There's a what in town?! (Arc & Lacey)

It was just a normal day in Death City. People went about doing their every day things. That is, until day turned to night. In a dark, unlit part of town, stood a mysterious edgy figure that you could really on see if you were looking for him. Anyways, he was waiting. Waiting for an opportunity to get some dinner. Soon, an obviously drunk women stepped out of the nearby house and wobbled out onto the street. This was just the opportunity the man was waiting for. He quietly began to follow her and when they got to an abandoned alleyway, the man made his move, his fangs sliding out with a hiss as he plunged them into the woman's wonderfully long, tasty neck. The single movement earned a loud, high-pitched scream from the woman as the mysterious edgy man sucked all the blood from her. Once he was done, he dropped the woman on the ground looked around to make sure no one was around,  and then disappeared into the night. The women was found the next morning. This brings us to where we are today...

Lacey yawned as she switched through the channels on TV. She stopped when she got to the news. Normally she would bypass the news because, well, she upright didn't care, but today was different. Something about a women found dead, all the blood drained out of her. The weapon was curious, and figured that she might as well call Aspen to see if he knew about this yet. She took out her phone and dialed his number.

"Good morning, you've reached Newton 'Aspen' Porter radio, how may I help you today?" Aspen answered in the way that only really Aspen would; with almost no seriousness. Still, he didn't wait for her to answer, knowing full when who it was. He carried on speaking, as if he was the one calling in the first place. "I saw the news just a moment ago, like I usually do in the morning. I like to keep up with the times and all that. Now, I saw whole story about the emaciated woman corpse and though 'Hey, that sounds EXACTLY like what a Kishin Eggs ability might be, we have the MO and we have a woman, or girl as it were, for it to try and get it's grubby little mitts on, that is actually a weapon and we have a meister who sincerely wants to get rid of that sort of creature from his city. What do you say?"

He definitely WAS suggesting to use Lacey as bait.

Used to the way Aspen answered the phone, she just let out a soft sigh as he didn't let her get a word in. "Aspen-" She tried cutting in as he started to go into detail with a plan he for some reason made without her, but it was no use. There was no stopping him. She let out a gasp when she heard the part about her being used as bait. "There's no way in hell I'm gonna use myself as bait! If something were to go wrong, I could get killed!" She screeched, not caring that it might possibly hurt his ears.

"I thought you might say that. Not many people go along with this sort of thing. Wonder why?" Aspen said, acting as if he hadn't just attempted to murder his eardrums. Maybe he thought she might take exception to it enough to do that too, and made some distance between his ear and the phone. "How about we dress me in some chick's clothes and I just go around with you on my shoulder? We could tie a flag to the end of you and pretend I'm some patriot." He rattled off another terrible idea, chuckling at it as he finished. "What do you propose?"

"WONDER WHY?! BECAUSE UNLIKE YOU, MOST PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO PLACE THEMSELVES IN A SITUATION WHERE THEY COULD, OH I DON'T KNOW... DIE!" The weapon screamed into the phone, not caring that her neighbors could hear her. She giggled at the thought of seeing Aspen in girl's clothes though. "As interesting as that would be, this monster doesn't seem to be stupid. I think he would know that you're not actually a girl." She told him bluntly. "Anyways, I hate to say it, but so far it's our only option... I guess I'll be the bait..." She grumbled.

"Hey, that was actually partially a joke, at least try to think of something." Aspen said slightly more seriously, ignoring her insult to his womanly charms. It was kinda a compliment to his manly ones, so he let it slide.

She sighed exasperatedly. "What am I supposed to say Aspen?! How in the world do we outsmart a monster like this?" She took a deep breath. "I mean, we don't even know what kind of monster it is!?!" If both her hands would've been available to use, she would've tossed them into the air exasperatedly.

"Well, it sucks blood, so I'm just going to go on and call it a vampire. Since we don't know, that's as good as anything, right?" Aspen said, back to his less serious tone. "Anyway, we could just prowl the rooftops around the district where that chick got sucked dry and maybe we'll catch them in the act. If not, then I guess you're bait and I get extra responsibilities. Also, I need to procure a crossbow and some silver tipped bolts." He said, chuckling to himself again.

"Alright, so we have a vampire on our hands..." She mumbled, talking more to herself than her meister. "I do like that plan better than putting myself in mortal danger... Using me as bait will just have to be our plan B. I'm fine with that... Well, as fine as you can be with putting yourself in mortal danger." She continued to listen to him. "Where are you gonna get those?" She asked. She didn't really know of any store around in Death City where he could get a crossbow and silver tipped bolts last minute.

"I mean, I'm just calling it that for brevity's sake. Blood sucking murderer Kishin Egg isn't as catchy. I don't exactly know what it is." He said. "And I'm not going to get those. I was joking. I doubt they'd work any better than a Demon Weapon or, you know, a gun." He paused for a bit, making sounds associated usually with wondering about something. "Be cool if it was a vampire, though. We could call ourselves vampire slayers. That'd be neat." He said finally before hanging up.

"Aspen!" She yelled at him. "Can you be serious for once?! It's hard to come up with a plan when you keep joking about it." She scolded him. She shook her head in a what am I going to do with him way. "Seriously? You want it to be a vampire so you can call us vampire slayers?" She sighed. She was going to tell him something else, but he hung up before she could. "He better be on his way over here if he's hanging up on me." She grumbled to herself as she started pacing her living room, trying to think of more to add to the plan.

On the way over to Lacey's place, Aspen had half a mind to pick up some garlic to further mess around with Lacey, but in all honesty he felt like keeping somewhat on her good side. If he made her too angry or at least annoyed, he figured he'd be without a weapon again shortly. Having skipped a trip to the market district, he was knocking on her door fairly promptly.

When she heard him knock on the door, when went over and opened it. "Come in." She told him before walking back into her living room. She then turned to face him. "Alright, are you ready to be serious? We need an actual plan."

Aspen followed her in without a word, sitting himself down as soon as he was in the living room, as if he owned the place. No asking or anything. Still, he shrugged, looking less like fooling around now that he was there in person. "Prowl the streets at night and hope he goes after some chick while we're nearby. Sucks not having soul perception, but we've basically just gotta be lucky. Bait is plan Z. Anything else is better. Even the crossbow thing. Still won't happen."

Still pacing, Lacey nodded. "That sounds good. It would be better if you had soul perception, but there's nothing we can do about that..." She trailed off, trying to think if there's anything else they could do, but came up short. "Seems like those two plans are our only option. And if they both go wrong well... I won't be here to see what happens." She stopped pacing then and shuddered.

"Not necessarily. You could not die and the Egg could still get away." Aspen said, at least trying to be a little comforting. Probably failing, in all honesty.

"Well, yes, but it's a 99.9% chance that I do if it goes wrong, and I'm not too confident about that .1% of my survival." She shuddered once more. "Anyways, we'll just stick with jumping across rooftops looking for him." She told him decisively.

"Hey, now, you can turn into your weapon form whenever. Can't drain metal." Aspen said, crossing his arms and nodding once, as if it really meant anything. "Hey, if you transform so that it is holding you, the rejection reaction itself could be violent enough to kill them. But then, you'd be on the other end of it, so I wouldn't recommend it."

"Well duh, but if I'm being honest, I think I'd be too terrified to do that. Unless I was forced to. She shook her head at the soul rejection. "That wouldn't work well for me either. Sure, I'd get the better end of the deal, but it still wouldn't be comfortable for me either. Besides, I don't want that creep touching me! I'm made of precious metals."

"Oh, no, soul rejection goes both ways." Aspen said, looking like he spoke from experience. "There is no better end." He shook his head as he said that. "Anyway, if you were to transform anyone who knows anything about weapons would be too scared to touch you, just in case that happened."

"Well...Let's just focus on plan A alright? Instead of the ways I could or could not get killed. It's making me feel sick." She told him. In fact she was getting quite pale from thinking of all the ways she could possibly die.

"See, I thought plan A is to just run around the rooftops until we find it." Aspen said, sitting forward. "We don't know exactly what it can do, except for draining people of blood. Planning for the unknown is useless, don't you think?"

Lacey sat down next to him with a sigh. "Then what are we supposed to do Aspen? We can't just sit around all day until night falls."

"No idea. Could train until nighttime, but that would leave us tired." Aspen suggested. "Or we could go see the crime scene. Or, we could just sit around until night falls, not that I want to, either."

That's.... Actually a good idea. I don't know why we didn't think of it sooner!" She exclaimed. "We might not be able to find out much, but going to the scene of crime might actually help. We won't when have to worry about police since we can just tell them we're from the DWMA."