Times are Changing (attn: werewolves)

Working a night shift left Casey with a rather strange sleep schedule. It could be a pretty bad hinderance sometimes with the hours normally kept by other people. For example, most people would be winding down for the evening. Casey's day was just starting up.
He'd gotten up about an hour ago, rolled up his sleeping bag (his apartment came with no furniture but Casey didn't mind the floor), eaten breakfast, taken a shower and gotten dressed. There were plans to meet with Megan that morning but he had the rest of the day to pass before then. So he'd decided to go for a walk, maybe try to find a discarded newpaper to read.

Steve strolls out to the park to get a good look around. Theres more here then he knows and its best to make as much friends and sense of things as he can. He walks on light feet everywhere he goes incase things go south fast. he tends to find the darkness of night more comfoting and concealing. He hasnt been outside for more then 40 mintues since he awoke.

Casey glances at the moon, and she seems to stare back at him, watching, judging. He feels an urge to start running, as if something important is happening and he must reach it soon.

Casey starts a slow jog, which becomes a run. He doesn't know where he's heading except that it's ahead. The cool night air feels colder as he moves through it but he doesn't feel it as his heart starts beating faster, warming him against the wind. Even wearing boots he continues to pick up speed, dashing through the city.

As he continues running, he has the odd sensation of being on four legs, rather than two. The running becomes easier, feeling somehow right, as if he were born to do this. The air is full of scents, much stronger than he can ever remember. It's almost as if he has awakened into a new world.

The sensation is odd, almost frightening, but it makes him feel alive and invigorated. He keeps running. It's never felt more natural. It feels clear somehow, even with all the new feelings and sense coming to life. He knows he has to run and deeper instincts know how and where. He takes in the scents, sounds, and feelings that exist in the moment, as he sprints through them.

Casey can feel a howl, welling up inside him, begging for release. His destination is close now, and he can feel something wrong, something that needs to be fixed. But what?

The toll of discord rang through his entire being. With it came a burning justified rage. He knew this is what he was running to, going after, hunting. He was going to chase it to its source and destroy it. He'd rip out its throat if he had to.
The howl came filled with the night with a call of hunting. He wanted his prey scared and it to know that no matter what it did it would be him who brought it down and claimed the kill.

Casey can feel his form expanding to fill the howl. As he continues running, he enters a park, and immediately sees a young couple sitting on a bench. The girl, she is the source of the wrongness, she is his prey.

The two people scream and flee in terror from the monster bearing down on them.

((Casey easily manages to catch the girl. No need to roll for it. She's prey; react accordingly. Casey gets one action, then Casey and Steve both roll initiative, and post init, def, any armor, and speed. Anyone who joins the thread after this point may take an action on the round after their first post.))

There it was. His target. It tried to flee but it was no match for Casey's speed. He lunged to bite into the prey, trying to bring it down so he could kill it. His rage at its wrongness drove him.

Spoiler:

Casey rips into the girl's calf, tearing out a large chunk of flesh. She falls forward, screaming in pain, and almost immediately begins scrambling away from him. Her boyfriend, hearing the scream, spins around, but fear keeps him from running to help her.




((Urhan)) Matthew hears the howl while patrolling his territory, and begins running toward its source. If he had any doubt about the source of the howl, the screams remove it. Another nuzusul? And from the sounds of it, not as lucky as the last few. He puts on an extra burst of speed as he races toward the park.



((Casey and Steve have one combat round before Matthew joins. Also, at the beginning of each of his actions, Casey reflexively shifts to a different form of your choosing.))

Steve jerks as he hears the woman scream. " damn one here of all places? luna must be really loseing it these days." He jumps to his feet and takes off toward the scene. As he reachs the sidewalk his body instantly shifts to urhan and he races for the nuzulu. As he reachs the wolf and the mauled he tightens up his shoulders and prepars to ram the wolf off the girl.

Spoiler:

The movement of the prey's mate caught Casey's eye and he turned to growl a warning to stay away when suddenly another force rammed into him from the side. Casey yiped. He tumbled and rolled, getting back onto all fours as fast as he could.
Another predator. In his throat a deep growled came forth.
This was his prey, he wasn't going to let another claim it. He continued to growl, circling the new arrival. How dare he interfere with Casey's purpose. The prey was wrong and needed to be killed. He rushed past the new wolf after the prey that was trying to get away. More than chasing off the new wolf, the prey could not get away. If he couldn't kill it with this attack he'd drive off the new wolf then.
He bit into the prey, shaking it's struggeling form, and dragging it as much as he could away from the other wolf.

Spoiler:

As the wolf zooms past steve he looks to the girl's boyfriend then back to the wolf. this was getting out of hand fast. He wasnt trying to fight the wolf but this couldnt be allowed to continue much longer, it was attracting to much attention already. He ran up to the wolf again tries to bite down on the wolf's snout to make him release the girl again.

Spoiler:

In his aggression, Casey takes on the massive Gauru form. Blood sprays everywhere from her new wound, and her body goes limp. She's still breathing shallowly, but things aren't looking good for her.

The brutality with which his girlfriend is cut down combined with the full effects of lunacy proves too much for the man. He turns and runs, sobbing the whole way.

Spoiler:

Matthew runs toward the combatants, shifting to Urshul mid-stride. Too slow, as I had feared. I need to get him under control now. He ignores the fleeing man for now, instead pouncing Casey. He fails to achieve any sort of hold, however.

Spoiler:

Another wolf appears from the shadows but Casey sees it coming and dodges the attack. However, two wolves is not something he is sure he can defend his kill against. He backs up dragging the limp body with him. He again shifts, this time becoming smaller in the face of two foes. He digs his claws into the meat as he pulls it across the ground, backing up from the other two.
He speaks in an ancient and instinctual way but the words of First Speech are clear enough "My kill. The prey is wrong. It is my kill."

Spoiler:

Steve shifts back to his hishu form and steps back. " Damn to late. Wonder how shes gonna take it." he turns and walks away back toward his bench. " I dont want your kill. keep it. Learn to control it pup or itll ruin you."

Matthew writes Casey's statement off as luna-induced madness, although given her state, it's unlikely to matter. I have to stop him before someone else dies. Why does luna treat her children so? Matthew turns and leaps again, this time managing to achieve a hold on the Nuzusul.

Spoiler:

The other backed down but the other still sprang and knocked Casey away from his prey.
Casey twists and struggles to stay off his back. He shifts to match form with his attacker's form. He snarls as fights to break free.
Inexperince and the other wolf's greater strength prevent him from escaping.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Matthew shifts his grip, pinning Casey. If only I could help the girl.

He growls in First Tongue at Casey, "No more killing."

Raging and slightly paniced Casey shifted again, trying to use his change form to escape more than his strength.
"The prey is wrong!" he howled as he tried in vain to get out of the wolf's grip.

Spoiler:

Steve walked over to the girl as he left the scene. As he reached the girl he kneeled over and tried to move her limb body. " Damn he really did a number on her. im sorry i couldnt get her sooner." As he finishes inspecting the body again he looked to see where the girl's boyfriend had ran and began to contemplate what to do with the body.

The boy fled down the path in the direction of the parking lot. After a few seconds, Steve hears a car starting.

Casey continues to struggle for several minutes, but he just isn't strong enough to break free. During this time, the girl's breathing becomes more and more shallow, before finally stopping completely. Casey has claimed his first victim.

Finally, Luna's madness lifts, and Casey collapses onto the ground in Hishu form, exhausted and completely naked.



When Casey finally collapses, Matthew quickly disengages, and backs up several feet, reverting to Hishu. He quickly sets his halberd on the ground and steps in front of it before anyone gets the wrong impression.

Casey feels like he's just waking up from a dream and a nightmare. He struggles to sit up, only to find he's still in the place where the dream had been, and there's the great wolf who held him turning into a man with a polearm and he's naked!
He scrambles back a few feet. "What the hell!?" was the best he could do to describe the situation.

Steve turns to matthew and shakes his head. " This isnt good. something has to be done with this body fast before someone comes pokeing around. Her boyfriend got away." He looks to casey again and steps forward. " Damn kid you did it this time."

"What are you.." but then he remembered. The prey he'd claimed. The girl he'd attacked. He looked over and saw the torn and shredded body.
"I did.. but I couldn't.." but he knew that would be a lie. He could remember that he did and that at the time he had considered it the right thing to do. He had felt it so strongly that there was a wrongness about her. Something that needed to be corrected and death had seemed the proper way to do it.
Of course the maddness was still going on. He could feel it deep inside that he was changed. It had been forced on him and he had had no choice but to follow his instincts. And here was this guy talking like it was his fault, like Casey went around doing this sort of thing all the time. It made him irrationally angry. He was still very confused and he went on the defensive.
"And you did a bang up job saving her and stopping the guy." he spat with sarcasm. He wasn't going to blamed for this, it couldn't be his fault. He backed up some more.
"What the hell is going on?!"

Steve meets his challenge with a low growl and continues. " Relax there will be plenty of time for that later. right now this needs to be cleaned up."

Matthew sighs. "We can't spend too much time cleaning up. He'll stick out like a sore thumb, and the boyfriend may call in the police to investigate. It's a good thing so few people tend to be out late."

Matthew turns to Casey. "I don't know how long before we're interrupted, so it looks like you get the crash course. I imagine you've figured out what we are by now?"

Casey had an inclination. He wasn't sure he could say it out loud though. It wasn't that he disbelieved it when polearm guy had transformed. To say it was to acknowledge such things were real. Worse, it would make him one of them. He knew he was like them, he could smell it. As much as he understood that, he wasn't sure he could admit it just yet. At the same time it was undeniable, he felt that.
"Yeah, I think I have a fair idea." his voice was a little weak. He swallowed and he felt like his breath wasn't getting into his lungs. He looked again at the torn body.
"Oh God." It was to be sinking in more.

As steve scuffles firt over the bloodstains he turns back to casey. " Dont think about it to much. It wasnt your fault, luna is a heartless bitch at times and tonight she picked you." He turns back to matthew again and shrugs. " might as well just leave the body then and get outta here. They'll right it off as an animal attack."

Casey couldn't take his eyes off the corpse across the grass. He had killed her and for no better reason than he thought she was "wrong". Wrong how? He didn't even know. And it was wierd because he didn't feel guilty about killing. Instead, he felt guilt that he had done it for what amounted to no reason at all. He couldn't justify it based on what he'd thought during the frenzy of before. She'd just been sitting there on a bench, talking.
He was barely listening to what the other two were saying now. He had to see her face, to see if he could try and find some "wrongness" in it. It didn't make any sense, but he felt he couldn't live with himself if he didn't look for himself. More than not finding anything wrong, he didn't want to live with doubts. He needed to know if what he had done was justicified, whatever that meant now.
The world around him sounded dense and soft, like he had water in his ears, and his eyes only saw the drying blood and motionless body. Casey was unsteady as he got up and half stumbled closer to the violent scene.

Casey doesn't see anything to suggest what might have been "wrong" about the girl.


Matthew looks to Steve. "Okay. There are plenty of abandoned buildings around here. We can enter one and continue talking there. I'm sure the new guy has plenty of questions for us."

Now Casey felt sick to his stomach. The nausea added with the murkiness of the sounds of the world gave Casey the uneasy feeling of floating in something. Falling through everything. He couldn't look away. His vision filled with pricks of black. No, not black, just spots where his eyes just seemed to stop seeing. Now Casey felt like he was falling and spinning. It didn't help his upset gut much either. Still, even when he sank to his knees to keep from collapsing, he just kept staring at the girl he'd killed as his sight went unfocused.

Spoiler:

Casey sees a landscape subtly different from the park, but details are difficult to make out, almost as if he's staring through frosted glass. He can dimly make out small shapes nearby, several of which seem to be clustering around the location of the girl's corpse. He can also dimly make out the forms of several of the nearest trees, but nothing else of any significant size.

The urge to throw up grew suddenly stronger. Casey bent forward holding his stomach, fighting back the bile and ceral. It sensation passed and when he looked again the park was back to normal. The park with one girl's body, one naked guy, one guy with a halbred, and one extra wolf man just to be safe. Yeah, the park was back to normal.
What had that been? It had felt almost like he had been about to feint. That explanation felt better than the one where now he was seeing things.
The dead piece of flesh no longer held his eyes. It was starting to creep him out. He backed away and got up, heading back to the other two. He was hunched over trying to cover himself.
"So, umm, I'm Casey." He didn't hold out a hand to shake. Nerveous and still more than a little confused, Casey fell back on bad humor rather than sarcasm this time.
"I'd rather not do butt sniffing if you don't mind." The joke limped away as fast as it could before someone decided to put it out of its misery.

~Matthew Greene~

Matthew is clearly much less concerned over Casey's state of undress than Casey is. "I'm Matthew. Are you up for shapeshifting right now? It would attract a bit less attention than your current state if we ran across someone."

"Yeah. Sure," he said, hardly breathing the sounds out. In fact, he was very apprehensive at the prospect of shifting again. Not as much as going around with no cloths, though. So he did his best to swallow back his uncertainty. There was one problem. He could remember going from form to form in the frenzy before but now with the ability to think conciously he realised he didn't know what exactly he needed to do it.
"How?"

So it was all just happy thoughts and pixie after all, he thought grimly. He shuddered slightly and closed his eyes. He felt back to when it had first started. The feeling of just running, the natural way he'd sped across the ground, the touch of the wind through fur, the support of earth beneath paws, and overhead he could see the moon. He could hear its call, like the singing of a choir summoning him.
He could feel the changes ripple through his body and when he opened his eyes he was seated, complete with tail and teeth. He wagged his tail a little in relief. That hadn't been so bad.

Steve nods to matthew as he looks around again. " Sounds like an idea. we should get moveing before someone comes then."

Matthew picks up his halberd and shifts to Urhan, the polearm merging with his flesh. With a follow-me gesture, he takes off down the street, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. After several blocks, he turns down a side street and batters down the back door of a foreclosed home. Once inside, he shifts to Hishu, leaning his halberd against a wall.

He turns to Casey. "Now that we're a bit more private, what questions do you have, Casey?"

Steve shifts to urhan and follows behind casey and matthew. His dark red fur is barely noticeable even under moonlight. He takes off behind casey and matthew to the building and shifts back to hishu as he enters. " I know your mind has to be flooded at the moment. Take time for yourself if you need it."

Casey follows Matthew into the dark building and after finding an especially dense bit of shadow shifts. Now was the chance to get answers to all this, but for the life of him nothing would come to mind. There was just so much he wanted to ask it couldn't all fit in his head. So the thoughts, rather than be crowded uncomfortably, decided to leave till things calmed down. Boy he must look look like a wide eyed idot. Casey realised his mouth was open without saying anything. He needed to ask something.
"Who are you?" was the best he could do.

Casey nodded. He knew enough about biology,or ecology or what not to recognize the words. He could think of several good comments not to make about where the alpha female was. Other than that he waited for Matthew to go on, or the other man to introduce himself.

Matthew continues after a momentary pause. "We aren't just human-wolf hybrids, though. We're part spirit. Spirits live on a separate ... plane? frequency?" Matthew is clearly struggling for an appropriate description "... of existance. It's easier to show than to describe, but not right now. We call it the Shadow Realm, and we can peer into it with some effort. We can also cross into it, but only at specific places known as loci. Spirits are primal entities, the reflections of objects, animals, plants, even concepts. We're children of both the material realm and the Shadow Realm, and yet in some ways, we belong to neither." Matthew pauses again. If he doesn't have questions now, I'm going to be worried.

"Wait. What? So your saying some spirit knocked up my mom and that makes me a," ugh he was still having trouble saying it outloud "a werewolf? How is that suppose to work?"

Matthew sighs. "Okay, I guess I didn't do a very good job of explaining that. Your parents were probably both human, although it's possible that one of them was a werewolf as well. According to legend, our race traces it's ancestry to the mating of Father Wolf and Luna, both extremely powerful spirits.

"Father Wolf was a spirit of the hunt. He guarded the border marches, ensuring that humans stayed on this side and spirits remained on the other. Mother Luna, the moon, has five faces but only shows one at a time. They sired eight children, the First Pack. They helped Father Wolf on his hunt, but over time, he grew old and week. Five of his children rose up and slew him. It had to be done. But his death cry called up the Gauntlet, a barrier between this realm and the Shadow Realm. It's why we can enter the Shadow Realm only at a place that carries a good deal of spiritual resonance, and why we are known as the Forsaken.

"We are descended from those five, and the descendants of the other three hate us for the act. They call themselves the Pure. How much of the legend is true? No one can say, but the existance of spirits and the Pure's hatred of us are facts. In fact, the Pure hold the territory on the outskirts of Sacramento, from the river outward. Do not go there alone if you value your life. You also need to be aware of the territorial boundaries of the local Forsaken packs, and you should also join one yourself. You're too new to this to be completely on your own." He quickly describes the local packs' territories, then waits nervously. It's a lot to throw on him at once, and I have yet to get a good initial reaction from a nuzusul.