[Gwen Sullivan] Time spent at home was becoming an incredibly scarce thing, and that was becoming incredibly suspicious in turn. Gwen used to be something of a homebody, when she wasn't doing sports or working at the dealership, she was something of a homebody, working on her paintings or chilling out with her older brother in the kitchen, which was more a central point in their home than the living or family rooms were. Yet now she hadn't seen her brother since she'd Changed, and her parents she only saw in passing, really. The night before last she'd escorted a Kinfolk home, and last night she'd spent the better part of the evening out in the woods with a wolf-born Get of Fenris, learning from him what she could.
Tonight? Well, she'd started off hanging out with her parents, so that was an improvement, right? She and her mom had put together dinner while Curtis Sullivan closed up the dealership and came home, and they'd had a relatively pleasant dinner together. The topic of Gwen's odd new behaviors didn't even come up once. It was only once everyone seemed settled in for the evening that Gwen had announced she was going out and would be back before morning, had tugged on her hoodie and stepped out onto the streets.
The bus had taken her into Bronzeville, and she'd stepped off with a heavy thunk of her boots on the pavement, jammed her hands into the stomach pocket of her dark brown zip-up hoodie, and started walking.
It wasn't fair to say she was out looking for trouble, because she had no intention of actually getting into any. However, she did want to test her ability to 'see'. She wanted to check for herself, to know if she could notice the things that everyone told her about-- all these shadows containing horrors, these monsters that go bump in alleyways and back rooms at clubs and seedy motel rooms. Because, after all, how was she supposed to stop an enemy if she couldn't even recognize them?
[NRA] There are things that belong in this neighborhood, and there are things that do not belong in this neighborhood.
Across the street, down the way, Gwen Sullivan notices a rotund little man stepping out of a beat up pickup truck. She catches the smell in the air of something that reeks too much of meat to be anything but a fresh kill. Some part of herthinks that it should be hungry, but really, something about it doesn't seem right.
All she knows, when she looks across the way, is a little hillbilly has parked his truck, and out of the passenger seat steps a girl who is probably Gwen's age. Her hair is red. bright red. She has too much makeup on, but she doesn't seem to really care where she is. The girl takes a few steps to look in the back of the truck, but the hilbilly yells something at her.
In her tiny, tiny skirt and tall tall heels she teeters off to follow along. They head off to what looks like an apartment building.
The air stinks.
The night begins with a truck. A hilbilly, and a hooker in over her head.
[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen had only a few phone numbers added to her cell phone directory, a few people that she could call if she was in a tight spot that she could trust to get there, or to at least know what to do and give her directions that could get her out of a supernatural stitch alive.
It was unfortunate that the one whose word she held in heaviest regard these days didn't even seem to know what a cell phone was, let alone have one of his own. It was even more unfortunate that she happened to spot fishy behavior, and that she'd decided for some stupid, godforsaken reason (because she didn't know many others, and none that she would be comfortable enough with to invite out with her) she had decided to come out here alone.
Duty sparked in the back of her mind and the bottom of her chest, and with a bit of a sigh Gwen tugged the hood of her jacket up over her head, concealing the dark brown hair that she had left down tonight, tucked back behind her ears, shadowing the features of her face and making her appear more anonymous. She was, after all, just some figure in a hoodie and jeans whose cuffs fell over her heavy black boots, shoulders hunched up against the chill of the autumn evening. The only thing setting her apart here was the aura of serial killer ruthlessness that swirled in the night air around her. No one would want to fuck with her, no sane or average person at least (but how many of those actually existed anymore?)
A hillbilly, out of place in the heart of Chicago, escorted a young high-heel-staggering girl up to an apartment building, and with them came the strong and distinct smell of a butcher shop, fresh chopped meat, fresh blood and flesh in the air, and her stomach responded accordingly with the kind of confusion that came from living as a human and then learning as a wolf-- a mix of disgust and hunger both.
She clicked her teeth on her lip piercing once, twice, then approached with the kind of gait that suggested she had a destination and it was right past this apartment building, head down like she didn't notice it. It was only last second that she made the turn into the alley beside the building, and only once in the shadows that she gave the building a better look over-- up and down, for fire escapes, side entrances, and around the corner toward the front door.
[Gwen Sullivan] [Dex + Athletics]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[NRA] She gets a look in the window, and the smell of distinct meat and hunting comes from there. She can see inside of the window there, and she peers into the apartment. One light turns on, and the inside of the apartment isn't particularly clean. Well, as far as she can see. It isn't particularly perfect or interesting, but it's well cared for. The walls are a dingy grey, and she can see the top of a particularly familiar red head one story up.
The window is cracked ever so slightly. It smells vaguely of bleach.
Gwen finds the fire escape and clims up it. She has little problem doing so, and finds herself looking inside of the apartment. Gwen can see a rather solid dining room table, and there is a drink sitting on the table. Something about the room just... doesn't look right. It all just seems wrong.
when she gets to the fire escape, the redhead is nowhere to be seen, and there is a loud, harsh thump from the background.
[Gwen Sullivan] Some peeking here, some peeping there, and Gwen finds herself up on the second story platform of the fire escape, crouched down so that only her eyes and the top of her head breech the window sill and looking in through this dusky glass, trying to spy the flaming red hair that she'd seen from ground level less than a minute ago.
None of that, but the window was cracked and the strong smell of fresh blood and meat were wafting out, forced outward perhaps by a heating unit or a fan left on somewhere else in the apartment. She wasn't sure what to make of this, but the room she sees is centered around a solid dining room table with a drink standing alone and unattended on it. She stared at this, squinted as though it would help her see something more, and had her attention snapped back into general focus by the loud 'thump!' that came from just out of sight, in a room that perhaps shared a wall with the one she was looking into.
"Motherfucker...," the curse was breathed out in exasperation more than actually spoken, and again that sense of duty (and discovery both, now) gnawed at her bottom ribs. She hefted a bit of a sigh and leaned back, unzipping her hoodie and sliding it off her arms, leaving her in a black wifebeater with pink text on it declaring 'Fight Like A Girl'. She left it on the fire escape with a sleeve looped through the grating so it didn't blow away if the breeze picked up. Just in case she had to shift, she would then at least have some semblance of clothing to cover herself with when she made her escape.
The window was cracked, which meant it wasn't locked of course, so she stuck her fingers underneath the window and nudged it open, slow and quiet as she can, and when the space was large enough she slid in through it.
[Gwen Sullivan] [Dex + Stealth]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[NRA] She pulls the window up, and Gwen should have been a burglar. She cold have had a lot of success in it. She could have done a lot of great things that were wonderful and illegal, played on that rumor that her parents are addicts loooking for a fix and that she's just as low down and no good as they look like they are. Children can be cruel. They have no... idea...
We aren't talking about children, or her parents, we're talking about the carpet of the apartment... which is missing. Gwen's feet hit concrete that has been scrubbed multiple times. Gwen heads off towards the hallway, and she is completely unattended. She peers into the room on her left, across from the bathroom that reeks of bleach.
There's little stuffed squirrels on the wall, and something that looks almost like leather stretched out on one of the walls. there are things in little sterile jaws and tools and sewing needles and a little ugly cot.
The hilbilly is standing in the room, and our hooker- remember her?- is out cold onthe bed. There's blood on the floor, and there's blood on the pillow. The hilbilly puts a crowbar on the table nearby, and he turns to go to a jar of glass eyes.
He picks out blue ones.
[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen had little trouble lifting the window and slipping inside without a sound. It wasn't necessarily that she was a bad kid and that she snuck out of her house on a frequent basis, because her parents pretty much let her do what she pleased, but she's been in and out of places she shouldn't be, she's had to get away from parties without the cops noticing her and lumping her in with everyone else there.
Not that any of that was particularly important, all that mattered was that she knew how to get into a place without people knowing she was there. Her boots touched concrete floors that she noticed appeared to have been washed multiple times, and she glanced to and fro before moving to the hallway, where the sound had come from. There's a bathroom that smells strongly of bleach, and across from that something that pop culture would refer to as a 'lovely room of death'. Her nose wrinkled as eyes skipped over the walls, then down to the splash of crimson on the floor and pillow at the bed. The squat hillbilly was setting down a crowbar, likely the weapon used on the girl, and was selecting a set of glass eyes from a jar.
Gwen felt something that she would later describe as 'righteous fire' pulse in her limbs and joints, and she slipped back completely out of sight and eased her way out of her clothes, not bothering to care where they landed, too hurried to get out of them to pay mind. Once free of each scrap of clothing, she rolled her head back on her shoulders, took a breath, and pressed the change that was starting to feel less uncomfortable with each shift.
Soft, naked human flesh became clothed in a tawny pelt. Her limbs stretched, her bones grew dense and heavy, and thick cords of muscle wrapped about her body. Black claws lengthened from finger and toe tips, her face pushed out, her eyes went from green-gray to dark amber, and the fur of her face altered from the tawny course of the rest of her pelt to splash white like snow instead. Teeth sprouted, Rage pulsed anxiously, and strength thrummed throughout her veins.
With the change done, she rolled her shoulders, then pushed her way from the cramped hallway into the room, surging and fast, but quiet, intent on getting the jump on this man and overwhelming him right off the bat.
Overkill? Perhaps. But without that she would merely be an unarmed, inexperienced teenage girl insisting he stop with words and weak fists. This was far more certain.
[NRA] [+6 Cletus]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Gwen Sullivan] [+5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[Gwen Sullivan] [Declare: Pin Cletus to wall]
[NRA] Action!
1a: Pick up the crowbar
1b: swing pointy end at Gwen!
[NRA] [Pointie end!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]
[NRA] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Gwen Sullivan] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Gwen Sullivan] [Pin Cletus: Dex + Brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[NRA] [contested strength!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Gwen Sullivan] The werewolf surged into the room, and the first hint that things were just as abnormal as she suspected was the fact that the man didn't shriek, piss himself in fear, and collapse to the floor. Rather he snatched up the crowbar upon spotting the gigantic beast and turned to swing it into her. The pointed end of the weapon bit into the meat of her shoulder, cut skin and started the smallest welling and trickling of blood down through her fur, but was largely unnoticed, ignored.
One massive hand slammed into the man's chest, and with an effort that started at the center of the back and flowed down the rest of the right arm, the man was lifted from the ground and thrown back into the wall, but that hand didn't leave him. Rather, it stayed close to his chest, and hit the wall when he did. Fingers and a thumb circled his arms and pinned them against his sides, his feet dangled off the ground by a few inches, and the head of a monster that was easily the size of his torso.
Black lips curled back, and a garbled snarling sound rolled out off the tongue and through the long, lethal points of her teeth, but was cut off when she realized that English wasn't what she was spitting out, but rather the innate language of her people.
She tried again, and this time it was broken, savage, and barely understandable: "What you."
It was a firm demand for knowledge. What was he physically, what was he doing... it could be either of those, or plenty of any other topics, but his response and whatever she could get out of him with being rendered helpless under the strength and fangs of a monster was what she was more focused on.
The demand was sealed with a growl deep enough to cause the jars he collected to shiver.
[NRA] He can't really do much, and his feet are dangling down- the dingy wall quakes and those little jars all lined up nice and near rattle. It rattles enough thathe can feel the sound of her growl in his chest. His back is against the wall, near the leather something on the wall. He grits his teeth and growls back
What is he?
He certainly doesn't seem afraid, or concerned about what she is-
"Will yew shut the fuck up? Yer gonna wake her up yew dumb cunt!"
He takes a swing at her again with the crowbar.
[Gwen Sullivan] He flicked the crowbar at her again, a feeble attempt to try and strike her, but at most it would scratch. He didn't have mobility of his shoulders or elbows, he couldn't put enough strength into the blow to actually do any damage to the wolf. Already the cut in her arm was stitching closed, the bleeding had come to a stop, nothing more than a scent to mingle in the air with the rest of the stink of meat.
To his words, she answered with a hard snap of her teeth a few short inches from his face with a loud click! sound to drive the point home.
"What her."
And, again.
"What you. Tell now, or die, no more questions."
[NRA] "Fuck you."
[back to inits!]
[Gwen Sullivan] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[NRA] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Gwen Sullivan] [Declare: Bite!]
[NRA] [Kiiiiick!]
[NRA] [boot to the head!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7) [WP]
[NRA] [punt!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Gwen Sullivan] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 4, 8, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Gwen Sullivan] [Bite: Dex + Brawl, -2 diff prone victim]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 3)
[Gwen Sullivan] [Damage: Str + 1 suxx + 1 bite]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Gwen Sullivan] It's becoming evident that Gwen Sullivan, She With No Deed Name, doesn't make threats.
She makes promises.
He spits an insult out and lifts a foot like some flexible freak of nature and plants his boot under her chin, which is answered with a smaller clack of jaws, a snarl, and a forward lurch. Her teeth bit through skin like a steak knife through softened butter, crunched bone as though it were graham cracker and nothing more, and pressed through until teeth met once more. Blood didn't just splash, but it gushed, all down Gwen's throat and chest, and flowing down Cletus's body to rush off the tips of his shoes and pool on the floor.
She pulled back, blood dripping from her teeth and maw, leaving all of Cletus's right shoulder and the better part of his chest and back destroyed.
"Last chance."
[NRA] He screams, and the sound is equal parts agonized and disgusting. his breathing comes in rasping, disgusting breaths, but for his own part he holds his ground. This is what her enemy's blood tastes like, and this is the kind of resisitance that would be admirable in Gaians. As it stood, he was little more than an inconvenience that didn't get the jump on her in time. The little redhead on the bed makes a half-groggy sound and starts to stir.
Cletus says nothing.
[Gwen Sullivan] There's a low growl, something akin to irritation, and a pause. Was it better to keep him alive for interrogation, to know what she actually did, what she'd slain, what she'd stopped in progress? Or was it better to just end him and be rid of another enemy? To establish herself as capable without needing someone to pat her on the back and tell her it's safe to go ahead, that she was making the right choice?
The red-headed girl on the bed groaned, and that prompted the decision.
Again, those jaws lurched open and forward and teeth sliced the air.
[Bite: Dex + Brawl, -2 diff prone victim]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 4 at target 3)
[Gwen Sullivan] [Damage: Str + 3 suxx + 1 bite]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[NRA] The air becomes incredibly quiet, and there's not much in the way of blood. There's not a lot of blood, namely because Gwen just swallowed a good chunk of the guy she just bit into. His eyes are glassy, and he tastes... he tastes terrible. She is just int he room now. With the scalpels and the sutures and the blue glass eyes staring at the ceiling. The crowbar falls to the ground, and has hints of red hair abd greying fur stuck in some of the tongs.
There is silence. It rings in her ears, and is only interrupted by the sound of the hooker rolling over, or stirring, or heels scraping the sheets.
[Gwen Sullivan] The body went limp, the eyes went dull and void of life, and Gwen took a step back, but didn't let go of the body. Her stomach gargled unpleasantly, and she turned her head to the side, sneezed to blow the blood back out of her nostrils and all over the floor, and darted those dark amber eyes over to the tossing and turning young woman on the bed. Her teeth snapped, again in irritation, and the body of the freshly killed man was scooped up close to her chest, cradled with one arm like a large rag doll.
Gwen ducked, made her exit from the room, and only just had the presence of mind to snatch up her clothes in her spare set of claws as she made her way out. There's a pause, a moment of thought and confusion and panic as she realizes she can't fit back out the window.
So, poor Cletus, he's disregarded as anything once human and is merely tossed out the window, where he hits the fire escape with a 'whump!' before falling to the alley ground below. With that done she snapped back into her human skin like she was a rubber band and being in any other body was like she'd been stretched out. Utterly nude, blood-soaked and wild-eyed, the cub climbed out the window, tugged on her pants and threw her hoodie on hastily, not bothering to do any zippers or buttons, tucked her wifebeater and undergarments into her hoodie pocket and tossed her boots down after Cletus's still-warm corpse, then slid down the fire escape ladder as quickly a she could.
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