2026-03-18 13:28 - 17:01 PST
After escaping Palazzo Giovanni, Calimastia, Jackal, and Kiryu woke abruptly, accompanied by their savior, Vale. Simon followed behind as Vale tossed the rest in the back of an abandoned limo.
Ernesto Giovanni was dead. The fate of the clan was in flux. The Jackal suggested the Giovanni would fall into disunity, some joining the Anarchs, others joining the Camarilla. Calimastia disagreed.
“You don’t understand the Giovanni if you believe that. All I’ll need is his successor to agree. Then the rest will fall in line.”
Jackal retorted,
“You are a fool if you believe that to be the truth, Hound. There are many who slip through the cracks, even if the Giovanni project a facade of it not being such a possibility. Though perhaps you simply cannot imagine Kindred who desire freedom from their clan, bound to the Pyramid as you are.”
“Perhaps you cannot imagine Kindred who respect loyalty and family, being abandoned and clanless as you are. Regardless, we shall see.”
Simon was incredibly irked by the sectarian debate while a Methuselah walked the streets. He seemed to be the only one having a sane reaction to the night’s events, considering Calimastia and Jackal were debating sectarian theory and theorizing about the apocalypse respectively.
Vale eventually dropped off Calimastia, Sim, and Kiryu. The Jackal remained, though.
Jackal intentionally delays until after the other Camarilla members have departed the vehicle.
“My apologies for the tense words. The turn this night took has left me off balanced. But you and I did good work, o scholar mine. We knocked down an Ancient. Few Kindred can make that claim and still pretend to draw breath.” The Jackal laughs dryly before directing Vale to an intersection. “This is a location of one of my deaddrops. The brick on the second row third from the left is false. You can leave a message behind it. Dislodge that railing to indicate you have left something. Tonight bodes ill. I shall rest, but it appears there is no time to delay our work.”
Having dropped the others off, Vale listens to Jackal quietly. He continues driving circling the intersection a moment before pulling into a parking spot and looks back through the window. Letting the sunroof open to see the stars once more.
“Yes… an ominous night for sure. I now absolutely believe our meeting was fate especially after what we did o Scholar mine. Tell me, do you believe in such a thing? That things in the universe happen in unity with one another to create such a thing as fate? Even small things like our meeting. I do, because as much as I can control there is an infinite amount more I can’t. And yet, here we are, having survived an encounter with one of the Ancients.”
The Jackal pauses for a long moment, eyes turning upward to those stars overhead.
“I do. I am not sure why. I have no memory of any teachings which would give me such a belief. But it is one of the few things which I know. Each human possesses a shard of Unity within them. I believe Kindred to hold these shards, so long as they hold onto their humanity. The potential of this Unity can be realized realize by coming together. Unity grows strong when unified.”
The Jackal stares up to the stars.
“I believe in connection, even if I do not necessarily belong to fate. All were once one in creation. It only makes sense to me that two souls might be drawn together by a shared cause of Unity. We have survived an encounter with the Ancients indeed. Our thread is not yet frayed.”
In the end, the two came to an agreement. Vale would talk with Mazhar, and Jackal would ensure they didn’t die.