Several weeks have passed since Charlie has become the alpha. The pack's size hasn't gotten that much bigger, and numbers aren't completely replenished. Just a dozen among their number. Enough to take down the more moderately sized prey, but nothing for the largest creatures of the realm. For now, their noses have led them to what appears to be a recent arrival. About as tall as Charlie and the rest, although much wider. It looks a bit reptilian with those legs to the side of the body, although its covered in stark white fur. Its eyes are large, facing to the side. The snout is longer than hers, and the tail, to say the least, is massive. It whimpers at the side of the others, backing away slowly.
Instincts have come to the fore, while more rational thoughts have faded to a background noise, an irritating buzz that is often ignored. She should be trying to find plants to heal with, but food is more important. Keeping her pack fed and safe. Things get better as the Beast lets that hindbrain take over. Senses sharpen, amd bellies stay full.
Finding another newly made, she circles, sniffing at the air, scenting the fear. "Predator or prey?" growling, partly challenging the lizardy snowball - similar to how she was challenged by Awakodan and the old Alpha.
It hunkers down in the grass. It looks around at all of them, and then back to Charlie. The narrow slits of its eyes are hidden as they close, and it shakes its head. "I don't know. What's those things?" it growls and rumbles at it speaks. Despite the bestial voice that thunders with power, the fear is plain to see. "Where am I?" it asks.
It's big. It could be an asset to the pack, if it can hunt. Charlie circles closer, bumping her muzzle to a flank to take in the newly Lost's scent and give it a brief dig with her snout. "Pack." Answering the first before chuffing. "You are home."
"Hunt to eat. Look like predator. Smell like prey." She rumbles, tongue slapping her muzzle as she licks her whiskers down.
Sitting almost primly near the face end of the fluffy gator, she flexes her forepaws to dig the long claws into the dirt, curling her leonine, scaley tail around her paws and velociraptor-like hindfeet. The feathers bristle up, then smooth down into the furred parts of her.
"I don't wanna pack, and I'm not gonna hunt." He shakes his head, and backs up again. "You can't make me." And just then it finds its backbone and own feral nature. "You can't make me! I'll, I'll I'll bite you. And I'll eat you. Go! Go away now!"
Fear. The sour stink of it and the response... but it IS a challenge. One that has Charlie surging to her feet and bristling in response with hackles raised and those scattered feathers bristling up to add to her size. "Die alone, not have pack." She snarls, tail lashing so the tufted tip snaps against the places where scales give way to fur on her flanks, her feather tipped, long ears flattening to her canine-ish skull.
GAME: Raymond rolled 7, putting "Crocognaw" on the initiative roster at 11.
GAME: Charlie rolled 10, putting herself on the initiative roster at 18.
-> >> Raymond to Here << <-===========================================
Rolled 5 Successes for an exceptional success.
< 4 7 8 9 9 10 10 >
======================================-> >> 8 + 2 - 5 No Flags << <-
GAME: Charlie recovers from all damage.
Game: Charlie takes 6 Lethal damage.
He whimpers again, back up after the display. Its eyes widden at the notion of dying alone, and he growls. He's afraid, but now he's getting angry. When she flicks her tail out he widens his maw, and just snaps down on it. Its teeth are like razors, and sheer through skin and bone. That's gonna hurt for a while.
GAME: Charlie spends 1 Willpower
-> >> Charlie to Here << <-===========================================
Rolled 6 Successes for an exceptional success.
< 1 2 3 3 3 4 6 7 7 7 7 8 9 9 10 10 10 >
===========================-> >> Strength + 5 + 3 + 2 No Flags << <-
Is it... did he just...? She doesn't stop to see if the furry gator ate her tail, she just whirls and tears into it with teeth and claws, staining the white with red and leaving deep punctures and gashes on the tough hide of the chimera. It's swift and merciless. And it has to be - he's powerfully built and could tear her up if he gets the upper hand. Already -has- torn her up, really.
The savagery of it leaves the newcomer overwhelmed and she puts her teeth to his throat, panting around the threatening hold. "Pack or prey?" Join or die. No pressure.
There's nothing but sheer pain when the act is turned in kind. Its blood flows like a river after Charlie's attack. It roars and howls in pain, falling down and trying to right itself after that much pain. "No!" he answers. "No!"
Frustration nearly closes her jaws, but a spark of sympathy, of remembering her own confusions... she lets the beaten Beast go, turning to inspect what might remain of her tail - if anything at all for the way it bleeds and hurts. Why is this hard? Pack is everything - family, friends, warmth, hunting partners. There isn't a third choice in this place. Hunt or die. A conflicted growl rises in the back of her throat while she licks her wounds.
"No!" he shouts one more time. He limps back, still staring Charlie down. "I don't wanna be here. Home! I just wanna go home." The whimpering and now crying doesn't befit its current form, and it can't even release a single tear. The blubbering is far too obvious, though.
"Is home." Now, anyway. Muzzle and paws bloodied from the quick fight, she looks towards the Beast, head tilted. "Young. Is pup." she decides with a grimace that briefly bares stained teeth. "No way home. Here is home." she grumbles, using a paw to try and hold the big thing down so she can lick at his wounds. "Hunt or die." And try not to think about what the prey really is.
The bit of added attetnion just unsettles him further. "This isn't home. Home has apples and bed." It looks around again, but keeps Charlie in the center of his vision. "No! I won't hunt! No! No and never!" Like the petulent child he was, he shouts, "You can't make me!"
Home. The big, drafty warehouse with the fires and the scents of her work. A flutter of homesickness is an ache in her chest. "No way back. Not eat, will die. Hunt to eat. Not hunt? Weak. Sick, die." She's not overly gentle, making sure there's no nasty claw gunk in the big gashes of the youngling. "Pack is bed. Family."
-> >> Raymond to Here << <-===========================================
Rolled 1 Success
< 1 2 4 4 9 >
======================================-> >> 8 + 2 - 5 No Flags << <-
Game: Charlie takes 2 Lethal damage.
The furry croc doesn't take too kindly to the notions of family. Charlie's attentions only draw its ire further and further to the surface. The hair on his back shoots up, and he draws back again. "No! No! You're not family! You're a dumb dog!" With that he roars in anger, and bites the shit out of Charlie again.
Kindness is weakness. The new Lost proves that by digging all those teeth into her and tearing deep. Squealing with surprise and pain, she tries to twist loose of the croc's grip, unless the thing refuses to pet go and fighting would quickly become disastrous.
The beast roars again, snapping its jaws everywhere. After seeing what's happened to the alpha the other pack members steadily back up. They want no parts of this creature. He doesn't keep Chalie's leg in her mouth, but now he's slowly going back to that part of the quite literal lizard brain. "I hunt! Hunt! I hunt you!"
Charlie limps back from the mad thing as quickly as she can, mangled tail tucking as it declares intent to feast on her. "I did not do this to you." she struggles to find all the words, leaving blood in her wake as she turns and starts to run for the places she knows, limping badly and bleeding from the damage done. She can't afford to be caught by the white croc again. Not until she's had a chance to lick her wounds and heal, driven out of the pack by the desire to stay alive.
"Hunt!" he roars again. As Charlie takes off the rest of the pack does in turn, but he croc gets one of them. A loud yelping rings out behind them, and in the next few seconds it's silenced to gurgling pain. There it is. Fresh blood breaking the air again, and a scent she was once familiar with. "If this is my home, you are my prey! You! Are! Prey!"
How quickly the predators become prey. Hearing one of her packmates fall pushes her to run faster, the scent of the other's death thick in her nose.
She pushes through the pain, knowing the only breathing room will come if she can get to water and use it to travel along, to hide her scent. Whether the others come or not, distance between herself and the madness of the white beast is all she can think of. And a nagging thought for the dog in the warehouse. For the fires left untended. For her bed.
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