Max also begins to scour the rooms for anything useful.
Once the werewolf is gone, Caio tells the others all he knows about Lua. "For starters, I need you guys to understand who Lua is... among werewolves, it is something incredibly rare for a woman to be the alpha. Like with wolves, the alpha is the strongest of the pack and since male werewolves are much stronger and bigger than females, for a female werewolf to become the alpha it means she has something special going for her."
"Lua is a howler... a werewolf that can communicate directly to the wolf inside other werewolves. She is smaller and physically weaker than me, but this means nothing if she can simply sweet talk the Wolf into either doing nothing against her, or trying to take control of myself." He explains.
"What is strange is that I don't understand why she is here... why come here for me? I'm nothing but another werewolf. Like, sure, it is not easy nowadays to find people susceptible to the curse, but it seems like she is risking too much coming here." He says, confused. "If she fails, it would signal the others in her Pack that she is not as strong as she seems."
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Indarius shakes his head at Grace since he's been put in verbal timeout until Caio is done. He winders about the alpha omega relationship between werewolves though. Recalling having read something about the theory only being a thing with captive wolves. Could have some merit with werewolves though since they are sort of self-captive and also human.
He taps his foot for a moment then looks to Scar, "Can you deal with him? Your group has a lot more experience with the supernatural than most of the big leagues in Halcyon."
After Caio got that all out Indarius took to positing, "So she talks to and commands the wolf within, meaning she's probably trying to get your wolf to side with her. Meaning there's something special about yours, my guess a prophecy or something there's alot of that stuff going around and as I've been informed Doomsday prophecies are a dime a dozen. Going forward with that information, it means it'd be best if you don't directly engage with her otherwise wolf's out of the bag. So we'll have to hit her hard before she gets a chance to quite literally tear us to shreds. Follow-up, does she need to speak to talk to the wolf within, is it deeper than that, or do you know even?"
Though his anger hadn't faded for Caio being a coward earlier it was rather brave of him to take up a holy sword with basically no ifs, ands, or buts. This had been very enlightening on Lua and werewolves as a whole but even with Caio's knowledge of her and her pack he doubted it was complete information.
"She knocked me out simply by looking at me." Caio says, angry with his powerlessness. "She must need me for something... that is the only thing that makes sense, otherwise she could just wait for the Wolf to win."
Shin is listening to Caio's explanation and confusion about the motives of Lua. He lets Conflux and Max take the lead in investigating the hotel room, figuring they knew what they were doing.
"Well, if she can take you out simply by looking at you, we should strive to make sure that you're not left alone until this issue is resolved," He tells Caio. "I'll put together a chaperone schedule for you. But just so that I'm clear, she incapacitated you but didn't otherwise try to harm you? Did that other wolf take it upon themselves to take Skyler or was it an order given by Lua?"
Femtite does not understand detective work. But at a smaller size, she can fly about and easily spot a strand of fur that the maid may have missed. Should her eyes (or Connie’s) find evidence of a mongrel, Femtite will take a much, much closer look…
"I don't think she did anything to me after I was knocked out... like, I don't feel any different. I really doubt any of the others would do anything behind her back, ever." He says to Horizon.
Grace returned to the group after having taken a bit to get some fresh air. ”So…what’s the plan?” she asked.
Grace is able to get a good scent of Lua and the other werewolves that came with her.
Conflux finds enough personal belongings to set up a basic tracking spell that seems to point in the direction of Old Town. Which is odd, because there are not a lot of green spaces in the seedy district full of looming gothic architecture.
Max looks around for anything that might help. Conflux seems to be identifying the personal belongings or stray bits of hair or skin that could be used to track the werewolves, so that seems covered. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything left behind that is glaringly obvious that would give the team an advantage over Lua. She hasn't left anything behind that could indicate deep emotional attachments or some other heretofore unrevealed weaknesses.
Femtite goes subatomic.
Femtite shrinks down while in the seedy airport hotel, once they've determined that Lua and her werewolves had stayed there. She goes subatomic and tries to find if any connections exist between the werewolves or their belongings.
After a time searching through the various unreality threads, she thinks she finds something similar to the geas bonds of the fey. Echoes of Lua's presence show Femtite her ability to detect and control the wolves within those afflicted with lycanthropy. What's suddenly terrifying is that Femtite can sense dozens of threads linking Lua to a great number of wolves. She can sense them. She knows they're there. In and around Old Town.
Wolves.
Wolves.
The Franklin High Wolves.
What do you do??
Several hours pass before Femtite returns to human-size.
Shrinking really just can't be your answer to **everything** Connie groused internally before tapping the com-bead to keep the other folk apprised. "Femms is on a deep dive pursuing what I'm hoping is a real good lead, but she's been gone a little longer than normal. Very much within tolerances for her trips, but definitely not one of her short ones. I've got a bead on Lua out in Old Town for when she's back though. Too far for me to pinpoint from here, but I'll notice if she makes any big moves."
”Who are the Franklin High Wolves?” Femms blurts excitedly as she almost suddenly appears from rapid growth.
”The alpha is connected to many in town—so many. But the Franklin High Wolves are a name I sensed. Is this a rival sports team?”
"Do you think that Lua can be reasoned with or dissuaded from coming after you, Caio?" Shin asks him. "Considering that Lua and her pack are the equivalent of plague carriers that could spread their curse to others, I'm worried about the worst case scenario and a whole lot of innocent people getting caught in this kind of war."
He looks at Indarius. "So we should focus on not a cure, but some kind of vaccine for the worst case scenario. Do you think you could figure something like that out to protect the team from infection?"
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Indarius looked to Horizon, "If I remember a lesson from Caio long ago, aren't most people like not able to become werewolves? Also... I'm a mage not a supernatural biologist and we're in high-school, so... maybe get back with me in like 20 years once I get three medical degrees and enough grant money to start that kind of research." Part of him admired Shin's belief in his abilities but even Percy wasn't that arrogant in his abilities yet.
He rubs his temples under the cowl, "Best I can do is keep you all protected physically." Tilting that same hand towards Caio he had to admit, "Caio's the one who's got the expertise in prevention beyond that."
There was a moment where he wanted to scream at Caio, but between hearing just how Lua disposed of him and the information about her abilities, lacking in precision as it was. Maybe he should cut him some level of slack.
"Look, this whole situation is shitty, but we can still kick her ass before she gets any further in her plans. If we just stick together, so uh... don't lose hope man."
Caio doesn't much acknowledges Percy beyond the point of nodding when he mentions about people being mostly immune.
"Percy is right, Horizon. The vast majority of people are immune to Lycanthropy to the point that it is even not worthy to try some big plague-plan thing... I've heard that some werewolves can somehow smell others that could be infected, but I'm not sure if this is true."
"I have no idea if she can be dissuaded, Horizon. The logical thing for her to do would be to simply wait me lose to the wolf and then pick me up... it is hard to talk her out of a plan we do not know."
When Femms mentions the wolves, however, a chill runs through Caio's spine. "Now... if those pills that turned Grace into a cat-person will turn the students of Frankling High into wolf-people... this could mean that Lua is after the pills, and if she can somewhat control them with her powers, then she basically got a variant Lycanthropy..."
”If only the school mascots were the Halcyon Prep Surgeons and the Franklin High Engineers, the victims of the pills would not turn into animals and would have promising careers.
“How do we stop this Lua?”
Not wanting the others to think she isn’t taking the threat seriously, she says, ”It’s just odd that a school mascot determines the effect of the pills—“
An aside to Connie, ”Though not THAT odd. Magic and science aren’t so different.”
Getting back to her main point though: ”—and it’s very disturbing. Kids, specifically, are the target.” She does not mention her concern that some men in Boston would turn into red socks, which could mean either death or life as a sock puppet. And what kind of life would that be?
Shin sighs, before stepping away from the group to let Whippoorwill know about the situation.
"...So in recap, we have some theories about what Lua wants with Caio, but no hard evidence. Conflux seems to think she's in Old Town though, so that's probably our next stop. I don't know about any places of magic there that she might go, but if there's someplace for someone to lay low and plot something, I figure you might have some experience or idea about where to go looking."
Femtite, you seem to recall that there were different batches of pills for each school.
Whippoorwill is mostly quiet during the recap, only asking a few questions for clarification.
She thinks for a moment, then tells him, "Old Town's a maze. It's dense, and there's not much green space. Lua's an out-of-towner, so she's not going to blend in easy. She won't be able to hide long. I'll give the Crimefighters a heads up, tell them to be on the lookout for Brazilian werewolves."
Switching topics, she says, "We've isolated the suppressor in Chiros' supplements, and are continuing to administer them to the students. The actual cure is still days, if not weeks away. If Lua's got some sort of connection to the Franklin students who got the wolf compound... that's not good. I have no idea how her ability will interact... but we have to presume she'll have some sort of control if she's that strong.
"Here's what I need you to do: we're a week and a half away from the full moon, which I assume means Lua will be at her strongest, but also Caio at his most dangerous. Taking her on sooner is better. See if you can get Caio to agree to sit this one out. He's helping by providing you with information, focus on that. If she can make him go berserk like he went with the Mongrels, that puts all of you in danger. If he insists... you'll have to make that call."
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Looking to Caio and narrowing his eyes, he pushed back the want to light a fire under his friend's ass for using his real name while masked. The thing he just told everyone not to do again. "Look, I know you're pretty detached from Lua, but you know her better than anyone here. What could she want in old town, some kind of conduit to channel her werewolf powers? I think we dealt with the wolf-pills for the most part so that shouldn't be an issue beyond her maybe controlling them. Which hopefully she can't."
He acknowledges that Conflux and Fems could track her, but it's still a bad idea to just blunder into her fledgeling territory. "Beyond that, we need to know what we're doing Horizon. I think i've made it quite clear that I'd rather get this done and over with especially since she's actively come after us already."
Horizon comes back after finishing his conversation with his mentor. "The sooner we deal with this the better. Moon is currently waxing. Which for weird, arcane reasons I'll never understand means that the longer we take the stronger she'll get." He tells them. "So it's a risk, but we should go and meet her as soon as possible. Old Town's not a place that she'll be able to blend in easily, so we shouldn't have too much trouble, especially if Conflux can find them," He says. "Caio, a word?"
He steps to one side with Caio. "What you know about Lua is vital. I'll be counting on your support. But I think that it'll be safer if you're far enough away that she can't influence you like she did before. I've seen you in action, and if she pulls something that hurts one of the team through you that would be on both of us for not taking the right precautions. I want you to stick on the outskirts of Old Town. If there's an emergency I'll call you in, but otherwise you're going to only have comms open to listen to the conversation. I'll set them so you can talk to us directly and hear everything around us without alerting Lua, okay?"
Caio nods to Horizon. "Sure. I'm not putting you in greater danger... I'll only join you if you are already in a terrible situation that it would be worth the risk of me losing control."
Max's tail lashes in agitation. "Come on, let's go! The longer we wait, the more trouble Lua can cause."
Grace is also getting fidgety. She keeps looking out the window restlessly.
Ensuring that Caio is on stand-by and that the rest of the team is ready to move on, Horizon heads to Old Town. "Femtite, you and me will be on aerial recon. Everyone else stay to the ground, and..." He looks at Max and Grace in particular, "Don't start a fight, but end any that others start quick. Sooner we find her the better."
Kinda surprised C-dawg is okay sitting out the showdown with his Big Bad. Probably for the best since she has powers that affect him specifically, but... Yeah. Kudos to him for being willing to ride the bench or whatever the sports term is.
"...So?"
***
Once at Old Town, Connie uses the samples she's already collected to dowse for the werewolves. It doesn't work as well as a GPS at finding her an efficient path, especially through the more warren-like bits of the borough, but it brings her unerringly closer.
Well. Should be unerring anyways...
Femtite helped herself to the TV remote in the hotel room.
“Connie, I altered the remote to become a High Freak-Wency Truniversal Remote. Unlike your so-called universal remotes, this one is truly universal… or maybe more like neighborhoodal, due to the limited range.
“Anyway, when I crank the frequency up, it should be really loud and annoying to dogs. And hopefully also werewolves.”
Femtite isn’t sure whether (a) it will work on Lua or (b) if that means it will also definitely affect Caio, no matter how far on the sidelines he stands.
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Indarius follows Conflux as she leads the way with her dowsing rod. "Can't wait to find this lady and get back at her for ruining another otherwise peaceful night." The air around him remains slightly chilled, though he seems to be taking note of it and keeping it rather relegated to himself causing small patches of frost to hang from his robes.
The team heads out toward Old Town. The district is notorious for its gloomy, gothic-style architecture and close, labyrinthine streets. Ornate stone and wrought-iron edifices, slanted roofs, and gargoyles give the section of town a looming, almost hostile presence compared to the glittering spires of steel and glass of the Tower District.
Whippoorwill pings Horizon and tells him that the Crimefighters are gathered on the roof of the Ledger Building -- one of the tallest in the district.
When the team arrives, the loosely-affiliated group of costumed vigilantes that patrol the districts of Old Town are waiting for them. They see Crossbolt, a man in dark tactical gear with an elaborate crossbow-like device strapped to his forearm and carrying several quivers of bolts. Next to him is Screech Owl, a lithe woman with a divided cape with its ends attached to her wrists that she uses to glide between buildings. Parkour is leaning casually against the ledge, heedless of the dizzying height of the Ledger Building's rooftop. Not present is Belfrey, though the stealth-master might be around and just keeping to the shadows.
Crossbolt steps up and offers Horizon a handshake. "Welcome to Old Town. All of you," he acknowledges everyone with a nod. "Whip's a longtime friend of ours. Still patrols with us from time to time, even though she's been with the Alliance for a while now. She says we might have some werewolves prowling about in our city."
"We haven't seen or heard anything yet," Screech Owl says, adjusting her goggles. "But Belfrey's checking out Oldman Park. It's pretty much the only green space around here bigger than a parking lot."
Parkour nods and chimes in. "Let us know how we can help. No one knows Old Town like us. We mainly deal with crime bosses, gangs, and the occasional serial killer. Nothing world-impacting. But we all have tussled with a super psycho or two."
Grace hops up onto the ledge beside Parkour and squats down low, seemingly just as unaffected by the elevation as they are. Her tail flicked back and forth as her muscles tensed beneath her fur.
"My father always said 'Save one life, and you save the world for one person.' So...if you are stopping any murders, you've already saved the world..." she mutters in reply to Parkour.
"Uhhh, great." Luckily this isn't a particularly contagious lycanthropy
Gesturing with her tracker Conflux informed the vigilantes, "Well Lua, or someone else who scattered their biologicals all over her bedroom is over that-a-way. If you know where she's most likely to be holed up along that path, great, but otherwise let's do introductions and career-affirming maxims on the move, okay?"
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"As much as I want to just walk through old town I think we might be better traveling quickly. If you all want, that way we can cover a great distance and introduce ourselves like Conflux suggests."
Pulling his book free and flipping through a few pages he came upon the spell he wanted. "Gather round everyone this should make things easier for those of us who aren't as used to moving around these cramped spaces at the very least." From a pouch he pulled out a handful of pigeon feathers as well as a dried posey holding them both in front of himself for a moment as he chanted.
Bo Vonuz Viing
Those who accept the magic would feel themselves being a bit, floaty. "Magic flight is easy, just think where you're wanting to go, don't get sidetracked and don't think about walking if you're too high up. It may lead to some broken or sprained ankles. Just simple directions up, down, left, right that sort of stuff."
"Thanks for the assistance," Horizon says, shaking hands back and nodding to Crossbolt. These were the type of heroes who got things done on the ground and street level. He tried to recall what he actually knew about them from his lessons with Whippoorwill...
...Ah, right. He'd inferred some things from what she hadn't said, and it seemed that Old Town's vigilantes all also had been influenced by the seedier elements of society. "...It's funny, growing up, this place was considered to be fairly rich and affluent," He mentions as he looks over the side of one building. "But that was a long time ago. It's a balancing act you guys do, keeping crime from spilling out of control. Lua's a potential tipping point if she overstays her welcome and gets the gangs and mafias riled up," He notes to the team.
"Thanks for that, Indarius," He tells Percy as he does the magic to help those who weren't flight capable able to float through the tight spaces. "Conflux, we'll follow your route. Diva and- uh, can you two stay out on the flanks, so we can move with a good field of detection in case we miss something on the narrow path?" He asks Diva and Grace.
Max nods. ”You got it, Horizon.” She floats up off the ground, moving around experimentally to get the hang of the magic. Soon, she is ready to go!
Femtite wonders if anyone besides Connie is aware that a nine-seat flying car is her hairpiece.
She just flies along, not wanting to come off as rude.
While he promised the other to stay out of it, he could not simply stay hidden in their base. Lua had ways to find him if she wanted to, so staying hidden was somewhat pointless, aside from the fact that if the others were overwhelmed and needed some help, he'd be too far away from them.
Instead, Caio grabbed the magical sword and roamed close to the Old Town... close enough to be able to help the others, but not close enough for Lua to immediately know he was there. He needed to prove himself to the sword sooner than later.
Connie gave Femms a knowing smile, though her thoughts can't be heard. Lotta folk with a lotta ways to make things work. Nothing wrong with trying out someone else's flight.
The direction Conflux points in leads directly through the heart of Old Town. The Crimefighters seem to take Connie's word in stride, and head in that direction. They all eschew Indarius' spell, using their own styles of movement. Screech Owl leaps off the ledge while spreading her cape wide, gliding along the air currents among the buildings. Parkour slips over the side, bouncing back and forth between gargoyles and flag poles, flipping, running and tumbling across the rooftops. Crossbolt sets a grappling quill in his wrist crossbow, shoots a line, and zip lines or swings from building to building.
Via Love Bug, The or Indarius' spell, the rest of the team follow, heading in the direction that Conflux's spell indicates. They move through the close buildings and storied gothic architecture of the earliest Halcyon districts. Eventually, they get past the tallest of the buildings and into a more residential area, full of rows of brownstones and closely built tenements. In that direction, they see the old brick edifice of Franklin High School, and beyond that, its sports stadium. The lights are out, leaving it a gloomy dark oval amongst the neighboring streetlights.
The streets of Old Town are dimly lit, with narrow alleys shrouded in darkness. Caio wanders through the district, hoping to stay close in case the team might need him. As he moves through the canyon-like streets, he hears an echoing cry for help, somewhere nearby!
As they fly closer to the high school and stadium, Max tries to extend her supernatural senses outward to pierce the gloom or perhaps sense any sinners nearby...
Femtite uses Heliokinesis to extend her senses. As she radiates sunny brilliance, she is more sensitive to light vs. shadow, heat vs. cold, and solar power vs. lunar power.
And Grace tries to catch wind of anything that smells of wet wolf…
Caio races toward the screams, winding through the alleys until he knows he's close. Mindful of an ambush, his enhanced senses catch the scent of several young men and one female who is clearly terrified.
Caio rounds a corner and finds a dead-end alley where he sees the aforementioned woman being dragged and thrown around by one of the young men. The others are a couple floors up, watching the scene from hiding spots on fire escapes.
At Caio's approach, the woman pleads for help. The youth accosting her -- probably only a year or two older than Caio himself -- turns to face him. "Who are you supposed to be?" he demands. Caio can see the young man has a playing-card club on his jacket.
What do you do??
He walks slowly towards the young man. He considers shifting his eyes to scare him, but decides against it... if he is supposed to prove himself to the magical sword, he should try to solve things on his own and not rely on the Wolf.
The woman whimpers while the assailant looks unimpressed. "This don't concern you. Walk away, while you got the chance. Unless you're one of those costumed freaks who hasn't had time to change into his jammies?"
"I know you have friends up there by the way."
The youth smells of a mix of fear and excitement. "They're here to watch. Who are you? What's your hero name?" He reaches behind him and pulls out a pair of fighting sticks and moves up into a fighting pose.
Conflux's charm points to the football field. The Crimefighters give hand signals that they will move around to flank the stadium while the rest of the team flies straight towards it.
As they approach, they see a lone figure standing in the middle of the field, right at the fifty-yard-line.
The youth doesn't seem to recognize Caio's name, but lets the woman go. She scrambles away and cowers in a corner of the alley.
"All right. Let's see this 'wolf,'" he says as his nervousness spikes.
Over comms, Grace says ”I’m catching wind of lots of boys. And a few girls. This person isn’t alone…”
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Indarius looks over the field, "If push comes to shove I'll handle keeping them all away from the fight with a barrier. Other than that, Shin you've got lead on this like usual. Let's settle this for Caio and for the others."
Unless anyone had any grievances he would start his descent down towards the field with the others.