trans_9 | I told you I knew where it was!

Kelly isn't even breathing any heavier than usual when they arrive at the lockers. She takes a look around, her eyes sliding over the racks and containers that hold people's personal effects. Moving between shelves and crates. She focuses her search on the area nearest the front. The first thing she spots would be her knives (http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/halo/images/7/7b/CombatKnife.jpg). She pulls them from the crate with a grin, twirling them over the back of her hand for a moment before she pulls a belt from the same crate and fastens it around her waist, sheathing the knives just below the small of her back.

As she looks, she speaks to Bella, not turning to look at her. "So, what is a Weaver?"

Bella is quietly impressed. Not many of the people on the ship use melee weapons, or at least look like they know what they're doing with them.

But then there's the Weaver question.

"Weaver is very bad. Not as bad as the Wyrm, but close. She is... stagnation. Stopping. No change, no free will. She is the thing of cities. Of electricity. This place is of the Weaver. The things the "engineers" use are of the Weaver. I do not like it. If these things turn on me I shall be ready."

Kelly likes her knives as attested to by how she continues to search, keeping her hands on the hafts of the two weapons. She's already feeling more secure now that she has them.

"So the Weaver is like, a person that provides technology?" She really can't understand much of what Bella is talking about, it's all foreign to her and she can't help but be a little put out by it. Int the meantime, she's fond a bag with the UNSC insignia on it and pulled it from the crate it was lying in, digging around in another crate to pull out handfuls of ammo magazines and shoves them into the bag. She takes shotgun shells and boxes upon boxes of M443 Caseless FMJ ammo.

The only thing she's missing now are her guns. Where could they be?

"Not person. Spirit. Great spirit, one of the triat with the Wyrm and the Wyld. Weaver is not my enemy. But I am wary of her the same."

Bella watches Kelly gather ammunition. The Chief got lucky, one of the homid Garou explained their world to him instead of a still mostly confused pup fresh from her Rite of Passage.

"Spirits are everywhere in the world, but you cannot see them unless you cross into the Umbra. I cannot do it by myself, I haven't learned how."

Kelly really has no idea what she's talking about. But it sort of makes some sense, so she nods. "It pays to be careful I suppose."

Pushing another crate open, she positively grins as she pulls out an M7 SMG. Pulling a magazine from the bag, she pushes it home, hearing the comforting click. The then flips the weapon on safe and digs around in another crate, coming out with a holster which she straps to her right thigh, sliding the gun into it. Now to find that shotgun.

"What's the Umbra?" She's still busy digging for a gun. She finds a BR55, but sets it aside, looking for a shotgun. "Come on, come on, you damn piece of crap."

Sorry Bella, she really wants her gun.

"The Umbra is the spirit world. It..." The wolf flicks her ears in discomfort as she struggles to think of a way to explain it. She's been in the Umbra once or twice, always brought across by other Garou.

"It's always there, but you cannot always see it without being in it. It is like looking at a reflection in glass. But being in the glass at the same time."

"What do you seek?" she adds, noting Kelly's frustration. Bella's not fond of guns, she sees them as dishonorable. But she is curious.

"Something like the Walkabout the ancient Aborigines of Australia had, it sounds like."

She nods. "From what I've read, the two sound at least passingly similar. How would you enter the Umbra, though?"

"A shotgun. I don't know what kind of missions they're going to send us on, but you can never go wrong with a shotgun. There's plenty of ammo lying around for it, but where's the bloody gun?" He growls in frustration, tearing open another crate.

"I do not know of "Aborigines"," says Bella. The Australian werewolves have all died out, but Bella doesn't know about the connections between the dead Bunyip tribe and the Aborigine people anyway.

"The Umbra takes a focus. Something that shines, a reflection. It helps. My pack's Theurge could do it for all of us, he was good at it. We call it stepping sideways. Is like... like pushing through a thicket. With no thicket."

"I know what "shotgun" is," the wolf offers. "I help look?"

"No? Well I suppose there can't be many around anyway. And they tended to keep to themselves from what I read." Not that Kelly would know any of that. For now, she doesn't even know that Bella is a werewolf.

She nods. Sort of like meditation then. "So something like meditation then, yeah?"

"Sure. It'd come in handy."

"Crossing the Gauntlet is like meditation. But that is used for other things. I don't know what. The Theurge might know. He was smart. He knew much more about Garou than I."

Bella starts to sniff along the row of crates, looking for anything with the combination of smells she's come to recognize as belonging to a gun. There are a few matches, but none of them is a shotgun. Many are older styles of gun, more twentieth century Earth than anything else. Handguns predominantly. She's also not picking up anything with Kelly's scent on it.

"No shotgun," she reports. "No your-smell either."

"I see. I suppose you're a younger uh...Garou, then?"

Kely watches her sniff around, pulling ammo for the BR55 out of nearby boxes, just in case. She looks along the walls at more crates, wondering what's in them, but she doesn't say anything. When Bella speaks, she sighs, emptying all the shotgun ammo back into the crate she got it from. Maybe someone else might need it.

"Damnit. I suppose I'll have to make do with this then." She picks up the rifle, slinging it over her back and shoving all the ammo she can find into the bag before slinging that over her shoulder as well.

"Yes. I have been Garou for a cycle of Luna. More now, because I am here, but I do not know how much time. No sun, no moon. Cannot count days."

Bella watches Kelly dump the ammunition. She's seen other crew members carrying the stuff around, and decides to remember this spot just in case. Bella might not necessarily approve of guns, but she does know that they make things dead pretty well and can respect that.

"Are you finished?" asks the wolf.

"One cycle of Luna... that's the Earth moon. So that would be.. one year? One month?" She really doesn't know very much about these things.

"Yeah, I'm done. What's next?"

"Month. Luna changes her face all the way from circle to circle one time," Bella confirms.

She pauses. "I do not know. Normally Elders call meeting once they know there is a waking. But the Elders are not here. I would like to go back to the "mess hall" place. It is where the crew is. Wolf belongs with pack."

She nods. "So you've been a wolf for one month? You can change shapes or something?"

That gets a sort of shrug. "Why not. It doesn't seem like there's anywhere else to be right now. And wandering around a living ship doesn't sound like too good an idea."

"Then we will go back," says Bella, settling it in her own mind.

"And that is not right. I am not wolf. Mother was wolf. Father was wolf. I thought that I was wolf for two winters, but I am Garou."

She seems to brighten. "Yes. I can change shape. Should I show?"

"Sure." She falls in step beside her if she want to go now. Kelly feels much more secure with all her guns and everything.

"So a Garou would be something like a werewolf?" She knows a little about that at least. But in the pictures they walked on two feet. >_>

"Why not?"

"Garou is werewolf," Bella confirms. "Then I will show you."

Bella shifts across her forms (http://www.rpgonline.com.br/images/galeria/7_mutacao.jpg) as she walks. The wolf grows in size at first, rising to a beast just below chest level on Kelly. From here, she rises up onto her back legs and finally reaches a height of nine feet, a beast of muscle and fur and claws. Something designed to rip a man in half like so much tissue paper. She transfers the axe from her mouth to one massive, clawed fist.

"This is war shape," she says, even as she begins to shrink back down. Muzzle shortening, fur retracting.

Bella shifts down through Glabro and finally arrives at her homid form. A girl, eighteen or nineteen. She clears the six foot mark by about three inches. She's narrow and wirey in build with developing muscle. She seems rather normal.

Still, there's something... feral about her. Inexplicably predatory. It's in the way her eyes seem to bore into whatever she looks at, an alert sort of jumpiness.

"I do not like this shape," she says.

Kelly looks up at her when she turns into her war shape. To her credit, if she's afraid she doesn't show it. But that's probably because she has her guns in easy reach. Not that she'd be afraid without them, but they go a long way toward making her more confident. Besides, Bella doesn't seem to be threatening towards her, so she just looks up into her eyes.

"Definitely a form most people wouldn't want to fight, I'd say." She gives her a once over appreciatively. "Looks like what it is, made for killing."

Kelly would like to show her a SPARTAN's 'war form' but she doesn't know where her armor is. So she can't. :/

When she morphs into a girl slighter shorter and several years younger than her physical age, Kelly cocks her head, looking her up and down again, nodding to herself. "I don't see anything wrong with it. Seems to have all it's working parts." Is that a smirk on her face? Maybe just a tiny one.

"Why don't you like it?"

"I do not like the homid shape. Small. Weak." Bella's lip curls slightly in disgust. "No fur. No claws. No teeth. Easy to break."

"I will change again. Must rest for..." her brow furrows, "a little. Then I go back."

Kelly looks down at herself, then shrugs. "If you trained in it, I'm sure you could get it to an acceptable strength level that you can be comfortable with. Humans are more durable than we're given credit for." Yeah, having unbreakable bones is cheating, Kelly.

"Sure. Thanks for showing me to my possessions by the way."

Bella snorts. "You are welcome for this. For now, crew is my pack. But I disagree. Humans, durable? Wolf is durable. Wolf has honor. Wolf runs miles in a day. Wolf hunts, wolf kills, wolf feeds pack wolf sings for pack and wolf protects pack. Always pack. Humans... no pack. What is there if there is no pack?"

This is about as talkative as Bella gets. This means something to her. "Wolf dies, there is always pack. Pack goes on forever. What does a human have?"

Kelly's expression hardens for a moment before she schools it back to neutral. "Making sweeping generalizations about a person, a potential enemy force especially, is dangerous. Humans have done great things together. Judging the many by the deeds of the few is a foolish mindset."

She likes to talk, this one. "Everyone, wolf and human fight for something they believe in. When they die, that thing is left behind. Who's to say what's right or what's wrong to fight for? You fight because you believe, that's enough."

"Few?" Bella growls. "My kind are few. Garou is few. Wolf is few and dying. Men kill the wolf. Kill the pack. Kill the pups. Kill the trees, and the prey, and make the water run foul. Man is many. Cities. So many cities, so many places that run thick with Weaverstink and blood and filth." She gives her head a vigorous, frustrated shake, it's a wolf gesture in a human body and it looks weird. "Human is not my enemy. They are the Flock. Garou protect them, as long as man does not threaten Garou. Man does not know what walks in the dark, what we hunt and what we kill so that it does not kill him and does not kill wolf."

"I do not fight for what I believe. I fight for what I know."
Bella's voice is sharp with a dignified, stubborn defiance. She believes this, believes it as deeply as she can believe anything. "The Apocalypse comes. The Wyrm rises. When it has, I shall be ready. My pack shall be ready. My Tribe, my Nation, my kind shall be ready. And we will fight it. We will give our teeth, our claws, our lives to it. And if we lose, we lose all. Wolf. Man. Garou. All that matters. That is why I fight."

And to judge from the fire in her eyes, she dares not just Kelly but anybody to challenge that.

Kelly straightens up to her full height, her expression remains placid and her voice calm when she speaks. "Exactly what I said, few. Not all men kill your kind, not all men hunt your prey, and not all men need your help. We never asked for your pack's protection. We got by just fine on our own. We have our own protectors, that's what I was made for. That's what I almost died for. Throwing all men together and saying we are all the same is bigotry. And where is the honor in that?"

"Then you'll lose. It's the belief in something that makes you fight past your abilities. That's what I was taught." Kelly remains passive, loping easily alongside the girl. "You fight because you were ordered to. But until you believe in the fight you'll never win. And like I said before, man doesn't need you to protect him. He's done a fine job of protecting himself all these years."

There's a slight shrug from the SPARTAN. She doesn't really care.

"Maybe not where you live. Maybe not. But in the place I was whelped, this is true. I have seen. Good man is so few, so few. Like wolf. Dying. Man is different. Wyrm twists him and feeds on him."

"Man never asked for Garou. Garou always was. Gaia made us for this. We hunt in dark places where man cannot go. We fight things he cannot fight. That man does not know us means we do our work. I am young, but I know this. In my Rite I fought Fomor that were feeding on human whelps. The Get of Fenris took me because I fought well. I showed honor. Whelps should not die, it is wrong. But man cannot fight Wyrm. Cannot smell it, or hear it, or see it where it breeds and grows. That is for Garou."

"Why would I not believe in something that I know is true?" she asks, genuinely puzzled. Bella's feeling up to changing again, but she decides not to for now. It might be taken as an aggressive action, for all she knows, and she doesn't want to pick a fight. It's... impolite, maybe. She's starting to get a better sense of what is and is not okay with these human packmates.

"I think you're going to have to explain to me exactly what this 'Wyrm' is."

"So what are your kind? Some sort of protectors created to stop a force from destroying humanity? If that's so, why not make yourself and what you do known to them. Humans are not always understanding, but a great majority of them would at least accept the existence of your kind and welcome any assistance you could provide. Why skulk in the shadows and let your people slowly be killed off?"

"Knowing and believing are two different things." Knowing Kelly, and the situation being as it is, it's probably safe to say that she wouldn't take that too well. But she wouldn't be the one to attack first.

"The Wyrm is my enemy. Our enemy. It is the destroyer of all that is good. It kills and breaks and burns. It is everywhere." It's not a very clear description, but Bella barely gets all this spirit stuff on her own anyway. There's an anger in it, though, a zeal that isn't entirely unlike that of the Covenant.

"Not all humans are good. The Wyrm rides them. The Weaver rides them. To be open to them is to lay us bare to attack. We fight from the shadows. Our enemies fight from the shadows. Leeches and worse things, too."

Bella gives a short exhale through the nose. "I see no difference," she says. "If something is true then why would I believe in anything else? If I know the truth then I believe it."

"And humans can't see it? Only your kind can?" Kelly doesn't remark on the fanaticism she picks up. The Covenant were enemies, flat out. Bella's given no reason to suspect her. Yet.

"If humans are killing your kind anyway the tactical decision would be to reveal yourselves and form some sort of alliance with the humans who are willing to help you, is it not? Not all humans are ridden by the Weaver, or the Wyrm correct?"

She shakes her head. "Having the knowledge and having the belief are different."

"Not only my kind. Other changers, too. They are few now, if they are not all dead. Bear. Raven. Lions and tigers and great cats. Crocodiles. Gaia's children all. The Wyrm is seen sometimes. Not often in the real world. Twisted beasts, broken men. Bodies that are wrong. Minds that are wrong. Monsters," Bella says. She knows very little of the other changers, and has never seen any before. In fact, the odds are she never will.

"They do us little harm. But if they knew of us, they could be used. They are too many for us. Garou are strong, but man is many."

"Word difference is not important to me. I am wolf," Bella says, dismissing it. Her temper's fading again, easily.

She nods. It would make sense that there are other animal changers after all.

"The Wyrm could take the ones who knew about you?"

She shrugs. "Think about it."

"A pack is only as clever as its slowest member," says Bella. "That is why wolves do not tolerate the weak. There are many stupid humans. Many. It is..." She thinks. Very hard, clearly having to draw something out of memory. "My Alpha had word. Lowest..." Bella gives her head a shake, and growls once. "Lowest common den... not number... Nomm..inator. Lowest common denominator. He said. I think that is whay I mean. Long word I do not know."

Bella looks at Kelly, she seems faintly amused. "I gain nothing from it," she says.

She nods. "Lowest common denominator. I can see how the weak link would affect the safety of your pack. There must be an alternative to keep your kind from dying off, however."

That gets another shrug. "If you say so."

"The end times come," says Bella. "We do not need much longer. Elders say the next generation of cubs will not grow up before the Apocalypse." She seems very untroubled by this.

"I do say." She nods. "I am going back now," she adds, and starts shifting. Bella doesn't need to cross all her forms again to go back to her native shape, the shifting finishes quickly with less change in size. She picks up her axe in her teeth again.

A pause. "So let me get this straight, humans are killing your kind. But you aren't worried because the end of the world is coming anyway?"

She nods. "I can't help but say that I like this form of yours as well."

"Not many humans hunt Garou. Most cannot stand the sight of the war form. It gives them maddening fear. No, Wyrm agents among the humans hunt us. Time is short. The Elders are wiser than I, I follow them." Bella, as long as she believes in the competence of those in her command, is a good little pack wolf.

She nods again. "Is better for a fight," she agrees heartily.

She nods. "Well that makes some sense, I suppose."

"I doubt you'd find yourself in a position for that here, though. Most of the crew seem complacent enough."

I told you I knew where it was!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

2/2

Re: 2/2

Re: 2/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject