Carlisle's Story

A hush fell over the room as everyone turned their eyes to Max and Baron, and the silence was broken only by the clacking of pool balls that seemed to resound eerily loud in the absence of any other noise, but soon the pool balls fell still also.

Baron took one last drag of his cigarette before blowing it out slowly as he stubbed it out on an ashtray sitting next to him. He followed it with a sip of his glass before he leaned forward to look Max dead in the eye.

"Is that so?" he asked. "Tell me, what exactly have you done for this pack? Get your ass beat down from poking your nose where it doesn't belong? Showing up late to work?"

There was bite to his words, and something about Max's request had riled him. It was difficult to say why though, and he didn't seem intent on sharing his reasoning. Instead he leaned back in his chair and took another sip of his drink before dismissing Max with a wave of his hand.

Another man approached Max from behind and clapped a hand down on his shoulder.

"Come on kid, not tonight," he said as he nodded towards the bar where Max was supposed to be working as of a half hour ago.

The voice belonged to Carlisle, an older member of the pack and sometimes friend to Max. He had been with the Bloodstone pack going on thirty years now, but he wasn't of the local bloodlines and served as something of an oddity. He had in fact found his way to Lutetia all the way from Quelaya.

Baron’s apparent carelessness only infuriated him more. His smooth, time-consuming movements had Max gritting his teeth. He didn’t notice the stares that were turned on them; his world consisted of only himself, his annoyance, and the man who - at the moment - he blamed for it all.

He didn’t just want to be something more.
He felt like he needed to be something more.

From the Pack Leader’s demeanour after his outburst, Max had already guessed what was coming. It didn’t hurt any less. The reality check sent him spiralling back to earth. He felt some shame creeping in at how he’d handled the situation. Still, he held Baron’s regard as best as he could despite the wave of his hand. Max had already hurdled the immediate intimidation; he intended to run as far as he could before it caught up with him. Though he was well aware it could end in a good black eye or a few broken ribs, or worse.

Get your ass beat down from poking your nose where it doesn’t belong?
Where it doesn’t belong?
Doesn’t belong.

The hand that came down on his shoulder reminded him that he had an audience. Max collected himself. Calmer, he continued in a more hushed voice, addressing them both.

“Not tonight? When?” He said, eyes flitting to Carlisle then returned to Baron. It came out in a soft hiss, only slightly venomous.
“You know I wouldn’t get beat down if you made me one of you. I don’t want to, just, be an errand runner; shining your glasses, pouring your liquor. Is that all you saw in me when you took me in?” Max unclenched his hands and turned the palms upwards as his tone grew pained and somewhat pleading.
“This is all I have. Let me make something of it. I won’t let you down.”

He didn’t know if Baron cared. He didn’t know if Baron was even actively listening.
Max lightly shrugged off Carlisle’s good-natured hand and turned for the bar.

Ragenard was already halfway through his second bottle of bourbon and the ministrations of one of the newest pack girls who had for some reason taken a fancy to him and helped him clean the silver off his wounds when he heard Baron's call for a run.

By the time he belligerently got up from the booth and untangled from the fussy woman blabbering at him that his wounds weren't clean yet and wouldn't stop bleeding and who knows what else, Baron was already well down the street.

"Sod off, whelping bitch, I'm fine and will run if I damn well feel like it!" exclaimed Ragenard as he began to discard his clothing. Upon noticing the angry expression on the woman he quickly offered up his version of ammends "Ah, don't look at me like that lass. Rough day, and I can't let the boss run off without his second, now can I? as he finished discarding his clothing he added-"Now quit staring at my twig and berries and make sure the clothes and equipment make it to my room!" .

After taking a few glances around, he noticed none of the pack bipeds had made a move, much to his annoyance.


Bruisers! What the fuck do ye think you're doing? We ein't going to let the boss run off without his vanguard! You and you, trous off and off we go! he roared pointing at the two closest bipeds as he began his own grisly transformation.

From a flurry of broken bones, reassembling muscles, and migrating organs came Ragenard's werewolf form.*

Standing just shy of nine feet, the intimidating werewolf was a wall of ripply black furred muscle that could barely be contained by the The Den's roof.*

His appearance was made all the more startling by his sudden move to rip off his own skin where his previous wounds were. In the space of a few heartbeats -filled with much enraged roaring and flying spittle- the now forcibly de-silvered wounds sealed back together.

Knowing his entourage would be behind him, Ragenard stomped off through the door, nearly ripping it off it's considerably reinforced hinges, and adding another score mark upon the finish.

Once outside, rather than sticking to the open ground of the streets like their quadrupedal brothers, Ragenard and the other bipeds used their strength to haul themselves and jump off roof to roof, and before long managed to spot Baron and the others down in the streets alongside their rooftop jaunt.

Carlisle didn't seem too thrilled with the idea, but he too shed his clothing as his muscles began to bulge beneath the sickening pop of realigning bones. He let out a roar as his face took on the snarling visage of a wolf before he was out the door after Ragenard. He didn't come close to the height, nor the heft of the much larger wolf, but his gangly limbs left him able to lope on all fours, or to stand erect. It was a well rounded form, though he lacked the brute strength of the beefier wolves, or the speed of the purely quadrupedal. The overly developed digits of his hands where well suited for climbing though as he took to the rooftops with swinging grabs and bounds from window sills and fire-escapes.

Meanwhile back inside the bar, no one seemed at all perturbed by the events that were ordinary enough around here. The piles of abandoned clothes were ignored in favor of returning to their pool games and drinks.

Baron gave himself over to the rhythm of his paws beating against the pavement as he barreled out of the doorway of The Den and down the narrow streets of Vargeras with a trio of wolves trailing at his back. It felt good to just get out and run, and to get his blood pumping. with the smells of the city in his nostrils.

The shadows had grown long with the evening hours, but the sun had yet to set and there where still a fair number of evening strollers out for a walk, or heading home from work or dinner, but most of them had the sense to get out of the path of the oncoming wolves. This was Bloodstone territory and the people knew it, wolf and human alike.

He heard and smelled his brother before he saw him, and he threw his head sideway to get a look at Ragenard and Carlisle collding with a slanted rooftop, knocking shingles loose as claws gouged deeply into the wood beneath. His lips curled back to bare his teeth in what could only be described as a wolfish grin before he redoubled his pace.

Lowering his head he was off like a gunshot, barreling through the streets at reckless speeds. The trio at his back picked up the pace, but their smaller sizes lacked the stride length of Baron's massive form, and he was swiftly outpacing them.

The brotherly rivalry was nothing new to the pack though and eventually they fell back one after the other to leave Baron and Ragenard to their juvenile competition. Even Carlisle abandoned the run as he swung over a roof edge to drop down to the pavement with the rest of the pack on the side of the street.

“Fuck me, this place is a right shithole.”

A hooded figure lurked in the shadows of an alleyway, swathed in a threadbare overcoat studded with tarnished brass badges and frayed patches. His face was hidden by a faded green hood and the coat's raised collar. From the depths of the hood, a single eye winked. It looked more like a lens than an eye, rotating and contracting as it focussed on the cavalcade of werewolves careening down the street.

He had spoken to one of Vargeras' down-trodden citizens, who had backed deeper into the alley as the wolves thundered past. The hooded figure pulled a packet of local cigarettes from his coat pocket, offering one to his companion.

“Mate, you really need to call the RSPCA. Got a serious wild dog problem...”

The citizen, who had introduced himself as Henri, declined the proffered cigarette and shrugged. “This is why you are here, no?”

A rough approximation of a laugh echoed from under the hood, followed shortly by the whir of mechanical joints as the hooded figure sauntered towards the mouth of the alley.

“Yeah, but no-one said nothing about this shit.” A gloved hand emerged from the greatcoat's sleeve and extracted a crumpled cigarette from the pack. The pack disappeared back into the coat, replaced by a battered zippo lighter with a pair of naked women engraved on it. The cigarette flared, throwing the stranger's face into sharp relief.

Angular and inhuman, it was dominated by a hooded optical array that reflected the light like a faceted crystal. He jammed the cigarette into the narrow slot that passed for a mouth, letting it smoulder. Henri backed further down the alley, cursing and making signs against evil.

“And fuck you too, cunt.” The hooded figure replied, raising two fingers in a reverse “V” sign, before plunging both hands into his pockets and setting out after the charging pack of wolves.

While Baron and Ragenard went careening off through the city, the rest of the pack was making their way back towards the den house at a more leisurely pace.

Julienne was the first to note something off about the individual approaching them as she scented the air. She was smaller than the rest with thick brown fur, but she was one of the packs best trackers. It didn't take more than a faint whiff for her to realize something was off about the individual. He wasn't human, but she couldn't be certain what he was.

There was something almost mechanical about him. Something familiar about his scent too, they had passed him by earlier... two blocks ago.

She stopped in her tracks and her skin writhed and rippled as she shed her fur and rose to her feet a woman once more. At her side Carlisle too was shedding his lupine form in favor of one that could speak.

Modesty was a forsaken concept for them, and neither seemed remotely uncomfortable with their state of dress - or lack there of.

"Who the fuck are you," Julienne asked. "And why are you following us?"

The figure cocked his head, the smouldering cigarette dropping from his mouth to smoke on the damp cobbles. He let the silence hang on the still air, the optic under his hood playing over the female's nudity.

After a few seconds, he approximated a giggle and spoke. “Nice jugs, love.”

Under the coat, imperceptible changes were taking place. Servos were angling plates of composite armour over vital joints. His reactions were sharpening as combat sub-routines booted up. His reverse-jointed legs flexed and shifted, lowering his centre of gravity and adding almost half an inch to his height. His optic cycled through several different settings before settling on a monochrome thermal camera, which picked out the two werewolves in sharp relief and the half-dozen locals cowering behind locked doors.

At Julienne's back one of the wolves gave a low deep growl. It was a throaty sound and near imperceptible with how low it was, but her ear caught it. Something about this man was just wrong. Had he been human they might have picked up some sense of his intentions, an air of hostility or a spike of adrenaline, but there was nothing aside from the audible sound of mechanics too faint for the human ear to have picked up.

"Mature," she remarked dryly. "Are you going to tell us what the fuck you want, or are you going to get out of our way?" she asked.

A hoof-like foot crushed the cigarette's soggy remains as the figure took a pace forward, bending forward slightly at the hips, splaying out the overcoat's tails to reveal his glossy black exoskeleton and the angular curve of his legs. The robot cracked his knuckles and shook out his broad shoulder, mannerisms that he had acquired through several years of fighting beside humans.

The low growl nagged at his auditory sensors like a sonar pulse echoing off the hull of a submarine. He made eye contact with the source of the sound, clicking his tongue as if he were calling a pet to heel. “Nice doggy...”

Julienne rolled her eyes. "We don't have time for this shit, let's go," she said to the others as they moved to pass him by. The wolves broke off to skirt around him on either side, while she and Carlisle moved to pass him on the right.

The wolf that had growled earlier kept a side-long look at him as they moved forward, but the others seemed intent on simply ignoring him.

“Oy. I'm talking to you...”

He stepped in front of the woman, reaching out to grab her shoulder. Underneath his coat, the final sequence of combat modifications activated, locking his ceramic exoskeleton against the titanium bones, restricting his movement but covering the exposed joints in his arms, legs and torso. A billowing gust of wind whipped the hood from his head as a heavy ceramic gorget slid up to protect his throat.

A serrated knife dropped out of his sleeve like a magician's slight of hand trick, the narrow blade glinting in the dying sunlight.

“I just want to talk to your boss, alright?”

The man grabbing for Julienne's shoulder and the flash of a knife was all it took to provoke the growling wolf to make a move. The man hadn't time enough to even finish his sentence before four hundred pounds of fur, muscle, sinew, and snapping jaws threw itself at the man. Fangs flashed and heated saliva flew everywhere as the beast tried to bowl him to the ground to take his head clean off.

The wolf at his back moved in as well, though it was substantially smaller than the first at about only two-hundred pounds. It's jaws snapped for what would have been a hamstring had he been human.

Simultaneously to the wolves lunging at the man who had pulled a knife on Julienne, Carlisle pulled her back by her shoulder. Both he and she where extremely vulnerable at the moment.

"Let me go!" she snapped at Carlisle. "I'm going to kill that mother fucker."

Realizing that Julienne was about to throw herself into the fray unarmed, Carlisle slipped his arm around her and forcefully pulled her back as she kicked and clawed at him. Her brown eyes had shifted to an amber hue as the transformation threatened to overtake her right then and there.

Wayne's world became a swirling mass of flashing threat indicators and markers highlighting the incoming blows. Software adapted from a military-grade automatic defense system took over, shunting all non-essential processes to the secondary brain embedded in the robot's chest.

He barely had time to spit a string of curses before being bowled over by the wolf's giant mass. While he could have kept his feet, the charge took him out of the second attacker's range. He lashed out with his open hand, delivering a stinging blow to the side of the werewolf's elongated skull. The movement was purely mechanical, a clinical strike designed to stun and disorient his target. Another trio of hissing slaps followed the first faster than the eye could blink.

The second wolf simply adjusted its target as the man fell, still snapping for his leg. If it got a hold of Wayne's leg it would clamp down with a vice grip, shaking its massive head back and forth much like a dog with an oversize chew toy - albeit it less humorous.

Meanwhile the wolf on top snapped its jaws inches from Wayne's face, spattering him with steaming hot saliva as Wayne held it at bay. The first blow only served to enrage it further, but the subsequent blows had it shaking its head as it blindly snapped its head to the side to close its jaws around Wayne's arm to stop the rain of blows.

"Let me go!" Julienne shrieked.

"Calm down," Carlisle hissed into her ear. It took both arms around her to keep hold of her at this point. "It's almost over."

To an observer it looked as such anyways with Wayne down on the ground with the two wolves tearing at him.

Sparks flew as the combination of enamel and bite force dug a series of parallel grooves in the armour plate. With a hiss of escaping gas, a powerful set of pistons triggered. The pistons drove the robot's three-toed foot straight into the wolf's face with a crunch of snapping bone.

While a human might have had to divide his attention between the two opponents, Wayne's sophisticated processing systems allowed him to deal with both targets simultaneously. Without so much as a grunt, he smashed his bulbous forehead into the larger wolf's face, wrenching his arm free of the snapping jaws with a shriek of tortured servos.

The wolf that had been kicked let out a yelp and fell back as it shied away from another kick, but the one on top wouldn't be deterred. The head-smash would be largely cushioned by the wolf's thick mane of fur, but it released the arm in favor of snapping back towards Wayne's face. It was still disoriented and its vision muddled up from the blows to its head, and it was largely reacting off the movement and instinct.

The wolf seemed intent on going for the kill, and if it got its jaws around Wayne's face in the split second that his head was up against the wolf's, it had little intent of releasing him until it managed to decapitate him if necessary.

5 years ago...

Baron descended the steps into the gloom of the cellar which was broken by only a single flickering light that swung loose on a chain. There were others already down here, tending to a kid resting on an old cot that had been setup in one of the two wrought-iron cages that sat at the back of the cellar.

The boy couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old.

"How's he doing?" Baron asked.

"It's not looking good," Jullienne told him as she got him from where she had been sitting on the cot edge washing out a festering wound on the lad's arm.

He could smell the infection in the wound all the way from where he stood, but there was nothing a doctor could do for him now.

"It won't be long now," Carlisle said. "A few more days, if he makes it until then."

Baron entered the cage and took a seat on a wooden stool that sat next to the boy's cot.

"Hey Jason," Baron said. "How are you feeling."

"Like shit," the kid managed to chuckle out before wincing against the pain the action had caused. "Is it always this bad?"

The boy's skin was clammy with fever and he was shaking as the infection invaded every cell of his body, merging with and forever altering the lad's physiology.

"Are you kidding? This is nothing," Baron told him. "We'll get you through this."

He wet down a rag that was draped over the edge of a bucket of water and lay it over the kid's forehead to try and help bring the fever down.

"Promise?" Jason asked through cracked lips.

"I promise," Baron replied. "Have you remembered anything yet? About the wolf that bit you?"

The kid shook his head weakly.

"It's alright, get some rest," Baron told him. He clapped a hand lightly on the kid's shoulder before he got back up. "Call me when it's time," Baron told the others as he headed back up the cellar steps.

3 nights later...

Baron heard the screams well before he reached the cellar door and as he descended the steps once more he took a long drag of his cigarette before throwing it on the floor and stubbing it out with his shoe.

"It's happening," Julienne told him.

She and Carlisle where lifting Jason to the floor so they could remove the cot from the cell, and the movement only drew more agonized screams from the boys throat.

"Here, bite down on this, kid," Carlisle told him as he placed a wound up rag in Jason's mouth to stifle the screams.

The bar had been closed for the night, but they didn't need police showing up tonight of all nights if someone decided to report the commotion.

The boy's screamed turned to stifled moans as he writhed on the floor. Another scream tore from his throat, only marginally muffled by the rag that fell from his lips in his delirium.

"Help me..." he whimpered. "Please... help me."

Tears streamed down the boy's face as Carlisle moved out of the cage and pushed the door closed with the clang of metal before locking it.

"Jason," Baron said sharply as he squatted down next to the cage. "Jason look at me. Stop fighting it. It'll tear you apart if you don't let it out. Jason, do you hear me? Just let it out."

Jason clawed at the floor through another tortured scream and Baron stood back up and began shedding his clothes. His eyes lightened to the amber hue of a wolf's eyes as his own body began to contort and writhe. Around him, Carlisle, Julienne and the others where following suit.

The groans and popping of realigning bones and bulging muscles filled the room, and with the energy of the pack to show him the way Jason's own form was being shed. The first transformation was always the worst, and his screams turned to feral snarls as the bones of his face elongated into a snarling muzzle, and his fingers elongated into clawed digits. His form was lean and gangly, with arms a bit too long for a bipedal creature, but powerful rear legs capable of maintain an erect position if necessary. Despite his seemingly gangly form, the rippling muscles that bulged along his back and biceps where hard as a rock and lean as wire.

As Baron shook himself off, he was met with the yellow eyes of Jason staring back at him through the bars of the cage before the lad turned wolf threw his head back and let out a keening howl

The following morning...

Jason woke with a groan as he sat up on the cold cement of the cellar floor. He ached all over but he was alive, and the festering wound on his arm was little more than a faint scar.

He looked around the dim room in time to be hit in the face by a pair of balled up denim jeans.

"Get dressed," Baron told him through the open door of the cell.

"Gee thanks..." Jason told him.

"How are you feeling?" Baron asked.

"Tired... sore. Starving."

"The first time can really take it out of you," Baron explained.

A shirt hit Jason in the face next, draping almost comically over his head.

"Hurry up, we'll get you something to eat," Baron told him before heading on back upstairs. This time he left the doors open for Jason to come on up also once he was ready.

---

Jason was met with the cheers and light shoulder claps from the pack members as he made his debut into The Den, as one of them.

"You're hard as nails, you know that?" Julienne teased.

"Good to see you up," Carlisle added as he ruffled the lad's hair.

Jason grinned sheepishly at all of the attention was receiving as he was practically shoved/guided towards the bar and plopped down on a stool where two plates of steaming food was slide over to him. Bacon, eggs, toast, ham, pancakes, french toast... the aromas mingled together into something irresistible as he started shoveling food into his mouth with a fork.

"This is amazing, I didn't think food could ever taste this good," he managed around mouthfuls of food.

He was famished, enough so that he didn't even notice that Baron had departed.