For Those Who Fell by Domoviye

Boston
May 10th, 2010

7-year-old Abigail being taught by her aunt Crystal, alongside her cousin Esmeralda and 3 other cousins, with her 5-year-old sister Clara at a table with the younger kids, her older cousins working on a project. Just what kind of school is this? The story of an Agent Orion in 2003 luring Lamp Lighter to a hive of vampires in Hyde Park. Then the buzzer and orange light go off and everyone is hurried into a safe room hidden behind a bookcase. Very strange school indeed.

A secret escape route to the safe room, Crystal has a pistol to shoot any threats, I wish to know who these kids are related to and what secret organization they are a part of.

The safe room was built just like a vault, with one big metal door they had just come through, and an even larger one that she was told led to the sewers if the monsters or bad people ever managed to take their home.

Bringing children up in this, what kind of organization does that?

But they had to be ready, their home had almost been destroyed over a hundred years ago by shapeshifters, they couldn't take any chances.

Okay, now I wish to know the extent of the number of monsters and types in the Whateley Academy Universe even more now. Teaching their children to do magical wards with drawings, how long have they existed?

She had a tattoo on her temple, hidden under her hair, just like one of the wards. It would protect her from being possessed or having her mind read, she'd had it since she was a baby.

*eyes bug out*

Guns, silver swords, oak, and rowan wood spears, so not like the weres we are used to dealing with who live in the forest near Whateley. Trying not to be scared and staying out of the way, this is heartbreaking to see children having to endure this. Aunt Crystal, Aunt Hana and Uncle Arthur, and Ms. Nancy. Uncle Jerry called them to the banquet hall for a surprise, why did all the hairs on my body just stand on end?

Their home is a maze of hallways and doors, they don't do anything by half-measure. Looks like four brownstone buildings standing side by side, but is actually one, that is massive. Uncle Jerry is Agent Orion, so codenames keep their real identities safe while in public. Father James there and something hidden under a white sheet, oh crud, those are rarely anything good.

Distracting the kids with sweets while the adults talk, smart. Latin words For those who fell. Tattoos to protect Uncle Jerry and make Abigail's eyes water if she looks at them too long, oh boy. *nearly vomits* Grimoire of Baba Yaga, I hope they have a way to contain that thing and its potential influence on others. Van Helsing, double crud, they are the kind to see the outer appearance and not find out if it is an evil monster first before the slaying in most tales.

That Night

Abigail falls asleep listening to stories from her Uncle Jerry. And the Hungry Ghost of Phoenix is back, the last ritual failed to permanently exorcise her. At least 400 years old and powerful from the start, they need big-time help. Killed 6 of them, 3 more permanently sidelined, and talks about not letting her get away with it, I hope this is about protecting people and not just vengeance.

3 different Champions, that many holy people over the years and she keeps coming back. Yeah, they need some holy artifacts a lot stronger than what they have been using at least. Oh boy, Abigail wants to grow up to be that, children shouldn't have to deal with such things. A fear-driven spirit in a children's hospital, those are always nasty. And now Abigail doesn't want to let her uncle down, *sigh*.

Franklin Park Zoo,
May 11th

A monthly field trip and it is taken early, I wonder why. Ah, Abigail's birthday is tomorrow, and they make a big deal out of every child's birthday. Admiring the tigers and thinking they are like her mother, father, and Uncle Jerry's traits combine, ah, youth.

Suppertime

Dang, making me hungry talking about all that food. An offering to the Lares spirit.

Her great grandfather had discovered the spirit a long time ago in Italy, and after finding out it was helpful had brought it back to Boston with him. It was supposed to be one of the last of the Lares still on earth, and now with everyone in the house giving it offerings, it was really strong, just like her family. And it helped keep bad spirits and ghosts out of their house.

Ah, so they aren't like the Helsings in other stories, good to see. Wants to be a fighter, the only way of life she has known with her family. Uncle Jerry is going to start training her next week, this is going to be intense.

May 12th

Abigail woke up for breakfast, but her little sister is still asleep, is this another surprise? The spirit at the hospital was much stronger than they thought, Ms. Nancy is hurt badly, and Uncle Jerry is dead, nooo!

Afternoon

No party, her father comes back beaten up carrying one of the special books Abigail was never to touch or look at.

“I sent it to hell. Not the one it came from either. So it's going to suffer a long time.”

She'd never heard her father talk like that. He was always quiet, almost shy. But the way he had spoken, it sounded... evil.

Okay, I might have jumped the gun too soon about these being the good sort of Helsings, yikes. What a message to tell a little girl who is mourning her uncle's death, driving her to be more like him than ever before.

Boston
April 19th, 2015

Abigail is 13 now and sparing against her Aunt Nancy, who did Nancy marry? Left arm paralyzed and left eye nearly blind, that spirit was very nasty. No missions but trains the kids and has developed some nasty tricks to make up for it, Aunt Nancy is dangerous. Ouch, they don't play around, that was brutal.

Nancy has a year-and-a-half-old son, now who is the father? Rooftop garden and greenhouse, outdoor gym, do they have a swimming pool too?

“You need to remember, you're almost always going to be smaller and weaker than your opponents. Some of them will be able to snap you like a twig. Others will simply out mass you and trying to go blow for blow with them will leave you lying on the floor wondering what the fuck just hit you. You need to be fast, aggressive and clever. Use your size and speed to hit them from an unexpected angle, lure them into traps to whittle them down before hitting them directly, use surprise to get them to drop their guard.”

“OK. Fight smarter, not harder,” she said.

And remember all this in the heat of a fight, or you won't survive against the monsters of the world. Well, that definitely worked to surprise Nancy, Abigail is still a kid at heart to think of that.

Ouch, clean-up duty is one of the worst punishments for kids.

That was why she insisted Nancy be harder on her than her cousins, and it was why she'd accept her punishments without complaint. It was incentive to get better.

Abigail is one strong-willed kid.

Her eyes fell on a pair of goggles and she had a sudden urge to do something. She couldn't really explain it, her fingers twitched and and an idle idea came to mind. Going to the electronics side of the room she pulled out some tools and electronic parts, going more by intuition than having an actual plan.

She manifested and is a gadgeteer or devisor, dang, there go all her plans for a while.

4 hours and didn't even realize it was that long, make a pair of goggles that can see ghosts and spirits, dang. Who is the ghost watching them, is that the original Van Helsing? And Ronald confirms she is a devisor, with how those googles work she has to be.

April 25th, 2015

Abigail can reach out and shake hands with the Lares who protect their home. Her second devise is a pair of gloves that allow you to touch spirits and presumably ghosts, impressive. Nice design, quick recharge, and good battery life for such a devise. A devisor 2 with a focus on spirits and the astral plane, whoa. No MID to keep her gift a secret, and she from being a target, smart with how their family lives. A devise to hear spirits, the Lares has good ideas.

Boston
December 1st, 2015

Explaining and giving out devises to the Midwestern branch of the Van Helsing family, Abigail is in her element. Yikes, everyone wants the goggles, gloves, and earbuds, poor Abigail is going to exhaust herself if she doesn't get a break soon. Compliments like that, I'm surprised Abigail isn't as red as a tomato right now.

Natick Mall, Boston
Afternoon

Aunt Nancy driving, I can see why Abigail is nervous, those busy Boston streets.

She was particularly proud of her coat, she'd designed it herself. It was black leather, with a kevra lining, wards stitched on the inside of the jacket, and had an inbuilt devise that would help deter ghosts or spirits from getting too close to her when activated.

Very nice, the kevra lining will come in handy, I'm sure. A hundred for each devise is not bad for helping out the family.

So that is how they built up their fortune. Go to college to learn about engineering and electronics, smart girl, that will make her devises more stable. Ghost in a clothing store and it is a man, uh oh. Darn it, so many what-ifs are involved and worry about letting it harm someone. The ghost trying to make a teenage girl, 17 or 18, notice him. And by the appearance of the girl he has been haunting her for at least a few days.

Oh god, with the earbuds in, hearing what the ghost is saying, is heartbreaking. A father who died and doesn't even know it trying to talk to his daughter. Abigail handled talking to the ghost very well and got him to agree to leave after he says what he has to. Oh boy, getting Blake to listen to her is going to be rough. Has to tell her all the things happening to her lately, her father haunting her, and if she doesn't see anything with the glasses she can just leave.

Blake can see her father and cries out and Abigail has to take her to a hallway so they can have this heart-to-heart. Dang it, you got me tearing up, so concerned he didn't pick Blake up from school. Abigail did the right thing and helped a father and daughter say goodbye.

Boston
February 13th, 2016

This is full contact combat training, without her jacket I wonder how much damage that knife would have done. Dang, all that and it would have been a draw. Anit-spirit bullets only have a 10 ft. range, still impressive. Thinking if Uncle Jerry had some of her devises he might have survived, ouch. Nice break after all that.

Toronto, Canada
June 5th, 2016

Patrick Van Helsing, Abigail's grandfather, is there for a meeting. Dying before he even reached 70, oof.

Australia, Britain, South Africa, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Argentina, and more

What, do they have branches of the family everywhere in the world? Dutch is the family language, huh. To see him last Christmas and now he is wasting away, is so cruel. Hope for a better world in her heart, nice message to leave her with.

A tingle ran through her body, and she couldn't hold back a small shiver.

Did she feel his spirit leave his body or did something else happen there?

Boston
Morning
June 7th, 2016

Memorial service at each of their regional headquarters, a nice way to remember someone. How does she know those things about the potions, about the mixture, and where is this information coming from? Don't tell me her grandfather has somehow latched onto her and is passing down all his knowledge at once. Way too much information all at once.

That Evening

Drugging her so she would stop screaming, information overload is a horrible thing to experience or witness. The Romani's Cave, Patrin the wizard is the owner. Her eyes are cloudy white, this is bad. An avatar as well with a spirit never before seen, I thought the spirits of humans couldn't be hosted in avatars, what is going on here?

Something new, dedicated to your family. It's stupid, I tried to talk to it and all I got back was a lot of anger and animalistic posturing. It's got secrets it doesn't want to let go of.”

Of crud, her grandfather was hosting this spirit before and now it is in Abigail.

A spirit driving Abigail to accomplish the impossible, double crud. Stupid spirit! Information overload doesn't come close to covering this, if she doesn't get this spirit under control it could cause burnout.

Boston
July 5th

Almost a month later. A silver dagger, a devise that can harm a spirit or ghost, Abigail has made some dangerous tools. 25 one-handed chin-ups in under a minute, just how strong did that spirit make her? Special help with learning how to use her powers and control her spirit, a school close by, yay! She is going to Whateley, she will learn a lot there.

She cut herself off before her brain could start bombarding her with facts and history of the eldritch entities that were buried in the area.

Gah! I don't think even Sara would want to know all that. Wards even better than the Van Helsings, nice to hear a compliment from such esteemed individuals.

Outside Whitman Cottage, Whateley
Evening
September 7th, 2016

Placed in Whitman, a nice place and good people to help her out. And she meets Shisa, so that is the cat who was running with the girl I didn't recognize in the other story and the girl would be Abigail. Using the family name as her codename, nice. So they use Abrabraham Van Helsing and the media about him and let their enemies think they are not a threat because of it, now that is a clever bit of misdirection. And this is how they end up chasing the goblin together.

At first the start of the story I was worried, the title of the story threw me a bit. I thought this was a group of hunters who got in over their heads and Abigail was going to be one of the only survivors early on. But as I read it became clear these are professional and know what they are dealing with, even using school lessons to teach their children. The reveal of the family name got me, I can't believe there are so many Van Helsing branches out there in the WAU.

Abigail is a sweet girl who looked up to her uncle, it was hard to see her lose him like that. But she is a strong-willed girl and determined to honor him and her family, her training shows that. When she manifested I couldn't believe she was a rare type of devisor, then near the end of the story to find out she is an avatar and has a spirit with that kind of information she has to focus just so it won't share it. Her time at Whateley is certainly going to be interesting, especially teaming up with Shisa so early on.

Her devises, I love how she has used them, especially at the mall. You don't have to fight to help save someone, I wonder what other spirits and ghosts she might encounter at Whateley.

And all the details in the story about the wider supernatural world of the WAU, I loved it all. I hope we see more of Abigail in the future.

7-year-old Abigail being taught by her aunt Crystal, alongside her cousin Esmeralda and 3 other cousins, with her 5-year-old sister Clara at a table with the younger kids, her older cousins working on a project. Just what kind of school is this? The story of an Agent Orion in 2003 luring Lamp Lighter to a hive of vampires in Hyde Park. Then the buzzer and orange light go off and everyone is hurried into a safe room hidden behind a bookcase. Very strange school indeed.

A secret escape route to the safe room, Crystal has a pistol to shoot any threats, I wish to know who these kids are related to and what secret organization they are a part of.

The safe room was built just like a vault, with one big metal door they had just come through, and an even larger one that she was told led to the sewers if the monsters or bad people ever managed to take their home.

Bringing children up in this, what kind of organization does that?

I wanted to show that this was not an ordinary family right from the start. They're not a cult, since they do let people leave and come back with their blessing, and the only thing they insist upon is loyalty, but they're close.
The practice emergency isn't that bad. It's just like a fire or school shooter drill you see in regular schools. They just reinforce it a bit better, because seconds could mean the difference between survival and death. 4

Okay, now I wish to know the extent of the number of monsters and types in the Whateley Academy Universe even more now. Teaching their children to do magical wards with drawings, how long have they existed?

She had a tattoo on her temple, hidden under her hair, just like one of the wards. It would protect her from being possessed or having her mind read, she'd had it since she was a baby.

*eyes bug out*

I thought using pictures of wards for little kids to colour in was cute and educational.
The tattoo on the temple came to me as I was writing. What better way to protect themselves and their children from their many enemies then to put the wards right on their skin? You can't lose it except in extraordinary situations. And if you're close enough to have your skin ripped off or burned, you're screwed anyways.

Uncle Jerry called them to the banquet hall for a surprise, why did all the hairs on my body just stand on end?

I think you're a bit paranoid that I'll always try to torture and maim my characters.
It's a reasonable fear, but not in this case.
With the family organization and the family spirit, I was already treading a bit closer to Glyph than I'd have liked. I couldn't have a party end in a blood bath.

Distracting the kids with sweets while the adults talk, smart. Latin words For those who fell. Tattoos to protect Uncle Jerry and make Abigail's eyes water if she looks at them too long, oh boy. *nearly vomits* Grimoire of Baba Yaga, I hope they have a way to contain that thing and its potential influence on others. Van Helsing, double crud, they are the kind to see the outer appearance and not find out if it is an evil monster first before the slaying in most tales.

They do have several well protected vaults, spread around the city. They just like to show off their 'safer' spoils of war sometimes to let everyone know what they're fighting for.
And Rose and I were hoping people would think the Helsing family is a bunch of crazy people. They aren't nice, and can be a bit obsessive, but most of them don't view the world as a simple black and white.

Abigail falls asleep listening to stories from her Uncle Jerry. And the Hungry Ghost of Phoenix is back, the last ritual failed to permanently exorcise her. At least 400 years old and powerful from the start, they need big-time help. Killed 6 of them, 3 more permanently sidelined, and talks about not letting her get away with it, I hope this is about protecting people and not just vengeance.

They do want to protect people, but they are quite vengeful. They just try to be smart about it. If they can't win against a target, or they've gotten what they need and don't have the resources to spare, they'll leave it alone.
But if they cross paths in the future, or the enemy comes after them, the few rules they have get tossed out and they go straight for the throat.

A monthly field trip and it is taken early, I wonder why. Ah, Abigail's birthday is tomorrow, and they make a big deal out of every child's birthday. Admiring the tigers and thinking they are like her mother, father, and Uncle Jerry's traits combine, ah, youth.

I liked this scene.
It shows how Abigail thinks, even at such a young age, and it shows that the Helsing family isn't just about training to fight. They try to let the kids be kids and have fun, even while training them to help in the fight.

An offering to the Lares spirit.

Her great grandfather had discovered the spirit a long time ago in Italy, and after finding out it was helpful had brought it back to Boston with him. It was supposed to be one of the last of the Lares still on earth, and now with everyone in the house giving it offerings, it was really strong, just like her family. And it helped keep bad spirits and ghosts out of their house.

Ah, so they aren't like the Helsings in other stories, good to see. Wants to be a fighter, the only way of life she has known with her family. Uncle Jerry is going to start training her next week, this is going to be intense.

I wanted to avoid going with the more common approach to the Helsings. Rather than a few superhuman warrior types, they are a large family and they aren't all warriors.
Abigail's parents are scholars and the ones who make the wards and tattoos. They'll also do exorcisms on occasion.
The family realizes everyone has their own areas of interest and skill. So they train their children to do something useful, which could be as simple as being a cleaner or an accountant, to studying X class entities and filling vampire coffins with holy water.
So Abigail has plenty of choices, she's just a fighter at heart.

No party, her father comes back beaten up carrying one of the special books Abigail was never to touch or look at.

“I sent it to hell. Not the one it came from either. So it's going to suffer a long time.”

She'd never heard her father talk like that. He was always quiet, almost shy. But the way he had spoken, it sounded... evil.

Okay, I might have jumped the gun too soon about these being the good sort of Helsings, yikes. What a message to tell a little girl who is mourning her uncle's death, driving her to be more like him than ever before.

As I said, the Helsing's are vengeful. They needed to get rid of the spirit to protect people, they didn't need to be nice about doing it.
When he was talking to Abigail, he was just explaining why they fought and why her uncle was willing to risk his life. It's not the nicest message, but he was trying to let her know that her uncle died trying to protect people and that while it was sad, it was necessary.

And remember all this in the heat of a fight, or you won't survive against the monsters of the world. Well, that definitely worked to surprise Nancy, Abigail is still a kid at heart to think of that.

Abigail has learned many nasty tricks from her aunt. BMA class is going to be interesting. She 'cheats' and she has the weapons to make even bricks go 'Ouch!'

Her second devise is a pair of gloves that allow you to touch spirits and presumably ghosts, impressive. Nice design, quick recharge, and good battery life for such a devise. A devisor 2 with a focus on spirits and the astral plane, whoa.

With the direction I'm going with Shisa and Emiko, I needed someone who could make tools that affect spirits. Helsing fit the bill perfectly.

Explaining and giving out devises to the Midwestern branch of the Van Helsing family, Abigail is in her element. Yikes, everyone wants the goggles, gloves, and earbuds, poor Abigail is going to exhaust herself if she doesn't get a break soon. Compliments like that, I'm surprised Abigail isn't as red as a tomato right now.

Her family is making sure she doesn't overwork herself. She did add relaxing at the end of things she needed to do.
They don't want her burning out, so no late nights drinking devisor coffee for her.

Aunt Nancy driving, I can see why Abigail is nervous, those busy Boston streets.

She was particularly proud of her coat, she'd designed it herself. It was black leather, with a kevra lining, wards stitched on the inside of the jacket, and had an inbuilt devise that would help deter ghosts or spirits from getting too close to her when activated.

Very nice, the kevra lining will come in handy, I'm sure. A hundred for each devise is not bad for helping out the family.

I liked the coat as well. I did a search for long womens coats, found one I thought was nice and described it.

Ghost in a clothing store and it is a man, uh oh. Darn it, so many what-ifs are involved and worry about letting it harm someone. The ghost trying to make a teenage girl, 17 or 18, notice him. And by the appearance of the girl he has been haunting her for at least a few days.
...
Blake can see her father and cries out and Abigail has to take her to a hallway so they can have this heart-to-heart. Dang it, you got me tearing up, so concerned he didn't pick Blake up from school. Abigail did the right thing and helped a father and daughter say goodbye.

At first I was going to have Emiko deal with a sad but safe ghost, and Abigail would have the dangerous one. Then I decided to switch it because it would be funnier.
It also helps show that while Abigail will not hesitate to fight, she does take time to think things through and look for better solutions.

This is full contact combat training, without her jacket I wonder how much damage that knife would have done.

It was a practice knife. So dull edges that wouldn't cut, but it will hurt.

Patrick Van Helsing, Abigail's grandfather, is there for a meeting. Dying before he even reached 70, oof.

Australia, Britain, South Africa, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Argentina, and more

What, do they have branches of the family everywhere in the world?

They've been fighting monsters and having lots of children since at least the 1700's. Bringing in outsiders as mercenaries, families and individuals affected by the supernatural, and orphans, they built up a very large clan over the centuries.
But each region only has a few dozen active members at most, and some would only be a single team that keeps an eye on things and calls for help when something big shows up. There will be plenty of allies and non-active family members who could be relied upon for some help though.
They're a scalpel, getting in, making a very precise cut and getting out.
A few teams are more like hammers, dealing with big threats through violence, like Uncle Jerry. Those teams frequently travel around the world to where they're needed.

A spirit driving Abigail to accomplish the impossible, double crud. Stupid spirit! Information overload doesn't come close to covering this, if she doesn't get this spirit under control it could cause burnout.

This was the idea that really made me want to do Helsing. A little close to the White Lady and The Family, so I ran it by Morpheus first, but unique enough to be interesting.
It will give me plenty of ways to screw with Abigail as time goes on.

Almost a month later. A silver dagger, a devise that can harm a spirit or ghost, Abigail has made some dangerous tools. 25 one-handed chin-ups in under a minute, just how strong did that spirit make her?

We'll get exact numbers on things when she reappears again with Emiko and Shisa at Whateley, but her powers aren't exactly a secret.
She's effectively a high level Exemplar 2. So tough but not a brick. Still with her training, she is not to be laughed at.

Wards even better than the Van Helsings, nice to hear a compliment from such esteemed individuals.

I wanted to keep them human, and avoid going towards Mary Sue territory. They're good, but they don't have the natural magic users, ancient sorcerers or extradimensional beings that Whateley does. So when they work with Whateley it's usually because they chased something towards the school, or they have some info Whateley needs in one of their vaults.

Placed in Whitman, a nice place and good people to help her out. And she meets Shisa, so that is the cat who was running with the girl I didn't recognize in the other story and the girl would be Abigail. Using the family name as her codename, nice. So they use Abrabraham Van Helsing and the media about him and let their enemies think they are not a threat because of it, now that is a clever bit of misdirection. And this is how they end up chasing the goblin together.

I wasn't sure about a code name, nothing seemed right. But then I realized she could use Helsing as her code name because people would think she was a joke. And she doesn't think she'll use her code name much. Silly girl.
I threw the goblin in because I needed her to meet Shisa, and a green goblin was funny.

But as I read it became clear these are professional and know what they are dealing with, even using school lessons to teach their children. The reveal of the family name got me, I can't believe there are so many Van Helsing branches out there in the WAU.

While thinking of the idea I tried to put myself in the mindset of a world where evil magical cults existed, ghosts and spirits would possess and kill people, and monsters hid in the shadows.
How would a family dedicated to hunting them react?
Small, tightly knit groups, keeping hidden behind strong wards and walls, acting like a military group, sending out strike teams to attack the enemy, made sense to me.
Making them The Van Helsings, was a nod to the 20th century folklore and media saturation.

Abigail is a sweet girl who looked up to her uncle, it was hard to see her lose him like that. But she is a strong-willed girl and determined to honor him and her family, her training shows that. When she manifested I couldn't believe she was a rare type of devisor, then near the end of the story to find out she is an avatar and has a spirit with that kind of information she has to focus just so it won't share it. Her time at Whateley is certainly going to be interesting, especially teaming up with Shisa so early on.

Her devises, I love how she has used them, especially at the mall. You don't have to fight to help save someone, I wonder what other spirits and ghosts she might encounter at Whateley.

And all the details in the story about the wider supernatural world of the WAU, I loved it all. I hope we see more of Abigail in the future.

Like all my characters I wanted Abigail to be three dimensional. She's a fighter, but she knows that she needs to think before fighting. As a teenager fighting the supernatural, if she doesn't plan things out and look for the best way to defeat an opponent, she'll likely die. Which would suck for her and hurt her family.

Giving her a problem with her spirit gives her a nice problem to overcome that won't take over her story. And when she can finally control it, she's going to be very useful.

More importantly she and Emiko will help give Shisa a role that was missing before. My original plans had fallen through and I was left with a character without a story. Now she has a story. So I'm motivated to write up her origin and get her to Whateley.
Once Shisa arrives, these three, and eventually Pastel and Adventurer (a character I planned several months ago), will each get plenty of face time in the stories. And we'll see more of the non-mutant side of the Whateley world.