savetheearth | [Closed] Werewolf encounter

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[Closed] Werewolf encounter

Who: Kenji and Anthony
Where: The Dead District, in the vicinity of the statue.
When: April 16, early evening

Kenji didn't know exactly what it was about the Dead District that attracted him, but since shortly after he and his family had first moved to Locke City, he'd felt almost drawn to the place. For some reason, it seemed...familiar, as if he'd lived there all his life. Even the almost-mugging a few months ago hadn't persuaded him to keep away.

After getting off at the bus stop, he wandered aimlessly for awhile, no real destination in mind. Maybe he'd go check out that statue everyone on the network was talking about. As he walked, he noticed that the streets seemed unusually...empty. A few homeless people were in evidence, but not anywhere near the number he usually saw. Where had everyone gone?

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Anthony, meanwhile, had felt his nerves rising on end once he made it to the Dead District, and the emptiness made it worse. It was a strange part of the to him as it was - the creeping, unusable, unprofitable - or so it used to be - district of abandoned buildings that could easily make for hideaways for hives worth of who-knows-who or what. Such as whatever the doctor had reported that the homeless here were so afraid of, the "werewolf." The name of the zone had already seemed to stoke up a haunted feeling about it, without what Dr. Strider had only a little earlier reported. That this was the emptiest Anthony had seen it, in the few times that he had in recent memory, painted that feeling in a new coat of evening yellow-orange.

He and the few still hanging about were essentially alone, with the snake statue and the biting thing lurking around.

Yet in a way, that kept him electrically pulled in further. He'd planned to come by in the late day for the statue - Mr. Lyall had suggested keeping it monitored, and Bakura had shown his camera had been taken apart. He'd thought he could even see if he could make a habit of passing by. But with the word on the "werewolf", he was had begun really hoping, even looking forward to find something. A new detail to report. And maybe with just this much presence out tonight, maybe he could; maybe there were just few enough people for anything lurking to risk showing itself to just one, and just enough that any distance that one would have to run wouldn't keep them alone with a monster long. If all else failed, he'd brought - a pair of standard scissors, but the kind with long blades that snipped neatly, so it was something.

He felt a something more rising up in his head as he homed in on the statue, totemic and curiously pink stone. Mr. Lyall had said something about touching it - at the same time, he felt what else he'd described. As he looked at it, he could feel it trying to repel him - not only from itself. From the whole ghost-town Dead District, he'd seen the thing now, turn and go. But the first step he took was another one closer. He looked it up and down for clues and riddles, beyond its depiction of "the snake," reminding himself he wasn't looking to pick a spot to run a hand over...

Edited 2013-04-17 05:32 (UTC)

Abandoned buildings had never bothered Kenji; in their own way, they were sort of cool, and he'd spent more than one entertaining afternoon exploring some of the easier to enter ones. This evening, however, he kept to the open streets. The unnatural quiet and emptiness of the area, while not actually unnerving him, was still creepy as hell. Better to stay in the open where he could do a quick fade if he stepped into anything too heavy.

Not that there seemed to be much going on--heavy or otherwise--at the moment. But as he continued on his way, the surrounding silence seemed to amplify the sound of his own footsteps. And...was that an echo, or another set of footsteps following him? Stopping for a moment, he glanced over his shoulder, straining to catch the slightest sound that might indicate he was being followed. Nothing. After trying the experiment of walking, stopping and listening a few more times and achieving similar results, he shook his head, annoyed with himself for getting creeped out by a few empty buildings and some shadows.

"Tch. You're losing it, Kobayashi."

Upon reaching the statue, he immediately felt the effect Mr. Lyall had described, the desire to leave the area, but had little trouble in overcoming it.

Yeah, fat chance, you bastard.

Nor was he surprised to see that he wasn't alone; the last time he'd checked the network, several people had been planning on scoping out the statue. But this was someone...well, he didn't know him exactly, but he was pretty sure he'd seen the other kid before.

"Yo," he called out as he approached the other boy, "Looks like we both had the same idea, huh?"

Anthony started just a bit at hearing a call behind him. Just a bit, since it was a voice he recognized in a vague sense; it was a numbers-network voice, which would've been comfort enough as assurance he wasn't in trouble, but in addition it enough for him to half picture who he could expect to see on turning around.

As the strongest way he could identify the boy approaching was "the one who had a broadcasted fight with his locker one morning", he didn't ask for confirmation. He settled for a faint smile. "Hello." He nearly followed that up with It looks that way, but chance of that was about half and half now. "Do you mean to see the statue? Or is it about the 'werewolf' rumors?"

"Woah, sorry man, didn't mean to spook you." Belatedly, Kenji remembered exactly when he'd seen the other boy. Yeah, not exactly one of his finest moments, but even if he had known about the network, who the hell would expect a locker to turn into a transmitter?

Returning the other boy's smile with a sheepish one of his own, he nodded in the direction of the statue. "I came to check that thing out." He didn't know whether to laugh or not at the other possibility. Still, the way things had been going lately...

"Werewolves? Seriously? Man, what's next? Purple people eaters from the planet Zoltan?" Frowning slightly, he gave a small shrug. "Hadn't heard about that. I kinda took the day off from the network. Had to get away from the crazy shit for awhile, y'know? Heh. Looks like that was a bad idea."

One wry, awkward puff of a laugh - "Ha... The doctor'd connected today - he said that he had people coming in with bite wounds, talking about werewolves. He -- he said that it was all he knew, so far. But it's... hard to know what to expect when anything changes, now."

"I came mostly about the statue, too. But to be honest, I wondered if while I was here, I'd - find anything more." He eyes drifted back to the statue on that last bit. What a thing to say - of course I'd like to be the first of our little community to actually be jumped by a werewolf!

"Yeah...definitely the wrong day to go AWOL."

Although he'd never win any awards for academic brilliance, Kenji was sharp enough to put two and two together and fill in what the other boy wasn't saying. "So...you came out here hoping you might run across one? Man, you got a death wish or something?" With a wry laugh, he shook his head, "Nevermind. I'd probably still be out here too, even if I had heard the rumors, so I guess we're both nuts. Or stupid."

Turning his attention back to the statue, he moved a little closer, although he was careful not to touch it--he'd heard what happened to the other people who had, and he'd just as soon not have any more of those...visions...hallucinations...whatever the hell they were, thank you. The last one had been quite enough for him, thank you. "Wonder what this thing's for, anyway," he mused aloud, "I mean, why try and run everybody out of here?"

[[ooc: so...are we supposed to npc the werewolf?]]

Little did the boys know, but they were being watched. From the shadows of the buildings beyond, something large shifted its weight as it peered out, sharp gaze and ears tuning in on the two. The flicker of eyeshine betrayed its location should either young man look... but otherwise, it was silent.

At least, until the growling began, rumbling out low at first but then steadily rising from the dark form there.

((OOC: Ther~re's our answer!))

"Maybe --" was all Anthony had gotten up before that low rumble rose to audibility. His body shot stiff for a moment, and then he wheeled around, back to the statue, face to two flashing eyes breaking shade.

Werewolf?

"Maybe what--" Kenji began, likewise trailing off as the growling reached his ears as well. He whipped around, eyes narrowing as he peered through the darkness, but all he could see were two glowing eyes set in an indistinct, shadowy mass. A big indistinct, shadowy mass.

"Shit." He spared a quick glance around, looking for a rock or stick, anything he could use to defend himself if whatever it was decided to charge, but there was nothing. Turning back, he kept his eyes fixed on the dark form as he slowly began edging his way around the statue. "We...should probably get the hell outta here," he muttered to his companion. "The natives don't sound too friendly tonight."

He wasn't here to hurt unless they insisted... he was here to chase. He was here to inspect. While it was sooner than when he might have appeared to trespassers before, today was slightly different. Earlier something very alarming had been found and the urgency had spread.

While he hadn't been the one to find it, hadn't seen the camera that had been discovered fixed on the statue himself, he'd been there to pick up the scents left behind. Between the growling, the sound of sniffing pierced the city silence as well- like an enormous, furious dog testing the air. The half-light being reflected out of the eyes of the 'werewolf' dipped lower, punctuated by the gleam of a line of sharp white teeth beneath them.

Whether they would prove familiar in scent or not... no, this one was about as far from 'friendly' as possible.

The canine sniffing, and - that flash of teeth...

Werewolf!

And of all times to be frozen to the spot...

Anthony shifted enough of his attention back to the other boy to nod and trip out "We should," and to start himself moving, too.

He took a step back, swiveled nearly a hundred and eighty degrees - and with what had barely felt like any momentum until the moment of contact struck the statue, right side of his face and right shoulder whacking against and rebounding off stone. He gasped and winced and felt his heart pounding - fine thing to do! - as he tried to catch his balance so that he and his companion could go.

Then there was a pulse, and a surge that seemed to catch him full-body and force him off it. Anthony barely noticed himself slipping and falling as suddenly he found himself seized by a wave of a hot and toxic pain.

He gasped, groaned, felt it burning through him - tried to pick himself up on legs that buckled, squeezed his shoulders and stomach and made out yellow light flashing through tight-shut eyelids and all over him in ripples and webs -

And all the while there was something ferocious and unfriendly glaring, growling, baring its teeth in their direction and he was here squirming on the ground...

No - he realized once he could give that any mind that the pain was fading - what in the world was it? - and swung himself upright, heart pounding fast, panting, forehead feeling hot and cold at once, limbs trembling, head swimming as if it was full of a heavy liquid, suddenly willing to do nothing more than - if he could - break into a run.

"Watch out, man! Don't--oh shit!"

Kenji could only watch helplessly as the other kid smacked into the statue and crumpled to the ground at its base. Of course, he'd seen enough accounts on the network to have a pretty good idea of what was happening, and while it wasn't the other boy's fault, the timing could definitely have been better. Could this clusterfuck get any worse?

Why yes. Yes it could.

Keeping a wary eye on the shadowed figure, he reached out blindly to help the unsteady boy beside him to his feet. Between the growling and now that creepy sniffing--how the hell could sniffing be that loud?--his nerves were strung taut, tension swelling within him like a wave. Swelling, and at the flash of teeth, cresting, breaking.

No! Nonono!

For a moment, a bright, neon-like light outlined Kenji's body, and with the sound of a small thunderclap, a shallow pit appeared in the ground at his feet. What had just seconds before been part of the sidewalk was now a cloud of multicolored sparks that swirled in the air around him a moment before fading. Talk about bad timing.

Reaching out again, he made a grab at the other boy's arm. If he was still unsteady, Kenji would drag him out, if necessary. "C'mon man! We gotta go! Gotta go now!"

The smell of fear choked the air... and yet neither boy's scent came up in his memory as being encountered before. In that case, they were new, but - at once because and in spite of that - unwanted.

Ears flattening and agitation spiking, though, he paused. They were scared but erratic. Flashes of light. A weapon?

With a warning bark he lunged from his hiding place, bounding forward as a moving shape of dark fur and flashing teeth. If they were going to run, now was the time.

Anthony barely registered the sudden boom - very, very close - as a jolt that gave him a flash of clarity, enough to edge in one sharp step back toward the other boy; with his external senses still swimming, pulsing, swirling, he felt the grab to his arm as thoroughly decisive and welcome. He couldn't convey either an agreement or a thanks with more than a shaking gasp that hopefully contained both.

That bark was the final alarm. Wincing, half-remembering the pair of scissors tucked into his coat but deciding better, he stabilized and braced himself to go, half-stumbling, right along with the other.

Seeing the creature lunge forward was more than enough motivation for Kenji to take to his heels--especially now that the other boy seemed to be more or less on his feet as well. Still clutching his companion's arm, he urged/dragged the other boy toward an alley that branched off from the street. Instead of being a dead end, this one cut through to the next block, and with any luck they'd be able to lose their pursuer. Hopefully.

Although he was almost afraid to look, he cast a quick glance back over his shoulder, hoping that he wouldn't see the werewolf...thing...whatever it was, rapidly gaining on them.

The urge was there, the desire to chase them down, tear into them for the crime of being where they shouldn't be... but no. Once it was apparent the boys were running, the 'werewolf' growled louder but slowed marginally; with effort he curbed his speed to a rate that would allow them to, even with their clumsy efforts, stay ahead rather than being overtaken.

After all, even with intelligence relegated to a place somewhere below instinct, still he knew the last thing he wanted was to anger those who outranked him. The interlopers would flee successfully - and stay away, if they knew what was good for them... just as long as they didn't attempt to turn back now.

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[Closed] Werewolf encounter

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Raaaaats I'm so sorry for falling behind!

No problem!

<3

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