Experiment
Escapee
31 years
95 posts
0 likes
Played by Scorch
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Post by Drew Schultz on Jul 2, 2016 16:20:17 GMT -5
His bosses liked to do business in the basement of the Wandering Mule. Although they trusted him enough as a bodyguard, they always left him upstairs when they went down to a meeting. He hadn't been with them long enough to be privy to the information that was changing hands down below. Lifting a glass to his lips, he took a long sip of the golden honey whiskey in the glass, savoring in the burn against his tongue before he swallowed. With his ridiculous metabolism, it was all but impossible to get him drunk, but that didn't mean that he couldn't enjoy the flavor of good whiskey. The burn in his throat faded as it went down, but it was something of a novelty. Fire didn't burn him, but alcohol did? It was a strange thought.
The Wandering Mule was a quiet bar, not seedy like the ones closer to his apartment. There weren't people staring at him, wondering if the drinks would make them tough enough to take him on. It was a nice change of pace, to be honest. His size attracted all manner of trouble, and he wasn't eager to get the police called on him. Glancing around the quiet bar, he sized up the old man in the corner and the couple in the corner who sipped on trendy martinis while discussing some random band he'd never heard of. The bartender kept a similarly close watch on him as he turned back around and drained the last of the liquid from the glass. Pushing the glass across the worn black wood of the bar, he tapped the edge of it again.
With a lifted eyebrow, the middle-aged man filled the glass with more, clearly still wondering about the lack of ice in the glass. Unusual drinking habits aside, this was the third such glass that Drew had drained in the past hour, and his bosses weren't showing any sign of coming back out. If he hadn't been able to vaguely hear their voices through the door that led to the basement, Drew might have been getting worried, but this was just another aspect of the job.
"You're not going to make any trouble, are you?" the chubby bartender inquired, placing the bottle back where he'd found it. "We don't normally get rough types in this neighborhood."
Drew lifted his eyebrows at that, taking another sip of his whiskey. Even with his clean black suit, the bartender seemed to be able to tell that he wasn't the typical high-class or elderly crowd that was his usual fare. Still, the insinuation was irritating, especially since Drew hadn't spoken to anyone. It was only his watchfulness and the scars on his nose and neck that were putting the old man on his guard, but such simple logic beyond Drew, who could only know himself from his own perspective.
"No, sir," he answered, his low bass voice seeming to unsettle the man more.
The bodyguard ignored the nervous man entirely as he continued to sit quietly, leaning forward on the bar supported by his elbow. This was looking to be another long night.
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Inv. Lupin
Civilian
Teen
27 posts
0 likes
Played by Izzy
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Post by Kazuko on Jul 2, 2016 16:42:34 GMT -5
Kazuko walked into the bar quietly, she had gotten very little money but it was maybe enough for some cheep bar food. Before she went up to the bar to see what she could get she crept around to the back corner that was rather dark. She didn't trust much to be at her back, especially not people she didn't know so she used this chance to watch how everyone was and to see if anyone had noticed her or was approaching her.
Due to how on guard she was she couldn't help but notice the menacing aura that surrounded the burly man at the bar, she shivered at just the sight of him. Even more curious, however, was the fact that, even from here and through the smell of alcohol, she could faintly smell some kind of wolf's scent coming off of him. To her this could mean one of three things; either he was friends with some kind of wolf or wolf supernatural, he was some kind of wolf supernatural, or he had recently killed a wolf or wolf supernatural. She hoped one of the first two were correct but she needed to be on guard in case it wasn't. Cautiously she walked up to the bar beside the brute, the easiest place to get the bartenders attention.
"Excuse me, what food could I get for about five dollars?" She asked cautiously, it seemed pretty obvious that she didn't have much money, considering how thin she was and how ragged and loose her dress looked on her, and she had gotten thrown out of a few places because of it.
"Well, we have nachos for $4.50 but that's about it," The bartender said with a hint of feeling sorry for her in his eyes.
"Okay, I'll take it I guess," She said, handing over some of what little money she had scrounged up that day, three ones and quite a bit of change. She didn't prefer human food but her hunting had been having sparse results so she had to do what she had to do to survive.
While she stood there waiting the few minuets for her food to arrive she tried to ignore the man beside her but the wolf scent was stronger here, though not by too much. Still she did her best to keep her gaze away from him and on anything else in the room. Though her curiosity got the best of her and she would glance at him every few seconds.
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Experiment
Escapee
31 years
95 posts
0 likes
Played by Scorch
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Post by Drew Schultz on Jul 3, 2016 9:52:42 GMT -5
Drew's eyebrow raised as a teenage girl sidled up along the bar next to him, but he turned away as he smelled the fear that was entwined with the scent of wolf. Was she a werewolf? The thought made him square his shoulders in an instinctive defense, and the glass paused on its way up to his lips. Turning to glance at her out of the corner of his eye again, he registered the shabby clothing, the hesitance as she glanced back at him, but more importantly, he could smell the hunger that he'd been ignoring. If this was an operative of Axium, they weren't treating her very well. But how dangerous could she be, as small and poorly fed as she was? The wolfish instinct to drive her off battled with the very human drive to feed a hungry and desperate girl, and he covered the conflict in his eyes with another sip of the whiskey. Clearing his throat, he sighed and put his glass on the bar carefully.
"Hunting not going well?" he asked, his voice too low for the nearby humans to hear. "From your scent, I'd wager you don't spend much time in the city."
Pulling his wallet from his back pocket, he unfolded it and fingered through the small stack of bills inside. He pulled the back bill, a twenty, free from the stack and placed it on the bar. Glancing over at her, he slid it with his fingertips until it was closer to her than to him, and left it there in front of her. Replacing the wallet, he took another sip from his glass and licked his lips, all without looking at her again. Twenty dollars was more than enough to buy his peace of mind. She could eat well enough on it, and he wouldn't go home wondering if he should have helped her. He knew that his willingness to help strangers was probably his biggest weakness when it came to staying secret, but he wasn't sure whether he should suppress the urge or not. Surely, people would be less willing to report a scary man if they knew he didn't want to hurt them.
He tilted his head as he heard footsteps on the basement stairs, and the door to the cellar creaked open. Drew's boss poked his head out and made eye contact with him, a frown on his lips.
"This may take a couple of hours," the mob boss said, glancing around. "Feel free to buy whatever you want to pass the time, just don't get shit-faced on me."
"Yes, sir," Drew answered, nodding once.
The man withdrew again and closed the door, leaving Drew to down the last of the amber liquid in his glass and tap it toward the bartender again.
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Inv. Lupin
Civilian
Teen
27 posts
0 likes
Played by Izzy
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Post by Kazuko on Jul 4, 2016 11:01:55 GMT -5
When he spoke Kazuko's eyes locked on him, clearly very distrusting and cautious. She didn't like having to be in this form, she felt weak and unable to defend herself when she needed to. The only upside is that she could shift rather quickly.
"At least I don't have to worry about you killing me, at least I hope, I knew I smelled wolf. What are you?" Kazuko asked in the same quiet tone. "No I don't spend much time in the city. I don't like it, I don't trust people in general and there's way to much noise. Not to mention if I don't want to cause a panic and have someone shooting at me then I have to be in my vulnerable form."
Gingerly she picked up the twenty, confused. It wasn't like she got a lot of charity, even from asking for most of the day she had only gotten a little over five dollars which she had just spent on what little food she expected to get that day.
"Thank you?" She said, still a bit unsure so her voice made it a question.
She tensed more as she heard something squeaking on what she assumed were stairs, how had she not noticed the door to the basement? She turned to see what the possible threat was and saw a man poking his head out into the bar area. She wasn't sure who he was but she did figure out that the man beside her was working for him. She kept quiet, not wanting to draw attention to herself or anything.
"Who was that?" Kazuko asked lowly as soon as she knew he was gone, turning to realize her nachos were there and taking a bite, even with more money she knew better than to waste food.
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Experiment
Escapee
31 years
95 posts
0 likes
Played by Scorch
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Post by Drew Schultz on Jul 5, 2016 12:33:59 GMT -5
At her comment, his far eyebrow quirked mildly. Did she really believe that because they shared wolf DNA, he wasn't a danger to her? Although he didn't want to hurt the girl, he knew from experience that shared DNA would do nothing to prevent someone from trying to kill anyone. The werewolves he had trained to kill had no compunctions against trying to kill him, even before he'd been strong enough to fight back. It was only the scientists intervention that had kept him alive in those early days, and his system's immunity to lycanthropy. But he voiced none of these thoughts. He wasn't out to convince her that he really wanted to try to kill her, because it wasn't true, and if she was really so innocent, who was he to try and change that? The innocence that assumed that other people were decent was one that would fade in time, along with any vestige of childhood.
The bartender filled his glass again without seeming to register the muted conversation, which was probably for the best. Undoubtedly, if he knew that the two patrons were anything more than human, he wouldn't have let them continue to sit there, especially given how violent some supernaturals could be, and how much the man wanted to avoid trouble.
"I hear you," he agreed with her, in regard to the staying out of the city. "The noise does get to be a bit much sometimes, doesn't it?"
Licking his lips clean of the alcohol, he glanced over at her, sizing her up more thoroughly. He'd never seen a full-grown werewolf that was as small as she was, but then he doubted that many that size would have been of interest to the scientists as fighting partners against someone of his own size. Then again, although he could definitely smell wolf on her, it wasn't exactly the same as the werewolf scent that he knew so well. There was something off about it, less human and more canine. Perhaps she wasn't a werewolf, but then what else could she be?
At her question, he shrugged dismissively. He wasn't stupid enough to tell a stranger that his boss was a gangster. He would have been useless as a bodyguard if he was that loose-lipped.
"My boss," he answered vaguely, his tone closing the subject. "I'd eat that before it gets cold, if I were you."
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Inv. Lupin
Civilian
Teen
27 posts
0 likes
Played by Izzy
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Post by Kazuko on Jul 7, 2016 12:03:07 GMT -5
She didn't say for sure that he wouldn't hurt her but she did say she hoped. She knew well and good that anyone could kill her if they really wanted to, that was not a question in her mind. She just meant that it meant that the scent of wolf on him wasn't necessarily from him killing someone or something with wolf in them.
"Yeah, the noise gets to me pretty quickly I guess," Kazuko said while looking around.
The man was on the right train of thought, she wasn't a werewolf, more or less she was the opposite. She liked her wolf form and actually ended up in it much more than her human form, as well as the fact that she was stuck in human form on the new moon rather than being stuck as a wolf on the full moon.
At his answer she realized that he was slightly avoiding the question by giving her a vague answer. She respected it though and didn't push, knowing she had her own things she didn't want to tell.
"So is that why you're here in the city? It's part of your job?" She asked as she took another bite of the nachos.
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Experiment
Escapee
31 years
95 posts
0 likes
Played by Scorch
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Post by Drew Schultz on Jul 7, 2016 15:34:02 GMT -5
"Yes, ma'am," Drew answered, eyeing her nachos as his stomach rumbled.
With his nose twitching for a moment, he eyed the chalk-written menu behind the bartender. He'd been here longer than he had wagered he would, and he was getting accordingly hungry. He was never truly safe, but his appetite seemed to have a direct correlation to his mood, and it was best for everyone if he didn't try to starve himself. The sandwich menu would probably be his best option, but only if he supplemented it with something else more substantial. The old bartender, who was trying very hard not to watch the patron he was trying not to be suspicious of, noticed Drew's inspection of the board immediately and put down the glass he was cleaning. Wiping the moisture off of his hands, he picked up a small notebook and wandered over.
"Looking to get something to go with your drink?" he asked, pulling a pen out of the spirals.
"Yes, sir," came Drew's rumbled reply, his voice a little lower than before. "Mild wings for an appetizer and the pulled pork sandwich, please."
The bartender's pen moved over the paper before he nodded and withdrew to give the order to the cook, out of sight of the bar itself. The old man reappeared before long, as if he was nervous to leave the bar or front door without someone to watch it. He refilled Drew's drink again without needing to be asked, and received a nod of thanks in return.
The scent of cooking meat made Drew's stomach growl more urgently, matched by the increase of saliva in his mouth. It was only thanks to his relative calm that he kept his canines from transforming eagerly. Closing his eyes, he took another small sip. His stomach calmed a bit as he got something down, and he opened his eyes again. His metabolism was too fast for alcohol to affect him much, but that had its trade-off, and it was that he was constantly hungry. There was no avoiding it, just satiating it momentarily.
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Inv. Lupin
Civilian
Teen
27 posts
0 likes
Played by Izzy
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Post by Kazuko on Jul 11, 2016 13:19:52 GMT -5
"Fair enough, if it weren't for starving I wouldn't be here. I wish it had been easier for me to get something while hunting, or just more while hunting," Kazuko said lowly. If she had only been older when her family was killed.
She listened intently to the order as she ate more of the nachos, finishing most of them in the small amount of time they were talking and everything. She wasn't going to interrupt and she didn't know what else to say yet. Once the smell of cooking meat hit her nose her stomach rumbled as well and she ate the rest of the nachos to try and stave off the hunger she'd tried to ignore the last couple days.
"So what are you?" Kazuko asked, low enough he was the only one who could hear it.
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Experiment
Escapee
31 years
95 posts
0 likes
Played by Scorch
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Post by Drew Schultz on Jul 11, 2016 15:56:14 GMT -5
When the food finally arrived, Drew took a long breath to enjoy the aroma before closing his mouth around a wing and stripping the meat from the bone. It was still a little spicy for his taste, but the meat hit the spot in a way that nothing else could. He guessed it was the wolfish part of him that was pure carnivore. Even though he could digest other things, meat seemed to satisfy him more easily, and it was always meat that he craved when he was hungry. He sucked the juice off of his fingers one at a time as he considered her question, finally picking up a napkin to get the last of it.
"I would think that would be obvious," he said, picking up another wing as the bartender put down a sandwich in front of him. "I'm a bodyguard."
He grinned at her with canines that were just barely too sharp to be entirely human, making sure that the bartender was looking elsewhere. With a small chuckle to himself, he ate another wing and stripped the bone clean. The pile of bones began to grow as he ate slowly enough not to attract attention, but quickly enough to satisfy the hunger that seemed to take over so much, if he waited too long. It didn't take long for the sandwich to follow, but he realized that he liked the wings more. It was probably the bread that put him off, if he was honest with himself.
Wiping his hands clean of sauce and juices from the meat, he took another long drink from his tumbler. If she was looking for his life story, she wasn't about to get it. Even his tattoo was covered by the white collar of his suit. She wouldn't get any more clues than he gave anyone else, whether she smelled of wolf or not.
"Eat up," he told her, his eyes falling to the unused bill that he had given her. "I get the feeling you don't get enough most of the time."
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Inv. Lupin
Civilian
Teen
27 posts
0 likes
Played by Izzy
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Post by Kazuko on Jul 13, 2016 15:30:48 GMT -5
"You know what I mean, and you know that not it. You have the scent of wolf clinging to you and you could obviously tell I'm not normal," Kazuko said, suspicious already of the man that was now avoiding her question. "Besides you have abnormally sharp canine teeth, even if they're just slightly abnormally sharp," She added after seeing the teeth.
She could tell that he wanted to keep some things to himself but she could already tell that he wasn't normal and had some kind of a wolf's blood in his veins. She wasn't sure was to make of it though and hated that she couldn't tell anything more about him.
"I catch rabbits for food, for a wolf, even a lone one, that's never enough. So no, it's not often I meet someone who is so kind and willing to make sure I have enough food," She said with a kind smile, an unsure stature but she was becoming more and more confident that this man wouldn't hurt her, and more used to keeping her voice down.
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Experiment
Escapee
31 years
95 posts
0 likes
Played by Scorch
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Post by Drew Schultz on Jul 14, 2016 11:46:39 GMT -5
"Rabbits, huh?" he asked, returning her mild smile. "Say what you will about the city, but you can't beat the food."
He continued to ignore her questions about what he was, considering he didn't trust strangers with that sort of information. Showing compassion for others didn't mean that he had to trust them with his life's story. Even if he had a hard time suppressing the instinct to help others who were in need, he was cautious to the point of paranoia, as someone had told him once. Of course, the old saying was that you weren't paranoid if there really were people trying to kill you. Considering that his caution was for a good reason, he didn't consider himself paranoid. Just prudent.
Picking a sliver of meat from his plate, he considered what she had said. She was a lone wolf? She seemed awfully small to be running alone. It was hard, even for him, and he was considerably bigger than she was. Not to mention that the wolf in him naturally gravitated to others. No wolf was meant to live alone, and if they were forced to, they all felt the loss of it. If she wasn't eating well because of it, she probably wasn't very adept as a hunter, either.
"Maybe you should consider a different territory, if this one's not working out for you," he suggested, slipping the meat between his teeth.
He'd lived on wild animals for a short time, when he'd first escaped from the laboratory, but he couldn't imagine subsisting that way for long. After all, prey animals were used to being hunted, and were tricky to catch. It really took a quieter hunter than a wolf, or a pack, to catch enough to live on.
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Inv. Lupin
Civilian
Teen
27 posts
0 likes
Played by Izzy
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Post by Kazuko on Jul 25, 2016 8:41:55 GMT -5
“Yeah, rabbits aren’t really half bad if you get used to how little food they actually provide,” She said with a shrug. “And city food is great if you prefer cooked and unhealthy food,” She added lowly, she was born a wolf so it wasn’t that weird to think that she liked raw meat.
She could tell he wasn’t going to answer her questions so she just backed off for a while, she may try the topic again later since she knew that, with just meeting this person, he might not trust her all that much. After all, she didn’t completely trust him either, no sane person would trust someone completely that they’d just met, so she could truly understand. Besides, she could settle with the knowledge that he had wolf blood in him somehow, it didn’t truly matter what he was so long as he didn’t try to hurt her.
As true as it was that she felt her isolation, and not in a good way, she had learned to live with it. She still didn’t like being alone but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to go back to any normal wolf pack, and most non normal wolves, like werewolves and whatever she was, tended to want to live in the city and she wasn’t going to do that, she was to proud and feral.
“Maybe, but I’d have nowhere really to go. I don’t know where any other forests are at and I don’t want to live in any city or town. I’m kinda just stuck,” She replied, not to mention that the territory she had now seemed to be the best place to catch anything since it had a good supply of rabbits.
She was used to the small amount of food she got, so it didn’t bother her much. The only reason she came into the city now was because it had been days since she had anything to eat, that made it harder than if she got a rabbit every other day or, preferably, every day. She was a pretty quiet hunter since she was taught as much as she knows by a cat, well a shifter but still. She just couldn’t get the hand of catching larger animals that would keep her fed longer.
“Out of pure curiosity, did you ever have a pack you could trust? I did, and I miss having that so much,” She said, she couldn’t help but ask, she missed having other wolves she could trust to help her and she couldn’t keep pretending she was fine every time she ran into someone who smelled of wolf, the longer she was around it the more she missed her pack.
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Experiment
Escapee
31 years
95 posts
0 likes
Played by Scorch
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Post by Drew Schultz on Aug 7, 2016 16:09:14 GMT -5
Drew chuckled at her words about the city food. Compared to the pittance of food he'd had at times growing up, there was nothing unhealthy about the food he ate now that he was free. His body always needed the calories, considering the metabolism that his fire powers and his wolfish DNA implants had given him. He didn't tend to count calories, or worry about cholesterol. This food was plentiful, and that was all he needed to know. Looking down, he realized that his plate was empty, and he suppressed a sigh of disappointment. He knew from experience that if he ordered more, he would get more attention than was really prudent.
He glanced over at her when she asked her question, his eyebrows lifting. A pack? Wolfish though Drew was, he was the only one of his kind that he knew of. A pack of his own kind would have been impossible. Still, the spirit of her question was one that could be answered. Had he ever had a group of people that he could trust explicitly with his life?
"A pack, no," he said, pulling his napkin free of its silverware and wiping his mouth. "There was one werewolf once. But that was years ago."
His eyes were vague as he remembered his old friend, Virgil, who had died when Drew had escaped from Axium. If ever there was a person in his life that he had trusted, it was him. In a place like Axium, which thrived on the subjects distrusting each other, it was rare that he had been allowed such close proximity with one person for so long, but Virgil had taught him everything he knew about the wolf inside his own mind. He had been the one who showed Drew how to escape that place, and he'd died for it. If ever he'd had a pack, surely Virgil was the only person who qualified.
Gritting his teeth at the memory, he took another long drink from his whiskey and put the empty tumbler on the bar. The bartender came over with the bottle in hand, and Drew nodded once. The glass filled again. He was very lucky that alcohol didn't get him drunk, or he would have regretted having the concealed firearm on his person.
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Inv. Lupin
Civilian
Teen
27 posts
0 likes
Played by Izzy
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Post by Kazuko on Aug 7, 2016 23:14:28 GMT -5
To her unhealthy didn't necessarily mean that it was fatty or anything, more that it wasn't something that she found in nature because she was born and mostly raised as a wolf. She wasn't too happy when she had to come into the city for that reason, she didn't like doing anything that took her out of her environment of the forest, not to mention that she had to be around a lot of people and settle for food with so much added to it she hated the taste most of the time.
"You must have trusted him to even bring that up as part of your reply. Don't you miss it? The trust you have with even one person?" She asked, eyes shining as she said it, it was hard for her no matter what.
She didn’t only miss her pack but she missed the protection it brought with it. She didn’t feel like she could trust anyone anymore and she doesn’t have anyone to help, sleeping with one eye open was not something easy to get used to. She had done it but it really wasn’t easy.
“How do you keep yourself safe, or are you one who just stays in the city?” She asks as she looks down, not sure what to do anymore.
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