cops.

Alex

That random, tender little kiss -- nothing like the scorching things they lay on each other in the middle of the afternoon, tripping up the stairs and thumping into their front door in their hurry to get inside, get each other's clothes off, get all over each other -- is received in the same spirit it is given. Which is to say: gently, tenderly, and with a smile.

Afterward, she tells him how she knew he was her mate. And to be truthful, he still doesn't - may never - really know what it means. Mate. Alex is an animal, resourceful and cunning and fierce, but he is a human animal; an evolution of man back toward the jungle, but still a man. He will always be a man, and he will never be a wolf. What matters to him is that she is his: his girlfriend, his fiancee, the Love Of His Life. That is enough.

It makes him happy, though, to hear her call him her mate. Because that matters to her. It means something to her, and through her, to him.

When they turn back to the bank, they glimpse movement. A shadow flits across a window. A side door pops open. One, two lithe figures slip out. "That's them," Alex says, and drops the car in gear, gliding forward from his parking spot.

Distantly, there are sirens.

Sinclair

Everyone knows they're going to get married. Sooner or later. Spring or summer, a few seasons from now. They haven't discussed it since leaving Florida, Alex blurting out their intentions right before getting in the car because he realized he'd totally forgot, and all the Vaughns just shaking their heads at him while Sinclair gave a blushing grin, looking down though that didn't come near to erasing the smile. Nobody in her pack has brought it up, simply because mate is mate, and marriage is a second degree thing, an unnecessary but sometimes practical and pleasurable thing. The depth and reality of their relationship needs nothing else.

And this may be Alex's feeling. That the whole...proposal and ring and ceremony and paperwork of it all is perhaps a little practical, and perhaps simply enjoyable, and it seems to make Sinclair happy in this ridiculous schoolgirl-esque fashion where it would not be unusual to see her throwing the bedding over her head and kicking and wiggling in unrestrained glee. (Before, of course, going back to being ever so badass.) The relationship -- what they are to each other -- is already settled. For Sinclair, strangely enough, it did not feel entirely done and sealed until that night they snuck out into the marshes. When he was hers, by primitive law if not by man's, and he ran with her, and they made love on the ground until they were filthy.

She has noticed that the way they fuck when they're outside is... different. It doesn't make loving him in their bed any less, and she was on the verge just now of asking him (half-teasing) if they were going to take so long robbing the bank maybe they had time to crawl in the backseat and fool around. Where and when and how matters very little, but she has noticed a change in Alex -- truthfully, in both of them -- when they are near the ground, when they're a part of the earth, and it stirs her heart a little to think of it. She does not try to understand it.

She reaches over and gets a pretzel bite, munching on it when their eyes flick and catch the Ragabashes. Sinclair grins and bounces into her seat, double-checking to make sure all the doors are unlocked. "Cheeseit, the cops!" she lets out.

Alex

"Cheeseit?" Alex laughs, even as he's glancing over his shoulder in the vague direction of the sirens. "Well fuck," he adds, and accelerates sharply.

Seconds later he pulls screeching up to the curb where the two Ragabashes are skidding to a stop. The female yanks the back door open and just about throws the male in. He thumps into the opposite glass with a plaintive ow! She snarls, "Shut the fuck up. Idiot." Slam! goes the back door. "Drive. Go, floor it!"

"Hey," Alex bristles, "you don't need to tell me how to do my job. What the hell happened?"

"This douchebag here," she punches the other Ragabash hard in the shoulder, "just had to try and break into one of the big vaults to see if there were any diamonds inside. Well, guess what we found. An heirloom wedding dress worth about shitall except to some Barbie doll somewhere and a silent alarm system. Good job, douchebag." She punches him again.

"Hey, live large or go home, right?" He tries a sheepish grin, then ducks and covers as Smoking Gun cocks back her fist again. Meanwhile, Alex has pulled away from the curb and is rapidly accelerating up the sweeping uphill boulevard. Behind them, the first of the cops - and there are at least three cars - are in view, their lights flashing in the night.

Sinclair

Sinclair is snickering, but then when they get to the curb and the Ragabashes pile in, she's suddenly sharp. Suddenly aware. She's heard of these two, seen them around, but she doesn't know them. They get in, Smoking Gun snaps at Alex, and he bristles, and Sinclair looks back at her. Not with a snarl, but a steady stare, the lowest volume on her scale of warnings to behave. The two females nearly smack Runs With Scissors at his quip about living large.

She looks back to the rearview mirror and thinks, would that she were an Adren now,

would that she could just make those cars stop. But she trusts Alex. She turns around to the other two Garou. "What's the fetish?" she asks. This does seem more directed at Smoking Gun.

Alex

"That's the best part." Smoking Gun, in person, is a bit abrasive. Then again, one supposes one doesn't get the guts to take down a Fostern - a Fostern Philodox, and while a cub besides, and on a corruption charge - without getting a bit of take-no-prisoners hardheadedness to go along with it. "We don't even know. All we got told by the Grand Poombas was that it's important, can't be in Wyrm hands any longer, and needs to be retrieved." She arches her hips off the seat, digging in her back pockets. "Here, wanna see it?"

Runs With Scissors says nervously, "Hey, should we be showing her? I mean, she's not even Sept."

"Hey," Alex exclaims, "my car, my rules. Rule number one: don't diss my girlfriend like she's not even there."

"Jesus, you've got a mouth on you," Smoking Gun remarks. Then to Runs, "Whatever happened to living large? This is me, going with my gut. Or whatever other stupid thing you like to say." And she hands a cloth-wrapped object to Sinclair, small and circular, about the size of a half-dollar.

Sinclair

Sinclair reaches back and hits Runs With Scissors even as Alex is snapping at him. She doesn't knock his head off, though one supposes she could easily black him out against the window, but instead she reaches back and smacks her palm against his forehead the way one might an unruly younger sibling. She doesn't say a word, but after Smoking Gun says Alex has a mouth, she looks between them. "First of all, I come whenever your sept calls for aid, whether it's in my territory or not, whether it's for the sake of the Caern or just a favor. Second, sept or not I outrank your ass and the next time you disrespect me or my mate I will bloody you.

"Third," she goes on, turning to Smoking Gun, "he fucked up by screwing around in vaults he had no business in and you fucked up by letting him. So maybe consider giving a little more appreciation to the kin you just put in jeopardy by fucking up." She isn't snarling. She isn't snapping. Her tone, all told, is almost conversational -- like she's casually reviewing a report on the matter after the fact, when in reality they're still zooming away from the police.

If Smoking Gun even still offers it, Sinclair takes the object from Smoking Gun, weighing it in her hand before unwrapping it.

Alex

Runs, already more rattled by his Epic Fuckup than he'll let on, shrinks under Sinclair's barrage. "Just didn't wanna get in more trouble, ma'am," he says meekly. "Precautions, right? I mean, it could be a hideous Wyrm fetish that calls down a Nexus Crawler or something. Though, I guess maybe you weren't gonna, like. Use it."

Alex snorts from the front seat. He glances in the rearview mirror. He goes a little faster.

"Hey, no disrespect meant," Smoking Gun says, kicking back in the backseat. Literally: she leans back, hoists a foot up against the back of Sinclair's seat, dangles her wrist over that knee. She's long and lanky with absolutely no tits to speak of, Gun is, with dark hair slashed into razor-edged layers. Bleached blonde at the bangs. Piercings in her nose and eyebrow. Bare arms, skinny jeans, big boots. Dark, dramatic makeup. "Just making an observation, and in my book it ain't a bad thing. I got a mouth on me. It gets me in trouble but it gets other people in trouble too. More often'n not they deserve it more'n me. And your boy does have a mouth on him. Bet he knows how to use it too, hey?" And she smirks.

"Are you hitting on me?" Alex shoots back.

"Nope, 'cause your girl'd kill me for it." Gun throws an arm over the back of the seat, twists around to look. "Oy, by the way, those cops are catching up. Doesn't this heap of junk go any faster?"

"HEY," Alex yells, "Elantras are fuckin awesome."

"Well, doesn't this fuckin awesome heap of junk go any faster? God, I wish I had a cig." She takes her foot off the back of the seat and kicks at Runs with the flat of her sole. "You got a cig, d-bag?"

"Kick me again and see what happens," Runs retorts, having evidently regained his courage.

"Whatever," Smoking Gun rolls her eyes. "And by the way, Badass-Rhya, I heard ya. I know I should've kept a closer rein on Runs, and I'll own up to that when we get back to base." Another glance out the back. "If we get back. Shit, I better not get busted again."

Alex

[fetish: is a small stone disc, carven with esoteric symbols, polished smooth on one side and rough on the other!]

Sinclair

[wits (quick on the uptake) + enigmas + 1 (waxing gibbous)]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Alex

With enough study, Sinclair can begin to decipher some of the symbols. They are not Garou glyphs, but whoever made them was Garou - it is a fairly novice artificial language, with syntax and grammar based entirely off of High Speech. She can guess at the fetish's intended purpose: cleansing of taint. It seems to be usable once every given period of time - exactly how long, she's not sure of, but she can guess it's somewhere between a week and a month.

Also, the fetish itself appears to have been altered or tainted in some way. It is highly likely its current purpose is not its original, and may even be opposite.

Sinclair

This time, Sinclair does snarl. She's just turning the object over in her hands, mostly ignoring Runs' comment, mostly ignoring Gun's chatter, til she mentions your boy, which gets Sinclair's eyes back sharp on her. At the smirky little comment on Alex's mouth, she bares her teeth and snarls. It's hard for Alex to tell, driving as he is, that it isn't possessive. To Runs and Gun, it may as well be another lecture about respect. There's no way she could take it as lightly as Alex does, when she genuinely does consider reaching back and snapping the other female's neck. Or hitting her. Probably harder than she hit Runs. She is not amused by the little bitch, whatever her Rite, her name, her reputation.

"Would you two just shut the fuck up for ten seconds?" she snaps, after sentence upon sentence of their prattle, turning the disk over in her hand with a frown.

Alex takes a hard turn and she leans against the passenger door, looking the disk over. She holds it carefully up to see it in the light. "Whatever's written on here is in a kind of cipher. And it's definitely been changed from what it was when it was made." She wraps it up again and hands it back to Smoking Gun with a nod of thanks. "Who's it for?"

Alex

The snarl gets Smoking Gun back in line. She puts her foot back down, sits up a little straighter. "Sorry Chief," she says, holding her hands up. "I just run my mouth when I get nervous. Don't mean any of it, honest."

Taking the fetish back, then, "Originally? Or now? I don't know who it was for originally. It was recently in the possession of some fomor. The bank vault's under the name Cave Johnson, which is a goddamn pseudonym if I've ever heard one. All I know - all the Sept knows, unless someone's not telling me something else - is that the fomor was gonna sell it to the highest bidder. Mostly Dancers. Heard there were a couple human magician types too."

"Pansies," Runs With Scissors puts in, lip curling in a sneer. "If I sniff one within fifty yards of me I'll show 'em what good their magic is."

"That's the point, dumbass," Gun retorts. "They won't let you get that close. Their magic works from afar if they're smart." She turns back to Sinclair. "And right now, we're on our way to deliver it to the Master of the Rite."

Sinclair

"You don't need to be nervous," Sinclair says. "The sept wouldn't call Alex for this sort of thing if he weren't good at it. You're not gonna get busted again." She's calm. This is the human equivalent of Gun rolling onto her back and showing her belly. The stronger female accepts the submission and gentles instantly, accepts that Gun knows her place now, is quite happy to be friendly. The change is jarring, perhaps even to other Glass Walkers -- to any Garou not as primal as Sinclair is.

The fetish changes hands. She snorts at the 'Cave Johnson' name. "I think it was originally supposed to be used to cleanse taint, but it seems to have like... a recharge period after being used. But it's been changed, so it might be corruptive. It might have some other purpose altogether."

She frowns at the mentions of magi. "I know there are some of those types in Chicago, where my pack is. Never ran into them, though." Gun tells her where they need to go. She looks over at Alex. "You are remarkably calm for someone involved in a high-speed chase through San Diego." Twisting, she looks at Runs. "Any bright ideas?"

Alex

"We're not getting chased yet," Alex points out, flicking another glance in the rearview mirror. "They're following us, but they must not have a vehicle descrip or anything. I think if we play it cool they might just pass us -- well, FUCK."

Right on cue, a police spotlight hits the car. The backs of their heads go white from glare. Sirens whoop, lights flash - Alex floors the accelerator; the Elantra kicks it into a lower gear, snarling up the big hill up from Sorrento Valley.

"Now we're getting chased!" he shouts.

And Runs, in the backseat, stares rather startled at Sinclair. "Uhhh," he says. "I could ... jump the gap and take out the cop!"

Sinclair

Sinclair, looking back at Runs, gets a faceful of spotlight and lets out a stream of profanity as she whips around, grabbing the OHSHIT bar as Alex slams on the gas pedal. He seems to be having a fantastic time so far, and she laughs, then squints back at the other two. "Wait, what? Say that again; I was swearing." So Runs says it again. "It could work if you go non-lethal and scramble their memories," she says. "There's no reason to kill or maim them for doing their jobs -- you know, catching bad guys who try to steal heirloom wedding dresses."

She looks over at Gun. "Get back to the Caern and see if you can get some of the tech wizards on removing any info about this car or its driver from SDPD's hot little hands." To Runs again: "On three, out of the car and into crinos. We are here to stop their pursuit, not kill them. You can take a few bullets if you have to. Ready?"

Alex

"Wait," Alex interrupts the impromptu strategy session, "am I supposed to just keep driving?"

His tone tells Sinclair how much he likes that idea. Runs is totally on board - his hand is already on the doorhandle, ready to pop out and wreak some havoc. Smoking Gun, a little wiser, a little warier, looks between Sinclair and her mate, waiting to see how that resolves.

And meanwhile, the little Elantra is screaming up the big swooping hill, up to the mesas, up to the million-dollar mcmansions dotting the San Diegan landscape. And the cops are hard on their tail, closing in, swerving to one side and then the other to try to fishtail the fleeing Hyundai. Alex, swearing under his breath, matches them move for move. Just like Gran Turismo, he tells himself. Just like Gran fuckin' Turismo.

Sinclair

"Yup!" Sinclair says, and wants to lean over and kiss his cheek but also doesn't want to distract him. She doesn't need to tell Smoking Gun to protect him, to die if she has to, that Sinclair will claw her skin into one-inch strips and peel it off if anything happens to him -- they may be Walkers, they may all be a bit on the wacky side, but the fact that Sinclair is dangerous and that Alex is her kinsman, her mate, is clear enough already. She does reach over and squeezes his leg. "I'll meet you at the caern," she tells him. "Don't wo -- well, worry, but know that worrying is about as useful as chewing bubblegum to fix the economy." She doesn't tell him she loves him.

It's really not that big of a deal, after all, jumping out of a moving vehicle at high speed and fighting some police cars. Pfft.

So she turns, and grabs the door handle, and looks at Runs. She's already moving into glabro. Loudly, she counts off one, two, "THREE!" and shoves the door open, as Runs opens his on the driver's side. She launches out, snapping into crinos and not tucking into a roll but slamming enormous hand-paws into the asphalt, claws tearing at the synthetic stone, all but sending up sparks. Oh, it hurts. But only for a second, before her gift settles over her like a mantle, refusing all pain.

The San Diego police hurtle towards two warformed Garou, and she prepares to grab the front grill.

Sinclair

[FTR: -1R to crinos, -1WP for Resist Pain]

Alex

"HEY," Alex says; his tone says he's about to protest. But then there's a split-second pause. And instead, he glances at her quickly, just a flash of his eyes, "Be careful."

And the doors bust open near-simultaneously. Wind howls through the cabin. Sinclair leaps out, the blacktop rips skin from her pawpads but that's closing up even as she's launching herself into the air. She bursts into her hugest form and through the windshield she can see the two cops inside, their dinner plate eyes and their slack jaws, the one riding shotgun - literally, he's got the police shotgun in his hands - screaming a OH FUCK ME that she can't hear before

she's slamming onto the hood, crumpling it down against the engine in a heartbeat. The car spins out of control. Beside her, Runs rips the top of the police cruiser off. He's not large, Runs isn't; he's a little shorter than Smoking Gun, in fact, but he's a veritable little ball of muscle and he puts that to good use. The top goes flying, lights flashing once more and then dying as the wires sever. The police cruiser, totally totaled, goes spinning off the road and slams into the drainage ditch. Airbags deploy. The two cops are unconscious, which is probably a blessing. They'd be screaming their heads off otherwise.

It's not over yet, though. There are two other cruisers climbing the hill, lights flashing, sirens wailing. They'll be here in about five seconds.

Sinclair

This is more fun than Sinclair will readily admit. She feels no bloodlust tonight, even though the waxing moon licks at her predatory instinct and seethes, urging her to hunt, kill, bring the slack-bodied prey home to her den, to her mate, to fill her belly and his with fresh meat. She keeps her attention perked towards the Ragabash nearby, knowing he's already gone off-book once tonight and if he does so again he could get someone killed. She sees the shotgun and roars directly at the cop inside holding it, a warning that spikes through his viscera, sets alarm bells ringing in his head. She lets him see the intelligence in her eyes, even if later on he will convince himself this is not possible, this is not what he saw. She wants him to fear, right now, that she can and will win -- can and will hunt him down -- can and will punish him if he fires.

He doesn't. They crumple the car, tear open the top, send it spinning. Sinclair follows it with her eyes, and she can't see if the two officers inside are alive and unconscious or dead and gone, but she doesn't have the time to worry about it, or to check.

"Both at once this time!" she snarls at him in the high tongue, making a snap decision. "Push them back!"

Alex

Police are trained for this sort of thing. High speed chases, uncooperative suspects. They're trained to work much as wolves do. Lights, sirens, horns, shouting: shock and awe tactics, all to confuse and bewilder. Hunting together, in packs, the lead car driving the prey off the road, the backup closing in for the kill. Or collar, in this case.

Except the lead car was utterly incapacitated when it attempted to push the Hyundai off the road. That Hyundai is long gone now, whipping away up the hill, just two pinpoint dots of red in the night. Then gone. And the two backup cruisers --

well. They do something not quite in the police books. About a hundred yards away, both slow to a stop. Their spotlights are fixed right on the werewolves, blinding them. The engines are idling. There's no sign that the drivers are panicking, are lost to delirium. There's no indication either cruiser is going to charge and suffer the fate of the one in the ditch.

[toss me a percep+alert or percep+PU with next post!]

Sinclair

Sinclair is perched on the road with Runs, ready to grab the next car, knowing she has to take this one on her own, knowing she has to trust Runs to disable the other one by himself, and considering how quickly they destroyed the first, she's not concerned. She knows that Alex and Smoking Gun are tearing ass to the caern and she hopes to god the Ragabash is smart enough to call the caern ahead of time to get them off of Alex's ass, get his plates and anything else wiped, do what the older Ragabashes of a sept like that are supposed to do. What they did after she killed Kenneth. What they do for cubs and for Kin.

But then the cars slow down. Then stop. Their sirens howl and their lights spin around, their spotlights blinding. Sinclair moves closer to Runs, on all fours, her tail swishing tensely.

[perception + PU +1 (moon)]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Alex

Particularly at night, it's nearly impossible to see past the intensity of those spotlights. It's nearly impossible to hear anything over the demented wail of those sirens.

Even so, Sinclair catches glimpse of it in the nick of time: a dull gleam of metal out of the passenger-side windows of those cruisers, raw instinct screaming at her to move, bitch, get out the way! an instant before

the sharp staccato of automatic gunfire splits the air.

Alex

[this is for I'M FIRIN MAH LAZER. roll some sort of defense against this!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )

Sinclair

"MOVE!" Sinclair roars to Runs when she sees the gleam of metal, when her moon-heightened senses shriek at her to get down, get out of the way, do something. She leaps aside as she snarls the single order, turning her side towards the car.

[dex + dodge + 1]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )

Alex

[akshully, i was chargin mah lazer. NOW I'M FIRIN MAH LAZER.]

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Sinclair

[soak!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 5 )

Alex

Bullets tear up the night. Tear up the road. Tear into Sinclair, but don't really do much damage. One goes through her calf, through and through. The wound closes up even as she's leaping aside, rolling aside, getting under cover. An instant later Runs's back hitting the car beside Sinclair's. He's panting, and he wasn't as lucky. A bullet grazed his shoulder. He's bleeding, but his flesh is mending.

They can feel metal shuddering against their back as bullets riddle the car from the other side. Those cops inside were unconscious, but they might be dead now. Sinclair can smell hot blood, hot gunpowder. "What the fuck!" Runs yells. Or well; the Garou approximate of such an expression. "Since when did cops carry automatic rifles?"

The answer, of course, is never. The first volley over, the two cruisers begin to edge forward for a better angle, engines gunning quietly closer.

Sinclair

[rage]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (3, 3, 5, 9) ( success x 2 )

Sinclair

"Not [cops]!" Sinclair snarls back, as blood drips down from repeated bulletholes in her fur, her flesh. She doesn't even feel it. It doesn't do much to her. She is a goddamn werewolf, and her body shows the non-cops where Hollywood got the idea for that scene in X2. Bits of metal are pushed out by healing flesh, striking the asphalt with little clinks and rolling aside as the wounds close up. If she had the time, she'd smirk.

Then the car shudders, and she snarls, thinking that the officers are dead now, dead, when they didn't need to be. Rage boils up inside of her, fury at an attempt to do something right, do something good, walk away on one of those good days when everybody lives,

going wrong. Going like this. She thrashes her head, those pale eyes of hers flickering with wild fury, and makes another hard, fast decision.

There is a great depth of warmth and compassion in Sinclair that the world keeps telling her does not work, cannot compute, won't fit. She wants the people who don't do anything wrong to live. She wants cops to get to go home to their families, get medals for honorable conduct in horrific circumstances, make the world think about higher things than how much everything sucks and cops are pigs and the world is fucking ending. Sinclair is, at her heart, very tender. Had she changed in other circumstances, had her parents had any clue it was coming, she might not have become quite so vicious quite so quickly. It's been a long road to where she can begin balancing her rage and her hunger with her sweetness and her softness.

But she has run with Shadow Lords and Silver Fangs and Get of Fenris. Rumor has it that her family line, traced back far enough, may be the twice-removed-third-cousins of the kin of a Fenrir hero's sidekick, or something like that. With her flaxen hair and pale eyes she has been mistaken for a Get of Fenris many times. The Fenrir and Lords in particular are not gentle tribes. You protect your pack, your kin, your tribe. You protect your sept. It is all too easy to say fuck the mortals, to go out of your way to kill them just for existing and existing in such great, choking numbers, but Sinclair refuses that usually. She is a Glass Walker. She is a Warder of Men. She guards her pack, her kin, her tribe, her sept and the septs she passes through. She guards Gaia. But she tries, as well, to take care of the humans who aren't tainted, who aren't doing anything wrong.

These ones, even if they aren't mortal, even if they aren't human, have no respect for life. Have pursued her mate, shot those she tried to protect, shot her ally, shot her, and the hard, brutal decision she makes now against all softness and sweetness in her is this:

it doesn't matter to her anymore if they are cops, or if they are human, or if they are tainted by the Wyrm or not.

"Kill," she tells Runs. "Blur and come at them from behind."

With that she rises up, twisting, and launches herself over the wrecked cruiser, letting out a roar that shakes the entirety of the financial district.

Sinclair

[-1R TO HISPO W00T]

Sinclair

[steel fur: stamina + science, -1WP]

Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Alex

Sinclair's roar blasts through sage and juniper bushland; resounds off the distant walls of the canyons. Somewhere out there, mortals in their expensive little suburbia castles stir restlessly in their sleep. A few night owls hear the noise and wonder

what the fuck is up with the coyotes tonight?

Here and now, the roar doesn't even seem to make the not-cops' aim falter. As she bursts out of cover she takes them by surprise, but there's no wide staring eyes and mouths forming words of terror and sick realization of doom. There's only machine-smooth motion from the passengers, the muzzles of automatic rifles tracking upward to follow her path

even as the drivers throw the cruisers into reverse, tires squealing as they try to keep her at a distance. That's where she's at a disadvantage. Their guns have range; what's more, automatic rifles need a certain range to do the most damage. Too close and the bullets just go through and through. A little farther, though, and they tumble through flesh. A little farther still, and they ricochet inside body cavities, destroying everything in their paths. There's a science to all of this, and the men in the SDPD uniforms who are most definitely not SDPD know it well.

[i'm shootin! +1 for moving vehicle, +1 for moving target]

Dice: 10 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 10) ( fail )

Alex

[i'm drivin! +1 for backwards. sinclair: roll dex+ath against this roll to catch up! this is car 1...]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( fail )

Alex

[car 2!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Sinclair

[NOTE TO SELF - EDIT POST LATER. CUZ. DEY NOT DOWNTOWNISH.]

Sinclair

[dex + ath + 1]

Dice: 10 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 1 )

Alex

Test!

Dice: 20 d10 (7, 6, 9, 6, 10, 8, 5, 7, 3, 7, 5, 2, 4, 8, 5, 9, 4, 8, 8, 8)

Sinclair

[CHOMP 1a! dex + brawl + perun + 1 -2 // +2 diff]

Dice: 12 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 2

Sinclair

[damage! str + sux - 1 + 2 (hispo)]

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1

Sinclair

[1b chompin' again!]

Dice: 11 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Sinclair

[damage!]

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Sinclair

[rerolling damage for the first bite since it screwed up]

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 7 )

Alex

The cars don't get very far. The asphalt is old and beaten here. The traction isn't great. One car just spins its tires - right up until Runs drops cloak next to the driver and slams a knife into his ear. He doesn't even have time to scream. The base of the brain severs; the driver slumps forward, dead as a doornail, hitting the steering wheel hard enough to start the horn blaring.

Sinclair was right: the name's a double entendre about Runs' weapons of choice. Butterfly knives, big enough for a crinos to wield. Look a bit like scissors, really. "[BOOYAH!]" Runs howls - literally. "How do you like that, you -- "

He's young. He's reckless. He didn't for a minute think the gunman, after watching his partner get taken out like that, would actually react. But react he does. The muzzle of the assault rifle snaps around. The gunman opens fire, automatic gunfire barking into the air. The Ragabash twists and drops, trying to protect his vital organs, but quick as he is he can't outrun bullets. They rip through his fur, punch right through his chest. Blood spatters the pavement. The Ragabash hits it a second later with an enormous THUD.

He's still alive. Barely. His breath is rattling in his chest, and meanwhile the gunman is wrenching the car door open and shoving his dead partner out and climbing into the driver's seat and

while this is happening, Sinclair is pursuing the other car. That one actually moves. Tires smoke and spin, but the cruiser starts to lurch backwards. Not fast enough. Fur gleaming, Sinclair closes the gap. That car's gunman is firing too, but the movement throws his aim off. Bullets cut the air, whipping past her fur, glancing off the steel tips. She weaves through the assault

and then she's on him, teeth tearing into his arm, and he's not a machine after all, he's flesh and blood and so fucking weak, like paper, he screams as that arm comes off at the shoulder. There's blood everywhere. He's trying to crawl away from her, but she shoves her head through the window and snaps his throat out.

The driver floors the pedal. The cruiser's tires spin again, screech against the pavement, and catch.

Sinclair

BOOYAH, Runs says, and she knows he's younger, he's reckless, he didn't think to whip around or climb over the car and take out the gunman as well. She knows because a second later he's riddled with gunfire, he's dropping heavily to the pavement and bleeding, and she's got her own problems to deal with. Should she have told Smoking Gun to stay with her? Could she have possibly known ahead of time that these cars might be operated by something other than Good Ol' Boys? Would she have ever left Alex in even slight danger without a Garou nearby if she could avoid it?

But back to her own problems. The here and now. The car she reaches into with her maw, bloodying the interior in a couple of quick, hungry snaps. She grabs hold and wrenches his arm off, she drops it without thinking and tries to do the same with his head -- succeeds only in carving halfway through his neck. Good enough. The car jerks as it catches, and there are two cars now, two drivers, one werewolf. Two cars that could take off after Alex. One car that could be readying to plow over Runs and finish him off. One car that she's already standing on.

Sinclair claws her away cross the hood of the car she's on and lunges for the other.

Sinclair

Sinclair

[SINCLAIR EVERYWHERE]

Alex

The other car is, in fact, doing exactly what Sinclair suspects. That gunman has killer instinct in spades. His dead partner has slumped to the pavement, the door is still ajar, he hasn't even settled himself into the driver's seat before he's flattening the gas and throwing the car into reverse. The front tires roll right over his dead partner. Speed bump. Then a flash of brakes, a hard shudder in the car as the gunman-turned-driver puts it back into forward.

As Sinclair goes airborne, she can see the car's tires turn to aim toward Runs, who's still moving weakly on the asphalt. He sees the danger. He can't possibly avoid it. Sinclair lands on the roof and the engine screams and the tires go babumpbump over Runs - hot red blood splashes out of the Ragabash's mouth, spatters wetly on the pavement. His eyes roll back, his head drops back, he reverts to homid and Sinclair might think he's dead but he doesn't smell dead

yet. The difference is so small as to almost not matter. But there's this at least. She's distracted the driver. She can hear the metallic clack of his rifle slapping back into his palms, the thump of the muzzle pointing at the roof of the car just under her. She has about an eyeblink before he fires.

Meanwhile, the other car - granted an almost-impossible reprieve - takes off in a mad squeal of tires. It nearly fishtails off the road and into the canyon before the driver gets it back under control. Windows shattered, one doorframe crunched by the enormous force and weight of a Hispo slamming through it, seats bloodied, it whips away up the road.

Sinclair

[raaage!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

Sinclair

Either way there's a chance one or both of the cars are going to take off after Alex. But one way, there's a chance her ally dies. So she believes in Alex and Gun's head start, the time they've been bought, and she goes for the car that might send Runs over the precipice.

Not that it matters. She can't tell in an eyeblink if he's dead or not, gone or not, he looks dead, his body changes, and she doesn't know. Sinclair feels it coming up again. That rage spikes outward from her heart and mind, impaling her from within, and for a moment she sees white.

But not red.

She jumps from the roof of the car, twisting in midair, and hardly so much as lets her paws touch the pavement before she lunges for the window at the driver.

Alex

Gunfire. Bullets zinging straight up to fall like deadly hail later. The gunman, she sees him in profile, his face contorted in a mask of hate, blasting holes in his roof where he thinks the goddamn werewolf is. But she's not there. She's beside him, and he feels her hot breath and snaps his face around

just in time for Sinclair to rip it off.

Then there's stillness. Not silence, no: there's still the puttering of the engine, the rasp of her breath. Every inhale tastes of copper, every exhale of rage. And - there's the thin, thready gasping from the Ragabash on the ground. Not dead, then. Not quite dead.

Sinclair

She does not rest. She feels the bone of the man-thing's skull crush under her jaws and she relishes it, tears through him knowing that if there's anyone to identify him it'll have to be dental records, it'll have to be DNA, because there is nothing left of his face and she enjoys that knowledge. But only in a flash, burning through her like the rage itself, as she turns away from him and yanks -- with those bloodied teeth -- a small bag from her fur, as though it was hidden underneath, a bump under a blanket.

It takes patience and attention to get the gourd out, to put it gingerly on Runs' chest, and then smack it down with a paw. She fails once, dropping it, and snarls, barking out her frustration, then gets it. Reddish-gold energy, rather than pale blue or green, explodes with imaginary sparks on top of him, the color and feeling of Sinclair's energy -- so very off-putting to gentler spirits. She does not wait for him to come around. She begins running, tearing off in the direction of the car

that is chasing her mate.

Alex

A wolf - even a supernatural wolf such as Sinclair - tops out at thirty-five, forty miles an hour. Insanely fast compared to a human's bipedal lurch; pitifully slow compared to human machinery, human traffic. There's no way she can possibly catch that second car now, but she tries anyway. Of course she does.

And then somewhere in the distance, she hears gunfire. She hears an enormous crash, metal shrieking and ripping, a hairraising roar. After that, silence.

When Sinclair gets to the scene, there's only one car there. It's the last police cruiser, utterly totaled. The driver is unrecognizable, the passenger red meat beside him. And Smoking Gun is sitting on the back bumper, her sharp-featured face lit from below by the still-burning taillights. She's found cigarettes in one of the dead guys' pockets. They're bloodstained, but she's smoking one anyway, giving Sinclair a jerk of her chin as the stronger wolf comes up the hill.

"Your guy's on the way to the Sept," she says. "I had to stop to clean up our trail, and then I figured I might as well wait for you. Not like we'll catch him running anyway. But maybe this heap of scrap metal'll still run."