Werewolf: Appalachian Moonrise, Ch 1

[General Havoc]

Sophie followed the others in silence. It wasn't that she couldn't make any scents out, far from it. It was that she couldn't tell (initially at least) which scent they were supposed to be tracking. They crossed mile after mile of cross-country wilderness, broken only by the occasional powerline running along. She could perhaps guess what the others were thinking every time they came across a power corridor, but she simply smiled (figuratively of course). She could practically feel the electricity spirits coursing through the wires overhead, busily running wherever it was they were going, paying no notice to the wilderness spirits all around them, and having no notice paid to them in turn. The others saw the Weaver's influence encroaching on an area that should have been dedicated to the Wyld. Sophie saw co-existence. She would no more have the power lines torn down than she would have the trees surrounding them.

Resisting the urge to scale the electrical towers and charge her laptop's batteries directly from the power lines (she knew how), she followed the others towards whatever end this trail had in store. Wyld-worshipper or Weaver-kin though they were, there was something Wyrmish up ahead, and that was foe enough for everybody.

She hoped.

[Cynical Cat]

"This is nice country," said Alexander in Garou. "Not the same as upstate back home, but still beautiful. A lot of Wyld, the Weaver present but mostly benign. Worth fighting to preserve." He dropped his nose back to the ground to sniff out the trail. "And thank Gaia we still have a track to follow."

[rhoenix]

Sees-Faces-In-Stars snorted in amusement at Alexander's comment. "He's not trying to be quiet or hard to find - this trail is very easy to follow. Makes me think perhaps he want to be followed?"

That made his mind race, as he followed the scent. He thought he would almost be able to keep tracking this scent in homid, it was so obvious. Why would he, as Garou, make his trail easy to follow? Does he think he can fight off any who come after him? Or...did he want to be taken down?

"He might want to be caught," Sees-Faces-In-Stars said soberly in the Garou tongue after a few moments of silence. "We should figure out why."

[Cynical Cat]

"He might," said Stormwalker, "or he might have been drunk on his way back from this slaughter and somewhat sober when he stole the fetish. This guy drinks Wyrm tainted moonshine. I'm not going to try to guess his state of mind with the amount of information we have on him. We should be keep an eye out for traps and ambushes though."

[Cynical Cat]

Stormwalker shifted into Hispo form, swelling in size and gaining huge amounts of muscle mass. His head became disproportionately larger than the rest of his body, which massive crushing jaws. "I doubt he's much farther," he said in Garou as he trotted ahead. " He's not going to want to travel forever just to grab dinner. If your worried about him, shift into something more suitable for combat."

[LadyTevar]

A howl broke the autumn air, scaring the birds to silence. It was a cry for aid, a sound no Garou gave voice too without good reason, for it was an admission that the Garou was in over their head and needed bailed out of trouble NOW. To sound this cry without good reason was an immense loss of face and Renown amongst the Garou -- 'crying wolf' was not just a human morality tale.

The Call for Succor had the Gaia-blessed ability to lead the way to those in need, and this one was coming from a holler below the young Garou. Brightly attired trees hid the bottom of the holler from sight, but it seemed to widen out considerably about a hundred feet down.

[Cynical Cat]

Stormwalker charged down the slope, shifting from Hispo to Crinos as he did. The Shadow Lord was huge in Crinos, more than ten feet tall with broad shoulders and long arms. His father's grand klaive, Stormtalon, glistened in his hands. The sword blade was three feet of ritually treated silver and host to two spirits in the service of Grandfather Thunder. He had practiced with it and similar blades for years, honing his skills. The others would cover his back. Arianne would surely be by his side. To yield the front to him would be unacceptable.

Proving himself worthy of his father's legacy lay ahead.

[rhoenix]

Hearing the Cry for Succor was very, very unusual - even a Garou as young as Sees-Faces-In-Stars knew that, for he had never before heard it in his lifetime, apart from as a slightly-embarrassed example - until now.

The world seemed to slow slightly, as the instincts made for war and protection awoke within Sees-Faces-In-Stars, making him appear to shake slightly, even as his form began to shudder and reform into the ultimate fusion of man and wolf.

Sees-Faces-In-Stars was in truth a little frightened of how he felt in this form, when he'd had time to reflect on it afterwards. He didn't feel as if he could easily take on the world and win, his instincts were too accurate for that. He simply really, really felt the urge to try anyway.

In this form, he appeared reminiscent of in his lupus form, but more...ethereal. His fur was shades of grey, with the white pinpoints in his fur resembling fireflies in the fog of his fur. Where his lupus form was a slightly unusually-patterned wolf, but still reassuringly a mostly-ordinary-looking wolf, this form almost seemed to exude determined, controlled anger.

Whispering a prayer to the wind spirits around him to help guide his movements, he ran at full speed close on the heels of Alexander. "We know our quarry, now," he whispered to the spirits as he ran. "We chase our quarry in the name of honor and justice - help guide us, with my thanks," he finished, right before howling a war cry into the air above.

[General Havoc]

The sound was bonechilling, not because of what it meant, not even because it was that terrible a sound. There was no reason why it elicited such a strong reaction from Sophie, but it did. And the fact that there was no reason for it only made it worse.

Nevertheless, she knew what a call like that meant, even without having ever heard its like before. One of her uncles had described it as "drop your shit and MOVE", and that was largely what she did. She raced along, still in Lupus form, after the others, towards whatever the site of this disturbance was. She knew what the Ahrouns were already planning to do without asking. Hopefully they wouldn't need her help.

The way her luck was going though...

[Devonie]

Arianne shifted even as Alex did, her form mirroring his - a huge man-wolf made for one thing - to kill. She matched him stride-for-stride as they charged down the hill.

She eyed the blade in his hands and smirked slightly. She didn't need some fancy toy to make her formidable, just her own teeth and claws.

[LadyTevar]

The hillside was steep, but the Garou managed to keep their balance as they ran. Sounds came from below; deep gutteral grunts mixed with angry high-pitched squeals, the frantic sounds of leaves being kicked up, and a great *crack* that turned into the groan and clattering crash of a tree falling over.

Breaking free of the treeline, the young Garou arrive in the middle of a battlezone. The ground was dug up, brierbushes in tatters, and leaves from the fallen tree still floating to the ground one of the largest boars ever seen shook his head and rose back to his feet beside the fallen tree's broken stump, his tusks nearly two feet long. Blood leaked from a wound on its' shoulder, flowing over what looked like velcro barbs where fur should be.

Two more boars were in the clearing, both charging a painfully thin Garou. The reddish fur was frosted with grey, the muzzle grey to the eyes. Blood poured from a wound on the Garou's leg, where a tusk seemed to have connected. Yet the Garou was still trying to fight, managing to just barely leap out of the way of the twin charges.

The two boars swung around, red eyes gleaming unnaturally as they looked for their prey.


(Alex and Sophie, First Actions)

[Cynical Cat]

Stormwalker leaped into the clearing and what a leap it was. A ten foot tall werewolf running downhill can manage an impressive long jump. The Shadow Lord cleared twelve meters to land by the half stunned boar and bring his gleaming silver bladed sword down.

A mundane tusker would have been nearly cut in half by Stormwalker's blow, but this was obviously not a mundane beast. Alexander's blow opened a deep cut along the boar's side and back, but failed to put it down.

[rhoenix]

As only an Ahroun can, Alex leapt high into the air, the pitch-black fur that was his gift of lineage rustled softly in the breezes before crashing down on the strange, pig-like being with his klaive, and sweeping across to begin another swing.

As only a Theurge can, Sees-Faces-in-Stars, who had been running at full speed right after Alex, darted in without a sound, sank his claws into the pig-like being's flesh, and yanked as hard as he could to create a weak point in its defenses, darting to the side once he was done, a grim smile on his face.

It reminded him of the second night after he'd met Galileo, and met his sept. "If'n t'thing don't have a weak spot, it's your duty to give it one," he'd remarked after telling one of his stories of life in his pack.

[Devonie]

Arianne darted in with a cry that could only be torn from a Crinos throat. She slashed at the boar, taking away huge chunks of flesh and sending up gouts of blood.

She danced away from the beast's kicking feet and slashing tusks with the thrill of the fight singing through her veins and looked for another opening.

[General Havoc]

The others raced in after the boars instantly, wielding claws or gigantic silver swords, and roaring out battle cries fit to wake the dead. They tore huge rents in the flanks of the enormous pigs, but the pigs did not fall. Oversized and barbed like desert burrs, these things were clearly not natural.

Perhaps the "proper Garou" way was to wade in with the closest tree branch and start wailing away at the (literally) damned things, but that wasn't Sophie's style at all. Previously she had declined to adopt her Crinos form, partly out of her instinctive caution regarding the veil, partly because she wanted to keep her options open.

No such hesitation plagued her now.

In one fluid, instantaneous motion, Sophie shifted from a wolf into a towering Crinos, eyes flashing and fur bristling as her movements, never clumsy in Lupus or Homid, now seemed to downshift, becoming incrementally more precise, more unconscious. Though she was equally at home in Homid and Lupus, there was nevertheless no mistaking that this was Sophie's truly "natural" form, this was where she lived and breathed, few though the times were that she could adopt it in safety. And with the precision that could come only from long-practice, Sophie casually reached to her side, drew her Semi-Automatic pistol, dropped to one knee, sighted along her muzzle and the iron sights of the handgun, and fired a single 9mm FMJ Parabellum round straight into the boar's eye.

And blew it's head off.

The boar collapsed to the ground, stone dead, and in the place where its mangled head had been, there loomed something... else... A horrific eyeless-maw of far too many sharp fangs, glowing a sickly puce-green with a reddish aura around it, one that Sophie could not recognize, but did not need to. She knew without being told what she was looking at, and her breath caught as the smoke from her gunshot cleared. A bane.

[LadyTevar]

The Bane screamed in insane rage and hatred, the reddish aura around it flaring...

... and the flesh of the boar reassembled like a film ran backwards, all the wounds knitting and healing, leaving massive scars as the only signs it was ever damaged. Then the great beast exploded into a furious assualt upon the Garou closed to it.

The back legs lashed out, kicking at Sees-Faces with deadly intent. Whirling, the boar sliced at Alex in passing with its sharpened tusks, splashed with the boars own blood. Finally the boar lunged at Arianne, meaning to trample over the Fianna and break her bones.


The gunshot echoed around the holler, and the other two boars whirled towards the source of hte sound. Their red-tinged eyes flared, and they charged towards Sophie, heads-down. Then one squealed in pain, as the wizened Garou leapt up and slashed its leg, hamstringing it. The second boar continued its headlong charge.

[Cynical Cat]

Stormwalker felt the boar's tusk brush him before Sophie put a bullet in between it's eyes. That's when the Bane erupted from the carcass. "Thunder!" Alexander swore. He stabbed with Stormtalon, opening a small wound on the horror.

Not quite the result he had hoped for.

[rhoenix]

Almost taken by surprise, Sees-Faces-In-Stars couldn't quite dodge the sudden kick aimed at him by the Bane, surprised that it was showing itself so soon.

They must be concerned, he thought with a grin, as an rumbling, echoing, almost ethereal growl emanated from him.

They know that they are prey for Garou to devour and purify, and prey they shall become, he thought, as he settled comfortably within the ordered chaos of combat.

[Devonie]

Heart-of-Steel wrenched her body to the side as the bane-possessed boar came thundering at her, but not far enough. She felt it's breath on her back as it ran right over her; the luck of the stars was with her - she barely felt anything as the pig ran over her then wheeled to face them again.

She snarled angrily as she crouched and prepared for another attack.

[General Havoc]

The boar's head regenerated before Sophie's eyes like videotape run in reverse. Scarcely able to believe it, she watched in horror as it lashed out in every direction at the others, and consequently she did not see the second boar coming before it was nearly too late. She managed in a split second to prepare herself to receive the thing's charge, and while it still bowled her over, she managed to brace herself well enough to knock the damned thing down at the same time.

She landed on her back, hard, and rolled over, scrambling to her feet as she tried to decide what to do. The gun had done nothing, or rather whatever it HAD done was simply not enough. There was no time to work out the hows and the whys. Bullets would clearly not suffice here, and from the looks of it, neither would swords.

So it was time for plan B.

She raised on hand as she scrambled to her feet, and calling on the local spirits in the way even she knew how conjured a massive ball of fire, nearly a foot and a half wide, in her free hand. This time she did not try to mitigate it or shrink it down, instead letting it flare to full size and fury before hurling it into the fallen boar like Vulcan casting lava bombs down from the heights of some active volcano.

If the boar didn't care for bullets, perhaps this would be more to its taste...

[LadyTevar]

Boar stunned boar was just rising to hits feet when the ball of fire hit it and set its fur aflame. It squealed in pain.

[Cynical Cat]

Stormwalker roared and closed with the a blur of Rage enhanced speed. Stormtalon came down. Hard. Blood sprayed from the deep gash hacked into its body, staining the ground red.

[Cynical Cat]

Stormwalker followed up on his advantage on the wounded boar. The flow of time slowed to the speed of molasses as the boar twisted to try and avoid further blows. Stormwalker sidestepped, moving with Rage accelerated fury. His movement put him in an excellent position.

Stormtalon came down, slicing through the polluted creature's spine just behind its muscular hump and cutting through the boar-fomor's flesh, almost slicing it in half. Blood sprayed from the massive wound as Alexander Stormwalker kicked the beast of his blade.

[rhoenix]

Seeing that Alex had handled the...Defiled boar already, Sees-Faces-In-Stars turned toward his next target, the one menacing the elder Garou. Taking off at a dead run, an ethereal growl grew in his chest as he prepared to create his own weak point to savage.

Digging both claws into the creature's back, he paved the way for its destruction, managing to grab the flesh at the nape of the neck and rip it all the way down the creature's back, exposing a large section of bare and unarmored flesh.

(EDIT: Edited to reflect damage)

[LadyTevar]

((SHIT! WRONG THREAD, so.. saved!)))

Arianne also crossed the clearing, although she was slower to follow than Sees-Faces. Yet the sight of him ripping the back off the boar made her howl in ferocious delight, visualizing the kill.