph assignments and scheduling, after that he got a crank call apparently (he spent an hour looking for Prince Albert who was stuck in a can. He didn't know how old Albert would've gotten stuck in one. Damn tobacco.) Then later he had to give his annual report on the seraphs and look convene with the dragoons. Busy day.

By the time Ashen arrived Dieter put away all the mean traps. Then he remembered the thing that worried him most. Someone had tried to sneak this thing into TI but Dieter saw through the guile and quickly confiscated the device, called a Furby, which sat blinking at him in the corner. He didn't know what insidiousness created such a monstrous mechanical creation. Dieter only knew that something that vibrated, made lots of noise, tried to talk to you, was a wild card which could explode or viciously maul someone at any moment. The four year old pleaded but Dieter was not convinced. This plot was not clever enough.

[Cylo]

Cylo reached the door as well, but did not enter. Instead, he stood in the doorway with the stack of paper in his hands still, looking around cautiously but not daring to stick even his nose past the frame of the door.

"Hey, guy!" Cylo said, referring to Ashen but still not sure about his name. "This is my stop, I'm not going in there."

Dieter's office's reputation preceded it, and Cylo didn't feel like getting an arrow through his arm or some such nonsense, regardless of whether or not it would do any actual damage. So he set the pile of papers down on the floor and turned to leave. He probably had somewhere he was supposed to be, if he could only remember...

[Dieter Helyanwe]

Dieter started signing the papers at super speed. "At least I know your name Ashen." There one stack was done. "You look beat. You usually recognize the poison tip needle chair. You know the one with the retractible poison tip needle that goes off when you try to get up. Just be sure to grab the latch on the side before you get up. Anyway, you look like you could use a day off. Or some strippers. Or both a day off and some strippers. They don't come close to bar wenches but I could set you up." He knew Ashen was too classy for strippers. Well awkward and petrified around the. Dieter couldn't help teasing Ashen every time though. He opened up his minifridge, caught the hatchet that the trap springed. Then he threw Ashen a pint of blood.

"Here, a refreshment. You look beat, wanna talk about it?"

[Dieter Helyanwe]

Dieter smiled, "yeah you know plenty. Plenty enough to be a seraph. You might be a little green but you're well trained, know the score, and trust me; I couldn't do this job without you Ashen. Heck, you've got book smarts up the wazoo. Its just sometimes book smarts aren't enough. There's a lot you can't train for. If something were to happen to me who would know all the seraphs. If I disappeared who would know enough about me to find me. You're so irreplaceable it isn't funny." Dieter paused, "also you should know this. I've always taught you the trick to surviving long as a vampire was to be faster and show more guile than your enemies. You're my plan A for many of said case scenarios. You know your spells really well and you're getting more practical training than you think. You may not be going on the missions now but you'll be more prepared for them in more ways than you think. Living as long as we do is all about patience." Dieter finished signing all his stacks.

"Hand me those piles, after we finish delivering these we're going to have a night out. It's been a while since we did anything other than work together." Dieter grabbed his coat. He didn't know where to take Ashen. Dieter spent most nights either working or grabbing a moment to himself. He had friends but he usually did stuff with them at work, shortly after work where they discussed nothing but work, or before, after, or during a protection mission. Dieter kind of liked spending the rest of his evening alone, listening to some good music, taking a bath, and enjoying a nice girl's neck as he soaked in a tub.

Dieter recognized that Ashen needed a friend and some reassurances. This was to be understandable. Dieter was never good at the whole book keeping thing. Most deals were done orally and remembered to the letter. The whole writting everything down was for rich people with scribes. Of course Dieter learned how. His sire would never have allowed illiteracy. Dieter still had latin and ancient mandarine drilled into his head. He just was never suited to sitting in one place too long unless it was grueling martial art training. Ashen however was a natural scholar.

[Dieter Helyanwe]

Dieter grabbed the second stack after rearming a few traps that would go off after opening the door. He liked enchanting most of his traps with some curses. Just so people knew that his joke was a little serious. He hated snoopers. Being one long enough makes you abit paranoid what a spy could do to you. Dieter shut the door behind him hearing various clicks followed by a "Boooo baaaa biii, Hail Satan." Furbies are indeed scary monstrosities. Dieter set the pace down the hall. He wanted to get out of here quick enough before he was bothered with more work. Meh they should know better than to try to do that when he was leaving. He carried a smoke bomb just in case. Dieter didn't know exactly how to entertain Ashen. He really didn't get that much of a kick from feeding (personally Dieter loved it). He didn't like hypnotizing celebrities into doing embarrassing things in front of cameras (The super bowl with Janet Jackson being the most funny one, and earned him a week of going through his files personally while being dogged by a certain Pixie.). The fact was, as well as Dieter knew Ashen he didn't know what to do with him. So instead Dieter thought he'd give Ashen a chance to do something he hadn't done before. Boss Dieter around. Dieter could always say no but he'd go through hoops if he asked him.

"Well Ashen, I know that you wouldn't find my usual evening routines as fun as I find them. So for the rest of tonight I'll do whatever you ask me to do. I'm at your disposal. You say jump and I'll say how many buildings. Tonight is all about you old friend." Dieter didn't read any of Ashen's thoughts. He felt it would be disrespectful to their friendship to do so. He prefered to avoid reading everyone's thoughts but Dieter definately kept his own mental defenses rather high. One could never be too careful.

[Dieter Helyanwe]

Dieter grinned. It was the kind of grin one could expect if you spliced Hannibalector, Dexter, and the Joker's toothy smile gave it fangs and then decided that wasn't scary enough and stretched it back even further. Well maybe not that creepy but definitely as evil. Most would say that giving Dexter a free ticket for an interesting training session would be the same as going to a torture chamber, finding the person in chage, kicking them in the nuts and daring them to give them a tast of everything in the room. Most just saw the common sense not to indulge Dieter's strange and bizaar sense of humor.

"Well since it's only midnight, I say we hit a bar. A nice trendy New Yorker Bar that attracts plenty of people. I know one off Main Street Manhattan. It's only a little bit away from the station and we'll be back way before sunrise. There'll be girls there and everything. It's a veiled people's bar so don't do anything stupid. The training will be this, you must protect the nice young ladies at this bar from any men other than yourself. I will be attempting to thwart you in this respect. Second, and most importantly, you must feed on one of the girls. Yes I know how you feel about feeding from people but you asked me to train you and this is it. If it's not this I'll have to come up with something.....harder. This is the best training exercise for you in my opinion Ashen. I wouldn't turn me down." Getting something more physically demanding was simple. Dieter knew that Ashen could and would do any physically demanding task that he gave Ashen, as he had done much of it when Ashen was first getting used to his vampirism. Ashen needed something more than the training of the body, he needed to get social training. He needed to get a certain comfort around women, be able to carry a conversation, and most importantly learn how to blend in. Dieter knew how to disguise himself and blend with the crowd. Protecting someone's easier if the attacker doesn't know who or where the protector is.

If you wear the neon sign reading trained bodyguard with no social skills over your head, this life saving approach was not a viable option. Not to mention people would often pass over you, ignore your valuable input, and you could never get a date. I mean come on. Dieter wouldn't want anybody to be subjected to a dateless life. Most importantly came empathy. Bars were great places to see predators, willing prey, people needing to be protected, shy people, drunk people, and angry people. They were all there. Dieter knew that Ashen understood the bookish people who stayed inside or spent spare moments training. However, Ashen needed to know more kinds of people and know what motivated them. Learn how they think, how they act, and learn what they feel. This was crucial for getting a Seraph instinct on who the assassin would be. It was crucial for knowing who didn't belong in a room. Dieter couldn't think of a better exercise. Plus he'd get an evening of flirting with hot girls, throwing some subtle curses around, and prodding guys in the right direction. The subterfuge and manipulation would be a great deal of fun. Just because it's an evening designed for Ashen's wishes doesn't mean Dieter can't have fun.