"...I don't know how they found me."
Mar. 25th, 2014 02:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
renferretX finds out about the fliers with her face on them.
Edgewood House: Meadow(#1390RJh)
A long, hard-packed dirt road winds almost a mile through the forest off Sunrise Road, eventually opening out into a small front yard, and coming to a stop in front of a large house, which may be the very definition of ramshackle. The house is not visible from the road, nor can one hear anything but perhaps a gunshot. Its foundation and general structure are solid, but its once crisp grey-and-white paint needs updating, and some of the trim is having trouble staying attached. A fixer upper, one might say. Off to the left, there's a former garage, long since converted into something of an in-law apartment. A connecting flyover attaches it to the second floor of the house.
There are no fences surrounding either the front or back yards. In the rear of the property, the yard (larger than in the front) eventually comes up against a well built garden, with the very beginnings of sprouts. Shaded and obscured by surrounding trees, there is a small (but deep) natural pond, with a chuckling brook leading out of it, into the woods. There's a rope swing hanging from one of the trees. The yard to the southeast of the property stretches on for a time, and then is eaten by woods, into which there may or may not be a path; it apparently fades away quickly. There's a certain looming feel to these woods.
Contents:
Rhys
Nicodemus
Slug
Riley
Tent(#1921A)
Obvious exits:
Narrow Path Sunrise Road Front Door Barn/Garage
"Having been one before, I can certainly attest that some--especially the newer ones--often are a little quick on the trigger. What's curious to me is that Val mentioned a selection of agencies that they claimed to be from or to represent, and they're total horseshit. Utterly made up. But they sound convincing." He pauses, collecting himself, and then suggests another alternative. "I've got a working theory that they're hunters posing as some sort of federal officials, giving them access to a variety of things. In which case, hey, create a distraction in Seattle and let them go hunt down some of the Spirals before the Spirals decide to wipe them all out. Maybe they'll kill a spiral or three before they're cut down? Who knows?" He then asks Slug, "Has anyone gotten a chance to, you know, /scan/ them. There's garou that can detect weird shit, right?" Nick and Slug are having a discussion on the porch.
"We know for a fact that they can't identify supernaturals on sight. At least, not the ones I've met. Val seemed to think they might have been something that used a 'Focus', and she was wondering how I was still alive, but she wouldn't tell me more. Probably has her reasons," Slug says, sliding his machete back into his sheath. He starts collecting the array of knives around his feet as he talks, sticking them in various pockets and places. His boot, his sleeve, a couple beneath the hoodie- All kinds of places. "I was thinking the same thing. If they're the government, they get drawn into a nice long bloodbath against all our enemies. If they're not, like the Spirals handle them. But if they are regular people... It would be easy enough to disappear them, trace them back to the 'main body', and pull the weed out by it's roots. Garou can detect weird shit, yeah, but I'm not one of them. I only know weird shit when I feel it in my gut."
The mage standing next to Slug takes a deep breath, then lets it out in a slow sigh. "Yeah. And guts are not exactly very reliable." Nick grimaces, thinking. "I know they brought Naomi in for questioning. She walked. If they were good ate detecting who was garou, she'd be dead or on a dissection table by now. This.... is a real puzzler."
X can be heard before she's seen, because she arrives at a brisk jog from the forest itself. For the most part, she looks as she always does--not particularly kempt, short hair, fever bright eyes, dirt and grass stains--though she's a little more sweaty than usual, and she has one of the Fury's practice bows slung over one shoulder, along with a quiver of practice arrows attached to one hip.
Rhys, opposite of X, is likely seen before heard. He's coming from the road, walking rather than running. His hands are tucked away in his hoodie pockets and ears plugged with buds connected to wires that disappear under his collar. He's watching where he's going this time, aware of his surroundings instead of lost in the tinny music filling his head, eyes touching on the movement from the woods and the pair standing on the porch.
"I have a couple ideas," Slug says. "A couple. I could go over to the police station and linger around with my invisible Gift on. Wait. Watch. I could break into their van and steal some shit, but then they'd know it was missing. I think the better idea is that someone gives me a fat roll of cash, and then I walk up and down the poor neighborhoods where these guys are working. Then I start paying people. Here, have a ten or a twenty- And call me when you see this van. Tell me what it does. Where it goes. Who's in it. You tell me something good, real good, I'll give you more." Slug turns his head to look in X's direction, watching her approach. "Maybe I seed some info to those people. Not a lot. Little things, rumors that spread. Tell them there are people talking about those kinda people they're looking for, in a real bad part of town. Set a honeypot of our own."
Nicodemus glances over towards X when he hears her, and her presence causes him to tense up ever so slightly. Rhys is spotted as well, and he gets a nod of recognition. To Slug he replies, "The problem with paying people 10 or 20 bucks to feed you information if they spot someone on the streets? And this is personal experience speaking here, from back when I worked on the SCPD. Is that if you give someone 20 bucks to rat on someone, you're eventually going to get the guy who thinks about how much more someone will pay to know who's paying them a mere 20 bucks. I've seen a couple operations fall flat on their face that way. Creating misinformation? That might work. But do we even know what they're looking for?"
X stops a good ten feet away. She's breathing heavily, and she almost immediately begins to stretch first one leg then the other as she looks between Nick and Slug, then glances toward Rhys. No, there's something else that's different about her. She's got two very nice looking raven feathers twined inexpertly in her hair, hanging down just behind one ear. They blend in fairly well with her hair color. "I'm good," she tells the two porch dwellers, without any indication of what she's talking about.
Rhys pulls the earbuds from his ears as he gets closer to the house. The music sounds faint, a poor rendition from cheap speakers. He's still a little ways away from being in decent speaking range, but he raises a hand to acknowledge Nick and Slug. And when X looks his way, she gets a small nod.
"Alright, fine, how about this?" Slug says. "I do that. I go out, and I start sewing all them dollars down into the streets, making a profile. Then we use that. We use that to lead those assholes into the nastiest, shittiest drug den we can find, filled with people that hate cops as much as they love guns." Slug says, brushing his finger underneath his nose. "We let them raid the place, guns blazing. We let those motherfuckers go all 'The Raid' on the suits. Nothing supernatural about a lead that goes bad. We thin their numbers, hurt their moral, and we don't even get our hands dirty." His eye goes from Nic to Rhys, then over to Ex. Then to the feathers. "Huh. Pretty."
"Motive," Nick replies to Slug, "is key here. Always is in a police investigation, at least. Understanding the 'why' aspect is the lynchpin to understanding everything else. We know these suits are aware of there being something supernatural out there. We know they're canvasing the city and pulling people aside for questioning. But why here? Other than the whole warehouse shitstorm that happened the other month." He glances over his shoulder towards X again. A thought seems to cross his mind. "And those fliers that are up around town inquiring about X here." He considers those two pieces of information, then he asks X, "Have you been in the city in the last couple months?"
X doesn't visibly change much, apart from a faint outward tensing. She is, however, notably more still, even before Nick asks her a direct question. "...No."
Rhys slows until he's almost sidling forward, vaguely unsure steps bringing him within conversation range. His hands delve into his pockets again and his gaze jumps from Nick and Slug to X.
"Well, we can't ask them, so we can only speculate. Sooner or later, we're going to have to stop speculating and take action. We've already had a few close calls," Slug says, shaking his head. "I can tell you this much- They kill a Bone Gnawer, and I'll make sure they all die bloody. I'll crucify them on their fuckin' family's front lawn and set them on fire." Creative, if not practical. The brooding Gnawer's fingers start drumming on the hilt of his machete. He glances from Nic to Ex. "Maybe they're on her trail. Maybe they're not government at all. Could just be following her- But it doesn't explain why they're asking about people involved with a rat cult." A penny drops, and Slug looks up at Nic with his eye so wide that it's like he's seeing him for the first time. "Dude, I just had the best fuckin' idea."
X's face starts to gradually lose what color it'd gained from the recent exercise as Slug speaks. And as he keeps speaking, it gets even paler--which is saying something, given how sickly pale she usually is. By the time he stops speaking, she starting to look a little gray.
Nicodemus pulls his smartphone out, poking at it while addressing Rhys. "Does it involve getting someone to dreamwalk one of the Suits so we can get an idea as to what their true motive is and an idea as to what it is they do or do not know?" He finds what he's looking for on his phone--a picture he took of the poster of X that's been up around town. "X, there's these posters of you I spotted up around town a few weeks ago. I didn't know if someone spotted you or what. Any idea who might be looking for you or why? Does the phone number look familiar? It looks like an older picture of you, too. Someone from the past maybe?" He seems to be offering the phone to the Fury to look at more closely.
Nicodemus: Sorry. Addressing Slug not Rhys there. My bad.
X doesn't take the phone. In fact, she seems to be deliberately avoiding looking at the phone, but it's not doing anything for her pallor whatsoever. Her breathing has changed; it's no longer heavy, but shallow and rapid, and the look in her eyes has somehow gone from feverishly intense to deadened. It takes some time, and a visibly monumental effort, before she says in her usual flat monotone, suddenly lacking even tension, and certainly volume, "...Doctors."
Rhys' gaze ticks from X to the phone and back again. A breath later, he takes a couple of steps closer to the porch, head tipping forward to watch his foot placement instead of where exactly he's going. But he stops, a bit closer to the porch and with a sidelong, wary look at the Fury.
Slug opens his mouth, as if he were going to say something, but he stops as Nic shows the poster to X. He shakes his head, and watches her very carefully. He looks ready to jump up in a second, if need be. "I have an idea." He says, scratching behind his neck. "I go and I take up a nice, stealthy position, somewhere I can see the van while it's at the police department. Then I call in a tip, a false one, that says X is somewhere she isn't. If the suits immediately pile into the van and go looking, we know they're after her."
Nicodemus points at Slug. "That? That is a /fucking/ /brilliant/ idea. That ought to establish if these two things are connected or not. Particularly if they turn up at the place where you called it in to. Think you could get an accomplice to determine if they show up at the called-in location?"
"/No/," X suddenly says, sharply. She sucks in air. "No. /No/." One gloved finger lifts, and her mouth opens, but all she can manage is yet another, somehow more emphasized, if not louder, "No." Her left foot slides back a step. Then her right.
"No what," Rhys asks softly. "No, you don't want them to help you? No... someone might be looking for you?" The question might be directed at X, but he glances up at Slug and Nick as well while he speaks.
"I can set it up by tonight," Slug says. "Execute it real soon. We even know what car is their's, cause of the intel I got." Slug stands up and looks at X, jerking his head back. "If these people ain't from the government, if they're something else, something that's a threat to the Caern- We need to know. And if they aren't the government, and they're a threat to the Caern," Slug twirls his machete around with a lazy toss, catching it by it's sheath blade. He offers the handle to X with a wry smile. "They'll have to be exterminated."
Nicodemus, who clearly has had some past experience with X, pockets his cell phone and moves to the other side of the porch--putting distance between him and her. Whatever he might have added? Doesn't matter. He's clammed up.
Instead of taking the offered weapon, or answering Rhys, X's eyes suddenly go wide--and then she turns and vomits onto the grass. Luckily for all involved, it doesn't appear she's had anything but water today, but the Fury staggers, drops to her knees, and then heaves again.
Rhys eases up a step, the first one leading off the ground and onto the porch, but goes no further. He watches X silently, without judgement or sympathy. Any opinion is reserved for the other two, in the form of silent questions.
Slug seems disappointed by this reaction, if his flattening face is anything to go by. Slug tosses his machete again, flips it around, and sticks it through the space between his belt and his jeans. The second one he picks up off the ground gets the same treatment, but on the other hip. "If you can't handle this shit, then just stay out of the way. Find somewhere nice and quiet. Lay low. We'll deal with it."
X is barely out of another dry heave when she turns on the Gnawer with a veritable snarl, rising halfway to her feet again. "Shut up!" Monotone? Gone. Lack of volume? She's not shouting, but she's certainly not /quiet/ now. "Shut up, you stupid fucking bastard. /Shut up/." Her eyes have gone from deadened to wild. "You don't get it. You don't know. I talk and talk and nobody fucking listens because oooh, you're Garou, you're fucking invincible." Her voice turns shaky. "Well you're not. You're not. You're fucking not."
Nicodemus stays silent, just observing reactions and responses.
Rhys eases up another step, slowly gaining a position on the porch. Like the kinsman, he's silent too, as he moves himself ever so carefully to block a path to Nick. And let Slug take the brunt of the rage.
Slug 's face darkens, his eyes narrow, and he leans toward Ex at the shoulders. "I know I'm not invincible," he speaks, soft and low, a thin smile stretching across his lips. "Do you know that these people have your face? They have your picture, and if they're throwing pictures around, that means they're pretty sure you're here. They're looking for you, and they aren't going to stop until they're dead, or. You're. Back. In. Your. Cell."
The sound of retching doesn't quite make it inside to where Riley's been doing the longest load of laundry ever, but the shouting from X sure does. Given its source, it's not terribly surprising that the front door opens in short order, revealing the Adren with an especially intense look in her eyes. "What's going on out here?" She demands, voice firm.
Without it quite being clear where it came from, there's suddenly a gun clenched in both of X's hands, a .45, pointed at Slug's face. "I fucking swear, if you don't shut your fucking piss hole, I'm going to fill your empty fucking skull with so much lead that some've it's still going to be rattling around in there when they start cutting you open. /Shut up/. Stop talking. /Stop/."
Rhys casts a look at the door when it opens, and backs up yet another step. His gaze darts back to X when she draws the gun, forehead creasing in an unease that sets him to shaking ever so slightly. He darts a look to Nick, to make sure the kin is still there, not in direct line of weaponry, and then to Riley in a passing look that returns his gaze to the Fury.
Nicodemus edges away from Slug, raising his left hand up in what is likely an incredibly ineffectual defensive gesture. He goes over the porch railing, seeking cover immediately.
Slug twitches when the gun is drawn, doing one of those fullbody jerks like a dog that started to lunge, and thought better of it. He looks at the gun, then back at her, his jaw set and his eyes narrowed- But still, he smiles that thing, toothy smile. The pistol in the Ragabash's grasp makes a quiet 'click!', and the top half pops free of the bottom half, the slide coming loose.
Riley's hardened gaze swiftly skirts between X and Slug and her jaw sets. The homid doesn't wait for things to escalate any further - she surges up to Crinos, the increase in weight causing the boards beneath her feet to creak and shudder. The tall, sinuous black beast is between the pair in a rage-fueled lunge, her body moving simply beyond the bounds of conventional motion. One eye focuses on X, the other on Slug, a physical barrier to the standoff. ~/ENOUGH/.~ Comes the deep rumble of the mother's tongue. ~Put them away. If either of you fire, I'll beat you senseless.~
There's no misinterpreting the look on X's face when he does that; it's not anger, it's pure, seething hatred. What she might have done is a mystery for the ages, because Riley's intervention puts a stop to any of that. She looks some measure of angry and relieved as she removes the slide, replaces it, and then stuffs the pistol back into the front pocket of her hoodie.
Rhys draws himself even further back from the excitement, fully not involved any longer. He refrains from retreating and tagging along after Nick, positioning himself against the railing, watching the events unfolding, anxiety gripping his posture.
"Yes, Riley-Rhya," Slug responds like a child answering a nagging teacher. He wets his lips with a flick of his tongue and rolls his shoulders, his eye roaming down the back of Riley's Crinos form. He takes a couple smooth steps backwards, heels sounding on the porch as he does his best to head right back inside, his eyes forward.
The sound of Brave Sir Nick's bold retreat is heard in the form of his SUV's engine starting, tires retreating down the drive. Evac curses loudly, and when Slug makes to head inside, she turns all of her attention squarely on the one most likely to reinstigate matters. She looms, hackles raised, brow tightly scrunched as she keeps her focus on X. ~What is the meaning of this?~ There's not a single hint of humor or warmth in the Adren's tone. She's pulling rank, hard.
X does indeed look like she might just be considering doing something to the retreating Slug after he responds to Riley, but the elder Ragabash is very effective at getting her attention. That watery vomit is still off to her right. For the moment, though, while she's clearly cowed, the Fury seems incapable of getting out any words. Her mouth moves, and there's frustration in her expression, clenched fists, a certain tension inspired trembling--but all she manages just now is sharp, uneven breaths.
Rhys' gaze follows Slug until he disappears inside. His eyes linger there for a minute longer, then lift back to Riley and X, a little higher than before but still anxious.
Slug keeps right on walking, even fumbling for the door and opening it up without turning around. The Gnawer pushes it shut once he's safely inside, disappearing into the confines of the house.
With Slug safely within the confines of the house, the looming threat of the situation appears to have largely defused. Lips peeling back in a snarl, the Crinos bares her teeth - and then shrinks down, flesh compressing as the Adren reverts to breed form. "Someone, explain what the hell that was about."
"Doctors," X manages, in a stilted way that is thick with tension.
"I don't know," Rhys says, albeit reluctantly. "Nick showed her a picture of those posters in town, things escalated."
"How," Riley snaps, "Does that translate to shouting at the top of your lungs, and stuffing a .45 in Black-Light's face?" Rhys's words a get a snap of Riley's attention, and she gives a firm nod to the Cliath, her tone easing back some, "/Thank you/." The corner of her mouth twitches, and she looks back to X. "Posters. Explain."
X shakes her head rapidly, and brings up her hands, though she doesn't quite touch her face. "...Wouldn't shut up. He wouldn't shut up. Trying to warn him and he wouldn't shut up, and he...he /liked/ it. He. Grinning like a fucking idiot, talking about crucifying and not--" Her breathing gets harsher, and suddenly the stilted words turn into a rush. "Do you know that these people have your face? They have your picture, and if they're throwing pictures around, that means they're pretty sure you're here. They're looking for you, and they aren't going to stop until they're dead, or. You're. Back. In. Your. Cell."
Rhys meets Riley's gaze with his own shocked fear. Like he realized he's just made a mistake speaking up. His head swivels when the Adren's attention returns to X so that he's looking somewhere else. Like at the driveway.
The Adren walks forward, her shoulders back - the transition to Glabro is a simple one, made without halting her slow advance toward the Ragabash. "Okay. Yes, I can see why that triggered you, but that's the brand of idiot that guy is." She doesn't bother to soften things for the Ragabash who isn't currently present. She already has to balm one set of feelings, she's not going to worry about another. "He's an /asshole/, and he's not here right now. So you need to get your shit together and calm down. Talk to me now, or go and /cool off/ until you can. Either way, you're talking to me. Tonight."
X is still shaking her head, but that doesn't seem to translate as anything actually communicative. "Didn't look. Posters in the city with my face." She inhales shakily, but that's all she manages.
Rhys angles a glance toward X and Riley without actually turning his face toward them.
Riley gets near to X without encroaching on her personal space. She draws in a grinding sigh and lets it out with a baring of her teeth. "Would you rather be part of whatever goes down with these guys, or do you want to hole up in one of the safehouses? We can keep you completely off of their radar until they're not a threat anymore if you're okay with hiding out and actually staying there. I know, you hated that shit as a cub, but this?" She makes a hand-gesture between X and herself. "This isn't sustainable. You are freaking out, and you are freaking out /hard/. So either you get your shit squared away, or you go into hiding. I'm not about to have you on a hair-trigger and just /waiting/ to pop on someone and get somebody killed."
X wipes her mouth with the back of one gloved hand. "He wanted me to," she says, low but accusatory. "He wanted me to, but I didn't. Nick's even more fucking afraid of me now. I was /okay/," she looks up at Riley, almost plaintive.
"I'll talk to him." Riley's words are gruff and low, the sort of statement that promises a bad time in store for the target of her words. "...but it's your rage. Your anxiety. /You/ control it, and you own the consequences for your actions, and you'll have to live with what happens if you get pushed over the edge." Her words are firm, but her expression is clearly not without empathy, now that she's taken a more human form. Poor Rhys isn't being paid much mind as the Adren struggles to calm the Fury.
X breaths some more. Finally, there's a nod, though it looks as though some part of her is bursting with more things to say. She drops her gaze to the ground, first to her shoe, and then the water vomit.
Rhys is quite content to fly under the proverbial radar, rather preferring to avoid much notice or attention. He eases sideways a bit, further from X and Riley and closer to the railing until he can hoist himself over it and go back the way he'd come. A walk along the road seems a better use of his time right now, visiting the farmhouse isn't a high priority.
A hand claps down on X's shoulder, offering a single firm squeeze before retreating away. "I'll talk to him," She repeats, "But you need to think about how you want to play this. It sounds like your hunch was right. So those are your two options. Find a way to keep your cool, or stay in a safehouse until this all concludes. Wouldn't have to be in a basement or a single room or anything stupid like that, but it'd be pretty cabin-fevery after awhile for you, I don't doubt." She turns her head to regard Rhys's retreating form, and she puffs a breath. "And remember - if I remove your old name, you'll be much, much harder to find. So give that some thought. The numbers would work for sure, but if you want to do it with an effigy, we can do that, too."
"Effigy," X echoes, more to herself than Riley. She doesn't lift her gaze from the ground, but there is another, fainter nod. No answers, but a nod. Her hands have become slightly less clenched. "...I don't know how they found me."
"It doesn't matter. They did, or at least they know you're in the area. May be they don't know where you are, may be those posters are a message to us to show that they know. Either way, I'm thinking we give them what they want." She doesn't let that sentence's cliffhanger stay hanging for long, not wanting to stress out the Fury, "I would break you of your name, to ensure they have to use conventional means to find you." It's not a question anymore, apparently, "We bait them to a place of our choosing, and kill all but one."
Adds, "You would not be there. I have no intention of putting you in the way of this."
Riley adds,
X's tension ratchets up again, though her voice remains level, mostly monotone. "What if they get you? What if they trap you? Nobody listens, but there are needles, and wires, and nets, and darts, and probably lots of other things I never saw. They take you apart until they know everything."
Again, this is one of those instances where X is cut off before she gets to fully exact her rant - at least, unless she's extremely persistent about talking over the Adren. "---They /won't/. And if they do? That's my problem. My team's problem. It won't be yours. And unlike with you, no one is going to leave us there to languish, or to die. Our Names are all known. No one who was taken would stay taken for long. Her eyes narrow, "Let them bring their darts, their guns, their nets, their tasers. /They/ will worry about /me/. I will rip them apart for what they've done to you." You get the impression that she means it literally, really.
long."
X does stop when Riley interrupts, but only until she's stopped. "/They take you apart until they know everything/," she stresses.
Baring her teeth, Riley grinds, "I will take /them/ apart until they are /nothing/."
X's gaze drops to the ground again. She chews briefly and savagely at her lower lip, but apparently there's no further debate forthcoming.
Riley's fingers clench into her palm. "Think of an effigy, or make peace with those numbers. The sooner we get rid of Tanner, the safer X will be. Keep your head down, and stay out of the city. Don't be alone."
X lowers her head a bit more in what might be a nod, and then she turns to head back the way she came, into the Wyld strewn forest. It's in the general direction of the Greek House, at least.
Edgewood House: Meadow(#1390RJh)
A long, hard-packed dirt road winds almost a mile through the forest off Sunrise Road, eventually opening out into a small front yard, and coming to a stop in front of a large house, which may be the very definition of ramshackle. The house is not visible from the road, nor can one hear anything but perhaps a gunshot. Its foundation and general structure are solid, but its once crisp grey-and-white paint needs updating, and some of the trim is having trouble staying attached. A fixer upper, one might say. Off to the left, there's a former garage, long since converted into something of an in-law apartment. A connecting flyover attaches it to the second floor of the house.
There are no fences surrounding either the front or back yards. In the rear of the property, the yard (larger than in the front) eventually comes up against a well built garden, with the very beginnings of sprouts. Shaded and obscured by surrounding trees, there is a small (but deep) natural pond, with a chuckling brook leading out of it, into the woods. There's a rope swing hanging from one of the trees. The yard to the southeast of the property stretches on for a time, and then is eaten by woods, into which there may or may not be a path; it apparently fades away quickly. There's a certain looming feel to these woods.
Contents:
Rhys
Nicodemus
Slug
Riley
Tent(#1921A)
Obvious exits:
Narrow Path Sunrise Road Front Door Barn/Garage
"Having been one before, I can certainly attest that some--especially the newer ones--often are a little quick on the trigger. What's curious to me is that Val mentioned a selection of agencies that they claimed to be from or to represent, and they're total horseshit. Utterly made up. But they sound convincing." He pauses, collecting himself, and then suggests another alternative. "I've got a working theory that they're hunters posing as some sort of federal officials, giving them access to a variety of things. In which case, hey, create a distraction in Seattle and let them go hunt down some of the Spirals before the Spirals decide to wipe them all out. Maybe they'll kill a spiral or three before they're cut down? Who knows?" He then asks Slug, "Has anyone gotten a chance to, you know, /scan/ them. There's garou that can detect weird shit, right?" Nick and Slug are having a discussion on the porch.
"We know for a fact that they can't identify supernaturals on sight. At least, not the ones I've met. Val seemed to think they might have been something that used a 'Focus', and she was wondering how I was still alive, but she wouldn't tell me more. Probably has her reasons," Slug says, sliding his machete back into his sheath. He starts collecting the array of knives around his feet as he talks, sticking them in various pockets and places. His boot, his sleeve, a couple beneath the hoodie- All kinds of places. "I was thinking the same thing. If they're the government, they get drawn into a nice long bloodbath against all our enemies. If they're not, like the Spirals handle them. But if they are regular people... It would be easy enough to disappear them, trace them back to the 'main body', and pull the weed out by it's roots. Garou can detect weird shit, yeah, but I'm not one of them. I only know weird shit when I feel it in my gut."
The mage standing next to Slug takes a deep breath, then lets it out in a slow sigh. "Yeah. And guts are not exactly very reliable." Nick grimaces, thinking. "I know they brought Naomi in for questioning. She walked. If they were good ate detecting who was garou, she'd be dead or on a dissection table by now. This.... is a real puzzler."
X can be heard before she's seen, because she arrives at a brisk jog from the forest itself. For the most part, she looks as she always does--not particularly kempt, short hair, fever bright eyes, dirt and grass stains--though she's a little more sweaty than usual, and she has one of the Fury's practice bows slung over one shoulder, along with a quiver of practice arrows attached to one hip.
Rhys, opposite of X, is likely seen before heard. He's coming from the road, walking rather than running. His hands are tucked away in his hoodie pockets and ears plugged with buds connected to wires that disappear under his collar. He's watching where he's going this time, aware of his surroundings instead of lost in the tinny music filling his head, eyes touching on the movement from the woods and the pair standing on the porch.
"I have a couple ideas," Slug says. "A couple. I could go over to the police station and linger around with my invisible Gift on. Wait. Watch. I could break into their van and steal some shit, but then they'd know it was missing. I think the better idea is that someone gives me a fat roll of cash, and then I walk up and down the poor neighborhoods where these guys are working. Then I start paying people. Here, have a ten or a twenty- And call me when you see this van. Tell me what it does. Where it goes. Who's in it. You tell me something good, real good, I'll give you more." Slug turns his head to look in X's direction, watching her approach. "Maybe I seed some info to those people. Not a lot. Little things, rumors that spread. Tell them there are people talking about those kinda people they're looking for, in a real bad part of town. Set a honeypot of our own."
Nicodemus glances over towards X when he hears her, and her presence causes him to tense up ever so slightly. Rhys is spotted as well, and he gets a nod of recognition. To Slug he replies, "The problem with paying people 10 or 20 bucks to feed you information if they spot someone on the streets? And this is personal experience speaking here, from back when I worked on the SCPD. Is that if you give someone 20 bucks to rat on someone, you're eventually going to get the guy who thinks about how much more someone will pay to know who's paying them a mere 20 bucks. I've seen a couple operations fall flat on their face that way. Creating misinformation? That might work. But do we even know what they're looking for?"
X stops a good ten feet away. She's breathing heavily, and she almost immediately begins to stretch first one leg then the other as she looks between Nick and Slug, then glances toward Rhys. No, there's something else that's different about her. She's got two very nice looking raven feathers twined inexpertly in her hair, hanging down just behind one ear. They blend in fairly well with her hair color. "I'm good," she tells the two porch dwellers, without any indication of what she's talking about.
Rhys pulls the earbuds from his ears as he gets closer to the house. The music sounds faint, a poor rendition from cheap speakers. He's still a little ways away from being in decent speaking range, but he raises a hand to acknowledge Nick and Slug. And when X looks his way, she gets a small nod.
"Alright, fine, how about this?" Slug says. "I do that. I go out, and I start sewing all them dollars down into the streets, making a profile. Then we use that. We use that to lead those assholes into the nastiest, shittiest drug den we can find, filled with people that hate cops as much as they love guns." Slug says, brushing his finger underneath his nose. "We let them raid the place, guns blazing. We let those motherfuckers go all 'The Raid' on the suits. Nothing supernatural about a lead that goes bad. We thin their numbers, hurt their moral, and we don't even get our hands dirty." His eye goes from Nic to Rhys, then over to Ex. Then to the feathers. "Huh. Pretty."
"Motive," Nick replies to Slug, "is key here. Always is in a police investigation, at least. Understanding the 'why' aspect is the lynchpin to understanding everything else. We know these suits are aware of there being something supernatural out there. We know they're canvasing the city and pulling people aside for questioning. But why here? Other than the whole warehouse shitstorm that happened the other month." He glances over his shoulder towards X again. A thought seems to cross his mind. "And those fliers that are up around town inquiring about X here." He considers those two pieces of information, then he asks X, "Have you been in the city in the last couple months?"
X doesn't visibly change much, apart from a faint outward tensing. She is, however, notably more still, even before Nick asks her a direct question. "...No."
Rhys slows until he's almost sidling forward, vaguely unsure steps bringing him within conversation range. His hands delve into his pockets again and his gaze jumps from Nick and Slug to X.
"Well, we can't ask them, so we can only speculate. Sooner or later, we're going to have to stop speculating and take action. We've already had a few close calls," Slug says, shaking his head. "I can tell you this much- They kill a Bone Gnawer, and I'll make sure they all die bloody. I'll crucify them on their fuckin' family's front lawn and set them on fire." Creative, if not practical. The brooding Gnawer's fingers start drumming on the hilt of his machete. He glances from Nic to Ex. "Maybe they're on her trail. Maybe they're not government at all. Could just be following her- But it doesn't explain why they're asking about people involved with a rat cult." A penny drops, and Slug looks up at Nic with his eye so wide that it's like he's seeing him for the first time. "Dude, I just had the best fuckin' idea."
X's face starts to gradually lose what color it'd gained from the recent exercise as Slug speaks. And as he keeps speaking, it gets even paler--which is saying something, given how sickly pale she usually is. By the time he stops speaking, she starting to look a little gray.
Nicodemus pulls his smartphone out, poking at it while addressing Rhys. "Does it involve getting someone to dreamwalk one of the Suits so we can get an idea as to what their true motive is and an idea as to what it is they do or do not know?" He finds what he's looking for on his phone--a picture he took of the poster of X that's been up around town. "X, there's these posters of you I spotted up around town a few weeks ago. I didn't know if someone spotted you or what. Any idea who might be looking for you or why? Does the phone number look familiar? It looks like an older picture of you, too. Someone from the past maybe?" He seems to be offering the phone to the Fury to look at more closely.
X doesn't take the phone. In fact, she seems to be deliberately avoiding looking at the phone, but it's not doing anything for her pallor whatsoever. Her breathing has changed; it's no longer heavy, but shallow and rapid, and the look in her eyes has somehow gone from feverishly intense to deadened. It takes some time, and a visibly monumental effort, before she says in her usual flat monotone, suddenly lacking even tension, and certainly volume, "...Doctors."
Rhys' gaze ticks from X to the phone and back again. A breath later, he takes a couple of steps closer to the porch, head tipping forward to watch his foot placement instead of where exactly he's going. But he stops, a bit closer to the porch and with a sidelong, wary look at the Fury.
Slug opens his mouth, as if he were going to say something, but he stops as Nic shows the poster to X. He shakes his head, and watches her very carefully. He looks ready to jump up in a second, if need be. "I have an idea." He says, scratching behind his neck. "I go and I take up a nice, stealthy position, somewhere I can see the van while it's at the police department. Then I call in a tip, a false one, that says X is somewhere she isn't. If the suits immediately pile into the van and go looking, we know they're after her."
Nicodemus points at Slug. "That? That is a /fucking/ /brilliant/ idea. That ought to establish if these two things are connected or not. Particularly if they turn up at the place where you called it in to. Think you could get an accomplice to determine if they show up at the called-in location?"
"/No/," X suddenly says, sharply. She sucks in air. "No. /No/." One gloved finger lifts, and her mouth opens, but all she can manage is yet another, somehow more emphasized, if not louder, "No." Her left foot slides back a step. Then her right.
"No what," Rhys asks softly. "No, you don't want them to help you? No... someone might be looking for you?" The question might be directed at X, but he glances up at Slug and Nick as well while he speaks.
"I can set it up by tonight," Slug says. "Execute it real soon. We even know what car is their's, cause of the intel I got." Slug stands up and looks at X, jerking his head back. "If these people ain't from the government, if they're something else, something that's a threat to the Caern- We need to know. And if they aren't the government, and they're a threat to the Caern," Slug twirls his machete around with a lazy toss, catching it by it's sheath blade. He offers the handle to X with a wry smile. "They'll have to be exterminated."
Nicodemus, who clearly has had some past experience with X, pockets his cell phone and moves to the other side of the porch--putting distance between him and her. Whatever he might have added? Doesn't matter. He's clammed up.
Instead of taking the offered weapon, or answering Rhys, X's eyes suddenly go wide--and then she turns and vomits onto the grass. Luckily for all involved, it doesn't appear she's had anything but water today, but the Fury staggers, drops to her knees, and then heaves again.
Rhys eases up a step, the first one leading off the ground and onto the porch, but goes no further. He watches X silently, without judgement or sympathy. Any opinion is reserved for the other two, in the form of silent questions.
Slug seems disappointed by this reaction, if his flattening face is anything to go by. Slug tosses his machete again, flips it around, and sticks it through the space between his belt and his jeans. The second one he picks up off the ground gets the same treatment, but on the other hip. "If you can't handle this shit, then just stay out of the way. Find somewhere nice and quiet. Lay low. We'll deal with it."
X is barely out of another dry heave when she turns on the Gnawer with a veritable snarl, rising halfway to her feet again. "Shut up!" Monotone? Gone. Lack of volume? She's not shouting, but she's certainly not /quiet/ now. "Shut up, you stupid fucking bastard. /Shut up/." Her eyes have gone from deadened to wild. "You don't get it. You don't know. I talk and talk and nobody fucking listens because oooh, you're Garou, you're fucking invincible." Her voice turns shaky. "Well you're not. You're not. You're fucking not."
Nicodemus stays silent, just observing reactions and responses.
Rhys eases up another step, slowly gaining a position on the porch. Like the kinsman, he's silent too, as he moves himself ever so carefully to block a path to Nick. And let Slug take the brunt of the rage.
Slug 's face darkens, his eyes narrow, and he leans toward Ex at the shoulders. "I know I'm not invincible," he speaks, soft and low, a thin smile stretching across his lips. "Do you know that these people have your face? They have your picture, and if they're throwing pictures around, that means they're pretty sure you're here. They're looking for you, and they aren't going to stop until they're dead, or. You're. Back. In. Your. Cell."
The sound of retching doesn't quite make it inside to where Riley's been doing the longest load of laundry ever, but the shouting from X sure does. Given its source, it's not terribly surprising that the front door opens in short order, revealing the Adren with an especially intense look in her eyes. "What's going on out here?" She demands, voice firm.
Without it quite being clear where it came from, there's suddenly a gun clenched in both of X's hands, a .45, pointed at Slug's face. "I fucking swear, if you don't shut your fucking piss hole, I'm going to fill your empty fucking skull with so much lead that some've it's still going to be rattling around in there when they start cutting you open. /Shut up/. Stop talking. /Stop/."
Rhys casts a look at the door when it opens, and backs up yet another step. His gaze darts back to X when she draws the gun, forehead creasing in an unease that sets him to shaking ever so slightly. He darts a look to Nick, to make sure the kin is still there, not in direct line of weaponry, and then to Riley in a passing look that returns his gaze to the Fury.
Nicodemus edges away from Slug, raising his left hand up in what is likely an incredibly ineffectual defensive gesture. He goes over the porch railing, seeking cover immediately.
Slug twitches when the gun is drawn, doing one of those fullbody jerks like a dog that started to lunge, and thought better of it. He looks at the gun, then back at her, his jaw set and his eyes narrowed- But still, he smiles that thing, toothy smile. The pistol in the Ragabash's grasp makes a quiet 'click!', and the top half pops free of the bottom half, the slide coming loose.
Riley's hardened gaze swiftly skirts between X and Slug and her jaw sets. The homid doesn't wait for things to escalate any further - she surges up to Crinos, the increase in weight causing the boards beneath her feet to creak and shudder. The tall, sinuous black beast is between the pair in a rage-fueled lunge, her body moving simply beyond the bounds of conventional motion. One eye focuses on X, the other on Slug, a physical barrier to the standoff. ~/ENOUGH/.~ Comes the deep rumble of the mother's tongue. ~Put them away. If either of you fire, I'll beat you senseless.~
There's no misinterpreting the look on X's face when he does that; it's not anger, it's pure, seething hatred. What she might have done is a mystery for the ages, because Riley's intervention puts a stop to any of that. She looks some measure of angry and relieved as she removes the slide, replaces it, and then stuffs the pistol back into the front pocket of her hoodie.
Rhys draws himself even further back from the excitement, fully not involved any longer. He refrains from retreating and tagging along after Nick, positioning himself against the railing, watching the events unfolding, anxiety gripping his posture.
"Yes, Riley-Rhya," Slug responds like a child answering a nagging teacher. He wets his lips with a flick of his tongue and rolls his shoulders, his eye roaming down the back of Riley's Crinos form. He takes a couple smooth steps backwards, heels sounding on the porch as he does his best to head right back inside, his eyes forward.
The sound of Brave Sir Nick's bold retreat is heard in the form of his SUV's engine starting, tires retreating down the drive. Evac curses loudly, and when Slug makes to head inside, she turns all of her attention squarely on the one most likely to reinstigate matters. She looms, hackles raised, brow tightly scrunched as she keeps her focus on X. ~What is the meaning of this?~ There's not a single hint of humor or warmth in the Adren's tone. She's pulling rank, hard.
X does indeed look like she might just be considering doing something to the retreating Slug after he responds to Riley, but the elder Ragabash is very effective at getting her attention. That watery vomit is still off to her right. For the moment, though, while she's clearly cowed, the Fury seems incapable of getting out any words. Her mouth moves, and there's frustration in her expression, clenched fists, a certain tension inspired trembling--but all she manages just now is sharp, uneven breaths.
Rhys' gaze follows Slug until he disappears inside. His eyes linger there for a minute longer, then lift back to Riley and X, a little higher than before but still anxious.
Slug keeps right on walking, even fumbling for the door and opening it up without turning around. The Gnawer pushes it shut once he's safely inside, disappearing into the confines of the house.
With Slug safely within the confines of the house, the looming threat of the situation appears to have largely defused. Lips peeling back in a snarl, the Crinos bares her teeth - and then shrinks down, flesh compressing as the Adren reverts to breed form. "Someone, explain what the hell that was about."
"Doctors," X manages, in a stilted way that is thick with tension.
"I don't know," Rhys says, albeit reluctantly. "Nick showed her a picture of those posters in town, things escalated."
"How," Riley snaps, "Does that translate to shouting at the top of your lungs, and stuffing a .45 in Black-Light's face?" Rhys's words a get a snap of Riley's attention, and she gives a firm nod to the Cliath, her tone easing back some, "/Thank you/." The corner of her mouth twitches, and she looks back to X. "Posters. Explain."
X shakes her head rapidly, and brings up her hands, though she doesn't quite touch her face. "...Wouldn't shut up. He wouldn't shut up. Trying to warn him and he wouldn't shut up, and he...he /liked/ it. He. Grinning like a fucking idiot, talking about crucifying and not--" Her breathing gets harsher, and suddenly the stilted words turn into a rush. "Do you know that these people have your face? They have your picture, and if they're throwing pictures around, that means they're pretty sure you're here. They're looking for you, and they aren't going to stop until they're dead, or. You're. Back. In. Your. Cell."
Rhys meets Riley's gaze with his own shocked fear. Like he realized he's just made a mistake speaking up. His head swivels when the Adren's attention returns to X so that he's looking somewhere else. Like at the driveway.
The Adren walks forward, her shoulders back - the transition to Glabro is a simple one, made without halting her slow advance toward the Ragabash. "Okay. Yes, I can see why that triggered you, but that's the brand of idiot that guy is." She doesn't bother to soften things for the Ragabash who isn't currently present. She already has to balm one set of feelings, she's not going to worry about another. "He's an /asshole/, and he's not here right now. So you need to get your shit together and calm down. Talk to me now, or go and /cool off/ until you can. Either way, you're talking to me. Tonight."
X is still shaking her head, but that doesn't seem to translate as anything actually communicative. "Didn't look. Posters in the city with my face." She inhales shakily, but that's all she manages.
Rhys angles a glance toward X and Riley without actually turning his face toward them.
Riley gets near to X without encroaching on her personal space. She draws in a grinding sigh and lets it out with a baring of her teeth. "Would you rather be part of whatever goes down with these guys, or do you want to hole up in one of the safehouses? We can keep you completely off of their radar until they're not a threat anymore if you're okay with hiding out and actually staying there. I know, you hated that shit as a cub, but this?" She makes a hand-gesture between X and herself. "This isn't sustainable. You are freaking out, and you are freaking out /hard/. So either you get your shit squared away, or you go into hiding. I'm not about to have you on a hair-trigger and just /waiting/ to pop on someone and get somebody killed."
X wipes her mouth with the back of one gloved hand. "He wanted me to," she says, low but accusatory. "He wanted me to, but I didn't. Nick's even more fucking afraid of me now. I was /okay/," she looks up at Riley, almost plaintive.
"I'll talk to him." Riley's words are gruff and low, the sort of statement that promises a bad time in store for the target of her words. "...but it's your rage. Your anxiety. /You/ control it, and you own the consequences for your actions, and you'll have to live with what happens if you get pushed over the edge." Her words are firm, but her expression is clearly not without empathy, now that she's taken a more human form. Poor Rhys isn't being paid much mind as the Adren struggles to calm the Fury.
X breaths some more. Finally, there's a nod, though it looks as though some part of her is bursting with more things to say. She drops her gaze to the ground, first to her shoe, and then the water vomit.
Rhys is quite content to fly under the proverbial radar, rather preferring to avoid much notice or attention. He eases sideways a bit, further from X and Riley and closer to the railing until he can hoist himself over it and go back the way he'd come. A walk along the road seems a better use of his time right now, visiting the farmhouse isn't a high priority.
A hand claps down on X's shoulder, offering a single firm squeeze before retreating away. "I'll talk to him," She repeats, "But you need to think about how you want to play this. It sounds like your hunch was right. So those are your two options. Find a way to keep your cool, or stay in a safehouse until this all concludes. Wouldn't have to be in a basement or a single room or anything stupid like that, but it'd be pretty cabin-fevery after awhile for you, I don't doubt." She turns her head to regard Rhys's retreating form, and she puffs a breath. "And remember - if I remove your old name, you'll be much, much harder to find. So give that some thought. The numbers would work for sure, but if you want to do it with an effigy, we can do that, too."
"Effigy," X echoes, more to herself than Riley. She doesn't lift her gaze from the ground, but there is another, fainter nod. No answers, but a nod. Her hands have become slightly less clenched. "...I don't know how they found me."
"It doesn't matter. They did, or at least they know you're in the area. May be they don't know where you are, may be those posters are a message to us to show that they know. Either way, I'm thinking we give them what they want." She doesn't let that sentence's cliffhanger stay hanging for long, not wanting to stress out the Fury, "I would break you of your name, to ensure they have to use conventional means to find you." It's not a question anymore, apparently, "We bait them to a place of our choosing, and kill all but one."
Adds, "You would not be there. I have no intention of putting you in the way of this."
Riley adds,
X's tension ratchets up again, though her voice remains level, mostly monotone. "What if they get you? What if they trap you? Nobody listens, but there are needles, and wires, and nets, and darts, and probably lots of other things I never saw. They take you apart until they know everything."
Again, this is one of those instances where X is cut off before she gets to fully exact her rant - at least, unless she's extremely persistent about talking over the Adren. "---They /won't/. And if they do? That's my problem. My team's problem. It won't be yours. And unlike with you, no one is going to leave us there to languish, or to die. Our Names are all known. No one who was taken would stay taken for long. Her eyes narrow, "Let them bring their darts, their guns, their nets, their tasers. /They/ will worry about /me/. I will rip them apart for what they've done to you." You get the impression that she means it literally, really.
long."
X does stop when Riley interrupts, but only until she's stopped. "/They take you apart until they know everything/," she stresses.
Baring her teeth, Riley grinds, "I will take /them/ apart until they are /nothing/."
X's gaze drops to the ground again. She chews briefly and savagely at her lower lip, but apparently there's no further debate forthcoming.
Riley's fingers clench into her palm. "Think of an effigy, or make peace with those numbers. The sooner we get rid of Tanner, the safer X will be. Keep your head down, and stay out of the city. Don't be alone."
X lowers her head a bit more in what might be a nod, and then she turns to head back the way she came, into the Wyld strewn forest. It's in the general direction of the Greek House, at least.
