"Oh damn this is so sick!" Lucas Wells laughed as he watched the display on the computer next to his friend.
"Hunh. The whole club burned down...but they didn't find any bodies? Shouldn't there have been a few of them at least?"
"Brand? Hey you there?"
"Reports say...screams came out of the building even before the fires. They must've been attacked then. Lets see...I think it was a Fang Club, right? So how would you attack everyone in the club at once?"
"Brand? Earth to Brand?"
"How? How would someone do that? Couldn't have been a one man job. Think. Think. How would you go about attacking a building full of Vampires all at once before burning them down?"
His fingers danced over the keyboard as he spoke to himself. He researched Vampire Nightclubs for a minute or two until he found the information he wanted. Blood Rains. Blood spraying down from the ceiling onto the vampires and filling up the whole nightclub. Giving everybody a free blood drink and blood drenching before the parties really kicked off.
"That's it." He realized.
"It was the suppression system. Somebody found a way to switch out the blood for...this."
He pulled up his next search: Holy Water. Liquid Vampire Kryptonite. It was known to be like acid to them. Of course actually hitting a vampire with it required insane set up and traps and a little bitty jar wouldn't do it. But what if somebody could rig it up to rain down on unsuspecting party goers?
"Boom. Instant death trap. Except that wasn't the big finish. That was reserved for the fire. I want to say it was explosives but that feels too simple for me. I'm not sure how they did it but the attackers used something to dust the party goers and burn down the nightclub. But why? Who would do that? Are they Hunters? Aren't the Hunters all gone though? I heard there's one in Castle City but that's about it. Hmmmm. No way I can figure this out without more evidence to go on."
"Brand!"
"Huh? Oh hey man. How's the fight?" 'Firebrand' Brandr Cannon asked his friend.
"Are you back on Earth now?"
"Sorry about that. You know how I get when I get in the zone." He looked at the screen.
"So what do you think?"
"Wolfe's gonna win."
"Really? You think so?"
"Yeah. It's obvious from looking at Mars' condition."
Lucas pressed play again.
"Well damn you nailed it. Way to go, Brand." He closed the video. "So what were you looking up?"
"Oh that. Yeah, Club Nightshade in Skytide recently burned down. Get this? It was a Fang Club. They're still trying to figure out what happened but none of them got out. Something bad must've happened there if none of them could escape." He turned back to his computer. "There's no way to tell what exactly happened but my best guess is that Holy Water was involved. Spray it from the ceiling and you could drench everybody at once."
"A vamp club got hit?" He rolled his chair closer and looked at the news report. "Oh shit. Ohhhh shit man. Whoever did that is dead meat for sure."
"Yep. You don't pull stunts like this and walk. If the police don't find them, the vampires will and then it'll be all over. Ah well." He closed out of the site. "I'll do some more research on the case later."
"Still flexing your detective skills?"
"Of course." Brandr adjusted his glasses. "If you can help then you should, am I right?" (I might not have been able to solve my grandfather's disappearance, but that doesn't mean I won't do what I can to figure out other mysteries. I'll find you one day, Grandfather.)
"Speaking the truth man!" Lucas laughed. "That's why you're the local star."
"Just doing what I can to help." Brandr assured him.
Brandr Cannon
Lucas Wells
The two friends exited the library and walked down the hallway. "So. Holy Water? How would you even pull that off?"
"Well, if someone was going to pull that off, they would've done so during the daylight hours. It sounds insane but that's the only way I can imagine someone dousing every vampire at once without being blitzed."
"That's true but that wouldn't burn down the club and if everything was doused with Holy Water it's doubtful that fire would spread so how did that happen? Explosives?"
"Explosives wouldn't burn it down so much as blow it apart. No, I think this was..." Brandr turned his head and looked out the window at the sunlight streaming in. "No, no, it was explosives but not the kind you're thinking of."
"Huh?" Lucas stepped to the window looked outside and then he came to the same conclusion as Lucas. "UV Grandes of course! They were a popular weapon for Hunters back when that was a thing. If the attackers really were Hunters then it's no surprise that they'd have some of those laying around." They resumed walking. "So? any idea who they were?"
"Not a clue but you'd have to be heavily trained to pull this off so there's a good chance it's a paramilitary group. On the one hand I'm sure that the Vampires will get it sorted out. On the other hand though, I'm a bit disappointed that the attackers will probably be disappeared and we likely won't learn their names."
"Why's that disappointing?"
"Well it's kind of hard to solve a mystery if the culprits disappear never to be seen again." Brandr sighed. "It's just the kind of thing that will annoy me."
"Hey man don't let it get to you. These criminal douchebags will be tracked down and get what's coming to them. Just like I'm sure you'll find your Grandfather one day."
"Thanks man but I've been pouring his disappearance and aside from some scorch marks and holes in the road and the ground nobody's found anything. I just have a feeling that something happened on that road that's connected to his disappearance but the trail goes cold there. As far as I've been able to tell he was seen on camera at a few different places around the world but then he just flat out disappeared. He was a scientist what the heck could he have been doing?"
"Hey man don't worry about it. I'm sure he'll be found and it will all turn out okay. But you can't keep this up all the time or you'll just drive yourself crazy and burn yourself out. You'll start feeling depressed and dejected and exhausted and your grades will plummet making you feel worse in a downward spiral until you hit rock bottom. You need to step back and have some fun on occasion to let you brain rest." Lucas reminded him. "Trust me, you'll find the answer one day, but until then you need to balance yourself."
Brandr relaxed and let the tension flow out of him. "You're right. Thanks man."
"Anytime. So what do you want to do now?"
"Hmmmm lets just go out on the bleachers. We still have some free time until Study Hall Hour ends anyway and the fresh air will do me some good."
"Now that's the spirit."
"So lets switch topics to something more fun. If there was an extra four hours to the day what would you do with them?"
"Probably have them spent in school but if that was off the table I'd either study or spend it on CoD: O.D.A."
Call Of Duty Operation Divine Ascension was the latest in the looooong running franchise with an Arcanepunk twist. Skyscrapers, neon lights fueled by magic, magic computers, demon power cells, evil corporations, in a modern/future setting. The storyline itself was a mix of Doom, Wolfenstein, The Division and Syndicate. It was all rather insane and the truth of the story was being trickled down to the player(s) as the game went on. The various DLC's were only complicating things further. CaptainVlogs, a popular vlogger, apparently had to take a break from the game it was so damn confusing! The game itself was fun as hell though especially in Virtual Mode.
"Now that's how you spend an afternoon." Lucas chuckled. "I've given up on understanding the plot and I'm just having fun blasting everything now."
"Honestly that's probably the best way to play it." Brandr admitted. "But I'm a sucker for jigsaw puzzle plots....even if you need a conspiracy web to understand this one."
"You're not putting another one on your ceiling are you?"
"Well not anymore. It got taken down. A shame too. I had a good one going. Now I just keep it to my notebooks."
"Lets face it Brand that's a lot less effort."
"Yeah but there's something fun about doing it that way." He chuckled.
"Hey is it cool if I look at some of your notes later?"
"Sure! I'm working on putting a lot together but I think you'll like it."
"Oh hey there you!"
"Perfect timing! We were looking for you guys."
They looked up to see two solid walls of muscles in letterman jackets and t-shirts and jeans looking down on them.
Kyle Fox and
Oliver Fox. A pair of auburn haired hazel eyed sports jocks athletes on the school football team.
Brandr just smiled. "Oh hey guys how's it going?"
"Going pretty good actually. For everyone. That's why we want to speak with you actually. Jayson needs to have a word with you."
Jayson O'connor was another member of the team and the boss of the Fox Brothers more or less. He wasn't The Captain but he was one of the best players of the team.
"Hmmmm I don't know man our schedule is pretty full."
"If your schedule was full you'd still be in the library, Lucas, come on we just want to talk." Kyle insisted.
"Sure. Where's he at?"
"Outside on the bleachers." Oliver informed them.
"Sure. We were on our way there anyway. Lead the way." Brandr replied casually.
The two friends followed the sports athletes down the hallway, down a flight of stairs and around a corner down a hallway through a series of doors until they reached the outside, walked across the field and to a set of bleachers where Jayson O'Connor was sitting down and waiting for them with a big smile on his face wearing a white t-shirt under a letterman jacket, a tie and a backwards cap on his head. "Brandr Cannon. Just who I wanted to see today."
"Hey Jayson. How's it going?"
"Great. Perfect even. I'm glad you're here, Brand, because this has been a long time coming."
Kyle pushed Brandr forward slightly and he shrugged and walked right up to the sports bro. "Well here I am."
Jayson smiled, hopped up to his feet and hopped down to him and shoved a paper in his face. "Do you see this? Do you see it? Huh, Brand? Do you THIS?!" He asked with a big wide smile and pointed at the score. A big bright red 99% he'd eagerly and happily circled!
"Woah! Is that what I think it is?!" Brandr asked eagerly as he took it from him.
"You bet it is! It's one of Mr. Bradley Renney's AP Neuroscience Exams! 99%!" Jayson laughed like a little kid and jumped up and down whooping and pumping his fist in the air. "Like holy shit man! Those lessons paid off!" He stopped jumping and turned back to them. "Coach says if I can get the rest of my grades up like this I can stay on the team!"
Neuroscience is a fascinating degree, but it is incredibly challenging. As intricate as the human brain is, it makes perfect sense that a subject dedicated to it would be equally complex. As a multidisciplinary degree, Neuroscience involves many very difficult subjects. These include organic chemistry, psychology, mathematics, physics and cognitive science. One of these subjects alone sounds difficult enough, but having to grasp all of them in some capacity while studying neuroscience emphasizes just how tough this degree subject is. You’d essentially be studying everything from aspects of cell, molecular and developmental biology, to neuroanatomy, physiology and pharmacology. Neuroscience is particularly hard to grasp because it mixes the physical and the abstract. There are so many mysteries about the human brain and consciousness that empirical science can’t entirely explain, hence why Neuroscience also includes aspects of philosophy. It gets even more complicated in a world full of the supernatural, superhuman and psionics. So to get such an incredibly high score on such a hard exam, especially with how ruthless Mister Renney could be, after a few tutoring sessions was insanely impressive.
"You should be proud bro. This is very impressive." He commented and handed it back to him.
"Oh man I'm on Cloud freaking 9 right now! We are celebrating tonight guys. We're going to go out and have fun after school now bro! I don't where yet but we'll have fun together and celebrate!"
Brandr and Lucas laughed. "Sure thing guys. Wherever you want to go, we're down."