#chapter 5.2

As a Garou fan, I love me some Garou slander.

They are a very much creatures of Rage, and because of their very nature they see everything as a nail and themselves as being born with hammers for hands. They are fighting a noble war but they are not fighting it with the nobility it requires. It’s dirty, it’s bloody, and their enemy uses every underhanded trick it can find to win, and it most always does. For every Garou that dies, four more vampires are embraced and three more fomori are born. Their ancestors failed during The War Of Rage, failed during The Impergium, failed during their coming to the American continent during the colonial era, and failed to realize that either all stand together against the Wyrm (non-kinfolk humans included) or they will all fall alone. And whats worse... The Garou Nation is failing, and your PC can either follow the party line and be rewarded, or walk the more difficult path to create true change. You face enemies more ruthless than even you, and you must be wary at times, for fanaticism turns even good intentions into twisted and impotent idiocy. You can be heroes, but The Garou as a whole are not, they are just what's left, the last line of defense. There are no pure good guys in WOD, even WtA, the only reason your player character/your pack/The Garou aren’t the “bad guys” is because you are fighting something way worse. And thats why I love it. Though we shouldn't generalize them too much, all splats/factions are complex in their own ways, no doubt.

Also, as a final thought, I would like to personally celebrate Alfabusa and his team's wider approach to WOD. They seem to be using lore from all editions, from 20th, to 5th, to even Revised in some cases. And the way they use it, in my opinion, contributes to a rich tapestry for their personal vision of the World Of Darkness.

Chapter 5.2

    Blackarachnia had pieced everything together as far as she could tell. The standing stones evidenced some sort of nascent teleportation technology. The organic creatures that lived on this strange planet weren’t afraid of her at all. In fact, they followed her everywhere. Hefollowed her everywhere, too. Waspinator wasn’t as mindless as Blackarachnia had originally assumed. Mischievous was a better word, which was a pain for her as she had spent the last couple of deca-cycles reverse engineering his fusion capabilities. Waspinator’s techno-organic insecticon form allowed him to be blown to pieces and reconstituted, a process he perfected almost immediately following the their accidental transwarp to this strange organic planet. Blackarachnia had always despised her organic mode, but Waspinator thought of his transformation as an upgrade complete with new powerful stingers, a nigh invincible exo-frame and, of course, the ability to fly. At first he was uncertain of Blackarachnia’s experimentation on his powers, but once he realized that she planned to make more techno-organisms by downloading information from his transmutation, he welcomed the idea of like company and even clumsily helped her as best he could with the research and development process.

    Through her studies, Blackarachnia realized a more immediate opportunity beyond recreating Waspinator. The creatures that had lived on this planet long ago obviously possessed some amount of advanced mechanical knowledge. If she could figure out how they powered their ancient spacebridge, maybe she could perfect their invention and transwarp back to a familiar planet.

    Then again, there was no telling if the prehistoric bridge design could be modified to work again. If it didn’t, there was always the possibility of short-distance space travel, but judging by her observations, the planet they were on was located in an isolated sector ninety-one billion light-years from the nearest planet. Her goal was to bridge into the Autobot Commonwealth near New Kaon. With any luck, her months of planning would soon pay off.

    If there was any benefit her organic half offered, she thought, it must be her ability to work harder, quicker and smarter thanks to a dual power source.

    Dual power source– her mind wandered – could they be separable?She growled at herself, Focus. Blackarachnia kicked her legs in the air, simultaneously shooting web out of the spider feelers in her back onto a branch above her head. It was easier to think upside-down. She double-checked her figures. Yes, this should work for the targeting system. Wait. What about that calculation? Something’s missing. What’s missing? Ah, here it is. Now if I just alter this little detail… one moment more—

    Waspinator buzzed past her head. Blackarachnia panicked and shot upward into the treetops. “Anything Wazz-pinator can do to help?” He whirred loudly.

    Blackarachnia shuddered with rage. Dropping like a bat out of a cave, she landed on solid ground and hissed up at him. Waspinator ignorantly repeated his question. She jumped at him with bared teeth and he gave a loud shriek before flying away. With Waspinator’s stupid interference,she thought, there’s no telling when I might finally get off this organic grass wad and onto a legitimate planet.

    She calmed herself with the idea that soon she would be back and New Kaon and able to resume her investigation of how to eliminate her organic half. At that time, she wouldn’t have to worry about strange planets or teleportation or Insecticons or Decepticons or Autobots.

Is something crawling out of that apple? Oh no, it’s a worm! ...followed by some dude who’s trying to read the letters written on the worm for some reason. How did he even fit in there? And now he’s talking to us about what he just read. Honey, let’s go buy apples somewhere else, this place is weird.

So! Last chapter, the major villains of Brockton Bay called a truce, not only between themselves but between themselves and the law, for the purpose of going after the fucker - i.e. Lung, Bakuda and the rest of the Abbreviated Body Benders. But of course, most of the villains are trying to take advantage of the situation.

I think we’ll get to see some of the consequences of that as the Arc progresses, but first, I have a suspicion that we’re in for the regularly scheduled early-in-the-Arc checkup with the Harpies. If not, I don’t really know what to expect.

Grue gave Bitch a long look, then he spoke to Hookwolf, “That’s the kind of risk you run, doing business in Brockton Bay.  Capes can and will get in your way, hero or villain.”

I mean, fair enough. The truce ought to cut down on that, I think, but it wasn’t in effect when she did it.

Hookwolf glared at him, “It’s a matter of respect.  You want to fuck with my business, and we’re not at war?  You let me know if you’ve got an issue, first.  Let me decide if I want to move shop.”

This would’ve been reasonable if the issue for Bitch had been where he did it, but that’s not the case.

“You mean give you a warning I’m coming,” Bitch spat the words, “That’s the dumbest fucking thing I ever heard.  Just so you know, moving to a different neighborhood won’t be good enough.  You open up another dogfighting ring, I’ll be visiting that one too.”

...as she makes clear here.

Oh, that’s what she’d done.  I glanced at Tattletale, then at Grue.  I was getting the impression neither of them had known.

Remember how I pointed out that Bitch has so far not been treated as an Undersider by the narrative when Wildbow briefly tricked me into thinking she’d betrayed them all? That’s still a thing even though I was wrong about the reason. Bitch is sort of disconnected from the rest, which manifests in her working alone like this.

It’s also the main reason there is any kind of uncertainty left about whether the scentless man is the Undersiders’ boss. If there’s any Undersider who’s going to have a second boss on the side that she hasn’t told the others about, it seems likely to be Rachel, just because of that sense of detachment.

“Fight to the death,” Bitch answered, almost inaudible.

Nice, Taylor. This reminds me of what little they spoke to each other during the bank robbery - Rachel might not generally want to talk to Taylor much, but if there’s one thing she’ll be willing to talk about, it’s the dogs.

Also, Taylor can support Rachel’s attack on the ring without actually siding with her in the conflict, because it’s not actually about the attack.

When your only real companions or family in the world were your dogs, I could see where that hit home.  I’d never had a dog, but the way I saw things, dogs were like kids.  They were at the mercy of specific people, and if those people decided to abuse that, it was just flat out wrong.

Yeah, I agree with Taylor’s assessment here.

“You stopped them?”

She turned her head my way, met my eyes.  “Made them bleed.”

I felt goosebumps prickle the back of my neck and my arms.  I wasn’t sure if I would feel better or worse if she decided to elaborate.

“Good,” I replied.

Yeah, fuck dogfighters. Unless they’re, like, fighting with planes. That’s an entirely different kind of dogfight.

We didn’t say anything more the rest of the way back.  Probably for the best.

Huh.

I’ve said it before: Tattle could make a good psychiatrist.

Bitch met Tattletale’s eyes.  Her tone was a combination of irritation and boredom, “And people are taking turns chewing me out and spewing psychobabble shit at me.”

...I mean, true.

Tattletale waited, maybe to get her composure, to figure out another approach, or to use her power to dig for information she could use.  Or maybe she was waiting to give Bitch time to think about how she wasn’t helping herself any with what she was saying.  I wasn’t sure – I couldn’t read her expression.  She wasn’t smiling or grinning like she usually did, though.

Poker face even when the usual poker face falters.

Oh yeah, that’s a thing too: Tattle would do great at poker even if she didn’t have her power to easily cheat at it.

Tattletale’s tone was more exasperated as she replied, “Fine.  I’ll cut right to the point.  Both of your screwups this past week had to do with a lack of communication.  If you’d called to let us know you were heading out to the money early, maybe we could have anticipated the ambush.  If you let us know you’d messed with Hookwolf’s dogfighting ring, we’d have been more prepared tonight.  So open your mouth more.  Talk to us, let us know what’s going on.  Alright?”

That’s a pretty straightforward way to say it, and hopefully an effective one.

Bitch didn’t respond, tension standing out on her neck, posture stiff, hands in her pockets.

“Think on it,” Tattletale suggested.