Summary:Steve, Koa and Jemma go werewolf hunting Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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October has arrived in earnest after the sun has set. The warmth of summer might linger, but once the stars appear in the clear skies, the temperature drops rapidly. It means the promise of frost soon on the lawns and metal surfaces of the city and thin ice in the cattails on many of the park ponds scattered throughout the islands of green.
Steve has brought out both Jemma and Koa to Prospect Park this evening after yet another bulletin hit the news about dog attacks. While the report was deliberately vague as to details, SHIELD and WAND have deeper access. It's nearly identical to what happened to Steve: quick, fierce, the creatures able to be fought off with weaponry and fists, again small for werewolves. The idea of scouts has the Captain's blood running both fizzy and cold. The idea that a pack could be recruiting…
He's got a flashlight in-hand as he leads the way down the path through the trees. It seems abandoned with the late hours and he glances back at Jemma and Koa, his breath silvering in the air. "Not much further, a few yards more up. I know it's rained, but you've probably got a way to at least scrape up something from the ground, Agent Turner," he says specifically to Koa, though Jemma gets an eyeing. In a thermal-lined sweatshirt and jeans, his boots make little sound despite his size as he walks save for the crunch of dried leaves here and there.
Koa actually has a dowsing pendulum in his hand. That's the technical term. He's got an octahedral gem on the end of a thin silvery chain and while he is following Steve with his flashlight he is paying a lot of attention to the pendulum.
"Yeah, I've got a few things. Plus I can sort of see this kind of stuff." That's in his file but exactly how or what he sees is super unclear as is often the case with WAND agents. In this case as he looks around he nods. "Yeah. Someone with fairly potent nature magic has come through here. Or maybe several someones…"
He kneels down to examine some indentations. "Sort of deep with for the size of the animal reported. Maybe moving single file…"
Why? Probably to hide their numbers but who knows. "How's the area making you feel, Steve? Don't slip there, Doctor. That's proooobably not just mud."
Jemma … wasn't allowed out of the Triskellion to do this mission without being decked in SHIELD armour. Something to do with her trouble magnet nature and being a squint - despite all her training.
Flashlight in hand, she trails behind the two men, not missing the 'eye' that Steve is giving her.
The memory of the last time in the lab with him is strong. It had shaken her quite badly.
"I've given Agent Turner the new Dendrotoxin darts. It's a mix of silver nitrate, aconite and Dendrotoxin." She says as she skirts about the 'mud', nose wrinkling. "Jemma, Agent Turner, please."
Steve pauses behind Koa to allow him to examine the immediate area indicated by the dowsing pendulum. The near-white circle of his flashlight remains broad enough to cover the area for the Agent to see clearly. He glances over at Jemma in her tactical gear and nods to himself in agreement with the edict handed down from senior agents (himself being one to quietly insist upon it).
"A wise idea," he echoes quietly of Jemma's informing. "God only knows if they're still out here." He considers Koa's question for a few seconds more before he steps around Jemma. His travels take him a little farther down the path before he pauses.
In the low glow of the city's lights filtering in through tree branches just beginning to shed their leaves, the Captain can be seen to lift his head. Audible sniffing follows.
"…something's not right," he reports nearly sotto-voce, tone ironed suddenly flat.
Koa stands up. When a man with a Loup Garou curse says something's not right, you pay attention. His eyes gleam a little bit, red. Definitely not a natural color. Why they do that is unclear but it definitely increases the 'predatory' feeling from the WAND agent which until now had been somewhat muted.
"I'm not seeing anything quite yet." Because he can see, auras and such. Magical beings tend to flare rather obviously. Koa has NOT mentioned that Steve has one mostly because he would then have to clarify that it is red white and blue.
Because of course it is.
Jemma doesn't say that they might need the darts for Steve himself. She saw him change at what seemed to be just her scent.
Drawing her weapon, the biochem tenses as Steve steps about her "What is it?" she says, peering into the dark, her cybernetic shifting to blue as she scans the infrared spectrum.
|ROLL| Steve Rogers +rolls 1d20 for: 17
|ROLL| Steve Rogers +rolls 1d20 for: 8
It isn't going to settle anyone with the Sight to see the sudden sloughing of hidden auras on both sides of the path.
It won't settle anyone with infrared abilities to see that the creatures utilized the densest cover available to them even with the beginning of autumn's leaf-shed.
There is no sound to announce it: classical ambush — and the nerve-racking part is that Agent Koa and Jemma are targeted from above in an eerie display of sapient intelligence despite the canid forms.
Steve's hit from the left-hand shoulder and the flashlight goes flying in a swinging blur of beam of light before he disappears into the heavy brush off the path entirely. There's an incline leading to a lower flatland portion of the forest. He's gone from sight but for the sudden upsurge in snarling sounds. It's blood-chilling.
Jemma's attacker comes from the right on high, a werewolf reddish of pelt and green of eye, lean and almost monkey-like, leading with all four of its taloned feet extended first as if to land and bear her to the ground for the bite.
Koa's attacker comes in at waist-height from the right, leading with teeth bared wide. Crocodiles aim for unfortunate zebra from river-waters in the same manner.
"SHIT!" In the dense brush Koa has very little time to react. He pulls what looks like glowing green motes into him and then 'wall runs' up a tree to flip down behind his attacker or at least that is the idea. In practice he gets clipped - he didn't have enough time to complete the maneuver - and sent tumbling. That takes him out of the fight for a critical few seconds but while he's rolling he grabs a young tree - one of the ten footers in the area - and just uproots it one handed.
C'mere pup. Time for round two.
"Uh … they're everywhere …" Jemma freezes as she realises they've walked into a trap. How much of trap is what she hasn't clued into, not until the one comes from the right of her. "ACK!!!" It's a squeal. She can't help it.
Fortunately some of her training kicks in letting her get one dart off as the claws take her to ground. Her cybernetic arm comes round, the biochem doesn't hold back … clocking the thing right in the noggin.
Koa's incredibly lucky. The sound of teeth slamming shut just shy of his lowest rib echoes off the dense trees like the sound of a gunshot. Bulling into him is the rest of the creature's shoulder to set him to tumbling. His own particular werewolf is likely brunet as a human given the hue of pelt and dark-eyed, nearly beetle-black for the pupils to disappear. It wheels on all fours and churns up leafy loam as it reorients on him. An uprooted tree isn't going to be enough to startle it, however. By how it jinks and janks on approach in a darting Z-patterned blur, it thinks it can duck the swing of the tree and take Koa to the ground.
Jemma's dart buries itself in the creature's pectoral muscle nearly up to the main container of the admixture within for the counterforce of its attack. It's already beginning to react to the searing, bubbling burn of impact in a seizure-like flail — talons might make contact on sheer spazzing luck alone — and then comes the slam of Jemma's fist to its skull. It's a solid, disturbingly crunchy sound of impact to send the smaller reddish werewolf butt over teakettle across the ground. Rotational force leaves it on its side. It then begins yowling to wake the dead as it claws at the dart at its chest, eyes gone blank in terror.
More snarling rises from the lower grounds beyond the path where Steve was last seen. Something huge smashes into a tree followed by a loud yelp!
It might well be able to take Koa down but when he's channeling his legacy like this, he is absurdly quick. Quick enough that one really does need a gun to reliably land a hit. Of course that is highly dependent on him having the room to dodge which he may or may not and he still doesn't know entirely how good this particular werewolf is.
But he swings anyway, spinning the tree like a staff. A slightly unwieldy staff with branches but a staff all the same. He's… competent. He knows what he's doing with a long sticklike weapon clearly but he's also far from a master. Is it good enough?
Hopefully good enough to make Fido play fetch.
"Steve! Jemma do you have eyes on Cap?!"
Jemma landed in that … mud. Please let it just be mud - the thought wanders through her mind as she slides with the force of her punch. It smells terrible whatever it is.
Jeriah might be wondering what the hell is going on as Jemma can't shield her thoughts. Kelly will be getting the terror and emotion that goes along with this. Jemma … really is a trouble magnet.
Rolling to her knees, trembling violently - there's no hiding the scent of fear that comes from her or the fact that her fight or flight instinct has kicked in. The ICER comes up, she fires two more times, right into the reddish wolfs heart.
"Koa …." she turns at the yelp, eye switching to blue again. "Over there…" Unceremoniously she slips in the mud as she rises but manages to stagger in that direction, to the rise …. "STEVE!!!"
Koa's werewolf makes a gargled YARP as the swing takes it right to the throat. Attempting to duck beneath it was decided against in a split-second decision to the creature's detriment. The impact sets the werewolf to gagging and hacking, lips pulling back from saliva-coated teeth conical and jonesing to sink into the Agent's flesh — but not right now. It sounds more like a cat attempting to hack up a hairball as it scuttles back on feet and one hand, its other palm grabbing at its throat. Koa gets a hateful, hateful dark-eyed glare.
The reddish werewolf continues squealing like a stuck pig after the second and third darts land home on its body; it doesn't seem to be changing back to human immediately. However, it's very convinced Jemma is nothing to be toyed with anymore. Squirming onto its taloned hands and feet, it makes to retreat back into the brush post-haste!
The frightened call of his name doesn't earn either Koa or Jemma a thing except for a final scream that heralds nothing but death from down below and through the thick treeline.
Koa takes a second swipe with the OTHER end of the tree, this one less to strike and more to hook and fling. He doesn't do this much, call upon his heritage. Well, not here in the states. It's more useful when exploring booby trapped tombs.
That's neither here nor there, though. The Agent drops the tree as soon as it's safe and bolts toward where he heard that scream come from.
"Hey you…" Jemma's a little miffed at that werewolf for not staying down when she shoots it. Another three darts are fired at it and she glances at Koa as he takes off, sliding another clip from her belt to reload her weapon. It's going to take a few moments and she's concerned about turning her back on the red wolf …
She doesn't bolt after Koa, but backs up slowly. Hopefully she won't trip over anything and not get seperated.
|ROLL| Koa Turner +rolls 1d30 for: 27
This time, the werewolf does duck, but it's clearly expecting a full follow-through a la Mickey Mantle. A swing and a miss, it is not. The angle of approach of the tree catches its outstretched hock and it lets out a garbled sound of surprise as it's suddenly airborn! Twenty-seven feet is covered in an arc ending with the solid smack of its body against an older tree. This one is seeing canary birds by how it wheezes for air, lying there on its stomach.
Jemma's darts whiff the werewolf but for a final one that lands square in one fluffy buttcheek as if to add final insult to injury. It screels and really does beat feet as if the hounds of hell were now on its proverbial tail — it appears this subspecies of lycanthropic creature is sans the extension of spine. The crashing of impact against foliage lessens before it's gone to the wind entirely.
It'll be a helter-skelter travel down the leaf-carpeted slope, so steep at some points that it might require surfing down to keep from loosing balance. Deep gouges revealing dark dirt show where the scuffle first began. There's a prone furred body lying splayed in the small clearing between trees. Its back is to the agents for now. At first human glance, it's difficult to tell what hue the fur is other than light. Regardless, the damage to it is immense and gory. Ribs show in places and sticky red covers its front claws.
Koa draws his own sidearm and more greenish motes of light fly into him as his left arm glows green with the blessing of a long forgotten asp goddess. He brings the weapon up into the low ready and as he slides to a halt glances back at Jemma, being still largely at the top of the hill.
He motions for her to be ready. Just in case.
"Steve?" He says, moving in a circle to the right. If that's Steve, he might be a problem. And if that's not Steve… he still might be a problem.
"Coward…" Jemma mutters as the reddish wolf disappears. She *won't* be telling … alright, Jeriah already knows if he's paying attention to what's going through her mind. She'll catch curry for that later. Why hadn't she used the program that he installed?
Turning to slip slide down the slope, the biochem gets her ICER reloaded and nods to Koa. She inches closer, weapon raised and held in a weaver grip - yes, her hands are shaking. "Steve … is that you?"
|ROLL| Steve Rogers +rolls 1d20 for: 3
It's definitely a problem no matter how the agents approach the fallen body cautiously. Its chest, rising fitfully, continues despite the damage to its form. Coming around to inspect its front will show a throat nearly torn entirely out; claw marks rake its chest diagonally from clavicle to hip and only the thickness of the werewolf's own skin kept its own guts from slipping loose. The heavy dent and consequential lean of a nearby tree must be the point of impact heard earlier.
From within the dense brush beginning again at least two dozen feet out from the near-dead werewolf comes a low and threatening rumble from a chest as larger as a Siberian tiger. How Steve can remain hidden with his bulk from mundane sight is a miracle, but apparently, he's temporarily hiding to lick his wounds…
…and the agents are too close for comfort. The growl from out of immediate sight slowly builds in volume.
"Okay Big Guy…" Koa says, still circling but moving to put a little distance. He doesn't want to be within an easy lunge of Captain Bitey if it comes down to it and while his empowered gun is indeed quite powerful he's not at all clear that it would put Steve out.
"Jemma, we need some of that Antidote…"
It'll hurt when she applies it but Koa doesn't think that having Captain America wolfed out is a great idea.
"Hey, it's okay Steve. It's us. Koa and Jemma. You know. Fellow agents. All in the same pack right?"
"It's in my ICER and here's an autoinjector if you can get close enough. If that red one is any proof, they've evolved… " The biochem sounds damn miffed about that. Dirty and smelly, she'd whiffed what should be two easy shots. Add to that her fear, it's a not a good combination.
"He's over there…" Her cybernetic eye is still blue and shows his position quite easily.
"Steve it's Jemma. You remember me don't you … you … wanted to bite me the other day." Her scent, below the putrid mud, will have that hint of lavendar as well as the sweet, sickly, scent of her fear.
|ROLL| Steve Rogers +rolls 1d20 for: 18
Koa's voice is recognized from last time — the predatory wisdom in combination with Steve's own eidedic memory wouldn't let the nuances slip — and the growl takes up a faster growth of volume.
It's the werewolf equivalent of 'Oh great, THAT JOKER AGAIN.'
By now, the sound might begin to resonate in chest cavities. Jemma's not wrong, however: the blond werewolf definitely wanted to bite her the other day. Spoken English seems to be mostly beyond the heavily-muscled creature in the dense brush, however.
Jemma is the target with her combination of scents. The fear calls like a siren song.
The growl falls suddenly silent. Nerves have enough time to jangle before the glint of true-blues reflecting ambient light in gold wink through the dense brush for a split-second.
Steve EXPLODES out of the underbrush without a sound, leading his arcing descent with fingers splayed wide to grasp and a jawful of ivory teeth pooling with saliva.
Koa makes a sound that might be 'eep'. Steve is a very impressive werewolf, but at the moment Koa rather wishes he weren't. It would make dealing with him so much easier. The leap is too close to dodge and while he might be able to punch it out with Captain Red White and Aroo, he doesn't really fancy his chances.
So he projects, backwards out of his body. He starts to fall before his bestial astral form snatches up his limp physical one and yanks. It's a little like a dance. He has to move over, around and through his own body, always trying to keep himself between himself and the big patriotic werewolf.
"Jemma!" Beast-Koa snarls. "ANY TIME NOW!!!"
Jemma … squeals as Steve explodes. "Agent Turner, I really think that Werewolf-Steve takes exception to you…" It's totally Koa's fault, isn't it? It's not hers for smelling so good. It can't be.
"What?" She looks a little blank as Koa growls at her … the shark-beast thing is just as horrifying as the wolf, really. "Oh, right, yes…"
Pulling up the app that Jeriah installed, the cross hairs appear on the hud on her cybernetic eye. That's linked to her arm as she raises it, aims and fires. Three times to start. Holding the last shots, just in case.
|ROLL| Jemma Simmons +rolls 1d100 for: 60
While Jemma was initially tempting, Koa's snark just can't be resisted. The dancing puppetry of his own physical body is irresistable in the most macabre sense of a toy on a string before one of the top tiered canid predators on the planet.
Steve lets out a rowling snarl of frustration as his swipe goes wide of his target to instead tear deep rents in the forest floor. He drifts like a living sports-car across the ground before launching at Koa — only to miss again! It's the world's deadliest torrero's exhibition. Pointed ears pinnned back to his skull streamline Steve despite the slithering muscle beneath his pelt and when he misses a third time, he lets out a snarl of frustration. The fur along the entire length of his spine rises as he pulls back black-lined lips to bellow at Koa's forms.
And then YELP as two of the shots land. He flinched to see the gun move towards him. It's a problem having human intelligence behind those inhuman eyes. The blond werewolf turns on a dime and dives back into the deep brush without a second thought.
The problem is of course that if Koa muffs one of these charges it's not a red cape that get's shredded. It's him. He also can't phase and yank himself around. So he has to 'drop' himself and dodge through a tree for example only to reach around and grab himself from the other side and pull himself past - but not into! - the arboreal obstruction.
In any case he keeps up the dance. For now he can JUUUST manage it. Hopefully those darts do the trick.
"Sorry, sorry, I missed one…" One that very nearly hit Koa's body.
"He's running. Stop him, he can't get away …" Jemma raises the ICER one last time, using that targetting app to send the next three darts after the blonde werewolf.
"Please Steve, don't run. Let us help you …"
|ROLL| Jemma Simmons +rolls 1d100 for: 6
|ROLL| Steve Rogers +rolls 1d20 for: 9
Like a shark appearing out of the blue, Steve rises from the underbrush at an oblique angle of attack this time. Koa's body remains the target in its loose-limbed dance. A loping hand-over-hind foot bullrush is cut short by the impact of another dart to the side of the blond werewolf's neck. It doesn't stick long in his fur, having more clipped the skin there, but the input of the admixture is enough to make him YELP yet again.
Now shaking his head as if he'd been suddenly swarmed by bees, the creature retreats in a shambling kicking tumble that throws up leaves left and right. At this point, with Steve remaining more in one location than attempting to ambush again, the wounds left on him by the other werewolf become more clear. There's a bite to the forearm and a place along his face where claws skipped from jawline along cheekbone briefly.
Now the Captain does truly turn to run, goaded by the bubbling fire burning beneath his skin and making him want to retch up his entire stomach.
"Hold this, please!" Koa grabs his own body and shoves it into Jemma's arms. That miiiight make her blush. Koa isn't a small man either. He's incredibly well built. Solid. And rather heavy.
But he doesn't want to be carrying his own body as he goes zipping off after Steve, literally flying to try to grab him and return him to the general area that they're in. Because so help him if he has to call in Barnes to help pick up a furry Captain America none of them are ever going to live this down.
Jemma actually curses in a very British sort of way as her shots miss. Jeriah is *never* going to let her live this down. "Hold wha——"
As Koa's body is thrust into her arms, she staggers backward. Her *arm* is strong but she's still only a small woman. "Uh … sure… Oh, sorry I didn't mean to grab you there …"
She's busy at the moment, wrangling Koa Body.
It feels scary as hell to find Koa's hands landing on his fur. Steve's not made it far in his half-hallucinated retreat through the undergrowth. The admixture's effects on him are beginning to be felt in great intensity and when his taloned feet literally lift from the leafy floor, he only has enough attention to complain with several yowling snarls.
By the time Agent Turner returns the erstwhile blond werewolf to the small clearing, the creature in question is looking more and more like he truly wants to die — the description of its effects given to him weeks back weren't incorrect. Foam appears at the corners of his black lips and he stares pinpointed at nothing as he curls into himself, long legs punching out spasmodically.
Poor Jemma. The potential to blush might only increase this round.
Steve's gone and wrecked all of his clothing. If the Captain fully shifts back…
Well. The full moon won't be in the sky above.
Koa sets Steve down as gently as is possible under the circumstances and flows back into his body. His eyes snap open, glowing bright red before he shakes himself and pulls himself off Jemma.
He seems less fazed by the nudity but not because it isn't kind of embarrassing. It's just because, well, he knows werewolves. Nudity is an occupational hazard to dealing with them. That and fleas, but Steve doesn't have those.
Yet.
"He'll be okay. Just let it work through his system and I'll help carry him back to the car." He sighs.
"Call Barnes. We don't need to parade him through the Tri. We'll drop him off at his house."
Yes he did just fob that job off on Jemma. Think she's blushing now? Wait until 'Hi Bucky. We're bringing Steve home. He had an episode. Uh, and he's also completely… well… we don't know where his clothes are.'
"Don't worry Steve. We've got you. Soon you'll be back in Bucky's tender loving arm."
Jemma manages to let go of Koa just as his astral self reinhabits the body. The Agent won't miss though, where her grip was to keep him upright. It's no wonder she's blushing.
"No, he won't be ok until we get the cure to this sorted out. I'm calling a retrieval team in to collect that body. I can autopsy it." She's curt. Not just through embarrasment but also because she's worried.
"Give him your jacket. Mine won't fit him." She's right, Jemma is a much slighter build.
Koa's insouciant quip to Steve gets a flat look from the biochem. There's nothing humourous about this at all. Yes. She's calling Bucky and suggesting a lead, as well.