Mood music: Metallica - Welcome Home (Sanitarium)



A.J. stood with Corin, Domino and the man he was told was called H. The rain beat down on him as he looked around the town. He says silently in his own head, “Father, forgive me for I know exactly what I am about to do.” A second later he hears Corin’s voice speaking, “May the saints protect us, an’ sorrow neglect us, an’ bad luck to the one that does not respect us.” He smiled only briefly because as soon as she was done, the Sabbat were surrounding them.

His eyes scanned the fighting force approaching and he saw the two of them. The last two that remained from the pack that had killed his former Master, Marcus, but who had also gunned down Caitlin were approaching with the army of Sabbat. It was time to end the mission he had been on for so many years. He begins hacking and cutting his way through one Sabbat after another. He finally comes face to face with one of them and he wastes no time. His swords slice swiftly and decisively at the animal in front of him, as if he had practiced this moment a million times in his mind. It was over quickly for the bastard as he took his head with a clean swipe.

The other one though had already advanced towards the others when a massive hulk of a monstrosity stepped in between A.J. and his prey. It takes a swing at him. AJ ducks, but is confronted with a swift foot to the face, shattering skin and bone, spurting blood and blinding him. Instinctively, A.J. swings out with one of his blades to find resistance. The hulking brute has grabbed his blade, and grunts. The raw strength of this creature shatters the blade—he howls triumphantly as he uses the broken blade to stab deep into A.J.’s shoulder. As A.J. moves his blood to heal his wound, he feels the pull of the blade out of his shoulder. Wiping away the blood from his eyes, he finds Justicar Art Morgan standing in front of him. He has stabbed the hulking figure in the left eye with the broken blade. The next second, a blur of motion and growling as two of Morgan’s Archons make short work of the beast. Art looks to A.J., “Time to press the advantage, A.J.” A.J. smiles and says, “Yes sir.”

A.J. nods and moves back towards his group, cutting and rending the undead flesh of the Sabbat coming down on Corin and Domino. It’s then he sees Corin go down, staked by his other primary target. The vultures begin to pummel her while she is down. A.J. hurls his sword at the short dirty man. A brief sense of finality hits him as he watches the sword explode through the back of his head and come out the front, dropping the last of them. He then forces his blood to change his hands into abnormally long claws. They are black and cat like, similar to a panther. He moves in and begins to claw and rip flesh from the bodies of the enemy. He nods to Domino and helps him to move Corin off of the battlefield.

Later that evening, after the bomb had gone off, he found himself sitting on his knees on the ground. The rain cascaded off of his face, washing away the mud, blood and rended flesh that had stuck to him. He was soaked to the bone, but it didn’t matter. Mentally he was in another time and place. His mind was drifting from first the night Marcus had been killed by the pack of Sabbat he had hunted for so long.

In his mind he could still hear Marcus scream in agony as the flames burnt him to death. He tried to get inside the fiery trap that his master had been locked in by the Sabbat, but it was already engulfed in flames and as he finally managed to pry his way through to the inside, Marcus had burst into ashes.

A.J. flinched slightly as he heard the gunshots in his mind. He had run out of the store that he had stopped off to get Caitlin something to drink at. As soon as the sound of the shots rang out, he had dropped everything and ran outside to see her laying in the streets. A few moments later, she died in his arms. She was the second person he loved that they had killed.

Finally he lowers his head and says softly, “Finally, you both can rest in peace. You have been avenged….. And now I can rest.” He then stands up and leaves to go to his hotel, it would be the last time he stayed in a hotel for the reasons he came here. His mission was finally over and now, he could make a home for himself in Lamar.