preparations.

[ST]
It is Mother's Day, and the sun is setting.

Wherever they are, the remaining, surviving members of the Unbroken Circle and Weasel's Gang all feel it. To varying degrees, with varying intensity and differing reactions, they each sense a change. A loss. They feel the binding spirit between them grow weaker suddenly. They feel links breaking on the chain, disintegrating into rust, and dust, and emptiness.

The Alpha of the Unbroken Circle is gone, and the hawks and the crows and all the rest shriek when it happens.

The Omega of Weasel's Gang is gone, and the savage, agile spirit writhes as though in sudden agony.

Wherever they are, whatever they are doing, two of the newest packs to Chicago sense on some level that their sister and brother are dead. Within moments of one another, White Eyes and Betcha Can't Hit That leave this life and those names behind. And all of them, to the heart, are weaker for it.

[Lukas]
Lukas is asleep.

It's the first true, deep, satisfying sleep he's had for a week: a week's worth of motel rooms where the sheets are changed daily, the floor vacuumed, the room cleaned of his scent, his presence, himself. He's back in his own room now, in his own bed, under his own sheets and blankets, surrounded by the intangible reminders of his own self, and his own place in the world.

He's asleep, deeply and dreamlessly, and the sun is setting --

-- and he's awake. Just like that, just that suddenly. He sits bolt upright; he's on his feet before he knows why, or even what's wrong, and...

His window faces the alley wall. He stares out without seeing.

My Alpha is dead, he thinks. I was not there, and my sister is dead.

There's no doubt.

--

He doesn't knock. He doesn't even enter Sam and Sampson's room through conventional means. The air snaps and the gauntlet bulges; he vomits through, not even human anymore, a monstrosity of blunt claws and sloping, brutish brow.

"She's gone." It's 7:51pm; three minutes later. He doesn't have to say who's gone. "If we recover her body in the next 24 hours we can speak to her -- "

a brief faltering, a flash of pain in his eyes that he turns away to hide,

"-- we can speak to her one last time. That leaves us, conservatively, twenty hours to prepare; factor in eight hours of meditation to recharge and that's really twelve.

"Twelve hours to arm ourselves to the teeth and lay waste to the ones that did this.

"Get Caleb back here. I want him making protection talens and talens to deaden the pain. Talens to sharpen our teeth and claws too, if he has the spirit to spare.

"I'll handle the Bloody Bandages and sensory deprivation darts.

"Sampson, I want you to figure out exactly where she died and scope the place out. Do not reveal yourself.

"Sam, you're going with Sampson, but you stay back. You're backup, just in case they spot him. Don't fight if that happens. Cover Sampson's back and get out."

It's getting dark in this room. The room is filling with purple shadows, and it's hard to say if the flicker over Lukas's feral features is a moving shadow or a flicker of grief. It's gone soon enough. He's steady when he looks back at his packmates.

"Are we clear?"

[Sam]
Sam isn't sleeping and he isn't in his room. He's out in the common room sitting on the couch when it hits them all.

A paperback copy of A Wrinkle In Time drops haphazardly on the floor as he sucks in breath so hard it makes his eyes water and chest burn. He's shaking as he stands bolt upright and races toward his room, his sword. He barely manages to keeps from going as berserk as he had only a handful of nights before.

There's nobody left to save you Modine. Any of you.
Somewhere, he knows the Wyrm is laughing.

Nothing in the Tellurian is going to keep him from making those the last sound it makes if that's how far he must go. But Lukas is there beside him before he even fully has fingers wrapped around the weapon. His presence gives the Modi's head a level ground, keeps him on earth for long enough to seethe harder but listen and nod.

"Agreed, but can we push the timetable any further?" Jaw trembling with wrath he breathes slow and heavy so that he will not snap and simply destroy everything in sight. He doesn't have the spirit to stop himself if he loses it.

Because Mrena hadn't gotten him that far yet.
And she's gone.


She's just-

He keeps trying to reach out with his every fiber of spirit, to find her in the mindlink but there's no mindlink to be found. His eyes are red and wet but he doesn't weep, not tonight.

"Because I need to hurt something." It's not like him to say it, even less to actually even mean it. But Sam doesn't lie, not ever.

-gone.

[Hatchet]
Five minutes have passed since the death of Mrena Armstrong. Two minutes have passed since Lukas appeared in Sam and Sampson's bedroom, setting down marching orders. It is not the first time he has stepped into the role of acting Alpha in the absence of the one who won it by challenge. It is the first time Lukas has had to do so because of death.

Two minutes after Mrena Armstrong dies, Ryan Shepherd follows her.

Hatchet is sitting on his bed, lacing up his boots, and when it happens -- when it's over -- he doesn't know where he is or who he is for a moment. He doesn't know how to breathe. He can't move. His hands are motionless on his laces, his eyes staring at the carpet. When he remembers that he must have air, he has to have air, this isn't the Adirondacks and it isn't the Rockies and this isn't Brendan and Nikolai this is...

...this is...

His hands come to cover his face, shaking as much as the rest of him is, trembling violently, viciously, as though he is in agony. He breathes so shallowly, in and out and in and out and in and out and in, that he gets dizzy and his vision blurs. He refuses to scream.

He does not refuse to tear the door to Room 9 off its hinges when he grabs a hold of it and yanks. There is the shatter and splinter of breaking wood that resounsd down the hall from the Fenrir and the Strider's bedroom. Hatchet all but throws it to the floor as he leaves, his heavy footsteps thudding along the floor. He is not frenzied. He is still in control of his Rage, if not himself. Barely...by god just barely.

The wall shudders when he hits it. He is not marching off to war. He is passing by Sam and Sampson's room and damn near punching a hole in the wall between the hallway and the bathrooms, and there is a snarling, vicious sound coming from his throat as he stalks forward as though he is going off to hunt down and destroy everything in his path single-handedly. He's talking to himself.

Everyone in the Unbroken Circle would recognize the language, if only because it's the one the Bellamontes and Caleb slip into so often. Hatchet is growling, murderously.

In French.

[Caleb]
Caleb wasn't in the caern, but at home within the Tekakwitha Wood. He'd taken a much needed rest after the event with Gabriella. Something that he wasn't entirely proud of, nor ashamed of. Ana Eliza had a point, but stubborn Silver Fangs being stubborn Silver Fangs, he wasn't quite ready to concede that the young Bellamonte female was her own women instead of a priceless diamond.

He was out back practicing the sword, when it hit him. Much in the manner of the others of the Circle, it hit him. The sensation lanced through his being, through his link with the totem and subsequently throughout his nervous system.

The sound of metal clanging on stone was the only sound he heard. Looking down, he'd realized he had dropped his sword from numb fingers. Sorrow, deep sorrow that cut worse than a klaive gnawed at him. It was replaced by fury as the sword was picked up, slammed into scabbard, and Caleb made ready to leave. A brief word to his wife, and he leapt into his pick-up and took off at break-neck speeds through the back roads until slowing down to a more sane speed.

---

Twenty minutes gone, and Caleb was charging into the Brotherhood with the calm, sure gait of death walking. "Whoever did this," the cajun muttered as if swearing a vow, "is going to die. Slowly. Agonizingly."

Human hands with the briefest beginnings of claws raked at the wooden railing as he headed up the stairs, until a stronger force of will prevailed and his fingernails returned to normal. "I will kill whoever did this to my little sister," he said with a rough, low growl as he continued muttering to himself until he found Sam and Lukas.

[Lukas]
They don't know it, but Caleb is already on the way.

They don't know it, but they can feel it: the wrath of the Fang Theurge, who was normally so calm.

And there's wrath here too, jangling in the young Fenrir; subtler, insidious, buried beneath layers of grief and guilt in the Shadow Lord.

"I know," he says to Sam, softly. "Believe me. I know.

"But if we fly off the handle now, rush in there half-assed, we'll botch the job and shame Mrena's memory. We need time to prepare. We need time to clear our heads -- "

This is when the door of room 9 flies off its hinges. Lukas bristles instantly, his long teeth showing when he peels his lips back. The thump on the wall outside makes him jolt as though struck. There's a low snarl in his chest that he forces down.

"We need time so we do this right." He looks back at Sam; then Sampson; then Sam. His eyes are stark in his inhuman face. "Whatever happened before, whatever happens after, I need you both with me on this now."

[Soledad]
For once, Soledad had returned from wherever the hell it is she goes, from doing whatever the hell it is she does during the daytime, before the sun had dipped completely below the horizon. She was walking in through the backdoor of The Brotherhood when it happened, returning for the first time in a period of twenty-four hours, she'd slept elsewhere last night.

Something pulled tight, then snapped, snapped like a piano wire when you're tuning and you pull it too tight, then it lashes back and opens up the back of your hand. That was what it was like, but in the soul. It bit deep, it was sudden and unexpected, and hurt all the more because of that. She came to a complete stop, her eyes slipped entirely out of focus, and she searched that sensation like she needed to figure it out within five seconds or the world would explode.

NotOscarnotOscarohfortheloveofgod...

It wasn't Oscar.

But she knew what was coming, and so she bolted up the stairs two at a time, light on her feet particularly since she was in sneakers rather than her heavy travelling boots.

She reached the top of the stairs in time to hear the echo of cracking, splintering wood and something very heavy hitting something solid. Thumping of fists on similarly solid items. Soledad knew. She just knew.

So Sol didn't pause in the common room, oh goodness no. She cut into the hallway to find Hatchet, slamming his fist off walls and growling in French. Her eyes widened a fraction for half of a second, then hardened with resolve. As she approached him, she shifted up to Glabro, more for her own physical safety than for the need to overpower him. She fully expected to be the next thing under those fists when the walls weren't satisfying enough.

"Oscar..." she growled in that deep Glabro voice, questioning, searching, and warning all at the same time.

[Sampson]
Sampson was exactly where Lukas expected him to be, since he'd stumbled in after a long scout shift, a bit drained and dripping with sweat. After a shower he'd passed out on his bed, not even under the covers. Just long black legs and arms lying allll over the bed on both sides.

There is no worse way to wake than the shredding of one's heart.

Those legs are already flailing when Lukas bursts into the room. His cursing is virulent and vicious and moves linguistically between High Garou, Nandi and basic frothing at the mouth.

He is also weeping openly, for Mrena, White Eyes.

When Lukas and Sam have said what thye have said, long wiry arms reach out to both shoulders. "We will kill them all! anyone who had anything to do with her death, everyone at fault! For now, it is time to mark her passing. Cross with me, Brathas! and Howl her Lament!"

They can't be, this pack remnants, be anywhere near in balance tonight. They can't be possibly near whole. Where Mrena runs now, their souls follow.

[Hatchet]
As Caleb makes his way with haste to the Brotherhood of Thieves and his own brotherhood tries to both mourn and organize at once, Soledad meets Oscar in the hallway just outside that room. She sees the gold bleeding around the edges of his gray irises, she hears the snarling French from his throat, and she immediately shifts in a form that more than evens out the difference in their natural sizes. Were there anyone to watch them here they might think that Buried Hatchet is about to reach out and break his Beta's neck, the way he looks at her.

The way he looks at her, for a moment, as though he doesn't even know her. The way his reddened right fist clenches even tighter at his side as though he is about to lash out at her. Not ten feet away, Sampson weeps for Mrena. Lukas tries to get his brothers to plan.

Hatchet, of the tempestuous Fianna and born under the moon of balance, neither weeps nor plans.

Oscar... Soledad growls, inquiring and wary at once.

He blinks once, shakes his head as though tossing aside a lock of hair or batting at a fly, and breathes out harshly. His eyes are still two-toned and dazed with Rage, loss, and something else that Sol alone in this city would recognize. "Get whatever you need," he snaps. "We're going."

Were he aware more of himself and his surroundings, he would be aware of the sound coming from Sam and Sampson's room. He might stop and ask. He might remember being told about pack business being kept in the pack. But he is too focused right now, his world clarified down to grief and fury, to even clearly hear what is going on nearby. He starts to stride past Soledad.

[Sam]
The immediacy attached to the pound ing stomping and slamming just outside snaps his head and his teeth are shown in a split second to the door. As though the noise itself were a knife through the memory of Mrena Armstrong. His fingers do tighten around his sword and for a moment it seems as though he may charge the hallway and do something unconscionable and foolhardy.

The moon, the loss.
There are a million reasons to do it.

But he doesn't. Instead he sets the thing back down steadily. Staring at it for a moment in some sort of frozen horror at the thought that she had been in fact the last person to touch it when she'd brought it into his room, cautiously and carefully like the prized possession it was so that it might not sit alone on the floor of the common room.

"Yeah...." Sam whispers to Lukas, tears welling up around his eyes squeezed not purely of anger but of sorrow too, and loss. "I'm with you, all the way, Luke." His gaze shifts to the Shadow Lord as always with no trace of deception or malice nor even the slightest hit of doubletalk.

The open door seems a fine place to retreat from the walls that seem only to close steadily around them, pushing all of the air out of the room, making the tall lean occupant dizzy and disoriented. Buried Hatchet is punching past his packmate and striding toward the stairs in a fury of his own when Sam speaks up.

It would be foolish to think this loss was theirs alone. She'd ben so-....oh Gaia she's gone.

"Buried-Hatchet-rhya." Were he not so stricken with grief that alone from Sam Modine's mouth might give him pause. "Could you-" It's a wonderful time for a slight speech impediment to come amongst breath that is naught anymore but shucks and gasps at trying to keep his body upright for only a few minutes more. "Mrena....White Eyes.....she's dead!" The last is nearly bawled as he says it aloud for the first time, denies it perhaps even still.

They're all losing it this time, there's none in two packs tonight getting the respite of emotion.

[Lukas]
Sam bursts out of the room nearly mid-sentence to beg a little quiet and respect for his slain packsister. It leaves Lukas and Sampson in the room, and before Sampson can begin to cross, Lukas clamps his own hand over the Strider's narrow shoulder.

"Wait, Sampson. I won't have every Wyrmling within earshot knowing we're out for blood. I want them thinking they've won this round until the very second I tear their spines out. Besides which, I won't howl Mrena's praises until I've earned the right.

"We prepare first. Then we avenge. Then we mourn."

The Glabro-formed Ahroun lets go the Strider.

"I'm going to go find the spirits necessary for the talens we'll need. Call Caleb and tell him we need him to make as many pain-resisting talens and healing talens as he can. If you have time after scouting, make us some talens.

"Our totemphone's gone... I'll have my cell on me. Call me if anything changes."

[Sampson]
Sampson subsides instantly, at the hand. The instructions.
The leadership.
He doesn't need, in this moment, to agree to follow Lukas. It's a done deal.
"If Caleb will summon spirits for us! then... it is easier for us to bind. Faster, efficient. Myself, you, Caleb, to bind these talens!

He turns immediately to gather what he needs for the rites to be performed... some work, tonight. Some hours of work. Mrena deserves no less.

[Lukas]
"Good," on the point about Caleb and the Rite of Summoning, "tell him to meet me Umbraside when he gets here. I'll get the materials ready."

On that note -- while outside, Sam confronts Hatchet -- Lukas begins to cross the Gauntlet.

[Soledad]
Hatchet seemed to snap back to himself. At least he was speaking English, and at least he sounded like himself, seemed to recognize her after a second. He had glared at her as though he were ready to kill her, and her Glabro-bulky muscles had tensed, braced to block and restrain her Alpha. But then he shook his head and snarled out an order.

Hasty, Hatchet.

She shook her head and stayed standing where she was.

"Taggart, listen." She nodded her head toward Sam and Sampson's doorway. "The Circle lost one too, I have little doubt that the same reason for him is the reason for theirs. We should join." Beat. "Whatever did it was strong. I won't have us risk losing another."

Then Sam The White entered the hallway, addressed Hatchet, and Soledad stepped forward, bringing herself closer to Sam and Hatchet both with the step, and her eyes, a much lighter tone of amber-gold in Glabro than what they're colored in Homid, cut an expression of warning to the Fenrir that said, plainly 'Not now, fool.'

[Hatchet]
Were it not for Sam's bawling cry that Mrena is dead, that shake of Sol's head would have snapped Hatchet into a frenzy.

Hatchet stops. His eyes are flickering with Rage, but they are also snapping back and forth in time, here and then, now and somewhere else. His heart is slamming inside of his ribcage as he turns and looks over his shoulder at the Fenrir. There's a moment, a half-breath, where it seems like he might stop, slow, share in their mourning, equate Mrena's death and Ryan's, howl for them or honor them or suit up and prepare to avenge them.

At the very least, they have a heartbeat of his sympathy. He does not snap into hispo and bite someone's throat out. His back straightens, his shoulders rounding in what looks like relaxation. His head turns back to look at Soledad. When he speaks, his voice is level, and yet light, and as detached as the way he looked when Betcha Can't Hit That pulled a child out of the maw of a monster. Cold.

"Then they can join," he says flatly. "Whatever killed their packmate and ours --" he emphasizes that word, all but spitting it in her face as punishment for her total lack of grief, for her so much as attempting to slow him down, "-- may very well be trying to digest or defile their bodies as we speak, and I. Won't. Have it." His teeth flash, bared at her. "Now obey me, or leave me. Get what you need. We are going now, or I am going alone."

He keeps walking.

[Sam]
"Sir," It's all he can do not to shout or run after the other beast and grab him. Just hit something. "I don't disagree but-"


He's taking very, very deep breaths. One can almost hear a voice inside of him counting slowly backwards from one hundred. The way another lost packmate had shown him and do not for a second think this doesn't strike him with anguish as well.

"What makes you think you won't simply die as well?" He does't ask as a challenge to the other Garou's valor or his strength in battle, obviously enough once he's continuing quickly. "If we only follow to Valhalla, we dishonor them by making our pain the Nation's pain."


His jaw sets not completely in his own anger but in struggled thought against Rage and shock. "Just... at least let's come up with a plan if we're going to recover them, please."

[Hatchet]
'Sir'.

'Dishonor'.

'Plan'.

Hatchet whips around. His eyes are gold, eerily out of place in his human form. "WE ARE NOT SOLDIERS!" he roars at the Fenrir. "We are not humans. We are not scientists. WE ARE GAROU! And if you are not ready -- right now, and always -- to go, and fight, and DIE to destroy the things that killed your sister and my brother, you never fucking will be."

He is seething. He is not shifting, but by god it's just barely. His voice is booming, shaking through the air with both Rage and control, fury and restraint, the essence of two things in constant conflict, which is far more the Philodox's lot than harmonious balance of either.

"It is not just the recovery of a shell to bury," Hatchet snarls. "Every moment you take to build yourself a 'plan' is a moment the Wyrm, or whatever the fuck killed them, has to prepare and plan as well. I am going now," he flicks his eyes at Sol, "alone or not."

Unless forcibly restrained, he goes down the hall, through the common room, and starts down the stairs.

[Lukas]
It's a rapid slide across the Gauntlet -- but not so fast that Lukas doesn't hear the commotion.

He aborts mid-sidestep. The Philodox's tone speaks for him as much as his words do, but the words themselves are clear enough through the thin walls. The hair on the back of Lukas's neck stands on end; his ears try to flatten against his head.

"Fucking hell." He throws the door to Sam and Sampson's room open, coming up behind the Modi. In Glabro, the Shadow Lord has none of his usual conservation and efficiency of motion. He's brutish and hulking, nearly seven feet tall, huge through the shoulders.

He says nothing -- for now. He watches to see what Soledad will do. It's her Alpha.

[Soledad]
Hatchet growled at her, snarled, seethed, said many words, but all that she really absorbed, all that she really cared about was his ultimatum-- Come with me or lose me. Her hands flexed into fists and squeezed tight, and she glared hard back into his face, into those gold eyes that were so similar to hers at this moment. Neither said anything for a moment, then he brushed by her, determined to go whether she followed or not. A deep breath was inhaled through the nostrils and she closed her eyes, thinking, rolling over options and consequences, and doing her best to quell her own temper.

Sam jumped forward to go after Hatchet, to try and talk sense into him, and Soledad shook her head. Foolish Fenrir, if Hatchet wasn't going to listen to her then why the hell would he listen to him? She opened her eyes and turned to watch as Hatchet tore into him. While his words rang a certain truth, it didn't change the fact that it was foolish to lose more for lack of a proper plan.

But he looked at her, then turned to leave.

With a resigning sigh, a brief glance toward Sam, then toward Lukas as well, she slipped down into her natural human form and fell into step after the seething Fianna.

[Sam]
"We are soldiers." He replies, almost aghast that the Alpha of a war pack of all things could say something so universally....

stupid.


His brow furrows and he just stands in shocked silence for a second as the other heads down the hall. His arms fold over his chest and his packmate moves in directly behind him and then beside. At their end of the hallway the two Ahrouns are pillars of Rage and breeding. And Sam too waits for Uktena to do something to perhaps prevent the Fostern that he can only look at like one does a petulant child from stomping away to his own demise.

And then she doesn't.

"There won't be a search party for you."

And that's it.

[Lukas]
"You're kidding me, right?"

In this form, Lukas's voice is rough as a steel file, underlain with a growl. There isn't a shred of his usual courtesy left.

"Some unknown-ikthya kills my Alpha and your Ahroun, and the two of you are just going to march off and throw yourselves at it like that? Without preparation, without forethought, without even pausing to get your head on straight so you don't fly into a blind frenzy the second you step into battle?

"You're stupid with rage, Hatchet. What good, exactly, will dying do you? Or your dead packmate? Or anyone?"

[Hatchet]
Whether Soledad is coming or not, Hatchet is going.

But when she does shift down and follow him, he turns his head to the side, slows his steps a moment, and Looks at her. They have never had a way of speaking through their totemic bond, but with these two, they have never really needed it. Many have seen these Looks, these moments, and imagined them speaking telepathically. They are not. They are simply packmates, were pack before they found Sarah and their totem.

And Sarah is not here. And Belinda died mere months ago. And now Ryan. The loss is keen, and she knows how much sharper it is for Hatchet, though she may very well hate knowing that. He slows enough to turn and look at her, his eyes -- his nature -- still inhuman, and she of all his sisters must know what he's thinking without the words that never come easily to her and sometimes mean nothing coming from him:

Thank you.

Or maybe:

I need you.

But that is all, the slowing steps and the glance before he keeps walking, his Beta and oldest sister walking alongside him. The fact that he slows means that he is still in the hallway when Sam speaks -- but Hatchet doesn't seem to listen -- and that he is not yet to the common room when Lukas calls after him -- but Hatchet doesn't stop. He has Soledad with him. That is, apparently, all he needs.

[Lukas]
"Hatchet-rhya."

He's at the top of the stairs now, one hand curled around each of the banisters. Those sturdy wood beams -- a comfortable handful in a man's hand -- seem thin as twigs in the Glabro's faintly padded palms.

"Tell me why you have to go now. What difference would twenty hours make at this point, besides giving us every advantage?"

[Gabbie]
Several minutes before this wave of grief and Rage crashed down upon The Brotherhood of Thieves, Gabriella Bellamonte, quite possibly the last Kinfolk to reside in this dormitory of werewolves, had come in from her afternoon jog. He sweat-slicked jogging suit was peeled off and tossed into the hamper in the corner of her room, a towel was grabbed and wrapped around herself, a toiletries basket was retrieved as well, and she had gone into the large bathroom and showers area that made up the center square of the rectangular-shaped hallway.

She was rinsing the last of the suds from her skin and twisting the hot and cold handles to turn the water off when the crrr-ACK! THUD! THUD! started. Startled, confused, and concerned, Gabbie hastily wrapped the large creame-colored towel around herself and padded on bare, wet feet to one of several dooways that would take a person out from the showers area into the hallway.

What she saw had her shrinking back away from the doorway, small well-manicured fingers grasping the doorframe as she watched with wide, nervous eyes and listened.

Taggart, listen, the Circle lost one too.
WE ARE NOT SOLDIERS!
...killed them...
Some unknown-ikthya kills my Alpha and your Ahroun...

Gabriella's fingers tightened their grip on the doorway for a moment, then she pried them away and instead pressed her hands to her mouth, tightly, to stiffle the sounds of the horrified sobs that had begun to bubble up and out of her throat. She turned and pressed her mostly-bare back to the tile wall behind her, right beside the open doorway, and slowly slumped down to the floor, knees touching somehow even if the legs under them were askew in ways that must be painful. Tears welled in her eyes and streaked down to her jaw and throat, even if she wouldn't let herself make a noise.

Oh Katherine....

[Sam]
When Gabbie makes it out into the hallway it's the first and the only thing Sam can concentrate on that instant. "Gabbie..." He swallows hard and literally shakes in calming himself. She is enough to momentarily let Buried-Hatchet and Lukas' argument fall away from his conscious attention for even that long. After all, she's the only thing that could.

"We should talk for a minute." Voice filling with strength that's obviously for show, only holding on by the prescence of what's left of their group of would-be usurpers, by his family as it were the Modi asks after her, stepping out of the doorway to his bedroom and clicking it closed behind.

"Something's happened." Strong chin and jaw flick up to his one-time Beta and sometime Alpha who is either by default or by some regard the beast from whom he's currently taking his cues. The totem bond is still enough, the link still strong enough that like this totem phone isn't necessary. He's asking for a few minutes leave to get her settled and safe rather than watching Lukas fight it out with Hatchet and compounding the night's awful nature.

But it's clear:
Say stay and I do.
Say go and I'll take her with me.

[Soledad]
Hatchet looked back at Soledad, and she stared right back with an expression that was just as blank as an untouched easel. She had to force it to be that way, because everything inside her was screaming to stop him, to prevent him from marching out the door and into what was very likely a death trap. It was their places to die, she understood this, but if they were going to throw themselves away and not make useful anymore they may as well to toss themselves down the chasm in the Abyss where the Wyrm was rumored to lay in entrapment. ...or wait, depending on who you asked.

Thank you. I need you, it probably said.

I know, was all that he would get in response.

Lukas shouted after them, Sam warned that they wouldn't send a search party, and Soledad bristled, but kept walking a couple steps behind Hatchet. They reached the staircase, and the Shadow Lord persued them, waiting at the top of the stairs, holding himself steady with the banister, glaring down after them. Hatchet was two steps ahead of her, Soledad bringing up the rear, so when she flicked a glance back up to the Glabro-formed Garou, she didn't have to peer around her Alpha to see him, to watch him carefully as they walked.

[Hatchet]
It is a common and expected assumption that when faced with a loss or a conflict, it will be the Fianna who -- to put it crudely -- flip their shit and go off the handle. They're hot-blooded. They're the passionate ones, the emotional ones, the descendants of warriors who would strip off all their clothes and run screaming into battle just to terrify the enemy with their sheer mania. And it is not entirely unfair or out of line to look at the Fiann who just ripped a door off its hinges and punched a hole through a wall in the wake of yet another packmate's death, and think that he is going off a bit...half-cocked.

Especially this one. From the moment Lukas met him out in the caern shortly before Christmas, not to mention the moment he threw up his hands and launched himself on the sidewalk to try and tackle Sam, it's been beyond clear that Buried Hatchet is or likes to pretend to be -- for some reason -- a complete fucking lunatic. He is described as stubborn, as wise, as prideful, as a good Philodox, as mouthy, as funny...

...and he's all of these things. He also has a look in his eyes right now like he's half-detached from reality. He showed absolutely no flicker of compassion or even true horror when he saw a half-digested child pulled from the maw of a jagged-toothed monster. He has spoken of Soledad's death as coldly as she herself might, and he has also gone completely off the rails when a male not even in his pack was injured. Soledad has seen him throw himself in front of spears, beasts, and toxic attacks to keep her or -- more often -- Sarah from being harmed.

They are talking to him about risk. About death. About loss.

They are talking to him as though he has not thought about what he is doing. He is, after all, insane. Madcap. He has a devil on his shoulder that he listens to more often than his own good sense. He is, after all, a Fianna. He's not like Katherine. He's not like Lukas. All he has to do is pull off that shirt of his and reveal more scars than the near-decapitating one on his throat to reveal how many times he has not just come close to death but come back from it. Of course one has to wonder if he's just...insane.

Lukas rushes forward in glabro to the top of the stairs, wanting one good reason, wanting some sort of explanation as to why they must go now, why they can't wait nearly a full day. And Hatchet very nearly snaps. Not so close that fur rushes through his skin, not so close that the full moon overhead whips him out of his head and destroys something precious. Enough that Soledad sees his muscles clench from neck and shoulders all the way down to his fists. She sees his teeth set and from his profile she alone can see...not grief. Not anger, even.

Annoyance. Impatience.

Disgust.

It's a cold look in those metallic eyes of his, colder than anyone would attribute to one of his Tribe, colder than anyone would guess after hearing him tear his way out of his bedroom and down the hall. Colder than grief, or loss, or the end of someone loved, even if no one here but Soledad can even guess at the depth of Hatchet's attachment to Ryan.

He tenses. And controls it. He has more self-control on a bad day than all the Cliaths surrounding him. He doesn't always choose to employ it, but he does now. He turns his head over his shoulder and looks up at Lukas.

"Because it is arrogant and lazy to wait," he says, with perhaps disturbing flatness. "Because in twenty hours, they could be being dissected somewhere, providing some enemy or another with information about our kind that we can't let them have. Because in twenty hours, magic could be used on them to do Gaia knows what to extract locations, memories, secrets, from them. Because in twenty hours they may still be lying headless at the bottom of a ravine, or be slammed into freezers, because we don't even know if it was the Wyrm that killed them. Because waiting for twenty. Goddamn. Hours," he snarls, "means that by the time you make your plans and prepare yourself for every contingency it could all. Be. For NOTHING."

Hatchet stares at him, resisting the urge to lash out and dominate him with his eyes alone. "I am ready now. You are more than welcome to stay here and do whatever it is you think you need in order to augment the fangs and claws that Gaia gave you. We are not fools, and we are not madmen. But we are not waiting."

This time, and Lukas must see this as a mark of respect -- or brotherhood -- Hatchet watches him and waits for an answer before turning away again.

[Lukas]
Just like that, Lukas's temper tears in two. His hands close; something cracks deep in the wall, and the banisters sag.

"Your brother had the fangs and claws Gaia gave him," the Ahroun snarls, velvet-soft. "My sister had the fangs and claws Gaia gave her. Look where they are now.

"If you want to face the same end, fine. Go ahead. Go in blind and ignorant and unprepared. Go drag what's left of your pack down with you. You know full well your own Beta doesn't agree with you on this. You know she'd die for your sake anyway, and you don't care if she does. What sort of Alpha are you? Go find your fucking glory, only don't try to disguise it as wisdom, Hatchet. There's nothing wise about hubris, selfishness, and carelessness."

A beat. If Hatchet has not already cut him off, he shuts up himself; lowers his chin to his chest and hunches his shoulders, flexes against himself in some silent struggle for his temper. He squeezes his eyes shut for a second.

When he raises his head again, Wyrmbreaker has contained himself, if only barely. Rage is a blue coil in his eyes. He speaks as evenly as he can.

"You're a Fostern, and I honor your rank. But this isn't law we're talking about. It's war. And with all due respect, Rhya, you weren't the one born and bred under the full moon.

"My Ragabash will have them tracked down in half an hour. He's a good scout, and he's careful. He'll find out what killed them, how many there are, entrances, exits, maneuverings and movements. He'll stake the place out and he'll keep us updated.

"At that point, we can make an informed decision. Fight now, fight later, call a warmoot, proceed as planned, whatever. We'll adjust to the situation. Until then, my pack is going to assume we roll out in twenty hours.

"We're not spinning our wheels here, Rhya. We're not preparing blindly against imagined contingencies. We're doing our legwork, figuring out what the fuck we're up against, and reacting accordingly. That's not laziness or arrogance. That's getting maximum results at minimum cost."

He pries his hands off the banisters. Straightens up, rolls his shoulders back.

"Now," quietly, "you outrank me, and I can't order you to stop. But I'm asking you to wait. Wait at least as long as it takes Sampson to scope things out, so at least you and your Beta aren't going in completely blind."

[Hatchet]
One thing Hatchet has rarely done, has done so infrequently that few here can actually point to a time he's done it, is interrupt someone mid-rant. When he does it is usually due to a loss of control, or an exercise in dominance. Or because he cares deeply about the person speaking and about what they are saying. Ironically, he's more likely to interrupt when that's the case.

Lukas's temper snaps, as does the banister. A lecture leaves his mouth, and there is no telling how much of it is actually heard and absorbed and how much is simply let go. Hatchet doesn't even blink at him.

Even at: What sort of Alpha are you?

When Lukas is done, Hatchet doesn't speak for a moment. He just looks at him. And then:

"You have half an hour. I'll be downstairs."

And that, with a turn of his head and shoulders, is where he goes.

[Soledad]
Soledad had glanced to Hatchet, checked the tightness of his eyes and jaws while Lukas was speaking, and since what she saw contented her-- he wasn't grinding molars or fighting for control-- she turned her attention up to Lukas. When he mentioned her, she hardly even blinked. As was the norm, Soledad's expression was unreadable. If someone was very perceptive, they would detect a touch of disappointment, but it's almost impossible to puzzle out where the disappointment is stemming from.

So Hatchet allows that half-hour for the Unbroken Circle's scout to do his job, says he'll be downstairs, then turns to go precisely there.

Soledad, the loyal Beta through and through, turns to follow him.

[Lukas]
With the Weasels departed, Lukas turns back toward Sam; Gabbie framed in the hallway beyond him. The Shadow Lord's eyes move between them.

Then, quietly, "Go ahead. Five minutes. Then take my car and cover Sampson's back when he goes scouting, but don't follow too close. Just stay in the area in case his cover is blown. If that happens, get him out of there."

He looks away; grimaces: the expression is monstrous in this form, lips wrinkling, teeth bared. Then a shake of his head.

"I'm going to call Caleb and see where he is."

[Caleb]
As if his name uttered was the magic word that caused him to appear, Caleb came stomping up the stairs and making no effort for the ususal silence of his movements. The theurge didn't look as put together as he usually was, his clothing thrown on in haste. The Silver Fang's shirt wasn't buttoned, nor was it tucked into his jeans. He had on mis-matched socks, and instead of dedicated to his form his sword was carried in the crook of his arm in it's scabbard. Over his shoulder was his bow, and somehow balanced in the jumble of it all was his quiver of bane arrows.

Quite usually, his face looked tired from lack of sleep. Dark circles beneath his eyes were the norm, but tonight he looked downright haggard. From grief and worry more the like, with his disheveled appearance and his hair not even put to rights. Also, deep within those eyes that were tight from unshed tears, was anger. Not the boiling fury of Hatchet, but a cold anger. Cold, unfeeling, and ruthless.

"What has happened to my little sister?" Caleb said to Lukas when he came near the man. The cajun's face was a mask of promised death. Perhaps he didn't know of whom Caleb spoke, but by little sister he meant Mrena. He'd begun considering her such even before he'd joined their group.

[Sampson]
Hatchet doesn't give them time for proper preparations. Skinny Legs needs ten minutes for the Rite of Silence to be completed.
He has five.
Irrelevant. Orders are given from the alpha and it's not Mrena not White Eyes whose eyes no longer see...orders are given and Sam/pson complies with no argument.
Sampson has his bag, has changed into dark clothing and black on black running shoes and is ready and Heading with Sam down to the car; he can do this very, very fast if needed.
When they are In the car, he has to ask, of his packmate, roommate, old friend. Sam has to be close to losing it-- no. No. His flashpoint is past, and the ahroun seems focused on vengeance now, on duty. This is good.

"Is protecting a suicidal masochistic fostern Fianna Truthcatcher charach who doesn't care if he wastes yet another pack member to overwhelming odds worth rushing less than half prepared into battle?"
The question is asked.
"No, I answer myself.
But Mrena is."

There is none of his usual easy going manner, as he slips into the tribal role which Owl has taught them.

Pallbearers to the Garou nation.

"It is our fate, to bring White Eyes home. We will not fail."

[Sam]
Sam nods, the closest hand to Gabriella's door flashes with supernatural agility at to the handle to snap it open.

"Gabbie," She isn't exactly moving when he asks, already obviously slipping into the state Sam has consoled her out of at least once since they've come to the city. It's getting harder to bring the color back when her world goes grey and it's something he's well aware of. A strong hand takes her by the elbow so the kinfolk might have some privacy to mourn. "Five minutes, Skinny." Nodded to the Strider and catching Lukas' keys in one hand. "And I'm driving."

He's pulling Gabbie into her room as Caleb can be felt moving up the stairs. It must be Gaia's will that a fight not break out tonight as before Sam can hear him utter the words little sister as though he'd been the one to watch her grow up the door is already clicking shut behind him. To finish the process of raising her that a broken home could not provide. There'd have been a screaming match at the very least and more likely a vicious change in forms that would've ended with one of the Garou severely hurt had he heard those words.

"Gabbie," once they're inside. "We don't have a lot of time but you should sit." He tries and fails to offer her a smile of consolation as she slips further away from them. Whether she follows the suggestion or not he takes a seat at the edge of her bed and begins. "Sweetheart, something happened tonight." His voice manages to keep with him so far though his hands still tremble some at even the thought. It's not as though any one of them has had any time to process the news.

"Mrena Armstrong and possibly another Garou died, we think." Right out with it. "Sampson and I are going to go try and find out what happened and then we've got to posse up and bring a war party." His voice catches. "It's not a rescue mission."

He waits, lets the silence fill between them. "I'm here for a minute if you need someone."


=============================================================================


It's not quite dark yet, though the moon does hang over the blue and purple skyline, effusing him with Rage like a waterfall of fury. His sword is lain across the backseat and he gets in next to his packmate and wastes no time in pulling away and toward the fading places where last they felt her. This though only provides general direction and the feeling too slips away quickly. The windows get cracked halfway and he speaks without looking to the passenger's seat. "See if you can't get her scent." As they glide lakeside through the city's edge at forty miles per hour he asks his packmate, his voice taking on a strange quality as the shape of his own nose changes slightly, it's underside and the nostrils going black and spongy, wet, canine.

Sampson asks after Hatchet's motivations and the worth of rushing in and Sam considers it internally but only stays quiet and holds glacier blue on the road.

"Yeah." Suddenly whipping down a sidestreet. "We will."

[Sampson]
The method by which Sampson directs Sam is not standard, and perhaps unexpected. He nods as his packmate makes the switch in streets, lets his own nostrils change slowly to take in what is most ephemeral.

"Right there. This would be easier if we were flying in the Umbra! City streets are not good roads! Yes. Hatchet is in love with Ryan. But Ryan's shame is now expunged in an honorable death. I wonder if Hatchet pushes so hard to go NOW because he also wishes the same, with his whole soul. Even at the cost of Soledad's life. He is, perhaps, not thinking clearly now.

I tell you, Sam, if garou took more kin mates more often, as do I, we would have no energy left for causing trouble or breaking rules. We would fight the Wyrm, and Fuck where we should and sleep a lot in between. Gaia bless my wives, every one.

Left. I smell Ryan's scent too. We are close, I think. Time to move to feet or flight."

His own scent is conspicuously absent.

[Lukas]
Lukas pauses as Caleb charges onto the scene. The sobriquet makes him wince faintly; little sister was how the whole damn pack thought of Mrena, sometimes, before she became our Alpha.

Then he faces the Fang, latest of the Circle.

"I think you know exactly what happened," he says quietly; evenly. "We don't have any details yet. Sampson's going to scout in a few minutes. Sam's going with him to watch his back.

"The original plan was to go bring Mrena home tomorrow night, but Hatchet lost his packmate too and he's in a real hurry. Plus, depending on what Sampson seems, we might have to accelerate the timeline. So we might have to leave on pretty short notice. You should get started making some pain-resist talens for you and Sampson. We don't need a whole lot, so don't deplete your spirit. I've still got a bag of Gaia's Breath that Katerina left us, plus some protection and damage talens I made a while back."

He starts toward his room again -- but not, obviously, to call Caleb.

"I'm going to call Danička. We're meeting downstairs at 8:30 to finalize the strategy."

--

When Sam and Sampson get into Lukas's car, it's ... not as clean and neat as they might remember.

For one thing, the trunk is full of clothes. Lukas's clothes, worn once but otherwise brand new. For another, there's a set of rather racy lingerie on the floor of the passenger's side: also worn once but otherwise new.

When they shift their noses, they smell Danička on the lingerie. The scent is at least a week old. There's another woman's scent, fresher by days, vague in the air of the cabin. Lukas hasn't said a word about where he's been this past week; they haven't asked. There have been more important things at hand. But damned if there weren't conclusions -- albeit possibly wrong conclusions -- to be jumped to here.

The wind soon obliterates most of that second, anonymous scent. But Danička's lingers.

--

As it turns out, Lukas doesn't merely call Danička. He calls her, and then at 8:07, he tells Caleb he'll be back in 25 minutes. Then he's gone. Sam and Sampson took the car; he must be going on foot.

Even so, he isn't gone for 25 minutes. By 8:28, he's crossing back over in his room. He doesn't look any different, but he's perhaps a little -- just a touch -- steadier. Not that he was ever truly unsteady.

Quickly, efficiently, he changes into loose, dark-colored clothing; neither his street wear nor his lounge wear. His dedicated body-dumping gear. Katerina's talens are in a small rawhide bag; he adds to them his own, slips it into his pocket. By 8:29 he's going downstairs, his cell in his pocket. When he finds Soledad and Hatchet, he makes eye contact; says nothing. He ladles himself a heaping bowlful of Jennifer Coltrane's beef stew and, standing by the prep table while the dinner rush bustles around him, wolfs it down. Clearly, impending war doesn't impede his appetite.

Two minutes later the bowl is empty. He's going back upstairs. He finds Caleb, wherever he might be; they cross into the Umbra; they summon leeches and other unpleasantries; Lukas goes into a more robust form and bleeds himself bone dry. He's recovering afterward, washing his hands in the bathroom, his body burning through the food he'd just devoured to regenerate his entire blood supply, when his phone rings.

It's 8:41. He wipes his hands dry on his shirt. "Ask Hatchet-rhya and his packmate to come back upstairs to the common room, please," he tells Caleb, and puts his phone to his ear.

Whoever's calling -- Sam or Sampson -- can hear the click, the ringing stop, the ambient noise of the Brotherhood in the background. Lukas doesn't greet them or ask them how it went; it seems like a waste of time. He just listens.

[Sampson]
Skinny Legs calls, but he sounds out of breath. His words to his new alpha are pretty much those he told Sam earlier, just before they were jumped.


"Found them." Deep breath. "We are at a smoothie place, in the alley.." He gives very fast directions, and then... "Both bodies are still here. Ryans' body is being sewn back up, I do not know why; Mrena is yet as she died, but they will do something to her soon too. Three human-looking people inside; two female, one male. One of them, looks like a housewife, seems to be in charge, said there is a truck coming to take their bodies back to what she called 'headquarters'. The other female seems quite submissive."

Sam is guarding them, just now, in their hidden spot. "We were jumped by a phantasm in the alley. We killed it, but there could be more. I would be concerned too about whoever comes in the truck, whatever backup they had. I suggest coming now, Lukas, and not waiting. We haven't much time."

[Lukas]
Lukas is silent until Sampson is done.

Then, "How many entrances into the place, and where? And is there an ETA on the truck?"

[Sampson]
His report to Lukas continues.

"The building is small. It has three windows, with the blinds down just now, but it lets the sound out very well. Anything done inside will be probably be heard out. The front door is quite visible..." And he goes on to explain the back side, as needed, insomuch as he knows.
If he doesn't know yet, if they didn't circle around, then by Gaia he will go peek now, and call Lukas back.

[ST]
Sampson has to circle around the block to get to the backside of Juiced!, there being no alleyway on either side of the cheerful building. Once back there he will notice that there is a small parking lot for employee parking, and a red metal door that is not open. If he tries to open it, he'll find it locked, and there is no sound leakage back here. It is, however, a safe assumption that this is the door they will be coming out of whenever the truck arrives.

[Lukas]
The information relayed, Lukas has a few more questions:

Approximate number of bystanders, front and back? (Few; virtually zilch.)
Any way to block vehicular access to the back? (One way street... might be able to block one end with a side-parked car. Might get a ticket though.)

"Okay," and he's heading downstairs again now, "keep an eye on it for now, front and back. We'll be there in 15 minutes, so in about 10 minutes, park my car up the street and block it off.

"I have a five-gallon emergency jug of gasoline in the trunk and trash bags. Stick the jug in a bag and take it with you when you go. We'll meet on in the Umbra and I'll let you know what the final plan is."

He's down in the kitchen now, hanging up to approach Soledad directly.

"Do you have the Gift that blacks out an area?" When the Uktena nods, or otherwise indicates yes, Lukas looks at Hatchet. "How close is your totem bond?"

It's not another attack at what sort of Alpha are you. It's a question, and there's a purpose, because he goes on:

"If only Soledad could see, could you fight adequately based only on what you can intuit from her?"

[Hatchet]
Downstairs in the kitchen, Hatchet is sitting at the large table where staff often eat. There's no fire in the fireplace tonight. The kitchen is busy; it's still dinnertime. There are mortals in the dining room eating their roast beef and drinking their beers and moving on with their lives. The Kinfolk are subdued; they heard the noise from upstairs, the splintering of wood and the cracking of drywall, the snap of the banister. They do not need to be told that something is up, something is wrong; one look at Taggart and Soledad sitting like ticking timebombs would be enough, even if they had not heard voices and misery floating down from the stairwell.

Hatchet looks up when Lukas comes down, flicking steely eyes over at him as he walks towards Soledad. He is not eating. He is not drinking. He did not look at Lukas earlier when he came to eat. He is doing exactly what he said he was going to do: he is waiting. Soledad gives him her answer, more than likely silently, and then Lukas turns to Hatchet. Whatever was said upstairs either didn't make an impression or he is over it; he doesn't look angry at Lukas.

Truth be told, he was never angry at any of them.

How close is their totem bond. Hatchet's eyes tighten for a moment, almost imperceptibly. "Weaker, now," he says flatly, like someone answering the question of where they would rate their pain on a scale of one to ten. When he goes on to ask if the unspoken communication he and Soledad seem to share would be enough to let him fight blind, Hatchet just shakes his head.

He has not asked, and it has been half an hour, so he turns it back to Lukas as he plants his hands on the table and starts to push his chair back. "Not a one of your packmates trusts my leadership, and as you so aptly put it, I am both stupid with Rage and don't care if my sister dies," he says slowly, almost drolly, meeting Lukas's eyes with his own, which seem strangely empty. Soledad has seen his eyes like that before. Usually under a waning half moon.

"But I trust yours, in this. So when are we leaving?"

[Lukas]
Weaker, now. In other words: not enough.

"Okay." Lukas thinks a moment; he's thinking when Hatchet asks him when they're leaving, and then the Ahroun's pale eyes flicker toward the Fianna.

"As soon as possible.

"This is what I know, based on what Sampson told me: we're facing human or near-human creatures. He saw three, but there are likely to be more; or else they're far stronger than they look. They have backup coming -- or rather, their transportation's on the way, so we'll have to do this now.

"They're in a smoothie shop. There are two entrances, front and back. The front faces a street, the back a small parking lot at the end of a one-way driveway. The front isn't too busy this time of day, with the rain, but the back is emptier. That door is locked, though. The ...bodies are in the front.

"Here's what I'm thinking. I have five gallons of gasoline in my trunk. If Soledad casts a Shroud over the storefront, we can use the cover of darkness to set a fire and drive them out the back. Soledad will remain in the front to grab the bodies. She'll also be in charge of picking off anyone stupid enough to try to run out through the fire. Originally I would've asked you to stand with her, but that's up to you and your packmate.

"The rest of us will wait at the back door and ambush them when they come out. Ideally this will give us a chokepoint advantage, and we'll clear the field before the backup arrives. Regardless, I'll have Sampson park my car up the street and block off vehicular access to the lot. If their backup arrives early, that'll buy us some time and keep them from driving right up and running us over.

"That's how I want to play this. If you and your packmate agree, we should set out now. My pack can fly in the Umbra, so that's how we're going to get there. It's faster than walking. I could probably carry you, and Caleb can carry Soledad."

[Hatchet]
In answer to Lukas...

...Hatchet turns his head and looks at Soledad. To see them, one would think he had to have been lying. Surely they are able to communicate through their totem the way that the Circle used to be able to. Her incredibly dark eyes meet his incredibly pale ones

(his eyes are the same color as Mrena's eyes)

and for a couple of seconds they just seem to be discussing this. The Shroud, Soledad's part in grabbing the bodies and destroying anyone who tries to escape through the flames, whether he will stand out there with her, the chokepoint idea, all the way up until how to get to the smoothie shop itself. Soledad doesn't speak. Hatchet doesn't, either. Soledad gives no outward sign of her opinion.

Hatchet turns back to Lukas and nods. When his head bobs, once and definitively, the Uktena rises to her feet. "I'll be fighting with Sol," he says flatly, as though this goes without question. As though he would willingly fight alone...but would not as willingly let her do the same.

She has her spear. He pauses for a moment, a flinch in his eyes quickly subdued into something easier, something less agonizing. Hatchet smirks, lifting an eyebrow. "Flying, huh?

"You drop me, I'ma haunt your ass," he assures Lukas.

[Caleb]
Caleb was gone a bit longer than he had intended, the theurge having gone to the caern to make the requested talens. Upon his return, he looked a bit more collected, but at the same time spiritually drained.

In one hand he held four enamelled pieces of metal in the shape of medieval shields, and in the other hand there were three necklaces with small hematite stones attached. These, as requested, were the resist-pain talens.