[center]There were few things open in Gary at this hour. As a small town, it had little need for nightlife or many 24-hour convenience stores. It had too few people old enough to drink but young enough to gladly stay up past 11:00. However, that didn’t mean that people there didn’t like to drink, or that there was no need for a 24-hour convenience store. There were businesses open, though. Little things. A shitty little dive bar on the main street, the motel with its flickering neon lights, a 7-11, a McDonald’s. 

For a Wednesday, the bar was hopping. Unsurprising, considering the unemployment rampant in this sort of town. It was just called Gary Bar. The atmosphere inside wasn’t particularly appealing or gross. It was just… normal. There was a bar, an old bartender behind it. He looked old enough to be in a retirement home. There were drinks behind the bar, of course, but it seemed he had also placed some memorabilia there and across the bar- photos, taxidermied animal heads, flags. The usual. The seats in front of it were chafing leather and were filled with men and women kicking back and relaxing after a long day of work. Or maybe not working. The lights over them were dim. There were booths in the back, but few people were seated in them. A low hum of conversation ran through the air. Nothing was particularly rowdy about this crowd, although things could always turn the wrong way There were about 15 people in the bar at this hour, give or take. Only a few looked like they could possibly be under 30. 

Three of those few sat in a booth by the door. All three were young-looking women. If anyone had been paying much attention to them, they would have noticed that they were very out of place. They didn’t look much like they belonged. Only one of the women had a meal (if you could call it that) and a drink in front of her. She was sitting on a seat opposite the other two, drinking her beer heartily. Compared to the other two, who were pale and blood-drawn, this woman looked normal. She had light brown skin and eyes and had dark brown hair.

Once she was done with it, she slammed the glass down on the varnished wood table. She was strong, muscled, so it rattled the table a little. The shorter of the two women opposite her jumped.  “Bartender!” she yelled. Her voice didn’t sound quite drunk yet, but she certainly sounded tipsy. “Need a refill!”

The old man at the bar huffed but approached their booth, stopping in front of them... “You need to come to the bar to order.” He didn’t sound too serious about it- more like an annoyed grandpa than anything.

“Right, right, sorry.” The woman smiled, revealing shiny, straight white teeth. “Could I get another beer?”

“Sure.” He didn’t note it down in his notepad, instead leaving it in his hands. He squinted at the three of them. “Say, are your friends hungry or anything? We have wings in the back if they’re interested. Looks like you two could stand to eat. No offense, girls, but you look ill. All pale around the edges. Unless that’s just how girls do their makeup these days.” He chuckled. 

The woman’s smile tightened just a bit. “Yeah. It’s… something like that. They don’t want anything. Just get me the beer, alright?” At that, the older man walked off.

The woman ran her hands through her thick, dark hair and sighed. “Longer we spend here, the more people will think you two have cancer. Isn’t that joyous?” Her voice was layered with sarcasm, and her deep brown eyes sparked with a bit of irritation.

The shorter, pale woman- a blonde with blue eyes- shrugged. “Happens everywhere. You’ll get used to it.” The woman beside her, still short but taller and another brunette, didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the conversation going on. Instead, she was staring at something all the way across the room. After a moment, the blonde’s eyes shifted over to stare at the same point.

It was a noncommittal response, and that only seemed to irk the dark-haired woman more. “Come on, you can’t even joke with me? If I’ve gotta babysit you two, I want to at least have some fun. Jesus.” At her own words, she mock-gasped. “Oh, no, sorry, I said the [i]J word[/i]. Please don’t combust!”

The blonde rolled her eyes without taking them off of whatever she was looking at. “That’s a myth.”

The bartender brought over the beer, which she took gratefully. The conversation halted for a moment before he left. “Whatever. Everything’s a myth with you guys, isn’t it?” she eventually said. “Next you’re going to tell me you have a reflection.”

“I do.”

“What a [i]shocking[/i] revelation. Yet another lie they’ve told us.” The women’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

The blonde woman’s eyes drifted over to the other woman’s, and she rolled her eyes once again and glared. “Do you have a [i]problem[/i], Heather?”

The dark-haired woman, Heather, raised her hands as if surrendering and shook her head. “No. On the contrary, actually. I’m just poking a little fun. Pay no attention.”

The blonde narrowed her eyes. “Well, you’re being irritating. I don’t like irritating.”

Heather raised her brows but left it there. Instead of acting up further, she directed her eyes over to where the two other women were looking. They were staring intently at a man across the room, who was sipping beer with his buddies. He looked young and healthy. Maybe mid-late 20s. Her mouth hardened into a thin line. “Look, I get you’re hungry,” she whispered. “Once he leaves, we can go.”

It was about a half-hour before the man left the bar. Silently, Heather and the other two women stood from the booth and headed out after him.

The second woman, the one who hadn’t spoken before, glanced at Heather once they had left the building and the earshot of most of the people inside. She was tall and had short-cut brown hair. “Shouldn’t you be doing the invisible thing?” she asked, skeptical.

“No.” Heather glanced at the street, vigilant. “It would be a waste of my energy. We’re in the dark, small town, no one’s up. I don’t think there’ll be an issue. Unless…” She considered something for a moment, and then shook her head.

“What is it?” It was the blonde asking. 

“Nothing. I’m just starting to get worried that the [i]sisters[/i]-” she said that word with the harshest inflection possible- “are going to try and send someone after us soon. Probably not tonight, though. We’re doing monitoring- if anyone but us uses magic in the area, we’ll know.”

The short-haired brunette shrugged. “Good enough for me. He’s getting into his car. Should we…?”

The blonde licked her lips, and Heather shivered. Some things never got less creepy. Before they could do anything, Heather looked around the street carefully. The only buildings in sight were the bar, a gas station, and a barber’s shop. She couldn’t see any security cams. “You’re all clear. I’m going to turn around for this,” said Heather, and she promptly did.

It didn’t stop the noises from reaching her ear though. The two vampires were fast and strong, and the noise of them slamming the man against his tan Hyundai was loud enough to hear. He made an effort to scream, his eyes widened in terror, but the blonde quickly put her hand over his mouth and shut him up.

“Can’t we just knock him out or something? Does he really have to be awake?” The brunette asked.

The blonde rolled her eyes. “Shauna, you’re such a wuss. Now hold him while I take my share.”

And that was how that went. Shauna, the brunette, held the boy as the blonde sank her fangs into his collarbone and drank. Once it was her own turn, Shauna would drink herself. And then, after that, they’d leave the man bloody and unconscious in his car as they walked back to their own.

[hr][hr]

[img]https://txt-dynamic.static.1001fonts.net/txt/dHRmLjg4LmViZGYyOC5RMkZzZVhCemJ5QkNZWEp1WlhNLC4wAAA,/make-summer-fun.regular.png[/img]

Everything happened so quickly that Calypso could barely keep track of it all. It only took a moment for her to weave her spell, but everything seemed to occur at super speed. Hana got free, she noted with relief, but was bleeding prof- nope she was not looking at that. A wall of fire appeared behind Hana and between the fight, which Calypso assumed was Alayna’s work. That was all she could really care to note with magic swirling around her. She let it build and build until she could feel it reach its extent. Then, she breathed and then released. In a concussive blast, the force of her magical energy boomed from her slicing hand. Exactly as she had wanted, it knocked the wind out of Dmitri and sent him sprawling to the ground. He started t stagger upwards, but that spell wud take a good moment to recover from. 

She grinned. That hadn’t been that hard. But hadn’t there been a third? Calypso’s eyes scanned the area of their battle for the third woman she had seen until she saw her running straight for Alayna. 

[color=e9dd25] “Alayna! Vampire behind you!”[/color] 

[hr]

True enough, the lady vampire dashed up behind Alayna just as Calypso shouted. She was of middling height and had brown eyes, tan skin, and cropped brown hair. As soon as Alayna turned around, she tried to punch her across the face with as much strength as she could muster. Which was a lot. For good measure, she tried to kick her as well.

“Hope you can take a little hit, fire-wielder,” she spat. “I heard witch blood tastes good. Would be a shame to miss the chance to taste it fresh.”

[hr]

Meanwhile, the vampire that David was fighting certainty could take a hit. He hissed in pain as David’s brass knuckles hit his cheek, and he was knocked back a few feet. But the bloody skin it left sealed up in a matter of seconds, and he charged right back into the fight. And he wasn’t pulling his punches. He tried to punch David in the face and then in the stomach. His fists carried a lot more power behind them than David’s did even with the brass knuckles helping, so he would do a lot more damage. After he punched him, he lunged for David’s neck.

[hr]

Outside of the graveyard, the three vampires took notice of Dakota and Iris as soon as they stepped out of the car. From there, they sprung into action. One lunged directly into Iris’s path, clearly intending to attempt to slam her to the ground before being attacked with a faceful of Corvus. It wasn’t enough to keep him down, but it was enough to momentarily confuse him and maybe allow Iris to slip by. Who wouldn’t be confused after being attacked by a wooden bird?

Dakota’s attack, meanwhile, had much more impact. One of the vampires lunged for Arken as he tried to get inside, but her magic Molotov cocktail caught him straight on the head before he could. He screamed in pain, a human sound, and tried to put himself out to no avail. The woman beside him was on fire, too, although to a lesser extent. “Fuck you!” she screamed. Their way through the gate and to their friends was open.

[hr]

Turns out, fire is extremely visible. At least, from the groundskeeper’s standpoint, it was. He was patrolling on the other side of the graveyard when he heard screams, and then a whoosh of fire. Two, in fact. Frantic, he dug out his phone and dialed 911.

“Yes, hello? I’m at the graveyard on the corner of 5th and Dallon… there’s a gang fight going on or something! They set fires, c-come quick!”[/center]