Summary:WAND gets a call to help out the DIA. The Fox turns up. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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This, is bullshit. Every time one of the alphabet agencies calls for WAND, it's always to cover some flavor of fuckup because they're desperate for a supernatural excuse. Six days ago an FBI trail team lost somebody, one Jerry Fisher. Fisher was reportedly attacked by an enormous supernatural spider, which is pretty unlikely right? Conviently Fisher was dragged down into the sewers below NYC, and the FBI concluded he was just gone forever.
Complication one:Jerry Fisher was a former case officer for the CIA, hell he was station chief down in Bogota in the 80s-90s. Of course the FBI wouldn't tell anyone why it was following Fisher, but the CIA of course had kittens. They were angling for a counter investigation into the FBI, and yeah the entire thing is an enormous mess. So they needed somone to go actually get some idea of what the hell actually happened.
Complication two:The CIA is not allowed to operate within the continental united states without federal law enforcement oversight, which would of course probably end up as the FBI. So they did an end-round, drafting WAND and the DIA of all people to go figure out what the hell actually happened.
So nine at night in the Bronx, a pair of sanitation workers jerk open a manhole cover and proceed to utilize their first thirty minute union smoke break which will take two hours. Local PD at least showed up to keep the curious at bay, but the DIA? Well the message comes down the line, they're delayed a few minutes but will be along shortly with a "H-V-A". Who the hell knew the DIA even had any to speak of in the first place, right?
Koa Turner, like much of WAND, is not ex-military, ex-law enforcement or anything of that nature. The tall, fit, broad shouldered man had been something of an academic before he had his first encounter with the supernatural but like most of WAND he has learned the lingo, and learned to appreciate those who come from more structured, or militant, backgrounds.
The truck that pulls up is unmarked and has two in it. One is Koa who flashes his badge at the PD to get past them. The other is an informant for a case he's working unrelated to this who had been with him when this call came in. He's only had a little bit of time to review the file, and that was on his phone. So. CIA operative, Giant Spider, poof, vanish. Possibly this winds up in someone cocooned in webs in a lair, exsanguination optional.
"We're waiting for DIA's representative." The agent is explaining to his informant. "Stands for Defense Intelligence Agency. Military. Kind of. It's a bit complicated."
Why on earth the DIA should be involved he has no idea but why on earth WAND should be involved he has no idea either. Clearly someone is back in the CIA is dodging a bit. Which is a thing they do.
Koa fishes into his pocket for a small pendulum and wraps it around his head. On the left arm there is a bracer that looks like a coiled asp with a head at each end.
Yeah, he's a WAND agent alright.
The informant slides from the truck when the engine shuts. Keiko Kurita is a small, asiatic woman dressed in a long sleeved tee shirt, jeans and runners. She doesn't look anything special as she follows Koa along, though a splash of ink can be seen under her cuffs and around the collar of the v-neck shirt. That and red livid scars that mark the top of brand on her chest.
"Kind of?" She finally says, her accent a bit of mutts - a mix of many different ones, like someone who's lived in many places or grown up with the influence of many around her.
"I'm not sure I'll ever understand how it all works. If you hadn't promised dinner afterwards, I think I might have gone home." She adjusts her back pack as they move. "When do you think they'll be here."
That DIA econoline slips up to the scene, side door popping open. Fox steps out, throwing the door shut before the van speeds off again. See the DIA doesn't have a look, but High Value Assets? Yeah those sort of people wear masks, and Fox is obviously no exception.
Off axis it's hard to even figure out what the mask is, a strange assemblage of sharp angles jumbled together. No as soon as she turns, things resolve a bit. It's a fox's face, formed in strict polygonal format and formed out of some sort of some sort of high gloss grey. A shade of grey repeated on that shoulder flash, a fox running with a bundle of arrows in it's teeth. The rest is neat black tactical gear, trimmed subtly with perfectly matched grey stitching just to keep her look nice and tight.
Casually she half turns to watch the van depart, exposing that rapier strapped to the side of her backpack. One hand parked on that sling, as she lets it hang in it's sling.
"Sorry I'm late, was trying to clear some things up with the boys from the farm."She slips near, boots as silent as shadow on the concrete. Fixing the pair with a decidedly hollow gaze, considering how well that mask hides her eyes. Then a glove is offered and a nod. "I'm Fox, command said there was a spook on the loose and something about Le Cometa in New York?"
Koa can, indeed, see magic and his brows go up. Partly at the mask but largely at the kind of magic that's floating around the one who identifies herself as Fox. He extends his hand, his left hand, and shakes.
"Evening Fox. Koa Turner, WAND. This is my informant, Keiko Kurita. Forgive me if I'm not entirely up to speed, I got a priority re-route from what I was doing. I take it you're familiar with either the agent missing or Le Cometa? Not a name I'm familair with."
Keiko's tattoo's will be tingling, Koa is sure. "I wasn't aware the DIA was in the arcane business." More a comment than a question but there's an invitation to address what was unspoken if that is desired.
"And don't worry about being late. We just got here ourselves. I take it we're going down there?"
"They sent a cape?" Keiko asks Koa, none too quietly. She winces and rubs her arm, dark eyes assessing the masked woman. Oooh, she has a sword - the asiatic woman tries to get a good look at that.
"Uh, Keiko Kurita." She doesn't offer her hand, it doesn't occur to her to do so - she's not being rude, just … uneducated. "Le Cometa? That's … not right. La Cometa, it should be." This from the woman who can barely read.
"Le Cometa, big intelligent spiders from the Colombian rain forest. They're invisible at night for the most part, but they show up under UV light no problem."Fox takes a step back, sweeping the killflash off her carbine's light before hitting the switch and…
Well that manhole cover explodes with color, A tangle of strands line the drop down into the sewers below. UV visible spiders indeed."Not sure why they tagged you folks, other than the agency playing stupid."And well theres some fiddling with her chest rig, before she produces a pair of UV flashlights and offers them over. "Fishy ran the HVA program down in Colombia for years, ran the op to kill the spiders off supposedly."Which clearly, didn't seem to stick. "Yeah though, I'm going after it. Now listen this isn't really your sort've gig so if you guys wanna chill up here, that's cool with me. No worries, Koa, Keiko."Repeating names if only to insure she herself can remember them.
That rapier has been pretty carefully blackened, but what is visible is quite lovely? The sweeping basket hilt is a marvel of craftsmanship, the sheathe decorated with deep engravings depicting some sort of fox with a banner and a sword fighting or something? Mind there looks to be a dagger sheathed beneath that backpack against her back, partially hidden but a matching set?
Koa frowns. Invisible spiders. That sounds lovely. If they're magical he should see them just fine but if they do that naturally, wellllll that'll be a problem for him. For a little bit anyway.
"You're gonna want Araranet, Keiko. At least I think you are."
The WAND Agent, in response to the invitation to stay topside flares out his hand slightly. Several leaves on a nearby tree wither and motes of light flow into the agent. The ruby eyes on his bracer light up and his entire left arm is surrounded by a green aura. An aura that extends to his gun when he unholsters it.
"Good to go. Lead the way then Fox. Let's see if they left Fishy alive." He suspects, if they're intelligent, this might be about revenge.
Which means there is a slight chance he might still be salvageable. They would have wanted to make him suffer.
"There others like you in the HVA program?" Koa's curious. It's not every day you run into someone just throwing off magic like that and it's REALLY not every day you discover they work for 'OGA'.
Keiko probably does want to chill up here. Until recently she'd been lying low but this is this the price she pays for coming forward. That and SHIELD pays her when does this - so there's that.
"Arananet is good for tracking and spying. She doesn't fight… " the small woman answers firmly as she rolls her right sleeve up. The ink on her arm is extensive and very, very detailed. The animals that are depicted there, incredibly life like. Wrapped about her wrist is the image of a South American tarantula and it's this she touches and murmurs something.
A few seconds later, a blue glowing spirit of the spider appears - it's at least twice the size of the real thing - it's leg spanning about 24 inches.
"If you have a torch or something you can fix to her, I can see through her eyes and she'll scout for us."
"Were others, but attrition is high when you're the tip of the spear."Fox meanders casually over to the manhole cover, peering back at the pair curiously for a moment before fiddling with something on her belt and pitching over, well it's like a miniature glow stick.
"I've fought these guys before, just stay close and shoot anything you don't understand. It'll baffle you if it can, because remember it's smart."How smart, well who knows. Smart enough to know humans don't look foreward to small confined underground spaces perhaps? Fox takes a long step, touching down with a soft grunt. She drops another one of those little mini lights where she lands, before sweeping the tunnel and she's off like a shot! Ducking under the few webs here and there, before sliding to a halt to drop another little light before diving foreward again down a side tunnel.
It's not -too- tight thankfully, nor is it terribly smelly. The only hint that there's something amiss down at the base of the entrance? An ancient buck knife discarded on the floor, beside a zippo left flipped open. A zippo wearing the little ribbon for vietnam service mind.
"Stay behind me Keiko and smack anything that gets too close." Koa is best at a distance. Keiko up close. He does stop long enough to loop a head lamp onto the large spider - why does he have that? - and then he's dropping down and off after the Fox as well. If the spirit-spider can stay high or do odd angles the extra warning will be good.
Once down the Agent pulls his weapon into a low ready. No pointing it at Fox's back, of course. He's better than that.
That is an INTERESTING ribbon on that lighter.
"I'd say something unfortunate happened here. Lost valuables usually indicate that. Any sight of them?"
He is very ready to shoot something at this point.
The asiatic woman takes a moment to drop her pack with the PD, draw forth the short rod that she carries.
Keiko fixes the glow stick to Arananet as Koa does the headlamp. The spider scuttles up the walls and hangs from the roof. She's fast, faster than anything of them and is slightly ahead by the time hit that junction."It's disorienting, seeing through two sets of eyes." Keiko murmurs to Koa. He hasn't worked with her like this.
The detritus on the ground means little to Keiko but she's concentrating on what Arananet sees anyway.
The tunnel opens up into a cistern, and the darkness yawns. Fox pauses to flip a handfull of chemlights foreward, eyes scanning the darkness before drawing to an abrupt pause. There comes a movement, a splash of water as a human figure emerges from the black.
Ragged old army jacket, jeans, a great big beard. Theres a cut on his head, blood seeping from his neck. He's got one hand pressed to the wound, as he slumps foreward. "Heeeeeeeeeelp me. Heeeeeeeelp me."free hand reaching out through the darkness as he draws near.
Fox hesitates just a flash, before wincing. "Whats my name, talk to me fishy say my name."That carbine swings up as her stance widens. "Talk to me Fishy, c'mon man."
Fish for his part? He just gasps, mumbling for a moment before offering "Heeeeeelp me…"And well that UV light on the end of Fox's carbine comes to life.
It's easy to see why they call it a spider, but lets get some shit squared away. Spiders have nightmares about this kind of shit, because hell spawn don't look this bad. It's got too many legs, some ending in crude scissory hands. It's carapice under UV light seems to be every single color in the rainbow all at once, pulsing and throbbing hypnotically underneath all those -wrong- shapes. It's got a -face- full of nothing but too many eyes and all manner of strange rotten teeth. It's wrapped around Fisher, using a mixture of thread and claw to…oh dear lord it's playing him like a god damned instrument.
The moment that light comes on, the thing turns it's full attention towards our intrepid heroes, daggery orifice spreading wide to demonstrate yet more horrors. Then comes the scream, and milk curdles. This charmer is just a veritable cornicopia of new and innovative terrible all wrapped up into one horrific entity.
In one short flash of UV light Koa can see all he needs to see. That scream makes him wince and he reaches out for any life nearby, finding it in insects and moss. They die, instantly, as Koa pulls their mana into himself. Keiko gets an up close view of the light show. Fox might not notice, but it's possible she'll feel it.
"I take it we're not interested in containing this thing?" Koa says, firing at virtually the same time. That scream was enough for him. He's not gonna try to round this thing up in the confines of the sewer. Not unless it's somehow magically alive when the shooting stops.
As for the shooting, well, Koa's gun isn't shooting bullets. I mean, maybe it is but that green aura wrapped around his arm and his weapon seems to extend to whatever he's firing. It flings bolts of emerald light downrange that strike with the force of something WAY more than a simple Glock 40.
Magic, sometimes it's horrifying. And sometimes it's damned convenient.
The point of aim is that fanged maw. Koa will spare Fishy if he can, but at the moment… it's kind of not a priority.
"Someones coming …" Keiko murmurs, her voice carrying in the dark of the tunnel. Then Fish appears.
As Fox sees to the man, she shakes out her rod - into a fully extended Quarter staff. Made of metal.
She's considering moving closer to that fanged monstronsity when Koa's light show goes off. Ahhhh, no. She's not going anywhere near that. She'll get shot and she's sure it will hurt.
Instead … a huge blue glowing wolf appears just in front spider, growling and snarling when she sees the thing. "Don't shoot Bella!" Keiko cries out. "Bella, get the man …"
The wolfs jaws close over one of the legs holding the man and she wrenches. She's strong. It should dismember at least part of it.
The Cometa twists, assaulted by a wolf which rends one leg from it's form. Theres an explosion of brilliant green ichor, followed by a hail of magically empowered gunfire. It turns, dumping what is painfully obviously the body of a man. Way more than eight limbs flailing to try and shield it as it begins to try and retreat.
But where in the hell is Fox, she's vanished into the dark. Foot falls hidden by the roar of gunfire, until she decides it's time to make herself known. She leans into it, flips that safety two notches foreward and lights that bitch up, dumping a torrent of rounds downrange which plough into the Cometa. See she's fought these things before, she knows right where to hit the big stupid thing. Slamming brass into it in a nice tight group, burrowing those rounds through the armored carapice until they finally smash through and go tumbling into the mushy yuck beyond. It's enough to bowl the big spider thing over, leaving it to slump into a heap.
Slowly Fox exchanges magazines, grunting as that mask comes to life with a dull purple glow. Handy that, if only to make it all the easier to keep track of where Fox is in the dark, granted the effect is a little creepy. Makes it look like a disembodied mask floating in the black. "Cease fire, everyone ok?"
Bella clamps her jaws around the body of the man, dragging him … well, not clear - not here. The ground is fetid. But drag him out and away from the weapons fire and the spider, towards Keiko she does. When she reaches the small tattooed woman, she positions herself over the body and in front of Keiko, standing sentinel in case anything tries to get near.
Where's Arananet? Still hanging from the roof - until Keiko murmurs something else. The spider turns to smoke - the glow stick and lamp falling to the ground. The smoke wends it way to the woman and settles on her arm.
"Is it dead, then?" Comes the question as Koa ceases fire and waits.
"As a doornail."Comes the easy response. Fox lingers around the periphery for a moment, before wandering closer to prod at the spider with the tip of her rapier. "Well probably for the best the feebs didn't come down here after this critter, would have been nasty."Dead, the spiderthing resolves as a black mass.
That ichor glows on though, stuck to the tip of that rapier. "Well I'd love to know who the hell thought it was a smart idea to bring these things up north, I mean they're clever but I doubt they got up here by themselves."that UV light gets swung around, before settling on some sort of mass of webs stuck to the ceiling. "Great, looks like this bitch might have been a mother. Need to get myelf a flame thrower if this is gonna be some regular shit again."Sighing, as she sources a rag to scrub the tip of her blade which she just drops. Yeah it's littering, but who can blame her right?
"I … see…" Keiko answers, looking at the carcass. "I could Glydril, if you like and have her flame the area. It will clean it up nice and good." Keiko watches as Koa checks the area. As far as she knows he doesn't have the capacity for fire - but she might be wrong.
"Feebs?"
Bella trots over to Fox eyeing her carefully, sniffs disdainfully at the carcass and then sits in front of the masked woman, holding a paw up. Keiko just sighs. "Traitor."
"No, we'll need to have somone climb up there and go through it. Count the eggs, make sure none have hatched or if they have how many."A typical Thurdsay night for Fox it would seem, at least she doesn't seem terribly bothered by huge intelligent invisible spider things. "Feeb, FBI pukes. NSA are spacemen, cuz it sounds like "NASA". The NRO is "Nero" like the emperor, CIA are Farm boys because thats where they all get trained."Theres a moment there, gaze shifting towards Keiko for a moment "DIA are Dicks In Ascots, or Divas depending on who you ask."
But then theres a wolf, a big spirity wolf thing. Fox, well doesn't seem terribly concerned by this. Leaning in, before offering a gloved hand. "Ce n'est pas gevaudan mon ami, comprenez vous?"Switching over to comfortable French without a moment's hesitation, "Connais-tu mon nom?" Speaking French to a wolf thing, yep pretty typical.
Keiko looks around and rolls her other sleeve up. This time, wrapping around her shoulder and over the top of her arm is a Dragon. "She might not fit very well in here, but she could do it. Glydril that is …" She doesn't call her though, just watches Bella as the Wolf betrays her.
Koa is not going to be happy that Keiko has the nicknames for the agencies now. That will be sure to come out at the worst possible time.
Bella wags her tail and sniffs Fox's hand. She doesn't seem to understand the woman but she's curious. "Bella!" Keiko hisses and Fox will see the lupine grin the wolf bends on her. Oh, the wolf knows exactly what she's doing.
"Ah well, you're no daughter of Hirsent but lovely all the same. Good girl."Fox seems satisfied, switching back over to English at least. She stands back upright, that faint violet hue resolving to a neat tiffany blue as she does so. "No need, this is the farm's mess and they need to clean it up. Fishy was good people, but he was a crook at heart like most farmboys. I suspect this is the corner of some unsavory business that stretches back god knows how far."
Fox hikes that carbine under arm, before giving a plaintive little shrug. "Anywho it was a pleasure to work with you dear."Theres some rooting around in her chest rig, walking slowly towards Keiko before producing a neat little origami fox folded in matching tiffany blue. Theres something written on it, but you'd have to unfold it to read. "I'm gonna go drink too much wine, shower for an hour and see what I can do about gettin laid. Ring me if you need a hand honey, always a pleasure to help the good ones out."And well off she goes. Just as casual as can be, like she hadn't just been in an underground gunfight with god knows what.
"A daughter of who? That's Bella, she's my spirit. I had to master her when she was bound to me." Bella chuffs and pads back over to Keiko, nudging the woman to pat her. Keiko looks down at the glowing blue creature in surprise, before ruffling her ears.
"Uh, my pleasure …" Keiko thinks. This was rather strange after all but then again, many of jobs she's followed Koa have been strange. So there's that.%rTaking the origami fox, the tattooed woman stares at it for a moment and sees the writing. She takes a moment to unfold it and just looks at it. She'll have to get Koa to read it for her - not that she says that.
Turning, she makes her way to the agent, Bella pacing beside her. They'll be out of here soon enough.