((Nice one Ghost! Lots of adrenaline while reading the fight scenes. I look forward to reading more on the Villain Rehabilitation plot. Also, I noticed the thread could have been titled Loup Garou vs. Hatesman, but its okay as it is - it helps the surprise element when Hates actually removes the disguise.))
((it should have been DeathMASK as well - yay for trying to hit a deadline! - and yes, we agreed on the surprise bit being the best part.
A lot of compliments in tells and on other forums, so Architect, rest assured people have read and LIKED, good job mate))
((A very entertaining read, and has made my meagre efforts look all the more ameteurish but in a good sense. This story is the standard I now aspire to. Very well done Architect.))
((I've been itching to write a fight for ages, but they can be a nightmare to do, so I'm really humbled that lots of people enjoyed it! Thanks to everyone who's read it and thanks to Netherwitch for the support, inspiration and fur covered punch bag. I think it's safe to assume the RP Roundtable was a really good idea. Rock on my friends.))
It takes Chaos to move the world to Action.
Those who recover from coma have very little to say about the experience it seems. Grief is for the living.
So apparently is imagination.
***********
Jean-Luc sat upon the shore of the Bayou Manchac, one of the few areas in Louisiana which was still harbour the Creole. A beautiful stretch of river, though harbouring hidden dangers. Jean-Luc sat upon a waterlogged mangrove, and though he noted there were no alligators, no cottonmouths, no birds, not even so much as a mosquito as the day faded into dusk and the fireflies came out, bobbing and dipping. The only noise the lapping of the bayou water against the bank in a steady, monotonous rhythm.
He wasn't hungry, or thirsty. He found himself rubbing at his chest with a hand, just over his heart, as if trying to ease a pain, but he didn't really understand why. It didn't hurt him much. When he glanced down, he noted two darkish circles, like cigarette burns long since healed, upon his flesh - though he couldn't remember for the life of him what they were doing there. Whenever his brow would furrow in thought, he would find himself once more getting hypnotised by the sound of water against the roots of the stump he perched on - slap, slap, thump, thump. A music of its own - how had he never heard it before? A rhythm of the bayou, and each wave the fading light danced upon was like a diamond in sunlight. He could see the colour of every leaf as if it was etched in jade. Every surface, every colour so brilliant it nearly dazzled his eyes, a rainbow, a cornicopia -
...no smell though. Strange.
He sat, and he thought, and then again, he frowned, as he rubbed at his chest with a hand for the thousandth time. Something bothered him, but each time he had tried to chase the thought like a mudbug beneath the water near the riverbank. It turned, twisted, and he misgauged the distance, so he'd lean back and wait for another chance.
This time, he caught it - one word, but it matched nothing in front of him, it came from nowhere. A thought from nothing.
Burn.
Jean-Luc blinked, golden eyes glitteirng in the dusklight, refracting and reflecting the last ray of the sun. He grunted, surprised, at the strange thought in his head where it didn't belong. He was busy, watching and listening - thump, thump, thump-thump -
It burned.
Jean-luc hissed breath in between his teeth, rubbing harder at his chest. Yes, it was getting hot there - odd, maybe something had bit him. But there wasn't anything out here to bite, not even fire flies would bother. Still, yes, those two marks on his chest, black as a cottonmouth's puncture wounds in his chest, and fixin' to hurt him.
It burned it burned red fire everywhere -
The pain hit him without any warning, even though it had been building steadily, like a heart attack one could almost talk oneself out of right up to the point your heart got clamped by a vise in your chest. His fingers turned into claws, clutching at his chest, and he howled in surprise and pain. His sleeves were smoking, bare feet steaming on the waterlogged roots beneath him, his mouth like a furnace, and the pain bloomed outward like a fire-flower, the smell of RED in his nostrils and making his eyes stream tears.
burning - mon dieu I'm going to KILL him - put it out put it out!
He could smell his hair scorching, smell the smell of damp wood trying to catch fire beneath him, and still he didn't move, thrashing from side to side and howling, making the bayou echo as he shrieked, all senses gone. Beyond thinking - incapable of it, Jean-Luc was only able to stare down into the beating, steady lapping water at his feet.
Water to fire...
Jean-Luc plunged forward, and the water rose up to meet him -
*********
The night-time nurse, Anna, had been warned of this sort of thing. She monitored vital signs, wrote them down on the charts, and moved to the next bed. A young boy who had been out for a year, a elderly woman who had been asleep for fifteen - and the young nurse would never voice the unspoken (but quite common) assertion that some people would be better off if they just dropped off the edge into oblivion.
She finished here and then, quietly, made her way to the Other Ward - where the meta-humans were recovering. They had to have secret hospital areas in case someone came along to finish the job, or their abilities went haywire while they recovered. It was voluntary, and Anna had jumped at the chance - one of her best friends had turned out to be meta-human and after her death, Anna had turned to nursing. There was only one meta human in this particular ward, balancing on that razor's edge between living and food for worms - if a coma could be called "living".
He'd been healed, rather expertly, though no one had inquired how. There was a name on call in case the patient's condition worsened as it seemed he had the ability to heal himself when he was aware and capable...but that time wasn't now. Yet the body and the mind were two seperate things, and some healing couldn't reach far enough....
It was all routine of course - take vital signs, flex the feet and hands to make sure there was no tendon drop, check body temperature and adjust blankets accordingly, and all the other routine bits which made a coma-ward nurse feel less than a medical practicioner and more like a housekeeper. Still, Anna was gentle and attentive with her charges, even if her patients didn't know her attentions - especially because her patients didn't know, perhaps. The comatose were so easy to neglect, and her instructor in university had spent a good three days horrifying her students with images neglect and disregard.
And so, as tenderly as ever, Anna turned down the blanket, took the temperature of the man with the silver white hair, gently dabbed at the slowly healing cuts and bruises over his eyes - whatever had happened to him had been brutal, and it was impossible to tell whether or not he had been a handsome man before his coma - and then she turned to the chart, wrote down his vital signs and turned for the door -
And she stopped again, sucking in a deep breath and biting the inside of her cheek to keep from shrieking. Even in her horror, Anna had her pride. She wasn't a first year student, and she was not going to scream, for his hand had come up without error and touched her on the wrist. Sometimes, that happened, sometimes they moved as if they were really THERE, but they weren't. Sometimes their eyes even popped open and you had to tape them down. But she wasn't going to scream, no way, not here, they'd not let her hear the end of that one -
She carefully forced herself to put a few fingers on his wrist, checking the pulse. It was steady -
(thump, thump, thump)
- and there didn't seem to be any change, but even underneath her fingers, she could feel it. It was impossible to describe...perhaps that's why it hadn't been in any of the books, but through long experience, Anna could tell the difference between being in the room with a dead body and a live patient. There was a certain presence there which science couldn't quite admit to acknowledging, but every nurse and doctor could feel it.
And then there was also that other feeling, when someone was fighting out of unconsciousness, and becoming aware...and she could feel that even in her fingertips upon the man's wrist - and in his own return grip as he clamped upon her own wrist, strong, incredibly strong, gods she hoped he didn't crush it, stupid, stupid, she should be reaching for the buzzer -
She slammed her fist down on the warning buzzer on the wall even as Jean-Luc's eyes opened and a deep, shuddering breath rushed into lungs which were just remembering how to take a proper breath. He coughed, hacking, trying to swallow, and released Anna's numbing hand whilst doing so. Nurses flooded into the room, as Jean-Luc feel back, taking in another deep rush of air. Anna expected him to scream - so many of them did - but instead, he murmured, quietly in a rather odd accent - French maybe, though he didn't look it.
"I'm gonna kill him. You see if I don't. Just see if I don't. I gonna kill dat man. Certainment. Tres' certainment."
His voice was almost conversational, like imparting a comment upon the weather. Somehow...that was worse.
With trembling hands, Anna left the next shift to deal with moving the now-aware meta-human named Jean-Luc Santeres into the proper ward...she had a fair bit of incident paperwork to fill out. And she'd also have a thing or two to say about incorrect medical textbooks.
Just going to ask a mod to move this to the creative section so it doesn't get lost.
((Special thanks to @The Architect for taking on the writing of this piece, and the role within with his character. Cheers, mate!))
Striga Isle, 4:10pm
Jean-Luc made his way up the decrepit stairs, then into the room where his contact sat in a battered leather sofa chair facing the panoramic windows. He didn't expect this to go well; something about it reeked to high heaven, and even in his humanoid form, Jean-luc's sense of smell was acute. He smelled...something...in here. Something he couldn't place. Something he couldn't trust, but then that was why he had decided to come, rather than Vanessa; she was a hero through and through, but Jean-Luc was a survivor. The proposed villain rehabilitation programme - a cross between an outreach and an "underground railroad" - was still in its secretive planning stage. Officially nothing had been said...unofficially, a lot of eyes were watching. A lot of people were waiting, and indeed, secretly hoping, something would go wrong. Jean-luc was here to make sure they didn't get the satisfaction.
Jean-Luc scanned the room...there wasn't much to see, an empty office building on the pier of Striga Isle. Just a long stretch of panoramic windows, some boxes on the far wall covered with tarps, and the silouette seated in a chair, half in darkness, half in the light of the windows beyond.
And that smell...
Bonjou," Jean-Luc drawled, his hands in his pockets as he studied the figure before him, his nostrils flaring. "You are Deathmask, non? I am Loup Garou, I'm here 'bout de rehabilitation program.
Deathmask was wearing a black robe and his namesake accessory - the Death Mask. An artefact of humanity from before even ancient civilisation, a time when intelligent primate cultures stood upright and grunted their stories over the flickering of camp-fire, the Death Mask was carved from wood soaked in the blood of sacrifice. It was legacy of primal human instinct, living onwards in whichever man or woman did possess it.
Jean-luc moved toward the window, standing with his back to Deathmask's deathly visage, seemingly marvelling at the view of the sun setting across the sea from the fourth floor. Tis quite a view, non? Somethin' those you rescue will see a lot of, mon ami... the backside of de Isles, an' hope beyond.
Deathmask's words came deep and slowly The Earth is our Mother. It is we who must protect her and her children as our family. For the freedom she grants us... until death.
Deathmask rose from his chair, and took Jean-Luc gently by the arm - Jean-Luc managed to hold steady at the touch, forcing himself not to stiffen. There was too much riding on this to react without there being a good reason to do so. Brother... Deathmask began calmly ...you mock her will! Jean-Luc's eyes - gold as a wolf's - widened for a moment, and then narrowed into slits, flaring as if glowing from within. Well, I suppose it was too much to expect dis to go easy.. His lips curled back from his teeth as his fists clenched, his claws slipping out from the backs of his hands - but he hesitated. He had the advantage, yet he did not take it. And it cost him. Deathmask grabbed his throat in a fierce grip, clamping down on his windpipe, and Jean-Luc was lifted like feather and thrown through the window, plummet towards the ground helplessly as Deathmask looked on.
Jean-Luc writhed in midair and choked on his own blood, his windpipe crushed but already beginning to heal. He was falling through the air, end over end, trying to struggle to get his bearings, [/color]his vision blurred and swirled.
Focus, man! You were waitin' for dis! Pain is nothin', pain I've known most of m'life...you gotta wait, man, you wait!!
They'd not been far up; the ground was approaching rapidly and in a few seconds the tarmac rose to greet him as he slammed into the ground. Jean-Luc focussed the back of his mind even while his lungs laboured. His regeneration began to repair the bruises and cuts across his skin, allowing himself to hit the ground with a roll, suppressing the full force of the impact. Loup bit back a yelp of pain and sprawled on his back, coughing hoarsely, trying desperately to focus as the rush of pain washed over him, turning his surprise into rage.
It was a trap, oh yes, and even he had been taken by surprise though a part of him had expected it. Now, it was just a matter of waiting, playing up the pain while his body quickly knitted together broken bones, unblocked his airwaves, and waiting, waiting for a chance to lash out. Waiting to get good and angry...
But you can't kill him, Jean-luc. You can't...if you do, it's all over with dis project. But he gonna try an kill you, certainment...hurt him bad enough, mebbe and you might live. It was true enough, Jean-luc was a hero on the "edge" already. Leaving any bodies which could be attributed to Vanessa's project would sink it before it ever got launched. Jean-luc couldn't afford that - so this was going to turn into a very difficult, and potentially lethal game of just trying to stay alive without destroying his opponent.[
Jean-luc blinked his eyes rapidly, ignoring the pain and finally honed in on Deathmask, who was now floating on the wind above him.
Ugh..Just try an' survive dis, man....dat's all you gotta do. Slow 'im down, an' Vanessa can get to work. He done exposed his hand...now, let's see if he's got de guts to play it.
Do you know who I am!? Deathmask bellowed, though his deathly face never moved. I am Liberty's Protector! I am the Scourge of the Masters! The Wrath of the Oppressed! I am your Cursed Fate, Paragonian!
The robed figure landed heavily on the asphalt, his strides towards Loup increasingly violent as he tore away his robe to reveal a Red and Black costume, tightly fitting a ripped, grotesquely powerful looking body. The man's chest emblazoned with a White Skull, he looked like a Statesman Rip-Off, and that was bad news for Jean-Luc as Hatesman threw away the final element of his disguise with a ] ripple of crimson lightning coursing across his body.
....bon...just...bon
Jean-Luc scrambled to his feet like a feral beast knocked down by a hunter but ready to bite back. By the time he gained his footing, he had changed... he could shift now in the blink of the eye, ignoring the pain of shifting bones, adjusting ligaments and muscles, ignoring the sudden assault of smells which exploded in his brain like a rainbow, concentrating on the rage. Jean-Luc was gone, and Loup Garou stood in his place; a werewolf seven feet high, sporting a coat of silver-white fur bristling on end as a warning to his enemy.Loup's lips curled back from fangs at least three inches long. Golden eyes glittered with refracted light, and elongated claws curved from the back of his front paws. Muscles ripped beneath fur as Loup Garou stalked forward on all fours, snarling.
"Dat's a big title... he growled with some difficulty, I just Loup Garou. His gaze sized up his opponent, whom he noted with some satisfaction had actually hesitated momentarily while Jean-luc shifted. En garde."
The time for deception is over beast! We bear our truths, your place will be defined in battle! The horribly disfigured man bellowed through a half gaping mouth, burnt open by the fires of war. Hatesman leapt forward with [ an uppercut that knocked Loup from his feet and rippled the puddles at the dockyards with its force. Miraculously, Loup found his feet again, but it wasn't long before another strike was headed his way, a backhanded smash that took advantage of Loup's off-stance. As the blow connected, blood, saliva and a fractured tooth sprayed from Loup Garou's muzzle, and his body followed, landing in a heap on the docks.
He's too strong. He's not even trying. Wait...no. No! I can win this, this is de ring, this is MY hunting ground, just cause I can't kill 'im don't mean I can't hurt him. I just have to hit his weakspots, cut off his power at the source So...en garde agin!
Loup felt a feral strength grow through each blow of pain; it pushed him to win when his body's nerves screamed for it to end. Loup's regeneration quickly fixedhis wounds and bruised internal organs. Loup Garou vaulted to his feet, coughed, shook droplets of blood from his muzzle, and launched a counter attack, charging at the Hatesman, his eyes narrow, focused slits of black in pools of liquid gold.
Hatesman threw another punch that Loup Garou swiftly avoided and,the silver werewolf sliced his claws up along his opponent's torso, shredding the synthetic fibres clean open. The second claw came round, slashing at Hatesmans face, followed up again by another, and another until a maelstrom of razorsharp claws obscured the Hatesman's vision. Loup Garou finished with apunch to Hatesman's gut - actually capable of reminding himself to retract the claws of his right hand first and used the force of the blow to push away from the powerhouse of a man who stood rooted in position. Loup Garou landed on all fours, pacing and growling as he watched Hatesman clutch his face, writhing about in place and dropping to one knee as he yelled muffled obscenities. Hatesman looked up; his skin was completely unmarked, but his blood vessels had flushed his face a bright red. Loup Garou's eyes narrowed...this was a problem. How to hurt an opponent who didn't bleed? But he HAD hurt him, even so.
The pain... the pain! Let it consume you, let it take you over. Forget all that went before, the dog's death is all that matters, you must survive! Hatesman's eyes lit up wildly as the Voice Inside directed his next moves with pain and broken emotions as it's fuel source.
Crush him to bonemeal, smash him to dust, he is nothing. He wants to kill you! You can't let him! Kill or be killed you moron, finish him! FINISH HIM NOW.
Hatesman roared as he spirinted with supersonic speed towards Loup Garou, smashing into his chest with a punch charged with his electrical fury. One of Loup's ribs broke with the impact but with the next hit coming fast and the electrical discharge blocking out his synapses he had seldom time to even register a reaction. Again Hatesman smashed his fist into Loup Garou's chest, and again, and again, in quick blinding succession, each impact accompanied by a discharge of electrifiying power that zapped across Loup Garou's body, overloading nerves andsingeing his fur. Hatesman rounded off his flurry with a kick into Loup's chest that caused him to spray blood into Hatesman's face.
Loup Garou took flight with the force of the last blow, crashing through one of the windows on the second floor of another abandoned warehouse, he rolled over into an empty room, anding on his side, wheezing and yelping in agony. This was too much, all his senses but smell and taste were completely blocked up by the massive amount of pain and residual electrostatic coarsing through his veins. He could smell his own burnt flesh and hair, he could taste blood but his vision was a blur and he could only hear a constant high pitched ringing that seemed to blot out everything else.
But most of all, he was furious. Murderously angry...and there was nowhere for it to go. He had to stay his hand.
Mon Dieu, I'm gonna KILL dis guy! If I could get another good shot at him. I'd take 'im down.... Loup Garou's thoughts were a snarl, red with fury and pain, a wolf's thoughts, but he fought them, rolling onto his belly. Non, can't do dat...he felt m'first attack, I know he feel de pain I deal even if he don't show it. Keep 'im mad...make him hurt. He gonna get tired soon, mebbe before he kill my fool self.
Loup Garou blinked quickly and shook his head like a dog - bones were knitting, capillaries repairing, skin healing over - before dragging himself up with help from the table leg of the nearby desk in the small room. He froze as he smelled a familiar scent again, the one he smelt in the room with "Deathmask". It wasn't Hatesman's odour. Muzzle quivering, Loup Garou carefully crouched on all fours, then focussed on the source - which surprised him.
In the room with Loup Garou was a young woman in her early twenties, dressed in a short black skirt and crimson polo neck. Her eyes were sapphire blue, piercing and calm. She watched Loup with an omnipitent smile from behind a lock of black hair, her toned, graceful figure hinted that she might be a Hero, but Loup was cautious all the same. She didn't quite smell right...actually, she didn't smell right at all. And she didn't look afraid.
Something was wrong...
Who're you? he growled in a hushed tone.
She smiled sweetly, Hello Jean-Luc, I'm here to help you. she replied as she moved closer, her heels crunching on glass and debris. Loup Garou blinked, then snarled, baring his teeth at her and keeping her within his vision, but with plenty of distance.
"I can't smell you...you smell of nothin'...only...oil. But you know m'name. Why dat, m'selle?"
Immediately, the woman halted, though her expression didn't change, and her body language still seemed the same.
Silly Wolf she said, as her voice suddenly switched to a demonic, multi-tonal, electronic sound, you can't fight him. The woman held out her hand to Loup Garou, and it exploded with a flash into a selection of whip like, hair thin tendrils. Loup snarled as they whipped forward, slithering like microfibres, strong as spider web, and wound round and round his body, lifting Loup off his feet and suspending him, kicking and growling, in midair.
You will end your futile attempts to convert the free or you will die here, Jean-Luc, and your friends in the rehabilitation program will soon follow suit! she bellowed in that same oppressive, demonic voice.
Loup's feet kicked out beneath him, struggling to find a footing. He didn't bother to argue rhetoric; instead he sliced at the tendrils with his claws, severing them from the metallic stump of the young woman's arm as he landed once more on his feet. She stepped back with a devious smile and her hand appeared again - or at least appeared to; a holographic illusion.
That choice was a mistake. The android stood to one side, directing her calm, sinister smile to the broken window. "He is here."
Loup Garou growled again, not sure whom she was addressing, but his body had nearly healed all its wounds, and while he was weary, he was ready for the fight. When the android reported on their position through her commlink, Loup Garou was hardly surprised when Hatesmen rocketed through the open window, fists raised, on his way to finish Loup with a super-speed full body tackle. Loup Garou ducked, rolling onto his back and raising his claws again in a vicious swipe Hatesman's chest as he flew clean past the were-man, smashing through the wall and crumpling into the corridor outside. Dust and slabs of concrete fell all over the crash-site, burying Hatesman's path - and presumably, Hatesman - under the debris.
Loup Garou craned his neck up as he lay on his back, catching sight of the woman who stared at wreckage. Loup Garou rolled over onto his belly, digging his claws into the floor boards as he scrambled towards her, raking his claws in a wide arc to her neck and waist - but he contacted with nothing as she disappeared, bending light around her robotic form and made her escape, only to appear again in front of wall of wreckage from Hatesman's rather rough landing, her other hand extending outward and tendrils whipping through the air to slam into the wall where Loup Garou's head had been a moment ago. The werewolf leapt backwards, rolling, keeping just out of reach of the pursuant cords from the Android's arm, then he pressed off from an adjacent wall and launched himself at her, claws out and jaws wide. Again, she disappeared and Loup clawed at thin air and landed on his feet with a snarl.
A dusty hand exploded out from the wreckage, grabbing Loup Garou by the scruff and them slamming up belly down upon the ground with enough force to crack the concrete beneath him. Hatesman fought his way free from the debris and knelt upon Loup Garou's spine, his bulk holding the snapping, growling wolf down.
He's a tough one. It is time to finish this Oswald, kill him, kill him right now, strike him at his heart.
Loup Garou wasn't taking to being held down; he counter-attacked with a furious clawing and biting Hatesman wherever he could reach, like a cornered animal gone berserk. Sooner or later, he was going to get free. Hatesman had little time; he reeled back in pain, but he shut it out, focusing his will in order to finish the job.
In a fraction of a heartbeat, Hatesman let go of the Werewolf, rearing back on his own haunches. Loup Garou immediately writhed onto his back beneath his opponent and prepared to sink his claws into Hateman's legs and shoulders. But before he could launch his attack, Hatesman extended two fingers from his clenched fist, pulled his elbow back as if he was pulling on the string of a bow and, like a Viper, his hand struck forwards at Loup Garou's chest, puncturing his furry flesh a few inches above his heart. Loup hardly seemed to notice...it was just pain, on top of more pain, and pain was rage.
Then it hit.
A bolt of thunder ripped into Loup Garou's chest, out through his spine and into the floor. The voltage surged outward, rocketing into the corners of the room, firing off crimson sparks and causing all the windows and light fixtures to explode. The power had long been cut off to this place, but all overhead lights in the warehouse flickered with a fitful crimson glow, then exploded in a shower of glass and sparks. The Werewolf didn't even have any time to howl - his body arched backwards, supported only by his head and heels, his arms drumming on the floor uncontrollably, every hair standing on end and flickering with red sparks, red current arcing from his fangs and his claws. Hatesman lifted Loup Garou's twitching, electrified body with one hand, the other still running its deadly current through the werewolf...he wanted to be sure. He wanted to be sure this one wasn't going to get up again.
Finally, Hatesman yanked his fingers out of Loup Garou's flesh, and let go. The singed body of the werewolf fell lifelessly to the floor, a final few currents flickering across his fur in the fading, blood-coloured glow of sunset. And still, to Hatesman's stunned surprise...Loup Garou lived.
He's not dead yet! Kill him, rip him to shreds! Hatesman's schizophrenic inner dialogue hadn't subsided despite standing over the scorched black body of Loup Garou.
Oswald, it is over. came a woman's voice - it was remote, and he didn't even appear to hear it, as he reached down as if in a dream. To hit Loup Garou again, to tear him apart. But there was a stinging in the side of his neck which quickly brought him to awareness; one of her tendrils impaling itself into the flesh of his throat.
In a moment, as a result of her intervention, his rage subsided and he fell backwards onto the backs of his legs, staring exhausted at Loup Garou's smoking body. Good... ORACLE... I was... on the... edge. he panted, drawing himself to his feet, using Loup's shoulder as a prop. Already, the singed fur was receding, showing blackened skin and a painwracked face, frozen in a howl of agony. His regeneration wasn't working this time...perhaps he was dead.
If he wasn't yet, however, he would be...his heart couldn't possibly continue beating with that much voltage through it, not without help, nor his breathing. Too damaged, and out of the fight...he'd been stronger than he looked.
ORACLE looked up and turned her head as if she had heard something on the wind, Architect, Meta-Humans have registered an official response and are on their way. They are dangerous and highly coordinated.
Oswald staggered to his feet. With what little energy he had left, he could only limp towards the window, a sign he wasn't fit for another battle like this one. He clambered up onto the windowsill, crumpling glass beneath the weight of his bare hands, briefly glancing back at ORACLE with a nod.
She knew what to do.
Oswald threw himself from the window in a single ape-like bound, catching the wind on his descent before flying off towards the Ocean and into the night.
ORACLE's hand once again faded to its true form, a group of writhing hair-like tendrils extending outwards towards Loup. She walked over to him, dropped to her knees and then began to scratch at the wall around his head, her tendrils moving like an over-turned spiders legs, scratching the message into the wall with a chaotic furore. As her task was completed, she stepped back and lay down in the middle of the room, her disguise as a woman dissipated completely, revealing the network of 10cm identical Wyrm-Frame tubes which made up her physical body. The tendrils at either end of every section, disconnected and lifted up their individual peice, scuttling away like a swarm of large bugs as Loup Garou's wasted body lay slumped against the wall.
She had carved a message in the stone blocks over the fallen Hero's head. Simple, but cutting, the message of the barely breathing Loup Garou adding weight to the challenge of the words. "The free do not need saving."
Loup Garou's chest convulsed, taking in a breath...the first in over half a minute. But it was not followed by another for a very, very long time.
The rescue would have to hurry.