The rain is back. Not the small sprinklings that have come and gone, but a proper rain that rinses the gutters of the streets. After the assault of the ooze at the gym of the Al Raby Center that John runs, things have been... quiet.
Perhaps it waits. Surely it grows. Mayhap it sends parts of itself to the surface to feel the wind and the rain and the chill in the world. To watch lightning spark across the sky while rain falls on dead, unblinking eyes.
This part of the Undercity exudes a not-rightness that can make the stomach turn. Down in the dark, in the mold and the damp, where the bones of Old Chicago are moldering there is a place where worlds merge and become as one. The barrier between the physial world and the Hisil torn wide, allowing ephemerals to wander back and forth like bees buzzing about a hive. Nothing in this place is safe, nor sacred.
As the clouds roll over the city and the storm kicks off in the distance, Nick...aka Midnight, has gathered the war party together in preperation of the coming attack. In an abandoned warehouse whos roof has long since blown off, Midnight has gathered small drums that are designed to catch the rain in a way that creates a natural music of the storm. As the first true clap of thunder erupts overhead, Nick begins to move with the music of the Storm as he speaks..
"Tonight we are the Gathering Storm. We are the light in the Darkness. This creature has broken the natural laws! It has bonded with the flesh and now will be made an example of. WHO amongst you will dance tonight! Sing brothers and sisters! Let them know the Storm comes for them now!"
This part of the Undercity exudes a not-rightness that can make the stomach turn. Down in the dark, in the mold and the damp, where the bones of Old Chicago are moldering there is a place where worlds merge and become as one. The barrier between the physial world and the Hisil torn wide, allowing ephemerals to wander back and forth like bees buzzing about a hive.
Down a branch of tunnel, the scent of old fire and rot mix with the scent of old and new death. In the dark, the ceiling and the walls, and the floor ahead of the group are vanta black, impossibly black. The huge mounded puddle of the ooze studded with thousands of eyes that glitter like obscene stars on a subtly pulsating sky. Rising from the mass is a War-form John. Featureless, but exact. A second is rising from the mass, the blob itself drawing back as the ooze redirects it's consciousness and form towards making these abominations. No longer limited to the weak shapes of rats, cats, dogs, bums, and children. Now it has a proper weapon.
John is dressed in black fatigue-style pants and heavy boots, shirtless, his torso smeared with ash. He jogs along on one edge of the group, his gait long and loping in his Dalu form. There is something monstrous to him, now, a far cry from the young attorney who checked in with the assembled hunters, passed out gear he had ordered, clapped shoulders and shook hands.
His heavy jaw is set, and he is uncharacteristically quiet as the group hunts its quarry.
Marked with blood and ashes, Aleks stands taller, hairier and more muscular doffed his shirt to howl and chant in the rite of the Sacred Hunt with the others. Now that they descend, he wears a pair of dirty pants destined for destruction, steel-toed boots, and an empty, clear-glass bottle, corked tightly shut and hanging from his belt. Once they go into the tunnel, he melts into the urhan form, both more compact and better to sense the right way down.
Raven is in her black leather pants and combat boots, she has removed her jacket and just wears a black tank top. She has smothered herself in ash while aiding Nick with his Rite. Now she follows her packs lead into the dark tunnels to deal with this oozzing threat.
Alex arrives with his packmate Aleks, in dalu form with two waterproof packs hanging from his shoulders. He's dressed in a beat-up leather jacket that fits his larger shape without a shirt to show off his tattooed flesh, jeans, and combat boots. Various grisly trophies and trinkets are worn as members of his lodge are known to do when hunting prey. Following the group into the darkness he keeps his gaze on their surroundings, keenly aware of the danger they're walking into.
Colt lingers near the back of the team, sticking to the shadows and darkness, away from the sources of lights that the others bring with them. Given the fact that he's a wolf the size of a small pony, it seemed to make sense at the time.
Though he's clearly regretting some of this decision. Sniffing curiously at the air, he gives out a little SNUFF of displeasure, shaking his head and pawing at his snout as he tries to clear the smell, giving a small whimper.
Midnight slips down into the bowels of the city in human, and as his feet hit the ground it is already contorting and changing with loud pops and creaks as a large wolf shakes its coat briskly as it pads forward towards his packmates.
Ethan is clutching a fire axe, courtesy of John. He, too, is in Dalu form, blood and ash streaking one side of his face. The jeans, black t-shirt, and construction boots aren’t inventive but they’re functional enough. His expression is set into hard, grim lines.
Rachel's eans and combat boots look good but ordinary on her, something she'd wear normally. The pistol holstered at her hip doesn't, nor does the flak jacket strapped to her torso, pockets full of ammunition and other equipment, more of which is packed in the bag strapped tightly to her back. What's more, her eyes have become an uncanny, glassy black from edge to edge, and a dusting of black feathers rise from her scalp to mingle in her hair, and blac talons seem to have fitted themselves over her fingers. She watches the drumming and psyching-up in silence, but with a fierce grin. She might not be able to oin with the power the werewolves are summoning, but she can still feel her blood pumping.
Elaine kept near Rachel, as she was the only one there she knew. Also the only one who wasn't transformed into a 'furry engine of death.' She for her part had taken a moment while the others did their preparations to change into something more comfortable for this outing. The pale skinned, black haired woman wears a suit of black, archaic plate armor. Across her back is a large sword roughly as long, if not longer than she is tall, and at her hip is a shorter arming sword. The tunnels did vary in size, and so different sized blades may be necessary.
"Let the wolves rush in first?" She quietly asks Rachel.
Hisleks stops in his tracks, sniffing at the air. He growls a warning to the others, pointing with his snout at the tendrils and slick, dark ooze. When he proceeds, it is with caution, paying attention to his steps more closely.
John stops at Aleks' warning, his nose wrinkling, brow furrowing as he sees the same. He, too, walks more carefully now. His eyes flit about the tunnel, and he sniffs the air occasionally, on alert for threats that the group cannot yet see.
~Watch the shadows. Remember the gymnasium~ Midnight says in the First Tongue as the ears lay down flat and a deep growl erupts from his throat at the darkness around. The large black wolf stalks forward slowly watching the sides of the tunnel for movement.
Raven sees the familiar scene of the black dark goo everywhere like something straight out of Aliens. She cracks her knuckles as they approach the big bad again, this time with reinforcements from the other Accordians. She says aloud, "I wonder if it has prepared while we were away." She keeps her eyes and ears peeled for signs of the not John's it summoned last time.
Reaching into one of the satchels that hangs from his shoulder, Alex pulls out a road flare and strikes the top to spark the bright flame to life. A torch is pulled from the other larger back he carries and is lit using the flare. Offering the torch off, he says to the group. "We can prep the torches now, carry them to fend off the creature, fire is its bane. Keeping fire around will help when we face it, so the more, the better. We have a way of boosting the flames, who wants a torch now?" Lighting and handing off torches to those who want them, he keeps one for himself and the lit flare as they delve deeper.
Colt gives a low growl, too, around the same time Aleks does. His, however, sounds like a small engine running. Eyes flick to Ethan, snout wrinkling a bit as he smells, or senses, something that he's not too keen on, apparently, taking a few steps closer to the man with the axe. Just in case. When Alex produces those torches, though, he gives Ethan a little nudge. He is, after all, the only one that currently has opposeable thumbs.
John stops to take a torch from Alex, carrying it in his left hand. As the group pauses briefly to distribute them, he translates Nick's words for those that don't understand First Tongue. "The last time we fought it, it had caught a man. Wrapped him up entirely -- he was drowning in it. Don't let it catch you."
Ethan is watching the shadows alright, eyes narrowing at the trails and the way the slime tickens and spreads in weird tendrils. He reaches to accept a torch with a dip of his head in acknowledgement of Colt’s nudge and Alex’s words. Torch in left hand, axe in the right, he’s got a solid sort of ‘ready as I’ll ever be’ energy going on.
Whatever language Midnight's speaking, Rachel can't make heads or tails of it. She glances aside at Elaine, "I figure I'd just let them do their thing. Last time I tried to get in the middle of the scrap, I tried to cut the ooze, and instead I gave John a nasty scar to remember me by."
When Alex pops off the road flare, Rachel narrows her eerie all-black eyes to slits to protect herself from the glare. But his remark about torches and how valuable fire might be in this fight makes her smirk, and swing the flamethrower Raven gave her into position, pressing the button to bring the pilot-light to life with a soft fwoosh of blue flame.
The lighting of the flare garners immediate attention from the quiet seeming slime. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of eyes bubble to the surface and raise up slightly on snail-like tendrils that serve as stalks for the orbs. Some are fresh and shiny, some are more withered and dry like ocular raisins. It must be able to use them to some capacity, but doesn't seem able to stop the decay itself. A few ears pock the thick surface, bringing different senses online before a slightly thicker stalk with a semi-fresh human head rises, windpipes buried in the ooze.
~It rains.~ Wheezey and raspy, human parts made to move in ways they were never meant to post-mortem.
Elaine finds herself moving as far away from Rachel with the flamethrower, and anyone else with exposed flames as she can manage in the confines of this space. While she keeps her wits mostly about her, she can't help a quiet hiss at the accursed thing and its pilot light. Once at a safer distance her longblade comes out, assuming that if the transformed werewolves can move about in here reasonably freely, she has space to swing it. If not, she would draw the shorter one.
Raven speaks up to the thing, "Looks like a real rain has come to end you, for all the lives you have taken. You also attacked the territory of the Steelmaws so that can be added to your list of fuckups." She looks to John and Nick as she readies herself to strike down the monster once and for all.
Aleks whips around as the noise rises, and when he understands the voice he rises up to the Dalu form. "It rains," Aleks replies, in English this time, and reaches to his belt to produce what appears to be an empty glass bottle. "It rains, and you burn, demon," he intones, and uncorks the bottle. Those who cannot see spirits in Twilight see nothing.
Those who can perceive spirits in Twilight see bright illumination rise from the bottle, taking the form of a blaze of flame about the size of a basketball.
It's close enough to the gaping hole in reality for a faint outline of fire that moves like liquid to be discerned by the sharp-eyed. There is no heat, no real light, just a subtle shimmer of a transparent outline.
Hackles rise on the back of the large black wolf as the tentacles begin to reveal the eyes and ears. Baring teeth and growling as he snaps the air as the new head rises and says, ~Enough of this...let it be finished. The Storm has come.~
"It rains," John echoes, his voice a barely recognizeable snarl. He steps forward, his empty hand flexing into a fist, then opening again with claws at the ready. His other hands holds a torch low and at the ready. "We are the thunder."
The question spills out of Ethan’s mouth before he can stop it. “The fuck we talking to it for?” He snaps his gob shut; maybe there’s an excellent reason. He wouldn’t know. Or maybe he’s just falling unconsciously into the cinematic role, the line the guy he is would give at this particular point in the screenplay. He raises his axe a little, like he’s thinking…it’s attack time, right? Is it attack time?
The mass coalescing behind the group while the head and the eyes keep the main of the focus, splits into three Johns.There's no sound as the warform monstrosities take shape, then move with all the speed and strength of the wolf they mimic. Claws greet Colt's back, wihle Elaine is embraced from behind, claws digging in deeply and reeling her into itself. Completely engulfing the kindred with a soft splup sound.
The third tries to get the jump on Rachel, likewise, attacking the wolfling from behind.
Growling as the irritation begins to settle as this thing continues to exist, Midnight throws back his head and lets loose a loud echoing howl of fury and anger! ~RIP THEM TO PIECES! LET NONE SURVIVE!~
Colt doesn't even hear the thing coming. The fact that it makes almost no noise, and the smells of this place are overpowering, leave him almost completely at the mercy of the thing taht looks like John, sinking its claws into Colt's fur. Red, bloody slashes are left on the wolf's back, and he tries to turn, fangs snapping at the thing that gouged him. But between the pain, the surprise, and the thing's speed, he's too late, snapping at the air even as the monstrous creature goes for a new target.
Raven moves in with her claws and attacks the nearest not John, ripping goo chunks out of the damn thing as it turns from Colt and swings in at her next. She brings up her arms in defense to brace for impact.
As combat begins and the fake Johns form and attack, Alex lifts his torch and howls loudly at the ooze creature. Swinging the torch he strikes with the flaming brand to strike the creature right in its face with a powerful hit. The flame catches and lights along the ooze creature's form lighting like napalm as it starts to spread.
As soon as fire touches the surface of the oily monster, flame bursts outward, rushing along the surface of the entirety of the thing. The flames spread supernaturally fast and burn impossibly hot - the creature's bane becoming understood in an instant as the entirety of the twisted thing becomes alight in the span of two heartbeats. The mass ahead and the false-Johns, the tiny threads and fingers of ooze that link the pieces top and bottom and sides of the tunnel. The flame sucks the air of out the space, replacing the cold and damp with dessert heat that sears the skin.
Announcement: Lilith shouts, “Anyone near CE is apt to feel a funny shift in the air pressure near any sewer access points, and those closest to the Loop might hear/feel a low *whumpf* from under the underground.”
And Rachel had been so excited to use the flamethrower to burn some creepy ooze. (The fact that the ooze reminds her way too much of herself, especially her nightmares of Arcadia, is probably unrelated. Probably.) But somebody beat her to it, and now the room's on fire. She's not sure what to think of werewolves and vampires and ooze in such conditions, and in fact she doesn't think about them, not at all. She thinks about the same thing any sane person would think about in this situation: Getting out of the fire. Unfortunately, as with many of her experiences, the only way out appears to be THROUGH. Rachel grits her teeth and sprints for the exit, leaping over hungry flames that singe her jeans and boots and armor, trying to get clear before the smoke overwhelms her.
Oh fuck me. Fuck the werewolves. Fuck anyone who plays with fire. These are the thoughts which run through Elaine's head as she rips herself free from the ooze. She snarls and hisses as she runs for the exit. She could care if they burned. Hell. In that minute she half wishes they did. The bloodsucker is nothing but fear and rage at that moment. Mostly fear. Fortunately undeath meant she did not pee herself. A small consolation.
The Fire-spirit Aleks unbottled shines, glimmers, growing brighter in the flame as Fire-Essence wells up all around it. The Elodoth calls out, ~Clear a path to the surface for the fleshed!~ to the Fire-spirit. The flames part leading to the surface, clearing the way for a hasty retreat.
John's heavy features twist with savage fury at the sight of his dark clones, and he starts toward one. When the tunnel bursts into flame, however, he stops in his tracks. His body shifts and twists, and the dire wolf snarls its pain and rage, snapping at the air. ~Burn~ it commands, in the First Tongue, holding its position in the tunnel, watching the main mass of the demon writhe under the flames.
“Guess we’ve got plenty fire,” Ethan growls, even as his bones snap and twist, sending him into Gauru. He’s not convinced the thing is really really dead or dying enough yet though. He pivots on one furry heel and that axe thunk-splorches into one of the masses even as his words disintegrate into some sort of battle howl.
Aleks' flesh and bone rise into the Gauru war-form, throwing himself at the remains of the ooze for about ten seconds until, on the brink of Frenzy, he falls down onto four legs in Urhan and runs off, back through the tunnels behind his packmate. He will return with Alex, a fire extinguisher in each arm, methodically searching out what remains of the hot spots, ensuring with the others that not even embers remain.
Raven sees everything literally burst into flames in front of her. After making the sure the non-werewolves escape the flames she turns towards the main mass. Which apparently most of the other wolves are in sync and have the same idea to shift to Gauru and proceed to shred this thing. She roars and howls as she shifts to the killing form and leaps at the thing, fur and flesh burning, but healing almost as fast as it's damaged. She ignores the pain until the thing finally falls and reverts to her human form. Exhausted from the fight and needing a large drink after.
The axe rises and falls, cutting away big chunks of creature until Ethan can hold the war form no more. By then he’s experienced the agony of being seared and healing it, being seared, and healing it, and at that point he’s had enough. It’s pretty well done for, and he’s ready to stumble back and out. But when it’s clear there’s clean-up to be done, he doesn’t hesitate; he’ll roll up his figurative sleeves, get in there, and help out.
Watching the world erupt into an inferno, Midnight's eyes never leave the main mass even as the flames begin to curl up the side of his fur. Leaping forward, the hulking wolf form grows in mass and size as claws begin to shred through the ooze. Fur and skin both begin to melt like butter off the Storm Lord only to regrow and heal instantly. When finally the flames die down, the hulking monster falls back into the giant wolf form and just limps away slowly in exhaustion.
John springs into the fray with his packmates, his body twisting and reforming itself mid-air into a warform that matches those spawned by the Goominator. He rips and tears, burning, howling his agony. His fur catches fire, burns away. His flesh blackens, peels back, knits itself, blackens again. Still Aziha Zuu presses the attack for as long as he can, pulling away after Raven and Midnight do the same, after victory is certain. He, too, will return to search out any remnants of this demon.
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