“Welcome to your end young pup,” the voice behind him said.
Epithail turned just in time to see the hulking beast of a man swing a rather solid looking pipe at his skull. His years of dealing with the untold number of horrors the forces of the Wyrm had thrown at his Sept had prepared him for exactly this type of moment though. Ducking out of the way, he reached into an inner pocket of his brown trench coat and pulled out a small glass jar. The giant of a man was a little off balance from his previous attack missing when he swung again. He dug deep into his anger and tapped into that reserve of power making this one an easy dodge that left his opponent wide open, so Epithail responded the only way he could; by smashing the jar of caustic liquids into his face.
His opponent screamed in rage as the solution inside made his skin boil. Epithail drew his Glock and put 4 rounds into the man’s chest sending him to the ground. That’s when he finally heard the other sound coming from his collapsed opponent. A very familiar sound, the cracking and reshaping of bones as a werewolf shifted.
“Shit!” he yelled as he bolted away from the now rising Crinos form werewolf.
Running away he was able to find a good spot to hide in the storage lot for the chemical plant. Looking out from his hiding spot he was able to see his opponent rise. The beast was over 10 feet tall, built of muscle, teeth, and claws, and coated in black, greasy, matted fur. Tribal glyphs glowing a sickly Balefire green dotted his hide. Obviously scar fetishes of his tribe, the Black Spiral Dancers, enhancing his already formidable strength. The Beast’s Rage was barely contained as his body tried its best to repair the damage done to his face with the caustic substance. Fortunately it looked like the substance did a number on the Beast’s eyes and nose giving Epithail a slight time advantage.
The combat training his packmate taught him kicked into high gear and he took stock of his situation as quickly as he could. He had his Glock, his Colt Python, his sawed-off lever action shotgun, and his Kabar-esque Klaive. His Glock was in his hand but would be useless against a werewolf in their warform. He had a quick loading clip with silver rounds for the Colt revolver but he’d have to risk reloading it with a pissed off werewolf within earshot. He had a silver slug at the end of the lever action’s tube, but he wasn’t sure he could get through the other 4 rounds quick enough. His Kabar-style Klaive was a combat knife made of silver infused with a spirit of war and was a very capable weapon in its own right, but he’d have to close in against a werewolf who he’d only gotten lucky against in his earlier melee.
His only chance would be to escape to his car, but it was parked two blocks down and on the wrong side of an anger-fueled furball. To do that he was going to have to make a move of some type, and do it quickly before his opponent regenerated his sense of smell. He holstered the Glock and pulled out the revolver and his silver filled reloader. He opened the cylinder and attempted to eject the rounds into his hand as quietly as possible.
A couple of very brief metallic clinks made the Dancer’s ear’s twitch in his direction. It had heard him. Epithail quickly snapped the chamber the chamber shut, drew his Klaive and began to stand up while he touched the primal Rage inside of himself.
He felt the change take place, he only needed a bit of Gaia’s gifts at the moment. His bones hardened and lengthened, he felt the heat as his muscles grew, he felt that damn itch when the hair pushed its way out of his skin. His head clouded with more anger as he let the Wolf take over a piece of himself. He rose from behind the concrete barrier he was hiding behind in his Glabro, the Near-Man form looking and feeling like the primitively strong and excessively hairy man he now felt like with his weapons drawn in a basic CQC pose.
The Beast’s eyes locked on him and he swore he saw the fucker smile before the mountain of muscle and claws charged him. Epithail squeezed the trigger twice before trying to dive out of the way. Two measured pulls of a professional. The first shot his target was expecting and he adjusted just out of the way, but he wasn’t expecting the second.
The pure silver .44 Magnum round slammed into the beast’s shoulder, shattering the bone and releasing the horrid stench of burning flesh as the round fragmented and buried itself into the werewolf’s body. The Black Spiral Dancer fell to the ground screaming in pain within arms’ length of Epithail.
“That’ll teach you to fuck with me, asshole,” Epithail yelled as he leveled the revolver to finish the job.
That’s when the second one tackled him and tried to rip his face off.
There was no time left for thinking, Epithail let the Rage take control. Gaia had gifted all of her warriors with Rage for a reason, and this was it. The Wolf and the Rage would see him through this and the world disappeared into shades of grey and red as his body made the shift to his War Form, the mighty Crinos.
Epithail’s brown fur covered form wasn’t nearly as muscular as the other two werewolves and he was sometimes a funny sight since he liked to get his combat gear Dedicated to him so it wouldn’t rip when he shifted, but that had never been a problem for him before, especially when he already had his blade in hand. As the second Dancer clamped down onto Epithail’s shoulder, he slammed the Klaive into the betrayer’s neck and pushed it forward hard, severing the spine with the silvered blade. Epithail could practically see the spirit of War inside of the blade glowing with pride as it was able to fulfil its purpose.
He kicked the corpse off of himself and stood up. The first Dancer, the Beast, was nowhere to be seen. The Wolf called to him to hunt it down and finish the kill, but his human instincts barely kept that urge in check. Instead he ran for his car. He holstered his revolver since it was useless to him in this form.
His senses were on high alert. The Wolf in him wasn’t as strong as other Garou, but he was still better off than any human would be in the same situation. If there were two, there are very likely more. In a perverse way he knew he should feel honored that they were using a whole pack to try and take him down. He was just some lowly little Glass Walker computer nerd that somehow warranted a full pack of Black Spiral Dancer’s to be taken down. That would have to count for something to the Sept, right? If only his sixteen year old self could see him now.
The wind shifted and he caught scent of something rancid, a hideous and wrong smell. The smell of a Dancer. He kept moving and dodged the attack aimed at him from behind a parked truck. He clumsily slashed the third member of the Dancer pack across the side as the Beast revealed himself from the shadows with one more Black Spiral Dancer in tow. He was surrounded.
The Wolf demanded that he go out in a blaze of glory, it snarled for him, challenging his opponents to close and finish him. Epithail almost agreed with it. He didn’t like where this was going. Dancers never killed you if they could help it. It was far better to drive you mad and recruit you. A Glory filled death would be preferred to betraying all you know and care about. Fortunately though his rational mind was able to reign the Wolf back in before he caused more trouble. Epithail forced the Wolf back down and forced himself to resume the Near-Man as he sheathed the Klaive.
“Hey guys, come on. We don’t have to do this,” Epithail said in the gravelly almost growl of the Near-Man, “Go pick up your fallen and I’ll let you leave to nurse your wounds.”
The Beast let out a laugh and cringed a bit as his bullet wound reminded him of its existence. He then lowered his head into a snarl and continued to circle. Epithail began looking for his options. He had put his weapons away. His Klaive was going to be useless here, he wasn’t that good of a knife fighter and there were three of them in Crinos. Granted one was decently slashed up and another had a wrecked shoulder, but he was still out numbered.
“Do you really think you can take, me? I mean, really? I’m Epithail, Silentsurge, the mutha-fuckin man, Hawk.”
The third one was still healthy, that was the priority target. He still had four rounds left in the Colt.
“I’m a legend here. Do you know what and who I’ve done?”
Still circling, looking for that moment of weakness so they can keep me from being crippled. Still have the silver slug in the shotgun, but the other 4 shells are worthless.
“I’ve killed leeches stronger than you. You really think you have a chance against me?”
“Enough talk!” the uninjured Dancer yelled in the barely understandable growls of Crinos as it lunged at Epithail.
Barely getting out of the way of the claw Epithail reached deeply into his inner Rage. He channeled the primal energy his race’s mother-god granted them into his movements. Time seemed to slow as he sped up. His practiced quick draw motions produced the Colt revolver in a fraction of a second. He leveled the gun with supernatural speed and put two rounds into its skull.
He saw the Beast and its companion coming in and dodged two swipes from the Beast before taking a painful slash down his leg from the claw of the companion. Epithail tried to keep standing on it but it refused to support his weight as he came crashing down, screaming in pain. The Wolf tried to take control. He felt his Rage build and his vision started to turn red, but he quickly got it under control before he shifted. A quick once over showed him that his calf was completely torn. That was going to be a painful one to heal.
Tapping into his last reserves of Rage, Epithail rolled out of the way of another of the companion’s attacks at supernatural speed, racking a shell into the shotgun’s chamber. He fired the twelve gauge buckshot into the kneecap of the companion temporarily stopping it in its tracks. He already saw the wound starting to mend as he fired his last two silver .44’s into its chest. It collapsed to the ground struggling for breath as its lungs filled themselves. It was then he was hit by a kick that sent him sprawling.
He looked up in time to see the Beast very slowly, very deliberately walking towards him. Epithail, with as much strength as he could muster, racked another round and fired at his opponent who easily side stepped the shot.
He racked another round, fighting the Wolf and the pain. His body wouldn’t let him get up, but he could still work the action. The shotgun roared and the shot caught the Beast in the chest forcing him to stumble back. The Beast turned back to face him with an approximation of a grin.
“You fool, do you really think that pitiful human weaponry is going to save you?” the Beast asked.
Another series of metallic clicks, the hollow plastic sound of an empty shell hitting the hard ground, and another roar of the gun with the sickening wet sound of lead ripping flesh to pieces. It was followed by more laughing as the wounds closed themselves. The Beast stepped over Epithail and grinned.
“Any last words, you smart ass?” the Beast asked.
“Maybe someday I’ll have some, but it won’t be today,” Epithail said as he racked the last round into the chamber and pulled the trigger.
The shotgun roared and the slug flew out, blowing a fist sized hole through the Beast’s torso. He screamed as best he could as he fell backward. Epithail sat up slowly, propping himself up with the empty shotgun as he looked around for more threats as his body’s supernatural metabolism repaired his injuries.
