Oregon: Hot Spring Harbor

Eyes-guh. Those things are awful, seriously. Zealot's eyes forward stentorianly, he shifts his gaze up to her forehead. Mind sending out nothing but a sheer belt of condensed cruelty, Zealot doesn't waver. Arms cross across his chest, and he shakes his head. A brief thought, considered-just a flash. Grab, throw Eastward far enough to meet the sunrise. Could work.

"Prove that you're not a monster? Stand in daylight without burning away. Live without requiring that innocents must die." Fist clenching at his bicep, he stares her down hard. "And even then, you'll still be pathetic."

"So I'm pathetic because I... jeez..." Signal sighed again. There it was again, those lack of words. Signal used her remaining hand to pinch her nose, trying to think of a response. She crossed her legs, trying to relax but not being able to.

And she cried. It was dry sobbing, but it was still crying. There was no way she could answer Zealot without being proven wrong. The stress of everything that happened over the past few days was too much. "And lemme guess," Signal began, "you're gonna tell me to stop crying crocodile tears, right? That beasts can't feel emotions, either, right? Because if it's not 100% human it HAS to be a monster!! Right!?"

And slowly, she descended, miserable with her own existence.

Zealot watches her fall, nothing at all in his eyes; geeze, this guy really is a dick. Descending after her, fists clench as he moves towards her.

"No. I believe that the tears are real; I believe that you're actually crying. You're sad, you're depressed. Everything that's happened has just...been awful for you. You hate the person who did this to you, you hate the world that let this happen to you, you hate yourself because you're a monster now, and you want to hate me, too, because I don't seem to by sympathetic that it happened to you. I don't care how fucked up the past few days have been, for you."

When she hits the ground, he meets her there, slowly walking towards her and kneeling down beside her. "But what you can't seem to understand is that you're incorrect. I do care about you; I care about you more than anyone else currently does, at least. I care about you more than the beast that turned you and left. I care about you more than the other monsters inhabiting the night, because they've left themselves behind and cannot feel true emotions. I care about you more than the humans you prey upon because I don't fear you too much to see you as a pathetic girl trying to scrape something out of this world and ending up a monster." Placing his hand upon her un-torn off shoulder with a sigh, he stares down at her hair.

"I care for all humanity. I love all humanity. But for all I care about you, Signal-you are not human. You are a monster. Do you understand that you are no longer a human? You are beastial?"

The crying stops, reduced to sniffling, and Signal sits up. "I... yeah, I've come to terms with what I am. I don't deny it, that would be... that would be silly." She sighs. "...at the very least, though. Now that I'm... similar to the man who turned me, I... I could use this to gain an advantage. Maybe even the playing field."

A pause. "But I'd need to train. Get far away from civilization. Train until I can be an even match. Even if I have to starve to do so." She sits up, noticing that the pain in her shoulder has already dulled to the feeling of a minor burn. "And... I'd need to rediscover myself. These past few days have been very good in telling me I'm not who I think I am."

A stong pressing on her shoulder, in an attempt to keep her on the ground-a squeeze an-oh god, is he gonna tear off this one, too? No. No, just...a squeeze.

"Animals cannot go without food. They will not willingly starve themselves. You are an animal, now. Your food is now humans. Why do you believe that to be an advantage in saving humans, Signal?"

Letting go of her arm and allowing her to sit up, he sits down next to her, arms splaying themselves out over their legs. "What's your real name?" More of a...demand, than a question, really, but alright.

That... is a good question. "...I'm not sure, really. I wouldn't call it an advantage. Far from it. But..." She never really saw vampires in the sense of purely a "predator;" at best, they could just be "parasites," not quite killing who they need but still needing them for survival. Exactly what Val originally intended with the humans. She shivered at that thought. "I'm positive that even if I couldn't achieve that, there'd be a way to avoid... that."

She looks at Zealot. "My real name? I already told someone so it wouldn't hurt to tell you. It's Lucy. Short for Lucille. Would you like my surname as well?" Signal raised an eyebrow.

"You are an inhuman beast. I can see you as little else than what you are." Looking off into space, he considers the name for a moment-let's it roll around in his mind. "So, I'm going to guess your last name starts with L, too. That's just how names work, apparently.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter whether I have your surname; the only use I've ever had for those was tracking down and killing family members, and I doubt you'd care much for them, anymore." Laying himself down upon the roof and sliding a hand under his head, Zealot shrugs.

"Don't think it's easy, or even possible. Have you ever tried to empathize with a cow? No. You can't-you can feel bad for a cow, but at the end of the day, all it is...is a cow. You're sad that it dies to make a hamburger, but it's still just hamburger meat, when all is said and done. That's how you'll see humans, eventually."

"It does, actually. And..." Signal now looks at Zealot with horror, then keeping note of the statement about 'tracking down and killing family members'. "I do care, very much so! But I needed some alone time. The life of living in 'The Entertainment Capital of the World' was wearing me down. They understood that, thankfully.

"As for that note about empathizing... I'm sure it's possible. What I'm really worried about is..." Signal begins to remember being back in Eagleopolis. Val was willing to drive an exploding truck into City Hall, damning the innocents he's gathered in the process all to get rid of the robot and herself. "...What I'm really worried about is the day that I finally and truly lose sight of who I am. When I throw away what's left of my humanity, what makes me me, all for a little food."

"Oh, yeah. You used to live in Vegas, right? That's where you were trying to take that kid, that time. Vegas didn't have too many superheroes. Nor did it have too many your age. Besides that, you don't even...wear a mask. Hm." Staring at her face for a moment before looking away, he just shrugs.

"Well, I wouldn't worry about it. It's not like you could go back to them now, is it? As for the day you give up your humanity for a little bit of food...well. Today's a good day, isn't it? Or, tell me, have you not killed an innocent person, yet?"

Oh god, he knows about the guy in the labcoat. How could he know?

Fuck.

"Yep. There's only, what, one or two other supers in Vegas? One of them's completely incompetent–before I left I often had to go finish what he starts–and the other... the other went rogue. Now she's a villain. A minor, very ineffective villain, but one all the same." 'She's also my cousin,' Signal thought. She really didn't want to think of her at times like this, but the conversation eventually led to it, kinda. "The goggles were my mask in a way. If I was gonna be saving a large group of people or if I was fighting someone who I know would try to find me, I slipped them on and kicked ass. As for losing myself..."

Signal heaved one more big sigh. There'd probably be no point in hiding it to Zealot.

"I did feed on someone. Innocent, even, though working a lab like that I wouldn't be so sure. ...I had to pull myself back once I'd realize what I did. Probably the last nail in the coffin, so to speak, of my own body betraying me."

A smile overcomes Zealot's lips as he looks at the ground-blonde hair tumbles over his face, and he shakes his head. "That wasn't your body betraying you, Lucy. That was you. That was what you wanted to do at that exact point in time. You were hungry, and so you ate, because you are a monster. Do you understand?"

Moving his hand down to her shoulder and attempting to grab her while standing up, he stares at her mouth, looking for fangs. "You are not a human. You are a monster. Once you have found yourself a reason to kill, it is the one thing in life for which you will never want. You have yours. There is no redemption for monsters. Why should you be given any sort of chance, beast?"

"...it wasn't what I wanted. But I figured, if that hunger got worse, so would whatever I did to satisfy it. If it wasn't one person, it would have been two, or four, or eight... I saw what happened to the man who turned me. He had drank the blood of the girl you whisked away from him. It wasn't a pretty sight."

Now Zealot was in front of her, looking for... oh, that's what he wanted to see. "If you wanted to see them, you could have just asked." She opens her mouth, just a little, to reveal slightly elongated canines; if one only took a quick glance, the difference would be lost on them.

Signal closed her mouth to reply to Zealot: "Everyone deserves redemption. A childish notion in these times, but I do honestly believe that every human has some good in them; the really bad people just have their good side buried deep inside. But for some, being good... is simply not who they are. It's who they can be, though."

"Wasn't what you wanted? Then why...did you do it? People don't do things they don't want to do, Lucy, unless someone else forces them to. Nobody forced you to but yourself-and that's just a lack of will."

Pulling her in closer to his face, he looks her up and down, barely even pausing on her torn off stump of an arm. It'd grow back. "You lack willpower. You lack the ability to become a hero, yourself."

Angling her down and staring into her eyes, he shakes his head. "This is the last time I'm going to look into your eyes; you belong to me, now, Lucy. You are mine, not the other vampire's. And you are going to become a hero." Mind settles clearly onto Vegas-and...well. At least he wasn't bluffing there.

"Do you understand?"

"...y-yeah. Crystal clear. And... I guess it is a lack of will. That's why I wanted to get away from here, though, to prove that." For what seemed to be the sixth time Signal and Zealot lock eyes, and... it's not as intimidating anymore but... "Um, I feel a little awkward the way we're, uh... oh boy..." If vampires could blush, Signal's cheeks would be illuminated right now.

"...So where do we start? On becoming a hero, that is."

Eyes softening just a bit as he realizes she's not going to try to hypnotize her, a grimace enters his face as she complains about the awkwardness of the situation. Pulling her in closer, maddened eyes just further in, face almost touching hers...

"The way we're what?"

If Zealot weren't mentally insane, he'd probably be blushing right now, too. Welp, what're you gonna do?

"We start by asking you what you are. What are you, Lucy?"

"Uh... I'm... I... ah..." Signal looked around with her eyes. Yeah, this was getting waaaay too uncomfortable, but it's pretty hard to say no to a guy like Zealot. (Her mind flashes back to her younger, still-human days when she had been asked out by a boy; it didn't end well for either side.)

"...I'm not a human. Only a beast. A monster, even." Her eyes slowly rolled to the left.

Grip tightens on her as he looks at her, eyes remaining open-fuck, how strong is he? "Stop. Look at me, Lucy. Don't turn away. I don't care if you don't enjoy looking at me, it's integral."

"That was correct. You're a beast-a monster. You prey upon humanity to live. You can accept that, and move on. The moment you attempt to deny that, to say that you are a human without being able to walk unharmed in the sun is the moment that you fail, and that you begin to justify the murder of innocents."

Grip lessening were she to turn back and look at him, he doesn't move an inch. "Now, who do you belong to, and what will you protect? What will you never stop protecting, Lucy?"

Signal looked back at Zealot. Good lord, that was an intense stare Zealot was giving her. "V-very well."

She began to answer the second question, though with a little more faltering: "I... I belong... to you, Zealot. I w-will never... never stop protecting humanity... is that right?"

Oh god, what would happen if she gave the wrong answer? Her left arm twitched.

Eyes close for a moment, and he leans forward, almost touching her forehead with his...before dropping her to the ground. Kneeling down next to her, he nods.

"Correct. Perfect. Say it with more confidence. I need to know you actually mean it."

Alright, she can do that. Signal nods her head.

"I belong to Zealot, and my job is to protect humanity!" She raises her arm in determination before cringing in pain. "Ow, damn phantom limb!" She grabs her right shoulder, wincing in pain.

Moving his hand down to the nub and placing a palm on it, he just shakes his head. "It'll grow back. Don't worry-all you need is...well, blood, I suppose. I used to have quite a bit of it, but I doubt you'd like it very much."

"So, I guess the main question to ask is: Are you hungry? I cannot deny you blood-it would be the equivalent to denying a man bread. I can, however, deny you lives." Hand moves off of her arm, and slides under her, in order to pick her up and begin flying.

"You may be thinking about killing evil human beings for their blood-I assure you that probably won't end well. Same reason you don't go food shopping hungry."

Wait... people DON'T go food shopping hungry?

"...I am a little hungry, actually. And I guess it wouldn't work in the end. I don't think the guards on death row like having their prisoners executed early... but I don't even know how to keep them calm, let alone where to bite. I had to bite five times before I found that man's vein."

Signal, once more, tried to lightly sweep Zealot's mind. Now she got a better image of what was inside, and it was... humanity. It was like looking at an album of stock images of people, doing everyday things and living their lives. But the quality of the images... it looked like someone didn't know how to compress their images without artifacts popping up. There was some other stuff going on behind the images, but it was hard to tell.

Zealot mentioned that she wouldn't like his blood very much. She tried to focus on the smell of his blood, and... just like with the images, there was something wrong about it. She ignored it, though; lingering too long on those sorts of thoughts made her feel more peckish than she wanted to be.

Pushing further into his thoughts would have...odd effects. Short, spoken whispers that have nothing to do with the pictures going through them. Short fla-woah, what the fuck was that? Was...no, couldn't be. It was...nothing. Huh. Even with the difficulty of actually extracting it removed, his blood probably would taste pretty awful.

Not having to worry about her body breaking down from going to fast, his arrival to the blood bank is...fairly quick. Touching down on the roof and looking down, he shrugs. Subtlety is key, in these situations.

So, he slams a hand into the roof and tears a hole open. Good job, Zealot. Moving down into the place with her still in hands, he looks at her for a moment, checking to see if she's still awake. Hm-a thought comes bursting to the forefront of his mind, such that she'd probably be able to make it out amongst the rest of his brain-'Could she survive in space? On Titan? Horrifyingly thick atmosphere, so there'd be no sunlight to worry about. No vampire hunters after her. Easy enough to bring her blood from Earth. Not a permanent stay, just a place to liv-...ah-well, thought for another time.

Signal picked up on those thoughts the moment she could read them. It was something like a whisper, actually. He... wanted to take her to Titan? And bring back blood and everything? That's pretty nic– wait a second Titan is one of Saturn's moons. Wouldn't that kill her!? (And why did he even want to live there?)

...still, if it didn't kill her? Her mind began to wander to more... pleasant thoughts, which had to then be taken out back and shot.

Signal looked around and noticed that, indeed, this was a blood bank. "Ah... this is another option."

Images of Titan now flashed through his mind, all seen from a first person pers-holy shit Titan is fucking pretty.

"Is it? It was the first thing that came to mind. Not sure what you figured the first one to be."

Moving down the stairs until eventually coming to a large door, Zealot simply moves his hand up to the doorknob and-wait, no. He just turns his shoulder to it and walks through. It wasn't even locked. And, now, he's in front of the freezer.