The Specific Moon Warp Change [Closed]

[wereperrito]

Who: Jack, Serph, John, Heat, and SecUnit; maybe Faith later?
What: The werewolfening
When: During the moon warp night only
Where: Inside a building a mile or two out from the convoy
Warnings: Interpack tensions, pack link being weird, a painful transformation



Jack and his little pack of protectors has found a somewhat-secure building a little ways from the convoy, as far as Jack thinks he can make it before transforming, and they've even got a concrete room with a few working doors and barricades between him and the streets outside.

The moon warp warning is bouncing through their radios as Jack hastily settles in the middle of the room, helping get the ropes and handful of chains he's collected wrapped around him and tied or, in the case of the chains, padlocked in place. SecUnit has the key, because of all of them, he trusts SecUnit most to keep its head. (He loves Serph and John, but they both had an issue last time, and he is taking every precaution he can, here. Heat, he does not trust for this task yet, at all.)

"It should be any minute now," he says, tucking his tails tight against his thighs. This will be the first time SecUnit and Heat see him do this. Heat, he's pretty sure, doesn't even understand what's happening.

Comments

Pre-warp

[serialmurderbot]

SecUnit has found a spot a middle distance away in the room - not up against the wall, decidedly separate from the eclectic collection of guards Jack's transformation has amassed, the way it clearly wants to be. It's been near-silent since accepting the key, which got tucked into the compartment under its ribs with a little maneuvering and a stare that challenged anyone to comment on that, or the contortions it had to go through to get the damn thing put away without revealing more than a flash or two of its frame and the mechanical pieces obviously integrated with the flesh.

And now it just stands there like a mannequin. Like it's used to just standing where it's been placed for hours on end (or maybe like it's been playing a show in background. Or reviewing footage of its last encounter with the werewolf, the one it very pointedly didn't tell Jack much about, the reason that it has to make do with the facemasks instead of the helmet it started out with). Only when Jack says that does it glance in his direction, attention settling on Jack's hands and posture. "Acknowledged," it says, and then, because it probably shouldn't leave things at that like a complete asshole, it adds, "There's a building to attack again if it goes wrong."

Nailed it.

Re: Pre-warp

[wereperrito]

You did nail it, SecUnit. Jack gives a weak little laugh, from where he's tightly bound on the floor. He's clearly nervous, even though he's done this so many times he can't count then anymore. He's always a little nervous.

"The wolf really did not like that tower, no," he agrees. "He's never done that before that I know of, but my memories of what he does are, um, hazy. So it's possible he has." He doesn't think so. He just thinks that tower was awful, with its trapped monsters.

[iron_stomach]

All of this seems very excessive to Heat, who hasn't actually bothered to ask any questions about what's going on, and picked up a few things through osmosis at best. Jack's concerned about his demon getting out of control .. okay that's reasonable, but why not just let it have its fun far from the convoy and get it all out of Jack's system?

Any minute now. Like this has happened before, an unpleasant routine. It still seems excessive. Jack's harmless. SecUnit is studied, then Jack, then all the bindings. "So is there a reason we're not just letting you do your thing in some other part of the city? Have fun, devour a few monsters?" As long as nobody important was nearby, what's the problem with a temporarily berserk demon?

[wereperrito]

"Unlike you and Serph, when this happens to me, I lose my mind," Jack explains patiently. "I am not me anymore. I do not recognize friend or foe, I do not know what those words, or any words, mean. I will try to hurt the people we are with. Maybe even all of you. And I am much stronger and faster and angrier."

He shrugs, awkwardly due to the bindings. "I do not like hurting people. Serph and John and SecUnit offered to help keep me from doing that."

[bufudine]

Serph has been quiet all this time, content to let the others speak. Keeping watch hasn't been something he had to do as much in the later years of the Junkyard; as the Tribe's numbers swelled, so too did his active participation in such activities. But it isn't like he has forgotten what it is like to simply wait, alert.

Serph knows it all sounds like a temporary berserk state -- and in many ways it is -- but aside from Jack's desire not to hurt anyone, the other thing is...

"We don't know where he would end up and how injured he could get while in such dangerous territory." It would be easier to get separated if they had to follow a transformed Jack to keep track of his location. With not just aggressive monsters but also cyborgs, the likelihood of getting attacked themselves would be greater. "A comrade shouldn't be alone when they exit that state."

Much less one who cannot fight, usually.

He has a personal stake too, after what happened last time. But he wouldn't let that take priority over other options.

[serialmurderbot]

It's plenty of explanation, on both Serph and Jack's part, and with plenty of patience and insight. But, well - it is kind of weird that they're all standing around watching Jack tangled up in a ball of chains. It's almost enough to make them want the change to start happening just to get past this situation.

SecUnit would be fine leaving it at that, but it can imagine the I can take you coming (not that it can specifically fault Heat for that. It will, but it's not like it hasn't thought the same thing, even after its encounter with the werewolf. It was taken off-guard by that encounter, and experiencing its own reaction to the Moon Warp. It wouldn't happen again). Rather than add to those arguments, it glances towards Heat, almost but not quite staring him down.

"That's what he wants."

Because in the end that's the important part, isn't it?

[iron_stomach]

Heat's not watching Jack directly, more the network of bindings keeping him in place. He hears the explanations, from Jack first then Serph (and SecUnit's words too. But what did that have to do with anything?), but it still seemed. Strange. Berserk demons were an occasional risk. Some came back from it. Others ...

But that didn't apply here, they weren't talking about it like there's a risk of forever, just temporary problems.

"That can happen to us too," he concludes eventually, picking through it all bit by bit. Here there's no-one to bring them back out of it though. "Most of the time it's us. Sometimes it's just the asura." And yet he felt no need to make preparations for Varuna's potential savage rampage, or Agni's. There were logistical complications, he supposed, in cutting someone out to let them run when it would be hard to catch up to them safely or protect them from outside threats without becoming part of the casualties.

SecUnit's right, he's certain he'd be able to go toe to toe with whatever Jack has that he can't control. But hurting him unnecessarily sat uncomfortably. Jack was after all, one of the very few to decide being Embryon was better than not being one.

[wereperrito]

"Where I come from, 'demons' are not very common," Jack says with a little sigh. "I get hunted for what I am, my head would be on someone's trophy wall if I got unlucky. I used to lock myself up, or run far enough away that I am not a danger to anyone, but I can't do that here. There is nowhere secure and not enough time to get far enough away."

He looks down at the ropes around him and finishes with, "I do not want to hurt people."

Change time!

[wereperrito]

When the moon warp actually rolls over them, Jack stiffens, lets out a little whine in the back of his throat, and then a louder, more pained noise. The chains don't let him writhe or even twitch much, but he moves like he wants to, as his arms and shoulders start to bulk out, fur starts to grow, and his face warps into something slightly more bestial, with fangs and sharper eyes and his fox ears melding into smaller, thicker wolf's ears.

His tails remain the same. Honestly, compared to the demons' changes, it's not much of a change at all, but it still sounds, and looks, like it hurts.

[bufudine]

Serph has seen Jack's transformation once before, when Jack's guards were only John and himself. Even though the changes aren't as dramatic as he or Heat's, but the involuntary nature of Jack's transformation makes something inside him feel a twinge of emotion.

It's strange to cloak himself in Varuna's form to temporarily evade the moon warp's influence when usually he must shed Varuna's form to keep his mind. But last moon warp was a pointed demonstration of how tenuous that resistance is; that in some ways the moon warps' monstrous influence and his demon's impulses are indistinguishable.

But he remembers Jack's sad expression when seeing his sister and the wolf reflected from the waters' surface. Serph had wondered what the wolf wanted. Jack doesn't know; he can only see the trail of destruction.

So he transforms and sits himself down close to the wolf, observing his reaction. He hadn't spoken to the others of his conversation with Jack, of his desire to understand the wolf better as a result. He's not sure how to communicate with the wolf, so he tries with a quiet, "Do you recognise me?"

[wereperrito]

The wolf does. Serph's smell is wedged deep in his brain, though he has no names or real memories to attach to it. Something about being piled together while they slept. Something about pack.

So he bares his teeth half-heartedly at Serph, then turns his single-minded attention to trying to twist his head enough to bite at his bonds.