Old Habits Die Hard

I'm not Cell Leader anymore.

I'm not even Voice anymore.

But I'm writing this anyway. Lucky you?

Anyway, after all the business in Tulsa, I had some free time. Which … I naturally used to start muckraking, because I might not remember how to function in normal society anymore. It's your fault. Yes, you.

ANYWAY.

So in my digging around, I find out that one of Houston's City Councilmen is not only pulling funding from the CUT, but he also declared he was going to unveil some big-ass art instillation in the middle of downtown. This immediately set off my 'bad shit' detector … so I figured I'd drop into Houston to give y'all a head's up.

And hell, it's barely been six months since I left, but holy crap have things changed. I mean, meeting in Ash's bar is one thing. But it was kind of weird stumbling across a bunch of new faces. Which is kind of depressing-- as meeting new people (and/or monsters) is nice, I guess, but every new 'recruit' means the Truth is getting that much stronger. Fuck. Oh, and y'all had a mole or something? So, y'know, double-fuck.

Some dude named Simon gave me the third degree as soon as I showed up. I can't fault him, I guess, because paranoia is a fucking virtue in our line of work. Still, I can't help but find this slightly hilarious in retrospect. “OH SHIT, IS THIS COMPLETELY, TOTALLY NORMAL HUMAN IN LEAGUE WITH THE TRUTH!?” Not to mention I've been at this longer than a lot of you sons of bitches, but that's just me getting drunk and belligerent.

I came back clean, by the way.

So yeah. Having made my not-quite-triumphant return, I lent my particular investigative talents to the mole-hunt. In what might have been the easiest investigation I ever did, I verifed Cora, Ethan, and Aiden Black the scary vampire ninja murderhobo were assuredly NOT working for The Truth. Oh, and some new zombie-ghost dude named Hector showed up, and he's not a Servant either.

So yeah. After I vetted some folks, Ash put me in charge of the away team to go chase after Councilman Truthy's art project. Great. Simon gave us all some kind of magical pep talk, and then I set off with Fr. Frank, Scruffy the Bear, Alia the not-bitey werewolf, and Hector the zombie-ghost. Heck of a team.

So yeah. We rolled up on the big thing downtown, and SHIT IS FUCKED. Like, Councilman Truthy Dude wasn't just truthy, he was a straight up Abomination. Like, one of the more gnarly, scary ones I've seen. Only in disguise. So as the 'human' part of him was shaking hands, this big knobbly mask-monster thing was like licking faces and marking people and I honestly don't want to know how the fuck that shit works. We kept track of who the Abomination spirit-face-licked, at least, so that's gonna be something to look into later.

So yeah. We tailed Councilman Abomination for a little while … and when we had our shot, we took it. And not only was the COUNCILMAN an Abomination, he had a smaller, scrappier abomination in his suitcase. After a lot of gunfire and flailing and actual regular fire, we killed them both. So, y'know, go us. It was a little cagey, and Hector and Scruffy both got lit on fire, but we still won. Somebody write us a fucking ballad already.

MEANWHILE, while I was leading a commando monster assault team, shit went down at Ash's joint. As apparently, Jacques or somebody stumbled across some bugs (as in the listening device kind) that had been planted in the walls. Cora did her psychic stuff, and found out that Stain, that vampire dude we rescued awhile back, was the one who planted them.

Stain was the mole.

So, y'know, fuck vampires.

Speaking of vampires, Penny tracked Stain down to some hotel, beat the shit out of him, and drug his ass back to Ash's bar. Interrogations were done, at which point we learned Stain was working for some crazy fuckers called 'The Penitents of Samael' or … something. There's something about an eyeless angel, I think, which has something to do with Apophis' tentacle-baby, I think? At least there were no Japanese schoolgirls involved, but seriously, what the shit. Squid-Frankensteins are the worst.

But yeah. We killed Stain, so that's one less thing to worry about. And apparently Stain was carrying around a little glass ballerina. Just like the kind of glass ballerina we took off of Lester Rothschild before we whacked him awhile back. So this shit's been going on for awhile.

Oh, and we also put together a team to collect the big scary sculpture from downtown. (For the record, Ellen the Sharkgirl is terrifying. Girl can bench press trucks) And, uh … once we pulled it out of the ground, it started going RQ-y … so we broke it … which made the RQ go UP. Oops. I think we may have killed a Believer that got Medusa'd or something. (Are Medusas a thing?) Thankfully, Aiden did his Lex Talionis voodoo to make it less terrible, but still. Watch out for Medusa'd people in the future, I guess?

So … the running theory is, that little glass ballerina is the key to Penitent of Samael HQ. Again, I'm not Cell Leader anymore, but I've got the feeling this is gonna be a nasty, nasty op. So clean your guns, sharpen your knives, and listen to whatever crazy story Simon has to tell you, 'cause it's gonna be rough.

And y'know what the worst part is? I'd probably be locking and loading with you guys next month, if I could.

Be careful.

-New Guy.  

EDITOR'S NOTE: Okay, I admit it, this is a bit late. Blame Sasha. I was kind of busy with the Tulsa business. -New Guy

Hello all, this is Sasha and it's time for a very belated March Houston Accord cell report.  I apologize, as class hasn't been letting up and I've barely had time for work between all the papers and such, let alone accord things.  I just want to let you all know that once finals are done next month, I should hopefully be back up to a better posting schedule, assuming work keeps a normal pace.  This means that whatever happens at meeting this month most likely will be reported late, as finals start on May 3rd.  Ugh, up to my muzzle in papers and it feels like I'm in a school drama.  Anyways, to the report!

I was late this meeting, as I got the email that we were meeting at Ash's place as I was driving to dinner, which is the opposite direction of Ash's place and was out towards the Katy area.  Just a note kids, don't check your email on the freeway, you might almost hit a Red Bull truck too.  So I get there finally after grabbing a burger and am promptly accosted by a puppy before realizing that the mini-freehold is all together again.  Apparently one of the True Fae has become a believer, which is very very very bad and had me in a right panic for a few minutes.  Also our resident paranoid hunter in a wheelchair showed up (who has now been dubbed Wheels by several of the cell) wearing a Trump hat.  There was also an officer meeting going on that since I'm apparently one with the status as Voice that I get to attend that I meandered over to.

In the meeting, there was a proposal that a demon named Waingro (I think that's how it's spelt, stupid name sounds like a fertilizer to me) wanted and I believe there was also a vampire thing going on as well. 

ANOTHER EDITOR'S NOTE: It's Waynegro. 

 As always, please feel free to correct me on these things, my memory can be hazy at times.  Anyways, Waingro wanted us to help him open a hell gate to let him go back home because the cell had gotten some valuable information from him well before I was recruited, and this was his calling in the favor.  We also had a very big threat/thorn in side with a Pure pack, and specifically Broken Maw, their pack leader, that the vampire prince had contacted us about.  It was decided that we would accept the request from the prince, take the locus of the Pure pack that wouldn't be needing it anymore and give it to Waingro in order to open the hell gate.

We split into 2-3 teams, with one dealing with the vampires, one staying at Ash's place to defend the fort (so to speak), and a very combat oriented group to deal with the Pure pack.  In all, the meeting with the vampires went well.  Home front just used the time to shoot the shit and had no real threats happen.  There was recon at the Houston Zoo for the combat team, then the action took place.  The Pure didn't go down without a fight, but the combat team wiped them out mostly, save for a few that escaped into a spiritual realm or some sort of Yu Yu Hakusho stuff.  Some of the combat team pursued them there, but the locus was gotten and delivered to Waingro, who opened the gate and then subsequently was attacked by the Apophis *hiss* thing and got taken to gods knows where.  The team was able to close the gate and the chasers followed the chthulu knockoff to the Bay where they lost it.  Then there was some frantic negotiating with the spirit of finance at JP Morgan Chase and a video hunt for the footage at the Houston Zoo where the pack had been.

In all of this, Wheels had gone out with the combat team.  Apparently he got so scared at the sight of werewolves changing that he shot our Myrmidon in the back, fell out of his chair and kept shooting wildly in the air while Sam (I think that's our Myrmidon's name) was majestically yelling at people.  Wheels apparently was drunk enough to think that hitting one of our own werewolves constituted as hitting one of the Pure weres and that he could brag about it.  He also thought that he was the leader of us changelings in the cell after repeated attempts of us saying no.  Sam caught wind of the bragging and almost smacked him, but Father Frank intervened and calmed both down.  I could almost see the sweatdrop on Father Frank because of how much Wheels reminded him of how he was when he started in the accord.  In all this, I had had enough of Wheels' BS about conspiracy theories and the government being controlled by lizard people (it's not), so I decided to prank him.  I whipped out my laptop, erased his conspiracy bs blog and any cache that it was ever what it was, reregistered the domain and made a little fan page for Pika, the komodo dragon at the Malaysian Zoo.  The page did have a dummy link that lead to a white page that basically said Wheels is a paranoid asshole that I deleted later when I was home sick on Monday.  Most of the annoyed cell members I showed it to got a laugh out of it.  Penny also convinced him to vote for Hillary Clinton.

What ended off the night was a brain/thought scan, as a good amount of leadership think that with all the citadel breeches that's happened recently that we may have a traitor in our midst.  I don't know the results of it, but I'm sure it will come to a head this month.  Also, if Wheels is reading this, no amount of walling yourself in will save you from a changeling who has a knack for hacking, a will to prank, and reflective surfaces.  Expect some Jigglypuff level things.  >:P

YET ANOTHER EDITOR'S NOTE: Sasha, if I find out you're fucking with puny mortals out of some sense of weird-ass whimsical fairy bullshit, I'm going to lace your catnip with iron shavings. -NG 

After Action Report: Operation Tide Turner

F13 doesn't think I should be called New Guy anymore.

I've kind of been doing this Accord thing for a few years now. She says that you guys should call me like “Wise Guy” (which makes me sound like a mobster) or maybe “News Guy” or something. Personally, I prefer the irony in a multi-year veteran of the war for reality still going by “New Guy,” kind of like how the biggest dude in the gang is called “Tiny,” but still. Also, y'know, I'm justifiably paranoid for all sorts of reasons.

Anyway, in case you haven't been paying attention to The Lists, some shit just went down in Tulsa. The local cell leader put up a flare (metaphorically), based on two things. One, that Hathaway guy was doing a rally in town, and two, there was a Research and Applied Technologies (RAT for short) super-underground base thing full of monsters to deal with. Like, RAT has two main branches, one that makes killer robots out of The Black, and the other that does weird combo-monster stuff by stapling two different monsters together. Nasty shit.

Just add more killer robots and insane cultists. 

And so, Operation Tide Turner was kicked off. From Houston, I ran into Cora, Ash, and Kendrick-- as well as a bunch of other operatives from places as far off as Japan. There honestly weren't as many people there as I'd seen in, say, Operation Redemption, but you still had everything from were-cougars (the literal feline kind, not the “your mom is kinda hot” kind), to demons, to changelings, to various wizards, and probably more shit I don't even know about. No vampires, though, 'cause Hathaway's rally was during the daytime. Oh, and some changeling dude thought I was a wizard, which made me laugh so hard beer came out of my nose.

As it happened, I was able to take a break from my SUPER SECRET MISSION-ing, so I swung by Tulsa to help out. And no sooner have I arrived in town, F13 finds me and appoints me as the operation's Myrmidon, because I am responsible and shit. Great.

I got to start Myrmidon-ing right at the start of things, as these two dudes appear out of nowhere and set a microphone down in front of F13. This … goes about as well as one would expect. Thankfully, nobody got shot or bitten or whatever. Turns out these two dudes, Bob and Neil, were a pair of weirdo bullshit-wizards who were refugees from one of those other dimensions. Because, y'know. That's a thing. Still, they were Accordists (even if they were really bad at explaining themselves).

Tits were calmed, and explanations were made. I eventually managed to connect with them as a fellow Journalist (even though I'm more of a Newspaperman at heart), and sat them down in a little corner somewhere and let them, well, report. I explained the whole secure protocols I've got going for this blog, so eventually, they'll send me what they've put together, and I'll post it up here. Building a veritable journalism empire here, man.

So yeah. We then split up into teams-- three to take on the RAT super lab, and another team to go after Hathaway. Given my particular press expertise (along with my general puny mortal squishiness), I went on the Hathaway op, which was led by Selma.

So the ORIGINAL plan was to distract a dude named Dr. Buckley, Hathaway's RQ-pinging advisor, and get Hathaway alone. At which point Selma would do her shapeshifty succubus thing to seduce the guy (while posing as a sexy hispanic male intern). Get it on tape, and boom, scandal/blackmail material. Simple. Easy.

So, Hathaway does his speech, which was TRUTHY AS FUCK. Seriously, dude was going on about the various “Rays” of the church and other bad guy lingo. Hathaway himself still doesn't ping on the RQ-ometer, though, so he's being used as a patsy. I'm pretty sure the bullshit-wizard radio dudes from another dimension recorded said speech-- I'll hopefully post it later, if their sound quality isn't all jacked up. Seriously, once you point them in the right direction, they do good work.

Anyway, during said speech, I notice a twitchy looking guy in the front row. With RQ. And another twitchy looking guy at the other end of the audience. And then I noticed the glint of a rifle scope up in the rafters.

So much for the original plan.

I clue in the other folks, and we moved to intercept. Angel, the were-cougar, and a local out of Tulsa by the name of Detective Henry took out the sniper easy. As for the other two, we managed to keep them away from Hathaway … but we weren't able to keep them from EXPLODING THEMSELVES INTO TEARS. Yeesh.

Naturally, everything went to shit. We immediately went on damage control, and sealed the tears, while another Tulsa local by the name of Lola did some weirdo feelings magic to make the bystanders calm down. Tulsa's cell leader, Martin Dean, also pulled a solid, using his ties as the local Chief of Police to help control the situation. Selma and I did our best to control the media reaction, but with all the phones that were getting pulled out, people are already comparing this to the shit that went down in Vegas last year. Apparently the would-be assassins were some of Langley's weirdo Pilgrim dudes, which … are a thing, I guess?

Speaking of Vegas, once these tears were closed, they left little shiny crystal whatsits, just like they did in Vegas, apparently. Detective Henry had a brilliant surge of insight (being a detective and all) and said that they were somehow, like, Truthy menats. Greeeeat. That's a thing now.

Bob and Neil popped back in a few minutes later, as they'd apparently done some weirdo psychic bullshit to track down Buckley, who was alone in his hotel room. So, I wound up leading Selma, Angel, Detective Henry, and Lola to said hotel to take care of him.

I'd like to say I put together a masterful plan, but it really just boiled down to 'open up the door and go in hot.' I was a little concerned, as Lola's spirit magic mojo detected a vague presence of Death in the room, but for lack of a better plan, we went in anyway.

Buckley went down easy, but the ninja-ghoul guy who appeared out of nowhere managed to chop Angel up pretty bad before we took him down. She got better, though, so there's that. Detective Henry took the lead on the cover-up, and also scooped up a bunch of CUT-y clues, including Buckley's phone, which Henry said she'd turn over to Icarus and The Vault to go all hacker on it.

And we had the easy gig.

I can't give you a play-by-play on the raid on the RAT facility, since I wasn't there. From what I've gathered, it was fucking batshit crazy. Like 'giant robot spiders' and 'zero gravity rooms' and 'naked clones/Alternate Reality Duplicates/Whatevers' of other Accordists, such as Ben the Were-Eagle with the Worst Love Life Ever. F13 got an arm ripped off by an abomination, but … then somebody sewed it back on and she got better? Seems like more of a Frankenstein thing than a Robot thing, but what do I know. I thought there'd be more bolts and shit.

It was a hard fought battle-- and not without casualties, either. There was a guy by the name of Deus, from Puerto Rico, who got himself killed … but he got better. Unfortunately, Arco, the Cell Leader of the Tokyo cell, wasn't so lucky. I never knew the man, but we all know every time one of us dies, The Truth gets a little stronger. Luckily, this goes both ways, so let's see about making Arco's sacrifice worth it.

So yeah. The RAT team hit the big red self destruct button on the evil lab, and blew the whole thing the fuck up. Good for them. I think somebody managed to get some weird Black crystal … thing? More things for The Vault to poke, at the very least.

With our jobs done, an exhausted and bleeding bunch of crazies trailed back to home base, and … well, that was it. It's weird, getting back to a normal routine (well, 'normal' as my life is these days), but that's about all we can do. So keep up the good work, Accordists. Tulsa was a win. Tulsa shows we can, we will, and we must win.

The Truth is out there, and we just kicked it in the balls.