Joss | So much for Chow Mein… [Marcus/Andrew/Ken ST]

It’s actually on purpose, or so she’d have folks believe. She bought a month long bus pass just so that she could explore the whole of the city, and this is no different. The fastest way to learn your way around is to get good and lost an find your way home.

Thus, one (batshitcrazy) Godi is waving to the bus driver as she hops off, and surveys the area around the bus stop. Chinatown. Sweet. There’s bound to be a place open with some good chowmein somewhere, right?

And thus our search begins.

So Marcus was walking down the sidewalk dressed in his usual t-shirt and blue jeans combo, empty alice pack over his left shoulder. He spots a smiling Joss looking around at the sights. He chuckles and waves to her as he yells out.*

“Joss!”

“Hey you. God this area of town smells DELICIOUS. Where too for the best food?” It can’t be right where they are, so close to the red light district… right?

Stealing stuff though, that was kinda fun. Gotta look for stores without cameras. Or wear the hood up. Gotta look for stores with old couples running the place, some young guy with a bat chasing after you attracts attention. He’d slipped into a store with cheap chinese knock-off clothes. The clerks all gave him weird looks. But none were brave enough to say anything directly.

Until he broke into a run out the door, a new pair of sweatpants, jeans, and some t-shirts in one hand as the other pumped along with his legs.

Usually at this time of night most of the self-respecting citizens of Chicago had already gone to bed, especially on a Sunday night. Of course no matter what city you found yourself meandering through there were always those denizens that found themselves never quite returning home till up until dawn. These days, with perversion and corruption run rampant, Chinatown’s Red Light District seemed to be in full steam no matter what the police have attempted.

At practically every corner of the district there were fellows harking their wares for all to see, from cure-all potions to these little blue pills promising to give girlfriend good time when give her bang-bang. In the dark alleys there also lurked the pimps, drug-dealers, even more prostitutes. It was as if past midnight the entire filth of Chicago congregated here to perform their daily injustices against mankind.

Perhaps it came as no surprise when an asian woman, of perhaps five and a half feet tall, came walking past Marcus and Joss wearing a tiny little red kimono. It barely covered her ass, but the black thigh-high stalkings and garter-belt peaking out from beneath it did well enough cover much else (if barely). Matching red-heels clicked along as she walked slowly, saunteringly, with a wink cast both towards the man and woman alike. A small purse was hung on the crook of her arm, black luxurious hair spilling down to mid-back. “Hey, big shu-gah,” she purred to him in somewhat broken English, but kept walking slowly nontheless to see if he would follow.

The unnamed prostitute sauntered, hips swaying, directly past Andrew in the process.

As she walked, still within-eyeshot of them all, the woman passed by a dark alley that seemed to absorb just about all light. Huddled on their haunches, two men sat casually looking out beneath conical straw oriental hats. They wore cargo shorts, sandles, and what looked to be a loose jacket of some sort with an odd pattern. The color of the jackets were a pale, maggot-white color over top of white shirts that seemed to of been stained by sweet-and-sour sauce.

She tried to continue walking, but the two men leaped out and grabbed her. With a loud shriek, fists beating on their bodies and heels kicking, she looked directly back at Marcus as he was the biggest in her line of sight to scream out “Help me!”

…and she trails off as that hooker goes walking by, her eyes widening as she finishes her sentence with the most ironic word of all… “….innocent….”

She blinks, and looks up at Marcus, then back to the girl, who suddenly goes ‘yoink’ and screams at Marcus for him to help her, despite the fact that she’s the one to speak up first. “Hey! HEY YOU! Let’er go!”

His sprint carried him right past Joss and Marcus. Brushing past Marcus with an elbow to the back, only caring about getting away, not really paying attention to exactly who he’d just run into.

Until he hears the woman scream. He flicks a look over his shoulder. At first thinking maybe the clerk had caught up to him somehow. Ready to dart into an alley. His eyes register in a split second two things. 1) That he knows Marcus. 2) That some woman just got yanked off the street by a couple guys.

The second one doesn’t really seem to bother him and his feet are still moving but Joss calls out and she was with Marcus. And these homid Garou were always getting into shit over their less-than-True brothers.

You always protect a lady in trouble Andrew, it’s what we do. But why? Not my problem. (Whap) It’s what we DO.

His feet slowed as he sighed inwardly and the words of his ‘father’ came back to him.

Marcus sizes up the situation, the immediate are he’s in. Two men grabbing a pro off the street, highly possible, but it could also be an ambush. Use bait to flesh the prey out and then ambush them in the alley where they have the advantage.

Unfortunately Marcus looked at himself as one of the good guys, and good guys can’t take the risk of letting an innocent. But if he could get behind them that would even the odds.*

“Nice! I bet she real tight!” cries one.
“Don’t fucking bruise her up too bad, I like her face. I wanna add it to my collection.” admonishes another.

The mortal denizens of Chinatown have at this point turned a blind eye to the goings-on. They know better than to mix themselves up between a gang and their fun for the night. After all, it was only a prostitute.

“Will you shut up her fuckin’ screaming!?” one yelled, and with a sickening thud echoed through the alley followed by the sound of a body hitting pavement.

…or worse.

She adjusts the strap on her bag, and takes a steadying breath, as moves closer, to see what exactly is going on – ambush or no.

The woman at the moment was not the problem for the would-be heroes, the saviors of this unknown prostitute. What was the problem were the two men that had originally hauled her in there, plus another crouching over the girl with his hand ripping open her dress to grope her breasts savagely.

The standing pair of men turn slightly, the straw hats having fallen back to show on what looked to be nearly dead skin. Closer inspection revealed that odd pattern to their jackets to be actual skin flayed from the heads of men and women with some hair still attached, literal faces stitched together to form a crude jacket of sorts. Claws extended from their fingertips, as they grinned sharp teeth like a piranha.

The crouching man looked to be vastly overweight by the looks of him at first glance, except that again with closer inspection revealed him to be strongly built with his belly distended, hanging low like a pregnant woman. Multitudes of mouths began to open and close on arms, legs, chest and back with teeth like a shark where a carapice hide didn’t cover his body.

A third eye bulged menacingly from the center of his forehead, red where the two original eyes were a light brown.

His sneakers skid on the ground as he spins round. But he doesn’t charge right into the fray. Not just yet. He backtracks a bit, then ducks into a narrow alley alongside the building between him, and the alley where the woman vanished. His cargo gets dumped.

Moving under the stumpy ladder of a fire-escape not quite reaching the ground, he stares up, crouches, and then springs into the air. Hands seeking out the railing to pull him up.

She glances at Marcus, he grows, and she nods. There are no words now – now is not the time. There’s a glance to mark Andrew, though she doesn’t know who he is, to see where he is heading, before the whole of her attention is on the three disgustors in the Alleyway – and as soon as she does – where only the most brave will look (and run screaming), she’s shifting, changing, snarling until she falls forward to all fours in mighty hispo form, stalking forward with a menacing growl.

The other, pot-bellied man with the third eye was still ripping open the prostitute’s clothing. His hands have found other avenues to explore now, such as her genitalia. Clawed fingers probed and prodded on one hand while the other crushed a nipple, drawing blood.

It was then that the woman made a soft whimper of pain. There was still some life left within her, but as that horrid carapiced creature’s third eye rolled to view Andrew leaping and catching hold of the railing th haul himself up, he stopped his grotesque manipulations to leave the woman. “Now, you look a tastey morsel,” he said through the mouth on his head as his multitude of mouths began to salivate along his entire body. They seemed to be laughing, those mouths, without sound.

Joss
Face-Jacket A
Face-Jacket B
Andrew
Bakemono
Marcus

Normal Action: Claw Joss
Rage: Claw Joss

Normal: Claw Marcus
Rage: Claw Marcus.
Rage: Claw Marcus

(Declare – 1wp to activate resist pain
Split first action, 1 rage.

1a bite closest baddy thats a clawin her -2
1b bite again -3
1r bite again)

The Bakemono began to shift, watching this with his two eyes and Andrew’s progession with his third eye.

The girl began to stirr. As she climbed to her feet, the bakemono merely glanced at her as the woman glanced once down at her tattered clothing. A toothy grin played about her lips as her canines elongated into fangs. A red mist about her torn dress began to form. solidifying into black armor that had a blood-red tinge to it. No mere mundane armor was this, but the Demon Shintai armor.

Marcus had been right. This was a ruse, and the real battle was about to begin. Bone blades extended from her wrists, as claws formed on her fingertips and a maddening, hungry gleam came into her eye as she channelled her P’o to fuel the Demon Arts. “Kill them,” she said with glee. “They musn’t interfere with our operation.”

1 Demon Chi spent, Activate Demon Art: Black Wind 3.

Normal Action: Advance on Joss
BW1: Bone-swords – Attack Joss
BW2: Bone-Swords – Attack Joss
BW3: Added to Melee damage pool for 1 die.

Normal Action: claw – Joss
Rage: Claw – Joss
Rage: Claw – Joss

Normal: Claw Marcus
R: Claw Marcus
R: Intercept Andrew – Jump thrust-kick.

Lather- rinse – repeat!
Split first action – 1 rage

1a bite that bastard that won’t die
1b bite him again – or if he does die, go for KJ
1r bite one more time – either the bastard or KJ)

-3

1. Bakemono – Biting Plague, to Andrew.

BW 1 – Bone Sword.

Marcus, near unconciousness but still fighting on – manages to score a hit or two but with little results. Joss, much the same. The hero of the hour at this point is Andrew.

Normal Action: Biting Plague – Andrew
Rage: Centipede’s Kiss – Joss
Rage: Claw Andrew
Rage: Claw Andrew

Normal: Claw Marcus
Rage: Claw Joss
Rage: Claw Joss

split first action – 1 rage
1a: BITE AND KILL DAT B MOFO!!
1b: Bite A (WP)
1r: Bite A or Bako (WP)

8-2 for split!

8-3

Damage

For now the three Gaian soldiers had done their duty, taking down creatures of the Wyrm without much trouble. The Face-Jackets melted to ash, leaving behind the face-skin of their jackets. The Kuei-jin was a lumb of bone and flesh, rotting still, and the deflated form of tbe Bakemono appeared no more than a deflated balloon.

Hail the Victorious.

She focuses herself, though, and does her (tired) best to send thundering Unicorn through him to heal…

(diff 2 – int+med=4)

(MT – And tn 0, but think i gotta do at least 1 for the roll to work, whatever, all suxx comin up!)

He breathes a little easier as the ribs in his chest mend, and pull away from his lung. He looks over the rest of his wounds, and grunts knowing he’ll live. It’s not that bad even if it hurts like heal. He flicks the ash and gore off of his claws, and spits out the bile from his mouth.

He shifts to his breed form of Homid.* “What the hell were those things?”

He sneezes and shoots a huge white termite looking thing from his nose. Then wobbles like a drunkard and smashes his other side into the other wall. Another resounding boom echoes out. More dust and a few bricks clatter free of their mason to land on the pavement. He shimmies and grinds against the wall, leaving a streak of yellow, red, brown, and green puss, blood, and mucus.

He even grinds his ass on the ground with a yowl and flops around on his back a few times. All in hispo. The huge thrashing dire wolf, perhaps comical.

As Joss approaches, he looks at her. Eyes flash with Rage at first, but he’s spent so much, they melt quickly into a pathetic little droop. He whines and his eyes focus on a brilliant magenta colored centipede sticking half-way out of his nose and trying to crawl back in. He looks at her and whines again, prancing side to side. “Get it out get it out!”

“Hold still.. hold still, I’ll get it out – but you have too… hold…”

and quickly, she reaches out and snags the magenta centipede out of his nose (She is Godi. She deals in Gross Things.) and flings it at the far wall, before she lays her hand on the nearest wound, takes a breath, and THEN focuses her self to heal the worst of his wounds…

(MT – And tn 0, but think i gotta do at least 1 for the roll to work, whatever, all suxx comin up!)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 1)

He stands up slowly, eyes her critically for a second, noting the wounds, before heading for the mouth of the alley. Vanishing out into the night.

A few minutes later he comes back. A small military Alice pack is over his shoulder. Guess who he stole that idea from? Canteens hang off it and something rattles around inside it. He’s stuffing clothes into it as he comes around the corner. Muttering something close to “Gaia bless you and refresh you”, as best a human mouth can handle the gutteral Garou words, he unclips a surplus-military canteen and dumps water on her head. It seeps into her wounds and eases the pain, healing some of her hurt.

Speak of the devil.. she’s suddenly wet. And a little cold. And she blinks, wiping the water from her face, sliding her hands back over her dreads as she suddenly can take a full breath. “Ah. Thank you.”

She tips her head. “Have we met yet? I’m Joss.. Joss Lehrer, Gossamer Wing. Fostern Godi, prospective Eagle.” Murmured quickly as she gathers the skin jackets with distaste. “I can cleans these – and drop them by the Wrympole on my way home, if you like?”

“Yes. We should.” Speech slow, thought out. He turns and comes over to stand over the rotting remains of the kimono killing hooker he’d killed. “Ugly inside and out.” Ugh.

And only then does he look at Joss. “Andrew, Dances-on-Fire, Fostern Gaia Child.” He looks her up and down. As though appraising her. “Maybe you succeed. You are one of Decker’s.” And he squats down by the piles of ashes.

Speaking of Marcus, he’s slid across the Gauntlet, to assure that there are no more waiting there in the wings. “He is Fenrir as well – Cliath Philodox. He’s checking the other side for any other surprises.”

She pulls the wet tank top from her skin, and continues to gather the bits and pieces into a single pile for cleansing purposes.

He helps cleanse, gather it all up, and makes a nice pouch full of ashes and bones out of the bloated sack of fat fucker’s skinbag. It all fits rather nicely. Like a mishapen soccerball full of Wyrmy goodness.