View source for Smith International: Stand By And Or Behind Me

= Summary =

{{LogParticipants
|1=Hallah
|2=Marion
|3=Freya
|4=Noelle
|5=Kira
}}

== Overview ==

Following the gossip grapevine about strange goings-on, a group of Sept members intercept some teenagers breaking into an abandoned warehouse. They subdue the teens, get them to run, and take the investigation into their own hands.  Inside, they discover a horrific scene: the place looks abandoned but has active electrical systems, a number of stored chemical barrels, and signs of supernatural occupation. They encounter a tortured stranger who has been trapped inside for days, possibly weeks, surviving on contaminated water and wild animals while being systematically hunted by some kind of manifestation.  

When it attacks Hallah, Marion and Kira leap to action, shredding the creature, which Hail Marys a catastrophic, freezing blast that causes damage to the building, its contents, and injures the attackers before dissolving.  Did it retreat or was it destroyed?

The pack successfully rescues Boxes, healing his infected leg and numerous wounds. His mental state is shattered, and he's come to some bizarre conclusions, believing he's dead and in purgatory or hell or something.  He starts to wander... But a few of the Gaians want, of course, to pin him down and figure out what he witnessed, and so some of them will do just that (in another log).

== Prelude Gossip ==

A 24/7 Whataburger off of I-10 is full of the usual crowd past midnight: truckers, night shift workers, children of parents who, in fact, do not know where their kids are. Two teens are at a booth by the window and one of them talks with his hands, flinging around his half-eaten taquito.
        "Bro, Billy wants to check out that warehouse near where the FBI did that big cartel bust? Apparently there's another building right near to it that's been making weird-ass noises."
        "Mmmn, What kind of noises?" His friend is skeptical, but already half in.
        "Screaming. But not people screaming." 
        "What, like foxes in heat?" 
        "No no, like... if an animal learned how to scream words."
        "That's made up."
        "No! Billy swears his cousin heard it! Said Boxes disappeared from there, hadn't seen him in weeks. Van's bringing his dad's camcorder and we're going to check it out Tuesday night. You in?"
        "Hell yeah, I'm in. What if we find Boxes's body?" 
        The other kid gasps and smacks him, sending iceberg lettuce fluttering. "Don't even JOKE about that!"


At a corner store on Navigation, two women are persuing canned goods. 
        "Did you hear what these kids are planning? My nephew told me him and his friends want to go check out that warehouse making all that noise."
        "The one near where they found those poor people in the containers?!"
        "No, not that one. Near it though. Same complex. Apparently it's been abandoned, but people hear things. These boys think it's gonna be fun, like some kind of adventure."
        "They better NOT. Are you gonna tell his mama?"
        "I already did. She said she's gonna ground him if he even thinks about it. But you know how boys are. They watch too many movies." 
        "Apparently they don't watch /enough/. You seen Candyman? Because that's some Candyman shit right there." 


At a gas station on the East Side, there's a few people gathering in the parking lot after hours under the sodium vampor street lights, and standing around someone's lowered Civic.
        "What about that warehouse lot on Wallisville? Big open space, nobody around."
        "/Fuck/ nah! Me and Treshawn scouted that place last week. We got maybe twenty feet in and turned right the fuck back around."
        "Why? Cops?"
        "Worse! Chemical smell so bad we couldn't breathe, like it was burning our eyes. And we saw something moving in the loading dock."
        "Probably a homeless dude."
        "Nah. It moved weird. I can't even describe it. Treshawn swore she heard someone saying 'ayudame' but like, moaning it. We didn't stick around to find out."
        "Why not?!"
        "Why not!? Are you [redacted]?"
        "Okay, damn! What about the Fiesta parking lot then?"


At the Rusty Mule on a Wednesday night, three regulars are out on the patio under the swirling arms of a wobbling ceiling fan. They nurse their beers as George Jones lilts from the jukebox inside. 
        "So are y'all actually gonna go check it out or what?"
        "Check what out?"
        "That warehouse everyone's been talking about. Near the FBI bust site."
        "Man, I heard about that. Supposedly it smells like burning plastic and meat? My buddy drives trucks through there, says it's been like that for weeks."
        "See, that's exactly why we should go look. Something's not right."
        "Oh yeah, because I'm a fucking police officer. Listen, y'all can go get yourselves killed if you want. I'll read about it in the paper."
        "You're being dramatic. It's probably just some dead animal, maybe a hobo camp."
        "Oh, okay, mister dramatic, then you go be brave and find your dead possum. I said I'll read about it in the paper."

== Log ==
'''''(Medina)'''''
At night, the temperatures have thought about dropping, but Houston's humidity is loath to let go of its heat, and within the punishing swelter of the October night air is the faint stench of burning plastic. 

A tall, lonely warehouse made of corrugated metal looms three stories over the block, its regiment of grille windows smeared and caked with industrial dirt and neglect where they aren't shattered and smashed in or boarded up. The structure stands silent in a parking lot that spreads like the looming shadow of a sunchoking stormcloud. The skeletons of two abandoned cars and a rusted out transport truck sit in the far portion of the lot, stripped of all their useful parts.

The grounds are surrounded by eight feet of wire fence, fanged with barbed wire, and the gigantic metal gates guarding the property's face speak to the world of cemeteries and institutions. They almost evoke the grim, haunted mansions of cloistered eccentrics, but the rust corrodes their once-was beetle-black finish into the unwelcoming color of dried blood. 

Pulled over onto the shoulder of the access road is a white, ten year old Ford Tempo: a simple, four-seater car, generic, sweet and forgettable as a slice of Albertsons apple pie. It's for the driver that lives paycheck to paycheck, and it certainly doesn't belong here in a world meant for pickups and flatbeds. It sits about 100 feet from the front gate, lights out, engine off.

The likely drivers are not far away. Beneath the sickly sodium vapor lights are two people, young enough to still be called boys, dressed in (mostly) black. An East Asian kid with (poorly) frosted tips holding a clunky camcorder, his hands half-gloved by the sheer length of the shirtsleeves of his oversized flannel. His White friend with the curtain bangs and pooka shell necklace bears the bolt-cutters, as he struggles to snap the wire fence. As two young and unseasoned adventurers, they aren't exactly the picture of stealth.

"You gotta twist it."

"Van, shut -up-, I've got it."

"Seriously dude, twist it, it's easier!" 

"Fine..."

A snap of cut wire clips through the lot as you arrive, the wire fence ringing with the ripple of burst tension. Clip-ring! Clik-snap!

The two are plain to see, and their entry into the property is inevitable in the next few minutes.

'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah drove her big old RV here. Anyone who desires was made welcomed to join her inside of such. The RV has lots of crafting supplies all over the places like bottoms, ribbons yarn and so forth. It also has hand knitted pillows, blankets and stuffies inside. She once again will try to park in a stealthish way with a clear line out if she can. She is adorned in old ripped up once black jeans that are not grey and have patches of mushrooms all over them, a dark maroon long-sleeved thermal fitted shirt. Her long brown locks are pulled back into a ponytail and held by a dark homemade scrounie. Her backpack is cheap and black. Her tennis shoes are cheap and dark too. She pulls in and says. "Oh, shit they are about to enter...maybe we need to stop them quickly?"

'''''(Marion)'''''
Marion can't stop dressing like a cowboy sans the hat, apparently, but today at least he's wearing black like Yul Brenner in Westworld. Hedoesn't need his super hearing to catch the clipping of chain link. He nods to Hallah's suggestion as he stuff his dust mask into a pocket for latter. "If I walk past them, they will flee." he says simply, and he starts to move that way, though he turns back to poll the group, "Unless any of you have a subtler way?" Walking pat a regular person with enough of The Curse that they decide to leave IS pretty subtle, but how knows what tricks the cats and birds have up their sleeves!

'''''(Noelle)'''''
Having met Hallah last night for the first time, and got on with her very quickly, Noelle decides to take her up on her very generous invite and hope aboard the RV, arriving with Hallah and anyone else who took her up on her offer.

The wereraven is in all black: black cargos, black boots and a black, wool military sweater. Her black hair is up and way from her face in a high pony.

'''''(Kira)'''''
Kira's car was -not- subtle, something that would decidedly be left behind for something like this. Sure enough, she'd turned up in her own jacket and with a messenger bag slung over one shoulder. What had the Eurasian beauty thought so imporant that she'd brought it along? Hopefully they wouldn't have to worry about it, but it probably wasn't some paperwork. 

Hair tied back and wrapped in a rather understated hoodie jacket over her tank top and figure-hugging jeans, she looked like just another youth out and about as the hours got late and the weather got colder. 

Of course, when you came from the regions of the world that the bastet did? Usually it was damn near swimsuit weather right until the ice began to form! 

She'd take the ride with Noelle and Hallah, happy for the ride along.
'''''(Freya)'''''
Freya rode with Hallah and Marion as well and a few others. Dressed in black, and wearing a black jacket she looks around at the others then at Marion. "I can go out there and distract them.. " she tells him. You can tell she is not happy about doing it, but well. She does look the way she does. "I'm pretty sure I can get their attention." 4

'''''(Marion)'''''
Marion looks around at all the faces real quick and nods, "Yeah, yeah..." to Freya, stepping out of her way. "Run, or, whatever people do now, jog? It's called Jogging right?" He jerks his head that way too and then whispers the added explanation, "Less likely they get loud that way." The Curse is great at scaring people off, but sometimes people are noisey about it, and even worse sometimes Fight beats out Flight as a response. He'll cap his eyes pealed and his ears open though , way open...

'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah parks the RV, looking to Freya and then looking over to Marion. She nods in his direction. She shoves the keys in her pocket and reaches for her backpack.

'''''(Medina)'''''
Clink, snap! In the streetlight, the group can tell that these two are just teenagers. And when they roll up in the RV, Van swings his camcorder around and looks toward the sound and of course the headlights. "Billy, it's -- someone's coming." Billy and his bolt cutters tries to hurry it up, but Van tugs on him. "C'mon let's go! They're probably gonna fuck it up for us!" 

Billy looks over his shoulder and sees the RV. "Whatever," Billy says, "they're probably just parking here to sleep. Help me pull this open!"
'''''(Kira)'''''
The bastet slips forwards in her seat, leaning an arm against the back of the rest as her own inhumanly enhanced senses looked out into the darkness at the youths. "Well, scare them off or lure them way, both work, but we better pick soon." The stretch of her back, positively feline in nature as she looked between Marion and Freya both. "Either of you, I'll back you up with each option. But we need to move."


'''''(Noelle)'''''

Noelle stands back as the girls jockey for a place so they can make a difference. She is impressed and gives them plenty of room to do their thing. The Raven stands ready to help subdue the boys if it comes to that.


'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah jumps from the driver's seat and goes running toward the teens. Her running sucks and it is the goofy running of a girl picked last in team sports in gym class. She yelps and twists her right ankle. The yelp sounds very real because it is real. "For fuck's sake! I need to get in better shape!" She says and this isn't exactly acting either. "Damnit..." She says and tries to pull herself back up and limp her way toward the teens. "Oh, hi! I will never make it home now..I can barely walk." She looks at them pleadingly.

'''''(Medina)'''''
Chaos breaks out. Billy shoves the fence wire, trying to get through at the last second, when Hallah's mad dash distracts him. Both he and Van swing around to look at the sound of someone tumbling and yelping. They both see Hallah. Kira's nonchalant stride around back also does some lifting: the ripples of her Rage are not lost on the young men and their survival instinct. But while Van and his camcorder stays focused on Hallah, Billy grips his bolt cutters like an improvised weapon, unknowing what is so unsettling to him, but his hindbrain screams something Wrong is too close. "We gotta get out of here," he says, just moments before Freya and Kira take action.

'''''(Freya)'''''

Freya tries to make her way up to the boy's slowly, but there are too many damn street lights here, and while one is is distracted by Hallah, she goes about sprinting and tackling the one closet to her, bearhugging the kid and rolling him to the ground, sliding her strong arm around his neck and holding him there, choking him out if she can.


'''''(Kira)'''''
Animal magnetism can sometimes ensure that Rage was that tempting, coaxing allure that people swing to despite their better judgement. Sometimes? It was simply something more a primal menace...tonight it works, sending them seemingly scattering with little more than some hard stare as she walked like there was a bad day. Trying to break in? Apparently the short woman wasn't having it as she said two simple words laced with all the possible consequence some primative part of the brain suggested despite the physical picture before them. 

"Fuck. Off."

'''''(Marion)'''''

Marion takes note to work on being prepared for catching OTHER people breaking into the place you're planing to break into. He looks at Noelle and shrugs a little, "I guess we're winging it..." haha, get it? He starts looking, and more importantly, listening around. Of course with everyone moving around he might be better serced by his eyes, rather than his ears, tonight.

'''''(Medina)'''''
A beautiful symphony of chaos. Hallah on the ground, channeling her pain into a 'pitiful' performance, Freya whispering her business plans into Van's ear - his camcorder clatters to the ground. Billy swings around, wielding boltcutters to throw down for his friend with a "What the FUCK!" as Van kicks and struggles, but only one of htese two go to the gym. Billy lunges for the stranger attacking his bestie, but then the Rage hits him like a truck, and adrenaline screams in his veins like ice at Kira's very presence. "oh Fuck, oh fuck!" 

A coward, Billy turns out to be. He unthinkingly drops the bolt cutters on his dash towards the Ford. Van tries to pry Freya's arm off of his neck, too drowned in the moment to realize his friend's turn-tailed betrayal, and he chokes out, "We're leaving! We're leaving!"

'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah tries to grab the camera and bolt cutters if she can do that. She also starts to limp her wait toward the cut open gate as the kids begin to flee. She looks a little guilty, like she does feel bad for them.

'''''(Freya)'''''
Freya lets go of the kid as he chokes out that they are leaving and lets him go. "Don't come back either.. " she says to him as she moves to get up and dust herself off. Watching Van take off to follow Billy.

'''''(Medina)'''''
Noelle, you keep watch as this happens, and your sharp eyes cast over the cracked asphalt that lines the ground on the other side of the fence. You see that what was once a bustling storage facility for commerce has fallen into ruin: the warehouse itself has been scoured by the elements, its walls oxidized and covered with layer upon layer of grime and graffiti, rusty patches like splattering stains on a slaughterhouse floor.

You see no movement - and that's the problem. You would expect something: racoons, the rustle of birds, a rat? Something. But there's nothing. Just the expanse. And as you focus, scanning for danger, that faint stench of burning plastic blooms here - or rather, swells like a bruise. Along with it the unsavory smells of human waste and overripe refuse. Trash is piled up against the sides of the warehouse, not in bags, just accumulated chaos: weather-ruined and soured clothes, a shoe, broken bottles, shattered furniture, things beyond recognition. No immediate danger, not on this side of the fence. Within, your instincts say, is entirely another story, but you'll have to go in to see.
'''''(Hallah)'''''
The teenaged boys felt super brave and daring when they first arrived on this adventure, but now they are hightailing it away. They start to head in different directions and certainly see to be panicked. Their breathing is elevated and their cheeks are drained of color. there is tension in her slender frames. They run like they are running for their lives, because well they probably believe they are. Later when the tell the story, they won't tell the truth through of how frightened they were.

'''''(Medina)'''''
Marion, as you attune your senses, of course, the smells grow unbearably overripe, even with that mask. Throat-tightening. Eye watering. You can see that the structure's metal walls almost seem deteriorated enough that a hard shove could send the whole complex tumbling down, but truly, it's more of the vibe than the reality. The employees-only doors have metal crossbars with heavy locks to keep anyone from getting in. The bay doors are all closed down, and while they bear no obvious barricades, the way theyre shuttered still bodes flatly unwelcoming.

The sounds of the city unwravel beyond you as your perceptions stretch out beyond human limitations: the cars and trucks that pass by on distant roads are just that. No sirens, nothing alarming. 

Your eyes catch on a way in just beyond the fence: an overturned dumpster rests against a wall under a window that looks like it's been boarded over multiple times. A few of these boards look like they could be moved or pried back to allow entrance to the warehouse itself. There are some holes and gaps closer to the building's foundation, big enough for a cat or raccoon, or even a raven, to slip in.

'''''(Kira)'''''
Exhaling as they scatter, Kira's lips pull to a little smile before her steps take her closer to Hallah, a little tilt of her head is given. "Are you alright with that?" she questions with a nod to the ankle before she walked onwards, slipping forwards and then stretching her arms out. "We can sneak in, or just go through the door. Locks won't stop us, and it's a little more subtle than knocking holes in stuff." 

One last look back to Marion and Freya, seems the Tiger was happy to keep moving where needed, but she wasn't stealing the reigns.


'''''(Marion)'''''

Marion is a little slow rejoining everyone, and he misunderstand Kira's claim on the locks, "We should avoid breaking anything if we can..." because that's how he deals with locks, "Hallah can try picking the locks." He asks Noelle then, "Do you think you can get in through one of the holes and have a look-see, safely I mean?" He keeps glancing back to Hallah, but he'll have to wait until the op work is done to really check on her.

'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah peeks up to her mate when Marion says she can pick the locks, the small brunette nodding in agreement with him. She doesn't rush to lockpicking though maybe realizing that another entering plan is afoot. She has her backpack on her pack. the camcorder and the bolt cutters are in her hands, making them pretty full. She quietl lingers near Marion for right now.

'''''(Noelle)'''''
"Oh, absolutely!" In a flutter and fury of feathers and black clothes, Noelle shifts to a sleek, sneaky raven. <<I'll check out that hole up there and see if I can get through and tell what is on the other side. For now though I don't see anything moving, and there -should- be movement, so this is a little unsettling." She explains to Marion, then flutters up to try to get herself through one of the little holes.

'''''(Medina)'''''
The Raven manages her way through one of the holes in the corrodded walls, and it's an unpleasant fit that plucks a guard feather from her, but it works. Noelle's taloned widdle birb feeps step onto concrete floors cold as a crypt. Metal walls the color of filth and tetanus rise above and around her, caked in graffiti, everywhere: names, dates, crude drawings, phone numbers, tally marks scratched into brick with keys or glass or fingernails, and a nessage smeared in... Something. It says, 'NOT ALONE'.

And then the smell strikes her. That burning plastic smell, eye-watering, throat-tightening, thick enough to taste, mixed with something organic and rotting underneath.

Then the light: industrial fluorescent fixtures hang from the ceiling from rusted chains that evoke the hooks of an abattoir. Some flicker weakly, others are long dead, but the sickly, uneven light unfolds the space before you, carving it into either sick yellow light or inky shadows dark as an unfound tomb. 

The warehouse opens into a loading dock area that spans maybe forty feet across. Concrete floors cold as a crypt creep toward a trio of bay doors all shuttered.

To the left, a metal staircase climbs to a catwalk system that runs along the perimeter of the warehouse. Grated walkways suspended fifteen feet up overlook the main floor, with half-rusted railings, missing stairs. 

To the right, a row of offices: plywood and drywall partitions, most with their doors hanging off hinges or missing entirely. Through the gaps you can see desks pushed on their sides, filing cabinets spilling yellowed paperwork.

Straight ahead, past the loading dock, the warehouse proper opens up into a cathedral of industrial decay. The ceiling vaults three stories overhead, crisscrossed with exposed I-beams as if from within the skeleton of some giant beast, ductwork sagging like broken ribs. Overhead, imposing banks of roofset windows, whose knocked-out, gridded panes evoke a rotting smile.

The vast main floor is easily a hundred feet deep, sixty wide, divided into sections by the ghosts of what used to be. Rows of empty pallet racks stand like the picked-clean bones of some massive beast, their shelves warped and collapsing. Forklifts sit abandoned mid-aisle, their tires flat, parts long stripped, frames long since rusted. Trash litters everything. Newspapers so old they've fused with runoff into pulpy masses. Cigarette butts and uncountable broken bottles, their glass ground into glittering dust.

It's all too quiet inside, and the far-off whispers from cars along the city streets almost echo in this dark, lonely chamber as the cold, a reminder that she could just turn back now, to the normal world. The clammy creep of the air traces along her black feathers, like the appraising touch of a blind man's hands. It's like the warehouse knows she's here.

'''''(Medina)'''''
Noelle takes flight and moves into the offices and utility rooms. She enters what must have once been a supervisor's station, maybe. Metal desk overturned, filing cabinets tipped and gutted, papers scattered like confetti -- and something else. A corkboard still hangs on one wall, pins rusted, whatever notices were posted long since rotted away. 

Tucked into the narrow space between that desk and the wall is a nest of rags and cardboard that might charitably be called a shelter. The improvised bedding is stiff with old sweat and street grime, a sour, ripe, nauseating stench of shit and sweat and too much dried blood. Nearby sits a plastic Ozarka bottle, the wrinkled label nearly illegible, cap missing, filled with maybe an inch of brown water thick with sediment, a dead mosquito floating on its surface. The tide lines of previous fillings dried in concentric rings up the sides paint a desperate and disgusting picture. And so following the logic backward, you eventually spot it: a drainpipe overhead, dripping steadily into a puddle of filthy runoff pooled in a depression in the concrete. A puddle of industrial rot. Who could be desperate enough to drink from this? 

Near the shelter, partially hidden under the cardboard, the remains of a rat. Or what used to be a rat. The skull is cracked open, the brain cavity scraped clean. The fur is matted with dried saliva. Tooth marks score the tiny ribs where someone tried to gnaw every scrap of meat from the bones, but they're dull. This isn't the gnawing mark of an animal, this is the scrape of more human teeth. It's been dead for a day, maybe two.

'''''(Kira)'''''
Kira rests perched outside, checking her bag and her firearm with a light pat of her hand before closing her eyes and...listening. She's awaiting the raven's caw to tell her to make her way in, or sounds of a fight that might suggest Noelle needed a rescue. 

Cats saving birds? Go figure. 

Her attention shifts to the Kinfolk and the other shifter, tilting her head. "Are the rest of you okay?'

'''''(Freya)'''''
Freya nods her head to Kira. "I'm fine." she says to her and looks at Hallah. "You want me to look at that for ya?" motioning to her ankle. "I might be able to help it if its bothering you too bad that you don't think you can walk on it." she offers, and looks to Marion too, as its his mate she is offering help too.

'''''(Noelle)'''''

Noelle takes a mental picture of the disaray that the office is in and hustles back to the group. "It looks like a hurricane went thru the office, tables flipped, desks toppled, paperwork -everywhere-... either someone was looking for something specific, or there was just a big scuttle in there. Do you guys want to come through? I can open a door from this side I think? And then I want to go check out the dock while you guys are doing your thing."
'''''(Marion)'''''

Marion doesn't get in the way of Freya helping Hallah out, and he'll handle the stowing away of the camera and the bolt cutters. He will sneak in a little affection for Hallah as he does, but this is a work outing as one could put it, so he keeps it chaste and quick. Besst not to destract himself from what could be Wyrmy Danger ahead.

'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah looks to Freya. "I mean...I think.." She says and tests out putting weight on her ankle. She winces. "I should be alright." She says, having no idea that Freya can do anything behind the mundane for her ankle. "I mean, I should wrap it, but we don't have anything for that..." She sits down and holds out her ankle to Frey. "I thin its fine!" She says of her right ankle which looks swollen. She also nuzzles briefly back to Marion at his affection.

'''''(Freya)'''''
Freya kneels down and checks the ankle out before looking at Hallah. "Its not too bad, but its gonna be sore. Be sure to wrap it when we get back and put some ice on it if you can.. " she tells her. "I know you got Marion here, but if need be, I can piggy back ride you around if you need it." she offers.

'''''(Noelle)'''''
Noelle continues on, as she thinks on more details. "There is a tide line in here that has gotten everything disgusting and mixed with human waste and filth. And curiously, there was a dead rat that I came across, which wouldn't be so strange, except for the way he lookslike he died. His skull was cracked, the brain cavity scraped clean. there were gnaw marks on his tiny ribs, like he's been disected and gutted. Soomething took a lot of sweet time to kill and eat this rat. Like it was personal or somethign... The teeth marks also look more human than animal! and the rat's been dead for a day, maybe two."

She shakes out her feathers as if trying to shake off the grimey feeling she is experiencing. "I don't know if any of this means anything but there are a lot of little details that seem like they might speak to somethig bigger..."

'''''(Marion)'''''
Marion is hustling back after putting the evidence away, looking around some in case the kids come back and the like. "A tide line? Like the office was flooded? And somebody's been eating the rats?" He gets a pretty sour look on his face, "Gee, that sure sounds creepy and gross..." It sounds like a lot of things but maybe he's too worried to put his finger on it.

'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah smiles to Freya. "I feels better now." She says happily, seeming glad of that. She now is walking without any issues at all.


'''(Noelle - You get the intuition that 'took a lot of sweet time to kill this rat' may be an assumption. Now that you reflect on it, it might instead be starvation or desperation you were looking at. If something is living /inside/ that warehouse with how there's next to zero animal activity, how that thing gets food without leaving (if it leaves) is kind of a wonder. So maybe it was picked clean.)'''

'''(Hallah - You get the same feeling that 'sweet time to kill and eat' may be from a survival drive. But the fact that the rat's been dead for maybe two days tops, that means whatever's in there, probably still is. It occurs to you to ask for clarification with the 'tide line', and you learn that what Noelle is talking about is a waterbottle. A water bottle that has been filled an drefilled with disgusting water over and over. So not only 'probably still is', but 'has been in there for some time now'. Even monsters need to hydrate.)'''

'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah is quick to share this information in a softly whispered voice. "Tide line is a waterbottle that keeps being refilled with icky gross water. Something is living here and slowly eating rats and drinking gross water." she says and shudders.
'''''(Noelle)'''''
"Wait wait guys! I thought about this a little longer. I think something is IN here that was feasting on rats because that's all it had to eat. And the waterbottle - that was the tideline I mentioned? Well it could very well be something in here trying to survive. Let's just rethink everyone jumping in here all at once?" She addresses Marion the most considering they're the leader!

'''''(Kira)'''''
Reaching to the small of her back, Kira produces her firearm and offered it gently to those left behind. Her backup it seems, but offered none the less. "Be careful. And if -we- start running? Well, keep up." 

With that, she'd move in, reaching the door and barely slowing down as her hand traced over the door and the soft clicks of locking mechanisms yielding announced the 'seal' breaking. 

Followed immediately by Kira making a face and doubling back, digging for a mask of her own. 

"Gross."

'''''(Medina)'''''
The door shudders open under Kira's influence, and it swings with a rusty sound that scratches at Marion's sensitive ears. The lot of them see the expanse, lit by overhead industrial lights that should have gone out ages ago if this place is truly as abandoned as its exterior would have you believe. And yet they flicker and hum, patches of shadow far off draping away stretches of the loading bay that the brave Kinfolk Freya aims to explore. 

From somewhere in the darkness, distant, echoing, hard to place the source... A /baby/ crying. High, thin and desperate, the kind of sound that reaches into your hindbrain and demands a response. It wavers, rises to a wail, breaks into hitching sobs. Somewhere in this warehouse, an infant is suffering.

'''''(Medina)'''''
For Marion, the crying is enough to make his whole body go rigid. The pitch is right. A distinctive, newborn's frequency. The exact range human ears are evolutionarily tuned to prioritize. The rhythm is right. The rhythm of the wail, the pause, the current of its emotion is distress, hunger, fear. But what Marion peels back with his senses is more. The cry doesn't come from one place. It echoes wrong. It doesn't decay in that predictable attenuation, no, it shifts, comes from the back of the warehouse, near the offices, then from overhead, somewher ein the catwalks. And beneath the crying, so subtle that even Marion almost misses it, is a harmonic that doesn't belong, something that makes his inner ear ache, impossible to describe, impossible to deny. But there's something about it that feels designed.

'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah gasps with concern as she hears the crying baby. She thinks the baby is totally real and she gasps again. "Oh, no...Oh..." She says starting to rush off to wherever she thinks the sound is coming from.

'''''(Medina)'''''
Also for Marion - while the others see the gnawed rat bones and the crusted water bottle, Marion hears the building breathe, even beyond the unsetetling crying. The metal roof expands and contracts with temperature shifts and each rivet is whispering in a discordant choir of stress and age. Water drips somewhere in the darkness, plink, plonk, splsss... That last one was a thick, syrupy drop from something that hisses when it hit something. 

Beneath it all, a chorus of electrical hums from the transformers throbbing outside, the fluorescents buzzing overhead. Ech fixture is slightly out of tune with the others, and it's almost as maddening as the wailing. 

And lastly, something else. Not close. Maybe sixty, seventy feet away, deeper in the warehouse. Wet. Labored. The kind of breathing that speaks of broken ribs or punctured lungs or three days without water.

'''''(Medina)'''''
Freya - The left side of the warehouse is dipped in the shadows that call the most urgently. It's where the real storage used to be. Pallet racks still stand here, some fully loaded with shrink-wrapped pallets of forgotten goods, others empty except for dust and cobwebs. The aisles between the racks are barely wide enough for a forklift, stretching back into shadow, and halfway down the main aisle, the shelving gives way to a cleared area where barrels are stacked. Dozens of them. Maybe fifty. Industrial drums in yellow, black, and red, each bearing hazmat labels that glow faintly reflective in the dim light. Biohazard trefoils. Some of the labels read XK-47. Others read XK-52.

A few of the barrels are leaking. Slow drips, barely noticeable, but the concrete beneath them is pitted and discolored, eaten away by whatever's inside. 

Behind the barrel stacks, there are narrow spaces between the pallets and the brick wall, dark and cramped. Perfect hiding spots. Or perfect places to get cornered. Perfect places to get ambushed from. The wailing of the baby contiues on, and you can't quite place where it's coming from.

'''''(Kira)'''''


"Alright," Kira speaks as she exhales behind her mask, listening out. "We should..." she goes silent, those acute senses clearly picking of the sounds of the baby crying easily, but those other noises, ragged and painful? Well, that was either a victim or a threat. 

The sound of the jacket's zipper being drawn down fast is a harsh noise, the racking of the slide from the pistol Kira drew notably mechanical as she lifted her attention towards the source, only to spot the running Hallah. 

"Hey!" she hisses. "Hold on!"

'''''(Medina)'''''
Kira, as you take in the scene, you see how the catwalks run along the perimeter of the warehouse about fifteen feet up, accessible by two staircases. One is near the loading dock, one is near the back wall. The grated metal walkways connect to a few second-story rooms, and whiel the catwalks are in rough shape, one thing stands out to you - the fact that from up there, you'd have a perfect view of the entire warehouse floor. A sniper's nest. Or a hunter's perch. You also hear the breathing.

'''''(Freya)'''''
Freya moves to follows the others in, reaching to the small of her back to pull out her pistol as well as she follows along. She is careful, until the smell hits her that almost makes her gag. She stops at door and puts her gun back in her waist band before pulling a bandana out of her jacket and tying it around her face. The smell in the place is awful, but at least she mellow it with the bandana. She takes out her gun again and continues to follow.
Her eyes dart to everyone else around her at the sound of a baby though, and she frowns, thinking to herself why the hell would there be a baby in here. While Freya is a curious person, she is not dumb enough to put herself in a tight corner. Though she her eyes widen with concern as she watches Hallah go running off.

'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah runs into to the warehouse and toward the sound of the crying baby. She hears Kira's warning to hang back. She then skitters to a halt as the feeling of this being some kind of bait takes over. Her tiny form draws taut and she sucks in a soft breath. The color drains from her pale cheeks. She edges a bit closer to Marion.

'''''(Marion)'''''

Is shook still by the sound, his hais standing up. He puts a hand up, hissing out "Everybody stay put, circle the wagons." it seems Kira's going to be able to stop Hallah, or at least has noticed she's rushing in agian. He spins his neckerchief around, pulling it up over his face like an old-timey cowboy bandit. When he does that he just... goes away. Gone, as in no mundane creatures nor spirits nor technology may sense him in any way except touch. In theory, he's just gone unless the floor is alive enough to feel him walking on it. He then takes of running, which no-one can hear or see, towards the breathing. With each invisible, soundless step, he changes slowly from a man to a giant killing machine... just in case it IS a trap and not a rescue.

Marion pages: Please tell me there's some half-dead hobo I can weekend at bernies back to the group haha.
'''''(Noelle)'''''

Noelle can hear the breathing, down to the laboured quality of it, it's so real and unmistakable. Except unlike the Kin, she is not overly turned on by babies. She sort of lacks a motherly instinct. So after hearing that breathing and letting the other imagery play on her mind, she makes up her mind. "I'm hanging back."


'''''(Medina)'''''
The baby's wailing cuts off mid-cry. Just stops, right as Hallah's realization thuds her in the chest. The silence that follows is somehow worse, broken only by the hum of fluorescent lights and that wet, labored breathing the Bete are tracking through the darkness. 

Everybody stay put, Marion hisses into that silence. Circle the wagons.

Then it starts again. From a completely different location. Behind them now, near the loading dock entrance, closer to Freya. Now it's the exact same cry. The exact same rhythm, like someone rewound a tape and hit play. As she puts on her bandana and Marion flips around his own, dissolving into darkness, that's when a voice, human, male, desperate, cracks through the warehouse as Freya gets her bandana out: "DON'T!" It's raw, scraped thin by dehydration. "Don't, don't follow it! It's not, there's no baby! It's a trick!"

The voice is coming from deeper in, past where Freya's spotted those leaking chemical barrels. From one of those dark alcoves behind the stacks. Whoever's speaking sounds like they're barely holding on. "Please!" The voice breaks. "Please just just get out. Before it..."

As Marion runs, it brings her past Freya, who can feel the breeze, hear the swift footfalls, of 'nothiing' passing her by, as the Garou sprints towards the voice. 

Marion's invisible sprint carries him past the chemical barrels that glwo faintly in his peripheral vision, and the chemical smell here is absolute torture. But there, curled in the tightest space between the pallets and the brick wall, clutching a piece of rebar like it's the only thing keeping him tethered to the world, is a man. Maybe fifty, sixty, wearing what used to be work clothes, his leg bent at an angle knees aren't supposed to bend, the joint swollen to grotesque proportions, skin mottle dpurple-black with bruising and infection. 

As Marion closes in, Noelle hangs back, and the others prepare for the worst, metal starts groaning that everyone can hear. A scraping, sliding noise from above, from the catwalks Kira and Noelle had noted. Something moving up there in the shadows, repositioning now that prey has entered the killing floor. The temperature drops, and with it, the air pressure.

'''''(Medina)'''''
As each of you take in your surroundings, looking for movement, for danger, you see a blood trail along the warehouse floor, and it doesn't run straight, but staggers. Dark smears on the concrete, handprints where someone dragged themselves forward, then a gap where their body was dragged - the question is only what did the dragging. The pattern loops back on itself in places. Whoever left it was confused, disoriented, or being herded.

The prints are the color of old dried rust, but in the dim light they could be fresh. In some places the blood is mixed with something else. A chemical residue that makes the concrete beneath it slightly pitted, like acid. It smells wrong. Sharp and synthetic beneath the copper. The trail leads to a storage alcove near the chemical barrels, then just stops. No body. No conclusion.

'''''(Medina)'''''
The cold hits first, and the fluorescent lights above Hallah flicker. Die. The darkness spreads like spilled ink, and in that darkness, something erupts, dropping like a nightmare made of falling lead -- and Hallah sees it coming, but not clearly. Her brain won't let her. It's the same merciful blindness that keeps you from comprehending, and her eyes slide off it, refuse to focus, can't quite parse what she's looking at even though it's right there, flying right at her, begging her body to leave -- and then CRASH!

Another body bursts from a different direction - a giant beast that is her savior, something that wasn't there a heartbeat ago! Predatory grace and violence. Kira is FAST, coming in low while Marion crashes in high, a coordinated ambush that speaks to hunter instincts neither of them had time to discuss. They hit the thing simultaneously, and it starts shrieking - but not with sound. It's some sort of psychospirutal shriek of hunger that hits like an icepick to the temples. What the two shifters sink into with claws and teeth is Something, Something that feels solid and yet not, like grabbing smoke that's learned to hold a shape.
(Fair-Flame)

Movement, motion...all of it fast. The creature leaps, but something invisible collides with it, hard. No time to check, she could only assume such an overtly supernatural thing was the work of the other shifter in the room. 

Kira herself though, she was already running, the sharp -snap- of the strap leaves the messenger bag and whatever 'ace in the hole' firearm she'd left inside forgotten as instinct takes over. 

She's already leaping through the air as her form seems to flare in a flash, transforming faster and smoother than most shifters should be able to manage. 

This wasn't just a Tiger, this was some great cat of the primordial era that stalked humanity in the shadows, muscle and liquid wrath colliding with the creature going after the kinfolk.

'''''(Medina)'''''
The Garou and the Bastet are /shredding/ this thing, and while Fair Flame's massive paws knife through smoke in one shrieking instant, she immediately finds purchase. The Kinfolk watch ichor and what could generously be called 'blood' spatter, and the temperature crashes, fractal frost crawling along the concrete floor. The thing's shrieking into peoples' minds, and it's a primal one of rage and panic.

'''''(Medina)'''''
Marion and Kira's claws are still buried in the manifestation when they start to feel it tearing itself apart to escape, sacrificing pieces of its own substance to get away from them -- the temperature /collapses/, instant, brutal, and all the while, that psychospiritual shrieking is like a tack-hammer strike to the eyes. The manifestation erupts in physics-defying cold, bursting outward in a wave that hits the gut of everyone's survival instincts, and as Freya dashes in to rescue Hallah, the Tiger and the Wolf leap back to use their own bodies as a shield. The frost explodes across everything in a thirty foot radius, and those metal barrels shriek as they contract in the cliffdive of temperature, the concrete cracking with sounds like gunshots that shake against the metal warehouse walls! The moisture in the air crystallizes and falls like glass snow, and the shockwave sends trash flying, bits of crushed bottle-glass now flying shrapnel! The thing starts dissolving, its form tattering, unwraveling, smoke, shadow, nightmares interrupted by waking. The piece scatter into the darkness, into cracks in the floor, into the air itself. It hurts to breathe in the warehouse, as the punishing cold snakes into your lungs, a whole new kind of burning...


'''''(Medina)'''''
Noelle has resolved, meanwhile, to rush in and check on Boxes, who meanwhile, is still clinging to the rebar, a grounding thing to help him through his pain. Boxes looks like an entire saga of suffering. Deep gashes, some scabbed over in thick black crusts, others still weeping yellow-tinged fluid, infected, neglected. Chemical burns mix with claw marks, or are they scratch marks from his own fingernails? It's hard to tell. His hands are wrapped around that rebar so tightly his knuckles are white, and the Raven -- and anyone who nears ihm after all this chaos -- can see that his skin has patches of deadened black of frostbite. His desperate eyes are sunken from days without sleep, a picture of pain, fear, dehydration, hunger, his lips cracked and bleeding, grey-white from lack of water. There's a fever-brightness to his eyes that says his body is eating itself trying to survive. In all the chaos, he's trembling, crying. "No no no, not again, please..."
Freya has partially disconnected.

'''''(Medina)'''''
"I can't take it anymore!" He begs from the barrels as the plunging cold tortures him for clearly not the first time: "Just kill me, please, just kill me and get it over with!"


'''''(Marion)'''''
Marion either runs out of Fetish-based super invisbility time, or deactivates the effect. What remains is... well he's a man agani. A frosty man with cold burns all over, but they'll heal. He looks around to make sure everybody's safe enough, the thing clearly gone now. Boxes is obviously the most injurred, and Marion is emphatic when he says, "No, don't kill him!" as if anybody assembled would have given in to the man's request for death, that's his animal brain thinking. "We can help him!"

'''''(Freya)'''''
Freya grabs Hallah, drags her too her feet and pushes her toward the door.. She is hit by the cold and it cause her to stumble a bit, but she eventually gets to her feet cause she is a Viking, baby!.. She finds it hard to breathe even with her bandana on, but she looks towards the boxes where Noelle is and sighs.. As heartless as it may seem, she almost agrees with the man there. Who would believe what happened to him.


'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah is dragged out of the way by Freya even as an invisible Marion shieled her. The waves of burning cold seep over her. She shivers and pales, but still is standing and look to be okay beyond the fever and the shivers. She looks to Freya to make sure she is okay. "Thank...you..." She says softly and is still well spooked. She says this to Freya and Kyra and well she didn't see invisible Marion protecting her! But slowly her wits return and she thanks him with adoring smile that fades quickly when she shivers again. She looks to Box and this time she doesn't shiver, but shudder while taking in the poor man's state.


(Fair-Flame)
Kira had taken enough, catching the brunt of the blast on her furred flank and giving a snarl of pain. When things finally begin to settle and the pain stops, especially with the kinfolk now pulling way, the great cat begins to shudder and reshape, twisting back into Kira's own form while she exhales a breath. 

No conjuring fire here to warm up, given the chemicals...but that didn't tickle. 

"Disgusting..."
'''''(Kira)'''''
Kira shifts into her homid form, a young Eurasian woman with cute features and long brunette hair.

'''''(Marion)'''''
Marion does his best to clean his hands off, this is no place for a Rite of Clensing after all, and then he joins Freya in the laying on of hands. Marion's got the power of prayer (and Gnosis) so he goes for the man's mangled legs. He calls out to the spirits under his breath and does what he can for the man in one go. With Freya there, he entrusts the stabalized man to her so that he can go track down his mate. He can't touch her, he's too dirty, but he has to be sure Hallah's okay too!


'''''(Freya)'''''
Freya moves forward and places her hand on the mans shoulder, using her gift of healing to at least bring him more a to being not so messed up. She then steps away in case anyone else had anymore they want to do for him, her intolerance not allowing to stay around the man for too long.


'''''(Hallah)'''''
Hallah is spooked, but she des seem to be okay. It is pretty amazing that she is okay and likely is the result of Marion's, Freya's and Kira's actions. She sucks in a soft breath and gives him a faint smile as if to silently say that she is fine. The fine is faint because well she is troubled about the attack that just happened and the suffering man.

'''''(Medina)'''''
The oppressive weight of the cold lingers with its wrongness and the barrels still creak in the temperature shift, but what's left is just a warehouse. Chemicals, rot, broken concrete, and a man who has survived the unspeakable. 

Now that the threat is gone and rescue is real -- surreal as it is -- Boxes's body collapses. Truly, despite that he's already lying on the ground in that disgusting little alcove, 'collapses' is the perfect word. When it's /human/ faces approaching him, the adrenaline that's been keeping him going abandons a man whose sobs of relief are gut-deep and animal. His shaking hands drop the rebar. It clatters to the concrete. He babbles through snot as tears carve cracks in the grime and blood of his hollowed cheeks: "I thought," and "I couldn't," and "It wouldn't stop." 

When they channel healing energy into him, he SCREAMS! Shock! The sound cracks loud through the warehouse, as that mangled, swollen thing that he's been dragging starts shifting back into place, with impossible, wet, grinding sounds. The infection weeps out of his wound, and it's an awful, ugly thing, a purging more than a cleansing: pus and blood and chemical residue leak from his skin, but this /needs/ to be done. 

Boxes starts hyperventilating in this impossible, miraculous relief. "What're you doing to me?!" It's almost a ridiculous question, but for the human who doesn't realize this is even possible, he must think he's already died. 

Yep: "I died?!! That thing killed me and this is, this is, I'm in hell?!"

It's a surreal relief! He's staring at skin that once was shredded. A leg that once was broken. "I'm dead," he concludes. "I died in there." Delivered in the numb, disconnected voice of someone whose reality just got ro sham fuckin' bo'ed in these past few days by something that nearly John Carpentered his ass and then a reality-defying Laying On Hands that made it all suddenly cease to be. He doesn't have the sense to thank them, because why would a corpse thank anybody? 

Instead, he tries out his feet, and impossibly, his legs work. He laughs in stunned disbelief. "There /is/ a hell," he says. "Or a purgatory, or whatever this is..."

Short of anyone stopping him, Boxes is going to wander numbly out of the warehouse, and hopefully, /hopefully/, his brain is broken by his experiences enough for nobody to believe him.

...Right?

[[Category: Logs]]