John waves his goodbyes to Nick and Ashlyn as they leave, then checks his phone with an apologetic look. "Community Center stuff," he explains, softly, thumbing a voicemail on. "What in the fuck," he mouths, as the voice message plays out. The voices in the recording are frantic, screaming, and only a few words come through. Those words, though, are "slime," "black," and "bodies, everywhere."
The Rahu is moving toward the door before the message has finished, calling in open invitation, "Raby Community Center." He accelerates to a jog when he hits the door, calling back over his shoulder, "Four can ride with me."
Ethan starts as the phone call comes in, eyes widening a little, then glances at Colt. "Isn't that always the way? Guess the planning phase is over," he says dryly, getting to his feet. Following John at a rapid clip. The screams on the voicemail make for quick feet and a goodly shot of adrenaline.
Raven listens in on the voicemail and begins to move as John does, seeing the shock on his face as the message plays out. As she begins to walk she says, "I got my bike out front. I'll follow ya there." She picks up the pace as she hurrys outside.
Aleks looks to John now, his eyes widening, his hackles rising. He looks to the gathered and says, "The hunting howls rise tonight. If you would answer, join us. Tonight, Mother Moon will witness our glory. I can take three more!"
Feeling the call, though there is trepidation in the Irraka. He's not used to this shit, he's not even used to what he is now. Xavier gets up and leaves with teh others. He didn't have a ride or anything, "I don't know what use I will be but I will do what I can." he says.
Colt slides out of his chair, looking over at Ethan. "I'll go fight your slime monster," he tells his companion, "but when we're done you're buying the biggest pizza I can eat *and* restocking the bar." And after that, he's out the door, running after John. "Shotgun!"
It's dark and rainy, because of course it is. At least it's just late enough that the traffic isn't too bad on the sprint from the place with the titty bar name and no titties.
Most of the initial panic seems to be over, a few stragglers on their way away from the building at a quick clip. The lights are low, since they were settling in to get the homeless people in the gym settled for the evening. Outside, it feels off, but is quiet.
John drives a newish Land Cruiser, not *too* packed full of work paraphernalia -- briefcase, laptop bag, random box of t-shirts that still have that newly-screen-printed smell. He makes the drive across town quickly, but not recklessly, conscious of what every minute is costing. He doesn't stop in the parking lot, instead circling the building to pull up near an entrance to the gymnasium. He parks the SUV on a basketball court, and is out and moving toward the doors almost before it has stopped.
He calls to anyone who looks coherent, "Round people up out past the tennis courts. Count heads!" He doesn't slow down, though. He's headed inside.
Colt is out of the passenger seat. He even refrained from smoking in John's shiny newish car, just riding along quietly until they pull up into the basketball court. But he's got his game face on as he slides out of the seat, watching wide-eyed as John goes in first, spreading his hands to his sides. "I should ..." Go in first? Yeah, seems it's a bit too late for *that* plan.
Looking over his shoulder to Ethan, he mutters, "Let's assume that he just means the ones that are still attached..." before jogging off at a good clip after their fearless leader.
Meanwhile, Aleks peels into the parking lot, triple-parking in the lot and hopping out of his leased Elantra to survey the scene. Likewise he'll head inside the gym, making sure to pick up a nearby empty glass beer bottle before he goes within.
Raven rides up on her harley and parks it near John's vehicle. As she approaches she tries to get a sense of what happened, looking around. She listens to John and nods as she pushes her way inside the building. As she searches for people she cracks her knuckles and prepares for whats ahead.
"You got it, all the pizza your poor eyes can stand," Ethan had promised Colt. And had sort of given Aleks an appreciative look for his speech. But now both seem far from his mind. He's out and moving quickly, keeping pace with Colt and putting his game face on. He tilts his head to one side then straight again with a quick flattening of his mouth at the first, and to the second: "Yeah, reckon he does," in an absent fashion, offering a soft-breath of an almost laugh with little mirth in it. "At least I hope so. Things are 'interesting' enough."
Xavier gets out of the back seat of Johns Land Cruiser, he's not been here but again he's quiet as he listens to the John as he issues commands for them. Xavier watches the others, then walks over and begins moving people to the indicated area that they were told to do.
Once inside, John snarls as his flesh and bone tear, twist, and reknit themselves into an urban hunter, almost doubling his mass. In Dalu form, he slows to sniff the air, then circles wide around the tar black patches on the floor of the gymnasium. "Does it have my memories, too," he asks aloud. "Is that why it's here?"
Raven tries to keep up with John and Shifts as he does, into her near-human form Dalu. When he mentions memories her eyes go a little wide. She says, "That's the only reason I can think of it being here, no coincidence something would randomly attack here." She would urge them to hurry but some caution should be good if most of the people already got away from this horror show. She stills looks around at the scattered cots and stuff to make sure no one got left behind.
Aleks looks inside for a moment, then snarls and looks around, casting about for a plan. He spots a green garden hose attached to a spigot outside, and he dashes for it full-tilt. He grabs the length and, even with his hishu teeth, manages to bite straight through the rubber, then bites through again at about a meter's length. He then runs back to his Hyundai Elantra, reaching into his pocket to unlock the doors with his key fob. He slaps the fuel cover open with his palm, shoves the length of hose down into the tank, and begins sucking up gasoline to pour into the glass bottle in his hand.
Ethan steps carefully around those shadows, not shifting to any form just yet; he hasn't really decided what might be advantagous just at the moment. "This shadow thing happen before?" he asks, picking his way around another one. "I don't remember this effect getting mentioned earlier." Maybe it's not even anything to worry about, but he sure as shooting doesn't like the looks of it.
Cole winces a bit as John shifts. Flesh and bone might tear, but he can also see the seams on that expensive suit start to strain. "How many of those do you *own*?" he asks the blonde man, already starting to strip out of his own clothes. Jacket is discarded, shirt comes up over his head. No belt on the pants means that they slide off fairly easily -- recoverable, and less likely to leave him in a tangle if they have to shift in a hurry. Standing around in his boxer briefs doesn't seem to bother him in the least -- and if anything, he's quieter now that he's got bare feet on hard floors, which seems to suit him just fine, likewise carefully stepping around the dark parts of the floor.
Xavier moves off towards the building informing people who were still standing around to go to the designated area that was indicated. Xavier pushes forward towards the Community Center. As he starts to make his way inside, he sees the ground is darker, and this actually makes him moves inside, as he does he notices the dark ground and he blinks trying to understand what it is he's seeing. He tries to use his surroundings to help hide him, so he can at least see if there is someone within the black shadows that he can help.
The shadows move. When the darkness on the floor is stepped over, tiny little tendrils pull free, almost like ferro-fluid responding to a magnet it is lured towards. Tiny little beady rat eyes on the ends of those delicate stalks - most black, a few red. Some looking shriveled and glazed over. Dried.
Xavier gets close, maybe too close, and a wave from the main mass sort of *splorches* a blob out at the man. It falls short with a meaty slapping sound to the floor, and a thousand eyes from a dozen different species bubbles to the surface.
"Last time there was a cord," John growls out, his voice changed in this form. "It was tied back to its main mass!" He prowls around the edges of the black pool, now, looking for another suck umbilicus.
Ethan does not have an unlimited clothing budget so he quickly divests of most of while there's still divesting to be done. And after a moment's thought, decides on one; outstretched hand becomes paw and patrician nose becomes snout as he shrinks down into urhan form, choosing the nimble wolf over the larger near-man for the moment. With all that moving and splorching near Xavier, with that big tarry mass...sure he doesn't wanna bite this either, but still. And looks around for this...cord? Shaggy grey ears flatten to his skull in a way that says, unconsciously, that he neither likes this nor is entirely sure what to do abouut it. He is a little short on fire, though thankfully Aleks seems to be on top of things.
Aleks heaves the contents of his stomach onto the pavement beside him, and his breathing is labored as he looks down at the glass bottle beside him now nearly full with gasoline. He boils up into the dalu form and uses his claws to rip off the front of his shirt, which he hurriedly stuffs into the mouth of the bottle. He pulls a lighter out of his pocket and flicks it on under the fabric, desperate to dry it out. Then he dashes back to the gymnasium, where he looks around. ~Who here has the throwing arm?~ he asks, defaulting to the unearthly, brutal First Tongue.
Raven watches the mass of tendrils moving about and looks over to Aleks and says, "Well I can give it a try if you want." She watches her step as she tries not to anger it anymore than it is. She watches John try to find the Umbilicus and aids in the search.
Colt, being Colt, a hunter of Men and not freakishly proportioned eyeball tentacle monsters, has his first predictable reaction: he takes a step back, scrambling to put some distance between him and the eyeball thing with a "Jesus *fuck!*." And then, as John starts talking about it being connected to the main mass, an even more predictable, "*What?!*"
And then a glance to Aleks, holding -- a molotov. And the scrambling backwards commences once more with a string of hasty, unintelligible curses, suddenly very aware of his bare skin and its total lack of protection from searing flames.
The unusual 'waves' from the struggling prey within the mass grow smaller. There's a moment when a hand punches, stretching goo out into a thin sheet before the ooze reallocates itself and swallows the victim deeper down. As it adjust, the far edges of it retract - having to ball up some to work on keeping this struggling /thing/ subdued within itself. They eyes don't blink, just glossy pearls of rat, cat, dog, avian, and human eyes on snail-like stalks.
Aleks immediately hands over the Molotov cocktail to Raven as soon as the gasoline-soaked rag stuffed into the bottle catches fire. ~There is a shower drain in the men's bathroom,~ he tells her. ~Aim there!~
"Raven, there!" John points out a ropy tendril of black ooze leading away from the struggling mass of goo, then shakes his head as something dawns on him.
"I think it has someone in there!" He snarls, then leaps forward into the mass. "~It has already tasted my blood~," Aziha Zuu calls out in first tongue, his voice breaking and changing as his form twists again, this time into a wolf the size of a horse. He plunges in, gnashing his teeth in the squirming mass, then leaps out again with the body of an elderly man held roughly in his jaws. The man is pale and seizing, seemingly clinging to life by the barest of threads.
With the Molotov ready to throw Ethan figures it's about to go down. Impressed as he is by the rescue, it hasn't tasted his blood yet, so he doesn't try to duplicate it. Instead he throws back his head and lets out an eerie, ear splitting howl to sing them all into battle.
Raven is trying to not slip on the damn ooze when she hears Aleks and John point out the main tendril. After John leaps into action and removes the human it was currently devouring she lines up her shot and yells, "Fire in the hole!" and hurls the molotov at the shower drain to torch this son of a bitch.
Xavier sees that the mass been keeping on him, which if the others are able to do what is needed. He sees John dives into the goop to bring out a elderly man, then a molotov goes flying. "Crap!" he then rushes over to the other side before the molotov could land, getting himself out of the way.
Once out pulled out of the goo, the older, scraggly looking man has no trace of the stuff on him. It's not inherently sticky, it seems. The guy looks... not great. Too pale, eyes rolled back, mouth open in a gaping, silent scream. And he isn't breathing to go with the almost delicate, rigid-bodied shudders of the seizure.
A lot happens at once. The howl, the man, the movements of the wolves all working together like a well-oiled machine, despite having just met each other.
The bottle hits the floor of the bathroom and the fire spreads with a bassy whumpf. What might not be expected is how the fire spreads as if the black stuff is the perfect fuel. And it *stinks*. It smell of old blood and rotted flesh and something sinister and earthy under all of that. The flames are bluish-white, burning intensely, and burning high as it begins to flail and lash out like a too-many-armed octopus. Or a very gooey slappy-hand toy that splats out and pulls back to reform.
Like a lizard dropping it's tail, the thing breaks connection wherever the hell the main 'heart' of it is, and the sizeable mass here goes inert.
Well. John just dove into the Eyeblob to pull an old man out of it. With his teeth. Xavier had the same idea as Colt, and got out of the way of the fire-flingers. And Ethan is howling inspiration at them. Inspiration that -- makes Colt want to dive into the now-on-*fire* Eyeblob and do some kind of damage to it.
Except that it seems the fire is already doing that. So whatever he was *about* to do gets cut off abruptly, causing him to pull up a little short as he puts a hand over his mouth, trying to ward away the smell. "God, it's like the aftermath of gas station sushi..."
Aleks melts back down into his human form, and runs for the door, flinging it open to get back outside and lose the rest of his dinner all over the blacktop. He gets up and looks back inside the gymnasium, looking miserable, but at least relieved.
But just then, he begins to claw at his throat, eyes widening. He screams out as silver light shines from his neck and blood runs down, in the shape of a new Renown brand: Wisdom. He collapses to his knees, weeping from the pain.
Ethan comes back to the human form pretty fast, because he does not want to smell gas station sushi with a wolf's senses. No thank you. He quickly pulls on his pants, frowning at the mess of stuff that's left, his face wearing the fixed expression of a man whose stomach sympathizes with Aleks over there. "You ain't ever lied," he mutters to Colt, a rough edge to his voice. "So it can send bits of it wherever and then fuck off as soon as we make with the flambeing. This dadgum monster gets more exciting by the minute." A rough edge, and a lot more accent. Maybe it takes some conscious effort for the guy to try to sound mostly generic and Midwestern.
Raven watches the creature burn and flail about before 'dying' and yells out, "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about." She is a little giddy watching it burn for a few moments before shifting down to her human form again with cracking of bone and flesh. She looks up to give Aleks the thumbs up but sees him run out. Her smile then fades when the smell hits her and she recoils while saying, "Goddamn that's horrible." She looks over to John and says, "That dude gonna make it? Also, sorry about your gym."
Xavier moves out of the way so Alek can run outside, he watches the creature or whatever it is flail about as it burns, he frowns at the smile. He hears Raven as she taunts the creature as it burns, "I will be outside." he says as he looks to them, and his eyes lay on the old man, "Should we get him to the hospital?" he asks as he does keep his distance from the others.
John hears Raven's question, and takes a better look at the victim. "~No, I don't think he can~," the Rahu answers in First Tongue. The mighty Urshul form of Aziha Zuu bends forward to take a better hold of the old man in his jaws, shaking him once, roughly. There is a sickening crack, and then he tosses the body into the ready-made pyre before backing toward the door. His body creaks, and tears, and shifts again until the enormous dire wolf is replaced once again with the human form of John Bishop Butler III, backing toward the door with a hand over his nose and mouth, his suit somehow miraculously intact.
There is a sudden blaring alarm, and lights begin flashing as the sprinkler system kicks in. John is not fast enough in backing out of the gym, and is suddenly soaked.
Colt turns to watch the killing of the old man. *That* doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest, really. He already starts to turn, looking like he's going to say something to those gathered -- when the sprinklers come on. He, too, is immediately soaked, hair plastered to his forehead and water running down his skin, glancing back to the body in the burning pyre before looking back at the others. "That gonna be a problem?" he asks, pointing to the water falling from the spigots -- which have no doubt already signaled the local fire officials. And then a glance back to the burning body -- or at least, burning for now.
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