[Ashen Hunt] Cry Havoc

Yuan and Sweeney would be treated to Aster's idea of self as the three had journeyed within the dreams of the man's psyche. She was, in most respects, a large serpent, signifying the Venombite's frequent feelings of being closer to the Beast than the Woman Before. The scales were predominantly dull in color, save for patches of more vibrant golden scales throughout. The Serpent itself also appeared wounded, boasting many open cuts, but rather than blood, the wounds bloomed with an abundance of asters. Affected by the Oath, the Serpent clearly boasted a cobra like hood, which was on full display for the duration of their stay in the dream.

Once roused, the Summer serpent listened as the group began to hungrily relay the need to invoke the Wyrd in order to make quick work of the task before them. Aster herself offered little in the way of what she could provide to the group as a whole beyond a passing mention of Nevertread. This, however, was not a mission of Stealth. However, when the need for a violent distraction was voiced, Aster eagerly volunteered.

Violence she could do.

This was going to hurt, but, frankly, if the Venombite had her way, it was going to hurt the Key Smiths way worse. Pushing out the glamour, Aster let out a pained croak as the Freehold Oath took its toll, dolling out its punishment as Aster invoked her violent gift.

Before, Aster had been a picture of lethality, the enhanced dangers of her form clear for all to see, but now? Now Aster as Carnage Incarnate, claws lengthened and become possessed of brutal serrations, fangs lengthened and grew sturdier, all the while the musculature popped and reformed around the Venombite's natural weapons, ensuring a far more lethal bite and blows.


Hurt, but still quite healthy, Aster looked unto the group as a whole. She was ready. All she needed was a target and to know who she was rolling with. 

The man was released, mind addled from pressures to his unconscious mind with the mirror tossed in the back of his vehicle. Wayland parked herself alongside, venturing forth with one eye crushing between her teeth. The idea to FaceTime was solid, but Sweeney mentioned that the isolated bunker deep in the Mojave proved to be lacking in signal to connect Data or cell service, and instead she was given a timer for when Yuan would evoke his Contract. Jogging to get a general sense of perimeter and targets, she clocked at least eight. Having an hour to herself to do a proper sweep, she then patiently tailed one of the slavers and confirmed he was bringing water to people below.


As the timer went off, Wayland dropped the Contract to reflect herself, as Yuan back at the parked helicopter invoked the one reflected on the other side. He dipped his hand through the mirror to pass Wayland's notes to Loki, holding the portal for only a few seconds as the paper caught fire and the Elemental had already retained and processed a plan. Blackened blood trickles from his nostrils as corrosive veins snake along his temples from the cast. Wayland also set aside a stolen thermos for the Beast to pick up and claim territory over the complex, along with some worn hiking boots and tattered sneakers for the Beasts—found among the other items taken from the showers. She had had some incredible luck with timing, and Sweeney mentioned that his motleymate Eurydice had enchanted his fate for things to go smoothly; maybe that had something to do with it. A little back and forth with Yuan holding their hands allowed for the loopholes to settle.

Gavin and Aster would announce themselves with reality-shredding claws to evoke the Cunning with a challenge, burrowing into the building and generally causing chaos to cause enough distraction for Wayland and Yuan to evacuate the mortals. In the case of hostage taking, Wayland would station herself invisible by the door to get the jump on anyone who decided to pursue that particular maneuver (she had a whole pair of eyes, after all), while Yuan would work his magic to get the victims trusting and following him while Wayland would drive the evacuation vehicle (it turned out that the Beast could hotwire). Loki would accompany them for backup, translation, defense, and magic upon failure to net the timing; though it was ideal if the Elemental didn't have to bleed toxic glamour from his ears. Leaving a bomb would be clean, but not net their trophy collection for the end of the ritual, and so Henley would have his fun and flood the complex to force full evacuation into the claws and stream of artillery. The mirror was left behind in the canyon for an emergency exit, but everyone brought their survival kits in case Huntsmen and Masked Loyalists pulled something unexpected. A meeting point was programmed into their GPS trackers, that would hopefully ping as a superior model to their phones, as Loki indicated he would make calls for the mortals once they had service again.

Aster was capable of being stealthy and covering her tracks, and Gavin could become invisible, but that wasn't the goal, was it? Giving the Razorhand as much distance as possible from the evac team, Henley thundered overhead to drop the supercharged raptor while Aster daisy-chained with Yuan and Loki through the mirror on the ground level. The helicopter tipped awkwardly as Gavin slipped on the sneakers with manic hands, dust and a sonic screech over spinning blades announced that he was already launching himself. Gagging down the feather, Gavin met the catch for his speed, mind flushing with rage as the additional clauses to enhance his mien tore and burned with black smoke, raking the blades across the concrete of the roof like a soldering iron. Screaming his challenge and losing himself to the hunt, he started digging through the stone like a burrowing predator. Like a fox detecting a mouse's heartbeat beneath the snow, he was unsure if he could smell the sweat and panicked footfalls below, or if he was just hallucinating from the high.


Yuan announced himself with a familiar pride, leaving doors open and calming attack dogs at his leisure, as Aster went to work with the speed and precision that would make a Hunterheart think twice, stalking as she listened and understood the loud and surprised chatter of moving traffickers, shouting her own challenge as the Cunning bloomed like a shining second skin across her scales—waiting to be shed with glancing impact. Hearing Gavin's blood curdling, excited screams even from their position, Yuan hurried himself along to follow Wayland's direction as Loki muttered something about Sweeney or him taking care of it later. The Ogre took point at the door, crushing the second eye as she readied her own head collection if someone decided to pass her parlour.  Yuan shined the light around the cramped space, casting it across several frightened and tired faces: the hollowed cheeks of a matriarch, a child hiding under his father's arm. One of the men stood cautiously and started speaking to Loki with careful distance, before the Elemental tried basic diplomacy instead of immediately demanding the Playmate's magic. It was tempting: his face twitched as his attention kept tugging back towards the bloodbath upstairs, and he leaned on his loud and confident presence to get them to quiet.


Excitement bubbled among the fellow captives as they crowded around the pair, some asking about names, the police, and bits of thank yous. Some were worse for wear; needing support to walk and more than one thin body swayed with the labour of the stairs as Yuan tried to urge their speed. There were four in total and one who had expired, all branded with an archaic sigil. One of the women's​ wrists were badly swollen from infection and they all seemed at various stages of dehydration or heat exhaustion. Just as expected, a man sporting a nasty slice across his arm cautiously peered around the corner, gunning for the door where Wayland was waiting.


As the hiccup is taken care of, the group streams back towards the truck that their initial kidnapped victim have driven in with. Loki smashes the glass, hauling the door open as he urges Yuan to get the vehicle running, while Wayland and Loki handles the chain around the lock: unlocked from Yuan's magic but needing a physical component for both to open the large shutters. 

From outside, the Blightbent moved with practiced hands as he readied the aerial tide of bullets. Flesh cracked and oozed as muscles flexed to keep a smooth line riddling fleeing forms and vehicles as they were forced back inside. The Ogre did indeed dawn himself in the garb that his Season demanded, announcing a prayer to the heavens as his hands briefly left the console with sharp teeth and malicious glee. His jaw grit as the air around him cooled and a numb sensation flowed through his being, crackling with with something toxic as the Freehold Oath took its tithe as he willed something more than just a downpour. 

Aster's mannerisms were less manic than Gavin's, but were nonetheless bestial stalking along the hallways in a matter reminiscent of some dark predator, then, the blue-eyed viper spotted prey. 

The cold silence ended as Aster roared a challenge to fulfill her loophole of Fae Cunning* and descended upon the traffickers with a cold fury. The serpent got to work, slipping close enough to her opposition to sink in claw and tooth into soft flesh in order to tear them asunder. Some managed to slip away, but whoa to those who failed to escape Aster's clutches. The Summer's embrace was far from kind, despite the smile now beginning to cross her lips as she painted the halls red. It was a cold expression, bereft of warmth, but heavy in wrath. 

Though the Cunning has bloomed, Aster does not escape unscathed, notably sporting a glancing bullet wound on her shoulder. Desperate men were occasionally blessed with luck as they faced their deaths, no matter how inevitable it may be.

Perpetual restraint had been Gavin's mode of operation for much of the time since his return from the wilds of the Hedge. A caution borne on the back of life preserving necessity. The creature of abandon he knew he could be would be his undoing. The yearning to revel in the slaughter could claim a friend or draw him into a fatal mistake. This night the reigns on his psyche were broken.

Primal violence surged from every movement. What began as feverish cleaving into the hardened structure of the bunker--like the massive shell of an untended dragon's egg ready to be devoured--turned in a flash as the Beast was already into the yolk.

To his mind there were only roughly humanoid shapes moving about and popping sounds spewing fire and lead. He saw everything. The details no longer mattered though. He had begun a dance with death and the only thing that mattered was the moment and freeing hot crimson blood from its roaming prisons. The shapes that dared move while nearest him were the ones that drew the flow violence through them. The flow did not stop.


Those that weren't nearest soon were. 

One such shape was not going to go easily and aimed to put distance between them, knocking obstacle after obstacle in front of the flow. The Savage's magically honed white wings splintered the objects as he travelled toward his prey. Spurred on by the flood of speed that came readily from the magic of an enemy's stolen shoes, the obstacles and running were but a delay for the inevitable.


Even as a lucky, desperate shot had slipped through the mystical defenses which allowed Gavin's bestial form to evade most gunfire had torn a hole through his vest and into him, it was already over. His prey's neck yawned wide with a spray of blood that rusted his white wings a rich arterial red.


As victory continued raining down upon him, the Courser keened for more.

There were many more sources of victory to liberate of their hearts' contents, but somewhere deep within the trance of carnage, a familiar face emerged. As their mutual battles had approached briefly, Aster and Gavin's paths had come close enough to chance drawing his attention. It was a point where there was only a Freehold member and another foe an equal distance apart.

The dance had all but consumed his mind.

Their gazes met for a heart stopping moment. His eyes, feral, shone with a harrowing bloodlust that could stop a hardened warrior in their tracks.

The Beast blinked with a hard shudder, the trance halting for just a tick. He screeched as he turned to move passed and toward the other instead, the flow fortuitously taking a vector away from his comrade in arms and leaving only a mist of blood in his wake.

The Torrent did not succumb to mounting frustration, exhaling smoke into the night as his team was quick and successful in busting open the door and got the engine ignited. The getaway vehicle burst forth from the eroded testing facility, the surreal scene of cascading water hit Wayland's windshield and swirled through the shattered window. Thunder peppered the building with a hail of artillery fire as windows were shattered and fleeing mortals were caught in the external assault, forcing the early flight back within as a flood started to mount on the packed, dry earth. Delighted laughter from the living embodiment of chemical warfare synched with Henley's whooping through the macabre celebration.

The water surging into the building forced those who fought against the landslide into the waiting claws of those above. And the land becomes a killing ground.

Calls are made as the soaked, frightened, and cautiously hopeful mortals are coaxed into more strange transport to fates unknown. The Changelings couldn't offer much in the way of encouragement, necks craning back to their prizes left in the evening mud beyond the horizon; with quick abandon as soon as Loki snapped that they were good to go back. His skin hissed as they waited out the rains, shaking hands melting the frame of the vehicle as the Knight Commander held his shit together long enough to safely start hauling bodies from the draining building. Gavin had come to his senses as Aster waited with hidden calm, nudging her dazed ally along as she pulled bloated and twisted faces that had suffered her venom.

Henley and Sweeney almost sounded drunk on their own elation as they stumbled from the cooling helicopter, chattering loudly about the experience in stark contrast to the solemn display as Yuan started to get giddy again from the energy. Wayland handed off her axe as the criminal's truck was offered as better transport for severed heads than Henley's helicopter, with the Ogre walking down the line until he spotted a soaked individual blue in the lips. Gavin stared longer than what was probably polite as he paced up and down, nostrils flaring and hands twitching as one person or another reached for his meat. Loki paused as he realized he was actually the only member of the group who had not claimed a life, much to his surprised chagrin. The Arrayer had to talk him down as a particular nerve was squeezed when it came to the Fireheart's strange honour code, where Yuan even tried to offer the head he had taken earlier. Eventually Sweeney was able to sweet talk that the Gatling gun was his own work and glamour, and must totally count for something.

Dripping in the spoils, the pack headed back towards the Call of the Hunt.

There was a madness alight in the depths of Henley's eyes, the bendy boy grinning like an asshole as the severed head of the Drowner's claim was rent clear. He pulled a bag out of the chopper, depositing the waterlogged noggin inside. Spring's blessings did not just include the ability to wash away wounds; no, washing away life itself with purifying water was his Way. The border had been protected. Deep inside him, something felt right, even as it all felt so fucking wrong.

"Loki. Sir."

He gestured to the beautiful, beautiful gun.

"We couldn't have gone to the Danger Zone without you."