12523/How Wolf

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How Wolf
Date of Scene: 19 August 2022
Location: Caern of the Duat, Constitution Island, New York
Synopsis: Cael pays a visit to the Pack on Constitution Island, her pack, to learn more about what they were up to before she took over. She learns a few troubling pieces of information and then gets word of a what may possibly be her first recruit.
Cast of Characters: Marc Spector, Cael Becker




Marc Spector has posed:
    It's been a little over a week since Cael Becker, Agent of SHIELD and the FBI, took over as Alpha of the pack of Egyptian themed werewolves and during that time the pack has downsized significantly. Many of those were unaware that there was a return to their normal lives and when the option was presented to them were more than happy to get back to their loved ones. In the end the pack of forty has been reduced down to a handful over one dozen.

    Silas, the leader of the defensive measures of the caern--what they call their den--has stuck around. He's helped facilitate a smooth transition from the control of the Theurge, whose name was Milo, to Cael. There have been the occasional disruption, but nothing that a quick slap and a growled admonition hasn't been able to handle. Since then, things have moved to making sure the defenses are in place to protect the pack from intrusion--human or otherwise--given the downsized population.

Cael Becker has posed:
    Cael arrives at the rather downsized core of the pack, striding in like she owns the place - because, in essence, she does. She has been in and out over the last week - helping people transition back home to their families, and making sure those who stay behind know that she is very much a presence, and that their needs will be met. Today, though, she's set aside some time for an indepth conversation with Silas, who has been serving as her second.
    It's long overdue.
    "Any situations I need to be made aware off?" she asks unceremoniously as she arrives, dressed in her bike riding leathers. Her motorcycle was parked not far away - waiting for her whenever she decides to return home.

Marc Spector has posed:
    Silas is in his human guise today, that of a well built black man in his late forties. He's given little about his life before becoming a werewolf, but not much. He was in he military and then after a couple tours of the Middle East moved into the corrections department. He bombed out of that business. The official documentation listed it as an animal attack on his watch--but he knows it was no animal and about a week after he was bitten, he became what he is now. Just like Cael herself.

    He's flipping through the pages of a document on a clipboard. "Food supply is getting a bit low... but it should last for another cycle before we have to restock." He means a lunar cycle, of course. He looks up and sets the clipboard to one side on a flatened rock surface. "How about you? Things settling in or you still having shell shock from the entire thing?"

Cael Becker has posed:
    "I've been alright. There's other stuff going on in my life - outside of the pack - that's causing me a little trouble but- Nothing that can't be managed," Cael says with confidence.
    Yup. Old Ones, Fears - totally manageable. The betrayal of friends and the violation of a dearly loved one? Nothing she can't handle.
    "I was hoping we could talk. I want to get a better sense of the history of this place, of the pack, of the people here... I think I need a better grounding if I'm going to make the right decisions. After all, it's not about //me// - it's about the community."

Marc Spector has posed:
    Silas looks at Cael for a moment under a heavy brow. He gestures for her to follow him and turns towards a sectioned off alcove. It's more a shaped room inside the cave and clearly meant for a single occupant. It's spartan and clean and bare of any accountrements aside from a desk and a couple of chairs. "On that note you're a fair bit ahead of any of the other Alphas we've had here" he says as he takes a seat and gestures for Cael to take the other.

    He sighs. "Most of the ideas of those running the place have been for conquest or power or both... none of them have even thought about what it means to make a family out of this group." He nods. "But... I can give you a general overview, unless there's specifics you want. Then... on that I can try, but I wasn't too close to Milo and the guy before him..." she whistles and shakes his head. "Guy tried to take my head off because he saw me as a threat so... I can only guess with him."

Cael Becker has posed:
    "Yeah, well - power isn't my thing," Cael answers simply. "I didn't go into law enforcement for a power trip. I went into it for the public good. To right wrongs - and to make up for my own mistakes," she admits in a wry tone.
    "Tell me what you can about Milo, and his predacessor. What their goals were... and what the pack experienced. If I don't know what they've been through, I won't know how to help them, or what to be careful of," she explains.

Marc Spector has posed:
    Silas nods and settles in. "I came in toward the end of the guy before's run. I wasn't there when he went after Moon Knight and the rest of you. When you got changed..." he says, but I got the jist of it from some of the others. He..." he makes a frown. "His name was Joseph. Joe. He was pretty chill before that asshole Elias came around and offered him power in exchange for Moon Knight's head on a platter."

    He shakes his head. "Joe wasn't the same after that. Something that bastard did frenzied him and all he was focused on after that was being the strongest and turning any who would take, regardless of whether they could handle the mental changes that came with it..." He sighs. "Saw a lot of people die that month. Wasn't pretty." He sighs again. "After he went and got himself killed by Moon Knight and his allies, then Milo stepped up and started going full mystic on the pack."

    "He'd hold this dark rituals, orgies, sacrifices, the whole shit show and do things to some of the other members... brainwash them... send them out to kill, and then do things with the blood spattered corpse." He gestures to the main room of the caern, to where the large statue of Anubis and the dark stone on the alter remains. "All in order to show his own supremancy and try to convince us that Anubis had chosen him." He snorts out a soft breath. "Obviously, didn't work out for him."

Cael Becker has posed:
    Cael makes herself comfortable when Silas does, her expression serious as she listens to his explination. "Okay, so... Before Elias, things in this pack, they were healthier? It was more about the community, until Elias perverted it?" Cael presses her lips together before adding quietly, "That's very much Elias's M.O., but- he's dead, now. I killed him myself.
    "And when you say Milo was encouraging sacrifice... you mean human sacrifice?" Her expression is grim, and disapproving. That sort of news - well. It absolves her, at least some, of any guilt she may have felt for ending his life.
    "What I don't really understand - is how do any of us end up like this? That fight - where we killed Joe, other people were injured. Scratched, bitten... but I was the only one affected. All the people we have here - were they all turned against their will? Were there any that volunteered? If Milo was trying to expand the pack and make more werewolves - how were they even choosing who they'd try to turn? ...how many of the people are so new to this, that they were only turned after Joe's death?"

Marc Spector has posed:
    Silas nods. "More about surviving and being what we are. Living with it, you know? But you killed him? That tracks. He came around once after Joe's death. Spoke with Milo a bit and then just... disappeared. I think he gave Milo a book. I can get it to you if you want. Lots of weird symbols. Egyptian maybe... I couldn't read it, but Milo at least knew enough to do some of the things in it." He makes a sour face. "Yeah. But not just humans. Wolves. Werewolves. Any and all he could get... didn't matter. He just wanted death and blood."

    He thinks on her later questions. "We had a scientist among our numbers who did some tests. There's at least a semi-biological disposition to it. It doesn't take on everyone. 'Binds with a protein chain and proliferates.' That's what she said. But she also said that alone couldn't constitute such an augmentation. There has to be more to it then, yeah?" He shrugs and continues. "All the new ones are still here. Some volunteered, most that didn't died. You're really one of the only ones that survived that wasn't part of the pack during your first change. Which... is sort of remarkable when you think on it."

Cael Becker has posed:
    "Yes," Cael says immediately. "I definitely want the book." She could look at it with Jon - if anyone can make sense of it, //they// can. The talk of sacrificing werewolves, though, has her frowning. "Milo made you sacrifice members of the pack?" That's... sick. Everyone must have been terrified for their lives - not allowed to leave, but always wondering if they were next.
    As he mentions people dying as part of the change, her frown deepens as she tries to make sense of all of it. "What kills them? ...how do they die? Do they get ill? Or... they simply don't survive that first change, on the night of the full moon? I- I remember I felt awful. Achey, a splitting headache..."

Marc Spector has posed:
    Silas frowns and moves to the desk. He pulls out the bottom drawer and withdraws a big leatherbound tome. "Here... take it, we sure as hell don't want it. Maybe it has some of the answers you're looking for in it." He shrugs as he settles back into his chair and frowns.

    The topic of what kills them isn't a mystery, but it's not a pleasant thing to think back about. "When you first change... your body... it's--you gotta understand the process changes the shape of your body. Sometimes it's a smooth process, everything changes bit by bit and nothing is too traumatic. But a lot of the times... it doesn't go smooth. Ribs break and reset, and sometimes that can lead to a punctured lung or heart."

    He reaches up to pres shis fingers to the sides of his head. "Even your skull undergoes a tremendous change and when that process stalls a bit?" He snaps his fingers. "Bye-bye brain." He swallows, and his coloration goes a little green at the memory of so many mangled, half-turned corpses.

Cael Becker has posed:
    Cael takes the book settling it into her lap. "Thank you. Hopefully I will learn something in here. And if not - I have somewhere safe to keep it."
    Her expression goes more solemnt as she adds, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to bring up traumatic memories. We've all seen too much, I guess."
    She never stopped to realize how else that night could have gone. What if, instead, Agnes had gone into her room - and found her mangled corpse? A shudder passes through her at the thought, and she quickly moves on.
    "Are there ways to prevent that from happening? You sort of implied that if people are //willing// - then that's less likely to happen? So in a way - it's like if you fight the transformation... it ends poorly?" she suggests.
    "And what about the tattoos? Did you always have those? My friends thought they looked like Elias's magic - but meeting Elias was fairly recent for this pack. Wasn't it?"

Marc Spector has posed:
    Silas nods. "They've been a mainstay for the pack as long as I've been around. Joe was pretty quick to put them on people before the first change, it helps with controlling the impulses we get when the moon gets full. Helps us stay ourselves. Helps us choose when we go," he flexes and makes a snarling face, "you know? It's called a dedication to Anubis, to wolves, to the hunt. Milo's were... different."

    He nods to the book. "He pulled them from the book. But they were twisted, wrong. Invocations of more hunger. More rage. More ferocity. Most who got them turned into slovering beasts when the full moon hit. Monsters. Mindless, berserk monsters. And he'd just... turn them loose all over this area, like it was open season."

Cael Becker has posed:
    "...shit," Cael murmurs quietly. "That's- that sort of shit is just going to put a target on all of our back's. Good fucking riddance." She grits her teeth, and shakes her head before asking, "Any of them - with that sort of tattoo. Did they survive? Is that something we still need to worry about?" And if so - can the tattoos be removed and re-done?

Marc Spector has posed:
    Silas nods solemnly. "I've got a couple of mystics working on it..." he holds up a hand to forestall any objections. "They're good people. I vetted them myself. None of them were willingly following Milo. They've managed to figure out the components of the tattoos, but removal is difficult and reapplication... the marks that Joe made died with him..."

    He frowns. "I don't know what we can do to help them... but... you seem to have similar marks. There not exactly the same and you got silver in there, which... I don't even want to begin to think what that feels like when you change but... Where'd they come from?" he asks, his eyebrows raising with curiosity.

Cael Becker has posed:
    A frown pulls at Cael at this news - that some of these problematic, raving, berzerker werewolves were alive - and she wasn't told about that //immediately//... "Okay. This is the sort of thing that I'm going to ask you to //never// keep from me," Cael says in a firm voice. "If I'm going to keep all of us safe - and keep //them// safe - I need to know exactly what I'm up against. I would like to see where they're being kept - so I know their needs are being met, and that they're safe - and that others are safe from them." She fixes Silas with a rather pointed look as she says this - then she shifts gear to answer his questions.
    "My tattoos were designed and put on by two of my friends. It contains a mix of a metal called orichalcum, which I believe helps focus magic, and some collodial silver. It... stings? Just a little. It helps me stay focused. One of the friends who helped me with the tattoos hasn't been well," that's one way to put it, "but I feel confident we could come up with tattoo designs to help them. It's just- can we alter and tattoo over the existing tattoos? Can we make new tattoos that are powerful enough to over-ride those? Or do we need to find a way to remove the tattoos? Would laser tattoo removal be enough?" She looks down at the book in her lap and adds quietly, "Maybe some of those answers are here, but we will figure out a way to help them."
    Her gaze fixes back on Silas before she asks, "How many of these 'berzerker' werewolves do we have?"

Marc Spector has posed:
    Silas cringes back at Cael's look and nods. "Understood. Three..." he replies in answer. "They're being kept in an abandoned bear den that we excavated a bit upriver. They're... well, I can take you to them when we're finished." He looks again to the book. "It's possible that some of the answers are there. I will get you any and all information the mystics here can figure out... maybe if we pool our resources between Moon Knight, the Archivist, and your example... we can find a way to fix things."

    They are interrupted as a young woman enters the room. She's in her late twenties and lean and feral looking with sundarkened skin and vaguely Native features. "Excuse me, Silas" she says and then notices who the other person in the alcove it. "Oh... Alpha" she says with a start, her eyes going wide. "I'm..." she drops to a knee, her head bowed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. Forgive me."

Cael Becker has posed:
    Three. Great. "We'll figure it out," Cael promises. "They're our responsibility - and they're one of us. We owe it to them to find a solution." And she has resources to call on - though the fate of //one// of those resources will hang in the balance in short order...
    As the other woman enters, Cael turns her head towards her, a faint frown pulling at her lips. Should she put an end to the bowing and scraping...? Maybe she should wait a little longer to really understand the culture before she gets to that. "Forgiven. You seemed like you were in a hurry - is something wrong?"

Marc Spector has posed:
    The woman rises and nods. "I... We've found her. She's in Hackensack" the woman says with a smile. While the words don't seem to make much sense to Cael, Silas smiles. "Wonderful news. Good work, Tanis." He looks to Cael. "One of the most recent that were turned. A young woman named Hannah early twenties. She didn't want the change, accidental bite from one of the wilds that Milo let loose. "We wanted to find her and show her that things were different now... give her a chance to make the choice with a new person in charge."

    He gestures to Cael and smiles. "We only want to help her come to terms with the change. Help her through it... be part of the example that you have presented to us. But she fled. Looks like we finally tracked her down." He eyes Cael. "If you're up for a bit of a drive, we can go to her and you can give her some words of encouragement yourself. Directly."

Cael Becker has posed:
    "Sure," Cael agrees, nodding her head. She gives Tanis a smile as she adds, "Thank you - good work."
    Her attention shifts back to Silas as she adds, "Hopefully a friendlier face helps. You'll have to tell me more of her story one the way. Has she even had her first change yet? Does she have the tattoos? ...and if so, did she consent to them, or were they forced on her?" As difficult as things were for her, without any information or guidance or understanding in her first months? Maybe it was better than being subjected to what Milo was doing to his people here.