Visitors [Owen, Marni]

[Owen DeTerizzi] [nightmares gonna fuck this up?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Owen DeTerizzi]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Owen DeTerizzi] *The moon was full, and Owen was uneasy. Rage and Riddle Me This were poor allies at best. At odds with one another, resentful of shared dislike. So it seemed to Owen that he and the full moon were a volatile compound waiting for a catalyst to trigger an explosion. His teeth are set on edge as he paces the inside of a rusted hangar, firelight fading as a fire smolders to deep red coals. Long hair is tied back from his face, bound in a bandanna. A ragged bookbag bearing the insignia of a Florida college sits in the gravel near the fire, supplies carefully laid out within.

When Marni enters Owen's head jerks around to her and her tiny charge, his eyes flashing strange green in the shadows.*

Sticky Fingers. Are you ready?

[Marni] Was she ready...

Now that was a good question. Ready to find out, ready to know, ready to ensure that the child she'd fought so hard to keep together with his father was known by the spirits and would be spotted should he turn out to be garou, ready to see how her teaching will lean, what she and Ray must be sure the little baby - barely days old - knows throughout his lifetime. It's a heady responsibility, one even more intense, involved, than simply being a parent. Not that being a parent is EVER simple.

There is this though - wee Indy is wrapped up, warm, and snuggled close to her in a sling carrier, nestled against her breast, content and sleeping as she moves. Her rage is something small - yet fierce - but it is also something that Indy has lived with since the moment of his conception. He is content.

For now.

She runs her fingers along the babies back, and nods. "Yeah."

[Owen DeTerizzi] *Owen wasn't much for fiery speeches or long explanations. Instead he gets down to business, nodding gruffly and removing a sac of trail mix from his pack. The mix is tossed around the hanger, theurge concentrating most of his willynilly sprinkling in the corners and along the walls. Next its a jar of peanut butter, smeared on the lower levels of the metal walls. Hurled with a wooden spoon onto rafters. Finally the jar itself set down on its side, as the lanky glasswalker sits beside the coals and lifts a finger to his lips, gesturing Marni do the same in silence. It was now time to summon and wait, summon and wait...*

[Piercing gauntlet - gnosis roll!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Owen DeTerizzi] [Glasswalkers don't FAIL!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7) [WP]

[Marni] She watches, her arms protectively around the baby as she lets Owen get to work. She trusts him, she's made the much clear, and so when he bids her come and sit by his side, she does so.

Indy whimpers, but is easily soothed back to sleep once again as she rocks, and watches. and Waits.

[Gwen Sullivan] Through the silence of summoning, of waiting, of a baby asleep at a breast, there is the faintest creak of a door, something that goes quiet as soon as it starts. A cub, human skinned and average, bland as can be in appearance, is easing her way through the hanger door and closing it gently behind her, careful to be silent, careful not to disturb.

She's wrapped in an overlarge faded blue hoodie, hood up to shadow her features, with licks of mousy brown hair hanging out about the shoulders from underneath. Her hands are in her pockets, boots that ate the cuffs of her jeans quiet and still on the floor. She leans against the wall by the door, eyes wide and alert and watchful.

This was a learning experience, and she was the young come to observe.

[Marni] [changing computers - back in a flash]

[Owen DeTerizzi] *Riddle me This and Marni have visitors. First one, the mousey haired cub Owen had very nearly taken a licking over within 20 minutes of coming to the Sept. Certainly Fenrir, if her snarling mentor had anything to say about it. She creeps in like a student late to class, and Owen's gaze focussed on her hazily. Not all there, this one. His mind already crossing to where his intent lay. Across the velvet curtain.

More visitors arrive, made bold by the silence in the Hangar. Made foolish by the pungent scent of peanut butter clinging to the walls and roof. Their favorite meal - the free kind. The scurry of tiny feet whisper first across the rafters. Streaks of darker shadow streaking long the wooden beams overhead. Then, As the garou in the hanger remain still, the creatures grow bolder. The first rat skitters into the fading firelight to make off with a cashew. Its several minutes before another ventures so near, but soon after that the Hangar is alive with squeaking and squabbling rodents, carousing and gorging in the dark.

Throughout, Owen remains still. Eyes glazing as he calls silently not for rat's children, but for RAT herself. Motionless as an alabaster statue despite the rodents now scurrying over his splayed knees, hissing uncomfortably at the sudden press of rage around them.*

[Summoning rat - TOTEM. wits/rituals + WP (coolheaded spec!)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 7 (Failure at target 7) [WP]

[Owen DeTerizzi] [Oh really Kahseeno? Really? We're doing this again. >.< donchu botch me! 1gn to keep dif at 7]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1

[Owen DeTerizzi] [good. you get here eventually. Whats your mood like? Gnosis!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Marni] Marni is not bothered by the rats, naturally. She sits still, only turning her head away to look at Gwen as she sneaks in and watches. Marni arches a brow, slight, but then returns her attention to Owen, and the gathering horde of Rats.

They dash over her knees, one brave one sniffs at the baby and gets a wiff of diaper, and decides that there are better things to eat. Unlike most mothers - Marni doesn't jerk her baby away, scream about it being unclean, or anything like that. After all, there was a time when she was very sure she would raise Indy in the gutters she grew up in herself - and they would have been just fine, too.

She's a gutter rat - and despite the amount of money her baby daddy makes - she will always be a gutter rat.

[Gwen Sullivan] Rats.

They appear from the very wall that Gwen was leaned up against, it seemed. Bubbled up from the packed dirt under their feet, scurried down support beams from out of the rafters. They manifested from what someone might call nothing, but Gwen now knew better than to. They slipped through the holes in the Gauntlet, summoned by the man she recognized as the one that was new to the Caern when the moon was just right (perfectly wrong) for her and Fire Claws, when they had snarled and gnashed at each other and had a brief reminder of dominance and where she stood with it.

He was drawing in the rats, but they weren't enough. They scurried between her boot heels, rushed toward Owen and Marni and the lump of something wriggling at her chest, but largely ignored the Cub. Owen was pushing for something more, something greater.

Lips pressed tightly together, her teeth nipped at the flesh of her lip, hunting for a piercing that was no longer there out of habit. Still, she watched.

[Owen DeTerizzi] *Not just rats.

RAT.

Though if the cub were expecting something flashy and worthy of David Copperfield with the arrival of the Tribal Spirit, she was in for disappointment. That wasn't how RAT rolled, afterall. Let Falcon enter in a shimmer of gold, resplendent and awe inspiring. Let Uktena twist from the earth to hiss mysterious and unfathomable. Let Grandfather Thunder crash down around them, indomitable and fearsome. Just when it seems to sit in the growing dark any longer is pure folly - RAT makes her entrance. Arrival heralded only by the sudden sense of a Presence.

A fat brown rat stops its chewing on the wooden spoon and sits upright, chittering softly. Owen's voice is a low reverent rumble as he addresses the rat that seems for all intents and purposes, no different than the others.*

Rat Mother. Beside me sits one of your children, and her newly birthed kin. I've laid this meal for your fellows in hopes that you might tell us whether the child is born true or not, and that you might give your blessing to Sticky Fingers and infant.

[Marni] Rat sits up, and Marni snaps her gaze to the fat brown one, making a meal out of a wooden spoon. Her lips curve into a smile, and she lowers her head, her gaze, respectfully. It is more than most get from her, and it is completely without her usual snarky replies. This is her Totem, the presence she follows, the one who's Tribe she calls her own.

She watches as Rat's whiskers flare, as beady black eyes turn toward her and the Bean. She reaches easily to shimmy her shoulder out of the sling, so that it allows her to unwrap the baby from it's depths. She pulls it away from Indy's face. There's something different about Marni as she looks down at her son - something softer, something real, something undefined yet recognized by every person who walks the earth. Having Indy has transformed her - she is all that she was, and now she is more. She is someone's mother. It's a beautiful and precious thing.

And she'd kick your ass for thinking it.

Rat twitches her whiskers, then comes to sniff at Marni, at the baby. Marni doesn't flinch, doesn't hover protectively, but allows Mother Rat full access to her child as she wishes. Mother Rat sniffs and rubs herself against the swaddled newborn, huffs rancid breath in his face, and squeaks when the back startles and squawks a bit in response. Marni waits it out.

Her eyes are for Mama Rat though, and she finds her gaze captured, and held. Marni tips her head to the side, curls sliding along her jaw. She waits, and then reaches down to unwrap the baby further. Indy squrims and whimpers in the cold, but it isn't for long. Mama Rat darts forward and nips the baby in the fleshy part of his thigh.

Indy screams, his little face reddening in his outrage, and Marni waits a moment more, before wrapping her infant back up again, and cradling him close, soothing him at her breast, deftly slipping him under the edge of her layered shirts so that he can nurse.

The totem wriggles it's nose, and then sits up to scent the air, before turning to Owen. Several rats come closer, and then curl up against Marni, one coming to curl up in her lap up against the baby.

Seems the answer is a yes.

[Owen DeTerizzi] Thank you.

*Owen's brows are drawn together in a scowl at the wailing child. Little boy's high pitched scream enough to raise his hackles. The theurge had pushed thoughts of fatherhood far from his head, left then long ago on bloodstained carpet, and the indignant screech Indy makes has him closing one eye against the sound. His head ducks to Mother Rat - or to the rat that used to be, as the Totem's presence fades, leaving the fat brown rodent to scamper off in search of a stray filbert or two.

The infant's screams are still echoing in the Hangar as Owen shoves himself to his feet with a gruff od discomfort, calloused hands out towards the bonegnawer.*

He's been chosen by Gaia. Please give him to me so I can perform the rite.

*Yes. After all that waiting, that wasn't the rite. The rite is yet to come. Still, the Glasswalker doesn't look perturbed, and who knew the labors of ritual better than a theurge?*

[Marni] She blinks. chosen. There's something in her eyes, something conflicting, something that wars within dark brown gaze. Pride, certainly. Confidence, assuredly. And perhaps a Mother's fear, unbidden.

But she nods, and pulls Indy from his sling, wraps him in his blankets, and hands him to Owen.

[Owen DeTerizzi] *Hands so large should never be so gentle. Indy is handled like a Fabergé Egg. Tiny. Precious. Terrifyingly delicate. Marni has seen him like this to a lesser extent, not through a red haze when he was elbow slick in her birth fluid settling a screaming newborn on her chest - but in the tense moments of waiting before delivery, when a tiny orange tree had held every spare moment of his attention.

Indy is tucked against a dull flannel shirt as Riddle Me This sets his phone to reflect an image in a bowl of - yes - bottled "spring" water. Crouching, child set beside the bowl amidst skittering rats, Owen hisses and grabs a handful of ash from beneath the coals, a cheap scalpel drawn from his belt and clicked to sharpness. Glasswalkers eyes glazing once more as Indy waves chubby fists at the gathered rats, and wails his displeasure in spluttering red faced anger.*

[Starting BAPTISM BY FIRE Rite! WP! cha+rit]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Marni] She watches, closely, hovering without moving an inch, chewing on her lower lip as Owen handles her son. She wraps her arms tight around herself, pressing tight against breasts that react to her son cries, milk soaking through her shirt.

She watches, and doesn't interfere, even as her son screams...

[Owen DeTerizzi] *There's a flicker. The barest shimmer of something other than rats and Garou in the dark. The very barest idea of a rat. The hint of a rodent. A kin fetch spirit in attendence. Indy yowls as calloused fingertips streak his face with warm ash. Blackening nose. Eyelids. Ears. Tongue. That barest ghost of a spirit haunting the corners of everyone's vision with each careful touch of soot to the babe.*

Hmm.

*A rumble of consideration, before Owen gestures for Marni's hand. If it is extended, a scalpel kisses across the new mother's thumb whisper quick, blood beading to the surface, gathered quickly on the theurge's own blackened fingers. That done, the ritual with soot is repeated, this time with the wet sheen of blood. Indy squalls anew with all the furious bluster of a healthy baby boy. The fire pops to life suddenly, and the insigna of the BoneGnawers glows like embers amidst soot, everywhere the theurge has touched Marni's child. Marking him. Branding him as what he was and what he would forever be.

Garou. BoneGnawer.

That done, Owen stands up and wipes his hair from his face with a streak of grey across his cheek. Nodding to Marni.*

Its done.

[Gwen Sullivan] The whole while, the cub had been silent against the wall, almost forgettable by how the mute blue of her clothing blended softly into the shadows, while black would make her a silhouette. She's silent, motionless (save for leaning to the side some to get a better view of what Owen was doing when he got a hold of the impossibly small child).

The appearance of Rat had been something to view. Rat didn't acknowledge her much when set to her task, but Gwen had dipped her head respectfully anyways. The screaming of the child didn't cause her to flinch like the Theurge had, nor to press her arms to her chest to stifle the ache that a screaming infant could cause there like the Ragabash. She was still, molars pressed tightly together, and watchful.

Attentive. Learning. No student, she wouldn't try to repeat this, but a guest listening broadening their horizons, a stray hovering in the back of a classroom while a topic that was not within their major was being covered.

There's the smell of blood and trash and milk and ash, and the ember-red glow on the child dies out, as does the tingle of spiritual energy that filled the room like a cloud of static and something... warmer, more green, more brown, less blue, less white. The baby goes back to the woman, and Owen states that it's done. Gwen's gray-green eyes settle on him, eyebrows lifted but invisible in the shadows of her hood, intrigued and curious about what she'd just witnessed.

[Marni] She offers her hand the instant it's asked for, and her fingers hover closer once the cut is made, little more than a hiss at the cut, the blood welling. It's barely even a scratch to be thought twice over, especially when her child is screaming and she wants nothing more than to snatch him up and sooth him.

She waits it out - watching, learning, observing.

And when Owen says it is done, THEN she snatches up her baby, and holds him close, humming softly as she soothes away his distress, and cleans off the residue of ritual from his skin. "See, that wasn't so bad...."

She flashes a smile up at Ow"en. "Thanks..." Only then does she tip her head toward Gwen. "Ya can come closer if ya want."

[Gwen Sullivan] It's this sort of youth, wide-eyed though not as exuberant as one would think such youth should show. She was still school-aged, she should be a junior or a senior in high school by the youthful shape of her face, the size of her eyes, how her curves hadn't completely finished filling in yet under the baggy hoodie and straight-cut jeans.

Still, she doesn't hesitate when invited to come closer. She does so with her hands in her pockets still, leaned forward like she'd never seen an infant up close before, glancing to Marni to be sure that the invitation was more than just two steps closer, to Owen to see how he fared after expelling such spiritual effort, and to the bawling pup that would one day be one of them.

[Marni] (brb - getting the kid from work)

[Owen DeTerizzi] ...

Ew.

*One word. Two Letters. As Owen shakes a half squished dollop of rat-feces off his pants. Scowling at the rats gathered around, searching corners for further treats. He's silent and cool as he collects the rest of his equipment, washing his hand in bottled water before tucking everything carefully away. His backpack slung lazily over his shoulder. Only once his own things have been tended to, and the fire put out, does he divert his attention to the cub and gnawer mama once more. A moment silence before he gestures to the baby.*


Baptism By Fire. Assigning a spirit to make sure the cub is never lost. It'll alert the bonegnawers when his Change is soon to happen. Guide them to him.

[Owen DeTerizzi] [hands are dead. Owen goes to caern heart to recharge and commune with Maelstrom. Tells Gwen should she have questions, contact him another day. Tells Marni Congrats.]

[Marni] She nods, as Gwen hesitates, slightly, and chuckles. "Ya wanna hold him? He ain't to happy right now, but ya can if ya want." She digs in a pocket to pull out a diaper and goes about deftly changing the baby first, as he's quite certainly more stinky than he was before.

She laughs at Owen's two letter disgust and smiles at him "Thanks again, Owen. I owe ya one."

[Gwen Sullivan] "I.. don't know." She admits it with the hoarse kind of honesty that should come with a half-moon's tongue. Her voice is raspy like sandpaper without sounding like she's smoked her vocal box away, something that could turn husky one day when she grew into it a little bit more, learned how to work it just right and hang her eyelids at half-mast. For now, though, they were wide open on her plain (though symmetrical) face under that faded blue hood.

She didn't know, but she held out her hands anyways, awkward. The youngest child with her older brother not having any children of his own yet, she'd never been around small children, let alone held one this tiny, this angry, this delicate.

Owen told her she could talk to him if she had questions regarding what she'd seen, what else she could see, and she accepted this with a nod before switching her attention back to Marni (a complete stranger, or as good as) and the offer to hold something she likely wouldn't get to again. It was a precious chance, she understood, and took it while she had it.

[Marni] Marni chuckles as the cub admits that she doesn't know. "Well, ya honest, that's good. Jus' watch his head, support it, an' you'll be fine."

She watches, closely, even as she sets Indy into the cub's arms, helping Gwen adjust her hold to support him correctly. The adjustment to more rage has him testy, but Gwens is not any thicker than his mothers, and he quiet's soon enough. Marni smiles, and hmms her assurance, her approval.

"His name is Indy. After m'packmate, Indira." The sadness there, mingled with pride, suggests said packmate is no longer around. Then, belatedly. "An' I'm Marni."

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen's hands, despite not knowing where to be, do not shake with uncertainty, fear doesn't once splash over her face or pale her already nigh-colorless eyes. She lets Marni guide her left hand to the back of the infant's neck, cradling it carefully between shoulder and the back of tiny skull, and lays the babe's weight along her right forearm. When Marni lets go, trusting the cub to hold her infant on her own, Gwen pauses, holding the baby out awkwardly from herself, then eases him slowly in to be cradled near her upper stomach. Too low for her to understand how to hold when feeding, that would come one day with nature and maternal instincts (perhaps, if she survived long enough).

Eyes were wide with exploration, mouth set in a straight line, as she looks down at the little pink fellow's face. Marni introduces herself and her infant together, and Gwen glances up toward her with pale green-gray eyes and tugs the corners of her mouth up in a smile of greeting. She didn't seem the naturally smiling sort, but that she tried for it was good at least.

"Gwen. Good to meet you." There's a brief pause, and her tongue and lips and voice work on some pre-trained autopilot that has been ground into her by her mentor. "Philodox Cub, no name or deeds yet, student of Fire Claws, who's Forseti of the Get of Fenris." She had no breeding to her, no physical or genetic or even spiritual suggestions to where she might have come from originally-- apparently this rite hadn't been done on her, it left no traces, they would be lingering on a face so fresh as hers to the Change.

"...I'd figured it would have been after Indiana Jones." Again with that bald honesty, no lick of humor there. The kid might hear the joke a thousand plus times in his life, but this wasn't meant to jest. "Naming after a packmate... That's good. Sounds noble."

[Marni] She nods at the introduction, then laughs easily with the joke. Marni's lips curve easily into smiles, and she laughs just as freely. Whereas Gwen doesn't do so often, it seems, the Raggie is far easier read, far easier going. It doesn't make her dislike the other girl at all, just simple observation.

"She died." Noble, and done in loving memory. "He ain't got a middle name yet - Ray, my baby daddy, is still deciding. Lettin' him choose since I insisted on Indy, boy or girl."

She shrugs, slightly. No breeding in this one, either, obviously. Ray didn't have any either - and as a direct result, neither does little Indy. He'll be able to blend in just as easily as his mother, as his Tribe. "Been around long?"

[Gwen Sullivan] "Since September."

She'd been in town longer than some of the newer faces that have blown in have been, but when she said 'around' that encompassed everything, from First Change to having her eyes opened to the dark realities of the world she'd grown up in. September was when the curtains were drawn back and the monsters behind them were shown gnashing their teeth and sharpening their claws and blades, anxious for the fight that was nestled in her ribcage like this newly stoked flame that she wasn't sure would ever go out.

It felt pretty damn mighty tonight. She was curious as to how the infant was tolerating it when grown men shrank from her on the street.

Little Indy was lifted higher, above her chest and the meager swell there that was modest to begin with, shrouded by the size of her hoodie. Her head ducked down, nose settled near the fuzz on top of the tiny infant's head, and she breathed his scent. This young, this fresh, and already the Wolf was strong with her. It came from having a Lupus mentor, spending so much time with him, in fur and on four legs. "Very small," she says, then comes closer to hand the baby back to his mother. As she does, she lifts her eyes to Marni.

"I bet she'd be honored." As far as Indira and how her name traveled goes.

[Marni] She watches Gwen, though it is not a hovering move - not like some. She's not dancing and uneasy and ready to dive to snatch back her baby. She simply watches, trusting this young stranger with the life of her young.

Others will not be so lucky.

She takes the baby back when he's offered, and wraps him up expertly in his blankets, then into his sling, adjusting it so that she can nurse the infant in relative private, and continue her conversation at the same time. He's a week old, and she's already a pro - a natural.

"He is." Small, that is. "Ya rage ain't so much more than mine, an' he's been nestled right up against mine from th'inside for months now. Others, they make him a bit more uncomfortable, an' he frets, but for now, he ain't too upset about those of us with lower levels." She answers the question that was unasked, as it's something that almost surprised her too. Ray expected it, though. He does so love it when he's right...

Indira would be honored - and Marni smiles, softly. "She would. She adored Ray, an' was thrilled when we got t'messin around. She'd have loved t'see this one, an' I'm sure he'll live t'make 'er proud."

[Gwen Sullivan] She watches the baby go back into the sling, quietly amazed by how easily and confidently Marni handled him when the slightest slip of how well you were holding his head could be the end of him. Yet he soldiered against Rage, let a Monster like Gwen hold him, and was quiet and happy half-tucked into his mother's shirt to find a nipple and fall asleep at it. Gwen sniffed some, rubbed her nose with the crook of her index finger, then shoved her hands back into her pockets, straightened her posture, and looked up to Marni's face.

"I suppose that makes sense." As far as Rage goes. She'd never bothered to ask about breeding, about what happened when a Garou had an infant rather than a Kin. She had so much more on her plate than worrying about repopulating the Nation and finding a Kin-- especially when so few of them seemed to be of the masculine persuasion. It was a side-note, a hunt that she might focus on more once she'd found a Name, a Tribe, a Pack, and a Territory.

"..Ray?" And her hand shoots up immediately to precisely where the top of Ray's head would be if he were standing beside them. "Is he up to here, with dark hair, a strong jaw, and a suit worth a mortgage payment?"

[Marni] Once young Indy is comfortable, she settles comfortably herself, rocking slightly side to side, her movements those of mother's everywhere - things ingrained so deeply she doesn't even realize she does it. She reaches up to scratch at the back of her neck and then laughs outright.

"Yeah, sounds like him. S'my BabyDaddy" A beat, and an unrepentant grin for using the slang first. "and Mate. We met when Indira an' me stole his iPhone."

[Gwen Sullivan] "Wouldn't have guessed," she says blandly, quietly in that soft rasp of a voice. Her hand returns to her pocket once identity is confirmed, Marni agreeing with the very basic description of the picture saved in her head of the man. She could describe the pattern of the tie he'd worn on both occasions she'd run into him, give the width of his shoulders and hips, remember how it was strange that salt didn't stain the shine of his shoes, and precisely how his smile set on his face. Not because she cared to pay more attention to him than to anyone else, but because that was the way her mind worked.

In a month she would remember the precise length of Marni's hair, even with the kinking curls throughout it. She would remember the wet splashes of milk on her shirt, the type of pants she was wearing, and where the ash had been smudged from Indy's skin to hers. Everything, every detail, logged away and available for access whenever she needed, or whenever it bubbled up on its own accord.

"...I thought that the Kinwomen were responsible for babies," she mused outloud, expression a curiosity that had been in the back of her mind since meeting the Jarl and noticing the swell to her abdomen. "Because they were off the front lines."

[Marni] She arches a brow, slightly, then chuckles. "We're jus' as capable of gettin knocked up, an' breedin true as any Kin too. Ain't no slight t'gettin pregnant. This lil guy, though a surprise, was totally worth givin up the ability t'change for the last few months."

She shrugs, slightly. "These days, even th'kin are on th'front lines. We're dyin out faster than we can raise th'next generations. Indy here'll likely be raised primarily by his father an' other kin, because I gotta keep to m'duty. But ain't it our duty, too, t'birth those that'll take our place?"

[Gwen Sullivan] She nodded her head in agreement, tugging at bits of lint and loose threads in her hoodie pockets while glancing away from Marni and Indy to the smoldering flames that the ritual had taken place around. She sniffed once, against the effects of cold on even a healthy nose, and the sound echoed in the big empty hangar.

"Of course. Everyone has to do their part, and you and Ray have done yours in that respect." There's a pause, one that lingers, before she voices her next concern in a way that's not quite a question but is open enough for response at the end anyways. "The Red Star, though, is still there. I hear it's a sign of the End, that the next generation might not be relevant."

Another pause, and she sucks at her tooth like there's something stuck in the crack between tooth and gum, then presses on with that thought process. "It wouldn't matter either way, though, as far as Duty and Law are concerned. If you let them slack because of a fear or a theory, then that's enough leeway for other laws to go crumbling as well. Then we're all nothing but Monsters after that."

[Marni] She nods, slightly. "Yeah, sometimes, it seems a bit futile, what we do - but we do our Duty, an' respect our laws, and all that shit, just as our folks before us, an' hopefully ones like this lil guy after us."

Her lips curl into a lopsided little grin. "Ya kin tell ya a Philodox, already. Jus' the way ya thinkin it through. Not all of'em do that. My unasked for advice - remember there's always more than one way t'skin a cat, t'see a law, t'judge a Sept Mate. Ya remember that, an seek through all sides, an' ya'll do just fine."

Then she grins. "Not that my opinion means jack shit."

[Gwen Sullivan] Marni said her opinion didn't mean much, but she slipped it in anyways. That brought the cub's eyes back to her face. Gwen's expression didn't soften much to answer the grin, but it didn't seem very hard in the first place. She wasn't aggressive or angry, she wasn't distant like a Theurge who's dappling persistently in the Other World would be. She's simply... focused. Focused and determined. There doesn't seem to be much relaxing in her, the way she stands is alert and respectful rather than slouched like the average teenager's would be. Her boots, heavy black things, are a steady distance apart from one another, and her shoulders are back and squared.

"You've got a Name, a Rank, and now a child. You've seen a lot more than I have, and all of that makes your words well worth listening to." Another sniff, this one smaller. "But I will try to do that, to hear everything in order to find the purest truth."

Yet another pause, a scuff of her boot on the packed dirt floor, and Gwen nodded her head toward the hangar door. "I don't know if you'll hang around now that his baptism is done--" she called it a baptism because she didn't know what it actually was, but that's certainly what it could be likened to, "-- but I was gonna go ahead and put that fire out if you're done with it and go back to my paces... I'm sure Fire Claws wouldn't appreciate slacking."

Those Get of Fenris are harsh on their cubs, Marni had probably heard, would probably know. No better way to whip them into the shape that Great Fenris demanded of them, after all.

[Marni] She nods, slightly, and stretches, adjusting young Indy in his sling, now that he's asleep, and readying herself to go. "I should get back anyway, tell Ray th'news."

She didn't say good news, just news. A small thing, but likely an easy reason behind it. She wishes what all mothers wish for their children - a long fruitful life, filled with everything they desire. What she's learned here tonight, suggests that her son will follow her own footsteps, rather than his father's. This lowers the life expectancy considerably - As if being one of Rat's wasn't hard enough. The little guy has a long, hard road ahead of him, for sure.

"Have a good one, Gwen. Ya need anythin' give a yell."

[Gwen Sullivan] It would be a hard road for certain, but it would be Dutiful, Purposeful, and chock full of honor and glory and adventure and tales to pass on for generations to come. If all went well and the time was given, anyways.

Marni nods and agrees that she should go tell Ray the news, and Gwen offers another smile, this one a bit softer and easier than the initial one she'd put on for greeting. Her hand showed itself again, this time to wave farewell.

"Of course. You too. Thank you."

And she'd watch for Marni to exit the hangar. From there she'd work to kick dirt up onto the fire until it was extinguished, stamp it out and stir up the ashes with her boots, and from there continue her rounds with the Guardians.

Stand Down, Soldier [ST'd by Harv; Fire Claws, Joey, Hunter]

[Consumption] Another Patrol night.
The sort of thing that can become monotonous in the everyday lifestyles of a Sept serving Garou. Yet for every evening that goes by uneventful and placating of the senses, another crops up that could potentially spell disaster. Not that there is much comfort in a quiet and restful night, what with Rage slumbering fitfully beneath the breast of each. A telltale heart of reckoning and voice that begs at something to unleash upon. In the wildnerness, a simple hunt may well have sated the need, an offering to the beast within to keep itself pure and settled.
Yet within the cityscape, it is more. A necessary function. A pressure release and steam valve that eases the constant push and draw of the cyclically disturbed moors and avenues of the Concrete. The City was a Monster, a Leviathan in and of itself and when playing host to the Monsters in gaia's charge, held endless sport for them to pit their Rage against, all the while quietly whispering at the Spirit and Soul to die a little more with each passing day.
Hope wastes plenty in the airs of misery and drudgery.
The Four are among the Caern numbers sent out into the cityscape. The feral winter that had blasted the streets no few nights back has finally broken, it's spine snapped and strength sapped and streets cleared to present the broken ice and slush puddles of a common night's end. The Crowds and numbers are minimal on this a Monday evening, while the plentiful promise of what Mortal's call Valentines has kept most inside; For celebration, jealous and protective, of Love or the more plentifully harrowing taste of the lonesome.
For these reasons enough, but not these alone, the Garou sent North-west of the Caern, have been promised a quiet night. A restful one.
The streets are without much presence, beyond the occasional body rushing for a store that was still opening and mayhaps containing that box of emergency chocolates for a forgetful mind.
Intersections flashed reds, ambers and greens for traffic that was sluggish and slight.
The refuse of a Ghetto neighbourhood's edge, nothing but dive bars, parking lots, and closed down shops, is commonplace in this region, as are the distinct collapse of suggested Retail and Leased buildings that have been on the market for ages and ever. Industry had failed in these streets. So had consumerism. Now all that was left was survival. Survival and cruelty for entertainment.

[Gwen Sullivan] People might mark the day on their calendars and think in tones of pink and red. They wrap themselves up in making that last-minute reservation at a decently nice restaurant, worry about that bouquet showing up at their loved one's workplace, fight crowds for chocolates before somebody gets home, light candles in the bedroom and put oils in the tub.

For everyone else, it was another day. No matter what anyone might think, the city still manifested in tones of gray.

The night was ample with opportunity for the Banes to feed-- on lust, on passions, of jealousies and rages and selfishness. Holidays with good intent often dragged with them more harm than anything else. Gwen and Fire Claws had been going about their typical business, not just memorizing Law but ingraining it, pressing the cub to be strong and swift and tough in ways encompassing but not solely involving the physical. She slept well at night because she was rarely left with the energy in her at the end of the day to do anything but.

The chance for off-grounds lessons arose, and the teacher and student, along with a pair of others, made progress through the northwestern streets, past bars and crumbling parking lots and 'For Lease' signs in dusty, smokey windows. Gwen was wrapped up in a too-large dark blue hoodie, zipped to her throat, bulky not with womanhood or muscle underneath but rather with the extra sweater she'd insulated with underneath. Jeans were faded but sturdy, tucked into black boots. Her hair was pinned out of her face, hood up, face clean of make-up. Expression parked at neutral, but gray-green eyes alert and searching the ground they walked, the nooks and crannies of the alleys they passed.

If nothing more, Gwen had before proven herself to be an excellent alert.

[Killswitch] Joey doesn't think any night will end uneventfully. There is always something, some little or big thing that changes the tempo and color of a day. But allowing oneself to be lulled into a sense of complacency, to imagine that the quietude of this evening means they can relax invites misfortune. It dulls the senses. And for a Rotagar, the elder of her Auspice no less, such dullness is simply unacceptable.

So she and Hunter are on patrol of land far to the north of their own territory. They travel past the broken down shopfronts, the worn to the ground retail buildings. Joey's steps are lighter than Hunter's, and it's not just a difference of size. It's a difference of spirit. To the Beta of Defiance, Valentine's is just another day. She shopped for things for the warehouse and for the vehicles in the stable. She roamed the city as she always does. She reported to the Caern for guard duty with Hunter. One could almost call it monotonous, except for the little and big things that can make the world turn on a dime.

Joey walks at Hunter's side, a tall, lithe athlete clad mostly in black and dark colors. Tonight, no scarf adorns her throat; there is nothing to hide the terrible scars there. Her movements are easy, her gait rolling, but her eyes dart hither and yon, alert. Attentive.

[Fire Claws] The world of the mortals marked this day as one of love and companionship, where people buy their significant others flowers or chocolates. Others find escape through dining together and enjoying some activities that couples enjoy. What is Fire Claws doing on a day of such joy and love? Brow beating his little ward into making the litany apart of herself. He had taken notice of her improvement, a long with others. He had taken note of the little cubs weaknesses and what needed to be improved upon.

However even with a ward, the duties to Sept and Caern are more important. One cannot avoid the duties when they are handed over to you by the warder or other sept elders. When directed on the hunt, he would oblige. Whatever was needed of them, he would make sure it was done, and that the pup would have her hand in it.

[Burnout] Hunter is there, eyes slightly less alert than his Rotagar Beta's, his mind is elsewhere and she knows this. It makes her extra alert, extra cautious and he doesn't have to tell her to be this way. He has his dark mahogany leather coat, black jeans, black t-shirt. The Defiance are strangely bereft of winter clothing tonight, no scarves, no furred hoods, they seem comfortable.

Gwen is with them for some reason, Hunter didn't question, merely shrugged and went on his way. Fire-claws is there to look after her, apparently he is her mentor and the Ahroun leaves it to the Forseti to take care of the pup.

A grunt from the Gnawer, a rumbling of dislike for this mission.

"Remind me why we're out here again JoJo, could'a got in about ten fuckin' fights in bronze by now."

[Consumption] The Law of Convergence or the Wisdom of Elders:

Hunter's query is answered with something abrupt, not unlike the strike of a lightning bolt or the clap of a first thundering. The quartet or on their runs through the concrete landscape, the umbral domain no doubt covered by another group of like-minded Cliaths still learning the delicate arts and patience of what the Guardians do. How they have done what they do for years without complain or question.

The air seems to hum then still. An odd convergence of quiet, drifting in from all sides and areas, with nothing but the slow click of a set of Traffic lights moving from one colour to the next and their own footfalls accompanying them. It is almost unheard of for such moments inside a City, where the belch of progress thrums through everything.

It is a moment. Simply that. A brief reprieve that illuminates the Gibbous Moon above their heads...

...And the night's potential Turn of the coin:

"...I recommend you step back, Old Man."

They are dressed for a night off. Army, navy, air force, something of a military promise for a mortal infrastructure. What specifically, might well go over the heads of those present but their sand brown uniforms are immaculate and pristine. Each bares the hair cut of a fresh buzzed or scalp shaven recruit. Some are flexing jaws and veins, while others wrap fingers into palms to form fists.
They stand just inside the fenced off parking lot half a block west, of a shitty little Dive bar. Two cars, and a clunker are tucked up against the back fence, while the grates inside the parking lot spew coils of faint white fog from somewhere in the sewers below.

They seem out of sorts. Vaguely tipsy. Celebratory airs of the night gone to momentary waste, peering at the figure before them:

It's wrapped in the thick blankets and shawls of something fresh out of an alleyway. Tall, perhaps Hunter's Height and bulky, back to the street and sidewalk and wide enough to block the entrance suggestively. The feet shuffle forward a few inches at a time, while the vague stench of...rotting vegetables and curdling milk touches the air.

It forces the noses of several of the grunts up, hands wiping beneath nostrils.

"Why don't you just step back and go 'bout your business, huh?" From one.
"We will fuck you up, old man." From another.
"Eager isn't he?" One of them chuckles slightly at his fellows, the bomber jacket and Aviator's he's wearing gifting him a level of bravado and confidence that seems put on. Probably the point of them though.

[Gwen Sullivan] The cub's eyes skip away from the streets up ahead, the neon signs and the shadows they cut sharply into the pavement and brick around them, and instead fall on Hunter's profile. She doesn't scowl or turn her nose up at him, but merely comments like she would if she were asked what time it was:

"Maybe it's not a fight we're looking for, but something bigger and more important." A pause, not for thought but to show punctuation. "Whatever it is, our uppers asked us out here, not in Bronze." It was obvious, plain and vast as the clouds that broke only every so often to shine the almost harsh light of the nigh-full moon above. Because this was Duty, and that was all there was to it.

First comes the sight of the uniformed men talking into the folds of shawls and blankets of some hulking figure standing before the bar door, perhaps barring the way in (or out). Second comes the smell, like a sink if no one has run the garbage disposal in the past few weeks. Third, the words. These young men were drunk, full of themselves and the power that the military they'd joined into backed them with.

Her hands moved out of her hoodie pockets, her shoulders tightened. Not for the excitement of some young kids beating up some sloppy character, but because the smell was so strong, so out of place, because the figure was so large, that when these two elements went hand in hand things just felt Not Right.

She would not move first, though, that wasn't her place (yet).

[Gwen Sullivan] (( correction: standing before the path into the parking lot^^ ))

[Killswitch] "Did they?" Joey asks Gwen, angling her head slightly, the corner of her mouth turned up in a grin. The question is rhetorical, is asked more to forestall reaction from her Alpha than to make a point to the cub. He's distracted, and the moon is full. A very dangerous combination, indeed.

Joey nudges Hunter in the arm. They're close enough to smell the perfume of rotted vegetation. The reactions of the militants tells her it's not coming from a full dumpster.

"That look weird to you?" A nod of her head to the humanoid swathed in blankets.

[Fire Claws] There were issues that both he and others saw in the little pup. Something that he did not like, something that had earned Gwen countless verbal and physical assaults for. Weaknesses that he would not abide in the what could one day be another forseti. Something that beating did not seem to drive out, something that tongue lashings could not bleed away. Something that had to be carved out with Gwen's own hand, pulled forth from the hole it has burrowed into her.

Testing by fire would allow her such rare opportunities to work on these weaknesses, opportunities that he cannot provide solely.

However when the little pup starts to talk up as if she was even addressed in any manner, that causes him to turn on her. Rough hands gripping at her arm like a officer would a cuffed fugitive who was being belligerent. Dark eyes stare, wordless reprimand of the cub talking out of place. Even if it was a bone gwaner she had just addressed like that.

If this was some training exercise, some controlled environment. It would most likely invoke a response from the normally outspoken cub. But off-grounds training was different. His glare different. It was all very different from training at the caern. But soon enough his glare was pulled away from the teenage girl to the strange smell that waifed through the air. His eyes turning to the direction his nose pointed him on, a strange smell of.... decaying produce. Something he didn't often find singled out in the city, even in the worse areas.

His natural instinct pulling at him, even in this form, to forgo what he saw and look to what he smelled. Weak as it was in this form, the spirits more than made up for that.

[Heightened Senses Active, -1G]

[Burnout] His head turns, his stance and the tilt of his head gives the impression of a thoughtful predator. His eyes tell a different story though, Rage, distraction, a mind a miles away that cares about as much for the pup's words as a bullet in the head. Gwen is saved harsh words from the Ahroun or harsher fists because he has a Beta that knows him better than he knows himself and she has a mentor who acts quickly. The pup gets a curled lip in a silent snarl before his attention is diverted by Joey to the scene of military men and the stench of rotting garbage.

Nostrils flare, but he makes no other reaction to the putrid stench.

A grumble of agreement to Joey, yes it looks weird.

"Keep her fuckin' quiet." He says to Fire-Claws and then begins to walk over in the direction of the disturbance.

[Consumption] The quartet make a slow progress in the direction of the Parking Lot. As they draw closer, the scene begins to unfold further:

"Warning you, you old Fuck..."

The Bomber Jacket wearing fellow, barely inside his Twenties by the looks of it, somewhat smaller than the rest, steps forward and lifts a hand with a pointing finger at the hulking thing in the opening of the fenced off parking lot. His sneer is proud, strong and determined the aviator's giving it that extra hint of demand.

The fellows around him look at one another, clap fists into palms or nod and voice agreements and rumbles of their own displeasure, bunching up a little tighter to one another.

The cloth swaddled creature seems to halt it's advance, an inhale expanding the cloth around it's shoulders as lungs suck in the air around it and release it in a gust of a snort. Strands and drops of mucus splash the pavement at his feet, jerking several of the Military Boys back a step in disgust. A few threaten to lunge forward at the perceived insult, only to be held back by the outstretched arms of the Bomber jacket fellow.

"Whoa whoa...Fuck, this guy stinks..."

A rumble of something as the collective of Gaians draw closer down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. It emerges in the air, gravel and constricted throat, from the depths of that shawled appearance.

"You bunch of little fucks think you can operate in my town? Think you can walk around, dicks out, not a care in the fucking world?" A hand emerges, thick with curls of hair on a dirty and muscled arm, pointing ham-fisted fingers at the collection of Military men who sneer and bark jeers in response.

[Fire Claws] He takes in the scent as its comes to him, a scent he is all too well familiar with. His nostrils flare a little as it hits him, hard. His grip on the cub lessened, forgotten as his mind recounts the smell. At first he doesn't even recognize that the gwaner speaks, but soon comes out of it. A grimace of disgust at the gwaner, thinking he could just command him like that.

But that smell, that stench that seems to bring him back to the military men and the covered figure. He does not move on them just yet, does not react. But he does watch, sniffing at the air as it goes on. His voice letting out a gutteral, low hum of a growl. A strange thing to see any man do, but to a wolf. It was recognizable, a warning.

That man was not what he appeared. He was no man at all.

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen opening her mouth gets nothing but sharp, reprimanding reactions from all: The Rotagar eyes her, asks an unending rhetoric, the Ahroun snarls for Fire Claws to 'keep her fucking mouth shut', and Fire Claws sets her with a stare that was as good as claws, grasps her upper arm with the kind of rough strength that could bruise flesh-- but would not hers, for the blood that runs underneath of it. For all this scolding, she doesn't respond like a chided pup. Just presses her lips (now completely void of piercings, one might note, the Medusa long gone) together and keeps her eyes on the scene unfurling before her.

Fire Claws tips his head back some, inhales deeply the smell that hit as slightly familiar and sickly sweet in her nose and twisted her stomach just a bit. He scented the air in ways that a human nose could not, returning his dominant sense to the strength it has when he's not bumbling awkwardly about on two legs. His grasp on her arm lessens, she does nothing to shake his hand away, and he growls.

Joey asked her Alpha if the people up ahead looked weird, her Alpha nodded, and Gwen? She held her tongue.

[Killswitch] The Rotagar doesn't need heightened perceptions to know that something's about to go down, or that the creature swathed in blankets is different. The musk that wafts their way isn't the smell of the downtrodden, isn't the body-odor-garbage-rot smell of the homeless. It just smells rotten.

She's already reaching up to her hat, the black wool cabbie she wears low over dark eyes, tugs it down. In the process, her fingertip brushes a button there (If Life Gives You LEMONS Throw Them At Someone).

"What d'you wanna do about the humans?" she asks Hunter; he is Ahroun and Alpha, though she's of a greater rank, Joey defers to him in matters of combat. Gwen falls silent, Fire Claws growls. Whatever he takes from the smell, recognition or otherwise, he keeps it to himself.

[-1G Soak Talen, +3 soak]

[Burnout] Fire Claw's grimaces in disgust and the Ahroun has his back to him. That must say something to the Forseti, this is not a Garou to fuck with, this is not someone to be sneering at, Gnawer or not.

The two members of Defiance stroll off, headed towards the disturbance and the rotting thing. Joey touches a button, Hunter clips on a badge to his coat. The badge is half red, half white and reads:

REST ASSURED
nobody gives a fuck
what you have
to say

"Scare em off if we can." This in reply to Joey's question.

[Burnout] [oh yeah -1G soak]

[Consumption] (Hooooo...)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Consumption] "I don't recall having to ask your permission, you Dumb fuck..."

The Bomber Jacket fellow takes a step back, sucking in a quick breath that is at once a sign for the others to step forward slightly. It is imperceptible to most, perhaps even the young men themselves but swiftly enough they are standing at the forefront. A long line of six bodies, thick of muscle and training both. America's finest.

The mountain of Rags simply grunts. Loudly and spits again.

"Because you did not know of me before this moment. Now you do. I piss in the corners of this city daily. Scratch and carve my name it it's weak and pathetic and you imagine you can walk these lands without tribute? Without payment to me?"

There is a general rush of confusion throughout the Military bodies who turn to glance back at the man behind them. At this distance, perhaps the Gaians might recognize the insignias they are wearing on uniform shoulders. Signs of privates from the bulky grunts. The bomber jacket carrying an extra stripe (Corporal? Sergeant?).

"Look, you weird Fuck..." The Bomber jacket fellow comes through his line of Grunts, pointing again fiercely at the standing behemoth and yet he pauses half-way as the bundle of rags and cloth suddenly starts. Pauses. Then turns...

Beneath it all, he is a large creature of thick muscle. Banded arms and bare of anything to cover the torso but the rags about his shoulders and head. His pants are a disheveled mess of what used to be a pair of jeans while his feet are a thick show of hair and bare callouses. His chest is a mat of dark bristle and his features a grim down-turned mash of pronounced brow and sunken eyes. His jaw skews off to one side, drool captured in one corner.

"Huh.." Is the only response he offers to Hunter and Joey's approach. A rippling snarl, that seems to bead heat off him in waves.

The military grunts look agitated, fidgeting and twitching where they stand, eyes darting back and forth amongst one another even as the Aviator wearing fellow watches the progression with something akin to unpleasant stoicism.

[Killswitch] Joey's brows lift when the thing turns to look at them, and summarily dismiss them. Looking it up then down, her gaze lingers a moment on its feet. "Whoa." She looks up at Hunter and, her voice pitched to carry to the creature and by association the grunts before it, says, "I didn't think Hobbits came super sized."

She rolls her shoulders back, though her hands remain in the pockets of her faux-fur lined black hoodie. Appearing relaxed, aloof, easy going, she's prepared to explode forward and up, into a form for fighting if it comes to it.

"You're an awful long way from, what's it?" She looks up at Hunter, tilts her head. "The Mire? Why d'you want tribute from those little soldja boys, anyway?"

[Fire Claws] He watches and waits as the military men continue to banter and berate the clothed figure of muscle and stench. His eyes watching the cloth intently, waiting for the creature to expose itself. The growl giving way to give directions to Gwen while the pair of pack mates head to face this thing head on. His voice hard to understand unless you were already used to the dialect.

"Ge' readee for sum shit."

He watched as Hunter and Joey moved on the creature, a part of him upset at the monkeys getting off easy after berating the creature like they did. However duty had finally called. And he slowly arched his back as he leaned over, biting his teeth as his nerves slowly start to go numb to anything that would hinder his hunt. His kill.

And then he is moving, quick steps carrying him towards the soon-to-be fray. The smell of ozone and burnt out rage filling his nostrils with each stride he takes.

[Fire Claws] (Ack Resist Pain Active -1W)

[Consumption] "Gaian whore, keep your tongue..."

The word chips the air, half-way through Joey's attempt at taunting. The sneer on those features remarkably direct. He takes a step forward, several layers of the cloth around his frame sloughing off his shoulders and back.

"Your Mother brought you into this world crying. I will remove you the same, in the Father's service..."

Flesh bulges. The rags around him quiver.

"Fuck..."

The sound emerges from the Bomber Jacket fellow who darts off to one side, tucking up against a large SUV parked in one of the spaces in the lot. The collection of Military boys move a lot slower, hunkering low and staring back and forth between the sudden confrontation of strangers.

[Consumption] (Snaps~Jagged: 6 +...)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Consumption] (Bomber: 9 +...)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Fire Claws] (7+)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

[Consumption] (Military: 5 +...)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Gwen Sullivan] [Init + 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Burnout] [+8]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Killswitch] [+7]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Consumption] Posting Order. Declare in reverse:

Hunter: 17
Fire~Claws: 15
Joey: 14
Snaps: 11
Bomber: 10
Feeders: 10
Gwen: 9

[Gwen Sullivan] [Hold Action. Assessing situation before diving in nose first.]

[Consumption] Feeders

The sudden blitzkrieg of promised violence is enough to goad the Military privates into a sudden urgency. The Bomber clad Corporal tucks himself away behind the SUV, fumbling for some sort of keys even as he barks out.

"Form Up!"

To which the response is immediate: a sudden spasming flash of muscle beneath the skins of the 6 Privates, who turn almost synchronised, toward the collection of Garou. Jaws suddenly unhinge and a line splits the middle of each, dividing mouths into three separate parts, the spread of long incisors flashing as mandibles appear beneath the noses of the privates, who surge forward at the command, lunging heedless and hurried.

(Bomber:
Initial Action: Command Power "Form Up!
Rage 1: Dodge
Rage 2: Dodge
Feeder Group 1 (2 Each): Grapple Snaps
Rage 1: Bite Snaps
Feeder Group 2: Grapple Joey
Rage 1: Bite Joey
Feeder Group 3: Grapple Hunter
Rage 1: Bite Hunter.)

[Consumption] Snaps

There is a snarl as blankets are shucked and the monstrosity rears into a diseased looking Crinos shape at the Parking Lot's entrance. He bends forward, arms spread, claws gleaming oddly under the street light, droplets of black falling to the ground.

(split Action:
1a) Grapple Fire~Claws
1b) Claw Hunter
Rage 1: Bite Fire~Claws
Rage 2: Block.)

[Killswitch] "Well that settles that." So much for protecting the humans. Joey explodes upward, shifting in an instant from athletic blond to Hispo-monster.

[Reflexive: -1WP resist pain, -1R hispo
1a: Bite group 2
1b: Bite group 2
1c: Bite group 3
R: Bite group 3]

[Fire Claws] A snarl is that comes from him as he snaps his way to the hispo form. Teeth look for a good bite, claws

(-1R to hispo form.
1a. Hamstring bite (special move to cripple) Snap
1b. Claw eyes (called strike to blind)
1R. Claw Snap again)

[Burnout] [Reflexive: -1WP resist pain, -1R Hispo
1a
1b
1c
r1
r2 - bite group 2, 3 if they go down]

[Fire Claws] (ST approval. No hamstring attack. 1a changed to called shot- bite calf/knee to slow down Snap)

[Burnout] [1a - bite group 2 -3 split]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 7, 9 (Failure at target 5)

[Burnout] [1b -4]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Burnout] [dmg+3]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak! Sta 3 + 3 for Armoured Hide)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Fire Claws] (Called shot at knee. (9-2 for split)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Fire Claws] (damage 3+3+2+1+1)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Fire Claws] (+2 damage from ST direction)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Killswitch] [1a: Bite group 2: -3]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Fire Claws] Dammit lets claw eyes called shot diff 8 (9-3. WP used)
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8) [WP]

[Fire Claws] (re-roll)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 6, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 8) [WP]

[Fire Claws] (damage. HAIL)
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Killswitch] [dam: +2 (*flashes Kahseeno* Hey baby, remember these?)]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Killswitch] [FINE! *covers self*]

[Consumption] (Soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Killswitch] [1b: Bite group 2: -4]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Killswitch] [dam: +2]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Snaps: First split - Strength 8 (Wrestling) + Brawl 2. -2 for Split. Diff 6)
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Strength 8 + 4 Damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Fire Claws] (soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Second Split: Claw Hunter: Dex 4 + Brawl 2. -3 Dice for split)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Str 8 + Claw 1 + Toxic Claws 1)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Burnout] [soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Consumption] Bomber: Initial Action: Command Power "Form Up!" Charisma 3 + Leadership 4 (Commanding. Diff 4 WP of Feeder)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Consumption] (Feeder Group 1: Grapple Snaps. -1 for Flank Attack. Str 3 + Brawl 2)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Consumption] (Feeder Group 2: Grapple Joey. Str 3 + Brawl 2)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Killswitch] [1c: Change to resist!: str + brawl -5]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Feeder Group 3: Grapple Hunter. Str 3 + Brawl 2)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Burnout] [1c resist str+brawl -5]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] A moment is stolen for observation-- she wasn't so young and dumb as to fly in teeth first not knowing what she was going against, if someone was an enemy or not. The sudden surging forward of violence against one another says enough. The Pack fights together, and the Crinos grips her Mentor.

Gwen bursts into Fur and Fang and Claw and leaps into the fray as well.

[-1 Rage to shift Crinos
Action: Claws to Face (WP)]

[Gwen Sullivan] [Dex + Brawl, +2 diff called shot]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8) [WP]

[Gwen Sullivan] [Damage Str + 2 suxx + 2 called shot (A)]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Burnout] [r1 bite group 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Burnout] [dmg+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 18 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Consumption] (soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Burnout] [r2 group 2 other dude]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Burnout] [dmg+4]
Dice Rolled:[ 16 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 12 at target 6)

[Fire Claws] (Escape grapple. Str+ Brawl) (*FLASHES KAHSEENO)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Killswitch] [R: Bite group 3]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 8 at target 5)

[Killswitch] [dam: +7]
Dice Rolled:[ 18 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Snaps: Rage 1 - Bite F~C. -2 Diff for Partial Immobile. Dex 4 + Brawl 2)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 4 at target 3)

[Consumption] (Str 8 + 1 Bite + 3 Sux)
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Fire Claws] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Change Rage 2: Claw Gwen. Dex 4 + Brawl 2. Diff 6 + 2, for altered Target and changed action)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4, 7, 10 (Failure at target 8)

[Consumption] (Feeder Group 1: Bite Snaps. dex 3 + brawl 2. Diff -2 for Partial Immobile)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 4 at target 3)

[Consumption] (Str 3 + 4 Bite + 3 Sux)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Feeder Group 3: Bite Joey. Dex 3 + Brawl 2)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Consumption] (Bomber: Changing Rage 1 Actions.
Rage 1: Command Power "Stand, Maggots!" Charisma 3 + Leadership 4 (Commanding). Diff 4 of Feeders WP. +1 for Changing actions)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Consumption] The Fight is a clash of brutal violence:

Bodies hurtle at one another, colliding with bone crushing force and yet the call of the day seems to be misplaced blows and miscalculations. Snapping teeth and rending claws serve only to reach out and graze flesh or here there. The outstretched claws of the disease riddled creature that had confronted the military men, grazes across Hunter's shoulder, drawing blood and pressing the vile black liquids dripping off their tips into the bloodstream.

Meanwhile, the Defiance pair hurtle into the fleshy creatures that rush to close with them. A pair are summarily slaughtered under the jaws of the two, falling to pieces and gore, scattered in the parking lot and yet 2 more push forward to reach for the pair with sucking jaws, a grazing snap from the Rotagar raking an unfelt chunk from the chest and uniform of one of them.

Gwen and her Mentor continue to struggle with the giant Crinos bearing over Fire~Claws, who continues to snap and snarl beneath the oppressive weight. Another pair of the Feeder creatures, clambers atop the giant black Crinos framework, snapping teeth failing to dig into the skin of the creature as they push further down, limiting his movements.

(New Declares!)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Bite whatever flesh on Snaps available
1r. Repeat]

[Consumption] Feeder/Bomber

The small group of 2 lunge forward, seemingly intent on reaching Hunter and devouring what flesh they can get their hands on.

Whilst the two atop Snaps, rear back and continue to bite down on the massive Crinos.

* * * *

The Bomber jacket wearing Host, his orders clamouring through the air at his Charges, who are slowly being torn apart. He snarls and snaps his attention around at Joey, leveling a finger.

"Stand Down, Soldier!"

(Bomber: Initial Action - Command Power "Stand Down, Soldier"
Rage 1: Dodge
Rage 2: Dodge

Feeder Group 1: Bite Snaps
Rage 1: Bite Snaps
Feeder Group 3: Bite Hunter
Rage 1: Bite Hunter)

[Killswitch] [1a:
1b:
1c:
1d: Bites on Group 3, switching to 1 if it goes down, +WP on final bite]

[Consumption] Snaps

There's a grunt and a series of Snarls, the erupting force of anger a bulge of Rage and shimmying motion.

(Split Action: 1a) Shed.
1b) Claw Gwen. WP
Rage 1: Claw F~C)

[Fire Claws] (-1R for extra turn.
1a. Escape the grapple of doom
1b. Escape some more. (Will change to dodge Snap at +1 diff if escaped in 1a
1R. Claw snap's eyes)

[Burnout] [1a
1b
1c
r1
r2 - bite group 3, moving to group 1 when ze dead]

[Burnout] [1a -3 bite group 3]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 5) Re-rolls: 2

[Burnout] [dmg+6 fire ze missiles]
Dice Rolled:[ 18 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Burnout] [1b -4]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Burnout] [dmg+5 NO REALLY FIRE ZE MISSILES]
Dice Rolled:[ 17 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5 (Botch x 2 at target 6)

[Fire Claws] (Escape. Str+Brawl. 2 Sux needed)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Killswitch] [1a: Bite group 1: -4]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Killswitch] [dam: +0]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Killswitch] [1b: -5]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 4, 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Killswitch] [dam: +0]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Snaps first split: Shed. Dex 4 + Primal Urge 3. - 2 for split. Diff 7)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 (Failure at target 7)

[Consumption] (Second split: Claw Gwen. Dex 4 + brawl 2 - 3 dice. WP)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Consumption] (Str 8 + 1 Claw + 1 Sux + 1 Toxic C.)
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Bomber: Initial Action: Command Power "Stand Down, Soldier" On Joey. Charisma 3 + Leadership 4 (Commanding). Diff 5 Joey's current WP)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Consumption] (Feeder Group 1: Bite Snaps!)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 9 (Failure at target 5)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Bite: Dex + Brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 3)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Damage: Str + 3 + 1bite (A)]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Burnout] [1c bite 1's -5]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Burnout] [dmg+3]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Burnout] [R1 bite that group 1 snitch]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 10 at target 5) Re-rolls: 3

[Burnout] [dmg+9]
Dice Rolled:[ 21 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 9 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Burnout] [r2 bite snaps +1 dif]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Burnout] [dmg+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Fire Claws] (Eye claw. Called shot)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Fire Claws] (damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Consumption] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Rage Action: Changing to Claw Hunter. Greater Threat! +1 Diff)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 5, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Consumption] (Str 8 + 1 Claw + 1 Toxic. C)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Burnout] [soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Bomber: Changing Rage action 1: Command Power "Stand Down, Soldier" On Hunter!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Gwen Sullivan] [Bite]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Consumption] (Bomber: Changing Rage 2 (Last rage): Command Power "SDS!" on Fire~Claws!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 9 (Success x 1 at target 4)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Damage: Str + 1bite (A)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Consumption] The Battle suddenly reaches a pitch both precarious and haunting:

The gaians mop up the remnants of the Feeder population who are torn asunder by the quick movements and efforts of the Defiance pack, while the Forseti and his small charge of a Cub keep the bestially strong Spiral distracted and at bay. Soon enough, Hunter lunges inward with a grunt, sweeping the Feeders off the Spiral's back only to lay open the diseased flesh with a chomp of teeth and jaws. The Spiral returns with a clumsy swing of it's own...

-And suddenly Joey, hunkering down in her Alpha's wake, collapses to the ground under the power of a command.
Hunter falls not a moment later, the Ahroun's rage turned impotent under the force of will.
And not soon after that Fire~Claws collapses with a slight skid of motion, as his quick lunge is interrupted.
The Three Garou of Rank are paralyzed and helpless, will and muscles working to regain some semblance of control.
Even as the Spiral rears and snarls loudly, powerfully...

The Bomber Jacket wearing fellow, a ludicrous, madly joyful grin on his face, pales and loses the moment of happiness, already pulling at the SUV door. Intent on escape...

(New Inits!)

[Consumption] (Snaps: 7 +...)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Killswitch] [+9]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Fire Claws] (9+)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Burnout] [+10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Gwen Sullivan] [+6]

[Gwen Sullivan]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Consumption] (Killswitch
Burnout
Fire~Claws
Gwen
Snaps

Declare in reverse. All those paralyzed, require 1 full action to make WP roll.)

[Consumption] (Bomber: 9 +...)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Consumption] (Killswitch
Bomber
Hunter
F~C
Gwen
Snaps.)

[Consumption] Snaps

A Furious snarl erupts from the jaws of the monster, who turns his attention toward the defiant Fomori for a brief instant, clapping jaws uttering a feral

"Coward!"

Before turning finally toward Gwen, claws out and blood running in thick rivers down his back.

(Initial Action: Claw Gwen.
Rage 1: Claw Gwen)

[Gwen Sullivan] [1R: Snapshift Hispo
1a. Bite for Throat [WP]
1b. Bite again]

[Fire Claws] (Burn WP to roll WP.
1R to bite Snaps)

[Burnout] [reflexive: -1G inspiration
1 - breakin' ze para]

[Consumption] Bomber

(Initial Action: Climb into Car. Start Car)

[Killswitch] [1: Resist!
R: Held]

[Burnout] [resistin]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Fire Claws] (WP roll to resist)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Bite 1: Dex + Brawl, -2 split, +2 diff called shot]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 7) [WP]

[Gwen Sullivan] [Damage: Str + 3 suxx + 1 bite + 1 hispo + 2 called shot (A)]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 9 at target 6)

[Consumption] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Killswitch] [RESIST]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 9, 10 (Failure at target 7)

[Killswitch] [RESIIIIST]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 7 (Failure at target 7)

[Fire Claws] (Rage Action. Run over to car)

[Fire Claws] Claw side of SUV)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Fire Claws] (damamge)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Consumption] The Battle reaches it's pitch:

The small cub looking for a place in the Nation is faced off with the bleeding and stuck spiral, who turns on her with a snarl of fury. No sooner has his head dipped down to open jaws at her, then the spry little Crinos ducks beneath those jaws and claws her own at the Spiral's throat. A gush of blood falls over her chest and jaws as the head snaps clean and cartwheels back and across the parking lot with a clatter and a wet thump.

The body, remaining as is, topples forward and to one side, even as the SUV in the parking lot revs hard under the pounding foot of the Bomber jacket fellow in the driver's seat. He has time to pull forward and outward in a broad circle, fully intending to run down the fence on his way to Freedom.

The Forseti is up and across the distance in a flash of anger, a blinding hot seething in his stomach as the Cowardly creature attempts to flee. Claws rake out and the car shrieks in protest as several long gouges rip through it's side paneling before clipping the rear tire, which explodes and sends the Car pinwheeling awkwardly into the Fence and over. It tears down the street on a shrieking metal rim, no doubt driven by adrenaline and desperation.

It would be found only a few blocks distant, abandoned...

...But for now, a Metis' body and the remains were left behind. Despite the night's haul, duty left behind was failure.

[Fire Claws] The fight was brutal, it was intense. It pit the group not only against the wyrm, but the weaver as well. It was a battle that was worth the few moments of time that claimed the soldiers as well as the large rage bitten garou fallen from grace. And in the end, it was not the ahroun so filled with rage it would make many a fernis envious even if h did most of the killing. . Nor was it the seasoned no-moon who claimed the kill shot, or the feral born forseti. No all three were left limb on the ground as the young teenage cub slew the beast. Not just slew the beast.

But clear bit the head right from his body, seperating the two.

And as the SUV pulls out and peels down the street, Fire Claws gets one last crack at it before it is away. Anger seething in his eyes as he watches the coward flee. But his will only keeps him from tracking it down, keeps him from running after it like he would in the rural areas. Turning to look over at the pair of Defiance still left pinned to the floor, limb. And his ward, no doubt giddy with excitement of the kill. It would be a slow change for him back to his human form. Not wasting what was left of his fire. Walking over to the corpses littered around the ground. They would have to be cleansed and cleared away. But the head.

He picks it up and holds it out to Gwen. Holding it for her to take when she shifts back to homid. His own dedicated clothes still all intact. His voice guteral and butchered. But she could understand it.
"Ya's.Ya earne' it. But aye betta not see it on da wyrmpol'."

When she takes the head from his hands, a quick snap of the wrist and he slaps her upside the back of the head.

"If ya eva' hesitate 'gen I will gut ya mysef. Undastood?"

[Gwen Sullivan] One thing you learned about battles in a hurry was how much of a hurry they were in to be over. Bodies fell like flies in a cloud of Raid, blood was so thick in the air that Gwen was pretty sure it could make the barometer change readings. The soldiers with the odd looking mouths lined with too-sharp teeth were decimated before they had a chance to register much of anything, the man against the car that physically remained unchanged barked orders that were only a dull echo behind the roar of blood and Rage in Gwen's ears.

But then her allies were dropping for reasons unknown-- no claws put them down, no teeth, no wounds. They hugged the ground and seethed and lashed with spirits and luna-given strength alike. The commander, corporal, whatever he was, got into his car with a startlingly typical evil-villain laugh and grin, and the Spiral, smelling of stinking sweet fruit with blood running down his back like he was blasted with it from a showerhead, bore down upon her.

Her reaction was one part training and two parts gut instinct: she got low, then rocketed up and forward, shifting with a flex of Rage into something with more power to the tooth. His throat jammed all the way to the back of her mouth, her jaws snapped closed, and his head went rolling. She hit the ground on all fours, a tawny-and-white beast stained red, and licked at her nose while looking after Fire Claws, watching him tear the tire off the vehicle, watching the SUV tear away in a shower of sparks from driving on its rim.

She watches to see if he gives chase. In finding that he doesn't, not immediately, her attention turns to Hunter and Joey to make sure they're coming back to mobility alright. She doesn't appear giddy, not just yet at least. The gravity of what she just accomplished had yet to sink in, the readiness of the fight had yet to leave her.

All seems well, though. She shifts down to Glabro, left in the (recently) dedicated jeans and hoodie, pulling the tattered remains of the T-shirt out from underneath the sweater, when Fire Claws gathers up the monstrous Metis-Spiral head and offers it to her. She looks surprised, mutely so, and stretches out her arms to take it. To hold it in homid may prove too much weight for her, and even in Glabro she requires both arms. The slap to the back of the head doesn't earn much of a flinch, just a quick snap of her eyes, more yellow in this form than the gray-green they typically are, back to his face again.

"Understood," is the simple, gravel-and-limestone growl that she answers him with.

From there? Duty. They'd have to at least hide the corpse before they tracked the Commander.

[Burnout] Almost all, but not quite. The dancer had failed to fall to his mighty jaws and despite the fact that it was left wounded and near gone, he still put the cub at risk, they all did when they succumbed to the paralysis. She was left alone, against a dancer - albeit a seriously injured one - and could have easily died.

She didn't, she took its head off.

Luck, Hunter knows it more than anybody here except his Beta who has Raged back more times than he. Luck was on her side in a fight that she should never have been in. Hunter is thankful, he is disappointed and bristling with frustrated anger, but he is thankful. It isn't long before he pushes to his feet, but Joey is still down and the huge chocolate brown dire wolf, surprisingly clean of blood considering the damage done, lumbers over and lies down next to her, rests his muzzle on her until she snaps out of it.

Then there is clean up, then there is the work which Joey and Hunter have done a thousand times before. It is best in Crinos, Hunter and Joey can carry them all, piled together and tied with ropes then thrown over the Ahroun's or the Rotagar's shoulders. Gwen gets no words from the Gnawer, just a brief moment where he looks at her.

His head tips.

His eyes narrow.

His lips quirk at the corners, something of a grin.

He shakes his head and continues on his way.

Affairs of Bone Gnawers [Eve, Lou, Hunter]

[Eve] It's fucking freezing, and Eve doesn't seem to give two shits about that fact. Oh no. She gives half a shit, precisely half a shit about the fact that it's cold bcause she's walking out of some boutique bundled up in about three sweaters that she can't afford, that she pilfered off the shelves because they were warm and the other two she could give to someone else once the weather became managable.

She had to take care of her people, you see. Because, even if they were afraid of her, even if they thought Eve was a serial killer off her meds, Eve was one of them. eve was dirty and rough and strong and fierce and even if she was a monster she was like they were.

Which made Eve their monster. They pay their chiminage in boxes for her protection. She repays their kindness in strength and the occasional bottle of booze. And, today? Sweaters. She walks out of the shop looking like... well.. like she got kicked out. The air is cold, but Eve's got enough clothing on that she doesn't notice. The female trudges down the street. There is no moon in the sky, and Eve is at peace with herself.

[Cracka'Jack] *Why is Lou in Magnificent mile this evening? Well lets face it. Rats go where the best payoff is for their efforts. The vehicles here were all luxury sport editions with that new car smell. The dumpsters full of creamy $15 dollar fettuccine barely picked at by hateful twigs on low carb diets. She might live in the slums, but THIS was the promised land.

The ahroun is at ease tonight, belly full, content as she could be under the truant moon. Cracka'jack in full swagger as skinny legs eat up the sidewalk on her way to a favorite dumpster behind a steak-joint. Or it used to be a favorite dumpster behind a steak-joint, a couple of years ago when she'd first changed. Now it might be something awful. Or worse, Vegan.

A businessman stumbles on ice and falls on his ass in front of the ghetto Diva, and Lou nimbly bounces over him at the last minute, bawling angrily.*

What motherfucker? You ain't got eyes?! Ain't you see I'm fuckin walkin here? Sheeyit boy! Gettup!

*Ah yes. Lou was not a species indigenous to the Magnificent Mile.*

[Eve] "There's ice," she says.

Eve's voice is resonant. Eve's voice is solid and strangely strong. It's not wavering, not mbarrassed, not weak, because she is nothing of the sort. Between Eve and Lou, that poor businessman must think that he's going to get jumped. Eve doesn't really notice him... though she does watch Lou- with her skinny legs and she's chowing down on something good.

"Still hot?" she asks Lou. She walks over quickly. She tries to catch up. the smell is enough to send her over.

[Cracka'Jack] *Lou snorts, looking instead to the 1/4 of a tinfoil wrapped gyro in her hand as the businessman manages to pick up his cellphone and scramble away from the pair of terrifying gutter-mamas. A hip thrown out as the ahroun tears off a bite, spitting tinfoil to the side as an afterthought. Scanning Eve behind knock off raybans. She wears her sunglasses at night. So she can, so she can - not be as readily identified on camera.*

Sho is baby girl. Shit, you gots some major beef on you, aintcha?

*It wasn't often Lou stumbled across someone whose rage lashed as unhinged and present as her own. Its enough that the gnawer jerks her chin and rolls back onto her heels. Ready. Just.. in.. Case.*

[Gwen Sullivan] It took some strength of necessity to be out in weather like this-- people who didn't get snow days at work commuted still because it's what they had to do, because they were diligent or saving their vacation time for an honest-to-god vacation, or because their boss had sworn to them and the ceiling over their heads that if they missed one more fucking day they'd be out on their ass and that was that. No one else in their right minds would be out in this nonsense, in this cold with sidewalks only shoveled in patches and roads piled up with snow-- snowplows only able to do so much.

Here in the Mile, though, the city was doing its best job of keeping going. Ice and sand were on the streets, plows concentrated their effort here first, de-iced the sidewalks to the best of their abilities-- but even that couldn't hold off the blizzard completely.

Up the street from Lou and Eve, Gwen was bundled up in several layers including the black canvas coat on top. She's sitting on a plastic sack on the ground to keep the seat of her jeans dry, with her arms wrapped around her chest and knees drawn up to it as well. Her forehead is tipped forward, touching her kneecaps. She's got the cuffs of her jeans tucked into a pair of heavy work boots, and her hair was back in a short ponytail at the nape of her neck while a red beanie kept her head and ears warm. The hat matched the scarf about her throat and chin and the gloves on her hands.

Yet, even with all the bundling up, she'd shiver occasionally when wind whipped through the streets and dragged snow both from the sky and off the ground with it. Whatever the hell it was she was doing out here, it had to be boarderline suicidal. Because she was high or because she was doing some crazy Fenrir-learned form of meditation through masochism. Who the fuck knew.

[Eve] "No beef," she says, "that's what I'm tyring to fix."

She nods upward, and her chin tilts up and she shows her hand to Lou. She knows what a homid pays attention to, knows that human types pay attention to the hands. There is dirt under her nails and her gloves have holes in them. She is snow flecked and bright eyed.

"Trade you a sweater for steak."

Her words are blunt. Not in their meaning, but rather, in their delivery. She picks words and throws them together. Which is when someone catches her eye. Her attention turns, and Eve looks down the way. There's a girl wrapped up in layers. The cold bites at Eve's nose and chaps her cheeks. She grits her teeth against the wind.

[Cracka'Jack] Shi. Sounds good to me. Getcher grub on.

*Moisture is swiped from above Lou's top lip with the back of her hand, cold making her nose run and her ears burn. A broad toothed grin, before the last meaty chunk of a gyro dinner is slapped in Eve's grubby mittened palm. Gnawer tonguing her teeth and digging around in her oversized (and gaudy) gold purse, before popping a chunk of pre-chewed gum between thick lips. *

Now whats thissabouta sweater, or some shit? You gon' knit me one right here? Cause bitch, It cold.

[Eve] "Nah," she says, and she's stripping clothing off. Her jacket it off. The layers are getting stripped down and she goes from a heavy coat to a hoodie and the hoodie gets tossed down with the coat. the more that gets peeled away, the more obvious it is that Eve is built. Eve is a bit more than built, she's just had whatever protective layers of fat stripped away to where she's nothing but sinew and muscle and, most importantly, hunger.

"I can't knit for shit."

But she gets down to a sweater, something that's way nicer than Eve can afford that's for damned sure. It's red and brown and soft and still has the security tag on it. She hands it over to Lou.

"Eh?"

It takes a second before-

"Takethefuckingsweaterit'smotherfuckingcold."

[Hunter] Cause bitch, It cold.

Hunter stops, his head turns, eyes narrow and he's crossing the street without even looking for traffic. The philodox he knows, he remembers her from a night months ago, her first night in town. He remembers her from the other night at the brotherhood. He was busy, but would have liked to have talked to her then. He will have to make do with a freezing cold alley way instead of the fianna's fine establishment.

"Yo, Eve." Hunter calls out as he approaches, though they can probably sense him coming long before that. His hands are stuffed into the pockets of his overcoat, collars popped to his neck and despite the burning rage in his blood, he still looks pale, he still looks cold.

"Who'dis?" He asks of the ghetto-princess she is offering her sweater to.

[Cracka'Jack] *Pink dragon lady fingernails make the brown hand that reaches for the sweater a full inch longer. The lovely cashmere thing is held up to the unflattering illumination of an iced over streetlight, examined with a grin that is nothing but impressed. Lou flicks down her shades and looks the ripped blonde over. Girl had a body like Lou's minus the color and the requisite booty. A smirk.*

Oh no you di'int. Girl, what else you got in there? You a walkin' Macy's or some shit.

*Hunter approaches, anger radiating off him like a furnace despite the cold, and it certainly gets Lou's attention. Ghetto mama snaking her neck and rolling back on a hip. A bubble POPs.*

Who askin?

[Hunter] "Hunter."

A pause while he looks the girl over, not her body or her clothes or her stance, just the eyes. After a moment, his hand extracts itself from one of his pockets and he offers it to her. There is weight in that offering.

"Names Hunter Matthews. Burnout, Alpha o'tha Vanguard. Bone Gnawer Ahroun."

[Eve] "Aahhuuuh-nuh," she tells Hunter. She even shrugs with the motion to punctuate her point. then, to Lou, "that's Hunter."

Eve can't vouch for the man, though, but he gets an upward not. Her chin tilts up and she starts to pull her hoodie back on and then her jacket. She lacks the booty that Lou has... which is a shame. And what a fine, fine booty that woman has. Alas, Eve wouldn't seem to know what to do with junk in her trunk, except maybe pawn it.

"I got a couple more, they're warm enough."

[Cracka'Jack] Well fuck me if you ain't fo'ward as all hell.

*Lou snorts, tucking her newly acquired sweater into a bulging purse and looking around. Seeing only a teenager crouched a ways up the street, and a passel of busy pedestrians approaching from the crosswalk, the gnawer lowers her voice.*

Cracka'jack. Or Lou if you gotta. Original BeeGee, moony as you is.

[Gwen Sullivan] The girl sitting on the plastic bag several dozen feet away had been still save for the shivering, quiet. You'd think she was dead were it not for the puff of steam that would come from where her head was curled to her knees, protected from the elements by her legs. With that you'd think she was just asleep, then, in danger of cold exposure if nobody bothered to wake her and move her someplace warm.

These presumptions would be incorrect, though, she's coherent enough to be paying attention to the trio up the street, ever since the business man fell down, but ran fearfully from the pair of women that had converged about him. Grown ass men in business suits didn't flee like that, not without something vaguely supernatural prompting him. Without, he'd have dusted his rear end off, properly embarrassed, and grumbled about how he was fine before trudging away briskly. Trudging, not sprinting as he'd done.

"Never know where ears will be," warns a raspy kind of voice that had every potential to be smokey and sultry, but hadn't matured to that point quite yet. The figure sitting back against the wall lifted her head, peered blearily with eyes the same cool of the world about them, a gray-green mixing, out toward Hunter, Lou and Eve.

Hunter and Eve she recognized, she'd seen their faces before and she would always remember them, like she did everything. The black girl was entirely new, though. The fact that she didn't go running when the two stood nearby her only confirmed what words muffled out by the wind starting back up would have told her already.

"Just because it's cold enough to kill doesn't mean everyone's hiding from it."

[Eve] [... is that the wyrm?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Hunter] "Ain't got no time for games." He offers the words to both the cub and the beegee. His eyes lift off them though and traverse the streets. "Shit my neighbourhoods at fuckin' war and this place is tickin' away like fuckin' clockwork. Ain't nobody listenin' to nuthin' but themselves up here."

A pause, brief. He looks over the three girls.

"Who wants ta' get outta' tha cold?"

[Eve] "Be direct," she says to Gwen. There is something about Eve's voice that is too even and too strong and with a bent of... something inhuman. Sure, there's a Texan drawl to it, but it's born of mimicry more than anything else.

Eve is tall. Eve is solidly built. Eve doesn't blink enough. She is looking at Gwen, and for now she hasn't say much else. Instead, she inhales.

"The only threat here is food poisoning... and frostbite. S'cold."

[Cracka'Jack] *Lou's response to Gwen is a loud snort. That said, she rolls her shoulders under a cracked leather jacket, and nods to Hunter with unabashed enthusiasm.*

You fuckin kiddin me? I all about bouncin up out if this freezin ass bullshit. Maybe some folk can jus' sit around freezen them titty off lisn'n to private talk, but I'm an Afri'can't.

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen eyeballed Eve for an extra moment or two when she was told to be direct. It was hard to read the cub's face, to tell precisely what thoughts were flashing behind those eyes-- it could just as easily be disdain as it could be grudging respect, or simple acceptance of an order from a Metis. Lou, on the other hand, gets a look that's about as bland as could be imaginable. The teen with the light skin, mousy brown hair, cool colored eyes and incredibly average build and features was, apparently, unimpressed with the 'African't' joke.

In the end, though it's Hunter rallying them together, asking who wants out of the cold, that gets Gwen to groan quietly as she stands up, wadding up the plastic bag in her fist and shoving it in a trash can on the curb, intended for pedestrians and bus riders alike. This neighborhood was too nice to give anybody reason to litter, after all.

Her hands jammed into her coat pockets, and she walks toward the three, stops short of arm's reach of any one of them, and shivers hard enough that her whole body shakes. Her face turns into her shoulder and she pushes her scarf up over her mouth and nose with it.

[Hunter] "I gots some wheels, seems we should have ourselves a little fuckin' sit down ye'?" Eyebrow raised in question but he starts to turn regardless. There aren't many cars out on the roads in weather like this, and what ones there are drive slowly and carefully lest they start doing 360's on the ice.

He starts off down the street, turning to walk backwards for a few steps to urge them forward if they are still frozen in place. "C'mon." And it isn't far not far at all until they see something far too beautiful for a Gnawer. The black car has a fine smattering of snow upon it but it obviously hasn't been parked there that long.

His shoulders bunch while he walks and he tucks his chin down into his coat until he reaches the door, unlocks it and climbs inside. Once in there he turns around in his chair to unlock the back and passenger doors of the Impala.

[Eve] Metis don't get to give anyone orders, except for cubs. The time that she's going to get to lord a slightly elevated status. Then again, maybe she's just... odd. She looks at Gwen and wiggles her fingers. She even smiles at her, but it doesn't do much good. Eve doesn't seem too accustomed to the notion of smiling. It seems awkward on her.

"'m Eve," she says. It's the best one can offer.

She then looks at Hunter and heads over, "lead us to the promised land."

She starts to head off to Impala, and Eve (being Eve) piles in the back seat instead of the front. She's either dumb or cocky, because she loaded up in the car too easily.

[Cracka'Jack] *Lou is no sooner in view of the car than she's rattling off questions as to its engine and various parts, looking the black beast over with an eye for detail, circling it at least once before deigning to slide her scrawny self inside. Where she continues to crow about car-related topics until seeing something outside and hollering for them to pull over and go on without her. A misplaced street thug in bright yellow getting one helluva a talking to as the remaining 3 garou drive away*

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen walks along to the car, her boots crunching on the sidewalk salt, head dipped against the wind so it blew off the top of her head rather than making even more raw the already red-cold skin of her face. She sniffs, watches the black girl go running off after something that even Gwen, perceptive as they come, couldn't determine. Maybe it was something she'd spotted but couldn't imagine important enough to chase? Who knew.

Hunter got into the driver's seat of a car far too impressive to belong to a Bone Gnawer, and Eve got into the backseat without question, without much to lose. Gwen, however, hesitated. It wasn't quite about having something to lose as it was knowing full well how stupid a move this could very well be.

She sniffed, thinking things through. She could stay out in the blizzard, continue the half-meditative state that she'd been in where she was figuring ways to separate herself from the city while still staying with the Caern, with her Mentor and Linus and Roman Simon and everybody else that was so good to her, for her. She didn't want to flee the city entirely, she knew the fight was here and this was where she would learn, but at the same time she didn't want to see disappointment on the Godi's face or have him remind her that she was still just a City Monster, not yet a Garou.

...She could continue pondering this, and possibly freeze to death. Or she could get in the car with a pair of Garou that she did not know well enough to trust.

Stuck, undecided, it would take goading in either direction to get Gwen to either get into the car or step away from it. She doesn't do one or the other on her own.

[Eve] "Kid, you got shotgun."

[Hunter] "Let er' choose. Ain't gon' learn just doin' what other people tell er."

[Gwen Sullivan] The pair of Gnawers speak-- one offers her shotgun while the driver snaps at her not to give recommendations, that the Cub wouldn't learn if people were making orders for her. This Gwen answers (she was standing with the door cracked open, but not thrown wide out so that the blizzard would permeate the car. Just enough for sound to be exchange) by leaning forward, putting her face near the crack in the door, and looking straight at Hunter.

"I'm young enough to require direction still. If the chosen method of teaching cubs how to be was letting them blunder blindly and try to figure it out on their own all the time, the race would've been extinct long before I got here."

That said:

"What should prompt me to trust getting into a car with a couple of strangers and not continuing my chances out here? Might be on the same side of the war, but that doesn't mean nothing for trust."

[Eve] "You will be a half moon," she replies, "it's your judgment that will instruct you. You aren't young enough to require direction, you are inexperienced enough to require assistance in gaining the information to make your choices. If the chosen method for teaching cubs was to give them all of the answers, we would have died out long before you got here."

It is taking effort for her to do this. Eve doesn't blink, doesn't look away, doesn't straighten up.

"If you want to come, then come. If you don't, then don't. But if you're staying get in because you're letting out all the warm air."

[Burning a willpower: overcoming being shy!]

[Hunter] It really doesn't matter to Hunter Matthews, one way or the other. Or at least it shouldn't. The problem is she is a cub, she is everyone responsibility even if he's fighting a battle in his mind about what to do with his territory, even if the last thing he wants to do is babysit a pup. She is still his responsibility, as much as she is Simon's and Eve's and every other Garou in this sept.

His eyes narrow.

But Eve goes and says it all for him.

"C'mon, I gotsta' talk ta' tha' tribe here, ya' might find that interestin'."

[Gwen Sullivan] Her gaze hops back to Eve in the backseat, and she makes a scoffing sound that has a cloud of white appearing before her mouth and nose and blowing away just as quickly as it had formed. "All the answers and floundering blind are on very opposite ends of the pool, here. Ideally there'd be a middle ground."

And Hunter's saying that they needed to talk tribe, appealed this to her by informing her that she might find it interesting. To this, Gwen shakes her head. The affairs of Bone Gnawers weren't what she needed to be focusing on right now, she had several other things to worry about before that. Rather than sit in the passenger seat of a vehicle too nice for her, Hunter, or Eve and listen to the two Cliaths talk business, twiddling her thumbs and warming her fingers on a heater like a child left out of an adult's conversation, she opted to soldier through the storm on her own.

To embrace an element, the moment of Unstoppable Nature permeating a city even so large and well-manned as Chicago. She steps back, closes the door, and starts up the sidewalk that was already growing invisible under the drifts of white snow piling up more rapidly than the public works crews can keep up with.

[Eve] "Hunter, you mind if I ride shotgun?"

[Hunter] Hunter shrugs, it really does not matter to him. "Sure, go ahead." Keys get put in the ignition and the engine roars to life. He waits for the Metis to either hop through the gap in the seats or open the doors and then he's pulling away from the curb. He passes Gwen and his eyes shift to watch her shrinking in the mirror.

A few minutes later and they're stopping again to let Crack'a'jack out. That leaves just Eve and Hunter, he pulls into a parking space to talk.

"How long ya' know that one for?" He asks, obviously talking about the Gnawer with pink nails who just climbed out of his red leather seats.