"What she needed was for me to have never entered her life... F*++!" He says, crushed with despair, but gets up, his wounds already healing. "Lua knocked me out just by looking at me, Max, can you imagine what she is capable of having me do?"
"She wants me to willingly join her pack and will certainly threaten to kill Skyler if I don't... but if I do, I'll probably kill dozens of people back home." He tells them, horrified. "I can't fight her... I can't win no matter what... I need to think..."
Caio gets away from the others as he grabs his phone to call the Corps.
Horizon helps out, but after checking the timestamps on when Skyler would have been taken, it's a statistical impossibility for the hit across town to have actually been her. However, when helping narrow down Indarius's search, he is able to locate a brown rental car of generic make that was probably the one used to abduct Skyler.
With that bit of information, the mage is able to locate the vehicle abandoned near a small city park.
Caio puts in a call to the Corps. William Britannica answers the phone. "Who's this? How'd you get this number?"
"Hi, I'm Caio, a werewolf from Halcyon... Alan, Lola, Bill and Bones know me and they gave me this number." He explains as he paces, impatient. "I... I need a huge favor from you guys... I have three very strong werewolves from Brazil here in Halcyon, one of them, the pack leader, being a howler... Do you happen to have any weapon capable of killing a werewolf with you? Because my silver knife certainly will not do it!"
"Oh. Caio. Yeah, this is Bill. Bill Britannica. Werewolves, you say? Let's see what we can do. Hold on."
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Indarius ruminated on his scrying for a moment until he was certain that the spell had found it's lock. Aftershock he stirred and shook his head. "Brown rental Fjorb excelsior at the park on 3rd and Elliot street. Probably the vehicle that they took her in, we should move fast."
With that he stood and made himself ready to take off, really would be neat for the bug to be here now.
Femtite speeds to the location. “Hop in—point the way!”
"I'm just glad when Love Bug, The's going all hummingbird-quick that it doesn't pick up the stamina issues..."
She scowled while she sorted through what werewolfy gear she already had on her. "I'm also fairly positive that I at least did not get looped in on the loup-garou, no matter what Deedee says.."
"Right... They got Skyler, Bill, to force me to join them." He tells, continuing to pace around, so worried that he did not even remembered that Bill was obviously the short form of William.
Grace steps up to Caio as he talks on the phone, putting a hand on his chest to calm him. ”It’s going to be alright, Caio. We’re going to find her,” she says reassuringly.
Femtite sees the hesitation and tries to snap the others into action.
”Fastest way: someone point out Sky’s scent. I can take a cheap flashlight and have it convert scent to the visible spectrum. I hook the tech to my Bug, and we follow quickly.”
Bill goes quiet for a moment at the news. "All right. We've got some artifacts that we could pull out of deep storage. If you can hold on and not rush after them, we'll be there in Halcyon in a short while. If you go after them before we're there... I understand."
Indarius locates the car and relays it to the rest of the team.
When everyone arrives at the car, Caio and Grace pick up Skyler's scent inside the passenger side and the male's scent behind the wheel. The car is still warm.
The scents split up. The male's scent goes into the park, while Skyler's stays in the city, running down an empty street and leading to a dark alley.
What do you do?
Fem’s ready to drive. “Whether we’re splitting up or not, where do you want me to drive?”
"How much time do you need? I don't think I can beat Lua, but I'll risk anything so Skyler is safe." Caio asks Bill.
"I can't say! It's not like we keep holy relics propped against the nightstand!" Bill says. "You have a team, right? Do what you gotta do. I'll be there when I can."
"Don't sweat the tech, Femms, plenty of ways to track everyone without breaking another one of my flashlights. This does seem like a split up gang kinda time though."
Tapping out her thoughts on her knuckles, Connie continued. "If Skyler's off on her lonesome, then that's more of a search and rescue than a hostage situation, and should hopefully be resolvable in time to link back up... Or at least as long as we've got fast transport back and forth. Femms, that's probably you. C-Dawg, you're talking about Lua really having your number. Is that something where you should head where you think she's not? [smaller] 'Cause if it's something where you feel like you have to confront her, no matter what anyone says, we should just factor that in instead of you running off and doing anything stupid, cliche, and self-destructive."
"Skyler is the priority here. You protect first, beat the bad guys later," Shin affirms and agrees with Connie as he flies on his own. "Let's spread out but no one stay out of visual sight of each other while we look for her. Hopefully we won't be running around too long before we find her."
Fem speeds to Sky’s rescue!
"As Horizon said, we need to find Skyler, and that is it... I can't yet fight Lua and I'm not stupid to try it unless I really need to." Caio says, following Skyler's scent, even if he pays attentions to other smells, particularly of the other werewolves.
"Together, then. Let's go!" Max says, following Caio.
"Also, this whole tracking by scent thing is great, but there simply are better, more accessible ways."
Connie pulls out a little drugstore looking device with a cartoony mascot who kind of looks like her on the side, prepares a sample, and points the way.
"Sometimes it's the destination not the journey."
Following Skyler's scent, the team races as fast as they're able to a narrow alley. It's tight for Love Bug, The to squeeze without shrinking down to barely a two-seater and even then it's scraping along the grime-encrusted bricks of the alley.
Caio takes the lead, following the traces of Skyler's scent as it goes deeper into the alley until he loses it! The trail doesn't continue, but then when he spins around, he sees her crouched behind some trash cans. Her knees are drawn up to her chest and she is hugging herself tightly.
At the commotion of the team flying, running, or scraping along the walls in the alley, Skyler looks up. "Oh. It's you."
Max frowns at Skyler's reaction. She hangs back to let Caio talk to her, but she cocks her head and tries to figure out if something is off with Skyler.
She is less than successful.
Caio quickly hugs Skyler, searching for wounds and picking her up if she allows him to. "Are you ok? I'm so sorry to bring you into my mess... let's get out of here."
"Hey Third Eye Not-So-Blind. Okay, I'm sure today has sucked in a bunch of ways that will absolutely not be erased by our presence now or in the near future. However, there are still a lot of moving pieces in play. Your part isn't going to be the biffs, pows, and kerthwaps, but we still do need to ask you to do something hard. We need you to tell us everything relevant about your capture, and we need you to keep things bottled up till we're in the aftermath and you can unpack it all."
Skyler doesn't resist being picked up by Caio. She converts her fetal-position self-hug into a princess-carry pretty seamlessly. When Max tries to get a read on her, Skyler meets her eyes. There's something in her look that deeply unsettles Max.
She glares at Conflux. "I wasn't going to let myself be a hostage, and I wasn't going to be fridged.
"I grabbed his aura and... pulled."
Caio takes Skyler to Love Bug, The. "Whatever that did to him, he certainly deserved it." He says. Even if unsure what happened, he is more worried about taking Skyler to somewhere safe than anything else.
Femtite is morbidly curious about how the other guys is doing, but simply asks, “Where to?” after everyone piles in.
Skyler curls up again once put into Love Bug, The. "Just back to the dorms, please."
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Indarius watches the situation from the edge of the alley. Breathing a sigh of relief as Caio deposits Skyler into Love Bug, The. "Horizon what's the game plan now we just gonna leave them to wreck havoc on Halcyon? If they've found Caio once they'll do it again same with Sky. At the very least we should get the big league informed of em."
"I'm keeping Whippoorwill appraised, but this is something that we should take care of ourselves," Horizon replies to the mage. "It's a little bit mysticism and the Alliance notoriously doesn't have the resources we do with that. I trust that we're capable of dealing with this without outside help," he finishes. "For now, Skyler's safe, and she didn't need to be rescued - she did that herself. I feel that's worthy of celebrating, rather than fretting over the looming threat right now."
Connie raises an eyebrow, slowly extending her neck until she's reached maximum side-eyed quizzicalness. "Are you... are you saying don't go be proactive? 'Cause we don't have to let them loom, right?"
"I don't think they will wreck havoc in Halcyon... this is not their home and their goal is to bring me back and make me join them." He says, sitting besides Skyler and wrapping his arms around her to comfort her as best as he could.
"Yes, they will come for me again, but there is no point in me hiding, because they already showed they will come for those I care instead... hopefully what happened to the one that tried to take Skyler will keep them from coming after her again."
Caio returns Skyler's phone.
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It wasn't possible to see the scowl that Indarius made through his enchanted cowl but it was still something that someone could feel. And something told Caio that if looks could kill he'd at least be receiving a third degree burn werewolf regeneration be damned.
"Look, if you want to go back to the school tailed tucked and wait for them to come after everyone one at a time cause she cowed you once then be my guest. But I am tired of letting these kind of problems slip through our fingers."
There was a bit of rime-frost building around the young mages hands, the frustration of his failires this past week boiling up. "I have been busting my ass trying to find a solution to all of our problems recently. And when some sort of solution to yours rears it's head your confidence flags and it's time to turn and run? You are a hero Caio, sure you have problems controlling the wolf, but you are stronger than it you've always been stronger than it, and this lady knows it and the only reason she hasn't taken you back is because she knows you and the wolf are stronger than her. Don't let her back you into another cage of your own making. Whatever your decidion i'm going werewolf hunting."
Without even waiting for a response Indy turns and starts heading back towards the park.
The look in Skyler's eyes had shaken Max into silence. But Percy gives voice to a lot of the thoughts in her own head.
"I'm with Indarius. The longer we wait, the more time they have to strengthen their position here. We should strike them now, and strike them hard. Make sure they can't keep coming back to hurt us. Go back to base if you want. I'm going with Indarius."
She moves to follow the young wizard.
The whole time, Grace had been moving down low to the ground, her ears darting back and forth, and her hips and tail swaying as if she were about to pounce on something. As the others debate, she stands and turns to face the group and says "Let's go get them. IF they were so tough, they wouldn't keep striking at Caio when he was alone."
Fem calls to Percy, ”Wait…” and to Max and Grace, ”Please wait. I agree with all three of you, just—can we please not all run off separately?”
She says to Shin, ”We have the trail of the one Sky pulled the aura from. I think we need to go after him. He might be dangerous or might be badly hurt. In either case, I think we’re making a mistake not to check on this.
“But better we do this with your blessing.”
She’s pretty sure half the team will go without Shin’s blessing.
There is a gleam in Grace's eye. "Yeah. We've got the trail of one separated from the herd. Let's single it out and take it down!" she says as she squats down, her tail flicking with excitement.
Skyler stirs when the team starts discussing going after the werewolf who had kidnapped her. "He's not hurt, but I think he might be vegan now."
Femtite grins. ”I will not lie, Skyler. I always believed your power was stronger than you thought, when we first met. Right now… I am feeling quite vindicated.
“And impressed!”
”He might not be a threat, but he can tell us where the others are. I’m sure we can...persuade him to talk,” Max says with an edge to her voice.
"You know what happens when you corner a wounded animal?" Shin speaks out to everyone. "It becomes far more vicious and dangerous. When we go after a wounded member of some big, powerful group? We invite in open war. Everyone needs to calm down, take time and come at things after we've had time to rest and think."
He points at Caio. "I want to know everything you know about Lua and her pack. Numbers, alliances, people they trust, the places they are most comfortable being."
He looks at the rest of the team. "We can't do anything until we have a whole understanding of what we're dealing with - without potentially making things worse by ganging up on one of them," Shin says to the group. "Heroes don't go looking for fights. We work to try and avoid them if we can."
”Oh, Horizon, but you heard Skyler. That herbivorous predator tried to put her in a refrigerator!”
Caio raises his eyes to Indarius, angry but controlled. "When did you became this arrogant a%*+!$+?"
"How much time have you spent mulling over a solution to my problems? A week or two? And you think of yourself so awesome and brilliant that you think you've already came to a solution, while I've been looking for one for the last years?" He asks, raising, but keeping his distance.
"You mistake caution with cowardice and bravery with stupidity! Lua had me alone and she decided to leave me behind and kidnap Skyler instead... have you considered why?" He asks again. "Because she f++@ing wants me to go all angry and unprepared at her, because the more I let the Wolf in control, the closer I am to lose control for good! I'm not coming for her now, because I'm not stupid... not because I'm a coward!"
"Now, go ahead, go werewolf hunting with all the knowledge you have about the matter."
Turning to Horizon, he adds. "I'll tell you everything I know after Skyler is back to her dorm. For once I agree completely with what you've said."
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Indarius wants to turn around, to scream at them all to tell them just how much he's been working on everything alone. How many days he's gone nearly sleepless finding, and pouring over texts that are irreplaceable, nearly impossible to find, to show Caio just how he plans on dealing with these dogs. Those... lesser creatures, but he doesn't, he just keeps walking out of the alleyway, the evening air cooling into a misty fog that trailed behind him, heedless of if the others follow.
Fuzzbat flutters in the alleyway for a moment watching over everything unfolding, alighting on DD's shoulder it chitters at her with concern.
Max glances at the others, bites her lip, then turns and rushes after Indarius.
Caio, Horizon, and Femtite fly Skyler back to the dorms.
As they fly in Love Bug, The Skyler glares at Femtite. "Impressed? I fundamentally altered him. That's not impressive, that's horrifying. What if it gets easier? Where I can just tweak a person's personality to whatever I want? That's not the kind of power I need."
Meanwhile, Grace picks up the scent of the kidnapping werewolf and pursues it through the park, followed by Indarius and Max.
The scent is getting stronger, as it appears to be meandering through the woods like the quarry didn't have a definite direction. Grace senses they'll be upon him soon!
What do you do??
Fem says to Sky, ”I understand why you feel guilty, but you feared for your life.”
Thinking back to that powerlessness Femtite felt when she was trapped in the cocoon, cut off from light and heat, she says, ”Being held like you’re nothing, like you can be crushed at any time… it’s not a pleasant feeling.
“You do whatever it takes to avoid being captured. You didn’t kill, which is mercy enough. Whoever’s aura you pulled should thank you, then shut up and eat his carrots.”
"Let me try to talk to this guy first. I may be able to get him to talk without violence. If that doesn't work, then... Well, violence," Max says grimly.
Caio, still hugging Skyler, tries to comfort her. He feels she isn't really worried about the werewolf that captured her, since he was obviously a horrible person and she was just trying to protected her life... even if she had a gun with her and had killed the werewolf, her actions would still have been justified. No, she was actually worried about using it against regular people... friends, family, him.
"Look Sky, when Lua turned me, everyone expected me to go wild, kill everyone around me and then join her pack, but it was not what happened. While my power is a curse, I chose to use it for good." He looks at her, trying to empathize with her. "I know how you feel... it is frightening, knowing you have the power to do something horrible to others."
"But you don't have to. Every power can be used for good or bad... if you can alter the personalities of other people, this could also be used to help so much people... perhaps you can help people suffering of panic attacks or PTSD, or help people with anger issues... or impulses that they know are horrible, yet they can't control..."
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Indarius takes a moment to dig into any nearby locus of power drawing forth some potent energy into himself before their confrontation. A nagging guilt starting to chew at the back of his head, maybe he was a bit too harsh on Caio. "Alright DD, G-hmm-guardian, thank you for coming. I'm not gonna let them get away with baring their fangs at our classmates."